Shooting TV Scenes That Stand Up To The Movies

Copyright NBC – Grimm 2012

By Mike Fickes

Can you believe the way that television drama has taken on – and in many cases whipped – feature films? 

Television cinematographers look to feature films for inspiration – not today’s feature films so much as yesterday’s. “Our basic style is modified 1940’s movies,” said Fred Murphy, ASC, cinematographer on the CBS hit The Good Wife. “The camera is not a character. The characters are the characters. My job is all about making the people look dramatic and beautiful and glamorous.”

Oliver Bokelberg, ASC, and the cinematographer on ABC’s Scandal, likes to dress Olivia Pope, the lead character, in completely white outfits. “Television usually doesn’t use the kind of harsh contrast that white creates,” he said. “But in one of my favorite movies, A Woman Is a Woman, a lot happens with white. It was directed by Jean-Luc Godard and was his first color movie. The design is beautiful. Ever since seeing it, I’ve stopped arguing against white.”

Peter Levy, ASC, ACS, on Showtime’s House of Lies, harks back to Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 film The Conformist for inspiration. “That movie left in the reflections and glares that came with the camera shots,” he said. “I think it looks more real that way. If a scene looks too clean, it seems fake to me.”
Cinematographers that shoot today’s television dramas freely acknowledge a debt to classic film cinematography – and then they use what they’ve learned to shoot riveting television dramas with stories that go on year after year.

House of Lies. Photo: Randy Tepper/Showtime.

With this column this year [Making TV], Markee covered five of these long-lasting shows: The Good Wife, Scandal, House of Lies, and NBC’s Chicago Fire and Grimm. The cinematographers on each of these shows have taken what they’ve learned from classic films and tailored shooting philosophies that bring their shows to life.

“A rule that we have is that the camera is always with the firefighters, so the audience always discovers the issues with the firefighters,” said Lisa Wiegand, the director of photography on Chicago Fire.

Wiegand likes to keep it real, too. All the fires on that series are real. Wiegand and the special effects coordinator carefully plan the fires. Then the crew designs and installs a pipe network that juts out of the floor and ceiling. The crew pumps fuel into the pipes and lights them up.

Grimm is about a descendant of the Grimm family, which has for centuries hunted beings that look like people but shape-shift into fairy tale monsters. Marshall Adams, ASC, the cinematographer on Grimm, wanted to develop a look for the show that could bring out its dark and horrific moments. “Many network shows compress the depth of field and only show the foreground in focus,” he said. “This show is different. We use very wide angles with a wider depth of field and everything in focus. And we don’t do a lot of close-ups. The show plays wider all around.”

Once considered a wasteland, television today is offering better stories and production equal to or better than feature films.

Don’t take my word for it. Media journalists and film and television reviewers are saying the same thing – have been for years now. Here are two examples:

• Back in 2010, long-time New York Times film critic A.O. Scott wrote: “The traditional relationship between film and television has reversed, as American movies have become conservative and cautious, while scripted series, on both broadcast networks and cable, are often more daring, topical and willing to risk giving offense.”
• In October of this year, Stuart Heritage, who writes about film and television for The Guardian, blogged: “If I had to pick sides, I’d go with television every single time. Television, especially the television that’s being produced now, is wiping the floor with film. It’s kicking film’s arse.”

You can Google dozens more examples if you want. The point is, television seems to have entered a new Golden Age. In it’s first Golden Age in the 50’s and 60’s, television discovered itself. In today’s Golden Age, we’re discovering television.

The Best in Black and White

Inspired by a recent post on Esquire.com, I have been thinking about contemporary filmmakers’ use of black and white – both the good and the bad. But for the purposed of this post, I am focusing on the good. As an amateur photographer, I’m a fan of black-and-white images, so I’m not averse to watching movies in monochrome, whether they’re old or new, classic or modern. Of course, they can’t all be great – or at least great to me – but here’s a list of five of my favorites. Do you have a favorite black-and-white film? Are you more of a color-saturated movie fan? Sound off in the comments.

