Asteroid City, Roald Dahl shorts cinematographer Robert Yeoman, ASC

Cinematographer Robert Yeoman has been a consistent collaborator
with director Wes Anderson since the 1990's. Together, Bob and
Anderson have crafted a signature visual style that combines
meticulous set design, vibrant color palettes, and symmetrical
framing. Each frame feels like a carefully composed painting, with
every detail thoughtfully arranged to enhance the overall
narrative. Bob's latest collaboration with Anderson is the film
Asteroid City and a series of short films adapted from the writings
of Roald Dahl. Bob was the DP for The Wonderful Story of Henry
Sugar, The Rat Catcher and Poison. Both the film Asteroid City and
the Roald Dahl shorts feature the actors speaking directly to the
camera as in a stage play, and props and sets pieces are obviously
moved in and out of frame. For the Dahl short films, most of the
script is taken directly from Dahl's writing, with the actors
reciting the story to the audience. They shot all of the short
films in England on two stages right next to each other. While the
crew was shooting on one stage, the art department designed and
built the stage next to it. Anderson's pre-production process
includes the creation of animatics to plan and visualize scenes
before shooting begins. An animatic is a series of storyboard
images edited together to give a rough preview of the film's pacing
and visual composition. Once the animatic is complete, everyone on
the creative team is on the same page regarding the visual and
narrative direction of the film. The art department then takes the
animatic and turns it into a physical space. Since Anderson is so
specific about how he wants his compositions to look, Bob usually
uses a camera on a dolly track- a steadicam or a technocrane can't
get the same level of precision. They imported a special dolly
track from Paris for shooting the Roald Dahl shorts. Because of the
size of the track, some of the sets that had to slide open and
closed were built so that they were slightly elevated from the
floor. To accommodate the dolly, all of the lights had to be placed
in the ceiling and were operated from a main control board. There
were many rehearsals with the art and props department to get the
set and prop movements right. The actors knew exactly where to
position themselves in the scene just from the detailed animatics.
The film Asteroid City explores themes of grief, melancholy and
disconnection. It melds together two very distinctive looks- the
format of a black and white 1950's era TV documentary in 4:3 aspect
ratio about a play, “Asteriod City,” which is then intercut with
the staging of “Asteroid City” in a sunny desert town, shot in
widescreen with bright pastel colors and lighting. The town set was
built from scratch, in a desert in Spain. To create the look, they
chose to shoot on film, and Bob tested several different film
stocks. He embraced the harsh, high contrast desert light as a
character in the movie, even though it went against his instincts
as a cinematographer. They made the pastel colors pop in the DI
(digital intermediate), and gave it more of a low-contrast look.
Though it was shot on a set, Anderson didn't want to use any movie
lights on Asteroid City. Instead, skylights were built into each of
the buildings such as the diner and the motel office. The skylights
were then covered with very thick diffusion so that the light was
very soft and even. Under the desert sun, bounce cards and the
occasional silk was used to throw more light on the actor's faces.
By contrast, they used a very complex theatrical lighting setup
when shooting the black and white sequences. They used a lot of
harder lights on dimmers, and shot on black and white film. Bob
finds that the less gear you have on a set coming between the
actors and the director, the more intimate the experience. There's
always a huge crew for making Anderson's films, but while shooting
a scene, there are only about 10 people present.