How Sean Baker and Cinematographer Drew Daniels Made ‘Anora’ “Possibly Anti-Hollywood”

When he set out to make Anura Cinematographer Drew Daniels says that with director Sean Baker, the goal was to be as “anti-Hollywood” as possible.

“It’s something that’s in both Sean and I’s DNA,” says Daniels, who first worked with Baker on his 2021 feature. Red Rocket. “We love indie films, we love art house films, we love European cinema. So the more anti-Hollywood and the more unpredictable we can be, the better.

Baker focused on Eurocinema classics such as Federico Fellini. Nights of Cabria. (1957) for the Palme d’Or winning story of Anura, or Annie, a sex worker (played by Mickey Madison), who becomes involved with the son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Idelstein) with disastrous results. goes But the film’s visual style, shot entirely on 35mm celluloid, owes more to the New York thrillers of the 1970s.

Daniels spoke up. The Hollywood Reporter Ahead of Poland’s CameraImage Film Festival, the leading film festival dedicated to the art of cinematography, which is being screened. Anura As part of his spotlight on contemporary world cinema.

This is your second film with Sean Baker. How does his approach compare to other directors?

There are a couple of things that stand out. What really stood out was the first time I worked with Sean. [on Red Rocket] Did I have any idea what it would be like to work with Sean? I thought he would be very run-and-gun, because of the films he made, which looked loose and dirty. But actually, Sean has a very specific idea of ​​what he wants, he has a very tailored style. He is a perfectionist in many ways, especially Anura.

He’s very adamant about what’s in the frame – it’s almost a formal, minimalist approach that I really enjoyed. You can see that he edits his films himself. The amount of time we spent on set talking about editing was very unusual for a director. He has a clear idea of ​​what the edit will be, and what the next shot is. So it’s very formal, but then there are times when we go crazy.

Is there an example of a shoot that illustrates what you’re talking about?

yes I think there is a good example of both. So the court scene [near the end of the film] A good example of this is what I would call a highly supervised/chaotic approach. It’s not a handheld. We’re not shooting a lot of angles, but we let the actors improvise within the frame, and let them do something different. The home invasion scene, by contrast, is a highly controlled deliberate execution. It’s one shot, next shot, wide shot. We shot it like you would shoot a Hong Kong action film, shooting on set in an editing sequence.

I know Sean is a walking film encyclopedia. Did you talk about certain movies as visual references? Anura?

We saw 1970s New York films that felt appropriate, such as two Owen Roseman films: The French connection And Lena of Pelham 1 2 3In which it was really unique, it took a long time. These films have a bit of a hand-crafted quality around the edges, and a bit of attitude, which echoes Aini’s character — her cynicism. I wanted the photography quality to be the same. So in the home invasion scene, for example, when we dolly on the floor, if there’s a bump in the path, that’s fine. Sometimes I focus with my hand on the barrel, physically doing things like that. We used old Russian anamorphic lenses, which added a slightly grainy, soft quality to the image.

Talk about the opening shot of the film, when we see Aini in the club. How did you set it up?

I love that shot. I really do. We got that bullet right away. When we explored this place. [an actual strip club in Brighton Beach]we walked down that hallway, and we just knew that was our opening shot. If we just put the camera here and put it together. There was barely enough space, like an inch on either side of the camera. It was a really special moment. And it really draws you to Aini, feeling like she’s the star of the movie. It is also fearless. I mean, having your lead actress naked in the first shot of the film… we were a little worried about it, but Mickey was upset about it.

We just wanted to observe his interaction with the customers as if we were a little fly on the wall. We set up, roll the whole mag then do it from another angle, roll a whole mag. Just allow [Madison] Get into character, walk the floor, show how women work.

What was the most complicated or difficult scene for you to shoot?

The hardest was the home invasion because it’s in real time. 28 to 30 pages of script, 28 minutes in a movie, and all of it in continuous time. And, you know, it’s a short movie. I didn’t have a lot of resources. I do not have the ability to control the sun. So it became a real challenge for me, to create a consistent light and a consistent feel. We are shooting for 10 days straight and we can imagine every single weather in those 10 days. We had to shoot on a cloudy day. A rainy day and when the sun was shining inside. Doing all of this in what felt like 30 minutes a day was quite a feat. It doesn’t look like we’re lighting anything—the idea of ​​the film was to feel very natural and unlit—but believe me, we’re doing a lot.

The choreography must have been a nightmare too.

That scene was so complicated that we at least tried to do a shot list. We didn’t really, though. We spent a few days doing the shotlist, but we really only got through like three pages. So then we decided to abandon that and just trace the basic blocking, the shape of the scene, to figure out how it would start and how it would end, and that was from one side of the house. How will you go? Second

Visually we knew the style we wanted, we made it very heavy and closed, going in, and then it transitions halfway, and it goes into the handheld when it’s the lens. K’s wedding ring is bent and she screams. It gets crazy. And then when she’s tied up and they’re having a conversation with her before they leave, it goes back to a very locked down, heavy kind of camera language. We’ve already figured out the broad strokes but most of the details we’ll explore on the day, with the actors blocking things out.

How specific is Sean when it comes to individual shots and framing?

Sean usually has an idea for certain shots, an approach or a feeling, and I’m the photography detective, trying to adapt him to those ideas. The more we shoot, the less we have to talk because we become so aligned. We just knew what the film was and it became easier to just go into a scene blind and shoot it. I know that AnuraI would never do a sweeping crane shot and then an over-the-shoulder matching shot. That’s not how Sean shoots movies. It’s very earthy, very human and minimal coverage.

Generally, we try to shoot scenes where we are never recycling a shot. For example, the scene in bed where Aini asks Evan what he does and he jokes, ‘I’m an arms dealer.’ That shot consists of a wide shot, a close-up on that, a close-up on that, and then a two-shot. But once you’re in those shots, we never go back and forth. We’re in close-up for like a minute, and cut to two shots, into that for a minute, and then to another shot. We never break each other up, it’s like ping pong, boom, boom, boom. Sean really likes the approach where you’re always cutting a new shot, and I really do too.

We don’t always stick to it, because sometimes you can’t, especially when there’s a lot of characters in a scene, or a really long scene or something, but usually, Sean really likes to do it that way. . If you see Red Rocketit’s very similar. I really try to lean into and structure how we can block and shoot and cut a scene like that.

I think it’s very anti-Hollywood, which is in both Sean and I’s DNA. We love indie films, we love art house films, we love European cinema. So the more anti-Hollywood and the more unexpected we can be, the better.

Do you have a favorite shot in the film, maybe a shot that doesn’t necessarily stand out, but is special to you?

I don’t know if I have a favorite shot, but I definitely have a favorite scene. It’s near the end when Annie is smoking bluntly and she passes it on to Igor. [Yuri Borisov] And they’re just talking about their names and she calls him a fat-ass bitch.

I just love that scene. This is one of the simplest scenes in the film. It is very simple and beautiful. After the chaos of the film, sitting alone with them in this scene, watching them talk, is pretty cool. The relationship they have with each other is funny and combative, but also kind of flirtatious. There’s a lot going on in the scene but it’s really simple. The lighting is too low, the blocking, the camera angles. There are only three or four shots in this scene, maybe five. I think this scene was a real breakthrough for us. It felt like a very mature and confident scene, confident in the writing, confident in the filmmaking, and confident in the acting.