Joaquín Baca-Asay speaks about shooting analog film on "Paper Tiger", by James Gray

Two brothers, complete opposites, join forces for a dubious deal involving the Russian mafia. But what was supposed to be an opportunity turns into a nightmare, jeopardizing their family, their integrity, and their brotherly bond.

So this is your reunion with James Gray after a 17-year hiatus...

Joaquín Baca-Asay : James Gray and I are the same age, and we’ve crossed paths occasionally since our respective film debuts. I remember, for example, the crew screening of Little Odessa, his first film. My girlfriend had worked on it and I went to see it with her… That was the day I first set eyes on this guy who was so funny, charming and persuasive ! We were both 26 at the time, and I was starting to work as a director of photography… After The Yards, which he shot with the late Harris Savides, we went on to work together on We Own the Night (2007) and Two Lovers (2008). It was around that time that I started directing ads, gradually moving away from cinematography. Two Lovers was actually my last film as a cinematographer. I then turned down The Immigrant, which he shot in 2013... Yet we both kept in touch, exchanging friendly messages with each new film, or about the re-releases of those two films we’d made together. I’d moved on to other things and couldn’t really see myself committing as much as I had at 35, giving up six months or a year of my life to a feature ... And then, time passed, my kid grew up too... and James came back last year with the Paper Tiger script. This time, when I read the script and discussed it with him, I suddenly felt the urge to embark on this new adventure. And that’s how we ended up working together again.

What were the initial decisions ?

JBA : During our first discussions, James immediately spoke of breaking away from the imagery of contemporary cinema. He spoke about an American film in the style of Visconti, haunted by fate. Of course, the film is set in 1986, but beyond recreating those years on screen, he was drawn to a kind of beauty weathered by time — not beauty in the strict sense, but something haunted by this theme of fate. Every shot was meant to convey a sense of death and loss, with a yellowed, antique look, as if the image itself were decomposing, crumbling. You know, James draws his inspiration mainly from films from the 1980s and earlier. We both share a deep love for 1970s cinema, particularly the work of Gordon Willis ASC, who remains the gold standard. Klute, for example, played a central role in the film’s development, as did The Godfather, I and II. We’re drawn to films that hide things in the shadows, that embrace grain and let imperfections exist. I could also mention Chinatown (cinematography by John Alonzo ASC), which was also a major influence, as was Rembrandt — arguably the Gordon Willis of his day — as well as the photographers Saul Leiter, Helen Levitt, and Edward Hopper (as always).

And so, film...

JBA : Film and I go way back. Even though I shoot digitally every day, and own modern movie cameras myself, it took me a good six years to change my habits and gradually give away 35mm. So when James came to me with a proposal for a new film where we had the opportunity and creative freedom to shoot on Kodak stock, it naturally made me think, and also made me want to accept the project. And given this idea of an image weathered by time, it was the right decision. But our determination didn’t stop at film. As he spoke to me about a film made in the true old-school way, we simply decided together, for example, to do without the convenience of modern LED lights and their great flexibility in terms of colour on set. Basically, the film was made just like in the 1980s, with film, tungsten lights and fluorescent tubes only. Also real sodium vapor for orange night. No LEDs, no contemporary lighting fixtures, except for lighting for daylight.

But fluorescent tubes... aren’t they a thing of the past ? Which museum did you find them in ?

JBA : I was lucky enough to meet a great gaffer, George Selden, whose storage box is still full of those fluorescent fixtures. These tubes haven’t actually been manufactured for several years, and it was a godsend to have him on board ! You know, those decisions that might seem to set limits on you had the paradoxical effect of setting me free. Because, deep down, the endless choices that digital technology offers can end up trapping us as filmmakers.

To achieve anything in the face of this technological abundance, this jungle of options, you really have to be merciless and persistent to find the right path, the image that fits the film. When you shoot film, on the other hand, it’s the film stock that does a great deal of the work for you... As soon as it comes out of the telecine, it already looks like what you have in mind. For example, you didn’t have to worry about shooting with a wide open aperture to make the background soft and look less digital... at f/4 or f/5,6, it still looks like cinema ! Nor having to track down the oldest and rarest lens possible to soften the sensor’s definition.... For me, working on this film has shown just how much easier it really is !

Have you done any more tests ?

