One DP has captured a story of solidarity and survival with a movie—set to bow in November—that shows us the resolve and miraculous rescue of 33 men trapped in a gold and copper mine in Chile.
Another cinematographer brings a new meaning to the word “prolific” with her lensing of two recently released high-profile features and a third to debut next month.
And a third DP takes us back to the early 20th century when the women’s voting rights movement in the U.K. had reached a critical, history-changing stage.
Here are insights and reflections from Checco Varese, ASC, Maryse Alberti and Edu Grau.
Checco Varese, ASC
“It’s a captivating, life affirming story, one of the best news stories of this young millennium so far,” said cinematographer Checco Varese, ASC, in explaining his attraction to The 33 (Warner Bros. Pictures), the feature he shot for director Patricia Riggen and which has a cast headed by Antonio Banderas, Juliette Binoche and Rodrigo Santro. “It’s a story of solidarity and survival with an ending that wound up being like Apollo 13.”
The 33 follows the extraordinary real-life survival story that captured the world’s attention in 2010—the collapse of the Copiajo gold and copper mine in Chile and the miraculous rescue of all 33 miners after 69 days of being trapped below the earth’s surface under an enormous boulder twice the size of the Empire State Building.
For Varese, the project was a study in contrasts—above and below ground, shooting in the harsh Atacama Desert in Chile, one of the brightest places on the planet, as well as in a pair of underground mines in Colombia shrouded in darkness. Beyond properly lighting the dark and bright venues, Varese also had to navigate the distinctly different feel and tone of the two environments. Varese shared that director Riggen, who happens to be his wife, “constantly hammered into me that the cinematography in the mine had to be kind of elegant with a strange sense of calm. We went with very studio, controlled camera movements.”
Down there, he related, oxygen is limited and there’s less sense of the passage of time. “Meanwhile,” continued Varese, “above ground, the clock is ticking, the camerawork is hand-held, very documentary style to reflect a chaos and a franticness as rescuers are racing against the clock to save lives.”
Particularly gratifying to Varese is feedback he received from a couple of journalists who in prior lives were members of the DP’s crew—one an assistant, the other a sound man. The former is now head of Reuters news wire service in Latin America, the other with French press service AFP in Latin America. “They told me, ‘We covered the event. The movie feels exactly like what we remembered.’ For me,” said Varese, “that was the biggest compliment. I’ve known these men for 30 years and to hear that from them meant a lot to me.”
Contributing to that realism were assorted elements. For example, Varese estimated that 80 percent of the extras were actually at the real-life event. “All these kinds of touches added to what we were trying to create.”
The lighting of the mines—two different mines in Colombia—for the film also had to be authentic. “There were different stages of the mine lighting,” said Varese. “A mine has its own lighting. To recreate that we went with fluorescent tubes on the right and bulbs on the left—a green world, a red world like on a submarine. Then the collapse happens with a massive rock that in reality was twice the size of the Empire State Building. Upon the collapse, there’s no more light, zero light. To prep I went down to a mine, walked around for an hour with a helmet light and then turned it off. It was darker than dark, darker than your soul, than the darkest moment of your life. It was scary. You start hearing your heartbeat, your breathing gets faster, your heart beats faster. You hear little rocks falling. I spent 20 minutes in complete darkness, then turned my helmet light back on.”
The next stage entailed those miner helmet lights. The problem was that the film was shot in 2014 when helmet lights had already been converted to LEDs. Back in 2010 when the mining accident took place, the helmet lights were tungsten. “We had to find about 100 of these helmets with tungsten lights,” recalled Varese. “Only two countries still had them in inventory—Ukraine and Chile. We found them in Chile, cleared out the last 100 lamp helmets. My gaffer rigged ten or fifteen of them with a micro dimmer so actors could turn and he could dim the lighting on the fly. We had very complex choreographed dimming. The lighting in the collapsed mine comes from tungsten helmets.
“Then we had one of the miners plugging lights together to better illuminate the mine. We went to the junkyard where we got 20 old bulbs, came back and rigged them in the mine and hung them randomly. There’s a beautiful scene where the miner plugs them into a car battery, resulting in a warm, welcoming light. That light lasts until they’re about to die on day 17. There’s no more food, the light is dimming, breath and hearts are dimming. You can feel it. Then a drill comes through and the drill brings life, food, air, electricity and light. Fluorescent tubes were bought down—they were the only fixtures that could be lowered down through the narrow drilled tube.”
