ICG Magazine - September 2021 - Regional Spotlight by ICG Magazine

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Contents REGIONAL SPOTLIGHT September 2021 / Vol. 92 No. 08

DEPARTMENTS gear guide ................ 18 depth of field ................ 26 one take ................ 30 exposure ................ 34 production credits ................ 90 stop motion .............. 100

SPECIAL Where Are They Now? ...... 82

FEATURE 01

CLUB PARADISE FOX’s reboot of Fantasy Island is filled with visual surprises, seamlessly transposed by the talented local crews of Puerto Rico. Photo by Laura Magruder

FEATURE 02 FORGET ME NOT How Paul Cameron, ASC, brings the past to vivid life in Lisa Joy’s romantic thriller, Reminiscence.

FEATURE 03 SAY MY NAME John Guleserian helps give Chi-town “the hook” in an updated retooling of the early90s horror classic, Candyman.

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First Things First Cineo Lighting was founded as a technology-forward lighting 1000+ watts of LED power – Cineo was first to develop large company. Innovation drives us to solve the challenges of a scale fixtures with advanced LED spectra: from the Quantum 4x4 fixture to the next generation of full-color Quantum II. complex and changing production environment. Multi-zone lighting – Cineo invented and patented multi-zone lighting technology with the LB800, designed to deliver 800-watts of kinetic lighting.

Our list of technical “Firsts” includes:

Remote Phosphor – Cineo pioneered remote phosphor technology and developed the industry’s first high-CRI, high output soft lights: the Cineo HS and Maverick series products. High-output LED hard lights – With Cineo’s ReFlex series, the challenges of building focusable, high-output hard lighting was solved by developing our patented immersion cooling technologies: another first.

Quantum II 4x4 Soft Light, 1,600 watts

LB800 2x4 Multi-zone Soft Light, 800 watts

ReFlex R15 24” Variable CCT Hard Light, 1,500 watts

president's letter

Home, Sweet Home Our Local has regional offices in four cities, but that hardly tells the whole story of the geographical diversity of this membership and the many places it works. The size of a city and the number of members there do not adequately reflect the depth of experience and talent that exists in the many regions, cities, towns, and rural locations – places where our members reside. I once met a member with an endless list of big-feature credits who lived in New Mexico – he said he had moved because he could no longer stand the traffic in the big city where he had lived. His solution? To bring all his skills and knowledge to a smaller but vital marketplace, like the Southwest. That conversation took place before the pandemic, which has only made people place a higher value on their time and where they live their lives. Our members choose where to live and work for many different reasons, and wherever they end up, they seamlessly blend expertise of local knowledge and locations, relying on their relationships with local colleagues to achieve success. Their work, which is highlighted in this month’s Regional Spotlight theme, is testimony to the strength of our members in the many regions our Local encompasses. John Lindley, ASC National President International Cinematographers Guild IATSE Local 600

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Publisher Teresa Muñoz Executive Editor David Geffner Art Director Wes Driver

STAFF WRITER Pauline Rogers

COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR

Tyler Bourdeau

COPY EDITORS

Peter Bonilla Maureen Kingsley

CONTRIBUTORS Matt Hurwitz Margot Lester Parrish Lewis Kevin H. Martin

ACCOUNTING Glenn Berger Dominique Ibarra

September 2021 vol. 92 no. 08

Local

600

International Cinematographers Guild

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

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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. ICG (ISSN 1527-6007) Ten issues published annually by The International Cinematographers Guild 7755 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, CA, 90046, U.S.A. Periodical postage paid at Los Angeles, California. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ICG 7755 Sunset Boulevard Hollywood, California 90046 Copyright 2021, by Local 600, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States and Canada. Entered as Periodical matter, September 30, 1930, at the Post Office at Los Angeles, California, under the act of March 3, 1879. Subscriptions: $88.00 of each International Cinematographers Guild member’s annual dues is allocated for an annual subscription to International Cinematographers Guild Magazine. Non-members may purchase an annual subscription for $48.00 (U.S.), $82.00 (Foreign and Canada) surface mail and $117.00 air mail per year. Single Copy: $4.95 The International Cinematographers Guild Magazine has been published monthly since 1929. International Cinematographers Guild Magazine is a registered trademark.

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wide angle

still have amazing memories of an assignment taken years ago for the IATSE Bulletin, to write a feature story on the union craft team from the 10-timeEmmy-winning ABC-TV series Lost, shot mainly on the island of Oahu. Watching that crew’s knowledge of working in Hawaii’s challenging conditions – waves, wind, jungle, mud, etc. – made clear their skills were a major key to that show’s long-running success; I never forgot how demonstratively appreciative Lost’s brain trust was to those IATSE members who (to this day) are the backbone of regional production. The feeling was mutual, as the benefits and protections Lost’s crew received – far removed from a major production center – were key to a lifestyle filled with “aloha” and “mahalo” they grew up with in their own hardworking “ohanas.” Those proud memories came roaring back with this month’s Regional Spotlight theme, highlighted by a cover story on the Atlantic Ocean’s version of those Hawaiian filmmakers I met years ago – the Puerto Rico-based crew from FOX’s reboot of Fantasy Island (page 38). Director of Photography Sonnel Velázquez, SPC, leads a Local 600 team of PR all-stars that includes A and B camera operators Raphy Molinary-Machado, SPC, and Ronin operator Eduardo Mariota (both DP’s in their own right); Key 1st AC Cesar Marrero; 2nd AC Marayda Cabrera; B-Camera 1st AC Juli Silver Taracido; B-camera 2nd AC Zoraida Luna (also a Ronin specialist) and Unit Still Photographer Laura Magruder. Add in Technocrane Operator Miguel Baerga, Dolly Grip Anibal Pabón, and Production Designer Mayna Magruder, and you have a production landscape that Fantasy Island Executive Producer Anne Clements describes as “one of the best places to shoot in the U.S.” Clements, the subject of this month’s Exposure conversation (page 34), says that while PR’s tax credits were an early draw, “if you don’t have great crews, it doesn’t matter about the tax incentives. Puerto Rico has the best film incentives in the United States and some of the best crews,” she insists. “We double-shot most of Season 2 of The Oath [shot all in PR] and not

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once had a continuity error or issue. That says a lot about the crew. They are very talented and skilled at their jobs.” Our second feature, on the Jordan Peele-produced Candyman (page 68), was shot by Chicago-native John Guleserian [ICG Magazine September 2020] – and nearly all of Candyman’s camera and grip team has roots in Chicago, many with credits from one of NBC’s three Chicago-set series [ICG Magazine August 2020]. B-Camera Operator Scott Thiele even recalls seeing the 1992 Candyman while in high school in Chicago, and then meeting industry friends later who had worked on it, while A-Camera/Steadicam operator Michael Fuchs, SOC, spent four years at Northwestern and calls shooting in the Cabrini-Green area (where the original was shot) “utterly cool and kind of eerie.” Speaking of cool, our September special (Where Are They Now? page 82) catches up with three ECA winners from 2016 – operators Karina Silva, Alejandro A. Wilkins, and Spencer “Hutch” Hutchins, SOC, whose careers are all soaring. (The 2021 ECA’s – October 3rd, 2 p.m. PST – are virtual and online through Filmocracy.) Madrid-born, L.A.-based Silva shot the Tribeca Film Festival feature No Man of God (coming soon to www.icgmagazine.com). Wilkins, now based in that boomtown of regional production, Atlanta, won another ECA award in 2019 – between the two honors he shot Ghost Fleet, which earned a News and Documentary Emmy nod for Outstanding Cinematography, and Find Your Moment, a branded film for Lexus that won a Young Directors Award for his ECA partner, Michael Medoway. Texas-born Hutchins, also based in Atlanta, operated and DP’d the REDTV/YouTube series Step Up: High Water and DP’d the feature Burning at Both Ends, starring Jason Patric, Cary Elwes, and Judd Hirsch. All the filmmakers in this regionally-focused issue have something in common: the desire to balance quality of work with quality of life. Velázquez, who has shot all over the world, says his native Puerto Rico (and the crews working there) are what make his equation work. Hutchins, who moved to Georgia (from L.A.) to be closer to family, hosts a podcast, “Protecting the Frame,” that addresses the challenges inherent in a competitive, super-mobile industry. One of the points he’s quick to highlight goes directly to why regional production is such a valued commodity to Local 600 members and the film/TV industry: “Always keep asking yourself,” Hutchins tells camera professionals, “‘Am I currently chasing what it is I want?’ Let that [one] question guide you.”

CONTRIBUTORS

Matt Hurwitz Forget Me Not It was fascinating to learn all the steps it took for Paul Cameron, ASC, and his Guild camera team to produce the remarkable practical “Reminiscence Machine” projection system for Lisa Joy’s noir romantic thriller, Reminiscence. Not an easy task, but the results delivered were brilliant.”

Parrish Lewis Say My Name, Stop Motion “I’ve been a photographer in Chicago for over 20 years and with Local 600 as a unit still photographer for eight. I’ve loved seeing Chicago grow its entertainment credentials with shows like Showtime’s The Chi, the Dick Wolf franchise – Chicago P.D., Med and Fire – and movies like Candyman, which I had the privilege to work on. I’m looking forward to being part of this great community as more opportunities for photographers and union crewmembers flow into Chicago.”

ICG MAGAZINE

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David Geffner Executive Editor

Email: david@icgmagazine.com

Cover photo by Laura Magruder

CINE GEAR EXPO 2 0 2 1

LA EVENT

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GO AHEAD - EXPERIENCE IT ALL LIVE EVENTS | ON AIR EVENTS | VIRTUAL MARKETPLACE | FILM COMPETITION | MASTER CLASSES

GEAR GUIDE

09.2021

Zacuto Universal Cage SYSTEM STARTS AT $399 WWW.ZACUTO.COM

“I am regularly in situations where I have to work with different cameras, especially with equipment that has a small footprint,” explains photographer Haze Kware. “Being able to use one universal cage for all of them is a luxury. Zacuto made this possible.” Zacuto’s Universal Cage for DSLR and DSLM cameras will outlast the cameras themselves. The cage is height-adjustable to accommodate various sized cameras. It follows the format of all their other cages with a comfortable hand strap on the right side, so operators can use the natural camera grip on the DSLR and DSLM cameras. It is lightweight and packs a ton of features – ARCA Swiss compatible with built-in quick-release plate, top Z-Rail (NATO rail), numerous ¼-in. 20 threads, and a ⅜-in. 16 Baseplate, an ACT mounting plate, and a Marauder Mini. This allows users to move quickly from handheld to shoulder mount to tripod shooting. In addition, the cage is made from professional-grade materials with a lifetime guarantee.

ZEISS Supreme Primes $20,625 WWW.ZEISS.COM

ZEISS introduces a new family of high-speed lenses for high-end film production. The new Supreme Prime family consists of 13 lenses with fixed focal lengths between 15 and 200 mm, the majority with a maximum aperture of T1.5. It is designed for large-format cameras such as the Sony VENICE, ARRI ALEXA LF, and RED Monstro. Weighing an average of 3.5 lb. (1600 g), these lenses are significantly lighter and smaller than comparable lenses on the market. The ZEISS eXtended Data metadata technology provides frame-by-frame data on lens vignetting and distortion in addition to the standard lens metadata to help speed-up workflows. “We wanted Plan B to have a real clean, modern look to it, but then also feel fun and colorful,” says Local 600 Director of Photography Sandra Valde-Hansen. “In the digital age, cinematographers are always trying ways to make images more filmic, and these lenses do that. Using the Sony VENICE, large format, to make intimacy believable and put you inside the movie, the ZEISS Supreme Primes helped to create a naturalistic look and allowed us to keep that naturalism throughout the film.”

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Add Flare to Your Filmmaking

ZEISS Supreme Prime Radiance Lenses ZEISS has added four new lenses to the ZEISS Supreme Prime Radiance family. The 18mm and 135mm focal lengths add telephoto and wide-angle specialties and the new 40mm and 65mm lenses enhance the standard range. The ZEISS Supreme Prime Radiance family now covers all possible applications for high-end film production. With a maximum aperture of T1.5, controlled flare characteristics can be achieved, even in low light conditions.

For more information: www.zeiss.com/cine/radiance RE GION AL S P OT LIGH T

GEAR GUIDE

09.2021

FilmGear RGB Maxibrute $3,800 TO $10,800 WWW.FILMGEARUSA.COM

“The RGB Maxibrute is a huge leap forward in the versatility and configurability of conventional PAR 64 floodlights,” explains Simon Yeung, the lead designer of the FilmGear Max Series. “We wanted the punch of a Brute light without compromising color or convenience. These LED’s provide all of the intensity without making sacrifices.” RGB Maxibrute features 4-in-1 RGBW LED chips that output full-spectrum white light (2700K-10,000K) as well as fullspectrum RGB, with CRI and TLCI both over 95. The fixture comes in options of four, six, nine or 12 LED lamp heads. CCT mode controls color temperature; HSI mode covers hue, saturation, and intensity of color space; and GEL mode replicates any Lee or Rosco color gel. The full range of intensity of each unit can be precisely controlled through the five preset dimming curves via the intuitive onboard menu. The LED lamp heads come with 23-degree lenses for a narrow beam, with additional options for diffusers that widen the angle to 32 degrees/44 degrees for a softer look. The RGB Maxibrute is a simple solution for lighting large areas in any color with intensity, accuracy and precision.

DI4D Head-Mount Camera $27,950 WWW.DI4D.COM

DI4D’s HMC is optimized for 4D facial-performance capture. It is a high-end solution for facial performance capture that enables realistic, high-fidelity facial animation. The wireless HMC system can be used to acquire facial performance in tandem with full-body motion capture, capturing multiple actors simultaneously. It is fitted with a stereo pair of high-quality 4P cameras and a fine-focus adjustment mechanism. The onboard LED lighting panel ensures that illumination is even across the actor’s face. Synchronizing the light to the camera reduces the apparent brightness for the actor while still allowing capture with an aperture of F2.5 for better depth of focus, short exposure to minimize motion blur, and low gain to reduce image noise. Continuous wireless synchronization ensures that multiple HMC’s remain synchronized to the master timecode at up to 60 fps. REALTIME director Ian Jones recently used the DI4D and said it “integrated seamlessly with motion capture, audio and video tracking. We were able to capture the facial performance of actors, leaving them free to naturally and accurately perform their characters’ dialogue and motion.”

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GEAR GUIDE

K5600’s Joker 300 LED Zoom 300 LED KIT $4,190 ZOOM BAB $879 WWW.K5600.COM

The Joker 300 LED zoom combines LED technology with K5600’s Bug-A-Beam Adapter (Jo-Leko). This self-contained accessory attaches directly to the Joker 300, creating a 20- to 40-degree focal spot with variable color temperature from 2700K to 6500K. Chief Lighting Technician John Ferguson notes that “for many of the shows I work on, I need to bounce light or have the ability to cut and shape the light from a distance. My Jokers always fit a need. But, for The Black Phone, I wanted something smaller. We had many dark scenes in a basement that I needed to bring up the brick wall without it being obvious. By doing a slit along the wall with the Joker 300 and zoom, it looked so natural, you didn’t even realize it was there. I was also impressed with how easy it was to match with our HMI’s. And unlike HMI’s, there is no hot restrike. Plus, you can dim the light down to .2 without any flicker. I’ve used the fixture on two shows since, inside and out, and it’s tolerated our humid weather better than any of the other LED products I’ve tried.”

CORTEX v5.4 DIT+ $95 A MONTH, $795 A YEAR DAILIES $6,995 PERMANENT LICENSE ENTERPRISE $14,995 PERMANENT LICENSE WWW.MTIFILM.COM

CORTEX from MTI Film is a family of products for managing camera media from the set to the screen. It streamlines workflows while ensuring that critical, creative decisions made during production are preserved. The DIT+ version is used on set for playback, look application, syncing picture to sound, managing metadata, and other functions. CORTEX Dailies and Enterprise Editions are robust postproduction software applications for dailies processing, deliverables packaging, quality control, and many other critical functions. The just-released CORTEX v5.4 includes enhancements tailored to evolving post-production workflows and media formats. Among its new features for DCP packaging is the ability to decode and render both Interop and SMPTE DCP formats. It can also play back, assemble and render multiple video and audio tracks, encrypted or unencrypted. Dolby Vision mastering has been enhanced with Level 8 metadata display, with support for Dolby Digital also added. CORTEX v5.4 can facilitate pass-through of ARRI QuickTime camera data (including focus, iris, zoom, position, and attitude) when rendering ProRes files. It also offers expanded support for DNG files – Adobe’s raw format – used in drones, smartphones and other camera systems.

