MARTIN RUHE. You may not recognize his name, but you most definitely know his work. From television commercials for companies like Heineken, Porsche, BMW, and Amazon to feature films like Harry Brown, The American, American Pastoral, and Run All Night, as well as limited series like Catch-22, Martin Ruhe visually resonates with us, creating visual tonal bandwidths that tell stories through light and lens. And he does so again with George Clooney for Netflix’s THE MIDNIGHT SKY. Quite simply, the film is masterful with much of that mastery thanks to cinematographer MARTIN RUHE.
Long an admirer of Ruhe’s work going back to Harry Brown, it has always been with much anticipation that I sit down to watch a film lensed by Martin. And just when I think his visual storytelling can’t get any better, I see something like American Pastoral directed by Ewan McGregor where Ruhe’s guiding light led first-time director McGregor to deliver a stunning work. And now, fresh off lensing Catch-22 with George Clooney producing as well as directing multiple episodes, Ruhe reteams with him in frigid Iceland to bring THE MIDNIGHT SKY to life.
Starring George Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, Tiffany Boone, and introducing Caoilinn Springall, based on the book Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brookes-Dalton, THE MIDNIGHT SKY is set in the not too distant future where the world has faced a mysterious global catastrophe. Lethal gaseous compounds have replaced the earth’s air making the planet uninhabitable. A spaceship with small crew led by Commander Sully has been searching the cosmos for a new planet that humans can colonize and call home. Heading back to earth, they are unaware of the catastrophic situation which awaits them. Augustine, a lone scientist at an Arctic base, and himself dying, refuses to leave the base, opting instead to remain and attempt contact with the spaceship to prevent them from returning to an uninhabitable planet and certain death.
Leading the charge with reflective emotionality and painting an intimate portrait on this huge canvas, Clooney and Ruhe take us into different worlds, delivering different experiences and different emotions. And while we have many visual “looks” and emotional settings, everything boils down to the intimacy of human connection be it on earth, on an ice floe, via a radio transmission with a spaceship, or somewhere in the galaxy.
Ruhe’s work with light is exquisite while his framing and use of lens and focal length create a moving lyricism. But making his work with THE MIDNIGHT SKY even more outstanding are the challenges presented by capturing various environments, and most particularly, that presented by Mother Nature as winds, snow, and frigid temperatures controlled much of the shooting.
I spoke via Skype with MARTIN RUHE who is in Berlin getting ready to start prepping for his next film, his fourth with George Clooney, third with Clooney directing. Take a listen to this exclusive conversation we go in-depth talking about all things THE MIDNIGHT SKY, including:
- the starting point for a film so reliant on Mother Nature
- dealing with the weather
- shooting zero-gravity
- underwater lensing
- developing differing visual tones with the use of color, differentiating between flashbacks, outer space, inside a spaceship, a scientific base station, white on white shooting in snow
- working with production designer Jim Bissell to design interior sets of the spaceship and science base with LED strips and RGB LEW lights built into the set design
- designing the lensing and shooting pre-vis for spacewalk sequences
- working on glaciered terrain
- importance of GPS
- shooting with two (2) 65mm Arri-Alexas as main cameras with an Alexa-Mini LF for Steadicam in the spaceship
- Hasselblad Prime DNA lenses
- challenges for using cameras, lenses, batteries, etc. in the unforgiving weather
- working with George Clooney and his dedication to shooting “in camera”
Always one to challenge himself with the projects he takes, after seeing what MARTIN RUHE has done with THE MIDNIGHT SKY, it’s pretty clear that there is nothing he can’t do. He’s done zero gravity outer space. He’s shot in the Arctic (in October, mind you) in blizzard wind conditions. He’s shot underwater. And all in the same film! And every frame tells a story, captures an emotion. After this, I can’t wait to see what MARTIN RUHE brings us next.
by debbie elias, exclusive interview 12/16/2020
