American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 28

Spirit Animal
By Matt Mulcahey

In a classic montage from Day for
Night, François Truffaut's 1973 ode to the
agony and the ecstasy of filmmaking, a
crew tries with increasing desperation to
coax a cat to walk into frame and sip from
a saucer of milk. Director Roger Spottiswoode laughs at the reference, but insists
his feline stars caused no such exasperation
on his latest film, A Street Cat Named Bob,
which tells the true story of a London street
musician who pulls his life together with the
help of an atypically serene orange tabby.
"I find animals fascinating," Spottiswoode says. Laughing, he adds, "I love
humans, too - but I don't subscribe to this
thing about 'never work with children or
animals.' In fact I find the opposite is the
case because I think you learn so much from
them."
Spottiswoode's previous experiences
with four-legged thespians include pairing
Tom Hanks with a slobbering canine for the
1989 buddy-cop film Turner & Hooch, and
enduring the icy environs of Churchill,
Manitoba, with a polar-bear cub for 2014's
The Journey Home. The latter feature was
shot by Peter Wunstorf, ASC, who
reteamed with Spottiswoode for A Street
Cat Named Bob. "I was once again doing a
rather difficult film working with animals,"
the director notes, "and I knew how well
28

December 2016

Peter works under difficult circumstances."
Based on the autobiographical book
by James Bowen, A Street Cat Named Bob
follows Bowen's story of redemption from
homeless heroin addict to best-selling
author, aided by the fluffy orange compatriot perched atop his shoulder. In the
feature, Bowen is played by English actor
Luke Treadaway and Bob is played by, well,
Bob - along with the help of half a dozen
fellow felines working under the supervision
of trainer Mark Dumas.
The plan wasn't initially for Bob to
play such a pivotal role, but once shooting
began, the cat's comfort in the bustling
London locations proved indispensible.
"None of the other cats could quite cope
with inner London, and we shot a lot in the
streets where you can't control the crowds
and the traffic," Spottiswoode says. "Bob,
because he spent years on those streets
with James, has this extraordinary calm. The
other cats got completely distracted. Only
Bob was really good at traveling on James'
shoulders or sitting on a curb and paying no
attention to the trucks flying by behind him.
He became an essential part of the film very
early on."
"It was a constant shuffle with the
cats," Wunstorf adds. "They are continuously rewarded with food, and after a few
takes they get full and don't want to do any
more!"
In order to capture the required
American Cinematographer

moments from Bob and the pseudo-Bobs,
Wunstorf ran four cameras for scenes that
featured the cats - a pair of Arri Alexa
Pluses aimed at the human stars and a pair
of Sony's mirrorless a7R IIs trained on the
cats. Two additional a7R IIs were used by the
second unit, which was tasked with picking
up any particularly difficult bits of Bob business.
With the exception of B camera -
which lived on a Steadicam operated by
John Hembrough - the majority of the film
was shot handheld, often with the camera
resting on a sandbag atop a tripod. Additionally, A-camera operator Bob Shipsey
brought his own method for toting the
Alexa. "I cradle the camera in my right hand
so it doesn't sit on my shoulder," he
explains. "This comes from the far-distant
days of Aaton cameras that sat in your hand
so beautifully. [This style of operating]
means that when you move, you don't have
any bounce transferred through your shoulder. It is almost a very poor-man's
Steadicam, using your arm as the spring."
Shipsey was also responsible for
shots from Bob's point of view. Added at
the behest of Spottiswoode, these POVs
were shot on the Sony cameras. "That was
something Roger brought up when I arrived
in London," says Wunstorf. "At first I was
hesitant about the idea [of] those shots, but
Bob Shipsey executed them brilliantly." The
cinematographer favored focal lengths of

A Street Cat Named Bob behind-the-scenes photos by Andreas Lambis. All images courtesy of the filmmakers.

James Bowen (Luke Treadaway), a London street musician and heroin addict, pulls his life together with the help of a serene orange tabby in the
feature A Street Cat Named Bob.

American Cinematographer - December 2016

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