Pair a British-born songwriter-director who's collaborated with musicians like Jay-Z with a Romanian cinematographer known for shooting intense dramas, and what kind of movie might you get? An American western, of course. But not just any American western. The Netflix feature The Harder They Fall, directed by Jeymes Samuel and photographed by Mihai M laimare Jr., is a table-turning, race-bending, music-rich western where Black actors play the cowboys (and villains) while the white actors populate the background. This depiction of the American West is one seldom seen on the silver screen, but one that nevertheless existed, as the film notes on its title card.The Harder They Fall may be the first western M laimare has shot, but the cinematographer is no stranger to the genre, having grown up watching them on Romanian TV. I love westerns and feel that all filmmakers deep inside want to do a western at one point, he says. When I read the script, I got hooked to it right away. Music is such a big part of the process for Jeymes, and the script had so many music notes in it that it showed it would be a different type of western while still paying tribute to the genre itself. It had all the right ingredients to be special.
Samuel had a specific aesthetic in mind for the film and brought paintings by the African-American artist Kadir Nelson to his first meeting with M laimare. Nelson's work is vibrant, illustrative, and full of color, and Samuel desired to capture a similar style for the film's visuals. He wanted the look of the film to be a photograph printed on high-gloss paper, M laimare says. He wanted that saturation and high contrast and glossiness.
M laimare, in turn, found inspiration in Dutch photographer Pieter Henket's 2018 book Congo Tales, which featured large-format stills of the Congolese re-enacting popular folktales. Henket employed colored lights to achieve a similar kind of saturation and contrast found in Nelson's paintings. During the shoot, digital-imaging technician Eli Berg loaded images of both artists' work into his system as reference points. Thats how we got a lot of ideas like going deep blue in the shadows, M laimare says. Sometimes the inspiration might just be framing, but the whole idea of tweaking coloring in that way was pretty great.
After M laimare came aboard the project, plans were made in earnest to commence production, but then the coronavirus pandemic put the world on hold prior to the start of principal photography. We all thought it would be a few weeks only, but it turned out to be much longer, the cinematographer recalls. But then, three or four months after, I got a call from Jeymes. He was like, Okay, were going, are you ready?' I couldnt believe it. In a week I had to drive to Santa Fe!
Covid precautions forced the filmmakers to rethink all their traditional shooting methods. We all tried to figure out how to make a movie in the middle of a pandemic while being safe and dealing with all the extra gear, M laimare says. But it went incredibly fast. With all the restrictions, we had to learn to do things in a different way. We did only 10-hour days. It was hard to find time to have lunch, but on the other hand, you could feel that the crew was well rested. We never did crazy Fraturdays' or anything like that. When you have a rested crew, everything goes much smoother.
Samuel and M laimare decided that since they were making a western, it was a no-brainer to go widescreen and anamorphic. M laimare immediately approached Panavision, with whom he's had a long-standing relationship. The cinematographer is also a self-confessed fan of Panavision's Millennium DXL2 camera system. I remember trying it the first time when it came out, and one thing that blew me away was the [Primo electronic] viewfinder, he shares. I think its by far the best viewfinder on the market. I started on film, where you have your eye in the viewfinder the whole time. I cannot function otherwise. I operate and have a hard time looking at a monitor. I really need a good viewfinder, and the whole combination with the color science made it an absolutely perfect tool.
He also appreciates how DXL2 holds highlights. You know that you have at least three stops where you have recoverable image in the highlights, he says. It paid off well for us because the ground in New Mexico is so reflective. The fact that everybody was wearing cowboy hats made the perfect combination. We didn't need to fly silks, and we could shoot in the middle of the day in the harshest sun, and everybody would look great.
For 2018s The Hate U Give, M laimare had shot on DXL2 with a set of Auto Panatar anamorphic primes, which have a 1.3x squeeze ratio. For The Harder They Fall, the cinematographer says, I really wanted to find something similar to the Auto Panatars. My main concern was the loss of resolution when going to 2x anamorphic.
After an initial conversation with Dan Sasaki, Panavision's senior vice president of optical engineering, Dan asked me to come over, and he showed me a set of T Series modified to a 1.85 squeeze factor, M laimare continues. The 1.85x squeeze allowed the cinematographer to capture 5604x4320 images with DXL2, as compared to 5184x4320 when 2x anamorphic is paired with the camera. That extra resolution put my mind at ease. They were also a little softer and ended up having these amazing swirly bokeh there are so many interesting things about them. Dan showed me only two lenses, and I was sold on them right away.
We started shooting in the forest with the Nat Love Gang, and the way that swirly bokeh looked was quite amazing, he adds. A 12mm H Series spherical [lens] would have given a wider field of view, but looking at the widest T Series and what it was doing to those trees and the falloff and
