The cinematographer on the finished version of the film is William Fraker who's a real 'old school' genius cinematographer and his contribution is easily one of the highlights of the film, however I was wondering if he was Richard stanleys choice, or was he brought board when Frankenheimer took over?

I find it odd that Stanley would use Steven Chivers for both Hardware and Dust Devil and then go to a totally different cinematographer with a compleatly different style to Chivers for Moreau. Unless Fraker was a decision on the part of New Line and Stanley had no choice?

(This is all supposition on my part- I have no proof, but I'm taking a stab in the dark...)

I heard an interesting analogy on the commentary track for the movie "The Big Hit". The director talks about the difference between an independent movie and a studio-backed movie.

He says, directing an independent movie is like driving an old beater of a car to get somewhere. It'll probably break down and give you problems; and when they happen you'd damn well better know how to fix them. The upside is that you can take any route you wish and go at any chosen speed, and make any stops along the way whenever things run smooth.

When directing a studio-backed movie, it's like riding in a limousine. Everything runs smooth, and you are in extreme comfort. Any problems will be handled by the studio. The downside is that you want to go a certain direction or make an unscheduled stop, the driver says, "No, we have to get to (wherever) at THIS time by THIS route."

So, it could be the studio called the shots on the crew for this movie. Again, I'm just guessing, but that does seem like a possibility.

I remember reading that Dariusz Wolski was Stanley's original cinematographer of choice. Would make sense in Pineapples' context, as Wolski was already a music video veteran like Chivers and had gained feature film experience by working with directors like Alex Proyas (THE CROW) and Tony Scott (CRIMSON TIDE). He's quite a talented chappy, mind you. THE PERFECT MURDER recently aired back here and I watched it for a few extra moments solely because the lighting and camera movements made very nice eye-candy.

Another name before Fraker was John Leonetti, but I think he was Frankenheimer's personal first choice for the job, as they'd previously worked together on some HBO telefilms. It's quite possible Wolski was in Queensland with Stanley during the first days and jumped ship to another assignment when things got ugly.