American Cinematographer - January 2023

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50 / JANUARY 2023 EMPIRE OF LIGHT: THEATER OF DREAMS ASC – AMERICA CINEMATOGRAPHER FULL PAGE AD ISSUE: 12/28/2022 JAN. ‘23 DIRECTORS MATERIALS DUE: MONDAY 11/21/2022 TRIM: 9” X 10.875” BLEED: 9.25” X 11.125” SAFETY: 8.25” X 10.125” [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] MECH 01 WAKANDA FALL FYC -ASC-FULL PAGE | TP3475075-13 | 11.22.22 | DISNEY | dL | ROUND 04 way of mounting those light rigs safely, without disturbing the asbestos. “I also had a row of Tweenies providing a soft spotlight on Colin and Olivia when they’re standing at the microphone on the stage at the front of the theater’s main auditorium,” he adds. “That was probably the only time I used conventional tungsten lamps.” Repeat Performance Deakins shot with an Arri Alexa Mini LF in ArriRaw format at 4.5K resolution, framing in his director’s preferred 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Mendes declares, “We wouldn’t have been able to shoot 1917 the way we did without that camera. It can do almost anything. Once you get used to its capability and its images — how rich and dense the blacks are, and how subtle it is in the middle range — when your cinematographer says, ‘That’s how I’d like to shoot it,’ who am I to argue? I’ve also been astonished by how few technical issues there have been with this equipment across the two movies.” Deakins used Arri Signature Prime lenses, which he calls “the cleanest lenses I can find, and the fastest. Plus, they’re not heavy, which is a big bonus if you’re shooting on a remote head or handheld — not that there’s much handheld in this film.” For some scenes tracking Hilary and Stephen walking along the promenade, Deakins used a dolly in conjunction with an Arri Maxima gimbal head. “That’s quite a good gag, as you don’t have to lay track,” he notes. “Sometimes we did lay track, but a lot of the time, key grip Gary Hymns and one of the other grips would just walk with it.” A Matter of Trust Deakins notes that because the broad strokes of their movies’ looks are Top: Hilary’s boss, Donald (Colin Firth), addresses the audience at the Chariots of Fire premiere. Bottom: An enraged Hilary humiliates Donald in the lobby. p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 50 12/6/22 3:33 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 51 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM ASC – AMERICA CINEMATOGRAPHER FULL PAGE AD ISSUE: 12/28/2022 JAN. ‘23 DIRECTORS MATERIALS DUE: MONDAY 11/21/2022 TRIM: 9” X 10.875” BLEED: 9.25” X 11.125” SAFETY: 8.25” X 10.125” [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] MECH 01 WAKANDA FALL FYC -ASC-FULL PAGE | TP3475075-13 | 11.22.22 | DISNEY | dL | ROUND 04 p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 51 12/6/22 3:33 PM

52 / JANUARY 2023 EMPIRE OF LIGHT: THEATER OF DREAMS Tech Specs: 2.39:1 Camera | Arri Alexa Mini LF Lenses | Arri Signature Prime thoroughly discussed during prep, he and Mendes are off doing their own things once production commences — with Deakins at the camera and Mendes by the video playback. There is very little discussion of technicalities. The cinematographer likens this approach to working with the Coen brothers, his frequent collaborators since Barton Fink (1991). “They might say, ‘Maybe you could go a little wider,’ or that sort of thing, but I’ve never heard more than one or two comments about lighting. The directors I’ve worked with have basically left the lighting up to me. We discuss the actors’ blocking, I’ll set up the shot, and then they might say, ‘We want the light a bit lower,’ but not often. “There’s not much of that intimate exchange with the director by the camera anymore — that’s changed a lot,” Deakins adds. “That’s why I still like operating the camera: I’m there with the actors.” Mendes says he seldom discusses lighting specifics with Deakins “because I trust his instincts. I’ll just give him my take on the scene and the feel I want for the place, such as ‘warm and inviting’ or ‘cold and forbidding.’” On Empire of Light, much of the discussion in prep revolved around how Hilary would be framed. Mendes notes, “That’s the spine of the film: the way she is pitched against the larger world, alone in large spaces, or held behind glass or within the cube of the concessions stand — in a private world, detached from people. Stephen breaks through that wall, and we watch her exhilarated rise and then her descent into darkness. We talked a lot about the relationship between camera and central character, and everything else fell into place around that. We’re trying to give you the feeling of what it is to descend into that sort of hell.” Top: Hilary’s mood darkens as she succumbs to a relapse of her mental illness. Bottom: Deakins captures Stephen’s reaction to a mob of hostile thugs attempting to breach the theater’s lobby. Thank you Todd and Florian for choosing ARRI Rental to support you on TÁR and for co-developing a unique look with us by customizing ARRI Signature Prime lenses. Courtesy of Focus Features Director, Writer, Producer Todd Field Cinematographer Florian Ho meister BSC Explore our optics: www.arrirental.com/lenses p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 52 12/6/22 3:33 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 53 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM Thank you Todd and Florian for choosing ARRI Rental to support you on TÁR and for co-developing a unique look with us by customizing ARRI Signature Prime lenses. Courtesy of Focus Features Director, Writer, Producer Todd Field Cinematographer Florian Ho meister BSC Explore our optics: www.arrirental.com/lenses p. 42-53 Empire of Light V3.indd 53 12/6/22 3:33 PM

54 / JANUARY 2023 Devotion: Soaring Heroics Erik Messerschmidt, ASC joins director J.D. Dillard to tell the compelling story of a pioneering African-American aviator. By Jay Holben p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 54 12/4/22 6:44 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 55 Making Devotion was both professionally and personally meaning - ful for director J.D. Dillard. The film tells the true story of the first African-American pilot in the U.S. Navy, Ensign Jesse L. Brown (Jonathan Majors). Dillard’s father, Bruce, was a Black naval avia - tor and the second Black pilot selected to fly with the Blue Angels. “I put out into the world that I was looking for a story around naval aviation, and I read a lot of scripts before I found Devotion,” says Dillard. “I’d heard pieces of the Jesse Brown story from my dad. Although he was a naval pilot 30 years after Jesse, they had a lot of experiences in common.” Set during the Korean War, Devotion follows Brown and his friend and wingman, Lt. (j.g.) Thomas J. Hudner Jr. (Glen Powell), elite fighter pilots who became two of the war’s celebrated heroes. Brown received the Distinguished Flying Cross, and Hudner received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Devotion cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, ASC says the pilots’ close friendship was mirrored by his collaboration with Dillard. “This is the story of two guys and their incredible partnership and friendship, and J.D. and I formed that as we worked togeth - er,” says Messerschmidt, an Academy and ASC Award-winner for Mank (AC Feb. ’21). “This film was a step up for both of us in terms of scale, expectation and dealing with risks and visual [challenges] neither of us had confronted before,” the cinematographer continues. “We spent a tremendous amount of time together in prep. You want a cre - ative partner who is supportive but will also tell you when they don’t agree with you, and neither of us had any pretense about telling the other, ‘Hey, man, I don’t like this idea.’ We formed a safe space where it was just about figuring out [how to] best to tell this story. That’s the kind of working relationship I desire the most.” “I trust Erik’s vision, especially as it relates to composition and movement,” Dillard says. “He has made me a better blocking director because there are ways in which he immediately sees a space in three dimensions that I am sometimes slower to see. He’d say, ‘What if we put the camera here?’ or, ‘We could rotate the scene just a few degrees here and look at that.’ His vision really helped expand this movie.” A Very Convincing Call The pair’s discussions in prep focused on how to “find a balance between a classical aesthetic and some sense of modernity,” Dillard says. The director was first struck by Messerschmidt’s work on the Netflix series Mindhunter — “a period story, but clearly a story of today, too. That was exactly what I wanted for Devotion.” Dillard notes that Mank had not yet been released when he was considering cinema - tographers for Devotion. “I didn’t really have anything but Mindhunter to judge Erik’s work on … but then I got this call from David Fincher, who offered an extremely gen - erous recommendation of Erik. He spoke of their collaboration and Erik’s incredible technical knowledge. That was a very convincing call. I mean, who could argue with David Fincher?” UNIT PHOTOGRAPHY BY ELI ADÉ. ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 55 12/4/22 6:44 PM

