Brian J. Reynolds Discusses Gang Related for the Big Screen
By Bob Fisher

This article originally appeared in FILM AND VIDEO in 1997.

Brian J. Reynolds is known as the guy who changed the look of episodic TV with his edgy camerawork on N.Y.P.D. Blue. Reynolds has earned four consecutive Outstanding Achievement Award nominations from the American Society of Cinematographers and an Emmy nomination for his camerawork on N.Y.P.D. Blue. Don’t be surprised if he does it again next year for the pilot of Brooklyn (South), another Steven Bochco dramatic series.

You can see another side of Reynolds’ work this summer when Orion Pictures Entertainment brings Gang Related to the cinema. The film features Jim Belushi and Tupac Shakur with a supporting cast that includes James Earl Jones, Dennis Quaid, David Paymer, Gary Cole and Lela Rochon. The writer-director is Jim Kouf.

Reynolds is a self-made cinematographer. He started shooting Super 8 film at the age of seven. His first job was as a still photographer taking pictures for commercial photography as well as fashion. Within several years, Reynolds was shooting commercials around the world. This is Reynolds’ second film for the big screen. The first was Guarding Tess. Following are excerpts of a conversation about Gang Related:

QUESTION: What’s the story about?

REYNOLDS: It’s a dark comedy about two homicide detectives (Shakur and Belushi) who are sick of drug dealers being back on the street because of holes in the justice system. They decide to take justice into their own hands by killing a known dealer and making it look like a gang shooting. The problem is they discover the guy was an undercover DEA agent and decide to cover up their crime by framing another criminal.

QUESTION: What’s the setting and location?

REYNOLDS: It's a present day story that takes place in a large, East Coast city. We shot in Los Angeles, but we wanted it to look like New York, Chicago or Detroit. We called it, jokingly, ‘New Detroi-cago.’

QUESTION: Have you worked with Jim Kouf before?

REYNOLDS: This was the first time. He’s a writer-director with many writing and producing credits, mainly action-adventure films. Our executive producer was his wife, Lynn Bigelow.

QUESTION: Do you know why they hired you?

REYNOLDS: Jim and Lynn say N.Y.P.D. Blue is one of their favorite shows. They also knew we shot eight pages a day. In Gang Related, we shot 118 pages, in 30 days.

QUESTION: When you say dark comedy, what does that mean to you?

REYNOLDS: It has serious undertones with some comedy — not slapstick — and elements of satire. It’s a dramatic comedy that's a slice from a month or two of these guys’ lives. It’s like a snowball rolling downhill. It begins with a simple idea, and when something goes wrong, the problem gets bigger and bigger.

QUESTION: What did you like about the script?

REYNOLDS: It was smart and sharp with a street-wise feeling. I knew the look would be gritty and realistic, which is the kind of story I want to shoot.

QUESTION: How do you deal with the fact that right at the beginning, they murder somebody and the audience knows it? How do you make the audience care about them?

REYNOLDS: The interesting thing is that you immediately like the characters played by Jim Belushi and Tupac Shakur. They are anti-heroes, but are really funny.

QUESTION: In the end does the audience care whether they get away with it?

REYNOLDS: I think there will be some empathy for the characters, and for what it is they were trying to do, but the main fabric of the movie is their attempts to cover up their crime by framing other people. One of the people they try to frame is an ex-heart surgeon, who has been wandering the streets for years since his wife died in a car accident. That part is played by Dennis Quaid. It’s a great role for him.

QUESTION: Is he an important part of the story?

REYNOLDS: Yes. They think he is just a homeless wino, so they try to brainwash him into believing that he killed this guy. It actually goes to trial. A lot of the story takes place in courtrooms.

QUESTION: How much time did you have to prepare for a 30-day shoot?

REYNOLDS: I had about two weeks, including a lot of location scouting, and that’s a luxury for someone like me after six years of episodic TV.

QUESTION: Did Jim Kouf have a clear visual picture of what he wanted to do?          

REYNOLDS: He had a very clear idea, but as the characters were cast, it got a lot clearer. Jim and I, and the production designer, watched a ton of movies, including Seven, Blade Runner and La Femme Nikita. We also looked at several of Vittorio Storaro's films as a refresher for the way he uses color to influence the audience.

