- 30 minutes ago
Janusz Kaminski ('The Post'), Hoyte Van Hoytema ('Dunkirk'), Dan Laustsen ('The Shape of Water') and Robert Elswit (Roman J. Israel, Esq.) also joined the Roundtable.
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Short filmTranscript
00:06let's get started Janusz tell us about your longtime relationship with Steven Spielberg and
00:11what makes that work I have worked with Steven since 1993 so that's a very good relationship
00:17that evolves constantly every picture we do we we discover new things about each other not just in
00:23terms of personalities but also a creative energy that we built around the project after making so
00:28many movies with him and being with him for such a long time I personally still discover that he's
00:33got so much new untapped creativity that every movie that we do he amazes me with his new point
00:40of view with the ability to tell the story a different way so it never became routine and
00:45that's what's very exciting to me so for example this film the post what did the two of you begin
00:50to talk about when he brought it to you Steven said I've got this really great story it's a story
00:55about
00:55the Pentagon Papers and Washington Post publishing the papers against the government's advice and
01:00demand of not publishing the papers it's going to be with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep and we're
01:05going to start in two months and of course I was very excited about it I knew it's going to
01:08be
01:08period movie I knew I have to figure out what is the language what is the approach what is the
01:12light
01:12where are the lights coming from what is the framing and so forth all that stuff that we all have
01:17to
01:17figure out before we make the movie if we don't hold them accountable who will we can't hold them
01:23accountable if we don't have a newspaper Nixon will muster the full power of the presidency and if
01:29there's a way to destroy you by God he'll find me I'm asking your advice Bob not your permission
01:36she can't do this the legacy of the company is at stake what will happen if we don't publish
01:44we will lose the country will lose how did working with him on this one compared to your
01:51early movie like for example when he came to you with for Schindler's List usually when you look at
01:54Steven's movies he will have two characters who are the principal characters so if you think of Lincoln
01:59which was a big canvas picture with very important words coming out of actors on this movie you've got
02:06more than just Lincoln you've got five six characters who are not just doing one main role they are
02:13equally important to to each other so it was in that aspect the movie was very different I think
02:17Steven was much more focused on not necessarily on the imagery but on the content and he's always
02:23focused on the content but somehow as we all know he's such a director that his movies are taught to
02:28language of camera and and camera movements and lighting and all that stuff but here he was very
02:33much focused on the content that actors performance more than not more it's just different than he was
02:38with Lincoln because he's got many actors of equal importance sure Bob you've worked with George
02:43Clooney before tell us a little bit about what makes that relationship work I'd seen his first
02:49movie or it's actually he'd made two movies I think before I worked with him and his approach is really
02:53an actor's approach I think to directing and it's one of the things that I think until you've experienced
02:58it it is very different from someone who is a writer director primarily or always a director he really
03:03looks at the actors and what's going on with the actresses they're his closest collaborators
03:09and this picture I but I just did with him was very different because he didn't act in it at
03:13all he
03:13wasn't in it he really just directed it and he and Grant as law of his partner rewrote a Coen
03:19Brothers script which I'm sure Roger would have shot actually had it actually gone about it was like 15
03:25years ago I think was when he wrote Suburbicon and Grant and George added a whole level to the script
03:31that
03:31wasn't there originally it's about a small community on the east coast these were houses that were built
03:37right after World War II for very little money that were it was sort of middle-class housing and they
03:42were housing developments the first ones in the United States and this one particular one had a
03:46black family move in and actually really happened and there was a race riot and a number of other
03:51things took place that we don't really associate or think about with the north in the United States so
03:56they wanted to include that in this Coen Brothers murder script so they made a kind of a
04:00a little bit of a mash-up with it out for a ride surprise for you when you get home
04:11what did you do you're gonna pay us that money what did you do you're gonna pay us that money
04:17what did you do you're gonna pay us that money
04:33he actually hired the same storyboard artist who does all the Coen Brothers movies so he storyboarded
04:39the whole film and it actually helped a lot it's the first time I've worked with him where that
04:43happened where we actually went through it and it made it I know we all have different ideas about
04:49how to work with storyboards but it actually made a big difference on and he actually does focus on the
04:54visuals in a very specific way he had a very clear idea about what he wanted the movie to look
04:58like
04:58which wasn't my experience with him before quite so much so that was kind of different Roger you've
05:03worked with Denis Villeneuve before but what did you think when he first said to you we're going to make
05:07Blade Runner well I think he was terrified and I think that kind of like made me feel even more
05:13terrified I mean it's one of those sort of things so you you can't say no to sort of the
05:19opportunity
05:19you know what I mean and having worked with Denis twice you know and had really good relationship
05:25with him and we have a very similar sort of sensibility and we kind of like to work in a
05:31similar
05:31way we consider you know the script and and how each scene is going to be translated quite a lot
05:39you know we spend a lot of time in prep just talking things through and he likes to shoot with
05:44a single camera you know stuff like that so we say we have a similar way of working so it's
05:50uh yeah it
05:51was Blade Runner was something I couldn't I couldn't say no to and why would I when did the two
05:56of you
05:56start talking about it and what was kind of the process before you we started we started uh I went
