American Cinematographer - March 2004 - 26

Great Orchestrations and Historic Machinations
A Life of Music

by Patricia Thomson
Music From the

Inside Out

explores what
inspires the
gifted musicians
in the

Philadelphia
Orchestra.
Bottom: A
Technocrane

enabled the
filmmakers to
achieve

some

dynamic shots,
and large
lightboxes
created

a

soft

key that came in
at a 45-degree
angle.

When

Hurwitz

was

cinematographer Tom
asked to shoot

a

film about

the

Philadelphia Orchestra, he leapt at
banjo player and
clarinetist was eager to work with one of
the world's top orchestras. But when
the chance. The former

director Daniel Anker told him that he
wanted Music From the Inside Out to be

shot in

way - with an intimate,
improvisational style, using mostly hand¬
held camerawork for both the perfor¬
mances

a new

and the interviews

knew what was

-

Hurwitz

coming: "Pain!" he says
laugh. Because the musicians
would mostly be seated, Hurwitz would
with

a

have to

plie like Baryshnikov in order to
get interesting angles. "You have to have
very strong legs," he acknowledges.
"I've trained myself to go from standing
to seated and back up again, very slowly,
without shaking."
Unlike

standard

televised

classical

inspires and aim for

some¬

more direct. If the film showed a
trombonist shakin' it up in a salsa club,

thing

explains Hurwitz, "we couldn't go get
reverent again once the [classical] music
started playing." This meant breaking
free of the customary camera setup.
Classical-music performances typically

music in their lives, the inherent tension

the

between

personal expression and
ensemble playing, and the course of their
careers.

We

see

them in orchestral

rehearsals, but also watch them follow

personal passions to unexpected places:
an Israeli trombonist moonlights in a
salsa band; two violinists drop by a bluegrass bar and jam; and a violinist takes
high-school students to a lake at dawn to
instruct them in the art of listening.
Such

scenes

set the tone for the

film, which will be broadcast
television next
March 2004

reverence

feature-length documen¬
tary Music From the Inside Out is not
about a piece of music, but about living a
life of music. For several years, the film¬
makers followed approximately 30
members of the Philadelphia Orchestra
on stage and off. The musicians answer
probing questions about the meaning of

concerts, the

22

break free of the
music often

season.

on

public

Anker wanted to

involve

seven or

positions:

eight

in fixed
in front of the
long lenses, others
cameras

some are

orchestra with very
are around the orchestra, and one is
embedded in the violin section to shoot
the conductor. An assistant director

cues

operators through head¬
phones, informing them of an upcoming
horn passage or cymbal clash they
camera

should shoot. Hurwitz has worked this

times before, having shot
performances for the Metropolitan
Opera, the New York Philharmonic,
Great Performances, Sony Records and
Franco Zefferelli. "It's very limited," he
says of the approach, "[and] ultimately, it
depends on cutting. It doesn't depend on
this magic that happens inside the
way many

frame."
What

complicates matters for

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grabs

Frame
American Cinematographer - March 2004

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