DRAMA | DUMBO/CAPTA I N MARVEL
Three Billboards is essentially a location picture; you are trying to capture a moment photographed many impressive films, but it was his work on Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri that earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Cinematography. “Martin [McDonough, the director] is fundamentally my friend, and one of the most extraordinary men I know. I am slightly in love with Martin. He is genuinely a genius. He scribbles on paper and it all comes out. Some of it is quite dark, and I don’t know where all this comes from because Martin is extraordinarily gentle. His last play, A Very Very Very Dark Matter , is like a Marmite play; you either love it or hate it, and I loved it. It breaks with all tradition, and the concept is so... out there.” Davis is often asked about the difference between lighting Guardians of the Galaxy and lighting a small, personal film. “The protocols are the same, you have a schedule, budget, equipment, lights, crew... but there is a fundamental difference between those films. Three Billboards and Guardians had extraordinary scripts, but Three Billboards is essentially a location picture; you are actually trying to capture a moment”, he explains. “You want the audience to be inside that moment. You should never be distracted by the lighting or the cinematography. You capture what is there, you embrace it and maybe enhance it a little. Whereas, for Guardians of the Galaxy , you are totally creating a distinct aesthetic, with a light set and character design . “For me, the approach for Three Billboards was all about where we chose THREE BILLBOARDS Throughout his career, Davis has
to shoot and what time of day. Martin had written that very tragic scene with Frances [McDormand] at dusk, it’s end of day, sun just setting. I’d sit there sunrise to sunset and I’d watch every aspect of the light, I knew the script intimately. We worked out which scene happened where and when. “Lighting something engaging and cinematic without it looking lit is a particular skill set. There are DOPs far better at it than I am, like Chris Menges, Robbie Ryan, Barry Ackroyd, whose work doesn’t look lit, but is just right. There’s no accident in that. You don’t just turn up and run the camera and it looks that good. “I really want to do more of those small personal stories, but I’m not receiving those scripts. The budget on Three Billboards was relatively small, I think under ten million dollars, so we couldn’t afford projected dailies. I’d go into the editing room and watch them on a large monitor. Martin would watch rushes on his iPad. We shot this on digital anamorphic, but Seven Psychopaths was on film. I considered shooting on film, but there was a lot of night work on Three Billboards , and a lot of fire. You have to be careful with fire and getting the right exposure. You want the fire to have some depth. It’s a hard balance, fire, and you have to have good control over exposure. The advantage of digital is that what you see on the monitor is exactly what you get, and the iris controls for pulling stop are far simpler and more precise.”
CHANGING ROLES “Sometimes, you take a front seat in terms of orchestrating what’s in front of the camera. I’ve worked with directors where they look after the performance and drama and sometimes they are involved with all the minutiae. Every director is different. The role of the cinematographer changes from film to film. Sometimes I am sidelined doing very little on set, maybe just lighting, and sometimes I’m fulfilling a bigger role. All of it comes under the auspices of cinematography, although there isn’t a precise definition of what that is. In Davis downtime between May and September, he is scheduled to work with Marcel Ophüls on a documentary about Palestine and Israel and the growing tide of antisemitism in Europe. DOWNTIME But what films does he show his children? “I show them sophisticated films,” he laughs. “In the cinemas, we see the blockbusters, but at home I like showing them more intellectual, challenging stuff. Sometimes, we stop the film and explain what’s going on. Cami [his wife] is half French. Although she doesn’t speak French to them, they know French cinema. They are moving on from video games – the bane of my life – so Cami shows them films that influenced her life. When we wrap on Kingsman in May, we’re going to a Greek island for a holiday and I’ll eat Greek salad and chips and do nothing else for a while. Just what I need.”
BELOW The whole attraction for Davis shooting Dumbo was working with director Tim Burton
CAPTAIN MARVEL IS CURRENTLY ON WORLDWIDE RELEASE AND DUMBO IS RELEASED ON 29 MARCH
34 DEF I N I T ION | APR I L 20 1 9
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