December 2023 The International Publication of the American Society of Cinematographers

Prieto and Scorsese on

Killers of the Flower Moon

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 “AN EYE-POPPING UTOPIA
OF BACKLOT BEAUTY.
Greta Gerwig and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto
created a new way to implement a process that hasn’t
been used since the ‘50s to bring Barbie Land to life.
Their dedication to crafts bridges the gap between
the lost treasures of Technicolor and the high-tech
updates of classical filmmaking tricks.”
GQ

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 COVER STORY STORARO AND HIS DIRECTORS

F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O N

BEST PICTURE
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Rodrigo Prieto , ASC, AMC

DECEMBER 2022 / 1

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 DECEMBER 2023 VOL. 104 NO. 12

Contents Features
24 Saltburn: Weaving a Web of Obsession
Linus Sandgren, ASC, FSF and director Emerald Fennell
lend visceral, voyeuristic imagery to a story of destructive desire.

40 Killers of the Flower Moon:

Greed, Hubris and Homicide
A shocking historical saga is revisited by Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC
and director Martin Scorsese.

56 Singing a Different Tune for

The Color Purple
Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF and director Blitz Bazawule collaborate

24
on a musical version of the classic novel.

68 The Zone of Interest: Next Door to Evil

Unconventional strategies allow Łukasz Żal, PSC and director
Jonathan Glazer to examine Nazi atrocities through a clinical lens.

Departments
8 President’s Desk
10 Shot Craft: Recommended Reading
16 The Virtual World: AI in Motion Capture
78 ASC Membership Roster
82 Clubhouse News
87 In Memoriam: Pete Kozachik, ASC
88 Wrap Shot: The Color Purple (1985)

VISIT THEASC.COM

56 On Our Cover:
Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) comforts his wife, Mollie
(Lily Gladstone), in Killers of the Flower Moon, shot by Rodrigo
Prieto, ASC, AMC. (Image courtesy of Apple.)

2 / DECEMBER 2023

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 HOYTE VAN HOYTEMA ASC , FS F, N SC

RICHARD ROEPER

A FILM BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

G O TO W W W. E X P E R I E N C E O P P E N H E I M E R .C O M F O R M O R E © 2022 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

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 AMERICAN
CINEMATOGRAPHER
MANUAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
NEW EDITION! 4 Stephen Pizzello

WEB DIRECTOR and PUBLISHER

David E. Williams
The revised 11th edition of this
essential technical
reference is now exclusively EDITORIAL
available for pre-order MANAGING EDITOR Andrew Fish
from the American Society of
Cinematographers. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Max Weinstein
SHOT CRAFT and TECHNICAL EDITOR Jay Holben
Containing entirely new CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Rachael K. Bosley, Iain Marcks
chapters and substantial
rewrites of entries from the
VIRTUAL PRODUCTION EDITOR Noah Kadner
previous edition, this VISUAL EFFECTS EDITOR Joe Fordham
hardback book designed for WRITER/RESEARCHER Tara Jenkins
on-set use is a must-have
ASSOCIATE WEB EDITOR Brian Kronner
for cinematographers and
other motion-imaging
professionals.
CONTRIBUTORS
Edited by M. David Mullen, Benjamin B, John Calhoun, Mark Dillon, Sarah Fensom,
ASC and ASC associate Michael Goldman, David Heuring, Michael Kogge, Matt Mulcahey,
member Rob Hummel,
contributors to this edition Jean Oppenheimer, Phil Rhodes, Patricia Thomson, Peter Tonguette
include Society members
Bill Bennett, Christopher
Chomyn, Richard Crudo, Rich- CREATIVE DIRECTION and DESIGN
ard Edlund, John C. Hora, Levie
Edwin Alpanian
Isaacks, Dennis Muren, James
Neihouse,
Sam Nicholson, Steven
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Topics covered in this new 310-241-3166 / 847-721-2730 jvictor@techwoodmedia.com
edition of our
“filmmaker’s bible” include:
SUBSCRIPTIONS, BOOKS and PRODUCTS
• Evaluating digital cameras CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina
• Taking ownership of your sensor
CIRCULATION and EVENTS COORDINATOR Carlos Molina
• The color science behind modern
lighting instruments
• Virtual production/emissive screens ASC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Terry McCarthy
• Digital versions of day-for-night and infrared ASC SPONSORSHIP and EVENTS DIRECTOR Patricia Armacost
cinematography
• Imax/large-format cinematography CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER Alex Lopez
• Specialty lenses CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER Natalia Quiroz
• Variable frame rates MEMBERSHIP and EVENTS ADMINISTRATOR Salvador Maldonado
• ASC Color-Decision List (ASC CDL)
• Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) DIRECTOR OF FINANCE and ACCOUNTING Thanh Lai
STAFF ACCOUNTANT Ariola Lopez Lamas
American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 104th
Order today — for yourself or as a gift — year of publication, is published monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp.,
1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A., (800) 448-0145, (323) 969-
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Print subscriptions: U.S. $39; Canada/Mexico $59; all other foreign countries
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Send address change to American Cinematographer, P.O. Box 2230,
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 OCTOBER 2023 / 5

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 American Society of Cinematographers

The ASC is not a labor union or a guild,

but an educational, cultural and
THE WORLD’S LEADING INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL professional organization. Membership is
by invitation to those who are actively en-
ON MOTION IMAGING DELIVERS THE INSIDE STORY gaged as directors of photography and have
OF MODERN CINEMATOGRAPHY demonstrated outstanding ability. ASC
membership has become one of the highest
honors that can be bestowed upon a
September 2023 The International Publication of
the American Society of Cinematog
raphers professional cinematographer — a mark
June 2023 The International Publication of
the American Society of Cinematogr
aphers of prestige and excellence.

OFFICERS 2023/2024
Shelly Johnson
President
Charlie Lieberman
1st Vice President
John Simmons
Gran Turismo 2nd Vice President
Jacques Jouffret, ASC
Patti Lee
3rd Vice President
Charles Minsky
Treasurer
Dejan Georgevich
Secretary
Christopher Chomyn
Sergeant-at-Arms
The Stills Issue
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5/2/23 11:52 PM MEMBERS

OF THE BOARD
From new camera systems and lighting options to the creative John Bailey
use of virtual-production methods, American Cinematographer Patrick Cady
examines the latest tools and techniques while maintaining Steven Fierberg
Michael Goi
sharp focus on essential creative collaborations and the Shelly Johnson
artistry of visual storytelling. Patti Lee
Charlie Lieberman
• Print Edition – Learn from the best Charles Minsky
and build your permanent reference collection Lowell Peterson
Lawrence Sher
• Digital Edition – Access AC magazine content John Simmons
anywhere you are while on the go Eric Steelberg
• AC Archive – Dive deep into more than John Toll
100 years of information and inspiration Amelia Vincent
Mandy Walker
SUBSCRIBE TODAY ALTERNATES
Karl-Walter Lindenlaub
store.ascmag.com/collections/subscriptions Dejan Georgevich
Denis Lenoir
Steven Poster
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MUSEUM CURATOR
Steve Gainer

6 / DECEMBER 2023

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 MATT BEN JASON MARLON CHRIS CHRIS VIOLA
DAMON AFFLECK BATEMAN WAYANS MESSINA WITH TUCKER AND DAVIS

“THE ULTIMATE EXAMPLE OF THE “A TIMELESS UNDERDOG STORY

AMERICAN DREAM” Peter Debruge,
OF GRIT, DREAMS, AND MOXIE”
Christy Lemire,

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING

BEST PICTURE
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
ROBERT RICHARDSON, ASC

WRITTEN BY ALEX CONVERY DIRECTED BY BEN AFFLECK

AmazonMGMStudiosGuilds.com

OCTOBER 2023 / 7

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 President’s Desk
“There is no right or wrong way to do
this job — there is only your way.”

PORTRAIT BY JOHN SIMMONS, ASC.

HERE AT THE ASC, WE’RE PREPARING OUR MASTER CLASS SES- well-trod by others — and away from any sort of resonance that can
SION THAT SPECIALIZES IN SHOOTING MOTION-PICTURE FILM, and touch an audience.
the discussions with our instructors regarding our plans have got me I feel that it’s important to develop this kind of authored and pre-
thinking. In the days of photochemical shooting, the cinematographer visualized intent even when shooting digital formats, where it’s all too
truly was the only one on set who knew where the shadows were going tempting to simply wait and respond to an image that boots up on your
to fall and how the image would carry the weight of the story in the most monitor. That said, there is no right or wrong way to do this job — there
expressive way. To master this ability took years of trial and error — the is only your way. No matter the working method, cinematographers
timing of which could only be accelerated by the amount of risk the should endeavor to create visual authorship, and challenge themselves
cinematographer was willing to put into play. to take chances and do things they have not yet attempted — to create
Forty-plus years ago, if you were a cinematographer in your 20s, their own onscreen persona, which can empower a career of stories
you most likely got there by being adventurous with your choices and told with truth.
exploring the outer edges of what was acceptable, allowing the imag-
es to speak as loudly as possible. Opportunities materialized because
a cinematographer developed a fearless nature and saw stories in a
unique and personal way. That sort of bold conviction, applied to image Best regards,
construction, certainly gave the DP a key to the creative strongbox.
Along with everyone else’s limited understanding of silver-halide crys-
tals, dye couplers and temperature-controlled chemistry, this authority
positioned the cinematographer as the only collaborator who really un-
derstood how a captured and processed photochemical image depart- Shelly Johnson
ed from what our eyes saw on set — and came to life onscreen in a ASC President
new and expressive way. Even then, film sometimes presented hidden
surprises.
When shooting film, a cinematographer needed to previsualize a de-
sired tone and feeling — which required developing the thematic “rea-
sons to be” for these elements during preparation and imagining the
results of all technical steps needed to achieve that feeling. Waiting too
long to cultivate a visual plan may lead to countless mundane choices,
which can easily steer the film toward the safe center of a creative road

8 / DECEMBER 2023

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 F O R YO U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N
I N A L L CAT E G O R I E S I N C LU D I N G

BEST PICTURE
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT
IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM
Matthew Libatique, asc

“AN ABSOLUTE MARVEL

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Hollywood’s Golden Age. Libatique’s camera dances like violins in a concerto.”

FILM.NETFLIXAWARDS.COM

p. 8-9 President's Desk V4.indd 9 11/2/23 6:56 AM

 Shot Craft By Jay Holben
Recommended Reading
Books have been the foundation
of my filmmaking knowledge for
three decades. However, there’s
a limitation to learning strictly
from books: There’s no one to talk
to when you don’t understand
something. It’s just you and the
words on the page.
To overcome this, I learned to
multi-source each subject: Buy
three books on the same topic
by different authors and read the
first cover-to-cover. If something
didn’t make sense, turn to the
next tome, and, invariably, that
author’s discussion of the same
topic would clarify the issue
10 / DECEMBER 2023
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— and I’d return to the first book
with a better understanding and
complete it. Then I’d read the
second book cover-to-cover, then
the third, gaining a solid grasp of
the subject thanks to three dif-
ferent perspectives. This is what
they were trying to teach you in
school when they made you use
multiple sources for research
papers.
There is a lot of information
on the internet, a lot of sites
with great tips and techniques,
but there’s something to be said
for legitimate texts that you can
reference any time — even if the
power goes out!
So, in the spirit of the holiday
season, and to mark the recent
publication of my latest book,
American Cinematographer’s Shot
Craft: Lessons, Tips & Techniques
on the Art and Science of Cine-
matography, here is a list of the
books that I’ve learned from and
continue to reference regular-
ly. Many are available from the
ASC Store at store.ascmag.com/
collections/books-videos.
Cinematography
By Kris Malkiewicz and M. David
Mullen, ASC
IMAGE COURTESY OF JAY HOLBEN.
3rd Ed., ISBN 9780743264389
272 pp
Simon & Schuster, 2005
Malkiewicz has a wonderful
tone and explains the basics in
a simple and relaxed way. First
published in 1973, this book
features images that can feel a bit
dated today, but the information
is just as strong as it was back
then. For this edition, Malkiewicz
collaborated with Mullen, an ASC
member and a renowned con-
tributor to online cinematography
forums everywhere. Mullen’s
dedication to supporting young
cinematographers and teaching
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 Shot Craft
the next generation is nothing
short of awe-inspiring; he is a
fount of knowledge, with a nearly
encyclopedic recall of film history
and technical details.
Placing Shadows: Lighting
Techniques for Video Production
By Chuck Gloman,
Tom LeTourneau
3rd Ed., ISBN 0240806611
310 pp
Focal Press / Taylor & Francis,
2005
This book doesn’t feature the
most elegant presentation, and
the images are of their time, but
the information is sound, and
the authors break down the fun-
damentals of lighting concisely,
creating a strong primer on this
subject. They cover everything
from the foundations of the
physics of light, to the fixtures
available (at the time of publica-
tion), providing an introduction to
lighting technique.
Set Lighting Technician’s
Handbook: Film Lighting
Equipment, Practice, and
Electrical Distribution
By Harry C. Box
5th Ed., ISBN 1138391727
624 pp
Routledge, 2020
I’ve gone through several
editions of this book not only
to keep up with Box’s updates,
but also because I wore out my
previous copies! This is the book
on the tools and techniques of
the set-lighting technician. Box’s
target audience is electricians,
best boys and gaffers, but every
cinematographer should be well
versed in everything he covers:
electricity, distribution, lighting
and grip equipment.
Lighting for Television & Film
By Gerald Millerson
3rd Ed., ISBN 024051582X
470 pp
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p. 10-15 Shot Craft V4.indd 12
Focal Press / Taylor & Francis,
1999
This feels like a college
textbook, likely because it is,
but Millerson covers a lot more
technique than most. It’s one
of the few texts I’ve seen that
addresses face shape and lighting
to accentuate or minimize fea-
tures. Millerson also covers what
happens in production, how to
plan and then execute. This book
might feel dated as well, but it is a
phenomenal resource.
Digital Cinematography:
Fundamentals, Tools,
Techniques, and Workflows
By David Stump, ASC
2nd Ed., ISBN 1138603864
648 pp
Routledge, 2021
The definitive text on the work-
ings of digital cinematographic
cameras. If you’re looking for an
in-depth examination of photo-
sites, sensels, quantization and
sampling theory, look no further.
Stump breaks down exactly
how digital cameras work, how
images are made and processed,
and what science goes into the
images that we see. The text can
be dense and mind-melting, but if
you take the time to parse it, you’ll
come away with a deep under-
standing of how photons become
pixels — and gain deeper control
over your own images.
Reflections: Twenty-One
Cinematographers at Work
By Benjamin Bergery
ISBN 0935578161
268 pp
ASC Press, 2002
If there’s any series of AC
articles I returned to time and
again as a young cinematogra-
pher, it’s Bergery’s “Reflections.” I
learned so much from each one,
and they actually inspired the
creation of Shot Craft. This book
offers invaluable technical advice
and individual scene breakdowns
by such ASC cinematographers
as Stephen H. Burum, Jordan
Cronenweth, Allen Daviau, Darius
Khondji, Owen Roizman, Vittorio
Storaro and Haskell Wexler — and
many more. The book is out of
print now, but you can still find
copies out there.
American Cinematographer
Manual
Edited by M. David Mullen, ASC
and Rob Hummel
11th Ed., ISBN 979-8985212310
722 pp
ASC Press, 2021
Long known as the book every
cinematographer should own, the
AC Manual has been revamped,
updated and expanded to be
even more useful. Even if you
have other editions, you need to
get this one. The fact that Mullen
has been instrumental in creating
two books on this list should
prove that his dedication to edu-
cating the next generation of cin-
ematographers is indefatigable.
The Cine Lens Manual: The
Definitive Filmmaker’s Guide to
the Design, Implementation and
History of Motion Picture Optics-
By Jay Holben and Christopher
Probst, ASC
ISBN 1667861700
836 pp
Adakin Press, 2022
Truth: This is the definitive text
on cinema optics. It took us eight
years to write it, and it’s packed
with everything you could ever
want to know — and quite a bit
you never knew you should know
— about cinema-style lenses.
Science for the Curious
Photographer: An Introduction to
the Science of Photography
By Charles S. Johnson Jr.
2nd Ed., ISBN 978-0415793261
286 pp
Routledge, 2017
11/2/23 6:58 AM
 F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O N

