Memoirs of a Geisha
Dion Beebe, ASC Recreates Period Japan For Memoirs of a Geisha
By Pauline Rogers - Photos by David James

Westerners might interpret the term “Geisha” as “prostitute.” However, in truth, a Geisha is far from that. In Japan, women who choose to become Geishas are educated and trained with advanced artistic and social skills such as music and dancing to accompany men as hostesses. These women are true “artisans” or “artists,” a term that cinematographer Dion Beebe, ASC (Collateral, In The Cut, Chicago) and crew more than equaled, as they brought director Rob Marshall’s vision of Arthur Golden’s novel to the big screen.

“It’s an epic story,” says Beebe. “Arthur Golden manages to create textures and images that fill this world and make it come alive. My first conversations with Rob were about exactly that—how to create a world that feels real. It had to have depth and texture; part fairytale, part harshness and cruelty.”

Marshall and Beebe began their journey that would bring young Chiyo (Ziyi Zhang) from poverty, where she is “sold” as a servant in a Geisha house to one of the highest-ranking men in the Japanese world by referencing sweeping, historical films. “Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor for true epic grandeur and Barry Lyndon for the incredible interior feel we needed for our movie. What appealed to me most in Lyndon were the extraordinary candle lit interiors. This was truly the shadowy hidden world of the Geisha.

“Much of the story takes place in candlelight or extremely low light,” explains Beebe. “Not that easy to do in the anamorphic format. So, we had a little ‘get together’ in prep. Phil Radin and Dan Sasaki from Panavision and first assistant Mike Weldon joined me to ‘prepare’ for the shoot. I explained my desire to shoot high-speed stock in very low light conditions.

“When Mike recovered from the initial shock of doing an anamorphic movie essentially wide open on high speed lenses, he picked himself up off the floor, got excited about the challenge and we began testing every fast anamorphic lens available at Panavision.”

“Almost every shot using an anamorphic lens is tricky,” says Weldon. “Each lens has its own characteristic, so it is important to make sure the lenses of choice are fine-tuned and that we completely understand their ‘character.’ I always refer to the great lens technician Dan Sasaki to tune up my lenses before I shoot a foot of film through them. On this project, he was invaluable. Not only did he help us find lenses that could work below a T-2 stop, he also customized a high speed 40mm with a stop of T-1.8 for us.”

To capture this epic story, Beebe decided to use Kodak’s 5218 500T stock, often pushing it one stop. With Weldon, he chose Panavision Platinum and Millennium cameras, using E-series anamorphic lenses for the bulk of the project, adding C-series for Steadicam and handheld as well as a short zoom with a range of 40-80mm (T-2.8) and the customized high-speed 40mm. “I even found two lenses that went to T-1.3 hidden under Mike’s kit bag,” says Beebe. “The ability to shoot in extremely low light conditions was key to the lighting design of the movie. Had I not had the skills of Mike Weldon on A-camera and John Grillo on B-camera, I could not have shot the picture this way. We would have been too compromised by focus difficulties. They were working with minimal depth on cameras that were always moving and they nailed it. These guys were my heroes.”

In addition to an extensive camera and lens testing process, Beebe worked with production and costume design to create a world of the Geisha that would be real on the screen. “I worked with production designer John Meyer and costume designer Colleen Atwood on Chicago, so we were familiar with each other’s styles and abilities,” says Beebe. “They are both so meticulous and carefully researched, but also bring artistry to their work that is inspiring.

“One of the first things that John and I approached was the various traditional paper Shoji screens that would be used throughout the movie. It seemed whenever these screens are photographed for movies, they simply appear white and over-exposed. Either too much light washes over the front of these screens or too much light is blasting in the back.

“For us, to have rooms with bright white paper screens everywhere would not fit into the dark mysterious world we all wanted to create. So, we began testing papers of different densities and with varying degrees of staining, often doubling up samples to find the correct opacity. We also tested fabrics within the screen doors—fabrics that created a different feel and texture. We then subjected our choices to tests under a simulation of our lighting conditions.

“The end result was a mix of about ten to 20 different materials. The papers with subtle textures that had been pressed between the sheets with a dark stain applied were the most successful.

“With costumes,” he continues, “the same pressure applied. I worked closely with Colleen to ensure that the warm yellow light of our interior world did not work against the wonderful palette of colors she had created for each of our principal actors. We tested fabrics under different lighting conditions and tracked their place in the movie to ensure we never ended up with lighting conflicting with costume. The result was some of the most beautiful costumes I’ve ever photographed.”

So much of Memoirs of a Geisha takes place in a shadowy world, whether it is the poverty and degradation of Chiyo’s childhood and servitude beginning in 1929, to the private lives of the Geisha pre World War II. Candles, lanterns and firelight were the only illumination available for interiors.

