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We've had some contact with our cameras but here in
the cars -- Wait did you say we had contact with the
cameras? Yeah we didn't lose a camera or
like What does contact.
Hey what is going on Indy mogul my name is Ted today I'm here with Phedon Papamichael the
cinematographer behind the movie Ford
Versus Ferrari. Today we'll be breaking
into the movie in terms of the
cinematography, the lighting, the lenses,
the camera, and breaking into everything
about the visual style and a couple of
scenes so Phedon, what was the overall
experience of shooting Ford V. Ferrari.
Well it's my fifth collaboration with
James Mangold so I I knew what it meant
working with him I mean he's he's like a
brother to me I'm you know we did
Identity and then Walk the Line or 3:10
to Yuma, Night and Day which also had a
lot of action you know so I was I'm into
cars, I'm into that period, the movies
that inspired me are from the sixties I
grew up in Europe so you know French
new-wave Brigitte Bardot cool cars I was
aware of this story and I was aware of
the GT this is ten miles so that the
GT40 I mean I've always had a connection
to it I mean grew up Munich Germany
watched Formula One and I watched Niki
Lauda you know have his accident burn
live in this car on TV when I was 12 so
we we found our way and we approached a
very similar to the way we do any
dramatic film which is tell the action
through ten miles and the driver and
tell and reveal and show a lot of action
through his perspective and we don't
really punch in we don't use multiple
cameras which a lot of action movies do
the long lens and the wide lens at the
same time. We like to physically get
close. To me that what's interesting
about cinematography is capturing these
little moments that the actors give you.
And well the visual style of the film
there's a lot of inspirations here what
were the main things that inspired the
look? You know we have so many tools
right now that we could apply you know
drones and hair colors and cable cans
and amazing camera cars with Russian
arms and we've all seen you know we're
so exposed to incredible action scenes
Fast and Furious Nine and Bourne and we just
realized you know nothing beats really
sending an actor out there on the car that
is you know either driven by him or
driven like it's called a pod car which
is like basically this with an extended
chassis where a precision driver is
driving it but the actors sitting in the
car. Watching Grand Prix and Le Mans, Steve
McQueen's Le Mans pretty early on
settled on okay it's gonna be a
widescreen movie too for aspect ratio I
wanted to shoot anamorphic and I wanted
to shoot the Alexa LF I felt just the
characteristics and the flares of the
anamorphic just looked sexy and the cars
look good you know and that's also
a look that conveys a little bit you
know that period because you use
that glass that's not quite as sharp and
clean and little glows and the
practicals on the headlights you know
it's just body I wanted. The issue
was they don't cover the sensor so Dan
Sasaki this lens guru at Panavision he's
saying to us "Well you know I can
expand them and then you know they can
cover it" I'm like well can you really
expand them because we're gonna shoot in
like two weeks basically it'd be a
prototype you know there had never been
done what was the final look it really
interesting fall-off, a shallower depth
of field, the way things rendered it was
it was beautiful, it had exactly the
qualities I was looking for. Let's go see
exactly what that lens and camera
combination looks like in a couple clips
let's play the first clip.
Well this is the introduction hanger
for the second the duce in the Michigan
factory of course the the movie was all
shot in Los Angeles so we took a band
and warehouse downtown
it was quite the elaborate set because
we, you know, it's a manufacturing plant
and we had to buy like 30 of these Ford
Falcons and create these assembly
lines. And so all of this was built in
production design? All this was done
all these lamps, assembly line, really
prepared for this one scene and the
craziest part is that we only had one
day to shoot the scene so this was a
very very labor-intensive set all this
here it's all completely covered and
sealed by LED light panels. So none of
that is actually real sunlight coming in?
This is-- No those are, that's like, a huge
box. Okay let's let's draw this out hold on one second, so what is the scene look like?
You know so here you have this big
factory right the Sun in reality this is
east and it starts here and it's gonna
arc during the day here by creating a
big box that's basically a scaffolding
it's completely sealed but then putting
these light mats everywhere here just a
gigantic wall of LEDs you you have
consistent ambience which is streaming
for here you're not dealing with big
Condors or flyswatters that are blocking
the Sun you needed the control of it so
here we'd left some spaces so we bring
in some beams as you go to some of that
other angles and we did put atmospheres
so you get a little bit of hard light
introduced coming through very often
people tell me you like natural light
and why do you use so many big it's like
because we inspired but what the natural
light does but we unfortunately you know
unlike a still photographer that can
pick that beautiful moment I mean we
actually have to maintain this moment
did you rig all these lights here too
all of that is period practical fixtures
that our department provides the
fixtures and then we provide the sources
at very end of the factory there's
actually a
big green screen so you can extend it
because you know we only have 30 cars
it's supposed to look like they're
assembling thousands of cars okay the
second scene here we go ready alright
next scene yeah so this is the interior
shelby america which you know was shot
in the aircraft hangar at ontario but in
reality when Shelby got funding from
Ford he moved his little shop and then
his to LAX to big hangar and started you
know developing for gt40s and then they
would use the runway at LAX they waited
for the last plane to leave at 1:00 a.m.