06:03to Montreal he was cutting a rival and we um I was staying in Montreal for a few months at
06:09the end of
06:092015 so it was like nine months before we started shooting we started storyboarding it and well we
06:17started really talking about the script and how to visualize it and actually some of the script in
06:22terms of the staging and the setting sort of changed as we discussed it and there was also
06:27Dennis Gasson was also there so we were discussing the overall look at the film as we went through the
06:32script and so it was I really like that process I think especially on a film like that the prep
06:37is
06:37so important and then gradually we started storyboarding getting more and more specific about
06:43different scenes so you're working closely with the production designer at that stage yeah yeah all the way
06:47all the way yeah absolutely yeah the ancient models give the entire endeavor a bad name
06:54what a gift don't you think from Mr. Wallace to the world
07:02the outer colonies would never have flourished heading out bought Tyrell
07:06revivified the technology to say the least of what we do
07:13right you've done a few films with Christopher Nolan already tell us about your collaborative
07:18process you know after you finish a film it's always kind of unsatisfying because you started
07:24to discover things together and one film is just not enough to develop that on and then you do a
07:29next
07:29film and you get much deeper into the matter and you can challenge each other much more it's so much
07:34about chemistry as well you know in the beginning you're very stiff and you're really feeling each other
07:38out and you're sort of tiptoeing around each other but then on the next project you can do more you
07:44dare
07:44to do more and you can use things that you have been learning from each other and and I very
07:48much
07:48enjoy that I very much enjoy sort of the next picture in in that perspective you know I took over
07:56from
07:56Wally of course which is always this very scary thing you know it's like after a divorce you know you're
08:02the you're the you're the new girlfriend you know I've been there a couple of times it's fun though
08:06and it's well Wally Pfister wanted to pursue directing at that point Wally want to pursue
08:11directing so Chris had to find a new person and he found me but you know you're scared to death
08:17in
08:18the beginning you want to fulfill certain expectations you want to you want to deliver
08:22what had been delivered before and at the same time you want to bring something of yourself to the table
08:26you know
08:31come on in bailout
08:58now it sounds like the two of you also had a lot of fun together on this because you told
09:01me the
09:01two of you got to go up in the Spitfires and yeah we had we had a tremendous amount of
09:06fun yes like
09:07two little boys you know flying in a Spitfire is very much fun but but we just wanted to figure
09:14out
09:14how it how it really felt you know we wanted to know what what the g-forces do to your
09:18body and how
09:19the light changes and we just wanted to understand what it what it is to sit in a in a
09:23small sort of
09:24you know plexiglass encased cabin you know and feel that claustrophobia at the same time feel the
09:31sort of the magnitude and the space around we wanted to see with our own eyes how planes can move
09:36you know the physics behind it how they move in relationship to each other very important you know
09:43for one plane to line up on another plane and start shooting at it there's a lot of physics
09:47we were very much interested in showing the difficulty of that that very thing you know not
09:52only sort of the beauty and the graciousness of it but also very much the difficulty so we went out
09:57flying just to just just just to be able to understand so dan you've worked with guillermo del
10:02toro before but tell us a little bit about how you work together specifically on the shape of water
10:07when we shot the crimson peak for some years ago that was a very colorful movie
10:12and he talked about this love story between this girl that's not talking and a fish and i was like
10:20what is this about you know so weird you know how can that be interesting and he talked very much
10:24about
10:25it should be a black and white movie so in the beginning we talked about a lot of black and
10:29white
10:29but i want to shoot a monochromatic like you know like old-fashioned black and white and of course
10:35nobody wants to pull the money up for that because then there's no way around it you know normally
10:39you're shooting color and you're making a black and white in in post and then you have both options
10:45but we didn't want to do that and of course that was a long process because we were shooting a
10:48very
10:49colorful movie so in the beginning like going black and white i was so excited like yes you know
10:54all the cinematographers in the world want to shoot black and white and i was so keen about like
10:58this must be fantastic so for a couple of months i was so happy and then we couldn't find the
11:05money
11:05or whatever it was you know so we decided to go color again
11:14damn it
11:38of course i'm very pleased about the movie and you know we have worked together since
11:4496 i think it was and then we took a break for some years and we met again for crimson
11:49peak and
11:49it was like we have been together for two days before it was amazing you know and he's so much
11:53a
11:53movie maker so for him is you know he's talking about a camera move and then gliding and you know
12:00we're on the same page there so it was like coming back home after after like 15 years vacation
12:08rachel what was it like working with dvs for the first time when you made mudbound
12:11well d and i had sort of known each other from the indie circuit i think we've both been sort
12:16of
12:16mutual fans of each other's work and kind of knew each other a little bit socially
12:20bradford who had shot pariah for her is one of my good friends and you know for whatever reason
12:24i don't know if he wasn't available or she just thought i was a better fit for this project but
12:28she approached me about it you know it's a book originally and so the script that she she sent
12:32me was sort of the first pass but from that very first script it was you know it was really
12:37sort of my my dream period she had me at 1940s and then everything else was kind of you know
12:42bonus
12:43bonus on that on that but i was a big fan of pariah i was a big fan of her
12:47short you know she had a
12:48short called pariah that sort of inspired the feature so just sort of from the first conversation
12:52it felt like this was a good one to do what good is a deed
13:01my grandfathers and great uncles grandmothers and great aunts father and mother
