By Holly Willis

For many cinematographers, the phrase "digital cinematography" is an oxymoron, a conflict in terms and an insult to a time-honored profession. Working on the prosumer level with mini-DV cameras seems worse yet, due in part to the relatively unsophisticated lens systems featured on these inexpensive cameras. However, for Allen Daviau, ASC (E.T., Empire of the Sun, Fearless, The Astronaut's Wife) the opportunity to shoot a three-minute digital short using the Sony VX-1000 mini-DV camera posed an enticing challenge that he readily welcomed.

The "digital film" in question is entitled Sweet and it relates a simple tale of urban alienation between a man and a woman, who fantasize about each other constantly but never connect. Rather than the traditional frenzy and grit of handheld, documentary-style shooting that often marks DV narrative filmmaking, Sweet employs absolute control through a refined look that employs precise composition, framing and lighting. Graceful tracking shots and muted, pastel hues underline a story of repressed attraction, making for beautiful images that one would not expect from a mini-DV camera.

Daviau's involvement came about through his friendship with director Elyse Couvillion, whose background includes work in the live-action effects unit at Industrial Light and Magic as a camera assistant, as well as time working in commercials and on the sets of several major Hollywood films - Always, The Rocketeer, Bugsy, Fearless and Congo among others. She had already written and directed a short on mini-DV, Is2o (1999), and founded Filmmakers Alliance, a collective for indie moviemakers. However, Couvillion claims inspiration for writing and directing Sweet came from seeing shorts at ResFest, an annual travelling showcase of digital image-making. This event was founded in 1997 as a showcase for digital video shorts, animation and music videos, some produced on mini-DV and desktop editing systems. (Besides being screened last fall at the 2000 ResFest, Sweet is a featured selection at this year's Sundance Film Festival and will also be presented at the ICG's Hi-Def seminar on February 17th ).

Daviau had already seen and admired Couvillion's first short. But to get the cinematographer to sign on for Sweet, the director had to take him step-by-step through her film as an idea. "She sat me down and played the music for me," he recalls, "and then showed me the storyboards. Next, she sat me down at the computer and showed me the music with the animated storyboard, and that was it." Borrowing from the precision used in commercial directing, Couvillion had constructed a very detailed and exact animatic illustrating every shot in the film as timed to the music. "We storyboarded every single panel then edited them together in Final Cut Pro before shooting," she explains. "So instead of telling people about the story, I would hand them a disk and say, 'This is the movie!'" At several panel presentations, the extremely effective animatic has been screened alongside the film.

Couvillion's primary motivation for Sweet is its symphonic soundtrack. "I've always loved The Nutcracker and this piece [Tchaikovsky's "Coffee"] has always been very evocative to me - it's a very sexy piece." The director likes to refer to the short film as a music video, and indeed, it thoughtfully follows the pacing and nuances of Tchaikovsky's notes. To get such precision, the director carefully composed each shot, noting camera moves and angles, as well as its lighting. "With DV, there's a tendency not to plan things out, but you need discipline and control," she relates. "If you do your homework you can end up with something that looks incredible. I got so tired of seeing all these films with people running around with a handheld camera with crummy lighting and not a lot of planning. The whole Dogma movement is great, but it can be a cop-out for filmmakers."

"Filmmaking is like lovemaking," Couvillion continues. "You can't forget your audience and you can't be in it for yourself. You have to be considering your audience all the time. With such a small camera, it's easy to get caught up and shoot everything. But how will this affect your audience emotionally? When I did the storyboards for Sweet, I knew I had only three minutes so I knew I'd have to use every subliminal trick in the book."

These "subliminal tricks" included keeping both characters in half-light until the final shot when the two see each other and are in full-lit aura. The male protagonist is always set on the right side of the frame, while the female principal ever occupies the left side; his dolly shots are perpetually done left-to-right, while hers are continually right-to-left. So in a sense, the characters seem to be colliding throughout the film right up to the last shot. Clothing and cars are also carefully color-coded. Though much of the imagery is desaturated, red and blue do pop out of frame: the man's red tie and the woman's red pumps are of matching hues while his pale blue suit shares shading with her blanket. Overall, the effect of such attention to detail is an uncanny sense of balance and unity.

