Apart from Shirley Clarke’s THE CONNECTION, which I’ll be writing on elsewhere, one highlight of Sunday was certainly cinematographer Roger Deakins in conversation with Seamus McGarvey. I am now very VERY psyched to see THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (I’m tired, I initially typed “ROBERY FRODO”) which looked stunning.
The concept of “poor man’s process” was raised, but not explained. Fortunately for us all, I’m clever and have worked it out. Process photography was most commonly used back in the Golden Age, for travelling shots in cars. It went out of fashion when colour and wide-screen rendered it less technically convincing, and location filming became far more common, rendering it less convincing by comparison. But it’s come back to some extent now that green-screen has advanced in popularity and technical perfection.
“Poor man’s process” is when you’re pretending that a stationary car is in motion, but you’re not actually rear-projected or front-projecting or matting or green-screening anything at all into the background. As Deakins put it, you just film in a shed. The background will be black, as it would be in the country at night.
Substantial parts of the first killings in FARGO were filmed in a shed, anything that’s just about cars and people in and around them. Because to do it outside, as Deakins attested, would be “too cold…and silly.”
I had just seen a rather different example of poor man’s process in Bunuel’s DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID. As Moreau is driven to her new job in a horse and trap, the vehicle jolts and jounces enthusiastically in the foreground (assaulted by stagehands) while a line of trees stands completely still at the far left of the ‘Scope frame. As long as you’re looking at the actors, as you should be, it isn’t a problem at all. I was sat at the front and my eyes were still getting used to the wide frame, so I clocked it, but it was rather sweet. And it tied in nicely with Mr. Deakins’ comments a day later.
shadowplay 