Cinematography Breakdown of The Creator with DP Oren Soffer

[00:00:00]the focus on the fx3 of it all and and the gear and the equipment is interesting to me because it's like it's like the least interesting part of the film for me there is no denying that Gareth Edward's original sci-fi film The Creator is a visual Masterpiece it is easily one of the best looking films of the Year and much like Matt Reeves the Batman I think it demonstrates what's possible with cinematography when a filmmaker has a vision and commits to a distinct visual aesthetic in this video I want to break down why the Creator looks so good and I had the honor of speaking with Orin Sofer the CDP of the film Orin helped me understand what went into making this visual Masterpiece and how CGI and gear is only one part of a much bigger story to tell this is the cinematography of the [Music] Creator while watching the creater one of the most striking aspect ects of the cinematography is how intimate and human it feels while paradoxically looking huge in scope and spectacle thanks to the visual effects by ilm but behind the scenes the production was small and mobile Gareth and the crew traveled to over 80 different locations capturing actors and set pieces without the usage of green screen or built Studio sets this gives the entire film a grounded reality if you Stripped Away the CGI there's still a very real core in the frame now to capture this real core Gareth brought in Greg Fraser whom he collaborated with on Rogue one the two of them began the early stages of pre-production and planning until scheduling conflicts interfered with Dune two stepping up to fill Fraser shoes on set and bring his own level of expertise was Orin Sofer given that Gareth likes to operate his own camera Orin essentially created free flowing playgrounds on location for Gareth to move around and capture the world as he saw it sometimes shooting 30 minute long takes during the process of making the film we didn't necessarily have a ton of direct conversations about film language because I think that for Gareth who was operating the camera the film language part of it is instinctual so he's reacting to you know what's happening in front of the camera he's reacting to what the actors are doing he's reacting to what the location is providing in terms of geometry and shapes in the frame and and composition and all of that it's all in intuitive and instinctual like that's that's what's guiding the framing decisions the way we set up the project like to have him operating a handheld gimbal and have that freedom it was all set up to maximize that instinctive response this free form instinctual approach is a throwback to how Gareth started making movies his first feature film Monsters has that same almost documentary esque feel in fact if you hear Gareth talk about making monsters it's nearly the exact same approach they used to capture the Creator as a filmmaker what you're always striving to do is embedded in as much reality as possible with monsters you know our goal was to create this world that felt very believable and so with the digital technology becoming more and more powerful and in a sense more simple you can approach a subject that is fantastic and shoot it in a way that it's all real knowing that you can manipulate it in the computer to add all the elements you need if all of that sounds familiar it's because it's essentially the exact same approach they took for making the Creator small crew small cameras minimal setups great locations and insanely talented VFX people at all of the Sci-Fi elements later in post the Creator was made for 80 million which may seem like a lot of money and it is but in comparison to other modern Blockbusters it really puts things in perspective because the film looks far more expensive than it was and right after this quick break we're going to chat more with Orin about the indie film making techniques they used and the references they pulled to bring gareth's Vision to life you know what's arguably even more important than good cinematography and film making audio and and also music if you're a Creator you know that finding the right track for your project can often feel like a daunting task which is exactly why I use Music bed for all of my projects this video you're watching right now has over four tracks in it that I found on music bed I love music bed because nothing sounds corporate or stock and this helps me add a level of production value to my videos that simply wouldn't be possible with any other Creator music service music B is the only brand I trust with my most important film making projects their music helps me carry the emotion in all of my films and stories but you don't just have to take my word for it hear the difference for yourself and sign up for a free account using the code I'm Patrick 23@ checkout you're going to receive one month free when you purchase an annual subscription thank you again to musiced for sponsoring this video The Creator obviously owes a lot of its look to the VFX and CGI work by ilm but you simply can't ignore the real things that occupy the frame it really demonstrates the importance of a color color palette and along with locations ensuring your wardrobe props and art Direction all serve that color palette the two most striking colors in the Creator are orange and blue every digital screen and Tracer round glows bright orange to contrast against the blue night sky of Thailand or the US army ships and tanks we spent a lot of time talking about the color palette and talking about curating the pette and the thing is is when you're shooting a movie The Way We shot it it's a little bit different than you know a traditional process where typically you have a costume designer and a production designer and you're looking at color swatches and you're looking at pettes