American Cinematographer Apr 2009: If I Could Give the World A Cooke.

Time to dust off ye ole’ substack. It’s a new era and yesterday on set of this amazing doc I’m shooting for Melanie Levy, we filmed a great artist, Meredith Monk, and she said, “the goal of an artist is to become an amateur at it” and substack is my amateur hour.

For those who are new or don’t remember, I was cleaning out my basement when I discovered a giant stack of over 70 American Cinematographer issues. I found a good one, and posted some nuggets from it.

Today I found a bad one. It’s from April 2009 and it doesn’t say much of anything. It’s almost all about 20k and 18k hmi lights. Like the articles just have the DP say what lights they used outside windows and what gels and the issue doesn’t show the lighting diagram or still so you are just listening to this person talk about the challenges and how they either hate HMI lights or don’t and it doesn’t mean anything. Wow, thanks.

BUT let’s not let this kill our buzz. Let’s look at the articles! That’s what we are all here for.

ARTICLE 1: Patiences

It’s a short film and every shot of the film has a woman lying in bed or showing cleavage. The DP has his light meter out. Great, thanks.

He used an Arri BL-4 and Zeiss superspeeds - the only dp in the issue to use Zeiss! (ED: actually not true at all but I remembered it as that at the time) WOW! But probably he would have wanted to use Cooke’s he just needed that extra stop of light?

Well actually here is a cool tip: he got window screen frames from home depot and lined them with nd gels so he can slip ND in and out super fast!

https://www.homedepot.com/p/FlexScreen-Custom-Pre-Framed-Window-Screen-Replacement/316028857?58995-Width&59026-Height&58935-Standard

That’s actually a really cool idea and now I feel like a fool because I told you there was nothing to learn from this issue.

He also used the ikea hamper and threw a light in it and that’s like internet online forum smart stuff. Nice to see it bleeding out into the real world.

Funny how the best stuff to learn can come a lot from the “small” projects AC features in the very first article.

ARTICLE 2: Hunger

Next up is Hunger directed by Steve McQueen, shot by Sean Bobbit, BSC. He was going to shoot super 16 but then fuji gave him 2 perf super 35 at a good price. 2 perf if you don’t know is a cheap way to shoot 35mm, in that you only shoot like 2.35 aspect ratio, so you save like 50% of the frame. So funny how aspect ratio is the result of budget sometimes, not artistic choice.

Bobbit prefers fuji to kodak because of its more nuanced color. Too bad Fujifilm stock is dead.

Mr. Sean Bobbit, BSC loves Cookes. He used them and an arri macro 100mm for tights. And he uses CTO mixed with bastard amber gel for sodium vapor. I wonder what he uses now with led lights to make this mix? I should ask him.

Bobbit doesn’t like fill light - “whatever fill exists is natural bounce coming off the walls behind the cameras.” I really like that strategy - it’s natural and subtle and does the trick. Everyone should try it.

ARTICLE 3: The Watchmen

The big feature article was about the Watchman, which was a very VFX heavy production, stuff that makes me roll my eyes because the article just talks about all the mac tech lights, etc, dmx, bla bla, bla. No small tricks that are more useful on stuff most of us work on. The used primo glass, not cooke glass. They did use fill, against Mr. Sean Bobbit’s tastes. “We squeezed kinos in wherever we could.” Kinos back then are like tube lights now - always useful in a pickle when you need very soft quick light. Every DP has a different way of lighting.

ARICTLE 4: The Knowning

This was fun to read because it was one of the first Red One digital larger feature films starring Nic Cage. And it’s funny cause they shot like a 7+ million dollar or so film with a camera they didn’t understand at the time - like whose idea was that? So they just were struggling the whole time. Could be a funny behind the scenes to watch. They used cooke s4 glass with angenieux. Like they couldn’t see the image in the viewfinder because it was too low res so they hooked up an on board monitor. Why brag about that?

ARTICLE 5: SUNDANCE ROUND UP: Sin Nombre dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga

I just like this cause the DP hates HMIs. I like when a DP escews a whole movement because in so ways they are right. HMIS wrap light and have a different falloff than incandescent lights. So he “forced” his crew in Mexico to use dino lights and mini-brutes. That’s devotion! He used arri master primes.

They built a “process train” which was a “truck about 60 meters long” that was made into a train. Like, hello, picture please! LIKE that is BRILLIANT AND AMAZING and there’s no photo of this? Mr. Editor, where are you?

They drove on a very straight road, 10 miles long for 3-4 days and they had a 1.2k hmi at the end of the train and a kino and dedolight. Wait, what? Oh no, so he was forced to use a HMI! Poor fella.

But seriously , watch it. It’s beautiful and it’s by the guy who did true detective season 1! And whoever thought of a “poor man’s train” is a producing genius. Nowadays it would have been shot on a volume stage (those stages with unreal engine) and it would have looked completely different.

I love the master prime look.

ARTICLE SOMETHING: An Education

Shot on cooke s2s with 3 perf super 35mm - slight softness combined with kodak vision2 500t. Lit with a lot of lanterns. A quick fast beautiful amount of light. The DP also bounced leko source-fours off table cloth to create a little soft uplight in table scenes - a nice old trick.

ANOTHER ARTICLE: Precious

Shot on cooke s4s. Also used schneider black frosts for diffusion, which I wanna try.

Wow, okay, I learned something from this issue, and I didn’t want to. And now I want to see Sin Hombre because of this issue and it’s also giving me City of God vibes and god True Detective Season One is good.

That’s how it works, folks.