WHIPLASH  

Playing warm against cool or plac- ing a neutral against an intense color can produce [an undercurrent of edginess],” she continues. “It might be the sense of a battle brewing between two opposing forces or the tension building within Andrew. The DI helped further the mood and cement the rich two-tone [look] that they developed on the set.”

This scene sets the tone, both visually and psychologi- cally, for what follows. Late at night, the corridor is bathed in green light; two warm practicals (100-watt household bulbs dimmed to 20 percent) hang overhead. The camera slowly moves down the hallway toward the rehearsal room, where Neyman — directly under a bright, white practical — sweats through his white T-shirt as he plays the drums. His image is reflected in the windows along the left wall. Finally, he

looks up to find Fletcher standing there. “The appropriate way to shoot that scene would have been with a 50-foot Tech- nocrane on tracks that could be later digitally removed,” acknowledges Meir. “We had neither the time nor budget for that. Instead we used a Steadicam and stabilized the shot

in post.”���

I wanted something with a real grandeur and luster, but which could also very quickly become a prison,” explains the director, who wrote the script based on his own experiences. “[It’s] a room with dark wood paneling, low ceilings and no windows — beautiful but also oppressive.” ➣

One of the most amazing shots in the movie comprises a series of swish pans between Neyman playing the drums and Fletcher conducting at the podium. It occurs during the final band competition and was shot onstage at L.A.’s Orpheum Theatre (standing in for New York’s Carnegie Hall). To get the shot, Eric Leach, a cinematographer who served as B- camera operator on Whiplash, had to be slightly above the camera, which sat on an OConnor 2575D fluid head atop a dolly. B- camera 1st AC Stephen Pazanti pulled focus. Teller and Simmons were situated almost 180 degrees from one another.

The pans, which whipped back-and-

forth seven or eight times and corresponded to specific music beats, were done in one continuous shot. Chazelle stood directly behind Leach, tapping him on the shoulder when he wanted him to pan. “We stripped everything off the camera to make it as light as possible so I could whip it around fast enough,” says Leach. “I had the 12:1 Ange- nieux Optimo on, but I kept it at either 75mm or 100mm. I was 5 feet from Simmons and about 15 feet from Teller, so it was a medium shot on J.K. and a wider shot of Miles, who was actually playing the drums, which we wanted to see.”

A Tiffen Double Fog filter was added for a shot of the Carnegie Hall audience to disguise the fact that there were so few extras. “You can use the Double Fog to build some haze,

which gives the illusion there are more people there than there actually were,” asserts A-camera 1st AC Rocker Meadows. Meir also used low-density Tiffen Glimmer- glass filters on nearly the entire film. “They take away a bit of the digital curse — that extreme sharpness and cleanness of the image,” the cinematographer explains. “Using Leica lenses helps with that, too.”