Birds of America is writer/director Craig Lucas’ follow up to his 2005 Sundance film, The Dying Gaul. The bittersweet comedy explores dysfunctional relationships between siblings, who lost their parents at an early age. Constipated for the past several months, Morrie (Matthew Perry) takes in younger siblings Jay (Ben Foster) and Ida (Ginnifer Goodwin) in the same suburban house they all grew up in, where he now lives with his wife. Both Jay and Ida’s lives are spiraling out of control and their antics could potentially derail Morrie’s promotion with his boss (Gary Wilmes), who is also his best friend and next door neighbor.

“[Director] Craig [Lucas] was fine tuning the script and he brought a level of depth to the writing and the tone,” says cinematographer Yaron Orbach, on reading the script. “The comedy was coming from a deep place of torment in these characters, and although we, the audience, are laughing, they [the characters] are obviously not. It was great for me to have these kinds of currents to work with.”

Orbach and Lucas’ main goal was to create images that did not draw too much attention from the performances. “It was very important for us to not have a kind of flashy cinematography, so to speak, but something more organic,” explains Orbach. “We wanted to just observe these characters in their torment without an opinion in a sense. What we tried to do was define each character and give him or her his or her own kind of visual status. For instance, Matthew Perry’s character is literally constipated the entire movie—both emotionally and physically. He’s coming from a deep psychological place of being stuck. For him, we centered all of his frames—evenly, symmetrical and placed his friends and family to the left and/or right of him. With Jay, who’s completely unbalanced, we always placed him to the extreme right or left of the frame. With Ida, since she can never sit still and is always biting her nails, we always shot her handheld so the frame is always breathing. As the film progresses, the style and composition become more static and each character kind of morphs into one another.”

The film was shot in 27 days in suburban Connecticut. Orbach worked very closely with production designer, John Nyomarkay, and for the look of the film, they were both inspired by the imagery of Gregory Crewdson, a fine art still photographer who is known for creating disturbing shots of suburban America with very cinematic lighting. “We wanted it to feel a bit like a fable,” explains Orbach, “or more like a time capsule— where a feeling of nostalgia festers as the characters all meet back in their parents’ home. They’re living in a place full of memories so there was something in the lighting and in the style of Crewdson that we really liked. For the nights, we went for a very deep blue-moonlight, which I normally don’t like or do.”

In terms of working with actors, Orbach said a big advantage was being able to have three days of onset rehearsals before shooting started. “It was very efficient with Craig and me just blocking the scenes with the actors at the actual house location,” says Orbach. “When it came time to shoot, we were able to work very fast with most days being 10 hour days”

Orbach shot the film in 3 perf, Super 35 with two ARRICAMs—both a Studio and a Lite. He shot the entire film with one stock, Fujifilm Eterna 500, which the cinematographer rated at 400. Since he wanted the film to have a natural light look, he needed fast lenses and obtained a newly released set of Zeiss Master Primes from CSC, which open up to T1.3. “I wanted to use minimal lighting and create environments where the actors can move freely with no marks on the floor,” explains Orbach. “There were many locations where we just used available light .The combination of fast lenses and a 500ASA stock is very liberating because you really don’t need much light.”

For one night interior scene, Orbach pushed the limits of working in low light levels, by lighting a scene entirely with candles. “I am a big Stanley Kubrick fan and love Barry Lyndon, so it was nice for me to shoot one scene with just candlelight,” says Orbach. “I shot a test with the Fuji stock beforehand and Craig and I fell in love with it. It really adds to the organic nature of the movie. It was about forty or fifty candles in shot and more candles out of frame that we put against silver boards. On average we were two to four stops under. It became very hard to breathe because the candles suck all of the oxygen but the actors said, ‘For the art, we’ll choke.’ We were all very happy with how that scene came out.”

Perhaps the most difficult yet exciting scene for Orbach to shoot was the finale in which there is a chase sequence on foot with the three siblings colliding into one another—literally. “It’s a metaphor in the sense that they have to hit each other in order to connect with one another,” explains Orbach. “That day we had three [Arriflex] 435s running at 120 fps with three stuntmen. One camera was on Steadicam, one on a dolly and another on a crane.”

The film was posted at PostWorks, New York, which is a full service postproduction facility with the ability to handle every aspect of postproduction. “It’s great to be in a place where everything is done under one roof,” says Orbach. “This was my second collaboration with colorist John Crowley. John has a great eye and he really elevated the material. We did very subtle color shifts and fixed little things that one might not notice. Birds of America was my fourth DI and I have a very specific attitude about them. A DI cannot cover bad cinematography or composition. However, if there’s good composition and good lighting, a DI can elevate the film one step further. I really count on it more as a polishing and finessing tool than trying to fix things.”

For Orbach, perhaps the biggest highlight for working on the film was the experience working with Lucas. “Our relationship was very open and collaborative,” explains Orbach. “Craig comes from a theatre background so everything is a discussion and open to interpretation. He just invites continuous talk. I have to say it was one of the best experiences I’ve had with a director—just the whole energy of the work. He created such a good environment for collaboration.

“I would like to offer a special thanks to my crew who where great in accommodating Craig’s and my request for speed and freedom with the actors. Mainly my gaffer, Shawne Greene, key grip Jeff Panesa, operators Ludevic Littee, Manuel Billeter, 1st AC Brett Walters and 2nd AC Luke Owen.”

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