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OUTSTANDING OPTICAL PERFORMANCE

LEITZ ZOOM

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GEAR GUIDE

Tiffen Warm Diffusion Filters 4×5.65 IN - $450 EACH WWW.TIFFEN.COM

Francis Kenny, ASC, one of the first to use Tiffen’s new Warm Diffusion filters, observes that “they all had a romantic feeling without losing clarity – giving practicals and specular highlights a slight halation. On faces, they smoothed out complexions and enhanced mid-tones while maintaining rich blacks. And they all looked spectacular from T2 to T4.” Tiffen’s new filter family is poised to give an appropriate “look” to today’s imagery while keeping creative control in the hands of the cinematographer. Each of the series offers the benefits of Tiffen’s diffusion while adding a warm overtone. Ideal for dark complexions, they create a soft, warm glow and smooth out fine details in the skin while maintaining definition – yet each has its own visual personality. The Antique Satin reduces hot spots without darkening shadows or creating a muddy look. Antique Pearlescent creates a pleasing desaturation of colors useful for period pieces or the look of summer glow. Antique Black Pearlescent reduces contrast and enhances dark complexions. Tiffen’s Warm Diffusion filters come in all standard sizes with a choice of seven densities.

Lowell Blender XL LED $379 WWW.TIFFEN.COM

“It’s a versatile tool,” relates Steven Poster, ASC. “I can use it as my go-to light on small productions because it throws much more light than what you’d expect from something this small. On a large production, I’d call it my ‘back-pocket light’ because you can add a little kick at just the right color temperature.” The new Blender XL is a compact bi-color light with plenty of punch for any location. Its independent daylight and tungsten LED channels produce a tunable narrow flood beam that can output 3796 lux/656 foot-candles at three feet. Compact enough to fit in your hand, its durable housing uses an array of surface-mount LED’s with 45-degree individual optical lenses to produce 98 CRI/99 TLCI output. On the back, dual rotary knobs let users control cool white (6000K) and warm white (3000K) channels to independently blend desired color temperature. For softer lighting with more spread, the drop-in diffuser slips in for shadow-free illumination. Blender XL comes with a ⅝-in. receiver to fit standard set hardware, a tilting stand mount and accessory slot with locking knobs, plus a multi-voltage AC/DC power supply and D-tap solutions.

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DEPTH OF FIELD

Franz Wieser Grant Program BY PAULINE ROGERS PHOTOS COURTESY OF ARRI INC.

Franz Wieser was more than an important figure behind ARRI’s products and involvement within the entertainment community. He was always there to answer any question that a student, filmmaker, or even another vendor could pose. He loved the industry and all the people in it. So, it’s only fitting that his legacy – and boundless enthusiasm – live on after his untimely passing. As Xenia Lappo, marketing development specialist for ARRI, observes: “Franz Wieser was a beloved colleague at ARRI, and his spirit and legacy continue through the Franz Wieser Grant, by helping the next generation of filmmakers access ARRI’s renowned products and educational resources. We learn something new from each project and are grateful that we have the opportunity to give back in this way.” Established in 2013 as the AMIRA Grant

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program, the renamed Franz Wieser Grant Program has, since its inception, supported 45 feature-length films, shorts, documentaries and music videos. Last year, in collaboration with ARRI Rental U.S. and Illumination Dynamics, ARRI enhanced the grant program, committing to provide the equivalent of up to $200,000 in equipment. Peter Crithary, vice president of marketing and market development, ARRI, Inc. notes that “we expanded the program in the United States to further concentrate our efforts on supporting talented filmmakers that were looking for that steppingstone needed to launch their careers and now by expanding the number of qualified categories.” Application is easy, and the process is open year-round. Projects are chosen by the grant committee and may be selected based on the details of the production proposal, script, visual

style, concept and more. Each qualified project receives support with a bespoke equipment package that may include the ARRI AMIRA, ALEXA Mini LF, Signature Prime lenses, Signature Zoom lenses, and ARRI LED lights, including L-Series, SkyPanel, and Orbiter. That’s a solid professional package that has given young filmmakers the support they need to help take their careers to the next level. Take the trajectory of one of the first grant recipients, Director Brenna Malloy. “When I was in film school at Chapman, our professors encouraged us to apply for this grant for our thesis project,” she explains. “We applied for our film Rocket and talked about what we’d done in the past and why it would make such a difference for us to be supported by ARRI.” With ARRI’s help, Malloy and team finished

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Rocket. The project was set in the world of 1950s dirt-track racing and tells the story of a woman who inherits her father’s legacy, pushing her onto a path of self-discovery. It was finished in 2016, went on to win a Student Academy Award and screened in more than 40 festivals in five countries. “ARRI supporting Rocket made a huge difference for us when we were making the film,” Malloy adds. “We used the AMIRA to shoot a majority of our racing sequences. Having access to a world-class camera allowed us to elevate our visual storytelling during action sequences, making it possible for us to capture dynamic shots that wouldn’t have been as impactful to this story had we used a pocket camera.” Since finishing Rocket, Malloy has continued to shoot independent projects that are making the festival circuit. She’s also directed several episodes of Chicago Fire and 9-1-1. More recently, filmmakers Rowena Koening and Tilda Del Toro (producers), Lucia Senesi (director), Lucia Rinaldi (DP), and Emmy nominees Kristine N. Haag (costumes) and Jody Vaclav (art director) and team submitted their project, Black Madonna. “We learned about the grant while talking to Xenia Lappo at ARRI when we reached out to see if ARRI would loan equipment,” Koening shares. “The application process was straightforward, and the ARRI team was helpful and supportive as we submitted our script. What was wonderful for us is that we could get not only camera but lighting equipment. “Black Madonna is a deeply personal film inspired by our director’s experience growing up Catholic in Italy but told from a Black female lead’s perspective,” Koening continues. “The film explores the line between madness and spiritual ecstasy, with a deep reverence for the feminine embodiment

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of the divine through the lens of the director’s uncompromising vision. Every key department of the production was led by women above and below the line.” Thanks to ARRI’s backing, Black Madonna is in the final stages of post. And Koening says the team is hoping to secure one of the seven spots at Venice Critics’ Week, which is a section of the Venice International Film Festival dedicated to emerging Italian directors. “The Franz Wieser Grant has helped to further refine my creative vision, allowing me to work with a 15-member creative team, almost all women,” she adds. “This opportunity for creative and professional growth would not have been possible without ARRI’s generous grant.” The program’s expansion into a wider area of creativity was perfect timing for still photographer Stan Evans. “The film industry is a bit of a hard space to enter as a minority,” Evans shares. “The equipment is expensive, and opportunities are rare. So, applying for the grant was two-fold. I could bring awareness to the grant, as many Black youths aren’t even aware these programs exist. And I could create dynamic imagery featuring motorcycles with cutting-edge equipment.” ARRI supplied Evans with S60 SkyPanels, the Orbiter, and multiple modifiers and grip. Evans plans to use the completed project as an interview for Kortel Autry, Will Smith’s motorcycle stuntman in Gemini Man and Bad Boys. It will also be seen in several magazines and as a promotion for his nonprofit, Bikes Over Bang’n. “The grant gives me hope,” Evans adds. “For all the sadness and despair 2020 brought, [this shows] there’s still a lot of love out there.” And the program is just getting started. This year alone, there have been more than 30 applications, which the committee gets together

every month to review. As of August 2021, five projects have moved forward, and The Franz Wieser Grant has committed to supporting five more between August and December. “ARRI’s commitment to supporting filmmakers and fostering the next generation of talent has extended beyond the United States with ARRI’s International Support Program,” adds Mandy Rahn, senior manager international programs. “Projects have gone on to prestigious film festivals worldwide, including Cannes, TIFF, and SXSW. We are deeply invested in the success of our grantees, and that’s why each project gets different packages, as no two films are the same. Our support extends beyond equipment, supporting our grantees with publicity, facilitating screenings, or anything else we can help with.” Stephan Ukas-Bradley, vice president, strategic business development and technical marketing at ARRI, started working for the company around the same time as Wieser, in 1994, who was based at the company’s New York headquarters. Ukas-Bradley was at ARRI’s “small outpost in Los Angeles,” and as he recounts. “Franz was more than just a colleague to me and so many other people in our industry. He always had a smile on his face, always took the time when there was a question or a concern, always had an uplifting comment or encouraging word. Franz and I shared a passion for the same Munich soccer team and had lengthy discussions during the season. He was also an avid outdoorsman, an excellent skier, a mentor and friend, who left this world way too early. It’s quite appropriate to name this grant program after Franz Wieser, whose passion was to give a hand to aspiring filmmakers starting out in the business.” Franz Wieser Grant Program

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Station 19 BY PAULINE ROGERS // PHOTOS BY RAYMOND LIU

“Oners,” i.e., extended camera moves that eschew resetting for coverage in any given scene, are a mixed blessing for everyone on set. For the operator, they can provide the thrill of a lifetime, literally becoming another cast member as they weave the emotional threads of the story – allowing performers to give full rein to their acting gifts. For focus pullers, oners can be the challenge of a lifetime, maintaining critical focus from so many mixed distances and (often) a multitude of characters at different heights, lighting ratios and actions. For the director of photography (and his or her chief lighting technician), oners are both challenge

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and thrill, as they bring the crafts of camera, lighting and set design into play in a single shot. Our newfor-2021 department, One Take, will focus on this most elaborate of visual journeys, profiling different oners from all walks of production. “Steadicam oners that work are always dependent on collaborators who trust and rely on each others’ career experiences,” explains operator Taj Teffaha. “In my 20 years of Steadicam, combined with the lighting artistry of Christian Sebaldt, ASC, and the directing vision of Peter Paige, one could say that this inevitably would lead to a dramatic scene.” The oner in question is from Episode 413

of Station 19, and, unique for one-take scenes, it wasn’t filled with characters moving in and out of rooms, or lots of action beats – the show centered on a quiet, intimate moment when Dr. Carina DeLuca (Stefania Spampinato) and Maya Bishop (Danielle Savre) reevaluated their relationship. It could have (and normally would have) been executed in conventional coverage. But, when director Peter Paige read the script, he was struck not only by the length of the seven-page scene but also by the architecture of the moment. “Writer Kiley Donovan had given these characters an extraordinary ride, from joyful to curious to uncomfortable to hurt to defensive to angry to devastated – all within one

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scene, one conversation,” Paige relates. “Shooting the scene in digestible bits,” he adds, “would short-change the actors and the emotions they needed to reach. So I came up with the idea of shooting it like a play – one scene, done from top to bottom each time, where we would shift the camera positions for each take. This would allow the actors to move toward and away from each other and the camera, a perfect visual metaphor for the shifting dynamics in their relationship.” Although network television schedules are notoriously tight, Paige was confident a oner would be more economical than traditional coverage. “I knew it was a big ask,” he continues, “so I brought Christian Sebaldt in on Day One of prep. He loves a challenge and took to it right away.” Paige and Sebaldt convinced Production it wouldn’t change the look of the series and that the camera crew would continue its cohesive style. Sebaldt and Chief Lighting Technician Sean Tanner then examined the apartment set, lighting

it for 360 degrees without any equipment in the frame. “[Stefania and Danielle] pulled off seven emotional and dramatic pages in a single shot that were all perfect,” Sebaldt marvels. The challenges were numerous. Tanner rigged the top of the set walls with 4-by-4 and 4-by-2 Kino Flo housings with Sourcemaker Bicolor LED tubes. “The tubes are great because they can be plugged in on both sides with two dimmer channels, total, to allow cross-fading between daylight and tungsten in the same tube,” he explains. “The face of the housing was fitted with custom bleached muslin and light grid frames made from window screen framing and attached with Velcro to the housings.” That meant the frames could be easily switched to allow for harder or softer light, depending on the quality of the light needed for the angle. Key Grip Steve Robertson made foamcore snoots with baffles to keep the lights more contained and off the walls. The windows had 10Ks

outside for sunlight that had not only to be hidden from the camera (with the help of a greensperson) but also to create sun splashes in the background for separation and for added bounce when the actors were in corners of the room that were hard to get directional light to. “The hallway had ARRILITE 1Ks with XS Chimeras and 60-degree honeycombs to allow for very controlled face light and backlight without spilling on the walls too much. Astera Titan and Helios tubes were hidden in the closets and doorways to give a little extra light to the actors when they had action there,” Tanner adds. Teffaha and AC Jason Kinney watched the rehearsals to understand the basics of the sequence. They walked the entire set to plan out the move, knowing adjustments would still happen on the fly. “I started by watching the rehearsal and making notes of where the actors are when they deliver certain lines,” Kinney recalls. “That tells me when we leave one actor and find the other if

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ONE TAKE

“Shooting the scene in digestible bits would short-change the emotions the actors needed to reach...[so we] shot it like a play – one scene, done from top to bottom...” D I R ECTO R P E T E R PA I G E

there is a big focus throw or the actors are close together. “Because I can only see which actor the camera is seeing, it is important to know the geography of the scene and how it is related to the dialogue,” Kinney continues. “I also make sure I have Comteks from Sound, so I can hear the dialogue and how each actor delivers their lines. Taj is great at knowing the dialogue, and when to go to the other actors; so that makes it easy. The only note I would give to an actor is when we end on their backs, they might want to give us a profile look back, and I would rack focus to their face for emphasis. On the push-ins, I use the Light Ranger 2 from Preston. It helps with focus, especially on the Steadicam.” Teffaha says walking the set during prep

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helped to “create small spaces within the set pieces, without changing the set design. This was needed to make room for me to fit when I was wearing the rig. We were also filming in every direction, so working with Sound Mixer Sarah Glaser and Boom Operator Douglas Shamburger, Key Grip Steve Robertson, and Sean Tanner to minimize any kind of shadowing was also crucial to getting the shot done in one take.” The Guild team also had to consider how to accommodate where the actors had to work within the space. “Things like delaying a cross until I could get to the other side for eyeline purposes,” Teffaha adds. “And we had to make sure our timing was accurate when the other operators [April Kelley, SOC, and Andy Steinman] would have to hide behind a wall until I framed the set out. Between

takes, Jason and I would talk about what we saw and make slight camera changes. Christian would relay any framing adjustments.” Sebaldt says one of the joys of being invited to a big Shondaland series is the crew. “They are all so talented and experienced, anything can be achieved with solid planning and the producers’ support – and you certainly get that on this kind of show.” Concludes Paige: “It’s easy in long-running TV to settle for what’s usually done. Everyone is stressed and under pressure – both in terms of time and budget. But by pushing yourself, your cast, your crew, the whole team, you get everyone excited and fully engaged – and that’s how you get everyone’s best work.” …in one challenging take.

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EXPOSURE

Anne Clements EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FANTASY ISLAND BY PAULINE ROGERS // PHOTO BY LAURA MAGRUDER

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EXPOSURE

Despite having no connection to or knowledge of the entertainment industry, Anne Clements knew as a youngster that is where her path would lead. The small town outside of Boston in which she grew up did offer a local Holbrook public access channel, and Clements was able to learn about a TV control room and technical directing there – so she started to search for grants and loans to follow her dream. At 16, she directed a music video (with equipment from the public access channel) that aired on Disney Channel’s The All New Mickey Mouse Club.

