"Joker: Origin" (Joker) has been released in North America for nearly two weeks. It has just won the Venice Golden Lion on the front foot and immediately hit the Oscar. Now it has topped the North American box office champion in October. It can be said that it has achieved from art to word of mouth. To all-round success in business.
is really hard to imagine, under the Hollywood system marked by high industrialization and genre production, there can be such a film that has both fish and bear paws. As some film critics said: "Joker at least proved that as long as the Hollywood guys are willing, they can still make a little cultural and in-depth film."
has no superpowers, no dazzling special effects and fights, just a down-to-earth story about a poor patient. It can be said that in terms of film temperament, Joker is not Hollywood at all, but more like an independent production of realism.
So as the film creators from Hollywood, how did they create such an anti-Hollywood film?
In this behind-the-scenes secret article, I interviewed many front-line studio staff from the director, the director of photography, the lighting engineer, the camera operator and even the focus operator, and faithfully restored the many creative reasons and execution details of Joker during shooting. Has value.
is divided into upper and lower posts due to its length.
Many Batman fans know the origin of Batman better than their own genealogy. But as Batman's most well-known enemy, the origin story of the Joker has been taken over in comics and movies. Bob Kane, one of the creators of
Batman, explained: “The image of this super villain was inspired by a silent film by actor Conrad Veidt. But for the true origin, only wait until Alan Moore's comic "The Killing Joke" Readers can only find out after it is published. It describes the process of the clown from a failed comedian to a disfigured criminal." As the screenwriter and director of
, Todd Phillips began preparations for the movie "Joker: Origin" (Joker) in 2016. He hopes to work with Warner Bros. to make Joker the first film outside of the DC expansion universe.
Phillips said: "I am very fond of this theme. There is not only the story of how the protagonist changed, but also the style of the 1970s."
"The role of Joker needs a very good actor, when Jacques Phoenix agreed to play this role, I knew it".
"I also knew that Larry Sher (ASC) was the most suitable director of photography for this film. I think he is one of the most powerful directors of photography. This is also the sixth film I have collaborated with Larry." The film
Joker does not use the traditional Hollywood and comic style, but creates a more retro and authentic style.
"Since Marvel and DC became popular, superhero movies have been the most popular genre film in the past ten years. This time, we cut in from the side and started with a serious exploration of the idea of a villain, not relying on comics movies. Conventional expression techniques.
"The film does not have endless fights (although our film also has some action elements in it, the biggest difference is that it can tighten the audience’s attention) The whole storyline develops slowly, like something like The boiling pot, the small bubbles in it are getting bigger and bigger," the director of photography Sher explained.
Of course, the audience's expectations for Joker movies are endless. Because there were too many classic screen images before, from the TV series villain of Cesar Romero Image, to Heath Ledger’s Oscar performance. Not yet counted as various animated versions, this character has 7 different era versions in the movie."
Makeup artist (design department head) Nikki Ledermann started makeup and we also started lens testing. We discovered at the time that one of the blue paints felt too strong after being painted, but the other blue paints later gave people a hand-made feel and texture. Everyone supported us in making various new attempts.
"Jared Leto’s clown image is different from Heath Ledger’s, and the two are completely different from Nicholson. Some of the differences come from makeup.There are opinions from all of us, especially Joaquin's.
"Director Phillips and co-screenwriter Scott Silver have depicted Joker's general visual image in their script, but that is only the basic stage of visual development."
"Our concept artist Hugh Sicotte first started writing, trying to depict the conceptual design of the clown character", the director explained. I showed these to Joaquin, and he also expressed a lot of ideas." One of the main considerations of the
filmmaker is how to enhance the tension of the drama through the picture. "Based on the results of my discussion with Todd, how to express intimacy "The most important point is to make the character more attractive at the moment," the director of photography Sher recalled.
"We exaggerated the application of the dichotomy. Sometimes we keep a certain distance from the actor to make him look small, and then contrast with some cameras where the camera is only a few tens of centimeters away. In this way, we hope to show the inner state of the character. ". The
photography director Lawrence Sher believes that the most challenging thing is that
cannot treat the origin story of the clown as a traditional comic style when shooting. The
camera team did a long-term test for this: "For example, whether we use 65mm film to shoot. There have been great controversies. Sher and Phillips think the 1.85 format is more than what they want, and they plan to shoot with 35mm film. But when the test lasted about 11 hours, we still decided to use the large format, which has a shallower depth of field, which allows us to separate the protagonist from the surrounding environment more easily." Photography director Sher explained.
