Why Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer Cinematographer Found Filming Black and White Scenes “Concerning”

From introducing a star-studded cast to filming half of the Oppenheimer scenes in black and white, Christopher Nolan has proved his excellence in crafting epic hits.

However, the filming process was quite concerning, especially for the cinematographer who faced significant challenges while shooting the black-and-white part of the film. Since Nolan’s film is extremely unique in every way, they wanted to film some of the major parts using a film called 65 mm. And the major obstacle was the unavailability of such film for black-and-white.

Oppenheimer Cinematographer Faced Significant Challenges While Shooting The Black and White Scenes

Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer continues to remain in talks and seems like it won’t stop until the film is honored with an Oscar. However, one thing about the film’s shooting indeed requires fans’ attention who thought that it was quite easy for Nolan and the cinematographer to film the entire project.

Also Read: Even the Crowd Could Not Believe What Robert Downey Jr Just Said About His Iron Man Role During a Press Conference

Also Read: “No one’s ever gonna see this”: Cillian Murphy’s Attention To Detail in ‘Oppenheimer’ Finally Paid Off Despite Having Little Faith in the Process

According to Variety, Oppenheimer Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema shared the challenges faced by them in shooting the black and white scenes in the best quality. As revealed by Van Hoytema, they wanted to shoot these scenes with 65 mm film, which interestingly does not exist in black and white. The cinematographer said:

“Black and white film doesn’t exist for 65 millimeters, so our first challenge was starting to talk to Kodak about if they could provide us with the necessary film stock that we needed for this film.”

Since the entire team was determined, they found a way to tackle this concern and connected with Kodak to make the film. However this wasn’t the only challenge, as Van Hoytema also talked about the camera adjustments required for the black and white scenes, and to prevent light bleeding they had to “re-engineer” the cameras.

The Most Challenging Scene in Oppenheimer Wasn’t The Bomb Explosion

Also Read: “Let it go”: James Gunn Has Bad News For Joe Manganiello About His DCU Future as Deathstroke

Most people would think that the final explosion scene in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was the toughest to film. However, that’s not the case at all, and as disclosed by Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, the most challenging part to shoot was the “mundane” scenes.

“Mundane scenes when people are in rooms and talking… With Imax, the most important thing is in the center, and then composition becomes for me very much about depth.”

The cinematographer mentions the scene where Robert Downey Jr.’s Lewis Strauss goes to a meeting for nuclear testing. Van Hoytema wanted to create that scene intensely and let the viewers feel the significance of it. According to him. films need to focus on depth and create compelling scenes.

For more authenticity and to allow viewers to delve deeply into Oppenheimer’s story, Nolan shot the film on locations instead of using studio sets. While speaking to Variety, the director’s wife Emma Thomas who’s also the film’s producer explained that shooting on real locations enhances authenticity.

Oppenheimer is available on Prime Video.