Blog — Aidan Gault//DOP

The usual story at the start of a new blog post, I apologize for the lack of such! Been busy in the second half of 2015.But I've finally gotten this brief chance to talk about the look of a film I'm very pleased with. Time and Again, written and Directed by Aidan Largey. A co-production from Causeway Pictures and What's Next Films.

When I was asked to accompany Dir. Aidan Largey on his latest film journey, I couldn't wait to read the script. It's always a bit like Christmas when Aidan is on a new project. With the help of his producers Margaret McGoldrick and Leo McGuigan, they always seem to bring together the most wonderful cast & crew, whom are always there simply because they want to be. That always makes a big difference in the quality of production.

The script was sweet. Really sweet. The story followed a young boys adventure with his best friend in inveting a Time Machine to allow him to go back in time and meet his deceased mother for the first time. Something that tug at the old heart strings.

For me, it was something different. The screenplay offered a huge variety of different emotions and complexities to translate into an image. Scanning through the different scenes screamed a collection of different moods, colour palettes, diffusions and contrast ratios. Which was a lot of fun for me.

As contextuals, Aidan and I looked to the works of Sam Mendes for "American Beauty," JJ Abrams for "Super 8," and the list goes on. What was important for us, was to capture the magic that filmmakers like Steven Spielberg did in their childhood epics. It's all hard light beaming through rooms filled with smoke, big eyelights and warmly toned keys that are soft, very soft.

My formula became clear in terms of lighting. Keep it soft, keep it warm, keep it simple. My best friend on this became a set of 300 fresnals and this amazing set of pop-up chimera 3x3 diffusion frames. I swear by these frames now, honestly. Budget restraints didn't allow me a Gaffer and/or spark so it really came down to myself and whomever could lend a hand. But these frames came with a 1/4 and 1/2 silk, they were light and versatile. I found myself grabbing one for every closeup, placing it as close to the subject as the composition would allow, giving me the softest and widest spread of light.

Giving the nature of the look of the film, I primarily shot wide open at T2 with the Zeiss ZF lenses. My first time using these lenses, and to be honest, I'm not impressed with how they handled themselves. To me, they looked a bit "muddy." It's hard to explain, but they came with a bucket load issues like major colour fringing and breathing. I'm all for vintage glass on digital sensors, but not so much these.

We shot on a Canon c300 mki externally to a Samurai 422 recorder for a nice healthy cLog prores image. The c300 is a great camera for small projects tight on cash. Its a very versatile tool and in fact saved our ass a bit when it came to the trolly rig scene. 1st AC Cel Bothwell was able to strip it down bare bones and using only a few magic arms and c-stand bits, clamped it to the trolly to give us this lovely dynamic tracking shot. Though looking back, I remember having serious issues with the shake of the trolly creating some un-usable jelly footage. This was solves by laying a track down, and strapping the trolly on top of our platform dolly. Worked a treat.

One thing that is greatly notable about the camera is it's performance in the low lights. And for production that can't quite afford the beefier lamps, this is helpful. I know for the garage/workshop scene, I wanted to create shafts of cool daylight spilling in from outside, blending with the warm tungsten of the inside. And when your biggest lamp is a 2.5k HMI, you can just about get away with it by keeping your interior lighting small enough. Ofcourse, introducing as much negative fill on to the subject helps also, with the use of 4x4 floppies.

I had a bit of budget lighting kit on this one, so I did what I could to throw light into the scene and create some sort of sculpting. It got harder as the angles got wider! A 650w or 1k bounced into a large Polyboard is a classic go to tool for me to grab for any situation. And I often found myself using it as a nice soft kicker, that wraps around the jaw bone and cheek. Just enough to separate the character from the background and help them pop in the frame.

For the eyelights, if my key light was not doing them justice, I'd introduce a 1x1 LED panel close to the actor which was out of frame, and have it on very low intensity. Enough to pop the eyes, but not fill intoo much sought after shadow and shape in the face.

Aidan and I talked a lot in prep about how the camera should move, and even react to the scenes that play out. We tried to keep it fluid and dynamic on tracks with slow push ins to enhance the drama in key emotional breakthroughs with characters. We did break out the handheld for the pivotal moment in the film, ie the resolution. I don't want to give too much away, but you'll see the difference it makes to scene when/if you see it.... so I believe.

To be honest, this wasn't a tricky shoot for me. Sometimes when the scene is set, the cast are rehearsed, and the Director knows what he needs; the lighting and camera just fall into place. It becomes obvious how it should look.

So without further a due, I'll wrap it up. Again thanks for reading and thanks a mill to my team

Cel Bothwel - Focus Puller
Erin O'Rawe - 2nd AC
Matthew McGuigan - Stills/On set hand

And for the last day when Cel left us;

Erin O'Rawe - Focus Puller
Aaron MacAuley - 2nd AC

Until next time,

BTS Stills by Jim McMorrow

I received a phone call in late March 2015 from Patrick Maxwell, Writer-Director of "The Choices We Make." straight off the bat it sounded like Patrick had a great project lined up. Something I'd want to get involved in. Meeting the filmmaker from Headline Films soon after, it was apparent to me his vision was as clear as day. Straight away, I was bombarded with visual references from films like "The Piano," "The Last of the Mahicans" and pretty much anything from the works of DP Christopher Doyle. I can't imagine any better way to, right away, gain my complete attention.

Once reading the 20 page screenplay, and chatting about it's content and the story Patrick was trying to convey; I signed on as cinematographer.

