Keenly aware that most contemporary impressions of Robinson\u2019s rookie season are from black and white photographs, the filmmakers referenced the work of Neil Leifer, a noted color sports shooter from the 1960s. As production designer Richard Hoover describes: \u201cLeifer had a modern approach to photographing the sport. His images were really close up, as if he were trying to get inside the game, as opposed to making a spectacle.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cHis colors are pushed forward,\u201d Burgess adds, \u201cto accentuate things like the players\u2019 uniforms and other details. Brian didn\u2019t want a 1940s movie. He wanted it to feel modern and accessible \u2013 more like the 1970s, with a little bit of an edge.\u201d Hoover and costume designer Caroline Harris also referenced photographer Saul Leiter, whose scenes of New York City in the 1940s provided period-accurate inspiration.<\/p>\n
To get a defined period look, Burgess created a sophisticated on-set color-management system that he first began developing two years ago while shooting The Book of Eli<\/em> (ICG January 2010) in New Mexico. \u201cI thought, \u2018If I\u2019m going to shoot a digital movie, there\u2019s no reason why I can\u2019t have control of the look from Day One,\u201d the DP recalls of his partnership with DIT Mark Gilmer, of HD Mobile Labs, who first suggested using color-grading software to avoid having to send files back to Hollywood.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter working with Mark on Eli<\/em>,\u201d Burgess explains, \u201c[Red Digital Cinema founder] Jim Jannard introduced me to Michael Cioni [CEO of Light Iron, and a specialist in Red camera digital workflows], who said: \u2018I\u2019m going to design carts that you can take with you on location.\u2019\u201d The resultant system, which made use of Light Iron\u2019s Outpost and Lily Pad Carts, was put to work on The Muppets<\/em> and again on Flight<\/em>, both shot by Burgess with the RED EPIC. Observes Cioni: \u201cNot every DP understands how to leverage the Red\u2019s capabilities. Don can take the exact same camera and workflow and make it work for three different movies with completely different looks.\u201d<\/p>\n Carissa Ridgeway Tudor, who had started as Burgess\u2019 camera production<\/strong> assistant in 2005, was moved up to DIT to handle on-set color timing, while Gilmer created LUT-applied dailies for viewing and distribution. Burgess brought test footage, shot with the EPIC at a ball field in Westlake Village, CA, to Light Iron colorist Corinne Bogdanowicz, in advance of production.<\/p>\n \u201cHe definitely wanted a period look \u2013 desaturated and warm,\u201d Bogdanowicz recalls. \u201cBut since there\u2019s so much range with the Red, we were able to play around with popping certain colors to make it feel a bit more modern. You don\u2019t see noise or grain, so it doesn\u2019t really look old \u2013 it\u2019s just nodding in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n HD Mobile Labs provided Tudor with its own Go\u2019Cart, similarly installed with RED\u2019s REDCINE-X PRO color timing software. After completed takes, Tudor was given the EPIC\u2019s storage media, from which she would download the data, copy and do a check-sum, before importing into REDCINE-X.<\/p>\n Referencing the original looks and her notes from pre-production timing, Tudor would then apply the looks to the takes, utilizing an Avid Artist Color Panel.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has wheels and balls that correlate with the various parameters within the software, so you don\u2019t have to move everything with a mouse,\u201d she describes of the Avid tool. \u201cIt\u2019s really like having a mini DI suite.\u201d Adjustments to lift, gamma, gain, warmth, color temperature and contrast are applied as overall looks using the system, sometimes varying the looks from take to take. \u201cShooting in the South, Don often had varying cloud cover from take to take, even within setups,\u201d she adds. \u201cSo I adjusted the color, sometimes between takes, just to make sure everything would cut and be consistent, and Don would pop over between takes to okay everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Those applied color settings were then stored as RMD files \u2013 RED Meta-Data \u2013 along with the RAW image files, and passed along to Mark Gilmer, who was set up in the back half of a nearby trailer, also provided by HD Mobile Labs, with the hardware from Light Iron\u2019s Outpost Cart (including two Mac towers running REDCINE-X) set up in a custom rack. \u201cI\u2019d collect the sound files and sync them to the RAW data, and then apply Carissa\u2019s RMD look files to the images,\u201d Gilmer explains.