ASC Awards Preview: Breaking The Glass Lens Ceiling
Rachel Morrison, ASC
Rachel Morrison, ASC, makes history at ASC Awards, Oscars
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Rachel Morrison, ASC earned her first career ASC Award nomination last month on the strength of director Dee Rees’ Mudbound (Netflix). The nod carries historical significance because it broke the glass ceiling as Morrison became the first woman to be nominated for an ASC Award in the competition’s marquee Theatrical Feature category for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography.

Two weeks later, Morrison broke more glass with Mudbound as the first female nominee ever for a Best Cinematography Oscar. “I hadn’t even remotely thought about breaking ceilings,” said Morrison. “It’s always been just about the work. I would have thought that other women had been nominated in the past, like Mandy Walker. It’s eye-opening to think that in 90 years of the Oscars, I’m the first woman nominated (for Best Cinematography). It’s momentous and an incredible honor.”

More importantly, Morrison hopes the ASC and Oscar recognition will inspire others. “I would like to see it help open the floodgates for other women, encouraging them to pick up a camera and follow their dreams.”

Morrison is part of an ASC Award nominees crop this year which also consists of: Roger Deakins, CBE, ASC, BSC for Blade Runner 2049; Bruno Delbonnel, ASC, AFC for Darkest Hour; Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSC, NSC for Dunkirk; and Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF for The Shape of Water.

This is the same lineup of DPs in the running for the Best Cinematography Oscar.

Based on the novel by Hillary Jordan with a screenplay by Rees and Virgil Williams, Mudbound centers on two families—one black, the other white—in the rural American South during World War II. The white McAllen family—headed by Henry (Jason Clarke) and his wife Laura (Carey Mulligan)—moves to the Mississippi Delta from Memphis and isn’t fully ready for the harsh demands of tending to the land. Their lives intersect with a black family headed by Henry and Florence Jackson (Rob Morgan, Mary J. Blige). While segregation, discrimination and racism stack life against the Jacksons, the sharecroppers persevere with great dignity. Though the McAllens do not face such race-related adversity, the two families have other struggles in common—coping with the ravages of Mother Nature, and each with loved ones who go off to war overseas and ultimately return to the battle of adjusting to everyday life on the homefront. The war vets—Jamie McAllen (Garrett Hedlund) and Ronsel Jackson (Jason Mitchell)—develop a fast and at first uneasy friendship, each bearing the scars of war only to then have to return to the brutality and cruelty of the Jim Crow South.

Mudbound—which marked Morrison’s first collaboration with Rees—carried varied creative challenges for the cinematographer. “When you have a single character driving the story, it’s easy to know where to put the camera,” Morrison related. “This ensemble cast was so strong that we effectively had six main characters as driving forces in various scenes. We had to take six different points of view and make it work as a feature film. Dee was able to weave it into a narrative that was poetic and functioned as a whole.”

Mother Nature itself was another prime challenge in the lensing of Mudbound, a film that pitted its characters against the elements. Morrison observed, “The elements always win. We are all put in our place by the elements—rain, wind, the harsh sun. It doesn’t matter how prepared you think you are.” The DP further observed that even in a world of racial disparity, the elements “level the playing field,” impacting people no matter their race or gender. She described nature as “the great equalizer.” Morrison shot widescreen as a means of isolating people in the frame against a landscape of fields, conveying human insignificance in the face of nature.

At the same time, Morrison captured more than the onslaught of the elements; she also conveyed the flip side of Mother Nature, its beauty which evokes hope and inspiration.

Morrison said that she and Rees wanted to shoot Mudbound on film but budget realities necessitated they go digital. Morrison estimated that the cost of film would have translated into two less shooting days as compared to digital. They couldn’t afford to lose two precious days on an already extremely challenged shooting schedule.

Morrison thus opted for the ARRI ALEXA Mini, which she coupled with a mix of lenses—Panavision B, C and D series anamorphics in addition to Vintage Super Speeds from the 1960s and ‘70’s that lent themselves to reduced contrasts, among other desired features. “We embraced the aspherical softening around the edges of the image because we felt on a subconscious level that it recalled those old Farm Security Administration photos of the era,” related Morrison. “The fact that we were shooting in authentic sharecropper and tenant houses from the late 1800s—despite being a huge challenge in its own right—only added to the authenticity.”

