Detailing his camera and lens package, Serra offers, "Our lenses on the show were anamorphic Primos and an anamorphic zoom; [we used the zoom] very subtly during other moves on an arm or [while] tracking [instead of for zooms]. We had a Panavision Millennium, a Panaflex G2, and a Panavision Millennium XL, a smaller and very interesting camera that we generally used for crane shots, handheld shots and Steadicam shots. Night was very aware of when to use the Steadicam and when to go handheld; those techniques present two different emotions, so he was very careful [with them].
"For instance, there was an important Steadicam sequence, a difficult shot near the end of the film in which David carries his wife up some stairs. The Steadicam moves around them in an incredible ballet, which is intended to create an almost magical feel, as if David’s wife is floating. The actress [Robin Wright-Penn] was supported by wires, and the Steadicam operator circled them several times." Although the scene was filmed on a set, the complicated move made it next to impossible to hide lights. "We couldn’t follow the camera, and we had to watch the wireless video-assist, which isn’t as good as the cable-connected image. It was difficult to judge the lighting, and it was kind of a blind shot, but it turned out very well."
As David carries his wife, they are lit by a Redhead positioned at the top of the stairs and bounced off a 4-by-4 beadboard. When they reach the second-floor hall, the lighting comes from a single Kino Flo pointed down through the false muslin ceiling. "We tried to follow the actors upstairs with a Chinese lantern," Litecky remembers, "but we eventually decided not to do that. So when you watch the scene, you’ll see almost no additional fill light. It’s very dramatic."
Serra says he prefers to use the fewest sources possible. "I don’t like to have lights all around in every direction," he says. "There were times when we managed to do interesting things with basically one light. There’s one scene where David is looking through a closet, and we [lit] him with just the single household bulb that appears in the shot. He’s looking through newspapers, and they bounce the light onto him. I like taking advantage of things like that."
David experiences visions at certain moments throughout the film, and for one of those scenes, Serra considered lighting the actor from above. "For me, toplight [suggests] film noir, but for Night it has a completely different ambience, like low-budget TV," Serra says. "Instead, to create a sense of drama, we used sidelight a soft light fitted with an egg crate to make it a bit directional."
One shot turned out to be considerably more difficult than anyone imagined: a scene from Elijah’s childhood filmed entirely as a reflection in a blank TV screen. Serra says, "That was a nightmare, even after the art department made the screen as reflective as possible it’s still a TV screen and not a mirror. We lost four or five stops between the real people and their reflections, and we had to pour incredible amounts of light onto those poor actors. In addition, the light had to be bounced [to maintain a soft feel]. We ended up at T11 or T16 on the real actors and T2.8 or T4 for their reflections in the screen. The worst problem of all was keeping the lights out of the shot. It was a very long, hot shot."
Litecky details, "There were windows on both sides of the TV. We covered the window on the left with 216 and aimed two 6K Pars with medium lenses straight through it to light the front of Elijah’s face. On the right, we bounced three 2.5K HMI Pars into beadboard. That gave us just enough light to see the reflections of the actors in the screen. Later, the camera pulls back and we see the people themselves, so a lot of flags had to be used to make sure their backs weren’t as hot as their fronts. That was one long take."
Another interesting one-shot scene is a handheld sequence that shows the aftermath of a car crash. The shot begins with David picking himself up off the wet street, and the camera tilts up to his face and follows him as he runs towards the wreck. Realizing that his wife is trapped inside the burning car, he wrenches the door open, unfastens her seat belt, takes her in his arms and carries her across the street as the camera is walked backward in front of them. As he sets her down on the road, the camera is lowered with her.
A Chinese lantern on a fishing pole (comprising a 250-watt Photoflood with dimmer controls on the handle of the pole) followed David as he went to the car and worked to free his wife; her face was lit by two full CTO-gelled Tweenies on a flicker generator. The level of the Chinese lantern was varied slightly during this shot, depending on the distance to the subject. "The most important light for that scene was provided by firebars," says Serra, who lit the entire carnival scene in The Wings of the Dove with little more than firebars and torches. "It was shot quite realistically, with no streetlights. There were lights in the background that just barely showed the woods near the road so it wouldn’t look like a stage shot." This background illumination was provided by 10 1K Molepars, evenly divided between two Condor lifts.
"I must say that working with Night was a fascinating and wonderful experience," Serra concludes. "He doesn’t work in the traditional, classic American way of shooting a master shot and then doing plenty of closer shots just in case. He doesn’t really do coverage; he has very long, composed shots, and everything is carefully storyboarded. Although we certainly changed [some] things, most of the time we followed the storyboard. His approach combines the best of both worlds: America and Europe. Night has the style and freedom of imagination that European directors are allowed, but at the same time he’s not self-indulgent and is always focused on the audience, which European directors often tend to forget about."