ICG Magazine - April 2022 - New Technology

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pictured: Wally Pfister, ASC

contents NEW TECHNOLOGY April 2022 / Vol. 93 No. 03

DEPARTMENTS gear guide ................ 16 on the street ................ 20 game changers ................ 22 refraction ................ 26 exposure ................ 28 production credits ................ 118 stop motion .............. 124

SPECIALS Sundance 2022 ...... 84

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FEATURE 01

HOOP DREAMS Adam McKay’s new HBO series, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, reimagines a city and sports team forever linked in glitz, glamour and glory.

FEATURE 02 THE OFFICE Severance is a wild, fun ride through corporate conspiracy land, with an experimental approach to cinematography that pays visual and narrative dividends.

FEATURE 03 TROUBLE IN MIND Guild DP’s Shawn Peters and Hilda Mercado, AMC, help visualize an American century – in one man’s head – for The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey.

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president's letter

Future, Speak…

If the past is the present but with funny clothing, what is the future? More funny clothing? Probably. But what is the future of image capture and distribution? Of course, no one knows, including me, but what is clear to us all is that the pace of change continues to accelerate. Autonomous vehicles, drone delivery services, and machines designing machines have all been part of the apocalypse that has been predicted repeatedly and has not come to pass.

When the first digital movie cameras entered the market, there were eager predictions that gear would get small, crews would shrink, and all our work would become simple and effortless.

Not exactly. But there has been tremendous change with much more to come. The long-awaited promise of virtual sets is now being realized as video walls get less expensive. How much of our current work will migrate to post-production? Will light-field image capture be the end of pulling focus? Will lighting choices be made off the set? What will new publicity campaigns look like as they become more and more reliant on the newest social media platforms that keep surfacing?

Whatever happens, even the newest methods and technologies will require skilled craftspeople to guide and refine the process, and our Local continues to train members who are eager to be at the forefront of any and all technological change. They welcome the challenges ahead that will enable them to tell stories with images, and that is the one constant – past, present, and future.

We don’t know exactly what it will look like, but we will make sure we are there.

John Lindley, ASC National President International Cinematographers Guild IATSE Local 600

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A Lens for Every Shot.

ZEISS Supreme Prime Lenses

Introducing the ZEISS Supreme Prime 15mm Lens With 14 focal lengths from 15 mm to 200 mm, the ZEISS Supreme Prime lenses unite coverage up to Full Frame and beyond with a high speed aperture in a small, lightweight lens. Their look is characterized by a gentle sharpness and a very smooth transition between the in-focus and out-of-focus areas. The Supreme Primes give the creator absolute control over the image by revealing subtle nuanced details in deep shadows and bright highlights.

For more information: www.zeiss.com/supremeprime

Publisher Teresa Muñoz Executive Editor David Geffner Art Director Wes Driver

STAFF WRITER Pauline Rogers

COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR

Tyler Bourdeau

COPY EDITORS

Peter Bonilla Maureen Kingsley

CONTRIBUTORS Michael Chambliss Kevin Martin Dale Robinette Frank Schaefer Ben Semanoff, SOC Valentina Valentini

ACCOUNTING Mark Rubinfield Dominique Gallal

COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE

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April 2022 vol. 93 no. 03

Local

600

International Cinematographers Guild

IATSE Local 600 NATIONAL PRESIDENT John Lindley, ASC VICE PRESIDENT Dejan Georgevich, ASC 1ST NATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT Christy Fiers 2ND NATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT Baird Steptoe NATIONAL SECRETARY-TREASURER Stephen Wong NATIONAL ASSISTANT SECRETARY-TREASURER Jamie Silverstein NATIONAL SERGEANT-AT-ARMS Deborah Lipman NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Rebecca Rhine ASSOCIATE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Chaim Kantor

ADVERTISING POLICY: Readers should not assume that any products or services advertised in International Cinematographers Guild Magazine are endorsed by the International Cinematographers Guild. Although the Editorial staff adheres to standard industry practices in requiring advertisers to be “truthful and forthright,” there has been no extensive screening process by either International Cinematographers Guild Magazine or the International Cinematographers Guild.

EDITORIAL POLICY: The International Cinematographers Guild neither implicitly nor explicitly endorses opinions or political statements expressed in International Cinematographers Guild Magazine. ICG Magazine considers unsolicited material via email only, provided all submissions are within current Contributor Guideline standards. All published material is subject to editing for length, style and content, with inclusion at the discretion of the Executive Editor and Art Director.

Local 600, International Cinematographers Guild, retains all ancillary and expressed rights of content and photos published in ICG Magazine and icgmagazine.com, subject to any negotiated prior arrangement. ICG Magazine regrets that it cannot publish letters to the editor.

ICG (ISSN 1527-6007) Ten issues published annually by The International Cinematographers Guild 7755 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, CA, 90046, U.S.A. Periodical postage paid at Los Angeles, California.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ICG 7755 Sunset Boulevard Hollywood, California 90046 Copyright 2021, by Local 600, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States and Canada. Entered as Periodical matter, September 30, 1930, at the Post Office at Los Angeles, California, under the act of March 3, 1879. Subscriptions: $88.00 of each International Cinematographers Guild member’s annual dues is allocated for an annual subscription to International Cinematographers Guild Magazine.

Non-members may purchase an annual subscription for $48.00 (U.S.), $82.00 (Foreign and Canada) surface mail and $117.00 air mail per year. Single Copy: $4.95 The International Cinematographers Guild Magazine has been published monthly since 1929.

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CONTRIBUTORS

O

ur April issue is typically themed around “New Technology” to align with the industry’s largest trade show, NAB, in Las Vegas (returning as an inperson gathering in 2022). Of course, if you say the words “new technology” on the NAB Show floor, you’re likely to see every possible iteration of the latest digital tools storytellers are racing to keep pace with. But what if those words were flipped around? As in using (all kinds of) technology to tell stories in a new way?

That was certainly the prevailing ethos from the filmmakers behind HBO’s new 10-episode series, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (page 32), which, to my mind, is one of the most successful examples of technology serving narrative this magazine has ever covered.

Not that it started that way.

When I first approached Winning Time’s pilot director of photography, Todd Banhazl, about doing a story for April, I was skeptical about how a 1980s period piece about my iconic hometown ballers (full disclosure: lifelong Lakers fan whose family had season tickets to the Forum and Staples Center) would sync-up with this issue’s main theme. Todd’s response was, “Dude, it absolutely does! You should have seen what our First AC, Dave Edsall, had to do to get a 1979 Ikegami broadcast camera dialed-in for a modern cinema workflow. Or what our [Chief Lighting Technician] Josh Hensley did to replicate metal halide lighting [for the Forum’s famous center court]. Or what [Production Designer] Rich Toyon and [VFX Supervisor] John Heller went through for us to shoot a full-scale model section of the Forum’s exterior. It was crazy!”

Crazy, indeed, and that was before Banhazl and co-series DP Mihai Mălaimare Jr. even told me about the RED KOMODO they used on set as a reference camera (loaded with various show LUT’s they created with Company 3 Senior Colorist Walter Volpatto) to lock in some of the insane color treatments the “Showtime” period required. I want to say Hensley’s Local 728 electric team deserves some kind of special Emmy for the lengths they went (with modern LED technology) to reproduce some of the nastiest (i.e., traditionally ugly) mixed vapor/halide and fluorescent fixtures ever seen on TV. Case in point: Episode 6, when Paul

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Westhead (Jason Segel), in the Forum parking lot before coaching his first game, is bathed under green light so scary, Hensley says it was not even reproducible in the spectrum of traditional cinema lighting.

And then there’s C-Camera Operator/2nd Unit DP Justin Cameron, SOC, whose narrative understanding of the vintage formats used in the show – 8mm and the Ikegami – often became the go-to close-up in, wait for it, dramatic narrative scenes. That’s right: 8mm and period broadcast camera footage that began as mostly filler in the pilot (to recreate news conferences and flashback inserts) was, according to Showrunner/Writer/CoCreator Max Borenstein, “more than likely the stuff we ended up grabbing in the editing room because it was just on point with the emotions so many of the narrative scenes were trying to convey.”

Oh, yeah – did I forget to mention this entire series was shot on film? All different flavors of 35mm, 16mm and 8mm, including Tri-X black-and-white stock.

Banhazl laughs when he says, “We printed so much 8mm, the folks at Pro8mm (in Burbank, CA) were like: ‘You guys know most people don’t run off thousands and thousands of feet of this, right?”

Didn’t matter.

Borenstein waxes poetic about how Banhazl and Mălaimare Jr. were “full creative partners” in the look of this show. During our Exposure conversation (page 28), he said, “I told [Banhazl and Mălaimare Jr.] and every other head of department that if they had an idea or something felt right on the set/location, just go for it! I’ll protect you in the edit if you went too far.” Borenstein, who has written all of the Godzilla/Kong franchise features, says he’s never had a filmmaking experience like Winning Time. “Everyone was like: ‘This is the most creatively fulfilling – and hardest – show I’ve ever done.”

Hey, “new technology,” are you listening?

When an entire union crafts team is encouraged to use filmmaking tools (film, digital, new, old, whatever) completely at the behest of what will best tell the story, and where the creative brain trust puts no ceiling or boundaries on each production team’s creative intuition, then that’s a slam dunk on any court.

I mean, we all know how that 1979-80 Lakers team finished up, right?

Ben Semanoff, SOC On the Street “One of my favorite parts of filmmaking is the problem-solving that’s required to happen on set and in the moment. Too often we get stymied with ‘Well, that’s just the way it’s always been done’ and fail to see a new and possibly better solution staring us in the face.

It’s those moments, where we take off the blinders and discover something special, that really excite me!”

Frank Schaefer Refraction “Photographing Buzz Hays for this month’s ICG Magazine is a great example of why, even after 30 years in Local 600, it can be fun. From an email on Thursday to hanging out in Hollywood with Buzz on Wednesday, we chatted about movies, 3D photography, and living in L.A. like old amigos, even though we had never met before. I even managed to stop gossiping long enough to do a portrait of Buzz.”

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David Geffner Executive Editor

Email: david@icgmagazine.com

Cover photo by Warrick Page

F I L M

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Sony Spatial Reality Display $4,999 WWW.SONY.COM

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NEW TECHNOLOGY

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GEAR GUIDE

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Ikegami UHL-F4000 $110,000 WWW.IKEGAMI.COM

The UHL-F4000 is a compact and lightweight UHD HDR camera with low power consumption from longtime broadcast leader Ikegami. Designed for use in applications such as aerial video capture and studio robotics, its high-sensitivity sensors capture broadcast-quality color video across a wide range of night or day conditions. The camera head uses three DMOS global shutter sensors capturing natural images completely clear of geometric distortion and flash band effects. Features include haze reduction, image sharpening, vertical image reversal, and HD-from-UHD segment selection. A 40-Gbps duplex optical fiber connection communicates between the camera head and CCU, which can be positioned six miles apart. The optical fiber can be integrated into one bidirectional core via an optical circulator and passed through a single-core optical rotary joint used for a small gimbal. 12-volt DC power is the only other required connection to the camera head, and other signals include genlock and remote-control interface to the CCU. The compact CCU simultaneously outputs HDRcompatible UHD and HD video. Video processing is performed on Ikegami’s AXII engine, which supports a variety of imaging styles.

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Brainstorm’s real-time 3D graphics and virtual production studio solutions have just released a major upgrade to their flagship products: InfinitySet, Aston and eStudio. Brainstorm Suite 5 includes enhanced features designed to improve XR content creation and workflows while adding tighter integration with Unreal Engine. Brainstorm’s new features allow for easier, faster, and more integrated creation of immersive XR content, taking advantage of camera tracking information coming from a multitude of tracking devices and cameras. Brainstorm clients will see their XR content creation significantly accelerated when creating in-context AR in LED walls, XR set extension, or even backgrounds for film and drama production. This is coupled with the UnrealControl feature, which supports editing the Unreal projects directly within InfinitySet’s interface with control of blueprints, objects and parameters. Suite 5 also features a new, redesigned internal chroma keyer that includes a new mode that embeds the Unreal Engine Chroma keyer directly into InfinitySet. Brainstorm Suite 5 is fully compatible with Unreal Engine 4.27 and will be with UE 5. Other features include improved HDR workflows and better integration with robotic heads from manufacturers such as Panasonic or Sony.

NEW TECHNOLOGY

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ON THE STREET

Common Bottoms BEN SEMANOFF, SOC PHOTO FROM ONE OF US IS LYING COURTESY OF BEN SEMANOFF/ PEACOCK

Reconciling aesthetic rules against vanity can be difficult. I find that when I look back at the shows I’ve worked on, my favorites have self-imposed rules that are integral to their look and feel. One of my favorite

work. And since this isn’t how we perceive the world, it can present an obstacle to immersion.

One problem is that the “flat to the world” approach often means your camera is below the

rules, popularized on House of Cards and that I first experienced as an operator on The Night Of, is the rule of zero-degree tilt. Sometimes it’s referred to as “flat to the world.” I’ve gone on to implement this with great success on shows like The Outsider and Ozark, and I continue, when possible, to make this a cornerstone of composition in my recent transition from operating to directing.

But why even worry about being “flat to the world”?

I believe our goal as filmmakers is to lull the audience into a hypnotic state of full immersion.

actor’s eye level, which doesn’t always lend itself to making your actors look their best. And let’s be honest – actors want to look their best! (Everyone wants to look their best. How many times have you been asked to take an iPhone photo and were given instructions on how to maximize the frame?) So, how can we have our cake and eat it too? This was a debate I had not long ago with a cinematographer.

He would say, “Can you help me out and raise the camera a bit?” which is code for: “I need the camera higher to achieve a more complimentary angle on the actor.” And I would respond: “Sorry. Our show

We want them engrossed in the world we’re helping to create. Of course, in reality, when we look up or down, our brains correct for the keystone effect that this perspective creates – but when we use cameras and lenses to convert our world into two-dimensional images, we are baking this keystone effect into our

shoots zero tilt. Not very helpful, I know.” And this arm-wrestle occurred on a near-daily basis. Until one day a lightbulb went on. It’s amazing how tunnel vision can set in, and we fail to see the obvious solution.

Before I share the lightbulb moment, let’s back up a bit, technically speaking. In the above example,

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we were shooting Sony VENICE at 5.7 or 6K (can’t remember) with a 2.2:1 aspect ratio. The Sony VENICE, as many will know, is native 16:9, so we weren’t using the entire frame (the lightbulb may be starting to go on now for many of you). And it was one particular day when the DP and I were having this friendly debate on camera height – again – that the lightbulb went on for me! I turned and said: “Why don’t we just shift our extraction down, and boom the camera up?” And so was born an unbelievably useful technique.

Let me elaborate.

Let’s say we put a camera on a dolly, set the head so that the camera is tilted neither up nor down. We place an actor in front of the camera, and we boom the camera up until the actor is framed nicely in our composition. If it’s a camera with a native 4:3 sensor or 16:9 sensor and is framing for a wider aspect ratio (2:1 or 2.4:1), then the monitor will show quite a bit of space above the frame lines that is likely being recorded but trashed in post, as well as the same below the frame lines.

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Now, imagine we make new frame lines, where we use the bottom of the recorded image as the bottom frame line. This would then shift the top frame-line down an equal amount. But wait, now our top frame line is cutting through the actor’s face!

Easy fix, right? And don’t forget, we want to keep the camera “flat to the world.” So, what to do? We boom up! And as the camera booms up the parallax changes. This means we are reaching that more complimentary height on the actor while keeping the tilt at zero degrees!

Of course, for this discovery to be implemented, we had to somehow communicate it to post so that dailies looked as intended. Thus, we started referring to the standard extraction as “center extraction,” which simply meant we were using the centermost portion of the frame, with an equal amount of unused (but recorded) frame above and below our frame lines. When we would shift this extraction to the bottom, we called it “common bottom,” and, of course, the inverse would be “common top” (a familiar term from the days when we would try to frame for both 16:9 and 4:3 delivery simultaneously).

What exactly does this approach achieve?

It changes the parallax relationship between the camera and the actor. Extracting the lower section of the frame means you need the camera to be higher than usual, and you achieve both of your goals – keep the camera “flat to the world” and help actors look their best. But it also opens up advantages across the board.

Let’s say you are using the Lambda head over a table and want to be just a bit lower – shift your extraction. Or if you are in a car, and you can’t get the camera any higher – shift your extraction! The possibilities are endless. (On the show mentioned, we began shifting our extraction on almost a shotby-shot basis.)

What’s also very interesting is that the technique allows for a new way to manipulate the relationships

in your compositions. If you didn’t love the way two objects at different distances from the camera are interacting in the frame, you can change it. Here’s a great example: you line up a shot of someone sitting at a table. They have a gun that they are holding in their lap, but the shot (which, for this example, is “flat to the world” and uses center extraction) doesn’t see the gun. So, you discuss with the director whether or not the audience needs to see the gun, and it turns out the director wants to feel the gun. You could boom up and tilt down, but that implies a different perspective. Alternatively, you could boom up and frame for common bottom, and voila! We see the gun.

It’s been almost three years since I started implementing this technique, during which time I’ve transitioned fully from operator to director. In fact, 2021 was the first year in two decades where I didn’t operate a camera. In the past year, I’ve gotten to work with some incredible Guild operators and to see how this and other techniques I’ve learned or developed (as both an operator and director) can help operators deliver more useful content.

I’ve always had a unique approach as an operator, one that Ozark star/EP/director Jason Bateman would tease me about. To me, the best shots are those that require little to no operating.

And when I say “little to no operating,” I mean it.

Bateman would find me watching at video village and laugh. We started calling shots “one-pocket” or “two-pocket” shots. The best shots were the ones where I had both hands in my pockets!

As a director, I encourage my operators to embrace this technique. Manipulate the variables that you can control within the shot first (actor marks, props, set dressing, etc.) before you unlock that head and pan or tilt during the shot. Admittedly, this is a tough habit to break, as operators want to operate. However, as I said at the beginning, my goal is to achieve full immersion. And when you operate camera (pan, tilt or roll) you draw

attention to the fact that there is a human behind a camera controlling what the audience is seeing.

Quite honestly, the ideal operator understands that the majority of his or her work is done before the camera rolls to make themselves disappear.

How does this all relate to “common bottom?”

It has to do with the nature of the discovery of shifting extractions. It has to do with understanding filmmaking beyond your role as an operator to improve the usefulness of the footage you’re helping to collect. The examples are endless but let me share one I call “the little boom.”

In this scenario, you’re over the shoulder of an actor onto another actor. In the scene, the actor leaves the frame and is replaced by another actor who is a little taller. There are three options: tilt-up (which doesn’t align with my general aesthetic), boom up slightly (more in keeping with my taste, but when exactly does the boom happen? I would argue that it will never happen at the perfect time because it’s difficult to know what the right time will be for the edit), or simply do nothing – assuming there is a bit of frame above and below our frame-lines that is being recorded and trashed, and assuming that when the second actor assumes the mark, their headroom is held nicely in the over-scan. In that case, I often ask operators and dolly grips to do nothing. This is because the boom up, which is minor, can be executed in post with ease and at the right moment. You might not even see the boom occur at all because the editor has simply adjusted the headroom between cuts. The alternative is having to use a performance where the boom happened at the worst time.

As operators, I believe we should all think more, operate less, and work closely with our DP’s and directors to take advantage of these and other opportunities that may be right in front of our eyes.

Or as is often heard on a film set: “Work smarter, not harder!”

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GAME CHANGERS

AI-Assisted Look Management

BY MICHAEL CHAMBLISS SCREENGRABS COURTESY OF DADO VALENTIC

“Color is like a musical note,” describes color scientist Dado Valentic. “If you give a musical note to six different people, they’re going to interpret it six different ways.

What color management needs is something akin to what MIDI does for music, a way of communicating creative choices that not only identifies the note but how it should be played.”

That concept is at the core of Colourlab Ai 2.0, an artificial-intelligence (AI based software application now in public beta that Dado developed to help cinematographers, DIT’s, and colorists explore and communicate creative color choices.

The potential for AI-based tools to help overcome time, budget and communications roadblocks in set-topostproduction color pipelines was the subject of Local 600’s recent panel at the Hollywood Production Alliance Technical Retreat (see sidebar), an annual gathering of artists, production executives, technologists and technology companies focused on new technologies that are shaping our industry. Director of Photography Lawrence Sher, ASC; DIT Dane Brehm; and Senior Colorist Mark Todd Osborne joined Dado on the panel.

With more than 60 feature-film credits as a colorist, as well as developing the color science behind Marco Polo Season 2 (Netflix’s first HDR production), Exodus, Game of Thrones, and Total Recall, Dado says that the creativity of color will never be replaced by an AI. During the HPA panel, Todd Osborne noted that “color is both technical and creative. We can spend almost half of our time doing the somewhat mechanical work of achieving a good base grade. The more efficiently we can achieve that, the more time we can dedicate to the

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creative work.” Sher added that the saying about cinematographers’ “rising and falling on their dailies” has been true since film labs first started offering overnight printing and that however the dailies look tends to be what everyone grows to love and expect during the editorial process. That often makes it challenging to have major changes approved in final finishing. DIT Brehm described how dailies quality becomes even more critical in cloud-based workflows, where the image is almost instantly distributed to all of the production’s stakeholders as well as to jump-start any VFX. Adobe Research first started showing their work on AI for color adjustment in 2018. While the process worked well for still images, it fell short on motion sequences. Dado notes that “no existing AI model understood the cinema graphic language, so we had to build a neural network that was trained to recognize cinematic language from a Director of Photography’s perspective. To begin building the AI, we separated the work into three different steps: analyze light, analyze movement, and then perform a match using primary color correction. We developed a list of eighteen parameters that included things like composition, contrast, interior/exterior, close or wide, warm/cold, and color saturation.” The first attempts at dealing with motion quickly revealed that thinking of motion as a series of still frames would not work. “What’s important isn’t the subject itself,” says Dado, “it’s the relative changes within the frame.”

