He ultimately used 5263 for everything but night exteriors, which he filmed on 5298, and the triumphant final scene, which he filmed on 5246. "I chose 5263 because of its soft color palette and moderate contrast," he explains. "I further desaturated and reduced its contrast through flashing. I wanted control over the harsh summer light we’d be filming in because I wanted to create an ideal summer day in Iowa. I decided to use a little warm light in the black areas to give them a slight sepia hue. Later, we desaturated the images a bit in post. The telecine work was done at Deluxe in Toronto and the final correction at Riot in Santa Monica. I took digital stills when I shot my film tests, and I took my laptop into the telecine bay to show the colorist what I wanted."

Chressanthis notes that flashing the film and warming the blacks didn’t affect the highlights, and he preferred increasing the grain, or texture, on the negative. "The colorist liked working with negative that was flashed, and it also helped me control contrast on exteriors. When we were shooting exteriors in changing lighting conditions, controlling the amount we flashed had the same effect as switching camera films in the magazine."

During prep, the cinematographer also tested a new Aurasoft light, which uses 4K tungsten and 4K HMI lamps. He says it’s very much like the light used by portrait photographers from the film’s period. "They didn’t have big, electrically powered lights," he says. "They used windows and skylights in their studios, combined with muslin and other fabric diffusion. The Aurasoft gave us a soft, magical light that I augmented with a Hampshire or opal gel. The Aurasoft is a round light that isn’t too big, and I noticed that its reflection in the actor’s eyes resembled the gleam in the eyes of beautiful women in paintings by Vermeer and other classic artists."

The show’s first big interior was in the River City gymnasium, where Hill mesmerizes the townspeople and launches into "76 Trombones," his pitch for organizing a band. Chressanthis and Hendrickson agreed that the gym should have large windows and a big skylight. "I didn’t want to settle for mere naturalism," says the cinematographer. "I wanted The Music Man to have an idyllic, magical quality – the feeling of a fairy tale, but a believable one. We chose to photograph not the unreal, but the ideal, the essence of the subject contemplated. The lighting is magical but believable, not necessarily real or strictly source-motivated.

"The challenge became how to find the ‘ideal’ light," he continues. "Clues came to me in period photos, especially the staged, formal portrait or group shot. I noted the uprightness of the posture, the chins held high in those photos. I also noted the soft studio lighting, which often came from skylights. I decided early on that the gymnasium set would have a strong skylight source that would actually be a large softbox. Gaffer Richard Allen and key grip John Billings built a 16-by-24-foot softbox that held six 6K space lights controlled by a dimmer. There were two layers of light grid on the lamps and the box was lined with white Griffolyn."

The gym set was two stories high, and Chressanthis had to light choreographed shots that would feature up to 150 people. "From every position in the gym, a face was illuminated by a light from above," he recalls. "I felt like a teacher of etiquette, exhorting actors and extras to ‘sit up straight, chins out, hold your head high!’" The softbox had a large skirt that allowed for the light to just graze the second-floor balcony. Chressanthis’ crew flagged light off the walls to adjust for the ratio of skylight; they also brought strong sunlight – four Mole-Richardson 20Ks and six 10Ks – in through the large windows.

The Music Man was composed for the 4x3 television ratio and protected for 16x9, which sometimes was a compromise. "We tried to convince the network to let us compose for 16x9 and letterbox the image, but they weren’t ready for that," Chressanthis says. His camera package included a Panavision Millennium XL, a Panaflex Gold II, Primo primes and Primo 4:1 (17.5-75mm T2.3) and 11:1 (24-275mm T2.8) zooms. There were three or four cameras covering some of the big musical numbers. "The XL can be converted in five minutes from Steadicam [mode] to a conventional [studio] body for dollying or use on a crane," Chressanthis notes. "That was important because about 70 percent of this film was shot on a Steadicam or HotHead. It was like music for the eyes; we wanted to move the camera as much as possible. It’s only static at key dramatic moments. We used a whole range of lenses. If I was following Hill or another principal cast member, we tended to use a 40mm, often with the camera on a crane or on Steadicam. We preferred to shoot with a 40mm or 50mm lens closer to the actor, which was more intimate than being back with a 100mm lens.

"We had six weeks to rehearse the musical numbers, and there were 25 of them," he continues. "Some required more than 100 people – it was the longest call sheet I’ve ever seen! I taped the rehearsals using MiniDV in proscenium style, and we used that to plan blocking and experiment with Steadicam and crane shots. We videotaped those plans and distributed them to the production team. The choreographer, Kathleen Marshall, made adjustments based on those sketches and our needs."

One important scene takes place in a locker room where Hill jumps on the center bench and runs down its length between two rows of children. Chressanthis suggested shooting that scene with a Steadicam moving on the bench with Broderick. He tested the shot using the MiniDV camera and got additional coverage from a HotHead on a crane. The digital storyboard helped the filmmakers sketch blocking and coverage.