Authors — Matt Mulcahey
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23 Days, Ten Crew Members, Two Lenses and One Joker: DP Drew Daniels on Red Rocket
“I really love to embrace limitations,” says cinematographer Drew Daniels. “I try to limit some of my choices on any film I do.” With Red Rocket, the opportunities to welcome constraints were plentiful. The latest from Tangerine and The Florida Project filmmaker Sean Baker, Red Rocket was shot in 23 days entirely on practical Texas locations with a supporting cast largely populated by local first-time actors. The crew boasted 10 members, including producers doing double duty as assistant directors or costume designers. The grip/electric department was a literal one man band, armed with Digital Sputniks, a few Astera tubes and […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Mar 15, 2022 -
“Often We are Communicating Without Words”: DP Daniele Massaccesi on The Matrix Resurrections
After more than 25 years of making movies alongside her sister, Lana Wachowski’s first solo feature revisits the siblings’ most famed creation with a new installment of The Matrix, The Matrix Resurrections. Daniele Massaccesi knows something about making movies with family. The Matrix Resurrections co-cinematographer grew up on the sets of his father, Aristide Massaccesi, a cult figure in the 1970s and 1980s Italian exploitation era who often worked under the pseudonym Joe D’Amato. Daniele Massaccesi eventually graduated from lugging batteries and lens cases on his dad’s Italian Mad Max and Conan the Barbarian variations to become a sought-after Steadicam […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Feb 8, 2022 -
Hard Light and Shadows: Passing Cinematographer Edu Grau
Five weeks is not an unusually truncated preproduction period for a cinematographer on a modestly budgeted independent film like Passing. However, the interval between landing the gig and starting that work is typically longer than the time needed to pack a suitcase. That’s the extent of the notice Spanish DP Edu Grau had before hopping aboard the project—and a flight to New York—after a last-minute crew change left Passing director Rebecca Hall without a cinematographer on the eve of prep. “Rebecca called me on a Saturday, and I jumped on a plane the next day to start prepping the movie,” […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jan 18, 2022 -
“Someday We’re Going to be Shooting Through Coke Bottles Just to Get a Look That Isn’t Too Pristine”: DP Jeff Cronenweth on Being the Ricardos
According to their official credits, Being the Ricardos is the first time Aaron Sorkin has directed with Jeff Cronenweth behind the camera. Unofficially, that collaboration began a decade ago with a shot of an envelope. On the final day of production on 2010’s The Social Network—which earned Sorkin an Oscar for best screenplay and Cronenweth a cinematography nomination—director David Fincher dipped before the final shot to avoid the emotional wrap goodbyes, leaving Sorkin and Cronenweth in charge of the last insert. “It was the shot where [Mark Zuckerberg’s] partner is accepted into the social club and there’s an envelope slid […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jan 12, 2022 -
“The Best Way to Fight the Sun is With the Sun”: DP Ari Wegner on The Power of the Dog
In The Power of the Dog, a Montana rancher (Benedict Cumberbatch) who compensates for his repressed desires with hypermasculine cruelty has his isolated domain punctured by the arrival of his brother’s new wife (Kirsten Dunst) and her son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Based on Thomas Savage’s 1920s-set novel, the film is director Jane Campion’s first feature in 12 years. As a condition of shooting Campion’s welcome return, cinematographer Ari Wegner committed to a full year of prep with the director. They spent weeks on location on the remote South Island of New Zealand, getting to know the light during the season in […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Dec 21, 2021 -
“We Used the Entire Sensor on the Alexa LF Every Single Time”: DP Greig Fraser on Shooting Dune for IMAX
Before Dune’s initial release, director Denis Villeneuve compared watching the film on a television to driving “a speedboat in your bathtub.” Beginning today, audiences have another chance to take that speedboat out into open water as the sci-fi epic returns to select IMAX theaters for a limited run. Cinematographer Greig Fraser was a bit more diplomatic in his analogy. In the December issue of American Cinematographer, he equated seeing Dune in a cinema to dining at a five-star restaurant vs. getting take-out. Ahead of the IMAX return, Fraser (Rogue One, Killing Them Softly, Zero Dark Thirty) spoke to Filmmaker about […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Dec 3, 2021 -
Headroom, Banding and General F-Stops: DP Haris Zambarloukos on Shooting Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast
Adorned with a wooden sword and a garbage can lid shield, nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) begins Belfast fighting imaginary dragons, cloaked in the bliss of summer. That idyllic youthful revelry is ruptured by an explosion. That blast—and what follows—are based on the childhood remembrances of writer-director Kenneth Branagh, whose family was forced to grapple with the prospect of leaving its tightly-knit neighborhood after sectarian violence erupted in Northern Ireland in the summer of 1969. It’s a dilemma cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos understood well. Born on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Zambarloukos and his family departed following a 1972 military coup and […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Nov 23, 2021 -
“The Horse Needs to Go to the Right”: DP Mihai Mălaimare Jr. on The Harder They Fall, Assembling a COVID-Era Lens Package and On-Set Safety
There are moments in the new Netflix western The Harder They Fall that glean inspiration from Sergio Leone or the paintings of Kadir Nelson, but the film’s style—replete with split screens, zooms and precisely arranged widescreen compositions—was also shaped by cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare Jr.’s choice of lunchtime perch. “Because of COVID, we couldn’t all eat together, so we would each pick our own spots. I always ate up on the balcony of one of the sets,” said Mălaimare Jr. “The crew always joked that was why we have so many high angle shots in the movie, because I would be […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Nov 5, 2021 -
20,000 Kelvin at 9 PM: DP Eli Arenson on Lamb
Comedian W.C. Fields coined the often-repeated adage, “Never work with children or animals.” One would assume that aphorism extends to hybrids of the two as well. Cinematographer Eli Arenson learned the difficulty of that amalgamation on the new A24 film Lamb, while also braving a petting zoo’s worth of critters, including horses, dogs, cats and, of course, sheep. Set in the remote north of Iceland, the film finds a sheep farming couple (Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason) pulled from the depths of grief when one of their ewes gives birth to a part human/part sheep child they christen Ada. With […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Nov 2, 2021 -
Cinematographer Michael Fimognari on Shooting the Netflix Series Midnight Mass and Stripping Away Departmental Hierarchy with Red, Green and Blue Camera Teams
In Midnight Mass, the arrival of a new priest upends the small, isolated fishing community of Crockett Island. It’s an original idea from writer/director Mike Flanagan, who made his name in the horror genre adapting Shirley Jackson, Henry James and multiple Stephen King opuses. Flanagan has been excavating the bones of Midnight Mass for years and at various stages it morphed from novel to film to series. The characters’ inner demons and struggles with addiction and faith mirror his own, with details taken from Flanagan’s youth as an altar boy on New York’s Governors Island. With the personal nature of […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Oct 15, 2021