B E S T C I N E MATOG R A P H Y
C H U N G - H O O N C H U N G, ASC

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 Shot Craft
As readers of Shot Craft may
have deduced, I love to delve into
the science of a subject to try
to understand how things work,
not just how to use them. This
amazing text on the physics of
photography is for all the other
super-nerds out there. This text-
book of sorts comes complete
with mathematical formulae and
chapter-by-chapter citations, but
it’s a great exploration into what
makes our image-making world
work.
Seeing the Light: Optics in
Nature, Photography, Color,
Vision, and Holography
By David Falk, Dieter Brill,
David Stork
Updated Ed., ISBN 1626541094
494 pp
Echo Point Books & Media, 2019
This is a textbook, which might
scare some of you away, but it
provides great insight into the
workings of the optical world.
It takes the brief introductions
provided by Johnson’s Science
for the Curious Photographer
and goes deeper. This was an
incredible resource early on in
our writing of The Cine Lens
Manual; it dives into the way light
behaves through various media
and how we can manipulate that
14 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 10-15 Shot Craft V4.indd 14
light to our advantage. Originally
printed in 1986, the current edi-
tion features a chapter on digital
photography.
Contemporary
Cinematographers on Their Art
By Pauline B. Rogers
ISBN 0240803094
240 pp
Focal Press / Butterworth-
Heinemann, 1998
Rogers is a prolific journalist in
the cinematography field, and this
is a compilation of 12 interviews
she conducted for Local 600’s
International Photographer mag-
azine (now ICG Magazine). Inter-
viewees include ASC members
Thomas Ackerman, John Bartley,
Dean Cundey, Emmanuel Lubezki,
Donald A. Morgan and Dennis
Muren. The book has no frills and
some great insights.
Masters of Light:
Conversations With
Contemporary
Cinematographers
By Dennis Schaefer and
Larry Salvato
ISBN 0520274660
376 pp
University of California Press,
2013
Similar in format to
Rogers’ book, this title — origi-
nally published in 1984 — pres-
ents in-depth interviews with 15
cinematographers, including ASC
members Néstor Almendros, John
Alonzo, John Bailey, Bill Butler, Bill
Fraker and Conrad Hall.
Cinematographer Style Vol. One,
Vol. Two (and DVD)
By Jon Fauer, ASC
Vol. One ISBN 0935578331
352 pp
Vol. Two ISBN 093557834X
380 pp
ASC Press, 2008, 2009
These volumes offer tran-
scripts of interviews conducted
for a feature-length documentary,
which presents conversations
with many of the world’s top
cinematographers. Fauer, an ASC
member and the editor-in-chief
of Film & Digital Times, has made
the definitive doc on cinematog-
raphy, with insights from ASC
members such as Dion Beebe,
Roger Deakins, Caleb Deschanel,
Ellen Kuras, Robert McLachlan, M.
David Mullen, Daniel Pearl, John
Toll, Gordon Willis and Vilmos
Zsigmond. The transcripts offer
a wealth of knowledge, but it’s
worth getting a DVD player to
watch the film.
Cinematography Screencraft
By Peter Ettedgui
ISBN 0240803825
208 pp
Focal Press / Butterworth-
Heinemann, 1999
This one feels a bit more like
a coffee-table book — it’s large
and stylishly designed — but the
anecdotes and interviews are
phenomenal. Subjects include
Jack Cardiff, BSC; Sven Nykvist,
ASC, FSF; John Seale, ASC, ACS;
Janusz Kamiński and more. It’s
such an enjoyable read that you
often find yourself astounded at
the tidbits of knowledge you’re
acquiring.
Film Directing: Shot by Shot
By Steven D. Katz
Anniversary Ed., ISBN
1615932976
400 pp
Michael Wiese Productions, 2019
Although this text is aimed at
directors, it is important for the
cinematographer to understand
the fundamentals of cover-
age, blocking and framing — all
illuminated in this seminal book,
originally published in 1991. It’s at
the top of my list for directors and
cinematographers.
Making Movies
By Sidney Lumet
ISBN 978-0679756606
218 pp
Vintage, 1996
Another book aimed at direc-
tors, this text reveals why a film-
maker decides to put a camera
in a specific place with a specific
lens in order to tell the story. Lu-
met’s writing style is fun, inviting
and extremely informative as he
dives into many of his films —
including 12 Angry Men, Serpico,
Dog Day Afternoon and Network
— and breaks down his logic of
coverage, camera position and
how he told those stories with the
help of his collaborators.
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FILM TITLE: AMERICAN FICTION FYC DATE: October 20, 2023 10:55 PM
 The Virtual World By Noah Kadner

AI in Motion Capture

Filmmakers have struggled for
many years to capture the es-
sence of human movement — a
task made more difficult by our
innate ability as viewers to spot
movement that isn’t perfectly
realistic. Attempting to bridge
this gap required an elaborate
and costly setup, which still often
landed results in the realm of the
uncanny valley.
Robert Zemeckis directed
several pioneering animated films
in the early 2000s that leveraged
motion-capture, including The
Polar Express and Beowulf. These
productions broke new ground
and represented the pinnacle of
mocap technologies at the time,
but there were still limitations,
with characters sometimes
appearing oddly lifeless, their
movements just shy of authentic.
James Cameron further
pushed the limits of mocap with
his Avatar films. By significantly
increasing not only the fidelity
of the mocap system but also

IMAGES COURTESY OF WONDER STUDIO.

Using video footage as raw data, the

Wonder Studio AI-mocap system allows
the filmmaker to replace a human
performer with a CG character.

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 F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O N
I N A L L C AT E G O R I E S I N C LU D I N G

BEST DRAMA SERIES

O U T S TA N D I N G
ACHIEVEMENT IN
C I N E M ATO G R A PH Y
EPISODE OF A ONE-HOUR
REGULAR SERIES
Adriano Goldman , ASC, BSC, ABC

THE END OF AN ER A

FYC.NETFLIX.COM
AUGUST 2023 / 17

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 The Virtual World
Sony’s Mocopi AI-mocap technology makes use of body sensors to dictate a CG character’s movement.
incorporating human camera
operators into the mocap volume,
Cameron brought the final results
much closer to photorealism. The
enormous technical challenges
along the way meant that the
movies were not only among the
costliest films ever made, but
that their postproduction lasted
several years.
Today, advances in artificial
intelligence and machine vision
— the latter of which refers to
AI that enables a computer to
analyze video footage — are
breaking new ground for mocap
by streamlining the process. While
current conversations about AI for
imagemaking lean heavily toward
generative AI, AI for mocap is
quite a different animal, relying
on machine-learning systems to
solve complex mathematics that
infer anatomical movements —
not to generate imagery directly.
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The latest AI tools expand the
possibilities of motion capture,
and it’s important that cinema-
tographers and their crews stay
informed as these evolving tech-
nologies release the process from
the confines of a capture volume
onto a traditional set.
Traditional Mocap Challenges
Mocap techniques that have
been traditionally used for studio
productions frequently require
a volume of calibrated infrared
cameras that capture markers at-
tached to performers and objects,
and a system that determines the
markers’ positions in space by
comparing the cameras’ perspec-
tives. The highly accurate data
that traditional mocap delivers
is considered the gold standard
for feature-film visual effects and
AAA video games — in particular
for creating digital movement that
integrates well with live-action
cinematography.
The challenges of these sys-
tems include the requirement of
a specifically dedicated space for
capture, and applying markers
to the performers and objects
to be captured. It also prohib-
its the simultaneous capture of
motion-picture imagery, unless
extensive postproduction ro-
toscoping and removal of markers
and tracking equipment are a
given. Additionally, such systems
— as well as those that employ
sensor suits — might involve ex-
tensive post processing, making
them less suitable for real-time
applications. Another concern is
that these processes can be cum-
bersome for performers, especial-
ly children and animals.
AI Mocap Defined
AI motion capture uses the
IMAGE COURTESY OF SONY.
combination of artificial intel-
ligence and machine vision to
track the movements of objects
or people in video footage. It
begins with data collection from
cameras or sensors, employs ma-
chine-learning models and neural
networks to detect and track criti-
cal points in the objects’ poses,
and outputs the derived motion
data ready to apply to virtual
characters. The key here is that
accurate and realistic movement
of a CG character or object can
be achieved with raw data of rel-
atively low fidelity, often derived
from standard video capture —
with the AI filling in the “blanks”
within the data, allowing for
less-robust collection methods.
Unlike traditional mocap, AI
mocap often operates without
markers or special suits, making it
more convenient for subjects and
less reliant on a specific capture
11/2/23 7:01 AM
 Outlander © 2023 Sony Pictures Television Inc. All rights reserved. Shining Vale © 2022 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. & Lions Gate Television Inc. All rights reserved. Minx © MMXXIII Lions Gate Television Inc. All rights reserved. Party Down
© MMXXII Lions Gate Television Inc. All rights reserved. Power Book II: Ghost © MMXXII Lions Gate Television Inc. All rights reserved. Power Book IV: Force © MMXXII Lions Gate Television Inc. All rights reserved. BMF © MMXXII Lions Gate
Television Inc. All rights reserved. Power Book III: Raising Kanan © MMXXII Lions Gate Television Inc. All rights reserved. Starz and related channels and service marks are the property of Starz Entertainment, LLC. FYC_1178965

p. 16-23 Virtual World V4.indd 19 11/2/23 7:01 AM

 The Virtual World
environment — and it is highly au-
tomated, scalable and adaptable.
Choosing AI mocap or tradi-
tional mocap will depend on the
specific project requirements, as
well as the budget. In the follow-
ing pages, we’ll explore some of
these tools.
Move.ai
One rapidly evolving AI-mocap
solution is Move.ai, a scalable
system that processes video
With AI mocap, realistic movement of a CG
character or object can be achieved with raw
data of relatively low fidelity, often derived from
standard video capture.
20 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 16-23 Virtual World V4.indd 20
from consumer-grade cameras
to Invisible, a real-time enterprise
solution integrated with Disguise
MX Move hardware. The app
version of the system uses foot-
age from a single iPhone, while
the enterprise version collects
data from multiple off-the-shelf
cameras.
“Move.ai is based on convo-
lutional neural networks,” says
Niall Hendry, vice president of
partnerships at the company.
Top: “Puppeteering” a character in real time via video footage
with Move.ai, which processes video to Invisible and is powered
by Disguise MX Move hardware. Bottom: Radical includes plugins
for 3D software such as Blender, Maya, Unity and Unreal Engine.
“Typically, companies start with
off-the-shelf data models from
Google and Meta, but to get a
good database, you ultimately
need to build your own model. We
took a lot of video of movement
and labeled it — from breakdanc-
ers to idling movements — to
define what a specific joint is, like
an elbow, as it moves through
the frames. The more videos you
add and the more features and
anomalies you identify, the better
and more accurate the model
becomes at learning to derive
motion data from new footage.”
Addy Ghani, Disguise vice
president of virtual production,
adds, “The human skeleton
behaves according to a set of
rules, and you can turn those
rules into a mathematical model
called ‘inverse kinematics.’ For
example, when I twist my finger
backward, it only goes so far,
and then there’s a limited range
of motion. Likewise, when the
AI model generates motion data
from video, it won’t exceed the
performance of a real skeleton. It
can also mimic the higher-order
bone behavior. For example, if you
raise your hand, then your elbow
follows, and your shoulder rotates
up. That makes Move.ai aware of
the physical capabilities and lim-
itations of the human form from a
mathematical perspective.”
Radical
Another AI-mocap solution that
extracts full-body motion from
video footage is Radical. The soft-
ware also includes plugins for 3D
software such as Blender, Maya,
Unity and Unreal Engine, which
enable streaming live-motion data
directly to 3D characters in real
time.
Based on a subscription model,
Radical aims to provide a scal-
able product for both emerging
content creators and higher-end
feature and video-game pro-
duction. The system derives its
processing power through cloud
services, enabling it to function
without dedicated local process-
ing infrastructure.
Wonder Studio
From developer Wonder Dynam-
ics, Wonder Studio takes things a
step further by combining AI-de-
rived mocap with an end-to-end
visual-effects-creation platform.
Wonder automatically animates,
lights and composes CG char-
acters within a live-action scene
— and can rotoscope the original
performer out of the live-action
TOP IMAGE COURTESY OF MOVE.AI AND DISGUISE. BOTTOM IMAGE COURTESY OF RADICAL.
source footage.
Although Wonder takes
considerably longer to process
live-action footage than other
AI-mocap solutions, it also does
much more than extract motion.
And while the results are on a
lower level of technical accuracy
and photorealism than tradition-
al visual effects, they require a
fraction of the time and budget
to complete. Depending on the
scope and needs of a project,
Wonder Studio’s results — going
from live-action footage to ani-
mated characters within an hour
— can be sufficient for previsual-
ization, temp shots or even final
versions.
Sony Mocopi
Applying a different approach
to the same challenge, Sony’s
11/2/23 7:01 AM
 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

the lushness of
the imagery is exquisite,
turning the visual language of a
psychosexual thriller into the
evocative work of an old master”

FOR YOUR CONSIDER ATION

IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING

BEST PICTURE
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
LINUS SANDGREN, ASC, FSF

AmazonMGMStudiosGuilds.com
AUGUST 2023 / 21

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 The Virtual World
Mocopi (a take on the term “mo-
tion copy”) is a wireless, phone-
based, body-worn sensor system
for controlling virtual avatars —
and therefore does incorporate a
wearable element. “Mocopi is our
initiative to allow content creators
to have a cost-effective, portable
and lightweight full-body tracking
system to streamline their vir-
tual-production workflow,” says
Thaisa Yamamura, head of XR
22 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 16-23 Virtual World V4.indd 22
business development at Sony.
“Mocopi leverages Sony’s
proprietary machine-learning
algorithm to deliver precise
motion tracking with six wireless
body trackers that incorporate
orientation-tracking accelerom-
eters and angular-rate sensors,
which connect to our mobile
app via Bluetooth,” Yamamura
continues. “Setting up the system
is straightforward, and we offer
a development kit for Unity
and Unreal, enabling creators
to integrate it into their custom
projects.”
Aimed primarily at YouTubers
and TikTok creators, Mocopi pri-
oritizes ease of use over the fidel-
ity of more complex systems. The
results are often of appropriate
quality for previs and temporary
VFX sequences.
Top: A Move.ai rendering based on
AI-mocap data. Bottom: A data-
stream diagram for Move.ai, for a
multiple-camera setup.
Parting Shots
Each of these AI-motion-capture
solutions has unique strengths.
On whole, this new approach to
the technology shows potential to
assist filmmakers with translat-
ing — quickly and with minimal
specialized equipment and shoot-
ing environments — raw mocap
data to outputs ranging from
lo-fi/previs to imagery that’s fully
believable to the human eye.
IMAGES COURTESY OF MOVE.AI AND DISGUISE.
11/2/23 7:01 AM
 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

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 24 / DECEMBER 2023

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 Saltburn:
Weaving
a Web of
Obsession
Linus Sandgren, ASC, FSF
and writer-director
Emerald Fennell’s Gothic
ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS AND METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER PICTURES.

drama explores the dark

corners of an aristocratic
estate, where a strange
loner goes on holiday.

L
By Sarah Fensom

inus Sandgren, ASC, FSF says “gorgeous” was writer-direc-

tor Emerald Fennell’s favorite word during the filming of
Saltburn. Gorgeous, but with a twist. “Emerald loves things
that are gorgeous and ugly at the same time,” Sandgren
says. Fennell corroborates: “Everything had to have a bit of
roughness, a bit of ugliness. Part of something being perfect
for this film meant that it was not completely perfect.”

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Previous spread: Eccentric loner Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) is seated
for dinner at his aristocratic friend’s mansion. This page, top: Oliver
peers out at the labyrinthian hedges on the grounds of the Saltburn
estate. Above: Linus Sandgren, ASC, FSF checks his light.
26 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 24-39 Saltburn V4.indd 26
Setting the Obscene
Saltburn, a darkly comedic Gothic drama, is set in the U.K. of the early
2000s. The story follows lonely Oxford student Oliver Quick (Barry
Keoghan) as he befriends Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), a charismatic,
upper-crust classmate. Felix invites Oliver to spend a summer at his
sprawling estate with his impossibly wealthy, aristocratic family (mum
and dad are played by Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant). From there,
the film takes a wicked turn, weaving a web of obsession, privilege, sex,
lies and taboos.
The filmmakers set out to ensnare the viewer with stunning imagery.
“Because it’s beautiful,” Sandgren says, “the viewer becomes intrigued,
but then sees things that are really quite disturbing.” Juxtaposing the
beautiful with the grotesque, and the beguiling with the appalling, was
essential to developing the look of the film. “We wanted to create this
internal struggle, where you like what you see but you also don’t like it,
or maybe you feel bad for liking it,” Sandgren says.
Fennell, an actor-turned-writer-director whose directorial debut,
Promising Young Woman, earned her an Academy Award for Best Original
Screenplay in 2021, brought Sandgren a vast catalogue of images to help
visualize the feeling of Saltburn. Sandgren had Fennell break down the
film’s tone into a series of evocative words and phrases, and then devel-
oped a series of collages for its many setups and moods. Sandgren pulled
film stills from A Room with a View (for sunny exteriors on the mansion’s
11/2/23 7:05 AM
 Oliver is foregrounded against his gracious
host, Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). Bottom:
The crew films a nighttime exterior for a
costume-party scene.

p. 24-39 Saltburn V4.indd 27 11/2/23 7:05 AM

 grounds) and In the Mood for Love (for moody night interiors), as well as
paintings by 18th-century British artist Thomas Gainsborough. Baroque
paintings by artists like Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi also be-
came major touchstones. “They are often quite obscene in their themes,
and the lighting is often overly dramatic compared to reality,” Sandgren
says. “They’re similar in that way to old-school horror movies and early
Hitchcock films, which were also important references.”

