Escoffier places as much emphasis on production design as he does on lighting, and he always works in unusually close collaboration with his production designers. On Rounders, Rob Pearson (who worked with Dahl on Red Rock West and Unforgettable) created a world of yellows, reds, ochres and browns. "We wanted the [film's interiors] to be warm," remarks the New Zealand-born designer. "I wanted to [eliminate] all blue and green from the movie's palette, except during exterior scenes, when everything feels blue and cold."
"Everyone in New York paints their apartments white because they're so small," Pearson continues. "While that was 'real,' it's not what we wanted to do. Instead, we made the apartment that Mike shares with his girlfriend, Jo (Gretchen Mol), darker than normal. I painted the walls red, as well as several of the lamp shades, while the furnishings were yellow, orange, brown and ochre. Essentially, we got rid of blue and green, unless we used it as a light or a counterpoint to something else."
Whereas many cinematographers would turn to filters to achieve a warm feel, Escoffier prefers gels. "We did it all in the lighting," reports gaffer Scott Ramsey. "Jean Yves uses theatrical gels extensively, as opposed to the normal, color-temperatured correction. If you have a white light and you make it a bit warmer or cooler, that is a color-temperature correction. If you use a theatrical gel, which is a color, then that is coloring the light."
Escoffier likes to use conflicting colors of lights, explaining, "There is a tension between opposite colors. And when actors go from one area to another, it's as if they're crossing into a different world."
Green proved to be a favorite color on Rounders because it contrasted so well with the warm yellows and reds. Several scenes take place in bars. One such scene is set in a traditional, old-world, well-appointed bar. The light is very warm, but a kitchen can be glimpsed in the background. Escoffier put a Lee 242 fluorescent 4300°K gel on the fluorescent lights in the room. The characters never enter the kitchen, which remains in the background throughout the scene.
Another sequence set in a strip joint ends with a thug pushing Worm around in the bathroom. Production designer Pearson made a huge collage out of porn pictures and covered an entire bathroom wall with it. The collage had a wide variety of colors, and Pearson put a glaze over it. Escoffier shot the scene with opposing shades of red, yellow and green light hitting the wall.
For night exteriors, he used a Lee 104 deep amber gel to suggest the warm sodium-vapor lights now being used in the Big Apple (the city formerly used mercury-vapor streetlamps, which weren't as warm). "The night stuff was beautiful," marvels New York-based gaffer Ramsey. "Some of the streets where we shot were very mundane, junky little lower East Side streets. But the way Jean Yves shot them, with the contrasts and pools of light, really brought them to life."
Night street scenes are Escoffier's favorite milieu. "I love to do the city by night," he says in a reverential tone. "It is like a painting." With a laugh, he adds, "I am a happy person by night."
The cinematographer sought to make the film's exterior night scenes more dramatic and expressionistic. "People who are addicted to playing cards are like night birds," he suggests. "They have strange minds. They are alone in the world. I didn't want them to appear in the normal light of the city by night, so I completely changed the light."
Escoffier created his dramatic nighttime exteriors partially through the use of Dino lights, which were aimed through custom-made cookies to create strong pools of light, so that people walking down the streets would travel in and out of the illuminated areas. The characters' faces were almost always highlighted with eyelights, which were either attached to the camera or held by a crew member walking beside the actor.
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