How Peter Donahue Turned a Hobby into One Gigantic Career

by Bob Fisher | Published April 2, 2009

Peter Donahue (left) and director Matt Aselton on the set of Gigantic (2009).

While fairly new to shooting narrative cinema, cinematographer Peter Donahue is no stranger to capturing images. He began his obsession with pictures while growing up in Boston, where he existed as a self-proclaimed “still photography buff” from a young age and parlayed the interest into an art school degree in the subject. After graduation, Donahue moved to New York City, were he found work as an assistant to photographers around town. A friend soon got him a job as an electrician on a small film and Donahue found a new love interest: Moving pictures.

“I worked on electric crews and was a gaffer for four to five years before I started shooting music videos and commercials,” remembers Donahue. “I shot a commercial for Errol Morris, when he was preparing to produce Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.. When Errol asked me to shoot his documentary, it was like a dream come true.” The DP then managed a few more documentary credits, including an episode of PBS mainstay “The American Experience” and Morris’ The Fog of War, before segueing into narrative work with 2005’s highly acclaimed Junebug. In these past four years, it’s become clear that Donahue’s lifelong infatuation with taking pictures has translated to fiction.

Bob Fisher (MM): Gigantic is your third independent feature. How did it come about?

Peter Donahue (PD): Gigantic was written and directed by Matt Aselton. I had been shooting commercials with Matt for about five years. He has become a close, personal friend. Gigantic was his first movie.

MM: What is the story about?

PD: Paul Dano plays a salesman in a mattress store who dreams of adopting a baby from China. His life is turned upside down when Happy, played by Zooey Deschanel, falls asleep in a bed at the store. Ed Asner and Jane Alexander play his parents. It was a wonderful experience working with Matt and such talented actors.

MM: Where was the film produced?

PD: It was filmed at practical locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and in Stamford, Connecticut. We found an abandoned warehouse that was the setting for the mattress store. You wouldn’t think of a warehouse as the setting for a mattress store, but it was a big space with perfect texture on the walls and windows in the right places for motivated, practical light that looks and feels natural.

MM: What was the production format?

PD: The producers initially spoke about shooting in digital video or 16mm film format because we had a meager budget. Matt and I convinced them that a widescreen, 35mm format was both the right aesthetic and affordable. We wanted to compose in 2.4:1 aspect ratio for two main reasons: It feels more cinematic and the environments at locations are like characters in the story. We decided on the Super 35 format, mainly using medium-long lenses. In the old days, we would have had to pump up the light in places where we were shooting. With today’s great films, we mainly augmented the practical light to create a sense of time and place and to augment moods.

MM: What cameras, lenses and films were you using?

PD: Our camera gear came from ARRI CSC in New York. We had two ARRICAMs—a Studio and a Lite—Zeiss Ultra Primes and a 12:1 Angenieux zoom lens. We were mainly shooting with [KODAK VISION3 500T] 5219 film.

Matt and I both drew on our documentary experience. I usually pushed the film a stop at night and for interior shots, and only occasionally used artificial light. We covered most scenes with one camera. The main exception was when we filmed Zooey, Paul and the baby. We wanted more coverage because we didn’t know how many good takes we’d get with the baby.

MM: What was your production schedule?

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