Shutter Angles

Conversations with DPs, directors and below-the-line crew by Matt Mulcahey

  • DP Markus Mentzer on Shooting Six Episodes of I Think You Should Leave in 24 Days

    With only 24 days to capture nearly 30 sketches, the average I Think You Should Leave bit is shot in roughly six to eight hours. That might be for the best. When you’re slopping up steaks or shooting body after body busting out of cheap wood and hitting pavement, probably wise not to linger at a location for too long. Cinematographer Markus Mentzer, who has been behind the camera for all three seasons of the Netflix show, breaks down the newest crop of sketches for Filmmaker. Filmmaker: Your first three camera department credits on IMDB are Out of Time, In…  Read more

    On Jul 6, 2023
    By on Jul 6, 2023 Cinematographers
  • Earth Mama DP Jody Lee Lipes

    Jody Lee Lipes likes to ask questions—so many, in fact, that the cinematographer says it can sometimes annoy directors. However, Lipes found a collaborator with an equally inexhaustible inquisitiveness in Savanah Leaf. “Savanah wanted to go through every scene together [during prep],” said Lipes. “I loved it because that’s my favorite thing to do. We would talk about a scene for like three hours. We went literally word by word through the script.” Lipes, whose credits include Manchester by the Sea, Martha Marcy May Marlene and I Know This Much Is True, first met Leaf on a commercial. They developed…  Read more

    On Jun 27, 2023
    By on Jun 27, 2023 Cinematographers
  • Steven Yeun and Young Mazino on the set of Beef (photo by Andrew Cooper) “TV Shows are Like Better Funded Independent Films”: DP Larkin Seiple on Beef

    In the new Netflix series Beef, a struggling contractor (Steven Yeun) and an affluent entrepreneur (Ali Wong) become embroiled in an escalating feud following a road rage incident.  The series fits snuggly into a very specific quadrant of cinematographer Larkin Seiple’s wheelhouse— hard-to-classify A24 projects. Though his filmography includes sports biopics (Bleed for This), thrillers (Cop Car) and prestige dramas (To Leslie and Emmy-nominated work on Gaslit), Seiple’s most distinct work has come in A24’s Swiss Army Man, Everything Everywhere All at Once and now the studio’s Beef. With the full series streaming on Netflix, Seiple spoke to Filmmaker about Incubus clinching…  Read more

    On Jun 8, 2023
    By on Jun 8, 2023 Cinematographers
  • Jody Lee Lipes on the set of Dead Ringers “Annoying, Finicky Placement Stuff”: DP Jody Lee Lipes on Shooting Two Rachel Weiszs for Dead Ringers

    Cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes says that shooting an actor playing twins is like learning a new filmmaking language. By now, he’s fluent. Lipes lensed all six episodes of the 2020 HBO miniseries I Know This Much Is True, with Mark Ruffalo playing identical twins. As an added complication, the coverage of each brother was shot months apart as Ruffalo took a hiatus to gain 30 pounds to physically transform himself into the other sibling. On the new Amazon series Dead Ringers, it’s Rachel Weisz starring as twin New York City gynecologists who meet a tragic end. The show is a…  Read more

    On May 31, 2023
    By on May 31, 2023 Cinematographers
  • When the Fungus Catches the Light: DP Karim Hussain on Infinity Pool

    With Antiviral, Possessor and Infinity Pool, filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg has expeditiously carved out a distinct, experimental aesthetic for his work. However, he has followed in the footsteps of his legendary father David in one respect—forging a lasting alliance with his cinematographer. All but three of the elder Cronenberg’s 20 features films were shot by either Mark Irwin or Peter Suschitzky. All of Brandon’s efforts thus far bear the name of Canadian DP Karim Hussain. Hussain begin writing, directing and shooting low budget genre films while still a teenager, before eventually opting to focus solely on the latter of those roles. He…  Read more

