American Cinematographer - January 2023

January 2023 The International Publication of the American Society of Cinematographers Avatar: The Way of Water Russell Carpenter, ASC and James Cameron Cover 1_OFC.indd 1 12/4/22 5:27 PM

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER DEC ISSUE - BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 4/C | FULL PAGE | WITH BLEED BLEED: 9.25" W X 11.125" H TRIM: 9" W X 10.875" H SAFE: 8.25" W X 10.125" H PDF/X-1a:2001 2F 6277-12 11/28/22 FBM_AMERICANCIN_1228_4CFP_2F MATERIALS DUE: EXT. MONDAY, 11/28 DD AD RUNS: WEDNESDAY, 12/28 universalpicturesawards.com ©2022 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS AND STORYTELLER DISTRIBUTION CO., LLC DIRECTED BY STEVEN SPIELBERG WRITTEN BY STEVEN SPIELBERG & TONY KUSHNER “THE TEAM AROUND SPIELBERG IS PERFECT, INCLUDING MASTERS LIKE CINEMATOGRAPHER JANUSZ KAMINSKI DOING TOP-TIER, IMPECCABLE WORK.” FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY JANUSZ KAMINSKI BEST PICTURE Produced By KRISTIE MACOSKO KRIEGER p.g.a. STEVEN SPIELBERG p.g.a. TONY KUSHNER p.g.a. Cover 2_IFC.indd 2 12/4/22 5:28 PM

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER DEC ISSUE - BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 4/C | FULL PAGE | WITH BLEED BLEED: 9.25" W X 11.125" H TRIM: 9" W X 10.875" H SAFE: 8.25" W X 10.125" H PDF/X-1a:2001 3F 6277-10 11/28/22 NPE_AMERICANCIN_1228_4CFP_3F MATERIALS DUE: EXT. MONDAY, 11/28 DD AD RUNS: WEDNESDAY, 12/28 universalpicturesawards.com © 2021 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS “NOPE IS ALIVE WITH BEAUTY AND TERROR, HEIGHTENED BY THE GENIUS CAMERA WORK OF CINEMATOGRAPHER HOYTE VAN HOYTEMA.” ABC NEWS For Your Consideration BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY HOYTE VAN HOYTEMA ASC, FSF, NSC p. 1 NBC Univ. Nope.indd 1 12/4/22 5:32 PM

JANUARY 2023 VOL. 104 NO. 1 Contents 2 / JANUARY 2023 Features 26 Total Immersion for Avatar: The Way of Water Russell Carpenter, ASC helps James Cameron go even bigger with an intensely ambitious franchise. 42 Empire of Light: Theater of Dreams Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC continues his collaboration with Sam Mendes on a heartfelt English drama. 54 Devotion: Soaring Heroics Erik Messerschmidt, ASC and J.D. Dillard frame the inspirational story of a pioneering U.S. Navy pilot. 66 Tár: A Musical Icon’s Descent Florian Hoffmeister, BSC and Todd Field compose a symphony of images. 76 An Eye on Cinema A pictorial tribute to late ASC associate and world-class still photographer Douglas Kirkland. Departments 8 Letter From the President 10 Picture Partners: Braier and Schrader/She Said 18 Filmmakers’ Forum: James Gray/Armageddon Time 80 New Products and Services 84 Clubhouse News 88 Wrap Shot: True Lies VISIT THEASC.COM On Our Cover: Russell Carpenter, ASC and director James Cameron on the set of Avatar: The Way of Water. (Photo by Iva Lenard, courtesy of 20th Century Studios.) 54 66 (ASC) AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER FP - JANUARY ISSUE BLEED: 9.25"W x 11.125"H TRIM: 9"W x 10.875"H LIVE AREA: 8.25"W X 10.125"H 4/C, 300DPI PDF/X-1a:2001 MATERIALS DUE: FRIDAY, 11/18 ISSUE DATE: WEDNESDAY, 12/28 FFS1116 FINAL2 11/21/22 5:10PM LN TAR_ASC_AMER_CIN_FP_DEC28_FINAL2 Sign up at FocusInsider.com for exclusive access to early screenings, fi lm premieres and more. For more on this fi lm, go to FocusFeaturesGuilds2022.com. © 2022 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. “CINEMATOGRAPHER FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER’S CAMERA FLOATS UNHURRIEDLY THROUGH A RAREFIED WORLD OF PALE, NEUTRAL COLORS AND POSH INTERIOR SPACES, LETTING US FEEL BOTH THE LUXURIOUS COMFORT AND THE SUFFOCATING PRIVILEGE OF THE PROTAGONIST’S COSSETED LIFE.” SLATE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING BEST PICTURE BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER, BSC WINNER FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER Camerimage • Golden Frog p. 2-3 TOC V3.indd 2 12/4/22 5:41 PM

(ASC) AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER FP - JANUARY ISSUE BLEED: 9.25"W x 11.125"H TRIM: 9"W x 10.875"H LIVE AREA: 8.25"W X 10.125"H 4/C, 300DPI PDF/X-1a:2001 MATERIALS DUE: FRIDAY, 11/18 ISSUE DATE: WEDNESDAY, 12/28 FFS1116 FINAL2 11/21/22 5:10PM LN TAR_ASC_AMER_CIN_FP_DEC28_FINAL2 Sign up at FocusInsider.com for exclusive access to early screenings, fi lm premieres and more. For more on this fi lm, go to FocusFeaturesGuilds2022.com. © 2022 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. “CINEMATOGRAPHER FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER’S CAMERA FLOATS UNHURRIEDLY THROUGH A RAREFIED WORLD OF PALE, NEUTRAL COLORS AND POSH INTERIOR SPACES, LETTING US FEEL BOTH THE LUXURIOUS COMFORT AND THE SUFFOCATING PRIVILEGE OF THE PROTAGONIST’S COSSETED LIFE.” SLATE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING BEST PICTURE BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER, BSC WINNER FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER Camerimage • Golden Frog p. 2-3 TOC V3.indd 3 12/4/22 5:41 PM

4 / JANUARY 2023 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Stephen Pizzello WEB DIRECTOR and PUBLISHER David E. Williams EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Andrew Fish ASSOCIATE EDITOR Max Weinstein SHOT CRAFT and TECHNICAL EDITOR Jay Holben CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley VIRTUAL PRODUCTION EDITOR Noah Kadner WRITER/RESEARCHER Tara Jenkins ASSOCIATE WEB EDITOR Brian Kronner CONTRIBUTORS Benjamin B, John Calhoun, Mark Dillon, Sarah Fensom, Michael Goldman, David Heuring, Debra Kaufman, Michael Kogge, Iain Marcks, Matt Mulcahey, Jean Oppenheimer, Phil Rhodes, Patricia Thomson, Peter Tonguette CREATIVE DIRECTION and DESIGN Edwin Alpanian ADVERTISING ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Angie Gollmann 323-936-3769 Fax 323-952-2140 e-mail: [email protected] ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Sanja Pearce 323-952-2114 Fax 323-952-2140 e-mail: [email protected] SUBSCRIPTIONS, BOOKS and PRODUCTS CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina ASC CEO Terry McCarthy ASC SPONSORSHIP and EVENTS DIRECTOR Patricia Armacost CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER Alex Lopez CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER Natalia Quiroz MEMBERSHIP ADMINISTRATOR Salvador Maldonado DIRECTOR OF FINANCE and ACCOUNTING Thanh Lai ACCOUNTING June Mabbun American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 104th year of publication, is published monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A., (800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription inquiries (323) 969-4344. Subscriptions: U.S. $50; Canada/Mexico $70; all other foreign countries $95 a year (remit international Money Order or other exchange payable in U.S. $). Advertising: Rate card upon request from Hollywood office. Copyright 2023 ASC Holding Corp. (All rights reserved.) Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA and at additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA. POSTMASTER: Send address change to American Cinematographer, P.O. Box 2230, Hollywood, CA 90078. WWW.WBAWARDS.COM MANDY WALKER, ASC ACS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION “‘ELVIS’ IS ELECTRIFYING, SHOT BY CINEMATOGRAPHER MANDY WALKER, WITH SWOOPING MOVES TO MATCH PRESLEY’S DYNAMIC PHYSICALITY.” ELVIS_AMCIN_1228_V1 WARNER BROS. PICTURES ELVIS FYC BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER 12.28.22 9” x 10.875” 9.25” x 11.125” 8.25” x 10.125” 11.21.22 MR 1 p. 4-7 Masthead and ASC Board V3.indd 4 12/4/22 5:43 PM

JULY 2022 / 5 WWW.WBAWARDS.COM MANDY WALKER, ASC ACS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION “‘ELVIS’ IS ELECTRIFYING, SHOT BY CINEMATOGRAPHER MANDY WALKER, WITH SWOOPING MOVES TO MATCH PRESLEY’S DYNAMIC PHYSICALITY.” ELVIS_AMCIN_1228_V1 WARNER BROS. PICTURES ELVIS FYC BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER 12.28.22 9” x 10.875” 9.25” x 11.125” 8.25” x 10.125” 11.21.22 MR 1 p. 4-7 Masthead and ASC Board V3.indd 5 12/4/22 5:43 PM

6 / JANUARY 2023 American Society of Cinematographers The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, but an educational, cultural and professional organization. Membership is by invitation to those who are actively engaged as directors of photography and have demonstrated outstanding ability. ASC membership has become one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a professional cinematographer — a mark of prestige and excellence. OFFICERS 2022/2023 Stephen Lighthill President Amelia Vincent Vice President John Simmons Vice President Shelly Johnson Vice President Steven Poster Treasurer Gregg Heschong Secretary Christopher Chomyn Sergeant-at-Arms MEMBERS OF THE BOARD Curtis Clark Richard Crudo Steven Fierberg Michael Goi Shelly Johnson Ed Lachman Patti Lee Charlie Lieberman Stephen Lighthill Lowell Peterson Lawrence Sher John Simmons John Toll Amelia Vincent Robert Yeoman ALTERNATES John Bailey Eric Steelberg Jim Denault Patrick Cady Dana Gonzales MUSEUM CURATOR Steve Gainer AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER (ASC) - REVISION 3 ISSUE: DIRECTORS NETFLIX: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT PUB DATE: 12/28/22 TRIM: 9” X 10.875” BLEED: 9.25” X 11.125” GER M A N Y ’S OF F ICI A L S EL E C T ION F OR INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM AT THE 95T H ACADEMY AWARDS® “A BIG-SCALE EPIC.” DEADLINE “VISUALLY SPECTACULAR. ” THEWRAP “A STAGGERING ACHIEVEMENT. James Friend’s stunning cinematography highlights the claustrophobia and unpredictability of life in World War I.” AWARDSWATCH FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY (FEATURE FILM) JAMES FRIEND, ASC, BSC DIRECTED BY EDWARD BERGER FILM.NETFLIXAWARDS.COM From new camera systems and lighting options to the creative use of virtual-production methods, American Cinematographer examines the latest tools and techniques, while maintaining sharp focus on essential creative collaborations and the artistry of visual storytelling. • Print Edition – Learn from the best and build your permanent reference collection • Digital Edition – Access AC magazine content anywhere you are while on the go • AC Archive – Dive deep into more than 100 years of information and inspiration SUBSCRIBE TODAY store.ascmag.com/collections/subscriptions THE WORLD’S LEADING INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON MOTION IMAGING DELIVERS THE INSIDE STORY OF MODERN CINEMATOGRAPHY. p. 4-7 Masthead and ASC Board V3.indd 6 12/4/22 5:43 PM

