{"id":511802,"date":"2022-11-18T08:07:18","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T05:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/stephen-burum-on-creative-control-apocalypse-now-and-shooting-brian-depalmas-classic-untouchables-train-station-sequence\/"},"modified":"2022-11-18T08:07:18","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T05:07:18","slug":"stephen-burum-on-creative-control-apocalypse-now-and-shooting-brian-depalmas-classic-untouchables-train-station-sequence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/stephen-burum-on-creative-control-apocalypse-now-and-shooting-brian-depalmas-classic-untouchables-train-station-sequence\/","title":{"rendered":"#Stephen Burum on Creative Control, \u2018Apocalypse Now\u2019 and Shooting Brian DePalma\u2019s Classic \u2018Untouchables\u2019 Train Station Sequence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a41841725e76\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a41841725e76\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/stephen-burum-on-creative-control-apocalypse-now-and-shooting-brian-depalmas-classic-untouchables-train-station-sequence\/#Stephen_Burum_on_Creative_Control_%E2%80%98Apocalypse_Now_and_Shooting_Brian_DePalmas_Classic_%E2%80%98Untouchables_Train_Station_Sequence\" >Stephen Burum on Creative Control, \u2018Apocalypse Now\u2019 and Shooting Brian DePalma\u2019s Classic \u2018Untouchables\u2019 Train Station Sequence<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Stephen_Burum_on_Creative_Control_%E2%80%98Apocalypse_Now_and_Shooting_Brian_DePalmas_Classic_%E2%80%98Untouchables_Train_Station_Sequence\"><\/span>Stephen Burum on Creative Control, \u2018Apocalypse Now\u2019 and Shooting Brian DePalma\u2019s Classic \u2018Untouchables\u2019 Train Station Sequence<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Stephen H. Burum \u2014 an American Society of Cinematographers Lifetime Achievement Award recipient who earned an Oscar nomination for lensing his longtime collaborator Brian De Palma\u2019s 1992 drama <em>Hoffa<\/em> \u2014 will accept the EnergaCamerimage Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday during the cinematography fest\u2019s closing ceremony in Torun, Poland. In addition to <em>Hoffa<\/em>, the Barum\u2019s credits include <em>The Untouchables, The War of the Roses<\/em>, <em>St. Elmo\u2019s Fire<\/em> and 1996\u2019s<em> Mission: Impossible<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    <strong>Congratulations. How does it feel to be accepting the EnergaCamerimage Lifetime Achievement Award?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The reason I accepted it was that I thought that cinematographers needed to be promoted, especially with all the new digital stuff and [on-set] monitors. With everyone having access to the image, people have to remember who\u2019s really in control. I\u2019m not an awards kind of person, but if I can use the award to further the image and the respect for cinematographers, that\u2019s what I\u2019m really interested in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    <strong>In addition to control for new productions, when your <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">movies<\/a> are restored or remastered are you involved in that work?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    It depends. Sometimes I am, sometimes I\u2019m not. Sometimes I don\u2019t even know when it\u2019s h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ening, which is crazy because it costs them nothing to have me go there and do it. The thing you do not want to hear before you go into a transfer is, \u2018Well, Steve, we\u2019ve evened it out for you.\u2019 And so you come to the scene that you had timed, a beautiful orange sunset, and it\u2019s all kind of just flat [and not as intended]. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    [Cinematographers] are there to help you, and we\u2019re probably gonna save you money too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    <strong>Early in your career, you shot second unit on<em> Apocalypse Now<\/em>. What was most memorable?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    I was originally brought over because they didn\u2019t have enough footage on the helicopter attack. I did a lot of inserts and then they didn\u2019t have the big formations, so I had to do all the formations. Well, I had been in the Army and shooting training movies, and I shot a training picture on helicopter assault. So I knew technically how the army lays out the formations. There are a whole series of formations. It depends on what kind of assault you\u2019re doing. So from that, I kind of garnered a way to organize the helicopters. We would all take off and we\u2019d do what I used to call the assembly.\u00a0 We\u2019d all get up in the air and we\u2019d fly straight until we got everybody in position. And then we\u2019d make a right hand turn, and that was the rehearsal leg, so we\u2019d do the rehearsal and make sure it was okay. Then we\u2019d do another assembly leg, and then we would do the shooting leg, and we would fly many helicopters in this great big square formation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    <strong>You had very successful collaborations with a number of directors including Brian De Palma. What makes for a successful collaboration with a director?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    You have to remember, it\u2019s never about you. It\u2019s always about the picture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    [Additionally] it\u2019s important that you always back up the director and never go behind their back. The producer tries to get you to do that. The actors try and get you to do that, and you should have no part of it and just shut it down im<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a>tely when it happens, because all that does is sow conflict and it just screws up the picture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    <strong>So how did you and Brian work?