A MASTERCLASS
IN THE DARK ARTS
OF MOVIEMAKING

"...THE LANGUAGE OF CINEMA, FOR ME, IS VISUAL"

Like all great cinematographers, Edward Lachman ASC, uses a mastery of the technical tools in service of an artist’s creative mindset. His long, globe-spanning filmmaking experience reaches well back into the 1970s, and thoughtful study of painting and photography bears strongly on his work. In El Conde, his 2023 feature film with Chilean director Pablo Larrain, all those strands come together in a unique and powerful cinematic experience. The film brought Lachman his third Academy Award nomination, fourth ASC Award nomination, and the Silver Frog at Camerimage in Poland, where he will receive Lifetime Achievement honors in November.

El Conde is sui generis - in a class of its own. Shot in rich black and white tones, it’s a political satire that portrays dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was often clad in a cape in real life, as a literal vampire - sucking the life out of his victims, and metaphorically, his country. Black and white serves to distance the audience from the gorier goings-on while lending timelessness, abstraction and objectivity.

DP Edward Lachman on set. (Pablo Larrain/Netflix)

"I THOUGHT ABOUT IT AS SIMILAR TO WHAT KUBRICK DID WITH DR STRANGELOVE"

“If we look at him from a distance, we can really see how ludicrous and dangerous he was,” says Lachman. “I thought about it as similar to what Kubrick did with Dr. Strangelove. We were also inspired by the physicality of light and texture in films like Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932) and Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922).”

Introducing the film at Camerimage last autumn, Lachman urged the audience to think of El Conde as a horror film – to not take things too seriously or literally – but at the same time the film’s messages ring out with resonance in today’s political climate. Even when the story is leavened with irony and absurdity, the painful injustices endured by the Chilean people under Pinochet in the 1970s and ‘80s are never far beneath the surface.

From the technical aspect, three main factors contribute to the film’s enveloping visuals. Shooting in color and removing the chroma in post was deemed unsatisfactory. In the space of a couple months, ARRI adapted monochromatic sensors from larger cameras to work with two ALEXA Mini LFs, which incorporate CODEX Capture Drives that record images in ARRIRAW format.

The lack of color meant a gain of about three-quarters of a stop in exposure sensitivity, allowing Lachman to work in lower light situations and to capture luscious textures. With no Bayer pattern, de-mosaic step, or color or infrared filters, increased luminance resulted in greater detail and dramatic contrast.

Images feel more “honest”, truer to analog film with higher resolution, fewer artifacts and no moiré. Another benefit: Lachman could use older black and white filters from his own collection.

Also critical were Baltar lens elements from the 1930s and ‘40s, adapted for the LF by Alex Nelson at Zero Optik. Reportedly, these very elements were used on black and white cinematic landmarks like Touch of Evil, The Magnificent Ambersons, and parts of Citizen Kane. This glass was originally hand-polished, not in a scientific way, and the lead content, absent in modern lenses, means that light is refracted in a different, inimitable way. Lachman adds that something ineffable can happen to glass with age. On the big screen, the combined effect is magical.

The third major element was Lachman’s EL Zone System, an Emmy-winning, standardized method for precisely tracking and controlling exposure that improves on the commonly used linear, IRE-based systems. SmallHD was instrumental in making the system work across all camera platforms.

“When people talk to me about El Conde, they ask how I got so much detail in the mid-range,” Lachman says. “EL Zone gave me a visual representation in creating the image. I could control exactly where the exposure wanted to be by placing detail in the highlights and shadow. Especially in the many exteriors, I was able to capture these incredible skies and horizons by playing with EL Zone and my filters. I knew I had information from the highlights to the shadows, with an extended range in the mid tones. By moving the stop on the lens, I could decide how much detail to preserve.”

"THE ABILITY TO USE HDE IS A GREAT ADVANTAGE IN SAVING STORAGE SPACE, WHICH PRODUCTION VALUES HIGHLY"

The technical means to an artistic end underlies Lachman’s work throughout his long and storied career.

“Hopefully, you’re getting something of my personal experience from the way I constitute the images,” he says. “Images gain strength from finding the right metaphor for telling the story. Does the content dictate the form or vice versa? For me, there’s overlap, but the first step is the narrative. What makes film images different from a painting, a photograph, a play or even a piece of music, is that they exist in time and space, from the view of your eye through a lens. Images are the subtext for the psychological world you’re creating for the characters. That’s why the language of cinema, for me, is visual. That’s what I think the medium is really about.”

Lachman is currently in post on another feature with Pablo Larrain, titled Maria, which is set in the 1970s during the final days of opera diva Maria Callas.

DIT Yiyo Stambuk and DP Edward Lachman on set with cast and crew.

Digital imaging technician Yiyo Stambuk says that the monochromatic ALEXA allowed the camera team to move more quickly. And more time equals expanded creativity. “Since our work was mostly concerned with framing and the control and use of luminance, and not with hue or saturation, we felt we could accomplish scenes faster, with more focus on the creation of the shots,” says Stambuk. “That gave us more opportunities to capture the director’s vision, and to satisfy Edward’s high photography demands.”

Stambuk’s gear included an independently powered, car-mounted mobile station. Monitors included a 24” Flanders 241 for the camera image and a 7” SmallHD for the EL Zone image. He made daily use of color correction and CDL control software to review and adjust the previous day’s work based on Lachman’s detailed input. Corrections in the form of LUTs then went to the processing station where dailies and editorial copies were made.

“Ed asked me to always be with him on set with the monitors and measurement tools,” says Stambuk. “We relentlessly controlled each shot and exhaustively measured each of the frames. Therefore, my station had to be mobile, completely wireless, and self-powered to reach any place on the set quickly.”

"THE STABILITY OF THE CODEX SYSTEM IS SUPERIOR"

Stambuk says that CODEX technology streamlined the workflow at every turn, beginning with the industry standard ARRIRAW files, which bring all the subtlety and texture of Lachman’s imagery into the post workflow.

“The CODEX system is very fast and efficient, as it allows dedicated software to work simultaneously while the cards are downloaded, with no need to wait for the process to finish.”

Jaime Vadell (El Conde) on set.

Stambuk says. “Thanks to this, my data wrangler could operate quickly and process the material in a timely manner, avoiding delays in the generation of dailies and editorial. The stability of the CODEX system is superior. I have never had problems with its readers, and it is completely compatible with all the hardware and software that I use on set. I appreciate the constant updates for new equipment – which always work. Finally, the ability to use HDE is a great advantage in saving storage space, which production values highly.”

HDE is CODEX’s High Density Encoding algorithm, which recently earned a Scientific and Technical Oscar from AMPAS. HDE losslessly slims down image files, saving time, processing and storage space without any loss of image quality. In the post production phase at Harbor Picture Company, Lachman worked closely with Baselight colorist Joe Gawler, a longtime ally.

"DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY RELY MORE AND MORE ON OUR WORK AND ON THE MANAGEMENT OF THE TOOLS"

Stambuk says that the DIT role is always evolving. “The more directors of photography understand the capabilities, the more they request,” he says. “At first, we worked under the idea of processing images after their creation and capture. Then, little by little, we have become more a part of their creation on the set. Directors of photography rely more and more on our work and on the management of the tools, which we eventually use to implement their decisions both on set and in image pre-production. It was gratifying to be able to contribute creatively and technically to this beautiful filming process, and to work with a giant like Edward Lachman.”

After El Conde, a film with great personal and professional importance to him, Stambuk went on to work on another picture with political themes, Sebastián Lelio’s La Ola.

All images are courtesy of Netflix. All rights reserved.