FEATURE FILM

JOCKEY

By Adolpho Veloso, abc

I got an email from director Clint Bentley and producer Greg Kwedar with the project they had written called “Jockey”. I think they came to me after watching documentary “On Yoga: Arquitetura da Paz”, by Heitor Dhalia, which I photographed. They had this idea of interfering little with the locations and working a lot with improvisation from the beginning, with non-actors and making the most of the real track. The script was good and it was easy to get interested in the story, but I fell in love even when I was sent an Iphone video taken on location with the jockeys training before sunrise. The Arizona sky had the most beautiful color I have ever seen, the location was incredible and everything had a certain magic to it already. That’s when I visualized the project, everything came together in my head and I agreed to make the film.

The jockeys back in Phoenix start their training before sunrise and the races take place in the late afternoon. In the middle of the day, because of the heat, I imagine, not much is happening on the track. We wanted to orbit around that and use these times as a visual metaphor to convey the characters’ moment in life.

Played by Clifton Collins Jr, Jackson is at the end of his career and, to me, that has everything to do with how we feel in the minutes of the day after sunset. When it’s not completely dark yet, the light is beautiful, you look with nostalgia at the day you’ve just had and, in a way, you’re apprehensive because you don’t know what the night can bring, just as Jackson doesn’t understand very well yet which will be for the rest of his life. In contrast, we had Gabriel, played by Moises Arias, who is starting his career and, like the sunrise, has the whole day ahead of him. We avoided filming outdoors in the middle of the day as much as possible.

“Jockey” was filmed in 20 days. As the moments of light we chose to shoot the exteriors are very short, we usually rehearsed before the light got good. Due to having little time to shoot, we could not divide the scenes into different days. Overall, the decoupage was very simple, with lots of long shots where the camera follows the action, floating from one character to the next, with no coverings, which helps with light continuity when filming at these specific times. This language, in addition to helping narratively and bringing a documentary feel to the scripted scenes, allowed us to film everything in such a short time.

When the cast is on the same page this plan works. To be sure, we even shot takes in less than ideal lighting, just in case none of the takes worked in good light, but none of them were used in the final cut. Most of the scenes that needed more shots were night sequences, indoors or with the sun a little higher.

To make the cast and crew more comfortable with this way of filming, everyone would watch compilations of what we had filmed from time to time. After the first few days, the team got more confident and relaxed. It’s very important for everyone to be on the same page and to be making the same movie.

It was not possible to do sunrise and sunset on the same day because of the workload. So, when we wanted to film the sunrise, the rest of the day became interns. When we wanted the sunset, we usually combined it with the nocturnal ones.

We visited almost every location before filming and took a chance on the others. There was a lot of preparation, but also a lot of improvisation. Some locations came up the day before filming. One of them, a river where we heard wild horses crossing the bed at the end of the day, was about two hours away from the base and we decided to go even without knowing if it would happen. We waited and they showed up. So, we were very lucky. I spent most of the pre-production time on the turf, seeing how everything worked on the track and backstage, what the jockeys did, how the light behaved in every corner of that place and trying to absorb it all. In the daytime exteriors, I only used natural light, which is how I usually work, and in the rest of the scenes I tried to use as much practical lighting as possible that already existed on location. Adapting them to what we needed, sometimes closing windows, sometimes turning off some lights, sometimes moving lights around. But rarely bringing external elements.

The first thing Clint told me was that this was a movie about a jockey and not about horse racing. His father was a jockey and he felt that all the films on the subject over-glamorized this universe and adopted the point of view of the stands, the horse owners and punters. He wanted to make a movie about a jockey and all the physical and mental difficulties they face. They earn little money, break their entire body, need to control their own weight, wake up early every day and live with health problems caused by routines and falls.

To convey these ideas more effectively, we decided to make a point of view film. All we see is what Jackson sees, the viewer doesn’t see anything other than what Jackson is experiencing. Having a genius actor like Clifton was fundamental because the camera is on his face all the time and he delivers, every time, a lot of emotions without having to say a word.

