American Cinematographer - January 2017 - 72
◗
Stellar Calculations
Top: The visionary trio attend a church service with their families. Middle: Walker looks through
the viewfinder as director Theodore Melfi (wearing baseball cap) guides actress Zani Jones
Mbayise (portraying a young Kathy Johnson) through a math-focused scene. Bottom: Cast and
crew ready a party scene in which Mary Jackson dances with Levi Jackson (Aldis Hodge).
72
January 2017
American Cinematographer
the space race between the U.S. and
the Soviet Union - and, always,
pervasive racism and sexism. "We felt
widescreen was the only way to tell the
intimate story of these women against
the backdrop of such an explosive
age."
Walker was equally keen on the
artifacts of the format, including "the
bokeh - the way lights go out of
focus in the background while still
permitting you to control the dropoff," she explains. "Anamorphic lenses
can be very deep-focus with plenty of
light, but you can also lessen the depth
of field when you want to focus the
viewer's eye on something." Because
some portion of the film was shot on
wide-angle lenses, the edges of the
frames were as designed as the centers.
Walker and Melfi envisaged a
soft, nostalgic look for the film, but
also wanted the story to feel "real."
They found their inspiration in still
photographs from the late 1950s and
early '60s, most notably the works of
Gordon Parks, Saul Leiter, Danny
Lyons and Inge Morath. Leiter -
famous for his muted palettes in
which one color, often red or blue,
stood out - directly affected Hidden
Figures' style. "Our backgrounds were
gray and olive green, the colors of
NASA's walls, but primary and
secondary colors popped out," says
Walker. Much of the color came from
the women's clothing. The emeraldgreen dress Johnson wears in one
scene makes her, in the cinematographer's words, "stand out like a jewel" in
a sea of white shirts and gray slacks. A
turquoise sweater she wears in another
scene provides an equally startling
contrast.
"Many of the old stills we referenced had been shot on Kodachrome
stock, which captured both the softness, elegance and color palette that
we were striving for," observes Walker.
In addition to the photographs,
films served as inspiration - specifically Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas (shot
by Robby Müller, NSC, BVK) for its
sense of composition, as well as Götz
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2017
Contents
American Cinematographer - January 2017 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - January 2017 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - January 2017 - 1
American Cinematographer - January 2017 - 2
American Cinematographer - January 2017 - Contents
American Cinematographer - January 2017 - 4
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American Cinematographer - January 2017 - 48a
American Cinematographer - January 2017 - 48b
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