Play It Again
Shane Hurlbut Revives The Glamour of The Rat Pack
By Pauline Rogers

It was a great time period in the United States,” says cinematographer Shane Hurlbut of 1959 to 1963, the height of fame for the group of entertainers known as the Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford. “It was all about living life to the fullest. These ‘big gun’ entertainers typified glamour.”

When director Rob Cohen gave this neophyte feature cinematographer the script for the story behind the group’s fame, Hurlbut’s first reaction was to shoot the story in black and white. “My idea was to relate to what people instantly thought of as glamour in that period,” he explains. “I wanted to capture the story in the style of Old Hollywood— George Hurrell’s black and white head shots.”

At first, Cohen was enthusiastic about the idea. It was Hurlbut’s daring approach to shooting that first attracted him to the young cinematographer’s visual style. The two met when Hurlbut shot the Donna Summer/Bruce Roberts music video for the Stallone feature Daylight. They paired up again for the pilot of The Guardian, a Paradise Lost-type series. “HBO wasn’t going to go for black and white,” Hurlbut added. “So, we had to find a way to bring that sensibility to the screen.”

Hurlbut searched his library of favorite film styles and came up with a look he could live with; a look that gave the story the sensation of black and white, yet was shot in color. “Rob and I looked at Evita,” he explains. “Using a brown and white tone, Darius Khondji developed a glamour that had the same contrast levels of the old black and white era. I wanted to do this picture along those same lines.”

Hurlbut’s idea was to develop a formula that would carry the picture through the glamour of Las Vegas to the richness of mansions and offices of that era. “We could do this with standard three point lighting,” he explains. “On a simple scale, we used something like George Hurrell’s style. He used a high key and hard light which he would take back as much as needed. He would then manipulate the picture in the enlarger. As he developed and printed the photograph, he would vibrate the pan. It was his way of getting the first ‘airbrush’ look.

“Although we didn’t have the ability to airbrush, we could get this look with an extremely controlled, hot, soft light.” It would be key on key, constantly adding up sources to get a back light that would separate the actors from the sets. Hurlbut would add smoke, making the background brighter, often separating the side of the face that was in total darkness.

“I also wanted to work with production design and wardrobe to make the look black and white, whether we were using that stock or not,” he adds. “If the scene was about red, burgundy, brown, or white, that’s what they would wear and that is how it would be lit. Wherever we could, we would be monochromatic, without being bland.”

To perfect his concept, Hurlbut did a series of tests. At first, he tried a black net behind the lens. He then tried white, nude, and several other net approaches on both men and women. Anything to allow him to use big soft sources and hard light. “We found that the white net softened too much. It made the blacks too milky. The nude net looked great on close-ups. It gave an amazing luster to skin tones, unlike anything I had seen before.

“After the tests, we decided to go with just one net,” he continues. “This was because of our time restrictions and impossible schedule. That net would be the black. It worked beautifully on skin tones with hard and soft light sources. Plus, it makes highlights glow so beautifully. They had this rainbow colored halo around them. This looked glamorous to us, so we went for it.”

Hurlbut’s challenge was to be able to come up with something to fit all the different types of looks needed to portray the story of these infamous “entertainers.” With seven theatrical venues, opulent hotels and homes, and recreating the look of Hollywood in it’s heyday, it was quite a task. “The performances were the biggest challenge,” he admits. “We had to find a way to give the look of hard light, on an enormous scale, and it had to be consistent, whether in the glamorous close-up or the extreme wide-shot.”

If Hurlbut had the luxury of a feature schedule, he would have been able to create a different formula for each venue. But since this project was an HBO television film, the schedule was tight. And that left a lot to do in the amount of time he had. “So, we came up with four different looks for most of the picture,” he explains. “They were basically etched in stone; or in this case, on cue cards that hung around every electrician and grip’s neck. When we got to a set up, I would call out a number, and they would know what lights and flags they needed to drag in. This way, we had the glamour up in about seven to ten minutes.”

Look Number One: One China ball, either left or right side, 3/4 front. The back light would barely edge the down side of the face. This simulated a light coming from a table, or practical piece.

