Jeff Cronenweth, ASC: An Adventurous Eye 

The cinematographer’s profession exemplifies how expertise, versatility​, alternative and collaboration can mix to lead to daring camerawork.

By Jon Silberg

Administrators who’ve labored with Jeff Cronenweth, ASC observe that he’s quiet, centered, and possesses a really dry humorousness. Working in an eclectic mixture of genres and types, he shortly zeroes in on central ideas, typically exceeding expectations with the outcomes. His profession as a characteristic cinematographer started auspiciously with David Fincher’s eye-popping Fight Club (AC Nov. ’99), and his filmography since then contains The Social Community (AC Oct. ’10), Gone Woman (AC Nov. ’14), One Hour Picture (AC Aug. ’02) and the Amazon miniseries Tales From the Loop (AC April ’20). Cronenweth has additionally shot stylistically daring, groundbreaking music videos for David Bowie, Taylor Swift, Janet Jackson, Nine Inch Nails and plenty of different high artists.

It wouldn’t be in any respect hyperbolic to say Cronenweth was born into filmmaking. His great-grandfather owned and operated a photographic-equipment retailer in Wilkinsburg, Pa.; his grandfather Edward labored as a portrait photographer for Hollywood studios through the peak of that distinctive specialty, incomes an Academy Award for his work; his grandmother Rosita was a Busby Berkeley dancer; and his father, famend ASC member Jordan Cronenweth, served as director of images on Blade Runner (AC July ’82), Peggy Sue Obtained Married (AC April ’87), Altered States (AC March ’81), Gardens of Stone (AC Might ’87), and plenty of basic music movies for main artists of the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s. 

Taking this lineage a step additional, Jeff Cronenweth has additionally collaborated together with his brother Tim, a profitable industrial director, on greater than 500 spots.

“A storyteller doesn’t wish to inform the identical story again and again, and I don’t wish to, both.
I at all times wish to discover one thing new and difficult to work on.”
— Jeff Cronenweth, ASC

Cronenweth’s profession path started with 2nd-AC work on commercials as employees loader on the industrial manufacturing firm FilmFair, after which he enrolled at USC’s movie faculty — the place his graduating class included director Phil Joanou and cinematographers John Schwartzman, ASC, and Robert Brinkmann. He quickly landed gigs as a 1st AC for most of the cinematography giants of the period, together with Society members Conrad L. Hall, Sven Nykvist, John Toll, Haskell Wexler and Vilmos Zsigmond.

Recalling these early days, Cronenweth says, “To start with, it was overwhelming sustaining the digicam and the digicam division, however as I grew to become more adept, all of that grew to become second nature. I actually began appreciating my spot within the entrance row watching grasp cinematographers work, operators composing photographs, and simply seeing the entire ballet that takes place on a set with a cinematographer, the crew, the director and the actors.”

Invaluable Apprenticeship

Cronenweth’s father was amongst these he served as an AC, which enabled him to be taught from a extremely progressive artist. That gig additionally led to what proved to be an important relationship — creatively and personally — with Fincher. 

Fincher remembers a second that claims an incredible deal in regards to the senior Cronenweth’s strategy to lighting. The director units the scene: For Madonna’s haunting music video “Oh Father,” the lady taking part in Madonna as a baby is inside her just lately deceased mom’s closet, taking part in with a necklace, when her offended father opens the door and berates her. “The lady was lit by a window and a single sensible,” Fincher remembers. “The door would open, and we knew we’d want extra mild to hit her face. Jordan simply moved a few of the garments contained in the closet round to create some bounce, and it regarded stunning.

“I really like when a cinematographer figures out a approach to key somebody with out simply setting a lightweight and focusing it on them,” Fincher provides. “The human face responds to mild in so some ways. It may come from the ceiling and spill over them, or it may bounce off the ground or come from a monitor. The cinematographers I’ve at all times admired and labored with are very acutely aware of this. Jordan was glorious that method, and Jeff innately has that sensibility, too.” 

On Fincher’s first characteristic, Alien3 (AC July ’92), father and son labored collectively through the early days of the mission earlier than twentieth Century Fox — reflecting well-documented nervousness in regards to the manufacturing on account of quite a lot of points — changed the elder Cronenweth with Alex Thomson, BSC after a number of weeks of capturing.

The movie’s large set was constructed on the famed Albert R. Broccoli 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios in London, and Jordan was not in one of the best of well being on the time. “It was very chilly in there,” Fincher remembers, “and it was tough to get out and in of the set. It fell to Jeff to do a few of the ‘recon.’ He was climbing round in there together with his meter whereas additionally maintaining a ledger of all the things [Jordan and the rest of his crew] have been doing, all of the time-ingesting quite a lot of what made Jordan so particular.”

