One cinematographer is a two-time Oscar nominee and his recently released feature has been hailed as groundbreaking, bucking the superhero genre norm.
Another DP takes us back to the Hollywood of yesteryear in his most recent collaboration with lauded TV series creator Ryan Murphy.
And our third cinematographer lensed a feel-good documentary that has proved inspirational to girls all over the world who aspire to achieve in areas that are generally regarded to be exclusively the domain of men.
Here are reflections from cinematographers John Mathieson, BSC, on Logan, Nelson Cragg on Feud: Bette and Joan, and Simon Niblett on The Eagle Huntress.
John Mathieson, BSC
Among the many accolades earned by John Mathieson, BSC, are two Best Achievement in Cinematography Oscar nominations—for Gladiator in 2001 and The Phantom of the Opera in 2005. Gladiator also earned him a BAFTA Film Award for Best Cinematography and an ASC Award nod while The Phantom of the Opera won a BSC Award. Mathieson’s filmography includes multiple collaborations with director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Robin Hood, Matchstick Men, Kingdom of Heaven) and BSC Award-nominated work for director Mike Newell’s Great Expectations.
Now Mathieson is garnering attention for director James Mangold’s Logan (20th Century Fox) starring Hugh Jackman in the claw-wielding title role, Patrick Stewart as aging and ill mutant leader Professor X (for whom Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine, serves as caregiver), and newcomer Dafne Keen as Laura, a mute youngster with powers similar to Logan. Laura is being pursued by dark forces, putting her, Professor X and Logan on the run, a plot dynamic which makes the trio akin to an endearing, offbeat family, and evolves the ostensibly superhero movie into an on-the-road, character-driven drama with serious emotional overtones.
Logan has become a box office hit and received critical acclaim. Though marked by violence, the story as a character study seems to have resonated with audiences. For Mathieson, his role was not to get in the way of that story. "In some ways this movie is like a play and it was my job not to detract from that play," observed Mathieson. "You follow the characters, the action. You don’t do things because they look cool. There’s a gritty reality to this film. The more real, the more empathy that’s nurtured."
The film is R-rated, its graphic violence hardly for the faint of heart. But Mathieson noted that he doesn’t regard Logan as an overly violent movie. What makes it seem more violent than it actually is, he conjectured, are protagonists who don’t look like other worldly superheroes. Instead these are people we feel for who reside in a very real world. Because we can identify with them, the violence takes on a greater impact."
In capturing this real world set in the year 2029, Mathieson generally steered away from diffused lighting. On the run and in hiding, our main characters are in a dark world "where you can smell the rust and dirt," said Mathieson. "We had good reason to light things in a toxic, nasty way. It feels burnt and harsh outside. Jim [Mangold] also had sets constructed that were classically real."
Mathieson deployed three ARRI ALEXA XT 4:3 cameras and an ALEXA Mini for Logan. Lenses included anamorphic primes (E series—35, 40, 50 75, 100, 135, 180; MAP 55mm Close focus), anamorphic primes, Sph Pana Zeiss Primes, and Sph zooms. Among additional resources utilized were a Frazier Lens System, GoPros and a Canon Handycam (for cell phone hospital footage).
"We wanted to accomplish as much as we could in camera," said Mathieson. "The visual effects team was on board with that, asking us to do everything we could. You need to feel the reality to this story."
Mathieson is no stranger to superhero fare. Logan is the second film he’s shot in the X-Men franchise, the first being the 2011 release X-Men: First Class, directed by Matthew Vaughan. Director Mangold also has two X-Men features under his belt, having earlier directed superhero star Jackman in The Wolverine (2013).
What helps to differentiate Logan from other superhero films is a pared down cast rather than a large, star-laden ensemble. Thus the camera can focus on a small core of characters as they interact in a story that’s unexpectedly intimate for the genre. The story was written by Mangold who in turn teamed on the script with Scott Frank and Michael Green. "There’s an emotion felt throughout this film," said Mathieson. And it’s an emotional resonance that comes from a deeper exploration of the characters, particularly Wolverine. And there’s a heightened audience interest in Wolverine since Logan reportedly marks the swan song for Jackman portraying that character, ending a franchise run for the actor which began in 2000’s X-Men, directed by Bryan Singer.
