All language subtitles for 15 - Understanding Cinematography

there's so much to know that you don't know

um and I always found this to be

something about film making

no matter what the technology is

you shouldn't be cowed by the technology

you shouldn't be cowed by the

the process in a sense

you should have

the kind of passion and bravery and ignorance

I think to a certain extent

of wanting to get something done

you know it

because if you really thought about making a picture

if you really thought about it step by step you never

you never do it

it's always a situation where you wind up like

three days into shooting or so

two days and you say

what have I done

what was I thinking

but you have to do it

when it came to light

I never really understood light

I still really don't um

I don't really need to

I don't think

I never really became something that was

uh prominent um uh

in designing scenes I uh

I think a lot of that had to do

took me years to

to understand

a lot of that had to do where I grew up

I grew up in the

actually the tenements

and on Elizabeth Street in the 19

late 40s or to the 50s and to the 60s

and basically all I needed to know

there was daylight at night

yeah I didn't really

it was dark

it was dark

there was maybe a light bulb in the hallway yeah um

it wasn't complaining about

any deprivation of nature's beauty

it was where you were

and it had its own beauty

you know yes

there's a nuance that I did learn on a daylight

and a daylight situation

that could be clouds

and that could be sun

I got that but aside from that

where the sun is

and where things to be shot at a certain time of day

I really don't

I still don't know

I still don't know

maybe that's why

I like a lot of British cinematographers too

because the overcast in the

in that country

but many of that

I Learned to work very closely with

directors of photography over the years

and in designing the shots

they would add the element of light

I would change

I would work it

I began to understand something about it

and so this is something that I think can be

if not Learned

um can be uh

coexist with the uh

necessity of making the film

you deal with it

you if you don't know something ask

try it you know

learn as much as you may forget afterwards

but you learn a little bit each time

a little more

but it's something that shouldn't stop you

if there are certain elements of actual production

or how to get an image on screen or how to tell a story

um you'll find your way through

Freddy's work

I had seen as a cinematographer

but also he was camera operator on tales of Hoffman

and a couple of other films of Paul Pressburger

so he came out of that group and got to know him a bit

um I was there

the night he won the Academy Award for glory

and said he was looking for a job

and so I thought of possibly

working with them on this film Cape Fear

which was a

film I hadn't planned to make

and was an attempt at trying to make a

extend or enrich a genre

so to speak or

or revise a genre possibly

I don't know

but in any event

Freddy agreed to do it

and Freddy had

he had a set of five lenses that he used um

on the innocence

for example

like I think

I think I'm sons and lovers

I'm not quite sure

but must have been

but in any event

certainly the innocents

um which is a beautiful film um

that Jack Clayton directed

based on turn of the

The Turn of the Screw

Henry James

Deborah Carr

extraordinary focus in the film

in black and white scope

black and white anamorphic

but extraordinary deep focal length in this picture

and there's Deborah Carr

walking to the halls of this Victorian house

um dark she's wearing a black

a black dress

which is very full

but everything's in crisp

crisp focus

and I asked him

how did he achieve that

and he said he shot at F11

which meant that it was the smallest opening

and that means he had to pump in more light

and I didn't fully understand this until later

on Cape Fear

when I would ask for certain scenes

to be even more focused in terms of the characters

this character in focus with that one and this one

he said I he would always tell me why

I think I can give you what you want

if you give me a few moments

which we did

that's when I fully understood um

the impact of

the intensity of light

to focus of the screen and focus of the image

imagine Greg Tolen or best years of our lives

a citizen gained

all that deep

vocal length work must have incorporated extraordinary

uh lighting

um the heat of the lighting

the intensity and uh

I mean naturally

you're talking to

you know somebody here who uh

I'm I'm speaking from a different experience I I

the impulse for me to make movies was

the New York independent cinema

Cassa Eddie

Shirley Clarke

very often um

a number of people who did those

from something Bear Bryant shot

Cool World very often we using available light

this is inspired from the French New Wave

that sort of thing

available light is always

isn't always available light by the way

there's always some fill or something like that

but many of that

it was lighter equipment

I didn't understand the necessity of arc lights

and the power of the heat

for focus and so on

Cape Fear that

that was a revelation

he had a sense of

transforming the image

there was a moment in another words a shot of an eye

I would say a shot of two eyes person looking

there's a shot of two eyes unless you interpret it

yeah one point I remember very clearly

I designed this action sequence at the end of the film

in a storm at Cape Fear

the actual Cape Fear

boats are flying around

house boats and that sort of thing

prior to the

the boat breaking

there's Nick Nolty staring through the window

through Venetian blinds

a storm tossed houseboat of his wife

played by Jessica Lyon

being terrorized by Robert De Niros

Max Katie um

and I said he's

he's out there

he's looking through the window

there's Venetian blinds were on the eyes

and there's um

rain hitting the window

so it's streaking and that sort of thing

and we lined up the shot in

in anamorphic and two eyes

and I told Freddy

it doesn't feel right it doesn't

it's just a shot of two eyes looking through window

and so he said

one eye I said

what do you mean he said

just show one eye

when he did that

it took on some other aspect

and that is that

it was like something from the ocean depths

when you didn't quite know what it was at first

and you realize it's an eye covered

with the raindrops covered with the shadow light

all kinds of things

so that it it

it created a mystery um

understanding of how to tell a story with pictures

that was extraordinary for that

for that mood and tone

and from the one I

we tracked out I believe

but this is the kind of thing

it was really

kind of a learning experience for me and I

I also kind of bothered him a lot

because I would ask him

about how he shot certain things in his films

and then say

well we have to get going

cause will you give me a few minutes

and stop asking me questions

I could work so um

but he was extremely um um

gentlemanly about it um

and the it reminds me of the story

and I've just been

telling some people about this for a while now

but he was the camera operator on this

valiant effort to do a version of Moby Dick

that John Euston did 1956

but on that film

Freddy was camera operator

and he was told at one point by Euston to

go and get a few shots of whales

in the North Sea

and obviously

sending to the spot where the whales are in

the fins come up

and that sort of thing

and you know

three script

Technicolor

big camera and he brought it back

he went there

shot it brought it back to London

they screened it

and he looked at Houston

Houston said well

it's a shot of a whale

right it had very little interpretation

and so um this is the lesson I Learned

it is still

it's simply saying okay

we're gonna get a shot at the door

we're gonna get a shot at the car

well what's the angle

what's the light

is it moving

is not moving

I've seen that sometimes

where I start to work on an image

of a telephone

for example

infinite amount of ways to do that

I'm talking about a landline

infinite amount of ways

and it needs a lot of thought yeah

which leads to the use of inserts

which leads to press on

and Hitchcock and a number of others but

with Freddy

it was a very

very interesting experience because it took me to the

um the old prose in a way

as opposed to other directors of photography

I've been working with up to that time

um not to to not saying

not to to say that one was superior to the other

it's a different thing