One cinematographer had four features at last month’s Toronto International Film Festival.
Another DP, an ASC Award winner, just had a feature screen at the Toronto Festival for the first time in her career.
And our third cinematographer has had three films debut in Toronto over the years–two for the same director, including last month’s selection for the festival’s Special Presentations program. This DP also has an ASC Award on his mantle for a TV movie that Toronto Festival decision-makers deemed worthy enough to be the closing night’s film back in 2011.
Here are reflections on Toronto from cinematographers Bobby Bukowski, Tami Reiker, ASC, and Martin Ruhe.
Bobby Bukowski
Last month’s Toronto International Film Festival was most eventful for cinematographer Bobby Bukowski. He lensed four features which made the Festival cut: 99 Homes directed by Ramin Bahrani; Infinitely Polar Bear directed by Maya Forbes; Rosewater helmed by Jon Stewart; and Time Out of Mind directed by Oren Moverman. Infinitely Polar Bear earned a slot in the Galas section of the Toronto Fest while the other three films all were selected for the Special Presentations program.
“Having four films in Toronto feels like the culmination of a great deal of work,” related Bukowski. “After 25 years of shooting, I feel really satisfied to have this body of work recognized. Somehow it all came together after a lot of hard work and tenacity over the years.”
While distinctly different from one another, the four Bukowski-lensed films showcased at Toronto also shared some general similarities. “Each film had a budget of less than $5 million and had us working on anywhere from a 21 to a 25-day schedule,” shared Bukowski. “And I used the [ARRI] ALEXA camera for all four films–the caveat being that I applied different lenses to the camera for each movie. At the end of the day, it’s often the glass that can give you the style of the film.”
For three of the movies, Bukowski found himself collaborating for the first time with the respective directors, the only exception being Time Out of Mind which was the third film Bukowski had lensed for filmmaker Moverman (the first being The Messenger, and later Rampart).
Rampart was the first film Bukowski shot that was screened at the Toronto Festival, back in 2011. “It was also the first time I shot with the ALEXA,” recalled Bukowski. “There was an energy in that film that was beautiful. Unfortunately I was working in Singapore at the time so I couldn’t get over to Toronto.” Last month, though, Bukowski made his way to Toronto to see his four films play before an audience.
Rampart also played a part in Bukowski landing the opportunity to shoot Rosewater for first-time director Jon Stewart (best known as host of The Daily Show). Lila Yacoub was an executive producer on Rampart as well as Rosewater. “She right away thought Jon and I would be a match in terms of our creative sensibilities,” said Bukowski, “so she brought us together.”
As for 99 Homes, Bukowski said he and fellow New Yorker Bahrani were “very aware of each other’s work for a long time. Ramin is a friend of Oren [Moverman] as well. Oren is my single best and most ardent supporter. His work and presence have led to a lot of my festival success.”
That success also includes The Iceman–which Bukowski shot for director Ariel Vromen–being selected for the 2012 Telluride Festival as well as that year’s Toronto Fest, and Infinitely Polar Bear earlier this year debuting at the Sundance Film Festival.
Regarding Infinitely Polar Bear, director Forbes’ first choice for a DP was certainly not Bukowski. “She confessed to me halfway into the film when everything was going really well that she had really tried to get a woman to shoot her film–which is a feminine point-of-view story,” said Bukowski. “When that didn’t come to fruition, we got together, had an interesting dialogue and struck up a rapport which thankfully led to us working together.”
Set in the late 1970s, Infinitely Polar Bear introduces us to a manic depressive father who tries to win back his wife by taking responsibility of their two young daughters. Cast includes Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Imogene Wolodarsky, Ashley Aufderheide, Beth Dixon and Keir Dullea.
99 Homes stars Andrew Garfield as Dennis Nash, a construction worker whose family is evicted from their home. He tries to get his home back by working for the corrupt real estate broker (Rick Carver portrayed by Michael Shannon) who evicted them. Nash’s new job is to evict other struggling people from their homes.
Rosewater is based on the true story of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari (portrayed by Gael Garcia Bernal) whose appearance on Stewart’s The Daily Show precipitated his five-month imprisonment and torture by the Iranian government.
And Time Out of Mind stars Richard Gere as a homeless man who struggles to get his life back in order while trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
“All the films posed different challenges,” related Bukowski who cited Time Out of Mind as a prime example. “Richard Gere plays a street person and we wanted this to play out as realistically as possible. So we placed this very visible movie star in the midst of the river of life that is New York City. We literally dropped him in character–Richard shaved his head and was in threadbare clothes–in the middle of everything. Nobody knew who he was. We kept the camera far away. We would duck inside a coffee shop, an apartment and shoot remotely from there with extremely long telephoto zoom lenses. We were shooting anamorphic–like what National Geographic uses to shoot lions on the Serengeti. There was no film presence around the actors–no boom, no camera, no lights. We first dropped Richard in the middle of Astor Place during rush hour. The challenge there was to stay invisible and let the process of this film happen. The city was such a huge character in our film. And we let Richard just be swallowed up by the city.”
