Darious Khondji(influences and Equipment)

March 11, 2005

like nearly everyone im a huge fan of darious Khondji, I was seeing if anyone knew if there is any articles on the internet on his work on Seven, would love to know, he has a similar look to the movies he has worked on, anyone know equipment and styles he uses or is influenced by, any info would be great

David Mullen ASC · March 11, 2005

like nearly everyone im a huge fan of darious Khondji, I was seeing if anyone knew if there is any articles on the internet on his work on Seven, would love to know, he has a similar look to the movies he has worked on, anyone know equipment and styles he uses or is influenced by, any info would be great

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There are book and magazine interviews with him.

"American Cinematographer" ran an article on "Seven" in the OCtober 1995 issue.

Also check out the interviews in the books "Cinematography Screencraft" and "New Cinematographers".

"Seven" was shot in Super-35 using Panavision cameras. Some shots were flashed with a Panaflasher. The film stocks were Kodak EXR 200T (5293) and EXR 320T (5287), sometimes push-processed. The prints used Deluxe Lab's CCE silver retention process.

Khondji's reoccurring approach is to manipulate color and contrast by either using a lower-contrast film (such as Vision 320T) and/or flashing the negative using a Arri VariCon or Panaflasher, and then increase contrast through a combination of occasional push-processing and using a silver retention process to the prints. He likes to use soft lighting coming from raking angles, as edge lights and as a side key, often employing Kinoflos fluorescents. He often shoots a wide apertures for a shallow depth of field.

Jonathan Spear · March 11, 2005

"Khondji's reoccurring approach is to manipulate color and contrast by either using a lower-contrast film (such as Vision 320T) and/or flashing the negative using a Arri VariCon or Panaflasher, and then increase contrast through a combination of occasional push-processing and using a silver retention process to the prints. He likes to use soft lighting coming from raking angles, as edge lights and as a side key, often employing Kinoflos fluorescents. He often shoots a wide apertures for a shallow depth of field."

David, what does "flashing the negative" mean? How is it done?

Thanks,

JonS

David Mullen ASC · March 11, 2005

Flashing is like fogging the film with an even amount of underexposed light, usually "white" but flashing can be done with colored light. When done to the negative, it lifts the blacks and somewhat lowers contrast and improves shadow detail by pulling them up, but you do get less black blacks. Colors are also softened somewhat.

When a positive is flashed, like a print or IP, you darken the whites, which also lowers contrast by pulling down some bright detail. But you do end up with less white whites. Colors are also softened slightly.

The idea here with Khondji (and what I did on "Northfork") is to lower contrast and colors by flashing the negative, then increase contrast but also lower color by using a silver retention process to the prints, restoring the blacks. Khondji doesn't flash much though, only to compensate for the increase in contrast from using a silver retention process to the positive, so he might do it when the sun is very harsh, let's say. Otherwise, he compensates by using a low-con film stock (something he started doing more after he shot "Evita" and "Seven") and using more fill light.

You can flash a negative by shooting an underexposed white or gray card filling the screen, rewinding the film, and exposing the scene over that (or do it the other way around.) "Camelot" was one of the first features to be entirely flashed by Richard Kline that way. Some labs will post-flash the negative for you before processing it but it's a little dangerous.

The best method is in-camera while shooting. If you are using a 35mm Panaflex you can use a Panaflasher, a small light box that fits over the unused mag port on a Panaflex. If not, you can use an Arri VariCon, a piece of glass that "glows" when you adjust the light box on top of it; it fits into the filter slot of a 6x6 mattebox and thus you can actually see the effect through the viewfinder and adjust manually. Any camera with a 6x6 mattebox can use it. With the Panaflasher, you have to shoot tests to determine the level of flash you want since you can't see what it's doing until you process the film and look at it.

Alternatives to flashing would be overexposure & pull-processing (which is what "Ronin" did, combined with the CCE process to the prints) or you can use filters like Ultra Cons. The idea is to end up with a somewhat milky low-con image and then restore the contrast and blacks by using a silver retention process to the prints. If you are shooting negative just for telecine transfer or D.I. though, you can simulate most of this look without messing with flashing, silver retention, etc.

March 12, 2005

hey thanks heaps david, Im a student in Melbounre, and was seeing did you work on northfork, if you did, fantastic work mate, i was seeing if you could let us know how u worked your way up the ranks in Cinematography, and how did u orignally get started, any info would be great

David Mullen ASC · March 12, 2005

I've repeated my life's story too many times here... the short version is that I spent ten years shooting Super-8 films and reading about cinematography, then went to graduate film school at CalArts when I was 27, shot a lot of 16mm, then graduated in 1991 and have shot thirty features in nearly fourteen years.

Jonathan Spear · March 12, 2005

Interesting.

Thanks for the info, David.

:)

March 12, 2005

Gerry Turpin's work on YOUNG WINSTON is a landmark in flashing the film, achieved using Turpin's prototype Panaflasher, the Colourflex (which became the Lightflex). This was the first automated in-camera flashing system.

I believe the initial flashing of the film idea came from Freddie Young in the Sixties on a film called The Deadly Affair. The film was the first to be pre-fogged.

Edited March 12, 2005 by fstop

Anna Carrington · March 12, 2005

like nearly everyone im a huge fan of darious Khondji, I was seeing if anyone knew if there is any articles on the internet on his work on Seven, would love to know, he has a similar look to the movies he has worked on, anyone know equipment and styles he uses or is influenced by, any info would be great

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Hiya - I did my dissertation on Fight Club and Seven - I could post you it on CD (its in word document format) or email it to you - it is very large though and I don't know whether your/anybodies email address could handle it (it has loads of image files in it!) - Other than having loads of info on Darious Khondji it has a list of books/magazine articles that I used for research at the back of the dissertation. Email me direct if you are interested as I don't always look at this site.

Anna Carrington

AC

UK

youwhatfilms@hotmail.com