56 / JANUARY 2023 DEVOTION: SOARING HEROICS Refining the Palette For Devotion, Dillard wanted a look that “would honor the period, but not feel like we were looking through nostalgic glasses,” he says. “I also wanted to focus this film away from action to quieter drama. I told Erik, ‘I want this to be more The Shawshank Redemption than Saving Private Ryan’ — that was our North Star with the look and feel. We started watching a lot of films and pulling images from ShotDeck to build a common language.” After scouting several military bases with Dillard and production designer Wynn Thomas, Messerschmidt suggested they lean into the locations’ uniformly taupe color scheme and use green/khaki as a color balance. “But at the same time,” he notes, “we wanted [our set] to feel specifically naval. It needed to have enough color to separate [itself] and feel like an aircraft carrier.” Messerschmidt worked with LightIron colorist Ian Vertovec to build a single “spit tone” show LUT that put some military green into the shadows and yellow into the highlights with a little overall desaturation. “I didn’t touch the gamma in the LUT,” the cinematographer says. “I don’t like to change contrast much in the show or viewing LUT. I’d rather be as confident as I can be about where the exposure is on the sensor. We monitored on set in HDR and did an HDR final grade first.” Gearing Up Working with Panavision, Messerschmidt chose the DXL2 as his main camera and decided to address specific needs with a Red Komodo and a Sony Venice 2. “I’ve shot a lot of commercials on the DLX2 and I really enjoy using it,” he explains. “The smaller Red Komodo enabled us to do Previous spread: Actors Jonathan Majors, Glen Powell, Thomas Sadoski, Nick Hargrove, Daren Kagasoff, Joe Jonas and Spencer Neville as naval officers Jesse Brown, Tom Hudner, Dick Cevoli, Carol Mohring, Bill Koenig, Marty Goode and Bo Lavery. This page: Erik Messerschmidt, ASC (pictured at top), director J.D. Dillard and Majors (pictured at bottom, from left) on set. AVATAR - THE WAY OF WATER (FYC) | AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER MAGAZINE | FULL PAGE TRIM: 9" x 10.875" SAFETY: .5" ALL AROUND BLEED: .125" ALL AROUND ©2022 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS DISNEYSTUDIOSAWARDS.COM RUSSELL CARPENTER, ASC BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY BEST PICTURE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 56 12/4/22 6:44 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 57 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM AVATAR - THE WAY OF WATER (FYC) | AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER MAGAZINE | FULL PAGE TRIM: 9" x 10.875" SAFETY: .5" ALL AROUND BLEED: .125" ALL AROUND ©2022 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS DISNEYSTUDIOSAWARDS.COM RUSSELL CARPENTER, ASC BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY BEST PICTURE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 57 12/4/22 6:44 PM

58 / JANUARY 2023 DEVOTION: SOARING HEROICS a lot of mounts to the actual planes, especially in the cockpits. Aerial DP Michael FitzMaurice requested the Venice 2 for our real air-to-air shooting because we needed to ride the exposure with internal NDs, a decision I absolutely supported. We knew we would be putting the camera into a Shotover head on a jet or a helicopter and flying sorties all day, so the exposure conditions were unpredictable. The airport they were working from in Washington state was several hundred kilometers away from the actual shooting area, and I didn’t want anyone trying to predict exposure from 150 miles away! In the end, the Sony and Red footage blended seamlessly.” Before selecting lenses, Messerschmidt ran some ideas by ASC associate member Dan Sasaki of Panavision. “I told Dan, ‘I know I want to shoot larger-format on this. I’ve shot with the Primo 70s quite a bit and I like them, but I want a bit more of a vintage look for this.’ I wanted a little halation in the highlights through spherical aberration, but I didn’t want a lot of chromatic aberration; I wanted a little barrel distortion and coma in the bokeh to give us lemon-shaped highlights; and I also wanted predictable flares. Dan said he could tweak Panaspeeds to give me all that. Luckily, our long prep gave him about six months to really dial in the lenses, and he gave us two full sets of customized Panaspeeds.” The filmmakers decided a 2.2:1 aspect ratio would best suit the story. “Early on, J.D. and I talked about wanting this to feel like it was shot in Panavision Super 70 or the original Todd-AO [2.2:1] 70mm format, and as we started to previs, we found that 2.2:1 really worked,” recalls Messerschmidt. “It was a perfect ratio for composing the planes and even multiple planes in shot, and I also like it for two-shots because you’re not forced into a cowboy composition like you are in 2.39. Devotion is, at its heart, a buddy film, so the tighter aspect ratio felt a lot better.” Building “The Island” Much of the story is set at sea on an aircraft carrier, and after scouting decommissioned vessels such as the USS Yorktown, a period-correct carrier that’s now a floating museum off Charleston, S.C., the filmmakers Brown engages in an airborne attack. “Knowing how much time we’d be spending in the cockpit with the actor, we didn’t want to do this blue- or greenscreen. We wanted the interactive light, the oddities of the warping background through the bend of glass — all that stuff is crucial to establishing reality.” p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 58 12/4/22 6:44 PM

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60 / JANUARY 2023 DEVOTION: SOARING HEROICS determined they would need to combine a practical build with CGI. “The problem is that these decommissioned aircraft carriers are all floating museums — their hangar bays are no longer functional,” says Messerschmidt. “Getting our period Corsair, Bearcat and Skyraider planes on deck would have been almost impossible. So, we sat down with the producers, Wynn Thomas and our visual-effects team and said, ‘What can we do with visual effects and what can we build?’ Wynn said he could build us an aircraft carrier, and he did!” Production secured a private airfield with two runways in Georgia and arranged to shut it down. Thomas created the aircraft-carrier deck on one of the runways using an adhesive material on which he could print the pattern of the steel deck. The stunt team could safely take off and land on the material, and it looked exactly like they were landing on the real deck. In the field next to the airstrip, Thomas laid a foundation and built a full-scale steel replica of the carrier’s structure above the deck. “In the Navy they call it ‘The Island,’ and it was really quite an impressive set,” says Messerschmidt. “We surrounded the set with shipping containers covered in bluescreen so we could comp in the ocean in post, and we could actually do real landings and takeoffs and shoot on a fullscale aircraft carrier that we fully controlled. The set built in the field was 70 feet tall, with accurate artillery and structures, and the deck was almost 900 feet long. The only problem was that we couldn’t move or turn the ship! “The runway we chose was oriented almost exactly east-west, which meant we could place our island on either the north or south side,” the cinematographer continues. “Going back to my gaffer days, I modeled the set in Vectorworks and utilized the sun-tracking tools to study the pros and cons of each option. I think many cinematographers would instinctually go for the south and keep the sets backlit, but after modeling Top: Mounted to a stabilized head, the camera angles in for a cockpit shot. Bottom: Aerial-action photography was achieved with the aid of a CineJet. BOTTOM PHOTO BY MICHAEL FITZMAURICE. p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 60 12/4/22 6:44 PM

