80 April 2013 American Cinematographer

Two of the films covered in this Sundance roundup,Mother of George and Fruitvale, won prizes in the U.S.Dramatic Competition, which was judged by cine-matographer Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC; producerTom Rothman; film critic Wesley Morris; British FilmInstitute programmer Clare Stewart; and filmmaker EdBurns. In a Sundance first, the categorys cinematographyprize was given to one cinematographer, Bradford Young, fortwo films, Mother of George and Aint Them Bodies Saints.Fruitvale was honored with the competitions Grand JuryPrize and Audience Award.

Other films that caught our eyes this year included theWorld Dramatic Competition entry Houston; the U.S.Documentary Competition entry Narco Cultura; and Big Surand No, which both screened out of competition.

Mother of GeorgeCinematographer: Bradford YoungDirector: Andrew Dosunmu

Commenting on the U.S. Dramatic Competition jurysdecision to award the cinematography prize to BradfordYoung for two very different films, Mother of George and AintThem Bodies Saints, juror Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC noted:

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We noticed that Bradfords work on both films had some-thing in common: deep, atmospheric lighting and strongcompositions that enhanced the storytelling and helpedfollow the emotional states of the characters. His use of light,shadow and color was very expressive and powerful. I espe-cially liked that the lighting felt very naturalistic and real, butI could see a strong design and intention in the imagery.

Speaking to AC shortly after the festival, Young wasquick to share the credit with the films directors, AndrewDosunmu on Mother of George and David Lowery on AintThem Bodies Saints: I was working with two directors whoare extremely visual, so both films were true collaborations.

Mother of George is actually Youngs second feature withDosunmu, whom he has admired since his college days atHoward University. Young recalls that he first noticedDosunmus work in 2000, when he saw the music video forCommons The 6th Sense. A decade later, Young foundhimself shooting Dosunmus first feature, Restless City. Thefellow New Yorkers subsequently stayed in close touch andcollaborated on several music videos. About a year later, theywere at work on Mother of George.

Set in the Nigerian immigrant community inBrooklyn, the film begins with a traditional wedding: Newarrival Adenike (Danai Gurira) marries Ayodele (Isaach DeBankol), the owner of a local Nigerian restaurant. Ayodelesmother immediately demands a grandchild, whom shepreemptively names George. As the months roll by, no childarrives, and Adenike is shamed by this failure. Meanwhile,her husband ducks the fertility question, and her mother-in-laws haranguing increases. Out of desperation, Adeniketakes some misguided advice about how to conceive a child.

Filmed over 22 days on practical locations in Brooklyn,Mother of George takes full advantage of the bold colors ofAfrican textiles and the dark skin tones of its cast. For visualinspiration, the filmmakers turned to contemporary painters,especially Chris Ofili and his Harem watercolor series, whichuses a palette of aqua, pink, yellow and cyan that just blew us

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away, says Young. This was someonepaying close attention to the rich tapes-try of skin tones within the Africandiaspora, [and that was] married withthe festive, celebratory, intricate designquality of African textiles.

Additionally, Young looked tothe paintings of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, whose oil portraits are oftendark-on-dark, with ebony complexionsmelting into abstract brown and blackbackgrounds while an article of clothing white collar, red stockings, blue dress pops out. Both artists were playingwith what we wanted to play with: Howfar can we bury these bodies in darknessto heighten their skin-tone value, butalso pull them out through wardrobeand lighting? says Young.

The filmmakers sole day of test-ing was devoted to seeing how extremewe could go with color, and then howthat color would look against our actorsskin tones, he continues. We put thatsmack-dab in the middle of normalNew York City spaces to test the rela-tionship between a striking-lookinghuman being with very striking colorand the city, which has a graphic quality

to it. We wanted Mother of George tofeel intentional, but not contrived.

Having shot Restless City on aRed One, Young and Dosunmudecided to continue with the brand.We found that the Red did a lot ofinteresting things with skin tone whenwe let it fall off in deep shadow, saysYoung. For Mother of George, they chosea Red Epic, shooting 5K at 3:1compression for a final extraction of2.40:1. Pleased with the image qualityof the raw file, Young was ecstatic whenhe saw what colorist Alex Bickel couldachieve in the grade at Manhattan posthouse Color Collective. Bickelenriched the look by mixing coloredversions of the same image togetherusing the DaVinci Resolves layer mixernodes. We tried to grade as if we wereusing traditional printer lights, saysYoung. Alex brought a technique and aphotographic sensibility to the gradingthat gave more texture to the image andmade Mother of George fly.

Young shot the picture mostly onCooke S4 prime lenses. He used anAngenieux Optimo 24-290mm zoomvery sparingly, and a Canon EF

400mm for many day exteriors. The50mm, 65mm and 100mm primeswere his workhorse lenses, however, andclose-ups were emphasized. Youngexplains, The idea of marginalization isvery important to our story. Andrewalways talks about how New York is aplace of great diversity, but were not incommunication with each other. Wefilled the frame up with faces that NewYorkers see every day, but dont reallysee, even though they might live nextdoor.

For lighting, he continues, westayed away from HMIs and tungstenand used only fluorescents. We wantedthe film to feel slightly futuristic, likeyoure looking at something 20 years inthe future. Also, in Africa, Asia andLatin America, light sources are usuallyfluorescent. Ive often been struck byhow unusual certain skin tones can lookin that light.

Young also emphasized toplight,which not only allowed the camera tomove freely through cramped locations,but also gave him the ability to subtlyshift the lighting as the story progressedwhile retaining consistency. We

Set in BrooklynsNigerianimmigrantcommunity,Mother of Georgefollows newlymarried AdenikeBalogun (DanaiGurira) as shestruggles toconceive a childwith her husband.

82 April 2013 American Cinematographer

! 6 Sundance Standouts

thought we might want to bury the eyesa little bit more as the story starts todecay, he says. The idea was to workthose fixtures back behind the characterand not necessarily focus in on face, buton posture.

He never used eyelight. Wedidnt want bounce boards or any of thatstuff. We wanted to keep these eyesdeep and rich. We also didnt feel these

actresses needed to be separated fromtheir male counterparts. We wanted tohave a more egalitarian approach.

To create their toplight, Youngand gaffer Matt Zschoche designed8'x8' soft banks containing 12 Kino Flobulbs pushed through muslin. Bulbswere sometimes wrapped in cyan gel fora more futuristic feel. All the bulbs wereon separate circuits. We could control

each bulb individually, which made thelighting more nuanced, and that wasappropriate for Mother of George becausethe story is so nuanced, Young says.We could see which angle worked bestat the time. For a person sitting on theedge of a bed, for instance, wed find thelight that modeled the body in a realis-tic way rather than picking the one clos-est to the camera.

Practical fixtures do a fairamount of work in the movie, but theoverall ambience that gives you thatshiny, rich, futuristic quality comes fromthe fluorescents in the ceiling, he adds.

Young says that although he andDosunmu had worked together manytimes, the director brought challengesto me every day, challenges in framing aswell as lighting. His attitude was, Weregoing to find a new grammar. We bothwanted to create something that wasbetter than what wed done before, tobeat our own personal best. Andrewwould say, I see I got 98 percent out ofyou, and I need another 2 percent. Andhed drag it out of me every day!

Patricia Thomson

Top: Adeniketries to put her

time to gooduse. Bottom:

Director AndrewDosunmu (left) and

cinematographerBradford Young

(right, with backto camera) workout a scene with

actress YayaAlafia.