This is a tale of two first-time primetime Emmy Award nominees: director Julian Jarrold who earned his nomination on the basis of The Girl, an HBO telefilm; and cinematographer Robert McLachlan, ASC, CSC, who garnered his nom for the "Mhysa" episode of HBO's Game Of Thrones.
The Girl depicts the obsession of director Alfred Hitchcock (portrayed by Toby Jones) with actress Tippi Hedren (played by Sienna Miller). When his romantic overtures are rebuffed by Hedren, Hitchcock turns abusive and sadistic towards her during their collaborations on the movies The Birds and Marnie.
The Girl earned a total of six Emmy nominations: Jarrold for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special; Jones for Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie; Imelda Staunton (as Alma Hitchcock) for Supporting Actress; John Pardue for Cinematography; Philip Miller for Music Composition; and Diana Cilliers and Melissa Moritz for Costumes. (DP Pardue is profiled in The Road To Emmy, Part 6.)
Jarrold said being an Emmy nominee is "incredibly exciting. We made a small film that's gotten fantastic exposure and response."
Among the biggest challenges posed by The Girl, reflected Jarrold, were physically suspending disbelief for Jones' portrayal of Hitchcock and recreating the attack sequence in The Birds. On the former front, Jarrold described Jones as "a wonderful comedian and actor who transformed himself into Hitchcock. Toby spent a lot of time in makeup every morning. We didn't want a wax look, he had to be real and lifelike in character. Toby perfected the voice. He's quite a method actor. When he came out of makeup, he felt like Hitchcock and we felt like he was Hitchcock. It felt like we had two directors on set."
As for the other major challenge, Jarrold recalled, "I first read the script and saw 'Birds attack, fade to black.' I thought, 'How do you achieve that?' We ultimately went about it the same way Hitchcock did. We looked into CGI, puppets, mechanical birds, birds on wires before we realized real birds were the way to go–except unlike during when Hitchcock filmed The Birds, there are more restrictions today. Birds can only work for 20 minutes at a time. Then you have to take a break."
Jarrold gravitated towards Pardue to shoot The Girl even though they had not worked together before. The director noted that drawing him initially to the DP was his work on the feature film Resistance, a World War II period piece directed by Amir Gupta. "It was a different film, not at all like the Hitchcock movie but there was a special beauty about John's cinematography on Resistance, about the way the camera moved," said Jarrold who recollected that he and Pardue had "a fantastic first meeting. I had done a lot of research on Hitchcock's look. John had too. He brought with him incredible technical knowledge. He chatted up the guy who owned the original Hitchcock camera used for The Birds. It's a system with two reels where one films background, the other the foreground and they're combined. John used the old lights, lighting the sequence like they did under the old studio system. John and I just jelled when we met and we went on to develop a good working relationship. We shared a passion about that period of Hitchcock films and recreating that atmosphere. Hitchcock was such a constantly interesting director cinematically and technically. This represented a fantastic treat for a director and a cinematographer to play around with."
As for Jarrold's next treat, at press time he had embarked on the BBC miniseries The Great Train Robbery.
Robert McLachlan, ASC, CSC
Game Of Thrones earned a whopping 16 nominations this year, just one behind the leader, American Horror Story: Asylum.
Game of Thrones is nominated for: Outstanding Drama Series; Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Peter Dinklage); Supporting Actress (Emilia Clarke); Guest Actress (Diana Rigg); Writing (David Benioff, D.B. Weiss); Single-Camera Picture Editing (Oral Ottey); Special Visual Effects (Jon Bauer, Jorn Grosshans, Doug Campbell, Steve Kullback, Stuart Brisdon, Sven Martin, Jabbar Raisani, Tobias Mannewitz, Adam Chazen) Casting (Nina Gold, Robert Sterne); Art Direction For A Single-Camera Series (production designer Gemma Jackson, art director Andy Thomson, set decorator Robert Cameron; Makeup (Non-Prosthetic) For A Single-Camera Series (Paul Engelen, Melissa Lackersteen, Daniel Lawson, Martina Byrne); Prosthetic Makeup (Engelen, Conor O' Sullivan, Rob Trenton); Hairstyling (Kevin Alexander, Candice Banks, Rosalia Culora, Gary Machin, Dana Kalder); Costumes (Michele Clapton, Alexander Fordham, Chloe Aubry); Sound Editing (Tim Kimmel, Paula Fairfield, Jed M. Dodge, Bradley C. Katona, David Klotz, Brett Voss, Jeffrey Wilhoit, James Moriana); Sound Mixing (Ronan Hill, Onnalee Blank, Mathew Waters); and Cinematography for A Single-Camera Series.
