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MARCH 2014

The Grand Budapest HotelPage 2Page 3

Presidents DeskASC Close-Up

Wes Anderson’s The Grand BudapestHotel, shot by Robert Yeoman, ASC,follows the whimsical adventures of alegendary concierge and his protégé.

Iain StasukevichUnit photography by Martin Scali. Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Fox

Searchlight Pictures.

Shot by Robert Yeoman, ASC, The Grand Budapest Hotel is very mucha film in keeping with his previous collaborations with director WesAnderson: a storybook tale with complex narratives and first-personnarrators, captured in an illustrative style that’s both theatrical andcinematic. The central story is bookended by scenes set in the late 1970s,when an elderly author (Tom Wilkinson) recounts the details of hisextended stay at the Grand Budapest Hotel in the 1960s. He recalls a storytold to his younger self (played by Jude Law) by one Monsieur Moustafa(F. Murray Abraham), the hotel’s owner at the time.

The film then transitions to the early 1930s, when Moustafa, thencalled Zero (Tony Revolori), serves as a lobby boy for the impeccableMonsieur Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), head concierge of the hotel at theheight of its fame. Trouble begins when Gustave’s octogenarian lover, therich widow Madame Desgoffe-und-Taxis (Tilda Swinton), is foundmurdered at her estate, and her will bequeaths to Gustave a pricelesspainting. The surviving Desgoffe clan vows to contest the will, but notbefore Gustave and Zero swipe the painting. The police then arrestGustave for Madame D.’s murder, leaving Zero with the task of clearinghis mentor’s name.

The Grand Budapest Hotel was shot entirely in Germany, andAnderson set the story in a fictitious Eastern European province,ŻZubrówka (a real-life brand of Polish vodka). As with many of thedirector’s films, vague historical and geographical references locate thestory somewhere between fantasy and reality. “Wes prefers to draw fromreal-world references to create his own world,” says Yeoman. “In thismovie, for instance, the Fascists in power aren’t specifically Nazis, butthey certainly could be interpreted that way.”

During prep for the film, Yeoman and Anderson spent a lot of timescouting locations in Germany and Poland together. To get an idea of howcertain scenes might play out, they sometimes used a film camera to shootsome scenes as they scouted, with various crewmembers serving as stand-ins. Anderson then used his own hand-drawn and voiced animatics tobuild the structure of each scene. “Wes tried to plan out as much of themovie in advance as possible,” says Yeoman. “He does painstakingresearch, and we plan our shots pretty carefully during prep.Occasionally, new ideas come up while we’re shooting, but we generallyhave a pretty good idea of what to expect for each scene.”

Anderson curated an extensive image library for his collaborators.“Many of those books had pictures of old European hotels from the 1930sand other visual references that were relevant to our story,” says Yeoman.

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Anderson notes, “Our best reference was the Internet. The Library ofCongress photochrome-print collection is sort of like Google Earth for1905. We actually found some of our locations that way, and a few ofthem looked a lot like they did 108 years ago.”

The production also maintained a library of reference DVDs, whichincluded The Red Shoes, Twentieth Century, Love Me Tonight and GrandHotel. “Wes loves the Ernst Lubitsch comedies of the 1930s: The ShopAround the Corner, Trouble in Paradise, The Merry Widow and To Be orNot to Be,” Yeoman says. “We looked at those more to familiarizeourselves with the 1.37:1 aspect ratio, which Wes wanted to use for the1930s sequences. This aspect ratio opens up some interestingcomposition possibilities; we often gave people a lot more headroom thanis customary. A two-shot tends to be a little wider than the same shot inanamorphic. It was a format I’d never used before on a movie, and it was afun departure. You can get accustomed to 1.85:1 or 2.40:1 to the pointthat the shots become more predictable.”

Sequences set in the late 1970s, when the author addresses the camerafrom behind a desk, were filmed in 1.85:1, and scenes set in the 1960swere filmed in 2.40:1 anamorphic. Yeoman shot the latter material usinganamorphic Techno-Cooke prime and zoom lenses from Technovision.“They have a very interesting quality — they’re not sharp and crisp likePanavision Primo anamorphics,” he notes. “I was a little nervous abouthow they fell off at the edges. I think the 40mm was actually pretty soft inthe lower center. Cameramen don’t like seeing that, but Wes embraced theimperfections of the lenses because of their distinctive look.” Cooke S4prime lenses and an Angenieux Optimo 24-290mm zoom were used forthe rest of the film.

Principal photography was strictly a single-camera affair, and Yeomanused an Arricam Studio provided by Arri Berlin. “When you’re ascompositionally specific as Wes and I are, one camera is the only way togo,” the cinematographer muses.

Yeoman takes a low-tech approach to accomplishing Anderson’strademark swish pans and dolly shots. “I generally prefer an Arri gearhead, but at times I’ll opt for an OConnor Ultimate fluid head, particularlyfor swish pans that are more than 90 degrees,” he explains. “I can be moreaccurate and move the camera faster with the fluid head. We had severallong dolly moves, and we prefer a large dolly like the Chapman Hybrid 3.Wes prefers to ride with a handheld monitor so he can be near the actors.”

Anderson constantly encouraged Yeoman and key grip Sanjay Sami tofind new ways to accomplish shots. A new addition to their toolkit was theTowercam, a telescoping camera platform from MAT in Berlin. TheTowercam was occasionally used in place of a crane or to boom thecamera between floors, as in the sequence where an incarcerated Gustaveand his fellow inmates stage a prison break. “When the lantern droppedthrough a hole in the jail-cell floor to the basement, we suspended theTowercam upside down so the camera could descend all the way to theground,” says Yeoman. “Wes often challenged us, and Sanjay always camethrough!”

Yeoman shot the entire picture on Kodak Vision3 200T 5213. “We didthat on Moonrise Kingdom and found that the lab could handle thecorrection [for day exteriors],” he remarks. “Without the 85 filter, thefilm stock is rated at 200 ASA instead of 125, which helps late in the daywhen you’re losing light.”

The Grand Budapest is first shown in a shabby state, its crumblingfaçade (a combination of locations in Görlitz, Germany, and miniaturesshot at Babelsberg Studios) concealing an interior decked in flat shades ofnicotine, with low ceilings and narrow halls. The cavernous atrium of aformer department store in Görlitz served as the hotel’s main lobby.Production designer Adam Stockhausen hung a translucent egg-cratedrop ceiling to the ground floor and boxed in the lobby with wall flats tomake the Cold War-era hotel feel claustrophobic and oppressive. “It wasan austere environment,” Yeoman remarks. “The entire lobby ceiling wasdesigned to resemble an overhead fluorescent source, and weaccomplished that with 24 12-light Maxi-Brutes shining through a layer ofRosco 216 White Diffusion that covered the ceiling.”

Yeoman lit all interiors with tungsten instruments and practicals onDMX dimmers, and he typically lit to T3.5. “We did a few zoom shots witha Techno-Cooke 40-200mm zoom in the 1960s hotel lobby, and I lit those

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to T8 because the anamorphic zooms look slightly soft unless they’regiven a deeper stop,” he adds.

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