After shooting Godzilla on ARRI 65, Sher was able to show Phillips the benefits of shooting Joker digitally. “There are times when we only have one shot of Joaquin’s performance,” Sher recalled. “So when shooting in low light, large format In this case, basically all the lens apertures are opened to the maximum, we need to know whether they are correctly aligned, and we can’t wait for the film to be sent to Los Angeles and then come back, so a whole day is wasted.
using ARRI 65 with 40mm and 60mm lenses can give you the feeling of a mid-range lens, but at the same time it can show the field of view of a wider lens, showing the kind of close-up mentality from the actors.
Although the latest ARRI 65 sensor has a 2.2 aspect ratio, we can still maintain a 1.85 ratio with 5% up and down magnification. 1.85 is converted to about 5K or 5.4K images, and then into a film in 4K"
Arri rented us a complete set of cameras, including a pair of ARRI 65 cameras, plus an ARRI LF and ARRI MINI cameras. Sher used each There are several types of lenses, as well as the lens group he called the "Frankenstein" version. Gregory Irwin, the first camera assistant of the
A machine, said: "In addition to DNA and Prime 65 lenses, Larry wants to try 35mm lenses because Their size, weight, and large aperture have advantages. Although they cannot cover the full range of the sensor, 5% extraction can already give us enough space to minimize vignetting and vignetting.
It took us a month to test hundreds of lenses before we finally found the lens set we wanted. We found that some lenses need to be re-customized by opening the diaphragm or changing the bayonet from the inside. We have mechanically re-changed the characteristics of the lens, using a detuning method to make them match the contrast and color, and also changed some Lens coating. The types of lenses tested also span a wide range, from Canon to Zeiss, Nikon and Leica R series "
Sher" and Company3 colorist Jill Bogdanowicz met and negotiated the production of LUT.
"Jill's father Mitch, in Kodak's Rochester After working in the headquarters for decades, he came forward to help make a style based on Kodak [EXR 200T] 5293, and simulated this to each corresponding point, mapping 5293 to Arri 65's log preset. We used (LUT) from start to finish, which makes dailiesThe delivery can be completed very smoothly"
Phoenix is discussing with Phillips, director
said, "This actor is the most powerful special effect, and his performance is fascinating."
Phoenix often has amazing performances, and Phillips will remind you repeatedly The part that needs to be prepared in advance "We hope that the operation of the film crew is methodical, which requires precise design of each process in the early stage."
"Larry and our producers gathered together to include all the local New York film crew The strong lineup, including lighting engineer Steve Ramsey and equipment engineer Tommy Prate, can ensure that there will be no major accidents."
is also a very big challenge to find the scene of New York City in the early 7/80s. Sher from New Jersey is clear Recalling the scenes of that era: “The subway is full of graffiti. Times Square is a world away from the present.”
“In order to make the version of Gotham City we want more realistic, art director Mark Friedberg did it. To a bit above. New York in that era was a "broken city". We wanted a low-key and natural style, suppressing everything until Arthur became Joker. This was the turning point of the film's style and atmosphere.
"At this time, many things have changed. Street lights have become LEDs instead of using sodium vapor. Some things that don't seem to be contemporary can be modified on-site through the art department, or through some inconspicuous post-production special effects. To solve"
Steve Ramsey (Steve Ramsey) said that
’s night venue in New York City needs to replace “modern LEDs with old-fashioned sodiam-vapors”. This is a local city contractor to recreate the 20th century. Provided by street lights from the 70s.
lighting engineer Ramsey mentioned: "From sodium vapor to LED street lights, whenever we find a night scene, the local city contractor Welsbach will replace the modern LED street lamp heads with the old sodium vapor street lights they stock."
"To convert LEDs into sodium vapor street lights, this requires an appointment at least one month in advance, but we found a kind of LED that can be brightened called "corn lights" from China. After we install it in the lamps, these lamps only need some color filters to replace the sodium lamps.
When we need the feeling of mercury vapor to shoot in alleys, the art department will disassemble the lamps and install RGBAW LED strips inside. When Larry wanted to add a very yellow color to the phone booth, we used RGBAWW".
To make the interior look more vivid, the dimming operator Rich Porta provided Sher with a light control panel to place next to his monitor. "So, the TV set in Arthur's apartment, or the fluorescent lights flashing in the hallway, we can directly control up to 20 channels," said lighting engineer Ramse.
