“Music is essentially 12 notes between any octave,” intones Sam Elliott’s character in A Star Is Born. “It’s the same story, told over and over. All any artist can offer the world is how they see those 12 notes.” That nugget of wisdom extends to the realm of cinematography, too, where the artists toil within an “octave,” using notes comprised of medium shots and close-ups, push-ins and tracking shots. But like great musicians, great cinematographers make audiences forget the basics of cinema grammar and lose themselves inside a rush of images, which DP Matty Libatique certainly compels them to do […]

Hidden in the midst of a dense African forest, Wakanda’s opulent capital of Golden City is the centerpiece of production designer Hannah Beachler’s world building in Marvel’s Black Panther. However, Beachler’s work on the film extends well beyond that vibrant Afrofuturist utopia, stretching from an Oakland apartment complex to a tony London art museum to a lavish subterranean South Korean casino. Before landing the job — which reunited her with Fruitvale Station and Creed director Ryan Coogler — Beachler wasn’t particularly familiar with the titular Marvel superhero or his isolationist homeland of Wakanda. Luckily, she knew someone who was. “I’d […]

Viggo Mortensen always seemed like the kind of actor who would insist on eating a dozen hot dogs in a scene if his character did the same. Green Book cinematographer Sean Porter confirmed those suspicions. “We shot a hot dog eating contest and Viggo was cramming them in at full speed every take,” laughs Porter. Green Book provided Mortensen (and his digestive system) with ample opportunities to display that kind of commitment to authenticity. In the based-in-fact story, Mortensen plays Tony Vallelonga, a Bronx bouncer with a penchant for gluttony who accepts a job driving a refined piano virtuoso (played […]

Long ago, in the dark ages of my childhood, we watched movies on broadcast television and non-premium cable like savages. In this primordial time, bereft of binging and Blu-rays, TV was where movies went to have their aspect ratios cruelly chopped and all the good bits edited out. The only joy came from seeing how censors would creatively shoehorn nonsensical profanity substitutes into everything from Back to the Future to Scarface. “This town is like a great big chicken waiting to be plucked.” Basically the same thing. “You caused 300 bucks damage to my car you son of a butthead.” […]

This is not a good time to be in love. At least not if you’re a movie character in an awards season that is awash in tragically doomed romances. In the last week alone I’ve seen couplings quashed by systemic racism (If Beale Street Could Talk), politics (Cold War), and unconquerable inner demons (a second go-round for me with A Star is Born). No one seems to be swimming off into the sunset with their fishman this year. In addition to ill-fated relationships, Beale Street, Cold War and A Star Is Born share another common element — sumptuous cinematography. In […]

While the new Halloween ignores the plots of the many sequels that followed John Carpenter’s 1978 original, it doesn’t spurn the movies themselves. The film is crammed with loving homages to the franchise — even the Michael Myers-less Halloween III: Season of the Witch gets a brief shout-out. The latest Halloween installment establishes its fondness for its predecessors in the opening credits, which pay tribute to Carpenter’s progenitor with a slow push-in to a rotting pumpkin that magically restores itself to health as the camera creeps closer. Though the sequel’s production budget was a reported $10 million, only a few […]

In his book Making Movies, Sidney Lumet wrote that he once asked fellow director Akira Kurosawa why he’d framed a shot in his period epic Ran in a particular way. Kurosawa replied that if he’d panned the camera an inch to the left he would’ve seen a Sony factory. Panning an inch to the right would’ve revealed an airport. I don’t know if Halloween cinematographer Michael Simmonds has read Lumet’s book, but after chatting with him I’m confident he would appreciate that anecdote. Simmonds, whose diverse credits range from the horror sequel Paranormal Activity 2 to the acclaimed documentary Project […]

Robert Redford’s final day on David Lowery’s The Old Man and the Gun — perhaps his final day as an actor on any movie set — found him in Texas. Though the amiable based-in-fact caper was shot largely in Ohio on 16mm, Redford’s dapper bank robber actually did most of his pillaging in Texas and its neighboring states. Thus a few pick-ups were needed — the last of which featured Redford’s Forrest Tucker phoning a widowed rancher he’s romancing. “There was a little bit of electricity in the air for that scene,” said cinematographer Joe Anderson. “The shot worked really […]

In La La Land, cinematographer Linus Sandgren imbued the love story of two showbiz strivers with the opulent grandeur of the Golden Age Hollywood musical. First Man, which reteams Sandgren and La La Land director Damien Chazelle, presents the opposite challenge — reducing the mythic nature of mankind’s first voyage to the moon to something intimate, personal, and human. To do so, Sandgren eschewed the intricate, elegant long takes of La La Land in favor of an immersive cinéma vérité aesthetic inspired more by Pennebaker, Maysles and Wiseman than the sterile cosmic wonder of Kubrick. With First Man now out in […]

A row of symmetrically stacked airport luggage carts; the tumbling red-and-blue cylinders of a 7-Eleven Slurpee dispenser; the still life of neatly arranged condiments and coffee creamers on a diner countertop. While the romantically and professionally struggling twentysomethings that populate HBO’s Insecure make their share of pilgrimages to taco trucks, clubs, and even Coachella, it’s those tableaus of Los Angeles at its most quotidian that make the sprawling city feel as if it’s being viewed through a different lens. With the show’s third season recently wrapped up, cinematographer Ava Berkofsky spoke to Filmmaker about how she “makes L.A. feel like L.A.” […]