By Pauline Rogers

In the 1970s, it was Peggy Lipton, Clarence Williams III and Michael Cole as Julie, Linc, and Pete, three young people on the edge who become undercover cops. In the 1990s, it is Claire Danes, Omar Epps, and Giovanni Ribisi as the three young adults, working to protect their peers from the pressures of an out-of-control world.

"The idea was to keep as much of the 1970s television show flavor, but bring it to a younger audience with a sensibility they would understand," says cinematographer Ellen Kuras, ASC. This is what director Scott Silver told Kuras, when he approached her to shoot this big-budget major studio production.

Silver had asked Kuras to do his first picture, Johns, several years before. He had known her work in the independent world of movies, and respected her approach to shooting. Unfortunately, Kuras was booked on another project. So when the script for The Mod Squad was ready (which he co-wrote with Stephen Kay and Kate Lanier), Kuras was his first choice.

"When I first heard about the film, I was hesitant. I grew up watching the original television show, which had its own style and its own look, so I was wary about the prospects of re-making what had already been done before. Obviously, the parallels would be made, regardless.

"When I read the script, I was attracted by the seeming irreverence of the characters and the sarcasm in the dialog. To me, therein, was a possibility for the movie to stand on its own, to have a subtext apart from the TV show."

Silver and Kuras approached the story with a similar view. "We didn't want to make a period film," explains Kuras, "but we did want to refer back to the period with a '90s eye. Our first discussions were about the look - how to make the film edgy and dark, yet maintain some of the elements found in the '70s cop dramas. We looked at some of the Clint Eastwood movies like Dirty Harry as well as Shaft, The French Connection and Sid and Nancy. Scott was also very taken by the German film Christian F, which was a very dark, independent-looking film. What the challenge was for me, in these discussions, was to find the balance between the grittiness and independent feel that Scott wanted for the film and the big-budget studio movie look that the studio was going to want."

A veteran of the independent world and commercials, Kuras was familiar with shooting in different situations and with different budgets. On The Mod Squad, she would have the chance to test her creative sensibility in the world of studio filmmaking.

"In the beginning, Scott and I designed a few scenes which were not quite conventional in a typical movie," she says. For the scene in which the three Mod Squad cops are interrogated by one of the station officers, they planned to hand-hold the camera and cover the scene in a series of long takes, which would be jump cut in the editing room.

"I wanted the look to be stark and on the edge. The Mod Squad had been up all night. So, I worked with the gaffer to mix the color temperature of the lights and over-expose the key lights on the actors. We ended up using a combination of blue and yellow fluorescent bulbs in the practicals, and Tungsten on the key lights."

Kuras also wanted the camera to move in on the actors, beyond the minimum focus of the lenses, "so that the images would go soft in extreme close-ups. It was daring," Kuras admits. "Especially for the first week of dailies, which gave the studio a real scare. But that was the edginess we wanted."

The production design was also critical for this set. Kuras worked closely with designer Patrick Sherman in deciding on the green tones and the type of room to be designed to facilitate the shots. "Patrick was also very good about suggesting unusual practicals to be placed in the picture," Kuras adds.

"On The Mod Squad, mixing the color temperature of the lights became a new territory for me," she continues. "When I was shooting another film, I forgot to ask for one of the warm white fluorescents to be switched out in a hallway and the green became a thorn in my side.

Kuras laughingly admits that the "green was like the plague. I saw green - the Big B - everywhere. But, when used in a certain way, green can become quite beautiful. On The Mod Squad, I made a conscious decision to overcome my fear of green and learn how to mix lights of different color temperatures. I also decided to use colored gels on the lights themselves, something I never did before because I never liked the way colored gels looked."

When she discussed the color palette with Silver, they both agreed to stay within the warmer tones, yet allow the green to play. "By not taking the green out in the timing and by really mixing strange colors, we hoped to find an interesting and non-traditional palette for the picture," she continues.

Green and mixed lighting figure very strongly in the opening scene of the movie, which takes place at a rave party in a parking garage. "The location choice was really quite amazing and afforded me many possibilities in mixing the light. We used cool whites, warm whites - often set in the shot - Tungsten with Lee Golden Amber, primary red, yellow and Flame gels, and a few HMI PAR lights in the hallway.

"At first, I was reticent about putting color on the actors' faces as well as the background, but the color seemed to work well within the context of the location."

To further control the image and color, Kuras explored several different print processes in the lab. Working at Deluxe in Hollywood, she decided to test the CCE (Color Contrast Enhancement) process, to desaturate the colors and limit the contrast range of the film. Because the process retains the silver in the print, the colors appear more muted and the blacks become much more dense.

"Knowing that I would be using strong color in The Mod Squad, I was looking for a way to control the colors overall. I knew we would be in situations where control over the location/background would be difficult to manipulate. In running the preliminary tests, 1st AC Baird Steptoe Jr., 2nd assistant, John Young, and I went through all the possibilities of stocks, including 5293, 5298, 5274, 5279."

They also tested these stocks with different camera filters and lighting changes to see the effects of the CCE. Says Kuras, "We then made prints of the tests, using the CCE and non-CCE to compare the look. I found that the CCE enhances the grain, particularly in the highlights, so we went with the Kodak Vision stock, which produced a cleaner, more consistent look."

