“Shooting on Film Remains Somewhat of a Black Art”: DP Adam Stone on The Bikeriders

Finally Nichols, who made Mud and Midnight Special after eight years, half of which he spent in pre-production for films that were never made, is back with his new movie. 
 
Which, of course, implies that cinematographer Adam Stone is also back with a new movie as well. 
 
Since Nichols met her at University of North Carolina School for the Arts, she has been behind the camera in all of the directors’ movies which are six in number. All of them were shot on 35mm, and the most recent film that Hedin directed with the couple is the The Bikeriders. 
 
Shot on location in and around Cincinnati, as is customary for a Herzog production, the film derives from the photographs and text present in Danny Lyon’s book of the same name published in 1968. While the real events based movie focuses on Benny (a stand-in for Culture) torn between Kathy a wife that wants him to stop riding and Johnny (Tom Hardy) a gang leader who wants him to take over. 
 
Stone discusses with Filmmaker about the decision to shoot the ending part of the movie in the motion, on trikes that caught the actors in movement, as well as numerous misfortunes that happened to his favorite Sekonic light meter. 
 
Filmmaker: I just got two cinematographers, Ben Fordesman on Love Lies Bleeding and Shane Kelly on Hit Man, both of whom stated how they wanted to eventually use 35mm for their projects but could not. You and Jeff Nichols have both shot all of your features with 35mm and it has been since Loving and Midnight Special both released in 2016. Did the fact that on The Bikeriders you were able to secure a new grant mean that it was more difficult on The Bikeriders than in the past to persuade the decision makers that shooting on film was imperative and worthwhile? 
 
Stone: Though it has been quite some time since Jeff and I both shot a film, truly nothing has changed. We always capture on what many folks consider legacy film stock – in fact, it’s pretty much a requirement for us. One peculiarity that can be recollected: we did debate with the studio and producers about shooting in 70mm or in 35mm. Ideally we would have shot 70mm but the shortening of shooting days and particularly the requirement to photograph at speed around motorcycles didn’t suit the format. 
 
Filmmaker: I understand it maybe a little tricky to explain, but could you tell me at what level still 35mm offers you something that the digital option cannot? Recording equipment has advanced since this time while you and Jeff were making the film Shotgun Stories. What keeps pulling you back to film? 
 
Stone: I like celluloid because of its uncertainties and miracles. Even though shooting on film is as old as the motion picture itself and was utilized by masters to capture beautiful moments, it still remains somewhat of potentate, where one just cannot be sure of what the final product may turn out to be like, because there are so many possibilities of aberrations. And that unpredictability is what makes shooting on film so pleasing. It is the opposite to digital and is less critical; there is something special about celluloid that digital can never capture. 
 
Filmmaker: In the Bikeriders press materials there is also such a shot of you as you are taking the reading with your light meter. Do you have any story behind that meter ever? How is this the same Brad from Loving/Midnight Special? 
 
Stone: I have two light meters the Sekonic and the Minolta. Both are of considerable age but are still well capable of performing the tasks as demanded. The Minolta is my back-up and the eldest of them all; I shot with it during David Gordon Green’s All the Real Girls. I stated that I have replaced the Sekonic several times. In an interview during the shooting of Mud, it drowned in the Mississippi; during the shooting of Midnight Special, it was calculated that it was run over by a grip truck. 
 
Filmmaker: I think you have shot all your movies with Jeff except Take Shelter with anamorphic lenses. The last four have all been with Panavision G Series lenses all bearing the logo made of LPL. Pardon me, what are you able to appreciate about those lenses? Have you ever had them detuned from movie to movie just to fine tune the look? 
 
Stone: My pick for the G Series lenses I like the best is hard to make. I don’t want to waste your time in explaining all the sophisticated specifications and qualities like their beautiful out of focus areas, aberrations and drop off. This is what I like about from G Series; they make everything look real as if I am looking at it with my naked eyes. In any case, the G Series never disappoints with the picture quality and the rather grandiose frames. I actually have not needed to do that – detune them is something that I’ve never had to do. 
 
Filmmaker: Can you describe your strategy in shooting scenes with Benny? Benny’s first appearance was during the introduction scene where he leans on a pool table suggested by the photo of Danny Lyon; the way Benny is shot and the way Austin Butler moves, captures that something which attracts Kathy, Tom Hardy’s character, and the viewer to him. It is like the same way Johnny, character in Hardy is tempted when he watches Brando in The Wild One on TV. How does one shoot a character in a way that will imbue the character with mythos or idealism as it were without tricks such as slow motion, non-photorealistic lighting, or taboo camera positions? 
 
Stone: It is actually very warm of you to say so. I’ve just done my hair cool and Austin Butler is just a massive talent anyway so I didn’t have to make him look too good really. No different method is there to create a character which could be portrayed as iconishing. That is why Jeff and I just try to get the sets as close to real life as possible, so the actors are not acting as if they are in a dress-up or play. That way they are in actual some place where they can be resourceful and free to be themselves without any interruption. Whether it is to put a boat in a tree as we did with Mud or reconstruct a bar as in the case of Danny Lyon’s book, all the moments depicted are made possible through our crew. Thus, their sensitivity towards art direction, costumes movement, and lighting helps to catch some fascinating moments. 
 
Filmmaker: Can you explain the various camera mounts you employed to take the shots where the riders are in mid of biking?