To achieve a controlled color palette, Couvillion and Daviau made sure to study the natural lighting available for each sequence of this L.A.-based production. The director even went as far as to spend an entire day sitting in the classroom (at John Burroughs Middle School) and the conference room (in downtown's Northern Trust Bank building) where the two central scenes occur off and on. She spent her time noting motion and intensity of sunlight and also shooting still images for further study. "Elyse found locations that worked for certain times of the day. So we made a big effort to make sure we were there at that time of the day and that made a big difference," details Daviau. "The conference room, for example, had to be done first thing in the morning. For this little camera to perform its magic, we had to make sure that the light was on our side. The dictates of the budget were such that we couldn't use a generator, so we didn't have a tremendous amount of light. We had to plug into light sockets, and we really counted on nature coming through for us!" The pair also conducted further tests, shooting scenes with complete wardrobe and make-up to ensure that no surprises cropped up during the actual shoot.

In terms of supplemental lighting, the pair kept use of fixtures to a minimum, deploying 1200 HMI Pars and one 575-watt HMI Par. "Everything had to be powered through regular house current," illuminates Couvillion. "We used a few smaller units like 650 Tota lights in some situations, but overall, natural light was our source with negative fill applied to make the shadow side darker. Taking light away was a bigger focus than adding light, since we were careful to choose locations with good natural lighting."

In the final shot, which was the only one done on a stage (thanks to donated space from Panavision), Daviau utilized a selection of tungsten lamps - the brightest being a 5K. He and Couvillion opted to avoid filters, keeping in mind their objective to gather as much information as possible in the low-resolution format. However, a few situations - the woman's close-ups and the on-stage shots - did call for 1/8 and 1/4 white ProMists. "We wanted to be careful and not bloom the highlights and these work well with that concern," notes Couvillion. For the time-lapse shots, they applied a standard polarizing filter to cut through the characteristic L.A. haze. The polarizing filters also factored into shots with each character's car, helping to cut down on reflections.

The duo chose the Sony VX-1000, in part because the director had used the camera on her first short. But Couvillion notes that another reason lied in the camera having slightly better resolution than the other cameras available at the time. Besides wanting to shoot in the PAL format, they also needed the camera's time-lapse capability for the opening sequence.

Despite the camera being several times smaller than what he is accustomed to using, Daviau offers the VX-1000 high praise. "You can see even just looking on the monitor that the camera delivers a tremendous range," the cinematographer says. "You couldn't mark the focus or the zoom, and that had to be overcome, but for us, it was just a matter of putting the camera in a situation in which its inherent advantages could really function."

Preproduction planning helped keep the Sweet shoot to three easy production days in late-May 2000. During postproduction, Daviau and Couvillion went to The Orphanage, a San Francisco-based DV-production company, which handled additional effects work, compositing and color correction. The outfit's proprietary film-look process, known as Magic Bullet, was used on Sweet before the short was output to film at Filmout Express.

According to Daviau, one of the benefits of working on a short DV film was its simplicity. "It was wonderful because it all happened so quickly!" he states with a hearty laugh. But the cinematographer also hastens to add that by no means is he a poster child advocating DV over and above traditional moviemaking. "This doesn't at all mean I'm going to go off and shoot everything on DV - I'm still shooting film - but it's fun to work in another medium."

"It's so interesting how far back all this [film-versus-digital debate] goes," concludes the cinematographer. "The book titled Electronic Motion Pictures said that soon we'd all be able to shoot motion pictures with electronic cameras, and that was published in 1955! It's a very straightforward history, but this change has been coming for a long time. In covering the first videotape recorder, a noted trade publication used the headline 'Film is dead' and that was in 1956! But at the end of the day, it's all about the telling of the story - how do you want to tell your story? That's the joy of working in this medium - we work in a medium that never stops changing. For people to say electronic is bad is wrong. You have to realize that these are just tools."