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Adventures In
Indieland
Adventures in Indieland:
Stephanie Daley
January 1,
2006 Source: Film & Video
What
attracted everyone to work on Stephanie Daley— including leads Tilda
Swinton and Amber Tamblyn — is what cinematographer David Rush Morrison
calls
"an amazing script." Director/writer Hilary Brougher, who made
Sticky
Fingers of Time in 1997, developed her script at the Sundance Writers
Lab
and, later on, at the Sundance Directors Lab. The story of a pregnant
forensic
psychologist who explores the truth behind the case of a 16-year-old accused
of
concealing her pregnancy and murdering her infant came out of Brougher’s
desire to write a very character-driven script. "I was interested in
the
idea of how you get a very, very internal conflict onto the screen without
just
being expositional," she says. "How you create the tension of
people
who don’t believe what’s real— and what they have to do to protect that
belief or mis-belief."
After
the Lab, Brougher says she continued to develop and tweak the difficult
script
with the help of the Sundance Lab directors Michelle Satter and the late
Lynn
Auerbach. Since Sticky Fingers was produced eight years earlier,
technology had gone through a sea change, and Brougher eagerly adopted new
ways
of working. Whereas Sticky Fingers was shot in Super 16, it became
clear
very early on that high definition was the perfect format for Stephanie
Daley.
"This is such a performance-driven film that HD allowed us to shoot a
lot
of rehearsal, which we wouldn’t have been able to do with film," she
says. "It was also nice not to have to change mags as often— one hour
versus every 10 minutes. We could
work
through things, see them evolve, and if the scene really changed at the end,
we
could shoot a new master without feeling like we blew the film
budget."
Cinematographer
David Rush Morrison, who brought extensive experience shooting high
definition,
including indie feature Chasing Cowboys, went with the tried-and-true
Sony HDW-F900. "It’s a nice camera," he says. "It’s light and
there’s a nice choice of lenses for it now. With this third software
version,
it also offers a few more stops of latitude." He used a small lens
package
made up of Canon DigiPrimes and a Fujinon 10:1 lens, and shot with a very
small
crew, which worked because of his emphasis on available light. "If the
walls are too bright, you can take 20 minutes and flag the lights off or
force
lights onto the ceiling," he says. "Or you know you can go into
the DI
suite and
power-window
the walls and darken them. You’re not doing as much grip work."
The
script features a significant number of night interiors, and Morrison shot
day-for-night, another way that shooting HD became a bonus.
"Day-for-night
sounds scary because I’ve never seen it look good," he says. "But
I
was amazed with HD. I had the Panasonic BT-LH900P on-board waveform monitor
and
the Sony RM-B150 paintbox. The paintbox allowed me to control the amount of
blue
and red in the shadows, to control the gamma curve, and also to have control
over the blacks. It really gave me a sense of what I was getting as I was
shooting."
"If
I was shooting film, I’d have to wait until it’s processed to see if the
day-for-night worked," he continues. "With HD, I could see it
right
away, and the
waveform
monitor helped me to see exactly what I was getting and give me the
confidence
to move on."
Morrison
also prefers to shoot in the toe of the negative, working just at the edge
of
underexposure, where there’s great depth in the shadows. "HD works
really
well in the toe," he enthuses. "Using the waveform monitor I was
able
to ride the level of underexposure without going too far, and I was able to
be
consistent from day to day."
From
the location shoot in upstate New York, tapes were shipped to DuArt in New
York
City, where they were downconverted for editor Keith Reamer. Working at Tea
Town
in Manhattan, Reamer ( The Ballad of Little Jo, Soundcatcher,
I
Shot Andy Warhol, Three Seasons) and his assistant Ali Muney
ended up
offlining on an Avid Adrenaline. "It wasn’t a specific choice, but it
was
great that we had it," says Reamer. "I tend to cut a fair amount
of
audio tracks, which can slow down a lesser system. On the Adrenaline that
wasn’t an issue. It was very, very fast, a very capable machine."
When
the 23-day shoot wrapped, Reamer produced a first cut within a week and then
began the process of revision with Brougher. "Having worked in HD for a
couple of years now almost exclusively and seeing what different directors
and
cinematographers can do, I’m seeing a lot of latitude," says Reamer,
who
has now worked on four HD features in a row. "In capable hands, it’s
almost impossible to tell that it’s not film. HD has depth and texture. It’s
a different, but good, medium."
Reamer
also points out that HD eliminates time-consuming film opticals as well as
the
need to hand over the project to a negative cutter. "You’re not
physically destroying your camera original but rather using it as a source
to
create a master," he says. "The format has been very kind to
us,"
agrees director Brougher. "I don’t know if it looks like film, but it
has
a texture and feel of time and place that works with the script. You can’t
ask
for more."
Stephanie
Daley is headed for a
digital
intermediate with colorist Siggy Ferstl at Riot. Morrison didn’t test the DI
process before production because, having supervised DIs, he felt confident
that
he knew the rules. "I knew not to over-expose, and I tried not to shoot
with the gain function on, which increases the light sensitivity of the
camera," he says. From director Brougher’s point of view, mature
digital
technology allowed a focus on creativity. "The challenge we undertook
was
to not look at it as an obstacle to overcome but an opportunity to
contribute," she says. "We didn’t feel that we were looking at the
unknown. It was a real adventure and a lot of fun."
Director:
Hilary Brougher
Producers: Samara Koeffler, Jen Roskind, Sean Coftello, Lynette Howell
Executive Producer: Tilda Swinton
Cinematography: David Rush Morrison
DI: Siggy Ferstl, Riot, Santa Monica
Editor:
Keith Reamer
studiodaily.com
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