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62 / JANUARY 2023 DEVOTION: SOARING HEROICS it, that actually looked to be more troublesome. I didn’t want to get into a situation where I couldn’t control the shadow of the island on the deck. Airplanes are big, and it takes teams of people to move them around, and I didn’t want to have sun on a plane in one setup and none on the next. So, I elected to always be in the sun on the north side of the runway. That gave me control over where I used overhead solids or diffusion or brought in a Bebee Light for hard sun.” “How Did They Pull That Off?” One thing Dillard wanted to do, which he admits was “a bit selfish,” was to craft some moments in the film that might move people to say, “How did they pull that off?” This goal, the director adds, was born out of a desire to “find small ways to play with cinematic form by tying those moments to character and emotion.” One such moment is a oner in which Hudner deliberately crashes his plane in an attempt to rescue Brown, who has crash-landed on a remote mountaintop. The shot starts air-to-air as Hudner decides to force his own plane down. The camera moves in close to capture him working to bring the craft to the ground, then moves out to the wing and stays fixed to the plane as it crashes into the snow. When Hudner jumps out of the cockpit, the shot transitions to handheld and follows him across the snow to Brown’s plane. Dillard says it was a big conversation involving Messerschmidt, production visual-effects supervisor Brian Connor, visual-effects producer Geoff Anderson and himself. The director explains, “It made the most sense to break it into three pieces: first, the plane-to-plane action in the Top: A pivotal scene set inside Brown’s airplane cockpit was filmed on an LED volume, using plates shot by pilot Kevin LaRosa Jr. and aerial director of photography Michael FitzMaurice. Bottom: A car interior is shot on the volume. p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 62 12/4/22 6:44 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 63 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM air, which was done for real in Washington with a CineJet; then, we keyframe that to working on an LED volume for the cockpit sequence; and then, we’re out on location with a crash rig and an actual plane on rails. There was a magnetic release on the camera rig on the wing for the transition to handheld.” “The crash-track rig on location was 200 or 300 feet long, so we could really crash the plane in the snow and reset it for another take,” Messerschmidt explains. “We used a Red Monstro for that part of the sequence because when it went into handheld mode with [A-camera/Steadicam operator] Brian Osmond, we needed the smaller-form-factor camera in ‘combat mode.’ Brian could tuck it into his chest at about sternum height and run with Powell across the snow.” For the volume portion of the sequence, the plates for the cockpit background were shot by pilot Kevin LaRosa Jr. and aerial director of photography Michael FitzMaurice on the same day as the plane-to-plane action so they would match precisely. Exact backgrounds were determined in previs, but the plates provided by the aerial team featured a wider field of view so they could move with the motion-control-base From left: Hudner, Goode, Brown and Cevoli spend some downtime together. p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 63 12/4/22 6:44 PM

64 / JANUARY 2023 DEVOTION: SOARING HEROICS Tech Specs: 2.2:1 (Standard theatrical and Imax) Cameras | Panavision DXL2; Red Monstro, Komodo; Sony Venice 2 Lenses | Panavision Panaspeed cockpit on the stage. “The Buck [cockpit] rig has encoders on it that ‘talk’ to the playback of the wall,” Messerschmidt explains. “We needed a 160-degree field of view for the shots, but we got a 240-degree-by-160-degree plate so we could yaw and roll the plane and move the background. If we rolled the plane on its motion rig 20 degrees to the left, we could roll the background 40 degrees to the right and execute a 60-degree barrel roll quite convincingly. It was all video playback of real plates — with no 3D or game engine incorporated. “It was great working in the volume, and for us it was reasonably easy because we knew exactly what our angles were going to be,” he continues. “J.D. could drive the Buck’s motion-control base as he wanted for each shot. “I really appreciated production’s support and willingness to work with us when we suggested the volume instead of greenscreen,” Messerschmidt adds. “It had an unanticipated benefit in that the editor got near-finished visual-effects [shots] that he could cut in immediately. Our dailies had the effects, and executive and test screenings were able to happen with full shots integrated.” “I am an enormous fan of the volume, with the caveat that it is Devotion-specific,” Dillard says. “It is essentially today’s version of poorman’s process. We were able to have the actors in the cockpit with a real glass canopy, and behind them were photographed plates we’d shot at the location. So, you have photographic elements as foreground and background and you’re ostensibly shooting practical footage. Knowing how much time we’d be spending in the cockpit with the actor, we didn’t want to do this blue- or greenscreen. We wanted the interactive light, the “This is the story of two guys and their incredible partnership and friendship, and J.D. and I formed that as we worked together.” p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 64 12/4/22 6:44 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 65 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM oddities of the warping background through the bend of glass — all that stuff is crucial to establishing reality.” While there was a great deal of real air-to-air footage shot with vintage planes, most of the actor’s performances in the plane cockpits was shot on an LED volume. For direct, hard sunlight during the volume sequences, Messerschmidt and gaffer Danny Gonzalez put a bare T12 bulb in a custom-made sheet-metal shadowbox and mounted that to the head of a Technocrane. This could be flown around the cockpit quickly as the direction of the lamp was steered by camera operator Brian Osmond via the remote head on the crane. The ceiling of the stage was fitted with 100 Chroma Q Color Force LED fixtures that were pixel-mapped with sky footage to provide color-accurate toplight for the rig. “One thing I love about Erik — and it’s so specific to him — is that he is half scientist and half artist,” Dillard observes. “As much as he is thoughtful about light, color and shots, he’s also fixing problems in CAD and sending them over to various departments. I’m grateful he was my first collaborator in putting this film together.” Previous page: Messerschmidt confers with Dillard between takes. This page: Brown shares a moment with his wife, Daisy (Christina Jackson). p. 54-65 Devotion V5.indd 65 12/4/22 6:44 PM

66 / JANUARY 2023 Tár: A Musical Icon’s Descent Florian Hoffmeister, BSC traces the downfall of a world-class composer in director Todd Field’s psychodrama. By Patricia Thomson p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 66 12/6/22 3:34 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 67 T ár is all about restraint, both in its storytelling and its visual style. Writer-director Todd Field’s narrative is largely about abuse of power and how celebrity can create an entitled sense of immunity — and cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister, BSC notes that the filmmakers’ biggest challenge was to resist tipping it over into melodrama. “I have this phrase,” he says, “‘Putting a hat on a hat.’ Todd uses the phrase ‘gilding the lily.’ In other words, we train ourselves to beautify things, which is precisely what Todd didn’t want.” The film begins with Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) — the first woman conductor of a major German orchestra — at the pinnacle of her career. The iconic musical director is promoting the upcoming release her book, Tár on Tár, while also preparing to conduct a live recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Over the next three weeks, however, Lydia’s past missteps with female students catch up with her, jeopardizing the conductor’s career and her privileged lifestyle. Tár is Todd Field’s third film as a director, and his first feature in 16 years. Partly due to this long hiatus, the film generated a great deal of excitement at the major trifecta of fall festivals ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATURES. — Venice, Telluride, and New York — before its theatrical release last October. Director of photography Florian Hoffmeister, BSC was impressed with the script’s intimate and precise knowledge of the conducting world, and its somewhat oblique handling of Lydia’s transgressions. The conductor is not a person who is self-aware, and the camera sticks close by the character, so only gradually does it dawn on her — and the audience — the damage she’s done to herself and others. “If you start to amplify that which remains in the gray zone of a story, then it isn’t in the gray zone anymore,” says the Berlin-based cinematographer. “Todd and I spoke at length about camera movement, and it was clear that we would only move the camera when the actor was moving. When Lydia is rehearsing with the orchestra, there shouldn’t be any camera movement whatsoever. Once a classical orchestra starts playing, there’s nothing more tempting than to move the camera, so it was all about holding back. “During production,” he adds, “we sometimes thought of moving the camera during certain shots, but when we started setting up the camera, the movement got smaller and smaller. We would do the first rehearsal and look at each other like, ‘Just stop — just be there, be still.’ Todd is very meticulous about everything that’s in the frame.” Opposite: Renowned composer-conductor Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) commands the room. This page: Lydia confides in her wife, Sharon (Nina Hoss). p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 67 12/6/22 3:34 PM

