Our DP mix this time around includes a veteran tabletop director/cameraman who’s experimented extensively with the Phantom HD camera, a noted feature and commercials cinematographer whose experience entails working with lauded feature filmmaker Sam Mendes in both those disciplines, and a long-time collaborator of director Andrew Douglas, their latest teaming being the engaging “Journey” for Canon, a recent SHOOT Top Spot (6/6) out of Grey New York.
Ellen Kuras
Earlier this year, SHOOT chronicled the exploits of cinematographer Ellen Kuras, centering on her feature directorial debut, Nerakhoon (the Lao word for Betrayal) which made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the Documentary Competition. Telling the story of a refugee family from Laos, the film is a mesh of documentary, soulful dramatic narrative and intimate love story. At press time, Nerakhoon had just made its New York premiere at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival at Lincoln Center.
But prompting us to now revisit Kuras were a couple of prime developments–her lensing of the hit Super Bowl spot “It’s Mine” for Coca-Cola, directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ, and her current lensing of The Farlanders, a comedy directed by Oscar winner Sam Mendes (best director in 2000 for American Beauty), with a cast that includes John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph and Maggie Gyllenhaal. This marks Kuras’ first time working with Mendes on a feature but she’s no stranger to the director, having earlier shot a series of Allstate commercials for him.
Kuras first got to know Mendes while shooting the Michel Gondry-directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which starred Kate Winslet who is Mendes’ wife. Kuras and Mendes struck up a friendship and the cinematographer found the director to be “astute and smart. As I got to know Sam, it made me want to work with him. Happily I’ve been able to, first in commercials and now with this feature.”
She’s enjoyed the experience. While a comedy, The Farlanders, said Kuras, also touches upon people’s sense of home and identity. Kuras said she was drawn to the humanity in Mendes’ work.
Similarly, she cited the “humanity” that Fuglsig infuses his work with, as he did with the aforementioned “It’s Mine,” a charming tale starting with two Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons–Underdog and Family Guy’s Stewie–giving chase after a Coca-Cola contour bottle balloon only to have Charlie Brown unexpectedly rise up and take possession of the sought after bottle.
Fuglsig directed the Coke spot for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., with visual effects from The Mill, New York.
As with Mendes, Kuras has a history with Fuglsig. They had teamed on the ambitious Guinness’ “Tipping Point” domino-style-effect commercial for Abbot Mead Vickers BBDO, London.
“Nicolai is utterly prepared,” assessed Kuras. “He looks at a project backwards, upside down, right side up, sideways, from all angles. I knew that from Guinness. Nicolai wrote about a 15 page treatment for the Coke commercial–and to see his vision for the work made my job easier even though it was a very involved piece with visual effects and plate work. We had to deal with the size of the balloons and how they would play on the street and in the air [including CG balloons].”
On Thanksgiving Day, Kuras was shooting at the Macy’s Parade, finding herself in a specially outfitted camera car/golf cart. “It was a thrill. It was like being part of a gunner crew and we were at the head of the parade, with a huge zoom lens on a 35mm film camera [Arriflex 435],” she recalled. “The camera movement and the plates had to be the same speed we wanted the balloons to move–and for Nicolai that was a slow, lyrical pace. We used the car not as a dolly, but more a window from one place to another, looking up at buildings, for example, and getting crowd scenes.”
Additionally the project entailed lensing from a helicopter and getting overhead plate shots.
While actual balloons were constructed, most of the final balloons in the commercial were CG. Additional separate shoots on both coasts had Kuras capturing the lyrical feel of the story, including the sense of the duel between the balloons as people go about their daily business. In one shot, a couple is arguing as a balloon brushes along the window of the high-rise room they’re in. Actors had to interact with larger than life balloons that weren’t there. Also Kuras had to capture a true feel of how balloons would move past one another in pursuit of something, giving CG artisans context and points of reference for their work.
