A M E R I C A N

C I N E M A T O G R A P H E R

•

J A N U A R Y

2 J A N UA RY 2 0 1 8 0 1 8

•

T H E

S H A P E

O F

W A T E R

–

D A R K E S T

H O U R

–

D O W N S I Z I N G

–

C U R B

Y O U R

E N T H U S I A S M

–

T H E

D I S A S T E R

A R T I S T

•

V O L .

9 9

N O .

1 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 8 V O L . 9 9 N O . 1

An International Publication of the ASC

On Our Cover: Elisa (Sally Hawkins) shares a warm embrace with an amphibious creature (Doug Jones) in the feature The Shape of Water, shot by Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF. (Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.)

FEATURES

36 The Shape of Water – Love on the Run 54 Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF limns an unconventional romance 54 Darkest Hour – At All Costs Bruno Delbonnel, ASC, AFC paints a portrait of Churchill at war 68 Downsizing – Get Small Phedon Papamichael, ASC, GSC and a cohort of 68 collaborators size their craft to scale 80 Curb Your Enthusiasm – No Filter Patrick Alexander Stewart steps behind the camera for the series’ ninth season 90 The Disaster Artist – Burden of Dreams Brandon Trost captures the agony and ecstasy of creative ambition 80 DEPA R T M E N T S 14 Editor’s Note 16 President’s Desk 18 Shot Craft: Aspect ratios • Anamorphic • Super 35 • VistaVision 90 30 Short Takes: ASC Student Heritage Award winners 100 Post Focus: Expo 67 Live 106 New Products & Services 114 International Marketplace 115 Classified Ads 116 Ad Index 117 In Memoriam: Harry Stradling Jr., ASC 118 Clubhouse News 120 ASC Close-Up: Stephen McNutt

— VISIT WWW.ASCMAG.COM —

Love on the Run Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF illuminates the depths of director Guillermo del Toro’s romantic creature feature The Shape of Water.

By Jean Oppenheimer

•|•

36 January 2018 American Cinematographer Opposite: While working on the cleaning crew at a top-secret government facility, Elisa (Sally Hawkins) meets and falls for a mysterious creature (Doug Jones) in The Shape of Water. This page, above: Strickland (Michael Shannon, left) oversees the creature he captured, while Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg) is tasked with studying its unique physiology. Left: Cinematographer Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF. f o

he Shape of Water is a fairy tale for DFF and director Guillermo del Toro, Set in 1962, the film revolves y s e

t adults, a love story that blends following Mimic in 1997 and Crimson around Elisa (Sally Hawkins). Mute, r u

. o s fantasy, drama, Cold War-era Peak in 2015. but not deaf, Elisa is part of the cleaning c e

r

, y P u t S b intrigue, B-movie monsters, and “Guillermo started talking about crew at a top-secret military installation c

i P y P h

M black-and-white Hollywood musicals. The Shape of Water while we were shoot- where a clandestine experiment is t p T S a h r , g s i g Winner of the Golden Lion at the 74th ing Crimson Peak,” recalls Laustsen, who underway. The operation concerns a l e o h y t c a o r Venice Film Festival, the feature marks sat down with AC during a recent trip to strange, amphibious creature (Doug h a H

e p

y S t

r

i the third collaboration between cine- Los Angeles. “I think he’d had this story Jones in a scaly, bioluminescent body- r x n e o U K F matographer Dan Laustsen, ASC, in his soul for a long time.” suit) who was captured in the Amazon

www.ascmag.com January 2018 37 ◗ Love on the Run

Right: Elisa and Zelda (Octavia Spencer) keep the facility tidy. Below: The crew captures a scene between Spencer and Hawkins. Bottom: Laustsen checks the camera as director Guillermo del Toro (standing, second from right) discusses a scene with Shannon, Hawkins and Spencer.

and brought to the compound by Strickland (Michael Shannon), a cruel and ambitious government man. Quick-witted and bright, Elisa has an easy smile but is terribly lonely, isolated by her inability to speak. For reasons of their own, her best friends — fellow cleaning woman Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and Giles (Richard Jenkins), Elisa’s sad, rumpled next-door neighbor — also feel shunned and alone. The loneliest, most alienated character of all, however, is the aquatic man — Strickland refers to him as “the asset” — whom U.S. government offi- cials think can give them an edge in the space race against the Soviet Union, due to his ability to breathe both in and out of water. Hoffstetler (Michael

