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This article originally appeared in Markee in 1996 Using lighting to help advance the story line is the goal of cinematographer Tom Del Ruth, ASC on Chasing the Dragon, a made-for-television movie for the Lifetime Channel. “I find challenge in creating visual images that enhances the story line,” he explains. Chasing the Dragon, produced by Sander/Moses Productions and directed by Ian Sander, is the story of a middle-class woman’s descent into heroin addiction. Markie Post (Night Court, Hearts Afire), plays Gwen, a single mother coping with the pressures of raising a 12-year-old son and her job at a computer software design firm. At a party, a friend offers her a small packet of white powder. Upon discovering the relief from reality provided by the drug, Gwen is soon hooked. Gwen’s path from stressed-out professional to desperate addict is highlighted by the style Del Ruth uses to paint each scene. From the soft lighting in the early part of the movie, to the harsh street lights that illuminate scenes in which Post’s character deals with drug pushers, the depth of her troubles is underlined by Del Ruth’s choice of lighting. The very real problem of drug abuse in the middle class drew Del Ruth to the project. “The story is one worth telling,” he explains. “It has a ring of authenticity and is extremely well written. It’s a story of redemption — she redeems herself through inner strength as well as the help of her son and a friend.” Del Ruth says the visuals highlight the ravages of drug addiction. “It’s the dreadful process of withdrawal as seen through the camera’s eye,” he says. “We make no attempt to glamorize the taking of drugs — that’s personified through the imagery.” The movie’s early scenes are bathed in a soft light, but as Gwen’s habit deepens, the lighting grows darker. Post is first seen in what Del Ruth describes as “flattering, three-quarter back cross lighting with golden highlights. Markie looks like the Markie Post that audiences throughout the U.S. have come to expect. We slowly remove that light and swing it to the side so that whatever imperfections that may be present in her personality can be accentuated through the cross light. As the addiction progresses, most of the light on Markie comes from the back three-quarter sides which are by far the most unattractive angles for a woman.” The lighting of a particular scene was determined by where the character was in the narrative, “You light according to where she is in her feelings,” says Del Ruth. “For example, if it’s a scene in an office building and there is overhead lighting, I’ll turn that overhead light off if the scene calls for her to be in partial withdrawal or in search of drugs. I’ll light exclusively from the sides, and sometimes I’ll let the windows go dark to emphasize the loneliness of the character in the particular environment.” The movie was shot in Atlanta during one of the rare cold spells to hit the city, and along with concerns about keeping the equipment warm, Del Ruth also dealt with a number of outdoor scenes at night. Del Ruth put available street light to good effect in illustrating the depths to which Gwen had sunk. Using city street light might be a challenge to some, but Del Ruth felt that particular illumination was essential to the narrative. He says the Atlanta streetlights have a “yellowish-golden cast to the light, and I love yellow-gold nights because it’s very urban feel.” Del Ruth says he finds using the yellow-gold streetlights far more appealing than any other method of achieving a night feeling on film. “I know people over the years have used blue to signify night,” he explains, ”but I can’t show blue nights — I have never seen a blue night for as long as I’ve lived! When I step out at night, the moon is white and the streets around it are yellow, especially in urban areas.” This look carried over into a scene taking place indoors. An abandoned factory building served as a dope house where Gwen goes to score some heroin. To give the location a particularly sinister cast, Del Ruth lit it from below, covering the movie lights with gels to simulate the same yellow-golden color as the streetlights. “The interiors have the same colors as the street,” he explains, “which creates an very eerie and strange feeling. We had to hide the lights behind existing, rusting gratings to do what we needed to do.” A veteran cinematographer with credits in feature films, commercials, made-for-television movies and episodic TV, Del Ruth says he has no particular trademarks in terms of lighting. “I use whatever instrument I find,” he explains. “I tend to look at lighting instruments wherever I see them to discover what kind of effect they have. If the effect is interesting and small enough to be hidden from view, I’ll use it.” Del Ruth says that the director left the choice of lighting up to him. When he met with Sander for the initial interview after reading the script, he discussed his ideas on what the movie would look like and what he could attempt to achieve that look. “His mind and my mind were one and the same,” says Del Ruth. “From the git-go, we were simpatico on how he wanted it to look and I wanted it to look. I was on track from the beginning.” Though there was agreement between Sander and Del Ruth, the cinematographer points out that Post had the potential to be a “fly in the ointment” in the choice of how she would be lit. “You’re dealing with a television star who — perhaps for the first time — is being made to look less than glamorous. But, Markie was a real trooper. She has not flinched once when the light was brought around. She is a definitive television actress in that she knows how she is going