American Cinematographer - January 2000 - 40

Smash-Mouth Football
of

using the Panaflex 3:1 and 11:1
are superior zooms,

lenses, which
made

that route. I'm generally
They have a
lot of glass inside, and if you have a
large focus pull, the frame size
not a

us

go

fan of zooms at all.

breathes

a

little. I'd rather take

a

few

change a lens than
use a zoom, which is a lazy man's
lens. They were pretty necessary for
what we were doing, though."
In the interest of lending the
game of football a more stylized,
extra moments to

distinctive look, Totino chose to

disregard strict realism in his lighting
approach. "Generally, I didn't use any
stadium light," he says. "I wanted to
stay away from that look, because all
football movies

are shot that way. I
people involved with
the film were apprehensive about
that. They felt like, 'This isn't the way

think

A

crew

member

captures an
acrobatic tackle
in an empty
stadium. Other

situations
required the

game

careful arrange¬
ment of extras
in the stands.

sion to

employ both Kodak and Fuji

stocks. "For instance, I shot with

Fuji's 125 ASA 8531 film during the
first half of the first home game at the
Orange Bowl in Miami, which took
place during the day. The second half
turned into night, so I switched to
Kodak's Vision 320T 5277. Game 2
another Miami exterior

daylight
game, which I shot entirely with the
Fuji 8531. Game 3 was an exterior at
Pro Player Stadium in Miami, which

was

was

meant to

stand in for

a

lot of different

a

Totino says

instincts"

were

that his "kitchen

met

with occasional

bemusement from Stone. "At

one

explaining to Oliver the
effect of mixing some colors with
HMI light," he recalls with a chuckle.
"Oliver said to me,'Everything to you
is like a pasta recipe! You put in a little
paprika and some pepper, and you
lay in a little salt.
point, I

was

In addition to their

use

of

Angeles stadium, and I shot the
whole game with Kodak [EXR] 5248.
An accomplished amateur
Italian chef, Totino maintains that

"For

own

look added

to

the locations have

the film. A lot of

different

feeling,
trying to keep a conti¬
nuity of look throughout. Early on in
production, I shot some Kodak
Vision 200T 5274 at some nighttime
a

and I wasn't

locations, because I wanted more of a

also mixed their lens strategy to add
each game's distinct character.

to

with
longer lenses, which really added to
some

games, we went

the effect of the

inside the

used zoom lenses exclu¬
sively. The wide angles were a bit
tough sometimes, because we had to
worry about how full the stands were
with extras. Long lenses really
seemed to get in on the action and
isolate the players. You really felt
them. I shot mostly with Panavision
games, we

defined contrast. I also used 74 in the

cameras,

435s for the

at Pro

cameras

action," Totino says. "For other

locker

but I used [Panavised] Arri

for Game 3.1 used 77 for most of the

high-speed footage. I
initially wanted to shoot with

interiors and

Arriflex Zeiss lenses, but the

room

Player Stadium

nights. I like to mix it

a

lot of

football film is shot, it's not the way

football is

different stocks, Stone and Totino

"cinematography is like cooking -
the ingredients you need to
make a given recipe. The fact that
Kodak and Fuji stocks each have their

January 2000

and I used

stocks."

Los

you use

38

up,

a

necessity

supposed to look.' But

that's almost encouragement to me,
because I'm ready to prove them

wrong."
While available light -
augmented with bleached muslin

bounce for sideline shots

-

was

employed for day games in the
mostly sunny Miami stadiums,
Totino felt free to indulge his experi¬
mental side for the night games.
During the darkened second half of
Game 1 at the Orange Bowl, Totino
made the unconventional decision to

light the stadium entirely from one
side. "I thought it would be interest¬
ing, because everybody's so used to
seeing football lit one way," he says. "I
used 24 Dino lights, each of which
contained 24 medium and spot
reason we lit from

bulbs. Part of the
one

side

see more

was so

the viewer couldn't

into the stands. In Game 4,

which took

wanted the

place in the rain, I
backlit to pick up

scenes

the moisture and make the game
look very dramatic. The backlight for
the rain game was the same as the
one-sided lighting in Game 1, with
the difference that

we

shot into the

light, with very little fill."
American Cinematographer - January 2000

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