Page 24 - Fujifilm Exposure_44 Damned United_ok

dapted for the screen by Tony AGrisoni from David Peace’s
quartet of novels set in Seven- ties’ and Eighties’ Yorkshire, the stifling, pressure-cooker of
deception, intrigue and betrayal had one positively forehead-to-screen for each feature length episode; a killer is at large, and the outlook is grim. “It takes the format of a crime drama, but I never saw it as that,” says Rob Hardy who captured 1974 on Fujifilm Super16. “To me it is about obsession and the effects that has on an individual. Eddie, the lead character (a rookie journalist played by Andrew Garfield, with whom Hardy previously worked with on Boy A) is effectively doomed from the opening shot. I wanted it to feel like we were in the room with him, experiencing every nasty thing that he experiences. It’s exhausting.”
Igor Martinovic, reunited with his Man On Wire director James Marsh, took on 1980. He also had a similar
sense of the need for a claustropho- bic atmosphere. Shooting on 2-perf 35mm Fujifilm stock, Martinovic re- marks, “We had an idea of progres- sively entrapping our main character, Hunter (Paddy Consi- dine), by positioning other actors throughout the frame so he would feel caged in.
“That was a direct reflection of the situation Hunter was being drawn into. 2.35:1 widescreen allowed us to do this and was also appropriate for framing multiple characters within the same shot and emphasizing their relationships.”
All three films in Red Riding use different techniques and formats: 1974 on Super16 is presented in 16:9, 1980 in 2.35:1 and 1983, lensed by David Higgs on the Red Camera.
With a theme of protagonist sub- jectivity running through 1974 and 1980, the decision to use Fujifilm seemed a clear cut choice for the cinematographers.
“I like Fujifilm stocks because of their ability to render skin tones nat- urally,” remarks Martinovic. “We also thought that Fujifilm would comple- ment our colour palette of 1980’s pe- riod film. We used ETERNA 250T, ETERNA 250D and, sporadically, ETERNA 400T.”
Hardy is in agreement. “With Fuji- film I feel that I’m getting what I’m seeing, it’s more natural. Super16 seemed an obvious choice for the Seventies. I used 500T with a smat- tering of 250D, but shot most of it on Super-F 64D: interiors, exteriors... as much as I could get away with.”
Pushing the stocks’ capabilities be- came key in creating the dark, para- noid style of the trilogy as a whole. “On the whole, I think cinematography should be instinctive,” continues Hardy. “I was underexposing quite a lot on Boy A, but on 1974 I took it even fur- ther. When I work outside of my com- fort zone it generally means I am doing something right.”
“Klute was one of our references for 1980,” confides Martinovic. “The idea was to draw the audience into the film by purposely obscuring the details with darkness. This wasn’t a purely aesthetic decision but the one that had a desired psychological effect.
“We underexposed by 2-3 stops and worked only with lights on the bottom of the curve of the film stock. We also pulled the same stock 2 stops and underexposed 3 stops assigning a different look to scenes that were happening in the past (flashbacks to 1974) giving them a washed out, low- contrast look.”
Both Hardy and Martinovic made the choice of Zeiss Master Primes, with their characteristically shallow depth of field, to complement the Fujifilm stock.
“With the Master Primes, it’s an- other world,” enthuses Hardy. “If I decide to focus on a particular detail they can really isolate it, directing your field of vision. The viewer then
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