Heaven is a Place on Earth
Russell Carpenter, ASC plays detective with
Charlie’s Angels
By Bob Fisher

The latest classic Seventies television show to hit silver screens is Charlie’s Angels, the popular program developed and produced by Leonard Goldberg in partnership with Aaron Spelling. Debuting in 1976, the TV series featured three glamorous, sexy private detectives—athletic Cali type Jill Munroe(Farah Fawcett), sensitive beauty Kelley Garrett(Jaclyn Smith) and brainy leader Sabrina Duncan(Kate Jackson)—who always nailed the villain with much moxie. The trio got their orders from Charlie Townsend, an anonymous millionaire recognized only as a voice booming on the speakerphone. His trusted confidante John Bosley (the late David Doyle) provided their only link to Charlie. Opportunistic and ingenious, the Angels demonstrated themselves to be braver and tougher than the most daunting bad guys. During its five-year run, cute kid sister Kris Munroe (Cheryl Ladd), the refined Tiffany Welles (Shelley Hack) and sultry tough girl Julie Rogers (Tanya Roberts) replacedthe original line-up but its string bikini-and-feathered hair formula stayed the same for 109 episodes.

Conceived by producer Goldberg for Sony Pictures along with co-producers Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen, this 21^st century adaptation remains faithful to the series’ basic themes. This time out, Townsend recruits recent police academy graduates Natalie, Dylan and Alex as the new angelic trio— respectively portrayed by Gen X gals Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu. (Comedian Bill Murray fills the well-trod shoes of John Bosley.) The triad is assigned to find Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), a scientific wunderkind recently kidnapped from the office of Knox Technologies. Tracking a rival competitor turns out to be a dead end, but the trail does lead them to master criminal determined assassinate Charlie over a past generation’s family vendetta.

Directing Charlie’s Angels is innovative music video director Joseph McGinty Mitchell—better known as “McG—who skillfully orchestrated a story packed with large doses of action, allure and tongue-in-cheek humor. “I decided I wanted to shoot this film during my first conversation with McG, who I perceived as wonderfully eccentric, says cinematographer Russell Carpenter, ASC, whose credits include Oscar-winning work on Titanic along with True Lies, The Indian in the Cupboard, The Negotiator and Money Talks. “I had never worked with him before, and I hadn’t seen any of his work. But he expressed a feeling of effervescence with a slightly off beat angle while describing his feelings about the story. There was a lot of pressure on McG as a first-time director, but it never flowed onto the set. It’s his nature to be friendly and encouraging and I think that comes across on the screen.

The cinematographer loved the sense of fun permeating the script (co-written by Ryan Rowe, Ed Soloman and John August) and immediately placed a bid forthe project. “You have to laugh because the main thread is that ‘Charlie’s Angels’ can do everything, Carpenter comments. “They can kick a bad guy’s butt without blinking and be rocket scientists in the next scene. But they are also worried about their identities as women. There is a running gag about Lucy Liu’s character wanting to be a Martha Stewart-type homemaker, except that the muffins she bakes are as hard as vulcanized steel. Everybody dreads her offers to cook for them. Cameron Diaz’s character is a classic dork—she plays that role marvelously. Drew Barrymore’s character wears her heart on her sleeve.

The opportunity to illuminate the three beautiful actresses sharing the leading role also intrigued Carpenter. He saw the women’s faces as a bridge that linked the picture’s heart and soul to its audience. During the prep period, Carpenter combined make-up and costume tests with Diaz, Barrymore and Liu, all of whom have distinct facial structures. Besides finding lighting and photographic angles that worked best for each, he also had to devise strategies when they shared the screen in two- and three- shots. “People don’t talk about it a lot, but it’s important for a cinematographer to establish rapport with the actors, so you can appreciate each other as human beings working together for a common goal, he says. “We spoke about issues in our lives that had nothing to do with Charlie’s Angels. It’s all too easy to alienate an actor or actress by treating them like furniture that has to be moved around. If you ask an actress to lower her chin slightly, look into the key light, and turn her head, she has to believe that you have her best interests at heart. It really helped that all three actresses were very accommodating and willing to make any changes that might be needed during the shoot—they were very supportive of me and each other.

The cinematographer overexposed each Angel’s faces by two stops to pull up fleshtones as much as possible. His aim was to slightly exaggerate the characters in a subliminal way that didn’t call attention to his photography. He hoped to augment the over-the-top mood created by McG and the actors through their performances. In general, Carpenter discovered that Liu could be lit from any direction and shot from virtually any angle. Diaz’s character fell more in the realm of a glamour queen, and her facial features led Carpenter to typically light her from camera right. “Drew [Barrymore] has a beautiful and an amazing face, he continues. “We tended to place the keylight a little higher for her to help with shaping and to get a little more gradation. The trade-off is that her eyes look better if the key is down a little lower, so we’d often have someone on the crew using a bounce card to put a little soft light on her face from a lower angle. I used KinoFlos whenever we could because they have a nice wrap-around quality when used in close proximity and we could get in closer to the actresses without generating a lot of heat.

