Wednesday 27 October 2021

Making Kenneth Branagh’s Beautiful, Black-and-White “Belfast”

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Kenneth Branagh’s evocative semi-autobiographical coming of age story set in 1969 is shot “to feel like a LIFE magazine spread” according to cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos BSC GSC.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/making-kenneth-branaghs-beautiful-black-and-white-belfast/

Belfast is Branagh’s lived experience of Northern Ireland as expressed through nine-year old Buddy (Jude Hill). He lives with his Ma (Caitriona Balfe) and Pa (Jamie Dornan) and near his Granny (Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciarán Hinds). It’s a poem to his immediate family and to the city which is depicted as a close knit community on the verge of being shattered by three decades of violence and sectarian division.

“This film is about the human condition and the landscape of the human condition is the human face,” says Zambarloukos, who has worked with Branagh since Sleuth on projects including Cinderella and Death on the Nile. “The methodology here was how do we create great portraits. I think black and white has a very transcendental quality. It can be two things at the same time. It can illustrate the within and the without simultaneously and seems to talk to both the present and the past very easily and more so than colour.”

Up until the 1970s, action-adventure films were given the Technicolor treatment while smaller scale drama were predominantly shot black and white.  “In that sense we’re doing anything different to how BW has been used in the past,” he says.

Mixing color and BW

“There is something really lucid and clear and at the same time ethereal and mysterious inherent in B/W photography. I feel color is often better at being descriptive - you can see it’s autumn because of the red leaves in shot. But since filmmaking tends to be about narrowing the focus for the audience, about how and where they see things, BW is a fantastic way of capturing emotion.”

The film opens in color and also flashes into color for scenes showing the love for cinema that Branagh/Buddy has a child. Raquel Welch in a fur-skinned bikini in One Million Years B.C. and the flying car of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang leave strong visual and emotional imprints.

It’s not the first time Branagh has combined BW with color. His directorial debut feature Dead Again (1991) contained flashbacks to 1940s Hollywood in black and white. The opening scene of Death on the Nile which finally gets its cinema release in the New Year, is BW, shot in color.

Shooting BW in color was the DPs preferred option for Belfast. “One thing I like about always seeing things in color is that I have far more control over skies,” he explains. “If I lose the color in the sensor, in the DI or in the capture then if it’s film neg I can’t then give those colors a more precise grey tone.

“In the DI, especially with BW, I like to be able to assign where in the grey scale something is whether that’s a sky, clothing, a face. By having color you can key it, matte, it and be more precise.”

That is a technique inspired by master photographer Ansel Adams. In his books ‘The Camera’, ‘The Negative’ and ‘The Print’ [published 1948-50] he talked about assigning tones of grey in a zone system “and seeing a picture before you take it.”

Zambarloukos says, “Those seminal books were for analogue black and white stills of the time but you can take those principals and apply them to modern photography and a DI. In essence, as long as you see it, you can control it.”

His DIT and dailies team was led by Jo Barker at UK facility Digital Orchard. Goldcrest colorist Rob Pizzey on the DI. “Our dailies are more contrasty than the final film. A lot of our tests were about capturing texture and weave. I don’t think we manipulated things to an extreme in the end but it was nice to have the control to bring things down or up if we needed.”

Magnum composition

Zambarloukos says he often find tonal and compositional cues from the work of Magnum photographers. For Belfast he found the work of Welsh photojournalist Philip Jones Griffiths illustrative of the era.

“In his images he showed a juxtaposition of family and military life. There’s a really famous one of a woman mowing her lawn with a solider in the foreground https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/391039180118400418/ It was this depiction of conflicting things in an image that we wanted to achieve photographically with Ken.”

This idea informed their use of camera and composition. The riot scene was shot handheld with two cameras handheld and included an elaborate set up on a circular track around Buddy for the Molotov cocktail explosion at the film’s beginning. Mostly the film is shot single camera with Zambarloukos feeling that he should be quite still in his composition “and leave space to allow the film to breathe.”

This parred down approach relies on the director’s ability to block the mis-en-scene.  “Ken is such a master of knowing where to place actors and how he wants them to interact. In this case, less is more. There’s a stillness to the action and I think that slightly wider framing helps in that way.

“I try to give [editor Una Ní Dhonghaíle] really direct eyelines so that when you do let a scene play like that then the character’s face, their eyeline, is as much as possible not facing away from camera or too much in profile. There is a directness. We try and choregraph with the camera to close the eyeline as much as we can and by doing so we are hopefully being engaging, inviting and immersive.”

Shooting digital

Branagh and Zambarloukos  typically shoot on film yet this is the first picture they’ve made together on digital. There were a number of reasons for this, among them that production was among the first in the UK to shoot under Covid, in August 2020.

Anything the production could do to minimise personal contact in the space was put into effect. Changing film magazines being one casualty. Zambarloukos also operated for this reason too (with Andrei Austin on Steadicam).

It wasn’t just a Covid-enforced decision, though. Branagh wanted the freedom to shoot longer takes. Most importantly, digital suited the creative aesthetic.

“We wanted to shoot available light using either practicals or with a set designed so that the windows faced sunlight. We blocked so our actors would sit near windows. Rather than a documentary film we went for a photo reportage look so it felt natural to use the high ASA rating of the Alexa LF. The LF Mini is a game changing camera. It has a nice soft palette yet is crystal sharp and clear. With that medium format digital we found a sweet spot.”

He retained the Large Format 65mm lenses used on Nile and Murder on the Orient Express a mix of older Spheros from the David Lean era and System 65 glass made for the format's resurgence in the early nineties on film’s like Ron Howard's Far and Away (1992) and Branagh’s Hamlet (1996).

 

“I found that combination worked really well especially in 1.85:1. It’s the first time we’ve shot in that aspect ratio instead of 2.39:1.”

Production economy

The crisp image is a deliberate choice.  “I didn’t use diffusion or add grain or denoise it. It is pretty much what you see out of that sensor and those lenses.”

Branagh’s regular production designer Jim Clay designed in accordance with Covid-safe rules and the intended aesthetic. For example, there were discussions about keeping set windows open for ventilation.

The sets were built in south east London near Longcross Studios where Branagh and his keys were polishing Death on the Nile. A disused school site was used to build the film’s school, hospital and church. The fields around it – including a basketball court – are also featured. The interior sets of the houses were built here too, without back or front and covered by canvas as weather protection. At nearby Farnborough airfield they built the façade of the terrace house fronts and redressed that street to film scenes for Ma and Pa’s street or Granny and Pop’s street or a third street occasionally seen. The riot was filmed there too.

“The cinema and theatre were chairs, a small screen, black drapes and a projector in one of the airfield hangers,” says Zambarloukos.  “That hanger was also where we placed our bus to film rear projection in camera for the bus journey from the theatre. There’s a real economy to this but I think we built to the scale required.”

The themes of the film resonated with many of the cast and crew who could relate personally to the humanity of everyday people and the political forces of division. Zambarloukos for example, is a Greek Cypriot and recalls the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974.

