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Allen Daviau:
Peter, I have always admired the choices you have made and the variety of films you have done over your career. It's interesting that you have The Empire Strikes Back on your resumé among these smaller, offbeat films.
Peter Suschitzky:
As you can imagine, it would have been easy for me to have done a lot of effects films after that. But after doing one big effects film, you don't want to rush right into another.
Daviau:
Absolutely. That kind of typecasting can happen very quickly to any cinematographer. After Fearless, I was offered every 'airplane in trouble' picture that went into production. Coincidentally, I was also up for an 'aftermath of a car crash' picture not long after that.
Fred Elmes:
But I'm sure the story for that film was nothing like what we saw tonight.
Daviau:
No, not at all. I really admire the fact that this picture is very stylized, but always within the realm of naturalism - it's not as 'out there' as highly-stylized piece like The Crow II. That's a very delicate thing you have done here.
Elmes:
I think the world that you and David [Cronenberg] created exists right there on the edge of reality, so to take it to another plane visually - say, to another level of color - would have been out of place.
Suschitzky:
I think so too. I think David feels that whatever subject he's dealing with is always so unusual that it's best to avoid getting too stylized. While we were doing Naked Lunch, I suggested that perhaps we should go Expressionistic in design, in light of the hallucinations and trips that the main character goes through. But David felt strongly that the picture should always be based in reality, and he was right. We had the same production designer on Crash as we did on Naked Lunch [Carol Spier], but we had such a small budget on this film- about $6 million - that it wasn't an issue. On Crash, we didn't build nearly as much as we did on Naked Lunch; instead of sets, we relied mostly on actual locations in Toronto.
Elmes:
But the stylized city you've created for the film within this real city is very elegant. It's very clean, and there's nothing superfluous - you see just the right parts, with the freeways in the background.
Daviau:
But there was some work done on stage - the apartment scenes, for instance?
Suschitzky:
Yes, throughout the film we have scenes in [the Ballards'] apartment, and that was a mixture of location and studio work. There is a sequence that takes place on their balcony overlooking a freeway. Well, everything looking out is, of course, a location, while the reverses were done in the studio. We actually had a hothead on location and for a moment I thought about just extending it out and getting the shots looking back in. Of course that would have been impossible since the interior of the location apartment didn't give us what we needed for the other scenes, so we built the interior elsewhere - which didn't match the location.
Daviau:
When you're matching stage lighting to what you've already shot, do you use something like a Moviola picture head with a piece of print to look at the master shot?
Suschitzky:
Yes, exactly, while we're on the stage. The gaffer also always keeps a diagram, which includes the gels we've used. But if a scene is played back for me, I can more or less re-create it. It's mostly in my head anyway, but replaying the scene on film can be a great help.
Elmes:
It's certainly better that the video version of that tactic - with a VHS tape standing in as a reference.
Daviau:
Has anyone tried to get you to do a feature film without film rushes?
Suschitzky:
Actually, that was the case on Crash. The budget was very tight and the production manager asked, 'Is it okay if we just use video dailies?' And I said, 'No, it's not. But I'll tell you what: you can keep me happy by showing me just one take of each setup.' That way we managed to save money.
Elmes:
I did that exact thing on an independent film I recently finished, The Empty Mirror. We'd print one selected take, screen it, and then take home a daily cassette at night to see what we had in the performances.
Daviau:
Well, what I wonder about with video dailies is, what are they going to do when it comes time to do a preview screening of the film if they have no work-print to put together and screen? The only option is to go back in and do a really terrible invasion of the negative�
Elmes:� and print additional take you haven't used in order to put something together to show people. It's a real problem. In addition, the printer lights on these various print runs will never be the same, so there is often a lot of mismatching even within very simply cut scenes.
Daviau:
Part of the cameraman's responsibility is to produce a good, representative cutting copy that can be shown to a preview audience. So the notion of video dailies is the biggest false economy in the world.
Elmes:
Technicolor in Los Angeles has a system by which you can track timing lights from your dailies all the way through to your answer print. That way, when you like the way the dailies looked, the key code is used to track the timing lights to your first answer print. You can also use that information for reprinting a scene if necessary.
Suschitzky:
Well, you'll notice too that due to the fact that video dailies must be transferred, you'll get your rushes much later in the day than you otherwise would.
Daviau:
And there are also cases where you have a director who doesn't come to projected rushes, and only sees the film on video, or on the Avid or Lightworks screen. Directors like that will have no idea what you're talking about, because they haven't really seen the same thing. There is no direct correlation between video and film. And with all due respect to the various charts that people have designed to deal with this problem, it still hasn't been solved.
Peter, you're based in London�
Suschitzky:
Yes, but I never work there - I haven't since 1984.
Daviau:
You don't bring a British crew with you when you shoot in Canada or in the U.S.?
Suschitzky:
I don't even try to. There are wonderful crews in both places, and I believe it creates some resentment if one brings people in from the outside. I'm enough already, and I feel privileged to be invited, but I think it's wrong to bring in an entire crew.
I often prefer to operate myself, especially on a film with the scale of Crash. I feel closer to the movie if I'm looking through the camera, as if I am the first audience to see the movie. I can see my mistakes much more quickly! On this last picture [Mars Attacks!], we were dealing with an extremely large production, and I was lucky enough to work with one of the best operators around, Ray de la Motte. But I do get more of a kick out of it if I'm looking through the camera.
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