Varese deployed ARRI’s ALEXA XT on The 33. “I was dealing with extremely low light conditions in the mine and I needed a camera that could handle that, and also a camera that could be reliable in the most harsh conditions. I’m not necessarily a fundamentalist of cameras. They all have their uses—RED, Sony, ALEXA, etc.) but some are better for specific projects.”
The 33 is a return engagement for Varese in terms of collaborating with his wife, director Riggen. He shot for her in the past such features as Under the Same Moon and Girl in Progress. While the assumption would be that the two have a shorthand and that he is naturally attuned to her directorial vision, Varese does not subscribe to that notion. “I never assume that I know what’s happening in a director’s mind. I don’t do that with any director, including my wife. You may have a shorthand with a director, like a designer has with an architect, but at the same time things can get tricky. You should never assume that we are one person, that you have such a shorthand that you don’t need to communicate. People have a tendency to assume that we talk about business constantly since we live together. I have less of an assumption of my rightfulness with her than anybody else. She is her own person and I need to work to know what she envisions. The one advantage we have as a couple is the luxury of prepping. I get to know about projects months in advance so I have the luxury of understanding the script better than any other movie I do with another director. Yet no matter the project I have no idea what’s in the director’s mind. To take that for granted due to my proximity [to Riggen] is risky. I would never do that with any director I shoot for.”
Varese began his career in the mid-1980s, spending nearly a decade shooting news coverage and documentaries within major global hot zones of conflict, including the Middle East (Gulf War, West Bank and Gaza Strip crisis), Latin America (Chiapas uprising, Salvador and Nicaragua Wars, Colombia drug war, Chile’s military junta), Europe (Bosnia and Chechnya crises), and Africa (South African riots, Rwanda crisis). Varese diversified into music videos (including Prince’s “Black Sweat” for which he was a Best Cinematography nominee at the MTV Video Music Awards) and commercials. On the narrative feature front, Varese’s cinematography credits include Their Eyes Were Watching God starring Halle Berry and produced by Oprah Winfrey; El Aura directed by Fabian Bielinsky; Kevin Costner’s The New Daughter directed by Luis Berdejo; 5 Days of War directed by Renny Harlin; and writer Carlton Cuse’s The Colony helmed by Juan Campanella. Among Varese’s TV endeavors are HBO’s True Blood (director Alan Ball) and FX Network’s The Strain written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. Earlier Varese worked with del Toro on the feature Pacific Rim.
“I think one of the biggest influences I have is from my documentary and news days,” assessed Varese. That journalistic experience contributed to the authenticity of The 33. As for what’s next, Varese is shooting Miracles From Heaven, directed by Riggen for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Based on the book “Three Miracles From Heaven” by Christy Beam, the film stars Jennifer Garner, Martin Henderson and Queen Latifah.
Maryse Alberti
Winner of the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography—first in 1999 for Velvet Goldmine directed by Todd Haynes, and again in 2009 for Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler—Maryse Alberti, who was also nominated for a Spirit Award in 2005 for her lensing of the John Curran-directed We Don’t Live Here Anymore, continues to make her mark in features, this time with a particularly prolific run which consists of the recently released The Visit (Universal Pictures) directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the just released Freeheld (Lionsgate) helmed by Peter Sollett, as well as director Ryan Coogler’s Creed (Warner Bros. Pictures) slated to hit theaters on November 25.
The latter has the iconic Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) serving as a trainer and mentor to boxer Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the son of Apollo Creed, Balboa’s late friend and former rival. The film marks a reunion for Coogler and Jordan who collaborated on the lauded Fruitvale Station, the director’s feature filmmaking debut.
