Latest / Half the Picture / Rob Hardy talks shooting Clayface, Ex Machina & why cinematography shouldn't be noticed (4K)

Transcript

Rob Hardy talks shooting Clayface, Ex Machina & why cinematography shouldn't be noticed (4K) · Half the Picture

• 0:00
  All the films you've shot have such a specific, like, I guess you call it the Rob Hardy look, but there is a Rob Hardy look, I think.
• 0:05
  Is there?
• 0:07
  What makes a good cinematographer is you're trying to deliver a sort of sense of truth.
• 0:14
  You want some honesty, creating something that ultimately people can watch and believe.
• 0:20
  Just recently having shot Supergirl and Clayface.
• 0:23
  Yeah, it's been busy.
• 0:25
  It will be interesting to see the reaction.
• 0:32
  In a good way.
• 0:33
  Like, what the f***?
• 0:38
  I'm really looking forward to it.
• 0:40
  What is it that makes Alex so special as a collaborator?
• 0:43
  In the case of Ex Machina, which was the first thing we worked together on, I remember reading the scripts, obviously being blown away by it.
• 0:52
  I understood it visually almost immediately, and that's a great skill in a writer.
• 0:56
  When we spoke for the very first time, we talked about it.
• 1:00
  It didn't feel like much of an interview, really.
• 1:02
  It was more a case of, like, well, yeah, you sound all right.
• 1:04
  Yeah, you sound all right.
• 1:06
  Let's do this.
• 1:07
  So whenever I see a movie where I really notice the cinematography above all else, I personally get a little bit turned off.
• 1:14
  If one element is trying to push above all the others, it misbalances the thing.
• 1:19
  You're doing my job for me.
• 1:20
  It's great.
• 1:22
  we have a small favour to ask all of you.
• 1:24
  Please, could you check right now if you've clicked the subscribe button.
• 1:28
  It's one simple free thing that you could do to help us keep this show free and to keep improving it week after week.
• 1:35
  So please, double check if you've subscribed.
• 1:38
  Thank you so much.
• 1:40
  So Rob, welcome to Half the Picture.
• 1:41
  How are you doing today?
• 1:42
  Very good.
• 1:43
  Very good.
• 1:45
  It's a real pleasure to have you on.
• 1:46
  I mean, we were saying in the office before we started, you know, prepping for this chat and then, like, you know, getting set up.
• 1:51
  But, like, the work you've done as a DOP over the last 20 years has been fantastic.
• 1:56
  I mean, just to give people an idea of some of the stuff you've done.
• 1:59
  I mean, you've worked with Alex Garland, a terrific director and writer on, across so many projects, going back to Ex Machina and then up through Annihilation and Civil War and Devs, of course, and then working with Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise on Mission Impossible Fallout, and then going back to the days of Boye, I mean, and just recently having shot Supergirl and Clayface, you know, in the same year.
• 2:20
  I mean, it sounds like you're a busy guy.
• 2:22
  Yeah, it's been busy.
• 2:23
  It's been, yeah, which is good.
• 2:25
  And I feel lucky.
• 2:26
  I always feel lucky.
• 2:26
  I mean, it's like you never...
• 2:27
  You never stop wondering when the next thing is coming.
• 2:31
  You know, I always thought that, you know, as you progress through your career in my younger days, that, you know, you'll get to a point where you can relax a little bit.
• 2:42
  But I think the nature of this business is constantly shifting and changing.
• 2:47
  uh one thing i learned is that you can never relax but you know you never know where the next thing is is happening but um you just sort of get used to it you get used to it's a specific kind of lifestyle that you you know you have to kind of just embrace um but yeah so it's but i feel i always feel to that end i feel lucky um to be you know still having the opportunity to work and do and do the the fun stuff and the good stuff and uh yeah i think it's great
• 3:16
  It sounds like a lot of fun.
• 3:17
  I mean, just those movies that I just listed there, I mean, so many different genres.
• 3:20
  I mean, going from horror to superhero to sort of, you know, Tom Cruise blockbuster and science fiction and back.
• 3:26
  I mean, you've covered so many areas and genres of film over that time.
• 3:30
  I mean, it's quite amazing to me that you've been able to sort of straddle those and retain your look because all the films you've shot have such a specific, like, I guess you call it the Rob Hardy look, but there is a Rob Hardy look, I think.
• 3:40
  Is there?
• 3:41
  I think so.
• 3:42
  I think so.
• 3:44
  When I look at films that you've shot, and I was looking back at some of them in the run-up to this, like just picking out one, Civil War, which you shot recently for Alex Garland.
• 3:54
  There's so much luster to the films that you shoot, but also a real sense of immediacy and tactility.
• 4:00
  In that film specifically, I think of the scenes with, of course, iconic scenes, like the ones with Jesse Plemons, the red glasses, and how immediate that is and how terrifying that is.
• 4:09
  but then also not too long after that you have that beautiful forest fire sequence which is almost surreal it's expressionistic and the way that you do that you straddle those but you bring so much sort of tactility and expression to both of those yeah I mean it's like I am definitely into the idea of a degree of realism and a degree of
• 4:33
  different ends of the scale but um i i really enjoy trying to combine those two elements um because i think you know for me the best kind of cinema the cinema i always have always loved and have grew up on was it was always like a lot of it was american cinema actually but it always felt like far away it always felt like a different world uh from from a viewing point of view but
• 5:02
  that I felt I could connect with in that distancing, if that makes any sense.
• 5:06
  So it's like almost the more fantastical it became, the more I believed it.
• 5:13
  So for example, you know, I mean, like when I was, when I was a kid, like for me, there was a run of John Carpenter movies that I, I think probably really informed what I do now,
• 5:29
  and his collaboration with a cinematographer called Dean Cundy, there was always something sort of a bit mysterious about the aesthetic of those films.
• 5:40
  I'm talking like Halloween through to The Thing or An Escape from New York.
• 5:45
  That little group of films, they're...
• 5:48
  is well documented i'm a huge fan of the thing anyway but but there was a there was a sort of um a kind of mysterious smokiness to it but but at the same time it felt real but i loved i loved the idea that it it didn't shy away from from uh spectacle in a way and so so
• 6:10
  The thing I've always sort of chased is this idea that you can embed a sort of sense of realism.
• 6:19
  You can embed a sense of immediacy.
• 6:24
  And most importantly, put the audience into the room.
• 6:28
  But at the same time, make it feel like...
• 6:33
  you know, it's, it's entertaining.
• 6:36
  It's like, it's not, it's, it's like, it's fun.
• 6:41
  And so, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's just essentially been a journey of trying to do that, trying to keep replicating that idea.
• 6:50
  um i do i mean i really love i really get off on the idea of surrealism and you know i used to love when i've grown up again like time bandits and brazil and movies like that always used to really sort of take me away and and of course blade runner ridley scott's blade runner um felt like a sort of fever dream to me and it was it was the dreamlike nature of that that really inspired me and i was
• 7:16
  you know, I don't know, probably 10 or something when I first saw it, um, when it first came out, show my age, but, um, I'll never forget that experience.
• 7:25
  It was like, you know, after seeing a film like that, it felt real, but at the same time, it was just, it was a completely different thing to what my reality was in life.
