American Cinematographer - December 2004 - 46

A Darker Side of Fantasy
Creating
elaborate

an

ruse

to cover up

his

nefarious
motives, Count
Olaf stages a

captivating
circus

-

whose

performers are
actually in
cahoots with
him.

handled

Deluxe Laboratories in

at

Hollywood, under the guidance of
timer Jim Passon. Lubezki suggested
using Deluxe's Adjustable Color
Contrast (ACE) positive processing

I'll know it when I

-

recalls. "Chivo has
and

a

see

it!"' she

wonderful eye

or

CCE, but

ing the camera negative normally -
in order to fine-tune the visual tenor

Because ACE increases the contrast

ACE did

of the film;

of the

some

dailies

better black, the toe,

method

his dailies

on

-

after soup¬

keep the projected film
looking very close to the

desired final effect; and create

a

rock-

image in the print to get the

neutral

area

of the

or

flesh-toalso

curve,

solid visual reference that could be

increases. Sometimes it's nice to have

followed

a

Deluxe's

during the DI. "I used
CCE

Enhancement]
Hollow

to

[Color

Contrast

process on

Sleepy

desaturate colors, but the

ACE process

is more controllable," he
"We used it to desaturate

notes.

colors, but not all the colors." Lubezki
assisted

by ASC associate
Beverly Wood, Deluxe's vice
president of technical engineering
and client services, who helped him

was

member

orchestrate

an

elaborate series of

involving his lighting
production's design work.
Kodak Vision 2383 print stock

camera

tests

and the

was

used for all of the ACE trials,

which

began with Lubezki telling

Wood, '"Let's do something different
42 December 2004

to

lower-contrast

negative like 5218

keep the faces from becoming too

didn't like

and

contrast
was

too

require the repainting of
major sets, because they looked
totally wrong. "
Because of the special process,
Lubezki says, he "had to use a little
more
was

fill to

supervising colorist Steven J.
Scott (The Cat in the Hat) in repli¬
cating the ACE look digitally, Wood
supplied them with "curves from the
process of the print look from
the

tests," adds

Lubezki, "we also debated using ACE

in the shadows, which

any

me,

because I prefer

fill at all." In addition

the ACE-treated dailies, he

some¬

times

requested an untreated second
print. "I knew our final look would
be somewhere between normal and
our

ACE look, so we

also had to

know what 'normal' looked like," he

explains. "The difference was quite
striking: the ACE print's colors are so
saturated and the blacks look

so

rich

you get used
becomes hard to go back to

to it, it
normal."
production's

[that] after

the

Given
commitment

dailies," she says.

"During

see

unusual for

to

EFilm

of

harsh, and this movie didn't

creative alternatives. Put
them in the hands of a genius like
Chivo, and you really have some¬
thing!"
The duo ultimately settled on
using a 50-percent ACE process on
the film dailies. To aid Lubezki and

amount

call for that. However, the move to

not to use

great

the

the actors' faces picked up. It

hard. The silver-retention processes
are

week before we started

shooting, I decided to go with ACE,
in part because I'd done CCE before

right
contrast and depth of the blacks for
a project. He hates magenta and 'jelly
bean' colors, and getting the right
skin tones is always key for him.
great sense of the

a

a

decided

to

that would

to

a

DI,

Lubezki

employ another tactic
help him render the
American Cinematographer - December 2004

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