ForginConnections

A shot fired in Africa echoes around the world in Babel,photographed by Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC.

by Rachael K. Bosley

Unit photography by Murray Close, Eniac Martinez and Tsutomu UmezawaAdditional photos by Mary Ellen Mark, Graciela Iturbide and Patrick Bard

n Babel, the accidental shootingof an American tourist on alonely stretch of road in Moroccohas immediate and dramaticconsequences for those involved,

but its effect ripples through lives onother continents as well. The pictureis the third feature collaborationbetween director AlejandroGonzalez Inarritu and cinematogra-

pher Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC,following Amores Perros (see ACApril 'Oi) and 21 Grams (AC Dec,'03), and it is their most technicallyambitious work yet. In their quest togive each strand of the nojilinear,globe-spanning narrative an appro-priate visual texture, they devised anapproach that ultimately involvedthree formats, eight film stocks and.

from start to finish, six post houses.On top of that, says Prieto, "Wedidn t want the things we were doingto be obvious at all."

Babe! begins in Morocco witha goat-herder's purchase of a riflefrom a neighbor. He turns theweapon over to his young sons(Boubker Ait El Caid and SaidTarchani) so they can protect the

36 November 2006

Left to right: Moroccan villagers help an American tourist (Brad Pitt, left) rush his injured wife to awaiting helicopter; a woman (Adriana Barraza) searches for help in the desert near the Mexico-U.S.border; a deaf-mute teen (Rinko Kikuchi, center) heads out for a night on the town in Tokyo-

herd, and the next day the boysdecide to test its range by firing atseveral objects, one of which is a tourbus crawhng along the road farbelow them. The tourists aboardinclude Richard (Brad Pitt) andSusan (Cate Blanchett), a Californiacouple struggling with a rockymarriage. Susan is hit by the bullet,and while Richard and others strug-gle to save her life, the authoritiesbegin hunting for the shooter.

When she is notified of theaccident, Amelia (Adriana Barraza),the Mexican nanny who is tendingRichard and Susan's two children inSan Diego, realizes the only way shewill be able to attend her son's immi-nent wedding in Mexico is to takeher young charges with her. All goeswell until their late-night return tothe States, when their driver, Amelia'shotheaded nephew (Cael GarciaBernal), flees the border inspectionstation after quarreling with a guardand ends up dumping Amelia andthe children in the desert.

Meanwhile, the Moroccoinvestigation leads to Tokyo, wherethe rifle's last registered owner,Wataya (Koji Yakusho), is struggling

to connect with his teenaged daugh-ter, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), in thewake of his wife's suicide. The girl isa deaf-mute, and because of herhandicap, she misunderstands thepolicemen's reason for seeking herfather and becomes convinced it hassomething to do with her mother'sdeath.

Given that Babel was shotentirely on location on three conti-nents, its logistical complexity alonewas considerable. What helpedsmooth the way for Prieto was alengthy prep, facilitated in part by hislongstanding friendship withIriarritu. "Several years ago,Alejandro began talking about amovie where an event happening inone country affects things happeningin other countries," recalls the cine-matographer. "One of the greatthings about our collaborations isthat I've always had the opportunityto come onto the projects very earlyon and participate, even on thescripts, all of which were written byGuillermo Arriaga. It goes beyondthe classical cinematographer-di rec-tor collaboration. We start generally,conceptually, by discussing the char-

acters and how to visually presenttheir stories, and Alejandro allows alot of room for me to propose ideas.It makes you feel like it's your movie,too, and that empowers you tocontribute as much as possible.

"This was the longest prep I'veever had," he continues, noting thathe spent seven months on Babel onceformal prep began. "Each of thethree stories had a long maturationperiod because the way the scheduleworked out, we prepped Moroccofor two months and shot that story,prepped Mexico for a month andshot that, and then prepped Japanfor three weeks and shot that. I hadthe opportunity to shoot many,many tests and really nail downspecific details."

The thorough testing paid offall the way down the line, particularlywhen production expressed concernabout a handful of the filmmakers'decisions. When such questionsarose, the team screened and re-screened Prieto's tests, and some-times he shot more. "I wasn't awareof precedents for some of the chal-lenges we confi"onted on Babel sothere was nowhere we could go for

American Cinematographer 37

Forging ConnectionsRight:

Preoccupied byrecent unhappy

events, Susan(Cate Blanchett)

tries to enjoy aMoroccan

holiday with herhusband.

