Ask any relative, friend or stranger about Sherlock Holmes. If they were born and raised on this planet, the chances are excellent that they are familiar with the fictional detective and his faithful companion Dr. Watson, writes Bob Fisher. The concept and characters were born in the fertile imagination of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a medical doctor whose first short story about Holmes and Watson was published in 1887.

The first Sherlock Holmes movie was an eight-minute black and white film produced in Denmark in 1908. Some 20 feature-length films, plus numerous radio and television series and movies have followed in its wake.

The new Sherlock Holmes film was produced by Village Roadshow. Robert Downey, Jr. portrays Holmes and Jude Law is cast in the role of Watson. Other main characters include Inspector Lestrade, Sir Thomas and Irene Adler, who are respectively played by Eddie Marson, Jamie Fox and Rachel McAdams.

It was the first collaboration between Philippe Rousselot AFC ASC and director Guy Ritchie. Rousselot brought an eclectic range of experience to the project. He rode the crest of the French New Wave during the dawn of his career as an assistant cameraman on three films shot by Nestor Almendros ASC in 1969 and 1970.

Rousselot has earned some 60 cinematography credits since shooting his first film at the age of 25. He won an Oscar for A River Runs Through It and received other nominations for Hope And Glory and Henry And June. He earned three BSC nominations and claimed top honors for Hope And Glory and Interview With The Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, which also won a BAFTA award.

“I read books about Sherlock Holmes when I was in my teens, but I don’t recall seeing any movies or television series,” he says. “I usually don’t look at DVDs of franchise-type movies, because I don’t want to be influenced by what has been done before, but I watched of every film that Guy Ritchie has directed.”

British director Ritchie’s credits include an array of fast-paced urban dramas set in contemporary times, but he is perhaps best known for Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1998, DP Time Maurice-Jones). During their first meeting, Ritchie told Rousselot he envisioned shooting in period settings with a bit of grunge added.

“Grunge is atypical for a Victorian era movie,” Rousselot observes. “They tend to have elegant settings and polished looks, but I agreed that it was the right look.”

They also agreed to compose Sherlock Holmes in Super 1.85:1 format.

“It was how we both saw the story in our minds,” he explains. “There were locations where the heights of buildings, Tower Bridge and other backgrounds are like silent characters. You can never rationalise those decisions. It was a gut feeling.”

There was also an upfront decision to put final touches on the look during digital intermediate (DI) timing. Rousselot explains they anticipated integrating visual effects, including explosions, and enhancing a period look at a time when gas lamps lit the night.

Rousselot met with location manager Marc Somner during an early stage of pre-production planning. They scouted practical locations in London, Manchester and Liverpool, including city streets, wharfs and docks on the River Thames, Tower Bridge, which was being constructed when the story was set, and a 19th century gaol.

He also met with production designer Sarah Greenwood and wardrobe designer Jenny Beaven who helped to establish a sense of time and place with hints of grunge.

 

Day-for-night

“Guy was explaining his vision for a night scene on the docks in Liverpool while we were scouting that location,” he recalls. “I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea to shoot at that location at night if he wanted the audience to see the river and miles of backgrounds. Even if we had all the Musco lights in the world, it wouldn’t have looked real. I also told him that we could shoot day-for-night and make it look real.”

Rousselot shot a day-for-night test on The Thames. He timed it with Adam Inglis at Technicolor, the DI colorist he was going to work with on the film.

“I knew that I could push the film a bit to get more details in the shadows and highlights the way the human eye would see them at night,” Rousselot comments. “I framed some shots with the river in the foreground and the sky and buildings in the background. I knew that I could play with the sky and make it dark enough to look like night. I also darkened the sun to make it look like the moon, and played with colours and tones of clouds and put a reflection of the sun on the water.”

After Ritchie saw the results, he agreed to shoot a number of day-for-night scenes.

The camera crew assembled by Rousselot was mainly made up of people he had worked with when he shot Charlie And The Chocolate Factory in London. They included A camera operator Des Whelan, Steadicam/B camera operator Vince McGahon, first assistants Julian Bucknall and Ollie Tellett, and second assistants Lewis Hume and Jason Dully. Rousselot had collaborated with gaffer Chuck Finch on Hope And Glory.

It was Rousselot’s first co-venture with both visual effects supervisor Chas Jarrett and The Visual Effects Company in London. Panavision provided a couple of Millennium cameras, a set of prime lenses ranging from 14 to 150 mm, 3:1 and 11:1 zooms and a Technocrane. Lighting gear came from Panalux, and Studio Equipment provided dollies.

Lighting and movement

“I always start with trying to motivate lighting, but that can be challenging on this type of period film,” Rousselot says. “The oil lamps people used didn’t light the night the way electric bulbs do. Some parts of London were lit with arc lights on giant towers. It was a rather harsh blue light, but that’s not common knowledge, so I decided to bite the bullet and depart from reality. It’s an action movie with things happening that we want the audience to see. I found a place between reality and drama.”

Rousselot covered interior and darker exterior scenes with Kodak Vision 5219 (500T) film and most daytime sequences with Kodak Vision 2 5205 (200D) negative. He was generally using both cameras, which were almost constantly moving, either on the Technocrane, on a Steadicam or dolly, and occasionally handheld. “It depended on the location and the emotions we wanted to evoke,” he says.

The two main characters interact in most scenes. Rousselot notes that the use of two moving cameras gave the actors more freedom to ad lib and improvise. He adds that it also enabled him and his crew to move faster with fewer takes required.

“Guy and I were usually together at a monitor near the cameras and actors,” Rousselot says. “Four to six takes was average, and sometimes as few as two. There were times he amazed me. We would start shooting a scene, and Guy would say this isn’t working. Within 20 to 60 minutes he changed the scene, and it was perfect.”

Technicolor, in London, did front-end lab work and provided HD dailies. Additional scenes were filmed on stages in a former armory in Brooklyn, New York, including sets for the Baker Street apartment shared by Watson and Holmes. Sherlock Holmes is scheduled for release by Warner Bros. in December.