QUESTION: How did you use color?

REYNOLDS: We used street colors representing urban decay. If you are in downtown Los Angeles or New York or whatever, you have this wonderful mixed light, including orange sodium vapor lamps, cool white-green fluorescent lights, warm practicals inside business establishments, mixed with green overhead fluorescents. One of the films we looked at was Goodfellas, where Michael Ballhaus (ASC) used color to influence the mood of the scene. He used orange and red mixed with turquoise green in his bar scenes. It creates a sort of hot steamy environment. In our film, there is a strip-joint scene, where we used smoke combined with practicals as well as stage lighting mixed with different colors. It affects you on an emotional level by forcing reality to the next dimension.

QUESTION: On that schedule, how did you find the time to do complex lighting?

REYNOLDS: The funny thing is that mixed natural lighting is actually easier. It is slower and creates homogenous lighting where everything is perfect. I didn't color correct fluorescents. In fact I added a lot of cool white and blue units where they made sense, and I didn't worry about putting real warm practicals in the scene because I wanted them to play warm. The lab was DeLuxe. Bob McMillian is our terrier timer. Color timing is an art in itself.

QUESTION: How would you describe the look or visual style?

REYNOLDS: Jim really likes the look of N.Y.P.D. Blue and that’s the kind of textures we were going for, but we didn’t want it to be N.Y.P.D. Blue: The Movie. We decided to shoot in Super 35 wide-screen format with a 2.4:1 aspect ratio. The wider frame gave us more freedom to compose interesting images. It also lent itself to claustrophobizing downtown Los Angeles. We never wanted to see sky. We wanted it to feel like we were in the inner bowels of the city.

QUESTION: Was this part of the director’s original concept?

REYNOLDS: Jim had thought about it, but the idea for using the Super 35 format was cemented during our conversations. One reason why we shot Super 35 was that none of the rental houses had anamorphic lenses available. It also would have cost more to rent anamorphic lenses. With the Super 35 format, I could shoot with Panavision Primo lenses wide open at (stop) T- 2.0 or 2.8, and we had about twice the depth of field.

QUESTION: Was there any downside in choosing Super 35?

REYNOLDS: Super 35 requires an optical process in the lab, and anytime you do that you add grain and build contrast. We were helped by the fact that Kodak had just introduced the (Kodak) Vision 500(T) and 320(T color negative) films, and the grain is much finer. I used the slow stock, a lower contrast film, for day and night interiors. I used the 500-speed film for daylight exteriors, which will surprise some people. I tend to use longer lenses outside, and a polarizer on the lens. The polarizer gives you more control of sunlight. You can work with an actor with very harsh sunlight hitting his face without putting up a bunch of silks. The downside is that the polarizer takes two stops away from your exposure. You need a faster film in that situation. I also think that the urban look we were emulating has a grittier feeling. Gritty to me means slightly more contrast with slightly more crushed blacks, and a bit more color saturation. Faster films tend to be a little contrastier and a little more color saturated. It’s subtle, because there is no problem with intercutting. Every cinematographer has individual ideas for how to craft a look. For example, instead of using the standard 85 color correcting filter on the camera lens for exteriors, I used an 81EF filter. That gave us much cooler sunlight and it had the affect of warming up the practical lights in the background during the day. It also gave me more control over the color saturation.

QUESTION: Let’s go back to your comment about this being a dramatic comedy. Can you amplify that statement? Isn’t comedy the most difficult form of drama?

REYNOLDS: Yes it is. Jim has a really wonderful sense of quirky comedy. It’s not a dark comedy in a macabre sense. It's just dark in a predicament sense. It’s kind of like the old Mack Sennett comedies where someone forgets to set their parking brakes and the car rolls down the hill and destroys the neighborhood. All the while, you are wondering, what’s going to happen next? It is like the dark humor in Fargo and The Usual Suspects. You know these guys aren’t nice people, but you can't help but laugh.

QUESTION: Didn’t it take more time to set up shots in wide-screen format?

REYNOLDS: We were on a tight schedule and budget, so a lot of energy went into creating shots and scenes that worked without massive coverage. The wide-screen format lends itself to that. You have the ability to shoot a scene and let it play in a wider shot. We still shot a lot of coverage, but there was an option to let scenes play within the frame.

