Varicam35: Shooting "Cassandra French's Finishing School"

CharlesPapert

CharlesPapert

Director of Photography
Not long after finishing season 1 of the recently-canceled (boooo!) "Mary + Jane", I embarked on another first season show, "Cassandra French's Finishing School" for Audience Network/Fullscreen Media. This was a smaller show than I'm used to, but I was drawn to the material which had a darker tone and I liked the folks involved. We shot eight episodes over the late summer in Los Angeles. The show premiered this Friday on Audience Network, which is Directv's original content channel (well, it seems to appear on multiple channels on their lineup, which you get to do if you own the distribution pipeline I guess)! After the run on Audience it will port over to Fullscreen, where it is expected to reach the desired demographic.

After a successful trial on "Mary + Jane", I again used the Varicam V35 for "Cassie French". We had a good amount of stage work and it was once again useful to rate the camera at 2000/2500 ISO down from the native 5000 for interior sets. In early meetings I pitched the producers on the ability to shoot night exteriors with a minimum of lighting and this saved a few scenes that were being eyed for conversion to day or interior for budgetary reasons. Unlike M+J which finished at 1080, this one was mandated at 4K UHD so the Varicam was a perfect fit.

Below is the trailer which tells something of the story, although I can't say it features much of my favorite photography from the show:

 
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We shot most of the interiors at DC Stages in downtown Los Angeles. DC has been around for years and features a number of standing sets. I've been there many times over the years including shooting a good chunk of Key & Peele there, which was like revisiting old ghosts! The basement set was a build and it worked out nicely; it featured a structural stairway and landing with a door that led to the kitchen. The outside of the door was represented on the existing house set in the next building. When we shot looking up the stairs to the open door, we used green screen with the view into the other set built by VFX out of stills. Unfortunately the depth behind the door was limited by the structure of the stage and the green screen had to be painfully close to the door, perhaps five feet away which made for a challenging lighting setup to control spill.

In the scene below from the pilot, a "morning after" hangover/bad news revelation, I was going after a naturalistic vibe.

CFbed2.jpg


CFbed1.jpg

A few potted greens scrounged from elsewhere on the stage were placed outside the window with an 8x8 ultrabounce behind to give the exterior a little grounding vs a complete blowout. I like to use 1/4 CTB for units representing ambient daylight and 1/4 CTO for direct sunlight, so the various units on the plants were given the blue gel while a Leko angling down on the floor in the foreground had the CTO. I find that subtle interplay of color helps avoid the stage look. With the exception of a 2' Quasar positioned to balance out the doorjam visible on the left side of the wide shot, all of the instruments were located outside the windows of the set which again helps the realism.
 
The morning window light is beautiful, and the rear window bush is great, too- both so natural! And love the edge on the door, so subtle!

How long to light this scene, with how much crew?

Thanks for sharing!
 
groveChuck said:
How long to light this scene, with how much crew?
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I'd guess we had something like a four person grip and four person electric crew on that show, and maybe 30 minutes to light? There was a bit of fussing with the greens...I think that was three different potted plants that had to be arranged and elevated to fill up the vertical space. And I tried to put a couple of box fans on them but as soon as we were ready to roll, sound asked for those to be turned off and then I had PA's shaking them instead, which took a little while to finesse.

Unfortunately the wider of these two frames never made it into the show which I'm very bummed about as I thought it worked really well for the scene.
 
bill totolo said:
So, the 8x mus is bringing up the room ambience?
Get any CA off that Leko?
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which mus is that...? I think we hung some on the wall at the bottom of the diagram (sort of noted) to give a little return, but it was quite low level. And I think there was also a 1x1 Litepanel against that wall at some point that wasn't noted. I'll post the clip of that scene so you can see the turnaround as well.

CA off the Leko--we spec the ED barrels which are a lot better as far as that goes, generally I'll have the guys defocus the unit if we see the edges of the beam to avoid the color fringe and make it look a little more natural.
 
CharlesPapert said:
which mus is that...? I think we hung some on the wall at the bottom of the diagram (sort of noted) to give a little return, but it was quite low level. And I think there was also a 1x1 Litepanel against that wall at some point that wasn't noted. I'll post the clip of that scene so you can see the turnaround as well.

CA off the Leko--we spec the ED barrels which are a lot better as far as that goes, generally I'll have the guys defocus the unit if we see the edges of the beam to avoid the color fringe and make it look a little more natural.
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I must have misinterpreted the lighting plot. I thought the ARRI 750 (bottom right side of frame) was shooting into an 8x mus.

Also, not familiar with ED barrels for Lekos. Please explain, I'd love to find a solution for the chromatic aberration/ color fringe they can to get.
Thanks for sharing.
 
bill totolo said:
I must have misinterpreted the lighting plot. I thought the ARRI 750 (bottom right side of frame) was shooting into an 8x mus.

Also, not familiar with ED barrels for Lekos. Please explain, I'd love to find a solution for the chromatic aberration/ color fringe they can to get.
Thanks for sharing.
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Yeah Bill, I'm not sure what the 8 refers to in that plot--my gaffer drew it up and this was last August. We may have hung a little mus against the wall but an 8x8 would have been visible in the mirror, and the walls were already a muted off-white so we didnt really need the mus there.

The ED tubes for Lekos are an advanced optic that greatly reduce the color fringe and give a sharper definition to the fixture and perhaps a whiter color rendition (the old optics could go a little warm) . We spec them to come that way in the rental package.
 
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CharlesPapert said:
Unfortunately the wider of these two frames never made it into the show which I'm very bummed about as I thought it worked really well for the scene.
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Wow, that wider frame is great. Really like the depth and the composition. Makes her seem very vulnerable. The space behind her head, the mirror... ominous.

As always, thank you for sharing your process and valuable insights.
 
ED=Extra Definition If you are using a gobo it will also decrease the aberration around the edges of the pattern. The Source Four ED barrels work pretty well, haven't worked with other brands of ellipsoidal lights with ED optics. We have one ED, a bunch zooms, and Jr.'s in our studio. And some old Leko that we don't really use anymore.
 
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