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I had never seen it before, but Adam Frisch said that it was Kimball's best work, so I checked it out. I was impressed :)

 

 

As usual, many outdoors shots used grad filters:

 

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There was some single source lighting...

 

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...and some great Madeleine Stowe's close-ups:

 

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But what impressed me the most was the incredible amount of smoke that they used on most interiors, always with the lights coming through the windows:

 

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Anyone knows what film stocks were used on this one?

Edited by Ignacio Aguilar
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Guest fstop

Kimball went full out Storaro on this one- a giant love letter to his hero. Beautiful work, obviously derivitive but let's face it, next to the same year's more ordinary looking SHELTERING SKY nad DICK TRACY, Revenge actually looks most like Storaro at his boldest circa 1990! If there's one thing I praise the Scott brothers for it's pushing really good cameramen to shoot everything side/backlit- NOTHING looks nicer than a single source side/backlit scene with zero fill.

 

What do you guys make of Ward Russell's LAST BOYSCOUT and DAYS OF THUNDER for Scott? I thought that stuff lacked Kimball's saturated primary colours and harder light- didn't have the Storaro-influenced hard bite.

 

As for the film REVENGE, I'm not a fan- I really didn't like Jack Nietsche scoring the film either- there was a real synergy of image and music on Scott and Kimball's earlier collaborations with Harold Faltermeyer's dark synthpop soundtracks- nothing more goosebump swelling than a 120mm breathing lens rack focus with a colour grad shot at 40 fps into backlight to the sound of throbbing Synclavier synth bass played live! :D

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nothing more goosebump swelling than a 120mm breathing lens rack focus with a colour grad shot at 40 fps into backlight to the sound of throbbing Synclavier synth bass played live!  :D

 

More like a 135mm since there is no 120mm Panavision anamorphic lens as far as I know. :D

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"Revenge" is a lot of fun, I just bought a copy on DVD to study some of Kimball's techniques. It's a very bold film, the first time I watched it I found some of it to be a bit over the top for my taste. Upon watching it again I enjoyed it more, really beautiful work though very much on the edge of being theatrical, lots of smoke...

 

I liked the use of grads in it as well, I started a thread on Kimball's use of filters awhile back which got some useful input from Claudio Miranda, here's a link.

cinematography.com

 

I saw "Be Cool" in the theaters recently hoping against hope for some more trademark Kimball/Scott lighting, I must say I was a little disappointed in what was a much more generic-looking movie. It didn't help that the film was terrible either...

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The whole backlighting thing is really Tony Scott's trademark, not Kimball's, as evidenced in stuff like The Hunger and Days Of Thunder- although Dan Mindel eliminated it pretty much on his Scott efforts (Wolski and Cameron did some lovely backlight on their contributions to little Scott's resume). Paycheck is the last Kimball movie I saw at the cinema and that too was a disappointment- colours were washed out, the FILL was visible (EVEN Curly Sue avoided that one) and the lighting was overall pretty overcast flat. Like Be Cool, that movie sucked too.

 

More like a 135mm since there is no 120mm Panavision anamorphic lens as far as I know.  :D

 

Oh Mr. Pedantic, Top Gun wasn't shot in animorphic! :P ;)

 

Obviously, I'm just approximating with the 120mm example- not like I've ever touched a film camera lens in my life!

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I haven't seen M:I-2 and Wild Things since both were released theatrically, but I thought back then they were really good looking films (specially the awful Cruise vehicle).

 

Dan Mindel is credited as DP for the next Tony Scott's film. While I liked their previous efforts, I would rather see Paul Cameron again doing the job.

 

What about Jacob's Ladder and Kimball? I've never seen that film.

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For Jacob's Ladder Kimball dropped all the rules and went with the extremes of naturalism meets operatic- the theatrical grad stuff was justified this time though by the hallucigenic elements of the script. I was expecting kickers and hardlight throughout but this was much more of a depressing atmosphere- some great strobe moments at the party and during the subway sequence, and the use of brooding but natural looking top softlighting was a most welcome unexpected subtlety too.

 

I was rather disappointed with M:I2, largely because it looked so high key and mundane. Kimball had of course replaced Andrew Lesnie over a weekend so he was following a style and pallette already laid out. The visual effects were most variable too, and whoever shot the bluescreen and plates left all of the visual flare in the hands of the compositors. Obviously not nearly as inspired as Burum's work on M:1, but that's all down to the director, circumstance and script too (unimaginative Woo makes Kimball look terrible, with the possible exception of the HIRE short they shot together). Wild Things was superior in every way- neither of the female leads in that movie will ever look that good again. Trash never looked this good since... Beverly Hills Cop 2. ;)

Edited by fstop
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What do you guys make of Ward Russell's LAST BOYSCOUT and DAYS OF THUNDER for Scott?

 

I can't remember what Days Of Thunder looks like, but Last Boy Scout marked Ward Russell out as the best of the Kimball imitators. He had, of course gaffed for Kimball on a few Tony Scott movies, which obviously helps.

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For Jacob's Ladder Kimball dropped all the rules and went with the extremes of naturalism meets operatic- the theatrical grad stuff was justified this time though by the hallucigenic elements of the script.

 

Thank you, Tim. :)

 

I'll rent it.

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