Camera on the shoulder and S16, the basis of Alfonso Postigo in 'Yo, also'

"I believe that the director of photography must be a support for the director. At the end of the day, what our job is about is translating his vision into images that support the content of the film," commented director of photography Alfonso Postigo to on the occasion of his latest work in Me too, the debut feature by Antonio Naharro and Álvaro Pastor.

In his latest work, Yo, Also, Alfonso Postigo has faced an unconventional filming process since directors Antonio Naharro and Álvaro Pastor like to improvise with the actors and model their project in each take. Alfonso Postigo, who had already collaborated with Pastor and Naharro in Invulnerable (2005), a highly awarded short film that, he commented that in Me too The objective was to “carry out a very tight filming plan with many locations in just five weeks, with a very tight budget and meeting certain aesthetic requirements.”

Behind the production of Yo, there are also Alicia Produce and Promico Imagen with Julio Medem, Koldo Zuazua and Manuel Gómez Cardeña as producers, the latter two also in executive production, and Verónica Díaz in production direction. Precisely Koldo Zuazua, who had already become interested in Invulnerable, was the one who took the Yo, Also project - the directors say - to Alicia Produce, Julio Medem's producer, who showed a special sensitivity with the project. Julio Medem, for his part, considers this film a “lucky film” and among the progenitors, in addition to the author-directors Antonio Naharro and Álvaro Pastor (in the photo), includes Koldo Zuazua as “authentic patriarch of this story.”

The relationship that the film addresses, which is still complicated, was conceived seeking to delve into the feelings and loneliness of its protagonists, a boy with Down syndrome (Pablo Pineda) and a woman without disabilities (Lola Dueñas), two social workers who meet in the work environment. In the words of the directors... "There are two cities in the film, Seville and Madrid, as there are two protagonists and two worlds that intersect. And a journey that for both will represent a change forward in their lives. For Laura it will mean a reunion with the past. For Daniel it will be the beginning of maturity." The two protagonists have won silver medals at the 2009 San Sebastián Film Festival for their respective performances.

Nude staging

Filming for Yo, Also began on September 22, 2008 and took place mostly in Seville, four weeks in locations in the historic center and in Triana, and also in Huelva, on Mazagón beach. A fifth week was filmed in Madrid, where filming ended a year ago.

Regarding the narrative of Me too They decided on a naked staging, with a camera on their shoulders and looking for realistic lighting and light filming. "The decision to shoot handheld is given, on the one hand, by an aesthetic issue. A large part of the references we used were in that direction, for example Wonderland, and Rompiendo las Waves. But, above all, because due to the way Álvaro and Antonio worked during filming, the handheld camera gave us enormous flexibility," says Alfonso Postigo, and explains: "They approach the film as a very living and constantly evolving process. They prepare the project well in advance, especially the I work with the actors and the script, which continues to evolve. This margin for improvisation is also transferred to the moment of giving the engine. Antonio continues giving instructions to the actor, who reacts to these stimuli and makes each take different. And in the case of Pablo Pineda, without previous experience as an actor, this system is taken even further, to the point that he felt what was happening to the character at that moment, which, by the way, was a real beating for him.

Camera on the shoulder

As highlighted by Alfonso Postigo, carrying the camera in hand in this production allows you to react to these changes and, at the same time, be in tune with a very naturalistic type of interpretation where nothing should seem too prepared, and the camera is attentive to what is happening at that moment. "A little like what happens in a documentary. Furthermore, I think it is a system that fits with that method of directing actors that seeks to strip a certain artifice from the interpretation and provides a feeling of immediacy. Just as an actor can change a gesture or a movement, the camera has a certain freedom to make 'last minute' decisions that reinforce the narrative or the emotional state of a character," says Postigo.

Alfonso Postigo highlights in his conversation with the work of Eva Aycart, the camera assistant, who also often had to improvise due to these variations and the practical absence of marks for the actors. Also on the camera technical team were Paco Cano, camera assistant, and Cristina Cerezo, camera expert, with Álvaro Cañal as video technician. The team is completed by Alejandro Espadero, 2nd unit camera, with Juan González Rebollo as camera assistant.

In Me too There is only one sequence that is shot on a tripod and that is when Daniel (Pablo Pineda) dreams about his office colleagues. "We wanted to shoot with a fixed camera to separate Daniel's dream world from reality, which was hand-held. I reinforced that strangeness by changing the shutter angle to 45º, which gave the movement of the actresses an artificial appearance and generated a flicker in the fluorescent lights in the office that reinforced that unreal atmosphere," highlights the director of photography.

