Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
Sleepy Hollow
 Emmanuel
Lubezki's second Academy Award nomination comes for Sleepy Hollow,
Tim Burton's filmic adaptation of the Washington Irving's tale of the
headless horseman. Johnny Depp plays Ichabod Crane.
Lubezki and Burton designed a very stylized, pictorial look, which
they accomplished under tightly controlled conditions on studio soundstages
rather than locations. Older, low tech methods, such as painted backdrops
and in-camera effects, were used alongside the latest digital compositing
techniques.
"In a funny way, we were trying to make the movie almost look like an old movie, only using new technology," says Lubezki. "It doesn't actually look like an old movie, but it has all those techniques that old movies use, like the Hammer films. Even the camera movement is quite limited. The camera moves very little, only when we really need it to move with the horse or something like that. At the same time, we collaborated on some shots with Industrial Light & Magic, using the most advanced techniques. So somehow through that process, and the talents of a many people, the film became unique."
Lubezki was born in Mexico City and studied at the Mexican School of
Cinema at the University of Mexico. His first feature was called Bandidos.
In 1991, he worked with director Alphonso Arau on Like Water for
Chocolate. The cinematography of that film won a Silver Ariel,
the Mexican Academy Award, the first of three in a row for Lubezki.
The others came for Miroslava and Ambar. He also earned
an Oscar nomination for A Little Princess in 1995. His other
feature credits include Great Expectations, A Walk in the Clouds,
and The Birdcage.
|
