In this latest installment of SHOOT’s Cinematographers & Cameras Series, DPs make their mark on a couple of fronts. First, a cinematographer spanning multiple disciplines reflects on lensing the fiction feature film debut of a director known for his commercialmaking and documentary acumen; and then on the film festival circuit, we focus on a pair of DPs who gained high-profile recognition by winning Cinematography Awards at Sundance 2013.
Here are profiles of Ken Seng, Bradford Young and director/DP Marc Silver.
Ken Seng For Disconnect, his first fiction feature film, director Henry-Alex Rubin–an accomplished commercialmaker and documentarian–reached out to a frequent spot collaborator, cinematographer Ken Seng.
With notable credits that include ads that have collectively earned 14 Lions at Cannes, as well as the Oscar-nominated feature documentary Murderball (which he directed with Dana Adam Shapiro), Rubin explained to SHOOT that he wanted to bring documentary sensibilities to Disconnect, making the audience feel as if it were eavesdropping on conversations and gaining intimate access to the characters’ lives. He entrusted Seng with helping to realize this vision, acknowledging that he drove the DP “crazy” in one regard during the lensing of the movie. “I enjoyed not telling him where the action would be so he would be forced like a documentary cinematographer to find it and capture it,” recalled Rubin. “Ken had to always be ready. To me, he’s like a young Wally Pfister. He has this capability of getting this epic beauty but also has the hand-held skills of a Haskell Wexler. He uses a lot of natural light.”
The documentary approach went a long way towards crafting Disconnect which is at times sadly real while paradoxically uplifting as humanity somehow emerges from lives otherwise insulated by cellphones, the Internet and related means of “communicating” without face-to-face contact.
Disconnect centers on three stories–the tragic impact of cyber bullying on a family whose father is distant from his wife and kids; a couple victimized by online identity theft yet enduring a greater problem within their own relationship; and a TV journalist who jumps on a career-making story involving exploitation and her connecting with a teen who performs on an adult-only website. The film’s cast includes Jason Bateman, Hope Davis, Frank Grillo, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, Andrea Riseborough and Alexander Skarsgard.
Seng met Rubin back around 2006. It was when Seng, having graduated Columbia College in Chicago and doing some initial work there, moved to New York to make his mark as a DP. A key means he used to establish himself was shooting graduate thesis films for Columbia University students. “It was a great way to build my portfolio, connecting with intelligent people serious about filmmaking,” said Seng.
Rubin saw one of those films and sought out Seng. Soon the director and cinematographer were collaborating on some black-and-white hockey commercials for Versus (now the NBC Sports Network). “I knew from that experience that I had found a great collaborator,” said Seng. “There was a trust between us.”
Yet Rubin and Seng didn’t team up again for some time due to schedules that weren’t in sync, primarily because the DP had gotten some feature gigs. Eventually, though, they again got together and have since remained regular collaborators, spanning varied documentary-oriented spots ranging from a Canadian package of Budweiser ads to the moving “Sport Doesn’t Care” campaign for Samsung featuring Paralympic athletes, and a recent AT&T campaign which debuted during The Masters golf tournament coverage. (Rubin directs commercials and branded content via production house Smuggler.)
“I know that whenever Henry calls me for a commercial, the work will be special,” said Seng, citing Rubin’s affinity for making reality look cinematic. “He thinks out everything so well, wants everything to be beautiful and won’t accept anything less than that. We push and strive for that. We change the aesthetic to meet whatever the story needs yet one of our constant goals is that it should be as if you’re shooting a documentary and you capture a naturalistic real beauty–nothing can look lit but it can still be beautiful.”
Their collaborations span film and digital cinematography, a prime example of the latter being Disconnect for which Seng deployed the RED Epic with a set of old Leitz lenses and some mainstay Cooke zoom lenses. “We both like to have flares and obstructions in front of the lens. It makes everything feel real,” said Seng. “From using these great old lenses, we can flare the camera out and shoot through obstructions.”
Rubin explained in an earlier SHOOT interview, “When you’re making a documentary, real-life obstacles get in the way when you’re shooting. In fiction filmmaking, you have to find your own obstacles to make the subject feel real. Very rarely [in Disconnect] did we have a frame that didn’t have a ‘cross,’ someone crossing in front of it. Subconsciously it makes you feel that you’re witnessing something real, that you’re eavesdropping.”
