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SHOOT STORY MARCELLA 2
on the Varicam and to be honest when I first tested it I was expecting it to be a bit of a gimmick, thinking the 5000 ISO was going to be extremely noisy. But actually I was really impressed with how good it looked. So occasionally that did come into play and turned out to be a really useful feature.” Lens-wise Kate shot with the Panavision PVintage lenses that Series 1 was also shot on. “When I tested the cameras I also tested a few of my favourite lenses. I really like the Canon K35s but because I was changing the cameras I didn’t really want to change up everything. People were less nervous if I wasn’t changing everything! I had to prove to the director that we could still get the deep, rich blacks that he so liked in Series 1 with the camera.” Andrew Daniel at Molinare graded both Series 1 and then Series 2. He created a LUT with Kate during prep based on her tests which was also used throughout the series by the DOPs on later blocks (Maja Zamojda who shot epsiodes 4-6 and Adam Suschitzky, BSC on episodes 7 and 8). DIFFUSION Even though Kate used quite soft, older lenses she still added filtration; in fact, beauty diffusion in the shape of Glimmer glass which helped the leads look good throughout. “ We also used a lot of LED lamps on the show” which was primarily shot on location. “I have a bag of various textiles I’ve picked up over time, different fabrics that I’ll put over LEDs just to help them feel more natural” “ Marcella is shot in a lot of
WHEN I TESTED THE CAMERAS I ALSO TESTED MY FAVOURITE LENSES
the ‘creeping camera’ that implied an unsettling and unidentified voyeur, that could potentially feel as if we are in the killers perspective. “The camera movement was a suggestion of what the director called ‘the killer’s POV’,” she continues. “It might be a scene where the killer isn’t around but as an audience you get the sense of the camera movement not being motivated by a character in the scene.” VARICAM 35 Marcella is a Netflix series too so the use of a 4K capture device is mandatory. Kate tested a few cameras: two REDs, the Panasonic Varicam LT, the Panasonic Varicam 35 and the Sony F65. The F65 was the camera they used for Series 1. “All good cameras: and I felt that the F65 gave a beautiful image but was a bit bigger than we would be practical for some of our locations as there were very few builds. Also the Varicam 35 has a lower data consumption than the F65 which benefited the production, so I was happy to test it and it gave a very good result. I would definitely consider it again if there was a 4K requirement for a show. “I also used the dual ISO feature
different spaces as the main character is always going into people’s houses as part of her investigation work. So as much as possible I would utilise the available light depending how long we had for the scene and how quickly we could move in order for the light to be consistent. We did obviously have a large location package with HMIs. So where available light wasn't going to work they would come in to play outside windows and then I would treat faces with small LEDs or bounce from the floor. “The colour was the one thing that was specified should continue from Series 1. In that series there were a lot of night scenes, so it had a colour palette heavily featuring sodium lighting. When you then come to daylight scenes shot in the summer it’s harder to introduce that element of colour in a way that’s still truthful to the space and the story. So wherever it was possible I would create a darkness within interior spaces and introduce light sources that would augment that, to give that suggestion of colour.” With multiple locations as part of the thread weaving through this drama, Kate has managed to do justice to the Series 1 but also stamp her own identity on the look. Series 2 brings a moody contrast to the story which is perhaps more ‘Scandi’ than before but ironically becomes more ‘real’ at the same time.
ABOVE Kate wanted to carry through the moody light palette from Series 1.
DEFINITION MAY 2018
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