American Cinematographer - August 2019 - 52

Back in Time

DiCaprio and Tarantino at work in the Western set. Kincaid notes that a "period-correct Mole
'chicken-coop' light" can be seen hanging in the background.

So deciding to light a lot was
part of shaping the image?
Richardson: Yes. Compared to
what I would do nowadays, I overlit.
Sometimes I held back on lighting to
some extent, but I was still trying to be
expressive.
For example, when Brad is in the
car with [Margaret Qualley], I lit them
with an HMI and light diffusion, and I
wanted to make that light more obvious than I normally would. I can see
that Brad's lit - normally I would try
not to do that. However, I didn't want
to overlight it to the point where the
background out the window was at the
same level as the faces. I tried to
balance different aesthetics from different time periods.
Does
Quentin
Tarantino
comment on your lighting?
Richardson: There is nothing
that Quentin does not comment on. If
he is looking for a specific feeling, he
talks to me about it prior to shooting.
For example, when the Manson Family
attackers talk in the car, Quentin
wanted very deep blacks. That was
one of the hardest scenes to achieve. I
was close to a stop and a half down in
exposure, using LEDs to give it a notlit darkness feel. I struggled but eventually found what you saw in the film.
August 2019

This film is about light and
darkness.
Richardson: It certainly is. And
Margot as Sharon Tate is the ray of
light that lifts the entire film.
Yvan Lucas explained that the
reference for the DI look was the
dailies print.
Richardson:
Yes,
because
Quentin wants film, so the print
dailies are his visual reference. That's
why Yvan was involved from the very
start, because we needed to create a
dailies look that Quentin liked. This
meant that I had to create the look on
set - it wasn't about creating it in post
- so what I'm looking at through the
lens is what I will see in the DI. This is
not how I like to work. I prefer the
control in DI. But here I had to live by
my dailies.
We re-created in DI what
Quentin saw in dailies. Those film
tones are hard to emulate digitally
with a LUT, but it was made possible
by FotoKem's desire to continue to
create at a high level, and by Yvan's
knowledge of film - he's the best in
the world that I've encountered.
The movie has a very striking
texture - this strong contrast and
strong saturation.
Richardson: Many of the films
ASC 100th Anniversary

coming out these days are looking
very similar. We wanted to try to find
a look that's different for this movie.
To provide deeper saturation, the
costumes and makeup had to shift, so
we had a number of talks in preproduction with production designer
Barbara Ling, and about costumes and
makeup as well.
The skin tone is very saturated.
Richardson: Yes. Where possible we had all the tungsten and LED
lights on dimmers, and they were
generally warm to give that quality to
the skin.
Do you and Quentin collaborate on setting up shots?
Richardson: Quentin is a master
who comes to set with a number of
shots he wants to accomplish that day.
Whether we shoot with a crane or
dolly or whatever is less of a concern
than achieving what he has on his list.
The crane has become secondnature to the two of us, and to the
entire crew. We can directly create
many of the shots he wants with it; we
don't have to map it out. I collaborate
with Quentin on compositions
because I am the operator. He favors
medium shots or wider. If he wants to
center punch, we center punch - or if
he is fine with moving to a composition with negative space, then we do
that.
Quentin and I are very much in
alignment now. Over the years I have
learned how to anticipate what he is
looking for, and hence there are few
times we are out of step with each
other. At this point in our relationship,
there's complete trust. I'm extraordinarily fortunate to have this relationship. I only make what Quentin wants.
How do you approach lighting
people?
Richardson: My approach is to
place the light in the best position for
the person I am photographing, that
position which is most attractive in my
opinion. That is usually a soft bounce
from a distance away, or a backlight
mixed with a soft bounce, as in the
case of Steve McQueen [Damian

American Cinematographer - August 2019

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