Bored To Death : Shot on Arri D21 with video clips

[Paramvir Singh]

We had coverered the Ari D21 here

Here's some news on the HBO show 'Bored To Death' shot on the D21

Director of Photography Vanja Cernjul describes, “We shot in every neighborhood in New York City, at every different time of day. We were outside a lot with sunny exteriors and on the schedule we were on it was really hard to control the sunlight. I was lucky to have a camera that handled the highlights so well.” Read on to find out more about this highly anticipated series and Cernjul’s latest experience shooting with the D-21.



What is Bored to Death about?
Jason Schwartzman plays a writer who has read so much about private detectives and watched so much film noir, that when his girlfriend leaves him, he copes with it by going into this fantasy of becoming a private detective.

We wanted to find a visual style that was reminiscent of film noir, using the visual motifs of the genre. In terms of color and contrast we actually were inspired more by the movie posters of the film noir era, rather than the films. While shooting New York exteriors at night we used strong primary colors and high contrast.

We didn’t want it to become a caricature of film noir. For instance, when the main character walks into a Raymond Chandleresque situation, we wanted it to look like the reality is catering to his fantasy, rather than him being a part of the fantasy. It needed to be stylized, but believable. All this while shooting on location on an episodic TV schedule! I really enjoyed Bored to Death, because it was challenging, and it had a strong style we needed to maintain. The style was really part of the story.

You’ve used the D-21 quite a bit, haven’t you?
I first used it on an ABC pilot, Bad Mother’s Handbook. That was April, 2008. I had virtually no experience in HD before. There were several things that immediately drew me to the D-21 as opposed to most other cameras that were out at that time...

First, the optical viewfinder was very important for me. Then I got the opportunity to test it, and I thought that of all other HD cameras at that time, the D-21 definitely had the best highlights that I had seen. Those were the things that got me excited about the camera

The Bad Mother’s pilot starred three women of different ages. The director, Richard Shepard, was worried about HD on actresses’ faces, but after we saw the tests with the D-21 he felt much better. The camera produced much nicer skin tones than other cameras and we decided to use it. I have been using it ever since and it’s been over a year!

From Bad Mother’s, I went to the pilot of Bored to Death. HBO didn’t have a lot of experience with HD but they were very impressed with the tests we shot on the D-21. For them, it was important that the look be as close to film as possible. Then I shot first season of Showtime’s Nurse Jackie on the D-21 and returned to shoot the series of Bored to Death. Since that was a location-based show with a lot of night exteriors I was interested in new cameras with a more sensitive sensor, but the producers of the series loved the look of the pilot so much that they didn’t want to consider other cameras.

Has your lighting changed at all?

Well, yes. One thing with HD — I think it’s a little bit back to the old-fashioned lighting, where you have to build everything from the scratch. I ended up using more smaller lighting units rather than a few big ones the way I was used to. I used to work with a single light source whenever possible and then I would shape it with flags and nets, bouncing it off mirrors and bounce boards.

Coming from a film background what was your transition like to HD? It was much easier than I expected. I worked with a great DIT, Nick Kay, who was very patient with me at the beginning. With the optical viewfinder, and the way the D-21 camera is designed, I felt very much at home.

I was lucky to have the same post production supervisor, same colorist, same DIT and the same gaffer on Bored to Death and Nurse Jackie. We were learning quickly but it was a struggle in the beginning: if we wanted to have a look of film that was two stops over, we didn’t know how much light we needed to achieve that look. But after we were working for so long together, we started talking in terms of stops again.

With film, I’m used to lighting with just the eye and light meter. With HD, in the beginning, it was hard for me to predict the sensor response to various contrast ratios and I thought it was impossible to light without the monitor. After a while, it became natural again. I was working the way I was with film. I was on the set more, with the director, actors and my operators.

There’s something about the way the camera is built -- it’s built like a film camera, and it shoots like film. It just made everything much simpler for me. I believe my most important tools are still lighting, composition and lenses. I don’t believe in digitally manipulating the image a lot on the set. Actually, I think Bored to Death is the work that I’m most proud of in television. I’m very happy with the camera.



Workflow

LOG C to 4:4:4 master, color-corrected in 4:2:2

Sony SRW-1 Recorder

Crew

DP: Vanja Cernjul

DIT: Nick Kay

First AC, A Camera: Jonathan Beck

First AC, B Camera: Glen Kaplan

Operator: Micheal F. O’Shea

B Camera Operator: Petr Hlinomaz

Post House: Post Works

Colorist: John Crowley