“My principle is that I cooperate with people, I let things happen, I go by the environment.”
This is a quote from Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, a Thai director of photography who is a master
of creating visuals grounded in reality but with a certain element of cinematic beauty
and fantasy.
In this edition of Cinematography Style I will be analysing and breaking down the photography
of probably my personal favourite contemporary cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, by looking
at his work and drawing from his philosophy on creating images as well as looking at the
gear he chooses for creating images.
He began his career as a DOP in Thailand, working with frequent collaborator Apichatpong
Weerasethakul (nicknamed Joe). Together they’ve worked on a variety of films, from their first
film Mysterious Object at Noon to the host of films that they’ve premiered at Cannes,
including perhaps the most famous Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives which won the
Palme De Or at Cannes in 2010.
He continued to shoot the majority of his work in Thailand which included shorts as
well as Thai features such as Soi Cowboy and Sawasdee Bangkok.
Later in his career Mukdeeprom went on to form a new bond with Italian director Luca
Guadagnino, for whom he shot films such as Call Me By Your Name and Suspiria. For his
work on Call Me By Your Name he won an Independent Spirit Award. The success of these films elevated
Mukdeeprom’s international presence as a DOP and introduced him to a larger audience
outside of Thailand.
“My principle is that I cooperate with people, I let things happen, I go by the environment.”
Coming back to that first quote, it’s clear that Mukdeeprom’s visual style comes from
how he interacts with the environment on set. Rather than planning out everything to a T
in preproduction he likes to incorporate elements he finds on the set to the film, working fluidly.
This extends to his treatment of light. A lot of his lighting is grounded in realism,
being clearly motivated by the natural sources that he finds on set. When asked about whether
he likes to use natural light Mukdeeprom responds “That’s correct. But also it is still
lit in some way. Even though you see that there really is a practical and there is ambient
light, I’ve always placed a light supplementing it off screen.”
I think, as with most cinematographers, that although the visual style he employs changes
depending on the director that he’s working with there is a commonality to the films that
he shoots. I feel that a large part of the base of his look comes from his early days,
working with Joe. I think it’s fitting that their first feature film together was a black
and white experimental documentary. Mysterious Object at Noon. It appears to all be shot
on 16mm, largely relies on natural light and features frames locked off frames on a tripod
. His other films with Joe although more cinematic are still rooted in this raw, realist visual
style. A lot of that I feel is a head nod to classic Thai television shot on 16mm, a
medium which the pair have an affinity for. Blissfully Yours, Sydromes and a Century and
Uncle Boonmee are shot with a locked off or minimally moving camera. The cinematography
never tries to do too much.
The frame is as important as anything with these films. Often the takes are long and
extended and what is in the frame (and more importantly what is not in the frame) give
it a sense of realism but also a sense that our point of view is subtly being guided by
the film makers. The framing often favours wide or medium shots and rarely gets too close
to characters, favouring a more observational view point.
When working with Guadagnino the framing also plays an important role. When asked about
shot listing Mukdeeprom insists that he prefers to just follow the screenplay. ‘The text
gives us more freedom.” he says. Perhaps it’s this following of the text that enables
the films he shoots to often be cut with more minimal cutting options than perhaps is standard.
His shots tend to get to the point without having to cut around wildly to 20 different
angles to tell a story. Simplicity and naturalism are the foundation of his style.
I think a lot of his style can be attributed to his use of more classic gear. He likes
to use traditional large source lights, particularly HMI sources. He favours using fewer sources
that are well placed over filling the set with loads of lights. This allows the director
and the actors more freedom to work in the space. He describes how on Call Me By Your
Name his lighting package “ended up with 18K HMIs, down to 2.5Ks, an array of cherry
pickers, and had to shape the artificial light to appear both natural and sunny.”
Looking at some behind the scenes photographs, he also seems to be a fan of bouncing light
to supplement a natural look.
In terms of camera movement he also likes to keep the gear pretty traditional. He usually
tends to shoot on sticks or off a dolly, using a ride on crane, operating himself without
the use of a stabilised head, when he requires a crane perspective.
He’s known for favouring shooting on film, claiming that the medium resonates with him
far more than digital. “Actually, at the beginning of the era I dabbled in the digital
world and found that I could not use it for the movies. It did not talk to me like film
did. It’s nothing to do with the media itself. It’s just me.”
His work with Joe tends to be done on 16mm while in his work with Guadagnino he uses
35mm. He tends to working on the ARRI system, shooting on camera such as the Arriflex 535,
Arricam LT or the Arriflex SR3 for 16mm work. He’s recently taken to only using a single
film stock - Kodak’s Vision 3 500T. He likes to push the stock by 1 stop which increases
contrast (particularly in the highlights) and increases the film grain while keeping
it at a manageable level.
He prefers not to use any correction filters even when shooting a tungsten stock in daylight,
doing the colour correction in post. Even though the tungsten stock is warmed up in
post, shooting daylight without an 85 filter means that far more blue is recorded in the
RGB channel of the negative, so even after correction the footage tends to have a slightly
more neutral or cool look. This can be seen in his work with Guadagnino where the film
possess slightly cool or neutral tones.
Lens wise he tends to shoot on Cooke or Zeiss glass. He’s used prime lenses such as the
Cooke Speed Panchros (or S3), Cooke S4 and Zeiss T1.3 Super Speeds. He sometimes uses
zooms such as the Cooke Varotal 18-100mm or the commonly used long zoom the Angenieux
Optimo 24-290mm.
On Call Me By Your Name he took the bold decision to shoot the entire film with 1 prime lens:
a 35mm Cooke S4. “Observation was my goal on this film – to
try to observe every moment. The Cooke S4 35mm was close enough for the close-ups and
wide enough to frame the characters in relation to one another and in perspective with their surroundings."
Overall then with Mukdeeprom it always comes back to this idea of observation and using
the elements occurring naturally on set to create the film, while supplementing these
things that occur naturally to create images grounded in a naturalistic, classic style.
Guadagnino discussing the strengths of Mukdeeprom summed him up nicely, saying that that “Even
though he has a masterful knowledge of cinema from the technical point of view, Sayombhu’s
priorities are more humanistic than technical. More importantly, he has a masterful knowledge
of cinema from the storytelling perspective — the part of the film that has to do with
human beings and their emotions.”
Thanks for watching this first edition of cinematography style. If you have any questions,
comments or feedback about the video please let me know in the comments. Also if you have
any suggestions for future videos or if there are any cinematographers who you’d like
to be featured please let me know in the comments. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.