Australian cameraman Ari Wegner on the brink of Oscar history

Ari Wegner recalls a life-changing phone call from Jane Campion during a sweltering Christmas in 2018.

“I finally ventured the heat to go to the supermarket and looked at my phone and Jane called,” says the Australian cinematographer from New York. “I had not spoken to her for a long time and I really thought it must have been a random call.”

But instead of just a pocket dial, the champion wanted to know what Wegner would do for the next few years. She had a western – The power of the dogit was called – they planned to shoot in New Zealand.

“It was just the call of your dreams,” Wegner says.

Four years later, she had the chance to make history at the 94th Academy Awards on Monday, with a nomination for best cinematography alongside Australian and good friend Greig Fraser (Dune). No woman has won an Oscar and only one has been nominated before – Rachel Morrison (Mudbound) in 2018.

Wegner, 37, grew up in a creative household in Melbourne – her father Peter won the Archibald Prize last year – with an interest in photography. That changed on film as she watched the champion’s 1983 short Passionless Moments.

“That was the first movie I think I saw that felt like something a normal person could do,” she says. “That a story can be really small and make a great movie.”

The two had shot a bank commercial together, and they ended well, as Wegner climbed through the ranks with a series of bold creative films – Lady Macbeth (2016), Stripe (2018), In fabric (2018), True story of the Kelly Gang (2019) an Zola (2020).

While women were severely underrepresented, Australian cinematographers set an impressive record at the Oscars.

In addition to six victories, this is the third time that the country has had two nominees in the same year.

Both times before he won an Australian – Andrew Lesnie (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) by Don McAlpine (Moulin Rouge!) in 2002 and Russell Boyd (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) by John Seale (Cold Mountain) in 2004.

A third Australian director of photography shares the glory of the Hollywood Awards season this year, with Peter Levy, the Emmys for Californication in the The Life and Death of Peter Sellerswins the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Lifetime Achievement Award for Television.

Other Australians have also been honored in Hollywood, including Mandy Walker (Hidden Figures, Mulan, Elvis), Adam Arkapaw (Real detective, assassin’s Creed), Oscar winner Dion Beebe (Memoirs of a Geisha, Gemini Mann, The little mermaid) and Toby Oliver (Get out, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.).

So why, dating back to Oscar winner Dean Semler and other trailblazers in the 1980s, did Australian cinematographers do so well in Hollywood?

Wegner thinks it could be that they are easy to work with.

“Aussies are also pushing a bit against the hierarchy,” she says. “We treat everyone equally. And maybe coming from the Australian film industry, we do not always have the biggest budgets and we do not have all the toys you read about. American cameraman so there is a kind of invention. “

Wegner believes that training on small films, which are always pressed for time and resources, makes them problem solvers who do not assume that the solution is money.

Fraser, who was in London to shoot Dune: Part Twodescribes cinematography as “half practical and half art”.

“We are committed to turning something that is on paper – that is, intangible – into something that is concrete,” he says. “I think Australians are very practical as people. We’re very good at getting into business – head down, bum up – and move on.

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“Cinematography needs that level of plow-through. But then a big part of it is artistry, which we also do very well.

Levy trained in documentary shooting – like many of the Trailblazers – before moving to the United States. He believes Australian cinematographers are used to working things out with what they have.

“Generally in Hollywood you can get what you want,” he says. “If you can afford it, it’s here to get it. In Australia, we’ve had to improvise and get the big money results with fewer facilities. I think that’s a skill that translates well into working in America and shooting dramatic work.

Many Australian directors of photography also have the ability to stay calm on a fringe film set.

“What works for Australians – and I hope I have it too – is a low tolerance for bullshit,” Levy says. “We tend to just get to the point. Do not be distracted with pointing fingers, let’s look for the solution.

Seale, who shot George Miller Three thousand years long last year, Australian cinematographers think “give everything a go” and are easygoing.

“When I went there in the early ’80s with Peter Weir to do WitnessAmerica was still in the middle of that very formal atmosphere on the set where the director of photography ruled, “he says.” He – and there were not many [female cinematographers] Back then – was involved in the wardrobe, colors, makeup, lighting, movement, the shot …

“We did not have that in Australia. Our own style of filmmaking in Australia was much more relaxed, where wardrobe, make-up, hair and working with the director on how a shot works to make a good change just became a nice team effort.

Seale believes that the Australian forerunners who shot on film before digital standard became one advantage: they knew exactly what labs were doing with their negatives.

“It was a little scary to go into America and find that the labs did not control it,” he says. “They actually shot every shot as they thought it should look. That’s why I found a lot of the cameramen who were very restless.

“It was very bombastic ‘I’m the director of photography and I know what I’m doing’, yelling and yelling. I always thought that would be the uncertainty of what the laboratory does for them negatively.

So who will win at the Oscars? Levy thinks history suggests Wegner.

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“Oscar likes ‘small’ liberal causes, he likes period movies, he likes rental movies,” he says.

Wegner knows that a victory would be historically significant.

“It will be a really important milestone for filmmaking in general and for women,” she says. “What’s most important is the normalization of women who shoot big movies.

“It is not that there are no women outside who do it; it is that at a certain budget level or on a certain scale of the film there is a perception that you need a dude, a male cinematographer, for a great real movie.

Wegner and Fraser, friends since collaborating on the 2009 Australian film Last Rideenjoyed going through the awards season together.

She has won at the British Society of Cinematographers Awards and Critics’ Choice Awards; he won at the BAFTAs and ASC Awards. They also both caught COVID-19 at the awards ceremony, with Fraser in his hotel room while the BAFTAs were being held and Wegner then came down with bronchitis.

“I love him and I love his work,” she says. “It’s kind of amazing that two kids from Melbourne are wearing their well-worn clothes.”

Fraser liked to see Wegner’s career flourish.

“If Ari had won, no one in that audience would have been happier than me,” he says.

The 94th annual Academy Awards will be broadcast on Monday at Seven and 7plus, live from 11am and repeated at 7.40pm. Follow our live blog from the red carpet and ceremony from 11am onwards.

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Email the writer at gmaddox@smh.com.au and follow him on Twitter @gmaddox.

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