Few contemporary cinematographers are as well
known as Emmanuel Lubezki. Even if he is not
a household name, the films he has shot over
the years probably are. During the course
of his career he’s built up a clinical,
clean look that’s aimed at immersing the
audience fully in the content of the films
that he shoots.
In this video I’ll be analysing the work
of one of the most in demand DOPs out there,
looking at how his opinions on cinematography
and the gear he uses contribute to his original
visual style.
Lubezki, nicknamed Chivo, was born in Mexico
City and it was there that he later would
meet and team up with his first, and perhaps
his most important director, Alfonso Cuaron,
while the pair were studying in film school.
They went on to shoot a bunch of films together
such as A Little Princess, Y Tu Mamá También,
Children Of Men and Gravity.
After beginning his career on Mexican film
and television in the late 80s he gradually
began to DOP local Mexican features as well
as high budget international films. Over the
length of his career he’s won many awards,
including 3 Oscars for Best Cinematography
[overlay oscars], and has worked with many
famous directors such as: Mike Nichols, Tim
Burton, Terrence Malick, The Coen Brothers
and Alejandro Innaritu. This is a case study
of the cinematography style of Emmaunel Lubezki.
“I find that if you want to create an original
look and feel, you need to get deep into the
world of your own movie and keep focused on
that.”
The principle of creating a world through
cinematography that can hold an audience deeply,
is at the core of Lubezki’s style. Total
immersion is his goal. This idea forms the
basis for him shooting with a clean look that
favours a well exposed image with true blacks
in the shadows and maximum resolution. Rather
than crushing the blacks too much [grade]
or softening up the image in a stylized manner
[gaussian blur] he likes to maximise dynamic
range, creating images that closely replicate
the experience of real life; images that try
to match what we see with the human eye.
He mentioned this as being part of his philosophy
when shooting The Tree Of Life. “The most
important rule for me is to not underexpose.
We want the blacks; we don’t like milky
images”.
Another element of cinematography that he
uses to create his clean, immersive look is
with his lighting. Lubezki favours naturalistic,
motivated lighting. He prefers using minimal
touches of light when possible to supplement
the natural available light on set, never
overlighting. This is particularly true for
how he shoots exteriors. First he will scout
locations, noting exactly how the light falls
and how it changes throughout the day. They
will then carefully work on scheduling the
exterior scene so that it can be shot at precisely
the right time when the natural light works
best for the scene.
Even when shooting interiors he feels that
in order to create enveloping, true to life
images it’s best to minimise lighting.
“When you put someone in front of a window,
you’re getting the reflection from the blue
sky and the clouds and the sun bouncing on
the grass and in the room. You’re getting
all these colors and a different quality of
light. It’s very hard to go back to artificial
light in the same movie. It’s like you’re
setting a tone, and artificial light feels
weird and awkward [after that].”
Using minimal lighting when possible on set
also helps free up space for his style of
movement. He has worked on many films with
groundbreaking grips rigs and also more traditional
rigs at times. Regardless of the equipment
used his method of moving the camera is often
expansive, moving through large areas of space,
sometimes in long takes. Minimising the amount
of lights on set, by using as much practical
and natural light as possible frees him up
to shooting in this expansive style without
worrying too much about avoiding lighting
gear in the frame.
Using long or extended takes also adds to
the illusion of reality. A film that cuts
too often potentially makes the audience more
aware that they are watching a film. A film
broken up into long, extended takes of camera
movement creates a building feeling of riveting
real life suspense.
At the forefront of achieving the clean look
that Chivo loves is the gear that he uses.
Before the digital age he always favoured
creating the most pristine image possible.
This he achieved through shooting the finest
grain film stocks possible using the most
perforations possible.
35mm cameras can be configured in different
ways so that more or less of the 35mm negative
is exposed to light in each frame, creating
a bigger or smaller negative.
Unlike in digital which is measured in pixels
(such as 720pixels or 1080p) on film this
is measured in perforations or perfs. It’s
possible to shoot 35mm film in 2, 3 or 4 perf.
Lubezki favours shooting 4 perf for maximum
resolution and a cleaner image with less grain.
He usually shoots spherical as opposed to
anamorphic.
Since digital cameras have improved he now
prefers it over shooting film, favouring the
cleaner image that digital sensors can produce.
“The thing that I don’t like about film,
and have never liked, is grain. Some people
call it texture, but for me, when you start
seeing grain the movie becomes a representation.
It’s almost like putting a veil between
you and the subject.”
In his older work, he’s shot on film cameras
such as the Arricam LT or the Arri 235 which
he favours for their more compact ergonomics.
Digitally he also likes to shoot Arri, having
used the Alexa Mini, XT and the Alexa 65 for
large format work.
He described working on the Alexa 65 while
shooting The Revenant. “The images had the
immersive and experiential qualities we had
imagined at the very start. Not a representation
of the story, but reality – as if you are
there, looking through a clean window.”
For years he’s shot almost exclusively on
the same lenses: Zeiss’ Master Primes or
at times the older Zeiss Ultra Primes. These
lenses produce a super clean, super sharp
look with minimal distortion or aberrations
of any kind.
Although in his older work he’s shot with
a range of focal lengths his newer work favours
wide lenses. Especially the 14mm, 18mm, 21mm
and 27mm Master Primes. Shooting these lenses
at a deeper stop such as at 5.6 as opposed
to wide open at T1.3 also helps to preserve
the sharpness and clarity of the image.
For a similar reason he also chooses to shoot
without filters whenever possible apart from
Neutral Density filters to control exposure
or a Polariser for exteriors.
Although he is famous for his use of natural
light that doesn’t mean he doesn’t light
at all. Shooting exteriors he’ll utilise
a white bounce to add light or a black negative
fill to subtract light. When using lighting
fixtures he likes to soften the light by pushing
larger sources through a softbox, a textile
or a layer of diffusion. This softens shadows
and gives the light a more naturalistic quality
on screen, like when sunlight passes through
a cloud.
He likes to backlight, where the key or primary
light source comes from behind the character.
He notes “We also used backlight because
it gives a sense of depth, whereas frontlight
is flat”
As mentioned before he’s worked with a variety
of rigs to move the camera over the years.
His movement is often stable and controlled
even when handheld, partly due to his tendency
of using wide lenses.
In films such as Children Of Men they created
a car rig which was able to come through the
roof and pan around the car during a long
take while driving and multiple stunts happened.
He’s also used all kinds of classic grips
rigs such as sticks, dolly, steadicam and
technocrane. He often uses this equipment
in conjunction to create cohesive, motivated,
captivating movement.
Chivo is a technically proficient DOP who
over the years has worked on films that have
continued to grow in scale: all the way from
road trip films to space epics. His sensibility
to creating images that are immaculate and
immersive has however remained unchanged.
The creative and technical decisions that
he makes on all his films always support the
idea of creating an environment for the audience
that is so immersive that they can’t help
but to get on board with the story and the
characters on screen.
There’s an old idea that if a cinematographer
does their job right then it will go unnoticed
by the audience because they will be so caught
up in the visuals that there will be no need
to analyse or be critical of them.
I think Chivo is able to achieve this: creating
visuals so strong and compelling that people’s
consciousness of the images fade away so that
viewers are just left with the pure experience
of watching cinema.