Look Number Two: This was used for most of the shots. It became a key on key scenario. Wrap light would come from a medium Chimera, with an egg crate. The light was concentrated on the person being shot. No matter how close to the wall, there was no light spill, just a soft light half or 3/4 around, just catching the actors’ second eye. Each shot had a 3/4 Leko backer, shot through a Hampshire or Soft Frost. This 3/4 back was on the sun side, as key.

This key on key was a blend of hard and soft. The back light was often dead back or a little to the down side of the face. Eye light would come from lamps on tables. “At times, I would tip the shade of a lamp so the 40 watt bulb was bouncing off that shade. I would put this on a C-stand and use it as an eyelight,” Hurlbut explains.

Look Number Three: This served for the wider lighting set ups. Three four by eight soft boxes were used, in large locations such as the Las Vegas casinos. Inside the white, Maxi Brutes were placed two or three feet away from layers of 129 Lee (Heavy Frost). He used Chimera egg crates to funnel the large source. Two Maxi Brutes were then pounded into the left and right side of the boxes, bouncing off the white. This created a large soft light.

If possible, the Maxi Brutes were placed even farther away, one was bounced off one side of the box as a wrap light, while the other Maxi was directed through 129 as more of a side hard light.

Look Number Four: A Leko was played through a four by four diffusion for 3/4 front light. Another Leko, on the same side, down low, almost a side light, was set four and a half stops over. The searing white light on the face would mix with the softer Leko 3/4 front for a great glamour portrait look. This would be used in bars and night clubs.

To make these four basic light formulas work, and maintain the Hurrell look, Hurlbut decided to shoot the picture with Vision series Kodak stocks, specifically 5279 and 5274. “I love the sharpness and color,” he says. “Even when you are shooting with a black net in the back of the lens, and the look is thick, you are sharp. The stocks also cut through smoke, leveling out inconsistencies for a smooth overall effect. It is a lot easier to match these stocks than others that I have worked with before.”

The Kodak stock and three point lighting plans enabled Hurlbut to give the theatrical look he wanted to the sequences, despite the tight schedule and the fact that he was always lighting for two and three Panavision cameras. “It was necessary to keep the schedule and to keep the look we needed,” Hurlbut explains. “So much of this was ‘performance’ and that had to be played from several points of view, no matter what locations or venues.”

Fortunately, many of the hangouts frequented by the infamous entertainers were still in existence, when production began. Unfortunately, many were in extreme disrepair. What was available often served double, even triple, duty. Production was locked into locations like the old Ambassador Hotel and the Wiltern Theater, for weeks at a time.

“The Wiltern served as the opening of the picture,” says Hurlbut. “Here, we created the ‘old’ Sinatra, as he plays a club and reminisces. As he (Ray Liotta) sings to an audience at The Sands, in the 1990s, he says he misses his ‘boys’ and we go back to what was supposed to be The Sands at the height of the men’s fame.”

At first, production suggested shooting the older Sinatra sequences at The Wiltern and the “Live ‘Til You Die” sequences at The Coconut Grove. However, The Grove stage had little depth, low ceilings, and a lot of water damage. Hurlbut suggested they use the Wiltern for both sequences, simply changing the dressing.

“When the boys performed, they really performed for themselves and not for the audience,” Hurlbut explains. “They knew there were people out there, but they really didn’t care. All they wanted to do was ‘get off on each other.’ With that in mind, I realized we did not want to see an audience, or even really see the venue. What we needed and wanted to see was Frank (Liotta), Dean (Joe Montagna), Sammy (Don Cheadle) and their friends.”

This meant making the picture feel as if the camera and the shots were on stage all the time. The idea was to surround the players with a black void, showing just enough to make it appear as if they were on a stage and there was a feeling of an audience, while still lighting so they could play to each other, no matter where they were on the stage.

“We blacked out the wonderful columns and surrounded the actors with 360 degrees of back light,” Hurlbut explains. “I wanted to go with back lights that we could control from the floor. Cyberlights were my original choice. If the actors moved or felt it was better in a different position than we had the light, we could change it.