13:06broke tilled tall planted plucked raised burned broke again worked this land all they life
13:19this land that never would be theirs
13:26now this was shot in just 29 days on location in louisiana during the summer you had heat
13:33you've had obviously mud yeah um a lot of challenges um tell us a little bit about the
13:39challenges of shooting this film it was it was brutal i mean we had initially set out to shoot
13:44it in january and of course between financing and casting and all those things that sort of pushed and
13:48pushed and pushed and next thing you know we're sort of in the south in july you know on a
13:54plantation
13:54with no respite from the heat the two interiors had no windows there was sort of no way to air
13:59condition them even if we hypothetically could you know mud was sort of i mean you
14:03see the title and you know you're in for it a little bit but mud was was you know if
14:07it wasn't
14:08rain that we were creating it was in you know in the south in the summer you sort of get
14:13one to two thunderstorms a day so you're in the middle of a sunny scene and two minutes later it's
14:18pouring and then you're sort of cleaning all the gear off and you know shuffling through and trying
14:23to find some continuity with what you've been doing before and then we had to make mud when there was
14:27no mud so it was the elements you know both man-made and certainly the real elements were
14:33really the biggest challenge on that film were there instances where it would start raining and
14:37you just decide okay this scene's going to be in the rain there was actually a lot of scripted rain
14:41if it started raining we would go and grab the scenes that were intended to be in the rain
14:45the problem is that it rains there for 20 minutes and then it stops raining so there was a lot
14:50of
14:50starting something and then having to figure out ways to match to the thing that you had started
14:54um and you know the other thing is just the gear it's that we would often find we sort of
15:00one road
15:00in to this plantation one road out and we would we would end up with sort of you know whether
15:05it's
15:05petty bones or or or um fly swatters that stuck in the mud couldn't move there was also just the
15:12fallout
15:12from all of the rain and the water and the logistics were really tough
15:28dan what were some of the challenges you faced during production as the shape of water was shot
15:32in 60 days and on a 20 million production budget it's a pretty small movie money-wise but it looks
15:38if you ask me pretty big of course there was challenge you know to find a way to work around
15:43you know because we couldn't afford a lot of stuff you know we have to fight for all the equipment
15:46so
15:46we shot with a very small camera package we shot most of the time with one camera pretty small
15:52movie comparing to what we was trying to do and we have to fight for every crane day we have
15:57to get
15:57in you know we have to fight for that because we could not afford it you know so we shot
16:00a lot of
16:01small jeep arm and a hothead because we like to have this moving the camera as much as possible and
16:06germo is never shooting a master you know all this shot is shot by shot so it's of course time
16:13consuming to take walls off and on and all the time you know so you and he's trying to shoot
16:17as much as
16:17possible chronological you know so it's like going on and off and that's of course difficult again with
16:23the lighting because you have to go back again later on in the day to the same lighting setup but
16:28the
16:28biggest challenge was you know we have to be very clever about how we spend our money because 95%
16:34of the
16:35movies in the studio and when we was outside we was in the rain all the time as well you
16:39know we
16:40was we was doing artificial rain you know night times at big big night night setups with a lot of
16:45rain and because we were shooting in the winter time so we have to heat up the rain because it
16:50was so
16:50cold so we have problems with the rain deflectors getting foggy and all that stuff everybody knows
16:56about and the actors could not stand there poor sally was standing with a small jacket on it was like
17:00pouring down with rain for hours and hours so we was shooting with heated rain there was a challenge
17:06it's so fun to do it you know because to work with guillermo is like he's so much a movie
17:10maker so
17:11it's it's a pleasant to be a part of that of course but we have to be clever we could
17:15not just order
17:16stuff in all the time we have to be very precise what we need that day sure so that was
17:23pretty good
17:24it's almost like he was talking about blade runner you could say it's a different budget but
17:28then you know the more money the budget has then the more expectation and the more you push yourself
17:34probably to do stuff and you know where you get down to the same thing we we had the same
17:39issues
17:40we were shooting outside on the back lot for some scenes and both denny and i said we're not shooting
17:45outside unless it's gray overcast raining that's it and of course production we're going oh my god what
17:51are we gonna do and you know so it's the same issues we uh we shot some work on a
17:57tank that we
17:57actually built to shoot this night exterior with wave machines this like storm sequence
18:04and of course the water had to be heated because it was like end of october or november i think
18:08we
18:08were shooting it and it was really cold it was almost freezing but it was really kind of nice you
18:12get a happy accident because all the water started steaming about seven o'clock you got this fantastic
18:18steam so every evening after i figured that was happening i uh had to stall before we started shooting so
18:25i
18:27really matched you get the same thing isn't it yeah in a way it doesn't matter what the budget is
18:33everything's scaled up for what you know in the film there are some of the sets where um you use
18:38water
18:38to such great effect with the reflections and to create movement um can you talk a little bit about
18:43how you approached that it started all this all that time ago in montreal discussing the whole kind of
18:49concept and then so there's this one character that jared leto plays and i just wanted his interiors to
18:56kind of always be about moving light as though he had this sort of sunlit interior in this world that's
19:02full of fog and snow outside but he's created this artificial kind of world so then i just started
19:09you know just trolling the web basically looking at different architects and the way they use light and then
19:15you know discovering things like you know you have a water on a ceiling and you put light through it
