Andrzej Sekula will admit it: He makes mistakes. The noted director of photography on such films as Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and American Psycho—not to mention hundreds of spots in the past 10 years—believes that the occasional, so-called error or miscalculation helps him to shoot better film.
For Sekula, who is represented for commercial work by ICM, Beverly Hills, Calif., confidence is the key. Without it, mistakes could turn into problems. "At the beginning [of my career]," he says, "I’d take a light meter, I’d make a lot of measurements. You feel insecure [then] because people told you the ratio between light and shadow should be 1:3 or 1:4. I did a lot of measurements, going around—light meter, check this or that. [Then I found that] no, it’s not necessary. Now I very rarely am taking mea-surements."
Now he finds that what might be considered errors generally come out as "happy mistakes" that highlight "other elements that if I did ‘correctly’ could be kind of hidden, or might not come out."
In any case, he says, "This industry is very unpredictable. Sometimes you’re doing something that you think is wrong, and suddenly everybody loves it. And sometimes you try hard and nothing happens."
Certainly it’s hard to find cinematographic fault with "Spanish Wedding," a new, visually stunning spot for Coca-Cola, via McCann-Erickson, New York, that he DP’d for director Ralf Schmerberg of bicoastal/international @radical. media. The nostalgic ad, which contains no dialogue, captures the anxious bustle of activity as a bride gets ready for her big day, surrounded by endless cousins, aunts and nieces, all of whom want to help the flustered woman get ready for her big moment. While she suffers silently through their ministrations, the adorable flower girl comes to the rescue by giving the bride a sip of Coke, triggering the tagline: "Life tastes good."
"Strange shoot," says Sekula of "Spanish Wedding." "You always have a storyboard. They pin up the storyboard and shoot one picture and you make a mark: This is done, this is done, this is done, till you get the last shot and they’re calling a wrap. Now, this shoot was just a bunch of guesses. We were just filming, like documentarians."
Sekula and Schmerberg, each with a camera in hand, just moved around the single-room set—which was no easy task to light, according to Sekula—concentrating on whatever the director thought would create the right feeling: the bride, the children, old ladies napping.
The spot’s distinctive, near-sepia color scheme, however, was added in post. "The old times, when everyone expected you to do in camera, is gone," he says. "Because it’s much easier to do this in postproduction, and much more effective. You can do almost everything in postproduction."
Sekula has done his share of post-heavy spots, including several featuring Ginger, the talking Taco Bell Chihuahua, via TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles. (The Taco Bell account is now with FCB San Francisco.) "One could say it’s a little bit more boring than normal," he says of shooting for digital insertion. "Harder to concentrate on action."
Sequences that involve real action, however, put Sekula in a sort of reverie. "When you put your eye into the viewfinder, you don’t see the surrounding, unnecessary rubbish, like when you’re observing from outside," he notes. "You don’t see clothes, you don’t see the soundman with his microphone, you don’t see the camera. … When you looking through viewfinder, the moment when they say ‘Action!’ or ‘Cut!’ it’s almost like sitting in a cinema."
Perhaps Sekula is at the same time recalling how he first became interested in cinematography: From watching movies in his native Poland, he progressed to reading film magazines and almost immediately realized he wanted to be the man controlling the camera. As a DP, he says, "you are immediately in the place you want to be: a film set."
From Poland, Sekula went to England’s prestigious National Film and Television School, in Beaconsfield, England—a lucky break, he says, that gave him a professional edge once he graduated.
Sekula finished school in 1989-90, just as cable television was about to spawn hundreds of channels and, perhaps more important, just as independent film was primed to explode onto the scene. He spent a lot of money putting together a commercial reel, only to find that production companies and agents hated it.
"But," he says, "this same show reel gets me this feature called Reservoir Dogs. So search me. … The same people who reject you suddenly say, ‘Yeah, it was a great show reel.’ "
Sekula is continuing to deal with the industry’s fickle ways as he makes his first moves toward becoming a spot director. "As a DP," says Sekula, "they’re putting you in this pigeonhole: ‘All right, you are a director of photography. If you want to move to directing spots, you have to do these kinds of spots which prove you can be a director of commercials.’ "
While Sekula has yet to direct a spot, he did helm a feature called Fait Accompli in ’98. The only problem with launching his spot-helming career, he says, is that he’s DPing too many ads to start directing. (One of his recent efforts was Washington Mutual’s "Diner," helmed by T.G. Herrington of Carbo Films, Santa Monica.) Still, he says, "pretty soon I am going to move into becoming both—director and DP. I have shot such a variety of commercials that I feel I could do it with no problem. I will concentrate on commercials that involve work with actors and very visual elements."
In the meantime, however, he may have a new feature to shoot. The film has a "healthy budget," but Sekula refuses to divulge its name, or the director and actors attached to it, because, he says, "I don’t want to jinx it." ƒ
