What does an image feel like? Is it smooth? Coarse? Soft? Sharp? Distorted? These are decisions that cinematographers, directors, and anyone else involved in the creation of a visual language for a specific film must grapple with. Christopher Blauvelt, the acclaimed cinematographer of such films as First Cow, Emma, Meek’s Cutoff, Certain Women, The Bling Ring, and Mid90s joins us to discuss the textures that define his work and how he collaborated with directors like Kelly Reichardt, Sofia Coppola, Gus Van Sant, and Autumn De Wilde to develop these images.
In this episode, we discuss:
The collaborative nature of building a cinematic language: how cinematographers and directors work together to define the look of a film.
Celluloid-based images, digital images, the ways in which they can be used for good (or evil.), and the ways in which the aesthetic line between the two can be blurred.
Filtration: why do we soften our images? What determines the type of filters used?
Naturalism versus theatrical reality.
Authenticity: an aesthetic? An attitude? What is it?
Why choose a steadicam? Why choose a dolly? How do these contribute to the ‘feel’ of our movements?
Day-for-night techniques (see below)
Additional Resources:
Bleach Books, Chris’s series of books bringing together directors, cinematographers, and other artists.
First Cow on Amazon Prime Video
Roads to Nowhere: We highly recommend Seventh Row’s new book on Kelly Reichardt, which includes detailed interviews with Christopher.
Steve Yedlin’s Res Demo: An experiment in rendering various celluloid and digital formats visually indistinguishable.
Lens Filtration Test Shoot: One of many such tests on the internet, this one tests a wide variety of common filters on a single subject.
Meet Your Makers: Christopher Blauvelt: Our podcast doesn’t delve much into the personal histories of our guests, so if you’re interested in learning more about Chris’s background this is a great place to start.
First Cow: Day For Night tests.
Chris was nice enough to send us these before-and-after comparisons of the digital day-for-night effect on First Cow, achieved via a LUT. To the left are how the images appeared using the Arri Alexa’s standard Rec709 LUT; to the right are the same images after the day-for-night colour grade has been applied.
Posted with permission from A24.
About Christopher Blauvelt
Christopher Blauvelt is a third-generation film craftsperson who combines his extensive experience with a fresh creative eye. A protégé of Harris Savides, Chris worked on films for directors Noah Baumbach and David Fincher and operated on Tom Ford’s A Single Man, Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are, and Gus Van Sant’s Restless. Chris’ work as a cinematographer includes Sofia Coppola’s edgy commentary on spoiled youth, The Bling Ring and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby for director Ned Benson. Chris also lensed Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff Night Moves, Certain Women, and First Cow, as well as Autumn De Wilde’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. He also publishes Bleach Books, an interdisciplinary series film-centric photo books.
