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 Roger Deakins

Roger Deakins, born on the 24th Of May 1949 in Torquay, Devon, England. Roger Deakins is known for his work on ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ in 1994, ‘No country for Old Men’ in 2007 and ‘ A Beautiful Mind’ in 2001. Roger Deakins was also the director of photography for the film ‘Skyfall’ in 2012, he worked on this film with Sam Mendes, a film director who is best known for directing comedy-drama films. Roger Deakins is known for frequently working with the Coen Brothers, together they have produced films such as ‘The Ladykillers’ in 2004, ‘No country for Old Men’ in 2007 and looking to produce ‘Hail, Caesar!’ in 2016. He started out by shooting documentaries as most cinematographers did, he shot many in Africa as well as covering the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. This required him to work for more than 9 Months as a crew member while filming a documentary. The way in which Roger gets his vision is from taking still photographs and fishing, this allows him to create an inner image for him to work with, and see things from a different aspect.  

A more recent film that Roger Deakins has worked on and that I have seen for myself is ‘Skyfall’. This film was put under the genres of Action, thriller, adventure. It is James Bond film, which the name itself has big attention on it due to past films, you know that the film already has action involved. Roger Deakins only shoots films using spherical lenses and usually uses simplistic lighting design, often using only one or two lights. Using a spherical lens could be due to getting more wide-angle shots and creating a deeper depth of field within the shot. From an interview that I have done research for Roger Deakins says that spherical lens and the use of simplistic lighting helps create an emotional affect on the audience, subliminally keeping them locked into the film. The examples below are shots of the use of spherical lenses and simplistic lighting design, which is often used with one or two lights:

From both the above shots, you can tell that there wasn’t much lighting used. Roger Deakins has used his simplistic lighting design technique in these shots, which makes the screening look so cinematic, and also in high definition. The spherical lens trademark is used in both these shots before they come to a close up. The second image here, before it is a close up, is a slow zoom as Javier Bardem moves closely to Bond. The zoom is so slow yet so effective as the audience you wouldn’t think that as he takes every step closer to Bond that the camera also moves in slowly. The spherical lens at this point is being used to show how much more dominant he is at this point compared to Bond. It is also used to show the scene and what kind of place they are in, at the time it isn’t a nice house or something that you would expect James Bond to be in, so when you do see the place you automatically tell that something is not right at this point, telling the audience that James Bond is endangered at this point.  Roger Deakins himself says that cinematography itself is a different role to have. He says that the priority of the job is to fulfil the director’s ambitions in terms of providing the imagery for the story.

Personally I think what separates Roger Deakins from any other cinematographer, is that he doesn’t see it as a job. So for example, he knows all the technical aspects that are expected of him and also the skills and abilities he needs and also the creative mind that he need for a specific story but the main thing that is in his head is seeing it from an audience perspective. This is simply because this is the only way you will be able to engage the audience and then keep them locked into the film.  His creativity is so unique compared to others that it has now just become straight passion rather than it being an occupation, looking at it from his point of view it all makes sense, if you look at it from an occupational point of view then you will just do what it is asked of you. Doing it with passion and love for the role, you begin to hate things that is just asked of you or that is spoken about it, Roger Deakins hates the fact that they have an expression called “the art of cinematography”, he doesn’t going into much detail about it in the interview but I think its because art itself is a range of human activities and the products of those activities, so he doesn’t see as an activity, which is what separates him from any of the other cinematographers. His trade marks which are frequently working with the Coen Brother, Simplistic lighting design, often using only one or two lights and only shooting films using spherical, these three aspects are the main technical things that separate him from other cinematographers but again his passion is also a part of the things that separate him from the other DOPs .