Laszlo Kovacs, ASC, Speaks

A Conversation with the Director of Photography About His Illustrious Career, How He Got His Start and His Latest Movie

By Bob Fisher

Laszlo Kovacs, ASC, was born and raised in a small farming village in Hungary about 60 miles from Budapest. During the Nazi occupation of Hungary, his mother was friendly with a woman who ran a weekend cinema in the village. The cinema only showed propaganda films from Germany. The 16 mm film was projected on a sheet that hung in a school auditorium. Kovacs was 11 years old, when he volunteered to distribute flyers advertising new films to shopkeepers, and he also hung them on phone poles. In return, he was given a front row seat. The films were a magical escape from reality.

In 1945, the Russians replaced the Nazis, and after that most of the films shown at the village cinema came from communist countries.

His parents were farmers. They sent him to school in Budapest at the age of 16 hoping he would become a doctor or engineer. Kovacs often skipped math and science classes, preferring to spend his days at a local cinema. He heard about the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest and was accepted in that program in 1952. There were American films in the archives and students were allowed to watch them on Saturdays. He still recalls the thrill of sitting on the floor of a jam-packed screening room watching Citizen Kane.  

“It had a stunning affect on everyone, especially the lighting by Gregg Toland,” he says. “It changed my visual vocabulary.” 

Fate intervened in 1956, when there was a spontaneous uprising that threatened to topple the communist regime. Kovacs met Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, on a street corner, and together they watch the events unfold. Zsigmond had recently graduated from the film school. They decided it was important to record those historic events for posterity, and liberated a camera and film from the university. The revolt failed when Russian troops and tanks surged into Budapest and crushed the dissidents. Kovacs and Zsigmond left the country carrying some 30,000 feet of documentary film. 

Kovacs subsequently shot such films as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, Shampoo, Slither, Paper Moon, New York, New York, What’s Up Doc?, The Runner Stumbles, Ghostbusters, Mask, Copycat and My Best Friend’s Wedding. Last year Kovacs received The CamerImage Lifetime Achievement award in Poland. The following conversation with Kovacs fills in some of the blank spaces in his career, and also describes his most current film, Return to Me.

INTERNATIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY GUILD: Weren’t you and Vilmos nearly captured when you left Hungary in 1956?  

KOVACS: We ran into a Russian army unit in a village near the border, so we hid the film in a cornfield and walked into the village pretending to be locals. The Russians had us against a wall with our arms raised. They were questioning and searching us and some other people. That’s when I remembered that I had hidden some black and white negatives that I also took during the revolution in the leg of my ski pants. I had eight to 10 roles of black and white film hidden. Vilmos was standing on my right side and I whispered that I had the film. We didn’t know what to do. This officer who was searching us looked right into my eyes, and then he started searching me. He stopped at my knees and just looked at me. That’s how close we came to being discovered. Later that night we picked up the rest of the film that we had hidden in the cornfield and crossed the border into Austria.  

ICG: How did you get to come to the United States? 

KOVACS: Different countries set up quotas for political refugees. The United States said they would take 60,000 political refugees. We had plans to go to Hollywood. We saw pictures of a station wagon and thought it would be a great production car. We had a definite plan to get some equipment and a car and rent ourselves out to producers.

1969 – Easy Rider. Laszlo Kovacs and Dennis Hopper.

1973 – Paper Moon. Tatum O’Neal is getting a ride.

1994 – Free Willy 2. Teaching the new generation, Julianna Kovacs and dad.

1996 – My Best Friends Wedding. Kovacs with Dermot Mulrony.

ICG: But, first you made one trip back into Hungary. Why?

KOVACS: Vilmos and I had girlfriends who were supposed to meet us in Vienna. We checked every morning with the Red Cross for new arrivals. One night, I told Vilmos I was going back to Hungary to get the girls out. It was December 6th or 7th in 1956. Vilmos was going to meet us in a little Austrian village on the other side of the border exactly a week from the day I left. I found out from my girlfriend’s mother that she was already in Vienna. Vilmos’ girlfriend lived in a beautiful old medieval town that had a theater where she performed. I hired a cab. It was a three or four-hour drive and he wasn’t anxious to go because things were still very bad, but I had a pocketful of Hungarian money, so he finally agreed. I found Vilmos’ girlfriend. Her name was Elizabeth.

