Page 10 - Fujifilm Exposure_46 Glorious 39_ok

Enjoying several pre-lunch drinks, whilst sitting 30,000 feet above the ground in a metal tube, following a sleepless night, felt like a relatively normal experience after shooting this film.
“As I started to unravel the last 10 weeks of travelling circus-like in our multi- national makeshift convoy around the Armenian landscape my
alcohol fuelled sense of accomplishment is already mixed with feelings of distance from the many collaborators that became friends on this journey and from a country that I once knew nothing about and now have a map of which permanently tattooed on my arm. Whilst shooting this spring I received an unexpected call from director Braden King which led to me flying out to Armenia’s capital to start prepping his first narrative feature.
A week long scout led to the film being shot largely in story order. For five weeks we would follow the same journey that the characters make from the capital down through various towns and locations to the Iranian border before travelling back up through the once land mine strewn disputed area of Nagorno Karabahk and on to complete filming in Yerevan.
This scout was invaluable as an insight into a
country which most of us knew very little about and helped to inform us greatly how the landscapes and real interiors should be approached both creatively and logistically.
Braden had suggested early on that he wanted to shoot on 35mm in order to capture as much detail as possible in the extraordinary landscapes and so I tested a range of Fujifilm stocks framing for both a 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 aspect ratio whilst also testing three different spherical lens types.
I was very pleased with the way that the Fujifilm stocks worked with the Cooke S4 lenses producing great definition but with a very natural softness which I felt was appropriate to the vision of the film.
Often these choices are based on a gut feeling about a stock / lens combination and can be difficult to articulate. Sometimes it just feels right. After viewing the tests we were definite that these landscapes and interiors
should be framed for 2.35:1 shooting Super35 in order to achieve this ratio. This decision meant that we could shoot 3 perf. with lighter and faster lenses and would have more depth of field to work with.
Ultimately I chose to shoot on the Super F-64D for the vast majority of all exterior day scenes and Reala 500D for low daylight situations. The ETERNA 500T was used for all night interiors and exteriors and a small amount of ETERNA 250D got me out of trouble if I started to lose the light on a 64D scene.
We combined these stocks with a fantastic 3 perf. Arricam LT package from Take 2 in London and a set of Cooke S4’s ranging from 12mm - 135mm. We also carried a compact Angenieux T2.2 17-80mm zoom and a 4 perf. 235 as a B camera / back-up body.
Like any road movie, the landscape of Armenia was integral to the story and there would be many days spent filming either from a moving vehicle or following Will’s Land Cruiser along a variety of roads.
Having no low loader meant that our angles and lighting choices were reduced and we were concerned that our driving scenes could become repetitive. For inspiration we looked at a number of films with vehicle set ups and general moods and pacing that we particularly liked such as Paris, Texas shot by Robby Muller, Gerry, photographed by Harris Savides, and Antonioni’s The Passenger lensed by Luciano Tovoli.
Our grip Zak Valledian constructed some great tracking rigs and we shipped an A-frame over from the UK. This in conjunction with a Universal car rig and hand held camera inside the vehicle, created a number of very believable and varied driving sequences.
Importantly, shooting on film meant that we did not have to ND the windows and light into the vehicles even though the contrast ratio between the interior and exteriors was often very high. Film has the wonderful and unique ability to cope beautifully with these extreme lighting situations and even when it can’t hold onto the extreme highlights it ‘blows’ in such a natural way. One of the most difficult day exterior scenes to shoot was set in
FIRST PERSON
OFFTHEBEATENTRACK
IN HERE, AMERICAN CARTOGRAPHER WILL SHEPARD (BEN FOSTER) JOURNEYS THROUGH A FOREIGN COUNTRY TO CREATE A NEW, MORE ACCURATE SATELLITE SURVEY OF ARMENIA. DURING HIS ASSIGNMENT, HE FORMS A BOND WITH EXPATRIATE AND ART PHOTOGRAPHER GADARINE NAZARIAN (LUBNA AZABAL) AND THEY IMPULSIVELY DECIDE TO TRAVEL TOGETHER INTO UNCHARTED TERRITORY, BOTH LITERALLY AND METAPHORICALLY. DP LOL CRAWLEY REPORTS ON THIS OFFBEAT
AND OFTEN BIZARRE FILM ODYSSEY.
Photo main: DP Lol Crawley on camera
8 • EXPOSURE • THE MAGAZINE • FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE
➤