Good Night And Good Luck
Probably my favorite black-and-white movie. Set in the 1950s and focusing Edward R. Murrow’s stance against McCarthyism, Good Night And Good Luck was considered a bold and risky move for director George Clooney, since this was just his second job as director (the first being Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, 2002). But this 2005 gem is enthralling and plays almost like a documentary. Viewers feel like a fly on the wall, watching Murrow fight for his cause.

Schindler’s List 
If you were making this list, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 classic likely would be on your list as well. It’s the first major black-and-white film in my lifetime that I can recall. (I was in college when it was released.) Certainly, the look of the film was befitting of the subject matter and tone. And the black-and-white also lends an even deeper realism to the amazing story of Oskar Schindler.

Sin City
This 2005 adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel ushered in a mini-genre of movies that look like ink on paper. That particular trend may not have lasted, but this movie still stands as a modern crime drama with a somewhat unique look. Moreover, the violence isn’t hard to stomach since the blood and gore are animated.

Pleasantville
I really enjoyed the use of black and white in this 1998 movie. As part of the storyline, the main characters are transported into the monochromatic world of a 1950s television sitcom, but what happens then isn’t all laughter and comedy. And color doesn't just denote the setting in Pleasantville; it is used a metaphor. As the innocence fades from the residents of the fictitious Pleasantville, they are enveloped in color. This is a beautiful film to watch.

Memento
I still don’t fully understand this 2001 Chris Nolan film and I doubt most of you do either. The movie isn’t entirely in black and white, but Nolan uses the contrast to keep viewers aware of the two timelines in the story as the amnesiac protagonist tries to figure out who he is and why he is out for revenge. If you haven’t seen this one yet, be prepared to watch it several times.

Making TV: Shooting Lawyers

By Michael Fickes

Fred Murphy, ASC, director of photography on The Good Wife.

Some television shows want you to forget about the camera and focus on the emotional contact among the characters. The Good Wife is a show like that. The quiet camera of the CBS drama, managed by Director of Photography Fred Murphy, ASC, has helped the show garner 30 Emmy nominations over five seasons – including one in 2011 for Outstanding Cinematography For A Single-camera Series.

Shooting style
The Good Wife is a series about characters, with a politician’s wife at the center. Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) stands by her politician husband even when he is disgraced by an affair, accused of a crime, and sent to jail. After his fall, Alicia returns to work as an attorney to take care of her two children, while trying, and mostly succeeding, to remain loyal to her husband – as the good wife of the title.

The cinematography features lawyers “lawyering” by talking. “Lawyers play a mental game, not a physical one,” says Murphy. “For the first five seasons, we have shot their conversations simply, without too much camera movement, often without the people moving. That is the nature of the lawyer business. It is all about the mental game.”

In a change for the current sixth season, the camera will be on the move a bit more. The moves, however, remain simple and quiet. Murphy shoots with an ARRI Alexa with Panavision zoom lenses and Primo prime lenses. He selects something between 60mm and 100mm for close up scenes. While he does use zooms, he doesn’t zoom across the set. “For close-ups, we move the camera physically closer,” he said.

He doesn’t shoot much with wide-angle lenses. “For a wide shot of a small location, you need a wide-angle lens, but we try to use longer lenses – 25mm is wide-angle for us,” he said.

Lighting
“We want the lighting to provide soft, polished realism,” Murphy said. “Then we place large sources, such as 12x12s or 8x8s – rarely anything smaller than 6x6 – close to people and bounce the light. Except for effects like the sun coming through the window, we always bounce large light sources to diffuse and soften the light. Most of the scenes are shot on stages set up to do this.”

