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Walk The Line: Phedon Papamichael on Johnny Cash Biography By David Heuring This article was originally published in American Cinematographer/ December 2005
“Walk the Line illustrated very clearly for me the connections between music, images and emotions,” says Phedon Papamichael, ASC, whose recent credits include The Weather Man, Sideways and Identity. “Music and images are both nonverbal. Good music and good photography are both hard to define, and when they’re good, you don’t feel them working. The right emotion is directly communicated. A subtle alteration can change the whole thing. Every aspect is important, everything has to be right. “There were moments during the making of Walk the Line that
made me understand that as a filmmaker, you either get that moment
or you don’t,” he adds. “A slight tilt of the head
and the light falls just right, and a tear glistens. There aren’t
any rules. But when it’s right and the stars align, the power
of it is incredible. Sometimes when you’re shooting, you can
be fooled. Are the emotions true? For this movie, they are.” During the late 1950s, Cash brought a stripped-down, raw and honest approach to music that went against Nashville’s increasingly string-laden and slickly produced sound. The film takes a similarly simple, direct and sometimes raw visual approach to telling his story. Walk the Line was directed by James Mangold, with whom Papamichael had worked on Identity. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as Carter. At first, Papamichael lobbied for a Super 16 digital intermediate workflow. Tests at Fotokem seemed to argue for the small gauge, and he felt that some grain and texture might be appropriate for this story, but the decision was made to shoot in 35 mm format. The filmmakers then considered anamorphic, but a shortage of lenses led them to the decision to frame in movie in Super 35, 2.4:1 format. “With all the handheld and zooms, it turned out better that we didn’t go anamorphic,” says Papamichael. “Anamorphic requires a stop T-4 or the top and bottom goes soft. With spherical lenses, I could shoot at T-2 or 2.5, which really helped especially with the stage material.” The movie was photographed with a traditional photochemical finish in mind, but after principal photography was complete that decision was also revisited, and a DI was performed at Modern VideoFilm (see sidebar). Walk the Line was photographed with Panavision cameras and a variety of lenses including Panavision Primo primes and 17.5-75 mm zooms. Much of the concert footage was captured with Angenieux 10:1 zooms and a set of older Panavision SP lenses that had been detuned to emulate the look of Baltar lenses. The SPs were recommended by Panavision’s Dan Sasaki. “We under corrected the elements – in other words, re-spaced the glass – so the lenses are more crispy and the contrast isn’t as hard-hitting,” says Sasaki. First assistant Bob Hall performed an extensive series of tests on the SP lenses. Papamichael chose them in part because of their flare characteristics. He wanted to include flares as an important visual element, especially in the concert footage. “All the photographs I’d seen of Johnny Cash on stage were hit by these flares,” says Papamichael. “Dan had a whole set of the detuned SP lenses. The tests showed that they were great for our purposes. I would shoot directly into the spotlights and the lenses would do great stuff. The coating on the SPs isn’t really that great. They’re warmer, and the matching isn’t as good from lens to lens, but they’re small and I liked the effect. I used the SP primes quite a bit on most of the concert stuff because they would pick up such nice, warm flares where you can see all the elements. “Dan also developed the flare adaptor we used on the zooms,” he continues. “That might sound cheesy, but when you put it on a good lens it’s amazing. It really doesn’t look like an effect filter. I ended up using the SPs a little less because they were slower, but I went crazy with the flares. I just loved it when Joaquin would block the light, silhouette for a moment, and then step out, and the light would just shoot down the barrel.” For Papamichael, the most thrilling part of the project was filming recreations of live performances at venues ranging from simple school gyms to Las Vegas concert halls and the Hollywood Bowl. “A musician has the most immediate feedback from the audience,” he says. “When we were on stage with cameras, we fed off that immediacy and energy. That intensity was incredible, and the photography became about feeling and reacting to that.” The actors rerecorded Cash’s hits using their own voices, under the supervision of musician/producer T-Bone Burnett. The concert scenes were filmed using these tracks. Musicians were cast as band members in many cases. The authenticity of the concert material was also enhanced because Papamichael consulted with John Sprague, the rigging gaffer who prelit the stages for performances. Sprague had worked on Cash’s tours during the 1960s. “John told me that it was very simple in those days,” says Papamichael. “Simple backdrops, and no colors on the light, especially in the beginning. Later at more sophisticated venues like the Hollywood Bowl, Cash worked with some red backlight and the same white spot from the front. Even when we were using colors, it was two elements. We stayed away from the typical concert approach because the simpler approach was period-accurate and it fit the film’s aesthetic.” Papamichael emphasizes that Phoenix’s portrayal of Cash was totally convincing. “What really impressed me is that you instantly buy him as Cash,” says Papamichael. “Usually in movies, you accept it as it slowly becomes