American Cinematographer - January 2019 - 54

Memories of Mexico

Working from photo reference of the Mexico City streets where Cuarón based Roma's story, production designer Eugenio Caballero and his
team constructed a six-block-long set in an outdoor industrial space.

54

it, and the sun would, at the right hour,
backlight the ground glass of the gate."
Galo Olivares operated the A
camera, while Cuarón was responsible
for the actors, for setting the camera
angles and movements, for the look,
and for controlling the aperture. Cuarón
stood by his calibrated Flanders
Scientific CM250 monitor when they
were rolling. "Galo is a DoP in his own
right, and a great camera operator," the
director says. "It was a privilege to have
a young, fresh eye near me. Sometimes
he would look at me and say, 'Are you
sure you don't want a negative fill?'
And I would say, 'You're right - negative fill.'"
The B camera, operated by
Alejandro Chávez, only occasionally
came into play. One such sequence
involved a picnic in which the adults
show their proclivity for recklessly
firing guns. Within this is a sequence in
which children, including a boy
costumed as an astronaut, and dogs run
through a pondy forest. Using the two
January 2019

cameras - one on a Technocrane and
the other on a tripod - ensured "being
able to have the sunlight in the perfect
position for the two shots," Cuarón
says, "and also the perfect continuity"
when cutting between the two angles.
The single-camera approach
gives the movie a consistent perspective, one in which the camera is unobtrusive - Cuarón characterizes it as
"objective" - and usually on a dolly,
sometimes with a Scorpio Stabilized
Head or Libra remote head. There are
no handheld or Steadicam shots, as
those, the director says, "would change
the language we were after." Cranes
were sometimes employed, but as with
the dolly, there were no moves in and
out - only panning and tracking.
The Corpus Christi massacre was
the project's most logistically complicated sequence. Cuarón, of course,
elected to shoot it at the very intersection where the tragedy unfolded.
Hundreds of extras, stunt performers
and period cars were brought in followASC 100th Anniversary

ing extensive rehearsals on a football
field. The production had initially
requested that the location - which is
currently a busy part of town - be shut
down for three days, though they left
after only two, believing they had
caused enough disruption.
On-hand city officials were
reportedly surprised when they saw
that the sequence's most expansive shot
was captured by only one camera from
behind a second-floor window. In the
scene, Sofía's mother, Teresa (Verónica
García), brings the pregnant Cleo to a
furniture store to buy a crib, just as the
mayhem begins outside. Shop patrons
rush to the window and the camera
pans from them to reveal protesters and
paramilitary forces clashing on the
street below.
"Sometimes you are tempted
with amazing angles, but you know
you have to do only the one that is
right," Cuarón explains. "Part of our
approach was to extend every shot
through to its natural consequence, and



American Cinematographer - January 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2019

Contents
American Cinematographer - January 2019 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - January 2019 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - January 2019 - 1
American Cinematographer - January 2019 - 2
American Cinematographer - January 2019 - Contents
American Cinematographer - January 2019 - 4
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