    On May 26, 2023
    By on May 26, 2023 Cinematographers
  • Keanu Reeves in John Wick: Chapter 4 (Photo by Murray Close) “A Kick is Like a Line of Dialogue”: Editor Nathan Orloff on John Wick: Chapter 4

    Though it hasn’t reached the fever pitch of absurdity of The Fast and the Furious franchise just yet—a series that began as a Point Break riff but now includes nuclear submarines and Pontiac Fieros in space —the John Wick saga has certainly expanded from its humble beginnings. Produced independently and shot in New York on a budget in the mid-$20 million range, the original film found its titular assassin (played by Keanu Reeves) emerging from retirement to avenge the death of his dog. Four chapters later, Reeves is hopping between New York City, Osaka, Berlin, Paris and the Wadi Rum…  Read more

    On May 3, 2023
    By on May 3, 2023 Columns
  • Dominique Fishback in Swarm “Friday Morning Donald Called Me and Said, ‘We’re Shooting Film'”: DP Drew Daniels on Swarm

    In the new Amazon series Swarm, a fanatical devotee of a Beyoncé-esque pop star embarks on a quest to meet the singer, with a few stops along the way to dispose of those who have disparaged her idol online. Created by Donald Glover and Janine Nabers, the show hops around between Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Seattle and L.A., but was shot largely in Atlanta by Drew Daniels. The Red Rocket and Krisha DP spoke to Filmmaker about the influence of Michael Haneke, the beauty of imperfect camera moves and Swarm’s extremely last-minute switch to 35mm film.  Filmmaker: Let’s start with some…  Read more

    On May 1, 2023
    By on May 1, 2023 Cinematographers
  • Scream VI Ghostface Takes Brooklyn: DP Brett Jutkiewicz on Scream VI

    In 1989, Friday the 13th transplanted its hockey-masked slasher from summer camp to concrete jungle for the franchise’s eighth installment, Jason Takes Manhattan. That titular promise was not fully delivered upon: Manhattan was mostly Vancouver and Jason spent much of the running time on a boat full of high schoolers traveling to the city. The newest Scream offers up a similar relocation as Ghostface follows the previous chapter’s survivors from Woodsboro to college. Again, a Canadian city (this time Montreal) stands in for New York. But this time, the killer actually spends the entire running time chasing his victims through…  Read more

    On Mar 22, 2023
    By on Mar 22, 2023 Cinematographers
  • Cate Blanchett in TÁR, shot by cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister “I Would’ve Shot the Telephone Directory of New York If Todd Had Asked Me To”: DP Florian Hoffmeister on TÁR

    According to cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister, writer/director Todd Field often expressed his desired aesthetic for TÁR in a series of repeated Field-isms: Let’s just witness. Don’t gild the lily. Don’t make it look like a movie with a capital “M.” In other words, make the style invisible. However, Hoffmeister’s work was far from invisible to his peers, who bestowed an Oscar nomination upon the German DP for his work on the film. TÁR—Field’s first feature in more than 15 years—follows the downfall of a composer/conductor played by Cate Blanchett as she prepares a career-capping performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic.…  Read more

    On Mar 9, 2023
    By on Mar 9, 2023 Cinematographers
  • Actor Felix Kammerer as Paul Bäumer in All Quiet on the Western Front. He wears a WWI-era military uniform and has his face painted with soot behind the scenes. “… A 7mm Difference Between Lenses is Actually Quite a Huge Amount…”: DP James Friend on All Quiet on the Western Front

    War is young men dying and old men talking. The former lies at the heart of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1928 novel All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the German writer’s experiences in the trenches of World War I. In Netflix’s new adaptation, the latter half of that axiom is also represented with the addition of a subplot centered on the armistice negotiations that ultimately ended fighting on the Western Front. As in Remarque’s novel, the story is principally told through the eyes of Paul Bäumer, a teenager who—propelled by patriotic fervor—enlists alongside his schoolmates only to be disillusioned…  Read more

    On Mar 4, 2023
    By on Mar 4, 2023 Cinematographers
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