Framing an Artificial World

The film was shot primarily in Radcliffe Square at Oxford and at Drayton
House in Lowick Northamptonshire, England, a palatial 14th-century
estate that functioned as the titular Saltburn. The camera language the
filmmakers developed was, like the film’s themes, one of juxtapositions
that often verged on extremes. “We really told the story in single, big
wide shots, or by cutting into tight close-ups, where we’d often go really
tight,” Sandgren says.
The filmmakers used close shots of characters and objects to under-
score themes of sexuality and desire. To capture Fennell’s vision of mo-
ments that were “ugly and sexy at the same time,” Sandgren notes, he
Top: Oliver surveys the aftermath of a sprawling, debaucherous
shot “close to the skin so you could see sweat, armpits, body hair.” The
evening. Above: Oliver prepares to blow out the candles at his
director adds, “We needed to be able to see pores, skin texture, blood,
birthday party, surrounded by scoffing strangers.
fluids and sweat — not just artful, slithering sweat, but real, beading
sweat. It’s a very visceral film. We wanted to be able to see taste buds on
people’s tongues. We kept thinking [that] if you’re living in a very styl-
ized, beautiful and artificial world, which is the world of the aristocracy
— and I guess, the world of filmmaking, too — and you’re dealing with
sex and desire, [then] what you crave are things that feel human inside
those worlds.”

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 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

DECEMBER 2023 / 29

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 SALTBURN: WEAVING A WEB OF OBSESSION
An array of candles fitted in candelabras and
votives, along with a supplemental fixture, provided
illumination for a large-scale dining-room scene.
Producer Spotlight | Estate Planning
The stunning exterior shots captured around Saltburn’s titular estate
help define the film’s look. Josey McNamara — who produced the film
alongside LuckyChap Entertainment co-founders Tom Ackerley and
Margot Robbie — says it was essential to plan around these crucial
exteriors. “As with anything in the U.K., we were always somewhat be-
holden to the weather,” McNamara says. “So, our schedule was always
in flux because we needed to prioritize the optimum times for Linus to
shoot outside — both during the day and at night.”
The production spent a prolonged period at the estate (about six
weeks, Sandgren recalls), which allowed for much-needed flexibility.
“If the weather was perfect or the clouds cleared, we would jump out-
side at the drop of a hat and grab a shot we needed, even if we were
set up inside,” McNamara says.
To that end, the producer notes, it also made sense to prep as
many of the rooms as possible inside the 14-century estate. “When
you’re walking around the house, you’re marveling at it, and you almost
forget that it’s incredibly large, and getting lights to some of the top
windows or into the top rooms was very difficult,” McNamara says. Per
Sandgren, a fleet of 28-meter and 9-meter articulated lifts — posi-
tioned throughout the property and rigged with lighting fixtures that
included 18Ks and M90s — became some of the most essential gear
at his disposal. “We used them both for days, as sun, and to create a
Gothic moonlight through ND hard gels; they were one of the things
I needed the most on set, and we needed way more of them than
30 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 24-39 Saltburn V4.indd 30
we realized at first,” says the cinematographer, who ended up
swapping lamps in his budget for the warehouse vehicles. Mc-
Namara adds that the production’s positioning of the lifts mini-
mized the setup time for Sandgren and his team, in turn saving
the production money: “As well as having a really beautiful eye,
Linus also has a practical brain, which I really appreciate.”
Shooting at a historic location that is also a tourist attraction,
like Oxford, also required deft maneuvering, McNamara notes.
“You’re dealing with buildings that have very particular regu-
lations,” he says. “You can’t have certain things on the grass,
cover certain things or light certain areas because of the heat.”
In the end, however, the effort was worth it for this film. “Being
at the actual location, [with such] history behind it, added extra
depth to the story we were trying to tell,” the producer says.
McNamara previously collaborated with Fennell on Promising
Young Woman, another LuckyChap production. Robbie, who
worked with Sandgren on Babylon (AC Feb. ’23), enthusiastically
recommended the cinematographer for this project. “There was
a kismet between Emerald and Linus from their first conver-
sation about the film, and their thinking in terms of influences
and the British Gothic tradition was really the same,” McNamara
says. “Linus’ work is incredibly beautiful, but it’s also incredibly
grounded, which was the key for the look of this project.”
— Sarah Fensom
11/2/23 7:05 AM
 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

Top: Sandgren and crew prepare to shoot an unsettling scene

inside a draining bathtub. Bottom: The cinematographer
says he shot close to characters’ skin to help capture director
Emerald Fennell’s vision of moments that were “ugly and sexy
at the same time.”

Watching From Afar

Throughout Saltburn, the viewer is often aligned with the characters’
voyeurism, through angles that peek through doors or observe others
from a distance. “There’s a sense of ‘peeping’ throughout the film —
of peeping inside something, opening a window and looking in,” says
Fennell. “We used those motifs again and again — showing characters
through windows and revealing people in mirrors, or behind or through
things.” To create the voyeuristic experience, Sandgren relied upon wide
shots as much as he did very tight close-ups. In one scene, for instance,
as Felix makes out with a girl in his dorm room it’s slowly revealed that
Oliver is watching menacingly from outside the window. “We track to
them, and then between them, we see Oliver in the window, [and] we just
see the little bit of fire from his cigarette,” Sandgren describes. “It’s kind
of a ‘cowboy’ — not even a mid-shot, but a wider shot. Emerald loved
those wider compositions where you can see the whole environment.”
Long tableau shots pervade the film. One of the most memorable
finds Oliver lying atop a fresh grave on the Saltburn property. The shot
begins as a moment of mourning, but slowly becomes something dis-
turbing. “It’s just one really long shot that’s held for about three-and-a- “We needed to be able to see pores, skin texture,
half minutes,” Sandgren explains. “At first, it’s kind of beautiful to keep a blood, fluids and sweat — not just artful,
distance and be respectful to the character and not go in too tight. You’re
not in his eyeline, so theoretically you can keep standing and watching.” slithering sweat, but real, beading sweat.
This approach, the cinematographer notes, helps drop audiences into It’s a very visceral film.”

DECEMBER 2023 / 31

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Top: Felix and company sunbathe beside a pond on the
mansion’s lawn. Above: The crew shoots the side of the
table where Venetia Catton (Alison Oliver) is seated for
the dinner-party scene.
32 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 24-39 Saltburn V4.indd 32
a realistic vantage point from which one might actually observe such a
scene: “Would an onlooker really be standing in the mid-shot? No, you
wouldn’t.”
Camera, Format and Lenses
Sandgren filmed with the Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2 in the
Super 35 format, and notes that shooting the movie digitally was never
a consideration. Fennell explains, “We wanted that added texture, and in
post, we interfered as little as possible with the grain. We didn’t mind if
there was a little hair or sparkle. Why shoot on film and then make it feel
less [like] film?” Sandgren reports that he used Kodak Vision3 50D 5203
film negative for sunny exteriors, 250D 5207 for day interiors, 200T 5213
for misty days and 500T 5219 for nights.
Having tested a number of different aspect ratios during prep, Sand-
gren decided that the interior compositions he and Fennell were after
ultimately warranted the use of a near-square format. They therefore
made the atypical decision to capture Saltburn in 1.33:1. “Emerald want-
ed it to feel like we were looking into a dollhouse or an old-school TV
and watching the characters inside,” Sandgren says.
The rooms in the Saltburn estate are themselves square and tall, so
shooting 1.33:1 facilitated fuller views inside. Says Fennell, “In a house
like that, the ceilings are frescoed, the floor has marquetry detail, every
light switch is ornate … there would be so much we’d be missing if we
used an aspect ratio that cut those off.” Sandgren notes that their moti-
vations were also art-historical: “On the walls of the Saltburn estate are
portraits of ancestors going back hundreds of years that are composed in
formal framings. So, for me, it made sense that these characters should
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 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

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Top: For an after-dinner karaoke scene, Keoghan and actor Archie
Madekwe (portraying Farleigh Start) are illuminated primarily
by the light of a flatscreen TV and a large fireplace, with a bit of
supplementation. Above: As operator Jason Ewart films Keoghan
in one of the mansion’s upper rooms, lighting rigged on a cherry
picker helps create the effect of incoming sunlight.
34 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 24-39 Saltburn V4.indd 34
be portrayed in the same way. We quickly realized that if we shot in a
square format, the close-ups would be very singular and portrait-like.”
Sandgren shot Saltburn with Panavision’s Primo spherical lenses. He
had worked with them previously on The Nutcracker and the Four Realms,
and loved the overall effect they gave. “We tested many lenses, but I went
with the Primos because I remembered the richness I felt they brought
to Nutcracker,” he notes. The cinematographer describes the Primos as
“sharp, but more contrasty. They have more depth, a sort of mushiness,
or thickness.” He also likes the lens flares they create: “They have these
red circles that are really beautiful.”
Lighting the Property
Saltburn’s lighting strategy is also one of contrasts, ranging from very
natural and minimal to theatrical and bold. The vast majority of the
scenes in which Oliver, Felix and members of Felix’s family lounge
around Saltburn’s extensive grounds during the day were shot with
natural light only. “We wanted the exterior summer days to feel really
hot and romantic, and to provide contrast with the nights, which had a
haunted vibe,” Sandgren says. “The visual arc of the film climaxes in a
sort of vampire-esque tone, where silent horror films served as inspira-
tion. Throughout the film, gaffer Ian Sinfield and I experimented with
different techniques to light the scenes in an expressionistic way.”
In some instances, only practicals were necessary. For a large-scale
dinner-party scene set in a dining room, where the Catton family’s
guests are seated across a lengthy table, Sandgren primarily used can-
dlelight for illumination. The flickering candles, fitted in candelabras
and votives, give the scene an elegant, yet disquieting chiaroscuro effect,
with darkness shrouding the edges of the frame. After dinner, the party
retires to a room of sofas for karaoke. Here again, Sandgren opted for
a minimalist approach — mostly using the dim glow of a flatscreen TV
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 and a roaring fire in the room’s fireplace to light the scene. “The fire was
incredibly big if you look at it, but the goal was to be expressive, like
the Baroque painters,” Sandgren says. “We had to protect the fireplace
properly so we could crank the propane flames up to the exposure we
needed, but it really worked well.”
In general, Sandgren wasn’t afraid of underexposing a bit. “I rated
[each stock] 2/3 of a stop over to keep the shadows rich and the grain
finer,” he says. “One of the beauties of celluloid is that it can really take
care of the shadows.” Shooting on film, he opines, helps capture colors
with more nuance. He also likes to stay away from completely clean color
balance in regard to lighting, favoring more overt color contrast.
He cites a scene in the bathroom when Oliver is talking intimately
with Felix’s sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver). “We used a warm key light to
create a warm atmosphere, but without a cooler fill it would have looked
really monochrome,” he notes. “Having a very warm light [with] a really
cold light as a fill helps the perception of depth and color for the viewer,
so you see both their eyes and skin tones. The whole image just some-
how looks rich and white-balanced, even though it’s full of color.”
While staying at Saltburn, Oliver shares a bathroom with Felix, and
Top: Reflections underscore Oliver’s duplicitous nature. Above:
it becomes the site of much intrigue. In one scene, Oliver, peeping
Venetia confronts Oliver as she’s taking a bath.
through a crack in his bedroom door, watches Felix in the tub. The latter
is bathed in golden light, his skin reflective and wet. Sandgren notes that
this lighting was intended, in part, to affect a heightened reality. From
a practical standpoint, the setup insinuates that there’s a warm light in-
stalled above the bath, but it also suggests that, from Oliver’s point of
view, Felix is an object of desire who’s in a spotlight of sorts.

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 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

DECEMBER 2023 / 37

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 Donning devilish antlers, Oliver drunkenly
prowls the hedge maze.
“We wanted to create this internal struggle,
where you like what you see but you also don’t
like it, or maybe you feel bad for liking it.”
“We had a PAR can with a super-spot lens over the bathtub, because
those fixtures give a really nice, hot projection,” Sandgren recalls. “We
lit him quite hard to evoke a sensuality, with his skin shiny and his face,
hair and neck visibly covered in sweat. Felix’s skin popped brightly and
[the light] bounced off his body, to illuminate Oliver’s face as he’s secret-
ly watching Felix from a crack in a doorway.”
Sandgren shot the scene day-for-night on 5219 stock — periodically
applying ND 2.4 gels to the windows, with M90 HMIs serving as moon-
light that shined through them. These insert hard gels reduced the in-
tensity of the incoming light, which, as seen by the tungsten-balanced
film stock, became a deep blue. “With this method,” he says, “we got a
more stylized night-interior look, which we appreciated, but it also gave
us the opportunity to plan scenes in any order, by shooting most interi-
ors in daytime.” Sandgren then placed Vortex LEDs in the bathroom to
add some blue fill and red light.
A Lonely Dance
For many of the shots of Oliver at Oxford, the filmmakers wanted to
pointedly portray the character as lonely and isolated. “We created a lot
of obstacles for him,” Sandgren describes. “We would show him behind
fences or behind glass with bars in it. There’s a scene where he’s in his
room at school and there’s a window between him and Felix’s group of
friends — it almost looks like he’s in a prison.”
The barriers between Oliver and what he desires steadily dissipate
38 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 24-39 Saltburn V4.indd 38
throughout the film. This culminates in the final scene, when these ob-
stacles have disappeared completely, and he dances through the rooms
of Saltburn fully naked. Filming the dramatic dance, which traverses a
number of rooms in the mansion, was uniquely tricky. “Obviously, we
had to light every room,” Fennell says, “but we couldn’t have any of the
rigging visible, so everything had to be carefully hidden.” Getting the
timing right was difficult as well, especially because the dance was cho-
reographed but meant to feel off-the-cuff. “We had to make sure we
weren’t moving too fast for the music, and though we could rehearse
it, we couldn’t really rehearse [with the actor] naked,” Sandgren says.
Fennell adds that it was essential to give Keoghan room in order for the
routine to look natural. “It’s like the dance that everyone [does] alone
around the house … it was all about keeping that perfect distance with
the camera,” the director says.
Working with a skeleton crew, the filmmakers shot the scene as a
oner without sound, using Steadicam. Ossie McLean — one of Sand-
gren’s collaborators on the James Bond film No Time to Die (AC April ’20)
— operated the camera. It was one of the film’s few uses of Steadicam.
(“We used it for ‘walking-through-the-castle’ kind of shots, but other-
wise, we mainly used dolly,” the cinematographer notes.) Getting the
shot took careful orchestration and a number of tries. “At around the
seventh or eighth take, we got it technically perfect, but the shot was still
lacking some of the messy joy we wanted,” Fennell says.
The filmmakers kept going until they felt they achieved that little
touch of imperfection and ugliness they were after throughout the film
— which happened around take 11. “When we got it, it was an incredible
relief, because this scene needed to feel really good,” Sandgren says. “It
symbolizes Oliver’s character. Here, we see that he needs no one else.
He’s just on his own, enjoying his obsession.”
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 Killers of the Flower Moon:
Greed, Hubris and Homicide
Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC and Martin Scorsese
investigate an infamous murder conspiracy in Osage County.
By Stephen Pizzello

M
urders committed without conscience are a recur-
ring motif in Martin Scorsese’s films, but the vic-
tims in Killers of the Flower Moon are not members
of the mob; they are the oil-rich Native Americans
of Osage County, Okla., whose enormous wealth
— and ethnicity — makes them prime targets for
avaricious outsiders. As one character maintains,
with callous detachment, “You got a better chance of convicting a guy for
kicking a dog than killing an Indian.”
Based on journalist David Grann’s best-selling 2017 nonfiction book
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, the
movie revisits the 1920s, when at least two dozen (and possibly hun-
dreds more) members of the Osage Nation tribe were slain after winning
the legal right to profit from oil deposits discovered on their land. “The
world’s richest people per capita were becoming the world’s most mur-
dered,” Grann writes.
Within this wider scandal, the film’s key figures are cattle baron Wil-
liam Hale (Robert De Niro), known as the King of the Osage Hills, and

40 / DECEMBER 2023

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 PHOTOS BY MELINDA SUE GORDON, SMPSP. ALL STILLS AND FRAME CAPTURES COURTESY OF APPLE.

his nephew, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), who marries Osage
local Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), with her “headrights” — a share of
the immense profits from developers working on tribal land — in his
sights. Their schemes are threatened when the U.S. government, re-
sponding to desperate outreach from the Osage, dispatches agents of
the Bureau of Investigation (which later became the FBI) to smoke out
the perpetrators. They’re led by Tom White (Jesse Plemons), an impas-
sive, Stetson-hatted veteran of the Texas Rangers who brings a method-
ical resolve to the hunt.
A Narrative Pivot, Mid-Prep
Scorsese reteamed with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC to

Opposite: Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone) reacts

to court testimony. This page, top: William Hale
(Robert De Niro) conspires with his nephew
Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), Mollie’s husband.
Bottom: Mollie and her sister Reta (JaNae
Collins) mourn another Osage death.

p. 40-55 Killers of the Flower Moon V4.indd 41 11/2/23 7:08 AM

 bring viewers into the culture of the Osage Nation and immerse them in
the period’s ambience. However, Prieto notes that the filmmakers’ “pro-
cess of discovery” took place over an unusually extended period that was
disrupted both by the Covid-19 pandemic and Scorsese’s reevaluation of
the film’s narrative focus. (Production was initially expected to begin in
early 2018, but principal photography ultimately took place between the
spring and fall of 2021.) The director, who adapted Grann’s book with
screenwriter Eric Roth, ultimately settled on a revised story structure
that foregrounded the Osage protagonists rather than the FBI’s efforts,
which became a subplot introduced later in the tale.
Prieto says he felt the first stirrings of this change around the winter
of 2019, some months after he and Scorsese had met with members of
the Gray Horse Osage community at a dinner the tribe arranged in their
honor. More than 100 Osage attended, and many spoke about family
members who had been murdered during the Reign of Terror, as that
historical period came to be known. Prieto recalls, “I was sitting next to
some pretty important members of the Osage community, including one
of the chiefs, and it was just a huge honor. They gave us gifts, like blan-
kets that had been made for each of us, and I also received a ceremonial
feather. It was a beautiful experience, but some of the Osage also men-
A race on the main thoroughfare in Fairfax, Okla., captures Ernest’s
tioned their concerns about how the story would be told in the movie.
attention, while Ernest catches Mollie’s eye.
“Later in the year, we were still prepping as planned with the original

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 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

DECEMBER 2023 / 43

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 KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: GREED, HUBRIS AND HOMICIDE

Top: Osage Chief Bonnicastle

(Talee Redcorn) convenes a
communal gathering in a bark
lodge. Bottom: The primary
source for this sequence was
an 18K Arrimax aimed into
a 45-degree mirror, which
reflected the light beam down
through an overhead opening
in the structure.

script, but Marty kept saying, ‘Things are going to change.’ And then
he talked to the studio to tell them he wanted to shift the movie’s
perspective.”
The Osage provided advisors for the production, and everything the
filmmakers learned from them was taken into serious consideration.
Prieto notes, “One of our producers, Marianne Bower, has been doing
research for Marty’s films for years, and she went really deep on this one,
exploring Osage cultural traditions, the historical record, everything.
For example, some of the dialogue in the courtroom scenes was taken
directly from trial transcripts. Even things we learned at the dinner had
an impact on the story. One of the people who spoke there talked about
how important mothers and grandmothers were within the Osage Na-
tion, which became an important focus in the film.”
Vintage Looks and Shifting Tones
During prep, one of the main discussions Prieto and Scorsese had con-
cerned color. Early on, they pondered whether to use different tints to
give the movie a vintage feel, but they ultimately abandoned that plan.

