By Randi Altman

The Jon Stewart written- and -directed Irresistible from Focus Features is a political comedy with a message. It stars Steve Carell and Rose Byrne as opposing — and constantly bickering and scheming — political consultants. Chris Cooper plays a retired Marine colonel who is running for the mayor of his small, conservative Wisconsin town. The film shows what can happen when politics get in the way of doing the right thing.

Cinematographer Bobby Bukowski (left) and director Jon Stewart on the set.

For his second directorial outing (2014’s Rosewater was his first), Stewart once again called on cinematographer Bobby Bukowski, ASC, to shoot the film. This TV and film DP has a long and varied list of credits, including Arlington Road, Boogeyman and The Last Thing He Wanted, a film starring Ben Affleck and Anne Hathaway that is streaming now on Netflix.

We recently reached out to Bukowski to talk about working on Irresistible, re-teaming with director Stewart and his process.

You worked with Jon on Rosewater. Can you talk about how you first met him, and how your combined process changed if at all from one film to another?
Lila Yacoub, who produced the film Rampart, which I shot, put me together with Jon. She has an impeccable sense of combining personalities on a set that will work together successfully.
He was doing The Daily Show at the time, and I went in there to meet him. Then he called me and asked, “How would you like to shoot a film at the height of the summer heat in Jordan, during Ramadan, with a director who doesn’t know anything about making a film?”

I don’t really watch television, so I wasn’t really that familiar with his show, so it was a good place to start our relationship. After the shoot, I watched some of the archives of the show and was blown away. I’m glad I wasn’t aware of how great he was, or I might have been reduced to a sniveling sycophant on the set.

On Rosewater, Jon was learning somewhat as we shot. However steep the learning curve, he assimilated it all very quickly. The main thing I suggested he do at the start was to talk to me from the standpoint of narrative intent, and from there I could offer visual corollaries supporting that intention.

We also tested lenses from the standpoint of perspective, such as how a wide lens placed close to a subject resonated emotionally in a different way from a longer lens that was further away from the subject yet capturing the identical field of view. We did exposure tests to dissect how the level luminosity and contrast could be for to dramatic effect. I wanted to familiarize him with the tools we would be using.

Because you worked together before, was there was a sort of shorthand?
We developed a trust on Rosewater. He could trust that I would always be working toward bolstering the narrative with my visual ideas and not just trying to shoot “pretty pictures.” And I could trust his assessment of what was essential to telling that story.

Jay Rabinowitz was the editor on both films, and we spoke to him about our approach on capturing the film and the methods we would employ. He became an essential designer in the language we would develop together.

How early did you get involved on Irresistible, and what direction did you get from Jon? What did he tell you about the look they wanted for this film?
Jon involved me about six months before principal photography. He had producer Lila Yacoub reach out to me to gauge my interest and availability and then sent me the screenplay. After I read it a few times, I called Jon, and we discussed my reactions to the narrative. At this point in the process, I don’t really like to discuss the “look” of the film. It’s most important for me to understand what the film is saying.

The film is set in Wisconsin. Did you shoot there? And how much did the rural landscape play a role in the look?
The ideas for the visuals stemmed from the collision of two worlds: the world of the urban political machine versus the rural, ordinary world. Jon likened the influx of the political machine to the invasion of a virus.

The small farm town in Wisconsin was actually shot in the beautiful town of Rockmart, Georgia, approximately 45 miles northwest of Atlanta.

With broad strokes, we imbued the town with a warmer and softer feel, versus the look of the political machine, which we presented in a cooler and crisper way. As the “virus” overwhelms the town, we see the warm softness become supplanted by coolness and crispness. Rounded surfaces are squared off. The age-worn patina is replaced with shiny, new surfaces, and there is a palpable increase in population.

It was very important to immediately and clearly establish the characteristics of the rural landscape so the audience could witness its transformation at the hand of the urban interlopers.

Jon and I viewed many Preston Sturges films, particularly Hail the Conquering Hero. We were inspired by the visual and aural cacophony and density of the compositions.

How did you work with the colorist Joe Gawler to achieve the intended look?
Joe is chief colorist at Harbor Picture Company in New York, and he and I have been frequent collaborators for the better part of two decades. Given our time together, there is an understanding we share of color grading. He understands the care and intensity with which I approach the process, and I trust that he is highly skilled to help me translate my intent.

The danger of knowing and working with someone for so long is that we could easily fall into ingrained methods. I always begin a new project with Joe saying, “Remember how we worked on the last beautiful film that we colored? Good. Now let’s forget it.” Each new film asks for something separate and distinct.

I normally start out with Joe in preproduction conducting many tests of camera/lens combinations, exposure and locations. I suggest source materials, such as paintings and photographs to define the color space I’m intending to work in, and I cite other elements of the photography, like contrast, sharpness, grain. We take that test material and color it, defining the ultimate look particular to the film.

I like to have Joe do the dailies during production as well, so he is watching the work as it’s being shot to make sure the dailies represent our intended, ultimate outcome.

How long was the shoot and how did that part of the process go?
I always forget the length of a shoot, but it was probably around six weeks.