“I was four years old and my father had to seek work abroad [Branagh’s family also emigrated]. Belfast could easily be a Cypriot story. It’s clearly a universal story. Ken is writing about finding joy in the sorrows of life. If such circumstances happen to you, you have a choice how to live your life and the choice’s Ken’s family made are some of the best you can take.”

Multicast and the Future of Mobile Content Delivery

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https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/multicast-and-the-future-of-mobile-content-delivery/

Mobile operators and broadcasters are missing a trick if they don’t take advantage of the broadcast capabilities in expanding 5G networks, according to Rohde & Schwarz. The mobile network infrastructure vendor believes a multicast approach to transmitting live and on-demand video will not only deliver the higher quality that consumers expect but can save operators money at the same time as being nigh on essential to deliver new interactive and personalized video services.

So, is broadcast multicast the future of content delivery?

Rohde & Schwarz outlines its argument in a new eBook, “5G Broadcast/Multicast,” starting with definitions.

Unicast allows traffic to move across networks from a single transmitting point to another single receiving point. This one-to-one bidirectional communication is the foundation of all cellular networks, from GSM right up to current LTE/4G and 5G technologies, and it’s also easiest and most efficient way to ensure traffic reaches its destination.

Multicast is a “one source to many destinations” approach to traffic distribution. In other words, it only involves the destinations that openly choose to accept the data from a specific source and receive the traffic stream.

Rohde & Schwarz urges network operators to take advantage of the Further Enhanced Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (FeMBMS) specifications (in the 5G 3GPP releases 14-16) to address multiple technical and business challenges coming down the track.

It declares: “5G multicast allows operators to offload their premium content on the move, whether it is live/linear video/audio or even file-based content, while reaching broader audiences and consistently delivering broadcast quality experiences according to individual tastes.”

5G broadcast is not restricted to mobile TV. It can deliver media and entertainment to smartphones and also reach smart vehicles with OTA updates, media and entertainment inside the car, and map updates.

The sheer weight of all this traffic expected means that operators run the risk of network overload — causing buffering and lower quality video experiences — if they continue to transmit using unicast, Rohde & Schwarz argue.

“By combining unicast and multicast modes, 5G paves the way for the future of media delivery, significantly reducing congestion, latency and capex/opex burdens. The same infrastructure that delivers content to TVs and smartphones can concurrently deliver to smart devices and even vehicles, allowing drivers and passengers to not only receive entertainment but also essential weather and map updates.”

In the rush to 5G rush, R&S suggest that many mobile operators have failed to include LTE multicast in their growing networks and will soon struggle when millions of autonomous vehicles and internet of things (IoT) devices require frequent software upgrades or emergency alerts.

“Without eMBMS, telecom operators will end up exhausting their 5G networks because they are not ready to exploit the power of multicasting. Their revenue streams will radically decrease once half of their connected users are vehicles or machines.”

R&S is proposing a completely new business model to network operators and content providers, “revolutionizing,” in its words, the way premium content is distributed over the air.

“Instead of acquiring new infrastructure and bidding hundreds of millions of dollars for 10 MHz or 20 MHz of bandwidth, MNOs can use what is already there.” In other words, broadcasting sites that are already built, network infrastructure that is installed and UHF frequencies that are well established for broadcast/multicast mode can be used as a service.

The answer is straightforward, says the vendor: Employ a multicast as a service (MaaS) approach and offload any type of content you would like in dynamic and intelligent ways.

VOD Downloads

For video-on-demand, for example, Rohde&Schwarz propose that content can be preloaded on smart devices when they are in idle mode or when they are not used overnight.

“The usual buffering, latency and pixilation that occurs when viewers are on the go could be consigned to history if content is efficiently delivered to all interested devices in parallel,” it states, “allowing viewers to pick up their phone in the morning to find their videos ready to watch in high quality.”

Its calculations suggest that at least 35% of current VoD traffic in mobile networks can be offloaded in this way allowing 5G cells to easily handle the remaining traffic.

Live and Linear Solution

When it comes to live event video delivered over mobile at broadcast quality, R&S says the unicast method is outmoded and too costly.

Based on a “very conservative” estimate, R&S suggest that live and linear content currently constitutes 13% of overall video consumption (~9% of overall mobile network traffic). But by 2025, mobile video consumption is expected to reach 80% of overall 5G mobile data traffic. Live and linear content in turn is expected to reach an average of at least 25% of overall video consumption five years from now.

In other words, 20% of overall mobile network traffic.

In addition, based on what R&S calls a conservative estimate, mobile operators are expected to invest at least 50% on top of the $350 million a year they are already investing (to deploy and/or upgrade radio access network sites) in order to meet the mandatory 5G specifications and try to cover the new type of mobile traffic. This means a worldwide average CAPEX of $500 million per year will be required from an MNO to try to cover their needs.

“By using a ‘5G unicast+multicast’ approach operators can offload at least 20% of their mobile traffic load in broadcast/multicast mode while delivering unicast bidirectional traffic as usual,” R&S states. “MNOs will not require any additional frequency-related investments and OPEX, as they use existing infrastructure as a service, including operational costs.

“This alternative is opening the door for content providers/owners to deliver higher quality of service to broader audiences using millions of devices with less cost — and even in many cases without any need for a CDN.”

One revenue generating application multicast opens up is that of the audience watching events live in the stadia. Features enabled at the venue by 5G multicast, it outlines, include the ability to zoom in and select multi-angles, repeat/slow motion features, synchronized commentator options and customized 1st person/3rd person views where fans can see and feel the movement of the player.

R&S proposes that “fans can become part of in-field communications by listening to the discussion between referees, players and coaches with an original XR views.”

Based on a survey at two major arenas in Germany (Allianz Arena in Munich and Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund), the fan experience generates up to 12% additional ticket revenue per game — not taking into account the additional revenue through personalized ads on smartphones, tablets and smart glasses.

Currently, however, less than half of network operators are able to convert the next-generation increase in data consumption into revenue.

The vendor closes its case: “By offering multicast as a service, Rohde & Schwarz opens up all these opportunities at the same time; a business model specially designed to optimize the delivery of one-to-many content and solve the challenges operators face in this exciting new landscape.

 


Brave New World? Sure, Just Click Here

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Dystoptia is the near future society we don’t want. It’s as if we don’t have enough warnings of what’s to come from science fiction where the tropes are easy to spot: surveillance states, automation everywhere, space commercialization, vast divides between rich and poor, meat substitutes, an existential climate crisis.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/brave-new-world-sure-just-click-here/

Yet that just about sums up the planet’s current dilemma. And if it doesn’t quite feel that way to you – then the battle is already lost.

“Unprecedented events that have unfolded within the past few years have revealed the flaws and weaknesses of the US government and corporate America, whose actions have shown they don’t always have your best interests in mind,” says Courtney Coonrod. “Therefore, it’s up to you to proactively adapt to this brave new world, starting with your everyday routine.”

From constant surveillance to algorithms that decide what we see, society is entering territory reserved for fictional dystopias.  Coonrod advises us to push back starting with the internet and social media.

“The eerie loss of individuality is looming right before your screen every time you passively press ‘accept’ on a new privacy policy and turn a blind eye to why your data is being collected.”

