American Cinematographer - November 2008 - (Page 50)

The Making of a President Right: Cheney and Powell argue a point in the Situation Room. Below: Bush listens to his advisers during another scene on the same set, where Papamichael let the walls go very dark. This strategy reflected his general approach to scenes set during Bush’s presidency. “This is the darkest period in terms of lighting and chroma,” he notes. We would do that handheld with Gary for one or two takes, and then Oliver would say, ‘Okay, send in Danny,’ who’d really let loose. Danny is Belgian and didn’t really understand all the dialogue, so he was just picking up Josh’s vibe. I would tell Danny, ‘Don’t get in too close, try to avoid these lights, and watch out for this C stand.’ But then Oliver would say, ‘Don’t control everything! I don’t care! If I get 25 percent of a shot, it’s okay.’ It was something few people would do — you end up photographing all the lights! — but we got some really great pieces.” Using two stylistically diverse operators “doesn’t mean Oliver will intercut style A with style B,” he adds. “He just likes getting different perspectives.” After shooting with the “Crazycam,” Stone might even revert to a dolly for a more static, graphic composition. “You think, ‘My god, we’re going everywhere with this!’” says Papamichael. “But there’s a logic to this madness. He takes a similar approach in the edit; he has two editors with different styles cut the same scene independently. He just wants to see how they put it together. In the end, he pulls it back into the narrative structure, but he doesn’t want to miss anything.” The balancing act for Papamichael was to maintain an economy of coverage — necessary for the production’s tight post schedule — and also satisfy Stone’s desire to catch the happy accident. “If the framing doesn’t allow for accidents, then he’s not happy,” says Papamichael. “He’ll say, ‘I could have gotten anyone to do this!’” Lighting had to be quick and efficient. “My lighting approach is usually motivated by practicals or windows, but we agreed early on that we didn’t want to go for pure realism,” says the cinematographer. “It had to be a cinematic experience. Oliver kept saying, ‘Don’t forget it’s an Oliver Stone movie!’” The director’s expectations were wholly satisfied. “Phedon is fast and practical — he knew he didn’t have to make every scene perfect because that’s where you get killed on a movie like this,” says Stone. “You have to know when to let it go, when you have enough quality in the light. You can’t just hang around and do it forever.” Papamichael adds, “With Oliver, you’ve got to be able to just grab a light and take it handheld. We walked around with a lot of Litepanels Minis because we had handheld cameras flying everywhere, going 270 degrees.” To allow the actors to move freely, Papamichael relied mainly on large sources, 18K HMIs on location and 20Ks onstage. Nevertheless, Stone grumbled about all the stands. “You had to weave through them — finding the actor was like Theseus and the Minotaur,” laments the director. With a laugh, Papamichael clarifies, “It wasn’t that many lights. When you work in broader strokes, you have to cut a lot, so what seemed to Oliver like a lot of lighting work was actually a lot of grip work. My key grip, Ramon Garcia, is probably my closest collaborator. The trick here was taking light away. That involves a lot of very subtle toppers, silks, flags and nets.” With about half of W. shot on practical locations, including numerous houses with small rooms and low ceilings, the set quickly became crowded. For instance, the Bush family fight, shot in a 12'x15' room, included not only five actors, but also “the operators, who were very energetic; the boom guy, who 50 November 2008

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American Cinematographer - November 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Letters Short Takes Production Slate Forging a Bond The Making of a President Thunder Down Under Habitat for Inhumanity Saluting Television’s Top Talents Post Focus New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up

American Cinematographer - November 2008

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