Journal of a Contract Killer in prime focus
Inspired by a true story, the short but rather dramatic life of 28-year old Stephanie Komack is told in an intriguing new film written and directed by Tony Maylam. Dubbed Journal of a Contract Killer, the clue is very much in the title as it contrasts her life working as a part-time waitress and bringing-up a young daughter in a nondescript flat in London with her double-life as an international contract killer.
Told in stark detail, the movie was shot in 25p on a Sony HDW-F900R by New York-based Australian DoP David Griffiths. “We’d started testing on the HDW-750 and had got good results, but decided to go with the 900R,” he says. “The old F900 was a heavy camera but the 900R has improved on that a lot and is almost like the 750. We also wanted to do some slow motion stuff as well and for that we needed its 60i capability.”
Griffiths is a firm fan of shooting in high definition and is impressed with the images he got out of the 900R. “With HD you can see what you’re getting and circumvent the whole dailies process,” he says. “Using the VMI screening room as well we could see we were getting really good results too. So much so that when they did the initial grade all they had to do was play with the contrast.”
Another consequence of using the VMI Screening Room was upgrading the production to using DigiPrime lenses “The DigiPrimes were fantastic,” says Griffiths. “Once we saw the quality of the images from them compared to what we were getting from the Canon cine-style HD zooms I was using before, the producers forked out for using them the whole way through the film, as well as the extra for the 900R. It was good that we were able to see everything on a big screen rather than rushes on a DVD.”
VMI’s 35th movie, Journal of a Contract Killer is out in 2008 and Griffiths, for one, is looking forward to seeing the finished article. “ It seems that every time they project it bigger it looks better,” he says.