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 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

Top: Enraged by Ernest’s

disobedience, Hale berates
his nephew in a Masonic
lodge. Bottom: B-camera
operator Steve Matzinger
awaits the next take next
to a frame of Magic Cloth,
patterned after the Lodge’s
checkerboard flooring,
which helped the crew avoid
reflections of lighting gear
in De Niro’s glasses.

Instead, they began assessing early photographic processes like Auto-

chrome and Photochrom, Technicolor, and the more modern process of
ENR in order to develop LUTs that would give them the tones they de-
sired. Prieto worked closely with senior colorist Yvan Lucas at Company
3 to refine the film’s looks. (For in-depth coverage of the film’s grading
strategies, visit theasc.com.)
Prieto explains, “We created the LUTs during prep, and their impor-
tance during production was to make sure the dailies had a look as close
as possible to the final DI. When we shot on film negative, we could not
monitor on set with the LUTs, but the dailies would have the LUTs we
needed for each scene; we were only able to see the LUTs on set when we
used the Sony Venice. I sent general timing notes to our dailies colorist.
“To me, in the language of cinema, a film negative with a film print
is natural color — which is why we decided to shoot primarily on mo-
tion-picture film, which I feel has deeper color depth,” Prieto adds. “It
was important for us to accurately represent the colors of the Osage
wardrobe and the colors of nature. And then we wanted to differentiate
that look from how we presented Hale, Ernest Burkhart and the other
descendants of the original European settlers.”
To that end, Prieto began researching early color photography and
showing Scorsese examples. The pair found themselves drawn to the
look produced by Autochrome, an early color technique developed for
still photography by the Lumière brothers, which they first marketed in
1907 and manufactured until 1933. Autochrome is a positive color trans-
parency on glass that’s made by coating a glass plate with a sticky varnish
and dusting it with a layer of randomly distributed, translucent grains
of potato starch and a coating of panchromatic photographic emulsion.
“These grains of dyed potato starch act as filters that allow certain fre-
quencies to pass,” Prieto explains. “The colors Autochrome produces are
not exactly red-green-blue primaries — the green is green, but the blue
leans more toward violet and the red is more of an orangey-red hue.
There’s also a layer of silver halide. The look it creates can be very ran-
dom, but by studying many Autochromes, we came up with a lookup

DECEMBER 2023 / 45

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After setting fire to his land to collect insurance money, Hale
watches from his porch as workers try to bring the blaze under
control (middle and bottom). By shooting the sequence through
“heatwaves” generated by gas pipes, the filmmakers achieved an
eerie distortion resembling a “dance of death” (top).
p. 40-55 Killers of the Flower Moon V4.indd 46
table that we felt would mimic [the general palette of] Autochrome.”
Mingled with this look were the qualities of another early photo-
graphic process called Photochrom, which produced colorized images
from a black-and-white negative via the direct photographic transfer of
the negative onto lithographic printing plates and hand coloring by the
photographer. “The look of Photochrom is much more difficult to re-
produce,” Prieto notes, “so [the resulting LUT] combines the feel I got
from the Autochrome images I’d researched with my impressions of the
Photochrom images.” In the film, early examples of this look can be seen
when Ernest first arrives in Fairfax by train and then meets with Hale.
Later, when the horrors of the murder spree take full hold after a
house is blown up with dynamite, Prieto shifted to the harsher look of a
LUT that emulated the tones of ENR, a color-positive developing tech-
nique that uses an additional black-and-white developing bath to retain
the silver that is normally washed off during print processing. Prieto
explains the progression thusly: “Up till the explosion, the Autochrome
look is more prevalent — it’s a little desaturated, with a bit of violet in
the skies and magenta in the blues, desaturated greens and yellows,
and reds that look more orange. For scenes featuring only our Osage
11/2/23 7:08 AM
 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

DECEMBER 2023 / 47

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 KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: GREED, HUBRIS AND HOMICIDE
characters, we used a ‘normal film’ LUT that reproduces natural colors
accurately. When the ENR happens, it’s a more general desaturation of
all the colors, with a higher contrast. This change of look was meant to
enhance the feelings of desperation the characters are experiencing as
the story unfolds.”
Other LUTs also came into play: a day-for-night LUT was used for the
sequences in which Charlie Whitehorn (Anthony J. Harvey) and Mollie’s
sister Anna (Cara Jade Myers) are murdered, and a three-strip Techni-
color LUT was applied to the moment when Mollie’s mother dies and
is led off to the afterlife, as well as the movie’s coda — in which Scors-
ese makes a cameo as a radio announcer leading a cast of actors during
a live broadcast about the killings staged years later, in front of a live
audience, who listen as the tragedy of the Osage is presented for their
entertainment.
Modern Cameras and a Classic Antique
Prieto’s cameras on the show included Arricam STs and LTs, Sony’s
DiCaprio, Scorsese and Prieto on set.
“Every Picture Should Be a Challenge”
Martin Scorsese comments on his latest film and his creative
partnership with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC.
Interview by Fred Schruers
American Cinematographer: What particularly struck you about
Rodrigo’s talents and philosophy when you first invited him to
work with you? And were the arduous conditions the two of you
experienced while shooting Silence a definitive test of your creative
partnership?
Martin Scorsese: I was very impressed by Rodrigo’s work for Ale-
jandro Iñárrítu, Ang Lee [and] Pedro Almodóvar. The philosophy I’ve
learned as we’ve talked and worked together for so many years
now: Every picture is a test. But yes, the conditions for Silence were
arduous. I’ll never forget the day we were in the middle of a typhoon,
and here was a knock on my trailer door. I figured they were coming
to tell me that we were wrapping for the day. I opened the door and
a mysterious figure popped in, clad in rain gear. He took off his hat
and goggles and it was Rodrigo, coming to tell me that the shot was
almost finished setting up.
48 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 40-55 Killers of the Flower Moon V4.indd 48
Venice for dusk scenes and night exteriors, and both a Phantom camera
and an Arriflex 435 for the high-speed “oil dance“ that opens the film,
when a group of Osage are shown rejoicing as a geyser erupts from the
ground. “The tight shot of the Osage dancing was done with the Phan-
tom at about 700 frames per second, but the wider shots were done with
the Arri 435 at 150 frames per second, because we didn’t want those
shots to be quite as slow,” Prieto says. “Of course, the geyser is totally
unrealistic, because when oil comes out of the ground on its own, it just
bubbles up; it doesn’t shoot out of the ground unless you’re using an oil
rig to pump it out! But Marty was aware of that — he just wanted this
effect of ‘black rain’ falling on the Osage in a more symbolic way.”
Prieto’s main color film stock on the project was Kodak Vision3 250D
5207 for day scenes, but he also used 50D 5203 (mainly applied to scenes
showing Osage rituals, for the clarity of its grain). 500T 5219 was used
for tungsten-lit interiors and some night exteriors.
The movie’s simulated newsreel footage was shot with Scorsese’s
own 1917 Bell & Howell 2709 camera and Kodak’s black-and-white
Rodrigo speaks of the conceptual and artistic bonds you share,
describing the two of you “mining our deepest emotions, fears and
insecurities.” How has this connection grown over time?
There are a few key people I’ve worked with many times over the
years, for many reasons — talent, temperament, shared interests,
shared love of our art form, adventurousness. And the trust that grows
over time.
I’ve worked with many great DPs over the years. What I love about
Rodrigo — and this was also the case with Michael Ballhaus [ASC,
BVK] — is his positive spirit, his excitement. He never says, “I can’t do
that.” [When] I tell him I want something, he immediately gets to work
on delivering it. And he knows that speed is crucial. I’ve tended more
and more in the direction of pictures with many characters and loca-
tions, [and] a lot of activity in the frame and around the edges — and,
of course, emotional change-ups to quieter moments. He understands
every creative decision on a logistical level.
The events depicted in Killers of the Flower Moon epitomize the
primal, unjust culture of the white men exploiting Native Americans.
Was it your sense of this history that led you to redesign the narra-
tive to present more of the Osage perspective?
Not long after I read David Grann’s book, I knew I wanted to make
it into a movie. Here was the story of a massive tragedy [that was]
pretty much unknown outside of the native communities — a story
of pure greed and power under cover of racist domination. It got into
very troubling questions: How could it have gone on so long? And, on
the other hand, how could these people, the whites and the Osage,
have lived in each other’s company and married and raised families
together? That kind of ambiguity is more widespread than we care to
admit. That drew me to the material, and so did my feelings about Na-
tive American life and spiritual beliefs. I wanted to make it into a movie.
The question was: What movie?
We started by making [investigator] Tom White the protagonist.
But how do we make this character fresh, different? We realized it
was the structure that needed to change — to go from the “inside” to
the “outside,” not vice versa, to explore Mollie and Ernest’s relation-
ship, the mystery of what went on between them. So, we were firmly
grounded in the Osage perspective, against the ongoing horror all
around them.
11/2/23 7:08 AM

Eastman Double-X 5222 film stock. “You can try to emulate that kind of
look with visual effects, but it’s certainly not the same,” Prieto maintains.
“The edges of the frame are the actual aperture of the camera, in the
1.33:1 ratio, and you can see all the defects. Our extraordinary A-cam-
era 1st AC, Trevor Loomis, hand-cranked the camera, and he somehow
managed to keep it very close to 24 frames per second. Panavision oiled
up the camera for us, and they helped us align the eyepiece to the lenses
to compensate for the parallax of the non-reflex camera.”
Prieto adds, “The very first shot of the oil coming up from the ground
was actually done as a special effect, using color negative in the Bell &
Howell, because we were initially planning to convert it to black-and-
white to make it look like newsreel footage. But Marty decided he want-
ed to use it as color footage in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio, so you’ll notice
that the shot jiggles and flickers a bit. Somehow, it works, though — it
has this kind of vibration that’s oddly compelling. Marty sometimes just
allows these ‘mistakes’ or anomalies to stay in the movie because they
have an interesting look or an emotional purpose.”
In your view, what was the most impactful late-arriving change?
The final shot grew directly out of my conversations with the Osage
community. It was vitally important that the story of the Reign of
Terror be told. But they also want people to know that they’re still
here, that the culture is alive and thriving and that it continues to be
passed down. I thought about the image of the drum circle: From
overhead, it would be almost like a beating heart.
From Rodrigo’s perspective, his interplay with Jack Fisk’s produc-
tion-design work, and the location choices you all shared, was more
collaborative than on previous pictures he had shot. How essential
was that dynamic?
In this case, we were making a picture not only set in the past, but
in an unfamiliar part of the world. The plains, hills and prairies of Okla-
homa, in Osage County, during the 1920s — that was new to all of us.
Jack has a very special feeling for America’s past, and he’s quite
exacting about historical research — [in terms of] every texture,
object, and architectural choice. Of course, on every choice, we
consulted with Osage historians.
Rodrigo noted that scenes in Flower Moon involving fire grew
meaningful as they emerged. Perhaps the big fire scene in Hale’s
fields is the culmination — the flames are visible even from the
windows of Ernest’s home as he gives Millie a shot.
Fire is integral to the picture on the level of narrative — so many
explosions and fires. And then, because Mollie was in a state of
delirium and probably running a fever, in burning Oklahoma heat,
we bring the horror of the outside world together with the horror
of their interior world — Ernest is burning within, so to speak.
Visually speaking, I always had in mind a sense of Walpurgisnacht
— of demons dancing around the fire of Hale’s ranch. On our way
home one night after shooting [that sequence], we found ourselves
on a different planet. Controlled fires emerged out of the darkness —
we floated through them. [It was] unearthly, [and] that just added to
my conviction as to Hale’s “fire.” We used heat bars so that we would
have two layers of heat, rendering the figures of the people as these
crazy expressionist figures.
p. 40-55 Killers of the Flower Moon V4.indd 49
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM
Format and Lenses
Oklahoma’s abundance of flat, open landscapes led the filmmakers to
choose the widescreen anamorphic format. “On Brokeback Mountain, I
shot in 1.85:1 because we were going for the height of the mountains.
But here, with the wide-open landscapes, we were trying to incorporate
as much of the land as possible on the sides of the frame.”
Prieto’s primary lenses were Panavision T Series, specially tuned and
customized by the company’s senior vice president of optical engineer-
ing and lens strategy, ASC associate Dan Sasaki. The cinematographer
offers, “I had really liked the T Series when I’d done previous tests with
[A-camera and Steadicam operator] Scott Sakamoto, and Dan provid-
ed a special set for us. The flares in our set were a little different; they
were warmer than the typical ‘anamorphic blue flare,’ which helped us
in creating the feel of the story’s era. I should mention that those lenses
were not something I specifically requested from Dan; he knew about
our project, and he’d had these lenses made and then offered to show
them to us!”
The film’s simulated
newsreel footage
was shot with
Scorsese’s 1917
Bell & Howell 2709
camera.
You have spoken of depicting a phenomenon that might be in the
grain of the American character: gaining wealth by any means
necessary.
Amassing money and power is a big part of the history of humanity,
part of who we are. There are many American versions of it. I grew
up with one version, which is reflected in Mean Streets, Raging Bull,
GoodFellas, Casino, The Irishman. In The Wolf of Wall Street, we were
dealing with the corporate version: hedge funds, Ponzi schemes,
investment portfolios. Killers is yet another version.
It’s a matter of acknowledging that uncomfortable reality of people
who [can be] warm and caring one minute and [then commit] horrible
actions — something we look away from. But no matter how painful,
we need to face it.
What were the biggest challenges you as filmmakers took on, both
logistically and artistically?
The biggest challenge was shooting in Oklahoma in the summer. The
heat was pulverizing.
Every picture should be a challenge — an exploration. If it isn’t,
then why make it? [I wanted] to move the plot forward, but fill the ac-
tion with lots of detours and byways and asides with so many different
characters and personalities, like a wild fresco … to keep the Osage
cultural elements and the Osage perspective in every scene … to get
to the emotional core of Ernest and Mollie … to tell the story of this
hidden historical tragedy … to give people the sense of Osage culture
as alive and thriving. It was a challenge, every step of the way. And I
wouldn’t trade one minute of it. It was one of the greatest experiences
of my life.
DECEMBER 2023 / 49
11/2/23 7:08 AM
 Large hanging rigs strung with bulbs, constructed to allow gusts of
wind to pass through them, helped Prieto create a soft, warm toplight
for night-exterior sequences like this party scene in Pawhuska. The
foreground rig, suspended from a crane, is a 20'x30' truss with 300-
watt silicone-coated bare bulbs; beyond it is a “chandelier light” hard-
mounted to an 80' condor with panels of seven-bulb strands that were
individually circuited to allow control of the overhead ambience. A 20K
positioned on the rooftop in the background provided backlight, while a
bluescreen at the end of the street allowed for digital set extensions.
Shots captured with the lenses at dawn — when the Osage typically
offer prayers as the sun rises to start the day — show off the flare char-
acteristics exceptionally well. Another fine example is a striking, low-an-
TOP PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX. BOTTOM PHOTO BY KARL-WALTER LINDELAUB, ASC, BVK.
gle image of an Osage spiritual leader at a funeral, waving a ceremonial
feather toward camera as the sun behind him creates a rhythmic pattern
of lens pings. “We had to do that scene at noon, because that’s when
the Osage bury their people,” Prieto notes. “It’s a very specific thing, and
Marty would not have settled for any other way. So, the shot had to be
timed very precisely with the position of the sun. Normally you’d avoid
shooting at that unflattering time of day, but we tried to do the entire
scene with the sun overhead. The presence and position of the sun is
very important in Osage culture, and we felt it was important to repre-
sent that accurately.”
The filmmakers also used a customized set of anamorphic Petzval
lenses for shots of murdered Osage characters. “Marty wanted to show
the results of these killings in a dispassionate manner,” Prieto says. “He
didn’t want to make them extra-dramatic. So, most of those shots of the
victims are very simple overhead angles on the bodies, but the Petzvals
create a kind of soft-focus vignetting around the edges that gives you
this certain feeling about all those deaths — the effect is a bit unsettling.”
50 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 40-55 Killers of the Flower Moon V4.indd 50
Aiming for Authenticity and Naturalism
Thanks to Scorsese’s respectful interactions with the Osage, the produc-
tion was able to obtain permission to shoot on the tribe’s reservation in
Oklahoma, at many of the actual sites where the murders had occurred a
century earlier. The town of Fairfax is shown during sequences set in the
neighborhood Mollie and Ernest move into; other authentic locations
include the office occupied by doctors James and David Shoun [Steve
Witting and Steve Routman], and a Masonic lodge.
To ensure further accuracy, a number of Osage artisans and crafts-
people were hired to work on the show in various capacities, helping
with production design, wardrobe, cultural consultations and linguis-
tics, among other areas.
Prieto offers, “Our visual strategy was primarily based on the mate-
rial, and the Osage themselves — we wanted to just draw from what
we learned and try to connect emotionally with that information, and
with each of the characters. First and foremost, we wanted to photo-
graph the Osage as naturally as possible in their world and their specific
environments.”
Production designer Jack Fisk — whose credits include work for
directors Terrence Malick, David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson and
Alejandro González Iñárritu — constructed the show’s sets, either by
repurposing existing structures or building new ones from scratch, the
latter including Hale’s ranch house and Mollie’s home. The main street
in Pawhuska — a town that doubled as Fairfax for significant portions of
the film — was redressed for the period, and Fisk and his crew also built
a train station nearby on a square mile of land that the Osage Nation had
recently purchased.
In general, Prieto’s strategy for interior sets was to allow light from
outside windows to travel deep into the rooms so Scorsese could block
the actors’ movements any way he wanted, without requiring the per-
formers to be close to windows. Prieto’s approach was inspired by the
11/2/23 7:08 AM
 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

