DP Dana Gonzales Capture Epic — Sound & Picture · 2/25/13 DP Dana Gonzales Captures Snitch on RED Epic — Sound & Picture ... 2/25/13 DP Dana Gonzales Captures Snitch on RED Epic

2/25/13 DP Dana Gonzales Captures Snitch on RED Epic — Sound & Picture

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DP Dana Gonzales Captures Snitch on

RED Epic — Sound & Picture

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh, Snitch focuses on John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson), an

owner of a construction company whose 18-year-old-son, Jason, is framed for dealing

drugs by another kid who is trying to save his own skin. John, now devastated that his son

will receive the mandatory minimum 10-year sentence in federal prison, looks for answers

and is willing to do anything to reduce Jason’s sentence – including going undercover

himself.As the story unfolds, U.S Attorney Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon) works out

a deal with John to cut down jail time if he produces evidence against someone else in the

drug trade. As John infiltrates a violent gang led by Malik (Michael Kenneth Williams), he

unexpectedly exposes a major player in the Mexican cartel (Benjamin Bratt) turning the

already dangerous venture into something deadly, putting himself and his family at risk.

Inspired by true events, the screenplay written by Waugh and Justin Haythe

(Revolutionary Road, The Clearing) illustrates how far a loving parent would go for the

safety of their child. Tapped to lens the film was cinematographer Dana Gonzales who sat

down with us to talk about the project and how he’s evolved from camera assistant to

fulltime DP.

You were born in the backyard of Hollywood in Los Angeles. When did you want to

become part of filmmaking?

Growing up in Los Angeles, the film industry was always in the background. You kind of

know it’s there, but it seemed when I was younger, it wasn’t as accessible. I got into the

business in 1985, and it was pretty closed doors back then. Just an old school way of

doing things. I always liked images and was into movies and story, but I didn’t know how



to connect it all together. It wasn’t until I got a break in the film industry where it instantly

clicked, and I realized all the things I enjoyed doing were right in front of me.

Do you remember your first gig?Yeah. It

was a low budget film. It started with about forty people and it was only supposed to be a

month long. It ended up going about three months which was great. And only 10 people

left on it which allowed me to help out in the camera dept. It took place in the summer

between school. I started driving the truck that carried all the gear. I didn’t really know

what was possible at the time, but I was there and happy about it. About a month into the

film, I started loading film and have been in the camera end of filmmaking ever since.

You were an assistant for a long time. How often were you tip-toeing into the realm

of full time cinematographer?

I worked as a camera assistant for thirteen years or so. I worked with some great DP’s and

I actually thought I was going to shoot movies right away, but I met Paul Cameron

(Collateral, Total Recall). He’s one of my best friends now. He introduced me into the

commercial side of things and I stayed as an assistant to him for several years. I also started

building my reel at that time, which wasn’t easy back then. You couldn’t just pick up a 5D

and go off and shoot. I worked off 16mm film cutting when I could. I must have spent

$100,000 making my first reel. I was shooting everything that I could get my hands on and

eventually made the jump from assistant to operator/DP.

Sure you enjoyed that moment.

Definitely. Everyone around me knew I wanted to be a DP. I always enjoyed telling the

story not just with the camera, but with lighting. I like the responsibility of controlling the

image and how you can make people feel something.

You’ve managed to work as a DP in several formats: TV, film, docs and in different

genres (drama, comedy). Have you started leaning towards a specific type of

storytelling?

I am completely drawn into narrative feature work. I used to like commercials, especially

with the storytelling they were doing in the late 90’s early 2000’s, but that has kind of

disappeared. TV has some incredible work right now. The stuff we’re doing on Southland

I’m really proud of, but TV is very fractured. You have to do an episode every seven or

eight days and the story is never really done. With feature film work, it’s a singular focus.

From the moment you prep till you finish, everybody is honing in on that one goal until



it’s over. I’m just drawn into story. That’s something early on I thought about Snitch. It’s amovie about a father’s love – it was the thing I probably thought about most.

