Dante
Spinotti Talks About Shooting This
article originally appeared in International “Moviemaking is about understanding the language of your film,” says Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC. “It starts when somebody writes the first word in the script, and it goes through millions of decisions that have to be made from that moment until you screen it for audiences. An important part of this language, no doubt, is the way you tell the story with the camera, the way you shoot the movie. But it is only a part.” Wonder Boys is Spinotti’s second collaboration with director Curtis Hanson. Their first film was LA Confidential, which garnered nine Oscar® nominations including one for Spinotti's camerawork. Spinotti also won a BSC and Los Angeles Film Critic's Awards for L.A. Confidential, and outstanding achievement nominations from ASC and BAFTA. Spinotti is a native of northern Italy who began his career in television at RAI, and also apprenticed in Kenya as a cinematographer for his uncle. In 1985, the producer Dino De Laurentiis offered Spinotti a chance to work in the United States for the first time, on Michael Mann's Manhunter. Since then, he has photographed almost 20 films, including The Last of the Mohicans, Nell and Heat. Wonder Boys is the filmic recreation of Michael Chabon's best-selling novel of the same name. The story concerns a successful novelist, played by Michael Douglas, and his mid-life crisis. Spinotti says the story has strong comedic elements and multiple layers of meaning. The story takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The movie was shot in Pittsburgh and environs, including locations at Carnegie Mellon University and Chatham College. “Pittsburgh is an intriguing city,” says Spinotti. “In the steel era, it was very successful, but that's all gone now. Like our main character, Pittsburgh is casting about for a new identity. The city plays an important background role.” Spinotti first heard from Hanson regarding Wonder Boys in November of 1998, and told him that he would “make any effort” to make another picture together. “I read the script a couple times to make I sure I understood what it was all about,” says Spinotti. “Every time I read it, even later on, I always discover new layers and new possibilities.” Spinotti had six weeks of pre-production, which he used to perform a variety of tests as well as to shoot a number of important background plates. “We had five or six crucial scenes that take place at night, in cars,” he says. “I knew these scenes included some very critical acting, so I suggested using the green screen process for greater control. I shot the plates during pre-production at six or 12 frames per second on a dual Steadicam rig. I wanted to achieve a look of life, so out of the car windows we would have real pictures that are going by—whether it's the university, a campground, a street with huge steel mills along the river, or the college section.” Spinotti says that Kodak Vision 500T color negative film/5279 helped bring out the character of the city, maintaining detail in the dark areas and capturing vivid colors in others. Most of the film's exteriors would be captured on Kodak Vision 250D color negative film/5246. Meanwhile, Spinotti and Hanson were developing the photographic style for the film. Hanson suggested Spinotti see Celebration. “The way it was shot had to do with keeping the camera extremely close to the actors, and carrying deep focus from one actor to the other, and seeing the big foreground with one guy at the table and a guy at the other end of the table,” says Spinotti. “It's important to develop the language of the movie you're filming, because the lighting and the rest comes as a consequence. We were interested in telling a story in a different way. We didn't emulate Celebration, but we did use it to inspire some ideas for our film.” Spinotti emphasizes that all technical decisions grow from “the language of the film,” developed before and during production. “I think it's important to understand that I'm not really interested so much in the know-how,” he says. “The reason you make a choice—why you think about this light and not another—all this has to do with the language of the film. Lighting is one aspect of this but it is strictly dependent on all these choices. Lighting can be sort of secondary in a way. Once you understand the rest of the language, then you know how you are going to light it. It's not about being pretty, or technically perfect.” One evening during pre-production, Spinotti took in a sampling of films at the local multiplex. It became the impetus for another step in the development of the visual language he would use in Wonder Boys. “I thought about why some of the films I looked at seemed so static,” he recalls. “I asked myself, 'Why doesn’t this film raise my curiosity even though it is beautifully photographed and composed?'“ Spinotti thought handheld might be the solution and discussed it with Hanson the next day. On the first day of shooting, they incorporated some handheld shots. “The director liked it, so we used a handheld camera extensively for the rest of the picture,” says Spinotti. “It brought a lot of light and agility to the movie. I think one day we will have lighter cameras and this kind of filming will become easier and more common. On this film we mostly used the Panavision Millennium camera, which is lighter. For some of the scenes, especially in the cars, we also used handheld Aaton cameras.” Wonder Boys features a strong cast including Robert Downey, Jr., Katie Holmes, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Richard Thomas and Rip Torn. Grady Tripp, the main character played by Douglas, encounters a series of eccentric characters over the three-day course of the film. These characters constantly bring twists and turns to the plot, according to Spinotti. “These characters are weird and extremely funny,” he says. “It was about giving the camera the same kind of life the story had. That's why I felt we should have a camera that could move around, with lots of agility, and be real close to the actors who were very interesting and very important to the story—close to their faces, close to their eyes.” During pre-production, Spinotti used the Kodak PreView System as a pre-visualization tool. Panavision rents the