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BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
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B A F T A
N O M I N A T I O N S INCLUDING
BEST CINEMATOGR APHY
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS NOMINEE
FEATURE FILM Erik Messerschmidt, ASC
“Every second of it, every frame is itself
A MASTERWORK.” AWARDS DAILY
“IT IS THE MOST GORGEOUS PIECE OF CINEMA YOU’LL SEE ANYWHERE. Brilliantly shot by Erik Messerschmidt.” ABC NEWS
600 LIVE! Member stories, profiles, safety articles and more...
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contents NEW TECHNOLOGY April 2021 / Vol. 92 No. 03
DEPARTMENTS gear guide ................ 18 game changers ................ 22 refraction ................ 24 deep focus ................ 26 exposure ................ 30 production credits ................ 98 stop motion .............. 108
SPECIAL Sundance 2021 ...... 76
34
FEATURE 01
LONG LIVE THE KING Longtime Operator Joe “Jody” Williams makes his studio feature debut as Director of Photography on a beloved comedy classic.
FEATURE 02 FIGHT CLUB Ben Seresin, ASC, BSC, and a Guild camera team working both sides of the Pacific help visualize the ultimate creature-feature.
FEATURE O3 WHISHPER ME THIS The New Orleans-shot Tell Me Your Secrets was a study in shared inspiration, from character through to cinematography.
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CONTINUES TO MAKE HISTORY
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ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS ®
INCLUDING
BEST PICTURE
RYAN COOGLER , p.g.a. CHARLES D. KING , p.g.a. SHAKA KING , p.g.a.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY SEAN BOBBITT, BSC
WHAT GREAT STORYTELLING LOOKS LIKE:
BRADFORD YOUNG IN CONVERSATION WITH FILMMAKER SHAKA KING AND DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY SEAN BOBBITT
THEATRE SCREENINGS WE ARE PLEASED TO SHARE WITH YOU THAT YOUR GUILD CARD WILL NOW ADMIT YOU AND ONE GUEST TO A SHOWING OF “JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH.” PLEASE CHECK YOUR LOCAL THEATER FOR SHOWTIMES. EXHIBITOR RESTRICTIONS CAN BE FOUND ON OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.WBAWARDS.COM/SCREENINGS.
NOW PLAYING IN THEATRES
©2021 WBEI
president's letter
And the Winners Are… As the Awards season continues to command our attention, I want to acknowledge our members who have been nominated for their exceptional work this past year. As usual, new standards are created every year by our internationally acclaimed cinematographers. But I also wish to shine the spotlight on our members who support and enhance the work whether it is recognized by awards or not. Our work has grown exponentially in complexity in recent years with the advent of new capture technology and ever evolving workflows. Our camera crews are capable of staying current in the face of change that is constant and accelerating. The embrace of new technologies is evidenced by the participation in Local 600 trainings, which are experiencing the highest attendance since their inception. Whether our members worked on a nominated project or not, I applaud the work they do in every genre for distribution on every platform. I celebrate all our membership for their expertise and devotion to our craft, without which there would be no motion pictures. Awards are transitory, but the work our Local does to protect and preserve the safety and security of all our members remains constant – now and always. As we enter into negotiations for our major contracts, the skill and value every member brings to work every day should be acknowledged and rewarded by our industry and our employers. That season is upon us. John Lindley, ASC National President International Cinematographers Guild IATSE Local 600
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Publisher Teresa Muñoz Executive Editor David Geffner Art Director Wes Driver
COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR
Tyler Bourdeau
STAFF WRITER Pauline Rogers
ACCOUNTING
Glenn Berger Dominique Ibarra
COPY EDITORS
Peter Bonilla Maureen Kingsley
CONTRIBUTORS Michael Chambliss Quantrell Colbert Debra Kaufman Kevin H. Martin Valentina Valentini
COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
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April 2021 vol. 92 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. International Cinematographers Guild Magazine is a registered trademark.
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sk technologists about COVID-19’s impact on workflows in the film and television industry, and you’re likely to hear something along the lines of: “We were already moving toward a virtual landscape – using cloud-based platforms and satellite-driven data feeds for production and postproduction – COVID just accelerated that transformation.” If that is true (and indicators bear it out), then the proof-ofconcept can be seen throughout our April New Technology issue. Starting with April’s annual Sundance section: our three writers – Valentina Valentini, Michael Chambliss, and myself – all experienced the first-ever “Virtual Sundance.” I will admit to a fair bit of skepticism about whether an at-home version of this singular event would resonate, even if that meant ditching the long, frigid wait lines, the scrambling for tickets, the long walks in single-digit temps at night, and other known discomforts we all suffer through to see the best independent film content on the planet. But as our stories all reveal, programmers were successful in creating that “Sundance feeling,” thanks to terrifically compelling content (much of it staffed by Local 600 members), lively introductions, and Q&A’s with filmmakers that revealed a more personal side of each project’s creative drivers. Valentini’s account (On Their Own, page 92) of women-centric stories shows a Sundance that reached gender parity – 50 percent of the films were directed by women – for the first time in its 25-plus-year history and is a primer on creative collaboration. Two of the three films about which she wrote were directed and shot by women (Local 600 Directors of Photography Nanu Segal, BSC, and Paula Huidobro), and the third (shot by Sundance veteran Bobby Bukowski) showed a DP/director partnership (Robin Wright in her feature debut) that’s as creatively close as any in the 12-plus years I’ve been editing this magazine. Chambliss’ story (Blended Media, page 84) on New Frontier (always a leading edge for new storytelling tools like VR, AR and XR) paints a picture of interactivity unlike any yet
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seen in those still-experimental media. It includes VR experiences with Black poet/academic L. Lamar Wilson guiding participants through 400 years of racial injustice in America. The experience, which begins with participants accompanying Wilson back to an 1820-era slave warehouse, uses 3D animation based on real places and people. Through volumetric capture and mapping, actual environments and scenes are created that are similar to the real world. Another project uses the power of VR to have the audience experience the world from the height of the main character, an Argentinian teenager named Juana who goes through social struggles and selfdiscovery while wheelchair-bound. Perhaps the most visually surprising mention (not an official part of New Frontier) was Chambliss gazing out a window on the International Space Station. As he describes: “With a poke at the right spot, attendees with VR goggles were transported to the ISS via the 4K cinema VR experience. The first episode portrays a new astronaut getting accustomed to living and moving in space, and within the first minute, the VR experience begins to impart a feeling of weightlessness.” Floating across new creative bridges is also how I would describe Erik Messerschmidt’s work on David Fincher’s Mank, which recently earned ASC and Oscars nominations for Best Cinematography. Messerschmidt and Fincher use digital technology much like painters or sculptors use physical materials – they’re willing to combine anything and everything in the pursuit of what best serves the story. As this month’s Deep Focus with Messerschmidt (page 36) reveals, that included digital lens flares, painted in by VFX artists, and a process called “black bloom,” done in conjunction with DI Colorist Eric Wendt, which mimicked the degradation of a black and white film print, with a subtle refocus of the darker areas of the frame. From virtual film festivals to remote DI sessions, this past year has seen a complete re-focusing in our industry and beyond; and throughout, ICG members have creatively put new technology in the service of change. As Messerschmidt shares about trying to make focus a storytelling device in Mank: “We wanted to dynamically adjust the depth of field during the shot, and used cmotion’s Cinefade, two circular polarizers, one of which is motorized, that are synced to an iris motor. We could rack the iris without affecting exposure, and for me, it was a ‘eureka’ moment. I feel it’s unfortunate the iris is so connected to exposure, as it can be more powerfully used as a storytelling tool.”
CONTRIBUTORS
Quantrell Colbert Long Live The King, Stop Motion “Although my mother and father never married, my father was always there. When he would pick me up in the summer to spend time with his parents (my grandparents), he would always have two items to accompany him – his tennis racket and his 35mm film camera. My father inspired me as a young boy to pick up a camera; I’m still grateful today.” -Photo by Wess Gray
Debra Kaufman Game Changers, Refraction “Keeping up with new technology for the media/ entertainment industry has been challenging during this last year, as COVID-19 has amplified and accelerated changes already in the works. Productions and companies embraced changes more quickly and enthusiastically as a way to keep on rolling. DigitalFilm Tree and MovieLabs are both leaders in innovating solutions for remote and cloud production, as well as adapting security for new workflows. It’s a pleasure to help spread the word on their work.”
ICG MAGAZINE
COMING
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AMERICA
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GODZILLA
VS.
KONG
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TELL
ME
YOUR
SECRETS
+
SUNDANCE
FILM
David Geffner Executive Editor
Email: david@icgmagazine.com Cover photo by Quantrell Colbert
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GEAR GUIDE
Airstar NEO Film $5,200 - $9,800 RENTAL PRICE PER JOB WWW.AIRSTAR-LIGHT.US
NEO Film is the newest addition to Airstar’s innovative balloon-lighting solutions. Joel Stirnkorb, with Portlandbased Gearhead Grip & Electric and one of the first U.S. users, says his team was “excited” to check out the new NEO Film units. “They are so lightweight and have lots of options to rig them on a set or for going handheld,” Stirnkorb describes. “The seven-foot and four-foot linear tubes just wrap the light beautifully. They’re the perfect thing to get a nice mobile soft light for that night exterior walk-and-talk shot. Just blow them up, slap on a battery, and go.” The NEO Film’s soft, diffused illumination gives filmmakers full creative control to select color temperatures ranging from Tungsten to Daylight (2200K – 6500K). Power consumption and output are well-balanced, delivering 2500 to 10,000 lumens of light from only 30 to 120 watts of energy. The light is available in three lengths and can be set up in minutes. The shortest unit weighs only one pound, and when combined with optional Lithium-ion batteries is completely portable.
Atomos Ninja V Pro Kit $949 WWW.ATOMOS.COM
The Ninja V Pro Kit was designed to bridge the gap between compact cinema and mirrorless cameras that can output Apple ProRes RAW via HDMI or SDI. Pro Kit is also able to crossconvert signals, providing a versatile solution for monitoring and playout/review. “It’s a Ninja V with a sunhood kit, and a module for SDI output/input and RAW over SDI,” explains early tester António Morais of Golpe Filmes. “Ninja V Pro Kit allows us to take full advantage of the image quality of ProRes RAW, and benefit from that format’s versatility and elasticity in post. We combined the Ninja V Pro Kit with the new Sony FX6. Each piece communicates easily with the other, and it seemed like we were using an FX6 extension rather than just an accessory.” The Pro Kit includes the Ninja V, AtomX SDI with activation for the new RAW functionality, HDMI-to-SDI cross-conversion, along with the locking DC-to-D-tap cable to power from the camera’s battery. It also includes the AtomX 5-inch Sunhood, offering a monitor and recording package to cover a wide range of workflows. The Ninja V’s compact 5-inch 1000-nit screen is designed to provide a foundation for scalability and modularity. Combined with the AtomX SDI module, the Pro Kit provides the ability to record RAW via SDI from some of the best compact cinema cameras on the market.
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Frame.io Camera to Cloud $15 PER USER PER MONTH INCLUDED WITH ANY FRAME.IO ACCOUNT WWW.FRAME.IO
This secure camera-to-cloud workflow lets customers instantly upload and stream images from on-set cameras to creative postproduction teams anywhere in the world. C2C enables instant proxy uploads the moment cameras stop rolling, so editorial can begin within seconds of calling “cut.” Frame.io C2C can also live-stream footage to an authorized user’s device on or off set. It allows editorial, and other traditionally linear parts of the creative process, to happen in parallel while footage is being shot. Max Votolato, co-producer of Songbird, says much of his role (on Songbird) was “defining workflows to make the movie under COVID. Frame.io C2C enabled the broader crew and executive tree working remotely from home to keep up with production without being 24 hours behind, thanks to the immediacy of the cloud,” he shares. “It also gave us the freedom to take the film with us, with all assets securely available on iOS.” The camera-to-cloud workflow requires a Frame.io C2Ccertified device connected to compatible cameras from ARRI, RED and Sony. Once authenticated, certified devices, such as the Teradek Cube 655 and Sound Devices 888, or Scorpio recorders, will record, encode and send timecode-accurate J.264 proxy files with matching filename metadata directly to Frame.io via an encrypted and secure connection using LTE, 5G or WiFi.
Tokina Cinema Vista 65mm T1.5 lens $7,499 WWW.TOKINALENS.COM
To support the cinematographer’s creativity, Tokina has just released the new Cinema Vista 65mm 1.5 lens – a short telephoto with a natural perspective. Users will find that the results flatter subjects’ faces while rendering a beautifully smooth background. According to Tokina, the lens is a natural partner with the recently launched Cinema Vista 40mm T1.5. The Vista 65mm T1.5 comprises 13 groups with 14 elements and nine iris blades to ensure the roundness of the aperture. With an image circle of 46.7mm, it is an ideal choice for larger sensor cameras like the RED MONSTRO 8K VV and ARRI ALEXA LF Mini, and will even cover larger formats up to ALEXA 65 2:1 Open Gate. The Vista 65mm T1.5 weighs approximately 5.5 pounds and is available in interchangeable ARRI PL, EF, MFT, Sony E and ARRI LPL mounts. One of the first to add this new lens to his arsenal will be Director of Photography Phil Holland, a Tokina fan, who says the company provides something special he’s “been after while filming in digital VistaVision. They have an imprint of what modern cinematic lenses can be – the focus roll-off when filming people, and the ability to capture the grand scale of a wide vista, while still exuding character, is ideal for narrative filmmaking.”
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GEAR GUIDE
Mark Roberts Motion Control Bolt™ Jr+ $117,000 WWW.MRMOCO.COM
“Bolt Jr+ has become an integral part of our motion-control arsenal and is helping us to expand the potential of virtual production,” relates Mikey Cosentino of RiTE Media. “Its agile, compact nature means we can easily transport the rig around the studio as well as take it to any given location. It has a great camera payload capacity, and with Flair 7 we knew that we could capture anything our imagination can conjure.” It’s the longer reach that will make this smaller rig with an increased camera payload (10 kg) popular for smaller spaces or location work. At half the weight of Bolt, it is portable and sets up and is ready for action in under an hour. Bolt Jr+ can run the highspeed camera system on track and follow any object, person, or landscape. With rapid acceleration, the Bolt Jr+ on track can reach three meters per second. Moves can be created through MRMC’s Flair software; it allows for precise controls up to 500 axes of motion and interfaces seamlessly with CGI packages. The software has programmable acceleration profiles to allow for consistently reaching and maintaining desired speeds with pinpoint accuracy.
Assimilate DIT Pack $1,399 WWW.ASSIMILATEINC.COM
When DIT Tyler Isaacson set out to find software that could create ProRes dailies on a PC, he found it in Assimilate’s Scratch Dailies. He later added live grading on set with Assimilate’s Live Looks to create a complete DIT Pack for a streamlined workflow. “With Scratch Dailies, I can take footage from any camera at any resolution, scale it correctly for a given dailies format, make quick color adjustments and deliver in any format, or even multiple formats,” Isaacson shares. “It was designed specifically for dailies, so many of the important and repetitive functions are streamlined. From importing and scaling to syncing audio, to creating frame grabs – it can all be done with as few clicks as possible. And when you have clients watching on set, reliability is crucial.” Isaacson calls Live Looks a “rock-solid tool” for live grading, working seamlessly with LUT boxes. “Having the powerful Scratch color tools and curves editor available live not only helps the DIT and DP set looks faster, it also gives a more creative latitude,” he continues. “Transferring looks to Scratch brings over all the adjustments individually, so you can fine-tune without having to start over.” Looking forward, the small and modular gear that can fit in tight locations will be designed to fit custom hardware as well as Windows and MacOS laptops.
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AJA Video Systems BRIDGE LIVE $14,995 WWW.AJA.COM
BRIDGE LIVE is a plug-and-play gateway solution that provides high-quality, cost-effective video processing, with SDI encode or decode for one channel of UltraHD up to 60p, or up to four channels of 1080 60p HD simultaneously, via four 12G-SDI connections. “BRIDGE LIVE was developed as an enterpriselevel offering to provide an efficient workflow for managing end-to-end live production and delivery, as streaming becomes standard and virtual events are booming,” describes AJA’s Nick Rashby. “Whether preparing content for local distribution, OTT, or broadcast, BRIDGE LIVE provides dependable conversion while paving the way for new content monetization.” Designed in partnership with Comprimato, BRIDGE LIVE merges AJA I/O technology with Comprimato video-processing software to help seamlessly mesh UltraHD/HD SDI and streaming/IP using H.265/HEVC, H.264/AVC, and H.262/MPEG-2 TS, as well as offering a JPEG 2000 option. BRIDGE LIVE supports protocols and configuration/monitoring options that include REST API and SNMP. Dual 10 GigE network ports provide ample bandwidth to move multiple streams of HD or a single channel of UltraHD, and SRT ensures secure and reliable transport over the public internet.
Visual Productions Cuelux2 $465 WWW.VISUALPRODUCTIONS.NL
A longtime favorite product from Visual Productions, the Cuelux lighting-control software for PC and Mac has a new hardware interface. A wish from the Cuelux community has now been fulfilled, and the USB-to-DMX cable has been replaced by a sturdy box. The new interface does the same job; however, it adds optical isolation on the DMX port and a robust enclosure. The new model, Cuelux2, is an intuitive software controller for the entertainment lighting industry, incorporating a range of exciting features. It is a DMX 512 lighting controller for intelligent lights, LED’s, dimmers, lasers and various other effects. “This is a unit that I use on our smaller productions that require only one DMX universe,” says Fog It Up! Manager Joey Olaerts. “For several reasons, it will be sturdier than its prior model as well as less likely to get lost. It is nice when products are small, but if they’re too small, users can be prone to losing them.”
NEW TECHNOLO GY
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GAME CHANGERS
MovieLabs Builds Security in the Cloud BY DEBRA KAUFMAN
Editor’s Note: New for 2021, the “Game Changers” department will highlight a diverse array of individuals, groups, and industry professionals whose work and expertise will not only disrupt the status quo but lead to safer, swifter, and more inclusive means of production for union workers across all industry crafts. In the days of film reels, videotape and sneaker-net, security was defined by the physical perimeters of the studios and facilities – guarded by security badges and security guards. As production transitioned to digital, the exposure of assets went online, with hackers wreaking havoc (sometimes quite publicly, as in the 2014 Sony Studios leak). Not all the hacks were made public, though, as ransomware that locked-up computers until users paid in Bitcoin became scarily common. The FBI advised everyone to just pay up.
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The stakes are even higher now, as production moves to the cloud and state-sponsored hacking becomes more widespread. Hollywood desperately needs to upgrade its security protocols, and that’s top of mind for MovieLabs, a jointly run industry lab where member studios – Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros., Universal, Sony Pictures – can work together to “understand new technologies and drive the right ones to adoption.” MovieLabs was established based on the belief in the transformative impact of technology in the media and entertainment industries. Its current primary focus is a 2030 vision for the future of production technology. Crucial to that vision is a security system that meets the challenges and demands of cloud-based production and post. MovieLabs Chief Technology Officer Jim Helman and Lead Technologist, Production Security Spencer Stephens spoke with ICG Magazine about
how working in the cloud requires an entirely new perspective on security. Helman explains that the traditional security model creates a strong perimeter around access to the facility. “That started as a physical perimeter – badge in, badge out,” he notes. “And that model evolved to network security.” Then came the hybrid cloud, where facilities opted for a mix of on-premises and cloud solutions. But the very nature of the cloud – in which dozens or even hundreds of people around the world have access to the assets – makes the perimeter model obsolete. “If the studio is controlling the production cloud, they can put a perimeter around it, but that would be complex to do and manage,” Stephens adds. “And complexity is the enemy of security.” Instead, he reports that the world’s cybersecurity is already moving to a Zero Trust architecture. And
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the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a special publication on Zero Trust Architecture in August 2020. Zero Trust was first described in a decade-old Gartner paper. Since then, he adds, companies such as Google adopted Zero Trust-based security protocols for its corporate infrastructure, and, increasingly, for its Google Cloud services. The MovieLabs security architecture separates authentication from authorization. “One of the tenets is that no one or nothing can join the network without being authenticated,” Stephens says. “That means that not just users, which could be entire post houses, but systems, applications – every single part of what makes it work – must be authenticated. The philosophy is: verify, then trust,
dynamic (“Bob can’t access these files until the DP has approved them, and then only for one week, and then the policy expires”). “Dynamic policies introduce the idea of temporality,” he says. “You authorize work to take place for the duration of what you expect it to take – and then the authorization expires. By doing so, we’re only allowing what needs to happen. And, in the event of a breach, if someone gets Jim’s credentials, it limits the scope of what that hacker can do.” By defining the spatial (what computers the user can touch) and temporal (for how long) parameters, the end-user controls access. “The authorization service then simply becomes an agent of whatever is managing the workflow, and would be driven by a workflow scheduler,” Stephens describes. Helman
rather than trust and then verify. “Once you’ve authenticated these players, nothing can take place until it’s authorized for a particular workflow,” Stephens adds. The authorization process is made up of two sets of policies: static (“Can Bob access these files?”), which won’t change much during a production, and
notes that “part of the overall vision is that workflows are built more around interoperable software and mechanisms,” also known as software-defined workflows. “Part of that vision is that the approval systems that are part of this would integrate and drive the security and access control of the policies. Assets won’t be copied and moved around as much
as they are today. The asset goes straight to the cloud, and people and vendors come to it.” With software-defined workflows, Helman adds, version tracking becomes easier. “The systems will be more interoperable so that it’s easier to plug-in different tools and not be as disruptive.” Stephens shares that MovieLabs security architecture will be completed by the end of 2021. And as Helman explains, “as a small organization, we can’t do it all at once. It will come continuously in pieces. The key takeaway is that the security architecture and software workflow are interrelated and need to be designed together – and that’s what we’re doing now.” How will this all impact Local 600 members on set? Stephens says, “It will put a lot less burden on the camera crews. When you’re shooting, you can encrypt the data as they come off the camera. We encrypt these files at the source and place them in local storage.” For more information on the organization’s strategy to secure the cloud, check out its website at MovieLabs Cloud Security.