Dado also faced the challenge of describing all

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0 2/0 3 . 2 0 2 2

of this in a data package that an AI can efficiently understand. “Motion analysis in particular results in a fairly large data set that would require considerable computing resources,” he continues. “We had to do something about that to have a truly useful tool. Shazam is an application that can recognize almost any song, movie, advertisement or TV show in seconds. I was talking to their developers about how they approach the problem of getting data down to a reasonable size and realized that the problem we were facing was not all that different from condensing sound information. This led us to devise a technique that describes the motion within a shot in a relatively small vector file.”

The third step is to perform a base grade match.

“Different shots within the same scene will require a slightly different base grade,” explained Todd Osborne during the HPA panel. “The first thing a colorist does is group the different kinds of shots in a scene together and then decide how to grade each group so the scene will look cohesive when cut together. Once we’ve established this baseline, we can start doing the fine-tuning and work on challenging picture areas using tools like power windows (corrections applied to limited parts of the image).”

Dado designed Colourlab Ai to work in the same way. “We begin with a reference image, which can be brought in from almost any source and modified to whatever degree might be desired using the color-adjusting tools within the software. That is distilled into a ‘fingerprint’ of the desired look that the AI then dynamically applies according to parameters defined by things like light, composition and motion to the rest of the shots in the sequence,” he explained to the HPA audience.

“We call this process of grouping shots according to similarity and then adjusting them to visually match each other ‘timeline intelligence,’” he continued. “The output is an ASC-CDL [a standard way of exchanging basic primary color grading information developed by the ASC’s Motion Imaging Technology Council]. That limits the matching engine a bit but is human-friendly and facilitates reviewing the software’s decisions and perfecting the results. The concept of ‘fingerprinting’ a look is very powerful. LUT’s [look-up tables] are static and specific to a camera, monitor or exposure. The ‘fingerprint’ captures the DNA of a particular look so it can be applied across a series of shots, even if the shots originate from different sources and have different lighting directions and are exposed differently.”

While Colourlab Ai is already being used in a number of postproduction facilities, the ability to generate then apply the “fingerprint” across different sources from a reference frame is also at the core of its potential for on-set use such as the application of reference images from a “look book,“ look development and communications,

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matching reference scenes, experimenting with and communicating changes to dailies, the application of show LUT’s, and quickly matching cameras in traditional or live workflows. “We imagine developing ‘fingerprinting’ into a type of super-LUT that can be passed from the set to Editorial, Postproduction, and VFX to automatically distribute the base grade,” Dado added.

A “look book” or collection of reference images is used by directors of photography, directors, designers and anyone else in the conversation about a project’s visual treatment. Sher, who was nominated for an Oscar for the 2019 hit Joker [ICG Magazine October 2019], has been the guiding force behind the creation of ShotDeck, a growing web-database of more than 260,000 images from almost 1,900 different films. As valuable as these reference images are to the creative process, matching the looks has required the manual adjustment of production footage to the reference frame. The AI automates this work, generating a “fingerprint” of reference frame, which is then directly applied to the production footage or refined using traditional primary color-correction controls, film-style controls, or a “color creator” interface that is built for less technical users.

“The AI enables me to import reference frames and quickly click through different looks,” Sher described during the HPA panel. Todd Osborne added that being able to apply a look does not mean that an image is automatically going to match.

“I have clients who ask if I can match the look of a film like Saving Private Ryan,” he offered. “I tell them sure, if they light it like Saving Private Ryan and use the same cameras and glass.” For a DIT, having a searchable database of looks from outside sources and the production’s dailies isn’t new. But having one that can quickly apply those looks to new work with minimal adjustment is a time saver that speeds up communications with the director of photography, Editorial, and Postproduction.

The AI’s ability to port the look between different kinds of cameras also has potential. “I can easily handle two or three cameras on set with no problems,” Brehm remarked. “But the AI can help when there are a large number of different kinds of cameras or when different cameras are tossed into the mix at the last moment. There is also a lot of potential for using this AI along with LiveGrade for live productions. Last-minute changes in live environments become stressful, and every second counts.” Having more efficient control isn’t just a technical issue for Brehm. “Saving time reduces stress and leads to more time for rest. That’s good for your health.”

And, of course, the clock always ticks loudly on set. Sher spoke of that moment when things are “close enough,” so they “go” when maybe just another small adjustment will bring things closer to perfection. Gaining a moment through the use of

AI might help that extra moment happen. He also spoke of seeing dailies and sometimes wishing that there was a way to experiment just a bit more with the look of a scene. “Fingerprinting” and “intelligent timelines” can facilitate that and ripple the adjustment to Editorial and Postproduction.

Even in a beta V 2.0 form, AI on set promises to have a creative impact.

PHOTO COURTESY OF HPA

GAME CHANGERS

HPA Technical Retreat 2022 Local 600 presented its first panel at the HPA Technical Retreat in 2012 on the importance of high-quality on-set monitoring. The HPA was the Hollywood Postproduction Alliance then, and having a presentation from the International Cinematographers Guild was an interesting twist.

The HPA is now the Hollywood Production Alliance, and ICG directors of photography and DIT’s (and sometimes even drone pilots) are becoming increasingly active participants in the dialogue about where our industry is headed next. Besides Local 600’s panel, this year’s presentations included ICG Directors of Photography Craig Kief, ASC; Mark Weingartner; Stephen Lighthill, ASC; Steven Shaw, ASC; Bill Bennett, ASC and Dylan Sanford speaking on topics ranging from the creative impact of using Super 35mm cameras and traditional narrative camera crews on sports and live productions to who owns the image in virtual production and the ASC’s Standard Evaluation Materials II. Other presentations included topics like ARRI’s new log color space for HDR and RF best practices.

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REFRACTION

Buzz Hays GLOBAL LEAD, ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY, GOOGLE

BY PAULINE ROGERS PHOTO BY FRANK SCHAEFER

We’ve seen a tremendous amount of transformation in the tools and techniques used in our industry in the past few years, and there seems to be no end to the invention of new ways to capture, manipulate and display these images. Today we have new challenges that have been revealed as a result of moving to file-based workflows. One prime example is specific to the security of media assets from the moment they leave the camera until they land in a studio archive – a problem worthy of

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serious consideration.

I remember the first time I saw a professional digital cinema camera with a live feed over WiFi to an iPad. I thought: “Wow, that’s amazing!” and then I thought: “What would happen if people tapped into the WiFi network and saw this? Is that secure?”

Sometimes good ideas can be ahead of their time.

Fairly quickly, studios came up with policies and lock-down hardware to address this particular security issue. But there are many, many more

security issues to solve.

Today, I focus on media and entertainment workflows in the cloud. In the work I do at Google, where I’m responsible for cloud-based solutions related to media production, post-production, and archiving, I talk with many film professionals about where they see technology going, and the most common concerns fall into two categories. Firstly, there is a desire for better collaboration tools and a need for better security. Remote work is now

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a way of life, but we still need to feel connected.

It’s possible for a DP to sit in on review sessions remotely from pretty much anywhere in the world – with a decent internet connection and a calibrated monitor. It’s also entirely possible for a DIT to work remotely if that makes sense for the crew. But it’s not the same as sitting in a room making decisions.

Collaboration needs to be reevaluated to make sure that the crews have who and what they need, when they need it, even if they’re spread across the globe.

Regarding the security of media assets, there is still work to be done to get to a “zero trust” or “least privileged” state of security with media on set, and someone needs to own that role of securing the content as it comes from the camera. If you’re not familiar with the terms “zero trust” and “least privileged,” they essentially mean that every asset, every hardware device, every software platform, and every person who works with media is granted permission to use the asset. Assets are encrypted at rest. If a media file is left on a hard drive that gets lost, using this level of security ensures that the files are useless without the decryption/access keys (in many ways similar to how digital cinema packages [DCPs] are encrypted and decrypted).

Today, most media security is perimeter security – the media is physically locked in a building, and although there may be biometrics or other securitykey methods to access the media, the media is left unprotected, and the software applications used to manipulate these images remain unsecured. This is an area where I spend a considerable amount of time with our internal security teams to leverage zero-trust principles throughout media workflows and supply chains. Not the most exciting part of our business, but undeniably important and worthy of figuring out.

One way to get the zero-trust security process started is to follow the life of a media asset from the time it’s born until it gets stored away in an underground vault. In production, where light and shadow are converted into ones and zeroes, DIT’s have traditionally built their video village rigs that satisfy their particular needs for control, calibration, playback, and storage of camera files. However, a level of standardization is required to get to a truly secure environment for the content. Studios have started to bring in chief information security officers (CISO’s) at the executive level, and with the work

being done in security by MovieLabs [ICG Magazine April 2021], there will be new policies, procedures, and technologies to provide media security without compromising the workflow in any way. I once heard a post-production professional refer to safeguarding media as “security versus productivity,” and that should never be the case.

There are many facets to building a secure media infrastructure, and it’s important to know who is responsible for security throughout a production.

Perhaps the security of the camera files belongs to the camera crew until production wraps? It’s not a far-fetched notion since camera crews have been protecting exposed negatives since the dawn of film. I can foresee a time, very soon, where industryaccepted, approved, and audited security tools are part of the camera-to-DIT-cart workflows – security must be thought of holistically so that assets are secure wherever they land within the process, all the way through to the studio archive.

One of the fundamental changes I noticed when we moved from sprockets to pixels was where the content lives during production and post-production.

With film, it was easy to know where all of the elements were located. Workprints were either in the editing room or in a screening room. Negatives were in a vault at the lab. With digital workflows, it’s far more complex as there is no longer a single source of truth. There are copies of copies of copies of the media files transferred and stored all over the place, with literally no ability to know where and how many copies are out there. This has caused a fundamental shift in how we handle media throughout post-production.

We are seeing a growing number of productions using cloud-based “virtual studios.” These do bring us closer to knowing where the elements are, much like in the days of film-based production, since a virtual studio is based on the notion of a single source of truth for all of the media assets.

The people and the applications are brought to the assets rather than the other way around. In a sense, we can liken this approach to a film negative.

There’s only one camera-original negative. Not only is it secure, it’s a whole lot easier when you know you’re working with the correct version of any given media asset.

Looking at new technologies, there is the proliferation of “virtual production” stages with large

LED walls. This journey began at the dawn of cinema with in-camera effects captured through the lens in comedies from the silent era; from there we moved to matte paintings and photochemical compositing, and then to green screen and extensive postproduction with computer graphics-based visual effects. Now we’ve come full circle back to incamera effects.

We’re close to a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) approach to cinematography. We’re no longer left with a massive green void to fill in with set extensions and visual effects months after production has wrapped. It’s an exciting time that has flipped the model of production followed by post-production to a more blended approach. The ability to previsualize lighting and composition is still maturing; however, we can now see further into the future of what a given production will look like by using these tools before the actual cameras roll.

I’m also quite interested in how technology can help us in sorting through the mountains of digital data we capture and create. Shooting ratios are at an all-time high due to the nature of file-based workflows. There is so much content being shot, that it can be challenging to watch all the dailies to find the exact moments you’re looking for. Editors have a deep understanding of the choices they’re given, but they can’t annotate all of it. We are a creative bunch, and we think differently when it comes to how we describe a take, a moment, or a frame. I’m excited about this kind of problem-solving, which will allow people to find things the way they think about them or describe them in their own words. In tech-speak: the idea is to treat media files as “unstructured data,” where we can find what we’re looking for without having to label it first. Imagine finding what you’re looking for when you need it. That’s incredibly powerful.

In my experience, the best technologies have come to fruition to solve a particular creative problem. We can now make decisions and manipulate images almost as fast as we can imagine it. But we sometimes forget that technology should be in service of the creative endeavor and not the other way around. As I learned early in my career, it’s the painter and not the paintbrush. If the tools can help keep the creative spark alive, they’re headed in the right direction. I think that’s worth thinking about as we continue to invent the future.

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EXPOSURE

Max Borenstein SHOWRUNNER/WRITER/CO-CREATOR WINNING TIME: THE RISE OF THE LAKERS DYNASTY

BY DAVID GEFFNER PHOTO COURTESY OF MAX BORENSTEIN

Max Borenstein, Showrunner/Writer/Co-Creator of HBO Max’s new Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (page 32), was born the year after L.A.’s most popular sports franchise won the championship (1979/80), giving birth to the “Showtime” era. So how did he guide a TV series through a deep socioeconomic dive of a time and place that not only influenced West Coast culture but changed sports as entertainment?

Borenstein, best known for his work as a writer on the Godzilla/Kong franchise, says it’s all about the details.

Whether it’s Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly in full salesman mode) lunching with legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach (a cigar-waving Michael Chiklis) at Barone’s, a classic 80s L.A. restaurant, or a young Phil Knight (Olli Haaskivi) cajoling Magic Johnson – at a sneaker convention – to sign a deal with his fledgling shoe company, Nike, the showrunner’s efforts at worldbuilding are as immersive as TV gets.

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EXPOSURE

And he empowers every department head and their team to emulate his passion. Borenstein describes Winning Time’s pilot DP, Todd Banhazl, as a “full collaborator, without whom the show would be something else entirely.” He lauds coseries DP, Mihai Mălaimare Jr., as a “kid in a candy store” when it came to using vintage formats like the Ikegami broadcast camera seen throughout the show, and credits C-Camera Operator/2nd Unit DP Justin Cameron, SOC, for providing the go-to moments in the editing room that the 35mm main coverage missed. Winning Time’s exuberant, try-anything-once approach may have been kicked off by pilot Director/Executive Producer Adam McKay [ICG Magazine December 2021], but it’s Borenstein who led the ship into uncharted waters, helping to find so many sunken cinema treasures along the way.

ICG Magazine: Most of your experience before Winning Time has been with the Godzilla/Kong franchise. How did that come about? Max Borenstein: Way back in 2007/2008, I wrote a movie called What is Life Worth about Ken Feinberg, who was the Special Master of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. It was a realistic drama based on a true story, and although it didn’t get made until just two years ago for Netflix, it did get me other jobs in Hollywood. One of them was writing a biopic script about Jimi Hendrix for Legendary Pictures, who wanted to develop a new version of Godzilla.

Honestly, I didn’t know the franchise very well – just the basics, which I thought were kitschy. But then I dove into the original film and got a better sense of what the franchise had originally been and how it had evolved. I started working with [Godzilla director] Gareth Edwards and stayed involved as [the franchise] expanded into the King Kong world.

The whole experience has been amazing.

We had Kong: Skull Island [ICG Magazine May 2018] as our cover story, and the DP, Larry Fong, ASC, used a lot of modern tools to get a vintage 1970s look. Did any of that translate to Winning Time, which used a similar approach?

The inspiration for Skull Island was Apocalypse Now, which, initially, was not supposed to be set during wartime, but I wanted that Heart of Darkness type story, and [director] Jordan Vogt-Roberts leaned heavily into the 70s theme. I’ve always been fascinated with time and place and being very specific with the details. And that goes for fantasy as well. I want to see, feel and understand those lived-in nuances of a specific world we’re

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building. That’s extended into Winning Time. As the showrunner, one of the things I’m most excited about – in the realization on set as well as the writing – is detail. That can be turns-of-phrase, clothing, objects, restaurants, businesses. Not just for the sake of having them in there as Easter eggs, but you get drama out of those details. Going to a Sizzler buffet instantly throws us into the 1980s. So instead of just having two people talking at a table, those characters are now at the Sizzler sneezeguard, and we’re inside that time and place.

Having talked to many of your creative heads on Winning Time, that sounds like an ethos that rippled down through the show. Absolutely.

Our production designer, Rich Toyon; costume designer, Emma Potter; and obviously our DP’s, Todd [Banhazl] and Mihai [Mălaimare Jr.]; are kindred spirits who love creating that sense of texture. And it is that texture – at every level, but particularly visually and editorially – that is the trademark of this show. What Todd brought to this series is unique. I would say we are 100 percent on the same page, creatively. He understands that it’s not just a show about flash and basketball.

It’s got many, many layers about what comprised this transformative moment in America – socioeconomic layers, racial differences, gender specificity, cultural nuances, and for the cameras to have this almost Rauschenberg-like assembly feel, as you would in a documentary. And that’s the way the script is written. Sometimes people are talking to camera, sometimes there’s an animated segment, sometimes it’s a very lived-in dramatic scene where there is no discernible breaking of the fourth wall or bold style. All of that mixed together creates the sense that there’s this found time capsule, and we, as the show creatives, have assembled something artistic from found elements. That’s what Todd, so brilliantly, brought aesthetically to the series.

I was surprised to hear that these many looks were scripted – it does feel like a doc the editors found in post. Yes, they were all scripted, but within that, we encourage everyone to add their creative sauce. Not only the actors with improvisation, but [C-Camera Operator/2nd Unit DP] Justin [Cameron, SOC], who’s not just a brilliant operator but a joy to work with. Like Todd and Mihai, his general vibe on set is: “Yes to everything!” Not like, “I need to make sure I get footage for this note I was given.” More like if I come over to them and ask: “Hey, we know Jerry West is haunted by past career failures. How

can that be better conveyed by camera?” They’d frame something up with his jersey, or trophy, or whatever is best motivated by story.

How did your editors embrace – or enhance – this rapid, multi-element style from the script? Hank Korwin edited the pilot. Hank’s style not only helped form the template [for the series], with the layering of all of these multiple source elements that are in Hank’s DNA, but it also helped to imprint the writing process on down the line. We had all these great editors throughout the show who were learning Hank’s style, and I worked very closely with all of them. As you can tell from the pilot, the script is intricately crafted, and it only goes on from there with the series. There’s never just a straight scene of dialogue. So, what that means is the action lines really matter! [Laughs.] Directors are used to crossing out action lines most of the time, like, “Oh, that’s just a suggestion.” Actors will ignore them. But that’s not so in our script. They’re not written as “this is how the scene should be shot”; they’re written as “this is what the shot should convey, beat-by-beat.” Todd would read them and understand that implicitly, and so would Justin.

Justin handled all the vintage format coverage.

His enthusiasm when I interviewed him was undeniable. Justin not only came in every day having read the script, he understood the script.

He was the sniper, who roamed around with the 8 mil or Ikegami and was immersed in so many details of not just character, but Rich Toyon’s fantastic production design. So many times, we’d be in the edit and think, “Oh, we didn’t get a certain moment that was needed from the main coverage, and now we need to manufacture it. We’d say, “Hey, let’s look at Justin’s footage to see what he got, and, inevitably, it was like, “Ah-ha! That’s it!” The pan off Jerry West to the trophy, or the slight move to someone that told the story of that moment – Justin got it. The reason why the show has so much Ikegami, not for archival footage but within dialogue scenes, is that the camerawork Justin brought to those moments was fantastic storytelling. Likewise for Todd, who’s on a headset with his crew, looking at the monitor with the multiple cameras and whispering to go get that moment that he invariably sees as such a superb storyteller. It’s not just, “Let’s use multiple cameras to get coverage.” It was so much more with this entire camera team.

I wrote about American Ninja Warrior some years back [ICG Magazine May 2018] and was able to

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visit the control room with DP Adam Biggs. That’s a live event, where the story being told, albeit unscripted, was on-the-fly with many cameras.

You bring some of that to narrative. Very much so. It’s an immersive approach. Very much like that book from Coppola [Live Cinema and its Techniques] and how he wants to make a movie live, as they once did in television. Mihai worked on that project with Coppola with like 50 cameras – super interesting.

he’s talking to camera. It’s not just a style trick. He’s a hustler, and we’re being hustled.

You mentioned how the Ikegami ended up being so prominently featured in narrative scenes – but it didn’t start that way. Initially, the Ikegami was there for retro footage, and maybe we’d try a little bit of coverage. But then we fell in love with how it looked on the monitor, during the pilot, even though we always covered our bases with 35, as well as the 8 mil. I think what it became was a synthesis, in the pilot, of Todd’s willingness to experiment, Adam’s willingness to empower Todd, and Hank’s willingness to just say: “I don’t care if it’s crappy old video, that’s the best shot for that scene!” No one expected that result. A great example from the pilot is the scene with Magic and his father, which is not stylized. It’s a simple moment where they are talking about life. We shot the hell out of it on 35. But the Ikegami brought us in like we were in the room watching a home movie. Rather than distancing you with style, it immerses you with style. Now, most TV shows don’t have a style at all, or rather the style is a non-style. This show has a bold style that asserts itself and says, “Hey, I’m here.” I feel like the reviews that have taken us to task for that are picking lowhanging fruit. Most [TV shows] they write about don’t mention the style because... there is none.

versed in telling stories that are certainly much more controversial than the NBA’s. Ultimately, for us, it’s what feels true with a capital T. We know the facts of this story, but I always say: “The facts are the iceberg tip you see above the water.” What that iceberg looks like underneath is not well-defined, even for the people who lived through it, because they only know their piece. That’s the challenge – and the opportunity – afforded to us in dramatizing rather than making a documentary. We don’t want to rearrange that world under the water’s surface that doesn’t feel true or doesn’t fit. But at the same time, if we’re not adding color, nuance and interpretation to help these characters make sense of what happened, then why bother?

That’s true. On the flip side, pushing things as far as you do in this show – color, lighting, editing, formats – can risk being a distraction. I think once you commit to a strong style, as Todd and Adam did in the pilot, it’s incumbent to give it meaning.

That’s the filter I ultimately apply to all of those style elements – in writing, camera, editing – as to what stays or goes. Not “Is it fun and stylish?” But is it providing a point of view or a twist that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to achieve? So, while it may initially appear that Jerry Buss is talking directly to the camera to give you information about Jerry West, he’s also giving you character information about Jerry Buss. That P.T. Barnum sales-pitch thing John C. Reilly does, leaning into camera, wagging his finger, is who Jerry Buss is.

