This picture was a blast to shoot! Having a great cast and crew, we pulled off some really nice images in a 4 week shoot [if my memory serves]. This story revolves around a woman [actress Virginia Madsen] who is in the midst of a horrible marriage. She’s a frustrated artist who ends up falling for the owner of an art gallery [Rick Rossovish]. Through a turn of events, they begin to actually steal valuable works of art, swap these pieces with fakes, and sell the real artworks on the black market. A wicked web is weaved and Eddie Mills and Daniel Van Bargen jump on-board to ride this train for all its worth.
All shot on location in the Cincinnati area. Once again, the ever incredible Mark Ovington gaffed, Chris Athy keyed, Shawn Stone pushed me all over the place on the Fisher dolly and Alex Esber did some incredibly difficult focus-pulls. Moviecam Compacts x 2 and my trusty Arri 35-3 were the workhorse cameras on the shoot. All Kodak stock.
Of particular note was our approach to the photography. Our main character [Virginia Madsen] goes through the gambit of emotions through this storyline. She starts the picture in a near breakdown when her baby is stillborn, she goes through anguish with an unfeeling husband and then into the opposite direction when a new man enters her life. We tried to reflect these many personalities with the photography and lighting. We diminished her at first with higher angles and wider lenses and muted colors. As her new romance sparks, we cross over to longer lenses, lower angles and we began to introduce more color to her world through the lighting. As things really get hot, we use very shallow depth of field shots with burn-out highlights and warmer camera filtration.
Its fun to work out a chronological approach to the lighting and photographic aspects of our visual plan of attack before the production commences. I try to emulate the actor’s emotion with the lighting and camera work; after all, we are all hired to tell a story to the audience!
Read the KODAK IN-CAMERA article: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/inCamera/july2004/artworks.jhtml
CREW [partial list]
| Director: | Jim Amatulli |
| Line Prod: | Andy Pepper |
| 1st AC: | Alex Esber |
| Gaffer: | Mark Ovington |
| Key Grip: | Chris Athy |
| Production Designer: | Tom Paul |