Ben Richardson, whose inspired lensing of Beasts of the Southern Wild earned him Best Cinematography honors at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and this year’s Film Independent Spirit Awards, has joined the directorial roster of Saville for spot representation in North America. This marks the first production company affiliation for Richardson as a filmmaker.
Richardson is no stranger to the director’s chair. He co-directed (with Daniel Bird) and shot the stop motion film Seed which earned Best Animated Short distinction at Slamdance in 2010. Richardson also helmed the short titled The Drip Machine.
Beasts of the Southern Wild represented Richardson’s coming-out party in the feature film world. Directed by Benh Zeitlin, the movie centers on a young girl named Hushpuppy who lives in a forgotten, impoverished yet fiercely independent bayou community isolated by a sprawling levee. Her imagination and sense of place and purpose at a young age enable her to deal with daily life as an adventure, until her reality is changed by a raging storm and her father’s failing heart. The drama plays like a fable, following Hushpuppy as we see the world, her reality, through her eyes, sparked by a sense of discovery. Beasts went on to earn four Oscar nominations–for Best Picture, Best Director (Zeitlin), Best Leading Actress (Quvenzhane Wallis) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Zeitlin with Lucy Alibar).
Hushpuppy’s story is cinematically captured through the richness and rawness of her southern Louisiana world. Richardson believes that cinematography is something that goes beyond just a “capture medium,” and ultimately an emotional connection is central, as filmmaking is “one of the most versatile interpreters of visual reality ever created.” By exploring the limit of the visuals, Richardson helped to create a stellar film in Beasts that resonates, inspired by capturing moments of truth that transcend into a magical realm with both subtlety and texture. Richardson observed, “When you’re creating a world that is so removed from reality, the idea of controlling it and keeping it neat seemed entirely wrong. We wanted to shy away from shiny, sparkly visuals and keep the photography grounded.” Richardson has been lauded by New York Times critic A.O. Scott to have found “rugged, ragged beauty in nearly every shot.”
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