“Unfortunately, the budget would not allow me this freedom. So, we went with Source Four ellipsoidals with 5 degree and 10 degree barrels. These gave us the throw we needed.

“We created an eight point star pattern around Ray,” he continues. “From whatever angle we shot him, he had a back light and key light on the opposite side the camera was on.

“All these lights were put on a dimmer board, so we could control intensity and position. This way, when we came in from the left side with the crane, the light would come up on the camera right side.

“We always kept the downside to camera. When it swooped around to the right side, the left side Leiko would dim up as the right one dimmed down. It was a ballet of light, to say the least. I wanted the back light to be searing, so they were kept four and five stops hot, while the key light was one and a half stops hot. The rest of the orchestra was lit with Source Four PAR Cans.

No matter where they were, the characters of the Rat Pack were usually smoking. Hurlbut emphasized this by, “adding a little extra smoke to their cigarettes, and we had a little extra diffusion.

“In addition, we shot the whole thing with a net behind the lens. When we did close-ups, we would put a ProMist in front, and use the smoke.”

To add to the antique quality of the locations, performance, and era, Hurlbut also added a Tiffen Antique Suede to the image. This helped mute the tones and warmed the pastel range. It made the shots appear as if they were made during that era of Hollywood.

“When we did the 1990s section, we pulled the filtration and the net,” he explains. “We went cold, with all the backgrounds as lavender, blue and a cold magenta. We used Lekos and Tungsten lights on Young Frank, and on the Older Frank, we used follow spots, half corrected so they would be more blue than white. This way, when he gets on stage and goes for the mic and the scene is transformed into the 1959 story at The Sands, there is a definite change in warmth and tonality.”

To emphasize the period, production dressed the band in the old music stand style. Hurlbut added reds or whites on Mylar, and focused gold and salmon light on the orchestra. “We wanted all these sequences to look as if they were done on a 50 million dollar budget,” he says. “That meant cooperation and coordination, at all times.

“Even when we were under-staffed and had more than the normal lights, everything worked, because we all wanted this to be a ‘big’ picture. In this sequence, for example, we kept everything moving—we had the Technocrane raking the stage with intricate moves. One was flying all over on the Technocrane, moving in and out, and also doing half circle moves around Ray while he was singing. A second camera was on a dolly in the orchestra pit on an 11 to 1 Zoom, dollying back and forth with Ray. A third camera was back behind the second camera with a 300mm lens, getting extreme close- ups of hands, faces, instruments, etc.”

The intricate ballet extended to programming the lighting board. “One of the things that I found most difficult was that we never had time to rehearse these theatrical venues,” Hurlbut says. “I pushed the crew and ordered so many lights so we could have color changes and increased production value. There was, however, never time to do a run-through.

“Tom Knead, my rigging gaffer, and I would be back at the board, designing the look on the fly. All we would have the time to program were some of the background colors and orchestra colors. Everything else was impromptu.

If he had to do it again, notes Hurlbut, “I would probably do it the same way. “Something happens, when you get into that improvisational mode. Creativity seems to flow from everywhere. The actors seem to have more freedom, because we are not locking them into all these rehearsals that tend to make things stale.

“So, for me, the audience is going to be experiencing a live performance in a very live lighting way. This is what, I think, gives the theatrical venues in this picture such a different quality and energy—different from other ‘live’ performances you see in films.

“The crew hated it, because they never knew what to expect. So, when a change had to be made, it had to happen in minutes or we had to go without it.”

When he was shooting at The Ambassador Hotel, Hurlbut tried to do as many of these intricate moves as possible. At times, he was able to add to the theatrics, at other times, he had to curb his enthusiasm, not for want of equipment, but for the conditions of the location.

“It was hard to shoot a room where the ceiling was about seven feet from the ground and the actors were a little over six feet,” he says. “The rooms might have been elegant, but there was no place to put the lights above. The only choice was to work with production design, and find places to hide lights.