Variations of thecolor red help to

visually linkBabel's three

stories, and theMorocco shade

was umber,visible here in

Blanchett'smakeup and the

seat coverBelow: Two

Moroccan boysflee the scene ot

an accidentalshooting. Theboy at right is

actually carryinga rifle, but the

MPAA insisted itbe removed from

the photo.

advice, and extensive testing wasnecessary," he says. Among thechoices under question were shoot-ing Super i6mm in Morocco, whichprompted concerns about scratchesand dust particles, and filming withanamorphic lenses for a final 1.85:1aspect ratio in Japan, knowing Prietowould be on top of the actors with ahandheld camera, often in low light.During the post phase, anotherround of tests even enabled the film-

makers to successfully argue for anAgfa release-print stock (CP30) —unheard of in Hollywood — when itlooked as though Kodak VisionPremier, their first choice, would betoo costly. (In the end, they were ableto secure a fiiU release on Premier.)

One technique that helpedlink Amores Perros and 21 Gramsvisually was Prieto's use of thebleach bypass process on the nega-tive, but when he and Inarritu began

prepping Babel, "the first thing wesaid was, 'Enough of that!'" Theyeventually decided to unify Babel'sthree stories more subtly with colorand varying levels of grain. Prietoexplains, "We were nervous aboutone story looking completely differ-ent from the other—we wanted it tobe one movie, but with differentfeels. [Production designer] BrigitteBroch suggested we find one color tocarry through all three stories, and

38 November 2006

we chose red. It appears as umber inMorocco and as primary red inMexico, in both cases mainly in thecostumes and set dressing. In Japan,we looked for more of apink/magenta shade, and we usedthat in the production design andsome of the lighting, particularly inan important sequence in a night-club." As for film grain, "Alejandroloves it, and once we decided tomake the grain of Super 16 thetexture of Morocco, we carriedIgrain] through Mexico and Japan todifferent degrees."

Terror AbroadDespite the filmmakers' vow

to avoid a bleach bypass, it came intoplay as they began refining thedetails of Morocco's palette. "Wewanted Morocco to feel difficult,almost dirty, because of what tran-spires there," says Prieto. "Alejandrowanted to feel the texture of the filmgrain and contrast, and to me thatsuggested at least some degree ofbleach bypass. When we learned thestock I initially wanted to use forthat, Kodak |Vision 800T] 5289, hadbeen discontinued, I thought, 'Whynot Super 16?' Alejandro liked theidea, and after testing, we decided togo with it.

"That meant we knew we'd befinishing with a digital intermediate[ DI ], because we knew we wanted toshoot 35mm in the other countries.But 1 decided to see what varyingdegrees of bleach bypass looked likeon the negative, because I've alwaysbelieved it's better to do that processphotochemically than achieve thelook digitally. But when we testedapplications of V4, '/3 and ^h bleachbypass at FotoKem, we found wecouldn't get a consistent amount ofsilver on the 16mm negative. 1 wasn'thappy with the variation, so wedecided to achieve the effect in theDI. We took our bleach bypass tests

to Eclair Laboratories in France,which processed some of ourMorocco material, and determinedwith Icolorist] Yvan Lucas whatpercentage of contrast and desatura-tion we had to apply with theI Discreet] Lustre to match the lookwe liked. It worked out well."

Prieto used four of Kodak's16mni film stocks in Morocco tohelp differentiate Richard andSusan's story from the boys'. "[EXRlOOD] 7248 was our favorite — itsgrain texture was visible, and to me itseemed the most like 5289 — but, aswith 5289, I discovered it had justbeen discontinued," he says. "We

Left: Using aDirector'sViewfinder anda stand-in forPitt, RodrigoPrieto, ASC,AMC tests the"Joey Chair" inthe Moroccanvillage. Belowleft: After sayinghis morningprayers, theAmericans' tourguide(MohamedAkhzam)assesses thesituation in hishome, wheremost of Richardand Susan'sordeal plays out.Below right:Prieto takes abreak at thelocation; one ofthe Arri SkyPanels he usedfor fill inside ispartially visiblebehind him.

American Cinematographer 39

Forging ConnectionsRight: Key grip

Joey DJand3(foreground)

adjusts a devicethat will enable

Prieto (visiblein Dianda's

shadow) and1st AC Trevor

Holbrookto filmclose to the

Moroccan boyswhen they

fire the ride.Comprising a

4'x8' wood panelwith a square

holeof Lexanforthe lens, thedevice wasdraped with

black Duvetyn —as were Prietoand Holfarook.

"It was very hotindeed inside

the box,"recalls the

cinematographer.Below: Prieto

and gaffer RobertBaumgartner

check the lightbetween shots

in Morocco.looked aU over the place and wereable to secure just enough of it forthe Americans' story. I didn't wantthe Moroccan kids' story to be asgrainy, so I used [EXR 50D] 7245,which has a finer grain, tor those dayexteriors, [Vision2 250D] 7205 forday interiors, and [Vision2 500T|

7218 for a couple of night interiorsand a day-for-night shot."

