What's fascinating to me about cinema is how it's borderless.
Lighting.
Composition.
Understanding of color.
And trying to understand each character.
What their world view is
and how they feel about their environment.
So I try to make cinematography subjective.
♪ Cinematography Techniques - Intro ♪
What's a character like? How do I represent that visually?
Say the movie "Biutiful" comes to mind with Javier Bardem.
Every shot everything in that film
was designed to be his point of view, his perspective.
In "Babel" it came to mind as she's deaf.
So visually I used anamorphic lenses
and try to shoot as wide open as I could
so that the background would be pretty out of focus.
And to me that visually represented not hearing what's around you.
Similarly on "The Irishman."
"- I heard you paint houses.
- Yes, that's right. I do."
-It's all Frank Sheeran's perspective
so I decided to separate the decades
and that was a emulation
of different amateur still photography stocks emulsions.
So it was Kodachrome for the 50s.
"- What's the problem, kid?
Check all these plugs."
- Ectochrome for the 60s.
"- Goddamn Kennedys. I'm looking at the damn Kennedys.
- Jimmy. The kids. Language.
- Oh, what difference does it make?
I mean, they got to learn sooner or later.
We're going at war with these people.
War."
- And then the 70s and beyond
was not so much a memory thing.
It was more the present
so I went with a emulation of ENR.
So, it's a sort of desaturated and more contrasty look.
"- Frank.
I had to put you into this thing.
Or you would never let it happen.
Either way, he's gone."
- So the color is drained as the movie goes along, you know.
And all this comes from trying to understand the story, the character.
Certainly, Scorsese has a very special way of approaching the scenes
in terms of the camera language.
He spends maybe a week or two
sequestered in a hotel room
and on his own.
Doesn't take any phone calls and he just goes to the script
and does his shot list.
He does it physically on the script.
Will spend a few days just talking it over.
I take down notes so he explains to me
all those shots that he's designed.
And also explaining why he wants
to move the camera in a certain way.
It's not just a show-off thing.
It's either he wants to create a certain energy for a moment.
Or the opposite.
"- Wake up you piece of sh*t."
- He'll many times just want to keep the camera very still and very simple.
And he wants just the performance to be what it's all about.
"- Nobody knows if a stock is gonna go up, down, sideways, or in f*cking circles.
It's all a fugazi. You know what a fugazi is?
- No. Fugayzi. It's a fake.
- Fugayzi, fugazi, it's a whazy, it's a woozy, it's...
Fairy dust. It doesn't exist.
It's never landed. It is no matter. It's not on the elemental chart.
It's not f*cking real.
- Right? - Right.
- Stay with me."
- You know, sometimes shot it with three cameras and different focal lengths
and just 8 pages of DiCaprio just giving a speech.
"- Because this man is a creative genius."
- Scorsese. There are some flourishes
because again the characters go into some deep places
where we express that weirdness of their emotion.
Or they're witnessing things that are happening
or if it's their point of view of what's happening from a distance.
So these decisions are really crucial
to put you in the perspective of the characters as an audience.
"- Everyone eyes to the camera."
- My initial approach typically will be still photography.
Because I find that the natural light that photographers capture
is something that I find more exciting to emulate than
the lighting of other cinematographers.
So, it's just when I see a still photograph
there's a mystery about it.
There's a sensation about the composition
about the color, about the lighting
that I can discuss in detail.
So I put together like a lookbook
with all these images and present it to the director.
Although, for example, on "Silence",
in that case, it was based on art.
I wanted to represent the world of the missionaries with baroque painting style.
"- So our Lord commanded.
And as I prepare to do his work, I see his face before me."
- But then Japan I wanted to represent with the style of screens of the that era.
Talking about "8 Mile", I was inspired
by the colors of a mural by Diego Rivera
that's in the Detroit Institute of the Arts.
Where he painted the industry
with cyan green colors combined with orange
and that inspired me to use that color for the lighting of "8 Mile".
So I always enjoy figuring out
how to differentiate the different worlds or moods or moments.
So, I approached "Argo" a little bit like that.
Just in terms of the three worlds that are portrayed, you know.
Iran. Of course, a revolution.
Then "Hollywood" and the whole section
where it's all about cinema in the 70s.
"- How about the horses of Achilles. - No good.
- It doesn't matter. It's a fake movie.
- If I'm doing a fake movie it's going to be a fake hit."
- And then the CIA.
The Iranian section we shot 35 millimeter
but it was widescreen so we did two perf.
Only two perforations, you know, kind of like the spaghetti western.
So, it was pretty grainy and contrasty
compared to say Hollywood.
And then the CIA that was a more controlled, anamorphic, steadicam, dolly.
Always kind of in quick movement.
"- Find the White House chief of staff.
- How would I find him?
- We're a f*cking spy agency! Find him!"
- "The Passengers" were in a spaceship, 600 years in the future.
So, I felt that the image should be the oxygen, should be clean.
And for me, grain gives you a texture of a vibration
that didn't feel accurate for "Passengers".
So, that's why we performed several tests
and showed Morten Tyldum - the director.
We agreed that "Passengers" should be in this format.
Shooting on digital a 65-millimeter
digital camera on the ALEXA 65
to get a really pristine image.
When I see an image when I'm shooting tests
for me it's all about how it feels.
Is this accurate to the movie or
to the story we're trying to tell.
We are telling emotional stories
with the images and it's not just making beautiful pictures.
And I think that is a big misconception
that people think, 'Oh, this it's good cinematography
because it's beautiful.
And it's not that. We're really trying to express
the emotion of the story.
And then certainly when I work with a director
that isn't indeed vulnerable
and it's the story that's important to him or her
that's what I want to participate in.
And create images that support that.