XAVIER PÉREZ GROBET

With Steadicam op Dan Kneece [right]

"Nine Lives" [2004]

Career: 'I was born in Mexico City to an architect father and a still photographer mother, I guess that's where it all started. I grew up with a photo lab next to my bedroom. I had my first camera at an early age and took pictures, I played a lot with the enlarger using different objects to create compositions. When I was 11 our family spent a year in England. That's when I bought my first Super 8 camera and started making my films. Later, back in Mexico, together with my cousin, we wrote and shot a couple of stories using everybody in the family. We went to the movies all the time since I was a kid. I knew I wanted to be a moviemaker since I got my first Super 8 camera. After high school, I wanted to enter film school. There were two film schools in Mexico. You had to be 23 years old and have a career in order to apply to Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, which was the one that I was interested in. I tried architecture school in the meantime, but after a while I realized that it wasn't something that I felt passionate about. After about a half year in architectural school, I decided to board a cargo ship to Europe. I got onboard in Acapulco and rode through the Panama Canal. The trip took about two months, and then I spent about a half a year backpacking around Europe. I went back to Mexico and worked for a while until it was time to apply for film school. Around 300 people applied, and I was lucky enough to be one of the 12 they selected. We studied every aspect of filmmaking during the first year. It was a great opportunity to meet real filmmakers. During the second year, the director of the school, who is a well known documentary filmmaker, Eduardo Maldonado, was working on a feature documentary about the festivities in Xochimilco, an area south of Mexico City. I worked as camera assistant on that film. That was my first experience on a film other than our school projects. There were different American films shooting in Mexico that were looking for locals who spoke the language and had enough experience to work on their crews. My first experience was on a film that David Watkin shot called 'Last Rites'.' [From interview by Bob Fisher on the KODAK OnFilm website.]

Member of the ASC since 2009. An interview appeared in the book 'The Cinematographers' [announced].

Awards: 'Ariel' Silver Award nom [1992] for 'La mujer de Benjamín'; 'Ariel' Silver Award nom [1996] for 'Sin remitente'; 'Ariel' Silver Award nom [1998] for 'De noche vienes, Esmeralda'; 'Ariel' Silver Award nom [2000] for 'Sexo, pudor y lágrimas'; Independent Spirit Award nom [2001; shared] for 'Before Night Falls'.

Based on the film 'Eat, Drink, Man, Woman', 'Tortilla Soup' is the classic example of the new indie film spirit - with a digital twist. The film was shot in digital video, with Panasonic's AJ-PD900WA 2/3-inch DVCPRO50 Progressive camcorder.

"We wanted to get the best performance possible from the actors and that takes a lot of footage," explains [director María] Ripoll. "Shooting in 480P allowed us to have two cameras. It was a big creative plus to be able to shoot so much footage and we were able to capture more authentic reality because we could keep rolling longer."

Cinematographer Pérez Grobet reports that he and Ripoll originally wanted to shoot HD, but found it "too expensive." After testing a variety of different video cameras, they found the Panasonic AJ-PD900WA.

"The 480P tests were excellent," says Ripoll. "We were very, very happy with the look we got from the tests transferring 480P to film; 480P has a consistency like film." "We saw this as a new texture that we can explore," adds Pérez Grobet.

Pérez Grobet gathered tips on the camera from cinematographer Tony Salgado, who had shot several short films with the Panasonic camera. Learning from him to "be careful with whites and blacks, because there's a lack of detail if you go too extreme," Pérez Grobet used half-soft FX filters throughout the film to soften the image. Lighting was film-style with a package comprised of HMIs, tungsten, and Kino Flos.

Producer Manulis points out that the ability to maximize rehearsal and performance time was crucial. Digital video not only allowed them to use a B camera, to cover extra angles and roam the action, but also provided "the aesthetic attraction of being able to shoot in a practical location with a smaller package, less light, less heat, and fewer people," he says. Pérez Grobet calls himself quite satisfied with the results of his first-time 480P shoot.

"The exterior shots have a bit of video look due to the lighting," he admits. "But the interior shots look just like film."

With a 16-week post schedule, 'Tortilla Soup' is currently posting at Digital Difference in Santa Monica. The original 480P tapes are transferred to 3/4-inch and digitized into the Avid for offline editing. Using the EDL to up-res from the 480P masters to 1080i, the filmmakers next go into an HD online session for color-correction, compositing, and titles. For preview viewings and festival submissions, they output a DigiBeta tape. The finished HD master will then be transferred to 35mm negative. [From article by Debra Kaufman on the millimeter-website, 2001.]