“When I heard I was in the running to be the DP on Creed, I was a little bit surprised,” recalled Alberti. “I’m not typically thought of when it comes to a Rocky movie. It’s not my style of movie. But when I heard Ryan Coogler was directing—I loved Fruitvale Station—I was thrilled. I very much wanted to work with him. I found him to be very talented with a big heart. I learned to like and respect him deeply. And I was drawn to the challenge of doing a boxing movie. I had done a wrestling movie, which was quite different [Aronofsky’s The Wrestler]. This was a big movie for me, from MGM, a $35 million budget. There were a lot of interesting ingredients.”
For Alberti, a prime challenge of Creed was “to find a new way to shoot boxing. Boxing movies have been around forever—and there will be many more. Raging Bull was so beautiful but we didn’t want to do a Martin Scorsese version of boxing for Creed. Ryan wanted to do something very much grounded in reality. The first real fight you see is two rounds in one shot—a minute and a half for round one, the boxers go to their corners, and then another round. It was a great challenge to choreograph, to keep the action grounded in reality yet with strong images.”
Meanwhile drawing Alberti to Freeheld was the real-life story of Laurel Hester who’s diagnosed with terminal cancer. The dying policewoman wants to leave her pension benefits to her life partner, Stacie Andree, only to have that request denied. Hester fought to gain that right so that her same-sex partner could afford to keep their home in New Jersey. Cynthia Wade directed the original short titled Freeheld which went on to win the Short Subject Documentary Oscar in 2008. Wade is a producer on the Sollett-directed narrative feature which stars Julianne Moore as Hester and Ellen Page as Andree. This marked the first collaboration between Sollett and Alberti. “When I met Peter, I knew we would get along,” said Alberti. He wanted a very naturalistic look and turned out to be a great collaborator.”
The major challenge posed by Freeheld was time, according to Alberti. “It’s like a lot of independent films. You often don’t have enough time. Adding to this was the fact that Julianne Moore had to wear different wigs as her character’s disease progressed. She ends up wearing a bald cap. Some of the wigs took more than an hour to put on. The bald wig took two to three hours. We had 12 hour days door to door. We had to be creative in how we used the time we had. Sometime we had to shoot daytime scenes at night. That’s never easy. But fortunately the vibe on the set was great from the producers to the director to the actors. We made it all work.”
As for what attracted Alberti to The Visit, the answer is simply Shyamalan. “He is a unique voice in filmmaking,” said Alberti. “I was interested right away. I read this strange, funny, scary, quirky script and saw it as a great opportunity for a cinematographer to work on a project which goes from thriller to horror to film noir. I had a great time working with Night. He’s a strong director, a happy man who laughs a lot, and a wonderful collaborator.”
Alberti said of her recent flurry of narrative feature activity (three movies in a year and a half), “I had the chance to work with three very different directors on three very different films in terms of style and content. The collaborations were all strong, supportive and fulfilling.”
For Freeheld and Creed, Alberti opted for the ALEXA and mainly Cooke lenses. “On Creed we added grain to the digital image so that the look is a little more gritty,” said Alberti. The camera is very active, inquisitive, moves a lot, with a lot of life and energy in Creed. For Freeheld the camera was more quiet and composed.”
Alberti said that The Visit entailed having to mimick the look of a camera being hand-held by kids. “We went with the Canon C500 but did not do 4K. We shot it at 1080.”
Alberti’s filmography spans narrative features, documentaries, shorts and commercials. She started out in still photography and is still active in that discipline. She diversified into moving pictures, shooting for herself and others before getting her first big break, a full-length documentary titled H-2 Worker directed by Stephanie Black. H-2 Worker went on to win Best Documentary and Best Cinematography distinction at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival. The same two Sundance honors came again in ‘95 for Crumb which Alberti shot for director Terry Zwigoff.
Alberti has enjoyed a longstanding collaboration with documentarian Alex Gibney, starting with Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, then Taxi to the Dark Side which won the Best Feature Documentary Oscar in 2008, followed by Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Casino Jack and the United States of Money, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, and The Armstrong Lie.
Among Alberti’s other notable credits are the Susan Seidelman-directed Dutch Masters which won a Best Short Film Oscar in 1994, and HBO’s All Aboard! Rosie’s Family Cruise, nominated for a Best Cinematography Emmy in 2006 for Non-Fiction Programming.
Alberti won the Kodak Vision Award in 2006. The Vision Award is given annually to a female filmmaker with outstanding achievements in cinematography, who also collaborates with and assists women in the entertainment industry.
