American Cinematographer (July 1999) p.103-105

Short Takes

BIG WILLIE GOES WEST
By Stephanie Argy

   While planning the music video for Will Smith's "Wild Wild West," the rapping 
actor's title cut for the soundtrack of the feature film of the same name, 
director Paul Hunter took cinematographer Thomas Kloss into a huge soundstage 
filled with pieces of sets from the Warner Bros. Movie (see full coverage 
beginning on page 36).  "Paul introduced me to the project and to Will Smith, 
and then we started talking about what we would try to achieve," remembers 
Kloss.  "The immediate question was, 'What are the technical obstacles"'"

   Their mission was to create a flashy, feature-like look on a music-video 
schedule and budget.  Kloss offers, "I think the biggest challenge for us was to 
understand the scope of the project and to explain what we thought we needed in 
order to perform at that level."

   By music-video standard, the scope of the eight-minute-long clip was 
enormous, requiring a 14-day shooting schedule to capture Smith in his James T. 
West character, singing, dancing, and rescuing damsel-in-distress Rita Escobar 
(Salma Hayek, re-creating her role from the feature film) from a variety of 
perils.

   Though the "West" video relies heavily upon Barry Sonnenfeld's movie for its 
content, Hunter and Kloss sought to lend the video an identity and look of its 
own, rather than slavishly imitate the motion picture.  After studying director 
of photography Michael Ballhaus, ASC's work in the movie, Kloss decided to 
strive for a markedly different visual style.  The only actual matching between 
the movie and the video was the recreation of four of the film's main sets.

   Even before the opening notes of Will Smith's gun-slinging, desperado rap, 
the video opens with an intimate, nighttime bedroom sequence between Smith and 
Hayek, which is set in a small, rustic log cabin.  Within this romantic, 
candlelit scene, we witness the diabolical shenanigans of West's arch-nemesis, 
the evil Dr. Arliss Loveless, as he has the alluring Hayek kidnapped from their 
warm love-nest.

   Breaking into the song, the camera then rushes toward Smith sanding amid 
Warner Bros. Backlot Western town – which is completely engulfed in flames – as 
he performs the opening verse.  Illuminated in warm ¾ frontal firelight, framed 
in front of saturated yellow-orange flames with hints of deep-blue moonlight 
rimming the rapper, the imagery is slightly more stylized than that of its 
feature-film cousin.  The video's look features crushed blacks, crisp glowing 
whites, and luminous colors, which were accentuated with the aid of colorist 
Stefan Sonnenfeld of Company 3 in Santa Monica, California.

   Next, the production moved on stage to shoot in a huge greenhouse-like 
structure that served as the home base for Loveless.  This set was used for 
addition performance by Smith (featuring rapping companions Dru Hill and Kool 
Moe Dee) as well as for a showdown between Loveless and West.

   Finally, the cast and crew finished up their work in a cavernous theater in 
Hollywood, where the production staged a lavish, Western-saloon-style party 
sequence.  Kloss details, "There we shot a whole dance sequence, and the party 
scene featuring cameos by various people [including Stevie Wonder as the piano 
player].  Also, this served as the segue for the battle between West and 
Loveless as the villain sends a big chandelier crashing to the dance floor."

   Lighting the enormous sets was a test for the cinematographer.  While the 
shots were on the same scale as scenes in the feature, the video crew had to do 
them with less money and crew members than their feature counterparts.  As Kloss 
notes, however, understanding and working within limitations is a big part of 
cinematography.  "You have to learn to fit the size and scope of the project to 
your [available resources], not what you want," he says.

   Because Kloss and his gaffer, Norm Harris, were under so much time pressure, 
they decided to keep things as flexible as possible by using either six-lights, 
nine-lights or Dinos.  "Those were all interchangeable bulbs," says Kloss.  "You 
could rig a light and say, 'I'm a stop under or a stop over,' and then click a 
couple of switches on or off.  With other lights, you can't do that."

   Kloss added a bit of smoke to the mix, an approach that enabled him to create 
rich, dramatic lighting with a wider spread, while eliminating the need to hang 
20 lights or re-rig things constantly.  "Often, we lit a shot with four nine-
lights, and then supplemented the illumination with single bulbs off the ground 
-– such as Par 64 cans – wherever we needed a bit more exposure.  Still, the 
basic lighting was provided by our Maxis with nine-lights that had narrow 
dichroic bulbs."

