The Whale (A24) added to the collaborative bond between cinematographer Matthew Libatique, ASC and director Darren Aronofsky spanning such films as Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Noah, mother! and Black Swan. The latter earned Libatique his first Best Cinematography Oscar nomination in 2011. The DP’s second Academy Award nod came eight years later for Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, A Star is Born. Black Swan and A Star is Born also garnered ASC Award nominations for Libatique.
The Whale stars Brendan Fraser as Charlie, a reclusive, morbidly obese English teacher who seeks to reconnect with his estranged teen daughter (portrayed by Sadie Sink). Figuring into the relationship is Herman Melville’s classic “Moby Dick” with Charlie a sort of Captain Ahab in his own right, caught up in the pursuit of something all consuming yet elusive.
This engaging, thought-provoking, soul-stirring pursuit takes place largely in Charlie’s apartment, carrying the inherent challenge of making a story–which is confined primarily to one room–visually exciting for the audience. Libatique summed up the concern with the question, “How do we make this cinematic?”
The short hand and familiarity between Aronofsky and Libatique proved invaluable on that front as they teamed to map out every angle of the film, blocking scenes well in advance of shooting. Working with production designers Mark Friedberg and Robert Pyzocha, they gave a small space, an apartment, the feel of an expansive internal world.
While they are known for often going with a handheld camera approach, Aronofsky and Libatique returned to the more classical camera movements utilized for The Fountain. They composed a shot list and through the adroit use of cranes and dollies built tension and intimacy between the characters within a single location.
Planning for the shoot was informed by actor rehearsals which shed light on what was needed visually to support those performances. Libatique observed that the rehearsals sparked conversations about “character arc, story arc, visual arc,” a back-and-forth of ideas. Light had to be kept naturalistic. There would be no heavy intrusive lighting equipment. All that had to be kept out of the actors way in that The Whale, explained Libatique, was “first and foremost a performance piece,” meaning the filmmakers had to keep things genuine so “the characters are able to grow, and allowed to become familiar to the audience.”
Being dialogue-intense, the film required space for the actors to bring their characters to life. “We wanted to keep the actors’ eyeline clear of equipment,” continued Libatique. “The actors needed space to perform. There was a lot of dialogue to chew through. We didn’t want there to be too much artifice around them.”
This led in part to the DP’s choice of the Sony VENICE camera which didn’t require a whole lot of light. “We could play things small with lighting but broad because the camera could see into the shadows,” related Libatique who noted that this was Aronofsky’s first digital feature. Live Grain was utilized to create the kind of filmic texture that Aronofsky wanted for the story.
The Whale affirmed for Libatique the notion that “not every film has to be so big. Simple ideas can touch an audience. There is a lot of commonality between us as humans. People connect emotionally with this film. You might not be estranged from a child but they too have a teenage son or daughter. The story represents much about our human insecurities, This is a production of writing and performance, I–and I hope the audience–was happy to have a front row seat.”
As for what’s next, Libatique at press time had wrapped lensing of Maestro which reunited him with Cooper who stars and directs in the film about conductor and activist Leonard Bernstein.
Eugenio Caballero
Production designer Eugenio Cabellero is a two-time Oscar nominee, winning in 2007 for Pan’s Labyrinth from writer-director Guillermo del Toro. Cabellero received his second nod in 2019 for writer-director Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma.
Now Caballero is again in the awards season conversation for his work on writer-director Alejandro G Iñarritu’s Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Netflix). Amplifying that industry banter was his receiving earlier this week his fourth career Art Directors Guild (ADG) Excellence in Production Design Award nomination for Bardo, which came in the Contemporary Feature Film category. Caballero won the ADG Award in 2007 for Pan’s Labyrinth. His other two noms came for director J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible in 2013 and Roma six years later.
