format
HDCAM Sony F-900 25psf 1/50 for 35mm positive copy
Canon EJ series lenses
Shot with arrilaser on Kodak premier positive

press:
HD camera configurations to increase range

press:
HD productions

press:
power of one

“El regalo...” was composed of four different stories, with a central narrative from which the other three sprang. These three stories were not interconnected except for the fact that they had the same starting point, the video-diary of a young woman who has decided to commit suicide and donate her organs. We wanted this main story to have the look of a home video, and after several tests (see the articles ) we decided to use analogue Betacam SP, and we worked on the framing and camera positions to make them as if they were shot by an amateur. In colour grading we adjusted the blacks and mixed the fields. Contrasting with these textures are the three other stories shot in HD. The hardest thing was that each one of these three stories required a distinct treatment without breaking the photographic coherence of the whole. I visually established the action in the following way:

a) The story of the unemployed construction worker who gets a new heart: unsaturated colours, lit with dominances; yellow-orangey in the inside of the house and with green dominances typical of fluorescent light in the pizza factory. Quite symmetrical framing with very little depth; with the camera always slightly above the actors’ eyes and using relatively long focal lengths. The idea behind this was to convey the feeling of a certain monotony to their lives, certain ugliness.

b ) The story of the blind girl who recovers her sight. Here I played with the contrast between the interior of the house, with plenty of shadow and darkness, as the reminder of her blindness, and the exterior which is bright and luminous and full of colours. The camera here remains at the actors eye level, with clear and balanced framing. The lighting was in general soft and with little contrast.

c ) The thug’s story. I highlighted perspective through the framing, giving greater importance to the background, lowering the camera slightly and tilting up. The lighting has more contrast, darkness is no longer formed by shadows as in the second story, but closer to pure black. The lenses used included the range of wide angles. I wanted the whole to have a more aggressive feel about it.

The photographic coherence of the film, without taking into account the special characteristics of each story came from using recurrent colour tones in the three stories. This process was mostly done in the colour grading by Sergi at Image Film Barcelona.