“I studied for a year under Eric Rohmer at The University of Paris-Michelet, and his class was called Cinematography with Eric Rohmer, but we didn't shoot anything. We just watched films, mostly his films, and he would turn the sound off and just talk. It was fantastic. And then we would write papers and discuss. And he talked a lot about his cinematographer Néstor Almendros who shot My Night at Maud's, Pauline at the Beach, Claire's Knee, most of his better-known films.

I think the big thing that I got from studying with Rohmer was just his movies are extremely dialogue-heavy, but they're very cinematic. And the way that he would talk about shooting scenes and n a film like My Night at Maud's, that's like largely in one apartment, dialogue spoken between two people, and how to shoot a story that's told through dialogue, but not have it feel like television.

And that came in handy later when I did meet Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. Noah's a huge, huge Rohmer fan, so we talked about him a lot. And I think that helped me a lot to have confidence that if a film has a lot of dialogue, for it to feel cinematic and interesting, you don't just need many different angles for the scene to play well. You can kind of show some restraint and even have a scene unfold in one shot and be dynamic, even if people are talking a lot."

Sam Levy studied film in Paris with French New Wave director Eric Rohmer and began his career as an apprentice to legendary cinematographer Harris Savides. Sam first gained recognition as a cinematographer when he photographed Wendy and Lucy for director Kelly Reichardt - voted “One of the Best 25 Films of the 21st Century” by The New York Times. He went on to shoot Frances Ha, Mistress America and While We’re Young for director Noah Baumbach, Changers and Frank Ocean's Blonded for Spike Jonze, Sermon on The Mount for Jerrod Carmichael, Maggie’s Plan for Rebecca Miller and Green Porno for Isabella Rossellini. Sam also photographed Lady Bird for writer/director Greta Gerwig - nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture and winner of The Golden Globe for Best Picture. Other new films include Mayday, which he also produced, Confess, Fletch, and She Came to Me.

https://samlevydp.com
www.imdb.com/name/nm1240085/
www.instagram.com/samlevydp/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast