Cinematography Style: Wally Pfister

Head to squarespace.com/indepthcine to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code INDEPTHCINE
In this edition of cinematography style lets unpack Wally Pfister’s career as a director of photography by going over some of his philosophy, thoughts and ideas about filmmaking and then looking at some examples of the film gear he used to execute those ideas.
Source: • DP/30: Inception, cine...
Source: • Wally Pfister gives hi...
MERCH:
Official IDC Merch: www.indepthcine.shop/
SOCIALS:
Instagram: / indepthcine
Patreon: / indepthcine
IDC Website: www.indepthcine.com/
My Website: www.graykotze.com/
Discord: / discord
GEAR:
KZbin Gear I Use: kit.co/InDepthCine/youtube-gear
Editing Software I Use: bit.ly/2LZ60Lo
Stock Footage: bit.ly/3jZHBC0
MUSIC:
Atomic Sun - 'Rewriting History'
Ikoliks - 'Don't Stop It'
Kennedy - 'One Ocean Of Mine'
Sean Williams - 'Oceans Inside Us'
Ijawo - 'Trust You'
Laban - 'Portion'
I Am Alex - 'Waves'
Port George - 'Jennell'
Chill Winston - 'The Truth'
0:00 Introduction
0:46 Background
2:30 Philosophy
6:30 Squarespace
7:38 Gear
13:10 Conclusion
Source: theasc.com/articles/batman-be...
Source: • DP/30: Inception, cine...
Source: • Wally Pfister gives hi...
DISCLAIMER: Some links in this description are affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with these links I may receive a small commission without an additional charge to you.
Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue to provide you with free videos!

[@jeffreybablu]

A new generation of filmmakers are rising as they watch your videos

[@VariTimo]

One of the things you should mention when talking about the look being rich in color in contrast, is that his movies all (except Moneyball) have not just been shot on film, but were also finished on film. When he’s printing down, he is actually printing down. The digital versions were made by scanning a timed, printed, inter positive and grading that to match the analog master print. This reduces grain, and creates those rich colors with realistic feeling contrast. It should also be said that many of his lower light scenes have been underexposed by quite a bit to create realistic feeling shadows.

[@jeffjefferson7384]

The blacks look really satisfyingly black too. TDKR definitely had that for me.

[@VariTimo]

@@jeffjefferson7384 For sure. The lighting and exposure when Blake first meats Bruce is nuts. And people still try to get that look and fail so often.

[@waleedsokkarofficial]

He always had the contrast and saturation down to a T even from Memento

[@VariTimo]

@@waleedsokkarofficial That's photochemically printed film for you there. You can't do much to change contrast or saturation with this process. You can do it some extend but most of it is just well exposed normally processed film.

[@jeffreybablu]

You can't imagine the sheer amount of lives you've changed with the knowledge you impart

[@its_master_Roshi_Fkrs]

Could you please do video about cinematography style of Robert Richardson?

[@tatehildyard5332]

He made one years ago but I think it got taken down.

[@jeevangopal112]

I love how contrasty, layered, and dimentional his images are. One of my all time favorites, I miss him

[@RickJoaquim]

Absolutely loved what he did on The Prestige. And his use of eye-lights. Great video

[@jamesward3859]

Some suggestions for you Steve Yedlin, Bill Pope, Robert Richardson, Rodrigo Prieto, Dariusz Wolski, John Mathieson, Claudio Miranda, Dion Beebe, Ben Davis, Mandy Walker, Rachel Morrison, Bruno Debonnell, Phedon Papamichael, Dan Laustsen, Rob Hardy and Dan Mindel

[@wilsonthefilmmaker]

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 always great videos

[@piusgyagenda]

The video ended when am still interested to learn more. Thank you so much for this

[@scottysong]

Thank you so much for posting this. Was waiting for someone to do a video on one of the GREATEST

[@quickfilmmakingtips2870]

Brilliant video as always! I was wandering if you could do more videos on old-school cinematographers?

[@aLgProduction]

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.

[@cugan83]

Has to be my favourite content on YT, a feast for cinematography nerds.

[@Chips-Lab]

Very informative Thank you 🙏🏼

[@TheWayOfDesert]

Would truly like that you could take a crack at Jarin Blaschke, on his previous work and on his fabulous continuity with Eggers.

[@JoeJoe-nb3lt]

He got the best rag to riches stories ever , from shooting "porn" to shooting the batman lol

[@deniss.6205]

"soft".