Bardo centers on Silverio Gama (portrayed by Daniel Giménez Cacho), a renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker living in Los Angeles. After being named the recipient of a prestigious international award, Gama is compelled to return to his native country–a simple trip that will cause him to grapple with his memories and fears from the past, filling his present life with bewilderment, wonder, questions about his identity and mortality, what Mexico means to him, as well as the importance of family. The experience parallels in some respects that of Iñarritu, who made a deep dive into self-reflection as he wrote the screenplay with Nicolás Giacobone, his compatriot on Birdman and Biutiful. Going back home is a theme that’s particularly apropos in that Bardo marks Iñarritu’s first film shot in Mexico since Amores Perros in 2000.
Bardo marks Caballero’s first feature collaboration with Iñarritu. The two had previously teamed on some commercialmaking. There had been the possibility of their getting together on another feature that hasn’t yet come to fruition and then Bardo emerged. “The script was fantastic,” recalled Caballero. “It was beautiful to read a script so different from the ones we normally read.” In talking with Iñarritu, Caballero saw the idea was “something very personal” for the director, motivating the production designer to “jump off the cliff” with him to tell the ambitious story. “The film talks about personal memories in a certain way, the selected memories of my people. It was very interesting to touch these subjects through the filter of the script–and Alejandro’s vision.”
Bardo entailed major set construction to match the considerable scope and scale of the story. Caballero shared that the very nature of each set sprung from conversations he had with not only Iñarritu but also cinematographer Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC. “Alejandro explained what he wanted to convey in every place, every set, then we would shape it with him. It was a very precise form,” related Caballero, noting that Khondji informed the process so that the sets would facilitate a “fluidity” of motion in the film, what the production designer described as “almost a VR experience,” a wide lens that somehow brings and immerses the audience in the experience. “In order to do that, we needed to have very concrete sets in which we had rehearsed a lot, every camera movement, the choreography of whatever was around the character.”
This in turn served as “a playground for Alejandro,” continued Caballero, where he “could create with the actors. We had a very planned environment and then he did amazing work with the actors on set,” creating “subtle shades of the characters.”
Caballero found it gratifying to work with Iñarritu and Khondji, citing the director’s “capacity to focus,” taking in “everything including the little details–and what he is trying to say with those details.” As for Khondji, Caballero pointed to the cinematographer’s “inclusive vision” and great energy. “Working with Darius was one of the beautiful gifts in my career.”
Caballero’s extensive filmography extends beyond directors Iñarritu, Bayona and Cuarón. The production designer has also collaborated with such filmmakers as Jim Jarmusch (The Limit of Control), Baz Luhrmann (Romeo and Juliet), Sebastian Cordero (Cronicas, Rabia and Europa Report), Floria Sigismondi (The Runaways), Claudia Llosa, (Aloft), Fernando Eimbcke (Club Sandwich), Carlos Cuarón (Rudo y Cursi) and Russell Mulcahy (Resident Evil Extinction).
Chris Dickens, ACE
Editor Chris Dickens has an awards pedigree, winning an Oscar, BAFTA and ACE Eddie Awards in 2009 for his cutting of director Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. In 2013, Dickens received another Eddie nomination (shared with Melanie Oliver) for director Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables.
Dickens is now under awards consideration for the Michael Grandage-directed My Policeman (Amazon Studios), an adaptation of Bethan Roberts’ 2012 novel. The story takes us to 1957 in Brighton, England where a young policeman named Tom (portrayed by Harry Styles) has a chance encounter with a local museum curator, Patrick (David Dawson), that turns into a romance. Meanwhile Tom is courting his unsuspecting girlfriend, Marion (Emma Corrin). They form an adventuresome trio until Tom and Marion marry, stirring up emotional and sexual complications and ultimately a major life-altering betrayal. The story unfolds in flashback from the 1990s with an older Tom (Linus Roche), Marion (Gina McKee) and Patrick (Rupert Everett) reunited under trying circumstances. Marion has brought Patrick into her and Tom’s home to recuperate from a stroke–against the wishes of Tom. The film takes us back to repressive times in England when homosexuality was illegal, with gay men treated as criminals.
For Dickens, My Policeman posed major challenges, including doing justice to three protagonists portrayed by six actors. And confusion had to be avoided as we see the story primarily through Marian’s eyes but there are shifts in the film as we move to Patrick’s and Tom’s perspectives–across two different eras. “The challenge was to unify the two eras…to make it feel seamless, more as one story rather than two stories,” related Dickens who noted that a mix of cutting, rearranging and reshot scenes were needed to attain the right balance.
