EXCLUSIVE: Brazilian Adolpho Veloso, the Academy Award- and BAFTA-nominated cinematographer of Train Dreams, declares that his country has World Cup-like Oscar fever.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis whole Oscar thing is so big in Brazil,\u201d he says, \u201cthat people are celebrating everything, like it\u2019s a World Cup!\u201d<\/p>\n
Veloso adds: \u201cI think is amazing because suddenly we are celebrating culture and art like we used to celebrate only football, which is also amazing. I\u2019m a big fan. I go to World Cups, and I love it. And I\u2019m that person doing that for football, but I love to now see all Brazilians doing that for culture and cinema. And to be a really small part of that, it\u2019s even more amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Veloso is, without a doubt, a football fanatic. He attended the past three World Cups \u2014 2014 in Brazil, 2018 in Russia and 2022 in Qatar \u2014 and is hopeful of purchasing tickets for Brazil team games during this summer\u2019s tournament. Although, being a cinematographer, he says he spends most of the time being annoyed at how badly the stadiums are lit.<\/p>\n
RELATED: How \u2018Train Dreams\u2019 Director Clint Bentley, DP Adolpho Veloso & Composer Bryce Dessner Tamed Mother Nature And Made Her A Star \u2013 Crew Call Live<\/p>\n
The dude has been f\u00eated in his hometown of S\u00e3o Paulo, where the city\u2019s celebrated Corinthians football team presented him with a jersey emblazoned with his name and the magic number seven in honor of his soccer hero Marcelinho Carioca, the legendary free-kick wizard who played for Corinthians for record goal-scoring spells from 1994-2001.<\/p>\n
The cinematographer was at his home in Lisbon, Portugal, when his Oscar nom for the Netflix film directed by Clint Bentley and starring Joel Edgerton was announced. The next morning he was on a flight to Brazil, where he spent six days whooping it up with friends and family in Rio and S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n
Joel Edgerton, left, and Kerry Condon in \u2018Train Dreams\u2019 Netflix<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then this whole thing about the Oscars now, especially like after last year when Brazil finally won its first Oscar [Best International Feature] for I\u2019m Still Here and Fernanda Torres was nominated for Best Actress, and this year with The Secret Agent with four nominations and myself with one. So we have like five nominations for Brazil in the year. It\u2019s a big celebration and everybody\u2019s like so excited \u2026 and amazing things happening like Lula, [Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula], the president, posted about it and posted my name, and then I was invited to go to my football team and meet the players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Receiving a jersey with his name and the fabled number seven on it \u201cwas a really special moment,\u201d he says beaming brightly.<\/p>\n
Adolpho Veloso (center) framed by players from Brazil\u2019s Corinthians football team Instagram<\/p>\n
He played the game in his youth. Was he any good? I ask. \u201cI was decent,\u201d he shrugs modestly. \u201cBut I would never have a future in that. I haven\u2019t been playing much now because I\u2019m kind of afraid of injuring myself and not being able to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating, and I miss it,\u201d he laments.<\/p>\n
Veloso reckons that Brazil is having what he terms \u201ca late recognition,\u201d even though the country has \u201calways had amazing movies, amazing talents in Brazil and Brazilians out of Brazil. I feel there is something about a good momentum that I have not really \u2026 I\u2019m not really sure why.\u201d<\/p>\n
One theory he proffers is that it has a lot to do \u201cwith Brazilian influence of all Brazilians in social media\u201d and \u201ceven the Academy \u2014 Instagram, for example. The Instagram post on the Academy account that has more likes is Fernando Torres\u2019 picture from last year and then Wagner Moura pictured this year. There is an understanding of everybody now that Brazil is also a voice, in a way. And Brazilians are part of the conversation and Brazilians watch films and Brazilians go to social media and Brazil is just an amazing country in itself, not just a single film that comes from time to time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warming to his theme, Veloso proclaims that \u201cthere is a bigger understanding of Brazil as a whole, as a culture, as a movement, that I think is really important for everything that is happening, for sure. It has a lot to do with all Brazilians suddenly being involved in the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suddenly he shakes his head as he reflects on his circumstances. \u201cI would never expect when I was doing a movie in the middle of America about a logger, then suddenly I would be, because of this movie, in my football team\u2019s training facility, meeting the players and getting a jersey with my name on it. It\u2019s like childhood dreams coming true in ways that I would never expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
RELATED: ASC Awards Nominations: Cinematographers Focus On \u2018Frankenstein\u2019, \u2018One Battle\u2019, \u2018Sinners\u2019, \u2018Marty Supreme\u2019 & \u2018Train Dreams\u2019 For Top Film Prize<\/p>\n