“Fortunately, the late 1950s and early 1960s were the time when fluorescent lights were coming in. People were over-using them. Everyone was jumping on the band wagon. So, when we put fluorescent lights in the background, it was logical for the time period. We could then lob in color to make it appear as if the light was coming from the fluorescent equipment. Add a ton of KinoFlos, and we had the ambience we needed.”

Sequences at The Ambassador ranged from intimate conversations at Pucini’s Restaurant (the hotel coffee shop) to a huge fundraiser in The Coconut Grove. The crew had to deal with low ceilings, delicate wall decorations, and water damage in Pucini’s Restaurant (which has been closed for quite some time); to even lower ceilings and severe water damage in The Coconut Grove.

“Being a headliner and a star was not enough for Sinatra,” says Hurlbut. “When Peter Lawford married into the Kennedy family, he saw a way to ‘legitimize’ himself. Becoming a major fund-raiser for Kennedy’s election was one way to do that.”

Many of these strategizing sequences were shot at The Ambassador.

“We had a dinner sequence after the fundraiser at Pucini’s. The cast included Frank, JFK, RFK, Marilyn Monroe, Sammy, Peter, Joe DiMaggio, Dean, and May Britt.

“Rob wanted to do a shot where we did a 360 degree pan from the center of the table, revealing the cast of characters at the table. I was excited about the shot, but again found myself working with seven foot ceilings. I hung a 30-inch China ball over the camera in the center of the table, pulled out four Dedo light kits, and added those as backlights. We then screwed them to the ceiling, just out of frame. The table had been set up with a three foot in diameter pull-out doughnut hole, so we put the camera on a Power Pod remote head on a Bazooka, in the hole, and went for it.

“In the big scene of the fundraiser at Pucini’s Coffee shop, we had JFK banners, balloons, a series of phone lines set up, and two television sets for the election results,” Hurlbut continues. This was a logistical nightmare for Hurlbut and crew. “It was the 1960s. The television sets were huge black and white models which blocked most of the background of the bar in the restaurant. Wherever we put the lights, they would reflect in the monitors.

“To make matters worse, Rob wanted a continuous dance floor dolly move as part of the sequence. We would have to be able to see 270 degrees.” This meant lighting had to be set for massive moves, as well as wide shots, and extreme close-ups on Ray Liotta’s Sinatra.

“The only thing we could do was set it up to be lit like a theatrical venue,” says Hurlbut. “When I told my gaffer the idea, his jaw dropped. ‘How many Lekos and Variacs?’ We hid them everywhere, behind balloons, in corners, everywhere possible. Then we hooked them to dimmer boards. That way, we would be able to move the light up or down, when the camera swung around.

“So, when the actor moved from one position to the next, lights would dim up and down for key and back light. That took care of Frank and Dean, but I had 65 extras to light in the background—all with seven-foot ceilings. My gaffer, Lon Thompson, looked at the choreography of the shot and we really found only one place to put a large soft box to light the extras. However, it needed the cooperation of my operator. He had to frame this area out at all costs.

“I went to him and said, ‘I don’t care if you cut his body in half with the frame, don’t shoot that corner.’ He accepted the challenge, and composed a beautiful continuous shot.”

To light the area behind the television sets, Hurlbut hung a four by eight soft box as far back as possible. By shooting lights into the background, the light would bounce back and light the crowd, but not be seen in the sets. “It became somewhat of a side light, or a 3/4 back light,” he explains.

Everything then became a ballet, with instructions given over a radio. “It became up on one, down on two, up on three,” he says. “When we wouldn’t get a light down in time, it would barely flare out the lens. At one point, we were doing a shot on a 40mm lens, with a black net on the back. The light flare was magical. It was beautiful, something that really fit into the visuals of a ‘live’ television production of that era.”

At the peak of the JFK fundraising era, Sinatra sings “High Hopes” to Kennedy and his family, at The Coconut Grove. “We had less than 24 hours to light the sequence,” Hurlbut recalls. “It took the crew 12 hours to pre-light and pre-hang. We used Source Fours again, with five and ten degree lenses for key lights. Source Four 19 degree lenses were for back lights. We then added in 1200 watt follow spots that were half color corrected to highlight whoever was singing. This gave a nice hyper white light for the singer. We had a huge JFK banner, with Bill Peterson’s face on it, in the background. It looked very much like Citizen Kane, with that banner behind the Rat Pack. Again, the no-time-for-rehearsal factor was upon us, so I really ran myself to make it work.