The biggest challenge of the film was representing the linear transformation of the town. Particularly when outlying factors, such as cast availability, prevent shooting in sequence. Careful scheduling was key and designed beautifully by our first assistant director, Jonas Spaccarotelli.

From the very first location scouts, Jonas and I were looking for a place that could accommodate the many locations and have a farm very close by. That way we could leave the town so the art department could make the requisite changeovers. Sometimes we could simply abandon a street and go around the corner while the art department redressed for another time period of the film.

We were fortunate to find Rockmart. Like many rural American towns, the original Main Street had been abandoned in lieu of strip malls. This allowed us to inhabit four square blocks of a charming, old village and work on it like a backlot. We were able to lay all the cable, replace the streetlights (for nighttime ambience), furnish the shops and offices with our own lights, paint, decorate… it was a great way to work.

How did you go about choosing the right camera and lenses for this project?
I’m an ARRI proponent, so the choice of the Alexa was simple. I used two Alexa Mini cameras, which can also be used for hand-held and Steadicam shots.

Lenses were basically chosen for how best they could render the discrete looks for each part of the film. For the rural portion of the film, I used vintage Cooke Speed Panchros, which have a warm and soft look. I shot wide open at T 2.2 to render a shallow depth of field.

For the capturing the sections of the film pertaining to the political invaders, we chose to use Zeiss Master Primes, some of the sharpest lenses available, to promote a cooler and crisper look. When using these lenses, we opted for a deeper stop, regularly lighting and shooting to a T 8-11 stop for a deeper depth of field. Our design reason behind that was to create more planes of focus.

Since the frames were becoming more populated, each plane could be in focus, presenting a more visually dense composition — leaving it up to the audience where they wanted to look, since everything has equal visual weight. With a shallower depth of field, we are directing the audience precisely where to spend their attention.

Can you describe the lighting? Any “happy accidents” you captured?
Conforming to our design of warmth versus coolness, we would use tungsten-balances lights for warmth and daylight-balanced instruments for coolness. For the rural renderings, we tended to use tungsten lights and practical incandescent household light bulbs (all of them dimmed down to create an even warmer color temperature).

For the lighting surrounding the political world, we employed a combination of HMIs (daylight-balanced color temperature), daylight-corrected florescent tubes and LEDs balanced for 5,600 Kelvin.

One happy accident, not pertaining to lighting at all, had to do with the wrangling of the cows when Gary (Carell) attempts to televise the kick-off of the Colonel’s campaign at the farm. Jon wanted the cows to be featured in the middle of the shot, framing the Colonel (Cooper). Those cows didn’t care where Jon wanted them. As a result, Jon incorporated the wranglers as characters in the film, giving Cooper an opportunity to riff on that comedically.

Any challenging scenes that you are particularly proud of or found most challenging?
I always find lengthy daylight scenes to be the most challenging. It’s on days like those that I wake up and ask Mother Nature to provide us with a cloudy day. Luckily, she did give us a lot of cloud cover, and the Georgia humidity added an additional layer of cover and softness to the quality of the daylight.

Now more general questions…. How did you become interested in cinematography?
I was on my way to medical school, having studied biochemistry as an undergraduate. When I realized what my life would be as a doctor, I panicked and ran kicking and screaming as far away from that life as possible.

Bobby Bukowski, ASC

Having grown up mostly in NYC, and never having left the US, I was wanted to explore the planet. I spent the next several years traveling in Asia and ultimately settled in Paris. I had a friend who was a fashion working there and he introduced me to a photographer. I worked for a bit as his assistant and became enamored with imagery, so I bought a Nikon camera and a few Prime lenses and started shooting. I navigated the city on a bicycle, always with the camera strapped around my neck. Nothing like constant daily shooting of various subjects and lighting conditions to hone one’s eye. I got the opportunity to be part of a pilgrimage of Tibetan Buddhists following the Dalai Lama to all the sacred Buddhist sites along the Ganges River in India. It was with this material that I applied to the Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Film program at NYU.

What inspires you artistically?
Ordinary existence is what inspires me: human behavior that plays out before my eyes daily. As a cinematographer I have become so attuned to subtle and minute happenings. I am constantly ingesting the world around me visually. It is rare that I have a conversation with someone and don’t take note of the way their face is lit.

What new technology has changed the way you work (looking back over the past few years)?
The digital sensor, particularly that of the ARRI Alexa. When filmmaker Oren Moverman (my collaborator and friend) invited me to shoot Rampart with him, he was curious about shooting digitally. We tested the Alexa at Otto Nemenz in Hollywood, and I’ll never forget the first night I had that camera in my hands and experienced the sensitivity of a sensor rated at 800 ISO.

I was driving around downtown LA one night and shooting when I realized that the red light that was reflected in my friend’s face was from the brake lights of a car 15 feet away from him. That is when I knew a key light could be a dim distant light and that all my experience, which began with exposing and lighting film emulsion originally at 100 ASA, was about to change completely.

What are some of your best practices or rules you try to follow on each job?
To remain open on set. To wipe clean any preconceived notions and to experience what is in front of me at that moment. To get to a set and not note the weather, the wind, an actor’s voice — the way she occupies the space and moves through it, the look in her eyes — is to be creatively negligent.

Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for more than 20 years.