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TECHNOLO 23 BOLD NEW DIRECTION S GY 3/23/21 6:24 PM
REFRACTION
Ramy Katrib CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER DIGITALFILM TREE AS TOLD TO DEBRA KAUFMAN PHOTO COURTESY OF DIGITALFILM TREE
While DigitalFilm Tree is a traditional creative post-production house, we’ve been involved with research and development in innovative technologies from the beginning. When COVID19 hit, we had already developed (or were already working on) technologies that would prove to be useful once remote workflows became a reality. That included highly developed tools for end-to-end cloud-based workflows, and other tools that enable TV productions and other more modestly budgeted programming to leverage tech visualization and previsualization tools that, until now, have been the domain of large-budget projects. Feature films, especially those with heavy visual effects, have relied on a handful of previs companies over the years – The Third Floor and Halon among them. Our mission is to serve the TV production market, which
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has more-restricted budgets and tighter schedules. This involvement began after we developed Critique, a cloud-based review-and-approval platform used on Modern Family and The Simpsons. We sold that platform to Silver Lake, a private equity company, and a couple of months later, Silver Lake invested $400 million in game-engine company Unity. That got my attention, and I was introduced to Unity senior architect Adam Myhill, who had written Cinemachine, the cinematics portion of Unity. Adam mentored me in game development and game engines, which became our inspiration for developing TechViz – a tool that lets cinematographers and directors plan-out shots in advance, previewing everything from the lenses they use to how to frame the shots and previs. We tested those new services on Netflix’s The Umbrella
Academy, working closely with cinematographers Neville Kidd [ASC] and Craig Wrobleski [CSC], as well as Showrunner Steve Blackman. Previs allowed the DP’s to coordinate with production design, build sets virtually (before doing so physically), and accurately set up cameras in the virtual environment to plan scene blocking. DigitalFilm Tree also worked on Season 1 of Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso and now, Season 2. Lasso supervising producer Kip Kroeger worked with our previsualization team to build a virtual stadium and execute the matches down to the camera angles for each beat. Kip told us how much more efficient it was for their crew, especially when filming in the freezing rain in London. He said the editors and producers also got a head start in seeing what the production was trying for and being able to discuss different ideas.
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“I believe 5G will become relatively common for productions in the next one to three years, depending on geographical location.”
Two years later, with all of these experiences behind us, I’ve validated to scientific precision that TV shows, despite the challenges they face with time and money, can benefit from TechViz and previs. The goal now is getting the word out to producers and showrunners, as these tools are even more valuable during the pandemic, allowing TV creatives to carefully plot-out productions from the safety of their home offices. During the pandemic, interest in these services has increased 100 percent. I would encourage cinematographers to try TechViz and previs, as they do not take away from their art and craft. It will help them creatively and technically, and efficiency will go up exponentially. They can iterate in an environment and share ideas with the director. These tools are now being used mainly for big VFX shots, but I’m talking about something more practical and utilitarian. Three years ago, we also began creating a suite of remote, secure, cloud-based solutions for post: GeoDailies, GeoPost, GeoEdit and GeoFinish. A lot of our clients were either trying to avoid wasting time in heavy traffic or were showrunners handling three or four shows and didn’t have the time to be physically present. With GeoDailies, the dailies get created at DigitalFilm Tree by technicians working from home. For Ted Lasso, our GeoDailies system is in London, editorial is in Los Angeles, and viewing goes to London, with Apple getting their files in Cupertino. GeoPost stores all the camera RAW files, something we’ve been doing for at least four years, and we put remote systems either where the production is happening or nearby. GeoFinish has become popular among cinematographers, showrunners, and producers doing live Resolve color sessions. Remote color solutions have been available, but they were all one-to-one, and we
started hearing from clients that wanted multiplerecipient review. We worked closely with Blackmagic Design to beta-test the version of Resolve they came up with that allows multiple users. We tested it on NCIS, where the colorist was able to deliver 14 episodes to [Producers] Erik Whitmyre and Chris Molnar to their homes for them to review and sign-off on final air masters – something that was completely new for Resolve. Networking and security have become an important focus in these remote working solutions. We may be the only post house out there with a chief information security officer, Ty Bermea, who comes from the military. We leverage that same level of Zero Trust-based enterprise security policy. If you’re working remotely with a calibrated monitor, we install enterprise routers that Ty has programmed to give us control over intrusion detection and network optimization. Working from home doesn’t mean you sacrifice security – that’s not a winning strategy. We did it for ourselves in our DFT building on Cahuenga, and most of our creative people were already locked down at home. We now have hundreds of routers in the field, and we purchased three billion IP addresses to create our own private network. This is, basically, an evolution of VPN, an old protocol that constrains the transport of today’s bigger 4K, 6K and 8K files. Most people in post say the biggest challenge is moving these high-res files around. But security trumps that. If footage gets compromised, jobs can be lost, and companies can go out of business. Digital attackers want to seize your system and coerce you into paying them money – and they’ll still put your information out. It’s war, and if you look at it any other way, you’re not aware.
We’re also deeply involved in a project with Verizon Labs to prototype the transfer of camera RAW workflows over 5G. Right now it’s not feasible to use a 5G service on set to transfer 4 or 5 terabytes of camera RAW files or dailies over a wireless signal. The farther that data travels, the more latency. That’s why we need to rely on edge computing, which stores and processes data closer to the source. Nothing like that yet exists in production and post, but we’re working on wirelessly “hopping” the data among companies like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Equinix, which have multiple data centers. We’re also working with AWS Wavelength, which is the infrastructure to optimize mobile edge computing applications for storage services at the edge of the 5G network. We’ve done tests with high-fidelity live viewing where we set up a Blackmagic 6K camera at Verizon Labs and stream via 5G to my computer in a moving car through my LTE hotspot – and it looked spectacular! I don’t know when this will roll out as an actual product. In the U.S., 5G coverage is unpredictable. You can get 1-GB speeds in Des Moines, Iowa, for example, but not in most of Los Angeles. That’s tricky for productions that can take place in so many locations. But I believe 5G will become relatively common for productions in the next one to three years, depending on geographical location. I’m confident – and I’m not the only one – that when COVID subsides, the work-from-home option will be popular. Right now, the situation is forced. People have modified their lives, and some enjoy aspects of working from home, while others hate it. The future lies somewhere in between. Yet I do believe that one-third of humanity will work from home to some extent going forward.
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Erik Messerschmidt, ASC DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY - MANK PORTRAITS BY ELI ADE ON THE SAVANNAH, GA SET OF DEVOTION
On set, David Fincher prioritizes time with the actors more than anything else, so most of our work is done in the prep. In terms of Mank, we spent much of that prep time discussing how we could incorporate the visual language of black and white cinema into our own version of the story. We wanted to transport the audience to the time period without too much pastiche. It was a delicate balance. We never considered shooting film, but we did look at certain aspects of the photochemical process that we wanted to emulate. Grain, gate-weave, and some dust and scratches were added in post, and it was nice to art-direct those bespoke effects as we wanted them to specifically appear.
fantastic tonal range and depth that was not present in the desaturated color version. It took only a few moments to decide to shoot in true black and white. My key first AC, Alex Scott, and I are quite fond of RED’s Ranger camera build. It’s super productionready with all the SDI outputs and power ports Alex needs. It’s also compact and lightweight and has a titanium fixed mount. When we expressed interest in shooting on the Ranger, RED modified several bodies for us with Monochrome sensors.
In terms of lighting, there were many sequences in the film that called for harder light sources. Louis B. Mayer’s address to the MGM employees is a good example of a sequence where hard light sources were called for. In those scenes, I used a lot of larger, Big-Eye Fresnels.
All my memories from shooting and prepping the film are in black and white. I think it’s interesting how thinking [in black and white] occupies a different part of our mind. Production Designer Don Burt, Costume Designer Trish Summerville, and I spent a lot of time talking about how their color choices with fabrics, paint, set dressing, and locations would affect the final image. We were particularly focused on how the costumes would integrate with the sets under specific lighting scenarios.
Fincher and I had both shot with the RED 6K DRAGON Monochrome camera before and liked it. However, I suspected that it could be advantageous to shoot in color and later desaturate so that we could use the color information in the DI. After testing the color camera against the 8K HELIUM Monochrome (an updated version of the 6K DRAGON), the choice was obvious. The monochrome camera produced
One of the benefits of the monochrome camera was its added light sensitivity. After testing, I found I could comfortably rate the camera at 3200 ISO. That rating brought out a beautiful noise in the sensor that looked a lot like film grain. It was just the right amount of base patina and helped tremendously with our deep focus work. We had planned to shoot most of the film between T8
and T11. Under normal conditions, that would have necessitated tremendous amounts of light on the set. At T11 at 3200 ISO, I could easily work with between 50 and 150 foot candles. Speaking broadly, David and I both believe the camera sensor should not be the bottleneck through which we derive patina in the image. The DI is a powerful tool, and we love the process of applying patina and degradation to a pristine image in post. As a cinematographer, I think that’s tremendously exciting. Eric Weidt, our colorist, had developed a process we called “black bloom,” which mimicked the degradation of a black and white film print. The result is a subtle refocus of the darker areas of the frame. We wrote some special software to emulate this effect in dailies so we could adequately evaluate our exposures day to day. Lenses were important as we planned to use deep focus as a predominant technique in the film. David and I had become quite fond of the Leica Summilux-C series lenses, but I felt it was important to perform an empirical test as I knew we would be pushing the lenses to the limit. All cinema lenses lose sharpness as the iris is closed. This is primarily related to diffraction. I tested dozens of cinema lenses to find the set that would perform best. Initially, I suspected that large-format lenses would perform best. As it turned out, the Leica Summilux-C’s were not only in the top tier in terms of sharpness, but also because
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“All my memories from shooting and prepping the film are in black and white... thinking [in black and white] occupies a different part of our mind.”
their iris design produced the most apparent depth of field when closed down. I love experimenting with lens flares but often find I can’t get the flare I want, or it happens when I can least control it. On Mindhunter, we used digital lens flares quite a bit, and I loved that process. David and I would leave notes for the VFX artists, and they would paint the flares to our taste. We did the same on Mank. I am quite fond of the circular lens flares of the 1940s and found some references from The Big Combo that I sent to Fincher. He agreed they were beautiful, and we used them as the basis for the digital flares in Mank. Shooting in black and white, I completely changed my approach to lighting. I’ve become used to working with small amounts of light on the set and prefer to use practicals and practically motivated light sources as my primary source. I also, in general, tend to use a lot of top light and underexposure. Mank was so different as black and white lighting is all about shape and texture – modeled sidelight and backlight become more important. I still felt it was appropriate to use modern lighting styles for some scenes, particularly the contemporary Victorville bungalow sequences. I wanted to reference classic cinema without completely copying those techniques. Despite the era, the texture, and the black-and-white approach, Mank is not a noir film, and it needed a lighter touch.
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In prep, David and I were looking for a way to help explain the shifts in time to the audience. Toland and Welles had used theatrical lighting cues quite effectively in Citizen Kane for similar shifts in time. We liked using lighting cues instead of dissolves because it allows for certain parts of the frame to remain illuminated longer than others. Lighting is not about tools. My favorite light is the 40-watt light bulb. That said, there are certain practical advantages to modern lighting equipment that older lights, particularly those of the period, do not offer. The film set is a fast-paced yet precise environment. If I can quickly adjust a specific lamp’s brightness with a keystroke rather than a ladder and a scrim, I will always advocate for the former. I’m not that nostalgic. It’s much more about intensity, balance and angle than a specific tool, material or diffusion. At bespoke moments we would want to use focus as a storytelling device. In these cases, we implemented what we called a “depth-of-field rack” to dynamically adjust the depth of field in the shot. To do this, we employed the c-motion Cinefade, two circular polarizers (one of which is motorized) that are synced to an iris motor. As a result, I could rack the iris without affecting exposure. This was a “eureka” moment. I feel it’s unfortunate the iris is so connected to exposure, as it can be more powerfully used as a storytelling tool. The Cinefade eliminated
that burden, allowing me to either dynamically adjust exposure without affecting the lens iris on a day exterior, or adjust the depth of field without affecting exposure. The election sequence was fun to shoot. It felt like an opportunity to reference German expressionism. The goal was to do as little artificial lighting as possible. Most of the scene is lit by the practicals and stage lights, with only a couple of instances of lighting from outside the frame. The Marion/Mank walk-and-talk was planned around the sun just like any day exterior, except the time frame for each setup was even more critical. In my opinion, day-for-night only really works in back or sidelight, so we prepped and rehearsed it extensively. The visual effect animals were added in post through a combination of roto work and white luma keys. The monkey cage was built as a series of white flats. When we scouted the Upton Sinclair rally, it was just an empty parking lot. Don Burt had done a rendering of how he saw the set laid out. I think that scene is visually effective because the staging and blocking are all art-directed together. We would adjust extras and vehicles to support certain lighting choices and, in some cases, hide lights to the camera. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie.
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Harriet Warner CREATOR/SHOWRUNNER - TELL ME YOUR SECRETS BY VALENTINA VALENTINI PHOTO COURTESY OF HARRIET WARNER
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Harriet Warner has always been writing. As a child, she wrote happy family stories in response to her parents’ break-up and her feelings of loneliness, creating worlds in which she was not alone. As she grew, the stories grew, and the spaces she wanted to explore became more complex. But by the time she completed her schooling, it wasn’t immediately clear that writing would be her career. “I never found that great mentor,” reflects Warner, who lives on the coast in southern England. “The power of a great mentor can change lives, so I think I got here slower than I would have wanted to.”
Through a string of “regular jobs” in London, Warner, still in her 20s, never stopped writing. Eventually, she took time off to complete a novel, and that got her an agent. Though it didn’t garner a big book deal, it positioned Warner to attempt bolder narrative features for national magazines – one about drug smuggling in a Thai prison, another about great white sharks. “I was reinventing myself as this badass writer, even though I was a big scaredy-cat,” she laughs. Her “big break” came one rainy evening in Soho, when she bumped into Eileen Gallagher and Ann McManus, producers on ITV’s Footballers’ Wives, a popular British drama from 2002 that ran for five seasons. The women knew and loved Warner’s visually expressive writing and asked her to write a spec script. That eventually led to a slew of British TV dramas – Footballers’ Wives, Mistresses, Call the Midwife, The Fugitives, and Waterloo Road among
them. Tell Me Your Secrets is Warner’s first show as creator/showrunner. (She recently adapted Dangerous Liaisons for STARZ.) Warner still thinks of herself as an author making television. She says the learning curve to producing has been steep and achieved mostly by instinct. “It’s not easy to go from writer in the United Kingdom to showrunner in the United States,” she told ICG Magazine’s Valentina Valentini. “But I’ve had some great people around me on this journey and, I would say, the courage to step up.” Below are Warner’s thoughts about mining the world around her for stories and keeping a team of creatives from all over the world on task and vision (in New Orleans). ICG: Where did Tell Me Your Secrets come from? Harriet Warner: I’ve always been fascinated by relationships – the idea that you could live with someone, love them and not know something so
huge and dark about them. I wanted to explore the question: “Can you have real intimacy without real knowledge?” Some specific crimes in the U.K. had stayed with me after I heard about them, particularly where a woman who was associated with a killer was judged more harshly than the criminal, though no real evidence of her wrongdoing existed. I wanted to tell a story about how we judge women, how we view them and accept or don’t accept their more flawed or dangerous behavior. How about the role of John, who is…a real piece of work? He’s an amalgamation of various nightmares, the sort of nightmare hiding in the mundane. That conflict always exists in humanity, between good and dark natures. Of course, not everyone has those impulses, but how one deals with those impulses is so interesting. I wanted to explore a conflicted character who we believe wants to be better.
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“I wanted to tell a story about how we judge women, how we view them and accept or don’t accept their more flawed or dangerous behavior.”
What is your creative process? I like to find the gaps. I find areas that are less explored, and I study human nature in an alien way, trying to work out motivations. I’ve always seen myself as an author –
Tell us about working with three different cinematographers, including Denis Lenoir [AFC, ASC]. To have worked with Trevor and John through the season, and Denis during the pilot, was
that vulnerable people, particularly young people, had been failed by those institutions. At the same time in the U.S., there was the unfolding of Harvey Weinstein and that horror show of abuse of power.
if an unpublished one (laughs). But that’s how I tell stories. Coming to TV but thinking from an authored piece I hope builds a world in which audiences can be immersed. I’ll admit it: I hate and love writing. I hate the process and the work, but I love the outcome. I just have to do it.
an incredible experience. Three unique visual artists and wonderful human beings. In the time between pickup from pilot to season, I was able to better drill down into what I wanted the show to be visually – epic and intimate. John [Polson], Trevor, and John took that idea and brought their immense expertise and talent to capturing a landscape both human and natural on both an epic and intimate scale. Trevor, ever the elegant Englishman abroad, and John, so full of Irish charm, were unique in their approaches to the show, bringing their distinct flair and style to it, yet never losing the central visual tenets at the heart of the show, as I mentioned. They both shared the same meticulous, ambitious and innovative approach to their craft and were well-loved by cast and crew alike. It was a happy family of a show.
It was all seeping into my consciousness, and that’s where the storyline of the foster home came from – these vulnerable young people are caught up in something that should have been protecting them and wasn’t. It’s an awful reality when good people are not in those positions of power and you need them to be. I have a young daughter who was born during the development process of [Call the Midwife], and that takes it to a different level. I love my child so much and to think that there are children who don’t have that breaks my heart. And then to see them being taken advantage of or even being abused, it’s heartbreaking. It truly is.
What are the differences between writing and creating series for the U.K. versus the U.S? In the U.K. I have people here I admire hugely, but it says everything that I got my break in America with a show that was originally conceived for the BBC as a U.K.-based drama. For me, there’s no comparison. America is not about where you’ve been, who you are, where you went to college, none of that. It’s just the work that is judged. You had quite the international crew on Tell Me Your Secrets. Was that planned? I think I drew on people who had contributed hugely to shows of immense ambition that I had seen or was aware of. One example is Penny Dreadful, where Production Designer Jonathan McKinstry had just wowed me. Knowing the great taste of Neal Street Productions, I knew he would be a wonderful person to work with, and I wasn’t disappointed. The same with [co-series Director of Photography] John Conroy [ISC] – I knew he had a gift for capturing the epic landscape and a deeper sense of human nature from his work, also on Penny Dreadful, as well as with Broadchurch and Fortitude. But funnily enough, John also happens to be related to my partner’s family in Ireland by marriage, even though we had never met. Composer Peter Raeburn is also English but living in L.A. My producing partner, Bruna Papandrea, is Australian, as is our Producing Director, John Polson, who introduced us. I met [co-series Director of Photography] Trevor Forrest in L.A. through a recommendation, and he just happened to be English. These creatives were all must-haves. Then we added in the local hires from Louisiana, and it became this wonderful mix of filmmaking experience and various cultures.
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Happy behind the scenes but Tell Me Your Secrets deals with trauma – large and small. How much of that comes from your own life? I think I have a great imagination, and it’s easy for me to find something bigger to touch on in very innocuous events and to find a sense of what they could be. But like any child who has grown up in difficult circumstances, no matter the spectrum of difficulty, there’s always a little bit of you that is vulnerable, and then it’s easy to tap into that and build a nightmarish story. But then again, I worked on Call the Midwife for six years, which was the opposite, so… But a similar theme of female power and vulnerability does run through Call the Midwife, and, perhaps, all your work? Heidi Thomas did an amazing job adapting this incredible memoir, and I got to be with her from the beginning. I loved those stories because they did look at poverty, at class, and as you say, vulnerability within that because of circumstance. There was also such strength and a huge capacity for survival. In my work, I’m interested in the corruption of power. When I was writing the pilot for Tell Me Your Secrets, the U.K. was coming off a wave of historical abuse scandals being uncovered. There was the sense
Speaking of protecting children… you and your partner connected with a midwifery hub while you were working on that show. An art-imitateslife-imitates-art moment. [Laughs] I’d just written my last episode, and my partner was on maternity leave, about to give birth. It was a wonderful sendoff from a show that had been about babies for six years of my life, and there I was with my partner, both of us about to become mothers. One of our wonderful midwives asked me if I’d like to open their new midwifery hub, and so we had this lovely day of it. My daughter had been born by that point, and just a couple of months later, the Tell Me Your Secrets pilot had been picked up. We left for Los Angeles, and my daughter was quite young. My partner and I had agreed that if the pilot was picked up, I’d carry on working and she’d stay at home, because one of us was going to be home 100 percent of the time. But if it didn’t get picked up, she’d go back to work, and I’d stay home, make jam, take care of our daughter, and maybe write some children’s stories. And I’d gotten very used to that idea! I was kind of ready to not be on a TV show. Even writing other people’s shows absorbs every bit of time, and there’s so much sacrifice that goes along with that. And just as I was getting comfortable with the idea of, “Yes, I would love to just potter a bit,” this extraordinary opportunity came along.
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COMING 2 AMERICA A 2021 AMERICAN COMEDY FILM THAT SERVES AS A SEQUEL TO THE 1988 FILM COMING TO
AMERICA STARRING EDDIE MURPHY.
