SHOOT STORY | DEATH AND N IGHT I NGALES
(candles or oil lamps etc). My gaffer, Kevin Hetherington, worked closely with the art department to rig small battery-powered oil lamps, which then became our key light for many of the night interiors. I’d use smaller tungsten Fresnels bounced on to the ceiling to create a room tone, usually about two and a half to three stops under key, and supplement that with some of the battery-powered practical
I relied heavily on China balls, which are one of my favourite lights to use
close to the final image as I can get them, and I tend to favour under exposure to help control how my images are printed. I learned my craft by shooting on film, so I still use light meters. Waveforms and false colour are meaningless to me. I know artistic feedback I want from them – I can’t feel the light in the same way as I can when I use my meters. I can keep my exposures and contrast ratios very precise by metering carefully. I find I can work quicker, too. This was shot on the ARRI Alexa Mini. I’m very familiar with the contrast curve of that camera and how it responds to under exposure. In my head, I treat it as another film stock, and try to figure out where it fails and where it looks interesting. I usually keep the sensor at 800 ASA and just light to the T stop that I want to shoot at. I also tend to use a stack of contrast filters – Low, Ultra what they’re saying technically speaking, I just don’t get the
oil lamps. Where possible, I’d also use covered wagons that Kevin had built for me. I’d keep the covered wagons filled with
DID YOU KNOW? Stephen learned his craft by shooting on film so still uses light meters
a random assortment of smaller wattage tungsten
bulbs I’d had built in a variety of sizes so I could hide them behind tables etc. I also relied heavily on China balls, which are one of my favourite lights to use, rigged on Mega Boom arms and skirted to give me a soft controllable top light. EXPOSURE I’m quite particular about how I expose an image. I want my dailies to look as
RIGHT Stephen loved Panavision’s T Series lenses for the beautifully creamy quality to them, as well as for the anamorphic aberrations.
26 DEF I N I T ION | JANUARY 20 1 9
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