One recent series of commercials in particular called for intense camera movement. "We just did a Western Wireless [spot] with Jamie Lee Curtis," says Kestermann. "There was a lot of running with the camera." The spots feature Curtis as a secret agent fending off would-be assailants in a warehouse, while simultaneously chatting pleasantly on a cellular phone. "She makes the phone call as if this type of thing happens all the time," he says.
Filled with make-believe kung-fu fighting and ending in an explosion, the spots were shot in a ship repair yard. "We worked very much off the locations that we found," Kestermann says. Because of Curtis’s limited availability, the commercials had to be shot quickly, in 53 setups executed over three days. Working so rapidly is possible for Kestermann partly because of the shorthand he has built up with his crew. He and Walker always collaborate with the same people, including gaffer Jordan Valenti, key grip Ken Jones and best boy Shawn Helgedalen.
Kestermann also has a long-standing fascination with gadgets and devices. Over the years, he has often experimented with new camera configurations. "I had some old cameras that I could take apart," he says, adding that Bell & Howells have been especially useful. On one camera, for example, he replaced the shutter, so that rather than a standard 180-degree opening, it had two 60-degree openings with a 60-degree space between them. "It’s like adding a new shutter in between," he says. The altered camera exposed each frame twice, and the two images could be filtered separately. During a static shot, no difference would be visible, but any movement during the exposure would cause a double-image effect to appear. On another camera, Kestermann repositioned the shutter, altering the exposure phase so that the film would be exposed while still partly in motion, creating a streaking effect.
Another Kestermann "device" came into play on a spot he and Walker did for Flore perfume. After warping a Plexiglass disk with heat, he mounted the bent piece of plastic in front of the camera on a zoom motor, so that he could rotate it in front of the lens. On film, the effect generated radiating distortion which resembled heat waves. "It looks like very heavy Paint Box [post work], but it was actually done in-camera," he says.
Notes Walker, "The perfume spot for Flore is the kind of lighting that Rolf can do in a very interesting way lighting that shimmers and moves. It has its own life force. It’s never one source, and it always has depth. That makes it so much more complex and interesting."
Kestermann’s fascination with mechanics led to him becoming deeply involved with computer-based postproduction. Two years ago, he and Walker bought a FAST Studio Quad editing system. Since then, they have acquired a Media 100xs editing system and an Avid 8000, and they also employ cutting-edge post software programs such as Commotion and Adobe After Effects.
Working with their own equipment has made the two more comfortable with postproduction technology, and has also taught them what is truly possible. "We are now better able to do some post things, because we understand them better," Kestermann says. On the Western Wireless spot with Jamie Lee Curtis, a climactic shot shows Curtis’s character jumping out of a waterfront shack just as it explodes. "We split the picture in half and ran the jump a little earlier, so it would look really dangerous," he explains. "We knew that would be a possibility. It was a lockdown shot, so it was not very complicated."
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