JULY 2022 / 7 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER (ASC) - REVISION 3 ISSUE: DIRECTORS NETFLIX: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT PUB DATE: 12/28/22 TRIM: 9” X 10.875” BLEED: 9.25” X 11.125” GER M A N Y ’S OF F ICI A L S EL E C T ION F OR INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM AT THE 95T H ACADEMY AWARDS® “A BIG-SCALE EPIC.” DEADLINE “VISUALLY SPECTACULAR. ” THEWRAP “A STAGGERING ACHIEVEMENT. James Friend’s stunning cinematography highlights the claustrophobia and unpredictability of life in World War I.” AWARDSWATCH FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY (FEATURE FILM) JAMES FRIEND, ASC, BSC DIRECTED BY EDWARD BERGER FILM.NETFLIXAWARDS.COM p. 4-7 Masthead and ASC Board V3.indd 7 12/4/22 5:43 PM

8 / JANUARY 2023 AS WE BEGIN A NEW YEAR, hopefully we are seeing the end of the “tridemic” and are ready to bring new energy to our lives and occupations. So, let’s begin with some truth-telling about the elephant in the room — that is, the subject usually avoided or spoken of in code. Today, it is DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). This elephant is in the room everywhere: in schools, on productions, at guilds and unions. Considering inclusion, the elephant may be that one person’s inclusion is another person’s exclusion, or so it is said. At the ASC, we do not believe that inclusion means exclusion. Let us be clear: At the ASC, diversity and inclusion are a value. However, diversity and inclusion are not values above all others. The ASC honors the achievements of its members, and in so doing, the ASC reflects the production industry, an industry that now embraces the notion of new faces behind cameras. We have heard gossip that the ASC is allowing less-qualified candidates to become members to satisfy diversity and inclusion concerns. Not true: The ASC invites into membership a talented and diverse group of cinematographers, and a glance at the photo above, taken during a membership event celebrating the reopening of the pandemic-shuttered Clubhouse, will show that the ASC is a delightfully diverse group. The other elephant in the room, we suppose, is the rapidly changing industry itself, now incorporating new production techniques, new lighting technologies and new distribution channels. Just look at what Russell Carpenter, ASC achieved on Avatar: The Way of Water, or what Erik Messerschmidt, ASC shot in an LED volume for Devotion, both covered in this issue. At the same time, the industry is finding ways to include new voices and new stories. As we face 2023 head-on, the mission of this magazine is to discuss each and every one of these topics at length. We recently participated in the 30th annual Camerimage Letter From the President (ASC) AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER FP - DECEMBER ISSUE BLEED: 9.25"W x 11.125"H TRIM: 9"W x 10.875"H LIVE AREA: 8.25"W X 10.125"H 4/C, 300DPI PDF/X-1a:2001 MATERIALS DUE: THURSDAY, 10/27 ISSUE DATE: TUESDAY, 11/29 FFS1116 FINAL 10/27/22 4:07PM LN AG_ASC_AMER_CIN_FP_NOV29_FINAL “A Triumph.” FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES including BEST PICTURE Produced By Anthony Katagas, p.g.a. Marc Butan, p.g.a. Rodrigo Teixeira James Gray, p.g.a. BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC Sign up at FocusInsider.com for exclusive access to early screenings, fi lm premieres and more. For more on this fi lm, go to FocusFeaturesGuilds2022.com. © 2022 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. “A Cinematic Journey. Darius Khondji’s cinematography is muted, artistic and evocative.” cinematography festival in Torún, Poland. In our roles as leaders of the student roundtables, we were impressed with student work that is lightyears ahead of what was shown when our longtime friend, Oliver Stapleton, BSC, began these critiques. We suppose schools and colleges now receive state-of-the-art cameras, lenses and lighting equipment as this gear filters down to all levels of production. But while new gear may free up creativity, it does not on its own guarantee that new and interesting stories will be told. That comes from the people behind the camera, and we are happy to report that the student filmmakers featured at Camerimage were a diverse group — soon to be leaders of filmmaking worldwide. Stephen Lighthill President, ASC On Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022, the ASC’s Hollywood home since 1936 was opened for a special event to celebrate the 45 new Society members invited to join since 2020. This was their first opportunity to visit the Clubhouse as ASC members. Assembled on the building’s front steps were (top row, from left) Shana Hagan, Richard Vialet, Magdalena Górka, Edu Grau and Armando Salas; (middle row, from left) Bruce McCleery, Craig Kief, James Whitaker, Tommy Maddox-Upshaw and James Hawkinson; (bottom row, from left) ASC vice presidents Steven Fierberg and Amy Vincent; Ava Berkofsky, Quyen Tran, Lachlan Milne, Kira Kelly, Alice Brooks and Arlene Nelson; ASC president Stephen Lighthill and vice president John Simmons. Unfortunately, new member Loren Yaconelli, who did attend, is not pictured here. (Photo by Patrick Cady, ASC.) p. 8-9 Presidents Desk V3.indd 8 12/4/22 6:30 PM

JANUARY 2022 / 9 (ASC) AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER FP - DECEMBER ISSUE BLEED: 9.25"W x 11.125"H TRIM: 9"W x 10.875"H LIVE AREA: 8.25"W X 10.125"H 4/C, 300DPI PDF/X-1a:2001 MATERIALS DUE: THURSDAY, 10/27 ISSUE DATE: TUESDAY, 11/29 FFS1116 FINAL 10/27/22 4:07PM LN AG_ASC_AMER_CIN_FP_NOV29_FINAL “A Triumph.” FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES including BEST PICTURE Produced By Anthony Katagas, p.g.a. Marc Butan, p.g.a. Rodrigo Teixeira James Gray, p.g.a. BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC Sign up at FocusInsider.com for exclusive access to early screenings, fi lm premieres and more. For more on this fi lm, go to FocusFeaturesGuilds2022.com. © 2022 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. “A Cinematic Journey. Darius Khondji’s cinematography is muted, artistic and evocative.” p. 8-9 Presidents Desk V3.indd 9 12/4/22 6:30 PM

10 / JANUARY 2023 Of all the things Maria Schrader first saw in the work of Natasha Braier, ASC, ADF, what struck her most was its focus on character and ASC FP - BLEED: 9.25"W x 11.125"H TRIM: 9"W x 10.875"H LIVE AREA: 8.25"H X 10.125 4/C, 300DPI PDF/X-1a:2001 MATERIALS DUE: FRIDAY, 11/21 ISSUE DATE: FRIDAY, 12/26 UA1153 FINAL 2 11/28/22 9:05AM KH TILL_ASC_FP_DEC26_FINAL2 Bringing Emotional Weight to the Journalism Thriller She Said emotion. “That is not a given among cinematographers,” notes Schrader, who was thoroughly impressed with Braier’s photography in such films as Honey Boy (AC Dec. ’19) and Gloria Bell. “Sometimes they’re only concentrated on the visuals, but with Natasha, it was a lot of dialogue about character.” The filmmakers brought precisely that focus to their collaboration on She Said — the investigation drama that chronicles how New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) and Meghan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) broke the Harvey Weinstein sexual-assault story. Braier calls Schrader “a brilliant director” — citing the miniseries Unorthodox and Picture Partners By Patricia Thomson the feature Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe as evidence for her claim — and She Said marks not only their first collaboration, but Schrader’s first time at the helm of a Hollywood production. Striking a Balance The filmmakers’ first Zoom meeting lasted four hours. “We talked a lot about how we could find a visual language that would support the emotions, but without getting too close or being too invasive,” Braier recalls. “How can we remain Above: New York Times reporters Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) field a key phone call as they pursue their investigation of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Left: Natasha Braier, ASC, ADF (pointing) on set with director Maria Schrader. p. 10-17 Picture Partners - She Said V5.indd 10 12/4/22 6:33 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 11 ASC FP - BLEED: 9.25"W x 11.125"H TRIM: 9"W x 10.875"H LIVE AREA: 8.25"H X 10.125 4/C, 300DPI PDF/X-1a:2001 MATERIALS DUE: FRIDAY, 11/21 ISSUE DATE: FRIDAY, 12/26 UA1153 FINAL 2 11/28/22 9:05AM KH TILL_ASC_FP_DEC26_FINAL2 Picture Partners By Patricia Thomson p. 10-17 Picture Partners - She Said V5.indd 11 12/4/22 6:33 PM

12 / JANUARY 2023 Picture Partners Top: The crew prepares to capture a dialogue scene with two cameras in the New York Times building. Bottom: Mulligan and Schrader discuss the next setup. UNIT STILLS BY JOJO WHILDEN. ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES. invisible, but at the same time, be at the right place at the right time with the camera? Our main challenge was trying to find that balance, because there was a risk of being too removed, too much like a documentary. The camera is absolutely at the service of a story rooted in real life, but it also had to support the emotional journeys happening inside this detective story.” Centered on the journalists’ shoe-leather work, She Said has many scenes with pages of extensive dialogue, set in the Times offices and in cars and cafes, with the women often on their phones. “It’s not that script you read and think, ‘Wow, I’m going to do great visual things here,’” Braier says with a laugh. “Of all my movies, this is probably the one where people are not going to talk about the cinematography. But in this case, that is success for me as a cinematographer.” An Empty Stage Because the U.S. consulate in Berlin was temporarily shuttered due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Germany-based Schrader was unable to cross the pond for the location scout — in fact, she arrived just weeks prior to the start of the shoot. As a result, Braier and production designer Meredith Lippincott examined numerous locations on their own, but the most important one — New York Times headquarters in midtown Manhattan — was a question mark until shortly before shooting commenced in July of 2021. With the newspaper’s staff working remotely, management suddenly offered the filmmakers two weeks of full access to the building. “Within the whole curse of Covid, this was probably the only silver lining,” Schrader says. “It was like a tremendous, empty stage for us.” “The Times said yes, and then boom!” Braier recalls. “It was tough to start full-on in the newspaper p. 10-17 Picture Partners - She Said V5.indd 12 12/4/22 6:33 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 13 p. 10-17 Picture Partners - She Said V5.indd 13 12/4/22 6:33 PM

