Cinematography Style: Maryse Alberti

INTRODUCTION

Maryse Alberti may not be as well known by mainstream audiences as some other cinematographers which I’ve featured in this series, but the strength of her career as a cinematographer speaks for itself.

She has a prolific track record in both documentary and fiction filmmaking, often choosing films that deal with real subject matter, true to life characters and situations that are interesting and elevated but grounded in reality.

In today’s episode I’ll give some background to Alberti’s career, go over her philosophy on cinematography and the gear that she has used in order to translate her vision to the screen.

BACKGROUND

“I grew up in the south of France. I didn’t have a TV, I didn’t see a TV until I was 12 years old…I just fell in love with movies when I came to the States because I stayed with people who had a TV in every room.”

After moving to the US in 1973, Alberti developed a career in capturing images, starting out by working as a still photographer in a field which isn't exactly the traditional roadmap to a career as a feature film DP.

“I ended up on the x-rated movie set where I was the still photographer…When I started to work on x-rated movies I started to meet people. The crews in New York were young people out of Columbia or NYU. It was kind of the training ground, one of the training grounds…Since I didn’t do film school that was kind of my film school.”

After starting out making film industry contacts in the ex-rated world she then got involved in shooting documentaries. Her break as a cinematographer came when she shot H2-Worker which won the Jury Prize for best documentary and best cinematographer at Sundance and launched her career as a DOP.

Throughout the years she has worked as cinematographer in both the documentary and the feature world, for many esteemed directors such as: Todd Haynes, Stephanie Black, Martin Scorsese, Ryan Coogler and Ron Howard.

PHILOSOPHY 

Alberti’s career mix of documentary and fiction work has resulted in a style of working based on realism and cinema vérité.

Cinema vérité or observational filmmaking is a documentary style which attempts to capture reality in a truthful manner, by observing reality and trying to draw attention away from the presence of the camera. Although paradoxically, some argue that the very presence of a camera alters how reality is captured.

Either way, to blend into the background as much as possible, this style is often characterised by a minimal gear footprint. The very act of using less gear will impact the look of how a film is captured.

“From a cinematographers point of view you learn to work with very simple tools and very few people…Docs is another way of working. It’s more instinctual, it’s less intellectual.”

However, Alberti still recommends thinking about the subject of the documentary and basing the photography on the story. 

Therefore, although I’d argue that a portion of her photography can be characterised by a vérité look, her style does of course change depending on the nature of the story.  

A key difference between her work on documentaries and features comes from the level of intentionality. Long form work is more of an intellectual process with lots of prior reflection on creating a visual language, which is then executed by exercising and maintaining ultimate photographic control. Whereas in documentaries there is more scope to embrace improvisation and capture moments as they play out in real time.

For most documentary interviews Alberti will arrive at a location without seeing it beforehand, whereas when working on features she’ll usually have up to 8 weeks of prep time to scout locations and discuss production design with the director.

An example of how her taste for a natural, vérité look transfers over to her fiction work can be found in The Wrestler. 

“I mean the whole film has a very naturalistic look. When I went to look at locations and went to look at a wrestling match I tried to make it work for the drama of the film. To keep it as real as possible. So that you felt you were in a real place.”

She did this by using natural looking lighting and motivated, handheld camera movement - skills which she had developed during her work in documentaries.

GEAR

“In general do I prefer film?...It depends on the story...Some stories are best told in the digital world. In documentary I think it’s a question of economics.”

When it comes to selecting gear for a project, she of course considers which equipment can achieve the desired look, but, perhaps equally as important, is the practical side of the gear selection.

When she started her career, shooting on film was the only viable option for attaining a decent quality image. A lot of her early documentary work was shot in 16mm due to it being a cheaper medium than 35mm which was needed to facilitate the lower budgets of documentary and higher shooting ratios. She mainly shot with Aaton cameras, such as the lightweight Aaton LTR 54. Even though 16mm was cheaper, it was still a costly process to photograph a documentary.

“When we did H-2 Worker…we went to Jamaica with 5 rolls of film because we didn’t have any money. You had to be very careful of the questions you asked and when you rolled.”

At approximately 11 minutes of run time per roll, this meant they had less than an hour of footage which they could shoot. Compared to today where a single interview may be longer than an hour.

Working on digital now allows filmmakers to be far more free about when they roll the camera and allows directors to have a conversation in interviews rather than asking very specific questions in an economic way. Alberti therefore prefers the practicality of digital over film when shooting documentary. It’s economic benefits, ability to roll for extended periods and smaller size outweigh the look of film.  

She now uses cameras such as the Canon C300, the Sony Venice or variations of the Alexa for feature films, with different lenses like Hawk V-Lite anamorphics, Master Primes, Cooke S4s, or Angenieux zooms.

Although it is dependent on the story and subject matter of the project, much of her work has featured extensive handheld camera movement which is motivated by the movement of the characters. Perhaps this is due to directors wanting to work with her for her experience in producing quality handheld work in a vérité style. 

She has operated the camera herself, but for larger feature films which require a more intensive focus on lighting, she has delegated the handheld work to camera operators. As a lot of the movement tracks the movement of the characters, it can make scenes feel a bit more ‘real’, like the actions of the actors are being observed rather than deliberately performed in multiple takes. 

Alberti’s lighting does occasionally differ between projects depending on the type of story, but a lot of her lighting tries to be as naturalistic as possible, so naturalistic that the audience doesn’t even notice that the space is lit. 

She does this by only supplementing the sources of light that are already present in the location. For example if sunlight is already coming through a window she may place a film light, like an HMI, outside that window to mimic the same direction and quality of the natural light. This is particularly necessary in fiction where consistent lighting conditions are required throughout a scene - which may be shot over the course of half a day.

Where possible she’ll place lights out of sight so that they can shoot a scene 360 degrees without being limited by lighting gear. She also uses textiles and diffusion gels to soften the quality of the natural or artificial light.

For interiors she’ll sometimes place practical lights in a location or use additional lights overhead like Mac 2000s to give the room a bright enough exposure to shoot in or to balance the brightness of different levels of illumination.

CONCLUSION

If I had to sum up her style, I’d say that Maryse Alberti is a cinematographer whose work in fiction is an extension of her documentary work. 

Many of the characteristics of cinema vérité, such as a handheld camera and naturalistic lighting are carried over onto the feature films which she shoots but are executed on long form jobs in a more considered, deliberate and controlled manner than her more improvisational documentary camera work.

Her ability to capture a realistic feeling portrait of reality has contributed to her being an incredibly influential DP in both the world of fiction and documentary alike.