American Cinematographer - July 2016 - 28

Graves and
director John
Ealer (wearing
cowboy hat)
discuss a scene
on train tracks.

look within minutes.
Despite the scheduling magic of 1st
AD Michael Meador, we also had to turn this
set around from day to night with very little
time for relights. "The saloon looked great,
but it was big and had dark wood walls and
furnishings, so it really soaked up the light,"
says Graves. "Chuck and Justin had everything pre-rigged overhead and on dimmers,
enabling us to change from a day look to a
night look - and back - very quickly."
Throughout the production, I relied
extensively on Saint Ours' remarkable
creativity to help tell the story of The American West. I would constantly ask him and his
tight-knit unit - whom we deferentially
referred to as the "X unit" because of their
special-teams-like ability to move quickly and
with precision - to shoot critical dramatic
scenes, not just wide shots and inserts. One
of the most important scenes we asked him
to shoot was the moment when Jesse James
(David H. Stevens) learns that his little brother
Archie has been killed by Pinkerton agents.
"John and I talked a lot about how
important this scene was," says Saint Ours.
"I was looking forward to working with
David Stevens, who inhabited the role with a
breathtaking authenticity. X-unit gaffer Wes
Sullivan had rigged the interior of the barn
hideout with skirted China lanterns and
raked an HMI through the slats of the wall,
creating a beautiful, dramatic light. X-unit
key grip Mike Seitz and I had ambitious plans
for a complex tracking move to follow Jesse's
gang member who brings him the news of
his brother's killing, but a casting problem
put us way behind schedule. In our race
against the clock, I knew my best course of
action was to create a space for a great actor
28

July 2016

to do his work, so I went with a static frame
instead. The result is a moment of silence in
a big action Western, where Stevens
breathes in the pain of Jesse James, and lets
it out slowly for us all to hear." The scene
was a perfect example of Saint Ours' remarkable ingenuity and his ability to concoct
imagery that's in perfect harmony with both
the story and the needs of the production.
Perhaps the most important challenge we faced while making The American
West was telling the story of Native American leaders Sitting Bull (Moses Brings Plenty)
and Crazy Horse (Will Strongheart) in an
accurate and respectful way. Co-executive
producer Shirley Escott and I talked incessantly about how incredibly important it was
to all of us that we get this right, from scripting and casting all the way through shooting. And that meant we had to be sensitive
and respectful to Native American culture.
We had to be willing to listen.
The first time I talked to Larry Pourier,
our amazing Native American consultant, I
mentioned a scene in which Sitting Bull
performs a Sundance ritual just before the
Battle of Little Bighorn. There was an
extended silence on the phone, and then
Pourier told us that the Sundance was so
sacred to the Lakota Indians that it can't be
filmed. So, instead, Graves and I worked
with Pourier to find a way to abstractly visualize that part of the story while still respecting the Lakota way of life. Using a combination of silhouette, slow motion, long lenses
and selective focus, we were able to suggest
the power and importance of the ritual without actually showing it.
On the last day of the shoot, something miraculous happened. "We were
American Cinematographer

shooting on Antelope Island in the middle of
the Great Salt Lake in Utah," Graves
explains. "It's one of the few places in the
country that still has herds of wild buffalo,
which is the most sacred animal to the
Lakota way of life. Our dream was to shoot
Sitting Bull riding through this herd of
buffalo."
However, since the Island is a
protected wildlife preserve, we were only
allowed to film in specified areas, and there
was no guarantee that the buffalo would
graze nearby on the day of the shoot.
"When we arrived," Graves continues, "we
could see the buffalo in the distance, but
they were nowhere near where we were
shooting. We were disappointed, of course,
but there was nothing we could do."
As we set up the Chapman G3
remote stabilized head with a vibration isolator on an ATV-mounted Fisher Model 23
crane, Moses Brings Plenty - who dedicates
much of his time to educating younger
Lakota about the Lakota people's traditional
way of life - mounted his horse and rode
into the field. "And that's when the buffalo
began to move toward us," says Graves. "By
the time we were ready to shoot, the buffalo
were all around him - it felt like they
embraced him. I think we were all
emotional, witnessing this amazing connection between the actor and the animal that
was so important to him. It was a great way
to end the shoot."

TECHNICAL SPECS
1.78:1
Digital Capture
Arri Amira Premium
Angenieux Optimo, Cooke S4

●

ERRATUM
In AC's April 2016 coverage of Batman v
Superman: Dawn of Justice, it was incorrectly stated that the Imax camera negatives were scanned by FotoKem. All scanning of the 65mm 15-perf Imax negative
was performed at Imax Post. The 65mm 5perf shot for the production was scanned
at FotoKem, which also provided 65mm
dailies transfers and 70mm prints.

American Cinematographer - July 2016

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