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“Perfection Can Be Your Enemy”: DP Paul Gleason on Didn’t Die

Kiran Deol and George Basil in Didn't Die

In Didn’t Die, the host of a podcast continues broadcasting even after the apocalypse, using irony to mask her fear. The 2025 Sundance Film Festival Midnights selection contrasts her podcast demeanor with her family life and takes inspiration from George Romero and Post-Impressionism.

Paul Gleason wore many hats for the production of Didn’t Die. Below, he answers questions in his capacity as DP, elucidating how to navigate budgetary limitations with carefully chosen equipment and connecting the effect budget has on aesthetic to film noir and horror films.

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?

Gleason: This film is intensely personal. In addition to being the cinematographer, I was also the VFX dupervisor, producer, and co-writer alongside the director, Meera Menon. Meera is also my wife. Our closest friends produced and edited the film, along with many other friends and family that comprised the cast and crew. Our daughter is a central character, and the dog in the film is our dog. We mostly filmed in the village of Monroe, New York where my father grew up and my grandfather was the mayor many decades ago. I’m not sure I could say I was hired, but I’m grateful that I wasn’t fired. That would have been awkward.

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?

Gleason: Independent film is often shaped by limitations. In this instance, it was our limited personal funds and the subsequent minimal resources. We wanted our film to exist within the canon of early zombie films, most explicitly Night of the Living Dead, and while our decision to shoot in black and white is an obvious homage, it was one of our first technical workarounds for our budget constraints. Most of the production was shot with a monochrome camera, which affords additional stops of light and compensated for our small lighting package. Our lights were a combination of LED panels, old tungsten Fresnels, natural sunlight, and sometimes flashlights. The mixed quality didn’t read on camera, and we were able move quickly without needing to finesse color choices. The B&W also aided with VFX, dovetailing assets from an array of sources more seamlessly.

The genre lends itself to dramatic choices, so similar to how film noir was an aesthetic based on practical factors, we leaned into dramatic contrast ratios and dark ambience. With our minimal crew, movement was perhaps the most challenging factor. Our toolbox mostly consisted of a tripod, dana dolly, and handheld/shoulder mount. Our film switches to color in one sequence, so in that case we inverted many of our choices. This section is mostly shot on a gimbal attached to an Easyrig, providing a floating feeling opposed to the more planted, stark nature of the rest of the film. We also shot flashbacks in super 8mm, so our formats are mixed throughout. With these many tools, we landed on describing our intent as “modern vintage.”

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

Gleason: Aforementioned zombie films aside, we intended to keep the image floor very low. Also, we were particularly inspired by works from the Post-Impressionist era, in which many artists worked with limited tonal values: a washed-out snowy field, for instance, or a dark, moody parlor.

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

Gleason: Dark is hard with small lighting instruments: it tends to look muddy and lacking intention. Limiting the palette can be, well, limiting and, staying on theme, sometimes conflicts with building intriguing contrasts and progression. Our story exists in a world without power or artificial light, so concealing our sources was one of the most practical challenges we faced. When in doubt, I reminded myself of an anecdote about a cinematographer being asked where a light was coming from in a scene. Their response: the same place as the music.

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

Gleason: We primarily filmed on a monochrome version of the RED Helium 8K. Without going into too much technical detail, the governing reason for this was the additional speed that results from the removal of the sensor’s color filter. The monochrome image is sharper and possesses more subtle tonal variations. The image is more nuanced than, for example, when we needed to emulate the monochrome look for some additional photography.

For lenses, we used Zeiss Compact Primes (CP.2) mostly because they were available without cost. These lenses are great for what they are, but they are a little slow and sharp for our liking. We compensated for the overall sharpness by using a combination of subtle degradation filters and digital softening.

On a not-so-related aside, finding a monochrome camera to rent was quite an undertaking—there was only one available on the East Coast. The vendor, DC Camera, happened to be in my hometown and next to my former high school where I first started making movies. Although it was a six-hour drive from where we were filming, it was a good excuse to visit my parents because it also happened to be Thanksgiving. My dad unexpectedly passed two months later, so I’m just grateful that the universe aligned for a moment and gifted us one more meal together.

Filmmaker: Describe your approach to lighting.

Gleason: We wanted both a natural and heightened image. Yes, this is a contradiction. Augmentation may be the best way of describing this intention. Masking any motivated artificial light was continually puzzling, especially for nighttime interiors. Without the tools to lift the ambience across large spaces, we needed to use hard edges that didn’t betray the illusion of an apocalyptic world. Black and white lighting is very expressive and often forgiving, and it was a great experience to work in this space. The primary focus became mostly about the balancing the perfect amount of diffusion, directionality, and intensity to both plus and match the environment.

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

Gleason: There are a few night interiors with the same issue—reflections. Hate ‘em. It’s like anytime you film in Los Angeles, but you’re supposed to avoid palm trees. I end up developing a visceral anger towards these things you’re supposed to obfuscate, and there were some reflections that were hard to avoid and still haunt me. But with independent film you have to remember that perfection can be your enemy. You’re always adapting to situations quickly, and sometimes your smart but problematic improvisation as a camera operator is more artful than a pet peeve that might go unnoticed by the audience.

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

Gleason: In our homage to movies from the past, we wanted to somewhat emulate cheap film stock from the 1960s. Overall we increased the contrast without going too crunchy, and we targeted certain sequences with digital grain. I’m often skeptical of added grain but our colorists did a great job keeping it subtle, and we’re really happy with the result.

TECH BOX

Film Title: Didn’t Die
Camera: RED Helium 8K Monochrome, RED Komodo-X, Arri 35, Canon 814 XLS
Lenses: Zeiss Compact Primes (CP.2)
Lighting: Aputure LEDs, Arri and Mole Richardson tungesten fresnels, varied LED panels
Processing: R3D, ProRes 4444XQ
Color Grading: DaVinci Resolve

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