Creating Arizona Seaside:
Trade Secrets for Shooting in Hi-Def on Low Budgets
by
Daron Keet
[Editor’s Note: While some readers will look at the $200,000 budget of Arizona Seaside, the film which inspired Mr. Keet’s article, and think that the advice in this article can’t apply to a $5,000 to $25,000 micro-budget feature, they would be quite incorrect. While Mr. Keet used a Sony CineAlta HD camera to shoot this film, the principles of shooting and saving presets to memory card work just as well for a Panasonic AG-HVX200 or Sony HVR-Z7U as the more expensive CineAlta. Plus, Mr. Keet chose to go with a zoom lens in Arizona Seaside, which would be more similar to the included zoom lenses found on the HVX200 and Z7U than to the prime lenses that are most commonly used on film or larger budget HD features.-JTH]
I am a Los Angeles-based feature and commercial cinematographer who joined the South African film industry in 1990. I became a cinematographer by working my way up through the camera assistant ranks, beginning as a loader, then becoming a 2nd AC, and then a 1st AC, assisting esteemed cinematographers such as Oscar winner Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Deer Hunter) and Oscar nominee Seamus McGarvey (The Hours, World Trade Center). In 2001, my wife and I moved to Los Angeles.
My cinematic approach to my work is totally inspired by my director’s vision. The projects I shoot are truly about me becoming the technical conduit to enable a director’s visual ideas to become realized cinematic moments.
I got involved as the cinematographer on the feature film Arizona Seaside as the result of a previous collaboration with the film’s director, Pil Pilegaard. I am very selective about the type of work I showcase on my reel, so invariably the directors who hire me share my visual sensibilities. I originally met Pil after he viewed my reel and contacted me to shoot his short film, Civic Duty. Pil referenced shots from my reel that appealed to him. As a result of our collaborative success on Civic Duty I went on to shoot another short for him, Penance, which led to our latest collaboration, a full-length feature film entitled Arizona Seaside.
The techniques I used on this feature can be adapted to any type of budget. In fact in-camera techniques are even more important to implement the lower your budget is, as there is less money available to enhance the look in post-production.
Pil and I both like slick, stylized filmmaking with a heightened sense of gorgeous naturalism. Most visual decisions about look and technique we discuss and plan in pre-production. However, on set I am always exploring more interesting ways to tell a story, as Pil’s directing approach is very much about pushing the visual envelope.
Actress Alexandra Hunter as "Elena," the young Kazakhstan factory worker, hitching a lift in Arizona. Shot on location in Lancaster, the two cactuses are art department cutouts, which I reused and reworked into almost every exterior shot.
Arizona Seaside is an entertaining rollercoaster romp, festooned with un-stereotypical, quirky characters. A Kazakhstan factory worker dreaming of country music stardom. Big Daddy Johnson, the lanky leading man with a pet tortoise. Tony T-Bone, a fast-talking cockney rhyming slang whipper-snapping thug, scared of no one but his hen-pecking mum.
The film’s acerbic humor and strong animal rights themes are ensuring an ever-growing list of fans, as its enduring characters weave their indelible charm on appreciative audiences countrywide.
The film was shot on a modest budget (around $200,000) in a mere 15 days. Because of previous collaborations our honed shorthand as filmmakers allows Pil to maximize his time with his actors, while I have the freedom to lens, set up the dolly, and light in a way I know Pil would have envisioned, had he had the time to remain on set.
Due to budget constraints shooting on film was not an option. Instead I chose to shoot on the Sony 900 CineAlta based on other cameramen’s research. Cinematographers like Paul Cameron and Dion Beebe, both of whose work I greatly admire, were given opportunities on very large budget films to test the types of Hi-Def cameras they would use to capture night scenes. Both chose the CineAlta as a camera to use for low light night exterior situations.
A reflection in the tire shot of "Elena" and "George" (actor Roy Werner). Again I sneaked in the life-saving cactus to make our Lancaster location look like Arizona.
An important part of shooting with HD is having a good digital imaging technician (DIT). On Arizona Seaside, we had a DIT in pre-production who set up the camera to the exact specs I wanted, and then saved the specs on the camera’s backup memory card.
Pil divided Arizona Seaside into two visual motifs—the city versus the desert locations. He wanted a calm, stylized look for the city scenes versus a crazy, warm, wild, free-flowing feel for the desert scenes.
I underpinned the characteristics of these different looks primarily through camera movement, utilizing a traditional dolly for controlled and motivated movement for the city sequences, and a bungee rig for a more frenetic style in the desert locations.
Pil referenced The Bourne Supremacy as inspiration for some of the key desert scenes. I am not a proponent of the counterintuitive approach to capturing handheld footage in a frenetic way. I feel that the throwing away of your instincts does not ensure organic naturalism, but rather a contrived look that has more chance of nauseating the audience out of the moment than engaging them as participants in the scene. My solution to engaging the audience with appropriate movement was through the use of a bungee rig.
I got involved as the cinematographer on the feature film Arizona Seaside as the result of a previous collaboration with the film’s director, Pil Pilegaard. I am very selective about the type of work I showcase on my reel, so invariably the directors who hire me share my visual sensibilities. I originally met Pil after he viewed my reel and contacted me to shoot his short film, Civic Duty. Pil referenced shots from my reel that appealed to him. As a result of our collaborative success on Civic Duty I went on to shoot another short for him, Penance, which led to our latest collaboration, a full-length feature film entitled Arizona Seaside.