19:20and you get wonderful caustics and so it was all that it was kind of yeah progression um to go
19:26back
19:26to when you were starting to talk about it in montreal obviously this is um a sequel to a classic
19:31film with
19:31a very distinct look to what extent did the original inform your decisions of what the overall film would look
19:37like i think in all honesty not much um obviously it's got parallels because it's the same world 30
19:44years on but it's very much denny's own take on the script it's it's it's a film that could stand
19:50by
19:50itself yeah and i'm not jordan cronenworth i could not like like jordan so i didn't even wanted to go
19:56there i mean i kind of like in a naturalistic way in a simpler way and he's got his style
20:02was so much
20:02more classic and cuts and and a wonderful like i couldn't do that so you know i didn't even really
20:08want to go there frankly i feel terrible because everyone's had a struggle
20:13mud and it's raining and it's cold and i just had a great time it was like 80 degrees
20:20with these wonderful sets that were air-conditioned it was the opposite of a struggle we had all this
20:24money we never had a i mean nothing ever no i'm being serious actually they were very simple both
20:30movies were done in l.a i got to go home at night i didn't have to live in some
20:33other country
20:35so yeah i was very sorry sure even though they were both shot in los angeles they were very different
20:42looks you downtown los angeles and then you had this you know the the the sort of film digital
20:47discussion is one i sort of don't enjoy having very much but i think that's really one of the
20:51the the denzel movie he wanted to shoot on film so did the director and george wanted to shoot
20:57digitally and and they do have a distinct look and they're or at least i can't figure out how to
21:01change them i mean i end up with something out of the box on film that i don't seem to
21:06be able to find
21:07and i actually hope to talk to somebody here to explain how to do it because my digital work seems
21:12to be a little bit homogenized a little clinical looking and that tends to be what i sort of fight
21:19against a little bit and when i shoot film it sort of automatically happens i don't end up having to
21:24kind of make that struggle it's just sort of immediately but that's really i think the real
21:28difference but they're very different movies it was a stylized period film in suburban it was kind
21:34of naturalistic lighting and the roman israel the denzel movie was a little more theatrical
21:40and a little bit different in terms of lighting so that is the difference but i think when i look
21:43at
21:43them i i i can't i have no style i have no idea what i'm doing usually and it just
21:48sort of grows out of
21:49conversations with the director and whoever the production designer is and um i don't know is
21:55anybody else i i i still haven't a real hard time figuring out how to work digitally in a creative
22:02way where it doesn't seem um i guess kind of clinic i guess clinical is the word that keeps coming
22:08to
22:08mind but um i don't know when you see suburban con you'll have to let me know i have no
22:12idea but it
22:13doesn't feel quite the same to me anymore does anyone have any thoughts on that nobody wants to
22:19get into that well you shot you shot imax you shot 65 millimeter right for most right so dunkirk was
22:26uh
22:26imax and uh 65 millimeter yeah i'm doing a film in 65 alexa right now and it's it's like a
22:33hundred
22:33percent it's worse to me it sort of has it anyway don't use any feel light i think that's the
22:39key for
22:40being shooting digital you know you have to do it pretty dark and i have to and i have to
22:44learn
22:44filters again i just uh when we shot crimson peak we have a filter behind the lens you know we
22:49have
22:49a diffusion filter yeah and we did the same shape of water we have a black promise inside the camera
22:55well you're still shooting film too yes yes but why why don't you just continue try to continue shooting
23:00on that where you feel comfortable with it's never up to me because you know that i mean it's like
23:07when
23:07you have that discussion nobody wins that debate uh it depends on the movie and i was thinking the
23:12original blade runner had such an effect on me when i saw it in film school so long ago and
23:17the trailer
23:18the scale of it i think somehow you figured out how to do this um something you seem to be
23:23able to
23:23i'd use an iphone i wouldn't i'm fed up with this conversation i think it's what's in the frame and
23:32it always is how you light it you know i mean the first film i did digitally was in time
23:38right and
23:39we made the decision to shoot that digitally because of the kind of film it was we wanted something
23:43big actually we wanted it a bit synthetic but we were only going to use it for part of the
23:50film
23:50and then we just thought well it's not i don't see any difference and i just thought at that point
23:56you know the time had come to start shooting digitally and that's how i felt yeah i i i don't
24:02really do anything differently i don't put any filters on and how much i never have i don't you
24:08just feel like anyway so i haven't changed anything really so what do you do you do anything different
24:14in post do you find yourselves no no i do it in camera as much as i can although you
24:18know they say
24:19obviously there's there's more latitude and stuff but i like you know in blade round we did all the
24:24colors in camera everything's actually on the digital negative you know i mean but it's more
24:29fun doing it that way apart from anything else oh my god so i just basically haven't changed at all
24:35you know around town i've talked to various post houses who said it feels like they're seeing more
24:41film this year and um and then if you talk to exhibitors uh dunkirk is a great example did you
24:48know
24:49the film did very well where it was shown you know with film projection um what are your all of
24:55your
24:55thoughts on where film is going well you know and and i'm also kind of fed up with the discussion
25:04in
25:04in many ways and it's it's you know i i think that discussion has brought so much harm to you
25:11know
25:12to what's what's what's happening in in the in the film industry and people always want to polarize you
25:18know choices and simplify choices and and and and you know of course for for for for big production
25:25machines it's very easy to sort of you know make things calculable you know and and and and very often
25:33people want to standardize things you know they want to standardize exhibition you know the way it gets
