The cinematographer

Francis Lawrence

Red Sparrow was a novel by Jason Matthews, and it was sent to me by Fox as I was finishing working on the Hunger Games movies. I think we were actually in post-production on the final Mockingjay, and had actually started to promote the final Mockingjay film when the book landed on my desk. I took a look at it and immediately fell in love with it. I've always loved spy movies. And this spy story I thought was quite unique. It's by far I think the most genre-specific story that I've ever done. But I just found the character of Dominika, as you can see here, played by Jen Lawrence, to be quite a unique and unlikely hero, and a really unique way in to a spy Story. It becomes a much more personal spy story with her in the lead. I actually, even while reading the book, Started to think of Jen immediately for the part. You know, she and I had done three Hunger Games films together over the course of five years. I thought she was a fantastic actress, and we had a great time working together. So I thought it would be fun to find something new to do together. And specifically, because we had done this... We'd been working together with the same character over the course of five years it would be really fun to do something totally different, use different muscles. And I thought she could also look Russian, but thought it would be fun for her to look different and speak differently and move differently, and push herself into new territory. So when I had read the book, and I was gonna go pitch the studio, I actually called her first, and said, "Hey, hypothetically, would you be into doing a Story like this?" And she said yes, and, you know, I just pitched it very briefly. And then made my pitch to Fox about my approach in the story, which was to make Dominika the kind of heart and soul of the story, and to follow her story, and I had a couple of tweaks that I wanted to do to the last act of the book. And also spoke a lot about the tone, and the kind of hard-R quality that the movie... I thought the movie was gonna need. And everybody agreed. We got cracking, and I went to work with Justin Haythe, who is a writer that I've known for a long time, and we had developed something together before that had never been made. But we had a great time working together. And he also saw eye to eye with me in terms of the tone and the point of view of the story. And so we got working and it came together really quickly. So that by the time we had finished and released the final Mockingjay film in the Hunger Games series, we were pretty ready to go, and we were almost ready to start prepping this. We ended up bringing a bunch of people from the Hunger Games film with us. Jo Willems, the cinematographer that did my three films came with us, and our camera operator, who's worked with me since I Am Legend, and has also done numerous other films with Jen, 'cause he does the David O. Russell movies, came with us, and Trish Summerville, who did costumes. The new big addition for me, in terms of crew here, is Maria Djurkovic, the production designer. She had done Tinker Tailor and many other great films, and I just really enjoyed her work. And we really bonded over the references that we had found, and the kind of color palette that we both thought that the movie should follow. And she joined us, and we shot the film in Budapest. And primarily all practical locations. Some little set builds within locations, but primarily all practical locations.

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Francis Lawrence

Here's a little cameo. This is one of Jen's best friends, Laura, who also acted as her assistant on the movie. What a pleasure. May I join you? There's a fair amount of cameos in this movie, probably more than I've ever done in terms of people who work on the movie. And friends, and things like that. If you notice the policeman in the beginning of the film that's on the subway train with Joel, in the furry hat, is actually Chris Surgent, my first assistant director, who I've worked with since I Am Legend. I actually met him on I Am Legend. He was the first assistant director of the second unit, and did all the big New York City lockdown sequences for us, for the opening, and I was really impressed with him. And we've become good friends, and work together all the time now. Tell me the real reason you are here. This was actually a really, really beautiful location in downtown Budapest. It's the New York Cafe, which is attached to the hotel that we used for the exterior. And it's become a very popular tourist attraction, and a place to go eat because of its opulence. But I just thought it would be a fantastic spot for this character, for Ustinov's character to hang out. One of the things that I wanted to do, and also Maria, the production designer, was to show different facets of Russian architecture, right? The kind of classic, opulent stuff like places like this, or the ballet, the kind of socialist, Brutalist structures like her uncle's office. Some of the government housing-type environments like where she lives with her mother. But one of the things that really excited me that we got into was the idea of color. I think, honestly, people tend to expect in movies like this for it to be very gray, you know, just bleak. And what Maria and I found in our research was that there is plenty of color throughout the environments. And we had decided to really try and utilize that, and she pulled, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of photos that we used, that gave us a real sense of color palette and a sense of mood and a sense of light. And we ended up using that also for Jo, the cinematographer and I, in terms of how the movie kind of looks in terms of lighting styles as well. And that led us into a direction of, you know, post-World War I/ Russian art, and found that a lot of the, kind of, colors that are in that art were also found in a lot of these environments that we were finding in Central and Eastern Europe. And we ended up really trying to utilize those. And it was something really exciting for me, because to discover that this movie could be quite colorful was a lot of fun.