• 7:40
  Um, and so, um,
• 7:44
  irrespective of whatever that story is that I'm involved in telling in terms of cinema, um, I'll always hold onto that idea, you know, whether it's sort of, you know, the social realism of something like Boye, um, or as you say, like, you know, Mission Impossible.
• 8:04
  I mean, for me, it was, it's just, it's proximity, proximity, proximity.
• 8:08
  In fact, I remember having that conversation with, um,
• 8:11
  Tom, when we, because we're on first name terms, obviously, you know, when we first started prep on, on Fallout, he would often ask me, what, what do you, what's your plan?
• 8:24
  What, how do you, you know,
• 8:28
  And, you know, one of the ways I sold it to him was because I'd seen the previous films and there had been a lot of sort of long lensy stuff to cover action, which was sort of a traditional thing to do.
• 8:38
  And for me, that was my first big action experience.
• 8:43
  I didn't know what I was doing.
• 8:45
  All I knew is that, you know, as far as that was concerned, all I knew is that what I knew was...
• 8:50
  I wanted the audience to feel what he was feeling and go on that ride.
• 8:56
  Right.
• 8:56
  And, and, and with, with an actor like that, what you have is somebody who does everything.
• 9:03
  So there's no pretending, there's no hiding.
• 9:06
  It is what it is.
• 9:07
  He rides the bike, he flies the helicopter, you know, he drives the car, it rolls down the steps in the middle of Paris, whatever he's doing it.
• 9:13
  So it's like, that's a great opportunity for someone like myself, where you're dealing with realism.
• 9:20
  But what's happening in terms of the realism is in fact completely fantastical.
• 9:24
  So, you know, I said to him, like, my plan is to put the camera close to you.
• 9:29
  My plan is to work off like mid to wide angle lenses and have the audience experience what's happening here.
• 9:38
  And also what's happening all around you, you know, like you're flying through Paris, but we want to see your face while you're doing it.
• 9:44
  And he's like, uh-huh, uh-huh.
• 9:46
  Because he loves the idea of a camera right here.
• 9:48
  You know, that's, that's for him.
• 9:49
  It's like, it's the big sell because that's why he's a movie star.
• 9:55
  Sorry, I just went off on the tangent.
• 9:57
  No idea what I'm talking about.
• 9:59
  No, it seems to me that you do.
• 10:01
  I mean, hey, I mean, it worked for Tom.
• 10:03
  I mean, what you just described there about how that sort of sense of bringing a kind of immediacy, but also a kind of poetry to the image.
• 10:11
  And like you talk about with John Carpenter, like it's not flat.
• 10:14
  It's like, you know, there is real luster to it, but also it's...
• 10:17
  There's immediacy and it's fun.
• 10:19
  There's energy and fun in the image.
• 10:21
  I mean, do you think that is... We were talking a bit before we started rolling when we were setting up about what makes a good cinematographer and what makes good cinematography.
• 10:28
  Because I think there is an idea that some people expound, which is like good cinematography almost sometimes should not be noticed or it shouldn't be noticed at all.
• 10:34
  I mean, what do you think of that?
• 10:35
  Do you think good cinematography should be noticed?
• 10:37
  Yeah, I do agree with that, actually, because I think...
• 10:41
  Film is, of all the mediums, it's probably one of the most collaborative, I would have thought.
• 10:47
  I'll go out there and say it because it involves multiple disciplines.
• 10:52
  And in order for the film to work, those disciplines have to align.
• 10:58
  And they have to, you know, the greatest movies, I think, is where everything just sort of works.
• 11:07
  The script is great.
• 11:08
  The performances are incredible.
• 11:10
  The cutting style is amazing.
• 11:12
  The cinematography, all of it, the design.
• 11:16
  Those things have to, yeah, in order for it all to work, they have to align.
• 11:21
  So if you have, you know, one element which stands out more than another –
• 11:27
  I think it kind of misbalances them.
• 11:30
  It can misbalance the film.
• 11:33
  I always, uh, I always use this quote.
• 11:35
  It's like, uh,
• 11:39
  a helicopter pilot once said to me it's like you know you can't a helicopter does not want to fly and a plane you can take up into the air and it wants to fly but a helicopter you have to force it into the air in order for it to fly i think a film is very similar to that making a film is very you have to force it into existence and in in order to do that
• 12:01
  there are so many hurdles you have to jump along the way.
• 12:05
  I mean, it's ultimately a bunch of, finding a bunch of solutions to problems really is what it is.
• 12:12
  And in order to find those solutions, you have to work with everyone else.
• 12:16
  You're all in this together.
• 12:19
  If one element is trying to push above all the others, like I said, I think it misbalances the thing.
• 12:26
  But I think it also shows...
• 12:30
  I suppose, as with a lot of businesses, like ego can come into contact with the creative element.
• 12:36
  You know, we're in a business of egos, I suppose.
• 12:40
  So whenever I see a movie where I really notice the cinematography above all else, I personally get a little bit turned off because I'm not...
• 12:53
  There's a sort of slight sort of...
• 12:56
  I get a sense of like, look at me, look at me.
• 12:57
  I'm not interested in the sort of individual.
• 13:02
  I'm interested in the global picture, the product in the end.
• 13:06
  For sure.
• 13:07
  I want to be taken away, you know, any kind of movie.
• 13:09
  You just want to be taken away.
• 13:11
  And, um, so yeah, I think what makes a good cinematographer is, um,
• 13:20
  I mean, everybody's different, but for me personally, I think you're delivering, irrespective of what the genre is, you're trying to deliver a sort of sense of truth.
• 13:32
  um you want or at least i do some honesty in in the approach and in the end in the end product is like and i don't when i say truth and honesty i don't mean like oh it's realism social realism or anything like that but
• 13:51
  It can be in anything.
• 13:53
  It could be in a space movie.
• 13:54
  It doesn't matter.
• 13:54
  But it's, you know, it's like there's a sort of I feel quite humble.
• 14:00
  I can feel get quite humbled by the idea of, you know, working alongside other great artists and creating something that ultimately people can watch and believe and can be moved by.
• 14:16
  And truth plays a big part in that.
• 14:21
  you know yeah yeah and how do you personally as a cinematographer go about i guess injecting that sense of truth into your work because i hear that uh and bringing that sense of truth to something as fantastical as like say supergirl which is which has just come out like how would you personally when you're on set go about injecting that what that sense of truth into what you do when applying it's such a fantastical spectrum is that well yeah
• 14:45
  For me, it's about often a good starting point.
• 14:48
  Once you work through the sort of world-building aspect of it in prep, I think if you're putting it into a sort of practical space, then...
• 15:03
  For me, a really good approach is to, irrespective of whether you're in a bar, which is on a different planet, or whether you're in a space bus, or, you know, or an airplane or whatever it is, it's like to make sure that that to ensure that that environment feels like it exists, like it's real.
• 15:27
  Um, and, and obviously that comes through design and it comes through SFX and all those things.