We went back to Budapest to get Vilmos’ Uncle John, who was like 76 years old. There was another old man, Uncle Gustav, who came with us. We waited until about 11 o’clock at night until everything was quiet. Then, we headed for the border. You could see the gleam of the sky from this little Austrian village. It was very quiet. I remember seeing a faint little light from the church in a cemetery on the border. We headed that way. When we got close to the cemetery, I told everyone to begin crawling very quietly. Uncle John had a little knapsack on his back, and it was making a loud clanking noise. He was carrying candelabra and some silver wrapped in newspaper. Suddenly a flashlight goes on and two Hungarian border guards are telling us to stand up. Elizabeth, Uncle John and Uncle Gustav were crying, and a guard was telling us we were breaking the law.  

We knew they could shoot us right there and nobody would care. Uncle Gustav started explaining that he was going to find his son and bring him back. He showed them his watch, but they weren’t interested. So, he reached into his pocket and took out some money. He said it was his life’s savings. One of the guards took the money and told us to go. We were less than 50 yards from the cemetery. We started walking in that direction. It was very quiet. I can still close my eyes and see the rusted barbed wire at the entrance of the cemetery. As we stepped over it, I shouted for everyone to run. We started zigzagging through the tombstones and we could hear these two guys laughing as loudly as they could like it was the funniest thing they ever saw in their life. They could have shot us. We got to the church, and there was a little walkway lined with chestnut trees that led to the main street in the village. We got to the tavern where we were supposed to meet Vilmos at 1:00 a.m. The door opened, and Vilmos stepped out and told me that I was late.  

ICG: What happened after you finally got to the United States?  

KOVACS: We arrived at Camp Kilmer, in New Jersey, which was converted into a huge processing center for Hungarian émigrés. We tried to explain that we were camera operators. That’s what it was called in Hungary. We said we wanted to go to Hollywood. No one knew what a camera operator did and they said Los Angeles was a terrible place. The rules were that a family would agree to sponsor each refugee for a year, so we didn’t go on welfare. They found a family where the man was a professional photographer, and they said I could work for him processing film and making prints. It was in Canton, in upstate New York. They put me on a train, and I traveled for two days. We finally arrived in this little town. I began to get a sense of how big this country was compared to Hungary.            

ICG: What happened after you arrived?

KOVACS: There was a welcoming committee at the station. I didn’t speak a word of English and, of course, they didn’t speak Hungarian. But, people were very friendly. I got hugged by everyone. My sponsor and his wife had an English-Hungarian language dictionary, and he tried to explain that he had a Polaroid camera, and for a dollar or two, you could get your picture taken in his studio. I did that for a while. One day, he took me out in the forest in a pickup truck with a couple of small, open barrels. He kept trying to explain that we were going to get maple syrup from trees. There were huge plastic bags full with liquid tapped into the trees. My job was taking the bags off the trees and handing them to him. He poured it into the barrels until they were full. My weekly salary was $60, but I had to give his wife $40 for room and board. Then, he told me tax was $12, so I had exactly $8 in my pocket every week.  

ICG: What were your feelings and thoughts at that point in your life?

KOVACS: I was grateful for the help I got, but honestly I felt my life came to a terrible dead end. I wrote to my mother, but I didn’t tell her about the grim situation I was in. She wrote back and told me that my cousin David was in Seattle. I wrote to him, and then we spoke by phone. He described Seattle as paradise. David had finished medical school, and his sponsor was helping him to get an internship at a hospital. The following day, his sponsor called and asked if I wanted to come to Seattle? He offered me an airplane ticket, but I took the bus, because I wanted to see the country. It took seven days. It was a mesmerizing experience with so many impressions.  

ICG: What happened after you got to Seattle? 

KOVACS: By now, I could speak a little English. My cousin’s sponsor was a pilot for United Airlines, and he had a beautiful home at the edge of a lake. You could look out of the window and see this incredible snowcapped mountain. After breakfast the next morning, he started quizzing me about my profession. Film was the only universal word we both understood. He looked in the Yellow Pages and found film laboratories. The next day, we drove to every laboratory in the phone book. One person after another said there were no openings. At the last place, an older gentleman said, okay, you start tomorrow. It was a 16 mm black and white lab that processed kinescope film and newsreels for Channel 5, KING-TV, in Seattle. I was absolutely thrilled. This eventually became Alpha Cine Labs and it was acquired by Les Davis.  

ICG: What made you decide to go to Los Angeles?