68 / JANUARY 2023 TÁR: A MUSICAL ICON’S DESCENT “Appearance” and “Being” Field first appeared on Hoffmeister’s radar as an actor. A few years after graduating from film school in Berlin, the cinematographer was living in a small village in France, where he occasionally paid a nighttime visit to the town’s only movie theater. He vividly recalls seeing Eyes Wide Shut — in which Field played a key supporting role as a jazz pianist — about 20 times. “It left a real imprint,” he says. Two years later, Hoffmeister saw Field’s 2001 directorial debut, In the Bedroom, which hit him as “a reminder that there’s a form of independent cinema that’s really worth fighting for.” By the time Field approached him about Tár, he says, “Todd could have asked me to photograph the New York phone book and I would have said yes.” Hoffmeister sums up Tár’s visual design in four words: “appearance, being, detachment and intimacy. They’re big words, but they carried me through the film.” For the cinematographer, “appearance” and “being” represent two sides of Lydia. In the concert hall and in public spaces, she dons her celebrity persona: hard-edged, imperious and highly articulate. At home in private with her partner, Sharon (Nina Hoss), or in her music studio, “she just ‘is,’” he says. “I tried very consciously to distinguish between these two elements with the lighting. “Lydia ‘appears’ when she’s in front of an audience,” Hoffmeister explains, “whether it’s an audience of a thousand,” as in the film’s opening scene, “or an audience of one,” as in situations like her dinner with Eliot Kaplan (Mark Strong), the financial backer for her conducting fellowship for women. “In those moments, I tried to accentuate that feeling of a constructed appearance by using a strong key light,” he says. “The light had a clear ‘attitude’; even if there is shadow, the key light prevails. “On the other hand, when Lydia is with Sharon or her daughter, Petra [Mila Bogojevic], and she just ‘is’ — fragile, doubtful, anxious — I avoided any clear key and instead tried to keep her in a soft open shadow. The light was to be as fragile and soft as she was. The orchestra rehearsal presented an interesting intersection of those two approaches, as she is standing there with a clear understanding of her role, while also bringing all of her deepest passion and emotions to the podium. Hence, she is shaped by a clear key light, but with more transparency, hence less Top: Florian Hoffmeister, BSC (right) and 1st AC Alexis Kustodis prepare a plate shoot in Dresden, Germany. Bottom: A lighting rig for a scene set at Lydia’s apartment in Old Berlin. PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE BY TODD FIELD. p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 68 12/6/22 3:34 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 69 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM Lydia puts her student Max (Zethphan Smith-Gneist) on the spot during her guest lecture at The Juilliard School. contrast, than in moments where she decidedly ‘appears.’” Production designer Marco Bittner Rosser also distinguished between the two sides of Lydia’s character. “In her public appearance, there’s no personal detail, and even in her office, there’s no space for personal stuff. The art was hung by someone else and the furniture was chosen by other people,” he says. On the other hand, her private space is “a mix of cultures and experiences that manifest in the art and design pieces, as well as the photographs that surround her. It’s a very eclectic mix of mid-century modern furniture, but also mixed with antiques that give her character a certain texture. “Production designers usually try to analyze the background of the character and visualize it as architecture,” he adds. He admits, though, that “for me, reading the script and trying to grasp this character of Lydia was hard because she’s very unapproachable. It led to the choice of working with scale and with a certain coldness in her personal sets.” As for visual references, “astonishingly, we never once watched a film in prep,” Hoffmeister says, explaining that the filmmakers just didn’t have time. However, he notes, “we had long conversations about “At times, we would use the large format for the depiction of space, or sometimes for psychological situations — two characters, maybe in a small room.” p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 69 12/6/22 3:34 PM

70 / JANUARY 2023 TÁR: A MUSICAL ICON’S DESCENT Lydia writes a new composition in her studio. Over the past 30 years, I’ve had the great privilege of being on the floor with many an extraordinary cinematographer. While each goes about their work differently, they share a common gift, the ability to create light that is truthful. Now, how does one define truth? There are endless, and unique, approaches to narrative filmmaking, and certainly not one “truth.” I suppose what I mean is staying true to a shared understanding of what the light is meant to accomplish for the film at hand. That understanding begins as a conversation long before prep and continues through the final grade. Though I’ve been fortunate to be in conversation with artists confident enough in their art to allow me to test and prep alongside them, I’ve never enjoyed the breadth of that process in the manner I did with Florian Hoffmeister, BSC for Tár. Over the course of months, we tested countless cameras and dozens of lenses by all manner of manufacturers, and projected hours of lighting tests before settling on the “truth” for the light of this film. This was accomplished in concert with superb key grip Bernd Mayer, gaffer Florian Kronenberger, DIT Lorenzo Zama, Company-3 colorist Tim Masick and Arri’s lead colorist Traudel Nicholson, and also included early lens tests shot by Darren Lew and Minka Farthing-Kohl in New York City. We kept returning to a single lens: a first series MK. This felt “true” to the faces for this film. However, that lens can be eccentric to say the least, famously prone to depth-of-field issues. But Florian was undeterred. Ultimately, Arri Rental Berlin’s head of camera department, Christoph Hoffsten, was able to satisfy Florian by repurposing optics from the Signature line, with custom tuning that led to two variations: Lowres and Lowcon that we could choose from, along with several variations of flare control through interchangeable rear elements. These new lenses possessed the first series MK quality we were after, while offering both serviceable depth-of-field and the practical utility necessary for large format. From our first conversations together, Florian pointed out the necessity for an industry-standard photochemical base reference — not just in the back end, but in real-time, the same way as if one were shooting tungsten, daylight or monochromatic emulsion. The legacy of Arri is legendary and, though for all intents and purposes they invented the first practical digital motion-picture camera, their color science is firmly grounded and informed by artists at the company who began their professional lives in the laboratory. This is something Florian had intimate knowledge of and suggested we utilize. Arri’s Florian Martin (yes, there are three — count ’em — Florians in this piece) and Nicholson are both at the forefront of that color science, and collaborated with Florian Hoffmeister utilizing the Arri Print Emulsion System (APES). This became the guiding light for Zama’s on-set work flow, and of course a strong reference point for the final grade with Masick. Martin is now in the process of pulling APES into their new camera system to be utilized on the front end. In essence, what this means for the cinematographer is the restoration of Droit Moral: the ability to make images with the same integrity enjoyed when exposing emulsion, and a basic right restored to a craft in the midst of exciting but speed-of-light technological change, where all too often someone besides the artist is making grading decisions. Florian Hoffmeister wanted to restore that right, and the art of cinematography is the better for both his and Florian Martin’s vision. Bringing Truth to Light By Todd Field p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 70 12/6/22 3:34 PM

