American Cinematographer - December 2015 - 32

Left, top and bottom: A-camera/Steadicam operator
Benjamin Semanoff captures the action in front of a
mirror. Right: Cinematographer Maryse Alberti (right)
and director Ryan Coogler (left) check the frame
with Semanoff.

"Ryan's filmmaking style calls for a
very inquisitive and curious camera that
moves and searches," she says. "It's not a
quiet and composed camera."
Alberti shot Creed primarily with an
Arri Alexa XT, capturing ArriRaw files to a
Codex Onboard S recorder. For lenses,
Alberti went with a full set of Cooke S4/i
primes, in addition to Angenieux Optimo
short zooms. "I like the look of the
Cookes," says Alberti. "At the beginning of
preproduction, Ryan and I had spoken
about and tested adding grain to the digital
image, and I knew grain is a little bit
rougher on skin tones, so I wanted a lens
that was already nice and soft. In the ring I
tried to keep a stop of T5.6 so we could
have both fighters in focus."
Alberti describes the film's overall
32

December 2015

palette as "grounded in realism," and her
biggest challenge was determining how to
capture boxing sequences in an original
way without veering from that reality. For
the first of the film's two major boxing
scenes, Alberti captured two rounds in a
single shot with a Steadicam rig. Each
round was a "movie round," Alberti
explains - meaning it was a minute and a
half instead of the full three - with a oneminute break between rounds. "We did 12
takes," she says, "each lasting four
minutes. I give much of the credit to my
Steadicam operator, Benjamin Semanoff,
who had to perform and remember the
complex choreography."
As Alberti notes, the motivation for
capturing two rounds in one shot was that
"a boxer is completely alone when he
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enters the ring. He doesn't have teammates
and nobody is there to support him."
Boxing is a particularly improvisational sport that plays out a unique narrative
in every round, making it a challenge to
choreograph and film. "There is always a
fine line between being there with the
camera at the right moment - seeing the
movement and the glove connecting with
the face - and preserving the human
drama," says Alberti. "I had a very good
collaboration with the fight coordinator,
Clayton J. Barber - [aiming] for the camera
to be in the right place at the right time for
the most impact. And I always wanted to
come back and have the drama of the face
looking into the camera."
The final fight was shot on a stage
surrounded by 600' of greenscreen. "To
bring an actor through the ropes, we used a
Movi with the [Alexa] M camera, which was
operated by Ben Bloodwell, who passed it
through the ropes to the legendary operator
Larry McConkey," Alberti says. "The other
time we used the Movi was for circling the
fighters in and out of the ring as they were
against the ropes. For the rest of the fight
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