Cinematographer Alexis Zab , ASC, AMC s interest in image making began to develop at an early age, while he was growing up in Mexico City. I remember going into the darkroom with my dad, he shares. It was really entertaining for me, the darkness, the smells, seeing the photos appear and the rhythm of that very concentrated work.
He pursued that interest to Mexico's Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematogr ficos and then into a career as a cinematographer, landing his first big break on director Fernando Eimbcke's 2004 black-and-white feature Duck Season. Zab 's feature credits also include Eimbcke's Lake Tahoe, Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light and Post Tenebras Lux, and Sean Baker's The Florida Project. Along the way, he's also photographed a wide range of short-form projects.
With a 2-year-old son at home, Zab has recently been focusing his career on commercials. I like the rhythm of commercials, he says. I've consciously not done a feature for the last couple years because it would pull me away from seeing my family for three months. Especially when my son is so young, I wake up to go to work and maybe he's still asleep, and then I get home and he's already asleep. But he's starting to understand why I'm gone, so I'm more flexible now about doing a feature than I have been the last couple of years.
The cinematographer began 2021 with a string of three commercials shot back-to-back: a Klarna spot ( The Four Quarter-Sized Cowboys ) directed by Andreas Nilsson, a Mark Romanek-directed McDonald's commercial ( Thank You for Driving Thru ), and an Evian shoot with director Vincent Haycock. Both the McDonald's and Klarna commercials premiered during the Super Bowl broadcast on Feb. 7, while the Evian spot was made for the European market.
Zab recently took some time to discuss these projects and more with Panavision.
Panavision: Early in your career, you took a year off to study yoga in India. What led to that decision?
Zab : When I graduated from film school, there was a big economic crisis, and a lot of the DPs in Mexico left the country, which left a huge opportunity for us. We just got out of school, and there was a lot to do. So I worked and worked and worked. I did a lot of special effects, and we would sometimes work 24, 36 hours straight just crazy hours, and eventually I burned out. I'd recently started practicing yoga with some friends, and I was really interested in it and where it comes from and what it does. Certain things lined up in my life that made it perfect for me to leave for a year, and I decided to go and study yoga and travel and figure things out.
When you study in India, it goes beyond just the asanas, or the physical practice. It's basically a philosophy for life. Everything you do is influenced by that knowledge. You end up practicing yoga every day, with every decision. It changed my perspective on life, and that changes everything. My approach to the work did a complete 180 after that practice.
In terms of the projects you choose to take?
Zab : Yeah, eventually. Especially in feature work, if you don't fully believe in it and have the correct circumstances in your life, it's hard to do, because it's such a huge investment in time and energy and compromise. I try to choose features that are trying to say something that I want to tell the world. You can't always do that. Sometimes you've got to do things for different reasons.
It's changed the way that I work with lighting as well. I became way more flexible about it. It's less about control and much more about flowing. I remember when I got out of school, it was always a struggle to get things exactly as I thought I wanted them. It was totally about controlling the light, and it was a very strenuous effort. But now I start with whatever's there already, and I then work on top of that. I learned to value reality. It's a more observational and flexible approach to the work.
And for handheld work it's been really useful. It's kept me lean so I can squeeze into nooks and crannies and get into weird positions to find angles. It definitely influences you that way.
What brought you to Panavision for these three recent commercials?
Zab : I've been working with Panavision for quite a few years. I really like the approach that Panavision has to filmmaking, and I have a great partnership with Rik [DeLisle, marketing executive at Panavision Hollywood]. He's been really supportive. And there are always new things, new lenses, or new old lenses, to try. When I talk to Guy [McVicker, technical marketing manager] and he does special adjustments to the optics, I learn a lot about a part of my craft that's really a mystery for most of us who are out in the field. Since everything's designed in-house, people have a real knowledge of the lenses, what they can do and how you can move them around. It's a great experience.
What's also cool about Panavision is that not every lens series matches every other series. They all have their own particular personalities and identities. There's always something you can take off the shelf, and you never feel like you're getting an industrial' look. It always feels personal. It just makes the whole process more fun.
What was the basic premise of each commercial?
Zab : The first commercial was comedy, with director Andreas Nilsson, who's really quirky and funny. He juxtaposes elements of reality in such a bizarre way that creates these great little universes. There's a new online store, Klarna, where you can buy things and pay in four smaller payments. So we had Maya Rudolph as four tiny cowgirls, quarter size, riding miniature ponies. It's a funny commercial, very simple, but there was a wink to old westerns.
After
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Cinematographer Alexis Zab , ASC, AMC s interest in image making began to develop at an early age, while he was growing up in Mexico City. I remember going into the darkroom with my dad, he shares. It was really entertaining for me, the darkness, the smells, seeing the photos appear and the rhythm of that very concentrated work. 
