January 24, 2026

DP Michael Bauman on One Battle After Another’s improv style

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 342: Michael Bauman

Cinematographer Michael Bauman recently earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography for his work on One Battle After Another. Before becoming a cinematographer, Bauman spent years as a gaffer, working under legends like Robert Elswit, Janusz Kaminski, and the late Harris Savides. This mentorship gave him a masterclass in diverse visual languages and on-set problem-solving. After serving as a gaffer for director Paul Thomas Anderson on several projects, Bauman stepped into the DP role for the features Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza.

The decision to shoot One Battle After Another in VistaVision was Anderson’s idea. Known for his commitment to celluloid, Anderson prefers old-school techniques: watching dailies on developed negative and editing with physical film. VistaVision offered a larger negative and higher resolution than standard 35mm without the massive footprint of IMAX.

The challenge, however, was mobility. Historically used for stationary visual effects shots, the VistaVision camera is notoriously bulky. Anderson wanted the opposite: a dynamic, handheld, and Steadicam-heavy aesthetic. “The language of this entire movie is camera movement,” says Bauman. “How do you take this format—with a viewing system that comes off the top at 45 degrees—and turn it into something that can capture the story the way he wants?”

Putting an experienced team together was key for the endeavor. They had to be capable of troubleshooting in remote locations far from the safety of LA or New York hubs. Their goal wasn’t perfection, but character. “In the digital world we soak in now, it’s all about a pristine image,” Bauman notes. “Blacks are super rich, whites are super crisp. We wanted to take this ‘Kobe beef’ format and turn it into a McDonald’s hamburger—in the best way possible.”

The visual identity was further refined by referencing 1970s cinema, specifically The French Connection. Bauman studied the texture and color palettes of that era to emulate its “loose and rough” style. True to form, Anderson pushed to avoid modern LED lighting, preferring tungsten sources whenever space allowed. As a former gaffer, Bauman was happy to accommodate.

Perhaps the greatest hurdle was the improvisational nature of the production. Anderson enjoys letting the actors improvise or even reshoot later. He doesn’t use storyboards or do pre-vis, so even complex scenes had to be worked out in pre-production or on the day. “Every day was just like, you had to get comfortable with the uncomfortable,” comments Bauman. “I knew we were doing stuff in a good spot when I was really questioning all of it. We had to embrace all these happy accidents. It’s free jazz all day long. It’s exciting now, but at the time I was stressed as hell!”

This spontaneity extended to the film’s climax. The spectacular car chase wasn’t fully scripted until the location manager discovered a road with rolling hills on the Arizona border. After a week of testing the VistaVision rigs on pursuit vehicles, the crew spent seven days capturing the sequence. Although it was in the wide-open desert, the characters chased each other over the undulating terrain, which allowed enough suspense to build before the spectacular conclusion.

See One Battle After Another in theaters and streaming on HBO Max

Find Michael Bauman: Instagram @baumanlights

Check out Michael’s lighting companies, LiteGear and Lux Lighting.

Support Ben’s short film, The Ultimate Breakup! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theultimatebreakup/the-ultimate-breakup-short-film?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=the%20ultimate%20breakup&total_hits=2

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: @TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Blue Sky: @thecinepod.bsky.social

By Illya Friedman

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In Cinematography Podcast, Latest Posts, Podcast Episodes

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January 29, 2025

The beauty of The Brutalist: Lol Crawley, BSC

The Brutalist tells the story of László Tóth (Adrian Brody) a Hungarian-Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to the United States. He meets a wealthy industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pierce), who recognizes his talent, and commissions him to design a grand community center. The opportunity presents both a chance for redemption and a descent into a dangerous power dynamic.

Cinematographer Lol Crawley, BSC is currently nominated for an Academy Award for his stunning work on The Brutalist. He and director Brady Corbet chose to shoot on VistaVision, which uses 35mm film horizontally instead of vertically, significantly increasing the image area and resolution. Corbet was always interested in shooting on a larger format in order to capture the landscapes and architecture in the film. VistaVision proved to be a less expensive way to shoot on large format, especially since many rental companies were reluctant to rent their 65mm cameras to a modestly budgeted, independent feature. Lol knew fellow cinematographer Robbie Ryan had also used VistaVision for parts of Poor Things. He was able to use the same technicians Robbie used while The Brutalist shot in Budapest.

The choice of VistaVision was not just about technical specifications. For The Brutalist, set in the early late 1940s and early 1950s, Lol felt it was appropriate to use a camera and film stock that evoked the era. Even the photochemical process of film itself added a unique character. “What we have chosen to do with the Kodak stock is to abuse the stock slightly, to underexpose it, to push process it, to come up with a more painterly image or something that we feel depicts a certain era,” says Lol. “And we’ve found that by underexposing the stock and distressing the dye layers, then forcing the image back up, you’re dragging up colors within the shadows that we find to be very pleasing, interesting and more impressionistic or painterly image.”

One of the most striking sequences in The Brutalist is the opening scene, a single continuous take following László through a ship as he disembarks in America. Lol, who also operated the camera in most of the film, used a smaller handheld camera for the scene. To accentuate the disorientation as László gets off the boat, the editor decided to flip the images around. “The idea is supposed to be that he comes to America, and it’s a new hope,” says Lol. “But the fact that it’s untethered and disorientating and flipped on its head is a really ingenious way of representing that László’s time in the US is not going to be all he imagined.”

Lol’s approach to cinematography emphasizes a balance between documenting reality and fiction. “I’ve always thought that my cinematography was about responsiveness,” he says. “Cinematography is about light, camera movement, and composition. If I had to get rid of one or let one of those things go, it would be the lighting. What I like to do is to have one foot in documentary and one foot in fiction, and be open to respond. So I tend to shotlist less, I tend to storyboard less.” The cinematographer Christopher Doyle told him once, “In Western cinema, you say, ‘Here’s the frame, how do we fill it?’ In Asian cinema we say, ‘Here’s the world, how do I frame it?’”

You can see The Brutalist in theaters.

Find Lol Crawley: https://lolcrawley.com/
Instagram: @crawleylol

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

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: @TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Blue Sky: @thecinepod.bsky.social

By Illya Friedman

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In Cinematography Podcast, Latest Posts, Podcast Episodes

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