 While it's easy to ignore the data tracking that has become so commonplace, Caroline Hsu, the cofounder of Cyber Collective, an organization that champions data ethics, says those privacy popups seem “so inconsequential, but what we’ve historically seen with tech is that it starts very small and snowballs into something we didn't foresee.”

Steps are being taken at stage level to fight back – but not enough.

The recently enacted California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) for example, requires businesses to mandate Global Privacy Control, a  tool that allows California citizens to easily exercise their privacy rights online, but the clock is ticking for other states to follow suit.

Coonrood highlights initiatives like Project Liberty and the Web3 Foundation which are building tools that protect personal data, guided by principles that let individuals own their data and understand

when they’re granting access to it and why. Switching from Google to a browser like  DuckDuckGo will defend you from site trackers and filtered search results. Switching from WhatsApp to Signal or Telegram will keep your activity encrypted and private. Privacy management platform Elroi can even show where your data fits into the larger ecosystem and is currently developing ways for you to control that data.

The personalized news we receive automatically on social media has had persistent problems with algorithmic and confirmation bias, “ultimately increasing disinformation and polarization because you’re being exposed to news that’s favorable to your beliefs rather than news that will expand your outlook,” writes Coonrod.

Most of us know this but don’t seem to care. Perhaps we don’t see the bigger picture of rights being eaten away and facts replaced by memes. Perhaps we do and just passively accept it because it’s easier to feel like we’re part of something than having an opinion not shared by the majority.

Big tech companies have been scared into action but again it’s just enough to avoid enforced break-up or mass cancelling by users. Facebook’s rebrand will likely detract from its insufficient efforts to stop the dissemination of Covid vaccine misinformation. Twitter recently announced their plans to become a more credible news source, but Coonrod insists the onus is on individual to seek out authoritative and truthful news sources and diverse voices.

“Facebook is often quick to say they don’t sell your information, but their only response to questions about why they collect it is in order to make their own services better—which is supposedly in your interest, but not explicitly in your control, even if you choose not to use it.”

According to Mark Weinstein, the Founder of social platform MeWe, “a well-intentioned legislation is ineffective against these giants. People of the world will have to move away from these companies and support businesses that protect their privacy.”

We know that social media is like a drug, with algorithms calibrated to keep each of us coming back for more. And we may understand that every click we make online is feeding the machine, which in turn, controls what we see, what products are presented to us, what news we learn from.

But we do it anyway. Can we stop? Should we?

Coorod; “The more you take that control back from platforms and companies that are eager to offer you a minimal benefit in exchange for data and information that makes them wealthy and powerful, the more you walk back from the precipice of being a player in a dystopian society—one where your actions, impulses, and decisions are either subtly or overtly manipulated by those same platforms.”

 

 

 

Feeling a Certain Way? There’s an Aspect Ratio for That

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Even Zack Snyder was at it in Justice League. Changing the aspect ratio from the current widescreen norm has become a creative choice. Snyder went for a 4:3 ratio ostensibly because it helped render the full top to toe size of superheroes onscreen although some critics find its (over)use a gimmick that only distracts from the story.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/feeling-a-certain-way-theres-an-aspect-ratio-for-that/

Either way, altering the aspect ratio, even mid-film, isn’t going to go away. So what has caused the modern resurgence of these formats?

We listed a slew of modern films eschewing the conventional wide 2.40:1 presentation (or a 1.85:1 aspect ratio that fills up the entire screen) here. 

Digging a little deeper into the wider societal and industry specific trends is Douglas Laman at Collider.

He points out that from the 1950s introduction of CinemaScope, until 2010, only the occasional curiosity item, like Gus van Sant’s Elephant or Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers, were shot in either 1.37:1 (the Academy Ratio, which is similar to the 4:3 aspect ratio used for 35 mm films in the silent era).

One reason is filmmakers fear of alienating moviegoers. Another was that post-1950s uses of a 4:3 aspect ratio were associated with pan-and-scan. This process involved cropping the image of a film shot in 2.40:1 so that it could be seen in a ‘fullscreen’ format on VHS or DVD.

As Laman observes, the likes of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel not to mention countless directors, lambasted this practice of altering the appearance of a movie to fit the demands of home video. With such widespread derision, it was difficult for any new release intentionally shot in the format to rise above the stigma of pan-and-scan releases.

Then a handful of filmmakers began to embrace the possibilities of the classic Academy Ratio, among them Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, through to American Honey) and Kelly Reichardt (Meeks’ Cutoff through to First Cow) went against the grain.

“By using the more cramped 1.33 aspect ratio, Cutoff was creating a visual extension for the movie’s subversive focus,” writes Laman. “That focus was on how trapped women and indigenous people were in the days of American settlers traveling westward for new land. Rather than just being a gimmick, Meeks’ Cutoff showed how unusual aspect ratios could be used for weighty thematic purposes.”

Since these trailblazing indies and then Best Picture Oscar winner The Artist – presented in black and white and 4:3 as befitting its Hollywood heritage story – distributors have backed an increasing number of filmmakers wanting to use unorthodox aspect ratios.

Laman highlights titles produced and/or distributed by A24 have made especially extensive use of the format, ranging from A Ghost Story to Mid-90s.

“Whereas Elephant never played in more than 38 theaters in 2003, A24 sent out The Lighthouse in its 1.19:1 aspect ratio into 978 theaters at the end of 2019. Unorthodox aspect ratios are no longer a niche entity, they’re being seen in multiplexes across the nation.”

Home video industry trends also had a hand in opening the door for the comeback of the Academy Ratio (and related framing). The introduction of Blu-Ray discs gave a chance for all movies to be seen in their original aspect ratios on TVs without needing to be panned and scanned.

Also of note is a change that occurred across 2015 and 2016 in certain domestic theater chains, notably Cinemark, in discontinuing the practice of adjusting their screens to cater to a specific movie’s aspect ratio.

“Theaters could no longer complain about the costs or energy necessary to adjust their projectors and screens for an unconventional aspect ratio. If theaters were just going to project movies on a gigantic blank screen regardless of their aspect ratio, why not just film certain titles in a 4:3 format?”

A further reason for its current vogue is oddly a counterpoint to the trend that came in with CinemaScope in the ‘50s. Wide screen pictures was a technical gambit introduced by studios to compete with the box of the TV.

In the age of streaming, feature filmmakers can offer something many prestige streaming TV shows can’t, like presenting a story in a 4:3 aspect ratio.

As Laman observes, TV shows that do play with aspect ratio like WandaVision are very much the exception not the rule. Modern streaming TV shows that provide the most competition to theatrical cinema, like The Crown, haven’t utilized these kinds of old-school aspect ratios.

L also offers perhaps the most contentious but nonetheless thought-provoking reason for the rise in boxed in screen characters: it’s a mirror not only of the way we feel about our lives.

As an example, 4:3 aspect ratio of First Reformed, provides a box that traps Ethan Hawke’s protagonist in a parallel for how this character feels frustratingly trapped by an uncaring society.  Laman expands this wider than just one film’s story theme.

“This modern fixation on unorthodox aspect ratios [is] a new tool to visually signify what it’s like to live under constant suffocating societal pressures. The minimal amount of space in the frame is a way to suggest how we’re all constrained under forces like societally ingrained sexism, the dehumanizing nature of capitalism, homophobia, the list goes on and on.

