CHAYSE IRVIN - Cinematographer of “Blonde” starring Ana de Armas, “Beyonce: Lemonade”, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, Kahlil Joseph, The Weekend, Netflix, Charlotte Rampling

Music & Dance: Musicians, Composers, Singers, Dancers, Choreographers, Performers Talk Art, Creativity & The Creative Process

Chase Irvin is a Canadian American cinematographer making waves in the film industry. Chayse has received immense critical acclaim for his vision and style. He has worked on features, shorts, and visual albums, most notably in his collaboration with Director Kahlil Joseph on the film Beyoncé: Lemonade. He lensed Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which received 6 Academy Award nominations, winning for best adapted screenplay. Chayse’s first feature film Medeas won the prestigious Best Cinematography Debut at the Camerimage Film Festival in 2013. Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Chase is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. His latest films are Netflix’s Blonde starring Ana de Armas and A24’s God's Creatures starring Emily Watson.

“Beyoncé has been a musician her whole life. She's been an icon since she was 14 or 15, so young. And when we were doing Lemonade, Kahlil Joseph and I, we talked a lot about how Beyoncé must have maybe skipped this moment in our lives that most people have where we're coming up in our twenties, sort of discovering ourselves. In Lemonade, we were really trying to explore that she's coming to herself now that she has a daughter and that she's married, and she's trying to harness a family life and these themes that she was singing about in the music. We were sort of trying to consider that and how we were going to tell that story, too.

And then also legacy and family, you know, that was the reason why we shot in New Orleans. On Lemonade, we didn't do any treatment or anything. Kahlil and I met in New Orleans, and we started scouting. And through the scouting period we came up with the concept and the ideas, but the scouting's unique because we we're basically connecting with liaisons. So we're connecting with the Beyoncé family member. We're connecting with the guy that runs security for Beyoncé there in New Orleans. And it's like all of a sudden you get to an alien part of a culture that exists as an underbelly that is so hard to access because everyone's basically presenting a stereotype, typically. So then that's sort of what we were trying to get to on that. And that was actually really intuitive for Kahlil's way of working, who I consider an auteur director.

That's the thing I think is really beautiful in film is actually the harmony. It's musical. It's the cinematography, the emotions acting in harmony to one another. And that doesn't always mean that they're like perfectly matched.”

www.chayseirvin.com

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