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM Variations on a Theme For Tár, Christoph Hoffsten, head of camera department for Arri Rental Berlin, customized two variations of Arri Signature Prime lenses. During their testing period, Florian Hoffmeister, BSC and Todd Field found a particular affinity for the quality of the Arriflex/Zeiss Super Speed MKIII (referred to by Field in his sidebar as the “MK” series), but the nature of under- and over-corrected spherical aberration depending on the out-of-focus image in front of or behind the focal plane wasn’t something they liked. It created what Field refers to as “depthof-field issues.” The filmmakers asked Hoffsten to tune the Signature Primes to give the overall feel of the classic Super Speeds, but with a consistent nature of bokeh throughout the image. He created two primary versions of the series, a “Lowres” and a “Lowcon.” For the Lowres variation, Hoffsten reduced the lens’ resolution while maintaining contrast, and added a slight curvature of field with the edges pulling forward (under-corrected). Resolution dropped even more toward the corners of the image without induced coma or astigmatism, but a slight under-corrected spherical aberration. Hoffsten first tested modifications on the Signature Primes that created astigmatism and broke up the symmetry of the bokeh, like the Super Speeds, which he called the “M” variation, but the filmmakers wanted more consistency in the bokeh. Additionally, Hoffsten provided the filmmakers with three options for flare control, starting with the Signature Primes normally and then providing two variations of rear elements that specifically affected image halation: “Halo” and “Diet Halo.” These additional modified-coated elements could be attached to the rear of the lenses via the incorporated rear magnetic system. — Jay Holben Arri Rental Berlin’s head of camera department, Christoph Hoffsten, at work. PHOTOS BY TODD FIELD. p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 71 12/6/22 3:34 PM

72 / JANUARY 2023 TÁR: A MUSICAL ICON’S DESCENT ‘detachment’ —trying to avoid over-stylization, trying to encourage ourselves not to be precious about things, trying to establish a form of immersive observation and daring to let things just play.” In conversations during prep, Hoffmeister was reminded of Germany’s “new objectivity” art movement of the 1920s. He notes, “It was a very conscious movement away from expressionism and romanticism and a return to describe that which can be seen.” The cinematographer was also reminded of the “withdrawn precision” of contemporary German photographers Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky. After months spent testing a multitude of lenses, Hoffmeister recalls the director telling him, “They all have their strengths, but they’re either too clinical or they feel like ‘movie’ with a capital ‘M.’” Ultimately, the duo turned to Arri Rental Berlin’s head of camera department, Christoph Hoffsten, who created a completely custom set of glass for them built upon the architecture of Arri’s Signature Primes, which were paired with all the production’s cameras. (See sidebar, page 71.) They filmed in various formats. “We shot a bit of [Arri Rental] Alexa 65; we shot Arri Alexa Mini LF. We also shot some things in more standard formats, like Super 35, with the Mini LF,” Hoffmeister says. “At times, we would use the large format for the depiction of space, or sometimes for psychological situations — two characters, maybe in a small room. Then, for portraiture or other stuff, we would often default to standard Super 35.” The overall finish was 4K. Working in Concert Hoffmeister estimates that 90 percent of the film was shot either on location or on sets built into locations. The filmmakers were fortunate to Top: Lydia leads a rehearsal with the Berlin Philharmonic, whose musicians were played by the Dresdner Philharmonic orchestra. Bottom: Acoustical panels inside the orchestra’s Kulturpalast concert hall were used to light its stage. BOTTOM PHOTO BY TODD FIELD. “It was a challenge to create the kind of lighting that was desired, because there’s limited space to hang rigs, and we also had to remove rigging for specific shots where you would see the whole space.” p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 72 12/6/22 3:34 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 73 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 73 12/6/22 3:34 PM

74 / JANUARY 2023 TÁR: A MUSICAL ICON’S DESCENT Tech Specs: 2.39:1 Cameras | Arri Alexa Mini LF, Arri Rental Alexa 65 Lenses | Customized Arri Signature Prime find a real concert hall in Dresden — along with their house orchestra, the Dresdner Philharmonic, which performed live with Blanchett conducting and orchestra members acting in supporting parts. Regarding filming in the concert hall, the production designer notes, “We thought it would be a challenge, but because of the amazing efforts of the Dresdner Philharmonic, we were able to take out seats to make space for the crane build and allow for a setup of mini sets that we created in there. We used the backstage area for film logistics. [From a design perspective,] it was super easy to work there.” Bittner Rosser does acknowledge that the hall created logistical hurdles for Hoffmeister, commenting, “It was a challenge to create the kind of lighting that was desired, because there’s limited space to hang rigs, and we also had to remove rigging for specific shots where you would see the whole space.” Hoffmeister notes, however, that the hall’s existing acoustical panels, hung about 3 meters above the musicians, were also used to light the stage — which posed a particular dilemma for the production, as they essentially could not be removed. The cinematographer explains that the panels “have an acoustic function. The musicians can only hear themselves with the right intensity if these panels are at a certain height — so, you cannot just walk in there and say, ‘We have to raise them and hang our own rig.’ The second thing about the panels is that they light the sheet music with a certain luminance, so that the performers can read the sheet music at the pace at which they’re playing.” To avoid re-rigging, Hoffmeister and his crew tried gelling the music-stand lights, but “if we went too thick on a gel, it was like, ‘Movie time!’ It was Top: Lydia conducts before an audience of cosplayers in Southeast Asia. Bottom: Before heading to the location to shoot the scene, key grip Bernd Meyer takes distance measurements. BOTTOM PHOTO BY TODD FIELD. p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 74 12/6/22 3:34 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 75 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM almost like cooking: The smallest ingredients would change the overall flavor.” Ultimately, Hoffmeister says “inventive gaffer Florian Kronenberger came up with a magnet system and just clipped pieces of black duvetyne into the light.” Class Act One tricky scene was Lydia’s master class at Juilliard, where she relentlessly vivisects one student’s opinion. The filmmakers sought to inject the sequence with energy and movement, which also helped to counterpoint the two relatively static scenes that precede it: Lydia’s interview with New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik (playing himself), and her lunch with Kaplan. The filmmakers decided to capture the Juilliard scene in a single shot. Says Hoffmeister, “It was a long scene of more than 10 pages. Originally, Todd and I discussed 35 camera setups. We kept talking about the driving force of this scene being Lydia herself — and how important it was that at this point in the film, the audience is squarely in her POV. These discussions led to the natural conclusion of shooting in one take while still utilizing those 35 camera setups. The only difference would be that there would be no cut. It wasn’t designed as a bravura piece of cinematography, and our hope was that viewers wouldn’t notice — or that if they did, it would be at the point in the scene where they’re so involved that it wouldn’t become a distraction. Todd’s guiding principle for this scene, and all others, was to make sure that we didn’t ‘get caught.’ “At first, we wanted to do the shot with a crane, because Todd and I really loved the precision of movement,” Hoffmeister continues. “For a moment, we thought about hanging a camera from the ceiling, which would have been a complete nightmare.” In the end, key grip Bernd Mayer built his own rig, which allowed him and three of his grips to Lydia’s jog through the woods is disrupted by some frightening nearby noise. carry DJI’s Ronin 2 three-axis head as they were followed by 1st AC Alexis Kostudis and boom operators Thomas Wallis and Tim Müller. “There was no place to hide in that room,” says Hoffmeister, “so Todd, camera operator Danny Bishop and I were tucked away in a tiny backstage hallway where Danny operated from a remote gear head. I still remember the first take, because it ran for more than 10 minutes and it was almost perfect. The performance was just breathtaking, but there was a slight technical issue on our end. So, unfortunately, that take was unusable.” Hoffmeister gives credit to Field and Blanchett for their esprit de corps. “It was nobody’s fault — it just happened, and we did it again,” he says. “It was clear we were all part of this adventure.” Over the next two days, they did 12 more takes. “It was a huge commitment for all of us, but in the end, we got precisely what Todd wanted.” The Little Things Asked about other demanding shots, the cinematographer replies, “Sometimes, it’s the little things that are the most challenging.” He explains that while “we can talk for hours about the crane shot when Lydia kicks [her replacement conductor] off the stage, or about the 10-minute single-shot sequence,” the film’s spareness and subtlety are its defining qualities. Hoffmeister paraphrases Russian writer Isaac Babel, author of the famous short-story collection Red Cavalry, who once said about his own work, “‘A story is finished when you can’t cut a single word out of it anymore.’ That compression is the way Todd made the film.” p. 66-75 Tar V5.indd 75 12/6/22 3:34 PM

