Cinematographer Wally Pfister, ASC on the set of The Dark Knight. (Photo by Stephen Vaughan/Warner Bros)

Wally Pfister, ASC believes that every successful television commercial campaign begins with people who understand and appreciate the lifestyles and tastes of potential customers. Pfister cites a recent campaign that he directed and shot for Momentum, an advertising agency headquartered in New York City. The client was Anheuser-Busch and the product was Rolling Rock beer.

“The theme was ‘Born in a Small Town,’” he says. “It was a brilliant concept developed by Ty Baker and Alonso Davila, two of the agency’s talented creative directors. They showed me a video treatment as a reference. It was made from still pictures of people enjoying themselves in a folksy bar. The music was Bob Dylan singing a Woody Guthrie song.”

Pfister drew on his eclectic range of experience while directing two 30-second TV spots and shooting still pictures for a print campaign. He had launched his career as a television news photographer and had an extensive still photography background. In addition to his portfolio of commercials, Pfister has earned three Academy Award nominations for best cinematography in the past four years for Batman Begins (2006), The Prestige (2007) and The Dark Knight (2009).

“We scouted locations and found McSorley’s Old Ale House in New York’s Greenwich Village,” he says. “It has been there since 1854, and has the feeling of a small town bar. The other location was a bar in Piermont, which has a population between 3,000 to 4,000 people. It’s about an hour’s drive from the city.”

Pfister says that one of the advantages of shooting in and near New York City was that he was able to draw on a deep pool of talented actors who looked convincingly like they were from a small town.

“I have a stylist who I work with on commercials,” he says. “Yoona Kwak has a fantastic eye. She intuitively understood what wardrobe was needed for the illusions we wanted to create. There was no production design needed at McSorley’s, although, my production designer was essential in setting the mood in the other locations. We did a little work at the bar in Piermont, and also cast a band that played mood music in that spot.”

There was a discussion about producing the spots in Super 16 format because the visual grammar called for a mobile camera, but Pfister assured everyone that a 35mm ARRI 235 camera was sufficiently lightweight to gain the mobility desired.

Panavision provided the camera package, including 15 -to 40mm and 27- to 68mm zoom lenses that Pfister used most of the time because they provided flexibility for making intuitive decisions to alter composition while they were shooting. The spots were composed in 16:9 aspect ratio and recorded on KODAK VISION2 500T 5218 film, which enabled him to record fine-grain, natural-looking images with tactile contrast.

“I chose to work with a single, mainly handheld camera from an objective point of view that is a bit voyeuristic,” he says. “It’s like someone is peeking through a partially open door to get a glimpse inside a bar where hip-looking people are enjoying themselves. Our gaffer Andy Day was by my side every minute, as well as key grip Tommy Prate. I truly love my New York crew. They are at the top of their game.”

Pfister stresses that it isn’t a spontaneous documentary-style of cinematography, with the exceptions of a few “grab shots” in McSorley’s, including a cat jumping off a chair and wandering around the bar.

“It was important to maintain a certain level of production value like great still photography,” he says. “We wanted a somewhat monochromatic look with a bit of a green tone that was a nod to the color of the Rolling Rock bottle.”

Technicolor, which did the front-end lab work, and Whitehouse Post Production are both in New York. Editor Trish Fuller used an interactive system that enabled Pfister to see what she was doing and communicate with her face-to-face, even though she was in New York and he was in Los Angeles.

Pfister explains that he had two large TV screens in front of him. One screen displayed the raw material Fuller was working with and the other one showed him the cuts she was making. There was a video camera on each of them and open microphones, which enabled them to communicate as though they were in the same room.

“Trish would show me a couple of cuts and I’d make some comments,” he says. “It was virtual editing as though we were in the room together. Trish had been working for a few days prior, and had come up with some great cuts. Then we spent about three hours getting it right where we wanted.”

Pfister timed the spots in collaboration with Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3 in Los Angeles. He sent Sonnenfeld some of his still photographs as visual references and asked him to match the looks while adding touches that augmented the tone.

“When Stefan was ready, I went into a timing session with him and we found the final look,” Pfister concludes. “There’s a little color saturation but it’s primarily monochromatic with a green tint that is a tip of the hat to the Rolling Rock bottle.”