'Paris, Texas' Cinematography

[James Malamatinas]

I finally got around to watching 'Paris, Texas' last night and the super saturated colours through the film, particularly at the beginning, left me curious as to how it was achieved.

 

I'm assuming that it is almost entirely due to the choice of film stock used; if so what kind of stock renders these kind of colours, and even with this stock would anything have been done to emphasise the effect (e.g. filters, or something with the printing)?

 

My practical experience with film is sadly minimal so I don't have too much to draw from in terms of being familiar with the characteristic of different stock and film processes.

 

Thanks for your comments!

 

[Dirk DeJonghe]

You were probably watching a DVD/Bluray?

 

Anyway, in those days there were no Digital Intermediates, only normal Intermediates and Kodak Premier print stock was not yet invented. I don't know if Fuji Intermediate was already available then but a decade ago it was and if you made an interpositive onto Fuji Intermediate and the duplicate negative onto Kodak Intermediate, you got an extra saturated look.

 

Back then DoPs would do lots of test with emulsions, make-up, lenses, filters etc to achieve the look they wanted.

[David Mullen ASC]

If you are watching the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, the color saturation can be controlled digitally so it's hard to know how much was built into the original image, but assuming that they are matching to a reference print, back in the pre-D.I. days, some people found that push-processing negative (but not always underexposing to compensate) created harsher, more punchy colors. But most of the look is due to lighting with mixed color sources and carefully controlling colors in production design and wardrobe to create interesting color contrasts.

[James Malamatinas]

Thank you both, it was a DVD I was watching.

 

David, you bought up that the mixed colour sources and set/wardrobe design would have been a big part, but your mention of push/pull processing encouraged me to do a little more reading into exactly what this is and how it affects stock. I haven't howerver found many good showcases for the process (more photos rather than films). What are other cinematic examples of films which have been shot and processed in this way for artistic effect (rather than compensation for lighting/technical errors)?

 

Also, if you are shooting film today would you still generally use push/pulling as the technique for fixing exposure issues (rather than to achieve a particularly style), or would this generally handled in a DI after being scanned?

 

 

 

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Chris Doyle's movies for Wong Kar Wai like "Fallen Angels" and "Happy Together" are good examples of some push-processing combined with colored light sources.

 

I pushed some scenes in "Jennifer's Body" by one-stop in order to shoot some low-light night exterior work, and we did a D.I. I'm not sure it was necessary or not though compared to just fixing the underexposure in the D.I.