Nelson Cragg
With work in television that has been honored with an ASC Award (in 2009 for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) and a pair of Outstanding Cinematography Emmy nominations (for the Beirut Is Back" episode of Homeland in 2013 and the "From the Ashes of Tragedy" episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story in 2016), Nelson Cragg is not only continuing his high-profile lensing career but is also diversifying into directing. On both the cinematography and directorial fronts, he again finds himself collaborating with breakthrough series creator Ryan Murphy.
Cragg shot all eight installments of Murphy’s series Feud: Bette and Joan which debuted earlier this month on FX. The feud depicted is that between iconic Hollywood stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford whose rivalry is legendary. Yet to hang onto stardom in their past-their-prime years, Davis and Crawford—portrayed by Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange, respectively—are brought together to headline the Robert Aldrich-directed 1962 horror/thriller film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? While the megastars clash with each other, they too are waging battles against ageism and sexism. It’s a story that takes us to Hollywood at an earlier, some would say vintage time, peering into the lives of—and unlikely alliance—between Davis and Crawford.
For Cragg, the creative challenges posed to him by Feud included recreating the style of shooting and lighting movies in the 1950s and ‘60s when such practices as the deployment of hard light and lighting from greenbeds above sets were prevalent. Cragg had to resist the temptation to go with natural light through windows which has since taken hold for many situations. He found himself often using Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1958 release, Vertigo, as a point of reference for camera movement, focal lengths and best visual practices of the era. "It’s a visual masterpiece," said Cragg, noting that Vertigo used a lot of "clean white light" to create a vivid palette—an element he deployed in Feud.
Cragg also praised production designer Judy Becker (an Oscar nominee for David O. Russell’s American Hustle) with designing sets for Feud that reflected the set construction of that prior Hollywood period. This authenticity made it easier for Cragg to light and move the camera accordingly, resembling what it would have been like on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Towards that end, Cragg for example closed his lenses down to require more light. To recreate the filmmaking of that time, he said, "I had to force myself to use more lighting."
Another creative balancing act for Cragg was reflecting the glamour of the era without compromising the needed sense of realism—particularly the fact that Davis and Crawford are in the twilight of their careers. "This is a story about aging women, fading beauty," observed Cragg. "You don’t want to make the actresses look bad but you have to capture their age and what they’re up against to retain their stardom. I had conversations with Jessica and Susan about how we should approach them. I remember Jessica telling me that she thought the lighting made her look ‘too good’ in a certain scene. She said she looked more like Marlene Dietrich, too glamorous for the scene. She wanted me to make sure she didn’t look too good. She was true to the story, realizing it was rooted in what an aging actress had to cope with."
Initially, said Cragg, he and Murphy wanted to shoot Feud on film—for obvious reasons given that it’s a Hollywood period piece. "I would have loved to shoot film but we ran the numbers and it amounted to a huge difference in money over the course of an entire season," related Cragg. "Shooting film is not something that FX or Fox does to my knowledge."
So Cragg instead opted for the ARRI ALEXA which he described as being "my favorite digital camera, very filmmaker friendly." Cragg has used ALEXA for almost everything he’s shot in recent years, including The People v. O.J. Simpson, Homeland, and Halt and Catch Fire.
Cragg also cited the positive contributions of his operators on Feud—Andrew Mitchell, Brice Reed and Jesse Feldman, the same team he worked with on The People v. O.J. Simpson.
Ultimately, though, affirmed Cragg, the most credit goes to Murphy whom he described as "a tremendous collaborator and one who affords opportunities to the people he collaborates with." In that vein is the earlier alluded to directorial diversification that Cragg has enjoyed. For American Horror Story’s season 5, after shooting the first three episodes, Cragg got the chance to direct an episode ("Chapter 5), marking his first time in the director’s chair.
"Ryan Murphy is the most creatively driven filmmaker and that’s reflected in his love for collaboration," said Cragg. "He respects collaboration, demands great work from you and is willing to help you. If you want to direct, to produce, he’s receptive to all that which is so rare in this town."
Similarly, Cragg wants to pass along opportunities for growth to others. For the American Horror Story episode he directed last year, Cragg enlisted Feldman as his DP.
While continuing to shoot for Murphy, Cragg is also slated to direct an episode of the upcoming Versace run of American Crime Story, as well as an installment of the Katrina-themed season of American Crime Story.
Cragg noted that Murphy’s generosity and penchant for inclusion also comes to the fore in his Half Foundation initiative which calls for 50 percent of his show slots to be filled by female directors.
