From The Hollywood Reporter · Borys Kit · · 1m 20s
Zack Snyder Shot His Passion Project Himself
The blockbuster director traded green screens for a sweat-soaked van in the Colombian jungle, camera on his own shoulder.
In brief
The blockbuster director traded green screens for a sweat-soaked van in the Colombian jungle, camera on his own shoulder. Snyder stripped away every blockbuster comfort to make The Last Photograph, operating the camera himself even while running a fever in triple-digit jungle heat. Originally reported by The Hollywood…
Snyder goes small
The director known for slow motion and digital spectacle made The Last Photograph with no green screen, no video village and no slow-motion shots.
A van in the jungle
He sat in the back of a cramped, beat-up van in southern Colombia, soaked through and close to passing out.
“Perspiration waterfalled down his face.”
The fever he didn't know about
Triple-digit heat outside, a triple-digit fever inside. He only found out later that he had COVID.
He kept rolling anyway
He had the camera on his shoulder and a day's worth of scenes to get. Stopping was not an option he could afford.
Director and cameraman
On this one he ran the camera himself instead of watching a monitor from a tent, collapsing the usual distance between director and image.
The movie on his shoulders
A passion project he finally got to make, carried in the most literal sense possible.
“The movie was figuratively and literally on his shoulders.”
The headline
Snyder stripped away every blockbuster comfort to make The Last Photograph, operating the camera himself even while running a fever in triple-digit jungle heat.
