Camera technique and DP Danny Cohen

[pok3d]

Hi all,

I recently picked up TIE here in Canada and really love it. It's one of the very best coming of age films, and a great view onto youth culture that does not flatten it out. Congratulations on the award. It's well deserved.

I've found the camera work on TIE very inspiring. I'm not an expert on such things, but it seems to me to be hovering somewhere between the hand-held direct cinema of the 60's and 70's, and a more classical cinema approach of static shots (in Shawn's home, say). Apparently some 16mm cameras were in use here, as the website shows.

I'm just wondering how much of this was the doing of Danny Cohen? (And why in God's name is he listed as aka Gonzalo Fernández Berridi?)

How was it possible to get the very fresh, almost documentary realism at times --let's say particularly in the scene involving Combo and Milky at the end of the film (amazing performance!)-- in such small spaces: did you use multiple cameras to capture one take with multiple angles, or multiple takes with a single small camera?

Thanks for any information you may have.

pok3d

[Kezz]

Great post.

In all honesty I'm surprised Danny Cohen hasn't had more praise than what he has already, I completely agree and think he caputured a lot of the images beautifully. He shows a real intellegence with his camera work. Plus he's a fuckin cool chilled out guy too!

[PatrickCoyle]

I've wondered this as well. It seemed (from the DVD extras) that Shane would work out the action of the scene with the actors, then bring Danny in to help sort out how to shoot it. Was that how it was done?

[pok3d]

Thanks for the replies, guys. A special shout out to you Kieran.

I returned to the DVD (region 1) and watched the scene involving Combo and Milky at the end again in detail. I took screen caps at every edit point. There were about 180-190 edits. And a lot of it has obviously stable camera work, with composed shots. This means it's definitely not direct-cinema stuff. But looking closely, especially towards the end of the scene, I noticed much more fluidity in the camerawork. Was it stylistic or due to the camera having to track a performance that is "going out of control."

I noticed this combination of a shoulder-mounted realism of the camera work, and more stable, more classic stuff in the scene where Combo's squad goes to hear Larry's white nationalist speech. The camera on Larry is still and composed. The camera shooting towards the boys in the back is shoulder-mounted, and more shakey.

Back to the Combo-Milky scene, near the end the camera moves around the room much more freely. I tried to think about how the shot was lit --knowing little about lighting, mind you-- and I got the impression that much of the room was lit by the fixtures already in the room, particularly a strong overhead lamp, and a tri-lamp on the television set. I've heard of 250w-500w "practicals" being used in place of 100w bulbs in normal light fixtures, and wonder if this was the case here. Additional lights may have come from behind the camera, but the shadows suggested to me very minimal lighting, with strong double shadows cast on the back walls behind the boys.

On the DVD commentary, Shane Meadows mentions that they used two cameras in the room in order to get more coverage. I assume one camera was setup as a primary, and the other floated around to capture anything else interesting going on, with an eye to cutting to reaction shots and what not.

Kieran, I may as well just ask you: what was the setup in Comboès placeÉ

[RydCook]

Agreed, I think Danny Cohen's cinematography is superb. I'd like some info as to how this scene was shot as well?

[Gareth]

yeah Danny Cohens my favorite cinematographer, everything just seems so down to earth and real, it almost looks effortless but it's obviously far from it!