Emerson College was still shooting and editing on film, so in film school Clements trained on a flatbed editing table, an experience she says, “taught you to analyze each moment in a scene and question what was important before you took out the grease pencil and spliced it up.” Clements spent the second half of her senior year in L.A. interning for Scott Rudin, MTV Films, and Geffen Records. Years later, she’s become an award-winning independent film and television producer, a member of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her first feature, Quinceañera, won a slew of indie festival awards, including both the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at Sundance (2006), and was released by Sony Pictures Classics. Clements’ résumé includes such critically acclaimed works as Pedro (for MTV, MTV Tr3s, LOGO, and MTVU); Shelter (Regent Releasing); Miles, a romantic comedy with Molly Shannon, Paul Reiser, and Missi Pyle; Stage Mother with Lucy Liu, Jacki Weaver, and Adrian Grenier and the actioncomedy Chick Fight with Alec Baldwin and Malin Akerman and Paper Spiders starring Lili Taylor. She also produced the Daytime Emmy Award-winning series mI promise, Cleaners and The Oath for Sony Crackle, and StartUp for Amazon/Sony Crackle, as well as the upcoming BMF for Lionsgate/Starz. Her most recent feature, Mayim Bialik’s directorial debut As Sick As They Made Us, starring Candice Bergen and Dustin Hoffman, is in post. The driving force for Hollywood production in Puerto Rico, Clements talked to ICG Magazine about her role as executive producer on Fantasy Island. How did studying at Emerson set your trajectory? Anne Clements: One of the reasons I chose Emerson was that the brochure said it was a gay-friendly college. Since I was eight years old, I have known that I was gay, but growing up in Massachusetts back then, the world was not as

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gay-friendly as it is now. I’m very thankful for the professional contacts I made at Emerson, where I also met my future wife, Elisabeth Nickels, although we did not get together until 2015. On the work side, the Emerson internships in Los Angeles lead to professional contacts and a solid education. Where did those internships lead you? Scott Rudin’s office recommended me for an assistant job for another producer, where I met another Emersonian, Jason Miller, who connected me with producer Barry Mendel. He was getting ready to head out to Philadelphia to shoot The Sixth Sense and needed an on-set assistant. A printed copy of the script was delivered to my Hollywood apartment. I read it in one sitting, and my mind was blown. Watching M. Night, Barry, Frank Marshall and all the talented cast and crew and how they made this movie come together was one of the best film schools. How did your next job change your path? It was assistant art coordinator on Gone in 60 Seconds, which led to set decoration coordinating on the first Spider-Man and then Red Dragon and Christmas with the Kranks. Set decoration coordinating was new and wasn’t yet union. Academy Award-winning Set Decorator Karen O’Hara took a chance – I had little experience on these very large movies – and I’m so grateful she did. I was tracking budgets, reporting to the studio, working with other departments and getting to learn more about their jobs. Looking back, it was the perfect job to lay the groundwork for producing. What is the often-rocky road of independent production like? As a producer, you are developing, raising money, sometimes pre-sales are involved, tax credits, et cetera. And, if you do not raise as much as you had hoped, one of the first lines that gets chopped is your fee! You also do not get paid until the movie is financed, which can take years.

At some point, you must decide – either make the movie [with what you have] or wait and hope to raise more. And you must wear a lot of hats – this is how I learned post-production. We couldn’t afford a post supervisor on Quinceañera, so I had to learn as I went. I’m still doing post on a lot of my projects. On Miles, we had an investor pull out last minute. But we still had to pay the crew and finish. The crew can’t suffer because of this, so another producer and I split funding of the payroll. Thankfully, I was already working in TV then and could afford to invest in myself. As I always say, “TV pays for my independent film habit.” That’s a tough way to make a living – investors withdrawing at the last moment. Everything is that way. You need actors to make movies and get your MG’s or pre-sales or private investors interested. You secure the actors, finally, but now anything can change: the market could change, the actor could have something controversial come out or get offered something bigger and need to drop out, a financier who committed had their last movie bomb and is now gun shy, a state lowers their tax incentive, or something happens that was never mentioned in school – a pandemic. Until you are on set and hear “Action!” you never know if an indie movie is going to come together. It’s a lot of moving pieces. And because of that, you’d better hope you love the story and the people you are working with. Quinceañera was a huge success. What was the process like? I met Wash Westmoreland at World of Wonder. He and his partner Richard Glatzer called me one morning and said they had an idea for a scripted movie as they just went to their neighbor’s quinceañera. They had some investors interested and asked if I would meet with them. We got $500,000 committed – and then Richard and Wash had to go write the movie. Casting happened fast, and we shot around Echo Park. It was a special experience. You felt it. However, we had no idea

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what life the movie would have. Sundance was not something we thought was possible, and then we got in. It was interesting because we were one of 12 movies in Competition, but our film had no stars; so, no one at any event or party knew or cared who we were. And no one could even pronounce the name of the movie! Then we went to the awards show on the last night and were caught completely off guard when the film won both the Audience and Jury Awards. (Both the feature documentary and scripted feature won double awards that year, making Sundance history). So, you have about three hours at the after-party where everyone wants to talk to you, and the next morning you fly out. It was, truly, a surreal experience. Then we went to Berlinale, won the Humanitas Prize, the IFP Spirit Awards, and got to go to the Alma Awards where Prince performed “Quinceañera” – it was a great ride. You have become a proponent of shooting in Puerto Rico. How did that come about? I first came to Puerto Rico through my old producing partner Chris Panizzon. He had taken a trip to PR and met with the film office and producer Frances Lausell. He called me and said we had to shoot in

PR. It didn’t add up as we couldn’t even find crew and equipment on the mainland at other tax-incentive states. Around the same time, I was sent a script called Pedro, based on the life of Pedro Zamora, who was on The Real World: San Francisco and later passed away from AIDS. It was a beautiful script but set in Miami, Cuba, San Francisco, and New York over 20 years, with a low budget. I sent it to Chris, and he said yes, we could shoot everything in Puerto Rico except the Golden Gate Bridge. The movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to screen at the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival. President Bill Clinton introduced it when it aired simultaneously on MTV, MTV Tr3s, LOGO, and MTVU. That was my first movie in PR. What’s the continuing draw? Tax credits, local union talent and creatives. If you don’t have great crews, it doesn’t matter about the tax incentives. Puerto Rico has the best film incentives in the United States and some of the best crews. TV shooting schedules have changed. We have such an intense schedule on Fantasy Island and are double-shooting four episodes. Yet Sony has been very good about sticking to 12-hour days even before COVID. We

double-shot most of season 2 of The Oath and not once had a continuity error or issue. That says a lot about the crew. They are very talented and skilled at their jobs. How important is diversity in your projects? Without consciously doing it, most of my movies and shows have been very diverse. The crews are often made up of women, minorities, and LBGTQ. Fantasy Island has all local department heads. Everyone is local: DP, PD, key grip, gaffer, special effects, stunts, sound, make-up, local and extra casting, locations, transportation, et cetera. And, of course, the Local 600 camera crew. [Smiles.] We have five editors, three local to PR: Raul Marchand Sánchez, Pedro Muniz, and Waldemar Centeno. Out of our large crew, we flew in only four non-residents. We are also doing all the post-production for the series in PR – conform, color, sound, VFX, and deliverables – at this amazing facility Reaktor Post in Condado, run by Frankie Cueto. The fact that we have two female showrunners, who created a very female take from a very successful format that was originally created by a man and had male leads also supports diversity. Having female EP’s has also helped with adding more women above and below the line.

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FEATURE 38

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club paradise FOX’S REBOOT OF FANTASY ISLAND IS FILLED WITH VISUAL SURPRISES, SEAMLESSLY TRANSPOSED BY THE TALENTED LOCAL CREWS OF PUERTO RICO. BY: PAULINE ROGERS // PHOTOS BY: LAURA MAGRUDER

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Elena Roarke (Roselyn Sanchez) may have inherited the mysterious and beautiful island from the elusive Mr. Roarke. But from the beginning of this all-new version of the classic show, Fantasy Island, it is clear – this Roarke is making it her own. Charming, sophisticated, and insightful, Elena and her team – Ruby Akuda (Kiara Barnes) and Javier (John Gabriel Rodriquez) – delve into the “what if” questions each week, as guests arrive with dreams and desires and depart transformed in a weekly TV series filled with magical realism.

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hot entirely on location in Puerto Rico, this Fa n t a s y Island has one strong compass, as E x e c u t i ve Producers/ Writers Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain explain. “We want to make the show contemporary and meaningful as we come out of this global pandemic,” they share. “Thematically, it’s about rebirth and transformation, which we’re all experiencing. We also felt it was important to have a strong female point of view, which led us to Elena Roarke. “In every episode,” the women continue, “we take a simple, visceral human need and turn it into an emotionally compelling story that subverts expectations. Through the island’s magic and Roarke’s tough-love approach, every guest leaves transformed.”

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That visual and narrative transformation is what drew director Adam Kane (Prodigal Son, American Gods) to the project. Kane, who has an MFA in cinematography from AFI and won Best Cinematography twoyears running while at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, says he was “enchanted by the experiential contrast of having bucket-list wish-fulfillment in an island paradise while simultaneously being confronted with dark forces from the past that are frightening in nature,” Kane describes. “It’s an opportunity to throw characters down the rabbit hole into a subversive Twilight Zone-type experience.” Kane envisioned two distinct visual textures for the series: one is the grandeur of an island paradise, “characterized by widescreen compositions showing the relationship of characters against the overwhelming majesty of the beaches, rainforests and ocean landscapes,” he adds. “And then the darker, subversive texture,

which takes the audience along with the characters on a ride into their psyches as they confront their demons. That’s characterized by wide lenses close to the characters and long takes to stay within their POV.” The director says he initially thought of shooting with 65mm lenses for the experiential look and 35mm lenses for the wish-fulfillment parts, but the budget was limited. He also saw the show in widescreen and wanted to shoot 2.2:1 to get the perspective closer to the field of view of how people see the world. “But that would be a tough sell,” he admits. Director of Photography S onnel Velázquez, SPC, met with Kane to find a style that would complement the story and satisfy producers Gemstone Studios/Sony Pictures Entertainment and the show’s broadcast partner, FOX Television. “Because Adam is also a cinematographer, we speak the same language,” Velazquez says. “When he

proposed the 2:1 Univisium format [created by Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC, and his son, Fabrizio, in the late 1990s], I embraced it, as it gives the series a more cinematic look than if we had shot in 16-by-9. I have to thank him and the studio for allowing us the opportunity to use the format.” The full-frame 6K Sony VENICE was picked for two specific reasons: its dual native ISO 500 and 2500 and the Rialto attachment. “The dual native ISO was fantastic because we were going to shoot a lot at night,” Velázquez continues. “Having used the VENICE in commercials gave me the confidence that all the night footage was going to look great. The Rialto allows you to find angles in tight spaces where you cannot fit the camera. It is a great tool to expand the DP’s creativity. Footage originated in the 3.8K per studio requirements, so I went with a complete set of Cooke S4’s and three Angénieux Optimo Zooms [15-40 mm, 45-120 mm, 24-290 mm], knowing that large format

was not the studio choice.” Given the wealth of union camera talent in PR, Velázquez says choosing a crew was easy. He’d worked with both A and B camera operators – Raphy Molinary-Machado, SPC, and B-camera/Ronin Eduardo Mariota (both DP’s in their own right) on commercials and his latest feature. For focus pullers, he called on Cesar Marrero as Key 1st with Marayda Cabrera as his second, and B-camera 1st AC Juli Silver Taracido and B-Camera 2nd AC Zoraida Luna, who is also a Ronin specialist. Velázquez also looked for ways to make the show more visually interesting than the original. He wanted to design dynamic shots viewers could relate to. “We tried to achieve this by using dollies, Ronin and Technocranes [15 foot, 30 foot and 50 foot],” he shares. “We also decided to use the zoom lenses in very specific moments, and not as zooms but at fixed focal lengths, to speed-up production when needed.”

From the moment Velázquez met with Production Designer Mayna Magruder, he realized much of her design revolved around lighting and color. “It’s one of the ways you bring the spectator into our fantasy world,” Magruder offers. “Color and movement and moods in lighting. I designed most sets within Elena Roarke’s island in favor of openness to nature, bringing the outside in, bringing in light and calm when needed in the story, and a surreal use of color and designs when in the fantasies themselves.” Magruder worked closely with Velázquez in choosing color shades and tweaking practical lights to create effects. In a scene from the pilot, Magruder designed a hut where small lights hung from the ceiling to feel like fireflies. “But all she could find were LEDs, which were white lights that did not have the right color,” Velázquez explains. “Instead, Sonnel did a test and spray-painted a string of fairy lights softly with orange paint

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so they would look like fireflies at night,” Magruder smiles. “Mayna had her team paint the rest of the lights, and the ambiance of the scene looked beautiful,” Velázquez adds. Asking creatives and crew members about their favorite sequences is like unleashing a genie’s lamp of visual fantasies. Craft and Fain cite the “food waltz” in the first episode, where a morning-show anchor, under pressure to look effortlessly perfect, wants to eat as much as she wants without gaining weight. Kane says it’s an example of using the camera to “fall down the rabbit hole with Christine (Bellamy Young) and her inner demons.” When the character returned to her trailerpark background, Kane opted for close-to-lens eyelines, “sometimes on the edge of the glass itself with wide lenses,” he recounts. “This kept us inside Christine’s POV. We also utilized longer takes where the camera started on her, then panned off to see her POV, and then kept the camera moving as we did in the trailer park. This gave a dream-like feeling as we dove deeper into the unsettling memories of her past.” The scene is also one of Velázquez’s favorites. “At one point, the character enters a rectangular space where there’s a lot of food on a long table to fulfill her fantasy,” he

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explains. “[SFX Supervisor] Rafy Pérez built the table that moved the plates along to reach Bellamy. It was a restaurant in the hotel that had mirrors along both walls. The challenge was to cover the scene in a way that we could hide the 15-foot Technocrane, a Fisher 11 dolly and the Ronin operator.” Using the Technocrane, Kane designed a shot where the camera was behind Bellamy “and we pushed in with the Techno as she was pulled into the giant cake,” he smiles. “I decided to go with the Innovision lens system over the Laowa probe lens because the Laowa has only one focal length.” To cap the scene off, the team went for a traditional cinematic trick. “When we bring her out from the past, she comes out of a bathtub filled with chocolate,” Velázquez describes. “Of course, we did not want to see Bellamy covered in chocolate on screen, so to achieve it, we shot it in reverse, and she comes out clean from the tub. That was Adam’s idea, and it worked out beautifully.” Another scene from the pilot episode features Mel and Ruby, an older married couple who want to relive their youth for a weekend because Ruby is dying of cancer. The couple drink “Magic Juice,” which gives a hallucinogenic feel to the scene. Velázquez

says he proposed using “the Squishy Lens that Clairmont Camera invented in the nineties, but it wasn’t available, so we opted for the Lensbaby Composer Pro, which gave the selective focus effect we needed.” For Molinary-Machado, the Lensbaby was tricky but effective. “It leaves no option for your focus puller,” he describes. “You’re holding the camera on your shoulder with one hand and splitting the fingers on your other hand between focus and the movement of the optic to achieve the effect.” First AC Marrero agrees it was challenging but fun. “With the lens in handheld mode, I played with the Lensbaby to achieve a shot that made sense for the scene while keeping relatively focused images,” he recalls. “This shot brought me back to the film days, when we pulled off a focus knob, or, like in this case, straight from the lens barrel.” Molinary-Machado recounts an SFX scene with Ruby and Mel under a waterfall from the same episode. “The scene employed 80plus pounds with a deep underwater camera housing, shooting half-and-half in the water. So that means half of the image under the water and the other half over the water and from behind the waterfall, where the actors get

in with old bodies and return back in younger bodies.” A previous production had a set that was a perfect fit, but the temperamental weather in Puerto Rico took care of that. So, Pérez and Set Construction Supervisor Fabiola Fortuño stepped in and made a waterfall out of a crane, a water tank, and an artificial pond. “Adam came up with the idea to cross the camera through the waterfall as one pair of actors got back in to swap out with the other pair,” Molinary explains. “Handheld underwater camera housing was not an option. So, I came up with the idea of putting the housing on a tracking-wheels device with 8-foot speed-rails track pipes that were underwater to pass the housing and myself through the heavy falling water and back with the actors.” The entire opening episode points to some of the benefits – and challenges – of shooting in PR, where sky, light and weather change quickly. One example is a scene with Ruby and Roarke at dusk, where a crane is used to track in over the water, in a period ot time, Velazquez describes as “magic minutes”...rather than magic hour. “Crews here know we have to work fast to be

able to complete those scenes scheduled for that time of day,” he explains. “But we have a lot of equipment in the rental houses, and there are a lot of great technicians that work hard and are very proud of the solutions they come up with to achieve such shots.” Molinary-Machado had several challenges for the sequence. “The first was to set the crane at shore close to the water line to reach Ruby, with her already in the water looking at the sunset as Roarke approaches the shore,” he recalls. “The camera moves from the sand, extending the arm in and over the water up to Ruby, ending on a profile close-up. Roarke calls her, and Ruby looks back and walks to Roarke, and they sit on a log as we retract and follow Ruby. “What was new and strange for us,” Molinary-Machado continues, “is that once the camera went over the water, the signals for video and focus head wheels malfunctioned! Focus puller Juli Silver Taracido’s monitor and controls went blind, head wheels had a delay, plus [Technocrane operator] Miguel Baerga and [Dolly Grip] Anibal Pabón received the head in the water without visible marks.” [Amazingly, the PR crew completed the shot in three takes.] Another challenge was the iconic arrival of the plane at Fantasy Island’s dock. “I knew of a

place in the hotel we were going to shoot that had a hut built at the beach,” Velázquez recounts. “The day we scouted that beach, I took a photo of a rainbow and a palm tree. To our luck, it was the only beach out of all that we scouted on which the plane could land, proving that we had come to the right place that was marked by the rainbow.” Operator Mariota adds that “the airplane floating dock was difficult because of the limited space when there are tripods, two camera operators, dolly grip, grip holding a bounce board, and sometimes three or four actors plus the airplane crew. During the coverages, we had to cheat the actors’ positions to the border of the dock, and we used sliders to reach the over-theshoulder shots, some of them finishing outside of the deck. “In front of the airplane, the dock had a bigger area, where it was easier to work until they asked for the Ronin handheld,” Mariota continues. “Then I had to be very careful with my moves because, with a simple error, I could finish falling in the water with the camera. I also had to be careful with the airplane’s wing because it was always positioned over the dock, and since I’m almost two meters high, working with the Stabil arm meant I could ram into the plane. On

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Director Kane says the series’ two different visual textures included a “dark subversive layer...which takes the audience into the characters’ psyches as they confront their demons.”

