Cinematographer Reveals What It Was Life Filming Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE
Terrence Mallick is one of the most enigmatic directors who focuses more on quality than quantitiy when it comes to the visually stunning films he directs.
He had the following to say to the LA Times, “Once you think you got the formula, you realized there is no formula. It’s like no set I ever worked on.”
A process know as “coverage”, where multiple cameras are strategically placed to capture all aspects of a scene. As you might have guessed by now, Tree of Life went agains the norm.
Lubezki went on to say:
“So the actors are performing the dialogue, but Terry isn’t interested in dialogue. So they’re talking, and we’re shooting a reflection or we’re shooting the wind or we’re shooting the frame of the window, and then we finally pan to them when they finish the dialogue.”
“Photography is not used to illustrate dialogue or a performance. We’re using it to capture emotion so that the movie is very experiential. It’s meant to trigger tons of memories, like a scent or a perfume.”
“I think they thought we were insane. Sean is a director, and I’m sure he wondered ‘Is this method something I want to learn or is it something I never want to repeat?’ For Brad I think it took him a couple of days or a week to get into the spirit.”
Check out the trailer HERE if you have yet to see it!
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