We didn’t film Clifton on top of the horses in any of the races. We wanted to be right next to him, running along with him. We filmed in the back of a pickup truck, with Clifton on a mock horse and me with the camera pressed to his face. The only difference between when he loses and when he wins, besides what you can see in the performance, is that when he loses they throw dirt in his face, which is what happens to the jockeys who are left behind. But it’s all there, there’s no horse and no CGI.

We decided on the Arri Alexa Mini because it is a compact camera with the texture that I like the most among digital cameras. To have an even more compact camera and with the idea of bringing a more organic texture to the image, we filmed with Zeiss Superspeeds lenses. The fact that they are super bright helped a lot when using practical lights, fire and smaller light sources. We also used an Angenieux 24-290mm zoom lens occasionally to accentuate transition moments. I filmed almost everything with a Black Pro Mist 1/4 filter or, depending on where we were shooting, with a little dust on the lens.

From the Zeiss kit, the lenses we used the most were the angled ones. Shooting a close-up with an angle lens allows you to be very close without losing the atmosphere. The 2.39 window combined with these lenses allowed us to always have more than one layer of information on the screen.

I like to plan the ambient lights in a way that allows the actors the freedom to step wherever they want. It’s a set energy that I like. It’s a challenge to think of the camera in combination with the light so it doesn’t matter where the cast goes and the shot works. It’s a ballet that needs a lot of synchrony and trust from the cast because sometimes that means being glued to the body, but it generates a freedom that most actors I’ve worked with like.

With this method, to avoid shadows from me or the camera, I generally tend to use a single light source. I avoid having any light source behind me, even if it’s a little to the sides, as I need freedom to move. I like to work with practical light. In this movie we had 2 60’s Skypanels and a set of Asteras. We rarely used any of these lights. The Gaffer, Elliot Travis, did a wonderful job of controlling the lights that were already on location. With a much greater thought of closing windows and turning off lights than adding new fonts. The cameras and lenses we have gave us freedom to work with less light. By letting natural light in through the window, we get quality and complexity that is difficult to achieve with cinema light. With an open window you got, for example, a more bluish light reaching the ground, because of the reflection of the sky, a part of the environment becomes greener because of the reflection of the trees, other part more yellow because of the yellow wall that has in front of the window, and so on… With a filtered reflector, you have a homogeneous and not very complex light. I prefer to just close windows and create contrasts that way.

At the Diner restaurant, for example, we had windows on both sides. I closed everything behind the camera to create a contrast from a single source of natural light coming in from the front. To maintain continuity, we looked for hours of the day when the sun was not shining directly on the side we chose to shoot.

In Jackson’s trailer, the lamp was the main light source. I even added a second lamp hidden in the floor in the scene where Jackson and Ruth, played by Molly Parker, talk on the floor after Jackson falls, to keep the same tone in the scene and for the cast and have a little more visual information. I wanted everything to be in the same mood. The tear on Clifton’s face was not programmed, in one of the takes the magic happened and by sheer luck he turned his head at an angle that reflected the light. The point of light in the bathroom is the lamp itself, I didn’t change anything. I used a Skypanel in the scene where Jackson and Gabriel argue, as the trailer didn’t have any lights outside and Clint, quite rightly, wanted Gabriel to stay outside the trailer. In another sequence where they get out of the car and talk, I only used the car’s headlights.

As “Jockey” is an independent film, it is enough for the director to accept the ideas. We don’t need to sell anything to anyone. We didn’t have a studio behind asking for the image to have less contrast or anything like that. And between us we were very aligned from the beginning. The only scene where Clint asked me to lighten a little more was the X-ray scene, which in my view should have been a darker environment, but for him it was important to get a good look at Jackson’s reactions and the character’s denial of what he was doing. it’s happening to himself.