25:39exhibited um standardized what you're shooting on but in the end i mean you know i think everybody
25:45should shoot on whatever they want to shoot on and and and and um and and i think we all
25:51together
25:52as a group should make sure that we keep all those choices on the table you know and and by
25:58by you know
25:59by saying that this is better or this is worse you you you you you you you you start polarizing
26:06and and
26:06and you automatically you uh ignore the fact that you know there's no better there's no worse but
26:12you know i mean roger feels you know very comfortable on the medium that he shoots on and he makes
26:18the
26:19most beautiful stuff and bob so do you you know and rachel and janus and then you know it's it's
26:27uh it's
26:28uh you know i i also i can't really um we're fed up with this subject matter well let's move
26:35on
26:36so um it's a distraction before we started you commented that you wanted your film to look like
26:43someone else shot it correct yeah i mean often explain that in the past i would visit roger on
26:49the set and i would see his beautiful lighting and roger would say how's that backlight janish
26:53how is that backlight so no roger in this movie no backlight so i think you know the idea of
26:58de-glamorizing the images i'm always strange i've been always interested in that i didn't want that
27:03classical hollywood light i've altered my lighting style for the first time i was lighting with top
27:07light which usually i don't do that because i i find it very challenging and always scary when you get
27:12when you get top light but this story permitted for me to do that where i don't mind the little
27:16bit
27:17shadows and under the eyes not on the girl but on the guys and the girl you don't put shadows
27:21i don't think
27:22on the guys you can do shadows and different color palette you know not many colorful lights
27:27you know a little bit more naturalistic looking um and then occasionally i would do the door of them
27:32you know traditional stuff with backlight and stuff but but i was trying to restrain myself because
27:37the story was 100 allowed me to do that you know and then of course there was this one great
27:42movie
27:42called all the president's men and this picture happens right before all the president's men which is
27:47a story of pentagon papers being published by washington post where all the president's men are about
27:52about water again in fact we are finishing our movie implying that maybe we are the picture that
27:58happened right before the that all the president's men there's a little homage we do we do at the end
28:02you know and i think to me the biggest objective was to create images that feel relevant to what's
28:07happening right now to us as a nation and what's happening to the press what's happening with this
28:12administration being really really critical of press and freedom of speech and critical of the
28:16constitutional rights of all the citizens so i wanted to make movie that feels contemporary although it's
28:211971 but needed to feel contemporary to the point where in the picture there is original recording
28:27of nixon who says you know neil shannon this cocksucker you know he needs to be fired you know
28:32and fired is the is the phrase that this fellow adapted from nixon of course in 1971 i was not
28:38here
28:38when i was in poland living in poland the vietnamese were the good guys so so this is completely another
28:43aspect of demystifying american's honesty because as i was growing up in poland this was the beacon of
28:47democracy this is the beacon of truth the movies that were made in the 70s were the movies that i
28:51wanted to come to america for so i think whether this was a conscious decision or not what's happening
28:57right now in this administration and what's happening in our movie has direct relations so i wanted to
29:02make something that feels relevant that feels like you know it was made now for the audience of these
29:07days what did you and and steven talk about i mean i'm sure you have these very conversations
29:12not a conversation to be honest with you he does his thing i do my thing and and that's the
29:17best
29:17best thing i like to talk is often when you talk with directors and i've got very limited
29:22experience with other directors you talk you're sitting at a table with all this theory and then
29:26all falls apart and you just wasted two weeks talking about something that you never do so with
29:30steven he does his thing i do my thing and somehow we both see this movie the same way and
29:34we
29:34we enjoy making a movie his main concern is that people look presentable and dignifying and that's my
29:40same i've got the same concern you know i want i want people to look dignifying so as i said
29:44earlier
29:44the lady would get a little bit more light and and and tumble not necessarily get some light so you
29:49you know not to create merit to look like a movie star but she's essentially the star she's
29:53katrin graham she's the owner of the washington post so you want her to have a presence that is
29:58different than all the other actors to go back to what you were saying before did you go to him
30:02and
30:02say uh for this movie i don't want it to look like i shot it no because certain things you
30:05don't reveal
30:06you don't even after 27 25 years you don't want to inform give too much information because then
30:12you subject yourself to being questioned to being questioned and sometimes i don't really have an
30:15answer it just feels right you know why is that light up there it's up there why is it bouncing
30:20i don't
30:20know it feels right for the for the story okay okay good so and i remember during schindler's this we
30:26did one scene at the table where the jewish family is swallowing diamonds you know and there's one
30:30top light and i went to him look man this is dark i don't know who's going to come out
30:33and he says well
30:34looks really great you feel liberated you don't have fear so same with this movie you want to take
30:38we all want to take chances because it's not this comfortable life we've chosen because it's not this
30:43season and we work with movie stars we express ourselves artistically throughout our work
30:48and you want to take chances so when you work with collaborators who are willing to do this and
30:52encourage you to take this the chances then it's the ideal thing that you don't mind you know having two
30:56divorces and you know because because that because they're making movies is so liberating to some
31:04degree so we don't talk much about well we're going to have to talk about
31:20rachel there are still a limited number of women shooting hollywood movies today um what has