KOVACS: I was at the lab for almost two years. I got to know a lot of people at the TV station. We were working day and night. It was all color reversal film. I was having a great time, but Vilmos and I kept in touch by mail, and we never gave up on the idea of taking our chances in Hollywood. He was working for a color lab in Evanston, Illinois. I dreaded telling Les I was leaving. He told me there were too many people and not enough jobs in Los Angeles, but he wished me the best of luck and said I would always be welcome.

ICG: Did you ever go back?

KOVACS: I didn’t see Les again until 1975 when he asked me to be the keynote speaker at the Seattle Film Festival. I already had some credits. My latest film was Shampoo. I was at the podium answering questions. Then, I saw one gentleman, way in the back, raising his hand. He was obviously a refugee from India or some other country in the Middle East. He asked me “when did I become an American”. I thought before answering “when the first time I dreamt in English. I also told him until then that I used to dream in black and white, but now I dream in color and at times black and white. 

ICG: What did you do when you arrived in Los Angeles in 1958? 

KOVACS: Vilmos had a classmate (Joseph Zsuffa) who was a director in film school. He had a wonderful short story and he wanted to film. It was called The Blue of the Sky. I was the entire crew. We didn’t have much light and couldn’t afford a generator. We started shooting in Los Angeles and finished in Yosemite.  

ICG: Did you and Vilmos ever consider making a movie about your lives? 

KOVACS: When I was shooting For Pete’s Sake with Peter Yates, I told him our story, and he thought it would make an interesting movie. We actually got a bunch of people together who had shared our experiences, and we made a tape recording of us telling our stories. I don’t know what happened to that tape.  

ICG: What happened next after Joseph Zuffa’s film? 

KOVACS: We faced the cold reality of having to find jobs. It looked hopeless, but we didn’t see it that way. I remember we said, if it doesn’t happen today or tomorrow, maybe next week or next month. We were very confident. There was no choice. This was always more than a profession. It was my life. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.  

ICG: Looking back, how long have you felt that way? 

KOVACS: I think I’ve felt that way since I was 11 years old and I use to sit in the front row watching those 16 mm propaganda movies. It was like somebody opened a window on a different world. I owe a lot to Gyorgy Illes (head of the cinematography department at the Budapest film school) who taught us how important it is to study all the arts. My first semester, he had me draw charcoal portraits, and he taught us to see forms, light, tones, textures and all of the things you instinctively use in cinematography. We studied music, literature, art history, and architecture. 

ICG: We spoke a lot about the past. How about the future?  

KOVACS: I really don’t know what’s going to happen with cinematography. I hope we don’t rush to quickly into the digital area without really knowing the consequences. Any cinematographer can tell you that there is no comparison between high definition digital video and film. I was recently at a film festival in Flagstaff, Arizona where I was talking to young filmmakers. It seemed like at least half of them loved digital video because it’s inexpensive compared to film. You can erase the tape and shoot as much as you want. The downside is that the digital cameras respond to light differently than film. I had young people tell me they don’t have to light dark or dimly lit locations. The problem is that doesn’t teach them anything about lighting and that’s the most important tool we have for expressing ourselves. It you take away lighting, cinematography becomes more of a director’s medium. Light is our primary form of visual interpretation. There have been incredible advances in CGI and other digital postproduction, but that doesn’t replace the role of lighting in story telling.  

ICG: What about digital intermediate technology. Last year, for instance, nearly all of Pleasantville was converted to digital format for desaturating and altering colors and other visual effects. Do you see more of that happening in the future? 

KOVACS: I think it’s a very useful tool. We use it on television every day. It’s going to become part of our visual language. It will depend on the subject matter. In my current film, Return to Me, there’s not one digital shot. It wasn’t necessary because it is a story about people and we filmed it at real locations. There was one scene, where an actor had an obviously bad hair transplant. They tried to do it digitally, but I warned them it was going to look terrible. They made a few attempts, but it never looked right, so they cut the sequence. The poor guy lost his three minutes of fame in a movie.  

ICG: What were the milestones for you early in your career? 

KOVACS: All of the experiences we got working on low budget films during the early 1960s through 1970 were very important. We knew we weren’t making the world’s best films, but we were learning. Vilmos and I we discovered Haskell Wexler’s early movies, and got in touch with him. That was a breakthrough because it was very different than the studio pictures. John Cassavetes was also making interesting films. I did a lot of experimenting on low budget exploitation films made strictly as the second feature for drive-ins. I shot a lot of biker movies before Easy Rider. 

ICG: This is the 30th anniversary of the making of Easy Rider. Did you have any idea that someday it was going to become a classic? 

