Page 40 - Fujifilm Exposure_48 Tamara Drewe_ok

IN POST-PRODUCTION
I AMSLAVE
“THE VIVID 500T HELD THE BLACKS, AND THE HIGHLIGHTS WERE LOVELY AND I WAS THINKING: ‘WOW, THIS IS GREAT.’”
38 • EXPOSURE • THE MAGAZINE • FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE
he main challenge Robbie TRyan BSC faced when lighting the true-life drama I Am Slave
was crucial in conveying the
main character’s sense of hopelessness and despair.
Written by Jeremy Block
(Mrs Brown) and directed by Gabriel Range (Death Of A President), the film tells the tale of Malia, a Somali woman (Wunmi Mosaku), who is brought to Britain as an unpaid servant for a wealthy North African family.
Alone, with no money and no passport and unable to speak English, she is little more than a chattel, a slave, and this feeling of being utterly alone is powerfully expressed in Ryan’s work.
“Most of the film takes place in London in a small little garage,” he says. “We deliberately made London a bit more drab. Half of the film is set in Sudan, and that’s obviously the breathing space of the film, whereas the claustrophobia of the house in London was something we tried to push further by making it very dark, dingy and not very nice.
“I used the ETERNA Vivid 500T for this, never having used it in a feature film before, and I was very impressed with it. Gabriel Range wanted these scenes where Malia has no light in the garage at night-time to be really dark.
“I was really blown away by the stock because usually when you shoot with 500 ASA and don’t have any lights it can get a bit milky, but
because this is naturally a contrasty stock the blacks stayed strong.
“It can still be tricky, though, because when the director is watching the playback monitor it looks kind of mushy. For instance, there was a scene where Malia, is sitting on a bed and she’s silhouetted against a wall.
“Now that wall is the only thing the video tap sees, so it pops that brighter and the director notices that and says it looks bright on the back wall,” notes Ryan.
“It wasn’t really that bright, because I was only using a very low level light as a back light but when the rushes also come back bright and the video assist is bright you find yourself trying to reassure everyone that it’s not. I felt as though I had to react in a way by going darker, to try and compensate for the video playback and the rushes.
“When we were in the grade at Technicolor I was preparing for the worst, thinking it was going to be really grainy and tricky, but it wasn’t. It was fine. The Vivid 500T had held the blacks, and the highlights were lovely and I was thinking: ‘wow, this is great.’” ANWAR BRETT
I Am Slave, to be transmitted on C4 later this year, was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA Vivid 500T 8547 and ETERNA Vivid 160T 8543
Photos from top: Wunmi Mosaku as Malia and scenes from I Am Slave; far left: DP Robbie Ryan BSC; left: Director Gabriel Range