Page 14 - Fujifilm Exposure_43 Slumdog Millionnaire_ok

“AS BEFORE THE ETERNA HAVE BEEN THE MOST PERFECT STOCKS.”
➤ His bluff was called when Celador’s Christian Colson called him up 18 months ago and asked if he’d be interested in directing the sequel. “My first response was to put the phone down on the basis he’d called the wrong person. Although I wanted to be given a chance to direct, I didn’t imagine it’d be horror.
“A leap of faith? People don’t always seem to make the connection that as an editor you’re completely embedded in the entire story-making process. When you’re editing, you’re someone reaching for the shots you hope are there. When you’re direct- ing, you’re actually asking for them rather than just reaching for them.”
Was it stressful? “If you’ve ever directed a short film for two grand, you know the true meaning of stress. This, by comparison is a piece of piss. All I’ve got to do here,” laughed Harris, “is turn up, tell people what shots I want and talk to the actors. When I directed before, I had to jump in the car at lunchtime and also pick up the sandwiches. I’ve been very looked after on this.”
Part 2 begins within hours of the nail-biting climax to The Descent, and now follows Sarah (Shauna Mac- donald) and her rescuers back into the mountain caves from which she’d barely escaped earlier with
her life. But are there any other sur- vivors among her feisty compan- ions? And will they once again encounter the dreaded subterranean Crawlers? More than likely!
With Dunkeld, Scotland dou- bling as previously for this very re- mote corner of North America’s Appalachians, seven weeks of film- ing also took place at Bourne Wood near Farnham – boasting magnifi- cent Scots pines - and on all three stages at Ealing Studios.
In the first film, you got, as re- turning line producer Paul Ritchie reminded us, “a lot of bang for your buck.” Even more so, this time, it’s promised. According to McCurdy: “It’s not as if we’re just recreating the first one, we’re now taking it fur- ther. If I feel it’s spooky, scary or shocking then, hopefully, the audi- ence will too. In the first film, we had gallons of blood and guts. In this one, we’ve got gallons – and then some!” QUENTIN FALK
The Descent: Part 2, which is released in the UK on February 29, 2009, was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA 500T 8573 and ETERNA 250T 8553
THE DP VIEW
SAM McCURDY
his one starts with big exteri- Tors, then begins to feel much
more contained before opening out again as you go through the story. When the girls went
down the first time they took a cou- ple of torches, some flares – and that was it.
This time round, with rescuers involved, there’s more emphasis on the technical side of lighting involv- ing videoing cameras and thermal imaging so it’s been a different jour- ney for me.
The ETERNA range have been the most perfect stocks as before. The crucial thing for me was being able to go black. We’ve used the 500T as well as some 250T for exte- rior day. I ended up filtering the 250T not correcting it, leaving it blue and adding the 80 filters in to satu- rate the blues even more for exterior day stuff. I know that it’ll go cold.
We used a little bit of HD and DV cam but I shot all that back on the negative from a monitor to degrade it even more before ending up on 35mm. I’m not a big fan of the tape to film transfer. I want to see the lines, almost to see the actual pixels.
THE DESCENT: PART 2
Photo top: On the way down in the cage; Neil Marshall with Jon Harris and stills from the depths....
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