Collateral Club Scene Cinematography

[Joey Nguyen]

I'm pretty new to the topic of cinematography and I'm just wondering how would one analyze this scene?

 

 

[Jeff L'Heureux]

From American Cinematographer's article on that scene:

 

---Collateral’s big interior scenes, which comprise about 20 percent of the picture, were shot on 35mm, according to Beebe. “It was decided early on that night-exterior scenes would be shot on HD and controlled interior scenes would be shot on film,” he says. “That made sense, as we were not relying upon available light levels to set our parameters. We did, however, need to create a look on film that worked seamlessly with the look of HD. I decided to switch from the Vision [500T] 5279 that had been used before I started to [Vision2 500T] 5218, which I found integrated with the HD footage a little more easily.

“Shooting film also allowed us to shoot at variable frame rates and expand our camera package to include things such as the Frazier lenses and modified Eyemos,” he continues. One such scene, set in a nightclub, is a shootout involving Vincent, the L.A.P.D. and members of the drug cartel that has hired Vincent to commit the murders. Beebe shot the sequence on 5218, which he pushed one and sometimes two stops.

“There’s another sequence in a Korean bar that was all lit with black lights,” says the cinematographer. “We tested HD and film cameras in that environment and found that although the HD cameras were more sensitive than the film, the overall image was far too saturated under the black lights. It was too crisp and colorful and the feeling was distracting, so we went with 5218.”---

 

 

Also, still the early days of digital in major features, as there is a stark difference in motion blur and depth of field between the film and the video. Beginning at 5:57 it switches from film to digital capture, and Jamie Foxx's closeup at 6:15 shows the more flat depth of field as the background is very nearly in focus with him. This is in big contrast to the film closeups inside the club.