to look best. From years of experience, she has a sense of where the light is and the quality of that light; and on this picture, she went with it. This is a strong dramatic role for her and she’s well aware the visuals complement her performance.” The computer screen at the office where Gwen works provided Del Ruth with a particular challenge. To make sure that the images on the computer screen meshed, Del Ruth used an interlock on his Panaflex Gold camera, keeping the computer imagery in sync with the cameras’ 24 frames per second. Del Ruth also worked with the lighting to suit the computer screen. “The screen dictates the brightness of the set around it,” he explains. “I adjust the lighting to enhance the screen to its maximum and make it integral to the wider shots. I’ll add some overhead lights to give a colder, clinical lighting to this high tech environment as opposed to the warmer light of her apartment.” Del Ruth chose Eastman EXR PRIMETIME 640 T film to capture the varying lighting environments of Chasing the Dragon. An ultra-high speed film customized for originating episodic programs, television movies and mini-series, Del Ruth says the PRIMETIME was the best choice for a production like Chasing the Dragon which will run only as a television movie and not go into theaters in overseas markets. He was first introduced to the stock while shooting the pilot for the TV series Courthouse and was impressed with its imaging characteristics. “I thought the film’s latitude was very interesting, and that I could use it,” he explains. “It holds colors very well and you have a tremendous amount of manipulation available to saturate or desaturate colors as you need it.” Designed specifically for television, PRIMETIME helps cinematographers shoot without worry of lighting details causing problems in telecine transfer, Del Ruth says. “From a television point of view, you have budgetary restrictions. You can’t always neutralize a window to bring the image into photographic balance. You can use the overexposure latitude of the film to create extremely bright or very dark images. On this project, I could hold bright exteriors in balance without having to augment the foreground illumination or reduce the light through the window because of that. I knew I had a tremendous amount of contrast range, so I could take the shadow areas down into black and keep the midranges where I wanted them to be without fear there would be a lot of ‘noise’ in the transfer.” The film stock proved to be especially useful in the scenes involving computers. “PRIMETIME comes to your aid,” says Del Ruth. “If you have a slight bluish cast to the image or problems with color temperature, the transitions on this particular film are easier to make. “You can shoot with mixed color temperatures,” he continues. “You can mix mercury vapor and daylight, and in the final transfer, you can blend it all together so that the disparity between the elements are brought to a single source.” Del Ruth has deep roots in filmmaking. His father, Roy, was a producer/director and his mother was a musical comedy star. After stints in the Army and at the Film School of the University of Southern California and the University of Heidelberg School of Fine Arts, Del Ruth became an assistant cameraman and camera operator, working on feature films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He says he learned his craft working with such noted cinematographers as Conrad Hall, Jordan Cronenweth and Bruce Surtees. In 1979, Del Ruth became a director of photography on television movies of the week, and went on to produce and direct television series and commercials. The list of feature films on which Del Ruth served as director of photography includes Mighty Ducks, Look Who’s Talking, The Running Man, Stand By Me and The Breakfast Club. His television work includes numerous series and the pilots for such hits as The X Files and ER, for which he received Outstanding Achievement Awards from the American Society of Cinematographers and nominations for an Emmy Award in cinematography. Del Ruth says he has a “strong following” in television because of his ability to produce outstanding work in a short period of time. He particularly relishes the challenges provided by the medium. “Most any decent cinematographer can produce a very interesting image given adequate amounts of time and money,” he explains. “The real challenge in cinematography today — especially with the number of cable channels — is the ability to produce a dramatic and interesting storytelling image in an extraordinarily short period of time using the minimal amount of equipment. You frequently have 30 percent of the equipment you’d like to have, but you make it work with what you can do.” Although he has directed a number of TV episodes and commercials, Del Ruth says he prefers the role of cinematographer. “I don’t find directing to be that challenging,” he explains. “I like to dedicate myself to lighting. I like that aspect of the job and always have. That’s what attracted me to filmmaking to begin with.” More than anything, Del Ruth says he enjoys the adventure of filmmaking and the idea of that the fruits of his labor have a longevity that will surpass his own lifetime. Whether or not there’s a demand for Chasing the Dragon 50 years from now, he feels delighted knowing that the movie will exist in some form for people who want to get an idea of the social problems and lifestyles of the late 20th Century. “I enjoy the idea of participating in something that is in itself a record
of history,” he declares. “There’s a certain sense of satisfaction in knowing
there’s a permanence to what you do.”
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