You worked with Waugh on Felon. How has your relationship grown over the years

with the director?

We’ve actually been working together on a few projects since Felon, but Snitch was theone that fell into place. Ric enjoys seeing the collaboration between Christopher Nolanand DP Wally Pfister. They have been together for such a long time and continue to makegreat movies. He likes that idea of a close director/DP relationship, and I don’t blame him‘cause the shorthand we have on set is invaluable. Movies are already hard with variousstudios giving input, less shooting days and tighter budgets. If you know who’s going intobattle with you, it’s a plus.

John Mathews (Dwayne Johnson) & Agent Cooper (Barry Pepper) inside the surveillanceroom

How did you and Ric prepare for Snitch?Ric is a meticulous planner, and his number one thing is authenticity. When we did Felon¸he sent me this DVD with all this reference material of the prison system and various ideashe was thinking about. For Snitch, he did the same thing. He sent a couple different reels.One for tone. Even some Felon reference material. For me, I went down to a truck stopnear Magic Mountain, even before we were in preproduction and shot a bunch of stillphotos to immerse myself into that world. I sent them to Ric and he would send me DEAstuff and imagery of drug cartels and their environments.

Production landed in Shreveport, Louisiana. Was that you first time there?

I’ve shot in New Orleans a bunch, but it was my first time in Shreveport. We were lookingat other places like Detroit, but the tax incentives in place right now in Louisiana were oneof the deciding factors. The city also allowed us to shut down the highway for five days to



shoot our big-rig chase scene which was a big undertaking.

Before we go down that road, you looked to the RED Epic for the film. Anyparticular reasoning behind the choice?We shot Felon on film, but what happened between that film and Snitch was the

confirmation of the digital revolution. It was the combination of the 800 ASA and 5K

resolution that made us decide on HD, We wanted to dig into the darkness of the city

around us. We both came to love the way The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo looked (also

shot on the RED Epic) and wanted to move into the digital realm. We were also attracted

to the Epic as it had a little more bite to me than the Alexa. I don’t think Ric ever talked

about using the Alexa actually.

So does that mean you looked to Light Iron for a digital intermediate like DragonTattoo as well?Yes, actually. We went to every post house in town to see our options. We knew we

wanted to control the output and do our own processing on editorial deliverables. We

wanted to control the color on set and have the offline look as close as possible to what the

movie was going to look like. At the time, Light Iron was the only one doing a complete

file based system which we liked a lot. We wanted to keep as much of the metadata as

possible.

Light Iron also had something that no one else had that seemed pretty simple. They had a

reel. Michael Cioni, who runs Light Iron, is at the forefront of digital cinema and was able

to show us digital footage on a huge screen. They had material from an Epic, Sony F35,

Alexa and everything in between, and we also were able to use colorist Ian Vertovec who

did The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo so everything just fit.

What about glass?We looked to Zeiss Master Primes shooting on RED Camera RAW that we rented from

the impressive people at Keslow Camera. We loved how they looked with the sensor on

the Epic. We also shot 2.35:1 for its bigger scope. I’ve been toying around with 1.85:1 as I

think it’s interesting for narrative storytelling – a little more personal format with the taller

top and bottom. But our action sequences with the long trailer, 2.35 was the way to go.

Plus, I don’t know any cinematographer or camera operator who doesn’t like composing a

shot in 2.35.

We used the 27mm or the 40mm and two cameras for most of the film. We didn’t do a lot

of long lens work. I’m not a big fan of the 100mm or 150mm. They have their place, and I

try to stay off them even with the B camera. I’d rather get in there with the 40mm. I love

the 40mm close up. I think that’s the most beautiful close up in Hollywood. With the

85mm or the 100mm, it’s a flat lens with a background that can go mushy fast. With a

40mm, you get to see production design and background. Plus, I feel like I’m closer to the

actor than an 85mm or 100mm.



Ric Waugh operating the POGO camera

Looks like the film was handheld?

