Despite initial trepidation, Delhomme more or less made peace with the fact that shooting on the unpredictable Ektachrome would be an exercise in perseverance. He did, however, find the use of reversal to be extremely nerve-racking in a peculiar dream sequence that evokes the surreal settings of David Lynch's Twin Peaks and Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries. Since this extremely contrasty fantasy would be shot in one day, Delhomme implored Figgis to let him film it on both reversal and the Vision 200T 7274. The reverie was filmed in real time in an actual theater space, which production designers Jessica Worrell and Mark Long utilized to construct a set sectioned into four pieces. The theater was already fitted with multiple 1K Par 64s and some older 2K and 5K Fresnels. Delhomme heavily gelled these fixtures in shades of red and yellow, while gaffer John Higgins operated them via a preprogrammed dimmer board that synchronized the lamps to the actors' movements.
The vision starts off in a yellow hue as Nic and his wife (Johanna Torrel) lie in bed. She levitates off the mattress, which is in a vertical position, and floats by a black backdrop with a full moon (in reality, a Translight backing). Then she crosses a theater curtain to end up in a kitchen, where she begins pressing some clothes. "I just tried to go very harsh and natural with the type of poor kitchen lighting that you would find in old, neorealistic Italian films," Delhomme says. "Afterwards, she opens the door and enters this [very contrasty] jazz club. At that moment, we mixed in red and yellow, and I played around with the keyboard controls. In the end, she finishes by making love to a black man on a bed [in the corner, as the musicians continue playing in the foreground]. I put the bed in complete darkness and placed the light [an ungelled 5K Fresnel] on the edge of the bed. Then at the end of the shot, [after the light is activated], this new space suddenly appears out of the dark. When you're dreaming, you sometimes don't know exactly where you are — in this case, it's both a bedroom and a nightclub. We wanted to take that type confusion and push its limits."
Among the scenes shot on standard Kodak negative stocks, Delhomme managed to satiate his fondness for combining fixtures of contrasting color temperatures, particularly during an nocturnal episode in which the adolescent Nic (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) tries to put the make on his girlfriend, Susan (Kelly McDonald) in her parents' home. "I didn't want those night scenes to be too realistic, because as teenagers, the characters are still in a hopeful stage of life," Delhomme expounds. "I wanted to create a universe inside the house [shot on 7274] that was more poetic than normal — a 'poetic streetlamp effect,' if you will. I imagine that a house like this in Newcastle [England] would have weak street lamps with a dirty sodium look. But I happen to love aquatic blue-green [a shade representative of a mercury-vapor fixture] because it reminds me of water, and it gives off the feeling that [this room] is an aquarium. Outside, I worked with 12K Arri HMIs gelled with 1/2 CTO and some plus-green gels; [while filming inside the living room,] I nearly went to full plus-green.
"Since Cyclo, I've become very good at mixing different color temperatures within the same shot. For [master shots of] the kitchen, I mixed HMIs coming from outside [a 2.5K and 1.2K Par, both gelled with 1/2 CTO and 1/2 plus-green] with daylight fluorescent tubes inside. When I came inside the kitchen, I also mixed the temperatures of fluorescent tubes. On Cyclo, I discovered that using full daylight tubes with a normal tungsten stock and no filter doesn't produce a blue as deep as you'd imagine it to be, but it does give a very nice cold shade."
As he had done on his previous picture, Leaving Las Vegas (AC Feb. '96), Figgis sought to exploit the Super 16 format. "For Mike, it's more a matter of style than of economics," explains Delhomme. "He loves the texture [of Super 16 blown up to 35mm], as well as the idea of the camera being so small that you can work handheld with a zoom lens and be free [with your movements]." Figgis also operated B-camera himself throughout the five weeks of filming. Both cameramen utilized an Aaton XTR-Prod with a Microforce remote as a handgrip. Their primary lenses were Canon 8-64mm and 11-165mm zooms. Canon's 300-600mm came into play when Figgis sought to indulge his long-lens fetish. A set of Zeiss Superspeed prime lenses were also implemented during night shooting.
To track the dream sequences in a smooth, Steadicam-like style, Delhomme had the A-camera fitted with remote focus and iris motors. The Loss of Sexual Innocence involved a lot of on-set improvisation, and in such instances Delhomme and Figgis would roam through a scene for several minutes in search of the right moment. "Mike wanted to create choreography between the cameras," the cinematographer notes. "I was shooting my point of view of the sequence at the same time that he was shooting his. I think he wanted to mix the two [perspectives] to get something richer. We were like two cameramen in competition on the same set, trying to give the director the best shot possible. Mike's position as director/cameraman allowed him to be more 'rough,' especially when he wanted the film to have a documentary-type reality [as in desert scenes of Tunisian nomads decorated in flowing blue robes and indigo face paint]. Sometimes, Mike would suddenly move his camera very close to the actors, nearly casting a shadow on them, so I always kept my left eye open [during improv scenes] to check where he was, and get the best coverage. Mike wanted to shoot quickly and not have anything be too perfect — it might seem perverse, but that was the rule of the film."
Overall, Delhomme relished the ability to take liberties with the laws of filmmaking during his unusual working relationship with Figgis. "When you say to yourself, 'Well, I will use this reversal stock with all of its qualities and try to push the limits,' of course you become somewhat scared,' Delhomme admits. "It was a challenge, but I'm really glad to have done The Loss of Sexual Innocence, because it changed my perception of lighting. Mike was not obsessed with making beautiful imagery — he wanted something fresh and strong, and he didn't care if shadows were too dark. Personally, I think that this will be one of the few times in my life that I'll be able to do such cinematography."
