January 29, 2025

The beauty of The Brutalist: Lol Crawley, BSC

The Brutalist tells the story of László Tóth (Adrian Brody) a Hungarian-Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to the United States. He meets a wealthy industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pierce), who recognizes his talent, and commissions him to design a grand community center. The opportunity presents both a chance for redemption and a descent into a dangerous power dynamic.

Cinematographer Lol Crawley, BSC is currently nominated for an Academy Award for his stunning work on The Brutalist. He and director Brady Corbet chose to shoot on VistaVision, which uses 35mm film horizontally instead of vertically, significantly increasing the image area and resolution. Corbet was always interested in shooting on a larger format in order to capture the landscapes and architecture in the film. VistaVision proved to be a less expensive way to shoot on large format, especially since many rental companies were reluctant to rent their 65mm cameras to a modestly budgeted, independent feature. Lol knew fellow cinematographer Robbie Ryan had also used VistaVision for parts of Poor Things. He was able to use the same technicians Robbie used while The Brutalist shot in Budapest.

The choice of VistaVision was not just about technical specifications. For The Brutalist, set in the early late 1940s and early 1950s, Lol felt it was appropriate to use a camera and film stock that evoked the era. Even the photochemical process of film itself added a unique character. “What we have chosen to do with the Kodak stock is to abuse the stock slightly, to underexpose it, to push process it, to come up with a more painterly image or something that we feel depicts a certain era,” says Lol. “And we’ve found that by underexposing the stock and distressing the dye layers, then forcing the image back up, you’re dragging up colors within the shadows that we find to be very pleasing, interesting and more impressionistic or painterly image.”

One of the most striking sequences in The Brutalist is the opening scene, a single continuous take following László through a ship as he disembarks in America. Lol, who also operated the camera in most of the film, used a smaller handheld camera for the scene. To accentuate the disorientation as László gets off the boat, the editor decided to flip the images around. “The idea is supposed to be that he comes to America, and it’s a new hope,” says Lol. “But the fact that it’s untethered and disorientating and flipped on its head is a really ingenious way of representing that László’s time in the US is not going to be all he imagined.”

Lol’s approach to cinematography emphasizes a balance between documenting reality and fiction. “I’ve always thought that my cinematography was about responsiveness,” he says. “Cinematography is about light, camera movement, and composition. If I had to get rid of one or let one of those things go, it would be the lighting. What I like to do is to have one foot in documentary and one foot in fiction, and be open to respond. So I tend to shotlist less, I tend to storyboard less.” The cinematographer Christopher Doyle told him once, “In Western cinema, you say, ‘Here’s the frame, how do we fill it?’ In Asian cinema we say, ‘Here’s the world, how do I frame it?’”

You can see The Brutalist in theaters.

Find Lol Crawley: https://lolcrawley.com/
Instagram: @crawleylol

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: https://hotrodcameras.com/
Sponsored by Aputure: https://aputure.com/

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: @TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Blue Sky: @thecinepod.bsky.social

December 5, 2024

The whimsical world of Wicked: Alice Brooks, ASC

Cinematographer Alice Brooks, ASC was in post on In The Heights four years ago when director Jon M. Chu let her know their next project together was adapting the world-famous Broadway musical, Wicked. With such a huge fan base, Alice and Chu wanted to make sure they respected the musical, but they both wanted to find a dynamic, filmic way to approach the material. “John kept instilling in us, don’t make the obvious choices,” Alice says. “We were all creating a world of Oz together that no one had ever seen before, that was magical and wondrous and a little bit different.” Alice chose to go back to the source material for inspiration- the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. “Every single paragraph has an incredibly rich color description. Beautiful, poetic, just the world of Oz in color. It’s unbelievable. And color means something, color is symbolism in Oz. No color is arbitrary.”

Alice embraced all the colors of the rainbow for Wicked. They chose the color palette of pink and green for Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), with pink hued lighting to represent hope and connection between the two characters. In Wicked, good and evil are not as clearly defined as in typical fairy tales, since it’s the origin story of how Elphaba becomes the wicked witch. Alice knew she could play with light and contrast between the two characters. Sunrise lighting would represent Glinda, while sunset and darkness represented Elphaba. Alice made notes in the script for time of day as references for each character. She worked closely with gaffer David Smith to create complex lighting cues throughout the film to match sunrise for Glinda and sunset and darkness for Elphaba.

Early on, the production team discussed how to create the magical world of Oz without relying on bluescreens or virtual production. In London, they built real, massive, practical sets just like in old Hollywood movies. Alice remembers that Wicked used 17 sets that were 85 feet by 145 feet, with four huge backlots: Munchkinland, Shiz University, the train station, and Emerald City. Each was the size of four American football fields. “We had real tangible spaces to light and to create in,” she says. “And we didn’t live in a blue screen world that so many movies do these days.”

To create just the right green skin tone for actress Cynthia Erivo, Alice and makeup designer Frances Hannon did several makeup and lighting tests on different shades of green. It took a lot of trial and error to find the right shade of green- many hues simply looked like paint, or appeared grayish under the lights. As the DP, Alice also had to choose what lenses Wicked would use to capture both the scope and intimacy of the story. She worked with Dan Sasaski, Panavision’s senior vice president of optical engineering and lens strategy, to create the Ultra Panatar II series of lenses for the film. For closeups, Alice chose a 65 mm lens for Cynthia Erivo and a 75mm lens for Ariana Grande because she found that a slightly different focal length for each actress worked best, due to the different shapes of their faces.

