by Robbie Jones
It’s time for another fascinating Film Craft Session with BAFTA, and this time it’s all about Cinematography, a fine art that makes films as beautiful as they are. For this session, Rihanna Dillon speaks to cinematographer Robert Yeoman, who has worked on films such as Bridesmaids, Drugstore Cowboy, Get Him to the Greek and Dogma.
It’s time for another fascinating Film Craft Session with BAFTA, and this time it’s all about Cinematography, a fine art that makes films as beautiful as they are. For this session, Rihanna Dillon speaks to cinematographer Robert Yeoman, who has worked on films such as Bridesmaids, Drugstore Cowboy, Get Him to the Greek and Dogma.
However, he’s best known for shooting the majority of Wes Anderson’s filmography, most recently The Grand Budapest Hotel (For which he was nominated for an Oscar). Being one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2014, it was his feature and Yeoman’s relationship with Anderson that became the subject matter for the interview. Upon mentioning of the symmetry in TGBH, Yeoman says; “If I come to room, and say I’m shooting this way, what I do is I have the camera assistants take a piece of tape, we put on one on one side of a map box and one on the other side and we always run to the corners of the room to make sure the camera is right in the dead centre because I know that when Wes walks in, the first thing he’s gonna say to me is ‘Are we square to the wall?’ and I’ll say ‘Yes we are’” and goes on to say how the sets of the film are constructed to accommodate the symmetry of the shots.
Next, Yeoman is asked about his relationship with Anderson, and he talks of preparing for the film in Paris and then in Prague to look at Eastern Europe buildings, before finally shooting in Germany. Yeoman says of Anderson’s use of animatics “In the last two movies, he does what we call animatics, which are these little cartoons, hand drawn, very crude, where Wes does the voices of all the characters and they kind of give a very rough idea of what the camera is going to be doing, where the people would be within the frame. They’re always very interesting. I think it would be an interesting study to take the animatic and put it next to the actual movie and you could kind of see how close they really are in many ways and what I personally find very fascinating is Wes’s readings cause he plays all the characters and to see how he does it versus how the actors end up doing it you know, it’s always very interesting”
Next, Yeoman is asked about his relationship with Anderson, and he talks of preparing for the film in Paris and then in Prague to look at Eastern Europe buildings, before finally shooting in Germany. Yeoman says of Anderson’s use of animatics “In the last two movies, he does what we call animatics, which are these little cartoons, hand drawn, very crude, where Wes does the voices of all the characters and they kind of give a very rough idea of what the camera is going to be doing, where the people would be within the frame. They’re always very interesting. I think it would be an interesting study to take the animatic and put it next to the actual movie and you could kind of see how close they really are in many ways and what I personally find very fascinating is Wes’s readings cause he plays all the characters and to see how he does it versus how the actors end up doing it you know, it’s always very interesting”
Yeoman goes on to talk more about Anderson as a director, saying that “With Wes, everything is pretty much figured out beforehand”, and talks about the opportunities this gives him with the camera “I encourage them (The cast) to get up and move around, and sometimes it almost seems unnatural in a conversation that I would get up and walk around but then if you watch movies, people are always walking around the room. I think it gives you a lot more visual possibilities so I’m always encouraging people to people to get up and move”
Of course there was plenty more to be said by this talented cinematographer, who clearly takes his art very seriously, this BAFTA Craft Session is one of the most interesting yet
To get more information about BAFTA Craft Sessions and watch all the videos, including Cinematography, Sound Design and Production design head over to BAFTA Guru here!
Of course there was plenty more to be said by this talented cinematographer, who clearly takes his art very seriously, this BAFTA Craft Session is one of the most interesting yet
To get more information about BAFTA Craft Sessions and watch all the videos, including Cinematography, Sound Design and Production design head over to BAFTA Guru here!
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