American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 98

◗

Timeless Romance

Director Ritesh
Batra discusses a
scene with
Redford.

the material a terrible disservice.
"There's always a danger you
could overdo it, because if you've got the
skill and the eye, some part of you wants
to demonstrate that," he continues.
"God knows I've been flashy in the past
- maybe too flashy. But I don't have
anything to prove, and for this movie I
really wanted to step back and let the
performance be the hero of the scene."
To that end, Goldblatt kept
camera movement to a minimum and
tried to avoid any hint of selfconsciousness. "My biggest concern all
the time was that the night scenes didn't
take the viewer out of the story," he
recalls. "I didn't want anyone saying,
'Oh, this is a beautifully lit night scene,'
because that means it's clearly a lit scene
- which it is, but you don't want it to
look that way. It's tricky, because you've
got to see the actors' eyes - you just
have to - and you can't light it so dimly
that you can't see the performance. That
would be just as disastrous as being
flashy. Keeping that balance was a worry
for me."
Ultimately, however, Goldblatt
knew he had a secret weapon waiting
for him in post: ASC associate member
Steven J. Scott, Technicolor's supervising finishing artist. "Steve and I first
worked together on Angels in America
[AC Nov. '03]," Goldblatt explains.
"He's got such a wonderful appreciation
of what the cinematographer is trying
to do. We didn't have the money to
spend a long time together - we had
just two weeks - but I knew that
98

December 2017

before I even joined him at Technicolor
in New York he would do a pre-pass. I
would send him photographs taken on
set which I had timed myself, and he
could see what I was going for."
Goldblatt is enamored of the DI
process, not for fixing errors but as a
tool for creative expression. "More and
more, on every film I do, I find the DI
to be a beautiful thing, whether you
shoot on film or digitally," he enthuses.
"Obviously you can fix mistakes or
adjust problems forced on you by bad
weather or very little time, but it's much
more transformative than that. You can
further develop the mood that you've
begun in your principal photography."
In the case of Our Souls at Night,
Goldblatt made conscious choices to
darken the areas around the actors in
order to emphasize the surrounding
night while keeping their faces and eyes
appropriately lit.
Aside from the 4K mandate and
a brief quibble over aspect ratio - Batra
wanted to frame for 2.39:1, but Netflix
dictated 1.78:1 - Goldblatt says that
shooting for a streaming service rather
than a theatrical release didn't alter his
methodology. "Netflix wanted a cinematic look, so it didn't change my
approach," he says. "The technology has
gotten to the point that you can watch a
movie at home on a perfectly calibrated
screen and it meets very high standards.
For an intimate film like this, as long as
you have a good television or projector
it will really hold up.
"We're in a golden age of home
American Cinematographer

viewing with Netflix, and Amazon, and
FilmStruck," Goldblatt adds. "We can
have a virtual cinematheque at home,
which is quite extraordinary. And the
quality is unbelievable compared to the
prints I saw 10, 20 or 40 years ago at
curated screenings. I don't think we're
missing anything now, except sitting in
an audience."
As enthusiastic as Goldblatt is
about new tools, there were a few
hiccups on Souls. "When we tried to use
an aerial drone for a proposed title
sequence, we encountered a mysterious
jamming signal at an altitude of 200 feet
that prevented communication with
the drone and scuppered our aerial
photography," he recalls. "We believe it
emanated from the high-security
federal prison outside Florence,
Colorado, which is home to the
Unabomber and others. The jamming
signal was not, however, confined to just
this location. We made another attempt
in a similar rural town two hours' drive
away and encountered the same
jamming. It seems that Colorado is so
full of federal facilities, private lockups
and secret or highly secure establishments that flying drones in the state is
entirely problematic. This was a new,
interesting and expensive problem
during our production."
That said, Goldblatt remains
optimistic and excited about changing
technologies, both as a filmmaker and a
viewer. Above all, he says, "I'm glad I'm
still actively working. I enjoy all this
new technology after 41 years of shooting the other way. I think we all do." ●

TECHNICAL SPECS
1.78:1
Digital Capture
Sony PMW-F55 CineAlta,
Canon EOS C300 Mark II
Panavision Ultra Speed,
Super Speed, Primo Zoom;
Angenieux Optimo



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

Contents
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - Intro
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 1
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 2
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 3
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 4
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - Contents
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 6
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 7
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 8
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 9
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 10
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 11
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 12
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 13
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 14
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 15
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 16
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 17
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 18
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 19
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 20
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 21
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 22
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 23
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 24
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 25
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 26
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 27
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 28
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 29
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 30
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 31
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 32
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 33
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 34
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 35
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 36
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 37
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 38
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 39
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 40
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 41
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 42
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 43
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 44
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 45
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 46
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 47
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 48
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 49
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 50
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 51
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 52
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 53
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 54
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 55
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 56
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 57
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 58
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 59
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 60
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 61
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 62
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 63
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 64
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 65
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 66
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 67
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American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 72
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 73
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 74
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American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 76
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 77
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 78
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 79
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 80
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 81
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 82
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 83
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 84
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 85
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 86
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 87
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 88
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 89
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 90
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 91
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 92
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 93
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 94
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 95
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 96
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 97
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 98
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 99
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 100
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 101
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 102
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 103
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 104
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 105
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 106
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 107
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 108
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 109
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 110
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 111
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 112
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 113
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 114
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 115
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 116
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 117
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 118
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 119
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 120
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 121
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American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 123
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 124
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 125
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American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 127
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 128
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - December 2017 - Cover4
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