“sms sugar man is a masterpiece!” - peter whitehead
Q: Eran, is this the first feature film to be shot using mobile phones as the cameras?
To the best of my knowledge it is. I know that a music video for The Presidents of The United States was shot on SonyEricsson k750i and that there are probably some short films shot on cellphones as well, but no feature films. SMS Sugar Man is the first feature shot on cellphones and transferred to 35mm film.
Q: Why did Aryan Kaganof come up with the idea of shooting on mobile phones?
As far as I am aware out of necessity, as much as out of creative inspiration. He and the producers wanted to make a no-holds barred film, starting from the premise of a no-budget strategy. He wanted to push the current available technology, even using that equipment which is available to the public. Also because the look is totally appropriate to the story we were making, a very emotional feel. Kaganof was the first director to shoot on digital for 35mm, on his feature Wasted! in 1996, way before Dogma did it.
Q: How did you approach the cinematography using this new technology?
Aryan wanted something visceral. He understood the limitations of the medium from the beginning, but somehow, with his approach to the film, they have all played to our advantage. I knew that with a cellphone camera I could have as much coverage as I wanted to, and that guided my approach to lighting. We ordered led lights and panel-lites and used practical lights almost exclusively. That’s how we chose our locations – predominantly for their lighting, or rather for the lack of it.
eran tahor (photo aryan kaganof)
Q: How did you approach the preproduction? What tests etc did you undertake?
First of all we did a lot of testing. We tried different camera phones under a variety of lighting conditions and played back the material on monitors. We also shot a lot of tests with potential cast (that was before final casting), we looked at compositions and camera movement and different filming styles. What we wanted to find out was the limitations of the medium, a sort of set of boundaries within which we can create the film. Like a velvet box of sorts.
We spent a few weeks filming like this, mostly at nights. We knew that we were doing something new and it was difficult to come up with references from other films. There wasn’t a lot of discussions though, for us it was either there or it wasn’t. – it wasn’t about subtleties or gradual adjustments to lighting or colour, nothing like the process of film or HD. Simply like that – where we felt that shots don’t work we discarded with that filming style altogether.
We put all of our tests together on Final Cut Pro (FCP), cut a 3 minute piece together with our VFX expert, Jurgen Meekel, testing colour, black and white, fast motion, slomo, frame size and sent that to Rekorder in Denmark for TX to 35mm. It was a revelation!
Q: What changes did you make after conducting and reviewing your tests?
After choosing the camera phone for the film (Sony Ericsson W900i), we sent some test footage to Rekorder in Denmark for transfer to 35mm. When I viewed the material on film it exceeded my expectations. The pictures looked nothing like anything I have seen before. Highly saturated, dense, warm painterly pictures that hit you right in the stomach. I knew that we’re onto something very special.
We started revising our strategy of shooting handheld with lots of camera movements in favor of using tripods and other camera mounts where it would work for the story. Both Aryan and I realized that we can also have long static shots in the film and that with this look they would be very powerful.
Q: What is the main difference shooting on mobile phones and traditional digital and film equipment?
For me it was the lack of distance or separation from what I was framing – mostly the actresses and what they were going through. It created a level of intimacy that I have never experienced before on set. Where something happens I had to respond to it immediately, no two takes were ever alike. I mean sometimes I’d be as close as 10cm from the actress when filming close-ups, you can imagine how stressful it was for them performing like this. I could never be in their way, rather I had to flow with them and that created the rhythm of each scene, they had to trust me to respond to every change immediately. So I think that I was a lot more tuned emotionally to what was going on. You don’t have that with big cameras.
Q: What specific look did you try to achieve, and what films did you reference?
We looked at Alphaville for a reference but it was more for Johannesburg as an empty metropolis (we shot it over 10 days in Johannesburg during Christmas). Like I said earlier we knew immediately that we are dealing with a totally new medium and tools we never used before.
Sure everyone uses cellphone cameras daily, but we were going to make a feature film and work with a script or least an outline for a script. We had to sit down and revise everything we knew about the process. I think that the look came out of this process. I had to explore what this camera can do and create a cinematic style for the story. I went for high contrast and densely saturated colours. The colour palette was similar in the streets of Hillbrow as in the opulent rooms in the hotel, connecting these separate worlds of Johannesburg.
Q: What specific colour palette did you design?
For Hillbrow there was a lot of fluorescent green and yellow. I used every neon sign I could find to light the scene, and inside the hotel it was more washed out tungsten/straw colours with strong shadows. I framed the sources in a lot, so there was never worry about continuity or motivation. Some scenes were high key and in others you could hardly see people’s faces because it was so dark – and that worked perfectly.
