AmericanCinematographer July2022

July 2022 The International Publication of the American Society of Cinematographers
Tokyo Vice
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JULY 2022 VOL. 103 NO. 7
On Our Cover:
Yakuza gangster Sato (Sho Kasamatsu) is a key
figure in Tokyo Vice, shot by John Grillo. (Photo
Contents
by James Lisle, courtesy of HBO Max.)
Features
16 Signature Styles
The cinematographers of Tokyo Vice, The Gilded Age
and Slow Horses analyze their work on the series’ pilots.
34 Space Oddity
Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC reveals his approach
to the sci-fi series The Man Who Fell to Earth.
44 Building Worlds
Karl-Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK and key collaborators
discuss their work together on Halo.
16
52 A Movie Under Siege
Salvatore Totino, ASC, AIC visualizes the making of
The Godfather for The Offer.

Departments
8 Letter From the President
10 The Virtual World: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
62 Clubhouse News
66 New Products and Services
72 Wrap Shot: Brianne Murphy, ASC
VISIT ASCMAG.COM
44
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Stephen Pizzello
WEB DIRECTOR and PUBLISHER

David E. Williams
EDITORIAL
MANAGING EDITOR Andrew Fish
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Samantha Dillard
SHOT CRAFT and TECHNICAL EDITOR Jay Holben
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley
VIRTUAL PRODUCTION EDITOR Noah Kadner
WRITER/RESEARCHER Tara Jenkins
ASSOCIATE WEB EDITOR Brian Kronner
CONTRIBUTORS
Benjamin B, John Calhoun, Mark Dillon, Michael Goldman, Jim Hemphill,
David Heuring, Debra Kaufman, Michael Kogge, Iain Marcks, Matt Mulcahey,
Jean Oppenheimer, Phil Rhodes, Patricia Thomson, Peter Tonguette
CREATIVE DIRECTION and DESIGN

Edwin Alpanian
ADVERTISING
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SUBSCRIPTIONS, BOOKS and PRODUCTS

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ACCOUNTING June Mabbun
American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 103rd year of publication,
is published monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A.,
(800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription inquiries (323) 969-4344.
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4 / JULY 2022
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THE WORLD’S LEADING
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL American Society of Cinematographers
ON MOTION IMAGING The ASC is not a labor union or a guild,

but an educational, cultural and
DELIVERS THE INSIDE STORY professional organization. Membership is

by invitation to those who are actively en-
OF MODERN CINEMATOGRAPHY.
gaged as directors of photography and have
demonstrated outstanding ability. ASC
membership has become one of the highest
honors that can be bestowed upon a
professional cinematographer — a mark
of prestige and excellence.
OFFICERS 2022/2023
Stephen Lighthill
President
Amelia Vincent
Vice President
John Simmons
Vice President
Shelly Johnson
Vice President
Steven Poster
Treasurer
Gregg Heschong
Secretary
Christopher Chomyn
Sergeant-at-Arms
MEMBERS
OF THE BOARD
Curtis Clark
Richard Crudo
Steven Fierberg
Michael Goi
Shelly Johnson
From new camera systems and lighting options to the creative Ed Lachman
use of virtual-production methods, American Cinematographer Patti Lee
examines the latest tools and techniques, while maintaining Charlie Lieberman
sharp focus on essential creative collaborations and the artistry Stephen Lighthill
Lowell Peterson
of visual storytelling. Lawrence Sher
John Simmons
• Print Edition – Learn from the best John Toll
and build your permanent reference collection Amelia Vincent
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store.ascmag.com/collections/subscriptions Steve Gainer
6 / JULY 2022
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CONGRATULATIONS
Claudio Miranda, ASC, ACC on the
release of Top Gun: Maverick!
VENICE
Thank you for choosing the

VENICE and the VENICE Rialto
to support you.
“Top Gun is a fantastic example

where we delivered shots not
previously achievable thanks to the
VENICE and VENICE Rialto.”
— Claudio Miranda, ASC, ACC
VENICE Rialto
sonycine.com
JULY 2022 / 7
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5/20/22 8:36 PM
Letter From the President
PHOTO COURTESY OF IMAGEBROKER AND ALAMY STOCK PHOTO.

PORTRAIT BY DOUGLAS KIRKLAND.
Traditional television has evolved, both technically and creatively.
THIS ISSUE IS ABOUT TELEVISION PRODUCTION — which nowadays Underground Railroad; Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC, for Snowfall; and
begs the question: “What exactly is TV, anyway?” Michael Berlucchi and Marc Carter, for Mythic Quest.
I guess TV is like many other things in life: When we see it, we know The streaming services persist in calling their episodic efforts “TV.” In
it. In fact, many TVs are on the curb waiting for recycling — CRTs, at fact, they even pride themselves on making “big-budget TV” — which,
least. That is, “Cathode-Ray Tubes,” the amazingly dangerous technol- not too long ago, would have been an oxymoron. But take one look at
ogy that was TV. Many a TV repairperson risked their lives using metal Halo, shot by Karl-Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK, and you’ll immediately
screwdrivers to poke around in the high-voltage area of the CRT. And so see that this is a new day for TV, with big budgets, big effects, and a
was invented the “tweaker,” a plastic screwdriver that did not conduct whole different meaning behind the initials “TV” (which, by the way, we
electricity — placed, of course, in the plastic Pocket Protector of said watch on flatscreen monitors now, not televisions anymore). Good TV —
repairperson. when we see it, we absolutely know it.
Our subject, however, is new, or current TV — as opposed to old TV,
say, from the long-ago 1990s. Those of us who worked and suffered in
TV at that time, and found ourselves making decisions on the basis of
logistics, schedule or budget, lived to regret it. Gonzo journalist Hunt-
er S. Thompson famously wrote: “The TV business is uglier than most
things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money
trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hall- Stephen Lighthill
way where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for President, ASC
no good reason.”
We are talking here about good TV. It is still true that the schedules
are tough, but it’s undeniable that the look of new TV is quite remark-
able. Perhaps it began with shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
(shot early on by the ever-inventive Roy H. Wagner, ASC) or Twin Peaks
(the pilot of which was shot by the equally inventive Ron Garcia, ASC).
Across four separate TV categories, the ASC Awards this year hon-
ored the work of Jon Joffin, ASC, for Titans; James Laxton, ASC, for The
8 / JULY 2022
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The Virtual World By Noah Kadner
Boldly Going Virtual — Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE BY MARNI GROSSMAN.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PLUS.
The many sequences of Star Trek: Strange
New Worlds that employ in-camera VFX
backgrounds are shot in an LED volume on
Pixomondo’s stage in Toronto, Canada.
These Are the Voyages starship commanded by Captain continued through several the- in science fiction, and to be able
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) atrical features and TV spinoffs. to create new visuals for such
is technically not the first Trek and crewed by familiar charac- Each successive show took ad- an iconic franchise was a huge
project to embrace LED-volume ters such as Spock (Ethan Peck); vantage of its era’s cutting-edge honor,” she says. “Solaris, Arrival,
in-camera visual effects — that Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Good- visual-effects techniques, such and Ex Machina were all huge
achievement belongs to Season ing); and Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca as computer-aided motion control inspirations.
4 of Star Trek: Discovery — but Romijn), aka Number One. The and digital compositing (as used “Before we started, we just
the new Paramount Plus series first season was shot by cine- on Star Trek: The Next Gener- didn’t know how the volume
is the first in the franchise to be matographers Magdalena Górka, ation) and leaning hard into CG would work in terms of lighting,”
designed entirely around them. ASC, PSC and Glen Keenan, CSC; animation (beginning mid-series she continues. “My friend Jose
Strange New Worlds, the latest the latter’s contributions included on Deep Space Nine, and from Parra from FotoKem put me in
series in the Gene Roddenberry- shooting the show’s pilot episode. the very start with Voyager.) touch with Greig Fraser [ASC,
spawned sci-fi universe, serves The Star Trek franchise So, it’s only logical that Star ACS], who [was instrumental in
as a prequel, chronicling the ad- launched in 1966 — with what Trek and virtual production come developing] the volume for The
ventures of the crew aboard the is now known as Star Trek: The together now. Mandalorian. Greig was very gen-
USS Enterprise before James T. Original Series (TOS) — and has Górka, who shot five episodes erous with his time and relayed to
Kirk took command. A spinoff of always been at the forefront of of Strange New Worlds, was me that he wants this technique
Discovery (AC July ’21), Strange visual effects. After TOS went delighted to take on the project. to be successful, so he was
New Worlds features the famous off the air in 1969, the story “I’ve always had a major interest happy to share the knowledge.
10 / JULY 2022
p. 10-15 Virtual World_v3.indd 10 6/2/22 10:43 PM

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM
The LED-volume environment renders the mighty inner

workings of the warp core within the starship Enterprise.
virtual-production and visu- capturing these shots in front of

al-effects supervisor Nathaniel a real lens versus compositing
Larouche and executive producer everything in post. The natural
Paolo Tamburrino. “Virtual pro- depth of field and the way the
duction with LED volumes is a light falls on fine details like hair
new toolset for filmmakers to cre- and cheekbones — all of that
ate their stories differently, from definition and accurate lighting
Day 1,” says Tamburrino. “The are what you’re losing when re-
actors are not just surrounded by moving greenscreen spill to get
the wall, but they can engage and a good composite. Using the
interact directly with its contents.” LED volume gives you back all
Adds Larouche, “There’s of those highlights and creates
something tangibly better about a beautiful and natural-looking
Large Format Directors Viewfinder

I learned that the most amazing
thing about it is that you are light-
Canada, with the show’s substan-
tial LED-wall work performed on Full Format
ing with the wall, so it’s important
to keep that in mind while building
visual-effects house Pixomon-
do’s stage (which, as with all of
in all its Glory
assets, and to design lighting the company’s Canada-based
directly into the screen content as LED-wall stages, was built in part-
a starting point. Building assets nership with Canadian production
was my favorite part of the job. rental company William F. White
Lighting amazing designs created International Inc.). The stage is a
by production designer Jonathan 70'x30' horseshoe-shaped vol-
Lee and Pixomondo — seeing ume that uses Roe Visual’s Black
how it comes to life — was ex- Pearl BP2 2.8mm LED panels for
traordinary. We were encouraged the walls and Roe Carbon Series
to go bold, and we had significant CB5 5.77mm panels for the ceil-
creative freedom to shoot a very
colorful and slick show. Our imag-
ing. The panels are fed by Bromp-
ton Tessera SX40 12-bit, 4K LED
“While recently shooting
The Pursuit of Love on the Alexa
ination was the limit.” video processors, which output LF with Signature Primes, I was
Górka used Arri Alexa LF cam- real-time animation from Unreal able to view the full scope of this
eras with a custom set of Cooke Engine. The volume — which is beautiful format in all its glory.
Anamorphic /i 1.8x Full Frame Plus also used for Discovery’s LED-wall Light and easy to handle, the
Special Flair lenses. work — includes OptiTrack mo-
Lindsey Optics Large Format
tion-capture cameras to handle
Directors Finder was a great tool
The Pixomondo VFX Crew multi-camera tracking.
Production for Strange New
on set when it came to
The Pixomondo virtal-
Worlds takes place in Toronto, production team includes discussing framing options
with the director.
”
Zac Nicholson, BSC
“We would discuss in detail what kind of lighting
I wanted to see in the virtual environment, and
where it needed to be placed.”
www.lindseyoptics.com • +1.661.522.7101
JULY 2022 / 11

The Virtual World
This environment on planet Vulcan, the homeworld of Spock

(Ethan Peck), was created with the aid of an LED wall.
image that we’re all very proud actor performed the scene up
of.” until the moment of the jump.
Referencing an interesting use Then, a custom control allowed
of the LED wall that allows an us to trigger the playback of the
actor to essentially serve as their element in line with the actor’s
own double within a scene, Tam- performance/cue,” so the actor’s
burrino recalls “a sequence where live performance was able to lead
a character has to jump out of the directly into the VFX shot of the
cargo hold. We shot the actor’s actor, now appearing on the LED
PHOTO BY JOHN MEDLAND.

jump on a bluescreen, and then wall, leaping from the cargo hold.
keyed and placed the imagery Tamburrino adds that the team
on a card — a 2.5D technique — is “looking for ways to integrate
within the Unreal environment. more digital doubles into future
Later, in the LED volume, the environments.”
Preproduction: Lighting and exclusively on Season 1), this

Virtual Design meant new ways to interact with
In addition to various extraterres- production design. “We could
trial planetary environments for view and walk through [virtual
the Enterprise crew to explore, versions of sets, before they were
the LED volume was incorporated physically constructed], in VR
into several standing ship sets. using Unreal Engine,” she says.
These included the engineering “We were able to see every corner
room, mess hall and cargo bay — of the set in 3D and think about
familiar locales that have mainly how to light it before our lighting
been depicted in previous Trek sessions. Then during our lighting
shows via physical set builds or sessions on iPads with Pixo, we
bluescreen shoots. would add specific sources and
AOTO Virtual Production Because so much of the
success of LED in-camera VFX
colors, which would be part of
the design, into the sets. We
LED Solutions depends on camera-ready
environments, the Strange New
would discuss in detail what kind
of lighting I wanted to see in the
Worlds team spent much longer virtual environment, and where it
Mini LED Applied, Moiré Reduction
in preproduction refining virtual needed to be placed. We usually
Nano-Coating, Isolate Chemical Damage
Grooved-Antioptical-Crosstalk, Lower Reflective
sets — with close collaboration avoided direct sunlight, as it was
1/6 Scan and 7680Hz Refresh Rate, Eliminate Scan Lines
between Pixomondo’s virtu- still challenging to emulate the
al-production team and the art effect in the volume.
department, which led to the cre- “It’s terrific for a DP to have
ation of the company’s dedicated access to tools like these,” Górka
virtual art department (VAD) for continues. “It was a long journey
Season 2. For Górka (who worked from my film school in Poland,
“We’re constantly trying to infuse more dynamic

RM Series MXH Series AE Series
lighting and moving, interactive elements into
our environments.”
12 / JULY 2022

