April 2, 2005
“Hustle & Flow” focuses on a small-time hustler and pimp in Memphis who is in the midst of a mid-life crisis. DJay is striving to become somebody before his time runs out. He's working all the angles, trying to record his first rap record while fending off the people who are trying to keep him down. A lyric in a song composed for the film expresses the spirit of the story: "Everybody got to have a dream."
The film was written and directed by Craig Brewer and produced in Memphis by John Singleton's Homegrown Pictures. “Hustle & Flow” premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award and Best Cinematography honors. The cast includes Terrence Howard as DJay, Taryn Manning as Nola (one of the "mommas" DJay pimps for), and Ludacris as Skinny Black, a successful rapper. Two original rap songs composed by Al Capone and one each by Three 6 Mafia and Scott Bomar are integral to the story.
"Stephanie Allain, one of the producers, asked me to read the script after we finished working on ‘Biker Boyz,’" says cinematographer Amy Vincent, ASC. "She produced ‘Biker Boyz’ with John Singleton, and I shot second unit. Stephanie and I were students together at UC Santa Cruz. She was a dancer and I was a lighting designer in the Theater Arts Department. She also gave me a tape of a black-and-white Mini DV feature (‘The Poor and Hungry’) that had been made by Craig. I found them both compelling."
Vincent describes her first meeting with Brewer as the beginning of an 18- to 24-month journey searching for a visual style for “Hustle & Flow,” while he was seeking funding for production. At one point, the movie was slated to be produced in 35mm format with a substantial budget. After several other financial backers faltered, Singleton invested $2.5 million in the production of “Hustle & Flow.”
"When Craig and I began our research, John [Singleton] acquired 35mm prints of ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Midnight Cowboy,’" Vincent says. "Stephanie, John, Craig and I watched those films together. Craig picked ‘Taxi Driver’ because there's an essence of Travis Bickle in DJay's personality. He picked ‘Midnight Cowboy’ because of the honesty of Adam Holender's cinematography in his use of available light and darkness. There is also a sense of desperation in the characters that is similar to ‘Hustle & Flow.’
"Craig played the beats in the music while he was explaining how he envisioned each scene in the script. We also looked at other movies and still photography books."
The movie is set in present times and features a Dirty South rap theme. Brewer gave the script to the three songwriters and worked with them to compose lyrics.
"It was an amazing collaboration," says Vincent. "The music and Memphis both influenced the visual style. There was dense green foliage, rusted old signs and red brick walls everywhere. It's all part of the color palette. I felt part of my job was to take advantage of reality rather than try to manipulate it."
Vincent says the decision to produce “Hustle & Flow” in Super 16 format was only partially motivated by budget. She wanted to give Brewer the freedom to work with small, mobile cameras. Vincent also felt the format would deliver the right aesthetic for the film.
Her camera package included two ARRI 16SR3 cameras with Zeiss zoom lenses and an Aaton A-Minima. Vincent limited her film palette to two Kodak Vision2 emulsions. She used 7218, a 500-speed film, for interiors and night scenes, and 7212, a 100-speed stock, for daylight exteriors. Vincent opted to use no diffusion or filters.
The majority of “Hustle & Flow” was filmed at practical locations--the main exception was the music studio where most ensemble cast shots were staged. That set was built on a very small soundstage in Memphis.
"On the first scout we did, we noticed a deep orange vinyl couch in someone's backyard. Keith Burns, the production designer, arranged to use it as a prop in the music studio. Paul Simmons, the costume designer, also found a lot of inspiration on the streets. We worked together on choosing colors, especially Taryn Manning and Terrence's wardrobes. He bought many costumes in Memphis stores."
One location is a strip joint called King of Clubs, where, Vincent notes, there wasn't a single white light. It was a dark atmosphere with saturated red and blue colors. Vincent filmed night exteriors in yellow sodium vapor light rather than traditional blue moonlight.
"You could photograph Memphis in a much more somber way, but we chose to go for a very contrasty look and saturated colors," she says. "All the elements were unbelievably beautiful, including locations, set dressings, wardrobe, various skin tones, and how sweat glistened on the faces of the characters in close-ups."
There is a scene in which DJay tries to connect with Skinny Black at a club. It was very dark at the location, so Vincent overexposed the 7218 more than a full stop. She notes that the film recorded nuances in contrast and colors with no apparent grain.
"We filmed another scene in a beautiful 1974 Chevy Caprice where DJay and Nola are sitting and talking," Vincent says. "She's complaining about how hot it is and asking why can't she work in the hotels where they have air conditioning. There is overlapping dialogue, because he's talking over her and not listening to what she's saying. We shot opposing angles from the back seat to give Craig options during editing."
"Craig was usually right by the camera while we were shooting, so we could make those types of spontaneous decisions," she says. "There is an honesty to Craig, which I loved as a cinematographer. It inspires you to take your work to another level."
"I also felt connected to Terrence Howard. When Craig was rehearsing with the actors in the morning, Terrence would tell me what the scene was about for him."
Vincent says the camera was usually tracking on a dolly, but there are many handheld shots that will be transparent to the audience. "We didn't necessarily make the obvious choices for shooting handheld," she explains. "There is a very sedate scene with two people talking in a confined space, but their world is about to be disrupted by something one of them is going to say. We decided a handheld camera felt right for that scene. Sometimes I used a slightly longer lens than normal in a handheld situation to give a shot a little more energy."
The negative was shipped to FotoKem in Burbank, where front-end processing was done. Vincent also timed the film in a digital intermediate suite at the lab.
"DI is a great tool if you need to flag something and make a portion of a frame darker or lighter for continuity, but I didn't do a lot of image manipulation," she says. "Ninety percent of the film is exactly the way it was photographed. The music, script and performances are so honest, I didn't want to do anything out of context."
FotoKem recorded the timed digital files onto 35mm color intermediate film, used as a master for generating release prints and, eventually, DVD and other home video formats. Vincent concludes that advances in film and DI technologies have made the Super 16 format a viable option for producing appropriate narrative films.
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