MI DSOMMAR | DRAMA
30 Minutes of footage cut for the final edit 2 Horror films made by Ari Aster. Says he’s done with the genre
ABOVE Ari Aster and actor Will Poulter, who played Mark in Midsommar
SUN SUPPLEMENT The opening of the movie was shot in the autumn sun of Sweden, then the production moved to Hungary. Pogorzelski and his gaffer wanted to cover all the cast, especially in the larger scenes, with consistent bright light, so looked at using Arrimax lights. “I wanted them to fill up the space, but needed a lot of diffusion to get the right effect. Unfortunately, they didn’t really do anything, so we ended up using large bounce panels and moved them around with muslin as part of the diffusion. That
helped me with the contrast and brought up the shadows that I wanted,” he recalls. The new Artiste lenses took away the sharpness of the digital, but also lifted the blacks, he says. “In post, we could make sure the blacks weren’t crushed by the digital, but retain a little creaminess. The film itself went through its different phases and quite a lot has been cut. There were a few dinner scenes with everyone sat around tables, but they were shot over two or three days and the weather changed, so the DI really helped to centre that sweet spot where we wanted to scene to fall naturally without forcing the look of the movie.” With so much work done for the acquisition side of the movie – like the use of the new LiColor2 from Panavision and a LUT to create a consistent look for the movie – the DI became a correction and fine- tuning exercise. “The LUT was a denser one, and the camera had a lot of colour range and latitude in it to keep me safe and encourage me to be bold at the same time. It was a great experience,” Pogorzelski concludes. MIDSOMMAR IS ON RELEASE AND HAS GROSSED $35M WORLDWIDE SO FAR
we absolutely needed it. If not, could we use something else to replace it?” But Pogorzelski’s history with Aster helped to streamline the filmmaking process. “I’ve worked so much with Ari that I know what he’s looking for with the camera movement – we’ve got a shorthand that helps us both and speeds up decisions. Ari comes with a preliminary shot list, and I can quickly look at it and see what gear is needed. This gives the production some idea of how long we will need certain pieces of gear – like the expensive technocrane.”
IMAGES Various stills from Midsommar
SEPTEMBER 20 1 9 | DEF I N I T ION 57
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