The majority of the film is handheld. I’d hate to say this, ‘cause more people in Hollywoodwould want him, but Geoffrey Haley, our operator, is the best in town. We met doing TheFighter. He’s a great filmmaker. He directs, writes. He’s really engaged in the story, and isreally into his craft. We would shoot all day and then he would go workout at the gym.His steadicam and handheld work really showed it. It didn’t matter if it was take one ortake ten, Geoff was constantly in the zone. I’m happy he is going to be doing our next filmtoo.

I actually ended up operating a lot with Geoff. It didn’t mean to start that way, but it justevolved, and it seemed to work out. In editing, Ric mentioned he couldn’t tell thedifference between our shots which meant we were telling the same story with the samestyle. Our focus pullers Greg Irwin and Joe Martinez did an incredible job keepingeverything sharp as I shot at T2.8 most of the film and the camera constantly moving.

Dwayne Johnson is a tall guy. Like 6’5”. How did you look to keep him grounded in

scenes?

(Laughing) We used every trick in the book to minimize the height of Dwayne. Ric didn’twant him looking heroic, and if that meant trying different blocking or staging a scene sohe would come off the way we wanted, we did it. We had to constantly keep an eye outfor our lens height. You go a little lower with a wide lens and Dwayne becomes Hercules.

Most of the film was shot practically. Was Shreveport’s natural light any different

than Los Angeles?

Yeah. For me, there was something about the skies that were a little different. A littlesofter. We shot from November to February. It was full winter most of the time. I liked it a



lot. You don’t get a bad part of the day. The sun is always low, you have clear skies, but

it’s around 10 degrees. That’s probably the only downfall.

Speaking of lights, can you talk about some of the color pallets in the film?There are three worlds. One being John Matthews’ home life. We made sure those scenes

were always warm and had a safe feeling. We wanted the lighting to be perfect as well as

the color correction. The drug world is different. If you go into urban neighborhoods, you

see a lot of sodium and mercury lighting. Pretty much everything but tungsten lights. And

if there are warmer lights, it’s usually a warm fluorescent. It’s never a perfect color tone.

We looked to create those scenes with more grit, nothing flattering and only industrial

tones.

The third environment was Susan Sarandon/Barry Pepper world. The scenes with her

inside the DA building needed to have a harder edge to them. A little more stark, modern

look. It had to be different than the other two because it was a separate world from them.

Daniel James (Jon Bernthal) connects John Matthews into the drug world

You look to any specific lamps for Snitch?I always work with what’s in my toolbox for lighting. If I choose a certain set of lights for

a look, I don’t deviate from them. I tend to stay away from gels and use industrial fixtures

that have the color palette we are working with built in. I like trying new things. I tend to

use lights with green hues in them for the urban worlds. They are tricky on faces and I’m

always trying to balance the color and skin tone, but it works.

I looked to Westcott lamps which are made more for the still photography world. Mole

Richardson soft lights, muslin, industrial bulbs. The collaboration I had with our gaffer

Bob Bates was great. We built this LED rig for our traveling truck scenes which I’ve

never done before. It was a great way to have controllable interactive light and it worked



out well. We rigged it so we could operate the lights from a computer to motivate lightwhile Dwayne was driving inside the truck cab.

John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson) & Malik (Michael K. Williams)

Malik’s house had a great tone to it. How easy was finding some of your locations to

work in?

Yeah, we tried to keep him kind of dark and mysterious. We knew we wanted an urbanneighborhood, but we didn’t want it to be a crack house. It couldn’t be too high end andnot too distressed. We went back to the original reference material and found a locationwith some middle ground. Even when Malik goes to John’s house, there’s some starknessthat happens with the tone and lighting. We looked to make the viewer feel somethingthat’s different from his normal life.

Was most of the crew local?

Pretty much everyone besides our key grip Manny Duran and production designerVincent Reynaud, who both did Felon with us, were local. Everyone had a tremendousamount of experience. Our production sound guy, Steve Aaron, Ric raves about. He’s alsodoing our next film. We lucked out with the people we managed to get.



