ICG Magazine - August 2023 - The Interview Issue

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PRESIDENT’S LETTER

Eyes on the Prize

This issue of ICG Magazine includes the annual “Interview Section,” which this year has pairs of Guild members talking about their partnerships with other crafts. Staff Writer Pauline Rogers talked to directors of photography with production designers and location managers; unit still photographers with studio/network photo editors; lighting designers with board programmers; and the pairing I know best: operators with camera assistants/technicians.

Personally, I miss being next to the operator. As a consequence of COVID and the shift to remote workflows, capturing what the director and DP are after, interacting with the rest of the crew and actors, and being part of an integral team, are no longer the same. That close, one-onone connection a camera technician had with the operator (and the dolly grip) is gone, and it may never come back. Have remote workflows compromised our work on set? To some extent, I feel they have, because there’s nothing quite like that direct, human connection camera technicians have on set – not just with operators, but with everyone. For me, old habits die hard, and I still need to have the camera and dolly in sight; I don’t want to be off in another room. Even during the height of COVID (when we had to work from a red zone), I would still position myself so I could have a line of sight with the camera, the dolly, and the actors. Even if I have to now work off a monitor and remote focus system, my feeling is I need to keep my “eyes on the prize” to do the job right. The popularity of using anamorphic lenses (often vintage or “detuned”) to make high-resolution digital cameras more “film

like” has also changed our world. It’s not a new thing that camera technicians have to know, more than anyone else on that set, how a lens will perform. What is different is that many productions are shooting with “detuned” anamorphic lenses on a wide-open aperture. Back in the film days, the lighting (and the stop the DP wanted to light to) played a much bigger part in how we handled anamorphic’s tricky depth of field. Two articles in this issue reference the changes I’m talking about – one on Oppenheimer (page 22), for which 65 mm and anamorphic were combined within the same camera; and one on Haunted Mansion (page 38), which includes longtime Camera Technician Donnie Steinberg’s thoughts about using modified anamorphic lenses.

This is not sour grapes, by the way! We all know technological change will never take a pause in this industry; we also know we must always be improving our on-set skills to respond to those changes. That’s why I would humbly suggest that forced downtime from this current labor situation may be a good time to take advantage of the many offerings from Local 600’s Training Committee (which continues to operate at full speed). That way, when the strikes end (and they will end), camera technicians, and the many other classifications this union represents, will be more than ready for the surge in work. Even if some of us never stop missing those “prized” human connections.

Baird B Steptoe

Photo by Scott Everett White

National President International Cinematographers Guild IATSE Local 600

7 EMMY ® AWARD NOMINATIONS INCLUDING OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE Anastas Michos, ASC, GSC - “The Autopsy”

“ACADEMY AWARD® WINNER GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S STORIES ARE A MARVEL OF TECHNICAL CRAFTSMANSHIP.”

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August 2023

vol. 94 no. 07

IATSE Local 600

NATIONAL PRESIDENT

Baird B Steptoe

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Chris Silano

1ST NATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT

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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.

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As I write, the WGA work action is in its 82nd day, and the roughly 171,000 members of SAG-AFTRA have been on the picket lines for nearly two weeks. Consider that the combined membership of these two unions represents more than 200,000 working families, and hundreds of millions of dollars in dues and initiation fees paid every year to support those trade labor workers. According to the WGA’s Annual Report, in the year before its strike began, dues and fees were up more than 24 percent from the previous year, representing an all-time high for that Guild.

SAG-AFTRA has also been soaring, adding more than 6,000 members in 2022 alone, and mirroring an industry whose major players and content producers have seen the biggest gains, year-over-year, in its 100-plus-year history. One need only look at the covers of ICG Magazine’s last two issues – Barbie [ICG Magazine July 2023] and Oppenheimer this month (page 24) – to see how essential filmed content produced by union members is to the financial health of the entertainment industry. How’s this for an impressive number? The combined worldwide box office for both unionshot films, in their opening weekends, was more than half a billion dollars, almost half of that earned in the U.S. alone.

Why do I highlight financials in a page devoted to the art and craft of filmmaking?

Because this month is our annual Interview Issue, where we feature professionals from around this Guild (and their production partners) sharing insights about an industry they have devoted their entire lives to improving and that now has gone virtually dark. Whether that’s longtime Director of Photography Mark Doering-Powell and Locations Manager Derek Alvarado talking about their partnership for the all-locationbased feature You People , or Operator Afton Grant and 1st AC Lee Vickery, who have done more than 100 episodes of FBI together, the voices heard across this special Interview

section (written by ICG Staff Writer Pauline Rogers, page 60) are, like so many other IATSE crafts workers, feeling the collateral damage from this rare (but not unprecedented) dual work action.

That includes the union crew who helped make Oppenheimer a mega-hit. Shot by 14-year ICG member Hoyte Van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NFC, on New Mexico, California and New Jersey locations, this biopic (which was not a sequel or part of an existing franchise) had the biggest IMAX opening of any of Writer/Director Chris Nolan’s films, as well as the biggest IMAX opening in the history of its distributor, Universal Pictures. Anecdotally, you’d have to go back to 1999, when Star Wars: Episode I –The Phantom Menace debuted after a 17-year hiatus in the franchise, to find audiences so revved up to see a movie in the theater.

Shot on various formats, including 15-perf 65mm, Oppenheimer is a unicorn in terms of its origination format; but as Van Hoytema tells it, that’s the reason the film is pulling so many people back into theaters. Speaking to Kodak’s Filmmaker Stories he said, “There’s still nothing that beats the resolution, depth, color, and roundness of the analog image, nor in the feeling overall that film conveys. When you watch an analog print, especially in an IMAX theater, the level of impact is freaking inspiring.”

Also inspiring (and kind of freaky) was how Director of Photography Jeffrey Waldron, and his Guild camera team, visualized another unknowable world, that of the 999 “souls” who occupy Disney’s Haunted Mansion (page 40). Shot in Atlanta and New Orleans, the project (which, like Barbie and Oppenheimer , is being released only in theaters) demonstrates why this industry will never sustain its blazing trajectory until all its union workers can return to the place they love most – the set. As Director Justin Simien told me (Exposure page 20), not only did Haunted Mansion “have a smart and emotional [WGA-written] script by Katie Dippold, and an incredible [SAG-AFTRA] ensemble cast, it had a dream team” of IASTE collaborators in Waldron, A-Camera/Steadicam Operator Matt Moriarty, Production Designer Darren Gilford, Costume Designer Jeffrey Kurland, Chief Lighting Technician Raffi Sánchez, and Key Grip Kerry Rawlins. Waldron (who grew up wanting to be a Disney animator) said he had “to pinch himself” every time he thought about the talent behind the camera.

We can only hope crafts union members like Waldron (and all his “ghostly” collaborators) will be back doing what they love – very, very soon.

David Geffner Executive Editor

Email: david@icgmagazine.com

The 2023 Interviews

“I so enjoyed photographing Kurt Jones and Jess Cole for this issue of ICG Magazine. The Hawaiian Islands, which have been my home for more than 20 years, are also home to so many talented and skilled members of our Guild. They’re a place rich with stories and immense spirit. I’m thankful that I could contribute and help showcase a few of the exceptional people working in the islands.”

The 2023 Interviews

“Learning something new always keeps things fresh, and for this annual Interview Issue, I discovered one common theme. Whether it’s lighting the one-of-a-kind live Adele concert, (LD Noah Mitz and Programmer Patrick Boozer), or making the Islands a star for NCIS: Hawaii (DP Kurt Jones and Locations Manager Jessica Cole), nothing works without trust! Thanks to all the many filmmakers in this section for the reminder: you can’t do anything alone!”

CORRECTION:

In our July Pride Personified article (page 69), we incorrectly stated that Allie Menapace learned motion control under her mentor, David Wilson, while working at Robert Abel & Associates. Allie did indeed learn much about the craft of motion control from Wilson, but she never worked at Abel & Associates, which closed its doors in 1987.

Cover Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon, SMPSP

Photo by Sara Terry

Pauline Rogers

Katrina Marcinowski

THE POWER OF RED

If you seek cutting-edge imaging and visionary perspectives, RED is unparalleled.

Henry Braham, BSC Director of Photography

Every person’s story is a journey. Few, however, have followed a path like that of Operator Yen P. Nguyen. Originally from Vietnam, her family fled by boat after the war. Their first stop – a refugee camp in Malaysia. “It took a year for us before receiving political asylum in Los Angeles,” she explains.

Once stateside, Nguyen faced a different kind of struggle. “As an immigrant, I didn’t have the luxury of going on vacations or theme parks during the summer,” she recalls. “There were many childhood days of just watching TV, like Return of the Jedi , Popeye , Apocalypse Now and Gumby . I couldn’t understand the dialogue because I didn’t know English. I had no choice but to rely on the visual storytelling.”

Growing up in low-income housing in Pacoima, CA, Nguyen was surrounded by gang activities and violence. Fortunately, her family found an alternative, and she was bused to an LAUSD magnet junior high school that specialized in theater and fine art. “There was a film/video production class there,” Nguyen recalls. “We could write, shoot and edit our own short films. My classmates and I would fundraise to attend the Sundance Film Festival as a class field trip. It was there that I fell in love with filmmaking.”

Given Nguyen’s very challenging childhood, filmmaking became her creative escape. As a teenager, she set her sights on a career in the industry and gained early set experience as an AC on independent and student films. “But I still knew I wanted a well-rounded education,” she adds. “I attended Occidental College and majored in visual arts and social psychology.”

Nguyen’s true real introduction to the industry came after college when she met Guild Director of Photography (and longtime National Executive Board Member) Jim Denault, ASC, through a mentorship

YEN P. NGUYEN

BY

ROGERS

program at Independent Feature Project (IFP)/West. “Jim had shown The Believer, a film that I loved with a really interesting story,” she recounts. “I shadowed him on the set of Real Women Have Curves. Jim and his crew were so welcoming and supportive! What makes him a great mentor is that he’s so open and generous. Besides on-set skills, Jim also taught me to sauté garlic and spinach! Once I joined Local 600, he gave me one of my first opportunities. I dayplayed on Six Feet Under , film-loaded on Freedom Writers , and pulled focus on the Montana unit of Yellowstone and most recently Coastal Elites.”

One of Nguyen’s best working experiences was her first union job on Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny. “Not only did we always have fun on set, but Jack Black would also go bowling with the crew on the weekends. He even invited us to Comic-Con as his guests.”

M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water , shot by Christopher Doyle, HKSC was another landmark project. “Night wanted to shoot with Kodak film stock, while Chris was adamant about using Fuji,” Nguyen explains. “As a compromise, we shot interiors on Kodak and exteriors on Fuji. This made it sometimes challenging as a film loader when the shot starts inside an apartment and then pushes through a window to reveal the exterior.”

Once Nguyen was solidly working on union projects (and confident of her skills), she transitioned to being an operator. “I had recently become a mom and was looking toward a more creative career move as an operator,” she shares. “Vince Singletary gave me the support and opportunity on The Upshaws. We discussed shots and methods on the set. Over the weekends, we’d talk and prep for future episodes. We took the training very seriously.

I am forever grateful to Vince for believing in me

and investing the time to coach. That experience gave me the confidence and skills to make a full commitment to operating.”

Since then, Nguyen has worked on projects such as Savages , Thor , Big George Foreman [ICG Magazine May 2023], Act Your Age and more. Today she focuses on new and interesting projects and is a staunch union supporter, cognizant of the changes – since 2005 – she notes, when “women in the Local were pretty much known by our first names because there were so few of us. I was always the only Asian woman in the camera department. That meant I was always mistaken for [fellow Local 600 member] Yuka Kadono and vice-versa! We used to laugh about it all the time. Like, can’t there be more than one Asian female AC on set?

“It’s changing – slowly,” Nguyen continues. “But I never let that distract me from the work. Growing up there were never Asians in my community and hardly any in school. It didn’t bother me. My parents had always instilled in me to do the best I could, regardless of my gender or ethnicity. I continue to let my work ethics and experience speak for themselves.”

As Nguyen looks back, she wishes she’d joined the Union earlier. “The opportunities and benefits are immensely great,” she says. “I have been able to provide the best health care for my family, earn a decent living, and travel around the world on projects. One of the most memorable jobs was a campaign for Apple, lensed by Matthew Lloyd, ASC, CSC. I got a call to fly to Vietnam within 48 hours. We shot throughout the country. My extended family came to set and could finally see what I did for a living. It was amazing to come full circle – to flee as a refugee and return as a Vietnamese-American filmmaker.”

PAULINE

PHOTO BY KAREN KUEHN

CSI: LAS VEGAS

BY PAULINE ROGERS FRAMEGRABS COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT+ / CBS TV

It was the last episode of Season 2 of CSI: Vegas, and to leave a lasting impression, Director of Photography Thomas Camarda and his Guild camera team created a complex time-lapse oner. The dark scene is centered on the addicted mother of one of the main characters (Josh Folsom), who is murdered in a slot machine warehouse – the machines are used to smuggle drugs in and out of Vegas. The mother (Lolita Davidovich) is led into the dreary warehouse only to discover a body on the ground and soon realizes she will soon be the next victim.

“At this moment, we cut away to a wide shot that shows her killer [or killers] enter the warehouse through a set of double doors in the background of the shot,” Camarda explains. “Before revealing the despicable act, the camera starts to dolly away through the length of the dark warehouse, where we transition from night to day. The camera then lands on a large wall of plastic freezer curtain where we see the shadow of the roll-up door rise and the silhouetted arrival of our CSI lead investigator, Maxine Roby. We then travel back into the warehouse, full of crime scene investigators busily searching the location for clues to the murder.”

The location was carefully scouted and planned ahead of time. In the script, written and directed by showrunner Jason Tracey, the camera direction specifically notes that viewers do not see the murder take place. Yet the camera remains in the location where a passage of time happens on camera. “We needed a large space with at least two entrances because the main entrance would be locked off as a hot set,” Camarda adds. “The challenge was creating an in-camera time-lapse effect from night to day while looking out the opening of a large warehouse loading-dock door. We didn’t have the luxury of leaving a camera locked off overnight to create that effect. We had all of three hours to shoot this scene in its entirety.”

The solution was to create a false wall or vestibule that would allow the Guild camera team to hide the lights for the transition effect. Production

Designer Vaughan Edwards and Camarda came up with a giant wall of transparent “freezer” curtain, about 15-20 feet in front of the entrance. The cast could be on or near camera, yet also give the crew the space they needed to set the illusion. It also provided an opportunity to create the effect of seeing the shadow of a roll-up door rise and reveal the silhouette of the lead actress as she arrives at the scene. It then fell to Edwards to populate the area with elements that would ground the story. “That was easy,” the designer says. “We added interesting images of roulette wheels, bar stuff, slot machines and poker machines in rows. We even added this Visqueen [polyethylene plastic sheeting] that felt like shrink wrap, where bodies could be rolled up, adding to the danger element.”

Key Grip Michael Catanzarite picks up the story. “My key rigging grip, Kirk Greenberg, and I have achieved these [transition] shots on several occasions – most recently on Lucifer . Good grips embrace the challenge when time and budget allow. As different as all these shots are, they have similarities. You always need a light source, either one light or a group of lights, and the transitional reveal. In this case, the warehouse already had a large interior bay door that was rolled up and down by a pull chain and an operator. We would use the roll-up door as the reveal. The trick is to create a space for lighting and camera – and make it dramatic.”

The main source for the sunrise effect was an 18K HMI stationed outside the warehouse, with several Creamsource Vortex8 units on dimmers used inside the warehouse to complete the illusion. While working at the lab, Chief Lighting Technician Russell Caldwell, who had scouted the location, had his rigging crew prepare.

“Knowing that we had this transition from night to day, it was important that all of our interior lights be flexible,” Caldwell recalls. “Light levels and color could be changed or tweaked on the fly as we had little time to work it out. In just a few minutes, I had

colors and levels chosen for the hanging warehouse lights that looked like regular fluorescent tubes but were four-foot Astera Titan tubes, which are wireless in every sense.

“Our console programmer had full control,” Caldwell continues. “We had programmable SkyPanels and Vortex lights in key positions that started in the night look with specific colors, then transitioned to day as the dolly traced across the room and the daylight was revealed through the clear vinyl curtain. Built into the lighting cue were three banks of four warehouse overhead lighting fixtures that housed the Astera Titan tubes. At specific times, these were turned off as the camera dollies across the room.”

Catanzarite says, “We tried the reveal with this setup. But the change from night interior warehouse to sun-streaming-in day interior was not drastic or shocking enough.” So, Catanzarite and Camarda came up with another idea. They built a quick tent that allowed them to control and channel the light from the source to the rolling door. Adding more Vortex8 units to the 18K outside completed the effect.

“Timing of the physical elements, the light, and the camera movement were so important to selling this illusion,” Camarda reflects. “With careful planning and a good amount of anticipation and experience, we were able to pull it off,” adds A-Camera Operator Jens Piotrowski, SOC. “My close collaborators, Danny Mattson [A-Camera dolly grip] and Simon Jarvis [A-Camera 1st AC], were as helpful and integral as always. We used about 60 to 70 feet of dolly track and leveled it as much as possible to minimize unwanted camera movement. The timing was essential, as Jason was very specific about not seeing the actual murder and hiding the face of the killer. He was going to be revealed later in the episode.

“Of course, we did a few second-team rehearsals, just to get a feeling for the movement and speed,” Piotrowski adds. “However, we didn’t fully rehearse the second half of the shot. After shooting the first half, we were careful to lock off the camera and dolly. Everything got marked – pan, tilt, boom, and so on – nothing left to chance. Everything worked as planned, and we were able to move on after the first try on the second half of the shot.”

“Timing was everything,” Camarada concludes. “When you have a crew that has worked together for 13 episodes of a season, you begin to finish each other’s sentences. You always have a bit of doubt in the back of your mind whether you should even try to attempt certain things given the time and resources, but if we didn’t, we would be doing ourselves and the production a disservice. Pulling something like this off requires everyone to be on board with the desired result. It’s a great sense of accomplishment for all involved when we get it right.”

LOCAL600CREW

Director of Photography

Thomas Camarda

A-Camera Operator

Jens Piotrowski

A-Camera 1st AC

Simon Jarvis

A-Camera 2nd AC

Claire Stone

B-Camera Operator

Gary Tachell

B-Camera 1st AC

Heather Lea-LeRoy

B-Camera 2nd AC

Nick Neino

Additional Operator

Jason Goebel

Additional 1st AC

Nick Bianchi

Additional 2nd AC

Rob Snyder

DIT

Ryan Degrazzio

Utility

Jacob Hellinga

Loader

Naoe Jarmon

JUSTIN SIMIEN

DIRECTOR | HAUNTED MANSION

BY DAVID GEFFNER

BY CHUCK ZLOTNICK

Houston-born and -raised filmmaker Justin Simien says one of his mother’s goals growing up was to take her kids to Walt Disney World.

So, the first time he went on The Haunted Mansion ride, Simien told me in a Zoom interview a few days after a “cast-less” Disneyland premiere (due to the SAG strike), “I was nine or ten years old and it left a mark. I was mesmerized because it was…cinema. Even at that age, I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker. I just didn’t have the language.”

After attending a performing arts high school, Simien studied film at Chapman University (just south of L.A.) and then worked a series of publicity-related jobs in Hollywood, including stints for Sony Television, Focus Features, and Paramount Pictures. It was with his debut feature, Dear White People (shot by Guild DP Topher Osborn), that Simien found his voice. The film won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at Sundance 2014, and then, a few years later, Simien wrote and executive-produced an episodic version of Dear White People for Netflix that ran four seasons. In 2020, he returned to Sundance with the horror-comedy Bad Hair, which he wrote, produced and directed.

