Laszlo Kovacs, ASC sows the seeds of love in
Return to Me

 By Bob Fisher

Return to Me unfolds at an elegant, black-tie charity ball where Elizabeth Rueland (Joely Fisher) is witness to the blossoming of her life's work - the building of a habitat designed for a gorilla at the Chicago Zoo. Meanwhile, at an Irish eatery run by Marty O'Reilly (Carroll O'Connor), the owner frets over the fact that his granddaughter, Grace Briggs (Minnie Driver), desperately needs a heart transplant. The hand of fate works its mysterious ways, and Elizabeth succumbs to a fatal car crash on her way home from the benefit. Gracie, however, receives her heart and a new lease on life. About a year later, her rejuvenated soul intersects with that of Bob (David Duchovny), Elizabeth's surviving husband.

This $20 million MGM production comes from an original screenplay co-authored by Don Lake and actress Bonnie Hunt, who debuts as a director while also portraying the supporting role of Gracie's best friend, Megan Dayton. Producer Jennie Lew Tugend knew director of photography Laszlo Kovacs, ASC from several films including Radio Flyer and Free Willy. Having recently shot My Best Friend's Wedding in the Windy City, Kovacs already was familiar with its electrical crew and grips, which was fortunate because MGM wanted him to assemble an all-Chicago camera crew. Kovacs reached out to George Kohut, who did some B-camera work for him on My Best Friend's Wedding. His first assistant was Peter Kuttner, backed by Jennifer Desplinter-Anderson with Kristine Scott Schultz cast as loader.

"This film was organically designed for Chicago," admits Kovacs. "Bonnie lived in Chicago, where she was involved with the Second City comedy troupe for a long time. Every part of this story draws on her memories of those times. We shot at a neighborhood restaurant where Bonnie sat in the same corner booth with her boyfriend, and future husband, practically every night for a year. I was horrified when I first saw it because there was no room for anything. She finally agreed after a lot of pain to let us move to the next booth, so we could get some shots from different angles."

Before scouting locations, Hunt told Kovacs about the characters and the neighborhood, showing him photographs of neighborhood courtyards, streets and the restaurant. "It [the restaurant] looked awfully small with narrow spaces between tables," he remembers. "It looked like you could almost touch the ceiling - there is about a foot-and-a-half of clearance. Just about every scene in the restaurant was at night. There was also a backroom where they played cards. I tried to tell her we'd have at least a dozen people besides the actors on the set, so we'd be in a very tight space. I could see from the expression on her face that she wasn't happy. She explained why it was important for her to shoot at this particular restaurant."

The charming spot became a character in its own right. It was a confined place with little room for camera movement, and no windows, and the dark wooden walls and booths soaked up ambient light like a sponge. "At times, the restaurant was crowded, and during off hours, there were no customers, only the principal characters. When there were only a few people we made it darker, and when there were a lot of people it's a little bit more festive."

The gaffer and grip quickly discovered that overhead tiles covered a false ceiling with about four feet of crawl space. The original ceiling was painted black, allowing Kovacs to combine backlight and edgelight with some crosslight. Though the audience always sees three walls, he and Hunt staged angles and composition so as to always offer some sidelight and cross-light creating a sense of depth. "Above the false ceiling there were different pipes for water and air conditioning and electrical conduits," he explains. "We clamped lights on them, which allowed us to create some separation between the actors and walls. There were no windows, so our light is basically motivated by practicals. I never lit day and night the same way even if it was the same sources. I always tried to adapt it to the dramatic situation. I lit a bit more extreme with more shadows in dramatic scenes, and used softer, more romantic light other times."

