A seasoned visual effects expert who's completely comfortable
working in the digital realm, director of photography David Stump, ASC,
has been shooting digital images for feature productions for "as long
as the industry has been using digital technology for motion pictures."
His latest project is What Love Is, an independent feature that made
use of several uniquely creative tools and techniques to bring digital
images to the screen.
For one thing, he oversaw the use of four Grass Valley Viper
FilmStream cameras during production. The Viper cameras were used in
FilmStream (4:4:4) mode, delivering raw, unprocessed images from the
sensors to several Sony SRW-1 HDCAM SR recorders. The workflow also
included four Grass Valley LUTher color-space management devices that
enabled writer/director Mars Callahan to see color-corrected images
(which usually look green and dull straight out of the Viper) on a
Cinetal color HD monitor on the set. Four Apple Cinema monitors and a
Leader Instruments 5750 waveform monitor/vectorscope, were also
used.
Representing a production first, according to Stump, was the
use of the LUTher boxes on set (supplied by Technicolor), which helped
speed up the production significantly. Incorporating Technicolor's
Printer Light Print Emulation software, Stump was able to control the
raw FilmStream image using a laptop (Apple PowerBook) and
Technicolor-developed GUI so the director could view and make
adjustments to camera angles as necessary. The printer-lights
information was manually recorded and matched in the Technicolor DI
suite, saving time and money in post.
Along with the HD output, a downconverted SD 4:2:2 video
output was ingested directly into an Apple Final Cut Pro system from
the set to an edit suite located upstairs, which provided the director
with a quick cut of the scene just shot-sometimes within an hour or
two.
Q: You recorded to HDCAM SR tape for What Love Is. Do you have
faith in solid-state recording for feature production?
Yes, I do now. In the early days of this technology there were
problems with lost data and bad recordings, but the latest generation
has addressed the bugs and it all works fine. The issue is when you're
shooting long takes, solid-state memory becomes a limiting factor
because of hard-drive capacity. With tape you can shoot all day and not
have to worry so much about cost.
Mars had written this movie in the style of the old Preston Sturges
films, where actors talk for long takes and sometimes step on each
other's lines. One scene we shot was more than 30 pages. We did it as a
single take, without stopping. HDCAM SR tape gave us 40 minutes per
cassette, so this was a good example of where tape was the better fit
than solid-state technology. As the DP, it's my job to suggest the best
tools for the job and to make it work.
Q: Why did you mount a Viper on actor Cuba Gooding Jr.'s chest
with a specially constructed rig called the "body cam"?
A: It provided a great perspective as he walked around a crowded party
at his house. What the audience sees is his personal reactions as he
talks with people. It is very funny. When we were done shooting the
scene, Cuba asked if this qualified him to be a union camera operator.
So we got him a [union] hat and made him an honorary camera operator.
We could only do a shot like this with a camera that weighs 6 pounds,
which the Viper does. Can you image strapping a 35-pound film camera to
his chest?
Q: Explain the "lighting ball" you've developed.
A: It helps me perform my HD lighting and metering functions. It's a
22-inch hard plastic, semi-gloss white sphere, with a four-inch hole
cut in the side. The interior of the sphere is painted flat black. When
I'm setting up a close-up for an actor, I can pit the camera at this
sphere and it tells me where all of my highest and brightest highlights
and my absolute black spots on set are going to be. And the way it
shows up on a waveform/vectorscope tells me everything I need to know
about where my f-stops should be set. I use the waveform to grab stills
that I use for comparison and to add color-correction on my laptop. I
can then take these files into the DI suite and speed up the finishing
process.
Q: You often talk about striving to achieve the "perfect
image" for the projects you do. What, in your view, is "the perfect
image"?
A: It's often hard to describe to others, but I know it when I see it.
It's the right balance of color, light, shadows, resolution and no
flicker. It takes a long time to find the right blend, and, in my
opinion, most one- and two-year DPs are not able to achieve it. It
comes with experience and looking at a variety of images for an
extended period of time.