14 / JANUARY 2023 office with so much to cover and very few hours to scout the place and plan or storyboard. Those first two weeks made us a team, made us sisters, made us strong — and made us find the language of the movie.” Tasked with prepping 75 scenes set in the Times building, Braier took photos using the Chemical Wedding Artemis Pro director’s viewfinder app, choosing settings for an Arri Alexa Mini, Cooke Speed Panchro S3 lenses and a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. She pasted those photos with her comments into GoodNotes, then sent them off to Schrader from her iPad. Braier chose Cooke original Speed Panchro Series II & IIIs, coupling them with Tiffen Ultracon filters. It was a two-camera shoot for the sake of expediency, and she relied upon camera operators Mark Schmidt and Stanley Fernandez Jr. To improve lighting options and create more visual interest, production staged the Times investigative desk in an area close to windows looking out on the city. The windows themselves were toned down with ND6 hard gels. But Braier still had to contend with the office’s extensive practical fluorescents, which had a warmish tone. “This was a big issue because you have all these scenes which are basically on people’s faces, and you want to have a color that is not unpleasant on the skin,” the cinematographer says. Her solution was to rig Astera LED tubes over the hero location and slightly dial up the yellow to make them more in line with the location’s fluorescents, while still maintaining the more flattering illumination she sought. Top: Kantor and Twohey meet with Times editors Matt Purdy (Frank Wood) and Dean Baquet (Andre Braugher). Bottom: Schrader works through a scene with Zach Grenier (portraying Weinstein Company executive Irwin Reiter) and Kazan. An Economical Approach Because the crew had to work quickly in the Times offices, the film’s visual language comprises lots of oners. Braier knew Schrader was an expert at staging scenes with an economy of means. She points to Stefan Zweig: “One static shot is like a masterpiece of choreography, getting the actors in and out and creating a whole mise-en-scène where you still have development of things inside the shot. That’s a much more extreme case. I was like, ‘Okay, if she can do that, then she’s going to know how to keep this office film interesting, alive and moving!” Braier also took a page from director Alan J. Pakula’s journalism classic All the President’s Men, shot by Gordon Willis, ASC, who used mostly static shots, moving only when the characters moved or when emotions called for it. Braier followed suit, keeping coverage SearchlightPictures.com/FYC FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION in all categories including BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Ben Davis, BSC Director of Photography “Ben Davis’s lensing washes even the characters’ best days in raincloud grays.” “The film’s beautiful craftsmanship invites one to revel in the bleakly spectacular setting and cinematographer Ben Davis makes the most of it.” TBOI_ASC_4C_FP_9.0x10.875_Issue12.28_Due11.21_MECH_FIN.indd 1 11/16/22 1:18 PM Picture Partners p. 10-17 Picture Partners - She Said V5.indd 14 12/4/22 6:33 PM

SearchlightPictures.com/FYC FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION in all categories including BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Ben Davis, BSC Director of Photography “Ben Davis’s lensing washes even the characters’ best days in raincloud grays.” “The film’s beautiful craftsmanship invites one to revel in the bleakly spectacular setting and cinematographer Ben Davis makes the most of it.” TBOI_ASC_4C_FP_9.0x10.875_Issue12.28_Due11.21_MECH_FIN.indd 1 11/16/22 1:18 PM p. 10-17 Picture Partners - She Said V5.indd 15 12/4/22 6:33 PM

16 / JANUARY 2023 simple and the camera static on dialogue-heavy scenes so viewers could absorb the information being conveyed. Capturing a Key Moment For her part, Schrader was impressed by Braier’s command of gear far less common on European productions, like the 80' articulated-arm condor placed outside the Times building to capture a key moment in the story. “It’s when Ashley [Judd, playing herself] calls and agrees to go on the record,” Schrader explains. “Now we feel that no one is going to stop them from publishing the story. I thought it would be so nice to look from the outside into the office. It looks like a very simple shot, but we were on the fourth floor. Natasha just said, ‘Let’s do it.’ And I was like, ‘Really?!’ We only did two shots from outside the building, but we had to block off this whole street. “If it hadn’t been for Natasha, I probably would have never even brought it up,” she adds. “In the world I come from, it’s so complicated to do something with all that equipment. So, seeing Natasha being so knowledgeable and bringing in quite big equipment, surrounded by many very big men, was a treat. She was directing this whole male crew, and they had an incredible vibe together. She opened doors for me in terms of what to imagine.” “We needed a condor to get the camera up there with a remote head,” Braier says. “It wasn’t super-sophisticated equipment, but it was a big mission to get all the logistics right. It’s a shot that doesn’t look spectacular; nobody’s going to know all the work that was behind it. But it’s in the right place at the right time, which is the important thing.” Mutual Admiration Schrader and Braier agree that the keys to a successful collaboration are mutual respect, trust in each other’s capabilities and the ability to listen when opinions differ. Schrader recalls, “There were moments I might have said, ‘Let’s do it this way,’ and Natasha was not convinced, but she would do it. Then, in the making, we always found our way to mutually like what we did.” “Sometimes you know exactly what you have to do, and some days, with some scenes, you’re lost — usually because it’s something in the script that’s not so clear,” Braier says. “But when you trust each other, you also can question each other. “Maria is a very confident director who’s got a few films under her belt — a lot of flight hours, as I say. It was exciting to collaborate with her because I knew I was going to be in very good hands and would learn a lot. At the same time, with the things she had less experience with, she was very open and trusting.” Picture Partners Top: Weinstein’s victim and former assistant Laura Madden (Jennifer Ehle) takes solace in her kids, Hywel (Wesley Holloway) and Iris (Justine Colan). Bottom: Another of Weinstein’s former employees, Zelda Perkins (Samantha Morton), meets with Kantor and serves as a source. 4201 WILSHIRE BL. 5th Floor LA CA 90010 | 323.461.3696 | conceptarts.com PARAMOUNT MECH v.1 EVERGLADES ACADEMY “AC” FULL PAGE 4C 11.11.22 p. 10-17 Picture Partners - She Said V5.indd 16 12/4/22 6:33 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 17 4201 WILSHIRE BL. 5th Floor LA CA 90010 | 323.461.3696 | conceptarts.com PARAMOUNT MECH v.1 EVERGLADES ACADEMY “AC” FULL PAGE 4C 11.11.22 p. 10-17 Picture Partners - She Said V5.indd 17 12/4/22 6:33 PM

18 / JANUARY 2023 Writer-director James Gray and cinematographer Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC have worked together for more than a decade. During that time, they’ve made three features, each with distinct stories and visual styles: The Immigrant (2013), The Lost City of Z (2016) and, most recently, Armageddon Time (2022). Their latest film is Gray’s most personal to date: a coming-of-age tale based on his own experiences as a Jewish-American kid with dreams of becoming an artist, his formative friendship with a Black schoolmate, and the good and bad times he shared with his family in 1980s New York City. What follows is Gray’s account of how he and Khondji crafted this autobiographical drama, and how both artists have forged a creative partnership that’s built to last. As we set out to make Armageddon Time, I wrote four words on a piece of cardboard: Warmth, humor, love, loss. Those words, which I put Fo r Yo u r C o n s i d e r a t i o n I n A l l C a t e g o r i e s I n c l u d i n g ROGER DEAKINS, A S C , B S C DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY “The film looks INCREDIBLE, with SUMPTUOUS CINEMATOGRAPHY by Roger Deakins and richly textured production design by Mark Tildesley.” EOL_ASC_FP_9x10.875_DEC28_Due11.21_FIN_CMYK.indd 1 11/16/22 5:50 PM Gray, Khondji Chase Ghosts of the Past for Armageddon Time on my monitor and on the camera itself, were for me as much as they were for Darius and the rest of the crew — a reminder for anyone who might forget what the film is about. Before production began, I explained to Darius that after telling my children enough bedtime stories, eventually they wanted to see where I grew up. So, I went back and visited my house … but there was very little evidence of my having lived there. There was still some paint on the walls from when I built my model rockets, and the gate with the monogram “G” that my father had put around the garbage can. (I don’t know what wildlife in Queens he was protecting the garbage from, but that gate was still there, albeit off its hinges.) Yet, in a lot of other ways, the neighborhood, and our house, had changed. I realized that all these important dinners with my father and grandfather, mother and grandmother, aunt and uncle — they’re all gone. Those people are dead and there’s almost no evidence that they ever existed. And that’s the way for all of us, really. Our moment on this earth is ephemeral. We have these memories that dance in our head like fireflies, but they die with us. What I was trying to do with this film was to express the beauty and sadness of that — the fleeting quality of our own past. That’s the idea of that fourth word — loss — and that’s why I’ve said that Armageddon Time is like a ghost movie. Ghost Lighting In a way, though, the “ghost” aspect of the story is quite optimistic: We’re essentially showing that those people live on. But I stressed to Darius that there had to be an elusiveness to their image. What this all comes down to, I told him, is that in my household, my father was concerned with bills from Con Edison. When I was a kid, we were in the midst of an energy crisis — the second one, in 1979, after the first in ’73 — and it was Filmmakers’ Forum By James Gray, as told to Max Weinstein always, “Turn off the lights when you’re not in the room!” My parents didn’t want to pay for the heat, either. So, that was our house, with the thermostat set to 67 and most of the light coming in from another room — cold and dark. When Darius and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art together, he saw this painting of a woman in the kitchen by Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep, and said, “Look at that, look at that! That’s what I wanna do! That’s the key for me!” The woman was out of her key light, and I think that’s what Darius gravitated toward. I had this idea that in the film, my house would not be a bright or inviting place, and this painting showed him how he could come at that idea artfully. An example of this is a scene in which Paul, played by Banks Repeta, comes home after being caught smoking pot at school and is about to be hit by his father, Irving, played by Jeremy Strong: The living room is almost completely dark, and the p. 18-25 Filmmaker's Forum - James Gray V3.indd 18 12/6/22 3:29 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 19 Fo r Yo u r C o n s i d e r a t i o n I n A l l C a t e g o r i e s I n c l u d i n g ROGER DEAKINS, A S C , B S C DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY “The film looks INCREDIBLE, with SUMPTUOUS CINEMATOGRAPHY by Roger Deakins and richly textured production design by Mark Tildesley.” EOL_ASC_FP_9x10.875_DEC28_Due11.21_FIN_CMYK.indd 1 11/16/22 5:50 PM Filmmakers’ Forum By James Gray, as told to Max Weinstein p. 18-25 Filmmaker's Forum - James Gray V3.indd 19 12/6/22 3:29 PM

