Feature and commercial DP Dion Beebe, ASC, is a noted artist spanning short and long-form fare–evidence of the latter being his 2006 Oscar for best cinematography on Memoirs of a Geisha. The same film earned a BAFTA Award as well as the top honor in the feature competition at the 20th annual American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Outstanding Achievement Awards.
Earlier Beebe was nominated for an Academy Award as well as an ASC Achievement Award on the strength of Chicago. Both Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha were directed by Rob Marshall.
Beebe’s other noted feature credits include Collateral and Miami Vice, both for director Michael Mann. And Beebe recently wrapped Rendition, a thriller directed by Gavin Hood and starring Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep and Alan Arkin.
While he’s no stranger to feature film acclaim, Beebe has also long been involved in commercials. In fact his initial industry experience out of film school in Australia entailed shooting commercials and directing music videos.
Within a year, he had landed his first theatrical feature and then he went on to lens a number of independent pictures Down Under, the most notable being the Jane Campion-directed Holy Smoke in 1999, which garnered him attention in the American filmmaking community. Upon moving stateside, Beebe’s feature cache steadily built in Hollywood.
At the same time, in-between features he consciously made his schedule available for commercials. In fact, with Rendition wrapped, Beebe said that he now wants to concentrate on shooting commercials for an extended window of time. Beebe is represented across the board by ICM.
SHOOT: Why have you made a concerted effort to remain active in commercials?
Beebe: It dates back to my early career experience. I came to know commercials as an important artistic platform and have wanted to stay involved ever since.
SHOOT: You have worked with feature directors as well as established commercial directors in your spot lensing.
Beebe: Yes, I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with a number of feature directors on commercials, such as Scott Hicks [Snow Falling on Cedars, Shine], Doug Limon [Swingers], Lisa Cholodenko [Laurel Canyon, High Art], Rob Marshall [Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha] and Bill Condon [Dreamgirls].
There have also been many established commercial directors over the years who I’ve had the pleasure of working with [Matthew Rolston, Keir McFarlane, Michael Karbelnikoff, Pat Sherman, Harry Cocciolo, Pierluca De Carlo].
SHOOT: What does your feature filmmaking experience enable you to bring to commercials–and vice versa?
Beebe: All your work affects you creatively and there are many advantages to having a wide range of experience. For example, from a logistical standpoint, I feel my feature experience benefitted a Chevy Tahoe job I shot for [director] Bill Condon. In commercials you have a very fast turnaround. For this project, we got about a day of looking at locations and then shooting maybe with a day’s break in-between. The prep time is very compacted and concentrated.
Part of the commercial was a concert setting with Mary J. Blige as the central performer in a theater. There was a very concentrated pre-pro–as compared to the three or four months we have on a feature–and then we pretty much arrived on the shoot day with no official prelight. Bill, my gaffer John Buckley and I had to create this concert and the proper lighting pretty much the day of the shoot. But we all had brought such a lot of experience to the table with all our feature work–Bill with Dreamgirls, I had my experience on Chicago and with the special brand of dance and music in Memoirs of a Geisha. And my gaffer was actually gaffer on Dreamgirls and on Memoirs. So we were really able to step in and make the commercial work.
SHOOT: What about the benefits of your commercialmaking experience in relation to features?
Beebe: The timeline given Reese Witherspoon’s schedule was quite tight for Rendition. We had about three weeks of pre-pro for a feature that encompassed three different global locations. We had to often do a lot of work on the fly. Based on how we’re used to working in commercials, we realized we could pull it all off for the movie.
And “we” is the key word. Often I bring my feature crew onto commercials–we go back and forth between the two disciplines. So we have a team of artists who have that attitude of being able to take anything on–they don’t complain about a lack of time but instead collectively take the approach of how do we best make the circumstances work for us and find solutions.
SHOOT: Memoirs of a Geisha was a resounding success artistically. What was the impact of that movie on your career?
Beebe: The moment I read the book and spoke with Rob [Marshall] about the possibility of making it into a movie, I was so excited. As a cinematographer it’s one of those wonderful opportunities–to tell a wonderful story in a visually rich setting, in the world of Japan and of the geisha. You cannot help but get enthused about the visual possibilities, I knew from the outset that it was an important project.
Being able to take a story, a visual concept and bring it about the way we had talked about, of realizing that goal, is extremely satisfying and gratifying. This was conceived and photographed from the ground up in California. We created this world pretty much in Los Angeles, working with production designer John Myhre, with costumes and of course with Rob. To work on this high a level builds your confidence as a filmmaker and as a visual storyteller. And you learn from the experience and in turn bring that to the next project and the one after that.
SHOOT: You experienced high-def production while shooting the movie Collateral, using Sony’s HDW-F900 camcorder. You have since shot a Sears spot with the HDW-F900. Reflect on the experience of shooting in HD.
Beebe: It has been interesting to venture into HD. Clearly it’s a very viable option for production. For Collateral, we were out in the field which can be tougher for HD but we achieved some very specific results we had sought to get.
For the Sears spot, there was a lot of product shooting and studio-based work and HD was great in those controlled conditions. It worked extremely well–viewing systems were in place and it was easy to keep everyone in the loop with what we were doing and how things were progressing. HD was also very helpful because the Sears work entailed a great deal of testimonial work with real people. We shot hours and hours of footage. To be able to have longer takes is a real plus in this situation so the real people had a chance to be themselves with continuous shooting as opposed to having to constantly cut and re-set everything.
