Karl Walter Lindenlaub: Deeeep DoF

From American Cinematographer, This Old House by David E. Williams (August 1999)

The filmmakers did draw inspiration from another ghostly classic of the same era: The Innocents (1961), which was shot by Freddie Francis, BSC.

"It was beautifully photographed in black-and-white anamorphic, and has amazing depth of field. They lit everything very hard, shooting at T11, so they didn’t often have to use diopters. We couldn’t do that today, because of the way we use soft light. I later spoke to Freddie Francis’s operator on that film, Ronnie Taylor [BSC], who was our B-camera operator when we shot our exteriors in England. He explained how Freddie had used graduated filters on both sides of the frame to keep the walls dark, and how the actors even wore sunglasses between takes"

- Karl Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK

Vilmos Zsigmond: Lighting

From American Cinematographer, A Transcendent Career Foretold by Bob Fisher (February '99)

"I think the most important thing about cinematography is lighting. That's how you create the mood that matches the story. The ability to light artistically is a gift from the gods. If you have the ability, you shouldn't waste it. You should be looking for ways to improve and grow."

- Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC

Vilmos Zsigmond: Art of Film

From American Cinematographer, A Transcendent Career Foretold by Bob Fisher (February '99)

Zsigmond spent four years at film school, putting in many 14-hour days and six-day weeks. While he deplored living under the tyranny of the communist government, he learned some great truths from the head of the department, György Illes, and other faculty members.

"They taught us that a movie is only art if it has something important to say. It should be more than entertainment. It should have social value...

...My rule is that if a movie doesn't say something of value for the audience, I don't think it's worth making. You only have time to make so many pictures in your life. Maybe 75 percent of the time, you can tell if a film will be worthwhile when you read the script, but I've been fooled on occasion. There were times when I thought something was going to be a good movie, but it didn't turn out that way. There are so many things that have to come together — the actors, the director, the script."

- Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC

Jean-Marc Fabre: Evolving Light with Character

From American Cinematographer, Sword Pen & Family by Eric Rudolph (October 1998)

Another challenge for the cinematographer was the fact that lead actress Leelee Sobieski, 15 years old at the time of production, had to span an age range that took her from pre-adolescent to mature high-schooler. While the filmmakers employed the standard tactics which enable young actresses to age onscreen (such as adjusting makeup, hair and wardrobe), Fabre also played an important role in Sobieski's gradual transformation.

"When she is a young adolescent, the age when girls haven't yet started looking at themselves much, I took no special care with her lighting at all. She would get into the lighting that was there and I paid no particular attention to her. As she becomes interested in boys, we took a bit more care with her lighting."

Later, while shooting scenes that took place after the family moved to the States, Fabre had his cue to start "making Leelee prettier, lighting her like an actress, in a more sophisticated way."

- Jean-Marc Fabre

Alar Kivilo: Photography Arc & Lens Selection

From American Cinematographer, The Root of All Evil by Jay Holben (December 1998)

"This whole project was kind of an exception to my normal style. I usually like the photography to have an arc of its own, where it starts off one way and you discreetly increase the drama. For example, as a character becomes more evil, I'll move to wider lenses or spookier lighting or something. However, the changes that the characters [in this film] go through are extreme, so I decided to keep the photography very neutral and never comment on what was going on in the scene. I approached the whole project in a very naturalistic way. I picked relatively neutral lenses, gravitating toward the middle range. As a rule, we kept away from the really long or wide lenses. Our real workhorse was the 40mm, which happens to be my favorite. It's great for moments of drama, and for doing close-ups. It's wide enough for master shots, but it doesn't distort even if you get close to the subject. It's the last lens going toward the wide end in which the lines of the architecture remain straight. Again, we were constantly trying to hew to that simplicity."

- Alar Kivilo, CSC

Conrad Hall: Reality vs. Fiction

From American Cinematographer, Leader of the Pack interview by Caleb Deschanel and edited by David E. Williams (September 1998)

"Here we are making a movie, translating a real story into dramatic terms. We’re not thinking about where it actually took place. Did a particular conversation between Pre and his coach happen 25 yards over there, or here where the light is better? We had some struggles with that sort of thing, because Robert was very devoted to the people who really knew Pre those who ran with him, coached him, and were friends with him. Robert relied on them for veracity, because he wanted to be true to Pre’s story. But being true to any story does not necessarily mean filming it exactly the way it happened. You have to interpret it, using long or short lenses, composition, backlight, frontlight, overexposure, darkness whatever it takes in order to create the story. Robert and I had less-than-perfect relationship in this regard, because he was trying to be very true to reality. I’ve generally found that reality should not be involved in the creative process. You should know the reality, but then go ahead and use whatever dramatic storytelling is necessary to best represent it. "