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one occasion, [Master Key Grip] Gilo Rosario had to rig another platform on the water so I could do a scary turn. But I did love being able to work with the Ronin 2 and the STABIL Arm on my Easyrig Vario 5 on this series. That combination was exactly what I needed for the sand, thanks to the counter movement created while walking.” Another interesting puzzle that the right talent and technology solved was from Episode 8, when Mel comes to visit Ruby after his death, and they transform again from young to old. The 360 move went around a platform that also moved 360 degrees for a VFX transition. The platform was rigged on a slope, making it challenging to walk up and down the incline while framing 360 close-ups with a 65mm. “To make the shot, we knew that moving the platform was not an option, so I asked the VFX crew if we could use some extra wood panels that they had close by,” remembers Mariota. “We created a path around the moving platform to help me have more stability while shooting, and with the Stabil Arm I was able to repo the height of the lens in the incline. After rehearsal, our director was extremely happy with the results.” While this new Fantasy Island takes full advantage of Puerto Rico’s versatile (and stunning) scenery, there was pressure to

give the interiors an added kick as well. One favorite was Roarke’s offices. Velázquez calls it “a beautiful space designed by Mayna [Magruder] that was challenging to shoot in because it was open in front of the beach with many glass windows that require a lot of wattage to achieve the soft light we wanted.” Chief Lighting Technician Manuel “Tyson” Cintron recalls having “three backgrounds that are the sky, sea, and white sand, and they compete with each other, but we had to have good information with a good view. We played it with two 18K Pars and two M90s. There were moments when it was direct, and we started with the diffusion of a full grid near the light and separated with the light grid. In the close-ups, we added one-quarter grid to always maintain the quality that this project deserves.” Velázquez recalls moments “where we followed the characters from the outside to inside the office, and I had to ride the exposure as we entered the space. Sometimes two to three stops of difference. There were beautiful dolly moves inside the office as well. And thanks to our great crew, we achieved all the shots and had fun doing them! For me, good vibes and creativity go hand in hand.” Keeping those good “island vibes” was essential to this new Fantasy Island’s success,

given two complete crews were often working tandem (12-hour days only) and fully masked in accordance with COVID-19 safety protocols. They achieved this “with cameras always in movement, whether on a slider, handheld, dolly or the Ronin,” adds Silver Taracido, “often with no hard marks because actors are moving, and we’re shooting wide open or close to it.” And, of course, let’s not forget every jungle, beach, water, river and mountain had its own unique complexities, most of which would baffle outsiders. “This crew was so awesome!” Kane enthuses. “They are filmmakers – passionate and invested in what they do. And as a director and visualist, I couldn’t have asked for more. Everyone was super committed and quick to improvise when Plan A didn’t work out. Nothing fazed them.” Velázquez says that’s the beauty of working on a small island in the Caribbean. “It’s easy to achieve shots with the right tools and easily accessible locations,” he concludes. “But when that formula changes, that’s when the crew and its creativity shine. I have worked all over the globe, and I believe this crew is special. We have been collaborating for many years, and I hope we will keep doing it for many more. Stay tuned for Season 2 of Fantasy Island; we promise more fun to come.”

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LOCAL 600 CREW Director of Photography Sonnel Velázquez, SPC A-Camera Operator Raphy Molinary A-Camera 1st AC César Marrero A-Camera 2nd AC Marayda Cabrera B-Camera Operator Eduardo Mariota Espéndez B-Camera 1st AC Juli Silver Taracido B-Camera 2nd AC Zoraida Luna C-Camera Operator Hexian Robles C-Camera 1st AC Brendaliz Negron C-Camera 2nd AC Thatiana Hérnandez Utility Andrés Vilá Still Photographer Laura Magruder Data Loader Nestor Cestero Techno Crane Tech Miguel Baerga

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IN DESCRIBING PR’S OFTEN CHALLENGING CONDITIONS, DP SONNEL VELÁZQUEZ, SPC, SAYS, “IT’S EASY TO ACHIEVE SHOTS WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS AND EASILY ACCESSIBLE LOCATIONS. BUT WHEN THAT FORMULA CHANGES, THAT’S WHEN THE CREW AND ITS CREATIVITY SHINE.” RE GION AL S P OT LIGH T

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forget me HOW PAUL CAMERON, ASC, BRINGS THE PAST TO VIVID LIFE IN LISA JOY’S ROMANTIC THRILLER, REMINISCENCE. BY: MATT HURWITZ PHOTOS BY: BEN ROTHSTEIN FRAMEGRABS COURTESY OF WARNER BROS.

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“You’re going to a place and time you’ve been before. All you have to do to reach it is to follow my voice.”

o says Hugh Jackman’s Nick Bannister, as he leads his subjects into a land of memory in Writer/Director Lisa Joy’s first feature film, Reminiscence. Joy, who, along with husband Jonathan Nolan is the co-creator of the Emmywinning HBO series Westworld [ICG Magazine October 2016], leads audiences on a compelling trip down memory lane, with imagery visualized via a complex projection process. Working again with Westworld partner Paul Cameron, ASC, Joy describes the film as “an analog futuristic romantic noir thriller.” Set in 2050, Reminiscence imagines a world in which global warming has caused sea levels to rise dangerously high, partially flooding cities like Miami, where most of the story takes place. Clients who visit Bannister’s office, set in an abandoned bank building, can submerge themselves in a tank. They’re connected to an apparatus known as a “Reminiscence Machine,” through which Bannister, helped

by his assistant, Watts (Thandiwe Newton), leads them on visits to favorite (or other) memories, all of which Bannister can see on a nearby circular screen. Joining Cameron was Joy’s West world production family, including Production Designer Howard Cummings, A- Camera/ Steadicam Operator Chris Haarhoff, SOC; B-Camera Operator Robert Campbell; and A-Camera 1st AC Joe Martinez. Cameron hired veteran L.A.-based Chief Lighting Technician Ian Kincaid, who worked with New Orleans-based Chief Lighting Technician Chip Carey and Los Angeles-based DIT Michael “Strawberry” Romano. As with Westworld, the intent was to shoot on film. But the low light levels required for the Reminiscence Machine scenes (more about that later) meant shooting digitally, as was done for Season-3 L.A. nightscapes for Westworld, shot on Sony VENICE. “I’ve done a couple of movies on the VENICE,” Cameron notes. “And when I couldn’t shoot film for this project, it was my first choice. I love the color space Sony has in their sensor. It’s

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“ It was a matter of just keeping things down in the mid-tones. That’s where we get a lot of the moodiness.” PICTURE SHOP DI COLORIST SHANE HARRIS

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very compelling for skin tones.” After testing, Cameron opted for Cooke 2× full-frame anamorphic lenses, of which he says: “Many anamorphic lenses make faces feel slightly rounder or longer, and these don’t. They have this timeless feel, with a beautiful fall-off.” There was another key lens – a Joy/ Cameron favorite – whose identity the team preferred to keep secret, describing it only as “a vintage lens from the 1950s.” The 38mm glass was used on key special shots within the memories. Exteriors were filmed in downtown NOLA (subbing for Miami), as well as at the defunct Six Flags amusement park, where Cummings created a water-filled set, courtesy of Special Effects’ construction of retaining walls and pond liners. To develop the visual style, Joy created a look-book of images: underwater, flooded urban landscapes; film noir; and Miami Art Deco. The city is divided into sections, with large dams (a Cummings idea) built to keep the seawater out of certain areas, i.e., Bannister’s office location. “I spoke with Howard about this being a city that is broken, but somewhat beautiful – mirroring the souls of these broken but still beautiful people who live there,” Joy shares. “Things that were once advanced, but then, because of shortages and a past war, are not working. Like the old cars you see in Cuba,” Cumming adds. Many exteriors, including that of Bannister’s office/bank, were shot on and around NOLA’s St. Charles and Gravier Streets. Others were filmed at the nearby abandoned Six Flags, for which Cummings built several streets’ worth of facades. SFX flooded those streets using pond liner and retaining walls, allowing for flat-bottomed boats to depict a life where water taxis were the transport of choice. As Haarhoff notes: “I had to grow to like spending a lot of time in waders.” For the watery location work, Romano designed and heavily utilized a custom,

lightweight grading box which allowed him to live-color up to four cameras on battery power. “Paul could pull up one or all four of those signals on his monitor, on a boat, or in the water,” the DIT shares. “Wherever Paul went, I went.” Joy says it was important that this grim beauty not look dystopian. “So often, when people explore science fiction, the lighting and tone of it feel austere,” she shares. “Futurism can feel like it has a lot of sharp edges – and I didn’t want sharp edges. This is a love story as well as a thriller.” Romano credits Cummings for building any desaturated feeling into settings, and not counting on simply creating that in post. “When you simply dial saturation out, it’s clearly desaturated,” the DIT adds. “But if you do that through production design, in front of the camera, clothing, wallpaper, you remove saturation selectively. You create a world with textures in human skin tones and vibrancy. If you pull it out with just a knob in color, you end up with monochromatic images.” Joy says the look needed to connect a universal feeling of nostalgia. “To do that,” she adds, “I wanted to imbue [the look] with colors that felt analog. I wanted everything warm and amber-hued, like a Miami sunset.” Warm perhaps, but daytime scenes needed to convey the unbearable heat of a world forever damaged by climate change, a world where most human activity takes place at night. “We referenced Body Heat – the overwhelming reality of humidity and intense heat,” Cameron recalls. Adds Fotokem colorist Dave Cole, who helped Cameron develop LUT’s for the film: “It’s beautiful, but very sweaty and hot where you don’t want to be out there in this blistering sun. A lot of the yellows were infused, all through the mid-to-top end, and slightly cooler in the bottom end. We want people to feel subliminally uncomfortable. The tropics gone slightly wrong.” Though traditional noir films are more expressionistic, with a more severe visual look to heighten the drama, Cameron says he and

Joy decided not to fully go down that path. “I could tell she wanted a contemporary film with a noir backbone,” Cameron shares. As Picture Shop DI colorist Shane Harris adds: “It was a matter of just keeping things down in the mid-tones. That’s where we get a lot of the moodiness. But not crushing the blacks or having highlights that are too hot. It just gives you a creamy image that’s not super stylized. It feels real, but moody-real.” At the heart of the unusual love story between Bannister and one of his clients, a lounge singer named Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), is the Reminiscence Machine –a metal tank in which clients lie in water, with a curved screen surface on which the participants’ memories are projected for Bannister to see. As Joy describes the film’s key visual element: “I wanted it projected practically on the stage, in such a way that Hugh could circle and interact with the imagery and see Rebecca dimensionalized. For a true hologram to exist, the person must believe that he or she can see it – and not just from one angle, but as a real three-dimensional form that you can orbit.” Cameron and Cummings talked about what such a machine would look like, with Cummings agreeing it should be round. “If you’re going to observe somebody in a room,” the designer says, “you’d want to be able to walk around them.” Green screen was ruled out, as it would prevent Jackman from interacting with the image. Joy’s original thought was the display having 10,000 individual hanging strands, each emanating pixels of light, making a 3D image that one could see through, but not quite realistically. “I was inspired by Gerhard Richter, who does these photorealistic portraits of people but then smears the brushwork,” she adds. “To me, that just felt like memory itself. The way we have somebody in our mind, but we can’t quite touch them again. The hand of time has wiped across the wet paint of a memory.”

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To achieve Joy’s vision, Cameron turned to a material called Hologauze, which he had used on a short film in 2015. “It’s this semitransparent scrim, which has some silver fibers in it, onto which you can project – like you see at rock concerts,” explains the two-time Emmy nominee (whose innovative work in early digital capture on Collateral left a large footprint on the industry). Cameron and Cummings decided on a 20-footdiameter “hamburger,” as it came to be called, the raised base onto which the bottom of the Hologauze would be attached. The full 360-degree cylinder originally hoped for was changed to 180 degrees and hung from a circular truss. Once the basic system was conceived, it was up to VFX Supervisor Bruce Jones to flesh it out. Cameron and Cummings had initially mapped out five projectors (scaled back to three) placed high in the ceiling. The projectors would throw down a severely keystoned image to allow Jackman to approach the screen without casting a shadow. “They’re three Barco 4K UDX 4K-40 PJ projectors,” Jones explains. “The hamburger has about a two-foot area that Bannister can walk around and have his interactions with those appearing in the Reminiscence projections. The projectors had to be placed high, at a very steep angle, about 50 degrees, in order not to cast a shadow onto the screen.” The projected images were combined into a single panoramic image using software called TouchDesigner and overseen by Fuse, which handled projection and projection

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mapping. Considerations also included the slightly concave shape the material tended to have. The Reminiscence scenes consisted of four parts, three of which had to be filmed before the scenes showing Bannister seeing them projected onto the screen. The image he sees depicts the character’s memory in a dreamy fashion, which was photographed on the same set where that memory is taking place. Viewers are taken inside the Reminiscence, experiencing it from the character’s POV. That footage, shot on location, was known as “A-side.” The “B-side” of the Reminiscence scenes were of Jackman viewing the projection on the Bank Set, done, for the most part, at the end of the shoot, to allow the other material to be shot. Thirty-eight scenes comprising 158 shots made up the projected material; and because Bannister would be seeing them on a curved surface, from different locations within the Bank Set, each shot had to be filmed at the location from the very angle that Jackman would be photographed on the Bank Set four weeks later. As Cameron explains of the complex workflow: “I needed to know the lens I’d be using for each shot, the lens height, and the camera-to-subject distance, so that I could go out and photograph the image that will be projected using those very same parameters, as well as the details of any move Hugh would make to change his viewing position.” Motion

control was considered for reproducing those moves but was abandoned, due to the space limitations of locations. “And if the projected image was viewed from any position other than the one it was [both] filmed in [and that Bannister was viewing it from], it would look skewed,” Romano explains. “But the camera sees it as it’s supposed to be. So, as soon as you align yourself to the position of the camera, it suddenly snaps into place.” Step one for shooting the projected A-side material was determining what moves would take place on the Bank Set. Before set construction, Cameron planned projection angles from a digital model made by Set Designer Walter Schneider. The cinematographer taped-out the pieces of the set on the floor of the stage and went over each move with Joy and Jackman. “I’d say, ‘Here’s the machine,’” Cameron explains. “‘So, you would come down, turn the machine on, and then you’d probably walk up to the machine, right?’ And Hugh might say, ‘No, I wouldn’t. I’d go back up to there.’ So, I would then figure, ‘Okay, we’ll play it all up by the tank, so all the projection angles will be for all the shots, roughly. . . here.’” As Campbell adds: “I would mark the moves, measure them out, and then figure out how much of a distance of dolly track we’d need and at what angle,” along with all of the camera and lens information. To recreate moves on A-side sets/ locations, Cameron and Campbell would arrive early and begin placing the moves

OF THE COMPLEX WORKFLOW USED OR THE PROJECTED MATERIAL, CAMERON (ABOVE) SAYS: “I NEEDED TO KNOW THE LENS I’D BE USING FOR EACH SHOT, THE LENS HEIGHT, AND THE CAMERA-TO-SUBJECT DISTANCE, SO THAT I COULD GO OUT AND PHOTOGRAPH THE IMAGE THAT WILL BE PROJECTED USING THOSE VERY SAME PARAMETERS.”

