American Cinematographer - September 2004 - 55

Vicious Circles
Witherspoon
pregnant
during the shoot,
which was a key
was

factor in the

filmmakers'
decision to shoot
the film in the
widescreen

Super 35 format.
"We could keep
her belly out of
the frame

easily and get
more

characters

into the same

frame," Quinn

explains.

Bath,

resort town

known in

earlier centuries for its

sulfur-spring
spa. Despite the town's beautifully
preserved Regency buildings and
broad boulevards, only television
productions had been filmed there,
according to Nair. "English period
films think much smaller than

thinking," she explains.
"Nobody had shot down whole

were

boulevards. I didn't

want to

do what

period films do, which is take a
I wanted to see
360 degrees; it was very important to
establish the geography of Lord
Steyne's mansion opposite Becky's
poorer mansion."
It took eight months to secure
the necessary permit, and three high¬
ways had to be shut down, but the
filmmakers finally shot for four days
and nights on Bath's main boule¬
vard, Great Pulteney Street. In addi¬
tion to being featured in several day
scenes, Great Pulteney Street is
shown to splendid effect at dusk,
when it serves as the backdrop to a
balcony scene between Becky and
Lord Steyne that was filmed inside
42

the

Holburne

(which

stop to be able to bounce a light very

Steyne's home). Peat was
laid on the street, lighting fixtures
were changed, "and that's it," Quinn
says of the period-perfect boulevard.
"We put heritage heads on the streetlamps, but they still had mercuryvapor metal-halide lights and
reflectors. They're very bright, but
we had to
go with them like that.
"The logistics of the balcony

often, and at night they needed to get

doubled

Museum

hard because dusk lasts

most

scene were

block and dress it up.

only 40 minutes, and the action
moves from the
balcony to the draw¬
ing room," continues the cinematog¬
rapher. "We started at T5.6 and
gradually went wide open, knocking
it down to nothing to balance for the
fading dusk. Each time Mira stopped
to talk to the actors, I was sweating

September 2004

bullets."
For night scenes on Great
Pulteney Street, Quinn tried an old
lighting technique that was new to
him. "I like the way the cinematogra¬
phers working in the Forties and
Fifties made light appear soft by
using hard light spread over a large
area," he says. "They didn't have the

of T5.6 or T8, so they had to
direct and hard light. And they

stop

use

learned how
natural. I'm
stand how
In

do it."

where George
(Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is
a

Osborne

make this look

just starting to under¬
scene

the street,

counting his money
getting fleeced, Quinn decided
forgo directional sources and

after
to

diffusion. "That

never

looks real

night exteriors," he says.
Instead, he wanted the light to
appear as though it was coming
from many directions. To that end,
his crew positioned six Nine-light
me

Mini-Brutes

across

the street, spac¬

10'

over a 60-foot
distance. "We then cut them up with
blades to project some shadows. But

ing them

every

because each

bulbs,

unit has

sends

nine

multiple
different

a horse or carriage
through, the overall effect
feels soft, but you still see the shape
projected on the building behind.

shadows. When
passes

But it doesn't feel like

hard shadow;

American Cinematographer - September 2004

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