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By now, the pair would have earned their nominations to the Collaboration Hall of Fame, if there were such a thing, because the newest Egoyan film to premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival again credits Sarossy for the cinematography. Chloe, an erotic mystery, is the 10th feature film on which Sarossy and Egoyan have worked together. "It's kind of like an old marriage," says Sarossy. "It's remarkable how little discussion ultimately occurs; we share a short-hand about many things." Not that the filmmaking of these two professionals has become stagnant. "Experimentation and exploration has always been a pleasure of an Atom shoot, but there are so many things that continue from the other films we've done together; we fall into an old rhythm." Sarossy, who operates the A-camera as well as lights the scenes, says he sometimes gets "this odd sensation that I'm watching an Atom Egoyan movie. At the beginning of a shoot, I'll be in the middle of some slow dolly shot and I begin to hear (composer) Mychael Danna's score. It's like being the first member of the audience to see this film." (Danna has written the music for six of Egoyan's features.)
Earlier this year, Brian D. Johnson wrote in Maclean's magazine that Reitman and Egoyan "couldn't come from more far-flung extremes of cinema. Reitman is Hollywood's erstwhile king of comedy … [while] Egoyan is Canadian cinema's resident architect of angst." After hiring Egoyan, Johnson wrote, Reitman had "long philosophical discussions" with the director about how they (Egoyan's movies) could have been more accessible to a broader range of cinema audiences. Sarossy, a director himself (Mr. In-Between, U.K. 2001), confirms that Chloe is "an outright effort by Atom to make an intentionally commercial film. It's his first film based on someone else's screenplay and a story told chronologically - from beginning to end. He's always wanted to experience the process of making a Hollywood film, and this seemed to be the best opportunity. He was looking toward conventional approaches to a story, and his producers were looking for something a bit unconventional. Hopefully the offspring of this happy marriage is a commercial film." Chloe is the story of a woman (Julianne Moore) who hires a hooker (Amanda Seyfried) to test the fidelity of her husband (Liam Neeson). The production took full advantage of the world-class film infrastructure available in Toronto. It was the first Canadian feature to shoot on the mega stage at the new Filmport studio on the waterfront (now known as the Pinewood Toronto Studios). The camera crew (J.P. Locherer csc was 2nd unit DOP) was equipped with Panaflex Platinum and GII (three-perf) cameras for Digital Intermediate at Deluxe (a first for an Egoyan film), using Primo prime lenses and an 11:1 zoom. Film stock was Kodak Vision3 5219, which the DOP used for all situations - day/night, interior/exterior. "Chloe, like all of Atom's films, involved a healthy amount of prep," Sarossy says. "Most scenes were fairly straightforward and a handful required a lot of preparation. The film's climactic sequence involved an elaborate visual effect to accomplish the film's most complex shot. Weeks of discussion, planning, pre-visualizing and consultation with visual effects people were necessary to figure out how to shoot basically this one shot. This all begins with something in Atom's mind's eye and then mutates into a shot, having enjoyed and suffered the input of many people. When it comes to the day-to-day shots of any scene, it becomes a more intimate dialogue between him and me. That said, there's a huge involvement of the actors, who also have issues to incorporate into the process. "In the case of Chloe, working with Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson, the procedure of preparing for scenes must be flexible enough to respect their input … [and] after a few days shooting, we had their trust and they were happy to fit into our plans. Very often Atom will have an idea, but I will suggest an alternate approach as it will take better advantage of the time of day - sunlight - or exploit some visual pleasure on the set. Atom will occasionally ask for my perspective on performance or how effective a shot's value might be for storytelling." The cinematographer continues, "Very often Atom's plan for a scene will involve great cinematographic risk, such as a lengthy dramatic scene in a location where natural sunlight is difficult to control for continuity, but he is one of the rare directors with whom one can plunge forward without worry. He is extremely sympathetic to the needs of the camera and will accommodate the plan that gives the photography every advantage. He also hates video assist and he locates himself as close to the camera as possible to watch the actors - even riding the dolly. When he's happy with the performance, he asks me how it was for camera, which is a trust that is rare these days." What was the biggest visual challenge of Chloe Sarossy was asked? "The marriage of a tricky location - the main characters' house - with a matching set in the studio," he replies. "The story needed an upscale modern home, and the one we found served the majority of our storytelling needs. It featured an open-plan design that incorporated huge floor-to-ceiling picture windows facing the backyard that led down to a ravine. That meant that in any given interior scene, whether day or night, we had an enormous exterior view to contend with at all times. "For example, a simple close-up of Julianne at night, facing the window, required maximum resources to light the ravine view - which included extra manpower, a huge pre-light with additional lighting equipment, cabling, generators and a huge LRX lighting crane with six remote-controlled 12Ks. Every time the camera turned to face that window was quite an expensive choice. Our location did not have a good bedroom that incorporated the virtues of this view, so production designer Phillip Barker built a third floor in the studio. To recreate the view, a massive backdrop was constructed from location photos. As these are rather expensive items, it was decided to make only a daytime view, and we'd make do with a smaller, more portable nighttime backdrop for night scenes. "It would be an educational exercise," Sarossy ponders, "to figure out which is more problematic - making a difficult location work or build it as a set in the studio." His first feature was Egoyan's Speaking Parts in 1989, and since then he was worked with Denys Arcand, Patricia Rozema, the American Paul Schrader (Affliction, 1997) and on big-budget fare such as X-Men. To date, he has won five Genie Awards, three for his work with Egoyan, and two CSC theatrical-feature awards.
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