Viva Cinematography Notes
Upon seeing the rich, saturated colors of Viva, many people ask if the film was shot on special film stock or if we used any special processes. That's an interesting question and points to the distinctive style and look we wanted to achieve. The short answer to the question: the trick is in the lighting and color.
Viva was artificially lit to an extreme in order to enhance the sets and wardrobe; such obviously stylized lighting also underscores the comedy of the film. Everything was shot with hard incandescent light (with a few instances where HMI's were used outside). The only soft light was used for fill, and in keeping with the lighting techniques of classic Hollywood lighting, the soft lights were always large scoop lights, never diffusion. The very bright look of the period sets and the use of slow film to minimize grain required a lot of wattage, and this of course led to some very hot sets. But by lighting the sets with hard lights, whether blended as was the case with Clyde's house or separated as in Mrs. James's parlor, a far more dramatic and classic look was obtained than if we had just flooded the sets with soft light, as is so typical today. In addition to hard lighting the sets, classic 3-point lighting was used on the talent whenever possible to enhance their three-dimensionality. Since the look of the sets is so important to the film, it was important to have a sufficient depth of field to have them in focus as much as possible. Consequently, separating the characters from the set with use of a shallow depth of field was not an option; the 3-point lighting and color were used to accomplish separation.
The use of Cooke S4 prime lenses also contributed significantly to the look of the film. The Cooke S4's are extremely sharp, which helps make the sets feel more tangible. The difference is notable: Two other cinematographers shot three scenes in Viva before I took over. These scenes of Barbi at work, the modeling agency, and the hospital scene were all shot with standard Zeiss prime lenses. The difference in sharpness between the Cooke lenses and the Zeiss is apparent in the scene of Barbi at work, because I reshot all the close-ups of Barbi in that scene several months after the scene was originally shot by another DP. If anything, I learned along the way that in some circumstances the Cooke lenses might be a little too sharp. Using smoke on the sets was out of the question, as this would have compromised the clarity of the sets, so I started using Schneider Classic Soft filters on some occasions. I like these filters because they are designed to capture a sharp image and then superimpose a diffused image (created by tiny lenses in the filter) on the sharper image. That way there's no risk of the image turning to mush.
To answer the basic question about film and processing, Viva was shot on Kodak's Vision 2 5217 and 5205, and over-exposed about 1/2 a stop in order to get a slightly denser negative. As film stocks have become faster and big lights are no longer necessary to the same extent they once were, films in general have become less lit and tend to be darker or more muted overall. Maybe this has led to a large unawareness among certain audiences of just how colorful and saturated normal film stock can be.
One of the biggest challenges for the cinematography of Viva was the logistics of working with so many lights in any given scene. The addition of every light complicates matters regarding unwanted shadows and hotspots, the blocking of the actors, and lens flares. Not to mention, it increases the need to convince the gaffer and the rest of the crew that I am not insane. But in the end I think the results speak for themselves.
