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VAMPIRES DON'T GO OUT DURING THE DAY;
CONSEQUENTLY, NEITHER DO WE.
"We have our portals into other dimensions that require lighting."
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Before a scene can even begin shooting, whether 'on location' or on an 'established set' at the studio, there is much work that must be accomplished by the Gaffer's crew. "We're on a constant schedule," Dan explains, "we have to shoot an episode every eight days and we have to run seamlessly into the next episode. Our episode 5 ["Supersymmetry"] ended last night and we started another one today. Ross and I have to be on the set all the time, so my Best Boy (Jerry Mandley) goes out and does all the scouts, he'll do it a couple of days before the episode ends." Jerry performs what is called the 'technical scout', the director and the art director have already scouted all the locations and now the technical team has their chance to see what is needed to actually shoot the location. "He has to come back with all these notes and tell me, 'this is what I saw here; this is what we need for that.' These locations have to be prepped for cable, for all kinds of different things. Our shooting day can be 13 1/2 hours but the stuff has to be done before we get there," he says. "Hopefully we have the script and we have enough time to prep." What gives them a cushion, frequently, is that there are established sets at the Paramount lot; if they're running behind they'll schedule scenes that take place in the Hyperion lobby, for example. "That's where we were all day today. That gives us a day because that's all pre-lit, we just walk in there, we hit a couple buttons and everything comes up, then we'll just fill in where we need to. They [producers] bring in these topnotch directors who have been in the business for years, they just know what they want and they get done really fast and I really respect that."
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"When you get on a show like this, you ride it till it dies, and then you pick it up and drag it." ~ Kelly Manners
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When it comes to directors, just like anyone else, Dan has a few select who he really enjoys working with. "We just finished with one of my favorite directors," he shares with us, "Bill Norton . He's a great guy, really fast; some of our shortest days are with Bill." And the list goes on: David Grossman [S3Ep18 "Double or Nothing"], Terrence O'Hara [S4Ep1 "Deep Down"], and Jim Contner [S3Ep15 "Loyalty"]. "I like Tim [Minear]; Tim's actually quite a funny guy. He left our show to go with Firefly but I got the director's list yesterday," Dan shares with us, "and he's scheduled for two later in the season. And Sean Aston, he was in the Lord of the Rings movie as Sam. He was hanging around a couple episodes last season and so they gave him an episode this year, probably not until after Christmas." Dan was happy to include this aside about Jim Contner, "He was a camera assistant on the original Jaws. And a really great guy, he was a DP for a long time and then he made the jump into directing."
Working with so many diverse directors (on average, Angel runs fifteen different directors per their 22-episode season), there's always a difference in the way they interpret a scene or their approach to shooting it, but the specifies lie more in the understanding of lighting techniques for Dan. "Occasionally, there will be some specific scenes that call for specific lighting, like we have our portals into other dimensions that will require some kind of lighting. Actually we did that so often they got sick of it," he jokingly admits, "so they kind of changed that around this year; gradually the computer graphics are taking over the lighting. But there are other scenes that call for light cues, that's really the only thing that's going to dictate the actual lighting if it's written that way. The directors are really mandated to shoot within the script." He explains, "If they veer from that they have to go to the producers or the writers. Because most of the writers actually have producer credits, they have a lot more control. There have been several times where the scene was just not working and could have worked a whole lot easier if they would have changed a couple lines around. I'm glad when writers actually get a chance to direct, because it gives them a whole new perspective on actually writing it. We frequently run into, 'too many words, and not enough set', they write these scenes but they don't really understand that the scene has to take place in a certain area. They have all these characters moving around and basically there's not enough room to shoot it. We have a couple writers directing this year, so it'll be a learning experience for them, definitely."
Streets of burning China during the Boxer Rebellion
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We selected out a few episodes over the previous seasons with specific scenes that stood out in regards to lighting for Dan to comment on. We began with "Darla" (Season 2), the flashback scene during the Boxer Rebellion, where the main characters are walking through the burning streets of China. This was also shot during Buffy's Season 5, "Fool For Love", of the series' crossover episodes. "That was in the same set that Pylea was in," Dan recalls laughing, "we just changed the set around a little bit. If I'm not mistaken, it rained like hell all night. That was a lot of fire and basically what we do is; we have these things called 'flicker boxes' that you can hook up to huge lights, hit a switch and the light will pulse like a flame. We use a lot of those to really light [the actors] up along with the fire. Then of course we have our huge nightlights, and the moonlight we have to put up there. That's always done on what's called a 'condor' or basically a big 'cherry picker'. On those exteriors, it looks like it's night but when you get out there it's pretty bright."
In "Heartthrob" (Season 3), which was the premiere episode of the season, there was a huge scene in the Los Angeles subway system, which culminated in a fight between Angel and James [Ron Melendez] within a subway car. "That was actually quite easy. David Greenwalt directed that one," Dan recalls. "We actually shot in the LA subway, that was a little more difficult, but because it was so well lit I didn't need a whole lot of lights. We just brought down a bunch of Kino Flos (which are film-specific fluorescent lights), and the cars themselves are fairly well lit. For the actually fight, they found a prop subway car, I believe over at CBS and rolled that down and put together. All the lights were already in there, all I did was run two extension cords to it and turn it on," he laughs. "There was so much light in there we had to turn half of them off." There was one technical aspect that they had to address because there were so many of these existing lights, as Dan explains, "Fluorescent light shows up on the film very green, so you either have to change out all the lights, which is a big job or you correct the lights to match it. We had to add green to all the lights that we used and in Post [Production], the colorist pulled the green out of it; that way everything matches, that way you don't see the green."
