In addition to many early California-looking scenes, many were about oil — running along the ground, gurgling in the wells or shooting high in the sky. I was curious what was used for the oil.

"Steve Cremin, the special effects guy, discovered on the movie Jarhead, where the troops were covered with oil, that there's a compound fast food restaurants use to color milkshakes. But it's an organic food product so it was environmentally friendly. It really looks like oil. Steve is an amazing special effects guy that did everything including all the work to set the oil well on fire and keep it contained."

There's a scene in the beginning of the film where Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) is digging in a deep hole to plant dynamite. How difficult was that to light and film?

"There was already a hole from a real silver mind on the property that was about 75 feet down and 100 yrs old, pretty much the way you see Daniel dig it," said Elswit. "It was done by men who used small sticks to dig it. At the bottom, someone in the '30s had created a tunnel under the same mountain that cut through the bottom of the shaft, and that's what we used as access for our crew to shoot and build scaffolding for lighting units."

Daniel Day-Lewis played the role of the hardened oil man with such aplomb he received unanimous praise and awards from critics' groups across the globe. How much of that performance rests on the shoulders of the cinematographer?

"Unless it's a romantic film where you want to light say George Clooney to look like George Clooney, none," said Elswit. "With today's movies being more realistic, it's a balancing act. But most of my movies are not about beautiful people, it's about mood, atmosphere and place and that's what you have to capture."

Elswit did a phenomenal job of making There Will Be Blood so engaging. He is now working on filming the thriller Duplicity with Julia Roberts and Clive Owens and drama The Burning Plain with Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger.