MOVIES & MINISERIES Eric Van Haren Noman — Winner
What the Deaf Man HeardEric Van Haren Noman has earned two ASC Award nominations, recognizing his work on Lena: My Hundred Children (1988) and A Cry For Help: The Tracey Thurman Story (1989). He also received an Emmy for the ABC afternoon special Egyptian Weavers. Born in Holland, the cinematographer started out as a camera assistant in London — where he once worked for the late, great Stanley Cortez, ASC on The Bridge at Remagen — and subsequently became a camera operator before relocating to the United States. He earned his first Emmy nomination for the gripping footage of terrorist activities that he shot during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Van Haren Noman's extensive television credits include Robin Cook's Terminal, Out of Darkness, For the Love of Nancy, Lies He Told, A Mother's Prayer, Her Own Rule, An Unexpected Life, The Love Letter, Sky's On Fire and the pilot for Over My Dead Body. He has also photographed the features Inside Edge, Hero and the Terror and Playing for Keeps.
Directed by John Kent Harrison, What the Deaf Man Heard stars Matthew Modine as an orphaned young man who has convinced everyone in the small town of Barrington, Georgia, that he's a deaf mute — a ruse that allows him to become privy to almost everyone's secrets. The telefilm was the highest-rated movie on television last year, and the highest-rated Hallmark Hall of Fame Presentation in six years. More than 37 million people are estimated to have seen it.
"We had a fantastic crew in Wilmington," says Van Haren Noman. "Everything was shot at locations and on adapted sets. The look was often determined in part by the period, which stretched from the 1940s to the 1960s. The colors are more neutral in the earlier scenes, with no strong primary colors in the costumes or design. John and I went by our gut feelings. I just shot things the way I saw and felt them."
Alan Caso
George Wallace (Part I)Alan Caso won this year's ASC Award (see AC May '98) for his Emmy-nominated work on the TNT miniseries George Wallace, which chronicles the political flurry surrounding the controversial former governor of Alabama (played by Gary Sinise). Caso began his career as a gaffer, later becoming a camera/Steadicam operator and working with such luminaries as Jost Vacano, ASC, BVK, Chris Menges, BSC, Russell Carpenter, ASC and Bruce Surtees before making the move up to cinematographer on such projects as The Stepfather III, In the Midnight Hour, Summer of Fear, Tonya and Nancy and the television series Raven.
George Wallace was skillfully directed by John Frankenheimer, who also earned an Emmy nomination for his contribution to the program. Since the filmmakers were attempting to depict several decades in the politician's life, they chose to integrate actual archival footage — found on various film and video formats — throughout the film, and utilized both color and black-and-white stocks to aid in matching the various periods and textures. "We needed to find a way to match our footage with the archival material and have smooth transitions," Caso notes. "We wanted it to look like the kind of film that has been sitting on the shelf for a while. It had to have the look of film that has aged, yet still be visually palatable.
"As a former Steadicam operator, I always look for something more than just a camera sitting on a dolly for my A-camera," he adds. "I always use a jib arm for my regular A-camera work. For Wallace we also used the Steadicam — not just daily, but in a portion of every scene. That approach provided me with a fluidity and integration of style, which was a necessity on the film."
Ron Garcia, ASC
The Day Lincoln Was ShotRon Garcia earned a prior Emmy nomination in 1993 for the first segment of the miniseries Murder in the Heartland (see AC Oct. '93), which also received an ASC Award nomination. He has also earned ASC nominations in 1990 for the Twin Peaks pilot and again in 1995 for Divas, as well as a 1991 Cable ACE Award for the western El Diablo. Garcia's extensive television credits include Brave New World, Alien Nation: The Udara Legacy, If Looks Could Kill, Awake to Murder, L.A. Takedown, and the series EZ Streets. His feature credits include Storyville, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and Disorganized Crime.
Directed by John Gray, The Day Lincoln Was Shot chronicles the last day in the life of Abraham Lincoln (Lance Henriksen), and is told from the respective perspectives of both the President and his killer, John Wilkes Booth (Rob Morrow). "John's first impulse was to shoot the film in black-and-white," Garcia points out. "Of course, the networks still shy away from the use of black-and-white, but John had liked what I had done photographically on the miniseries Murder in the Heartland, which had a more muted gray palette. He therefore decided that he wanted a little more of a 'blue' look throughout the whole picture. I was a little weary of biasing the negative to a real chroma blue, so I told him we could add some blue in and then be able to push it forward or pull it back in the telecine. When we finally began timing the picture, the blue look slowly started to go away and we got back into some color saturation. The blue look was a bit too much and it definitely needed to have some life added back into it." The cameraman employed Fuji film stocks throughout the production.
