September 20, 2023

Talk to Me cinematographer Aaron McLisky, ACS

Cinematographer Aaaron McLisky is thrilled that Talk to Me, a small Australian independent horror film, has found such a huge audience. It has become A24’s highest grossing horror movie in North America. The movie is about a group of friends who discover how to become possessed by spirits with an embalmed hand, creating a thrilling party game. The main character, Mia, has recently lost her mother, and her grief makes the idea of finding her mom on the other side both compelling and dangerous. But soon, the supernatural forces can’t be controlled any longer.

Aaron had heard rumors about the Talk to Me script and was intrigued to find out more about the project when directors Danny and Michael Philippou direct messaged him on Instagram. The twin brothers had no feature film experience, but are self-taught YouTube filmmakers. Their channel, RackaRacka is huge, and features a series of horror/comedy shorts completely shot and edited by Danny and Michael.

During the development and pre-production of Talk to Me, Aaron and the brothers discussed how they wanted the film to look cinematically and frequently workshopped and filmed sequences. Aaron always wants to elevate the story through cinematography, making sure that every frame and every camera movement speaks to a world that’s truthful to the characters. He wanted to be sure that the camera work elevated the tone of the horror movie, by showing or withholding information as needed. As a former editor, Aaron constantly thinks about editing- how certain sequences will go together and how much coverage might really be needed. Once production started, he found it exciting to be bold, keeping coverage of each scene minimal, and confident that they didn’t need more. He kept scenes lit with practical lighting and green fluorescents as much as possible, making Mia seem sickly and possessed. During the possession scenes, Aaron chose to contrast the sequences with unmotivated lighting, and as Mia’s psychological decay progresses, the film subtly becomes darker and more desaturated in the grade.

Aaron was born in Australia but lived in Indonesia for much of his childhood. He fell in love with photography there and knew he wanted to study film, so he returned to Australia. After completing his degree, he got a job at a production company as an editor, eventually moving into directing commercials and music videos, but he didn’t enjoy it. Aaron found he was always more interested in visual images as a storyteller, so he decided to start over as a cinematographer. He was fortunate enough to shoot a music video for YouTube stars, The Bondi Hipsters, who then asked him to be the cinematographer for their television series. Aaron also served as the primary cinematographer of the FX series, Mr. Inbetween.

Talk to Me is still playing in theaters and is available to purchase on VOD.

Find Aaron McLisky: http://aaronmclisky.com/
Instagram: @aaronmclisky

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com
Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

By Illya Friedman

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In Cinematography Podcast, Latest Posts, Podcast Episodes

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May 24, 2023

Evil Dead Rise cinematographer David Garbett

New Zealand cinematographer David Garbett has shot more versions of the Evil Dead franchise than any other cinematographer. These include the series Ash vs. Evil Dead and the latest movie, Evil Dead Rise. Dave has enjoyed working on Evil Dead because it’s been a fun, creative, and over-the-top experience.

Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin felt that after 10 years, the movie needed a different setting. The action takes place on the top floor of a Los Angeles apartment building. Dave felt a responsibility to get the tone just right since Evil Dead is loved around the world. Evil Dead Rise is witty, but it is more of a straight up horror movie compared to the other Evil Dead films, starring Bruce Campbell. It definitely doesn’t skimp on the blood and gore.

Dave thinks that the essential comedic aspect of Evil Dead is a huge part of the dynamic between director Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell. He had the amazing experience of working with both of them on the series, Ash vs Evil Dead. The show is like a gory cartoon, with lots of humor and a huge performance by Bruce Campbell as Ash. One of the aspects of shooting Ash vs Evil Dead that Dave loved was getting the script every week and thinking, what the hell kind of bizarre situation am I going to find myself in this week? For the series, Dave got to use many of the low-angle, fast moving “evil force” POV shots. Every time they needed an “evil force” shot, it required a lot of thought and logistics preparation to figure out how to maneuver the camera. They would use many different techniques to get the right look and speed- the evil force has a fast-moving energy and intensity. Dave captured the “force” with the camera mounted on a variety of tools: a gimbal, a pipe, a remote controlled car, a techno crane and also just physically running handheld to give an organic nature to the movement.

When Dave began going to film school in Auckland, he realized that he was drawn to a career as a director of photography, because you can be both technical and artistic. Dave’s timing was good, because the film industry in New Zealand was just ramping up. The movies Once Were Warriors and The Piano were being made there, followed by Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners. Soon after, Peter Jackson put New Zealand on the map with The Lord of the Rings movies, which brought an incredible amount of work and visibility to the film scene in New Zealand.

Dave also shot several episodes of the Netflix series, Sweet Tooth. Season two of Sweet Tooth is currently streaming.

