Although cinematographer Néstor Almendros did most
of his work in France, often for groundbreaking French New Wave directors, like Éric Rohmer and
François Truffaut, he is probably best known for his collaborations with Hollywood directors
on some iconic movies in the 70s and 80s. Directors were often drawn to his pioneering
way of working with natural light, his taste for cinematic simplicity
and a focus on providing them with his creative insights, beyond
just his technical expertise. In this episode let’s break down how his
thoughts and philosophies on cinematography influenced his photographic style,
and also take a look at some of the gear and techniques that he used to
pull off some breathtaking images. This video is sponsored by Squarespace - the only platform you need to create
and manage your website. Many of the filmmaking techniques that Almendros
would later use on larger feature productions, were actually gleaned in his earliest
explorations into cinematography. Three of these concepts which appear as
threads throughout his filmography are: his knowledge of movies, his focus on natural
lighting and his push for cinematic simplicity. He developed an early love for cinema,
so much so that he eventually became a bit of a cinefile and started writing movie
reviews. He cites this as one of the best educational resources for DPs, claiming
that the technical side of photography can always be learnt or executed by film
technicians and crew that you work with, but having a solid foundation and
understanding of what films came before and what the current trends are in cinema
and photography are incredibly important. In his early years he wanted to
be a director. This made having a perspective on the narrative a must.
It’s the job of the cinematographer to be sensitive to the needs of the story and have
the necessary cultural background to draw from. An example of a movie that he was influenced
by was the early Italian neorealist film La Terra Trema - shot by cinematographer G.
R. Aldo. He was blown away by how Aldo used naturalistic lighting in a way that
was very different from the other much more stylised and overlit movies of the time -
which blasted hard, frontal key light at actors. Instead of shooting on sets in
film studios and shining hard, spot lit key light, fill light and
backlight at actors as was the norm, many of these Italian neorealist films used
available, naturalistic light in real locations, which may be hard with unflattering shadows
under direct sun, a soft, gentle feel under cloudy conditions, or use the last remnants of
dusk light remaining in the sky after sunset. His appreciation for naturalistic light may
also have been influenced by his filmmaking originating in shooting documentaries in Cuba
- where he could only work with a camera and available light as there was not enough budget
to hire lights or a team of electricians. To overcome the low levels of light inside
some of the houses they would shoot in, they came up with the idea of using mirrors
to bounce the sunlight that was outside into the house through windows then
bouncing it off the ceiling. This technique of softening light by
bouncing it became important later, but so too did the function of
mimicking the direction of the natural sunlight by angling it through
windows and increasing its strength. In other words, taking an
existing source of natural light and strengthening it by artificial means. Almendros inspired a major
transition in thinking about lighting. Rather than being bound to film
school concepts like three-point lighting, he instead wanted the lighting in his films,
even when using artificial film lights, to be motivated by what the natural light
sources - like the sun - does in real life. He talks about this in his autobiography: “When it comes to lighting, one of my basic
principles is that the light sources must be justified. I believe that what is functional
is beautiful, that functional light is beautiful light. I try to make sure that
my light is logical rather than aesthetic.” Another aspect to Almendros’ work is an
appreciation for simplicity both in practical, technical terms as well as aesthetic
terms. Again, this may perhaps have evolved from the beginning of his career
in documentary and on low budget films, where he became accustomed to
making do with a lack of resources. A great example of his economical way of
working, was on his first narrative feature: La Collectionneuse which he shot for French New
Wave director Éric Rohmer. Because of an extremely limited budget they were faced with a choice early
on: either shoot in the less expensive 16mm or shoot extremely economically on 35mm.
They went with 35mm. A shooting ratio refers to how much footage
was shot in relation to the length of the finished movie: so if 20 hours of footage
was shot to complete a 2 hour movie then the production had a shooting ratio of
10:1. La Collectionneuse had an insanely low shooting ratio of 1.5:1. This meant
that they shot only 1 take for most shots. Working in such an economical way has
a few advantages: it forces directors to think about exactly what they want and
have a refined vision. As Almendros says: “the problem is that when there are many
options there is a tendency to use them all.” Even later on in his career when he was working
with larger budgets on Hollywood productions, he always gravitated to finding the simplest
method using the tools that would most easily produce an image with functional,
realistic light that told the story. For example, not using a big truck full of
lights and a large team of electricians, if he could get a more authentic
image from only using natural light. Visually, many of the films he shot also have a
certain stylistic simplicity to them. Although of course it depended on which director he worked
with, he often shot quite deliberately composed, static frames without many dynamic camera
moves. This was especially true when working with Rohmer who liked shooting
stationary frames from a tripod head. So, Almendros can be characterised by his
cinematic knowledge, naturalistic lighting, and simplicity - but how did he translate that
over with the techniques and gear that he used? Before we get there I’d like to
thank Squarespace for sponsoring this video. Squarespace is the platform
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trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/indepthcine to save 10%
off your first purchase of a website or domain. Nowadays the default for most cinematographers
is to base their placement of lights, and quality of illumination on the real
life sources that exist in the location. As I mentioned before, that wasn’t always
the case. The prior standard was that actors should almost always be well illuminated
in clear, strong pockets of light which were usually placed in front of the talent,
from above, and shined directly at them. This clearly illuminates the face without shadow,
however isn’t what light does in real life. Compare this shot of how actors used
to be lit when placed next to a window, to how Almendros did it in Days Of
Heaven. There are two big takeaways. Firstly, Almendros places the light
source outside the window, shining in, mimicking the direction that the sun would
in real life. While the other shot keys the actor with a high, frontal source of light
- that doesn’t make sense in the real world. Secondly, the quality of the light is different.