Helping to capture those real moments that are worthy of eavesdropping is the shorthand by which Rubin and Seng communicate during a shoot. The two often don’t have to speak to each other, instead using a series of hand symbols and gestures so as not to interrupt the actors during lensing. Rubin and Seng developed their own sign language over the years because of all the documentary subjects they worked on together. These same hand motions and gestures came in handy for Disconnect.
The movie’s sense of reality was also facilitated by selectively hiding cameras. Seng recalled a scene where actor Frank Grillo portrays a father confronting his son and a friend about cyber bullying. “I filmed the coverage of the kids. Frank gave this riveting performance and scared the daylights out of them. He then thought we were going to shoot a reverse shot of him. I told him, ‘we already shot your reverse through the window.’ We had a hidden camera outside the window and it brought a realism we couldn’t have captured with conventional coverage. While it’s typically a cinematographer’s nightmare, I tend to embrace multiple pieces of coverage at the same time on actors. If a director is open minded to where those camera placements are, you can get beautiful stuff and it does cut together. [Director Alejandro Gonzalez] Inarritu and others have been breaking rules this way for a long time.”
While Seng’s collaborations with Rubin have been creatively fulfilling, the DP also enjoys working relationships with other filmmakers. For example Bateman–an actor with comedic chops who gave a moving dramatic performance in Disconnect–recently wrapped production on his feature directorial debut, Bad Words. Based on Disconnect, Bateman selected Seng to shoot Bad Words.
For the Bateman film, Seng shot with an ARRI Alexa coupled with the Leitz lenses and Cooke zoom lenses he had used on Disconnect.
Seng gave positive reviews to both the RED Epic and the Alexa in relation to his recent feature experiences. As for shooting the debut fiction feature for Rubin and the first directorial feature gig for Bateman (who has commercial/branded content directing experience and is repped for spots by HSI), Seng has made this a bit of a trend.
Earlier he shot Project X, marking the theatrical feature directing debut of helmer Nima Nourizadeh whose spotmaking roost is Partizan. Seng and Nourizadeh have also collaborated on commercials, including a global Coke Zero campaign after Project X.
Additionally, Seng–who’s handled by The Gersh Agency–has successfully diversified into 3D, having shot the Jon M. Chu-directed dance movie Step Up 3D, which was released in 2010.
Seng noted that he has learned valuable lessons from all his collaborators, citing for example noted gaffer Todd Thomasson of Thomasson Lighting in Chicago, back when Seng was in the Windy City getting his formal education at Columbia College and then for a stretch after graduating from there.
“I was starting out and fell in love with lighting,” recollected Seng. “I was fortunate to get to work at Thomasson Lighting–where great cinematographers like Janusz Kaminski and I believe Mauro Fiore also worked. Todd ran a tight shop. He ran everything and was able to get work done faster than I’d ever seen by a gaffer. Blessed with an incredible eye, Todd’s an amazing gaffer and a challenging man. He could have been a great cinematographer. He taught all of us really well–how to do things fast and efficiently. My motto back then during my schooling, though, was ‘turn down any paid grip/electric work for any shooting job without pay.’ My friends went for the pay day and were gaffing in Chicago but I took the free work as a DP.”
Then at the age of 24, Seng landed his first commercial, a regional McDonald’s job. I asked Todd to gaff it for me. He was so cool about it.”
After that, Seng moved to New York to get more camera operating experience with the intent of breaking into documentaries. There he shot some medical shows for New York Times Television while taking on regional commercials. Seng also lensed a documentary film, A League of Ordinary Gentlemen, which won an Audience Award at the SXSW Festival in 2005. This was his first theatrically released film, a major milestone.
Next came Street Thief for director Malik Bader, a film which Seng recalled “really put me on the map. It was sold at the Tribeca Film Festival and got me my first studio film, Quarantine.
New York also proved pivotal early on when Seng shot that aforementioned work for Columbia University students. That sparked the call from director Rubin, leading to what’s proven to be a lasting, fruitful collaborative relationship.
Bradford Young It was an eventful 2013 Sundance Film Festival for Bradford Young who won The Cinematography Award: U.S. Dramatic for his work on a pair of films: Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Mother of George. The honor was bestowed for Young’s “expressive use of naturalistic lighting to evoke the state of mind of the characters and the sense of time and place in two very different films.”
Directed by David Lowery, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints tells the tale of an outlaw who escapes from prison and sets out across the Texas hills to reunite with his wife and the daughter he has never met.
