American Cinematographer - April 2009 - 72

Sundance 2009: 5 That Thrived not be horrendously hard, and let me shoot 360 degrees.’ Otherwise, you get in trouble.” A vérité cinematographer’s first priority, he notes, is listening. “That’s the biggest complaint I get from editors about cameramen. Of course, you don’t have to follow the voice — if you did, you’d be like a Ping-Pong ball — but you have to know what’s going on and make the right decisions. The only way to do that is by listening to what’s happening.” The second priority is understanding the editing process. A vérité scene has to stand on its own, and it’s the cameraman’s job to provide the ingredients. He explains, “If you shoot over and over in the same location, you’ve been getting cutaways, and you start thinking you got the cutaways for this scene because you’ve shot in this room in what seemed like this scene. But no, you have to do that all over again. You have to keep yourself fresh.” Richman never considers himself the proverbial fly on the wall. “That’s a conceit that isn’t true. What happens is that your subjects become collaborators.” That spirit is on full display in a scene in The September Issue that shows Coddington devilishly recruiting Richman for a fashion spread. Photographed jumping with his camera, Richman becomes part of the film, shattering the illusion of invisibility. A more private acknowledgement of Richman’s rapport with his subjects occurred after the final interview with Wintour. The cinematographer recalls that when Cutler asked Wintour what she thought of the filming process, “she said, ‘Well, everyone was very nice and respectful, and they will be sorely missed.’ Then she turned and looked me right in the eye. I was actually taken aback. It was her way of saying it to me.” — Patricia Thomson Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire Cinematographer: Andrew Dunn, BSC Director: Lee Daniels To push her way out of a deadlocked life, Precious (Gabourey Sidibe), the pregnant, obese teenager at the center of Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, calls on inner resources she never knew she had. Just as she succeeds, so did the film itself, winning Sundance’s prestigious Grand Jury Award in the U.S. Dramatic category and days of enthusiastic buzz. In order to bring the film into being, a monumental push was also needed from director Lee Daniels and director of photography Andrew Dunn, BSC. The film, Daniels’ second directorial outing, was a low-budget affair, and Dunn had a mere three days of prep — Daniels had fired the original director of photography 16 days into production, and Dunn, whose credits include Miss Potter (AC Feb. ’07), Hitch and Gosford Park (AC Jan. ’02), was riding to the rescue. “I’ve always been a huge fan of Andrew’s and felt he would bring a life to this world,” says Daniels. Dunn recalls, “A phone call came in to my agent on a Tuesday, I spoke to Lee on Wednesday, and they did the deal on Thursday. I traveled to New York that weekend, and we had Monday through Wednesday to prep.” During those three days, Dunn had no time for tests, but he spent hours in discussion with Daniels. “It’s an interesting way to make films, actually,” the cinematographer notes with a laugh. “In reality, prep is an ongoing process on any film; it’s a collaborative, organic situation. My bag is to think on my feet, to act and react, if I’m lucky enough to have good people around me — and I did on this show.” The Writers Guild of America was striking at the time, The September Issue’s Bob Richman takes a break on another project. cinematographer. Production lasted almost nine months, resulting in 300 hours of footage. Richman used a Panasonic AJ-HDX900 mounted with a Fuji 13x4.5 wide-angle zoom, which accommodated his predilection for close-ups. He shot at 24p, framing for 16x9. He used very few film lights, reflectors or filters and only did single-camera setups. “I wanted to shoot in the most natural way. If you start adding things, they get in the shot.” He tweaked three frequently used spaces, adding practicals to a Vogue conference room, diffusion to the harsh overheads in Wintour’s office, and fluorescents to a corridor lined with clothing racks where Coddington spent much of her time. He also used Diva-Lites to illuminate Wintour’s interview in her Long Island home. Elsewhere, he used existing lighting and adjusted exposure and color balance on the fly. For a scene in which designer John Galliano shows Wintour his fall collection, Richman was shooting while flipping the filter wheel, “and they left it in!” he notes. “It goes by fast, and they color-corrected it, so you don’t notice. But in all these situations, you’re in mixed sources, and the exposure changes depending on the day. As much as I love beautiful lighting, in order to do this kind of work, my approach has to be, ‘Let me have an exposure, let the lighting 72 April 2009

American Cinematographer - April 2009

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