![]() Dan made anamorphic and spherical versions of it for us. It’s based on an old projector lens from the 1800s and has a focal length of up to 160mm. Yes, mainly for all the flashback sequences and drug episodes. I heard you also used a special Petzval lens? It’s an epic story, so why not shoot on an epic format? Then, when Baz was in LA around August 2019, we met up with Dan Sasaki at Panavision and went through all these different lens iterations - some on 35mm and some on a 65mm camera - until we got to the right ones that were specially built for us. We decided to shoot on the ARRI Alexa 65, and Baz and I decided to go that way very early on. How did you make all your camera and lens choices? There is a bit of archival footage of ‘70s Vegas in there, but that was it. That’s why we had to recreate it all from scratch. Memphis doesn’t look anything like it used to when Elvis was there, and the same with Vegas. Yes, early on, but we all soon realized we couldn’t, as it’s all changed so much now. ![]() Was there any talk about shooting in some of the real locations in the US? Pretty much everything was shot on the biggest stages they had at Village Roadshow in Australia, and we also shot on three backlots for the carnival and Beale Street stuff. That way, we could design all the camera moves and transitions and rehearse stuff physically on the sets before we even shot. We also built the Beale Street set and Graceland exterior and interior, all on stages and backlots. For instance, for the bit when young Elvis runs from the gas station to the juke joint to the tent - that was all storyboarded, as it was all a build. It was more about making the connections between scenes and sequences. Really, post is part of prep now on a film like this.ĭid you do lots of shot lists and storyboards? Baz loves to test and experiment, and we also worked closely with all the other departments – not just costume and art direction, but all the VFX. We were just about to start shooting when we had to shut down for four months when Tom Hanks got COVID, so we had even more time to do tons of testing on cameras, lenses and so on. We had a lot of prep on this movie - 16 weeks - and we went through everything meticulously. Then later, in his Vegas hotel room when he can’t sleep, the mood is darker, and the camera reflects that. When Elvis is with his mother, it’s slower. But later, when it all settles down and the drama gets heavy, the camera moves far more slowly so you focus on the situation. And as he’d been working on this for 10 years, he’d done so much research, and the visuals are so important in this.įair to say that initially the camera seems to be constantly moving – right from the carnival Ferris wheel scene at the start? ![]() Then it’s a matter of me interpreting all that visually. How did it work on this?īaz is very good at explaining the story he’s making and the whole emotional journey. This is your fourth collaboration with Baz. Then in Vegas, there were bright, garish colors, very ‘70s, with lots of flares. Then, by the time Elvis got to Hollywood, it was more Kodachrome-looking, and I had more depth of field, more color in the lighting and more contrast. It was a very considered color palette that we’d researched from the period. When Elvis is 10 and running to the Pentecostal tent, we shot it with the black-and-white color look. We also had different LUTs for each period. Then, once he got to Las Vegas, we used anamorphic lenses - old glass from that period, with more aberrations. For the first part, when Elvis is growing up in Tupelo, I shot spherical in what we called “black-and-white” color that’s a desaturated look with pushed blacks. We basically divided the story into two parts and used different lenses to tell the story. How did you approach the look of the movie with all the different eras stretching from the ‘50s to the ‘70s? I spoke to Walker, whose credits also include Mulan and Hidden Figures, about the challenges of shooting Elvis, the cinematography and working with the DIT, DI and VFX.
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