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LONG LIVE THE
KING LON GT I M E OPERATOR JO E “JO DY” W I L L I AMS MAK ES HI S STU D I O F E ATU R E
DE BUT AS D IRECTOR O F P H OTO GRAP H Y O N A B ELOVE D C O M E DY C LASSI C. BY PAU L I NE RO G ERS | PHOTOS BY QUANTRE LL D. COLBERT
A
frican monarch Akeem (Eddie Murphy) lives an idyllic, lavish life in Zamunda, where he’s brushed, bathed and wiped by others, as elephants march around freely. But with King Jaffe Joffer (James Earl Jones) mortally ill, and time marching on, Akeem begins pondering succession. A traditionalist, he severely resists his grown daughter Meeka (KiKi Layne), who wants an opportunity to rule the kingdom. When Akeem learns he has a long-lost son in the United States, he and his friend, Semmi (Arsenio Hall), decide to return to America and bring Akeem’s male heir back to Zamunda as the king-apparent. 38
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It was the late 1980s when Eddie Murphy and Director John Landis debuted the outrageous comedy that imprinted upon Coming 2 America’s Director of Photography Joe “Jody” Williams “the idea of seeing so many people that looked like me in this fantastical setting. Whether you got caught up in the comedy and the fantasy of Coming to America, there just weren’t a lot of Black movies coming out at the time.” Thirty-three years later, Murphy tapped director Craig Brewer (Dolemite Is My Name, Black Snake Moan, Hustle & Flow), who then brought in his Director of Photography from Empire, Williams (in his studio feature debut), to take Akeem and Semmi to America and back. Brewer says, “Jody and I had built such a strong relationship on Empire; there was no question that he was my best and only choice for this film. Over the 10-plus episodes we did on that series, we both began to think alike. It started with being ‘cool,’” he laughs. “There was a moment when Jody came over to
me and said, ‘They should teach a class on what you are doing.’ He got it: the full vision, the wrangling of a bunch of personalities, and the stress involved with making Empire gorgeous on the schedule we had.” Williams says he and Brewer looked at the original, “and it was dated, for sure. We both realized that some of the elements just weren’t funny to an audience today.” Brewer says his goal was to find a happy medium between Airplane and Anchorman, adding in more characters, outrageous sets, and musical performances. The first camera system that drew Williams’ interest was the Panavision DXL2. “I wanted to learn how much surface area the frame line and eyepiece were going to see,” he adds. “As an operator, you look for the space outside the frame.” The idea of large format also intrigued 1st AC Baird Steptoe Sr., who says he was “excited” to film in 8K.
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(The picture was ultimately shot in 7K due to Amazon’s concern with a high data rate vis-àvis fast dailies turnover.) Steptoe shares that “Panavision assembled an incredible team. It started with Zoe Iltsopoulos and Lori Killiam, as well as Katie Fellion from Panavision/Light Iron. Dan Sasaki sent a few lenses to Chicago for Jody to view. Once Jody decided on the large-format Artiste lenses, customized by Dan Sasaki, I went through the calibrations in L.A., and we had our package – DXL2 and Artiste, with old-school Primo lenses [a nod to the original movie] for the flashbacks.” Williams says the Artiste lenses had “a subtle softness and intimacy while still holding this necessary sharpness. They performed as if there were beauty filters in front, as some shots we did had none.” Adds DIT Stuart Huggins: “The DXL2 was a perfect fit from a skin-tone perspective, as it exploded with color. We managed everything using LiveGrade and ASC color decision lists [CDL’s] and lookup tables [LUT’s]. During production, I captured over 1000 still frames, which Jody was able to reference during his remote color sessions with Light Iron.” Williams and Steptoe sought out a diverse camera crew, including veteran camera operators Billy O’Drobinak, SOC, and Will Arnot, SOC, along with a strong Atlanta-based team. “I’ve always thought it vitally important for Black actors to see Black people behind the cameras as assistants, operators, and DP’s,” says Williams. “We were blessed to have such representation with operators Alfeo Dixon [SOC], Brigman Foster-Owens; AC’s Justin Noel, Dwayne Green, Rome Williams, Najee Rawlins, and Unit Still Photographer Quantrell Colbert. Though they aren’t Black, I can’t not mention AC’s Torey Lenart and Blair Winders.” As to lighting all the varying skin tones in the film, Williams credits the DXL2. “I was surprised and blown away by the color spacing of its sensor. Black skins are rendered beautifully all across the spectrum,” he states. “Seeing how naturally awesome Eddie, Arsenio, Shari, and Wesley came into the camera test, I was reminded that ‘Black don’t crack,’” he laughs. “I tried, in general, to stay with bounced and ambient light whenever possible. One of the goals in the movie was to highlight the wardrobe. In the camera test, I wanted to look at combining classic ‘book lighting’ with incandescent sources for skin tones and direct soft-source lighting through much diffusion for the wardrobe. Sometimes we did a little of one and a little of the other – then both.” Scheduling was set for a little over 70 days. But with rewrites, budget changes, and location challenges, “every time we started to talk about something, it became something different,” smiles 1st AD Mark Little. “How do
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you get the feeling of Madison Square Garden but shoot in Atlanta? Do we do big sequences in Atlanta and capture New York tie-ins? Because of his health, we needed to go to New York to shoot James Earl Jones. How much do we take with us? What do we do there?” Even a relatively small sequence (compared to the lavish dance numbers) in a key location for the original movie, a barbershop in Queens, presented challenges. “Eddie and Arsenio as different characters in one small room,” Williams describes. “Iconic location that everyone remembers – same ‘set,’ just characters that are older.” Williams admits that he hasn’t worked on a lot of FX-heavy projects. “[The barber shop] was motion control with one main
camera making programmable moves with a second camera doing critically specific shots,” he recalls. “Also, Eddie didn’t want to be in one character for more than two hours and couldn’t do more than one character in a day.” That meant VFX Supervisor Jon Farhat had to study the boards and, with intimate knowledge of Murphy’s process from past projects, sought to “embed” the actor’s unique way of working into the pipeline. “Eddie is the best at it,” Farhat explains. “But it’s not an instinctive flow to scheduling and standard setup logic. Once past that, the crew gets to rehearse a pass or two. It’s quite freeing for the performer. But it can also go pear-shaped fast, and you need to have a backup plan.” Farhat says they tried to set the right
“I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT IT VITALLY IMPORTANT FOR BLACK ACTORS TO SEE BLACK PEOPLE BEHIND THE CAMERAS AS ASSISTANTS, OPERATORS, AND DP’S.” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JODY WILLIAMS
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WILLIAMS WAS “BLOWN AWAY” BY THE COLOR SPACING OF THE DXL2’S SENSOR. “BLACK SKIN TONES ARE RENDERED BEAUTIFULLY ALL ACROSS THE LIGHTING SPECTRUM.”
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OPPOSITE PAGE/ABOVE: FOR A KEY SCENE FROM A BELOVED LOCATION, MURPHY HAD TO PERFORM SIX DAYS IN MULTIPLE ROLES – IN SEQUENCE. “THAT MEANT ALL CAMERA ANGLES, IN SEQUENCE AGAINST A ‘CUT,’” VFX SUPERVISOR JON FARHART EXPLAINS. “WE ESSENTIALLY HAD TO PRE-PROGRAM EVERY POSITION INTO THE TRACK – AND JUMP BACK AND FORTH TO THE SAME POSITIONS AS IT WOULD BE CUT. THEN WE WOULD RECORD LIVE, THE HEAD-IRIS-FOCUS FROM THE CAMERA OPERATORS.”
environment up so Murphy could perform six days in multiple roles – in sequence. “That meant all camera angles, in sequence against a ‘cut,’” he explains. “We essentially had to pre-program every position into the track – and jump back and forth to the same positions as it would be cut. Then we would record live, the head-iris-focus from the camera operators. We would do this in story order.” Farhat and Brewer chose one character (Clarence) to lead and to be moving, and the others were stationary. “Tracking, of course, was with tennis balls,” Farhat adds. “And you can’t play off camera because Eddie interrupts himself. So we had a special earwig for Eddie so he could play-back the dialog and talk and step on his own lines.” O’Drobinak describes operating with the motion-control track as “interesting and fun. You don’t get a lot of takes,” he says. “I had to be proactive. It was all about timing and setup. I had to make sure I left enough time – but not too much – for Eddie’s lines. I also had to anticipate how long he would take and when to make the next move. In the end, with Jon’s guidance – because he had done this before with Eddie – and a lot of rehearsals, we got exactly what was needed with few takes and
no problems.” Arnot was tasked with getting coverage shots for the scene that did not involve multiple characters in the same shot (and would have required motion control). “I sometimes had to creatively work around the mo-co track to get the exact angles we needed to isolate each character,” Arnot recalls. “Using my 28-inch offset Original Slider enabled me to do this regularly.” With lighting also needing to marry motion control, Chief Lighting Technician Jarred Waldron used LED panels of his design. “We call them ‘snow panels,’” Waldron explains. “They are soft and don’t emit any heat, which was wonderful because of all the prosthetics Eddie and Arsenio had to wear. Even though we were only shooting certain parts of the barbershop each day, it had to feel like one lighting setup.” At the other end of the spectrum was the massive ballroom set, dressed and shot three times for a coronation, a funeral, and a dance sequence called “Sexual Chocolate.” The large lighting setups, all different and challenging, required extensive conversations between
Williams, Waldron, and Lighting Programmer Matt Klann. Initially, the challenge was to create a versatile lighting plot that could work around the set pieces and rigging that would move in and out during changeovers. The team used Vectorworks to build the stage, scenery, truss, and lighting in 3D to help them find and avoid issues with set layouts. They then created a series of base looks and palettes using Vision previsualization software to help speed-up programming for the various performance numbers. Five long, 4-by-30-foot softboxes filled with ARRI S60-C fixtures were installed and remained for all three setups. “This allowed an even, soft light over the entire set while still leaving room between the boxes for extra rigging points, truss, and taller set pieces,” Klann describes. “We also lined the perimeter of the set with moving lights and colorchanging Pars: the PRG Bad Boy HP and PRG Best Boy HP for moving, and Martin Rush Par 2 Zooms for the Pars.” That allowed the team to have a quick backlight for any camera angle while also having enough to punch through the haze during the dance numbers – with vibrant colors, gobos, and air effects. The Rush
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RUTH CARTER [ABOVE] “DID AN INCREDIBLE JOB ON THE COSTUMES,” WILLIAMS SHARES. “WE WORKED TOGETHER TO MAKE EVERY COLOR POP, AND HAVE THE FABRICS LEND SUBTLETY TO EACH SHOT AND ENHANCE THE STORY.”
Pars gave them the option of creating washes of CCT light for regular scenes and infinite choices of colored light for the funeral-scene performance numbers and Sexual Chocolate. In the story, King Jaffe Joffer knows he is dying. But, in a fantasy “your wish is my command” style, he insists he wants to see his funeral. Williams explains that the sequence goes from “a somber march as Joffer, in his casket, is brought in, to his life celebrated by massive dance and musical numbers. Morgan Freeman comes in to eulogize the King, as dark goes to light, night to day, with the sun rising – all cued for a transition, as King Joffer is feted by En Vogue, Salt-N-Pepa, and Gladys Knight, each a massive lighting show.” The flash and scope of such scenes show the team’s intense planning and coordination. But it was one seemingly simple moment that stands out for Brewer – when Akeem approaches the casket to talk to his father. King Joffer turns his head and asks: “Son?” Akeem returns a gentle, “Yes,
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Father.” As King Joffer’s voice fades, he says, “Have a wonderful evening. Remember what I told you,” sighs, and, with his last breath, says, “I’m going to die now” and passes away. Brewer says capturing those moments with James Earl Jones was one of the greatest of his career. “When we looked at the finished project, you couldn’t tell he wasn’t in the same room with our cast,” the director marvels. “That’s how great a team we had – they made it seamless.” Due to Jones’ health, the team broke down set pieces from Atlanta and transported them to New York to shoot against green screen. As Brewer elaborates: “AD Mark Little and I spent a day acting with [Jones], and it was the honor of my life. When the king has his final words with Akeem, I was sitting on an apple box not two feet from James Earl Jones. I was concentrating on the scene, but in my mind, I couldn’t help drifting back to my father’s passing at 49 from a heart attack. The two tied
together, and I got so emotional, I couldn’t say, ‘Cut.’ Neither could Mark or even Jody. We all connected.” Williams notes that they needed to shoot two scenes with James Earl Jones. “Baird’s and my initial concerns were that there wouldn’t be any available DXL2s for us to use, and we weren’t going to pull ours off the show because we would have to travel back to Atlanta and continue shooting. Fortunately, Clifford the Big Red Dog [shot by Peter Lyons Collister, ASC] was finishing, and we got their cameras. All we had to bring was a few selected Artiste primes and the 20-80 zoom. DIT Lewis Rothenberg helped assemble a New York crew for us. Key Grip Joe Czerw traveled, and Gaffer Jarred Waldron sent Jeff LaBaume, one of the film’s set electricians. Jon Farhat and Jeff Sage recreated the sets from Atlanta.” The first setup was for a scene that had Jones, Murphy, two Arsenios, and Shari Headley in Joffer’s bedroom. “It only required
“WHEN WE LOOKED AT THE FINISHED PROJECT, YOU COULDN’T TELL HE [ JAMES EARL JONES ] WASN’T IN THE SAME ROOM WITH OUR CAST. THAT’S HOW GREAT A TEAM WE HAD – THEY MADE IT SEAMLESS.” DIRECTOR CRAIG BREWER
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[Jones] to lie in bed looking in a couple of directions,” Williams continues. “We used the two DXL’s on dollies, as we did in Atlanta. We had shot the entire scene without Mr. Jones and Baba [Arsenio], but we had all of our positions marked that we needed to capture Mr. Jones in New York. Jeff Sage and his team disassembled the King’s bed, a few furniture pieces, and some tapestries from the bedroom and transported them to New York to set up a few days before.” For King Joffer’s funeral, Williams used five RED DRAGON cameras in a locked array almost 180 degrees around Jones to catch as many looks as possible. “It required [Jones] to lie in an upright coffin looking in multiple positions,” Williams adds. “The trick was that we hadn’t shot the scene in Atlanta yet, so I had nothing to match to. Luckily, they were fairly tight shots on the array, so I didn’t stress too much about the rest of the environment. It required only a single spotlight – Source Four Leko on a dimmer.” Williams says it all came together “pretty seamlessly in the edit,” considering the many challenges. “We shot Friday in Atlanta, got up Saturday morning to fly to New York, met the new team, lit the shot and James Earl Jones,
then traveled back to Atlanta Sunday to be ready for work Monday morning,” he laughs. “Back to our normal circus.” What’s notable is Brewer and company did not repeat the style of the original, leaning more into character than physical comedy, as in an argument between Akeem and his wife, Lisa (Headley), that Williams calls “a delicate balance. In comedy, you don’t want to make the audience angry with the characters. But, here, we wanted to show the real emotions between them. It was set in their massive bedroom, with a lot of movement between them. We wanted to keep it a little dark, not just the look but in the story [but not so dark that the studio or the audience would be concerned]. As they moved through the different areas of the bedroom, we still showed off the pageantry. But in keeping with the story, we used small pools of light, not everything top-lit, and gave them eye light for where they moved.” As for the story’s fantasy aspect, set in Zamunda, the approach had a modern feel. As Akeem becomes an enlightened father, accepting that his daughter is the proper heir to the throne, he cements his relationship with his son by throwing the most outrageous wedding for him and the love the young man found when he came to Zamunda.
“ The challenges [for the wedding sequence] were similar to the other big sequences throughout the picture,” Williams says in a practical voice. “So, sometimes it’s fun to talk about the challenges you don’t expect. For example, Ruth Carter did an incredible job on the costumes. We worked together to make every color pop, and have the fabrics lend subtlety to each shot and enhance the story. The red wedding dress Ruth created was exactly what we needed, as it fit the stature of the moment. But the problem [dramatic pause] is that the train of the dress weighed 80 pounds and was 20 feet long! We had to have one of our seamstresses ride down the aisle under the dress, on a flatbed dolly, holding the train up, as wires [removed by Farhat in post] guided it.” Williams, only half-jokingly, says he believes “in divine order, and it feels like the alignment of the planets” presented an opportunity for him to be the right prism for this movie. “So much of the process on big shows is wrapped up in technology, budgets, time, personalities, and egos that sometimes humility and attentiveness are lost,” he concludes. “I attempted to bring that while allowing other smart artisans around me to do their thing. As a cinematographer, I feel these are just a few of my responsibilities.”
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LOCAL 600 CREW ATLANTA UNIT Director of Photography Jody Williams A-Camera Operator Billy O’Drobinak, SOC A-Camera 1st AC Baird Steptoe Sr.
Digital Utilities Tony Fallico Torey Lenart Still Photographer Quantrell Colbert Publicist Staci R. Collins Jackson
A-Camera 2nd AC Baird Steptoe Jr.
NEW YORK UNIT
B-Camera Operators/Steadicam Will Arnot, SOC Alfeo Dixon, SOC
B-Camera Operator Jack Donnelly
B-Camera 1st AC Emil Hampton
B-Camera 1st AC Gavin Fernandez
B-Camera 2nd AC Blair Winders
B-Camera 2nd AC Mabel Santos Haugen
C-Camera Operator Brigman Foster-Owens
DIT Lewis Rothenberg
C-Camera 2nd AC Dwayne Green
Loader Wyatt Gregory Maker
Additional 1st AC Rome Williams
Array Technician Toshiro Yamaguchi
DIT Stuart Huggins
Still Photographer Phil Caruso, SMPSP
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Feature
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02
GODZILLA VS. KONG AN UPCOMING AMERICAN MONSTER FILM DIRECTED BY ADAM WINGARD. A SEQUEL TO
GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS AND KONG: SKULL ISLAND , IT IS THE FOURTH FILM IN LEGENDARY’S MONSTERVERSE.
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B EN S ERESI N , ASC, B SC, AN D A GUI L D CA M E R A TEAM WORK I N G B OT H S I D ES O F T H E PACI F I C HE L P VISUALIZ E T H E ULT I MAT E CREATURE- F EATU R E.
FIGHT
BY KEV I N H . MARTIN | PH OTOS BY CHUCK ZLOTNICK | F R AM EG R AB S C O UR T ESY O F W AR NER B R OS . / L EG ENDARY PICTU R ES
T CLUB
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T
he monster movie subgenre of Kaiju [Japanese for “strange beast”] has been an enduring one since its 1954 debut with the Japanese film Gojira. That marked the first time a fire-breathing behemoth named Godzilla wreaked havoc across the length and breadth of the island of the Pacific island nation. Dozens of features from Toho Studios followed – usually featuring Godzilla protecting Earth from invading monsters – along with an American version in 1998, which offered a daring redesign of the title creature and transplanted the action stateside. NEW TECHNOLO GY
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In the 2014 Warner Bros/Legendary relaunch, the lizard king and his oversized brethren were dubbed Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (MUTOs), but in followups are identified more simply as “Titans,” with origins that date back to prehistoric times. Among these Titans is a giant ape, showcased in Kong: Skull Island (ICG Magazine 2017) who harks back to his stop-motion antecedents in King Kong (1933) and the 1976 and 2005 remakes. Fourth in this new “fight club” genre is Godzilla vs. Kong, a rematch between the mythic beasts who previously duked it out in Toho’s 1962 King Kong vs. Godzilla. Newcomer Adam Wingard, whose credits include a 2016 Blair Witch and V/H/S 1 and 2, was selected to direct this entry, which introduces wrinkles into the big showdown by revealing humans working behind the scenes to rid the planet of both rampaging creatures. With prep happening concurrently in different countries, two production designers were employed – Owen Patterson and Tom Hammock. Key to Wingard’s vision was New Zealand-born Director of Photography Ben Seresin, ASC, BSC, who had lensed like-sized robot titans in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and shot actioners as diverse as Tony Scott’s Unstoppable and The Mummy reboot. As the Kiwi describes: “I got a call from producer Eric McLeod, with whom I’ve previously worked. I’d been in the process of orienting
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toward smaller films, but Eric suggested I meet Adam, whose background is independent cinema and was going about this differently from previous monster films. After an inperson meeting with Adam, I was completely on-board.” While there were long cinematic histories for both creatures, there was no attempt to mimic past efforts. “With this genre of films, it’s important to look back – at both past successes and failures – as well as to capture a sense of the personality that made these creatures into icons,” Seresin elaborates. “We looked at Spielberg movies – War of the Worlds in particular – to see how a strong subjective point of view from the humans could enhance the threat, and that informed the lensing of the monsters and coverage. Crazy camera movement on genre films can become a trap; in dealing with the scale at which these creatures exist, those techniques aren’t necessarily the most effective way to tell the story. The philosophy was to be more dynamic and subjective – to get that spontaneity, it felt like a handheld movie.” Seresin fell in love with the large-format ALEXA 65 after using it on Doug Liman’s Chaos Walking, especially when the system is combined with vintage glass. “It’s the best way to pull an audience into the movie visually,” he adds. “This time I was able to go more heavily into unusual treatments – suggested
by dramatic beats in the film. We addressed that by employing a range of different lenses featuring varying degrees of deconstruction.” First AC Simon England divided his eightweek prep between New York, Los Angeles, and Hawaii, where shooting began while set construction got underway in Australia. “We did major lens testing on ARRI Rental’s DNA glass,” England recalls. “They are so unique that, when checking three 45mm lenses, each gave a slightly different look, with variations in stop and close focus.” Ultimately, three sets were assembled. “Two were a basic matching set, while the other included a range of ‘specialty’ lenses,” England continues. “Those were used for the never-before-seen Hollow Earth environment, which Ben wanted to shoot in a distinctive way. The corners on this center-punched glass tapered off fast; the aspects are so extreme that at first glance, you’d think, ‘This lens is broken.’ We liked that quality, and ARRI Rental worked hard to help us sustain that look throughout.” England was aided by ARRI London’s Neil Fanthom (now partnered with Bradford Young at Tribe7) and Matt Kolze, Senior Lens Technician, ARRI Rental Los Angeles. “Neil got us looking at older Hasselblad glass, specifically Petzval still photography portrait lenses, with backgrounds going out of focus with a swirl,” England shares. “Due to the lens curvature, there are multiple points of focus:
“WE LOOKED AT SPIELBERG MOVIES – WAR OF THE WORLDS IN PARTICULAR – TO SEE HOW A STRONG SUBJECTIVE POINT OF VIEW FROM THE HUMANS COULD ENHANCE THE THREAT, AND THAT INFORMED THE LENSING.” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY BEN SERESIN, ASC, BSC
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we could have a building on the left side of frame that is 500 feet away and an actor in the middle, both in sharp focus, but other parts of the frame between them were this out-of-focus swirl. Ben had planned to limit [the Petzval] to close-ups, but on our second day, we tried it on a massive Technocrane push-in. What made it so difficult was that the focus marks on the lens are only applicable to the very center of the image; if an actor was at six feet and turned his head to the left, I’d have to rack to twelve feet to keep him sharp. Doing that while executing on the Techno took some effort, but the results were phenomenal.” ALEXA Minis were used for run-and-gun, crash-camera work. “We needed to find glass that emulated the way DNAs worked with the 65, as the edge qualities in that format wouldn’t be the same with the way those lenses covered the Mini’s sensor,” Seresin explains. “Cooke Speed Panchros worked great for the Mini, along with Z-series primes from Panavision, which addressed specialty issues for us. [Panavision Vice President of Optical
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Engineering] Dan Sasaki has such passion for the craft, combining the best elements of artist, scientist, and teacher. Dan’s default mindset is to explore in search of the best possible visual outcome, and he seems willing to go to any lengths to help everyone. You just can’t overestimate his impact on this entire industry.” Seresin used a single LUT throughout, which allowed him to reference the image by eye as much or more than on the monitor. DIT Robert Howie used the K1S1 ARRI LogC to Rec.709 LUT on all viewing. “From an on-setmonitoring standpoint, shooting large format doesn’t change things,” Howie states. “We still monitored in BT.Rec.709 in SDR in LOG. When Ben had time, we would go through the footage and make small CDL adjustments. Ben liked to make sure we got a good wide and a few CU’s to reference and have the dailies match. I sent stills with CDL’s to the dailies colorist to use as their basis.” Large-format capture did impact data, with Howie saying he worked to clear HDE workflow with the studio and dropping data size almost in half. “We would make the initial
archive on a Vault XL, then transfer mags to the lab, where they would do the same,” he notes. “With ALEXA 65, you either transit with mags or with sleds/transfer drives from the vault – it just depends on the lab, which would clear the mags to re-enter rotation in about 24 to 48 hours.” Howie’s on-set color option is Livegrade. “The folks at Pomfort are always working to update their product to better assist us, which I appreciate,” he adds. “I utilize the live-capture functionality directly into Livegrade, which allows all metadata following the signal path to be recorded to captured video files. It also allows me to view the QT in LOG, with LUT ONLY and also with CDL, which is very helpful.” Initial plans called for Hawaii locations to be modified and stages expanded in Australia. “They had scouted a slippery lava field location that was difficult to reach and potentially unsafe,” England explains. “Then they wound up moving from the Big Island to Oahu. The movie starts on Skull Island, deep within a jungle. SFX created a full-on hurricane on our first day of shooting. There were 300 yards of rain towers pouring down on this huge
SERESIN (OPPOSITE PAGE) FELL IN LOVE WITH THE LARGE-FORMAT ALEXA 65 (ABOVE) AFTER USING IT ON CHAOS WALKING. WHEN COMBINED WITH VINTAGE GLASS, HE SAYS,“IT’S THE BEST WAY TO VISUALLY PULL AN AUDIENCE INTO THE MOVIE.”