• 15:30
  But also I think for me to allow the space to breathe, to give that space over to the actors, to the director, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to,
• 15:45
  to inhabit and and and a good starting point for that is it's like you're lighting a space as opposed to individual faces or whatever which can come later that was all that stuff comes later
• 16:01
  The best way I can describe it, weirdly, is by using a music analogy in terms of my approach.
• 16:11
  There's an engineer or a producer who always liked to call himself an engineer, a guy called Steve Albini,
• 16:19
  And of all the things, of all the big inspirations for me, it's been this dude for some reason, not cinematographers or other directors, but this guy, only because it's like the way in which he records music is about the room.
• 16:35
  So he could spend a great deal of time setting up microphones in specific places to capture the sound as if the band were playing live.
• 16:46
  And then the band will come into that room and they will perform and they can perform as they are, as they really sound.
• 16:55
  But there is something then that happens.
• 16:58
  It's sort of height.
• 17:00
  I don't know how he does it, but it's like the material he's chosen to use, the microphones or whatever it is, it somehow heightens the truth of that sound.
• 17:07
  And it pushes it into a different arena.
• 17:09
  So it becomes that thing that we were talking about earlier.
• 17:12
  There's a sort of, not surrealism, but a sort of stylisation of the realism.
• 17:20
  And that can only happen if you get a truthful performance.
• 17:24
  In this case from a band, in the case of me from the actors, you know, allowing the director to work the sets themselves together.
• 17:35
  So I guess for me, if I can light a space in a way that it looks good from every angle, but it feels like an honest space and the light, the way in which I love the way in which light pollutes other light.
• 17:51
  So in the same way, the example I use where sound can pollute other sound, it's like, there's, there's a truth in that.
• 18:01
  And so I believe it.
• 18:04
  You know, like the case of Supergirl, there are some scenes in there I have I have to say I'm really, really proud of in terms of the way they look, because I mean, the film itself has a very sort of grungy kind of vibe to it.
• 18:20
  It's the opposite of what I guess a lot of people.
• 18:24
  we're expecting or even hoping it would be.
• 18:28
  It's not that.
• 18:31
  But it just inhabits this real space.
• 18:34
  And that's so important to the way in which Millie was, you know, would deliver that character.
• 18:43
  with all of her flaws, Kara's flaws.
• 18:48
  And then, you know, the cinematography had to reflect that.
• 18:52
  But at the same time, you're delivering a big film.
• 18:55
  You're delivering a cinematic experience.
• 18:59
  So you have to combine those two things, you know.
• 19:04
  Again, I just went off on a tangent here.
• 19:08
  I start answering a question and then I've no idea where I, how I got to the other, but I'm just, you know, it's fantastic.
• 19:13
  You're doing my job for me.
• 19:14
  It's great.
• 19:17
  No, it's fantastic.
• 19:18
  The, yeah, that grunginess, as you say, I think I totally see that in Supergirl and the way that it is, it poetically matches the character and like that, her and her vibe and her,
• 19:28
  sort of tonality i mean and there are so many sort of by the way you're shooting a blockbuster spectacle and there are scenes like yeah in bars and in like space bars like kind of like a moss eisley cantina kind of thing all these different practical aliens and you're shooting all of that i remember hearing you describing it like you like to shoot almost like a 360 degree space i remember hearing you talking about boy a it was kind of some other thing about you light sort of the space and then you the actors can then play in it yeah and then like and they can do what they want to do and then you follow it
• 19:54
  And was that, it sounds like that was the case on Supergirl with those sets and with those characters and with those special effects and those practical aliens.
• 20:01
  Was that the same approach?
• 20:03
  Absolutely.
• 20:03
  A hundred percent.
• 20:04
  As much as possible.
• 20:05
  Yeah.
• 20:07
  I mean, just notwithstanding, it does, you know, not only in my opinion, it delivers a really good, authentic look.
• 20:15
  um but it also you know just purely from a practical point of view it means you can you can work quite quickly and you can pivot very quickly if you need to or at least you know it you you're allowing or you're you're offering this this to the director to you know make it work in any direction or you know if something goes wrong as it often does that we can try something else in a different way um you're not restricting the actors to a specific way of
• 20:47
  but yeah, I mean, it definitely requires a lot of preparation,
• 20:56
  it requires a degree of bravery sometimes and trust in yourself to know that you know you i mean like i learned a hell of a lot doing music videos when i was in my early days very early days i think that's where i learned a lot of um
• 21:20
  a lot of things about how to light spaces and move quickly.
• 21:23
  And, you know, we would often, in those days, everything was shot on film, 16mm mostly for music videos, occasionally on 35.
• 21:34
  But there was no...
• 21:37
  There wasn't necessarily any discipline, as it were.
• 21:41
  You know, like, I kind of like, we should take our time and, you know, enjoy the medium and respect the medium.
• 21:50
  It was like, no, no, no, we've got like...
• 21:54
  you know, eight hours with this band and we need to get a 400,000 shots in order to make this band look good.
• 22:03
  And it has to start now.
• 22:05
  And so, you know, but it also has to look good.
• 22:08
  So, you know, it was a sort of baptism of fire, really doing that kind of stuff.
• 22:13
  um i i sort of learned a lot through working in the chaos and so often i would sort of you know take the approach that i felt like like often i think most photography is um for me at least even with stills cameras it you know the frame i think it's always i'm always trying to frame chaos i feel um
• 22:37
  you allow the space to exist, you allow everything in it to exist and then the cameras enter.
• 22:43
  And then after that it's, you know, you've made the decisions about the lenses and how those lenses are going to add character to any given story, how those lenses are going to react to certain kinds of light and the way in which the light's used.
• 23:00
  You have all of your elements and then you just have to harness that chaos, you know?
• 23:04
  at least that's the way i see it yeah and that's one of the most enjoyable things when you finally get to that point where it all sort of converges into that frame and then you are like you know it's it's why i often i often um
• 23:25
  it's like you're at the point of the movie.
• 23:27
  You're at the point of the movie coming into existence.
• 23:30
  Um, of course that all happens again later in the edit, in the edit room, but physically it's like everything after all the months of talking and you're doing it.
• 23:44
  And, and, and one of the things I often think is like, that's one of the reasons why I often like to look through the viewfinder.
• 23:51
  Um, um,
• 23:54
  because I feel you, you, you're witnessing the cinema being made in the moment.
• 24:01
  I often put me personally on, I'm like a, you know, using the camera, but filming off a monitor is just doesn't make sense to me.
• 24:10
  I've seen images of some cinematographers like with these beautiful film cameras, but they're kind of like looking at a monitor, which is attached to the film camera.
• 24:22
  I, I just like,
• 24:25
  I don't understand it because I'm kind of like, you've got, you've got the opportunity to look through the glass itself.
• 24:33
  And, uh, there's so much joy in that, you know, it's like your own private little cinema when you put your face to the viewfinder.
• 24:40
  Yeah.
• 24:40
  It's great.
• 24:41
  Yeah.
• 24:42
  Um, I guess it also means that you're closer to the actors.
• 24:46
  You're close to the action.
• 24:47
  If you're looking for the viewfinder yourself and you've got the camera there, you're right in there with them.
• 24:51
  Yeah.
• 24:51
  Yeah.
• 24:51
  You can feel you absolutely can.