— A. ThompsonRabbit in the Moon
Director: Emiko Omori
Cinematographers: Emiko Omori and Witt MontsIn a break with Sundance tradition, the award for Best Documentary Cinematography went to Emiko Omori for two separate competition entries, both of which were shot on video: Regret to Inform, Barbara Sonneborn's haunting first-person account of Vietnam war widows, and Omori's own film, Rabbit in the Moon, a historical survey and personal essay on the Japanese internment camps during World War II, where she and her sister (and co-producer) Chizuko Omori spent their formative years.
Like many longtime documentary cinematographers, Omori has had considerable experience working with film — in fact, she's been doing so since 1968, when she began her career as San Francisco's first female news cameraperson. "I love film, but in the past few years my work has been mostly shot on video — we can't afford film anymore," says the Bay Area documentarian, adding, "I'm now begrudgingly saying that video is getting pretty darn good."
An upgrade in quality is certainly evident when Omori is handling the camera. Using a Sony 400A BetaSP camcorder with a Canon J14aX8.5B IRS broadcast-grade lens (8.5-120mm), she deliberately brought a filmic sensibility to both documentaries.
Omori describes herself as a "conservative" cinematographer — a comment that Sundance juror Michel Negroponte echoes in somewhat different terms: "One of the things I find very interesting about the work in general is the spareness of it," he says. "It's very simple and understated — in a way, very Zen. It reminds me of the work of [Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro] Ozu — everything is done with great care and deliberation and balance."
Indeed, there's no flashy photography in either Regret to Inform or Rabbit in the Moon. The cinematography in both films exudes a calm and exquisite beauty — a necessary antidote, perhaps, to the emotionally wrenching stories that unfold in each film. There are slow pans across vivid green rice paddies and purple-hazed Rocky Mountain landscapes, and close-ups of telling details: a knotted hemp rope that binds an oar; Japanese script carved in a boulder; and broken dinner plates still sparkling under the sun in a desolate desert landscape. "There's an odd kind of contradiction going on," says Omori of her landscape shots. "You want the film to be beautiful, yet you don't want it to be like a postcard. You want it to have emotional content and character."
What truly distinguishes Omori's cinematography is not the equipment she uses — her tools are quite minimal — but rather the time and care she takes in crafting shots. "For me, setups for interviews are very important, and I probably drive directors crazy," she admits with a laugh." "I do spend some time looking for that ideal setup."
Since both Regret to Inform and Rabbit in the Moon have long passages of voice-over recollections, Omori found slow panning shots to be stylistically appropriate. "Most news shows can't use those types of moves," she notes. "They'd have to truncate them or cut them up."
On a technical level, Omori's prolonged search for the proper setup was a particularly critical issue in Vietnam, where limited electricity compelled the crew to stick largely with existing light supplemented by a reflector. In the U.S., she and Rabbit co-cinematographer Witt Monts would easily spend an hour and a half poking around the subject's house looking for the right spot and then lighting the scene.
In terms of illumination, the duo came to rely on Chimera lightbanks, which arrived on the market shortly after Rabbit began shooting in the early Nineties. "It creates a beautiful soft light that wraps around a person's face," says Omori, who's fond of the control that the fixture allows. "You can put pretty low wattages in it and get close to people, and not be afraid of blowing them out." Omori tends to side-light her subjects, but in general, she notes, "I've tried to keep my contrast a little more built-up, with a greater light-to-dark ratio. However, I've noticed in transferring video to film that I'm better off if I'm not quite so extreme." To lend the images in Rabbit a slightly softened quality, the filmmakers also used a light-grade Tiffen Black ProMist filter, which, according to Monts, "doesn't jump out at you, but provides a more elegant look."
The same delicate care was taken with the exterior scenes. "I think we spent more time on the visuals than we did collecting the interview material, which is pretty unusual on a documentary," says Monts. "We worked long and hard to achieve Emiko's vision of the way the project was going to look." Within the documentary form, it's typical that "you're chasing the story. You're concentrating on the people and the content. In the case of Rabbit, situations aren't happening fast right in front of you." With the luxury of time and the ability to be her own boss, Omori could experiment with a number of new tools and approaches.
Admits Omori, "I always had the fantasy of shooting in the great light at the beginning and end of the day, and taking a nap in the middle of the day. I finally did that on my own shoot!" The crew would rise at 4 a.m., shoot until 7 or 8, have breakfast, and then take a nap. At midday, they'd get up again, scout locations, and shoot in the late afternoon. The result is a beautiful raking light in many locations, and richly hued sunrises.
Omori also took the time to test filters while filming in the desert areas that were once the site of wartime internment camps. "I tried out filters that I'd been carrying around for years and never had a chance to try," says the documentarian. Though these filters could be considered basic — mostly NDs and various colors — they could enrich a sky, darken a foreground, or enhance a sunset. And given such poignant subject matter, slight subtleties in scenery could weigh heavily on the emotional meter.
"Video has had a kind of liberating effect on me," Omori admits. "Because I have longer loads in the camera, I can afford to gather images; I can anticipate something's going to happen, start rolling, and wait. You don't feel like you've burned up money." Besides the economic advantages, the leisurely pace of videography is one well-suited to Omori's artistic aesthetic. "I'm one of those people who is always looking through the camera. I collect images — I've just done that all my life."
— P. Thomson
[ continued on page 3 ] © 1999 ASC