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.

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August 9, 2023

Cabinet of Curiosities cinematographer Anastas Michos, ASC, GSC

Cinematographer Anastas Michos ASC, GSC humbly calls himself a journeyman cinematographer. However, after 25 years and multiple awards, Anastas possesses expert skill and versatility that can be seen across all genres. Most recently, Anastas was nominated for an Emmy for “The Autopsy,” an episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities anthology TV series on Netflix.

Del Toro selected the directors for each episode of Cabinet of Curiosities, and he chose idiosyncratic directors who brought their own sensibilities to each piece. Anastas had worked with “The Autopsy” director David Prior before on a horror film called The Empty Man, and they enjoyed collaborating together again. Anastas enjoyed working on Cabinet of Curiosities because it felt like making a short film rather than a TV show, with each piece a crafted short story rather than a serialization. For a consistent look, each episode used the same production designer, Tamara Deverell,  who also did the production design for del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. While shooting the episode, Anastas was always conscious that “The Autopsy” should fall under the look of del Toro’s brand.

Anastas has always enjoyed shooting horror films because they explore the human condition in a very specific way. The cinematographer can creatively stretch the imagination and the image in a way that can’t be done as much in dramas, comedies or romances, since they’re usually based in our day to day reality. But Anastas likes to switch around among genres- after working on an intense horror film such as Texas Chainsaw 3D, a light rom com might sound really good. He’s interested in any project that has a great story, script, director and crew.

Before finding his way behind a camera, Anastas thought he’d go into the music business since he grew up in a musical family. Instead, he became a news cameraperson, learning visual storytelling on the job. He’s found that his music background has actually served him well as a cinematographer- he feels musicality is very much a part of camera movement. One memorable time early in his career, Anastas was working Steadicam for Born on the Fourth of July. Director Oliver Stone pulled him aside and had Anastas put on a walkman so that he could move the camera to the pace of the music Stone wanted.

After working as a camera and Steadicam operator for several years, Anastas got to shoot his first feature as a DP for Man on the Moon. Anastas found director Milos Forman to be simultaneously generous and demanding, with the capability of recognizing someone’s potential and holding them to it.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities anthology TV series is on Netflix.

Find Anastas Michos: http://anastasmichos.com/
Instagram: @anastasmichos_asc_gsc

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May 17, 2023

Dead Ringers cinematographer Laura Merians Gonçalves

Cinematographer Laura Merians Gonçalves was extremely intrigued to work on the new Prime Video series, Dead Ringers. The show is based on the 1988 David Cronenberg movie, which starred Jeremy Irons as twin gynecologists. When she read the script for the series, Laura thought changing the genders of the twins to female gave the show more interest. She liked that over six episodes, they could explore a deeper, more complicated story about women. Laura shot the bulk of the series, episodes three, four, five and six.

Both Laura and DP Jody Lee Lipes, who shot episodes one and two, worked closely together to share ideas and find the look of the show. There is a restraint to the color palette, with the exception of red as a theme- just as in the movie. They used red scrubs and even red latex gloves in the operating rooms. The style of the show is very stark and elegant, making it easier to cleanly insert the twinning shots.

The biggest challenge for Dead Ringers was ensuring that the twinning for actor Rachel Weisz was seamless and convincing. Jody had previous experience shooting twin shots with VFX supervisor Eric Pascarelli on the HBO series I Know This Much Is True. For Dead Ringers, the twinning shots were done with the assistance of an old motion control camera system that actually used floppy disk drives. Anything involving twinning was discussed in advance and carefully planned and blocked. A body double, Kitty Hawthorne, was also essential for the twinning effect to work. Rachel would do rehearsals and then takes for side A, with Kitty miming the other twin. Then they would switch and do side B, with Kitty now mimicking the A side twin. The motion control camera exactly synched the camera so that the scene could be composited seamlessly together in post.

Laura found that with the real-time movie magic they were able to create, it was easy to forget that actor Rachel Weisz was actually just one person. She is a huge fan of motion control and doing things technically in camera, rather than relying on special effects in post. The actor can be invested in their performance as their character and they don’t have to have a face replacement or deep fake special effect.

Dead Ringers is currently streaming on Prime Video.

Find Laura Merians Gonçalves: https://lauramerians.com/
Instagram: @lauramelodygoncalves

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