the reality of the film. With Joaquin, you buy it from the first image of him on the screen.” Phoenix was a very controlled, intense presence on the set. “I thought the dynamic between Joaquin and Reese was similar to that between June and Johnny, because he is more method and in character all the time, but she is a very precise and disciplined actor without too much patience for that kind of thing,” he says. “June is Johnny’s pillar of strength, consistent and cheerful, and the personalities of the actors translated well into these two characters.” At first, Phoenix portrays Cash as shy on stage. His trademark introduction was, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” that eventually grows from a timid mumble to a purposeful statement of identity. “The emotional dynamics of the handholding help make those moments feel real,” says Papamichael. As the performances change in intensity, and Cash’s body language and stage presence mature, the static and composed camerawork becomes more frenetic. “We used more and more cameras, often handheld with zooms, snapping in, getting a piece of ear, reacting to facial expressions and movements, and shooting into the lights more,” he says. “The camera operator and hopefully the audience are wondering, ‘What will he do next?’ There were no focus marks and no rehearsals. I didn’t give the operators any specifics. It was just, ‘One guy here and one guy here, 1,000-foot mags, 4:1 zooms.’ They were allowed to just go for it and snap in tight when they felt it was right.” Often in concert situations, Papamichael’s instructions to the operators would be simply, “Make it great.” “We would do one take, and they’d come back to me, and I’d say ‘Let’s do something just like that, only different,’” he says. “They thrived in that environment. When they get that freedom they really step it up. You can’t really theoretically think of shots. You just have to be in the zone with the music. When you see the sweat running down Joaquin’s face, you’re going to snap in and get that. If you’re a cameraman, and you have the right instincts, you’re going to find that stuff and capture it. It has nothing to do with preconceived ideas. “We tried to capture the concert primarily from his perspective on stage, and we were always close on his head,” says Papamichael. “It was less the conventional, audience perspective looking flat onto him, and more the feeling of being up there with him and seeing the audience’s reaction. That got more chaotic as his fame grows.” Papamichael often operates his own camera, but for Walk the Line there was plenty of work to spread around. “I often operated the more conventional, studio mode dolly stuff,” he says. “Many times on stage, we’d have two cameras, one handheld and one on a half-circle of dolly track with a longer zoom grabbing shots. Because there was a lot of Steadicam and a lot of handheld on this film, I really relied much more on the operators. “It was a pleasure to have David Luckenbach operating and on Steadicam. He was also my operator on Identity. When I offered him the job, I told him that my instinct was there would be a lot of work for him, and that turned out to be true. All the music scenes were done with 1,000-foot mags, and I also wanted to keep the zoom on. He was incredible. We also had Paul Sanchez operating, who was with me on Sideways. He did a terrific job on this film too. Paul and David are different heights, which gave us a variety of perspectives. One of the reasons I don’t like doing it myself is that I’m a little too tall, and I hate shooting down, and I don’t want to be squatting all the time.” Most of the concert scenes and tungsten-lit interiors were recorded on Kodak Vision2 500T 5218 film. In some concert situations, where there was enough firepower, Papamichael used Kodak Vision 200T 5274 film. “After seeing our tests, I knew I wanted the spotlight to be two or three stops hot,” he says. “I liked it best at about two and two-thirds stops hot, and I wanted to have it burn out a little bit. At each venue we’d have a different distance from the lamp to the stage, and my gaffer Raphael Sanchez was great about calculating how much firepower we needed for the follow-spot. In larger venues we had to switch to Xenon units.” Eventually Cash’s demons catch up with him, and he descends into a manic cycle of pills. The photography becomes more frantic in narrative scenes as well, reacting to Phoenix as he lurches unpredictably and emphasizing his haunted features. The pressure peaks at a Las Vegas concert. Cash and Carter finally connect onstage and later in a hotel room. But guilt and remorse about his failed marriage, and June’s refusal to see him again, induce an onstage breakdown at the next night’s show. “Over the course of his progression towards his dark, messed-up phase, I never took particular care to beauty light Joaquin,” he says. “At the same time, the story moves from the 1950s into the ‘60s, the wardrobe changed, and there were more fluorescents and toplight. But Joaquin really has an amazing ability to transform himself to look older. There wasn’t all that much done with makeup, maybe a little bit to make him paler and darkened under the eyes. But he has some sort of facial control where he can tighten his muscles in a way that makes him look ragged and tired. For the most part, we were shooting chronologically, and he did lose some weight over the course of the shoot. But I never changed the lighting specifically to indicate his age.” The portions of the film that take place away from the stage were usually photographed with a similarly simple, direct approach. The film as scripted starts with exterior shots of a Tennessee prison standing in for Folsom Prison, the site of one of Cash’s