John Mathieson, cinematographer for Gladiator II as well as many other Ridley Scott films, recently called out the 87-year-old director on his direction and filming methods, calling them “really lazy.” In an interview on The DocFix Documentary Storytelling Podcast, Mathieson expressed his frustration with Ridley Scott, specifically referring to his new approach to filming. Apparently, Scott now prefers using multiple cameras when shooting scenes to save time.

While this may sound like a smart and efficient choice, Mathieson responded by saying he “can only light from one angle.” As a result, some scenes look worse than they should since he could not light the scene correctly from every camera position. He also feels that Scott has become increasingly reliant on CG as a tool, often times using it as a crutch to fix simple filming oversights in post-production. Mathieson claims it is a desire to speed up production, saying, “He is quite impatient so he likes to get as much as he can at once. It’s not very good for cinematography.”

He said, “It’s the CG [computer graphic] elements now of tidying-up, leaving things in shot, cameras in shot, microphones in shot, bits of set hanging down, shadows from booms. And they just said [on Gladiator II], ‘Well, clean it up. Look at his older films and getting depth into things was very much part of lighting. You can’t do that with a lot of cameras, but he just wants to get it all done. Having lots of cameras, I don’t think has made the films any better…It’s a bit rush, rush, rush. That’s changed in him.”

John Mathieson has worked with Ridley Scott for over 24 years, including working on films such as Gladiator and Hannibal. Ridley is getting up there in years, but he still has multiple projects in the works. After these comments, it is unlikely that Mathieson will want to work with him again.