A Conversation with Wally Pfister, ASC
by Bob Fisher

Following are excerpts of a conversation:    

ICG: Where were you born and raised?

PFISTER: I was born in Chicago, Illinois. When I was three months old my parents moved to a suburb of New York City. My father was a second-generation journalist. My grandfather was the city editor of a small town newspaper in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. My father was a correspondent, news producer and writer at CBS-TV, in Chicago. Later, he worked on the Huntley-Brinkley Report and with Peter Jennings covering political conventions, space flights and the civil rights movement. In 1960, he followed JFK’s election campaign. I saw Apollo 8 take off and was at the 1968 Democratic convention with him in Chicago.

ICG: Did you expect to become a journalist?

PFISTER: There certainly was no pressure to pursue any particular career. When I was young, I was certain I was going to pursue a life of rock and roll. I played the guitar in high school bands and music continues to be a great passion of mine.           

ICG: Were you an amateur photographer as a kid?

PFISTER: When I was eight or nine, a camera crew shot scenes with Burt Reynolds for Shamus in our neighborhood. I was fascinated by the technical process and the equipment that they were using. My dad had a Super 8 camera to take home movies with and he never really used it. I think I was around 11 years old, when I started shooting with it. We would make up funny little stories. I remember doing a little animated pixilation piece called Killer Lawnmower, where I animated a push lawnmower chasing my best friend around the yard in high speed. I also remember trying to find cool places where I could put the camera, and all the different angles I could get with it. I had a little splicer, and learned how to cut the images together. I was also a huge movie buff from a very young age. I think that began when my dad took me to see 2001, A Space Odyssey at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York. I remember just falling in love with that movie. Later, Stanley Kubrick became my favorite filmmaker. I was deeply affected by Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, and Clockwork Orange as a kid.

ICG: What about still photography?

PFISTER: I did that later on during my teens. My father use to shoot slides on Kodachrome film, and he would put on little shows for the family and friends. I started taking pictures of people on the sly with a long lens. I tried to capture stolen moments and find humor in them. I took pictures in natural light with interesting colors and shapes.

ICG: What did you do after high school?

PFISTER: I just barely got out of high school. I skipped gym classes for three years. I was playing in rock ‘n’ roll in bands and playing with my Super 8 camera, but really had no direction. I was adamant about not wanting to go to college, but wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. After a while, I got a job at a television station in Maryland as a production assistant. It was about 40 miles east of Baltimore. I remember it paid $125 a week. Even in 1980 that wasn’t enough for me to survive on. I also played in a country western band at a local club and made a little bit of money.

ICG: When and how did you focus on cinematography?

PFISTER: I discovered that I enjoyed motion photography while working at this TV station. They had a news film department and a group that shot PSAs. I shot a little spec spot for the PSA group. I just took a CP16 camera out and shot a bunch of moving images of the architecture of a Victorian house and cut it to music on a videotape machine. I showed it to the production manager hoping they hire me to shoot promos. They gave me a job operating a studio video camera on the 6 and 11 p.m. news instead. I also shot 16 mm promos and commercials, until they made a transition to three-quarter inch videotape with the new RCA TK76 cameras. They were state of the art cameras, but if you pointed them at the sun you would fry the tubes, and they would need some major maintenance to revive them.

Eventually, the station got into financial trouble and half of us were let go. I was one of the first to go, because I was only 18. I was really depressed, because I really didn’t think I’d gotten enough experience to get a job at a bigger TV station. I scrambled around for about a year or so doing odd kind jobs, including working in the garment district for a couple of months. Finally, a friend in Washington, D.C., offered me a job as a soundman with sort of a stringer news service. We would shoot news stories in Washington, and they would sell them to local stations and international clients.

I worked as a soundman for about six months, and then they promoted me to cameraman. It was an incredible experience. I covered Congress, the White House and breaking news from 1982 to 1985. One of my first assignments was covering a brutal airplane crash in the Potomac River that killed hundreds of people. I will never forget those horrific images. I was learning about and experiencing life at a fast pace. We would shoot a news story, get the footage, cut it with the reporter and send it on the satellite to the station. Sometimes we’d have a couple of hours to put it together, and there were no problems. Other times, we’d have 45 minutes to cut together a two-minute story, including laying down the sound track. I learned how to edit in the camera, work fast and to only shoot as much as we needed, all before my 25^th birthday.

