Michael Ballhaus on the set of The Departed

Michael Ballhaus, ASC is a prolific director of photography, having worked with top directors on projects such as Gangs of New York, The Age of Innocence and Goodfellas. He has not only given those movies unique and memorable looks, but has also created sequences that are already considered obligatory study material for film students. His latest project, the Martin Scorsese film The Departed, is scheduled to be released in October of 2006 in the U.S.

Marc Shipman-Mueller met with Ballhaus in his Berlin apartment and discussed The Departed, posting in 4K, how he started his career in the States and the difference between European and American shooting styles.

Let's start with some basic information about your new film The Departed. When was it shot and what is it about?
In February of 2006 I went to New York to start pre-production. Principal photography was delayed a bit since Martin Scorsese was very occupied by The Aviator and the Academy Awards, so that we started shooting in April of 2005. It took until September, and it was a long and very intense time. The Departed was a large, wonderful project, though. It is based on a Chinese film called Mou gaan dou (Infernal Affairs). There is a policeman who is asked by the police to go undercover in the Mafia, and he agrees. His uncle once had connections to the Mafia, and he was liked, and so this gives our hero some credibility.

And you had a large number of big name actors on this film.
Yes, there was Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays the undercover cop. Matt Damon plays an undercover crook for the police and Jack Nicholson plays a Mafia boss. The film also included Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin and others, so this was a high-carat cast.

What cameras did you use?
Oh, of course ARRI cameras. We used two ARRICAMs and one 435.

An ARRICAM Studio and a Lite?
No, we had two Studios. Often we would shoot with two cameras simultaneously, so we needed two A cameras, and the Studio is the quietest camera around. This was a feature of the ARRICAM that was adored by our soundman. [ARRI] CSC does a nice job of maintaining these cameras, and our soundman kept asking if the camera was running, even when the microphone was very close to the camera. I like the ARRICAM because it is so practical in use on the set. The fact that the magazine can be top or rear loaded is great, and my Steadicam Operator, Andrew Roland, who was also the B camera operator, said the Studio is great for Steadicam. It is light and well-balanced. Most importantly, though, we never had any problems with the cameras. We shot a lot of film, and there never was a concern about the hardware.

What lenses did you use?
I like to work a lot with the Variable Primes, especially when we shoot in a studio, since they give me the option to slightly alter the focal length without any compromises in image quality.

So you use them like a prime lens, but one that can be slightly varied in focal length.
Yes, and they match wonderfully to the other Zeiss lenses. When we wanted to go wider than 16 mm or longer than 105, we would use the Ultra Primes, which we of course also used on Steadicam and for hand held work. And then we were one of the first productions that used the Master Primes. I must say they are excellent lenses. I must also add that I usually use filters, so the full resolution of the Master Primes is not utilized, but when I want something very sharp and crisp, I remove the filter.

What did you use the Master Primes for?
Mostly for night exteriors, and for some extremely dark scenes where we could not have gotten anything with T2 lenses. The film called for many low light set-ups, including location street scenes at night with very little light to work with. I chose the Master Primes in order to work with the available light and to preserve the natural look of the scenes. On several occasions the Master Primes saved last minute set up changes, late in the day, when the daylight was disappearing. These scenes would not have been possible to shoot without these lenses. I am truly impressed with the optical performance of the Master Primes.

In one case in particular, Martin had made a change in location, but we had no lighting on the new location. It was very dark, and my light meter spoke to me only very quietly. The location was a spot where oil trucks come to be filled with oil. There were only some sporadic lights here and there, and I thought "Oh boy, lets see if I can do this..." We shot without setting any lights, only with available light, and it came out very nicely, you can see every detail. We shot with the Master Primes at T1.3, without pushing the film stock. Another good example is a wide shot looking down at Boston, where there was just a shimmer of light left in the sky, very little. You could see the lights of the city, and what the Master Primes recorded is amazing. You can see every little detail, it is surprising how much the Master Primes can record. Anything you can see with your eye, you can capture on film now.

