Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” is an epic in every sense of the word, but the privilege of working on such a massive film is not without its tradeoffs. The sprawling shoot took Anderson and his crew all around California and parts of Texas, meaning that different teams would often be working in different states.
During IndieWire’s recent Crafts Roundtable discussion, presented in partnership with Warner Bros., “One Battle After Another” cinematographer Michael Bauman, who previously worked with Anderson on “Licorice Pizza,” recalled one of Anderson’s favorite methods of relieving stress amid all of the travel and long-distance work: Watching dailies on film every night.
“It was challenging at times because we were in so many different cities. And a lot of times Flo, who was the production designer, would be at the other end of the state, or in El Paso, and we’d be in Eureka or some other place. But what was very unifying for everybody was that Paul is a huge fan of always watching film dailies,” Bauman said. “They had to set up a projection system that would just cart around to the different hotels we were all staying at. So it would be two Super 35 projectors and a VistaVision projector, and you’d be watching that every night. But it’s really great for everyone, just taking a breather and looking at the footage. And it took a couple days from when we’d shoot it to when we’d see it. So a great opportunity for everyone to reflect on the work and get some distance from it.”
Those film review sessions also allowed the crew to get an early idea of what the finished film might look like, as Anderson was already testing songs and score ideas from composer Jonny Greenwood along with the footage.
“He’s also always playing with the music,” Bauman said. “Jonny Greenwood is sending score ideas over, so he’d be playing that at times and see how it fits with a scene. So you’d be in there and it was never like ‘Just roll it and we’ll be quiet.’ There was always something cranking, some of the needle drop tracks he wanted to put in, playing around with that. It’s almost like a live DJ session going on as you’re watching the footage, which loosens the mood a little bit.”
This conversation is presented in partnership with Warner Bros.