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DOWNSIZING SHOOT STORY
from Omaha, Nebraska who ’ s looking for his role in life and struggling. This concept of downsizing is used as a metaphor. It dips into various issues, our current political situation, very relevant these days especially with Trump and the wall and communities living inside the wall, immigration issues, global warming. But it ’ s really not about all those things. There’s a lot you can do with this concept and there’s a lot to tell.” Production began in February 2016 in the Mojave desert near Palmdale, California, where exteriors representing the miniaturised community were photographed. Omaha, Nebraska played itself in scenes showing the lead characters’ home life, while a four-month stint in Toronto provided the exteriors of Leisureland homes. Papamichael describes them as “these bizarre mansions, Versailles-like, oversized, tacky houses that exist in Toronto. There’s entire suburbs where they’re lined up next to each other and it’s very surreal and they ’ ve created these absurd-looking places.” Finally, the production travelled to Norway to shoot scenes set in the fjords, before wrapping in August. The majority of the film was shot on location, with the only green screen elements being those where an actor would be miniaturised and placed in a full- sized scene. Perhaps surprisingly, very little of the film relies on giant props to sell the illusion of small people in a large world. “Once we are in the downsized world with the small people... we didn ’ t want to do The Borrowers . We didn ’ t really want to play the gags all the time. When the boat ’ s on the fjord, VFX changed the water surface, and when there ’ s flame, a big bonfire that we have in the movie,
he genesis of a cinematographer often involves a memorable film. For director of photography Phedon Papamichael, that film is Jean-Luc Goddard ’ s Le Mepris ( Contempt ), a 1963 production photographed by Raoul Coutard that suggested to Papamichael that his enthusiasm for art and photography could be pursued in a moving-image context. “I realised there ’ s something kinda like still photography but I can also move the camera, compose things and do tracking shots, and I ’ m given a story,” he says. “That was always very intriguing for me, I felt like I would never reach the limits of creativity with that.” Having moved with family from his native Greece to the United States, Papamichael found himself in New York in the early 80s. Having considered film school, he was instead directly approached to shoot short films. “I said, ‘I haven ’ t really shot anything, but I guess it ’ s similar to still photography.’ I commenced shooting a bunch of short films for various students and friends that approached me and one of them was Alexander Payne, who I met while he was at UCLA.” Decades later, and with Papamichael ’ s career already recognised with ASC membership, Payne asked the cinematographer to work on his 2004 film Sideways . The collaboration has produced four films to date, of which the most recent, Downsizing , began production in early 2016. GROWING A SMALL STORY Payne had, Papamichael remembers, mentioned Downsizing during the production of Sideways . The visual effects requirements of Downsizing , however, contributed to a lengthy genesis. “It took [Payne] over a decade to get it together,” remembers Papamichael. “It was a long journey before it ended up at Paramount. When Matt Damon attached himself to it and we were able to cast Cristoph Waltz and Kristen Wiig they decided to pay for it. It ’ s very much an Alexander Payne movie, it ’ s unusual for a studio.” The film features a speculative near future in which technology allows people to be physically miniaturised and live luxurious lives in an appropriately-scaled city. Papamichael contends that it ’ s “not just a concept film... it ’ s still at heart an Alexander Payne movie. It ’ s about a typical average guy, an anti-hero
IT’S ABOUT A TYPICAL AVERAGE GUY, AN ANTI-HERO FROM OMAHA, NEBRASKA
ABOVE Matt Damon as Paul Safranek and Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran. LEFT Matt Damon contemplates life on the smaller side of life.
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FEBRUARY 2018 DEFINITION
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