JULY 2022 / 13

The Virtual World
Top: Cinematographer Magdalena Górka, ASC, PSC at camera

on the set of Strange New Worlds. Bottom: Enterprise Captain
Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and “Number One” Una
Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) arrive at an abandoned Illyrian
colony as an ion storm approaches.
where I learned how to light with Abrams-directed features Star

just two 650-watt lights and Trek (AC June ’09) and Star Trek
candlelight, to the place where I Into Darkness (AC June ’13), for
can use cutting-edge technology Strange New Worlds the iconic
to perfect my craft. I was very setting was created by combin-
grateful for the experience, and ing practical foreground consoles
for being able to create on this and guard railings with an Unreal
level. It gave me great knowledge Engine-powered LED-volume
for the future.” environment that showed off
Tamburrino notes that the les- the mighty inner workings of the
sons learned during Discovery’s ship’s warp core.
first season with an LED volume “We had 250 or so little virtual
carried forward to Strange New light fixtures in the engineer-
Worlds. “Our approach has ing-room design, and 60 real
evolved throughout production,” light fixtures — which included C
he says. “We started adding new LED strips, LED monitors, Arri
features, like subtle animation SkyPanels and Astera Titan
M
in the real-time environments. Tubes — in the physical set, in Y
For example, for the engineering the foreground,” says Górka. “We CM
PHOTOS BY MARNI GROSSMAN.

room, we’ve developed ‘energy’ would always do a ‘blend day’ in MY
that’s flowing inside the conduits the volume when a set was close
CY
and warp core. A more complex to production. It’s essentially a
effect, in combination with live color-grading session, where CMY
custom-built board controls, was you balance the real physical K
achieved in the alien chamber, elements in the foreground with

where interactive hieroglyphs the virtual environment. The wall
could be controlled within the was often too bright — so first
virtual environment — both inten- we’d bring it down, and then
sity and colors. We’ve also added balance and color-correct all the because they want to be able the wall and ceiling. Also, [since
DMX integration, so the lighting foreground and volume fixtures. to mix up the look on the fly as we have] the flexibility to add
operator can start controlling We could also add animation, like we’re shooting, instead of being SFX — [such as] smoke and
certain key lights that were electricity arcing, flashes, smoke tied into a single style.” sparks — and practical/traditional
custom built into the associated and other elements, into the wall. lights into the ceiling, a benefit
virtual environment and routed Most of them had to be pre-de- Parting Shots [to a larger volume] would be
to the individual DMX channels. signed, but some of them, like “One thing we’re always thinking to keep SFX and lighting rigs
We’ve had significant progress moving smoke or nebulas, could about is constructing even larger out of the camera line. We also
over the past 12 months.” be done on the fly.” LED volumes,” says Tamburrino want to create more interac-
Larouche adds that engi- — who began work on Season tive animation, such as having
The Engineering Room neering was “one of our most 2 of Strange New Worlds before a character carry a real-world
Avid Star Trek viewers know that challenging sets, but it made us the first season had even aired. flashlight, which affects the virtu- ■
key plot developments often realize that having extremely “That would give our directors al environment.”
■
hinge on the action occurring in dynamic and moving elements more chances to frame upwards Says Górka, “It was a huge
the engineering section of the makes things feel much more toward the ceiling — because, privilege to contribute to the Star
Enterprise. While this futuristic alive and realistic. We’re con- right now, it’s likely to require a Trek legacy.” Regarding the new
and expansive set had been stantly trying to infuse more digital cleanup if we shoot off the technologies, she adds, “These
shot at the Anheuser-Busch dynamic lighting and moving, edge of the screens, due to tech- tools are amazing because it
brewery and the National Ignition interactive elements into our en- nical limitations, such as color allows you to have no boundaries
Facility for the respective J.J. vironments. The DPs love it, too, shifts and visible edges between to your imagination.”
14 / JULY 2022

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Signature
Styles
Three cinematographers
discuss creating looks for
their latest episodic series.
T
he opportunity to shoot a television pilot is
always exciting for cinematographers, since
it gives them — and their collaborators — a
chance to create a look that will become a
show’s signature throughout its run. Crafting
this look helps to establish a distinct point
of view and provide guidelines for the direc-
tors and other filmmakers who arrive at various points in the
schedule to work on the production.
In the following pages, AC speaks with directors of photog-
raphy about the signature styles they created for three new
series. For the HBO Max crime drama Tokyo Vice (pictured
at right), cinematographer John Grillo employs kinetic cam-
erawork to take viewers on a tour of Tokyo’s underbelly and
to simultaneously convey the protagonist’s inner unease. In
capturing the grandeur of 1880s New York City and its elites
for HBO’s historical drama The Gilded Age, Vanja Černjul, ASC,
HFS composes wide, epic shots that he dubs “master panora-
mas,” which help to delineate two distinct versions of New
York: old and new. Danny Cohen, BSC also employs contrast-
ing imagery in the Apple TV Plus spy thriller Slow Horses to
establish character and place, and to highlight a dichotomy
central to the show’s plot: spies who are particularly terrible
at their jobs.
16 / JULY 2022
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JULY 2022 / 17

SIGNATURE STYLES
Previous spread: After landing a job at a major Japanese newspaper,

American journalist Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) delves into Tokyo’s
shadowy criminal underbelly. This page, top: After catching Adelstein
covertly snapping photos of a police intervention, detective Hiroto
Katagiri (Ken Watanabe) confiscates his camera. Bottom: Nightclub
hostess Samantha (Rachel Keller) and Yakuza henchman Sato (Sho
Kasamatsu) embark upon a dangerous relationship.
Tokyo Vice | A Criminal Underground

By Michael Kogge
When cinematographer John Grillo visited Tokyo in the early 1990s, the
city reminded him of the Los Angeles depicted in Blade Runner, with its
bright neon nighttime lights and its mixture of ultra-modern technol-
ogy and ancient culture. However, for the pilot of the HBO Max series
Tokyo Vice, director Michael Mann challenged Grillo to go beyond this
now-common image of the city and capture a Tokyo that was grittier,
rougher and less illuminated. Mann wanted to show the city’s unglam-
orous side and explore the spaces where ordinary people lived, worked,
ate, and even killed — or, as Mann describes it, “the real Tokyo.”
Says Grillo, “Michael is the last director who would want to do post-
card photography. He does not want to repeat the usual visual tropes.
So, we didn’t even think about doing the beauty shots of certain streets
in Tokyo with all the lit signs. We wanted to get into the underground
of the city.”
In the pilot, the camera becomes the vehicle that tours a version of
Tokyo rarely portrayed on Western screens — moving, bobbing and
weaving through scenes; seldom at rest; always curious and kinetic.
“You feel the excitement of the camera showing you the place and show-
ing you character,” Grillo says. “We achieved that with a combination of
handheld work and Steadicam, as well as the P+S Skater Scope.”
Camera and character are closely linked in the pilot. The protagonist,
American ex-pat Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort), joins the staff of a major
Tokyo newspaper as a cub reporter and begins investigating a grisly
murder and a dramatic self-immolation that takes him into the shadowy
world of the Yakuza crime syndicate. The camera’s constant motion not
only reveals Tokyo’s underbelly, but also reflects Jake’s inner turbulence
and unease. Grillo believes this kineticism is fundamental to the look
and feel of the show: “The signature style of Tokyo Vice is that the camera
is so active in telling a story that the lighting isn’t necessarily the most
important thing.”
Mann adds, “The kineticism John’s talking about is that we put our
audience in [Jake’s] shoes and see through [his] eyes as much as possi-
ble. The first time he walks into his dream-come-true of the newsroom,
it’s busy and chaotic. [The other characters] are looking at all of the mul-
tiplex reactions that he’s having, and you’re seeing both his face and the
“Michael [Mann] is the last director who environment that he’s entered for the very first time.”
would want to do postcard photography. Grillo has worked with Mann for more than 20 years, beginning as
He does not want to repeat the usual a camera assistant, moving up to operator, and then advancing to the
visual tropes.” rank of cinematographer for him on the Tokyo Vice pilot after serving as
a director of photography on numerous projects for other filmmakers.
Experience taught him he needed to be at the top of his game. “The task
of shooting a Michael Mann project involves a lot of preparation and
understanding of his methods — and his methods can be quite unorth-
odox. I think he only sleeps like four hours a night, because the amount
of work he puts in is incredible. At the same time, when we’re on set, it
feels like we’re improvising. There’s a documentary aspect to the way he
18 / JULY 2022

The filmmakers employed a variety of techniques to lend

the show its kinetic feel, including Steadicam, handheld
camerawork and use of the P+S Technik Skater Scope.
TOKYO VICE PHOTOS BY JAMES LISLE, COURTESY OF HBO MAX.
executes. He wants it to feel real.” “You feel the excitement of the

The Skater Scope, a periscope lens system, helped Grillo achieve camera showing you the place and
Mann’s vision. “Because the lens is so far away from the body and the showing you character.”
sensor, the movement is more kinetic,” Grillo says, while noting that the
system presents some challenges. “This device sucks up a lot of light. In
technical terms, it’s a 5.6, and Michael likes to use it in the most unusual
situations, such as night exteriors and interiors.”
To help facilitate shooting in those dark places, Grillo chose the Sony
Venice camera. Its ISO setting of 2,500 gave him latitude to use the Skat-
er Scope in all kinds of situations, including about 30 to 40 percent of
the pilot.
The other accessory that made the Venice attractive was its Rialto Ex-
tension System, which can separate the lens/sensor block from the pro-
cessing and recording system via a tether to create an extremely compact
camera. On Tokyo Vice, the processing/recording portion of the camera
could be stashed in a backpack while the operator, Roberto De Angelis,
moved around holding just the small sensor block and lens to get very
JULY 2022 / 19

SIGNATURE STYLES
Tech Specs: Tokyo Vice 2:1

Cameras | Sony Venice
Lenses | Sigma Cine prime (standard and uncoated); Angenieux EZ1, EZ2
(with FF rear optical block); Zeiss Compact CZ2; Panavision Primo zoom
Director Michael Mann (left) and cinematographer John Grillo plan a

composition with an iPhone equipped with the Artemis viewfinder app.
close to the actors’ faces, or capture extremely low angles before moving cardboard so they wouldn’t be seen in a reflection. I also had Astera tubes
into more standard perspectives. “The Rialto allows you the freedom to on the floor to light Ken, and those were carefully placed so the camera
go from a low angle to an eye-level shot,” Grillo says. “There’s a shot at operator, Roberto, could walk between them. When I was working as 1st
the beginning of the pilot when Jake and [police detective Hiroto Katagi- AC for [Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC] on Ali, I saw Chivo do something
ri, played by Ken Watanabe] enter a penthouse room to talk with mem- similar in a situation where he placed PAR cans on the floor aimed at the
bers of the Yakuza. As Ken is walking in, we start low and come up to his ceiling. One of the benefits of working with the masters is that you pick
face. That’s a good example of the Rialto at work. It’s a real bonus that up these little tricks!”
allows you to maintain the same picture quality with all the benefits of Grillo’s facility with lighting and color contributed to the portrait
the Venice — the frame rates, sensor and high ISO — while also convert- Mann wanted to paint of a gritty, shadowy Tokyo. Mann elaborates, “We
ing to a very small, lightweight device.” had very specific zones of light designed for when somebody was mov-
Since Mann preferred to shoot on location rather than on studio sets, ing through and then out of an area. It was a very expressionistic use
Grillo deployed small Astera tubes that could be controlled wirelessly of light in a pretty strong contrast range. [In the] very opening scene,
to light the scenes. “I could hide lights that were off-camera and allow when Jake sits down and is talking to the Yakuza, the way [actor Kazuya
Michael the freedom to shoot 360 degrees. I would throw lights on the Tanabe, as Yakuza henchman Yabuki] is lit, it’s chiaroscuro lighting in a
ground or wherever I could to light a scene. contemporary mode. That’s what John did — and I think he’s great at it.”
“The scene with the Yakuza in the penthouse was problematic in that
we had a shot that brought the characters in the door and panned 200 To read the full interview with Michael Mann, visit ascmag.com/articles/
degrees around the set to the lounge area, where they start their con- tokyo-vice-mann.
versation. So, I had to have the whole set lit for a three-page scene with
giant glass windows at night. I had small fixtures rigged above the main
Yakuza character to give him a hard toplight, and I hid those with black
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6/2/22 10:44 PM
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IN ALL CATEGORIES
OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY
6/2/22 10:44 PM
Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon) lives in “old New York” opulence.

