American Cinematographer - December 2019 - 78
Father and Son
Shia LaBeouf, who began writing the Honey Boy screenplay while in rehab, plays a fictionalized
version of his own father.
wide shot establishes the father's
reckless driving. Another shows him
knocking his helmet back into Otis',
annoyed at the child's head resting on
his shoulder. In later shots, says
Braier, "it's all about the close-up of
the kid really hugging his father. At
that point in the movie, that means so
much. So for that close-up, we made
sure to have a flare in that moment, to
make the image more magical and
poetic."
To economize, they crowded all
the motorcycle shots into a single day,
and sprang for a process trailer. "We
weren't allowed to drive a motorcycle
for real with a kid in the back," Braier
notes. The trailer carried a
Technocrane paired with a Scorpio
head. "Because we had the arm, we
could get shots in all these different
positions really quickly, without
having to [attach] rigs to the motorcycle," Braier says. "MatÃas was controlling the arm and operating the
camera, while I was operating the
zoom." They drove around their
circuit, going tighter or wider and
flaring the sun from various sides.
"We collected everything we needed
in a few hours of the late afternoon
and at sunset, so we had the looks for
the different times of day."
The motorcycle shoot continued
into the night, capturing LaBeouf's
character going to the strip club. "Our
key grip, Geoff Knoller, is agile and
very athletic," says Wotherspoon, "so
&OR