Cinematography

When people praise The Elephant King, they often start with the film's look. I was lucky to work with Director of Photography Diego Quemada Diez, whom I'd met on the set of NYU classmate Zeina Durra's thesis film, The Seventh Dog. Diego's patience and work ethic impressed me, and his work as camera operator and B-unit DP on films from 21 Grams to the Constant Gardener demonstrated a keen instinct for hand-held work and an eagerness for adventure.

The Elephant King was Diego's first feature film as Director of Photography. Soon after we decided to work together, we went to New York's MOMA with Production Designer Lee Yaniv to look at paintings and photographs and ensure that we had a common vocabulary, and also to steal good ideas. We all found ourselves drawn to the color palette of Gauguin's Tahitian paintings, as well as the compositions and use of light in Nan Goldin's photographs. (One shot in the film is an "homage" to the cover photo of Goldin's "Ballad of Sexual Dependency.")

Diego writes of his experience on the film: "In regards to the camera work and lighting, we wanted to flow with the actors, make them feel free to go wherever they wanted to. Seth, the actors, Lee, the production designer and I had a great collaboration."

Diego also happens to be a good-looking guy, and his presence proved distracting for many of the women and a few of the men on set. I'll never forget the producer's Bangkok nanny confiding, when Diego came to Thailand for color correction, that she couldn't be in the same room with him because his eyes would melt her.