DoP Sean Bobbitt BSC stands to the right       of camera preparing a shot

Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen, widely regarded as one of Britain’s leading contemporary artists, has directed his first feature film – about IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Produced by Blast! Films for Channel4/Film4, who co-funded the project as part of an initiative to commission new work from artists for the screen, Hunger is based on the final weeks of the Irish Republican’s life; Sands died aged 27 in 1981 after 66 days of refusing to take food while imprisoned for possession of firearms at the notorious Maze Prison near Belfast.

Photographed by Sean Bobbitt BSC, who had previously worked with McQueen on a number of film installation projects, Hunger was one of the first productions to utilise the 2-perforation 35mm camera movements now available through the ARRI Rental Group. Camera equipment was supplied by ARRI Media and consisted of a 2-perforation ARRICAM Studio, ARRICAM Lite and ARRIFLEX 235. Lighting equipment was supplied by ARRI Lighting Rental.

The 2-perforation format offers a financially economical route to the image quality of 35mm when a 2.39:1 widescreen aspect ratio is desired. As film is advanced by two perforations instead of the traditional four perforations, the previously unused space between frames is eliminated. This translates to less raw stock as the quantity of film used is reduced.

Having worked on a number of low-budget feature films, Bobbitt had become very interested in the resurgence of 2-perforation. “I think the primary benefit of using 2-perforation is cost, which is of paramount importance to the production, particularly on a low-budget film,” states Bobbitt. “For Hunger we were able to shoot 2-perforation with an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 on 35mm for an additional cost of only £12,500, compared to Super 16. That represents fantastic value for quality, when you think that the actual surface area of the exposed negative is much greater in 2-perforation 35mm than it is in Super 16.”

The natural widescreen aspect ratio of 2-perforation also meant that Bobbitt could shoot a true 2.39:1 frame. “Super 16 has to go through a blow-up in the DI for 35mm projection, so there is an increase in the amount of grain and the size of grain, which is fine if that’s what you are looking for – if you are looking for a gritty, dramatic feel – but on this film we specifically didn’t want that,” he says. “We were hoping for something that would go against the grit and grain of the story itself – something a little bit glossy. So in that regard 2-perforation fitted the bill and offered a solution that would be more effective in terms of the DI.”

		Director Steve McQueen talks his actor through the scene

As 2-perforation uses less stock it naturally increases the running time of a magazine, which made it possible for Bobbitt to fulfil the director’s desire for long takes. “Steve wanted to do very extensive shots, where the action develops in the frame,” recalls Bobbitt. “In particular, there is a dialogue scene between two characters in the centre of the film that is over 20 minutes long, which Steve wanted to capture in a single take. Using a 1,000-foot roll of 2-perforation 35mm meant that we were able to do that, so we did four takes of this scene, and I don’t know of any other film format that we could have done that in.”

While 2-perforation has its advantages there are two factors that Bobbitt believes anyone using the format should be aware of. “Because there is almost no frame line between frames, if you have a really strong highlight at the top of a frame it can bleed through to the next,” he advises. “I pushed that as far as I could and it never bled through more than 4%, which will be lost in projection cut-off anyway. The other consideration, of course, is if you do get a hair in the gate or a boom in shot then there is no way that you can move the image around to lose them, so you do have to go again. But neither of those were an issue during the production itself.” Bobbitt also recommends that a frame leader is shot for each camera and ground glass. “As there is no SMPTE frame or anything set up, there is no standard frame for the telecine and everything else to be accurate – so you do need to establish a very accurate frame reader.”

Hunger will have a theatrical release before it is aired on Channel 4. The film’s postproduction involved a number of facilities, with processing and telecine carried out at Todd-AO and a Digital Intermediate at Dragon DI. Release prints will be produced by Deluxe. Before filming began Bobbitt shot tests and followed the entire 2-perforation workflow all the way through in order to check for any possible loopholes. “The initial tests I did with Todd-AO just showed that they needed to upgrade some of their sound syncing software, which they were able to do,” he explains. “We then took the negative to Dragon DI and did a rough DI. They use the ARRISCAN and the ARRILASER, both of which are set up for 2-perforation. We scanned the negative, graded the negative and then burnt it back and printed it so we could prove that the whole chain worked – and it did, first go. The workflow is very straightforward and exactly the same as working in 3-perforation; it’s still just 35mm film, only the frames are squeezed closer together.”

One thing Bobbitt is certain of – without 2-perforation Hunger would never have been originated on 35mm. “If we hadn’t had 2-perforation, and recognised the savings in cost, then that would have been very much to the detriment of what we were trying to achieve with this film,” he states. Bobbitt’s certainty that the choice of format benefited the film was reflected in its selection to open the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section of the 61st Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Camera d’Or.

Michelle Smith