American Cinematographer - April 2008 - 114

Clubhouse News so much humanity in it, it’s so deeply felt, you stay focused on the characters.” Deakins said he also marveled at Melville’s ability to balance economy with creative daring. “It’s a hell of a thing to make a film of such breadth on such a low budget,” said the cinematographer, who has mingled independent productions with studio features throughout his career. “Another thing I love is that all through the film, there’s experimentation — stuff Godard was doing in more extreme forms.” Although his own dislike for zoom lenses has been well documented, Deakins acknowledged with a laugh that some of Melville’s now-famous zooms work: “Some are horrible, and some are really good.” Noting the diversity of Deakins’ most recent credits — In the Valley of Elah, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men — Hanson asked the cinematographer what attracts him to a project. “It’s always the script,” said Deakins. “I like character pieces, really.” As for the type of film he would most like to try: “I’d love to do science fiction, but not the science fiction that’s being made today. I want to do Soylent Green.” — Rachael Bosley UCLA Puts Abbott in Spotlight The late, great, photographiceffects artist L.B. Abbott, ASC was celebrated throughout March with the UCLA Film & Television Archive series “Wire, Tape and Rubber Band Style: The Effects of L.B. Abbott.” Among the features screened were The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Cleopatra (1963), Fantastic Voyage (1966), The Boston Strangler (1968) and Towering Inferno (1974). The longtime head of the specialeffects department at 20th Century Fox, Abbott won Academy Awards for his contributions to Doctor Dolittle (1967) and Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and was honored by the Academy with Special Achievement Awards for The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Logan’s Run (1976). MoMA Pays Tribute to Churchill New York’s Museum of Modern Art recently paid tribute to documentary filmmaker Joan Churchill, ASC with the series “Joan Churchill: Tribute to a Distinguished Director and Cinematographer.” Churchill participated in Q&As following screenings of Punishment Park (1971), Juvenile Liaison (1975), Soldier Girls (1981) and Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003). Industry Loses O’Connor Chadwell O’Connor, the father of the counterbalanced fluid-drag camera head, recently died at the age of 92. O’Connor made his first fluid-head camera support for personal use, filming home movies of steam locomotives. A chance meeting with fellow train enthusiast Walt Disney helped propel O’Connor’s engineering prowess into a full-fledged business, and over the years, O’Connor Engineering produced thousands of fluid heads and tripods. “I can remember the first time I got my hands on a professional movie camera, and there was the ubiquitous O’Connor Fluid Head sitting right underneath it,” recalls Steven B. Poster, ASC. “Chad’s insight and invention will be missed by all of us who take camera operating seriously.” O’Connor was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a 1976 Sci-Tech Award and a 1993 Oscar. In 1994, the Society of Camera Operators feted him with a Technical Achievement Award. I Melville Inspires Deakins Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC recently attracted a capacity crowd to the Hammer Museum’s Billy Wilder Theater when he presented Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows (1969) as part of “The Movie That Inspired Me,” an ongoing series sponsored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and curated by director Curtis Hanson. Following a screening of the French Resistance drama, which was restored and re-released to great acclaim in 2006, Deakins recalled the impression it made on him when he first saw it while attending art school in England. “I was just getting into stills photography and was most inspired by [photographers] who were able to capture reality, street photographers like Roger Mayne,” he told Hanson. “Melville’s film has a similar, almost documentary quality. It’s like watching a meticulous, methodical reenactment of something, and [the pacing] feels almost like real time. “The world he creates feels totally real, yet when you step back and look at it, it’s pretty stylized,” he observed, referring to Melville’s penchant for using painted backdrops, rear-projection and models without high regard for photorealism. “But there’s just 114 April 2008

American Cinematographer - April 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - April 2008