"It gives Larry a choice of flashing intensity and frequency. This eliminates the need to pre-program these effects." The light control panel has gradually become an indispensable tool during the shooting. "This is a quick way to make last-minute adjustments to key lamps. Other infinite lighting enhancement tools include Astera PixelTubes for stairs and Astera Light Drops AX3 that provide TV special effects in sets of 8.
Sher said that if they could shoot without lights at all, they would do it. "This is not out of laziness, but an active choice. Todd knows that if you spend a whole day controlling the lights and spending hours building large diffusers to imitate a certain style, then you are actually putting yourself Trapped in the so-called "movie sense". And both of us will have a subconscious reaction to scenes that are too controlled. When
Todd filmed a scene of Arthur in the phone booth, it only took 16 minutes. We were before the sun set. One hour of rehearsing the scene with a substitute, and then using 6 lights, while the light is still perfect, once again passed"
A-camera photographer Jeffrey Haley (left) said
"Phoenix It’s exciting to seize the opportunity better than any other actor he has worked with., But also a little uneasy, because every shot is unique"
For the movement of the camera in Joker, some more concealed methods are used to complete the shooting process. "When we move the camera, it is all subtle actions" photography Instructor Sher recalled.
I often work with [A machine operator] Geoff Haley. Simply put, his main job is to complete "design shots" and "conservative shots", and the B camera I control can shoot some A bolder shot.
"We did not use the B camera to shoot the same angle of the distant view or close-up, but to shoot some off-axis shots."
"I might stand on the stage floor or track, and then slowly move the camera in an imperceptible way. Sometimes we are both holding hands, I will look at Geoff to see where he is going to make sure I don't walk to him In the picture. We will dance a little dance around Joaquin who is performing. Even though we sometimes appear on both sides of the 180-degree line, the shots that come out can still be cut together very well."
Haley said Jackie Phoenix and him All the actors I have worked with before are different. Jacques Phoenix’s performance is very casual, and even recklessly gives up halfway.
"It is very exciting to see the performance of Joaquin Phoenix with my own eyes, but it is also a bit disturbing, because every shot is unique, and the pressure to capture it perfectly has been put on me and Greg[Irwin ]" Haley said.
"Whether it is Joker and his mother's impromptu dance in the apartment, or his accidental wrestling in the bank lobby, this is the result of no rehearsal and constant improvisation. The opportunity to come again is rare."
Irwin said that using a monitor (13-inch screen plus Preston focus and Cinetape gauge) to focus can help him tell stories more effectively.
"It opens up my field of vision, which is much more convenient than when I calculate it in my head and then focus manually. At
I will make sure that Larry and Todd have everything they want in the first take. This Very important, because the performance of Jacques Phoenix is very random, we must be prepared for anything that may happen. If I see it at
take2, I will make some unconventional suggestions and have worked with me for many years Geoff will understand my intentions, and then move towards the direction I grasped. Sometimes I will follow his inspiration to make adjustments. The idea of shooting at
Take3 may be even more crazy, sometimes it won’t work, but As long as there are new possibilities, our adventure is worthwhile."
Although the bulky ARRI 65 may be a challenge for fast-paced handheld or Steadicam, we try not to let the bulky characteristics affect the mobile team.
"The narrow position means that we have to stay in uncomfortable corners. Even when shooting on the stage, we try to ensure the integrity of the scene."
"Don't tear down the wall, saving time may be Let's shoot one more scene at the end of the day. If you spend 30 minutes tearing down a wall and the actors return to their rest car, it will slow down the overall progress. Make some on the "perfect" shot Compromise to achieve the off-axis effect may have better results, especially for unique movies like Joker.
Even in the scene, when there are a lot of walls, nine out of ten times I won’t take it apart. Because the integrity of the scene is sometimes in the four walls. And I often light according to the three-dimensional environment, rather than a certain lens, so that I can directly squeeze the coverage area"
First AC Gregory Irwin is focusing
, he said "Phoenix's performance is there, you must always be ready for everything"
One of the main scenes is a talk show hosted by the role of Robert Deniro.
Sher said: "We strive to restore the most realistic scene. We have a lighting consultant who has worked on The Tonight Show and knows the equipment they used.
is visible in the distant shot. Yes, you can see Mole-Richa in 5K and 2Krdsons stage lights, as well as old Zip and Cyc strip lights, in other parts of the movie, in addition to LEDs, I also used a lot of old tungsten filament lights when appropriate.