“What you can accomplish on any movie ultimately comes down to how good your crew is,” says Beebe. “I had a great crew on Geisha. My gaffer, John Buckley, understood the mood and atmosphere of the script. He has a great eye and a great ability to plan and organize the set. We went from lighting scenes with a couple of lanterns and flicker boxes to lighting an entire Japanese 1930s town at night. This film places a lot of emphasis on lighting and John and his guys worked incredibly hard.”

The centerpiece of the story was the production’s “back lot” built at Ventura Farms about an hour outside of Los Angeles. Production designer John Meyer created period Japan in the Santa Monica Mountains with streets, alleyways, functioning teahouses, shops, temples, shrines, bridges and a river where the water level and current could be changed. “No one who visited the set could walk away unimpressed,” says A-camera/Steadicam operator Peter Rosenfeld.

“The sets were beautiful,” says Buckley, “but the interiors were built to scale. If you were five feet two inches, you could manipulate easily. Mike Weldon is well over six feet tall, and I don’t think any of our crew is less than five ten. Every one of us got smacked at least half a dozen times, but that was part of the reality of the story and the times we were depicting.

“I love doing a period piece,” Buckley adds. “When Dion and I first started to talk about this picture, he explained most of the lighting would be lanterns and fires. Most people use CTO and go into the red zone. Instead, we decided to go yellow and straw. Yellow fires with a little red in the embers.

“There are different ways to make a flame look like a real flame,” Buckley continues. “Some look very mechanical. To make ours look as real as possible, we carried what we call ‘covered wagons.’ They are sockets with 100-watt globes, grid cloth and full straw in a two-by-four foot cage. Each globe had two separate dimmers. By flickering one at one rate and one at another, the light never felt mechanical.”

In order to create a Japanese winter light in sunny Southern California, production would have to block out the sun. To accomplish this, key grip Scott Robinson and rigging key Don Reynolds worked with ShowRig to create the largest freestanding diffusion ever made. “It was like some sort of installation art work,” says Beebe. “Christo would have been proud. It was risky and a contentious expense for Sony as nothing had been built to this scale before but with our insistence and Rob’s unwavering support, they became convinced and backed the idea. This rig ultimately allowed us to create four seasons, turn sunny days in Los Angeles into snow filled winter landscapes and shoot night for day—it was key to creating a seamless exterior world. It took a lot of guys, a lot of money, and very little wind to make this rig fly, but it helped turn a field in Ventura farms into a mysterious Japanese town lost in time.”

“It was made up of two massive steel trusses that were able to pull panels of silent grid cloth over the set to cut out and diffuse the direct sunlight,” explains Rosenfeld. “For our night work, gaffer John Buckley would direct Beebee lights through the material. The result was a stunningly realistic moonlight effect. It created enormous spread with very little fall off. The village was lit in just about any direction the camera could point.

“One day, while we were trying to complete a day scene after the sun had gone down, we discovered that John Buckley could recreate daylight,” Rosenfeld continues. “By using several Beebee lights through the immense grid cloth, he could increase the ambient levels to about a T-2.8. Once we saw the effect, we all fell in love with it. The quality of light was very similar to what you would see in New York on a cloudy winter day in the late afternoon. A soft, shadowless light that had a wintery feeling.

“One of my favorite scenes shot with this light is when Japanese troops occupy the village and evacuate the residents,” Rosenfeld recalls. “We shot the scene with two handheld cameras that could follow the chaotic action a full 360 degrees. Aside from a few well placed bounce cards, the scene was lit from the grid cloth and looked incredible.”

The crew had many favorite shots from the film. “The snow sequences were so beautiful,” says Weldon. “Combine the use of overhead silk and the addition of fake snow on the rooftops and ground and there was something magical. Dion decided not to use an 85 filter and let the film go blue. That made the fake snow look real, cold and breathtaking.”

“One was a complicated Technocrane shot that followed a lone figure walking through the snow from above,” adds Rosenfeld. “The grid cloth was slid overhead and the entire village was covered in snow. Scott and his crew built us an elevated platform for the 50-foot Technocrane so the lens could float overhead, weaving through the alleyways. The resulting images were almost like a Japanese watercolor painting.”

“Rob wanted a sweeping shot through the village that ended up looking in the window of the Okiya,” Beebe explains. “This was a key transition from the young Chiyo to the older Chiyo, years later. Scott, Don and I discussed many options of how best to achieve this.

“We spoke with Cablecam and SpiderCam about spanning the town with cable and suspending a remote camera, but due to the fact that the building structures were not real, rigging the cables became complicated and expensive. Then, one day we thought, what about a platform built above the rooftops? We used a model of the village to plot the shot, mapped out the platform position and Don Reynolds built this enormous platform and lifted the 50-foot Technocrane on top with a construction crane.

“It worked like a charm. Peter and his crew did a great job operating the shot. It makes me smile when I think of looking over my shoulder from on top of the platform and seeing the blazing sunlight through the fake snow. If only the audience knew what lay beyond the edge of our frame.”

