Page 29 - Fujifilm Exposure_17 Africa_ok

A dark comedy of
the apocalypse with the
fast paced Mad Dogs
BIG SMOKE
BIG SMOKE
Sharma and Carl Proctor, includes a number of chases, notably through the Underground system, and set pieces, involving specially built sets in its pri- mary Kings Cross location.
Shot on Super-16mm, the film – which at time of writing was being con- sidered for inclusion in this year’s Cannes Festival’s Un Certain Regard section – has been digitally transferred to 35mm by the Digital Filmlab, under the supervision of Soho Images, com- plete with its title sequence and the addition of some digital special effects.
New Zealand-born cinematogra- pher, thirtysomething Jonathan Smith (who at 13 was co-star of the
Kiwi hit film The Scarecrow), used Fuji “to have the range between ASA ratings from 120 to 500, using the faster stock for many of the film’s night location sequences.”
Said Smith, who worked once before with Jamal on C4’s Dead Man Talking: “The film – which we shot across just over 23 days with some 500 set ups - proved very versatile in handling difficult lighting situations. It gave less grain than might be expect- ed and rendered a good strong black while showing good detail in back- grounds even when the lighting was a good three stops under.
“On one occasion, shooting on Hungerford Bridge, using only bat- tery lights, while panning across the bridge, the entire night-lit sky-
line of the city to St Paul’s Cathedral, and the river are clearly visible in the background.
“Fuji proved to be a warmer stock than some others with richer and more earthy reds, and had better reso- lution on darker-skinned characters with a good strong edge.
“As the film was shot on Super-16 the better resolution ensured a good result when blown up finally to 35mm. In the digital process, our Telecine colourist Giles Livesey was impressed by the way the faster film maintained detail in blacks, avoided crushing blacks in the grading, and provided better resolution.”
Added Jamal: “The warmer colours are also more appropriate to the ‘surreal’ nature of the story. The lighting philosophy of the film was to create a warm look, far removed from the bleached-out look of many current UK movies or the standard composi- tions of a TV film.
“At the same time we wanted to maintain a narrative functionality avoiding the jerky moves and exces- sive ‘tricksiness’ of some current cam- era fads. Camera, design, acting and direction are all aimed at serving the story and to enable the audience to follow the fast-moving events without being distracted by unnecessary arti- fice.” Let slip the dogs... ■ QUENTIN FALK
Mad Dogs was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
Photos: Scenes from Mad Dogs; above left: Ahmed A Jamal and co-star Paul Barber left: on location with DP Jonathan Smith (centre)
feature in focus