DGA Monthly

2 4 I D G A M O N T H L Y Membership Screenings Q&As listed in alphabetical order by Director. See more detailed descriptions, additional photos & podcasts online at www.dga.org. DGA Screenings Q&As Director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's satirical black comedy, Digger, tells the story of an ostentatious oil tycoon who is the most powerful man in the world but completely oblivious to the outside world. After his drilling operations in Greenland dislodges a giant ice shelf, he embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity's savior before a catastrophic tsunami hits Europe. Following the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Iñárritu discussed the making of the film during a Q&A moderated by Director Denis Villeneuve where he spoke about his use of VistaVision on the film. "VistaVision is very challenging, but it's worth it. When we were shooting Digger's house, we wanted the interior rooms to be very rich, so they would inform us about the context of the characters. Who is Digger Rockwell? Why is this his house? All these details we had to build into each set to have a huge depth of field to inform audiences. I didn't want to point out where to look; I wanted people to wander and get lost inside these paintings on the wall. For that, we needed lots of quality, so, VistaVision, which is double the size of 35mm negative film, allowed us to have so much more information. We were shooting sometimes at f/5.6, f/7, f/8." Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu discusses Digger photo by Shane Karns Photo: Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (right) and Denis Villeneuve (moderator) discussed Digger following the Los Angeles screening on September 27. Director Rachel Morrison's romantic drama, Love of Your Life, weaves the tale of a Boston nurse who fled her life in the US after a whirlwind relationship and marriage fell apart. Abroad, she meets another man who revives her capacity for intimacy, but is now forced to reckon with who she is, what she wants, and how to love again. Morrison discussed the making of the film with Director Malcolm Washington and spoke about the advantages of operating the camera and using handheld herself. "I call it my superpower. On a set, the second the Director yells 'cut!' whether or not they want this, a thousand people storm the castle. In the movie, the character just died, and people are checking out her hair and brushing. It's chaos, and it takes them totally out of it. The nice thing about me operating is that I don't have to cut. I can make small changes. I can step in and keep [star] Margaret [Qualley] in it. In a movie like this, you're asking a lot from your actors. There's a lot of emotional labor that they're having to communicate. Therefore, handheld can be on a level from one to ten [to capture that]. There's a lot of attenuation that's happening, and you're making very intuitive decisions to take a step forward, take a step back, go lower, go find a flare." Rachel Morrison discusses Love of Your Life photo by Deverill Weekes Photo: Rachel Morrison and Malcolm Washington (moderator) discussed Love of Your Life following the Los Angeles screening on October 10, Inspired by Luke Dittrich's 2007 Esquire article, "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die," Director Lance Oppenheim's biographical crime-drama, Primetime, recreates the production of NBC's Dateline segment To Catch a Predator, which used decoys and volunteers from the group Perverted-Justice to trap suspected child molesters but was cancelled after a sting operation resulted in a suicide and a massive lawsuit. During a Q&A moderated by Director Molly Gordon, Oppenheim spoke about his use of various cameras on the film. "We knew we wanted to shoot with the cameras that To Catch a Predator had used so we consulted Mitchell Wagenberg who was a hidden-camera operator on the show. He mentioned they had used over 50 different camera bodies and formats. I liked that idea and told [DP] David Bolen we should adopt that same language... I wanted this film to have the ability to rebuild and blow things up and move things around and take lines and put them in different places. It creates almost an atmosphere or a subjectivity that you wouldn't access otherwise. I liked that I could do these things because the film is about something that has been refracted. I feel like every time I think about Chris Hansen, I'm looking at him through, like, five layers of glass." Lance Oppenheim discusses Primetime photo by David Gonzalez Photo: Lance Oppenheim and Molly Gordon (moderator) discussed Primetime following the New York screening on October 3.

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