- Conrad Hall, ASC

Vilmos Zsigmond: Improv Lighting

From American Cinematographer, Learning to See by Bill Linsman (March 1998)

"August of 1976 was the first time I taught in Rockport. Rob Draper was my assistant. Those first few sessions were a bit haphazard; we were just feeling our way. For example, one time we were lighting a parking lot, and suddenly we had a blackout. The whole town went dark. There we were with the camera and lights, and the lights wouldn't work. I said, 'Wait a second. We can do something while we're waiting for the lights to come back on.' We had a lot of students who had their cars there, so we actually staged the scene by the headlights of the cars. People were crossing in front of the headlights, and their silhouettes were going in front of those lights, and the images were just beautiful. We came up with something out of nothing to show that in a desperate situation, you can use anything for a key light."

- Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC

Gabriel Beristain: Character Lighting

From American Cinematographer, Paging Machiavelli by Eric Rudolph (March 1998)

"The lighting of the people around the hero, Joe Ross, works to reinforce the ideas we want the audience to have about them. Characters who are perceived by Ross as his enemies are treated with slightly ominous lighting, and those he perceives as allies are given more flattering lighting. However, few people in this film are really who they seem to be. We used the lighting to help us play the game presented by the very clever script that David Mamet had written, to deceive the audience and keep them uncertain about who is friend and who is enemy."

- Gabriel Beristain, ASC, BSC

Haskell Wexler: Gutsy Cinematography

From American Cinematographer, Island of Lost Souls interview by Conrad Hall, ASC (July 1999)

Wexler: "... However, in one shot where Mary Elizabeth is singing in the bar, she's way over in the left-hand side of the frame and there's a big, black, undifferentiated area on the right. I was upset when I saw that shot in the film, because John had told me that he was going to dissolve one of the boat sequences into that area of the frame. In the finished film, though, there's nothing there; it just looks like an ugly frame. Then I thought, 'Well maybe some people like Conrad will think it's daring!' [Laughs.] Sometimes when you do stuff poorly but you've developed something of a reputation, people say, 'Wow, that's gutsy.'"

- Haskell Wexler, ASC

Gordon Willis: Relationship with Actors

"I don't really like directing. I've had a good relationship with actors, but I can do what I do and back off. I don't want that much romancing. I don't want them to call me up at two in the morning saying, 'I don't know who I am."

-Gordon Willis, ASC

Christopher Doyle: Artists Voice

"I didn't start making films until I was 34. But that wasted youth was probably the most valuable asset for what I'm doing now. You see the world, you end up in jail three or four times, you accumulate experience. And it gives you something to say. If you don't have anything to say then you shouldn't be making films. It's nothing to do with what lens you're using."

-Christopher Doyle, HKSC

Jack Cardiff: Lighting & Simplicity

"There are several aspects of lighting. There's a broad sweep that's sort of impressionistic and reasonably realistic, but some of our British cameramen, and the French cameramen, too, were sort of 'itty-bitty'. George Perinal was considered one of the best cinematographers at the time, but he used dozens of lights-- a little bit here, a little bit there-- and it didn't look natural. A big director who had been a cameraman came over from America to do a screen test, and when this director came on set, he said: 'Are you ready, Peri? Peri said, 'Yes.' Then the director said to the gaffer, 'Kill that one, kill that one...' and he killed about 10 lights. Watching that was a lesson to me: Simplicity."

-Jack Cardiff, BSC

Conrad Hall: Crests and Valleys of Visuals

"Lighting is so complex that it's hard to quantify. It's like playing piano. How did I do that? What did my fingers do? What made me think about where they should go? I like to equate cinema to music. I'm performing a musical composition when lighting a scene. There are crescendos, allegros and pizzicatos. The visual language is an undulating language, and, like music, it has to have its peaks and valleys. You can't just photograph everything beautifully; otherwise. how would you get the gasps if you had nothing but gasps? You can only get a gasp because the audience hasn't been paying attention to anything but the story and the actors. Then suddenly, there's something magical that grabs them. Those instances do something to the story and the individual watching, and it's those rythms [in the visual construction] that are important."

-Conrad Hall, ASC