PHOTO

It was on Season 1 of Dear White People that Simien met Guild Director of Photography Jeffrey Waldron, a partnership that didn’t get a chance to flower again until Simien was attached to direct Disney’s newest version of Haunted Mansion (which, thankfully, bears zero resemblance to the 2003 feature starring Eddie Murphy). Simien and Waldron both share an indie film background and were both making the leap to mega-budget studio filmmaking for the first time. Waldron says their common experience in the indie trenches, and the connection they formed on Dear White People, made for a tight bond on a largebudget movie “with an extremely rabid fanbase and incredible history behind it,” Waldron says. “I’m one of those people, and so is Justin. It was like two super-nerds for the ride getting a bucket-list opportunity.”

Chance of a lifetime aside, ICG Magazine caught up with Simien at the end of a long press day where he admitted that “we just finished this movie, like yesterday. So, it’s wild to be shot out of a cannon, especially without my cast and writer, people who are so central to its success as a film. Nevertheless, it’s my honor to pick up the slack and say the things they can’t be here to say.”

ICG: You grew up in Texas: what was your connection to The Haunted Mansion ride? Justin Simien: As my mother’s goal was always to take us to Walt Disney World, I was pretty young – nine or 10 – when I first went on the ride in Florida, and it felt just like being in a movie. All the incredible lighting, the colors, and special effects made me wonder: “Could ghosts be real?” and “Is this ghost really coming home with me?” It kind of messed with my head! [Laughs.] Flash-forward 10 years and I was working summers at Disneyland while going to [nearby] Chapman University to study filmmaking. And – I’m not just saying this because we’re doing a press day [laughs again]. I would ride The Haunted Mansion over and over and over again, sometimes all by myself just to study it for…I’m not even sure what purpose! The ride plays you like a symphony. It does that thing Alfred Hitchcock talked about in that if you do [art] right, you can make an audience feel something on cue. And The Haunted Mansion always did that. So, to have the opportunity to make this movie, to champion practical effects, and to champion New Orleans – my family is from Louisiana – is just kind of wild. A lot of weird coincidences aligned for me on this project.

The film opens in New Orleans, with a look that’s naturalistic, even documentary-like, of NOLA culture. Why that choice for a story that was going to hit plenty of fantastical high notes inside the mansion? There’s a reason why Walt Disney and

Imagineers set the ride in New Orleans. There’s an instinctual draw toward that place in terms of real-world mysticism and places where the living and the dead “collide.” And when you peel back the layers of history and culture in New Orleans, you get why. There was a period when Black people, Indigenous people, and Spanish people, and even before we had a category to name them as such, White people, were all truly free for this split second in time. You had rich and poor, artists, scientists, and inventors – a group who did not belong together in terms of what society believed was true at that time, but coexisted nonetheless, giving us jazz music and gumbo, and so many pieces of American popular culture. I felt that if you do that place justice, you’re already prepared for a ride where laughter, tears, scares, and adventure can coexist because that is New Orleans! You go to a funeral to mourn, and then soon after you’re covering the streets with a parade of feeling and emotion that’s so specific to that place. My theory was that if you can accept that this kind of place exists, nothing in the movie would throw you for a loop.

That also mirrors the experience of the ride. It does. You walk through New Orleans Square, get in line, move through the ride, and end up in the graveyard. There’s a movement to the spaces in that ride that was important to replicate in the film. It’s one of those anchoring things that makes you feel you’re having an experience similar to the ride, and there’s a reason why the Imagineers constructed it that way. Why reinvent that particular wheel, you know? [Laughs.]

I was surprised by how emotional this comedy/ family film was – LaKeith Stanfield brought me to tears more than once! How did you settle on a way to mix all these different genres? A lot of it was there in Katie Dippold’s script, as she had figured a lot out for us in terms of a particular blend. She also created this character that was in mourning, but he’s also funny. He reminded me of myself – there’s

humor but with darkness – he’s chewing on some stuff, we know that. The way Katie positioned the reveal of what his grief was about, with him stuck in this house with people he can’t stand – yet opening himself up to these people is exactly what he needs – was a brilliant way to do it. I knew I needed a lead who could pull us into a character who felt rough around the edges, and that’s LaKeith.

Why so? It was after seeing him in Judas and the Black Messiah [ICG Magazine April 2021], playing a character who, as a Black audience member, I am conditioned to loathe. He brings down one of our great leaders; he betrays his people; and I am so connected to him in that movie. I care so deeply about what happens to him. I was like: “If he could do that in the context of that movie, then I know he can pull us into this movie.” I was obsessed with getting him for Haunted Mansion , and I think the studio saw the same thing as me. We can do what Johnny Depp did for Pirates, with a strong character actor – known for bringing you into some weird-people roles – stepping into a leading-man place, with some specificity.

You and Jeffrey Waldron have an indie film background, and this is the first big-budget studio feature for both of you. How did that indie sensibility – work fast and do more with less – translate to this movie, if at all? It’s the same job. You tell the story with the resources you have. Pulling off an ensemble comedy with a million dollars, like I did for Dear White People, or one hundred and fifty million, has a lot more similarities than you might think. It starts with the right cast, and bringing together a very talented ensemble of actors who will push each other’s characters to different places, no matter the situation or scene; and gets to a real and truthful place through all the wildness and comedy. That’s a place I know pretty well. The other side is all the genre stuff. We made Bad Hair for a very small budget but still went balls out. I shot with Topher [Osborn] on Super 16, and we did a lot of in-camera

practical effects. Haunted Mansion was those same two things but on a much larger scale. The side jobs in indie and studio filmmaking change dramatically, but the main job – to link an ensemble story to an emotional, heartfelt journey and have a lot of fun with the aesthetics, particularly with the in-camera practical effects that are done so beautifully on The Haunted Mansion ride, was the job. To protect that approach was the job.

Jeffrey Waldron described himself as an “ally,” since you were working on a much bigger scale, with a beloved property where every frame will be picked over by Internet trolls. What are you looking for from your DP? What’s so special about working with Jeffrey is that he’s a storyteller. He comes from animation, so when we’d do storyboard meetings, we would just kind of dream. “This is what this scene’s about, so what if the first thing we see is…and this person draws our attention to… .” It was like playing with our action figures, and he would draw things much more quickly and much more beautifully than I could. Because we had worked together, because we have a similar sensibility, it was so wonderful to have him on set. There were so many people I hadn’t worked with before, so many concerns, so many new side jobs, that I would just look over at Jeffrey and remember that we’re both really strange people who are here together, know what we’re doing, and it’s going to be okay. [Laughs.] Also on a creative level, I want someone to come up with something I did not think of and teach me about what they do. And no matter what I came into the room with, Jeffrey had a million ideas of his own. And it was really just “best one wins.” One more thing: Jeffrey Waldron does an amazing impression of Aaron Neville on the jingle for the “the touch… the feel of cotton” commercial that got me through many a hard day!

The Haunted Mansion ride offered plenty of inspiration for visualizing the waking world in the film. But the Ghost Realm was your creation, and

there was plenty of risk/reward in that. What was that process like? One of the things we identified early on is that the Ghost Realm is actually the real world of this movie that any audience member is dying to see. Even though it’s a place of death and darkness, it had to be the most alive of anywhere we go to visually. So, we created a color story and visual language that prepares you for the things you see there. And it’s the first time you see certain color combinations, certain camera movements. What I love so much about Jeffrey is that he recognizes everything is a tool to tell your story; it’s not there for the coolness factor. From the shutter angle to the kinds of lenses we used – we’re both big fans of forced perspective, and it means something when we’re zoomed in or when we’re wide. A dolly move means something and a Dutch angle means something. Once we worked out whose point of view we were in from scene to scene, then it was like we could go nuts. I want to be surprised. I want Jeffrey to come in with something way crazier than what we left talking about. We’re both nerds in that way. [Laughs.]

Everyone I quoted for my story on this movie said it was the most incredible set they’d ever seen. Tell me about that collaboration with Production Designer Darren Gilford, who had already taken on two iconic brands before Haunted Mansion in Star Wars and Spider-Man Jeffrey Waldron, Darren Gilford, and Costume Designer Jeffrey Kurland were my “Dream Team.” Darren, like Jeffrey, is exhaustive in his preparation, and, like Jeffrey, he will always bring back ideas I had never even imagined. He’s a research nerd, and went way deep into the architecture, what the people looked like, and what inspired the Imagineers who created this ride. I told him that we had to build the house. Obviously, we had to use green screen and VFX, but as much as [possible] had to be practical. We studied Robert Wise’s The Haunting from 1963, which is not canon, but I cannot believe the Imagineers in the late 1960s did not pull from that movie. It has so much remarkable practical production design; things you

may not even notice, like how the hallway doors align or don’t and ways that mirrors hang. So many different ways to make you feel unsettled, but you can’t quite pinpoint why. Darren and I would have these robust conversations along those lines, and then he’d come back with that times a billion [laughs]. As for what he built, this is my first studio movie and I definitely will take the word of someone like Raffi Sánchez when he tells me, “This is the biggest set we’ve been on in 30 years!” The house had to be there; we, the actors and the crew, had to be rooted in something authentic, because the story we’re telling is so outrageous. If it’s not grounded, the stakes won’t matter. Luckily, Darren was there to share his vision.

Your past work has been rooted in your Black identity. Is this film a crossroads? A bridge to another version of Justin the filmmaker? Where does it fit in with what you’ve carved out so far? I’m not sure. It’s probably best not to look too closely at the journey. [Laughs.] But I do know I can only get out of bed for work that moves me on a soul level. That’s kind of an indicator of whether I’m going to do something or not. I will say that I am this character [Ben Matthias] that LaKeith plays. Someone who’s processing a lot of intense feelings beneath a kind of dry, I’ve-got-it-all-together exterior, and learning to open up to a present experience that might be painful. I read this script in the middle of COVID, and George Floyd – a very dark time – and it was what I needed. Something adventurous and escapist, but when it returned me to the regular world, I had something I didn’t have before: a release, and an understanding of my grief. As I started to tell the story, I realized I grew up on these films. These big Disney-style movies that are meant to entertain a lot of people, but also have a subversive edge and something for my life. It may not look like it, but Haunted Mansion is actually a very personal story for me [laughs]. And that’s probably the needle that threads throughout my career. It’s hard to do good work – great work, even – if I’m not connected.

“To have the opportunity to make this movie, to champion practical effects, and to champion New Orleans – my family is from Louisiana – is just kind of wild.”

ICARUS REBORN

BY KEVIN H. MARTIN

Hoyte Van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC, soars close to the sun’s edge for Chris Nolan’s new IMAX-based film, Oppenheimer.

PHOTOS BY MELINDA SUE GORDON, SMPSP / UNIVERSAL PICTURES FRAMEGRABS COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Comparisons have been drawn between “the father of the atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer’s career and the allegorical travails of Prometheus. The latter stole fire from the gods for mankind, his unjust reward being chained to a rock for an eternity while an eagle digested his entrails. But a case could be made that Oppenheimer’s success and subsequent fall from grace more aptly echoes that of a more minor character in Greek mythology, Icarus. Fueled by ambition, each played with fire – both metaphorical and literal – and flew too close to the sun. And while the heat of that star melted Icarus’s wings, Oppenheimer’s were summarily clipped after he espoused views that deviated from the national party line.

Filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s new Universal Pictures feature Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy in the title role and is based on the Pulitzer-winning biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Like most of Nolan’s past projects, Oppenheimer utilizes large-format film as a means to tell the story. With a combination of 5-perf 65 millimeter and 15-perf IMAX, Director of Photography Hoyte Van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC, sought to capture subtle emotion and detail not on a sprawling landscape, but on that of the human face.

“Traditionally, 65 millimeter and IMAX have been mediums for presenting spectacle and wide vistas, whereas this film is much more intimate,” Van Hoytema describes. “There are a lot of faces in this film, mostly represented through intimate close-ups. And we spend a lot of time inside Oppenheimer’s head, seeing how he perceives the world, especially with respect to some challenging-to-portray concepts like quantum physics. As he comes to new understandings regarding these principles, these visions develop further, always evolving.

“It isn’t just a matter of depicting his moments of discovery,” he continues, “but also feeling something much deeper, that his sense of the world is starting to change. There’s a poetic aspect to all this, but also a practical one because it’s important for the audience to fully grasp what Oppenheimer sees, even if we have to challenge them a bit to pay attention to what we show them and make connections.”

Such connections are integral to Nolan’s filmmaking, which includes his screenplay featuring a startling stylistic departure, written in the first-person perspective. “Chris asked me to not read the book and instead come by to read the script,” Van Hoytema reveals. “His take on the material was unique and he wanted me to read it with fresh eyes. This is one of his most subjective films, and I feel also among his most personal. There’s a visual language we’ve developed over the years of working together, and, like most of our past work, there are new engineering challenges. I went much closer with the camera than before, using wider lenses but without the glass distorting too much

to affect this intimate perspective. These faces are our big vistas, these human landscapes. This meant finding lenses that could achieve these close-focus close-ups.”

Panavision’s Dan Sasaki was instrumental in supplying the needed glass, which included fine-tuning existing lenses as well as the creation of custom glass – including a probe lens for microphotography. While a makeshift snorkel lens was cobbled together for 65mm photography for 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture , Sasaki’s creation for Oppenheimer was considerably more hardy, capable of being moved through liquids in a tank and even featuring a removable front element so that longlens, as well as wider perspectives, could be captured to represent Oppenheimer’s mental musings about atomic and subatomic processes. And like their past work on Nolan’s Tenet , VFX Supervisor Andrew Jackson and SFX Supervisor Scott R. Fisher sought to deliver visuals in camera whenever possible. Jackson estimates that out of roughly 200 effects shots, half could be cut directly into the film without going through a post-process, and all shots were made up of practically filmed elements, forgoing CGI entirely.

“Very early in the production, I talked to Chris about how we were going to visualize Oppenheimer’s ideas, ranging from sub-atomic to astronomical scale and everything in-between,” Jackson recounts. “Oppenheimer was imagining things that weren’t yet known or confirmed to exist. We didn’t feel that an accurate depiction of electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom was realistic due to the phenomenal speed and scale issues. We also wanted to avoid a dry infographic approach, and, instead, aim for a more artistic interpretation of the ideas in the script.”

Jackson notes that, “we set about building and filming dozens of experiments and devices inspired by the subjects in the story. The result was a huge library of filmed material that we used to illustrate the physical phenomena in the film. We decided early on that constraining ourselves to just these filmed elements, rather than the unlimited possibilities available in the computer-generated world, would result in creative solutions, more appropriate to the subject.”

“I went much closer with the camera than before, using wider lenses but without the glass distorting too much to affect this intimate perspective. These faces are our big vistas, these human landscapes. This meant finding lenses that could achieve these close-focus close-ups.”

Film history, of course, is rich with microphotography used to portray cosmic events taking place at different scales, ranging from the “ultimate trip” portion of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey to a fantastic voyage into the self that Ken Russell depicted in Altered States . Because of the hybrid approach to VFX, Jackson’s close collaboration with Fisher was natural. “We’re talking about quantum physics events as seen in the character’s mind, but also filtered through Chris’ mind,” Fisher notes. “He never wants to do stuff that has been done before, so while some approaches seen in other films might suggest an approach, it is never a matter of duplication, but always more about going beyond. You might see something on YouTube that had an interesting motion or flash and wonder, ‘How would that look if we slowed it way down?’ and then reverseengineer what they did.”

Also essential to Nolan’s vision was an allotment of scenes shot in black-and-white – virgin territory when it came to 6 5mm and IMAX. Van Hoytema recounts that “right from the outset, Chris was emphatic about using black-and-white at select points to enhance and differentiate certain narrative throughlines in the story. It also helped to create a different atmosphere when you jump into it from the color imagery.

“But developing black-and-white wound up being a bigger deal than I imagined,” he adds, “because while Kodak could cut material out in the proper size after fitting monochrome emulsion [Eastman Double-X 5222] on a filmstrip, the cameras also had to be adapted, as the thinner emulsion is more fragile than color stock. The pressure plates were retooled, because otherwise they would reflect light back into the film.” Static build-up was another concern needing to be addressed on an engineering level, while Fotokem’s workflow included having to switch out their machines from color to black-and-white and back again throughout the shoot.

First AC Keith B. Davis, who prepped the feature out of Panavision Woodland Hills, where IMAX delivered its equipment, declares, “This was not your standard IMAX shoot. That first promo image released for the film, a portrait of Cillian, was a film image taken from IMAX negative and done during an early black-and-white test day with actors where we did one of these unusually deep push-ins on his face.” System 65 Studio Cameras along with IMAX MSM and MK IV counterparts were used for the shoot, along with System 65, Panaspeed

spherical, and Sphero 65 glass.

For the most part, Van Hoytema steered clear of longer lenses. “Over the years, we have found two focal lengths to be our workhorses for large format: 80 millimeter for closeups and 50 millimeter on wider views,” he acknowledges. “Dan Sasaki helped developed a new IMAX 40-millimeter lens that helped us brighten and close-focus tweak to get us closer and wider. The current version of that lens has great close focus range and minimal distortion. How we read a human face – its width as well as its height – is monumentally different on the 40 millimeter as opposed to lenses 50 millimeters and longer.”

While the bulk of the film was shot in New Mexico – already familiar to Nolan, who had produced Wally Pfister’s feature Transcendence there – production spanned the country, from Princeton, NJ to Berkeley, CA to depict various haunts of Oppenheimer and his legendary associates. “We took some L.A. crew along with us, but others were picked up locally in New Mexico,” Key Grip Kyle Carden states. “I’d been there before and knew of their solid talent pool. Of course, other shows are shooting there, so there’s no guarantee you’ll get everyone you want. Although, being able to ask someone if they want to work on a Christopher Nolan film is a good incentive!”

Production Designer Ruth De Jong had more than a passing acquaintance with the Trinity test, since it had also featured in 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return . “Creating for this format and working all in-camera was not so much daunting as exciting,” De Jong says. “I would get so buried in research of the period that Chris would say, ‘Ruth, I’m not making a documentary; we’re selling popcorn.’ We took advantage not just of actual locations that still existed – such as Oppenheimer’s actual home, which is in the purview of a Los Alamos preservation group – but also epic locales that fit the period and our story needs. I think that combination benefited the movie given the direction Chris wanted to take.”

The no-CGI directive meant traditional set extensions were not in the cards. “We built all of the Los Alamos installation to be seen incamera, designing from the ground up and for 360 degrees,” De Jong informs. “We did try to be smart about how we built what was needed, so some buildings in the ‘T’ section of the town used a bit of forced perspective. We went with a width of five feet on structures that if done full-size would’ve measured between 20 and 40 feet. We also maximized detail on

the buildings functioning as exteriors and interiors, where we used a lot of traditional incandescent fixtures, plus plenty of light coming in through windows for that natural look.”

For Chief Lighting Technician Adam Chambers, achieving naturalism was a unifying goal. “To get what Hoyte was striving for, we wanted those scenes to look like they weren’t lit at all,” he emphasizes. “We pushed a couple of S360s with double diffusion through the practical location windows, along with an 18K to give some punch. Sometimes we might start to finesse things, and he would just pull us off. I felt bad that we were leaving so much on the table, owing to how fast Chris shot, and I tried apologizing to Hoyte, but he said, ‘Adam, there’s beauty in efficiency,’ which I took to mean we’re good to go.”

Though usually on the same page, Van Hoytema and Nolan did have an early difference of opinion regarding lighting. “Chris and Hoyte are masters, each knowing what they want,” Chambers observes. “But Chris is an analog guy all the way. He likes to go with what he knows and how movies have always been made, which means tungsten light, along with some HMI. Hoyte insisted on LED, for the fact of efficiency, so his challenge was getting Chris to buy in while making sure it wouldn’t affect shooting time or sacrifice the look. The proof is when you see the brilliant light of the blast from outside the bunker pouring in through the slit at the scientists inside; that was all done with Orbiters and [ARRI SkyPanel] S360s. From living room lamps to a China hat atop a Los Alamos telephone pole, everything is controlled via the console programmer.”

