I had the pleasure of interviewing/filming Conrad Hall, ASC a couple of years ago or so, I can't remember how long after that he died. It was for a series here on Independent Film Channel, Canada called "Make Your Movie" that I directed/shot/wrote and was one of his last interviews I believe.
Hall, was nice enough to come to Mole Richardson LA where we were doing all our interviews at the time. He spent about an hour or so with us, I've got him on tape for a good 40 minutes, the show segment featuring him is around 8-minutes and also includes Ira Tiffen and a feature on 3 point lighting.
Anyway, Hall was a really nice, soft spken, unpretentious individual. Some comments/observations:
- He had just seen a final print of Road to Perdition, and remaked what a talent Sam Mendes was, Hall had great respect for Mendes and considered him another Orson Welles
- I knew this before, as I had a friend who was a stand-in in "Bobby Fisher" and he told me this in regards to Hall's method of working on that film, Hall would spend hours first thing in the morning, discussing set lighting with the director before a single shot was taken, my friend remarked on how long these discussions took, you know, just sitting around sipping coffee, discussing the best way to light a scene for the story
- Hall loved using small well placed hard lights all over the place in combination with very directed bounced light from walls, ceilings and so forth
- Hall talked about how he focuses lights, using very narrow beams and uses the edge or center of the beam for different effects, he particularly loved having actors pass through these narrow beams and get hotter, cooler
- He using mirrors a great deal and using gobos to shape light bounced from mirrors, he liked mirrors beccause they are very directional light sources, he uses them a lot
- his main motivation in lighting is real life, he's not influenced by painting other movies, he pays particular attention to how light looks in the real world, makes mental notes and tries to use it in his work
- he owned two Spectras and one spot meter, I had to laugh when Hall commented he had no idea how to use his spot meter, it's digital and he doesn't like that -- he's an old school analog man so his assistt reads the spot meter for him
I was very impressed with Conrad Hall as a human being, a very nice, nice man. I learned he often went to schools to talk to kids about cinematography.
We had some difficulties with the ASC in regards to our show and interviewing world class DPs which we originally were going to film in the ASC clubhouse, but Hall was right there for us.
Can't say enough good things about the guy. Really sad when I heard he passed away.
Anyhow hope this helps you.
MB
