September / 2009

Industry News

An Evening with Stephen Goldblatt ASC, BSC at Deluxe Vancouver

Gregory Middleton csc with Stephen Goldblatt asc, bsc. Photo credit: Katie Yu

The movie about to be screened "is not exactly a pleasant picture," DOP Stephen Goldblatt asc, bsc told a group of filmmakers at Deluxe Vancouver on July 19. Director Mike Nichols's gritty 2004 romance drama Closer was the second feature in Deluxe's Cinematographer Screening Series. Goldblatt said he tried to make the film, about love and deceit, look real, with minimal lighting.

The inaugural film in the series, shown at Deluxe Vancouver's theatre in May with DOP John Bailey asc on hand for discussion, was Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, a Grand Jury Prize nominee at the 2009 Sundance film festival. It was directed by first-timer John Krasinski.

In introducing Closer, Goldblatt said it was "made quite quickly, about 43 days, and for comparatively little money, about $28 million, which for this cast is nothing. It was made by a wonderful director, Mike Nichols. The film was preceded in New York by three weeks of rehearsals, which is very unusual, and I was not only invited to attend, I was expected to attend. These rehearsals with Mike were so interesting because you really see how performance develops, and just watching and being involved helped me work."

He added that everyone then dispersed and met again to begin shooting about a month to six weeks later. He said Nichols called it "'a period of fermentation.'"

Talking with Q&A host Greg Middleton csc after the screening, Goldblatt emphasized that on this picture, and others he has shot, he often found that less is more."When you get an idea (for a shot) … the thing you can really do very easily is to destroy it by lighting it. Just stick with the idea and trust that the film will have the latitude to hold it, and it does. Every time I don't trust the film, I blow it. If I just leave it alone it'll be great."

Variety wrote that Closer, starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen, softened the caustic wit and brute force of Patrick Marber's play (Marber also wrote the screenplay). "The pic's one-dimensionality is paradoxically exposed by the medium's inherent realism, with its close-ups and real locations."

Goldblatt was born in South Africa but raised and educated in England. He attended art school and an art film college before he joined the Times Newspaper Group as a still photographer. His early motion picture film work included both 16mm documentaries and television commercials. His first feature as DOP was Breaking Glass in 1980.

Since then, his impressive list of credits has included two Oscar nominations, for The Prince of Tides in 1992 and Batman Forever in 1996, for which he was also nominated for ASC awards. He received ASC and Emmy Award nominations for the television series Angels in America in 2004 and there were also Emmy nominations for Conspiracy in 2001 and Path to War in 2002. He was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by Camerimage in 2007.

Goldblatt was in Vancouver shooting Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Earlier this summer, Julie& Julia, on which he was DOP, was released. Suzanne Thompson, director of sales and marketing at Deluxe Vancouver, told Canadian Cinematographer that "we decided that since we have so many Canadian and international cinematographers working in the Vancouver area, (a series of screenings with guest DOPs) would be a great opportunity to create an event that would include our filmmaking community - to connect, watch a film, discuss the approach taken from the cinematographer's point of view and allow for a great social function."

In May, Deluxe Vancouver invited Bailey (Groundhog Day, He's Just Not That in to You) to host the first of its Cinematographers' Screening Series. "Deluxe had previously worked very closely with the DOP, in feature films and television," said Thompson. "Many of us are working hard on projects, and don't have a lot of opportunities to connect with our fellow filmmakers. If there was any appropriate way for Deluxe Vancouver to lead in our local community, this one definitely has been received in a very positive way.

"IATSE 669, DGC, CSC, MPPIA and Women in Film & Video Vancouver all assisted in getting the invitations out to their respective memberships …and the 150-seat theatre was full. We have had positive feedback from the DOPs, directors and others who attended."

Louise Baker-Griffiths of IA669 said, "Deluxe is offering such a significant and rare opportunity to the Vancouver film community in hosting this series. To hear people like Stephen Goldblatt and John Bailey discuss their work is an invaluable experience."

Deluxe will be sponsoring these events in their other North American locations (Toronto, New York and Los Angeles). At press time, the post-production company was aiming for the next one in Toronto in late August, with DOP Bill Pope asc (The Matrix and sequels; Spider-Man 2 & 3).Deluxe plans to make video of the events viewable on the Deluxe website.

Sheridan College's Digital Media Centre for Real-Time Production

The Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, located in Oakville, Ontario, has been awarded a $2.3-million grant from the Natural Sciences and Enginerring Research Council to establish a new research centre for screen-based industries. The Digital Media Centre for Real-Time Production will be located at the Pinewood Toronto Studios (formerly Filmport) and serve as a research and development hub for the investigation of collaborative digital media practices.

In addition to its research focus, the Digital Media Centre will also house an educational component. The Centre's educational programming will serve as the outreach arm of the research and technology activities but will also build on the extensive industry educational and training programs already established by Sheridan Institute's post-graduate program in Advanced Television and Film. The Centre will facilitate world-class research on digital imaging technologies serving the screen-based industries.

Partnerships have already been established with individual companies and industry associations including the Canadian Society of Cinematographers, Side Effects Software, C.O.R.E. Digital, Panavision Canada, Autodesk Media and Entertainment, Directors Guild of Canada Ontario and FilmOntario. The Centre will help establish a technology clubhouse and resource for the unions, guilds and associations that can ensure that members are state of the art in their knowledge of digital-imaging technologies.

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