| All Natural |
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| Written by John Law | |
| Thursday, 31 January 2008 | |
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If you are seeking truly extreme shooting and lighting, it would be hard to beat the new indie film PVC-1 and its harrowing story inspired by real events. Set in Colombia in the year 2000, it follows a mother of four who becomes the victim of an unusual act of terrorism. Taken as a hostage and unable to pay a ransom, she is turned into a human time bomb with an explosive device locked around her neck. As Frank Ramirez, co-producer explains, “We made a feature film which required guts, creativity and ambition, but more importantly, the innovation of current technology.” Armed with just a Steadicam weighing about 20 pounds, a Panasonic DVX100, and a cast of about 35 members, along with a very low budget, director and DP Spiros Stathoulopoulos was able to shoot the film in one 85 minute continuous take while traveling through the Colombian jungle. "I had many obstacles in the lighting and cinematography since I shot constantly in both interiors and exteriors in one uninterrupted take,” reports the DP. “Since most artificial lights, such as tungsten, have different color temperature than natural light, I had three basic options in order to control the light in an entire uncut feature with exteriors and interiors. First option: use artificial light for the interiors and natural light for the exteriors and change the color temperature pre-settings of the camera while shooting. Artistically, the problem with this option was that artificial light contradicted my statement of portraying real light as it is. In technical terms, changing the pre-settings while shooting would handicap my left hand from the Steadicam and would make me lose balance in a shot where I needed balance. If there was an AC trying to change the pre-settings, he would have also unbalanced the Steadicam because the buttons of the DVX100 are not designed to be changed while shooting, and since artistically I didn't need to change them, I didn't invent a way to do this. For these reasons this option was rejected.” The DP’s second option was to use artificial light for the interiors and natural light for the exteriors and not change the color temperature pre-settings of the camera while shooting. “In artistic and technical terms, doing this would only make either the natural or the artificial light acceptable, but not both,” says the DP. “The one color temperature that was not acceptable had to be color corrected in post, and using post was against the integrity of this project. So this option was also rejected.” Ultimately the DP decided to shoot the entire film with only natural light. “This option met my artistic and technical requirements, but this option brought a whole new set of challenges," he adds. “I had to shoot when there was very harsh sunlight as I needed to cast a lot of shadows and patterns on the ground to give a visual richness.” To help, he selected locations where there were a lot of trees for the exteriors, and “a lot of open windows and doors” for interiors. He also started each day’s shoot at 11am, “to avoid my own shadow being cast on the actors. I also shot around the movement of the sun, so it was all very carefully planned out ahead.” The result is a tour-de-force of lighting and shooting. It’s probably a first, even for independent filmmaking where risk-taking is the name of the game. In recognition of this, PVC-1 was selected for the Directors Fortnight 2007 at the Cannes Film Festival. “We are currently in negotiations for domestic distribution with IFC films,” says Ramirez The official website: www.pvc-1themovie.com The Director's Fortnight website: www.quinzaine-realisateurs.com  |
Iain Blair
James Thompson
Dyana Carmella