Garcia's greatest challenge on the picture — other than transforming the 5' 6" Henriksen into the towering figure of Lincoln — was in re-creating the period lighting within the large-scale setting of the Ford Theater, where the President was shot. "The style I set out to achieve for Lincoln was to have the film feel as if it were entirely lamp-lit. I didn't want to glamorize the look with backlight and shafts of light here and there. People in those times lived just by lamps, so in my lighting design I basically tried to work with single sources and make everything look as natural as possible.
"Given that strategy, my biggest concern was how to light the [Ford Theater] stage in a way that was realistic to the period. Fortunately, production designer Roy Smith reminded me that in those days, they used acetylene lamps as footlights. That gave me the motivation to put six 2K Molettes in the cans at the front of the stage. My gaffer, Peter Clarson, was worried about the multiple shadows on the wall behind [the actors on stage] from all of the lamps, but I reasoned that if that was the way it was really done back then, I was going to go for reality.
"The theater also had a 60' ceiling, so it was physically and monetarily impossible to hang anything. I wound up using two of my 4K Airstar helium balloons for ambiance, as well as light motivated from the stage. Roy added a few [practical] gas lamps to the walls, and it all came together quite nicely."
Sergei Kozlov
MerlinRussian-born cinematographer Sergei Kozlov earned his first Emmy nomination with the miniseries Merlin. Kozlov graduated from Moscow's VGIK film school in 1989 and continued his studies at the Rockport Maine Film Workshops before starting his career by shooting music videos and commercials. His first feature, Children of Iron Gods, won him a 1993 Nika Award. The cameraman won the Nika again the following year for Kitia Ismailova, and was also nominated for Limita in that same year. Kozlov's other credits include Natasa, Music for December, Russian Ragtime and last year's miniseries The Odyssey, which earned Emmys for director Andrei Konchalovsky and special effects supervisor Mike McGee.
The NBC/Hallmark Entertainment miniseries Merlin was directed by Emmy nominee Steve Barron and features a stellar cast, including Sam Neill, Isabella Rossellini, Miranda Richardson, Helena Bonham Carter John Gielgud and James Earl Jones. Filmed in Wales and London's historic Pinewood Studios, Merlin uses the familiar myth of King Arthur as its backdrop while chronicling the life of the fabled wizard (played by Neill).
Gale Tattersall
From the Earth to the MoonHBO's epic space program represented Gale Tattersall's first foray into the televisual realm, and earned the British-born cinematographer his first Emmy Award nomination (see complete coverage of the miniseries in AC April '98).
Tattersall began his career by shooting documentaries and operating for such esteemed cinematographers as Philippe Rousselot, AFC, David Watkin, BSC, Michael Seresin, BSC and John Alcott. His other credits include the features The Commitments, Wild Orchid, Virtuosity, Hideaway and Tank Girl, as well as numerous commercials, including the recent Nike extravaganza "Airport '98" (AC Aug. '98), directed by John Woo.
From the Earth to the Moon garnered a total of 17 Emmy nominations. Tattersall's nominated segment, "Can We Do This?," was directed by executive producer Tom Hanks, who also received an Emmy nod.
William Wages, ASC
Buffalo SoldiersWilliam Wages earned this year's ASC Award in the MOW/Pilot category for the Turner Network Television production Buffalo Soldiers (see AC May '98), his second consecutive win after taking the Award in 1996 for Riders of the Purple Sage (which also earned Wages a Cable ACE Award). The cameraman previously earned four other ASC Award nominations, but Buffalo Soldiers marks the cameraman's first Emmy Award nomination.
The film was Wages' sixth collaboration with director Charles Haid, and began production just after the duo had completed Riders of the Purple Sage. Despite his ongoing association with Haid, the cameraman says that he always looks at the strength of a given script before deciding which projects he will shoot. "Or course, I was immediately interested in Buffalo Soldiers because Charlie and I have had such a long working relationship," Wages attests. "But what really attracted me to the project was the script. I thought it was an amazing story that was wonderfully written. When I found out that Danny Glover was starring in the film, there was no question that I was going to shoot it! I get offers to shoot feature films all the time, but one of the reasons I mainly shoot for television is that the stories are often better. I'd rather shoot a really good television movie than a mediocre feature. That may sound odd, but I'm not in this business for anything except the gratification of making good films. Charlie is the same way. As long as I'm making a living at it, I'm happy. You can't buy the fulfillment I get from that."
"I don't think a film like Buffalo Soldiers would have been made as a feature," he continues. "I don't think any studio would have backed it, because they probably wouldn't have felt that there was an audience for it. God bless TNT, because they'll spend the money to tell these stories. Riders of the Purple Sage is another example. Even with Ed Harris and Amy Madigan acting and producing that film, it wasn't considered feature material in today's Hollywood. But I think we made it as a feature film, just as I feel that Buffalo Soldiers is a feature. Both of them just happened to be shown on television."
[ Go To Sidebar: 1998 Emmy Engineering Awards ]