The medium of cinema is two fold in nature. It captures stories using real world elements,
but it’s also reliant on a theatrical suspension of disbelief.
Movies balance measures of reality and fantasy.
This is also how I’d describe the cinematography style of Robert Yeoman. His work rides the
wave between naturalism and imagination.
In this edition I’ll break down the work of Yeoman by looking at his filmic philosophy
and how it combines with his selection of gear to tell beautiful, cinematic stories.
Born in Pennsylvania, Yeoman got his master’s degree at USC’s School Of Cinematic Arts
in 1979.
He began his career as a DOP shooting small commercials, before going on to work on a
number of independent films.
Although he’s worked on a variety of genres over his career, his soft, well exposed lighting
style has meant he’s become a staple DOP for shooting American comedies.
He’s worked with directors such as Gus Van Sant, Kevin Smith, Nicholas Stoller and Paul
Feig. Although his many collaborations with Wes Anderson is what he’s best known for.
People usually attribute the visual style of Wes Anderson’s films solely to the director,
without realising that Yeoman, who has shot all of his live action feature films, is also
instrumental in creating his aesthetic.
Yeoman’s lighting helps reign in the levels of intense fantasy of Anderson’s films,
providing a degree of balance.
“I do like soft light. I like to make it seem like it’s not lit. I’ve been approached
before by people who said ‘You know your movies look like you didn’t even light them’.
I take that as a compliment because I want it to feel natural.”
His soft, evenly exposed lighting, without harsh contrast, compliments the lighthearted,
comedic tone of many of the films that he shoots.
Another characteristic of Yeoman’s style, particularly with Anderson, comes from his
framing and camera movement.
He favours central, symmetrical composition. Shooting from a front on perspective, as opposed
to a more traditional angled one, gives his images a theatrical feeling.
When we watch a play, our perspective from the audience position is front on. His framing
and the actors blocking mimics this formal, theatrical point of view.
The cinematic perspective he adopts is a wide one. He often uses wider focal length lenses,
which produces a more distorted, exaggerated cinematic style which enhances the background
details and world around the character.
He describes using wide lenses on Bottle Rocket, his first collaboration with Anderson:
“I remember that very early on Wes and I decided to shoot the whole film on one lens,
which was a 27mm lens, and when the studio found out they came to us and said, ‘You’re
not allowed to do that, you have to use another lens’.
So on the camera reports we put 15mm, 100mm, etc. even though we were shooting 27 for the
whole movie.
I remember one day the production manager came to me and said ‘I see you’re using
different lenses now’, and I said ‘Oh yeah we’re mixing it up’, and it was still
the same lens the entire movie. So it just shows what they know I guess.”
The production design and use of colour in the films he shoots are often stylised. He’s
mentioned ‘The Conformist’, shot by Vittorio Storaro as being an influence.
He often utilizes a palette which has strong, pastel colours, and uses complementary colours,
which are opposite colours on the spectrum, in his lighting and the mis-en-scene.
Colour therefore acts in creating a level of contrast in his films, often times more
than his lighting levels do.
Let’s break down how Yeoman creates his soft, even lighting.
When lighting night interiors he likes to use many powerful light sources and bounce
or diffuse that light to soften it. For example, on The Grand Budapest Hotel, he rigged 24
12-Light Maxi-Brutes to the ceiling. This light was diffused by full Rosco 216 diffusion.
Sometimes he even double diffuses his lights, putting 2 layers of diffusion in front of
them for extra softness.
Softening a light with diffusion decreases the strength of it, so a powerful tungsten
source like a Maxi-Brutes is needed to have enough exposure. Having many sources like
this is expensive, but spreads the light around the location so that it is more ambient, natural,
and less directional.
Rigging fixtures to the roof also means that he can shoot wide shots, with lots of movement
without having to worry about framing out lights.
For daylight interiors he employed the same strategy.
He bounced 20 4K Daylight HMIs off muslin through the skylight windows in the ceiling.
He mixed these daylight sources with practical tungsten fixtures in the frame to create a
cool, warm colour balance.
For night exteriors he likes to shoot in the blue when possible, which means he shoots
the wides and as many shots as possible, in the time after the sun has set but before
the sky becomes black. During this brief time window the sky takes on a beautiful, soft,
blue light.
Again, he punctuates wides shot during this time with touches of practical tungsten street
lamps when possible. Accentuating a dusk and tungsten complementary colour look.
The camera movement in his films with Anderson is always precise, cinematic and smooth. Although
for some other directors he’s worked with he has employed a more documentary style,
handheld camera.
He likes to work off a dolly, particularly a Chapman Hybrid 3, which has reduced friction
for smoother dolly shots. He likes the feel and precision of using a dolly, and tends
to use it over a steadicam, even for long, extended moves.
He’s also known for his whip pans, which is where a camera pans quickly and lands on
a precise frame. To achieve these he likes to operate manually on an O’Connor Ultimate
2575 fluid head, rather than using wheels.
“Particularly for swish pans that are more than 90 degrees I can be more accurate and
move the camera faster with the fluid head.”
For vertical moves, he’s occasionally used a MAT Towercam, which creates a precise, symmetrical,
telescoping, up and down movement, like an elevator.
A large part of his style comes from shooting on film. He’s used both 16mm and 35mm for
different films and has used different aspect ratios, lenses and mediums, sometimes in the
same film, to cut between different time periods or stories.
He likes the look of Kodak tungsten film stocks such as Kodak Vison 2 500T, Vision 3 200T
and 500T, which he shoots in daylight without an 85 correction filter and then warms up
in the grade.
He’s used different film cameras such as the Arricam ST, Arricam 435 and the Panaflex
Platinum.
As mentioned, he’s shot on a variety of lenses, but has a preference for wider focal
length anamorphics, particularly a 40mm, for the more comedic perspective it provides.
He also favours choosing older, vintage glass which has more falloff and softer image characteristics
particularly around the edges of frame.
His lens choices include Technovision Cooke Anamorphics, Cooke S4s, Zeiss Super Speeds
and Panavision Primo Anamorphics. For zoom shots he’s used the Optimo 24-290mm.
Yeoman’s visual sensibilities lie in a style that is well lit and based off of traditional
cinematic camera movement.
He takes elements of reality and amplifies them, packaging stories in a visual style
with dynamic, textural colour, and precise, theatrical framing.
His style is a blend between a naturalistic reality and a fantastical, augmented world.
His images lie somewhere in the middle of realism and fiction: which is the same as
the world of cinema itself.
I’d just like to thank everyone who continues to support this channel by watching, subscribing
and engaging with these videos.
In the future I’d like for this channel to become a platform for discussion and education
on cinematic concepts and theory, as there are so many people out there with both questions
and vast knowledge it would be great to see engagement in the comments from both parties.
Until next time, thanks for watching and goodbye.