let's say to Tokyo and then they would
go out on the runway and test the cars
so that's actually true but this is a
very interesting shot of a lot of people
ask me about because he's listening to
me race and we wanted the effect it's
actually people go wow that's amazing
who came up with that idea guy ago it's
actually scripted that was in the script
so then we were like okay great well
okay it script it so how do we do this
and you know we thought of many
different ways I'm like okay well maybe
we get these cutouts and we take a very
sharp or hard light like an open-face
you know so you know we had a little
cutout basically like cut out little
cars and like I mean you know for six
feet long and you know and then we're
gonna do it like that but it's just
having a light on a dolly and moving it
across this is cardboard yeah that like
literally like a four-bed cardboard and
cut out the cars and like that's what
that is actually no that's not what it
is I go like that I don't know yeah so
but here in reality was a big car
trailer parked and I'm like let's just
see what if we just use this actual car
trailer
wait this complication on the day of
yeah yeah this planning beforehand no no
I mean that happened to be there and we
got a you know extra slack of cable and
I had like four or five guys actually
mount this and then literally just
physically pull it like run with it and
we did it with real cars in the real
hangar and I
looks great you know I mean if you were
stars doing it it would look like this
doesn't reload and look like they know
where they're doing you know okay I'm
with the lighting in this space I used a
lot of these practicals fluorescent
tubes then nabis this this light that
you're seeing over here with the round
light that's a period light fixture and
they're abusing those we call them the
double headed monster then I use them
everywhere so that's what I use to
motivate their key light was I'm doing
some color separation to something the
sources that are hitting them warmer and
I'm playing these sort of work light
fluorescent banks bluer I mean here you
see again that work light just right
down the middle because I'm also trying
to put the sources in the shot and as
I'm darling and moving you see that the
flares
it keeps the image more alive and it
creates these wonderful optical effects
you know it's a classic old-school
Hollywood filmmaking you know we didn't
try to get too fancy with it you really
don't want to overpower with visuals I
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all right well here you see our pits so
this where the cars are driving on it's
actually a little airstrip so all these
pits were build it's a notch
set for the cars pull over all the
mechanics are working all the people
above that's all real it's all built
it's probably you know 300 yards long
everything you see left-hand the frame
when we shot it you have the wall the
very well with advertising maybe one
roll of people just along the wall and
behind them is green screen so here you
have our big Raceway over here is big in
the Pettibone's with blue screen panels
is all blue screen here and then at the
end you have blue screens too but enough
so the cars can drive out because the
runway actually keeps going for quite a
business but problem because of errant
ation of the runway is that the Sun
comes up here and then goes here and
then so in the morning it'd be all shot
at where we're shooting so but I would
take advantage of that I would do all
the dusk scenes that were required the
overcast scenes the rain scenes while
the Sun was not hitting us directly then
usually like at noon or 12:30 of the Sun
would come over top we try to break for
lunch in the worst part of the day and
then come back from lunch when the Sun
was here and here and here and here in
setting that's why you have all these
beautiful day scenes for the end and the
where people are like wow you shot
everything in gold now or it's like yeah
because we come back from lunch and we'd
lose light really fast and it was
setting pretty quick to have you know
condors here Condor here comes in each
basket to Aries sky panels which were
360s the biggest ones they're not a hard
light but they give you a lot of this
ambience and then in addition I would
use two movers basically like to have on
a rock and roll stay or what yeah these
are staged like their remote control you
can adjust them you can and then you've
wid those I could pick off specific
things like spot that moving in
highlight a certain area like I don't
like that kind of you know create pools
of Lights here for example you see I
mean business ambience which also needs
to light the rain and create a glow on
the rain rain always wants to be backlit
create these kicks and these little
flashes of light on the floor and stuff
like that those are most of the movers
yeah then you know you pick out certain
things you know here all this stuff
there is actual water in town
a lot of the water is actually coming
spraying off the cars that are driving
and front and next to them so what
you're seeing on the headlights and all
that that's real water but for the wider
shots like this you know bay is digital
rain being added here the trick really
what made it look best is this kind of
stuff this mist on your on the ground
tracking with them you're in a camera
car which stuff looks the most dynamic
and the best one you're really close to
the car is really low on why that you
know when you penny car in the long lens
just doesn't look fast there's
situations where the tracking less than
the foot inches I mean we've had some
contact with our cameras but here in the
cars a good contact yeah yeah we didn't
lose a camera or like this contact with
BT really you're getting you know
clipping that boxer happens now these
close-ups like they extreme close-ups a
lot of em are also done just with hard
mounts then we would also just have them
being driven around in this pop car and
that's why you're getting you know a lot
of the real interactive light you get
all the light moving across his face and
the vibration that you see is also
something that's happening for real I
mean it's it's you know these cars are
really shaking tell me about the camera
car is if it's possible to kind of draw
what some of these rigs look like the
pod cars like you have this where the
driver who's controlling is sitting up
here but then you have these hostess
traits where you know you get profiles
you have hook mounts or suction cups
here that are putting your camera here
like shooting forward you know we have
our camera car which is everything is
here is like pipe rigs and you can put
little cameras low in the back but we
called it the Frankenstein carb is much
more controllable than something with an
arm and the arm could swing and all that
so you can actually have this car like
that shot we see where two cars are like
almost touching the Liao's that
precision drivers really to cut it close
and really have these cars come up
inches away and we have many shots where
the cameras are mounted in the front and
then a race car will just
cut in super close and end up like in
front of it were the taillights like
just coming in and flaring his lenses
and and he will hit the brakes and then
and then you know this car can fall back
and he can accelerate away and another
car can cut in and in in pursuit so you
know you can create a lot of really
great dynamic driving shots that way
well if I didn't thank you so much for
breaking down the movie
it's absolutely insanely shot obviously
we could go on friends starting leave
beautiful we could go on forever also a
huge thank you to star a black start
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mogul Indy mobile thank you so much for
watching of course and of course we will
catch you guys next time
not a single camera was lost know what
about people nobody
