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in the show’s segments in the CSI lab—are often deliberately created. “Normally, I’m fighting to avoid these kinds of things, but the look of the show welcomes such artifacts, and sometimes I go out of my way to achieve them,” Glassing explains. “It’s a signature look on the show, so artifacts don’t really hurt us.”
Sometimes a combination of Schneider and Tiffen filters, in tandem with specific lighting ideas, creates the desired look. “We’ll shine mirrors directly into the lens to create flares, and stacked filters really add to the flare,” he explains. “If I think the highlights are blooming too much—say, a halo is too pronounced in the image—I’ll back off on the Classic and try a Black Pro-Mist on top of maybe a 1⁄4 Classic. It’s obviously on a shot-by-shot basis, depending on how we want a scene to unfold visually.”
Day exteriors on the show present different challenges. “Film has an inherently velvety, buttery flavor to it that we all love,” explains Glassing. “If you shoot film in full frontal lighting and add diffusion, the results look beautiful. In HD, you have to be careful because frontal lighting can become ugly in a heartbeat.”
Glassing also finds it difficult to shoot the Genesis in daylight with wide apertures. “I’m stacking polarizers on top of ND filters just to get in the 4- to 5.6-stop range,” he says. “I don’t like to shoot much deeper than that because we like the backgrounds to be softer than normal. As you can expect, overcast days are perfect for the sensor.”
Recently, the opportunity to change the sensor’s color temperature on set with the flick of a switch became an invaluable asset. “We had a scene with a giant cityscape backing that needed to be lit as if it was sunset with a warm, orange glow behind the actors,” recalls Glassing. “With film, the grips would have needed to gel about 15 lights, and that obviously takes time. With the Genesis, it’s just the flick of a switch to daylight that changed those tungsten lamps amber.”
Glassing went further for the scene, using blue light on the actors to counteract the daylight setting and bring their flesh tones back. “To do this on film would have required switching out to daylight stock,” he continues. “Sure, it’s doable, but being able to flick a switch and save the time after a long day was priceless. The clock was ticking, and the advantages of the Genesis became even more pronounced.”
Glassing also praised the virtues of the 720p monitors on set displaying beautiful images from the camera’s HD-SDI outputs. “No more [low-quality] video taps, so everyone can see the beauty of the Genesis in my hands, which thankfully makes me look even better at my job.”
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