American Cinematographer - September 2000 - 59

The seduction

corrected

people's faces, kicked out
specular highlights, and
played with having some of the focus
trail off. For example, on a close-up
of Jennifer, we were able to pick an
area of interest on the photographed
frame, keep only that area in focus
and have an extreme blur happen
some

of the

behind her head. She would
and

come

in

of the focal

plane, which was
image-processed."
Obtaining the look in the HD
transfer proved relatively easy; the
difficulties with the process cropped
up at the other end. "The images
looked great when they were output
back to film," recalls Laufer. "Initially
they were output flat, in normal
35mm, at which point an optical
out

all

[2.35:1 extraction]

was

done for the

[anamorphic]

squeeze. There things
When the digital output
was squeezed for the anamorphic
print, the scenes went from being
magical to being unacceptable. We
therefore had to back up and find a
way to avoid doing an optical [blow¬
up] of the digital output."
The post team wound up
outputting the images to film already
squeezed, at which point the prob¬
lem became integrating them into
the film. "These large, general-release
films are printed on very high-speed
printers on which you are not
allowed to make any splices, timing
changes or any A- and B-rolls,"
Laufer notes. "So once again, we had
to back up. The final solution was
doing two extra generations of
contact-duping on the real-world
sequences - in other words, I had to
lose two generations on my realworld sequences. In doing extra
contact steps in postproduction, you
pick up contrast. At that point it

fell apart.

became

a

contrast-control issue."

Filmmakers are always looking
for ways to increase their creativity,
and studios are always looking for

scene

opens

with Catherine

reclining on a kingsized bed which is internally lit with
dozens of 211 globes encased in
round seashells,

some woven

into the

canopy of the
the bedposts.

bed, others covering
Suddenly, Stargher
appears, grabs Novak, straps him
onto a nearby table and proceeds to
eviscerate him. It is

one

of the film's

grisliest scenes, and Laufer purposely
shot it overexposed to give it an
unreal, almost silent-movie quality,
which lets the audience know it is

happening only in Novak's mind.
But overexposure alone can't
account for Stargher's glittering, gold
appearance or the scene's shimmer¬
ing, surreal look. This was the result
of a bleach-bypass print and a look
that Laufer mapped out with colorist
Stefan Sonnenfeld of Company 3.
Sonnenfeld, with whom Laufer has

wireless remote

(Toybox scanned and color-treated
all of the film's inner-world segments
of the film
see sidebar on facing
-

page.)

Traditionally, scanning has
of creat¬
ing visual effects (or to remove wires

been done for the purpose

and fix scratches). The Cell was a
different situation. "The majority of
the

footage

involved
done

no

we

were

scanning

visual effects and

was

strictly to affect the look," states

Laufer, who says he relied heavily on
the

expertise and knowledge of
visual-effects supervisor Kevin Tod
Haug, whose credits include Fight

The Evolution
with

new

Dolly

accessories!

Club and The Game.
As

for

the

bleach-bypass
Laufer observes, "When
people think [of special processes],
they think of Seven [which was
photographed by Darius Khondji,
process,

both.

silver-retention process on a number
of its prints - see "Soup du Jour,"

Jean Oppenheimer

crab + steer

which matched his work in HD.

ASC, AFC and utilized Deluxe's CCE

-

New:

a

long-standing relationship, did
straight-ahead transfers onto video¬
tape, then sent the tapes to Toronto
postproduction house Toybox,

ways to save money.

For The Cell,
Toybox and its Cinema HD offered

PAN

AC Nov.

'98]. But for a different look

L
-

-

cX©*

-

A*

Panther GmbH
Grunwalder Weg 28c
82041 Oberhaching-Munich
Tel: 49-89-613900 01
Fax: 49-89-6131000

contact@panther-gmbh.de
www.panther-gmbh.de

Sr

PANTHER
American Cinematographer - September 2000

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