In reading the July issue of American Cinematographer it was nice to read about the shooting of The Dark Knight, probably my favorite film of the year and one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Though some of you may disagree with me, I connected with the style and look of the film. To me it mixed a lot of experimental and classical elements of filmmaking together into what is a visually assaulting piece of storytelling. The Dark Knight was shot on 35mm film with some sequences shot in IMAX (a Canadian invention, thank you very much), which is something that has never been done before.
For those of you who know me, know that I am a big fan of trying new things and its nice to see a studio like Warner Bros. taking a chance with such a costly experiment. Those who have seen the film in IMAX (if you haven’t you should) will attest to the sheer beauty of the scenes. I love what the movie’s cinematographer, Wally Pfister, said about shooting in IMAX: “We just needed to shoot and learn…There’s a whole booklet about how to film in Imax, but our inclination was to break all those rules. In the end, we incorporated some of the ideas to a degree, but for the most part, we did what felt right to us and addressed composition shot-by-shot.” Which, to me, is refreshing and it’s a great learning point for me and any aspiring filmmaker out there. Anybody can take a film class, anybody can read American Cinematographer or any book on how to shoot a movie—and odds are if you learn that way, you will be able to shoot a movie—a rather generic looking movie, but a movie nonetheless. In all my films I teach myself how to shoot all over again. I often try to keep my film education as far away as possible when I approach shooting a movie. I want the approach for everything I do to be completely different and unique. Ashita was probably my effort at learning to shoot. First, I was shooting in PAL for the first time (more on PAL some other time) and I was shooting entirely at night, which are both two things I’ve never done before. I watched a lot of film noir along with a lot of films that inspire me, but I wanted to craft my own look for the film. A look of loneliness in the big city. Andy, Ashita’s editor, once commented that I really enjoy solitary people in big spaces—and for Ashita I do—it’s a look that I wanted.
Actually I never intended on shooting the film myself, I had originally hired a cinematographer and after the first two days of shooting, we let him go—it was both a combination of lack of visual style and paying too much of the wrong type of my attention to my all female, all Japanese cast members. When I came to the painful realization that I had to do my own camera work as well as work with actors in a language I don’t speak, I got rather ill. To overcome those very obstacles I had to preplan even more than I normally do. Some people story board, some people don’t story board (for The Meatball Story I didn’t story board, for Truant Café I did) in the case of Ashita, I decided to do a detailed shot list and literally cross off the shots right after I did them. What was almost unconscious about my shooting of Ashita was the beauty of some of the shots. My office is located downtown Toronto, so I often spend an hour or more a day walking through the streets of downtown—which is pretty much how I did my location scouting for Ashita. Most of the exteriors for the film are shot using existing light from the locations, which turned out surprisingly well. Before I shot I went to each location at night with my camera and looked through the viewfinder to get an idea of what my shot would look like. Some of the shots in Ashita are truly majestic. What’s funny in reading the American Cinematographer article on The Dark Knight, was how Wally Pfister and director Chris Nolan first tested the IMAX camera in Nolan’s backyard and then to test the night shots they put it in the back of a pick up truck and drove down Sunset Blvd. It must be nice to be able to test a $3 000,000 camera in your back yard and then put in your flatbed and drive around with it!
For those of you who know me, know that I am a big fan of trying new things and its nice to see a studio like Warner Bros. taking a chance with such a costly experiment. Those who have seen the film in IMAX (if you haven’t you should) will attest to the sheer beauty of the scenes. I love what the movie’s cinematographer, Wally Pfister, said about shooting in IMAX: “We just needed to shoot and learn…There’s a whole booklet about how to film in Imax, but our inclination was to break all those rules. In the end, we incorporated some of the ideas to a degree, but for the most part, we did what felt right to us and addressed composition shot-by-shot.” Which, to me, is refreshing and it’s a great learning point for me and any aspiring filmmaker out there. Anybody can take a film class, anybody can read American Cinematographer or any book on how to shoot a movie—and odds are if you learn that way, you will be able to shoot a movie—a rather generic looking movie, but a movie nonetheless. In all my films I teach myself how to shoot all over again. I often try to keep my film education as far away as possible when I approach shooting a movie. I want the approach for everything I do to be completely different and unique. Ashita was probably my effort at learning to shoot. First, I was shooting in PAL for the first time (more on PAL some other time) and I was shooting entirely at night, which are both two things I’ve never done before. I watched a lot of film noir along with a lot of films that inspire me, but I wanted to craft my own look for the film. A look of loneliness in the big city. Andy, Ashita’s editor, once commented that I really enjoy solitary people in big spaces—and for Ashita I do—it’s a look that I wanted.
Actually I never intended on shooting the film myself, I had originally hired a cinematographer and after the first two days of shooting, we let him go—it was both a combination of lack of visual style and paying too much of the wrong type of my attention to my all female, all Japanese cast members. When I came to the painful realization that I had to do my own camera work as well as work with actors in a language I don’t speak, I got rather ill. To overcome those very obstacles I had to preplan even more than I normally do. Some people story board, some people don’t story board (for The Meatball Story I didn’t story board, for Truant Café I did) in the case of Ashita, I decided to do a detailed shot list and literally cross off the shots right after I did them. What was almost unconscious about my shooting of Ashita was the beauty of some of the shots. My office is located downtown Toronto, so I often spend an hour or more a day walking through the streets of downtown—which is pretty much how I did my location scouting for Ashita. Most of the exteriors for the film are shot using existing light from the locations, which turned out surprisingly well. Before I shot I went to each location at night with my camera and looked through the viewfinder to get an idea of what my shot would look like. Some of the shots in Ashita are truly majestic. What’s funny in reading the American Cinematographer article on The Dark Knight, was how Wally Pfister and director Chris Nolan first tested the IMAX camera in Nolan’s backyard and then to test the night shots they put it in the back of a pick up truck and drove down Sunset Blvd. It must be nice to be able to test a $3 000,000 camera in your back yard and then put in your flatbed and drive around with it!
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