Half-charlatan, half-Horatio Alger story – that’s why

This show is based on real people, many of whom are still alive, and their character flaws are front and center. Where is that line between heightening a real-life person and turning them into a cartoon who’s entertaining? It’s what the judge said about pornography: “You know it when you see it,” and everyone will see it a little differently.

There are legal lines, and the HBO lawyers are well-

TV is different from features in that the writer/ producer is the constant, along with his or her DP’s – not the directors who funnel through. I feel like this show takes that to another level.

That’s true. TV is a writer’s medium because the showrunner – the writer/producer as you say – is there all the way through, whereas in features it’s traditionally the director, or perhaps now on the big franchise films, the producer. With our show, it is very much a model in that way, particularly with Todd in that he created the look with Adam from day one. And while Adam is involved as a producer, he was less hands-on after directing the pilot, whereas Todd and Mihai are there every day. From the beginning, I’ve viewed Todd as a full creative partner without whom the show couldn’t possibly be what it is. This show is not just about having a craftsman come in and execute what’s on the page; it’s about having a real artist bring their soul to bear and add to what’s on the page. One reason the show feels so layered is that at every point in the production, people are encouraged to add to it. The norm I’ve found in the past is more for people to hit the marks; adding, yes, but within relatively tight constraints. Here we’re like: “You want to shoot video? You want to shoot black and white? Let’s go!”

The vernacular of this show is to try anything and

everything, and I’m in that editing room protecting you, to the best of my abilities, if those choices fail. You’ve talked to the heads of departments and seen their enthusiasm and willingness to take creative chances. That’s because unlike a project where they’re tasked to realize what’s on the page through their specific skill sets, here we’re telling everyone to make what’s on the page ten times better! It becomes infectious when everyone is trying to do the best work they’ve ever done.

Everyone on the team is a filmmaker with a story to tell. Absolutely. [First AC] Dave Edsall would often come up to me on set, geeking out about something he’d come up with and wanted to contribute. The energy on this set, at every level, has been that we have a really fun show, and we love the subject matter. But we know we have an opportunity to do something bigger and more interesting than the world would probably anticipate. There’s no better high than walking onto a set where everyone is not just clocking in and clocking out – they want to keep raising the bar and make art.

Jeff Pearlman’s book, on which the show is based, touched on some of the socio-political issues of the period. But you go way deeper. I’m thinking of Episode 5 with Kareem’s backstory of his Muslim faith and desire to be an icon for civil rights. I appreciate you bringing that up. Jeff wrote the textbook on that era, and it’s wonderful and readable. But we decided early on not to do the mini-series approach – just hit the big pieces of the decade and we’re done in a few seasons. We wanted to treat these characters as being part of an evolving narrative, which meant going deeper than Jeff would have had the time or interest to do in a book like that. We did a lot of our own research and worked hard to make that happen. You mention the Kareem stuff – my co-writer and chief collaborator, Rodney Barnes, and I talked early on about how we could get into Kareem as a man. Not just on the court, and the stuff already portrayed about his difficulty with his teammates and the press, but what’s beneath that. The same goes for Spencer Haywood, as his story comes to a head in the last few episodes. Jeff’s book touched on Haywood’s drug problems but didn’t go much deeper. We want to learn about the traumas underneath all of these people and what motivates them to act the way they do. We wanted a show that’s nuanced and thoughtful regarding race, class and culture, that hopefully will catch people by surprise.

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FEATURE .

001

WINNING TIME

BY DAVID GEFFNER PHOTOS BY WARRICK PAGE / HBO

hoop

dreams ADAM MCKAY’S NEW HBO SERIES, WINNING TIME: THE RISE OF THE LAKERS DYNASTY, REIMAGINES A CITY AND SPORTS TEAM FOREVER LINKED IN GLITZ, GLAMOUR AND GLORY.

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Hard-core basketball fans (like myself) and lifelong Lakers lovers (me, again) may be surprised by the depth of social, cultural and historical analysis in Adam McKay’s new 10-part HBO series, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. To be sure, this bold, visually brash show, lensed

by Guild Directors of Photography Todd Banhazl and Mihai Mălaimare Jr., serves up copious amounts of sex, drugs, celebrity worship and the “Showtime” brand of hoops associated with Los Angeles in the 1980s – the city that Dr. Jerry Buss (a freewheeling John C. Reilly) was certain would embrace the flagging Lakers team he bought and rebranded.

But there’s also a good amount of socio-political commentary in Winning Time’s depiction of a league and franchise poised to forever change the business and entertainment of sports.

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s Banhazl describes during a break from color-timing Season 1’s final episode with Company 3 Senior Colorist Walter Volpatto, “I had shot [the 2019 feature] Hustlers, which Adam McKay executive produced. And from our first conversation, this project was about recreating the pure joy [of the filmmaking aesthetic] back then. We loved the cultural and political dynamics of the script, and we wanted the same bravado that was on the page to be on the screen, and that we should shoot on film.”

Not that a period story needs to be shot on film, Banhazl is quick to add.

“We wanted film because we knew we’d be pulling in so many looks – photos from the time, archival footage, news conferences, TV basketball coverage – and wanted to play with the formats associated with that time,” he continues.

“We originally thought 16mm Ektachrome reversal would be our main look. But that didn’t give us enough room to modulate the image quality up and down as much as wanted to across different formats. So, we began testing 35mm to see if we could create a hybrid 35/16mm aesthetic. We realized that we were not seeking the look of reversal film stock, which Kodak still makes. Rather it was the look of a reversal film print as we remember it.”

Digging deep into L.A.’s sports icons was the goal of McKay and Showrunner/Writer/Co-Creator Max Borenstein (Exposure, page 28). Whether it’s a sullen Kareem Abdul-Jabbar struggling with political and religious short-comings; a foulmouthed Jerry West and his near-cannibalistic obsession with losing; or a bare-chested, middle-aged Jerry Buss and his endless procession of “bimbos”; the characters in Winning

ABOVE/OPPOSITE: C-CAMERA OPERATOR/2ND UNIT DP JUSTIN CAMERON SAYS HE AND BANHAZL INITIALLY THOUGHT THE 8 MILLIMETER WOULD BE USED SPARINGLY FOR ESTABLISHMENT OR INSERT SHOTS. “BUT WHEN WE USED THE 8 MILLIMETER [IN THE PILOT] WITH YOUNG MAGIC AT NIGHT, “ CAMERON RECOUNTS, “WE QUICKLY REALIZED IT OFFERED SO MANY THINGS: TIME AND PLACE, NOSTALGIA, THE FEEL OF A HOME VIDEO OR DOCUMENTARY.”

Time all have flaws writ large. Based on Jeff Pearlman’s book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, the story highlights a pack of talented egomaniacs intent on grabbing life’s big brass ring (aka an NBA Championship) for a variety of personal and professional reasons.

Banhazl says the challenge was how best to recreate a time and place firmly burrowed in collective memory. Banhazl says the solution, photographically, to best recreate a time/place burrowed so deeply in collective memory, was to mix formats – withing scenes, even shots.

“Our original rule for using 8mm [the show used multiple 35mm and 16mm Kodak Vision3 stocks and Double-X black-and-white, as well as 8mm Vision3 stocks, including black-andwhite reversal] was that it would set up time and place,” Banhazl continues. “Establishing shots, inserts, helping the audience lose track of what was stock versus recreated footage. But then we started using the 8mm for narrative scenes and syncing sound with it. We called it the ‘dad-cam’ because it needed to feel like a dad filming his family barbecue. The more [the 8mm] was in close on a pistol grip, the more we began to like it for dramatic narrative moments.”

C-Camera Operator/2nd Unit DP Justin Cameron, SOC, says using the 8mm system

(Beaulieu 4008 full gate with an Angénieux 8-64mm at f/1.9 and converted to Max8

by Pro8mm in Burbank, CA) was in stark contrast to modern workflows. “8mm can’t be traditionally viewed on set,” Cameron explains, “so there had to be constant communication between all the departments to maintain a visual language. Eight mm is a non-crystal sync format, and bouncing between offspeed and 24 frames per second creates havoc for a non-crystal motor, especially with such a narrow perf. So, we’d deal with power fluctuations, undesired ramping, and many other beautiful imperfections that make using 8mm so unique! I was in constant communication with our editors and worked closely with Sound and the AC’s to clap slates and provide post with sound sync moments.

Framing out unwanted areas of the stage/set/ location was also tricky, because with the full gate extract, we were unable to see the entire image in the optical finder.”

As the filmmakers describe, 8mm capture was designed to create a language that could be emotionally reactive and subconsciously nostalgic, with the format’s limitations often enhancing evolution. “I couldn’t find a ton of 8mm pointed at a basketball court during my 1980s NBA research,” continues Cameron. “So, initially, Todd and I thought the 8 mm would

offer some establishing shots, and the video camera would dominate basketball coverage.

But when we used 8mm for part of the pilot [a scene when young Magic is playing basketball with his father at night, in Lansing, MI], we quickly realized it offered so many things: time and place, nostalgia, the feel of a home video or documentary. Leading up to our first basketball shoot day versus the Clippers, Todd and I decided I should approach the 8mm format as if I were a documentarian hired by the Lakers. I was dressed in period wardrobe and can be seen on the bench, in the crowd, and basically everywhere! The 8mm format reflected an even more subjective and raw view of our world and its characters.”

Another beloved vintage tool was born from researching NBA broadcasts circa the late 1970s and 80s. “Our first AC, Dave Edsall, was testing period systems like Betamax, VHS and broadcast tube cameras, specifically the Ikegami ITC-730A, designed for the 1984 Olympic Games in L.A.,” Banhazl recalls. “We knew we were going to use the Ikegami for basketball games and news conferences. But in the pilot, we saw how exciting it was for narrative [also]. A close-up was vulnerable and stripped down. We decided to embrace

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ABOVE RIGHT: BANHAZL (WITH PILOT A-CAMERA OPERATOR P. SCOTT SAKAMOTO) SAYS THEY VARIED HOW TO RECREATE REAL EVENTS. “WHEN WE SEE KAREEM IN [THE 1980 COMEDY HIT AIRPLANE!, [ABOVE LEFT] WE RECREATED THE MOVIE [IN 35MM] FRAMEFOR-FRAME, WITH THE EXACT KEY LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. OTHER TIMES, LIKE FOR MAGIC’S DRAFT ANNOUNCEMENT [LEFT BOTTOM] WE’D START WITH THE SOURCE MATERIAL AND BEND IT TOWARD SOMETHING MORE COMEDIC OR VISCERAL.” [LEFT MIDDLE] JUSTIN CAMERON WITH “ZIGGY,” THE 1980’S IKEGAMI BROADCAST RIG RETROFITTED BY 1ST AC DAVE EDSALL.

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all these different formats – like having a big crane down in 35mm, and then cutting to a low-res video image in close-up. We wanted to depict these mythic icons we’ve known for decades in a new way.”

Mălaimare Jr., best known for such acclaimed features as The Master, Jojo Rabbit, and The Harder They Fall, was brought on by Banhazl with the tease that “Winning Time would be like making a super-long movie together,” he smiles. “And it was.” The DP, who was four years old in his native Romania during the Lakers’ 1979-80 season, said the series had one prime ingredient he loved.

“Any time you can shoot with real period cameras, rather than trying to make a modern digital camera look period, that excites me,” Mălaimare Jr. adds. “When Todd said he used tube cameras for the pilot, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m in!’ That sounds amazing.

“I remember a past project,” he continues, “where we wanted the actors to be filming themselves with VHS cameras, and the postproduction team was throwing all these digital options at us to replicate VHS. And we

said, ‘No, let’s just use the real thing no matter how many accessories are needed.’ I feel like we had the same approach here. Dave Edsall went to heroic lengths to make the Ikegami work, with results that are so beautiful. You can’t truly reproduce that look with modern tools. You need the real thing.” “ H e ro i c l e n g t h s ” m ay be an understatement. Edsall, who met Banhazl more than a decade ago, recalls the exact moment when the Ikegami sped past its original purpose. “It was in the pilot – the golf course scene when Jerry West breaks his club and storms off the putting green,” Edsall remembers. “The Ikegami was set back and framed wide, before zooming in to end on a close-up on West. When we finished the scene, we all heard Adam [McKay] shout from the monitor: ‘Ikegami!’ Pretty much from that point on, it was every day, every scene.”

Not that the period tech was without issue.

When one of the Ikegamis Edsall procured (off eBay) for the pilot went down after just three weeks, he realized he’d need to amass an arsenal to keep them in use. “I calculated we’d need one per episode,” Edsall laughs, “and that was fairly close as half ended up working and half were used for parts. By Episodes 9 and 10, which have a lot of basketball coverage, we were using six Ikegami cameras – two mounted on remote heads above the court, two mounted to the backboards that were set dressing and usable, and two on the floor.”

For the pilot, which was shot pre-COVID in 2019, Edsall says the Ikegami “was always tethered to a recorder because we were nervous about using modern batteries,” he smiles. “But once it became a hero camera, it had to function like the film cameras – with a Teradek wireless video and Preston wireless follow-focus. It had to be able to sit on a dolly, a slider, even the Technocrane, along with Justin going handheld. These old cameras are all metal, so I removed the side panel and had Panavision install a cheese plate so we could attach all the modern accessories. We also removed the existing eyepiece and gave Justin a seven-inch SmallHD monitor, which had frame lines for both 4:3 and 1:78. Anyone who walked on the set saw a 100 percent workable cinema camera. It was pretty cool!”

Cameron says early on the Guild camera team was “feeling out and being patient with” the Ikegami’s language, and its role within the main 35mm look. “For the pilot, I would pull my own focus and zoom while [C-Camera] First AC Gary Bevans would tend to the block battery and Pix system to make sure the signal was constant,” he recalls. “The on-set footprint was tricky, but our incredible A-Camera Operator, P. Scott Sakamoto [SOC], and B-Camera Operator, John Connor [SOC] on the pilot would create physical space for the Ikegami [ITC-730A, rated at 200 ISO] to work. We adopted the Ikegami HL-79 for low light along with the 730A for day scenes and basketball [with a vintage

Canon 9.5-143mm ENG zoom lens], as well as a dedicated focus puller for the Ikegami cameras when the show resumed in 2021.

Todd and Adam liked the Ikegami working untraditionally off-axis, well below eyes and sometimes on the opposite side of the line. The microforce and zoom were always hunting for emotional moments to react to.”

Many of Winning Time’s best off-the-court moments derive from the vintage cameras’ varying aspect ratios and the NBA’s stature in the 1980s as a fledgling broadcast sport. One example, from the pilot episode, is when Lakers General Manager Bill Sharman introduces the team’s first-round draft choice, Earvin “Magic” Johnson (an uncanny Quincy Isaiah), who is flanked by Dr. Buss on one side and Jerry West on the other. Another, in Episode 6 (also shot by Banhazl), depicts Johnson, now a burgeoning superstar poised to be the next face of the NBA (along with Larry Bird), being pitched by various shoe manufacturers to wear their product, including a young Phil Knight and his new-to-the-market sneaker called Nike!

Banhazl says they referenced period material in different ways.

“When we see Kareem in [the 1980 comedy hit Airplane!, shot by Joseph F. Biroc, ASC], we recreate the movie [in 35mm] frame-for-frame, with the exact key lights and shadows,” he recounts. “Other times, like for Magic’s draft announcement, we’d start with the source material and bend it toward something more comedic or visceral.” Because photos and footage of Magic’s draft announcement were plentiful, Banhazl’s team could replicate camera placement and lighting, “including a classic TV zoom-in on Magic, which is periodaccurate,” he adds. “But then we break from that when the camera pans to Jerry West and pushes in way too close, emphasizing his discomfort. With any of the vintage capture, we always wanted to remind the audience these events did happen, but at the same time we wanted them to engage with the moment as if it were happening now.”

As with the 8mm, the use of the Ikegami’s 1:33 aspect ratio for basketball-related scenes evolved. Cameron researched NBA arena camera plots of the era, and he watched “a lot” of 1:33 basketball games on ESPN Classic.

“Along with the press conferences and postgame interview coverage, using 1:33 was crucial in creating the audience’s subconscious acceptance of ‘traditional’ NBA broadcast coverage from that time,” he explains.

“We created a camera plot of the Forum, which was the start of a rulebook,” Cameron details. “Due to set size and visual-effects limitations, the language of the Ikegami for games evolved. For example, the court broadcast angle began on a scissor lift, the Ikegami on a fluid head with a microforce, and that later changed to a remote head mounted

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on a truss. Even later on, we mounted the Ikegami on a remote head high above the backboards – typically reserved for NBA playoffs and NBA finals of the period – and even to the backboards. Todd and Mihai and their directors would often break our own rules as the language evolved. During a timeout, we could find ourselves emotionally attached to a character in the 1:78 narrative mentality, then back in-game, a 1:33 broadcast position and language would take over. The juxtaposition of the ratios was another tool – used with the vintage formats – not only to create time and place but also to explore raw emotion.”

Mălaimare Jr. recalls watching YouTube footage in prep of a 1979-80 Lakers game against the Clippers, “where they had an operator up in the catwalks hand-holding an Ikegami and pointing it straight down at the court,” he smiles. “That inspired our use of the Ikegami, only now high up on a modern remote head to mirror the old NBA approach.”

Handheld 16mm was another key format for the basketball (which doesn’t ramp up until Episode 5 in San Diego). Operator John Lyke, a former pro snowboarder and in-line skater, was outfitted with a stripped-down ARRI 416 loaded with half-full magazines (roughly two-minute runs) and a backpack containing wireless video/follow-focus. Mălaimare Jr. says Lyke “could move much faster and get in much closer on Rollerblades than any traditional moving camera system. John could skate 360 all over the court and put us right into the action, or the huddles during time-outs. It was immediate and intense.”

Banhazl describes Lyke as “our secret weapon. We would design the plays on the court, and then John would come into our final rehearsals with actors, and we’d choreograph him in as another player. Particularly in the later episodes, when the Lakers find their flow together on-court, we wanted the camera to reflect the incredible speed and elegance of the game played at the highest level. Having John with a camera on skates allowed us to stay with the pace of the game but also keep the action specific and emotional.”

Other non-traditional tools included a special platform dolly, designed by Key Grip David Richardson, with an extra-wide track that allowed the actors to stay between the track and close to the camera covering their movements. “We used an image-shaker, which you typically see on car commercials,” Banhazl adds, “so that it would feel like the pounding of the game was shaking the floor, and low-angle prisms to cover the footwork.”

Regarding the frequent breaks with tradition, Mălaimare Jr. observes: “Many times, we as cinematographers want to make everything seamless. But for this show, the more the image formats changed, the better.

The more the image was pushed beyond what seemed possible – color, resolution, grain, highlights, et cetera – the more we embraced

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it! There would never be a reason for a broadcast camera to be in Jerry Buss’s home.

But even with its lighting limitations, we just kept pushing it in tighter for close-ups. The same with the 8mm – the grain, scanning the film so the perfs show, instantly connects with something familiar.”

The willingness to cross technological boundaries is Winning Time’s strength. That’s abundantly apparent in the lighting and design of the many basketball venues the Lakers visit over the 1979-80 season. Those include a pre-season training facility in Palm Springs, CA from Episode 4 (shot by Mălaimare Jr.), with the Lakers staying at the Buss-owned Ocotillo Lodge; the opening game of the season at the San Diego Clippers arena from Episode 5; the iconic Forum (renamed the Great Western Forum after Buss could not make good on past owner Jack Kent Cooke’s debts); and the infamous Boston Garden, in Episode 7 (shot

by Mălaimare Jr.); where the season’s greatest hoops dramas play out with hated rivals, the Celtics.

Production Designer Rich Toyon, who won an Emmy for HBO’s Silicon Valley, says making available stage space (during a busy L.A. production window) serve for all the venues was a challenge. “They asked if recreating the Forum [at L.A. Center Studios] was possible, and after some drawings and calculations, I realized we could fit in a full regulation NBA court and some seating. And because the majority of basketball games were shot from one side,” Toyon adds, “we built eight rows of arena seating that were just slightly steeper than the Forum. For the other arenas, we researched local advertising of the period and changed the court graphics. Unlike today, the backboards were all different, so we changed color pads, shot clocks, cameras, and stanchions to conform with each arena.”

Toyon insists the ask for multiple arenas on one stage would not have worked without a close partnership with VFX Supervisor John Heller and his team. “The Art Department put together a digital package for VFX that included all of the signage and court graphics, along with as much historical record of each game as we had,” Toyon continues. “We also did our own cut-and-paste backgrounds into the [green-screened] set so that VFX would have a clear understanding of what was needed. Often you do the shoot in July, and it’s not until March that the file gets opened. We didn’t want them to guess – we wanted to be as accurate as possible.”

Designing the Forum’s exterior was an even greater puzzle. With no access to the real structure (inside or out), Toyon’s team had to build a full-scale model of a section of the famed Inglewood landmark, which was then wire-framed by Heller’s VFX team and landed in the Santa Anita racetrack’s parking lot in

"OPERATOR JOHN LYKE COULD SKATE 360 ALL OVER THE COURT AND PUT US RIGHT INTO THE ACTION, OR THE HUDDLES DURING TIME-OUTS. IT WAS IMMEDIATE AND INTENSE." CO-SERIES DP MIHAI MĂLAIMARE JR.

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ABOVE/OPPOSITE: CHIEF LIGHTING TECHNICIAN JOSH HENSLEY, ILCS, RECALLS TALKING IN PREPRODUCTION MEETINGS “ABOUT HOW WE COULD PULL OUT THE GNARLIEST VERSION OF EVERY PERIOD LIGHTING ENVIRONMENT. WE WOULD GO TO DIFFERENT LOCATIONS AND SAY: ‘THIS IS A TERRIBLE COLOR THAT NORMALLY EVERYONE WOULD HATE, AND WE’RE GOING TO TRY TO RECREATE IT!’”