"rhanks to his work in far-flung locations on other projects,Prieto was able to assemble a multi-national crew on Babd that was fiillof previous collaborators. InMorocco, these included gaffer

Robert Baumgartner and key gripJoseph Dianda from the States (bothalso went to Japan); 1st AC TrevorHolbrook and 2nd AC GarthLongmore from Canada, and 2nd-unit cinematographer Berto fromFrance.

Lighting the bus interiorwas a challenge for Prieto andBaumgartner because Iriarrituwanted to be able to see what wasoutside the windows at all times. "Wewanted to see the relationshipbetween interior and exterior, andwhen I shot tests using only availablelight, the exterior blew out a little toomuch," recalls Prieto. "Using framesof full gridcloth, Joey Dianda createda rig over the bus that extended outlike a shelf over the windows, cover-ing Susan's side; without it, directsun would have come in on herbecause of the orientation of thelocation, and we didn't want that. Werigged a 6K Par next to the wheel justbehind her and bounced it off abeadboard positioned iji front of herseat to enhance the ambient daylight

40 November 2006

lighting her. For extra fill, we used aKino Flo and a Joker 400 with apancake Chimera on stands inside."

After the shooting, the tourguide (Mohamed Akhzam} suggeststaking the bus to his village, which isnearby, to seek help. Richard carriesSusan up a steep, rocky hill to reachthe guide's house, and achieving thisshot called for another bit of ingenu-ity on Dianda's part. Prieto explains,"When I saw that hill, I wonderedhow I'd be able to run up it back-wards without falling on my back —I tried doing it and tripped. We ruledout a Steadicam because Alejandrodoesn't like the floating feel of it.I tested the Easy Rig, but I felt I could-n't move the camera the way I wantedto. Finally, Joey came up with some-thing we dubbed the 'Joey Chair.' Hetook a chair from our hotel andsimply attached a long piece of woodto both sides; four grips could carryme and see where they were going,and they could keep it fairly levelbecause the guys on the higher part ofthe terrain could lower me downwhile the guys in a hole could raiseme up. Tbat enabled me to concen-trate on operating, and the sbot feelshandheld and very energetic."

Unaccustomed to visitors, thevillagers view the tourists withsurprise and curiosity, and many ofthese reactions were captured byBerto. "Alejandro wanted to get a feelfor the places, not just the main char-acters," says Prieto. "Our 2nd-unitdirector, Alfonso Comez-Rejon,therefore had a lot of work, especiallyin Morocco. Alejandro really wantedto see the people of the village whenthe bus arrives. He wanted that senseof people witnessing. An importantreference for that was The Battle ofAlgiers^ which we screened for thecrew, and which Berto looked atseveral times."

The most difficult location tolight in Morocco was the guide'ssmall bouse, wbere a village doctortends to Susan while Richard grap-ples with an increasingly bleak situa-

tion. "It's very important to me thatmy camerawork and lighting have asense of realism and immediacy, so Itry to use practical sources as muchas possible," says Prieto. "The housein tbe village was a small room withtwo windows and a doorway, and wewere using a slow stock [7248] withan 85 filter, so I had to increase thelight level quite a bit. When wescouted the location, I took manydigital stills to see what the availableligbt looked like, and I noticed thebounce light from tbe windowsseemed to sort of come from tbeground, so I decided to create a senseof fill ligbt bouncing from theground to bring some light into tbeactors' eyes. We put one 6K Par oneach window going through full gridtbat we angled as close to tbewindow as possible without makingit visible. Then we bounced two 400-watt Jokers into bleached muslin onthe ceiling, and from below we usedfour Arri Sky Panels going throughfiill grid to give tbem a very lowintensity."

When U.S. authorities finallysend a helicopter to transport Susanto a hospital in Casablanca, the film-makers subtly underscore the posi-tive turn of events by transitioning to

35mm. "The helicopter arrives in thevillage at dusk and lands inCasablanca at night, so I knew 1needed a fast stock, but I felt 7218was a little too grainy," says Prieto."We decided to shoot those sceneson 35mm, and we were able to gettbe very last bit of 5289 on themarket for that work. We shot thescene with three cameras on threeseparate evenings." Tbe transitionalso marked a happy change forPrieto, wbo had by then spent severalweeks learning Super 16's reputedportability and ease of use did notapply to every shooting circum-stance. "We used Arri's 16SR-3,which is not very ergonomic and notthat lightweight. It's not a terriblyheavy camera, but it gets very front-heavy when you use a zoom, and weused zooms a lot in Morocco becausewe wanted to be able to change thesize of the frame during a roll; typi-cally we'd start shooting at a certainsize, then Alejandro would say,'Tighter, tighter' — his mantra —and I'd just snap in. Alejandrodoesn't cut, he just keeps rolling, soevery single shot was 11 minuteslong, handheld, witb a fi-ont-heavycamera. When we switched to 35mmfor tbe end of the story, I took up an

Prieto joinsdirectorAlejandroGonzalez Inarrituat the monitor"Alejandro isvery intense,very focused,and verypassionate, and Ilike that in adirector," saysPrieto. "He doesmany takes, andwhen he likeswhat he sees, Ican hear himback by themonitor,moaning!"