ICG: What kind of stories did you cover?

PFISTER: They were mostly kind of boring Capitol Hill stories. We would shoot a congressman speaking before a committee, and then do a one-on-one interview with him for his local TV station. Ronald Reagan was president. We filmed him with visiting dignitaries, including Mubarak and Anwar Sadat. We filmed stories in the Rose Garden with Reagan and then Vice President George Bush, Sr. It was very un-stimulating from a visual standpoint. That’s probably what drove me to move to the next phase of my career. I started doing freelance documentary work for Frontline and other documentaries. I worked with Bill Moyers, Hedrick Smith and some great documentary producers as well. I particularly enjoyed the stories told mostly with sound and pictures and minimal voice-over. By the mid-1980s, we were mainly working in Betacam format. I shot video for about eight years before I touched a film camera again, so I don’t think of video as some kind of brand new, intimidating technology. I know exactly what it’s all about. The technology has evolved. It’s digital instead of analog, but it’s still basically the same stuff, and I know its advantages and its limitations.   

ICG: How did you move on to the next step?

PFISTER: Robert Altman came to town to shoot a program for HBO called Tanner ’88. He was shooting on videotape, and they were following a fictional presidential candidate who was played by Michael Murphy. They wanted to pick up a B camera operator in Washington who would do handheld work and actually be on camera. There was kind of a casting call. I was thrilled to meet Robert Altman. It turned out I was the only cameraman there, so I became the B camera operator. I was petrified saying the lines, but Bob liked the footage I shot. They hired and elevated me to second unit cameraman for the rest of the show. We shot episodes all over the country. I found myself shooting actors and dramatic material for the first time. I had applied to the American Film Institute before I worked on Tanner ’88. I got a letter saying I was accepted in the cinematography program right after we finished shooting. I was at AFI for two years. By then, I had spent a solid eight years behind the camera. Harry Wolfe (ASC) and Howard Schwartz (ASC) were the cinematography teachers. Harry was especially supportive. I’ll never forget that. He had seen my second year student film, which was nominated for an Academy award in the short film category. Harry called me and left this long message on my answering machine about how proud he was that I was his student, and how good he thought my film looked. It just made me feel so proud. I think he was president of ASC at the time. You have mentors of different kinds, and he was certainly one of them.

ICG: Wasn’t Janusz Kaminski (ASC) there at around the same time?

PFISTER: He was a year ahead of me. Janusz was responsible for helping me get my first feature film job. He saw my student film and complimented me on it. He took me to a birthday party of a guy I didn’t know at the time…it was Phedon Papamichael (ASC). Phedon had just shot his first movie for Roger Corman. We both worked on one of Phedon’s films called After Midnight. Phedon was the director of photography; Janusz was his gaffer; Maro Fiore was his key grip and I was one of the electricians.We all worked together on a bunch of Roger Corman pictures. Phedon hired Janusz to shoot second unit on a movie called Streets, and Janusz hired me as his gaffer. I did a bunch of what I thought were big night exterior shots with him on that film. At the end of that, neither Janusz nor Phedon were available to do some more pick-ups, so Phedon recommended me. I shot my first 35 mm film on that picture. It was a night exterior, and they wouldn’t give me any lights, so I had to shoot it with the headlights of a car. I had to justify my existence, so I put a little opal diffusion over the headlights. Ten years later, I worked with the same director again on two movies of the week.

ICG: What was your next step?

PFISTER: Phedon got a movie with Corman called Body Chemistry. Janusz had moved on from Corman to shoot a shot a movie called Grim Prairie Tales. I was a dolly grip for him for about a week on that film, and then I did second unit on Body Chemistry. That led to a string of second unit jobs for Corman. I was absolutely thrilled to make $50 a day shooting second unit for Slumber Party Massacre III. I was the one getting splattered with blood while shooting inserts of blood hitting the wall and running down the sewer. When Phedon got a $3 million movie called Prayer of the Rollerboys, he hired me to shoot second unit. We were able to use Condors and bigger lights for the first time. I shot second unit for Phedon on four or five movies before I shot my first movie with Roger Corman called The Unborn.

ICG: What year was that?