Murphy refines the big source lights with a little back lighting and a little edge lighting. He has balanced the lighting for all of the sets for a 2.8 F-Stop camera setting. “So you shoot at the same stop – 2.8 at 800 ASA – all the time. “It can be awkward to set up large sources like this, but once you start shooting, you don’t need to re-light for close-ups,” he said. “The large source crosses the set and bathes everyone in beautiful light. When you go close, you simply adjust the fill ratio.”

Action
“The basic shooting style is modified 1940s movies, which focused on making people look dramatic and beautiful,” Murphy said. “We decided early on to make the show elegant. We want Julianna Margulies [Alicia Florrick] to look elegant. We stay away from wide lenses, and rarely use anything under 50mm if she is close to the camera. And we position the large light sources as close to her as physically possible. We also use a small Schneider filter – very weak, but it helps smooth out the shots.

“She is a wonderful actress,” Murphy continued. “She can invest small gestures with a lot of meaning.”

That is the key to the drama of The Good Wife. Most of the cast has the same kind of talent, the ability to communicate in subtle, understated ways – a phrase, a raised eyebrow, a cold stare – perfectly timed to build the tension and drama. Murphy’s lighting and camera work delivers all of that – the mental game that lawyers play – to the audience. And it is riveting.

Behind The Scenes of My Favorite Movies

Recently, while watching the bonus material on my Blu-ray copy of Star Trek Into Darkness, it struck me how lucky we are to have the opportunity to see how our favorite movies are made. It wasn’t so long ago that the general public had little to no knowledge of how movies were created; of how certain scenes or visual effects were accomplished; of how much planning, manpower and ingenuity went into producing just a few minutes of entertainment.

But the storage capacity allowed by the DVD format – and now Blu-ray discs and digital downloads – changed all of this. Movie fans are given the chance to see how their favorite films were created and many of the hard-working men and women behind the camera are given the opportunity to shine. The cinematographers, visual effects artists, stunt people, makeup artists, Foley artists, sound mixers and others can showcase their craft. Thus, the general public is made aware of just how large and collaborative an undertaking it is to make a movie.

Sure, these DVD extras are used as a marketing opportunity to entice us to buy the movies, but for me they are much more. Watching these behind-the-scenes vignettes makes me appreciate my favorite films even more. I want to know how the films were made, how certain effects were created, and I want to “meet” the people who did the work. This is why I buy DVDs; I want a greater understanding of the how the world’s best entertainment is made. I was amazed to learn that the red planet used in the opening scene of Star Trek Into Darkness was built from scratch and the plants and trees were hand-painted! And seeing how the final climactic scene came together for Skyfall, the latest film in the James Bond saga with Daniel Craig, was impressive to say the least.

With such knowledge, I enjoy my favorite movies even more, and I actively seek out the films of cinematographers, VFX artists and other professionals whose work I have appreciated. It’s nice to see these people – you people, our readers – get some well-deserved attention and respect. No longer are you just names scrolling through the end credits. You are the stars of making-of documentaries and behind-the-scenes footage of America’s vast DVD collection. Keep up the great work. We’ll see you at home.

M2 Digital Post Inc: A Clearly Cloudy Future

By Toms Inglesby

Michael Towe, president of M2 Digital Post.

At NAB this year, a section of the exhibition space was designated as the Cloud Pavilion.  About 20 companies exhibited – to the extent that anything called a “cloud” can be exhibited – and discussed applications for this digital environment. A cynic might revert to one of the early clichés of computing and refer to some of it as vaporware; a nice pun, that.

But there are some practitioners who have had their heads in the cloud for a while and they seem to think it actually has value. Not only value, but value balanced with growing pains. Markee had a digital discussion with Michael Towe, president of M2 Digital Post Inc. (www.m2digitalpost.com) in San Diego on his experiences with clouds.

“Let’s start with strengths,” Towe began. “The production industry is changing and has been for a few years now. The era of large production houses is gone. … The trend is for smaller, more distributed production resources. The editor that used to drive into the large post house to work now has his own system and is working out of his house. But working out of the house has drawbacks. It makes the act of collaborating more difficult, as well as the task of client review and approval. This is where the cloud comes into play.”