Jordan Peele’s 2022 feature Nope , shot by Van Hoytema and gaffed by Chambers, served as the test bed for the LED lighting on Oppenheimer . “Back when my brother, [Dimmer Board] Programmer Noah Shane, came onto the crew, Hoyte told him that he wanted to be able to turn on the lamps as soon as they come off the truck,” Chambers continues. “‘If I can call anywhere in the world wirelessly, then you can give me 100 percent control of these units anywhere,’ he said. This wasn’t flippant or arbitrary; Hoyte knew it was achievable, and he knew Noah would obsess to figure it out.” Nope was a proof of concept for Oppenheimer’s Trinity

scenes, “where we were wireless for square miles, not square feet. Even with power situated a mile and a half from the bunker, Hoyte could ask for another 10 percent and add some green to the tower, or to warm things up. If Hoyte had Asteras installed in his house, we’d have been able to turn those on and off!”

The teamwork and dedication on Oppenheimer are best characterized by an early decision to start the shoot commercialstyle, working from a tent without a rigging crew. “That lasted for three insane days,” Chambers continues. “Since we had to cut our regulars loose, all that efficiency went with them. I went to [Producer] Tom Hayslip, a guy who, white shirt or not, would always be there for us, even to help pick up cable. He, together with UPM Nathan Kelly, understood and told us to go get what we needed, so we brought in Nathan Hathaway from New Mexico, who had been a best boy in Los Angeles and got things back on track. Thomas and Nathan were also great about making sure [we got] what we needed in advance, getting on the phone to check whether a searchlight arrived and if it had been painted green. That level of professionalism made a huge difference.”

Van Hoytema notes that one of his main objectives was to be less constrained by coverage. “We stepped away from formalism and loosened up the camera, searching for more truth and less artifice,” he states. “Part of that was through doing a lot of handheld, with this big camera up on my shoulder, but it was all in service to wanting it to feel raw and impactful.” One such subjective moment takes place as Oppenheimer navigates through a crowd after a speech. “We used Sasaki’s 80 millimeter, with some pretty close focus at 1.9, using a numbertwo diopter and running at 30 frames per second,” Davis recalls. “There was just this tiny sliver of depth of field to maintain for this crazy dolly moving with Cillian, which was especially tricky, with me riding the dolly while looking through the eyepiece and Hoyte operating from a monitor with Chris right behind us.”

Davis sought to lighten the load on handheld scenes by redesigning the backpack. “Even small IMAX batteries are heavy, so for [Dolly Grip] Ryan Monro to have to carry that weight was no fun. I got the guys at Panavision to put three 14-volt Anton Bauer Dionic batteries in series for a converter box to get us 37 volts. There was

one backpack for the System camera and two more for the others. Hoyte manhandled the camera very adroitly himself, with Ryan guiding him, then pulling it off his shoulders.”

The rigors of desert shooting combined with issues coming from the large-format cameras kept the crew busy throughout a speedy shoot. “We were in extremes, weather-wise,” acknowledges Carden, “with heat, cold, wind, and dust all factors, so those aspects had to be accommodated by grip, electric, camera and makeup. We had tents to erect and also coverings to facilitate shooting day for night. With IMAX, you build rigs differently than with lighter-weight cameras, plus Hoyte uses them in spaces you wouldn’t expect were possible. Car mounts and ascending rigs have to be built sturdier, but they still must be quick to assemble and easily adjustable. Sometimes you’d be using suction cups and speed rail, but other times, like when we needed a special rig to shoot on the outside of a moving train, we needed a heavier-duty system. With ModTruss, we could quickly raise or lower the camera from track height to eye level using a worm drive winch system.”

For scenes depicting the actual atom bomb test, one potential solution was to capture scaled-down pyro through the use of high-speed cameras. In the past, PhotoSonics had offered various options, with one special-application camera that operated at up to 2500 frames per second. “But PhotoSonics doesn’t do much film work anymore, and most of their cameras are largely dismantled,” reports Davis. “Hoyte toyed with the idea of building a 65-millimeter high-speed Photo-Sonics; I think he bought a 35 millimeter off eBay that was designed for military applications in one big strip image, like a missile going through a bus. But we weren’t going to be able to get that up and running in time. We did other tests, at lower frame rates, and there were some beautiful results, but they just didn’t work for the vocabulary of the movie.”

As Jackson picks up the story: “We knew for the bomb that we were going to go with the biggest pyro blasts possible, using lots of fuel and explosives to create the mushroom cloud look. From there, VFX could composite separate elements to make those blasts look even bigger and more complex. Also, digital re-timing is so

“A traditional biopic approach is the last thing you want in a film like Oppenheimer. This wasn’t about fetishizing cute costumes or how beautiful old cars looked. If anything, we show disrespect for those aspects, because for us this story just happens to be set in a past time.”

HOYTE VAN HOYTEMA, ASC, FSF, NSC

effective now, that slowing things down via frame interpolation when starting from IMAX quality lets us extend the moment without any artificiality, owing to so much information on the large frame.”

Separately shot ARRI 35-mm pyro elements, captured at up to 150 fps (the IMAX cameras had a 48-fps limit), were among the composited embellishments to the primary bomb blasts, all of which were executed by Fisher. “Chris isn’t a fan of CGI, so we do a lot of ‘bigatures,’ Fisher explains. “We design and build at as large a scale as possible, and shoot them the way you would a miniature to get the proper perspective, including distance from subject and frame rate. You cheat the scale by making the distance to camera less. The frame rate is key to the whole thing, and the rules for shooting scale have been industry standards for decades. They’re a bit forgotten now, so it’s nice to go back to that. To enhance the blasts and give them the aesthetic of that extremely bright look of the initial atomic flash, we

used various powders and magnesium. In addition to the 35-millimeter pyro elements, we also created some ground ripple effects practically, which Andrew comped into the finished finals.” Fisher’s group also built all the parts of the bomb itself, which the scientists had dubbed ‘the gadget.’

“There was the bomb’s shell, core components, and explosive hexagons packed around the core,” he adds. “We’d bounce back and forth between doing typical on-set stuff like wind and rain, and then helping with the micro shoot as well as testing and shooting pyro.”

Three cameras were used during pyro blasts, one lock-off and two operated. “We actually had actors in the front of the frame and racked focus off them during the blast,” Davis recalls. “Getting the timing right on that was interesting because you have to commit to telling the story through this incredibly tight focus work.” For interactive light effects around the blast, Chambers deployed seventeen Luminys Lightning Strikes units.

Another key ingredient related to the visualization of particles proceeded concurrently with main unit photography. “A lot of these science experiments used a separate team,” Van Hoytema explains. “Andrew Jackson was with us throughout and kept building miniature approaches for microphotography. We made special lenses for filming these physics experiments, including Dan Sasaki’s probe lens, but there are just such tremendous depth-of-field issues with this format when shooting such a small field. It required a huge amount of light, but permitted us to see things from a micro perspective, and, since it measured about two feet in length, let us travel inside these environments, a number of which were liquids in tanks.”

Chambers recalls that rather than employing large lights, the effects units employed small, focused Lekos that would pound illumination in from appropriate angles. VFX Director of Photography David Drzewiecki captured the imagery, aided by 1st AC Benny Hill and 2nd AC Wil Hughes.

Davis says, “Dave made that probe lens bulletproof and got it to work at T11.”

The effects team filmed hundreds of different physical elements. “We tried many ways to create the look of waves,” Van Hoytema notes, “as there is a question of whether these tiny residents of the subatomic world are particles or another form that behave like waves. Instead of shooting high speed, we used long exposure times – one to two frames per second – to get our particles to blur and streak.”

Fisher found the process a real eyeopener. “Starting with just a bowlful of glitter or a tank full of floating aluminum bits may seem like nothing when you’re staring down at them in life,” he allows, “but through macro photography and the use of different frame rates, shutter speeds, and lenses, plus some specialty lighting from Hoyte, it could become something extraordinary. There were many different viscosities with the tank liquids that affected how elements moved in them and also how light illuminated them. At one point, we needed a bigger

tank to accommodate camera or achieve a different perspective, so there was always some aspect for us to help get an effect camera-ready. From there, we might spend a day or two shooting out all the options for a particle element.”

FotoKem Colorist Kristen Zimmerman strove to retain the qualities inherent in film capture, in both color and monochrome, without any enhancement or needing to apply a period veneer. “I’m very much the opposite of those who would choose shooting conventions for period pieces,” Van Hoytema states. “Focusing on the period aspect can turn a film into something of a curiosity and thus distract. Plus, I think it connects to the audience in a more intellectual than emotional way, and that wouldn’t help us do our job; a traditional biopic approach is the last thing you want in a film like Oppenheimer . This wasn’t about fetishizing cute costumes or how beautiful old cars looked. If anything, we show disrespect for those aspects, because for us this story just happens to be set in a

past time. I hope those experiencing this film get the feeling that it has been shot contemporaneously, because that will, if anything, enhance the message and the issues that the film comes to focus on.”

Regarding those issues and the necessity of speaking truth to power, it is noteworthy that just months back, J. Robert Oppenheimer was officially exonerated by the government, who acknowledged that the stripping of his security clearance was done in violation of its own regulations. “Anti-intellectualism and fascism are again at the forefront,” Chambers concludes. “And this film mirrors that, making it both a familiar and very special story. People took things personally and went after the man to the detriment of history and the country. The bomb was this amazing technological threshold, and we’re facing that again right now with AI and how it is permeating all parts of our life. People who don’t know the history of the bomb, and this man, may well come away with a different understanding of the past, and why we’re where we are now.”

LOCAL 600 CREW

Director of Photography

Hoyte Van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC

A-Camera 1st AC

Keith B Davis

A-Camera 2nd AC

Emily Amos

Film Loader

Bobby Pavlovsky

IMAX Tech

Scott Smith

Utility

Jackson Davis

Still Photographer

Melinda Sue Gordon, SMPSP

VFX UNIT

Director of Photography

David Drzewiecki

A-Camera 1st AC

Manning Tillman

A-Camera 2nd AC

Wil Hughes

Additional 2nd AC

Harry Heng (Los Angeles unit)

AERIAL UNIT

Director of Photography

Hans Bjerno

Shotover Tech

Dane Bjerno

Jeffrey Waldron jumps into Disney’s “doom buggy” for an exhilarating cinematic joy ride through  Haunted Mansion.

BY DAVID GEFFNER

PHOTOS BY BY JALEN MARLOWE / WALT DISNEY PICTURES

SOUL MAN

FRAMEGRABS COURTESY OF WALT DISNEY PICTURES

When I was a wee lad, and my parents took us to Disneyland every spring break, there was one ride, above all others, I could not miss. From the moment the deep resonant voice of the Ghost Host, aka Paul Frees, welcomed us “foolish mortals” to The Haunted Mansion, watching as the room stretched to reveal the tongue-in-cheek endings of some of the 999 souls who reside in the mansion, I was hooked. Jumping into the “doom buggy” and watching Madame Leota’s visage floating in a crystal ball, or spirits dancing the night away in the huge ballroom, or even the (still) terrifying Hatbox Ghost, holding his disembodied head in, well, you know, a hatbox, I sensed, even back then, that the brilliant minds at Walt Disney Imagineering had reached an immersive apex with The Haunted Mansion ride.

ABOVE/MIDDLE: WALDRON SAYS IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR SIMIEN TO OPEN THE MOVIE WITH AN AUTHENTIC PORTRAYAL OF BLACK CULTURE IN NEW ORLEANS, INCLUDING A SECONDLINE FUNERAL PROCESSION AND BEN IN THE ICONIC NAPOLEON HOUSE BAR.

OPPOSITE/TOP: THE DP SAYS “THERE’S AN OVERALL PAINTERLY VIBE WITH SOFT LIGHT AND SHADOW AND PERVASIVE BLUE FILL THROUGHOUT THE MANSION. WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OFF, THE MOONLIGHT IS SILVERY AND DESATURATED, AS WE WANTED THAT SENSE OF HAVING TO ADJUST TO THE DARKNESS.”

Thankfully, it turns out that most everyone associated with the new summer feature Disney’s  Haunted Mansion felt the same way. The filmmakers of this beautifully shot (and unexpectedly touching) cinematic joyride all, no doubt, experienced that same jolt of childlike excitement for the ride, and, more importantly, they made all the right choices in transposing that singular feeling to the screen. I’ll go out on a limb to say there may not be a cinematographer alive (no ghost DP jokes, here, please) who was more thrilled to shoot  Haunted Mansion  than Jeffrey Waldron. Not only did the longtime ICG member grow up steeped in animation, harboring the same kind of love for visual trickery combined with narrative storytelling that Walt Disney Imagineers thrive on, he’d already worked closely with Haunted Mansion’s new-tofranchise-moviemaking director, Justin Simien (Exposure , page 20), on Season 1 of the hit Netflix episodic  Dear White People

As Waldron described in our recent Zoom interview: “ Haunted Mansion  was a dream project on so many levels –growing up wanting to be a hand-drawn animator, loving all things Disney, and wanting to create visual sleight-of-hand

with the camera,” he shares. “I knew I was probably going up against some of my cinematography heroes in the interview for this movie; like Justin, most of my background is in indies and TV. To give myself the best chance, I put together a very detailed presentation that not only included how I’d approach the movie’s visuals, but how the look would reinforce those themes of grief and loss the movie so beautifully renders.”

Waldron describes the Disney ride as having “a dreamlike, macabre opening, with atmospheric twists and turns and dark characters that slowly build into this joyous celebration. Our main visual inspiration was the ride itself,” he adds. “I’ve ridden it dozens of times, and it inhabits a special place in my brain that only seeing it as a child can access.” The DP’s prep included studying all the source material about the making of the ride, including a documentary, several books, and the many videos of the full ride experience posted to YouTube. “Studying the creation of the Haunted Mansion ride, you understand some of the internal creative battles of how scary and/or how funny it should be,” Waldron recounts.

“These were all the same conversations

we were having trying to thread the same needle between horror, comedy, and family entertainment.”

Anchoring the movie is the opening segment, set in New Orleans, where we meet Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield), a one-time astrophysicist now giving tours of the French Quarter as the only tenuous connection to his late wife, who used to guide tourists around haunted NOLA. Waldron says it was important for Simien to start the film with an authentic portrayal of Black culture in New Orleans; to that end, the opening includes a second-line funeral procession that begins in a cemetery and opens up to a jazz celebration through the French Quarter, as well as a view of Ben in the iconic Napoleon House bar just before he has to give another tour through Jackson Square.

These opening scenes also introduce Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her 9-yearold son, Travis (Chase Dillon), who wind through the city with a U-Haul trailer on their way to the recently purchased mansion. The NOLA opening, loose and free like a documentary, is in sharp contrast to the elegant, formal camera work once all the main characters hunker

down inside the mansion to solve its dark history (and where they find out that once anybody enters the house, they are followed home by a trouble-making ghost).

The “take a ghost home” conceit (a key theme of the ride) leads to the film’s first big set piece. Ben is visited by a priest (more or less) named Father Kent (Owen Wilson), who wants him to photograph the interior of the mansion with a special camera Ben developed that can capture images on the “spectral plane.” Still deep in grief, Ben accepts the assignment (mainly for the $2000 cash payment) and is told by Gabbie that “your life will change forever once you walk into this house.” A non-believer, Ben pretends to snap off some shots (the camera’s battery is dead) in the various rooms of the mansion where Gabbie and Travis saw ghosts, and then quickly returns to his small house in the French Quarter. What Ben does not realize is that he was followed home by a mariner ghost (Creek Wilson), who unleashes a massive wave of water that, in a single shot, washes Ben out the front door and into the French Quarter.

“When he gets to the street,” Waldron details, “the camera wraps around Ben as cars dodge him. He stands up, turns back around to look over his shoulder, and sees his house dry and untouched. Through tech previs and onlocation scouting with [A-Camera Operator/Steadicam] Matt Moriarty, we figured out exactly where to land a 45foot Scorpio crane to start in profile, swing the camera 180 degrees to follow Ben on a sea of water and, when he lands in the street, wrap back around him 180 degrees to see the house – all in one move. We picked up an element of a stunt pull of Ben off the porch, and our VFX Supervisor Edwin Rivera and his team did a fantastic job of creating a seamless shot out of our main unit move.

The Oregon-based Moriarty, whose experience on such VFX-heavy films as A Quiet Place Part II  and Aquaman  was key to  Haunted Mansion’s stitched-together moments of on-set capture and post-CGI, recalls that “if every crane shot starts with ‘where do we put the post?’ the ‘ghost wave’ shot started with ‘let’s break out the tape measure!’

“By the time we’d figured every variable,” he continues, “there was literally about a three-square-inch place where the post could be and still achieve the shot without several bad things happening: A, my dolly grip being run over by a car; B, having undesirable geometry at the first car cross while simultaneously having our crane chassis occlude part of the car when it appears; and C, hitting a telephone pole at our start mark. And there are at least two other variables I no longer remember!”

The difficulty of the move was such that even when all the logistics were solved, Moriarty says A-Camera Dolly Grip Darryl Humber and Local 600 AC Mike Howell “still had a complex dance to pull off [with the crane], with a retraction that evolves into a swing, which evolves into a straight-on-the-crosshairs panning move right into Ben, coming to a buttery stop tight on his back. The Scorpio does beautiful planing moves with the fancy arc compensator,” Moriarty shares. “But Mike is so good, I

“OUR MAIN VISUAL INSPIRATION WAS THE RIDE ITSELF. I’VE RIDDEN IT DOZENS OF TIMES, AND IT INHABITS A SPECIAL PLACE IN MY BRAIN THAT ONLY SEEING IT AS A CHILD CAN ACCESS.”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JEFFREY WALDRON

could never tell when the computer was doing it or it was just him au naturel.” And that’s just the first part of the shot! “The second half,” as Moriarty describes, “when the audience thinks Ben’s in the clear, Mike had to do a laser-fast retraction as the first car hooks us around Ben to find the second car, stopping in another crosshairs lock-off, followed by a graceful wrap and boom-up as Ben dusts himself off and heads back into the house.”

Atlanta-based Key Grip Kerry Rawlins recalls the complex prep for the ghost wave scene. “The façade of Ben’s house was built on a vacant lot in the French Quarter,” he states. “And because everything in the Quarter is historic, we basically couldn’t touch anything. Some of the adjacent walls were not in great shape anyway, so our riggers wouldn’t have touched them even if we could. What that meant is the whole process was counterintuitive, as we had to ‘bury’ a Condor behind the house and build up the light rig [a large softbox with Asteras and no diffusion to keep the weight low] before the façade was built. It’s not often the light rig is built  before  the set [and sits idle for several months during set construction]. But that was the only way we could do it.”

While the ghost wave was a  tour de force  for camera and VFX, the real star of the Haunted Mansion  is evident in the movie’s title: the jaw-dropping sets Production Designer Darren Gilford and his art department created at Trilith Studios in Atlanta, GA. Waldron says so much of the ride’s look and feel was

present in what Gilford created, “and it was our job to highlight all of the magnificent details and interpret the ride’s use of light and color with an equivalent elevated and nuanced take,” he explains. “Justin wanted as much done practically as possible on this movie, and that meant he wanted that house built to scale so we could all work inside it and shoot in every direction.”

Gilford, whose past designs include iconic brands like  Star Wars  and  SpiderMan , says he got to see Disneyland from a unique perspective as “my first internship was with Walt Disney Imagineering, which became a portal to my entire career. So, as a young designer, very early in my career, if you asked me to cherry-pick one attraction at Disneyland, it would be The Haunted Mansion. To me it’s the most fascinating IP in the park as it dances this razor-fine edge between scares and humor, which is a delicate line to draw.”