<\/p>\n Gilmer and Tudor\u2019s efforts created dailies that were viewed by Helgeland, Burgess, producers and other crew at lunchtime \u2013 with looks applied, similar to what the final color-timed image will be \u2013 and projected on a 4-by-6-foot screen in the front half of Gilmer\u2019s trailer. \u201cI don\u2019t like to sit and look at what I shot on an iPad,\u201d Helgeland says unapologetically. \u201cIt\u2019s pointless.\u201d Burgess agrees. \u201cWe apply the look to the dailies when we\u2019re shooting, so that the director, the editor, and everybody else can see what I\u2019m doing, so there\u2019s no surprises at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Gilmer also created PIX files through an Internet protocol for studio execs back at Warner Bros. \u201cThose were uploaded by the editorial team, who had access to larger bandwidth,\u201d he notes. \u201cThey\u2019d wait until Brian and Don had viewed the dailies for notes or changes, before uploading the files.\u201d<\/p>\n Back at Light Iron, Bogdanowicz was able to apply final looks with both Tudor and 2nd Unit DP Michael Burgess in attendance, who brought notes from the set. \u201cI used different layers of qualification, versus power windows alone, to make certain colors pop more,\u201d the colorist says. \u201cIt\u2019s very precise,\u201d adds Cioni. \u201cIt\u2019s like painting on top of a picture.\u201d<\/p>\n The baseball sequences for <\/strong>42<\/em><\/strong> were shot at five different locations<\/strong> for ten different historic parks. \u201cIt was challenging remembering the looks for each of the parks,\u201d recalls Burgess. \u201cSo I put together a 60-page bible of all the filters and lenses and diffusions for each,\u201d for use by 2nd unit, visual effects, and, of course, color timing.<\/p>\n Finding baseball parks available in spring and summertime was not easy, says visual effects supervisor Jamie Dixon of Hammerhead Productions. \u201cOne of the challenges of shooting a baseball movie in the spring is that any decent park is being used to play baseball,\u201d Dixon shares. \u201cWe really needed to own a place for several weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, production found several, most notably Engel Stadium in Chattanooga, TN, built in 1930 for the minor league affiliate of the Washington Senators. \u201cWe basically used older Triple-A stadiums, because, like Engel, they look like they\u2019re from the era,\u201d Hoover relates. \u201cEngel was in a state of disrepair, and they were looking for someone to come and invest some money in it, so it worked out fine for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n The production designer says he pursued \u201cintense research,\u201d to assure accurate looks of all the parks represented, especially Ebbets Field, home of the Dodgers, for which Engel was used. \u201cBecause of the constraints of the streets where Ebbets was built, it had an 80-degree inside angle to the stands,\u201d Hoover adds. \u201cSo we ripped out the stands in right field and built them in to match Ebbets.\u201d Hoover also built changeable advertising along the outfield walls, as well as an accurate working replica of Ebbets\u2019 scoreboard.<\/p>\n A real player tunnel was built at Engel for several key scenes. One, where Robinson emerges for the first time onto the field as a Dodger, and another where he, having been humiliated by a racist manager from another team, smashes a bat against one of the tunnel\u2019s walls.<\/p>\n Helgeland and Burgess decided to shoot both scenes from one end of the tunnel, two-camera, to capture master and closeup. \u201cWe knew that if we did coverage, it would look manufactured,\u201d explains the director. \u201cWe wanted Jackie back in the tunnel a certain distance,\u201d adds Burgess. \u201cThe idea was to have bright, hot, white light coming in from the inside, so it could bounce off the floor and illuminate the rest of the tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n Another key location is Branch Rickey\u2019s office, built as a set at Raleigh Studios, Atlanta, and based on historic photos. Burgess worked closely with Hoover on window placement, to allow powerful light to fill the office from 20K light sources outside. \u201cDon wanted it flooded with light,\u201d recounts Helgeland, \u201cto say \u2018This is where all the important decisions in Jackie\u2019s life are made.