Among the challenges posed by Rosewater was shooting with a first time director in Jordan during Ramadan. “Does that sound like something you want to do?” smiled Bukowski. “The crew was local and not terribly experienced so there was teaching involved and I had to be very hands-on, putting up lights, setting up, inventing or constructing a simple way to do things. I learned a lot in the process–one key lesson being that a very simple approach can be the best and most beautiful.”
For 99 Homes, Bukowski said the challenge was capturing the scale of the project–many locations–while working under a relatively low budget and not having a lot of days to shoot. But making that challenge doable, noted the DP, was “the fact that we had great material, great actors and a great director. When you have all those elements, no obstacle is too great. You just try as a cinematographer to capture it all in the most meaningful way possible.”
And for Infinitely Polar Bear, Bukowski noted that the story was deeply personal and director Forbes wanted to bring forth its full impact. “The challenge was to get her away from the facts once in a while,” observed Bukowski. “Sometimes reality isn’t as dramatic as it needs to be so you have to dramatize the story in a way to do justice to the spirit of the story. It’s very much like adapting a novel. We narratively dramatized when necessary.”
Bukowski’s career spans not only features but also notable TV endeavors including multiple episodes of Weeds (Showtime) and the James Mangold-directed CBS pilot NYC 22. Bukowski took a circuitous route to cinematography. He was a medical school student, an experience he described as having been “a disaster. I was completely unhappy. I then was an itinerant globetrotter for most of my 20s. At some point I fell into working with cameras for a fashion photographer in France. I wound up taking a trip to India with a video camera in my hand, following Tibet Buddhists who were following the Dalai Lama. I started shooting some of their ceremonies and found myself enamored with the moving image.”
This led to Bukowski returning home and gaining admission to graduate film school at NYU. “I was with people from very diverse backgrounds–older, more experienced people and I learned a lot there,” recalled Bukowski.
Among the “early proponents of my career,” recollected Bukowski, “was Lindsay Law who was running American Playhouse at the time.” This resulted in Bukowski shooting two installments of PBS’ American Playhouse.
Bukowski moved from NY to L.A. in the early 1990s, got an agent and began his career as a feature cinematographer. “The first film I shot wound up in the Berlin Film Festival.”
Fast forward to today and the festival circuit theme continues for Bukowski with multiple features in Toronto and prospects for more as we move deeper into the awards/fest season.
Tami Reiker, ASC
Cinematographer Tami Reiker, ASC, also made an impression at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, shooting Beyond The Lights written and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Screened as part of Toronto’s Special Presentations program, Beyond The Lights stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Noni, a budding music superstar but the pressures of fame have her on edge–until she meets Kaz, a young cop and aspiring politician, whose love could give her the inspiration and courage to find her own true voice as an artist. The cast also includes Nate Parker, Minnie Driver, Colson “MGK” Baker and Danny Glover.
Reiker earlier shot the Prince-Bythewood directed HBO movie Disappearing Acts starring Wesley Snipes. “We have built a collaborative relationship and friendship,” said Reiker of her special bond with Prince-Bythewood. “She has been working for years to get this film [Beyond The Lights] made and finally got the financing. On the last movie we had done together, there was a lot of hand-held camera work. And we came to agree that Beyond The Lights should be primarily handheld. I went with the [ARRI] ALEXA M which is very lightweight and I operated the entire movie.”
Reiker had deployed the ALEXA M on a number of commercials so she was familiar with the camera and what it could do for Beyond The Lights. She has found her experience in the commercialmaking world (Target, 7-Up,Toyota, Canon, Volkswagen, Coca-Cola, Diet Pepsi, MasterCard, Mercedes-Benz, Nike and Bud Light, among various other brands) as invaluable in her longer form endeavors. “You not only get to experiment with all types of new equipment and gadgets but also commercials have you shooting all over the world, learning different crews, different lighting approaches and techniques. Some of the handheld work I did on Beyond The Lights reminded me of what I had done in the past on certain car commercials.”
As for the biggest creative challenge posed by Beyond The Lights to her as a cinematographer, Reiker observed, “We had to create the world of the main character, a music superstar like Beyonce. Recreating the wealth of that world, recreating the BET Awards, the Golden Globes, represented quite a challenge with not that big a budget.”
Reiker, though, is up to any kind of creative challenge as evidenced by her precedent-setting career. She broke new ground with her lensing of the HBO pilot Carnivàle, directed by Rodrigo Garcia. On the strength of that episode, Reiker in 2004 became the first woman to win the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Outstanding Achievement Award.