convoy of vehicles, and two huge vans, each with a pair of Ritters on top blowing debris around. [SFX Supervisor] Mike Meinardus brought things to a whole other level, with a tremendous volume of atmospherics and explosions throughout. It was a constant sense of surpassed expectations.” Meinardus also devised extensive water gags for exteriors when Godzilla attacks an aircraft carrier with Kong aboard. “We used the tarmac at an airport as the basis for the ship’s deck,” relates Meinardus,” who also communicated plans to his counterpart in Australia, SFX Supervisor Bruce Bright. “By building a vertical section of the ship on the tarmac to represent the superstructure, I could create water pouring down in a cascade to the deck as the ship was being tossed about.” Scenes that featured live-action cast and CG players to be composited later were a challenge for camera. “Everybody seems to have a different idea of how big these characters are and how fast they are moving, even when you have previs reference,” notes Seresin, who recalls his Transformers
experience, where practical explosions were often the only reliable indicator of where a character was at any given moment. “When you’re behind the camera, there are many aspects that influence the composition and movement,” he adds. “Intuition can be a factor, and one lesson I’ve learned is to try not to frame the shot so perfectly, as an ideal composition can often feel wrong. When the camera tries to capture some monster and misses it for a moment, that helps the mood by creating more suspense and generating different energy. Bringing dynamism to the movie shouldn’t just be the auspices of CG; it should be inherent in the original shot.” England says the 2.40 ratio complicated shots with normal-sized humans and monsters hundreds of feet tall. “Ben had to find ingenious ways to make character relationships play out in the frame,” he reports. “A lot of the previs outlined shots that just wouldn’t be possible with actual lenses in the real world – not unless you were shooting on an eight-millimeter lens, which wouldn’t play given the inherent distortion. So you wind up having to shoot the little girl
and maybe Kong’s hand because that’s all that you can get into frame together.” Wingard’s preference was for limited tech rehearsal, with the camera on a crane following the actors through improv-style movements. “We’d be fishing around trying to capture them, which meant using an Oculus head – a lot,” England adds. “It was a true team effort between those operating the crane, the camera operator, and myself, all communicating on HME’s. We also got to use the prototype Matrix head – a kind of nextlevel Oculus. It’s a wireless, 4-axis stabilized head from CineMoves, which also designed bracketry for the camera that let us switch from studio to handheld to Steadicam to crane without having to rearrange transmitters and Preston motors.” England’s focus-pulling duties were eased slightly by Seresin’s preference of stop – T2 to T2.8 for most of the shoot. “What made my role most functional was Preston’s Light Ranger, which is like having sixteen laser tape measures on the camera at one time,” England says. “They’ve been extraordinary helpers for this large-format world.”
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Location aerials over the islands were handled by Aerial Director of Photography Dylan Goss, working with veteran pilot David Paris. “There were Shotovers available in Hawaii, but those were smaller F1 systems that wouldn’t accommodate the ARRI 65,” notes Goss. “Instead, we brought in a much larger Shotover K1 from Team5 Aerials in Burbank, a group that facilitates doing this kind of job properly. Accommodating a 30-pound lens with that system is no problem.” Goss worked with a splinter group that included VFX Supervisor John “DJ” Des Jardin, who Goss adds, “understands how we work to get the shots and trusts us to respect the
ideas present in boards and previs. We did take liberties – with his approval – because DJ understood that perhaps we were limited to the lens on hand, and not necessarily what that previs dictated, which may or may not exist in the real world.” Many of the film’s fantastic locations were created on stage at Warner Bros. Studios Australia. Scenes in “Hollow Earth” were a combination of massive sets and digital set extensions. Those included Kong’s throne room and the ending sequence, where England says, “Ben had arranged elaborate lighting setups featuring a lot of ARRI SkyPanels for the Australian stages.”
Ship interiors for when Godzilla attacks the vessel carrying Kong were shot on stage using duplicate bridge sets – one for pre-attack scenes and another for when Kong causes the ship to flip over. “The duplicate inverted bridge was set up in a water tank,” England continues. “Meinardus had water cannons going and set the whole thing up to be raised and lowered in a repeatable way. Since we were in the pool, grips built platforms to keep our gear dry, and at certain points, we used full Hydroflex housings. Hydroflex and Panavision built a housing for the Light Ranger that could be submerged, so as soon as we came up out of the water, I’d have measurement readings on
“BRINGING DYNAMISM TO THE MOVIE SHOULDN’T JUST BE THE AUSPICES OF CG; IT SHOULD BE INHERENT IN THE ORIGINAL SHOT.” BEN SERESIN
the actors. This was especially critical using this format and no sight reference on a dark set.” A Hong Kong street set the creatures tear apart was also built on stage, with Key Grip Toby Copping mounting green screen around its circumference. For pre-destruction scenes and plate work, a Hong Kong location shoot was added late in the schedule. With Seresin away for reshoots on another project, Director of Photography Darin Moran was recruited to lens them. Moran says “there was an aesthetic crafted by Ben to follow – a dark and broody feeling. Nearly all of the Hong Kong scenes take place at night with big crowds. The challenge was getting the timing right when humans were interacting with the monsters. Tom Hammock
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was incredibly helpful, not just by mapping out Godzilla’s path but catching me up on the chronology of events. I already knew some of the crew, having operated and shot a splinter unit earlier on. Supervising Location Manager Leann Emmert helped secure everything and proved very resourceful and creative; there always seemed to be various bureaucracies thriving on license fees.” Moran says he was pleased with the glass Seresin had selected. “I think it was a 75 millimeter or 135mm on a 5.6, but the flare and bokeh looked like I was shooting wide open,” he notes. “Also, there were no artifacts of the iris blades visible. Sometimes at night, I’ll shoot at a 2 or so to get that softness, but these lenses performed like that even up at 5.6-1/2. The
mass of the chip lets you shoot in low light more effectively because so much information is gathered. We’d use Astaire tubes to create magenta and cyan hues that mimicked Hong Kong’s neon glow.” Aerial Director of Photography David Nowell shot plates above the city, to which VFX added creatures and destruction. “There was a previs showing how the monsters would interact between the buildings,” Nowell recalls. “Normally, DJ flies with us, but that wasn’t possible. So I got detailed notes to direct the shots. We knew Godzilla would be moving through the city much slower than Kong and adjusted accordingly. That’s a discipline I’ve gotten good at after Transformers – imagining how these things move. Hong Kong, in addition
DIRECTOR WINGARD (BELOW LEFT WITH SERESIN; AND ON SET RIGHT) PERFERRED LIMITED TECH REHEARSAL, WITH THE CAMERA ON A CRANE FOLLOWING THE ACTORS THROUGH IMPROV-STYLE MOVEMENTS. “WE’D BE FISHING AROUND TRYING TO CAPTURE THEM, WHICH MEANT USING AN OCULUS HEAD – A LOT,” SAYS 1ST AC SIMON ENGLAND.
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to turning the lights off at 10 p.m. each night, has clear rules about aerial shooting that keep you from getting too close or low. The altitude restrictions – nothing below 1300 feet – precluded my hovering down between two buildings for a specific shot of Godzilla looking up and using his nuclear breath. That meant I had to be much higher up and get there on the day to see what lens we had that could approximate that same view at a distance.” Also complicating Nowell’s efforts was the discovery that the local helicopter facility only operated a McDonnell Douglas MD900. “That copter does not like to crab, so our pilot, Fred North, had to figure out alternative moves with the camera,” he adds, “like panning left or right to look sideways while flying. And no one makes mounts and brackets to hang a RED MONSTRO off that copter. There was a nose bracket that could hold a lightweight Cineflex camera, but the sensor would be too small. Fortunately, Shotover had developed the M1, which was the same size as the other system, but handled the heavier camera/lens package just great.” VFX Supervisor Des Jardin says when he came on the show, a heavy visualization phase was already underway. “When I was taken
through their war room, it was like walking through the coolest sci-fi museum ever, with all this wonderful imagery of Godzilla and this unique, below-ground environment,” Des Jardin recalls, adding that there was never any intent to rely on practical renderings of either creature. “We weren’t even going to try to do something like that hand you see all through the DiLaurentis Kong remake, let alone the big 40-foot full-scale beast, which I think is onscreen for about two seconds.” Des Jardin chose not to split-up VFX aspects by technique, but instead by sequence. “My rule was, ‘Everybody animates everything’ to keep the shots together at individual houses. If you had one facility just doing Kong and another handling all of Godzilla, you’re going to have a problem when they interact. So while Scanline VFX has been known for decades for their water simulations, here they wound up taking on all the elements for the big battle at sea between Godzilla and Kong.” The later battle between the beasts in Hong Kong was handled by MPC. “That was a huge data-capture project,” Des Jardin acknowledges, “because they had to acquire info on all the buildings that were going to be destroyed and the surrounding territories. And even with that, for every fourth
or fifth shot, we tried to include original plate photography to enhance or reinforce the credibility. The night fight also had a unique look Adam Wingard insisted upon, owing to Hong Kong’s neon-heavy cityscape that made character interaction unique.” The film’s DI was done at Company 3, a process Seresin likens to “an orchestra, bringing all these elements together to blend the various imagery into a seamless whole. Cutting takes place until the very last [moment], but if it all hinges on a VFX creature that is finalled late, then even the subtlest change made after that means another huge effort for VFX, potentially causing more delays,” he describes. “But the way this came together, it seems like everything got addressed in time to prevent such problems.” Concerning the final product, Seresin is optimistic. “The first two Godzilla films were quite different visually, and the studio was very supportive throughout for this very different vision we presented. With the volume of these kinds of films, audiences have almost been trained to respond to certain moments, so when they see these great movie characters in battle – even when it is just in the trailer – they buy it. I think we’re right in the moment for this type of big escapist film.”
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LOCAL 600 CREW RUN OF SHOW MAIN UNIT Director of Photography Ben Seresin, ASC, BSC Camera Operator Martin Schaer, SOC Steadicam Operator James Goldman, SOC A-Camera 1st AC Simon England A-Camera 2nd AC Justin Zaffiro DIT Robert Howie HAWAII MAIN UNIT Aerial Director of Photography Dylan Goss Camera Operator Darin Moran B-Camera 1st AC Jimmy Ward B-Camera 2nd AC Nathan Stern Additional 2nd AC Richard Dabbs
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Publicist Deborah Simmrin HAWAII 2ND UNIT Director of Photography Brad Shield, ASC A-Camera 1st AC Dave Seekins A-Camera 2nd AC Roxanne Stephens Camera Operator Brandon Mastrippolito B-Camera 1st AC Roger Wall B-Camera 2nd AC Jajaira Corria DIT Matthew Love Loader Richard Dabbs HONG KONG UNIT Director of Photography Darin Moran Aerial Director of Photography David Nowell A-Camera 1st AC Simon England
Loader Danny Park Utility Cody Yandell
A-Camera 2nd AC Sean Kisch
Still Photographer Chuck Zlotnick
DIT Robert Howie
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Feature
TELL ME YOU
AN AMERICAN THRIL
SERIES CREATED BY
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UR SECRETS
LLER/DRAM A T E L E V IS I O N
Y HARRIET W A R N E R .
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WHISPHER
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ME
THIS T HE N E W O R LE A N S- SHOT T E L L M E YO U R SEC R ETS WAS A STU DY I N SHA R E D I N SPI R AT I O N , F R O M C HA R ACT E R T HR O U G H TO C I N E M ATO G R A PHY. BY VAL ENTINA VAL ENTINI P HOTO S C O UR T ESY O F AMAZ O N STU DIOS
PHOTO BY SKIP BOLEN
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A
Frenchman, an Englishman and an Irishman walk onto the set of an American television show… While that sounds like the start of a timehonored joke, it was actually the behindthe-scenes premise behind Tell Me Your Secrets, a dramatic TNT series that lensed three years ago and never aired, only to be picked up by Amazon Prime for release this year. Starring Lily Rabe, Hamish Linklater, and Amy Brenneman, the series follows three individuals in a small parish town in Louisiana – all connected to the same dark secret. And though there are few jokes in this murder-mystery, created and written by Harriet Warner (Exposure, page 40), there were three international cinematographers to help visualize the dark story: Frenchman Denis Lenoir, AFC, ASC; Englishman Trevor Forrest; and Irishman John Conroy, ISC. Lenoir shot the pilot in 2017, and when the show was ordered to series a year later, Forrest was joined by Conroy to share the rest of the nine episodes, shot over five months in Louisiana a year later. “It was an incredibly collaborative environment,” describes Forrest. “A tumbling over of talent where our individual strengths were able to push each other forward, in a way.” Lenoir, an ASC and Camerimage Award winner known for his work on Paris, Je t’aime; Jon Avnet’s Righteous Kill; 88 Minutes; and Still Alice (ICG Magazine January 2015); was highly sought after by Warner to shoot the pilot. His opening episode had a documentary, foundfootage feel. Lenoir had made clear at the end of the pilot he wouldn’t be shooting the series, noting that “I didn’t want to be involved
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in a several-months project.” A year elapsed before the show did go to series, at which time Warner brought Forrest and Conroy on. Led by producing director John Polson (also an executive producer), and directors that included Louise Friedberg and Daisy von Scherler Mayer, the visual approach shifted to what Warner describes as something “more refined.” Tech-wise, a switch was made from the ALEXA Mini to the Panavision DXL1, paired with Primo 70mm lenses. The producers, along with Warner and Forrest, created a 45-minute digital pitch, complete with music and visuals, to crystalize their goals with the next nine episodes. “We knew we were running a marathon,” Polson reflects. “We took what we loved about the pilot and developed it from there.” The change in visual tone had a lot to do with Warner’s sense of place. Having written the pilot at her home in Southwest England and Los Angeles, and then shooting the pilot in New Orleans, the expansive nature of Louisiana – with skies that stretch up from below-sea-level – altered her perspective. When it came time to expand into a 10-episode series for Amazon, Warner re-infused the script with those visual themes in mind, seeking a more considered, decisive look. “When talking with Trevor about my ambitions for the series,” Warner recalls, “I wanted to capture [how one’s] perspective is slightly skewed [in the Louisiana Delta], and I wanted to frame my central character –
Emma, who is trying to reinvent herself – in this huge expanse of nature. I got the sense down there that nature is always threatening to reclaim anything man can do. So the show is claustrophobic at points. Trevor and I were on the same page about peeling back the layers of our characters and visually bringing them into big exterior shots.” With that approach in mind, Forrest and Conroy (whose work Warner praises from U.K. crime dramas like Broadchurch and Fortitude) began filming in bayous around southeast Louisiana and towns like Slidell, Norco, and Destrehan, as well as in NOLA proper. They shot hulking refineries that look as if they’re in battle with nature, sunlit-drenched swamps and marshes whose dark waters hint at danger, and a cabin where Emma is supposedly safe, but where busts of animals hanging on walls seem to watch her every move. It all pointed towards what Warner says is the central theme of the show – what is our true nature, and can we suppress it if need be? The methodical Forrest, known for his work on I Am the Night and Little Fires Everywhere, extended some of the visual tropes he established in those two noir dramas for Tell Me Your Secrets; while the instinctual Conroy complemented the show’s theme of duality – the present and the past, the epic and the intimate. Forrest’s (even-numbered) episodes were mostly set in the present, when Emma is
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out of prison, trying to move forward with her life; most of Conroy’s (odd-numbered) episodes were set in the past, where Emma is trying to reconstruct her memory of her relationship with Kit [Xavier Samuel], and the violent event on which the story hinges. “For me, it’s all driven by the script,” offers Conroy, whose other credits include Penny Dreadful and Luther. “And when I read those flashback scenes, they’re set in a loving place. I wanted them to feel happy, so that when the bad stuff happens, it’s a shock. I remember when I was shooting Broadchurch, they always said, ‘Bad things happen in beautiful places, too.’ The flashbacks needed to feel softer than the present, and we wanted to let the audience see it first as a very warm and happy world.” Those scenes were dominated by reds and yellows, with color temperatures in the 3200K range for day scenes and 2400K for night. They were shot on stage at The Ranch Studios. Similar lighting instruments were used throughout all the stage sets: T24 and T12 Tungsten outside windows, with additional soft Studio Force, Space Force, and SkyPanel LED’s. Inside were soft, large LED sources with LiteMat 4s hung high to help carry in the outside light. Forrest and Conroy liked the Color Force LED’s, which Chief Lighting Technician Kevin Gazdik was key in procuring. They offered subtle color shifts and fast turnaround, switching from night to day and day to night via a programmable function. “When you soften the Color Forces,” explains Forrest, “they feel like a wash of moonlight, or sunlight, that spills deep and falls off nicely. They’re nicer than a 12K unless you’re using hard sun. This physical fall-off is emotional and mysterious, close to magic hour or those early mornings – both strange times of day when we are at our most vulnerable.” Another workhorse light was the Quasar Science 4-foot Q50X “Crossfade (basically a first-generation LED tube light). As Forrest adds: “We loved them because we could create back lights quickly. They’re very low profile and can be screwed to the ceiling in less than five minutes, as well as be connected to the desk, which we could change with a flick of a programmed button.” P ro du c t i o n d e s i g n e r Jo n at h a n McKinstry, who’d worked with Conroy on Penny Dreadful and Terror, used red to create a danger motif. “I put in a distinct red tiling detail as a clue to the audience, almost like a warning, using red as a danger color for Kit,” he recounts. “Emma was subverting the bad sides of these flashback memory scenes, wanting to remember the good times as opposed to
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the reality of what was going on.” Fight scenes in the snow were shot on location in Pearl River with all artificial snow during the heat of summer. “It was wild to walk up to the forest as the sun was setting and see this winter wonderland where everyone is sweating,” reflects Polson. “We sucked a lot of the life out of that imagery to keep it cold and stark, [so that we could] contrast it with the sweaty humidity of present-day New Orleans.” Gazdik, a New Orleans local who worked on American Horror Story, Treme, and, more recently, Your Honor, says they shifted to a very cold color temperature for these scenes. “We tried to light from above, giving us as much depth and vastness as we could create for the expansive woods,” he shares. “We hung 4K Tungsten umbrella balls wrapped in full CTB filters, about 12 of them 50 feet up in the air tag-lined between tall pine trees. This allowed us to lower, raise and move left and right our top lights. We also four-cornered the outskirts of the set with 120-foot Condors with 18K ARRIMAXs, again for depth and a little extra detail. Almost all of our close-up beauty lighting came from Kino Flo Celebs and SkyPanels, both with Chimeras or LiteMats through additional diffusion.” Operator Greg Morris (who started on B-Camera and moved to A-camera halfway through the series) says Conroy (who operates on his U.K.-based shows) wanted to use different tools to help tell the story. “We used a remote-controlled MōVI-style rig positioned by our grips,” explains Morris. “That helped us maintain an eerie, dreamlike quality, and also helped us navigate the uneven terrain and thread through the tree landscape easily while staying low to the ground. This was complemented by [B-Camera Operator] Michael Stumpf on Steadicam. When the action got more intense, we decided to go to handheld mode to maintain close but quickly adjustable proximity to our actors. We were blessed to have great camera assistants, led by First AC Keith Pokorski. They were so well prepared and quickly made all the mode changes.” Morris credits the subtle intensity of the main actors. “We could execute a very slow dolly to expose Mary (Brenneman) slowly leading herself deeper down a morally dark and dangerous path,” he shares. “Or we’d do a shot with symmetry that John (Linklater) would fuss around within to communicate his OCD. Our framing would often have a forced weight that helped communicate something wasn’t quite right.” For present-day scenes, Forrest worked hard to create an arc that shows each episode flowing through the intertwining
PHOTO BY PATTI PERRET
“TNT HAD A MANDATE TO RECORD AT A MAXIMUM OF 2K. THAT WAS PERFECT BECAUSE THE DXL CAN CAPTURE AN ENTIRE FULL-FRAME 8K SENSOR WHILE ONLY RECORDING 1080 HD.” CO-DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY TREVOR FORREST
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PHOTO BY SKIP BOLEN
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of Emma now, and her old self, and how those two worlds collide as the past catches up with the present. Forrest wanted the structure of this arc to get tighter as the drama unfolded, eventually hitting a climax at the end of the tenth episode. The 70mm PVintage lens allowed for both the “epic” deep focus that dwarfs Emma in the landscape and the “intimate” shallow depth of field when pushed in from an emotional portrait separated from her surroundings. Forrest’s medium-format camera had been a photographic workhorse all of his professional life, from fashion to large-scale portraiture and more recently the #GhostAtlasExhibit, so he knew that 70mm aberrations would give him the feel of a person more than any other format. “TNT had a mandate to record at a maximum of 2K,” Forrest recalls. “That was perfect because the DXL can capture an entire full-frame 8K sensor while only recording 1080 HD. You can maintain the large-format lens characteristics with only 25 percent of the data. Each pixel on the DXL sensor has four
OPPOSITE (BOTTOM): FORREST AND CONROY BOTH AGREED THE 70MM PVINTAGE LENS ALLOWED FOR THE “EPIC” DEEP FOCUS THAT DWARFS EMMA IN THE LANDSCAPE AND THE “INTIMATE” SHALLOW DEPTH OF FIELD, WHEN PUSHED IN AND SEPARATES FROM HER SURROUNDINGS.