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“Futurism can feel like it has a lot of sharp edges – and I didn’t want sharp edges. This is a love story as well as a thriller.” WRITER/DIRECTOR LISA JOY

within the real set. “Paul and I would find the center spot of the bubble [the 20-foot ‘hamburger’], and then I would take my tape and just measure out the camera locations and moves from there,” Campbell continues – in a sense, doing preliminary blocking. Joy would then join them, adding in any specific story concerns. There were occasions when the location didn’t allow for what was envisioned on an empty stage. “We might get to the location and find a wall where we wanted to put the camera,” Campbell adds. “So, we’d do the math,” calculating what distance and different lens choice would produce essentially the same shot. After Cameron and Campbell provided the required technical info, Joy walked Haarhoff through the moves, showing him the steps Jackman would take while shooting the B-side. Jones would take detailed notes and measurements, as well as shoot witness cam or LIDAR photography of the set. Another challenging aspect of the Reminiscences was the different POV’s Joy employed, i.e., a “technical POV” to feel the memory from the character’s perspective – shot handheld or Steadicam – and an “objective POV,” which was a wider view of the scene and might include the character. “Lisa believes that sometimes, when we have dreams, we see ourselves,” Cameron recounts. “So, what starts as one perspective ends up in another – in this case, where we include ourselves.” Many of those images, when Bannister sees Mae, utilized the 38mm “vintage lens,” making use of the lens’ flaring and wider image, as in Mae’s initial entrance. “It essentially became ‘Mae’s lens,’” Campbell states, “because it’s all from Bannister’s perspective, and he makes her into this magical being.” Another type of POV Reminiscence photography put the veteran Haarhoff through his paces. In one sequence, Bannister

is called upon by the D.A. to assist in getting memory out of a suspect named Falks (Sam Medina), who enters the bar of a gangster named St. Joe. The memory is shot completely from Falks’ first-person POV, on Steadicam. He enters the bar, passes through the crowd, looks for a place to sit, orders a drink, and, ultimately, gets into an altercation where he is pushed through a glass table. “Chris’ gaze, as a Steadicam operator, has to mimic the naturalistic gaze of what a person entering a bar would look at,” Joy explains. “He had to be that character.” When Falks orders a drink and is briefly seen in the mirror behind the bar, Joy explains, “Sam was underneath Chris and putting his arms into the frame to order the drink. How Chris managed to get that shot, without getting himself in the shot, I still don’t know. It’s so complex, only a true artist could have captured it.” Haarhoff says that while it may have been tempting to capture all the moves in a firstperson scene in a single take, it was far better to break things up. “If you take too big a bite, going all the way from outside to inside, you’ve got all these beats that have to be met,” he describes. “And if you load yourself up too much, you’ll be a little conservative in your steps. It’s all well and good to do a four-minute shot, but if it’s not filled with nice details, it becomes just a mechanical exercise.” After the A-side footage was completed, B-side scenes of Bannister and Watts viewing and interacting with the Reminiscence Machine projections were shot at the Bank set. Cameron mostly used the VENICE in its 500 ISO base mode, but to shoot on the stage, combining both the Reminiscence Machine projection and his set lighting, he knew the latter would be out of step with the projected images. As Romano notes: “The Barco projectors

are powerful, but they can’t compete with actual cinema lights at 500EV.” To achieve desired stops on the lenses, Romano recommended using VENICE’s secondary base ISO of 2500, which retunes middle-gray for low light work. This permitted Cameron to shoot with dimmer studio light levels that didn’t overpower the projection images but still allowed for choosing a depth of field in balance with his vision for Bannister’s office. The projection material was prepped in two stages. Joy and Editor Mark Yoshikawa cut together assemblies of what she wanted to see from any different angles that had been planned and shot on the A-side set. To assist in keeping the B-side camera moves on track, Jones’ team built 3D models based on their witness cam and LIDAR photography taken during the A-side shoots. During playback, the camera moves were tracked, with the tracking team seeing those 3D models on their monitors, enabling them to help keep the camera operators and dolly grips on point and guiding them, if needed, in matching their moves with those shot on the A-side set. “Paul’s camera team and the dolly grips were so precise,” Jones recounts. “I called them ‘human motion control.’ Because they really were that good.” While filming B-side footage, Romano did live in-camera color grades to both the projected images and the cameras seeing the projected images simultaneously. As Harris describes: “The idea there was to make those look integrated, but not too sharp or contrasty, to the point where it would have looked phony, like cutouts crossing the stage. It had to be soft enough that it looked almost like parts of it were opaque.” The results, from the person to whom it mattered most on set, were clear. “The first time Hugh saw it,” Cameron recalls, “he walked up and said, ‘I just want to touch her face. She looks so real.’ I felt, at that moment, that we’d pulled off something very special and unique.”

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LOCAL 600 CREW Director of Photography Paul Cameron, ASC

Unit Publicist Heidi Falconer

A-Camera Operator/Steadicam Chris Haarhoff, SOC

MIAMI 2ND UNIT

A-Camera 1st AC Joe Martinez

Director of Photography Roberto Schaefer, ASC

A-Camera 2nd AC Richard Dabbs Rome Julian

C-Camera Operator Joe Cicio

B-Camera Operator Robert Campbell B-Camera 1st AC Ry Kawanaka B-Camera 2nd AC Jonathan Robinson DIT Michael Romano Digital Loaders Sean Lunski Michael Reynolds Digital Utility Demi Robert Still Photographer Ben Rothstein

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C-Camera 1st AC Josh Friz C-Camera 2nd AC Ian Hernand Additional 2nd AC Willem Van Vark Steadicam Osvaldo “Ozzie” Silvera, SOC Camera Utility Adam Lighterman Timelapse 1st ACs Brett Frey Sean Lunski

PRODUCTION DESIGNER HOWARD CUMMINGS TRANSFORMED A DEFUNCT SIX FLAGS AMUSEMENT PARK INTO SEVERAL BLOCKS OF A FLOODED MIAMI, WHERE A-CAMERA/STEADICAM OPERATOR CHRIS HAARHOFF, SOC, RECALLS “HAVING TO GROW TO LIKE SPENDING A LOT OF TIME IN WADERS.” RE GION AL S P OT LIGH T 67

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say my

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JOHN GULESERIAN HELPS GIVE CHI-TOWN “THE HOOK” IN AN UPDATED RETOOLING OF THE EARLY-90S HORROR CLASSIC, CANDYMAN. BY: KEVIN H. MARTIN

// PHOTOS BY: PARRISH LEWIS

// FRAMEGRABS COURTESY OF: UNIVERSAL/MGM

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Candyman (1992), directed by Bernard Rose, transplanted Clive Barker’s story “The Forbidden” from the U.K. to contemporary Chicago, and deftly tapped into long-simmering racial disparities in one of America’s biggest cities. Shot by Anthony B. Richmond, ASC, BSC, the film spawned two sequels and transcended genre limitations with equal measures of biting social commentary and gritty visual poetry. A later attempt to film a Candyman/Leprechaun crossover was rejected by star Tony Todd, and subsequent sequel efforts became mired in issues dealing with film rights.

n i v e r s a l ’s new Candyman (shot in 2019 and delayed due to COVID) was directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele, both of whom co-wrote the screenplay with Win Rosenfeld. This new version updates the yarn, focusing on Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who was a child in the original film used as bait by the serialkilling supernatural manifestation of Daniel Robitaille, a 19th-Century African American slaughtered for daring to have relations with a Caucasian woman. With only four weeks of prep, Director of Photography John Guleserian says he hit the ground running. “Those were seven-day weeks,” he recalls, “beginning when I jumped off a plane and directly into a scout van with Nia and the rest of the team. Fortunately, our brilliant production designer, Cara Brower, had already lined up most of the locations. CabriniGreen is where the original was set, and it was essential we shoot there again, even though the area has changed drastically in the last twenty-five years.” “When I came on, the screenplay was not yet locked, so there was some flexibility on where scenes might be set,” Bower recounts.

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“We wanted the film to capture the full contrast of the new developments in Cabrini along with what remains, which isn’t much, but are haunting remnants of a community that has been abandoned and pushed out. Nia wrote a lot of these settings into the script once we started scouting.” One location Bower wanted in the film was the Northside Stranger’s Home Church – one of the few buildings standing from the era of the first film. “It was once situated amongst the towers and painted by a famed African American muralist, but now it stands starkly alone painted a flat gray,” she continues. “It took weeks to track down the owner, remove the mold inside and shore up to the floor to make it safe for shooting, but it was worth the effort. I hope that its inclusion is a worthy tribute to the building as it’s slated to be demolished.” Brower, who read a history of CabriniGreen called High Risers to help determine the geography of the past landscape calls the original film “fascinating” – using a neighborhood famous for racial injustice as a setting for horror, and by extension, social commentary. “Using real locations helps ground the genre/fantasy elements,” she adds, “and I was determined to find locations in the real Cabrini area. For Brianna and Anthony’s apartment, we found a new luxury loft, built on

Shooting in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green supplied “haunting remnants of a community that has been abandoned and pushed out.” PRODUCTION DESIGNER CARA BROWER

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“The color separation in each lens (ARRI Signature Primes) looked a bit different from anything else I’ve seen due to the new LPL mount, which allows the glass to sit closer to the sensor. DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JOHN GULESERIAN

top of an old historic warehouse, that was just a few blocks from where the first film was shot. The balcony in Anthony’s art studio literally looked out onto the field where the towers once stood. It really helped us all get into the mindset of the story.” DaCosta relied on storyboarding and previs animatics, the latter handled by Plot Point 1 in Chicago and a team of Australian free-lance artists supervised by Dru Muller. As Guleserian points out: “Nia came in well-prepared, and the animatics were helpful for anything needing VFX. Candyman often appears as a reflection in windows and mirrors, rather than as a physical presence, so the specificity that previs offered proved invaluable.” The film contrasts the squalor of urban decay with the upscale look of the art world. “Much of the movie is set in art galleries,” Guleserian continues, “and the various works on exhibit included both original pieces and pre-existing ones. I did want this to be a

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colorful movie, which you don’t often see in low-light genre work. But our colored lighting was always motivated; for example, in the gallery, there’s a prominent piece of neon art driving the color. I wanted to make sure the art appeared in the movie just how it did with my eyes in person. So, my camera, lens and lighting choices supported that goal.” The bulk of shooting was done with ALEXA LF. Guleserian reports that “during our limited testing in a rental house, I found something special in the new ARRI Signature Primes. They felt contemporary without being too sharp and surgical. The color separation in each lens looked a bit different from anything else I’ve seen due to the new LPL mount, which allows the glass to sit closer to the sensor. Chromatic aberrations around the edges have been virtually eliminated. They’re also well-designed for human faces – flattering whether you’re on the longest lens or the widest in the set.” Since matching zoom lenses was not yet an option, ALEXA Minis were sometimes deployed. “We had a shot that took us across

the city using the Angénieux 24 to 290 millimeter, which let me start wide and end very tight,” adds Guleserian. “We also had an 18-to-85-millimeter Fujinon for when I had to shoot at F2, because I was inside a building with tinted windows to get the proper vantage to capture Chicago’s corn-cob buildings.” In establishing the film’s look, Guleserian worked with his regular collaborator, EFILM colorist Natasha Leonnet. “I put together some reference images from photography and movies, just to get a conversation started about the look for the movie and for figuring out how I was going to shoot it,” he shares. “Natasha came up with a single-show LUT, which is nearly always my preference, that reflected those attributes.” As DIT James Notari adds: “That LUT created by Natasha was about 1.5 stops darker than what we were seeing, which is what John wanted to protect the RAW. We shot predominantly at night and with a largely African American cast, and that worried MGM, after reviewing dailies from a night interior

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scene. Although the dailies looked great, MGM was worried the ARRIRAW negative might be too thin to work with in post down the road. I just had to send them the LUT-less stills of the shots.” Notari’s cart included a pair of Sony PVM A250 25-inch Sony monitors. He used Pomfort LiveGrade to effect corrections before Technicolor processed digital dailies using Colorfront Express Dailies. “Nia started production while watching from [video] village, but soon wound up at my monitors alongside John, and there was a meeting of minds between them,” Notari recounts. “Nia had done other projects, and this was her second feature, so she leaned on John. There were a lot of oners planned – not all on Steadicam, some were zooms – requiring many camera tests to work

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out details for some tricky shots.” Candyman’s camera team included many Chicago locals, many of whom had either known or collaborated with Guleserian. “It’s a big anxiety-reducer to crew for someone you’ve already worked with, both for ease of understanding and just the joy of it,” shares A-camera/Steadicam operator Michael Fuchs, SOC. “I liked how John made use of Chicago, being unafraid to shoot close-ups on wide lenses, which helped make these characters part of that landscape. The most visceral memory for me was getting to shoot a long, slow zoom as we follow a character crossing a bridge over the river.” B-Camera operator Scott Thiele says the plan, initially, “was to make a single-camera movie, because everybody knew Michael

could execute whatever was asked of him,” the Chicago native states. “But when time became an issue, we leapfrogged ahead, shooting with two cameras. Often that was for key moments that could be helpful in Editorial. The work was usually very wide or quite close, so a lot of times the truly difficult work would fall to my focus puller, Hunter Whalen, and A-Camera 1st AC Jason Bonner, who both did a great job. Night interiors, if not shot wide open, were usually within a third to half a stop away.” Whalen [ICG Magazine December 2019] relied on the Preston Light Ranger, a system he says is becoming almost necessary with large-format sensors, “given the shallow depth of field,” he states. “It was my first time using it, and I was skeptical at first but learned to appreciate having an intuitive system right there

on screen. John was pushing us to get it because of a previous show he had done. Combining that with more traditional methods of getting marks helped to get the job done even at a nearly wideopen stop.” Guleserian says he never felt beholden to use the camera in a clichéd “horror movie” fashion. “I always think that camera movement has to aid in telling the story and/or conveying the emotion of the moment,” he declares. “We wanted to avoid arbitrary camera moves, as the story, not the genre, was the driver. Any preconceived notion of how things are supposed to look just because it is a horror movie would impact that. There are useful storytelling devices to carry forward, but I’m not going in with the mindset that it is going to be shot this way just because that’s how it’s always been done in horror.”

A mix of lighting types and temperatures was made clear during location scouting, “so we had to pay attention to our street lighting practicals,” Guleserian describes. “Most places have converted to LED – which itself can be inconsistent – so I was forever trying to bring things back to make them photographable. We began with the preexisting fixtures on location, replacing bulbs in many instances. Sometimes a particular color would work better, so we’d use amber for restaurant scenes, which set those apart from the gallery work.” Guleserian’s naturalistic approach to lighting clicked with Chief Lighting Technician Addae Shelby, who says he enjoyed lighting the old Cabrini-Green scenes. “There’s a nighttime scene where the area had these older-looking fixtures,” he recounts. “We took a bunch of our

fixtures with that old metal-halide look, then retrofitted them with clear daylight LED bulbs, installing them up and down a full city block, augmented with some SkyPanels on the roof. The funniest part was that while talking to the UPM, I found he thought we didn’t have to do any lighting that night, since there were no Condors. I was like, ‘Oh, really?’ and told my dimmer operator, ‘Go black.’ The whole area went dark.” The art gallery build incorporated lighting from previs, which Guleserian says was necessary “because of a complicated scene in which all of the art was placed in 3D space. Some of it was reflective, and other pieces had specific light interactions, so addressing all that in previs helped us work through any difficulties during the shoot.