Speaking of the client approvals process, Towe recalls: “In the past, I had office space that was nice and big and comfy and expensive. “Now I work out of a 400-square-foot patio [at home]. I made the move in a large part because the cloud enabled me to do so. I send clients a video via a cloud review and approval service, they look at the video and send me changes. I came to the realization that I was spending about $3,000 per month to have a big office I didn’t need. So in early 2008, I dumped the office space. I now do 99 percent of my review and approval via the cloud.”

So what about collaboration? A big part of this industry is sharing ideas, brainstorming with others. Towe has that covered. “The cloud has helped here, too. The review and approval process I just explained can be used with others. I use it quite often for motion graphics work and especially for voice work. Now I can use online services to post my job. Within a couple hours, I have auditions to put in front of a client; they pick the one they like, and we’re off to the races. Granted, there are still times where getting everyone to a recording studio is the better choice, but those jobs are few and far between.”

Brainstorming isn’t all like it used to be. Face time is valuable when you consider the travel time and coordination necessary. According to Towe, “I find myself sharing ideas and impromptu brainstorming with so many through social networks. Things like Twitter and Facebook become a valuable resource to bounce ideas off of friends. Sites like YouTube and Vimeo have given me hours of inspiration from simply looking at others’ work. And when it comes to getting people together in a virtual room to discuss things, I have used sites like GoToMeeting and Skype.”

So what about weaknesses? What’s the downside? “There is one big downside,” Towe admits, “and that’s spontaneity. That water cooler moment with a coworker that sparks a great idea really is gone. To be honest, I don’t know how you get that back. Social networks come close, but it’s still not the same. Speed is another drawback. We’re still at relatively slow Internet speeds for the size of files we need to push around in the video world. I still find myself having to ship a drive from time to time because the files are just too big. Another downside is it does make client management a bit more difficult. You need to develop a different set of skills to manage those clients when dealing with them through emails.”

So Towe is working in what might be called a hybrid cloud environment, combining real world (FedEx, hard drives) with cloud activity. “My quick conclusion is the cloud is here to stay,” he confesses. “The video profession has changed drastically in the past 10 years. The cost of entry has come way down so competition has gone way up. This in turn has driven profits through the floor. What I can charge today for a five-minute, corporate trade show video is a fraction of what I could charge for it in 2004. That means I have to find ways to cut back my costs to remain competitive. The cloud has enabled me to do this by making office space a thing of the past. I have lowered my overhead by thousands of dollars a month because of it.”

Last thoughts? “Darwin taught us that you need to adapt or die. The most recent adaptation in the video production species is a connection to the cloud. Those that don’t make that connection will go the way of the Dodo.”

What's Your Creative Process?

Every creative person has his or her own process for developing and finishing projects, whether it is a job or a hobby. Call them quirks. Call them idiosyncrasies. Whatever you want to call them, creative individuals need this routine in order to complete the task at hand. For my own creative work – the writing part of my job – I have a series of steps I must go through for each article before the final step of sitting down at my computer to compose the first draft.

Of course, my work starts with research and interviews, but the quirk of my writing process is the composition. You see, once I have all of my notes together and I know generally what I want to say with a certain article, I will "write" it in my mind before a single word is typed at my keyboard. I will think about the article for days, working it out in my head exactly what I want to write. So, when I finally sit down to compose an article, I will know how it begins, what I want to say in the middle of the article, how the article will be structured, and how it should end. Most people probably do this with notes or an outline, but I've just always worked it out in my mind. It's just the way I work.

This might not be the most efficient or practical way to work, but the process works for me. It is just my way of doing things, of getting the job done. In thinking about my own process recently, I started to wonder what your creative processes must be like. Surely, you each have specific, or perhaps peculiar, ways of getting the job done. How could you not? You work in a creative field and often are tasked with finding new ways to do your job. So do you have a unique creative process that others find quirky and idiosyncratic? Tell me what this process is, how it works for you, and why your coworkers raise their eyebrows. I'll understand, and perhaps other readers will too. Who knows, you may inspire someone to adjust his or her own creative process.