   Kloss generally used nine-lights aimed through 12' x 12' grid cloths to 
create some fill and a very soft look.  "I would say [to the crew], 'Go two 
stops under or a stop-and-a-half under, just don't overlight them.'"  Another of 
his tricks to keep things moving quickly and easily was to keep everything on 
wheels.  "I had the grips rig all of the equipment to be rollable so it wouldn't 
take as long to reset things."  This tactic proved particularly helpful for 
shooting reverse angles of shots.  "We could basically just roll everything 
behind the camera again," he explains.

   That kind of adaptability was crucial on this particular video.  "We never 
tried to get into complicated rigging situations," he says.  "We had our sets 
pre-lit and pre-rigged, and almost everything else beyond that was flexible 
lighting.  We had one light – a nine-light on a Condor – that served as our 
emergency light.  It could reach anywhere, and we could put it wherever it was 
needed.  Everything else was pretty much on rollers at ground level."

   Kloss says that he tried to light the actors from the top and from behind.  
"I didn't want to light them from the camera, but I still wanted to make them 
look good.  We tried to backlight them, or side-backlight them, and then add 
just a very soft frontal fill light.  I thought that looked good on Will, and it 
made the video very rich-looking."

   The cinematographer says he never worried about the differences between the 
various cast members' skin tones.  "I didn't mind the skin-tone difference 
onscreen," he says.  "If I shoot Salma Hayek next to Will Smith, I don't want 
Will to look as bright as Salma anyways.  I'm much more concerned about being 
able to read their eyes.  I don't care if Will goes a little dark next to Salma, 
as long as I can see his eyes and the expression on his face."

   Kloss adds that he avoided using lens diffusion, particularly on Smith.  "In 
my basic photographic approach, I try not to use an diffusion.  Diffusion 
filters make more sense when you are doing film postproduction, as opposed to 
video postproduction.  Video post gives you the many more options in terms of 
softening, sharpening and manipulating the image."  He also points out that 
using lens diffusion is not the same as softening the light.  "It's confusing if 
you think you can make the light softer by shooting with diffusion filters.  
Those are two separate issues."

   Kloss says that he used long lenses only on extreme close-ups, preferring to 
stay with wide lenses that would show off the full scope of the sets.  "We tried 
to portray the spaces," he offers.  "We tried to do them justice by shooting 
extremely wide and giving the audience a sense of where the whole video took 
place.  In my opinion, the music video is also a kind of commercial for the 
movie, so I wanted to give the audience a strong visual taste of the feature's 
various environments."

   The lens he used most was the 14mm from the new Cooke series.  "The 
photography in this video is a very good example of what the Cooke lenses stand 
for; they help to create really rich blacks and strong contrast, and they allow 
you to read into all of the various shades.  The [Kodak Vision 500T] 5279 film 
stock also helps that kind of photography a lot, and it was the only stock we 
used."

   In his approach to lighting, Kloss prefers to have room to experiment and 
find the right strategy for the task at hand.  "I sometimes feel very restricted 
if the lighting becomes too specific and too rigid," he says.  "I personally  
need to rough things in – to get a take on the scene and a sense of whether the 
lighting is the way I want it to be, or to decide whether the source is too big 
or small.  I take my indications from my first try at something, and I may rough 
something in for maybe 10 minutes.  I'll set up a six-light or a nine-light and 
look at it on the left or the right or from behind the actors, and then get an 
idea on how it looks.  Then I might say, 'Okay, that's a good approach – now 
what else does the scene need?' At that point we'll get a bit more detailed with 
the lighting."

Kloss says that the scale of the "Wild Wild West" video never struck him until 
the job was finished – which, he admits, was probably for the best.  "It's good 
that it doesn't dawn on me that these projects are so big until they're done," 
he says.  "If you suddenly sense the scope of what you're doing while you're in 
the midst of things, it can be very intimidating.  For me it is necessary to be 
ignorant of those things on a certain level, because that allows me to go into 
the job without so much fear."

   He concludes that it's equally important to understand the vision of the 
director.  "You want to start it clean and try to focus on what the director 
wants," he says.  "The boundaries are given by the director or the producer.  If 
the project is wide enough in their imagination, then you'll have a wide canvas 
to paint on."