Mis-en-Scene: The Italian job 2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bkNfQBLCJw

We Chose a scene from The Italian Job, 2003: Into the subway

Director:

F. Gary Gray

Cinematography:

Wally Pfister

Production Designer:

Charlie Wood

Art Director:

Doug J Meerdink & Mark Zuelzke

Stars:

 Donald Southerland, Mark Wahlberg, Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Mos Def, Seth Green

Wally Pfister

I chose the director of photography. The director of photography or cinematographer is the chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, television production or other live action piece and is responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image. 

Wally Pfister is best known for his work with Christopher Nolan and has worked on many movies including: The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Batman Begins, Moneyball, just to name a few, and won an Academy Award for his cinematography in the movie Inception. 

Gray and Pfister developed a visual style before the film began shooting. They viewed car commercials and photographs, as well as chase scenes from The French Connection, Ronin, and The Bourne Identity to get visual references. Pfister wanted dark textures and undertones with strong contrasts. Gray wanted a widescreen aspect ratio, or 16:9 meaning it has a width of 16 units and a height of 9, so they chose to shoot in super 35. Super 35 has the same film stock as a standard 35 mm film but uses the negative space to put a larger image frame on that stock. Pfister wanted to film in the anamorphic format which refers to the technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. They utilized dollies, steadicams as well as a technocrane to keep the cameras rolling almost constantly.