There is no mistaking the filmmakers behind the ‘Opera Diva’ spot for Shoppers Drug Mart cosmetics. The ad might be more comical than most of their work, but the deep colors, baroque styling and Felliniesque characters signified that director Floria Sigismondi and dop Chris Soos were at it again.

The 60-second commercial, produced out of The Partners’ Film Company for agency Chiat Day, received the highest score in this year’s Top Spots cinematography category. The ad recounts the plight of an opera singer’s assistant who hurries back from the drugstore with an array of beauty products without which the temperamental star will not perform. After all her fussing, however, the diva turns out to be quite an inept vocalist.

Soos explains the secret behind the spot’s particular look was shooting on Kodak 7239 Ektachrome daylight color reversal stock and employing vnf processing, which requires formaldehyde in the film stabilization bath. He adds few companies can perform the process, and in this case, he dealt with Yale Film and Video in Los Angeles.

‘It’s hard to do that process in Toronto,’ he explains. ‘Producers don’t want to send the stuff down to l.a. It’s a big hassle and you’re taking a chance, and there’s a 48-hour turnaround for dailies.’

But Soos feels it was worth it.

‘It’s an amazing look – it’s very rich,’ he says. ‘It’s got a quality of contrast and color saturation, and with the highlights you’re getting all these incredible jewel-like tones. It’s something you can’t really get when you shoot negative and telecine it.’

Soos is a big fan of establishing looks in the photochemical realm.

‘The problem when you shoot with color negative all the time, particularly on commercials, is that the dop is sort of thrown out of the loop when it comes to color correction,’ he comments. ‘[Shooting reversal] protects your original image, which is more challenging for the dop, because there’s little latitude for screw-ups. When you adjust the exposure or put a filter in front of the camera, it seriously affects the image.’

Extreme looks have characterized the Soos-Sigismondi partnership. Soos, now based mostly in l.a. and New York, originally hooked up with the director in Toronto to shoot the video Blue for heavy metal band Harem-Scarem, drawing inspiration from the 1919 German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Their collaboration continued on memorable videos for artists as diverse as Tricky, Marilyn Manson and David Bowie. Although these projects cover a broad visual terrain, they are all linked by dark, dream-like, often grotesque imagery.

Soos feels their recent commercial work is somewhat of a departure.

‘We came out of a history in the mid-1990s of some crazy experimentation,’ he explains. ‘But in the last couple of years I’ve been involved with very clean photography – no diffusion and a very honest perspective. I’ve stayed away from wide-angle stuff, swing-and-tilt lenses, and any sort of major distortion elements.’

In the case of ‘Opera Diva,’ the subject matter is obviously close to the director’s heart, as both her parents are opera singers and she herself was named after a character in Tosca, the opera by Puccini. Further, Sigismondi’s sister Antonella, a sculptress, plays the singer’s assistant in the spot.

‘[Antonella] has been in Floria’s art projects, still projects and music videos – she always pops up on set,’ Soos says. ‘Sometimes she’s our secondary character, sometimes she’s the principal. [Floria] likes to keep that creative energy in the family and it really pays off. The family energy on Floria’s set is always memorable.’

It might seem that Sigismondi’s and Soos’ experimental urges would be somewhat curbed in the commercial world, where decisions are based on marketing strategies and trendy styles. Not so, according to Soos.

‘Floria’s not going to take on a project unless she feels she’s got total creative freedom over it,’ he says. ‘Despite people wanting to buy into her look and aesthetic, if she feels she doesn’t have room to change, to do what she wants, to have complete autonomy over wardrobe, makeup, art direction and lighting, she won’t do it.’ *

-www.partnersfilm.com