American Cinematographer - February 1993 - 58

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called for a different style. It meant
breaking scenes up more, allowing
for a faster pace. This enabled us to
use
long lenses, which gives
Bigelow's episode her own per¬
sonal touch. She also took

differ¬

approach to the dream se¬
quences in that she entered the
dream like any other scene; the hor¬
ent

takes you off guard. She also
liked to smoke it up and use longer
lenses.
"Phil Joanou, who di¬
rected the final episode, was totally
ror

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far

setting up the shot-a sort of doit-yourself kind of guy. We were
like little kids, jumping on and off
the dolly. He'd line up a shot, then
get off; I'd get on and suggest some¬
thing a little different and then we'd
talk about it. After a while he began

once.

was

the most involved

to trust me,

which made

feel

good because he normally works
with cinematographer Jordan
Cronenweth [ASC]."
What all the directors had
in common with Papamichael was
the willingness to trust the material
as a whole and allow for some
risky
choices. "Even though I avoided

stylistic lighting, some of the cover¬
age was very unconventional," he
says. "We stayed away from the
standard [approach of] master,
over-the-shoulder and close-ups.
On Wild

Palms, I felt

we were

tak¬

lot of chances by shooting a
three-page scene in almost
one shot,
allowing the actors to de¬

ing

two- to

liver lines in shadow or with thenback toward the camera."
Another unique collabora¬
tion for Papamichael was his rela¬

tionship with Wally Pfister, a fellow
cinematographer who served as
his camera operator. The two have
worked together on several films;
on the last, Sketch Artist,
Papa¬
michael directed and Pfister was
the cinematographer, and the film
was nominated for an ACE Award
for cinematography.
"I've always operated
myself," Papamichael says. "It's so
different when you're not riding

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a traditional
operator. He's a
cinematographer, so I felt I could
rely on his judgments. Another
great thing was that Wally could
finish shooting a scene if we were
under the gun in regard to time.

not

"Phil
as

375 Greenwich Street, NYC 10013
56

lighting. Otherwise, things can slip
past me; it feels disconnected. What
was great about
Wally is that he's

everything up as it hap¬
pened," Papamichael observes.

make

lose your lighting when someone
else is operating. My instinct is to
look through the lenses when I'm

That would free me up to go on to
the next scene and start lighting. At
other times, I would be finishing a
scene and
Wally would move
ahead and pre-light something. So

spontaneous. He would come onto
the set, block the actors and then

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the rehearsals. I really think you can

February 1993

sense,

I could be in two places
was

fortunate to have

Wally

as my right arm. Knowing
the beautiful work he did on Sketch

Artist, my mind was at rest."

Papamichael's other cam¬
era

collaborator

was

Steadicam

operator Jim Muro. "Fortunately,
the nature of Wild Palms allowed us
to

indulge in a lot of Steadicam. Jim
Belushi's character steps into an
unfamiliar world of constant mo¬
tion and distress. The Steadicam
movement, along with the length of
the shots, reinforces the character's

disconnectedness."
The presence on

the set of
proved a
blessing when the time came for the
special effects-heavy hologram se¬
quences. Each of the three con¬
a

host of

cameramen

ferred and checked with the others.
The central idea of Wild Palms, vir¬
tual reality, involves a person inter¬

acting with a hologram - touching
it, feeling it, smelling it. The illusion
provided by the Wild Palms Group
is heightened if the viewer takes a
drug called Mimezene, which
makes it impossible to tell the dif¬
ference between reality or the holo¬
gram. The Senator manipulates
these holograms frequently. In one
scene, the Senator is making a pub¬
lic appearance when he suddenly
seems to be
walking elsewhere on
the stage, right next to himself. This
blurring of political reality presents
the threat of a new, high-tech ver¬
sion of Fascism.

Papamichael explains
how the virtual reality scenes were

American Cinematographer - February 1993

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