Edu Grau
“I received the script on a cold day of fall in New Orleans and within a few pages I was immersed in a London working class laundry in the early 20th century. Then I spoke with Sarah [director Gavron] and Faye [producer Ward] and the movie grew up on me. Sometimes you find amazing projects, sometimes those find you,” related cinematographer Edu Grau, recalling what drew him to Suffragette (Focus Features).
Inspired by the early 20th-century campaign of the Suffragettes, who were activists trying to win women the right to vote, Suffragette is set in the U.K. in 1912. Carey Mulligan stars as Maud Watts, a working-class wife and mother who toils at a laundry with her husband. Circumstances bring her at first reluctantly into the Women’s Suffrage movement, of which she ultimately becomes a committed member, making major life sacrifices. In the face of change and adversity, Maud’s resolve is strengthened by other members of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WPSU), including Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter) and Emily Wilding Davison (Natalie Press) as well as WSPU founder Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep).
“Shooting a period film is always tricky, especially if you don’t want to fall in the classic British period drama style. So it was actually amazing to find our own language shooting on 16mm and ALEXA hand-held and with lots of zooms in the Bourne Ultimatum style,” shared Grau. “I think that is what the Suffragettes would have done if they had a camera!”
That “language” cited by Grau saw the daylight scenes shot on 16mm with the ARRI ALEXA deployed at night. “We liked the texture of film a lot and how it makes the period more believable,” explained Grau. “But for the night scenes the grain was too much so we shot them with Alexa to make the best use of candlelight. We also pull processed the film stock to get a softer contrast and color. The beauty of 16mm is mesmerizing. Also has the uniqueness of a dying format that makes it different from all the movies around. But mainly it changes the attitude of the set, as it is light, quick and very versatile, and that ends up changing the film in this direction.”
Suffragette marked Grau’s first collaboration with director Gavron, a BAFTA Best New Director TV Award winner for This Little Life and a BAFTA nominee for Most Promising Newcomer on the strength of Brick Lane, a feature which also garnered her nominations for Best Director from the British Independent Film Awards and for Breakthrough British Filmmaking from the London Critics Circle Film Awards. Grau found working with Gavron to be a gratifying experience. “Hopefully we will do more from now on. It is basically a very collaborative process where we get different ideas together from different people and we take them in the direction we like [for Suffragette]. The storyboard artist, production designer [Alice Normington], operators and the actors are crucial for the process. The important thing, and what we all work towards, is to find the best way of telling the story.
Grau studied filmmaking at the ESCAC in Spain, and at the NFTS in the U.K. At 23, he did his first feature as director of photography, Albert Serra’s Honor de Cavelleria, which premiered at the 2006 Cannes International Film Festival. Soon after, his cinematography came to international attention with A Single Man, directed by Tom Ford, starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore; and Buried directed by Rodrigo Cortés, starring Ryan Reynolds. The latter brought Grau a Camerimage Award (a Bronze Frog) as well as a nomination for a Goya Award (Spain’s Oscars equivalent). A Single Man earned Grau a Camerimage Golden Frog Award nomination.
Among Grau’s other cinematography credits are: Nick Murphy’s The Awakening starring Rebecca Hall; Dante Ariola’s Arthur Newman starring Colin Firth and Emily Blunt; A Single Shot directed by David M. Rosenthal; Marçal Forés’ Animals; and Saul Dibb’s Suite Française starring Michelle Williams, Kristin Scott Thomas, Matthias Schoenaerts, Margot Robbie and Ruth Wilson.
On the shorter-form front, Grau has served as DP on notable commercials as well as the Lady Gaga music video “Born This Way,” which was directed by Nick Knight. “Born This Way” won two MTV Video Music Awards, including Best Female Video.
Grau’s most recent features include Joel Edgerton’s directorial debut, The Gift, which premiered in August. The Gift starred Edgerton, Rebecca Hall and Jason Bateman. Grau also shot the forthcoming release Trespass Against Us directed by Adam Smith and starring Michel Fassbender as an Irish gypsy.
“I try,” said Grau, “to keep changing genres and styles, looking for good stories and characters, which is what interests me the most.”
