American Cinematographer - March 2007 - 70

True Grit
After

winning

dation for his

longtime collabora¬
friendship with Young.
"Em grateful that Roger found a way
to give me what I needed on that

the ASC Award

tion and

for the telefilm

Dillinger,

Morgan (left) is
in good
company at

show. Since then, we've

the

Society's 1992
event

with

fellow winner
Allen Daviau,

ASC

(right) and
Society
President
William A.

Fraker. Below:
Actor Mark
Harmon and

Morgan hoist
their

respective
while

weapons

filming
Dillinger on
location in
Milwaukee.

key inspiration to his approach.
Shooting in and around Atlanta,
Georgia, Morgan sought "a period
look without being too obvious, and
it's a gritty look because we wanted

finally caught the boys and killed
them, I again let the car headlights
do a lot of the lighting." This is not
to say there was not a lot of addi¬

reflect the drama," he told AC in

[murder scene] was in a very heavy
forest, so we had to cable and back¬

a

to

May 1990. "I think the biggest light¬
ing challenge was shooting from a
camera

car

for

a

chase

through

a

series of backroads. We didn't need
to light the cars because the one
behind would silhouette the one in

front. We

just let them light each

other, which gave the scene a very
real feel. Then, as [the supremacists]

tional illumination, however: "The

done 13

projects together."
The 1991 period crime drama
Dillinger offered Morgan the oppor¬
tunity to work with Mark Harmon,
who played Prohibition-era gang¬
ster John Dillinger with gusto while
filming on location in Milwaukee.
Encouraged by director Rupert
Wainwright, Morgan employed a lot
of techniques used in music videos
but seldom in long-form narratives.
"We're using low-angle prisms,
remote

with

jib

HotHeads, and crab dollies
arms

for

robberies, where

some

we

of the bank

start

with

a

low

an area that was almost half a
long. We had to do this from
the ground because the brush was
too thick to bring in parallels, yet we

angle, do a crane move, and sudden¬
ly go from two feet off the ground to
10 feet in the air," Morgan told AC in
October 1990. "It adds a dynamic
quality to the action, and I took this
job because I didn't want to allow
myself to become dated." In a recent

make it look like natural

interview, he noted, "I loved the way

tough." The
Morgan Emmy and

toplight would deeply shadow
and leave his face like a
mask, very mysterious, and I always
tried to work that toplight into the
robbery scenes. Well, the [ABC]

light
mile

had

to

moonlight. It
results earned
ASC

was

awards, and also laid the foun¬

a

Mark's eyes

executives went nuts. 'It's Mark

his eyes!'
his eyes in
other scenes, and Mark supported
my approach because it helped his
Harmon,

we

they said. But

character,

need to
we

do

see

see

so we went

results earned

with it." The

Morgan another ASC

Award.
Another

dark

chapter in
history unfolded in the
1997 telefilm Miss Evers' Boys, which
Morgan shot for Sargent. The HBO
project recounts the U.S. govern¬
ment's secret 1932-'72 "Tuskegee
Experiment," in which black male
citizens suffering from syphilis were
deliberately subjected to the ravages

American

of the disease. "There
can

touch
not

68 March 2007

are

do in television that

stories you
will

no one

feature because

they're
profitable - meaningful stories
as a
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