Arcadia, CA. “All of the landscaping, parking lot lights and striping were added, and then Visual Effects ran with it,” Toyon recounts.

“We worked closely with Todd, Mihai and [Chief Lighting Technician] Josh [Hensley, ILCS] to build-in period sodium/mercury vapor lighting in the parking lot. John [Heller] was the one who guided what was needed for the model section. Josh’s team created a large structure of LED’s [LiteGear 2×8 LiteTiles] to get that famous Forum glow you could see from the 405 freeway.”

Hensley, who took over for Michael Bauman after the pilot, brought a fluency with LED lighting that redefined how to approach period lighting. He says the goal in lighting the Forum (exterior model) “was to create a gradient for VFX that erased the line between what did or did not exist.” As for the Forum’s famous interior, it fixes Buss’ burgeoning “Showtime” universe before a ball is ever tipped off. Scenes from the pilot – like a giddy Dr. Buss, whiskey bottle in hand, staggering out from recessed shadows to center court screaming “I fucking own this place,” or Magic, touring the tunnels and locker room with Buss before wandering out, alone, to mid-court, where a rack of balls awaits – are mesmerizing.

Hensley says these “after-hours” moments were staged with the idea that only the safety

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lights were left on. “It was less about seeing the details of the court,” he notes, “and more about shaping highlights specific to that period, where the older cameras couldn’t necessarily hold onto the image. For those scenes, we used the ETC SolaHyBeam 3000 high-fidelity units, which are moving lights that create reflections to paint the scene, versus ambient light.”

Buss’ party-time hub, the Forum Club, was originally built by Kent Cooke “as a strange hybrid of the Roman Forum and Greek Agora,” Toyon describes. “After Claire Rothman’s renovation, it was more modest than you’d expect, given all the celebrities. Since a lot of this show is about ceilings visible in frame, we tried for as many built-in fixtures as we could – like the recessed red soffits, incandescent bar lights, and, of course, the disco ball.”

A key scene in Episode 5 hints at the club’s ultimate destiny.

An 18-year-old Jeanie Buss (Hadley Robinson), who’s been working hard to fulfill her father’s fantasies, debuts her hand-picked “Laker Girls.” As red lights swirl (and the 1979 disco hit “Ring My Bell” booms), the scantily clad dancers, led by a teenage Paula Abdul (Carina Conti), preview the gyrating numbers that will change basketball’s entertainment value forever. Hensley says they used Cine 5 Pixel Ribbon for all the red in the Forum Club

and for anything emitting from the bar. “The bulbs in the ceiling were based on a zone system, as we knew there’d be 20-plus actors in there and we couldn’t do any tweaking,” he says. “They were so hard they could easily destroy skin tones, even in 35mm, if people were under them. So, we outfitted the bulbs with flexible metal adapters to direct the light where we needed.”

A similar challenge came with lighting the Forum’s court, but on a much bigger scale. “With 400 extras inside the arena set, we knew we couldn’t slow things down,” Hensley adds. “So, we conducted tests with the workhorses of that generation – old HMI’s and tungsten – to try and replicate the halide lighting; but we found the maintenance was not feasible. Pointed straight down, the reflectors would heat up, cauterize the metal, and explode the bulbs within 15 minutes!” Hensley landed on the show’s hero light, the Cineo R15 LED, which, when stacked together, cast shadows on the court that were almost identical to those from halide fixtures.

“And since the R15s are DMX controlled,” he continues, “we could go from 15 to 75 degrees – soft and wide or harsh and direct – right from the board. We also needed to change the look for each arena without lifts, cranes or gels, and the R15s were great for changing the tone and shape to pull out the nuances.”

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"WE BEGAN TESTING TO CREATE A HYBRID 35/16 MILLIMETER AESTHETIC...WE WEREN'T SEEKING THE LOOK OF REVERSAL FILM STOCK, WHICH KODAK STILL MAKES. RATHER IT WAS THE LOOK OF A REVERSAL FILM PRINT AS WE REMEMBER IT." PILOT/CO-SERIES DP TODD BANHAZL

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The Local 728 electric team implemented the R15s in a zone system that – while not exactly mirroring the Forum’s famous spiderweb array – still placed them diagonally every 13 feet, as players passed through. “If anyone was at the top of the key, in the paint, or at the three-point line,” Hensley notes, “they were most likely standing under or close to a fixture. Whenever they were in-between the fixtures, you’d get these multiple shadows on the head and neckline that felt just like the old halide lights.”

Toyon says Banhazl and Mălaimare Jr. were “godsends” when it came to creating designs that supported the bold (often garish) colors that defined the period. “These DP’s both loved reflective surfaces, and that’s not always the case,” he explains. “Mirrors, shiny metal, all the surfaces that were so key to the period, not to mention all the fluorescent lighting in the Forum offices [and everywhere else] that Josh’s team sourced or duplicated with LED’s. I appreciated their work so much and loved the collaboration.”

Cameron sends just as much love back

Toyon’s way. “Second Unit had so much fun creating the flashback pieces, as with Kareem and Bruce Lee or Walter Cronkite. Thought and care were put into every set piece, every piece of paper had a backstory and the world Rich and his team built allowed all of us to be fully immersed.”

If the Forum represents the story’s Luke Skywalker, the infamous Boston Garden, which the Lakers visit during a mid-season road trip, is Darth Vader. As seen in Episode 7 (shot by Mălaimare Jr.), the arena (and its fans) is filthy with racial bias. Lakers guard Norm Nixon (Nixon’s son, DeVaughn) shares a history with his younger teammates that features grainy black-and-white footage of the Garden’s ancient pipes and rats scurrying through a decrepit visitor’s locker room.

Lighting the famous parquet floor, for which the art department laid an entire court over the Forum set, was a two-tone approach. “The parquet court is highlighted in one color and the ambient surroundings in another,” Hensley

recalls. “That contrasted with the Forum, which was like a gladiator arena, where all the light was on the court and the crowd went into darkness. We had to lean into every available period image to source the Garden.”

As for the bruising war that defined the Lakers/Celtics rivalry, Mălaimare Jr. observes: “We had the basketball dialed in by the later episodes, with John on skates and [A-Camera Operator Sarah Levy] handheld with 16mm.

The main issue was limiting the wide shots with the 8mm and Ikegami, as the green screen challenges were considerable for VFX. I loved shooting the Boston Garden. Our director, Payman Benz, is a huge basketball fan, and he used NBA2K [a video game] to dial in the 1979 season and players and show us camera angles!”

Another epic rivalry, Bird versus Magic (portrayed as white, racist Boston versus Black, star-driven Hollywood) underscores Winning Time’s biting historical analysis. Nowhere is that theme more focused than Episode 5, centered on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (an intense Dr. Solomon Hughes). Directed by Tanya

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Hamilton, we see images of a young Lewis Alcindor, in his parents’ NYC apartment, being radicalized by TV images of a Black youth killed by white cops, and later, receiving his Muslim name and quarreling with his Christian father. The flashbacks are intercut with an adult Kareem praying in the Lakers’ locker room, visiting a local mosque, and walking his mountaintop home with teammate Spencer Haywood (Wood Harris), all of which resonate with a visual intensity deeper than many “showtime” moments.

As Banhazl explains: “Each episode dips its toes into spending more time with a certain character and often flashes back to their childhood to see the traumas that have shaped them. Each flashback had its own look catered to the period’s dominant advertising aesthetic – what did photos of the boughtand-sold American dream look like during that time, and how could we redefine those images? For Kareem’s backstory in Harlem, in the ‘60s during the protests and when he first converted to Islam, we created a look that approximates something like a crossprocessed reversal film print, and mixed that with Kodak Double-X Black/White film that was referencing real news footage of the Harlem Protests. The idea was to contrast a vibrant impassioned youthful color look with a harsh black and white news look. It was a sign of the changing times, and of the political and religious awakening for Kareem.”

Taking risks with color was another slam dunk for the show. Whether it’s the gaudy bands of Laker purple and gold inside the Forum, or the mixed vapor/halide lighting that once dominated America’s outside spaces, Winning Time’s filmmakers eagerly pushed imagery beyond where others will go.

The night exteriors alone, including a pilot scene of a young Magic shooting buckets on a snowy East Lansing playground (which Baumann retrofitted with modern LED tech to create reflections on and around the court), are worthy of Emmy consideration. Hensley recalls talking in preproduction meetings “about how we could pull out the gnarliest version of every

period lighting environment in the show. We would go to different locations and say: ‘This is a terrible color that normally everyone would hate, and we’re going to try to recreate it!’”

Hence the blazing green light from the Forum parking lot in Episode 6 (shot by Banhazl) was impossible to “find in the wild with all the LED retrofits that have taken place,” Hensley continues. “And we couldn’t even find the period-correct mercury vapor to duplicate it in the spectrum of cinema lighting.

So, we ended up using Robe ColorStrobes [LED theatrical lights] mounted on parking light poles every 25 feet that gave us an [ARRI SkyPanel] S30 equivalent, in terms of spread, but with this crazy green color to send the parking lot period vibe.”

Mălaimare Jr. notes, “We were able to load all the look-up tables Todd and I built with Walter during camera testing into a RED KOMODO, which we used as our color reference camera on set. We could send screen grabs from the KOMODO to the dailies colorist as a reminder of what we were going for, with any tweaks on the KOMODO also informing which way to go, like subtracting or adding green for the Forum parking lot. Of course, film is more forgiving than digital, and in some examples, we could have gone even further to tear highlights and crush blacks.

But, even pushing one stop, with the Vision3 500 in 35 mm, required a lot more light than, say, a 1600 ISO digital camera. I think having this arsenal of new LED technology was one reason why the night exteriors look so great.”

Other stunning examples include the pilot episode, when Dr. Buss takes Magic for burgers at an Inglewood-area drive-in; Episode 3 and 4 (both shot by Mălaimare Jr.), when Magic and Norm Nixon attend a Hollywood premiere, and, afterward, settling in at their pre-season Palm Springs training facility; and Magic and Dr. Buss sharing a quiet moment poolside outside of the Ocotillo Lodge (shot at the Sheraton Universal, which was closed down for COVID). One scene in Episode 4, where the new Lakers coach Jack McKinney (an impenetrable Tracy Letts) leads

the team on a night training run through the desert, epitomizes the lengths to which Winning Time’s union crew went to get it right.

“We needed to feel the length and breadth of the desert at night, even as this crowd of people – of every possible skin tone – comes running up from far down this road,” Hensley remembers. “The budget wouldn’t allow for a Condor every quarter mile, so we had two lifts, 120 feet in the air with 18Ks, with one spotted to pick off Joshua trees in the distance, and a Pettibone rig with S360s and mover lights – Elation Monets and HyBeam 3000s. Even with all that, it was insanely difficult to figure out how these guys would not be completely lost to camera [in a dramatic wide shot] until they were, like, 30 feet away.”

Hensley’s team ended up pinpointing a 200-foot range per moving fixture to help carve out the length of the road with a wash of different lighting units. “That meant some six or seven beams, which we expected to be casting hard lines everywhere,” he adds. “But the blending tools within the movers are so precise, it was like watching PhotoShop in real life! With the long lenses, you pretty much have to light by eye, so I ran the entire length of the road – a few times – to try and see where the separations [of light beams] would be. But there were none.”

Going the extra mile to replicate a pivotal moment in the intersection of sports, culture, business and racial equity is what Winning Time’s filmmakers say they valued most. Like DI Colorist Volpatto skillfully adding in gate weave, “so that it feels like we’re watching prints from an older projector – and that’s on top of all the great period print LUT’s he helped us create,” Banhazl concludes. “Walter was also the one who suggested we not have Fotokem dust-bust the negative, so all the dust and hairs normally blown off the film stayed on. Ideas like that contributed to this overall approach Adam instilled that if it felt right, we should just go for it! Walter’s work is a non-stop showcase of non-traditional looks, all used to sell the authenticity of a time and place and the larger-than-life characters in our story.”

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LOCAL 600 CREW PILOT Director of Photography Todd Banhazl A-Camera/Steadicam Operator P. Scott Sakamoto, SOC A-Camera 1st AC David Edsall A-Camera 2nd AC Jason Alegre B-Camera Operator John Connor B-Camera 1st AC Scott Johnson B-Camera 2nd AC Nick Nikides C-Camera Opeartor/2nd Unit DP Justin Cameron, SOC C-Camera 1st AC Gary Bevans Loader Rachel Wiederhoeft Utility Jacques Vincent

EPISODES 2 – 10 Directors of Photography Todd Banhazl Mihai Malaimare Jr A-Camera/Steadicam Operator Chris Haarhoff (Episode 2) A-Camera Operator Sarah Levy (Episodes 3 – 10) John Lyke A-Camera 1st AC David Edsall A-Camera 2nd AC Jason Alegre B-Camera Operator Sarah Levy (Episode 2) B-Camera/Steadicam Operator Dominic Bartolone (Episodes 3 – 10) B-Camera 1st AC Scott Johnson (Episodes 2 – 8) B-Camera 1st AC Arturo Rojas (Episodes 9 & 10) B-Camera 2nd AC Arturo Rojas (Episodes 2 – 8) B-Camera 2nd AC Ryan Jackson (Episodes 9 & 10) C-Camera Operator/2nd Unit DP Justin Cameron, SOC C-Camera 1st AC Gary Bevans C-Camera 2nd AC Mimi Phan Loader Emily Goodwin Utility Mario ‘Rio’ Allen Brandon Johnson Still Photographers James Clark Benjamin Kaller Warrick Page NEW TECHNOLOGY

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SEVERANCE

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the office SEVERANCE IS A WILD, FUN RIDE THROUGH CORPORATE CONSPIRACY LAND, WITH AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO CINEMATOGRAPHY THAT PAYS VISUAL AND NARRATIVE DIVIDENDS. BY PAULINE ROGERS PHOTOS BY ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA

“When something takes that long and you don’t lose your passion, that’s a good sign it is worth seeing through,” describes director Ben Stiller, who immediately sparked to the unusual tone of the Severance pilot and wanted to direct it. Still, even with Stiller on board, it took time to convince Apple TV+ to produce and then build-out the production. Billed as a conspiracy thriller, Severance centers around the Lumon Company, at which “management” convinces a select group of volunteers to bifurcate their memories between what happens at work and what happens at home. The results are hauntingly introduced in the pilot episode, as Mark (Adam Scott), dealing with stress at home, sits in his car weeping. By the time he moves through the sterile main entrance of the Lumon Company and into the elevator that takes him down to his office, the implant in Mark’s brain switches his memories from his life outside to his work inside (described in the show as “outie” and “innie,” respectively). Then, when he leaves work at night, that switch reverses itself, and he has no memory of his workday.

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Photo by Clifton Prescod

S

oon after the premiere of Escape at Dannemora, Stiller approached his director of photography, Jessica Lee Gagné, with the idea of helping him create the visual language for Severance. “When I read the script, the idea of a story that takes place in a stark white underground office wasn’t encouraging,” Gagné admits. “But I ran into a book by a Swedish photographer, Lars Tunbjörk [known for his deadpan portraits of office spaces], and I began to understand that office space could be unexpectedly beautiful. It excited me.”

Stiller adds, “In terms of movies, we had a lot of ideas.

We looked at The Ipcress File [starring Michael Caine and directed by Sidney J. Furie] for framing. The vibe we got from Frankenheimer’s Seconds, as well as his wide lenses. Classic Alan Pakula is always in my mind when I begin a film. And I love Yorgos Lanthimos’ aesthetic, which is weirdly elegant and off-putting.” Gagné began building mood boards, which provided all involved with a stunning reference point. “We put them up on the hallway walls outside our offices, and everyone coming to a meeting could look at them and learn where we were and develop their ideas,” she recalls.

No doubt for a series this visually striking, production design and VFX would have to carry a heavy load; both were needed to turn the former Bell Labs site in New Jersey into the mysterious, almost other-worldly Lumon Company.

When Stiller approached Production Designer Jeremy Hindle, he was already thinking through the challenges of creating a workable office space. “Jessica is a massive force,” Hindle says enthusiastically. “I couldn’t wait to work with her – and,

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Photo by Clifton Prescod

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Photo by Quantrell Colbert

for the first time, be in at the very beginning of prep.”

Gagné adds that “for the Lumon interiors, from the massive lobby with outer walkways on several levels to the office spaces, each had specific moments where lighting details were key to character and story. Jeremy and I worked together to find ways that the ceilings in hallways and offices allowed for inventive lighting – for example, emergency lighting, party lighting or even integrating lightwells into the set to change the lighting direction.”

Hindle’s design allowed for many different lighting aesthetics. “The MDR set, where everyone works, is a perfect example,” Gagné continues. “Gaffer Kurt Lennig spent a great deal of time on using the ceiling as a kind of character with its own reactions.” Lennig confirms as much, adding that it was about how the ceiling would react to the action within it. “Ultimately, we hung ARRI S60 SkyPanels over each panel in the ceiling,” he recalls, “ninety-one in total – and told our dimmer board operator, Kevin Casaletta, that it wouldn’t just turn on and off. It would have waves and emotions. It would have moods.”

Another key part of the inside lighting was the massive hallways, which Gagné

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and Lennig estimated to be equivalent to a quarter-mile. “We wanted all practical fixtures, in total probably 250, with RGBW control,” Lennig continues. “For a few of the stages, we built fixtures using LiteGear 24-volt RGBWA LiteRibbon, which eliminated having to tease spill and allowed for the ceilings to be opened for both COVID and fire safety when not shooting in them. The other advantage of LED’s was adjusting the frequency for highspeed shots. For the larger fluorescent ceilings, we used ETC Studio HD Lekos, which provided complete RGBW control.

“Jessica also came up with an idea for an energy-saving look,” he adds. “Kevin wrote a cue to turn the lights on and off as the characters walked down these endless hallways. Then, he had a live video feed and cued the lights – three fixtures at different levels – as the actors walked down and back, trying to keep the brightest of the three as the backlight. There’s also a staircase that’s prominent in part of Helly’s [Britt Lower’s] story. Jessica and I decided to build it on stage in multiple sections so that camera could wrap around the character.” Gagné says that part of the set comprised many technically challenging transitions from innie to outie

(Episodes 1-2). “Jeremy making it spacious and flexible allowed us to design each move freely,” she notes.

A significant part of Severance happens in the elevator, where each character transitions from innie to outie. Hindle had to build three different elevators to accommodate all the moves and transitions, and each elevator had to appear small and like it could accommodate one person only.

VFX Supervisor Vadim Turchin worked with Production in prep to map out seamless integration with physical sets. “The exterior was a big job, but mostly a standalone,” he admits. “The big thing was making the Lumon Company appear to be in a kind of limbo. So, we recreated the facade and erased the parking lot, building-in cars that would fit both the period and the lifestyle of the people who worked there.

“Inside was a careful attention to story detail, without impacting the sets,” Turchin adds. “We built the massive engraving that looks over the multi-level interior and removed things like fire extinguishers and other elements that would take the audience

Photo by Quantrell Colbert

out of the Lumon world.”

“It was important that the tech make sense for the world,” explains Stiller. “There are many things that we don’t know in the show – what they are doing and why they are doing it. But their actual tasks – grouping data and binning in – had to be real. We wanted to make sure the actors could do them on the set. It would help them as actors, and we wouldn’t have to burn-in screens. Burn-in screens are a pet peeve. It always seems to look fake. So, thanks to Cat Miller, our incredible prop master, we designed fully functional workstations. It was one of the best parts of the whole process, seeing those come to life.”

As for the show’s visual language, Gagné describes three different approaches: “The outside world, which is traditional and mostly studio-based,” she begins. “The inside world, which is robotic, mostly static, and weirdly wide-angle. And then transitional elements where the two worlds intersect. The worlds are separated, for the most part, until they come together. For each aesthetic, we tested camera, lenses and various modes of capture including Steadicam, Rickshaw, helmet cam, the Bolt and even the zolly.”

Stiller says they talked a lot about the

different styles of shooting for the innie and outie worlds. “We ended up not making many hard and fast rules,” he offers. “Generally, it was wider and brighter on the inside, with longer lenses and looser framing. In both places, the camera hardly moves unless it has to. The hope was that by holding that frame and keeping the rigidity of the world, you would feel that claustrophobia. And that rule doesn’t get broken until the last episode. That was fun because the idea was the antithesis of the previous eight episodes, long and glowing and as subjective as possible.”

Gagné opted to shoot on Sony VENICE, with Panavision’s anamorphic C Series, E series and the 50-500-mm amorphized Panazooms. “For wide shots in the office world, we used spherical H-series and Primo 70s to avoid bending,” she recounts. The broad choice in optics from Panavision New York allowed for many different kinds of peculiar shots, which were constantly being worked on and developed by the crew and operators.

Severance was mainly shot with two different camera teams – the Blue Camera with Eric Swanek as the AC and the Green Camera with Mike Guthrie as the AC. Both teams were involved in the testing and often

the design of their shots. “The sheer volume of things to shoot, test and prelight meant that we had to leapfrog a lot,” says Gagné. “As a camera department, we had to communicate extremely well to always be on top of everything. Our DIT, Luke Taylor, definitely had his work cut out since he needed to be in three places at once most of the time.”

Gagné says the zolly “became the go-to set-up approach for innie-to-outie moments.

With the zolly, we could transition from the long-lens look of the outie world to the wideangle innie look while staying in the same shot.

In this way, we could experience a physical change with the actor.”

Swanek explains that the zolly shot “was either a track-in while zooming out or a trackout while zooming in, timed to maintain the subject’s image size while the background either rushes away or toward the subject. Think of the zolly shots used in Jaws, Poltergeist, or Goodfellas. This approach tends to work best in medium shots. Ben and Jessica instead wanted to use the zolly to subtly distort the actors’ faces without telegraphing the effect on the background. Most of these moves were programmed into either a Technodolly or a computer-controlled moco system called the

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Kuper. They also had to do this manually while on the Steadicam.”