main parts and an option to turn off 75 percent of those without affecting the sensor recording surface area, giving us 70-millimeter HD. This came with some softness and a little less color saturation, but in the hard light of New Orleans, and with the pristine 70-millimeter PV lens – the ‘creative soup’ of lenses – sensor and adjustments we had made proved successful.” Most of the present-day scenes with Emma take place in and around New Orleans’ suburbs, or out in the bayou at her cabin. In the pilot, an existing structure in Madisonville, flanked by an actual swamp, was used. But in the series, that building was only used for exterior shots, as McKinstry and his team faithfully reproduced the cabin on the Ranch Studios stage. “The hunting cabin was used to juxtapose the fact that it was a safe house,” McKinstry says. “In this show, you’re not sure who’s the good or bad guy, so the cabin [with all its taxidermy] creates a possible mislead for the audience, making them think that [Pete, Emma’s FBI agent, played by Enrique
Murciano] might be bad as well.” The cabin interior was a key location for Emma. It’s where she hides, working at creating a new life for herself; and eventually, it’s where she is brutally attacked near the end of the season. “John and I shot the hell out of that cabin, from every angle,” states Forrest. “And that speaks volumes for John’s masterstrokes of design for all of us to find enough in the cabin to facilitate the storytelling over ten episodes. “To counter this claustrophobic and eerie interior,” he concludes, “were the unique and unforgettable exteriors of New Orleans. Epic, dangerous and hard – it’s easy to see why the name ‘New Orleans Noir’ had come up when even the light and the shade could cut a frame in half in the broad light of day. This cinematic landscape that we have seen over the last ten years – from Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus to Killing Them Softly – provided us with the sale of a world that is real yet feels somehow imaginary. That, plus the 70mm format, made it truly magical, at times.”
LOCAL 600 CREW Directors of Photography Trevor Forrest John Conroy, ISC A-Camera Operator/Steadicam James Reid, SOC A-Camera Operator Greg Morris A-Camera 1st AC Keith Pokorski A-Camera 2nd AC Chad Taylor B-Camera Operator/Steadicam Michael Stumpf B-Camera Operator Remi Tournois, SOC B-Camera 1st AC Austin Alward B-Camera 2nd AC Zach Blosser Loader Mitchell Orcino Digital Utility Sydney Viard Unit Still Photographers Skip Bolen Patti Perret
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The World's A 78
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A Stage
Shakespeare’s timeless line from As You Like It – “All the world’s a stage...” – well-describes some sensational, performance-themed documentaries at Sundance this year, their impact only enhanced by the all-virtual platform that brought each artist into attendees’ living rooms. From the unique black-and-white interviews that populate Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers, shot by Jake Polonsky, BSC, to the lushly lit and designed interview sections in Mariem Perez’s uplifting Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided To Go For It, shot by PJ López, SPC, these films never failed to inspire, entertain, and surpass expectations of the nonfiction format. As Polonsky describes (between breaks from shooting the U.K.-based series The Great): “Both Edgar and I are huge fans [of Sparks], and I couldn’t quite believe it when I saw a photo he posted online with Ron and Russell Mael. I immediately sent him a message asking if that was really him with Sparks, and Edgar said: ‘Yes. I’m going to make a documentary about them. Do you want to shoot it?’” López had a similar kind of reaction when he was offered the chance to shoot Perez’s feature about a woman who, essentially, represents everything native Puerto Ricans like Lopez hope to offer – to this industry and beyond. “It was such a great opportunity to tell her story through my lens, inspired by the glamorous wide screen of [Moreno’s] Technicolor era,” he recounts. “Rita’s life and work were those of transcendence, not just Puerto Rican history, but women in our industry and Latin performers. She refused to be pigeonholed into one-dimensional stereotypes.” Let’s take a journey through the world of creative performance, where film, music, design, fashion, and social justice all converge – to the endless delight of audiences.
A PAIR OF PERFORMANCE-THEMED DOCUMENTARIES AT SUNDANCE HIGHLIGHT THE CREATIVE DRIVE ACROSS CONTINENTS AND GENERATIONS. BY DAVID GEFFNER
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THE SPARKS BROTHERS
PHOTOS COURTESY OF JAKE POLONSKY, BSC
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audiences. London-based Jake Polonsky, BSC, remembers clearly the month and year (April 2018), when he saw a photo of friend and colleague, Director Edgar Wright (ICG Magazine. com: Exposure), with the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, aka the much-beloved (and often misunderstood) rock band Sparks. “I immediately sent [Wright] a message, as I was a huge fan of the band since discovering them about 12 years prior at a festival in the U.K.,” Polonsky recounts. “Edgar rang me back straight away and said he was making a film with them and did I want to shoot it? A few weeks later we were shooting a multi-camera concert at London’s Forum before going on to shoot interviews in London, New York, and Los Angeles over the following year.” Wright had never made a documentary, but he’d known Polonsky for years, having worked with him on music videos and commercials (between Wright’s formative indie features, Spaced and Shaun of the Dead). Polonsky also shot 2nd unit on Wright’s The World’s End in 2012, lensed by Bill Pope, ASC. As Polonsky adds: “Edgar was looking
to collaborate with someone he knew well and understood where he was coming from, visually and narratively speaking. And, as I said: We were both huge Sparks fans!” Polonsky, who studied cinematography at the American Film Institute and the Royal College of Art, London, has a résumé that also includes such television hits as Billions, Pennyworth, and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. He says Wright provided a clear and simple brief for the film’s interview section. “Edgar wanted to recreate the look of the Sparks’ Big Beat album cover, shot by Richard Avedon in 1976,” Polonsky shares. “That cover was large-format black-and-white portraiture, shot on film, so I wondered about the best way to emulate that look [in digital cinema capture]. I had recently come across the RED Monochrome sensors and thought the MONSTRO large-format version might give us something comparable. After some testing, courtesy of David Webb at RED in London, we realized we had a great option with that system.” Wright and Polonsky did not want to reference other rock and roll documentaries,
instead employing an original style that felt more like a narrative film-within-a-film. The approach was, as Polonsky shares, meant to “try and show as many people as possible how Sparks are the unsung influencers of pretty much everyone in modern music.” The interview setup (as Polonsky noted, set across three cities and two continents) was simple enough: grey Colorama backdrop with double-diffused tungsten key light and several ARRI SkyPanels for “flash effects and to add a little ping to the backdrop,” the DP reflects. “We ended up pairing the MONSTRO monochrome with Panavision Primo Artiste lenses, a 50mm in front and a 65mm at threequarter angle.” “RED and Panavision supported us very generously throughout, so we could always recreate exactly our setup,” he continues. “Edgar wanted a strong unity to all the interviews; so we had a template that was completely repeatable wherever we were. He wanted all the interviews to feel a part of the same shoot: the same lighting, everyone wearing dark – preferably black – clothes, the same lenses at the same distances. We also
used an EyeDirect mirror system to allow the interviewees to look straight in the lens but have the appearance of talking to Edgar – a brilliant invention I hadn’t used before.” Polonsky also shot follow footage of the brothers at home in Los Angeles, visiting each other’s apartments, going to coffee shops, going to the beach, or recording on a Sony FS7 and Fuji X-T3. “I did shoot a couple of L.A. shows – and fan interviews – with the XT3, and was blown away by the results,” he notes. “That camera has some seriously capable video functions when paired with an Atomos Ninja.” As to the many playful, comedic portions within the interviews – lights fading up and out, a red-tinged wash of light during a section on Sparks’ artful album covers, or the brothers pulling off prosthetic masks (disguised as each other), Polonsky says he and Wright were just trying out different ideas. “Edgar is such a visual filmmaker, and he wanted to add some humor to the film, which reflects that nature of Sparks that is so charming – they write a lot of songs that use humor.”
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RITA MORENO:
JUST A GIRL WHO DECIDED TO GO FOR IT PHOTOS COURTESY OF ACT III PRODUCTIONS / ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS
Don’t be deceived by the lush, Golden-Era Hollywood lighting Puerto Rican native PJ López, SPC, created for many of the interviews in Mariem Perez’s documentary about the iconic Rita Moreno – one of only two performers (Helen Hayes was the other) to be awarded both the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) and the Oscar, Emmy, and Tony for acting. Although Guild member López, who also runs his own lighting/camera rental operation, used focus fall-off, hard contrast, and lighting kicks behind subjects like Eva Longoria, George Chakiris, Gloria Estefan, Justina Machado and Norman Lear, there are also many raw, unguarded moments with Moreno, who reveals – on camera – terrifying experiences of racism, sexual abuse, and humiliation in the old Hollywood dream machine. There’s even a key segment about Moreno’s dysfunctional love affair with Marlon Brando, and the years it took for the Puerto Rican star to break free of that hold. Perez, the daughter of one of Puerto Rico’s most well-known
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comedians, Silverio Perez, says she wanted López to bring a “cinematic glamour” to many of the interviews, “because that’s what Rita likes. Although Rita’s not in those interviews – many of them shot in the beautiful [Art Deco] Los Angeles Theatre,” she shares, “it was another visual way to tell about her incredible life. We tried to keep that same look across all of the other interviews as well – Karen Olivo, Hector Elizondo, Mitzi Gaynor, Tony Taccone, and others – shot in New York. Why make a documentary that doesn’t consider the visual aspect of the story? For that I can just read a book,” Perez laughs. To capture the scope and breadth of Moreno’s life was a huge challenge. The actress, who turns 90 this year, has done (literally) everything in entertainment – from beloved Hollywood classics like Singin’ in the Rain and West Side Story (for which she won an Oscar) to Broadway hits like Last of the Red Hot Lovers and The Ritz (for which she won a Tony), to TV kids’ programming like The Electric Company and The Muppet Show (for which she won an Emmy), to recurring roles on hit TV shows like Oz, 9 to 5, and now One Day at a Time – there’s not a corner of the industry Moreno hasn’t touched. More recently she’s become a social justice warrior in the area of women’s rights and racial equity. Perez, who decided to become a film director at nine years old after suffering through a manipulative director in an early acting performance (not unlike what Moreno had to endure throughout her career), says it took time and care to have her subject consent to be filmed “without make-up,” as well as to share her most painful memories. “PJ took a much different approach when she shot at Rita’s home in Berkeley,” Perez adds. “We shot three different days, not consecutively, and the main light source was this big picture window, which looked different every day, due to weather and time of day. That posed quite a challenge in color correction.” Perez, who studied filmmaking in Miami, New York, and Havana, Cuba, had made several documentaries (shot by López) in Puerto Rico, and directed the film festival hit Maldeamores, executive produced by Benicio Del Toro (and also shot by López). After moving to Los Angeles, she met Moreno on the set of One Day at a Time, the hit series reboot that features Perez’s son, Marcel. “I saw Rita on set without make-up many times,” she continues, “and thought if we ever make a film about this woman, we need to see that part of her – otherwise it’s just a showreel.
We followed Rita for more than a year and she came to trust us so much, she gave us the keys to her house – to set up very early in the morning, and/or, shoot B-roll after she had gone to sleep.” Having the entire production team made up of Puerto Ricans – Perez, Lopez, Co-Producer Ilia Velez, and Sound Recorder Anthony Ortiz – also helped build trust. “Rita would listen to us talking Spanish all the time, and I think that brought her back to her childhood in Puerto Rico,” Perez observes. “I saved the toughest questions for the last day and warned her what was coming. She told me she didn’t want to wear mascara, eyeliner, et cetera because she’d probably cry during this part, and I said: ‘But Rita, we need this to match all of the earlier interviews. So you can’t take it all off, please.” Perez says as a Latina woman in the film industry, she could relate to many of Moreno’s travails. “Not as intense and over such a long period,” she adds. “But sharing my issues with her helped the give-and-take on camera. I thought about young women who would be watching this film – who, like my son, know her from One Day at a Time – and how she continues to be such an amazing role model. I think when [Steven Spielberg’s] West Side Story comes out later this year, even more young people will discover this incredible woman.”
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Blended Media SUNDANCE 2021’S NEW FRONTIER CONTINUES TO RE-SHAPE VISUAL STORYTELLING – NOW FOR A VIRTUAL WORLD. BY MICHAEL CHAMBLISS
Even though the New Frontier section at Sundance has been a showcase for emerging technologies since its first virtual reality (VR) documentary in 2012, technology was never the point. The New Frontier is about experimenting with new ways of telling stories and, in so doing, transporting audiences more deeply into the narrative. In that respect, the 2021 festival was a watershed of creativity. Experimental filmmakers have grown comfortable with the basics of VR, augmented reality (AR), extended reality (XR) and blended social media spaces. Now the explorations are about when and how those tools can be leveraged to serve the experience of story and character. All 14 of the New Frontier experiences are worthy; it was a challenge to highlight only a few.
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Given this pandemic year, the 2021 New Frontier experiences took place in virtually digital venues orbiting the earth (alongside the International Space Station). Chief Curator Shari Frilot notes that “New Frontier resides in the network of technologies that reach and connect people with smartphones and computers, all connected via Wi-Fi, fiberoptic cables and satellites. Satellites are a key component of this network, so we chose to situate our virtual venue to orbit the planet alongside the International Space Station, because our festival, quite literally, is inside satellites.” Once onboard, festival-goers picked out their avatar, using their picture or webcam for the head. The WebXR 3D environment was friendly to both computers and VR
goggles and offered three different venues: The New Frontier Gallery for new media, the Cinema House (VR), and a Film Party area for interactive filmmaker panels, including chat spaces and a bar where attendees could interact overlooking a stunning view of the earth through the window. From a userexperience perspective, the environment was a slick bit of tech that worked right out of the box; it even allowed for the ubiquitous festival experience of sprinting from one venue to the next while bumping into acquaintances and arranging to meet up later at the bar. The Cinema House recreated the experience of a theater, with communications between audience members until the screening started. Snug in my corner of the living room, I didn’t miss the cold while waiting in line.
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FORTUNE! CREATED BY: MARIANNE LÉVY-LEBLOND (ARTE), ROB MCLAUGHLIN, DASH SPIELGELMAN, ROLITO, AND CLÉMENT CHÉRIOT, IN COLLABORATION WITH LEAD ARTISTS BRETT GAYLOR, NICOLAS BOURNIQUEL AND ARNAUD COLINART (ATLAS V) PHOTO
Fortune! is a 5-minute animated AR film that takes on a typically drab topic – money. As the filmmakers describe: “Money, from bills to coins, has no intrinsic value beyond what we’ve collectively agreed to grant it; however, there’s no denying that money governs our lives.” The experience dives into the topic via an unusual voice: Frank Bourassa, the world’s “greatest counterfeiter,” who printed an estimated $250 million in counterfeit bills. The filmmakers follow Bourassa from his beginnings as a regular working person to a master con man in humorous recreations as he shares his observations about money. Researchers have established that viewer agency (the ability to make interactive choices) increases engagement on mobile devices and social
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COURTESY
OF
SUNDANCE
I NSTI TUTE
media platforms. Fortune! explores that behavioral relationship and is notable for being one of the first narrative works to employ AR. Viewers download the program onto their iOS or Android device and point the device’s camera at any flat surface in their environment – for example, a tabletop, floor or chair. The device then becomes the viewer’s window into the set. The 3D animation is superimposed on the chosen surface and viewers can move around and through the scenes by moving their devices. The combination of having active viewer agency over the visual perspective (camera position and movement), along with the story playing out on familiar objects, creates an engaging experience that encourages multiple replays to experience the story from different perspectives.
4 FEET HIGH: THE SERIES CREATED P HOT O
BY:
MARI A
BELÉN
PONCI O,
COUR T E S Y
ROSARI O
PERAZOLO OF
4 Feet High: The Series is an expansion of the 4 Feet High VR project, which debuted at the 2018 New Frontier. This version offers four episodes in cinematic VR and six in traditional flat screen. The series is about an Argentinian teenager, Juana, who goes through the social struggles and self-discovery of coming of age while wheelchair-bound. In the 2018 installment, I was struck by the intimacy of the viewer’s perspective, even though it is traditional cinema VR where the viewer is locked into looking around from the camera position. I was Juana’s invisible friend sharing in her life events. “We knew we wanted to be talking about disabilities, but we didn’t want that to be the whole point,” shares codirector and co-writer Rosario Perazolo Masjoan. “It was very important to talk about sexuality and coming of age from a woman’s perspective. We’re used to seeing these stories in cinema told by men, so we wanted to be able to represent our own stories. We also wanted to show the real dynamics of young people, so we made observations in schools to understand the questions they’re asking, how they talk and how they relate to each other,” adds co-
MASJOAN,
DAMI ÁN
TURKI EH
S UNDA NCE
AND
EZEQUI EL
LENARDÓN
I NS T I T UT E
director and co-writer Maria Belén Poncio. The flat screen and VR portions of the series stand independently, so a VR headset is not required. However, some depth of character is missing without the VR segments. The two sets of programs are visually knitted together with Snapchat-style doodle graphics that add another layer to the story by reflecting Juana’s inner feelings about the scene. Toward the end of the series, these objects begin to take real form as objects in the wheelchair, unifying Juana’s inner and outer experiences. Poncio says the project uses the power of VR to have the audience leave their world and experience it from the height of a person in a wheelchair. “People liked it a lot,” she says, “and kept asking, ‘Where can we see it?’ We felt trapped because so many people don’t have access to a headset. That’s why we decided to not make all the series in VR and to make six episodes in a flat version, so more people can reach the story.” They assigned VR and flatscreen different emotive elements, giving VR more of the sensory elements of the story with less dialogue, with the flat screen carrying more of the conflict and dialogue.
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THE CHANGING SAME: EPISODE 1 CREATED
BY
P H OT O
The Changing Same grew out of the 2019 short film of the same title about the poet L. Lamar Wilson running a unique marathon through his hometown of Marianna, Florida. Wilson wanted to help people come to terms with the town’s barely whispered history of racial terror. In this first of a series of VR experiences, Wilson is a guide linking the past, present and future possibilities of an experience that covers more than 400 years of racial terror and racial injustice in America. “We have to reckon with this inversion of time and space in order to think in a creative way of how to change the future for ourselves,” relates filmmaker and former human-rights attorney Michèle Stephenson. Director Yasmin Elayat adds: “What we’re showing at Sundance is the first episode, in which we take users through a time-travel experience that is nonlinear – they will travel through past, present and future. We’re inviting you to recontextualize and reimagine history, as a witness.”
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MICHÈLE
STEPHENSON,
C OU R T E S Y
JOE OF
BREWSTER
AND R ADA
Diving into the concept of recontextualizing, filmmaker and psychiatrist Joe Brewster notes that “we are asking the audience to reimagine what it is to be Black. There is trauma, and there is terror, but there is always Black love and Black resilience. What we’re trying to do is to use VR to highlight that for every lynching, there were also thousands of mothers who hugged their sons and told them there would be a tomorrow.” The journey begins in a present-day suburb, where the participant is arrested for something they didn’t do and meets Wilson, who becomes their friend. Suddenly, they’re both transported from that jail to an 1820era slave warehouse, with the same people who were in jail now in period clothes. Led by interactive and (very real-looking) fireflies, the participant and Wilson begin their journey through places, times, people and music representing Black history. On the journey, they meet Harriet, whom Michèle describes as an Afro-futurist representation
YASMIN
ELAYAT FI LM
that represents the Black ancestral spirit and energy. The VR itself is 3D animation based on real places and people through volumetric capture and mapping actual environments to create scenes that are similar to the real world. With VR, “there is typically this very game-like approach, or with 360 video, a cinematic approach,” Yasmin describes. “We’re doing something quite different, more like a beautiful marriage between filmmaking and game design. That’s what we call volumetric filmmaking. We are shooting holograms of these real human actors and their performances, and we’re leveraging the virtual reality and the game engine.” Upon completion of the series, the group is developing a two-year nationwide community-engagement campaign with the assistance of interactive-documentary producer POV Spark, online civil-rights organization Color of Change, and Afropunk arts festival.