JBA : I spent nearly six months preparing Paper Tiger. At first, it was a bit stressful ! Not only had it been a long time since I’d worked on a feature film, but also because of the film stock. So I told myself I really had to compare everything, without any preconceptions, with full knowledge of the facts. I went to Arri, Panavision and TCS in New York, which are the three biggest film camera equipment rental companies there. I took out and tested absolutely every pre-1990s lens available on the market. First on a digital Arri camera, to narrow things down, and arrive at a shortlist. At Arri, they let me use the superb soundstage they have there to shoot multiple 35mm tests, which ultimately led us to choose vintage Super Baltar lenses. They had the "nearly falling apart" quality we were seeking.

And then, as the film was regularly postponed, it gave me a bit more time for pre-production. And to spend – which for me is truly crucial on every project – at least a month discussing the film alone with the director. That’s when – as a director of photography – and I’m taking off my director’s hat when I say this ! – you need to discover the vision of the film he or she has in their head. That’s something I learnt very early on, right after finishing film school. And it’s not something that, ultimately, many directors of photography do, I think, or get the time to do. But spending all that time with him means also a confidence that will then be very useful to you on set when things sometimes get a bit tricky. From that point of view, I can’t tell you how important it is between us. James Gray is undoubtedly one of the few directors in the world with whom I feel completely safe that I will succeed.

You speak of a decaying, fragile image... can you tell me a bit more about your approach to film ?

JBA : There was a moment with James that really moved me. I remember we were reviewing and discussing the Criterion re-release of Two Lovers. He sent me a note saying something nice about how Two Lovers looked exactly like what he’d hoped for.

It was a very nice thing. So I decided to start again on much the same basis. With that key decision I’d made back then on Two Lovers (as well as on We Own The Night) to underexpose the Kodak 500T by one stop. This was to achieve that milky quality in the blacks, and above all to limit their depth. By setting it to 1,000 ISO, you don’t leave much room in the grading process, whether back then with traditional analogue printing, or even during the digital transfer. There’s simply no more information in the shadows, and you can’t artificially boost the levels in certain scenes, nor make the image shiny or more glamorous. It was this "we have no choice" aspect that I really liked, and for which James had hired me. For this film, we’d even agreed to process the negative the old-fashioned way, and to make an analogue print to produce a 35mm reference copy. This then was supposed to serve as our master for the digital grading of the DCP. As we were making the film I kept saying how beautiful the film print would look in the Lumière Theater at Cannes ! But unfortunately the budget tightened during pre-production, and we couldn’t make that print. But the film was truly made in that spirit, with the idea that we wouldn’t allow ourselves any power window colour grading. Nor would we use erasures or digital effects to avoid anachronisms in the image. Suffice to say it was a hell of a job for the set design to clean every frame of any modern elements, or to conceal this or that.

So, how did you adapt to the colour grading ?

JBA : When we found out that we wouldn’t actually be getting the negative cut and the print of that reference copy, I must admit I was a bit lost. I found myself back in the colour grading suite, as if starting from scratch, with endless possibilities before me. So, together with Tim Masik, my regular colourist, we tried to imagine the film as it might have been finalised and screened on film. After a week, James turned up. We screened the first scene for him and he said to me, "Honestly, this isn’t right… it doesn’t look anything like what we did ! It lacks guts..."
I was six feet under and Tim was extremely annoyed... But James is a very clever guy. He knows exactly when it’s necessary to criticize and set the record straight. Fortunately, the scenes that followed felt a bit better, proof that Tim and I had started to get a better handle on the film look we were after... In the end we managed to find the right tone, but having a 35mm positive print would have made things much easier for us...

Is he hands-on with the lighting on set ?

JBA : James hates watching the dailies. He just makes do with screenshots. When it comes to lighting, he’s hardly directive at all, but as I said, we’d already analyzed every scene in depth beforehand, selecting reference images for a reference document that we carry with us every day.

He knows full well that when you’re shooting on film, it all happens in your head, really. You can of course look at the monitor, but that’s just for framing... that’s a real pleasure.
You can’t imagine how much I’ve enjoyed being back in this situation. And I’m even wishing I never have to go back to digital ! The freedom as a director of photography is radically different. You’re the only one who knows where the image is heading to, and that confidence to let yourself go with your instincts is so satisfying. Provided you’ve worked through the story thoroughly enough with the director beforehand.

What challenges did you face during production ?

