This January I spent three weeks on the Mexican border working to commit to 16mm film director Erika Cohn's vision of writer Becky Bohanan's "La Guerrera." The story follows a young girl struggling to pursue her passion for soccer in a Mexican town that considers sports a man's place. The search for semi-urban Mexico on a tight budget lead the production to San Ysidro, within half a mile from the border to Tijuana. Originally designed as a Utopian community, San Ysidro's land was initially split among a few owners who were to tailor their holdings to fit the needs of the town's people; our location owner was an inheritor of one such land holding, & provided for all of production's wide variety of needs so that although we had planned to build & shoot interiors closer to Los Angeles we ended up placing all three weeks of photography on location.

As a story about an active young girl fighting her restrictive family & culture, "La Guerrera" demanded a particular attention to camera movement. In discussing with Camera Operator Michael Nie the idea of a dichotomous world developed: as lead Lula (Crystal Guel) was divided emotionally between the excitement of her sport & the restriction of her home life, our camera movement would be so divided, capturing her life outside entirely handheld & her life at home with a locked camera. This separation would be accented by the use of long lenses & a thin shutter on the exteriors against wider shots which would use doorframes & other obstructions to cage the compositions in the interiors. The distinction seemed effective; the change in the tempo of work among the below the line crew also established a different set culture between the exterior & interior work, which helped to frame the different moods for the talent.

The only interior scene photographed handheld was one of the most difficult scenes of the film: when Lula asks the local boy's soccer team for a pair of their new cleats the captain of the team, Andres, (Jovanie Falcon) leads her to a storage container where he rapes her. The scene directly follows a scene of Lula practicing on the field & carries much of the adrenaline & heightened emotion as Lula tests her tenuous trust of Andres, a family friend. The assault happens quickly at the height of her anticipation so the maintenance of camera movement, which is an extension of Lula's emotional state, was critical; foreboding was instead established by a stark change in color & light. The scene was established with only a single bare lightbulb as a source in the scene; gaffer Chris Richmond worked with Key Grip Melissa Fisher to build a soft source into the ceiling above the practical & a second source to boost levels in a deep pocket of the storage space. Eyelights seemed to find their way into the scene without any extra work, & only a minimum of bouncefill was necessary to gain the deep ratio I was looking for. Chris manned a set of dimmers outside the container, & through the take I signaled cues via radio to match the switching on & off of the practical.

A couple unconventional tricks made their way into this scene: first, a short stretch of darkness between the closing of the door & the switching on of the practical allowed 1st Assistant Camera Katy Echols to pull the 85 filter & keep correct color for both the sunlight & tungsten light. Next, on our master shot Chris Richmond suggested an expressionist trick to draw attention & quietly alarm the audience: as Lula is lead from the deeper pocket in the container back toward the practical where she will be thrown against the wall by Andres, Chris brought down the booster light in the back pocket to complete darkness. The effect is indiscernible without prior notification, but manipulates a sense of fear which compliments the scene nicely.

After a one-light scan at Matchframe, the project is now in the hands of editor Brock Carter; I'm eagerly anticipating the picture lock & a chance to see the footage through color correction.

1:1.85
Arriflex Super 16mm SRII Plus from Ultravision & Arriflex Super 16mm SRII
Zeiss Super Speed Primes
Photographed on Kodak Vision2 7217, Vision2 7218, Vision3 7219
Rentals from Ultravision Inc., Otto Nemenz International, Mole Richardson, Wooden Nickel Lighting

Dir Erika Cohn
Cam Op Michael Nie
1st AC Katy Echols
Gaffer Christopher Richmond
Key Grip Melissa Fisher
Production Designer Rhiannon Gutierrez
Makeup Artist Jenny Hou

I'll soon be going into Lustre color correction for Jen Graham's "Beverly," a story about the disenchantment of a child's doll as she comes to terms with her inability to learn and develop as long as she stays at the dream house. Photography for the project wrapped at the end of November; editor Alex Fortunato is now working hard to develop the comedy of blissful ignorance.

An ambitious project on a tight schedule with limited crew, "Beverly" had locations in Beverly Hills, Anaheim, and on a stage at Marion Knott Studios, where we shot greenscreen to place Beverly (Anais Feirweather) at a doll's scale in plates shot on location. The plates were photographed after the greenscreen coverage, so thorough notes on the part of 2nd Assistant Camera Josh Wolk were key in acquiring the shots we'd need in post.

Creating the Barbie world was as involved a task on location as it was on the stages: each morning Makeup Artist Jenny Hou would transform our wonderful lead actress, Anais; the makeup read wonderfully, and I accented the rosy look with Lee Cosmetic Hi-Lite on each character light. For camera diffusion, I found and tested Tiffen's Glimmerglass set; the filters provided smooth skin tones with a slight shimmer, far less recognizable than a pro mist or other typical diffusion.

The footage is being processed at Fotokem and will be given a one-light 1080 scan for editing followed by a best-light 2K scan with Marion Knott Studios' Spirit 4K; at that point I'll have the project in Autodesk Lustre for color correction.

1:1.85
Arriflex Super 16mm SRII
Zeiss Super Speed Primes
Photographed on Kodak Vision2 7212, Vision3 7219
Rentals from Otto Nemenz International, Mole Richardson, Wooden Nickel Lighting

Dir Jen Graham
1st AC Nicholas Dunakin Wiesnet
Gaffer Robyn Buchanan, Jay K. Raja
Key Grip Matthew Perez
Production Designer Mandy Noack
Makeup Artist Jenny Hou