• 24:53
  I mean, look, these days, I,
• 24:55
  because of the sort of epic nature of some of the films that I work on, and often multiple cameras.
• 25:05
  And so actually a better way to work is to be more global about it.
• 25:09
  And so I'll often sit back, operate one of the cameras, but do it remotely so that I can also see, have images of all of the other angles.
• 25:22
  and sort of hold it all together that way.
• 25:26
  But yeah, I mean, I remember
• 25:31
  Again, when I was first starting out, there was that thing of, like, you put the camera on your shoulder, you go handheld, and it's, like, you know, 35mm or 16mm camera, and you're looking through the viewfinder, you're looking through the lens, you've got the actor, and it's just the two of you, and three of you, whatever, and there's a sort of choreography that happens.
• 25:49
  You're responding to that thing.
• 25:52
  And I know that's, like, for a lot of cinematographers who, like, early on in their careers, that's the thing that...
• 25:59
  you know, they, that's, that drives the spark as it were, it kind of like people get very excited about that element.
• 26:11
  Yeah.
• 26:11
  Yeah.
• 26:12
  That idea of what you just said there about like capturing a kind of chaos with the camera, it really, it really reminds me again of the film we've mentioned Civil War, which I think of all the films you've worked on, I think particularly the ones you've worked on with Alex Garland, I think that maybe is the one, the key example of that kind of,
• 26:27
  capturing a kind of chaos because the story obviously takes place in this sort of divided in a divided America chaos is everywhere and you see that in the on screen in the image and because I was thinking about like what I want to ask about what kind of equipment you use what kind of cameras you use because I want to say Civil War was shot was it on the Ronin 4D was that what that was shot on which is a very specific camera I remember hearing you talk about it's like a chicken right is that you hold it like a chicken like can you explain that to me like
• 26:52
  what i like how you went about shooting i mean the only reason i caught chickens because it looks like one so um and you know it's like you're holding the body of the chicken and the head sticks up here and and if you move you you sort of walk along with the chicken its head stays in the same place but its body's moving it's like it's essentially like that um we when we first
• 27:17
  When the idea, when Alex first conceived the idea for Civil War, he wanted to do something that was, you know, again, it felt like we were thrusting the audience into a real space and it was a real experience.
• 27:32
  But at the same time, we weren't making a documentary.
• 27:36
  We were making a movie that had...
• 27:38
  dramatic elements to it and also elements of surrealism and so we wanted to maintain that kind of sense of control over the frame um steady cam wasn't we at which point we were like neither of us wanted to use steady cam because we're both you know he kind of liked the idea we both share the same sort of
• 28:02
  aesthetic sensibilities when it comes to framing.
• 28:07
  And so he would rather that I was sort of in control of the camera as it were, in control of the comp, composing the frame and not going through a third person.
• 28:20
  So we, on men, we use this device called a Stabil Eye, which kind of did a similar, which did a similar thing where it's like a sort of small remote head that I can control the frame and be on comms and talk to the person who's holding it.
• 28:38
  So position them and all of this stuff.
• 28:40
  I mean, it's still a collaboration.
• 28:41
  It's still, you know, you're getting the energy off of them and everything's sort of working together.
• 28:46
  But there was still the way it moved.
• 28:47
  It didn't quite.
• 28:48
  It's not what we were after.
• 28:49
  We wanted something that was that felt solid.
• 28:51
  It was almost like you were throwing a crane into a situation that then very quickly could become handheld or feel like a steady cam or any of those things.
• 29:00
  And we some research was done and these devices were found, these cameras you're talking of and the 4D.
• 29:11
  And they weren't really on the market at that point.
• 29:16
  They were just being developed.
• 29:19
  Certainly, mostly as a sort of EPK-style camera, not really to shoot films with.
• 29:27
  I think they were very surprised when we contacted them and said, we'd quite like to have a go.
• 29:31
  Can you send us some units?
• 29:32
  And we want to just, you know, have a go, research it, R&D the cameras.
• 29:38
  And we did.
• 29:39
  And we found that they were really, you know, they weren't perfect.
• 29:42
  They were flawed in some ways.
• 29:44
  You know, the sensors weren't quite giving the things that we wanted.
• 29:47
  But actually...
• 29:50
  We could look beyond that because what they gave us in terms of the flexibility, but also the control that we wanted in that environment, it was a no-brainer.
• 30:03
  So 90%, I think, of Civil War was shot using those cameras, maybe 80%, 90%.
• 30:08
  And we used Venice cameras and more traditional cameras for other stuff.
• 30:12
  But I think what it was is that with Civil War,
• 30:18
  often we would look at, and it comes back to that idea of the frame and the chaos, right?
• 30:22
  So we would be looking at Stills, you know, a war photographer's work.
• 30:29
  and also a lot of news footage of that kind of stuff, but not, not sort of traditional news footage, more, more like stuff that's been captured by people, you know, in, in cities that are being bombed, leaning out of their, on their balcony, filming on their phone and a missile goes off over there on the right.
• 30:48
  And they, they, they, you hear the sound and it's suddenly captured.
• 30:52
  It's that sort of idea that, that things are happening outside of the frame.
• 30:55
  Um, um,
• 30:59
  and how you suggest that, you know.
• 31:03
  There's a very classic approach, again, of we create the thing and then we throw the cameras in, you know.
• 31:10
  We create the chaos and we had real tanks and all of this stuff, real military advisors and everybody just, you know, we would have a war room where we would discuss things
• 31:22
  the movement of the tanks and where the journalists would go, where the troops would move to without really thinking about addressing the cameras at any given moment until we knew what the action was, that choreography was.
• 31:37
  And then it was like, okay, we'll throw the cameras in now, make it feel like we're experiencing it for the first time.
• 31:44
  Like viscerally.
• 31:46
  Yeah, and also what helped was that we shot the film in a sort of linear fashion.
• 31:52
  So as was often the case with working with Alex, he likes to shoot kind of in a linear fashion so that, you know, the actors can keep track of what they're doing.
• 32:04
  from a story sense and ultimately civil war is like a road movie so it made perfect sense to do it that way so by the time we got to the end with the big battle sequence and the siege on the white house um everybody's nerves were frayed you know it was chaos and um you know the actors were sort of having breakdowns and it was all it was all in a good way yeah yeah
• 32:31
  um but it all helps you all you know we were all exhausted it was you know but it it kind of really helped i remember you saying nick offerman he came into in that linear fashion he came in to shoot the opening of the film at the start and then he came back to shoot the ending where he where spoiler alert you know he gets shot and he was and he came and saw all you guys he was like what's going on here you're all fried he literally was the first shot of the first day and the last shot of the last day
• 32:58
  was nick offman wow yeah he bookended the movie it was kind of too it was almost too perfect in a way but yeah he got he was the one who got to see uh the full you know he was you know standing back he got the godlike perspective on it all
• 33:15
  I mean, zeroing in on that sequence, the ending, I mean, because there's so many fantastic beats in that ending, dramatic beats.
• 33:22
  I mean, I guess the key one, I mean, one of a couple, but I guess for me the key one is where Kirsten Dunst pushes Jessie out of the way of a path of a bullet and takes the bullet.