KOVACS: None of us had that idea. The only thing we were hoping for was that it would be better than the standard drive-in programming. We had a really great time shooting it because of Dennis (Hopper), Peter (Fonda) and Jack (Nicholson). We had a lot of freedom even though we were working with a tiny budget. It was a very tightly organized production. Part of the crew is still working with me. We definitely felt we were making a good movie. We prepared as carefully as we could. There was about three weeks of preparation. We got into a station wagon and we drove from Los Angeles to New Orleans, and scouted for locations with the right visual backgrounds. Dennis had a lot of ideas about places in New Mexico, Taos, Santa Fe and the Painted Desert. We also shot a lot on the streets of Flagstaff, including the main title sequence, and at locations in Los Angeles. We packed everything in two five-ton trucks. One truck was for the bikes, and we carried all of the camera and lighting equipment in the other one. The cast and crew traveled in station wagons, and my camera car was a 1968 Chevy convertible. I picked it because of the shocks. We put the top down and put a 4 by 4 sheet of plywood on the back. With a High Hat, I could swing the camera from left to right. We had kind of a sign language. It was very simple. We pointed and waved. There were no P.A.s, A.D.s, police or two-way radios. 

ICG: Sony recently restored several of your films from that period. 

KOVACS: They rescued Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, King of Marvin Gardens, and Shampoo from oblivion. I’ve been at film festivals with some of them. 

ICG: What kind of response do you get from young people at festivals? 

KOVACS: It’s amazing. They showed Easy Rider at a festival in Flagstaff. There were about 400 people, including would-be cinematographers, directors, screenwriters, and also film buffs. I saw people in their 70s. I asked how many had seen the film in a theater? About ten people raised their hands. But about 70 percent saw it on television or a VCR. I’ve probably seen this film about 40 times, and every time I watch it, I discover something I hadn’t noticed before. The spirit of Easy Rider is captivating. It was a very emotional experience for me to see this 30-year-old film still move people. 

ICG: When did you actually get into the Guild? 

KOVACS: Easy Rider had a major impact on my career. I was a member of NABET when I shot that film, because I still couldn’t get into the camera guild. I didn’t have an agent. Producers and directors would call about films, and I’d have to say I’m not in the I.A. They’d tell me don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. Finally, Robert Altman directed A Cold Day in a Park in Vancouver, Canada because he wanted to be as far away from Hollywood as possible. Herb Aller, who was the Guild business agent gave me a permit to shoot that film, but he said I couldn’t work in this country. Then, Dick Rush, who I had done some biker movies with – including the one which got me Easy Rider – did a picture called Getting Straight with Columbia Pictures. (1970). That was my first studio film. I was on the roster, but only in group three which meant I could only work for Dick Rush’s company, which loaned me to Columbia Pictures for that project.  

ICG: Did you and Vilmos try to form your own Guild? 

KOVACS: Actually, there were a bunch of us, Conrad Hall (ASC), Bill Fraker (ASC), Vilmos, Jordon Cronenweth (ASC), Mario Tosi – I think there were 18 of us, who were kind of renegades. We had our own little organization. We used to meet in Malibu and talk about the films we were making. They elected me president, probably because they thought I was the biggest renegade. We felt the Guild was very important, but we wanted to elevate our position as cinematographers. We despised being considered technicians just because we were using cameras, lights and different equipment.  

ICG: Were you technically oriented? 

KOVACS: Not at all. I used a lightmeter. I also operated my own camera until Alex in Wonderland (1970). That was a studio film, and I was a member of the Local, so (director) Paul Mazursky told me that I had to find an operator. I was angry, upset, disappointed and discouraged. You name it. All these emotions were flying around in my head. He told me I was going to have to trust somebody. I searched and searched and finally several people recommended Bobby Byrne. He was working on a television series. I arranged a lunch with him at the MGM commissary. I laid it on the line. I told him I was used to operating my own camera, and I didn’t want any trouble if there were times when I wanted to operate.  

I remember Bobby was watching me with a kind of stern look. He didn’t say anything for a while. Then, he asked if I just wanted him to be a dummy? I told him I just wanted to handle some complicated shots. He agreed, and later I found out why. It was a big help having an operator, because Paul Mazursky is a brilliant director, and having Bobby there allowed me to concentrate on lighting. I trusted Bobby more as the film went on. Finally, there was a big crowd scene, and we decided we better use two cameras. It was kind of a montage situation, so Bobby and I didn’t know what the other one was doing. The next day at dailies, we couldn’t tell which was camera A and B. It was amazing. After that I trusted him completely. Bobby and I became great friends on and off the set. We worked together until he moved up to cinematographer. He has wonderful taste and a sense of drama -- everything you want in a camera operator. 