Honing His Expertise 

Cronenweth began capturing music movies within the mid-’90s. “It was the heyday of the artwork kind,” he remembers, “with administrators like Fincher, Michael Bay, Dominic Sena and Mark Romanek doing work that was typically extra experimental and attention-grabbing than what we have been seeing in options.” One such mission he shot was for the 9 Inch Nails’ observe “The Perfect Drug,” directed by Romanek, who has remained a frequent collaborator of Cronenweth’s on music movies, commercials, and different tasks that embody the characteristic One Hour Picture and the Amazon Prime Video miniseries Tales From the Loop.

The “Excellent Drug” video had a roughly $2 million funds, 5 capturing days, large units, and “very progressive, progressive [photographic] types and light-weight sources,” Cronenweth says. “I got here into [shooting music videos] going, ‘I don’t wish to be like everyone else.’ I admired my father’s work a lot, as a result of he was extraordinarily daring and took probabilities and pushed movie shares and lenses to the intense. It simply appeared pure for me to take an identical strategy.” 

The cinematographer describes some bridges within the music the place he keyed with Lightning Strikes items gelled inexperienced to symbolize absinthe because the “excellent drug.” Cronenweth provides, “It got here off as so elegant. I’d have been hard-pressed to discover a purpose to make use of a way like that on a film, however we had alternatives like that on a regular basis on music movies.” 

Romanek remembers not solely the cinematographer’s standout work on the job, but additionally the work ethic that he introduced with him to the set. Sooner or later early in manufacturing on that 9 Inch Nails video, the director seen that Cronenweth appeared a bit drained. It turned out that his father and mentor had died the day past. “I didn’t even know at first,” Romanek says. “Jeff was coping with grief and planning his father’s service whereas he was engaged on the pre-light. These have been 14- [or] 15-hour days, and his lighting on the video was exquisitely stunning. In a while, he advised me he’d considered his work as being in honor of his father.” 

Breaking Into Options

When Fincher was prepping Struggle Membership, Cronenweth had accomplished some 2nd-unit capturing and working for the director’s movies, however at the moment he hadn’t but shot a characteristic — and making that transition from music movies and commercials was nonetheless a major leap for a cinematographer. Subsequently, when the director invited Cronenweth to his home to learn the Struggle Membership script, the latter assumed he was being requested to do his normal 2nd-unit work (as he’d accomplished on Seven and The Game), which nonetheless would have been an thrilling alternative.

 “I knew the story, and it was all about breaking guidelines,” Cronenweth remembers. “The script itself is so irreverent. It’s about combating again in opposition to established ideas, and Fincher, typically, is pretty irreverent. It was actually one thing I wished to be a part of.” 

However when he arrived at Fincher’s home, Cronenweth remembers, the director mentioned, “‘Learn the script and let me know if you wish to shoot it.’ In my head, I didn’t actually need to open it — this was an unbelievable alternative with a really gifted director, good friend and nice forged. So, I attempted to place my greatest sport face on, walked [outside] with the script, and — as soon as I used to be safely inside my automobile — I began yelling! I learn it in two hours and mentioned, ‘Sure, I’d wish to shoot it!’” 

Cronenweth is “very humble,” Fincher says. “He would possibly take a look at Struggle Membership as this massive break, however I take a look at it because the pure evolution of what we have been already doing. On Alien3, he and his father had been like one particular person. Later, he had operated on some 2nd-unit work we did on Seven when Darius Khondji [ASC, AFC] wasn’t capable of return for reshoots. Harris Savides [ASC] was capturing and Jeff was working. Typically I’d break Jeff off [on his own] and say, ‘Go throughout the road and discover me a shot.’ I say this with humility: There aren’t lots of people that I’d simply [ask] to ‘go get me a shot.’ I’m not speaking about belief a lot because the information that he wouldn’t want any handholding. I knew he’d come again with precisely what we would have liked.” 

Cronenweth was invited into ASC membership in September 2002, with suggestions from Society members Bing Sokolsky, Ernie Holzman, Steven Poster and John Toll.

Mixing It Up 

Cronenweth has gained a fame for capturing in low mild, typically large open, and for photographing faces which can be uncovered nicely below key. That sort of work on movies comparable to The Social Community and The Woman With the Dragon Tattoo (AC Jan. ’12) — each of which garnered him Oscar and ASC Award nominations — has earned him a fame for embracing darkness in the best way that his father and different ASC greats, like Savides and Gordon Willis, had accomplished. Movie college students have studied his use of delicate high and edge lighting to stipulate the topics in in any other case very darkish scenes. 

However the cinematographer stresses that he doesn’t need folks to suppose there’s a “Jeff Cronenweth model” — as a result of, he maintains, that model doesn’t exist. As an alternative, he prefers to work on quite a lot of tasks that permit him to adapt to the fabric. For instance, after capturing many big-budget options, movies and commercials, he took on the 2018 film A Million Little Items, a $4 million manufacturing based mostly on author James Frey’s controversial ebook. “It was a 21-day film,” Cronenweth says. “So, it was fairly fast [compared to] what I used to be used to, which was one of many causes I took it.”