Almendros uses a much more diffused light that is far softer with a natural, gentle transition
from shadow to brightness. While the other example has a very clear, crisp shadow caused
by very strong, undiffused artificial light. A technique he often used to
get this soft quality of light when shooting interiors was to bounce
lights, often from outside a window, into the ceiling. This reflected the source around
the room, decreasing the intensity of the light, but lifting the overall ambience
in the room in a natural way. He liked using strong sources with
high output to create his artificial sunlight for interiors on location or in
studio sets, such as tungsten minibrutes, old carbon arc lights, or, later on, HMIs. Although he is known for his use of naturalistic
soft light in movies like Days Of Heaven, he also did use hard light at times when it was functional
and could be justified by a realistic source. He also often favoured lighting with
a single source - meaning one lighting fixture which pushed light in a singular
direction. He often did this by using practical light fixtures - like lamp
shades with tungsten bulbs - and not adding any extra fill light to lift
the exposure levels in the space. In Days Of Heaven he even took this idea
and transferred it to the oil lamp props, which he had replaced with electric quartz
bulbs that shine through orange tinted glass, which were wired under the shirts of actors and
attached to a belt with batteries they could wear. These innovative solutions led the way to what is
nowadays easily done with battery powered LEDs. He paired this warm practical light
with another lighting technique he would master - exposing for very low
levels of ambient dusk light in the sky. Days of Heaven is probably best known for
using this dusk light known as “magic hour”, but it’s actually something that he’d
been doing since his first feature. This was especially difficult as for most of
his career he worked with a Kodak film stock that had a very low ASA rating compared to
today’s standards. Kodak 5247 is a tungsten balanced film that was rated at only 125
EI - which is around 5 stops slower than a modern digital cinema like the Sony
Venice 2 that can shoot at 3,200 EI. To expose at these extremely low levels
of natural light he would rate the 125 ASA film at 200 ASA on his light meter,
2/3rds of a stop underexposed. As it got darker he would then remove the 85
filter - which changes the colour temperature of tungsten film to daylight
but also darkens the image by one stop. Then as it got progressively darker he’d also
change to lenses with a faster aperture that let in more light, ending wide open on a Panavision
Super Speed T1.1 55mm - poor focus puller. If they needed to push things even further into
low light shooting he would sometimes even film at 12 or 18 frames per second and change the shutter
from 1/50 to 1/16. In this case they’d also ask the actors to move more slowly than usual to mask
the otherwise sped up feeling of motion you’d get - reaping the final moments of available
natural light before everything became dark. However, when he wasn’t working with the smallest
amounts of available light, Almendros actually preferred to not shoot with a wide open aperture.
He felt the best depth of field was slightly stopped down, so that the background wasn’t
a complete blur and could still be made out, yet was slightly soft so as to isolate the
characters from the frame and make them stand out. He also innovated other DIY tech that could
be used to simulate naturalistic lighting. For example, he ignited flame jets attached to gas
tanks, which could be easily handled and had a controllable flame. These could be brought near
actors to naturalistically illuminate them for scenes involving fire, rather than using electric
lights - which was standard practice before. To achieve a wide shot of locusts flying off
in-camera, without post production visual effects, Almendros again pulled a technique
from his knowledge of cinema - this time a movie called The Good Earth. They
suspended helicopters just above the shot and released seeds and peanut shells,
then to get the effect of the insects taking off they got the actors to
perform their actions in reverse. This was shot on an old Arriflex which could shoot film backwards that would later play
out the original action in reverse. This innovation also extended into camera
movement. Days Of Heaven was the first film to use the Panaglide - Panavision’s
lightweight alternative to the Steadicam, which could be used to get sweeping, tracking
shots with actors over uneven natural terrain. Much of what we take for granted in
cinematography today, like shooting in low light, using practical sources,
and thinking about motivated natural lighting rather than three-point lighting,
are all innovations aided by Almendros’ work. He was able to use his knowledge of cinema to
inform his taste and storytelling techniques, then pushed established technical
boundaries and ways of thinking to make his cinematography extremely
beautiful but also extremely influential. Thank you to all the Patrons for your continued
support of the channel, as well as everyone else for engaging with the video. Otherwise, until
next time, thanks for watching and goodbye.