“The dimmer board was up two stories in a booth. Every time I had to see something change, I had to run down a spiral staircase, change the light, then run back up the stairs to the booth. When we were ready, it was very much a thrown-together, impromptu fundraiser. Because Frank threw these things together on the fly, I think Rob wanted it to feel the same way. So, we had very little time for prep.

“When the Rat Pack took the stage and started singing, mixed with the lighting that sometimes would not hit them at the right time or be aimed in the right place, it looked real and thrown together. We laughed every time they sang the song and kept the lighting mistakes going because it was more realistic. It was the first time I ever told a spot operator to miss his target and a dimmer operator to be late or early on her cues, but it worked brilliantly.”

Not all of the shots in The Rat Pack required huge camera and lighting packages; however, each one had unique characteristics that caused Hurlbut to call on his library of techniques perfected through music videos. “When we weren’t using theatrical tricks, we were trying to create beauty and elegance with the simple tools,” he says.

One of his favorite shots is of Dean’s house. They shot in a place in Beverly Hills that had the gaudy elegance of his Las Vegas sensibility. “There was a sequence where Dean is sitting at his huge Steinway grand piano with a white bust on top. This is in the middle of a huge room with floor to ceiling windows that were about 25 feet high. There is a rock fireplace, and a gaudy chandelier in the center of the room.

“Of course, schedule had us shooting at the exact wrong time of day for the light, so we delayed as much as we could. Rob kept getting angry, but I kept holding back. Just as he was about to blow, the sun came around the corner just enough to hit the chandelier. It gave the room a great rainbow effect as the dolly moved across the marble-specked floor and picked up the light from the pool outside.

“We moved right to left, shooting at 40 frames per second, and we got great kicks off the chandelier into the lens, just as Dean’s wife sets her knee on the piano bench and strokes Dean’s hair. The light was by God, with a few keys for soft wrap. When Rob saw what we had, he said it was beautiful—and well worth the wait. Sometimes, you have to fight for those moments to make a shot work.”

Although most of the shots in this story were created for beauty and for exciting Hollywood moments, there were a few shots that told the “real” story behind the myth of The Rat Pack. “We don’t pull many punches,” he says sincerely. “This is a story about the magic—and the manic world behind it.

“Very few people knew that Sinatra was a manic depressive. He could laugh and chum with the best of them. A second later, he would be tearing them up. He verbally abused Peter Lawford—really hated him, because of a photograph he saw of Lawford with Ava Gardner. However, when Lawford got in the Kennedy clan, he became his ‘best friend.’

“This did not sit well with Joe Kennedy,” Hurlbut continues. “At one point, Kennedy calls Sinatra to his house for ‘a talk.’ Frank thinks it is to thank him for money and support for JFK. What it was really all about was Kennedy turning the tables on him. Kennedy was now in charge and he does to Frank Sinatra what Sinatra did to Lawford. He cuts his legs off verbally. He makes him sit in his office, as he orders him to fire Albert Maltz, a writer Sinatra had just hired to do a screenplay tailored for him. He also asks him if his friends (the mob) can help him ‘raise the dead’ in Chicago and West Virginia.”

To create this devastating scene, production chose a mansion in Pasadena. The house had a limestone interior and cold marble floor. The office created for Joe Kennedy was just as cold and dark and moody. “We lit it with three 18Ks blowing through a series of French doors. I put three four by four diffusion frames of Lee 129 in front of the 18Ks. On the French doors, I put a 20 by 20 half Soft Frost frame to blend the three heads together.

“This put a beautiful ambient, but directional, source on the actors. I did not backlight them in this scene. I used smoke, along with 7K Xenon shafts through windows to separate them from the background. I did not want to light up the rich wood bookcases, so I let the light smoke do that for us.

