American Cinematographer - September 2004 - 73

A World

Apart

Right: William
(Tim Robbins),

of the

guestroom, positioning them on the
floor, one on each side of the bed
and one at the foot of the bed. He

the detective

investigating the
forgery,
accompanies

recalls, "Michael walked through the

Maria to her

blocking, and then I simply placed
the lamps where they would light the
actors." Because the Indian lamps
had a "weird, green tint," Kiichler
figured they would be impossible to
match
with
professional film
fixtures, so he kept a couple of spares
out of camera range in case the crew
needed some fill. The green tint was
later graded to orange in the DI.

rendezvous with

Damian. Below:

Cinematographer
Marcel Zyskind
films

some

of the

local talent

lamps to light the

same

as

director Michael

Winterbottom

gives the singer
some guidance.

To film the

nuity. (The only exceptions were a
couple of driving scenes that
involved headlights.)
Code 46 was shot in 3-perf
Super 35mm, and the main cameras
were

Aaton 35-IIIs outfitted with

Zeiss Ultra Primes.

(The package was
supplied by Ice Film Equipment in
London.) Shooting 3-perf saved
stock, and the additional running
time per mag lessened operator
fatigue. "We still carried an Arri 435
in order to do the speed effects," adds
Zyskind. "We sometimes shot at
normal speed with the Aaton, and
then Michael would say, 'Let's do one
at 50 fps.'" Lollowing a forbidden
sexual

encounter

with William at

a

guesthouse in Jebel'Ali, Maria drifts
downstairs to the reception desk at
50 fps, zombie-like, to turn herself in.
Then,

as

she floats back upstairs,

climbs into bed and buries herself
under the
reverts

fights her new, genetically
programmed aversion to William,

fps, implying that

Winterbottom restricted the set to

"normalcy" has been restored.
The guesthouse is another
hybrid setting: the exteriors, recep¬
tion area and shower were filmed by
Zyskind on location in India, and the
couple's room was filmed by Kiichler
in the London studio. Zyskind, who
worked without a gaffer in India,
created the location's lighting - a
pale, low-angled, orange flicker -
with gas lamps he bought there.
"They were really noisy, but they put
out a lot of light," he says. The cine¬
matographer's meter, set for 1,000
ASA, read T1.4 at

in which

the frame rate

covers,

back to 24

sex scene

Maria

a

distance of 8',

enough for him to underexpose the
night scene by one stop.
After reviewing the footage
Zyskind had shot, Kiichler used three

the two actors,

Zyskind and Tindall.

Zyskind captured the most intense
shots while sitting on top of the
writhing Morton and filming her
face with
At

a

100mm Zeiss Macro lens.

first, the cameraman is apologetic

about the sometimes

bleary images:
and
tight, as I moved closer to her face I
couldn't always follow focus. And
the way we worked, there were
"Because

we

sometimes

shot wide open

camera

no

rehearsals!"

But in the

end, Zyskind, like his
director, defends Code 46s "imper¬
fections"

integral aspect of the
"They're beautiful in
way," he concludes. "Michael likes
as an

film's aesthetic.
a

to

have those abnormalities. We're

perfect human beings."
In retrospect, the filmmakers
relished the intensity of the far-flung
location shoots. "When you're work¬
ing abroad, it's easy to separate the
not

core

on-set crew

from all of the

logistics involved in getting them
and their equipment there," says
Winterbottom. In Shanghai, Jaipur
and Dubai, these logistical difficul¬
ties fell to the local crews,

Winterbottom and
on

the actors.

while

Zyskind focused

"Surprisingly, the

hardest bit of the whole shoot
was

back

in

England,"

Winterbottom. "We had

60

September 2004

says

to

drag

ourselves into the studio every

day!"
American Cinematographer - September 2004

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 2004