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SPACE EXPLORERS: THE ISS EXPERIENCE EPISODE 1 CREATED P H OT OS
BY
FELI X C OU R T E S Y
&
PAUL OF
STUDI OS FELI X
SPACE, &
NASA, P AUL
Wandering through the Gallery, there was a window looking out on the International Space Station. (Remember that you are in Earth’s orbit). With a poke at the right spot, attendees with VR goggles were transported to the ISS via the 4K cinema VR experience Adapt – the first of an epic series of VR space experiences being created by NASA with the VR cinema artistry of Felix & Paul Studios Space. While not a part of The New Frontier exhibits, the scope and quality comprise significant achievements in cinematic VR. In this first episode, the participant experiences what it’s like for a new astronaut to get accustomed to living and moving in space. Within the first minute, the VR experience begins to impart a feeling of weightlessness. The project is the largest film production ever undertaken in space. Felix & Paul Studios Space designed 8K 3D-360 cameras based on the Z Cam for use by astronauts, both inside and outside of the space station, including the capacity to be mounted to the space station’s Canadarm2. The technical challenges were immense, from designing 3D cameras that would work at a variety of close subject distances and handle radical lighting in the vacuum of space to proxy workflows minimizing the demands on communications bandwidth. Adapt is available for Rift and Quest on Oculus.
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TI ME
STUDI OS S T U D I OS
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On Their Own THREE FEMALE-CENTRIC FEATURES AT SUNDANCE BEAR THE FRUITS OF A CLOSE DP/DIRECTOR PARTNERSHIP. BY VALENTINA VALENTINI
Fifty percent of Sundance’s entire slate this year was directed by women. And if that doesn’t immediately resonate, consider that in Sundance’s 25-plus-year history of leading the indie world as a haven for marginalized filmmakers, it’s the first time festival programmers have hit gender parity. (The rest of the industry is woefully behind, but that’s an article for another day.) Not only were half of the films at Sundance 2021 made by women, but the stories were also themed around female characters, who had complex issues and offered deeply moving narratives. Three films shot by Local 600 Directors of Photography showcased these
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themes, supplying intimate visuals, intuitive movements, and aesthetic worlds that complemented each woman’s journey. The U.S. Dramatic Competition film CODA (which smashed all previous sales records for a single feature at Sundance – $25 million from Apple+) featured Director of Photography Paula Huidobro’s re-teaming with writer/ director Sian Heder after their 2016 Sundance hit Tallulah (ICGmagazine.com: Ladies Night?). Huidobro supplied beautifully organic visuals for this story about a deaf family and their blossoming teenage daughter, who is hearing and struggles with choosing between ambition for herself and loyalty to her family. In the
Premieres section, Nanu Segal, BSC, worked with a first-time feature writer-director Kate Tsang on Marvelous and the Black Hole, which weaves a fantastical tale of a young girl who turns to magic after the death of her mother. Also in Premieres, longtime Sundance veteran Bobby Bukowski shot Robin Wright’s feature directorial debut, Land, about a mother and wife mourning a tragic loss. Each cinematographer’s close working relationship with their director supported the theme of a woman in crisis who is working through sadness, grief and familial challenges. We asked the three pairs to expand upon their collaborations.
NANU SEGAL, BSC, SHOOTING ON AN L.A. NEW TECHNOLO GY THE BLACK 93 HOLE FOR MARVELOUS AND PHOTO COURTESY OF NANU SEGAL
CODA
For director Sian Heder, creating a strong sense of place in CODA (an acronym for “child of deaf adults”) was important. The story – a remake of the French-language film La Famille Bélier – is set in Gloucester, a workingclass Massachusetts coastal town where fishing is the dominant trade, and families rise or fall on each season’s catch. Heder says she chose nostalgic spots from her childhood summers in the area. “We were lucky to shoot in a quarry that was the same one Sian used to swim in as a child,” reveals Huidobro, who used the Sony VENICE at 6K with ARRI Signature Prime lenses to create a realistic, natural look. “That was also a challenging location but had an incredible beauty and was a magical setting for Ruby’s [Emilia Jones] and Miles’ [Ferdia Walsh-Peelo] first kiss.” As Heder adds: “The sense of place and community was very important. The ocean, the fish, the people – we also wanted to visually capture Ruby’s love for music, the complexities of being a hearing child in a deaf family and falling in love for the first time. The cinematography had to be simple and real, hoping that the beauty and sincerity would come across more from the landscapes or the emotion of our characters.”
Another aspect of CODA’s authentic look was shooting at sea. They had three days on a working fishing boat, and because of coastal regulations could only catch a certain number of fish in federal waters three miles from the coast. That meant a lot of complicated logistics, including real fish, actors learning how to properly catch and process them, handheld cameras and a crane on a nearby boat, as well as several seasick crewmembers. Scenes shot entirely in American Sign Language (ASL) were a new experience for both Huidobro and Heder; it meant that the film’s cinematic language had to be tweaked to catch the nuances of the silent communication. Often a director’s instinct will be to close in on an intense moment, of which there are many in CODA, or to have a character throw a line over their shoulder as they walk out of a room. But with ASL conversations, people are looking directly at each other, especially during arguments. “Paula and I were invested in finding a cinematic language that honors deaf culture and the way ASL works as a language,” notes Heder, who met Huidobro during an AFI Directing Workshop for Women. They’ve since done two short films, Tallulah and AppleTV+’s Little America (Hidden Nation). Their careers have progressed in parallel fashion – Heder describes it as both a familiar and familial working relationship, explaining that her sister, Thyra Heder, has been her storyboard artist on all of the same projects, and often it’s just her, Thyra and Paula shot-listing and brainstorming together. “Our careers have continued to develop together, and we have always pushed each other creatively,” Huidobro concludes. “We have established a shorthand and really enjoy working together, spending time shot-listing and discussing the look of the movie and the emotional journey of the characters. We can both relate to Ruby’s story.”
PHOTOS BY SEACIA PAVAO / COURTESY OF THE SUNDANCE INSTITUTE
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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SUNDANCE INSTITUTE
MARVELOUS AND THE BLACK HOLE When Nanu Segal signed on to Marvelous and the Black Hole, she’d read the script twice because she wanted to make sure that the fondness she felt for Sammy (Miya Cech, above) the first time wasn’t just a fluke. And it wasn’t. A contrast between Sammy’s everyday life and her internal world spoke to Segal, who enjoys offbeat character-driven work, like the Sundance 2018 NEXT-section feature An Evening with Beverley Luff Linn and Film4’s Old Boys. “Her demons, the pain she’s carrying around, and the complications of coming of age,” notes Segal, “[I wanted to] visually reflect all those sides of her.” Segal used an ALEXA Mini with Cooke Xtal Express anamorphic lenses to create a bit of magic to match Sammy and Margot’s (Rhea Perlman) practical magic. And this tapped into first-time feature writer-director Kate Tsang’s desire for a cinematographer who could bring something special to familiar places. As they venture into Sammy’s imagined world, Segal switched to spherical – Panavision legacy prime lenses, Super Speeds. “This film has a realistic grounded space that Sammy occupies and also a fantastical space,” offers Tsang. “We wanted to build those two distinct feelings, so her home is cooler, starker. But when she goes into her head, those are full of spectacle, even in black and white; at Margot’s home, too, it’s warmer, colors shine
brighter. It was important for the visuals to communicate Sammy’s [altering] emotional state in certain spaces.” Another way in which Segal and Tsang achieved this was by changing the aspect ratio from 2.39:1 to 16:9 so that Sammy’s world literally opens up in her own mind. “Having the black cinema bars on the top and bottom of the screen was a way to communicate her trapped-ness,” Tsang continues. “So that when she does have those fantastical escapist scenes, removing those bars shows that for her, fantasy was a means of getting away from where she was.” Though the project was the first time Segal and Tsang worked together, both say the passion they shared for Sammy’s story – a character neither felt they’d seen on screen before – helped them to achieve their goals. And while Tsang notes that Segal was taking a risk in working with a first-time feature director, Segal assures her that every time she shoots a new feature, it feels like her own first feature. “We were on the same page from the beginning with all of the visual influences,” Tsang concludes. “I’d made a look book and Nanu made her look book, and when we compared them, there was so much [overlap]. It was a very easy collaboration because ideas were always flowing.”
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Though first-time feature director Robin Wright wasn’t initially going to star in Land, timing dictated the decision for the Golden Globe-winning actress. What resulted was an intimate and physically grueling story where the camera, operated almost always in handheld mode by Director of Photography Bobby Bukowski, acted as an appendage to Wright’s haunted widow, Edee. “I wanted the viewer to literally feel like they were going on this journey [with Edee],” says Wright, who first met Bukowski on Rampart in 2011 and habitually asked him questions about lighting, cameras, filters, and lenses in a continual education of what goes on behind the camera. Or as Bukowski describes it: “She was collecting everything for her ultimate goal of being a director.” Bukowski says that given the nature of the project – long days (and nights) inside a cabin built at lower elevation in Alberta, Canada and moved up to the film’s nearly 8,000-foot position – there was no one better suited to capture Wright’s vision (along with a skeleton crew). An avid camper and hiker, Bukowski wrote a love letter to Wright about Mother Nature, delving deeply into what the script meant to him. The letter resonated with the director on a personal level, who says the film was “an antidote to the ugliness of the last four years in America” and a humanistic study in loss and grieving. “Bobby has always had great female friends,” describes Wright, who directed many episodes of Netflix’s Emmy-winning drama House of Cards before leaping into a feature. “[I needed someone] in the cabin that I could do an emotional scene with; someone who could just walk with me, next to me, be in it together. [We would] clear the set and it was just him and me.” For the flashbacks, Wright ended up deciding that less is more. They focused on what Wright calls elliptical memories – scenes where the light is blown out and there’s no audio, where the visuals sort of bleed into one another, and clarity only comes in a flash. Visual references for these moments came from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, shot by Janusz Kaminski. “We didn’t need those flashback scenes to show her past [clearly],” Wright continues. “We felt the elliptical memories pulled the viewer in much more. Again, you’re riding this journey with her, inside her head.” One of Bukowski’s biggest contributions was his suggestion not to build the cabin on a set, which was the original plan, but rather on location. Wright says it was the right choice, despite the challenges of filming in a remote and rural place. There were no light sources other than the windows in the cabin,
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LAND
and Bukowski operated mostly handheld on the ALEXA Mini to stay as close to Edee as possible. Bukowski also slept in the cabin after each day’s shooting to capture B-roll of the sunsets and first light, animals passing by (including bears!), or the first snow without footprints. The small crew had to shift gears based on the constantly shifting weather, yet they managed to capture all four seasons in 29 days of shooting with only a week hiatus as they waited for winter. “[I wanted] to use the landscape in a way that represented the internal response that [Edee] was having,” concludes Bukowski, known for his work on The Messenger, 99 Homes, and Rosewater (ICGmagazine.com: See No Evil). “We tried to show how small she was in relation to that landscape, her trying to surmount this thing that’s much larger than herself. As the story progresses, I started to bring the camera lower, including the ground or having her foregrounded by trees, to integrate her to be more a part of the landscape instead of separate from it.”
PHOTO BY DANIEL POWER/FOCUS FEATURES
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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 98
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First Man / Photo by Daniel McFadden
Still Photographers, Publicists, Additional Units, etc.). Please note
20TH CENTURY FOX “911” SEASON 4
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JOAQUIN SEDILLO, ASC OPERATORS: RICK STEVENS, SOC DUANE MIELIWOCKI, SOC, DALE VANCE, JR., SOC ASSISTANTS: KEN LITTLE, CLAUDIO BANKS, ERIC GUERIN, DAVID STELLHORN, ERIC WHEELER, JIHANE MRAD STEADICAM OPERATOR: DALE VANCE, JR., SOC STEADICAM ASSISTANT: ERIC WHEELER CAMERA UTILITY: PAULINA GOMEZ DIGITAL UTILITY: DUSTIN LEBOUEF
“9-1-1: LONE STAR” SEASON 2 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDY STRAHORN, JOE BRODERICK, DOUG HOLGATE OPERATORS: BRICE REID, DEAN MORIN, MIKE VEJAR ASSISTANTS: JAMES RYDINGS, KAORU ISHIZUKA, CARLOS DOERR, KELSEY CASTELLITTO, CHRIS BURKET, RON ELLIOTT, KOJI KOJIMA STEADICAM OPERATOR: BRICE REID DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: PETER RUSS CAMERA UTILITY: JOE PACELLA DIGITAL UTILITY: BASSEM BALAA TECHNOCRANE OPERATOR: NAZARIY HATAK TECHNOCRANE TECH: JAY SHEVECK REMOTE HEAD TECH/OPERATOR: BRICE REID
“AMERICAN HORROR STORY #B” SEASON 10 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREW MITCHELL
OPERATORS: CHRISTOPHER HOOD, BRIAN BERNSTEIN,
ASSISTANTS: DENNISH SEAWRIGHT, STEVEN MAGRATH,
MICHAEL VEJAR
BUTCH PIERSON, DALE WHITE, DUSTIN KELLER,
ASSISTANTS: PENNY SPRAGUE, SAMUEL BUTT,
KYLE SAUER
RYAN PILON, BEN PERRY, NATHAN LEWIS,
STEADICAM OPERATOR: BILL BRUMMOND
GARY JOHNSON
STEADICAM ASSISTANT: DENNIS SEAWRIGHT
CAMERA UTILITY: BRANDON GUTIERREZ
LOADER: BROOKE MAGRATH
DIGITAL UTILITY: LAURA SPOUTZ
DIGITAL UTILITY: JORDAN SCHUSTER REMOTE HEAD TECH/OPERATOR: DUSTIN KELLER
“LAST MAN STANDING” SEASON 9 OPERATORS: GARY ALLEN, RANDY BAER,
“WU-TANG: AN AMERICAN SAGA” SEASON 2
DAMIAN DELLA SANTINA, JOHN BOYD
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID TUTTMAN,
ASSISTANTS: MISSY TOY-OZEAS, SEAN ASKINS,
GAVIN KELLY
AL MYERS
OPERATORS: ELI ARONOFF, BLAKE JOHNSON
CAMERA UTIITIES: JOHN WEISS, STEVE MASIAS
ASSISTANTS: DEAN MARTINEZ,
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: VON THOMAS
CHRISTOPHER WIEZOREK, BRIAN GRANT, JR.,
STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: PATRICK WYMORE,
ADAM DEREZENDEZ
MICHAEL BECKER
LOADER: JAMES ABAMONT
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DONALD A. MORGAN, ASC
“ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTOPHER TEAGUE OPERATORS: STEWART CANTRELL, PAUL DALEY ASSISTANTS: ADRIANA BRUNETTO-LIPMAN, TSYEN SHEN, NATHALIE RODRIGUEZ, CORY MAFFUCCI LOADERS: TREVOR BARCUS, ANJELA COVIAUX HEAD TECH: BECKI HELLER STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CRAIG BLANKENHORN
“THE ORVILLE” SEASON 3 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF C. MYGATT OPERATORS: BILL BRUMMOND, GARY TACHELL, MICHAEL SHARP
ABC STUDIOS
“GREY’S ANATOMY” SEASON 17 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ALICIA ROBBINS, STEVEN FRACOL OPERATORS: ERIC FLETCHER, MARCIS COLE, JEANNE TYSON ASSISTANTS: NICK MCLEAN, FORREST THURMAN, CHRIS JONES, KIRK BLOOM, LISA BONACCORSO, J.P. RODRIGUEZ STEADICAM OPERATOR: MARCIS COLE STEADICAM ASSISTANTS: FORREST THURMAN, LISA BONACCORSO CAMERA UTILITY: MARTE POST
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DIGITAL UTILITY: SPENCER ROBINS CRANE TECH: STEVE MCDONAGH STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: LISA ROSE
“GROWN-ISH” SEASON 4 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MARK DOERING-POWELL OPERATORS: KEN GLASSING, JESSICA LOPEZ, SOC ASSISTANTS: ROBERT SCHIERER, MICHAEL KLEIMAN, GEORGE HESSE, WILLIAM DICENSO, RYAN CAMPBELL
ABOVE AVERAGE
“LIZA ON DEMAND” SEASON 3 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TROY SMITH OPERATORS: JONATHAN GOLDFISHER, JOSH SCHNOSE ASSISTANTS: LOU DEMARCO, BEN SHURTLEFF, TONY MULLER, JULIUS GRAHAM
“JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!” SEASON 18 LIGHTING DIRECTOR: CHRISTIAN HIBBARD OPERATORS: GREG GROUWINKEL, PARKER BARTLETT, GARRETT HURT, MARK GONZALES STEADICAM OPERATOR: KRIS WILSON JIB OPERATORS: MARC HUNTER, RANDY GOMEZ, JR., NICK GOMEZ CAMERA UTILITIES: CHARLES FERNANDEZ, SCOTT SPIEGEL, TRAVIS WILSON, DAVID FERNANDEZ, ADAM BARKER VIDEO CONTROLLER: GUY JONES STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: KAREN NEAL, MICHAEL DESMOND 2ND UNIT DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BERND REINBARDT,
JENNIFER BELL PRICE, MICHELLE BAKER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KEVIN MILLS LOADER: DILSHAN HERATH
BIG INDIE COLD FRONT, INC.
