Ross Emery, ACS, on Raised By Wolves, The Matrix movies, Dark City, shooting second unit and more

Cinematographer Ross Emery believes that a director of photography
can make beautiful compositions, but if the ideas aren't
transferred to screen, it's not effective for telling the story.
Knowing the intent of the director and the screenwriter is very
important for translating the script into images, especially on
movies with heavy visual effects. On his most recent project, Ross
shot five episodes of the Ridley Scott sci-fi series, Raised by
Wolves for HBO Max. Ross and fellow cinematographers Dariusz Wolski
and Erik Messerschmidt each shot episodes of the show. The first
third of the series follows the androids “Mother” and “Father” to a
new planet. Ross decided to shoot those episodes in the style of an
ethnographic documentary, following the inhabitants around in their
environment. It seemed a strange way to approach a sci-fi show at
first, but Ross felt it aided creator Ridley Scott's ability to
build the world, giving the audience the feeling that they are
actually on another planet. Scott wanted the planet to be a harsh
and inhospitable landscape, to set it apart from anything
Earth-like and chose a location about an hour outside of Cape Town,
South Africa. Ross grew up in Sydney, Australia. His father was a
documentary filmmaker, but he wasn't drawn to filmmaking until he
was in his 20's. He began working in documentaries himself, then
transitioned to shooting music videos, where he met director Alex
Proyas. Alex then hired Ross to shoot second unit for the film Dark
City. Ross found that working second unit was a fantastic place to
be- it's a smaller crew tasked with shooting more action and visual
effects sequences, with less oversight and less pressure than being
the principal director of photography. After Dark City, Ross was
asked to shoot second unit for The Matrix, and met with DP Bill
Pope. The storyboards looked amazing, drawn by comic book artist
Steve Scroce, and it became a matter of figuring out how to shoot
something that hadn't been done before.  As the second unit DP
of The Matrix, Ross was responsible for shooting bullet time, the
helicopters, and the fight sequences. In 1998, computer visual
effects were not yet advanced enough to truly capture what was
shown in the movie. Most of the shots were actually practical
effects done with real actors, multiple camera arrays and real
bullets. The Matrix was the hardest film he'd ever worked on, and
Ross wasn't even sure if the film would be any good until the crew
saw the finished product. Once it was a hit, Ross had a huge budget
and every tool at his disposal to shoot sequels The Matrix Reloaded
and The Matrix Revolutions. Ross Emery is currently shooting second
unit for the upcoming Marvel movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the
Ten Rings You can find all episodes of Raised By Wolves on HBO Max.
Find Ross Emery: http://rossemeryacs.com/ Instagram: @rossemeryacs
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