Stuhlbarg), the chief scientist at the lab, . X

. is actually a Soviet spy who has been r M

f

ordered by his own government to o

y s

destroy the creature. Instead, e t r u

Hoffstetler’s empathy for the fish-man o c

)

makes him a willing accomplice when 0 5

,

Elisa determines that she and her 6 4

,

friends must liberate the creature and 0 4

.

return him to the sea. p p (

Although set in Baltimore in the s e g era of Sputnik, The Shape of Water a m i

s

seems to exist in a charming, antiquated t c e f

universe that mixes time periods and f e - l movie genres. Laustsen — who has a u s i

won five Robert Awards in his native V

38 January 2018 American Cinematographer Denmark and whose English-language films include John Wick: Chapter 2, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Brotherhood of the Wolf — was captivated by the characters and story but knew it would be a complicated movie to pull off, given that del Toro rarely follows a conventional, predictable path. “He doesn’t do masters,” the cinematogra- pher observes. “The camera travels constantly — starting here, moving there, turning suddenly in another direction, then deviating again and crossing over there. Furthermore, the light changes all the time.” “The roving camera is a principal character in Guillermo’s films,” attests A-camera/Steadicam operator Gilles Corbeil, SOC, who also worked on Mimic and Crimson Peak, as well as del Toro’s Pacific Rim (AC Aug. ’13). “The viewer is constantly absorbing the evolving environment, where every angle has a reason for existing.” Each serpentine twist and turn advances both the narrative and the emotion, as does the shifting coloration of the lighting. The vast array of blues and greens, which carry over into Paul Austerberry’s production design and Luis Sequeira’s costumes, clearly springs from the story’s water motif. However, Laustsen recalls, “The first time Guillermo mentioned The Shape of Water to me, he was thinking in terms of black-and-white. I was excited at the prospect of shooting it on monochro- matic film, but nobody was willing to pay for that, so Guillermo decided to go with color.” Laustsen embraced the change, gelling nearly all of the lights, which the Toronto-based production sourced from William F. White International Inc., Westbury National, and Moss LED. According to gaffer Tom Starnes, 85 percent of the fixtures were a mix of Kino Flo Celeb 401 and 201 units, and Arri SkyPanel S60s; the other 15 percent consisted of traditional Fresnels as well as punchier units such as Dwight Crane-supplied LRX Raptors, Top: Zelda and Elisa first encounter the creature. Middle: Del Toro preps a scene with Stuhlbarg, which were used in conjunction with Shannon and David Hewlett (portraying Fleming, right). Bottom: Laustsen and del Toro plan their move for a shot involving the captive creature. LRX crane trucks. Nearly all of the

www.ascmag.com January 2018 39 ◗ Love on the Run lights ran through a GrandMA2 Light dimmer board, which was operated by Desiree Lidon. Specialty gels were ubiquitous: Golden Amber, Steel Blue, VS Red and Cyan, to name just a few. To keep the light soft, the key light was always placed as close as possible to the actors. Hawkins was frequently shot with two 4'x4' diffusion frames — one with Hollywood Frost and the other with 250 Half White — between her and the light source. Elisa’s world is a medley of dark blues, soft greens and cyan. The crea- ture’s skin and the light on him are a striking steel blue. As the two characters become more intimate, the light surrounding them takes on a warm, golden-reddish tinge. Del Toro reserved

“I think Guillermo had this story in his soul for a long time.”

solid red for love and death. Teal serves as a strong accent throughout the film, tying together the walls of the govern- ment facility and the interior of the laboratory where the creature is impris- oned; it is also the color of Strickland’s new Cadillac. Del Toro is famous for sketching concept drawings in a little black book that he carries with him everywhere — but shares with no one, not even his cinematographer. Still, because the director knew exactly what he wanted, Laustsen notes, “Everything in terms of color was done in-camera. We didn’t change it in post.” An estimated 95 percent of The Shape of Water was shot on stages at Toronto’s Cinespace Film Studios; the final grade was performed at Deluxe Toronto with colorist Chris Wallace, who worked with Blackmagic This sequence of images shows the live-action plate (top), the plate with rough CG animation added for blocking (middle), and the final composite (bottom). Design’s DaVinci Resolve. Nearly the entire movie was shot