By looking to visual means of the past, cinema of the 21st-century can confront societal woes that resonate deeply with the modern world.”

  

 

Monday 25 October 2021

A Life Aquatic: Diving Into the Story of Jacques-Yves Cousteau

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Adventurer, filmmaker, inventor, celebrity and conservationist: the life of Jacques-Yves Cousteau is a rich tale for any documentarian.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/a-life-aquatic-diving-into-the-life-of-jacques-yves-cousteau/

Becoming Cousteau from National Geographic tells the story of the French marine explorer who became a huge star on American television with his ABC series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, which ran from 1966-76.

It was that show that Liz Garbus remembers watching as a child and inspired the filmmaker to spend the six years gathering archive material for her new film.

“I was very familiar with him as a child who grew up watching his TV show, but that means I was familiar with a certain facet of him which was that outward-facing explorer,” she told Science & Film.  “As we talk about in the film, his shows lost audience as time went on, as he became more alarmed and more committed to sounding the alarm about the environment he saw in distress.”

In 2019, after years of negotiating, the Cousteau Society granted Arbus exclusive access to 500 hours of archival video and audio footage.

“It was a long process; six years working with the Cousteau Society to get access to all of his archive, outtakes, notebooks, and journals,” Arbus explained. “Much of his work has been seen before on television and films, and that was widely available. But I really wanted to focus on the behind-the-scenes man to the extent I could and open up that archive to a generation of people who were unfamiliar.

“Cousteau himself said: ‘if one person has the opportunity to live an extraordinary life, they have no business keeping it to themselves.’ I tried to continue to refer back to his own words as I was working with the family to get access to the archives.”

Cousteau co-created the Aqua Lung, won both the Palme d’Or and the Oscar for his 1956 film The Silent World and became a world-renowned conservationist. Plenty of material to make a Ken Burns-style mini-series you would think.

“I wanted it to be a complete experience,” Arbus told Variety. “I also wanted it to be something that would introduce new people to [Cousteau] and for those of us who knew and loved him, it would be a walk through memory lane that ends up giving you more than you knew [about him]. So the doc needed to be a film you consume in one sitting.”

Becoming Cousteau is directed and produced by Garbus  (Oscar nominated for docs The Farm: Angola, USA and What Happened, Miss Simone?) and written and edited by Pax Wassermann.

“He was one of the early voices to connect the dots” on global warming, Wasserman said https://deadline.com/video/becoming-cousteau-tiff-documentary-director-liz-garbus-editor-pax-wasserman-natgeo-interview-news/, “and to popularize that argument in a way that people could listen to.”

Cousteau also developed the first hand-held underwater camera and a form of diving saucer submersible. “He was very influenced by space exploration,” Wasserman noted. “He sort of fashioned himself as also being like an ‘astronaut of the sea.’”

IndieWire  says Garbus’ feature will make you want to seek out the films that Cousteau himself made. Footage of 1930s trips contain “outstanding underwater cinematography that, at times, looks hand-tinted. Seeing a purple stingray glide under the water, and knowing the material is nearly a century old, gives everything a beautiful, eerie quality.”

 


The New Old West: Mihai Malaimare’s Reinventions for “The Harder They Fall”

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When is the last time you watched a western and felt how dangerous and hard it is to actually ride a horse? Perhaps never, which is something director Jeymes Samuel and DP Mihai Malaimare set out to rectify on new genre movie The Harder They Fall.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/the-new-old-west-cinematographer-mihai-malaimares-visuals-for-the-harder-they-fall/

“Our main approach was to place the camera as close as possible among horses galloping at full speed,” Malaimare tells NAB Amplify. “We used a Russian arm but drove it on a buggy since it was more capable of handling the soft terrain. We also mounted the camera (Red Monstro) on rifles carried by stunt guys riding horses, much like a selfie stick.”

That was just one technique the duo employed to lift the Netflix action-adventure out of the wagon rut.

“We both love westerns and talked about all the films we love including The Wild Bunch and Once Upon a Time in the West. We wanted to create something that pays tribute to classic westerns but with a totally different approach.”

The pairing is perhaps unusual. Samuel is a British singer-songwriter and music producer making his feature directorial debut. Malaimare has crafted films for Francis Coppola and won plaudits for PT Anderson’s The Master, The Hate U Give and Jojo Rabbit.

“What struck me, even in the script, was how much music it had. It wasn’t necessarily music that we would use but Jeymes had all these ideas for how he imagined music would play in different scenes. It’s fascinating to me because to be a good director you need to know editing and to be a good editor you need to know rhythm. Jeymes knew a lot about rhythm and how to express what he wanted. That was amazingly helpful.”

The template for some of the characters and look of The Harder They Fall is 50-minute short They Die By Dawn directed by Samuel in 2013. Starring Rosario Dawson as one four outlaws with a bounty on their heads, the film was unusual (for 2013) in having a cast led by people of color.

Even in 2021 the all POC cast of The Harder They Fall is still notable. Idris Elba, Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, Lakieth Stanfield, Delroy Lindo and Regina King all star.

The film was shot around Sante Fe and other New Mexico locations and is about an outlaw who discovers that the man who killed his parents has been released from prison. A posse of revenge ensues.

In prep, Samuel also brought visual references, among them the work of painter Kadir Nelson.

“It was his use of color saturation that struck a chord with me,” Malaimare says, who previously created a vivid color palette for Taika Waititi’s World War II drama JoJo Rabbit, based on period photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson. 

“It’s not that I Iike repeating myself but I enjoyed working on the color saturation in JoJo and felt this was another story where your collective memory puts you into a dusty environment that we felt was too dusty and drab for what we wanted. We’re not making a documentary. Inevitably dust will be present anytime you film a cart moving but we want to enhance the contrast... like a print on a glossy paper.”

The Romanian, who trained as a photographer before entering film school in Bucharest, prefers to use stills rather than movie references as a key into all his film projects.

“A good still is designed to be looked at for hours whereas a single frame in a movie doesn’t work as well unless seen as part of a sequence.

He continues, “In prep for this film I was struggling to find a tonal key. Kadir’s paintings are great as a starting point but paint is a different medium. I need a still photograph as a reference as well and I couldn’t find anything. I bought a bunch of books of stills from westerns and nothing stood out – everything was dusty.”

Until he chanced upon the book ‘Congo Tales’ by photographer Pieter Henket. “Every time I go to a location out of town I make the effort to go to the local bookstore and buy something,” Malaimare relates. “I don’t mind if it’s more expensive than getting something online, I want to support local bookshops. On this occasion it really paid off.”

Henket is not a photographer who ‘captures’ reality. He carefully builds his compositions, stylising his subjects and mixing light and color in the manner of a painter. He subtly refers to the Dutch masters of the 17th century, which as a Dutchman he knows through and through. For his images created in the Congo rainforest, for example, he used a powerful stroboscope powered by a battery to create Rembrandtesque lighting, evoking an atmosphere in the photographs that ties in with the myths of the Congolese.

Describing Henket’s work as “insanely saturated primary colors” Malaimare worked with the film’s art department to use colored light to accentuate the costume and set design.

