Camera Tests for Passion Pictures LSD film
After a long edit of the documentary and archive footage, 'Better Living Through Chemistry' (W/T), the story of the two chemists who made the most famous LSD of the 60's - Orange Sunshine - is now entering the dramatic reconstruction phase. I spent a day at Movietech, Pinewood Studios, with director Cosmo Feilding-Mellen (pictured) testing old lenses on various digital cameras before taking the footage to Molinare to work with colourist Jat Patel on various period looks. I have various looks to consider on this film: I need to find a general period look for scenes with actors for which there is no archive; I need to find a look to match certain archive and we occasionally need to slip in some footage indistinguishable from home movie archive. Obviously I wanted to shoot on film but unfortunately for various reasons, budget included, this is not an option. So I found an old set of Cooke Panchro S2's and some uncoated Zeiss T1.3 Super Speeds and tested them at Movietech on the Sony F55 and Canon C300. My instinct was that the C300 would look more organic but in fact, given the amount of post work to be done, the F55 shooting XAVC100 gave us more latitude in the grade and, in concert with the old glass, looked rather good. The tools available in Baselight now also are leagues ahead, in terms of subtlety and sophistication, than even a few years ago. In the end we chose the Cooke Panchro S2's, since they looked more vintage, raw out of the box. They had an interesting wobbly/squelchy feel on focus, with nice vignetting, and a kind of bleachy low-con look. Aside from colour and contrast treatment, Jat was also able to add convincing grain and softness. We start prep proper and shooting w/c 23 June...