Cinematographers are guiding forces behind the camera that help directors achieve the aesthetic and vision for the films. They don’t always get the recognition they deserve, but they are a crucial part of any production. However, everyone has their limits, and in a new, one-hour roundtable talk with THR, Robert Richardson, the cinematographer for Quentin Tarantino‘s "The Hateful Eight" explains why he removed his credit from the Brad Pitt zombie debacle "World War Z."
"I took my name off ‘World War Z.’ It was a digital show. We worked very hard coming up with lookup tables [a digital roadmap]. They were pretty radical, but they were a look the studio had agreed upon. There was no disagreement with the studio, nor the director. Then they dropped it all," Richardson said. "They chose their own lookup tables. And a little later, they decided they were going to release it in 3D. I felt I was at a point in my life where: ‘OK, you have to take some strength for all of us that can’t. So Paramount‘s going to be angry with me. It’s going to result in conflict.’ And I said I was willing to take that conflict on, because no one’s protecting us. If the studio has a right to change your things, you hope to have some artistic position to battle them."
Bob Seresin ("Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," "Unstoppable") wound up with the cinematography credit on the film, and as for Richardson’s relationship with the studio? "I haven’t seen Paramount send me one script for a few years."
That story and much more can be found in the talk below which includes Alwin Kuchler ("Steve Jobs"), Danny Cohen ("The Danish Girl," "Room"), Linus Sandgren ("Joy"), Masanobu Takayanagi ("Black Mass," "Spotlight") and Mandy Walker ("Truth").
It\’s Ben Seresin
Ok, cool. Thanks!
He\’s talking about LUTs. The DP, director and studio agreed upon what the final look of the film would be and this agreed upon look was codified in a LUT. Since video looks different on different types of monitors and post software, the LUT ensures that the video will look consistent regardless of how it is being viewed. When the studio began changing the LUT they changed the look of the final film without consulting the DP, which is not just rude but insane when you\’re paying top dollar for an esteemed master like Richardson.
This is the equivalent of a studio editing a film against the director\’s intentions, only in this case the altered the look of the film against the cinematographer\’s intentions.
Literally nothing in this article makes sense. What is he even talking about? A digital roadmap. What the sweet heck is one of those?