American Cinematographer - March 2003 - 72

Forging a Nation
and it's

always changing - depend¬
ing, for instance, on how an actor
his face. It's

turns

an

aesthetic deci¬

sion that takes skill and taste. Our

of

composition

Robert Duvall
he isn't

used

a

tall

use

also subtle.
playing Lee, and

was

was

man, so we

sometimes

slightly lower camera angle in
close-ups to emphasize Lee's stature.
But it's ultimately the performance of
the

a

actor

that makes it work

-

the

he holds his head and his other
body language."
Van Oostrum almost always
had a camera on a jib arm. "I love the
freedom it gives me," he says. "I have
way

Above: Rev.

Lacy (David

Carpenter) has

a
reflective

moment. Van

Oostrum

carefully
modeled light in
interior

scenes.

"We had to

For

day interior scenes, light
by large sources
aimed through windows, and at
night a lot of very small units
emulated candles and oil lamps.
was

motivated

"Ron liked
in

actors

to

our

influenced

rehearse with the

lighting because it

their

behavior," Van

instantaneous
even

access

to

movement,

in the middle of a shot. You

can

lighting based on what they
did. Actors were generally drawn to
the light at night, but I'd ask Ron if he
wanted

the frame."

notes. Below:

The

crew

films

a scene

in

which Gen.

Jackson has his

portrait taken.

a

character in the warmth

of the

The

fireplace, in the darkness, or
by a candle. We had to constantly
remind ourselves not to overlight.

most

Sometimes we wanted whole

the 75mm

areas to

fall into darkness, because in those
times people didn't light candles they
didn't need."
Van Oostrum

praises his first

assistant, Clyde Bryan, for his ability

judge shallow depth of field. "You
to decide where to put the
focus," he says. "You can discuss it,
to

have

but then the first AC has to execute it,

"That's what

light:
moonlight looks like to

It travels around

me.

as a

between soft and direct

corners

and hits

objects in a way that I prefer to HMIs.
Ron
wanted
authentic-looking
camps, and we lit those scenes with a
couple of very big units that created
soft, hazy moonlight, and a lot of
small lights motivated by campfires lit
with flame bars. I kept it warm and
added a little blue when necessary."
Van Oostrum put Gods and
Generals through a digital intermedi¬
ate
at
Technicolor's Technique,
three-hour theatrical version of the

ourselves not to

overlight," he

cross

where he

change height while
somebody walks across the room,
and the audience hardy notices. I
could also compensate for an actor
not hitting a mark or leaning out of

the

by English cinematographer David
Watkin. Van Oostrum describes it

down. You

Oostrum recalls. "I'd watch and finetune

rig is gaffer Ian Kincaide's idea,

based on the Wendy light popularized

get closer or drift away and go up and

remind

constantly

The

can

cinematographer filmed

of Gods and Generals with

75mm and 100mm lenses. "I think

gives you the most inter¬
esting perspective. It's comparable to
a 35mm
spherical lens. I love the
sense of
depth when you have some¬
thing in both the foreground and
background. It matches my sense of
perspective."
Van Oostrum created

moon¬

light for exteriors using a Bam Bam, a
cluster of up to 200 650-watt

Pars.

able

was

production

as

well

to

as

finalize the

the five-hour

cable-television version. The

cut

conformed to the EDL
to digital files with a
modified Thomson Spirit DataCine.
negative

was

and converted

Oostrum and colorist Rich

Van

Montez

graded the film using a
MegaDef image processor
with a Pogle interface. While main¬
taining shot-to-shot continuity, Van
Pandora

also

Oostrum

isolated

some

elements of the frame and altered
their color

density. "We had a shot
little blue sky and a lot of
smoke, but suddenly the weather
cleared up and revealed more sky,"
the cinematographer says. "We put a
window around the sky and dimin¬
ished it by about 50 percent. In
another shot, a backgrounded char¬
or

with very

seemed

acter

a

little

too warm, so we

made him cooler because we want
direct the audience's attention

to

to a

foregrounded character. It's like
dodging in a darkroom.
"There
can

are

limits

to

what you

do," he concedes. "You need to

constantly check yourself. The digital
reds

seem more

don't

saturated, the blues

reproduce the same way as
they do on film, and digital projec¬
tors can't reproduce the same blacks
that you see with film. You have to
attune your eye, and it isn't easy
68 March 2003
American Cinematographer - March 2003

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