• 33:32
  And then as she's dying, you know, Kayleigh lifts up her camera and takes the shot of her corpse.
• 33:39
  And I remember hearing you say once about that scene,
• 33:42
  that like there is as a as a cinematographer there is something almost kind of protective about putting a camera up to your face and looking at something through a lens where obviously when when i first watched that i thought that's just such a cold event that's happening like the fact that it's it's almost about d it's almost for me sort of sums up the dehumanization of of the war that they're in but
• 34:02
  It was interesting hearing you talk about it, but there is something protective about that.
• 34:05
  It's like her taking that picture of her friend dying is actually like it's once removed.
• 34:11
  It's like, you know, she's protecting herself emotionally from that.
• 34:14
  Yeah.
• 34:14
  And I thought for you being a cinematographer, who is your whole job is cameras and lifting up lenses, looking for them.
• 34:20
  How does that resonate with you?
• 34:22
  I mean, it really resonated with me because it's like, it's such a, it's such familiar territory.
• 34:27
  You know, there is, there is always that separation.
• 34:30
  People talk about, you know, like I mentioned earlier, that idea that if you have a camera on your shoulder and, you know, often cinematographers will say, you know, there's that choreography between me and the actor.
• 34:41
  And I feel like...
• 34:42
  We're connected.
• 34:43
  And there's truth to that.
• 34:46
  But ultimately, there's always a barrier.
• 34:49
  There's always this other thing that stands in the way.
• 34:52
  And it's that frame.
• 34:53
  And that frame is something that is being dictated by the way you think.
• 34:58
  And so your brain is sort of separating the elements.
• 35:05
  Um, and there's always a sort of very analytical part that I think overrides most of the other elements, the emotional elements, all of that.
• 35:13
  I mean, you know, um, I wouldn't be able to, uh, you know, conceive and execute some of the shots that I've done throughout my career had I been too emotionally attached to the thing that I was shooting.
• 35:30
  it would have affected my ability to frame the thing and create, if you like, a sense of truth, comes back to that word.
• 35:43
  So it's like you have to sort of bypass the truth in order to present the truth.
• 35:49
  Yeah.
• 35:49
  That makes sense.
• 35:51
  And it's a really strange and interesting position to be in because I often think about that with...
• 35:59
  you know, particularly with photojournalism, because it's right there at the sharp end of that concept that you have to remain...
• 36:13
  You know, there has to be a degree of coldness, I guess, for want of a better word, or a separation, emotional separation between you and the thing that you're recording or documenting.
• 36:25
  But the whole point is the reason that you have to get to that situation in your mind is because you're delivering truth.
• 36:36
  So, yeah.
• 36:37
  Yeah.
• 36:39
  like those characters, they're doing their job.
• 36:41
  You know, it is also a job.
• 36:43
  Yeah.
• 36:43
  They want to do it as best.
• 36:44
  Like Kirsten is 100% committed to what she's doing.
• 36:48
  But then you see the sort of accumulative effect of that, you know, years of doing that job.
• 36:54
  The cracks start to show.
• 36:56
  And I think it's quite common, having read some accounts of other, you know,
• 37:03
  um war photographers specifically war photographers uh you know who've spent a life a lifetime documenting horrendous things um and how you know and then they go home to their families and how they have to keep those things separate and um not that i'm equating what i do to that because it doesn't come anywhere close close to that but
• 37:30
  I often find that, you know, now, especially now, it's like you go into a day's shooting, especially if you're working on a movie, and it's a very, very long process.
• 37:44
  And there are a lot of ups and downs.
• 37:46
  There's a lot of chaos, there's a lot of egos, a lot of craziness that happens.
• 37:52
  And you have to dive into it head first in order to make it, you know, like I said earlier, force it into existence.
• 38:00
  And at the same time, then you have to sort of switch off and go home.
• 38:04
  There was a time when I first started, like I remember after Red Riding, shooting Red Riding, 1974,
• 38:14
  which is still one of my favorite pieces.
• 38:17
  Actually.
• 38:18
  I watched it again the other day after an absence of 15 years.
• 38:22
  And I was quite, I was like, yeah, it's all right.
• 38:25
  You know, I did some crazy shit on that.
• 38:27
  And, uh, and, and, and it sort of paid off.
• 38:30
  But, um, I remember finishing that film and it was such an emotional ride.
• 38:37
  and for everyone involved you know the subject matches this it's like a sort of descent into hell but we put so much into it um
• 38:47
  And I remember being at home in the kitchen and opening the dishwasher.
• 38:51
  And for some reason, it triggered something.
• 38:54
  And I just sort of burst into tears.
• 38:56
  And I was like, is this the thing that's going to happen to me every time I finish a film that I put so much into that I'm going to sort of like, you know, cry around domestic appliances?
• 39:08
  Is that what's going to happen?
• 39:11
  Luckily, it's not what happened in the end.
• 39:13
  But, you know, I managed to sort of contain it.
• 39:15
  But over the years, you sort of like...
• 39:17
  you know, they call it, or they call it film blues or something.
• 39:21
  Um, post film blues, post shoot blues.
• 39:25
  I don't get it so much anymore, but, um,
• 39:29
  I know people who, you know, who get very affected by it.
• 39:34
  But it's nothing like war photography.
• 39:38
  Well, I remember hearing, actually, I think Paul Tom Sanderson once said about how with cinematographers, like, it is, it can be a tough life in this regard, because also, I think cinematographers, you know...
• 39:48
  tend to work quite a lot i mean like if they obviously if they're they're well liked and if they're good at their job they go from job to job to job and it can be quite a trying you know and testing uh job in some respects i guess maybe on a personal level as well as a professional one because you're just you're you're going from job to job and it's a bit maybe feels a bit nomadic is that fair to say is that accurate would you say i would say that's pretty accurate yeah um
• 40:11
  Yeah, because you don't, you never really know what's, I mean, if you're lucky enough, you do, but, but, um, you, you often don't know what your year is going to look like at the beginning of the year.
• 40:23
  Um, I've been in situations before where I have known and it, it feels good.
• 40:29
  It's like you often joke, it's like, oh, it's like having a real job because I know what I'm doing for the next 18 months or whatever it is.
• 40:35
  Um, yeah.
• 40:39
  But you do, yeah, I mean, irrespective of that, every production you work on is different.
• 40:50
  And every person you, you know, specifically for me, every director that I work with is different.
• 40:57
  So you're aligning yourself with a completely new experience.
• 41:05
  so not just physically you're moving to different places, but you're also emotionally having to move to different places.
• 41:12
  Um, because you're creating at the beginning of every production, you're essentially creating a family, you know?
• 41:19
  Um, and in that family, you're either going to hopefully get along most of the time and, you know, um, get through it.
• 41:27
  Um,
• 41:30
  But I think nowadays I've got, you know, I've got kids, you know, young kids.
• 41:34
  And that has in recent years sort of informed the decisions I've made.
• 41:40
  Because I know there's a window of time with...
• 41:46
  you know when the kids are growing up there's a small window there where it moves so quickly and so i've i've kind of had to make some some difficult decisions recently about you know films that maybe would have been something i would love to have done but actually i'd much rather
• 42:06
  work a different, a different thing so that I can be a family, you know?