THE GILDED AGE IMAGES COURTESY OF HBO. PHOTO ON THIS PAGE BY ALISON COHEN ROSA.
The Gilded Age | Wealth and Change

By Max Weinstein
Seymour Joseph Guy, Frederick Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent. with shooting the show’s feature-length first episode, the cinematogra-
The cinematography lookbook for creator-writer Julian Fellowes’ pher spent much of his prep time “looking for ways to distinguish and
HBO series The Gilded Age begins with a gallery of paintings from process those two worlds.” And in those 1800s paintings, he found the
masters of American romanticism, impressionism and portraiture. feeling that fit his “old-money” milieu — a rigid formality to cast against
For cinematographer Vanja Černjul, ASC, HFS, the artists’ iconography the fast and flamboyant life of the nouveau riche.
served as a touchstone for this sumptuously stylized historical drama. Černjul says the series’ style starts with its script, but his key crew-
Fellowes is best known for his work on the award-winning jugger- members helped him hone its opulent aesthetic. Cinematographer Man-
naut British costume drama Downton Abbey, and his latest venture ex- uel Billeter, who shot the other four episodes of the series, joined Černjul
plores his pet themes of generational wealth and social change — but during the early days of prep. Together, they assembled selected art-
in the United States, specifically 1880s New York City. “At the heart of works for reference, conducted lighting and lens tests, and co-signed
the story are two different social environments: One is the traditionalist on decisions that shaped the show’s visual language.
‘old New York,’ and the other is the industrial class that began dominat- “When you’re creating the look of a series, you’re aiming for some-
ing wealthy social circles in the late 19th century,” Černjul says. Tasked thing that other directors and cinematographers can replicate when they
JULY 2022 / 25

SIGNATURE STYLES
For the series’ signature super-wide “master panoramas,”

cinematographer Vanja Černjul, ASC, HFS would shoot
multiple tiles around a single master shot, then work
with the VFX team to marry them together.
inevitably take over from you,” Černjul says. “It was important to me that
Manuel embrace as many of my choices as possible.”
Černjul and Billeter settled on two optical systems through which
they would filter their tale of two New Yorks. For “old” New York — which
included the residences of the traditional elite — they chose Cooke Ana-
morphic/i prime lenses, to capture “that little bit of nostalgia and ro-
mantic feel that’s created by anamorphic bokehs and how depth of field
works in anamorphic systems,” Černjul says.
For “new” New York — which included the residences of the up-and-
coming capitalist class and the Black upper class — they used Cooke S7/i
spherical lenses, to imbue a look that was “more modern and cleaner,
with less distortion,” he notes.
In both cases, the optics were paired with Panasonic VariCam Pure
cameras.
Other ideas from the cinematographer’s lookbook were tested during
the first week of prep, but abandoned when proved impractical. For
instance, when shooting the downstairs of the old-money mansions,
Černjul and Billeter had intended to employ slightly longer lenses than
those used for the upstairs, hoping to frame working-class characters
extra tight as they bustled about the kitchen. But Černjul says that rule
needlessly restricted their camera moves through the space.
“You come with all these ideas, but after you test them, you have
to let the reality of your locations tell you about what the show is,” the
cinematographer notes. “You can’t just force the style upon it.”
Černjul also learned to let costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maim-
one’s work guide some of his lighting choices. “Some costumes are
three-dimensional and have a lot of detail that only comes alive with
some hard light from the side,” he says. “This was something I’ve never
done before: having a specific light that’s there just for a costume.”
One dress, which is worn in the pilot by old-guard socialite Agnes
van Rhijn (Christine Baranski), is deep blue and adorned with black “jet”
beads that glisten through the shadows of her upper Fifth Avenue town-
house. To bring out its subtle sparkle, Černjul lit the outfit with one Arri
L7-C LED Fresnel, positioning it off to the side of Baranski and just in
“We ultimately shot a ‘master panorama’ front of the upper-body portion of the dress.
for each of our sets, and they are “This hard sidelight would enhance the luster in the silk and bring
spread out throughout the series.” out the glittering detail in the dress,” Černjul says. “We couldn’t follow
the characters with this specialty light, of course, so we used it when
the characters were stationary — or sometimes they would walk in and
out of it, if the blocking allowed it. The Arri L7-C was helpful in quickly
fine-tuning the color and output to organically merge it in, and make
it ‘invisible.’”
Černjul stresses that for every costume that appears throughout the
first season, the rule remained the same: “The light should blend the
costumes into their surroundings. Ideally, the audience doesn’t notice
what you’re doing.”
One of Černjul’s more innovative techniques — a tiled and stitched
super-wide he calls a “master panorama” — was used numerous times
throughout the first season, after it was initially employed in the pilot to
26 / JULY 2022

Tech Specs: The Gilded Age 1.78:1

Cameras | Panasonic VariCam Pure
Lenses | Cooke Anamorphic /i, S7/i
Černjul (with viewfinder) and crew prepare to capture a day exterior.

PHOTO BY ALISON COHEN ROSA.
depict interiors of the grand, newly built mansion of Bertha and George “When we put the shot together, we wanted to see the whole room —
Russell (Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector). all of the ceiling and floor, but we still had to light it from somewhere,”
The cinematographer conceived of this signature shot during loca- Černjul says. “We shot the scene in the Breakers mansion [in Newport],
tion scouting, when he toured the mansions of Manhattan and Newport, which is basically a museum, so the only way to light it was with bal-
R.I., that later served as filming sites. loons that were close to the ceiling. First, we filmed the master shot with
“Whenever we entered a new room, I noticed that everybody would our actors. Then, after we shot all the other tiles, we’d move the balloons
look up at the magnificent ceilings and turn around 360 degrees, just to from the ceiling to the floor. The key was to remove our equipment from
take in the space,” Černjul recalls. “It was funny — everybody had that each tile without changing the lighting of the whole room, and we be-
same reaction. I thought, ‘How do we capture that feeling of being inside came very efficient in how we did that.”
these spaces for the first time?’” In most of the paintings the crew studied, the windows of Gilded
The crew’s romantic art referents provided their answer for this Age mansions are heavily dressed with lace, sheers and other materials.
quandary as well. “The compositions in those paintings showed us how Capturing those details required some reverse engineering, because the
to frame people in these amazing salons and drawing rooms, and how to windows would burn out when hit with hard light, making their high-
be mindful of the geometry and verticals of those rooms,” Černjul says. lights difficult to preserve.
They decided to avoid ultra-wide lenses at all costs — wary of the “I would start by turning [off] all the interior lights — keeping on only
geometric distortion inherent in this type of glass that would affect the lights from outside, to hit the sheers,” Černjul says. “That way, we
the appearance of the architecture in-frame. Černjul proposed a new could determine the maximum brightness of the window dressing with-
process to director Michael Engler: He’d shoot multiple tiles around out burning it out, and understand how much of the [incoming exterior]
one meticulously blocked “master shot,” then work with the VFX team light is left available inside. We would then balance all the lighting ratios
to marry them together in one massive mosaic. (It was key that the ac- inside the room accordingly. This workflow allowed us to preserve the
tors not cross the frameline within the master shot, so the tiles would details in the highlights and use the windows as sources as much as
be independent of the performances.) “Michael loved the results,” the possible. We brought back the detail in the window dressing in the final
cinematographer says, “so we were excited to use it again whenever we grading.”
would introduce a new set. We ultimately shot one for each of our sets, “The style of The Gilded Age is still evolving,” Černjul says. “I’m proud
and they are spread out throughout the series.” of the choices we made that survived the pilot, but other ideas will keep
The technique continued to pay dividends in Episode 2 (“Money Isn’t being slowly introduced. And going forward, we know exactly what to
Everything”), for a scene in which a master panorama shows off Russell’s pay attention to.”
billiards room for the first time — where the railroad tycoon attempts to
bribe city alderman Patrick Morris (Michel Gill) during a game of pool.
JULY 2022 / 27

SIGNATURE STYLES
Outstanding Cinematography
For a Single-Camera Series (One Hour)
Jessica Lee Gagné
28 / JULY 2022

F O R YO U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N
JULY 2022 / 29

SIGNATURE STYLES
From left: Actors Jack Lowden, Christopher Chung,

Olivia Cooke, Paul Higgins and Steven Waddington
portray failed agents relegated to MI5’s “Slough House.”
SLOW HORSES PHOTOS COURTESY OF APPLE.

Slow Horses | Spy vs. Spy
By Sarah Fensom
Danny Cohen, BSC refers to the myriad tonal twists of the Slow Hors-
es pilot episode as “wrong-footing” the audience. “Right from the first
scene in the airport, you think this is going to be a by-the-numbers ac-
tion-type show — a thriller,” he says. “But then it just turns on its head,
and it becomes more about these absolutely hopeless downtrodden
spies who are complete rubbish at what they do. Then it turns on its
head again.”
Cohen — who shot the full six-episode inaugural season of the new
Apple TV Plus series, which is based on a Mick Herron spy novel —
helped ensure that the pilot began at a fever pitch: River Cartwright (Jack
Lowden), a young British agent, is tailing a suspect through London’s
Stansted Airport as MI5’s top brass, a stony Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott
Thomas), oversees the tense scenario. As the action escalates, the mis-
sion unravels— and at the end of the nearly 10-minute sequence, the
outcome is explosively bad.
Where Cartwright ends up after the bungled mission, though, has a
starkly different pace. The failed operative is banished to Slough House,
the shabby satellite office of MI5, where outcasts of the British intelli-
gence agency go to stare at peeling paint and perform perfunctory tasks.
30 / JULY 2022

Top, from left: “Spider” Webb (Freddie Fox), Nick Duffy (Chris Reilly)
and top brass Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) oversee an
ill-fated operation at London’s Stansted airport.
Bottom: Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) in his disheveled office
with colleague Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves).
There, a surly Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) lords over the disgraced
agents, hurling insults and grumbling his way through bottles of brown
liquor. Though certainly an outsider to the agency’s state-of-the-art of-
fices in Regent’s Park, Lamb maintains a shadowy connection to Tavern-
er and the internal intel at British Intelligence.
Part of what makes the pilot compelling, both visually and dramat-
ically, is its series of surprising contrasts: action vs. idleness; Slough
House’s ramshackle feel vs. Regent Park’s pristine ambience; Taverner’s
refinement to Lamb’s insouciance.
Cohen, whose filmography is crowded with acclaimed work on fea-
tures and TV series (including The King’s Speech and Les Misérables),
worked with director James Hawes on every episode of Slow Horses. The
two collaborators prioritized a sense of visual cohesiveness throughout
the pilot, while also establishing a unique look for the episode’s major
settings. And though the show diverges largely from the globetrotting
action of James Bond-style spy fare, the director and cinematographer
did find inspiration in classic espionage films such as The Third Man
(1949) and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965). “I think what we
took from these types of spy films was more the atmosphere and mood,
rather than specific shot ideas. One other film we used as a reference
was [the 1985 feature] Defense of the Realm, shot by Roger Deakins [ASC,
BSC]. It’s a fantastic thriller about intrigue and double-crossing. It has a
great look and a real sense of time and place.”
Production on the series took place from November 2020-May 2021,
squarely amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Cohen notes that when it came
time to shoot the opening action sequence in Stansted, the airport, which
normally has “70,000 people going through, now contained about 700
people. It was a ghost town.” The vacant setting became a “playground,”
he adds, with airport authorities parking planes just for the production.
“If it had been a working airport, we never could have had an actor driv- Starting off in traditional thriller style, the
ing a car really fast next to airplanes. pilot episode “becomes more about these
“On the bigger, actiony stuff, we’d probably have three or four cam- absolutely hopeless downtrodden spies
eras — Arri Alexa Mini LFs paired with Panavision Panaspeed lenses,”
the cinematographer says, adding that he switched mostly to using two
who are complete rubbish at what they do.”
cameras for the rest of the pilot. “We shot the series with that [camera
and lens] combination. The only other lenses we used were the [Panavi-
sion 70] zooms — 28-80mm, 70-185mm and 200-400mm. We also used
Sony HXR-NX80 4K and a7S II cameras for the CCTV footage.
“The Alexa Mini LF has a slightly softer look than other cameras,
which I like,” he continues. “It meant we didn’t use diffusion filters at
all, which helps at night because they can sometimes do weird things to
highlights. The Panaspeeds worked well, as they cover the large-format
sensor, they’re fast lenses, and they have a bit of contrast, which I like
as well.”
In the airport, Cohen relied primarily on the fluorescent tubes in the
building and natural daylight coming through the windows, with “a few
Arri SkyPanels here and there,” he says.
The exterior of Slough House is a real building on Aldersgate Street in
London, but the interior offices were constructed as a set. There, Cohen
JULY 2022 / 31

SIGNATURE STYLES
Tech Specs: Slow Horses 2:1

Cameras | Arri Alexa Mini LF
Lenses | Panavision Panaspeed,
Panavision 70 zoom
Cinematographer Danny Cohen, BSC (right) and

director James Hawes plan a shot at the airport.
required a lighting setup that could be easily adapted to different needs.

“We had to create lighting that was ‘neutral’ for the day interiors, be-
cause we’d be jumping outside to shoot characters walking in or out,”
he notes. “Because the schedule was impacted by Covid, we sometimes
did the stage work before the exterior shots, which meant taking a punt
on what the exterior light would look like on specific scenes. The neutral
look was mainly [to avoid having] hard sun coming through the win-
dows, as I felt that it would be a big jump if, when we shot the exteri-
ors, it didn’t match. Having slightly flatter/cloudy light would mean the
eye wasn’t drawn to the windows and [wouldn’t register] a mismatch
if it ended up being very sunny in the real world. The night work, [in
regard to] interiors and exteriors, was simpler, so shooting it whichever
way ’round wasn’t a problem.” To achieve the variety of tones he desired,
Cohen used a mix of practical lighting and LiteGear LiteMats, all pro-
grammed into the same dimmer board.
Whenever Oldman was on camera, Cohen explains, the idea was to
make him look as worn out and defunct as possible. “Typically, with
movie stars, the directive is to make them look fantastic — but here, we
were trying to make Gary look like a farting old man who’s falling apart.”
The cinematographer and director With Scott Thomas, the aesthetic objective required the opposite ap-
prioritized a sense of visual cohesiveness proach. “The whole point was to make her look amazing in contrast to
Gary,” he notes. The cinematographer again relied primarily on the prac-
throughout the pilot, while also
tical lights built into the set — Regent’s Park, in this case — with the ad-
establishing a unique look for the dition of small LiteMats, “just to put something in her eyes. And bigger,
episode’s major settings. softer supplemental sources worked well to achieve a different look for
her — OctoDomes or 2Ks bounced off bedsheets.”
Throughout the pilot, Cohen employed a few key workarounds. For
a scene where Cartwright visits the cozy home of his grandfather (Jon-
athan Pryce), the cinematographer charged Mark Holt Special Effects
with creating a silent fire in the fireplace. “Fire creates a sound night-
mare, so this company came up with a gas fire where you can control the
intensity of the flames, but it’s completely silent — so everything you
get is usable,” Cohen says. And for a scene where all of Slough House’s
employees are huddled together in a small office watching a comput-
er monitor, Cohen cut holes in the walls of the set to shoot through. “I
hate flying walls because it’s such a time killer. There were a couple of
pictures hanging on the walls, so we just poked the camera through, to
shoot above the computer screens, and got coverage that way.”
An ongoing visual theme throughout the pilot, whether in Slough
House, Regent’s Park or on the street, is the obscuring of characters by
windows or glass. Says Cohen: “One of Hawes’ keynote visual goals was
to have double images, reflections, light reflecting on glass — anything
that was kind of interrupting the viewer’s image.” Though Slow Horses is
about the worst of spies, it is a spy thriller, after all, where nothing is as
it first seems.
32 / JULY 2022