ICG: How long did you work together? 

KOVACS: I think it was eighteen films, until I shot New York, New York (1977), and then I got another great operator in Bobby Stevens. They are totally different people, and each of them brought their own talent and personality to each project. That is the thing I learned after I joined the Guild. Every person in the crew has an important role, and they all make a creative contribution.

ICG: Tell us about your most current film, Return to Me. 

KOVACS: The director is Bonnie Hunt, who is also an actress and co-author of the script (with Don Lake). We shot it at locations in Chicago. She lived there and was involved with Second City for a long time. It is set in contemporary times in the neighborhood where she lived in Chicago. I had an apartment and could practically walk to most locations. We had local actors cast in smaller parts. There is a neighborhood restaurant where she sat in the same corner booth with her boyfriend and future husband practically every night for a year. I was horrified when I first saw it because there was no room for camera moves. She finally agreed after a lot of pain to let us move to the next booth, so we could get some shots from different angles.  

ICG: Does the story actually happen in Chicago? 

KOVACS: The whole picture is organically designed for Chicago. The main character’s wife is planning a new habitat for a gorilla in the Chicago zoo. Her husband is a contractor (Bob Rueland) played by David Duchovny. There is an elegant black tie fundraising event, where we learn about the husband and wife. There is a cut-away to this neighborhood restaurant run by Carroll O’Connor (Marty O’Reilly) and his friend played by Robert Loggia (Angelo Pardipillo). It’s a neighborhood joint where the same people come in every night and have their own tables. Carroll O’Connor’s granddaughter is played by Minnie Driver (Grace Briggs). She is in desperate need of a heart transplant. We cut back to the fundraiser, where everyone is very happy because they’ve raised the money they needed for the habitat. They leave in separate cars. She’s killed in an auto accident, and it turns out that Minnie Driver gets her heart. The story picks up a year later. The project is completed. David Duchovny meets Minnie Driver and they fall in love, but she is very insecure about her history and the heart transplant. The rest of the movie is about how their relationship evolves. We shot for a week in Rome, when she leaves Chicago to get away from the situation. He follows her and they discover their connection.   

ICG: Is this an original story or is it based on a book? 

KOVACS: It was an original story.  

ICG: How did you come onto this project? 

KOVACS: The producer, Jennie Lew Tugent, knew me from several other films, including Radio Flyer and Free Willy. She introduced me to Bonnie. It was Bonnie’s first time as a feature film director. She also plays Minnie Driver’s girlfriend, which is a pretty good part. I don’t remember if I had read the script when she told me that, but I thought it was a wonderful role when she described it. I shot a film in Chicago (My Best Friend’s Wedding), so I knew the city, and I had a great electrical crew and grips there. Last time, I had my own camera crew but the studio (MGM) wanted everything to be local. We put together a wonderful crew.  

ICG: How was it working with a first time director who was also acting? 

KOVACS: Bonnie was great. She kept reminding us that this was her first movie. She had more knowledge about filmmaking than she let anybody believe. I discovered that right away. When we shot the opening scene in beautiful old Chicago ballroom. She was able to communicate exactly what she wanted out of this scene. She didn’t specifically say, I want the camera put here or there, and then we are going to move and follow that actor. But, she always told me the most important things she wanted from the scene. I knew the highs and lows and where we were heading emotionally. When we started rehearsing, she was very good with actors. They respected and loved her because she was doing the right thing for them. Actors appreciate that. We discussed blocking and setting up shots. I offered suggestions for making shots more fluid, and she really caught on quickly. 

ICG: How did she express her ideas to you? 

KOVACS: She told me about the characters and the neighborhood, and showed me the locations. While we were in Los Angeles, she showed me a lot of photographs of courtyards, streets and the restaurant. It looked awfully small with narrow spaces in between tables and you could almost touch the ceiling. There is about a foot and a half of clearance. Just about every scene in the restaurant was at night. There is also a backroom where they played pool. I tried to tell her we’d have at least a dozen people besides the actors, so we’d be in very tight space. I could see from the expression on her face that she wasn’t happy. She explained why it was important to shoot at this particular restaurant.  

ICG: Did you motivate outside street lamps or moonlight? 

