We had an amazing pilot director who had a very strong and specific vision. I had some really wonderful collaborations on the show. What was your collaboration with the various directors on the show like? How challenging was their overarching vision? I can’t think of any stories off the top of my head. Even in the midst of the stress and cold we managed to have good energy on set. That is a big kudos to them.ĭo you have any fun, behind-the-scenes stories about the making of Pretty Little Liars that you can share? They were overcome with patience and our producers making the choice to keep us safe, rather than working at certain times. We had a very challenging location that was a high school waiting for demolition. I lived in a cabin in the woods that had a backup generator, so I was fine. People had to be moved from their rentals to hotels in town because there was no electricity or heat. We had ice storms that knocking the power out for over three days at one point. We overcame it by growing our schedule by close to two months. Also, the Covid wave in January was very challenging. The weather was one of the most challenging aspects. What was the most challenging aspect of Pretty Little Liars and how did you overcome it? Then we went into the heart of darkness, into the dark forest of the Catskills, into the cold winter woods and made a beautiful thing. I remember that one our producer’s assistants said “I knew when we got off the phone with you that it would be you”. I felt like I had a great connection with the team and was really welcomed by them. I thought, wow this is something really special. The daily stills that I saw from the pilot. What was it about Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin that made you want to work on it? But to despite all that stress, stay engaged in the magic. Not being afraid of trying something new or approaching the scene in a more complicated way because I have a schedule looming before me. My evolution to my style has been over the years of practicing my craft, I am comfortable with my technical tools, enough so to then ask deeper questions of what we are doing. How do we harness those tools not to overwhelm, but help bring that to the final product. Where do I put the light, so I never have to move again and it can do as much work for me as possible?Īgain, my whole evolution and what excites me is to be able to harness the technology, to harness the tools, but still be able to give the set to the actors and to the energy of the story, to that ethereal unspoken aspect of when we see films and they really deeply touch our hearts. What will be better for the angle of the sun? Things of that nature. Like I will get in trouble with light, if I shoot my wide shots last and my coverage first. I like that Roger Deakins once said that a cinematographer’s job is to be able to foresee where they would get in trouble, if they make a certain decision. That has liberated me into making very quick decisions. It is what my brain does more than anything else. Cinematography is my church and my daily bread. This means I live, eat, breath cinematography. The huge way that my style and technique have evolved is that over the past three years, the sheer volume of work and the number of hours that I have worked have been immense. I feel like right now I am rising up from the work of being in the midst of a revolution of my style and technique. How has your technique/style evolved over the years? I’m always looking for different ways to frame things. I felt like Slumdog Millionaire had a lot of fun and inventive energetic framing. Him using ten million cameras all over the place. I feel like early on I was really inspired by Anthony Dod Mantle. Those are the specific people that I feel like influenced me. When I go to the movies, I go to be entertained and for me that’s a part of being able to suspend disbelief in a world that even when it’s ugly, is beautiful. I love things that even when they are ugly, they sing with their beauty.
In general, I don’t love flat lighting, I love epic lighting. That style can have many different iterations. When you watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it’s the most beautiful way of approaching light, that light can be much softer and much harder. There is a very specific approach of Rembrant lighting, of using backlight, which to me was most apparent in the American New Wave. One of my mentors, Jim Chressanthis, who was also mentored by Vilmos Zsigmond.
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