Charlie’s Angels was produced on stages at Sony Studios and at practical locations in and around Los Angeles. Initially, the production had five weeks of prep time to establish its visual strategy, including shooting make-up and costume tests, scouting locations and collaborating with production designer J. Michael Riva (The Color Purple, Hard Rain). Use of colors mainly accommodated the actresses’ tastes —Barrymore likes the way she looks in black, Diaz enjoyslight blue outfits and Liu prefers red. “The colors suited their characters, says Carpenter, “so everyone worked around that including the costume designers [Joseph Aulisi and Randy Gardell], the production designer, the art department and set dressers.

All this time, McG, Carpenter and Riva had many conversations about the visual style. The trio re-visited such references as the classic 1961 musical West Side Story (shot by Daniel Fapp) out of respect for the sparseness of its images, including the colorful and daring graphic design. McG appreciated the way that Roger Deakins, ASC and the Coen Brothers minimized elements within the frame of The Hudsucker Proxy. (1997). Also influentialwas the Elvis Presley and Ann Margaretrace car vehicle Viva Las Vegas (1963), starring, which was photographed by Joe Biroc, ASC. “There was a giddy feeling in Viva Las Vegas that doesn’t make any sense, but it was fun, Carpenter explains. “We weren’t copying any of those looks, but McG wanted to capture the spirit of those films. He was able to keep us continually focused on that priority.

“Charlie’s Angels was elaborately storyboarded and that was a great tool because it showed exactly what McG had in mind for coverage. Storyboard artist Adolfo Martinez added little flourishes to some shots and McG embraced most of them. He was open to everyone’s ideas. Most of the time, he stayed very consistent with storyboards because he had a very solid idea of where he was going. That was useful for me, because it helped me to plan the use of equipment and crew more efficiently.

Though making a movie from a small screen series hardly inspires thoughts of epic landscapes, a quick and easy decision had Charlie’s Angels framed in the Super 35 format. According to Carpenter, the 2.35 aspect ratio provided the scope needed for composing action sequences, in addition to serving the narrative’s broader dimensions. Much of the time, the Angels are on the screen together (often with other characters) with brightly colored backgrounds offering additional ambiance. Super 35 also aided split-screen images that display each Angel in action, as seen in the opening credits montage, which mimics that of the original series. “The widescreen format is more engaging for the audience, claims Carpenter. “You can drive their eyes from the extreme left to the extreme right of the screen. It’s a more immersing experience, and they are more involved in the story.

Deciding to shoot in the Super 35 format rather than anamorphic was partially a practical choice, one based on availability of matching lenses for the multiple cameras capturing action sequences. Super 35 also gave Carpenter a slight edge in depth-of-field and provided compact lens packages suited to McG’s plans for fluid camera movement. “It made sense to use spherical lenses because we had a big cast, a lot of action shots on big stages and locations, and McG liked shooting 60 and 120 frames-per-second to stretch time in certain situations [such as some instances of hand-to-hand combat].

Earlier in his career, Carpenter favored Arriflex cameras, and even invested in Arri 435 for commercial shoots. He opted for a Panavision Panaflex on Charlie’s Angel.  The cinematographer chose a couple of matched 11:1 Primo zooms for their overall sharpness, and also because the wide range of sizes offered more framing options without him having to stop and change lenses. “I only used primes when I got outside the realm of what the 11-to-1 could give us, he remarks. “There are scenes where McG wanted a kind of push-pull effect [such as a race car standoff on a South Bay bridge as Natalie speeds toward a head-on collision with against another dragster]. “We’d frame a shot with a 10 millimeter lens, putting the audience in intimate contact with the characters, and then we’d pull way and distance them with a 300 millimeter long lens.

Action sequences tended to be covered with three cameras, depending on the situation. Carpenter photographed dramatic scenes with a single camera unless he needed a second one to pick up difficult-to-repeat reaction shots. On larger sets and locations, overall lighting hailed from 12-by-12s with 10K or 20K units. On large exteriors, he deployed multiple HMIs. Making sure that he had precise control over intensity, angle and quality of light became particularly useful on moving shots applying multiple frame rates.

Carpenter blended three filmstocks, including Eastman EXR (50D) 5245 for sunny Southern California exteriors; Vision 500T (5279); and Vision 200T (5274), which is somewhat less contrasty, a bit sharper with a little less granularity. “It’s like choosing paint from a palette, he reasons. “Do you need a little extra speed to carry a deeper stop or because you are shooting at 120 frames-per-second? Do you want to reduce contrast a bit? No one can answer those questions for you. You have to know how each emulsion works in any situation, and how that relates to what the director wants.