DIGITAL LOADER: JUAN PABLO JARA
“THE TENDER BAR”
CAMERA UTILITY: EDUARDOBILL GONZALEZ
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MARTIN RUHE OPERATOR: JOHN MOYER
CAMERA UTIITY: ANDREW OLIVER DIGITAL UTILITY: ZAC PRANGE
ASSISTANTS: TRACY DAVEY, GARY WEBSTER,
AMAZON STUDIOS/REUNION PACIFIC “FORGET NORMAL”
ASSISTANTS: ZACK SHULTZ, CHRISTIAN HOLLYER, JOHN MCCARTHY, TALIA KROHMAL DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KYO MOON
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TIM BELLEN
LOADER: THOMAS BELLOTTI
OPERATORS: DAVID HIRSHMANN, SOC,
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CLAIRE FOLGER
CHRIS HAIFLEY, KRISTY TULLY ASSISTANTS: STEVE BELLEN, ERIK EMERSON, JIM NYGREN, JESSICA RAMOS, JENNIFER STUART,
BLACK LABEL
KRISTINA LECHUGA
“DEVOTION”
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: SCOTT STEPHENS
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIK MESSERSCHIDT, ASC
DIGITAL UTILITY: RYAN MCGRATH
OPERATORS: BRIAN OSMOND, JESSICA CLARKE-NASH ASSISTANTS: ALEX SCOTT, BRIAN WELLS,
“OUTER RANGE” SEASON 1
NICHOLE FIREBAUGH, LAUREN GENTRY
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ADAM NEWPORT-BERRA,
DIGITAL UTILITY: KYLE FORD
DREW DANIELS
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ELI ADE
OPERATORS: MATT HARSHBARGER, PAUL ELLIOTT ASSISTANTS: GABE PFEIFFER, KINGSLEA BUELTEL, TAYLOR HILBURN, JASON SEIGEL
BROADWAY VIDEO
STEVE GARRETT
STEADICAM OPERATOR: MATT HARSHBARGER
“MIRACLE WORKERS” SEASON 3
STEADICAM ASSISTANT: GABE PFEIFFER
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BLAKE MCCLURE
“QUEENS” PILOT
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: TIM GREGOIRE
OPERATORS: NICK MEDRUD, SCOTT DROPKIN,
LOADER: GENESIS HERNANDEZ
MICHELLE GONZALES
DIGITAL UTILITY: LINDSAY HEATLEY
ASSISTANTS: JASON WITTENBERG, DAN MARINO, TIFFANY MURRAY,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SIDNEY SIDELL, ASC OPERATORS: TAJ TEFFAHA, BODIE ORMAN ASSISTANTS: KEVIN POTTER, TIM SWEENEY STEADICAM OPERATOR: TAJ TEFFAHA DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MANNY SMITH
“REBEL” SEASON 1
MARIA VALLETTA,
AMERICAN HIGHT “SEX APPEAL”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SHERRI KAUK OPERATORS: BILLY GREEN, JOE BLODGETT
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TODD A. DOS REIS, ASC
ASSISTANTS: SYMON MINK, JUSTIN MARZELLA,
OPERATORS: IAN DODD, DEMIAN SCOTT VAUGHS,
DAVE MASLYN, JADE BRENNAN
ERIC DYSON
LOADER: JOSIAH WEINHOLD
ASSISTANTS: JAMIE STEPHENS, JASON GARCIA, MELISSA FISHER, OLIVER PONCE, RICHARD KENT, LANI WASSERMAN STEADICAM OPERATOR: DEMIAN SCOTT VAUGHS STEADICAM ASSISTANT: JASON GARCIA DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: SAM MCCONVILLE LOADER: ANNIE LI DIGITAL UTILITY: ALEXA HEGRE
“THE ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW” SEASON 18 LIGHTING DIRECTOR: TOM BECK PED OPERATORS: DAVID WEEKS, PAUL WILEMAN, TIM O’NEILL HANDHELD OPERATOR: CHIP FRASER
“STATION 19” SEASON 4
STEADICAM OPERATOR: DONOVAN GILBUENA
SPENCER COMBS OPERATORS: RON SCHLAEGER, MARIANA ANTUNANO, BRIAN GARBELLINI
JIB OPERATOR: DAVID RHEA VIDEO CONTROLLER: JAMES MORAN HEAD UTILITY: CRAIG “ZZO” MARAZZO UTILITIES: ARLO GILBUENA, WALLY LANCASTER, DIEGO AVALOS
ASSISTANTS: TONY SCHULTZ, HANNAH LEVIN, WILLIAM MARTI, GAYLE HILARY, GREG WILLIAMS, TIM MCCARTHY STEADICAM OPERATOR: RON SCHLAEGER STEADICAM ASSISTANT: TONY SCHULTZ DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ANDREW LEMON UTILITIES: GEORGE MONTEJANO, III, ROBERTO RUELAS SPLINTER UNIT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BRIAN GARBELINNI
DIGITAL LOADER: TOSHADEVA PALANI UTILITY: EMMA MASSALONE
CBS
“BULL” SEASON 5 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DERICK UNDERSCHULTZ, JOHN ARONSON
A VERY GOOD PRODUCTION, INC. & WAD PRODUCTIONS
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: KAREN BALLARD
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DARYN OKADA, ASC,
JOSHUA ROBERT COTE, SEATON TROTTER
BEACHWOOD SERVICES
“DAYS OF OUR LIVES” SEASON 57 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: VINCE STEIB
OPERATORS: BARNABY SHAPIRO, DOUGLAS PELLEGRINO ASSISTANTS: ROMAN LUKIW, SOREN NASH, MICHAEL LOBB, TREVOR WOLFSON DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KEITH PUTNAM STEADICAM OPERATOR: BARNABY SHAPIRO LOADERS: NIALANEY RODRIGUEZ, REBECCA HEWITT STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: DAVID RUSSELL
“ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT” SEASON 40 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KURT BRAUN OPERATORS: JAMES B. PATRICK, ALLEN VOSS, ED SARTORI, HENRY ZINMAN, BOB CAMPI, RODNEY MCMAHON, ANTHONY SALERNO JIB OPERATOR: JAIMIE CANTRELL CAMERA UTILITY: TERRY AHERN
VIDEO CONTROLLERS: MIKE DOYLE, PETER STENDAL
OPERATORS: MARK WARSHAW, MICHAEL J. DENTON, JOHNNY
“EVIL” SEASON 2
BROMBEREK, STEVE CLARK
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PETR HLINOMAZ,
CAMERA UTILITIES: STEVE BAGDADI, GARY CYPHER
FRED MURPHY, ASC
VIDEO CONTROLLER: ALEXIS DELLAR HANSON
OPERATORS: AIKEN WEISS, KATE LAROSE, PARRIS MAYHEW
“THE GOLDBERGS” SEASON 8
ASSISTANTS: ROBERT BECCHIO, RENE CROUT,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JASON BLOUNT
ALISA COLLEY, VINCENT LARAWAY
OPERATORS: SCOTT BROWNER, NATE HAVENS
LOADERS: TONI SHEPPARD, HOLDEN HLINOMAZ STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ELIZABETH FISHER
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LIGHTING
DESIGNER: DARREN LANGER
“THE GOOD FIGHT” SEASON 5 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TIMOTHY GUINNESS OPERATORS: PETER NOLAN, WILLIAM HAYS ASSISTANTS: RENE CROUT, ROB KOCH, ELIZABETH HEDGES, SANCHEEV RAVICHANDRAN LOADERS: ROBERT STACHOWICZ, KATIE GREAVES STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: PATRICK HARBRON
“THE TALK” SEASON 11 LIGHTING DIRECTOR: MARISA DAVIS PED OPERATORS: ART TAYLOR, MARK GONZALES, ED STAEBLER HANDHELD OPERATORS: RON BARNES, KEVIN MICHEL, JEFF JOHNSON JIB OPERATOR: RANDY GOMEZ HEAD UTILITY: CHARLES FERNANDEZ UTILITIES: MIKE BUSHNER, DOUG BAIN, DEAN FRIZZEL, BILL GREINER, JON ZUCCARO VIDEO CONTROLLER: RICHARD STROCK STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: RON JAFFE
“WELCOME TO GEORGIA” PILOT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GARY BAUM, ASC OPERATORS: EDDIE FINE, JAMIE HITCHCOCK, DEBORAH O’BRIEN, DAVID DECHANT, KELSEY NINER ASSISTANTS: NIGEL STEWART, JASON HERRING DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DEREK LANTZ VIDEO CONTROLLER: JOHN O’BRIEN UTILITIES: ADAN TORRES, RICHIE FINE
CLOVER GROVE, LLC “HUMMINGBIRD”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN TANZER OPERATORS: JOSHUA FRIZ, DEREK EDWARDS, LISA STACILAUSKAS
LOADERS: CALEB MURPHY, BRIAN CARDENAS REMOTE HEAD TECH/OPERATOR: SEAN FOLKL STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ALISON ROSA
CRANETOWN MEDIA, LLC
SAL VEGA, JAMES DUNHAM, HOLDEN LORENZ,
“AWKWAFINA IS NORA FROM QUEENS” SEASON 2
DAVID ROSS
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KYLE WULLSCHLEGER
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: TYLER OWENS
OPERATORS: CHRIS ARAN, ASHTON HARREWYN
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: PETER IOVINO
ASSISTANTS: CAROLYN PENDER, CONNOR LAWSON,
ASSISTANTS: CAMILLE FREER, JAKE ROSENBLATT,
ALEX DUBOIS, KYLE PARSONS
COLUMBIA PICTURES INC. “A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MARYSE ALBERTI OPERATORS: KYLE RUDOLPH, REBECCA ARNDT
LOADER: MATTHEW ELDRIDGE STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: EMILY ARAGONES
DISNEY/FOX 21
ASSISTANTS: TIMOTHY METIVIER, JOSEPH METZGER,
“QUEEN OF THE SOUTH” SEASON 5
CORNELIA KLAPPER, CONNIE HUANG
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ABE MARTINEZ
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DOUGLAS HORTON
OPERATORS: DOMINIC BARTOLONE, MATT VALENTINE
LOADER: JONATHAN PERALTA
ASSISTANTS: JASON GARCIA, DAN MCKEE,
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: DAVID LEE
RIGNEY SACKLEY, ZANDER WHITE
PUBLICIST: CID SWANK
STEADICAM OPERATOR: DOMINIC BARTOLONE STEADICAM ASSISTANT: JASON GARCIA
COOLER WATER PRODUCTIONS, LLC
DIGITAL LOADER: ADAM LIPSCOMB
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: VANJA CERNJUL, ASC
EDEAVOR CONTENT
“GILDED AGE” SEASON 1
OPERATORS: OLIVER CARY, PYARE FORTUNATO ASSISTANTS: JOHN OLIVERI, MICHAEL BURKE, SARAH MAY GUENTHER, MABEL SANTOS HAUGEN STEADICAM OPERATOR: PYARE FORTUNATO DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MATT SELKIRK
“AMBULANCE”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ROBERTO DE ANGELIS OPERATOR: BROOKS GUYER ASSISTANTS: BRAD PETERMAN, JOHN HOLMES, CHRIS SLOAN, MARK CONNELLY
APRIL 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS
101
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: STEVE FREEBAIRN DIGITAL UTILITY: ZACH MADDEN TECHNOCRANE OPERATOR: JOSEPH RODMELL TECHNOCRANE TECH: CHAD ESHBAUGH REMOTE HEAD TECH: JAY SHEVECK STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ANDREW COOPER BEHIND THE SCENES: JACK KNEY
EYE PRODUCTIONS, INC.
“BLUE BLOODS” SEASON 11 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DONALD THORIN, JR. OPERATORS: STEPHEN CONSENTINO, GEOFF FROST ASSISTANTS: GRAHAM BURT, JACOB STAHLMAN,
GHOST PRODUCTIONS. INC.
NADIA PRODUCTIONS, LLC
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: NIELS ALPERT,
OPERATORS: WYLDA BAYRON, DEVON CATUCCI
AARON MEDICK
ASSISTANTS: ROSSANA RIZZO, JASON RIHALY,
OPERATORS: ALAN MEHLBRECH, CHRIS SCARAFILE
EDDIE GOLDBLATT, DYLAN ENDYKE
ASSISTANTS: MICHAEL GAROFALO,
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: TIFFANY ARMOUR-TEJADA
CHARLIE FOERSCHNER, RODRIGO MILLAN GARCE,
LOADER: BRITTANY JELINSKI
SCOTT GAROFALO
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CARA HOWE
“POWER BOOK II: GHOST” SEASON 2
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ROB MUIA LOADERS: BRIANNA MORRISON, TREVOR BARCUS STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MYLES ARONOWITZ
JAY SQUARED PRODUCTIONS, LLC
MARTIN PETERSON, KENNETH MARTELL
“MANIFEST” SEASON 3
LOADER: JONATHAN SCHAEFER
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREW PRIESTLEY OPERATORS: CARLOS GUERRA, RYAN TOUSSIENG
“KIDS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS” SEASON 2
ASSISTANTS: ANDREW PECK, WESLEY HODGES,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DARRYL E. SMITH
CORNELIA KLAPPER, KAIH WONG
OPERATORS: HAROLD HENDERSON, TAYLER KNIGHT
LOADERS: WILL FORTUNE, PHILIP THOMPSON
ASSISTANT: JUDE JATAU
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ELIZABETH FISHER
DIGITAL UTILITY: ISIDRO PINEDA, JR.
“SWAGGER” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: RODNEY TAYLOR OPERATORS: BODIE ORMAN, GARY HATFIELD ASSISTANTS: CHRISTOPHER GLEATON, ELIZABETH SILVER, MARK BAIN, ZAKIYA LUCAS-MURRAY, ERIC EATON, MAXWELL FISHER LOADER: BRITTANY WILSON STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JESSICA KOURKOUNIS
“RAISING KANAN” SEASON 1
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: HERNAN OTANO OPERATORS: FRANCIS SPIELDENNER, GREGORY FINKEL ASSISTANTS: MARK FERGUSON, EMMA REESE-SCANLON, MARC LOFORTE, GREGORY PACE DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: BJORN JACKSON LOADERS: KEITH ANDERSON, JESSICA CELE-NAZARIO STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: ZACH DILGARD,
FUQUA FILMS
PUBLICIST: SABRINA LAUFER
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BART TAU
KRF FILM PRODUCTION PR, LLC
“THE RESIDENT” SEASON 4
CHRISTIAN SATRAZEMIS ASSISTANTS: JUSTIN DEGUIRE, TAYLOR CASE, APRIL RUANE CROWLEY, MIKE FISHER, JENNIFER RANKINE, GRACE PRELLER CHAMBERS STEADICAM OPERATOR: MATT DOLL STEADICAM ASSISTANT: JUSTIN DEGUIRE LOADER: TREY VOLPE DIGITAL UTILITY: RYAN ST CLAIR
NBC
“BROOKLYN NINE-NINE” SEASON 8 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: RICK PAGE OPERATORS: PHIL MASTRELLA, LAUREN GADD, JOEL TALLBUT ASSISTANTS: JAY LEVY, BILL GERARDO, DUSTIN MILLER, WILLIAM SCHMIDT, CHRIS CARLSON DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: NICK GILBERT LOADER: KURT LEVY STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JOHN P. FLEENOR
“CHICAGO MED” SEASON 6
KANAN PRODUCTIONS, INC.
PAUL SCHIRALDI
OPERATORS: MATT DOLL, ANDY FISHER,
“RUSSIAN DOLL” SEASON 2
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: LEX DUPONT, ASC OPERATORS: FAIRES ANDERSON SEKIYA, JOE TOLITANO, BENJAMIN SPEK ASSISTANTS: GEORGE OLSON, KEITH HUEFFMEIER, SAM KNAPP, PATRICK DOOLEY, JOEY RICHARDSON, MATT BROWN STEADICAM OPERATOR: FAIRES ANDERSON SEKIYA LOADER: CHRIS SUMMERS UTILITY: ELIJAH WILBORN STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ELIZABETH SISSON
“CHICAGO PD” SEASON 8 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JAMES ZUCAL OPERATORS: VICTOR MACIAS, DARRYL MILLER, SETH THOMAS
“KILLING FIELDS”
ASSISTANTS: JOHN YOUNG, DON CARLSON,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BRYAN KOSS
DAVID WIGHTMAN, JAMISON ACKER,
OPERATORS: CARLOS ZAYAS
KYLE BELOUSEK, NICK WILSON
ASSISTANTS: CARLOS RIVERA, CARLOS GARCIA,
STEADICAM OPERATOR: VICTOR MACIAS
ZORAIDA LUNA LUNA, NATASHA LUNA
LOADER: MARION TUCKER
STEADICAM OPERATOR: CHRISTIAN RAMIREZ-COLL
DIGITAL UTILITIES: CHRIS POLMANSKI, STEVE CLAY
MESQUITE PRODUCTIONS
“F.B.I.” SEASON 3 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MARC RITZEMA
“I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER” SEASON 1
OPERATORS: AFTON GRANT, JAMIE SILVERSTEIN
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANKA MALATYNSKA
ASSISTANTS: LEE VICKERY, YURI INOUE,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDY FISHER
OPERATORS: SERGIO DE LUCA, JOSH TURNER
GEORGE LOOKSHIRE, NKEM UMENYI
OPERATORS: CHRISTIAN SATRAZEMIS,
ASSISTANTS: PATRICK BLANCHET, NIGEL NALLY,
STEADICAM OPERATOR: AFTON GRANT
MICHAEL GFELNER, COOPER DUNN
RYAN CHARLTON-HALWEG, MICHAEL CRUICKSHANK
LOADERS: RAUL MARTINEZ, CONNOR LYNCH
ASSISTANTS: JACKSON MCDONALD, CLAIRE PAPEVIES,
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: GAYLEN NEBEKER
TAYLOR CASE, MATT EVANS, STERLING WIGGINS,
LOADER: GEOFF LAU
TRISHA SOLYN
DIGITAL UTILITY: KRISTINA ZAZUETA
STEADICAM OPERATOR: CHRISTIAN SATRAZEMIS
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MICHAEL DESMOND
2ND UNIT
DIGITAL UTILITY: TREY VOLPE UTILITY: ERIC GAVLINSKI
GC FILMS, LLC
“GOD’S COUNTRY”
“FBI: MOST WANTED” SEASON 2 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: LUDOVIC LITTEE, DANIEL PATTERSON OPERATORS: CHRISTOPHER MOONE, REBECCA ARNDT
MONKEYPAW PRODUCTIONS “THE LAST O.G.” SEASON 4
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ROBERT GANTZ OPERATORS: VINCE VENNITTI, JULIAN DELACRUZ
ASSISTANTS: BRADEN BELMONTE, JAMES DALY, RACHAEL DOUGHTY, CAROLYN WILLS, STORR TODD LOADER: AUSTIN RESTREPO STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK SCHAFER
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREW WHEELER
ASSISTANTS: JUSTIN WHITACRE, JOSHUA WATERMAN,
OPERATOR: HANNAH GETZ
NICK DEEG, JONATHAN SCHAEFER
ASSISTANTS: SEBASTIEN THIBEAU, PATRICK LAVALLEY
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DAVE SATIN
“GIRLS5EVA” SEASON 1
LOADERS: MATEO GONZALEZ, BABETTE JOHNSON
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN INWOOD OPERATORS: DAVID TAICHER, ROBERT PAGLIARO ASSISTANTS: DOUGLAS FOOTE, CHRISTOPHER WIEZOREK, AMBER ROSALES,
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APRIL 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS
PATRICK BRACEY LOADERS: CHARLOTTE SKUTCH, ARIEL WATSON STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: ANNE JOYCE, HEIDI GUTMAN
“GOOD GIRLS” SEASON 4 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JASON OLDAK OPERATORS: MIKA LEVIN, BRIAN OUTLAND, SHELLY GURZI
Large Format Directors Viewfinder
Full Format in all its Glory
ASSISTANTS: JOHN RUIZ, PATRICK BLANCHET, JENNA HOFFMAN, ROBYN BUCHANAN, CARTER SMITH, JONNIE MENTZER LOADER: MATT SCHOUTEN STEADICAM OPERATOR: MIKA LEVIN STEADICAM ASSISTANT: JOHN RUIZ CAMERA UTILITY: GLEN LANDRY DIGITAL UTILITY: DEEPAK ADHIKARY
recently shooting The Pursuit of Love “While on the Alexa LF with Signature Primes,
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JORDIN ALTHAUS
“NEW AMSTERDAM” SEASON 3
I was able to view the full scope of this beautiful format in all its glory. Light and easy to handle, the Lindsey Optics Large Format Directors Finder was a great tool on set when it came to discussing framing options with the director.
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREW VOEGELI OPERATORS: SCOTT TINSLEY, GARETH MANWARING ASSISTANTS: PEDRO CORCEGA, JAMES MADRID, MATTHEW MONTALTO, ROBERT WRASE LOADERS: ANABEL CAICEDO, KATHERINE RIVERA
”
“THE EQUALIZER” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GAVIN KELLY
Zac Nicholson, BSC
OPERATORS: DAVID ISERN, RACHAEL LEVINE, SOC, BLAKE JOHNSON ASSISTANTS: BEN SPANER, KATHERINE RIVERA, FILIPP PENSON, ROBERT CLINE, JIEUN SHIM, DARNELL MCDONALD
www.lindseyoptics.com • +1.661.522.7101
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: TIFFANY ARMOUR-TEJADA LOADERS: PETER PERLMAN, IVANA BERNAL STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: BARBARA NITKE, MICHAEL GREENBERG
“UNTITLED TRACY OLIVER AKA HARLEM” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTHEW EDWARDS OPERATORS: MATTHEW FLEISCHMANN, ERIC ROBINSON ASSISTANTS: BLAKE ALCANTARA, VANESSA MORRISON, JORGE DEL TORO, MIGUEL GONZALEZ DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JEFFREY HAGERMAN LOADERS: FRANCES DE RUBERTIS, DAVID DIAZ STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: SARAH SHATZ
“THE CHAIR” SEASON 1
“DOPESTICK” SEASON 1
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JAMES FROHNA
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHECCO VARESE, ASC
OPERATORS: DJ HARDER, MICHAEL CRAVEN
OPERATORS: JOSEPH ARENA, JOSEPH CICIO
ASSISTANTS: ALEX BRUNELLE, JASON CIANELLA,
ASSISTANTS: MARK STRASBURG, EZRA BASSIN HILL,
KYLE GORJANC, BRIAN BRESNEHAN
ERIC AMUNDSEN, KYRA KILFEATHER
LOADER: KIMBERLY HERMAN
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DANIELE COLOMBERA LOADER: BEN LEMONS
ORANGE CONE PRODUCTIONS “LEGACIES” SEASON 3
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN SMITH,
NETFLIX PRODUCTIONS, LLC “ARCHIVE 81” SEASON 1
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BOBBY BUKOWSKI, JULIE KIRKWOOD OPERATORS: BUD KREMP, LISA SENE ASSISTANTS: DEB PETERSON, KYLE BLACKMAN, BENEDICT BALDAUFF, KEVIN GALLOWAY CAMERA UTILITY: KIMBERLY HERMAN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: CURTIS ABBOTT LOADER: GABRIEL MARCHETTI
STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: ANTONY PLATT, GENE PAGE
PICROW STREAMING, INC.
MICHAEL KARASICK
“THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL” SEASON 4
OPERATORS: BRIAN DAVIS, SOC, STEWART SMITH, SOC
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ALEX NEPOMNIASCHY, ASC,
ASSISTANTS: GERAN DANIELS, KELLY POOR,
DAVID MULLEN, ASC
BENJAMIN EADES, SAGAR DESAI
OPERATORS: JIM MCCONKEY, GREGORY PRINCIPATO
STEADICAM OPERATOR: STEWART SMITH, SOC
ASSISTANTS: ANTHONY CAPPELLO, NIKNAZ TAVAKOLIAN,
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: BILL MUELLER
KELLON INNOCENT, JAMES DRUMMOND
LOADER: JESSE EAGLE
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MICHAEL MAIATICO
DIGITAL UTILITIES: AMANDA KOPEC, EMILY GIBSON
LOADER: BRANDON BABBIT STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: KC BAILEY
PACIFIC 2/1 ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, INC. “AMERICAN CRIME STORY: IMPEACHMENT” SEASON 4
POSSIBLE PRODUCTIONS
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SIMON DENNIS, BSC
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GIORGIO SCALI, ASC,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTHEW J. LLOYD
OPERATORS: ERIC SCHILLING, JAMIE STERBA
JAMES HAWKINSON
OPERATORS: CHRISTINE NG, MICHELLE MARRION
ASSISTANTS: DAVID LEB, NATHAN CRUM,
OPERATORS: JONATHAN BECK, JENNIE JEDDRY
ASSISTANTS: KEITT, MICHELLE SUN, YVES WILSON,
JARED WILSON
ASSISTANTS: CAI HALL, LEONARDO GOMEZ, II,
HILARY BENAS
STEADICAM OPERATOR: ERIC SCHILLING
PATRICK BRACEY, SEAN MCNAMARA
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: THOMAS WONG
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: SPENCER SHWETZ
LOADERS: DONALD GAMBLE, LYNSEY WATSON,
LOADER: GIANNI CARSON
DIGITAL UTILITY: SHANNON VAN METRE
AARON CHAMPAGNE
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: QUANTRELL COLBERT
“COLIN IN BLACK AND WHITE”
HEAD LIBRA TECH: SEAN FOLKL
“BILLIONS” SEASON 5
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: DOUGLAS MEILS
APRIL 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS
103
ROCART, INC.