Top: LiteGear LiteMat Spectrum 4s were rigged to the ceiling for this
scene, and a tiny 650-watt halogen globe was hidden within the oil
lamp on the table. Middle: For this interior night sequence, an array of
LiteMat Spectrum 2Ls are baffled to keep light only on actors Jason
Isbell and DiCaprio. Bottom: Scorsese prepares for a shot of Gladstone
with (at the foot of the bed, from left) 1st AD Adam Somner, Prieto and
DiCaprio. Prior to filming, a horseshoe-shaped rig of LiteMats, in various
sizes, were placed in the ceiling of the set to facilitate rapid changeovers
in camera angles. The fixtures were wirelessly controlled to speed
variations of both their intensity and color.

naturalism he admired in the work of cinematographers like Sven

Nykvist, ASC, FSF, and particularly Néstor Almendros, ASC. “For daytime
scenes, I really tried to use the windows as light sources,” Prieto says.
“We used 18K Fresnels on condors to simulate sunlight coming through
some windows, but we also used 18K Fresnels and Arrimaxes going
through 12 by 12 frames with very dense Magic Cloth diffusion on them
for soft ambient daylight also entering through windows. Many times,
the ceilings and windows were high, so we added these strips of bright
hybrid LEDs — 2,700 to 6,000K — comprising diffused LED fixtures
packed with LED tape from LiteGear that would also carry some light
into the room from the angle of the windows. The hybrids are tungsten-
and daylight-balanced LEDs that you can mix to achieve different color
temperatures; for daylight scenes we used them at 5,600K.
“Another thing we used for most of our interior settings were soft
boxes rigged to the ceilings, with hybrid LEDs coming through Magic
Cloth diffusion. Then we would skirt them or put Lighttools Soft Egg
Crates on them to create a toplight; I mostly did that for night scenes to
emulate the look of overhead lamps and lightbulbs.”
The value of this strategy is most apparent in an impressive Stea-
dicam shot operated by Sakamoto, who guides the viewer from room
to room during a family gathering at the ranch house where Mollie and
her mother live, with various characters moving through frame. “We
had to be very, very careful in placing the lights outside the windows so
the camera wouldn’t see them,” Prieto says. “I helped the shot by plac-
ing those soft boxes overhead, at a low fill level so they wouldn’t feel
like a source — they just created some ambience. We had to be ready to
shoot in any direction, so those soft boxes really helped. They were hy-
brid LEDs, and for that long shot we used daylight color balance. I also
used those units on the ceiling of the doctors’ office, and for some of the
scenes at Hale’s ranch house as well.”

Contrasting Environments
Prieto and Scorsese took pains to show the contrast between the life-
style and environments of the Osage and non-Osage characters. In an
early scene that establishes the movie’s central conflict, the Osage are
shown meeting with tribal leaders to discuss the ongoing rash of mur-
ders. The sequence is set in a “bark lodge,” an oval structure built from
wooden poles stuck in the ground, bent to form a dome and then tied
together before being covered with sheets of tree bark, animal hides or
canvas. Production designer Fisk told Prieto that there was a gap at the
top, used by the Osage to let smoke from cooking escape the structure,
that he could light through. “So, the lighting strategy was dictated by the
set, but I also wanted to work from the concept of bringing nature into
their spiritual gathering in the form of the sun,” Prieto says. “I felt it was
appropriate to bring a big shaft of ‘sunlight’ in through the roof and just
bounce it off the ground to light everyone’s faces.

DECEMBER 2023 / 51

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 KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: GREED, HUBRIS AND HOMICIDE
Top: By carefully timing the sun, Prieto captured rhythmic sun flares
caused by the movements of a ceremonial feather. Bottom: Setting
up for the shot with Redcorn.
“Our amazing gaffer, Ian Kincaid, helped achieve that. There are not
many HMI lighting units you can point straight down. Ian thought we
needed an 18K Arrimax, but again, you can’t really tilt an Arrimax like
that. So, he and the grips created this rig that allowed them to position
the Arrimax horizontally on a condor lift while shining it into a mirror
that was set at a 45-degree angle.”
Throughout the film, the Osage are shown in natural exterior set-
tings or in homes that have a warmer, more friendly ambience. The
environments occupied by Hale and his associates often stand in stark
contrast, especially during a scene set in a former Masonic lodge space
(refurbished by Fisk), where the uncle and Ernest’s brother Byron (Scott
Shepherd) meet with Ernest to discipline him for making an unautho-
rized side deal. The room has a very severe atmosphere, complete with
high ceilings and a section of flooring with a stark, black-and-white
checkerboard pattern. After instructing Ernest to bend over and brace
52 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 40-55 Killers of the Flower Moon V4.indd 52
himself against a podium, Hale wields a heavy wooden paddle and gives
his nephew several agonizing smacks on the backside. Prieto explains,
“In his research, Jack Fisk noticed Masonic halls with a checkered floor,
and Marty liked the look. The space we were in had these two skylights,
which had been covered by a new roof at some point. Between that ce-
ment roof and the glass skylight, we fit in a bunch of LED units, adding
some diffusion to them. But there was only about 2 feet of space for that.”
In one striking close-up, the checkerboard floor is reflected in Hale’s
glasses, giving him the stern look of a taskmaster disciplining his pupil.
“Those glasses were hell for me, because everything was reflected in
them,” Prieto recalls. “A lot of my lighting design for Robert De Niro in
that scene depended on us not allowing the lighting units to be reflect-
ed in Hale’s glasses, so I had the grip department build two big frames
with Magic Cloth and checkered patterns on them similar to the floor’s.
We could then light through them to provide fill light, and if Hale’s eye-
glasses reflected the frames, it would look like it was the reflection of
the floor!”
A brooding tone also prevails in some of the scenes at Hale’s house,
with its walls of dark wood. While researching homes of the era, Fisk
learned that dark walls were fairly common; Prieto found this conve-
nient because it allowed him to control the levels of brightness on the
walls, and also convey the dark natures of Hale and his accomplices.
In one key sequence late in the movie, Ernest comes back from a court
appearance and joins a gathering in Hale’s den, where he’s confronted
by townsfolk and his uncle’s infuriated lawyer, W.S. Hamilton (Bren-
dan Fraser), who bellows at Ernest about his forthcoming testimony.
“I wanted all of these characters to feel almost like marble statues, in
complete contrast to how it feels when you’re among the Osage peo-
ple,” Prieto says. “Even after we progress to the ENR LUT, Mollie’s house
and the other Osage homes have a warmth in the lighting, but I want-
ed the scene in Hale’s den to feel very cold — even though the scene’s
lightbulbs are low-wattage, which usually give off a warmer look. But I
planned all along to color-time that scene to be cold and very contrasty,
with the character’s faces emerging from this very dark background to
create a chiaroscuro effect. To achieve that look, the soft boxes we were
using above the actors needed to be very controlled; I used them to add
11/2/23 7:08 AM

a soft but menacing toplight, in the style of The Godfather. Sometimes I
used our Soft Egg Crates on the boxes, and sometimes I would use skirt-
ing to control the amount of light on the backgrounds.”
Fire Drills
Several key sequences in the film feature fire gags that augment the
drama in both subtle and spectacular fashion.
In one of the earliest scenes, Hale meets with Ernest in his home’s
study, where the two sit down for a fireside chat that allows the uncle
to assess his nephew’s potential as an ally. “Fire became an important
element in the film,” Prieto says. “To my mind, the fire in the film has
almost a biblical aspect, perhaps representing Hell. Hale’s name even
sounds like ‘Hell,’ as in ‘Hell is coming.’ So, we played off that a bit. I intu-
itively wanted to use fire for the scene where Hale and Ernest have their
talk, and also for a later scene when the drunken body of Henry Roan
[William Belleau] is laid out in front of the fireplace.
“Since Hale’s house was a set built on location, I asked Jack [Fisk] to
keep that fireplace open so we could bring lighting through the back. I
used a combination of Astera tubes with a fire effect on them, and some
MR16s, which have more directionality and punch. Then we shot a plate
of real fire for the visual-effects team, which is what you actually see in
the fireplace. So, the flames are a visual effect, but it looks as if the fire-
light is actually lighting the whole room.
Later in the film, a much larger fire gag was employed to create a visu-
ally stunning sequence that occurs when Hale decides to burn the land
around his ranch to collect insurance money. Prieto reveals, “The script
only called for a shot of Hale at his house, watching the burn, with the
FBI agents just seeing this glow in the distance as they have their secret
meeting at the oil rigs. But Marty turned it into a much bigger thing. To
accomplish what he wanted, the special-effects team had to dig trenches
in very specific places around the house and then install big gas pipes.
Behind the house, I placed some Dinos with flicker effects that would
light up the smoke effect to silhouette the house. I then asked the effects
team to place some smaller pipes very close to the camera lens to create
a bit of distortion. We used three cameras in all; the main camera was
capturing a wide shot of the fire, and the others were on long lenses.”
p. 40-55 Killers of the Flower Moon V4.indd 53
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM
A LUT emulating the look of three-strip
Technicolor was applied to the film’s coda,
which features a cameo by Scorsese as a
radio-show producer.
The strategies Prieto and Scorsese employed
are designed to reflect various ways in which
the tragic Osage saga has been represented.
”It’s about how stories are told,” Prieto says,
”from the newsreel footage through the other
looks we created.”
Onscreen, the result of these efforts is a mesmerizing tableau that
shows workers trying to get the fire under control, as oddly moving sil-
houettes amid waves of distortion that create the feel of a surreal, un-
dulating hellscape. “We didn’t really anticipate how unusual the effect
would look when we were planning it,” Prieto says. “Of course, I know
very well that you’ll get a bit of distortion if you shoot through the waves
of heat coming off a pipe placed directly under the lens. You don’t pho-
tograph the fire itself; you just get the effect of the heat waves. But there
was a fire effect set up in the middle distance, with a much larger gas
pipe, maybe 50 feet from us. And that is what caused that big distortion
— it was a combination of the foreground heat waves from the small
pipe plus the waves that were generated from the much larger pipe far-
ther away.”
Other large fire pipes were deployed behind the stunt people in-
volved in the scene — who were also dancers, directed on how to move
by Scorsese and a choreographer, resulting in an eerie “dance of death”
milieu. Prieto adds, “There are some shots of Hale and Ernest looking at
the fire, and we did those with a small fire bar placed just below the lens
to add a bit of distortion. I lit them with a couple of 5Ks through various
shades of orange gels, using a 12-by-12 frame of silver lamé to create
some movement on their faces. If you look closely at Leo’s eyes in the
tight shots on him, it looks as if there’s fire in them, but it was really just
the silver lamé that we were shaking offscreen.”
DECEMBER 2023 / 53
11/2/23 7:08 AM
 KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: GREED, HUBRIS AND HOMICIDE
Top: Hale’s lawyer, W.S. Hamilton (Brendan Fraser, far left), and a group
of townspeople confront Ernest. “I wanted all of these characters to
feel almost like marble statues,” says Prieto, who added a soft but
menacing toplight “in the style of The Godfather.” Below: As Mollie
grows ill, she seeks spiritual comfort in church. This sequence and
others show Prieto’s strategic use of mixed color temperatures.
The Law Intervenes
After the Bureau of Investigation gets involved in the case, agents arrive
in Fairfax to question the townsfolk, and begin to close in on the culprits.
Ernest and Hale quickly become prime suspects, and both are detained.
Soon, Ernest is cornered and must testify in court — where he faces
the stony glare of his uncle, who’s been imprisoned in the town jail. The
courtroom and jail sets were built in a church by Fisk, with the former
set located on the ground floor and the jail constructed in the basement.
“Because it was a real location, we faced some heavy-duty limitations,”
p. 40-55 Killers of the Flower Moon V4.indd 54
Prieto says. “I really wanted to have Ernest in very harsh sunlight. I
wanted him to be in the spotlight, with nowhere to hide, and I wanted
the audience to feel his discomfort.”
Although the church presented limited opportunities for windows,
Fisk was able to assist with Prieto’s plan by installing fake windows on
the side of the courtroom that faced the camera for certain shots; an up-
stairs gallery on the same side allowed him to build additional fake win-
dows for sunlight effects. “Coming through those lower windows, we
had Arri SkyPanel S60s aimed through diffusion. For each of the upper
windows, we had an Arri S360-C paired with HES Solaframe 3000 Hi-Fi
robotic moving lights. That way, I could decide where the ‘sun’ would
be for different scenes just by controlling the direction and size of the
beam remotely. It might have helped if the walls had been dark, but Jack
insisted that in that kind of place, historically, the walls would have been
white. So, I went all the way with that to create that feel of blinding light
throughout the space.”
The basement jail set built at the same church was lit to have the
gloomy look of a dungeon. Fisk built the cages based on his research
11/2/23 7:09 AM
 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

Tech Specs: 2.39:1

Cameras | Arricam ST, LT; Arriflex 435; Sony Venice; Phantom Flex4K; Bell & Howell 2709
Lenses | Panavision T Series (custom), V Series, anamorphic zooms, Petzval anamorphic
Film stocks | Kodak Vision3 500T 5219, 250D 5207, 50D 5203, Eastman Double-X 5222

— and to provide appropriate ambience, Prieto and his crew lit the space
with China hats with 300-watt mushroom bulbs in them. “The toplight
those bulbs provided was very directional and contrasty,” Prieto says.
“We lit everything in the cells with those practicals, and we would just
tilt them in the appropriate direction. Ian had these weighted magnets
he would put on the fixtures to make them tilt in whatever direction we
needed. The lighting that resulted from our strategy was super harsh,
and it made the actors’ eyes just go black. For the climactic dialogue
between Ernest and Hale, through the bars of a cell, we shot with two
cameras, and I had to add a bit of eyelight for each actor with these pen-
cil-thin, diffused, battery-powered LiteGear LED sticks. Those were put
in front of each off-camera actor, below the frame, to light the other per-
son. The tricky part was avoiding the shadows of the bars so the audi-
ence wouldn’t notice the eyelights!”
Coda
In reflecting upon the filmmakers’ philosophical approach to the movie,
Prieto points out that the strategies he and Scorsese employed are de-
signed to reflect various ways in which the tragic Osage saga has been
represented. “It’s about how stories are told,” he says, “from the newsreel
footage through the other looks we created.”
He notes that the finale featuring the radio broadcast “was not in the
original script, but was added to show one of the ways the story might
have been presented by white people.”
As the broadcast makes abundantly clear, justice was only spottily
served in the aftermath of the Osage killings. An Osage chief quoted in
Grann’s book sums up his tribe’s tragic collision with history: “Someday
this oil will go and there will be no more fat checks every few months
from the Great White Father. There’ll be no fine motorcars and new
clothes. Then I know my people will be happier.”

