American Cinematographer - January 2008 - (Page 57) Opposite: Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) returns to his old haunt. This page, left: Delivering “the closest shave you’ve ever known” is messy business. To make his cleanup easier, Todd modifies his barber’s chair. Below: Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, ASC (left) and director Tim Burton discuss a scene onstage at Pinewood Studios. The filmmakers collaborated with production designer Dante Ferretti to establish the look of 19thcentury London. fter shooting all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, director of photography Dariusz Wolski, ASC was eager to return to shore and walk off his sea legs. So when Pirates co-conspirator Johnny Depp introduced Wolski to director Tim Burton, the cinematographer was ready to take on Burton’s adaptation of Sweeney Todd, which he calls “a musical, a horror film and a silent movie, too.” Based on the Broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler), the film tells the story of barber Benjamin Barker (played by Depp) as he returns to London under the name Sweeney Todd, intent on slaking a thirst for bloody revenge. Once a loving husband and father, Barker was unjustly sentenced to a prison camp by the manipulative Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), who had designs on Mrs. Barker (Laura A Michelle Kelly). When the judge’s overtures were rebuffed, he turned his attention to the Barkers’ daughter, Johanna (Jayne Wisener), taking her in as his ward. “Getting Sweeney Todd after Pirates was like a great gift from some supernatural power,” says Wolski, who met with AC at post house Company 3, where he was supervising the film’s digital intermediate (DI). Standing beneath an unnaturally overcast Southern California sky, he offers, “Pirates was so complex and so huge, with so many visual effects and other elements. To come back to a simpler, more confined film was a real delight and pleasure. This film was very controlled — everything was Photos courtesy of Dreamworks Pictures. American Cinematographer 57
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.