British Cinematographer
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Sprawling
epic Shōgun
allowed cinematographer Christopher Ross BSC to craft a rich tapestry of 17th-century
feudal Japan.
An English pirate is shipwrecked on the shores of
feudal Japan and uses the local political system to ingratiate himself in a
game of thrones among warlords competing to be top dog (or shogun). Ultimately,
everyone just wants to survive.
The 1980 NBC series starring Richard Chamberlain,
based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel, was one of the first international TV
experiences, a global hit that spawned miniseries like The Thorn Birds and North and South and a trend that continues to this
day.
“The original series was very much a white saviour
story,” says Christopher Ross BSC. “Showrunner Justin Marks was very much of
the opinion that the lens should be flipped and that the civilised Japanese
feudal structure should look on this primitive pirate washed up on their shore
as a savage. Our telling would be a Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness story.”
At the same time, Marks wanted to adhere to the
narrative concepts of the traditional Japanese Jidaigeki (the Samurai genre
made most famous by Akira Kurosawa). “The western equivalent to the vocabulary
of the Jidaigeki film is expressed in Jacobean tragedy,” says Ross, who boarded
the project to work with director Jonathan van Tulleken and film the pilot for
Disney brand FX.
Van Tulleken and Ross met in 2009 on Channel 4
show Misfits and continued their relationship on
episodes of Top Boy (2013) and Trust (2018).
“We talked a lot about the form of the traditional
Jidaigeki film, such as the use of long focal lengths and low camera positions,
and an eclectic mix of cultural references but the one thing we came back to
time and time again was that we wanted the story to feel very present, very
first person and visceral,” Ross explains.
Episode one introduces the principal characters
Blackthorne, also known as Anjin-san (Cosmo Jarvis), Mariko (Anna Sawai) and
Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada). “One of the things we wanted was to create a
first-person perspective in each of their worlds so you are very rooted with
each of them,” he says.
“We also wanted the camera to be enigmatic and for
the imagery to be leading the audience down a series of blind tunnels so they
use their imagination to fill in the gaps.”
Macbeth (2015), Apocalypse Now, The Revenant and The Assassination of Jesse James were
referenced for depictions of the integral relationship between nature and human
protagonists.
“When creating any period drama it is really
important to me that you bury the characters in the imagery so that it feels
like they created the universe, rather than looking as if you created an
aesthetic that sits on top of the imagery.”
Immersive worlds
Ross was aided by production designer Helen Jarvis
who had built scale models of all the sets based on concept art that was itself
the product of research. Landing in Vancouver for ten
weeks of prep in autumn 2021, Ross used those to model how light would bounce
around inside the sets. Historians were able to advise him on the sort of
lanterns and night lights used in the late 16th century.
He was struck by how traditional Japanese
architecture framed its buildings with walkways, porches or verandas
called engawa, the rooflines of which are designed to block
direct sunlight from hitting the walls of a room and fading the colour of its
fabrics.
“What I took from a light study of these spaces is
that the rooms are generally lit by a soft light from the sky, if anything a
sun that skims low off the decking off the engawa itself,”
Ross says.
“I also noted the way the wood panelling of the
walls leads into the wood panels of the ceilings. The ceilings are dark wood
and the flooring is covered with beautiful bamboo and cotton tatami mats. This
means you must invert the western lighting protocol by having light bounce from
the floor while the wraparound shadow reflecting skin tones comes from the
ceiling.”
This knowledge guided Ross in lighting the two
sound stages at Mammoth Studios, Vancouver. Locations in Japan were scouted but
found to have little in common with the wooden building and wilderness of Shōgun’s setting.
“The main reason we didn’t consider shooting a
volume was the scale,” he says. “The set stages are about half the size of a
standard football pitch.” One stage contained the primary set for Osaka palace
and its elaborate garden (built inside so production could manage the
inconsistent local weather for the shooting schedule which began in September
and ended the following summer). The other stage housed the vast ceremonial
meeting hall seen in the opening episode and another series of gardens.
Additional spaces were used for sets of the Catholic mission and the prison. A
set of Osaka fortress was built on a backlot. Other locations included for the
opening shipwreck at Ucluelet on Vancouver Island and at Rocky Point in nearby
Port Moody.
“We worked hard to create a very natural atmosphere
for the exterior scenes on the soundstage. It’s quite a challenge. When you
inhibit the distance that light can travel, the light sources become much more
apparent. Additionally, there is very little sunshine in Shōgun. It’s only in a few scenes. There’s a dominant
soft sunlight that is utilised as a backlight for most of the garden scenes and
interiors.”