I try never to have underexposed images. In general, I always try to have enough light somewhere in the frame so we can understand what’s going on, even if it’s a silhouette or just one side of the face. The contrast is usually brought about by the locations themselves. Working with single light sources allows you to better control contrast levels.

I always try to stay on the darker side of the situation. Regions further away from the camera are usually brighter. False Color helps me a lot because it gives me the security to visualize, in an almost graphic way, the borders and limits between the zones in the opening changes and in the different angles of the planes. I learned to shoot with the Spot Meter and I was never able to separate myself from zone photometry. And since, in general, I don’t use external monitors, in order to have the camera as compact and light as possible, the Alexa Mini works very well because in the viewfinder and on the monitor that comes with it, I have quick access to the image to see from any angle. the camera is, but also easy access to False Color either in Log C and or in LUT (Look Up Table). This allows me to understand exactly where each area of the image is in terms of exposure. Having a light, small and balanced camera helps a lot to operate in a more stable way.

This was important because the film is mostly handheld. We wanted the camera to follow the characters, with complete freedom of movement for the cast. For the director, it was very important that the scripted scenes had the same language as the improvisations, the more documentary scenes, so the work was to level the two worlds. Bring the written scenes into a more documentary world and the improvised scenes into a slightly more cinematic world. And the camera and the light were the way to bring both worlds together so that everything was part of the same film. This meant forgetting about the script a bit when filming a more scripted scene to make it look like the camera was taken by surprise by what the actors did, or who spoke, rather than the other way around.

I was fortunate to have the Argentine Jonas Costa as a focus puller. He is a person of extreme skill and sensitivity, with whom I also worked on the movie “Mosquito”. We have a language connection, we don’t need to talk much. His ability to not anticipate the actors and always follow them is brilliant, even when we already know who is going to speak, as if he were trying to forget the script or rehearsals. It is as if he was there for the first time trying to react to the gestures, expressions, reactions and emotions of the characters, both those who speak and those who are listening.

The meeting between jockeys suffering from health problems caused by fractures, in the same format of alcoholics anonymous, was completely improvised. They are real characters who share their stories. The director tried not to interfere too much. It’s the scene with the most people, a circle where almost everyone talks. With only one camera, it was difficult to move without missing anything. I used a more closed lens, which allowed me to focus on the faces and perceive in blur who was on the other side of the room. When I felt that some testimony would not make the final cut, I took the opportunity to film the reactions of those who were silent, to allow everything to be combined with each other later in the editing. It was complex but having a more closed lens helped to switch from one to the other without having to move around the room too much.

When Jackson and Gabriel talk for the first time at the Diner, the dialogue has two distinct emotional moments that make the camera’s language shift as well. The beginning is a more friendly and somewhat usual conversation. The dynamic completely changes when the character makes the revelation about the paternity issue. From that moment on, there is a setback in the relationship, which isolates the two. The frames begin to show an empty space behind their backs, which seem more isolated.

We did a lot of the songwriting almost unconsciously. I remember witnessing from afar an informal conversation between Clifton and Moises, having fun and letting loose backstage. They already knew each other because they had worked together, when Moises was still a child, and it was an almost paternal relationship. I think this influenced me when filming them together in training with the camera outside the environments, observed from a slightly external point of view, to suggest a complicity between the two.

The choices of art and photography merge and add to each other. There was an exchange of suggestions. I visited the locations before the art director, Gui Marini, who is also Brazilian, arrived. We didn’t have a lot of money to interfere with the sets, so we chose everything together, considering the lighting conditions. The lamp, for example, was not part of the trailer’s original decor. The jockeys’ group therapy scene was practically created to take advantage of that room, which we discovered exploring the place and everyone fell in love even without having any scene from the script to shoot there.

To film with non-actors, it is important to make the environments as comfortable as possible. It’s one thing to be alone with a camera. It’s another thing to have a million spotlights behind me and around people. I try to do everything as naturally as possible. They don’t notice my interventions on the space when I turn off some lights or close some windows, but they would if I had five spotlights scattered around the room.