system. It includes a digital still camera, software loaded into a laptop computer, and a Kodak color printer. The software enables cinematographers to alter digital still images in a way that simulates the imaging characteristics of camera films, filter combinations and specialized lab processes. Spinotti and Hanson mainly used the system as a storyboarding tool. Spinotti says it was his first experience with a computer. “Once I learned the basics, which took about three days, it blew my mind,” he says. “It is essentially a photographic system which remains alive as long as you're working on an image. You can preview how exposing and processing film in different ways will change the mood on a computer screen and paper print. You can compare looks and make decisions before you shoot film.” Spinotti and Hanson used the Kodak PreView System to storyboard complicated sequences. “I shot 40 still pictures preparing for one action scene. That got me very close to the feel of what the shot might eventually look like. One hour later, I was able to walk into the director's office and say, 'Curtis (Hanson), do you want to look at this as a possibility?' At other points during filming, we used the system to double-check the vision of the shot, to make sure the highlights were right, or to try different compositions. We also used it on some green screen shots to make sure our angles were properly lined up. “I found that the reproduction, once you dial in the film stock and your positive film, was really accurate,” says Spinotti. “When you start interpreting it, you really see down to the finest hues of color. You can see what needs to be corrected. The system paid for itself with convenience and saved time.” Spinotti found the PreView System to be helpful in other ways, as well. “I liked the way the system allows you to keep thinking about your problem,” he says. “You can maneuver and manipulate it, and bring it to where you know you want it to go. For instance, we had some shots at the airport that we wanted to shoot in neutral color tones. The airport was just like any other airport, banal in a way. Looking at one of the stills we had taken that was underexposed and dark, I found a look I liked. We wanted to highlight the steel carriers, make them bright and steely-edged, and make everything else dark except the main characters. It's great to be able to use the system to help you discover looks that might interest you.” Spinotti and his crew have developed a lighting system that they have used on the last several pictures, particularly in location situations. The system was designed with the help of gaffer Jay Fortune. It consists of strips of 24 Par 16s, which are very tiny bulbs, mounted in four, six or eight-foot lengths, or in circles, depending on the shot. They are usually mounted in the corner of a room and controlled by dimmers. If a shot “sees” the entire room, there is a method for controlling frontlight and backlight. These were called “channel lights” on the set because they were mounted on aluminum channel encasement. “We basically used the channel lights for the whole movie,” says Spinotti, “from close-ups to masters. Once I learned how to work gels to get the effects I wanted on faces, I could rake these lights across faces, and I could wrap them from behind. They were long enough to wrap nicely and to carry some sort of top and front light. They gave me a kind of lighting I can only describe as 'nonexistent.' I could have areas of intense light, while keeping them separate from the shadow areas. They are very easy to work with. “The light from these fixtures was not the look of a spotlight, and not the look of a softlight,” Spinotti continues. “It's a hard light, but it doesn't create shapes because of the many bulbs. It changes its work if you hold it horizontally or vertically, on one side or the other.” The light rigs came in handy for a scene in Grady Tripp's tiny home office that required capturing many close-up facial expressions. “We rigged the channel lights in a corner with directional focus,”
says Spinotti. “We The close-ups were often shot with a handheld camera that was similar to a technique he used on The Insider, which was visually punctuated with close-in, handheld shots, sometimes with blurred reflections that added to the feeling of confusion and mystery. Spinotti discussed the similarities and differences between his approach on the two films: “There is a common ground in terms of taking a movie into a more postmodern approach as opposed to modern,” he says. “The modern is where you openly say 'Hey, this is my shot, this is my work. This is my aesthetic statement.' The postmodern films are saying, 'No, the movie is about something else.' It's about the tension inside the story, the tension between the characters. “Sometimes the handheld camera gave me the idea that you were living the scene with the actor,” he says. “For Wonder Boys, we shot a very nice scene in the rain. The police are coming to pick up the young pupil of the professor. It's raining heavily, and under the umbrella they have a dialogue. When I saw dailies, what enchanted me was that you felt that you were with them. You were anguished by their problems because the camera was so close to the face of the actor, and the operator can't move unless the actor moved. If the actor took his face down, then you could drop down. The camera is linked so strongly to the character. I find it is a very interesting and intense way to tell the story. As an audience member, I felt like the camera knew the actor.” Spinotti was reminded of a project that he did 30 years ago for Italian television. “I remember shooting using my ARRI BL 16 camera on my shoulder,” he says. “We had a very long sequence between actors in a trench in World War I. They were trying to communicate and I was walking around them focusing on who was talking. I saw this footage again recently, and I took a good lesson from it. It's a way of giving some tension to a shot, to give something that the audience might respond to, and say 'Hey, what's happening here?' “It's the same lesson I used on these films: The shot is not about
beautiful composition and great photography,” he says. “It is about
telling the story, enhancing the tension, and finding a good way to
capture the scene. It's about the language of the film.”
