American Cinematographer - November 2006 - 50

Forging Connections
In the

blistering

Amelia
(Adriana
Barraza) and
sun,

Debby (Elie
Fanning), one of
the American
children she

tends, struggle
to continue

their

journey.

where the

rest

of the action takes

place. "Every shot started downstairs
with them putting their bags away
and then went all the way up the
spiral staircase and through the
scene, and although Alejandro had

with silver Mylar to

keep a shimmer¬
their faces.
"While we were filming the
actors coming up the stairs, Robby
[Baumgartner] was upstairs cuing
the lighting changes, and he could¬
ing, colored light

on

blocked the actors, the camerawork

little world, the colors shift to red

n't

completely improvised," recalls
Prieto. "What's truly amazing is that

and

yellow, and when she sees her
kissing the boy, we move to a
monochromatic strobing effect. In
addition to the club's lighting, we
positioned several large light panels

was, so

friend

cuing him with hand signals as I
through the viewfinder. It
was
quite exciting to shoot, and it's
my favorite scene in the film in

that

terms

was

it's in focus! I don't know how
Arturo did it. There

were no

marks,

stairway and then a
packed dance floor, the lights were
strobing, and Arturo didn't know
we were

on

a

where I would be

-

if I felt like

going around to the actor's other
side, I'd just do it.
"There's

a

definite dramatic

progression in the lighting that
underscores

which go

Chieko's

emotions,

from very happy to very
disappointed. We lit the downstairs
hallway with Kino Flos gelled a deep
orange and had some greenscreen
Kino Flos in the background. Once
46 November 2006

they move upstairs, the lighting
changes to pink and green, a combi¬
nation I noticed in Gueorgui
Pinkhassov's still photography of
Japan and liked a lot. When Chieko
starts dancing and goes into her own

were

full of small bulbs in frame

around the dance floor

to create a

slightly abstract effect; these
colored

to

match

our

were

overhead

lighting, and an operator watched
lighting cues and changed the
colors accordingly. Overhead we had
several robotic lights that we could
preprogram to be specific colors.

our

Because it

important to see
expressions, we
bounced some of the robotic lights
into 4-by frames covered loosely
the

was so

characters'

see

the action from where he

I had

one

hand in the air,

looked

of lighting."
In contrast to the

nightclub,
penthouse apartment,
where some important
night
sequences unfold, is a study in mini¬
Chieko's

malism. "I needed
low light

to

maintain

a

very

level there in order to regis¬
ter the glow of the city lights outside,
and to give Alejandro the freedom to
shoot in any direction," says Prieto.
"Robby designed two shallow softboxes, one 4-by-4, the other 4-by 5,
and we put one above the couches



American Cinematographer - November 2006

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