American Cinematographer - September 2004 - 36

Right: Sopov
(left) and
director Ondrej
Trojan block a

Navratil; he created all of the hand¬
made effects,
effect."

shot. The two
first met

To

as

ensure a warm

look and feel,

Sopov used Antique Suede #1 on the
lens for all night interiors and exteriors,
and Chocolate #1 and an 85 for all day
interiors and exteriors. Although cine¬
matographers often cut back on filtra¬
tion because of digital post work,
Sopov knew he would not have access
to digital technology on Zelary.
Although digital color-correction was
available in the Czech Republic at the
time, scanning was not, he says, and it
would have been too expensive to ship

students at

Prague's
Academy of
Fine Arts.
Below:

Sopov
shot.
Zelary was the
first locally
produced Czech
lines up a

feature to

including the sunset

use

Panavision
cameras.

the film elsewhere.

The
mented

cinematographer experi¬

with

filtration

and

lab

processes during preproduction, and
he even tested bleach bypass, but he

ultimately decided to accomplish his
goal with filtration only: "The only way
to stylize the shots the way I wanted
was

to use a lot of filters."

with 14, V or Full CTO. The

grips fitted
specially built, 10'x4' frames with Full
Frost gels and placed up to four 2K openface tungsten lamps gelled with Mist
Blue behind them. "This enabled

us

to

push the main level of soft fill deeper
into the
not from

room

from the correct direction,

overhead," Sopov notes.

moodiness, to arise out of realism."

Zelary's sole soundstage set was
the interior of Eliska and Joza's cottage,
which was built at Prague's Barrandov

Studio. "We

planned to spend two

weeks there," Sopov reports. "I wanted
to have as much flexibility as possible
with the

lighting, and Ondrej wanted to
give the actors maximum freedom." The
set consisted of a small bedroom and a

larger living area. To create the effect of
sunlight streaming into the cottage, a
20K Fresnel was placed outside the front

32

September 2004

with Chocolate #1, an 85 filter and a

Polarizer in front of the lens. Fie notes,
"The Polarizer was neutral; we pushed
the reflection up or down to control
color and contrast but didn't enhance

the colors. The

only exception to this is

the

leaving only a single oil lamp to
illuminate the cottage interior. "For wide
shots, we put halogen bulbs inside the
lamps. For all close-ups, though, we
used real oil lamps. In fact, I wanted to

colors and create

use a

real flame in all interior and exte¬

rior close-ups.

To augment the flame, we
light off of a reflective flag
covered with a Gold Mirror gel and Vs
Frost and gently jiggled the frame.
Sometimes we combined the light with
direct light by using Reostat flickering.
We did that, for example, when the oil
lamp was very close to the wall, as it
bounced the

was

in the bedroom.

"We

tried

use

Shadow-

door and 10Ks stood outside each of

four windows;

me.

I

preferred handmade effects and
tribute to my gaffer, Jiri

must pay

scene

used

before the rainstorm, when I

enhancing filter to warm the
a bigger color
contrast with the following scene.
an

"I like 5284 because it's smooth,
it isn't

so

contrasty, and it gives you

through the
direc¬
tional light, yet still have details in the
shadows. For especially bright,
sunshiny summer scenes, I sometimes
more

opportunity to

shadows. I could

use

see

very strong

used Vision 320T 5277, which is

slightly less contrasty and has less
powerful color. A combination of real
and manufactured fog swirled through
a couple of scenes, and for those I
switched to Vision 250D 5246 because

to

makers," he adds, "but the digital effect
of the flickering looked too artificial to

depending on the mood
of the scene, these units were gelled

day exteriors were shot
Expression 500T 5284,

Kodak Vision

To simulate wartime conditions,
windows were blacked out for night
scenes,

ing, but he wants the ambience, the

Most
on

I needed

more

contrast."

of the year play
important role in Zelary that
the production schedule was actually
The

such

seasons

an

built around them. There

were

65
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