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“With Each Location We Embraced Its Essence:” DP Matthew Chuang on Jimpa
John Lithgow and Olivia Colman in Jimpa In director Sophie Hyde’s Jimpa, non-binary teen Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde) travels to Amsterdam with her mother Hannah (Olivia Colman) to visit her grandfather (John Lithgow); Frances’ longtime nickname for him lends the film its title. Won over by her grandfather’s unabashed queerness and the community he calls home, Frances communicates her desire to stay in Holland for a year to live with Jimpa, which, naturally, complicates things for Hannah.
Cinematographer Matthew Chuang delves into the difficulties of shooting between Adelaide and Amsterdam, the influence of Nan Goldin on the film and the “memorable experience” of riding a bike to set in the Netherlands.
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?
Chuang: I’ve been friendly with Sophie and Bryan for a number of years and we share a number of close friends in the industry including Goran Stolevski. Bryan normally shoots for Sophie but for a number of reasons they wanted to bring a new DP onto Jimpa and it felt like a great timing as I was looking for my next film.
Bryan is a producer on the film (as well as the editor) and so he and Sophie, along with Producer Liam Heyen, knew they needed a DP who was flexible and collaborative and also someone who was adaptable to working across multiple countries, which I have done a lot of during my career. Production designer Bethany Ryan had been hired and we’d done two films together previously and they saw that it was a strong collaboration.
Filmmaker: What were your artistic goals on this film, and how did you realize them? How did you want your cinematography to enhance the film’s storytelling and treatment of its characters?
Chuang: Jimpa is a film that explores three generations of a family. With each generation we explore our characters at different moments in their lives and the time our film takes place where they’re all together in Amsterdam. For the present, we kept the film quite visually natural. With production designer Bethany Ryan, we wanted to capture our characters with a strong sense of place and how they feel within these spaces. The film starts off in Adelaide with the sun and warmth then it progresses to Amsterdam which is quite a contrast in energy and culture. With each location we embraced its essence. When we do see a glimpse of their past, we try to capture that moment in usually a single frame. It almost dances between memory and encapsulating how they felt in that moment.
Filmmaker: Were there any specific influences on your cinematography, whether they be other films, or visual art, or photography, or something else?
Chuang: When we did our first location scout in Amsterdam, we visited a Nan Goldin exhibition. We were all familiar with her incredible work but seeing it in person in Amsterdam was very inspiring for all of us. Her work comes from a very personal place and her relationships and encounters with people in different places and times in her life. It really captured many of the emotions our characters go through in Jimpa, so Nan Goldin was a constant inspiration to us.
Filmmaker: What were the biggest challenges posed by production to those goals?
Chuang: The scale of this film. The fact we shot in both Adelaide and Amsterdam, the logistics of forming and working with two production teams in each city. The number of cast and characters involved in both locations. In awe of everyone involved, especially the producers in handling it all and allowing everyone to bring themselves to the making of this film. Logistically filming on the streets of Amsterdam had its challenges that were exciting to navigate. The streets were often narrow, especially those along the canals, and they had a lot of the general public, especially on bicycles that we had to work around. It was exciting to film on these locations but also quite challenging for everyone involved. Riding a bicycle to set will always be a memorable experience.
Filmmaker: What camera did you shoot on? Why did you choose the camera that you did? What lenses did you use?
Chuang: The Alexa 35 gave us confidence to push the camera in any direction that felt like it would work for any given scene. For the present, we kept the film quite natural visually. The Cooke Speed Panchro TLS Series 2/3 lenses gave us the soft naturalism we were looking for.
Filmmaker: Describe your approach to lighting.
Chuang: From the outset we wanted the film to feel natural and honest. The locations chosen by Sophie Hyde and Bethany Ryan really shaped our approach in terms of the lighting. We would light through motivated sources like windows and practicals and enhance it on our actors depending on the scene and the time of the script. Often we would have multiple characters within the scene so it was constantly shifting the lighting depending on who we were focusing on. Our gaffer Janneke Hogenboom and her crew did exceptional work in allowing us to move and adapt the light within these challenging spaces. For the flashbacks we could lean more into the feeling of a particular time, a little more abstract in how the characters felt at that particular moment so creatively it gave us more opportunities to go towards that. We would often flare the lens during these shots, often during the take.
Filmmaker: What was the most difficult scene to realize and why? And how did you do it?
Chuang: The scenes with multiple characters talking and responding to each other was always a challenge to navigate the emotional beats of the scene but also their eye lines and the coverage required for the edit. We did bring in a second camera operator with Bryan Mason operating which helped not only our schedule but also for our actors in capturing their performances. Our approach was always geared to support our actors and to give them the time and space to feel present and honest.
Filmmaker: Finally, describe the finishing of the film. How much of your look was “baked in” versus realized in the DI?
Chuang: We spent quite a bit of time testing and dialing in a LUT with colorist Marty Pepper which was used for all our present day scenes. The tonality and how it rendered skin tones that Sophie felt was right. This look was what helped define the visual palette with production design and your lighting approach. The finished grade feels very close to what we captured on our shoot.
TECH BOX
Film Title: Jimpa
Camera: Alexa 35 and Red Komodo X
Lenses: Cooke Speed Panchro TLS Series 2/3, Cooke Speed Panchro Series 1, Optimo 24-290mm
Lighting: ARRI M40, M18, Vortex 8, Astera Helios Tubes, Evoke Nanlux 1200W, CRLS Reflectors
Processing: Digital
Color Grading: DaVinci Resolve
