Slumdog Millionaire Film Stocks?

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Just saw this movie last night--loved it. I'm a big fan of Danny Boyle, even though his films usually have ludicrous plots (especially the completely absurd, but incredibly beautiful, "Sunshine"), partly because he casts such terrific actors...and partly because of the look he achieves.

If you've seen the movie you may have noticed how much of it was shot in very low, ambient light on high-ISO film stocks. Or appeared to have been anyway. Anybody know what his approach was, technically speaking? I just loved those grainy, oversaturated shots.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Thank you! Nice to know somebody can do such organic-looking work with digital technology. It is highly effective.

The scenes in the Mumbai slums (I assume a lot of this was on-location and not on sets) looks very much like Jonas Bendiksen's still photos of the same milieu. My heart was in my throat all the way through that opening scene of the children being chased by police...just beautiful...and upsetting of course.

 

[kipkeston]

I love his style. I just saw this movie the other day. Made me want to see trainspotting again.

 

[urban_alchemist]

It was nerve-tinglingly beautiful, wasn't it?

It's amazing - the less he has to work with, the better his films end up being.

The Taj scenes were shot on consumer-level canon dSLRs for god's sake!

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

The Taj scenes were shot on consumer-level canon dSLRs for god's sake!

You're kidding, really?

 

[VoodooXT]

From IMDB

Cameras:
Arricam ST/LT, Zeiss and Angenieux Lenses
Arriflex 235, Zeiss and Angenieux Lenses
Arriflex 35 BL4, Zeiss and Angenieux Lenses
Canon EOS-1D Mark III
Silicon Imaging SI-2K MINI, Zeiss, Angenieux, Century, Canon, Cooke and Linos Lenses

Filmstock:
35 mm (Fuji Super F-64D 8522, Eterna Vivid 160T 8543, Eterna 250D 8563, Eterna 500T 8573, Reala 500D 8592)

Most likely were shot a stop slower than they're actually rated, as most cinematographers are wont to do.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Still photographers would get much better results if they cut the ISO ratings of their color neg films in half.

 

[mhv]

One thing we tend to forget about cinema, is that a "night" scene or even a low-light scene can actually be shot with a lot of light. It's all in the skill of the cinematographer to manipulate light position, diffusion, shadows, etc to create the illusion of darkness.

Even the most ordinary "daylight" scene actually needs extra light on top of the sun to give a convincing rendition.