\u201d Or as Burgess, describes: \u201cIt\u2019s where the clarity of truth comes out of the darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n Cioni points out that conventional wisdom says to avoid such blasts of light when using digital cameras, \u201cEveryone\u2019s afraid of blowing out highlights, like it\u2019s illegal or something,\u201d he laughs. \u201cBut Don was able to soften them, and then Corinne softened them more, controlling the contrast in the room. You are in that office 60 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n Stadium extensions, as well as the worlds seen outside the parks,<\/strong> represent about half of the film\u2019s 400-plus visual-effects shots. \u201cBrian wanted to avoid making a spectacle of the stadiums, using the kind of intimacy seen in Leifer\u2019s photos,\u201d Hoover explains. Subtle insertions, such as Pittsburgh\u2019s Tower of Learning building, seen briefly outside Forbes, were made possible by a massive 1,400-foot-long by 45-foot-high green screen, built along the Engel Stadium back wall from 1st to 3rd bases. \u201cEverything above that ad wall is visual effects,\u201d notes Dixon.<\/p>\n Dixon also built an army of 40,000 baseball fans, using 115 costumed extras borrowed from the main unit at Engel. \u201cWe\u2019d transport 10 at a time, and have each one do a pre-determined seven-and-a-half-minute routine of movements,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n Each was photographed by six different computer-controlled Canon T2i cameras, then shot a second time turned slightly, to produce 12 optional angles of each extra.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could then build a crowd, with selected parameters of sex, race, age, et cetera, running through any portion of the routine we needed, and shown from any angle. It was amazing<\/p>\n how well that worked,\u201d Dixon says.<\/p>\n The striking baseball specialty shots in the film were shot by 2nd Unit director Allan Graf and Michael Burgess. Helgeland had worked with Graf on A Knight\u2019s Tale<\/em>, bringing his skill capturing the impact of football in unique ways to a jousting film, the director notes.<\/p>\n \u201cMy impression of baseball is that it was much more of a contact sport back then, and Allan knows how to capture that,\u201d Helgeland states. Adds Graf, \u201cIt really did have a physicality back then, so we tried to get the camera right in there with Jackie.\u201d<\/p>\n Graf and Burgess dug holes and set the EPIC into the ground, covered by Plexiglas, to capture images of Robinson sliding into bases. They also photographed Robinson running bases in a unique manner, following him, both at face level and foot level, by setting Steadicam operators Matt Moriarty or Bob Scott on a Golf Rocket cart, supplied by Gentleman Grips, who trailed Boseman as he ran the bases.<\/p>\n \u201cJackie\u2019s bigger than life in those scenes,\u201d Michael Burgess explains, \u201cso we wanted to see his reaction and get a sense of his speed by keeping the camera as low as possible,\u201d using a Kleven cradle rig to sling the EPIC close to the ground off the Golf Rocket.<\/p>\n Coupling creative camera work with new technology is both fruitful and, these days, unavoidable, according to Burgess senior. \u201cI\u2019m not feeling compromised at all by new technology,\u201d he concludes of his experience on 42<\/em>, \u201cas we all have to go there. But, really, all I want is for people to watch the images onscreen and be connected to this movie. People worry with digital technology that we\u2019ll somehow lose that connection. But the technology\u2019s not in my way; the technology is helping me get there.\u201d<\/p>\n By<\/em> <\/em>Matt Hurwitz \/ Photos by <\/em>D. Stevens & Warner Bros. Pictures<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Don Burgess, ASC, makes a headfirst slide for home to visualize the most inspiring sports legend in American history, Jackie Robinson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21,22,29,32,37,39,40,43,48],"class_list":["post-2650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-21","tag-42-movie","tag-cinematography","tag-digital-workflow","tag-icg-magazine","tag-jackie-robinson-movie","tag-local-600","tag-red-camera","tag-warner-bros-pictures"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/images\/42_3.jpg\")
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