Larktag asks, did Spectre have a different DP than Skyfall? A-yup; cinematographer on Spectre was Hoyte van Hoytema, who did Interstellar and Her, among others. He suggested to director Sam Mendes that they could get a nostalgic, more romantic feel by using 35 mm film, rather than digital equipment like the Arri Alexa DP Roger Deakins used for Skyfall. Unfortunately, I think it turned out less nostalgic than stultified, less romantic than old-fashioned. The bar was high, though; Roger Deakins is one of the most well-regarded cinematographyers, and his genius is all over films like The Shawshank Redemption, A Beautiful Mind, Kundun, and all the Coen Bros’ best (O Brother Where Art Thou?, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, etc.). Three things marked Deakins’ style for me in Skyfall: the gorgeous lighting traversing palettes across locations, the quiet or very smoothly moving camera that didn’t sacrifice clarity for action, and the framing that balances movement within each shot without resorting to the heavy-handed center framing that’s becoming all too common in action films.
While the colors were obvious and striking (the deep blue of the skyscraper scenes in Macau, for instance, or the vibrant reds in Shanghai, or the chilly desaturation on the Scottish moors), the lighting was quietly masterful: this was a film about mirroring and self-reflection, Bond seeing himself in others and examining his own psyche, and it used a constant motif of glass and mirrors to get that across. Nothing puts pressure on lighting design like filming so many glass walls: how the fuck did they get so many shots like this without the camera showing up in a reflection?
