Fade to Black: R.J. Cutler, Director/Producer

Photo by Lori Hawkins, Actual Reality Pictures

Just before heading off to the 2009 Sundance Film Festival with his newest film, The September Issue, documentary
filmmaker R.J. Cutler waxed philosophical about how technology has
evolved his chosen profession since the early days. Cutler produced
the seminal political documentary The War Room in 1993 and
directed A Perfect Candidate in 1996, springboarding him
into a career as an award-winning reality television producer
(American High, Military Diaries, and 30 Days, among
others).

The September Issue documents the eight-month process
editors at Vogue went through in 2008 to produce the
magazine's annual fall fashion issue. It highlights the
machinations of the publication's legendary editor, Anna Wintour,
to make the gigantic and influential issue (about 800 pages and
4lbs.) happen. Just days before Sundance, Cutler was busy
finalizing color and the sound mix for The September Issue,
which was slated to debut as a Sundance Grand Jury Prize contender
in the Documentary category. (It ended up winning the documentary
cinematography award for DP Bob Richman.)

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“Our color correction and mix will be finished Tuesday, we
output and fly to Sundance on Wednesday, and screen on
Thursday,” Cutler said during a rare break. “It really
helps that we don't have to transfer to film — we can bring a
high-def piece of tape and project that beautifully. That saves me
two or three or even four weeks I would not have otherwise had. In
fact, I made a change in the film this morning. There was something
bugging me and I fixed it just in time. We're now able to work on
it until the last possible second.

“Our DP shot the movie using [Panasonic's AJ-HDC27]
Varicam, all handheld, and I think it's beautiful. When we did
War Room 16mm, the camera and lenses probably cost $60,000
by themselves, and we had to cut it on a Steambeck back in those
days. We had to process film, get work prints, transfer it all
back. So certainly, the threshold of opportunity video technology
affords us is much greater, and that is an amazing, fantastic
thing.”

Cutler concedes that The September Issue and other movies
made this way will look intrinsically different than the rich 16mm
aesthetic visible in The War Room. But different doesn't
mean better or worse, and the advantages of shooting HD and posting
digitally more than make up for whatever he leaves behind by
turning away from film.

Nothing here will look like 16mm film, and it would have
been great to shoot 16mm for this movie. But I filmed over 300
hours of tape for it, which I had to do given the nature of the
environment we were shooting in,” Cutler says. “…
The truth is, we can shoot a lot more this way. It's a different
look, but a thrilling look. For something in this kind of
environment, HD is a much better medium.”

In terms of his transition back into filmmaker after churning
out so much TV programming in recent years, Cutler says he
considers TV a “muscle-building experience” that
prepared him for the grueling job of piecing together The
September Issue.

“The principal relationship is in postproduction —
the ability to process a story and [spend thousands of hours] in
terms of editing and postproduction and output, as I have done over
the years,” he says. “We've done maybe 15 to 20 TV
series, hundreds of episodes, so my editorial muscles are pretty
developed now, as opposed to if I was only making a movie every two
to three years, with two years passing between my stints in an edit
bay. Now, I'm in an edit bay every day, every night, every
week.”