• 42:11
  Yeah.
• 42:12
  And I think that's a really, it's a, it's, it's a hard thing to manage, but I think it's, you know, you have to, it's just the reality of it.
• 42:21
  And you have to kind of service that idea.
• 42:23
  You know, I don't want, I don't want my kids growing up thinking I was never there.
• 42:28
  And maybe when they reach their teenage years, they'll probably hope that I'm, want me to not be there.
• 42:35
  In which case, I will take that movie in Australia.
• 42:38
  It'll be fine.
• 42:39
  But right now it's like, you know, they're at an age where I just, I want to be here.
• 42:43
  And.
• 42:46
  So, yeah.
• 42:46
  Yeah, I hear that.
• 42:47
  Well, hey, you've got to look after both.
• 42:48
  I mean, you've got to tend to both sort of poles.
• 42:51
  I remember Eddie Marzan, the actor we had on, he once said, like, I've got time for, like, my job and time for my family.
• 42:58
  And that's it.
• 42:59
  You know what I mean?
• 42:59
  Like, I mean, I'm paraphrasing.
• 43:01
  I'm paraphrasing broadly.
• 43:02
  But I remember him saying something to that effect of, like, you know, I've got my family, my job, social life.
• 43:06
  Yeah, that'd be nice.
• 43:07
  But as well.
• 43:07
  But, like, you know, I don't have the time.
• 43:09
  It's about time as well, isn't it?
• 43:10
  Yeah.
• 43:10
  Yeah.
• 43:12
  zeroing in on one of your key collaborations, because you mentioned the way that you work, you create a family with each new job.
• 43:18
  I guess Alex Garland being one of the key directors you've worked with multiple times, and having a film family with him and the crew that you guys work with.
• 43:29
  What is it that makes Alex so special as a collaborator?
• 43:34
  I think really it comes back to this idea that there's a sort of honesty to it.
• 43:39
  You know, when we, in the case of Ex Machina, when we, which was the first thing we worked together on, yeah.
• 43:50
  i remember reading the scripts obviously being blown away by it but but also just really blown away by the sort of the economy of it and uh the economy of the of the words without you know i understood it visually almost immediately without it being described to me and that's a great skill in a writer and and that rarely happens um
• 44:16
  and I felt like he didn't over explain things.
• 44:20
  It kind of, there was a sensibility there that I just connected with.
• 44:25
  Anyway, when we spoke for the very first time, we talked about it.
• 44:31
  it didn't feel like much of an interview really.
• 44:33
  It was more a case of like, well, yeah, you sound all right.
• 44:36
  Yeah.
• 44:37
  You sound all right.
• 44:38
  Should we do this?
• 44:39
  Yeah, let's do this.
• 44:40
  And it was, it literally was a case of like, I liked, I liked Alex because he just gets straight to the sort of practical side of it.
• 44:49
  Because I think in terms of the creative elements,
• 44:53
  There's that sort of trust and knowledge that the person you're talking to knows what they're talking about.
• 45:01
  They have great taste.
• 45:03
  And it is, in this case, is a question of shared taste.
• 45:08
  And we shared that taste, the same taste, whether in some people's opinions it's a bad taste or good taste.
• 45:14
  I don't know.
• 45:15
  But I think it's good taste.
• 45:17
  um and it literally is that um so we i think it's i think it was actually uh kubrick who said something to the same effect of like good movies making a making a film is just a question of taste making decisions i'm paraphrasing because i don't really know what it was but ultimately it's like you know
• 45:38
  those decisions you make apart from the really practical ones are the creative ones.
• 45:43
  It's just a question of taste.
• 45:45
  And, um, yeah, I think, I think that's why it was successful, has been so successful on the films that we've worked together on.
• 45:55
  It's, um, you know, we, we rarely would read, we would rarely look at references from other films, for example, um,
• 46:08
  mainly because we just wanted the films that we've worked together on to exist in their own right, not to feel like anything else.
• 46:17
  Um, they needed to, they need to, to, yeah, be born on their own merits, if you like.
• 46:23
  Um,
• 46:25
  But there was always that underlying idea that, you know, in the case of Annihilation, for example, we'd both seen Stalker.
• 46:31
  We both knew that movie and we both liked Tarkovsky.
• 46:34
  You know, for me, Tarkovsky was a sort of film school thing that I went through and I think...
• 46:41
  you know hopefully every film student should go through because it's that it's that early stage in your creative career where you're like creative life i was didn't have a career at that point i was a film student um where you're just absorbing as much as you can and tarkoski is one of those directors who uh
• 47:05
  is at the extreme end of allowing imagery to exist in its own right and for the viewer to absorb that imagery without too many cuts, without too much.
• 47:20
  The manipulation happens in the frame and the camera and everything else.
• 47:25
  The choreography of the actors, it all moves together, the design and the effects and everything.
• 47:30
  It's like you're watching poetry, visual poetry live, happen live.
• 47:35
  And both Alex and I obviously understood that.
• 47:39
  When we went into Annihilation, we never spoke about Stalker.
• 47:44
  We never looked at images from it.
• 47:46
  But we knew what essentially Annihilation is sort of a remake of Stalker.
• 47:51
  With big guns and a bit of 2000 FD grunge.
• 47:55
  Hollywood stars.
• 47:57
  Yeah.
• 47:58
  Hey, it works for me.
• 47:59
  I love that about it.
• 48:01
  And actually, I see a little bit of that Tarkovsky influence as well in stuff like men as well.
• 48:06
  That visual poetry kind of emotion happening in front of you.
• 48:09
  I see those kinds of shots and compositions.
• 48:11
  In the other films that you've done together, but particularly, I think, in Men as well, the way you guys shot the landscape and those trees and the apples falling from the tree and all those images.
• 48:21
  I kind of felt that as well in there, too.
• 48:23
  Yeah.
• 48:24
  I mean, Men's a funny one.
• 48:25
  I really like Men.
• 48:26
  It's like of the films that we made together, it's the sort of...
• 48:35
  It's like the runt of the litter in a way.
• 48:37
  It kind of like it was the film that came out through a necessity to make a film.
• 48:45
  In the circumstances that we were in, we were waiting for civil war to happen.
• 48:51
  We were off the back end of, you know, everybody coming out of the pandemic.
• 48:58
  And there was this desire to do something and do it in a contained way.
• 49:06
  I think it's the most different of all of them because in terms of the world building aspect, it...
• 49:14
  it sort of has this inbuilt aesthetic to begin with, which in this case is like, and it may not be familiar to American audiences so much, but it's like the Cotswolds, you know, the Cotswolds aesthetic.
• 49:30
  How do you take the Cotswolds and make a horror film?
• 49:33
  It's like, how do those two things combine?
• 49:35
  I struggled a lot.
• 49:36
  I have to say trying to with, with that aesthetic, uh,
• 49:42
  specifically um because it felt so familiar um and that's the first time we'd ever done that however it's one of my favorites because it's just so strange and it's just so it's got a real fuck you nature to it and shit and
• 50:00
  And Jessie Buckley is the heart of that, you know?