The latter nomination was earned by DP Robert McLachlan, ASC, CSC, an accomplished cinematographer who has earned four ASC Award nominations, the first three for the TV series Millennium and the last for the telefilm High Noon. Surprisingly, though, McLachlan had never been nominated for a primetime Emmy up until this year. He broke through with his first nomination on the strength of the "Mhysa" episode of Game Of Thrones.
McLachlan said that he was "surprised and thrilled" over his Emmy nom, noting that Game of Thrones "is shot by a handful of extraordinary DPs every season, and I'm honored to be in their company on such a high-profile show. I'm very proud of the work I've done for the series, and to be part of such a great production….I also get to come home to L.A., even if just for a weekend [for the Emmy Awards ceremony], in the middle of a very long schedule in Europe."
"Mhysa" posed many challenges for McLachlan. "Most prominent," he said, "was staying focused on the many storylines in it, and on the need to make the gigantic scene at the end when Dany is engulfed by the freed slaves really uplifting and spectacular. We had two days to shoot that scene which takes place over about five minutes, with a thousand or so dressed extras. In the middle of shooting, the river flooded and almost washed the set away. And of course, as a DP, when you have two 10-hour days–from dawn till dusk–you worry about the weather being consistent and how to control it with limited means. I had one lift on that flood plain where we shot and it either had one big light on it to make sun or a big diffusion frame for cutting the sun.
"The other big challenge," continued McLachlan, "was not losing sight of all the elements in that episode–which was the season finale–when we were concurrently shooting episode 9, 'The Red Wedding,' which obviously had to be flawless in order to have maximum impact. Which apparently it did. A lot of people asked why I didn't enter that episode which is now so famous. (Side note: Last weekend at passport control at Schipol Airport in Holland, the customs official on learning where I worked and that I did that episode went on and on for five minutes about how great it was while a long line of travelers waited–they must have thought I was in trouble!) It was simply because cutting a clip from that episode to six minutes in order to follow Emmy submission guidelines, didn't do it justice. In my experience, when I've sat on Emmy juries, I'm usually looking for more than one note, so to speak, and all the scenes in episode 9 were really long and wouldn't have provided much variety. Plus 'Mhysa' is a great episode unto itself."
McLachlan also cited David Nutter who directed the "Mhysa" episode and asked the DP to come onto the show. "I had worked with him years ago on Millennium," said McLachlan of Nutter. "When I reflect back on the work I did with David on Millennium, I think I did some of my best work with him then. I love working with him. He brings out the best in everyone. Working on this series has given me a whole new outlook on my work."
At press time, McLachlan was collaborating with director Michelle MacLaren on episodes 4 and 5 of season four for Game of Thrones. MacLaren is an Emmy nominee this year for Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series on the basis of the "Gliding All Over" episode of Breaking Bad. (See The Road To Emmy, Part 8, in which DP Michael Slovis, ASC, discusses his collaborative relationship with director/exec producer MacLaren on Breaking Bad.)
This is the ninth installment in a 12-part series that will explore the field of Emmy nominees and winners spanning such disciplines as directing, cinematography, editing, production design, animation, VFX and design. The series will run right through the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony on Sept. 15 and the following week's primetime Emmy Awards live telecast on Sept. 22.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 1.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 2.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 3.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 4.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 5.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 6.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 7.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 8.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 10.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 11.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 12.
