Definition December 2023 - Newsletter

PRODUCTION SAN QUENTIN PRISON MARATHON

ON THE INSIDE DOP Cliff Traiman (top right, bottom right) headed up filming runners including Rahsaan Thomas (middle right) was no way for the production crew to communicate with one another while working. It felt ’like shooting in the twenties’, claims Yoo. Flying drones above the prison airspace was strictly prohibited, too, or STAYING ON TRACK Resourceful as the team were, shooting inside a maximum-security prison comes with challenges. As well as strict rules around what the production team could wear and take in, a ban on mobile phones and walkie-talkies meant there “I knew I wanted to cut in and out of the marathon because that’s what happens when you run – your mind goes to all of these different places, and it’s this kind of random-access experience,” explains Yoo. “And I really wanted to put people on that track, and capture these running events for the athletic experiences that they truly are, taking a multicamera approach,” she continues. “But then, when we go into the cellblock, we wanted to focus on what makes that person an individual – in an environment that’s designed to dehumanise somebody, I was interested in individuality.” Eschewing voiceovers or third-party input, the film embraces an intimately observational, cinéma verité quality. The decision to adopt this style was, in part, a response to practical constraints. With limitations on the equipment allowed into the prison, a rough-and-ready approach was required, which Traiman relished. Reflecting on a preliminary shoot for an interview with Ruona, he recalls shooting in a garage, initially feeling sceptical about the setting. “I remember walking in there, thinking, ’Oh, my God, it’s a frickin’ garage, what are we going to do?’” he laughs. “But that’s where I feel most comfortable – you know, throw me into an environment. You’ve got these objects to play with; just go ahead and work with them... everything’s a bit of a puzzle you have to navigate, and that’s the joy for me. How good can I make something with so little?"

else they would have been a ‘no-brainer’ for the marathon scenes, says Traiman. Instead, they deployed a jib arm to capture aerial shots of the action. “That gives the effect of movement: with a really wide lens and a 24ft arm, you can come down and sweep into the subject, achieving a lot of the same thing, but you just can’t move the base around very quickly – though we didn’t need to.” Traiman’s essential kit, which he uses on most jobs, includes two Sony A7S III camera bodies. “If you marry that to a lens that’s f/2.8 or faster, you can shoot available light almost anywhere, so then lighting becomes about shaping – taking it away, or maybe just adding an edge to make something look dramatic and gorgeous,” he claims. “Or you can make it look flat – there are just so many options when you have such a sensitive camera as the Sony.” He also used two tripods, three lenses (16-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm),

SmallHD 502 monitors and a Movi gimbal for camera movement. By the time the team were shooting later scenes, the DJI RS 2 had been released, so Traiman upgraded and hasn’t looked back since. “The DJI RS 2 is just unbelievable,” he enthuses. “I can build the thing in under five minutes, and I can send an image 500ft away to some guy holding a phone or an iPad. Then, also, there’s the autofocus nowadays, which is just magical – as long as your lenses are syncing up with your camera, you can train this thing to stick to somebody’s eyeball. You can even tell it to stay on their left eyeball!” A primary goal for Traiman creatively was to show the stark contrast between confinement and freedom: “The cells are tiny – maybe 4ft across – and I really wanted to share that sense of claustrophobia,” he explains. “When we did the interviews, I never looked into the cell, I’d have my back against the

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