The complexities of shooting that chase through the jungle are what eventually led Kaminski and Spielberg to settle on the decision to do a digital intermediate on the film, working in concert with Efilm colorist Yvan Lucas. The DI process was something the two filmmakers had not planned on initially and had traditionally avoided over their many years of collaboration.
“For this movie, the DI was the right choice because we had lots of visual effects and wanted them to be more organic with the rest of the movie, and there were certain areas of control it gave us in [complicated action sequences],” Kaminski says. “It started because in that jungle scene, there were so many issues with mismatching light, and not always being able to put lights in exactly the proper position. I knew I would have to even certain things up. And it wasn't just light — I couldn't always control all colors in those scenes either. I had four actors [in some shots] wearing different makeup, and so I knew that is a sequence where I could [better] control contrast [in the DI suite]. Sometimes, the shot would go into very bright areas that were four stops over, and I didn't have the means to control that as well [in the field].
“So I got an agreement from [Spielberg] that I could do a DI for that sequence to control the amount of brightness in the frame, by reducing it down a little bit, maybe lowering the contrast a bit, and controlling secondary colors on the faces of the actors. So we did a DI on that scene, and Steven really liked it, and we agreed we could do the whole film like that. Basically, the technology has really improved, and the people doing the DI work have really improved in the last few years, so Steven was willing to go there.”
But Kaminski is quick to interject that he insisted on following a traditional photochemical timing template in the DI suite.
“We only agreed to do it because we felt the DI finally matches the quality of the photochemical processes,” he says. “So I used it exactly as I would photochemical timing, using point scale and primary colors. Occasionally, I used secondary colors, but only in very necessary conditions. I make my movies on the negative, and not in the DI, and I feel that was true here. This film would have looked amazingly beautiful either way, but it just happens we were able to improve certain things, or enhance them, by doing a DI this time.”