Moving between spots and features
By Carolyn Giardina
Director/DP Albert Kodagolian looks back and recalls that he has been a “perpetual foreigner.”
Born to Armenian parents, the helmer spent his early childhood in the southern regions of the Caspian Sea near the Armenian and Iranian border. At age 12, he was sent to a boarding school in Cyprus because of political turmoil in Iran. After four years of separation, he was reunited with his parents in Germany, where they lived for a year until they immigrated to the United States.
“We had to leave new languages and adapt to new cultures,” Kodagolian recalls. “I feel like I’m a citizen of the world…That’s probably one of the most unique characteristics that I have. Having to assimilate and live in harmony with others, that made me an acute observer…that’s what I do in my job. [Evoke] human characteristics…and distill that in 30 seconds.”
“Living in different countries, you realize the power of the image to transcend language and cultural barriers,” he continues. “That not true about a sentence…More for me that’s probably one of the biggest fascinations with cinema and visual storytelling.”
Kodagolian attended the University of Southern California and next developed his craft, first as a producer and then as a cinematographer on a number of independent feature films. He then moved to London, where he made his first short film, Moving On, which has screened at the 2004 Edinburgh International Film Festival, Cardiff Film Festival, Greenwich Film Festival, Britspotting 2005 in Berlin, and the Kodak/BAFTA short film showcase in London. “Moving On is about letting go of the past baggage and unresolved relationships that tie people down, to gracefully move on and not being bogged down by the past,” Kodagolian explains.
Today he is on the directorial roster of bicoastal/international Believe Media for representation in North America and many parts of the world. In Europe he is repped through Joy Films, a division of RSA in London.
His work has earned recognition including a couple of SHOOT Top Spot honors. Via RSA London, Kodagolian helmed “Human Suit” for the Sci-Fi Channel (2/3/06), which features a man who develops a “human suit,” which his dog can wear. The plan is for the dog to go to work in the man’s place, and the dog excels, earning employee-of-the-month honors and a promotion. The dog drives to work in a car with the license plate, “Top Dog.” This is coupled with a role reversal at home. Finally, the dog throws a ball to his former master, who smiles at the offbeat turn of events. The word “If” appears across the screen, and the letters are repositioned to help form the Sci-Fi Channel logo.
Kodagolian also directed and lensed Theraflu’s “Bus,” a Top Spot (10/28/05) produced by Believe for Saatchi & Saatchi, New York. Here, the director captures the misery of a cold and flu sufferer, who is forced to ride a bus on a rainy day; relief comes in the form of his Theraflu. Kodagolian adds to this mood with cinematography that was dark and underexposed.
“I have shot, almost exclusively, everything I’ve directed this year,” Kodagolian relates, adding that he greatly enjoys both the directing and cinematography disciplines–one being very collaborative, the other quite individual.
“There is something complex and rewarding about directing,” the helmer says. “What I enjoy about directing is telling stories and creating a tone and an atmosphere for stories to exist in…ultimately cinematography is one of the leading contributors to that.
“What’s beautiful about cinematography is it’s very Zen,” he adds. “It’s a one-to-one relationship that is so simple; it’s about light. I’m really interested in light and that is the basis of cinema–that everything you get to experience starts with a ray of light reflecting from a surface…In cinematography, the eyepiece is the tip of the pen with which you write.”
He adds that he also enjoys working with other DPs, relating that he recently collaborated with such noted lensers as Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC (Brokeback Mountain, Ray, Babel) on an ad for Pontiac, and Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC (Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Ali, Sleepy Hollow) on Budweiser.
“The best part of collaborating with a director of photography is this is the person you can turn to, to discuss something personal or creative…someone that you collaborate with and confide in.”
Looking ahead, Kodagolian says he’s focused on commercials. Yet he is also co-writing a feature in his spare time.
“The goal is to eventually make a film but I don’t feel a rush to go out and make something,” he explains. “Like a commercial, you need to do it when it feels right.”
At press time, Kodagolian was about to embark on additional Sci-Fi Channel work. Looking back and forward, the helmer concludes that his goals have never changed. “I’ve been dedicated to finding good scripts with good endings, that are centered on an idea…Then I can bring something to it that is human. [The people at] Believe are sensitive to that.”
Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More