American Cinematographer 41

Forging ConnectionsRight: Angered

by a boy'sreaction to her

disability,Chieko (RinkoKikuchi) piots

her next move ina Tokyo arcade.Below: During a

break, Prielorelaxes for a

moment as 1stAC Arturo

Castaneda(partially visibleat left), his right-

hand man inJapan and

Mexico, checksthe camera.

Arricam Lite and immediately feltrelief]" (The Morocco and Mexicocamera packages came from OttoNemenz in Hollywood.)

Ironically, Prieto's desire tomake these scenes a slightly soothingdeparture from the 16mm materialwas thwarted at the post stage,thanks to the vagaries of scanningtechnology. During prep, he tested16mm scans at EFilm, which uses anImagica Imager, and at £clair, whichuses a Northlight, but the produc-tion's final scanning and color-correction were carried out atI.aserPacific, which uses a Spirit."LaserPacific was very proud of howclean their 16mm scan was, andindeed, there was much less grain,"he recalls ruefully. "We didn't havetime to rescan it because we had toget a print ready for Cannes. Wetested methods for adding grainback in digitally, but we didn't likeany of them, so we just went with thenatural grain it had. We would haveliked a little more, because the grain

was the most important visualelement of the story. That texture isthere, but in the end, the 5289 isgrainier than the (16mm]. It was alesson in why it's important to deter-mine where you will finish yourmovie during prep, and do your teststhere."

Urban IsolationAt the opposite end of the

visual spectrum from Morocco isJapan, whose shallow-focus, lower-contrast look was inspired by theworks of two still photographers."Alejandro and I always referencestill photos during our prep, andfrom Rinko Kawachi we took theidea of shooting the Japanese storyin a lower contrast overall," saysPrieto. "Also, I found a book of MonaKuhn's photography and was struckby her photos of people's hands —there was very shallow depth of field,and the backgrounds werecompletely out of focus. I thoughtthat would be a great way to suggest

42 November 2006

Chieko's inability to hear. I testeddifferent ways of achieving it andfound the C-Series anamorphiclenses did it the best; the texture ofthe focus has a very specific, almostliquid feel that Alejandro and I bothliked. Spherical lenses wide opencould deliver shallow depth of field,but the way the soff backgroundslooked with the anamorphic lenseswas more abstract and interesting."

The decision to shootanamorphic in Japan became a bitmore complicated when Inarritudecided he wanted to frame Babel inthe standard 1.85:1 aspect ratio.Prieto recalls, "When we scoutedMorocco, we hadn't decided whataspect ratio to use, and we tookalong our Alan Gordon [Mark V]Director's Viewfinder to try thingsout. Of course, 2.35:1 was beautifulwith the mountains and the land-scape, but when Alejandro looked at1.85:1, he said that was best, becausehe wanted to emphasize the earthmore than the sky. And indeed.

1.85:1 really gives you that sense ofbelonging to that place and thatground; you'll notice our composi-tions in Morocco tend to be tilteddown to incorporate the ground."

Panavision made the filmmak-ers a special set of 1.85:1 groundglasses so they could zero in on thecenter of the anamorphic frame. Theeventual extraction of the 1.85 frameproved a bit tricky, however. Prietorecalls, "LaserPacific started by scan-ning the full negative and then, withthe Lustre, zooming in to the 1.85portion of the frame. That didn'tlook good — it was very soft.Fortunately, we had time to rescanthat material, and the second timethey scanned only the 1.85 part of theframe, and that worked very well."

Iriarritu's preferred style ofcamerawork puts Prieto on top of theactors at all times, and there wasinitially a question as to whether thatproximity could be achieved with C-Series lenses. "The lenses' close-focuscapability is 5 or 6 feet, and I knew

without us even talking about it thatI'd have to come up with a way to cutthat distance," says Prieto. "I testedPanavision's variable-diopter attach-ment, but when I got close to theactors, the faces started to look a bitround and puffy. So [Panavisionsenior technical adviser] Dan Sasakiwent to work, and he was actuallyable to optimize a set of C-Serieslenses for close filming. He was alsoable to make them work wide open[at T2.3], which was very importantnot only because Japan has a lot ofnight scenes, but also because wewanted shallower depth of field. Danwas just amazing.

