copy written for Cooke Optics
Documentary makers have been enjoying a Golden Age since major streaming
services began ordering them to bulk up their libraries. Now the genre is
entering what can be described as a Golden Cinematic Age as the tools and craft
techniques used to make high end drama are being trained on real life stories.
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“We’re creating a
new genre of high-end cine-style docs shooting full frame using cinematographic
techniques and equipment similar to those used in scripted work,” says
Bafta-winning director of photography Tim Cragg.
Examples include The Deepest Breath, a thrilling exploration
of free-diving, produced by Oscar winner A24 Films (Everything Everywhere
All at Once) which was sold to Netflix after screening at Sundance earlier
this year. Another is Disney+ If These Walls Could Sing, the
story of Abbey Road Studios directed by Mary McCartney (Sir Paul’s daughter)
for Disney+. Now Steven Spielberg’s production company Amblin Television has
made Encounters, a four-part series recounting experiences with
extraterrestrials, landing now on Netflix.
All were shot by Cragg on ARRI Alexa Large Format with Full Frame Cooke
SF anamorphics. In fact, these are just three among nine projects that Cragg
has shot in the past two years using the same camera package.
“Major studios and feature filmmakers are opening their eyes to the
realisation that docs need not look rough and ready but can be just as
cinematic and beautiful as drama using the same tools,” he says. “The lenses
make a big difference by transporting the viewer into a world resonant of the
movies.”
Encounters pays homage to
Spielberg’s 1977 sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind in
more ways than its title alone would suggest.
“It’s made for Amblin and Spielberg is in the shadows so for a DP that’s
a massive incentive,” says Cragg of the project’s appeal. “When discussing the
project with director Yon Motskin and Amblin executive producers Darryl Frank
and Justin Falvey we very much wanted to shoot it in Cinemascope and anamorphic
and to be able to capture flare.”
The landmark four-part series travels the globe to explore four
extraordinary true stories of encounters with otherworldly phenomena. Each
episode tells a single story from the firsthand the perspective of
experiencers: strange lights in the sky over small-town Texas; submersible
space crafts haunting a coastal Welsh village; an alien encounter with
schoolchildren in Zimbabwe; non-human intelligence reportedly interfering with
a nuclear power plant in Japan.
“We took each of our various characters back to the sites where they
witnessed the event and used flare as a device with them as they recalled the
event or we reconstructed the experience. We chose to shoot these scenes at
twilight to attempt to capture a sense of the blue line flare, filming them
from behind toward lights using a Steadicam and Cooke SF, in homage to Close
Encounters but also to achieve a more abstract visual for what we’re
seeing.”
Another aspect of the doc’s storytelling which will resonate with
Spielberg’s cinematic sensibility is treating the subject’s experience at face
value.
“A lot of the films feature children and that sense of awe of
storytelling that children love. We have shots tracking into their little faces
or on their glasses as they see reflections in the sky. It is very much the
wonderment of youth.
Cragg adds,
“The series is not about whether aliens or UFOs are real or not. It’s about
human belief systems. Rather than criticise people we should allow them their
story.”
The cinematographer took two Alexa LF on each location assignment, an
unusual enough luxury for a documentary, and a set of Cooke anamorphics which
he hired from regular partner Big Eye Rentals in Hastings.
“I try lots of different lenses and Cookes have a
grandeur to them,” he says. “They make everything feel a lot bigger than really
it is, more weighted, which we used to great effect on Encounters with
shots that position people in a landscape. The wides are very, very straight so
there’s no bending of perspective which is ideal for landscape
photography.”
For Encounters he leaned on the 40mm for strong close
ups of the characters enhanced
with natural distortion that “felt like I was breaking into their internal
space and yet
with a softness that felt very emotional.”
On these recent documentary projects Cragg will also have at his
disposal a decent lighting package and a lighting person plus one, as part of a
perhaps a thirty strong crew. It’s a far cry from the days when documentary
shoots meant the DP and director travelled alone with a sound recordist and
maybe a cameras assistant filming subjects in situ and often on the hoof.
“The scale has changed. You can now be part of a sizeable crew in a
location that’s been scouted for tech reccies. I can have a real input
into the locations and plan the lighting and staging as we would for a
narrative feature, controlling the cinematic look. The budgets are not massive
but they are certainly a lot bigger and with that the storytelling opens up.”
Describing the documentary’s subjects as characters is a case in point.
“They are not acting,” he says, “but they are often placed in environments that
we feel are more suitable for the character. The camera and lighting is used to
create performance.”
In another era the budgets for docs were low which in part forced a run
and gun approach to filmmaking. Now, if the story demands a vérité style, the
production will design and plan for it.
“We’re finding that staging real people tends to not work so well in a
straight dialogue scene but tends to work best in a retrospective part of the
story, where we restage elements. We can present our character becoming more
reflective, tonal, moody. If our character is in an empty restaurant we start
the shot from a ceiling fan and crane down to that person looking reflective,
as one idea. It is very stylized in that way as opposed to ‘run and gun’. The
effect can actually be more real than a drama.”
Cine-style docs are proving hugely popular with audiences. Several of
the shows that Cragg has shot make the top ten of Netflix global charts.
“There are a lot of these projects bubbling away. I get offered 2-3 a
week, as do other DoPs. It’s a golden age.”
Feedback on Encounters has also been positive from
Spielberg himself. He reportedly watched all four episodes and loved the
Zimbabwe story in particular. Amblin Television creatives tell Cragg that they
are astounded about how the team has managed to achieve such a cinematic look
on a budget.
“This genre
is only just opening up for exploration,” he says.
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