DP: Marc Gómez del Moral
Music Video: Bombay by El Guicho
Directed by: Nicolás Méndez
Tell WeDP a little about yourself?
I was born in Barcelona and have spent most of my life here. I got involved in this job by luck, I don’t think anyone is born to do one thing, it is just that during your life you get influenced by people you love and admire. I have a good friend, we have know each other since we were 10, who became a cinematographer as well so I think that probably we’ve been our own best influence. We engage and help each other as we have discovered cinema together.
What was the process like on this job?
I’ve known Nicolás Méndez from a long time now. I’ve been working with his company, or a label, CANADA (with two more directors) since 2003. This was my second time working with Nicolás but it felt like working with an old friend, we share a very comfortable working relationship.
Once he came up with the idea we knew it had to look like archive material, so at the begging we were discussed using different lenses, film stocks and filters but at the end we decided to unify the whole concept. Having a huge number of sets and people was a big enough challenge. So we decide to use one set of lenses Zeiss T1.3 and 500T and 200T Kodak Vision 2 for interiors and 250D KodakVision 3 for daylight.
It seems like you guys have thousands of set ups. How did that work?
Once you are involved in a project one of the most important decisions is what crew and equipment are you going use and how you are going to direct them. I knew that I had to plan something fast so I decided to divided my crew in four teams depending on the schedule. The ultralight crew, the light crew, pre-lighting crew and… the crew. The ultralight it was just Nico, Alba (the producer) and me (sometimes even just me) and we were shooting with a 16mm Bolex. The Light crew was one production assistant, make up, costume designer, a focus puller, Nico and me, we basically shot daylight with an SRIII. Then the crew was composed of two electricians or more, art direction and some more production crew, sound and actors. We where moving around with a car and a van with a generator on it. And then occasionally the electricians and and the art direction crew where moving before for the camera crew pre-lighting.
What was the lighting set up you found yourself using the most on this job?
Because of the nature of the shooting I was trying not to repeat any lighting set up, I was always trying to change the nature of my key light and bounce in a different direction.
What was your biggest challenge with the video?
My biggest concern was to get the very best of each location. I had no continuity and no drama to worry about so I basically had to focus on capturing the “beauty” of each location. Nicolás Méndez has an amazing sense of aesthetics so it helped a lot.
What was the color process like?
Since we had no continuity between shots Nicolás, Xavi Santolaya, the colorist with whom we have been working for some time, and I where enjoying the freedom of giving each shot the best look we could.
Are there any tricks you like to use that you would want to share with everyone?
I love to work with Orly one direction of Light (my key Light) but to give different textures I use to combine two kinds of lights. On the playback, for example I’ve use a flathead and I’ve put a joker HMI in the wide to detach the singer of the band, then I’ve supported that with a backlight only for him, if you compare the lighting on him and on the rest of the band you’ll notice it!
If you could talk to your 15 year old self is there any advice you would give him?
I would engage him to shoot even if there was no money. The only way to be a cinematographer or a director is enjoy what you do. It’s a matter of passion.