The solution was to construct a system of “punchy”
softboxes. Normally you’d select a SkyPanel or Vortex to create a softbox
(which Ross did to create a skylight in one interior) but for the illumination
he wanted the softboxes that had to “punch” into the spaces. With gaffer David
Tickell, Ross employed Studio Force LED units in 20ft by 10ft banks with motors
to move position on both stages.
“That was the key to lighting of the show,” Ross
says. “The use of those mobile softboxes and a sort of permanently
three-quarter soft-sun approach to lighting.”
Anamorphic experiments
The DP appreciated the flexibility of the Sony
Venice, having just used it to photograph The Swimmers for
director Sally El Hosaini, but says he is camera and lens agnostic.
“On each project I like to rediscover the process
all over again. We shot a lot of lens tests for Shōgun to
find this visceral, first-person look.”
He experimented with anamorphic lenses (which
Kurasawa first used in his work on 1958’s Hidden Fortress),
noting the differences of stigmatism in the defocus zones.
“Each set of anamorphic blur backgrounds in a more
horizontal than vertical direction to create an impressionistic feel,” he says.
He and van Tulleken found the best match in the Hawk class-X range, which they
felt sat halfway between the Hawk Lite and Vintage in terms of flare and
defocus: “We both fell in love with the incredible close focus and intimacy you
can get with the class-X.”
The choice of anamorphic lens naturally led to a
conversation with FX about aspect ratio but the broadcaster was not keen on
2.35 or 2.39, so they settled on a 2.1 aspect ratio, which, “combined with
anamorphic and 4K finish, led us to creature a unique resolution frame line on
the Venice,” Ross says.
Another key to the show look was “to feel a
granularity and rawness of the image” by applying texture from LiveGrain
on-set, tweaked in post. With colourist Élodie Ichter (at Picture Shop) they
conjured the magic formula based on Eastman Colour Negative 100T stock used to
shoot Taxi Driver.
Further costume and set tests in pre-production
helped refine their judgement. Indeed, the harmonious cooperation of HoDs in
what was a pandemic-delayed and then extended prep gave Ross among his best
experiences of filmmaking yet. The results can be seen on screen, since the
storytelling is coherent, considered and compelling.
“Once the HoDs have created as much of the on-set
mood and environment as possible then hopefully that filters down and ideally
makes everyone’s lives easier.”
After shooting episodes one and two pretty
sequentially, Ross handed over to Sam McCurdy ASC BSC, Marc Laliberté CSC and
Aril Wretblad FSF.
McCurdy was still in Vancouver shooting Peacemaker
when Shōgun came to town, so had time to prep with Ross
and director Van Tulleken. “It was great because we all got to share those
initial ideas and concepts,” the DP recalls. “Everyone spoke about authenticity
and this was something that we all knew was important to get across.”
McCurdy collaborated with director and friend Fred
Toye on episodes four and five. Having worked together a number of times
previously, they already had an established shorthand which made prep easy.
Shooting mostly through the winter of 2021-22, they decided early on to use the
weather as a key character in the story. “Trying to utilise snow and inclement
weather [forced] us to use colours and tones that we thought suited our
stories. The cold blues of the Pacific North West would become a key guide to
our palette.”
He admits with a smile that the challenges of the
shoot were often self-imposed: “Shooting in snow and rain to keep texture and
character in the story was pivotal for us, but it came with its downside. We
utilised cranes on 4×4 tracking vehicles to ensure we moved around quickly and
this became our main shooting tool for the show in the end.”
McCurdy enjoyed “every second” of the shoot, but
one of his favourite scenes to capture was the arrival of Lady Ochiba (Fumi
Nikaido) in episode nine. “We shot exterior night (but on stage with rain) and
the whole of the castle gardens were dark other than moonlight and torchlight,”
he recalls. “We walked the actress down a darkened porchway to the castle
entrance and to see the silhouette of the actress in her costume was something
quite special; it felt like a powerful and yet beautiful introduction to her
character.”
Cablecam capture
Aside from a mood reel, set plans and look book
Ross shared with the other DPs an app detailing the lighting, gripping and
camera operating plans for every scene.
“As each DP watches rushes that we photographed
they can see what devices we are using,” says Ross. These included lots of
Steadicam, cranes, some drones and the occasional cablecam.
A bespoke cablecam rig was built by senior SFX
Brandon Allen for an establishing shot of Osaka which closes episode one. Ross
explains, “We wanted to establish Osaka in a very characterful way. The idea
was to start the shot on a VFX drone that sails past a shipwrecked vessel with
Osaka harbour in the distance, then segue to a cablecam as we fly in over the
water and over the heads of fishermen and alongside Blackthorne on a boat being
escorted to prison. The camera slips alongside jetty with them and spins and
holds on Blackthorne in close up.”
In the final edit this sequence has been cut but
Ross’ mission remains intact. “We wanted the audience to go along on this
journey which is unfolding in front of their eyes.”
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