December 5, 2025

Alice Brooks, ASC returns to Oz in Wicked: For Good

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 336: Alice Brooks, ASC

For cinematographer Alice Brooks, ASC, shooting both Wicked and Wicked: For Good concurrently was a huge feat. The giant sets, precise camerawork and complex, live lighting cues for the musical numbers required detailed planning and prep. But first, Alice and her long-time collaborator, director Jon M. Chu, broke down the scripts and discussed the emotional intentions for each scene. “When we first start talking about a movie, we talk about emotion,” says Alice. “I love getting an emotional cue for the camera the same way an actor would. What is the emotional intention in the scene? An actor gets to tell the story through their breath and through their looks and through their being. And I get to tell the story, the emotional story, through camera and lenses and lighting.”

Separation, seclusion and surrender were the emotional themes in Wicked: For Good. “It became very clear that the first movie would live in this ever-present daylight,” explains Alice. “And the second movie would have this weight and complexity and maturity and density to it and live in the shadows.” 90% of Wicked takes place in the daytime, with the sun setting as Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) embraces her power, sings “Defying Gravity” and flies away. In contrast, Wicked: For Good takes place mostly at night, in the shadows, forest, and underbelly of Oz while Elphaba is in hiding.

Alice chose to frame the characters Glinda and Elphaba in contrasting ways for the story. Now separated from Elphaba, Glinda (Ariana Grande) is central to the world of Oz. Alice kept her center punched, carefully composed and choreographed. Elphaba is framed always to the right or left, with tight close-ups and static hand-held shots, to emphasize her loneliness. When the two are together, Alice repeated the same motifs from the first movie, with Ephaba framed to the right and Glinda to the left, often holding hands.

Though Wicked: For Good is a huge fantasy movie, Alice and the production crew tried to do as much practically and in camera as possible. The “Girl in the Bubble” dance sequence was done entirely with carefully choreographed mirrors and flyaway walls that were removed as Glinda dances. Alice planned it out using her daughter’s bath toys and her husband’s shaving mirror. The art department storyboarded it, then the special effects team was able to figure out all the mirror technology needed to pull it off. The camerawork had to be very precise, with many of the frames exactly matching the last, combining both a Technocrane and a Steadicam.

Unreal Engine was an indispensable tool for Alice to aid the film’s sophisticated lighting and shot design. She used the software to pre-visualize outdoor sets, making sure the sun was at the right angle for perfectly backlighting Glinda in her bubble over Munchkin Land. It also helped her discover where the sun would hit tall buildings and spires of the Emerald City. Unreal assisted with pre-lighting, finding where practical light sources could be integrated and built into interior sets. She even tested different camera lenses to see how they would look in the space under certain lighting conditions and at various angles and heights.

Alice is the cinematographer for the upcoming animated Spiderman: Beyond The Spider-verse as well as an animated version of the Dr. Seuss book, Oh The Places You’ll Go with director Jon M. Chu.

See Wicked: For Good in theaters.

Find Alice Brooks: Instagram @_alicebrooks_

SHOW RUNDOWN:
01:22 Close Focus
08:41-51:09 Interview
51:36 Short ends
01:01:40 Wrap up/Credits

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

By Illya Friedman

.

In Cinematography Podcast, Latest Posts, Podcast Episodes

.


0 comments

February 26, 2025

2025 Academy Awards nominations with Jenelle Riley, Variety

Long-time friend and colleague Jenelle Riley of Variety magazine chats with Ben and Illya for our SIXTH annual Oscar nominations special. With a focus on cinematography, they discuss what they liked, what will win, what should win, and their favorite movies of the year that may not have been recognized.

They discuss this year’s nominations, the BAFTAs as a predictor for this year’s Oscars, the ASC Awards nominees, and a little about last year’s nominee and winner, Hoyte Van Hoytema, for Oppenheimer. Both Alice Brooks for Wicked and Stéphane Fontaine for Conclave were not nominated this awards season, but were nominated for ASC Awards. Ed Lachman, cinematographer of Maria, won the ASC Award this year. Ben, Jenelle and Illya agree that Drew Daniels for Anora and Benjamin Kracun for The Substance were also cinematographers who deserve recognition for their work.

Academy Award nominees for Best Cinematography this year are:

Lol Crawley, The Brutalist

Greig Fraser, Dune Part 2

Paul Guilhaume, Emilia Pérez

Ed Lachman, Maria

Jarin Blaschke, Nosferatu

Find Jenelle Riley on Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, X: @jenelleriley
and Variety: https://variety.com/

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

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

By Illya Friedman

.

In Cinematography Podcast, Latest Posts, Podcast Episodes

.


0 comments

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

By Illya Friedman

.

In Cinematography Podcast, Latest Posts, Podcast Episodes

.


0 comments

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

By Illya Friedman

.

In Cinematography Podcast, Latest Posts, Podcast Episodes

.


0 comments

November 27, 2024

From grunge to Gladiator II: John Mathieson, BSC

Cinematographer John Mathieson, BSC began his career shooting music videos for bands like Nirvana and Hole, moving into documentaries and commercials before working in feature films. Rather than going to film school, he joined friends who formed a film collective and everyone learned from each other. Director Ridley Scott saw his work on the movie, Plunkett & Macleane, and approached him to shoot Gladiator. “I never thought I’d be the sword and sandals guy,” says John. “I was doing grunge videos!” John was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Gladiator.

For Gladiator II, John embraced the advancements in visual effects technology, which allowed for more efficient and creative storytelling. While the film was shot digitally, his approach to cinematography remained similar to the first film. “We didn’t do much different with the cameras or the language of the story,” he says, “but parts of the filmmaking process have gotten faster and easier. We shot on digital in about half the time it took to shoot Gladiator.”

John focused on creating a visually striking world in Gladiator II, inspired by historical paintings and the contrasting environments of Rome and the desert. He wanted high contrast lighting, especially in the desert scenes at the beginning of the film and in the gladiator arena so that it looked dusty, hot, and overexposed. In contrast, the light inside the Roman homes is warmer and richer. John describes it as, “Everything’s got dust and then Rome is colorful, opulent- grapes, wine, peacock greens, paisleys, fabrics, all that kind of decadence-it’s camp, it’s vulgar, it’s Vegas 1970.”

When choosing projects, John prioritizes scripts that resonate with him and directors who can effectively guide the filmmaking process. He enjoys exploring and working in different film genres. “I like to think I don’t have a style, you know, that I can adapt to what is on the page or what is important,” he says.

Gladiator II is currently in theaters.

Interested in more Gladiator? Hear our past interview with Adam Somner, Gladiator 2nd AD and frequent Ridley Scott collaborator: https://www.camnoir.com/ep125/

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: https://hotrodcameras.com/
Sponsored by ARRI: https://www.arri.com/en

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

By Illya Friedman

.

In Cinematography Podcast, Latest Posts, Podcast Episodes

.


0 comments