‘Train Dreams’ Director Clint Bentley & Cinematographer Adolpho Veloso On A “Story-First” Approach To Filming – The Process

After working together on Jockey, director Clint Bentley knew he needed the “story-first” style of cinematographer Adolpho Veloso for Train Dreams. In fact, Veloso’s work on the film is almost an extension of his exploration of natural light on Jockey.

“What we started on Jockey, and then moved into Train Dreams, was not only a way of working with light and with natural light, but also a freedom of moving with the actors and leaving scenes open,” says Bentley. 

A key to their partnership is how early Veloso gets involved with the process. “The fact that you were sending me the early versions of the script and the first draft,” says Veloso, “and to have this privilege of actually drinking in the story first and assimilating it without having to think about how to shoot it and to have just a free spirit around the story itself and all the conversations we have… I feel like that’s the most helpful thing for me, more than to talk about the references.”

“I find that something that’s so helpful from those early conversations with you because you lead from story-first, which I think might surprise some people,” says Bentley.

Leading with story is not just his preferred method, it’s the one that Veloso knows works the best for his work. “I feel like it’s really, really hard for me to make any choices if I don’t own have an idea behind it,” says Veloso. “If someone tells me now take a picture of this room, I’ll have no idea what to do, where to place the camera, what lens to choose… unless there’s something behind it.”

This approach has led to some intersting interactions for Bentley when someone asks him about the cinematography. “I remember somebody asking me how does Adolpho place the camera in particular moments,” says Bentley, “like where it’s on the log and Joel’s cutting some branches and things are flying at the camera and they’re like, how long does that take to rig it up and balance it? And I’m like, no, it’s really just because he has it on his shoulder and then he pops it down and moves it over.

“One of my favorite shots in the movie is early on when the tree falls and then they’re sawing into the tree. The camera follows over to Joel from the other logger and kind of introduces him. And it is one of my favorite shots, especially in a period film like this, to kind of break apart the form.”

“You mentioned that shot, the other day someone asked me about the camera language,” says Veloso. “We discussed that at some point, which is that we had basically the three rules about how camera would behave from his different ages. When he’s a kid or a teenager, the camera doesn’t move at all. It’s a fixed camera to evoke the feeling that it is a still image, going back to our visual motif of pictures.”

When Granier (Joel Edgerton) is an adult, the camera movements become more organic. “When he’s an adult in the biggest chunk of his life, the camera does a bit of everything,” says Veloso. “We have a lot of posed things, like a picture would be, really organic handheld moves, a dolly, a crane… and then we save the steady cam for the last part of his life where the camera moves with him and it’s kind of softer and move with someone that it’s kind of more in peace with everything in a way.”