76 / JANUARY 2023 An Eye on Cinema Still photographer and ASC associate member Douglas Kirkland, who favored subjects that work in front of or behind the motion-picture camera, died Oct. 2 in Los Angeles at the age of 88. Born Aug. 16, 1934, in Fort Erie, Ontario, Kirkland fell in love with photography as a teenager. He pursued his interest tirelessly, studying photography at a vocational high school in Buffalo, N.Y., and taking any photography job he could find. In 1957, he moved to New York and landed a job assisting legendary photographer Irving Penn. “I was learning a lot but not earning enough to live in New York indefinitely,” he told AC in 2011. He moved back to Remembering Douglas Kirkland, whose expert photography documents five decades of motion-picture history. By Jon Silberg PORTRAIT BY DANA FINEMAN. ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF DOUGLAS AND FRANÇOISE KIRKLAND. p. 76-79 Kirkland V5.indd 76 12/4/22 6:48 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 77 This page, clockwise from top left: Kirkland with his son, Mark, on location with Tom Sawyer in 1972; captured by unit photographer Melissa Sue Gordon, SMPSP on the set of Titanic in 1996; shooting Marilyn Monroe during one of his most famous sessions, in 1961. Buffalo, where he shot in a product-advertising studio. Within a year, he headed back to New York to hunt for a staff job at a magazine. Competition was fierce. His early gigs included freelancing for Chemical Week, Business Week, Popular Photography and a boating magazine. In January 1960, Kirkland received a call from Arthur Rothstein, the director of photography at Look magazine. There were two new staff openings, the first in 15 years. Kirkland tried out and landed one of them. “I had just turned 25, and this was an unimaginable break,” he said. “I was hired to do fashion and color,” he explained. “Shooting color was a specialty then. Color photography in those days meant transparencies, and you had to get the exposure absolutely perfect. Remember, Look hadn’t hired anybody in many years, and most of them were used to shooting a black-and-white negative and having the ability to alter it in the darkroom. I was ‘the new generation.’” p. 76-79 Kirkland V5.indd 77 12/4/22 6:48 PM

78 / JANUARY 2023 AN EYE ON CINEMA Not long after Look hired him, he was asked to accompany a writer who was going to interview Elizabeth Taylor. It was 1961, and Taylor was among the biggest movie stars of the day. “She had agreed to the interview but said she didn’t want to do any pictures,” Kirkland recalled. “My editor said, ‘Go and see if you can persuade her to let you photograph her.’” Resolute but respectful, the young photographer approached Taylor and told her he was new to Look. “I said, ‘Imagine what it would mean if you would give me the opportunity to photograph you.’ She paused, then said, ‘Come back tomorrow night at 8:30.’ My picture of her became my first Look cover, and it ran in magazines all over the world. It really put me on the map.” Soon, he was photographing Judy Garland, Shirley MacLaine, Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe, among others. That led to work on film sets, where Kirkland did what was known as “special photography” for glossy publications and movie studios. “[When I started,] unit photographers were generally shooting black-and-white with Rolleis and just one focal length. They couldn’t get dramatic effects or really capture the essence and the look of a film,” which is what magazines wanted. Kirkland was sent to the set to capture staged setups and behind-thescenes material that met those expectations. Kirkland’s “special photography” assignments included The Sound of Music, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Titanic, Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby (2013). “I have a fascination with the power of cinema and watching how it all works,” he said. “I learned so much watching cinematographers work ... The ideas about light that I’ve learned on movie sets have affected me enormously.” Kirkland became an associate member of the ASC on Nov. 6, 2001 — making him the first still photographer to receive an invitation. He was recommended by Society members Woody Omens, Owen Roizman and Steven Poster. Kirkland’s work was consistently featured in the pages of AC in Eastman Kodak Co.’s long-running “On Film” ad campaign, which put cinematographers in his (soft) spotlight. More than 200 cinematographers sat for Kirkland, among them ASC members John A. Alonzo, Don Burgess, Joan Churchill, George Spiro Dibie, Darius Khondji, Ellen Kuras, Reed Morano, Robert Richardson, Nancy Schreiber, Dante Spinotti, John Toll, Haskell Wexler and Gordon Willis. “Those shoots were a series of parties,” recalls Kirkland’s wife and partner, Françoise, who participated in many of the sessions. “Douglas was so inspired by all of them.” In 2011, Kirkland was honored with the ASC Presidents Award in recognition of his contributions to advancing the art of filmmaking through his still photography. “For me,” he said, “the ASC is the singular heart of the industry.” From top: One of Kirkland’s first celebrity shoots was with actress Elizabeth Taylor in 1961; with cinematographer Mandy Walker, ASC, ACS in 2007, during production of the feature Australia; shooting a portrait of renowned French cinematographer Raoul Coutard, AFC in 2010. cinegearexpo.com p. 76-79 Kirkland V5.indd 78 12/4/22 6:48 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 79 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM cinegearexpo.com p. 76-79 Kirkland V5.indd 79 12/4/22 6:48 PM