The hotel provided more blue and red, the interior lights there were of different quality: cleaner and punchy. Although tungsten sources were equally warm as in Hillbrow, they do look very different, definitely cleaner. I think that the warm tones worked well for the film and I really pushed them deeper, you don’t get an orange face with this camera phone.
Q: Can you explain the technical route you designed for this mobile approach?
Technically we decided to record the footage to Sony Duo 512mb memory sticks, we had about two per phone. So 8 phones and 12 disks. We had a very serious approach to the sound, and Nico Louw is the top sound guy in the country. Nico used a digital smart slate to synch the sound.
Then Greg Van Niekerk, our whizzkid continuity/logger/mobile phone assistant, downloaded the footage from the Memory Disks into an Apple Mac laptop, which he had on set, renaming each take according to scene and slate numbers. Jurgen would take the footage night and synch it in the Apple Mac. The idea is to convert the footage to DV PAL and create an “offline”.
When the edit’s finished we will convert the entire film into high res (Cineon) files which will be used for the transfer to film. So we will transferring from Hard Disk to 35mm.
Q: So the film is originated on a Sony Ericsson W900i, which records images and sound at 30 frames per second (fps). You record onto Memory Sticks. Can you explain the process from there?
We used 512mb memory cards which could store roughly an hour of footage each. We had two memory sticks per camera phone so that every few shots we would replace the memory card and download the footage into a laptop. Greg was in charge of that and his job description just kept getting bigger. He had to rename the clips according to scene, take and camera. He had to keep records for continuity and sort out the clips in separate folders. His job was to sort out the footage during filming. Then he copied the material at the end of each night’s filming to CD’s which became our master source. We thus had backups of the footage on the laptop and on CD.
So for post we had video footage and sound separately. Jurgen Meekel digitized everything into Final Cut Pro – converting the original MPEG4 footage into DV Pal and started syncing audio and video. From there on it’s the same as any editing process, we had sync clips for the editor to work with. The film is currently being edited when it’s done, we’ll begin the final phase of grading and film transfer.
Q: What planning with your post production technical team did you undertake?
From the beginning we had to create a protocol for the entire process from origination to post production. We tried a lot of options. The main thing is that sound had to be recorded separately which means we had to use a clapperboard. It was funny using a traditional clapperboard and film with mobile phones, but the system is exactly like on any other set.
We looked at different options in terms of converting to footage from MPEG4 to a format that Final Cut Pro can work with. My main concern was to remain true to the look of the original pictures on the phone, I didn’t want to lose those qualities and I was hoping to use the original format in editing. But that wasn’t working and we could not edit on MPEG4.
We spent a lot of time experimenting and Jurgen Meekel had to find solutions to a lot of post problems, searching the net and consulting Yoav Dagan – an online specialist. He came up with the solution of converting everything to DV PAL before the syncing and editing but agreed to keep the original frame size (which is much smaller than normal DV PAL) and do a final conversion to large format Cineon files in preparation for film transfer.
Q: What size camera/grips/lighting department crew did you have working with you?
Almost none. I had a trainee assistant who helped with the lighting and grips. Just the two of us. I didn’t use many lights except some led lights and flexible panel lights for the car interior. Other than that I had on one evening a small underwater lighting setup, and I used industrial flood lights and 800watts for the rest.
It was easy to handle between the two of us and when necessary other crew helped. We had no grips because all tracking shots were hand held. I discovered new camera movements everyday - it’s amazing what you can do with a camera this size. In fact Alphaville was a good reference since it was shot by Raoul Coutard who created a new free-camera cinematographic style.
We worked very quickly covering long scenes in a couple of hours. We shot an entire feature in 10 or 11 days, shooting sometimes 6 hours a night.
On SMS Sugar Man we had to improvise all the time.
Q: What was the extent of your equipment, in terms of cameras, lighting and grip equipment?
In the grips department I had spoken to Tink Minster from Camera Platforms designed and built two lightweight camera support heads, especially for the cellphones, which worked brilliantly. I could mount the cameras to the tripod either horizontally or vertically, which helped me create more dynamic compositions.
I also had a suction mount which I used with this head extensively inside the car. This way I could attach the camera to any window in the car. I also took out the outside mirrors off the car and Tink made supporting brackets for the phones so that I could hide them in the mirrors, to get traveling shots at night while we were filming inside the car. This way I could get excellent footage especially in Hillbrow at night where you can’t just walk around filming with a cellphone.