Figuring out how to draw that line included Gilford and his core team having unique access to The Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. (The Anaheim mansion is the movie’s touchstone; the exterior of a second mansion in the story was modeled after the Florida attraction.) “Almost from day one on the film, we were allowed to enter the ride late at night and just sort of crawl around everywhere,” Gilford smiles. “Photograph the mansion with the lights on, walk the entire ride, study every possible detail. That, along with having Imagineering’s ‘bible’ of do’s and don’ts for the ride, allowed us to figure out what was essential to include. And, honestly, wherever there was an opportunity to include an homage, we

took it. My graphics team, led by Ellen Lampl, was incredible, as there are Easter eggs everywhere – all the shapes and forms, the eyeballs buried in the wallpaper, that was all recreated by Ellen’s team. Architecturally, the cornices, the door handles, all the details, everything we could was harvested from the ride.”

To bring Gilford’s designs to life, Waldron notes that “the lighting in the ride has lots of warm candelabras and candlelight, blue moonlight, and occasionally pops of purple, pink, and green — the wallpaper and the ballroom dancers are two examples — but this warm-versus-cool color dynamic was where we took the most inspiration.”

Waldron leaned into the practical candlelight theme (particularly in the many hallway scenes – more on that later) with an exaggerated sense of moonlight for contrast. “There’s an overall painterly vibe with soft light and shadow and pervasive blue fill throughout the mansion,” he continues. “But when the lights go off, like for Travis’ first walk through the house, the moonlight is silvery and desaturated, as we wanted that sense of having to adjust your eyes to the darkness.”

In keeping with the many portrait paintings Gilford’s team referenced from the ride, Waldron used “a fair amount of haze for a dusted, soft-shadowed feel,” he adds. “But we also used moving lights for the ride-inspired moonlight shafts, broken up through windows and trees, to light up the haze. Because [child actor Chase Dillon] could only be in the haze for one hour per day, we had to create a shooting

“IF YOU ASKED ME TO CHERRY-PICK ONE ATTRACTION AT DISNEYLAND, IT WOULD BE THE HAUNTED MANSION. TO ME IT’S THE MOST FASCINATING IP IN THE PARK AS IT DANCES THIS RAZOR-FINE EDGE BETWEEN SCARES AND HUMOR, WHICH IS A DELICATE LINE TO DRAW.”

plan around those shots where we would need haze/moonlight or sunlight shafts. Wides towards windows were generally first, knowing we could get away with some of the other angles, especially with our big softboxes managing ambience.”

Like Moriarty, Chief Lighting Technician Rafael Sánchez is another veteran of VFX-heavy action films, including  Black Adam ,  Jungle Cruise  and  Jurassic World . Sánchez’s firsttime pairing with Waldron was key to the film’s XY-driven color palette. “Needing to change quickly between the different looks inside the mansion, along with accommodating a minor’s schedule, lent the show to using LED’s, which is a toolbox that gets more robust every day,” Sánchez describes. He notes the many rigged LED’s went through a DMX console “run by our LCP Bryan Booth, whom I’ve worked with for 12 years. Bryan sits with the DIT and hears all of my conversations with Jeffrey – and he interfaces directly with Jeffrey as well. We did some great in-camera color changes, especially during the motion control shots, as Bryan could program all those cues in our pre-lights.”

Sánchez and Booth encouraged Waldron to create colors in XY coordinates to achieve consistency among the many different fixtures. Waldron explains that “having different LED colors all look the same fixture-to-fixture has been a problem. Raffi and Bryan’s system using XY coordinates allows any color to go to any fixture and be the same blue, pink or green that we designed.” The range of the many fixtures used was vast – Creamsource Vortex8s, ARRI SkyPanel

S360s/S60s, Fillex Q5s, Astera tubes, Kino Flo Image 87s, Studio Force 48 and Studio Force II 72s, High End SolaHyBeam 3000s and ColorForce 72s. And with the control afforded by DMX programming, Waldron, Sánchez and Booth held nothing back in experimenting with custom colors.

“Through testing, I opted to shoot the mansion interiors at 3600 Kelvin, to exaggerate the warm look,” Waldron recalls. They also designed a custom “Waldron Blue,” that, the DP says, “was a specific cool shade, with a bit of cyan, and the right sort of saturation that looked great at 3600.” Waldron Blue was used throughout the mansion interiors, often in overhead softboxes to fill shadows. “For areas like the séance room,” he adds, “there was a natural overhead source, a glass ceiling that let in the moonlight. But even for other areas, like the hallways and great rooms, we kept the ambience cool by generally filling rooms via massive softboxes. We’d often two-tone the softboxes to fill warm on the key side and fill blue for the shadow side. We used a warm tone that Raffi had ‘sampled’ in XY from an actual batten strip, which are the old photoflood boards wrapped in unbleached muslin.”

The séance room plays a key part in the story. Harriet (Tiffany Haddish) is a New Orleans medium who contacts the original owner of the mansion, William Gracey, in a newly discovered cavern-like room beneath the main house. It’s a set Rawlins describes “as one of the most incredible” he’s ever seen. “Every wall in

the séance room was movable on its own sliding tray,” Rawlins details, “which made our lives much easier, as we had a 23-foot Technocrane live inside that set the entire time we were there. It took eight grips to pull a section of wall out, and then we would roll a Steeldeck platform into place and build the crane on top. From there, we could even roll the crane deep into the room if needed. That set was a marvel of engineering and a wonderful swan song for our construction coordinator, Bob Blackburn, who retired after this show.”

Gilford recalls how his early designs for the séance room included a large skylight to ensure Waldron had the ability to emulate moonlight from above. “You see the large dome in the scene where Ben comes out back to the cemetery,” Gilford details, “so it made sense to have this room, which is not part of the canon and had to be designed from scratch, in the back of the mansion in our main plan. A chamber that’s lit up by oil, as we do with the fire ring in the séance room, was inspired by the movie  National Treasure . Our fantastic art director, Kristen Maloney, was in charge of that set, and they figured out a way to justify having a cask in the wall, covered in cobwebs, that would contain oil, which, when triggered, would drift behind the walls in a trough that circles the room.”

When asked about the lighting rigs in the séance room, all agree that Sánchez is one of the best to ever do that job. “Raffi’s smart, efficient and always makes sure the director and the DP have ample time and are never waiting on us,” Rawlins states. Waldron’s praise is equally effusive. He

photo by Chuck Zlotnick

TOP: “THE PINKS AND GREENS WE INTRODUCED IN THE GHOST REALM WERE HELPED BY THE RINGS JEFF ERNST CREATED TO HIDE INSIDE THE PRACTICAL LIGHT,” SÁNCHEZ EXPLAINS. “IT HAD A REAL TUNGSTEN BULB; AND, IN ITS BASE, HIDDEN FROM THE CAMERA, WAS AN LED RING.”

BOTTOM : LIGHTING PLOT OF MAIN HALLWAY COURTESY OF RAFFI SANCHEZ.

Speaking of pinks and greens, Waldron says his single biggest challenge was how to visualize the spectral world known as the Ghost Realm, which the characters can only access through a séance. “It’s kind of like the world you enter on the ride, where you can see ghosts all around you,” Waldron explains. “But in our story, it had to feel like the entire mansion was transformed into this super-heightened version of what you see on the ride.”

Inspiration came by imagining a film negative, “meaning what if the Ghost Realm looked like those deep cyans, pinks, and purples in a kind of reversal of the waking world?” Waldron adds. “So, all the key lights go a deeply saturated green-blue that Raffi, Bryan and I called ‘Ghost Realm Blue.’ The warm practical lights go pink, and the moonlight goes green as well.”

story for Edwin’s team to do extensions, we built  a lot  of the mansion interiors. We built a large first-floor composite set with many attached rooms – the main hallway with the front porch and front stairs was attached to the octagonal stretching room, which was attached to the library. Across the hallway was the large dining room, with a big stairway in back that took us to the upstairs set with a secondary hallway and bedroom.

and Sánchez first met years ago in Puerto Rico when Waldron was a “young guy with a camera on my shoulder” shooting a documentary about  The Rum Diary . “I would bum Kino Flos off Raffi to use for my interviews,” Waldron laughs. “So, when it turned out he was wrapping Black Adam  where we were prepping  Haunted Mansion , I was beyond thrilled he could come aboard.”

Lighting the séance room, with its domed ceiling (added in VFX), Sánchez recalls that “Jeffrey wanted to be able to isolate – both in color and intensity – the light from the practical chandelier and the moonlight from above. That meant we had to create a lighting rig I had never done before.” Rawlins’ team rigged a circular softbox with an inner and outer ring and the practical chandelier (on a motor) in the middle. “Each ring could go a different color,” Sánchez continues. “Waldron Blue, silvery moonlight, or pink or green for the Ghost Realm. We had Studio Forces on the ground for the firelight that rings the room, SkyPanels above in the boxes, Fiilex lights doing the wall scrapes, and Astera tubes pretty much everywhere! Other than a few 20Ks for daylight scenes in the dining room, we were LED across the entire stage, which made this show really fun and unique.”

In the Ghost Realm, the mansion’s many practical fixtures, e.g., the hallway lined with sconces, still flicker like candles (as they do on the ride). And, Waldron notes, “Thanks to these custom LED rings that Raffi’s fixtures foreman [Geoffrey ‘Jeffy’ Ernst] brought in, we could keep warm globes in our practicals, but glow the actual fixtures pink.”

“The set Darren and his team created was so beautiful and well-designed,” Sánchez relates, “that we wanted to make sure you could see all those details. We created that soft blue top light Jeffrey wanted throughout, and contained them with egg crates so they didn’t spill out on the walls. We used Fresnels to highlight the different portraits, wallpaper and ornamentation – all part of the ride itself – throughout the mansion while keeping color and intensity separate from the actors. The pinks and greens we introduced in the Ghost Realm were helped by the rings Jeff Ernst created to hide inside the practical light. It had a real tungsten bulb; and, in its base, hidden from the camera, was an LED ring. From his board, Bryan could dim the tungsten bulb down so just the filament is seen, and then dial-up the LED ring to make it all go pink. It was pretty cool!”

Gilford, whose expertise with 3D design made him a beloved partner of Rivera’s VFX team, says that although the exterior of the mansion was a partial, “which included a huge backlot build with the driveway and front yard, and a clearly defined matte point after the first

“Our art director, Carla Martinez,” Gilford continues, “was incredible, tracking change-overs for all these rooms and hallways. Different continuities, Ghost Realm, real world, intersections, blocked-off intersections, changing the artwork – it was so complex! It’s truly the unsung work of the art department and those art directors who have to manage and understand a schedule that’s always changing. We literally had different inserts for Ghost Realm hallways and realworld hallways, with panels of different colors and subtleties of wallpaper coming in and out all the time.”

Complexity and challenge also factored into the work of Company 3 Finishing Artist Jill Bogdanowicz, whose history of experimenting with color separation in the DI was a perfect fit for  Haunted Mansion . As Waldron recounts: “We shot the movie using one film-derived LUT that myself, [Local 600 DIT] Nick Kay, and Jill B. built with a lot of shadow room by pulling down our starting CDL. The movie features many different skin tones, in a dark mansion, often in only moonlight, so I wanted to protect the shadows. Doing that meant we had to light quite a bit more to get to our normal exposure, and that ended up giving us a ton  to work with in the DI. We ended up dialing in more contrast to our haziest scenes, and walking a fine line between preserving soft shadows and edging on true black.”

As Bogdanowicz adds: “Jeffrey and Raffi did so much in-camera to give each part of the film a distinct look. When it came to the Ghost Realm, we experimented a lot [in the DI], pushing the pinks and blues, and adding chromatic aberration around the edges and radial blur so it also felt texturally different. We also added a slight bit of film grain to

the entire movie to keep the overall look formal and cinematic.”

Waldron and Bogdanowicz tried many different looks for the Ghost Realm, “including a vintage feel that made it look like an old film,” she continues. “But we didn’t want it so distracting you’re pulled out of the story, and there was already so much in the way of color shift that the audience would know we were in this different world. We didn’t take the Ghost Realm all the way to a reversal look, but we got very close, enhancing everything Jeffrey and Raffi did with the lighting, which, as I said, was incredible.” The finishing artist, who comes from a family of color scientists, says her approach to color “goes beyond just saturation and revolves around defining each color for an overall balancing of the image, which Jeffrey loved.”

There was even more improvisation in the DI when it came to period flashbacks, which reveal the film’s main antagonist, Alistair Crump (Jared Leto), and the group’s prime ally, Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis). Waldron says these were based “around experimental LUT’s” keyed off vintage film stocks. “We decided on one that brought the sequence its unique yellow tone, with a vibrant warmth and green coolness,” he shares. “At times it looks a bit like colorized black and white, and in addition to the custom lenses, gives this combination of attributes fitting to the time and way it is being told.”

Bogdanowicz elaborates on the process: “We added some contrast and desaturation to the Madame Leota sequence, but it just didn’t quite fit the movie. That’s when I told Jeffrey about these LUT’s my father [former Eastman Kodak senior research fellow Mitch Bogdanowicz] had given me based on cross-processing, which was a technique once popular with still photographers [i.e., processing a reversal film with chemicals designed for negative stocks resulting in an image with more extreme colors and contrast].

“Jeffrey was open to the idea,” Bogdanowicz continues, “so I added portions into the mix, not the full crossprocess LUT, but a portion that gave higher contrast in the mid-tones, interesting color separation, and a nice roll-off in the highlights and shadows. The result was

almost like an old still photograph, but still within the visual arc of the movie. Adding in the cross-process LUT for the flashbacks, and combining all the colors for the Ghost Realm – the cyans, greens, and magentas – was super fun. But I think the main reason those sequences stand out is that the rest of the film looks so elegant, with a softer contrast and just beautifully photographed.”

Waldron’s willingness to push the envelope didn’t end with color. He had three lens sets modified by Dan Sasaki at Panavision. Shooting with the ALEXA LF meant the complement of anamorphic glass had to be expanded, and “expansion can bring some optical surprises, which we wanted to save for the Ghost Realm,” Waldron recounts. “Our main T Series glass was fitted for our LF’s with P70 mounts, to minimize the unwanted side effects of expansion. I did give Dan a few instructions on what I hoped for the main lens set, which he gently tweaked and matched. We generally paired these with a 1/8 Hollywood Black Magic filter for interiors to bring that

painterly softness to the mansion.”

First AC Donny Steinberg (who has worked with A-Camera Operator Moriarty for some 25 years) matched all the lens sets at Panavision L.A. He says the Ghost Realm lenses “were G Series, expanded, and then dialed up by Dan based on asks he had for Jeffrey, like ‘How much vignetting? How much aberration? What color flares?’” Waldron recalls that “Dan even asked me to draw the ellipse of my dreams for this set, so we could dial-in softness and vignetting to that shape!” For Madame Leota’s backstory, told by the medium from her crystal ball, Sasaki and David Dodson showed Waldron a test of what they called “an anamorphic portrait lens. It was sharp only in the middle and fell off quickly to the sides in a heavy anamorphic smear,” Waldron remembers. “I showed this test to Justin, pitching that we shoot Leota’s story through these lenses – to me, the smear felt like the heavy glass of the crystal ball. It would mean center-punching all our compositions in the sequence, but that ended up being fun

PHOTO COURTESY OF JEFFREY WALDRON

FOR A KEY FLASHBACK SCENE (ABOVE) FINISHING ARTIST JILL BOGDANOWICZ DREW FROM A LUT HER FATHER – FORMER EASTMAN KODAK SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW MITCH BOGDANOWICZ – PROVIDED BASED ON CROSS-PROCESSING OF REVERSAL FILM WITH CHEMICALS DESIGNED FOR NEGATIVE STOCKS. “THE RESULT WAS ALMOST LIKE AN OLD STILL PHOTOGRAPH, BUT STILL WITHIN THE VISUAL ARC OF THE MOVIE,” BOGDANOWICZ EXPLAINS.

and different, as well.”

Steinberg adds that the “lenses Dan modified had that anamorphic football that was increased around the edges, with a tremendous amount of fall-off. The G-Series we used for the Ghost Realm have more of an anamorphic feel than the T-Series, which are optically finer and faster but don’t have as much of that custom feel Jeffrey wanted.” Steinberg says Sasaki also built elements to put in front of the lenses, essentially curved glass filters that enhanced the feeling even more when needed.

“The lenses would kind of fall apart at anything below 2.8,” continues Steinberg, who says roughly half of his career has been spent working in anamorphic. “Back in the film days, we always wanted the sharpest possible lenses we could get for anamorphic. With digital, it’s the opposite, as now there’s a lot of detuning of lenses to take away the sharpness. Obviously, from an AC’s perspective, that’s more challenging as it’s in our DNA to have everything sharp! The shallow depth of field of anamorphic, coupled with lenses that, at best, were meant to function at a much deeper stop than the 4.5 we used to use when shooting film, has made our job more…interesting,” he smiles.

“Interesting” could also describe Haunted Mansion’s  many dynamic camera moves, like when Ben faces off with Hatbox Ghost inside the

Ghost Realm, or when Harriet is pulled from the séance room to a mud puddle outside the mansion in a wild, runamok chair ride that echoes the “doom buggy” from Disneyland. Gilford said the opportunity in the séance room to reference the iconic “doom buggy” from the ride could not be missed.

“We loved the idea of the classic balloon chair that would frame Tiffany Haddish’s character for the ghost chair scene, as well as the chair that takes Danny DeVito’s character for this wild ride,” Gilford shares. “Also including the gag with the sculpted bird on the chair that comes alive was another great way to tie our designs to the ride while still serving the narrative moving forward.”

As Moriarty adds about the ghost chair sequences: “The rig had to be shot in sections, meaning that we could rig a camera to it in the exact spot that best captured that stretch of real estate. It was a bit rough going up the stairs, so we mounted the ARRI SRH3 to smooth out the close-ups. Other sections I’d stay with it on the Steadicam.”

The ghost chair shot with Bruce (DeVito) was particularly challenging. “Danny is hauled out onto the blacktop and quickly spun around to face an oncoming semi-truck,” Moriarty continues. “The chair was rigged on a long offset and towed behind an e-car driven by a stunt driver. We were on our trusty Scorpio 45foot crane and had to start high and hustle down as Danny’s chair zooms into the road,

crashing into his close-up. It’s definitely nerve-wracking bringing 6,000 pounds of metal to a screaming stop two feet from a national treasure like Danny DeVito! But our amazing crane team of Darryl Humber and Mike Howell hit their mark every time, as did the stunt team.”

One of Ben’s journeys into the Ghost Realm involves a harrowing chase where the laws of physics rewrite themselves “like a series of Escher paintings inside a Russian Doll,” Moriarty jokes. “We had a very ambitious previs as our roadmap, and as soon as I saw it, I knew the fouraxis Matrix head would be the key to me not getting fired. It has an amazing mode called ‘image relative,’ where no matter what the roll wheel is doing, the panning and tilting remain constant. This would prove essential to these ‘brain breaker’ shots, especially the one where we had to roll 180 degrees counterclockwise while panning and tilting and wrapping around a guy who’s falling to the floor. I’m very grateful to Scott Howell at CineMoves, who set us up not only with the Matrix head but gave me Austin English as my co-operator on the roll axis.”

Waldron says Moriarty was key to brainstorming the tools needed to weave such shots together.

“There’s one where Ben falls through a trapdoor in the hallway, with Hatbox Ghost closing in,” Waldron explains. “And he lands upright in the library, with the camera circling him. There’s another where Ben runs down a hallway and

“WE APPROACHED IT LIKE, ‘IF WE CAN MAKE THE MOVIE THAT RABID RIDE-FANS WANT – AND SO MANY OF US WERE, LIKE ME, SUPER-NERDS FOR THE RIDE... THEN EVERYONE WILL BE HAPPY.”

