British Cinematographer issue 51 - Imago

British Cinematographer
Covering International Cinematography
www.britishcinematographer.co.uk
Issue 051 ––– May 2012 20
21
British Cinematographer
Covering International Cinematography
www.britishcinematographer.co.uk
Issue 051 ––– May 2012
Close-Up
–––Greig Fraser ACS
Snow White And The Huntsman
Australian Cinematographer Greig Fraser was in Jordan
shooting Zero Dark Thirty with Kathryn Bigelow when
British Cinematographer finally tracked him down.
However, we wanted to transport him out the desert, and
the grim nature of that film, back to the fantastic world of
his previous project, the dark fairy tale Snow White And
The Huntsman.
Greig Fraser whose previous feature credits include
Let Me In (2011) and Bright Star (2009) joined renowned
commercials director Rupert Sanders, who was making
his feature film debut with Universal’s Snow White
And The Huntsman. Starring Kristen Stewart and Chris
Hemsworth in the title roles and Charlize Theron as the
evil queen, it’s a new take on the traditional story of
jealousy, love and dark magic.
“I was involved relatively early on, around nine
months before we started shooting,” recalls Fraser. “So I
was able to start working with Rupert then, drawing on
references and coming up with the way that the film
would feel and look. It’s a fairytale, so there’s a number
of different ways you can shoot this type of story. We
just wanted to make sure that we were being relatively
unique in what we were doing - and that we were doing
something that we would want to see.”
The creative references included thousands of
images “from a whole range of photographers”, from
painters like Caravaggio to installation artists, to singers.
“We drew inspiration from songs and the way
things sound,” Fraser says. “As for films, we drew from
some how we wanted to do interior lighting, and from
other films we took how we wanted to do camera
movements, while for others it was how to do battle
scenes. We were quite wide and varied in what we did.”
Fraser started his full-time pre-production about ten
weeks before shooting began on Snow White And The
Huntsman, at Pinewood Studios in August 2011. “I would
spend that time going on location scouts, referencing,
meeting with actors, doing tests, looking at tests, testing
digital versus film, and looking at blow-ups of all that,”
he explains. The production’s many enchanted forest
scenes were filmed out in the parklands near the studio,
with woodland locations being augmented by specially
constructed exterior sets.
“We had nature surrounding us, but our production
designer John Watkins built some speciality forests within
those forests,” explains Fraser. “That was a deliberate
decision as the director and I wanted to work with a
certain level of ‘lack of control’. When you build a forest
in a studio you have to light it and so automatically it
looks like a studio and it looks controlled.”
Sanders and Fraser had a close working relationship.
“We’d talk about shots and we’d do shot lists and
storyboard occasionally together, but we also wanted
to allow ourselves to find our way a little bit on the
day,” reveals Fraser. “Working this way means more
often than not you’re finding yourself faced with happy
accidents. We were dealing with wonderful actors in
Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron,
who were all very open to ‘finding the scene’ when we
were in it.”
“We were lucky with the weather,” admits Fraser. “We
started shooting in August and did all the bright sunny
enchanted forest stuff early. We shot the dark forest midway
through October and before it got too dark.”
The cinematographer was, of course, able to call
upon technical equipment and expertise to tame
extremes of lighting and shade. “We had built a really
big forest, so we still had issues with the sun getting in
where we didn’t want it. We tried to schedule shooting
in such a way that wide shots were filmed before the sun
came up too high and also used coverage.”
“My gaffer Perry Evans had a couple of 40’x40’ flyswatters
(cloth grids hanging from construction cranes)
which we flew over the set, and those 40x40 solids could
block a lot of the direct sun. So when it was sunny we
lost a lot of the direct sun and when it was overcast we
could use those as negative fill. It meant we were really
able to sculpt the light. But it was definitely a challenge.
It was probably more difficult to shoot in the exterior
than it would have been easier to use interiors, but the
results for us were a lot more appropriate for what we
were aiming for.”
That quest for an appropriate look encompassed
the choice of format - Fraser shot most of his sequences
on 35mm anamorphic film, using Kodak 5201, 5207 and
5230 stock. 65mm film was also used on the movie.
“Each film has its own decisions you make when
you choose a format and we tested a number,” Fraser
explains. “We were very impressed with the Alexa and
RED Epic. They were really great. But we found that
35mm anamorphic film still had a depth and a resolving
power that the digital formats didn’t have. It had a
depth of colour that we responded to really well.”
“The film and the set dressing was going to be very
colourful and we didn’t feel the digital formats really did
justice to the colour that we were going to use in the
piece,” he continues. “We felt at that time that film was
most appropriate for that story as well. We were dealing
with a medieval story, we were dealing with a lot of
firelight, just things that we decided film was better for
than digital at the moment.”
This is not to say that Fraser is against digital formats
by any means. “In Jordan we’re shooting on the ARRI
Alexa M and it is 100 percent the right decision for the
film I’m doing right now. It’s still in testing mode and is
a very nice piece of equipment. But on Snow White...
anamorphic film just has a timeless, fantastic look to it.
And as for the Kodak stock, I just love it.”
On Sanders’ film, Fraser’s choice of camera was the
Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL shooting at an aspect
ratio of 2.35:1 with Panavision G-Series Lenses. This is a
Panavision-built and -rented set of lenses, which the DP
has used on two films in a row. “You learn the nuances
of lenses when you use them more often,” he explains.
“You learn where the best resolving power is, where the
best focus is. The G-Series is a really nice sweet lens.”
Fraser has a particular favourite in the set. “It’s a
very fast anamorphic 50mm lens which has great focus
fall off and it has a very interesting distortion of areas
on the edge of frame. We used that a lot in the dark
forest. In particular there’s a sequence where Snow
White breathes magic mushrooms. She becomes a little
bit spacey, so I used that lens a lot for that sequence.
It has a hard-to-describe quality; it almost looks like a
shift-and-tilt. There are a couple of scenes where the
Queen is becoming a little bit psychotic so we also used
it there too. It helps differentiate the actor out from the
background, just helps bring them out and creates a
very unearthly feel.”
Fraser would often be at Sanders’ side in the video
village, discussing and controlling the lighting and the
shots. “We had fantastic operators, George Richmond
on the A camera and Simon Baker on the B camera,” he
explains. “George is also a steadicam operator, so we
had access to that and used it a number of times. We
also had a 44ft Moviebird on set and when on location
we’d use a 50ft Technicrane.”
Occasionally Fraser would get on a camera for more
intimate shots with just the director and actors. “That was
something that Rupert and I had planned from day one
– that there would be a few key scenes in there that we
were treating more intimately. So there was a successful
balance of small crews and bigger crew.”
“My major concerns on the production were that we
were achieving on film what we set out to achieve and
that we were maximising the subject material visually
and narratively,” he concludes. “We had to be properly
documenting the drama, that was my ultimate goal.”