Over the past year Lindsey served as second-unit DP on director Robert Rodriguez's blockbuster films Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams. In 2005, he was a first camera operator on Sin City and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3D.
More recently he has shot several independent films in HD using Panasonic (720p) and Sony (1080i) cameras with Fujinon HD lenses. Zero Hour, directed by Erin MacMillan, was shot with a Panasonic VariCam and Fujinon HA13x4.5 and HAc15x7.3B Cine-Style zoom lenses.
Q: Why did you choose the Varicam for this project?
A: "Zero Hour" is a psychological thriller about a group of people who sign up for a seemingly harmless medical experiment and end up spending a 24-hour period fighting for their lives. The challenge here was capturing the large number of actors in small and dark interior spaces. That's why I chose the VariCam – because I could get into small spaces effectively.
Q: For most of your shoots you've used Fujinon lenses. Is that by choice?
A: Yes, definitely. I chose the Fujinon C series of lenses for Zero Hour because they are very compact, so I could keep the camera small and unobtrusive. I like using them because they have a fantastic range and minimal breathing, and are very fast so I can shoot at really low light levels and keep textures rich without any noise in the shadow detail.
I shot the entire film at a 2-stop. There were many shots with an actor close to the camera and another actor very far away. The minimized optical breathing when pulling focus aids in creating very cinematic images.
Another key reason was that they enabled me to shoot in a widescreen aspect ratio and not worry about resolution loss. When you're shooting at 2.40:1, you're doing an extraction from a 1.78:1, which means you're throwing away pixels and part of your overall resolution. I've learned it's important to have lenses with a very high resolving power, so you can afford to lose those pixels.