Richard Kelly and Steven Poster tell Southland Tales at LaserPacific

LaserPacific collaborated with wunderkind director Richard Kelly andcinematographer Steven Poster, ASC to create a range of looks, including some extremely stylized, surreal sequences, for their recent feature film Southland Tales. Kelly and Poster used LaserPacific’s most advanced technology at every step, enlisting the company’spostproduction services from lab and dailies through to the DI. 

“This film was an example of what can be accomplished when we become creatively involved with the filmmakers from the very beginning,” says LaserPacific President Leon Silverman. The ability to work with these filmmakers to help establish the look of this picture in dailies and to carry it through saved a lot of time in the DI. Being on the same page throughout the production helps to make the finishing process so much smoother.” 

The tight 30-day shooting schedule featured many big exteriors, including dozens of beach scenes. Poster recorded images onto the Kodak VISION2 500T 5218 film stock from beginning to end. The filmmakers used the three-perf Super 35 format to help meet the budget. The images were scanned into 2K digital files. The finished film is framed in a widescreen 2.41:1 aspect ratio.

LaserPacific colorist David Cole worked with Poster and Kelly on the digital intermediate. “David Cole is a genius,” says Poster. “He has a remarkable eye, the sensitivity to understand our intentions, and the skill to wield the technology in service of our vision. He is LaserPacific’s secret weapon.”

Southland Tales is the latest project of 31-year-old Kelly, whose 2001 filmDonnie Darko slowly morphed from cult classic to bona fide hit. The story takes place in 2008. In it, the world’s largest oil company invents a technology that uses ocean waves to generate energy. But the changing tides causes a “shift in the fourth dimension,” making the world crazy. That’s only the beginning.

“Every piece of this movie is outrageous,” comments Poster. “When thestyle grows out of the story, as interpreted by the director and the actors, my intuition takes over and informs me where the light should be, the shape of the frame, the movement. It’s almost a magical set of circumstances that come together.”

“Because of advances in technology, and the efficiency of the LaserPacific pipeline, it’s now practical to do high quality DIs on films with modest budgets,” Cole says. “One of the advantages is that it allows the cinematographer to choose to shoot with spherical lenses in Super 35 format knowing we will record the timed DI directly onto film in wide-screen aspect ratio, eliminating an extra optical step.”

Poster experimented with the Kodak Look Management System (KLMS), taking and manipulating digital still photos used as visual references. LaserPacific handled front-end lab services and provided HD dailies that were projected on a screen on location.

In addition to matching shots for continuity and fine-tuning the look,Poster and Cole used the DI to ensure that hundreds of visual effects shots were transparently integrated with live-action footage. The DI stage lasted roughly 15 days. 

“This movie is full of very specific looks and visuals,” says Cole. “Steven had communicated some of his intentions ahead of time using KLMS, but for the most part it was a collaborative process as we went through it together. Richard had his input as well, and we melded all these ideas together.”

Cole says that Poster photographed the film with the DI in mind. “He knew where he wanted the images to end up as he shot them,” says Cole. “Things were overexposed so that we could pull them down and darken them. Other areas could be lightened without enhancing grain. Steven shot in such a way that we could achieve the look he wanted using the DI tools. He has a deep understanding of what the tools can do and how they work together with photography.”

Poster says that the knowledge that he could fine-tune the images in DI allowed him to work more quickly on the set. “We had a scene with one of our main female characters sitting on the steps at the bottom of a staircase,” he says. “Richard and I agreed that we wanted a darker look in the background. Instead of spending time flagging ambient light off the background, I decided we could do it much faster in DI.”

In at least five situations, Cole wrote software plug-ins to achieve specific visual goals. For example, Kelly wanted to differentiate images from video surveillance cameras, so Cole wrote code that enhanced raster lines. He also created a software-based pixelator that altered images to imitate video noise. Sometimes he hid undesirable elements in the frame by cloning parts of a background wall and replacing them. “These things could have been done in visual effects,” says Cole, “but we just didn’t have the time. It was quicker and easier for me to do them in the DI.”

“The surveillance images have a distinctly video look that is very different than the rest of the images shot on film,” Poster says. “They set an emotional tone that audiences will sense on a subliminal level.

“If a DI is done properly it allows you to focus the attention of the audience on someone or something in the frame in very subtle ways,”Poster says. “Working with Dave, I was able to extend the intuitive approach we developed on the set through the postproduction as well.”

A digital copy of the film was provided to the Cannes Film Festival, where Southland Tales premiered on a digital projector. LaserPacific also generated the intermediate copy that was used to make film prints.

“Southland Tales is a very stylized movie,” says Cole. “We’ve certainly pushed these images, but it’s important to not take the audience out of the picture by going too far. All the parties involved are very happy and proud of the result we got. The film is getting a lot of good response.”

Cole sees a parallel between sound effects and music on the one hand, and visual effects and color grading on the other. “Sound in a movie includes effects like explosions and gunshots,” he says. “Then you have the musical score, which is the emotional underpinning of the movie. In my opinion, the equivalent to music on the visual side is the color grading. Without those subtle emotional color cues, you are distanced from the story. I think that’s an important part of what we do.”