Stone: Some ideas we tried when shooting actors on bikes. Every case demanded a different tool to be used. Ultimately, we used three different shooting platforms for the film: Included are an eBike with a stabilized head, a pursuit car with a stabilized head and a two-wheeled trike with a camera platform. The eBike and the pursuit car were used in shoot of the bikers group which was necessary for believability in the movie. Of all the scenes, the vehicles were only used for those depicting the actors riding the trikes closely. So around the trike we built a structure in such a way that the actor can actually drive the trike while the camera man takes the close up shots. This technique effectively engaged the audience to the shot because it felt so personal and right on the actors’ faces. That is to say, you really got the impression that you were one of the riders of the bike. 
 
Filmmaker: The story is sometimes narrated by Kathy, and sometimes from Danny Lyon’s point of view, although he is related to the Vandals club but not associated as one of the participants. To which extent did telling the story from the more objective observers’ point of view influence where the camera was placed? 
 
Stone: A little bit of history: So, Danny Lyon did not spare only thousands of scenes of photo graphing but also the members of the bike gang, he spent hours of using reel to reel tape. The most interesting sessions featured in the film were with Kathy, and that is why Jeff built the storyline around her. Because Kathy was the instigator and the root of the plot, it was natural that the camera concentrated more on her; therefore there were many close up shots. Nevertheless, Danny was an active character, who served as the listener and the collector of the stories, so when filming him, he stood somewhat aside from the viewer, and we looked at him from a certain distance that was closer to the one with which we regard Kathy but not as close. 
 
Filmmaker: Finally, some of the scenes that I totally loved to see in the film are the photojournalistic style or what could be termed as ‘portrait shots’ imitating the actual Danny Lyon still photo. For all of them, did you use a particular focal length? 
 
Stone: The stills and portraits which we replicated in the film were particularly interesting because they were taken [by Danny] in rather different ratio, while the majority of photo images are produced in the vertical format. Safety was definitely a concern on our first day of shooting when we attempted to shoot a scene of Cal [Boyd Holbrook] working on his bike. The original photograph taken by Danny was from a motorcycle perch mount mirror with Cal in the background. Some shots exercise the creativity of the entire camera crew to find the best shot to record on set, and this was one of them. We used diopters, shot plates and bracked a number of takes before getting an image that looked at all like Danny’s original. The remaining ones in the portrait shots were not as stringent as the ones above, mainly because they were not purely identical. For some of the shots, we used the 50mm lens which grew to be prominent in the entire footage of the film. 
 
Filmmaker: Now I would like to discuss the quote from Nichols in another interview that he made about Danny’s photos. He said, “What Danny does is he photographs people. His photographs aren’t about motorbikes, you’re really looking at these human beings that are part of this subculture. ” In what way did that thought process translate to you? It is, however, tough for me to remember particular shots that I deemed as fetishizing the bikes themselves. 
 
Stone: Before the filming began Jeff and I sat down to discuss the artistic concept of the show. We sought to make it not come off as too sweet or ‘forced’. We dissected Danny and Jim Miteff’s photograph to the least detail and I followed the same approach with Danny’s. We chose just a few pictures and flooded heads of departments with several pictures with a comment “This is how the film should look like” The atmosphere was very raw, graphic, and quite unexpectedly – free of motorcycles to a significant extent. This made us recall that we had a mainstream cast and we were working on portraying real people with many shades and not just their bikes. 
 
Filmmaker: Ripley I watched it on Netflix last week Robert Elswit is just great in it. For me, it made me almost crave for more black and white films. Indeed, out of all the photos taken by Danny Lyons and compiled in his book, the majority are in black and white. Jeff has stated that he likers Rumble Fish as one of the movies. Was any possibility of shooting in black and white discussed with the team? 
 
Stone: Indeed, Jeff and I talked about shooting the movie in black and white, but he did not go for it in the end. He considered red and green as offering some censorship, making the viewers unable to get fully involved in the story. I partly acknowledge it though there are some films like Ripley and Roma that manage to incorporate the use of black and white properly. We, however, had compiled a photobook of black and white shots that revolve around the film. It is just a cool collection for the fans who wished to feel the cinematography of black and white. 
 
Filmmaker: Despite the fact that ‘Take Shelter’ is Jeff’s second picture, he was very focused and shared an amusing anecdote in an interview about the shooting of the scene with Michael Shannon where the characters meets at the fireside draft board. Jeff said that he was thinking it was nearly funny when Shannon portrayed it entirely different. The monologue turned into a conclusion where are we now the club was created to protect the gays and all the people who felt that the world does not want them; We don’t want you ‘ When the shooting of that particular scene was in preparation did it alter when you saw how Shannon was going to act out that monologue? 
 
Stone: No, Shannon’s interpretation of the scene didn’t alter that setup, though there is one that always left us rather confused. When Johnny got up to call Benny for leaving that fireside chat, the camera strategy was to over-the-shoulder shots of the conversation. As for Benny’s background he had the firepit, and as for Johnny’s he had a car with burn barrel. We ignited both areas to the expectation of the required coverage. On the other hand Johnny moved too close to Benny, and this restricted the lens to a very tight two shot. In this new scenery, there was no background lighting, but for some reason, it looked stunning with Tom’s execution of the song and dance in that scene. 
 
Filmmaker: Lastly, ‘    want not to reveal too much but the final scenes of the film are the characters smiling at the epilogue of the picture. Apart from Goodfellas as another movie in which Jeff has mentioned being an influence for the film not really in terms of visuals but in the storytelling, I couldn’t help but envision the closing shot of the smiling Ray Liotta at the end of the moviemaking process. 
 
Stone: I think they literally only redid that scene from the episode. The first try was on the setting, however, a lot of interaction between Benny and Kathy was failed. We had to redo the shot in New York and include more touches from the studio to enhance the couple’s exchanges and expressions. I liked the genuine, raw atmosphere of the first version, but I understand why these changes would benefit the film in terms of getting out there and getting the attention of viewers.