"For us, the texture of Chieko'sstory was the shallow focus, though Idid give it a hint of grain by shootingon [Kodak Vision2 500T] 5218pushed one stop. We all knew it wasa risk, but we went ahead. For themost part we were successful, butthere are a couple of slightly softshots here and there. It's very difficultto tell [focus] through the viewfinder

Chieko toastsher fellowpartiers in alocal nightclub,unaware thather evening isabout to turninte a bigdisappointment.

American Cinematographer 43

Forging ConnectionsTop: The

production builta border

checkpoint inthe middle of

Mexico'sSoneran Desert,

and Prieto lit thelocation

exclusively withindustrial and

street lighting.Overhead were

metal-halideunits gelled with

V4 Minus Greenand V4 CTO and,

for a "white"light reference,a few tungsten

spotlights. Todifferentiate the

sides of theborder, his crewerected six light

poles witbmere ury-va per

bulbs along tberoad on the

Mexico side,and 10 poles

witb sodium-vapor Cobra

heads on theU.S. side. Right:

Amelia'snephew (Gaet

Garcia Bernallconsiders his

options after aborder

policemanquestions the

presence of twoAmerican

children in thebackseat. "The

only movielighting we used

at the bordercrossing was forshots where weneeded to push

light into thecar," says Prieto.

"To match theindustrial

lighting, weused a ceuple ofChinese lanternsthat held metat-

halide bulbs."

immmmumALL VEHICLES MUST

STOP FOR INSPECWU

because the C-Series are slightly softto hegin with."

Prieto's secret weapon on hisfirst anamorphic adventure wasMexican 1st AC Arturo Castaneda,who worked on Babeh Japan andMexico shoots. The pair had collab-orated on many projects in Mexico,including Amores Perros and Frida{AC Oct. '02), and Prieto describesCastafieda's focus pulling ability as"really, truly amazing — a divinegift." He notes that the challenge ofpulling focus on Inarritu's films iscompounded by the fact that every

shot is a master shot. Gesturing tothe tape recorder in front of him, heexplains, "Even if our goal was atight shot of this recorder, the shotwould begin with the camerafollovdng us coming in the frontdoor, walking over to the bar to getsome water, walking over here andsitting down, and then end on thetape recorder. The end of the shotmight be the only piece Alejandrowill use in the find edit, but we'd stillfollow all the action from everyangle. So the focus puller has to be agenius."

Prieto and Inarritu typicallymake thorough shot lists duringprep, and on Babel they did so forMorocco and Mexico, but not forJapan. "Our shot listing has a lot todo with the editing, which has beenfairly complicated on all these films,"says Prieto. "Alejandro likes toconsider how he wiU transition fromone scene to another, so when weshot-list, we are already thinking ofhow the shots will be edited together,and how every scene will begin andend. Alejandro decided to let theshots in Japan be organic to whatwas happening with the perfor-mances and sort of figure it out onthe day, which was a departure forhim."

One of the trickiest scenes toshoot in Japan also features BabeVsmost elaborate lighting scheme. In it,Chieko and several friends go to apacked nightclub, and after dancingfor a few minutes, Chieko sees theboy she likes kissing her best friend,and runs out of the club. Thesequence begins with the charactersentering the club and stowing theirbelongings in lockers, then heads upa spiral staircase to the dance floor,

44 November 2006

Forging ConnectionsIn the blistering

sun, Amelia(Adriana

Barraza) andDebby (Elle

Fanning), one ofthe Americanchildren she

lends, struggleto continue their

journey.

where the rest of the action takesplace. "Every shot started downstairswith them putting their bags awayand then went all the way up thespiral staircase and through thescene, and althougb Alejandro hadblocked the actors, the cameraworkwas completely improvised," recallsPrieto. "What's truly amazing is thatit's in focus! I don't know howArturo did it. There were no marks,we were on a stairway and then apacked dance floor, the lights werestrobing, and Arturo didn't knowwhere I would be — if i felt likegoing around to the actor's otherside, I'd just do it.

"There's a definite dramaticprogression in the lighting thatunderscores Chieko's emotions,which go from very happy to verydisappointed. We lit the downstairshallway with Kino Flos gelled a deeporange and had some greenscreenKino Flos in the background. Once

they move upstairs, the lightingchanges to pink and green, a combi-nation I noticed in CueorguiPinkhassov's still photography oflapan and liked a lot. When Chiekostarts dancing and goes into her ownlittle world, the colors shift to redand yellow, and when she sees herfriend kissing the boy, we move to amonochromatic strobing effea. Inaddition to the club's lighting, wepositioned several large light panelsthat were full of small bulbs in framearound the dance floor to create aslightly abstract effect; these werecolored to match our overheadlighting, and an operator watchedour lighting cues and changed thecolors accordingly. Overhead we hadseveral robotic lights that we couldpreprogram to be specific colors.Because it was so important to seethe characters' expressions, webounced some of the robotic lightsinto 4-by frames covered loosely

with silver Mylar to keep a shimmer-ing, colored light on their faces.