JEFFREY WALDRON

falls off a surprise cliff, landing on his feet on the sheer incline as the hallway continues in a new direction, and the camera, chasing him, rotates 180 degrees to right itself. There’s even a shot where Ben and Gabbie are running through a hall and the hallway twists like a Rubik’s Cube, essentially flipping Ben to the floor underneath Gabbie, upside down! Edwin [Rivera] and I would meet and shoot sample camera moves to make sure we had all the right perspectives and knew our stitching points, with Matt there to help figure out the best way to capture all the various elements that would be blended.”

As Sánchez had referenced, the Haunted Mansion team also utilized motion control for select scenes. The most complex shot has Ben’s spirit leaving his body during a séance and being chased by Hatbox Ghost in the Ghost Realm. “Ben runs back down the hallway to return to his body, but it’s become inhabited by another spirit,” Waldron explains. “As Ben tumbles down

the séance room stairs, with the Hatbox Ghost at his heels, Harriet uses her burning sage to rip the ghost out just as Ben jumps back into his body and Hatbox catches up to him. At that moment, we snap back to the waking realm with human Ben reeling from this journey.”

The shot involved a multiple-pass TechnoDolly move with stunts pulling out the ghost via a rope and wire, a pass of Ben jumping into the place where his body was, and a pass of Ben’s body sitting there. Moriarty calls the motion-control work “really fun when you have a 1st AD like Dave Venghaus, who recorded a guide track for each shot on his iPhone that allowed everyone – the actors, Jeffrey, the lighting team, even the guy triggering the sync light – to hit their cues perfectly on subsequent passes. And doing motion control with the TechnoDolly can be speedy, as you can cut out all the programming and buttonpushing we used to have to do and just lay out the master pass like any other

TOP/MIDDLE: WALDRON’S INSPIRATION FOR THE “GHOST REALM” CAME FROM IMAGINING A FILM NEGATIVE OF THE WAKING WORLD.

“ALL THE KEY LIGHTS GO A DEEPLY SATURATED GREENBLUE, WHILE THE WARM PRACTICAL LIGHTS GO PINK, AND THE MOONLIGHT ALSO GOES GREEN,” HE EXPLAINS. OPPOSITE/BOTTOM: THE KEY SÉANCE ROOM SET INCLUDED A LARGE DOMED SKYLIGHT FOR WALDRON TO EMULATE MOONLIGHT FROM ABOVE, “AND AN OIL CASK IN THE WALL THAT SENT FIRELIGHT TO A TROUGH CIRCLING THE ROOM,” DESCRIBES GILFORD.

crane shot.”

If  Haunted Mansion  was a dream project uniquely suited to Waldron’s personal history, working with a “dream team” of crafts partners was equally inspiring. “Raffi Sánchez, Kerry Rawlins, Matt Moriarty, Darren Gilford, Donny Steinberg, [Costume Designer] Jeffrey Kurland, Jill Bogdanowicz. I mean, I’m still pinching myself how experienced and talented this team was,” Waldron concludes. “Justin and I wanted to reach for the best at every turn, and, amazingly, this dream team came together.

“I feel like everyone [on the Production team] was excited to get a chance to give this ride the movie it deserves,” he continues. “We all approached it like, ‘If we can make the movie that rabid ride-fans want – and so many of us were, like me, super-nerds for the ride [laughs], then everyone will be happy.’ Honestly, making this movie was like going to Disneyland every day. And what could be better than that?”

ABOVE/OPPOSITE

LOCAL 600 CREW

Director of Photography

Jeffrey Waldron

A-Camera Operator

Matthew Moriarty

A-Camera 1st AC

Donal Steinberg

A-Camera 2nd AC

Matthew Haskins

B-Camera Operators

Chris Duskin

Sarah Levy

B-Camera 1st AC

Daniel Guadalupe

B-Camera 2nd AC

Jay Hager Loader

Anna-Marie Aloia Utility

Grayson Guldenschuh

DIT

Nick Kay

Still Photographer

Jalen Marlowe Publicist

Carol McConnaughey

2ND UNIT

Director of Photography

Chris Duskin

A-Camera Operator/Steadicam

Matthew Petrosky

A-Camera 1st AC

Michael Klimchak

A-Camera 2nd AC

Nick Leone

B-Camera Operator

Bob Gorelick, SOC

B-Camera 1st AC

Louis Smith

B-Camera 2nd AC

Erika Haggerty Loader

Emielia Put Utility

Lexi Guenard

DIT

Jeroen Hendriks

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Director of Photography

Jeffrey Waldron

A-Camera Operator/Steadicam

Joseph Arena, SOC

A-Camera 1st AC

Bill Coe

A-Camera 2nd AC

Bobby McMahan

B-Camera Operator

Sarah Levy

B-Camera 1st AC

Paul Woods

B-Camera 2nd AC

Nastasia Humphries

DIT

Roberto Garcia

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY + PRODUCTION DESIGNER

PHOTO BY GREG GAYNE

PHOTO BY DAVID SCOTT HOLLOWAY

When Director of Photography Tim Ives, ASC ( Stranger Things , Halston ) and Production Designer Steve Saklad came together for Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret , they had to get it up and running – fast. “We didn’t have a lot of time to consider the weight of the story and its place in the current culture wars in our country,” recalls Saklad. “Yet, we felt it,” adds Tim Ives. “Kelly [Fremon Craig] was as passionate and committed as a writer/ director could be in bringing this hallowed book to the screen. That she convinced Judy [Blume] to trust her with it was a big deal for all of us. It was especially important to get the tone right. This is subject matter that all boys and men should understand and

Was your approach to design and camera different for this project? Steve Saklad: Every project starts the same way: mindmelding sessions with the director and DP; a mad scramble of mood-board collages to share textures, colors, and research with our collaborators; and then I start my handdrawn set sketches on onion-skin paper of each key set or location. For Margaret , the 27 full-color old-school drawings – which reflected the architecture, color scheme, set dressing, and lighting for each space we visited in the script – were the best tools possible for bringing Tim and Kelly into my vision fast, and seeing how we could build on each other’s ideas. Tim Ives: Margaret is our main protagonist, but almost everyone has a story. With Margaret , the character, we had to feel her pain and give the camera a classic sensibility while honoring her subjectivity. Steve’s drawing gave us quick options that he could then alter swiftly to work for what Kelly saw and what the camera needed to capture. The bathroom-kissing practical set could only fit one person, never mind three, with a camera and lighting. But we loved the idea of that challenge, and ultimately the space contributed wonderfully to that.

Did Steve’s Broadway background factor into the process? SS: Kelly’s script was a gift for a theater guy like me. She included four different scenes that take place on stage. It was a place to use expressionistic design, strong color, and sparkly lighting in a flashier way than the quiet reality that ruled the rest of the film. TI: I love how excited Steve became around the more theatrical productions. The Delacorte Theater scene was a big production that required theater-

style lighting, glossy stage production, and a green screen element to put the production in 1970s Central Park. We filmed it in a parking lot, but the lighting had to be in place that would be added to with period-looking VFX later. A lot of thought went into it, and I think it captures the magic of New York City I remember as a kid.

What do you mean when you say, “A set is just a set until it comes to life with lighting?” SS: It’s true in every movie. Our sixth-grade classroom, with its glow from the window wall and its old-school Venetian blinds, stripes the walls with beautiful ribbons of light. The Rockettes’ performance on the Radio City Stage, where the camera looks into the flares of the salmon and lavender spotlight beams from light trees in the wings. Every rumpus room, bedroom and street scene becomes real when Tim and his gaffer perform their magic to bring the place to life. TI: Sorry, but I need to give you more credit here. I think a set comes to life even before it’s built. Reading the scene with Steve and discussing mood, color and light helped form Steve’s vision on paper.

How did you come up with a “honey-colored sun” to influence the 1970s look? TI: Finding our film look was an extensive journey. What is that feeling that recalls memory yet feels immediate and is also transportive? We looked at many photographers from the period, but when we got to Tina Barney’s work, Kelly lit up. It captures family life as it happens and in the moment. You can feel the different personalities in a single frame. Real color but not electric, with a slight Kodak gold honey tint, as Steve puts it. SS: Kelly always

felt Margaret’s world should include butter yellow and sky blue, two colors we used on the walls of Margaret’s bedroom in contrast to the black and white palette we’d painted the New York apartment. We papered the living room in amber grass cloth; the dining room got a historical, scenic paper in cream, amber and sage; the kitchen had honey walls, avocado fixtures and amber linoleum counters and floors. Tim’s honey-toned color timing in post was the perfect benediction to our original paint choices. We were telling a memory story, bathed in a lost glow of childhood.

Margaret’s relationship with God is a key story point. How did you create this subtle influence? SS: Margaret’s bedroom was one of the few set-builds in this all-location shoot. I knew I wanted to build a deep dormer around Margaret’s bed, where her many chats with God take place. Around her headboard, we designed a portal of windows for two reasons: we wanted to always remind the audience which season we were in, and seeing the fall foliage or spring greenery outside would mark the passage of time. But, most of all, we wanted Tim to be able to wash Margaret with sunbeams or moonlight, harsh shadows or soft glow, to match her ongoing dialogue with God. TI: The light and shadow, of course, play a role in creating a mood, whether it be positive or negative. I am thankful to Steve for providing windows where I could reach into almost any part of Margaret’s room with light. I definitely avoided a heavy hand with backlight and tried to use it as naturally as possible to keep the mood optimistic or at least sympathetic in more trying times.

become comfortable with. The girls and women in our lives deserve no less.”

Netflix’s Poker Face was the first pairing of Director of Photography Jaron Presant, ASC ( Don’t Make Me Go , 2nd unit on Glass Onion ) and Production Designer Judy Rhee ( Better Call Saul , Jessica Jones , Patriot ), and was it ever a unique challenge! Ten days to shoot each stand-alone episode. No repeated sets. “The process of figuring out all the puzzle pieces for each episode was something Jaron and I had to do together – throughout the series,” says Rhee.

Time considerations are always crucial, especially on an episodic schedule. How did that impact your partnership for Poker Face? Jaron Presant: In a show where we had no standing sets, yet we needed our speed to hit a television schedule, it was integral to have great communication early on regarding sets and locations. The earlier I could be involved on that front, the more insight I could put into the shot design, and back and forth in terms of lighting and sets. Judy Rhee: Time is always a factor with an episodic, but for Poker Face , it was one of the driving forces for a lot of our decisions. Jason and I had to create something completely different for each episode. For our first collaboration on “The Stall,” Jaron joined us for the preliminary scouts. A lot of that episode takes place outside and at night, so it was important to have constructed everything: BBQ pit and shed, tented picnic tables, George’s Airstream area, radio station, parking lot, kitchen and meat locker. Jaron’s input during prep helped to ensure a smoother shoot and a great end result. We continued our close collaboration throughout our condensed schedule for the series.

Was your approach to camera and design different for this show? JP: I think our work will never stand in isolation from one another’s, and understanding that is the most important aspect of the relationship. The two roles need to work symbiotically to achieve something better than they could on their own. I may be able to design elegant shots with evocative lighting, but those had to rest in a world equally compelling for the story. And how we support each other in bringing that story and that world to reality is one of my favorite parts of the filmmaking process. JR: Absolutely. It’s only through this shared exploration and dialogue that you create a cohesive world and visual language. It’s one of the most important and necessary alliances to conjure up the scripted world. Our joint efforts on Poker Face were more integral and condensed than for other shows I’ve worked on. Although lighting is always something I consider when designing a set, it’s important to have a DP’s feedback and input throughout the process.

You worked on some unique locations, on a quick turnaround. Any examples? JP: The theater set was one of the trickiest. Judy designed layouts to accommodate our planned shots. But we had such limitations with the existing location and space – the need for catwalk/stage interplay – and we had very low ceilings, for example. So, we flipped the teamwork. I designed the coverage that would

allow us to have a catwalk build separate from the stage, and Judy created the elements to fit that camera design. JR: One of the many challenges we faced was finding locations and specifically written-in sets near our base in Newburgh, NY, to transform into different places across the country. For episode six, we searched for an existing theater or auditorium to modify. We couldn’t find a stage tall enough, wide enough or deep enough for a set that needed to accommodate all the story points. Instead, we repurposed the same closed event space used in episode one to build our stage. Once again, it was about our departments working together to develop all the comprehensive spaces of the theater that could support Jaron’s camera and lighting choices for the story.

True or False: Sometimes Production Design can influence camera, lens and lighting choices? JP: While it’s rare that production design can dictate camera and lensing choices, on Poker Face we had a deep collaboration on lighting. In the theater episode, as an example, I was excited to run our lights using chromaticity coordinates for color control. As a result, I needed specific fixtures for that color control that determined the fixtures for the theater. At first, we planned to split all the fixtures so that only the ones we needed for lighting would be obtained through the electric department orders. JR: It’s unusual that I, or any other production designer, would suggest a specific lens for the DP to use. Sometimes an illustration, however, will show the perspective of a particular lens, but that’s just to demonstrate how a set will look. Sometimes our collaboration overlaps an area that involves both our departments. In episode six, where the script [called for] a light to fall on camera, there was a discussion about what that light needed to look like for the authenticity of the theater set. JP: Judy brought up that the look of older tungsten ellipsoidal and PAR cans was quite different from the LED counterparts that we were using. JR: Jaron preferred to use LED lights to illuminate the stage set, so for the prominent lights to be photographed on the pipes that released the falling light, we dressed in oldschool PAR cans, and Jaron utilized different lights that looked similar but served his purposes. JP: It’s always an optimal situation when the production designer and DP can work closely together during the project’s infancy of prep to develop the world the story needs to establish. Only in the collaboration will a common language be found for everyone working on the project, and one the viewer can follow and understand.

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

+ PRODUCTION DESIGNER

PHOTO BY BYRON COHEN

PHOTO BY DAVID SCOTT HOLLOWAY

PHOTO COURTESY OF ELI BORN

PHOTO BY BENJAMIN TYLER KNIGHT

“We’re going to look at a crazy house. The pool’s filled with leaves. It’s perfect.” Those were the first words Local 600 Director of Photography Eli Born heard from Production Designer Jeremy Woodward’s mouth when Born landed in New Orleans, LA (NOLA) for 20th Century Fox/ Hulu’s The Boogeyman. “As we talked, I could tell immediately that Jeremy had an eye that extended far into the details,” recalls Born. “I’d forgotten that I picked him up! I think that was my cheat code on this show,” Woodward adds. “Find any chance to drive around with collaborators and to chat and develop your relationship.” Of course, working in the one and only NOLA might have been a contributing factor.

How is doing a horror project different? Eli Born: [Laughing] I never really thought of what we were making as a horror movie. Obviously it is, but we tried to treat it like a family drama that stepped into a horror universe. I think the genre has risen in recent years in a way that allows more artistry. We tried to explore the psychological aspects of the story and the subjective feelings of our characters. How do you best get in touch with the child who is scared of what’s under the bed? Jeremy Woodward: These “creature thrillers” often end up hosting a cat-and-mouse scene, where the surroundings and people’s actual positions become extremely important. The blocking and shooting get tactical and very planned. That’s a time when production design feels instrumental to cinematic storytelling, which is satisfying. EB: We get to play a lot more than usual. The Boogeyman script was filled with set pieces that Jeremy designed involving lighting.

Is the relationship between the camera and design different? EB: There’s a lot to

discuss from a logistical perspective. Jeremy and I would often talk about placement, dimensions, and what parts of the set need to be modular for the camera and lighting to move in. Another aspect is the texture and patina of sets. Jeremy is very good at thinking about a character’s motivation and how that translates into a set. Everything felt real and lived in. JW: I look forward to settings that directly reflect and express the characters and how they function as portraiture. The main house was this, with the two kids’ bedrooms, Mom’s art studio and Dad’s office. Even more interesting is that the mother has died but her influence remains. The art department invested a lot of detail into those rooms’ backstory and furnishing. Eli saw and appreciated it all and was brilliant at composing it into the frame to support the moment. Watching the film, I feel like we’re seeing the best version of the settings provided for the story.

What were some of the main concerns to support the horror genre? JW: We needed to successfully use darkness and shadow in the main house. If you look at the script, so many beats involve a light. EB: This played out in elaborate sets and a creature we needed to hide in darkness. Jeremy and I worked together to make sure that these nuances played out in the color and design of the interiors. While we knew the Boogeyman would be hiding in shadows, Jeremy designed the molding and trim of the house with ledges and areas that the creature could realistically hang from and use to move around. JW: To help Eli with this darkness and light, I also had to control the tonal values of all my finishes and push them down – darker than the film’s skin tones; it’s easier to pull a face out of the darkness.

Does horror involve a different approach to camera and design? EB: I love the melodramatic side of filmmaking, especially in horror, sci-fi and fantasy. There are so many expressive ways to craft something. Is it observational? A memory? Or am I experiencing this like it’s my own story? Movies, at their best, are a collaborative form of communication; everyone working to convey something emotionally. JW: The

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY +

PRODUCTION DESIGNER

escape from the house fire is a great example. It required that camera, the art department, SFX and VFX work closely to produce the result, which was combined shots of our first-floor stage set, a ⅝-scale exterior, both engulfed in practical fire and the exterior house on location. We visited the firstfloor stage set early in construction so Rob [Savage] and Eli could compose the shot. This enabled us to locate all the practical fire on the set, and I could build fireproofing in as we went. On shoot days, VFX and I took care to plot Eli’s handheld move out of the first floor and the camera positions on location, so we could help him create those positions at a ⅝ scale when we shot the burning model. EB: So much prep and just a few minutes to burn a house down. That was a fun day on set; it was near the end of the shoot, and everyone had jubilant energy. It felt like a celebration.

Are there times when a moment works best when things are reversed, i.e., the design follows camera placement? EB: That was the case with the opening scene. The director wanted the shot to move fluidly from a frightened child to their closet door and back. We needed a motion-control rig, and we carefully designed the room around the move. JW: It was a beast! A long shot that starts high up in a child’s bedroom, looking down at a child in a crib through a rotating lampshade that projects a night sky of stars all over everything. Then the shot descends and sweeps around the room’s walls, a closet door pops open, and the creature’s shadow obscures the moving points of light. We then return to the frightened child, then off the child and push into a photograph on a dresser, and there in the reflection off the glass, we see reflected the closet door closing by itself. Because it’s a child actor seen twice in the shot, we needed to combine takes in post. Eli and I worked together to hand-build the fixture that projects the points of light, to find the light source that projects a tight enough shadow, and to size and configure the hero lampshade that looks like it’s projecting the doors. The motion-control unit turned out to be gigantic, so we increased the size of the bedroom by 50 percent. It was all about patience and care on the day, tuning set placements for the best camera capture.

PHOTOS BY BONNIE OSBORNE

Director of Photography Mark Doering-Powell ( Grown-ish , Just Add Magic) was on a well-deserved vacation, hiking in Santa Barbara, when a call came in asking him to cover Kenya Barris’ You People for Netflix, starring Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy. This story relied on real L.A. locations that provided context for the characters. “I went for a week and stayed for the rest of the picture,” Doering-Powell smiles. “Derek and I met in base camp parking and began scouting immediately. It was a bit chaotic at first.” Locations Manager Derek Alvarado, who was in the middle of restructuring the schedule, adds that “the first thing I remember when Mark and I met was that I didn’t have to explain why we chose certain locations – he knew what we both had to do.”

