Dariusz Wolski, ASC on News of the World, working with Paul Greengrass, music videos, The Crow, Dark City, Pirates of the Caribbean, and more

Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski prefers to take a realistic,
documentary approach to most of the movies he shoots. His latest
film, the western News of the World, is primarily shot outside
using natural light, in a style Dariusz likes to call
“well-observed” documentary. As with many of director Paul
Greengrass's films, News of the World relies on a Steadicam and
hand-held cameras to give it a more realistic and intimate feel.
Daruisz watched a few Westerns to get ideas for his approach to
News of the World, such as The Searchers and The Assassination of
Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Dariusz got his start after
film school shooting music videos back in the 1980's and 90's, such
as Suzanne Vega's “My Name is Luka.”  One of his influences
was the late cinematographer Harris Sevides, whose approach to
music videos for Madonna and R.E.M. was softer and more cinematic.
Daruisz and several future icons of cinema were all working on
music videos at the time, and he worked with directors David
Fincher, Alex Proyas and Gore Verbinski. They all wanted to make
movies and were just making music videos to stay employed. As
trained filmmakers, Dariusz feels they elevated the music video to
an art, bringing a film sensibility to it with longer shots and
cinematic lighting. Though Daruisz found it hard to break into film
at first, his work on music videos and commercials eventually got
him there. Director Alex Proyas hired Dariusz as director of
photography for the films Romeo is Bleeding, The Crow, and Dark
City. The two used a dark and gritty music video aesthetic for
shooting 1994's The Crow. Tragically, star Brandon Lee was killed
by a faulty blank bullet during filming and the movie was finished
without him, using early face replacement digital technology. For
Dark City, Dariusz's next film with Proyas, he was influenced by
films such as Metropolis and German expressionist art. He used
sodium vapor lights on the set, which created a very orange and
surreal glow. To add to the sickly green colors in the film, they
decided not to use the correct fluorescent tubes in the automat
scenes, or color correct the result. Dariusz went on to work with
director Gore Verbinski on The Mexican and Pirates of the
Caribbean. At the time, Pirates was anything but a sure thing. It
was up against the biggest stigma in Hollywood- every pirate movie
that had been made up until that point was a huge flop. Plus, the
character Captain Jack Sparrow was a complete antihero, and though
Johnny Depp was a known actor, he wasn't yet a huge movie star.
After shooting several Pirates movies, Dariusz went on to work with
Tim Burton on Sweeney Todd and Alice in Wonderland, then with
Ridley Scott on Prometheus , The Martian, and Raised By Wolves, all
science fiction movies or series that are heavy on special effects.
For Dariusz, even if a film is science fiction, it needs to feel as
though it is grounded in its own reality, so it was important to be
in constant communication with the VFX supervisor to figure out how
they would collaborate on set. News of the World is playing in some
theaters and is available to stream on VOD. Find Dariusz Wolski:
@dariusz_wolski_official Find out even more about this episode,
with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep118/
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