31:26your experience been as a woman in this business i mean my hope is that it's changing and changing
31:31fast and it seems to be i mean i feel like there's a real sort of palpable momentum you know
31:37out in
31:37the universe not so much politically right now but i think at least in in the hollywood universe where
31:43there's a real push to get more women both in front you know directing and better roles for women
31:47and certainly for cinematographers there's still very few of us you know i think it's sort of mind
31:53blowing that there's you know 50 51 percent women and four percent female dps probably 0.05 percent
32:00female gaffers female key grips it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me quite frankly i mean this
32:05is you know our world is dealing in emotion which is something that i think women are are known for
32:10doing quite well and you know it's it's really about channeling empathy into visual imagery so i think
32:18it's changing i hope it's changing look i'll never know what happens behind closed doors you know or
32:23why i don't get hired for something but i've never had an experience that made me feel any less than
32:30i think the the big trick is just to get to a point where we're just considered dps and we're
32:34not female
32:35dps and you know when you think of the word doctor teacher you don't think gender and it'd be nice
32:40to
32:40get to a place where dp meant either you know and director men either and gaffer men either for for
32:46the rest of you are you seeing more women on crews and or do you make an effort to hire
32:51women on your
32:52crews i always try to get some women in the camera department always and in the lighting but it's more
32:58difficult in the lighting department and grips but in the camera department because it's just
33:01changed the whole feeling in the trucks and the set is just getting much more relaxed so for me it's
33:08a
33:08very big deal to try to get some women in the departments there bob you were nodding no it's
33:13a big change i think in the last 10 years and i think i have three women electricians right now
33:18working on the show i'm on and there's at least three two of the loaders and one of the assistants
33:24of women and it isn't just the traditional roles you know it used to be the script sort of person
33:28all
33:28the pretties you know here make it work it's all different now and assistant directors now it's a
33:33completely different and in a wonderful way because it really isn't more of a it was always
33:38a family but now it feels more of a community and i really like that i i totally agree in
33:43the camera
33:43department we have a little bit over 50 now women feels good you know no we we didn't talk too
33:53much
33:53about production on dunkirk yet so just to go back to that a bit now you shot on land in
33:58the air in the
33:59water with you know the imax and the 65 millimeter cameras and you also did quite a bit handheld i
34:06know
34:06what were some of the big production challenges that you faced in this film it was for us very
34:11important to sort of make it feel like you're there like like almost like it's shot on a gopro but
34:16we
34:16still wanted to take all the advantage of the big format of imax so we did a lot of engineering
34:21because
34:21there are just no off-the-shelf solutions for anything you want to do so we do a lot of
34:26tinkering you
34:26and i always love that coming up with mounts and rigs and you know engineer stuff to put cameras at
34:32places where you normally wouldn't see them you know if you if you know the limitations of that of
34:37the cockpit you know that you can only arm the camera in from a certain certain direction so
34:42dan sasaki he built us snorkel lenses for the big format that had knees and knuckles in them so
34:49so we could literally operate it by just twisting the lenses or we could have the camera you know straight
34:55up
34:55and and and and we would poke out like a little alien you know those kind of things we were
35:01building but then also we built splashbacks for the cameras that open in certain ways so we could
35:06easily reload because an imax camera has only two minutes of film on it so all those kind of things
35:12can get extremely time consuming if you don't come up with with the right solutions well you've been
35:17shooting on the beach uh in the worst situation so you you're probably very aware of the difficulties there
35:23in the salt water yeah didn't you also work with panavision on some development yeah we work with
35:29panavision work with ariflex we used to work with movie cam you know i mean it's not really the
35:35equipment as we all agree you know it's like we in the world of design what kind of what kind
35:39of
35:39sewing machine you're using you know so essentially it's a sewing machine pulse nine yeah that's that
35:44you know so but what we how we interpret the material and what we put out that's what's essential
35:50the cameras the lens the lenses are you know you know it's it's it's what's happening right there
35:55and the choices that we make not right there okay so i'm going to switch uh topics a little bit
36:00i'd
36:00like each of you to name a director living or dead that you never worked with but you would like
36:05to
36:05have worked with and why andre tarkovsky okay and why he was a great director
36:13i just love his films there's too many for me tarkovsky's one kurosawa sofia coppola
36:20won karwaii mr kustarita probably butchering the pronunciation but there are so many well
36:28let's pick one sophia what what about her work i mean i i think sophia has a really incredible sense
36:35of
36:36visual language in conjunction with you know really different storytelling i feel like every
36:41every film she makes is is quite different but beautiful in its own way i think there's a respect
36:46for the cinematography there which is always a nice place to to enter the conversation
36:51bernard to bertolucci you know really classic movie maker who made him one of the biggest and
36:57best movies on the planet i think you know and now to tell the stories with the cameras and
37:01not be afraid of that just don't true foe i think oh yeah i love that that would have been
37:07or or melville either of those guys i just that era of french film i just love yeah
37:18it's difficult though because because you get very often you know or you know even your your agent
37:23would ask who you really want to work with and the people that you very often love or that make
37:29the
37:29most beautiful films you kind of feel unneeded or unwanted you know it's like what can you add to
37:36that that thing so so maybe you know you should choose to work with the people that you don't
37:41sort of respect to death but you know just think are good filmmakers and together you can maybe do
