“We didn’t do any color filtration….”
Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael on shooting Ford v Ferrari
Ford v Ferrari: To get that golden look (without filters or visual effects), you have to shoot at the golden (or magic) hour
Avatar and Titanic director James Cameron once said that the problem with filmmaking is there is “never enough time or money.” While I was reading this morning about the making of Ford v Ferrari that Cameron quote popped into my mind.
When I lived in LA in the eighties there was a remote area just outside of the edges of the San Fernando Valley called Agua Dulce. Because it’s still in LA County (yet very unlike most of LA, movies like Blazing Saddles and 127 Hours were shot there. I did some rock climbing and photography there. Fast forward 30+ years and the surrounding area is no longer remote. That poses some challenges to those wanting to shoot there.
They filmed parts of Ford v Ferrari in what is known as the Antelope Valley at the Agua Dulce Airport near Lancaster/Rosamond/Palmdale, CA. An area now with a population of over 300,000 people.
“At Agua Dulce, because of noise restrictions, we could only shoot until 10 p.m. — and since it was late summer, we couldn’t start rolling on our night work until 8 p.m.. So each day we’d have a two-hour window to complete our night work.”
Phedon Papamichael
American Cinematographer
“Lap of Honor” by David Hearing
December 2019, pages 40-42
If a $100 million budget has limitations (or $200 million in Avatar‘s case) then the chances are pretty good that you will not have enough time or money on the productions you work on. So what do you do? You embrace your limitations. It’s one of my favorite concepts: Embrace your limitations.
So all those beautiful sunset shots you see in Ford v Ferrari were shot in just two hour chunks.
On the director’s commentary of Rain Man, Barry Levinson talks about how they only had a few hours to shoot the sequence where Tom Cruise teaches Dustin Hoffman how to dance in a high dollar hotel suite overlooking Las Vegas.
The DP for the Levinson directed The Natural (1984) was Caleb Deschanel. A film that had many exteriors filmed in the early morning or late afternoon hours when the sun is golden.
Decschanel also shot The Right Stuff which Papamichael said was an inspiration to him on Ford v Ferrari.
Another way of embracing you limitations is to know what you need to sell the shot. Years ago I shot an interview with a surfer in Atlantic Beach, FL. We were shooting an interior shot with the beach in the background. We had an HMI Joker light so we were able to not have the exterior background blowout. But it was a hazy day and small one-foot waves, so it was hard to tell we were at the beach. We embraced our limitations and simply propped up a colorful surfboard outside framing it behind her and it help sell that we were at the beach.
Screenwriting from Iowa 