[@collin7818]

I hope you do Jan Debont one day. example of a cinematographer becoming a director. I love his work with John McTiernan and would be very interested to learn about his style

[@geekmania1376]

Great video. Waiting for Rodrigo Prieto´s style

[@RameshKumar-es7ep]

Do a Cinematography Style video for Rodrigo Prieto and Robert Richardson please 🤜🤛

[@MegaShajijohn]

Super 🙏 congrats 🙏

[@jijivishant]

nice

[@IsaacSurfsTheWeb]

I've been a fan of yours for years, but these videos are especially helpful now I'm doing cinematographer case studies at university! Would you (or anyone) recommend any well-known cinematographers/DoPs who have a soft, dark, colourful yet desaturated visual style? Would be a huge help for my research

[@its_master_Roshi_Fkrs]

Robert richardson his work in JFK has a lot of desaturated images and hand held sequences and he uses back-lighting with blooming effect his images are really beautiful... Try case study on his cinematography especially jfk and aviator

[@tatehildyard5332]

Robby Muller is another solid example of what you might be looking for. Did a lot with Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Lars Von Trier.

[@jeffjefferson7384]

Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy might be worth a look (Blue and Red especially).

[@lorcan545]

Sounds like a description of Carol’s cinematography. Lachmann is a cinematographer who gives a relatively large amount of interviews and whose style varies, but not so much you can’t distinguish his contribution to different auteur’s films.

[@sunnydayfilmsweddingvideo]

Bradford Young in The arrival?

[@bibhuranjandutta470]

Is printing down is similar to pulling film

[@mukildasjayadas6378]

please make a video on lucas zal

[@jeffjefferson7384]

Nolan apparently has color blindness, so Pfister's talent is extra important in their collaborations. Hoytema is very talented (I love how Nope looks) but I don't think his movies with Nolan look anywhere near as good. There seems to be a big obsession with large formats and high resolution (65mm, IMAX, in monochrome, etc) and less interest in lighting setups.

[@mateberg]

I think that his most "artistic" work, to put it in some way, would be with Interstellar, besides being his first collaboration with Nolan, the colors, angles, and lighting of that film were beastly

[@gideonMorrison]

Disagree. Both Hoyte and Pfister are insanely talented, equally talented

[@Bluboy30]

Did he quit Hollywood for good? His first and only major directing gig was a failure, and I'm sure that took a big hit on his ego. I thought he'd come back and work with Nolan again.

[@bobunitone]

He directs commercials. He did the crypto superbowl ad with matt damon lol

[@Bluboy30]

@@bobunitone Yeah, I know he directs commercials. I think he also directed a few of the Taco Bell commercials within the last couple of years. I'm sure he's well off financially after working on so many box office hits. But I thought he'd come back and be a DP again.

[@bobunitone]

@@Bluboy30 i feel the same. And same goes with Lace Acord, dipped out after Where the wild things are. Now just directing ads. Hollywood is a slog though and commercials is good money if you’re established. So I don’t really blame them for switching. But who knows, maybe he’s still got the itch!

[@oniriscope]

Yes The man had to retired as Dir after his directior’s debut floped… The cinematography of Inception is something else…

[@HuanLeVuong]

Remember when things was easier, we could borrow cameras for our weekend shootings.

[@Mario-tx4ll]

He never did a DI on Nolans films, they were all finished photochemically.

[@atindrabiswasDP]

It's really sad that he left Nalan's team as well as cinematography. 😟

[@km099]

He finished the story mode, so my man is doing side quests now

[@atindrabiswasDP]

@@km099 Ha ha , couldn't have said it better . 😅

[@Whoa802]

He should go back to shooting porn. 😆

[@nitinandkongsiri3267]

Why did Wally Pfister stop being a Cinematographer?

[@yetanotherbassdude]

He wanted to be a director himself. Unfortunately, his directorial debut was Transcendence with Johnny Depp which lost about $50M at the box office, so he's only really directed some TV/streaming episodes since, apparently. It's a real shame though, as he's still a fantastic DP and I'd love to see him do something new.

[@nitinandkongsiri3267]

Also Januz Kaminski and Phedon Papamichel have also become directors.

[@Malum09]

A shame that after Transcendence his career died because other than some directing credits for Flaked and The Tick he hasn’t done anything since 2017.

[@TheRubberStudiosASMR]

I still like his work over the other guy