Then we had a big sequence of driving shots, the gangsters and the police driving through Boston streets at night, and later also on the New York highway, where there were only the street lamps. It was really pretty dark, and with a T2 we would not have been able to do this. Surprisingly, when you shoot a car coming at you, you expect some flares of the car headlights. With the Master Primes those reflections were pretty much absent, the images looked really nice, and we were very happy that we had the Master Primes. We would not have been able to light two miles of streets. Well, I guess one could, but it would have been very expensive and time consuming. In addition, it also looks more real. As you drive through the night, there are some patches that are completely dark, and I like that, when it gets dark and light and dark again, that creates a certain tension. And it looked great - I really liked the look of the Master Primes. Using the Master Primes was a great win for this production.

There are always discussions about the inherent look of lenses.
How would you characterize the Master Primes?
There are colleagues of mine that prefer Cooke lenses because they think they are softer. I must say that if I want something soft I can easily do it with filters. I don't need the lens to be soft. I want a lens that can do it all. If I want an unfiltered, sharp and precise look, than Zeiss lenses are the best. And the Master Primes have even more resolution than other lenses, they are even sharper and have more resolution. If I want a softer look, I use a filter. There are a number of excellent filters available that I like to use, for instance the Classic filters from Schneider are outstanding. That is why I prefer lenses that give me all the options.

The whole film was shot in Boston?
No, in Boston and New York. The film's story plays in Boston, but we shot the interiors in New York, since that is the home of many of the principals. Also for cost reasons we shot in New York, since that way we did not have such a big hotel bill. We shot 1/3 of the film in Boston and 2/3rds in New York.

Was there any shot you was particularly challenging?
Well, there were many shots that were challenging. There was one big setup in particular that was located in an old grain silo, almost a ruin. This silo was in New York and it had been used in the past to load grain onto trains. In the story the Mafia was selling computer chips to the Chinese, and the exchange of chips for money occurred in this grain silo. Since this old building was essentially a ruin, there was almost no electrical light at all, there was just one spot with light in it. The only light that was there were the street lamps that shone in from the outside. This was quiet a challenge since it was very dark. But it was also fun creating a dark and mysterious mood. The Mafia troops are coming into the building from one side, and the Chinese from the other, they face each other, and in the middle there is this one spot with a bit of light where they hand over the goods. It was a challenge to keep the proper balance between the darkness and the little bit of light, to make sure that the audience sees just enough. I enjoyed that.

Michael Ballhaus (left) and Martin Scorsese set up a shot.

There was also a show down at the end of the film, when the Mafia bosses are being captured by the police. This occurs in a shipyard, in a huge hall the size of multiple soccer fields where ships used to be built. There we had essentially the same situation. The main source of light was the headlights from the cars that drove into this hall, and some lights that shone into the building from the outside. Plus, there were police cars and flashlights. This was a challenging and colossal setup, since we had to pump in a lot of light from the outside to get a basic level. These were big action scenes with gunfire exchanges and I really enjoyed working on them.

Was there any sequence in particular that you enjoyed the most on this film?
Let me think - the biggest challenge was those two big scenes, and I think they turned out well. It made me happy that they turned out so well, especially since I was walking a thin line there between what you can still see and what you cannot see anymore. That worked out well. There is always a bit of suspense when shooting something that dark, and I am always happy to find that something actually made it onto the negative.

What film stock did you use?
We shot on Kodak. Most of the dark scenes and the interiors were shot on the 5218 material. For studio setups I also used the 200 ASA tungsten material.

Michael Ballhaus (left), Leonardo DiCaprio (middle) and Martin Scorsese discussing a scene on The Departed

Could you describe what kind of a look you were after for this film?
Well, usually Martin and I have a meeting about the look of the film up front. We did not want this movie to be too bright, we wanted a look that had some mystery, some dark zones, since this story is a psychological thriller. And for that we needed darkness. The police station, where a lot of the action in the beginning of the movie happens, has a lot of fluorescents, which made the set very bright. I had them take out the fluorescents, and replaced them with PAR cans, which gave a more directional light. That created a pattern of light shafts and dark areas, and that worked well for those offices. Where there were windows, we got light from the outside, of course, but we also had these dark patches in the frame to create tension and suspense.