• 50:03
  Yeah.
• 50:04
  And instead of, you know, like most people do in horror movies, they run, they go running, screaming when they're, they're being attacked or whatever.
• 50:13
  She's much more like,
• 50:14
  No, fuck this.
• 50:18
  And I, and I love that, you know, and obviously all the men in it are just, just an absolute nightmare.
• 50:24
  Kinnear, you know, Kinnear, Jesse's, you know, lover, a boyfriend, whatever, all of it.
• 50:35
  But yeah, there's, I think again, the imagery of,
• 50:41
  there's a sort of poetry in it, I suppose you want, you know, we were looking for not consciously.
• 50:47
  It was just, again, it came down to a question of taste.
• 50:49
  It's like we walk, we go on our scouts and I take a camera with me and that's us, Alex.
• 50:55
  And we walk into a forest and we're like, Oh fuck, this is great.
• 50:58
  And you take the picture and you've got the image already because you can see it.
• 51:02
  It's right in front of you.
• 51:03
  It presents itself.
• 51:06
  As is often the case when I take stills, it's like,
• 51:09
  I don't look for the, I try not to look for photographs.
• 51:12
  I wait for them to come to me.
• 51:15
  But yeah, that one's a bit like, I like to see it as a sort of Tarkovsky meets Last of the Summer Wine, you know?
• 51:23
  So I'm like, that's the only way I could describe it with a bit of, with a bit of Lynch thrown in for good measure, you know?
• 51:30
  Yeah.
• 51:31
  That should have been the post advert for that movie, the tag lab, that movie.
• 51:34
  It's Last of the Summer Wine meets Tarkovsky.
• 51:37
  Yeah.
• 51:39
  yeah i mean yeah i mean where do you go from that i mean so many um of those images are indelible i mean in the work that you and alex have done i mean i was thinking i was looking back at scenes that you've shot like iconic scenes that you've shot from those films and the other films that you've worked on as well with other directors but like zeroing in on back on ex machina like the dance scene with like oscar isaac and that red sort of pulsing disco lighting yeah i mean that's such a sort of standout scene yeah i mean do you remember the shooting of that
• 52:05
  Yeah, I do.
• 52:06
  I remember it like it was yesterday.
• 52:07
  I mean, it's like, you know, again, just for us at the time, it was just fun.
• 52:12
  It was just, we just wanted...
• 52:15
  We just wanted it to be funny.
• 52:18
  And it was funny.
• 52:20
  And, you know, Alex's direction was really kind of like, how do we make this like a nice, like, you know, it's like a disco scene.
• 52:30
  But there's also something that's just, it's just a bit shit, you know.
• 52:36
  And so that's what I did, you know.
• 52:38
  I mean, the way I see it is just like the lighting in it is just a bit shit.
• 52:43
  Yeah.
• 52:44
  because it matches what's happening with the choreography and the dancing and the whole nature of the scene.
• 52:52
  It's, it's, it really works because of, because of Donald Leeson's just incredulous expression, you know, that's what it is.
• 53:03
  And, and of course, obviously Oscar and Sonoya, but you know, Oscar, come on, man.
• 53:08
  I won't even attempt to do it, but you know, um, um,
• 53:13
  Yeah, again, I think it's like you try and capture the truth of the moment, don't you?
• 53:18
  Yeah, and the truth being this is a bit shit.
• 53:20
  Yeah, the truth is it's a bit shit.
• 53:22
  And so you want it to feel like that.
• 53:26
  Well, it's an iconic scene.
• 53:29
  It's an iconic scene.
• 53:30
  And, you know, and there's so many of those.
• 53:32
  I mean, and even...
• 53:33
  just i mean because i have to touch on fallout briefly because actually we had the editor of uh fallout eddie hamilton eddie right yeah he was he's great he's brilliant and and um and looking back at that film i mean like so like because i'm all right in thinking that like cruise and macquarie visited you in the annihilation cutting room and that's kind of how that started was that that relationship like they came to visit you and then they kind of onboarded you
• 53:55
  Yeah, I mean, they didn't visit me personally, but they did visit the cutting rooms.
• 54:01
  That's true.
• 54:04
  I met with Macquarie and then Tom wanted to see something that I most recently shot, which happened to be Annihilation.
• 54:18
  So I think, well, I know that
• 54:22
  And again, knowing Alex and now knowing Tom, two completely different energies.
• 54:31
  And so it just amused me to think that, you know, security turning up to the cutting rooms and just like, you know, Tom coming in and Alex with his hundred packets of niggrettes and just them, just him showing stuff and Tom going, yeah.
• 54:50
  Yeah.
• 54:52
  you know and he was all i know is that he wanted to see something dark he was like show me the darkest thing and i think it was probably the scene the bear scene i imagine um because the bear scene you know that again was like addressing the truth of it um
• 55:11
  They go into this place and they have to take everything with them, including their lighting.
• 55:19
  And that's how it worked.
• 55:21
  And so, you know, there's lots of research done into what units would they take that can fold up neatly into a backpack.
• 55:29
  And I, again, at the time, I was staunchly not into using any kind of LED light because I didn't like the texture of it.
• 55:39
  It's slightly different now.
• 55:40
  I think it's sort of improved and I enjoy sort of mixing that with tungsten light.
• 55:47
  But at the time, I was very much in that world.
• 55:50
  And so we had these small units, which were tungsten units.
• 55:54
  So they got searingly hot.
• 55:57
  You couldn't touch them, but they look great.
• 55:59
  Um, and the scene, tire scene was lit with those, those little kind of work lights, if you like.
• 56:06
  Um, and Tom loved it, you know, I mean, well, he obviously did cause they offered me the job.
• 56:13
  So, which was great.
• 56:15
  Yeah.
• 56:17
  Um, that's dark enough for us.
• 56:18
  Yeah.
• 56:19
  Yeah, you won't die.
• 56:20
  There you go.
• 56:21
  Yeah.
• 56:22
  So not that I think, I think Fallout has much darkness in it, so to speak, but, um,
• 56:31
  Yeah.
• 56:33
  Yeah, I'm very proud of that, actually.
• 56:36
  Yeah.
• 56:36
  Yeah, I'd say.
• 56:37
  I mean, like, I agree.
• 56:38
  I know what you mean.
• 56:38
  Like, Fallout doesn't have much darkness in it, but there is a...
• 56:41
  I keep on coming back to the word luster, and, like, the blacks are really black and strong for me when I watch it, and, like, yeah, the sort of tactility of the image.
• 56:50
  But, like, again, I just keep coming back to the word luster.
• 56:52
  And, like, the bathroom fight scene, like that pure white bathroom.
• 56:58
  Yeah.
• 56:58
  Do you remember the shooting of that?
• 56:59
  i do i do remember that i remember the conversations leading up to it because originally the bathroom was conceived um the design of it was something which was darker a lot darker because they're in a club and albeit this you know it's that huge the glass place i can't remember the name of it yeah that's the grand palais in paris and um
• 57:25
  you know, it had that sort of clubby vibe to it.
• 57:29
  And so the lighting and in the design, in the concepts, was very, lots of pool lighting and the textures and everything was, there were reds and blacks in there.
