Harris Savides has been the eye through which some of the most vivid cinematic images have emerged over the past decade. Starting as a photographer, then working as a cinematographer, he’s developed into what he now calls a filmmaker. This progression includes a successful collaboration with Mark Romanek on videos such as Nine Inch Nail’s Closer, Madonna’s Bedtime Story and Fiona Apple's Criminal. It also includes secondary photography on David Fincher’s Se7en and the post of Director of Photography on The Game. With the release of Elephant, he’s marking his third feature with Gus Van Sant – a working relationship that goes back a decade.

Harris’ success as a video and commercial cinematographer has allowed him the freedom to choose which features he works on, as they’re not required to pay the bills. His transformation from the architect of slick Kino-style promos to a proponent of naturalism and improvisation is owed directly to his collaboration with Van Sant. In fact, he claims to feel so liberated by his experiences that he would find it difficult to return to classic filmmaking. In this respect, his aesthetic has shifted from an influence laid down by stylists like Jordan Cronenweth or perhaps Vittorio Storaro, to one more in synch with Haskell Wexler and Nestor Almendros.

We spoke recently on the phone, just after he’d returned to New York from a tech scout in Oregon with Van Sant for what will be their fourth movie together.

JAMIE STUART: So with a background in music videos and commercials, you’ve said that you’re able to make a living doing that and you can be more finicky about which features you work on. What is it that you look for in features when you do make those choices?

HARRIS SAVIDES: I look for the script and a director I want to work for. I look for a good script and I look for a director who works from a story. I try to stay away from a lot of people who are just visual. It’s funny, cause when you look at a lot of the people I work with they’re very visual. But I’m trying. Coming from…where I’m coming from now, I’m trying to get into more story-driven projects.

JS: It seems like in order to do both mediums you kind of have to be able to separate the two. With One Hour Photo, I thought it was interesting that Mark Romanek – he really never dealt with narrative music videos, they were mostly about visuals – so I thought it was interesting when he went ahead and made One Hour Photo, it was rather low-key and focused on the story and characters.

HS: Yes. Yes. I think he definitely was very specific about that. And that was a good thing for him.

JS: Talk a little bit about your working relationship with Gus. I understand you started off doing a commercial about a decade ago?

HS: Yeah, about ten years ago we started off doing a Levi’s commercial together, and that went off really well. We had a great time together. I think it just became slowly over the years – we just got along very well and seemed to work very well together. We compliment each other in a good way. It just seems to have a good flow. I seem to help him and he’s a dream to work for. He gives me room and challenges me. He’s never easy. He doesn’t like it complicated either. He doesn’t want me to be the guy who lights it all day. And I don’t want to be that guy either. If he had it his way we’d be there like a documentary crew.

JS: Right. The thing about Gus’ style is that it’s always very visual, but there’s also simplicity to it.

HS: Yeah…which I really like. I try to make that happen. I wish I could do it all the time. I wish I could use no lights. And make it look good at the same time.

JS: Now Elephant had a very natural look to it – how much of that was staged with cut light and how much of it was natural?

HS: Most of it was natural light. I think 90%…maybe 85% of it was natural light. Then a lot of it was – there was some, where we bounced light onto the ceiling. Like in the gym. We enhanced what was there. We never
really lit anything. But we took what the school had to offer and maybe balanced some things. Just added some light. Maybe down some of the corridors we added some light. Some in the glass cabinets just to brighten up an area, so we weren’t in these total voids of darkness. Sometimes I’d change some of the fluorescents in the ceilings. In the library, for instance, where the big shooting happens, we added probably our biggest lighting setup – we had some lights bounced onto the ceiling from outside, so there was a continuity of light. Wasn’t much lighting at all. It was really a natural kind of approach. Using what was there and just embellishing, getting more of a stop out of things.

JS: More to sort of facilitate fill-light as opposed to necessarily sculpting light.

HS: Exactly. Totally. That was the attitude. Also, we couldn’t do too much lighting. We were moving from one end of the school to another, so in five minutes of walking we’d follow Michelle down the hallway, behind her…unbeknownst to the viewer there’d kind of be a glimpse of the library from the other windows. We couldn’t have lights outside those windows. When you finally turn and go into the library – the windows that we needed to put the lights behind would’ve been seen as we went down the hallway. So there were very few opportunities for us to hide lights. Even if we were gonna light in the normal way, a regular movie kind of way, we didn’t have that kind of space. It was funny, cause what happened was, I kind of learned you really didn’t need to light. Cause I love the way this movie looks. I’m going to be a lot easier on myself and my crew in the future.

JS: It seems the way you went about it was very much in the spirit of how Kubrick went about shooting his films. He very much believed in source lighting. And it also plays into this as well, cause he was somebody who liked to move his camera a lot. He liked to move his Stedicam through various spaces, and the only way to do that is to use stationary lights. So being that you kept covering the same situations from various points of view, how did that affect the continuity? Did that become difficult to manage?

HS: I was terrified of it. We all were in the beginning. We had video playback. We weren’t extremely perfect with it, but we were just able to match it. We watched the playback and were able to get it down good enough. It was close enough that it worked. It was kinda cool that it wasn’t precise. I think it would’ve been more sterile if it were precise. There would’ve been something strange about it. So it worked for us.

JS: Yeah, when Fincher did Panic Room he did multiple takes just to perfectly match the action between the characters and the video screens.

HS: I’ve been there.