“There are certain rules that come with the Western genre and you don’t want to fight against those,” he says. “You have to have a train robbery. With our framing of tight shots on cowboy hats we pay homage to Sergio Leone. And while a lot of westerns were shot spherical to deliver a widescreen image, for me, it had to be anamorphic.”

The cinematographer’s original choice of Panavision 1.3 Ultra Panatars were, however, not available. Photography was forced to delay due to Covid and when production resumed in September 2020, Panavision’s inventory was split all around the world.

“I like the combination of DXL with 1.3x Ultra Panatars because you don’t crop the sensor too much for 2.40:1 when using the full 8K aspect ratio of the sensor,” he says. “I needed a plan B.”

The DP was adamant he didn’t want to shoot T Series with a 2x squeeze and also felt the look of the newer glass would be too pristine and sharp.

“What [Panavision] showed me blew my mind. It was a T Series detuned from 2x to 1.85 squeeze which means the image is softer and flares more, all the qualities I wanted from an older set of lenses I found in this one.”

He took a full set of the detuned T Series plus a full set of Panaspeed large format spherical primes; Prism anamorphic 57mm, 75mm, 150mm; a Primo 125mm; 12mm H series and speciality lenses including 135 variable anamorphoser which can squeeze from 1.25 to 1.5. Malaimare used this for portraits.

“For night shoot sometimes I would go spherical and combine it with anamorphic without too many issues. I think there is something to shooting wide open at 1.4 than using a ton of light at 2.8 or 3.5 anamorphic because most anamorphic glass doesn’t look right when wide open.”


Considering Tape’s Role in the Green Data Center

NAB

After COVID, sustainability is the hottest topic set to impact corporate and social policy agendas for decades. Tape suppliers, not traditionally associated with green credentials, think they’ve spotted a sizeable gap in the cloud and are campaigning to exploit it.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/considering-tapes-role-in-the-green-data-center/

Tape-based storage vendor Quantum was recently busy promoting its new hyperscale storage system for “cold” data, claiming its technology can reduce costs by 80% over disk-based archive media. The company argued that tape is not only less expensive than disk but consumes considerably less power and cooling in a datacenter.

Now, Fujifilm has launched its own Sustainable Data Storage Initiative built around LTO-9 tape.

Curiously both companies have backed up their claims by funding research from IDC.

Fujifilm’s campaign launches with a whitepaper, “Accelerating Green Datacenter Progress with Sustainable Storage Strategies,” published by IDC. It reveals that, globally, data centers can reduce CO2 emissions by more than 43% by 2030, or 664 million metric tons, provided they use tape technology.

This amount is equal to the greenhouse gas emissions from 144 million passenger cars driven in one year, or the amount of energy used by 80 million homes in one year.

The whitepaper reaches these figures by making the case for more efficient electricity use, which includes more efficient storage policies.

Here are the arguments for using tape:

IDC and Fujifilm state that tape “remains, by far, the lowest-cost storage media on a cost-per-GB basis. Tape storage itself requires minimal power to operate and does not increase ambient temperatures, thus requiring minimal power to cool the datacenter environment. Furthermore, tape can reliably store data for long periods with an excellent bit error rate and a long archival life exceeding 30 years.

Given the rocketing volumes of data coming down the track, organizations should consider whether they need all of this “active” and readily accessible, or whether some if not all can be stored offline in a cold environment.

IDC and Fujifilm calls this a “nearline media” or an “active archive” tier, but the implication is that this data does not need to be kept on hard disk drives, which require constant power and cooling to maintain operations.

It’s all in the math: In a scenario in which an increasing amount of data to be stored is designated as “archival,” and 80% of archive data to be stored on enterprise storage systems and 57% of replicated data to be stored on enterprise storage systems is migrated to tape, the annual CO2 reduction by 2030 is 43.7%.

“Organizations that have moved away from tape or never used tape should consider it for its ability to reduce costs, improve carbon footprint, and provide the greatest possible assurance that data can be recovered from any fault or attack,” states IDC. “Even cloud-native solutions are discovering that high-capacity, automated tape systems can play an essential role in the core and cloud.”

There’s no doubt tape has a role to play in reducing carbon output, although there’s also no doubt that not manufacturing tape in the first place would have a positive impact, too.

IDC doesn’t mention the total footprint of manufacturing tape, which comprises plastic and a magnetic coating such as iron oxide, chromium dioxide, or ferricobalt.

 


Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” Is A Lot. Here’s How He Did It.

NAB

It must be a less stress inducing experience, doing press when you know the reviews of your film are good. Or better than good in fact. Dune still has to do the numbers at the box office, but director Denis Villeneuve seems to have conjured a film that even fans of the book will love.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/denis-villeneuves-dune-is-a-lot-heres-how-he-did-it/

Villeneuve prepared to take on Frank Herbert’s gargantuan and seemingly impossible to film mythology of power, ecology and geopolitics by first making a worthy sequel to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.

The massive themes of the book have daunted filmmakers. They range from the impact of colonialism to planetary ecosystems. Villeneuve – who studied science at college with an eye to becoming a biologist – was clearly touched by its environmentalism.

“I discovered the book in my teenage years and I remember being totally fascinated by what it was saying about nature—the true main character of Dune,” Villeneuve says in the film’s production notes.

He added, “To me, Dune is a psychological thriller, an adventure, a war movie, a coming-of-age movie. It’s even a love story.”

Given all that, his masterstroke may have been to cut the book in two. Rather than trying to cram all the themes, characters and plot lines into one bum-numbing movie, this is in fact Dune: Part One with a sequel already far advanced.

Dune, which premiered at Venice to stellar reviews, cost $165 million and stars Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Starsgard, Zendaya and Javier Bardem.

Perhaps the Canadian’s only mis-step has been to call out Warner Bros for its plan to stream the movie on HBO Max day and date with theatrical release.

“With this decision AT&T has hijacked one of the most respectable and important studios in film history,” he wrote in an open letter published at Variety. “There is absolutely no love for cinema, nor for the audience here. It is all about the survival of a telecom mammoth, one that is currently bearing an astronomical debt of more than $150 billion.”

Interviewed recently by the New York Times, he seems more emollient – but not much.

“It was for my mental sanity [that he wrote the letter] “I was so angry, bitter and wounded.”

He said he understands the pressures of the pandemic, but had made Dune as a love letter to the big screen in the mould of Lawrence of Arabia.

“The decision to stream the film seemed to Villeneuve symptomatic of threats to the cinematic tradition itself, which he sees as fulfilling an ancient human need for communal storytelling,” writes interviewer Helen MacDonald.

Dune is a passion project for the director who has harbored dreams of adapting it to screen for decades.  A huge part of his creative vision was to film it on location and to give those desert vistas maximum cinematic impact.

The location sequences were shot in Jordan (in the Wadi Rum desert where David Lean filmed portions of ‘Lawrence’), in the UAE and on huge sets at Origo Studios in Budapest– the same space which housed Blade Runner 2049.

Like No Time To Die, Dune was shot pre-pandemic and that’s significant as these epics could be among the last of this scale shot in traditional fashion on location.