The rolled over big-rig

You mentioned the truck chase scene was shot in five days. That’s prettymiraculous.It was an undertaking. At first, it seemed somewhat practical. Ric told me he wanted to

shoot the entire chase moving. Which seemed fine, but that was before knowing the

amount of days we only had to shoot it. Ric wanted Dwayne in the truck while the stunts

were happening. He wanted it like a play. It had to happen live.

The film had no big CGI shots in it. Very low key stuff like adding bullets and what not.

With Ric being a former stunt man, he knows everyone in town and brought in special

effects coordinator Joe Pancake who I worked with on several Tony Scott projects. He

and his crew were awesome making all the effects work perfect the first time.

Shreveport shut down the highway for us and we shot the scene in sections. It was great

having 5 – 6 miles of road to work on. I remember operating on the back of the camera

motorcycle for those five days and at one point Ric was strapped to the front of the big rig

truck going sixty miles an hour.

That’s crazy.Yeah. There’s a section of the chase scene were a car skids off and crashes into water

barriers. Ric wanted to shoot the explosion and then immediately whip to a reaction from

Dwayne’s character. So he strapped in and did the camera work. It was a lot of fun.

Did you guys get any second takes with your stunts?No.

What?Not at all. Any car or truck you see exploding or getting wrecked were one-offs. We



didn’t have the luxury of a bigger budget. That’s why we were very happy to have JoePancake on board. When we eventually did flip the big rig Dwayne’s driving, I prettymuch wanted to cry. Not only cause it worked, but because all the planning we didleading up to that scene paid off. After it flipped, we still had a half day of work ahead ofus.

There must have been a lot of coordination there?

We did some timing stuff, but no real camera rehearsal. We just did it. And it was all safe.I never felt unsafe at any point. Ric and stunt coordinator Tim Trella had complete controlof the action.

Now Chris Cavanaugh was your DIT. How much does having him on set help in the

final grading process?

A lot. I’m very fortunate to work with a director like Ric. He’s very technical and hespends just as much time in the DI truck as I do. The fact that the offline has a certain lookwe’ve grown accustom to, gives you an advantage with your starting point. What’shappening in movies is they used to budget for 60-80 hours of color correction for a film,now it’s more like 50-60. If the DP can’t be there, they can always revert back to thechaser file from the off-line and use that as a blue print of how the movie is supposed tolook. Having someone like Chris there completely streamlines the process to final grading.

The outpost system we rented from Light Iron allowed us to process our look on to theDNx 115 files for editorial and dailies plus gave our film as close to a final look as itcould. Obviously, when you blow it up on the big screen there are always changes thatneed to be made, but important things like tone at least have been established.

Is there anything else you do in your spare time or do you just concentrate on your

craft?Well, I’m married to a fantastic woman, Orna, and I have two daughters Isabellaand Paloma. I’m a big cyclist actually. I love road cycling. I used to race in high schooland I picked it back up again as an adult. Still photography is also a huge hobby of mine.

What can we expect from you next?

I have a film coming up you can look out for, Dito Montiel’s Empire State and I am



currently shooting the awesome TV show Southland. Meanwhile, Ric and I are in earlypreproduction for our next film Currency.

S&P would like to thank Dana for taking the time to talk with us and share his story.Snitch is out in theaters now. You can watch the trailer below.

Tags: Cinematography[1] Dana Gonzales[2] Snitch[3]

References

1. ^ Cinematography (soundandpicture.com)2. ^ Dana Gonzales (soundandpicture.com)3. ^ Snitch (soundandpicture.com)

Excerpted from DP Dana Gonzales Captures Snitch on RED Epic — Sound & Picturehttp://soundandpicture.com/2013/02/dp-dana-gonzales-captures-snitch-on-red-epic/

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DP Dana Gonzales Capture Epic — Sound & Picture · 2/25/13 DP Dana Gonzales Captures Snitch on RED Epic — Sound & Picture ... 2/25/13 DP Dana Gonzales Captures Snitch on RED Epic