During the first week to 10 days of production, Chicago's Astro Labs processed the negative and provided film dailies. Each day, Kovacs was viewing timed dailies by 7:30 a.m. "That's when we had to establish the look," he says. "Afterwards, we shipped the negative to DeLuxe Labs in Los Angeles, where a local postproduction house transferred the film to high-definition video. We had a video projector and a large screen. The first day was just horrendous - it looked awful, washed out and lacked textures. I did everything by the book. We used an 18 percent gray scale card, correctly lit and exposed before every scene. Even the card looked like a very light gray, there were no colors and no blacks. I told Bonnie, 'I'm not coming to see dailies, because they're not representative of our work and they'll give you the wrong idea.' I was also worried about scene-to-scene matching. Eventually, I set up a system with DeLuxe. I selected the two most important shots each day and they put them on a Hazeltine and told me what I needed to know about my printing lights."

The cinematographer notes that Hunt, location manager James McAllister and assistant director Artist Robinson remained open to shooting exteriors at specific times of day when the light proved just right for a scene. Sometimes, production had to convince owners of a property to permit them to shoot earlier or later than planned. "We had a wonderful AD, Artist Robinson, who was a close ally," declares Kovacs. "He understood everything I was trying to do. He asked what time I wanted to shoot particular scenes and how long I needed. Then, he would go through that schedule with the actors and director. It wasn't always easy because sometimes an actor would want an earlier or a later call for personal reasons, so he juggled and shuffled the schedule to give me what I needed. Sure, you can compromise and shoot flat-lit or with crosslighting, but I really try not to settle for something that I don't believe is good enough."

For the fundraising sequence set in a ballroom, women were draped in formal, muted-colored gowns and the men wore tuxedos. Kovacs had several deliberations with production designer Brent Thomas (Free Willy, TVs The Outer Limits) and wardrobe designer Lis Bothwell (key costumer on The Green Mile), whom he credits with understanding the importance of choosing the right fabrics and colors and their interaction with different actors in different scenes. "She was very concerned about white, because someone on another picture told her to never bring white on his set," the cinematographer attests. "She asked me what I wanted her so do about the men's shirts. Did I want her to tech them down? Between actors and extras we had 80 men in that sequence. She also wanted to use an off-white, satin-like texture on certain gowns. I love satin because it has depth in the texture. I told her not to worry.

"Years ago, I felt differently because the older films couldn't handle whites without blowing out. In those days, I had more of a tendency to use fog and other filters and diffusion. The Kodak Vision films have so much more latitude today [for interiors and all night scenes, he used the Vision 500T (5279) and the Vision 200T (5274) for day exteriors]. I love white now, because it's so pure and it gives you a reference for black. She always showed me samples of fabrics and asked about colors and textures. She also understood how costumes have to work with locations. The use of colors by the production and costume designers was very tasteful and important in this film."

Costumes and colors make statements to the audience about the characters' personality, but according to Kovacs that's only part of the photographic formula. "Say you are staging a scene, and the main characters are in the foreground," he puts forth. "You may not want the audience's eyes to stray to a character in a dark background just because they happen to be wearing a white shirt. Maybe you want that person in a more subdued costume. You can use color like composition to draw attention to certain parts of the frame. It is something you have to be very conscious of because so many production and costume designers and directors are coming from music videos, commercials and other television programs, where they don't have to think in the same scope."

This classy benefit affair set the picture's tone because its' opulent setting so contrasted with the picture's intimate, homey spaces. If a light was misaligned only a few feet in either direction, it could change the scene's mood or intentions. Something as simple as flat light falling on a face that is supposed to be modeled can change a viewer's perceptions. Kovacs took a laser pointer to zero-in on the exact location of every lamp. He had a dozen 10Ks, at least that many 4Ks overhead, and a lot of 4K softlight on the floor punching through 6-by-6 and 8-by-8 panels holding diffusion material. "It was a huge room and it had a balcony that was very useful. We used it almost like a catwalk and placed some lights on it. We had as many as 500 people seated in groups of 10 at big tables. The scene opened up with David Duchovny and his character's wife projecting slides about the habitat in the zoo. The screen became a primary light source - it reflected bounce light. She was standing at a little podium with a spotlight on her. We had different-sized shots, from extreme wide angles to close-ups and medium shots. I used two cameras, so we got a wide shot and a single on her at the same time. It helps the director and editor to get that kind of coverage."

