The adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s bestseller Perfume, with a budget of 50 million Euros, is one of the most expensive German film productions in recent years.
ARRI spoke to Director Tom Tykwer and DoP Frank Griebe, as well as to other key players on the production of Perfume: Tale of a Murderer. Among other things, they talked about the shoot, the experience grading digitally, about the creative transference of scent to film and about postproduction at ARRI Film & TV.
During the shoot the negative was sent daily to the ARRI lab in Munich, to be processed and scanned onto Digital Betacam. After the initial Avid cut (Cutter: Alex Berner), the complex digital intermediate process was also completed at ARRI Film & TV. The two Colourists, Florian “Utsi” Martin and Traudl Nicholson (who had been in charge of the on-set colour timing of the video samples) were responsible for the grading on the Lustre Master Station. One of the greatest creative challenges was, without a doubt, the creative implementation of scents, smells and odours on film. “That, of course, was one of the key issues. I wanted to make the film as subjective as possible about the perception of the main character, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. I wanted to tell the story not through the eyes, but through the nose of this young man. We wanted to find a new way to capture this with the camera, so we would never have to visualize scents with the help of CGI (computer graphic images) or digital effects. That’s why we wanted a sort of rhythmic composition, consisting of camera moves and cuts as well as the interplay with music,” explains Tykwer.
“The musical element plays an important part in Perfume, because the entire vocabulary of the world of Perfume making is taken from the study of music. One speaks of a ‘note’ of a scent, of ‘chords’, and of the ‘composition’ of a scent and so forth – all these terms are from the field of music,” continues the director, who also composed the score for the film. “At the same time, it is of course obvious, that there are moments where we had to rely heavily on colour for dramatic purposes and in such a way, that the audience can clearly follow the dramatic use of the colours.” “We basically approached this the same way Patrick Süskind did in the novel. He used the clear and precise power of language and we used the power of images, sounds and music,” Producer Bernd Eichinger says.
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (played by Ben Whishaw) sniffs out his prey.
The adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s bestseller Perfume is with a budget of 50 million Euros, one of the most expensive German film productions in recent years.
“We decided, very consciously, not to create a new look for scents etc., or to convert scents into colours, but instead we wanted to create a world, that seems realistic without exaggerating. At the same time, the film takes up the subject of the eighteenth century and is supposed to show the grubbiness and dirtiness of that time,” says DoP Frank Griebe.
The Colourists Nicholson and Martin worked on the film in ARRI’s Lustre Grading Suite, using the Digital Intermediate process. They report, “The main issue, during the colour grading continued to be how we could make the scenes in Paris look as dirty as possible and how we could visualize the stench, that must have permeated Paris at that time. We worked, in this case, with de-saturation, but it was difficult to find an intermediate level, that would look realistic and at the same time be accessible to the audience.”
Director Tom Tykwer, who also composed music for the film, breaks into laughter on location in a lavender field.
Towards the end, in Grasse, the sunny Perfume capital of southern France, the film becomes warmer and more pleasant. “To convey the Mediterranean charm, with the sun, gorgeous blossoms and scents of the lavender fields, we really dug in during the DI and enhanced the colours, so they’d glow vividly but naturally,” they continued. On the other hand, even here the darkness, in which the main character, the murderer, lives the life of a shadow figure, was implemented masterfully.
Tykwer, Griebe and Set Designer Uli Hanisch as well as the French Costume Designer Pierre-Yves Gayraud prepared the scenes meticulously, even though it had been determined from the start that the film would be entirely digitally graded as a DI. “The basic idea and mood of a film are generally decided upon in the lighting and the set design. The main issue was how we would deal with specific colours. After all, not everything can be accomplished in post and one has to ‘plant’ the pictures that one wants to perfect during the DI. It’s all about optimizing an established route,” explain the Director and the DoP.
DoP Frank Griebe checks the lighting on actor Dustin Hoffman.
“It’s of course possible to go a completely different direction. There is a scene in the film where we turned day into night during the DI, because it connected better, even though it was lit differently. That’s possible. For the visual homogeneity, the correct mood of a film, the DI is a unique tool,” raves Tykwer, who, with Perfume, has for the first time completed colour grading on the large screen in the Lustre Grading Suite. “The best technology alone is not sufficient enough, a lot depends on the operator, and with Traudl Nicholson and Florian ‘Utsi’ Martin we had the right guys – an absolutely ideal team,” Tykwer and Griebe agree.
Otherwise, in Perfume scent manifests itself more through the music. That’s why it was very important to Tykwer to be able to hear the score on the set, in order to follow its rhythm and its emotional lead during filming. Tykwer, as mentioned earlier, composed the score to Perfume himself, “Not out of necessity, as in the past, because back then I was unable to afford a composer. But because I realized that it was equally important to me to develop the musical element of this film as to develop all the other elements, which to me are essential to filmmaking, such as the visuals and the dialogue. Bringing together images and music is for me almost the greatest delight in making a film. In retrospect, as a composer, I also had the tremendous fortune to get to work with one of the best orchestras in the world, the Berlin Philharmonics with Simon Rattle conducting. Something really special happened there, to be able to run your own music through such an orchestra has something of that phenomenal transformational effect you get when you are running your images through the Lustre. They are again being infused by a certain quality, depth and complexity that one never expected before. That was a great experience for me,” he continues.
Griebe remembers a few sequences, in which actual Perfume is being made, that illustrates this further. “Those are incredibly technical scenes. And to create a certain mood on the set, Tom just took a boom box, put on the CD with the layout music and we shot to the music. That created a wonderful mood. It’s a great way to work, because, almost automatically, one goes about things with a much greater sense of rhythm and timing, for example, in the case of a pan. You pull in and out. That makes for a very musical camera movement, and it is much easier to imagine what that scene will look like in the finished film.”