"Wliile we were filming theactors coming up the stairs, Robby[Baumgartner] was upstairs cuingthe lighting changes, and he could-n't see the action from where hewas, so I had one hand in the air,cuing him with hand signals as Ilooked through the viewfinder. Itwas quite exciting to shoot, and it'smy favorite scene in the film interms of lighting."

In contrast to the nightclub,Chieko's penthouse apartment,where some important nightsequences unfold, is a study in mini-malism."I needed to maintain a verylow light level there in order to regis-ter the glow of the city lights outside,and to give Alejandro the freedom toshoot in any direction," says Prieto."Robby designed two shallow soft-boxes, one 4-by-4, the other 4-by 5,and we put one above the couches

46 November 2006

and the other above the entrance tothe room. Both were about 10 inchesdeep so we could keep them outsidethe i.85 frame. Each fit eight 2900°KKino Flo tubes, and the frame hadslots for gels and difflision, as well asan eggcrate grid that could becustomized for each shot by addinglouvers with Velcro. We had a combi-nation of full grid and 'A CTO onthem, and I think we had to add ND.3to drop the light level to a reading ofT2.3 at 1000 ISO [5218 pushed onestop]. To highlight pictures on thewall or objects around the room, werigged many Dedolights to a series ofpolecats that Joey Dianda hadprepared on the ceiling. Whenever Icould, I brought in a Barger-BagliteDV-3 with a Medium Shallow BankChimera, which was a very compactand versatile soft source."

To get some extra speed outon the apartment balcony, Prietotransitioned to spherical primes,Panavision Ultra Speed MKIIs, for afew shots. "We needed to capture asmuch of the city light as possible inthe wide shots, so we turned to theMKIIs, which open up to T1.3 in the24mm-50mm range. But on thetighter close-ups, Alejandro wantedto keep the anamorphic feel, even ifthe city was a little darker in the back-ground. If you look closely, you'll seesome shots on the balcony haveround, soft-focus lights in the back-ground, whereas other close-ups haveelliptical lights in the distance!"

The balcony is the setting forBabel's final shot, which begins onChieko and her father and slowlypulls back to reveal a large swath ofTokyo. Prieto recalls, "One weekbefore we started shooting in Japan,Alejandro came up with the idea forthat shot, which was a dramaticdeparture from the way we'd beenshooting the rest of the picture. Westarted brainstorming our options —a helicopter, a cable-controlledcamera, a miniature helicopter, a slowzoom from another building — andone by one we ruled them out

because of budget, safety or impossi-ble permits. We finally decided to usea little CCI and turned to [Canadianvisual-effects house] IntelligentCreatures for support.

"We first chose the angle to geta plate of our hero building fromanother building; this determinedthe axis of the move. Then |oey[Jianda built a track on the roof ofour building to match that angle andplaced on it a Phoenix Oane with aLibra head and a 10-foot downwardextension to drop the camera to thebalcony level. With a 24mm MKIIlens, the camera starts on the two-shot and then pulls back to a wideshot of the balcony. CX̂ iI takes it fromthere, using plates of the city shot by[Japanese 2nd-unit cinematogra-pher] Masanobu Takayanagi, tocreate the illusion of a never-ending,floating shot of Tokyo."

A Dark JourneyIn some respects. Babel's

Mexico story had to serve as a visualbridge between Morocco and Japan."We knew we wanted to shoot Super16 in Morocco and anamorphic inJapan, and we decided to shootMexico on 35mm using [KodakVision 500T] 5279 pushed one stop,even on day exteriors," says Prieto."Compared to 7248, it was a similaramount of grain, but smaller — thetexture of it was like sandpaper,whereas the grain of 7248 was biggerand softer. So Mexico has a littlemore sharpness and color saturationthan Morocco." To help conservefilm stock, Prieto filmed in 3-perf35mm. "We knew that wouldn't be aproblem because we were finishingwith a DI, but it was a mess for theeditors— Mexico was 3-perf 35mm,the end of Morocco was 4-perf35mm, and we also had anamorphicfor a 1.85:1 release and Super 16."

When Prieto first read thescript, the scene depicting Ameliaand the children's nighttime flightinto the desert on foot immediatelypiqued his interest. "I wondered how

to make that scene look real, because[creating] believable moonlight isa]ways a challenge, and there was avery big landscape to light. Iwondered about day for night, and Ieven considered shooting nightvision and trying to colorize it. ThenI proposed to Alejandro thatAmelia's nephew might have a flash-light in his car that he gives them,and that could be their only lightsource — no moonlight. We tested iton video during a scout and thoughtthe effect was scary and kinetic.

