Page 23 - Fujifilm Exposure_43 Slumdog Millionnaire_ok

THE DP VIEW
ANTHONY DOD MANTLE DFF BSC
worked mainly on the ETERNA I500T and the Reala 500D as well as a great deal of daytime exteri-
ors on the Super F-64D. I also
shot a bit of the ETERNA 250D when getting caught in the early morning or late day fading light. All these stocks performed very well.
I also pushed a great deal of both 500 stocks one stop in the Kodak lab in Mumbai, well controlled by Solomon Silvera whom I would recommend to other international crews shooting there. He was diligent and always quick to contact or warn us if there was any reason for con- cern about our shooting material.
My 2nd unit cinematographer (and often B camera on set with me), Mrinal Desai, was my main contact to Solomon and the lab simply because he lived right next door and knew them well. I also trusted him com- pletely. He ran preliminary tests to set up the shooting, steady tests and all the push material tests as well.
The artistic reason for pushing on the Fujifilm was to try to attain as much of the local ambience of Mumbai, especially in the shadows of the streets at night but also gen- erally to try and balance a some- times lighter than normal night lighting package with the available ambience, to fill the negative as well and as dense as possible.
I also like the effect on colours when the contrast curve of the neg is pushed a little. It somehow fitted my vision of the visceral buzz of the street and the people there.
I apply diffusion generally to my lenses, varying from Soft Fxs and black ProMists to the occasional older fashioned fog filters. I also needed to draw the 35mm material a little across the softer sheen of the SI2K material I was shooting digitally on Slumdog.
When I push film stocks like this it is not necessarily to find grain. Quite the opposite. I then enjoy the higher sensitivity of the stock com- bined with DNR noise reduction and occasional de-sharpening in the DI before we shoot back out on film.
I have been very, very happy with the stock and have not, in retro- spect, regretted the artistic inten- tion. There is no doubt that I would have preferred to have shot the Stu- dio material on film simply because 35mm film stock has inevitably more latitude and is more robust than a CMOS chip on a SI2K camera.
On the other hand we were able to achieve multi camera se- tups on the S12K cameras that our budget would probably not have been able to contain had we shot all the Quiz on film.
FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE • THE MAGAZINE • EXPOSURE • 21