American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 68

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Eloquence Through Art

Leigh, Pope and
crew follow Spall
as Turner walks
to the home
he shares with
his father.

to match [his canvas]. The warship is
CG, but everything else is real and just
as we found it; we didn't even tinker
with the skies.
Did you have other visual references for the film, apart from Turner's
paintings and watercolors?
Pope: I looked at a lot of art as I
was progressing through prep, but the
biggest influence for the film for me
wasn't a painting; it was the newly and
beautifully remastered Barry Lyndon
[directed by Stanley Kubrick with cinematography by John Alcott, BSC; see
AC March '76], which I kept going back
to. It wasn't only about the light; it was
also the composition, the staging and
68

January 2015

the tableau filmmaking style they
employed in that picture, which is very
much how Mike and I work on his
films.
How do you feel about Leigh's
unusual process of revealing the
completed scene to you and the crew
on the set?
Pope: When we are first shown
any given scene, it's the most incredible
moment and everybody relishes it. After
the actors come in, Mike asks them to
warm up, and everyone on the floor goes
quiet. I'll stand by Mike, as he'll most
likely be in pole position. Action is
called, the actors start the scene and it's
magic. They are those characters,
American Cinematographer

completely formed and rounded, wordperfect, totally focused. You don't get
better acting than that. It's the moment
the film unfurls before our eyes, and it
happens almost every day. I feel privileged to witness this 'first contact' [with
a scene] every time I work with Mike.
Do you and Mike then define
the shots?
Pope: When he and I work out
how we're going to shoot a scene, we
run through it with the actors a few
times. Sometimes it's obvious where the
camera's going to be. In the way that we
work, if it's possible to do a scene in one
shot, we will. Basically, we make it up as
we go along, and that's how we do it. It's
a journey that unravels as we go.
What camera and lenses did you
use?
Pope: We shot with an [Arri]
Alexa Plus camera, supplied by
Movietech [in] London, and used
ArriRaw recorded onto an onboard
Codex. We really pushed the ArriRaw
to the edge, especially on exteriors; we
went right up to the boundaries of the
camera's latitude and dynamic range.
The lenses were old, re-housed
Cooke Speed Panchros. I didn't use
diffusion, but those lenses have a builtin texture - an antique, old-fashioned
look. I shot them at a healthy T-stop;
T3.5 is optimum for me. I supple-



American Cinematographer - January 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2015

Contents
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - Intro
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 1
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 2
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - Contents
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 4
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 5
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 6
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 7
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 8
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American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 19
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American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 47
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 48
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K1
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K2
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K3
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K4
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K5
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K6
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K7
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K8
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K9
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K10
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K11
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K12
American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 49
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