Coming from a television background, helmer Hunt was well attuned to video assist. Kovacs tried to help the new director maintain tighter communications with the actors - particularly in the restaurant - by putting the monitor in a place where she could speak with her players without having to shout from a far corner. He situated the monitor in a booth or on a table close to the camera, where she and the actors could maintain eye contact. "The truth is that it's hard to see anything on a nine-inch screen in a dark room. Bonnie would tell me to tighten up a shot, and I'd remind her - very politely - that it was going to look different on a big movie screen. She would usually ask me to show it to her both ways, and very often she didn't come in quite as tight as she originally intended.

"One of the problems with video assist is there is usually an AD and producer there with the director," continues Kovacs. "It's a collaborative process, but you can't make decisions by committee. When there are three or four heads around a monitor talking for 30 to 40 seconds after the director says cut, it can break the actors' concentration. I try to watch for things like that, and try to keep the mood on an even keel. This didn't happen too much with Bonnie, maybe because she's an actress. She kept reminding us this was her first movie as a director, but I discovered right away that Bonnie had more knowledge about filmmaking than she let anybody believe.

"For our opening scene in the beautiful old Chicago ballroom, she was able to communicate exactly what she wanted. She didn't say, 'I want the camera put here or there, and then we are going to follow that actor.' She always told me the most important things she wanted from the scene - I knew the emotional highs and lows. The actors respected and loved her because she was doing the right thing for them. We discussed blocking and setting up shots. I offered suggestions for making shots more fluid, and she caught on quickly."

In terms of composition, if a scene included four or five people in a scene, but only two mattered, then staging, composition and camera panning, along with lighting and continuity, were altered to accommodate its style. The director lent Kovacs a lot of freedom, and he, in turn, listened to her ideas with an open ear, always showing her his setups. After Hunt finished prepping the actors, the cinematographer worked out the details with the AD and then relayed a verbal plan to his director. "We want the audience to feel like they are watching real people in a real situation," he expounds. "The crew did a great job. There is no such thing as a simple shot. They had to be aware of every nuance with the actors and everything else in the frame. They had to be sensitive to what is coming into the frame, what is leaving it, and how that affected the scene. George Kohut was an extra set of eyes on composition and lighting. If an actor temporarily stepped into a hot spot, I counted on him to tell me someone missed a mark. Sometimes an accident like that can work for you, but I want to make that decision and not be surprised."

Before Kovacs came onto Return to Me, the decision had made been to shoot in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Due to the movie's tiny, practical locations, this framing size allowed him to compose full-figure shots with wide-angle lenses free from any hint of distortion. Sometimes, he shot through a window to distance the camera from the actors. His lens package included a few primes and a 5:1 zoom. Kovacs has been partial to Panavision lenses since 1970 when company founder Bob Gotshalk brought one of the first PSR cameras to his location shoot for Alex in Wonderland. For many years, he preferred zoom lenses and shot most of Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens and Shampoo with a 10:1 zoom lens. "I noticed that when Sony Pictures recently restored those films, it made scene-to-scene corrections very easy, because everything was recorded through the same optical glass. It's easier today because modern zooms are a lot sharper with great optical quality. I shoot as much as I can with one zoom at variable focal lengths. I always keep a couple of primes standing by in case I get into a corner at a location, and I want a couple of extra feet.