40 January 2018 American Cinematographer ◗ Love on the Run

Right: Elisa sneaks into the lab with eggs for the creature to eat. Below: A telescoping crane angles the camera into position for a shot of the creature.

ing shots. That’s one of the reasons the movie feels floaty, because the camera is moving in all directions at once.” Such work required two dolly grips, Ron Renzetti and Mike Yabuta — one to push the dolly and the other to operate the jib arm. “They were top- notch,” declares Laustsen. Echoing that sentiment, Corbeil adds, “Often Guillermo would [improvise], directing the dolly grips through headphones: ‘Push in, push in, boom up.’” In deference to his actors, del Toro likes to shoot chronologically as much as possible, so “we were turning around all the time,” notes Laustsen. “Guillermo shoots a close-up of you, then one of me, then another close-up of you, and then back to me again. We were coming back to the same lighting single-camera with Arri’s Alexa XT cameras ready to go, with no downtime setup half an hour later. That’s fine, Plus, recording ArriRaw to XR Capture wasted converting to different modes,” though; it’s how he likes to work.” Drives. Seventy percent of the footage says A-camera 1st AC John Harper. Laustsen consistently used a was shot with a dolly/jib-arm/hot-head “We used an Aero-Jib with a Mo-Sys Black Pro-Mist filter in the camera, combo, 20 percent on Steadicam, and 5 L40 remote head. A Libra head was behind the lens. “It was very important percent on a 30' Technocrane. Despite used on the Technocrane.” that Sally and Octavia look beautiful, the overall single-camera approach, Most of the shots involving the and that the men, especially Strickland, three Alexa XTs were always at the dolly were executed on dance floor as appear powerful,” he says. “I never like ready: one sat either on the jib arm or opposed to track. “When you are on a to have a filter in front of the lens; I the crane, another was always on the dance floor with a dolly, jib arm and prefer it inside the camera. The Black Steadicam, and the third was available remote head, you have all the axes in the Pro-Mist ranged from 1⁄8 to 1⁄4, depend- for 2nd-unit work or the rare instance of world,” Laustsen muses with a smile. “It ing upon the circumstances.” two-camera coverage. “Dan wanted the produces these really wonderful track- Panavision Toronto supplied the

42 January 2018 American Cinematographer ◗ Love on the Run

Right and below: Elisa is consumed with thoughts of her beloved fish- man. Bottom: After successfully breaking the creature out of the government facility, Elisa hides him away in her apartment.

camera package, which included a set of Arri/Zeiss Master Primes. Laustsen has long favored those optics. “They are unforgiving,” the cinematographer observes. “You don’t get anything for free with Master Primes, and I like that. I want to be in total control of the image. With these lenses, if you want a special look, you have to do it in-camera and in the lighting. “I am not a wide-open shooter,” he continues. “I prefer to stay between T2.8 and T4. We relied primarily on wide-angle lenses — you feel close to the actors, the movements get stronger, and the depth of field is better.” Corbeil recalls having a 21mm lens on the camera for 15-25 percent of the production, and a 27mm about 60 percent of the time. “Wide-angle lenses really savor the space,” he notes. “We used the 27mm when we were between 3 and 5 feet away [from the actor], and the 21mm lens when we were 8 to 10 feet away, which really gives you the feeling of being there.” As befits a myth, the story opens in a fantastical dreamscape. An under- water riverbed populated with swim- ming fish and covered in undulating grass reeds feeds into a hallway that in turn leads into Elisa’s fully submerged apartment, where everyday objects —

44 January 2018 American Cinematographer ◗ Love on the Run

Right: Elisa’s neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins) checks on the creature. Below and bottom: The CG blocking and final composite for a shot of the creature at rest in Elisa’s bathtub.