Because the process affects the colors and contrast, Kuras asked the production designer, makeup and costume design departments to take part in these tests as well. "I told them about the CCE process and how it might change the way they dealt with color.

"I asked the costume designer (Arianne Phillips) to bring various shades of red, for example, because I knew the reds would render differently. Arianne really liked the CCE, she didn't have to dye down the clothes and it gave her an opportunity to work with a deeper color palette, without intense saturation."

Kuras notes that one of the areas she found to be critical in working with the CCE was the makeup department. "I really woke up when I saw the first day of dailies that featured actor Dennis Farina. He had been golfing and sported a healthy tan, which I didn't realize would become as dark as it did through the CCE process. The reds in his tan became darker, rendered almost brown.

"I immediately set up a special dailies screening for all of the makeup personnel to see how the makeup should be changed. I then made Dennis swear that he would wear a hat during the rest of the shoot."

Kuras also notes that on The Mod Squad, she had a range of skin tones. "Claire Danes is very fair. Giovanni Ribisi has translucent skin color. Omar Epps is dark, and his skin reflects very little light. Very often, these three actors would be moving in the same frame.

"When increasing the contrast of the film with the CCE, I had to pay close attention to Omar, so that he would have more exposure and adequate separation from the dark backgrounds.

"At first, the makeup people put powder on Omar's face to reduce the shine. Then we realized that, in spite of the specials on Omar, the powder was absorbing all the light. Baird was instrumental in pointing out that Omar's natural shine would help, I then had freedom to light more evenly and not have to worry about hard shadows bleeding onto the other actors."

Another change Kuras made, in consideration of the CCE, was the use of filtration. Again, this had to do with the actors' range of skin tones. "After initially testing the chocolate filters (1,2,3), I had decided that they also helped to smooth out the colors into a slightly more monochromatic range. After a week of dailies, however, I saw that the chocolates were making it difficult for me to separate the actors from the background. Instead of putting in a back light or a rimmer, I ended up using the antique suede filters, or shooting only with minimal diffusion."

The exterior locations, always harder to control, were definitely difficult to address with the three actors together in the same shot. One scene was done with a swing set at the beach. "Claire and Omar were sitting quite close together on the swings with Giovanni standing in front of them.

"They all get up and walk and talk towards the camera, which is moving backwards, in a Steadicam shot. With this blocking, the intense glare of the sand and virtually no way to fly anything overhead or underfoot, we opted to have one of the electricians hand-hold (with a special harness to hold it) a 4K HMI PAR light - a special light for Omar. Yet, we still had to keep the light off of Claire, who, of course, was walking right next to him. Thank God for the grips!"

There were times when Kuras and crew arrived on a location and she didn't have the time to do what was necessary. Stylistically, one of her least favorite setups is the one that mimics the feeling of the television series, including the all-too-familiar snap zoom shots. "It's a scene set on top of a parking garage in the Wilshire district of Los Angeles. Pete, Linc, and Julie meet at the location, with their mentor/boss Captain Greer.

"Scott wanted to see the city in the background, so we had to set the actors against the mountain of buildings. The sun, however, was frontal and somewhat overhead - just plain flat. Actually it was perfect if we were shooting an actual 1970s television cop drama.

"Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly what I was looking for, and I had no place to put negative fill and very little room to fly a large enough quarter silk, because of the wind and the wide angle. Besides, it was supposed to be a knock-off scene. We had to get in and out fast."

Kuras had little other choice but to fly a smaller silk and convince Silver to keep the wide angle to a minimum.

Night exteriors were treated differently because of the CCE process. Where there normally would be detail in the shadow areas with a bit of fill, the CCE required much more light to maintain a level. "Scott wanted to keep the movie dark, yet I pushed to add more light into the shadows. I kept on reminding him that he couldn't rely on his naked eye - the film would be black, zip, nothing there."

Kuras brings this to light in a scene where Linc, Julie, and Pete are staking out the suspects, who are in a trailer parked on the edge of the beach. "Of course, it was a night shot. The trailer was right next to the water. It was impossible, considering our resources, to even consider floating a raft out on the water to back light it. Yet, Scott wanted to see the water."

Kuras tried joking with him to get him to see that there were other alternatives to show they were at the water's edge. "I began expounding on the miracles of the sound. Scott's got a great sense of humor, but he didn't buy it. I had to rely on lighting the trailer from the inside and bringing up the level of the ambience outside. I also tried to frame out the water as much as possible.

"Sometimes, we can stay truer to our original ideas than other times," Kuras admits. She explains that she and Silver often discussed the specific language of television series shots, angles, and lighting, which differed from the bad guys to the good guys, for example.

"The lighting tended to be flat, the shots often dictated by the new developments in camera technology like the zoom (POV shots). The locations were typified by dark hallways and alleys.

For example, in choosing many of the locations, Silver actively sought out places like the interior parking garage and hallways. "One of his specific building requests was to have a long hallway that led into Julie's apartment, so that Linc could run down the hallway and burst into her door," says Kuras.

"Originally, we were going to use more of the 1970s conventions," Kuras reveals. "But, as the movie developed, we realized that they could overwhelm the telling of the story and distract the viewer. Forced comparison to the 1970s conventions would eventually make the audience compare this Mod Squad to the television series. We wanted the film to stand on its own."