Top: At a local billiard parlor that doubles as a barber shop,

Hale is questioned by Bureau of Investigation agent Tom
White (Jesse Plemons). Bottom: After their arrests by the
authorities, Hale and Ernest languish in starkly lit jail cells.

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 Singing a Different Tune for
The Color Purple
Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF helps director Blitz Bazawule
bring a fresh and vibrant visual style to a musical-feature
adaptation of the classic novel.

T
By Derek Stettler

hirty-eight years after Steven Spielberg brought The

Color Purple to the big screen, Alice Walker’s Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel about the resilient Celie Johnson
has returned, this time as a rousing musical. For cin-
ematographer Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF and Ghanaian
director Blitz Bazawule, the production marked three
major “firsts”: the first time Bazawule would helm a
studio feature, the first time Laustsen would shoot a musical, and the
first time both filmmakers would work together.

56 / DECEMBER 2023

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 Initially, Bazawule and Laustsen connected over a shared admiration
for the 1964 feature I Am Cuba, using its long takes and mobile camera
as inspiration for depicting Celie’s four-decade journey through oppres-
sion in the American South. “Dan and I were adamant that the camera
was always going to be alive,” says Bazawule.
A-camera/Steadicam operator Tim Fabrizio and choreographer Fati-
ma Robinson were key players in this plan. The goal was for the camera
to have the same fluidity in narrative scenes as in musical numbers, en-
riching both and enabling smooth transitions between dialogue scenes
and musical spectacle. “It [demanded] an extra level of teamwork be-
tween actors, camera, choreography and myself,” says Laustsen of the
new adaptation. He tried not to be influenced by the visual approach
Spielberg and Allen Daviau, ASC took in their 1985 version (AC Feb. ’86;
see “Wrap Shot,” page 88), which he had not seen. Instead, the cinema-
tographer’s goal was to lean into Bazawule’s ideas: “It’s the director’s
movie, and I’m trying to support him as much as I can.”
UNIT STILLS BY ELI ADÉ. ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT.
p. 56-67 The Color Purple V4.indd 57
Close Focus
Laustsen chose to shoot with Arri’s Alexa Mini LF, in particular for its
small form factor, and paired it with Arri Signature Primes, due to their
close-focus ability and filter options. Seeking a rich, slightly softened
look, he used Tiffen Black ProMist filters in the lenses’ magnetic rear
filter holders, alongside the camera’s ND filters for daylight exteriors.
“With the Signature Primes, I’m using filters inside because they’re
not giving me any surprises that I can’t control,” he says. “I don’t like to
have a filter flare; I like to have a lens flare. And when you have the filters
behind the lens, you’re keeping the blacks more black. The combination
of Signature Primes and diffusion behind the lens is fantastic.”
Southern Light
To evoke the heat and humidity of the South, Laustsen wanted a sense
that very bright exteriors were lighting interior spaces. As nearly all the
film’s interiors were shot on sets, he mainly relied on tungsten lighting,
Opposite: Young Celie (Phylicia Pearl
Mpasi) asks for a sign from above.
Pictured here: Reverend Avery (David Alan
Grier) leads his church’s choir in song.
11/2/23 7:10 AM
 SINGING A DIFFERENT TUNE FOR THE COLOR PURPLE

directing 20K and 10K units through windows and doors. “We some-
times bounced off a bit of poly as fill, but often just let the set provide the
fill, along with some haze,” the cinematographer explains.
“Don’t be afraid of the darkness,” he adds with a laugh. “I’m not a big
fan of fill light. Normally, I add fill and then kill it soon after. I find myself
using negative fill more often than fill.”
Given that the sets were quite small, placing lights outside them
also gave the actors more freedom of movement. “I try to keep all the
lights as far away as I can, but I think it’s very important to understand
that we are lighting the actors in the space more than just lighting the
space. And we’re changing the lighting, and adding interior lights, for
the close-ups.”
For night scenes, Laustsen turned to the LRX Raptor — a bank of 18
3,200K PAR 64s — which he had employed on Nightmare Alley. Eschew-
ing HMIs, he favors tungsten light combined with Lee Steel Blue 117 gels
for a moonlight effect, but gels are often impractical in front of hot lights
on condors. “They would have blown away,” Laustsen laments. There-
fore, he employed LRX’s custom dichroic Extreme Temperature Correc-
tion Filters — which use color-infused Pyrex glass — in Steel Blue for
Top: The crew prepares to capture a shot of a tree that serves as one
the lamps in the Raptor units.
of the film’s recurring visual motifs. Bottom, from left: Dan Laustsen,
Laustsen opted not to shoot wide open, preferring to maintain a
ASC, DFF and director Blitz Bazawule on set.
T-stop of T2.8-T4. With the camera at 800 ISO, he would often adjust

58 / DECEMBER 2023

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 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

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p. 56-67 The Color Purple V4.indd 59 11/2/23 7:10 AM

 stle
nes
a

s
ax
ror,

Top: Mounted to a stabilized head, the camera angles in for a musical number featuring a Georgia chain gang.
Bottom: A pair of cranes help execute a scene that introduces bombastic blues singer Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson).

p. 56-67 The Color Purple V4.indd 60 11/2/23 7:10 AM

 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

Shug poses for a photograph.

the white balance between 3,200 for day interiors and 4,200 for night. “I
switched to 4,200 for nighttime because I like the practicals to be warm-
er,” he says. “I think Steel Blue is nicer at 4,200, and it works well togeth-
er with 2,900K incandescent lamps.”

LRX on Location
The Color Purple was shot in and around Atlanta, Ga., over an 80-day
shooting schedule. Locations, used primarily for exteriors, included
rural farms as well as swampland, forests and fields. To create the exte-
rior of a juke joint run by Harpo (Corey Hawkins), the production took
over a swamp and built the structure there. The LRX Raptors enabled
Laustsen to create a rich, moonlit look for the scene in which Shug Avery
(Taraji P. Henson) arrives, backlit on a boat. “I think that’s the way night-
light looks beautiful: with big backlights,” the cinematographer opines.
Creating moonlight over the location required multiple condors po-
sitioned around the swamp, which meant building roads around the
swamp perimeter. For flexibility and optimal control of color, Laust-
sen alternated between Raptors with the dichroic filters and Raptors

MASTER CLASS
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New dates for 2024 sessions can be found at theasc.com/education/master-class

DECEMBER 2023 / 61

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 SINGING A DIFFERENT TUNE FOR THE COLOR PURPLE

Below: This diagram shows the setup for the interior of the Fancy Pants
Boutique. Right: The crew shoots actor Fantasia Barrino outside the
storefront for a song that celebrates Celie’s newfound confidence.

without, placed next to one an-

other in series. “It’s a clever solu-
tion. When it takes half a day to rig
these lights on the cranes and get
them positioned, there’s no easy
way to switch those filters out if
the effect is too strong.”

Opting for “Old-Fashioned”

For interior shots of the juke joint,
built onstage in Atlanta, the team
initially prepped a greenscreen
shoot to blend the exterior and
interior shots. However, during
the pre-light, Laustsen discovered
the greenscreen wasn’t working
the way he envisioned. “We were
shooting with doors and windows
in the background of all the shots,
so I started questioning why we
would want all that to be visual ef-
fects,” he recalls.
He suggested practical, in-cam-
era solutions instead. For night
scenes, the crew surrounded the
set with duvetyn and introduced
atmospheric elements — which,
combined with the scene’s initial
swamp-lighting setup, obviat-
ed the need for greenscreen. The
filmmakers likewise eschewed
greenscreen for day scenes on this
set by using white fabric and burn-
ing out the windows.
“Going back to ‘the old-fash-
ioned way’ was the way to do it,”
Laustsen says. “Do as much as you
can in camera — that’s what I love.
And it’s much better for the actors.”

62 / DECEMBER 2023

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 Laustsen examines photographs with
actors Barrino and Colman Domingo.

Priority on Pre-Lighting
During the pre-light of a key dance sequence in the juke joint, the idea of

Turn Your
switching off all the lights mid-scene and transitioning to silhouetted,
moonlit dancers emerged. This departure from the script was tested and

Memorabilia
successfully implemented by removing the set’s ceiling — a feat only
possible due to pre-lighting.

into Cash
“I think pre-lighting is the best thing you can do as a cinematogra-
pher if you can afford it,” Laustsen maintains. “It lets you explore the
look without the clock ticking. It’s vital, and not just for the cinematog-
rapher; it’s good for the movie.” Indiana Jones And The Raiders
Of The Lost Ark (1981)
Vivid Hues Production-Used Clapperboard
One of the guidelines Bazawule and Laustsen established was that they sold for $34,375*
would avoid a faded, sepia-toned period look for the early 1900s Ameri-
can South. Instead, they strove for a colorful reality rooted in Celie’s vivid
imagination. “I think the typical ‘period look’ comes from the reference
images filmmakers are using — often photographs that have survived,” Scarface (1983)
Bazawule reflects. “But the reality was a world of vivid color. Dan and I Al Pacino’s Personal
Hand-Annotated The Empire Strikes
were adamant that we were going to push past photographs and push Shooting Script Back (1980)
into the rich world those photographs were taken in.” Norwegian Unit
sold for $50,000* Crew Jacket
The team exercised restraint in the final grade, which was carried out
sold for $5,000*
at Company 3 with senior colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld, an ASC associate
member. “Our dailies were very rich,” Laustsen says. “Everybody put so
much effort into the color palette, from the production designer to the
Propstore wants your props, costumes, scripts,
costume designer, and I wanted that to be maintained.” Regarding Black
production items and/or signed memorabilia for our
skin tones, he notes, “Rule one is, don’t underexpose. But the Alexa sees
upcoming Entertainment auctions.
into shadows so well that it wasn’t an issue.”
We can offer both consignment and cash advance
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 SINGING A DIFFERENT TUNE FOR THE COLOR PURPLE
Producer Spotlight | Bringing a Musical to the Screen
Scott Sanders’ producing credits include the Primetime
Emmy-winning special Elaine Stritch at Liberty and the films
In the Heights (AC July ’21) and The Odd Life of Timothy Green.
American Cinematographer: How did you become involved with
The Color Purple?
Scott Sanders: In 1997, I had the idea to adapt Alice Walker’s novel
into a Broadway musical. I asked her for the rights, but she said ‘no’ for
about six months. Then I flew her to New York and spent a week with
her, articulating how I wanted to bring her powerful, emotional, up-
lifting and universal story to the stage. She then said ‘yes,’ and I put a
team together to write the musical. We launched it in Atlanta in 2004,
then came to Broadway in 2005. A couple months before that, Oprah
Winfrey called me out of the blue, having heard great things about the
musical, and invited me to Chicago to discuss her getting involved.
She came onboard as a producer, as did Quincy Jones. I always had
a passion for telling this story in cinema, understanding that Steven
Spielberg’s [film] is a classic; I wanted to tell the story from a fresh
perspective, using the musical as the foundation of the film.
How did you connect with Blitz Bazawule about directing it?
In 2020, we had a great script by Marcus Gardley that included magi-
cal realism. We were looking for a director who could handle the mag-
ical-realism and musical elements. I saw Blitz’s film The Burial of Kojo
on Netflix during Covid lockdowns and put him on our list of directors
to interview. When he made his pitch via Zoom, I was so excited I tex-
ted Oprah, ‘This is the guy!’ and she agreed. Spielberg also said Blitz
was the guy. So, it was unanimous.
What attracted you to Blitz’s pitch?
It was very visually detailed. Blitz is a visual artist who also paints,
writes and makes music — backgrounds perfect for this film. He pre-
sented beautiful ideas for translating the magical realism from page to
screen. He was also meticulous about casting, wanting a range from
veterans like Lou Gossett Jr. to newcomers like Halle Bailey, to other
great thespians like Colman Domingo and Taraji P. Henson. His sensi-
bility aligned perfectly with what we envisioned.
64 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 56-67 The Color Purple V4.indd 64
Producer Scott Sanders (pictured at right with actor
Danielle Brooks) cites the filming of Shug’s nighttime
boat ride as a highlight of the production.
How did you decide on Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF?
Blitz said his top priorities were his cinematographer and choreog-
rapher, and Dan Laustsen was at the top of his list. After Dan read
the script, he said ‘yes.’ Their collaboration was magical.
How can a cinematographer pitch bold ideas to producers in a
way that gets approval?
If it aligns with the director’s vision, it’s an easier conversation. The
director makes the final call, but a great idea is a great idea no mat-
ter who it comes from. I’m open to pivoting if someone has a great
idea, [and] I saw this happen several times with Blitz and Dan on
set. One example is when Fatima Robinson suggested turning off
all lighting except moonlight during a dance scene. Blitz asked Dan
if they could make that work, and Dan created a beautiful moon-
light effect. All that was discovered the day before we were going
to shoot that scene.
How valuable was Dan’s extensive pre-lighting on this show?
It greatly benefitted the filming. It did take extra time, but made for
a much more efficient shooting day. There were no surprises on
shoot days — everyone knew what we were going to get.
What makes for the most productive cinematographer-producer
relationship?
Getting to know the DP as a person before shooting and having
honest conversations with them is vital. Disagreements happen,
but as long as everyone is respectful and brings their best ideas,
the result benefits.
Which scene was most gratifying for you to finally see onscreen?
Shug’s arrival by boat across the water. The transitions from her
arriving at the juke joint to the intimate scenes inside, the dance
sequence, the fight, to them leaving for the movie theater — it was
all shot at different locations, but so seamless and beautiful with
Dan’s cinematography.
— Derek Stettler
11/2/23 7:11 AM
 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

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 SINGING A DIFFERENT TUNE FOR THE COLOR PURPLE
TOP PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX. BOTTOM PHOTO BY KARL-WALTER LINDELAUB, ASC, BVK.
Top: A-camera/Steadicam
operator Tim Fabrizio and
the crew shoot a daytime
exterior for portions of
the film’s opening musical
number. Bottom: The
production used LRX Raptor
lighting fixtures to create
a rich, moonlit look for a
swamp location.
66 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 56-67 The Color Purple V4.indd 66
Tech Specs: 1.85:1
Camera | Arri Alexa Mini LF
Lenses | Arri Signature Prime
and Francine Jamison-Tanchuck’s costumes. This is particularly notable
with Shug, who is defined by her glamorous outfits and who embodies
an independence that awakens Celie’s confidence. Laustsen lit Henson
with soft sources such as Kino Flos with double diffusion, using Lee Hol-
lywood Frost. To keep the source close to Henson, Laustsen kept it hand-
held, to move with the camera.
As Celie gains confidence, her wardrobe gains vibrance, and Laust-
sen’s lighting on her becomes bolder, too.
During a dance sequence in Celie’s boutique near the end of the film,
Laustsen dimmed the exterior tungsten lights to black and had a wall of
Creamsource Vortex8 units create energetic color effects — Steel Blue
and other variations of blue — pulsating through the set. “I used the Vor-
tex to create a more modern and abstract feeling, with the colors fading
in and out of each other — [departing from] the naturalistic look of the
11/2/23 7:11 AM

Celie reads a letter from her estranged sister after
being prevented from discovering it for years.
“The typical ‘period look’ often comes from
photographs that have survived. But the
reality was a world of vivid color. Dan and I
were adamant that we were going to push
past photographs and push into the rich
world those photographs were taken in.”
p. 56-67 The Color Purple V4.indd 67
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM
earlier parts of the movie,” the cinematographer notes. “This felt more
powerful, representing Celie’s new world.”
This creative decision was emblematic of one of Laustsen’s guiding
philosophies. “Sometimes you just have to think out of the box and be
a little crazy — don’t be afraid of where you’re going,” the filmmaker
says. He singles out producer Scott Sanders for providing the creative
freedom to commit to bold choices (see sidebar, page 64). “You can’t take
risks without support from producers and the studio. Scott gave us the
trust to have that freedom. Filmmaking is teamwork. Nobody can do it
alone.”
DECEMBER 2023 / 67
11/2/23 7:11 AM
 ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF A24.