19:29 · jump to transcript →

David Kalat

Time to give proper respect to cameraman Masayo Tamai, who, along with Eiji Tsuburaya, was one of the founders of what is now known as the Japanese Society of Cinematographers. It's been through a number of name changes since when they banded together. Tamai is also the cinematographer behind Mikio Naruse's When a Woman Ascends the Stairs.

43:04 · jump to transcript →

The cinematographer of Diamonds Are Forever was Ted Moore. Moore shot seven of the first nine James Bond films. His association with Cubby Broccoli began when he photographed the Warwick film A Prize of Gold. Moore shot several other Warwick pictures before beginning work on Dr. No. Tom Mankiewicz recalls working with Ted Moore. He had shot Man for All Seasons with Fred Zinnemann. He's a wonderful cameraman. He did several.

45:14 · jump to transcript →

I think Globe Photos sent somebody at one point. So it was a combination. Most camera crews involve having a stills person as well as the director of photography and the operator and camera assistants. It's part of the union requirement that you have a stills photographer. For pinks. Pink slips? You mean for cars?

36:22 · jump to transcript →

to the movie. And, you know, now that we're in the darkness, you know, I found some interesting things from cinematographer, Owen Roizman. Now I got to know Roizman, not personally, but his work when I saw the French connection, which is also, this would be a great movie to run with Pelham as well. The Owen Roizman gritty street double feature. And, but Owen Roizman,

23:09 · jump to transcript →

Interestingly enough, he serviced his directors as accurately as any cinematographer has ever done and with apparent, complete, literal understanding of the text. Pictures like Fahrenheit or Far From the Man in Crowd or pictures that are seen through Nick's eye and yet are films made by very strong directors. Rogue.

1:47:20 · jump to transcript →

I actually like showing the people who were so important for the film. This is almost the whole team. Only the cinematographer and the sound technicians are missing. Other than that, that's pretty much it. Again, a still life. - Yes. Even though this time it is in motion. The definitive ironic interpretation of a still life. Well, I don't get irony. I have no sense for it. In that regard, I'm horribly... But you do have a sense of humor because... Yes, but that is different. I understand jokes and laugh about them, but irony takes everything of one level and relates it to something that is not directly connected. My perspective is too direct, almost verbatim. Florian Fricke called me one day. Without changing his voice, he said he was the minister of the interior. Unfortunately, there was a mistake at the ministry and I should not celebrate because I did not win the German Film Award after all. I said, "What is wrong in your ministry?" "You are responsible for the borders." "The document was signed by three different people." After a lengthy discussion he started laughing out loud. That was the moment when I finally realized that was Florian Fricke, a man who, at that time, I talked to daily. I'm terrible. This is Martje, my wife back then. She took a beta blocker to look completely lifeless. ...

1:32:44 · jump to transcript →

constant ups and downs of the horror film. It's here to stay on a recurrent basis. Now, Don, do you miss being the, in films that you make nowadays, do you miss not being your own DP and not being your own editor? I know that in your last film you didn't, you don't take an editing credit and you didn't obviously operate the camera.

1:27:32 · jump to transcript →

for all this, and there were people kind of standing at bay in that neighborhood. I believe like an older couple had this house. Not having any idea what was gonna happen in this house, they let us use it, right? Yeah, and as I recall, it had like metallic flower wallpaper before we did it over. And the sun, as you can see, is going in and out and in and out with, you know, the DP and the script woman going insane.

50:38 · jump to transcript →

A lot of the shots we actually used were test shots... ...that turned out to be very useful. As we were trying to figure out: How do you photograph something at night... ...and it doesn't look like it's got huge spotlights all over it? It was a very tricky, technical challenge because the film... ...at the time, was not nearly as fast as the Kodak film that we have now. So John Alonzo, the cinematographer, was stretching it to its limits.

5:08 · jump to transcript →

Um, yes, Heather Langenkamp. I play Nancy Thompson. I'm John Saxon. I play her father, Lieutenant Thompson. I think it was lieutenant or captain. Lieutenant. You sure? All right, enough time, enough time. I'm Wes Craven, writer-director. I'm Jacques Haitkin, the director of photography.

0:20 · jump to transcript →

Jim Piddock

And the interplay of light and shadow, the play betwixt them here, as you see only in movies photographed with distinction. This is the cinematographer's art. Cold light and then warm light. We don't usually mix them, not to this extent, but I don't think we want to quibble, do we? We seem to have settled, I think, here on darkness.

