American Cinematographer - September 2017 - 18

Pro Perspective
James Neihouse, ASC:
Location Sensibility
Cinematographer James Neihouse,
ASC might be best known as the cameraman who trains NASA astronauts to shoot
Imax space documentaries such as Blue
Planet, Hubble 3D (AC April '10) and A
Beautiful Planet (AC June '16), but his
diverse résumé is bursting with adventurous
productions.
When it comes to shooting internationally, and especially in remote locations,
Neihouse cautions, "If you don't bring it
with you, you don't have it. It's all about
being as prepared as you can be and bringing with you everything that you need.
There's rarely a chance to zip off to the local
store for a piece of hardware. This requires
detailed prep and being ready for every
eventuality."
That also means packing some food.
"Especially if I'm going out in India or
Africa," he says. "I'll always bring some
emergency food - dried food you can fix
with hot water - in case I end up not being
able to eat what they have. It's a key to
survival to make sure you're not suffering
from some debilitating stomach bug."
When he was tasked with shooting
the launch of the International Space Station
from Kazakhstan, the cinematographer
knew he would have to rig a remote trigger
for a camera position close to the launchpad, where it was unsafe for an operator to
18

September 2017

be. The tools required to rig this
remote would not be readily available in Kazakhstan, so Neihouse
traveled with 2 kilometers of
phone cable, with which he could
make his own remote cable
release. "We ended up laying out
about ¾ of a kilometer of cable
from the bunker to the camera
position the day before the
launch," Neihouse recalls. "The
funny thing was that the military
colonel who was our liaison
laughed at us. He said, 'We scavenge everything we can around here. That cable is very
valuable - do you really think it will still be
there tomorrow?' I thought quickly and said,
'Well, we only laid out less than half of the
cable we came here with. If you can make
sure that cable stays out there, then we can
give you the rest - and when we're done,
you can have that one as well!' To his credit,
he made damn sure the cable release was
still in place in the morning."
Therein lies a key to Neihouse's
approach: "Always go with the local knowledge." Indeed, it is the local insight that will
inform your best practices. "You need to
listen and take the locals' advice. They're the
ones who live there; they know best."
As a 2nd-unit cinematographer on
the Imax documentary India: Kingdom of
the Tiger, it was Neihouse's responsibility to
gather amazing footage of wild tigers. From
the locals, he learned that the tigers were
skittish around vehicles; if the crew drove
American Cinematographer

into the location, the tigers would scatter,
and they wouldn't get any footage.
Elephants, on the other hand, didn't faze the
tigers. So the crew could ride in on
elephants, and the tigers would neither scatter nor attack.
"The trouble then was shooting
good footage from the back of a constantly
moving elephant," Neihouse reflects. "Even
when they've stopped, they're fidgeting
around. It was very difficult to get solid shots
from the elephant, but if we got down we
risked attack from the tigers. So we brought
along 12-foot-high tripods, set them up off
the side of the elephant, on the ground, and
then sat on top of the tripod to get our tiger
footage. That improvised camera platform
allowed us to get the footage we needed. It
was a hybrid of listening to the locals and
being flexible and adapting to the situation.
That's really the key to shooting in remote
locations."
- JH

Images at top of page courtesy of Jay Holben. Bottom photo courtesy of James Neihouse, ASC.

to him. Is one character lusting after another? Then the
focus of her gaze might be
more on his physique, and
we might see shots of his
biceps or abs. The shot
becomes a manifestation of
our character's desires.
Subjective points of
As illustrated in these shots of cinematographer Kaity Williams, the camera's position above (left) or below (right)
view require getting close to
the actor's eyeline can diminish or bolster a character's perceived strength within a scene.
the eyeline - what is also
known, more technically, as
the audience is to that character's feelings. How do you know they're really connecting
the 180-degree line. When two characters
The old saying "the eyes are the windows with you? They're looking in your eyes.
are having a conversation, an imaginary line
to the soul" is an important one to rememHow close or far from the eyeline we
is drawn between their eyes, creating the
ber. When you're having an intense conver- are vertically plays an equally important role
"eyeline." The closer the camera gets to this
sation with someone, where do you look? in the interpretation of the shot. Most of
eyeline, the more intimate and connected

American Cinematographer - September 2017

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