Once a DP that worked on commercials and low budget horror films, Rodrigo Prieto has become one of the most sought after cinematographers in the business. His work in Argo, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Brokeback Mountain, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, has shown that Prieto is a master at capturing the stylistic visions of the directors he works with. In this video, Sareesh Sudhakaran of wolfcrow explores some of the things that makes his work noteworthy.
Prieto has worked with the likes of Spike Lee, Petro Almodovar, Ang Lee, and Alejandro González Iñárritu—all fantastic directors with very different styles of filmmaking. What this indicates to us is that Prieto's approach to cinematography is one that most directors appeal to: one that serves and builds upon their own vision for a film.
That is one lesson all young cinematographers would be wise to learn—knowing how to communicate clearly with a director in order to understand what they're looking for, and having the skills and know-how to be able to produce it.
'The Wolf of Wall Street' (2013)
This doesn't mean DPs don't have a style all their own. Prieto himself favors shooting on film with smaller 35mm cameras for better use while shooting handheld. He also likes shooting with color gels and Kino Flos, and when shooting exteriors, likes the scaled down approach of using only light modifiers to light scenes.
This is just a primer on the Rodrigo Prieto's work, and hopefully you'll take some time to study it more in depth. You can check out some of our own articles on Prieto here and here.
For more, head on over to wolfcrow.
Source: wolfcrow
