American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 53

normal lens, and

also used the

we

Adrian Biddle

35mm. In my
start

opinion, when you
combining a lot of lenses, the

look becomes

baroque

bit

a

there

-

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

"The World Is Not

too rococo or

are too

"The

many

John Mathieson

different variations, and you

lose
something intangible. We wanted to
keep the look of the film consistent.
"I definitely like using wider
lenses, because they immediately put

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

"Gladiators"

Emmanuel Lubezki
-

the

actors

in

I don't like

context.

a

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

"Sleepy Hollow"

looking at anamorphic movies
they shoot the actors with a
180mm lens and the backgrounds go
soft
you don't know where you

where

Daryn Okada

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

"Lake Placid"

-

I like to show the characters in

are.

Peter Menzies

their environments; I think that

enhances the story.
"In a funny way,

approach made

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

"The 13th Warrior"

though, that

our sets seem more

David Tattersall

limited," he concedes. "To the eye,

they looked big, but the reality was a
different. Usually, your first
instinct is to use a long lens to
disguise those limitations, but on this

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

"The Phantom Menace"

bit

film

wanted

we

that the

to

audience

to

feel

slightly unreal. We
wanted to create a hint of artificiality
in the look, but not enough to take
you out of the movie."
To determine his ideal photo¬
graphic aperture, Lubezki performed
exposure tests on the sets, shooting at
f-stops of 5.6, 4, 2.8 and 2. "I found
that to increase the film's pictorial
quality, it was better to shoot almost
wide-open," he says. "The lenses were
wide enough for me to feel the sets,
sets were

but

we

too

hard

didn't
or

want

the

sets to

look

harsh. We therefore shot

the whole movie between 2.5 and
2.8. That

was a

first for

me,

because I

usually shoot between 2.8 and 4. It
easier for me to light with a
wider f-stop, though, because it
became easier to see and judge the
contrast by eye."
The cinematographer opted to
was

record the entire movie

on one

explains that this decision was based
the filmmakers' desire

the look of the

Laboratory's

to

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American Cinematographer - December 1999

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