Łukasz Żal, PSC

and writer-director
Jonathan Glazer
observe atrocities
with a clinical eye in
this icy account of a
Nazi commandant’s
family life.
By Steve Chagollan

The Zone of Interest:

Next Door to Evil
68 / DECEMBER 2023

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 W
riter-director Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest
is set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany’s most
notorious death camp — and the film could not be
further removed from the features for which Łu-
kasz Żal, PSC is best known: Paweł Pawlikowski’s
Ida (AC May ’14) and Cold War (AC Jan. ’19). In those
films, conflict, motivations and emotions are clear.
But The Zone of Interest is infused with clinical detachment, offering no dra-
matic arc or reflective characters. As Żal says of Glazer’s vision for the film,
the director wanted “to have a camera just observing, being quite objective

DECEMBER 2023 / 69

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 THE ZONE OF INTEREST: NEXT DOOR TO EVIL
Previous spread: SS commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel)
and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), entertain family and friends
at their home while the horrors of the Auschwitz concentration
camp are carried out just beyond the garden wall. This page: The
Höss family enjoys a day of swimming and sunshine.
“We thought of Zone as two films: the one
we see and the one we hear.”
70 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 68-77 The Zone of Interest V4.indd 70
— like one big eye, like we are just witnessing, not judging.”
That the film’s characters are Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the lon-
gest-serving commandant of Auschwitz, and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra
Hüller), dutiful mother of four, makes the tension between the pastoral
trappings of their family life and the unseen horror unfolding beyond
the walls of their home all the more unsettling.
Anthropological Approach
Glazer says he didn’t want to “empower the Nazis” in the film. By instead
choosing an “anthropological or forensics” approach to his subjects, he
aims to show how ordinary people could be capable of abominable acts.
Accordingly, the viewer is made to simply bear witness to mundane
behavior and seemingly inconsequential acts: a family picnic along a
river, a garden party with kids splashing in a pool, daddy getting dressed
for another day at the office, and mommy showing grandma around
the house. We don’t see trains arriving packed with transports, only the
steam rising from the locomotives. The vast Auschwitz-Birkenau com-
pound that lies just beyond the Höss home is only identifiable by the
barbed wire that tops its walls and the smoke billowing from its crema-
tories. Only the distant sounds of gunfire popping, dogs barking, guards
shouting, victims screaming and furnaces hissing suggest something is
11/2/23 7:13 AM
 “The perfect book for all cinematographers,
aspiring and working. Filled to the brim with
detailed analysis of the craft.”
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Author Jay Holben is an associate member of the ASC and AC’s
technical editor. He is also the co-author of The Cine Lens Manual. Cinematographer’s
Shot Craft
Lessons, Tips & Techniques
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p. 68-77 The Zone of Interest V4.indd 71 11/2/23 7:13 AM

 THE ZONE OF INTEREST: NEXT DOOR TO EVIL
Łukasz Żal, PSC and the crew chose to shoot daytime
scenes, such as this garden gathering, at times that
eliminated the need to shape their natural light.
“The cameras were always perfectly leveled.
We were looking for geometry, simplicity
and having the actors in the center.
That’s how we see with our eyes.”
72 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 68-77 The Zone of Interest V4.indd 72
terribly wrong in this bucolic setting.
“We thought of Zone as two films: the one we see and the one we
hear,” Glazer says. “The soundscape approach was for the atrocities com-
mitted in the camps to remain out of sight but never out of mind.” Adds
Żal, “Jon said that very often what is left unseen is the most important,
and that we should build a kind of ‘scaffolding’ for what is going to be
projected in the viewer’s head. We’re not going to show it. We leave it to
the viewers’ imagination.”
10-Camera Setup
The filmmakers’ observation of the Höss family was achieved via 10
cameras — “mostly static, though we had one hothead and occasionally
used a dolly,” notes Żal — placed around their property. During produc-
tion, these cameras ran simultaneously, recording mostly master shots;
this allowed the actors to move freely from room to room, floor to floor
and indoors to outdoors in one continuous take captured from sever-
al angles. The house was a practical build by production designer Chris
11/2/23 7:13 AM
 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM

Höss meets with fellow Nazi officials to further engineer his death camp.
PHOTO BY AGATA GRZYBOWSKA.

Oddy, and the grounds included a garden, greenhouse and meadow.

“During lockdown, Chris Oddy and I spent many months plotting
camera angles using his computer model of the house,” Glazer recalls.
“Once Łukasz joined us in preproduction, the three of us, together with
1st AD Marc A. Wilson, made a detailed plan [to] install the cameras in
the physical house. The mandate was no crew present during filming;
no film lighting; and each scene was to be captured in real time with 10
cameras or less.”
Seeking a compact camera package, Żal chose the Sony Venice with
Rialto Camera Extension System and Leitz M 0.8 lenses. (The camera
bodies were hidden within the production design and were managed
from within a shipping container situated close to set.) There were five
focus pullers, located in a basement built beneath the house set, each of
whom was responsible for two cameras.
“The priority for those cameras was to be small,” says the cinematog-
rapher. “The Sony Venice [with the Rialto extension was] the smallest
camera that gives you great quality with amazing ISO — 2,500, which

DECEMBER 2023 / 73

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 THE ZONE OF INTEREST: NEXT DOOR TO EVIL

Top: Żal (holding camera) and writer-director

Jonathan Glazer prepare to shoot a lakeside scene
on location. Bottom: The crew rigs part of the
static, multi-camera setup used to capture the
film’s omniscient perspective of the Höss family.

TOP PHOTO BY KUBA KAMINSKI. BOTTOM PHOTO BY AGATA GRZYBOWSKA.

you can push to 3,200.” He adds that VFX was used to paint out the cam-
eras in post.

Free to Roam
Only practicals and natural light were used; shooting times were cho-
sen based upon the illumination the filmmakers were looking for, which
eliminated the need to shape this light. The actors could roam unob-
structed by movie lights, cables, booms or crew. (1st AD Marc A. Wilson
was the only crewmember physically on set during the shooting of inte-
riors within the house). “The paraphernalia of filmmaking was recessed
as much as it can be,” says producer James Wilson. (See “Producer Spot-
light” sidebar on opposite page.)
“There were all of these master shots,” recalls Żal. “We’d prep every-
thing, and then we’d shoot for two hours with no breaks. We would shoot
as long as we needed, getting different angles, different wide shots. For
example, for the little garden party, we had cameras inside the house
and in the garden, and you’d have this continuity when someone was
walking somewhere or meeting somebody. That was the idea: to have
this continuity of movement, like normal life.”
Wilson adds, “The [camera setup] gives you perfect continuity. So,
you’re never going back to pick up [shots] where you shoot from another
angle — none of that. We’d just run the whole scene, whatever it was,

74 / DECEMBER 2023

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Producer Spotlight | Unfamiliar Ground
James Wilson, who first collaborated with
Jonathan Glazer on the 2000 feature Sexy
Beast as a FilmFour production executive,
optioned Martin Amis’ novel The Zone of
Interest in 2015. Glazer wanted to make a
Holocaust-related film, “but he knew what he
didn’t want it to be, which is very Jon,” Wilson
says. “He likes to do things that are either
unprecedented or not weighed down by the
baggage of what we might have seen before.”
Wilson’s fellow Zone producer Ewa
Puszczynska recommended hiring Łukasz
Żal, PSC, whose work on Paweł Pawlikowski’s
Ida and Cold War and Charlie Kaufman’s I’m
Thinking of Ending Things had by then cat-
apulted him into the spotlight. “I greatly ad-
mired the work Łukasz had done with Paweł
Pawlikowski and Charlie Kaufman. There was
something very charged about the way [those
films] looked and felt,” says Glazer.
But first, a chemistry test was in order. Żal
was invited to London to shoot the Alexander
McQueen promo “First Light” for Glazer. “It
was definitely a secret audition for the DP job
[on Zone of Interest], but no one would say it,”
says Wilson.
Żal is based in Warsaw, and the fact that
Zone would be shot entirely in Poland also
worked in the cinematographer’s favor.
“Making [the movie] in Poland afforded a
lot of economies in scale, which wouldn’t have
been the case somewhere else,” says Wilson.
“Jon’s the kind of director where if money was
no object, he would never shoot somewhere
for somewhere else. We did cost [shooting in
Germany], and it added about a million dollars
to the budget.”
Keeping production in Poland also helped
offset the expense of the 10-camera Sony
Żal and Glazer play back footage captured with
a FLIR X8500 thermal-imaging camera.
PHOTO BY AGATA GRZYBOWSKA.
p. 68-77 The Zone of Interest V4.indd 75
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM
Venice setup, Riedel com system and ther-
mal-imaging camera — all of which gave
Wilson pause. The 10-camera setup, he
notes, was not in the production’s original
budget. “It was very expensive, and we
hadn’t budgeted for it. We did it with a lot of
robbing Peter to pay Paul, and with a lot of
expansion of the budget. And we could only Your Super 8 and 16mm
do that by being supported by our finan-
ciers, A24, Access Entertainment and Film4.
Film Lab for 50 years
“I was scared of the extent of the
multi-camera setup,” the producer adds. “I
wondered, do we really need 10 cameras
everywhere to create this effect of present CAMERAS.
tense-ness? And does the thermal camera
have to be military-grade?
“But I deferred all those decisions to FILM.
the director, who’s closest to the process,”
he continues. “I’m not a visual artist in the PROCESSING.
way a director of photography is, or as I
think the director should be. Obviously, at SCANNING.
some profound level, it’s a visual art, a visual
language.”
Wilson maintains high praise for Żal’s
ability to commandeer the unconventional
system Zone ultimately required. “I’d say the
defining characteristic of Łukasz on this film 818.848.5522 • pro8mm.com
was the passion to embrace and adapt —
the energy of his commitment to these new
methods and unfamiliar processes, whether
it be the 10 simultaneously shooting, un-
manned cameras, the absence of film lights
or the FLIR camera,” the producer says. “He
and his crew just dived in with what seemed
like genuine interest, hunger and curiosity.
I think it was quite inspiring to Jon, [who]
feeds on the passion and proactivity of his
collaborators.”
— Steve Chagollan
and then we could just do it again.”
Glazer used a Riedel communication system
to confer with the 1st AD during takes. “Rath-
er than cutting, Jon would do rolling takes,”
explains Wilson. “Sometimes the actors didn’t
know what was happening because there had
been no cut. They were just being. And Jon loved
that stuff. So much of that is in the film because
he wanted that. Jon would love the reality you’d
get in that confusion and destabilization.”
Shaping Spontaneity
The system was not without its complications.
The crew might have to spend half a day ad-
justing and readjusting camera positions,
changing lenses and trying takes. “It was so dif-
ferent from the way I normally work,” says Żal.
DECEMBER 2023 / 75
11/2/23 7:13 AM
 THE ZONE OF INTEREST: NEXT DOOR TO EVIL
Hedwig and her baby bask in the beauty of the family’s flowerbeds.
“Jon said that very often what is left unseen is
the most important, and that we should build
a kind of ‘scaffolding’ for what is going to be
projected in the viewer’s head.”
76 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 68-77 The Zone of Interest V4.indd 76
Tech Specs: 1.78:1
Camera | Sony Venice, FLIR X8500
Lenses | Leitz M 0.8
“We also had to take into consideration that the actors were [stepping]
in front of the cameras, or the cameras were sometimes obscuring the
actor. So, we had a lot of limitations.
“After the initial process, which could take up to an hour, I would go
into the shipping container with Jon and we’d go over it all again,” con-
tinues Żal. “We’d say, ‘Okay, A is good now; B is great now; C is perfect; D
is amazing; F is still terrible.’ We changed the setups of the cameras until
we were satisfied with all 10. It was a part of the creative process. We
prepped for a couple of hours, then shot for one to two.”
Adds Wilson: “There was a huge amount of work on those images:
the frames, the grade. It’s a film that’s really trying to embrace ideas of
resolution and pixels from an ethical and political point of view. You can
see everything. There’s no nostalgia for the beauty of celluloid film, it
was more like, ‘Let’s just look at them and watch and observe’ — because
11/2/23 7:13 AM
 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER THEASC.COM
Höss savors a cigar as distant screams
reverberate through the evening air.
we wanted to see some kind of reflection of us.”
As much as possible, Żal strove to keep the subjects centered in the
frame. “For me, it was very important that the lines should be straight,”
he says. “The cameras were always perfectly leveled. We were looking for
geometry, simplicity and having the actors in the center. That’s how we
see with our eyes.”
An Enigmatic Figure
Wilson notes that Glazer believed concentrating solely on the Höss fami-
ly was “like staring into the sun.” To inject a bit of hope and light into the
otherwise grim proceedings, the director felt compelled to introduce a
character based on someone he met while researching the project.
This character, seen briefly in two scenes, is a local girl who ventures
out at night near the camp to leave food for the prisoners on work de-
tail. The actor was photographed with a FLIR X8500 thermal-imaging
camera with 17mm, 25mm and 50mm lenses — which helped achieve
an eerie aesthetic while upholding the production’s decision to eschew
movie lights.
“Even within the world of night-vision cameras, it was about the
most un-film-friendly night-vision camera Jon could have picked,” says
Wilson.
The girl looks ghostly, but there’s something strangely comforting
about her presence in the film. “We somehow took this military tech-
nology,” says Żal, “and in the beginning it looked completely hopeless.
When we did our first test, it looked really miserable.”
Adds Wilson: “An incredible amount of work went into that image
to make it the image Jon wanted. It’s not the raw image you get from
that camera. There was an amount of AI that goes into it. Jon’s intent is
that we see as much as we possibly can, like [individual] hairs. Hopefully
there’s something poetic about it.”
p. 68-77 The Zone of Interest V4.indd 77
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP,
MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION
Title of publication:
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER
Publication no. 0002-7928
Date of filing: Oct. 18, 2023
Frequency of issue: Monthly
Annual subscription price: $50
Number of issues published annually: 12
Location of known office of publication: 1782 N. Orange Dr., Los An-
geles, CA 90028. Location of the headquarters or general business
offices of the publishers: Same as above.
Names and address of publisher: ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N.
Orange Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90028; Publisher, David E. Williams,
Editor-in-Chief, Stephen Pizzello, 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood,
CA 90028. Owner: ASC Holding Corp.
Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders own-
ing or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgag-
es or other securities: Same as above.
Extent and nature of circulation: Total numbers of copies printed
(net press run): average number of copies each issue during pre-
ceding 12 months, 21,650; actual number copies of single issue
published nearest to filing date, 23,000.
Paid and/or requested circulation: Paid/Requested Outside-Coun-
ty Mail Subscriptions stated on Form 3541: Average number of cop-
ies each issue during preceding 12 months, 17,586; actual number
of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 17,950.
Paid and/or requested circulation: Sales through dealers and
carriers, street vendors and counter sales, and other non-USPS paid
distribution: average number copies each issue during preceding
12 months, 2,350; actual number of copies single issue published
nearest to filing date, 2,403.
Total paid and/or requested circulation: Average number copies
each issue during preceding 12 months, 19,936; actual number
copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 20,353.
Free or nominal rate distribution outside the mail (carriers or other
means): Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12
months, 1,404; actual number copies of single issue published near-
est to filing date, 2,322.
Total free or nominal rate distributions: Average number of copies
each issue during preceding 12 months, 1,404; actual number cop-
ies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 2,322.
Total distribution: average number of copies each issue during pre-
ceding 12 months, 21,340; Actual number of copies of single issue
published near­est to filing date, 22,675.
Copies not distributed (office use, left over, unaccounted, spoiled
after printing): Average number of copies each issue during pre-
ceding 12 months, 310; actual number of copies of single issue
published nearest to filing date, 325.
Total: Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12
months, 21,650; actual number of copies of single issue published
nearest to filing date, 23,000.
Percent paid and/or requested circulation: Average number of cop-
ies each issue during preceding 12 months, 93.42%; actual number
of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 89.75%.
I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and
complete.
David E. Williams, Publisher
DECEMBER 2023 / 77
11/2/23 7:13 AM
 MEMBERSHIP ROSTER David Greene
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78 / DECEMBER 2023

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 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM

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 MEMBERSHIP ROSTER Juliane Grosso
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December 2023 Dan Hammond
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 Finish 2023 with a complete set.
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DECEMBER 2023 / 81

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 Clubhouse News
Latest Bulletins From the Society

Society Showcases Berkofsky, Antonio Calvache,

Members’ Stills
Still photography by 46 ASC mem-
bers is showcased in the latest
edition of the ASC Photo Gallery,
unveiled at the Clubhouse on
Oct. 28.
“We had an incredible number
of submissions for this show,” says
Photo Gallery Committee Chair
Charlie Lieberman, ASC. “By our
deadline, 68 members had sent in
their work, and we had more than
500 images to consider, which really
shows great interest in the project
and the passion our members have
for creating images.”
The final selection was curated
by Paris Chong, director of the
Leica Gallery L.A.
The featured photographers are
ASC members Gonzalo Amat, Ava
Richard Crudo, Patrick Capone,
Peter Deming, Ernest Dickerson,
Jean-Marie Dreujou, Eagle
Egilsson, Frederick Elmes, Markus
Förderer, Ron Fortunato, David
Geddes, Stephen Goldblatt, Dana
Gonzales, Nathaniel Goodman,
Shana Hagan, Jess Hall, Wolfgang
Held, Ernest Holzman, Colin Hoult,
Jon Joffin, Kira Kelly, Francis
Kenny, Alar Kivilo, George Koblasa,
Jacek Laskus, Charlie Lieberman,
Karl-Walter Lindenlaub, Mihai
Mălaimare Jr., Kevin McKnight,
Anastas Michos, Charles Minsky,
Polly Morgan, Rachel Morrison, M.
EVENT PHOTOS BY BY AMRITHA MARY. M.
David Mullen, James Neihouse,
Arlene Nelson, Yuri Neyman,
Crescenzo Notarile, Phedon Pa-
pamichael, Newton Thomas Sigel,
John Simmons, Rodney Taylor and
Richard Vialet.

