‘THE crew calls it the anti-Degrassi,’ says Toronto director of photography Stephen Reizes of CTV’s upcoming half-hour television drama series Instant Star, produced by Toronto’s Epitome Pictures, creators of Degrassi: The Next Generation.

‘One of the mandates the producers received from CTV is not to have Instant Star look anything like Degrassi, which is somewhat of a challenge considering we’re using most of the same sets and crew,’ explains Reizes.

Instant Star follows the dramatic turn of events in the life of 15-year-old Jude Harrison, played by Vancouver’s Alexz Johnson (Selling Innocence), as she wins a national singer/songwriter contest that propels her into stardom. Jude is tossed into a world of parties, publicity and glamor while fighting to maintain a sense of integrity and enjoy the typical activities of a teenager. The series also stars Tim Rozon (15/Love) as record producer Tom Quincy and Laura Vandervoort (The Gavin Crawford Show) as Jude’s older sister Sadie, while Simon Reynolds (Cold Creek Manor) and Jane Sowerby (The Outer Limits) play Jude’s parents.

Reizes credits Degrassi director Phil Earnshaw for helping him get the gig on Instant Star. ‘Phil has a history of working with Epitome president Linda Schuyler, who wanted to see whole episodes instead of reels to make her decision. I showed her some of the work I did on the CTV crime series Cold Squad and she was happy with that.’

Less realistic style

Since the Degrassi set was to be used for Instant Star as well, Reizes says blocking, lighting and lens choice came into play to make the show look completely different.

‘Instant Star is less of a realistic portrayal of the world than Degrassi, which is a very traditional, straightforward, down-to-earth type of show,’ he notes. ‘Instant Star has elements of a nighttime soap and could be interpreted as a bit of a fantasy, somewhat souped-up like American television shows such as The O.C.’

The DOP points to three main areas of the story that come into play in the sets and the characters – namely Jude’s life at home, at school and her professional surroundings.

‘We’ve stylized each environment, so Jude’s home has a warm, Martha Stewart-type, earth tone look to it. We’re relying on commercial-style lighting so that the light has a warmth and intensity to it, with big sunshine coming from the windows,’ Reizes explains.

The look of the school scenes reminds Reizes of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, because of its significant blue, somewhat prison-like color.

‘With Degrassi, school is the social center of the story, but for Jude, school is not the warmest place and she feels like an outsider. So we’re not correcting the [16mm] Kodak Vision2 500T 7218 film stock; we’re treating it to resemble a bit of a bleach-bypass look and taking some of the color out by crushing the blacks, and popping the whites a little more,’ the lenser says. ‘The third look of the show, which involves Jude’s professional career, is more colorful, glamorous and slick, to reflect the somewhat artificial nature of the music business.’

At the helm of Instant Star is Vancouver-based director Pat Williams, also credited with directing the WB series Smallville. ‘Pat’s got a tremendous amount of energy and was a DOP himself, so he has a great understanding of what’s involved,’ says Reizes.

With Toybox colorist Mark Kueper, a veteran of music videos, Reizes did many tests with cross-processing and bleach-bypass to get a different look for Instant Star than would have been from a normally exposed negative.

‘Mark gave us a lot of options and suggestions. I wanted something that was unique and hip, so he masked and de-focused the highlights, which gave it an interesting feel. I did further tests and decided to use a filter that would bloom the highlights and give it a somewhat modern, glossy photography look,’ Reizes explains.

The DOP is quick to point out there aren’t many music scenes in Instant Star, and those that are included are not filmed Canadian Idol-style. ‘The musical scenes are performance pieces and are part of the drama. We don’t break from that. It’s more like what you would see in a movie, where there’s a big crane covering the audience and many different angles of her singing, while also focusing on the drama in the audience, as her family and friends watch.’

School scenes are shot at Toronto’s Central Tech vocational school, while the Guvernment nightclub serves as the location for the club scene where Jude wins the competition and performs for the first time. Jude’s house and the record company offices are shot at Epitome Studios, home of Degrassi.

Camera in motion

Reizes has been using an Arriflex 16 SR3 camera (provided by Toronto’s PS Production Services) fitted with 8-64mm and 11-165mm Canon zoom lenses. ‘In my camera package, I normally have an Aaton XTR prod camera, which I prefer because it’s lighter, quieter and converts from handheld to production mode more quickly,’ notes the DOP. ‘The Arricam is more of a workhorse rental unit.’

As Instant Star is shot with the camera 95% of the time in motion, a variety of dolly, crane and Steadicam shots are utilized. ‘It draws the viewer in closer as the intensity of the scene builds and the emotion heightens,’ says Reizes.

While Reizes says the crew on Instant Star has generally been great, he adds that it’s a somewhat difficult shoot in terms of making adjustments. ‘We’ve shot four episodes and are going back into production in September, so the crew is going to alternate shooting eight days on two episodes of Degrassi and then eight days on two episodes of Instant Star until December,’ he explains. ‘Except Pat and I, most of the crew are all from Degrassi, so you feel like a bit of an outsider coming in and working with an existing crew. Some people had a hard time adjusting to doing a different show on set, so I don’t think it’s the ideal situation.’

Shot in Super 16 format, Instant Star will be transferred to HD at Toybox, where the traditional 4:3 ratio will be extracted for broadcast on CTV. ‘The network is not broadcasting letterbox, which is unfortunate. I think most DOPs would agree they’d prefer to see a wider screen letterbox,’ says Reizes. ‘But I think CTV considers much of the audience feel they’re being denied a certain amount of real estate on their TV.’

Reizes graduated from Concordia University in Montreal and launched his career working on low-budget independent productions. The DOP came to Toronto in 1994 to shoot some Canadian Film Centre projects and stayed with director friend Stephen Surjik, with whom he later collaborated on the acclaimed CBC MOW Little Criminals. The DOP says he’s looking forward to teaming up with Surjik again later this month on the made-for-TV movie Tripping the Wire, a detective story to be shot in Montreal for CTV.

The first four episodes of Instant Star have gone into post, and if all goes according to plan, filming on the next eps begins in September for broadcast in January 2005. *

-www.epitomepictures.com

-www.ctv.ca