Los Angeles-based DP Aaron Platt has come a long way in a short time since his student film, The Cold Ones, was accepted into the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and received an award for Most Promising Filmmaker from the 2004 Ann Arbor Festival.  Since then, Platt has shot over eight feature films, including The Pacific and Eddy, which won a best cinematography award from the Sacramento International Film Festival, and Wild Tigers I Have Known, a 2007 Film Independent Spirit Award Nomination for Best Cinematography. He has also shot over 15 music videos for such artists as Queens of the Stone Age, and commercials for Allstate and AT&T.

But when hired by director and producer Michael Carvaines, founder and president of Micar Productions in Los Angeles to shoot his independent feature Time and Tide, Platt was still relatively green. “In fact, it was my first movie, it was low budget, and it was very run-and-gun filmmaking,” he says. “One of my biggest challenges was proving upfront to a feature film director that I was capable of giving him what he needed.” To this end, Platt wrote an extensive visual synopsis on the film, based on how he felt the cinematography would reflect Carvaine’s script. “Michael wanted an ultra-realistic look, so we took a very natural approach, like a Godard film with a lot of hand held, fly-on-the-wall kind of stuff. We shot it all around Hollywood and downtown L.A. over a couple of months, whenever we had spare days and weekends.”

Platt chose to shoot the entire film using a single Panasonic DVX100 camera package, “as it was one of the only compact 24fps true digital cinema cameras out there that was affordable to your average person, but which also offered you the professional quality of shooting 24fps,” he adds. “So it immediately stood out against all the other 30fps cameras, as it was one step closer to a cinema image.” Platt rented the DVX100 from another DP friend and shot “straight as is, you can get a 35mm adaptor for using extra lenses on the DVX100, but we didn’t need it.”

He reports that the camera was ideal for this shoot, as it’s lightweight, reliable, and very portable. “So we ended up often shooting in locations we’d have never thought of, such as cafes, bookstores, and businesses while they were open,” he says. “We’d just tuck the camera away and use lavelier mics for the actors. That way, we got scenes for next to nothing that potentially could have cost $10,000 to do.”

For lighting practical locations, the DP largely used “whatever the location offered us; I’d balance for the dominant light source.” For the rest, Platt used two 650-watt Fresnels, a 300-watt Fresnel, and a Mole-Richardson 650 and 300, all rented from Bardwell & McAlister in Sun Valley, Calif. “I was able to shoot the entire film with just 2500 watts,” he adds.
Looking back, Platt calls the shoot “quite an education and it was a great collaboration with Michael. He wanted to experiment and he gravitated to my work, so he trusted me a lot, and the DVX100 gave the film a really great look.”  

CONTACTS:
 
Bardwell & McAlister
www.bmlighting.com

Mole-Richardson
www.mole.com

Panasonic
www.panasonic.com/broadcast

Sundance Film Festival
www.sundance.org