How was this a different pairing and challenge? Derek Alvarado: [There was a] bit more problem-solving. There were some certain iconic locations we shot that were not ideal for camera. Roscoe’s House of Chicken ’N Waffles, for example. Small and tight. We worked together to be able to figure out how to shoot in a confined space while still being able to showcase the location. Mark DoeringPowell: We relied heavily on making every location work for three cameras. Roscoe’s, for example, had very few windows. One room is mirrors. Staging the scene to see that it’s Roscoe’s meant putting the windows to our backs. For the simultaneous cross-cover, where we’d see 180 degrees – and in the end, 360 degrees – I needed some overhead rigging inside and push light through the windows. Derek was able to convince the owners of all our locations to allow for that. There was only one table that would work for this, and together, we made it work. Then, Kenya added the exterior sort of off-thecuff. Then a conflict came up with Jonah’s availability, and we had to light and shoot plates from across the street to have Jonah on green screen at Raleigh Studios.

Did the challenging locations impact the look of the film? DA: With most of the locations picked before Mark came in, it was important to help him get what he needed, to keep the same look and feel that was set

up, but add his touches. MDP: Derek really helped me out by allowing me to do Saturday scouts every week. This and watching Kenya’s need for three cameras, and Derek’s ability to “move” things like furniture but still have the story, were extremely important.

Tight shooting schedule and yet you both still had to make every iconic location stand out, correct? DA: Yes, Kenya wanted the scripted locations to be the real deal. So, if it was an office in Century City, we found an office in Century City. Normally we could easily cheat a location elsewhere, but it was important to really be in the parts of town that are in the story. Ezra’s parents live in Brentwood, and Eddie Murphy’s character lives in Baldwin Hills, where there was a smoothie/lunch spot called Simply Wholesome, a Black-owned business. MDP: We both liked the ability to shoot this picture with a focus on the characters and their story, with the relaxed background of those locations. It was important to not be shooting a commercial [with an iconic location] like Nate ’n Al’s. We made sure it just happens to be where these characters live and work.

How were you able to manipulate real locations for camera/lighting? MDP: What Derek was able to do for us was absolutely an essential part of the film, of the comedy, and to feel the setting of these locations.

It’s what Kenya needed to have and to let us cross-cover with three cameras. It helped the actors, the comedy, and the schedule. Nate and Al’s is a great example. I’ve been on shows that have shot in Manhattan, Paris, and London, but we couldn’t afford or manage the logistics of Beverly Hills. It’s that difficult, and yet here we were in Nate and Al’s. Again, Derek made it happen – even to allow us to rig some overhead lighting and to let us push lights through the windows outside.

Locations can often be about how you approach them. Was Capitol Records a good example? MDP: This is where Derek’s abilities with location, people and places were essential. I loved the rooftop location where we see the Capitol Records building. That was one of the more difficult threecamera setups we had. Fortunately, Derek secured enough of Ivar and Yucca streets, so we could move our BeBee light to the right place. That setup was the only way we could light Jonah’s close-up. Kenya was good enough to let me flip Jonah and Lauren’s positions so I could light her from a MAX Menace hanging over the side of that rooftop area. Jonah’s light really let his blue eyes stand out naturally, just on their own. It was kind of an old-school approach. I probably wouldn’t have tried it if I didn’t have to crosscover that scene.

How did safety impact your approach to the many iconic locations? MDP: This film was done during COVID, so we were always aware of what we could and couldn’t do. DA: We went above and beyond in terms of controlling our environments. Having such a huge production footprint, we would literally take over blocks of L.A. We initially planned to shut down half of Sycamore Avenue for a day, and of course, as it goes, we shut it down for a full three days! MDP: Worked great for me, as we essentially had a back lot. [Laughs.] DA: Mark needed it! And it was our job to give it to him. Our locations team had to constantly renegotiate with the local businesses to make sure they were all taken care of and paid what they deserved.

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY + LOCATION MANAGER

could be bad about living and working in Hawaii? Director of Photography

What

Kurt “Jonesy” Jones and Locations Manager Jessica Cole love the life they lead. And being in sync when it comes to the logistical challenges that present themselves in every episode of NCIS: Hawai’i is a plus. “Our relationship is strong because we’ve both shot every corner of the island, together and separately, on other shows and films,” Jones shares. “Of course, there are rare situations,” laughs Cole. “Like when we needed the champion team’s home field for a football episode. There was Kahuku, a 90-minute drive, and Punahou, much closer. I showed Jonesy both and let Mr. Former Pro Athlete choose. He went with Punahou. I swear I stayed quiet and secretly wondered if he knew I’m a Punahou alumna. Go Puns!”

What’s most key to working on a longrunning series like NCIS: Hawai’i ? Jessica Cole: Often, Jonesy and I have to find a location quickly that fits the choreography of a scene and how it was written while getting as much existing production value as possible. Kurt “Jonesy” Jones: Our relationship is a huge part of the visual process. Only two of our writers live here, so most are in L.A. and may not know that much about the island firsthand. They write stuff that can present a huge challenge to bring to life. Jess will come up with ideas early, and we can brainstorm how well each location could work for what’s scripted. JC: He knows, like me, some of our quirky island limitations. I know that I don’t need time to explain why I can’t get a Condor somewhere (and he won’t even ask, ’cause he knows), and likewise, I know what kind of scope and texture he is looking for.

How does the tight television schedule impact your process? KJ: We usually get handed 52- to 56-page scripts, [we get] eight days to shoot and regularly cover every corner of the island. Jess gets an early draft, and they have a “pre-prep” meeting about location needs while I’m usually shooting the current episode. JC: After our initial brainstorm, I pull together files. And send scouts out to follow leads. Jonesy will send ideas to me at this stage and all along the process until we find the perfect location. KJ:

We all view them and decide with the visiting director which to look at. JC: Sometimes I’ll have an idea for a location, but I’ll get pushback from the producers when I know something will work, but Jonesy easily tips the balance if he agrees with my pitch. He has an awesome ability to think in two dimensions and bring three to life, creating great “cheats” that get the final result, even when limited by what can be done at the location. Keep in mind, we do not have the luxury of VFX or set extensions.

Hawaii is beautiful, of course, but what are some of the less obvious challenges? KJ: There are logistical issues – the terrain, and the U.S. military are very present on Oahu. So, some areas are 100 percent off-limits. Sometimes we have to get very creative, like using a part of the University of Hawaii Manoa to double as our main building located on the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. We will usually not worry that it is so far. It’s worth it. JC: We both agree – big limit – variety. I have about five different jungle looks, five different harbors, and two airports I can pitch. The world has clamped down because of security issues, so we sometimes get locked out of harbors and airports. Drones pose problems almost everywhere, but Jonesy is a great aerial DP. In fact, I knew I was going to love working with him when on the pilot of NCIS: Hawai’i , we were planning our aerial unit, and I didn’t have to give any of my “do’s and

don’ts” speech. Another note I often get from directors is that they want to stay away from the “Jurassic Park” mountains. I need a good ally in my DP to stand our ground and say just because they’re there doesn’t mean we will see them.

Do you find yourself challenged when you want to show iconic Hawaii, but the story goes in another direction? JC: Sometimes that’s the fun of it. For one episode, we had to find Mars – the planet – on Oahu. Although it’s not iconic Hawaii, the geodome on Mauna Loa that the script was based on is. We started the search with a few parameters: higher altitude, red dirt, a distant ocean view, and, ideally, big boulders. KJ: Jess was able to get us the location, the Mars training facility that resides on the Big Island, with extra time to build the sets. We both knew it was perfect. JC: It was a massive threeweek build for the geodome, and we turned over every scrap of grass to make the whole place a landscape of red dirt. I’m super proud of the final result.

How important is your partnership to this show? KJ: On NCIS: Hawai’i , the islands are clearly characters, and viewers watch, in part, because of that. I’m very thankful Jess went to film school and thinks like a filmmaker. She’s very much “in my head” after two full seasons, and together we can usually find a great location that works for the story. Sometimes we get squeezed out by other circumstances, but we always get what the director or showrunners want to put on the screen once we put our heads together. JC: Jonesy knows my job is hard. I have to please all the people – financial woes, parking woes, you name it. My priority is to get all the money on screen. If it’s expensive, I want it to read expensive. I can always trust Jonesy to know that and bring out the best in the place. He’ll have my back if we need to push in from farther than we thought or if parking isn’t available right next to the set. That little extra oomph can make the difference between a so/so location and a one-in-a-million location. Trust and humor make for a great partnership.

PHOTOS BY KATRINA MARCINOWSKI

Although he’s been doing The Bachelor franchise for 20 years, Lighting Designer Dennis Weiler laughingly admits he can be a bit “high-strung” when it comes to wrangling lights for up to 14 cameras on locations around the world. Fortunately, four years ago, the team added Jen Scott as programmer. “Jen has a calming way about her,” Weiler describes. “She doesn’t get shook.”

“You have to be [that way],” Scott adds. “I remember one time we were in Iceland, and Denny wanted to change the exterior LED color on the Harpa Concert Hall. He looked at me with a revelation – was the board even in English? A couple of phone calls, a translator, and Denny got what he needed.” It’s those kinds of curveballs that make lighting for the reality TV format challenging – and a whole lot of fun.

How has lighting for reality TV changed over the years? Dennis Weiler: Quite a bit since I started on The Bachelor franchise 20 years ago. Back then all we needed was a conventional board op. Now, because of the advent of LED technologies, a programmer is essential. These lights have made it possible to move away from the flat lighting and give the show a fairytale look with colors, modeled lighting, and shadows. Jen Scott: People enjoy shows about cops, blue-collar workers, court shows, and those with a cast all coexisting under one roof. Those are all part of the reality genre, but each one has different lighting needs.

What’s the overall approach to The Bachelor franchise? JS: It’s romance, fantasy, and escape. A blend between reality and soap opera, or even a romance novel. You want to showcase the natural beauty but also model and bring life to their faces. We go to some amazing places and want to accentuate every detail, from the sparkle in their eyes to the book in the corner. DW: It takes a team to pull off our look wherever we are. Jen, of course, but also the whole electric crew and the grips working together to make this happen no matter what location. JS: Today’s lighting has become such a flexible tool. It’s amazing what technology can do. We don’t just rely on our console. We use fiber cables, phone apps, DMX testers, and transmitters. We use a lot of

LIGHTING DESIGNER + BOARD PROGRAMMER

PHOTO BY TYLER GOLDEN

intelligent lights, and we also still incorporate conventional lights, gels, and dimmers.

What’s your workflow like given the complexity of new lighting technology? DW: I design the look with Oscar Dominguez and gaffer Yudah Holman. Yudah takes our design and overlays the electric/DMX/patching for Jen. Jen does the pre-programming, then has a few days normally before I come in to focus the whole rig. This allows Jen to have everything up running and tested. That can be a chore when the mansion has up to 300 assorted lighting units. JS: Denny will send an email with pictures, ideas and directions. The timeline we create together is also important – and the choice of LED’s, for example, so that I can figure out the best profile for the fixture. Trust is a huge factor in working together.

Have you two developed a shorthand to handle these big shows? DW: After 14 seasons, it’s hard not to develop a shorthand. Jen knows me. She knows the colors I like,

the levels I like. JS: He has his signature recipe for how he lights and how he names lights/cues, same as I have a way for how I organize my layout for quickly editing lights. There are so many ways to organize things, but you need good communication. You can’t just go in blind. Things I didn’t quite see in the beginning, I now see through Denny’s eyes. One example is with LED’s and finding the right amber. Denny is sensitive to seeing the green in the mixture, so making those adjustments when I see it on camera is now second nature. I save palettes for colors he likes. The sparkle in the eye adds so much life to our leads. It’s an art. One of the main artistic tricks Denny taught me is how he paints the picture. Once you understand his core style, there’s room for us to explore and expand everything.

You’ve traveled to 67 countries around the world! Do you handle each location differently? DW: Unlike the mansion in Agoura, we hit the ground running. We

carry a large assortment of LED’s and other key lighting tools we might not find in, say, Vietnam. We also travel with a small lighting crew of myself, the gaffer, the best boy, Jen, two electricians, and a couple of grips. We pick up crews wherever we are in the world. This interface is important to understand the local culture and ways of working that may be different from ours. Funny enough, language never seems to be a problem. All these crews speak the language of lighting. JS: We are given so many challenges that exist outside a studio. Sometimes we’re in a jungle, sometimes on a ship traveling through Europe, and that’s not even mentioning the more recent COVID bubbles. Each location has challenges that let us work outside the box. Our team is always exploring how we can improve our installations. Yudah comes up with creative ideas and is always open to the team’s ideas as well. We also learn tricks from our local hires. Even though Dennis has his signature lighting style, the rig is always evolving in some way.

PHOTO BY FRANK SCHAEFER

Lighting Designer Jon Kusner and Programmer Eric Marchwinski first met at the home of Baz Halpin (CEO and Founder of Silent House Productions) in 2014 and immediately hit it off. Their first show together (along with Harrison Lippman) was the 2015 iHeartRadio Music Awards. “It was my first television awards show, and I was nervous about being tossed into the deep end,” recalls Marchwinski. “After working together on this show, I knew I wanted to spend more time with Jon and his team.”

“We both like to be busy and don’t do idle very well,” Kusner smiles. “During COVID, I had plans to build a greenhouse on my farm, and Eric immediately came to mind as a perfect partner, so he spent a few months helping me.”

“It was some of the most memorable and interesting times we have spent together,” Marchwinski laughs. “It not only strengthened our friendship but strengthened our working relationship as well.” Their high-profile projects include the Country Music Awards, American Music Awards, and Billboard Music Awards

How have the tools changed since you started working together? Jon Kusner: The biggest thing Eric convinced me of is that previsualization and timecode are the basis for better-looking shows. The rehearsal time seems to get shorter with higher visual expectations. These tools and their thoughtful integration into the workflow are now the only way to survive these fastmoving shows. Eric Marchwinski: When I started with Jon, I came from a touring background where previs and timecode were foundational to making a show. Jon questioned my initial suggestion, but these days we have a workflow together – and with the team at large – centered around these tools and leveraging them to their full potential. It allows us to produce more layered and detailed shows in an equal or shorter time than previously imagined.

Is there a basic way to prep a show?

JK: Each show has different needs or requirements, but the most important part of our process relates to basic communication. We discuss together the desires of the artist’s creative team, look at how we would

achieve this with the design and system at hand, and discuss some key moments we need to hit creatively to ensure we are honoring this direction. EM: We divide the labor between three programmers on the technical and programming side. The “rig mechanic” works with the crew to rig out the system, update patch or console controlrelated items, and be an overall technical bridge between the crew on the floor and the design and programming team. The second position handles key light, audience light, and any faces. Although there are fewer fixtures under this person’s control, they are arguably the most valuable and have the highest stakes while on camera. The third, which I typically handle, is the majority of lighting rigs purposed for musicality and overall environmental composition. This role is the driver’s seat for the show, changing the house looks for video packages, bumpers, awards, et cetera. JK: On top of the work, Eric is responsible for the musical cuing of each performance, which is where we achieve the creative vision of the artist’s camp. The night before a performance’s rehearsal, we will review the basic plan for that look together. EM: Once we get into the rehearsal, it’s all hands-on deck, and we work to marry the ideas and concepts we have come up with to the story that the

director is telling with the camera. During the 45- to 60-minute rehearsal, with all elements in play, we learn how to work with all these elements to support the overall vision and create the images seen on television.

How do you deal with the chaos and pressure of the live-event format? JK: Eric taught me a valuable lesson that goes back to his time working with Baz. They had a saying, which is you must be “able to kill your darlings,” which means no idea is so precious that you can’t let go of it if it’s not working. On these shows, time is short, so we need to implement a plan or idea, and if it’s not working, be ready to try something else. EM: Jon has, at times, equated himself to a rodeo clown, which I always laugh at but also find great truth in the metaphor. Often, we will get into a rehearsal, and the artist will change the tempo of an entire song (deadly when using timecode) or completely scrap a concept that isn’t working, leaving us to react rapidly. At that moment, Jon is standing on the front lines with producers and creatives being that “rodeo clown” while the team and I are working diligently to implement whatever new direction or idea a performance is taking. To survive and succeed in that kind of environment, it takes a calm, levelheaded, confident leader such as Jon, and a team

with a shared vision for how to conquer these seemingly impossible tasks as they arise.

How do you work with lighting consultants or creative directors who come with the artist? JK: This is where our time as working professionals has its weight. Typically, we tend to know the consultant, artist, or creative producer in the camp, so there is an existing relationship inclusive of trust to allow ideas to be accepted more easily. The most typical request is to help someone work through the idea of a blackout. The cameras need something to identify the space, so blackouts don’t work. EM: It’s an interesting aspect of these shows that has helped me as a programmer creatively and socially in many ways. Fortunately, Jon is on the floor interacting with these guests – rarely, if not ever, are they back with me or the rest of the programming team. My interaction is typically trying to interpret their notes while looking at a video or a creative deck in a way that best works for television. Often the notes, like blackouts, are not TV friendly. We always do our best to honor their intentions, ask if things are unclear, and support their vision. We are in the service industry and appreciate the unique opportunity to service some of our closest friends and colleagues on these shows.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ANNE BRAHIC KUSNER

“I’ve been known to describe my job as that of a parachute maker,” describes Programmer Patrick Boozer. “Every day my lighting designer and I go up in the plane, and they hand me the parts that they think might make a good parachute. And then [they] shove me out of the plane (and jump after me). It’s at that moment that it becomes my job to land us safely. We are falling and there is no time to talk about it, no time to waffle as the ground is coming! The LD can’t tell you how to build the parachute – there is no time – but if the parts aren’t there, it doesn’t matter – you’re both going to hit the ground harder than you’d like.” Boozer and Noah Mitz have been “working the parachute” since Mitz was assisting Emmy-winner Bob Dickenson and Boozer was running the conventional dimmer board some 15 years ago.

What was LD/board work like when you two started together? Patrick Boozer: We were still doing very large conventional rigs to light stadiums and arenas. Hundreds of PAR cans and Lekos on miles of truss. A really large part of programming was helping to organize four or five lighting directors, all focusing and adding new channels all over an arena. Noah Mitz: I remember one at the Kid’s Choice Awards where Bob asked Patrick to program some strobes that were added for a musical performance. Patrick hit it out of the park, and I could see he enjoyed figuring out the most complex projects. When we were lighting the cooking competition show Final Table on Netflix in 2017, we were challenged with providing some “edge” to lighting the contestants in a multicam environment, but also ensuring the food and work surfaces were illuminated well enough that the viewer could see what the chefs were cooking. At this point, Patrick’s knowledge was invaluable –and as a co-lighting director, [he and I] worked

together to devise a system to light the roving cooking stations that were reconfigured in the studio each episode. We were able to shift the tone of the room for judging and elimination sequences, even while working in a huge studio with limited rigging weight where you couldn’t just hang an unlimited number of automated framing fixtures.

How has the workflow progressed? PB: More and more, as the rigs get more complicated, it becomes a team. One aspect that is quite different about working live events, like awards shows and concerts from, say, the traditional theater, is that the lighting designer, lighting directors, and programmers are all part of a design team. NM: It’s important because, over the years, our lighting rigs have grown larger and more technically complex while the artistic expectations from Production and the artists have grown more sophisticated. We’ve coped by adding team members and refining our process. To make these major productions

PHOTO BY SEAN ROSENTHAL

work, we add other programmers/lighting directors to bring their creative eyes to the show and involve them in the earlier design process, which helps avoid last-minute plot additions or corrections on site, which can be a time-consuming endeavor.

Why was CBS-TV’s Adele: One Night Only a once-in-a-lifetime project? PB and NM: You could write a whole book about this one! [Both laughing.] PB: Anytime you are working outside or are working in a museum or perhaps fighting the weather – you’re presented with a set of unique challenges. Adele had all three of these. NM: Limited lighting positions, infrastructure challenges, and struggling through daylight rehearsals that flow into nighttime shows. Add the venue, the Griffith Observatory, and you have the ultimate challenge. PB: It’s a historical and iconic venue, large portions of which we couldn’t touch or walk on. The front was open to the public, and to top it off, there was a

major storm coming, so we shot a day early. NM: The creative brief included a continuous concert that started late afternoon before sunset and went into nighttime to highlight the iconic view of Los Angeles. Doing that transition live, without commercial breaks or taping stop-downs to readjust lighting balance and camera settings, is a big undertaking. With the weather change, we had to shoot a day early. This was a case where Patrick’s previs was a life-saver.

