Corbet: This is the one that we can’t entirely take credit for. We were, like, What the fuck is happening here? I became obsessed with this building and this rig when we were scouting off in the distance, a few miles away. I asked the van, “I’m so sorry, but can you just quickly detour over there for a little while?” We got there and there’s these black coal piles everywhere. That building looks painted; it’s a real building. And that coat against the soot. It’s just a really powerful picture.
I don’t know how we did this. It wasn’t lit. It was a handheld sequence; we came back, there was nothing overly complicated in its capture, but you have this wild shadow that’s almost like they’re on the moon or something. I remember thinking it felt like a Hopper painting. Not in a self-congratulatory way, but I was trying to work out what the heck had happened that gave it such a unique quality.
I don’t really believe in storyboards. We’ve done them occasionally for sequences where production felt more comfortable with us having storyboards so that in theory a special effect or something would go according to plan. But the problem with storyboards is that, if you don’t show up and just respond to what the light is actually doing, you become sort of a slave to these cartoons on set.
Crawley: I’m not discrediting storyboard artists in any way, but any collaborator you have a close relationship with, you have a way of framing something. Then, if you bring another party in and they’re drawing something, it’s not necessarily representative of how we would approach it photographically or compositionally. Brady and I always like this idea of one element or a certain element to what we’re doing that we’re not fully in control. If we’d shot this digitally, we’d all be staring at a monitor controlling every aspect, dissecting it. The very nature of celluloid is there’s always something you’re not fully in control of. You’re not there hand-holding that film through the bath, whatever comes back. Maybe storyboarding a set—there’s a sense of over-control, and what we’re talking about is relinquishing…having trust in the moment. We run with that.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.
