Wally Pfister, director/cinematographer PART 1: working with Christopher Nolan, Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige and more

Wally Pfister grew up loving movies, and couldn't wait to become a
filmmaker. The son of an ABC news journalist, Wally got his start
as a news production assistant in Los Angeles, and he worked his
way up to become a news cameraman. He attended American Film
Institute, where he met fellow filmmakers Janusz Kaminski and
Phedon Papamichael. Together they began working for Roger Corman's
Concorde/New Horizons production company based in Venice, CA,
cranking out as many as twelve B-movies per year. Wally would leave
the studio literally splattered in fake blood, but he knew
low-budget filmmaking work was essential for having the freedom to
learn lighting and shooting while on the job. Even with his
prestigious degree from AFI, Wally knew it didn't make him a
filmmaker- he still needed to learn and hone his craft before
moving on to bigger projects. Those opportunities came once Phedon
Papamichael brought him on as a camera operator for Phenomenon and
While You Were Sleeping. Wally loved the independent films of the
1990's, and was happy to work as director of photography for The
Hi-Line, a well-received indie feature that won awards at several
film festivals. Director Christopher Nolan saw the film, and
approached Wally to shoot Memento. Memento blends black and white
with color cinematography, to show the main character's broken
memory as he tries to piece together who killed his wife. Nolan had
purposefully scripted it so that the color sequences shown in the
film are in reverse order while the black and white scenes are
chronological. Wally and Chris Nolan both preferred taking a
naturalistic approach to lighting and camerawork, and Wally's
experience of working fast enabled them to shoot in just 25 days.
Insomnia was a big jump for Wally and Christopher Nolan into a
bigger budget movie, especially with stars such as Al Pacino and
Robin Williams attached. This time, Wally had the budget, the time
and the ability to make a great movie. Insomnia uses light rather
than darkness as a way to build tension- it takes place in
midsummer Alaska, when the sun never sets. Wally used key lighting
in certain scenes to enhance the performance of Pacino, whose
detective character is quite literally hiding from the light, as
his guilt and exhaustion spirals down into madness. The next
project Christopher Nolan and Wally collaborated on was a huge
Hollywood movie: Batman Begins, which relaunched the Batman
franchise after nearly ten years. Even though Batman is a
superhero/comic book movie, Nolan still wanted to take a gritty and
naturalistic approach- he never wanted the cinematography to get in
the way. Wally kept the movie dark and rough, rather than glossy
and stylized in contrast to the previous Batman movies. Very little
of Batman Begins used computer generated visual effects- Chris
Nolan prefers to do all effects in-camera when possible and used
models and miniatures, as in the train derailment sequence. For The
Prestige, the production crew scouted locations in Los Angeles, and
found old theaters and the Universal backlot to make it seem like
Europe at the turn of the century. Again, Nolan wanted The Prestige
to look natural and loose, with much of the film hand-held, even
when Wally was on a crane. Wally used lanterns and natural light to
illuminate most scenes, and every magic trick was done in-camera,
with no special effects. The Prestige earned Wally his first
Academy Award nomination. Listen for Wally Pfister, Part 2, coming
next week! He talks about Inception, Moneyball, The Dark Knight
Rises, Trancendence and more! Find out even more about this
episode, with extensive show notes and links:
http://camnoir.com/ep101/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras:
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