{"id":180078,"date":"2026-02-16T12:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T12:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180078\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T12:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T12:47:10","slug":"train-dreams-dp-reveals-secrets-behind-films-natural-wonder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180078\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Train Dreams’ DP reveals secrets behind film’s natural wonder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At first, Clint Bentley<\/a> wasn\u2019t sure if Adolpho Veloso would relate to \u201cTrain Dreams,\u201d<\/a> an adaptation of Denis Johnson\u2019s 2011 novella. The story was distinctly American, about Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker living and working in Washington at the turn of the century. Veloso had grown up in S\u00e3o Paulo, a far cry from the Pacific Northwest, but the script struck a chord with the cinematographer, who first worked with Bentley on 2021\u2019s \u201cJockey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about this guy who works away from home for several months with a bunch of people he never met before that he might never see again,\u201d Veloso says, speaking from the Soho Hotel in London in early February. \u201cWhen he goes back home, it\u2019s always hard to reconnect with his place and his family, all of the things that changed while he was away. That\u2019s basically my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veloso realized that if he could relate, then \u201ceverybody in the world could connect to it.\u201d \u201cEven though it\u2019s a period piece, it\u2019s so contemporary,\u201d he says. \u201cThe main goal for me was to make those themes as simple as possible. We wanted to remove all those layers that period pieces usually have to allow the distance from the audience to the characters to be shortened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes, Veloso did that literally, by bringing the camera in close to the characters. But the most important element was natural light. There is only one scene in \u201cTrain Dreams\u201d that uses any artificial light, a pivotal moment in which Robert (Joel Edgerton<\/a>) runs through a wall of flames. Otherwise, Veloso relied on the sun, candlelight and fire to illuminate his shots. It required a specific shooting schedule, but also a degree of flexibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were shooting everything on location, so we could position the sets in places that would be better for lighting,\u201d Veloso says. \u201cBut Clint was always open to changing things. If we were expecting a sunny day and suddenly it\u2019s raining, then why not? Let\u2019s just do the scene that way now. Often those little surprises and those adaptations would end up being better than what we planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrain Dreams\u201d was shot around Washington state in real forests. Veloso wanted to treat the natural world as a character, rather than a setting, making it as important as Robert or his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones). There are purposefully no drone shots.<\/p>\n

\"Felicity <\/p>\n

Felicity Jones and Joel Edgerton in \u201cTrain Dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Netflix)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever we would shoot nature, we would frame it the same way we would be framing a person,\u201d Veloso says. \u201cWhenever we were shooting Robert, we left a lot of space around him to convey the power that the environment has on us and what we feel, and vice versa. Sometimes it\u2019s just an over-the-shoulder shot, like it\u2019s a silent conversation between him and nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Capturing the enormous trees that would have existed in the early 20th century was a challenge. The production went to protected parks, where they had to be cautious about not affecting the environment. \u201cHow do you shoot a movie where they\u2019re supposed to be cutting those trees, but they cannot even get close to those trees?\u201d Veloso says. \u201cIt was almost like shooting stunts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bentley did find a logging facility that would allow the team to capture the actual felling of trees. For one of the opening shots, Veloso rigged a camera onto a tree right before it was chopped down. \u201cWe did use a camera that we could spare,\u201d Veloso says. \u201cBut everything went fine and the camera survived.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film follows Robert for most of his life. To denote the passage of time and fallibility of memory, Veloso shifted the way he shot the character in each era. Robert\u2019s childhood was filmed to evoke still images, as if he were only remembering photographs he\u2019d seen. His adulthood incorporated a broader array of techniques. By the end, Veloso brought in a Steadicam to connote that Robert has found more peace in his later years.<\/p>\n

\"Adolpho <\/p>\n

On-location shooting and a reliance on natural light were among the techniques Veloso employed on \u201cTrain Dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Lauren Fleishman \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had these rules we followed throughout the movie, but we tried to make sure they were not imposing anything that would feel wrong,\u201d Veloso says. \u201cWe would improvise a lot, so we always had the rules as a guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scenes where Robert is together with Gladys and their young child have warm lighting or the haze of golden hour. \u201cAll of those memories are probably sweeter than what actually happened,\u201d Veloso says. \u201cThe first time there is a really striking sun in the movie, where everything feels harsh, is when he gets to his cabin after the fire and everything is burned and there\u2019s just ashes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final shots, of Robert flying in an airplane for the first time, were captured with practical trickery. Veloso attached cameras to a real plane to film the scope of the landscape, but Edgerton wasn\u2019t allowed to go up because of insurance concerns. Instead the crew built a cockpit on a gimbal several feet in the air and maneuvered the actors across the sky as if they were really flying.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the most important scenes in the movie, so we couldn\u2019t use a green screen,\u201d Veloso says. \u201cThis had to feel as natural as everything else. It was a great collaboration from all departments to make it work. The light interaction is real and the sky is real. It had to feel as connected as everything else for the ending to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being recognized for his work on \u201cTrain Dreams\u201d is meaningful to Veloso not just because of his hard work and vision. He\u2019s also grateful to be part of a wave of Brazilian filmmakers who are getting recognition in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil has always had amazing movies, amazing filmmakers and amazing filmmakers working outside of Brazil in other countries,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s amazing to now celebrate art the same way we used to celebrate only football. So it\u2019s great to be part of that, and it\u2019s also crazy at the same time. It\u2019s overwhelming and surprising. It\u2019s definitely changed a lot of things, and hopefully it\u2019s going to mean more work and work that I can be really connected to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At first, Clint Bentley wasn\u2019t sure if Adolpho Veloso would relate to \u201cTrain Dreams,\u201d an adaptation of Denis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[85498,31263,6193,85500,85499,1924,48,52,51,14306,47,50,49,1741,4287,63640,2489,315,54584,8843,1968],"class_list":{"0":"post-180078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-adolpho-veloso","9":"tag-camera","10":"tag-character","11":"tag-clint-bentley","12":"tag-enormous-tree","13":"tag-film","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-headlines","16":"tag-la-news","17":"tag-lighting","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","20":"tag-los-angeles-news","21":"tag-lot","22":"tag-movie","23":"tag-robert-grainier","24":"tag-scene","25":"tag-time","26":"tag-train-dreams","27":"tag-way","28":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}