PFISTER: It was 1991. It was a horror movie about a fetus that goes around killing people. It was an absolutely disturbing, un-watchable movie. I went from that to doing a bunch of low budget horror movies. In 1992, Phedon asked me to operate for him on a miniseries called Wild Palms. He did a beautiful job, and was nominated for an ASC Award. We worked with a lot of really wonderful directors on it. I spent a couple of years operating for Phedon following that film, including another miniseries called White Dwarf. I shot a Showtime movie that Phedon directed that same year. It was called Sketch Artist.

ICG: What was it like shooting a film directed by a cinematographer?

PFISTER: He was a very visual director. At first, Phedon tried to tell me where the lights should go. I fought him, and asked him to back down and let me do my job. After the first week he stood back and let me light. I got nominated for a Cable Ace Award. That was one of the first films that made me realize how important the collaboration between the cameraman and director can be. In 1995, Phedon asked me to operate for him on a studio film called Unstrung Heroes. That’s when I joined the Guild. Diane Keaton was the director. After that, I operated for him on While You Were Sleeping in Chicago and then began Mouse Hunt. It was good experience, because I really concentrated on composition and movement. I felt every frame should be a still photograph. I was really hard on myself as an operator.

ICG: Why didn’t you finish Mouse Hunt?

PFISTER: I left early to shoot a picture called Rhapsody in Bloom, but cameback to shoot about four weeks of second unit on Mouse Hunt for Gore Verbinski and Phedon. I kind of danced back and forth between operating and shooting for a while, because I really didn’t want to go back to shooting horror movies or other exploitation films. I wanted to hold out for good scripts. I knew that was what it was going to take to get my career going to where I wanted to go. I operated mostly with Phedon, and also did some work for Mark Vargo (ASC) Matt Leonetti (ASC), and Jack Conroy. We did an HBO movie together called The Cherokee Kid. I also did day-playing a lot just trying to keep my health insurance going.

ICG: Was there a breakthrough film?

PFISTER: In 1998, I shot a movie called A Kid in Aladdin’s Palace. I was pretty happy with the work, but nobody ever saw the film. Ron Judkins called and said he was going to direct a small movie called The Hi-Line. Ron is a sound mixer who an Academy Award® for Saving Private Ryan and another for Jurassic Park. He said the catch was that he only had $300,000 to make this movie. I read the script. It was sweet. It was a small, but a classy independent film. He was going to shoot in Montana in the dead of winter and had almost no money to pay me. I had two kids and I had been offered an operating job that paid twice as much. It was a real dilemma. When I turned it down, Ron called and asked me why. I told him I didn’t want to leave my family behind. He paid travel costs for my wife and two children to come to Montana. I had to pay for my mortgage on a credit card, but taking that film was the best thing that I ever could have done for my career. The Hi-Line went to Sundance in 1999, where a lot of people saw it. About a year later, I got a phone call from someone who had seen the film at Sundance. It was Chris Nolan. After we spoke, he sent the script for Memento. I read through it once. The next night I read it again, trying to piece it all together.

Chris called, and I felt we made a nice connection on the phone. The next day, my agent said Chris wanted to meet me in person. I was working on a small film six days a week in Alabama. We shot on a Saturday. I took a flight to Los Angeles at 7 a.m. that next morning. I met with Chris at about noon or one o’clock. It was a fantastic meeting. I really liked him a lot. I flew back that night. I think I must have been awake for about 30 hours straight. I really thought I blew the interview, because I was hopped up on coffee with no sleep, but Chris offered me the movie a few days later. A series of little breaks led to my big break. I knew while we were shooting Memento that something special was happening. I was constantly teasing Chris by saying, ‘they’re really going to love this movie in Europe.’ I really didn’t think it was a commercial enough for anybody to want to pick it up in the U.S.

I believe the first screening was at the Venice Film Festival, and they got a standing ovation. I still have an e-mail from Chris Nolan’s wife Emma, who was also a producer on the film, describing the overwhelming response to the screening. The studios passed on Memento, but the company that produced the film distributed it themselves. They made $26 million domestic box-office, which was huge for an independent film, and it went on to have great success worldwide. The film was also nominated for two Oscars™. 

ICG: What was it like working with Chris Nolan?

PFISTER: Simply put, Chris is brilliant, sensitive, and a great artist. He was also really respectful of what I was doing. He’s a smart enough to know it’s a collaborative art form. I felt safe in his hands. I was basically lighting the way I’d always wanted to light. We shot 25 percent of the film in black and white with dark, contrasty images and worked really hard with the production designer to get interesting textures. I think we took it to the next level on Insomnia.

