The camera setups on the process trailer were straightforward, except when Scorsese wanted to use a moving camera. "Moving the camera during a driving shot is always very difficult," Richardson acknowledges. To accomplish this goal, the filmmakers occasionally used dollies on the process trailer, which proved extremely difficult on Manhattan’s bumpy streets.
Known for his radical photographic style, Richardson often hits actors with powerful blasts of light from above, a tactic that leaves them overexposed by several stops. In Bringing Out the Dead, this approach was utilized frequently, and Scorsese made the most of the unsettling look. "If you’re speeding down the street at night, the light level is going to rise and fall," the director points out. "We would constantly raise and lower the lights, letting Nic go dark and then occasionally hitting him with strong light. I thought it was especially powerful when we synched one of these hotly-lit images to a voiceover in which Pierce testifies that his role is to ’bear witness’ to the plights of the victims. At that instant, the light blasts him, and the effect is emphasized by his white shirt. It’s as if his tormented soul is burning in the night."
Richardson acknowledges with a chuckle that his powerful overhead blasts of light were "definitely present." This striking overhead approach was often employed for exteriors as well as interiors. Maxi-Brutes were hung from Condors 30 or 40 feet in the air, parallel to the streets of New York.
Asked to explain the motivations for this technique, Richardson maintains that the question is "difficult to answer. My approach to lighting varies with each film." However, he does cite some examples where the strategy was directly keyed to the storytelling. Early on, when Pierce goes on the film’s first emergency call, the stricken Mr. Burke is on the floor, and in several shots the sick man is hit with strong overhead light. "There are several different emotions going on in that scene," Richardson attests. "For Mary Burke, it’s a terrifying life-or-death situation fraught with father-daughter emotional baggage. For Frank Pierce, the stakes are high because he’s in a downward spiral, but at the same time he’s developing an interest in Mary.
"I like the actors, consciously or subconsciously, to be involved in the progress of the light on their own faces, or those of their associates," he continues. "I thought the effect of having the light [reflected onto Pierce from Mr. Burke] rise and fall in intensity, as Pierce went up and down massaging Burke’s heart, would help to emphasize the dual nature of Pierce’s experience. He’s burned out, and his patient is dying, so Pierce feels like hell. However, at the same time he is seeing a glimmer of hope for redemption in the man’s daughter."
Hot lights on the actors were also used to suggest the idea of the "resurrection of ghosts." Richardson details, "Here I was most interested in the ethereal quality of the strong, overhead light. I find that usually this lighting approach is most interesting when the actor is on the fringes of the overhead light, when they’re just skirting the edges." The result is a ghostly, otherworldly effect.
Richardson emphasizes that he sought to maintain consistency in the use of light on the ailing Mr. Burke, who is motionless through most of the film. "We had strong light on Burke as Pierce pumps his chest," he remarks. "From then on, I altered the light’s intensity and hue as Burke’s life force goes up and down. I mainly used a cool light on Burke after the initial scene, switching to an emerald green color towards the end to indicate that he is dying."
While these lighting schemes were linked to story points, Scorsese notes that the other unusual film techniques employed in Bringing Out the Dead were not always as solidly justified. "Because of the distorted nature of the EMTs’ perceptions, we could get away with pretty much anything!" he exults. "We would get a wild idea and go with it, saying, ’That’s fun, let’s do it.’" This approach led to some wild fast-motion scenes in which the EMTs seem to speed around town as if trapped in a hellish drug rush they can’t escape.
Another compelling, technically-complex scene was accomplished entirely in-camera in one time-consuming take. During one of the rare times when Frank Pierce is seen at home, he walks to his apartment’s main window, which has a dramatic view of the Manhattan skyline. The camera moves in to fill the frame with the window view, and then shifts into a time-lapse sequence in which the skyline image rapidly progresses from midday to evening. The time-lapse then ends and the shot continues, panning across the room to pick up Pierce in bed.
The execution of the shot began with Cage walking to the window. Once he was out of the shot, the camera was switched to time-lapse mode. When that sequence was completed later in the day, the camera was returned to normal speed and panned to find the actor in bed. (It’s one of the only moments in the film when Pierce is able to escape his hectic job and rest.)
Despite the melange of edgy cinematic techniques effectively employed in Bringing Out the Dead, the film does not feature another Richardson trademark that might seem to be a natural fit for a story with hallucinatory elements: the cameraman’s frequent use of multiple imaging formats, such as black-and-white, Super 8, videotape and 16mm film. Richardson has previously employed this grab bag of imaging formats to powerful effect in films such as JFK (AC Feb. ’92), Natural Born Killers (AC Nov. ’94), Nixon (AC March ’96) and U-Turn (AC Oct. ’97).
Scorsese explains the absence of multiple formats by stating simply, "I don’t like to use different formats in my films. Bob has done an extraordinary job with that sort of thing, but I just don’t see the world that way. I also don’t have the subject matter for that, certainly not in Bringing Out the Dead. To me, the very act of using 8mm, video, 16mm and this and that, all mixed together and thrown onscreen in superimposition and madness, is a moral statement in itself, about the state of our culture. I find that idea interesting, but it had nothing to do with what I was trying to accomplish in Bringing Out the Dead." Scorsese reiterates that his emphasis was the drama that results from Pierce’s internal spiritual numbness.
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