When Will Smith and Martin Lawrence team up, the ‘Bad Boys’ anthem reverberates in our minds. And since Bad Boys II (2003) , the world waited for the possibility of a third to round up a trilogy. It took Sony Pictures 17 years to release the third film, Bad Boys For Life , running in a theatre near you.
While Jerry Bruckheimer reprises his production duties, the sequel had a breed of new energies from supporting cast to main crew. Given Bad Boys For Life had Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi directing, they entrusted the film’s cinematography to their long-time collaborator, Robrecht Heyvaert. That said, Robrecht’s break into mainstream Hollywood lived up to the ‘go big or go home’ adage.
Robrecht’s name is no stranger to experimental cinematography, thanks to his work on the 2017 French action-thriller and gore fest Revenge and 2019 war-drama Torpedo .
The Belgian DoP tells MetroPlus over email on his approach to the action-fest.
Excerpts:
Can you describe the conversations leading up to you being roped into working on Bad Boys For Life ?
Before Bad Boys For Life , Bilall Fallah, Adil El Arbi and me had already collaborated on three feature films. Since we’re close colleagues and friends I was probably one of the first to know about their involvement on Bad Boys For Life . It goes without saying I was grateful when they offered me the position of DoP on this dream project.
This must have been about a year before the production got started. Around the same time we were shooting a music video in LA and I was invited by the legendary Jerry Bruckheimer to talk about the project. Given he is such an icon and that I am new to this game, it felt quite intimidating. I remember feeling small sitting in the lobby of his office underneath a gigantic Pirates of the Caribbean ship and a Top Gun jet engine. During the meeting, my uncertainty quickly disappeared, Bruckheimer made me feel very welcome and trusted. I felt blessed.
Still from ‘Bad Boys For Life’ with Mike Lowrey (Will Smith), Dorn (Alexander Ludwig), Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens), and Rafe (Charles Menton)
How did the exchange of ideas between you and directors Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi go? Does working with two directors enhance the process?
Adil and Bilall have some unique ways of creating and communicating. They often sing or beat-box the melody or beat they have in mind. I’m not always sure how to interpret it but I do my best to translate it to camera movement and light.
I really enjoy working with them and I think we’re a good creative trio. We joke about being the ‘Trio Ternura’ like in the 2002 Brazilian crime-drama Cidade De Deus , a film we all love and are inspired by.
Still from ‘Bad Boys’ (1995) featuring Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence)
The Bad Boys films are really special to a lot of audiences, and yet there are new energies behind the film. When you came on board, how did this team deliberate still retain the look and feel of the previous Bad Boys projects while refreshing it?
The creative team set out to continue the visual vocabulary used in the first two films. We totally embraced the lens choices, the lighting style and the camera movement. The directors brought an additional use of colour in design and light, and their feeling for rhythm and pace. Longer takes are interchanged with fast-cut editing sequences.
Did you have any early visions for the cinematography before production?
Very early in the process we knew we wanted to create our version of high-style action movies and the aesthetics one would expect from such a picture and mix it with rougher camera work. Choreographed crane-moves and hand-held camera work should go hand in hand.
Still from ‘Bad Boys For Life’ with Mike Lowrey (Will Smith)
What was the collaborative environment for such a physical film on-set like, with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence? Seeing as they're the constants in these projects, did they have a lot to bring to the table, creatively and technically?
One of the goals for this film was to have the action and the comedy go hand in hand. We didn’t want some scenes to look or feel like comedy and others like an action film. It should be a perfect blend in style and tone. This was only possible since Will and Martin are experts in all aspects of movie-making. They’re experts in lyrical, visual and physical comedy as well as action. It’s a joy to work with them and I’m convinced this joy can be felt by the audience.
Action is such an important element across all Bad Boys films. How satisfying was it working with such a large-scale stunt department for the film?
Ever since the first VHS player entered my parents’ house, I’ve watched all the making-of films I could get my hands on. I always wanted to know how the impossible was brought to the screen. So you could say I had a fair amount of special effect theory but I was lacking experience in the field.
I hadn’t worked with such a giant stunt team before but was more than happy to have the opportunity. I had a great time to be part of the choreography between SFX, stunts, acting and cinematography.
Still from ‘Bad Boys For Life’ with Mike Lowrey (Will Smith), Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens), and Rafe (Charles Menton)
As a cinematographer, what is it like when you see the final result in a single form on the screen?
On set, I see the images for the first time. During shooting, you re-watch most shots a couple of times. During post production and colour correction I see all the shots dozens of times. So by the end the process I’ve seen every frame at least 50 times. It is only once that is all done that I can sit back and watch all these separate shots as a whole, a feature film. If you add music — and preferably an audience — to that, it feels great.
A still from ‘Revenge’ (2018) featuring Jennifer (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz)
Revenge was also an intensely physical film. What about the desert environment affected your approach?
Shooting in a natural arena like a desert is a great experience for a cinematographer but it comes with certain challenges. You can make it look gracious, powerful, peaceful or hostile. Nature gives you all that. It also gives you hard sun, sandstorms, pointy rocks, unpredictable clouds and a wide range of insects and reptiles.
Working on Revenge learned us to roll with the punches and while trying to prepare and control everything you can’t beat the environment. You better make sure you’ve got the scene before the sun sets or a sandstorm kicks in.
Fun fact: sand is incredibly absorbent so if you want to create a puddle of blood in the desert you better take a couple of buckets. Also, fake blood contains a lot of gelatine, so it gets incredibly slippery if you’re running around on a floor covered with it. If you fall and hurt yourself you won’t be able to see the difference between your own blood and the fake!
(Bad Boys For Life is running in theatres across India.)