How has previs filtered into lighting, and what can it do? PB: Lighting has always been the last department that could really “show” what their final product is going to look like. Scenery could always build models, and video departments have product that can be displayed, but lighting has always struggled to show what the plan is. We’re now using a previs software that we can trust to be a solid programming tool. NM: Patrick’s programming has allowed us to make a step forward, and

it has been a fantastic tool on shows where we have the time and resources to set it up. There is still progress to be made on this front as well, with new software introduced by the camera department. Overall, we are nearing the point where one day, the only limitation to previs being a fully functional tool for lighting live TV shows will be time and labor resources to flesh out the model.

There are so many parts to an Oscars production. What’s the most arduous and sometimes forgotten? PB and NM: Audience! PB: You spend 95 percent of your time in an empty room – sometimes an entire stadium –trying to balance hundreds of lights on things that just aren’t there. NM: In many ways, the stars are the most important part of the show, and making every one of them look glamorous, regardless of which seat they are in and from every camera angle they may be photographed, is as challenging as it sounds. PB: We really do spend the time to focus on it, balance it, refocus it, rebalance it. It’s a lot of concerted, focused effort, with a light meter hand-balancing every chair in the audience. Very few projects give you the space, time and budget to do it well. NM: On top of that, as we have been moving away from conventional incandescent lighting sources, we have introduced a variety of LED and other sources into the mix, which has further complicated the color balance beyond the simple warm shift of incandescent dimming.

What keeps you going when the “scramble” hits? NM: A sense of humor. PB: Trust. There’s never enough time to do the kinds of work we want to do on a television project. We often joke that we load in for however many days; at some point, take a fourhour break to record the dress rehearsal; and then immediately start load-out. NM: We’ve seen a variety of show-stopping (sometimes literally) complications during live broadcasts. Performers have improvised new blocking or choreography that nobody was expecting, mics have failed, spotlights have failed, and we’ve seen shows where sets were damaged during the chaotic stage changeover. PB: Don’t forget the time the pyrotechnics were rigged upside down and showered our spot operators, or when turntables run backward, or the performers starting their performances over on live TV, or cables plugged-in wrong in the scene change so the lighting channels are all messed up live on the air. PB and NM: [echoing each other] It almost doesn’t matter what the disaster is – having a team you trust to get you to the other side is the most important part of surviving those moments you just can’t plan for.

PHOTO BY ERIC McCANDLESS

What does each of you bring to this partnership? Mick Mayhew: First and foremost, there is the trust that goes both ways. I’ve got his back, and he mine. I know he’s going to get me what I need, which is a lot. Everything will be covered, including what is going on behind the scenes, and I don’t mean an artsy black-and-white still of the cinematographer behind the camera. I’m talking about photos of the crew, sets and scenery, costumes, props, landscapes, you name it. Hopper Stone: Yeah, trust is a big one. The unit photographer is generally shielded from what goes on at the studio

Unit Still Photographer Hopper Stone, SMPSP, was mainly day-playing in television when he met Mick Mayhew at an Adobe seminar. “I immediately felt the connection that he knew his stuff and [that I] wanted to work with him,” Mayhew recounts. “Once on a film, I was glad to have someone who was enthusiastic, listened to what we needed, and actually delivered.”

“As we started, I felt that Mick trusted me but also really held my feet to the fire,” Stone adds. Whatever their beginning, the two clicked and have built up an incredible sense of trust over six projects – Secret Headquarters , Terminator: Dark Fate reshoots, Stuber , Hidden Figures , Goosebumps , and Captain Phillips .

offices, and I know that Mick will let me know if something is missing or needs to be addressed way before it becomes an issue. I know he is keeping an eye on what I’m submitting, and correlating that with the project’s shooting schedule so he knows what’s happened and what will happen.

Was there a learning curve? MM: [Laughs.] Hopper is trained well by now, as I have been adamant about shooting all the other stuff that doesn’t always get captured. I remember that before Goosebumps , I made an edit of hundreds of photos from multiple films

showing all the types of photography I’m looking for, put them in a PDF, and handed it to him, saying, “This is what I want.” HS: When I get onto the set, I hear Mick’s voice in my head showing me that PDF of those shots he always needs but never gets. Ironically, one of them was for a pocket knife that one of the background sailors was wearing on Captain Phillips. And I always felt bad about not having that shot! But that was before we had that conversation. [Laughs.] MM: Hopper’s personality and ease of talking to talent and making them comfortable with him and the camera allows him to get setups that

PHOTO BY TROY HARVEY

normally wouldn’t happen, especially scenes filmed in tight spaces like Captain Phillips

What is your typical workflow? Do you talk extensively in pre-production? MM: Do the “needs” change from picture to picture? Any seasoned unit photographer knows the drill; it’s pretty standard, but we always have an initial conversation covering specific needs that the different departments at the studio have made me aware of – product placement, digital marketing team requests, creative marketing, et cetera . HS: These talks are key. On Secret Headquarters , for example, there was a big tie-in with VW. Had Mick not informed me of that, I probably wouldn’t have covered the interior and details of the cars as thoroughly as I did. The photo department must communicate to the unit photographer when there is something extra special that needs to be covered more in-depth.

Do Hopper’s images go through the unit publicist to Production? MM: All photography

goes straight from the photographer to the lab. The photography is made available to the unit publicist to help with captioning and talent approvals. HS: Gone are the days when the unit publicist brings proof sheets and a grease pencil to the talent’s trailer. I put the photos on a drive and ship to that lab. Then the online process starts. That’s when the real change happened. PKO (Photo Kill Online, the online approvals process for Film Lab Solutions) changed everything.

How many voices chime in on the marketing side? Is Hopper involved? MM: Many voices have a say in the selection of photos we end up using for publicity – talent, filmmakers, internal by the studio executives, to name a few. And not always in that order. Unit photographers don’t have a say, but Hopper is an excellent editor and makes me aware of what he likes, and I try my hardest to make sure his selections get put into the mix. Hidden Figures was a perfect example of Hopper and me going back and forth with

our favorites. HS: I learned after a couple of movies not to overwhelm the studio with choices. No one thinks you’re working harder if you turn in a gazillion photos per day. I do my best to give a good selection of what serves the project, plus a little bit of fat left over for the approvals process. I don’t want to do Mick’s job – I might flag a few shots here or there that I like, but I also know that there are so many layers of committee.

Have you brought Hopper back for specials?

MM: I haven’t directly hired him for specials, as creative advertising handles that. But he has been hired with my endorsement. HS: As Mick said, that’s a different department, I always appreciate his recommendation. With specials in mind, one thing I do, though, is imagine in my head all of the little elements that go into key art that may not be covered in the special shoot, like cars driving, background running, sky elements, translucent floating elements, and try to incorporate those into my unit coverage as well.

PHOTO BY ROBB ROSENFELD

“There was a surreal moment when I was shooting on my first Star Wars project ( Obi-Wan Kenobi ),” recalls Local 600 Unit Still Photographer Matt Kennedy, SMPSP. “We were doing the sequence with mercenaries chasing a young Princess Leia through the forest, and it was shot on location in Lake Arrowhead. Flea (of Red Hot Chili Peppers) plays the lead mercenary. Between setups, we sat down on a log and started chatting, and quickly learned we both love surfing, especially with our kids.” After the take, Kennedy checked in with his photo editor, Bryce Pinkos, who laughs remembering “that conversation with Matt was all about surfing. Although we haven’t yet surfed together, our common love for the waves gives us a special bond. When we need to break away from the pressure of capturing images for projects like ObiWan Kenobi and Skeleton Crew, we connect over reallife surf adventures or those we’re still dreaming up. Not all the time spent in far-away galaxies!”

Star Wars is a unique area for stills – locations, effects and Stagecraft. Is your partnership different than for other projects? Matt Kennedy: Actually, I approach stills in the same way I would for any project. I have discussions before production with Bryce and the photo team at Lucasfilm. We discuss the show overall and some key points to concentrate on – characters, sets, plot points, cameos, and the overall look. Bryce Pinkos: We go beyond the key characters (e.g., Obi-Wan, Vader, Leia, inquisitors). There are priority assets to consider – think lightsabers, new droids, or anything that is canonically Star Wars – and then we keep that in mind throughout the run of the show. On a franchise as big as Star Wars , there are more people to work with. Matt is working with our franchise supervisor, Stacey Leong, and Gregg Brilliant, the unit publicist, to determine which scenes and key characters to cover. We trust Matt to let us know if he feels he’s covered a particular scene or location enough. Otherwise, we know he will put himself in the right place at the right time.

Are your choices different from traditional features? BP: The biggest difference between a Star Wars show and a traditional feature is probably the size of our publicity key set of imagery. Most Hollywood features have a key set of maybe a dozen or two dozen images that get leveraged over and over for press

PHOTO BY JUSTIN LUBIN, SMPSP

and marketing. Because the lore of Star Wars is so deep and wide, we know that even the most minor background characters and props are fodder for consumer products, games, parks, and even future cosplay by our eagle-eyed fans. MK: On Skeleton Crew , I knew the kids were going to be a huge deal! I definitely wanted to cover them as much as I could. Not only is the Star Wars lore going to change with this show, but the kids’ lives are going to change as well. They are going to be on everything, from action figures to lunch boxes and everything in between.

What needs to be covered when dealing with an iconic character? BP: I think for Obi-Wan Kenobi , we were all curious to see which version of Obi-Wan Ewan would show up as. The main thing we had to keep in mind – which is true of any recurring character –was staying true to past portrayals, from Ewan’s first iteration to Alec Guinness’s original embodiment. For Obi-Wan , we had a troubled, lonely man growing into a selfimposed hermitage, but still with an inner spark of righteousness and a strengthened good conscience. MK: I’ve been a Star Wars fan since I was a kid. So, when photographing an iconic character, I try to imagine what I would want to see as a fan. Fans are very well-versed in every aspect of Obi-Wan’s

character. In my mind, the only real sell was to try to stay true to what everyone already knew about him while showing this side of him that we hadn’t seen before. BP: Ultimately, we know that everyone will want to see a lightsaber battle between Obi-Wan and Vader, so waiting for that opportunity and nailing it when the time came was always the goal. Some of the shots Matt got of the final battle between them were exactly what we’d hoped to capture.

Talk about the challenge of capturing stills in the Volume, where so many of these Star Wars episodics are made. BP: One of the most difficult things about shooting stills in the volume is that frame rate and shutter speed can create nasty visual aberrations in photographs. Additionally, if the photographer isn’t perfectly aligned with the video camera, which they usually aren’t, then the perspective of the background can feel warped. Thankfully we work with the best VFX artists and retouchers in the world at Industrial Light & Magic, so we try not to get too hung up on things that look slightly out of whack. MK: It’s an amazing set to capture visually. Once you learn the technical aspect of how it relates to still photography, it’s a lot of fun. It’s so much more rewarding than blue screen. BP: With all these shows having

pioneered working in the Volume, I know Matt can get some amazing wide shots that reveal what’s possible with this new world of virtual production. I’m with Matt – it’s so much more satisfying to see BTS shots that aren’t green or blue screen. They look like they are shot in a faraway galaxy while still showing how the sausage is made.

How important are behind-the-scenes images when this new technology has such a big role in production? BP: Matt and I are always cognizant of the need for BTS, and we often talk about what is needed and why. Practically, we lean on the BTS photos during awards season. Sometimes these shots are more difficult for Matt than we’d expect. Matt has the hard job of knowing when to get in there to get the shot versus stepping back to let things unfold. If he’s too in-your-face, then no one is happy. We feed Matt’s images to the filmmakers throughout the production and get feedback on what he’s capturing, so we get a sense from them about how much to push in or pull back. MK: I treat these jobs like any other film I photograph. Being a former camera assistant helps me navigate where to be and capture what I think are the most interesting BTS shots. Having a relationship with the working crew in all departments is key.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LeANDRE THOMAS

Operator Afton Grant and 1st AC Lee Vickery met when FBI got picked up. “One of the first things I learned about Lee is he’s very organized,” Grant smiles. “He labels everything. I’ve never met them, but I would be willing to bet his children each have P-touch labels with their names printed on them stuck to their foreheads! This is not a critique at all. Organization means efficiency.” Vickery can only laugh at Grant’s comment. “I advise people not to stand still long enough in my presence because I will P-touch you and your belongings,” he comments. It’s all part of the fun and challenges the two have faced together for more than 100 episodes of FBI

Are there certain shots that are key to FBI’s procedural style? Afton Grant : The Joint Operators Command Center for FBI is something we’ve carefully worked out together. The set takes up a full stage and looks like a large office space. It’s where all the various government agencies pool their knowledge and data. The scenes we film are extremely dynamic. The camera bounces from one actor to another, to a computer screen, to a mobile phone, back to an actor – and at a rapid pace. Lee Vickery: Timing and actor positions change slightly from take to take, as well as camera position. These scenes are impossible to mark out traditionally, taping and marking. It’s about reflexes and intuition. AG: Lee has been able to take whatever is thrown at him without breaking a sweat. It’s very impressive.

What’s it like to have an overall style set for a show but need to work with a different director every week? LV: Afton’s ability to navigate a new director every eight days is a tough task. It can be a real challenge for the whole crew. Some directors are technically savvy. Other directors lean on Afton and [Director of Photography] Bart [Tau] to make sure they have captured the scene. AG: After 100 episodes, we have a well-oiled machine. We have all become very efficient at bringing and delivering what is needed. For the most part, new directors enjoy joining our show, but there are very few unbreakable rules. The important thing is capturing the elements

that tell the story in the time we are given.

How have you streamlined your workflow to get the best from each shot? AG: Whether it is finally getting the desired actor performance, the shot is a single-take oner, or we are crunched for time – or all of the above – you want to eliminate as many variables as possible that might make you need another take. The finale of season five began with a single, unedited oner. It was night, so we were wide open on a prime lens. The resets per take were lengthy. It was also the end of the day, pushing up against our 14-hour limit before the plug gets pulled. There was no returning to this location if we didn’t get the shot. LV: It’s these kinds of shots that, as an assistant, you need to be able to adapt to the needs of the shot as rapidly as possible. AG: Steadicam is rather physical. As few takes as possible help me maintain my energy to be able to get through some long and difficult days. I like to think I’m cool-headed, but if I was constantly doing additional takes for focus, I could get very cranky very quickly. Fortunately, Lee prevents that from happening, so I’m nothing but sunshine and flowers all day, every day. [Laughs.]

How has that trust and confidence between you two helped what you get and what you can give editors? AG: I am confident that I can ask for just about any camera configuration, whether it’s Steadicam, handheld, dolly, jib, Lambda, et cetera , and

know it can be built and delivered efficiently and ready to work, usually in less time than it takes to light the scene. It opens up a world of creative freedom. We had a shot this past season, filming actors in the backseat of an Alpha Romeo – notoriously not a large vehicle. I had to sit in the front seat facing backward, with my legs tied up like a pretzel. LV: Afton realized the regular camera build would have been too large to fit on his shoulder. The roof and windshield were too low. So, my team tore the camera down so he had as little as possible to hold. We had to reroute transmitters, batteries, monitors, focus devices, and all the necessary cabling – giving him a camera body and lens.

Are there times you vary the style and have some fun with a shot? AG: Sometimes we get creative, and while [they are] not necessarily outrageous, shots can be fun. For many of our chase sequences, we like to have the camera run with the actors. The feeling of movement when the camera is close to a subject, sprinting along on a wide lens, is exhilarating. Lee and I have been refining this method each season. It started with me holding the camera by the handle and running as fast as I could, but it wasn’t long before I couldn’t keep up. LV: Again, it was about building for the need. We came up with a “backpack mode” camera: batteries on a belt, transmitter, and focus-assist devices removed. Afton could run faster, but still not fast enough, so we tried handheld cameras from DJI with image stabilization. Now he could move very fast – but the image quality wasn’t quite the same as with the ALEXA. Afton and I are always trying for more – so our most recent generation of a running rig is the DJI RS 2 Pro; it’s stabilized, very light, and allows the use of DSLR cameras. AG: Lee’s ability to come up with different rigs on our schedule is invaluable. But we can make shots different from the usual procedural format because of Lee’s ability to pull focus in every situation. He may be overly selfcritical and tell you differently; but in my opinion, he nails every single take.

PHOTO BY MATT INFANTE

PHOTO BY EMILY ARAGONES

CAMERA OPERATOR + 1ST AC

“When my long-time first AC Tim Metivier brought a young second AC onto the set of The Normal Heart, I instantly hated him!” laughs Operator Stephen Consentino. “Just kidding. Graham was extremely hard-working and focused. He had a great knowledge of Steadicam and ran a tight ship as A-Camera second.” Burt says the first thing he noticed was Consentino’s generous nature. “He immediately saw that I loved Steadicam and respected its degree of difficulty. He went out of his way to teach me what I needed to know.” Since meeting more than 10 years ago, Consentino has helped Burt move up through the ranks, now working as the operator’s go-to 1st AC on such projects as Blue Bloods, White House Plumbers, and The King of Staten Island.

Was Graham’s moving up through the ranks a plus in your relationship? Stephen Consentino: The skill level of a great first AC/ focus puller has to be so high – it’s such a difficult job. Many try to move up too quickly. I greatly respected Graham for taking his time and fine-tuning his craft. He learned under my long-time first AC, Tim Metivier, who is one of the best focus pullers in the industry. When Tim wasn’t available to do Blue Bloods a few years ago, he said Graham was ready, and that’s all I needed to know. Graham Burt: It was valuable to already have a great rapport and be friendly with Stephen before becoming his focus puller. Being able to speak candidly and not worry about offending or misunderstanding one another means we can solve challenges sooner. It also makes the workday more fun when you don’t have to worry about formalities with people you work most closely with.

Is knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses one of the most important elements in the operator/AC relationship?

GB: The more time that you spend working with someone, the better you get to know the way they look at a scene and the opportunities they perceive from a shot. If we’re doing a long, sophisticated Steadicam oner, I always marvel at the way Stephen will refine his work one take after the next. His timing, anticipation and framing are consistent, and he will make something better each time. If we are doing something straightforward, he will often find the opportunity to tag something of editorial value or find a chance to hold a frame where we can use focus to tell part of the story. SC: I can do these things because

I trust him. He doesn’t just say, “We nailed it.” He’s my second set of eyes during rehearsals and takes. I can’t see everything in the frame all the time during a long, complicated take, where I may be walking backward, listening to the actor’s dialogue, and framing – all on a seven-inch monitor that’s three feet away from me. Graham sees where the background actor is staring into the lens or an errant piece of the set. He always knows what I am going to do, even when I throw him a curveball.

Are features different from television? GB: On many films, you have the opportunity to plan and develop your approach before you arrive. There is an emphasis on making the best shot possible and refining something. Television is more about achieving a high page count, often at multiple locations in a day. It tends to be more important to get something that’s “good enough” and then move on. SC: Yes, but that’s blurring now. Doing a show like Vinyl was like doing a mini-feature with each episode. For each one-hour episode, we had 15 days of principal and three for second unit. When Graham was the second, we had him going on tech scouts. It was invaluable for us to properly prep and have all the right gear and personnel to accomplish the shots. Many people think this is a luxury, but it allowed us to be more efficient and save time each shooting day – and that means saving money.