20 / JANUARY 2023 Filmmakers’ Forum Previous: Esther Graff (Anne Hathaway) shares a moment with her son Paul (Banks Repeta). Top: Paul bonds with his grandfather Aaron (Anthony Hopkins). Bottom, from left: Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC and James Gray (center) on the set. “If our partnership has evolved in any way at all, it’s that now I don’t have to talk to him as much. On the set, we complete each other’s sentences and he doesn’t need to hear a lot from me.” only light is coming from upstairs. Another is a scene in which Paul’s mother, Esther, played by Annie Hathaway, tells him that he and his brother are the only people she’s living for: It’s lit from the dining room and Esther is otherwise in the dark. Darius’ lighting makes these characters’ faces more beautiful and, at the same time, more grotesque. Everybody’s face has the capacity for warmth and love within it — that’s the thing that gets handed down from generation to generation. And yet, there’s something about their image that’s withheld from us. It’s as if the characters are trying to run away from the light, and that creates a certain amount of grain … a visual distance between us and their image. One more perfect example: Paul is joined in his bedroom by his grandfather, Aaron, who tells him the story of how his great-grandmother fled from Ukraine to escape antisemitic persecution. Here, Anthony Hopkins, who plays Aaron, is half-lit — the key light is about two feet away from him, coming in from the hallway. A lamp in Paul’s room serves as a practical light, but it’s not on either of the characters, really. When we filmed that scene, I asked Annie to hum off camera — which you can hear in the sound mix — because my mother used to do that. Much like the faraway light, you hear her humming from the kitchen as she’s washing dishes. Again, this was my melancholy reach back into the past, and the irretrievability of “home.” ALL ARMAGEDDON TIME IMAGES COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATURES. (ASC) AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER FP - DECEMBER ISSUE BLEED: 9.25"W x 11.125"H TRIM: 9"W x 10.875"H LIVE AREA: 8.25"W X 10.125"H 4/C, 300DPI PDF/X-1a:2001 MATERIALS DUE: THURSDAY, 10/27 ISSUE DATE: TUESDAY, 11/29 FFS1116 FINAL 10/27/22 3:16PM LN NOR_ASC_AMER_CIN_FP_NOV29_FINAL F O R YO U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N I N A L L C AT E G O R I E S I N C LU D I N G BEST PICTURE PRODUCED BY LARS KNUDSEN, p.g.a. MARK HUFFAM, p.g.a. ROBERT EGGERS, p.g.a. ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRD, p.g.a. ARNON MILCHAN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY JARIN BLASCHKE “A DAZZLING DISPLAY OF FILM CRAFT… SWEEPINGLY IMMERSIVE CINEMATOGRAPHY.” “YOUR JAW IS SO OFTEN LEFT GAPING IN AWE FROM ITS STUNNING CINEMATOGRAPHY.” CINEMABLEND Sign up at FocusInsider.com for exclusive access to early screenings, fi lm premieres and more. © 2022 FOCUS FEATURES LLC For more on this fi lm, go to FocusFeaturesGuilds2022.com. p. 18-25 Filmmaker's Forum - James Gray V3.indd 20 12/6/22 3:29 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 21 (ASC) AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER FP - DECEMBER ISSUE BLEED: 9.25"W x 11.125"H TRIM: 9"W x 10.875"H LIVE AREA: 8.25"W X 10.125"H 4/C, 300DPI PDF/X-1a:2001 MATERIALS DUE: THURSDAY, 10/27 ISSUE DATE: TUESDAY, 11/29 FFS1116 FINAL 10/27/22 3:16PM LN NOR_ASC_AMER_CIN_FP_NOV29_FINAL F O R YO U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N I N A L L C AT E G O R I E S I N C LU D I N G BEST PICTURE PRODUCED BY LARS KNUDSEN, p.g.a. MARK HUFFAM, p.g.a. ROBERT EGGERS, p.g.a. ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRD, p.g.a. ARNON MILCHAN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY JARIN BLASCHKE “A DAZZLING DISPLAY OF FILM CRAFT… SWEEPINGLY IMMERSIVE CINEMATOGRAPHY.” “YOUR JAW IS SO OFTEN LEFT GAPING IN AWE FROM ITS STUNNING CINEMATOGRAPHY.” CINEMABLEND Sign up at FocusInsider.com for exclusive access to early screenings, fi lm premieres and more. © 2022 FOCUS FEATURES LLC For more on this fi lm, go to FocusFeaturesGuilds2022.com. p. 18-25 Filmmaker's Forum - James Gray V3.indd 21 12/6/22 3:29 PM

22 / JANUARY 2023 Household Horror, Handheld When we filmed the scene in which Irving hits Paul, I created a slightly different aesthetic rule for us to follow. The scene is directed to convey Paul’s terror when finally confronting the cost of his rebellious behavior. So, I told Darius that I wanted it to be like a horror movie, because that would be the way the kid would perceive it: “The killer is coming to get me.” There’s a close-up on the doorknob as Irving is shaking it to get inside the bathroom where Paul is hiding, but I don’t cut to Irving standing outside. In fact, we didn’t even shoot coverage of him outside the bathroom because I knew I was never going to use it. We did cheat point of view from Paul at least once — because I needed to show his brother through the doorway, so the audience would know who Paul was shouting at — but the rest of it is shot very close to Paul’s eye-level. And since our m.o. for the scene was to not allow the frame to be settled, we had to shoot it handheld. Now, handheld is a tricky thing, because sometimes you can overdo it. We used the technique very infrequently, on purpose: once in the scene with the beating, and again toward the end of the film, when Paul enters into a kind of delirium to run away from home. Our camera operator, Julian Delacruz, was very good, so he didn’t overdo those scenes. The thing about handheld is that it’s too often used because a Top: Esther and her husband, Irving (Jeremy Strong), react to their first sight of Paul in his prep-school uniform. Bottom: The crew sets up for an exterior shoot on a set that faithfully re-creates Gray’s childhood home. director is trying to prove to you their sense of verisimilitude. But when you’re telling a story, it’s not about, “If I take the camera off the tripod, will it look like a documentary?” Well, maybe it will … but it can still be a fraudulent film. There might only be one or two handheld shots in all of Raging Bull, but it’s still an intensely truthful film. Verisimilitude is an act of the spirit — it doesn’t come from camera movement. Shorthand for the Long Haul Before we made The Immigrant, all Darius and I did was talk about movies, art and music over and over again. I had already worked with BUILT AT 100% FM 1 Bleed Size: 9.25" W x 11.125 " H ASC/CINEMATOGRAPHERS Trim Size: 9" W x 10.875" H Safety Area: 8.625" W x 10.5" H Client: UA Women Talking therefinerycreative.com | 15301 Ventura Blvd, Bldg. D Suite 300 | Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 | o: 818.843.0004 | f: 818.843.0029 | 11 | 22 | 22 WOMENTALKINGGUILDS.COM BASED UPON THE BOOK BY MIRIAM TOEWSSCREENPLAY BYSARAH POLLEY DIRECTED BYSARAH POLLEY Jericho Tadeo, MOVIEWEB Justin Chang, LOS ANGELES TIMES LUC MONTPELLIER csc BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY DEDE GARDNER, p.g.a. | JEREMY KLEINER, p.g.a. | FRANCES McDORMAND, p.g.a. BEST PICTURE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION “CINEMATOGRAPHER LUC MONTPELLIER DELIVERS EXQUISITE WORK.” “THE CINEMATOGRAPHER, LUC MONTPELLIER, EMPLOYS A PALETTE THAT’S MUTED TO THE POINT OF MONOCHROME; IT’S A DELIBERATELY UNLOVELY LOOK— A REFLECTION OF AN UGLY WORLD — THAT MAKES IT ALL THE MORE WHEN MOMENTS OF AND STEAL INTO THE FRAME.” REMARKABLE COLOR BEAUTY Filmmakers’ Forum ”Darius is a very rare person. There aren’t a lot of cinematographers in the world — or really, artists in the world — who think like he does. I find that his taste is impeccable … which is to say, by the way, that I agree with him.” p. 18-25 Filmmaker's Forum - James Gray V3.indd 22 12/6/22 3:29 PM

BUILT AT 100% FM 1 Bleed Size: 9.25" W x 11.125 " H ASC/CINEMATOGRAPHERS Trim Size: 9" W x 10.875" H Safety Area: 8.625" W x 10.5" H Client: UA Women Talking therefinerycreative.com | 15301 Ventura Blvd, Bldg. D Suite 300 | Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 | o: 818.843.0004 | f: 818.843.0029 | 11 | 22 | 22 WOMENTALKINGGUILDS.COM BASED UPON THE BOOK BY MIRIAM TOEWSSCREENPLAY BYSARAH POLLEY DIRECTED BYSARAH POLLEY Jericho Tadeo, MOVIEWEB Justin Chang, LOS ANGELES TIMES LUC MONTPELLIER csc BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY DEDE GARDNER, p.g.a. | JEREMY KLEINER, p.g.a. | FRANCES McDORMAND, p.g.a. BEST PICTURE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION “CINEMATOGRAPHER LUC MONTPELLIER DELIVERS EXQUISITE WORK.” “THE CINEMATOGRAPHER, LUC MONTPELLIER, EMPLOYS A PALETTE THAT’S MUTED TO THE POINT OF MONOCHROME; IT’S A DELIBERATELY UNLOVELY LOOK— A REFLECTION OF AN UGLY WORLD — THAT MAKES IT ALL THE MORE WHEN MOMENTS OF AND STEAL INTO THE FRAME.” REMARKABLE COLOR BEAUTY p. 18-25 Filmmaker's Forum - James Gray V3.indd 23 12/6/22 3:29 PM

