Sundance Film Festival

This morning, Variety gave the Steve Buscemi/Sienna Miller vehicle Interview a good review, but incorrectly identified the shooting format as HD. That’s a compliment to the SD Sony XDCAM 510 (PAL) that DP Thomas Kist actually used to shoot the film. Actually he used three XDCAMs simultaneously, a technique he developed while working with the late Theo Van Gogh on the original version of the film.

Here at Sundance for the premiere, Kist explains that the original was shot on Sony DVCAM 570s; he went to the XDCAM 510 on Van Gogh’s 06/05 in part to get 25 progressive and a better transfer to film. When it came time to remake Interview he used three 510s and the same Canon 17:7 zooms he had used on the original.

“We lit it less this time, because the XDCAM is more sentitive,” Kist says. The film takes place in an apartment at night, backlit by the NY skyline. Kist describes the camera’s picture quality as outstanding, with a very high gamma curve.

But Kist also emphasizes that the real benefit of the XDCAM was the actor-driven method of working on set that allowed for considerable improvisation and freedom for the actors. Kist–who operated one of the cameras–and his team worked wirelessly; the LCD monitor saw all three cameras at once. Buscemi, who was both directing and acting, could move easily between the two roles. With two closeups and the wide shot all simultaneously captured, continuity was not a problem, Kist says, especially given that Miller in particular did a lot of improv.

“For them it’s a very free way of working,” Kist says. “All the technique was less important than the acting.”

Buscemi cut at Goldcrest in NY on an Avid; sent the EDL to Amersterdam, where Kist supervised the color correction, an online to Digibeta, upscale to 2K, and a film out to 35 via Arri Laser.

This morning, Variety gave the Steve Buscemi/Sienna Miller vehicle Interview a good review, but incorrectly identified the shooting format as HD. That’s a compliment to the SD Sony XDCAM 510 (PAL) that DP Thomas Kist actually used to shoot the film. Actually he used three XDCAMs simultaneously, a technique he developed while working with the late Theo Van Gogh on the original version of the film.

Here at Sundance for the premiere, Kist explains that the original was shot on Sony DVCAM 570s; he went to the XDCAM 510 on Van Gogh’s 06/05 in part to get 25 progressive and a better transfer to film. When it came time to remake Interview he used three 510s and the same Canon 17:7 zooms he had used on the original.

“We lit it less this time, because the XDCAM is more sentitive,” Kist says. The film takes place in an apartment at night, backlit by the NY skyline. Kist describes the camera’s picture quality as outstanding, with a very high gamma curve.

But Kist also emphasizes that the real benefit of the XDCAM was the actor-driven method of working on set that allowed for considerable improvisation and freedom for the actors. Kist–who operated one of the cameras–and his team worked wirelessly; the LCD monitor saw all three cameras at once. Buscemi, who was both directing and acting, could move easily between the two roles. With two closeups and the wide shot all simultaneously captured, continuity was not a problem, Kist says, especially given that Miller in particular did a lot of improv.

“For them it’s a very free way of working,” Kist says. “All the technique was less important than the acting.”

Buscemi cut at Goldcrest in NY on an Avid; sent the EDL to Amersterdam, where Kist supervised the color correction, an online to Digibeta, upscale to 2K, and a film out to 35 via Arri Laser.