JBA : The cast all had contractural 14-hour rest periods, which drifts the shooting schedule later throughout the week. So we start the week at 5am on Monday and end the week at 5am on Saturday. This forced us to shoot day interior scenes in the house at night and night scenes during the day. That’s what we had to set up for quite a few scenes, by erecting huge tents around the main set of the house to make day for night. For instance, all those day sequences in the kitchen were shot at night. We lit all the houses you see outside. For the night scenes (shot during the day), these tents did allow me to work in a situation similar to a studio, with a great deal of control over the light coming from outside. So there were lighting advantages, but not sleeping advantages.

The house we’d found was actually really small, and I must admit that suited me rather well. James likes top lights, so we made soft boxes with tungsten bulbs and ran all the power through the floors and ceilings so everything could be on dimmers. We used minimal stand-mounted lights, giving great freedom in terms of angles and movement. All the scenes between the two brothers, for example, were shot with two cameras to capture their performance as accurately as possible. Two cameras saves so much time and energy for the actors and crew. And importantly two cameras allows for overlapping dialogue—something we try to avoid when shooting with a single camera in shot-reverse shot.

The first scene to be shot, for example, was the one in the Chinese restaurant. But all of that was already firmly in our minds thanks to that long preparation phase... I really knew the film ; all those tests had allowed me to regain confidence in the film stock and in those lenses. Little by little, the film really took off. I remember that the camera also started moving a bit more, perhaps trying out more things with the image. I’m thinking in particular of that sequence where we visit Bogayovitch, the gang leader. A tiny living room set, in an Ukrainian community centre lobby. The set was simply dressed with red fabric stretched over pipes. A few cheap little mirrors and some set props... and off we went ! There’s a completely mad dolly shot there, circling around Adam whilst zooming in and moving upwards, ending in a close-up of the gangster, mixing hard light, soft light and shadows... with so much happening in the frame in that shot ! Happy Massee, the production designer, was a bit worried about this shot, but then again, we’ve known each other for so long ! I still remember the first crappy music videos we shot together back in the day… it’s all about that trust again.

At the heart of the film, undoubtedly the most memorable scene. The one where the henchmen break into Irwin’s house at night...

JBA : For this scene, I remember we’d taken screenshots from John Carpenter’s Halloween as a reference (Photography : Dean Cundey ASC). It was a very important sequence, because we had to make that night-time break-in work. The central element in the script is that little bb gun that Irwin (Miles Teller) grabs before heading down the stairs. Everything hinges on the shadows in this scene. The fleeting ones created by the intruders downstairs, and the counter-threat of that little bb gun, whose cast shadow ultimately makes them flee. It could have been a real flop. An almost comical scene... but that’s where you see just how spot-on Miles’s performance is in the film. No doubt many people will notice Adam’s performance throughout the film, which is perhaps more prominent due to his role, but honestly, in this scene I was blown away because I was seeing through the camera’s viewfinder. In this scene, and I’d even say throughout the whole film, he’s the one holding the show !

Some scenes also make good use of zoom-ins...

JBA : When you look back at the cinematography of the 80s, zooms aren’t actually that common.
This type of shot was even considered rather old-fashioned back then.
But as far as we’re concerned, the use of zooms in the film wasn’t really associated with a period look or a particular style. I think it was much more down-to-earth, exactly as we might use it now in 2026. A zoom-in is, at heart, completely artificial... Unlike a dolly shot, which is much more natural. And James uses them exactly like that. Namely, the artificial pressure created by the zoom-in, as opposed to the more natural, drama increase with the dolly shot. A good example in the film for me is the scene where Adam comes in and beats the henchmen with his belt. There’s a long zoom-in there that builds the pressure around his action...

It’s also a question of rhythm on set, isn’t it ?

JBA : Like other great directors, music is central to James’s creative process. He regularly plays it on set, whether during rehearsals or even during takes. For example, in the home invasion sequence we were discussing, I remember he played a track from Psycho. Well, not the opening theme or the shower scene, but a slightly calmer one. Thanks to the wireless earpiece system, which is now standard on sets, you can easily send the person behind the camera the background music you want during the take, which guides you in the rhythm of the shot and the performance. Like a conductor, James set the pace for the scenes every time. And it’s extremely useful for the visuals.
You know, this earpiece business has really changed my life. I used to spend all my time raising my voice... without even realizing it... Now I whisper into the mic. It’s brilliant for people like me who have a real problem with domination ! I’ve become a real lamb... Ask my lighting crew and they’ll tell you how their lives have changed !

(Interview conducted by François Reumont for the AFC)