Lachlan Milne, ACS, NZCS, cinematographer of Minari, Stranger Things, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and more

Lachlan Milne believes that finding a connection and building a
friendship with the director of a film is the key to making great
art. Growing up in Adelaide, Australia, Lachlan had a clear idea of
what he wanted to do from an early age, since his father was a
director and his mother was an editor. He got his foot in the door
as an assistant prop master, but knew his calling was in the camera
department. At first he was barely scraping by from job to job
before getting more established as a cinematographer on small
movies such as Uninhabited and Not Suitable for Children. His big
breakout movie was 2016's Hunt for the Wilderpeople with director
Taika Waititi. Lachlan soon found a niche on challenging but fun
supernatural movies such as Little Monsters, Martha the Monster,
and Love and Monsters (coming soon to the U.S.) and then began work
on the hit series, Stranger Things. Working on a big budget show
like Stranger Things was weird for Lachlan, who was used to making
do on small budget movies. Stranger Things has the luxury of
shooting on a stage, and everything is a built set, with walls and
ceilings that could be removed for ease of shooting and lighting.
The crew was even able to customize and control all the neon and
lighting in Episode 8- The Battle of Starcourt to make the entire
mall flicker on demand. On his latest film, Minari, Lachlan and
director Lee Isaac Chung decided the film needed to be one camera,
that the pacing should be languid, simply and naturalistically
shot. Lachlan feels that having a low budget actually worked to
Minari's advantage, because the best version of the movie was a
film that relied more on capturing the performances rather than big
showy shots. He favors holding out for a closeup until it's
emotionally warranted rather than doing it just for the sake of
having closeups. Minari was a great opportunity for Lachlan to move
back into shooting simple indie films. He and Isaac spent time
together carefully shotlisting all the scenes. One of the most
challenging aspects of shooting Minari was scenes in the trailer
the family lives in. They used an actual trailer, and it was hard
to cram sometimes up to 15 people into it, with no air conditioning
and a limited range for camera motion and angles. Lachlan Milne is
currently shooting season four of Stranger Things. You can watch
Minari in theaters and streaming on VOD beginning February 26. Find
Lachlan Milne: https://info509786.wixsite.com/lachlanmilne
Instagram: @lachlanmilne Find out even more about this episode,
with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep113/
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