80 / JANUARY 2023 New Products and Services For more of our latest tech reports, visit ascmag.com/articles/new-products SmallHD Includes EL Zone in PageOS 5 Update SmallHD’s latest PageOS 5 firmware update includes EL Zone, developed by Ed Lachman, ASC. EL Zone works like a full-screen light meter by representing steps above and below 18-percent gray in stops rather than IRE percentages. Sensor data from the camera provides an instant reference point.  With the update, Tetrahedral LUT interpolation will also be available on all SmallHD monitor series, and a digital horizon indicator will be available for all devices. For SmallHD Cine and OLED 4K Production Monitors, PageOS 5 offers Multi-View, enabling the monitoring of up to four camera feeds at once and the assigning of multiple scopes or software tools in customizable layouts. A Calman calibration integration allows users to connect a computer with a calibration probe running Portrait Displays to their 4K monitor via ethernet for autocalibration, and then upload a calibration LUT directly into the monitor. For more information, visit smallhd.com. Cooke Releases 19-40mm Varotal Cooke Optics has added a 19-40mm zoom lens to its T2.9 Varotal/i FF range.   All Varotal/i FF zooms deliver the “Cooke Look,” offering natural, flattering skin tone and character, and match Cooke S8/i FF and S7/i FF prime lenses.  The 19-40mm lens is the widest of the three Varotal/i FFs and slightly lighter at 7.7 pounds. As the widest zoom with suitable close focus of 320mm, the new lens is ideal for Steadicam work.  Cooke /i Technology connectivity is provided to both camera and the Lemo connection on the side of the lens.   For more information, visit cookeoptics.com. STORARO REMEMBERS BERTOLUCCI Presented in Italian and English, the 300-page book Vittorio Storaro on Bernardo Bertolucci Movies offers a candid look at one of modern cinema’s most celebrated cinematographerdirector working relationships. In it, the ASC great recounts his personal experiences while making their nine feature films together: Before the Revolution (1964, on which Storaro served as camera assistant for Aldo Scavarda), The Spider’s Stratagem (1970), The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972), 1900 (1976), Luna (1979), The Last Emperor (1987), The Sheltering Sky (1990) and Little Buddha (1993). A limited number of copies signed by Storaro are available from the ASC Store. Go to store.ascmag.com p. 80-83 New Products V5.indd 80 12/4/22 6:50 PM Storaro Book - Ad.indd 4 7/1/22 5:30 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 81 STORARO REMEMBERS BERTOLUCCI Presented in Italian and English, the 300-page book Vittorio Storaro on Bernardo Bertolucci Movies offers a candid look at one of modern cinema’s most celebrated cinematographerdirector working relationships. In it, the ASC great recounts his personal experiences while making their nine feature films together: Before the Revolution (1964, on which Storaro served as camera assistant for Aldo Scavarda), The Spider’s Stratagem (1970), The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972), 1900 (1976), Luna (1979), The Last Emperor (1987), The Sheltering Sky (1990) and Little Buddha (1993). A limited number of copies signed by Storaro are available from the ASC Store. Go to store.ascmag.com p. 80-83 New Products V5.indd 81 Storaro Book - Ad.indd 4 12/4/22 6:50 PM 7/1/22 5:30 PM

82 / JANUARY 2023 NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES 818.848.5522 • pro8mm.com CAMERAS. FILM. PROCESSING. SCANNING. Your Super 8 and 16mm Film Lab for 50 years Wireless Solution Unveils W-DMX MicroBox G6 Wireless Solution has released the W-DMX MicroBox G6.  The new solution comes in the same form factor as its predecessor but has been enhanced with Bluetooth connectivity for configuration (using the W-DMX Configurator app) and optional CRMX support for increased compatibility. For more information, visit wirelessdmx. com. Sigma Announces 18-50mm Contemporary for Fujifilm X Mount Sigma Corp. of America has announced the 18-50mm F2.8 DC DN Contemporary lens for Fujifilm X Mount mirrorless cameras.  Sigma has developed a control algorithm, including AF drive and communicationspeed optimization, specifically for X Mount interchangeable lenses. In addition to realizing high-speed AF, the lens also supports AF-C (Continuous AF) and in-camera aberration correction. The mount is rubber-sealed to facilitate use in a variety of environments. The lens offers a zoom range of 27-75mm in the 35mm format and an aperture of F2.8 throughout the entire range, a minimum focusing distance of 4.7", and a maximum magnification of 1:2.8. For more information, visit sigmaphoto.com. p. 80-83 New Products V5.indd 82 12/4/22 6:50 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 83 ETC ColorSource V Adds Multiverse Wireless DMX/RDM City Theatrical has announced that its Multiverse wireless DMX/RDM technology has been incorporated into ETC’s ColorSource V product line for live-entertainment lighting. Multiverse wireless DMX/RDM technology is currently offered as onboard wireless DMX technology native to many ETC light fixtures as part of an OEM manufacturing partnership. The Multiverse wireless DMX/RDM system can broadcast as many as 10 universes of DMX data from a single Multiverse Transmitter while producing less radio energy than present-day single-universe systems. For more information, visit etcconnect.com. Ad Index AC Manual 87 AC Subscription 6 ASC First 100 Years 86 Arri Inc. 45 Arri Rental 53 Brompton Technology (Carallon Ltd.) 65 Chimera Lighting 83 Cine Gear 79 Cooke Optics 47 Creamsource 49 Creative Solutions / SmallHD 61 CTI Media 13 Focus Features 3, 9, 21 HBO/HBOMax 13 NBC Universal Pictures C2, 1, 25 Netflix 7, C4 Panavision C3 Paramount Pictures 17, 29 Pro8mm 82 Rip Tie 82 ROE Visual Co. LTD 59 Samy’s DV & Edit 41 Searchlight Pictures 15, 19 Sony Electronics 37 Sony Pictures 31 Sony Pictures Classics 69, 71 StandardVision / SV Studios 63 Storaro Book 81 The Studio – B&H 73 United Artists Releasing 11, 23 Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 51, 57 Warner Bros. 5 p. 80-83 New Products V5.indd 83 12/4/22 6:50 PM

84 / JANUARY 2023 Clubhouse News Latest Bulletins From the Society Hirsch Whitaker Invited Into ASC Membership Raised by parents who helped establish the Santa Monica Museum of Art (now the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), Nicole Hirsch Whitaker was deeply immersed in fine arts during her youth. After earning a BFA at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, she began working as a still photographer. Inspired documentaries Girl Rising (for which she shared a News & Documentary Emmy nomination with six other cinematographers) and Cobain: Montage of Heck (which also featured cinematography by her husband, James Whitaker, ASC, and Eric Edwards). She recently shot the Netflix adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece in South Africa. Previously, she worked in the U.K. and Ireland on the Apple streaming series Bad by avant-garde and European films, she became interested in cinematography and transitioned into shooting commercials, where her credits include spots for Apple, Nike, Pepsi, Toyota, Target, Sony and Honda. Eventually, she began shooting 2nd unit on features, including Thank You for Smoking, Running Scared, Coach Carter and The Cooler. Hirsch Whitaker earned acclaim for her camerawork in the Sisters with showrunner/writer Sharon Horgan and director Dearbhla Walsh. Hirsch Whitaker’s narrative projects also include Shining Vale, Jupiter’s Legacy, On the Verge, Patriot, Truth Be Told and Perpetual Grace, LTD. p. 84-87 Clubhouse News V3.indd 84 12/4/22 6:51 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 85 ASC Members Assemble Polly Morgan, ASC recently convened a luncheon at the Clubhouse for her Society colleagues. Pictured (from left) are attendees Kira Kelly, Ava Berkofsky, Rachel Morrison, Nancy Schreiber, Shana Hagan, Morgan, Cynthia Pusheck and Arlene Nelson. Morgan Joins Television Academy Hall of Fame Ten-time Primetime Emmy-Award winner Donald A. Morgan, ASC was recently inducted into the 26th Television Academy Hall of Fame, along with Debbie Allen, Ken Burns, Bob Daly, Robert L. Johnson and Rita Moreno. The Hall of Fame honors persons who have made outstanding contributions in the arts, sciences or management of television over a lifetime career or via singular achievements. The ceremony took place Nov. 16 at the Saban Media Center in North Hollywood. Morgan has been a director of photography and lighting director on such series as The Conners, The Ranch, Last Man Standing, Home Improvement, Saved by the Bell, The Golden Girls, Mr. Belvedere, Three’s Company, The Jeffersons and Good Times. He was honored with the ASC Career Achievement in Television Award in 2020. p. 84-87 Clubhouse News V3.indd 85 12/4/22 6:52 PM