The movie’s cinematographer, Greig Fraser ASC, came to the project straight after working on the virtual production stage of The Mandalorian. It would stand to reason that, were Dune shot today, virtual production would come into play to save the production cost and for Covid safety.

According to the Times, when Fraser offered the technology to Villeneuve, the director declined saying he wanted to shoot the movie in real desert landscape, “for my own mental sanity, to be able to inspire myself to find that feeling I was looking for of isolation, of introspection.”

However, the DP told me (in an interview published at IBC.org) that in fact the VP technology at that time (March to July 2019) was not in fact ready to be used on anything other than the highly bespoke setup at ILM for Disney. However, he suggested that virtual production could play a role mixed with location work for the Dune sequel.

Like NTTD, Dune also features sequences shot using IMAX to enhance the spectacle. Unlike NTTD Dune is shot digital.  Paul Atreidis’ visions, dreams and the desert sequences are shot on IMAX-certified Alexa LF with the rest shot in 2:35 format on the Alexa LF with large format Panavision Vista and H-series lenses. 

However, Fraser says he did compromise a bit. “We then did another technique where we filmed out the digital, meaning once the film was edited, Fotokem filmed it and then a negative was created. Next, they scanned that negative back in, so the film, which everybody sees, has been through an analog process. It’s a technique I’d been playing with for a little while but hadn’t actually applied to a feature film before.”

Again, as befitting the tactility of the film’s aesthetic, many of the effects are shot in-camera. This included building a big platform under the sand in Jordan which were able to be vibrated by ten engines to simulate the earth-shaking movement of the worms.

Another unique technique was the invention of a sand colored screen rather than a blue or green screen. VFX Supervisor Paul Lambert (Dneg) explains, “Because we knew that any background plate or CG environment was essentially going to be sand colored, the foreground live action would already be immersed in the same colored environment.  The bonus of this technique was that if you invert the sand color during the compositing process, you end up with a blue color, which then acts like a blue screen, allowing you to then do a more traditional matte extraction.

“Obviously, there are some issues with that—skin tone and similar sand colors will be a little more problematic—but you end up with a far more natural- looking visual when you are compositing an image that has been extracted from a color similar to what the final color is going to be. It’s a straightforward technique but very effective for this movie, which is all about sand.”

Kudos must also be given to editor Joe Walker ACE who has cut the director’s last four pictures. Walker and Villeneuve are not just collaborators but friends: they even shared a Christmas with each other’s families.

As the pair began work on the sequel Covid-19 necessitated remote working which Villeneuve found taxing. “It’s not the same,” he told the NYT. “It’s like playing music. There are so many ideas that Joe and I have, I don’t know if it’s his idea or my idea — it comes from the addition of us both being in the room. Which is by far my favorite thing about cinema.”

Again, the most sensible decision Villeneuve and the film’s producers have taken is to treat the book with respect for its complexity and not bite off more than they can chew.

“It was by far the biggest movie I’ve ever made, the most challenging,” he says in the film’s official release notes. “Dune is an appetizer for the second part still to come, which is the main meal.”

Friday 22 October 2021

Soundtrack: Nat Geo’s Genius: Aretha

copy written for Sohonet

https://www.sohonet.com/our-resources/blogs/soundtrack-nat-geos-genius-aretha/

National Geographic’s eight-episode series, Genius: Aretha, is the definitive scripted series on the life of ‘Queen of Soul’, Aretha Franklin. The dramatized life of the gospel prodigy, outspoken civil rights champion and legendary singer stars Cynthia Erivo (Harriet, The Color Purple) and is triple Emmy nominated, including nods for Erivo and for the sound mix, completed entirely remotely, by the team at Soundtrack in New York.

Re-recording mixer Dan Brennan has worked at Soundtrack in New York since 2006, with dozens of indie film and TV projects to his name, including Bone Tomahawk, Quantico and The Righteous Gemstones. He explains that production on Genius: Aretha started before the pandemic and always planned to have a large element of remote workflow.

“The audio team was split between Los Angeles and New York, with some of the show’s producers also in LA and some in Atlanta, so our first task was to figure out how to make it work with everyone spread across the country,” says Brennan. “At that time, we thought we’d connect a stage in LA with one in Atlanta, probably over Source-Connect, lock them together and do our playbacks that way. It was complicated but it could work.”

How far did you get down that route?

“We were in the process of figuring it out when the pandemic hit, and we had to change gears. Now the question was, ‘How are we getting this to anyone?’ Ken Hahn (CAS) and I were here on-stage, but everyone else was remote, including showrunner and EP Suzan-Lori Parks in New York. Our music editor, Marvin Morris, was in Denver. We tried a couple of software solutions for streaming to LA and didn’t find one we really loved. Then we came across Sohonet’s ClearView Flex. Once we put it through its paces, we knew the stability and the quality was there. It was a no-brainer for us.”

“Then we came across Sohonet’s ClearView Flex. Once we put it through its paces, we knew the stability and the quality was there. It was a no-brainer for us.”

Aside from connecting multiple production personnel remotely, can you tell us about the particular challenge of mixing Genius: Aretha?

“All shows have their complications and music is always unique because it can be so subjective. On Genius, we were recreating classic songs that people know from top to bottom. We all have memories of how old we were when we heard them, where we were and who we were with. Cynthia performed the songs live, on-set, and the music team did classic arrangements so when they brought the material to us, we were like, ‘How can we take their work and elevate it even more?’”

“The creative intent was to make you feel the emotion of what you remember from those songs without rendering an exact copy. We knew that this was going to be challenging, but when we realised that everyone was not just going to be on various stages but at on home on their laptops, that gave us huge concern. What people listen on really affects how a show like this works.”

“The creative intent was to make you feel the emotion of what you remember from those songs without rendering an exact copy”

“The Disney Nat Geo team understood this, and we were able to send everyone the same pair of headphones so that at least there was a consistent piece of the listening process. We just needed to figure out how to get the stream to them and make it easy for them to jump on and interact.”

 Can you outline your workflow?

“We had one ClearView Flex at Soundtrack and we were broadcasting from there. When we first set it up, we broadcast the stream from one of our stages here and took that to one of our other live mixing stages, so I was able to A-B the mix that way. I was able to go from one room to the other and see where the translation was. We learned that ClearView Flex is really pretty solid in terms of audio fidelity.

“A broad workflow for us would be that for the first day or two, Ken and I would work through pieces on our own, then we’d get online with the music team in Denver and LA, and with music producer Jamelle Adisa. After working through the music numbers with them, our showrunner Suzan-Lori Parks and director Anthony Hemingway would do their pass, and we’d take in notes. Sometime after that step, we’d do network playbacks for the crew at Nat Geo and Fox, where we had more than 15 people in the virtual room.

“We’d have everyone on Zoom to chat first and then we’d have everyone switch over to ClearView. When we had our first big playback — the first time we had it fully maxed-out — I was curious to see how the box was going to hold up. Would it strain the servers? Would there be glitches? Not at all. We had no faults through the whole season. It was remarkable just how consistently stable ClearView was, and I’ve since gone on to use it on a couple other projects. It’s been rock solid.”