The six-month production schedule kept getting pushed back because of rewrites. With each script revision, certain places got dropped and new sites had to be sought out. Issues of expediency and reality did dictate many decisions regarding location. McG intended to play up a famous, futuristic Hollywood Hills house that he’d seen years ago in Body Double (Stephen Burum, ASC) as Knox’s home. Complications, however, led to only its exterior appearing in establishing shots. “McG loved that house, notes Carpenter. “It is shaped like a flying saucer, and is perched on top of a hill with a scenic view in all directions. We had problems securing the location and there would have been some practical issues shooting there. Michael [Riva] designed a masterful replica of the house and we surrounded it with a big cyclorama of the San Fernando Valley at night.

The cinematographer contributed ideas for placing windows, lamps and other sources of motivated light on the sets and also for adequate space required in moving cameras freely. This kept with the swift flow envisioned by McG envisioned, which includes a 360-degree pan to accentuate the living room’s circular shape. Luminance around the cyclorama, inside the house and outside its wall-paneled windows had to be orchestrated via control board. “That gave us much more control than we would have had at the actual house. Having total control over the light and time of day gave us much more freedom in planning shots.

Rivera also designed a set for a darkened, downtown alley that’s the backdrop to the Angels’ protracted, karate fight against the hair-fetishist Thin Man (Crispin Glover). Captured with “lighting stunts and through shots executed at a 120 frames-per-second, the highly stylized brawl evokes memories of The Matrix. “The set is very convincing, states Carpenter. “We knew we’d need a lot of light, because we were going to be shooting parts of this scene at high frame rates. We also realized we weren’t going to shoot this scene in one night. In fact, we shot it over several weeks, and the second unit finished some of the coverage of the big fight. It would have been much more time-consuming to light a real alley and then we’d have to keep breaking it down and re-lighting it. We were able to leave the set ‘hot’ until we finished.

How did McG decide on when to use accelerated frame rates to visually stretch and punctuate dramatic scenes? “Part of it comes from McG’s music video background, where it is normal to stretch and compress time as part of the grammar of filmmaking, the cinematographer expounds. “He had very specific feelings in mind when he selected different frame rates. Sometimes we shot 60 frames-per-second instead of 120. Other times we were using a wide-angle lens. Those decisions affected how we lit. If we were shooting at 120 frames-per-second with a wide-angle lens, maybe we needed a 20K unit instead of a 10K, and that affected our budget. These are important issues for cinematographers because more directors are moving from music videos and commercials into features and they have different ways of thinking.

Having to think “outside of the box didn’t at all faze Carpenter, who frequently fills the downtime between features by shooting commercials. On the other hand, he points to phrase “cutting-edge retro as a description of McG’s classic sensibilities regarding camera movement. “We made very good use of the Steadicam to keep the audience engaged in the action, he emphasizes, “but I can only recall one moving shot where it was the star. The Steadicam was moving with the actors the entire time. McG really loved the Technocrane because it is a smoother and more classic style of movement that allowed him to break free and go places and show the audience the story from places where a dolly can’t go.

He quickly came to trust McG’s instincts, and even embraced the idea of there being a new breed of moviegoer who hasn’t been nurtured on conventional motion picture syntax. “I enjoyed working with a director who was likely to break the rules at any time. I felt free to tell him if I thought something was too big a break from normal cinema language to the point of confusing a movie-going audience. Maybe it doesn’t matter to them if the screen direction is wrong, or if a character in a cut-away shot doesn’t seem to be looking into the eyes of the person he is she is talking to. I accepted the fact that there would be times when McG wanted to try something different and gave him what he wanted.

The negative was processed at Deluxe Labs, in Los Angeles, where Ron Koch worked as the cinematographer’s liaison. “Ron and I have a great relationship, which goes back to the days when I was shooting no-budget films. He still calls me ‘kid.’ If he saw something that could be better, or if he had a suggestion, he was candid. At the outset, McG, the main cast or their representatives—usually hair and make-up people—would sit in on film dailies with some of the producers, the production manager, and most of Carpenter’s crew. After a short while, McG got caught up in the demands of directing a big-budget studio film and began relying on video dailies for auditing performances. “It’s difficult for other people to understand why cinematographers want film dailies, he says. “We aren’t looking to see if we exposed the film right, or if it is out of focus. It’s what you learn from watching dailies that gives the edge you need to fine tune lighting and other elements of shots so we are touching the right emotional chords.

Cinematographer Russell Carpenter, ASC believes that exploiting a full gamut of music video techniques led to McG’s successful execution of his ambitious plan for Charlie’s Angels. The picture’s facetious tone is an atmosphere that the audience feels rather than sees. It’s almost as if the three Angels are winking at each individual member of the audience, all the time saying ‘You get the joke, right?’ But he finds this 2000 update to be somewhat more enlightened about woman’s roles in society than its late-Seventies predecessor. “I saw a few episodes of the series and I was amazed at how often they got the ladies into bikinis. Our actresses are very sexy and there are times when they flirt with the camera, but they aren’t running around half-nude!