American Cinematographer - September 2004 - 101

four

panned almost 50°
they developed an odd
perspective with a lot more skew. "On a
very wide lens, things on the edge tend
to become arcs, but in this case they
became skewed lines," says Trageser.
"It was almost like using a camera with
a

Time

cameras were

from the center,

broken lens."

Summing up the project, the
cinematographer says, "It was like
having to build a camera before we
could shoot with it, and although the
building was exciting and challenging,
using the rig was much more interest¬
ing. I'd never photographed with a
camera that had eight lenses, a 120degree field of view and a 2.67 aspect
ratio while driving down a dirt road.
When we were building it, people kept
saying that they couldn't wait to get
back to one camera on a tripod, but once
we were on the road, we all thought it
was worth the trouble. People said the
results

were

beautiful

-

and

some¬

New York

Enough at Last began as a
University student project, but

it evolved into

an

unusual collaboration

between NYU and the

nearby School of

and Adobe After Effects. About half

Visual Arts, which has a strong anima¬
tion and effects program. Director Josh

with

Finn, who made the film as his senior
thesis, and cinematographer Chris

correction

Lytwyn were NYU students, while
visual-effects supervisor John Han was

senior thesis at the SVA, where he

an

SVA student who became

an

integral

were

half

complex, deep composites, many
in-depth 3-D work, while the other

were

subtler effects such
and

as

project ultimately became Han's
assembled

a

color

fixes. The

assorted

own

team of students to work

it with him.

part of the production team. "John

on

formed the third

Enough at Last was shot
Panaflex Gold II (obtained
from Panavision New York), but Lytwyn
used a Millennium for reshoots. His prin¬
cipal lenses were E-series anamorphics,

point of our triangle,"
Lytwyn.
Lytwyn and Finn first worked
together on a student film called Ice
Cream Social, which Lytwyn shot using
anamorphic lenses. Finn, who edited
that project, was impressed with the
cameraman's work and began speaking
to him about his own thesis film. "My
goal was to create an epic student film,"
says Finn, who felt that anamorphic
35mm would be the appropriate format
says

for what he envisioned. "Because it's

thing they hadn't seen before."

opportunities for effects. Eventually, Han
supervised about 40 effects shots, which
were created in AliasIWavefront Maya

action and sci-fi story,

it needed

an

a

Tme

mainly with

and he

was

a

thrilled that he

was

to use a 20mm C-series

lens,

few in the world. "Once

we

also able

one

of very

put it on the
viewfinder, we wanted to use it more
and more," he recalls.
The film pays homage to The
Twilight Zone, and Lytwyn and Finn
sought to capture the spirit of the series'
expressionistic camera angles by making
their shots either very tight or very wide.
"We'd go right from a 20mm to a
180mm," says Lytwyn. "It was almost
like a Sergio Leone movie." For long-lens

shots, he had a 1/4 Tiffen White Pro-Mist
on the lens, and for wider shots, he used
a

1/2 White Pro-Mist. Most of the film

was

shot at T2.8 to limit the

depth of

field.
The
featured

A Surreal Work

Students at New
York University

Stoppage
by Stephanie Argy

and the School
of Visual Arts

The short film Time

collaborated on
the short Time

Enough at Last.

88

Last is

a

Enough at

surreal thriller in which

finds himself

a man

trapped in time. As he
repeatedly tries to escape from his
office building, he realizes that time has
come to a stop, which forces him to
confront his past, including his ambiva¬
lent relationship with his father - who
turns out to be Rod Serling, creator of
The Twilight Zone.

September 2004

dynamic and engaging frame."
The movie also had

a

number of

principal seven-day shoot
locations

in

New

York,

Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., a
demanding schedule that was further
complicated by a massive blizzard that
arrived the night before production
started. One of the movie's key
Philadelphia locations was the sterile,
white computer room in which the main

fire scenes, and Finn knew that neither

character works. The filmmakers found

the

the location almost

budget

nor the insurance company
would allow the crew to do the scenes in
the real world. One of Finn's instructors,

Lewis

Kofsky, worked at an effects and
facility called Curious
Pictures, and he suggested that Finn get

animation

by accident, when
Lytwyn spotted it as they were walking
past the area to scout another section of
the building. The room was an out-of¬
use

data center, and the head of the

some

advice from Han, one of his co¬
workers. The two met, and as they

be a film buff who
agreed to let the production shoot there.
One advantage to the location was that

discussed the movie,

the floor of the

its

accommodate cables and wires

they realized that
stylized nature offered many more

company turned out to

room was

raised to

running

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Time
American Cinematographer - September 2004

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