American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 20

Production Slate

I

War Story
By Jay Holben

The temperature has just cracked 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The sun is a blazing-hot ball in a cloudless sky, with no natural shelter
in sight. A hot wind blows biting dust across the barren landscape.
Against this backdrop, Russian-born cinematographer Roman
Vasyanov, RGC climbs a stepladder to the top of a grip truck. He's
joined by 1st AC Simon England, and both are covered head-to-toe,
despite the heat, to fend off the blowing sand. They take their positions atop their impromptu shooting platform and, like a soldier
manning a heavy machine gun, Vasyanov unlocks the fluid head and
takes aim with the Arriflex 416 camera, which has been fitted with
a Century Precision Optics Tele-Athenar II 1,000mm (T5.6) lens with
a 1.3x rear-anamorphic teleconverter attachment.
The cinematographer frames a shot of actor Aaron TaylorJohnson, who is in position some 600 yards away - across the open
desert - crouched behind a wall of crumbling stone. We're in
Lancaster, Calif., in mid-July of 2016, on the set of director Doug
Liman's The Wall. The feature tells the tale of two expert snipers on
opposite sides of the Iraq War who are trapped in a classic standoff.
In contrast to the grave story and harsh setting, the mood among the
crew is jovial as they move from setup to setup.
Taylor-Johnson stars as an American sharpshooter who is
pinned down in a daylong standoff with an Iraqi sniper after his partner (John Cena) is killed. "This is the way that the Iraqi sniper oper20

June 2017

ates," notes Vasyanov. "He wounds or kills one soldier, and then sits
and waits for help to come so he can pick them off one-by-one as
well."
Reconnecting with AC via Skype in the months leading up to
the film's release, Vasyanov offers, "This movie is like a small critics
film. It has a very raw and realistic quality to it, which I love, but it's
not what you'd expect from Doug Liman. It's not some big action
epic; it's a very intimate story about two men and a struggle to
survive."
Nearly two-thirds of the movie comprises only a single actor,
Taylor-Johnson, alone in the desert. We see occasional glimpses
from the point of view of the Iraqi sniper's rifle scope, and we hear
his voice over a radio, but we never actually see the enemy in the
film.
That rifle-scope POV is what Vasyanov was shooting from
atop the grip truck, with the 1,000mm Century lens fitted with a
Vantage 1.3x rear-anamorphic adapter. "That lens created a great
look," the cinematographer enthuses. "A little lower resolution
around the corners and a bit of a milky image really helped to create
a specific look for the sniper scope."
The Wall was offered to Vasyanov after he had shot the
World War II military drama Fury for director David Ayer (AC Dec.
'14). "After Fury I started getting a lot of military scripts sent to me,"
he recalls. "It's a very Hollywood thing to have people want you to
make the same kind of movie you just made - if it was successful
- but I don't really want to do that. I want to mix it up and try all

American Cinematographer

The Wall photos by David James, SMPSP, courtesy of Amazon Studios.

After his
partner (John
Cena,
foreground) is
shot, an
American
sharpshooter
(Aaron TaylorJohnson) finds
himself in a
standoff with
an Iraqi sniper
in the feature
The Wall.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - June 2017

Contents
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - Intro
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 1
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 2
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - Contents
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 4
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 5
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 6
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 7
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American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 33
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 33A
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 33B
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