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“I Wanted to Always be Receptive to Inspiration on the Day”: DP Conor Murphy on Oh, Hi!

A young white couple hold each other close.Still from Oh, Hi!. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Screening in the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s Premieres section, Oh, Hi! is director Sophie Brooks’ romantic comedy about the unraveling and attempted reconciliation of the relationship between Iris (Molly Gordon) and Isaac (Logan Lerman).

Much of Oh, Hi! takes place in a single bedroom. Below, cinematographer Conor Murphy explains the importance of finding creative ways to shoot the same space and also recounts the challenges of the film’s showstopping long take.

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?

Murphy: Sophie reached out to me after attending a test screening for a film I’d shot, directed by a mutual friend. We met up for coffee and hit it off pretty quickly. She’s very personable, and it was important to her to find a DP she could have meaningful conversations with, as well as someone adaptable and even-keeled. I’m drawn to a less technical approach to filmmaking; I’m as excited by the relationships with actors, and the navigation of the shooting space, as I am in the minutia of image-craft. Sophie too is more interested in having the sort of conversation that arises out of a question like “Have you ever had your heart broken?” than she is in any sort of camera-related discussion.

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?

Murphy: We wanted the cinematography to feel present, responsive and imbued with life. The film shifts among contending tones, and it was crucial that the imagery support the script in its dance between romance, humor and darker shades of suspense without ever betraying the film’s in-world sense of believability and dimension. I wanted to always be receptive to inspiration on the day and hoped to maintain a consistency of colorful, dynamic lighting and composition while doing so. Lastly, we wanted to use cinematography to provide a balance of emotional anchorage between the main characters’ opposing perspectives and not to sway the audience in favor of either one over the other.

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

Murphy: We drew inspiration from many films, images and pieces of music. The film references that stuck with me the most were Challengers, Worst Person in the World, Lady Bird and Another Round.

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

Murphy: Most of the film goes down in a small, rectangular, second-floor bedroom with sloped ceilings—and conceiving of new ways to block and shoot scenes in that recycled space, day after day, week after week, was, for me, the defining undertaking of the shoot. We knew we’d lose the audience’s good will if we fell into repetitive, conventional ways of arranging the action, so we set before ourselves the goal of giving each scene its own unique choreography grounded in the scene’s goals. After a while though, it felt like we’d exhausted every credible arrangement of bodies in that meager space. I’ll be pleased if audience members feel we were able to keep it fresh.

Filmmaker: What camera did you shoot on? Why did you choose the camera that you did? What lenses did you use?

Murphy: We went with the Arri Alexa 35. I used one on a feature earlier that same year and felt like I was in a nice groove with the sensor, which has quite a bit of range and color space. Our lenses were Zeiss Super Speed Mk III’s. I love those things. Aside from having just the right amount of nice vintage character, they’re some of the smallest, lightest cine lenses in the game. I like being able to shoulder the camera for long stretches of the day during handheld work without having to use easy-rigs, which are large and unwieldy, create a distinctly modern style of camera movement and frequently influence cam ops to shoot actors from unmotivated low angles simply because of the ergonomics of the rig. I like taking up as little space as possible with a camera and being as nimble as possible so that I’m able to sneak in behind an actor’s shoulder when they’re only a little ways out from a wall or to let an actor squeeze by me in a narrow hallway without passing beneath the shadow of the lens.

Filmmaker: Describe your approach to lighting.

Murphy: I try as often as possible to never have to light a scene until after we’ve blocked the action with the actors, and that was a luxury I enjoyed often on this shoot. The hero bedroom had a vaulted ceiling bridged by crossbeams over the bed, and the opportunity it presented to stash small units out of frame was a real blessing. For day interiors, we used hard bounces shaped to strike walls right along the edges of the frame to create soft, spatial lighting motivated by a combination of warm light from practicals and cool, greenish fill coming through windows that looked out onto thick summer foliage and blue skies. Night interior work, usually made possible by blacked-out windows, was motivated exclusively by warm practicals and complemented by negative fill. For day exterior work, we didn’t do much aside from the occasional bounce for the actors’ eyes, and night exterior work involved soft pushes of warm light motivated by the windows of the house or outdoor practicals and a dim blue/white moonlight for subtle backlights and fill. [We also would] occasionally key the actors when scenes took place beyond the believable reach of the light of the house.

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

Murphy: Without giving too much away, one sequence called for a character to awaken at night, descend a set of stairs, step out into a moonlit yard and meet another character under a tree where they approach one another and share a dance. We conceived of the scene as a single hand-held tracking shot that moves from room to room before seeing 360 degrees out in the yard. The shot called for extensive lighting adjustments and in-shot tinkering from nearly every department. That night presented an enormous challenge on a physical, technical, and conceptual level.

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

Murphy: Sam Daley at Picture Shop in NYC designed and finetuned a slightly subdued, filmic show LUT for us in prep, and we finished the film in the DI with him just last month at the eleventh hour. It was my fourth film with Sam, and we have a strong understanding of each other’s strengths and instincts. Oftentimes he’s already addressed many of my concerns and fulfilled many of my wishes by the time I sit down to join him in the suite. Similarly, as I make decisions on set about lighting and exposure, I take into account the tools that Sam will have at his disposal and the attention with which he will apply them to each frame.

TECH BOX

Film Title: Oh, Hi!

Camera: Arri Alexa 35

Lenses: Zeiss Super Speed Mk III’s, Cooke Veratol Zoom

Lighting: Gaffer: Sean Gradwell / Key Grip: Alex Korpi

Color Grading: Sam Daley at Picture Shop

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