Cinematographer Pedro Luque talks to Cinematography World about shooting director J.A Bayona latest film SOCIETY OF THE SNOW. A fresh retelling of ‘the miracle of the Andes’. When in 1972, Uruguayan air force flight 571 crashed into the Andes Mountains with 45 people on board, mostly members of a Uruguayan rugby team. By the time they were found 72 days later, only 16 remained alive.
Director of photography Pedro Luque shot the film on Alexa Mini LF with Panavision T-Series anamorphic lenses. Following edit and VFX work, the film was graded by finishing colourist Chema Alba at Deluxe Madrid. The team wanted to move away from a digital look and give the image an organic, slightly vintage feel. Partly because the drama is intended to mirror the 1970s setting. “We didn’t want it to appear like ‘found footage’ from the seventies but as if the film could have been shot then,” explained Alba.
To achieve this, they utilised Cinelab’s DFD (Digital-Film-Digital) analogue intermediate process. Transferring digitally captured footage to 35mm Kodak VISION3 250D film stock and then processing and scanning back to digital, with the authentic film texture and grain applied.
Alba comments, “The process of moving from photochemical to digital is for me a beautiful treat and the best workflow for this type of film.”.