The Cinematography Podcast Episode 370: Julia Swain
The charming romantic comedy Voicemails for Isabelle reunited cinematographer Julia Swain with director Leah McKendrick, and gave Swain the opportunity to film in a genre she hadn’t tried before. The two had made the 2023 indie feature Scrambled together on a much smaller budget. This time, they had leveled up to a Netflix and Sony co-production, with a $30 million budget.
Even with a bigger budget, time was short. They shot the film in just 33 days in Vancouver with two days in San Francisco. “There’s obviously things you have to adapt to on the bigger budgets,” Swain says. Her approach to problem-solving under pressure remains the same, no matter what the budget. “I think that’s what makes a great cinematographer. Not just lighting and knowing how to walk into a room and make it look good or how to block actors, but how do you schedule? How do you get smart about when to do certain scenes and how to pivot when you need to?”
Swain’s instincts were put to the test in one of the film’s most pivotal scenes: the moment Jill and Wes meet in person at a lookout over the Golden Gate Bridge. Shooting on location was never possible, with so much wind, fog, and tourist traffic in the area. McKendrick wanted the actors performing in a real space rather than staring at an LED screen. Swain’s solution was a hybrid approach. The crew scouted the actual Marin Headlands overlook, built a 3D map of exactly how much bridge would be visible from the bench, then recreated the angle in a Vancouver park at night. They used blue screen only where the bridge needed to appear.
The date sequence set on a tour bus winding through San Francisco’s famous tourist spots was even more demanding. Swain wanted the scene shot in a real, moving vehicle rather than on a rigged stage. “I think the bus gave me the most anxiety,” says Swain. “We didn’t want to do it on a stage. We wanted to drive through SF, see the hills, feel the hills, feel the daylight, be moving.” The bus with the interior McKendrick chose was from the UK, with its steering wheel on the wrong side for an American production. Instead of being a problem, this turned out to be an asset. “So the driver’s side was actually on the right, and we closed off the real driver,” explains Swain. “We built an entire other steering wheel on the American side. So then we had a precision driver, like an actual driver who could just take us safely and the actor playing the driver could just act. And we never had to blue screen any of the bus.”
Visually, Swain leaned into the culinary influence of the 2014 film, Chef, since the main character, Jill, is an aspiring chef. “Chef was a big inspiration,” Swain says. “Chef was not only a kind of north star for me in terms of the aspect ratio they used, but also the Panavision anamorphic lenses that feel really soft and nostalgic as well.”
The most meaningful and significant fact Swain took from shooting Voicemails for Isabelle was getting the opportunity to DP a movie with a much larger budget than she’s ever had before. “They let a female director and cinematographer step up budget wise,” she comments. “To go from $1 million to $30 million is not a small step. For years, we have been trying to do that. To be able to be given that opportunity, I haven’t had that until now. And I’ve tried, and other women directors have tried. We tried to step up, but studios wouldn’t let us. And I think it’s such a cool thing that Netflix was like, yeah, this is the team. And then we killed it. We smashed it.”
Find Julia Swain: Instagram:@juliaswain
Voicemails for Isabelle is currently streaming on Netflix.
Hear our previous interview with Julia Swain on The Dreadful.
CAMERAS: Alexa 35
LENSES: Panavision T Series anamorphic
Close Focus: Select theaters will be showing Avengers: Doomsday in a new format Disney calls Infinity Vision.
Alana’s short end: Rewatching the TV series Glee on Hulu.
Ben’s short end: A YouTube channel called How I Filmed This, hosted by Rachel Talalay. Specifically, her video on how NOT to shoot in cars is great.
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SHOW RUNDOWN:
03:21 Close Focus
10:35-51:52 Julia Swain Interview
52:13 Short Ends
02:00:07 Credits
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Podcast Credits:
Producer: Alana Kode
All web and social media content written by Alana Kode
Host and editor in Chief: Illya Friedman
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Host: Ben Rock
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Composer: Kays Al-Atrakchi
Check out Kays’ new YouTube Channel, Kays Labs, where he repairs old synthesizers.
Editor: Alana Kode
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