because you're building everything so so you have full control over the palette with us it was more about like we need to react to What colors the locations are giving us first and foremost so for example you know we knew that there's going to be a lot of Dusky Kind of Night exteriors that that have that sort of really blue cast so you already know okay well blue is going to be the dominant color so now if we're going to add a complimentary color to that you know it's just going back to like CL classical color theory probably going to be something warm orange red um or it's going to be something complimentary it's going to be like blue with green or blue with like a little bit of a yellowy green or that kind of thing and then if we had a day exterior sequences that we knew would be very green cuz there's going to be a lot of trees and Greenery so then it's like okay so the palette for those sequences is going to be more earthy it was very deliberate but it's also very organic the key to this is really just controlling the palette a controlled palette is typically like one or two colors a lot of filmmakers today assume you can create the look you want in post simply with color grading but the Creator expertly demonstrates how a look is accomplished mainly in camera any Luts or post-production are simply amplifying the real things that you captured when we were scouting the film GTH had downloaded one of those LS that you're talking about like just from the Internet it's like we called it the $5 L I don't remember where he got it from it was from one of these Lut packs and it was just called like 1970s film L and this L was crap I mean it was it like it ripped the image apart and we when we were scouting we had that L and so all of our test footage and everything was was using it and Gareth really liked it and I did too I mean Greg and I both thought it was cool it was just very clear that it was technically terrible like it was it was ripping the image apart and it was not um reflecting reality so then when we went to photo Kemp to create our our showl for the movie the mission statement for them was it was like how can we recreate this L but like a good version of it basically but and so that's what we did and so the the the film L that we made is sort of based on this like $5 1970s film look L wherever wherever Gareth got it from that 1970s film L along with the heavy Kodak 35mm inspired film gra emulation makes even more sense when you understand the references Gareth was pulling from for the Creator the military and jungle sequences from Apocalypse Now to the futuristic science fiction of aliens ship interiors and the City nightscapes from blade runnner I think the Creator might be our only modern example of a film that has come this close to evoking the classic cinematography style of Ridley Scott and more specifically Jordan cronenworth who shot Blade Runner there's an intense contrast to this film that's seriously missed in modern cinematography so it's extremely refreshing to see it done so well here something that has consistently bothered me about current Cinema photography Trends is often films and shows now are simply too lit earlier film Technologies with their inherent limitations captured scenes with a certain graininess and Shadow depth I think alien has the best blacks like the best Shadows of any movie it's perfect and it is dark and Inky black like it's a a result of the film stock that they shot on but actually our lot was based on that stock today's digital cameras however can shoot in near total darkness and this can work in a filmmaker's favor such as the case with the Creator and the Sony fx3 this camera can shoot at 12,800 ISO essentially in Moonlight but Gareth Greg and Orin never sacrific contrast for the sake of clarity the Creator Embraces Darkness it lets Shadows be shadows and bright lights can be bright there isn't a muddiness or opaque gloss to the film a scene would just feel a little overlit and and and a lot of times the light that we were adding our key light which was almost always a Helios tube on a boom pole if you see some of the behind the scenes footage you can see our best electric Nancy just like running around with that thing so a lot of times anytime we kind of move into a medium or a closeup she's like just off camera but what we found is like there's this Razor's Edge where it looks too lit on one side of it it looks too perfect and too placed and too artificial like it looks like a source it just looked like we put a light right there and gave them a nice key and that's not what we wanted so a lot of times what we would do I mean a trick that we found very early on in in testing was that if you bounce that light it looks better you just your brain automatically accepts it as opposed to doing it direct so whenever possible that boom pole actually was not directly lighting characters it was pointed down like this and it's the light is in a Chima so it's flagged off of you know the light source itself is flagged but the light is then bouncing off of like the ground or a wall or like just the environment and like the props and it is imbued with all the random little colors that are in there like subtly that whatever it's bouncing off of and the fall off is much nicer cuz it's not very sourcy when you bounce it off of a wall or of the floor like it spills all over the place and it and it kind of falls off to the sides so then the light that's bounced just ends up feeling like really organic and natural but still Punchy enough to create that that contrast cuz we were always looking for that we always tried to make sure that everybody had like some sort of key or Edge or something that was separating them cuz otherwise you just get that thing you were saying before where everything is like muddy and equally kind of exposed and we didn't