By Elina Shatkin, June 10, 2006
Thanks to actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus and CBS' The New Adventures of Old Christine, the dreaded "Seinfeld curse" may finally be broken. Following the massive success of that show, the Seinfeld supporting actors have attempted to launch themselves as title-role characters in their own sitcoms, only to watch their shows go down in flames.
Witness Jason Alexander's Bob Patterson, Michael Richards' The Michael Richards Show and Louis-Dreyfus' first stab at solo sitcom glory, Watching Ellie. This time around, Louis-Dreyfus has found a formula that works.
In Old Christine, Louis-Dreyfus plays the title character, a recently divorced 35-year-old woman adjusting to life on her own. Created and executive produced by Kari Lizer, formerly of Will & Grace, the show follows Christine as she manages the gym she owns while raising her 9-year-old son and dealing with her ex-husband, who has a much younger girlfriend, also named Christine.
Behind the lens, Director of Photography Gregg Heschong is responsible for bringing the show to the small screen. A TV veteran, Heschong spent five and a half years as director of photography on the sitcom Becker, in addition to prior stints on the shows Family Matters, News Radio and The George Carlin Show.
For The New Adventures of Old Christine, which is produced by Warner Bros., the HD format was a given, according to Heschong. "The HD format had been decided, and it was a matter of how we wanted the show to look," he says. "You can generate a really great look with HD. One of the things that I have been working toward is pulling away from that electronic edge in how I treat the camera set-ups, the lighting, what sort of filtration I use and the dB level that we work at."
Heschong collaborated with Production Designer Cabot McMullen to make some substantial changes to the set for the pilot, which he did not shoot. Rather than having two separate sets, the main set was reconfigured so cameras could move from the interior of Christine's house to the exterior in one fluid shot.
"I try to use [lighting] instruments that allow me to go from bright sunlight to night and anything in between," says Heschong, who relies on Gaffer Joey Alvarado and Key Grip Chet Sawiki to help create the show's look. The toolkit that allows such flexibility includes a number of different instruments. For a daytime key light, he might use two 10Ks diffused with Lee 250 gel. He also relies on overhead space lights that are part of the new set design and 4K soft lights that are used solely to light the windows.
Heschong frequently uses 100-watt Leico units to light various parts of the set. "The ones I have been most attached to are the 26-degree, but I also sometimes use the 19- and 36-degree. I use them at times to address different parts of a set
. I might have a very high set, such as a sports arena, where I'll need to key somebody from across the stage. If I can't get there with a more traditional source, we will try to find a place where we can hide a Leico and key [the actor] with that unit."
He also uses the "HeschCone," a tool he developed with David French, the key grip on the WB series Twins. HeschCone boxes hold various gels and can be attached to existing studio lights to create an even spread for key sources. "They also allow us to polarize the light, which is something I've found to be tremendously effective on multi-camera sets. We're able to control the kind of reflection that's coming off all types of surfaces," says Heschong.
He frequently uses polarizing gels in front of key sources, an old animation trick going back to his days shooting with Chuck Jones and Ralph Bakshi. "One of the banes of multi-camera is that all the light comes from above," says Heschong. "If you imagine any flat surface-a bed, a desk, a table-they're all reflecting light. It's not only the color, but you can get kickback from these flat surfaces.
Polarizing the light corrects a lot of that reflection. It's not unlike wearing a pair of polarized sunglasses to reduce glare." Heschong also shoots with a 1/2 black Pro-Mist filter on all the cameras.
To create depth in the lighting, Heschong mixes the color temperature between the key and fill lights. He generally cools the fill sources with 1/8, 1/4 or sometimes 1/2 CTB gel. He'll often warm the key sources with a light CTO. He may also bring down the levels on the dimmer, which results in a warmer color temperature.
Shooting with four Sony F950 CineAlta camcorders, Heschong works with Video Controller Jeff Clark and Digital Imaging Technician Ryne Niner. "One of the things that I experimented with on Christine is working at a lower decibel level [signal-to-noise ratio]," says Heschong, who shoots at -3 dB to keep the image as quiet as possible. He's also experimented with the footcandle level and determined the show looks best when he's keying at 24 footcandles, which is roughly equivalent to a 2.3 f-stop. The f-stop for each camera is set by Clark, who works in a room just off the main set, via a controller.
"I strive to be as wide open as possible, maintaining a decent depth of field for the ACs but not working at such a high level that I can see from here to Pacoima," says Heschong. The cameras are generally mounted with two 11x1 zooms and two wider zooms, though there have been many times when a Steadicam has been used.
"Every scene has its own special requirements," says Heschong. "I find the best thing to do is to trust your instincts. Then it's a matter of figuring out how to realize the instinct you have for a scene."
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