"So the challenge became howto light a big night exterior with thelight fi-om a single flashlight. I didsome research and found the SurefireM6 Guardian, which has two hoursof battery life and can go to 500lumens if you change out the bulb. Itested it with 5279 and 5218 but wasgetting almost no exposure on thefaces from the light bouncing backfrom the ground, and pushing bothstocks by a stop made the blacks gogray-blue. Then I thought of Kodak[Vision2 Expression 500T] 5229. Inormally don't care for it because it'slow-contrast, but this was a veryhigh-contrast situation. Sureenough, 5229 rendered beautiful,pure blacks, even pushed one stop.What really enabled the scene towork was the Arri Master Primes,which had literally just come out.Even wide open, the faces wereunderexposed by about one stop, butwe could still read their expressions.And again, Arturo was amazing —we were working handheld at T1.3,walking backward in the desert, step-ping into holes, and we couldn't seeconsistently because the flashlightwas moving around, yet for the mostpart, it's in focus! I was very, veryhappy with the results, and we didn'tneed to manipulate the scene at all inthe DI.

"This scene was the reason weneeded a high-contrast print stocksuch as Vision Premier or AgfaCP30," he continues. "With 80percent of the screen pitch-black, I

AmeTkan Cinematographer 47

Forging Connections

On location in the Mexican desert, Prieto checksthe skies for a suitable moment to resume shooting.

found that regular Vision [2383]rendered the blacks unacceptablymilky."

Prieto also used 5229 to filmMexico's extremely low-light night-time car interiors. "The only lightyou have inside a car on a moonlessnight in the desert comes from thedashboard lights and the headlightbounce ofif the pavement, and wewanted to stay true to that. Tosuggest the dashboard lights, we usedExtreme Cool Light Car Kits, ELDpanels that have a slightly cyan feel;Paul Cameron |ASCj and DionBeebe [ASC, ACS] used this tech-nique very effectively on Collateral.We attached some to the dashboardto help light Amelia and her nephew,and we put some behind the seats infront of the kids and one abovethem; the kids were underexposed byabout 1 '/2 stops, and in the DI wedarkened them a bit more. Tosuggest the headlight bounce, we put

a 4-by-4 Kino Flo going through fullgrid and many layers of bobbinet onthe hood of the car. The overall effectis a realistic no-source light."

The Mexico shoot reunitedPrieto with several former collabora-tors, including 2nd-unit cinematog-rapher Eduardo Flores, who filmedmost of the car chase in the desert;gaffer Benito Aguilar; and key griplesus LaBastida. The cinematogra-pher adds that he was pleased tomake new contacts in Japan, where"[gaffer] Yuji Wada collaboratedwith Robby Baumgartner to makeeverything flow and be ready in time,and where we were also honored tohave with us Yutaka Yamazaki [)SC],who shot third camera on the firstscene in Chieko's story."

Prieto was able to bringanother previous collaboratoraboard Babeh DI at LaserPacific:Eclair colorist Yvan Lucas. "I enjoyedworking with Yvan on Alexander

we have everything youneed, from cameras,lenses, dollies and lightsto location services. Ial! available with true \one-stop convenience.'let us be your primary Iresource when filming inmexico and latin america.

shoot in mexioo!s u p e r t e c h n o c r a n e 3 0 a r r J c a m l i t e p h a t o s o n i c s 4 c s t a b i l i i c d h e a d u l t r a p r i m e l e n s e s a r r f i n a K i & k t l s h e r l i

for equipment rentalsin mexico:www.efd.com.mxfor production solutionsin latin aniericaw w w . e f d u s a . n e t

pino94 barrio desia catanna coyoacan.mexico d.t 04010 fel. (5255)5659 7959fax (5255)56597848 efdf̂ Tiefd com mx

2301 w. otive btvd bufbank.ca 91506lei (818)729.8496 fax (818J729.9^̂ 89infoiyjiefdusa net 1

46

[AC Nov. '04], and Alejandro likedhis attitude and creativity," saysPrieto. "Throughout the shoot, Iused Gamma & Density's 3cP systemto communicate our intentions veryspecifically to the [digital dailies]colorist at Modern VideoFilm, andwe also used it later as a reference inthe DI. Because Yvan's hackground isin traditional lab printing, his initialapproach [to a digital grade] isalways printing lights — he'll startout using the Lustre with the R-G-Bprinting lights. I like that approach,and so does Alejandro. This wasAlejandro's first DI and he was a bitskeptical of the process, so it wasimportant to have a timer from thefilm world involved. It took us threeweeks to grade BabeL which wasn'ta lot of time considering that eachreel had about 500 cuts." AfterLaserPacific filmed out the color-corrected files, Prieto and timerKenny Becker fine-tuned the answer