ICG: What affect did Memento have on your career?

PFISTER: I started getting better scripts for independent films. I was also offered a studio picture, but it wasn’t something I was interested in doing. One of the things I’ve learned is to be choosy. I really wanted to follow Memento with something special, but I also needed to earn a living. I did a couple of telefilms for CBS TV. I pride myself on being able to read a script and recognizing whether it’s going to be a good movie. It’s important to choose material carefully, because if people don’t see it, or the critics hate it, no one will see your photography.

ICG: When did you get Insomnia?

PFISTER:  I was working on a movie of the week when I heard Chris got Insomnia. The studio wanted a big name cinematographer, but Chris was willing to go to the mat for me. You have to admire his integrity. It was my first big budget film. We had a $46 million budget and Al Pacino in the cast.

ICG: It seems like you took some real chances to show your stuff on Insomnia.

PFISTER: I literally had insomnia during preproduction trying to figure out exactly how to find the right balance between light and darkness. The film takes place during the daytime, but we wanted a dark and moody environment inside the hotel room. I was up at night, sleepless, trying to figure out how I was going to light that hotel room and how I was going to talk Chris into putting the bed in a certain place. Chris had certain things that he was looking for that I had to figure out and integrate with how I saw the film visually. We found a happy medium. I remember having one of the producers in dailies saying that it looked a little dark to him. It was just me, the producer, the editor, and Chris in the room. I didn’t say a word. Chris immediately said, ‘that’s exactly the way I want that scene to look.’ End of conversation. That is the kind of support Chris has consistently given me.

ICG: There are scenes with extreme ranges of darkness and brightness.

PFISTER: I saw light as sort of a fourth character. It’s a catalyst. By the end of the movie, Will Dormer’s character hasn’t slept in six nights. There are two reasons. One is his feeling of guilt for having killed his partner accidentally or on purpose. It’s kind of ambiguous which one it is. There is also this menacing light that comes through the window in the land of the midnight sun. It was a tricky balance. I think we peaked on the scene where the character played by Maura Tierney comes to his room and bangs on the door, because he has been sliding all this furniture in front of the window trying to block the light from coming in. She says there’s a complaint about the noise. He answers, ‘I’m sorry, it’s just it’s so bright.’ She says, ‘it’s dark and turns on the overhead light.’ Dormer kind of cowers in the bright light like a vampire. She comes in the room and they have this wonderful chat. I remember asking Chris, whose perspective are we seeing this from? Maura, who’s basically seeing this room as completely dark, or Al, who is seeing this streak of bright light coming from the window that keeps him from sleeping? I had a Maxi-Brute over this huge silk on the set. We just blew it out by three or four stops when she turns on the light. She turns it off and goes back normal… so we were in Will Dormer’s world.

ICG: That’s an interesting example of using light and darkness as language.

PFISTER: This film is a perfect example of a story where you can use light and darkness to help tell the story. Chris gave me the opportunity to play with light as a character, and that’s the most you can ever hope for in our craft. There’s another scene like that in the bathroom. I had bright beam of sunlight coming through the window. I asked Chris if I could talk to Al (Pacino) about it. He said, ‘go ahead, but don’t talk too much.’ I said, Al, I just want to let you know that the light coming in this little sliver of a window is about eight stops over exposed. If you step into this light, it’s going to be a very blown out image, as you step back it goes to darkness. He decided to play with the light. As he walked into it, it almost felt like it was burning him.

ICG: You know, there was a time during the old studio system days, when a

cinematographer could have been fired for blowing out the images of the star?

PFISTER: To me, people like Conrad Hall (ASC) and Gordon Willis (ASC) really paved the way for making it acceptable to do something like this. I think all of us should be forever grateful to them for following their artistic convictions

ICG: There has been a lot of controversy recently about film dailies, because of marketing efforts by vendors. Were you able to get film dailies on Insomnia?

PFISTER: Absolutely. There was never any question. A cinematographer only has so much power, and obviously, the likes of Storaro, Deakins and Kaminski, have far more power than I do but we are all dependent on the directors. We did have to fight for film dailies on Memento. Chris Nolan went to the mat on that one. It was a $4 million picture, but it was anamorphic movie, and we’re shooting a lot of black and white film. We really needed to know how what we were putting on the negative was playing, and we also needed to watch for critical focus.