Mother of George, directed by Andrew Dosunmu, centers on a woman who’s willing to do anything and risk everything for her marriage.
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints was shot on 35mm film. For Mother of George, Young deployed the RED Epic, an aesthetic decision, not one based on budget. “We liked what the camera could do in terms of how rich we would make skin tones,” related Young.
Young earlier shot Restless City on the RED One for director Dosunmu. “I remember as a student being blown away by Andrew’s work as a fashion photographer,” recalled Young. “To later get the chance to work with him on Restless City on a microbudget was amazing.”
Their collaborative relationship continued on Mother of George with Young helping to bring the characters’ African roots into their Brooklyn apartment. “They brought a culture with them to Brooklyn. Africa is lit with fluorescents, has an iridescent look and feel. We wanted to bring some of that quality to the images in Brooklyn–in the context of the characters and the space they originated from. The over arching difficult part is to not make the look overly stylized–yet to somehow capture that aura of people’s roots, adding to the unique flavor of the characters.”
This approach was also a reflection of director Dosunmu. “Andrew grew up in Nigeria,” said Young. “He brings allegory, mythology and culture to his filmmaking process and storytelling.”
As for writer/director Lowery, Young described him as “a Texas man to the very core. He brings all of that gentle but very epic personality to his filmmaking approach and process.”
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints marked the first time Young and Lowery worked together. Young got on a list of prospective cinematographers for the film due in part to producer Jay Van Hoy of production company Parts & Labor. Van Hoy was a producer on both Mother of George and Ain’t Then Bodies Saints. “I met David and it was instant brotherhood,” recalled Young. “His script blew me away, so timeless and mature.”
To do justice to that script for Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Young noted, “We wanted this film to be as authentic as possible. We needed to make it feel very real but not tie it down to a gross naturalism. We’re using ‘naturalism’ as a loose term for an unobtrusive cinematography but that doesn’t mean you don’t light it. You have to be mindful of a space and time. This story is happening in a contemporary context but you can elevate the image–almost like how can we add a little bit more magic even though we don’t want to make it feel surreal or like a magical film. You want the imagery to feel elevated yet grounded in reality so that you identify with the characters in the frame.”
Early on, Young hardly seemed destined for a career in cinematography, much less being lauded for his lensing at Sundance. From Louisville, Kentucky, he is fourth generation from a family of morticians. Young left Louisville when he was 15; his mother had passed way so he went to Chicago to live with his father. “I went from a sheltered environment in Louisville to a very progressive place in Chicago, my father being a free spirit and person. Art, science and culture in Chicago were new experiences for me.”
These experiences led to his decision to attend college. Young went to Howard University, an African-American college, where he eventually landed at the doorstep of Haile Gerima, one of the professionals in the school’s film program. Gerima came to Howard in the 1970s to start the graduate film studies curriculum. Part of the influential L.A. Rebellion front of the African-American film movement, Gerima brought his independent filmmaking spirit to Howard.
Still, Young wasn’t thinking of cinematography as a career. He attained his undergrad degree and started his Master’s studies in film at Howard but left before finishing to move to New York City in 2004 with the goal of becoming an experimental filmmaker. He initially looked to become a video installation artist. Later some lensing opportunities arose.
A turning point came when Young met Dee Rees and shot a short film for the writer/director called Pariah which debuted at Sundance in 2008. The short was made to help raise funds for a long-form Pariah film. Young lensed that full-length feature which won The Cinematography Award in 2011 at Sundance. Young described that recognition as the start of “a two-year journey coming out of really not wanting to be in the film world this way but finding myself enjoying it and now honored to keep on going.”
That momentum includes his shooting Middle of Nowhere, directed by Ava DuVernay which won this year’s John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards, and Vara: A Blessing for director Khyentse Norbu.
In recent months, Young has diversified more meaningfully into commercials, shooting for such directors as Derek Cianfrance and Chris Milk of @radical.media, and Mark Pellington of Wondros.
In the process, Young has added to his digital cinematography expertise, deploying the ARRI Alexa for Pellington and shooting anamorphic with Alexa for Milk.
Young is handled across the board for features, TV and commercials/branded content by UTA.
Marc Silver The Cinematography Award: World Cinema Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was bestowed upon Who is Dayani Cristal? which centers on an anonymous migrant worker whose body is found decomposing in the Arizona desert, a stretch of grueling geography where such discoveries are sadly commonplace as people look to enter the U.S. to realize better lives for themselves and their families.