The color correction was done by Sergio Pasqualino, who I always work with when I can. He’s able to bring texture to the image in a way I’ve never seen anyone else do. Not just adding grain, but degrading the images and then recovering them without using the original information and generating texture. And in this film, as in most, the color work is very much about trying to rescue the original colors that we saw on location, like the Arizona sky and the fluorescent lights mixed with the tungsten tone, all sort of together, avoiding correcting the differences. of tones. Everything was shot at ISO 800 with open gate. I never change the base ISO of the cameras, so I keep noise unity.

I like to see the image on different monitors during color correction. The truth is, no one in the world is going to watch the movie with a calibrated monitor. Every television, phone or projector is going to leave the movie in a way, so for me it needs to work on a bad monitor. I play the frames on the phone and see if the images work even with WhatsApp compression or with the screen brightness reduction. I learned this after having frustrated experiences. I’d rather try to make something that works on any monitor or projection.

I try to do as much in-camera as possible and give the colorist material very close to the final image. I play a lot with the white balance and with the different temperatures, without using any LUT (Look Up Table) other than the 709. The color correction serves much more to bring texture and enhance what was originally in the locations. I’m always very careful not to blow out the highlights. With film, a white highlight can look great, but digital still hasn’t managed to achieve that.

Much of the color correction was about finding the tone of the Arizona sky. The truth is that probably no camera can capture the experience of seeing it live. But maybe that’s not even the idea.

COLOR CORRECTION

By Sergio Pasqualino Jr*

* Sergio Pasqualino has more than 20 years of experience as a colorist in Brazilian cinema, having participated in films such as “Cidade de Deus”, “Palíndromo”, “Árido Movie”, “Cidade dos Homens”, “Chega de Saudade”, “O Banheiro do Papa” and “Soundtrack”, in addition to commercials, music videos and the series “A Pedra do Reino” and “9 mm: São Paulo”. He works at Bleach Color Grading, a digital aesthetic treatment studio based in São Paulo and Barcelona.

COLOR CORRECTION

By Sergio Pasqualino Jr*

“This project aimed to maintain the reality of colors, but Adolpho wanted a differentiated texture, as well as balance between scenes. He is a cinematographer who has an objective and clear work style. For texturing, we used different curves and organic grain. It’s a very delicate process because it must be done scene by scene. I used several layers to sand the highlights and clog the low ones. First, I had to follow what the original file showed me so as not to distort the original color with my manipulation. Then the final adjustment was his.”

MINI BIO

www.adolphoveloso.com

Adolpho Veloso was a six-time finalist for the Brazilian Cinematography Association (ABC) award and won the trophy three times with the feature film “Mosquito” (2020), with the documentary “On Yoga: Arquitetura da Paz” (2017) and with the short “Diana” (2017). He is a finalist for the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Spotlight Award for “Jockey” (2021), released at Sundance. He was also nominated three times for the Camerimage trophy with “On Yoga” and with the music videos “Miracle” (2019), by British singer Labrinth, and “Rastro de Pó”, by the Tagua Tagua project (Felipe Puperi). With “On Yoga”, he also won the IMAGO award, the International Federation of Cinematographers. In advertising, he has photographed commercials for brands such as Nike, Asics, Billboard, Tag Heuer and Mercedes. At festivals, he was awarded at the Mostra de València for “Mosquito” and at the Torino Underground Cinefest for “Rodantes” (2019). He also signed the direction of photography of nine short films, the features “El Perfecto David” (2021), “Tungstênio” (2018) and “Asco” (2015) and the series “Becoming Elizabeth (2022), launched by the north american channel Starz.

JOCKEY

COLOR CORRECTION

By Sergio Pasqualino Jr*

COLOR CORRECTION

By Sergio Pasqualino Jr*

MINI BIO

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