JS: Elephant was shot in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio – the high image instead of the wide image. How’d you come to that decision?

HS: I just liked how majestic it was when I first saw it projected. Like the image went up, to me. It just blew me away! It was just different. It was special. I hadn’t seen anything projected like that in a long time. I don’t even know what the last thing I saw projected in 1.33 was. It just had an effect on me. I think Gus was excited by it too. We just said, we have to do it this way. It was his idea. He wanted to do it in 1.33. It was also his idea to have a 1.85 ground glass in the camera and set for 1.33, so that our action is in the center of the frame. Which I like a lot. It sometimes looks like a Diane Arbus picture.

JS: When you prepared for this film – or really any film in general – do you read the script and get an idea of how you visually want to approach it? Do you start researching it by looking at other people’s photographs or paintings? How much of it is that and how much comes from just being on the set or locations and being within the environment?

HS: First, I’ll read the script – and before I get any external influences I’ll talk to the director. I ask them what they want to do. That will be my initial catalyst. That will drive me initially. It depends how strong they feel about it visually. I’ll let them start me in a direction. They might have specific pictures or ideas, which will get me going. If they don’t, I’ll come back to them with something. But Gus is pretty specific. I think he got me going with the William Eggleston stuff.

JS: This and Gerry were both very experimental in the sense of using improvisation. How does that affect your process – working on a film like this and then working with Fincher who likes to storyboard and pre-plan his work?

HS: I love David Fincher. And I love what he does. He’s a special case. But I have to say that I’m going to have difficulty going back to traditional filmmaking after working on these films with Gus. This has been a great way of working. A great way of making movies. We kind of go there and develop what we’re doing on the spot. They’re very creative. Very collaborative. They’re experimental on a daily basis. We have to figure out how we’re going to shoot it. And out of this comes really good work. We try to avoid close-ups unless they’re really important. We avoid redundant coverage. We kind of throw all these text book rules out the window. It’s great. It frees you. I can’t go back to a regular movie at all. It feels like TV movie of week coverage to me. I think I’d be miserable going back. I think I’d be like a wild animal trapped in a cage. This changed me profoundly, I think, in the ways movies are made. It’s incredible. It’s spoiled me. Being offered movies now, I really consider what I’m being asked to do. I could get offered scripts and offered jobs, but it’s like, do I really want to do this? It almost seems like a ball and chain. I’m a little weary now. Unless I run into somebody who’s doing a really good job…but I don’t know how often I’m going to run into this kind of experience. At least in the American market right now. I’m hoping that when people see these films – I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy – but I think they’re amazing! People are intuitive this way.

JS: Now that you’re working with Gus and you’ve developed this new approach…did you find for a while that doing videos would attract people who wanted to pigeonhole you for a certain look?

HS: I would stay away from those kinds of projects. People who wanted to hire me for the look I could do didn’t have a broad sense of what they needed from a cinematographer. They wanted just a snappy DP. I’m not gonna go do those kinds of movies. You know, The Rock kind of film. Those are the kinds of movies where they want a video Harris Savides kind of guy. I think the kind of work I’m going to get is going to be based on the movies I’ve done. The music videos I’ve done are just going to be icing on the cake. I’m hoping that people will appreciate that – yeah, he’s done some decent-looking movies – and he’s also done these interesting music videos too. So he could bring something else to the project. I’m hoping. But to get work on movies based on music videos – I don’t think a director worth his salt would serve his best interests hiring that guy, that cinematographer. Cause that cinematographer can’t tell a story. Do you know what I mean?

JS: Yeah. Like watching a Michael Bay movie where every single shot is beautiful – but the shots aren’t really cutting together to tell a story.

HS: Exactly. Exactly.

JS: It’s like the whole thing has become a montage of beautifully lit, beautifully composed shots. But they’re not really using the camera to tell the story.

HS: When you make a movie you need an ally who can help you communicate to the audience in the simplest way. The great-looking picture comes later. There are other problems that come before that.

JS: What is it about images, different images, that attract you to them?

HS: I am in love with images. But it’s funny in a way, cause it changes – and its changed. It’s funny cause now I’m in love with images that mean something. I could go see a movie that’s really beautiful, but if the story’s not there I’ll walk out. I’ll be upset that the director and the DP did that. I won’t name any movies, in particular. I do love photographs. But in terms of a movie, an image has to work for whatever the movie is doing. I love Tarkovsky. I love Sakarov. Those images…those long-lasting shots…I don’t even know why I like them.

JS: They did a beautiful job on Russian Ark.

HS: Yeah. I think the images need to mean something now for me to love them.

JS: The thing that bothers me now in most movies is that I don’t feel like the camera and the editing are really thought out in terms of telling the story. Or trying to say anything. There just doesn’t seem to be a great deal of motivation to what I’m seeing on the screen. Not a great deal of function.

HS: Yeah, you’re right. I started off in this business as a photographer. I became a DP. And I think now I’m becoming a filmmaker. Does that make any sense? I love photography, but I love and understand the images I’m making now. They’re different for me in film than they are in photography. They’re no longer images – they’re stories.

JS: You say you consider yourself a filmmaker now. Do you have any interest in directing?

HS: No. No. But I’m really interested in structure. I love the problem of looking at the day’s work – say, Alex walks into the lunchroom – seeing how we’re going to do that. How are we going to solve that problem?

Copyright 2003 Jamie Stuart

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