Cinematographer Roberto Schaefer is equally at home shooting spots and lensing features like Christopher Guest’s Best of Show and Waiting for Guffman, as well as Everything Put Together, helmed by Marc Forster. In terms of approach, the veteran DP likes projects that allow him to work out every visual detail in advance, but he also loves shooting on the fly.
Schaefer, who is represented by bicoastal Innovative Artists, knows that advertising agencies and directors are aware of his varied skills. "I think there’s an odd dichotomy," he says. "They see me in two very disparate genres, one being the mock-documentary comedy style that I do with [director] Christopher Guest all the time. On the other side, there’s the high-end effects stuff I’ve been doing a lot with [director] Andrew Becker." (Guest is repped for spotwork by bicoastal Moxie Pictures, while Becker is with Boxer Films, Los Angeles.)
The DP recently shot the Becker-directed spot "Tower" for Uunet, an Internet services company, via Donino, White & Partners, Atlanta. The spot opens with a close-up of an insect crawling on desert sand. Cut to a wide shot that reveals a row of identically attired businessmen making their way across the arid landscape towards a spiral tower. The dramatically lit scenario recalls a biblical event as seen though the eyes of painter Hieronymous Bosch. As the corporate executives climb the tower, fierce winds and crumbling bricks impede their progress. The spot closes with an extreme long shot of those who have reached the structure’s height, from where they can see a gleaming modern skyline in the distance. The last two lines of the ad’s voiceover: "Do you see a future of futility, or possibility? Will you choose Uunet: The business side of the Internet?"
"Tower" was a challenging, effects-heavy job that involved major lighting setups, technocrane moves and dozens of extras. "It was long and tough," says Schaefer. "We spent three weeks up in Vancouver in a building called ‘The A-frame,’ which is 120 feet high, 160 feet wide, and 400 feet long. The shoot was in the middle of winter and there was no heat. It was the only place big enough to build that set." The commercial’s desert scenes were shot over two days at Dumont Dunes, near California’s Mojave Desert.
Preparation
When Schaefer works with Becker, he comes onboard very early in the process. "Andrew calls me in, way before he even gets the job," explains Schaefer. "We get into concepts, influences, looks and different films or paintings to draw from. We really work out the whole strategy from the very beginning. I like that kind of involvement."
Commenting on effects-heavy ads in general, Schaefer says, "It’s definitely a challenge to always be considering what’s beyond the guy or the set you’re shooting. You know that the green or blue screen that’s back there is going to contain many other things that either you’re shooting or that come from stock footage or CGI. It keeps you on your toes.
"On the other side, it can become a little boring because you like to see everything while you’re doing it," he continues. "You like to have a little more control over the actual making of the entire image. [Effects-heavy spots are] definitely happening more and more. You can’t turn your back on it."
Schaefer believes that a number of the post-intensive spots are very well done. In particular, the DP praises Simon Brewster, visual effects supervisor/Inferno artist at A52, Los Angeles, who did the Inferno work on "Tower."
Frosted Flakes’ "Pacific and Marsupials," directed by Guest of Moxie Pictures, out of Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, is an entirely different sort of spot from "Tower." The humor-driven ad features actor Don Lake as a man who collects Frosted Flakes for their evocative shapes and textures: The cereal reminds him of things like islands and animals. The ad’s hand-held coverage captures the connoisseur showing off his collection as he speaks directly to the camera, as if he were addressing a documentary crew. The commercial ends with a shot of Tony the Tiger exclaiming, "They’re great!"
"Since we’ve worked together so much, I know the way [Guest] likes things to look and to feel," notes Schaefer. "He lets me go at it pretty much on my own, but he definitely is controlling the image in that he really likes to see specific things.
"His casting is his forte—getting actors who can do the improv work that he likes to do," continues the DP. "Even though [the spots] have scripts, he really comes into it when he works with the actors, and brings stuff out of them that is hilarious. Working with Chris is always fun. Everybody laughs a lot."
One of Schaefer’s most recent jobs is a three-spot package for Microsoft, comprised of the ads "Grim Reaper," "Swami" and "Hermes." The campaign was directed by Spooner/French—Nick and Andrew, respectively—of Shooting Gallery Productions, New York, via Publicis, Toronto. The DP also lensed Electronic Data System’s "Airplane," helmed by John O’Hagan of bicoastal/international hungry man via Fallon, Minneapolis. The ad, which is set to break next month, is the highly anticipated follow-up to EDS’ "Cat Herder," also helmed by O’Hagan, that was recently nominated for the Emmy Award for best primetime commercial. Schaefer also shot iBeam.com’s "Saleswomen" and "Investors Club," directed by Scott Burns of bicoastal Tool of North America, out of Tonic 360, San Francisco.
Currently, Schaefer is in Texas lensing Slap Her, She’s French, an indie teen comedy directed by Evan Dunsky. "I like the smaller, independent projects," he explains. "I haven’t done any of the blockbuster stuff. It’s less the studio saying things, and it’s more the director, yourself and the other creative people on the set getting to have control over what they put up there," comments Schaefer.
Schaefer attended the school of fine arts at Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. He was a multimedia major, with a minor in photography. After graduating in 1973, he found himself in New York, shooting news features as a freelancer for various European television networks. In ’82 he produced commercials at DuRona Productions, New Rochelle, N.Y. (now Firehouse Films, Mamaroneck, N.Y.).
Schaefer then spent 10 years in Italy shooting commercials, music videos, documentaries, and features, and also worked as a Steadicam operator. In the early ’90s, a close friend of Schaefer’s, director Antony Hoffman of bicoastal/international @radical.media, encouraged Schaefer to move to Los Angeles. The DP took the advice and relocated there in ’92. "I moved to L.A. and waited about three months before anything really happened," states Schaefer. "Then suddenly I started working, and I haven’t been able to leave L.A."
