Even though Vincent used a wide range of Primo lenses, she found the 75mm or the 100mm lens to be an ideal focal length for glamour shots. "Those are the lenses I used to shoot Debbi Morgan and Lynn Whitfield, who always needed to look very beautiful," she explains. Vincent occasionally used a 14mm lens to make Eve look very small in a big world. "But most of the time I used a 40mm lens or higher, up to 100mm," adds Vincent. "I rarely used the 27mm unless I had to." The director and cinematographer didn't have to have long discussions about lenses; they both wanted to bring across a certain elegance and glamour that was achieved with the 75mm and 100mm lenses.
Vincent used Kodak's 5293 for day interiors, and 5279 for night exteriors, and she chose a 5222 for Aunt Mozelle's "vision" sequences. "Kasi and I talked at length about the vision scenes, we discussed what a vision actually was, and how to make those scenes unique and different from the rest of the movie, so we ended up going with a black and white stock, and lot of the look was inspired by the Clarence John Laughlin photographs."
Even though Vincent used 5248 for most day exteriors, in extremely high contrast situations she opted for 5287. "There were scenes, for example, when the sun would be shining on the bayou in the background and the characters are walking under shady trees," says Vincent. "That's when I would use the 87, and it worked out well." Night exteriors gave Vincent her first opportunity to work with the 79 stock, and she was impressed by "the stock's fine grain structure, the beautiful blacks and the incredible detail in the shadows."
Instead of filtration on the lens, Vincent chose to soften the light source itself. "There were no special filtrations in terms of colors, it was a naturalistic movie, very classical and straight ahead," she notes.
In terms of lighting, Vincent and gaffer Christopher Prampin came up with a unit they called "the Nine Light Sandwich," nine Fay globes in one housing, bounced into bead-board and going through 216. "It was one of our favorite interior lighting sources. It required a lot of flagging and took up a lot of space, but gave a beautiful soft source. I was able to change the level very easily by switching globes on or off to vary the intensity as opposed to having to move the unit."
The project's lighting needs were fulfilled primarily with the tungsten package, two Dino lights donated by cameraman David Dubois, whose generosity was motivated by his friendship with Vincent and her gaffer. "I used those Dino lights every day," says Vincent. "We'd use them with half blue and 216 for day exteriors, and we rarely used HMI's unless we had to." Vincent did lighting tests on her lead actors, and found underlying skin tones and different levels of reflectance. The warm tones of half-corrected tungsten were very flattering to the skin tones for day exteriors.
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