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JULY 2022 / 33

Tokina Studio Ad-option 3.indd 1 5/13/22 9:29 AM
T
he Showtime series The Man Who
Fell to Earth presented Tommy
Maddox-Upshaw, ASC with
unique creative opportunities
— and a steep learning curve —
when he took on the complex sci-
fi production. Fortunately, as the
cinematographer notes, “I was an athlete as a kid,
and [I] always want to take on the challenge.”
The show picks up 45 years after Thomas
Jerome Newton (played by David Bowie in the
1976 feature film of the same name) arrived on
our world seeking to save his own. Because New-
ton failed in his mission, a second alien from
the planet Anthea — Faraday (Chiwetel Ejiofor)
— has come to acquire the precious resource nec-
essary to revive their dying planet: water. The 10-
part series begins with the extraterrestrial turned
tech mogul speaking before an enthusiastic audi-
ence in a type of TED talk. Polished and articulate,
and made wealthy from patents based on Anthea
technology, he has come far since crash-landing
near Los Alamos, N.M., barely able to speak. The
series traces his evolution, which has been aided
by discredited nuclear physicist Justin Falls (Nao-
mie Harris), as others — including the CIA and
the nefarious Flood family, which now controls
Newton’s legacy — become increasingly interest-
ed in learning who Faraday really is. Meanwhile,
the aged Newton (played by Bill Nighy), is advis-
ing Faraday, his mentee.
Space Oddity
Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC details his visual approach to the
Showtime sci-fi series The Man Who Fell to Earth.
By Patricia Thomson
34 / JULY 2022
p. 34-43 Man Who Fell to Earth_v3.indd 34 6/2/22 10:45 PM

JULY 2022 / 35

SPACE ODDITY
Previous spread: Faraday (Chiwetel Ejiofor) with an example of Anthean

technology. This page: A mysterious self-styled futurist, Faraday
addresses his vast audience in the pilot episode, “Hallo Spaceboy.”
PHOTOS BY AIMEE SPINKS AND RICO TORRES, COURTESY OF SHOWTIME.
Liftoff stuff it talked about,” he says. “I also know Tony Richmond. He and I are
Maddox-Upshaw, director of photography on the first four episodes friends. And I love Bowie and everything that he stood for in terms of
of Man Who Fell and half of the show’s finale, was admittedly nervous pop culture, being an artist, and his very vocal views on race in America.
about walking in the footsteps of Anthony B. Richmond, ASC, BSC, who He was ahead of his time and so unapologetic about it.”
shot the iconic 1976 film directed by Nicolas Roeg (AC April ’22). “I knew The cinematographer has also long been a sci-fi fan, yet never before
the cult following the film has, the love for Bowie and the character he photographed a production in the genre: “I’ve been a sucker for sci-fi
created with such subtlety, and the weirdness of the cinema and the ever since seeing [the 1985 space adventure] Explorers. Now to be able to
36 / JULY 2022

Below: Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC (left) with executive

producer-director Alex Kurtzman. Bottom: Faraday meets his
mentor, Newton (Bill Nighy).
lens it is awesome.”
Neither the 1963 novel by Walter Tevis nor the 1976 film had much
bearing on the look of the new series. “We’re now at a different chap-
ter of where Newton is, and the home planet, too,” Maddox-Upshaw ex-
plains. “We had to world-build and show that time has passed, which
required us to differentiate ourselves from [the original] for the most
part.”
Written by executive producer and director Alex Kurtzman and ex-
ecutive producer Jenny Lumet, the show’s themes are different as well,
and more relevant to today’s conversations. “There’s just so much in it:
gender, race, equality, immigration,” Maddox-Upshaw says. Speaking
of Faraday and professionally disgraced scientist Falls, who are both
played by Black actors, he asks, “Why him? Why her? What does it say
about the racial implications of Justin being this smart Black woman
who hasn’t fully had an opportunity [to become an accomplished scien-
tist like her father]? What does it say about her dad being an immigrant?
Faraday’s an immigrant, too. What does that mean? What’s the social
commentary?” “If you ever find a collaborator [with
This was the cinematographer’s first time working with Kurtzman,
whom] it’s easy to create moments, try to
best known for his many recent voyages in the Star Trek universe, both
in television and the feature realm. “Being a Black cinematographer in hold onto them. Value that relationship.”
this Hollywood space, I felt for years I always had to prove myself to the
room,” Maddox-Upshaw says. “From Day 1, Alex Kurtzman never made
me feel like I had to prove myself to him or to anybody we were working
with. It was always an open collaboration, which is freeing and different.”
The cinematographer notes that he worked alongside many people of
color on the crew, including A-camera operator Andrei Austin, A-camera
JULY 2022 / 37

SPACE ODDITY
Below: Shooting on location in Spain, Maddox-Upshaw finds an

angle on Ejiofor. Right: Setting up a shot on the hood of the truck,
the cinematographer examines the effect of a pola filter.
focus puller René Adefarasin, 2nd-unit director of photography Yinka

Edward, and camera trainee Bradley Panda — as well as women, includ-
ing B-camera 1st AC Joanne Smith and B-camera 2nd AC Melanie Jan-
sen, among others. “Not to say that [A-camera] 2nd AC Jonathan Tubb,
DIT Daniel Alexander and loader Étienne Suffert didn’t add to the mix of
our inclusive band of misfits in the camera department,” he says. “It was
quite inclusive, between the people of color, white men and women [in
all departments]. Within our crew and day players who came on from
different departments, people were surprised that a show this size had
so many diverse crewmembers. It was part of the ether of this produc-
“Being a Black cinematographer in this tion. That’s something I try to do here in the States quite often in my
Hollywood space, I felt for years I always hiring practices, and I wanted to do that on this international production
as well.”
had to prove myself to the room.”
Alien Imagery
The cinematographer was exposed to visual-effects techniques while
operating on Iron Man 2 for Matthew Libatique, ASC — but never on
this scale, noting, “I think this show has 300 to 400 [shots requiring ef-
fects work] per episode.” He credits two VFX experts with showing him
the ropes: Simon Carr, VFX supervisor in the U.K., and Jason Michael
Zimmerman, coproducer/VFX supervisor in the U.S., who often works
with Kurtzman. His takeaways? “Always make sure there’s talk of an ap-
proach before you get there. Then double down once you’re there and
don’t make any assumptions about what the VFX are going to be.”
However, the show’s special look owes just as much to stylized tech-
niques achieved in-camera. That’s especially true of shots that convey
38 / JULY 2022

At the eyepiece, Maddox-Upshaw checks his

frame for a low-angle dolly shot.
Faraday’s state of mind. These kick in just after he’s arrived on Earth and
is overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of human beings — and water,
the precious resource he’s after. Soon after Faraday lands, he’s seen
naked, staggering to a gas station where he spots a water hose. There’s
a quick-cut barrage of extreme close-ups of the hose gushing water, his
mouth drinking, and other details.
These shots were accomplished with a Venus Optics Laowa 24mm
probe lens, the first of many such uses for its wide angle of view. With
its 16" barrel, the Laowa has a minimum working distance of just 20mm
from the front element. Focusing from 2:1 macro to infinity at f/14, it
needs a lot of light, yet provides a unique perspective — adding a disori-
enting effect to the scene.
Maddox-Upshaw also deployed the Laowa for some POV shots in
later scenes. “You can get super macro, and then, when you pull out, it
will rectify itself so it doesn’t stay macro,” he explains. “Once you rack
focus, it flattens out the field of view. You see stuff that goes in and out,
and Faraday never went ‘weird fisheye’ at all. That’s what’s cool about
this lens.”
JULY 2022 / 39

SPACE ODDITY
Bathed in warm light, Faraday is welcomed by the Falls family: Justin

(Naomie Harris), Josiah (Clarke Peters) and Molly (Annelle Olaleye).
“I tried to make sure there was always The cinematographer made further creative use of the Laowa in Epi-
a level of warmth when it came to the sode 4, when Faraday accompanies Clive Flood (Laurie Kynaston) to his
grandfather’s cabin studio to listen to a “music sphere” that Newton left
Falls family.” behind. Clive is the bad boy in the Flood family: derelict, and a disap-
pointment to his icy mother. In this scene, he reacts to Faraday’s ques-
tions about his Tourette-syndrome tics by blowing smoke from his crack
pipe into the alien’s face.
“Faraday has never ingested this substance before,” Maddox-Up-
shaw notes. “We needed him and the camera to go over the top. When
it came to seeing him flip out because of the contact high, I went back
to the Loawa. I pumped in as much light as I could, because I wanted
to get close and follow him around. And because it’s a macro lens, that
helped distort the world a bit.” But shooting extreme close-ups with a
16" probe lens is tricky: “It’s kind of tough because the operator has to
40 / JULY 2022

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JULY 2022 / 41

SPACE ODDITY
In a flashback, Faraday watches an alien machine on his drought-

stricken home planet, Anthea. The series required extensive
effects, calling for Maddox-Upshaw to work closely with VFX
supervisors Simon Carr and Jason Michael Zimmerman.
“Always make sure there’s talk of an be careful not to stick the actor in the eye.” The cinematographer also al-
approach before you get there. Then tered the shutter angle to increase the sense of weirdness, and shot with
the Sony Venice in Rialto mode to lend his camera-movement additional
double down once you’re there and don’t flexibility.
make any assumptions about what the The scene continues with Faraday listening to the music sphere. To
VFX are going to be.” Clive, the sounds are “pretentious noises,” but Faraday recognizes it as a
message from Newton to his wife back on Anthea. Newton is lamenting
the fact that there will come a time when he can no longer remember
her, “because he will become more human than Anthean in his expe-
rience on Earth,” Maddox-Upshaw says. As Faraday translates from the
Anthean language, the camera pivots to a mirror. Newton stands beside
him in the reflection, reciting the same words.
Due to actor Nighy’s schedule, he and Ejiofor had to be filmed sep-
arately for the scene — four months and many miles apart. “We shot
Chiwetel in June in a cabin built by production designer James Merifield
at a manor in the English countryside, and then we shot Bill in October
against greenscreen inside a shut-down college campus. We matched
the lighting and it worked out. It’s one of those things I’m very proud of.”
Contrasting Worlds
The show’s overarching visual design sets up two contrasting worlds:
one grounded in love and family and the other a colder, sharper reali-
ty. “It’s about juxtaposing intimacy against the institutional nature of
the forces coming after Faraday and Justin Falls,” Maddox-Upshaw says.
Intimacy is present within the Falls family. All their scenes were filmed
with new, as-yet-unnamed prototype spherical lenses from Panavision.
Meanwhile, scenes featuring CIA operatives and the Flood family were
42 / JULY 2022

Tech Specs: 2.39:1

Lenses | Panavision prototype spherical, G Series; Venus Optics
Laowa probe lens
captured with Panavision G Series anamorphics, which presented a Collaborative Trust

sharper, harsher world: “They were great in terms of sharpness and their Kurtzman and Maddox-Upshaw didn’t meet in person until the cinema-
flaring, which I felt was not as intimate as the sphericals.” tographer landed in London for prep, and their Zoom conferences dove-
The show was shot in 6K to retain image quality for the 2.39:1 ex- tailed smoothly into a close in-person collaboration.
traction from the spherical footage. “We created different LUTs after “If you ever find a collaborator [with whom] it’s easy to create mo-
having the spherical lenses manipulated by [ASC associate] Dan Sasaki ments, try to hold onto them,” Maddox-Upshaw advises. “Value that re-
at Panavision,” Maddox-Upshaw adds. “They were designed to comple- lationship.” Like him, Kurtzman was nervous at the outset about doing
ment our approach to skin tone, warmth and flares.” this update to the classic sci-fi feature. “It was like, ‘Let’s jump together,’”
The contrasting looks of the worlds were also reflected in the lighting. the cinematographer says of their collaboration. “It was very Thelma &
“I tried to make sure there was always a level of warmth when it came to Louise: You go off the cliff together, and neither of you holds back.”
the Falls family. I was a bit more aggressive in mixing colors, and I used
stronger sun backlight, in part because the scenes were in New Mexico.
After that, you can figure out what’s cold and institutionalized in these
other storylines.” The production shot exteriors for these scenes in Al-
mería, Spain, while the rest of the show was produced outside London.
To pass the baton to the other cinematographers on the series —
Adam Gillham for Episodes 5, 6, 9, and half of 10; Balazs Bolygo, BSC,
HSC, for Episodes 7 and 8 — Maddox-Upshaw supplied a look bible de-
tailing his work. “I created a PDF that went through about six iterations
of the visual arc and design for the show, and then Alex shaped it with
his ideas. Once we got to a spot we both really liked, we presented it to
Showtime.”
Also key to maintaining a consistent look across 10 episodes were
gaffer Wayne Shields and key grip Robert Fischer, who worked on the
entire show. As new filmmakers cycled through the production, “they
kept people on point,” Maddox-Upshaw says.
JULY 2022 / 43

Building Worlds
ASC member Karl-Walter Lindenlaub,
production designer Sophie Becher
and director Otto Bathurst team up to
take on the Paramount Plus series Halo.
By Iain Marcks
44 / JULY 2022
p. 44-51 Halo_v3.indd 44 6/2/22 10:45 PM

K
arl-Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK admits he
was “harboring old prejudices about video
games” when he was approached to shoot the
first two episodes of the Paramount Plus se-
ries Halo — a narrative adaptation of the sci-
fi first-person-shooter video-game franchise
of the same name. Yet, when Lindenlaub read
the scripts, he discovered that the series “is a lot more about a
character in conflict with his emotions,” he says, than it is like
the video game, which is about “a faceless supersoldier fighting
for the survival of mankind. If this had been a purely action-driv-
en project, I probably wouldn’t have signed on. What I also re-
ally find attractive about these bigger projects like Halo are the
world-building aspects, when all the departments are working
together to create something unique to the story. You have to
create almost everything from scratch.”
Tight Collaboration
One of Lindenlaub’s earliest contributions in preproduction was
a document that laid out his vision for lighting and color, cam-
era movement, format, and workflow. Looking back, he’s satis-
fied to see how many of his ideas were implemented, including
contrasting monochromatic and complementary color palettes,
shooting with Arri Signature Primes and Alexa LF cameras, and
framing for 2:1 — an aspect ratio Lindenlaub felt “would feel
more cinematic than [1.78:1] to capture the huge scope of the
Halo world.”
Everything else evolved through the process of collaboration.
Two of Lindenlaub’s key visual collaborators on Halo were
production designer Sophie Becher and director Otto Bathurst,
who started their design work on the series a few months before
the cinematographer was hired.
In the original Halo game trilogy, players can take on the role
of a supersoldier “Spartan” named Master Chief, who serves on
the front lines against an alien alliance called the “Covenant”
that’s bent on total interstellar domination. The streaming series
casts actor Pablo Schreiber as the genetically engineered cham-
pion, and sees him tearing off to various planets — worlds that
are well-known to players of the video games — in his dual (and
sometimes conflicting) missions to save the human race and the
humanity within himself.
JULY 2022 / 45
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BUILDING WORLDS
Previous spread: The laboratory of Dr. Catherine Halsey (Natascha

McElhone, pictured). This page: Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber, right)
and refugee Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha) receive a hostile welcome on Rubble,
an interconnected network of inhabited asteroids. Opposite top: Master
Chief takes on villainous Covenant forces on the planet Madrigal. Opposite
bottom: Cinematographer Karl-Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK at work.
PHOTOS AND FRAME CAPTURES COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PLUS.