37:46something more interesting so says the dp who just started working with no one and has brought so much to
37:52the table well yeah well thanks but um yeah i mean it's very hard to say no of course to
37:58to when
37:59somebody like chris asks you but um no but i just i just recognize because it's it's always so difficult
38:05to answer that question you know because because because you're what what your role is as a dp is is
38:10i mean it's so personal sometimes and and you have to at least feel when you when you start working
38:14with somebody that there's a little space for you where you can sort of do your thing or there's a
38:19little
38:19space you know where you think oh i can improve his work a little bit or i can steer his
38:25work or her
38:25work a little bit in a different direction was there an image or a sequence in a recent movie that
38:30just
38:31really knocked you out inspired you and if so which one was we were funny i was i went to
38:36see a film
38:37yesterday lucky with harry dean stanton and it's kind of a nice nice film but it inspired me to re
38:43-watch
38:43paris texas which i did last night and i think the last scene of paris texas is one of the
38:48most
38:48haunting scenes in movie making really i don't i only mention it just because i happened to watch
38:54it last night i was just drawn to it because of harry dean stanton i'm with you home just the
39:01pacing
39:01and the performance and the emotion within the scene it's just so beautiful yeah but as you talk
39:07about the page you know i think that's the biggest challenge you know right now you know the old days
39:11you know the pace was much slowly and you can really tell with the camera and tell the story right
39:15now it's just getting so fast everything yeah so you know going back to this like 50s pace is just
39:22amazing and it's mentioning melville is a scene in army of shadows right where where they take this
39:29you know resistance member who's given the information to the nazis this young kid and
39:33they stick him in the kitchen and they put him on a chair and there's this long scene where they're
39:38talking about how they're going to kill him and it's like an empty abandoned house that's their safe
39:43house but this guy's sitting on the chair with his hands behind the back and these two characters
39:48are just discussing in front of him how they're going to kill him and it goes doesn't it it's just
39:52they play it novel plays it so long it becomes so kind of yeah and if you just cut that
39:59like a lot of
40:00people would today into little pieces you know it would be nothing absolutely but it's just so oh you
40:06just can't get out of the scene he he he keeps you there and makes you watch this thing and
40:11it's it's
40:12brilliant filmmaking so that's when you know when a filmmaker transcends what's on the page
40:19you know the idea of the scene he transcends it by the pacing and the cuts and the spaces between
40:24the dialogue and that's when it becomes really exciting yeah that's why i'd love working with
40:30denny for me he's doing that you know that's actually a very nice thing that we today as filmmakers
40:35have that you know is a much bigger arsenal of reference materials i mean we can start prepping a movie
40:42and we can go to screening room and watch you know wages of fear or or or or the battle
40:48of algiers
40:48on the screen and learn and see what they did and copy it or get inspired by it and that's
40:54that's kind
40:54of interesting you know there's so many great experiments done through the history of cinema
41:00that we can sort of just use and abuse and i think that feels quite nice you know i agree
41:07with you in
41:07part but on the other hand i've met a lot of people who don't even know who john pierre melville
41:12is
41:13i've heard the people who don't haven't seen a film before 1985 and don't know film culture
41:18and i've done little talks like we all have at film school where people have never seen a sydney
41:23lament movie yeah and i just just astonished the whole it is amazing to me that we have it and
41:30we're
41:30aware of it and it is a wonderful thing to draw on i don't know if anyone start a movie
41:35without
41:35sitting in the screening room with the director at some point in prep and looking at things that
41:39it's just fantastic but or photographers still from top still photographers are really good
41:45family how many people know the great stills photographers yeah you mentioned salgado or
41:50alex webb or something people go who's that so is there is there a solution i mean what can be
41:56done
41:56to inspire this sort of education that's missing nothing i really do you need an intellectual any of
42:05you go out and do talks at film schools or yeah but i'm always i'll screen something and everyone it's
42:12like the first time they've ever seen it a film made in 1980 or a film made in 1975 and
42:17it's like
42:17what's that nobody's seen oh and the guys who reinvented movies for me were all the new york
42:23cinematographers in the 1960s and the french in the new wave and owen roisman gordon willis
42:31all the way back to kauffman it's just not part of film school and i think when i went to
42:36film
42:36school i was really aware of films were made in the 30s and 40s and they seemed to inform everything
42:43i
42:43was thinking about everything i was doing and it doesn't feel like film students today that's as far away
42:49when i was in school as the films of the 70s and 60s are now and yet it doesn't seem
42:54like that's
42:54part of anybody's interest or at least for most of the students i've met or talked to at afi usc
42:59is yelling i don't know i don't know what the solution is i think it's so much about yeah what's
43:06just
43:06gone you know the flavor of the day i remember being at film school and there was a documentary director
43:13their directed uh song of salon which is a very basil dearden a very famous early documentary it was
43:21very quite radical and he was doing for us this sort of film history course so we were expected to
43:27watching these rather kind of long documentaries or sort of studies on something so we go in the first
43:32film he showed was uh sergio leone western and i thought that was fantastic because his whole
43:39love of films went that whole stretch that whole distance between this different kind of filmmaking
43:45and then we would see you know battle of algiers or you know whatever but uh it was just fantastic
43:50the whole breadth of filmmaking but i think it's got so narrowed it really has i think yeah this
43:56may be an oversaturation of media available and so people are you know binge watching television shows