For many years, photographers have often felt distressed by using mixed-color lighting in the scene, but today the realistic style has become more and more popular.
"Because the camera has a higher sensitivity, so this time we left the studio and walked to the streets outside to shoot. You will see the cold and warm fluorescent lights mixed with the sunlight coming in from the window."
"If you have watched "Taxi Driver", you can see how the original film reacts with a variety of fluorescent lights. Today, it is difficult to find fluorescent lights, especially if they have not been cleaned for a long time, the green peak value is too low CRI lamps and even Manhattan subway stations have been replaced with lamps close to 3200K.
We added green to the fluorescent lamps for household and industrial use to make them return to the ugly green of the previous era. We also used them The traditional wall-mounted lighting is placed on the shelf to add fun to the background. We also have a blue halogen lamp. It adds a little green to mix some color casts. We try to make it look more kind "Rotten" and "old" texture!"
Haley said that he has been shooting Marvel movies for the past three years, and Joker has a completely different temperament. You can't see Previs, Avia, and blue screen on the set. Or motion capture suits these high-tech operations, without fancy equipment and complicated long shots.
According to the current blockbuster film standards, these are very low-tech things. I like shooting on real chaotic streets and subways to tell a more moving story.
The visual foundation of Gotham City comes from New York City, and the scene expansion technique is used to decorate the background. "Hugh drew all the VFX expansion scenes in advance based on his own ideas and the opinions of Mark and me," said director Phillip.
"VFX Supervisor Edwin Rivera put forward many useful concepts, and even provided some excellent solutions to problems we didn't expect" (VFX work was done by Scanline and Shade together). When
was filming Godzilla, Sher tried his best to maintain the P3 color space throughout the post process. On Joker, he went a step further, even on-site monitoring and dailies were done in p3 color space.
"Of course, there is also a Rec.709 version that can be used by the editing department, but every time I see P3, it is very important to me, because there is a conversion process for viewing in different color spaces. Through the whole process This can be avoided by using the P3 color space. I know that this method will encounter various problems, but I think everyone needs to reach a consensus on the color space."
Phillips agrees. Said "Larry spent a lot of effort to make the dailies look what we want. We did not change the lighting significantly in the process of color correction. It is more subtle color correction, such as matching highlights and Make sure everything looks blended together."
Bogdanowicz used Da Vinci to fine-tune the 5293 film analog LUT. Sher said that he was "very satisfied" with the final grade. He pointed out that the team had successfully maintained the Kodak 5293 style from front to back, especially the 5293 Livegrain.
"During the VFX review, I was thinking that this looks good and no further adjustment is needed because they also use the same LUT." Although
has not dealt with the HDR version at the time of release, Sher strongly believes that the final product should look basically the same. "Whether it is watching this movie in 4K, HDR, or low quality, it shouldn't be just a version that looks particularly good, they are all just an output format."
he concluded: "The hardest thing for any filmmaker is probably after watching his movie in the theater, when he goes back to watching it online or elsewhere, he thinks about why it looks so dazzling. What has happened to the space?
(Note: The Color Science Department of Company3, which is headed by John Quartel, is currently focusing onDifferent output versions, including HDR projection and home broadcast Rec.709 design "sister LUT" to ensure that the audience achieves a close visual perception in different broadcast media)
Considering the relationship between the project and comics and movie characters, Phillips generously admitted that "The title of Joker gives us some room for risk. Compared with the past adaptations, the way we use this IP is very different.
This is a hard work, I must admit, Warner let us take This character, deconstructed in this way, can be said to be very bold."
screenwriter and director Phillips said: "This is the sixth film I have collaborated with the director of photography Sher. In my opinion, he is a great DP. I often tell him that if his name is changed to Lorenzo, he is estimated to be more respected (Oscar Director of Photography, many of which have Spanish names)
Joker-the list of photographers
Director of Photography: Lawrence Sher, ASC
A Camera/Steadicam: Geoffrey Haley, SOC
A camera first camera assistant: Gregory Irwin
A camera second camera assistant: Tony Coan
B camera first camera assistant: Tim Metivier
B camera second camera assistant Sarah May Guenther
installer: Kerie Wills
camera Anderson
DIT: Nick Kay
Still photo: Niko Tavernise