In lighting I got the production to buy a portable LED panel designed by Litepanels. It worked with two batteries and was easy to carry around, I always had use for it especially in close ups as eye-light and fill. Inside the car I place two ELD panels which we got from the Canadian manufacturer Electricvinyl. They are electroluminescent displays: paper thin light sources that I could place anywhere in the car, the ELD panels gave off enough fill light when I needed it. I had to correct them with 1/4 straw and they were still strong enough.
Q: What relationship did you have with Sony Ericsson?
None. The producers however managed to get 8 of the mobile phones (W900i) from them, and we tried communicating with anyone in their technical department to go in and change the “brain” of the camera, but we never succeeded in getting any help. So we just used the camera phones as they are.
We designed a really cool small aluminium flight case for the 8 phones, with a kettle plug, so we could charge them all simultaneously, and store the Memory Disks carefully. Much like a high tech brief-case!
Q: What was the reaction from traditional equipment houses in South Africa towards your approach? Did you get the support you needed for this unconventional film?
The Video Lab in South Africa for one thought we were crazy. We sent some footage to them for film transfer tests and they run it through Inferno in attempt to up res it, before TXing to 35mm. You can’t really do that with what we shot, mpeg4 320×240 at 29.97fps, it’s all over the place very low quality and very little information, but that was exactly the look we were going for.
What I wanted was for them to use the original small frame and print it so that the result will be a 4:3 frame in the middle of a wide cinema screen, but they were reluctant to do it. In fact they were very rude and thought we were idiots. They never took us seriously, and eventually said it was not possible.
The producers had worked with Rekorder in Denmark previously and suggested we go to them again. When I spoke to Tomas Caspersen from Rekorder, he immediately got excited about the whole thing. We discussed the timing, colour and look over the phone and decided which stock to use for the tests. We sent him the tests (about 2 minutes) on mini-DV, they blew it to 35mm, and it worked perfectly. No problem.
Frank Myburgh from Digital Films and Julian were a great help as well. They helped with the camera and vehicle planning tests and offered technical solutions as well as equipment when we needed it. SMS Sugar Man is a low budget film and we had to rely on their kindness.
Tink from Camera Platforms built all our camera supporting systems. They all believed that we are doing something special, an experimental approach to cinema that we do not have much of in South Africa.
So the post production companies were very skeptical and did not help, but the camera and grips guys were amazing.
We are doing the offline and online on FCP in South Africa, and then all the post in Sweden (all the sound design, and mix) and the lab work in the UK.
Q: How different is this approach to previous films you have shot?
This film is like a roller coaster ride from beginning to end. We were all feeling our way in the dark guided by our belief in Kaganof, the story and that we are making something very special that has never been done before. I had to deal with this new format but so did the cast and everyone else.
I had a look for the film which was dark, grainy and very saturated. I wanted the viewers to be in there, in the rooms of the hotel outside in the streets and inside the car. I also wanted to show Johannesburg at night as a character in the film, to give it life and a personality. The entire film takes place during one night in Johannesburg. I think that being confined to the limitations of mobile phone cameras actually helped, I had to frame the light sources in and rely on neon lights and street lights a lot.
So mostly the difference is in planning around what is there, as opposed to creating sets and lighting them. We chose locations that had available lights, look and colour that worked for us and then Aryan wrote the scenes in the locations we had chosen. Working like this is very rare.
The actresses also used the phones too, as it was part of their characters. That was amazing as it takes you really into their POV’s. Sometimes we had up to 5 phones being used, covering a long and complicated scene then became wonderful and immediate.
Q: Do you think this will revolutionize the future of filmmaking, and if so, in what way?
I don’t know if we will but do hope so. I’ve experienced creative freedom on SMS Sugar Man that I haven’t experienced before. There was always this impetus to try something new without fear of failing because we were doing something that had never been done before. I think that in South Africa, which offers great stories and great locations, but hardly any budget for films, nor distribution, this approach will stimulate others to make their films.
Q: Will you be making further films in this manner, and what would you do differently?
Sure I want to make more films in this manner, for me it’s not about the technology. Using cellphones to shoot a feature film proved that with the right people, story and creative spirit we can make it happen.
Whether I shoot on cellphones, HD or film it’s about being creative, innovative and realizing that here in SA we can and must create a new kind of cinema, we must find new ways to transcend our limited resources and create something new as opposed to making low budget copies of what’s already out there.
Equipment used:
Mobile Phones: 8 x Sony Ericsson W900i
Memory Sticks: 12 x 512KB Memory Disks
Lights: 1 x LED by Litepanels
2 x ELD by Eletricvinyl
Grips: 2 x Camera Platform Cellphone Heads
1 x Suction Mount
Offline/Online: Apple Mac Duo and 16” Powerbook G4
