CHAYSE IRVIN - Cinematographer of “Blonde” starring Ana de Armas, “Beyonce: Lemonade”, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, Kahlil Joseph, The Weekend, Netflix, Charlotte Rampling

Chase Irvin is a Canadian American cinematographer making waves in the film industry. Chayse has received immense critical acclaim for his vision and style. He has worked on features, shorts, and visual albums, most notably in his collaboration with Director Kahlil Joseph on the film Beyoncé: Lemonade. He lensed Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which received 6 Academy Award nominations, winning for best adapted screenplay. Chayse’s first feature film Medeas won the prestigious Best Cinematography Debut at the Camerimage Film Festival in 2013. Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Chase is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. His latest films are Netflix’s Blonde starring Ana de Armas and A24’s God's Creatures starring Emily Watson.

“I was using this jazz technique called woodshedding where you basically isolate yourself, and you come up with harmonic devices that then you can put in your pocket and play during the set. And it's sort of like you create events where you can stimulate happy accidents.

So I was doing that I think over a six-month period, and I came up with a lot of different ideas, for example, the sequence where Marilyn Monroe is in the ménage à trois, and she's having a three-way sex scene, and the image is . I found that idea when I went to Canal Plastics in New York, and I ordered a piece of polycarbonate that was mirrored on one side, and I was able to bend it and I would shoot stuff in my studio collaborating with Jack Martinez, a photographer, who would cast different people and we would shoot things together. And I basically, through pre-production, I created I couldn't even count how many cinematic devices, and they were happy accidents in a lot of ways, but in other situations, they were gifts that were given to me by collaborators. And I just had those in my pocket. And a lot of times they would come out spontaneously, like if I saw a scene, and I felt like there was a moment in which we could articulate in a more abstracted point of view...there's a sequence like when Marilyn is coming to the premier, and it's a frenzy and the fans are looking like they're going to consume her. And that sequence, the way it's written, I can interpret that as almost, to go back to the same musical analogy, in jazz would be a moment where the images get to give a solo on the song, on the theme and express it strictly through metaphor and distort notions of reality as long as it's in harmony with what's happening psychologically.”

www.chayseirvin.com

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