print at Deluxe Laboratories.With its extraordinarily inti-

mate handheld camerawork andbold visual palette, Babel is clearly ofa piece with Amores Perros and 21Grams, but Prieto observes thatsome of the most noteworthy differ-ences have nothing to do with tech-nique. "Alejandro sees Babel as thethird film in a trilogy, but althoughit's the same emotional trip, it's notas visceral as Amores Perros or asharrowing as 21 Crams. Babel iscomplex politically and emotionally,and it works on a metaphorical level,suggesting someone can be asisolated in the middle of a crowdedcity as in a remote village or thedesert. It's about people's inability tocommunicate, but in the end ameaningful connection is made inall of the stories. It's a little morehopefril than the other films and, Ithink, the most mature of the three."

TECHNICAL SPECS

1.85:116mm and 35mm

Arri 16SR-3; Arricam Lite;Panaflex Millennium XL2,

Platinum ^

Zeiss High-Speeds, Elites anaUltra Primes;

Arri/Zeiss Master Primes;Panavision C-Series and

Ultra Speed MKIIs;Angenieux 7-81mm,11.5-138mm zooms

Kodak EXR 50D 7245,100D 7248;Vision 500T 5279, 80015289;

Vision2 250D 7205, : 1500T 7218/5218,

Expression 500T 5229

Digital Intermediate

Printed onKodak Vision Premier 2393

Samy's DV & Edit^ ^ BEFORE YOU BUY YOUR DIGITAL CINEMA EQUIPMENT. TALK TlBEFORE YOU BUY YOUR DIGITAL CINEMA EQUIPMENT, TALK TO US!

WE ACCEPT MASTERCABD. VISA.AMEBICAN EXPRESS & DISCOVER, SCHOOl, UNIVERSITY 8 CORPORATE RO'S WELCOME vvww.samysdv.com

A Division of Samy's Camera585 Venice Blvd. Venice, CA 90291(310) 450-4365 FAX (310) 450-3079

To all D.P.'s, Producers, Directors, and anyone else who hasalways dreamed of owning a Leica - Dreams can come true!

FREE Leica M7 with 50mmsummicron lens A %with purchase of Sony HDW-F900 Cine AliaHDCAM Camera, HD Lens & Professionai Tripod."offer eitpirBS 11/30/06

New!VALUEI

SONY HDW-F900 Cine AltaHDCAM

The HDW-F900 CineAtta caniccrder is capable ofcaptjnng images at 24/25/30 frame progressiveor 50/60 interlace at 10BO resolution.The HOW-F900h utilues a 2 2 Mega Pnel FITCCD ariu comes GCjuippGci with various oammacurves tof superior unagmg. FeaTures dual filterwheels, comprehensive software adjustmentparameTera tor superior image control.

New!HD recording in 1080/59.94i, 50i, 29.97P,25P and native 23 98P. The operator canalso selecl the desired bil rate to record in,either 35, 25 or 18 Mb/s depending on thedesired picture quality and recording length.

record in SO mods at 25 Mb/s.

The PDW-F350 True 24P, overcranking and undercranking.Plus time lapse, slow shutter and SD/HD switchable recording.And the PDW-F3S0 i ; a news camcorder, with the mgged,shock-resistant construclion you can take to extremes.

NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR r f POGfiAPHlCAl ERRORS. PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE, SONY IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK

PanasonicAJ-HDX900Affordable ProfessionalHI-DefinHlon Camera• Adds on support for IO8O1 and 72Op• Three 2/3" 520,000 Progressive CCD imagers• 24P/30P/aOi fecordmg capability• Captu'es film-like 24-frame images using CineGa

AG-HVX2001/3" 3-CCD 16:9 HD/DVCPRO/DVCinema P2 Camera withCtneSwitch"" Technology,CinsGamma'" Soflware andIEEE 1394 InteriaLe

AJ-5D93 Also Available

AJ-SDX900Also Available

ProfessionalHDV Camera

Record HDV, DVCAMand DV images at 6O1,50i, 30, 25 or 24 fps, inerther SD or HDThree Super HAD"',1/3-irxli,169natiiieCCDB12X Opted Zoom C ^Zees Vino-Soinar' T" Lens

HIHigh Definition3CCD CamcorderHD Resolution withSelectable Ftame Rates

• Professionai Jack Pack• 20iHD Videc Lens

DIGICDVII ImageProcessor

• Still images can becaptured at full HDresolution 11920i 1080|

NewlJ V C GY-HD110UPMIFESSIONU

I4P Pro High DefinitionCamera Recorder• Mew 3-CCD Pro HDV• Interchangeable lenses• Totally professional com-

pact shoulder camoorderwith full Progressive HDand real 24P specs 49