If They Notice the Shot, You Screwed It Up: Advice from Roger Deakins

Roger Deakins doesn’t want you to notice his frames. He also really doesn’t understand how he does what he does.

At least that was part of what he said during the conversation he and his wife, longtime collaborator James Ellis Deakins, had yesterday at a panel discussion hosted by the Tulsa Film Collective and TU Film Studies.

Roger Deakins is one of filmmaking’s greatest living cinematographers. He’s worked extensively in the Coen brothers universe, and he’s shot some of the most iconic films in recent history, including 1917, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford , Sicario , and Skyfall , to name just a few.

James Deakins, his creative partner, began as a film lab technician and script supervisor before she grew into an integral role within Roger Deakins’ pre- and post-production process, now acting as a digital workflow consultant and on-set liaison.

The creative duo fielded questions from film students and industry professionals and discussed how they approach their work. The advice was practical, honest, and sometimes a little uncomfortable.

Here are five bits of advice that stuck.

Deakins shooting 'Skyfall' Credit: Sony Pictures Releasing

“Find your own way, find your own voice—it takes time.”

Roger Deakins got quite a few questions about finding a visual style and what movies he would recommend as a “starter pack” that inspired him and could inspire others.

He pushed back on giving tidy answers, insisting that everyone is different and advice like that could not apply broadly.

He was also asked about how he started “late.”

He didn’t get onto a feature until he was 35. He shot documentaries, covered a round-the-world yacht race, and went to a couple of war zones before he ever worked on a narrative film. He got experience outside a film set first.

The lesson for DPs coming up right now isn’t to wait, exactly, but to resist the urge to build your aesthetic entirely out of other people’s images.

“I don’t think unless you’ve lived a life, I don’t know what you’ve got to offer, really—what is your work based on if you haven’t experienced things that you can use that have influenced you?” he said. “I mean, otherwise it’s all just based on previous movies or what your lecturers told you or something. And I don’t get that. I think to have some experiences of your own and find your own way, find your own voice, it takes time.”

For what it’s worth, here’s a handful of the films they both recommended at various points:

• The War Game (Peter Watkins, 1966)
• In Cold Blood (Richard Brooks, 1967)
• Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969)
• Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
• The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
• The Celebration (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998)
• Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008)

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“This action’s going to happen once. So you’ve got to think about which shots you’re getting quickly.”

One audience member wanted to know how to get better at being reactive on set. What do you do when the plan falls apart when you’re working? The blocking changes, the actor is only good on the first take, the schedule collapses. How do you stay ready?

James Deakins pointed straight to the documentary training.

“When you’re doing a documentary, it’s not repeated,” she said. “This action’s going to happen once. So you've got to think about which shots you’re getting quickly, and will they cut together? And that comes in very handy on a film set when suddenly you’re halfway through the day, and you’re not getting anywhere, and then the actor changes the blocking, and you’ve got to figure out which shots are the critical shots.”

Roger agreed. “Some actors, the first take is very much the best. So you’ve got to be ready, got to make sure it’s useful every time.”

Even on a heavily storyboarded Coen brothers film (and he spent a lot of time talking about how meticulously Joel and Ethan prep), the value of the boards is knowing what you need, not locking yourself into how you get it.

The preparation gives you the confidence to adapt when something better emerges on the day.

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“Oh God, I screwed it up.”

Roger Deakins dreads hearing someone say that they liked something specific about his work, whether it’s framing or lighting or a camera move. Because, he said, if they noticed it, it didn't work.

"I always hate it when you go to a premiere, it's something you've worked on. It's really embarrassing. You're walking out, and somebody is saying, 'Oh, I love that shot with the camera, and it was so nice,'" he said. "And you go, 'Oh God, I screwed it up.' Because then, suddenly, they're aware of the technique. That's not a compliment when you hear things like that."

This obviously will be a matter of opinion, and might vary project to project. You might want to make shots that look like shots, cinematic or painterly.

But the actual job of being a DP is to keep the audience inside the story. The moment a viewer surfaces and thinks, “That was a beautiful image,” you've lost them, even briefly. Most of the time, the best cinematography is invisible.

(Let us know if you feel differently about this.)

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“I just want a passion for the project.”

An early-career director in the audience asked what makes a productive first conversation with a cinematographer. Roger Deakins answered that it was important for a director to be honest about what they didn’t know already.

“The most annoying thing I find with a director is they sort of pontificate, they’re just making it up,” he said. “You don’t need to do that—you’ve got loads of people around you you can rely on. ... What I want from a director, if you go into an interview with somebody you’ve not worked with before, I just want a passion for the project. I want somebody that really realizes how lucky they are to be in the situation they’re in, to be directing a movie.”

James Deakins followed that up with the flip side, or what a cinematographer actually needs to do their job.

“You also want to know what the director thinks about the movie and how they see the movie, because basically, we’re all there to carry out the director’s vision. So hopefully the director will share the vision because then we can do it better.”

Be honest about what you know, have enthusiasm for what you’re making, and know how to articulate your vision.

That’s the conversation that gets a DP excited. Faking confidence or showing up with vague auteur energy doesn’t get you there.

“Without the story ... you’ve got nothing. Then you’ve just got technique.”

The conversation ended with a broad discussion of the future of filmmaking (AI, gear proliferation, the whole anxiety spiral), and they both came back to the same place.

“The most important thing is the story,” Roger Deakins said. He added, “Without the story and without actors and a performance and something that affects the audience emotionally, you’ve got nothing. Then you’ve just got technique. But you can’t do one without the other.”

James Deakins added, “You can see a film that’s really thought about the story and tells a great story and is horrible technically, but it’s great.”

Roger Deakins circled back to The War Game , Peter Watkins’ 1966 film about a nuclear strike on London (shot on 16mm, with non-actors, handheld, rough), and said it’s still more terrifying than any apocalyptic movie made since. Even if, to some, it’s technically inferior.

Check out Roger Deakins’ new book, Reflections: On Cinematography .