want that it was this Razor's Edge of like of like if we didn't do enough then something would look like like that like it would look unlit to a fault it wouldn't have that curated like that kind of elevated cinematic look it would just look sloppy and we didn't want that either you know we wanted the film to feel cinematic and immersive but but also naturalistic and motivated from the environments and believable so it's a tough thing it's a it's like a very thin line it's a very thin line we would always say like something needs to look 85% if it looks 95% it's too good it's too pretty it's too perfect it's too curated but if something looks like 50 or 40% then it just doesn't look good and we don't want either one of those things so the whole movie was just finding that line that was the whole movie every [Music] day a lot of the Buzz surrounding the making of the creator has zeroed in on the fact that they used a Sony fx3 a $4,000 mirrorless camera you can purchase at Best Buy but a big reason I even wanted to make this video was as a reminder to everyone that I think we're focusing on the wrong thing Gareth made monsters 13 years ago with a Sony EX3 a camera you can buy on eBay right now for under $1,000 he used tools that would be considered ancient by today's modern standards but monsters looks fantastic because of everything we talked about in this video it's lighting locations talents props and vision you can go buy a Sony fx3 right now and rent the COA anamorphics that they use to shoot the Creator but if you don't figure out these cinematic fundamentals it doesn't matter if you use an iPhone or an Alexa yeah I I think it's funny I mean the the focus on the fx3 of it all and and the gear and the equipment is interesting to me because it's like it's like the least interesting part of the film for me that's not to say that it's not significant cuz I understand the significance of it and why people are interested is because a feature film has not been shot on that camera before in its entirety so there is like a sort of novelty aspect to it to us though it was more of a throwaway it was like we need to find the right camera for the way we were going to shoot the film and tested a bunch of them and that camera turned out it was good enough like the image that it was capable of of creating or at least outputting through the HDMI to uh to an external recorder was like good enough not just good enough it's it's at the level of like any other camera so once you tick that one box like does the camera technically provide the image that I need out of it like the amount of data for color grading and for visual effects and whatever else we needed to do and gives you the 15 stops dynamic range and like gives you that quality that you need like does it pass that in that one quality check good then that's it that's the last time I need to think about that like as long as it gives me what I need then that's the only motivating decision and and the the fact is is that in this day and age like we're so lucky because all of these cameras kind of give us enough you can't downplay the fact that like we're putting wet a workshop props industrial Light and Magic visual effects shooting in these amazing locations we have a huge budget for set design stunts s effects lighting there's taste and curation applied to all of it like everything we've talked about and we did use minimal resources mostly to get that feeling of that minimalism and that Simplicity but it was also just to be able to move quickly honestly and just get as much footage as we can you know there is a certain quality level that just comes from what's in front of the camera what's behind the camera like the tool itself is almost incidental at this point especially in this day and age it's not not important you need to know your tools you need to know what they can do you need to understand their limitations and ultimately all that matters is that you have the right tool for the right job something I've been thinking a lot about about this year particularly with my YouTube channel is I got to start thinking less about the gear and the lenses that made a movie and more about the people and the thought and the intention that went into making a movie and I get it it's cool it's awesome that you can go get an fx3 now and it shoots like an Alexa or whatever you want to call it but this isn't a new idea we've been able to make movies with consumer electronics for years now but the wrong thing to take away from the Creator is that I need to get an fx3 because it's at the Quality level of a camera that can shoot a blockbuster that's not GTH shot monsters 13 years ago with a Sony ex the I think a lot of us are at that stage we haven't made Star Wars yet and we haven't made Godzilla but we need to make our monsters we need to find that story that we can create and accomplish with the tools we already have and focus on the stuff in the frame and not so much the stuff that captures that frame I don't know anything about VFX or CGI I can't create spaceships or beasts or Monsters out in the sky but I can shoot two people sitting and talking and I can make that look good and I think from this video and chatting with Orin I think a lot of us now are going to feel more empowered to create those types of stories that to me is what's so fascinating about the production of the Creator it's not the fact that they had CGI and all this stuff it's that even underneath all of that underneath that shine and that layer of CGI and industrial Light and Magic there's still a really beautiful film but don't get it twisted the Creator looks exceptionally well because of the budget and because of the talent and because of the stuff inside that frame that a lot of of us don't still have access to don't run and buy an fx3 or get a COA anamorphic and expect your