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“The gallery sequence also required intense collaboration with other departments,” Guleserian continues. “We had to light it as an open gallery and one that was closing – house lights ‘on’ and ‘off.’ There were moments when you needed to see characters reflected in windows or in the art itself, and those choices needed to be motivated by the room and the installed art. There are art projections that work in conjunction with reflective art, and one prominent piece made of neon. It was a true team effort with production design, costuming, VFX, lighting, and the brilliant choices made by Nia. We had an additional projector using the same piece of art to light the characters as well, which pushed a bit of soft light that felt like it was coming off the art installation and formed the base level for our lighting.” Shelby’s lighting crew worked with the art department on various interior fixtures, “so John’s camera wouldn’t have to avoid shooting them,” he explains. “There are mirrors everywhere in this movie, so if you want to shoot 360 degrees, it’s a factor. Occasionally VFX had to paint crewmembers out of shots, but it never happened with any of our lights.” For additional control, most of Shelby’s lights, including florals, were installed on switches, and could be controlled with RatPacs. “That let us treat most locations almost like stage work,” he adds.

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Although the majority of Candyman was shot on location, there were a handful of stage sets, i.e., the art gallery was a complete build on location in an empty warehouse. “We wouldn’t have been able to take over a working gallery for that amount of time and the geography of the scene and the stunt requirements were very specific,” Bower shares. “So, we decided early on to build the gallery entirely from scratch, which even included building the floor and entrance. I visited a lot of galleries in Chicago and took the best ideas from each one to integrate into our design. I did insist that we find a warehouse in the gallery district, which once again, makes it believable as a real location.” A scene in a school restroom was also a set build on stage. Brower says she scouted many schools, “but none fit the blocking Nia envisioned. The scouting was all extremely useful though as I took tiles, color palettes, and motifs from schools that had been in Cabrini for decades, as well as a new school built on the remains of the old community,” she adds. “John and I have similar philosophies about how we like to hang onto certain bits of reality to create a believable space. I loved showing him ideas for spaces that I came across daily, as he would be as excited as I was, suggesting how he could embellish aspects with camera and lighting. That kind of dynamic collaboration

was sustained throughout production.” To maintain depth of field, as daylight spilled through the restroom windows, higher light levels were required than were typical for most of the shoot. Shelby recounts that “we had ARRI M90s coming through the windows. None of the fixtures in there were fluorescent; they were all Kino Flo FreeStyles. We just cut into the areas they needed to go and put them right in, and any cover you wanted could go right in over it.” While the bulk of shooting was pre-COVID, some additional scenes/reshoots fell on the early days of the shutdown. “All the restaurants closed, and everyone was asking, ‘Should we still be shooting?’” Notari recalls. “The producers realized that we would have to cram the remaining work into a single 12-hour block. So, we had two crews filming on soundstages that were a thousand yards apart, which was a cabling nightmare – there were power boosters and receivers everywhere because we ran five cameras constantly all day long. I had all my monitors up to color-grade imagery from both units at the same time.” Despite that challenging final day, morale among the Chi-town crew remained high. “Sometimes crews don’t get enough love for how we help each other out,” Thiele describes. “But everybody seemed to appreciate our team

of grips, which included Stephen J. Bryant, Timothy Jipping, Andy Reynoso and Chris Drake; Key Grip Steve Mulcahey and Dolly Grip B-camera Allen Lee. On Friday nights we’d all go to a bar and hang out. Despite what the producers had to do [when the pandemic hit], their approach was always people-oriented, and very respectful, which made for a great environment.” VFX Supervisor/ 2nd Unit Director James McQuaide found his pre-production shot count of 200 doubled during post, including the addition of four CG human characters. “Re-creating 70s era Cabrini-Green, which is long gone, was also a challenge,” he describes. “Fortunately, the art department came across the work of a photographer who lived in the neighborhood during this period; his work gave us the detail needed to rebuild in CG with accuracy – knowing how paint peeled and cement weathered allowed for the authenticity the scenes required.” Rising Sun and Iloura [now Method Studios] handled those builds and created under-construction buildings and cranes for the modern-day views of this gentrifying world.” Iloura also handled the various scenes with bees – a major departure from the original, which required actor Tony Todd to perform with hundreds of real bees pouring from his

mouth. As McQuaide continues: “To ensure the bees punched through in some of the darker scenes, we had to cheat them to be more yellow than they would have been if they had been practical.” This surreal approach to the bees figures prominently in the bathroom massacre, which is more implied than shown. “The camera focuses on a compact lying on the floor as a bee lands on it. It all seems as you would expect until the bee’s reflection separates from the bee casting it. This was meant to visually underscore the transformation of the picture’s main character. Coppola’s Dracula, with shots showing Vlad’s shadow moving independently from the Count himself, was one of the references we worked from.” VFX integration was further massaged during the DI when Colorist Leonnet availed herself of various mattes and layers for finetuning. “In most instances, VFX vendors worked LOG color space from CDL’s generated on-set by James, so that ensured Natasha would have all the dynamic range available to finesse things,” Guleserian explains. “As a result, we have a ton of VFX shots that nobody will ever realize even contain VFX. We color-graded during the pandemic, and since there was no way to send stills back and forth securely with P3 levels of projection, I had to rely heavily on Natasha. I didn’t see much of anything until

near the end of post when I came in via a remote Zoom screening room for a few weeks. Nia was in New York watching remotely as well, so it was a very different way to finish.” Guleserian’s other recent work, An American Pickle [ICG Magazine September 2020] and Happiest Season, came out in 2020, at the height of COVID. “They’re great projects,” he reflects. “But I’d like to think Candyman being held back for a full theatrical release was justifiable – it’s a movie that deserves to be seen with an audience. We pay a lot of respect to the original, both in terms of the aesthetic and storytelling. When you’re up for a movie in a genre you haven’t worked in, as I was, it’s often the expectation to be rejected on that basis. I was fortunate that didn’t happen, and since I’m always looking to do something new, this was a perfect fit.” McQuaide adds that while the original certainly explored political issues, “this movie blew the doors off in regards to its immediate participation in cultural discourse. Yes, its roots are a genre horror and in that regard, I admire how Nia kept it sophisticated by exercising restraint in terms of gore. By keeping the movie itself quiet, she allowed the issues it addresses to punch with much greater power. More than anything, that’s what I hope will stay with audiences.”

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CHICAGO-NATIVE GULESERIAN (ABOVE) SAYS THAT “MUCH OF THE MOVIE IS SET IN ART GALLERIES...[AND] WE DID WANT THIS TO BE A COLORFUL MOVIE, WHICH YOU DON’T OFTEN SEE IN LOW-LIGHT GENRE WORK.”

LOCAL 600 CREW Director of Photography John Guleserian A-Camera Operator/Steadicam Michael Fuchs, SOC A-Camera 1st AC Jason Bonner A-Camera 2nd AC Elaisa Vargas B-Camera Operator Scott Thiele B-Camera 1st AC Hunter Whalen B-Camera 2nd AC Ron Ruanphae DIT James Notari Loader Darren Sanders Utility Litong Zhen Still Photographer Parrish Lewis Unit Publicist Ernie Malik

WHERE ARE THEY

NOW? Members of the ECA Class of 2016 provide updates on life after winning the award. by Margot Carmichael Lester It’s always nice to have your work recognized by your peers. And as you’ll read below, receiving the industry’s only honor exclusively reserved for camera team members striving to become directors of photography has benefits beyond a boost in confidence, including new connections, exciting projects, and opportunities to stretch creatively and advance professionally. To coincide with the 2021 ECA awards (October 3rd, 2 p.m. PST, virtual and online through Filmocracy), we asked ICG contributor Margot Lester to check back in with three members of the ECA class she wrote about in 2016. Where their journeys have taken them since winning the accolade is both fascinating and illuminating for this year’s ECA class and beyond.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Director of Photography ECA-winning project: Doble 9 Years in Guild: 8 Location: Los Angeles Hometown: Miami

KARINA SILVA Earning an ECA was a pivotal moment for Karina Silva. While paging through the September 2016 issue of this magazine, Agent Heinrich Myer came upon the profiles of ECA winners, including Silva, who was then an operator. “He contacted me after reading the write-up, and we met for coffee soon after,” Silva recounts. “I’m so grateful to Heinrich for betting on me when I only had my short doc to show for myself.” That connection provided the means to begin working in the commercial and feature worlds as a director of photography. “It took me so long to break into both of these worlds, and I couldn’t have done it without my ECA or my agents at Iconic Talent Agency.” Silva’s most recent project is No Man of God, which was shot in August 2020 during the height of the pandemic. [Coming soon to www. icgmagazine.com] The film explores the complex connection between FBI Analyst Bill Hagmaier and serial killer Ted Bundy during Bundy’s final years on death row. “It was a low-budget film to begin with, and when you add the additional COVID requirements, things got pretty tight,” she recalls. “The AD and the producers made miracles happen with the schedule and budget we had, and our biggest accomplishments were that no one got sick and we were never shut down.” Adding a wrinkle to the production was the fact that Director Amber Sealey decided to direct remotely – from her car. “The DIT, Nick Fry, set up a whole monitoring system for her so she could see both cameras and still feel safe,” Silva explains. “The actors and I would communicate via walkie-talkie and go over to her between setups to discuss specifics.” Silva used two ALEXA Minis with Cooke S4s provided by Keslow Camera. “Since it was a period piece, we wanted to give it a vintage vibe with some extra warmth and contrast. The Cooke S4s were the perfect lenses since they are inherently on the warmer side and render

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faces and skin tones beautifully.” Most of the film takes place in an interrogation room between Hagmaier (Elijah Wood) and Bundy (Luke Kirby) and was shot on dollies and sliders. “We wanted the interrogation room to progressively get darker as the meetings between Hagmaier and Bundy got deeper and more intense,” Silva says. “Finding that balance and subtlety of going progressively darker without the audience noticing, but rather feeling the darkness, was the hardest part for me as the cinematographer.” The DP credits her crew with creating such a beautiful film under complex conditions. “Erick Aguilar [A-Camera 1st AC], Chris Cobb [B-Camera 1st AC], Carlos González [A-Camera operator], Marc Polanski [key grip] and Carlos Torres [chief lighting technician] were amazing and went above and beyond.” The effort paid off. The film got into Tribeca Film Festival 2021 and premiered on opening night. Since then, it’s received great reviews and was released to theaters and streaming services on August 27th. Silva’s next film is a neo-noir that includes modern themes plus all the tropes of a classic noir, “which to me means creative freedom,” she asserts. “I’m working hard to make sure we pay homage to the genre while staying true to the modern story and keeping the film grounded.” The Madrid-born filmmaker is glad to see more diversity now than when earning her degree in film production from UCLA in 2012 and joining the union in 2013. “Just like many other women have paved the way for me, I want to continue to pay it forward,” she notes. “I want to inspire the younger generation and want them to know that if I can do it, they can as well. I’m aware that I am in a position of power, and I feel that I have a responsibility to represent women and minorities in the best light possible.”

PHOTO FROM SET OF NO MAN OF GOD COURTESY OF JACK CASWELL

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Camera Operator Years in Guild: 14 ECA-winning project: Limbo, and El Gallo (2019) Location: Atlanta Hometown: Alameda, CA

ALEJANDRO A. WILKINS

Alejandro Wilkins has found some new sources of inspiration. “I’ll never not be inspired by getting outdoors, one of the big reasons I moved to Atlanta, which has been called a ‘city in a forest,’” he shares. “I have been devouring Haruki Murakami books, which always trip me out and excite me creatively. And, of course, whenever I can, I like to go roam museums and blab forever about what I think I see in the art inside. But I’ve – oddly – gone back to watching DVDs on an old CRT monitor, which I found for sale secondhand around town. Maybe it’s because I live near Atlanta’s Videodrome, but I’ve just been renting a lot of 70s and 90s classics I never watched in film school and find them both nostalgic, because of the DVD/CRT combo, and inspiring. Comic books are also a newfound source of inspiration, as they seem to contain endless amounts of imaginative stories. I’m currently reading the Descender series.” The two-time ECA winner says the honors were “a boost to every effort I had in the works for both 2016 and 2019. Competitive projects that were considering me had added incentive to take the chance, and those I was currently working on had prideful confidence in their choice. Between the announcement of the ECA winners and the award ceremony, there’s ample time to create awareness of yourself as a cinematographer on the rise, and I did what I could to utilize the acknowledgment to help focus my eye on national commercial production and commercial representation.” Between awards, Wilkins was one of the DP’s on Ghost Fleet (2018), which earned a News and Documentary Emmy nod for Outstanding Cinematography. “Though we did not win, the competition consisted of beautifullyshot work, and it was an honor to be considered on that same level,” he says. “From a more personal level, the collaborations with Michael Medoway, director of my ECA-winning short, began to thrive. We’ve tackled much

larger concepts and budgets in the time that has passed, and I’m very proud of what we have accomplished.” The duo collaborated on Find Your Moment, a branded film for Lexus that won several awards and nominations, including a Young Directors Award. One of the stand-out elements of the film is a fireball floating into a puddle of water. “I handheld the Phantom, and all the effects were practical,” Wilkins remembers. “No additions other than a Phantom technician were needed. That got me thinking of keeping that camera standing by on projects, when possible, for enhancing average moments that wouldn’t typically be shot with a Phantom. We’ve been able to successfully do so, using the Phantom 4K VEO in a nimbler, on-the-fly way. It’s led to some exciting moments that are felt but aren’t always as obvious as you would think.” Wilkins likes experimenting with lenses, too, for “the most aesthetic choice outside of lighting and composition,” he explains. Such was the case for a film he recently shot for the education company Newsela. Wilkins selected 1.3x Hawk Anamorphic lenses and spherical Angénieux Optimo zooms with ALEXA Mini and AMIRA bodies. “That gave us different shooting methods and looks, which included a live classroom, interviews and narrative elements,” he explains. “I’m a big fan of the full-frame field of view and prefer to start with that size sensor if I can.” The ECA honoree has stayed busy after a four-month lull during COVID, most recently doing back-to-back commercial work for Newsela, Square and Divvy Homes, and wrapping a Vice TV re-creation show called Felon. “I’m not sure what’s up next,” he concludes. “Most likely a commercial of some sort, but I’m available in the central region if anyone wants to collaborate! And I am still patiently waiting for the opportunity to take a crack at my first narrative feature.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF YUSUKE SATO

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“I know there were some that worked quite a bit during COVID, but I certainly wasn’t one of them, at least not for those first eight months,” recalls Spencer Hutchins, SOC. “Having that time forced me to get a good reset on the things I truly valued,” such as time with family. “We don’t talk about it enough, but having kids and trying to have some kind of life outside of your job isn’t easy – it’s near impossible.” To make it easier, Hutchins moved to Atlanta a few years ago to be closer to family (he and his wife have two daughters) and capitalize on the growing Georgia film industry. “Being fortunate enough to continue to work consistently has been something I am most proud of,” he says. “It’s a competitive field we work in, and I know how many talented people are out there, so the fact that I have stayed busy and working is something I continue to be humbled by.” Hutchins started as a camera assistant in L.A. in 2009 after graduating from Full Sail University. He worked on indie features and music videos until landing a gig as an operator on Scream Queens, the horror anthology created and written by Ian Brannan, Brad Falchuk, and Ryan Murphy. Hutchins shot the ECA-winning short Walker during that time, following it up with assignments such as operating and directing photography on YoutubeRED’s TV series Step Up: High Water. In 2017, he DP’d Burning at Both Ends, a feature starring Jason Patric, Cary Elwes, and Judd Hirsch. The film chronicles the adventures of dissidents who are caught behind enemy lines and use a radio to broadcast a message of hope to fellow survivors. His current project is operating B-Camera for Marvel’s She-Hulk, lensed by Florian Ballhaus, ASC (The

Devil Wears Prada, The Captain), and scheduled to air on Disney+ next year. “Although most of my work has been as an A-Camera operator, I enjoy when I get the opportunity to work the B-camera alongside another experienced A-Cam operator,” he says. “I always learn something new and helpful and have enjoyed seeing how others approach situations I am normally faced with. If I have a style, I’m not sure that I’m aware of it. I do know that I try to stay in the present with the story that’s in front of me. My hope is always that the story is being benefited by the visuals I am helping create. Nothing more.” This is Hutchins’ third project with Ballhaus. They also collaborated on The One and Only Ivan [ICG Magazine.com September 2020]. “Beyond his taste and abilities as a great storyteller, I have been most impressed with Florian’s ability to communicate and run a team,” Hutchins explains. “He is often the voice of reason in a very crowded room, which is something I admire.” When he’s not working or spending time with his family, Hutchins hosts a podcast called “Protecting the Frame.” In it, he says, “we discuss the realities of a life in the world of cinematography and give you insights on how to make it in the business. We try not to paint a pretty picture for listeners. In my opinion, this path isn’t worth it if you don’t love it. Love it or don’t start it, that’d be my advice. You’ll be better off.” His advice for this year’s ECA winners? “It’s easy to get wrapped up in the awe of winning an ECA and your peers acknowledging your hard work, as they should,” he notes. “Despite that, however, always keep asking yourself the question, ‘Am I currently chasing what it is I want?’ Let that question guide you.”