“Building a world on this scale is itself a huge undertaking,” says that the art department’s concept drawings were the three filmmak-
Bathurst. “Everything from the game had to be redesigned for the cam- ers’ most important references. Lindenlaub gave feedback on color and
era, even Master Chief’s iconic [‘Mjolnir’ powered assault armor]. It was lighting to Becher and papered the walls of his office at Korda with the
a real tightrope walk honoring the core design while finessing it into latest ideas from her team. Beginning with concept art is “the only way
something that exists within a believable, physical reality.” you can do fantasy or science fiction,” he notes. “Where else could you
“A tight collaboration with the director of photography is essential,” start?”
Becher adds. “My first question for them is usually, ‘What aspect ratio Lindenlaub served as cinematographer on Episodes 5, 6, 8 and 9, as
are we shooting in?’ The answer is dramatically important for a design- well, with director Jonathan Liebesman. Additional episodes were shot
er, because you need to know how wide or tall your sets are going to by Eric Kress and Ed Wild, BSC (the latter of whom also shot portions
be.” Likewise, the design of a set can have implications for cinematog- of Episode 9).
raphers. “I’m only as good as the director of photography,” she says.
“Lighting can make or break a set.” Range of Looks
Lindenlaub, Becher and Bathurst spent four months in and around It was important to the filmmakers that each planet depicted in the se-
Korda Studios — a state-of-the art film-studio complex outside of Buda- ries felt “strikingly different,” Becher says, so the audience would know
pest, Hungary, where Halo occupied seven of the facility’s largest stages where they were at all times. She notes that the rocky water-mining
— scouting, collecting references, refining their ideas with the costume planet of Madrigal (which was filmed at a basalt quarry and aluminum
and props departments, and running tests in the lead-up to principal factory near Korda), for example, was “very red” and “saturated” — to
photography. which Lindenlaub added hues of yellow and brown.
“A lot of the conversations we had were about what we didn’t want “The yellow and red earth of our location was part of the inspiration,”
Halo to look like,” says Bathurst. “We did a lot of picture research and the cinematographer says. “In early camera tests, I created a LUT [with
mood-boarding — then, we worked with concept artists to put it all DIT Attila Tumbász]: higher contrast, desaturated blues, and exposure
together.” boosted almost a stop to compensate. For the final color grade, we let the
The cinematographer, director and production designer found com- sky be a little more blue than in the dailies.”
mon interests in fine art, cinema and photography, but Lindenlaub says Other far-out locations include Rubble, an interconnected network
46 / JULY 2022
p. 44-51 Halo_v3.indd 46 6/2/22 10:45 PM

TOP PHOTO BY ADRIENN SZABÓ. BOTTOM PHOTO BY ANNA VERA LENGYEL.
of inhabited asteroids, and High Charity, the Covenant’s translucent, “Something that got me really
mushroom-shaped space station, where an artificial star is a source of interested in this project was the
“natural” sunlight for the inhabitants. Also depicted is Master Chief’s
home planet of Eridanus II — glimpsed in desaturated, overexposed
contrast between the many worlds
flashbacks, which become “more saturated and clearer,” Lindenlaub that demanded different looks.”
says, as they develop into more distinct memories.
The flashbacks were captured with Arri Rental DNA lenses, which
were custom-tuned by Manfred Jahn at Arri Rental Munich. “These were
the only scenes I shot with lenses other than the Arri Signature Primes,”
the cinematographer notes.
Becher adds that she “felt quite strongly that the light on another
planet doesn’t behave in the same way as it does on Earth. You might
have two suns or two moons, so how does that affect the light? And how
do aliens light their planets? It’s not all light switches and fluorescent
tubes.”
Lindenlaub considered this broad visual range to be an exciting chal-
lenge. “Something that got me really interested in this project was the
contrast between the many worlds that demanded different looks,” he
says. “The most austere-looking of these was the ‘UNSC’ military com-
plex” — whose extensive sets, and the collaborative efforts to bring them
to life, AC has chosen to explore in detail for this report.
Inside the Complex

In the Halo universe, the nations of Earth and their off-world colonies
JULY 2022 / 47
p. 44-51 Halo_v3.indd 47 6/2/22 10:45 PM

BUILDING WORLDS
PHOTO AT TOP BY KARL-WALTER LINDENLAUB, ASC, BVK. LIGHTING DIAGRAM BY ESZTER GALAMBOS.
formed the Unified Earth Government after a massive interplanetary

war. The UEG’s main military branch is the United Nations Space Com-
mand, which oversees the Spartan program and is trying to manage both
an external conflict with the Covenant and an ongoing struggle with a
separatist movement within their colonies. UNSC naval operations are
administered by their “Fleet Command” — aka “Fleetcom” — from a
tower of concrete, glass and steel at the center of a sprawling military
complex on the Earth-like planet of Reach.
Lindenlaub and Becher tested several shades of gray on different con-
crete surfaces and textures in Fleetcom before deciding on a uniform
tone. “Gray can turn into any other color,” the cinematographer says.
“When you put a yellow light on a gray wall, the wall will respond to it.”
Says Becher, “The tech at the UNSC complex is the most advanced of
all the planets, and it has a neutral, almost monochromatic palette until
you start turning on all the lights.”
The collaborators designed each level in the Fleetcom tower to have
its own look. “The higher up you are in that hierarchy, the cleaner the
light is, and as you get down into the bowels where the Spartans live,
it should be more dirty and rough,” Lindenlaub notes. “We used older
fluorescent tubes in the underbelly, and added some green or amber to
our LEDs.”
Upper Command
UNSC’s upper-command sets include an observation lounge, a con-
ference room, a control — or “ops” — room, and the laboratory of Dr.
48 / JULY 2022
p. 44-51 Halo_v3.indd 48 6/2/22 10:46 PM

CONCEPT ART BY ALEKSANDR DOCHKIN.
Previous page, top: Chain-mounted lighting units

in the ops room could be raised and lowered.
Previous page, bottom: Lighting diagram of the
ops room. This page: The conference-room set
(top) and the concept art it was based upon.
Catherine Halsey (Natascha McElhone), a UNSC scientist and creator of

the Spartan program. These sets used “slick lighting, elegant surfaces
and a minimalist approach,” Becher says. She adds that the filmmakers
were aiming for “a lot of clean and shiny surfaces and concrete. It has to
feel like this is a vast world of dominance.”
The observation lounge features a floor-to-ceiling window with a
bluescreen view that was later replaced with a digital matte of the sur-
rounding city and distant mountains, overseen by VFX supervisors Tom
Turnbull and Dominic Remane. When a holographic communication
comes in, the window dims and the room darkens. This was an idea Lin-
denlaub took from the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s electrochromic dimma-
ble cabin windows, which the production simulated through a series of
preprogrammed lighting cues.
Elsewhere in the series, this set is converted into a conference room
with a ring-shaped table and a practical dual-ring ceiling light — cus-
tom made with built-in DMX-controlled LiteGear LiteRibbon Chroma
RGBA, designed by set decorator Guy Potgieter. Lindenlaub notes that
the size and placement of the ceiling fixture were designed to create a fa-
vorable light angle for the actors’ faces, and to avoid toplight. (See image
and concept art, above.)
“For ambience, we hid [Arri] SkyPanel S60s, [paired with] Light Grid
JULY 2022 / 49
p. 44-51 Halo_v3.indd 49 6/2/22 10:46 PM

BUILDING WORLDS
Tech Specs: 2:1

Cameras | Arri Alexa LF, Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera 6K (for helmet cam)
Lenses | Arri Signature Prime, Arri Rental DNA (detuned), Venus Optics Laowa Zero-D prime
(for helmet cam)
Top: Cinematographer Eszter Galambos, who served as Lindenlaub’s

assistant and C-camera operator, assists stunt double Justin Howell
with a helmet-cam scene. Bottom: Backlighting for the aquarium-like
screen in Dr. Halsey’s laboratory (as seen on pages 44 and 45).
diffusion, above a specially designed metal-grid ceiling,” Lindenlaub

says. “The metal grid also served as a [light-control device] that kept the
light from spilling.”
Miles of Light
Lindenlaub used LED lighting on all of the Fleetcom sets, working with
gaffers Jonathan Spencer and Gromek Molnár Jr. to integrate close to
five miles of LiteRibbon into the floors, walls and ceilings, and to route
everything through four ChamSys MQ80 lighting desks.
Lindenlaub notes that the LiteRibbon “was mostly used for architec-
tural lighting,” which was a primary element in the UNSC set designs
— helping to “create the mood, tone and color in the room,” while pro-
viding depth and contrast to the image.
“This was supplemented with a generous package of film lights,” he
continues. “Our SkyPanel package had over 400 S60, 30 S120 and 20
S360 units. We also carried more than 200 [Sumolight] Sumospace units
in our stage package — and carried a floor package that included LiteGe-
ar LiteMats, Kino Flo Celebs, Hudson Spiders and Digital Sputniks, plus
a healthy selection of traditional tungsten lights.”
Lighting-console operator Andy Waddington would often be
found standing next to Lindenlaub with a Microsoft Surface tab-
let running the ChamSys remote-control application, which allowed
TOP PHOTO BY KARL-WALTER LINDENLAUB, ASC, BVK.

them to change the architectural and film lighting in an instant.
Customizing the Ops Room

The observation lounge and conference room are linked to the ops room
as part of an enormous two-level set. Becher laid out the ops room like a
decagon, surrounded by glowing, wall-to-wall tactical displays; concrete
struts; and vented gray walls that lean toward the center of the room to
meet at a ceiling of soft, diffuse light provided by 27 low-profile Sumo-
space fixtures.
In order to maintain the integrity of this design, light quickly, and
provide Bathurst with the freedom to shoot in any direction, Lindenlaub
suggested drilling holes into the ceiling’s crossbeams, through which
a chain motor could raise and lower rigging and power for additional
lighting units, which could then encircle the command console in the
center of the room. (See photo and diagram, page 48.) By securing mul- “It was a real tightrope walk honoring
tiple pipes horizontally — each one from the end of a respective pair of the core design [of the video game] while
chains — “it took about five minutes for the crew to hang three or four
SkyPanel 120s with Chimeras,” the cinematographer says. With this sys- finessing it into something that exists
tem in place, the production was able to provide “crosslight or half-light, within a believable, physical reality.”
from above the frame, for closer shots.”
“We had a lot of LED screens in the control room, which was a big
challenge because shooting LED screens can be quite hard for a DoP,”
says Becher. “But the advantage of shooting it live is that you get light
from the screens, and Karl-Walter used that to help light the sets.”
Adds Lindenlaub, “We actually selected a lower pixel count for the
screens. It made the ops center feel a bit grittier, and it helped us to avoid
issues with moiré patterns.”
50 / JULY 2022
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From left: Lindenlaub, production designer Sophie Becher and

director Otto Bathurst on an early Halo scout.
Controlling the LED screens’ color temperature during filming “was

incredibly difficult,” he continues. “When you dim the brightness on
most LED screens, the color temperature shifts. We were recalibrating
these screens all the time. I also had to adjust the camera color tempera-
ture to above 4,000 Kelvin — otherwise, the screens would have gotten
far too blue.”
Lab Work
In Dr. Halsey’s cavernous laboratory, where secret cloning and AI ex-
periments are conducted, much of the soft built-in lighting came from
recesses in the ceiling. Providing additional illumination were ceiling
PHOTO BY KIYA GERVIS-BENNETT.

panels with a honeycomb-style pattern of hexagons that allowed soft
toplight — from SkyPanel S60s mounted above — to come through.
“Based on the concept art, we incorporated a lot of different colors into
the LED ribbon that was mounted into the walls,” Lindenlaub says.
Bathurst wanted Halsey’s laboratory to be huge and impressive.
However, Becher notes, “Spaces like that are a challenge to make func-
tional yet attractive so that the scale of it isn’t so overwhelming.” She
came up with the idea of lighting zones for different areas of the set. The
lab entrance is lit with the honeycomb-style ceiling panels, flanked by
two wall-mounted practical LED screens, which served as the dominant Combining Strengths
light sources. The big aquarium-like screen was inspired by an under- Much of the thoughtful detail work that went into the season was done
water restaurant in Norway — from architecture and design company with fans of the franchise in mind, while also opening Halo up to a
Snøhetta — called “Under.” newer, wider audience. “Sophie inherited a video-game world that fun-
“I backlit this screen with 12 soft, cyan-dialed SkyPanel S60s, and damentally doesn’t look ‘real’ in any way, shape or form, and she made
10 Sumos [set to 6,000K],” Lindenlaub says. The display across from it it real while delivering the spectacle of a big science-fiction show,” says
leaned bluer to create a color contrast and to help orient the audience. Bathurst. “Given the scale of our production, we could do whatever we
Both served as the dominant light sources for each zone. “Some zones wanted, but Karl-Walter helped us focus on what we needed.”
we kept more white and neutral, like the operating tables and Spartan The three filmmakers maintained their close creative relationship
examination area, and others, like the clone incubator, we lit with a cold throughout Halo’s two-year production, though consensus was not al-
and steely blue.” ways reached without debate. This friction was considered a necessary
component of the creative process, Becher notes. “If someone pushed
Lower Levels back on an idea and we came to a proper impasse,” she says, “we’d have
Some of the lower sections, including parts of the Spartan barracks, to explain our reasons, then work together to find a solution that was
were shot on location at ETO Park, a soccer stadium in Győr, Hunga- better than the ones we started with.”
ry. The stadium’s cold concrete architecture and harsh existing lighting “Each person brought their own strengths to the project,” Lindenlaub
were an ideal fit for the austere, utilitarian life of a Spartan. adds. “Filmmaking isn’t about just one person — it’s a collaborative ef-
Here, Lindenlaub mixed green, amber and magenta colors into his fort. Creatively, this was one of the most satisfying experiences of my
LED lighting. He adds that “sometimes, at ETO, we used uncorrected flu- career. It seems everything I did before led to this.”
orescent tubes to make the hallways, living quarters and airfield hangar
feel more real and practical. Older cool-white tubes have a strong green
bias that I embraced on those sets. We mixed the built-in fixtures with
big HMIs for daytime exteriors, and augmented these with a package of
SkyPanels and LiteMats.”
“The closer one gets to ground level, the fewer windows there are, so
you need more artificial lighting,” says Becher. “And the lower you go,
the more basic the light gets. Spartans aren’t really into home comfort
and stuff like that.”
JULY 2022 / 51
p. 44-51 Halo_v3.indd 51 6/2/22 10:46 PM