work to look like the Creator grab the stuff you already have and apply the fundamentals that Orin taught us today and you might have something close and you might get better and better and you might one day have something and have the resources of making something like the Creator less buying stuff more learning stuff that is going to be the ethos for this channel moving forward and I'm so glad a film like the Creator now exists that we can use as this Benchmark of what is possible when you just put your mind is something and you have a clear vision and an aesthetic that you want to accomplish shout out to Orin Sofer for coming on the channel it was an invaluable experience for myself and I hope all of you to learn from him and the behind the scenes of making this movie if you have any questions for myself or Orin maybe he'll pop up in the comments otherwise my name is Patrick and I hope you enjoyed this video and you will see or hear me next time I feel like making a video [Music] cheers so I'm a I'm a huge Jan deont fan and like twister and all that kind of stuff and I want to know there's the truck sequence and the pickup truck and whatnot with John David Washington did twister ever come up in your pre-pro at all for any of this okay it's me it's me projecting it then yeah Gareth Gareth is from a different generation so uh he you know my references when I look at it I'm like I'm think I'm like ooh Jurassic Park totally twister yeah um you know the Rock like all that stuff's in there for me uh Starship Troopers but those movies are um Gareth is more in the 70s and ' 80s you know and to be honest you know like thinking about Oppenheimer and stuff like there's something about film making when it is imperfect like you said that I think it makes it better there's like it's okay to not I don't want to say remind the audience that there's a camera but there's an there's a language to movies and some you know especially if you're hearkening back to like 7s and Apocalypse Now and alien stuff there's a lot of things that kind of went wrong technically in those movies and I like that this has that sort of feeling whether intentional or not it's not thinking so technically perfect that everything has to look like a re 79 pristine image it's okay to have chaos like there's a bit of Chaos in that right yeah I mean this goes back to the you know Blood splattering on the lens and Children of Men mhm you know it's that kind of thing it's like it's interesting cuz for some people that can take them out of it that can draw that can draw attention like you were saying to the film making which can have the opposite effect or it can immerse you even more and I find it immerses me more I mean we were talking about the Batman before such a great example like the Optics in that film The lensing is so messed up like it's so quote unquote flawed that for some people that kind of thing could take them out but for others myself included and I think you that actually has the opposite effect it brings you in because what it does is it it shapes it shapes the image in a way that like focuses where you're looking and it creates um something that's a little bit more painterly it's like the way painters used to work to draw your eye to certain things and um actually for us this is something Gareth and I talked about cuz we shot all on pretty much one lens and it was also kind of like a up '70s anamorphic um Kaa like I mentioned before and uh it's very flawed like it has that kind of blur on the top and bottom and it has this natural vignette and what we had talked about was like what's so great about that is to me it actually replicates human Vision more accurately than a clean lens because human Vision Works in a similar way human vision is like we focus on what's right what we're looking at and then everything else is this blur in our periphery you know human Vision does not look like a master Prime like we're not seeing sharp Focus from edge to edge m and we're not seeing crisp detail we see crisp detail in the center of our vision what we're just looking at and then everything else kind of falls off and so actually this type of anamorphic lensing like replicates that even more and so for me is more immersive you know even though some people would say well don't the flaws like take you out of it doesn't the patina you know the edge of the blur and all the all the all the technical flaws like take you out of it I think no I think I think it doesn't and I think the same applies to the rest of the film making the lighting approach the camera operating which was sort of intentionally Rough and Tumble um like we didn't stabilize a lot of push-ins have this kind of rough bumpy nature to them when you're pushing in really fast on slightly uneven ground like and we were like we love that cuz that's like what Dolly shots look like in those 7s movies is they have that like imperfection and we just find it more immersive it's it doesn't take you out of it it's the opposite it's it's the complete opposite so some of that stuff is intentional like obviously the film green added um and some of it is unintentional but it's it's intentionally unintentional if that makes sense like it's all designed to create opportunities for those kinds of unintentional accidents to happen and and then it's just about like letting them happen and then embracing them and then putting them in the edit but uh yeah that's Bas that's like the whole movie that's the whole ethos of that approach and and the end goal ultimately is just to create something believable and like something immersive that's really it it's very simple it's just we want to create a world that feels lived in and believable and immersive that's it that's the motivation for all of this and uh yeah hopefully hopefully it works works that's our only hope yeah yeah [Music] yeah