A shoot in S16

Me too It is shot in Super 16mm, a choice that, along with the camera material, was somewhat conditioned by the budget, because shooting in 35mm was not an option, and they even abandoned the idea of ​​shooting in negative because it seemed unfeasible.

"But little by little the idea was taken up again when we were convinced that not only was it not much more expensive but it would make filming more agile and would be better adapted to our circumstances. It is true that today the response of certain HD cameras to underexposure is impressive but it would not have been as operational, for example, to get on the top of a tourist bus and shoot handheld with an F23 in a single tour," explains Alfonso Postigo to .

Furthermore, they preferred the negative to any digital format for more reasons. "Not only because of the greater dynamic range and color space but because the grain, which becomes more evident in S16, provided a texture that fit better than the somewhat colder and 'cleaner' aspect, in a certain sense, of digital. I think that the randomness of the grain, that somewhat more imperfect aspect, together with the use of the hand-held camera, fit better with the style of film that Antonio and Álvaro wanted to make, and also provided a certain unifying character to the film," he adds.

Alfonso Postigo also believes that the negative is more permissive with extreme filming conditions as was the case with Me too. "Not only because of the greater latitude in the highlights but because in situations in which the lighting cannot be as nuanced, the appearance given by the negative is much more 'grateful'. I used Kodak 7229 500T Expression film because of its latitude, especially in the low lights. As this emulsion has special characteristics, among other things it is somewhat more grainy, I did not change the film on location during the day to maintain a certain consistency throughout the film," he explains.

camera equipment

The camera equipment was supplied by the rental house EPC. Much of the filming was done with the Arriflex 16 SR3, and they also chose the Arri 416 Plus, which Alfonso Postigo considers to be a more advanced camera and he likes it more “for its lightness, reliability and comfort for working handheld, and for its viewfinder, which is much brighter than that of the SR3.” The optics, also chosen based on the budget they had, were the Zeiss 1.3 fixed series for S16, and a Zeiss 11-110 T2.0 zoom, “with an acceptable optical quality, although quite far from the quality of modern zooms, and somewhat inferior to the fixed series that we had,” says the director of photography.

"You had to be careful with the vignetting that occurred in certain focal lengths when the focus was less than one meter. I tried to use the zoom as little as possible, although sometimes Álvaro preferred it for reasons of speed or because he wanted to change focal lengths during the shot. In those cases, he tried not to mix it with the fixed optics within the same sequence." Except for the Christmas bus sequence where they only had one route to shoot all the possible shots. "We couldn't change lenses quickly in such circumstances, even more so when we were on a moving bus. In this case, I also had to force the film because it didn't have enough aperture," Postigo told .

Illuminate like in a documentary

Although for Alfonso Postigo Me too It is not a film in which there were great technical challenges, he does tell us some examples of how the lighting worked, as he points out, for the night exteriors he decided to use a very practical system that he resorts to when he shoots documentaries. "Whenever possible, I use the location's own light as a base. This allows me not to have to illuminate large spaces with large devices, a generator, etc., because I have the backgrounds covered with ambient light. From there, I illuminate the space where the actors are going to move, focusing on reproducing with my light as best as possible the characteristics of the sources available in the place, in terms of direction, intensity, color temperature and chromatic spectrum, seeking to ensure that it integrates well into the space and that it works at at the same time for the scene. That almost always means working with very low levels so as not to lose the backgrounds and consequently with very open apertures, sometimes even forcing the film," Alfonso Postigo admitted.

For example, outside the Triana Bridge, when the protagonists say goodbye, they shot at 1.3 aperture. "To achieve the integration of light in this and other exterior night sequences, the main light consisted of a sodium lamp of the same type as that of the street lamps themselves, which the gaffer Miguel Angel Cárdenas obtained, mounted on a small balloon. Filming the exteriors at night in this way also saved a lot of time and allowed the shooting plan to be fulfilled," says the director of photography. And another technique that Alfonso Postigo used in many interiors, “copied from Dante Spinotti,” the director of photography assures, was filling Christmas light garlands using mesh. "Each mesh had about 400 mini-lamps that we put in regulation. They were stapled to the ceiling and provided a very controllable and non-directional filling thanks to the multitude of light points."