Key Insights

• Collaboration: Michael Bauman has worked with Paul Thomas Anderson on five films, enhancing their creative synergy.
• Filming Challenges: The production faced difficulties due to practical locations and unpredictable weather conditions.
• Dynamic Sequences: The car chase scene was crafted using innovative camera techniques and location scouting.
• Visual Style: Nighttime scenes utilized silhouettes and ambient lighting to create striking visuals.

ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to One Battle After Another cinematographer Michael Bauman about the Paul Thomas Anderson movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Bauman discussed filming sequences like the rooftop scene and the car chase, how they embraced spontaneity while shooting the movie, and more.

“Washed-up stoner dad, Bob (DiCaprio), exists in a state of paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited, self-reliant daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti),” the synopsis reads. “When his evil nemesis (Sean Penn) resurfaces after 16 years, and she goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her, father and daughter both battling the consequences of his past.”

One Battle After Another is now available to purchase on 4K UHD. It is also currently streaming on HBO Max.

Brandon Schreur: I’d love to ask a little bit about how you got involved with this project and about your general reaction to One Battle After Another at first. I mean, Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the best working directors today, and he comes to you with this. What’s going through your mind when this project comes to you, and you find out you’re going to be doing the cinematography for this movie?

Michael Bauman: I mean, this is my fifth movie with Paul. We’ve got a good working relationship. He started talking to me about this thing — he didn’t really have the script finished, but we were talking a lot about different things that were going on in the world and things like that. It was clear that he was using a bit of this stuff as the seeds for whatever he was doing on the movie. So, when he finally did have the script, he gave me an early draft. And it was like, ‘Hey, this is what I want to do next. It’s a very different movie for me, as far as the scale.’ We’d just done Licorice Pizza, and I’d done Phantom Thread. These weren’t such big ensemble pieces with such scale and scope.

So, it was clear this was something that was — on my first read, I was like, ‘Wow, this is a very, very, very different type of film.’ I was excited about the whole thing.

For sure. That jumps right into what I wanted to ask you next, because obviously you have worked with Paul a lot. Most recently on Licorice Pizza. Does already having that kind of working relationship make it easier for your job as a cinematographer on One Battle? How does that collaboration work with the two of you when you’re on set, and what do you feel like you’ve learned from each other over these years?

I think what’s great is that when you have a long working relationship with somebody, you have a shorthand. You have a lot of references. On One Battle, even though it was a bigger movie, we had a very aggressive schedule. We were in so many different cities, and there were so many different characters and things. So that was really a challenge. But what helps a lot is us being able to have a quick dialogue. Even if it’s references to some of his other movies that we worked together on.

The scene where Teyana and Lockjaw finally hook up in the hotel, we had shot that one way, and [Anderson] was like, ‘I think we should try something different.’ I was like, ‘You know, what if we shot it kind of like how we did Barbara Rose in Phantom Thread?’ That was the scene where she’s passed out on the bed, and Alma comes in and gets the dress off her. We have this kind of light that we were lighting from a different room onto a back wall. And I said, ‘Why don’t we try something like that?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely. I could use that kind of a reference.’ And that just saved a bunch of stuff — we got a light in there, and we had the scene lit in like ten minutes. The actors could just go in there and do a version which is the version he put in the film.

It’s that kind of dialogue that we have where we can just be like, ‘Hey, I’m thinking this or what if we did this?’ You can have those kinds of conversations when you’ve had a long time of working together which is super helpful.

That makes total sense. I love this whole movie but there are a couple of specific scenes that I wanted to ask about because I love them so much. One of them I’m sure you’ve probably talked about it a lot but the third act, the whole car chase is just breathtaking. I was rewatching it earlier this week with a couple of people who hadn’t seen it yet and to be able to see their reaction from them was so much fun. How did you go about crafting that? At what point during the process of making One Battle did you know the ending to the movie was going to look like this?

That location we didn’t have at the beginning of the film when we were doing the prep. It came about when Michael Glaser found that location when he was driving to look for the 1776 location which is where Willa gets dropped off by the bounty hunter. Then she jumps in the car from there and drives off. On his way there in this particular part of California he found those hills. He and Flo the production designer kind of looked at it and were like ‘We should bring everybody.’ So we all did a little scout there and that’s kind of how it developed.

As we started to look at it first through iPhones and then through camera placements it was like ‘Wow this is really going to be something.’ When we were shooting it we were using camera cars and other tools that allowed us to get the camera as low as possible as safe as possible and as fast as possible. That combination was really where we started to discover where the potential of that was.

It turned out so good. Every time I watch it it’s always my favorite part. Another sequence in here that I absolutely love is everything that happens in Sensei’s apartment but especially all the stuff on the roof when we’re following the skateboarders jumping back and forth. The visuals are so striking; the fact that it’s all at night and a lot of it is just silhouettes but you can so clearly see it. Was that challenging working on that moment with the lighting and all the action taking place?

 It was actually a lot of fun. We tried to get the shot where he comes off of the roof for the first time; we tried to shoot that at dusk. Really we got lucky on the day that we shot it. There was a storm coming so there was a really great cloud formation going on at dusk. So when Leo climbs up the hatch and he starts to climb over that first roof you see this very dynamic operatic sky.

One of the things was we were shooting that whole sequence in El Paso. And right next to El Paso is Juárez Mexico. One of the things we wanted to do was shoot as wide open on the lens as possible so we could see the actual lights of Juárez and use that as a background piece too which gave this level of depth to the whole thing which was kind of interesting.

When they finally do run before [Bob] falls into the tree that was all against everything going on with this riot sequence down on the street below. There’s smoke there’s flame and there’s all sorts of colors going on. It became clear that you didn’t really need to light any of their faces because there’s so much going on. These guys —the team— had such a unique look to them —the skateboarders with their hair and everything—and obviously Leo’s character with his look—that we could just get a few beats of seeing their face and let everything else embrace amazing stuff happening with silhouettes and energy around them.

Sure! I’m a big fan of skateboarders; I love those dudes.

I love those dudes man; they killed it.

Throughout the whole movie I’m curious if there was any single moment that was especially challenging? This movie is so big and so epic; I’m guessing there’s got to be lots of stuff you do here that you’ve never tackled before? Is there one specific moment you can point to where it was like ‘We have no idea how we’re going to pull this off’ but then managed to pull it off?

That’s like half the movie! There’s lots of stuff — Paul shoots practical locations; very little of this movie was shot on stage; only things staged were tunnel scenes when [Bob] crawled through or Christmas Adventurer’s office where they sit around table; rest really all practical! Every time you’re in practical location it’s good/bad; like when shooting Bob’s house at beginning when he/Willa are sitting around table; very small house size small apartment; pouring rain outside trying make look soft warm light coming through but meanwhile open front door it’s absolutely dumping because we’re up Eureka northern part California! That really tough!

We were always trying catch chaos moment letting spontaneity happen! That critical energy film! You just had go there lots times like ‘Here plan! Here second plan! And here third plan!’ Between all plans something gonna happen!

The other thing is with Paul he’s not afraid come back shoot something if it’s not right! He gonna get right! Sometimes road can get little crazy! But always moments where I’m like ‘Oh my god is even gonna work?’ And two days later see dailies it’s like ‘Okay cool got it.’

Thanks to Michael Bauman for taking time discuss One Battle After Another.