Producer Eichinger was extremely happy with the result. “The most beautiful moment was right after a test screening in the ARRI theatre when Bernd Eichinger told us that the film had turned out exactly the way he had imagined it,” report Tykwer and Griebe.
Much more about this costly shoot, the research for Perfume – The Story of a Murderer, and the Paris of that time period can be learned from the DVD Box set, which contains an extensive “making of” segment. The DVDs - including all teasers and the movie trailer and so forth – were also made at ARRI. The digitized and finished film was recorded out to film several times on four ARRILASERs in one of the last steps in the process. ARRI Munich also produced the digital master (DCI) for digital projection in the increasingly popular digital cinemas. Perfume – The Story of a Murderer is a Constantin Film release and will be distributed in the US through Dreamworks.
Jean-Baptiste sits in shackles.
In light of his next film – a political thriller set mostly in Berlin – Tykwer thinks back on his longstanding relationship with ARRI and his experiences with the company: “When I make a film it is an obvious requirement that I make it with ARRI. That’s pretty much a rule that applies to every one of my projects. It’s something that developed and has a long tradition, because we have worked together for a long time – since 1997 and the film Winterschläfer, to be exact. A lot, of course, has to do with the fact that Frank Griebe also likes to work with ARRI and prefers to shoot on ARRI cameras. Over the years it has become pretty clear that we are able to get the best package, creative energy and the best know-how from ARRI.” The two continue to explain, “ARRI has always been on par with my gradually growing demands on technology and equipment.”
“At ARRI we were always able to use state-of-the-art technology. There is a reason why ARRI has completely entered the digital age and in a leading role at that. We have often discussed this with ARRI, which led to an exchange of experiences and ideas. ARRI has thereby given me insight into new possibilities and Frank and I were able to articulate our needs and our interests. That has led to an extensive dialogue, which has lead to a deep and trusting collaboration with ARRI and their staff. ARRI therefore, is almost like family to me.
“It was very practical and pleasant to have Utsi, who had extensive knowledge of the mood of the film as well as of our needs, in terms of how we wanted to create this mood. He was able to, without preconceived notions, bring the film into its own. It really was a fantastic co-operation. Traudl was from the very beginning very much familiar with the material and had a deep insight into the developments of its original conception, which left her, like all of us, a little biased,” says Tom Tykwer and continues: “The work in ARRI’s Lustre suite was always a bit like a visit to a ‘charmed island’. The amazing effect that one can watch one’s pictures in spectacular quality and can still do almost everything to them, was completely new to me. It is an incredibly good, and for the creative processes a rather revolutionary, system.”
Obviously it was necessary to intervene occasionally, for example, the red hair colour of both of the lead actors was supposed to shine brightly at all times. It was very complex, because we had to pull up a mask for the hair. We also had to build the flicker of candle light into 20 set-ups with lanterns, because in reality there were light bulbs in these lanterns,” the two colourists report. The two colourists divided the grading work at ARRI between themselves, each working one of two daily shifts.
“It was clear to us; the two colourists are a perfect team. First of all, because Traudl Nicholson has known Tom Tykwer and Frank Griebe very well for many years and has worked with them on several films. Secondly, because with Utsi Martin we had one of the most experienced Lustre Colour Graders on board. That has really helped us a lot on this difficult project, not only because we had to make a lot of onlines in a very short amount of time,” says Post Production Producer Dominik Timborn, who supervised and coordinated the project for ARRI Digital Film but was also the responsible DI Supervisor on Perfume.
Another unique aspect of the colour grading on Perfume is that Griebe pre-determined the look with the help of digital photos. “I took digital photos, during the shoot, and simply worked on them on the computer in Photoshop. These pictures were then sent to Traudl Nicholson in Munich, who finished the rushes accordingly. That way, we always had a great sample. In close co-ordination and communication with Traudl, we started to feel our way towards the final look of the film throughout the shoot,” explains Griebe. That’s why, in this case, there was no colour guide, as is otherwise common. “Again, I do want to emphasize at this point, that it is no longer necessary for the DoP to be present during the entire DI colour grading. We accomplished a lot with the ARRI team and then later on the spot with the DoP and the Director, which worked very well,” he continues.
As we have mentioned before, there is no digital enhancement of the scents in the colours. “Except for one very beautiful scene, with the first victim, a young girl. There, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, played by Ben Whishaw, begins to smell, we follow him, we accompany him and we do see the scent he follows. Visually, we have accomplished that with cuts and montage sequences in which we see details of her,” says Griebe.
“Later, which I already knew during prep, he kills her almost by accident. She screams, he covers her mouth and she suffocates as a result. Then she lies there and he begins to smell her, more or less devouring her with his nose. He begins to undress her and smells her entire body. This meant that colour grading really had to get into it, because the colour of her body changes slowly in the grading. Which means her initially warm skin tone becomes more and more pale and grey. I knew on the set already that I could accomplish that in the digital colour grading and that really went very well,” he continues to explain. ”We made a rather crass colour intervention here: the girl turns completely pale, almost pale blue, and very quickly looks very dead,” adds Martin.
“Frank and I, more or less, grew up as filmmakers with ARRI. From a creative perspective as well as because of the technological inventiveness, which I believe exists there, ARRI has sort of become a second home. And I will continue to stubbornly insist upon keeping it that way,” Director Tykwer concludes.
Jochen Hähnel
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