With the Daniel Barnz-directed Cake, cinematographer Rachel Morrison has landed her first feature at the Toronto International Film Festival.
However, Morrison is no stranger to the high-profile festival circuit, perhaps best underscored by her track record at the Sundance Film Festival. She made her initial Sundance splash with director Zal Batmanglij’s Sound of My Voice in 2011. The next year she returned with Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie directed by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. And in 2013 came the acclaimed Fruitvale Station which Morrison shot for director Ryan Coogler. A drama based on the 2009 shooting death of a young unarmed African American man, Oscar Grant, by a law enforcement officer at the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) station in the Fruitvale section of Oakland, Calif., Fruitvale Station won both the 2013 Sundance U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Award and the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award. (The film additionally garnered the Un Certain Regard honor at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.)
Furthermore, this year Morrison came back to Sundance with Little Accidents directed by Sara Colangelo.
Among other career festival highlights for Morrison was the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival’s Best Narrative Audience Award-winning Any Day Now directed by Travis Fine.
And in 2013, Morrison won the Women In Film Kodak Vision Award.
Cake
Scheduled for screenings next week (Sept. 8, 9 and 13) as part of the Toronto Festival’s Special Presentations program, Cake centers on the acerbic Claire Bennett (Jennifer Aniston) who has managed to alienate everyone from her life except for her loyal housekeeper. When Bennett becomes fascinated with the suicide of a woman in her chronic pain support group, she develops a poignant relationship with the woman’s grieving husband and comes to terms with her own personal tragedy, helping to catapult her forward into life. The Cake cast also includes Anna Kendrick, William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman and Sam Worthington.
Morrison said that the creative challenge presented by Cake to her as a cinematographer involved “picking up a world of naturalism, wanting the film to feel natural and yet slightly altered to reflect the main character’s altered state.”
The cinematographer added that “Jen [Aniston] is a very recognizable face, known for looking a certain way. We went into this project with a question mark–how far would we be allowed to go in another direction when photographing her? She was very accommodating and we wound up shooting true to what the genre of this film is.”
In lensing Cake, Morrison went the anamorphic route, deploying ARRI’s Alexa 4:3 camera.
Morrison said that her “passion” is storytelling so she’s looking to get more meaningfully diversify into select television projects and pilots, which have grown more appealing in today’s so-called Golden Age of TV, while continuing her feature film exploits. Well versed in short-form fare with music videos (Lissie’s “Shameless,” Sam Sparrow’s “Black and Gold”) and commercials (Toyota, Naked Juice, Georgia State Lottery, AMC, EBay, Groupon, Disney Interactive), Morrison is also looking to step up her activity in the ad discipline.
Morrison’s roots are in photojournalism and her credits include documentaries, perhaps most notably Rikers High (Showtime). Introducing viewers to the high school within the Rikers Island prison system, the Victor Buhler-directed Rikers High earned Buhler and an ensemble of cinematographers (including Morrison) a 2006 News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography. Rikers High also scored Best New York Documentary distinction at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival.