A Movie Under Siege
Salvatore Totino, ASC, AIC re-creates ’70s
Hollywood and New York for The Offer, which
dramatizes the making of The Godfather.
By Mark Dillon
52 / JULY 2022
p. 52-61 The Offer_v3.indd 52 6/2/22 10:48 PM

PHOTOS BY NICOLE WILDER, COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PLUS.
M
uch has been written about the impact director
Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 feature The Godfather
has had on popular culture, and how the work of
Gordon Willis, ASC has inspired many cinematog-
raphers who followed. So, when Salvatore Totino,
ASC, AIC was approached to shoot the Paramount
Plus miniseries The Offer, which delves into the
drama surrounding the movie’s contentious production, he simply
couldn’t refuse.
“The Godfather is probably one of the top-five best-directed, best-
shot and best-acted movies of the last century,” says Totino, whose fea-
ture credits include Spider-Man: Homecoming, Everest (AC Oct. ’15), The
Da Vinci Code (AC June ’06) and Cinderella Man (AC June ’05). “I saw it
when I was 10, and it’s been influential on my life as a filmmaker. It’s not
only about the cinematography — it’s the whole experience. There are
so many nuances in the film; you can watch it over and over again and
Opposite: Al Ruddy (Miles Teller), producer of The Godfather, confers
still see more.”
on set with his assistant, Bettye McCartt (Juno Temple), and director
Prior to starting The Offer, director Dexter Fletcher, who helmed the
Francis Ford Coppola (Dan Fogler). This page: At a rally for the Italian-
first two of the show’s 10 episodes, contacted Totino’s agent, who rec- American Civil Rights League, New York mobster Joe Colombo (Giovanni
ommended the cinematographer for the gig. “I read the scripts for the Ribisi) rails against the ethnic stereotyping the community has
first few episodes, and I was really interested in the behind-the-scenes perceived in Mario Puzo’s bestselling novel.
JULY 2022 / 53

A MOVIE UNDER SIEGE
Top: Colombo meets with crime bosses Carlo Gambino (Anthony Skordi,
right) and Tommy Lucchese (Michael Rispoli) to discuss an important bit
of “family business.” Bottom: Godfather author Mario Puzo (Patrick Gallo,
left) collaborates with Coppola on the movie’s screenplay.
story,” Totino continues. “I did a little digging and found out that much
of it was actually true. It’s film history, and it’s fascinating, so I said I
would love to be part of the project.”
The Offer arrives as The Godfather marks its 50th anniversary this
year. The miniseries is told from the perspective of the film’s producer,
Albert S. Ruddy (Miles Teller), who has no idea what he’s in for when he
signs on to make an adaptation of Mario Puzo’s bestselling novel, an
epic saga about the transfer of power in an Italian-American gangster
family during the ’40s and ’50s.
Real-life New York crime boss Joseph Colombo (Giovanni Ribisi),
who created the Italian-American Civil Rights League, leads the charge
against the film’s production, arguing that the story perpetuates harm-
ful Italian stereotypes. Ruddy meets with Colombo and wins him over
by promising to excise the terms “Mafia” and “Cosa Nostra” from the
script, but soon finds himself becoming uncomfortably enmeshed in
mob machinations.
Meanwhile, in Hollywood, The Godfather becomes a source of conflict
54 / JULY 2022

Cinematographer Salvatore Totino, ASC, AIC (second from right)

prepares with crewmembers.
at Paramount Pictures. While Coppola (Dan Fogler) fights to realize his scenes cool, with more contrast and blue in the shadows, whereas in L.A.
vision for the film, Paramount’s mercurial head of production, Robert the look is more comforting.”
Evans (Matthew Goode), clashes with Charles Bluhdorn (Burn Gorman), Coppola, despite the mob’s interference, ultimately got to shoot his
the Austrian-born industrialist owner of the studio’s parent company, New York scenes in the actual city and various boroughs, but the film-
Gulf and Western. Evans also locks horns with fictional executive Barry makers behind The Offer had to re-create the Big Apple in Hollywood
Lapidus (Colin Hanks), who cares less about film art than bottom-line on the Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. backlots. “When you’re
financial success. shooting in New York, tall buildings create a lot of shade with pockets
of sunlight,” Totino notes. “You have a lot of coolness and shadows, but
Hollywood vs. New York also warmth in the highlights. That was a challenge on the backlots,
When Totino and Fletcher sat down to map out their visual strategy for where you put up greenscreens but you’re not getting the shadows that
the series, the main order of business was establishing distinct looks for would emulate New York.”
Los Angeles, where the Paramount offices are located, and New York, To help determine the best times of day to shoot exterior scenes with
where The Godfather was primarily filmed and where the Colombo crime the appropriate shadow and sunlight, Totino used SunPath software to
family and their rivals were based. “I wanted L.A. to be that warm, sunny, predetermine the sun’s position. Key grip John Miller assisted by posi-
inviting place everybody from the East Coast always dreams of going to,” tioning a couple of flyswatters with 20'x20' solids in the best spots to
Totino says. “Then there’s the dark and heavy side of New York, where I create the desired shadows.
grew up on the periphery of that Mafia world. I was trying to keep those For interior scenes on any of his shoots, Totino thinks first and
JULY 2022 / 55

A MOVIE UNDER SIEGE
FRAME CAPTURE FROM THE GODFATHER COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES.

Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather.
Turmoil — and Toplight — on The Godfather

The late Gordon Willis, ASC is so revered for the cinematography he lot of fights and confrontations,” he said. “Francis was under a lot
brought to The Godfather that his work prompted a fellow director of of pressure from Paramount, because he wasn’t really in a position
photography, Tom McDonough, to refer to the film in his memoir as yet to dictate his own terms. The movie was very difficult in that
“the Sistine Chapel of cinematography.” respect, because it was hard for him to function, which made it
Although Willis himself clearly recognized that the picture would hard for everyone else to function. The situation was very tenuous
forever be regarded as an immortal screen classic, he was reflexively at the management level, and it didn’t work very well for anybody.
unpretentious and always accepted such lavish praise with humility. But to Francis’s credit, he never gave up — he hung in there.”
He was fond of pointing out that Paramount Pictures’ initial plans for Willis attributed a now-legendary screen test of star Marlon
the movie — as depicted in The Offer — were relatively modest in Brando — whose casting the studio opposed — with providing the
scope, and that the studio “was just looking to make an inexpensive inspiration for the iconic brooding toplight style that the cinema-
mob movie.” tographer fashioned for The Godfather. Just 47 years old at the
However, once Willis signed on to shoot The Godfather — which time, Brando transformed himself into an aging mobster by black-
was restored and rereleased earlier this year for the film’s 50th anni- ening his hair with shoe polish, applying a fake moustache, cram-
versary, along with the other two features in the trilogy — he discov- ming Kleenex tissues into his cheeks, and speaking with a mumble.
ered that the project’s 32-year-old director, Francis Ford Coppola, had His performance was so spectacularly convincing that Paramount
more ambitious ideas for the material. Coppola envisioned the saga was compelled to relent.
of the Corleone clan as an epic take on Shakespeare’s King Lear — a “I remember shooting the tests of Brando,” Willis said. “We put
familial drama of operatic proportions that would explore an array of him at a table, and I used overhead lighting to make his makeup
meaty themes, including loyalty, betrayal, and the corrosive effect of work. That’s how that whole lighting strategy evolved: Sometimes
absolute power. you make decisions in order to make a particular character or
The director would ultimately achieve many of his grand plans, setting work. In retrospect, you can romanticize your reasons for
but the sweeping scope of his vision complicated the production’s doing something, but the bottom line is that I made a decision to
requirements and led him into run-ins with the Paramount brass and light Marlon in a manner that would define his character. Of course,
members of his own crew, including Willis. Coppola was nearly fired I also had to make the whole movie work that way. The choice was,
on several occasions, but somehow survived the process to produce ‘Okay, I think this lighting will work really well for him, and it will
a truly great film filled with memorable dialogue and spectacular set work for the movie.’ Overhead lighting was not a new idea, but it
pieces. was a new idea to extend it for an entire movie, on everyone and
While many real-life figures associated with The Godfather have everything. The basis for that approach, though, was to fashion
complained that The Offer takes creative liberties with the story of the Marlon into Don Corleone.”
movie’s production, Willis always confirmed that shooting the gangster — Stephen Pizzello
opus was no picnic. “The movie was full of turmoil, and there were a
56 / JULY 2022
p. 52-61 The Offer_v3.indd 56 6/2/22 10:48 PM Stora

STORARO REMEMBERS
BERTOLUCCI
Presented in Italian and English, the 300-page book Vittorio Storaro on Bernardo Bertolucci
Movies offers a candid look at one of modern cinema’s most celebrated cinematographer-
director working relationships.
In it the ASC great recounts his personal experiences while making their nine feature films
together: Before the Revolution (1964, on which Storaro served as camera assistant for Aldo
Scavarda), The Spider’s Stratagem (1970), The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972),
1900 (1976), Luna (1979), The Last Emperor (1987), The Sheltering Sky (1990)
and Little Buddha (1993).
A limited number of copies signed by Storaro are available from the ASC Store.
Go to store.ascmag.com
JULY 2022 / 57
p. 52-61Book
Storaro The Offer_v3.indd
- Ad.indd 4 57 6/2/22
6/1/22 10:48
1:24 PM
A MOVIE UNDER SIEGE
foremost about lighting the environment, relying on sources coming plenty of sparring, studio politicking and drinking. As the crew prepared
through windows for a natural look and then tweaking them to suggest to shoot on the set, an Arri Studio T12 Fresnel stood in an arbitrary po-
different moods and times of day. sition behind a tree that had been placed outside a window; when the
On The Offer, good results were occasionally achieved by happen- crew turned it on just to provide a temporary work light, Totino found
stance. One example is an early sequence set in Evans’ spacious office, that the light’s angle was perfect for the scene. “The placement made it
which production designer Laurence Bennett and his team decorated look like late-afternoon sun,” he explains. “It’s like you’re on vacation,
with dark furniture, parquet flooring, beige walls adorned with framed it’s five o’clock, you’ve had a couple of drinks — and you’re laying by the
movie posters, and a window with vertical blinds revealing a Translite of pool a little fuzzy — when you see warm sunlight peek through the trees
a neighboring building on the Paramount lot. and create little shadows. That’s what it felt like, and I just went with it.”
Throughout the series, the honcho’s office provides the backdrop for When skylight was desired, trusses were set up outside the room
to position Arri SkyPanel S360-C units; fill and eyelight were provid-
ed from the floor with Astera Titan tubes diffused with Magic Cloth in
Snapbags.
Departing From the “Godfather Look”

Totino shot on the digital Sony Venice camera in 4K raw format, which
he used for the first time while shooting the forthcoming sci-fi thriller
65. Totino notes that he and Fletcher did not set out to imitate Willis’
work on The Godfather, which was shot partly on spherical Super Baltar
lenses and became famous for the cinematographer’s inventive use of
toplight as a consistent motif throughout the picture. “There wasn’t any
talk about emulating the ‘Godfather look,’ nor did I feel it would be the
right approach,” Totino says. “I wanted to shoot the film in the anamor-
phic format with Hawk V-Lite lenses, which I also used on 65. I love them
because I like things to be a little ‘off’ sometimes. I love the quick falloff
in depth of field, and I embraced shooting with V-Lites more wide-open
so that there would be softness and banding on the edges, which creates
flare and makes the light react in different ways.”
Totino shot mostly at T3 on a 45mm lens, calling upon a 65mm for
58 / JULY 2022

