S P E A K E A S Y
DIRECTOR: Brendan Murphy
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon
STARRING: David Strathairn, Nicky Katt, Stacy Edwards, Christopher McDonald
DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Classics
TECH SPECS: 35mm, 1.85:1, Fuji (8552, 8572, 8522), Panavision Panaflex GII
Bruce (David Strathairn) bides his time in the luxurious lobby of the hotel where his father-in-law has just been fired. On lower budget productions, there’s always at least one setup that requires the grip/lighting crews to pull every light off the truck. For SPEAKEASY, this was one such setup. It was a also a chance for Irving to mix tungsten and daylight color temperatures: the whiter “sunlight” is provided by a variety of 12k and 6k PAR HMI units, while the more orange “hotel lights” are provided by many strategically-placed tungsten units.
Frank (Nicky Katt) gets to know Bruce better as they chat in the local cafe. By the time this angle was photographed, the sun had already gone down. Thus, the light on the outside brick wall and all the illumination coming through the windows was provided by Irving and his crew. When the day was being scheduled, Irving had arranged to shoot this direction last, since he knew it was the only angle of the scene that he could control once he’d lost the light outside.
Bruce (David Strathairn) loses sleep on a rainy night. Irving particularly enjoys this type of composition, where the wide frame is subdivided into smaller frames by strong geometric lines and shapes. Also, when the right dramatic moment calls for it, Irving favors compositions in which the character faces the near-side of the frame edge (in this case, frame right). It tends to give the sense of a moment out-of-balance.
Irving reads the light on the hotel set of the Miramax flick SPEAKEASY.
A moody setup for the beginning flashback sequence of SPEAKEASY.
