American Cinematographer - February 2009 - (Page 65)

mal. I was old enough to be their grandfather! But Baz’s strength is his ability to sell anyone on his ideas. I asked him what age group he was aiming for, and he said, ‘We’re basically aiming it at 12year-old girls.’ So I asked, ‘Who’s translating the language for 12year-old girls?’ He said, ‘Every word will be Shakespeare’s.’ I started to lose interest at that point, but he’s such an enthusiast that he ensnared me.” Luhrmann told McAlpine Fox had the same concern about the language, and the studio wanted him to shoot a scene so executives could get a better idea of how it would play. “They wanted a properly lit scene on 35mm, and I told Baz that would be an absolute disaster because they would judge only that scene — they wouldn’t use it to imagine what the whole film could be like,” the cinematographer recalls. “Instead, I suggested we shoot video of big slabs of the script. What I wanted to prove to myself, I realize in retrospect, was the idea that this Shakespearean dialogue could be understood in the situations described in the script. I just couldn’t visualize it working, and if I couldn’t visualize it, I doubted the studio could. So Baz and the studio agreed, and we shot with a small video camera. I told him not to worry about the look and to put all the money he had for the test into the sound. Everybody wanted to know how the dialogue would work in context, so they had to be able to hear it! “We shot big slabs of the script in the rain, staying under a bridge to keep dry. We workshopped the scenes, and we had Leonardo DiCaprio [playing Romeo] and a great ensemble of Australian actors, few of whom made it into the final film. Then [editor] Jill Bilcock got hold of the footage and cut it using the frenetic Romeo+Juliet photo courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Other photos courtesy of McAlpine. Top to bottom: A devastated Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio) approaches his lover’s coffin in Luhrmann’s Romeo+Juliet, which McAlpine calls “probably the most rewarding film I’ve ever worked on”; actress Sonia Braga cozies up to the cinematographer on the set of Mazursky’s Moon Over Parador (1988); director Ron Howard amuses McAlpine while working on Parenthood (1989). American Cinematographer 65

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2009

American Cinematographer - February 2009 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: Circus Production Slate: The International Reverte 2 Worlds in 3 Dimensions Dead Reckoning Embracing Anamorphic Citizen of the World Post Focus: Restoring Manhatta New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Peter Suschitzky

American Cinematographer - February 2009

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