44:02and all of these things and perhaps it's as simple as inspiring someone to you know spend a year
44:07watching movies again instead of instead of the seven seasons of this that or the other
44:13maybe yeah um virtual reality has been a big topic these days have any of you tried it and what
44:19are your thoughts on its potential i'm doing a film right now and there are some scenes that are set
44:24on the surface of mars now we met some people from jpl the jet propulsion laboratory martians we met some
44:31martian we met we actually met with some people from mars but they have that rover there now that
44:38actually is shooting images you know 360 and it's just shooting images and images and images so they
44:43have you know stitched all the images together and with a virtual reality goggles you can actually walk
44:49on the surface of mars which was incredible it was it's a very strange mood there very strange atmosphere
44:56on mars you know the light it's it's it's weirdly soft and uh the color the quality of the light
45:02it
45:02and it was very um very exciting actually very inspiring to use it for for something like that
45:08you know the other experience i have with virtual realities is going with my daughter
45:13to an imax place here where you go on rides with goggles and she you know she loves it she's
45:20hysterical
45:20i had it on my head for like like like three minutes and i wanted to vomit you know it
45:25was like
45:27it's a different different generation i don't know anyone else hopefully not that particular
45:31experience i tried it as well when we just when we shot john week two you know that didn't
45:36but i have exactly the same after two minutes i had to throw up like like quietly shuffling over
45:41the surface of mars is fine but it's just being thrown down a colorful tunnel with uh cartoon
45:47figures is too much okay um so a few more last questions i wanted to touch on um we'll start
45:53with you janus um happiest accident while shooting getting image out of focus being in them in a movie
46:00that's a happy accident and being told wow that's a very good image you know it was really an accident
46:04and it just became out of focus but then you use that out of focus and employ towards telling the
46:09story you know in ai when we introduce little kid in the elevator when the door elevator opens you
46:15i was looking through a long lens and and was out of focus and the door open and he started
46:19coming
46:19in and said oh my god that's a great image you know and steven said this is great just do
46:22the whole
46:23let him come all the way out of focus you know into the sharpness which is not a new technique
46:27but
46:27we stay on that that image long enough to really appreciate the strength of that image when we shot
46:33salomon kane we have a lot of rain there as well and we have the same problem with fog and
46:37the rain
46:37deflectors and the director kept that in the movie it looks amazing you know the fog is very very strong
46:43in the beginning and the rotating is going on it's just disappearing and it's open up the landscape
46:48it's looks fantastic but it was just a big mistake we did it but it looks really cool now
46:54you know the last film we kind of worked a lot of momentum so it was all for us it
46:58was all about
46:58happy accidents all the time you know we were just keep shooting keep shooting try not to be precious
47:04about continuity too much try not to be too precious about the weather and then every day you have a
47:11moment you get lucky you know where it's pure dumb luck that stuff starts looking interesting
47:16we had some real accidents on the set we had one camera mounted on the wing of a mock-up
47:21spitfire
47:22that we were going to catapult out in the sea and the divers they were all going to be there
47:26and we
47:27were going to retrieve that camera and we had a whole plan so the plane got catapulted and the divers
47:33were swimming to the plane but the plane literally sank to the bottom like in a matter of like a
47:38few seconds
47:38so then it it went to the sea bottom and the film couldn't be retrieved for like you know several
47:44hours like two hours or something and once we retrieved the film the camera was broken everything
47:49was soaked it was literally just laying on the sea bottom but our focus puller bob hall and our loader
47:56they they came up with a plan and they took the magazine to the dark room and they poured fresh
48:03water
48:03over it and they sealed it and sent it back to america in a in a container you know immersed
48:08in
48:08water and it's shot that actually made it to the film so yeah look look great i'm kind of almost
48:14thinking i should treat all my uh all my images with salt sea water at some point paul thomas anderson
48:22work a lot loves accidents loves things to go wrong he loves you know if the set fell over he'd
48:26be thrilled
48:26you know he wants things to just he wants something to go wrong and uh on there will be blood
48:32we were
48:32burning an oil well derrick out of wood and it was supposed to burn a little bit and put it
48:36out
48:36and do it and it caught on fire and couldn't be put out so we had to shoot the entire
48:41sequence kind
48:42of really fast that's sort of a crazy way and it ended up working out really well because of the
48:46chaos of that moment even though we were all safe but it meant that we had to run all over
48:52the place
48:52and in preconceived ways and i think it actually made the scene work in a much more interesting way
48:58and that's sort of what paul's all about so so it's such a beautiful scene really beautiful
49:02roger rachel i you know i might it's usually just weather things that you get lucky with
49:09it so i don't really know anything specifically okay and rachel um i mean i i think that was the
49:15one thing with celluloid is there would be no shortage of happy accidents whether it was
49:19you know a mag getting getting slightly uh flash that turned out to be for the better a flare that
49:25you didn't see the extent of it until it got developed um so i i think there were sort of
49:31you know on on little accidents or fruitville i feel like there were a number of those um
49:36and fruitville we actually had a similar thing as as bob with uh on we're only allowed to shoot
49:41between 1am and 5am in the bart platform so we were it was just you know we had football plays
49:46and
49:46we were running gunning it and it was you know not how we would have done it in a perfect
49:50world but i
49:50think it actually served served the story quite well well we're out of time so i want to thank
49:56everyone for joining us today thank you thank you all right and thank you for watching
50:04you
50:26you
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