86 / JANUARY 2023 Clubhouse News Poster Honored at Ojai Film Fest Steven Poster, ASC participated in a seminar at the Ojai Film Festival in recognition of his Distinguished SFSU Students Visit Clubhouse The ASC Education and Outreach Committee, co-chaired by Society members Paul Maibaum and George Mooradian, recently welcomed film students from San Francisco State University to the ASC Clubhouse for a panel discussion. The gathering was a lively affair and included ASC members Bruce Logan, Dave Perkal and John Artist Award. The presentation took place in November and featured an interview with Poster and an audience Q&A. The cinematographer discussed his work as president of ICG and the ASC, and his current endeavors with 6P color technology. The discussion then turned to his filmmaking career, focusing on his collaborations with directors Ridley Scott on Someone to Watch Over Me, Patrice Leconte on Half a Chance, Richard Kelly on Donnie Darko, and Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas on Strange Brew. The seminar was moderated by AC managing editor Andrew Fish. Simmons, who joined Maibaum and Mooradian in sharing their expertise and experiences with the group. Pictured in the ASC Arri Education Center with the students are (back row, from left) Logan, Maibaum, Perkal, AC researcher-writer Tara Jenkins, Mooradian and SFSU School of Cinema professor Weimin Zhang. (Simmons had to depart before the photo was taken.) PHOTO BY TERRY MCCARTHY, COURTESY OF THE ASC. OUR FIRST 100YEARS Expanded Second Edition LIMITED PRINTING Published by the ASC Press, this album-size hardback book chronicles the history of the American Society of Cinematographers in celebration of the organization’s centennial (1919-2019), with profiles on its 15 founders and many outstanding members. With 204 pages, this expanded second edition adds new profiles and more rare photographs, including a special presentation of 50 new ASC members inducted since 2019 — who will help shape the organization for the next 100 years. Featured ASC cinematographers include Néstor Almendros, John A. Alonzo, Michael Ballhaus, Michael Chapman, Stanley Cortez, Allen Daviau, Arthur Edeson, William A. Fraker, Conrad L. Hall, James Wong Howe, Halyna Hutchins, Judy Irola, László Kovács, Andrew Lesnie, Russell Metty, Arthur C. Miller, Brianne Murphy, Nicholas Musuraca, Sven Nykvist, Giuseppe Rotunno, Harris Savides, John F. Seitz, Leon Shamroy, Harry Stradling Sr., Karl Struss, Robert L. Surtees, Gregg Toland, Joseph Walker, Haskell Wexler, Gordon Willis, Vilmos Zsigmond, and many more. This new second edition is limited to 1,000 copies. Available now at store.ascmag.com p. 84-87 Clubhouse News V3.indd 86 12/4/22 6:52 PM

JANUARY 2023 / 87 More Cinematographer-Director Conversations This issue’s theme of cinematographer-director collaborations continues online with several notable pairings in the ASC’s popular Clubhouse Conversations interview series. Recent filmmaker teams scheduled for the series include Mandy Walker, ASC, ACS and Baz Luhrmann, detailing their approach to Elvis (AC Dec. ’22) in an interview with Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS; Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and Ron Howard (pictured above), discussing their work on Thirteen Lives (which will also be covered in the Feb. 2023 issue of AC) with Chris Manley, ASC; Robert Richardson, ASC and Antoine Fuqua analyzing Emancipation with Shelly Johnson, ASC; and Todd Field and Florian Hoffmeister, BSC, expanding upon their comments in this issue about Tár (see feature article on page 66) in a talk with Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC. All scheduled participants are subject to availability. To access the interviews, visit ascmag.com/ videos/clubhouse-conversations. AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER MANUAL NEW EDITION! 4 The revised 11th edition of this essential technical reference is now exclusively available for pre-order from the American Society of Cinematographers. Containing entirely new chapters and substantial rewrites of entries from the previous edition, this hardback book designed for on-set use is a must-have for cinematographers and other motion-imaging professionals. Edited by M. David Mullen, ASC and ASC associate member Rob Hummel, contributors to this edition include Society members Bill Bennett, Christopher Chomyn, Richard Crudo, Richard Edlund, John C. Hora, Levie Isaacks, Dennis Muren, James Neihouse, Sam Nicholson, Steven Poster, Christopher Probst, Pete Romano, Roberto Schaefer and David Stump. Topics covered in this new edition of our “filmmaker’s bible” include: • Evaluating digital cameras • Taking ownership of your sensor • The color science behind modern lighting instruments • Virtual production/emissive screens • Digital versions of day-for-night and infrared cinematography • Imax/large-format cinematography • Specialty lenses • Variable frame rates • ASC Color-Decision List (ASC CDL) • Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) Order today — for yourself or as a gift — at store.ascmag.com GET YOUR COPY NOW! p. 84-87 Clubhouse News V3.indd 87 12/4/22 6:52 PM

Wrap Shot True Lies (1994) Russell Carpenter, ASC (left) and director James Cameron (center) work out a shot on location for the action-packed spy tale True Lies — their first collaboration, which was followed by the special-venue project T2-3D: Battle Across Time, the epic drama Titanic and now Avatar: The Way of Water . “Working for Jim is like playing the toughest room in Vegas. Because he’s such a perfec - tionist, and because of the massive scale of his pictures, you know that some days are going to be agony,” Carpenter told American Cinematographer in the magazine’s Septem - ber 1994 cover story on True Lies, written by Stephen Pizzello. “But when I watched the finished film, all I could think was, ‘My God, it was all worth it.’ It’s not often that you get the chance to create images that no one has ever seen before.” Of the complexity of the shoot, Carpenter chuckled, “When you see Harrier jets and helicopters listed under ‘equipment,’ you know it’s going to be a tough day.”  When asked why he chose Carpenter over more well-known cinematographers, Cameron replied, “Dialogue. I’ve got to work with a di - rector of photography I can talk to, and whom I feel has something on the ball creatively. My reason for going with Russ wasn’t so much his past work — though that was sound — but his enthusiasm and willingness to try new things. I had actually interviewed Russ for another film, The Crowded Room. He came back to me with a booklet of photos that he’d cut out of magazines, saying, ‘This is the look I think we should use for this, or that.’ Even though I didn’t necessarily agree with him on all those things, I saw that he at least had an opinion and a vision. He brought something to the table, and I respected that.”  — David E. Williams PHOTO BY ZADE ROSENTHAL, SMPSP. COURTESY OF THE ASC ARCHIVE. 88 / JANUARY 2023 p. 88 Wrap Shot V3.indd 88 12/4/22 6:52 PM

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AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER (ASC), COVER 4 ISSUE: DIRECTORS NETFLIX: BARDO PUB DATE: 12/28 TRIM: 9” X 10.875” BLEED: 9.25” X 11.125” FILM.NETFLIXAWARDS.COM OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY (Feature Film) FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION Cover 4_OBC.indd 1 12/4/22 5:30 PM