"Because the screen is square, it is easier to make small image and angle changes and have the cuts work," he adds. "If you're shooting anamorphic, you need a substantial image and angle change to make the cut work smoothly. On TV it's easier to jump-cut."
Nearly the entire picture was shot on location in Los Angeles. One exception was Socrates' tiny apartment, which was constructed in a warehouse. "Even though it had wild walls, when Fishburne moved five or six feet, he'd move from one side of the room to the other," the cameraman recalls. "I didn't want to exaggerate the perspective, but I wanted the move to have some drama, so I used wider lenses. That way we got a field-size change with very small moves."
Faced with a television shooting schedule, the crew didn't always have time to set up elaborate dolly shots. If actors were moving fast or covering a great deal of distance, Bailey would call for an extreme telephoto lens. "I used a 400mm quite a lot, to maintain the field when we wanted to move without people changing size," he remarks. "For one nighttime chase scene, I used both a 200mm and a 400mm. Focus becomes really crucial in those types of situations, but I had a wonderful assistant, Rickey Menton, and operator, Richard Turner. They work together a lot, and they collaborate very well."
One particularly difficult location in Echo Park required the use of a Steadicam. In the scene, Socrates and a group of his friends go to the park to confront a young punk who has committed a murder. The slope of the hill was such that it proved difficult to lay tracks. Conventional lighting was also difficult, so Bailey and gaffer Michael Moyer flew internally-lit HMI helium balloons.
The film was shot on Eastman Kodak Vision 500T 5279 and EXR 5293. In designing the lighting scheme, Bailey took two factors into account: the look and feel Apted wanted for the movie, and the medium's 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Although the story unfolds against an urban backdrop much of it at night where guns, drugs and violence are often everyday occurrences, the film does not dwell on street life or criminal behavior. "Michael didn't want to give the show a gritty 'street' feel," says Bailey. "He didn't want it to ever verge on the sinister." That meant lighting scenes bright enough so they didn't have a down-and-dirty feel, but avoiding anything that was high-key.
The second consideration was the TV format. "You are looking at the picture on a smaller screen, so you can't really highlight or detail or emphasize small things quite as much," he notes. "They're too ephemeral. Therefore I tried to use a very strongly-defined single source, whereas on features Moyer and I tend to utilize delicate secondary and tertiary sources, highlights and counter keys. On Always Outnumbered we basically used a single source-key, a little bit of fill and, if needed, maybe a slight backlight for separation."
For every scene, Bailey created what he calls a "nominal source," an illumination which purports to be the source although it may never really be established or seen in frame. He also kept the colors of the lights very simple for most of the picture, as if doing a study in grays or neutrals. One exception, however, was a bar scene set late in the film. Two bars are shown in the movie: a dive where Socrates goes to score painkillers for Right Burke, and a more high-class joint with music and dancing, where Socrates and Burke head for the dying man's last hurrah. The latter scene, shot at an L.A. establishment named Dilley's, offered Bailey a chance to use more color. "Burke says he wants to go somewhere where he can have a few drinks and look at pretty women's legs," explains Bailey. "I wanted the lighting to be a little glitzier, so we used more gels and colored lights. We weren't trying to make it seem like a disco palace, just a slightly more upscale bar. For rims and backlights Moyer and I used pinks and greens, which we didn't use in the rest of the film. I wanted this scene to be a little richer because it's Burke's last night to live."
[ continued on page 3 ]