American Cinematographer - April 2014 - 86

5 Park City Standouts
then, he says, "If we had five scenes in
the room, we'd shoot out in one direction and keep changing the actors'
wardrobe and background players."
The canteen, a second-floor location, was lit entirely with natural light
through the windows. In locations that
required supplemental light through
windows, including Ila's apartment, the
crew positioned 4Ks on tall stands
instead of Condors or scissor lifts, which
are costly to rent in India. "The stands
go incredibly high - much higher than
would be allowed in the West!" says
Simmonds.
On most domestic interiors, he
used fluorescent fixtures. "In reality, a
room in someone's home might be lit
with a single fluorescent tube, but I used
more than that on any one angle," he
says.
By contrast, Saajan's home
features tungsten practicals. Batra notes
that for Indians, this is meaningful:
Only Catholics use tungsten, whereas
upwardly mobile Hindus, like Ila, use
fluorescents. Simmonds strove to tease
out such cultural nuances. "There is a lot
of subtle subtext in Ritesh's script, and I
encouraged him to make some of that
more obvious to a Western audience,"
he says.
Apart from giving feedback on
some screen shots that were emailed to
him, Simmonds was not involved in the
final grade, which took place at
Laboratoire Arane Gulliver in Paris.
"Being present at the color correction on
an independent film means that you
happen to live in the city where it's
being timed, and this was an international project, with a lot of elements
happening in different places," he notes.
By the time The Lunchbox was
released in the United States, in late
February, it was already a big hit in India
and abroad. Simmonds became aware of
this when he arrived at an Indian restaurant in Atlanta, Ga., to shoot a scene for
his next feature. "I mentioned I'd shot
The Lunchbox, and I was an instant
celebrity!"
- Patricia Thomson

86

April 2014

A young vampire on the streets in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Cinematographer: Lyle Vincent
Imagine hearing this elevator
pitch: "It's an Iranian vampire Western,
shot in black-and-white, with a bomb
soundtrack." That was writer/director
Ana Lily Amirpour's one-liner for A
Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and
cinematographer Lyle Vincent recalls,
"When I heard that, of course I wanted
to sign up!"
He is glad he did. Collaborating
with Amirpour on her debut feature
allowed him to create a unique world,
one that channels a little David Lynch,
some film noir and the wide, empty
spaces of a Spaghetti Western. When
conjuring the Iranian ghost town Bad
City, home to a host of sordid souls and
one vampire, Vincent found himself
reveling in the distortions of vintage
Xtal Express anamorphic lenses, which
he paired with an Arri Alexa Studio.
Vincent and Amirpour are birds
of a feather, both coming from art backgrounds. Vincent, who won the 2006
ASC John A. Alonzo Heritage Award
for student cinematography, dabbled in
painting and fine-art photography
before heading to New York University,
where he earned an M.F.A. in film. His
feature credits include another 2014
Sundance Film Festival entry, Cooties.
American Cinematographer

Born in England to Iranian
immigrants, Amirpour was raised in the
United States. She attended art school
in San Francisco and eventually found
her way into UCLA's screenwriting
program. By the time she made A Girl
Walks Home, she had written 10 feature
scripts and created a graphic novel
based on her vampire film.
Amirpour's film is a mash-up:
The actors are Iranian, the dialogue is
Farsi, and Bad City is a desolate Texas
oil town with Farsi street signs. (The
movie was shot in Southern California.)
The archetypical characters include a
Persian James Dean; his father, the
Gambler; a tattooed Pimp; a Prostitute,
and, of course, the Vampire. This
bloodsucker is a young pixie in full
chador, but underneath she wears a
striped sailor shirt, and she rides a
skateboard and grooves to British rock.
Of her inspirations, Amirpour writes,
"It's like Sergio Leone and David
Lynch had an Iranian rock 'n' roll baby,
and then Nosferatu came and babysat."
Specific inspirations included Once
Upon a Time in the West, Rumble Fish,
Blade Runner and all of Lynch's films.
The idea was to mold these
disparate parts into something timeless.
"Black-and-white gave us a lot," notes
the director. So, too, does the gliding
camerawork, which was accomplished
chiefly with a Steadicam. "We owe a lot

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night frame grabs courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival.
Photos by Sina Sayyah and Todd Kappelt, courtesy of the filmmakers.

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