20:59 · jump to transcript →

And it's only a truncated version, I think, although this may be longer than it originally was. I'm not sure. I must say, looking at the film, this is the DP's best work he ever did. Yeah, or Dick Bush's work. Dick Bush, yes. I mean, it really is. I've forgotten how good it was. It's absolutely impeccable. And it's really an interesting contrast, seeing these shots of Grady at home and the naturalism of it. Yeah, yeah.

20:55 · jump to transcript →

because The American Friend was such a perfect film. I think we were shocked he even responded, Alex. I think that was what we were shocked at. And in fact, you know what that was? Because I had actually said to you, Michael, that I was thinking of using another guy. I won't say who it was, but he was like a New York-based cameraman. And we looked at a little bit of something he'd shot, and you said, I don't know about this guy. Why don't you think if you could have anybody that you want, who would you like to have be the DP? And that was when I thought of Robby Müller. That's a nice shot there, too. That's just beautiful.

34:31 · jump to transcript →

Everybody had very specific bits here. I was the lucky recipient of all that and kind of the coordinator, although I did write Lamar's rap, and I want my children to know that. This was the last shot of the night, and I'm so glad that King Baggot at the DP forced me to shoot it because I was getting tired and cranky, and I think I was saying, we don't need it, but I love that shot.

1:14:06 · jump to transcript →

said let's go for the core here let's go for the real the true mediocre in her face to sniff it you don't find that offensive you don't find that sexist this is 1982. that's right it's 1982 get out of the 60s we don't have this mentality anymore well you should have seen the cover they wanted to do i don't care what they want my favorite moment from the from the pre-production process was we were looking for a cinematographer to shoot it and needed to have somebody with documentary experience and

14:39 · jump to transcript →

Roger Moore

That was very pleasant. I like shooting in France, in the studios, because the French don't start till midday. And they don't have tea breaks. They just shoot from 12 till 7.30. And then you can go out to dinner. And you don't have to get up at six or five in the morning. And so Lewis Gilbert, when we were working in Paris, would say, we'd be called, he'd say, I give Claude, director of photography,

20:26 · jump to transcript →

Oliver Stone

because the nights don't last that long we had rain mosquitoes real mosquitoes and bob richardson my dp and i was our first big film together and bob was struggling with you know lighting nights in the jungle it's not easy with very limited equipment we went with the idea of at least in the day times of a hard to see look in the jungle nothing is

27:01 · jump to transcript →

Is that the refinery back there? Yeah, that's the refinery. And this set is the value of someone like Jan Kiesser, the DP, because we didn't know where to shoot it, and he just created and kind of manufactured this setting. I remember he spotted the car there and we dressed the back with the hubcaps and kind of created it instantaneously that day because we were stuck. We had lost... We didn't lose the location, but we changed the schedule, and we had to shoot this scene, and... Anyway, not that important. But again, I'm remembering stuff as I'm seeing it, and... The light's beautiful.

22:58 · jump to transcript →

That shot right there is what I thought we were shooting when I sat down in that chaise lounge. And I sat down awkwardly because I thought I was sitting into the shots and that we were not going to see below my waist. And I think Harvey just forgot to tell me that it wasn't Harvey Genkins, who was our wonderful cinematographer, forgot to tell me that it was not a master shot. But there have been some very inappropriate memes, kind of disrespectful to the 15-year-old version of myself.

34:02 · jump to transcript →

Hi, everybody. My name is Joe Lynch. I am a filmmaker. And I would not be here today if it were not for this film that you are watching right here. And it wasn't for this man and the other men that are in the room with me right now. Welcome to the remake of The Blob. And with me to my right is cinematographer Mark Irwin. Say hi, Mark.

0:23 · jump to transcript →

Stephen Prince

They interceded with Warner Brothers on Kurosawa's behalf. Warner agreed to distribute the film worldwide, and on that basis, Kurosawa Productions was able to get funding for the movie. So Kurosawa was back in the director's chair with his son Hisao as co-producer and with familiar collaborators like cinematographer Takao Saito and art director Yoshiro Muraki.

0:34 · jump to transcript →

And it was interesting in that some of the scenes earlier with some of the homeless people and the rebels reminded me when I was watching it again of some very similar scenes in They Live. And of course, the DP you have on this movie, Gary Kibbe, had been Carpenter's DP. That's right. That's right.

33:02 · jump to transcript →

a wonderful shorthand to watch between the two of them sometimes in terms of how they find the honesty of the scene and exactly where they want to have the camera to tell the story at that moment. And it's a real collaboration between the two of them. You choose a cinematographer by looking at his work and looking at his artistry and how he's able to light and how he's able to compose

1:19:42 · jump to transcript →