ARCHIVE | SHOOT STOR I ES
Solo: A Star Wars Movie
Super Troupers SHOOTING THE MUSIC AUGUST 2018
Vanity Fair
THE MAKING OF A LENS JULY 2018
BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL SEPTEMBER 2018
Vanity Fair director James Strong was never a massive fan of period drama – it was down to him then to move away from that style. “The Jane Austen stuff doesn’t immediately appeal to me so the first big challenge was to produce a period drama that appealed to those who didn’t like them, like me. “Also I wanted to shoot in a contemporary drama way, it just happens to be set in the 1800s. It’s easy to say that but what does that mean? It ends up with the choice of cameras and lenses being very important. We went for RED and the Primos as I wanted a modern scale so we got big 10mm lenses to give our locations scale; but it has intimacy with some handheld shots. We wanted a slightly beautiful reality but sort of with a realness to it. The contemporary feel was reflected in all aspects including the performances. Where in real life people talk fast and interrupt each other, I wanted that in this period drama. I just wanted to give it a bit of attitude and a bit of swagger.” Director and DOP Ed Rutherford were therefore on the same page as far as the look went; they wanted this ‘bold beautiful reality’, a strong colour palette, a dynamic, fluid camera. “We didn’t want to be afraid of pointing the camera towards what was important in the frame,” commented Ed. “We didn’t want a style that would overpower, but to have a slightly new wave feel. We wanted a certain freshness, an ability to break the rules. A bit like the main character Becky Sharp who was very much a rule breaker herself in a time when there was no social mobility. To get the chance to tell that story now with the gender politics of our time was very timely and exciting.” Verdict Having seen the first two episodes of Vanity Fair already I can say I’m a fan of the adaptation and the cinematography. Brilliantly executed.
We asked ‘new to ABBA’ DOP Robert Yeoman what it takes to make a sequel of such a popular hit movie. Is it limiting, do you make a similar movie or do you bring your own aesthetic and vision? “Certainly we were all fans of the first Mamma Mia! movie,” he replied. “Our goal was to capture the joy and spirit of the first film and, hopefully, expand on it to find a fresh approach to the story. There were obvious visual motifs – the sea, the hotel, etc – but we were free to embellish and give a new interpretation to this backdrop.” But would the production be tempted to follow the example set by the Oscar-winning screen version of Les Misérables , for instance, and record live vocals to get nearer the audience? The quick answer from Robert was, “I don’t remember any live vocals for the songs, everything was pre-recorded and the actors had to lip-sync. “I looked at the musical numbers as being an integral part of the story, not as separate elements. Somehow everything had to visually fit into the world that we were creating. That said, we tried to give each song its own distinct style and attitude which took its cues from the music. Our choreographer Anthony Van Laast would design the dance sequences, then the director Ol Parker and I would figure out the best way to realise the choreography on screen. I would often attend the rehearsals with Ol to see what Anthony had cooked up! We could then make a plan about how we wished to shoot. “The film was shot in London and Croatia. Our goal was to make it seamless. We couldn’t control the weather in Croatia but fortunately we shot there first, which made the London-based scenes easier.” Vastly experienced DOP Robert Yeoman was the right guy to shepherd the new Mamma Mia! movie in to the massive hit it has become. Verdict
DOP of Solo: A Star Wars Story Bradford Young cares deeply about the idea of customising the look of a movie and ‘sealing the imprint of the films that you make’. “It was part of the reason that I chose the ARRI DNA glass, so I could be part of something and see it in the making. We were trying our hardest to figure out what looks best; it was getting there but, honestly, I wasn’t impressed. “I started thinking maybe I should just go to Panavision, but one day Neil Fanthom (director of technology) from ARRI said to me, ‘I’ve got this lens, you’ve got to see this lens’. Also Andrew Prior (head of cameras and digital systems at ARRI Rental) said, ‘We think you’re going to like it’. Neil knew that what I really wanted to see in DNA glass was in this one lens. It was a 50mm and we put it on the camera and, literally, I was like: ‘This is it’. It was super special. It’s hard to articulate how something is different from the other thing, but I knew that this was the lens, and it really set the standard of how far we could push the DNA glass.” When Bradford first used the 50mm lens it was in a modular form without a scale or ring, just an XPL mount, and could barely be focused. Andrew from ARRI commented, “Neil and I were nervous, as we didn’t know if we were going down the right path. That became the genesis for the whole set of lenses; we used that lens as a template and productized two prototypes of the 50mm for Bradford. Then the other lenses started to fall into place. “We also started to detune the other lenses based on the look of the 50mm; we commissioned the uncoated 45mm, and we fast tracked other lenses that had the same feeling to them.” Whether you’re a fan of the Star Wars world or not you can’t help applauding the tech advances in the spin-off movies like Rogue One and Solo. Verdict
48 DEF I N I T ION | SEPTEMBER 20 1 8
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