One of the most interesting sequences occurs in the small elevator. “The challenge was to achieve an interesting change in the actor’s face without going off the elevator set,” recalls Guthrie. “The Panavision 19-90 zoom ended up being the winning lens in our tests. It would take a couple of hours to set up the Kuper computer with [Motion Control Technician/Local 600 DP] Anthony Jacques to map the zoom to the distances, so we would dedicate our third body to the rig while we kept shooting. B-Camera Operator Stanley Fernandez would work with Key Grip Johnny Erbes-Chan and Dolly Grip Chris Stendardi and their crew, who were extra-thorough in laying the track because there couldn’t be any change in the relative height of the camera to the subjects, or the frame would change

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during the move. Both camera teams ended up doing these sequences at different points in the shoot.”

Helly’s story arc, which starts the moment she gets off the operating table, through her work life and crucial moments when she tries to escape, were all extremely challenging. A-Camera Operator Sam Ellison recalls “spending countless hours testing and retesting combinations of close-focus lenses, crazy circular dolly moves, and VFX stitching to accomplish the shot that transitions Helly from the operating table before her procedure to the stairwell where she confronts Milchick [Tramell Tillman]. It begins in an extreme close-up on her eye and pulls out to reveal Helly in a medium shot, in motion, passing through a doorway into the exit stairwell.

After a few near misses, we accomplished the move in one shot without any stitching in post, thanks mostly to the focus wizardry of Eric Swanek.”

Gagné says she enjoyed being Helly’s double for the helmet-cam POV’s.

“I believe in giving the director as many options as possible in the edit, which typically means shooting three cameras at a time,” she explains. “So, I’m always behind a monitor with a headset making sure the visuals align; and I never get to operate. I must admit operating is an amazing thrill and just doing those few shots in the show made me happy. I got to observe Britt Lower and sever my brain into being her.”

As the multiple worlds come crashing together in Episode 9, all the rules Stiller and Gagné set up are broken. “It begins with Mark’s outie transitioning to his innie as he hugs Ms. Cobel/Mrs. Selvig,” Swanek explains. “The shot follows Mark around his sister’s home in a continuous move, and as such, we had to do the zolly manually.”

“The Steadicam became the tool to achieve the change,” adds Operator David Taicher. “We

GAGNE DESCRIBES THREE DIFFERENT VISUAL APPROACHES: “THE OUTSIDE WORLD [PAGES 60/61], WHICH IS TRADITIONAL AND MOSTLY STUDIO-BASED; THE INSIDE WORLD [ABOVE/BELOW] WHICH IS STATIC AND WEIRDLY WIDE-ANGLE; AND TRADITIONAL ELEMENTS [PAGE 62], WHERE THE TWO WORLDS INTERSECT.”

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accomplished the transition with the zolly, Steadicam, and Panavision 19-90 primo zoom, but it was a challenging process – coordinating the camera move, focus, and the zoom – as we wanted it to feel much like the other transitions throughout the show, which were executed with a motion control zolly rig. It took many takes to accomplish with the right feel, and then the remainder of the scene would follow as a oner traveling through a practical location.

“The Blue Camera father/son team of Eric and Tyler Swanek had to be crammed off camera in a half-bath within the practical location for best video/Preston reception to pull focus, while they zoomed from 60 to 25 millimeters, maintaining the image size as we pushed in close,” Taicher adds.

Erick Swanek explains that “the Steadicam move, the zoom and the focus pull had to be completely in unison or the zolly would not have the same feel as what had been established throughout the show. As there would be no visual indication for timing, other than the distortion on Mark’s face changing, we wound up working on a three count from Ben’s action. It took a few tries, but we were happy with the results.”

Having Luke Taylor as a full-time DIT involved from prep was a key part of the camera team’s success, particularly given the challenges of COVID. “This series is a cerebral funhouse, with a ton of in-camera trickery,” Taylor describes. “We were always trying to figure out what we needed or what was missing to make the next step work.

We had to create a logistical underpinning to support the crew, even if a key player was quarantined. I needed five things outside the scope of my typical workflow – remote camera control, remote color control, remote communication, secure private network for video and audio over IP for the crew at the stage, and – should I be quarantined

– a secure high-quality color-accurate streaming engine.”

Taylor helped update the stage’s infrastructure to accomplish this, providing two networks: one secure from the outside world, where they would run video and audio over IP from stage to stage and the office for a video village on their iPads. This later became essential to his workflow while shooting multiple units across different stages. The second network was a bonded LTE connection through an encrypted VPN. “This opened doors to what we could achieve remotely and securely,” Taylor continues.

“Ian Edwards built us some fantastic LTE camera control boxes, allowing me to control camera settings remotely, whether that was the stage next door or on location 60 miles away.”

Both Stiller and Gagné heap lavish praise on the Local 600 crew.

“They were an incredibly hard-working group of professionals,” Stiller says enthusiastically. “We were trying things on-the-fly every day. We were in a lowceilinged windowless maze for months at a time, working long hours. As a result, we all learned a lot about work/life balance. I felt very lucky to have that team, and they all brought a lot of fun and energy every day.”

“I would say that Severance was made at an interesting time,” concludes Gagné.

“It was a rigorous and challenging project to shoot while humanity was beginning to see the work/life balance in a new way.

People work in film because they love it; we give a piece of ourselves in the work we do, and sometimes probably a little too much.

The best projects out there are made with the support of dedicated artisans who join together to achieve a larger goal. While battling COVID, we made Severance, and as seamless as it is, the individual voices and talent of the people who worked on it are undeniable. I could not be happier with how it turned out.”

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LOCAL 600 CREW Director of Photography Jessica Lee Gagne 2nd Unit Director of Photography Matthew Mitchell A-Camera Operators Sam Ellison David Taicher Steadicam Operator David Taicher A-Camera 1st AC Eric Swanek A-Camera 2nd AC Tyler Swanek B-Camera Operator Stanley Fernandez Jr B-Camera 1st AC Michael Guthrie B-Camera 2nd AC Vincent Tuths C-Camera Operators Peter Agliata Scott Maguire C-Camera 1st AC Gavin Fernandez C-Camera 2nd AC Frank Milea Loaders Sydney “Kansas” Ballesteros Brian Pucci DIT Luke Taylor 2nd Unit DIT Matthew Richards Libra Head Techs Sebastian Almeida Daniel Sheats Still Photographers Atsushi Nishijima Christopher Saunders Wilson Webb Publicist Peggy Mulloy

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FEATURE .

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THE LAST DAYS OF PTOLEMY GREY

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trouble

Photo Stone, APRIL 2022SMPSP / Apple TV+ 70 by Hopper

GUILD DP’S SHAWN PETERS AND HILDA MERCADO, AMC, HELP VISUALIZE AN AMERICAN CENTURY – IN ONE MAN’S HEAD – FOR THE LAST DAYS OF PTOLEMY GREY. BY KEVIN H. MARTIN PHOTOS BY ELI JOSHUA ADE HOPPER STONE, SMPSP / APPLE TV+

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In any serious discussion of hard-hitting crime fiction, two of the names that always turn up are Chester Himes and Walter Mosley. Both writers, while influenced by Raymond Chandler, brought a Black perspective to the traditionally white mean streets of crime fiction. With Himes on the East Coast and Mosley on the West, the novels reflect on how the pursuit of justice can be derailed by disparities related to class and race.

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H

imes’ detectives, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, made the transition to film in the Blaxploitation era with Cotton Comes to Harlem (shot by Gerald Hirschfeld, ASC) and Come Back Charleston Blue (shot

by Richard C. Kratina). Mosley’s Easy Rawlins made his cinematic debut in 1995 with Devil in a Blue Dress (shot by Tak Fujimoto, ASC). Although subsequent Rawlins adaptations for TV fell by the wayside, a new series is currently in development at Amblin. A recent awardee of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, Mosely has occasionally ventured outside the crime genre to science fiction; with his 2010 novel The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, he exploits a Charly-like sci-fi trope – the ability through an advanced medical procedure to improve a mind ravaged by the scourge of dementia, at least for the short term.

Driven by Alzheimer’s in his immediate family, Actor/Producer Samuel L. Jackson spent more than a decade trying to bring Mosley’s tale to the screen, at last securing a deal with Apple TV+. Two directors of photography, Shawn Peters and Hilda Mercado, AMC, both with experience in documentary, indie features, and TV, divided up the six-episode series. As Peters explains: “The leadership was atypical from most series, as there was no writer’s room, per se, just Walter Mosley and his partner, Jerome Hairston. While Diane Houslin was our day-to-day showrunner, Ramin Bahrani, who directed the pilot, was in many ways our creative avatar.

He was open to new ideas as we looked at various films for inspiration.” Among the references for composition,

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Photo by Hopper Stone, SMPSP / Apple TV+

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Peters cites At Eternity’s Gate, shot by Benoît Delhomme, AFC; and Janusz Kaminski’s work on the four-time Oscar-nominated The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.

Like Jackson’s character Romulus Ledbetter in The Caveman’s Valentine (shot

by Amy Vincent, ASC), Ptolemy experiences memories and delusions about past and present. “Each of these psychological conditions needed a unique visual treatment,” Peters continues. “The most important relate to his childhood in the 1930s – including his witnessing the lynching of an important figure in his life – and his marriage during the 1970s. There are also figures – I don’t want to call them ghosts, so let’s just say they are visitors – who appear to him in the present day.

These looks had to be distinct so that viewers would recognize each new manifestation in the right context and know what level of truth or delusion was at work in his mind.”

The different looks evolved in prep (sometimes executed via in-camera solutions such as diopters) and always with a different

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LUT. “Taking the time to figure out the proper lenses to use to represent Ptolemy’s emotional states was a key to the project,” states Mercado.

“Shawn and I were able to discuss testing results and refine ideas, so the story was told with clarity and the right emphasis.”

Peters came in early for the first installment, with Mercado joining his prep.

“When I was shooting,” Peters notes, “Debbie Allen came in to prep her episode with Hilda.

Then while they shot, I’d prep with Hanelle [Culpepper] for my next episode. I had [Color Corrective’s] colorist Alex Bickel in before we started shooting, to get all the looks locked so there were no surprises in the DI.” Shooting on ALEXA LF’s provided by Camtec Systems, the pair chose Falcons, which are rehoused Canon FD glass, along with detuned Vistas and a 50-mm ARRI Type M. Another workhorse lens was an older 55mm Angénieux, formerly used for surveillance, which proved to be Mercado’s favorite. “It was fast, like T.9 or something, and had just a little bit of vignetting,” she explains.

“We could focus attention precisely on just

certain points in the frame, and it had this crazy ridiculous falloff that really worked for when Ptolemy was in one of his delusional states.”

One early concern was the old-age makeup worn by Jackson, whose character is 91 years old. “For the first episode with Ramin, I was wondering how the old-age makeup was going to hold up,” admits Peters, “but it turned out phenomenal. The only downside was gravity – after x number of hours, the prosthetic appliance starts to sag.”

Mercado adds, “We had makeup and hair meetings early on to address all the concerns about how direct light hits the makeup. As we were on a learning curve with understanding how to deal with the limitations, having time up front was essential. There was no panicking when something didn’t look quite right, as we had anticipated that.”

In most instances, anyway.

Mercado recounts working a scene on

ABOVE: PETERS SAYS FOR THE PILOT WITH [DIRECTOR RAMIN BAHRANI], I WAS WONDERING HOW THE OLD-AGE MAKEUP WAS GOING TO HOLD UP. BUT IT TURNED OUT PHENOMENAL,” HE RECALLS. “THE ONLY DOWNSIDE WAS GRAVITY – AFTER X NUMBER OF HOURS, THE PROSTHETIC APPLIANCE STARTS TO SAG.” ABOVE/OPPOSITE PHOTOS BY HOPPER STONE, SMPSP / APPLE TV+

Ptolemy’s street, “and I wanted to change things so that we wouldn’t be in direct sunlight,” she continues. “I was saying, ‘The makeup is going to melt off his face before we get the scene!’ [Laughs.] Luckily that day was overcast, and the producer came over afterward, saying, ‘We were very lucky! I heard you were so concerned about the makeup!’”

Even in traditionally troublesome lighting situations – like shooting in a convertible automobile in hard light during the morning – the old-age makeup [by Vincent Van Dyke Effects] was still judged a total success.

Because much of the shooting would require specific and subtle communication of ideas to translate them into a cinematic form, Peters lobbied for the hiring of A-Camera Operator Santiago Yniguez, SOC. “He’s somebody I’ve worked with many times, who wound up being essential for the shoot.

If I’d worked with a stranger, I don’t think I could have communicated things so clearly and certainly wouldn’t have seen the ideas interpreted so well.”

As Yniguez shares: “ When Shawn approached me, he didn’t know that I had picked up one of Mosley’s books in college and had wound up reading the entire Easy Rawlins series. So, getting to meet Walter Mosley was a thrill! What I liked about the project was how Shawn and Ramin approached Steadicam as just a component of the shoot, as opposed to other jobs when it’s nothing but Steadicam all day long to ‘get through the day faster.’

In discussions, I found it wasn’t ever just a technical call. With Ramin, his first question was always, ‘How does this scene feel to you?’

And we’d talk to figure out motivation while making sure not to draw too much attention to the camera. Depending on the timbre of the scene, we might go with a slider or even handheld. I’m also a Trinity operator, so we used that tool from ARRI as well.”

Yniguez says he enjoyed the challenge of varying the look for Ptolemy’s varying states.

“By staying on wide lenses and being close, it lets the audience feel the full brunt of what he was going through in the beginning,” the

operator explains. “And after he gets his first shot of the brain medicine, he still isn’t at full lucidity. So, we based the camera movement on his functionality and decided to use sticks once he starts to realize where he is at. It was exciting to be there as Ramin and Shawn laid out the look. The story pushed this into a filmic realm, and one of the things I loved most was that it felt like making a feature. We shot with two cameras, but it wasn’t cookiecutter coverage; Hawk [B-Camera operator Jason Hawkins] was great at finding a good angle that would help Editorial.”

Hawkins says he was also excited when first meeting Peters and Bahrani. “They both spoke of how hard we’d work to capture that intimate feeling of the loneliness and heartache of a man trapped within the decay of his mind,” Hawkins shares. One way this was accomplished was with the widelens close-up. Santiago and Jackson had an intimate dance during leading closeups

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showing Ptolemy discovering his memoryladen, debris-littered cocoon of an apartment.

“Getting on the same page about the intent, mood, and tone for the piece as an overall work, as well as each individual scene, freed me up to find complimentary angles to Santi’s shots,” Hawkins adds, “and allowed us to easily make our days without compromising the ability to creatively tell our story.

“In his novel,” he continues, “Walter does a great job of painting an intimate portrait of a man fighting a losing battle with dementia.

Reading it, I got a claustrophobic feeling because so much of the story takes place in Ptolemy’s obscured perspective of his reality in a hoarder’s tiny apartment. Framing Ptolemy within all the collected fragments of memories and obscuring him as he wanders in and out of view and in and out of mental clarity helps visually impart his struggle. We would often create compositions that were obscured or otherwise askew to imbue the audience with Ptolemy’s elusive mental state.”

Shooting relied on more than just inyour-face short lenses. “We also did plenty of traditional long-lens close-ups that were beautiful and painterly,” Hawkins notes. “But

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long lenses create a distant perspective and separate the audience from the character, while those wide-angle close-ups are more visceral. Seeing Sam Jackson, the epitome of cool, vulnerable in those close-ups was heartbreaking.”

Mercado’s episodes were directed

by Debbie Allen and Guild Director of Photography Guillermo Navarro. “ They both blocked scenes very specifically with B-camera in mind rather than just picking up random shots,” she offers. “We might be using Steadicam on A-Camera taking us through the shot, but B-Camera would be on point to register a key moment.”

While the production often utilized location interiors, Ptolemy’s apartment was created on stage. “There were a ton of scenes set there,” says Peters, “plus we needed to show it at night and during the day. In Ramin’s episode, we transition from day to night in a single shot, changing the light completely. There was also a whole 1930s village built by the art department, which was a lot of fun to light.”

At one point, an oversize hallway was built practically to represent Ptolemy’s perspective.

“Everything is seriously elongated,” Mercado recounts, “and going practical was the only solution. This shows how the control afforded from stage work can be beneficial, because we couldn’t have achieved this to the same degree by just relying on lenses or other trickery.

There was also a cabin where Ptolemy had a conversation with a long-dead friend. Sean worked things out with the gaffer to use very limited light sources, so it looked like he was lit with just oil lamps. I shot on that, too, and pushed-in some LED along with the gas lights.

It was challenging, but worthwhile, for the way you see these faces in candlelight.”

Peters reports that RBG LED lighting was used throughout. “Our base or ambient light was achieved through rows of ARRI SkyPanel S360s,” says Peters. “Then, in case we needed a source for sunlight, there were Newells to bring directionality. Everything was on dimmer boards, and we also had base lights for window translights.”

A scene with Ptolemy attending a relative’s funeral was particularly challenging – and satisfying. “I was walking backward on

OPPOSITE / ABOVE & BELOW: B-CAMERA OPERATOR JASON HAWKINS SAYS A-CAMERA OPERATOR SANTIAGO YNIGUEZ AND JACKSON HAD AN “INTIMATE DANCE” DOING WIDE-LENS CLOSEUPS THAT SHOW PTOLEMY DISCOVERING HIS MEMORY-LADEN COCOON OF AN APARTMENT. “WE WOULD OFTEN CREATE COMPOSITIONS THAT WERE OBSCURED OR OTHERWISE ASKEW TO IMBUE THE AUDIENCE WITH PTOLEMY’S ELUSIVE MENTAL STATE,” HAWKINS ADDS. FRAMEGRABS COURTESY OF APPLE TV+

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Photo by Eli Joshua Ade / Apple TV+

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Photo by Eli Joshua Ade / Apple TV+

ABOVE/OPPOSITE: MERCADO RECALLS FLASHBACKS TO PTOLEMY’S LIFE IN THE 1930S, INCLUDING A SCENE AT A RANCH WHERE A LYNCHING TOOK PLACE. “THE LOGISTICS OF MOVING FROM SEEING PTOLEMY AS A CHILD WATCHING THIS EVENT TO HIM IN THE PRESENT DAY...AND DEALING WITH EVERYTHING HAPPENING AROUND HIM WAS TOUGH, BUT ALL OUR PREP AND TEAMWORK HELPED US PULL IT OFF AND KEEP ON SCHEDULE.”

Steadicam, pulling Sam with me, and we tried it a few different ways,” Yniguez describes.

“One time I got pushed into a corner as he reached the casket, which was in my foreground. Sam drops down and on this one take; he sort of starts to lose it emotionally.

It was one of those things where you see it happen and go with it, so I pushed myself further into that corner. When he kneeled, I went down with him, first squatting, then kneeling, while wearing the Steadicam. To capture that moment on the fly was one of my favorite parts of the show, owing to the excitement of the unexpected.”

Peters adds that, “Sam [Jackson] is MENSA-level smart and knows everybody’s job on the set. He listens to every conversation and is aware of what goes on at all levels.

When Ptolemy is at his nephew’s funeral and

he sees his dead wife in a vision, we pushed in close and the lighting was working just right, and I felt in the moment that it was elevating the acting. I whispered something about it to Ramin, but Sam heard me and said, ‘So now the lights are doing the acting!’ [Laughs.] I said: ‘No, just helping a bit.’”

The last weeks of production included flashbacks to Ptolemy’s life in the 1930s. “There is a scene at a ranch where a lynching took place,” Mercado describes. “The logistics of moving from seeing Ptolemy as a child watching this event to him in the present day thinking about all this and dealing with everything else happening around him was another tough one, but all our prep and teamwork helped us pull it off and keep on schedule.”

Hawkins had moved over to A-Camera for second-unit work on the flashback sequence, to

provide continuity of vision from the director and DP. “Later, I learned [that continuity was] more important for the actors,” he acknowledges. “I was surprised by how much Damon [Gupton, who plays Ptolemy’s ill-fated mentor, Coydog] appreciated having me there as part of the crew-family we had created. As a camera operator, you are the first audience to an actor’s performance. Over the course of a show, you get to know them as people and create unique bonds with them; to see some of the nicest people I’ve ever met have to portray such suffering and endure some of humanity’s worst indignities was gut-wrenching. But we took it in stride professionally, and we respectfully worked our way through. A couple of times I teared up in the middle of the shot; that’s when I knew we were telling this story the right way.”

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Photo by Eli Joshua Ade / Apple TV+

LOCAL 600 CREW Directors of Photography Shawn Peters (Episodes 101, 103, 106) Hilda Mercado (Episodes 102, 104, 105) A-Camera/Steadicam Operator Santiago Yniguez A-Camera 1st AC Matthew McGinn A-Camera 2nd AC Brock Byrd B-Camera Operator Jason “Hawk” Hawkins B-Camera 1st AC Austin Lewis B-Camera 2nd AC Oren Malik C-Camera Operator Devin Doyle C-Camera 1st AC Austin Blythe C-Camera 2nd AC Gabriel Salazar D-Camera/Steadicam Operator Juan Ramos D-Camera 1st AC Tony Summerlin D-Camera 2nd AC Stefan Figueroa Loader Kelsey Symonsi DIT Jonny Revolt Digital Utilities Chilé Manuel Fernando Salazar Still Photographers Eli Ade Boris Martin Hopper Stone, SMPSP Publicist Erin Felentzer NEW TECHNOLOGY

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20 SUNDANCE 22

FILM FESTIVAL

MY OLD Two pairs of tight-knit DP/director teams set their race-based films on American college campuses, elevating beyond genre with bold cinematic storytelling.

By David Geffner

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Small, private, historically white universities on America’s eastern coast form the backdrop

with Mike for so long, I get low-key jealous when he partners with another director and

for two visually striking, eminently cinematic features that screened in the prestigious U.S. Dramatic Competition at 2022 Sundance.