24 / JANUARY 2023 him on a commercial, so I’d spent some time with him professionally and socially. But by the time that film started production, we had talked so much about our tastes that I was able to simply say, “Remember that John Sloan painting we looked at? Remember that Edward Hopper?” We achieved a shorthand very quickly, and it’s never really changed since then. We did fight a bit while making The Lost City of Z, because that shoot was so physically difficult. Darius was wonderfully stubborn about not shooting in inconsistent light, but the jungle has its own rules that we couldn’t avoid. I would say, “Darius, we have to go. There’s a crocodile in the water!” And he’d say, “No, but the light — the light! It’s not right!” “Darius, there’s a caiman right there! Can you please start rolling?! I don’t wanna get eaten.” Looking back on that, it was such an act of madness, shooting at the Don Diego River in Colombia. You realize that the world is really owned by insects and not by human beings, and you have to fight them along with the snakes, scorpions, caimans … you’re fighting more than just the light at that point, and that becomes enervating. But Darius was really heroic, fighting for that light. I remember seeing a 35mm print of that movie right after we finished it and feeling that somehow, he had turned the jungle into something that felt like my experience of it … and yet, made it period as well. I don’t know how he did it, but it’s incredible work. If our partnership has evolved in any way at all, it’s that now I don’t have to talk to him as much. On the set, we complete each other’s sentences and he doesn’t need to hear a lot from me. I’ll look at something and say, “Darius, you know…,” and he’ll go, “No, I know, I know.” And then he’ll fix the problem. Or, he might say, “James, what do you think of this,” and before he even finishes, I’ll say, “Yeah, yeah, no, you’re right.” Darius is a very rare person. There aren’t a lot of cinematographers in the world — or really, artists in the world — who think like he does. I find that his taste is impeccable … which is to say, by the way, that I agree with him. He and I see things the same way, and it’s a rewarding thing to be able to work with someone who shares your mindset. Filmmakers’ Forum Gray, Khondji and crewmembers on location in Columbia during the arduous production of The Lost City of Z. PHOTO BY AIDAN MONAGHAN. COURTESY OF BLEECKER STREET MEDIA. AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER JAN ISSUE - BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 4/C | FULL PAGE | WITH BLEED BLEED: 9.25" W X 11.125" H TRIM: 9" W X 10.875" H SAFE: 8.25" W X 10.125" H PDF/X-1a:2001 2F 6277-11 11/28/22 SSD_AMERICANCIN_1228_4CFP_2F MATERIALS DUE: MONDAY, 11/28 DD AD RUNS: WEDNESDAY, 12/28 universalpicturesawards.com © 2022 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS BASED ON THE NEW YORK TIMES PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING INVESTIGATION AND BEST-SELLING BOOK “ “IMMERSIVE AND EMOTIONAL. ” – INDIEWIRE Natasha Braier BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY ASC, ADF FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING is a tribute to those who raised their voices, and those who listened and brought their stories out of the silence. – LOS ANGELES TIMES ” p. 18-25 Filmmaker's Forum - James Gray V3.indd 24 12/6/22 3:29 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 25 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER JAN ISSUE - BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 4/C | FULL PAGE | WITH BLEED BLEED: 9.25" W X 11.125" H TRIM: 9" W X 10.875" H SAFE: 8.25" W X 10.125" H PDF/X-1a:2001 2F 6277-11 11/28/22 SSD_AMERICANCIN_1228_4CFP_2F MATERIALS DUE: MONDAY, 11/28 DD AD RUNS: WEDNESDAY, 12/28 universalpicturesawards.com © 2022 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS BASED ON THE NEW YORK TIMES PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING INVESTIGATION AND BEST-SELLING BOOK “ “IMMERSIVE AND EMOTIONAL. ” – INDIEWIRE Natasha Braier BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY ASC, ADF FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING is a tribute to those who raised their voices, and those who listened and brought their stories out of the silence. – LOS ANGELES TIMES ” p. 18-25 Filmmaker's Forum - James Gray V3.indd 25 12/6/22 3:29 PM

26 / JANUARY 2023 Total Immersion for Avatar: The Way of Water T he success of Avatar: The Way of Water depended entirely upon close collaboration between the experts in the production’s key departments and other top practitioners in their fields. “I think of myself as creating the grand provocation and getting a bunch of smart people around me to figure it out,” says director James Cameron. A primary participant in this effort was Russell Carpenter, ASC, whose work with Cameron began almost three decades ago on the blockbuster action film True Lies (AC Sept. ’94). Their creative partnership continued with the 3D Universal Studios theme-park attraction Terminator: Battle Russell Carpenter, ASC joins James Cameron for his return to the Na’vi realm of Pandora. By Iain Marcks and Noah Kadner p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 26 12/6/22 3:29 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 27 Total Immersion for Avatar: The Way of Water Previous: Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) reaches out to touch a tulkun, a whale-like creature native to Pandora. This page: James Cameron and Russell Carpenter, ASC on set. Across Time (AC July ’96) and then Titanic (AC Dec. ’97), which brought both filmmakers Academy Awards. Seeking a fresh perspective for his next feature, the original Avatar, Cameron turned to Mauro Fiore, ASC (AC Jan. ’10). “I felt Russell and I already knew each other so well that I wasn’t going to learn anything new, so I went with a different director of photography,” Cameron notes with typical candor. “Mauro did a great job, but it wasn’t the same as working with Russell. I didn’t think twice about offering Russell the sequel, and we fell right back into our old way of working, which is very collaborative.” Set in 2167, 13 years after the events of the first film, The Way of Water continues the story of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), revealing the trouble that follows their Na’vi family when the ruthless Resources Development Administration (RDA) mining company returns to the moon of Pandora with total domination on its agenda. “The story is the main thing,” Cameron says, “and we’ve built our whole aesthetic around it.” Photographed characters interact with CG characters and environments to a far greater extent than they did in the first film, and numerous scenes are set below the surface of Pandora’s vast oceans. Carpenter boarded the project in early 2018 and spent a year preparing for physical production while overseeing the virtual lighting of many CGI sequences in Gazebo, Weta FX’s real-time lighting tool developed by Weta visual effects supervisor Dan Cox. “Jim emphasized that the light in each scene on Pandora should display many different color nuances according to each scene’s environment, and never be ‘just neutral,’” the cinematographer says. “When possible, the light should be a living and breathing expression of the life of Pandora. In my mind, this took me back to the landscapes of Hudson River School, in which the natural world and its inhabitants co-exist peacefully. The process of lighting these virtual scenes was invaluable, as I was able to determine how we would tackle bringing humans into Pandora when we actually began the live-action cinematography months later. “Even though it had been 25 years since Titanic, there was the sense that Jim and I just picked up where we left off,” Carpenter adds. “He is just as ambitious in his vision, and the challenges he throws my way keep me totally involved.” Pandora Perspective Carpenter photographed live-action portions of The Way of Water in native 3D using a new iteration of the Cameron-Pace twin-camera rig. (See sidebar on page 32.) The modular system could be built in different configurations to meet production needs, and each comprised two Sony Venice cameras in their 4K 17:9 imager mode for 2.39:1 and 16:9 deliverables. Cameron notes that whereas the widescreen format is better for 2D exhibition, “3D thrives in 16:9, where you have a bit of the image in your lap, as well as on either side.” Carpenter used the 2500 ISO setting and a 270-degree shutter with UNIT STILLS BY MARK FELLMAN. ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS. the Venice to work at lower light levels and illuminate vast sets without drawing significant power or compromising image quality. The extra exposure also helped offset the two-stop loss from shooting at 48fps through the 3D camera’s beam splitter. In post, motion-grading services were provided by Pixelworks, which used its TrueCut Motion platform to emulate 24fps and reduce motion-blur artifacts. “That was good for Weta, as it gave them clearer images to work with,” says Carpenter. To Cameron, stereoscopic imaging is just one component of a large, complicated production — so complicated that “there’s literally no single human who understands every aspect of it,” he says. Water Work Performance-capture work kicked off in 2017 on a custom underwater mocap volume built on Stage 18 at Manhattan Beach Studios in Los Angeles; the space measured roughly 42'x85'x32' and featured a 15'x15'x15' deep well. The primary challenge was capturing convincing underwater action. Lightstorm Entertainment virtual production supervisor Ryan Champney, who led the R&D effort in coordination with Cox, says, “We started with a bunch of dry-for-wet tests with traditional wire rigs, but Jim insisted we build a tank for realistic motion.” Carpenter notes that the tank design “was quite flexible — it could represent deep water, shallow water, still water, moving water, etc. It had an enormous turbine that moved the water around in a racetrack fashion. They even built rapids for our actors and mocap troupe to go down at a pretty decent rate of speed.” “We had to figure out what would break,” says Champney. “For example, a traditional mocap camera uses infrared [emitters], and that energy gets absorbed in water very quickly. So, we found a wavelength near ultraviolet that would travel efficiently through the water and still be sensitive to the camera sensor. We also had a machinist construct waterproof housings for the mocap cameras.” Though the action captured in the underwater volume was virtual, the actors needed sets with which to interact. “A capture set consists p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 27 12/6/22 3:30 PM

28 / JANUARY 2023 TOTAL IMMERSION FOR AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER of only that which the actors physically touch and move through, pull themselves by, hold onto — all those sorts of things,” explains Cameron. “The question was, ‘How do we stay on schedule if we have to build sets for a set change overnight or even during the same day?’ We built a platform covering the entire bottom of the tank and put it on cables. We could bring it to the surface and bolt on pre-made set pieces. We could change a complete set from one scene to another in a couple of hours, or over lunch.” Lighting in the underwater volume needed to be even and flat to support the mocap cameras. The crew placed 60 Arri Skypanel S60-Cs over the water to create a high ambient-light level, but first had to overcome reflections on the water’s surface. “[The reflections] were causing false data registrations and noise in the mocap system,” Champney notes. “So, we borrowed an idea Jim had on The Abyss [to block sunlight from illuminating a deep-water tank] and covered the water’s surface with small plastic beads. They were hollow, with a 2mm-thick shell, and almost opaque. You could see light through them from above, but only if [the beads were] strongly backlit. Safety-wise, everyone working in the tank could still easily breach the water’s surface, and the beads gave nice, even lighting to the bottom and eliminated the reflections.” The team also captured extensive dry-for-dry performance work in a traditionally constructed volume at Manhattan Beach Studios. “We uncoupled the virtual-camera process from performance capture,” says Cameron. “I use my virtual camera the way a director would use a viewfinder: I walk around with it to work out the general staging, and we rehearse. It gives me a sense of where all the characters will be in the environment, but once we’ve got rough marks down, I set [the virtual camera] aside; I give it to someone else to create a kind of wide-field Top: The lighting scheme for scenes set inside a lab run by the villainous RDA. Bottom: Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is resurrected in the lab. FILM TITLE: BABYLON FYC PLACEMENT: DOMESTIC DESCRIPTION: AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER - FP- 4C ART NAME: PANELS PUBLICATION DATE: DEC 2022 TRIM: 9" X 10.875" BLEED: 9.25" X 11.125" SAFETY: 8.25" X 10.125" LEGAL: LEGAL BUG DATE: November 11, 2022 3:32 PM REVISION: 00 OPTION: 01 COMP: 10 ART: FIN1 p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 28 12/6/22 3:30 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 29 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM FILM TITLE: BABYLON FYC PLACEMENT: DOMESTIC DESCRIPTION: AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER - FP- 4C ART NAME: PANELS PUBLICATION DATE: DEC 2022 TRIM: 9" X 10.875" BLEED: 9.25" X 11.125" SAFETY: 8.25" X 10.125" LEGAL: LEGAL BUG DATE: November 11, 2022 3:32 PM REVISION: 00 OPTION: 01 COMP: 10 ART: FIN1 p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 29 12/6/22 3:30 PM

