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SHOOT STORY DOWNSIZING
CODEX While Papamichael ’ s last several films have been anamorphic, and Downsizing is presented in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio, he chose to shoot spherically using “a bouquet of lenses - some vintage Panavision lenses. We tested different glass. Alexander likes a bit of a seventies, Robert Altman or Hal Ashby feel so we didn ’ t choose crystal clear, sharp lenses. We added film grain in the DI because we liked to have a bit of film texture.” Reference, Papamichael says, included Roman Polanski ’ s 1974 film Chinatown . “We projected Chinatown ... on Nebraska , we projected Paper Moon to look at the grain and to look how alive and how much motion there is in film projection.” Papamichael shot Downsizing on the ALEXA XT and Mini cameras, taking advantage of the then recently- released version 4.0 firmware to facilitate shooting Open Gate raw images on the Mini. Pursuing an uncompressed recording made sense with regard to the visual effects workload, providing the full 3414 by 2198 pixel image with a degree of deliberately wider framing to allow for stabilisation and re-framing in post-production. The crew used Codex ’ s 512GB XR magazines on the WE ADDED FILM GRAIN IN THE DI BECAUSE WE LIKED TOHAVEABITOF TEXTURE
ALEXA XT cameras, alongside 256GB Lexar CFast cards on the ALEXA Minis to capture the uncompressed footage. Codex magazines and CFast cards were backed-up on set to an encrypted RAID-5 for security, and then shipped directly to a nearby Technicolor facility, in Los Angeles for the California and Nebraska parts of the shoot, Toronto for the Canadian locations, and London while working in the Norwegian fjords. Once these facilities had backed-up the material to LTO tape and verified its integrity, magazines would be returned to production and reused. With Papamichael operating for the majority of the shoot, DIT Lonny Danler was careful to provide monitoring that would
be both accurate and portable. This need would be fulfilled by a Sony PVM-A170 OLED with LUT processing, distribution and wireless receivers attached. Danler himself relied on Flanders Scientific DM250 displays while using Pomfort ’ s LiveGrade and Blackmagic ’ s Resolve software, though dailies would be created entirely at Technicolor. Post-production was, Papamichael recalls, naturally complicated by the VFX requirements, and creative decisions regarding the treatment of the miniaturised world. A technically accurate simulation of shooting a miniature world with a conventionally-sized camera would force a very shallow depth-of-field look, something the filmmakers preferred to avoid. Papamichael recalls that “we did some testing with lensing, really to nail down the small camera/big camera approach. When we did the plates we would shoot the focus at various distances so we could dial in how far things
TOP Matt Damon on set with Director Alexander Payne.
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