Zack Snyder Reveals How Justice League Influenced Him to Become His Own Cinematographer

For his two most recent projects, Army of the Dead and his new sci-fi epic, Rebel Moon, filmmaker Zack Snyder has taken an unexpected approach by serving not only as director, but as his own cinematographer as well. Now, Snyder explains where the motivation for becoming his own Director of Photography came from and it turns out, it was his experience making Justice League. Speaking with Letterboxd, Snyder said that it was his experience making the DC movie that made him want to be more hands-on.

“Probably my experience on Justice League and sort of the separation that happens between the director and the movie,” Snyder said. “When you’re at a certain scale of production, video village gets like drawn out into this massive… its own camp, and suddenly, there’s like two tiers of chairs, there’s 10 monitors. It looks like a whole other world, and then, like the movie’s over there. I had been a director/cameraman in commercials for 10 years, 12 years. I know my way around a camera a little bit and when I went to do Army, I was just like, ‘You know what? I got to figure this out. I got to just get back. Give me the camera, I Just want to go close.’”

Snyder Recently Explained Why Director’s Cuts Are a Major Part Of His Process

Snyder also recently spoke about director’s cuts. Even before Rebel Moon debuted on Netflix, there was already talk of a director’s cut.

“I would make a movie for the studio, and then my relationship with DVD would be like, I’d kind of be done with theatrical division, you know, who wanted the movie made,” Snyder said. “And I would just talk to DVD about like hey, if you guys give me a little extra money I can get you a weird version of the movie that you can sell again.”

“And when people started to get to know me and get to know that director’s cut, there was always something in it that they weren’t gonna get from the theatrical version,” Snyder said. “Then that started to become anthemic of what I do, and you end up with Justice League as the sort of quintessential insane journey to a director’s cut.”

What Is Rebel Moon About?

In Rebel Moon: Part One: A Child of Fire, when a peaceful settlement on a moon in the furthest reaches of the universe finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Motherworld, Kora assembles a small band of warriors — outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a new army of heroes is formed.

“This is me growing up as an Akira Kurosawa fan, a Star Wars fan,” Snyder said in a statement when the film was first announced. “It’s my love of sci-fi and a giant adventure. My hope is that this also becomes a massive IP and a universe that can be built out… I’ve spent the last two or three years building out this universe. Every corner has to be painted in. I’ve been doing designs, constantly drawing and really cultivating its fertile ground to make this world fully realized.”

Rebel Moon: Part One: A Child of Fire is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.