As the pandemic recedes and back to the facility becomes an option, how has the work environment changed?

“We’re still maintaining social distance at Soundtrack, but it’s true that producers are excited to come back in and hear their work on the main stage. At the same time, I’ve just completed the mix on Dr. Death (crime drama miniseries for Peacock), while the music editor, showrunner and picture editor were in separate LA locations. So, I’m seeing people want to come back and have a full-mix experience, but also, when needed, it’s nice to have the flexibility to just send a stream to someone who is in a colour session or is traveling. Wherever they happen to be, they can just jump on. That’s a tremendous advantage.”

“It was remarkable just how consistently stable ClearView was, and I’ve since gone on to use it on a couple other projects. It’s been rock solid.”

What would make the remote playback experience better?


“I’d say that what has changed during this time is my own approach to mixing. I never paid a lot of attention to my headphone translation of mixes. I’d listen to stereo fold downs through small speakers, but on Genius, I realized that most people who were going to be signing off and making notes would be listening on headphones. So, I started to listen back on headphones a bit more and I let that influence my process a little. It wasn’t a major change, but enough for me to understand that certain aspects of the mix might feel too wide in this environment, or that other aspects I’d not noted before translated really well.”

“Audio can be so subjective to the space you are in, and different environments can produce different playback experiences. With so much content streaming to TV, my view now is that experiencing playback in a home TV environment shouldn’t ignored, but embraced. 

“On the last show I did, I was streaming a 5.1 mix to a client with Apple TV, and he was watching it the way it was going to be watched when it streamed a few weeks later. There’s something about that that I like. Playing back on a stage sounds awesome, but no-one gets to hear it. A project will never sound as good as it does on the stage. Unless you do a theatrical premiere of your first episode, you are never going to get that same sensation again. I like that we can mix for both. I can get all the detail on the stage and a real sense of 5.1, while my showrunner, working remotely, can get a sense of how it sounds in a living room.” 


The Emmy nomination is exciting!

“I’m very proud of our work. The whole team put so much into it. It was the first time I’ve done a scripted biopic of someone who is relatively modern — someone we have video and recordings of, so it was interesting to tell their story through a medium that we are used to seeing them in. With Aretha, we were working with her songs and music, and trying to put the audience right in the story with her.” 

 


The not so Hapless production story behind the new Netflix sitcom

 copy written for VMI

https://vmi.tv/blog/production-story/the-not-so-hapless-production-story-behind-the-new-netflix-sitcom/

When new comedy series Hapless lands on Netflix next week viewers will be unaware of its extraordinary journey to the screen. The British sitcom starring Tim Downie (The King’s Speech, Outlander) has been compared to Curb Your Enthusiasm or Fawlty Towers and revolves around the indignities of day-to-day life experienced by Downie’s oft-annoyed but well-meaning journalist. 

The writing is witty, the performances are terrific and the production values are everything you’d expect of a well-funded TV sitcom. 

Yet it was filmed with a skeleton crew on a miniscule budget and was initially rejected by several UK broadcasters. 

“On reflection that’s perhaps because it was originally called The Jewish Enquirer,” says Gary Sinyor, the series writer-director and producer. “As] s  

It was Channel 5 Controller Ben Frow who suggested a rebrand to Hapless when he bought the show to air on My5 earlier this year. The positive reviews that resulted caught the attention of Netflix which has now acquired the series – with an option of a second season. 

Also starring Geoffrey McGivern (Little Dorrit, Plebs), Lucy Montgomery (Tracey Ullman’s Show) and Josh Howie (Call Me Alvy), the sitcom follows Paul Green (Downie), a journalist for the UK’s fourth most successful Jewish newspaper, as he tries to find rubbish stories to please his narrow-minded editor (voiced by Sinyor). 

Sinyor wrote the script in 2018 but couldn’t convince a broadcaster to commission something they said felt like Curb Your Enthusiasm 

“As if Larry David’s show wasn’t one of the biggest comedy show hits of all time,” remarks Sinyor. “Besides, this was different. It has a very British sensibility. I wanted to create an edgy and mainstream comedy set in the crackers world we live in.” 

When an early investor in the project left Sinyor in the lurch he decided to put his own money on the line to produce it alone. That’s a risky finance model familiar to indie feature films but highly unusual in TV. 

Sinyor has vast experience making indie features including either directing, producing or writing films including Leon the Pig Farmer, Solitaire for 2 and United We Fall. 

In 2017 he also directed produced and wrote drama mystery The Unseen on a tight budget with a crew of just eight. He took all the lessons learned from that project and poured them into making Hapless at the end of 2018. 

Every part of production from crew to costume and camera kit was stripped back to essentials with all involved, including cast, on board with the DIY professionalism. 

“It is an absolute joy to shoot with a small crew without all the paraphernalia of a regular production,” he says. “We had one van with all the kit. The batteries were charged in my house. We didn’t need catering - we just ordered from Just Eat. I’m not saying this is how every show should get made just that it was a joy to remove those lavish expenses that come with the circus.” 

The seven person crew included DP (Luke Palmer who shot The Unseen and United We Fall) assistant camera and second assistant camera, two sound recordists, a production manager and Sinyor. 

“We needed a high-spec and portable package that fitted our budget and production style. I totally trust Luke in his camera choices and VMI were incredibly supportive in helping us obtain what we needed. Barry and Stuart totally understand the constraints of budget filmmaking and are ready to help out.” 

VMI supplied a ARRI Alexa Mini along with a set of Zeiss primes and accessories including tripod and gimbal. This is a highly portable suite that Sinyor’s team turned to their advantage. 

“Lighting for comedy is not as relevant as it is to a drama where the lighting plays a huge role. The series is set in daytime and really you need to see into the actor’s eyes because in comedy you get performance from seeing faces.  By being able to setup and shoot quickly also gave our actors room to improvise.” 

All the locations – a gym, a barbers, a florist, a park - are within 500 yards of Sinyor’s house. One of the sets is, in fact, his house.  

“The kit was so light we could for example shoot a scene downstairs and then shoot the next sequence in order upstairs. It makes it easier to maintain continuity and maintain the comic moment.” 

The camera was stripped down further to be inside a car. “The scene looks more natural when there’s no windscreen between the audience and the characters,” Sinyor says. “Nor am I a fan of being separated from the actors when I’m directing. We just popped the Mini on the dashboard while I’m hidden in the backseat. 

“It’s also liberating to be able to make decisions on set or change those decisions and communicate them when you’ve only got half a dozen people involved rather than chains of command.” 

Sinyor edited the six episodes under the pseudonym Des Latouche. Then, to generate interest among broadcasters he put the entire series onto Amazon Prime Video.  

That strategy worked because suddenly ViacomCBS came calling and bought the show for on-demand channel My5. Now the show is ready to reach new global audiences on Netflix with a second and third series written and ready to go. 

“If Netflix do commission series 2 I will be the first to ring up VMI and say I’m happy to pay rate card prices. That seems only fair to me given all the hard work they put in to giving us the best deal for the kit to make Series 1.” 

He adds, “I do think that when a production is well financed it should pay the going rate - precisely so that VMI can afford to help out other filmmakers with restricted budgets.” 