Veloso says his recognition in Brazil comes at a time when he believes cinematography is being more widely recognized as an important storytelling art by the general public. \u201cI used to feel like mostly filmmakers or cinephiles are the ones that actually know that there is a cinematographer even, but it\u2019s cool to see that there is more recognition happening. Again, filmmaking is maybe the art that depends more on teamwork and on more people in equal level \u2014 there\u2019s so many people equally responsible for the end result, maybe more than any other art. So yeah, it\u2019s tricky. I feel like we are a small percentage actually of everything that\u2019s happening. So hopefully there\u2019s going to be more recognition to all departments and to everybody involved that it is everybody\u2019s movie in the end. It shouldn\u2019t be just the director\u2019s movie,\u201d he reasons.<\/p>\n
Train Dreams, based on a novella by Denis Johnson, follows his key character one Robert Grainier, played brilliantly by Edgerton, a lumberman who felled timber for railroads at the turn of the 20th century. The film also stars Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon and William H. Macy.<\/p>\n
Felicity Jones and Joel Edgerton in \u2018Train Dreams\u2019 Netflix<\/p>\n
We\u2019re walking and talking \u2014 at the same time, even \u2014 The Broad Walk, a tree-lined avenue in London\u2019s Regent\u2019s Park, over 400 acres of parkland once used by Henry VIII as his London hunting grounds but since 1818 laid out as formal gardens with acres of woodland surrounded by grand houses, villas and terraces primarily designed by John Nash.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a very different landscape from the rugged Pacific Northwest, where Veloso shot Train Dreams, but he readily concedes that it\u2019s a beautiful day with beautiful light \u201cwhich is not always the case here in London, but I\u2019m surprised. It\u2019s sunny, blue skies,\u201d he says in denial that it\u2019s also freezing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love when all the leaves are actually gone and you can see just the trees without any leaves. The naked bark. It\u2019s so beautiful,\u201d he remarks.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Take Ten: Joel Edgerton On The Kismet Of Making \u2018Train Dreams\u2019, A Terrifying Ghost Experience And The Films That Make Him \u201cUgly Cry\u201d<\/p>\n
The official prep for Train Dreams was eight weeks, and Veloso, often with Bentley and their teams, would spend most of those days just driving around \u201cthe whole state trying to find all possible different kinds of environments and trees.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tricky thing, he explains, \u201cwas to find forests and trees that looked untouched and really ancient because when we would look at the pictures from the time period, all the trees were so big and so large and they felt like things that we don\u2019t see much anymore, that it was hard to find anything like that. So the closest things we could find were around like Seattle, in protected parks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The key was to figure \u201chow do we shoot here without obviously interfering and harming the land and the trees at all? So it was a combination of a lot of trees, but it was amazing to be around those really untouched ancient trees. Everything feels different there. It\u2019s really magical.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Veloso felt unable to shoot in areas that had been reforested. He looked around Regent\u2019s Park, pointing out where trees had obviously been planted to a formal plan. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel organic, it feels like they were planted and didn\u2019t grow organically as if they\u2019d been there for centuries,\u201d he observes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to avoid those places as much as we could,\u201d which was hard because most of those places had been replanted, he adds.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Breaking Baz: Brazilian Cinematographer Adolpho Veloso On The Visual Poetry He Created For Awards-Season Contender \u2018Train Dreams\u2019<\/p>\n
The laid-out gardens of Regent\u2019s Park would look glorious in something like Bridgerton but obviously out of place in the rough-and-tumble landscape featured so gloriously in Train Dreams.<\/p>\n
However, there\u2019s one thing about the park that he also saw in Seattle. \u201cYou have a lot of moss,\u201d his says, eyes fixated on the non-flowering plant that carpeted the ground beneath his feet. \u201cThis is so beautiful too. So we wanted to have a lot of that too.\u201d<\/p>\n
They also wanted the really large trees that you could build a house inside. Their search was unsuccessful, so it was left to production designer Alexandra Schaller and her team to solve it by bringing huge fake trees to blend with the real ones. \u201cThere\u2019s an iconic shot in the movie, which we actually referenced from a picture we saw of a guy laying inside the tree between two other guys. We couldn\u2019t find a tree that was that big and that we could cut into, obviously, to put a guy laying inside of it. So that\u2019s just a piece of fake tree that Alex Schaller and her team brought in and put it in the middle of the forest,\u201d he marvels.<\/p>\n
As we continued our nature walk \u2014 lovely as it was, I got a rotten cold out of it \u2014 I asked what other problems in the forest the production had to overcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed those guys to be working around those trees and to be cutting those trees, but obviously we couldn\u2019t cut those trees because they\u2019re protected and we wouldn\u2019t do it anyway. \u2026 We went to this park near Seattle that had a huge tree that had recently been struck by lighting. That tree is large. We could walk on top of it, and it\u2019s just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
RELATED: Deadline\u2019s Disruptors In Film At SVFF: \u2018Train Dreams\u2019 Clint Bentley And Greg Kwedar Reveal Their Groundbreaking Approach To Filmmaking<\/p>\n
