Sundance Film Festival

Cinematographer Kris Kachikis has a few minutes before the Pats game. He’s here in Dramatic Competition with American Son which he shot for Neil Abramson during 20 days in bleakest Bakersfield.

This is Kachikis first feature (he’s a veteran commercial DP) and he laughs recalling that his whole “overspoiled, commercial crew” came along for the ride at $100 a day. Between a veteran camera crew and an experienced director, it sounds like a sane shoot—only one 12-hour day.

Kachikis shot 35mm Kodak Vision 2 5229, chosen in part by talking to Emmanuel Lubezki about the long 360 in Children of Men. “That stock carries a lot of detail into the highlights and we had a lot of daytime car interiors and no time or money to light,” Kachikis says. “I had to have detail outside the car windows while still exposing African American skin.”

Kachikis also referenced Western masters Richard Misrach and William Eggleston for the faded white blue sky and the desaturated, tumultuous atmosphere that says lonely uncertain West like nothing else does.

Abramson and Kachikis had a history together—they’d crossed paths as cameraman (Abramson) and electrician (Kachikis) years ago. For American Son, Abramson was looking for someone good with handheld and natural light. “I do a lot of TV commercials, and that’s my schtick,” Kachikis shrugs.

The partnership clicked right away, Kachikis says. They did a lot of prep to build the vocabulary for the film, looked at some film tests. Abramson honed the script to keep it practical, and when it came time to make those instinctive decisions on a 20-day shoot, they were in sync. I hear a lot of production stories; this one sounds remarkably painless.

Kachikis didn’t expect a DI, so when they got one on a Sundance grant (at Modern Videofilm with Joe Finley) there wasn’t too much to do; the colors were on the film. “What we ended up doing in DI was a lot of grip work,” he says a little wryly, “cleaning up some spilled light, tweaking some car night interiors.” Basically just tidying up, which is always a win when you’ve seen nothing but video dailies (“Rushes did a great job on our dailies.”)

The hiccup came on the film out. They printed to Vision and the life drained right out of the master. “We’re thinking, ‘what do we do?’” Kachikis recalls. “So we tried Kodak Premier and it was glorious. It brought all the snap and contrast back.”

American Son premiered last night at the Racquet Club, continues today (9pm) in SLC at the Broadway Centre, Tuesday (9:15a) at the Eccles, Wednesday (11:30) at the Library, Thursday (5:30) at the Racquet Club and at the Sudnancce resort on Friday (6pm) Click here for theater info