Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1126636
34 DGA QUARTERLY PHOTOS: PHOTOFEST; (OPPOSITE) HBO this is the distance between them. [In Dallas Buyers Club, it's] from [the characters'] perspective. Ron (McConaughey) passes out and we cut to black. You wake up, fade in. In Chinatown, Po- lanski did that with Nicholson so much, and we were talking about that and it was great to embrace a strong perspective like that. Until Rayon, Jared Leto's char- acter, arrives. And then, "OK, we're going to have two perspectives now." And we're going to cut sometimes just with Rayon—we see Ron from Rayon's perspec- tive. And then the other way around, so sometimes I'm not sure which perspective I should use. I have an instinct but then I cover myself and I go, "Let's do it again, guys. I want to go do it from this perspective now." And we don't cut, and they love it, and I guess when we start shooting, they get it. They get that it's all about them because we shoot, we shoot and we hardly cut. I don't like to cut because when I say "cut," there are 25 people getting in and doing touch-ups… Q: Now, do you have two cameras going? A: Never, always one. Q: On your first big TV project, Big Little Lies, how did you prep for seven hours of programming? A: It was a 90-day schedule, and we prepped it like a seven-hour feature film, and we did the same with the post-production. So we prepped, we shot, we didn't cut anything. And we started to edit once we were done shooting. Q: What was the pace? A: We shot five days a week; we prepped (episodes) 1, 2, 3 as a feature. And then we stopped two weeks, [prepping] on 4 and 5. Then we shot 4 and 5 and then stopped for four or five days, and then we shot 6 and 7. So we had a little break between these three blocks, but they were shot [not] like three separate feature films, but one big one with three parts. It was an evolving process, and we did it one day at a time, with an amazing crew around me: David Ticotin, my 1st AD, and (UPMs) Gregg Fienberg and Barbara Hall. They know the name of the game, so I was well supported to do this. And shooting in L.A. and transforming L.A. into Monterey. We shot only three weeks in Monterey, with the ocean there—very angry, very visual, very powerful. It's almost like a metaphor for how these five women are feeling and becoming at the end—as beautiful and as strong. That's why shooting [in Mon- terey] was important. And they all have a relation- ship with the ocean. And we were using a DP (Yves Bélanger) who is not afraid of not lighting; shooting with available light, handheld, and the actors loved it. jects)—see, she's looking at something and then she thinks about this fan and she looks at her hand and the dream was—bang!, she was cutting herself. And then she wakes up. Q: Her younger self is cutting herself. The dream state, too, plays a big part in this. You see this throughout your work. It dates back to the early films. A: Yeah, of course. I pushed it. Because this is some- thing I like to do. And this is something through the projects that we developed, a sort of language and grammar, that my collaborators and I do. Q: What about points of view, and how you manage them? A: We use a 35 mm lens 90 percent of the time and we move with the main character. So, therefore if Adora is here and Camille is here, I'm not going to see Ado- ra's close-up unless Camille comes to her. We respect this language, this rule that we gave ourselves with the 35. Because we shoot handheld and with avail- able light. We ask the crew to get up and we can shoot 360 degrees, and we shoot most of our shots without cutting. I like to see what the main character is doing in order to design the rest of the shots. So, there is no shot list. We become creative on the day, on the spot, and react to what they're doing. And the DP (Yves Bélanger) and I, we think editing, we think cutting so we know that if [Adams] does that and she has a privilege to have more close-ups than the others. So, therefore, I can be close to her with a 35 and she has a close-up that they won't have. We can respect the distance, and I don't mind going behind Patricia and seeing Amy's character smaller to tell the audience Above, Vallée on location with Reese Witherspoon for Wild. Opposite, in Monterey for Big Little Lies with Alexander Skarsgård and Nicole Kidman, who both won SAG and Emmy awards for their performances. "I like to see what the main character is doing in order to design the rest of the shots. So, there is no shot list."