American Cinematographer - July 2013 - 10

At some point in his career, Roland Emmerich must have
been denied a VIP tour of the White House. How else to
explain the director’s apparent grudge against the presidential residence? Having already blown 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
to smithereens in Independence Day, Emmerich retargeted
the site for White House Down, this time enlisting Anna
Foerster, ASC to help him demolish the seat of America’s
power. The two had previously collaborated on the period
drama Anonymous (whose climax still allowed Emmerich to
torch the Rose Theatre), but on White House Down, Foerster
knew the action would be amped to the max. However, as
she tells Michael Goldman (“Prime Target,” page 32), she
embraced the idea of creating eye-catching images of
carnage: “I became intrigued by the possibility of shooting an action movie without serving
all the usual visual clichés.”
M. Night Shyamalan and Peter Suschitzky, ASC shot devastation on an even grander
scale while mounting the futuristic thriller After Earth, in which humans have entirely abandoned their toxic planet. The first feature to go into production with Sony’s F65 camera
— Oblivion was released in theaters first — the project was also the first to adopt a 4K workflow for all aspects other than visual effects. Shyamalan initially intended to shoot the movie
on film, but Suschitzky’s camera tests convinced him to go digital. “I was a staunch film guy,
so the switch to digital wasn’t taken lightly,” Shyamalan tells Benjamin B (“Wild Planet,” page
44). “It was earned by this camera and, in my mind, only this camera could have convinced
me to do it. It has a kind of richness that I associate with film, and it has a capacity to render
colors that I think exceeds film.”
Director Joss Whedon and cinematographer Jay Hunter provide an arty alternative to
popcorn movies with Much Ado About Nothing, their ultra-indie take on Shakespeare’s
famed romantic farce. Shot in 12 days, this contemporary version serves up black-and-white
images, minimal lighting and backyard drama staged, quite literally, at Whedon’s house.
“Attempts to film Shakespeare frequently take a very traditional, proscenium-style approach,
and Joss and I [both wanted] to avoid that,” Hunter tells Jean Oppenheimer (“An Indie Twist
on Shakespeare,” page 56). “We wanted to get the camera inside the scenes — to keep the
camera close to the actors and move around with them.”
Naturally, we could not let the 40th anniversary of Enter the Dragon pass without
applause, so we recruited one of the movie’s most enthusiastic fans, former AC staffer David
E. Williams, to craft an impassioned homage (“Tournament of Death,” page 64). After soaking in a screening of an original 35mm Technicolor dye-transfer print at the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Williams sat down with Gil Hubbs, ASC to discuss the cinematographer’s contributions to the martial-arts classic that made Bruce Lee a worldwide
sensation. When he took the job, Hubbs had never been to Asia and had never shot an
anamorphic movie. “So, on the flight over, I got out my American Cinematographer Manual
and looked up ‘anamorphic,’” he recalls. “Fortunately, it seemed to be a pretty understandable thing.”

Stephen Pizzello
Executive Editor
10

Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.

Editor’s Note

American Cinematographer - July 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 2013