![]() ![]() “I would take the same photograph now with the same situation, the same frame, the same lens,” Deakins says, chuckling. He's been knighted.īut if given the chance, he'd take that first black-and-white shot exactly the same way. He's photographed “Fargo,” “Kundun" and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” He's shot “No Country for Old Men," “The Man Who Wasn't There” and “Skyfall.” He's been nominated for 15 Oscars and won two. A sign reads: “Keep it to yourself.”ĭeakins has taken countless images since that first snap. Roger agrees, and notes, “There’s not a single shot in the film we could have done with a bigger camera…It’s the sort of film that probably couldn’t have been made a few years ago.NEW YORK – The first photograph Roger Deakins ever took, in 1969 Bournemouth, England, shows a man and a woman quietly eating lunch on a bench outside a ladies room. “We couldn’t have asked for more than what we got from ARRI Rental,” says James. Successful teamwork between ARRI in Munich manufacturing the new cameras, and ARRI Rental in the UK supporting the production, allowed “1917” to benefit from the advantages of the ALEXA Mini LF. “In the river we shot some of it on a 47 mm because I wanted to lose the background a bit more, and in the German basement we used a 35 mm because I wanted the feeling of the tunnel.” “I’d say 99% was shot on a 40 mm Signature Prime,” says Roger. Since the camera stayed on the same characters throughout the film, there was little need to vary focal length. “I was getting so neurotic because I didn’t want somebody to drop it…we realized there weren’t that many, and we couldn’t just order up another if we dropped one or something went wrong!” “We were happy, obviously, when we got the first prototype,” says Roger. What they needed was ALEXA image quality (which Roger has trusted on many movies), a large-format aesthetic, and a compact form factor.įortunately, ARRI was at the time finalizing its new ALEXA Mini LF and was able to rush some early prototypes to the set of “1917,” which became the first film to use the camera. Several of the camera rigs required a compact and lightweight camera, but Mendes also wanted very high-resolution images and Deakins was drawn to a large-format look: “I wanted a shallower depth of field and the feeling of-in normal terms-a longer lens,” says Roger. There’s no way the audience is let off the hook it’s almost claustrophobic, they’re not allowed to look away…that’s what I feel is immersive about it.” For me it feels like you forget about the technique, but because it’s there, you are totally in it. “A couple of people have said about the film, ‘Wouldn’t it be just the same if there’d been some cuts?’ But that wouldn’t have had the effect that Sam was after. “It’s a real-time story and you’re following two characters who are always moving,” says Roger. In telling the story of two soldiers who are sent on a dangerous mission into enemy territory with a life-saving message to call off an impending attack, Mendes wanted the camera to stay with those main characters without interruption. ![]() ![]() ![]() The big idea, the secret, was that director Sam Mendes had asked for the film be shot in such a way as it appeared to comprise a single, unedited shot. For its second video interview with Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins about his work on “1917,” ARRI was able to speak openly about the visual approach of the movie-a subject that was still shrouded in secrecy when the first interview was published, three months prior to the film’s release. ![]()
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