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    We had a very unusual working relationship. We never talked very much. We\u2019re both kind of not talkers. Typically on a movie he would show me what he wants to do. He\u2019d show me the staging and he would say, \u2018how long?\u2019 And I\u2019d say \u201945 minutes.\u2019 And in about a half hour when I had it all together he would come back in and I would say to him, \u2018I changed this and I changed that.\u2019 And he would go \u2018fine.\u2019 And if he didn\u2019t like it, he would go, \u2018why don\u2019t you do this and this.\u2019 It was a very pyramiding kind of thing; we would just work it out. And it was very sparse communication.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The first time I went in for an interview, he said, \u2018let me tell you what I don\u2019t like about cameramen.\u2019 And I said, \u2018well, let me tell you what I don\u2019t like about directors.\u2019 I said, \u2018I don\u2019t like directors who don\u2019t direct. I don\u2019t get enough money to do my job and the director\u2019s job.\u2019 And he looked at me, he goes, \u2018fine, you\u2019re hired\u2019 and walked out the door. That was our first meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    He\u2019s a very quiet guy. A very smart guy. Really, really sensitive. My favorite thing with him, was we were doing <em>The Untouchables <\/em>(1987) and the Capone scenes with Bobby (DeNiro, who played Al Capone). He would do versions because Brian wanted a different kind of scene with Capone to balance the picture out. So we would do a version where they they\u2019d just do a straight version. They\u2019d do one where Capone\u2019s yelling and screaming, and there\u2019d be one where he was quiet. And so they would have this great conversation where you have Brian on one side, Bobby on the other side. It was so much fun to watch them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    <strong>Would you tell us about filming the scene in <em>The Untouchables <\/em>on the steps of the train station<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Originally in the script, the accountant gets on the train and the train takes off and the Untouchables get in a series of cars and chase the train and they finally stop the train. We had a great location for this, and the whole fight was on the train.\u00a0The train was stopped, people shot through the windows and all of that stuff was going on. But Paramount decided it was too expensive to do, so it had to be replaced.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The first idea that Brian had was to instead do it on steps in front of a hospital [where in the story Eliot Ness\u2019 wife had just had a child]. Brian always likes areas where there is difficulty for the actors to move around, because that retards the action. So you could build up the suspense. But they couldn\u2019t find [the right location].<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    And so at the train station, we had the big set of steps. It was hard for them to go up and down the steps. And also it\u2019s a confined area and there\u2019s nowhere to escape. So you have two elements going for you, it\u2019s physically hard, and you\u2019re just out in the open, you\u2019re just stuck. You have to slug it out. Then to help retard the action he had the baby carriage and the baby, because that mirrored the father. He had just become a new father. And so he went for the baby.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    <strong>What are your thoughts on cinematography education?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    There are not enough people who are skilled in teaching cinematography. At the ASC, we\u2019ve tried to help the people who teach cinematography in colleges and high schools. We send free magazines and we invite them to seminars and things like that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The ASC has always been about education. \u2026 so the skill set doesn\u2019t die. And the great thing always with the ASC was that if you didn\u2019t know how to do something, you were in the club, you\u2019d go to the person who was the expert. Everybody was very good at exchanging information. Most of the people that I knew in the ASC were happy to share because it was the only way to pass on [knowledge].<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    My hope is that the universities will reach out to the ASC and allow the ASC to contribute to the education process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    <em>Interview edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/plain\" class=\"optanon-category-C0004\">\n!function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\nif (f.fbq) return;\nn = f.fbq = function() {n.callMethod ? n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments);};\nif (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\nn.push = n;\nn.loaded = !0;\nn.version = '2.0';\nn.queue = [];\nt = b.createElement(e);\nt.async = !0;\nt.src = v;\ns = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\ns.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s);\n}(window, document, 'script', 'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\nfbq('init', '352999048212581');\nfbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. 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Burum \u2014 an American Society of Cinematographers Lifetime Achievement Award recipient who earned an Oscar nomination for lensing his longtime collaborator Brian De Palma\u2019s 1992 drama Hoffa \u2014 will accept the EnergaCamerimage Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":511803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Stephen-Burum-Headshot-Cameraimage-Publicity-H-2022.jpg?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[135333],"class_list":["post-511802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-camerimage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}