Shambala shoots in the remote Manali Himachal Pradesh region of India.
While shooting at the foot of the Himalayas can be stunning on the eye and the lens it can pose some interesting challenges for a cinematographer.
Australian cinematographer, Viv Scanu ACS, recently shot feature film Shambala in the remote Manali Himachal Pradesh region of India, nestled between Pakistan, Kashmir and Tibet. Directed Summer Nicks and produced by Xeitgeist Entertainment Group.
“For me it was a bit of an eye-opener, working in a different country with a different crew that I had never met. All those elements make it a little bit trying. For that shoot we were filming in the some quite remote regions, so we had to be very selective in what we took to locations,” he says
“Locations were beautiful but we had issues with getting permission and getting in to some locations. They were quite tricky to get to so we had to allow quite a bit of time to get to locations and then once we were in locations, from a technical side and from a cameraman’s point of view.
Scanu says there were also issues with the scale of the mountain.
Director of Photography, Viv Scanu on the Shambala set.
“In theory light would come up at 6.30 in the morning, but we wouldn’t receive the light until 8.30am. So our window of light for the day was quite restricted and restrictive due to the amount of sunlight.
“But that also worked in our favour because there were certain scenes which I wanted no sunlight whatsoever. That gave us an extra two hours in the morning to be able to film and to have a scene that was very soft ambient light.”
Shambala tells the story of a lone survivor of a plane crash who is forced to come to terms with a past he can’t remember in one of the most remote areas in the world.
Scanu says he took a naturalistic approach to the visual.
Director of Photography, Viv Scanu shoots Shambala.
“I didn’t really introduce any light, for example, when the sun went down I would just try and supplement the look with lighting at the end of the day and this happened on several occasions. But I tried to keep the lighting as natural and as true as possible to the setting and to the story.
“Our Camera package consisted of two ARRI Alexa XT camera’s, one being a backup body. Our B Camera was the new Alexa Mini, something light weight, portable which we could also use in confined spaces, steadicam, movi etc, hand held, etc.
“We shot ARRIRAW on the ARRI XT and UHD 4K on the Alexa Mini, this gave us the most dynamic range that the camera could offer in the respective formats. It also gave beautiful colour rendition, so the colour spectrum on that sensor with ARRIRAW really sort of replicated what the eye could see.”