Simon Niblett
When director Otto Bell delved fully into his first feature documentary, The Eagle Huntress (Sony Pictures Classics), he gravitated towards cinematographer Simon Niblett based on their collaborations over the years on branded content documentary shorts produced back when Bell was creative director at OgilvyEntertainment. Niblett recalled that he teamed with Bell on varied shoots "always in strange places, situated all over in countries ranging from Uganda to Peru, Russia, Japan—it was extensive experience that enabled us to build a shorthand with each other."
Bell earned a coveted Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary for The Eagle Huntress which introduces us to the 13-year-old Aisholopan, a nomadic Kazakh girl living in Mongolia and aspiring to be an eagle hunter. This storied tradition of falconry in that part of the world is largely the domain of men who train golden eagles to respond to their call and hunt foxes and hares in the frozen tundra.
Bell learned of Aisholopan through a photo essay of her captured by still lenser Asher Svidensky that appeared on the BBC website. Bell, Svidensy and cameraman Chris Raymond made the long sojourn to Aisholopan’s home in a remote area of Bayan-Olgii. Bell was immediately and unexpectedly thrust into production because that next morning Aisholopan and her father, Nurgaiv, were going to steal a balapan (young eagle) from its nest. It was a pivotal scene that had to be filmed even though Bell lacked the ideal equipment to pull off such a shoot. All they had was Raymond’s Canon C300 Mark 1, Svidensky’s DSLR and a tiny GoPro camera. Bell also lacked a soundman, having to resort to a pocket Zoom digital recorder he had brought along to use for interviews.
But Bell and his colleagues had no choice but to make do in that the procurement of an eagle was pivotal to the story. They cobbled together the necessary coverage, which entailed surviving some precarious footing on mountain ledges.
Still, though, Bell realized that if he were to make the documentary he envisioned, one that was real yet with cinematic scope, he needed to enlist the talent of the U.K.-based Niblett who has shot some 200 documentaries and dozens of commercials in more than 150 countries on all seven continents.
For The Eagle Huntress, Niblett brought in a select range of equipment, including a RED 4K EPIC camera, a self-made drone and a crane to do full justice to Aisholopan’s story, capturing the majesty of the eagle in training, its bonding with Aisholopan, as well as the epic qualities of the Mongolian landscape. Bell said that he knew that with Niblett, his small crew could produce something cinematic in the toughest of circumstances including rugged geography and temperatures dipping to 50 degrees below zero.
Niblett has been building his own film equipment for years, all designed to be packed into small cases. He is credited with being the first in the U.K. to fly a RED ONE digital camera on one of his creations. The DP also constructed a 30-foot crane, based on the idea of a ship’s mast, which he was able to put into a snowboarder’s bag for the lensing of The Eagle Huntress. Additionally, a drone outfitted with a Blackmagic pocket camera was used not only for the aerial photography but also as virtual "tripods in the sky" where they could hold rock solid on unusual angles. The crane was used for any shots involving camera moves close to people or in situations where harsh weather made it impossible for drones to fly. A self-described "eagle cam" was made from a dog’s harness to capture an actual bird’s-eye view.
The inherent challenge of a feature like this, observed Niblett, is "to make a beautiful looking film while preserving the reality of the documentary. You want to achieve the most cinematic shots with the least amount of disruption or destruction. It’s always a compromise, particularly when you throw harsh weather into the mix. But when you’re on this kind of quest, there’s the opportunity to take a quantum leap forward as to what you can achieve with little money, equipment and time. I’ve been shooting for 30 years, never really stopped and over time you realize that anything is possible. You become driven to tell the story."
The drive to tell Aisholopan’s story yielded notable results. In addition to Bell’s DGA Award nomination, The Eagle Huntress garnered assorted honors, including a BAFTA Film Award nomination this year for Best Documentary, three Critics’ Choice Documentary Award nominations, and recognition as one of the Top Five Documentaries of 2016 from the U.S. National Board of Review.
But the most significant result can be found in the inspiration of Aisholopan’s message. After 12 generations of eagle hunters in her family passing on an ancient tradition from father to son, Aisholopan was the first girl to say that she wanted to share in that legacy. Exhibiting positive energy, strength and courage, Aisholopan speaks to the soaring dreams of girls who aspire to achieve despite tradition and confining stereotypes. "This entire journey is about her personal victory," said Bell. "That’s why I end the film so quietly, with Aisholopan and her dad [after her successful hunt] riding off into the sunset and heading home."
