American Cinematographer - May 2017 - 56

◗

Survival Story

Top: Michael arrives in the cosmopolitan hub of Constantinople, little knowing the city will soon
be engulfed in chaos. Bottom: A secret romance blossoms between Michael and Ana.

This evening marks day 61, and
except for brief stops in period-friendly
outposts like Lisbon and Malta, most of
the production has been shot in
Aguirresarobe's home country of Spain,
and logically enough with a crew
consisting mainly of his fellow natives.
"He's home in his backyard," says
producer Mike Medavoy, who brought
his experience of more than 300
pictures to The Promise, which was cowritten by the director and Robin
Swicord.
To mount and finance a picture
with the unusual tag of "indie epic,"
56

May 2017

Medavoy teamed with neophyte
producer Eric Esrailian - a high-ranking UCLA physician who brought not
just surprising film savvy, but a sizable
production war chest bequeathed by
fellow Armenian Kirk Kerkorian, who
died in mid-2015. Medavoy adds that
the benefits of Aguirresarobe's
birthright were augmented by "Javier's
great sense of light and where the
camera belongs to tell the story."
Aguirresarobe was born in 1948
in the small Basque city of Eibar - 400
miles northwest of this fort, where
Salvador Dali was once quartered as a
American Cinematographer

soldier. After getting his feet wet as a
still photographer, Aguirresarobe
launched into a steady stream of largely
Spanish productions before winning his
first wide notice in Hollywood with
Alejandro Amenábar's brooding 2001
psychological thriller The Others.
Admired for his innovative schemes to
keep the largely room-bound The Sea
Inside visually intriguing, he did his first
Woody Allen picture, Vicky Cristina
Barcelona, in 2008; got a couple of
Twilight Saga franchise productions
under his belt; and was lauded, along
with Allen, for the director's acclaimed
comedy-drama Blue Jasmine.
Even during a turbulent filmic
challenge like tonight's, says George,
there's a calmness to how the cinematographer organizes his department.
The vibe fits the show's cinematic style.
"We've always wanted [the production]
to have a classic look, without shaking
the camera or moving it around a lot,"
the director notes. Other than some of
the film's bigger action scenarios, he
adds, most sequences were not extensively storyboarded, and even for a
Constantinople street brawl that occurs
onscreen soon after tonight's depiction
of the riot in the bazaar - a sequence
featuring Isaac and co-star Charlotte Le
Bon - the action beats would often
unfold ad hoc, rapidly blocked on set.
"Normally you would get in and
choreograph," George says, "but we
didn't have the time for the choreographing of, particularly, the fight
scenes and so forth. You'd break them
down, but we just didn't have the luxury
of time, so basically you trust the actors,
say 'Go', and hope you got it - then it's
off to the edit room. Given our schedule, it was more, 'Go for it, guys.'"
Aguirresarobe gives the film's
three principal actors top marks for
aiding that process. Christian Bale plays
American Associated Press journalist
Chris Myers, who reports on and
protests the Turkish atrocities amid
dangerous conditions - while also
becoming entangled in a love triangle.
Even given Bale's extensive experience,
Aguirresarobe says he was struck by the
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2017
