Interview with Ward Russell, DP on a few Tony Scott films

[Sage Thomas]

Interesting interview with Ward Russell who wound up being Tony Scott's DP on Days of Thunder and Last Boy Scout, also did X-Files. He came up through the electric department, kind of a neat story of someone making it in hollywood. http://moviemavericks.com/2010/11/interview-ward-russell/

[Guest Stephen Murphy]

Nice find thanks for sharing!

[Guest Tim Partridge]

Yes, thank you very much for posting this.

 

I was particularly interested in the comments regarding Tony Scott's shooting style and his earlier films avoiding dolly work. Very interesting that he seemed to create so much movement through editing, on what I consider to be high quality action movies (although I think Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop 2 both have memorable steadicam/handheld shots too). I think a lot of the Propaganda era music video directors at that time such as Dominic Sena and particularly David Fincher took that style but evolved it with more elaborate tracking moves.

 

Interesting too that Russell says the long lenses were in order to keep the lights as close to the actors as possible.

[Saul Rodgar]

I know Ward Russell. He is interesting to work for. One thing that strikes me about him is how good cameramen who have done big budget blockbuster films sort of just go away quietly into the night, so to speak. Maybe it is due to the fact that he lives in NM as opposed to LA, but he really should be getting more features, I think. A couple of years back, he sold all or most of his camera equipment to a school in Kansas, IIRC. And I really haven't heard that he is working on bigger pictures. Last I heard he was doing mostly commercials or operating on TV shows, but even then he seems to work a few times a year. Sad really, because I don't think it is his preference.