This particular corpse carries an extra layer of mystery as the documentary-maker and officials look to ascertain the person’s identity, backstory and the meaning of a tattoo on his body which simply reads, “Dayani Cristal.”
Marc Silver directed and served as executive producer on Who is Dayani Cristal?, his breakout feature. He teamed with Pau Esteve Birba to shoot the documentary. Silver lensed much of the documentary solo on a Canon 7D with prime lenses. For reenactment scenes with actor Gael Garcia Bernal (a producer on the film), Birba was deployed. He looked at the rushes shot by Silver and they teamed to match the shooting style, both using 7Ds and Canon primes. Silver said of the 7D, “It allowed me to be lightweight, intimate and able to shoot alone without any other crew…and yet still create something that looks and feels cinematic.”
As for the biggest challenges posed by Who is Dayani Cristal?, Silver cited “the statistical odds against us. Of the 2,000 bodies recovered from the desert over the last decade, 700 still remain unidentified. The large majority of migrants do not carry any form of identification. It takes a huge amount of time and effort across several agencies and countries to repatriate remains to families. We wanted to tell a story that followed the whole process–from the discovery of someone in the desert, to the forensic investigation into their identity, to finding their family, to returning the body to the family, and being there at the funeral. On top of this, we wanted to find a family and a community who would want to share their story and emotions with us, and in turn, humanize the dialogue around immigration.
“The second challenge was how to film dead bodies and skeletal remains whilst not making the footage feel voyeuristic or exploitative in any way. Having met so many living migrants in Mexico, I didn’t feel when I was in the morgue and the desert that I was really filming dead bodies. I kind of saw them as people who had hopes, dreams and families and I could visualize a little the journey they had been on before they died in the desert. I filmed the dead as if I was doing portraiture, trying to empower and give meaning to their deaths. I almost saw my role as giving the dead a voice, a chance for them to shout with power about what had happened to them. I tried to give the same sense of dignity that I feel all the living characters in the film display.”
Silver’s prior work included short films and art installations that address human rights. This led him to focus on the Wall being built between the United States and Mexico with research uncovering the unidentified skulls found by law enforcement in the deserts of Arizona.
“I thought that following the investigation into an unidentified skull was a fascinating and poetic way of exploring the dehumanization of migrants,” explained Silver. “I literally asked myself, ‘What can a skull in an empty desert tell you about the world?’…The story I set out to tell was less a ‘who done’ it?’, but rather a ‘what happened?’ What drives people to leave their homes and set out on one of the most dangerous journeys in the world, and how do they end up alone and dying in such an inhospitable part of the planet? I did not want to make a film that added to the rhetoric that surrounds immigration, but rather tell a story that almost transcends the political left and right and instead inspires audiences all over the world to ask themselves what they would have done for their own family if they were in a similar situation.
“I wanted to craft a narrative that built identity and humanity as the story unfolded–that ‘rehumanized’ a dead someone, that turned someone with no identity at the beginning into a living breathing human being by the end,” he continued. “I wanted to tell a story that was of course local to the USA, but that was at the same time universal in it’s themes–a story of life and death, of love and commitment, of the drive to better yourself and your family. These are things that all people are capable of empathizing with, despite your views on immigration, borders and economics.”
Silver related that he hopes his documentary provides viewers “with a feeling of deep empathy–that shifts their perspective on any prejudices they may have towards so called ‘illegals’ and ‘aliens.’ I want them to ask themselves how far they would go for their own family if push came to shove? I want them to look at migrants in the knowledge that their journey did not just start easily on the other side of the Wall, but that they had to leave loved ones for very universal reasons, whilst hoping they will survive an incredibly dangerous journey across Mexico and into the U.S. And all this before they even try and get a job. I want them to feel proud of the humanitarian work Americans are doing in helping to end other peoples’ pain by repatriating remains to families.”
Regarding what the Sundance Cinematography Award means to him, Silver assessed, “This was quite a breakthrough moment for me and I’m keen to evolve the look and feel of future projects. It’s very humbling to have the way you see the world acknowledged and to know that people empathize with that. I’m just very excited to take this further.”
One discipline in which he could go further is advertising. Silver is now repped as a director for spots and branded content by production house Picrow. “I’m really interested in bringing the authentic look of documentary into commercials, and equally bringing the quality and deftness of commercials into documentary.”
