Even with decades of acclaimed features and a recent Oscar win, Spike Lee still has to fight for his creative vision. And that fight extends to folks like Netflix, a studio notorious for spending large amounts of cash to please its filmmakers. But even with Netflix, Lee had to fight for certain things in his new feature “Da 5 Bloods.”
READ MORE: ‘Da 5 Bloods’: Spike Lee Finally Makes A Worthy, If Bloated, War Epic [Review]
Speaking to Insider, “Da 5 Bloods” cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel explained how one significant aspect of the new film wasn’t originally part of the deal and Lee had to fight with Netflix to make it happen.
Apparently, Lee found some “pushback” from the streaming service over his insistence that the flashback scenes in “Da 5 Bloods” be shot on 16mm film. With the ubiquitous nature of digital filming, 16mm isn’t the most common film stock around and using it comes with a bit of an elevated price tag, which is something that Netflix was trying to avoid. Nevertheless, Lee persisted.
READ MORE: Spike Lee Thinks ‘Da 5 Bloods’ Was Released “At The Right Time For The World We Live In”
“There was pushback because it opened up a lot of challenges,” Sigel said. “But Spike was pretty adamant. I would never have been able to do it without such fervent support from him.”
Lee didn’t originally plan the flashbacks to be shot on 16mm. It wasn’t until the DP suggested the use of the film that Lee realized how great of an idea it was.
“I think what really sold Spike on it was that this is what would have been used if a crew was there in Vietnam shooting during the war,” Sigel explained.
Of course, given the advancements in today’s technology, there is the chance that the flashbacks could have been shot digitally, followed by some post-production work to give the scenes a 16mm-esque styling. However, Sigel isn’t so sure it would have worked.
“It would have never been the same,” he said.
Obviously, whenever you talk about budgets for filmmakers making Netflix features, the name Martin Scorsese is brought up. Scorsese famously found a way to convince the streaming service to spend more than $160 million on “The Irishman” to help with the extensive de-aging of the cast with CGI. But as Spike Lee has already said in the past, Netflix wasn’t offering him ‘Irishman’ money for “Da 5 Bloods.” Thankfully, the filmmaker was still able to get that 16mm footage, though.
“Da 5 Bloods” is available on Netflix now.