Interview with John DeFazio, Cinematographer of ‘The Canyons’

It’s not often that someone can truthfully say that he or she worked on “the most controversial, most talked about” film of the year.  However, that is something that John DeFazio can lay credit to because he was the cinematographer on The Canyons.  Written by unrestrained novelist Bret Easton Ellis, directed by Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader, and starring tabloid favorite Lindsay Lohan and porn star James Deen, The Canyons found itself at the center of controversy for all those reasons and more.  Still, the crew was made up of hardworking individuals who were dedicated to rising above any of the on-set problems you might have read about in the media to make a movie that everybody is talking about.

DeFazio has been shooting films for nearly two decades and has worked with several big names in the industry and on his own projects (some of which you can view on his website).  He is frequently outspoken about his opinions on films both new and old and their visual quality.  In my interview with him he similarly expressed his views on The Canyons and other film with total honesty, something that can be rare in an industry where “people’s reputations and BMWs are at stake” (in DeFazio’s words).

Q: What was the most rewarding aspect of shooting The Canyons?

Working with my friends again, and also forging some great new friendships. I am fortunate enough to have some great friends in the business who are generally union camera assistants, grips, and electrics who were willing to come out and do me a huge favor. This movie never would have been shootable in the time frame that we shot it in or lived up to the standards that we set without a pro camera, grip and electric crew.

Paul Schrader wanted to execute the same types of shots he did on American Gigolo. We never would have gotten them on a micro-budget if I hadn’t had a phenomenal crew to back me up, especially considering the variable of working with Lindsay Lohan and all the time that was wasted waiting on her and dealing with her temper tantrums. Often times we just had to get down and hand-jam it because we were losing the light, or the sun was rising and Lindsay wouldn’t come out of her room for whatever reason.

Every show has got it’s share of “dog & pony” BS and we definitely had ours. I was lucky to have a number of my best friends there backing me up: Brian Taylor – B-camera operator, Cole Chetney – Key Grip, Stephen Tringali – 1st Assistant Camera, Dan Cooper – B-Camera 1st Assistant Camera, Lance Hashida – DIT, and Roman Krajewski – Gaffer.  I’m extremely grateful for my great crew.

I also have to say that meeting and working with producer Braxton Pope was amazing. I thought the intelligence and professionalism with which he produced the movie was first-class. And on a more intimate scale, he was always there to listen to any concerns I had and always made sure they were taken care of. He has a very inventive and unique vision for movie-making, and I’d love to be a part of his movie-making future.

Q: You have used a variety of cameras to film your shorts and music videos, including high definition and cell phone cameras.  What goes into your decision on selecting a particular camera for a particular project?

I have to say the decision making process is different depending on if its a film I’m shooting for someone else or if it’s my own personal project.

For my own short experimental pieces I love making use of tiny lo-fi CCD cameras such as Canon Powershots, cell phones and those old Flip cameras, which quickly became obsolete when video camera became more widely integrated into cell phones. The aestheticization of low resolution video and the inherent glitches and compression artifacts that come from them has always been fascinating to me and a driving force in some of my more experimental narrative pieces.

When it comes to shooting a “real” movie I wish I could say that I cared as much about camera choice, but I don’t. I think the difference between digital cameras is trivial if you know how to light and compose.

It seems that for directors and producers, and most DPs, it’s all about more resolution, more bit depth, smoother workflow, sharper lenses, etc.. However, at this point in the state of things, the artifice of the technology is less important to me, it’s more about what’s in front of the camera than what’s inside it. I don’t mean to undermine the importance of camera choice, but bit-depth and resolution means nothing if your lighting is shit.

Q: Two major names associated with The Canyons are Paul Schrader (director) and Bret Easton Ellis (screenwriter).  Can you talk about working with each of them, and how involved was Ellis in the shoot?