What both films – Emergency and Master – have in common is the main theme of racial inequity and two DP/director teams who appear to effortlessly channel each other’s creative mindsets. Emergency, shot in and around Atlanta, relates the story of two close friends, both Black but with vastly different backgrounds (and approaches toward their educations). Sean (RJ Cyler) is a gregarious jokester whose main goal is to become the first Black student (at his nearly all-white school) to complete a full tour of the various fraternity/sorority party houses in a single night. Sean’s pal, Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins), is a strait-laced biochemistry major who’s headed for graduate school at Princeton.

However, before the night even begins, Sean and Kunle find a white student, Emma (Maddie Nichols), passed out on their floor.

Sean and Kunle’s weed-stoked, gamer roommate, Carlos (Sebastian Chacon), is in his bedroom oblivious to her presence.

What follows, founded on Sean and Kunle’s opposing views, propels the rest of the story, which unfolds over one chaotic night.

Director of Photography Michael Dallatorre first worked with Emergency Director Carey Williams on music videos and short films some 18 years back. A South Central L.A. native who worked for many years as a camera technician at Panavision, Dallatorre says he and Williams have “evolved a visual language” that’s free of creative judgment or hierarchical pressure. “There’s a trust where we just kind of dive in and don’t ask a lot of questions as to why or how,” Dallatorre offers. Williams agrees, adding: “I’ve worked

makes their stuff look great! Having Mike [on Emergency] was my comfort zone in stepping into a larger budget and narrative space.”

Master, shot in upstate New York by Local 600 Director of Photography Charlotte Hornsby for Writer/Director Mariama Diallo, uses a bold color palette (and plenty of horror film tropes) to tell its story of three women striving to find their place at an elite New England university. Historically ingrained racism haunts the campus (literally) as freshman Jasmine Moore (Zoe Renee) fights off the aura of another Black student who hanged herself in the same dorm room decades before. At the same time, newly installed House Master Gail Bishop (Regina Hall) is battling past demons bred into Ancaster University’s hundreds-years-old existence.

Diallo says working with Hornsby on the short film Hair Wolf (2018) created a close creative bond that made “having her shoot Master a no-brainer. Finding someone who understands what I was about as a filmmaker and what I wanted to say was a feeling I got from Charlotte the first time we met,” Diallo adds. Hornsby describes Diallo’s writing as “playful, melodic,” with a narrative “that moves forward so effortlessly. Master is full of suspenseful moments, and when we built the schedule we wanted to give these sequences time so Mariama could build tension in the edit. I love the process of transposing her language into images,” Hornsby adds.

ICG Magazine checked in with both DP/directing teams via Zoom, just after their respective Sundance premieres, to talk about their creative processes and where stories about racial inequity fit in the current landscape of American independent filmmaking.

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EMERGENCY Photos by Quantrell Colbert / Amazon Studios

ICG Magazine: This film attacks race relations with both laugh-out-loud comedy and terrifying drama, sometimes within the same scene. Why this world to tell your story? Carey Williams: I was servicing a great script that KD Davila wrote.

But as a director, I always have to be 100 percent invested and have a North Star. When I first did this as a short [Sundance 2018], I didn’t know who the characters of Sean and Kunle were. It was more about turning a serious situation on its head with comedy. But the feature needed to resonate with people for more than 90 minutes, and it was clear to me the core element was this young Black male friendship. On top of that was the space to explore varying opinions among Black people over a given subject, as well as to show young Black men that it’s okay to show vulnerability. There’s so much fear and anxiety around all of these things, and it was exciting for me to delve into these finer nuances of friendship, race, manhood, et cetera in this movie.

The first thing that grabs you, visually, is the lensing. The use of shallow depth-of-field and focus to reinforce character is awesome, especially for a low-budget indie. Mike Dallatorre:

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We shot spherical using ALEXA Large Format and Panaspeed T1.4 primes. Carey’s dream was to shoot anamorphic. But even with my history at Panavision, I couldn’t get a hold of a set of anamorphic lenses – they’re just way too popular.

I knew we were going to be in the van [with Sean, Kunle, Carlos, and Emma] for a lot of this movie, and that the large-format capture would allow us to be close and intimate without getting that distortion that makes you feel like you’re looking through a surveillance camera [laughs]. Carey’s what I would call a “lensing director.” He thinks carefully about how lensing impacts the story. He had a [Sony] A7 with a Panavision mount and a wireless transmitter, so he could show me and the operators [via iPad] exactly the frames he wanted. I would also vary the lenses on the close-ups for Sean and Kunle because they are such different people. Same field of view but with slightly different perspectives. The best example is the night exterior when they’re arguing right before Maddie [Emma’s sister] runs up and hits them with the stick. Kunle says, “We’re not going to be roommates,” and that’s a pivotal moment. Carey Williams: I wanted this film to feel authored, like someone is taking you through this journey. And you

can do that really well with the lensing – rack here, pull focus there, direct the viewer toward what you want them to see, and more importantly, what the characters are feeling in that moment of the story.

Mike was so great in helping me achieve that kind of strong cinematic language. We go to some dark places, and we were like: “Hey, we’re going to hold your hand, drop you in, and make sure we honor exactly what these people are experiencing every step of the way.”

The first bold use of color and lighting is when Sean imagines what the legendary tour will look like. How did you visually distinguish each of those locations, given the budget and schedule limitations? Carey: I’ve got to give it up to our production designer, Jeremy Woodward, and his art department, who were great in giving each of those sets this feeling of heightened reality. Remember, these are Sean’s fantasies of what each place would be like, not necessarily the real thing. Combined with Mike’s lighting, which pushed just enough into hyperreality, they come alive. For those scenes, you have to really lean on collaborators like Mike and Jeremy to bring their special sauce. Mike: I did

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tweak the LUT by pushing the color saturation. But, honestly, they were the easiest part of the shoot, because Carey and I have done so many music videos – without any money. So, to have a budget, time, and Jeremy’s sets, it was like playtime – so fun.

shoot, and 30 of those days were nights.

Films that take place over a single day/night are a genre unto themselves. How challenging is it knowing you’re going to have to depict so many different lighting conditions – bright sunlight, twilight, nighttime, even early morning – while still maintaining suspension of disbelief? Mike: The key to that is meticulous planning with the first AD: in this case, H.H. Cooper, who has so much experience. Carey: The man! [Laughs.] Mike: The man! H.H. has done so many projects and is so savvy. We worked closely together to schedule scenes over a period of time; say, the same scene would be shot over three days from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., to keep the time of day consistent. We shot in the spring, where you have 10 hours of darkness, and you can even push that a little more – although once you hear those birds start chirping [laughs], you know everything’s going blue! This was a 33-day

incredibly challenging. I’ve never done that many nights, on any project. It’s cold, your energy is flagging, and then there are all the tiny visual details to keep straight. I remember one night, looking at [Sebastian Chacon] Carlos and asking: “Is that enough blood on his face or on his shirt? Did he have more? Or was it less? I have no idea.” Again, you’re nothing without your collaborators to lean on – in that example, costume designer Icy White, Makeup Head Teresa Vest, and Hair Department Head Mandrill Hardge.

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My next question. So many scenes at night, in a van. Carey: Dude, moving forward, any script I read that has exterior nights is going to have to be seriously great for me to consider [laughs]. It’s

There are so many scary/funny moments. The scene when they stop at Sean’s brother’s house is one of them, with a lot of characters, and the camerawork needing to make sure all the moments land. Mike: I have a saying: “I love operating. But I don’t like operating.” Meaning, I’m of most benefit

to the production being next to Carey and not in the corner of the room, or outside on a scissors lift, operating, where I can’t communicate what he needs. When you have two amazing operators like Greg [Johnson, Jr.] and Justin [Uchendu], you can plan the shots out and just leave them, while I go work with lighting and grip, or some other areas with Carey. Operators form a connection with actors, so all those scenes inside the van while it’s moving, which were shot with two 20-by-12 LED walls, were fantastic because Greg and Justin are so good.

We did a 90-minute virtual panel on the use of LED screens in The Mandalorian [ICG Magazine Deep Dive #4], and the filmmakers, albeit working at the highest possible budget level, liked the amount of control it brought back to the set. How comfortable were you with that technology, given so much of the film is in the car? Carey: To be honest, I had hoped to shoot all of those scenes in a car, driving, on location. And we did shoot scenes where the car is parked on location. But when H.H. told me [the driving scenes] were not in the budget, I had to listen, as I’d never done that amount of driving

before. Now, when we had the LED screens on set, I did find myself still feeling like it wasn’t fully real – I’ve always avoided green screen in my work. But, clearly, we never would have got what we needed if we had shot those scenes on location. Filmmaking is about trade-offs, and this one was totally necessary.

The last 20 minutes of the film is when the comedy gives way to [a potential] tragedy. How did you decide when you’d cross over that line, visually speaking? For example, when Kunle is prone on the ground, with the police, we see the whole scene from his POV in slow motion. Mike: Going in, we knew that would be a difficult scene to shoot. Not practically, but emotionally. We’re building up, narratively speaking, and we wanted people to understand that if you’ve ever had a gun pointed at you, the world just stops. It’s also where I put to use my background in horror – we don’t ever show the faces of the police. They are a terrifying, unseen force that’s a looming threat.

Carey Williams: I absolutely pushed to have that

scene shot that way. It’s not about the police brutality, it’s about being in Kunle’s head, and why we push in and hold on him for so long. The way we isolate him from the background with the lensing, the use of slo-mo to make, as Mike said, time completely stop, all of that was so purposeful to get across this terror. Mike: For me, that scene, and the last scene of Sean and Kunle in the lab, are my favorites, because they hit on the core of the film, both visually and emotionally. You have dreams, as a young filmmaker, of shooting something that can truly touch people, of making grown men cry.

[Laughs.] So, to be able to do that, when Kunle and Sean open up to each other in the lab, was really gratifying. Carey: To see Sean and Kunle hugging and crying and saying how much they care for each other, that’s where the entire film is headed. We’ve seen young Black men accosted by the police before. But we haven’t seen it the way Kunle experiences it, and we definitely don’t get to see that kind of vulnerability between young Black men, as they display in the lab. Speaking to

the photography, Mike and I talked about making that lab warm and human, because it’s Kunle’s only real space that defines him in the whole film. He’s at home, and able to open up to his friend about a life-changing experience.

What can, will, should this film add to the conversation about race in America? Carey: It definitely can add to the conversation, in a way that also entertains. Commentary through comedy. But this movie is not supposed to give you answers.

The answers would just open up more questions.

Why couldn’t they just call the cops? Well, here’s why. Or the opposite: there’s no way they could call the cops! The more you can empathize with someone else’s experiences, the more chance there is for forward progress, as a society. Mike: I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, and you just didn’t show weakness. You just never showed the kind of vulnerability these characters do, so there are levels to this film that are really great. What I love is that the levity allows the opportunity for conversation.

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gaffer, Matt Atwood, about this emergency light that would be our primary glow when the fluorescents cut off. And then when they fizzle back on, we’d have this seedy combination of green and red, and everything dripping with water. Mariama: As the film progressed, we wanted to bring that nightmarish color/lighting into Jasmine’s waking life. Like when she goes to the party at the hockey house, that’s not a supernatural moment, but the strobing, red light takes her – and us – back to that fear.

The movie references more recent horror films, like Get Out, as well as old-school ones – the scene toward the end of Gail at the former master’s party is straight out of Rosemary’s Baby, with her confused, slowed-down POV. Charlotte: Rosemary’s Baby was a huge influence! Mariama: For sure on that scene, and the opening shot as well. Charlotte and I watched and re-watched a lot of films that we shared. The Shining, Let the Right One In… Charlotte: Don’t Look Now, The Hour of the Wolf, Blood Simple…

MASTER This film is keyed around three different women trying to survive in an all-white landscape. How did you pick this setting for the story you wanted to tell? Mariama Diallo: I went to Yale, which is Ancaster-esque, and, perhaps, equally traumatizing [laughs]. There was a lot of self-examination, unpacking, and emotions to sift through during my time there. There was also that progression you get in the Northeast – from fall to winter – that process of light into darkness, cold into snow, that visually, and tonally, I wanted to explore.

The buildings in this story – Belleville House, where the Master lives, the campus itself – all play a big part in this building sense of fear and tension. How did you exploit that with tools like color and lensing? Charlotte Hornsby: The color matches the progression Mariama mentioned – starting with the warmth of fall when we feel like Jasmine and Gail may be able to belong in this place. Once we move into this dark, dismal winter, we cool down the image, and – literally – pull color from people’s faces. To discover Ancaster’s rotten

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core, we played with our greens and yellows – the sequence where Jasmine discovers the diaries of Louisa Weeks, we used sickly green fluorescents to subtly underscore the story of her death. Mariama: Charlotte and I also talked a lot about the color palette reflecting this old, rich society – red leather book covers, wingback chairs, thick plush carpets – and picking that out of the production design with lighting and lensing.

When did you want to introduce the horror element? I’m thinking of Jasmine’s scene alone in the shower, where the light is strobing this deep red. Charlotte: Mariama had written a lot of great lighting cues into the script, so it was exciting for me, as a DP, knowing all the lights would go out in that scene and the opportunities that allows. We wanted to have a bathroom, where the walk from the stall to the mirror would take as long as possible, in this classic horror trope way where you slow down time. We found this crazy locker room, where we could wet down all the walls, and it was sealed off with no windows or practical units. I talked with my

How did you visually distinguish Gail’s house, Liv’s house, and Jasmine’s dorm room? Charlotte: Each of these characters is experiencing horror differently. We wanted you to immediately feel that something was off with Jasmine’s dorm room. Our production designer for the second half of the shoot, Tommy Love, got these warped glass windowpanes that created spectral, abstract patterns on the wall, like a lingering spirit on Jasmine’s side of the room. Mariama and I talked about Liv being this shapeshifter, so the light in her house is always changing. The first time Gail visits Liv, she’s bathed in this warm sodium vapor light – from the outside streetlights – while Liv is keyed in this blue/green moonlight, so we feel a disconnect between them.

The script undercuts expectations that Jasmine and Liv will become allies. Did you consider these characters as archetypes, given how the theme of racism is so intertwined with their choices? Mariama: I knew that the characters would ultimately make whatever statement needed to be made on their own, so my focus was on trying to understand them and see where the story took them. I didn’t want to think of them as archetypes or symbols; I knew all of that would come out in their conversations, situations, and struggles. Charlotte: We had fun with lighting and camera movement, but every choice was linked to character. Mariama and I spent a lot of time in prep together making sure every shot, even the most extensive oner, was grounded in what the characters were experiencing, emotionally, in that scene.

There are some big cinema moments, like when Jasmine is walking back from the party with a massive shadow cast on the campus building behind her. Or when Gail sees the sect burying one of their own at night. Charlotte: Our crew was so awesome. We were all very excited to choreograph shots that felt like Cinema with a capital C. Tristan Allen, my Key Grip for the 2020 shoot, helped us

Photo by Emily Aragones / Amazon Studios

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dream up that shadow shot. We had an extra walk behind Jasmine while electrician Emmette Kerr-Perkinson wheeled a Par can downhill from the extra to cast her shadow against the building. Jasmine and the extra synchronized their movements so it would feel like Jasmine’s shadow. Mariama: What I love about the burial scene is this idea of things you stumble upon at night in the woods. It can feel menacing, but maybe it’s just being a fear of the unfamiliar. I also liked that it tied into the history of the Northeast, with Native American and Puritan culture meeting for the first time, and that kind of misunderstanding ties into the history of this subject and our country. Charlotte: The cemetery had no practical lights, it was pitch dark at night, so that scene was one of our biggest lighting challenges. The night before the shoot it snowed, which was a logistical nightmare but a lighting gift as it was a carpet of pure white bounce. My grip and electric team did a heroic job working in deep snow, especially my 2021 gaffer Matt Atwood as we had a false positive on set and were undermanned.

This is a story told from the perspective of three Black women, albeit three very different people. How important was it to have that female element present on the production team? Mariama: It was really important. The places the actors have to go to in this story put them in an incredibly vulnerable position, and I think it’s meaningful to them to feel this energy not just in front of the camera. It lets them know we’re practicing what we’re talking about, which informs the core of my values. So, yes, it all went hand-in-hand.

The film is broken up into chapters, and the last is called “It’s Everywhere,” meaning racism. Is the ending as bleak as it seems from a talking point perspective?

Mariama: For Gail to escape Ancaster is probably the best thing for her to do, because the school, clearly, won’t come to terms with its history. It won’t be a place where people of color can thrive. Yes, you can say the monster wins, but wins what?

To what end? It’s a rejection of a narrative we’ve been sold – when Gail tells Jasmine to tough it out and endure the racism and rejection – when there can be another way.

Charlotte: When we talked about how the ending should feel, it reminded me of the final shot in this heartbreaking noir called The Breaking Point. Gail walks away and yet the shot continues and continues – and the people who have to stay at Ancaster are still there. We didn’t want to tie it all up in a bow.

We wanted people to keep thinking about this story.

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Photos this page by Linda Källérus / Amazon Studios

Three Sundance films show three very different sides of Los Angeles, a land of many faces.

By Valentina Valentini

CITY OF ANGLES

Los Angeles is not one thing. Anyone who says so has never been there. It’s not just the glittery lights of Hollywood Boulevard or the wide swaths of sand at Santa Monica Beach. It’s also the Downtown streets full of humans without homes. It’s the dusty canyon trails. It’s the low-rise, pastel-painted stucco apartment complexes in Inglewood.

To film L.A. is not one thing, either. Putting the city on screen can mean something different to many people and will invariably be determined by the story one wants to tell. Three films at Sundance this year, shot by Guild cinematographers Cristina Dunlap, Jeffrey Bierman, and Ashley Connor, had three things in common: all low budget, all shot at different stages of a pandemic, and all filmed in Los Angeles. That is where the similarities end, though. The stories they tell are as disparate from each other as are the locations the filmmakers chose – or were forced to use.

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AM I OKAY? Photos courtesy of Picturestart

Dunlap is an eighth-generation Angeleno, so her familiarity with the city runs deep. Stephanie Allynne and Tig Notaro’s Am I Ok? – a rom-com for friends starring Dakota Johnson and Sonoya Mizuno – was shot a year into the pandemic, making it possible to use locations that were normally too expensive or too crowded for independent films.

“It’s crazy to see how Los Angeles on film has evolved over the years,” says Dunlap, who also lensed Sundance charmer Cha Cha Real Smooth.

“It was cool to be a very tiny piece of that. And even though we didn’t reflect ‘pandemic times’ in the film, it felt special to capture a specific time in history in Los Angeles. When I went with the directors to scout for the first time in person, it felt like we were walking into spaces where people had just suddenly vanished. It was surreal to walk into a bar that looked completely abandoned or a yoga studio that still had schedules up on the wall from March of 2020. Nothing had been touched, but everything had a layer of dust!”

The portrayal of L.A. that Dunlap referenced was the 1996 indie hit Swingers, written by Jon

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Favreau and directed by Doug Liman. She and the directors wanted that intimate, locals-only feel that was less about wide shots of the city and more about establishing places where these two best friends always hole up, whether it’s on the yoga mat or for late-night drinks or mid-afternoon veggie burgers. They shot at places like the stairs at Elysian Park and the hipster hangout Edendale in Silverlake, and they even got access to Café 101 – the historic landmark made famous in part

by Swingers. The iconic American-style diner closed up shop for the pandemic and then, sadly, permanently closed just before Dunlap filmed there.

“It was sold shortly after and is now reopened as a new restaurant,” says Dunlap. “I think we were one of the first projects to shoot [in the new space]. Our production designer made a new floor tile design, and now I see it in commercials that film there all the time.”

Perhaps Dunlap’s contribution to L.A. on screen is bigger than she thought. To capture it, she used the ALEXA Mini with Cooke Speed

Panchros and Cooke S4s, which both tend to lean a bit warmer, and she needed help with bringing warmth into the frame since they were shooting in January and February of 2021.

“No one thinks L.A. gets cold,” Dunlap says, “but it hailed while we were trying to shoot the outdoor hammock scene, which is meant to take place in the summer at some hot spot like Joshua Tree. We had to reschedule three times because of rain and wind, and then, when we finally got there, it was the last two days of the schedule, and the hail was coming down in a very extreme way. I needed those lenses that day. Also, they have such a painterly quality to them, the way they render skin tones, that felt very appropriate for our script.”

Dunlap was joined by an L.A.-based Guild team, many of whom she’s worked closely with for years. That included A-Camera Operator Greg Arch, A-Camera 1st Rachel Fox, A-Camera 2nd AC Renni Pollock, B-Camera Operator David Liebling, B-Camera 1st AC Karla Wilson, B-Camera 2nd AC Kyle Petitjean, and DIT’s Tamas Harangi and Teddy Phuthanhdanh.

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EMILY THE CRIMINAL Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute / Low Spark Films

“John and I talked a lot about how the L.A. you see in movies is not the L.A. that we know,” says Bierman, known for gritty dramas like Age Out and Bad Turn Worse. “L.A. is a rough, not very pretty place unless you’re in the Hills or one of those beautiful neighborhoods. But most of L.A. is not so romantic. It’s full of dust and grime with awful 80s and 90s architecture. But that’s what I think is interesting about it, and we wanted to lean into that element and take people into a city they don’t usually see on screen. And we wanted to be honest about the world [that Emily gets involved in], and not romanticize it in any way.”

At one point, they considered shooting in Cleveland for budgetary reasons, but both Ford and Bierman felt that would lose the meaning behind the narrative because it was so specific to L.A. “The aspirational discrepancy that exists in L.A. fuels sorrow for people with big dreams that never make it and are surrounded by the images of people like their peers who do make it,” Bierman adds. “L.A. is so much about success and growth. That’s what drives Emily’s story.”