In early pre-production, we covered a vast array of contextual references which combine as one to create the visual style and look of the short film we were going to make. From the texture of "The Place beyond the Pines," the colour of "Killing them Softly," the compositions of "Drive," and the camera movement of "The Piano." We had a lot of great ideas.

For the look we wanted, myself and Patrick knew this film screamed out to be captured on 35mm film. Specifically the desirable colour and texture Kodak Vision3 500t 5219. We explored this avenue, but production was based in Dublin, Ireland. And what was of paramount importance for us was being able to watch Dailies to assess what we were capturing was true to the story. It was a low budget short and employing Dailies services from the labs in London was simply not feasible for us.

Failing our first choice, I opted for an Arri Alexa Plus shooting internally at 2k prores 4444. In the experience I have had with Digital Cinematography, the Alexa look is the closest image that delivers an organic feel, similar to that of 35mm film. For Dailies, I worked with my DIT, Marco Conte to trancode low res files with a baked in 500t 5219 negative LUT from Emulsionz. This would give us an image to review that was as close to our original intentions as we could get.

For glass, Patrick and I discussed a couple of options. But with much discussion we knew that the Cooke look was exactly what we were going for. So I spoke to Kevin from Panavision regarding what was available to us. We ended up with a lovely set of Cooke S4 Primes ranging from a 16mm to a 135mm. And because Patrick and I wanted the scenes to play out majorly on long lenses, Kevin hooked us up with a doubler aswell; giving us a maximum focal length of 270mm. Tough stuff for Focus Puller, Mike Gilbert. And it didn't help that my shooting stop was wide open on T2 throughout when rating the camera at it's base of 800ASA.. But nah, he nailed it! I used an 1/8 BPM in the mattebox, simply to take the edge of the digital sharpness and to slghtly bloom the highlights that I believe most traditional film stocks do naturally. I used a set of IRND's to control exposure as well.

I was fortunate enough to team up once again with Dolly Grip, Rob Kelly. Armed to the teeth with a Chapman Peewee III, we were able to achieve some gorgeous dolly moves. Something that is most impressive on Rob's part, is the snail paced tracking required for some low key dialogue scenes. Myself and Patrick wanted to introduce these subtle tracks around characters to add drama and tension to scenes which would otherwise be still and lifeless. I also find, saying on the dollies pneumatic wheels is a very efficient way to work and frame up shots. So I tried to side with that option wherever we could.

The script called for a healthy amount of day exteriors. I faced a constant battle throught the five days of production against the clouds. Shooting in late May provided us some very harsh sunlight mixed with unpredictable cloud coverage. It was always going to be a 50/50 chance decision at the start of the day deciding which to shoot for. But we did alright.

When shooting for the sun, I did my best to influence the blocking so that the cast were backlit or given a 90 degree key. Then I would have gaffer Dani Wall and spark Laurent Murray erect large silk frames for diffusion. I'd use simple large pieces of polyboard to lift faces and 4x4 floppys to add negative fill. And bobs your uncle.

The film's major character developing scenes take place in the mist of a car wash. So for the most part, I employed a handy gadget in front of the lens called a rain deflector. Powered by the camera, it contains a plain of glass . This left me assured that if a spec of water hit the glass, we would not loose the shot or performances of the cast.

For the interiors, we a got a little more adventurous. I wanted to go four a real low key, urban look for inside the St Theresa Flats. Which is the home of one of our leading characters. I had this image in my head of a very warm interior, with sodium vapour street lights spilling into the rooms through the windows, instead of the conventional blue moonlight.

So Jason from Teach Solais hooked me up with a totally awesome dirty gels package, including rolls of Rosco Urban Sodium and Rosco Chocolate.

I used 1k fresnals gelled with the urban sodium through each window. Then I had the boys throw cone shapes of the Rosco Chocolate on each practical lamp. We then used this as our base. We would utilize 650's bounced off poly for keys motivated by the practicals. Then added negative fill to maintain a deep contrast ratio of around 5:1. What I saw myself doing often was bringing in smaller fresnals like 300's or peppers as detailers or if I needed a rim light to separate the subject from the background.

A huge contribution to the look of this film was down to the work of our producton designer, Dec Windsor. He spent a long time in prep painting the walls of our interiors due to our reference images, he was able to get the colour scheme we sought after.

I do admit that in the heat of the moment I may have gone a bit overboard with the darkness but on the day it felt right. When I see the rehearsals and see the darker tones in the performances, I cant help but bring in more negative fill! A few of the lads were coining a few Gordon Willis references when reviewing the monitor.

A fun scene to shoot was a Night Interior in a Laundrette. In the script, the laundrette was closed for business and our character was just finishing up for the night. I wanted to step away from the intense sodium this time around and went for a 2.5 HMI through a 1/4 silk frame outside . What was most challenging was, we had to light from above because the opening scene in the sequence was a establishing track shot from one end of the store to the other. So lighting stands would have been in frame. Unfortunately the panels on the ceiling were bolted shut, so we rigged two 650's with snoots on dimmers to a large polecat, supported by two c-stands on either end. It was an impressive rig in the end wich left us with these moody pools of light that the cast would wander in and out of. It was cool. I was very happy with how it turned out.

I could go on for pages and pages about how we achieved the look of this film. But sure where is the fun in that. Can't give away all our secrets. The film is currently undergoing post-production and will receive its grade in the hands of myself and Patrick. Be sure to look out for it in the festival circuit next year.

As always, I would be as useless as a paperbag in the rain without an amazing team around me. I want to take the chance to sincerely thank them here. They're all masters of their trade, truly.