I had zero interaction with Bret Easton Ellis during the filming or even in pre-production. I didn’t meet him until I introduced myself at the wrap party. All I really remember about the interaction was him telling me that he thought the movie looked like a 10 million dollar movie, when we only spent 1/40th of that. That was the end of that. I wished that he was more involved on set as a creative force, as American Psycho is probably my favorite novel of all time. He was the reason I shot the movie.

Paul Schrader and I worked perfectly well together, despite the fact that we were quite the odd couple. The type of dialogue that usually exists between a DP and director was practically non-existent, which is fine with me. But on the flip-side, there was little room for creativity on my part as far as shot design goes.

I don’t think I have ever worked with a director who is more different than me, but I think that was part of the interesting chemistry. Schrader and I  could not have more diametrically opposed approaches to filmmaking and aesthetics. I tend to be bolder in my choices while he is classic Hollywood. My style is nothing like that and very different from anything he has done in the past, which, I think, is what ultimately led him to hiring me in the first place. We have very different tastes, sets of influences, and incredibly different backgrounds. Schrader is a very intellectual filmmaker who works from his brain in a very logical manner. I work from something else — heart or gut or something. He rationalizes his way through shooting a scene; I kind of just feel my way through it. Very different ways of working.

I don’t think logic always leads to the most artistic decisions. Logic and rationality might be great when building bombs or curing cancer, but it rarely leads to the best art, or movies. I shot the movie the way he wanted it to be shot, interjecting as much of my personal style as he would allow.

If I had a bit more freedom, I definitely would have done things differently. However, it’s my job to execute the director’s vision, and not just that, but also better than what the director could have imagined by himself. I think I accomplished that for Paul.

The Canyons is very different from what Paul has done in the past. At first he wanted to take this movie in a different direction visually, which is why I got the job, but as the shoot progressed he steered away from that and reverted to a safer trajectory, one that he was more comfortable with. He was trying to re-shoot American Gigolo while I was trying to shoot a contemporary Noir thriller. Ultimately, I think we got something in-between.

Q: What are your favorite films either written or directed by Schrader? 

I thought Taxi Driver was a great screenplay (I read it when I moved to Los Angeles), but I think Scorsese destroyed it. Too slow and boring, much like most of his films. I think there’s something to be said for Mishima. Although I find the intentional use of black and white to be annoyingly mock-intellectual, I’m looking forward to his Nic Cage movie (just the visual aspect of it, though).

Q: You’ve worked with other big names in the past, including Joe Dante and Roger Corman.  Corman in particular is well known for helping start the careers of dozens of major filmmakers.  What projects did you work on with them, and what did you learn from those experiences?

I shot a horror series called Splatter for Joe Dante which was produced by Julie and Roger Corman. They were all amazing people to work with on a multitiude of levels. They were also some of the nicest people I have ever met in the business.

Some of Dante’s movies were my favorites when I was growing up. I was only ten years old or so when I remember seeing The Explorers on VHS, which is one of my favorites, for the first time. Working with Dante was my first time working for an established Hollywood legend — I mean, he directed some of the best movies of all time — and then there was me with only a fraction of the experience. I have to admit, I was nervous going into it but working with him was an amazingly transformative experience. He always listened to anything I had to say and really valued my opinion about things. I think what I learned from the whole experience with Joe is that I can run with the big dogs.

Q: The two teasers released for The Canyons follow the visual style of 1970s and 1950s trailers despite the film having a contemporary setting. As for the film itself, are there any films that you and the other filmmakers tried to emulate the style of while shooting?

Personally, I thought those mock trailers and that whole marketing scheme was a disaster. Schrader and I had lots of discussions about visual style and he was very into drawing upon references of other movies, in the beginning. We talked a lot about Xavier Dolan‘s Heartbeats which he was very into despite the fact I thought the movie looked amateur and student-filmy.

Everything we talked about during pre-production was quickly thrown out the window once we started shooting. We just did our own thing. That’s often times the case in the low-budget world because you simply don’t have a choice and you get caught up in the whirlwind of on-set catastrophes and have to make the best of what you’ve got to work with. The movie’s aesthetic quickly catapults into fruition and you just have to run with it. So that’s what we did.