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Although he’d lensed dozens of commercials and music videos in Los Angeles, in the 15 years since he’d left Philadelphia to attend the American Film Institute (where he met Ford), Bierman had only ever gotten to shoot one film in his adopted home city. That was First Love, from writer-director A.J. Edwards, whom he’s collaborated with previously, and only months before Ford’s feature began filming in August 2021.

And if he’s being honest, Bierman was exhausted with shooting there, going to the same locations. “It can be difficult to find excitement and inspiration in a place like L.A. that has been photographed so many times in so many ways by so many incredible filmmakers. You need to work to find a new way of doing it, a new way inside. And hopefully, the story allows that. John’s script gave us a lot of opportunities to explore.”

Bierman was thrilled when he read the Emily the Criminal script and knew he’d get to bring L.A. to the screen in a very specific way. But he also thinks that his upbringing by a carpenter father working all over Philly is the source of his affinity for the rougher

areas of L.A., which have a harder-edged patina. He chose to shoot on the Sony VENICE because 2500 ISO allowed him to shoot in low light for the night exterior work without the scale of lighting setups he might typically use. The 2500 ISO also created a built-in noise structure that Bierman felt brought the image to life. He paired the camera with spherical Kowa lenses that were selected after several tests because “we love their delicate characteristics – there is a softness, but they still hold great contrast, and that paired well with the VENICE.” “Look at Michael Mann’s Heat,” he says, returning to his point about showing L.A. in a different light. “The locations are incredible, [and I wanted] to take the viewer on a journey into a world that you haven’t seen before. Paul Thomas Anderson does it, too. Look at Licorice Pizza – you’re like, ‘I don’t know any of those places in L.A., but it feels so specifically L.A.’ And it’s a real challenge not to lean into what has been done before that allows an audience to slip into this portal of a new world they’ve never seen that exists with those spots.”

Brooklyn transplant Ashley Connor, who lensed Lena Dunham’s latest, Sharp Stick, about Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth), a 20-something woman finally coming into her sexuality, also points to Licorice Pizza as a film that made her “yearn for the Valley,” where she grew up.

But that doesn’t mean that Connor was using PTA’s films as a reference. It was more lighting from 1970s Turkish Delight or Coming Home that fueled Dunham’s and her vision. “I wanted for somebody who had been away from L.A. to miss it and then see it and feel it in this guttural way; I wanted to create a feeling of texture [that would create] a longing to be in the Los Angeles light.”

Dunham, a New York City-to-L.A. transplant, was also keen on capturing that very specific light.

They filmed in only four locations in December 2020 – Connor credits Dunham with writing a pandemicready script in that sense. But with the number of detailed sex scenes in the story, much of Connor’s work was focused on creating a safe space for the

cast and crew.

“I’ve done a lot of sex scenes, so I think my work lent itself to this kind of project,” says Connor, who recently lensed Ruth Wilson-starrer True Things.

As the cinematographer, she’s often the one physically closest to an actor, so with intimate scenes she takes a holistic approach, in addition to working with an intimacy coordinator as they did on Sharp Stick. “We talk about the female gaze and male gaze, and as we move through gender, I hope that we can separate from that terminology, but for right now, let’s call it the female gaze – or the antimale gaze,” Connor describes. “I participate in these scenes by creating an environment where people have agency. Regardless of who the actors are in the room, regardless of the subject matter or what is happening in the production, conversations are happening off-screen to make sure everybody feels comfortable and knows what is happening.”

Through Sarah Jo’s sexual and emotional journey, Connor always wanted the light to frame the

story. The haziness that helps illuminate also helped guide her narrative, which was a new experience for Connor to play in those swaths. “I’m not a lowcontrast person,” she says, “but Lena likes it a little bit lower con and a little bit softer.”

They shot in a house in Eagle Rock and a Glendale stucco apartment complex for about a week each, and then a bar and a cabin in the mountains each for a day. The 15-day shoot, which planned to wrap just before Christmas, had a very small footprint and full COVID-19 safety protocols in place. Connor remembers the stress of having no wiggle room. “If we shut down from anything,” she concludes, “there was no extending because Lena had to go back to London. So many people in L.A. had been out of work; a lot of union people had been out of work and this project was still a union project, which was important for us to work towards because we knew that so many people were suffering, not having healthcare hours, not having any work.”

SHARP STICK

Photo Courtesy of FilmNation / Utopia

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FAR

The reach of Local 600 Directors of Photography at Sundance 2022 was far and wide, including four projects that originated at distant points across the map.

By Michael Chambliss

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FROM HOME Part of the craft of cinematography is the art of making connections, particularly when the projects originate far from your home base. It’s not just making connections to land the gig, but connecting with the director, the script, the key crew members, the locations, and sometimes international cultures to bring a cohesive vision to the screen that’s true to the story. We interviewed four Sundance directors of photography whose films were based “far from home” to see how they drew all the pieces together.

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BLOOD

Photos Courtesy of Eric Lin

Winner of the Sundance U.S Dramatic Special Jury Award, Blood is the story of Chloe (Carla Juri), a recently widowed still photographer traveling on self-assignment to Japan while sifting through the loss of her husband. Chloe gains support from her husband’s longtime friend, Toshi (Takashi Ueno), and his daughter. Set against the intense colors and texture of Tokyo, Blood is about the promise of joy, grounding relationships, and the challenges of closing the distance between people. One of the opening shots is of two trains passing on a bridge.

Blood’s Director of Photography Eric Lin says he’s drawn to intimate character studies, adding that “I’m fortunate to have had a few films at Sundance, but this is my first win. I’m excited about that, especially for this film. We tried to achieve

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something very intimate and subtle. Blood is my second film for Writer/Director Bradley Rust Gray.

I’m drawn to directors and writers who are trying to establish a unique artistic voice. I think I’ve been lucky that those are the projects that Sundance also likes to celebrate.”

Blood employs several lingering wide shots framed by the environments surrounding the actors, sometimes almost disappearing completely into shadow. “This is a visual style that we developed on our first film,” Lin continues. “It’s a calm, formal approach to capturing intimacy and also the unexpected. Brad loves to feel like we’re eavesdropping on the characters – not setting it up, not presenting it, but feeling like we just caught the moment. He would be on his handheld monitor and

say, ‘She’s going to go there,’ so I’d slowly drift over waiting to see what would happen next. It’s almost like verité, but patient and spontaneous. Everything was on a tripod. We never had a dolly, we never went handheld, and we never used a Steadicam or crane.

Being planted on a tripod opens up the opportunity to concentrate on the basic elements of frame, tilt, pan, focal length, and focus.”

The approach required a unique prep and a schedule that would allow for discovery. “I was already on my way to shoot a commercial in Japan when the call came in that we were greenlit,” Lin recalls. “Brad said, ‘Don’t move. I’m going to be there next week to start scouting.” Having lived there for a few years, Brad had intimate knowledge of Tokyo and the kind of neighborhoods he wanted to use, so our scouting was both specific and very fluid. We talked about how to choreograph a long take when walking through certain neighborhoods and how to make the path they walk full of life. Sometimes we would find an amazing location, but we wouldn’t know what would fit there. Then the creative pieces would come together later and we’d know how we could use that particular corner. The mindset of US indie filmmakers is to do first and then ask for forgiveness after. This didn’t always work with the Japanese production’s desire to get permission for every camera placement, especially when shooting on the streets. We were able to reach a happy medium when they realized we didn’t want total control of the street. We wanted to see Chloe interacting with the randomness of the city and the people around her. We were a small crew and that allowed us to be spontaneous and even shoot scenes in locations we hadn’t scouted or permitted.

Our smallness allowed us to hide the mechanics of filmmaking.”

Lin, who describes his Tokyo-based crew as “awesome,” says he learned a lot on the project.

“There are certain crews in Tokyo that mostly work on foreign productions, and many are bilingual. That was true of our camera team. However, our lighting team didn’t speak much English,” he explains. “But once my lighting idea was translated for the gaffer by the bi-lingual crew, it was easy to use hand gestures to adjust our lighting, and I loved being able to learn the Japanese words for brighter, darker, and softer.

Brad does not like to impede actors with lighting from the floor, so when going into a space, we often swapped out bulbs and shopped for practicals at the Japanese equivalent of IKEA that would provide a soft natural light and feel like it would have existed in the space already. We would also tease or soften the practicals to shape the existing light. We were accenting what was already there, not relighting.”

Working with an all-Japanese crew proved especially valuable when it came to shooting in the confined spaces of Japanese homes. “When I was making up the gear list I was adding things like four-by-four frames and was told three-by-threes are easier to work with. And, of course, they were absolutely right. Also, our first assistant camera, Asumi Sako, had made her own furry covers for the spreaders to protect tatami floors from being damaged by our tripod. They worked and were really cute.”

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DUAL

Photos Courtesy of Michael Ragen

Dual is a sci-fi story about Sarah (Karen Gillan) who commissions a replacement of herself to be made when she is diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Things get complicated when Sarah starts thinking about her own life in new ways. As she shares these thoughts with her double, everyone begins to like the new Sarah more than the original. Then things get really messy when it turns out that (spoiler!)

Sarah isn’t terminal after all, and her clone has a right to demand a duel to the death should she not want to be “decommissioned.”

Director of Photography Michael Ragen built his relationship with Dual’s director Riley Stearns over several years. “Around 2011 we made a short film together, and a couple of years later we made another,” Ragen shares. “That led to our first feature, Faults, and then The Art of Self Defense.

Dual is our third feature together. It’s been a collaborative learning process for us while we were figuring out who we are as filmmakers. In Faults we experimented with certain rules, like ‘Don’t tilt the camera.’ Then with each film, we opened it up more. With Dual I wouldn’t say we had any steadfast rules, just a continuation of the language we’ve developed. There is a different language that

develops for every director that I work with.”

Ragen says he thought the film would be shot in New Mexico or Canada. “But the pandemic changed everything,” he adds, “and we were just trying to figure out how to make it safely. Then an opportunity opened up in Finland, which was unexpected but fit the tone of the film. We had five weeks of prep, racing around to learn a new country and match locations with the images we had in our head. We found locations that did inform certain things and maybe pushed us in more interesting ways than we expected. Riley didn’t want to call out anything about a specific location or time. The film is about the characters and what they’re going through.”

The film’s producers found Ragen a strong local crew in Finland, which he says, “went a long way.”

Ragen spent much of prep figuring out what tools he’d have to work with as well as handling the more complex aspects of the project, like the clone shots and motion control. “We had to strike a balance between the days we needed a TechnoDolly and what we could do without camera movement,” he reflects. “We had an awesome TechnoDolly operator, Karri Takala, who helped us work out

how to use the head even when we couldn’t get the crane itself into the location. He was able to modify the handset of the Techno 22 to make the LED flash so we could use it as a bloop light to sync takes. But we still had to figure out how to sync cameras and performances. This was my first time having VTR and playback for an entire feature film.

It was fantastic. Our DIT and VTR were quickly able to play back in perfect sync with audio playback so Karen could have snappy dialogs with herself.”

Ragen says the film’s biggest challenge was clone work with exteriors. “We had very little daylight to work with since we were shooting in Finland,” he concludes. “We started with a few hours of daylight, and by the end of the schedule, we had less than an hour of shootable daylight.

We’d shoot one side of a shot with Karen and then get set up for the second shot while she was going through wardrobe. The gray sky helped a lot by keeping the shadows open so we could match.

Even then I had the Sony VENICE set at ISO 2500 for daylight exteriors. That also meant we could never rely on natural light to bounce into an interior.

We were always slamming HMI’s of different sizes through every window to keep things constant.”

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YOU WON’T BE ALONE Photos Courtesy of Focus Features

In an isolated mountain village in 19th-century Macedonia, a young girl is stolen from her mother by an ancient shapeshifting spirit and transformed into a witch. Left alone to grow up feral in the woods, the young witch discovers she has the power to inhabit villagers – and she wields this power to learn about humans by living among them.

Director of Photography Matthew Chuang (recently co-nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award, with Guild DP Ante Cheng, for Blue Bayou) says he was introduced to writer/director Goran Stolevski by Production Designer Bethany Ryan. “Going into the meeting, I looked at Goran’s short film Would You Look at Her, which won the Sundance Short Filmmaking Award a few years ago,” Chuang recalls. “I knew he liked to be fluid with the camera to focus on the performance. We talked about what kind of work he’s drawn to and how he likes to direct.”

Having one central character that’s portrayed by different actors was an unusual challenge. “There was a lot of discussion around the fact that our main character has lived in a cave for 16 years and hasn’t quite got a grasp of society or interacting with other people,” Chuang continues. “None of us had ever seen that kind of behavior, so Goran and I wanted to have a visual language that gave the actors the time and space to discover their performance.”

Shooting on the outskirts of Pirot, Serbia, Chuang says Steadicam was not the right choice because of the uneven leveled environments.

“Handheld just seemed to be far more immediate and in tune with the actors,” Chuang adds. “It gave us a chance to be much more reactive to the performance. I would just watch Goran on the set for clues about the action. There were times where our first AC, Andy [Jovanovic] would come up to me and say, ‘Hey, what are we doing?’ and we’d both laugh, as it was always kind of open once the actors came in. Andy was amazing and I could trust him to follow

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the actors, no matter what. The interiors were small and on different levels, the ground was muddy and full of rocks and there were chickens everywhere.

The actors were constantly changing height while they were walking, sometimes stumbling, and then getting back up. Our key grip, Sasa [Djordjevic], was incredible about making sure I didn’t fall.”

Chuang says that in prep they explored combining existing light with firelight to determine “if it should be real flame or a combination of flame and real lighting,” he continues. “We scheduled our locations according to the sun’s path. I brought my RED KOMODO and started shooting the countryside and villagers just to see what the light felt like in those spaces and to get an idea of what kind of supplemental lighting we might need. While I was experimenting with framing, Goran would say, ‘Give it more headroom’ or ‘Try that.’ It was a good gauge for discovering what we would all respond to. We tried a lot of different kinds of framing, going with a lot of headroom or pushing the edge to see how that would make the character feel to the audience.”

Chuang worked with an ARRI MINI with vintage rehoused Cooke Speed Panchros and opted to keep everything on battery or powered by a small generator. “Out in the village, roads were pretty much non-existent or homemade,” he concludes.

“We kept the lighting package to some SkyPanels and LiteMats along with a custom-built firebox with 1K bulbs on a dimmer. We had a 4K balloon on one of the night scenes. The crew was among the best I’ve worked with. The way we were approaching things was quite daring. They could see the reasons we were doing it and they embraced the challenge.

Our First AC spoke English, but what’s great about making films around the world is that you might not be able to speak the same language, but nonverbal communication can get the job done.”

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FRESH

Photos Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Fresh opens like a contemporary romantic comedy, but in less than 30 minutes, the story dives into the dark side of dating with a plot twist that pushes horror boundaries. Along the way, Director Mimi Cave and Writer Lauryn Kahn hit the online dating scene with some well-aimed jabs from a woman’s perspective, crafting a story arc that is peppered with dark humor.

“Mimi was aware of my work, and we met through my agent,” recounts Guild Director of Photography Pawel Pogorzelski, who was nominated. for a Film Independent Spirit Award in 2019 for the off-beat horror feature Midsommar. “And I liked the complexity that she and Lauryn built into Noa’s character.

There were a lot of moments that opened my eyes to what it is to be a woman – like when she’s walking in a dark alley and takes out her keys and puts them between her fingers.

I loved the emotions she goes through when captured. A lot of people would have been terrorized into submission, but the way Noa gets out is almost the same way she got in.

Noa’s strength is her intelligence.”

Much of the film takes place in a single location. Pogorzelski says, “We built many of the interiors on stage because we were going to be there so long. We collaborated closely with Jennifer Morden, our production designer. Jennifer, Mimi, and I would spit out ideas, and the best ones would stick. It’s a challenge to tell all the different beats of the story in just a few rooms and keep it in line with the emotional arc.”

The Poland-born, Montreal-raised cinematographer says highly selective focus also played a major role in navigating the limited number of interiors. “Having a shallow

depth-of-field emphasized the feeling of Noa being trapped and an environment of mystery that surrounds her. Then whenever she would see something, we focused on that.”

Pogorzelski says he did a lot of testing in prep with different light sources, “with standins that have similar complexions to the actors to discover the looks that are going to work for a movie,” he shares. “The lighting plan starts with a set of visual references for each scene that I build with the director. Once we’ve seen the locations and done the tech scout, we go into a sound stage and bring all the lights we can bring. Then we start turning them on one at a time, and we’ll test getting those looks and figure out how we’ll do it.

“I was looking for something unique for the exterior closing scenes, like a moon that was softly directional. We tossed around some ideas about that, but there was also what would be doable with the location because we could only bring a limited number of vehicles onto the property. We ended up using balloon lights with some coops from the ground. It’s always a question of how we can achieve the vision with the restrictions that we have.”

The Fresh team shot for 32 days in Vancouver, British Columbia. “We had to move fast, but it was a fair amount of time for what needed to be done,” Pogorzelski concludes.

“My last three films have shot in Canada, and the crews are fantastic. It’s important for all the key crew members to share the same vision. That clicked in very quickly. We were also very lucky to have Kevin Messick as a producer. It was incredible to see how much he was behind Mimi and trusting in what she was trying to achieve.”

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TWICE THE FUN Greta Zozula is no stranger to Sundance.

Before this year’s festival, she had several Sundance premieres while still working within the camera ranks – as a loader for Guild DP Jody Lee Lipes on Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) and as a 1st AC for Joe Anderson on Christine (2016).

Zozula’s also had two Sundance debuts as a director of photography – for the short film The Immaculate Reception (2014) and the feature Never Goin’ Back (2017). But the NYC-based cinematographer, who talked about taking a “slower, steady road” toward learning her craft as a part of ICG’s 2018 Generation NEXT class [ICG Magazine December 2018], knew Sundance 2022 would be something special. After all, it’s not all the time a Guild member has two feature premieres in one year – the politically-minded Call Jane, a (true-life) story set in Chicago in 1968 about a woman who, after having a lifesaving abortion, forms an underground collective to pay her experience forward, and Summering, a beautifully-shot YA tale about four girls and the secret they share the summer before starting middle school. Zozula calls it an “incredible honor” to have two films screening at Sundance, a festival she says has always been a favorite and “directly contributed to pushing my career.”

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Benjamin Loeb, FNF, a Norwegian/ Canadian cinematographer whose action/fantasy feature, Mandy, debuted at Sundance in 2018, enjoyed a similarly momentous 2022, doubling his Sundance output with two feature premieres. After Yang is an ethereally lush meditation on human connections for writer/director Kogonada, and When You Finish Saving the World, starring Oscar winner Julianne Moore, is the writing/directing debut of perennial Sundance actor Jesse Eisenberg. The movies could not be more different in tone and visual approach, and yet Loeb beautifully captures the narrative essence of each story and their offbeat characters. Loeb says having two films at Sundance is hugely rewarding.

“Obviously a lot of work goes into making these films, even if they’re small indies,” Loeb describes. “Having them a part of these curated selections just means they get the perfect start to their own lives.

It’s all we can ask for as filmmakers, for the films to come out, and for people to go and watch them – for better or worse. It’s all a part of the process.”

ICG Magazine talked with Zozula and Loeb about their “most glorious years” at Sundance and the unique artistic and technological demands of each film that was selected.

Sundance premieres are always special for Local 600 DP’s, but having two features in the same festival doubles the excitement and creative energy.

By David Geffner

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CALL JANE

and more vibrant colors represent the Janes. The colors of the Janes rub off on Joy, and she starts to bring that into her home. Lighting was approached naturalistically and was motivated. Some moments are a little bit more hyper-realistic but still grounded.

Photos by Wilson Webb / Roadside Attractions

ICG Magazine: Call Jane is set in 1968. How challenging was it to recreate a specific period on an indie budget, especially with many day exteriors? Greta Zozula: Very challenging!

Shooting on 16mm was a crucial part of creating the period without it feeling artificial. I think the approach to composition and camera movement also helped. We were reserved when it came to coverage and used the dolly a lot – [Local 478] Dolly Grip Adam Beard pulled off some of the most complex combinations of dance-floor, freeform dolly moves I have ever seen. And yes, day exteriors were some of the more difficult scenes in re-creating the 1960s. We had quite a few, and some we did in cars on a process trailer. We had to be strategic in our routes, but doing it practically helped with the authenticity. We didn’t rely on VFX and prioritized creating our world practically. It can be easy to over-think this time period, and in some cases that can feel overproduced or like a nod to the era rather than feeling real. I tried to come at it

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as simply as I could and think about how this film would be shot if it were made in the 1960s.

In our Sundance Web Preview [ICG Magazine January 2022], you mentioned pairing Master Prime lenses with 16 millimeter, with the goal of the modern lenses to maintain a clean look with lots of detail. How did you modulate the shooting style? We broke up the film in a few different ways. Joy’s world in the beginning and at home is locked off, disconnected and reserved. We are not immediately let in, so her home is clean and a bit sterile. As the film evolves and Joy’s character evolves, the camera work and composition become intimate and free. Then there’s a big contrast in visual style when we meet the Janes, who have a great influence on Joy’s personal growth. This change only grows as Joy grows, and by the end of the film, the visuals reflect all of the change.

Color plays a big factor as well. Cooler and more neutral colors fill Joy’s world at home. Warmer

The opening shots of Summering, with the girls cartwheeling through sprinklers and the use of rainbow filters, soft focus, et cetera sets the tone. You mentioned using Cooke Xtal Express lenses for their warmth and a special LUT from your colorist, Damien Van Der Cruyssen. What else did you and director James Ponsoldt talk about to set the visual tone? We talked a lot about finding the “magic” in the story and how that would look visually. The Cooke lenses were a big part of creating something that felt a bit off, playing into an unreliable narrative that was crossing between reality and fantasy. The warmth of the Cookes also gave the image a sense of comfort and nostalgia.

I experimented with prisms and an LED filter that created lighting washes over the image to play with the fantasy of it all. Ultimately, we wanted this to feel like an intimate look into these four girls’ lives.

