TV PRODUCTION

Not too light: Guy Dufaux discusses the lighting challenges of Napoleon

	Checking light levels for a scene from Napoleon, France's largest and most expensive television production to date. (PHOTO: ARNAUD BORREL)

It is a blistering hot, sunny afternoon, the 25th day of principal photography on Napoleon, France's largest and most expensive television production to date. In the shadow of the ruins of the Royal Abbey of Chaalis, pools of journalists and EPK crews from Spain, Italy, Germany, and the US, await the arrival of Isabella Rosselini, Christian Clavier, Gérard Depardieu, John Malkovich, and Anouk Aimée. This $35 million historical epic, which covers 25 years in the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, is a co-production of seven countries, shooting in France, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Canada over 22 weeks, and is being filmed in French for the European audience, and in English for Americans.

Yves Simoneau has the daunting task of directing his actors in the two languages, and ensuring that their accents are credible. Guy Dufaux, Director of Photography from Montreal, is photographing the four hour mini-series with Kodak's new high-speed colour negative film stock 5284, Vision Expression 500T.

It is unusual in France to shoot a TV drama on 35mm. Did Guy ever consider going digital or high definition? "It's still very expensive to shoot digital, and high definition is nowhere near as good as 35mm. High definition equipment is as expensive as film equipment, but you don't have a choice of lenses. You are not really photographing a movie, you are making a kind of TV style programme. We are using a large quantity of film stock, but with the 3 perforation pull down movements in our Panavision Millennium, Platinum, and Golden Panaflex, we are getting 25% more film for the money.

"We are also shooting in two different formats: for the European version in French, we are shooting in 16x9, and for the American version in English, we are shooting in 4x3. I am using the Kodak 5284 (Vision Expression 500T) on Napoleon because we are shooting in these huge castles where it is sometimes impossible to put lights inside the room, or to get light on the ceiling. You are not allowed to hang lights, they have to be on stands, so most of the time they have to be outside. You can't touch anything because these are historical monuments with priceless furniture, artwork and antiques. On this movie, I want to give the impression that the lighting is natural. The look I am trying to achieve for day, is that it's natural daylight coming from and through the windows, and for night-time, that the light in the room is coming from candlelight. In fact, I am using three Kodak film stocks - I can never remember the code numbers, so I refer to them by their EI (Exposure Index) values, and in fact, I rate them exactly as they are listed. I normally use the 200 (Kodak Vision 5274) for day exteriors, the 500 (Kodak Vision Expression 5284) for day and night interiors, and the 800 (Kodak Vision 5289) for night exteriors. I photographed at least four or five features with the 200 and 800 film stocks, but the Expression 500 (5284) is new to me. I don't know what they did with this 500 stock, I think they took the best qualities from the 800T and 200T stocks and put them all into the Expression stock. I think the 5284 is an excellent film negative because it handles the two ends of the curve very well - the areas of underexposure and overexposure. That's important for me because we are shooting day interiors but we are also seeing outside, which is overexposed sometimes by two, or even three stops, and with this new stock, you still have detail in the image. The 5284 also handles underexposure very well which is always important for night shooting, but it's especially good for me on this movie which takes place in the early 1800s when all they had as lighting sources was candles. For the day interiors, I am using compact daylight-balanced HMI tubes which give me a very soft fill light. They are small, very light and portable, and I don't have to use big lamps. For the night-time candlelight look, I use a lot of Chinese lanterns and regular tungsten lights. I am not playing much with colour, except for night lighting where I warm up the lights to match the candles. I don't like it when night exteriors look too blue, so for the fill light at night, I am trying to keep it neutral. This 5284 film stock also has good colour rendition and true, rich, blacks. It really handles black very well, as does the 800T.

"Every morning when we change set-ups, when we go from inside to outside, or when we change film stocks, I shoot a grey-scale and a colour chart which gives me the reference I need in order to discuss things with the timer. At lunchtime, I look at rushes on Beta SP, which is sometimes frustrating because when they digitize the film, they compress the ratio of the film, they compress the under and overexposed areas and you are looking at images that are not very interesting. You don't have any harsh highlights or very strong blacks. They are there, but you cannot see them because the signal is compressed. You have to do a timing later on in the lab to get that right.

"One of the problems with this change in technology, is that a lot of people are abandoning some of the established ways of working. For instance, exposing a film carefully and properly isn't considered as important as it used to be twenty years ago. People coming up today haven't been taught the importance of the film negative, they haven't been properly trained. They don't see printed rushes, and they have no idea what their original negative looks like.

"To me, the best negative is one where you have everything you need to get a good image. It needs to be well exposed, and the levels between the highlights, the keylight, and the fill light need to be well balanced. Even if you are going to digitally manipulate the image at the end, it still all comes down to how well the negative has been exposed in the beginning. It's as simple as that."