There was extensive plate shooting on building tops, with Fuglsig orchestrating exactly how he wanted the action to move and unfold–left to right past one building, ascending past another and so on. Fuglsig was even conscious of the kind of rooftops he wanted to see as various vignettes came to life.
For Kuras the key was that she and Fuglsig “never lost sight of the story, the drama. All along the way Nicolai trusted my judgement and we worked closely together when things were working well and in those instances when they weren’t, helping to problem solve along the way. He’s a great director with enormous heart. He puts a lot of himself into his commercials, which gets back to the humanity I was talking about. I’d work with him anytime.”
Flor Collins
DP Flor Collins played an integral role in “Journey” which promotes Canon’s new EOS Rebel XSi and the camera maker’s NFL sponsorship by piecing together the arc of a football play through a series of seemingly still yet moving images capturing a range of scenarios, starting with the hike in a backyard game all the way to a touchdown being scored in a stadium. As the journey from amateur to pro football progresses in the spot, the quality of the still photos improves, reflecting the development of a more artful eye when one works with the Rebel.
Conceived by Grey New York and directed by Andrew Douglas of Anonymous Content, the commercial engagingly threads a single story through multiple environments via still images. Douglas consulted with visual effects house Asylum to find the most effective technique and means to achieve the desired effect.
At each lensing location, Douglas would stage the scene, line up a pack of 10 photographers that included himself, Collins and crew members, then have them simultaneously shoot the action with the Canon DSLR as it played out. Every scene was captured from a dizzying array of angles and depths, with a massive editing process handled by Michael Elliot of Mad River Post, New York.
“When I got the details of the job,” said Collins, “and saw the direction that Andrew and the agency wanted to go, I was thinking, ‘this should be a really exciting, fresh commercial…if it works.’ It’s always interesting to work on jobs where you have to try something new and work outside your comfort zone. In commercials we’re working with material usually filmed at 24 fps which translates to a shutter speed of 1/48th of a second. On Canon we were working at shutter speeds of between 1/500th and 1/1,000th of a second, thus capturing more ‘frozen moments’ and showing them in a different way than the usual high speed filming we’ve done before. A fresh way of looking at the world.”
As for the project’s biggest challenges, Collins related, “Initially my main worries were about visualizing what we had to shoot and also how to establish an efficient workflow, to handle 10 cameras and all the images they would be producing. With regard to visualizing–on a regular commercial, we’ve got storyboards, we shoot a scene, we look at playback, everyone’s got an idea of how it’s going to cut together. When the director and agency are happy, we move on. Everyone’s speaking a common storytelling ‘language.’
However, he continued, “On Canon, we were all learning a new language as we shot. Although we had shot some tests at Asylum, to show the idea would work, there was still a leap of faith as we were shooting, because nobody could really say what the spot would look like, until Michael Elliot and the guys at Asylum both did their magic.
“We were getting fantastic images,” said Collins, “and it was easy to be lulled into a false sense of security and forget the storytelling requirements of each set-up…”
Collins credited Russ Langford and Brendan Pattengale from Digital Fusion with doing “a great job of setting up an efficient on-set workflow for handling the images. After shooting a couple of takes with 10 stills cameras, shooting up to 10 fps, we potentially would have 1,000 stills frames coming back to our version of video village for download and review. Thanks to Russ and Brendan, we were usually able to be reviewing the first camera within five minutes.”
Regarding his collaborative relationship with Douglas, Collins related, “My job is to help a director to turn his ideas into pictures. So, when Andrew outlined the idea of ‘Journey,’ he wanted me to figure out the technical details of capturing those images…what cameras to use, digital workflow, etc. He’s got a great eye and I just try and help him create and photograph beautiful images/stories in the most efficient way possible.
“People get spoiled working with Andrew. He’s incredibly nice guy and very collaborative. He likes and expects ideas from his crew. The mood on a set comes from the top and he creates a mood where we work hard but we try to have fun. No one’s walking around on eggshells. You see everyone on the crew willing to go that extra mile, to help him achieve what he needs on a shoot.”
