‘In All is Lost, shot by Frank DeMarco and Peter Zuccarini, a lone sailor battles the elements after his boat is damaged far from port.
Director/writer J.C. Chandor’s screenplay All is Lost wasn’t really a screenplay at all, at least not in a traditional Hollywood terms. A mere 32 pages, it was more of a detailed treatment. The slenderness of the blueprint wasn’t due to lack of planning or foresight, nor was it because the film was wholly improvised. In fact, every shot in the film was meticulously storyboarded. But there are only three moments of dialogue in the features 106 minute running time, and only one character – identified in the credits as “Our Man”(Robert Redford) – in the entire film. All is Lost is an exercise in pure cinematic storytelling, using only the actors performance, the camerawork, and the justapositioning of shots to tell an invigorating tale.
Chandor notes, “About 97% of All is Lost is shot from eye level, either in front of Our Man or behind him from just a few feet away. We never really get more than 10 or 12 feet away from him, which is true to the real confines of the boat. In a space like a sailboat cabin, many filmmakers have the tendency to sweep the camera all over the place, trying to create energy and stay away from monotony, but I wanted to embrace that monotony. That’s really the point: You’re trapped with this character in this situation as an impotent observer as opposed to being an omnipotent observer. The audience experiences this world the way the character does; they’re stuck on the boat with him, they never know more then he does. Had we put the camera in an unrealistic place, moved off the boat to get established shots or swept through where a wall would be, it would have violated that feeling of confinement and given the audience that breath I didn’t want them to take.
DeMarco shot All is Lost with ARRI ALEXA cameras, capturing 16:9 but composing for a 2,39:1 (2880x1205) widescreen release. “We centered the 2,39:1 on the 16:9 Super 35mm Chip,” he explains. “We exposed at 800 ISO, and we shot ARRIRAW to CODEX recorder that was usually off-camera.”
“We used Zeiss Standard Speed MKII (T2,1) prime lenses from the 1980’s and 1990’s. Because digital can be so hard and sharp, I like to use older lenses to create a smoother image; we didn’t want this movie to look super modern. We also used a Zeiss 15,5-45mm Lightweight Zoom a lot; it’s a small, easy-to-hold lens that’s beautiful and not overly sharp. I also carried two Angenieux Optimo zooms a 17-80mm(T2,2) and a 24-290mm (T2,8). I used ND filters to keep the stop around T2,1 or T2,8 because shallow depth of field for this film.
DeMarco adds, “Its very interesting to work with a script that was only 32 pages long. Its all internal. The whole film is about Our Man thinking and problem solving, or simply enduring really horrible stuff. The trick for me was to figure out what emotion or story point we should find in each scene … -All is Lost is like a silent movie with sound!”’
Partial reposting from Taking on Water article, American Cinematographer Magazine Nov.2013 issue.