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ONFILM Interview: Eric Schmidt The Magazine

Published on website: September 03, 2012 Categories: ONFILM Download as PDF Archive TweetLike 00 0 0 Tweet 0

“I’m always discussing with directors how audiences derive meaning from a succession of images. When images are connecting emotionally, it’s almost always unconscious. Film resonates with people. It has a random, moving texture that gives faces and skin tones a naturalistic vibe. And film’s enduring visual power and organic feel can’t be replicated. We Sections are image makers. We get to take chances, push technology to the limit, and find something magical.” Focus On Film

Eric Schmidt’s credits include the feature films The Mechanic, I Focus on Post Melt with You, Henry Poole is Here, and My Sassy Girl, as well as the pilots for Close to Home and Red Window. His work on Archiving the television series Cold Case earned him an ASC Award nomination. He also has photographed many music videos and Q and A commercials, including the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign. Eric Schmidt Photo by D. Kirkland Next Generation

Imagecare Program [All these films were shot on motion picture film.] Industry Update A Conversation with Eric Schmidt Question: How did you first become interested in ? Schmidt: My parents were both public school teachers in the suburbs of Chicago. My dad was an ONFILM industrial arts teacher, and every spring he would take a group of students to Washington, D.C., on a field trip. I would always tag along. They would gather the kids on the steps of the Capitol and The StoryBoard Blog take a very wide with a large format and a lens. My father and his buddies would often run from one edge to the other and appear in the photo twice. As a kid, I found this fascinating. My dad was always taking stills with a very basic, manual camera. After I reached Stories by about sixth grade, he starting putting it in my hands and telling me I should shoot. I loved the controls – the focus, the speed. I thought it was very interesting mechanically. VISION3 500T Film

Q: How did your interest in photography grow from there? 5219/7219 Schmidt: When I got to New Trier High School, I was taking advanced placement art classes, and I became known for my photography. We had excellent art teachers, and the school was very well VISION3 250D Color Negative Film equipped, with a television studio and a radio station. We made faux VHS documentaries for our 5207/7207 social studies classes, and fake newscasts. It was an incredible experience. I was asked to be the high school newspaper photographer. I borrowed my dad’s camera and photographed sports and VISION3 200T Color Negative Film performances. I got interested in watching the lighting. I got pretty efficient at it, and I thought I might pursue a career. I actually studied photojournalism at Marquette University for a 5213/7213 semester. My job was creating the black-and-white matrices from prints so they could go to press. VISION2 50D Color Negative Film Q: How did you end up at Columbia College? 5201/7201 Schmidt: I realized that I was more interested in the fictional aspect of things. I transferred to Columbia College in Chicago to major in creative writing and photography. The classes were very VISION3 50D Color Negative Film technical, and I was probably too young to absorb it all. I felt that I wasn’t a very good technician. I 5203/7203 was still trying to find my place. I talked to a guy named Franklin Miller, who was head of the cinema studies program at the University of Iowa. He said that the reason I should come to Iowa was that KODAK 500T Color Negative Film he could teach me everything I needed to know in order to make a film in six months – load the camera, expose the film, cut the negative, mix the sound. But he said that what I might not learn 5230/7230 anywhere else is what to make my film about. I had an incredible experience at Iowa, and I loved the very artsy, indie nature of the program there. I learned a lot from Leighton Pierce, an 100D Color independent filmmaker who was teaching there. 5285/7285

Q: What did you learn from him that stayed with you? TRI-X Black & White Reversal Film 7266 Q: What did you learn from him that stayed with you? TRI-X Black & White Reversal Film 7266 Schmidt: He taught me that just because there’s a certain way you’re supposed to do things doesn’t mean that you have to or even should do it that way. He taught me to trust my instincts. We were shooting every weekend. I had an ARRI SR3 and a set of Zeiss Superspeeds at my disposal, as well as (EASTMAN EXR Color Negative film) 7245, a 50 ASA stock. That was such an important Connect educational experience for me. The lessons I’d learned at Iowa helped. It’s funny, because I’ve been shooting the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials using the same Bolex camera and the same Switar lenses I was using back then. We often shoot on Ektachrome film. The director is Steve Miller, who was nominated for a DGA Award based on that campaign.

Q: Tell me about the thought process behind those spots. Are you still there? If so, please click the button below to PLAYLIST / Schmidt: Those spots, and their success in the advertising marketplace, really show the enduring continue watching the playlist.Inside Llewyn Davi… power of film. You could try to replicate those looks digitally, but you couldn’t. We pull the cover off OK the Bolex and get streaks. Sometimes there are little scratches and the registration is off. It has an This video is currently unavailable. organic naturalism that you are not going to get with another format. By now, the agency is adamant Your browser does not currently recognize any of the that we shoot those in 16mm. It’s funny – all these years later, I still find myself taking off the little video formats available. Click here to visit our frequently asked questions about yellow loop on the daylight spools, cutting the perfs and threading it into the Bolex. And this is for an HTML5 video. international, big-budget campaign. The Adobe Player is required for video playback. Get the latest Flash Player Q: How do audiences read these images? Sorry, this video is not available on this device. Learn more Schmidt: Any connectivity that you have emotionally is almost always subconscious. I think I’ve 0:00 / 2:11 learned that from working with Mark Pellington. I met him in New York, where I worked as a gaffer {"other": "# likes", "case0": "0 likes", "case1": "1 like"} during the most explosive moment of music videos. It was really experimental. Mark and I were always talking about how images in editorial connect with one another. How do we derive meaning out of something? It was the best training ground I could have had.

Q: You shot a feature film last year called The Mechanic. Tell us about that project. Schmidt: Simon West, the director, asked me for my take on the script. The energy of the film struck me as something that needed to be told in a throwback fashion, like an early ‘70s Clint Eastwood movie. The protagonist’s life is a gritty one, and I thought the images should have a textural quality. I suggested that we shoot on (KODAK VISION2 Expression 500T Color Negative film) 5229. It’s a low-con stock, and it has texture. Everyone is trying to escape grain, but I look at that as texture. We decided to underexpose and really try to bring that out. I thought that if we combined that with warm, moody, sodium vapor top light, and shot with a roaming, longer lens, it would have a great big feeling for a relatively modest budget. It imbued the bayou landscape with a whole other kind of feeling, and it resonated with people. I got great feedback on it. Digital can look good, but film resonates with people, maybe because it’s unexplainable.

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