NEWS
High speed race into retro-future

There always something at the local cinema and on TV that an NFTS graduate has worked on – this week’s big cinema release is the high octane family adventure Speed Racer, whose very original look was shot by Director of Photography and NFTS cinematography graduate, David Tattersall, BSC.

The translation of Tatsuo Yoshida’s popular animated series into a live-action feature called from some unusual visual techniques and the retro-futuristic look of the film is a triumph of the combined arts of production design, cinematography and visual effects.

Bleeding edge, high-definition (HD) cameras were employed on the shoot – the first five from of Sony’s new F23 HD line were made available in advance of public release – which allowed shots to be composed to look hyper-real, super-saturated and glossy, while the colour was pushed beyond the usual limits to produce a ”poptimistic”, grain-free “techno-color” look an exaggerated digital version of Technicolor, effects more easily achieved with HD than with film.

David is adept at switching between film and the very latest in digital photography, numbering big-budget, large-scale, effects laden, action-packed adrenaline rides among his credits - Die Another Day, XXX2, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life and Star Wars Episodes I, II and III - as well as smaller films like Radioland Murders, which require a “fine art” touch, while his work for TV includes the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, for which he won an Emmy Award.

He is currently working on the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Time Out special feature on Speed Racer

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