American Cinematographer - March 2003 - 112

3rd Edition

ASC
Video
Manual

rewarding experience in my entire life
and career," says Cortez. "Charles and I
had a rare, rare association and a rapport
that I'd

never

had with

anybody before."

something fake about its movement."
Discussing his work with Michael Ballhaus, ASC, Martin Scorsese acknowl¬

edges that he often uses a zoom lens,
but usually "together with camera move¬
ment to change the size of the frame." In
general, Scorsese prefers wide-angle
lenses, 25mm and wider: "That has

Learn how to create video

mostly to do with Orson Welles, John
Ford and even some movies by Anthony

productions, work with digital audio

sampling, why time code is important
in digital productions, howto select
the right digital camera, and much
more. Everything for the novice

Mann."

right up to the pro is covered.

Moviemakers' Master Class

by Laurent Tirard
Faber & Faber
217 pp„ $15
ISBN 0-571-21102-X

Wim Wenders says he "preferred
tracking shots to zooms" until he worked
as assistant director to Michelangelo
Antonioni on Beyond the Clouds. "Much
to my horror," Wenders recalls, "Anto¬
nioni shot virtually everything with a
zoom lens. And I was impressed with the

result at times."
Tim Burton says

he has "a fond¬
wide lenses, like the
21mm," and that he uses "telephoto
lenses only as a sort of punctuation. I use
ness

In

a

"Cinema

series of interviews called
Lessons"

that

was

first

published in Studio magazine, Laurent
Tirard posed 20 questions to 21 different
filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese,
Woody Allen, Bernardo Bertolucci and
John Woo. Tirard recently combined the
interviews to create this very readable

TOPICS:

*The Video Camera
*

Digital Video Formats
*

*

Camera Filters

Digital Test&
Measurement
*

*

*

Lighting
Batteries

Digital Audio
for Video
more

way you
middle of

would
a

Claude

Sautet considers the

photography to be "the film's
first audience, in a way, through the
lens." Woody Allen states that comedy
has to be filmed very simply: "What you
want, really, is a nice, clean, open frame,
like you have in the Chaplin or Keaton
movies."

edges that "the

camera

acknowl¬

is my main
shoot," while

noting that he dislikes the zoom lens: "I
why, but I find that there's

don't know

same

in the

eXistenZ, David

simple,"

a

desire to be both direct
says

Cronenberg, "like

Robert Bresson when he started shoot¬

ing everything with a 50mm lens."
David Lynch discusses his "very
particular way of getting the camera to
move," a technique he has employed
since his first feature, Eraserhead. "The

it works is that you load the dolly
sandbags until it's so heavy that it
feels like it's never going to move," he
explains. The crew has to "pull with all
their might. It's exhausting, but the result
on film is incredibly fluid and graceful."
In the final chapter of the book,
Jean-Luc Godard counsels against
unnecessary camera movement: "In my
way
with

last film, I did not move the camera at all.

Maybe it is because when I
who

move

see all those
it without reason, I feel a

certain need for abstention."
Bertolucci

the

Cronenberg and cinematographer Peter
Suschitzky, ASC, BSC used only a 27mm
lens. "I have

director of

scene,

sentence."

and

frame."

a

use a comma

For the film

Nearly every director makes
some illuminating remarks regarding his
relationship to the camera and the cine¬
matographer. John Boorman tells Tirard
that he always uses a Mitchell sidefinder to make his compositions. "It's a
big thing which you have to hold up in
front of you," says Boorman, "and
instead of putting your eye into some¬
thing, you step away from it and you can
see the composition like a picture, like a

center of interest on a

order online at
www.theasc.com

them in the middle of

book.

Bernardo
and much

for very

■
American Cinematographer - March 2003

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - March 2003