lamps, chairs, a clock — float in the water around a sleeping Elisa, who drifts gently down and onto a sofa. The initial riverbed was created digitally by Toronto-based visual-effects house Mr. X, while a Steadicam was used for the remainder of the sequence, which was shot dry-for-wet at Cinespace. There, Hawkins and certain set pieces were suspended on wire rigs, and two 20,000-lumen video projectors provided rippling, underwater light effects. The sense of being underwater was further enhanced by the use of smoke. “The virtual environment looks photo-realistic, and we seamed-up into the live-action set by matching the camera move,” explains visual-effects supervisor Dennis Berardi, CEO of Mr. X. “The live-action footage picks up in the hallway. We created a digital transi- tion area that matched Paul’s set design.” In the movie, Elisa’s and Giles’ apartments are directly across the hall from one another on the second floor of an old movie palace called the Orpheum. The two apartments and the hallway between them were built as one large set, all on a riser 3' above the stage floor. Gaps in the floorboards allow light from the theater below to filter up

46 January 2018 American Cinematographer ◗ Love on the Run

Right: In the movie theater below her apartment, Elisa tries to comfort the creature. Below: Strickland barges into Elisa’s apartment, searching for “the asset.”

covered in hard, reptilian plates. Hill suggested changes to the skin texture, and then he and veteran sculptors Glen Hanz and Mario Torres molded a body suit out of foam latex. It fit Jones like a second skin. Mahan, Hill and two other special-effects makeup artists applied the prosthetic facial makeup, which included eyes that fit over Jones’ real eyes like a thin pair of goggles. They could be popped out for scenes in which the actor needed to see where he was going. Complementing the prosthetics was the work of Mr. X. “It was decided early on that any time we see the crea- ture in full body and swimming under- water, he would be a digitally animated through the cracks; more light enters Legacy Effects. character,” says Berardi. “We created from above, as if moonlight were pierc- Del Toro had seen Hill’s work him to be an exact photorealistic double ing the ceiling. at a Monsterpalooza convention by scanning Doug Jones in the fish suit Of course, the pièce de résistance several years before. Then, at the end of with our proprietary photogrammetric in any del Toro project is “the monster.” 2015, del Toro invited Hill over and, in scanning system, XScan. Set up inside a The director spent three years imagin- passing, mentioned the new film he tent, the rig consists of 60 cameras that, ing The Shape of Water’s aquatic man, was planning. He showed Hill a in sync with strobe lights, are all trig- whom he affectionately christened maquette of the creature’s initial gered at the same time. This process “Charley” — a nickname that stuck with design. “If you want an audience to produces a complete facial and full-body the crew. Instrumental in Charley’s final believe that this creature actually capture.” design were renowned British-born becomes intimate with a woman, I felt In addition to XScan, Berardi sculptor Mike Hill, who specializes in some revisions were necessary,” Hill continues, photo-real visual effects were life-size statues of classic movie reflects. “Guillermo told me, ‘Mike, I realized through the use of “the laser- monsters, and prosthetic and special- want you to give him a soul.’” based scanning process Lidar, which we effects makeup expert Shane Mahan of The creature’s body was originally employed to create a geometric model of

48 January 2018 American Cinematographer ◗ Love on the Run

This underwater embrace between Elisa and the amphibian man was shot dry- for-wet (below), with water effects created by visual-effects company Mr. X for the final comp (right).

