New one shot by me for Celia Rowlson-Hall
A GHOST STORY dir: David Lowery, cin: Andrew Droz Palermo
A look into our hospital room / morgue scene. We scouted this pretty heavily, and before landing on the second frame we tested staging the wide in a number of rooms and with different camera positions. I loved this room because of the different angles dividing the otherwise square space.
Some of my favorite looks from films I’ve shot come from pre-planned compositions like these. It doesn’t always work to be so well planned for every scene and situation, but for this film it was tremendously important because we knew we were going to hold our frames for a long time. Nothing seems out of place and the frame seems in harmony with the actors. Some simple production design changes by Jade Healy and Tom Walker really helped it sing. Shout out to Bret Curry, my gaffer, and a DP in his own right, for helping me try out literally every option on the overheads. I’m really happy we took the time to figure out what was best for us.
A GHOST STORY dir: David Lower cin: Andrew Droz Palermo
Now it’s time to talk about our main character, the Ghost, who is in nearly every scene. I remember seeing someone try on the costume in the production office, and I was really surprised at how striking and visually dominate he was, and for the same reason he was also was extremely difficult to shoot. If you didn’t give him enough space or account for him in a composition it’d really start to feel off balance. Occasionally we’d frame something up and the Ghost would just look too comical, which was okay for some scenes (the movie has a sense of humor, I think) but not for all, so it kept me constantly on my feet. That was true about the film in general - every day was full of new surprises and new ways to approach scenes. We started off with wide lock offs, moved to slider and dollies, then onto gimbal and Steadicam, and closed out with long zooms. I think it’s really lovely how it all came together and still feels like the same film.
Speaking of the costume, I have to applaud Annell Brodeur, the costume designer, who did a fantastic job creating the Ghost. She and Katie Dean, the key costumer, did a variety of things on set to maintain his look - from precise folding, to puppeteering, or whatever was necessary for the shot. It was not an easy job, and without their care we would have been in big trouble. It was really interesting to see how much the Ghost’s “expression” would change if the eyes were off level, or if the nose was pulled down slightly.
A GHOST STORY (2017) dir. David Lowery, cin. Andrew Droz Palermo.
Getting our Spielberg on with a wide-eyed kid seeing something his parents do not. Shout out to Joe Malina for a great job on the color and for going the extra mile on some post-Sundance touch-ups. 👻👻👻
A GHOST STORY dir: David Lowery cin: Andrew Droz Palermo
Wanted to share some more stills featured in the trailer. This is one of my favorite scenes from the film and also marks the first time I started feeling comfortable with the ratio, mainly because it was so well suited for singles. At first, David and I really had a hard time figuring out how to stage and compose our wide shots. Eventually we found our stride thanks to persistence, and also the luxury of reshooting a few things that just didn’t feel right. Another thing worth noting about this scene is that it was the first time I used our 50mm f/1, which I fell in love with. I started using it on all close-ups of Rooney. Although I was only operating on a 5 inch monitor I was so magnetized to her performance in this scene, she’s absolutely phenomenal.
Happy Together (1997) dir. by Wong Kar-wai
New York, c. 1950