SONY
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL FRANKS
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GARY BAUM, ASC
OPERATORS: BOB MCCALL, CHRIS HINOJOSA,
OPERATORS: EDDIE FINE, RON HIRSCHMAN,
DAVID DECHANT, JACK CHISOLM
DEBORAH O’BRIEN, DAVID DECHANT, BRIAN GUNTER
TECHNOJIB OPERATOR: ELI FRANKS
ASSISTANT: JASON HERRING
TECHNOJIB TECH: CHRIS COBB, JEFF CAROLAN
VIDEO CONTROLLER: DEREK LANTZ
ASSISTANT: VERONICA DAVIDSON
UTILITIES: RICHIE FINE, DAN LORENZE
CAMERA UTILITIES: MICHAEL ECKLEBERRY, ERINN BELL,
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JESSICA BROOKS
“SIDE HUSTLE” SEASON 1
MONICA SCHAAD
“CALL YOUR MOTHER” SEASON 1
DIGITAL IMAGING TECHS: DEREK LANTZ, ED MOORE
“JEOPARDY!” SEASON 36
VIDEO CONTROLLER: BARRY LONG
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF ENGEL OPERATORS: DIANE L. FARRELL, SOC,
SAN VICENTE PRODUCTIONS, INC. “THE BLACKLIST” SEASON 8
MIKE TRIBBLE, JEFF SCHUSTER, L. DAVID IRETE HEAD UTILITY: TINO MARQUEZ
MICHAEL CARACCIOLO
CAMERA UTILITY: RAY THOMPSON
OPERATORS: DEREK WALKER, DEVIN LADD,
VIDEO CONTROLLER: GARY TAILLON
PETER RENIERS
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CAROL KAELSON
ASSISTANTS: DANIEL CASEY, MIKE GUASPARI, IUELE STEADICAM OPERATOR: DEVIN LADD STEADICAM ASSISTANT: MIKE GUASPARI LOADERS: HAROLD ERKINS, MARK BOYLE STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: WILL HART
SALT SPRING MEDIA, INC. “SEVERANCE” SEASON 1
JENNIE JEDDRY ASSISTANTS: ERIC SWANEK, MIKE GUTHRIE, HAFFE ACOSTA, TYLER SWANEK, VINCE TUTHS, FRANK MILEA DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: LUKE TAYLOR LOADER: KANSAS BALLESTEROS LIBRA HEAD TECHS: DAN SHEATS, SEBASTIAN ALMEIDA
SHOWTIME PICTURES
“DEXTER AKA MARBLE” SEASON 9 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL WATSON, HILLARY SPERA OPERATORS: THOMAS SCHNAIDT, TOM FITZGERALD, PATRICK RUTH ASSISTANTS: ANDREW JUHL, KALI RILEY, JILL TUFTS, YALE GROPMAN, ANDY HENSLER, RICHELLE TOPPING DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: PATRICK CECILIAN LOADERS: CHRIS MALENFANT, MATTIE HAMER STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: SEACIA PAVAO
“I LOVE THIS FOR YOU” SEASON 1
LOADER: ALLYSON HOOVER STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: FRED NORRIS
THE FILM TV, LLC “THE VERGE”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: STEEVEN PETITTVILLE GIMBLE OPERATOR: JAMES HAMMOND ASSISTANTS: NICOLAS MARTIN, KYLE PETITJEAN DIGITAL LOADER: ALEX MACAT
TOPANGA PRODUCTIONS, INC. “S.W.A.T.” SEASON 4
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: FRANCIS KENNY, ASC, CRAIG FIKSE MICHAEL OTIS ROPERT ASSISTANTS: RYAN PARKS, TIM COBBS,
OPERATORS: DIANE L. FARRELL, SOC,
THANE CHARACKY, BAIRD STEPTOE, II,
L.DAVID IRETE, RAY GONZALES, MIKE TRIBBLE
LOGAN TURNER, GARY BEVANS, MIKE FAUNTLEROY
CAMERA UTILITY: RAY THOMPSON
STEADICAM OPERATORS: TIM DOLAN, RILEY PADELFORD
HEAD UTILITY: TINO MARQUEZ
CAMERA UTILITY: CARL LAMMI
VIDEO CONTROLLER: GARY TAILLON
LOADERS: TREVOR BEELER, LOUIS HERNANDEZ
JIB ARM OPERATOR: MARC HUNTER STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CAROL KAELSON
SOURDOUGH PRODUCTIONS, LLC
TOT PRODUCTIONS, LLC
“THE OTHER TWO” SEASON 2 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHARLIE GRUET
“SUCCESSION” SEASON 3
OPERATORS: ZACK SCHAMBERG, PATRICK MORGAN
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PATRICK CAPONE
ASSISTANTS: STEPHEN KOZLOWSKI, CASEY JOHNSON,
OPERATORS: GREGOR TAVENNER, ALAN PIERCE
JOHN WALKER, SARA BOARDMAN
ASSISTANTS: ETHAN BORSUK, CORY STAMBLER,
LOADER: MADELEINE KING
BRENDAN RUSSELL, ALEC NICKEL
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: GREG ENDRIES
LOADERS: JOSHUA BOTE, NAIMA NOGUERA STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MACALL POLAY
STALWART PRODUCTIONS
TRILLITH STUDIOS
“SERENITY NOW” 2ND UNIT OPERATORS: KEITH PETERMAN, MATTHEW PETROSKY
“61ST STREET” SEASON 2
ASSISTANTS: HAYDN PAZANTI, THOMAS D. LAIRSON, JR.
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GLENN BROWN,
MICHAEL KLIMCHACK, WILLIAM MCCONNELL, JR.
ABE MARTINEZ
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JONATHAN CARBONARO
OPERATORS: CHRIS CUEVAS, PARRISH LEWIS,
LOADER: MYOUNG (SAM) CHUN
SCOTT THIELE
DIGITAL UTILITY: LEXI GUENARD
ASSISTANTS: CHRIS WITTENBORN, HUNTER WHALEN, ERIC ARNDT, SHANNON DEWOLFE DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: PAUL SCHILENS DIGITAL UTILITIES: MIKKI DICK, CHRIS SUMMERS
UNIVERSAL
“LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME” SEASON 1
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JAMES WASHINGTON
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JIM DENAULT
“THE WALKING DEAD: WORLD BEYOND” SEASON 2
ASSISTANTS: IAN AXILROD, NICHOLAS HAHN,
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ROSS RIEGE, MAGNI AGUSTSSON
OPERATORS: RON BALDWIN, SCOTT BOETTLE,
OPERATORS: CRAIG COCKERILL, JOEL PERKAL
CHRIS BOTTOMS
ASSISTANTS: LIZ SILVER, SEAN SUTPHIN,
ASSISTANTS: HEATHER LEROY, SCOTT BIRNKRANT,
ERIC EATON, CALEB PLUTZER, RINNY WILSON
CHUCK WHELAN, VANESSA WARD, STEVE FRANLKIN,
STEADICAM OPERATOR: CRAIG COCKERILL
NICK NEINO
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN-MICHAEL SENG-WHEELER
STEADICAM OPERATOR: RON BALDWIN
LOADER: DREW STORCKS
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: BRET SUDING
DIGITAL UTILITY: PATRICK JOHNSON
STATIC MOVIE HOLDINGS, INC. “THE BLACK PHONE AKA STATIC
APRIL 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JASON JOHNSON
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF ENGEL
DIGITAL UTILITY: CHRIS GRIGGS
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MARSHALL JOHNSON, MONICA BARRIOS
OPERATORS: TIM DOLAN, RILEY PADELFORD,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JONATHAN FURMANSKI
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ANTHONY RIVETTI, JR.
ASSISTANTS: DANIEL TUREK, COURTNEY BRIDGERS,
“WHEEL OF FORTUNE” SEASON 37
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JESSICA LEE GAGNE OPERATORS: SAM ELLISON, STANLEY FERNANDEZ,
OPERATORS: JOHN LEHMAN, JAN RUONA
JIB ARM OPERATOR: MARC HUNTER
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SAADE MUSTAFA,
JAMES GOURLEY, EDGAR VELEZ, EDWIN HERRERA, KATHERYN
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BRETT JUTKIEWICZ
OPERATORS: JON BEATTIE, JOHN PIROZZI AMBER R0SALES, DERRICK DAWKINS LOADERS: LORENZO ZANINI, PATRICK ARELLANO STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: DAVID GIESBRECHT
“LAW & ORDER: SVU” SEASON 22 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL GREEN OPERATORS: JONATHAN HERRON, MICHAEL LATINO ASSISTANTS: CHRISTOPHER DEL SORDO, MATTHEW BALZARINI, JUSTIN ZVERIN, EMILY DUMBRILL LOADERS: MAX SCHWARZ, JASON GAINES STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MICHAEL PARMELEE
Team5 Aerial Systems
VERTICAL HOLD PRODUCTIONS, LLC
“B POSITIVE” SEASON 1
STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: ROBERT VOETS,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GARY BAUM, ASC
MICHAEL DESMOND, DARREN MICHAELS, NICOLE WILDER
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANTHONY WOLBERG,
OPERATORS: ALEC ELIZONDO, TRAVERS HILL,
“PRODIGAL SON” SEASON 2 CHRISTOPHER RAYMOND
OPERATORS: MALCOLM PURNELL, BRIAN JACKSON ASSISTANTS: ALEX WATERSTON, HAMILTON LONGYEAR, WARIS SUPANPONG, KEVIN HOWARD, KATIE WAALKES, RANDY SCHWARTZ CAMERA UTILITY: MCKENZIE RAYCROFT DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KYO MOON LOADER: MATTIE HAMER
WARNER BROS
LANCE BILLITZER, EDDIE FINE ASSISTANTS: ADRIAN LICCIARDI, MICHELE MCKINLEY, JEFF ROTH, CLINT PALMER, JASON HERRING DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DEREK LANTZ VIDEO CONTROLLER: JOHN O’BRIEN UTILITIES: RICHARD FINE, DAN LORENZE
“LUCIFER” SEASON 6 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TOM CAMARDA OPERATORS: MATTHEW PIERCE, DOUG OH ASSISTANTS: SIMON JARVIS, CHRIS MACK,
“ALL AMERICAN” SEASON 3
CLAIRE STONE, TIM SHERIDAN
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: NIKHIL PANIZ
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: GREG GABRIO
OPERATORS: ERIC LAUDADIO, DANIEL WURSCHL
DIGITAL UTILITIES: TYLER ERNST, RICH CONTI
ASSISTANTS: JON LINDSAY, BLAKE COLLINS,
TECHNOCRANE OPERATOR: PAUL VOUGHT
GREG DELLERSON, JESSICA PINNS
REMOTE HEAD TECH/OPERATOR: JAY SHEVECK
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: URBAN OLSSON
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JOHN P. FLEENOR
“ALL RISE” SEASON 2
“MOM” SEASON 8
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID HARP,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: STEVEN V. SILVER, ASC
AMANDA TREYZ
OPERATORS: CARY MCCRYSTAL,
OPERATORS: TIM ROARKE, STEPHEN CLANCY,
JAMIE HITCHCOCK, SOC, DAMIAN DELLA SANTINA, CANDY
SHANELE ALVAREZ
EDWARDS
ASSISTANTS: MATT GUIZA, KRISTI ARNDS,
ASSISTANTS: MEGGINS MOORE, NIGEL STEWART,
RANDY SHANOFSKY, ADAM TSANG,
SEAN ASKINS, MARK JOHNSON, WHITNEY JONES
COLLEEN LINDL, BENNY BAILEY
CAMERA UTILITIES: ALICIA BRAUNS, COLIN BROWN,
STEADICAM OPERATOR: STEPHEN CLANCY
JEANNETTE HJORTH
STEADICAM ASSISTANT: KRISTI ARNDS
VIDEO CONTROLLER: KEVIN FAUST
LOADER: PETER PEI
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: BENJAMIN STEEPLES
DIGITAL UTILITIES: MORGAN JENKINS, KAREN CLANCY
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ROBERT VOETS
WARNER HORIZONTAL SCRIPTED “ANIMAL KINGDOM” SEASON 6
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANTHONY VIETRO OPERATORS: REID RUSSELL, BROOKS ROBINSON ASSISTANTS: DAVE EGERSTROM, ERIC GUTHRIE, PATRICK BENSIMMON, KIRSTEN LAUBE STEADICAM OPERATOR: REID RUSSELL DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JEFFERSON FUGITT LOADER: GOBE HIRATA DIGITAL UTILITY: SONIA BARRIENTOS STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: EDDY CHEN
ZAMBO PRODUCTIONS, LLC “GENTEFIED” SEASON 2
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PEDRO GOMEZ MILLAN, AMC OPERATORS: CHRISTIAN GIBSON, JUDY PHU ASSISTANTS: CAMERON OWEN, ASIA HEREDIA CALDERA, ROSE LICAVOLI, KELSEY JUDDO STEADICAM OPERATOR: CHRISTIAN GIBSON STEADICAM ASSISTANT: CAMERON OWEN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JANE FLECK CAMERA UTILITY: MASON THIBO STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: KEVIN ESTRADA
PUBLICIST: MARC KLEIN
“BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA” SEASON 2 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PATTI LEE, ASC
“YOUNG SHELDON” SEASON 4
OPERATORS: MARK DAVISON, CHRIS HINOJOSA,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BUZZ FEITSHANS, IV
JON PURDY, MICHELLE CRENSHAW
OPERATORS: NEIL TOUSSAINT, SOC, AARON SCHUH
ASSISTANTS: JEFF JOHNSON, VITO DE PALMA,
ASSISTANTS: MATTHEW DEL RUTH, GRANT YELLEN,
MARIANNE FRANCO, ADAN TORRES, LISA ANDERSON,
BRAD GILSON, JR., JAMES COBB
ALICIA BRAUNS, LANCE MITCHELL, JORDAN HRISTOV
STEADICAM OPERATOR: AARON SCHUH
VIDEO CONTROLLER: JOHN O’BRIEN
STEADICAM ASSISTANT: GRANT YELLEN
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: T. BRETT FEENEY
DIGITAL LOADERS: BAILEY SOFTNESS,
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MICHAEL YARISH
JENISE WHITEHEAD
PUBLICISTS: KATHLEEN TANJI, MARC KLEIN
APRIL 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS
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COMMERCIALS
OPERATOR: VINCENT VENNITTI ASSISTANTS: RICHARD GIOIA, WALTER RODRIGUEZ, JORDAN
ARTS & SCIENCES
LEVIE, KYLE REPKA
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ALEXANDER DYNAN
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JEFFREY FLOHR
“COORS LIGHT”
TECHNOCRANE TECH: ARTHUR ELLIS
ASSISTANTS: KEN THOMPSON, KYLE REPKA STEADICAM OPERATOR: VICTOR LAZARO
“RALPH’S CLUB”
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOE BELACK
OPERATOR: YOUSHENG TANG ASSISTANTS: JOHN CLEMENS, KEN THOMPSON,
“EXPEDIA” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: AUTUMN DURALD OPERATOR: MARK MEYERS ASSISTANTS: ETHAN MCDONALD, LUCAS DEANS, MARCUS DEL NEGRO, NOAH GLAZER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MATTHEW LOVE
“INSTEAD”
SCOTT MILLER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MARIUSZ CICHON
DIVISION7 “3M”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JOMO FRAY ASSISTANTS: ALEX GUCKERT, MARIA PAVLOVA STEADICAM OPERATOR: JAMES BALL
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DARREN LEW
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN VALLON
OPERATOR: CHARLIE BEYER
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: BILL GRAY
ASSISTANTS: JOHN CLEMENS, CHRISTIAN CARMODY, SCOTT MILLER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOE BELACK
BISCUIT FILMWORKS “AARP”
DUMMY.
“REALTOR.COM” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JONATHAN FREEMAN ASSISTANTS: ETHAN MCDONALD, MARCUS DEL NEGRO DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JESSE TYLER
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, NOAH GLAZER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN SPELLMAN
“KFC” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, CARRIE LAZAR DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN SPELLMAN
“RED CROSS” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT
FIREFLY CREATIVE ENTERTAINMENT “POSE SEASON 3 PROMO”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PAUL TOLTON OPERATORS: CHRIS ROBERTSON, WYLDA BAYRON, IAN BRACONE, RICARDO SARMIENTO ASSISTANTS: JAMES HAIR, DAVID FLANIGAN, JOHN CLEMENS, JOE ROBINSON, DAN FOLEY, SCOTT MILLER, MIKE INDURSKY, BRADY WESTON
“STELLA ARTOIS”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JARED FADEL ASSISTANT: MATTHEW MEBANE
MIRADA
“MEOW MIX” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, GAVIN GROSSI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN SPELLMAN
MJZ
“HEINZ” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: LINUS SANDGREN, ASC, FSF ASSISTANTS: JORGE SANCHEZ, ARIEN HATCH, LISA GUERRIERO DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KEVIN ZANIT
O POSITIVE
“PHILLIPS 76” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GYULA PADOS ASSISTANTS: DANIEL HANYCH, LUCAS DEANS, JORDAN PELLEGRINI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KEVIN ZANIT
“ZILLOW” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: STUART DRYBURGH OPERATOR: VINCENT VENNITTI ASSISTANTS: JASON KNOBLOCH, RICK GIOIA, JORDAN LEVIE DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KAZ KARAISMAILOGLU
PARTIZAN
“MOUNTAIN DEW”
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ANTHONY HECHANOVA
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BILLY PEÑA ASSISTANTS: CONRAD CASTOR, JOSHUA RAMOS
HUNGRY MAN “AT&T”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KAI SAUL
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: LANLIN WONG
PULSE FILMS
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT
OPERATOR: TOM ARSENAULT
“WALMART”
ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, CARRIE LAZAR
ASSISTANTS: NICOLAS MARTIN,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BJORN AMUNDSEN
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN SPELLMAN
DAVID E. THOMAS, JR., PAYAM YAZDANDOOST,
ASSISTANTS: JAKE ROSENBLATT, MEGAN PHAM
ALAN CERTEZA, KYLE PETITJEAN
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KEVIN ZANIT
BRAND NEW SCHOOL
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: BEN HOPKINS
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ROB HAUER
“NJM”
“MOUNTAIN DEW, RISE”
STEADICAM OPERATOR: JUN LI
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MANEL RUIZ
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MAX GOLDMAN
ASSISTANTS: TIFFANY AUG, MICHAELA ANGELIQUE
OPERATOR: COREY GEGNER
OPERATOR: JOSH MEDAK
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: RAFFI VESCO
ASSISTANTS: PETER MORELLO, NINA CHIEN,
ASSISTANTS: ETHAN MCDONALD, JESSE CAIN,
NATE MCGARIGAL
NOAH THOMSON, MARCUS DEL NEGRO
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: TYLER ISAACSON
STEADICAM OPERATOR: MARK MEYERS
“GALAXY”
CMS
“CHARMIN” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT ASSISTANTS: ETHAN MCDONALD, JASON ALEGRE DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: STAN PAIK
“L’OREAL” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ROB WITT ASSISTANTS: NICOLAS MARTIN, JEANNA KIM STEADICAM OPERATOR: LUKE ROCHELEAU DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: FABRICIO SANTO
“LANCOME” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIPPE LE SOURD
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“ALLY BANK”
STEADICAM OPERATOR: NICK TIMMONS
ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, NOAH GLAZER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN SPELLMAN
MERMAN USA
APRIL 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS
RADICAL MEDIA
DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JESSE TYLER
IMPERIAL WOODPECKER “CORONA SELTZER”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: NIC RESTREPO ASSISTANT: GREG FRANK DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DANIEL LUCIO
“XFINITY 10” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: AUTUMN DURALD OPERATOR: JOSH MEDAK ASSISTANTS: ETHAN MCDONALD, MARCUS DELNEGRO, CHRIS STRAUSER, JORDAN MARTIN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: LONNY DANLER
STUN CREATIVE
“CNN: THE LATE NIGHT PROMOS” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC HAASE OPERATOR: CHARLIE BEYER ASSISTANTS: PETER MORELLO, ROBERT RAGOZZINE, NATE MCGARIGAL DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: HUNTER FAIRSTONE
SUPREME “VW”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHARLIE WUPPERMAN OPERATOR: NATE CORNETT ASSISTANTS: PAYAM YAZDANDOOST, ROB HORWITZ, ERICK AGUILAR, JOE ASHI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: SEAN GOLLER
TOOL OF NORTH AMERICA “VERIZON”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TODD MARTIN OPERATOR: GEORGE TUR ASSISTANTS: CHEVY ANDERSON, CHERYN PARK, DARNELL MCDONALD DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: CHARLIE ANDERSON
WORLD WAR SEVEN “SUBWAY”
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BRYAN NEWMAN OPERATOR: ROHAM RAHMANIAN ASSISTANTS: RICK OSBORN, COREY BRINGAS, CHAD NAGEL DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KEVIN ZANIT
MUSIC VIDEOS PRETTYBIRD
“AXM5, MAROON 5” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: STEVE CHIVERS OPERATORS: SIMON THIRLAWAY, MATT BAKER ASSISTANTS: RODOLFO SALAS, FAITH BREWER, DANILO RODRIGUEZ, JOSH RAMOS, PETER PARSON STEADICAM OPERATOR: KOJI KOJIMA, DAVID BALDWIN STEADICAM ASSISTANT: ERIN NAIFEH, DARIN MILLER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ANDREW CORDOS
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APRIL 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS
107
STOP MOTION
04.2021
Quantrell Colbert UNIT STILL PHOTOGRAPHER COMING 2 AMERICA
When ICG Magazine Executive Editor David Geffner asked me to write a paragraph for Stop Motion, I thought to myself: “This is a crew photo…not a dynamic behind-the-scenes image no one has seen before.” However, as I revisited the image, I quickly remembered how truly unique our camera crew was. Ninety-five percent were African American, including the DP (and First AD) – a rare and beautiful sight to behold. I’m not sure if this is what the producers or studio were aiming for, but it worked. This image is a testament to the diversity in our Local here in Georgia. With that being said, we could not have asked for a better setting to take the crew photo but on the throne of King Akeem Joffer. Shout-out to our B-Camera/Steadicam Operator Will Arnot, SOC, not pictured.
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APRIL 2021 APRIL 2021
NEW TECHNOLO GY
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