
“A New Way of Looking at the American West”: DP Austin Shelton on East of Wall

In East of Wall, writer-director Kate Beecroft trains her camera on Tabatha Zimiga, who runs a ranch for wayward teenagers while trying to cope with her own precarity.
Beecroft found her subject by chance, as the film’s cinematographer, Austin Shelton, explains below. He also talks about how they approached filming Tabatha and her family in a way that was both true to her lives, even when it meant finding unorthodox solutions to make a scene work.
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?
Shelton: I actually have been involved with this project since its inception. Several summers ago, Kate and I had decided to take a road trip with a camera and set out on the road “looking for stories.” We met Tabatha and her family around halfway through our trip and spent the remainder of our time getting to know the family and filming vérité footage of them living out their daily lives.
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?
Shelton: Kate and I strived for the look of the film to really be born out of the actual lives of the cast. The vérité footage we captured of the family dating back to the very first day we met them served as a foundation to what became the look of the film. We wanted the look of the film to be as true to their actual lives as possible. Upon meeting Tabby, Kate and I were struck by her use of modern tools like TikTok to sell horses. This was certainly a new concept to us, and we wanted the look of the film to embody a new way of looking at the American West. I personally love westerns and grit, but Tabby’s world is so visually rich and vibrant that we decided to steer the look more in that direction.
Filmmaker: Were there any specific influences on your cinematography, whether they be other films, or visual art, of photography, or something else?
Shelton: When Kate and I first started working together we immediately bonded over our shared love for the film Beasts of the Southern Wild. I have always been very intrigued by films that fall anywhere on the spectrum of blending fiction and nonfiction. On a personal level, the work of Robbie Ryan inspired me to become a DP. I have tremendous respect for the care he brings to photographing non-actors.
Filmmaker: What were the biggest challenges posed by production to those goals?
Shelton: There were a lot of moving parts to this production. We worked with animals, stunts, minors and non-actors, sometimes all at the same time… not to mention more than a couple of the most intense lightning storms I have ever seen. Flexibility was key, and I am confident all these challenges opened up new opportunities for us to lean in and discover even more of what was special about this unique cast.
Filmmaker: What camera did you shoot on? Why did you choose the camera that you did? What lenses did you use?
Shelton: Kate and I set out for the first road trip equipped with a borrowed camera and two rented Cooke S4 lenses. A 21mm and a 40mm. As the project developed over the years, we experimented in testing other lenses, but we ultimately kept coming back to the Cookes. We had learned so much about who the characters were by observing them through those two lenses that it almost felt disingenuous to see them through any other glass. We shot on two Alexa Mini LFs. Panavision graciously supplied us with the camera package, and Stadium Creative Group also loaned us their in-house Mini LF as a second camera.
Filmmaker: Describe your approach to lighting.
Shelton: Our approach to lighting was largely based on embracing natural light and then taking parts of it away with negative fill. For exteriors we relied heavily on reflectors and mirror boards to add a backlit edge to the characters when possible. A great deal of care was put into scheduling and being sure we could shoot certain scenes with opportune available light. The inside of Tabby’s home was always a cool and dark reprieve from the harsh summer heat. For those interior scenes we strived for cool and darker lighting inside to contrast the harsh/hard light from outside.
Filmmaker: What was the most difficult scene to realize and why? And how did you do it?
Shelton: The most challenging scene to realize had to have been the scene where Porshia flees the ranch on horseback and rides off into the night. The scene depicts a very emotional moment for Porshia’s character, and it was important to us to be traveling with her in this moment and not simply have it be a static shot of her riding off. Due to safety concerns for both the horse and the rider, we were unable to film alongside Porshia from a motorized vehicle. We could, however, position the camera much closer to Porshia if the camera operator was also on horseback. So, with the help of Tonia Forsberg, our incredible stunt coordinator, we hatched a plan to have one of her stunt riders ride along side of Porshia and her horse holding a DJI 4k camera in Flex mode. The stunt rider held a boom poll with the camera attached to the end of it while riding at speed. I was able to operate pan/tilt remotely. This scene was also day for night, which limited the geometry of how the scene could be filmed in relation to sun positioning.
Filmmaker: Finally, describe the finishing of the film. How much of your look was “baked in” versus realized in the DI?
Shelton: After doing some tests, we found we really liked richness and vibrance of overexposing roughly two stops and grading the image down. I wrote a number of monitor LUTs in preproduction that allowed us to see view the graded down image with healthy contrast levels. This provided a consistent jumping off point for the amazing Bryan Smaller at Company 3 to start with. Bryan is the best kind of collaborator, and he had loads of tips and tricks for how to dive deeper into our “new west” vibrant look.
TECH BOX
Film Title: East of Wall
Camera: Arri Mini LF
Lenses: Cooke S4, Panavised Cooke Zooms
Lighting: Aputure, CRLS panels
Color Grading: DaVinci Resolve – Bryan Smaller at Company 3