The Cinematography Podcast Episode 99: Ross Emery
Cinematographer Ross Emery believes that a director of photography can make beautiful compositions, but if the ideas aren’t transferred to screen, it’s not effective for telling the story. Knowing the intent of the director and the screenwriter is very important for translating the script into images, especially on movies with heavy visual effects.
On his most recent project, Ross shot five episodes of the Ridley Scott sci-fi series, Raised by Wolves for HBO Max. Ross and fellow cinematographers Dariusz Wolski and Erik Messerschmidt each shot episodes of the show. The first third of the series follows the androids “Mother” and “Father” to a new planet. Ross decided to shoot those episodes in the style of an ethnographic documentary, following the inhabitants around in their environment. It seemed a strange way to approach a sci-fi show at first, but Ross felt it aided creator Ridley Scott’s ability to build the world, giving the audience the feeling that they are actually on another planet. Scott wanted the planet to be a harsh and inhospitable landscape, to set it apart from anything Earth-like and chose a location about an hour outside of Cape Town, South Africa.
Ross grew up in Sydney, Australia. His father was a documentary filmmaker, but he wasn’t drawn to filmmaking until he was in his 20’s. He began working in documentaries himself, then transitioned to shooting music videos, where he met director Alex Proyas. Alex then hired Ross to shoot second unit for the film Dark City. Ross found that working second unit was a fantastic place to be- it’s a smaller crew tasked with shooting more action and visual effects sequences, with less oversight and less pressure than being the principal director of photography. After Dark City, Ross was asked to shoot second unit for The Matrix, and met with DP Bill Pope. The storyboards looked amazing, drawn by comic book artist Steve Scroce, and it became a matter of figuring out how to shoot something that hadn’t been done before. As the second unit DP of The Matrix, Ross was responsible for shooting bullet time, the helicopters, and the fight sequences. In 1998, computer visual effects were not yet advanced enough to truly capture what was shown in the movie. Most of the shots were actually practical effects done with real actors, multiple camera arrays and real bullets. The Matrix was the hardest film he’d ever worked on, and Ross wasn’t even sure if the film would be any good until the crew saw the finished product. Once it was a hit, Ross had a huge budget and every tool at his disposal to shoot sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
Ross Emery is currently shooting second unit for the upcoming Marvel movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
You can find all episodes of Raised By Wolves on HBO Max.
Find Ross Emery
Instagram: @rossemeryacs
Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras
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Close Focus: The passing of Sean Connery and a look back at some of his other films and roles besides James Bond, such as Zardas, The Man Who Would Be King, The Untouchables, The Hunt for Red October.
Ben’s short end: Ben has been editing remotely from home on a project through Hula Post that is physically housed in another location, using Hewlett-Packard technology called HP Z Central Remote RGS, Remote Graphics Service. You can edit the media without being able to physically access it, for added security, but also allows multiple editors to work on the same project. Learn more about it in our past episode with Jeff Sengpiel of Keycode Media.
Illya’s short end: Google Assistant is teaming up with The Black List to award up to five screenwriting fellowships $20,000 each for six months for feature or television scripts.
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Podcast Credits:
Editor in Chief: Illya Friedman@hotrodcameras
Instagram: @illyafriedman
Ben Rock: Twitter: @neptunesalad
Instagram: @bejamin_rock
Producer: Alana Kode
Editor: Ben Katz
Composer: Kays Alatractchi
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:10:03 — 96.2MB)
