For Your Consideration: Life of Pi Cinematography

Congratulations  Claudio Miranda!

The many nominations Life of Pi has received, from the Golden Globes to the BAFTA to the Academy Awards necessarily include nominations for the spectacular cinematography by Claudio Miranda.  Miranda, who highlights some of the gorgeous work in this 'For Your Consideration' video,  doesn't have a huge list of credits as a cinematographer or even as a director of photography but I wasn't surprised at his achievement when I saw he had also shot The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I think working with a director as demanding as David Fincher would push most people to push themselves and their own creative limitations even further. In any case, Miranda has done exquisite work here - and in 3D no less - and justly earns his nomination. The opening segment alone is just so lyrical and wondrous ... I am aware of watching it with my mouth open wide in delight. Thank God theaters are dark; I'm sure I looked like a grinning goofball.

The studio has released several of these For Your Consideration videos online, I'll be posting them here for you separately. While the videos and snippets the studios provide are all part of massive publicity campaigns I share them because they also illuminate the creators and craftspeople who do their jobs so well. When an artist works for months, years sometimes, pouring not only their breadth of knowledge but their hearts and blood and guts into a film project, and that film project turns out so spectacularly, I feel nothing but joy in celebrating it. Especially when that film is based on what has been called an 'un-filmable book' from Yann Martel.

Let's drink to the artists, the makers of the magic! 

Cheers!