“King Ivory” Cinematographer Will Stone Illuminates John Swab’s Fentanyl Crime Drama
“This was a very important script for him,” says cinematographer Will Stone about writer-director John Swab and his latest project, King Ivory, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Swab is a recovering drug addict, and with his feature film Body Brokers (2021), he took first-hand accounts of time he spent ...
“The Perfect Couple” Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut on Framing Netflix’s Sun-Soaked Nantucket Noir
“It was one of the most stress-free jobs I’d ever done,” cinematographer Shane Hurlbut tells The Credits during a video call about the Netflix murder mystery The Perfect Couple. Based on a book of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand, the mini-series is created by Jenna Lamia and stars Nicole Kidman and Liv Schreiber as ...
Giovanni Ribisi on Shooting JT Mollner’s Must-See Horror “Strange Darling”
About 15 years ago, I was editing a magazine out of this small audio shop off Cahuenga Blvd. in Los Angeles, and in walked Giovanni Ribisi. At the time, the actor was already ten years removed from one of movie history’s most harrowing death scenes in Saving Private Ryan and was coming off the recent billion-dollar success of Avatar. ...
“Sing Sing” Cinematographer Pat Scola on Capturing a Raw, Moving Portrait of Humanity
“It was really about getting out of your own way and allowing these men’s story to come to the forefront,” cinematographer Pat Scola tells The Credits about the emotionally stirring film Sing Sing from director Greg Kwedar, which shines a delicate light on the arts rehabilitation program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. “Greg was the ...
“Presumed Innocent” DPs Daniel Voldheim & Doug Emmett on Capturing Jake Gyllenhaal’s Raw Emotions & Moral Ambiguity
An intoxicating amalgam of courtroom thriller, relationship drama, and a whodunit, David E. Kelley’s latest entry into long-form prestige drama arrives with Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent, a cerebral puzzle steeped in betrayal, obsession, love, and ambition. Fresh off his quietly menacing turn in Amazon MGM’s wildly entertaining Road House remake, Jake Gyllenhaal (who also serves ...
Cinematographer Sam Levy on the Absurdist Fun That is Julio Torres’ “Fantasmas”
Julio Torres wrote, directed, and stars in his new HBO series, Fantasmas, a delightfully absurdist comic fantasy loosely predicated on a search for a lost earring. Fantasmas, which means “ghosts” in Spanish, questions reality — Torres and his costars, including Emma Stone and Bernardo Velasco, with cameos by actors like Tilda Swinton, exist in a ...
Chasing Precision and Perfection with Aerial DPs on “The Blue Angels” – Part 2
In part one of our interview, former Blue Angels pilot LCDR Lance “Bubb” Benson, aerial DP Michael FitzMaurice, and aerial coordinator Kevin LaRosa II shared how the painstaking planning process really paid off and the use of Benson’s “chase” jet to capture unique vantage points. Now, we delve into the camera configurations and what it took ...
Chasing Precision and Perfection with Aerial DPs on “The Blue Angels” – Part 1
Every year since the Blue Angels were established in 1946, crowds of all ages have oohed and aahed at airshows from Brunswick, Maine to Huntington Beach, California, as the United States Navy’s precision flight demonstration team performs intoxicatingly vertiginous aerial maneuvers in the skies. With six F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets flying a mere 12-18 ...
“Baby Reindeer” Cinematographer Krzysztof Trojnar on Lensing Loneliness
Amidst an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, audiences united in crowning Baby Reindeer the breakout hit TV series of the year. Series creator and star Richard Gadd mined his real-life trauma to create Donny Dunn, who yearns for adoration to catastrophic results. The aspiring comedian discovers that meaning well doesn’t always end well. In a ...
“Bad Boys: Ride or Die” DP Robrecht Heyvaert on Creating the Ride of a Lifetime
In the fourth time around for Will Smith and Martin Lawrence’s wise-cracking Miami detectives, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, now in theaters, earns its summer popcorn movie bonafides with loads of goofy banter and antic action sequences. Helmed by Belgian-Moroccan directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. Ride or Die follows Mike Lowery [Smith] and ...