 

Dune: Behind the scenes with cinematographer Grieg Fraser

IBC

“Fear is the mind-killer,” says Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides in Dune. The hero must use his mind to overcome his fear. It’s a central theme of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel and one that also resonated with DP Grieg Fraser ACS ASC who is taking on the hallowed science fiction tome with director Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049). 

https://www.ibc.org/features/dune-behind-the-scenes-with-cinematographer-grieg-fraser/7992.article

“Fear is the reason I get up in the morning,” Fraser tells IBC365. “If I’m a little bit terrified or scared I find that so rewarding. I embraced that.” 

It’s not Fraser’s first rodeo. The Melbourne-born cinematographer landed an Oscar nomination for India-set drama Lion in 2016 and lensed Star Wars saga Rogue One for director Gareth Edwards. That led to a collaboration with director Jon Favreau for Disney on developing the look and the techniques to shoot The Mandalorian for which he picked up an Emmy. 

“You know there is a history, a fanbase and a set of expectations around Dune,” Fraser says. “So yes, there was a trepidation about doing this but I find that stepping up to a high bar makes me perform better. To that extent, feeling fear is actually helpful.” 

The 1965 novel is filled with myth making on the scale of Lord of the Rings. Like Tolkien’s epic it’s about the battle for power over the empire among warring clans and divided families. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s a political allegory set thousands of years in the future. It has a strong environmental message about the inhospitable desert planet of Arrakis and the preservation of scarce resources. These ideas and more make the book malleable to interpretation and also famously tricky to conceive on screen. 

Villeneuve treatment of Herbert’s epic harks back to the source material. Watching David Lynch’s 1984 version was not on the cards. 

“We’re making a film based on the book,” Fraser says. “We didn’t have playlist of films though we did watch a couple of films for ideas to avoid. Denis and I traded ideas for reference about how the world should feel.” 

He says the work of production designer Patrice Vermette and storyboard artist Steve Constancio inspired his look development. 

“I kept getting blown away by what Patrice and his artists were working on. It wasn’t just pictures of the location or of the sets but also the lighting. I more inspired by the lighting in their artwork than any other visual reference I found.” 

Likewise, he credits VFX Supervisor Paul Lambert, of Dneg, for an affinity with lighting. “He understands that if the light is wrong the VFX will look wrong. Therefore our screens aren’t blue or green but sand coloured or the colour of the environment. When we build a set he wants to put a top on it otherwise the light won’t have the right level of bounce. Normally in VFX meetings I feel the bad guy because I’m suggesting these things. With Paul, I didn’t have to.” 

This was Fraser’s first time working with Villeneuve although they’d met before at various functions. One of the first things they did in prep was work out the film’s visual language. 

“We did a test in the California desert near the Salton Sea which is very similar looking to Abu Dhabi in parts [one of Dune’s principal locations] and shot with IMAX film cameras, 35mm spherical and anamorphic, digital spherical and anamorphic. The reason I like doing that is I love listening to a director’s reaction. Whilst sitting next to a director in a screening you can pick up these signals by watching them react instinctively to what they’re seeing.” 

That’s how they decided on a camera package based on Arri Alexa LF IMAX (and Mini LF IMAX) with Panavision H-Series and Ultra Vista anamorphics Fraser had built with Panavision for The Mandalorian

“Denis had this idea very early on to frame 4:3 which is not a classic cinemascope ratio. It’s one that instantly has TV connotations. But what we did was embraced that format and that’s where IMAX excels [the IMAX ratio is 1.43: 1. This ratio is a storytelling device on Paul’s journey. His mind opens as he goes throughout the movie partially because of the spice and also because of the environment he is in. We used that top and bottom opening up idea in IMAX to express Paul’s journey.” 

The filmmakers had the luxury of being able to shoot film but deliberately went digital. “35mm or IMAX film felt a bit nostalgic in this environment. We wanted a clarity to the vision and that’s why digital was best choice.” 

Nonetheless, the digital negative was scanned out to film and rescanned back to digital at Fotokem, a process that Fraser believes leant the film at “a certain analogue quality, a real subtle filmic mystery to it, which we couldn’t have repeated had we shot film or digital by itself.” 

FotoKem also co-devised the LUT by combining highlights from a skip bleach bypass and the shadows from another LUT supplied by Fraser. 

This is big budget filming on an old school scale complete with location shoots in Jordan’s Wadi Rum rocky valleys, in Norway and on giant sets at Origo Studios, Budapest (also where Blade Runner 2049 was shot). 

Given Fraser’s expertise with virtual sets the film could have all been shot on a LED ringed soundstage – and Fraser says the second film, currently in preproduction, may go this route. 

“Patrice and Denis had their minds set on real locations – real dusk, dawn, real sets as much as we can. Remember I was still filming The Mandalorian as I was prepping Dune. I developed the Mandalorian technology for S1 and departed as per my contact after shooting three episodes [Baz Baz Idoine shot the rest] straight to prepping Dune. The reality was that at that time the tech was still in its infancy. It was just ready for primetime but it wasn’t widely available. Now we might make a different decision.”  

He continues, “When think about volume work it’s not all or nothing. Using the volume is most effective when its used for the very best things and you use the real world for other scenarios. For the next Dune who knows maybe if can mix and match shooting Volume with real world scenarios, the whole system becomes even more powerful.  

“We could literally be shooting in a sand storm in Abu Dhabi and have our characters rushing for cover inside of a cave [shot in a Volume] in the next scene. Ideally, the audience doesn’t notice there’s any difference in the two shooting environments.”  

Editor Joe Walker ACE talks of the benefits of location work to the actor’s performance. 

“Even the dryness of the desert air the actors were breathing helped the authenticity of their performance,” Walker says. “Yet the sets in Hungary were vast. What Patrice got right was the weight of the oppression of the palace structures. You feel the weight of stone above you and Dune is if nothing if not a fantastic piece about mankind’s place in the environment.” 

For his part, Fraser says his favourite scene depicts Paul’s first experience on the sand on Arrakis. “He arrives on a mission with his father and crew and when he steps out it’s him experiencing that sand for the first time. It’s such a simple idea but feeling this tactility for me was telling of his character. It foreshadows Paul connection to this land.” 

Of the director, Fraser says Villeneuve “doesn’t play those Hollywood games but he is very good at collaborating with the studio. He understands that no matter how big the explosions and set pieces are if you don’t have the story straight the audience will walk out feeling empty. 

“He also has this boyish desire to blow stuff up – which is something I share. But it’s everything in moderation. On Dune we shot intense character drama for a week then we’re shooting action scenes with Ornithopters and Carryalls [types of space craft] and wind machines.” 

Since filming Dune, Fraser has completed The Batman starring Robert Pattinson, some of which was shot in Liverpool in 2020. He says he enjoyed the city and spent a week there filming among places at the iconic Royal Liver buildings, although was quarantined to a hotel with crew. 

Despite a growing reputation for handling franchise properties, Fraser says “You may not find similarity in the films I’ve chosen to do,” he says. “I made Zero Dark Thirty back-to-back with Foxcatcher.  They have entirely different ideas, narratives and aesthetics. I just like working as hard as I can to keep changing it up.”