and embracing one another as the entire bathroom — which measured about 7'x9' — fills with water. “We pre-built a 12-foot deep, 12-foot wide, 20-foot long tank and lowered the bathroom set into it,” explains Austerberry. “Then special-effects house Acme FX slowly filled the tank with water.” An Alexa Mini camera was used for the scene, fitted with the produc- tion’s sole zoom lens, an Arri/Fujinon Alura 15.5-45mm (T2.8). “We shot the sequence at the end of the production, just to be safe,” Austerberry continues. “The walls of the bathroom were built the set. We also executed a 360-degree then mapped onto Charley’s digital face. of aluminum rather than wood, and high-dynamic-range capture of Dan’s It was all but impossible for Jones rivets were used instead of nails. The lighting, using a single rig placed in the to “swim” gracefully and powerfully room looks like cracked plaster but it middle of the set; it captured 14 stops of while attached to a stunt rig; accord- isn’t. We used auto-body-type Bondo, range in 360-degrees. We captured ingly, for the movie’s final dry-for-wet which is impervious to water. And, of every single lighting scenario that Dan scene, a digitally animated Charley was course, we had to use tabletop epoxy created, which allowed us to replicate employed up until the moment when paints rather than latex.” the lighting.” Elisa and the creature embrace. At that Unbeknownst to the lovers, water Conveying emotion through a point, both actors were suspended from is spewing through the door frame into foam-latex mask wasn’t easy, and so wires on a stage blacked out with the main room of Elisa’s apartment; here, too, visual effects lent a hand. duvetyn and filled with smoke. Laustsen special effects rigged pipes with skinny Without any makeup, Jones was further projected a high-contrast, shim- nozzles on the bathroom-side of the photographed expressing a range of mering animation onto the set from door to achieve the practical effect. emotions, including anger, sadness, fear high above the stage. Searching for the source of the sudden and love. Mr. X captured those facial The only underwater scene not leak that’s sending water into the theater expressions with its 60-camera XScan shot dry-for-wet finds Elisa and the below, Giles enters Elisa’s apartment rig, and the expressions — along with creature in her apartment, standing and opens the bathroom door, unleash- eye blinks and brow movements — were upright next to the stoppered bathtub ing a sudden torrent of water. “We had a

50 January 2018 American Cinematographer ◗ Love on the Run the creature, he races over to her apart- ment in his car. Screeching to a halt outside the Orpheum, he exits his car and runs up the exterior fire escape that leads to the second floor’s only entrance. “That fire escape was a prac- tical location,” says Austerberry. “It is outside Massey Hall, an historic Toronto music hall that was built in 1894. There were actually two stair- cases, one on either side of the building, but we only needed the one. “The problem was that the bottom of the stairs didn’t stick out perpendicular to the street; they went parallel to the building,” the produc- tion designer continues. “That was fine for our shots of Sally on the staircase, Del Toro rehearses a scene between Jenkins and Hawkins. but we see Strickland run from the street all the way up to the red door at small water dump live,” says containment system underneath it and the top of the stairs. So we built a short Austerberry. “The big water dump that waterproof the lights that were set up section of stairs at a 90-degree angle to you see on the screen was done digitally. down there.” the building, and we cheated by using Because there was a lot of water on the When Strickland learns that two actors. Shannon runs up the stairs floor, however, we had to build a Elisa and her friends have kidnapped to where the added section ends and

52 runs out of frame. Then his double, the rest of the film. It’s not as floaty; it’s about shooting with as little light as dressed exactly like Strickland, runs up more classical, like the Hollywood possible — or even without any lights. the rest of the stairs.” movies of the 1930s. When the song My attitude is to tell the story with Late in the film, Elisa sits at her ends, we dim the spotlights down and light. It is an incredibly powerful story- kitchen table with the creature, who bring the lights back up in her apart- telling partner.” ● has begun to show signs of physical ment, where she again sits at the table.” deterioration. Elisa wants desperately The production shot for 58 days; to let the creature know how she feels postproduction took another 40 weeks. about him, and she goes into a reverie Reflecting on the project, Laustsen in which she starts singing a love song pays tribute to his entire crew, includ- from an old black-and-white musical ing key grip Robert Johnson, 2nd-unit that is playing on the television set in cinematographer and B-camera opera- the background. tor J.P. Locherer, B-camera 1st AC “We put a follow spot on Sally at David Nardi and DIT Gautam Pinto, the table and dimmed it up while turn- as well as all the special- and visual- ing down the rest of the lights in the effects artists. room,” Laustsen explains. “Elisa gets He saves his greatest praise, TECHNICAL SPECS up from the table and we cut to a stage though, for del Toro, whom he applauds where she and Charley are dancing as if for using light as a key tool in telling his 1.85:1 they are the characters in the movie. stories. “In the Hollywood films of the Although we shot it in color, we Forties and Fifties, the directors and Digital Capture drained the color in post, so it becomes cinematographers used dramatic light- Arri Alexa XT Plus, Mini this black-and-white sequence. We ing for storytelling,” Laustsen notes. shot the scene on the Technocrane — “We have gotten away from that in the Arri/Zeiss Master Prime, the movement is very different from past few decades. Today, everybody talks Arri/Fujinon Alura

53