In addition to the logistics of low-budget filmmaking, I feel that the interpretation of script became more literal and safe as the shoot went on, so many of the bolder choices we had talked about in pre-production were thrown out the window.

Q: Can you tell us about the equipment you used to shoot The Canyons?

I shot the movie on two Arri Alexa high definition cameras with a Zeiss Standard Speed lens package, which I think we shared between the two cameras. We also uses a Canon 7D for a couple scenes either for it’s small size or for a third angle. On the Canon 7D I used my vintage Super Takumars and a Jupiter 9 85mm and a Helios 44 58mm modified with a canon mount. The 7D had a very interesting raw look for the four-way sex scene and most of the shots from that scene were shot with the 7D. We had a small lighting and grip package generously donated by Hot Strike. All of our lights had to be small enough to be plugged into household outlets as we couldn’t afford a generator.

Q: What was the biggest challenge you faced while you were shooting The Canyons?

Since I didn’t know who Paul Schrader was when he originally approached me about shooting Bait — an earlier movie which never came to fruition — I looked him up on IMDB like you would anyone else. What struck me was that he had worked with some of the biggest and most notable cinematographers in the industry—Storarro, Lachman, Bailey—and not to mention only on movies that had $8,000,000+ budgets. We were a tiny quarter of a million dollar film, but I knew that he was used to the highest of standards of shooting, considering the cinematographers he had worked within the past. I thought it would be somewhat of a challenge living up to those standards on such a low budget with very little equipment. However, after the first couple days of shooting I knew that Paul was going to be happy with my work, and I know that he is very pleased with the look of the finished film.

I’d have to say the hardest part, however was putting a limiter on my style to match his more classic, logical sensibilities.  I really felt like the story called for a post-contemporary, edgier, noir-ish look ,and sometimes he would let me do my thing but often times not.

Q: On Twitter you have frequently made remarks about your dislike of many films considered the “greatest ever.”  You’ve also expressed dislike of recent popular and critical favorites like Lincoln, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Artist.  Since you work in film, can you talk about what you generally dislike about such films from a filmmaking standpoint and as a moviegoer?

All of these films are masterfully manufactured from a technical standpoint, and I do mean “manufactured”. But as a movie-goer I have little interest in that. In all these blockbusters content has nothing to do with the form, and the form has nothing to do with the content.

I personally enjoy movies with a certain specificity of vision and ambiguity, but ambiguity and subjectivity are curse words in the business of movie-making. There is little room for that when people’s reputations and BMWs are at stake.

As far as older classic movies go, they just put me to sleep. And if they are in black and white — forget about it.

Q: On Twitter you’ve referred to 1968 and specifically 2001: A Space Odyssey as your “cut off.”  What post-1968 films influence you as both a cinematographer and as a writer/director?

I think Gaspar Noe, Nicholas Refn, and Lynne Ramsay are three of the most interesting contemporary directors who are really pushing the limits of movies structurally, visually, and thematically. Some of the most transformative experiences I’ve had watching movies have been their films. For me, movies need to be a transformative experience. I think these filmmakers are doing that.

Q: What are your expectations for the public response of The Canyons?

I think there will be many mixed reviews, and I think much of the focus will revolve around Lohan, as the months leading up to the release have proven. I think she did a fine job (when she was there), as well as the rest of the cast, especially James Deen. James was amazing to work with. I think it will be hard for the public to watch the movie with an open mind after those mock trailers and all of the stories and publicity that has emerged prior to the release. I think the smarter 15% of the public will be able to see it for what its worth. In the end, I think the movie will definitely do what it was manufactured to do—return the investment to the producers.

Q: Lastly, you identify yourself as a spaghetti sauce specialist.  Being that I have no Italian heritage and thus no secret family recipe, could you share a secret or two about making the perfect sauce?

“Love” is the secret ingredient. When I cook it for my girl, it’s always better than when I cook it for myself. But if I have to give up a secret, it would be that I always add red wine, heat to a boil, and then reduce heat TWICE during the process.