ICG: Was Laurel Canyon next after Insomnia?     

PFISTER: After Insomnia, I started getting some big movie scripts, but nothing I was really interested in doing. I turned down a couple of $60 to $100 million projects and chose this little script for a $7 million picture being shot in Los Angeles. The director was Lisa Cholodenko, who had done High Art, which I thought was a great little independent film. The other thing that attracted me to Laurel Canyon was Frances McDormand. She plays a record producer who is dating a much younger rock star. Before one scene, she said, ‘Wally, this is my low point in the film. You have my permission, and I encourage you to make me look as unflattering as you can.’ I gave her really stark, hard top light that helped take her character down to rock bottom. Once again, there was an opportunity to use light to help tell the story and integrate it with the performance.

It was a simple, laid-back story with more ‘70s sensibilities. I didn’t see it as any huge visual challenge. It was about storytelling. I had just been in Canada shooting Insomnia, and I really wanted to work with my guys again. My gaffer, Cory Geryak, has been with me for eight years, and Bob Hall, my first assistant, has been with me for nine years. It’s a little family to me. I loved my local crew in Vancouver, but I felt terrible about not being able to bring my regular crew along. It was great working at home in Santa Monica, Laurel Canyon, the Valley and Hollywood Hills.

ICG: I want to come back to something you said earlier about music, and you playing the guitar. Do you see similarities to what you do as a cinematographer?

PFISTER: That’s an interesting question. I can’t personally separate visuals from music. I don’t know if that’s because I play music, but whenever I see pictures, I hear music. I spent today scouting for a commercial I’m shooting, and I kept thinking how the music is going to work with it. When you see those elements come together, it’s the work of a master director.

ICG: Was The Italian Job your biggest budget movie as a cinematographer?

PFISTER: I’m trying to think if I have worked on bigger budgets as an operator, but it was definitely my biggest budget film as a cinematographer.

ICG: In the beginning was that daunting mentally or not?

PFISTER: No, I was so ready to handle a big budget picture. The only thing that you’re not ready for are some of the politics that accompany it. There also tends to be considerable waste compared to the lean operation of an independent film It’s just a bigger machine. There are so many layers of people and departments to deal with it’s like suddenly you are working for the federal government. The people at Paramount were actually very supportive from the moment I was hired. But, it is a different dynamic. You are making a product that somebody paid $85 million to make.

ICG: How long have you been shooting commercials?

PFISTER: I only started shooting commercials recently. I hooked up with a great director, Neil Abramson, who used to shoot his own commercials. He stopped shooting about two years ago, and has worked with a lot of different people. He took me on to a string of four or five Burger King commercials. We had a great time together. He’s a talented filmmaker and he’s directed a couple of features. I also recently had an opportunity to shoot and direct a commercial for PBS.

ICG: Wally, you are still in the relative dawn of your career. What goes through your mind, when you read stories in the Los Angeles Times, saying that cinematographers who don’t embrace the new digital technology will be as obsolete as silent movie stars?

PFISTER: The battle that we have to fight as cinematographers is to not let anybody treat us like we are consumers by using marketing techniques to push technology that’s not better than what we have. Good enough isn’t good enough. 24P is nowhere near the resolution of 35 mm film, and if you put it side by side with anamorphic it’s off the charts. There’s not even a comparison. I don’t see why we should settle for that and I don’t see why the public should settle for it. I don’t understand why we would use an inferior product to capture our images, when we want to see all the nuances and into the darkest details. I want to push the envelope. I don’t think we have the power to fight this battle alone. The technology vendors have enough power and money to influence our art form. We need to get the directors on our side, because they have the clout.

ICG: What do you want people who aren’t cinematographers to understand?

PFISTER: I would like them to understand that cinematography is not about equipment, technology or even beautiful sunsets or vistas. I believe we affect the audience in a much more subtle way. It’s about composition and lighting and storytelling. I know the Dogme 95 theory, but I believe actors respond to light. Just look at a Rembrandt or Caravaggio painting, or any of the Dutch masters, and tell me light isn’t important. I want to be able to push the boundaries, and see how far we can go. I’m not saying we’ll never have digital camera that match the resolution of film. I am sure we will someday, but we shouldn’t give a superior technology day and settle for less.