Lighting Period War Film, Shades of Hope: Separating Worlds through Color by Kevin Zanit

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Reference: StudentFilmmakers Magazine, April 2008. Lighting Period War Film, Shades of Hope: Separating Worlds through Color by Kevin Zanit. Pages 12, 14 – 18.

Brie Campbell, the writer and director of Shades of Hope approached me about the film while it was still being developed. I really liked the general idea of the story: a Vietnam War movie that travels back and forth between the war zones and back home. I immediately connected with it from a visual point of view and had a few ideas for the “look” I wanted for the film that came to me instinctively when hearing the story.

As the script developed more, so did my ideas regarding the visual aspects of the story. I knew I wanted the Vietnam and back home parts of the story to have a stark contrast between them that would make the viewer immediately aware of where they were in the story. I shared some of my thoughts with Brie, and we were very much on the same page.

For the Vietnam world, I wanted to really mute the color, and because the pallet of Vietnam was predominately olive drab, I wanted to embrace the monochromatic nature of that part of the story. I also wanted the highlights to burnout quickly and knew a bleach bypass to the film negative would give me both of the above. Brie and I also decided that using wider lenses in Vietnam and avoiding very tight close ups would help show how the soldiers were somewhat engulfed by their surroundings. We also felt shooting all the Vietnam sections handheld would also convey a sense of unease.

We wanted the back home world to appear dramatically different. The production design featured a much more colorful pallet. We planned to use longer lenses to give us a pretty, shallow depth of field look, and combined this with very smooth elegant camera moves.

To really be comfortable with our Vietnam look, I knew a serious round of testing would be important. I knew the bleach bypass would give me the look I wanted with color and highlights but did not necessarily want the extreme high contrast associated with the process. To combat this, I planned to use low contrast filters which would not only help lower the contrast but would also interact with the really blown out highlights in a very interesting way. I talked to Dan Sasaki at Panavision about what I was trying to achieve, and remembered that he made up a few sets of special lenses for Janusz Kaminski when shooting Saving Private Ryan called “Flare Lenses”. He agreed that these could be a good option instead of the filters and set out on finding them for me. These lenses had their anti-flare coatings removed, thus allowing highlights to easily flare the lens and lower the contrast.

I knew I wanted to test several combinations of film stocks (three different Kodak stocks), lenses (two; the flare and Primo) and lab processes (full skip bleach to the negative and process normal). Deluxe did all of our lab work. We spent an entire day testing around 100 different options and combinations of locations and lighting methods. Frank DiPaola, the gaffer on the project was crucial in his help with the tests. The results were screened at Deluxe; I showed Brie my favorite, and she agreed. Thus, the look for our Vietnam portion of the film was set: Kodak 5229, which is a very low-contrast stock, with a full skip bleach to the negative with Panavision’s heavy Flare lenses. This combination of film stock and lens choices helped cancel out the high contrast look of the bleach bypass and gave us what I would consider a much more “normal” contrast range.

The back home portions of the movie were shot with Kodak 5217, a very nice “snappy” film stock with Panavision Primo lenses, also very good “snappy” lenses.

Our back home portions of the film were shot first. For these scenes, I sought a look that was naturalistic, yet had a somewhat “lit” look that was common in films of the period. To achieve this, we tended to use more lights on day exteriors than we normally would. This approach resulted in some very pretty images that really contrasted with the look planned for the Vietnam world.

The world of Vietnam marked a major style change for us. We switched to the flare lenses and 5229 film stock with a full skip bleach on the negative.

There were several major challenges that waited for us in Vietnam. Most of the film took place in a forward base camp that consisted of many tents, sandbags, watch towers and all other kinds of military equipment. Production designer Zach Bliss did a great job of building the camp at Disney Golden Oak Ranch in a way that helped hide buildings that did not belong (like a barn) from camera. He did all this while having a small crew, budget and amount of time to accomplish the huge task.

One of the biggest challenges was the sheer amount of dialogue to cover inside of our “hero” tent. Not only were there several long dialogue scenes in this tent, but most of the scenes involved numerous actors, all moving around the tent. Brie and I agreed that the only way we could really cover these scenes in the time we had was to bring in an extra camera. It would have been great to have two cameras for the entire shoot, but that was not an option financially.

I wanted the tent scenes to be fairly dark. I motivated most of the lighting through windows or the opening in the tent. I just let the light in the tents fall off into darkness while using a minimal amount of fill light. For the scenes with two cameras, “A” camera 1st AC Ken Bender would bump up to operate, and either I or Mike Lyons, our “B” camera operator, would operate the other. During many of the scenes, we had our “A” camera covering more conventional coverage and had the “B” camera roaming around finding interesting shots. Some of the material gathered with this technique turned out beautifully and really made me wish I could have kept the other camera for the entire shoot!

Another major scene for us was a mortar attack on the camp. This involved several large explosions in the middle of the camp with lots of soldiers running for cover. This was the opening scene of the movie. Brie and I wanted the shot to start calm, and then, with no warning turn chaotic. The point was to illustrate how our characters had to live in a constant state of unease never knowing when the next attack would be. I suggested we try to cover the scene in one moving take. The shot started handheld high up on a crane looking down into the camp. After a moment, the explosions started. As the explosions moved through the camp, the crane lowered, and the camera stepped off the crane and moved quickly forward through the camp.

To achieve this, the grip department had to get a special “walk around” platform for our crane. I stood on the platform wearing a safety harness that was attached to the crane. Another grip went up in the crane with me to help safety me and help with the camera before we started rolling. When the crane lowered to the ground, several grips had to step onto the crane to make up for the lost counterweight when I stepped off (to make sure the crane arm did not shoot back up into the air). They also had to unfasten me from the crane. All of this had to happen very fast; it was absolutely crucial that I did not step off early.

Once off the crane, I still had to run forward into the camp with our very skilled pyro technicians making sure I was always safe from the explosions. My team did a great job pulling off this very difficult shot.

An ambush scene involving a gun battle with about 20 guns firing made me wish the sun never went down! This scene followed our main actors on a patrol that was ambushed. The scene took place along a manmade creek in an area with very heavy tree cover. I knew that I would never have time to light these scenes and knew that dappled sunlight moving around through the day did not really pose a big continuity problem because little squares of sunlight on the ground all look the same, and between the massive explosions, frenetic camera movement and people falling, no one would notice the subtle changes. I just exposed for the shadows and let the highlights go very hot.
Shooting this film was a great experience for me. It was one of the most challenging projects I have ever been involved with, and I have to thank my amazing crew for really jumping into this challenge with me: Gaffer Frank DiPaola and his crew, Key Grip Bobby Woo and his crew and 1st AC and additional operator Ken Bender, 2nd AC Collin Cates and everyone else in the camera department. Without all of them, we could never have accomplished the numerous challenges of this film.

Kevin Zanit is a California-based cinematographer who has worked on numerous commercials and music videos. His filmography includes Room Service (2006), These Days (2006), Inner Prison (2005), and Passing Moments (2003). Kevin and his partner, Elhanan Matos, recently launched a production and consulting company specializing in high-speed photography (www.studiobattlerattle.com).

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