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SHOOT STORY ALTERED CARBON
WHITE AND BLACK LIGHTING For Altered Carbon ’s main street set the DOPs put up huge softboxes full of ARRI SkyPanels as they knew that every time a camera tilted up those shots would be replaced by digital set extensions. The boxes could come down and articulate into key lights and back lights and other set-ups which was a very flexible way of organising rental stock. Perhaps more interesting was the use of ‘black light’. Martin explains, “Our production designer Carey Meyer had this idea that at each end of this huge street set we needed translights to continue the look, like a never-ending street. “The idea was to use ultraviolet paint on the front of this translight and then light it with black light (UV light) from the front and it would pick up very intensely and shine back towards the camera. These translights became intricate but in a good way because we didn’t have to do green screen or CG afterwards. It was basically a front-lit cityscape lit by a continuous normal light then it would have things like neons and street lights or anything that needed to look like a light source painted with the UV paint. There would also be translucent parts of the backing and we would use a 40K (lumens) projector on the back, shooting through with a projected video pattern of the mass transit system in the city. So you’re seeing trains passing through tubes with the other elements of translights and back lighting on both sides of the street. This all meant that 90% of the shooting was in-camera, lessening
which could be on smartphones. Martin explains the aspect ratio thinking: “The widest they would allow was 2:1. At 6.5K, 2:1 is the native sensor size but when you go to 5K the capture image is 16:9. We cropped in the 16:9 to 2:1 so a fairly small crop at the top and bottom but post told us it was enormously helpful in terms of tracking images with a little extra space they wouldn’t have had otherwise. “The size of the ALEXA 65 sensor when you’re shooting 5K is similar to VistaVision which is a slightly more workable format in terms of lens choice. These were lenses that opened up to a 1.4 or even 1.3 where the lenses for a 6.5K start at around 2.8 and go up. This gave us a tremendous benefit when we were shooting in low-light situations and we calculated that we were getting a shallower depth- of-field than we would have got with 6.5K because our aperture was so open. Hard on the focus pullers but it was an amazing look especially for your wider shots, you’re shooting a wide shot so your characters are fairly small in frame but you could still do a very selective focus and with a very beautiful large format photography look to it.”
the need for CG effects. Although there was an extensive post budget, Altered Carbon is a ten-hour movie, not a 90-minute one so VFX for that amount of time is too cost prohibitive. “This led to me and Neville using video projection onto netting and plastic, just to do things to the background that would give it movement and look like a futuristic light source without calling for a visual effect. The agenda was to capture as much in-camera as possible. Shots on green screen were actually no more than ten in the whole show. “The ARRI SkyPanels were our workhorse light because of their reliability when you’re shooting off speed and their colour range. All our lights were worked through a dimmer board so we could create sequences of movement through the lights. Something I enjoyed doing was to programme the lights to slowly go from one colour to another; it gives another dimension to the scene.”
ALTERED CARBON IS A TEN-HOUR MOVIE, NOT A 90-MINUTE ONE
ABOVE Stills from Altered Carbon , top one looking like a shot from Ghost In The Shell . LEFT ALEXA 65 with Hawk 100-400mm and rain cover.
DEFINITION MARCH 2018
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