Director Sam Taylor-Johnson had beforehand labored with Cronenweth on a perfume marketing campaign earlier than reteaming for Items. “We had a right away rapport,” she remembers. “There’s a quiet confidence in him that feels prefer it’s simply in his DNA. I can generally speak one million miles a minute and fireplace off one million ideas, and he’ll course of them and provide you with one thing excellent. He has a form of stealth stillness that I feel is the results of his having a laser-sharp focus.” 

One of many director’s favourite scenes in Items is a hallucinatory second by which the character James (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), wearing a hospital robe, walks down a hospital hall towards the room the place he might be attending rehab. “He’s mentally fragile and feels just like the hall is swimming in excrement,” she explains. “He’s frightened, however then he begins to know: ‘I dwell in shit. It’s one thing I’m aware of.’ So, he dances by all of it and slips after which slides into rehab that method. 

“We had no cash to do that, and we actually couldn’t create one thing digitally. So, we made up paints and glue and water and paste, and we combined it up in an enormous bucket after which used a hand pump to pump these things by rubber tubing. Jeff helped tremendously — not simply determining learn how to mild this area, however with nailing the tubing to the wall, drilling little holes, mixing it as much as get the proper consistency. And we may solely do the scene as soon as as a result of we didn’t have something we’d have wanted to scrub up the hallway and repaint it. That scene is absolutely one in every of my favorites within the film, simply because I do know what we pulled off.” 

Whereas Cronenweth’s music-video work actually incorporates darkish, disturbing and horrifying imagery — exemplified by “The Excellent Drug” — his inventive imaginative and prescient isn’t restricted or compartmentalized. For instance, his work on Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” video (which, thus far, has drawn greater than three billion hits on YouTube) presents a high-key look that’s applicable for the up-tempo dance-pop music. 

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“He’s not simply ‘the Fincher man,’ [or] the ‘prince of darkness,’” says Romanek, who directed the “Shake it Off” clip. “We just lately did a really comedic spot for a brand new app, and it’s actually completely different from something we’ve accomplished earlier than. I don’t suppose there’s any sort of story or model [that a production might call for] the place I’d suppose, ‘He’s not proper for that.’”

Being the Ricardos

Jeff Cronenweth, ASC just lately reteamed with writer-director Aaron Sorkin (who penned the screenplay for The Social Community) on the characteristic Being the Ricardos, which finds its drama within the private {and professional} lives of Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem). Set in 1952 and based mostly on actual occasions that Sorkin telescoped right into a one-week interval, the movie interweaves a group of potential crises that threaten manufacturing of the trailblazing sitcom I Love Lucy.

Sorkin has been vocal in regards to the extent to which he views Cronenweth and manufacturing designer Jon Hutman (The West Wing, Quiz Present) as “co-authors” of the movie. “They’re used to working with administrators who can communicate to them with a extra refined vocabulary in regards to the visible components of a movie,” Sorkin humbly notes, “however they have been capable of perceive my unsophisticated vocabulary about visible components within the movie and translate that into one thing stunning.” 

For a collection of flashbacks to the couple’s pre-superstardom days, Cronenweth determined to strategy the lighting in a mode that recalled the work of particular nonetheless photographers of the period — together with George Hurrell and the cinematographer’s personal grandfather, Edward Cronenweth. “I used onerous lights and particular bands of sunshine in a way more stylized method than we’re used to in the present day,” he says. 

Sorkin provides, “Jeff had advised me his plan, however I used to be not capable of visualize it precisely. I simply trusted him, and it was an ideal strategy for these scenes.” 

Cronenweth had his longtime gaffer, Harold Skinner, keep away from LED items. “We have been devoted to the kind of mild they used within the period,” he says, including, “there’s nothing fairly like the fantastic thing about a tungsten globe. The mixture of the lighting with the manufacturing design and the wardrobe lent the movie a extremely great, magical ’50s look.” 

The cinematographer shot with the Purple Ranger Monstro, utilizing Purple’s Helium Monochrome for the movie’s I Love Lucy recreations and paired the cameras with Arri’s DNA lenses. 

Sorkin factors to one in every of many scenes within the movie that exemplify what he means by “co-authorship”: a key second between Ball and author Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat) the place they argue about important features of the Lucy Ricardo character. The scene takes place in a small area on the finish of a hallway close to the I Love Lucy stage. Sorkin remembers, “Jeff requested Jon Hutman to place a window in a selected space to assist him mild this little nook.” He provides with fun, “Jeff likes to blow out home windows — he likes to have it going supernova outdoors! However that created a really good impact that allowed us to have the [actors] take a the first step method and go into silhouette or take one other [so the light would] simply wash over them. It labored completely for the scene. The script simply says, ‘Inside Hall — Steady.’ I may need [also] written that some mild is available in from someplace. What Jeff did with that was stunning.”  — Jon Silberg

Cronenweth additionally just lately participated in our ASC Clubhouse Conversations discussion collection, speaking about Being the Ricardos, accompanied by Sorkin, and interviewed by Caleb Deschanel, ASC.