American Cinematographer - December 2003 - 68

Dark Deeds
began editing Mystic River, the mate¬
rial began to take on a surprising
degree of austerity, says Stern. "So
much of a film's spirit is created in
postproduction," he remarks. "We
were sitting at Technicolor with
[color timers] Bob Kaiser and Phil
Downey, and Clint said, 'I wish we'd

Clockwise from
the top:

cinematographer
Tom Stern, script
supervisor
Mable McCrary,
camera

operator
Steve

Campanelli, first
AC Bill Coe and
director Clint

decided

to

on

go

them. When

with ENR,

Technicolor shut down

one

of their

a time while
the test rolls. As we tested

developers for days at
we

ran

different

out."

considered

worked at, 60

dropping that bomb, he left, and I

Massachusetts.

shoot and locked in
we

'strengths' of IR [infrared
densitometry], we found that while
the blacks got blacker, there was a
diminishment of acuity, and we
didn't want that. We finally got it
down to a level they said they'd rarely

done it in black-and white.' After

Eastwood work
on location in

solid," says Stern. "I'd set the printer
lights with John Bickford before the

spent the next two weeks working
with Bob to try to pull all the color

Though the filmmakers briefly
using a digital intermedi¬
(DI) at Technique, the deciding

ate

factor

was

time. "Cannes

was

two

weeks away, and we knew we couldn't

do

a

time," says Stern.
Once Stern and Kaiser had

DI in that

far as they could go with
color-timing, they turned to ENR,
Technicolor's proprietary silverretention process. "The stocks we'd
gone as

used didn't have
and

the

a

negative

lot of saturation,
was

extremely

IR."

Stern describes the resultant

look

as

"desaturated

Northern

European," adding, "I finally called
Clint and said, 'You ought to look
at

it.

It's

somewhere

between

Copenhagen and Stockholm, and it
ain't going any farther north!' ENR
knocked a couple more levels of
color out, and I got a free ride on
making the blacks even blacker. The
result is really right at the limit of the

Mako Koiwai
on

his

Transvideo monitors:
"There is only one monitor to
consider. Transvideo monitors

are

expensive but they are the best,

and most versatile. They
sharp enough to pull focus

strongest
are

from. The video display has
become so important to our work
that only the best on-board is
worth considering. This is my
second Transvideo monitor. The
first one finally bit the dust after

days of work, and after
being wrenched around by
over

800

impatient crews."
Mako Koiwai works in

a

wide

range of capacities on
Film & Video/HD cameras.
He sent us this wonderful still
a
64

job along the Li River,
province, China.

recent

Guilin

from

USA

FRANCE

10700 Ventura Blvd #2A

Z.l BP 526

Hollywood, CA. 91604

27135 Verneuil S/ Avre
Tel: +33 (0) 2 3232 2761

No.

Tel: 818 985 4903
Fax: 818 985 4921

Fax: +33

(0)2 3260 1479
American Cinematographer - December 2003

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