Reiker started her career in New York, attending film school at NYU. She shot student films, including one for director Lisa Cholodenko. “That’s how we met and then I shot her feature film, High Art,” recalled Reiker. A lauded film, High Art garnered assorted industry awards and nominations. For her lensing of High Art, Reiker was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography in 1999.
Reiker has a bit of a track record collaborating with and helping out directors early on in their careers, prior to their full-blown industry emergence. When Reiker was starting out, she shot spec work in New York for an agency creative who had directorial aspirations: Craig Gillespie, who’s gone on to win the DGA Award for Commercial Director of the Year while being nominated four times for that honor. Reiker has shot numerous real-world commercials for director Gillespie of MJZ as well as his feature filmmaking debut, New Line Cinema’s Mr. Woodcock which starred Billy Bob Thornton and Susan Sarandon.
Reiker’s filmography spans commercials, music videos, TV and features. Among her notable spot credits is Sega’s “Obsidian Egg” directed by MJZ’s Rocky Morton. That commercial won Reiker a Los Angeles Advertising Club Belding Award for best cinematography and helped earn Morton a DGA Award nomination.
Among other honors earned by Reiker is the 2005 Kodak Vision Award.
Martin Ruhe
Directed by Daniel Barber, The Keeping Room was screened as part of the Special Presentations program at last month’s Toronto International Film Festival. The Keeping Room is director Barber’s second feature, both of which were shot by cinematographer Martin Ruhe. The two artisans first worked together in the commercialmaking arena so when Barber embarked on his feature directorial debut, Harry Brown, he naturally gravitated towards Ruhe to lens the movie which starred Michael Caine in the title role of a vigilante. Released in 2009, Harry Brown was the first Toronto Festival selection for Barber and Ruhe.
In between Harry Brown and The Keeping Room, Ruhe had another entry make the Toronto grade: Page Eight which was chosen as the closing film for the 2011 Festival. A contemporary spy thriller written and directed by Sir David Hare for the BBC, Page Eight was a made-for-TV movie that still impressed Toronto decision-makers enough to earn the closing night honor.
On the strength of Page Eight, Ruhe earned his first career ASC Award nomination and win. Ruhe received the coveted ASC honor in 2012 with Page Eight topping the competition category of Outstanding Achievement in a Television Movie or Miniseries.
Ruhe’s latest Toronto entry, The Keeping Room centers on three Southern women–two sisters (portrayed by Brit Marling and Hailee Steinfeld) and a former African-American slave (Muno Otaru)–who must fight to defend their home and themselves from two rogue Union Army soldiers (Sam Worthington and Kyle Soller) during the dying days of the American Civil War. The period piece had its challenges, particularly since it was shot entirely in Romania on a relatively small budget. “Daniel was the only person I knew when I went there,” recalled Ruhe. “I didn’t know any of the crew members but we managed to pull it off over about 30 shoot days in Romania.”
Ruhe deployed the ARRI ALEXA camera, shooting “almost everything handheld. It was all about the actors, particularly the three women’s performances,” he said.
Both Barber (via U.K. production house Knucklehead) and Ruhe remain active in commercials. Ruhe’s spot endeavors take place between his ongoing theatrical feature pursuits. At press time, he was slated to go to New York for color grading on his latest feature, Run All Night directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, which is slated for release in February 2015.
The crossover between short and long-form fare has earmarked Ruhe’s career over many years. For instance, Ruhe early on lensed music videos for director Anton Corbijn. This led to Ruhe serving as cinematographer on Corbijn’s features Control and The American. The former earned Ruhe the Best Cinematography honor at the 2007 Auteur Festival, and a British Independent Film Awards nomination for Best Technical Achievement for Cinematography. Coming full circle back to short form, Ruhe recently shot a commercial in Sweden for director Corbijn.
Ruhe’s feature filmography also includes the Julie Delpy-directed The Countess. The cinematographer’s shorter form body of work spans hundreds of music videos and assorted commercials. His ad fare encompasses such brands as Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, T-Mobile, ESPN, Google, Barclays, Stella Artois, Nike, Volvo, Netflix, Gillette, McDonald’s, Ikea, Johnnie Walker, Coca-Cola, Axe, British Airways, Audi, Samsung and Adidas.
Ruhe noted that he’s enjoyed a gratifying and invaluable learning experience from collaborating with a diverse range of directors on commercials. In addition to Barber and Corbijn, that roster of directors includes the likes of Filip Engstrom, the Perlorian Brothers, Rick Lemoine, Guy Shelmerdine, Steve Miller, Brian Beletic, Anders Hallberg and Markus Walter.
