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Photographing
Stephanie Daley - David Morrison
"Stephanie Daley" was captured in High Definition
video (Sony F-900/3) in various locations in upstate New
York. We used Canon Digi prime lenses and occasionally a
Canon 10:1 zoom. The idea was to strip the camera down and
make it as small as possible, a lot of the houses and offices
were small and this sometimes made filming difficult. HD
is not an entirely evolved format yet. Unlike film
it has a limited contrast range and excessive depth of field,
both of which can hinder the image and ultimately distract
the viewer. My responsibility as the Director of Photography
was to avoid these pitfalls and achieve our visual goals.
There were many references
in early discussions that helped inform and evolve the look
of "Stephanie Daley." The influence that is the
most apparent to me now are the paintings of Edward Hopper.
His work has a lonely, contemplative feeling, even in populated
spaces his characters seem to be lost in private moments.
To me that was one of the underlying themes that I saw the
first time I read "Stephanie Daley." All of the
characters have secrets and we wanted to isolate them from
one another within the frame either using architecture,
light or composition. I think the bathroom scene with Amber
is probably the climax of this idea, she is physically,
audibly and visually removed from her environment. The actors
were truly incredible and inspiring to work with. Every
day I felt lucky to be able to be able to witness and photograph
this timely and essential story.
On Shooting
Hi-Def with David – Hilary Brougher
I'm pretty delighted that when most people see the film
on 35mm, they have no idea it originated in HD. They
simply find it beautiful and get caught up. We chose the
format for the usual reasons of economy – also we
had a tight schedule, and we needed speed to afford the
cast enough time to explore the scenes. David Morrison's
expertise was essential to pulling all this off –
as was his great attitude and willingness to adapt on a
dime.
We had always discussed
a certain naturalism (for example outside light informing
interior spaces) and we soon embraced a strategy of being
very responsive to our environment - discovering rather
than asserting solutions. This is a wonderful way to work
(regardless of format) and I think it brought to "Stephanie
Daley" a deeper sense of place and emotion.
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