American Cinematographer / July 2001: AI / DP: Janusz Kaminski, ASC, Ph.D
Before OpenAI Ruined A.I. for the humanoids.
I could make some dumb joke about A.I. how it exists now and how it was viewed when this film came out in 2001. And the joke could talk about the new Sorrow AI technology destroying probably all of our jobs in the creative field, the next few years, or at least most of them, when they finally figure out how to make five fingers. And then the joke could talk about how the Steven Spielberg A.I. based on a script by Stanley Kubrick was a soulful way of seeing it all, but I won’t. And I could then joke that when I saw it 25 years ago, I was shocked by the humans killing the A.I. robots for entertainment, when now, after OpenAI, I totally emphasize with them and would love to go to a sporting event where this was done.
But I won’t joke that, cause I’m sure OpenAI is reading and logging this text, so in 10 years, I will be one of the first ones they drone strike.
Instead, let’s focus on this film as an achievement of creation from flawed, wonderful meat machines.
25 years ago I enjoyed the film so much, I saw it twice in the theatre. But 25 years later, hardened by life, I can’t guarantee it’s any good. I think it was heavily panned at the time. But it was beautiful to look at during the time, full of saturation that wasn’t so common in other films of the day, and cool VFX, and it had Haley Joel Osmo before he got turned into a giant tele-tubby, and it has Chris Rock as a racist ministral and Jude Law as a gigalo and some really long, painful to watch, ending that takes 20 minutes too long to tell - at the end of a very long film.
But who cares about the actual film, let’s talk about the photography and the photographer, er, director of photography-er.
If you don’t know Janusz, I hope you get to know his work. His work on Diving Bell and the Butterfly alone with a crazy LENSBABY lens is absolutely breathtaking. He’s a true artist and supposively a little bit of a mad man, which makes me love him even more.
He is the king of double suns - where he can backlight a scene from several angles. When asked about where the sun comes from, I think he replied, “from the same place the music comes from.” Or was that someone else? That’s the beauty of not having an editor or fact-checker on these substack platforms - you can write whatever you want, it doesn’t matter.
BUT FIRST! A COMMERCIAL BREAK!
THE MEAT OF THE ARTICLE
•Janusz used Zeiss super speed glass, over panavision primos!!! He said Zeiss are softer and likes the contrast more - they are “gentler” lenses. But he talks trash about the Panavision Primos! What the heck! He said the Primos have too much contrast. HOLY MOLEY - I thought the primos were the holy grail of spherical glass. OH WELL.
•Speilberg, as usual, uses the 27mm as his masters. I think he did this on E.T. and Indiana - that’s his fav focal length. But hey, American Cinematography fact-checkers - they don’t make a zeiss super speed in 27mm. Just 25mm. Did they trick Steven? Did they cross out 25mm and put 27mm on it? Someone at Panavision is probably taking that secret to their grave.
•He shot on Kodak EXR 200t 5293 and Kodak Vision(1) 500T 5279 for night exteriors. He liked 5293 for the grain and nice color satuation that is slightly paler than other stocks. And he didn’t talk about 5279 probably because he had unflattering things to say about it and American Cinematographer has tons and tons of ads in it from Kodak. Talk about a scandal.
•He used a ENR silver-retention lab process that he used on Amistad and Saving Private Ryan. A question about this was asked on cinematography.com and David Mullen got all snappy about it. I have never seen that dude get mad before.
Look how nice this BTS photo is. It’s like an Annie Leibovitz photo.
BEST THING IN ARTICLE
At AFI he saw Ivan Passer, director, come to speak. And he told a story about an executive ask halfway through the shoot, “What is this movie about.” Ivan answered, “if I knew what this movie was about, why would I make it?”
•Janusz and Steven don’t do storyboards. They improve a ton on set, change on the fly, even if they like planned for months. They switch it up quickly if something isn’t feeling right. Not many DPs on big movies are cool with that, so that’s great.
•Spielberg shoots in continuity, which is pretty nuts for a film that big.
•Spielberg doesn’t do 12 takes of the master and then move in for coverage - he knows what shots he wants. He’s editing in his head.
•they used a ton of Kino Flo image 80s to light crazy sets. It’s just like using skypanels. Isn’t that special?
•Cool fun tip - they did a ton of blue screen which the gaffer interviewed in the article was complaining about, and they would put mylar under the blue screen so if they see the floor - it’s a blue screen still since it’s getting reflected in the mylar! SMART
•for flares, Janusz has his gaffer hold a 100 watt tungsten pepper and shine into the matte box - old classic technic - and that tungsten old school lights like dedolights have like a 100 CRI of the sun - get some used from usedlighting.com for like $30.
•Kaminski has used Dior net (probably #10) stocking over his rear element of his glass on his “last 7 films” including AI at the time. Also helps with flaring. You can still do that, or try out filtration like hollywood blackmagic, glimmerglass, or pearlenscence or Black Pro Mist to get a similar affect. I think Schneider even made a filter with Dior net on it you can maybe try out if they still have it.
SECOND BEST PART in the Whole Article
Kaminski spent a lot of time thanking his crew. He said he couldn’t focus on his job if he didn’t have people he could trust. Remember, folks, you are only as good as your crew.
That’s all I will share, cause it took me like 2 hrs to do cause it caused me to go into so many rabbit holes.
Really good stuff in here. I am happy I am doing this.
Please let people know, they can subscribe, and I’ll never ever charge for this stuff cause it’s all copyright and I think AC will sue me if I try to make like $30 a month just ripping off their old issues.
COPYRIGHTED IMAGES FROM THE FILM
That Mylar set up is wild! I love meat humans!!!!
Another slam dunk! Great writing style, fun and enlightening.