Harris Savides (Jason McCormick)
Sofia Coppola, Gus Van Sant, Noah Baumbach, Jonathan Glazer, David Fincher, and today’s best cinematographers reflect on the giant hole in the heart of cinema that was left when Harris Savides died in 2012.
Chris O’Falt
August 15, 2024
IndieWire
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When cinematographer Bradford Young was fresh out of Howard University, he would have done anything to get near the set of his idol Harris Savides. He eventually found a way to shoot behind-the-scenes footage for the French director Fabian Barron, who hired Savides to shoot an Armani fragrance commercial in Hawaii. When Young got to the forest set, with shafts of light streaming through the trees, he became confused when he flipped on his DV camera to capture the scene.
“The model came on set, and I was like, ‘How’s he going to light her face?,’” recalled Young, who couldn’t believe what happened next: Savides walked on to set with a flashlight in hand and shined it at the model. “He was completely secure with this little flashlight on this million-dollar set. With my eye on the day, I didn’t understand what was happening, ‘How’s he still getting exposure?’ And then I saw the commercial. It was that God particle thing that Harris had. This was complete technical mastery and a complete mystery to observe.”
David Fincher and Harris Savides, Zodiac (Merrick Morton, 2007)
There was a sense of magic surrounding what Savides was able to do. When discussing what his go-to cinematographer was using to light a scene, director David Fincher used to joke, “I don’t know, Harris’ got a jar of fireflies.”
“Beyond the technical process, there was always something else going on in the picture that I couldn’t account for, something that was only him,” writer/director Noah Baumbach told IndieWire. “Something that I guess we call genius.”
The Fincher Analyst 