HOW SPINOTTI CREATED A LITTLE by David Heuring When Dante Spinotti, ASC and Curtis Hanson were in preproduction on Wonder Boys, the cinematographer suggested that scenes slated to take place in moving vehicles could be shot on stages with green background screens. Action outside the windows could be shot and digitally composited into the windows. “I felt that the acting and dialog in these scenes was very important,” says Spinotti. “On the stage, the actors would be more comfortable and we could do more takes with controlled lighting to capture the moods perfectly.” Spinotti and Hanson also wanted to make the city of Pittsburgh a palpable presence. Shooting the right background plates around the city was much easier without an actual vehicle and actors in tow. “We wanted to make Pittsburgh vivid in the background,” he says. “Not quite Fellinian, but a little heightened and still natural. It was absolutely beautiful. Sometimes we were up on the hills around Pittsburgh and other times we did the reverse and saw the lights on the hills in the background. In one particularly beautiful shot we could see the fires from a steel mill. “When we made the background plates, we used a two-Steadicam rig with Prime lenses,” Spinotti recalls. “We shot at six or 12 frames per second, taking care to adjust the speed of the car accordingly. We used Kodak Vision 500T color negative film, and the results were magnificent. The details in images amazed me.” Spinotti also photographed the actors on stages in front of green screens on stages in Pittsburgh and at Paramount Studios, in Los Angeles. Lighting effects were matched to the background shots to tie it together. Spinotti used a slant-focus and Frazier lenses to keep both actors in focus. No shots were done through the windshield. The green screen elements were captured on Kodak Vision 200T color negative film that intercut seamlessly with the plates. Spinotti consulted with Cinesite Visual Effects Supervisor Jerry Pooler, who was present for the green screen work, although the cinematographer handled all of the camera work with the first unit crew. “Dante is an amazing artist,” says Pooler. “His mastery of light was like watching a conductor lead an orchestra. We performed a test early on scanning the negative from the green screen and background elements, making composites and recording back to film. We found out exactly where the green screen should be to pull the mattes just right. Dante lit the green screen, the car, and the actors, and everything was exactly perfect. We also shot several passes for dirt and water that we added to the windows in the final composite.” During postproduction, Spinotti and Pooler met at the Cinesite facility in Los Angeles, to make final adjustments to the composites. Spinotti, with coaching by the digital artist, actually tried his hand sitting in front of the monitor, tweaking colors, contrast, framing and movement of the plate in the background. Several additional green screen dialogue scenes were filmed in Los Angeles while the movie was in postproduction. Pooler was able to composite these with background plates shot in Pittsburgh months earlier. “We did a little image manipulation, stabilized motion and made the background a little sharper,” Pooler says, “and gave Dante the look he wanted.” Spinotti pointed out that the ability to adjust the frame made his work on the set less exacting. “Matching the lens angle from the Steadicam to the green screen stage was not as crucial as it used to be because we could make adjustments in the computer,” he says. “That gave me more time and energy to concentrate on the artistic aspects of those shots, instead of worrying about every little measurement.” Cinesite worked on close to 100 shots for the film, including several scenes in which the bright green color of some grass was muted. Pooler explains that these scenes were supposed to be in winter. The color of the grass was too lush for that season, so they toned it down digitally without affecting other colors or anything else in those frames. “We ran a little wedge on the color green and showed Dante and Curtis Hanson all the shades from the deeply saturated to a pale shade, almost gray,” Pooler says. “They picked the color they wanted. It is a much less saturated green.” Pooler notes that the scanning and recording technology employed by Kodak retains the image characteristics of the original negative. Pooler explains that the negative is scanned into digital format at 4k resolution. Spinotti had the freedom to choose the camera films he wanted to use for green screen and plate work, and to light and move the camera freely. “We can match the foreground and background during compositing and image manipulation,” says Pooler. “We can float the background up and down, so it looks like the car is going up and down hills. We can also stabilize images to make camera motion in the foreground and background match. Sometimes we just used part of frames in a plate shot and blew them up.” Pooler says one goal is to make the technology
as transparent as possible. When Spinotti and Hanson signed off on a shot, it was converted to Eastman color intermediate film with the facility’s laser recorder. “When you are lucky enough to work on a project like this you take pride in being invisible,” says Pooler. “You don’t want to leave any fingerprints on the film, so no one knows that you are there. You want the audience to see those shots and not realize that it isn’t all original photography. “
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