Agfa XT 320

[Ignacio Aguilar]

Anyone knows why David Watkin shot most of the exteriors for this film on this medium speed, low contrast film stock and most of the night scenes on Kodak 5247 (125 ASA)?

 

It seems contradictory. I know that Chris Menges used that same Agfa stock on The Mission, but only for the candlelit scenes and some telephoto shots, while the rest of the film (including day interiors) used the 5247.

[Guest fstop]

Colour and depth more than anything else, I believe. With the Zeiss lenses on the front and the fact Watkin was filling in with large Brutes on daytime exteriors going to a tiny aperture size seems elementary- I certainly can't remember any shallow looking DOF in those breathtaking daytime shots. Plus Agfas rendering of green and red certainly worked with the degree of saturation found in those daytime landscapes.

 

I think this is explained in the AC of that year.

[Ignacio Aguilar]

Thanks again, Tim :)

 

I certainly can't remember any shallow looking DOF in those breathtaking daytime shots

 

That's true. Most of the film -except the candlelit scenes, of course- have a pretty decent depth of field.

 

I haven't seen the film in a very long time, and I was surprised by the amount of film grain the DVD shows. Nothing too bad, but more that I would have expected for landscape photography. Then I remembered the story about the Agfa stock used on this film. That stock probably helped Watkin to do his high-contrast lighting and to avoid any diffusion on the lenses. The overall look is quite soft and low-con.

 

He probably convinced Pollack not to use anamorphic lenses, since he hated them.

 

It's not my favourite Watkin film, BTW. On the interiors he uses more fill light than he usually did in other films, although he still lights the rooms mainly through the windows (his trademark). Anyway, I find those scenes more interesting than the landscape cinematography, mostly shot by a second unit.

Edited April 10, 2005 by Ignacio Aguilar

[David Mullen ASC]

I went to see this movie again projected a few years ago and was pleasantly surprised that my memories of the Agfa look were accurate -- this was a pastel and creamy-looking movie but not particularly grainy considering how low-con the stock was. Day exteriors under harsh overhead sunlight were gorgeous.

 

I think Watkin's secret was simply that he rated the stock much slower -- more like at 200 ASA if not a full-stop overexposed at 160 ASA. And considering that 5247 was 125 ASA, it was not much slower. I think Watkin personally would have used Agfa for everything, but Pollack was concerned about the softer blacks in the Agfa so Watkin used 5247 for night exteriors. He used this Agfa-Kodak stock combo for a few more features before switching almost entirely to Agfa XT-320 even for night scenes.

[Ignacio Aguilar]

but Pollack was concerned about the softer blacks in the Agfa so Watkin used 5247 for night exteriors

 

That's interesting. If Watkin was rating the stock much slower the blacks wouldn't become deeper?

 

Dante Spinotti used the Agfa stock during the night cave scene lit by torches on The Last of the Mohicans, but the AC article doesn't tell too much about it:

 

"Film stocks are often given credit for bringing out colors or enhancing a visual style, but in this case Spinotti applauded Kodak's 96 for saving valuable hours of time. "The combination of the 96 and Du Art let us shoot for at least an hour and a half longer each day than we'd have normally been able to do," he says. Agfa XT 320 stock was used in cave scenes, where a different approach was required to render the interior a blue-gray, moonlight hue.

Spinotti did a lot of pushing with his stocks. When the forest got dark too quickly and scenes still remained to be finished, he pushed the 96 with surprising results: the two images, straight and pushed, turned out to look very similar. He was trying to reduce the use of 96, because he felt "the rendering on the greens was not as good with the slower emulsions such as the 48, but it did have an extra edge of sensitivity to it." Spinotti usually rates at 800 ASA, but he found he could push to 1000 without any radical changes in the image."

[David Mullen ASC]

I suspect the Agfa stock was bought for the production when Douglas Milsome was the DP, since he used it on some other films (like "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves"). Perhaps Spinotti just thought the waterfall/cave scene was a good place to try it out on.