Page 14 - Fujifilm Exposure_32 Aardman Studios_ok

Rosemary & Thyme
“To be able to see the source and its effect is the real test of a stock. Yes, I was very impressed with the Eterna 500.”
continued from previous page
“It was not a massive scene but it was probably a massive lighting bill,” Englefield recalled. “Shooting in the cathedral is complicated logistically simply because of its limited access. You can’t easily get a generator close, which means enormous cable runs. And as cathedrals tend to be used a lot, there’s also the human factor. You can’t just throw people out and say, ‘we’re shooting!’
“You start by thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s a cathedral to light.’ But when it actually comes down to is, it’s just a bigger room, really. However, we had minimal rigging time and basically couldn’t tamper with what was already there.
“I had two large helium balloons lighting the main part of the church. Then there was the choir stalls area which was fantastic because there were lots of little candlestick lights all the way round which are essentially tungsten. As well as that there’s a massive area at the end of the church with daylight coming in. In other words, a real mixture of lighting sources.
“Contrary to what you might imagine, I didn’t use the 500 but the 250 instead which I overexposed by a stop in order to reach the huge areas of wood and darkness.
“That way, everything was record- ed on the negative and I then had the opportunity in telecine to lose or retrieve detail – particularly as I was playing around with colour tempera- tures quite a lot.
“Fuji’s Super F-250 tungsten stock allows you to play with filtration and actually use a filter which corrects it
partially between daylight colour temper- ature and tungsten colour temperature.
“I had imagined I’d use the 500 but you can’t, for instance, burn out stained glass windows. You actually have to lift your lighting levels and therefore need a slower stock.”
Time, Englefield emphasised, was the major hurdle. “We basically had access on just one day between mid- day and one o’clock and then between 2pm and 5 o’clock.
“If I’m going to say ‘thank you’ to anyone it must be to my gaffer Alan Martin for being extraordinarily well organised. This was one of those occasions when the preparation
took probably twice as long as the actual shooting.”
For another key scene, Englefield did have an ideal opportunity to use the new Eterna 500: “The two girls were at a kitchen table enjoying a meal by candlelight. I obviously wanted to use light to create a flicker- ing effect. I actually had quite a few candles there and was shooting at very low light levels.
“You had the candles in the background merrily flickering away, but what I found extraordinary was the stock not only held the highlights of the flame but also photographed their flickering effect.
“To be able to see the source and its effect is the real test of a stock. Yes, I was very impressed with the Eterna 500,” noted Englefield. ■ QUENTIN FALK
Rosemary & Thyme, which will be aired on ITV later this year, is principally originated on 16mm Super F-64D 8622, F-250D 8662, F-250 8652 and Eterna 500 8673
Photo top left: Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris on the set of Rosemary & Thyme; above: DP Paul Englefield behind the camera; left: camera operator Jamie Harcourt
12 • Exposure • The Magazine • Fujifilm Motion Picture