Fake rain, but true emotion
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One of the most dramatic scenes filmed so far on Angel is where the vampire Darla [Julie Benz] kills herself while giving birth to Angel's son. The episode was "Lullaby" (Season 3), and it takes place in a dark alley as rain pours down. "Because it wasn't actually raining, although we have frequently made rain when it was raining, we had everything already set up for that. It was such a contained alley that that was actually quite easy, we lit that with a lot of Kino Flos and a lot of small units in and around the actual scene itself. The hard part of that scene was obviously the acting. The actors had to get in there, they had to be wet and it was a very emotional scene. You try to keep the lighting minimal; our mandate is 'sexy' that's what they say," he reveals, "you've got to keep it 'dark and sexy', and parentheses, 'and fast'. So you want to keep the lighting minimal for a scene like that, you want to see the actors because that's the main thing, but you don't want to get in their way either, especially a difficult scene like that."
To get the right mood, use 'Peacock Blue'
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In the episode "Birthday" (Season 3), Cordelia [Charisma Carpenter] discovers a distraught Angel in one of the rooms of the Hyperion in an alternate reality. Here the room is filled with a 'blue hue' for the duration of the scene. "We had to play that like it was all completely moonlight, either that or there was no light at all. Meaning that there's no practical light, there's no yellow light anywhere. If you walk into the room and switch on the light there's nothing there, so you have to motivate the light from somewhere. You want to take your normal lamp and correct it to blue; you add some blue to it, which makes it feel a lot cooler. Ross remembered that we actually did add a theatrical blue gel to the lights to get the mood. 'Peacock Blue' to be exact--rather amazed me that he remembered that--but that's why he's the D.P." Dan explains, "Most of the gel we use is color correction; that is, different gradations of blue (to 'cool' the light) or orange (to 'warm' the light). It's colored, but not deeply enough to read on film. The blue we used for that scene is a theatrical color, or 'party' gel; a gel that is saturated to the exact color we want, and there are literally hundreds of them. Look at scenes from the third season of Angel, or demons in tunnels or sewers, we often used party gels in those scenes. When you really notice a color, it's usually a party gel."
A DANCING DEMON
Jerry Mandley, the Best Boy behind theatrical lighting
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When it came to naming the episode that has given Dan his biggest challenge in lighting so far on Angel, he didn't even hesitate in his response, "Joss' episode last season ["Waiting in the Wings"], the ballet! We actually had to put on a ballet, I mean, they actually had to have a professional looking ballet there and I had to light it," Dan states with a little humorous stress in his voice. "I had no idea, I have no experience in theatre, but fortunately Jerry does, he had a lot of experience in theatre and was on rock and roll tours for years. So that was very difficult for me, I was just terrified because I wasn't quite sure what I'm doing, but Jerry had me covered with that one. That was also the episode with the [comedy/tragedy demons], which to date is my favorite makeup. And again, there was another difficult scene where David and Charisma had to get lovey-dovey, which is always difficult. I believe [Joss] cut out a very, very funny scene where Wesley [Alexis Denisof] is actually dancing (at this time Wesley and Gunn [J. August Richards] are both trying to court Fred [Amy Acker]), and there was a full-fantasy sequence of Wesley doing ballet. That episode was actually quite frightening but we got through it okay. We did a really good job."
Without a doubt Dan and his crew have done an amazing job, and it is evident with every episode that the different technical aspects of the series, whether it be makeup, CGI, or lighting is always on the edge of new and exciting things. As for Dan's future plans with his career, he emphatically states, "Oh I'm gonna stay with this! As our producer Kelly [Manners] says, 'When you get on a show like this, you ride it till it dies, and then you pick it up and drag it.' So I plan to stay in this for as long as they'll have me.
Dan sets the light meter on Heidi Strickler, (stand-in for Amy Acker)
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You work really hard for 9 1/2-10 months, and then it's like you're going to school and I get a three months vacation. After Angel ends in the middle of April, usually I'm so tired that I won't even answer my phone for a month," Dan confesses with a laugh. "I'll go right on vacation for at least a month. This past hiatus I worked three days, that was it; one of which was my birthday, the only day I didn't want to work. If I know Angel's going to come back for another season I won't worry about it. But if at some point the plug gets pulled, and in television there's always that danger, I'll just move on and hopefully I can move on as a Gaffer."
We congratulated Dan on his promotion to Gaffer but warned him we'd definitely be watching more closely this season to make sure the lighting was up to snuff! "Oh thanks!" he laughed. After all, we joked, those Season 1 errors seem to have been corrected. "You know, that is a major problem for us and it happens all the time. We're always dealing with reflections, and we're always dealing with sunlight that [Angel's] got to walk through. We're always on the lookout for it now but that's such a pain, such a pain," he teases recalling a typical conversation on the set, " 'You can't see this guy.' 'Why?' 'Well he's a vampire, he's not reflective.' 'Oh for god's sake.' "
Written by CoA Head Writer, Kristy Bratton
CityofAngel would like to Generously Thank Dan Kerns for his time and for being so very instrumental with our Angel credits list.
If you have any comments for CityofAngel.com regarding this 'Behind the Scenes' feature, we would love to hear from you. Just email us at: comments@CityofAngel.com
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