Anthony Bourdain: ‘We Gave It Everything We Had’ Going Anamorphic
On a far more humble scale I do some documentary film work. And like photography, once you master certain skills over time, maybe you make as good a product as your gear can manage. Anthony Bourdain and his crew maxed out what news cameras and interview lighting can do, and wow it’s a good show.
Letterbox widescreen anamorphic is a massive upgrade, it’s like going from local news van gear to a foreign movie set. From a crew that can be counted on two hands or less to many more. My hat is off for them to push this hard to make an already good show better if only for one episode.
My longtime team has for years discussed the possibility of shooting an episode entirely in wide screen, letterbox anamorphic format — like so many of the movies we admire. And for this episode, we finally got our way.
This was necessarily a mammoth undertaking. Networks don’t like it — as it makes distribution to countries where they might still have square TV sets difficult. To do it right requires additional equipment, lighting, expense — and, in this case, the addition of a sizable Italian film crew. Working within the Italian filmmaking system presents … challenges of its own. The kinds of images we anticipated capturing required music adequate to the scale and subject. Which meant we needed an actual score — in this case, a beautiful collection of related pieces on a theme by our longtime music director Michael Ruffino. And I was adamant about acquiring rights to an existing piece of music — the song “Spiral Waltz” from the wonderful 60’s sci-fi satire, “The 10th Victim”.