Ritual

David Mullen ASC · November 28, 2004

This was weird -- I was standing in Target looking at the new DVD's and come across a movie I shot in 1994 just released on DVD, an African-American family drama called "Ritual."

This was only my third feature, made for about $300,000 originally, in 35mm on Agfa color negative (XTR-250 and XTS-400). The shoot was 3-weeks long, mostly in a mansion north of Malibu. I think the camera was an Arri-BL4S with Zeiss Super-Speeds.

They ran out of money while editing it, only to finish the film some six years later, in 2000. I was called in to answer print it and the color timer was like "what emulsion is this???" because his printer lights were so different. Agfa XTR-250 looks great on Kodak Vision print stock, something not available when we shot it... When I finally saw the film projected, I REALLY missed that Agfa stock. I rated the XTR-250 at 160 ASA and shot most of the movie on it; it looked fine-grained, creamy, and prettier than Vision 320T.

I shot the whole movie with a 1/4 ProMist and a 1/4 Coral, but whoever did the transfer for video (only 4x3 full-frame unfortunately, instead of letterboxed to 1.85) timed out all the extra warmth, although the cooler look isn't bad.

Brad Grimmett · November 28, 2004

Funny, I had a similar experience. I was in the midst of trying to get paid for a movie I had shot in 1998 (one of my few DP credits). It was now 2001. I had heard through the grapevine that the movie had been sold and I was trying to collect the back-end money that I was owed. The producer/director insisted that it hadn't been sold, but that as soon as it was I would be the first person he paid. I was thinking about this situation as I walked into Best Buy, and just for the heck of it, I walked through the DVD's to where this particular movie would be if it had been released.....and lo-and-behold......there it was! You can imagine how happy I was! <_< I never did get paid. Big lesson learned on that one! And of course all the pertinent phone numbers had been disconnected when I tried calling the scumbag. Terrible movie by the way. I won't even mention the name. Writing this now I realize how shocked I am that it even got distribution.

Edited November 28, 2004 by grimmett