Their aim was to find similar places where trees had been felled by natural elements \u2014 wind, lightning, etc. \u2014 where the filmmakers could make it seem that lumberjacks had sawn or chopped them down.<\/p>\n
They discovered one area where a massive tree had fallen, crushing vegetation in its wake. \u201cSo the whole scene was very impactful already and we didn\u2019t do anything. We just basically just sat everybody around it and shot it like they were just like having a break. And then for some trees we\u2019d have to have fake instruments, like fake axes and stuff like that, that they could be kind of like hitting the tree without actually harming the trees.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then with camera angles, then it\u2019s almost like shooting stunts. You need to find the right angles where you can sell the punch,\u201d Veloso explains.<\/p>\n
William H. Macy, center, in \u2018Train Dreams\u2018 BBP Train Dreams<\/p>\n
Occasionally they found forests where real loggers were working \u201cand then we could grab real trees going down and real axes going to the trees and stuff like that because those trees are in replanted areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other important, and obvious, factor was that the locations be accessible. They found amazing locations that were just too far. Veloso remembers walking with his team for an hour inside the forest and amazing places would be discovered only to be discounted because of the difficulty accessing such a distance on foot even with a small and nimble crew.<\/p>\n
On occasion, however, Veloso and director Bentley argued with colleagues that \u201cif we had the right location, the magical location, we would rather be in that place and shoot for half an hour than to be in the wrong place and shoot for two hours.\u201c<\/p>\n
Veloso adds: \u201dIt works for everybody, for the actors even. So we were always fighting for the right locations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adolpho Veleso and Joel Edgerton on location for \u2018Train Dreams\u2019 Daniel Schaefer\/ BBP Train Dreams<\/p>\n
Veloso already has shot Lance Hammer\u2019s Queen at Sea, starring Juliette Binoche and Noah Hunt Basden, and M. Night Shyamalan\u2019s Remain with Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor, so I ask him what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n
Pulling up his suede jacket to ward off a sudden gust of icy wind \u2014 and probably these questions \u2014 Veloso admits that he\u2019s been \u201cgetting a lot of scripts now, which is obviously amazing, and I\u2019m trying to find the time to read them all, because to be honest, there\u2019s no time. But I want to be cautious also. I don\u2019t want to just jump into anything. I feel like I\u2019m in a good position now to choose well.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, he notes well that \u201dthe thing I would love the most is for Clint [Bentley] to have another script and to just go for it. We\u2019ve been talking about it. I always text him and like, \u201cNo pressure, but should I be reading a script or am I good to just wait for you?\u201d And he has two projects that he\u2019s writing, but it\u2019s hard to know when they would be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
RELATED: \u2018Train Dreams\u2019: Read The Screenplay For \u2018Sing Sing\u2019 Duo\u2019s Latest Journey To A Particular Time And Place<\/p>\n
Veloso also realizes that he\u2019s seeking a project that he can connect with the way he did when Bentley and Greg Kwedar posted him their Train Dreams screenplay. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier for you to do a better job because you understand the character, you understand the emotions, and you can put that into your craft. And I realize that even more now, \u201c he says, explaining how he related to many aspects of Robert Grainier\u2019s story. \u201cYou always try to have empathy in all the situations in your life, but whenever you can connect more and you can actually feel what the characters feel because you feel the same way, I feel like it\u2019s easier to have the empathy in a way and to understand it better so you can translate that into the visual language, into my tools to tell the story. \u2026 If I find those projects more and more in my life, I can do my job better.\u201d<\/p>\n
One thing he doesn\u2019t want to be is a cinematographer just for hire.<\/p>\n
Passers-by peer at the dashing figure in his signature sunglasses as he slams a fist to make the point that he makes movies because he \u201cloves it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adolpho Veloso in London\u2019s Regent\u2019s Park Baz Bamigboye\/Deadline<\/p>\n
Movies always have been an integral part of his life. \u201cSo I want to be involved in the movies as much as I can because I just love it \u2014 and as you said, like it\u2019s nothing more frustrating than just being a cinematographer for hire. You want to be part of something that you\u2019re proud of and that you feel that you are involved and to collaborate with people that you feel that you are doing something together,\u201d he says passionately.<\/p>\n
With that, Veloso has the audacity to cry \u201cVai, Corinthians,\u201d something he\u2019s been heard to mutter at awards ceremonies.<\/p>\n
I say \u201caudacity\u201d because we\u2019re less than three miles as the crow flies from Arsenal\u2019s Emirates Stadium. And they might have heard him.<\/p>\n
Source: RhinoEasy News<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EXCLUSIVE: Brazilian Adolpho Veloso, the Academy Award- and BAFTA-nominated cinematographer of Train Dreams, declares that his country has World Cup-like<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}