"I don't like to carry a lot of toys or unnecessary equipment. I also didn't use any filtration - I wanted clear, sharp images. I also avoided fancy camera moves [on Return to Me] because it just didn't lend itself to the story. If you are in a neighborhood restaurant, people are static. They are sitting, and there is a visual calmness. We composed a lot of shots with four or five people sitting around a table 'shooting-the-breeze' because they all know each other. We never used a Steadicam. On walking-and-talking shots, we dollied in the old-fashioned, classical way. This is a very intimate film that is sweet at some times and sour or sad at others. For example, we don't see the crash [that kills Elizabeth]. We see her in the hallway of the hospital. There is a quick montage scene in the operating room where she dies and her heart is given to Gracie, but you don't know that's what happened until it's revealed at the end."

To bolster the audience's belief that Bob is falling in love with Gracie, Kovacs kept actress Minnie Driver mainly in three-quarter softlight, but, of course, that tone could vary, depending on the location and situation. "I never actually met Minnie - I met the character she was playing from the first day on," he reveals. "She was always in wardrobe, and I sensed a physical weakness about her. After the heart transplant, she began taking on a more assured look and attitude. She can't always be in the same light, but she has to look like the character she's playing. There's a beautiful scene where she is wearing a hat. Hats give you an opportunity to create shadows and softlight on a face. Our wardrobe designer, Lis, showed me about six hats. I asked her which one she preferred. She showed me two, and I picked one that was mid-toned with some black motifs. It shaded Minnie's face and made it look very soft and beautiful. This is the moment she shows the audience she's in love, and we wanted her to shine." Kovacs then positioned the actress at an angle so that his soft light fell on her face with a shadow from the hat's brim partially obscured one eye. The lens lacked any diffusion.

The lovers' moment of truth occurs when Gracie flees Chicago because of her fear that Bob will reject her for having his dead wife's heart. He follows her nonetheless - all the way to Rome, Italy - and professes his love. "I called Vittorio Storaro [ASC] and he happened to be on hiatus," offers Kovacs. "I gave him the dates, and he said he'd make sure that his camera, electrical and grip crews were available [in Rome] - they all spoke perfect English. I took my light meter and that was it. Bonnie had worked in Rome on a film called Only You with Norman Jewison and Sven Nykvist [ASC], so she had some ideas about romantic locations that told the audience we were in Rome. She selected a beautiful old church with a long oval shape, where she wanted the meeting to take place. It's a visible landmark, maybe not like the Trevi Fountain, but it looks Roman."
Three days were allotted for location scouting. "The first day we pulled into a square and Bonnie just grabbed her heart. The monuments were all covered and had scaffolding. We found out that the government decided to renovate all known monuments for the millennium - even St. Peter's Church. It was that way everywhere we went, until we got to the Parthenon. It didn't have scaffolding, but all the buildings behind it were covered. However, we were able to work around that.

"Night exteriors were difficult because the streets are so narrow that you can't even turn a truck around. Our generator would be on a truck three or four blocks away connected by cable. It would have taken a day-and-a-half to rig, and at least a full night of lighting. "I said to Bonnie 'We need to talk. I know you want a romantic night scene at a sidewalk café. . . " But she didn't let me finish. She said, 'I see, but this is so important. It's the end of the movie.' She was struggling with it like any director. She walked away for a couple of minutes and she came back and agreed we would shoot it in daylight."

The studio made the bold step of previewing Return to Me for audiences in HD format, claiming $200,000 in savings. MGM officials also believed that the digital projection more closely resembled the final film than a workprint. After being shown a rough cut on a small monitor, Kovacs was given about three hours to do some quick color corrections. To finish the job, the colorist must have worked through the night. "When I saw it projected on a big screen at the studio the next day, it looked very good, or at least as good as high-definition is going to look on a big screen," concedes Kovacs. "It was kind of flat without really rich blacks and saturated colors. It's television, not film, and you can really see it when you have a beautifully backlit scene with luminescent colors and a character's hair is supposed to be sparkling with highlights. Everything looks flat and the mood is different. One of our major contributions is when we create images that help the audience sense moods and feelings. You don't choose to backlight a scene because you think it is pretty. You do it because you are listening to the director, watching the actors and helping them tell their story."

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