"While our camera package was generously donated to us by Panavision, our lighting package was a bit too small and basic. We were hurting for large units; our biggest fixture was a 12K. When units went down, we found ourselves making due with Pars and 10Ks, because it took 10 days to get gear back into the country.
"There were also other unforeseen challenges due to the weather. We had postponed production until the end of the rainy season, and began shooting with the Dry Season, but the rainy season was stubborn. For the first week of exteriors, we had bright sun every morning until lunch, and then overcast skies for the remainder of the day. That made matching light within a scene a real struggle; at times, we were forced to split scenes between days."
Language was an obstacle, although Rinzler notes that some gestures are universal. "It was fascinating working in a foreign tongue. As I read the scenes each night before shooting, I could not follow the dialogue literally. As multiple takes progressed, however, I found myself noticing the changes in the actors; I found that I could feel the emotions within the scene without knowing their language."
Rinzler's crew consisted of both American and Vietnamese craftspeople. Assistant cameraman, Richard Rutkowski and gaffer Tristan Sheridan joined the production from New York. Key grip Tom Harjo flew in from Los Angeles. Each of these technicians also brought assistants from the States. The best boy and dolly grip were Vietnamese. When the shooting schedule was extended beyond its original length, assistant cameraman Alec Boehme, who had worked with Rinzler on Dead Presidents, took over for Rutkowski. "We also had a loader named Yen, who was a very accomplished camera assistant," Rutkowski recalls. "Yen had never had access to Panavision cameras before, so he was fascinated. Whenever we could find some time, we showed him how things worked. Yen is an excellent camera assistant who has shot numerous films in his own right. He worked on features in Vietnam, and we found ourselves hoping he wouldn't get any other work until we were done — he was irreplaceable."
The production's camera gear was attained through Panavision's New Filmmakers program. Kelly Simpson, who is part of the company's education department, coordinated the package, which featured a Panaflex Platinum camera and Ultraspeed lenses shipped over from the firm's Woodland Hills facility. During the shoot, the Platinum was constantly switched back and forth between Steadicam and dolly mode. After several days of shooting in rain, the camera became waterlogged. Assistant cameraman Rutkowski attempted to dry it out in his hotel room, but the internal mechanisms remained too moist to continue. The Platinum had to be sent back to Panavision's repair experts in Woodland Hills, who fixed and returned the camera within a week — a remarkable feat, given the inevitable shipping logistics and customs bureaucracy. During the down time, Rinzler and her crew worked with a backup camera sent in from Hong Kong: a Panavision Super PSR, which is as large as a vintage Mitchell. It took two crew members to assemble the camera, which was then placed within an enormous blimp. In order to protect the film stock from the intense heat and humidity on location, an air conditioner was set up in the darkroom of the camera truck.
Performance Services in Canada outfitted the production with lighting and grip equipment. The lighting package contained several large HMIs, Kino Flos and a standard set of quartz instruments, the latter of which Rinzler often utilized with Chimeras. In Saigon, the production received additional assistance from a French production company which normally services commercial shoots in the country.
For the American crew , which was used to relying on the level of technical support readily available in New York and Los Angeles, shooting on location in Vietnam was an eye-opening experience. "It's not like the States," Rutkowski confirms. "There's isn't a camera or lighting rental house just down the street. If you need a camera piece, you're most likely going to have to find the only guy in the country who owns one. Everybody in Vietnam has a little cottage business."
The Three Seasons company worked through many obstacles. In addition to the lack of state-of-the-art equipment, the filmmakers never saw dailies and worked under the constant eye of government censors. They were further hampered by the slow customs process, which delayed their ability to move equipment and film from the States. "Every day, the censor or the censor's helper would get together with the loader," Richard Rutkowski explains. "Every can of film had a piece of paper on it, and they all had to be signed."
A small local lab was used to develop camera tests, but the production's footage was processed at DuArt in Manhattan. Steve Blakely screened all of the material and sent the camera crew extensive technical e-mails concerning timing lights and the relative photographic quality of the scenes.
Due to budgetary limitations, Rinzler shot the film on Eastman Kodak's EXR 5248 and 5298 stocks, rather than the newer Vision negatives. Bui's admiration for Italian neorealist films such as The Bicycle Thief and Umberto D, combined with Rinzler's quest to merge documentary truth with simple yet carefully designed fictional imagery, turned the limitations into an asset. Their "direct cinema" approach conveys the tradition and change of Vietnam in pure expressive images that allow the viewer to discover a country long inaccessible to Western eyes.
The American crew was awed by the quality of natural light in Vietnam. They were familiar with the special beauty of shooting at magic hour, but the light in Vietnam held its own secrets. Each day before sunset, the sky changed colors, and the light turned soft and mysterious — for less than an hour. The crew had to act quickly, switching film stocks or force-developing a roll to capture the unique ambience. Mornings would deliver a warm, mustard-yellow light.
For the viewer, the film's image-driven narrative is rich, lush, and, at times, truly epic in scope. With the war in Vietnam long over, Three Seasons represents a cinematic beginning that allows the audience to see the country as it sees itself. The time for politics and rhetoric have past, and the artists have begun their pilgrimage.
© 1999 ASC