Was postproduction done analog or as a DI?
Once the editing is done we are going the DI route. I have not done a big movie in DI yet, since it has not been necessary yet. With Gangs of New York we thought about it, but there we thought it better to go with the original negative, to go analog. The disadvantage of the DI route is that you record at 2K, and if you look at the original negative in contrast, you have a better image. I think a print from a negative still looks better than a 2K recording.

That is why many are now wanting to go to 4K.
Of course, but that is still very expensive. Not every studio wants to spend that money. Maybe we go to 4K, that would be great, I am not sure, we will have to see. I saw some films that have been done in 4K, that was impressive, but still, I prefer the original negative. In this case here, with The Departed, the DI was necessary, even though we do not have a lot of CGI in the film, because there are a variety of scenes that we wanted to correct and improve after the fact. The look of Gangs of New York or The Age of Innocence, that could not have been done in 2K, but with this film, a thriller playing in today's time, it is no problem. There we can do without some of the subtle gradations.

Michael Ballhaus checks on a camera angle during The Departed

You went 1982 to the USA and started shooting there.
Could you tell us why you went there?
Well, first it is a misunderstanding when you read that I "went" to America. It was slightly different. My first film in America was a German production. The director was Peter Lilienthal, and the film was called Dear Mr. Wonderful. Joe Pesci was the lead actor. We worked on this film with an American team from New York, and the production designer had an offer for another movie, and they had no DP  yet. The production designer told the director of that other movie that he was shooting with me, and asked him if he wanted to come and see some dailies. They did, and that is how my first American movie came about. That was John Sayles, the film was Baby It's You. So during the shooting of this German movie, I got the offer to shoot this American movie. I finished Dear Mr. Wonderful and then shot Baby It's You in America. Then we went back home to Berlin, and we thought "Well, that was nice, a good experience." But six weeks later the next offer came from the States, and so it developed slowly.Only when I shot After Hours with Scorsese did we realize that this would continue, since shooting with Scorsese was of course something special. So then we took an apartment in New York, and since then it has not stopped. Since then I have been shooting non-stop, sometimes with not enough of a break between shoots. There was one year when I shot three films in a row, there was no break between them, but the projects where so great that I could never say no. One year it started with Scorsese, then Mike Nichols and then Francis Ford Coppola, and one cannot say no to either one of them, so I had to say to myself: "Ok, you just have to work a year without any breaks." In those 20 years I have shot 38 films in America, and that is a lot.

What would you consider to be different about the US and the German style of shooting?
Well, of course there is a big difference between shooting in America and in Europe. There are two main reasons. One is the size of the budget. In Europe we are talking about a range of 8 to 12 million Euros at the most, and in America it seems currently there is no limit. The last films I shot have cost on average between 80 to 100 million Dollars. That makes for a tremendous difference in the production methods and the options that are available. The second reason is that the job of the director of photography is defined differently in America and Europe. First of all, in America, when I am the DP I am not the operator, instead I sit with the director at a monitor. In Europe most DPs still operate themselves, what I have also done for years in Germany. The DP in America has a different responsibility for the whole project.

There are many directors in America who will leave the creation of the image mostly to the DP. That is also not as wide spread in Germany. Certainly there are teams like Tom Tykwer and his cameraman that work together like they work in America. Tom's cameraman, Frank Griebe, is a director of photography in the American sense. But many others in Europe are not, because the European directors are more dominant. There also are still many movies in Europe where the director is the author and has much more influence. That is basically different in America. Director of photography means that you are the director of the image, that is your responsibility, and thus the pay is also different. These are the two biggest differences between Europe and America. I really enjoyed working in America since I have been lucky to work with the best directors in the field.

Thank you, Michael Ballhaus!

Marc Shipman-Mueller