“The shot started looking out over the village,” explains Rosenfeld. “We then tilted down to find a lone figure walking through snow-covered alleyways The camera then tracked the figure overhead, eventually gliding over roof tops to find Ziyi Zhang opening the 2nd floor window of the Okiya. This is her first appearance in the movie, and the first time we see Chiyo as a young adult.

“A shot like this takes careful planning well in advance,” he adds. “On the day, it requires a precise co-ordination between the AD’s, crane grips and focus puller to make it happen but when it does, it is an exhilarating experience. We used the 50-foot Technocrane with a stabilized three-axis head from Pictovision and our favorite lens—the 40-80mm anamorphic zoom.”

For Beebe, Chiyo’s journey through the Okiya (training house for the Geisha) is a metaphor for the story. The way the team transitions Chiyo’s world into Sayuri’s is a synergy of sets and lighting. “When we first enter the Okiya, it is a dark and forbidding place,” Beebe says. “We feel constricted and trapped within the narrow corridors. Chiyo’s entrapment is fully realized when she is finally led up to the rooftop of the Okiya and we reveal the tightly packed sea of rooftops that surround her. She has nowhere to go. The house ultimately metamorphosed as Chiyo gains confidence and some control of her life. It is then that we begin to open up the space.

“This was achieved through the use of traditional Japanese sliding doors, which could be removed or rearranged to create altered spaces, allowing us to open or close an area, depending upon the demands of the scene. The screens were also seasonal and the material changed with the seasons—from solid woods, open weaved Bamboo, glass and traditional paper screens. John Buckley was key to pulling off the multiple looks inside this interior, as it progresses from a dark, flickering oil lantern filled world to slowly lifting the veil and letting the light into this mysterious place.”

“We changed how the sunlight entered into the house and used it to create bounce light at different angles,” Buckley explains. “Then we changed the color and density levels of the light as we progressed into the modern age of electricity. This brought us to 3200 degrees Kelvin, creating a more neutral level of light that is seen today.”

The sequences in the theatre were some of the most beautiful in the film. “The way Dion used the practicals,” says Weldon, “and the way he photographed the principal actors in the audience watching Sayuri on stage. I got chills watching that footage in dailies. It was astounding.”

“Same for Rob and me,” adds Beebe. “It took us back to our days on Chicago. We took a lot of liberty with the lighting, using high tech Vari-Lites, but mixing them with gas burning footlights that ran along the front of the stage and paper lanterns that framed the musicians. All the lighting was run through two mixing desks.

“Ultimately, we favored mood and atmosphere over historical accuracy. This is a key sequence in the movie, as it demonstrates the artistry of the Geisha. Key, too, is the fact that the audience is filled with all the players in the story and the subtle reactions of each of them towards Sayuri’s stunning performance is a wonderful piece of choreography and direction. This was the very first scene we shot at the start of production and it really set the tone for everyone.”

Everyone is in agreement that the sequences shot at Descanso Gardens at night in a hot springs environment were challenging and interesting. “I think there were seven actors in water from the neck down,” recalls Weldon. “We used cameras on crane arms, cameras in the water on tripods and handheld. It was a challenge because there was no way to set any marks for their positions. And, of course, they would not always hit the same marks twice. So, with all those actors, it required quite a bit of coverage from many different angles.”

“We used the ‘covered wagons’ to light this,” explains Buckley. “The lighting was simple. The challenge was for Peter and Mike to move around the water and deal with the bamboo roof we had over the top of the bath.”

“The hot springs set certainly was a great challenge for us,” adds Rosenfeld. “Moving the camera was best accomplished on the Hot Gears in the under-slung mode. However, because it was night, we were wide open on the lens with no eye on the eyepiece. It was also difficult to control the amount of steam and match it effectively from shot to shot. Eventually, Mike and I ended up in the water with the actors.”

To emphasize the lyrical aspect of the story, Beebe chose to move the camera almost constantly. “The Hot Gears was a godsend to us,” says Weldon. “We used that head for a number of different scenes; in the ArriHead (low mode or normal mode set up) and also with the Lamdahead mode, when it required extreme tilts of up or down.

“Focus does sometimes become a little more challenging when the camera is floating in mid air,” he admits. “With a dolly grip and a grip on the crane arm that understands the need for hitting their particular marks, it becomes a bit easier.”

“It took a lot of guts to make this picture,” says Beebe. “Rob is an inspirational director and my camera crew was incredible. Peter Rosenfeld and B-Camera operator Sion Michel were a great team. They are both very intuitive and brought artistry to everything they did. Peter had operated for us on Chicago, which was a nice continuity for all of us. And I worked with Sion in Australia before. Mike Weldon and John Grillo both are extraordinary focus pullers and we needed their calm and expertise more than ever on this project. And, our seconds, Paul Santoni and EJ Misisco as well as loader Cameron Duncan were definitely up to the challenge. When it comes right down to it, in the end, you are only as good as your crew. And this was a great crew for a great picture.”