Cinematographer Roberto Schaefer is equally at home shooting spots and lensing features like Christopher Guests 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 theres 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, theres the high-end effects stuff Ive 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 structures height, from where they can see a gleaming modern skyline in the distance. The last two lines of the ads 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 AThe 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 commercials desert scenes were shot over two days at Dumont Dunes, near Californias Mojave Desert.
