The Creators Project on Beasts

The Creators Project produced a series of in depth videos on Beasts of the Southern Wild including featurettes on the Aurochs, cinematography and soundtrack. While you can find them posted throughout our blog, we thought it would be nice to view them all on one page/post. Enjoy! MAKING OF BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD PART I

MAKING OF BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD PART II

SCORING OF BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

MEET THE STAR OF BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

THE CINEMATOGRAPHY BEHIND BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

For Beasts of the Southern Wild, Ben Richardson's modus operandi was to capture the feel of the Southern Louisiana bayou.

Behind the Cinematography of Beasts of the Southern Wild

Our friends at The Creators Project sat down with Cinematographer Ben Richardson to discuss his approach to shooting Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Early on, Richardson and Director Benh Zeitlin agreed that the camera should be both "interested and reactive", giving the cinematographer freedom to capture anything that caught his eye or rather, anything he thought would catch Hushpuppy's eye.

BR: "When I met her (Quvenzhané Wallis), there was this energy from her and I really realized my responsibility was not to try to impose something on this but just to be receptive to what was being put out by her and by the bayou...I tried to be Hushpuppy's sense if not literally her eyes."

Learn more from behind the camera at the video below including what Ben's most favorite and challenging scene to was.

Benh Zeitlin & Ben Richardson

Director Benh Zeitlin and Cinematographer Ben Richardson talk about finding each other, nicknames, and Czech animators in Los Angeles.

The Post Lab's Interview with Ben Richardson

Cinematography Geeks! The Post Lab interviewed our very own Ben Richardson about film stock, labs, workflow, and how exactly he went about shooting Beasts of the Southern Wild.

 What were some of the visual references that inspired the look of the film? There’s a 1970’s short documentary called Dry Wood, by Les Blank, that had a lot of the palette we were looking for. It’s a real run and gun documentary from the 70s, and I think it was even shot on reversal stock. A lot of the qualities of the Bathtub are present in this documentary. It was one of the most perfect encapsulations of a cinematic version of the world we were trying to create. A key touchstone for the camera aesthetic was the short film shot from a children’s perspective called Jerrycan, by Julius Avery. Obviously after we watched these films a few times and understood what we were getting from them, I preferred to stop specifically trying to make references to them and went back to responding to the world that I was seeing in front of me.

Read in full at the Post Lab.

Ben Richardson's Seed

Beasts of the Southern Wild Cinematographer Ben Richardson co-directed and co-animated this 2010 short film with Daniel Bird, wherein an egg and an apple vie for the attention of a transistor radio.