Opposite: The hopeful filmmakers meet with Marlon Brando (Justin Chambers)
at his home while trying to persuade the legendary actor to join the cast. This
page: Coppola helps Al Pacino (Anthony Ippolito) quell his nervousness while
preparing to shoot the actor’s first scene for The Godfather.
close-ups and a 28mm when the filmmakers wanted to go very wide. the light. “That’s what it’s like when you sit in your house during the
Even in later episodes, when actors from The Godfather are introduced day without lights on,” he says. “Light comes through the windows, and
and the movie’s production begins, Totino and his directors remained some parts of the room are dark, and some are light. I’m a big fan of
true to their naturalistic approach — although there are some moments Renaissance paintings, where there are a lot of those kinds of shadows,
when The Offer references the original film’s moody and then-contro- so I try to approach things that way.” Like Willis, however, he also appre-
versial style. That style almost got Willis fired, which is depicted in the ciates a bit of artful darkness applied in the frame, or obscuring faces.
miniseries as well. Coppola is initially unhappy with the dark lighting “Sometimes the actors’ faces are in the dark, and I’ll often joke and tell
fashioned by Willis (T.J. Thyne), arguing that the audience can’t relate to them, ‘Make sure you speak louder, so at least we can hear you.’”
the characters if they can’t see their eyes, but eventually decides that he
loves the style. (In real life, Coppola and Willis did clash over various cre- Pre-Rigging Sets for Efficiency
ative strategies, but the director came to appreciate Willis’ artistry and One of the key New York sets in The Offer is Little Italy’s Ravenite Social
vigorously defended him against the studio’s execs, who took issue with Club, where Carlo Gambino (Anthony Skordi), who presides over all the
the cinematographer’s sepulchral imagery for some of the reasons cited major Italian-American crime families, holds court. The front room —
in the show.) with its tables and chairs, wood wainscoting, and tiled floors — is a dark
Willis notoriously preferred actors to hit their marks onstage — es- space with few windows and doors, but areas deeper in the room are lit
pecially when the very sculpted lighting he designed on set was intend- by practical hanging lamps and wall sconces. “In Little Italy, there are
ed to illuminate their particular physical features, or specific aspects of tenement buildings five or six stories high on either side of the street,
their performances. But Totino is fine with actors moving in and out of so not a lot of sunlight would come in,” Totino notes. “It’s more of a soft
JULY 2022 / 59

A MOVIE UNDER SIEGE
Top: The head of Paramount Pictures, Robert Evans (Matthew

Goode) offers Ruddy some advice during a stroll through the
studio’s backlot. Bottom: The flamboyant Evans enjoys a round of
cocktails in the Paramount dining room.
light produced by sunlight bouncing off other buildings. For daytime

shots, I would use a warmer light, and I’d apply cooler light for night or
if the scene called for an overcast day.”
Gaffer John Vecchio adds, “We used banks of Mole PAR cans on a truss
positioned outside the front window to bounce light down off the mo-
saic tile floor. We also used 12K tungsten PARs aimed through the yellow
glass at the back of the club. Our New York scenes had more bounced
floor light, and for L.A. scenes, we used more direct sun.”
On many of the sets, the crew made efficient use of varied light fix-
tures — combining the illumination from units built into the sets with
lights positioned on trusses outside, including a 10K Fresnel for hard
sun and SkyPanel S360-C units for a skylight look. “That way,” Vecchio
says, “lighting programmer Chris Chalk could switch back and forth be-
tween the looks, and we could go one way or another quickly. Rigging
gaffer Victor Mendoza did an amazing job with his crew.”
These pre-rigged sets helped maintain a consistent style throughout
the season. Vecchio adds, “Victor and Chris gave us a lot of control over
60 / JULY 2022

Tech Specs: 2.39:1

Lenses | Hawk V-Lite
Ruddy meets with Charles Bluhdorn (Burn Gorman), the

head of Paramount’s parent company, Gulf and Western.
the sets through the lighting board, so we could do multiple episodes against Colombo — has been released from prison. Arkin asked Totino if
and change up the look as new directors came in.” The rotation of direc-
they could shoot the scene in a circular movement that would follow the
tors included Adam Arkin (Episodes 3, 4, 9 and 10), Colin Bucksey (5 and
dialogue among the seated characters. “To do that, you have to be able to
6) and Gwyneth Horder-Payton (7 and 8). Totino left after Episode 6 to get to each actor as they start their lines, which is tricky, especially when
collaborate with Fletcher on the feature Ghosted. Cinematographer Elie you don’t have the same amount of time to rehearse that you would on a
Smolkin, CSC shot the remaining four episodes. film,” Totino says. “We had two hours to do the scene, and we did a cou-
Totino says the other directors he worked with, Arkin and Bucksey, ple of rehearsals so operator Kris Krosskove and I could figure out the
wanted to honor what he and Fletcher had set up. “They didn’t want to timing. We made a dance floor and wound up doing the scene that way,
change the look,” he says. “They wanted to help tell a story and come and it came out fantastic.”
up with ideas that elevated scenes. I explained my rules and how I was As he prepared to leave the series, Totino recommended Smolkin to
approaching the project, and they said, ‘Let’s work within that. Here are
handle the remaining episodes. “I advised him a few times on how I was
some of my ideas, now how can we make it all work?’” doing things, and he got it,” Totino says. “It’s not like when I’ve come
onto a feature to do some additional photography because the origi-
Coming Full Circle nal cinematographer wasn’t available. At that point, you’re doing shots
For example, in Episode 3 (“Fade In”), Gambino convenes a meeting within a scene, and you have to do everything exactly how the other DP
with Colombo and other family heads to discuss the troubling news that did it. On The Offer, Elie followed our general rules, but he also put his
“Crazy” Joe Gallo (Joseph Russo) — an unhinged mobster with a beef own stamp on it, and I support him on that.”
JULY 2022 / 61

Clubhouse News
Latest Bulletins From the Society
The ASC Welcomes Two the Showtime drama The L Word: Canadian cinematographer Craig Paramount Plus) series The Twilight
New Members Generation Q (and Seasons 1 and Wrobleski, ASC, CSC attended Zone (2019), and three Canadi-
Born in Miami, Fla., Sandra Valde- 2), and the Amazon Prime Video Mount Royal University, and after an Society of Cinematographers
Hansen, ASC attended Florida romantic comedy With Love (and graduation, he started his career (CSC) Awards for his camerawork
State University, followed by the Season 1). Her documentary work as a studio camera operator on the Netflix series The Umbrella
American Film Institute (AFI), where includes the features For the Love at CFCN Television in Calgary. Academy, the FX series Fargo, and
she studied cinematography. Her of Rutland, Desolation Center, Burn There, he found a collection of the short film June. His impres-
credits comprise more than 17 fea- Motherf---ker, Burn!, and Tales of American Cinematographer mag- sive list of television credits also
tures — including After Everything, Masked Men. azines and “became fascinated includes the FX on Hulu drama
White Bird in a Blizzard, Girl Trash: Valde-Hansen is a member of with the idea of using the camera Under the Banner of Heaven, the
All Night Long, and Kaboom — that the International Collective of Fe- to create worlds and tell stories,” Amazon Prime Video sci-fi drama
have been selections at major male Cinematographers, a Women he says. After a year, Wrobles- Tales From the Loop, the Apple Plus
film festivals, including South by In Media advisory board member, ki left his position and started mystery Home Before Dark, the FX
Southwest, Sundance, Outfest, and and a senior lecturer at AFI. In 2019, work as a cinematographer on superhero drama Legion, the CBS
Cannes, respectively. Her other she was featured in Variety’s “Ar- documentary and sports projects. drama Zoo, and the CBS Canada
feature credits include Plan B, Social tisan Elite Report” in its “Up Next” He then climbed the ranks by family drama Heartland. His feature
Animals and Jewtopia, as well as category. photographing short-form pro- work includes The Unholy, In the
2nd-unit work on The Statistical Her forthcoming work includes ductions, including commercials, Tall Grass, 45 R.P.M. and Rufus.
Probability of Love at First Sight, Season 1 of the Netflix series XO, music videos and short films; Wrobleski’s upcoming credits
shot by Luke Bryant. Kitty, a spinoff of the stream- 2nd-unit work; and then features include the Netflix series Utap,
She photographed the pilots er’s popular To All the Boys film and television series. written by and starring Arnold
of the Starz comedy series Now franchise. Wrobleski earned an ASC Schwarzenegger.
Apocalypse (along with Season 1), Award nomination for his work
on the CBS All Access (now
62 / JULY 2022
p. 62-65 Clubhouse News_v3.indd 62 6/2/22 10:51 PM

Students and instructors gather at the Society’s Clubhouse in Hollywood for the ASC Master Class.
PHOTO BY MARCOS FUSTERO, COURTESY OF THE ASC.
ASC Master Class: Lighting and ASC instructors included David Pines and Joachim “JZ” Zell. While Announcements for future ses-
Virtual Production Stockton, David Klein and Robert the majority of the session took sions can be found at theasc.com/
The ASC’s signature education D. Yeoman. place at the Society’s Clubhouse asc/education/master-class.
program returned to in-person The five days of in-depth dis- in Hollywood, Calif., a special day
instruction with a session held on cussion and demonstration includ- on shooting in LED volumes was
May 9-13, after being on hiatus ed historical film analysis presented staged at Monolith Studios in Bur-
due to Covid-19. (During this time, by Michael M. Pessah, ASC, with bank, coordinated by Bobby Finley
the program transitioned to online other components presented by and Fred Waldman, and also fea-
instruction, which will also contin- Society members Lieberman, Pat- tured a presentation by virtual-pro-
ue.) The Master Class Committee is rick Cady, Christopher Chomyn, duction supervisor Ian Milham from
chaired by members Shelly John- Nathaniel Goodman, Mark Irwin, Industrial Light & Magic. A section
son and Charlie Lieberman, who Christopher Probst, Tami Reiker, on designing a reel and attaining
programmed the session. Thirty Mikael Salomon and Steven Shaw, an agent was moderated by Ann
students attended, and the primary as well as ASC associates Joshua Murphy of ICM Partners.
The ASC Master Class featured five days of

in-depth discussion and demonstrations.
JULY 2022 / 63

Clubhouse News
Below: Frederick Elmes, ASC (left) and Peter Moss, ASC, ACS.
Bottom, from left: Paul Atkins, ASC; Jackson Wild executive director Lisa Samford; ASC
CEO Terry McCarthy; and Red Digital Cinema vice president of business development
Brian Henderson.
Your Super 8 and 16mm

Film Lab for 50 years
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During the 2022 NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nev., the ASC held two cinematography lighting work-
818.848.5522 • pro8mm.com shops, conducted by Frederick Elmes, ASC (with assistance from the discussion’s moderator,
ASC President Stephen Lighthill) and Peter Moss, ASC, ACS (with help from AC technical editor
and associate member Jay Holben). Coordinated with the aid of Createasphere, each five-hour
session was crafted by the respective instructor to present their areas of expertise and produc-
tion experience — for Elmes, long-form narrative drama, and for Moss, high-end commercials.
Each employed pre-recorded lighting demonstrations as learning tools — which illustrated exam-
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28 for an event at the ASC Clubhouse, where nature cinematographer Paul Atkins, ASC spoke
about the growing popularity and international reach of wildlife films. Footage shot by Atkins and
others was shown, illustrating some of the glories of the natural world as well as the challenges
posed by climate change and environmental degradation. It was also announced that the three
organizations are forming a new partnership, wherein the Society will run a jury for a cinematog-
raphy award to be presented at this year’s Jackson Wild Media Awards — as part of the annual
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64 / JULY 2022

Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC.
OPTICS
UNDERSTOOD
The Cine Lens
Manual
Co-authored by Jay Holben and Christopher Probst,
ASC, The Cine Lens Manual is a journey through the
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ASC ARCHIVE.
world of cinema lenses, investigating every possible

aspect — from the formation of glass to today’s top
cinematographic optical tools.

• Details 300 lens families
• 836 pages cover 140 years of cinema lens history
• 1,500 full-color illustrations including photo-
TOP PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ASC ARCHIVE. BOTTOM PHOTO BY NAIDA ALBRIGHT.
graphs, diagrams and graphics

• Covering optical design, optomechanical design,
evolution of motion-picture formats, the history and
Khondji Receives Pierre Angénieux Tribute
genealogy of purpose-built cinema lenses, modifying
Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC was honored with the Pierre Angénieux Tribute
lenses, testing, and maintenance
during the 75th Cannes Film Festival. The special ceremony was opened by
“It’s an essential text for all filmmakers.”
general delegate Thierry Frémaux and was presented by French journalist
— Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS
Pierre Zéni. The French-Iranian cinematographer is the ninth director of
photography to receive this prestigious accolade. Among other honors, “The Cine Lens Manual is truly invaluable.”
Khondji has earned ASC and BSC Award nominations for his cinematog- — Russell Carpenter, ASC
raphy on Seven; followed by Academy, ASC, BSC and BAFTA nominations
“The Cine Lens Manual is my new bible... engrossing and immensely
for Evita; and a third ASC nomination for The Immigrant. His other credits
graspable for all filmmakers.”
include Stealing Beauty, Midnight in Paris, To Rome With Love, The Lost — Reed Morano, ASC
City of Z, The Ninth Gate, Funny Games, Okja, Too Old to Die Young, and
Uncut Gems. Upcoming credits include Armageddon Time and Bardo (or “I can’t put the book down. It’s brilliant what Holben and Probst have
False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths). created. This is a must for every cinematographer.”
— Markus Forderer, ASC, BVK
Available now at store.ascmag.com
JULY 2022 / 65

New Products and Services
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ascmag.com/articles/new-products.
Fujifilm Presents VP,

AR Solutions at NAB Blackmagic Design Rolls Out
Fujifilm North America Corp., Optical Devices Division,
showcased its latest lens technology facilitating virtual- DaVinci Resolve 18
production and augmented-reality technologies in partnership Blackmagic Design has announced DaVinci Resolve 18, a cloud-
with Mo-Sys and APG Media at the 2022 NAB Show. Fujinon collaboration update that allows multiple editors, colorists, VFX
product debuts at NAB included the UA107x8.4AF lens (placed artists and audio engineers to work simultaneously on the same
on a Mo-Sys U50 Remote Head); large-format Premista Series project on the same timeline anywhere in the world. The update
cinema lenses with new Chrosziel Drive Unit and Zeiss eXtended supports the Blackmagic Cloud for hosting and sharing projects,
Data; portable broadcast zooms equipped with S10 digital drive as well as a new DaVinci proxy workflow. It also includes new
units to support modern remote and robotic shooting needs; the Resolve FX AI tools powered by the DaVinci Neural Engine, as
UA125x8 4K-compatible broadcast lens; the UA46x9.5 portable well as time-saving tools for editors, Fairlight legacy fixed bus to
4K broadcast lens with Super 35 Musashi expander, and FlexBus conversion, and GPU-accelerated paint in Fusion.
updated zoom and focus controllers for Fujinon box and portable For more information, visit blackmagicdesign.com.
lenses.
For more information, visit fujifilm.com.
Canon to Update C300, C500

for Frame.io C2C
Canon U.S.A., Inc., has announced a firmware update for the
Canon EOS C300 Mark III and EOS C500 Mark II digital-cinema
cameras that will enable Frame.io Camera to Cloud compatibility,
facilitating a collaborative cloud-based workflow in a variety of
production environments. The C2C workflow sends secure, high-
quality, low-bandwidth H.264 proxies, 4K 10bit 4:2:2 H.265 (HEVC)
files and uncompressed audio files with matching timecode and
filenames to the Frame.io cloud platform.
For more information, visit usa.canon.com.
66 / JULY 2022
p. 66-71 New Products_v3.indd 66 6/2/22 10:53 PM