30 / JANUARY 2023 TOTAL IMMERSION FOR AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER record of what happened, because now I’m more interested in [the actors’] performances.” For reference, Cameron also deployed an array of 12 to 16 Sony PXWX320 XDCAM ½" 3-CMOS cameras with 5.8-93mm Sony kit lenses and PXW-Z450 4K HDR 2/3" Exmor R CMOS cameras with Fujinon 8-176mm (UA22x8BERD) lenses. “One of the biggest roadblocks we hit in the first movie was creating an editing process from scratch,” the director recalls. “Having video reference is absolutely critical because that’s what you edit with. The cameras are usually handheld because the operators must be quick and flexible. I had a 16-view display matrix on set to review all the angles and ensure that the actors’ performances were correctly photographed.” Virtual Integration In January 2019, Carpenter and his team departed for New Zealand, where their task was to blend the virtual world with live-action photography. Camera movement and lens size would have to match exactly. “Every morning on set, we had to bring the live-action [3D] camera into line with the position of the virtual camera,” says the cinematographer. “It was a painstaking process. Not only did our lighting have to match the characteristics of the virtual shots, but it had to hit the actor in exactly the right place with the proper timing.” One of the first orders of business for Weta FX was developing a new Simulcam, the virtual-camera system devised for the original Avatar. The Simulcam can make a real-time composite of virtual and practical elements and feed that into the production-camera viewfinder so the operator sees the whole world composited in near-real time. All the components are registered and aligned in 3D space so proper scale of practical and virtual are maintained for the camera operator (and those watching the production monitor), which allows for real-time framing of practical and virtual simultaneously. TWK_AmCinematographer_122822_01.indd TWK_AmCinematographer_122822_01.indd Scale Bleed Trim Live 1" = 1" 11.125" h x 9.25" w 11.125" h x 9.25" w 10.875" h x 9" w 10.875" h x 9" w 10.125" h x 8.25" w 10.125" h x 8.25" w Production Artist Production Manager Proofer 1 Proofer 2 Project Manager None Revisions None Notes JOB # 39420:02 DATE 11-15-2022 6:18 PM FINAL STORY BY MARIA BELLO AND DANA STEVENS | SCREENPLAY BY DANA STEVENS DIRECTED BY GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD “CINEMATOGRAPHER POLLY MORGAN SHOOTS HER BEST WORK YET.” A MASTERPIECE.” “★★★★★ POLLY MORGAN, ASC BSC FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION “Polly Morgan shoots the film emphasizing geographic authenticity and widescreen vistas WHILE OFFERING A MIX OF INTIMATE CHARACTER INTROSPECTION AND IMAX-WORTHY SCALE.” BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY SONYPICTURES-AWARDS.COM S:8.25" S:10.125" T:9" T:10.875" B:9.25" B:11.125" Top: Cameron oversees actors on a custom underwater motioncapture volume built at Manhattan Beach Studios in Los Angeles. Middle: Capturing underwater action. Bottom, from left: Actors Kate Winslet and Sigourney Weaver show off their mocap suits. p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 30 12/6/22 3:30 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 31 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM TWK_AmCinematographer_122822_01.indd TWK_AmCinematographer_122822_01.indd Scale Bleed Trim Live 1" = 1" 11.125" h x 9.25" w 11.125" h x 9.25" w 10.875" h x 9" w 10.875" h x 9" w 10.125" h x 8.25" w 10.125" h x 8.25" w Production Artist Production Manager Proofer 1 Proofer 2 Project Manager None Revisions None Notes JOB # 39420:02 DATE 11-15-2022 6:18 PM FINAL STORY BY MARIA BELLO AND DANA STEVENS | SCREENPLAY BY DANA STEVENS DIRECTED BY GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD “CINEMATOGRAPHER POLLY MORGAN SHOOTS HER BEST WORK YET.” A MASTERPIECE.” “★★★★★ POLLY MORGAN, ASC BSC FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION “Polly Morgan shoots the film emphasizing geographic authenticity and widescreen vistas WHILE OFFERING A MIX OF INTIMATE CHARACTER INTROSPECTION AND IMAX-WORTHY SCALE.” BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY SONYPICTURES-AWARDS.COM S:8.25" S:10.125" T:9" T:10.875" B:9.25" B:11.125" p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 31 12/6/22 3:30 PM

32 / JANUARY 2023 TOTAL IMMERSION FOR AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER Dimensional Advances There’s always something interesting about the way James Cameron makes a movie. Early in his career, he learned to maximize his resources while working in the production-design and visual-effects departments on films produced by Roger Corman. The seven features he has directed — from The Terminator (AC April ’85) to Avatar — are all notable for their innovative use of special and visual effects, often involving seamless combinations of traditional and new methods in production and post. No longer limited by resources, Cameron continues to stretch the boundaries of filmmaking technology. Two innovations on Avatar were virtual cinematography and virtual production, terms coined during the production of the film in 2007-’08 to describe real-time integration of virtual and live-action characters, performance capture within a volume, and the use of a virtual camera. The process was conceived by Rob Legato, ASC, who also served as the film’s visual-effects-pipeline engineer. A third breakthrough was the development of the twin-lens Cameron-Pace Fusion 3D camera rig, which was used to shoot the live-action material. It was the most sophisticated system of its kind at the time and an evolution of the beam-splitter design employed on Cameron’s 3D documentaries Ghosts of the Abyss (AC July ’03) and Aliens of the Deep (AC March ’05). The Fusion design featured two Sony HDW-F950 CineAlta HD ⅔" sensor blocks and Fujinon zoom lenses — the HA16x6.3BE or the specially-designed HA5x7B-W50 — with remote-controlled interocular distance and convergence. Relatively lightweight (when compared to film-based 3D systems), the setup allowed for a more subtle, versatile approach to stereoscopic capture. Since 2009, advances in optics and digital imaging have produced compact 35mm-sensor cameras better suited to native 3D production. For Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron worked with Sony to integrate the Venice camera’s Rialto extension system into a redesigned Fusion. Patrick Campbell, Lightstorm Entertainment’s director of 3D camera technology, supervised the refit, replacing steel with titanium and fabricating new metal and 3D-printed nylon parts with carbon-fiber reinforcements. “We removed enough weight to add a 1.5-pound, “Jim directed and operated through the lens on the 3D handheld rig,” Carpenter explains. “Cameron McLean operated our Steadicam shots and crane shots, and Richard Bluck [NZCS], when not attending to his 2nd-unit DP responsibilities, also sometimes operated. The New Zealand camera team, headed by 1st AC Brenden Holster, was exceptional; even though they faced daily myriad challenges they always kept things flowing smoothly. The New Zealand crew was excellent, and that includes every department.” Weta FX motion-capture supervisor Dejan Momcilovic led a team tasked with updating the Simulcam technology for The Way of Water. Gaffer Dan Riffel notes that “anywhere a human foot touched the ground,” like this scene with actor Jack Champion, called for a practical set build. p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 32 12/6/22 3:30 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 33 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM “The biggest challenge was integrating with the production and not slowing everything down,” Momcilovic says. “We had scenarios where the foreground is CG, with live action behind it, then more CG, and then more set. It was quite complex. The solution was a combination of machine learning and computer-vision cameras. “We started lidar-scanning the sets as they were nearing completion and generated a lot of training data for our neural network,” Momcilovic continues. The neural-network system learns the basic geometry of the set from this lidar data and can then predict that geometry for compositing. “We infer an object disparity in one camera, turn it into depth, and then project that back into space and observe it with the hero camera,” he continues. “The computer-vision camera is very fast at acquiring the image, so we’re a frame ahead and ready to composite. Gazebo handled the real-time rendering separately, so the final composited image in the viewfinder has a lag of four to six frames depending on each scene’s complexity.” “The system could tell where our live-action characters were and then differentiate what was behind and in front of them,” says Carpenter. “It provided a tremendously useful preview of how the virtual characters interacted with the live action.” Physical Meets Virtual The Simulcam also helped Carpenter match his lighting to its CG counterpart. “If Weta has a CG character standing next to our live-action character, obviously they have to be in the same light,” says Cameron. “You are driving a stake into the ground, so you have to get it right, and that’s why pre-planning and pulling the lighting process forward into virtual production was so important.” While observing Cameron’s motion-capture sessions in Los Angeles, Carpenter and gaffer Len Levine noticed that the director could make major changes to the virtual set quickly. “If Jim wanted to move a Carpenter and Cameron shoot live-action footage with the Cameron-Pace Fusion 3D camera rig (pictured close up at bottom). servo-driven, height-pitch-roll adjustment plate for the vertical camera, which allowed remote camera alignment, and we were still able to get the Fusion down to 29.8 pounds [at its lightest],” says Campbell. Carpenter’s handheld and Steadicam configurations of the Fusion used two Rialtos on 20' tethers. Tripod, crane, jib and underwater operation utilized two Venice bodies in-line front-to-back, with a lens on the front body and a Rialto in the overhead vertical position. Wide-angle underwater photography was managed with an open-mirror housing and watertight Nikonos-mount lenses that protruded from the enclosure. “The weight on the rig is highly dependent on how it needs to be used for a given shot,” notes 3D systems producer John Brooks, a longtime collaborator of Cameron’s. “The more complex a visual effect is, the more metadata is needed, so more gear gets added to the camera package. The Fujinon [MK18-55mm, MK50-135mm and Premier ZK Cabrio 19-90mm] lenses really made a difference — light zooms with the right focal range and imaging characteristics that satisfied both Jim and Russell.” Despite Avatar’s global success, native 3D production has struggled to gain traction since its release. Cameron attributes this to subjective industry standards. “We decided to go with a ⅔-inch sensor because the lenses that covered it could be quite small [compared to standard cine zooms],” he remarks. “But a lot of cinematographers wanted to shoot with 35mm sensors, so you go from a 3-pound Fujinon zoom to a 17-pound Panavision zoom — times two — and now you’ve got 34 pounds just in glass before you even account for the weight of the camera. They didn’t realize there was this tradeoff. If you use a 3-pound lens, you can have a 30-pound 3D camera system.” To Cameron, what constitutes “good 3D” remains essentially unchanged. “You want to be aware of that volumetric space between the lens and the action. That’s where the fun is, right? I think it works best on a subliminal level. You don’t want to linger on it, and you don’t want something constantly in the viewer’s face.” p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 33 12/6/22 3:30 PM

