Coffee With Jordan Cronenweth

Jordan Cronenweth, ASC

The new motion picture release of Blade Runner 2049 is out in theaters now, and it's got me thinking a lot about the 1982 original directed by Ridley Scott and famously photographed by the late cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, ASC (his credits include Rattle and Hum, Peggy Sue Got Married, Altered States, Zandy’s Bride, Brewster McCloud). 

Which also has me remembering the time, many decades ago, when I had the chance to spend two days on the same film crew with Mr. Cronenweth. 

I was a working member of the Colorado film community during the middle 1980’s and started out as the video assist technician. “Video Assist” was infamously pioneered by the late filmmaker Jerry Lewis to facilitate both directing himself and performing in the same movie. The process involved a small black-and-white video camera mounted onto the body of the 35mm movie camera. Since motion picture film required overnight processing and printing before anyone could see the actual image, it became standard practice to rely on this low-resolution television signal from a “tap” on the film camera’s viewfinder. Such a poor electronic proxy was adequate to review actors’ performances or rough check framing and composition, but that was about it.

Photo: John Brawley

My job as the “video assist operator” was to hook everything up, string the cables around the set and make sure all the various TV screens worked, including a feed to a separate corral for account execs, client reps, visitors and other bigwigs with their own TV monitor. It let the various elite visitors see what was going down without looking over the cameraman’s shoulder or disturbing the director. Whenever the film camera moved to a new set-up, I was first to untether the video electronics from the cinematographer’s Panavision or Arriflex camera, pull all my wires out of the way, move to the next set-up and then (at the very last moment) reconnect everything so those executive hanger-ons in the peanut gallery had something to look at again.

Photo: Ogilvy / Mather for Maxwell House

Mine was a minor technical contribution to be sure, but it allowed me to stand beside a number of famous Hollywood cameramen who would earn good money between big features by shooting high end commercials for network television. One sponsor was Maxwell House, which for several years during the middle 1980s ran the ad campaign featuring fictional Hal and Duke. 

The high concept revolved around a young photographer wandering across country with his faithful golden lab retriever. The director on these commercials was Leslie Dektor for the Ogilvy and Mather agency, and one of their shoots brought Hal, Duke, and the Maxwell House production team to Colorado. Cinematographer for this spot was none other than Jordan Cronenweth, who only a couple years earlier had lensed the original and now iconic Blade Runner.

Photo: Ogilvy / Mather for Maxwell House

Somewhere outside Aspen, the agency’s storyboards would find Hal (in reality, the LA soap actor Rick Gates) and his dog Duke (portrayed by Tramp from the famous animal trainer Frank Inn) visiting a mountain log cabin bathed in early light of dawn. Morning sunshine, of course, always means coffee time.  As the cinematographer Cronenweth brought most of his camera package and crew from Hollywood but trucks of lighting, grip and support gear were hired out of near by Denver. I was on roster to wrangle video assist set-ups for the two day filming schedule. Since the lights and support were “local” the chief lighting technician was an experienced Colorado veteran who owned a notable lighting services corporation that famously served the Rocky Mountain film industry. We’ll call him “Ken”.

Day One was all exterior shots involving just Hal and his dog, with Day Two booked for a mountain cabin interior where Hal and Duke would stop for a visit and savor the required cup, allowing for the prerequisite “that’s good coffee” ahh-ha tasting moment, wrapping with the traditional “hero shot” of a Maxwell House can placed by the fireplace. While the primary crew worked outdoors the first afternoon, Ken and team prerigged lights for the cabin’s interior. Early the second morning, I was there when Mr. Cronenweth first walked in to check the cabin lighting setup.

Cronenweth during that period was a giant among Hollywood cameramen, often referred to as “the cinematographer’s cinematographer”:

Photo: Warner Brothers Studios

This reputation was not lost on any of us local technicians and Ken had worked above and beyond coming up with a lighting set-up designed to impress this iconic director of photography... the cabin's interior sparkled with key and fill and back lighting.

Jordan stood and looked at the set up, taking it in, sizing up the photographic possibilities. After a long pause he suggested one light may not be needed and Ken’s crew took it away. “And that one, too” he said.  Slowly, gently, methodically Cronenweth whittled down the floods and fresnels, striking them all from the set. Finally, Jordan asked Ken to bring up one monster brute fixture... and position it outside of the cabin, shining in through the open door. By now, all of the first day’s pre lighting effort had been almost completely removed, a complicated and sophisticated pre-rig stripped nakedly down to this one giant arc fixture. 

 “Aim it on the cabin floor,” Cronenweth requested quietly.

Ken hesitated just a bit, confirming the request even as a couple grips moved to comply. “Really, on the floor?” Jordan nodded, and asked for a large piece of white foam board placed on the floor, bouncing the strong light beam upward from below the camera lens. Suddenly, the cabin’s interior fluttered to life. Make-believe sunlight perfectly evoked the mood of a mountain morning. It was simple, sublime and magical.

Commented Cronenweth almost as an aside, “Light doesn’t always need to come from above.” “Let’s shoot,” hollered the assistant director.

Photo: IEC, Jordan Cronenweth, 1935-1996

Jordan Cronenweth passed away in 1996 at the age of 61, a victim of Parkinson’s disease. But he’d given me one of several defining moments in my own eventual career arc toward Director of Photography. With that one light he redefined the compass direction our cabin set faced, to the east... because only that orientation would catch the nearly horizontal early rays of dawn. And he demonstrated the power of really paying attention to lighting's sources.  Though we may spend nearly all of the day with the sun high overhead, there are still transitory moments where nature handles things differently. Where the light doesn't always come from above.  He showed me the power of motivating your sources. 

But you must first be aware, and pay attention to your natural surrounding to notice this. And I got a chance to observe his approach to working with the crew, even if they were local hires. Witnessing him request and never demand. Learning about previsualization, how to see the composition first in your own mind and then work on the set with your team to paint that by adding light and shadow.

And how that just like a god, you can do it all with only using one light... if you know where to place it.

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