most famous concerts and a symbol of his empathy for the downtrodden. The tour bus is seen outside, followed by an empty cellblock, as the distant din of the crowd grows along with a steady, simple backbeat. The crowd is going crazy and the band is patiently playing away, waiting for Cash who is in the prison woodshop, to take the stage. It cuts to an extreme closeup of a sawblade. The pounding beat and stomp of the prisoners ripple the water in a glass. The reverse shows Phoenix as Cash for the first time. “The opening material looks incredible, partly because we had very good documentation,” says Papamichael. “We had lots of photographs of Folsom, and we put in the razor wire and hung fluorescents at the warehouse where we did some of the interiors. We didn’t light the whole opening sequence in the woodshop at all. We had prelit it, and I had some big units out. We started in the cell, which was literally just lit by the fixture on the wall. Then we walked down to the woodshop and we thought, ‘Wow, this is beautiful,’ so we just shot in the totally stark lighting that was there. “We really had to fly on this picture,” he says. “We must have had two company moves a day and probably 100 locations, so keeping the lighting as simple as possible worked with the budget and the 49-day schedule.” For scenes in Dyess County, where the Cash family farmhouse still stands, the production built a replica of the house. The scenes establish Cash’s hardscrabble boyhood and his adoration and guilty feelings about his older brother who died in an accident. “For logistical reasons, we found a big cotton field in that area that was a little closer to Memphis than the real place,” says Papamichael. “We shot our replica like a practical location. All the interiors were shot without any wild walls. It was definitely more monochrome, but pretty subtle. The compositions, especially in the landscapes, are wider and more static, more composed and classical.” Papamichael let the production design communicate the period. “I didn’t really want to go to a device,” he says. “I did use a very faded tobacco filter, but not really enough to make a big statement. It was more to deepen and saturate the tonalities that were already there in the art direction. “We had pretty good skies that day,” he recalls. “It was hot, but it was overcast, so the heat didn’t come out as well on film. Then, the clouds began coming in and going out. Rather than waiting and trying to shoot it just clouds or sunlight, we just went with it. As long as you have shots that transition in and out of cloud cover, I think it’s kind of interesting. What I usually do in that situation is start by trying to get one take sunny, and then if we’re not too crazed, get an overcast one. But you need support from the director. “Over time, I’ve come to worry less about that kind of stuff,” he says. “In the past, I would drive myself crazy with it. Then I would see the cut, and when you’re in the story with the audience, you forgive. I feel the same way about operating. Once in a while there’s a little screw-up, and where before I might say ‘We don’t have it, we have to go again,’ now I’ve gotten much better at recognizing what’s not important, or accepting or even liking a little more imperfection in the frame. Sometimes I force myself to break convention in the way a shot is framed up. It’s something you’re always exploring and playing with.” Another important location was Cash’s lake house outside Nashville, Tennessee, that the singer purchased after making it big. During the shoot, the actual house was in turmoil due to Cash’s ill health, so the filmmakers found a similar house and built a round bedroom with panoramic windows where some key scenes take place. “The windows made shooting there almost like a day exterior,” says Papamichael. “I could light some of the close-ups near the bed, but otherwise, when the light was gone we were done. It was surrounded by trees and the lake was glistening through the trees. That was the reason we were there. I used all daylight stock in those scenes, the 250 speed Kodak (Vision2 250D 5205 film).” The filmmakers were losing the light for a dramatic evening scene where Cash tips a tractor into the lake. The tractor was rigged with a pulley and the actors, including Witherspoon, were in wetsuits. When they started shooting, the scene was lit by dappled sunlight, but by the time they reached the important tipping portion of the sequence, after drying off the talent and re-doing hair and makeup, the encroaching darkness had Papamichael recommending starting over the next day. “It was partly under the cover of some trees, so when we lost the sun, the ambiance dropped so quickly,” he recalls. “I switched to a 500-speed daylight stock, and pushed half a stop shooting wide open. It actually cuts pretty well because the water was kicking up some light and they were silhouetted against it.” Papamichael’s working method with Mangold served the musical material well, according to the cinematographer. “One of the reasons I like to work with Jim is that he’s like me – I don’t try to preconceive too much. I like to wait to see all the elements, and I like to improvise. Sometimes it seems like nobody else knows what we’re doing because we’re making it up on the spot. This project really lent itself to that method, though there were some restrictions. When you bring 300 extras for four hours, some planning needs to be done. But when we got into a groove on the stage, we would just go. “My biggest concern was for Walk the Line not to become a standard Hollywood biopic,” says Papamichael. “It really happens on the spot. It does something for the photography when you’re around good music and good musicians. It tells you what to do.” |