• 57:40
  And I remember saying one of my first, I was quite being quite sort of cheeky actually.
• 57:45
  And I was just like, wouldn't it be great to have something that completely contrasted with the
• 57:50
  the environment that they're stepping out of.
• 57:54
  And when they cross the threshold into that bathroom, it's a visual surprise.
• 57:59
  And the surprise needs to be that they were expecting to be able to kind of like, you know, achieve their goal here and do it efficiently and use the shadows in order to do it.
• 58:14
  But what if that bathroom is the opposite of that?
• 58:17
  What if it's another challenge, another thing, which is like, which is a very much part of the mission impossible IP, if you like, of, uh, Oh shit, things just get worse and worse and worse.
• 58:28
  It's just another problem on top of another problem.
• 58:31
  And I think having, you know, I suggested this, just this white bathroom and I was like a blanket white lighting.
• 58:38
  So there's nowhere to hide.
• 58:39
  There's nothing you can do.
• 58:40
  Um,
• 58:44
  And luckily the idea was, you know, was taken because... And I think it became...
• 58:52
  visually such a fun thing to then do.
• 58:57
  And we spent, we, we were supposed to have five days in that bathroom.
• 59:01
  We ended up being in there for three weeks, which I'm sure Eddie may have mentioned, but kept going back to redo stuff and add more things.
• 59:11
  And I think it really benefited from that, that, um, um,
• 59:16
  But yeah, I just, like I say, I just love the idea that there was nowhere to hide.
• 59:21
  Yeah.
• 59:22
  And also what's also really important about that in terms of action is geography.
• 59:29
  And I was obsessed with the idea of...
• 59:34
  the audience understanding the geography of a space because what's the point if you don't you get confused in a fight sequence and i think that's quite common in cinema in action cinema is that um you know the best ones show you you have an understanding of the space in which the people are in uh and the worst ones don't really uh
• 59:57
  give you that element they just give you the fight element but not really anything else and it needs so much more than that it's like we were saying earlier it's like a fight scene to me is is like any scene in a movie it has to have a narrative to it and it has to be able to progress the narrative the bigger narrative and in this case uh in the bathroom scene in in mission impossible it's like
• 1:00:22
  here's the geography this is the problem here are the set of problems that need to be achieved you have one side you have the other you can see everything very clearly um you understand where you are in the space because they go in and they explore the space and we start with a wide shot and we hold those shots which is the other important thing too um
• 1:00:46
  So, yeah.
• 1:00:47
  Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  Yeah, so it all flows like cream, I guess.
• 1:00:49
  That is what I remember what George Miller said about action.
• 1:00:51
  Yeah.
• 1:00:52
  Yeah.
• 1:00:52
  I mean, hey, this has been such a fantastic chat, Rob.
• 1:00:54
  I mean, as a fan.
• 1:00:55
  I could go on, actually.
• 1:00:57
  Yeah, I could go on.
• 1:00:58
  I could hear you.
• 1:00:59
  I mean, I guess it's like a sort of, as a wrap-up question, because as I said earlier, like you've worked on, so last year you did Supergirl and Clayface, sort of quite quick succession to completely different projects.
• 1:01:09
  I mean, what can we expect?
• 1:01:10
  I guess I think Clayface is the next thing you've got coming out that you've shot.
• 1:01:13
  Clayface will be, and then after that we'll be Blade Runner, yeah.
• 1:01:16
  Amazing, yeah.
• 1:01:16
  I mean, what can we expect from your work on Clayface?
• 1:01:18
  I mean, again, such a different genre to Supergirl horror.
• 1:01:20
  Like, what can we expect?
• 1:01:21
  Yeah, it's an interesting one.
• 1:01:23
  Um...
• 1:01:24
  Well, I hope, my hope and dream is that people are going to get something that's unexpected.
• 1:01:34
  But what you have here is you have a studio, not specifically, actually specifically a comic book hero.
• 1:01:48
  Coming from a stable of comic book heroes, right?
• 1:01:50
  In this case, not hero, anti-hero.
• 1:01:53
  um, so you have that element, but you also have ultimately the element that it is a horror film.
• 1:01:59
  It's designed as a horror film, um, a body horror, actually specifically, um,
• 1:02:07
  Our pitch was always kind of Joker meets The Fly, which is really what he is, what we hope it's going to be.
• 1:02:17
  Two great movies.
• 1:02:18
  And so you can only hope and dream to be like that.
• 1:02:24
  But I had a huge amount of fun working on Clayface.
• 1:02:28
  I think James Watkins is just one of the loveliest directors on the planet.
• 1:02:35
  And he knows horror.
• 1:02:36
  He knows how to do it.
• 1:02:39
  And horror is not an easy thing to do.
• 1:02:41
  I think of all the genres, it's my favorite genre.
• 1:02:45
  I could just, for the rest of my life, just shoot horror movies and I'd be happy.
• 1:02:54
  it's almost like it can encompass all of the other elements from all of the other genres.
• 1:03:01
  It's like the one genre that can do that, you know, and it can go anywhere.
• 1:03:09
  I think, I think...
• 1:03:11
  I'm hoping that there are people will be surprised, pleasantly surprised with Clayface.
• 1:03:18
  He's, he's a very unknown character, kind of an unknown character.
• 1:03:24
  His depictions have often been slightly comicky, comical.
• 1:03:29
  There is humor in the film.
• 1:03:30
  It's not comedy, but, um,
• 1:03:34
  it will be interesting to see the reaction.
• 1:03:37
  Because, I mean, there are times when we were shooting going... As was the case with men, actually, where I would be looking at stills from the previous days, thinking...
• 1:03:50
  what are we making here?
• 1:03:52
  Like in a good way, like what the fuck is this?
• 1:03:57
  So yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.
• 1:04:00
  In fact, I go into post on it in a couple of weeks and yeah, I'm really looking forward to delivering.
• 1:04:06
  And here's the other thing.
• 1:04:07
  It's set in Gotham.
• 1:04:08
  So it's, you know, we were very much left to our own devices with regards to what that Gotham is.
• 1:04:12
  It's our Gotham as opposed to the Batman Gotham or, you know, Joker Gotham.
• 1:04:18
  It's like, you know, it had to be ours because with Clayface, it was, you know, it wasn't on the scale of Supergirl or Batman.
• 1:04:26
  It was very much a smaller movie.
• 1:04:29
  James Gunn and everyone else were like, we don't want this to feel like a DC film.
• 1:04:33
  We want it to be a horror film.
• 1:04:35
  And that was that.
• 1:04:36
  That was it.
• 1:04:36
  That was it.
• 1:04:37
  That's the brief.
• 1:04:37
  And we were left alone to go and do it.
• 1:04:41
  And so creating a Gotham on a shoestring, if you like, was quite fun and challenging.
• 1:04:48
  And I enjoyed it a lot.
• 1:04:49
  yeah hey hey you gee me up to see it i mean it sounds like you're gonna finally get to channel a bit of the thing as well but it's a little bit of the thing in there that body horror so oh yeah hey hey i can't wait to see it great well hey well thanks so much for coming on pleasure and uh yeah i can't wait for the next one which is say clayface