Warwick Thornton wins ASC Spotlight Award
Jackie Keast, IF MAGAZINE
March 05, 2024
Warwick Thornton’s cinematography on The New Boy has seen him pick up another international accolade, this time the Spotlight prize at the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Awards.
First awarded in 2014, the ASC Spotlight Award was created to recognise cinematography in smaller, independent and arthouse feature films. ASC cinematographers may submit one film that is not their own for consideration for the award, with Thornton nominated against Eric Branco for Story Ave. and Krum Rodriguez for Citizen Saint.
Thornton shot The New Boy with just one camera: the 8K Panavision DXL2 and three Panavision C and E series vintage anamorphic lenses. As he told IF last year, he loved the lenses as they “behaved badly”. He was conscious the film was set in the ‘40s, and didn’t need a crisp, modern image; lens flares and halation added to a personal feel.
“A little bit of light hits them and suddenly a third of the lens is milky. But I really liked that, I wanted it to be part of the film. Working with Trish Cahill, an amazing colourist, we embraced those. If the lens wigged out and went all weird, went a bit milky, it was like, yeah, ‘Bring it on, we’ll keep it’,” he said.