“By taking the warming filters out of the lights and putting in Harrison Blue Two in front of the lens, we got moody shafts of light with blue tones that barely read on the walls,” Hurlbut adds. “It was a wonderful counterpoint to the massive sequences in the casinos and clubs.”

What was also an extreme counterpoint to the “flights of fancy” on stage, was a carefully crafted “behind-the-scenes” or “between-the-sheets” montage of the boys at play. “It comes off of a party scene in Vegas,” says Hurlbut. “We began the shot off Dean’s voice singing ‘A Kick in the Head,’ as we see the exterior of a mock up of The Sands. At a certain point, the camera booms up, and we see the neon casino logo in the window.

The camera goes through the glass, into Sammy’s bedroom. There are candles everywhere, and Sammy and May Britt in an oval bed. Hurlbut explains, “We then go into a ‘V’ move, pull out at a different angle and out the window, to another floor and through another window.”

This time, it is Dean’s room. “We see twin beds, and he’s in one. We hear western sound effects and light dancing on his face. We frame through the rabbit ears, on his expression. As we hear the words ‘stampede’ we pull out the window at another angle.

“Up another floor, to John Kennedy and Judy Campbell. She is riding him like a horse. Again, we pull out and go up.

“This time, it is Frank’s bedroom. We see one woman in bed, or at least we think there is. As we move through the drawn curtain, we see that he has two women rolling around with him.

“Up another floor, and this time it is Peter Lawford’s bedroom. The bed is perfectly made. The room looks as if it hasn’t been touched. We hear a slamming sound, and move toward the bathroom. We see Lawford pinning a woman against the bathroom wall. All the time he is with her, he is looking in the mirror and adjusting his hair.”

To make this sequence work, Hurlbut and crew had to work with a carefully storyboarded diagram. “This was one day that we did on a stage,” he says. “So, we had the advantage of being able to create lighting that we needed.

“We shot all of these hotel rooms at the Ambassador Hotel. All different days, and sometimes without any notice,” he explains. “The A.D. would turn to me and say, ‘we’re gong to do May and Sammy’s room now.’

Hurlbut wanted each room to have a totally different feel. “Frank loved the color orange. So, we painted his room orange and lit it with warm light. Dean’s room was red, and we wanted the feel that the only light in the room was from the television. We wanted him to feel lonely, and deliver the message that he was always a family man.

“May and Sammy’s room, we wanted to be golden and inviting. This was lovemaking—not sex. Candles were everywhere.

“With JFK and Judy, I wanted it to be sleazy. I put a chasing Vegas Hotel sign outside their window and then lit them with this flashing red and white colored light. This resembled the sign outside the window. That was it—very gritty and real.

“Peter’s room was very cold, blue tones, but where the action was happening in the bathroom, I used flashing, deep theatrical colors that came racing through the small bathroom window and bounced off their sweating bodies.

“Each move in the rooms was drawn out on graph paper, and protractors were used to measure angles so we could then match them to the set of The Sands casino exterior on stage. We got an estimate to optically do this at about 50 thousands dollars. Rob decided to do it our way—like the old days—planning and precise notes. When you see the film, it is absolutely seamless, going in and out of the windows with simple dissolves.”

Once this was accomplished, the shots were done in a Poor Man’s Motion Control to a click track. The dolly moves had to be at an exact speed, and made at a precise angle figured through protractor calculations. “The moves through the glass had to match angles exactly,” he explains. “Not only were we calculating that moment, we also had to be aware of seeing ourselves in the reflections. Since we were on stage, we were able to gimbal the glass pieces, to cut down on the reflection problem. However, it was all extremely tricky.”

For Shane Hurlbut and crew, the challenges of shooting The Rat Pack were worth the effort. “It was great for me,” he says excitedly. “My first feature project—a period piece with a definite look. It was a wish come true. It has all the components a cinematographer can wish for. Now that I’ve finished this piece, I know that my lighting style and approach have totally changed. Lighting has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I hope my enthusiasm for the project will reflect on the audience’s reaction to what we tried to do.”

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