DP: Adam Frisch
Music Video: Dancing Pigeons – Ritalin
Director: Tomas Mankovsky
Tell us a little about yourself…
I grew up in Sweden in the 70′s. From an early age I was always interested in film, but it was only in my teens I zeroed in on cinematography. I took a weekly Super 8 course when I was 14 years old, and in the back of the study material were recommendations for publications. I remember obsessively tracking down this elusive magazine called American Cinematographer, and when I finally got it in my
hand I was hooked. All these men sitting on big cranes next to huge cameras and lots of lights blasting were terribly exciting to me and I decided there and then I wanted to be a DP. It looked like the most fun job ever – combining artistry and gadgetry. The route to becoming a DP was however long and varied, but I finally got there in the end. And after starting out in the mid 90′s in the film industry in Sweden in the
camera department, I was a loader and a focus puller, I quickly realized that the kind of films I wanted to at least get a chance of doing, would not be done in Sweden. So I moved to London and that’s really where my DP career got its first start. Today I mostly live in Los Angeles, but still work a lot in Europe.
Tell us about the process of making this video. Where did the idea come from and how did you get involved?
I’ve known director Tomas Mankovsky for many years. He was an early flatmate to another Swedish producer friend of mine in London. At the time he was just starting out and worked as a creative at Fallon and had only directed his own smaller personal films etc. After many years of success with Fallon as a creative, he decided he wanted to concentrate on directing and this project came to him. I don’t know how it came, but it started out as a concept video for a Diesel ad. Not so much an ad, but some sort of sponsored video for a band they liked. And that’s also what we shot. There’s a bookend footage with some teenagers who’s car breaks down in the middle of the night that in the end wasn’t used because it didn’t really fit with the music video bit, I’m assuming.
How long was the production schedule? How many days were you given to prep/scout, shoot etc. How was your preproduction time spent? Any tests or storyboards?
Me and Tomas and producer Patrick spoke quite a bit about it in London. We did some quite extensive tests at Artem to figure out the flame thrower and that was very helpful. Based on that Tomas knew that the gas flame thrower they’d initially planned on using was not going to cut it. They had to regroup and figure out a way of building one that could throw a liquid instead, and this took some time. I was in LA for another thing during the final stages of the pre-prod, so most of the finalizing had to be decided over the phone. I literally flew in on the same day to London as the night shoot and I drove directly from Heathrow to Windsor where we shot for 2 nights. Not ideal, but it worked out fine.
Had you worked with high speed cameras before?
Yes, I’d worked with the Phantom a few times before.
What was your biggest fear going into this project?
I was really worried about the light levels to get to the exposures we needed. The new liquid thrower had not been tested on camera and I didn’t know how bright the flames were going to be, so that was another worry. Flames are a lot brighter than you think.
Lighting big night exteriors is difficult enough. Lighting big night exteriors for high speed is another thing. How did you go about lighting the super wide where they are shooting at each other?
I knew I just needed brute power – it was simply a question of wattage. I knew it needed to be flicker free, so HMI’s and any kind of discharge lamps were out. I also knew there weren’t going to be much finesse to the light, so I decided to go with two full Wendy lights. They’re big tungsten multi units of 140Kw each and have a tremendous punch, but since they’re so big they also have a bit of a softer feel. But you can’t really cut the light – it is what it is. One big bright wash.
What did you use to light the close ups?
I used the same Wendy, but just turned off half of it or used nets in front of the faces. It was so big it couldn’t really be moved that much.
I see that you used a Phantom and a 7D. Why did you choose those formats and how do you think they mixed?
The 7D stuff was mainly for the aforementioned bookended Diesel ad stuff, that did not end up in the video in the end. There are a couple of shots of the pickup driving down a night road that was from that sequence, but most of the stuff is Phantom. I’m not a big fan of the 7D and I downright hate it from a production friendliness standpoint, but it did cut pretty well. I think the Phantom has always had a good look and I’ve used it for non-high speed stuff just for the look a couple of times.
Are all these effects done in camera or was there any post work done on the video?
All the physical effects were done in camera. They did some comping for exposure reasons and timing reasons in the wides, and some stand and flame bar removal, but I think that’s about it. Tomas, like myself, prefer in-camera stuff whenever possible.
Is there any advice you would give people about shooting high speed?
Bring lots of lights!
How do you balance the business of being a DP with being an artist?
That’s an interesting question. As you get older and more established, it is easy to go for the more lucrative jobs and I certainly have been guilty of that at times. It was a long hard way to get where I am today, with years of starvation and working for free, so it’s easy to get comfortable once people start to pay you a bit better. But I try to keep the selling out within limits. It’s a balance. For me it was never about the money, but the quality of the idea or the work. Funnily enough, and what baffles me still, is how the best creative work always pays the best, as well. I always thought it’d be the other way around. It’s the crap that pays bad. So the objective is to wade through all that crap in the beginning, so that you can get to the creative and good stuff. Want to do sleazy euro techno videos with slithering half-naked girls for Ministry Of Sound? Pays shit. Want to do the really good creative ad that’s going to win awards at Cannes (not that I get those, necessarily)? Pays really well. But ultimately, like David Fincher once said – You work where you can. I can’t pick and chose quite yet, so I’ll have to occasionally sell out a little just to keep the bailiffs at bay.
If you could give your 15 year old self one piece of advice what would you tell him?
Get started earlier. Even though I knew I wanted to be a DP, I wasted 10 years on ordinary dead end jobs – and I’ve had some dead end jobs, let me tell you. I should have just gone straight into it. That said, I did get experiences from that that I might not have gotten had I just done this from day one. It’s all part of road we travel, I suppose.
Adam Frisch
www.adamfrisch.com
US Agent: www.lspagency.net
UK Agent: www.visionatwizzo.com
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