Justice League Snyder Cut Cinematographer Addresses All of the Slow-Motion Scenes

Justice League’s Snyder Cut has a lot of slow-motion scenes and the film’s cinematographer [...]

Justice League's Snyder Cut has a lot of slow-motion scenes and the film's cinematographer addressed that choice. Fabian Wagner is impressed with the final product and thrilled that fans are getting what they've been asking for after all these years. The cinematographer spoke to IndieWire about the HBO Max release. Viewers quickly made all the jokes imaginable about the sheer amount of slow-mo present in the longer cut. Well, if you listen to Wagner, it was a conscious decision to spotlight the shots. Zack Snyder is nothing if not consistent, and if you were coming for his directorial vision, that means healthy helpings of slow motion. It seems like the fans didn't mind it all that much because HBO Max saw record numbers flock to the service. In fact, a devious element of this whole thing is the slow-mo makes screen grabs easier to identify and post. Wagner describes more of it below.

"The one thing we know about Zack is that he loves slow motion, so you have to be prepared for that," he laughed. "There's a technical aspect — if you crank up the camera, you need a lot more light, so you have to be prepared for that. I was ready on most sets, I was always prepared to kick the light up a couple f-stops."

"It's an interesting collaboration. I always [had] been a fan of Zack's movies, and his usual DP Larry Fong. He's such a visual, creative director, who is obviously filled with ideas. He's a real trendsetter. When I first met with him, he had the whole movie storyboarded," Wagner also mentioned. "He's also a great artist when it comes to drawing. He took me through the whole movie. He knows what he wants, but is very open to other ideas and listens to you."

The cinematographer continued, "I introduced a second camera to him, which I was operating. At the beginning, I thought maybe I'll get to shoot two shots a week, because I knew he was use to shooting single camera, and by week two he was like, "Where's my other camera?" [laughs] And we got some great stuff. We'd have one camera that does all the planned stuff, and within that there's a certain freedom you have as well. He pretty much knows the shot, but if you come up with something in a similar vein, he's totally open to that. And then there's the b-camera that I was literally running around with and finding things we hadn't thought of before."

Did you enjoy all that slow motion in Zack Snyder's Justice League? Let us know down in the comments!

8comments