Playing With Fire: When fire breaks out on Chicago Fire, it’s real.

By Michael Fickes

Photo: Matt Dinerstein/NBC. Copyright NBC Universal, Inc.    

Fires – real fires – rank as major characters in Chicago Fire.

Director of Photography Lisa Wiegand and Special Effects Coordinator John Milinac carefully plan the fires for the NBC show from prolific hit-maker Dick Wolf. 

Milinac works with his crew to design and install networks of pipes that jut out of the floor and ceiling for the fire sets – often built in a warehouse. Then, the crew pumps fuel for a fire into the pipes. For safety, camera operators and dolly grips don fire retardant automotive racing suits before the shoot.

In a typical scene, fire trucks drive up to the building – a real building in Chicago with real flames from fireboxes installed in the windows. “The cameras, two ARRI ALEXAS, are always with the firefighters,” Wiegand said. “So the audience discovers problems along with the firefighters.”

Starting fires

Inside, Milinac brings the fire in each pipe up to a planned and pre-tested level. The actors wear firefighter bunker gear – protective clothing and equipment that can withstand high temperatures. “John is always there, along with Stunt Coordinator Rick Le Fevour,” Wiegand said. “If something goes wrong, they will turn off the fuel and put the fire out.”

Holding back fire

Onscreen, the scenes look extraordinarily dangerous. In one scene inside a multistory downtown apartment building, a character named Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) herds two residents into a room with a window and slams the door on the growing fire that has blocked their escape route down a stairwell. 

Firefighters outside must raise a ladder to the window. While they work, the raging fire pushes against the door. Casey braces his back against the door to keep it shut. The pressure from the fire pushes the door ajar and flames lick around the openings. Casey pushes the fire back and the fire pushes Casey back. He bounces back and forth, moving a foot or more each time. That better not be real fire coming through the openings around the door.

“It was real,” said Wiegand. “But it looks worse than it was. Casey wasn’t moving very much, and the shot was dull. Then Reza Tabrizi, the camera operator, tried zooming way in and way out rapidly and repeatedly. It worked and gave the scene all that energy.”

The crew carries three Angenieux Optimo lightweight zooms for each ALEXA: 15mm-40mm, 28mm-76mm and 45mm-120mm. Then there are two primes: 135mm and 150mm for each camera. The lightweight lenses facilitate handheld shots, which make up 90 percent of each show. Two 12:1 Angenieux Optimos handle studio shots. 

Speed counts

Chicago Fire is a demanding show. Every scene, even the difficult rescue scenes, must move quickly. Large crews facilitate that. “My departments dealing strictly with photographic concerns number 30 to 50 depending on the day,” Wiegand said.

Technology helps. The show uses Burbank-based FotoKem’s nextLab, an automated software solution for productions shot in high-definition digital video files.

“We set up look-up-tables or LUTs before the season,” said Scott Rader, VFX supervisor on Chicago Fire and creative director at Spy, a post-production house with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“The LUTs are digital files that contain color specifications for various scenes,” continued Rader. “For example, Lisa wants a certain look for the interior of the firehouse during the day. There is a LUT that contains color and lighting specifications for those scenes – and there are LUTs for other kinds of scenes.”

When the digital video loads into nextLAB, the software downloads the appropriate LUT for each scene, attaching each to the appropriate video files. “That corrects 90 percent of the color,” Rader said. “We fix the rest during final color correction.”

It’s an innovative system that is slowly replacing disk drive storage. Rader also is in charge of VFX fire. Although the fire scenes are real, Rader’s team often makes them bigger, smokier and scarier, while painting out the safety riggings and harnesses that keep the actors safe during the shoot. So while Lisa Wiegand can scare you with a zoom lens, Rader does it with animation software.