QUESTION: How do you keep the audience listening to dialog?          

REYNOLDS: A lot of it has to do with the way scenes are paced, and the excellent performances. The dialog is intelligent. It doesn't ramble. It gets to the point. The sub-text and the characters are fascinating. Jim Belushi brought a real different take to his character. Tupac was one of the most wonderful, intelligent, well-prepared, punctual, professional actors I've worked with. He brought a great dimension to his character. We finished the movie a week before he was killed. It's a great loss. We cried for days.

QUESTION: How did Belushi and Shakur relate with each other?

REYNOLDS: There was an instant karma that happened when they got together for the first reading. They immediately clicked.

QUESTION: Does that come through on film?

REYNOLDS: I think you’ll feel there's no question these guys have been partners for 10 years. Their characters were like oil and water, and that also comes through.

QUESTION: Is it more difficult working with a director for the first time?

REYNOLDS: I've learned a lot by shooting episodic television, because you have to deal with a new director every eight days. The trick in working with a director is sensing what they really want. Some directors are more heavy handed as far setting up shots. You have to know when to back off and let them do their thing. Some directors really want your help. In general, though, I think what's happening in filmmaking is that certain films are being made in a much more collaborative effort between directors, cameramen and production designer teams. It really helps the storytelling.

QUESTION: What are the main influences or trends driving cinematography?

REYNOLDS: People are being much more daring about the looks they create. I think there's a lot of influence in narrative films from commercials and music videos.

QUESTION: Can you give me an example of how MTV influences narrative films?

REYNOLDS: The people shooting early music videos didn't have a lot of time or money, so they simplified lighting, camera movement and other techniques, and that has worked its way into television. There's a feeling of a rawness that emulates reality. We don't go through the day in perfect light. On N.Y.P.D. Blue, part of the look is imperfection. Maybe a shot or part of a frame is way overexposed, or the focus shifts for a second.

QUESTION: That's Conrad Hall’s famous line about the art is in imperfection.

REYNOLDS: There are things in N.Y.P.D. Blue that I didn’t do in Gang Related, like the shaky camera, but we did create a sense of reality — of being there — and that gives it more of an edge. This style also allows you to finish the film in a much timelier fashion. There are long, moving shots in N.Y.P.D. Blue, which gives the actors more continuity. We shot scenes as whole pieces, and I think you get a certain spontaneity with the lighting, photography and acting. That’s why it feels more realistic.

QUESTION: How did that apply to Gang Related?

REYNOLDS: We had a Steadicam for only several days, and we used it for rough terrain, when we wanted to do a follow shot through a field, across a street, into a building and up the stairs. Other than that, we had a standard dolly package. I generally moved the camera counter to the actors’ movements.

QUESTION: Were you shooting this movie with one or more cameras?

REYNOLDS: We used two cameras a lot. It saved time and gave us great coverage. In all car scenes, I had two cameras mounted in the rear windows. One was on Jim and the other on Tupac. It gave us dead-on continuity from shot to shot, so we could cut between A and B shots. We also recorded a wonderful spontaneity between Tupac and Jim.

QUESTION: What do you do to encourage or support that type of spontaneity?

REYNOLDS: It has to do with the way you light the sets, so it gives actors a full range of movement. Mostly, I lit rooms from outside, through windows, except when we went for close-ups. In that case, we used handheld bounce cards. I used these — I call them dealies — on the TV show all the time.

QUESTION: Does some of that thinking remind you of your early history in still photography?

REYNOLDS: What I learned as a still photographer was the art of paying attention. You have to train yourself to know where the light is and develop the ability to manipulate contrast ratios. I shot a lot of 4x5s in black and white and taught myself how to judge contrast. I lit Gang Related like a black and white film to get more of a film noir look.

QUESTION: Are there any digital or visual effects in Gang Related?

REYNOLDS: We were to do some digital effects and desaturating of flashbacks when they (Belushi and Shakur) are trying to convince Dennis Quaid’s character that he did the murder. We did it in the camera instead, using some slow motion photography combined with more surrealistic lighting and angles. I think it’s great to have films and cameras today that can do so much for us in terms of look and control. It’s a real gift to us cinematographers. A gift I really treasure.