Cold War is a 1950s-era love story between a musician and a singer whose fraught, intermittent affair is haunted by Europe’s tragic past. Based loosely on the story of director Paweł Pawlikowski’s parents, the film has been nominated for three Oscars including Best Foreign Language Film, Best Directing, and Best Cinematography for director of photography Łukasz Żal, PSC. Żal has also received nods from the ASC and BAFTA and took the Silver Frog at the Camerimage Festival in his native Poland.

Żal and Pawlikowski made a strong impression in 2013 with Ida, which shares some visual aspects with Cold War – it’s presented in black and white, in a less horizontal, 1.37:1 frame. But Żal says that Cold War was a much more involved and expensive production. Prep included, he worked on the film for more than a year, and the visual style, filming locations and period required extensive visual effects that are completely unnoticed in the final product.

“The idea for the film was to build everything in layers behind, with quite deep depth of field, instead of using width to create interesting compositions,” says Żal. “Pawel had been shooting documentaries in that aspect ratio, and we felt that it’s powerful and less obvious. You can play with it. Sometimes we placed people on the bottom of the frame, with more space above their heads. You can create an image that is more like a poster, and it strengthens the link to older films of that era, too.”

With more effects work, a bigger budget, and the deep focus approach, the filmmakers chose to work with ARRI ALEXA XT. Unlike Ida, Cold War was shot using the trusted Codex recording system in the ARRI ALEXA XT and XR drives capturing images in the 3.4K ARRIRAW format, resulting in extra image data that helped when a shot needed a slight reframing in post. The lenses were mainly ARRI/Zeiss Ultra Primes, as well as Cooke S4s and Angenieux zooms. The Ultra Primes were chosen for the neutrality and clarity – part of the discipline the filmmakers imposed as part of their overall approach.

Director Pawel Pawlikowski (left) and cinematographer Lukasz Zal, PSC

For this film, I chose the lenses because they don’t have a specific look,” Żal says. “They’re perfect, and they work well wide open. They show you the work as it is, with no distractions. That meant we had to concentrate on what was in front of the camera, paying attention to every detail in creating a space where everything is in focus.”

Early in the process, Żal shot side-by-side tests with ALEXA/ARRIRAW and 35 mm film. They based two LUTs – one for night and one for day – on the graded 35 mm film images.

“In post, we spent a lot of time observing grain from Kodak’s 500T stock, how 35 mm film works in the blacks and whites and contrast, and playing with it in our images,” he says. “It’s intriguing, adding final touches in order to find the silver image that was our aim. When you work really hard at it, and put all those elements together, it starts to look quite interesting. You can feel the three dimensions of the space. Eventually, we fell in love with those images.”

Finding the proper contrast was key to the entire visual strategy – true of any black and white film, but in this case, a metaphor for the two extremely different characters. Żal boosted contrast subtly as narrative tension was raised.

“They were struggling most in the Paris scenes, so we were working to achieve the strongest contrast, and a feeling of glamour,” he says. “I was looking for part of the image to be completely without detail, like you see with film. In grading, we used masks as a painter might, trying to make things very unequal. In other cases, we created contrast between scenes rather than within – very bright scenes, even with some burnt areas, and then very dark scenes.”

Having the luxury of high-resolution monitors on the set allowed for the necessary precision. “If you can’t see all the details in the blacks, for example, you can’t place things so well in the frame,” he says. “In that regard, shooting ARRIRAW on Codex was an amazing advantage. That’s in addition to the low light capabilities. We were sometimes shooting on the very edge of invisibility.”

Extensive green screen shots and compositing helped sell scenes shot in Poland as Paris and Berlin locales. In some locations, LED blue boxes outside windows were replaced and tiny bits of movement were added in the deep background.

“This may have been the most technically demanding part of making the movie,” says Żal. “When you have a lot of short shots and cuts, and the background elements are not in sharp focus, it’s easier for those scenes to work. The production designers and post supervisors helped design the new reality behind the windows. Shooting the elements with the right focal length, focus, brightness and exposure, and blending it without an artificial feeling is very painstaking, especially for a shot that lasts 20 seconds. There’s a lot of blood and sweat behind those images!”

Amazon Studios acquired the film in August 2017. Cold War premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where Pawlikowski earned best director honours. Looking back on the experience after six months of prep and a seven-month shoot, Żal says every movie is like a chapter in his life.

“Collaborating with Paweł on Cold War was an incredible experience and honour,” says Żal. “I’m greatly humbled by the recognition from the Academy and the ASC, and I’m grateful to Amazon Studios for supporting this film. I’m looking forward to the next journey.”

A day exterior with Kulig is captured with a handheld ARRI ALEXA XT on Codex XR drives. Like Ida, Cold War was shot in colour and desaturated to black and white in post. Also as with Ida, the lighting, production design, costumes and background were designed for monochrome. Video village monitored the shoot in black and white. “I couldn’t think of a colour that would make sense,” Pawlikowski says of the feature’s black and white imperative. “There was no colour in Poland in the 1940s and Fifties. It was all grey, brown and greenish. We played with the notion of shooting the picture [in a way that would approximate] the East German/Soviet stock Orwo, with its washed-out greens and reds, but I felt it would seem too mannered.”

Camera Negative: Codex ARRIRAW 3.4 OpenGate
Camera Type: ARRI ALEXA XT with Codex XR Capture Drives
Lenses: ARRI/Zeiss Ultra Primes, Cooke S4s and Angenieux zooms
Camera Rental: Out of Frame – Warsaw
Digital Intermediate Services by: DI Factory