The Holdovers cinematographer Eigil Bryld

The Holdovers is set in the early 1970's at a New England boarding
school where a few students have to stay on campus over the winter
holidays. Cranky ancient history teacher Paul Hunham (Paul
Giamatti) has to stay and supervise. Slowly, the curmudgeonly
teacher, the school's head cook Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph),
and the one remaining student, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), form a
family-like bond. Eigil Bryld is an accomplished Danish
cinematographer, known for his work on In Bruges, House of Cards,
Ocean's 8 and much more. He thinks of cinematography as a kind of
performance art. Making a movie means working with different people
across departments who have complex and artistic personalities, and
interacting with actors who are responsible for playing different
characters. All these human elements of a movie must then be
orchestrated in the best possible way and captured on film at one
single point in time. Eigil found it a true delight to work with
director Alexander Payne on The Holdovers. Payne has a great sense
of humor and is genuinely interested in people and their lives,
which is always a thread in his movies. Eigil had known Payne for a
few years, but this was the first movie they have worked on
together. He loved the script and found himself laughing out loud
several times, while also finding the characters rich and poignant.
The Holdovers is a 1970s period film, so Eigil and Payne had
lengthy discussions of how it should look. Eigil referenced films
from the early '70s, such as the Hal Ashby movies The Last Detail
and The Landlord. “The problem was that everyone has an idea or
recollection of what the '70s looked like, but that's probably very
far from what movies ACTUALLY looked like back then,” Eigil says.
“One of the things we tend to forget in the '70s, they would do
everything to avoid grain. I mean, it's ironic nowadays,
everybody's fighting to have grainy images. Back then they would
fight to have the best possible lenses and now there's this gold
rush for old lenses with lots of mistakes and half of it is not
really in focus.” He and Payne went through a testing process to
find the right 1970's look. At first, Eigil tested period lenses
and cameras, but realized it was more about capturing the spirit of
the time- early '70s mid-budget movies had a kind of freedom to
them, using lots of handheld shots and mostly available light. He
tested 16 and 35mm cameras, but ended up shooting digital on an
ARRI Alexa Mini and worked with the colorist to create a LUT with
lots of yellow tonality in the highlights. Eigil shot The Holdovers
with just one camera, and was also the sole operator. Camera
placement was very important, with many of the shots in the movie
framed portrait-style. The Holdovers is currently in theaters. Find
Eigil Bryld: https://www.eigilbryld.com/ Instagram @eigilbryld
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