Cinematography Style: Natasha Braier
INTRODUCTION
When creating images as a cinematographer it may be tempting to succumb to a more visually conservative route suggested by the producer, client, agency, production company or anyone who is taking a financial risk on the project.
These parties often prefer visuals to be well illuminated without much shadow, sharp, with plenty of light on the actor’s faces, using literal rather than suggestive shots.
Throughout her career Natasha Braier has tended to stay away from these more traditional cinematic conventions by working with experimental collaborators, focusing on the essence of the story and committing to bold, riskier photographic decisions.
In this episode I'll show how Natasha Braier's philosophy on photography and the gear that she uses informs her own cinematography style.
BACKGROUND
After growing up in Argentina, Braier moved to Europe with her parents when she was a teenager. To deal with the move she picked up photography and soon became immersed in it - spending lots of time experimenting with chemicals and film in her dark room.
She was one of six aspiring cinematographers to get accepted to study her Masters at the National Film and Television School in England. After which she travelled and embarked on her career as a DP, before settling in the US.
She has shot a variety of content - feature films, commercials and music videos - for a range of directors such as: Nicolas Winding Refn, David Michod, Claudia Llosa and Alma Har’el.
PHILOSOPHY
“I was always quite experimental and searching for very alternative ways of photographing and trying to express emotions through light and framing.”
Part of what allows her to express herself through experimental visual forms is due to the directors which she works with.
A common thread throughout Braier’s work can be found in the thematic and emotional connections in the stories that she chooses to photograph. She is drawn to working with directors with a strong, sometimes extreme, visual personality. If they prioritize other parts of their filmmaking at the expense of a strong visual style then she’s less interested in working with them.
She does acknowledge that there are of course different ways of making good movies - which don’t always include a strong visual language - but she is drawn to those collaborators who don’t shy away from experimental or artistic risk taking.
Her experimental side can be seen through her use of expressive coloured lighting, dark exposure, unconventional framing and preference for an optically imperfect image - shot with older glass, softening filters and flares.
“I show them all the radical things I want to do and make sure that they want them...Look, this is what I’m doing. You won’t be able to make it lighter. Are you OK with this darkness? Do you like that the shadows are purple because you won’t be able to undo this?”
She likes making definitive creative decisions on set, leaving as little work for the colour grade as possible, and is sure to communicate and establish this visual language early on with the director. Her photographic goal is to transmit the essence of the story - which focuses on feeling rather than always providing clear narrative explanations.
Her sensibilities lie in the abstract which means she enjoys taking on projects where the viewer doesn’t necessarily have to ‘understand’ everything. But, she concedes that sometimes being more direct is necessary. Particularly when shooting commercials, where everything is already storyboarded.
Braier doesn’t box herself into always shooting in one style and feels that different perspectives are required for different projects with different directors. For example, with Honey Boy she says she adopted a more realistic, documentary gaze, whereas for Neon Demon an experimental, male gaze was necessary.
GEAR
While she adjusts her approach to shooting depending on the film, she does carry across similar techniques and gear choices from movie to movie.
For example, when it comes to lighting she likes using LEDs, to light a space 360 degrees, which her team rigs to a wireless DMX board so that she can do quick adjustments to lighting on the fly.
“I replaced all the practical lights with LED lights. I used transmitters and receivers. So I was at my monitor with a set of dimmers and I could control all those lights...Depending on what he was doing I was literally like a DJ, you know, like jamming with the dimmers around what he was doing...So in that way I could support the emotions with the lighting...It was really like a dance of light that I would do live.”
Working with a DMX board makes it easy to tweak lights quickly in shoots such as Honey Boy where much of the blocking of scenes was improvised during takes. It also allows her to dim or change the colour temperatures of lights during a shot.
She often uses lights from Digital Sputnik, LitePanels, or KinoFlos - which are manually gelled with different colours.
For years she shot projects on 35mm film - mainly Kodak tungsten stocks like 200T - but has recently come around to using digital cameras - for which she almost exclusively uses variations of the Arri Alexa, such as the Mini or XT.
When lighting for 35mm film she liked to use a light meter and view the image through the viewfinder. However with digital she prefers lighting using a calibrated monitor as digital cameras are more sensitive and act differently to the way film does.
She’s worked with lenses such as the Zeiss Ultra Primes in the spherical format, but mainly is drawn to using the anamorphic format - which she exclusively shoots with the vintage Cooke Xtal Express lenses. Although the Xtals are slower than modern anamorphic lenses and don’t have the best ergonomics, she finds their softer, dreamy look the most appealing out of the anamorphic choices available.
Braier likes baking in the final look as much as possible on set, by using techniques that can’t be undone in post production. Such as: placing effects filters in front of the lens or subtly flaring the lens with a small light to introduce a warmth to shadows and give the image a subtly vintage look - like flashing a 35mm film negative would.
“I designed two special LUTs with my colourist Alex Bickell from Color Collective in New York. We were trying to emulate Kodak 200T and get this kind of a more photochemical and also a little bit warm, nostalgic childhood feeling...Then we just used that LUT for the whole movie so that was kind of my negative.”
On set she uses this Kodak 200T LUT when she exposes the image in camera, so that when it comes to the grade 95% of the work has already been done - and only minor tweaks are made. She thinks the grade is a very important part of being a DP, especially when shooting digitally. Back with film, once the negative was printed there wasn’t much you could do to alter the exposure. But with digital it’s possible to light a scene really dark and then change it to look really bright in the grade.
Therefore it's important for a cinematographer to be at the grade to ensure the integrity of the image and protect the original intentions of the lighting.
Much of her work features handheld shots. She likes operating the camera herself, and still does so for commercials, describing the process as being like a dance between the operator and the actor. However, since doing features in the US, where crew unions typically prohibit the DP from operating, she now relies on her ability to communicate with an operator and collaborate with them to find the correct choreography for ‘the dance’.
CONCLUSION
Even though Natasha Braier’s cinematic gaze changes depending on the needs of the movie, her flare for photographic experimentation carries over to everything which she shoots.
Her love of colour, anamorphic lenses, dark lighting and unconventional framing are a testament to this.
Sometimes being photographically safer may get you more work, but sometimes having a bold eye and the courage to take creative risks will attract like minded directors, for whom the look of a movie is just as important as its content.