SEX EDUCAT ION | DRAMA
DEF: What was your lens choice? Did you want to detune the digital with some old glass or look to use some more modern lenses? What focal lengths did you decide on? Did the large format nature of the Venice help you? spherical and, in testing, selected Zeiss Master Primes and Fujinon Premier 4K 18-85mm and 14.5-45mmT2 zooms. These lenses gave us the wonderful paradox of soft but sharp, which worked well with the variety of skin tones and ages we would be shooting. I knew I could use the same lens on any character without the fear of it being unflattering. The wide end of the Master Prime range is especially good and has many sizes on offer. We used the 14 and 16mm for bold graphic wides and the 21, 27 and 40mm for shooting masters and faces. Most of the show was shot on these sizes. Occasionally, we bought in a 10mm Ultra Prime. The Fujinon zooms are big but amazing. It’s difficult to tell the difference from the Masters and my two brilliant camera operators Nick Martin and Ilana Garrard made regular use of the 18-85mm. Although we opted for spherical capture, when we made this decision, I offered up JC: Early on, Ben and I talked about anamorphic, but ultimately opted for
camera’s movement – and we blocked scenes accordingly. Our key grip, Gary Sheppard, is an extraordinary man whose strength, ideas and practicality know no limits. No matter where we wanted the camera, no matter how complex, he would always get it there in no time and with no fuss. When I tasked him with building a custom rig to track along the ceiling of the disused toilet set without much money or motorisation, he rose to the challenge and knocked it out the park. Both camera operators and myself had a real soft spot for ‘Sheppy’ – he was such an asset to the camera team and made us laugh all day. When extra movement was required, such as in the school corridors, Ilana Garrard handled this beautifully with her Steadicam. Mike Drury joined us on several occasions with his Jimmy Jib and, when this wasn’t big enough, we used a Technocrane from Panavision Grips. Compositionally, I’m always very specific and spend a lot of time thinking about the right approach for each project. Again, this has to be influenced by the story. I’d never be the guy to say: “Let’s make this show the ‘Loads of Headroom’ show” or whatever, just because I’d seen it on another show or because I’ve got no ideas.
the idea of combining this with a post- produced effect to create a more vintage look at a level that was both not distracting, but also entirely controllable. David Fincher used this idea to great effect on Mindhunter , which was shot on the ultra-sharp combo of Red Helium with Leica Summilux. Initially, Squint, who handled our VFX work, was tasked with creating a plug-in for us, but this proved to be too complex. So TomUrbye at The Look stepped in and did a great job of repurposing a tool on his system designed to correct aberration and distortion. He basically reversed it so it added these artefacts rather than removing them. This allowed us to completely control the ‘vintage’ look, unlike when you actually shoot with vintage lenses and have no control over distortion, abberation and softness. DEF: Tell us about the camera movement. What framing were you looking at and which movement technology did you want to achieve it? JC: We wanted the show to feel energised and optimistic without moving the camera unnecessarily. We started from the perspective that the movement of the cast would inform the
MARCH 20 1 9 | DEF I N I T ION 31
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