I spend weeks and weeks and weeks
talking with directors about every scene
in the movie and it becomes like an
unofficial marriage, I become married to
the director during pre-production and
during production of the film and then
they move on and they marry the editor
after that and I get jealous.
I see my role as a cinematographer in being a
conduit for the director's vision, taking
what could be an ephemeral idea early in
pre-production, how do we then translate
that into a practical real-world setting
and bring that to life. I try to get in
their head as much as possible in
pre-production so that by the time
production comes around ideally you talk
less and it's more about execution.
We try shot list and storyboard,
pre-visualize, we shoot some scenes on my
Canon 5D and try lock it in as much as
possible. That doesn't mean you can't
improvise on the shoot days, it totally
means you can, but it means you go in with a plan.
Photography is all about
capturing glimpses and fleeting moments
and cinematography is more about
elongating those moments in time
so often I'll find a beautiful photo
that I love the look of but it may be
quite an inspired or improvised moment
that photographer's captured. My battle
is trying to elongate that over time, it
might be a five minute scene I've got to
shoot so how do I create that feeling
and that look that that photographer's
captured in a hundredth of a second over
five minutes. In pre-production on movies
for example I do thousands of stills
to help hone in on the visual language
of that film for example on 
The Invisible Man with Leigh Whannell
I probably took 10,000 photos in
pre-production while we were looking for
locations and I was shooting stand ins
in those locations and doing
pre-visualisation of how we would shoot
scenes. Some scenes you shoot are very
very structured and storyboarded and
planned out. That might be an action
scene or a stunt driven scene. So the
fight scenes in Upgrade we rehearsed a
lot in pre-production with the stunt
department and literally shot them in a
cardboard box room to mimic the real
environment and so when we actually got
to those scenes we pretty much executed
that pre-vis of the scenes.
You know we made small adjustments here
and there that elevated it and made it
better but we had a very good idea of that.
Alternatively other scenes which
might be two actors talking in a room
together, you know it's unlikely that I
would go into a film with a very
specific idea on how we would shoot that scene,
we might have an idea but we'd
also want to see what the actors might
do and I often feel most passionate idea
wins often on a film set. If the actor is
really passionate about where they need
to be I'll completely back off and be
like sure let's re-figure out this
set-up to make that work and then vice
versa if an actor can feel that you and
the director have really worked
something out and have been talking
about it for weeks they'll often fall in
line and be like okay these guys have a
vision for this and they know that it's
going to build to be a better sequence.
I admire filmmakers and cinematographers
who change their approach greatly, you
know I kind of don't want filmmakers or an
audience to look at any of my images and
to feel like my signature was across it.
I'd much rather them be lost in the film.
Ang Lee for example, you would never know
what his next film would be you could
never turn on a film and go that's an Ang Lee film.
He's is inspired by his script and
talent for every project and so I like
to take that approach for example on
Upgrade being a science fiction film and
kind of a neo noir film we used very
high contrast very colourful lighting
whereas on Judy & Punch I went for a
very naturalistic, candlelit, natural light approach.
When a projects very
exterior heavy you have to be very
comfortable working in natural light,
know when to bring out film lighting,
if any or when to just work with the
natural light. Jungle was a film like
that for me for example where we shot a
lot of exteriors in Colombia on rivers
and in jungles and had to get very
familiar with the sun path. Every time
you scout a location you get out your
phone and you track the path of the sun
and you talk to the first AD and the
director about how you should schedule a
scene depending on where the sun is
because if you've planned a scene around
a bad time you might have a lot of front
lit sun through dappled trees that might
be unflattering to the actors or it
might be bad for visual continuity
because you're shooting that scene over
three hours.
If you're really passionate about being
a cinematographer I feel like you should
work in crew but don't linger being a
camera assistant forever. Don't fall into
that trap of being a second AC or first
AC for years and years and years if you
really want to become a cinematographer
the best way to do it is to shoot.
Work as a camera assistant but around that shoot music videos, shoot short films, and
you'll get better and better on every
project you shoot.
