Director Antonio Campos looks on from above during a scene from Afterschool.

Antonio Campus, Sean Durkin and Josh Mond founded Borderline Films a year before graduating from New York University’s (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts in 2004. Soon afterward, their first short film Buy It Now won first prize in the Cinefondation Award at the 2005 Cannes International Film Festival, and earned the Audience Award at the CineVegas International Film Festival.

It wasn’t long before their short films, Doris, The Girl I Knew and Impotence, won several accolades at the 2006 NYU First Run Film Festival. Campos was named to the annual list 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine that same year. In 2007, their film The Last 15 screened in competition for the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

The three friends also direct and produce music videos and commercials. Most recently, their first full-length feature film, Afterschool, competed in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2008 Cannes festival.

Campos wrote the screenplay in the fall of 2006, during the Cannes Residence Program. The program, established by the Cinefondation and organized by the Festival de Cannes, provides emerging filmmakers the opportunity to meet industry professionals and veteran filmmakers who guide them in writing and developing their first or second feature film.

The cinematographer for Afterschool was Jody Lee Lipes who had previously shot a short film, commercials and music videos directed by Durkin, as well as multiple music videos and commercials directed by Campos and Mond.

The story follows a boy who witnesses the death of two sisters at his boarding school, and explores how he deals with the tragedy while grieving with the other students. “Young kids today tend to experience intense or graphic things through images on the Internet,” explains Campos, who also directed and edited the film. “This boy’s life is forever changed because he witnessed something real. The film delves into how the lines between reality and the memory of the girls become gray when he creates an online memorial video about the girls.”

When Campos finalized the script in March 2007, Mond and Durkin realized that they either had to shoot it over the summer when students were out of session, or wait another year. They dove right in and chose Pomfret School in Connecticut for their location.

It only took one conversation for Campos and Lipes to decide on the 35mm anamorphic format to tell the story. “Because the online video elements were important, we wanted a stark contrast between that and the real world,” says Campos. “To create a beautiful world in which these characters live, anamorphic was the perfect medium. It is so cinematic versus the raw video portions, and that contrast really helped emphasize the two different worlds.”

For Lipes and first AC Joe Anderson, testing was crucial to determine the scope of working on the edge with anamorphic lenses. “There are a couple of scenes that were lit just with the computer screen,” he says. “We did some tests at Technicolor and found that we could close the aperture down to 2.8 if the actors were really close to the screen. It was nerve wracking to shoot anamorphic wide open, but we were forced to in some situations because of our minimal lighting package. For one scene, we were working at the end of a 200mm zoom, and dollying at the talent from all the way across a cafeteria. The depth of field was less than one inch, but Joe is a remarkable focus puller, and I knew he would make it work. It’s a beautiful shot.”

Campos and Lipes referenced several films to determine a look for Afterschool, including Humanité, a French film by Bruno Dumont, and several Michael Haneke films, such as The Piano Teacher, Funny Games and Benny’s Videos. For lighting, Campos says his visual references were Stanley Kubrick’s films from the 1970s and ‘80s, particularly A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. He appreciates those films for their surrealistic feeling which looks natural with minimal contrast.

“I wanted the audience to feel like they are a fly on the wall,” Campos says. “Scenes happen within scenes, and with the anamorphic format, I could have a lot going on in the frame — actors moving all around or going in and out. I wanted to create a sense of impending doom that something bad could happen at any moment.”

The style of the film shifts after the death of the girls. The camera moves more and in different ways. Campos called them “sentimental camera” shots, which consisted of long dolly moves and graceful pans that communicate the feeling of camaraderie that forms amongst the schoolmates.

Lipes used one ARRI 535 camera, a couple 4K HMIs, some Kino Flos, and a small tungsten lighting package from Eastern Effects in Brooklyn. For day interior and night exterior and interior scenes, Lipes used KODAK VISION2 500T 5218 film, and KODAK VISION2 250D 5205 film for the exterior day shots.

The young filmmakers prepped for two weeks before the 24-day shoot. Campos and Lipes compiled a very detailed shot list for every scene during prep by taking digital stills in the school in script order with either of them as the subject.

Lipes describes a scene where the lighting team’s nascent creativity and technical savvy usurped budgetary limitations. “We shot a scene in a very large, old chapel on the school campus,” he says. “It was where the school assemblies are held in the movie. There was nowhere from which to light because we could see almost the entire room. The ceiling was inaccessible. We had hundreds of extras. We didn’t have the lighting budget to get cranes and large units placed outside the windows, so we ended up having our key grip, Alex Engel, run some sash from the roof at the top of the chapel all the way to the back balcony. Then Paul Yee, our gaffer, rigged about 20 China balls all along the three lines. It was a huge undertaking for our small crew, because we were shooting other locations during the chapel rigging. Yee and Engel were definitely improvising, but we all knew that we were going to have to do something to get the shot Tony needed. It ended up working really well. The results on screen are exactly what we wanted. I love working with Engel and Yee because they have a DP’s eye. I can always count on them to make creative decisions that make my work better.”

Lipes says that on both stocks, he was overexposing a full stop and pulling a half. “Tony saw our pull test at Technicolor, and we agreed that getting the blacks a little inkier and the grain a little tighter made for a cleaner image,” says Lipes. “That look served the story by furthering the divide between the video and film world in both of our minds.

“Also, choosing stocks that were as similar as possible was important for Tony because we had no plans for a DI (digital intermediate) to smooth out differences when cutting from one to another,” he cites. “We also value the analog aesthetic of a photochemical finish. A DI would have given the film image what Tony and I perceive as a very slight video feel which we were trying to avoid as much as possible.”

“Anamorphic is so crisp that to put it through a process where the images get degraded, even just a little bit, doesn’t seem fair to the format,” adds Campos. “For our first film, there was something special about doing it as purely as possible.”

Technicolor developed the film and recorded the conformed negative onto Kodak print film.

“Thanks to ARRI, Kodak, and Joe Dunton Cameras (JDC), as well as the talented cast and crew, the ridiculous idea of shooting Afterschool on 35mm with anamorphic lenses actually became a reality,” Mond remarks. “We are just so happy to have this tremendous opportunity.”

“I think it’s important for any director to be as involved as possible and to constantly be learning,” Campos concludes. “That’s the fun of it all. You don’t know everything and that’s why you have a crew. When you collaborate, you learn more and figure things out. Other people from past experiences may have ideas for you, and you always need options. That’s the key to making good films.”