KOVACS: No, because there are no windows. However, my gaffer and grip quickly discovered there were tiles covering a false ceiling with about four feet of crawl space. The original ceiling was painted black. That allowed me to use backlight, edge light and some crosslight. The audience always sees three walls, but we staged angles and composition so we had some side and crosslight. It is actually a charming location with rich wood panels and a beautiful old fashioned bar that has to date back at least to the 1920s. The kitchen was also really old, and we had scenes there with Carroll O’Connor and Robert Loggia preparing food. We also shot at Lincoln Park Zoo which is a very rich, huge park with a lot of trees and undergrowth. 

ICG: Is this a wide screen movie or 1.85:1? 

KOVACS: It’s 1.85:1. That decision was made before my involvement. I think it was the studio. We shot so much in very small, practical locations, so I think this was the right decision for width to height composition. It allowed us to do full figure shots with wider-angle lenses without looking distorted. We pretty much took the locations the way they were. Sometimes, we shot through a window to gain a little distance. The biggest handicap was that except for the first week or two, we got high definition video dailies. The first week and a few days, Astro Labs in Chicago, processed the negative and provided film dailies. It is pretty much a one-man operation. He came in at 11:30 at night and developed the negatives. He put them on the Hazeltine, and by 3  or 4 in the morning, he was timing. We could screen dailies by 7:30a.m.usually. 

ICG: How important was that week of film dailies? 

KOVACS: It was very important because that’s when we had to establish the look of the film. Afterwards, we were shipping the negative to DeLuxe Labs in Los Angeles. A local postproduction house transferred the negative to high definition video. We had a video projector and a large screen. The first day was just horrendous. It looked awful. It was washed out and lacked textures. I did everything by the book. We used an 18 percent gray scale card, correctly lit and exposed before every scene. Even the card looked like a very light gray. There was no color and no blacks. I told Bonnie that I’m not coming to see dailies, because they’re not representative of our work and they were going to give you the wrong idea. I was also worried about scene to scene matching. Eventually, I set up a system with Deluxe. I asked them to put film prints on a Hazeltine. I just selected the two most important shots of each day as representative. It also told me what I needed to know about my printing lights. Each morning, I called Deluxe and they told me the printing lights. The studio is also using video projection for previewing.  

ICG: High def video? 

KOVACS: That’s what I understand.  

ICG: Do you know why they are doing that? 

KOVACS: There is a perception that it saves money. They showed me a rough cut on a small monitor and I had about three hours to do some quick color corrections. The colorist was very cooperative. I think those three hours, he must stayed up all night and he referred to the notes I made. He did a wonderful job, because when I saw it projected on a big screen at the studio the next day, it looked very good, or at least as good as high definition is going to look on a big screen. It was still kind of flat without really rich blacks and saturated colors. It’s television, not film.    

ICG: Is it really evident on the screen? 

KOVACS: You can see it when you know you have a beautifully backlit scene with luminescent colors and a character’s hair is supposed to be sparkling with highlights, and everything looks flat. The mood is different.  

ICG: This is a rhetorical question. Why is that important? 

KOVACS: Because one of the major contributions of a cinematographer is when we can create images that help the audience sense moods and feelings. You don’t choose to backlight scene because you think it is pretty. It is because you are listening to the director, watching the actors and helping them tell their story. You go through the trouble of planning to shoot exteriors at a certain time of day after convincing the director and location manager it’s important. Maybe you also have to convince the owner of a location to let you shoot earlier or later than they planned. I had a wonderful A.D., Artist Robinson, who was a close ally. He understood everything I was trying to do.           

ICG: What does that mean, he understood? 

KOVACS: He would actually ask me, what time I wanted to shoot particular scenes, and how long I needed? Then, he would go through that schedule with the actors and director. It wasn’t always easy because sometimes an actor would want an earlier or a later call for personal reasons; so he juggled and we shuffled the schedule to give me what it what it takes to do a beautiful backlit scene that was needed for some dramatic reason. Sure, you can compromise and shoot flat-lit or with crosslighting, but I really try not to settle for something that I don’t believe is good enough. 

ICG: That’s an interesting topic, because there are people who say it doesn’t matter, the audience can’t tell the difference, so it’s good enough. 

KOVACS: The problem is that the people making those statements have absolutely no idea of what cinematography is about or what we do. They think we aim a camera and push a button. They are promoting video dailies, because that’s what they sell. You are either afraid to speak up on these issues, or you aren’t.  