The initial introduction to the girls in the park, and the journey they go on through the woods set the tone and look for the entire film.

We visit that wooded area a few times, including during a big storm. What was the approach with camera tracking and any challenges in that location? We always talked about a lot of movement in this story. It was important that we were going on

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SUMMERING

the journey with the girls and not observing them or letting them pass through. Time of day was a big challenge because we didn’t have a ton of flexibility with our schedule. Also, a lot of the woods is shot on Steadicam, and our operator, Jed Seus, had to do very long distances through pretty rough terrain.

I mean, we were in the middle of the woods, going through riverbeds and uneven terrain, and Jed enabled us to stay with the girls in an elegant way.

The big storm was one of our biggest setups and our biggest special-effects day. In the end, we had about an hour to get it all done!

Each girl has such a different home experience, and that’s well defined. Did you work closely with production design to make clear differences between the various interiors – color, built-in lighting, et cetera? Yes, we did! We had a different color for each girl. This color was in some cases represented in their wardrobe and other cases in the design of their room or the lighting. We approached it subtly but made sure to incorporate the colors when they were at home. We also wanted to make sure that each girl brought their unique taste to their environment, so our Production Designer, Adam Reamer, used the actors’ real bedrooms as inspiration.

The long night scene is the set-piece of the film.

They come to the dead man’s storage facility and lightning starts, then it goes to a séance inside Daisy’s house – with a great oner that circles around all the girls – before Daisy’s dad

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Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute

comes in – all intercut with rain in woods and lightning! Quite ambitious for an indie film with child actors. It was. We start the film on an idyllic summer day, and as we go into night, I think it’s a great representation of fear – whether that translates to literally being afraid of the dark or the fear of the unknown and the fear of growing up.

It captures the journey the girls are on. The storm is almost mirroring their anxiety; it’s fueling every fear and thought that’s going on in their heads.

Once we get through it and Daisy confronts her biggest fear, the storm calms and we slowly get back to a warmer comforting light that eventually brings us to morning, which represents a whole new world. Daisy feels like a new person, and we wanted the visuals to mirror that moment. The oner that circles the girls [during the séance] is one of my favorite shots in the film. We did it in about 10 takes, I believe. When we first talked about that scene and blocked it [Director] James [Ponsoldt] and I had no doubt that was the way to

approach it. We did not have a remote head though so I operated it manually.

I love the efficiency of storytelling. You mentioned the morning after the storm – there’s a simple shot as Daisy walks outside and we see her POV/ reverse POV of teenage boys riding by on their bikes. In one moment, we understand how much these girls are about to change. That’s another favorite scene. I remember reading it when I first got the script and it instantly transported me back in time. There are these moments in your life when you feel as though you can see into the future and time slows down or stops entirely. It all makes sense for a split second and then you go back to real time and you’re still the same young kid you were yesterday, but something has just changed forever that is bigger than you – as if you were let in on a big secret if the universe. I had no doubt how we were going to capture that moment, although it’s a lot of pressure visualizing that moment, so I hope we did it justice.

WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute

ICG Magazine: The opening titles for When You Finish Saving the World were meant to mirror a Tik-Tok-like platform. Were they real people doing their own videos and sending them to you, or did you stage and shoot? Benjamin Loeb: The opening titles were friends, family and fans, along with some individuals we cast who delivered their own videos based on a “tech” sheet we sent them to follow. We didn’t want to be too specific with instructions as we wanted each submission to feel like their own space home and approach.

The framing for Evelyn [Julianne Moore] seemed formal, with frames within frames, seeing her through door jambs, windows, centerpunched.

Can you talk about your approach to composition, and did that differ from how you framed Ziggy’s story? We wanted a mixture of frames that felt like we were observing these characters, with handheld framing and movement that felt like we were in their world and observing from within. The layout of the

house immediately gave us this sense of seeing the rooms from within another, so we wanted to keep that feeling for the observing language. Julianne’s character is inherently more formal, so her framing and general language feels a bit “stiffer.” We wanted that language to contrast Finn’s tone in the film until the two clash and become a bit more interwoven.

stock for the finer grain and muted tones – I felt like we could be a bit more direct with our sources and let the skin and celluloid absorb this, which I find it does a lot better on film. The story is based on the life of Jesse’s mother-in-law, and the first thing he told me was that it needed to be shot on film. It was not something I was against – in fact, I had never had to work so little to get film approved. [Laughs.]

This is a story about the gap – cultural, emotional, political – between a mother and her teenage son. The style is naturalistic, and the lighting – in locations like Spruce Haven, their house, and Ziggy’s high school when Evelyn comes to see Kyle – follows suit. Any specific references? We didn’t talk so much about specific references as we talked about realism and imperfection in cinema. Jesse’s experiences were largely linked to films he had been part of, and for that reason and others we aimed to not get bogged down in reference talk. Our approach was to do tests ourselves and react to those. Because we shot on film – Super 16mm, with the Vision 3 200T

There are monitors and online footage throughout, most notably when Ziggy is performing on TikTok and the final scene in Evelyn’s office as she watches Ziggy – as a little boy – online. Talk about creating footage to go online and having monitors within scenes. We had so much material of screens to film. I had seen what Helene Louvart did in Beach Rats, which I deeply loved, so we opted to shoot it all practically. That meant all the material to go on the screens had to be designed, created, and or shot before the scenes where we needed them. As a rule, we wanted that all in-camera.

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AFTER YANG

Photos Courtesy of A24

Screens are a nice transition to After Yang, set in a non-specific near-future and focused on an AI robot, Yang (Justin Min) whose connection to his adopted family deepens when he breaks down.

Let’s start with your approach to the many “screen calls” between Jake (Colin Farrell) and his wife Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith). [Director] Kogonada’s love for Yasujirō Ozu is no secret to those who know him, and [Ozu] was a huge reference for our conversations regarding the screen calls. Yang is perceived as a purely educational tool for Mika at the beginning of the film. But as the story moves and twists, the visual language changes. We wanted to focus on imagery and tones that let the audience engage with it, rather than telling the audience how to interpret the frames. As the film progresses, the visual layers of the film merge to give a much more human tone to Yang.

The “driving” scenes are strange and interesting.

How did you come up with that swirling-light approach and overall look? Kogonada wanted these scenes all to be photographed from the outside of the car, and for the reflections on the windows to be the

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main relationship to the exteriors while driving. We spoke at length as to how to achieve it and opted for LED walls in studio because it meant we could create the visuals for the surroundings before shooting them and capture it all in-camera. We did discuss doing it as an exterior shoot and doing VFX on the reflections to make it futuristic, but in the end, we wanted something much simpler. The tunnel system our VFX supervisor created became an almost Zen feeling of repetition, which both Kogonada and I loved.

Yang’s memories, which play a greater and greater role, have a different treatment – particularly when we get to the end and learn about his previous life with another family. What was the approach, and did it change as we get deeper into Yang’s memory bank? The memories were all a Super 16 crop on the Mini. I had seen this done before and wanted to explore that format on the ALEXA. During my lens tests, I found this Canon 8-to-64-millimeter zoom that had some vertical bending, and I started thinking about how the imperfections of this format with this lens would be interesting for a technical “being.” Then a motion graphics artist that Kogonada

had connected with in the past took our material and built the world in which we enter through the glasses.

Kogonada always had a clear idea of the feeling he wanted in that world, but it was Raoul Marx who built that world for us from Kogonada’s references.

The approach to color is one of the most beautiful things about this film. I’m thinking of the night scenes with Jake and Mika in their living room, the tea shop, the scenes with Mika and Yang outside.

What propelled this? Honestly, the approach to color and tone was propelled by Kogonada’s response to my early work, which is largely baked in shadow and specific highlights with lots of texture. After meeting [Colorist] Joe Gawler and hinting at the opening of Arrival as something both Kogonada and I responded to in terms of tone, Joe built us a LUT that pulled the gamma down, which in essence just took down our ambience and let me and my Gaffer Andrew Hubbard and Key Grip Ethan June paint with light more specifically. We always wanted color contrast, and to me, the relationship between cold and warm, earth tones, and primary colors is so interesting. We took that and built it into our LUT and lighting approach.

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PRODUCTION CREDITS COMPILED BY TERESA MUÑOZ The input of Local 600 members is of the utmost importance, and we rely on our membership as the prime (and often the only) source of information in compiling this section. In order for us to continue to provide this service, we ask that Guild members submitting information take note of the following requests: Please provide up-to-date and complete crew information (including that the deadline for the Production Credits is on the first of the preceding cover month (excluding weekends & holidays).

Submit your jobs online by visiting: www.icg600.com/MY600/Report-Your-Job Any questions regarding the Production Credits should be addressed to Teresa Muñoz at teresa@icgmagazine.com 118

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First Man / Photo by Daniel McFadden

Still Photographers, Publicists, Additional Units, etc.). Please note

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CBS

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OPERATORS: GREG COLLIER, CHAD ERICKSON ASSISTANTS: JAMES TROOST, NATE LOPEZ, YUSEF EDMONDS, ANNA FERRARIE, HELEN TADESSE, ANDREW HAN DIGITAL LOADER: MIKE GENTILE

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“SHERMAN’S SHOWCASE” SEASON 2 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GILES DUNNING OPERATORS: WAYNE GORING, JOHN VELETA, JOANNA ANSNICK

ASSISTANTS: NITO SERNA, PABLO JARA, LORENZO PORRAS, PATRICK ROMERO, NOAH GLAZER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: SCOTT BECKLEY DIGITAL UTILITY: JOEL MARTIN STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MICHAEL MORIATIS

ROUND SHRUB PRODUCTIONS, LLC “FLATBUSH MISDEMEANORS” SEASON 2

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ZACK SCHAMBERG OPERATORS: KOREY ROBINSON, CHRIS WAIREGI ASSISTANTS: CASEY JOHNSON, STACY MIZE, JOSHUA REYES, ANABEL CAICEDO LOADER: FRANCES DE RUBERTIS STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: VANESSA CLIFTON

APRIL 2022 PRODUCTION CREDITS

121

SALT SPRING MEDIA, INC. “MAYBE I DO”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TIMOTHY SUHRSTEDT OPERATORS: CLINT LITTON, PETER KEELING ASSISTANTS: CODY SCHROCK, MIKE GUTHRIE, JAMES DEAN DRUMMOND, EMMALINE HING DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: PAUL SCHILENS LOADER: YAYO VANG STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JOHN BAER

SHOWTIME PICTURES “THREE WOMEN”

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ULA PONTIKOS, CATHERINE LUTES ASSISTANTS: JOHN REEVES, SARAH SCRIVENER STEADICAM OPERATOR: DEVON CATUCCI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DOUG HORTON LOADERS: LIAM GANNON, JASON GAINES STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JOJO WHILDEN

SOGO

“SOUTHERN GOTHIC” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ALAN CAUDILLO OPERATOR: CHRIS FLURRY ASSISTANTS: SARAH A. JONES, CASE NORTON, REBECCA FOWLER STEADICAM OPERATOR: CHRIS FLURRY DIGITAL UTILITY: ANDREW NIEHOFF

SONY

“JEOPARDY!” SEASON 36 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF ENGEL OPERATORS: DIANE L. FARRELL, SOC, MIKE TRIBBLE, JEFF SCHUSTER, L. DAVID IRETE JIB ARM OPERATOR: MARC HUNTER HEAD UTILITY: TINO MARQUEZ CAMERA UTILITY: RAY THOMPSON VIDEO CONTROLLER: JEFF MESSENGER VIDEO UTILITIES: MICHAEL CORWIN, JEFF KLIMUCK STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CAROL KAELSON

“WHEEL OF FORTUNE” SEASON 37 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF ENGEL OPERATORS: DIANE L. FARRELL, SOC, L.DAVID IRETE, RAY GONZALES, MIKE TRIBBLE HEAD UTILITY: TINO MARQUEZ CAMERA UTILITY: RAY THOMPSON VIDEO CONTROLLER: JEFF MESSENGER VIDEO UTILITIES: MICHAEL CORWIN, JEFF KLIMUCK JIB ARM OPERATOR: STEVE SIMMONS STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CAROL KAELSON

STARZ POWER PRODUCTIONS, LLC “POWER BOOK” SEASON 3

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: AARON MEDICK OPERATORS: PHILIP MARTINEZ, CHRIS SCARAFILE ASSISTANTS: MICHAEL GAROFALO, RODRIGO MILLAN GARCE, DYLAN ENDYKE, SCOTT GAROFALO DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ROB MUIA LOADER: TREVOR BARCUS PUBLICIST: SABRINA LAUFER

TCS US PRODUCTIONS, 9, INC.

“NEW ENGLAND AKA BOSTON STRANGLER” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BEN KUTCHINS OPERATORS: ARI ISSLER, NICK MULLER ASSISTANTS: LIAM SINNOTT, GREG WIMER, MATT HEDGES, TALIA KROHMAL STEADICAM OPERATOR: NICK MULLER STEADICAM ASSISTANT: GREG WIMER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ILYA AKIYOSHI DIGITAL LOADER: JEFF DICKERSON LOADER: MATTIE HAMER STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CLAIRE FOLGER PUBLICIST: WILL CASEY

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BRUCE MCCLEERY OPERATORS: STEVE MATZINGER, MILAN JANICIN ASSISTANTS: JOHN HOLMES, ROGER SPAIN, NOAH THOMSON, JEREMY HILL DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ELHANAN MATOS LOADER: NICOLA CARUSO

THE COMPANY PRODUCTIONS, LLC “FANTASY ISLAND” SEASON 2

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SONNEL VELAZQUEZ OPERATORS: RAPHY MOLINARY-MACHADO, EDUARDO MARIOTA ASSISTANTS: CESAR MARRERO, BRENDALIZ NEGRON, ANDRES VILA, ZORIADA LUNA LOADER: NESTOR CESTERO STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: LAURA MAGRUDER

THE RESORT TLMD, LLC

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SHANNON MADDEN OPERATORS: TODD ARMITAGE, CHRIS JONES ASSISTANTS: JAMIESON FITZPATRICK, CHRISTIAN HOLLYER, M. EGAN, RICHELLE TOPPING DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MATTHEW DORRIS LOADER: ANNE ABBRUZZESE DIGITAL UTILITY: MCKENZIE RAYCROFT

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SANTIAGO BENET OPERATORS: EDGAR COLON, HEIXAN ROBLES ASSISTANTS: CARLOS RIVERA, ALFREDO SANTIAGO, MARAYDA CABRERA DAVILA LOADER: SU-JENG SANG DIGITAL LOADER: ANTONIO AVILA

“TALES OF THE WALKING DEAD” SEASON 1 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ADAM SUSCHITZKY, THOMAS YATSKO OPERATORS: CHRISTIAN SATRAZEMIS, KRIS HARDY, JUAN RAMOS ASSISTANTS: JAMES SPRATTLEY, TREY TWITTY, GRIFFIN MCCANN, PRESTON PHILLIPS, PETER JOHNSTON, WIL HUGHES

APRIL 2022 PRODUCTION CREDITS

UNIVERSAL TELEVISION “HUNGRY” PILOT

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GARY BAUM, ASC OPERATORS: LANCE BILLITZER, EDDIE FINE, TRAVERS HILL ASSISTANT: JASON HERRING DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DEREK LANTZ VIDEO CONTROLLER: KEVIN FAUST UTILITIES: DANNY LORENZE, RICHIE FINE

WARNER BROS

“BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA” SEASON 3 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PATTI LEE, ASC OPERATORS: MARK DAVISON, CHRIS HINOJOSA, JON PURDY, MICHELLE CRENSHAW ASSISTANTS: JEFF JOHNSON, VITO DE PALMA, MARIANNE FRANCO, ADAN TORRES, LISA ANDERSON, ALICIA BRAUNS, LANCE MITCHELL, JORDAN HRISTOV VIDEO CONTROLLER: JOHN O’BRIEN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: T. BRETT FEENEY STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MICHAEL YARISH PUBLICISTS: KATHLEEN TANJI, MARC KLEIN

WORLD PRODUCTIONS, INC. “RUN THE WORLD” SEASON 2

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHARLES GRUBBS OPERATORS: ALAN MEHLBRECH, PETER AGLIATA ASSISTANTS: HAMILTON LONGYEAR, JAMISON HENSON, KATHRYN WAALKES, NATHALIE RODRIGUEZ DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ROSS CITRIN LOADER: MICHAEL FULLER STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CARA HOWE

“PREY” 2ND UNIT

STALWART PRODUCTIONS, LLC

“KEVIN CAN F**K HIMSELF” SEASON 2

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STEADICAM OPERATOR: CHRISTIAN SATRAZEMIS DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JASON BAUER LOADER: JAKE WICKSTROM CAMERA UTILITY: SAMANTHA GARDELLA DIGITAL UTILITY: LEXI GUENARD TECHNOCRANE TECH: MATT BERNING REMOTE HEAD TECH/OPERATOR: BECCA ULMO STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CURTIS BAKER

“THE RESORT” SEASON 1

UNCLE GEORGE PRODUCTIONS, LLC “SERVANT” SEASON 4

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: LOWELL MEYER, GABRIEL LOBOS OPERATORS: AARON KING, NICHOLAS HUYNH ASSISTANTS: ANTON MIASNIKOV, MIKE TOLAND, JAMES MCCANN, LEON SANGINITI, JR. LOADER: SEAN GALCZYK STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JESSICA KOURKOUNIS

COMMERCIALS BISCUIT FILMWORKS “CHEVY”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, GAVIN GROSSI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN SPELLMAN DIGITAL UTILITY: KEVIN WILSON

“LIBERTY MUTUAL” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT OPERATOR: GILBERT SALAS ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, LEO ABRAHAM, GAVIN GROSSI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN SPELLMAN DIGITAL UTILITY: KEVIN WILSON

BUNKER

“VERIZON” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KAI SAUL OPERATORS: JACOB PINGER, IAN COAD ASSISTANT: NICOLAS MARTIN

CMS PRODUCTIONS “CADENCE”

OPERATOR: JUN LI ASSISTANTS: RYAN SAX, TRAVIS FRANCIS STEADICAM OPERATOR: JUN LI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ELLEN RUTH FELDMAN

HALFLIFE DIGITAL, INC.

STEADICAM OPERATOR: DANA MORRIS DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DYLAN JOHNSON

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DEAN MITCHELL ASSISTANTS: DOUG O’KANE, DANIEL WIERL

RADICAL MEDIA

“MY STORY 2 DOT”

“AFFIRM”

HUNGRY MAN

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT OPERATOR: KRISTY TULLY ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, CHELI CLAYTON, GAVIN GROSSI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN SPELLMAN DIGITAL UTILITY: KEVIN WILSON

“NBC UNIVERSAL” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JOSH MCKIE ASSISTANTS: LIAM MILLER, KALLIE JUNG DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: BEN HOPKINS

“PROPEL”

“HONDA”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KAI SAUL OPERATOR: JACOB PINGER ASSISTANTS: NICOLAS MARTIN, RYAN GUZDZIAL, TYSON BANKS DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: BEN HOPKINS

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT OPERATOR: GILBERT SALAS ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, LAURA GOLDBERG, GAVIN GROSSI, ERIC MATOS, MORGAN GARDINER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN SPELLMAN

IN & OUT PRODUCTIONS

RSA

“TOYOTA”

“RINVOQ”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: FEDERICO CANTINI ASSISTANTS: IGNACIO MUSICH, KYMM SWANK, MICAH BISAGNI, DAISY SMITH DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: PAUL MALETICH

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL GIOULAKIS ASSISTANTS: SCOTT JOHNSON, NATE LABRUZZA (DRONE), BRITTA RICHARDSON DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: BEN HOPKINS REMOTE HEAD TECH/OPERATOR: JAY SHEVECK

MANHATTAN PLACE ENTERTAINMENT

STIR FILMS DBA SWEET RICKEY

“JIGSAW” EPK

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JIMMY COLLINS ASSISTANT: SAM ELLIOT

“DRAFTKINGS”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DOUG GORDON ASSISTANTS: PATRICK KELLY, MICHAEL TORRENT

MIRADA

TOOL OF NORTH AMERICA

“CNN”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KAI SAUL ASSISTANTS: NICOLAS MARTIN, STEPHEN BRANAGAN, ANDIE GILL STEADICAM OPERATOR: JUN LI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: BEN MOLYNEUX

“NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GAUL PORAT OPERATOR: YOUSHENG TANG ASSISTANTS: EVAN WALSH, JADE BRENNAN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KAZIM KARAISMAILOGLU

PARTIZAN “GOPUFF”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SHAWN KIM ASSISTANTS: ERIK STAPELFELDT, LILA BYALL, DAISY SMITH

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WEST COAST & CANADA ROMBEAU INC. Sharon Rombeau Tel: (818) 762-6020 Fax: (818) 760-0860 Email: sharonrombeau@gmail.com

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ICG’S SHORT TAKE

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NAB SHOW

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PRODUCTIONHUB.COM TERADEK ZEISS

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WWW.PRODUCTIONHUB.COM TERADEK.COM/BLOG WWW.ZEISS.COM/SUPREMEPRIME

EAST COAST & EUROPE ALAN BRADEN INC. Alan Braden Tel: (818) 850-9398 Email: alanbradenmedia@gmail.com

APRIL 2022 PRODUCTION CREDITS

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STOP MOTION

Dale Robinette IVAN REITMAN 1946-2022

This image was taken on May 7, 2010, from the feature film No Strings Attached, starring Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman. It was taken overlooking High Tower Elevator in Hollywood Heights. The scene had been blocked, and the actors had left the set. Director of Photography Rogier Stoffers, ASC, and Key Grip Brian Reynolds were lighting the location. Mr. Reitman, arms akimbo, was savoring a moment of solitude when I clicked off one frame (125 at f4). I only shot two films with Ivan Reitman. On set, he laughed a lot, as did I – as did millions of moviegoers. He will be sorely missed.

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