How to Have Sex, the breakout debut feature of Molly Manning Walker that played at Cannes in 2023, will screen at Sundance this year as part of the Spotlight section. The film chronicles the rite-of-passage holiday of three British teens as they navigate the complexities of sex and self-discovery.

Below, cinematographer Nicolas Canniccioni (Gerontophilia) exalts the value of abundant prep work and details the film’s varied approach to lighting.

See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here.

Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job?

Canniccioni: I had the chance to read Molly Manning Walker’s script thanks to my agents at ECHO Artists in London. They felt that I had the sensitivity required for this delicate project. I was touched by the subject and also impressed by the precision, the realism and the quality of the scenario, and after a few discussions with Molly, the adventure was launched!

What contributed to my hiring? I believe it was my experience in both fiction and documentary, my way of seeing them as communicating vessels and integrating this way of seeing into my reading of Molly’s film.

Filmmaker: What were your artistic goals on this film, and how did you realize them?

Canniccioni: My artistic goals on this film or any other film are always geared towards supporting the director’s vision. To achieve these objectives, it is necessary to maintain a global vision of the artistic and economic issues of the production and carefully prepare each day of filming in advance; it is then easier to readjust if questions arise.

Filmmaker: How did you want your cinematography to enhance the film’s storytelling and treatment of its characters?

Canniccioni: I want my work as a director of photography to be at the service of the story to be told and in tune with the characters. Whether the camera patiently observes or, on the contrary, energetically participates in the action, you always have to ask yourself the question of the point of view. That’s something I really like about my work. In the end the goal is to support Molly’s work of mise-en-scène by offering the actors the necessary atmosphere so that they feel the veracity of the locations.

Filmmaker: Were there any specific influences on your cinematography, whether they be other films, or visual art, of photography, or something else?

Canniccioni: The major influence on the cinematography of How To Have Sex comes from Malia (the town where we filmed) and what happens there. I made two immersion trips before production began, the first time to observe the reality when the city was operating at full capacity with the exhilaration of the many young British visitors who came to party, and a second time several weeks before production in order to meticulously prepare for our shoot. We really took the time to carefully compare and choose our filming locations based on the different mise-en-scène challenges required.

Filmmaker: What were the biggest challenges posed by production to those goals?

Canniccioni: One of the great challenges of the film was to recreate large-scale party scenes with a crowd feeling while Malia was in end-of-tourist season mode at the time of filming. This was achieved thanks to intensive casting in neighboring towns and a strategic shot list.

Filmmaker: What camera did you shoot on? Why did you choose the camera that you did? What lenses did you use? your approach to lighting.

Canniccioni: We chose the Arri Mini LF camera combined mainly with Canon K35 lenses (especially the 35mm and 50mm) for the handheld camera. It was the perfect choice to be as close as possible to Tara’s emotions and face. This camera allowed us different ergonomic configurations according to my needs as an operator, whether it was to film in a small car, cross a dance floor as crowded as possible or simply to follow and participate in the performance of the actors on a football field, the beach, underwater or at the hotel! An Arri Master prime was sometimes used on the shoulder as a very quick whip pan when Tara disappeared into the crowd at night. We also used a Canon K35 25-120mm Zoom and a Cooke Varotal 25-250mm Zoom on tripod at specific moments in the film. A motor allowed me extremely slow zoom-ins to feel the tension of Tara’s disappearance.

Regarding the nightclub lighting, we wanted each one to be more intense than the last. First washed-out lights, in blues and purples, then an evolution towards more marked lighting, only green or only blue. We tried to take advantage of what we found on site in terms of lighting that we liked and turned off the extra. We complete the club lighting according to our needs, by adding strobes and black lights for example.

During the day, there was a beautiful natural evolution of the light. Between the magical and saturated light of the morning and evening, we also had the violence of the harsh sun, it remained up to us to carefully choose the filming schedule and prepare accordingly.

Filmmaker: What was the most difficult scene to realize and why? And how did you do it?

Canniccioni: The most difficult scene for me was the one between Tara and Paddy on the beach and in the sea at night. We had lost the location a few days before and the new beach did not offer us the same freedom of movement for the camera nor the ideal hiding place and justification for installing a light. But there is always a solution when you take the time to observe. Despite the fact that the place was pitch black, we could recreate a party atmosphere from a distance with a minimum of colored and moving out-of-focus lights. Then, the cold light faintly hitting the actors on the beach and losing itself in the sea was inspired by the hotel’s security lights that could be felt in the distance.

I cannot end this questionnaire without mentioning the immense talent and passion for cinema of my Greek team: focus-puller Giorgios Maniatis, gaffer Babis Kalterimitzis and key-grip Sotiris Ioannidis.

Filmmaker: Finally, describe the finishing of the film. How much of your look was “baked in” versus realized in the DI?

Canniccioni: Joseph Bicknell from Company 3 was our top colorist. In preparation we tried two LUTS that he had made for us. They were inspired by some analog images of the locations taken by Molly with her 35mm point and shoot camera. The LUT had a nice contrast, a nice density and reacted really well to the colors we had on set while taking into consideration that our shooting method could not tolerate a lot of lighting power. Thanks to this, the color timing lasted only four days, an absolute record for me on a feature film! So, yes, we can say it was “almost” baked in. Molly and Joseph worked from London and I worked remotely from Montreal. We were all racing against the clock to get the film ready for Cannes.

TECH BOX

Film Title: How To Have Sex

Camera: Alexa Mini LF

Lenses: Canon’s K35 primes, Zoom Canon K35 25-120, Zoom Cooke 25-250, Arri Master Prime 150mm

Lighting: Arri SkyPanels, Arri Fresnels