Alicia Robbins
We’re very happy to have some time today with acclaimed Director of Photography Alicia Robbins; greetings and salutations, Alicia and welcome to Vents Magazine! Before we meander down the proverbial Q&A celluloid pathway, how is the freshly-minted New Year treating you and yours?
seven months to work on the show!
Well, I need you to hear my giggle at this question because 2024 has already been testing my inner strength so far! I was definitely lucky to have been working right before and after the writer’s/SAG strike, but our industry has not picked up the way I think we had all hoped it would. But, I’m happy to use this time speaking with magazines such as this one! So, in spite of the slow go of 2024, I’m well!
Oh, absolutely. I remember when I first saw Season 1 of Bridgerton, I actually told my husband, “Now that’s a show I’d love to shoot!” Everything is so big and stylized. It looks like a fairytale. I knew that I would be able to really stretch my ability to create beautiful and artistic frames on a show like that.
Major congratulations on your stellar work in the upcoming Season 3 of the wildly popular Netflix series Bridgerton which is set to premiere its first batch of new episodes on May 16, followed by the second batch on June 13! Can you talk a little about the pathway which led you to Season 3 of Bridgerton as one of its Cinematographers? I broke into the Shondaland world back in 2018 when I was asked to be the C camera operator/additional DP on the show For The People for ABC. From there, Grey’s Anatomy, Shondaland’s flagship and very first show, reached out to me and hired me to shoot a couple of their stand alone episodes for them on season 15. They liked the work I did on those episodes and asked me back full time for both Seasons 16 and 17. And since I was proving myself as a reliable and good DP, when the opportunity opened up on Bridgerton, they called me up to ask if I would be interested in shooting four of the eight episodes for season 3. Of course I was interested! So, then I was off to London for about
Did you know as soon as the opportunity arose for you to lend your creative energy to Bridgerton that this was a production you wanted to be a part of?
Tom Verica and Tricia Brock split the difference, directing-wise, with this season of Bridgerton, each tackling their respective lot of episodes. What was it like collaborating with these two wildly creative visionaries? (Note: A bit of a correction. Tricia shot the first block, then Andrew Ahndid the second block, then Bille Woodruff did the 3rd block with me, and then finally, Tom Verica did the last block with Jeff Jur, ASC as his DP. So, I worked with Tricia Brock and Bille Woodruff. But, I will tell a story about Tom, etc. But you may need to re-word the question to help accommodate my answer here). Funny thing is, Tom Verica was my very first director I got to work with when I finally shot a full day on a big TV show as the Director of Photography! This was when I was doing For The People, and my first day came up to do the double up day as the DP. Tom Verica was my director, so I knew I was in good hands. But I do think that is where