ICG: Did you have a chance to do any testing with the actors on costumes and makeup before you started production? 

KOVACS: I had an afternoon to shoot some exterior tests to find the middle of the scale on the printing lights. I also spent a little time with the production designer (Brent Thomas) on a weekend, talking about the ballroom where we shot the fundraising sequence with the women in formal gowns and the men in black and white tuxedos. The gowns were muted colors. We had a young but talented wardrobe designer (Lis Bothwell) who understood the importance of fabrics and colors and how they work with different actors in different scenes.  

ICG: What did you talk about? 

KOVACS: She was very concerned about white, because someone on another picture told her to never bring white on his set. She asked me what I wanted her so do about the men’s shirts. Did I want her to tech them down? Between actors and extras we had 80 men in that sequence. I said her intentions were very commendable, but not necessary. She also wanted to use an off white, kind of satin texture on certain gowns. I love satin because it has depth in the texture. I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ She actually asked me why I’m not afraid of white. I told her I might have felt differently years ago. I might have worried about white shirts and gowns blowing out, because the film couldn’t handle it. I also had more of a tendency to use fog and other filters and diffusion. The Kodak Vision films have so much more latitude today. I love white now, because it’s so pure and it gives you a reference for black. She was very happy, but she always showed me samples of fabrics and asked about colors and textures. I think she is really going to go places because she has talent and taste, and she is so conscientious. She also understands how costumes have to work with locations. I think the use of colors by the production and costume designers was very tasteful and important in this film.  

ICG: Can you amplify that point? 

KOVACS: First of all it tells you something about the personality of the character; but say you are staging a scene, and the main characters are in the foreground. You may not want the audience’s eyes to stray to a character in a dark background just because they happen to be wearing a white shirt. Maybe you want that person in a more subdued costume. In that way, you can use color like composition to draw attention to certain parts of the frame including the background, mid-ground and foreground. It is something you have to be very conscious of because so many production and costume designers and directors are coming from music videos, commercials and other television programs, where they don’t have to think in the same scope. 

ICG: What was the production schedule? 

KOVACS: It was 45 days in Chicago and five days, plus two travel days in Rome. We came in on schedule and budget, which was about $20 million.  

ICG: Did Bonnie Hunt use video assist? 

KOVACS: Everybody with a television background does. I tried to help her, particularly in the restaurant by placing the monitor so she could communicate with the actors without shouting from a far corner of the room. We put the monitor in a booth or table close to the camera, so she had eye to eye contact with the actors.  

ICG: It sounds like you aren’t a video tap fan? 

KOVACS: They have purposes, but the truth is it’s hard to see anything on a 9-inch screen in a dark room. It is easy to get fooled. She would tell me to tighten up a shot, and I’d remind her very politely it was going to look different on a 20 or 40- foot screen. 

ICG: How did she typically respond? 

KOVACS: She’d usually ask me to show it to her both ways, and very often she didn’t come in quite as tight as she originally intended. You have to be a diplomat because you don’t want to hurt anybody’s feeling, especially in public where everybody is listening and watching. I’d usually take a deep breath and count to five before I made those suggestions, because otherwise people start to read things into your tone. One of the problems with video assist is that there is usually an A.D. and producer there with the director. This is a collaborative process, but you still can’t make decisions by committee.  

I also notice how it affects the actors, when there are three or four heads around a monitor talking for 30 to 40 seconds after the director says cut. It can break their concentration. I try to watch for things like that, and try to keep the mood on an even keel. This didn’t happen too much with Bonnie, maybe because she’s an actress.             

ICG: How do you pick camera films with all the choices available? 

KOVACS: When I speak to young cinematographers at schools or workshops, I tell them there are at least two things they need to know intimately. How any film they put in the camera will react to any situation and the affect of different lenses. It has to be a very intimate relationship. I begin everyday by walking up to the camera, touching the magazine and saying good morning. I have that kind of a relationship with that film. When I tell the loader what I want in the magazine, there are very specific reasons why I chose that particular film. You have to know every nuance of how it is going to respond. For interiors and nights scenes in Return to Me, I used the Vision 500 film, and the improved Vision 200-speed film for day exteriors. The fleshtones and colors in the new 200 film are very close to the old Kodak 5293 film which I liked, only with less grain.  

ICG: How about cameras and lenses? 