Collins has a long track record with Douglas, dating back to 1990. “I was living in London, having left Ireland to go to film school there,” recalled Collins. “Back then, he [Andrew] was a photographer, working with his brother Stuart, as ‘The Douglas Brothers’ and they were just starting to do some pop videos.
“Since then,” continued Collins, “I’ve worked on almost everything he’s directed, first as a focus puller, then as operator and now as DP. It’s a never ending learning experience working with Andrew. He’s always pushing himself, always wanting to try something new. If you look at his work, there’s an incredibly broad range of material. He’s never satisfied with mastering a genre, he always wants to challenge himself–which is good, because that forces those of us who work with him to expand our own boundaries.”
As for the Canon spot itself, Collins shared, “I was thrilled when I saw the final cut of ‘Journey.’ It was excitingly fresh and a great example of what can happen when great creative combines with a great director.”
Jerry Simpson A couple of years ago, veteran tabletop director/cameraman Jerry Simpson of Simpson Films in Long Island City, N.Y., called Vision Research about experimenting with its Phantom HD camera on high-end food and product photography. But the Phantom folks said the camera wasn’t yet ready for primetime.
A year later, though, Phantom became real–and ready for Simpson to put through its paces on tests involving the lensing of water, berries, even liquid pouring. “The results were mind blowing,” said Simpson, a self-avowed “film guy.”
This led to Simpson holding an event for DPs last summer, showcasing what the Phantom could do. Then the director/DP decided to take that showcase to the next level, getting feedback from ad agencies as to their interest and concerns about the camera. He found that there was plenty of both, with some of the reluctance stemming from workflow logistics.
He then brought in Iridas Software, established edit houses like Version2, Big Sky Editorial and Cut+Run, and post shops such as Company 3 and Nice Shoes into the mix to address and resolve any workflow dilemmas, including making color grading responsive and efficient. This supported his lensing of eight spots–specs for McDonald’s (a total of three), Heineken Beer, the Omega 007 Watch and adidas; and two real-world jobs, Dannon Yogurt ad for Y&R, New York, and an ad promoting energy drink Jet Set for a creative who was independently working on the account.
These spots were screened during an evening event at Simpson Films earlier this month for a cross-section of industry folks, sparking a dialogue on this new lensing direction for the industry. “I think this was a preview of where spot production is heading,” related Simpson, who rattled off a list of the camera’s benefits, including being able to create a new, fresh look, the Phantom’s compact profile which helps open up more creative avenues and access for shooters, being able to see on set precisely what the camera is recording, giving the director more time to shoot different scenes and other creative possibilities, and an eco-friendly orientation (none of the toxic chemicals used in film creation and development).
While he continues to shoot and appreciate 35mm film, Simpson sees the Phantom as a viable HD option.
He feels confident that he’s worked out the bugs in his rounds of experimenting with the camera. For instance, when shooting Dannon Yogurt, Simpson felt the Phantom reacted strangely to the color magenta. “I wasn’t sure if it was the color, the heat or the lens,” he said, “but it was creating some banding.”
Simpson informed Vision Research of the problem, sending the company stills of the issue he was confronting. The stills were sent to Romania where Vision Research tech experts are based. They redesigned the sensor board and the problem was resolved.
Though he doesn’t want to disclose the tricks he’s learned, Simpson said in broad strokes that some DPs in the past have made the mistake of lighting for negative film when working with the camera. The key, he shared, is “to light for color reversal print film or color reversal motion picture film in order to attain optimum performance from the Phantom.”
Word of Simpson’s success with the camera has prompted requests from several ad agencies to present the work at their offices. Screening displays, monitors and support resources provided by Panasonic are helping to make those screenings possible. “I’ve discovered that Panasonic’s displays and drives work extremely well with this kind of work in terms of best showcasing it,” said Simpson.
The Phantom, he continued, has come a long way in just two years–from not being ready for his high-end work to now helping to take it to a fresh, new level.