Mudbound piqued Morrison’s interest for the chance to depict the historical era. Archival photographs of the post Depression South commissioned by the Farm Security Administration provided key visual references for Morrison—these included images by Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn,

Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks. That work, noted Morrison, was integral to the design of the movie and many of her compositional choices. And Parks’ later work for Time Magazine, including his segregation story photo essay in 1956, influenced the use of color in Mudbound.

Overall, said Morrison, she felt the responsibility to show in Mudbound “the beauty and power of each scene.”

Roger Deakins, CBE, ASC, BSC
In sharp contrast to the firsts garnered by Morrison, Roger Deakins, CBE, ASC, BSC, added to his record ongoing haul of ASC Award nominations over the years. In fact, it might be more newsworthy to report the years Deakins has not been an ASC nominee in light of the 15 nods he’s received thus far dating back to his first in 1995 for The Shawshank Redemption, for which he won the award. He also received the ASC Award for The Man Who Wasn’t There in 2002, and for Skyfall in 2013.

Deakins’ other nominations were for Fargo in 1997, Kundun in ‘98, O, Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2001, both The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and No Country for Old Men in 2008, The Reader (shared with Chris Menges) and Revolutionary Road in 2009, True Grit in 2011, Prisoners in 2014, Unbroken in 2015 and Sicario in 2016.

Additionally, Deakins was presented the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.

Blade Runner 2049 marks Deakins’ third collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve—all of which have earned ASC Award nominations, the first two being Prisoners and Sicario. Those three films also each garnered a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination, giving Deakins a career total of 14, though he is yet to win an Academy Award.

Deakins said of Villeneuve, “We just hit it off right out of the gate on Prisoners—and it’s continued since then. When you meet and work closely with a director, some you get on with better than others. Denis and I have similar kinds of feelings about filming and style, trying to make something true to the story.”

Blade Runner 2049 posed its own unique challenges, with a seemingly simple “goal” proving to be easier said than done. “We were adamant about everything we shot outside had to be in gray light. Both Denis and I wanted this very kind of smoggy, foggy, gray, claustrophobic atmosphere for the film. Something simple like shooting an exterior scene on the backlot, though, became more challenging as we had to hold out for gray light. It’s easy to want, but hard to schedule.”

Taking some of the difficulty out of realizing the filmmaker’s vision, continued Deakins, was the meticulous mapping out of that vision through the painstaking task of storyboarding the whole movie. “Denis is very minimalistic as am I. We spent a long time in Montreal thinking of specific ways to shoot each scene,” said Deakins. “Of course, things change on set, scenes evolve. But we had storyboards drawn out going into the shoot. It kept us in touch with the original vision.”

After much research, Deakins again gravitated to the Alexa XT as his camera of choice for Blade Runner 2049. He also returned to another long-time lens ally, Zeiss Master Primes. Deakins described the Alexa XT as “a user-friendly camera. I operate myself so that’s important. I also like the camera system because the images it produces are as close to what I see by my eye.”

The Zeiss Master Primes, were chosen simply because they are “about the fastest, sharpest lenses around,” assessed Deakins. “They’re sharp and clear, with less flare in them from light sources.”

Regarding whether he was influenced by the original iconic Blade Runner—directed by Ridley Scott and shot by the late, great Jordan Cronenweth, ASC—Deakins said, “I’m very aware of the original Blade Runner. I’ve seen it a number of times. But I don’t think you can go the way of being influenced by that. I work differently, have a different sensibility than another artist. I didn’t want to be inspired by the original Blade Runner. I instead took the script for 2049 as if it were any other script and approached it from there.”

That approach entailed Deakins being involved in the process—extensive pre-pro, production and post—for “a very long time. I was involved in visual effects all the way through. It was absolutely crucial for Denis that we do as much as we could in camera and that the effects wouldn’t look like effects so that the audience could get fully immersed in this world.”

Bruno Delbonnel, ASC, AFC
Darkest Hour garnered Bruno Delbonnel, ASC, AFC his fourth career ASC Award nomination, the other three being for Amelie in 2002, A Very Long Engagement in 2005, and Inside Llewyn Davis in 2014. Darkest Hour is Delbonnel’s fifth Best Cinematography Oscar nod, four of which correspond to his ASC Award nominations, Delbonnel’s other Academy Award nom came in 2010 for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Darkest Hour marked Delbonnel’s first collaboration with director Joe Wright. The DP had been contacted in the past, including being reached out to for the movie Pan, but scheduling conflicts prevented him from teaming with Wright. Happily they were finally able to come together on Darkest Hour.

