The 2024 Oscars are approaching and for all film and photography enthusiasts, we had fun doing a technical analysis of the 5 films nominated for the Best Cinematography category, are you ready to discover the wonderful photography department behind these Oscar films?
Cinema is that wonderful art that brings many together at the same time and for those who are passionate about photography, in every film there is a world called direction of photography and it is what, together with many other technical sectors, makes us dream and excite. In the past, we have already united cinema and photography by talking about the direction of photography in great films and now we want to do it for the 2024 Oscars with the 5 films nominated for the Best Cinematography category.
Best cinematography: the 5 films nominated for the 2024 Oscars | El Conde
A film with cinematography that certainly catches the eye is El Conde, a dark horror comedy directed by Pablo Larraín and directed by Edward Lachman. Here the photography department focuses entirely on black and white with a very specific choice that celebrates the films of the past and at the same time creates a dark and ghostly atmosphere, playing with lights and shadows, colors and contrasts.
From a technical point of view, the director together with the director of photography Edward Lachman play on the close-ups of the main characters, using lenses that when very close create a slight optical distortion as happens when using the wide angle for portraits. These alternate rather quickly, of the fields, large enough to show the characters in their entirety and above all in their reference environment. This play of alternations is highly effective and very much in line with the film and its taste for comedy. For those who want to watch El Conde, it is available on Netflix for all subscribers to the platform.
Best cinematography: the 5 films nominated for the 2024 Oscars | Killers of the Flower Moon
Killers of the Flower Moon needs very little introduction, directed by Martin Scorsese who also made a collection of nominations for the 2024 Oscars with this film. Here, the story of Rodrigo Prieto, director of photography of this film, is very curious , the reason? Because Rodrigo Pietro is a director of photography in great demand in Hollywood, so much so that at the end of Killers of the Flower Moon he moved on to work on the Barbie film. Two very different films not only in the script, but in the photography: specifically for Killers of the Flower Moon, they were mainly used the Arrican LT and ST 35 mm cameras and a Sony CineAlta Venice for digital scenes.
Rodrigo Pietro studied photography that would differentiate the scenes of everyday life in the Osage from those with William King Hale played by Robert De Niro. These with Rober De Niro were worked in post production with the Lut Autochrome, i.e. the one patented by the Lumière brothers in 1907: it is an additive synthesis which adds positive transparency to a scene with the use of glass. In post production software, “lut” refers to those “presets” which contain instructions on how to transform the tone and color of a scene.
For the scenes in the Osage there is a photograph that greatly promotes the connection of that community with nature. The artistic director studied the positions of the sun for a long time during the day and made sure that the prayers took place at dawn with the sun in the background, to emphasize the naturalistic aspect of this type of photography and the unique it was created with the inhabitants of the Osage.
Best cinematography: the 5 films nominated for the 2024 Oscars | Maestro
Maestro, the film centered on the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein sees Bradley Cooper both director and protagonist, after Steven Spielberg, initially director of this film which began five years before its release, left the project to concentrate on the remake of West Side Story. After having Spielbgerg’s blessing to direct, Bradley Cooper began his work with Matthew Libatique, director of photography.
From a technical point of view, they wanted the film to include some scenes in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which takes us back to the cinema of the early years and which causes some parts of the protagonist’s body to be cut off. This is to increase the protagonist’s relationship with destiny and accentuate his push upwards and beyond.
The delay in production due to the pandemic made it possible to recover the equipment suitable for the direction style that Bradley Cooper wanted to give, or one Panavision Millennium on 35mm film. The objective was to recreate a vintage grain, of period films, but which is not easy digitally, for this reason, we resorted to old incandescent lamps, recovered from the closets of old rented housesto ensure that they had a certain light impact on the film.
A truly remarkable work that is noticeable in this film, with its contrast between black and white, colors and two different shooting formatswhich accentuate the intensity especially in key scenes.
Best cinematography: the 5 films nominated for the 2024 Oscars | Oppenheimer
Among the candidates is also Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which is also one of the favorite films to win most of the statuettes at the next Oscar night. Here, the director of photography is Hoyte van Hoytemak, who has already worked with the director in the past, Interstellar, Dunkirk, to name a few great examples and who is becoming increasingly expert in the IMAX technology with which this film was shot.
The segments they use are added to the IMAX shots a particular KODAK 65mm black and white film created specifically for IMAX cameras and used for the first time in this film. Hoyte van Hoytemak wanted to limit the use of digital special effects as much as possible, therefore focusing on the shots was also valid for the explosion of the atomic bomb. This effect was achieved thanks to several scientific experiments that were done by the production, creating different aquariums with moving silver particles and doing live filming, and then work on them, only later, in post production with special effects.
In addition to this aspect which was not easy to achieve, the film still focuses on the personal life of the protagonist and therefore it also allowed a trip to many cities in the world and in Europe which are rendered very well in photography precisely from the point of view of fields and atmospheres. These fields alternate close-up shots of the protagonist, to accentuate his psychology and his state of mind, in the perfect directorial style of Christopher Nolan.
Best cinematography: the 5 films nominated for the 2024 Oscars | Poor creatures!
The last film we deal with from the point of view of his photography is Poor Creatures! a great success with audiences and critics, starring Emma Stone. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, the cinematography is entrusted to Robbie Ryan and together, they created a very rich film from a photographic point of view. First of all, the film plays on the contrast between colors and a textured black and white, which is reminiscent of period films. And the transition to color really emphasizes the change in the pace of the film, which to emphasize precisely this explosion of colors and intensity was shot entirely on film, with 30% with 35 mm Ektachrome film, also Kodak.
This is one of those films in which the direction of photography is fundamental to following the rhythm of the screenplay, his journey in discovering the world and all its intensity. It can therefore be said that here, photography is one of the protagonists of the film and which makes it even more fairy-tale and magical.
Conclusions
Our look at the films nominated in the Best Cinematography section at the 2024 Oscars ends here, being able to say that whatever happens they have all given us, from an aesthetic and technical point of view, truly interesting and unique products for how they were conceived and studied. Now we just have to wait for Oscar Night 2024 and find out who the winner of this category will be.