Evil Dead Rise is currently playing in theaters.

Find Dave Garbett: http://www.davidgarbett.com/
Instagram: @jarbaye

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com
Sponsored by Greentree Creative: www.growwithgreentree.com

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

By Illya Friedman

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January 25, 2023

Yule Log director Casper Kelly and cinematographer Alex Allgood

Yule Log is a crazy, surreal, comedic horror movie written and directed by Casper Kelly and with cinematography by Alex Allgood, made for Adult Swim and available on HBO Max. Even though it’s a month past Christmas, fire up Yule Log if you haven’t seen it already- it’s bound to be one of the weirdest and most original movies you’ve seen in awhile.

For Yule Log, Casper and cinematographer Alex Allgood decided to keep the camera locked off on the fireplace logs for as long as possible, so people might think it was just a recording of a fireplace for holiday ambiance, before introducing more action around (and inside) the fireplace and in the cabin, as people enter and events unfold. The movie takes place in a cabin, but over multiple timelines that overlap and combine different genres from comedy to horror to Lynchian-style surrealism.

Alex liked the script, and felt that even though the movie leads with the long lockoff shot on the fireplace that the dialog kept everything going. He only had about three weeks to prep the movie, and they shot Yule Log in about 14 days. He enjoyed working with Casper and combining so many different creative elements into the movie. Alex always sees projects in terms of lighting first and camera second, so he tried to create a cohesive look with the lighting on the film throughout each scene, using a lot of firelight of course.

Casper has always enjoyed taking risks and seeing things that he hasn’t seen before vs. following a formula. His first job was on the low budget horror movie Basket Case 3, and he wrote and directed another short dark comedy spoof TV show for Adult Swim called Too Many Cooks. With his previous experience and relationship with Adult Swim, Casper pitched Yule Log and was paid to make it- he thinks if he had done it as a spec script, no one would have given him money to make such a crazy film. Casper wasn’t sure the many, many ideas in Yule Log were all going to work, but he wanted to go for it and take risks. But everyone was on board through all the crazy twists and turns the story takes.

You can see Yule Log on HBO Max.
Find Casper’s short for Adult Swim, Too Many Cooks, on YouTube.

Find Casper Kelly: Twitter & Instagram: @heycasperkelly
Find Alex Allgood: Instagram @alexisallgood

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com
Sponsored by Greentree Creative: https://www.growwithgreentree.com/

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

By Illya Friedman

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January 18, 2023

Russell Carpenter, ASC on Avatar: The Way of Water, working with James Cameron, creating realistic lighting for a virtual world

Our guest Russell Carpenter, ASC comes back for a second time on the podcast to talk about Avatar: The Way of Water.

When cinematographer Russell Carpenter began working on Avatar: The Way of Water, it was much different from any other film experience he’d had. Russell had previously worked with director Jim Cameron on True Lies and Titanic, which won him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. He began working on Avatar: The Way of Water before they even rolled cameras, testing and integrating the world of live action capture with completely virtual images. The process was like a huge layer cake of world creation, with writing, concept art and production design all being developed simultaneously.

As the cinematographer, Russell’s primary concern was making sure that the lighting design on the live, motion captured actors looked real and played well with the CGI generated world. It’s hard to fool the eye when people instinctively know what sunlight, water and shade in a forest should look like, so every scene with a live person and a Na’vi person had to be exactly right. It was important to Cameron that everything on Pandora be grounded in reality. The animals had to move realistically and the interplay of shade and light in the forests needed to feel real to an audience so that they would have an emotional connection, rather than watching an alien-feeling, fake-looking science fiction world.

The entire process of making Avatar: The Way of Water was a huge puzzle, with a small army of teams working on different parts of the movie and simply trying different things. As the writing and story development continued, Cameron would decide they needed a certain scenario or plot point, and he would ask the teams to creatively figure out how to make it happen. After the locations were computer generated, several virtual cameras were used to shoot multiple angles to get an idea of the blocking, lighting and camera placement for the CGI action. Finally, the actors came in to do motion capture and read their lines. Russell thought he’d start to see scenes coming together, but everything was such a piecemeal process that he watched the virtual camera material to get an idea of how the lighting was matching and coming together. They would move lights around on automated overhead trusses in the studio to change the lighting for each scene and to keep as many lights out of the blue screen shots as possible.

You can see Avatar: The Way of Water in a variety of formats in theaters everywhere.

Find Russell Carpenter: Instagram @russellcarpenterasc
Hear Cinepod’s first interview with Russell Carpenter, ASC: https://www.camnoir.com/ep40/

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com
Sponsored by Greentree Creative: https://www.growwithgreentree.com/

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

By Illya Friedman

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In Cinematography Podcast, Latest Posts, Podcast Episodes

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