Camera Operator ECA-winning Project: Walker Years in Guild: 11 years Location: Atlanta Hometown: Tyler, TX

SPENCER HUTCHINS 88

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PHOTO FROM SET OF BURNING AT BOTH ENDS COURTESY BURNT ENDS, LLC

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

Submit your jobs online by visiting: www.icg600.com/MY600/Report-Your-Job Any questions regarding the Production Credits should be addressed to Teresa Muñoz at teresa@icgmagazine.com 90

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First Man / Photo by Daniel McFadden

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“HOW I MET YOUR FATHER” PILOT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GARY BAUM, ASC OPERATORS: JAMIE HITCHCOCK, DEBORAH O’BRIEN,

DAMIAN DELLA SANTINA, ALLEN MERRIWEATHER ASSISTANTS: BRADLEY TRAVER, MARK JOHNSON, ADAN TORRES CAMERA UTILITY: DAN LORENZE LOADER: KIERSTEN DIRKES DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DEREK LANTZ VIDEO CONTROLLER: JOHN O’BRIEN

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“CHILI” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KRAMER MORGENTHAU, ASC OPERATORS: MICHAEL FUCHS, SOC, JOHN GARRETT ASSISTANTS: CRAIG PRESSGROVE, DANIEL MASON, HOLLY MCCARTHY, DEAN EGAN CAMERA UTILITY: MCKENZIE RAYCROFT DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: KYO MOON LOADER: MATTIE HAMER STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CLAIRE FOLGER

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JIB OPERATOR: DAVID RHEA STEADICAM OPERATOR: DONOVAN GILBUENA VIDEO CONTROLLER: JAMES MORAN HEAD UTILITY: CRAIG “ZZO” MARAZZO UTILITIES: ARLO GILBUENA, WALLY LANCASTER, DIEGO AVALOS

BEACHWOOD SERVICES

“DAYS OF OUR LIVES” SEASON 57 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: VINCE STEIB OPERATORS: MARK WARSHAW, MICHAEL J. DENTON, JOHNNY BROMBEREK, STEVE CLARK CAMERA UTILITIES: STEVE BAGDADI, GARY CYPHER VIDEO CONTROLLER: ALEXIS DELLAR HANSON

BLUE CAT PRODUCTIONS, LLC “OZARK” SEASON 4

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SHAWN KIM, ERIC KORETZ OPERATORS: ARI ISSLER, DAVE CHAMEIDES ASSISTANTS: LIAM SINNOTT, KATE ROBERSON, CRISTIAN TROVA, MICHAEL FISHER STEADICAM OPERATOR: DAVE CHAMEIDES STEADICAM ASSISTANT: LIAM SINNOTT CAMERA UTILITY: WALKER MARKEY LOADER: TAYLOR SEAMAN

CBS

ERIC LEACH OPERATORS: NATHAN STERN, JOREL O’DELL ASSISTANTS: ROGER SPAIN, PAUL TOOMEY, SCOTT O’NEIL, NOAH MURO STEADICAM OPERATOR: NATHAN STERN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: RAUL RIVEROS LOADER: KALIA PRESCOTT

“THE TALK” SEASON 11 LIGHTING DIRECTOR: MARISA DAVIS PED OPERATORS: ART TAYLOR, MARK GONZALES, ED STAEBLER HANDHELD OPERATORS: RON BARNES, KEVIN MICHEL, JEFF JOHNSON JIB OPERATOR: RANDY GOMEZ HEAD UTILITY: CHARLES FERNANDEZ UTILITIES: MIKE BUSHNER, DOUG BAIN, DEAN FRIZZEL, BILL GREINER, JON ZUCCARO VIDEO CONTROLLER: RICHARD STROCK STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: RON JAFFE

CALLING GRACE PRODUCTIONS, LLC “WHITE HOUSE PLUMBERS”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: STEVEN MEIZLER OPERATOR: STEPHEN CONSENTINO ASSISTANTS: CHRIS SILANO, GRAHAM BURT, TROY SOLA, MARVIN LEE LOADER: BRITTANY JELINSKI STILL PHOTOGRPAHER: PHIL CARUSO

“BULL” SEASON 6 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN ARONSON OPERATORS: ELI ARONOFF, ROMAN LUKIW ASSISTANTS: SOREN NASH, MICHAEL LOBB, TREVOR WOLFSON, NIALANEY RODRIGUEZ LOADERS: IVANA BERNAL, JONATHAN FARMER

“CSI: VEGAS” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TOM CAMARDA OPERATORS: KENNY BROWN, NICK FRANCO ASSISTANTS: SIMON JARVIS, CLAIRE STONE, CHRIS MACK, TIM SHERIDAN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: GREG GABRIO CAMERA UTILITY: TYLER ERNST DIGITAL UTILITY: MORGAN KEANE STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: RON JAFFE

“ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT” SEASON 40

LIGHTING DESIGNER: DARREN LANGER DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KURT BRAUN OPERATORS: JAMES B. PATRICK, ALLEN VOSS, ED SARTORI, HENRY ZINMAN, BOB CAMPI, RODNEY MCMAHON, ANTHONY SALERNO JIB OPERATOR: JAIMIE CANTRELL CAMERA UTILITY: TERRY AHERN VIDEO CONTROLLERS: MIKE DOYLE, PETER STENDAL

“THE 4400” SEASON 1 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTOPHER BAFFA, ASC, SCOTT THIELE OPERATORS: BLAINE BAKER, STEPHANIE DUFFORD ASSISTANTS: CORY SOLON, JOHN WATERMAN, ELLA LUBIENSKI, DILLON BORHAM STEADICAM OPERATOR: BLAINE BAKER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: RYAN SHUCK LOADER: RINKESH PATEL DIGITAL UTILITY: NIHAL DANTLURI

“SEAL TEAM” SEASON 6 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: J. MICHAEL MURO,

CARTEL PICTURES “ONE SUMMER”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL WOJCIECHOWSKI OPERATORS: CHRISTIAN SATRAZEMIS, MICHAEL REPETA ASSISTANTS: BRAD BAKER, WILL PETERSON, MARQUE DEWINDER, DEBORAH LIPMAN STEADICAM OPERATOR: CHRISTIAN SATRAZEMIS LOADER: BRIAN PHAN

CHERNIN ENTERTAINMENT “P-VALLEY” SEASON 2

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: RICHARD VIALET, ASC, MADELINE KATE KANN OPERATORS: XAVIER THOMPSON, CHRIS FREILICH ASSISTANTS: ALAN NEWCOMB, CALLIE MOORE, BRIAN DECROCE, NUBIA RAHIM DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: CHRIS RATLEDGE LOADER: ERIN STRICKLAND UTILITY: CHANDRA SUDTELGTE

CHRISTMAS IN HARMONY, LLC “CHRISMAS IN HARMONY”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC WYCOFF OPERATORS: CHRISTIAN SATRAZEMIS, MICHAEL REPETA ASSISTANTS: JAMIE MARLOWE, BRAD BAKER, ROBIN WOOD, WILL PETERSON LOADER: ALBERT DANTZER

COOLER WATERS PRODUCTIONS, LLC “TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE” SEASON 1

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER MENZIES OPERATORS: GEORGE BIANCHINI, HEATHER NORTON ASSISTANTS: ROBERT MANCUSO, OLGA ABRAMSON, JUSTIN MANCUSO, ANJELA COVIAUX LOADERS: TYLER MANCUSO, CHRIS MENDEZ STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: BARBARA NITKE

DARIUS FILMS “BROMATES”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JACOB PINGER OPERATORS: RYAN HOGUE, KOJI KOJIMA ASSISTANTS: NICO MARTIN, ALAN CERTEZA, RYAN GUZDZIAL, JESS FAIRLESS DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: FELIX ARCENEAUX

DOWN LOW MOVIE, INC. “DOWN LOW”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: NATHANIEL HURTSELLERS OPERATOR: JULIAN BASS ASSISTANTS: ALEXANDER HAN, SEBASTIAN IERVOLINO DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JOHN KERSTEN STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MATTHEW INFANTE

EYE PRODUCTIONS, INC.

“BLUE BLOODS” SEASON 12 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DONALD THORIN OPERATORS: JIM MCCONKEY, GEOFFREY FROST ASSISTANTS: NICHOLAS DEEG, MARTIN PETERSON, KENNETH MARTELL, JONATHAN SCHAEFER LOADER: DEVERAUX ELMES

FIREFIGHT PRODUCTIONS, LLC “THE GRAY MAN”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: STEPHEN WINDON OPERATORS: GEOFF HALEY, MAURICE MCGUIRE ASSISTANTS: TAYLOR MATHESON, JEFF LORENZ,

ALEXANDRA MATHESON, JERRY PATTON STEADICAM OPERATOR: GEOFF HALEY DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: CHRIS CAVANAUGH LOADER: ALEXANDRA COYLE DIGITAL UTILITY: MARSHALL HENDERSHOT PUBLICIST: NICOLA GRAYDON HARRIS EPK: SEAN RICIGLIANO 2ND UNIT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GREG BALDI ASSISTANTS: TULIO DUENAS, KEVIN SUN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: NATE KALUSHNER LOADER: CRISS DAVIS

FOURTH OF JULY PROJECT, LLC “FOURTH OF JULY”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRIS RAYMOND OPERATOR: BEN NOFTZGER ASSISTANTS: BRYANT BAILEY, ALEJANDRO LAZARE STEADICAM OPERATOR: BEN NOFTZGER LOADER: MARY NEARY

FOXBURG PRODUCTIONS, LLC “THE ROOKIE” SEASON 4

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KYLE JEWELL, JOHANNA COELHO OPERATORS: BRIAN S. BERNSTEIN, MIGUEL PASK, ELLIE ANN FENTON ASSISTANTS: TOMMY KLINES, TRIGG FERRANO, JIM THIBO, RICHARD KENT, KIRSTEN CELO, KELLY MITCHELL

DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: RYAN DEGRAZZIO DIGITAL UTILITY: JASON FAUST UTILITY: NICHOLAS WEAVER

FRANCESCA FILM PRODUCTION NY, INC. “CABRINI”

OPERATOR: SCOTT BUCKLER ASSISTANTS: STACY MIZE, RAUL ERIVEZ, STORR TODD DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: GUILLERMO TUNON LOADERS: AMAYA CHENU, MATEO GONZALEZ PUBLICIST: PETER SILBERMANN

FUQUA FILMS

“THE RESIDENT” SEASON 5 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JULES LABARTHE OPERATORS: LAWRENCE KARMAN, ANDY FISHER, JESSICA HERSHATTER, JUSTIN DEGUIRE, JENNIFER RANKINE, TAYLOR CASE, CAMERON SCHWARTZ, GRACE CHAMBERS LOADER: TREY VOLPE DIGITAL UTILITY: ALEX GALVEZ STEADICAM OPERTOR: LAWRENCE KARMAN STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: GUY D’ALEMA

GIMME DAT MONEY, LLC

“DESUS & MERO” SEASON 3 OPERATORS: DANIEL CARP, KATHLEEN HARRIS, MARK SPARROUGH ASSISTANT: PETER STAUBS CAMERA UTILITY: JONATHAN SCHAMANN

SEPTEMBER 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS

https://youtu.be/Adb7TgKcBIk https://youtu.be/Adb7TgKcBIk https://youtu.be/Adb7TgKcBIk Check out our Kurve Parabolic Umbrellas https://youtu.be/Adb7TgKcBIk

HMI LED JOKER ALPHA SLICE GRACE & FRANKIE PRODUCTIONS, LLC “GRACE & FRANKIE” SEASON 7

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GALE TATTERSALL OPERATORS: JAY HERRON, TONY GUTIERREZ ASSISTANTS: MICHAEL ENDLER, MARK REILLY, NAOMI VILLANUEVA, RUDY PAHOYO, RENEE TREYBALL LOADER: NICOLA CARUSO

HUNGRY SATURN, INC. “RESURRECTION”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: WYATT GARFIELD OPERATOR: KOREY ROBINSON ASSISTANT: LOGAN GEE DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ISAAC BANKS

KANAN PRODUCTIONS, INC. “RAISING KANAN” SEASON 2

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: FRANCIS SPIELDENNER, EDWARD PEI OPERATORS: PYARE FORTUNATO, GREG FINKEL ASSISTANTS: MARK FERGUSON, SUREN KARAPETYAN, TRICIA MEARS, KEITH ANDERSON DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: HUNTER FAIRSTONE LOADERS: HOLDEN HLINOMAZ, KATI PEREZ STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CARA HOWE

LARRY’S DINER, INC.

“LARRY’S DINER” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JODY LEE LIPES

OPERATORS: SAM ELLISON, REBECCA RAJADNYA ASSISTANTS: ZACH RUBIN, FILIPP PENSON, TANEICE MCFADDEN, SANCHEEV RAVICHANDRAN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ANTHONY HECHANOVA LOADER: MICHAEL POMORSKI HEAD TECH: DEXTER KENNEDY STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: NIKO TAVERNISE

LEGENDARY TELEVISION

“PAPER GIRLS” SEASON 1 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ZACHARY GALLER, TARIN ANDERSON OPERATORS: ALEX KORNREICH, JAN RUONA, SOC ASSISTANTS: IAN BARBELLA, SAM KNAPP, LAURA DIFIGLIO, JOEY RICHARDSON STEADICAM OPERATOR: ALEX KORNREICH DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: SCOTT RESNICK LOADER: ADAM SCHLARB DIGITAL UITLITY: MELISSA PRATT STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ANJALI PINTO

MESQUITE PRODUCTIONS, INC.

“A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DAGMAR WEAVER-MADSEN OPERATORS: MICHAEL CRAVEN, JANICE MIN ASSISTANTS: ALEX CASON, DEB PETERSON, BRIAN BRESNEHAN, GABRIEL MARCHETTI DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ZACHARY SAINZ STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ANNE MARIE FOX

MIXED BAG PRODUCTIONS, INC.

“THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES” SEASON 2 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL SIMMONDS OPERATORS: PAUL DALEY, PETER VIETRO-HANNUM ASSISTANTS: JUSTIN SIMPSON, MATTHEW MEBANE, EMILY RUDY, NICHOLAS BROWN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: CHANDLER TUCKER STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: RYAN GREEN, JACKSON DAVIS

NBC UNIVERSAL TELEVISION, LLC “FBI” SEASON 4

LOVE IN COLOR, INC.

