Sean Bobbitt, BSC, on Judas and the Black Messiah, working with director Shaka King, working with director Steve McQueen on Hunger and Shame

Sean Bobbitt thinks good cinematography is composed of a series of
very carefully crafted and decided upon images. He began his career
as a news camera shooter, but once he began to work on
documentaries and features, Sean learned that each shot is not just
coverage to edit together. After working in news and documentary
for several years, Sean decided he wanted to transition into
working on dramatic films, so he took a cinematography class with
acclaimed cinematographer Billy Williams, and it changed his life.
He knew he wanted to become a cinematographer. He soon got his
first feature film job working on Wonderland, directed by Michael
Winterbottom. Judas and the Black Messiah is a gripping
biographical drama about FBI informant William O'Neal and Black
Panther Chairman Fred Hampton. O'Neil is a small-time criminal who
agrees to go undercover for the FBI and infiltrate the Chicago
headquarters of the Black Panthers. O'Neal's tips directly result
in Chairman Hampton's assassination in his bed by police in 1969.
Sean found the script gripping and incredibly relevant to today's
ongoing issues of racial inequality. He realized he knew little
about the Black Panthers and this chapter of racial injustice in
America, and he needed to help tell the story. After reading the
script, Sean met with director Shaka King, who brought hundreds of
stills of the Black Panthers and talked Sean through the
screenplay. Together, Sean and King began to explore what they
wanted to visually create. The photographs became the basis for the
look and color palette of the film. All the color photos were
Kodachrome or Ektachrome, so they had a slightly faded look. Sean
wanted high contrasts with punchy primary colors and worked closely
with the DIT to get the color grade for the look he wanted.
Previously, Sean had worked on a few biopics with director Steve
McQueen, such as 12 Years a Slave and Hunger. Sean finds McQueen a
very unique artist and a fantastic collaborator. They've worked
together for so long that they are very good at communicating on
set. McQueen loves long takes, and really began exploring those
with Hunger- the film features a 16 and a half minute take, based
on the idealogical concept that if you simply hold the frame, the
audience begins to project themselves into the action. If there's
no cut, the audience can't be reminded it's a film and can't be let
off the hook. Sean learned to compose very considered frames where
the action happens. One of the main concepts of the movie Shame was
that most New Yorkers live their lives in high rises in the air,
and the characters in the film only came down for sordid reasons.
Most of the takes in Shame are also very long and purposefully make
the viewer feel uncomfortable. You can watch Judas and the Black
Messiah in select theaters and streaming on HBO Max.
https://www.judasandtheblackmessiah.com/ Find out even more about
this episode, with extensive show notes and links:
http://camnoir.com/ep114/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras:
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