One of the best cinematographers in the world isRoger Deakins. If you look over hisamazing resume, you’ll see he’s shot so many memorable films, you’d be hard pressed to have not seen at least a few of them. Some of the standouts includeThe Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,No Country for Old Men,The Big Lebowski,The Shawshank Redemption,Prisoners,Skyfall,Fargo,Unbroken, andTrue Grit. With Deakins having shotDenis Villeneuve’s fantastic new drug war thrillerSicario, which is now playing in limited release (read Adam’s review here) and starsEmily Blunt,Benicio Del Toro, andJosh Brolin, I got to speak with him at the Toronto International Film Festival.
During the interview he talked about how much of his work is careful planning and how much is improvisation on set, the differences between working with a filmmaker likeSam Mendesand theCoen Brothers, some of the toughest shots of his career, the experience of makingSicarioand how he approached the thermal imaging sequence, getting into sci-fi withBlade Runner 2, and so much more. If you’re a fan of this amazing artist I think you’ll enjoy what he had to say.
But one last thing before getting to the interview. When I sat down to talk to him, I started setting up my camera and noticed the light wasn’t great in the room. I tried to adjust the lamp to his left and realized it didn’t help fix the situation. As I sat down it hit me who I was in the room with and immediately apologized for attempting to fix the lights. I then showed Deakins the frame and said, “Do you have any ideas?” He immediately shut off the light to his left, slightly adjusted the lamp to his right, and then sat down and we started recording. While I get to speak with a lot of huge stars in Hollywood, getting to watch Roger Deakins set up the shot for our interview might go down as my personal highlight of 2015. Actually, who am I kidding, it’s the highlight of this decade. I can’t believe that actually happened.
Here’s the interview followed by the time index.
Roger Deakins Time Index:
