A Simple Play of Light and Color Paints
a Picture of Laurel Canyon
by Bob Fisher

When Sam arrives at the family home with girlfriend Alex Elliot (Kate Beckinsale) in tow, worlds collide as the pair find themselves becoming increasingly drawn into Jane Bentley’s rock n’ roll orbit. The Sony Classics release was produced by Scott Ferguson and Jeffrey Levy-Hinte who teamed up writer/director Lisa Cholodenko with cinematographer Wally Pfister, ASC.

“This was the first time Lisa and I worked together,” Pfister says, “but she was a fan of Memento, which I shot in 2000. We hit it off immediately.”

After reading the script, he and Cholodenko discussed a visual strategy. One of their strong references was based somewhat on the compositional logic of Mike Nichols’ film, The Graduate. “It’s a well thought out visual formalism with humor which we thought applied to Laurel Canyon,” Pfister says.

The cinematographer began his career as an Emmy Award-winning documentary cameraman for the celebrated PBS series Frontline before until he moved to Los Angeles in 1988. ” I come out of a handheld camera tradition, but Lisa and I agreed that we should keep away from that frenetic look we see so often these days,” he says. “Instead we kept our cameras mounted on a dolly and planned our moves carefully. We started out with not much camera movement at all, reflecting the conservative point of view of the son.”

As the story evolved, camera movement becomes livelier. Pfister worked with Panaflex Platinum B and Gold II cameras and Primo lenses, mainly a 4:1 zoom. “I love the contrast and sharpness of that lens package and rely on the zoom as a quick adjust tool for framing and composition,” he says.

With no budget for elaborate sets, he and the crew worked in practical Hollywood area locations including a house in Santa Monica and a garage studio outfitted by production designer Catherine Hardwicke (Vanilla Sky, Three Kings)

“Lighting the recording studio was a particular challenge because of the low ceilings,” Pfister says. “We didn’t want a music video feeling. We wanted the lighting to feel natural, which we got with a mix of warm tungstens and HMI’s, using MR16 bulbs inside household track light fixtures. There was also a 6K PAR bringing light through the window, and we also used hid some little Kino Flo Diva lights, which are punchy but still allow you to use diffusion.”

Pfister also decided to “keep it simple” and used only two stocks (Kodak Vision 500T film 5279 and Kodak Vision 250D film 5246).

“Dealing with the color balance in the winter sky when the sun starts to set can be tricky,” he says. “Because of its grain structure, I used 5246 on all of the day exteriors, and didn’t worry about the balance between the warmth in the sun and the cool ambient blue in the changing sky. With 5246, I could use the shift to my advantage.”

Pfister says the Kodak Vision 500T film is “a flexible high speed stock that I relied on for all my interiors and basically all my night exteriors as well.”

Describing his techniques, Pfister says he’s not “a hugely, stylized cinematographer,” and on this film he let nature tale its course.

“The winter light between October and January is a great time to shoot outdoors,” he says. “We created a visual theme by letting the film stocks, lenses and natural light reveal the simple beauty and the very special colors of the Laurel Canyon area.”