In the movie ôTraffic,ö the cinematographer is listed as Peter Andrews; this is a pseudonym for Steven Soderbergh, who shot all of the Northern Mexico desert scenes with a hand-held camera, deliberately overexposed, to build atmosphere in the movie. The special lighting convinces the viewer that he is not watching a commercially made movie but rather is an eyewitness to a real-life drama. ôThe resulting images give an impression of a barren, desolated land being mercilessly burnt by the sun, a no-man's land over which police and customs have no controlö (ôCinematography,ö 2002).
Soderbergh chose to use only available light in the movie whenever possible but comments in production notes that this was not always possible:
[We] had lots of conversations about using natural light. So it was a pretty funny moment the first day of production, when we showed up at the first location and the light was not great. Sure enough, we had to haul the 18-K light off the truck. I thought, 'Oh-oh, here we goàIt's really about creating the feel that you just showed up and shot. There is an art to creating that feeling artificially. For example, in the Mexico sequences, we manipulated the film with filters and shutter angles which resulted in our shooting at a much slower speed than would normally be the case. And that meant hauling out some lights (ôTraffic (2000)ö).
Philip J. Messina, SoderberghÆs production assistant, discusses the lighting techniques in greater detail:
Steven gave a very specific cinematic look to each location: In San Diego, he used a film processing technique called 'flashing.' In the desert, he changed the shutter angles and used a tobacco filter. In Cincinnati, he used a blue filter. The locations were mainly chosen for how well and how easy they would be to lightà Throughout the shoot, I used a lot of reflective surfaces. With the strong light sources, reflective pieces make the environment co
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