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“I think that’s the question for any film. How do you get the energy of the script or the idea
into it visually? Every film is different and every scene is different but if you know what
your aspiration is to do that then you can think of some ideas of how to achieve that.”
In this series I’ve talked before about how some cinematographers
like to create a look that is fairly consistent across much of their work,
while others distance themselves from one style and mould the form of their
cinematography depending on the script or director that they are working with.
Ari Wegner very much falls into the latter category.
The films that she shoots are never tied down to one particular look,
and are rather based on a careful and deeply thought out visual style that uses informed
creative decisions to present a look that is tailor made for each individual story or script.
In this video I’ll unpack this further by diving into the philosophy behind her photography
and showing some of the gear that she uses to execute those ideas.
Growing up in Melbourne around her parents who were both artistically inclined
filled her with an appreciation for the arts and creative thought from an early age.
Her desire to work in film was sparked by her media teacher exposing her to short films,
notably one by Jane Campion. She then changed her focus from photography to cinematography.
After graduating from film school she spent years shooting local
independent films and documentaries, before breaking out by photographing Lady Macbeth,
which screened at numerous festivals.
Some of the directors she’s worked with include: ​​Janicza Bravo, Jane Campion and Justin Kurzel.
Something which is key to formulating the carefully considered look for each
film is the time that she takes to prepare. Usually about four to six weeks of time is
scheduled for pre-production on a movie - for which a cinematographer may only
be present for a fraction of. However, on Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog,
an entire year was dedicated to pre-production, with Wegner present right from the get go.
“When Jane first called me to ask if I’d be interested, one of the things that she
had as a condition was that she wanted someone to
start straight away. I often feel like there’s not enough time to prepare or that there’s a
rush. Once everyone’s in the same place the decision can feel very pressured.
So, Jane wanted this film to feel relaxed and not have to be rushed into any decision.”
This luxuriously long prep allowed them to take their time and
gradually and deliberately develop the look of the film.
Together they scouted potential shooting locations in New Zealand,
learnt about the land and foliage in the area,
calculated what time of year would be best to capture the kind of dry-brown look they wanted
and found a mountain range that felt mythical yet humble enough to believably be on a family ranch.
Campion and Wegner also set aside four to six weeks just to fully storyboard the script.
They spent time drawing out the shots that they imagined, then took those ideas and drawings to
the physical set that was being constructed and walked through them to finalise the storyboard.
All this consideration and prep resulted in a cinematic style that was down to earth,
observational, natural and unadorned.
Part of this came from the colour palette - which roots the look of a lot of her films.
Whether it’s the vivid, saturated colours in Zola, the warm nights and cool days in
The True History Of The Kelly Gang, or the muted, bone-dry natural palette of The Power of the Dog.
Part of the job she takes on is getting different scripts,
stories and ideas and applying creative thought to them in collaboration with
the director in order to create a visual style that is suitable for each project.
“We started having some big conversations about colour.
Myself, the production designer, the costume designer, about how we were going to unify
the whole world. Making a film set in Montana in the 1920s in New Zealand.
We decided a restricted colour palette would be a good part of the way to do that.”
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Like her approach to the colour palette of each film, Wegner’s lighting and selection of
camera gear is based on coming up with solid cinematic ideas that represent the story.
To convey the shift in mood of the character that happens in Zola, she used a subtle shift
in lighting and camera gear selection. As the relationship between the two characters
shifted from an infatuated, trusting, light, fun one to a distrustful, darker, unhappy one,
Wegner subtly introduced more shadows, colour clashes, contrast and darkness into the image.
She did this with low key lighting and also by shooting the initial scenes using a low-con
filter which subtly faded out the blacks and made the highlights blossom into the mid tones.
To dial in specific colour temperatures and hues into the lighting,
she used various LED fixtures, such as: Arri SkyPanels, Astera Tubes and
Litemats. She likes using LED lighting as well as practical fixtures that can be seen in the
frame - whether that’s from a natural source like a fire or an artificial source like a lamp.
Sometimes she takes the edge off the quality of artificial or natural light by placing
diffusion gels in front of the light source to soften the shadows that appear on a face.
Another example of how she uses light to represent an idea can be seen in The Power of the Dog. Often
interiors are well lit and act as a safe haven for characters, however in this film she introduced
large amounts of shadow inside the farmhouse to make the space more ominous and unsafe, by pushing
hard light through windows and backlighting characters so that they appeared in silhouette.
She’s shot on 16mm film before on Zola when it was requested by the director to give it a magical
quality that accentuated the highly unusual almost dreamlike story. She used Kodak 250D for
the sunny exteriors and the more sensitive 500T 7219 for interiors and night scenes.
From looking at some behind the scenes photos it seems that she uses a digital stills camera
to metre the film, by taking a picture with the same exposure settings as the 16mm cinema camera
until she finds an exposure level that she is happy with.
Usually she favours shooting digitally on variations of the Arri Alexa,
such as the Mini, the XT or the Mini LF. She’ll often pair these cameras with moderate,
vintage glass that breaks down the digital sharpness with a very slight optical softness.
Some examples of lenses she’s used include: Zeiss Super Speeds, Bausch & Lomb Super Baltars,
Panavision Auto Panatar 1.3x Anamorphics and zoom lenses from Angenieux or the Alura.
On The Power of the Dog she used zooms to shoot some of the wide shots at long focal lengths.
This compressed the background and made it feel like it was closer to the characters.
Once again, I’d ascribe the gear that she selects as being deliberately chosen
on an individual basis for each story: sometimes using spherical glass, sometimes anamorphic glass,
sometimes film, sometimes digital, sometimes using a Tiffen 812 warming filter
or a lo-con in front of the lens and sometimes shooting it clean.
Rather than creating and shooting with a custom LUT like many other DPs do nowadays,
Wegner likes to work and expose the camera using Arri’s standard Rec 709 LUT as a
reference. This is a basic, natural look that is applied to the flat log or RAW footage.
She’ll then create the final look for the film along with the director during the colour grade.
“I love the idea of LUTs and then everytime I try to make one it kind of scares me. Usually I shoot
REC 709 a lot. Knowing at the end of the day with the dailies colourist you can take it to
a nice place for the editors. With REC 709 I know it very well. It’s not pretty but it’s reliable.”
Wegner’s methodology always uses the story as a jumping off point.
After much consideration she then comes up with a visual look
that will support the kind of ideas that are present in the story.
Whether that’s always using central framing in Lady Macbeth to show how
trapped her character is, using her knowledge of lighting to introduce both a physical
and a psychological darkness into a space, or whether it’s reducing the
contrast of the shadows in an image with a filter to brighten the mood.
Each film she shoots offers up an opportunity to do something new.
Whatever photographic tool she chooses, it’s always deliberately thought out,
planned and then executed to create visuals that subtly
represent ideas and emotions that form her point of view on the movie.
Thanks for sticking around to the end of the video. I’d recommend checking out Wegner’s
work if you can, ideally in a better format than a compressed YouTube video.
As always a big thanks to the Patrons for their support and anyone else who watches
the videos. Let me know if there are any other filmmakers or cinematographers you’d like to see
featured in a future video. Otherwise, until next time, thanks for watching and goodbye.