KOVACS: I’ve been partial to Panavision for a long time, I suppose because Bob Gottshalk (Panavision founder) brought one of the first PSR models to the location where I was shooting Alex in Wonderland (1970). I use to prefer zoom lenses. I shot most of Easy Rider with a 10:1 zoom lens. It was the same with Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens and Shampoo. I noticed that when Sony recently restored these films. It made scene to scene corrections very easy, because everything was recorded through the same optical glass. It’s easier today because modern zooms are a lot sharper with great optical quality. I shoot as much as I can with one zoom at variable focal lengths. I always keep a couple of primes standing in case I get into a corner at a location, and I want a couple of extra feet.  

ICG: Is the same true for anamorphic films?

KOVACS: I think a little differently if it’s a scope (anamorphic) movie. I still use the zoom lens on exteriors, but usually choose a prime lens for interiors, because I want to shoot at (stop T-) 4.0. I discovered a long time ago that I get the picture quality. Bob Gotchalk told me, ‘I’m building you guys the best possible optical system and you turn it to mush by putting stockings and fog filters in front of the lens.’ He was right. 

ICG: So what lenses did you actually use on this movie. 

KOVACS: I used a few Zeiss primes, and also carried a 5:1 zoom. I don’t like to carry a lot of toys or unnecessary equipment. I also didn’t use any filtration. I wanted clear, sharp images, so Bob Gottshalk’s lectures weren’t wasted on me. 

ICG: How about camera movement? 

KOVACS: I avoided fancy camera movement. It just didn’t lend itself physically to the action. If you are in a neighborhood restaurant, people are static. They are sitting. There is visual calmness. We composed a lot of shots four or five people sitting around a table shooting the breeze, because they all know each other.

ICG: That isn’t necessarily that easy. Right?

KOVACS: We worked very hard with Bonnie on composition. If there were four or five people in a scene, but only two mattered, staging, composition and how you panned were all extremely important decisions along with the lighting and continuity.  

ICG: Did she use storyboards or other drawings? 

KOVACS: No. That’s more important on an action or visual effects film. She gave me a lot of freedom, and if she had another idea, I’d set it up and show it to her.

ICG: How about lighting?

KOVACS: The scenes and the drama triggered the lighting. Every morning, I’d re-read the script for what we were going to shoot, and I’d work out the details with the A.D. Then, we’d give Bonnie a verbal plan after she was done preparing the actors. The idea was to make the audience feel like they are watching real people in a real situation.           

ICG: Earlier you spoke about the importance of your relationship with your camera operator. Was this the first time you worked with George Kohut? 

KOVACS: Yes, in this role, but he did help out whenever we needed an extra operator on My Best Friend’s Wedding, so we knew each other and I knew his work. Operating is a very important job. There is no such thing as a simple shot. You have to be aware of the every nuance with the actors and everything else in the frame. You have to be sensitive to what is coming into the frame, what is leaving it, and how they affect the scene. You are the cinematographer’s extra set of eyes on composition and lighting. If an actor temporarily steps into a hot spot, I count on the operator to tell me someone missed a mark. Sometimes an accident like that can work for you, but I want to make that decision and not be surprised. We had a great relationship, and I’d tell that to any cinematographer who asks. 

ICG: What do you tell young people who come to your workshops? Do they have a future or is a lot of cinematography going to be done in digital post? 

KOVACS: There are a lot of young people striving for the same jobs, so you have to realize that the competition is going to be intense. But, I think I’m a good example that there is always hope. What chance would you have given to a young man growing up on a farm in Hungary during the 1940s of having a career like mine in Hollywood? There are a lot of different opportunities today, and not just movies. There are television and commercials, music videos, documentaries and even animation. You have to believe in your dream 25 hours a day and never lose sight of them. You are going to have to accept doing other jobs to support yourself while you are struggling for an opportunity. The struggle isn’t a straight path because it is different for everyone. This isn’t a hobby and it is more than a profession. This is an art form. So, you better take it seriously, because if the other guy is more dedicated or more talented, he is likely to beat you out.  

I tell young people that it is important to shoot as much as you can, and to learn something from every job and from everyone. I also think you need to be born with some natural talent or taste. Talent is not going to be replaced by a computer. Some people will try to light in digital post, but that only works if you have the talent; though people with taste and talent will use computers as an extension of their work.  

I think it is very important, particularly for young people, to understand that a gain control button on a video camera is not a substitute for artful lighting. There is nothing wrong with using a video camera as long as you understand that.  

(Editor’s note: A more in-depth article about Return to Me will be published in the April issue of International Cinematographers Guild Magazine.)