FEATURE | BLACKKKLANSMAN
garage. The colours came out in strange and interesting intense hues of red and blue. “We shot the film in New York, but scouted in Colorado Springs, where the real story took place, and shot a lot of B roll there. Spike and I just fed off each other, we just jived. At the beginning, we planned things out together and I did lots of zooming, but basically, he gave me a lot of freedom to do what I wanted. In the studio, however, Spike would get there very early each morning and work everything out exactly how he wanted. Spike let the film grow organically. We couldn’t rent the studio until we were ready to shoot, so we only saw the actors on the sets with the lighting, cameras and crew for the first time when we walked on the stage. You have to respond spontaneously and flow with it. Spike’s team is like a family, everyone on set is an artist, and there was a process there. I learned a lot from Spike.” ORGANIC GROWTH Portions of the film might seem predictable, but the ending is what makes this film brilliant. It comes out of nowhere, obviously it wasn’t in the script. That is Spike’s genius, he knows exactly what the audience feels and will react to. Some artists are ahead of their time, Spike sees things in time.” “We had a tight workflow: Kodak took the negative and processed it, then Kodak
an Aaton Penelope that was shipped in from Sweden. Nothing can rival the Penelope for handholding inside cars because it’s so compact and well designed. Panavision NY adapted my own Arricam LT so I could shoot both Panavision and Zeiss lenses, and production, I was testing different formats, but I hadn’t really thought shooting on film was feasible but then, all this serendipity happened. The cameras were right, the lenses looked right, Kodak Lab had just opened in NY and they loved the project and wanted to support it. It was one of their first productions and they did a fantastic job. “I like mixing formats and aspect ratios, experimenting with different things and messing up the image – like skat jazz, which is random notes, energy, all mixed up. The opening scene with Alec Baldwin starts off as a 16mm black & white sequence, then switches to 35mm Ektachrome for the The Birth of a Nation sequence. MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, send us a tinted print copy of the movie, The Birth of A Nation which I then photographed on Ektachrome stock that someone found in a we used the older lenses that were challenging for the assistants. In pre-
shipped it to Company 3 to scan the film. I have a close relationship with my finishing colourist, Tom Poole, and he sends me a colour image. At the beginning I watched dailies, but studios have strict systems to protect their footage from piracy. The images on the online links were so highly compressed that I stopped watching and just relied on my colourist and my stills. I am accustomed to not seeing my work; before this film, I was in Sierra Leone and never saw dailies. I give that trust to my technicians. I have a close collaboration with Tom Poole and we came up with look together, he made a LUT. Tom defends the integrity of my original intention for the image. It is really important to work with people you trust, otherwise strange things can happen to your photography.” “Spike watched the film in the DI suite and with a laser light would point to a corner and say “Paint that out!” but other than that, he was really happy and loved what was going on.”
At the beginning I watched dailies, but studios have systems to protect footage from piracy
ABOVE Topher Grace as David Duke, Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan. RIGHT Spike Lee demonstrating his hands-on approach to directing.
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