Dickens also as “a straight married man” felt personally challenged by the subject matter centered on two gay men, a forbidden relationship and a marriage that didn’t work. “I found the material challenging because it’s not my life experience. I had to be open and not let my natural prejudices affect the way I wanted to edit a scene.” This required being “open to possibilities, open to the story, open to what Michael [Grandage] and the screenwriter [Ron Nyswaner] were trying to say.” Dickens had to “transport” himself into the characters to make sure the story would advance in the proper way. He found it gratifying and enlightening to work toward realizing director Grandage’s vision for the film.
As for what’s next, Dickens at press time was set to embark on writer-director Steve McQueen’s Blitz. This marks a return engagement for Dickens with McQueen; the two collaborated on the anthology film series Small Axe which scored multiple BAFTA nominations, including a win, as well as a primetime Emmy nomination.
Katie Byron
Production designer Katie Byron enjoys a close collaborative connection with director Olivia Wilde. The two teamed on Booksmart, Wilde’s auspicious feature debut, and then they came together again for Don’t Worry Darling (Warner Bros. Pictures).
Florence Pugh, Harry Styles and Chris Pine headed the cast of Don’t Worry Darling for which Wilde envisioned an idyllic world that upon scrutiny reveals evils lurking beneath. Pugh’s character, Alice, sees the cracks in the facade, sensing that something is terribly wrong. She tries to get her husband Jack (Styles) on board but meets resistance. Still there’s something percolating that suggests that this notion of Shangri-la is about to be shattered.
The groundwork to create this appealing yet ultimately sinister world was rooted in extensive give and take among team members, including Wilde, Byron and DP Libatique. This marked the first collaboration between Byron and Libatique. Byron struck up an instant rapport with Libatique, observing that they have a similar temperament on set as well as philosophical reasons–without over-intellectualizing–behind finding the road that’s best suited for a project. Byron said a prime focus for her was to “give Matty a set where he could shoot creatively and the actors could improvise around.
She looked to create settings that had “a sense of opulence but in a certain light they became sinister.” Glass and fire were elements that came to mind. “You think of them as either warm, inviting and glamorous or scary, dark and destructive. I was interested in creating a space that could achieve both sets of feelings.” Byron said it was akin to creating “a jewel box that turns schizophrenic.”
A California desert backdrop imbues the motion picture with a natural visual grandeur. Wilde, Libatique and Byron sought to capture a utopian world that viewers might at first aspire to while maintaining an underlying sense of mystique, imperfection and ultimately dread.
Byron also credited location manager Chris Baugh for helping to achieve the necessary tone, mood and feel for Don’t Worry Darling. She noted that this was the first project where she worked so closely with a location manager, teaming to “collectively open up the scope of the film by pushing ourselves to reconsider some things that were part of the initial plan.” They thus became open to taking on locations that might have been a bit further away, more logistically inconvenient to get to but in the big picture they were architectural spaces that were worth the extra effort in terms of what they brought to the story. Byron felt a genuine esprit de corps throughout the crew, particularly in the working relationship she enjoyed with her own team (including art director Erika Toth, set decorator Rachael Ferrara) as well as Wilde, Libatique, Baugh and screenwriter Katie Silberman.
“Working with Olivia changed me as a designer and that only grew on Don’t Worry Darling,” said Byron who explained that Wilde brings the production designer in to design a world while the script is being written. “This gave the world a real personality,” assessed Byron, noting that she, Wilde and Silberman went to Palm Springs and started the process “before we even began the script…The world building was part of the story, not an afterthought. The world was being built as it was being written.”
This is the 10th installment of a 17-part series with future installments of The Road To Oscar slated to run in the weekly SHOOT>e.dition, The SHOOT Dailies and on SHOOTonline.com, with select installments also in print/PDF issues. The series will appear weekly through the Academy Awards gala ceremony. Nominations for the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 24. The 95th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12.
