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Where the Girls Are
DP Ellen Kuras talks about shooting Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity
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| Ellen Kuras |
Ellen Kuras, the acclaimed cinematographer (see cover story, MM #35) on such celebrated films as Swoon and I Shot Andy Warhol, has made a name for herself by breaking with conventions and making films that matter. She easily moves back and forth between features and documentaries, and has become a frequent collaborator with both Spike Lee and Rebecca Miller.
In Personal Velocity, she reteams with Miller to explore the unrelated but familiar lives of three very different women: Delia, Greta and Paula. Starring Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey and Fairuza Balk, the film is the latest InDigEnt release, made on a budge of $150,000 and shot on mini-DV. Here, Kuras discusses her most recent collaboration with Miller, the challenges of mini-DV and why gender shouldn't matter.
Jennifer Wood (MM): How did you first become involved with Personal Velocity?
Ellen Kuras (EK): I have a long-term relationship with Rebecca Miller, which dates back to when we worked on Angela together, a film about two little girls dealing with their mother's manic depression. That film ended up going to Sundance and I won the Cinematography Award with it, I guess in 1996. So Rebecca and I have known each other for a long time, and have a very symbiotic working relationship. As she puts it-she starts a sentence and I finish it. She had been away in Europe and was having a child, so she'd been writing a lot. She wrote a book of short stories and she called me up and said "Listen, I finally have some money that I can make a short film based on three of my short stories. Would you like to do it?" and I said 'Sure. I'll work with you any time.' She said the only thing is "We only have $150,000 and we have to shoot it in mini-DV. I said, 'Okay. Well, why don't we shoot it in Super16?' She said "We can't, because part of the money is contingent on us shooting in mini-DV."
MM: Because it's part of the InDigEnt series?
EK: Right. So I said-gulp-'Okay. I'll have to deal with the mini-DV aspect of it again. I'll give you five weeks of my time for free and let's do it-let's make the movie.' I really wanted to work with Rebecca again. The overriding influence in my decision was the fact that Rebecca was directing it; that it was one of her original works, and I really liked the script.
MM: You sound like you were a bit reluctant to work in mini-DV again. What was your previous experience in the format?
EK: Well, I'd previously worked in mini-DV on Bamboozled and, interestingly, when Bamboozled first came out and people began saying "Oh DV? Did you shoot it in HD?" A lot of them didn't understand that what we did on Bamboozled was pretty groundbreaking-that we took these small consumer cameras and shot a feature with it.
I didn't know anything about mini-DV when Spike first brought up the subject; I really hadn't even explored that medium at all. I had worked in video in my very first early times of working in documentary many years ago. I'd also worked in Hi8 and that kind of thing, but I never took it seriously as a medium to make a dramatic film. I basically had a week to figure everything out I could about mini digital so we could make our selection of camera, prep and then shoot the movie. I was very involved in shooting commercials back then, so I didn't have any time at all. I ended up going with the Sony VX1000, which at the time was one of two cameras that you could possibly use-the other being the Canon XL1. I chose the Sony over the Canon for different reasons, primarily because of the way that the zoom lens and the focus operated.
The versatility of the camera is undeniable: you can pick it up and be right next to an actor without them feeling the confines of having a huge camera behind them, with a whole crew and everything. You can also do longer takes. But for me, I've spent a lot of my creative thinking about the technical aspects of it. The lack of a back focus on the camera meant that you couldn't zoom in, focus and zoom out again; you had to focus the shot for what it was. And the contrast range of the camera was very difficult to handle. It doesn't handle highlights very well; it doesn't handle deep shadows very well. Although you can shoot in lower light situations, what I found is that you do have to light for mini-DV. So I was going against all the conventions that people had conjured up about all the attributes of mini-DV. All the producers would all say "Well you don't need any lights." And I would say 'Wrong! You do need lights.' So a lot of ideas were circulating about mini-DV that needed to be dispelled in order for people to get the tools necessary to shoot it well.
MM: Personal Velocity is comprised of three separate stories about three different women, each of which has a very distinct look. What sort of conversations did you have ahead of time with Rebecca as far as how to differentiate these stories, visually?
EK: Well, we definitely discussed the look of each of the parts because we wanted them to look different in terms of the color palette, the camera moves and just the general attitude toward the material. For the "Greta" piece, we decided that we wanted to do more static tripod work, so that the camera was very calm and static, like she was. We also decided that we would give it more of a cool look, just because we thought that that story lent itself better to more of a cool feeling, being kind of austere and simple.
With the "Paula" piece, we realized that Paula was going through a series of realizations that were more internal realizations, like the other women but of a different kind. So I said to Rebecca, 'Why don't we try doing some extreme close-ups that would sort of punctuate her realizations? Close-ups of the kid biting his fingernails, his eyes, the dashboard, the raindrops on the windshield. [I also] fooled around a little bit with the color temperature, because I wanted to put more cool, underlying, almost purple feel into the shadow areas-and to keep the highlights a certain kind of tone; more yellowish, but not yellow. I switched the color temperature for the daylight scenes onto tungsten, so that I would have a filter there. And I basically fooled around with it on the indoor scenes and the outdoor scenes. Then I color corrected later in the color transfer, so it would have that particular feeling to it.
In the "Delia" piece, with Kyra Sedgwick, I decided that I was going to use a color palette of yellows and greens. I did some experimentation with a coral filter, and Rebecca really liked the way that looked, so that's how we decided to distinguish each of the different stories-differentiating between the highlights and shadows, the camera moves and the contrast.
MM: Generally speaking, how do you like to prepare for a film with the director?
EK: I always, always value the time of the director before photography, because for me the film really gets made during those discussions-in my mind and in our minds. It creates a common language between me and the director to be able to understand the look and what the "third eye" is, in a way. What the vision of the film is. That usually entails talking about the look in general, looking at different tear sheets or pictures or paintings, and then going through the script blow by blow. Going at it scene by scene and deciding on what kind of shots we're going to design for each particular section; whether they're car shots, or how we're going to help the blocking and how the camera's going to interact with the actors.
MM: What is the film you're most proud of?
EK: That's a good question. I'd say that all the different films have their attributes. I would say out of the studio pictures, Summer of Sam and Blow [are my favorites]. For me, it was a very creative time making those films. I had a lot of creative license through the directors. On Blow, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life. We had a fantastic time. It was a great, great crew-a great energy. Every day I really enjoyed going to work; I looked forward to it.
Summer of Sam was grueling in a different way: the hours were really difficult, because there were a lot of nights. But in that film, I got to experiment a lot with reversal stocks and different looks. And so it was kind of interesting for me on a creative level.
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Maria on 2/10/08 at 11:00 pm
Great interview! I’m a big fan of Ellen Kuras and it’s good to find informative articles like this on her. Thanks!
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