“LOVE IN COLOR AKA USCF” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTHEW WISE OPERATORS: LISA SENE, JOSEPH BLODGETT ASSISTANTS: SYMON MINK, JUSTIN MARZELLA DAVID MASLYN, THUNNYAHNONDHA KAEWBAIDHOON LOADER: JOSIAH WEINHOLD STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: BRETT ROEDEL

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BART TAU OPERATORS: AFTON GRANT, JAMES GUCCIARDO ASSISTANTS: LEE VICKERY, YURI INOUE, GEORGE LOOKSHIRE, NKEM UMENYI LOADERS: RAUL MARTINEZ, CONNOR LYNCH STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: WALLY MCGRADY, MIKE PARMELEE

“FBI MOST WANTED” SEASON 3 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: WILLIAM KLAYER, LUDOVIC

SEPTEMBER 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS

LITTEE OPERATORS: CHRISTOPHER MOONE, SCOTT TINSLEY ASSISTANTS: RORY HANRAHAN, JAMES DALY, CAROLYN WILLS, DANIEL PFEIFER LOADERS: JOHN CONQUY, MATT ORO STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK SCHAFER

“GRAND CREW” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: RICK PAGE OPERATORS: PHIL MASTRELLA, LAUREN GADD, MARQUES SMITH, SOC ASSISTANTS: JAY LEVY, NICK CUTWAY, ESTHER WOODWORTH, JENNIFER LAI, GRACE THOMAS, RIKKI JONES DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: NICK GILBERT DIGITAL UTILITY: CHRIS GRIGGS STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: ELIZABETH MORRIS

“LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME” SEASON 2 DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JIM DENAULT, JACK DONNELLY OPERATORS: JON BEATTIE, JOHN PIROZZI ASSISTANTS: JOHN OLIVERI, NICHOLAS HAHN, KEVIN HOWARD, DERRICK DAWKINS LOADERS: EVAN BREEN, PATRICK ARELLANO STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: MICHAEL PARMELEE, VIRGINIA SHERWOOD

“LAW & ORDER SVU” SEASON 23 OPERATORS: JONATHAN HERRON, JAMIE SILVERSTEIN

ASSISTANTS: CHRIS DEL SORDO, MATTHEW BALZARINI, BRIAN LYNCH CAMERA UTILITY: GIANNI CARSON

“NEW AMSTERDAM” SEASON 4 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREW VOEGELI OPERATORS: GARETH MANWARING, PEDRO CORCEGA ASSISTANTS: JAMES MADRID, MATTHEW MONTALTO, ROBERT WRASE, BRIAN GRANT LOADERS: THOMAS FOY, PHILIP THOMPSON STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CHRISTOPHER SAUNDERS

“THIS IS US” SEASON 6 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: YASU TANIDA OPERATORS: JAMES TAKATA, DANIEL COTRONEO ASSISTANTS: SEAN O’SHEA, JOE SOLARI, JEFF STEWART, TIM SHERIDAN LOADER: WADE FERRARI STEADICAM OPERATOR: JAMES TAKATA STEADICAM ASSISTANT: SEAN O’SHEA DIGITAL UTILITIES: GOBE HIRATA, ADAM GARCIA STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: RON BATZDORFF

NETFLIX PRODUCTIONS, LLC “FLORIDA MAN” SEASON 1

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ADRIAN CORREIA OPERATORS: JOHN LEHMAN, KATHLEEN HARRIS ASSISTANTS: PATRICK BOROWIAK, DEREK SMITH, ROY KNAUF, DARWIN BRANDIS LOADER: JILL AUTRY DIGITAL UTILITY: PAIGE MARSICANO STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK SCHAFER

PACIFIC 2/1 ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, INC.

“AMERICAN CRIME STORY: IMPEACHMENT” SEASON 4 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SIMON DENNIS, BSC OPERATORS: ERIC SCHILLING, JAMIE STERBA ASSISTANTS: DAVID LEB, NATHAN CRUM, ROB MONROY, JARED WILSON STEADICAM OPERATOR: ERIC SCHILLING DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: SPENCER SHWETZ DIGITAL UTILITY: SHANNON VAN METRE

PARAMOUNT PICTURES “BLACK SNOW”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PEDRO LUQUE OPERATOR: QUENELL JONES ASSISTANTS: CHERYN PARK, BRETT ROEDEL, AMANDA HEBBLETHWAITE CAMERA UTILITY: CATARINA MENDEZ DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ZACHARY SAINZ

PEACOCK

“BUST DOWN” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC BRANCO OPERATORS: EMILY MICHELLE GONZALES, MICHELLE CLEMENTINE, PAT SHAHABIAN ASSISTANTS: JOE GUNAWAN, MINMIN TSAI, JEANNA KIM, NICK MENIO, ALEX CAMERON, SETH CRAVEN LOADER: ANDREW FLORIO DIGITAL UTILITY: ANTHONY HWANG

SEPTEMBER 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS

Custom Wireless Solutions & Preston Control

OPERATOR: MARK SPARROUGH ASSISTANTS: PETER WESTERVELT, ADAM MILLER, MYO CAMPBELL, CARLOS BARBOT DIGITAL UTILITY: ASA ELMFORS STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: PATRICK HARBRON

SHE DID THAT, INC. “NOT OK”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ROBBY BAUMGARTNER OPERATOR: GARETH JACKSON ASSISTANTS: GAVIN FERNANDEZ, RANDY MALDONADO GALARZA, AUSTIN RESTREPO, RACHEL FEDORKOVA DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: TIFFANY ARMOUR-TEJADA LOADER: DANIEL RODRIGUEZ STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: NICOLE RIVELLI

SONY

“JEOPARDY!” SEASON 36

Los Angeles | Atlanta www.RFFILM.com

PICROW STREAMING, INC. SPRUNG” SEASON 1

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHAD PERSONS OPERATORS: RICH SCHUTTE, BRIAN OSMOND ASSISTANTS: AMANDA ROTZLER, JOSUE LOAYZA, YEVGENIY SHRAYBER, DAN SOTAK DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: CHRIS CHARMEL LOADER: KEVIN GALLOWAY DIGITAL UTILITY: MATT BERAN STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: DENNIS MONG

“WHEEL OF FORTUNE” SEASON 37 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF ENGEL OPERATORS: DIANE L. FARRELL, SOC, L.DAVID IRETE, RAY GONZALES, MIKE TRIBBLE CAMERA UTILITY: RAY THOMPSON HEAD UTILITY: TINO MARQUEZ VIDEO CONTROLLER: GARY TAILLON JIB ARM OPERATOR: MARC HUNTER STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CAROL KAELSON

PLAN B

STALWART PRODUCTIONS

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: NATASHA BRAIER KANTOR, ASC OPERATORS: MARK SCHMIDT, STANLEY FERNANDEZ ASSISTANTS: ERIC SWANEK, CHRISTOPHER ENG, TYLER SWANEK, RONALD WRASE STEADICAM OPERATOR: MARK SCHMIDT DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: LEWIS ROTHENBERG LOADER: KANSAS BALLESTEROS STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JOJO WHILDEN

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GLENN BROWN, ABE MARTINEZ OPERATORS: CHRIS CUEVAS, PARRISH LEWIS, SCOTT THIELE ASSISTANTS: CHRIS WITTENBORN, HUNTER WHALEN, ERIC ARNDT, SHANNON DEWOLFE DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: PAUL SCHILENS DIGITAL UTILITIES: MIKKI DICK, CHRIS SUMMERS STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JAMES WASHINGTON

POSSIBLE PRODUCTIONS

“FEAR THE WALKING DEAD” SEASON 7

“CORDUROY”

“BILLIONS” SEASON 6

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GIORGIO SCALI, ASC, BRAD SMITH OPERATORS: JONATHAN BECK, JENNIE JEDDRY ASSISTANTS: CAI HALL, LEONARDO GOMEZ, II, PATRICK BRACEY, SEAN MCNAMARA LOADERS: DONALD GAMBLE, LYNSEY WATSON, AARON CHAMPAGNE, EVAN BREEN STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: PAUL SCHIRALDI, JEFF NEUMANN

PUPPPET SHOW S2, INC.

“HELPSTERS AKA UNTITLED PUPPET SHOW” SEASON 2 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: FREDERIC FASANO

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: GARY TAILLON STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: CAROL KAELSON

SEPTEMBER 2021 PRODUCTION CREDITS

“61ST STREET” SEASON 2

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: FERNANDO ARGÜELLES, ASC, AEC, JAN RICHTER-FRIIS OPERATORS: CRAIG COCKERILL, KRIS HARDY ASSISTANTS: MARK BOYLE, SAM PEARCY, LOUIS WATT, DON HOWE STEADICAM OPERATOR: CRAIG COCKERILL DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: JAMIE METZGER LOADER: JASON HEAD DIGITAL UTILITIES: ASHLEY BJORKMAN, JOHN GRUBB TECHNOCRANE OPERATOR: JOE DATRI TECHNOCRANE TECH: RYAN CROCI REMOTE HEAD TECH/OPERATOR: JOE DATRI STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: LOUIS SMITH PUBLICIST: SHARA STORCH

TURNER CENTER NORTH, INC.

“AND JUST LIKE THAT” SEASON1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TIMOTHY NORMAN OPERATORS: MATTHEW PEBLER, WYLDA BAYRON ASSISTANTS: MICHAEL BURKE, ADRIANNA BRUNETTO-LIPMAN, MABEL SANTOS HAUGEN, AMBER ROSALES DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: LUKE TAYLOR LOADER: BRIAN PUCCI

“JULIA” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC MOYNIER OPERATORS: GERARD SAVA, PIERRE COLONNA ASSISTANTS: BRADEN BELMONTE, JAMIESON FITZPATRICK, KIMBERLY HERMAN, MATTHEW HEDGES DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MATTHEW DORRIS DIGITAL UTILITY: ANNE ABBRUZZESE LOADER: AUDREY STEVENS STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: SEACIA PAVAO

TUNA WALK, INC. “FIRE ISLAND”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: FELIPE VARA DEL REY OPERATORS: ALEC JARNAGIN, NIKNAZ TAVAKOLIAN ASSISTANTS: BOBBY ARNOLD, ERIK KANDEFER, GRACE HENRICKS, NOLAN MALONEY DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MALIKA FRANKLIN DIGITAL UTIITY: JOSH MUNSON LOADER: ANABEL CAICEDO STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: JEONG PARK

UNIVERSAL TELEVISION, LLC “KENAN” SEASON 2

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: CHARLES PAPERT OPERATORS: SANTIAGO YNIGUEZ, DENIS MORAN ASSISTANTS: HEATHER LEA-LEROY, CRAIG JENNETTE, FARISAI KAMBARAMI, LANI WASSERMAN STEADICAM OPERATOR: SANTIAGO YNIGUEZ LOADER: BEN IKER CAMERA UTILITY: NAOE JARMON DIGIAL UTILITY: PHIL COSTA

UPTOWN LOCALS, INC.

“A THOUSAND AND ONE” OPERATORS: DOUG DURANT, GEORGE TUR ASSISTANTS: ELIZABETH SINGER, JELANI WILSON, JAY KIDD DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: PETER SYMONOWICZ

WARNER BROS

“BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA” SEASON 2 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: PATTI LEE, ASC OPERATORS: MARK DAVISON, CHRIS HINOJOSA, JON PURDY, MICHELLE CRENSHAW ASSISTANTS: JEFF JOHNSON, VITO DE PALMA, MARIANNE FRANCO, ADAN TORRES, LISA ANDERSON, ALICIA BRAUNS, LANCE MITCHELL, JORDAN HRISTOV VIDEO CONTROLLER: JOHN O’BRIEN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: T. BRETT FEENEY STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: MICHAEL YARISH PUBLICISTS: KATHLEEN TANJI, MARC KLEIN

“SHINING VALE” SEASON 1 DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SUKI MEDENCEVIC, ASC OPERATORS: JOSHUA TURNER, COLBY OLIVER

CREW PHOTO WALKER SEASON 1

ASSISTANTS: MARK STRASBURG, DAVID BERRYMAN, KEN TANAKA, RENNI POLLOCK, RICHARD AVALON STEADICAM OPERATOR: COLBY OLIVER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: CARMEN DEL TORO UTILITY: WILLIAM RANDALL LOADER: KYLE KIMBRIEL STILL PHOTOGRAPHERS: KATRINA MARCINOWSKI, RON JAFFE PUBICIST: LINDA BROWN

LEFT TO RIGHT,

FRONT ROW: HANNAH ZAMORA, RIGNEY SACKLEY, ERIN MAINWARING BACK ROW: JUSTIN BROWNE, PK MUNSON, KELLY BOGDAN, ROBERT RENDON, THEDA CUNNINGHAM, ROB MCGRATH, LESLIE FRID, BRENDA SZWEJBKA PHOTO BY: REBECCA BRENNEMAN

ARTS & SCIENCES “DUNKIN DONUTS”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: RYLEY BROWN OPERATOR: NATHAN SWINGLE ASSISTANTS: JOE CHRISTOFORI, DARRYL BYRNE, ASA REED, NATE GOODMAN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DAVE KUDROWITZ

“PUBLIX” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: SEAN MEEHAN ASSISTANTS: MARK SANTONI, BAIRD STEPTOE, MILAN JANICIN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: STEVE HARNELL

BELIEVE MEDIA

COMMERCIALS ANONYMOUS CONTENT “GUINNESS”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: KHALID MOHTASEB ASSISTANTS: ETHAN MCDONALD, JORDAN MARTIN, CHRIS STRAUSER DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MICHAEL HARDWICK PHANTOM TECH: TOM HEIGL

“INFINITY”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ZACHARY SNYDER OPERATOR: KRISTEN CORRELL ASSISTANTS: RAY MILAZZO, JACQUELINE STAHL, KALLI KOUF, SAM LINO DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: STEVE HARNELL

BISCUIT

“EE CELLULAR”

“PROJECT WOOLY” DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID BOLEN ASSISTANTS: ARTURO OCHOA, MICHAEL DUMIN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: STEVE HARNELL

CAVIAR LA, LLC “FORD”

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GREIG FRASER, ASC, ACS ASSISTANTS: PAUL METCALF, AMANDA MORGAN DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: STEVE HARNELL RONIN TECH: JOSH QUIROS B UNIT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: RYLEY BROWN ASSISTANTS: JOSEPH CANON, CHRIS MARIUS JONES DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: DEAN GEORGOPOULOS

CMS

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PANOPTICA FILMS

JOJX

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RAKISH

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RESET

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RSA

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SMUGGLER

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SUPERPRIME

VICTORHOUSE FILMS

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SWEETSHOP

WARNER BROS

SOMESUCH

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TIM HUDSON, ACS ASSISTANTS: ERIK STAPELFELDT, DAISY SMITH DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: ERIC YU

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL SVITAK OPERATORS: LOGAN SCHNEIDER, DAVID MCDONALD ASSISTANTS: JEFF CAPLES, GUS BECHTOLD, JOSEPH SORIA, MATTHEW FREEDMAN, ERRIN ZINGALE, RUSSEL MILLER, ROB SAGASER, DON BURTON LOADER: LACEY JOY DIGITAL IMAGING TECH: MICHAEL HARDWICK

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“THE HOME DEPOT”

“PHEXXI”

“US CELLULAR”

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STINK, LLC “LEXUS”

THE DIRECTORS BUREAU “CANARY”

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TOOL OF NORTH AMERICA

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“2120 DOUBLE”

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“KEYBANK”

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STIR FILMS DBA SWEET RICKEY “AMICA”

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VAGRANTS

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STOP MOTION

Parrish Lewis Working on Candyman with Director Nia DaCosta (above right) was a complete joy and personal career highlight. As a Chicago native, coming from one of the city’s largest housing projects (Altgeld Gardens), it felt like this job was meant for me. With Nia directing, I knew it would be a historic opportunity, as she brought fresh energy and an unapologetic vision to representing this timeless story centered on the Black Experience. The shot above was captured on Chicago’s CTA Red Line, which is symbolic in that it goes from North- to South-side neighborhoods – which are, in many ways, different worlds and cultures. What was so brilliant about Nia’s approach is that she truly understood the culture – and that allowed her to be hands-on and intimate with the talent.

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