How often do you use non-traditional gear? Any examples? GB: One of my favorite things about working in the camera department is custom-assembling or tailoring a piece of equipment to a specific shot or capability – or getting to use unusual pieces in conventional

and unconventional ways. On Blue Bloods , we would regularly work with the Revolution lens system and the Century Scope II purely to provide the means to capture a novel sensibility or move differently through a space we’d visited many times before. SC: We love the unconventional – and when you are doing a long-running series, you need to shake it up. Putting the Revolution/Snorkel lens on the Steadicam gave a novel perspective, but boy was that a drag! But that’s what I love about working with Graham – give the camera department a challenge, and they figure out a way to make it work.

How does scouting together make a difference? GB: On White House Plumbers, Steve Meizler designed a shot that started in Steadicam low mode and then led the actors up a flight of stairs backstage at a theater. Normally this is not a big deal, but there was a very low bulkhead in the stairwell, and the inverted Steadicam (in low mode) was going to be too tall to fit. SC: Steve Meizler and Key Grip Matt Staples were smart and sent Graham and me out a few days in advance to scout the location. That’s when we realized Steadicam alone wasn’t the correct tool. Our stage happened to be next to a motorcycle fabrication shop, and we had them custom-fab a bracket to mount the Ronin gimbal onto the Steadicam arm. Had we not been able to scout together and have the time to do all this in advance, we could have shown up on the shoot day, and a lot of time would have been wasted. More productions need to learn that spending a few dollars on having the right people on the scout can save tens of thousands of dollars on the day of the shoot.

“When I met Tiff on Dr. Phil , the crew was more like a national disaster response team than a TV crew,” remembers Operator Forrest Stangel. “Tiff and I were paired and spent a couple of hours sitting in a camera hide. We told stories and made each other laugh. Part of my job was to grab a small camera and chase the guest if they ran off set. We would start the interview, and about 30 minutes in, the guest would bolt, and I’d grab the little camera from Tiff and give chase. The guest runs about two blocks down the street, and I would continue to record them. Producers met us shortly after and talked the guest into returning. I went back to the hide and handed Tiff the camera. “I asked him where he went!” Aug smiles. “And he says he forgot something in his car!”

“From that moment,” Stangel adds, “I knew Tiff and I would be fast friends.”

The two have since gone on to work together on dozens of short projects, as well as Dr. Phil’s second unit, Those Who Can’t and Better Things

What’s it like doing a show that’s mainly cinéma vérité ? Tiffany Aug: Better Things is a perfect example. The show creator wanted it to feel like the viewer was another person living in the house with the family. We didn’t do rehearsals – not traditional ones, at least – and even if we did block, we rarely held anyone to marks once we started rolling. Forrest Stangel: On Better Things , the DP, Paul Kesler, and I had a running joke: “A-Camera gets A-Z, and B-Camera gets F-U!” On that show, A-Camera was mostly on Steadicam with a wide lens. Tiff and I would either be on an 11-1 zoom lens or a longer lens handheld. Every take on that show was evolving, so Steadicam would have to adjust. Sometimes we’d walk into our frame, and Tiff and I would also have to adjust. Nine times out of 10, where we would land or how we would change the shot would work out better than we could have guessed. TA: After taking one, we’d both compare notes and create a plan on whether we felt someone else in the scene was giving something worth showing the director. It was an interesting challenge as our director was also an actor in most scenes! FS: We would shoot so many scenes that felt like an endless loop because of how Tiff and I would offer opportunities for the actors to do other things. Then the director, who as Tiff said was in the scene, would watch playback and want another take on her because of what she saw us capture.

It’s rare to build this kind of connection.

How does it benefit the work? TA: Obviously, we don’t all get to pick who we are partnered with, but having someone you know and work well with can make everything go much better. Working with Forrest as closely as I have has given me a greater understanding of the minutiae of operating as a job and an empathy for the challenges operators are up against. When you’re wide open on an 85 millimeter, shooting an unblocked scene of emotional teenagers, it’s hard to remember you’re not the only one under the bus. I appreciate it when he remembers me and plants his feet or zooms instead of pushing in when the subject is already rocking all over the place. FS: As an operator, you sometimes feel like the boxer in the ring; bobbing and weaving trying to find the perfect opportunity for your shot. Tiff is my ringside coach. She sees the overall picture, gives me suggestions, pours water on my head, and tells me to “get back out there, kid.”

For a while, you were the go-to team in small spaces. Why? TA: [Laughs.] Small spaces. Camera in the car. Some of it was because we were both “just happy to be here.” That’s where our morale-building kind of came in handy. We worked with everyone, and A-camera and DP knew they could just shove us anywhere, there wouldn’t be any complaints, and we’d get the shot. FS: I will do almost anything for the shot, and we have done too many shots where we are stuffed into a bathroom or the back of closets. Tiff has the magic rigging skills to

piece apart the camera to the bare minimum to get it to work for both of us. TA: How could I forget driving around the Van Nuys Airport tarmac, pulling focus from under the camera in front of the private-jet toilet you were sitting on while shooting?

So, when the stress gets high, what keeps you in sync? TA: I remember there was one shot we had, and it was kicking my ass. I was in the single digits for percent in focus, and there were so many moving parts. I think both cameras were handheld through multiple rooms of the set, chasing actors and handing off back and forth. Because we were B-Camera, a big part of our job was staying out of A-Camera’s way but still being expected to get a shot for the whole take – it’s a lot for an operator to take on. Huge stress. I was thoroughly inside my head. FS: In this scene, the director wanted to shoot it as a oner for the actors but not to be aired that way – it was going to be cut up. I told Tiff after each take I thought I would cover, and if she was soft on the other parts, don’t freak, as we will get that on the next one. The next take, I would position myself so we would get the coverage she felt she missed. If I don’t have her back, why would she have mine? This is just another reason why we work so well together. TA: Forrest is more than a colleague; he’s my teammate, an extension of my body, and vice-versa. Together we are the living embodiment of “two heads are better than one.”

PHOTO BY SCOTT EVERETT WHITE

PHOTO BY FRANK SCHAEFER

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

20TH CENTURY FOX

“AMERICAN HORROR STORIES: HAMPTONS” SEASON 12

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TIM NORMAN, ANDREI SCHWARTZ

OPERATORS: AILEEN TAYLOR, GERARD SAVA

ASSISTANTS: BRADEN BELMONTE, JOHN REEVES, CAROLYN WILLS, SARAH SCRIVENER

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: GUILLERMO TUNON

LOADER: OFELIA CHAVEZ, VINCE FERRARI

TECHNOCRANE TECH: CRAIG STRIANO

STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: MICHAEL PARMELEE, ERIC LIEBOWITZ

ABC STUDIOS

“JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!” SEASON 21

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, STEVE GARRETT

BEACHWOOD SERVICES

“DAYS OF OUR LIVES” SEASON 59

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID MEAGHER

OPERATORS: MARK WARSHAW, MICHAEL J. DENTON, JOHNNY BROMBEREK, STEVE CLARK

CAMERA UTILITY: GARY CYPHER

VIDEO CONTROLLER: ALEXIS DELLAR HANSON

BLIND FAITH PRODUCTIONS, LLC

“DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN” SEASON 4

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: HILLARY FYFE SPERA

OPERATORS: THOMAS SCHNAIDT, BLAKE JOHNSON

ASSISTANTS: ALEXANDER WORSTER, OLGA

ABRAMSON, YALE GROPMAN, ANGJELA COVIAUX

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: PATRICK CECILIAN

LOADERS: MCKENZIE RAYCROFT, BRIANNA MCCARTHY

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: GIOVANNI RUFINO

UNIT PUBLICIST: NICOLE KALISH

CBS

“ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT”

SEASON 42 LIGHTING DESIGNER: DARREN

LANGER

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KURT BRAUN

OPERATORS: JAMES B. PATRICK, ALLEN VOSS, ED SARTORI, BOB CAMPI, RODNEY MCMAHON, ANTHONY SALERNO

JIB OPERATOR: JAIMIE CANTRELL

CAMERA UTILITY: TERRY AHERN

VIDEO CONTROLLERS: MIKE DOYLE, PETER STENDAL

“THE TALK” SEASON 13

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

CHANGEUP PRODUCTIONS, LLC

“CAPTAIN AMERICA 4”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KRAMER MORGENTHAU, ASC

OPERATORS: MIKE HEATHCOTE, MATTHEW PETROSKY

ASSISTANTS: CRAIG PRESSGROVE, DWIGHT

CAMPBELL,

IAN AXILROD, JOHN HOFFLER, ALEX WATERS, JASON HOCHREIN

CAMERA UTILITY: SAGE LARSON

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ROBERT HOWIE

LOADER: CORY BLAKE

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ELI ADE

UNIT PUBLICIST: CAROL MCCONNAUGHEY

COMPANION THE MOVIE, INC. “COMPANION”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ELI BORN

OPERATOR: KOREY ROBINSON

ASSISTANTS: CHERYN PARK, LAURA ERAUD

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MICHAEL ASHLEY

LOADER: LUISA ORTIZ

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CARA HOWE

UNIT PUBLICIST: JACKIE BAZAN

KIKI TREE

“JUROR #2”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: YVES BELANGER

OPERATOR: STEVE CAMPANELLI

ASSISTANTS: JIM APTED, JEREMIAH KENT

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MIKE KELLOGG

LOADER: GARREN SMILEY

CAMERA UTILITY: PAYTON BERGKAMP

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CLAIRE FOLGER

LINEAR PRODUCTIONS, LLC

“UNTITLED JOSH AND LAUREN

PROJECT” SEASON 1

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TIM ORR, MICHAEL DALLATORRE

OPERATORS: MATTHEW DOLL, MICHAEL REPETA

ASSISTANTS: PATRICK BOROWIAK, ELI WALLACE-JOHANSSON, ROY KNAUF, JILL AUTRY

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ANDY BADER

LOADER: PAIGE ELIZABETH MARSICANO

DIGITAL UTILITY: ANTHONY RICHARD SCOPINO

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: DANA HAWLEY

UNIT PUBLICIST: BRANDEE BROOKS

MESQUITE PRODUCTIONS

“COBRA KAI” SEASON 6

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ABE MARTINEZ

OPERATORS: BRIAN NORDHEIM, BRIAN DAVIS

ASSISTANTS: WARREN BRACE, GRACE PRELLER CHAMBERS, KANE PEARSON, DANIEL BUBB

LOADER: ALESSANDRA MACI

DIGITAL UTILITY: MARIELA PINA-NAVA

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CURTIS BAKER

NARROW ISLE PRODUCTIONS, LLC

“OUTER BANKS” SEASON 4

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DARREN GENET, BO WEBB

OPERATORS: MATTHEW LYONS, STEPHEN ANDRICH

ASSISTANTS: LAWRENCE GIANNESCHI, WILLIAM HAND, NICK CANNON

CAMERA UTILITY: DOUGLAS TORTORICI

LOADER: JAMES TYLER LATHAM

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JACKSON LEE DAVIS

NETFLIX PRODUCTIONS, LLC

“ARTICLE TWO AKA ZERO DAY”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN CONROY

OPERATOR: CHRIS REYNOLDS

ASSISTANTS: COURTNEY BRIDGERS, MARC LOFORTE, AMBER MATHES, COREY LICAMELI

STEADICAM OPERATOR: GREGOR TAVENNER

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JESSICA TA

LOADER: CLAIRE SNODE

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CHRISTOPHER SAUNDERS

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

“WINSTON” SEASON 1

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: WILLIAM REXER, CHRISTOPHER LA VASSEUR

OPERATORS: JEFF MUHLSTOCK, MATTHEW PEBLER

ASSISTANTS: JOHN LARSON, AARON SNOW, RICHARD PALLERO, SPENCER MUHLSTOCK

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ANDREW NELSON

LOADERS: MANDY ROSE FORMAN, AMANDA DEERY

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: PETER KRAMER

SONY PICTURES TELEVISION

“JEOPARDY!” SEASON 39

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF ENGEL

OPERATORS: DIANE L. FARRELL, SOC, MIKE TRIBBLE, JEFF SCHUSTER, L. DAVID IRETE

JIB ARM OPERATOR: MARC HUNTER

HEAD UTILITY: TINO MARQUEZ

CAMERA UTILITY: RAY THOMPSON

VIDEO CONTROLLER: JEFF MESSENGER

VIDEO UTILITIES: MICHAEL CORWIN, JEFF KLIMUCK

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CAROL KAELSON

“WHEEL OF FORTUNE” SEASON 40

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF ENGEL

OPERATORS: DIANE L. FARRELL, SOC, L.DAVID IRETE, RAY GONZALES, MIKE TRIBBLE

HEAD UTILITY: TINO MARQUEZ

CAMERA UTILITY: RAY THOMPSON

VIDEO CONTROLLER: JEFF MESSENGER

VIDEO UTILITIES: MICHAEL CORWIN, JEFF KLIMUCK

JIB ARM OPERATOR: STEVE SIMMONS

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CAROL KAELSON

TERRITORY PICTURES

“HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: J. MICHAEL MURO

OPERATORS: ALAN JACOBY, MICHAEL ALBA

ASSISTANTS: ROGER SPAIN, FARISAI KAMBARAMI, STEPHANIE SAATHOFF, NOAH MURO, BEN HASKIN, GRANT WILLIAMS, TED BUERKLE

LOADER: LANDON HILL

DIGITAL UTILITY: DILLON MURO

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: TIM BALCOMB

UNIT PUBLICIST: DIANE SLATTERY

WARNER BROS PICTURES

“JULIET AKA JOKER 2”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: LAWRENCE SHER, ASC

OPERATOR: COLIN ANDERSON

ASSISTANTS: JARED JORDAN, GREGORY IRWIN, MICHELLE CLAYTON SAMARAS, JAMES PAIR, JERRY PATTON

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: NICHOLAS KAY

LOADER: NAIMA NOGUERA

DIGITAL UTILITY: HELAINA ANDERSON

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: NIKO TAVERNISE

UNIT PUBLICIST: HEIDI FALCONER

COMMERCIALS

AL MEDIA

“BRIGHT HOPE”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JOSEPH FITZGERALD

OPERATOR: JEFFREY BAKER

ASSISTANTS: JAMES MCCANN, THOMAS GRECO

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: SEAN GALCZYK

BAM PRODUCTIONS

“LONGINES”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: THEO STANLEY

OPERATOR: FRANKLIN STANLEY

ASSISTANTS: JAY ECKARDT, ROBERT AGULO, GIANNA LLEWELLYN, JOSUE LOAYZA

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: LUKE TAYLOR

LOADER: MORGAN ARMSTRONG

BISCUIT FILMWORKS

“NISSAN”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT

OPERATORS: PATRICK MOYNAHAN, JASON ROBBINS

ASSISTANTS: ETHAN MCDONALD, CHASE CHESNUTT, KYLE SAUER, JACK LEWANDOWSKI

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: TODD BARNETT

CHELSEA

“SALESFORCE.COM”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC SCHMIDT

ASSISTANTS: RODRIGUE GOMES, JUSTIN WARREN

COMMUNITY FILMS, LLC

“MARATHON PETROLEUM COMPANY”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JORDAN LEVY

ASSISTANTS: TRICIA COYNE, WILLIAM LIDE POWELL, MONICA BARRIOS-SMITH

STEADICAM OPERATOR: CHRIS LYMBERIS

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JASON JOHNSON

CONDUCTOR PRODUCTIONS, LLC

“CCA COMMONWEALTH CARE ALLIANCE”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PATRICK RUTH

ASSISTANTS: MARY ANNE JANKE, CHRISTOPHER HEBERT

ELEMENT PRODUCTIONS

“MPV HEALTH CARE”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: NATHAN SWINGLE

ASSISTANTS: JILL TUFTS, MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ-TORRENT

FRAMEWORK

“PUMA BASKETBALL”

OPERATOR: CHRIS LYMBERIS

ASSISTANT: TORI TURNER

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ANDY BADER

HUNGRY MAN, INC.

“AT&T”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KIRA KELLY, ASC

ASSISTANTS: ETHAN MCDONALD, JASON ALEGRE

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DANIEL HERNANDEZ

LITTLE PRINCE CREATIVE

“SOFI”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTIAN EVANS

ASSISTANTS: CARRIE LAZAR, NOAH GLAZER

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: CASEY SHERRIER

MERMAN

“WALMART”

OPERATOR: ALLIE SCHULTZ

ASSISTANTS: ERIC UGLAND, WILL HECHT, JACOB PERRY, RIO NOEL ZUMWALT

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: SAM PETROV

O POSITIVE

“PROGRESSIVE”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GYULA PADOS

OPERATOR: MATT BAKER

ASSISTANTS: TAYLOR MATHESON, DAN SCHROER, GUS BECHTOLD

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MICHELE DELORIMIER

PARK PICTURES

“DOORDASH”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SHAWN KIM

OPERATORS: JOSH MEDAK, ERIC WYCOFF

ASSISTANTS: DANNY FERRELL, MATT SUMNEY, ERRIN ZINGALE, JOEL MARTIN, ANGEL OCHOA

CRANE OPERATOR: BOGDAN IOFCIULESCU

MATRIX TECH: SHAWN FOSSEN

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: NINA CHADHA

“WALMART”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: EVAN PROSOFSKY

ASSISTANTS: SCOTT SISON, ALEX NIETO

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: NINA CHADHA

UTILITY: EDSON REYES

RUCKUS

“LAYS”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JONATHAN FREEMAN

OPERATOR: DANA MORRIS

ASSISTANTS: LILA BYALL, CARRIE LAZAR, NOAH GLAZER

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: TEDDY PHUTHANHDANH

SPARE PARTS, INC.

“NBC”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: STEPHEN SHERIDAN

OPERATOR: TAJ TEFFAHA

ASSISTANTS: BILL ROBINSON, LAURA GOLDBERG, NOAH GLAZER

TECHNOCRANE OPERATOR: BOGDAN IOFCIULESCU

MATRIX TECH: GILBERT ALVARADO

THINKFILM, INC.

“UNITED ASSOCIATION”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREW DRYER

ASSISTANT: AIDAN GRAY

CREW PHOTO

FROM LEFT, TOP: TYSON WISBROCK, B CAMERA OPERATOR, – ALISON HOFFMAN, DIGITAL UTILITY - DANIELLE EDDINGTON, 2ND AC B CAMERA

FROM LEFT, BOTTOM: MATTHEW MORIARTY SOC, A CAMERA OPERATOR/STEADICAMKYRIL CVETKOV, 1ST AC A CAMERA - JOHN SPELLMAN, DIT - ALLYSON RIGGS, UNIT STILL PHOTOGRAPHER - JEFF CUTTER, DP - PATRICK LAVALLEY, 2ND AC A CAMERA - JERRY TURNER, 1ST AC B CAMERA

PHOTO BY: ALLYSON RIGGS

“LITTLE WING”

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Movie about the father of the atomic bomb, played by Cillian Murphy

1 Movie about the father of the atomic bomb, played by Cillian Murphy

8 ___ chi (martial art)

11 GPS suggestion, abbr.

12 Brief genetic transcription, abbr.

13 They held the longest strike in Hollywood history during WW II

14 Italian car driven by Tom Cruise in Dead Reckoning Part One

15 Developer of the G and T series lenses at Panavision, ____ Sasaki

16 Disney's original creation

17 Voluntary federation of 60 national and international labor unions, goes with 47 across

20 Star with attitude

21 Stage name

23 Filming teams, for example

26 Original owner of the Haunted Mansion. Edward _____

29 Tina Fey's specialty

31 ___ Jane, starring Demi Moore

32 Walt Disney's creative engine

34 Santa's helper in many movies

35 Back-up

38 Anamorphic lenses used in Haunted Mansion

40 Highest degree

41 __ Bojangles song

42 Scientist who worked in the Manhattan project, Enrico ____

44 Boundary

45 Portrayed a character

47 See 17 across

48 Overtime, abbr.

49 Scientist who played a key role in the design of the "Fat Man" weapon dropped on Nagasaki, 2 words

PERCEPTIONS.

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