The City of Darius Khondji

[Pepe Peralta]

Any Ideas about the type of film and filters or about how the look in Delicatessen and The City of the Lost Children was Achieved?

 

Si alguien está dispuesto a conversar del asunto en Español estaré muy agradecido.

[stijnbarbe]

only english on the forum Pepe, sorry.

 

but Mr Khondji usesa combination of two main techniques to achieve that special look of the City of the lost Children and to a lesser extent Delicatessen.

 

ENR: a Technicolor patentede process, much like bleach bypass but with the advantadge that the amount of retained silverhalogenides is measureable wich makes it more flexible to use than bleach bypass. Ernesto N. Rico and Vittorio Storrare invented this technique. bleach bypass is what it says, you don't or mildly bleach out the unused silvergraines wich leads to a high contrast image and sometimes even a dominant colour-tone in the picture. I guess this is something you have to test and wich propably react very diferently with different stocks.

 

Varicon: I don't know much about varicon, but it's a kind of flashing while you shoot and it affects your contrast. But Mr David Mullen would be the man to ask about Varicon

I found this on cinematography.net:

 

>Having never used the Varicon system, can someone explain how it works?

 

Very simple to use: The Varicon (filter+lamp housing) is inserted into a matte-box like the MD14. It is attached with a power cable to the ballast which you'll have to place near the camera (usually not so convenient for the operator). The ballast has two settings, high mode and low mode. If the setting is wrong, it will look too hot or too faint. Then you power it through an external battery (usually same as the one powering the camera).

 

 

The on/off switch runs between the ballast and the Varicon which we velcro it next to the on/off switch of the camera so the AC will run/stop them together to avoid overheating. Next comes the instensity dial. When you turn the dial, a set of rectangular shutters open or close inside the lamp housing. There are numbers on the dial for reference, but I wouldn't trust them much because the mechanics between the shutters and the dial is not quite accurate. Finally, there is a little rectangular slot for color correction gells situated between the lamp housing and the optical glass. The clear optical glass has tiny particles inside to ensure uniformity of brightness throughout.

 

The best way of knowing what it does to your image is obviously to test for desired effect. After a while, you'll just do it by eye, and almost always will look fine. It is important to know that one setting of the dial doesn't work for all shots (here lies the difference between fogging the film and using Varicon). You should reset that dial everytime you have a different lighting setup. Basically, the Varicon acts on the blacks in the image while the bright areas remain mostly uneffected. You can also experiment with adding color gells in the slot. One trick that helps me a lot is to judge the desired intesity by looking into the viewfinder at a very black object in the dark areas of the image.

 

That is all I can remember now. Hope this helps.

 

Norayr

 

hope I've helped

[Pepe Peralta]

Thanks Stijn, that was a far more illustrative answer than I was expecting, but also a far more complicated process... And I promise to keep it in english.

[Michael Nash]

There's a lot of information about Mr. Khondji and these films in the book, "Cinematography Screencraft" from Focal Press.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846

 

I just checked out Woody Allen's "Anything Else" and Khondji did a beautiful job applying his aesthetic to a relatively high-key comedy (in anamorphic). Nice soft edge lighting and cross-keying, combined with an overall amber-tobacco color rendering.

[stijnbarbe]

damn Michael, you uncovered my source :P

 

no really, this book is indeed very interesting. I bought the dutch translation and devored it. Shame that when I met with Jack Cardiff I didn't have it with me to have it signed. Would be great to have every DOP in the book sign his page...

 

but hey this post was about Mr Khondji, so I'll shut up now

[Pepe Peralta]

No way, don't shut up! If Mr. Khondji will be the lead for learning about and from other cinematographers, so be it!