TRUE GRIT

[Roger]

It is good to discover things for yourself! You will find other ways of doing things and you may more easily find new ways of creating a 'look' than I might.

I will generally light a day interior on location using HMI lights. If I want the interior practical sources to be warm I will use tungsten units In the case of the courtroom in 'True Grit', I used a half CTO on the windows and had the practicals dimmed down to create the warm colour temperature. I was shooting of 5219 with no correction on the lens, which allowed the HMI light to be white and the practicals warm. The windows had a light Hampshire frost on them, which warmed the daylight a little so the negative came in about where I wanted it. To augment the light inside I worked with Red Heads and Tweenies and I used unbleached muslin as a bounce source.
Downstairs from the Courtroom I was not using any interior practical lights so I shot with an 85 on the camera and no gels on the windows. There is a door open at the back of one angle so I had to balance for the daylight anyway. It did create a slight problem as I had a bad reflection on the filter for one shot where a window was very bright. I will admit that I had the problem corrected digitally in post!

I use either 12' x 12' reflectors or 12' x 20' reflectors on exteriors and I will choose Ultrabounce, bleached or unbleached muslin depending on the circumstances and whether I want a warm or a neutral feel. Sometimes I will use bead board painted a light blue or a warm orange for a close shot. None of the bounce sources were tracked in True Grit' and I used very little additional light on any of the day exteriors.

Yes, the colour in the night scenes was adjusted in the DI. The number of HMIs I was using was so large that I decided to keep them clean as it would have created a lot of work. Besides that the wind would have played havoc with any gel. The beauty of the DI is that you can balance two colours, such as the blue of the moonlight and the warmth of firelight, quite easily in post, whereas such a thing cannot be accomplished with a photochemical finish. I don't like to do this and I prefer to expose a negative as close to where I want it as possible but sometimes practical considerations take precedent.

[jzakko]

I would think 'No Country..',

What about No Country and Assassination?

[Roger]

I really don't like to compare. There are so many elements which make one project look one way and another another. Time and money are just two of them!

[bmcjack]

Hello Roger,
Forgive me if you have already answered this, but I was wondering how you lit the scene outside of the cabin when Rooster and Mattie are on the hill by the cabin and LaBoeuf comes up to it on horseback. By the way in my book, another theft of an Oscar for you. I know you don't mind it too much, but for those of us that love your work we feel that way.

[Roger]

That night time work is talked about at length elsewhere. Rows of 18 and 12K HMIs on the brow of the hills. I used something like 30 at one time to create a soft'ish source.

[bmcjack]

I figured it was covered elsewhere but didn't see it. Thank you for being such an inspiration to myself and those of us that enjoy and appreciate your work.