Skip to main content

 


The movie Fargo, released in 1996 and directed by Joel & Ethan Coen, was shot on film using ARRIFLEX 35 BL4 Camera and Zeiss Standard Speed Prime Lenses with Roger Deakins as cinematographer and editing by Ethan & Joel Coen.

"It was fun for all of us and a relief in a way. It was back to working with each other and a small crew in a very controllable environment, which was similar to how we had done Barton Fink. On Hudsucker, Roger had to essentially oversee four different units: the main unit, the second unit, the bluescreen unit, and the miniature stuff." says Joel Coen.  

Early on in Fargo's pre-production, the Coens had meetings with Deakins to discuss and solidify the visual style of the film. "We always involve Roger very early," notes Joel. "Basically, what we do after we finish the script is sit down with him and talk in general terms about how we were thinking about it from a visual point of view. Then, in specific terms, we do a draft of the storyboards with Roger — showing him a preliminary draft of what we were thinking about — and then refine those ideas scene by scene. So he's involved pretty much right from the beginning. The style of the shooting is worked out between the three of us."

"We're very interested in the cinematography," submits Joel. "From the beginning, it's something that we've always spent a lot of time on with Roger because we enjoy it, we enjoy thinking about it, and it's fun for all of us to work out together." 

Deakins has had a longstanding debate with the Coens about their affinity for wide-angle lenses, which all too often results in an on-set bidding war for the optimum lens choice. Ethan proclaims, "We've gotten better actually, partly because of Roger's influence." Joel expands wryly, "He has been quietly bringing us around to longer lenses. It's a joke between the three of us. We're now up to 32mm and 35mm lenses!"

Deakins concedes, "They wanted [the look of the exteriors] to be quite bland. It's kind of a difficult balance to do something that's bland but not boring. They wanted it very real, very middle-America. In fact, we chose some of the locations because they were particularly bland. Both the designer [Rick Heinrichs] and I would say, 'Well, that's really nothing!' I mean, you still have to make it interesting, but they always manage that anyway. I think the Coens could probably make a blank white wall interesting."

Deakins offers, "I worked with a lot more colors on Fargo than I have on either of the Coens' other films. When street lighting started switching from mercury-vapor to sodium, I was a bit worried, because I loved the sort of cold-blue streetlight look. But now I've gotten to like the sodium look."

"I tend to gel lights," he elaborates. "I don't just print things to be a certain color. Some cinematographers print the frame to a particular color, a particular look. I like to use a lot of colors in one frame.

source The ACS








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  Based on the 1952 novel The Price of Salt, Carol tells the story of the relationship between two women, an aspiring photographer and an older woman going through a messy divorce in the 1950s. Director Todd Haynes brings the intimacy and the sensitive to the story with the help from cinematographer Edward Lachman. Lachman, who has worked with Haynes on Mildred Pierce, I’m Not There, and Far From Heaven, has brought his own distinctive style to the film with his choice to use Super 16mm instead of going the digital route. It’s not the first time that Lachman and Haynes went the 16mm route, the duo also used the same camera for the HBO mini-series, Mildred Pierce. By employing the use of a camera that’s unusual in most Hollywood films, Carol stands out among the rest, cinematography-wise. Deciding to stick with film for Carol, the cinematographer wanted to invoice the atmosphere and the feeling of the 1950s and the movies that came out during the time. Sticking with Super 16mm, Lach...
Post a Comment
Read more
  Emmanuel Lubezki for Birdman "The whole movie was thought-out to be shot, the way it is shot. It’s not something that happened posteriorly, it was how Alejandro wrote the movie. His other movies are very cutty, sometimes he uses multiple cameras. His movies are wonderful and beautiful, but he wanted to do something different with "Birdman." I don’t think we could have done this movie a year or two years ago. The ALEXA camera and the ALEXA M especially, allowed me to do handheld for so long. The fact that you can record media for so many minutes and also that the video system gets an image that is so clear for the director…It allowed us to do the movie. Otherwise, I think it would have been probably close to impossible. I wanted the movie to look as naturalistic as possible. We did not use movie lights. It’s all light bulbs. All the lights that you see in the set are the lights that are lighting the scene. These cameras allow us to do that because the dynamic range of t...
Post a Comment
Read more