American Cinematographer - February 2006 - 101

aspiring actress who is at loose ends
after her mother's unexpected death.
When a literary agent offers Reese
$100,000 for the rights to publish her
parents' love letters - both were
famous novelists

-

Reese heads to

Michigan to visit her estranged father,
Don (Ed Harris). She finds him
encamped in the ramshackle garage
and two strangers, a graduate student
(Amelia Werner) and a Christian rocker
(Will Ferrell), living in the house. Initially
suspicious of this surrogate family,
Reese gradually comes to terms with it
as

she

gains insight into her emotionally

distant parents and herself.
Shot in standard 1.85:1 on prac¬
tical locations in Manhattan and New

Jersey, Winter Passing utilizes hand¬
held camerawork that mirrors the

bleak and cold, and I decided to shoot

emotional state of its main character.

the whole

"We decided to go handheld
the film is very subjective -

5279, which is slightly gritty and very
contrasty. Given that so many scenes
cut between interior and exterior, it

because
it's very

much in Reese's head, and she's in every

frame," Stacey explains. "At first there's
a self-destructive, frenetic element in
the character, and the camera moves
with her, whips around, or goes in and
out of focus. The

pacing at the begin¬

ning also feels a little random and frag¬
mented. When she goes to Michigan,
it's only with the realization that her
mother killed herself that everything
starts slowing down." And at the end of
the picture, after Reese has established
a new relationship with her father, the
camera is finally locked down on a dolly.
Richard Rutkowski was Stacey's
camera operator on the show, and he
shouldered

a

Panaflex Platinum outfit¬

ted with Primo

prime lenses. "I like the

discipline of using primes," says Stacey,
"and Adam wanted to play it close to
Zooey,

so most
within 6 feet

of the time
on

a

we were

lens that

was

between 27mm and 50mm. The focus is
on

Zooey, but we can still

see

the envi¬

ronment around her."

Set in the winter months, the

picture maintains a cool palette until
Reese returns to New York at the end.
"Because there

diate,
says

we

was no

digital interme¬

achieved the look in camera,"

Stacey. "The story's feel is pretty

made

thing

on

Kodak Vision 500T

stay with one stock to
continuity. Plus, there's some¬
thing nice about using 5279 outside;
with the Platinum, you can block down
the light with ND filters behind the lens
without darkening what the operator is
seeing through the ground glass." When
shooting exteriors, Stacey did not
balance for daylight with an 85 filter.
Instead, "we only half-corrected it with
sense

to

achieve

an

81EF. It takes out

some

of the blue

but leaves [the image] pretty cold.
"If there was an overall philoso¬

phy to our interior lighting, it stemmed
from Adam's desire to have it dark and
chiaroscuro," he continues. "As

a

template, that gives a lot of freedom to
the cinematographer. We often pushed
light from one direction only and played
with a lot of hard light coming through
windows." For example, Don's cavelike
garage was lit from one side with a
large, soft source: four 6K Pars diffused
through the actual white plastic tarps
that Don had taped over the windows.
On the other side, light from 4K HMIs
was pushed directly through fissures in
the crumbling walls. "We'd punch light
through and add a little smoke, and
you'd just see those little accents," says

Stacey. Instead of relighting for closeups, the cinematographer often posi¬
tioned a frame of Opal or 250 diffusion
close to the actor to wrap light while
keeping the hard light working in the
background.
Stacey's greatest challenge on
Winter Passing was posed by Ferrell.
First, there was the task of getting the
6'4" actor into a rigged Mercedes
through the sunroof. Then there was a
scene in which the petite Deschanel
had to kiss Ferrell under low-ceiling
rafters, with virtually no place for lights.
There was also the matter of getting
light into Ferrells small, deep-set eyes,
which were sometimes ringed with
Adam Ant-style eyeliner. "Those scenes
with Will were always challenging, but
he's the sweetest man you could meet,"
says Stacey.
What helps make Winter Pass¬
ing memorable is its quiet lyricism,
and the visuals
dappled interior
lighting, wintry landscapes, and small
cutaway details - help set the tone.
"I was always trying to find a more
interesting way to cover the scene in
a very economical way," says Stacey.
"Often the most simple and beautiful
way is shifting focus. The funny thing
is, you might try that on a lot of films,

Reese's reclu¬

sive father (Ed

Harris) tickles
the ivories.

"[Director] Adam

Rapp wasn't
scared to be

bold," notes

Stacey. "He
always inspired
me

to take

poetic license."

-

but a lot of that material won't make the
edit. Adam, however, created a mood

around it."

■

American

Cinematographer 97
American Cinematographer - February 2006

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2006