1985 Dulces y amargos/Sweet and Sour [Xavier Pérez Grobet, Laila Heiblum, Sergio Muñoz, a.o.] 16mm/c; ph: ?; comp of

1987 Chapultepec [Xavier Pérez Grobet] 16mm/c; doc/16m; ph: Guillermo Granillo; + scrpl/ed

1987 La neta... no hay futuro/Fact Is... There's No Future [Andrea Gentile] 16mm/c; doc/26m

1988 Punto de arroz [Pablo Baksht Segovia; short/33m] co-ed; ph: Jorge Medina

1989 Entrada de la noche/Deep in the Night [Pablo Gómez Sáenz] 16mm/c; short/38m

1990 La mujer de Benjamín/Benjamin's Woman [Carlos Carrera] c; co-prod CCC

1991 La pelota que rebota [Jorge Pellicer] 16mm/c; doc/28m; cph: Ariel Castillero

1992 Hombre que no escucha boleros/A Man Who Won't Listen to Boleros [Ignacio Ortiz Cruz] c; short/11m

1993 Amorosos fantasmas/Loving Ghosts/Phantoms in Love [Carlos García Agraz] c

1994 Pancho Villa and Other Stories [Phillip Rodriguez] dv/b&w-c; doc/40m; addph; ph: Claudio Rocha; interviews filmed

1994 La pasión de Iztapalapa [Nicolás Echevarría] c; doc/85m; cph: N. Echevarría

1994 Sin remitente/Una carta de amor/No Return Address/Return to Sender [Carlos Carrera] c

1995 Love Always/All Points Between [Jude Pauline Eberhard] c; cph: Stephen Lighthill

1995 Julio y su ángel/Julio and His Angel/Wings of an Angel [Jorge Cervera Jr.] c

1996 ¿Por qué nosotros no?/Why Don't We? [Jaime Humberto Hermosillo] c; short/4m

1997 De noche vienes, Esmeralda/Esmeralda Comes by Night [Jaime Humberto Hermosillo] c

1997 Un Buñuel mexican/El Buñuel mexicano/A Mexican Buñuel [Emilio Maillé Iturbe] b&w-c; doc/56m; cph: E.M. Iturbe,

1999 Un maestro... Xavier Francis [Patricia González] b&w-c; doc/27m; cph: Eduardo Carrasco & Servando Gajá

1999 Before Night Falls/Antes que anochezca [Julian Schnabel] c; cph: Guillermo Rosas

2000 Blossoms of Fire/Ramo de fuego [Maureen Gosling & Ellen Osborne] 16mm/c; doc/75m

2001 Bear's Kiss/El beso del oso/Il bacio dell'orso [Sergei Bodrov] c; addph: Sergei Astakhov; 2uc: Alexander Du Prel

2002 21 Grams [Alejandro González Iñárritu] c; 2uc (+ co-c.op); ph: Rodrigo Prieto

2004 Monster House [Gil Kenan] dv-to-35mm & D-Cinema (3-D)/c; cph: Paul C. Babin

2005 Babel [Alejandro González Iñárritu] s16+s35+p-to-35mm/c; addph Mexico; ph: Rodrigo Prieto

2007 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [Steven Spielberg] p/c; co-2uc; ph: Janusz Kaminski

2000 In the Time of the Butterflies/En el tiempo de las mariposas [Mariano Barroso] tvm

2002 [John Grisham's] A Painted House [Alfonso Arau] tvm/16mm; 2uc: Jeff Wolf

2003 Deadwood [ep #7 'Bullock Returns to the Camp' dir by Michael Engler, #8 'Suffer the Little Children' dir by Daniel

Minahan, #9 'No Other Sons or Daughters' dir by Edward Bianchi & #11 'Jewel's Boot Is Made for Walking' dir by

Steve Shill] 36-part series, 2004-06; 1st season, 2004; other ph: Lloyd Ahern II (pilot), David Boyd & James Glennon

2004 Big Love [pilot dir by Rodrigo García] series, 2006-present; 1st season, 2006; other ph: Russ Alsobrook & James Glennon

2007 In Treatment [ep #1 'Laura: Week One' dir by Rodrigo García (RG), #2 'Alex: Week One' dir by RG, #3 'Sophie: Week

One' dir by RG, #4 'Jake and Amy: Week One' dir by RG & #5 'Paul and Gina: Week One' dir by RG] series/HD,

2008 Swingtown [pilot dir by Alan Poul] series, 2008-present; other ph: Joaquin Sedillo

1985 Xochimilco [Eduardo Maldonado Soto; doc/87m] c.asst; ph: Santiago Navarrete

1990 Pure Luck [Nadia Tass] c.asst 2u; 2uc: Gabriel Torres & Peter F. Woeste; ph: David Parker

1993 La reina de la noche/The Queen of the Night [Arturo Ripstein] c.op; ph: Bruno de Keyzer

2002 21 Grams [Alejandro González Iñárritu] co-c.op (+ 2uc); ph: Rodrigo Prieto