AJA Unveils New Solutions, Updates
AJA Video Systems has released Helo Plus, a compact H.264 streaming and recording
stand-alone appliance, as well as two new fiber transmitters and a variety of product
updates. Helo Plus offers both SDI and HDMI I/O with the capability to stream up to
1080p60 to a content-delivery network and record simultaneously. Two separate streaming
destinations can be set up, and recordings can be made to a combination of SD card, USB
storage and NFS or CIFS network storage.
For more information, visit aja.com.
Frame.io Offers New

Integrations, App
Frame.io has announced a Frame.io
app for Apple TV 4K; Camera to Cloud
integrations with Filmic Pro, Atomos,
Teradek, Viviana Cloud and FDX
FilmDataBox; and a new native integration
with FilmLight’s Baselight. It is also
adding Frame.io for Creative Cloud to
all Adobe Premiere Pro and AfterEffects
subscriptions.
For more information, visit frame.io.
Creamsource Releases CreamOS 2.0

Creamsource has released the CreamOS 2.0 firmware update.
New features include RDM support, Custom White Point for CCT
Crossfade HSI and CCT Crossfade RGBW color modes, DMX User
Presets for quick access to different DMX setups, Save/Restore
Settings and User Presets to USB Drive, and HTP merging of up to
four incoming sACN sources. Creamsource’s proprietary CreamOS
underpins the Vortex series. With the CreamOS 2.0 architecture,
Vortex8 and Vortex4 are equipped for creative expression with pre-
programmed effects, color gels, multi-zone control and FrameSync
technology for enhanced effects and creative applications.
For more information, visit creamsource.com.
JULY 2022 / 67

NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Colorfront Announces Advanced

Streaming Gateway,
Updates Express Dailies 2022
Colorfront has announced Advanced Streaming Gateway, which
enables secure livestreaming to multiple destinations. Advanced
Streaming Gateway is a private, user-owned/operated SRT gateway
that is available on AWS cloud or data center of choice. It supports
secure streaming to many destinations simultaneously when using
Colorfront systems or third-party SRT streaming servers or clients.
Colorfront has also announced several updates to Express Dailies
2022 that include optimization for the new Mac Studio M1 Ultra
workstation. Express Dailies 2022 has also been updated to support
the latest native camera formats, including Red V-Raptor 8K VV and
Sony Venice 2 8.6K, and offers improved performance for Blackmagic
Design 12K Raw, as well as support for ACES 1.3 Academy Metadata
and Common LUT formats.
For more information, visit colorfront.com.
Teradek Launches Bolt 4K LT HDMI, LG Unveils UltraFine OLED Pro

Serv 4K LG Electronics has introduced the UltraFine OLED Pro series of
reference monitors. The new line includes a 65" display (65EP5G) and
Teradek has launched Bolt 4K LT HDMI, an HDMI-only, zero-delay
31.5" (32EP950) and 26.5" (27EP950) desktop monitors. All of the new
wireless solution offering 10-bit 4Kp30 HDR video, 750' of range, and
models offer 10-bit color depth and use the DCI-P3 (for cinema) and
the same compact aluminum unibody and wireless interoperability as
Adobe RGB (for digital imagery) color-space standards.
the rest of the Bolt 4K line. This kit replaces Teradek’s ACE 500 and
For more information, visit lgsolutions.com.
offers a 50-percent boost in range and 4x the resolution.
Teradek has also announced Serv 4K, a 4K HDR hardware/software
production-streaming solution that integrates cloud and local-
network platforms in a flexible workflow, simplifying real-time creative
collaboration and decision-making for stakeholders on and off set.
For more information, visit teradek.com.
68 / JULY 2022

AMERICAN
CINEMATOGRAPHER
MANUAL
NEW EDITION!
The revised 11th edition of this essential technical
reference is now exclusively available for pre-order
from the American Society of Cinematographers.
Containing entirely new chapters and substantial

rewrites of entries from the previous edition, this
hardback book designed for on-set use is a must-have
for cinematographers and other motion-imaging
professionals.
Edited by M. David Mullen, ASC and ASC associate

member Rob Hummel, contributors to this edition include
Society members Bill Bennett, Christopher Chomyn,
Richard Crudo, Richard Edlund, John C. Hora, Levie
Isaacks, Dennis Muren, James Neihouse, Sam Nicholson,
Steven Poster, Christopher Probst, Pete Romano,
Roberto Schaefer and David Stump.
Topics covered in this new edition of our

“Filmmaker’s Bible” include:
• Evaluating digital cameras

• Take ownership of your sensor
• Measuring light
• The color science behind modern lighting instruments
• Virtual production/emissive screens
• Digital versions of day-for-night and infrared
cinematography GET YOUR
• Imax/large-format cinematography
• Specialty lenses COPY NOW!
• Variable frame rates
• ASC Color-Decision List (ASC CDL)
• Academy Color Encoding System (ACES)
The new AC Manual will be shipped in late March.

Pre-order now for yourself or as a gift at
store.ascmag.com

NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Sumolight Releases Sumomax

Sumolight GmbH has introduced the Sumomax hexagonal 700-watt
LED light. The 1,800-15,000K full-spectrum (RGBWW) Sumomax is the
latest addition to Sumolight’s LED line and offers a form factor similar
to that of the Sumospace+. Its profile measures 22.1"x19.7"x6.9".
Sumomax fixtures can be arranged honeycomb-style to create unique
patterns or shapes. Cells within the structure can be controlled as a
group or individually.
IDX Introduces UC-PD1, Zenith Series,
For more information, visit sumolight.com. Enhanced Duo-CP
IDX has released the UC-PDI compact power source, along with an
updated Duo-CP battery series and the Zenith three-stud battery
series. The UC-PD1 is a small, lightweight device that delivers power
through a USB-C cable. Weighing less than 8 ounces and measuring
2.68"x2.68"x1.2", it packs a maximum 65 watts. It can provide A/C or
can charge batteries quickly; it is capable of charging at DC 5V, 3A/
9V, 3A/ 12V, 3A/ 20V or 3.25A (Max 65W).
For more information, visit idxtek.com.
Dejero Releases EnGo 3, EnGo 3x

Dejero has unveiled the EnGo 3 and EnGo 3x5G-native mobile
transmitters with integrated internet gateway. EnGo 3 and EnGo 3x
feature a redesigned RF and antenna architecture to unlock the full
potential of 5G connections. The new EnGo transmitters feature 4x4
MIMO antennas to achieve greater reliability, lower latency and faster
speeds.
For more information, visit dejero.com.
70 / JULY 2022

Vossler Opens VP Studio

Vossler Media Group, a creative agency and production company in
Kirkland, Wash., has opened a virtual-production facility. The volume
features Aoto LED panels capable of a 1/6 scan rate and refresh rate
up to 7680Hz, and combines real-time visual-effects production
tools, content engines, camera-tracking technology and powerful
graphics servers.
For more information, visit vossler.co.
Pixotope Acquires TrackMen

Norwegian software company Pixotope Technologies AS has
acquired TrackMen Gmbh, creating a complete virtual-production
platform — including graphics, camera tracking and talent tracking
— in a single product. Founded in Cologne, Germany, by Thorsten
Mika and Hendrik Fehlis, TrackMen offers a range of real-time
3D camera- and talent-tracking solutions that covers all types
of production based on a common software platform. Through
the global Pixotope sales and support teams, existing Pixotope
customers around the world will now be able to easily incorporate
these solutions into their workflows.
For more information, visit pixotope.com and trackmen.de.
Supreme Studio Opens XR Cave

Supreme Studio in Bangkok, Thailand, has installed an LED “cave”
Advertisers Index
to facilitate extended-reality video production. ROE Visual provided
Diamond DM2.6 panels for the 121'x13' main LED wall and Carbon
CB3 tiles for the 20'x10' LED ceiling. “We look forward to the unique
projects that will take advantage of it,” says Brynley Cadman, Aoto Electronics LLC 12 The Studio - B&H 33
Supreme Studio’s virtual-production supervisor. Apple TV+ 28-29 Vitec CS / Teradek C2-1
For more information, visit supremestudio.asia. Arri Inc. 3 Xeen by Rokinon 15
Blackmagic Design Inc. 5 AC Manual 69
Cine Lens Book 65 AC Subscription 6
Cti Media 22-23, 24
Elite Brands 15
Filmotechnic USA 21
HBO 22-23
HBO Max 24
IDX System Technology 39
Lindsey Optics, LLC 11
Nanguang Photo & Video
Systems / Nanlux 41
Netflix C4
Pro8mm 64
Production Resource
Group / PRG 9
Raynault VFX C3
Rip Tie 64
ROE Visual Co., Ltd. 13
Sony Electronics, Inc. 7
Storaro and Bertolucci
Book 57
JULY 2022 / 71

Wrap Shot
Brianne Murphy, ASC
PHOTO AT TOP BY DOUG JONES.

Trailblazing ASC member Brianne Murphy poses on the set of her network-television drama Highway to
Heaven. Murphy shot more than 40 episodes of the series, trading off with Ted Voigtlander, ASC and work-
ing closely with Michael Landon, the show’s executive producer and star, who also directed. She earned an
Emmy nomination for the 1985 episode “A Match Made in Heaven.”
After learning the basics of photography, Murphy moved to Hollywood, finding work as a script supervi-
sor and then production manager. She frequently hired herself as a 2nd-unit cinematographer, which led to
non-union feature work, and she was eventually able to join the camera guild as a 1st assistant.
Murphy’s big career break came in 1975 when Richard Glouner, ASC — who had just won an Emmy for
the hit series Columbo — had to leave the show early and selected her as his replacement. She was on her
way, and in 1980, Murphy became the first woman invited to join the ASC.
Among her many other groundbreaking accomplishments and honors, Murphy was the first woman
Society member to be featured on the cover of AC — the April 1986 issue, pictured here.
72 / JULY 2022
p. 72 Wrap Shot_v2.indd 72 6/2/22 10:55 PM

Cover 3_IBC.indd 3 6/2/22 10:17 PM
F O R Y O U R E M M Y® C O N S I D E R A T I O N I N A L L C A T E G O R I E S I N C L U D I N G
OUTSTANDING DR AMA SERIES
OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGR APHY FOR A SINGLE-CAMER A SERIES (ONE HOUR)
Lee Hyung-deok
THIS YEAR, ONE SERIES CHANGED THE

GAME
“EXQUISITELY CINEMATIC.
A visceral experience, but in a way that
we’re not used to when it comes to television.”
THE DAILY BEAST
FYC.NETFLIX.COM
Cover 4_OBC.indd 4 6/2/22 10:38 PM

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July 2022 The International Publication of the American Society of Cinematographers

Cover 1_OFC.indd 1 6/2/22 10:15 PM

p. C2-1 VTEC Teradek.indd 2 6/2/22 10:55 PM

p. C2-1 VTEC Teradek.indd 1 6/2/22 10:55 PM

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WEB DIRECTOR and PUBLISHER

CREATIVE DIRECTION and DESIGN

SUBSCRIPTIONS, BOOKS and PRODUCTS

ASC CEO Terry McCarthy

p. 4-7 Masthead and ASC Board_v2.indd 4 6/2/22 10:41 PM

Introducing DaVinci Resolve 18!

New Blackmagic Cloud Expanded Subtitling, Fairlight FlexBus and more!

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NO MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION • NO ADS • NO USER TRACKING

ON MOTION IMAGING The ASC is not a labor union or a guild,

DELIVERS THE INSIDE STORY professional organization. Membership is

p. 4-7 Masthead and ASC Board_v2.indd 6 6/2/22 10:41 PM 2022_

Thank you for choosing the

“Top Gun is a fantastic example

p. 4-7 Masthead and ASC Board_v2.indd1 7

PHOTO COURTESY OF IMAGEBROKER AND ALAMY STOCK PHOTO.

Traditional television has evolved, both technically and creatively.

p. 8-9 Presidents Desk_v3.indd 8 6/2/22 10:42 PM

CONTACT INFO@PRG.COM TO LEARN MORE

p. 8-9 Presidents Desk_v3.indd 9 6/2/22 10:42 PM

Boldly Going Virtual — Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE BY MARNI GROSSMAN.

p. 10-15 Virtual World_v3.indd 10 6/2/22 10:43 PM

The LED-volume environment renders the mighty inner

virtual-production and visu- capturing these shots in front of

Large Format Directors Viewfinder

p. 10-15 Virtual World_v3.indd 11 6/2/22 10:43 PM

This environment on planet Vulcan, the homeworld of Spock

PHOTO BY JOHN MEDLAND.

Preproduction: Lighting and exclusively on Season 1), this

“We’re constantly trying to infuse more dynamic

p. 10-15 Virtual World_v3.indd 12 6/2/22 10:43 PM

p. 10-15 Virtual World_v3.indd 13 6/2/22 10:43 PM

Top: Cinematographer Magdalena Górka, ASC, PSC at camera

where I learned how to light with Abrams-directed features Star

in the real-time environments. Tubes — in the physical set, in Y

PHOTOS BY MARNI GROSSMAN.

custom-built board controls, was you balance the real physical K

achieved in the alien chamber, elements in the foreground with

p. 10-15 Virtual World_v3.indd 14 6/2/22 10:43 PM

COVER STORY STORARO AND HIS DIRECTORS

XEEN Meister By ROKINON

rokinon.com @rokinon @rokinonlenses Rokinon Lenses @rokinonlenses

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Previous spread: After landing a job at a major Japanese newspaper,

Tokyo Vice | A Criminal Underground

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The filmmakers employed a variety of techniques to lend

executes. He wants it to feel real.” “You feel the excitement of the

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