Capturing Cavill & More With “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” Cinematographer Ed Wild
In Part One of our conversation with cinematographer Ed Wild, we discussed how his documentary filmmaking background worked very well with director Guy Ritchie’s pragmatic and responsive approach. We continue the discussion with the throughline in Ritchie’s latest films, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and The Covenant, both of which were lensed by Wild. To create ...
“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” DP Ed Wild Captures the Chaos of Guy Ritchie’s Crackling Action-Comedy
Following last year’s contemplative war thriller The Covenant, director Guy Ritchie is back with a propulsive military actioner with his go-to cinematographer in recent years, Ed Wild (London Has Fallen and Ritchie’s Netflix adaptation of his own film, The Gentlemen). On his fifth collaboration with Ritchie in two years, Wild is very comfortable with the director’s ...
“3 Body Problem” Cinematographer Martin Ahlgren on Creating the Series’ Most Shocking Set Piece
The scope of 3 Body Problem is planetary. Adapted by Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, alongside Alexander Woo, Netflix’s ambitious sci-fi series presents a grand depiction of a war between humanity and aliens. Prior to the aliens’ arrival, a team of beleaguered scientists and a clandestine agency led by Thomas Wade ...
“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” Cinematographer Ben Seresin Unleashes Cinema’s Most Iconic Titans
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a vision as large and in charge as its two titular characters. In this MonsterVerse sequel, director Adam Wingard and cinematographer Ben Seresin (Pain & Gain) not only doubled down but quadrupled down on the robust vibrancy of Godzilla v Kong. It’s a pure crowd-pleasing aesthetic, which, for ...
How “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” Cinematographer Eric Steelberg Brought Slimer & the Firehouse Back to Life
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has a visual style reminiscent of the iconic 1984 film, a palette cinematographer Eric Steelberg (Ahsoka, Hawkeye) intentionally crafted for this story that sees characters new and old strap on a proton pack to bust a chilling demon terrorizing their city. “We wanted to capture the texture, color, and grit of the ...
“Dune: Part Two” Cinematographer Greig Fraser on Finding Clarity in Chaos
In part one of our interview with Dune: Part Two cinematographer Greig Fraser, the Oscar-winner took us on a trip to the planet of Giedi Prime, home to the vampiric Harkonnen clan, to reveal how he captured that bloodless light during Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler)’s gladiator scene, those inky blacks during Feyd’s fateful meeting with Lady Margot, and ...
“Dune: Part Two” Cinematographer Greig Fraser on Poisoning the Light of Giedi Prime
If you polled all the people who have now seen Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two in theaters about what was the most visually striking moment, my guess is it would be the Sandworm Express in a runaway. We’re talking, of course, about Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) riding the universe’s most dangerous mode of transport—a colossal sandworm—across ...
Air, Water, Earth, Fire: DP Michael Balfry Brings “Avatar: The Last Airbender” to Life
Netflix took on producing the live-action remake of the long-running, beloved Nickelodeon animation Avatar: The Last Airbender, about four elemental kingdoms (fire, air, water, and earth) who live in harmony until the Fire Nation starts a war to take over the world. The series, which premiered late last month, is true to the original story. ...
“Maestro” Cinematographer Matthew Libatique Makes Music With the Camera
Spanning four decades of love, art, and loss, the tortured yet deeply moving marriage of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) and Costa Rican actress Felicia Montealegre Bernstein (Carey Mulligan), serves as the crux of Cooper’s sophomore directorial offering. Rather than a pure biopic, Maestro — the visually (and sonically) absorbing musical drama ...
Best of 2023: “Ahsoka” Cinematographer Eric Steelberg on Lensing a Rebel Jedi’s Journey Through Time & Space
*It’s our annual “Best of the Year” look back at some of our favorite interviews from the year. For Ahsoka cinematographer Eric Steelberg, lensing the latest live-action Star Wars series was a dream come true. Growing up in thrall to George Lucas’s original trilogy, Steelberg would find himself on set while filming the new series, surrounded by ...
