American Cinematographer - May 2016 - 14

Short Takes

Keeping it Real
By Phil Rhodes

Screen depictions of modern life have historically featured
various photographic looks, from the unflinching eye of the
documentary-style camera to glossy hyper-reality. Sebastian Thaler,
director of photography on Patrick Vollrath's Oscar-nominated short
film, Everything Will Be Okay (a translation of the original title, Alles
wird gut), opted enthusiastically for the former, with pictures that avoid
any indulgence in deliberate gloss and instead show the characters in
a realistic, entirely human way.
The half-hour film relates the story of a divorced father, Michael
(Simon Schwarz), and his daughter, Lea (Julia Pointner), who meet for
what's clearly scheduled time together. Over the next day or so, events
take a dark turn, and Michael's ulterior motives become clear.
Prior to earning its Academy Award nomination in the Live
Action Short category, Everything Will Be Okay took the Bronze Medal
in the Foreign Film category at the 42nd Student Academy Awards in
September. The film was also nominated for a Michael Ballhaus Award
for best camerawork.
While attending the Film Academy Vienna, Vollrath and Thaler
collaborated on five other student shorts, beginning in 2009. Thaler's
background could hardly be more propitious: His father, Wolfgang, is
a director of photography whose credits include Theeb, which was
itself nominated in the category of Best Foreign Language Film at this
year's Academy Awards. Sebastian Thaler worked as a camera
operator and assistant on Theeb, and has eight other production
credits on collaborations with his father. "I come from a family of
14

May 2016

filmmakers," Thaler relates. "My mother was an executive producer
in Poland. My father was taking me to set since I was 8 years old -
not to introduce me to filmmaking, but just to show me something
else besides the daily routine in school. So I grew up with film as [part
of] everyday life." Indeed, Thaler says his earliest interaction with the
camera involved his father, "who started his career with
documentaries, so on his travels I was making landscape photography.
By 17 or 18, when I was finishing school, I started as an electrician
and shot short films on my own."
Everything Will Be Okay formed the key artistic output of
Thaler's master's degree. He and Vollrath agreed early on that the film
should "feel like a documentary, a real-life story," Thaler recalls, "so
that the audience is really with the character and nothing else is
distracting the audience - like some nice shots or incredible lighting
or whatever. We wanted the audience to just follow the story." In
their discussions during preproduction, Vollrath mentioned the films
of Paul Greengrass, particularly Captain Phillips (AC Nov. '13) and
United 93 (AC June '06), both shot by Barry Ackroyd, BSC. "He
wanted a story like this - this realistic, this close to the audience,"
Thaler says.
Shot in April and May of 2014, the production was based on
Vollrath's treatment. "We looked it over and started seeking
locations," Thaler recalls. "And when we had the locations, we
discussed how they would affect the characters." The most timeconsuming aspect of preproduction was the search for a young
actress to play the demanding role of Lea. "We ran through a very
long casting procedure to find the right character. It was Pointner's
➣
first time acting in a movie."

American Cinematographer

Photos by Dimitri Aschwanden, courtesy of the filmmakers.

Lea (Julia
Pointner) has a
scheduled
visitation with
her father,
Michael, which
takes a dark
turn in the
short film
Everything Will
Be Okay.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2016