34 / JANUARY 2023 TOTAL IMMERSION FOR AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER waterfall or the sun, somebody at a bank of computers could do that, so we wanted to create a live-action environment that allowed him to work in a fluid manner while also being flexible enough to handle scores of different lighting scenarios,” Carpenter says. An extensive use of practicals and building lighting into set pieces that could be quickly assembled were key to achieving this. For the RDA sets, this approach included an extensive use of RGBTD ribbon LED practicals, as well as Astera Helios and Titan tubes and automated Vari-Lite VL2600 moving fixtures. The Simulcam system served different purposes during the virtual and physical phases of production. “The responsibilities of the live-action team were more centered on its overall operation, while the virtual-production ‘brain bar’ was more geared toward performance capture and the virtual camera, though the systems and personnel in both cases had overlapping functions,” says Champney. “Almost all of our software is custom-built. Atlas and Gazebo are Weta’s scene layout/evaluation and rendering engines, respectively, that plug into the host applications of Autodesk Maya and MotionBuilder. Manuka provides a data representation of how light interacts with surfaces.” Used as a pre-lighting tool, Gazebo is capable of illuminating scenes and providing a preview that’s close to the final rendered quality. It also enables blocking light sources as if working on a real film set. As a result, Weta can light scenes with predictability, and for the project’s army of animators, especially, it is important to see how their work looks with lighting, and Gazebo bridges that gap. Top: LED screens provide fire imagery for the background of a battle scene. Bottom: Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) fight for their besieged and burning homeland. p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 34 12/6/22 3:30 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 35 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM Cameron (operating camera at bottom) and the crew shoot an ocean scene, as effects plates played back on overhead screens create in-camera reflections on the water. Champney notes that the Manuka renderer was developed by Weta to work in tandem with Gazebo: “It can process huge amounts of data in much less time. Lighting done in Gazebo can be transferred into Manuka and appear almost exactly similar. This is thanks to both software having the same reflectance models that were based on real-world lighting. “The software feeding data to Manuka consisted of [Lightstorm Entertainment’s] Giant real-time performance capture system and our hardware streaming system, which talks to the various devices — cranes, virtual cameras, 3D rigs, inertial measurement units, etc.” During prep, to understand and process the scope and feel of each set, Levine combined art department models, construction department models of the stages, previs material, Cameron’s notes from techvis, and Carpenter’s scene notes to create 3D lighting plans in Vectorworks for more than 50 physical sets scheduled for construction at Stone Street Studios and Turner Warehouse in Wellington, as well as the Kumue Studios in Auckland. RDA Aesthetic Live-action scenes involving RDA sets were photographed first. “One of the things we carried over from the original film was the conflicting aesthetic between the natural world of Pandora and the artificial, human world of RDA,” Carpenter explains. “Inside the RDA complex, the light is sometimes mundane and utilitarian, but at other times harsh — quite powerful, as well as invasive. When we do see natural light coming p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 35 12/6/22 3:30 PM

36 / JANUARY 2023 TOTAL IMMERSION FOR AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER through the windows, it’s at a sharp, geometric angle.” The largest of these sets was the two-story aft well deck of RDA’s behemoth Sea Dragon vessel. Located on the K Stage at Stone Street, it featured two full-sized practical gunboats and two moon pools with submersibles. At one end of the deck was a bay door through which Carpenter could push sunlight. “We put ArriMaxes on a condor to tackle the broad strokes, one with a spot reflector and one with a flat reflector,” Levine elaborates. “We used the incredibly punchy Vari-Lite VL6000 Beam lights for targeted strikes of sunlight, Robe BMFL Blades and VL2600 lights for more finessed beams and accents, and an array of Arri SkyPanel S360-Cs for ambience.” Inside the ship, softboxes with SkyPanel S60-Cs in four- and eightlight configurations could be raised and lowered at any angle from a truss. Effects lighting was accomplished with Chroma-Q Studio Force D XT 12s for flashes and 12-light Maxi Brutes for explosions. Lighting programmers Scott Barnes and Elton Hartney James ran the show from an ETC Hog 4-18 console, which is typically used for stadium events and theme-park attractions. The critical step of matching the color and quality of real and virtual lighting was done largely by eye. Carpenter studied rough edits of scenes that used his virtual lighting, and the Simulcam real-time stereo composite of the camera and CG images presented him with a basic approximation of the final result. “The VENICE camera delivers the most astonishing image I’ve ever seen. You get incredible dynamic range, perfect color and a stunning crystalline clear image. Sony listens to filmmakers in terms of the features a filmmaker might want in a camera. If Sony’s engineers say they can do something, they will do it.” – Director James Cameron “The high end of the Sony VENICE’s Dual Base ISO feature gave us the freedom to light giant stages while shooting native 3D at 48fps. My team now had the option to use a much broader and versatile range of lighting instruments, including LED sources. This was a true game changer.” – Director of Photography Russell Carpenter ASC Congratulations Director James Cameron and Director of Photography Russell Carpenter ASC on the release of “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Thank you James and Russell for choosing the Sony VENICE and the VENICE Rialto Systems. VENICE Rialto VENICE sonycine.com 2022_11_SONY_AvatarAd_F.indd 1 11/22/22 2:34 PM Top: Cameron captures a POV shot from within an RDA craft. Bottom: Carpenter (far left), Cameron (far right) and crew gather beside a towering AMP suit. p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 36 12/6/22 3:30 PM

“The VENICE camera delivers the most astonishing image I’ve ever seen. You get incredible dynamic range, perfect color and a stunning crystalline clear image. Sony listens to filmmakers in terms of the features a filmmaker might want in a camera. If Sony’s engineers say they can do something, they will do it.” – Director James Cameron “The high end of the Sony VENICE’s Dual Base ISO feature gave us the freedom to light giant stages while shooting native 3D at 48fps. My team now had the option to use a much broader and versatile range of lighting instruments, including LED sources. This was a true game changer.” – Director of Photography Russell Carpenter ASC Congratulations Director James Cameron and Director of Photography Russell Carpenter ASC on the release of “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Thank you James and Russell for choosing the Sony VENICE and the VENICE Rialto Systems. VENICE Rialto VENICE sonycine.com

38 / JANUARY 2023 TOTAL IMMERSION FOR AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER Evocative Lighting The quality of light on the moon of Pandora was designed to change according to time of day, with luminance and color performing in opposite directions between dusk and dawn. “In terms of color, your palette of light wavelengths is very narrow at midday and widens as it gets later,” says director James Cameron. “In terms of luminance, your key-to-fill ratio is quite high at midday and lowers as it gets later.” As Pandora orbits its primary planet, there are two seasons on either side of its spring and fall equinoxes when the planet eclipses the sun for an hour a day. “We can go from a day scene to a night scene in two minutes of story time, which we often use to mystical or suspenseful effect,” Cameron remarks. Other quick lighting transitions were either programmed into the ETC Hog 4-18 desk during the shooting of a given scene, or the solution simply became a matter of using a solid to block a source. “We did a lot of research into using digital light projectors to simulate the shadows of the flying Ikran, the dragon-like winged creatures the Na’vi fly on,” Carpenter explains, citing one example of this. “We were able to get quite accurate shadow structures but found it a somewhat lengthy process to re-program the speed and size of these shadows in the heat of the moment. Surprisingly, we discovered that a terribly ‘lo-fi’ solution worked best — basically, someone on a lift moving a cardboard cutout rapidly in front of a light could make for a very satisfactory Ikran shadow and also be much more flexible.” Although most of Pandora was created virtually, many physical sets were built for live-action characters to interact with. “Anywhere a human foot touched the ground was a practical build,” gaffer Dan Riffel reports. Under the canopy of the Pandoran jungle, daylight tends to be soft and toward the blue side. “Depending on how thick the canopy is, you’ll get these harsh patches of warm sunlight breaking through,” Carpenter says. “For forest shadows, we used a variety of materials — live plant cuttings, of course, but very resourceful electricians actually fashioned very realistic ‘forest canopy shadows,’ with empty 4'x8' frames filled with a mixture of found materials including sticks, Pandora Ocean At Kumeu Film Studios, a 75'x100' surface tank was constructed on Stage B for live-action ocean scenes. Weta furnished Carpenter with effects plates for playback on 20'x10' LED video screens around the tank with the goal of creating “in-camera” reflections instead of creating moving water reflections in CGI. Reflections off the surface of the water were achieved by positioning the screens overhead on travelers and cranes. For reflections in the water, a rolling deck on each long side of the tank supported two 10'x20' screens reflected into a 40' mirror partially submerged at a 45-degree angle to make the desired reflections meet the water line instead of having a gap. Carpenter found that the screens worked better for creating reflections than lighting actors, so they were augmented with pixel-mapped Chroma-Q Studio Force II 72 units and “nets” of daisy-chained Astera Titan Tubes tied together with sash cord. Ronal (Winslet), Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and the Metkayina clan of the Na’vi people are lit by bioluminescent flora beneath the water’s surface. p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 38 12/6/22 3:30 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 39 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM Linked to the video-screen playback footage, they provided synchronized, interactive lighting. When the Auckland shoot wrapped, Levine passed the gaffer’s baton to Dan Riffel, who accompanied the production back to Stone Street for the last segment of shooting. Height Challenged The average Na’vi height of 9' posed a unique challenge for the eyelines and compositions needed to place them convincingly in the same frame as human characters. For the original Avatar, the team relied on proxy objects such as tennis balls to guide the actors’ gaze, but Cameron wanted a better method. Devising the solution fell to Avatar veteran and techvis specialist Casey Schatz, head of virtual production at The Third Floor. “Eyelines have always been a problem for visual effects,” observes Schatz. “No matter how incredibly Weta renders a creature, if the actor looks one way and the monster is somewhere else, the illusion dies. We devised an incredibly quiet, four-axis cable-camera rig carrying a SmallHD monitor and a Bluetooth speaker. It moved around in perfect sync macrame designs, plant fronds and whatever else seemed to fit. No frame was alike, and they worked amazingly well when placed in front of our light sources.” Cameron found that blue skin takes well to green fill, so wherever hard sun hits patches of flora on the jungle floor, a soft green light bounces back. “By keeping most of our lights above the set and reflecting them off elements on the ground, we were able to make modifications very quickly by using Vari-Lites,” says Carpenter. He also made frequent use of large muslin solids that could be raised and lowered from a truss to soften the overhead sources. At night, the jungle comes to life with bioluminescence, created on set with sticks of LiteRibbon hidden in the foliage. Vari-Lite VL2600s and SkyPanel S60-Cs were dialed in with two kinds of blue: ½ to ¾ CTB for general ambience, and a custom moonlight based on Lee 181 Congo Blue. Carpenter notes that Lee 181, favored by an older generation of cinematographers, “takes away 2½ to 3 stops of light, but you get this beautiful, saturated blue.” The effects of on-set lighting on CG Na’vi characters to be added later were examined and recorded using physical proxies, tying key scenes together. p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 39 12/6/22 3:30 PM