Top: The Clubhouse was transformed. Right, top: Shana Hagan, ASC
with her image “Winnowing.” Right, bottom: Nathaniel Goodman, ASC
with guests and his image “Relativity.“

82 / DECEMBER 2023

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THE CINE LENS MANUAL
Detailing 300 lens
families, this uniquely
comprehensive hardback
reference was written
by ASC associate Jay
Holben and ASC member
Christopher Probst for all
individuals with an interest
in motion-picture optics
— cinematographers,
directors, visual-effects
artists, camera assistants,
animators, technical
journalists, historians,
students, instructors and
rental-house technicians.
Its 836 pages cover 140
years of cinema-lens
history, supplemented with
1,500 full-color illustrations
that include photographs,
diagrams and graphics.
You’ll find all these choices and more in the ASC Store
store.ascmag.com/collections/books-videos
p. 82-86 Clubhouse News V2.indd 83
EXCEPTIONAL GIFT OPTIONS
FOR YOUR CINEMATOGRAPHER
OUR FIRST 100 YEARS
This album-size 204-
page hardback book
chronicles the history
of the American Society
DIGITAL of Cinematographers CONVERSATIONS WITH
CINEMATOGRAPHY: SELECTED TABLES, in celebration of the DARIUS KHONDJI
FUNDAMENTALS, TOOLS, CHARTS AND FORMULAS organization’s centennial This is one of the only
TECHNIQUES, AND FOR THE STUDENT (1919-2019), with profiles books of its kind to
WORKFLOWS CINEMATOGRAPHER on its 15 founders and be fully devoted to
Today’s successful This 154-page excerpt many outstanding the life and work of a
cinematographer from the American members who have cinematographer, offering
must be equal parts Cinematographer Manual photographed classic a journey through the
artist, technician and was designed for student feature films, television past 50 years of cinema
businessperson. This book filmmakers and had shows and other with an iconic director of
empowers the reader been updated to include motion-picture projects. photography who helped
to correctly choose the key aspects of digital Illustrated with hundreds revolutionize the art form
appropriate camera and cinematography. Edited by of behind-the-scenes through his work on both
workflow for their project Academy Award-nominated images — restored by Hollywood films and art-
from today’s incredibly cinematographer Stephen Charlie Lieberman, ASC house movies in Europe
varied options, and to H. Burum, ASC, it covers and printed in duotone and Asia. Darius Khondji,
understand the ins and basic cinematographic for exceptional image ASC, AFC has shot films
outs of implementing principles and includes quality — Our First 100 for many of the greatest
those options. Veteran the actual tables, Years details the artistic directors in contemporary
cinematographer David charts and formulas influences, creative cinema, including David
Stump, ASC has updated used by professional collaborations and Fincher (Seven), Bernardo
this second edition with cinematographers. Other technologies that helped Bertolucci (Stealing
the latest technology chapters from the AC shape the past century of Beauty), Jean-Pierre
for cameras, lenses and Manual that are most motion-picture history. Jeunet and Marc Caro
recorders, and also added relevant to student (Delicatessen, The City
a new section on future filmmakers are also of Lost Children), Bong
cinematographic trends. included. Joon-ho (Okja) and Nicolas
Winding Refn (Too Old to
Die Young).
11/2/23 7:21 AM
 Clubhouse News

Left, from top: Ernest Dickerson, ASC with his photo “High Flight”;
Antonio Calvache, ASC, AEC with his image “Fishing in Kampong
Phluck, Cambodia”; M. David Mullen, ASC with his photo “Waiting
for the Northbound R”; John Simmons, ASC (right, with guest) with
his photo “Girl Eating Ice Cream.”

Several of the featured pho- Gallery Committee are Nelson and

tographers traveled considerable
distances to attend the opening.
Dreujou flew in from Paris, Egilsson
from Hawaii, Vialet from Atlanta and
Neihouse from Florida.
Some of the other members
spotted at the unveiling included
ASC President Shelly Johnson,
Steven Fierberg, Gil Hubbs, Baz
Idoine, Ellen Kuras, Julio Macat,
Daniel Pearl, Cynthia Pusheck, Ar-
mando Salas and honorary Society
member Larry Parker. On hand as
well was Gino Gaudio — grandson
of ASC founding member Eugene
Gaudio — and his wife, Mary Reid
Gaudio.
Joining Lieberman on the Photo
Hagan, now serving as co-chairs.
All photos from this show can
be viewed and purchased as lim-
ited-edition prints and boxed-set
collections at theasc.com/society/
asc-photo-gallery.
Proceeds from all sales will
support the ASC Vision Commit-
tee fund for ASC Master Class
scholarships.
Student Heritage Award Winners
Announced
Winners of the 2023 ASC Student
Heritage Awards, sponsored by
Sony, were announced Oct. 8
during a ceremonial dinner at the
Clubhouse. They are:

Man with a Movie Camera at Clubhouse PHOTO OF M. DAVID MULLEN, ASC BY LISLE FOOTE.
The ASC Film Heritage Series continued Oct. 24 with a screening of
the Russian avant-garde classic Man with a Movie Camera (1929,
a frame from which appears above). Directed by Dziga Vertov (aka
David Abelevich Kaufman), it was photographed by his brother,
Mikhail Kaufman. Another brother, Boris Kaufman, immigrated to
the United States and became a member of the ASC, shooting such
films as On the Waterfront, 12 Angry Men and Splendor in the Grass.
Alice Brooks, ASC introduced Man with a Movie Camera, fondly
recalling how she first saw it as a student at the USC School of
Cinematic Arts.

p. 82-86 Clubhouse News V2.indd 84 11/2/23 7:21 AM

 George Spiro Dibie Heritage
Award - Undergraduate Category
Thomas Bolles for Drawn into
Darkness (Loyola Marymount
University)
Owen Roizman Student Heri-
tage Award - Graduate Category
Hannah Platzer for Im Finstern
(American Film Institute)
Haskell Wexler Documentary
Category
Matthew Cheung for Balancing
Act (Loyola Marymount University) around the world. USC School of Cinematic Arts. He Above: Student Award winners
A native of San Diego, Calif., received an ASC Student Heritage (from left) Matthew Cheung,
ASC Welcomes Kelly and Kelly won two student Emmys (Na- Award honorable mention for the Thomas Bolles and Hannah Platzer
Montpellier tional Student Production Awards) short film A Kiss on the Nose. with (from left) Student Awards
Committee Co-Chairs Armando
Based in Los Angeles, new member as an undergraduate visual-arts After shooting numerous other
Salas, ASC and Craig Kief, ASC.
Gavin Kelly, ASC has shot a wide major at the University of Califor- projects, including Ari Sandel’s Below: (from left) new Society
array of feature, episodic, com- nia-San Diego and went on to earn Academy Award-winning short West members Gavin Kelly and Luc
mercial and music-video projects an MFA in film production at the Bank Story, Kelly served as director Montpellier.

ASC at NAB NY
Society members Frankie
DeMarco and Stuart Dryburgh
(pictured, second from left and
third from left) participated
in the NAB Show New York
NAB PHOTO COURTESY OF DEJAN GEORGEVICH, ASC.

panel “Cinematic Lighting: The

Cinematographer & Gaffer Re-
lationship” at the Javits Center
on Oct. 26. The discussion was
moderated by Mike Bauman of
Lux Lighting.

DECEMBER 2023 / 85

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 Clubhouse News
PHOTO BY DANIEL MEJIA.
Michael Goi, ASC, ISC moderates a discussion with director Emerald Fennell and cinematographer
Linus Sandgren, ASC, DFF about their feature Saltburn.
of photography on four seasons
of Ryan Murphy’s anthology
series American Horror Story. He
also shot the 2018 pilot and sub-
sequent episodes of 9-1-1 and
the 2021 pilot for The Equalizer.
After creating a dynamic look
for the pilot Wu-Tang: An Amer-
ican Saga for showrunners RZA
and Alex Tse, Kelly went on to
shoot 14 episodes of the show.
His feature credits include The
Dry Land, Sugar, Luv, Cabin Fever
Ad Index
AC Back Issues 81
AC Manual 4
AC Statement of Ownership 77
AC Subscription 6
Amazon Prime Video 29, 33, 35, 37
Amazon Studios 7, 15, 21
Apple TV Plus 11
ASC Master Class 61
ASC Store 83
Band Pro Film & Digital Inc. 43
Blackmagic Design Inc. 39
Eastman Kodak C4
Ernst Leitz Wetzlar GmbH 47
86 / DECEMBER 2023
p. 82-86 Clubhouse News V2.indd 86
(2016), The Midnight Man and Sleep
No More, as well as additional pho-
tography on Haunted Mansion.
His recent work includes the
Apple TV Plus anthology Little
America.
New member Luc Montpellier,
ASC, CSC is an award-winning
cinematographer whose work has
entertained and engaged film and
television viewers alike for more
than 20 years.
After studying film at Ryerson
Filmotechnic USA 65
Godox Photo Equipment Co. Ltd. C3
NBC Universal Pictures 3
Netflix 9, 17
Peacock TV LLC 5, 23
Pro8mm 75
Propstore 63
Rip-Tie Inc. 75
Shot Craft Book 71
Starz 19
The Studio - B&H 59
Warner Bros. C2, 1, 13
University, the Ontario native got his
start in music videos and short films
before breaking into indie features.
In 2001, he shot the short I Shout
Love, Sarah Polley’s directorial
debut, and the pair continued their
collaboration on Away from Her,
Take This Waltz and Women Talking.
Away from Her received Oscar
nominations for Adapted Screenplay
and Best Actress (Julie Christie);
Women Talking was nominated for
Best Picture.
Montpellier’s feature credits also
include Ruba Nadda’s Sabah and
Cairo Time, the latter of which won
Best Canadian Film at the Toronto
International Film Festival; Paolo
Barzman’s Emotional Arithmetic,
which was nominated for a CSC
Award; Asghar Massombagi’s
FIPRESCI Award-winning drama
Khaled, for which Montpellier won
the Haskell Wexler Award at the
Woodstock Film Festival; Emmanuel
Shirinian’s It Was You Charlie, which
earned Montpellier a Canadian
Screen Award nomination; and Guy
Maddin’s experimental drama The
Saddest Music in the World.
His recent features include Percy
vs. Goliath and On Swift Horses.
Montpellier’s television credits
include Damien, Incorporated,
Counterpart (a CSC Award nomi-
nee), Tales from the Loop and Tiny
Pretty Things.
Clubhouse Hosts Lively Saltburn
“Conversation”
Linus Sandgren, ASC, FSF and
director Emerald Fennell discussed
their work on the feature Saltburn
during an ASC Clubhouse Conver-
sations event held live on Oct. 17.
Following a casual dinner, Mi-
chael Goi, ASC, ISC moderated the
discussion with Sandgren and Fen-
nell as they detailed aspects of the
production and their collaboration.
An edited version of the
event will be posted on the ASC
website at theasc.com/ameri-
can-cinematographer/videos/
clubhouse-conversations.
See page 24 of this issue for
more coverage of Saltburn.
11/2/23 7:21 AM
 In Memoriam
Pete Kozachik, ASC
(1951-2023)

“Just the possibility of shooting a whole

Pete Kozachik, ASC, a self-taught
cinematographer who parlayed
a childhood passion for Ray
Harryhausen movies and King
Kong into a distinguished career
in animation and visual effects,
died Sept. 12 in Carmel, Calif. He
TOP PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ASC ARCHIVE. BOTTOM PHOTO COURTESY OF KATY MOORE-KOZACHIK.
opened up to my dazzled eyes.”
In 1979, he took his reel to
L.A. and cold-called several
photographic-effects experts for
feedback. ASC members Joseph
Westheimer, Linwood Dunn and
Howard Anderson III were among
movie was both attractive and out of my
comfort zone.”
animation. After that wrapped,
Selick and Tim Burton asked
Kozachik to shoot the stop-mo-
tion feature The Nightmare Before
Christmas. At the time, Phil Tip-
pett had just offered Kozachik a
job filming effects on the ultimate
dinosaur movie, Jurassic Park.
Kozachik opted for Night-
mare — “just the possibility of
shooting a whole movie was both
attractive and out of my comfort
zone,” he says — stepping aboard
as both director of photography
and visual-effects supervisor.
His work on the film garnered a
1993 Academy Award nomination
(shared with Eric Leighton, Ariel
In a recent interview with
SFGate, Selick called Kozach-
ik “a stop-motion-animation
revolutionary.” He added, “Using
sophisticated mood and storytell-
ing lighting, ILM-inspired mo-con
camera moves, and brilliant
in-camera fire and smoke and
ghost effects, Pete was a cine-
matic world-builder who, leading
his enormously talented lighting
team, took stop-mo to a new
universe inhabited by flesh-and-
blood characters.”
Kozachik is survived by
his wife, scenic artist Katy
Moore-Kozachik.

was 72.
Kozachik was born in Michigan
on March 28, 1951, and raised
mostly in Tucson, Ariz. Sparking
to monster movies at age 9, he
haunted a local newsstand for
copies of Famous Monsters of
Filmland and Popular Photogra-
phy, and began experimenting
with Super 8 and stop-motion
animation.
After moving to Arizona, the
15-year-old searched the Yellow
Pages for film work. “Now that
I was this close to Hollywood, I
knew there must be something
going on,” Kozachik wrote in his
2021 memoir, Tales from the
Pumpkin King’s Cameraman.
Finally, he connected with Aztec
Studio, where he began assisting
on educational and industrial
films. The principals were broth-
ers from Brooklyn, N.Y., and one
introduced Kozachik to issues of
American Cinematographer. “As
I read through them,” he wrote,
“the real pro filmmaker’s world
those who encouraged him. He
eventually landed a job as a mod-
elmaker at Coast Special Effects,
which was busy with TV spots
and effects assignments for tele-
vision shows and theatrical fea-
tures. Kozachik recalled that one
day, after he delivered a model
with a sensitive mechanism, “the
boss said, ‘You made it; you might
as well shoot it.’ I worked onstage
from then on.”
After six years at Coast,
Kozachik landed a job as a cam-
era operator at Industrial Light &
Magic. He spent the next several
years working on shots at ILM,
Tippett Studio and elsewhere,
contributing to such films as
Innerspace, Willow, RoboCop 2,
The Abyss and Honey, I Shrunk
the Kids. Then, Henry Selick — a
young director he’d worked with
on a Pillsbury commercial — came
calling. Selick wanted Kozach-
ik to shoot his MTV pilot Slow
Bob in the Lower Dimensions,
which combined live action and
Velasco-Shaw and Gordon Baker)
for Best Visual Effects for the film.
Kozachik went on to col-
laborate with both Selick and
Burton multiple times: He was the
animation director of photography
and visual-effects supervisor on
James and the Giant Peach, the
director of photography and visu-
al-effects supervisor on Burton’s
Corpse Bride, and the director of
photography on Selick’s Coraline.
Kozachik enjoyed writing about
his work, and his byline appeared
in his favorite magazine three
times, on AC cover stories about
making The Nightmare Before
Christmas (Oct. ’93), Corpse Bride
(Oct. ’05) and Coraline (Feb. ’09).
The magazine also covered his
collaboration with Hiro Narita,
ASC on James and the Giant
Peach (May ’96).
Kozachik became an ASC
member on Jan. 8, 2007, after Na-
rita, David Stump, Dennis Muren
and Alex Funke put his name
forward.

DECEMBER 2023 / 87

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 Wrap Shot
The Color Purple (1985)

PHOTO BY JOHN R. SHANNON, COURTESY OF AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT AND WARNER BROS.

Allen Daviau, ASC (left), actor Danny Glover and director Steven Spielberg work
on a shot during the production of The Color Purple (1985), an adaptation of Alice
Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
In the Feb. 1986 issue of American Cinematographer, Daviau explained that his
photography had to “serve the clarity of the storytelling” above all — noting, “So
much of this film is a piece of storytelling, and we have an enormous story to tell.”
Filming much of the project in North Carolina, Spielberg wanted to maintain a
certain quality of light, so Daviau and production designer J. Michael Riva scouted
locations with this priority in mind. As Riva told AC, “Steven wanted to shoot in the
morning and at ‘magic hour’ outside, and go inside at the other times of day.”
A farm outside Wadesboro served as the production’s primary location. Riva
explained that he and his team aged the property and structures “to give the farm
and the house a sense of character over the 30-year period of the movie.” In prep,
he and Daviau also determined how roads should run from one area of the proper-
ty to another, and how buildings should be visually tied to each other.
The two applied the same attention to detail to the interiors built onstage at
Universal. Daviau noted, “Something I’ve been able to do at [Spielberg’s] Amblin
Entertainment, which I think should be done everywhere, is to become involved at
the very beginning of a movie … when the production designs are being formulat-
ed, when the locations are being scouted, when all these opinions are being given
that will decide the look of the film.”
The Color Purple received 11 Academy Award nominations, including nods for
Best Cinematography, Art Direction and Picture.
— David E. Williams

88 / DECEMBER 2023

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