Delbonnel went with the ARRI Alexa to lens Darkest Hour, noting he has a comfort level with the camera and its pairing with Cooke lenses. Darkest Hour is the fourth feature Delbonnel has lensed digitally.

Delbonnel said he was drawn to Darkest Hour for the opportunity to delve into Winston Churchill, portrayed by Gary Oldman who landed a Best Lead Actor Oscar nomination on the strength of his performance. Delbonnel said that Churchill was an amazing person, initially unwanted, sort of “a dark horse” who resided in the shadows and was then thrust into the spotlight. “Playing with the idea of dark and light was how I translated Churchill, looking into the reality of his character,” said Delbonnel. 

The cinematographer shared, “I try to think of lighting as a musical score. Basically when I work, I don’t follow the daylight or what is written in a script in terms of light setting. Instead I place a valuation on lighting that is like a piece of piano music—this kind of melody inside the script that I try to follow. Some scenes have much more contrast than others; there’s a rhythm with the light. Like a melody, lighting can underscore the emotion of a particular scene. It’s like a symphony which has varied movements. That’s the approach I’ve developed to my lighting.”

Dan Laustsen, DFF
The Shape of Water marks the first career ASC Award nomination for Dan Laustsen, DFF and the third feature he’s shot for director Guillermo del Toro—the first two being Mimic (1997) and Crimsom Peak (2015). The Shape of Water also garnered Laustsen his very first Best Cinematography Oscar nod.

In SHOOT’s The Road To Oscar prequel coverage, Laustsen said he found it comforting going into the film that he and del Toro “have the same taste and opinion when it comes to lighting and camera movement. Guillermo knows exactly what he wants to do and how. As a cinematographer, I find him very easy to be around. We understand each other. A lot of stuff we don’t even have to talk about.”

Being on the same page proved invaluable for such an ambitious movie, which recently won the Producers Guild Award for Best Feature. The Shape of Water is a fairy tale set during the Cold War era of America in 1962. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works as a janitor, Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute, is trapped in a life of isolation. Her life, though, takes on hope, when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment—a hybrid man/sea creature with whom Elisa makes a special connection. Elisa and this amphibian man (Doug Jones), who too is mute, fall in love.

A relationship between mutes, steeped in a rich emotional silence, is a premise, said Laustsen, that is “very cinematic.” The visual becomes all the more important in showing their special connection, against a backdrop of espionage, danger and government Cold War era secrecy.

Adding to the fairy tale mystery is how the creature is photographed. “You have to reveal enough of him so that the audience can feel a connection but at the same time,” noted the DP, “the key was not to show too much.”

This was done in part through inventive use of light. Del Toro observed, “A great cinematographer is like an orchestra conductor—he transmits emotion with light instead of musical notes.”

That lighting acumen also applied to helping to re-create the Cold War era. With expressionistic lighting and use of shadows, the film is lit as if it were 1950s’ black and white even though it was actually shot in color.

Another dynamic that propels the film is what Laustsen called “a visual liquidity” so that the narrative would “ebb and flow like water.” The cinematographer observed, “Everything’s in motion in the film. Guillermo wanted lots of camera movement, and he likes very precise movement so we worked with all kinds of cranes, dollies and Steadicams.”

Laustsen deployed the ARRI ALEXA XT camera with an internal diffusion filter, in tandem with ARRI/Zeiss Master Prime lenses. Laustsen said the filter and lenses softened the digital sharpness, “evened out the skin tones on the actors a little bit. This enabled us to get closer to what we envisioned for the film.”

Hoyte van Hoytema
Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC previously collaborated with director Christopher Nolan on the science fiction action adventure Interstellar, for which the DP received a BAFTA Award nomination and was recognized by a number of critics organizations. Coming together again with Nolan on Dunkirk, van Hoytema earned both an ASC Award nomination and his first career Best Cinematography Oscar nom. Dunkirk marks the second time that the DP has landed an ASC nod, the first coming back in 2012 for director Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Unavailable at press time for an interview, van Hoytema made his first major mark in cinematography back in 2008 with Alfredson’s Let The Right One In, which caught the attention of other filmmakers. David O. Russell hired van Hoytema to lens The Fighter (2010), followed by Tinker Tailor. Other notable lensing credits include Spike Jonze’s widely acclaimed virtual love story Her, and director Sam Mendes’ James Bond feature, Spectre.

ASC Award feature and TV winners will be announced and honored during a gala ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 17, in the Ray Dolby Ballroom at the Hollywood and Highland complex in Hollywood, Calif.

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