40 / JANUARY 2023 TOTAL IMMERSION FOR AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER C M Y CM MY CY CMY K with the original mocap so the human actors could react precisely to where the CG characters would be, spatially.” Cameron adds, “Once we started down the cable-cam road, we knew we’d have open-top sets and fill them in with CG extensions, which is easy these days. The monitor could swivel if the virtual character’s head turned. We ran the video from the actor’s face rig from the original mocap capture session. The audio of their dialogue was also directional, so it was very intuitive for the actors [performing to it]. Literally every single live-action scene involved CG characters and/or set extensions.” The cable-camera system proved challenging for techvis because it had to interact with the actors while safely avoiding set pieces, lighting, rigging and other potential obstacles. To address the issue, Schatz visualized each set in Maya using data from a Leica BLK360 laser scanner and then carefully plotted the cable-cam stand-ins’ placement and movement. “We placed the [cable cam’s] four towers relative to the live action along with the cables,” says Schatz. “I could exchange the techvis with the art, camera and rigging departments, who worked in Vectorworks. If they needed to add a light or bring in the Scorpio crane, for example, we’d know if we needed to readjust to avoid hitting something. It became Tetris on top of a Rubik’s Cube to accommodate the camera and lighting and avoid snaring the cables on anything in the set during the moves.” Tech Specs: 2.39:1, 1.78:1 (3D) Cameras | Sony Venice Lenses | Fujinon MK, Premier ZK Cabrio “The Grand Provocation” Continues After Covid-19 disrupted the shoot in 2020, a reduced crew returned for the final phase of live-action filming in New Zealand. Cameron then began intensive postproduction, coordinating with Weta FX to refine virtual material down to the final pixel. The Way of Water was completed after five years of production, but Cameron continues work on the forthcoming sequels, the next of which is due in 2024. “I don’t know of any other filmmaker in the world who uses technology this way,” Carpenter marvels. “We’ve upped the game not just on the spectacle, but on the emotional side of things. The heart of Avatar: The Way of Water is about family and what constitutes family. It’s also about belonging, and the pain one can feel if they don’t belong. In the time between the first Avatar and this one, an incredible amount of research and technology went into being able to re-create and transmit the minute emotional clues we give each other. I believe there is more nuance for the audience to detect in each actor’s performance, and that makes our emotional connection to the story more powerful.” Cameron concludes, “As hard as it is in the moment, you end up with a great sense of satisfaction. I know Russell is proud of his work on this film, as well he should be.” Jake and Neytiri’s daughter, Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), swims with a school of fish. p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 40 12/6/22 3:30 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 41 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM CMY CM MY CY CMY K p. 26-41 Avatar V3.indd 41 12/6/22 3:30 PM

42 / JANUARY 2023 Empire of Light: Theater of Dreams E mpire of Light follows the plight of a lonely, middle-aged woman working in a faded movie palace on the English coast in the 1980s. Superficially, this feature might appear to be a less taxing production challenge than Sam Mendes’ last collaboration with Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC — the Academy Award-winning World War I drama 1917 — but the filmmakers insist that it wasn’t. Deakins explains that because 1917 was designed to look like a single continuous shot (AC Jan. ’20), it required several weeks of meticulous prep, and “by the time we came to shoot, it was fairly straightforward — there weren’t any surprises. But with a film like Empire of Light, you’ve never got enough money and time, and you’re at the beck and call of location problems and traffic control. Plus, we still had the problem of Covid-19.” Mendes adds, “Empire of Light is a very still, deliberate and composed film … [so] Roger and I were debating how to shoot scenes in a more conventional way [than on 1917]. We didn’t have all that time to rehearse with the camera, so we were seeing things [on set] for the first time, which is normally how you make movies.” Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC reteams with Sam Mendes to help the director tell a deeply personal story. By Mark Dillon ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES. p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 42 12/6/22 3:33 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 43 Opposite: Stephen (Michael Ward) and Hilary (Olivia Colman) enjoy fireworks from the rooftop of the Empire movie theater. This page, top: The Empire’s projectionist, Norman (Toby Jones), gives Stephen a lesson. Bottom: Hilary allows herself to enjoy a film. Personal Connections In writing the script for Empire of Light, Mendes based the main character, Hilary (Olivia Colman), on his own mother, who raised him as a single parent and suffered from a mood disorder. Hilary’s mental struggles are revealed gradually as she embarks on an affair with Stephen (Micheal Ward), a new, younger co-worker at the movie theater. Mendes knew Deakins would relate to Empire of Light’s setting, given that the cinematographer grew up in Devon, England — a small coastal town similar to Margate, where the story is set. “That Roger loved [the script] was especially meaningful to me, because that world is familiar to him,” the director says. “We’ve had a wonderful run [working on] movies of all sorts, and we had a great experience on 1917, which brought p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 43 12/6/22 3:33 PM

44 / JANUARY 2023 EMPIRE OF LIGHT: THEATER OF DREAMS us even closer together, collaboratively. I value his opinion not just as a cinematographer, but as someone who’s been part of some of the great films of the last 30 to 40 years.” Working with Mendes’ shot list, the collaborators’ typical approach is to offer their respective takes on the scene at hand and then come to an agreement. “Sometimes Roger’s take and mine are exactly the same, and sometimes they’re quite different,” Mendes says. “When they are different we debate the difference, and we either find a middle ground that pleases both of us, or one of us concedes defeat and accepts that the other person’s idea is better.” With a laugh, he adds, “Often, Roger’s idea is better. He has an unerring instinct for composition and the way the camera moves in concert with character.” Adapting the Dreamland Mendes envisioned a particular cinema in Brighton as he wrote the script, but its interior had been transformed into a casino and the facility was no longer feasible as a location. After researching coastal theaters all over England, he settled on the Dreamland in Margate, which doubles for the Empire in the movie. The Art Deco structure dates to 1935, when it was built as part of an amusement park, and the filmmakers determined that its exterior and some interiors would work for the story. Mendes incorporated the cinema’s second-floor ballroom into the script, making it the place where Hilary and Stephen recklessly conduct their trysts. The main entrance and lobby, however, were just not right. “Luckily, there was an empty lot three doors away,” Deakins says. “[Production designer] Mark Tildesley built our lobby set there, so the view out the Top: The refurbished Empire is fully illuminated for the Chariots of Fire premiere. Bottom: Deakins’ lighting plan for the theater’s box-office area. Orbiter® is a registered trademark of Arnold & Richter Cine Technik GmbH & Co. Betriebs KG Learn more about the Orbiter Projection Optics: www.arri.com/orbiter-projection Even. Precise. Brilliant. Illumination | Reshaped Orbiter Projection Optics The new Orbiter Projection Optics 25° and 35° provide unparalleled precision in every detail allowing for crisp projection of a light spot, as well as immaculate gobo projection and precise shutter cuts. The fi eld of light is entirely even and without color aberration. The projection has no visible hot spot or drop to the edge and the depth of fi eld is outstanding. Both optics have a motorized focus adjustment which allows for great precision and repeatability and can be controlled locally or remotely. The four manually adjustable shutter blades of the Projection Optics 25° and 35° produce a beam where the shutter blade cut and the beam’s edge are simultaneously in sharp focus. The Projection Optics are perfectly suited for theaters, cinematic applications, as well as broadcast studios or live productions. p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 44 12/6/22 3:33 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 45 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM Orbiter® is a registered trademark of Arnold & Richter Cine Technik GmbH & Co. Betriebs KG Learn more about the Orbiter Projection Optics: www.arri.com/orbiter-projection Even. Precise. Brilliant. Illumination | Reshaped Orbiter Projection Optics The new Orbiter Projection Optics 25° and 35° provide unparalleled precision in every detail allowing for crisp projection of a light spot, as well as immaculate gobo projection and precise shutter cuts. The fi eld of light is entirely even and without color aberration. The projection has no visible hot spot or drop to the edge and the depth of fi eld is outstanding. Both optics have a motorized focus adjustment which allows for great precision and repeatability and can be controlled locally or remotely. The four manually adjustable shutter blades of the Projection Optics 25° and 35° produce a beam where the shutter blade cut and the beam’s edge are simultaneously in sharp focus. The Projection Optics are perfectly suited for theaters, cinematic applications, as well as broadcast studios or live productions. p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 45 12/6/22 3:33 PM

46 / JANUARY 2023 EMPIRE OF LIGHT: THEATER OF DREAMS doors was exactly the same. We just had to make it feel connected to the rest of the cinema.” The lobby set was two stories tall and included a staircase to the balcony. Mendes wanted the theater’s interior spaces to feel warm and inviting, since the Empire is the characters’ home away from home. “I also wanted it to have a kind of magnificence, the sense that it was standing there defying age and the onslaught of new technologies,” he says. “I wanted to contrast the oranges and browner hues [of the lobby], and the reds and purples of the cinema, with the muted, desaturated bleakness of the English coastline, particularly in winter. And then, within that [palette], I wanted the ballroom to be another world of blues and greens.” Mendes and Deakins typically arrive at a film’s feel and style through many weeks of intense discussion. For Empire of Light, they referenced the seaside photography of Harry Gruyaert and Martin Parr, whose “use of color is quite bold,” Deakins observes. Practical Matters Space for equipment was limited in the Dreamland, and in keeping with Deakins’ preference, practical lights did much of the heavy lifting. “It was a matter of discussing with Mark and set decorator Kamlan Man which lights would work, both photographically and as part of the design of the space,” the cinematographer says. “I chose to do nearly [all interior lighting] with LEDs,” Deakins continues. “Cost was a reason, but I also wanted total control over the level of the light without the color shifting, as it would with tungsten bulbs.” LED ribbon provided accent lighting in the walls, and various other LED units were built in elsewhere around the set. Astera tubes were placed in the lobby’s practical chandelier. A rig with at least 10 Litepanels Gemini soft panels, projected through Light Grid diffusion, provided Top to bottom: Deakins shoots amid vintage movie posters decorating a staircase; Mendes and Deakins confer on location; the cinematographer and crew make a dolly shot in the theater’s decrepit ballroom. p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 46 12/6/22 3:33 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 47 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 47 12/6/22 3:33 PM

48 / JANUARY 2023 EMPIRE OF LIGHT: THEATER OF DREAMS skylight. These were all on individual dimmer systems that were operated via iPhone by lighting-console programmer Galo Dominguez. During scenes set in the theater’s lobby, “we were looking out at the exterior street and the ocean beyond it, so we were always trying to maintain a balance with the natural light,” Deakins notes. To control light coming through the lobby’s windows and doors, the crew built an exterior rig from which they could hang 20'x20' frames of black or diffusion. One of the busiest lobby scenes has guests filing in for the gala premiere of Chariots of Fire. For close-ups, Deakins ganged up four or five Fiilex P3 Color LEDs, whose Fresnel lenses were removed in favor of hexagonal softboxes; these were dimmed down at the edges to produce a soft key. He likens the effect to that of a 1K Pup. Approaching the Auditorium The theater auditorium is the setting for an awkward moment during the Chariots of Fire premiere: Hilary, who has not been showing up for work following her breakup with Stephen, unexpectedly walks onstage to join her boss, Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth), and reads a poem to the dumbstruck crowd. The Dreamland’s auditorium had been transformed into a Bingo hall decades earlier, so Tildesley and his team had to put in a floor, pull the original theater seats out of storage and reinstall them, and erect a projection screen. The riggers, led by gaffer John “Biggles” Higgins and rigging gaffer Terry Robb, had to carefully navigate a circular drop ceiling that contained asbestos. To augment the many practicals, they built large ring lights lamped with Astera units and suspended them from a motorized hoist: a 12' ring light augmented by three smaller, 8' ring lights — one in the center of the 12-footer, and two others off to each side. “I’ve built big ring lights for many years, and I used to put household bulbs in them, but I used Asteras here because I wanted to be able to change the color based on the scene we were shooting,” Deakins says. “I wanted a warm feel for the Chariots of Fire premiere, so I kept things at a low level — just a warm glow. It was wonderful that the riggers found a A closer view of the fireworks scene, along with the production’s general lighting plan for the Dreamland’s ballroom and rooftop. p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 48 12/6/22 3:33 PM