Find Alice Brooks: Instagram @_alicebrooks_

Hear our previous interview with Alice Brooks on In the Heights. https://www.camnoir.com/ep130/

Wicked is currently in theaters.

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: https://hotrodcameras.com/

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

July 21, 2021

War Stories Vol. 7: Tales from the Set featuring Wally Pfister, Phedon Papamichael, Ross Emery, Shane Hurlbut, Alice Brooks, Robbie Ryan, Christian Sebaldt, Lachlan Milne, Armando Salas, Jas Shelton, and Brandon Trost

Special: The Cinematography Podcast- War Stories Vol. 7

In our seventh War Stories Special, we feature eleven guest’s harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking or heartwarming stories they had while on set, or a formative career experience that led them to the film industry.

Find full interviews with each of our featured guests in our archives!

Both cinematographers Wally Pfister, ASC and Phedon Papamichael, ASC have war stories about working on Roger Corman films in their early careers; Ross Emery, ACS talks about the groundbreaking experience of shooting bullet time for The Matrix; Shane Hurlbut, ASC on how he was convinced to shoot Drumline; Alice Brooks on how she made her decision to become a DP; Robbie Ryan, BSC, ISC reflects on experiencing personal tragedy while working on The Favourite; Christian Sebaldt, ASC had to get extremely creative with lighting a dim military barracks; Lachlan Milne, ACS, NZCS, on shooting Minari in extreme summer heat; Armando Salas, ASC also has a story on filming in high temperatures; cinematographer Jas Shelton talks about working with actor John C. Reilly on Cyrus; and finally, director and cinematographer Brandon Trost’s story about meeting Lorne Michaels in a pre-production meeting for MacGruber.

Do you have a War Story you’d like to share? Send us an email or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!

Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: https://camnoir.com/warstories7/

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com
Website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Instagram: @thecinepod
Facebook: @cinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

June 30, 2021

Cinematographer Alice Brooks on shooting In The Heights, Home Before Dark, working with director Jon M. Chu

Alice Brooks grew up on Broadway musical theater and movies as a kid, and loves shooting music and dance oriented films and TV shows. Alice has always been in awe of dancers, and though she isn’t a dancer herself, she is inspired by their work ethic and loves that she can capture dance with her camera.

Working on In The Heights has fulfilled a lifelong dream for Alice. She and director Jon M. Chu have known each other since college at USC. The two bonded over musicals- she shot his she shot his student short, a musical called When The Kids Are Away in 2002 and worked together again on the film Jem and the Holograms. Alice and Jon were shooting the Apple TV+ series Home Before Dark when he asked her to shoot In The Heights. Jon, choreographer Christopher Scott and Alice had also worked together on a Hulu series called The LXD: The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers for three seasons, and they got used to working together and working quickly, figuring out how tell a story and develop characters through dance. Jon, Alice and Chris Scott felt their whole careers came together to make a musical like In The Heights. The characters’ hopes, dreams, fears and anxieties can be played out not only through song and dance but in the environment around them, which sometimes shifts to where they are emotionally.

With just 49 shoot days, preproduction for In The Heights was essential. Alice and Jon Chu would location scout in the mornings and then spend afternoons in the dance rehearsal space with Chris Scott. They would share their input and make suggestions from each location scout on how to face and orient the dance. Alice and Jon thought at first many more locations would be done on a soundstage, but they found that shooting in real places on the streets looked and felt so true- even the theater and the subway station were real locations. During shooting, every Sunday they would meet and go through the coming week because the schedule was so tight and the camerawork so complex, looking at videos from dance rehearsal to discuss the shots and angles to use, deciding if a crane shot was needed, and how many cameras to use for each scene. Jon made animatics detailing each scene from storyboards and dance rehearsal footage. With 17 song and dance scenes in In The Heights, Jon had huge goals for the musical numbers, and Alice, the dancers and the entire film crew were able to pull it off.

Alice grew up in New York and got into acting at a young age. She and her family then moved to Los Angles, and she realized as a teen that she did not want to be an actor. Being on set around the camera crew made her realize that she wanted to shoot movies, and that being a DP was her true dream. After graduating from USC Film School, Alice asked many of the graduate students if she could shoot their projects, knowing that the key to honing her craft was practice, practice, practice. She shot about 20 shorts, including Jon M. Chu’s musical short, When The Kids Are Away. Alice thinks it’s important to find the right people to work with, since you’re spending so much time together, and forming that bond helps everyone. She wants to make movies that inspire her daughter. For anyone with a family, it’s important to pick the projects that are worth it, since filming can take so much time away from loved ones.

Find Alice Brooks: https://www.alicebrooks.com/
Instagram: @_alicebrooks_

You can see In The Heights in theaters, the best place to experience the film’s immersive sound design and visuals. You can also find it streaming on HBO Max.

Alice’s new musical film directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda is tick, tick…Boom! releasing in the fall.

Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: https://camnoir.com/ep130/

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com
Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQIhe3yjQJG72EjZJBRI1w
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz