| BIO |
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Matthias Grunsky |
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director of photography |
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| When I first met Andrew in Los Angeles in 2000 I just had finished my Cinematography Studies at the American Film Institute. Andrew told me about his movie Funny Ha Ha and his idea of using just the equipment that is really necessary and working with a crew as small as possible, to create a real world for the actors and treat that world very carefully while shooting with as few distractions as possible. This idea fascinated me and I felt connected to Andrew's thoughts about filmmaking. But I also knew very well about the challenges which come along with this shooting style. When I read the script, which leads us through a couple of days in Marnie's life, I liked it and saw it as a very exciting experiment, a journey into a world that I didn't know too well. In one of our first meetings we watched Cassavetes' Faces, a very special movie for defining a camera style. I had seen Faces before, and I knew it was a very intense movie, which lives from its great performances. I remember our meeting very well. I thought: What can I do with Faces as a pattern for the camera style for Funny Ha Ha? What do I do? Just take the camera on my shoulder and swing it from one side of the room to another? However, the more I have talked with Andrew, the clearer I could see what he meant and eventually found my way to serve Andrew's ideas as well as I could. (In one of those meetings, Andrew tried my Chocolate Christmas Cookies. You can find the old family recipe here.) We did not shoot as soon as planned, and Andrew also changed the location from Los Angeles to his hometown Boston. So I came to a town I did not know. Besides Andrew, I worked with people I didn't know before, shooting a movie about Marnie, whose world I still had to explore, part by part, with the camera on my shoulder. Shooting was exciting and exhausting. We had a very small crew. A lot of the movie plays at night and for practical and conceptual reasons I had to use as few lights as possible. I tried to make almost no technical "noise" on the set with lights or with the camera, which I handheld on every single shot of the movie. We never had any marks for the actors. Most of the time I didn't even know what our actors would do in the scene before we shot. Of course this resulted in a lot of compromises for me as the cinematographer. But those compromises also lead to new ideas. I really enjoyed working with Andrew and all the guys, who all were more like friends hanging out than a film crew, which was immensely important for getting the atmosphere and power of the scenes. I also want to thank all the helping hands behind the camera, who fought with us through those long and hot nights. I hope we soon will be shooting the next Bujalski movie. |
| Er ist Ein Berliner. As a cameraman, Matthias is very shy about being in front of the camera himself, but nonetheless some very glamorous photographs do exist. (Matthias is not kidding about handholding every shot of the movie--the whole movie was on his shoulder--at the end of the summer he was lopsided.) |
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