By Robert Goldrich

Bojan Bazelli, ASC has a wide range of lensing experience spanning features, TV, commercials and music videos. But other than Mr. and Mrs. Smith all the way back in 2005, a genre that’s since eluded him over the years has been the romantic action comedy. So when director Jeremy Garelick sought him out for Murder Mystery 2 (Netflix) starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler, Bazelli jumped at the chance. The DP explained that delving once again into a romantic comedy with action chops had been on his “bucket list”–along with getting the opportunity to work with Sandler, an actor and comedian he’s long admired.

Murder Mystery 2 marked Bazelli’s first collaboration with Garelick and both looked to build on the success of the original Murder Mystery in 2019–which also starred Sandler and Aniston–while bringing something new to the sequel. Sandler and Aniston again portray Nick and Audrey Spitz, a husband-and-wife team who are semi-amateur sleuths akin in some respects to the cinematic team of Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) whose mix of detective acumen and witty repartee translated into a series of hit Thin Man films starting in 1934.

Like The Thin Man franchise, Murder Mystery has proven to be popular with audiences. The first Murder Mystery was among Netflix’s most streamed films. And this week it was reported that Murder Mystery 2, which debuted on March 31, had Netflix’s second biggest opening weekend for a comedy film with more than 42 million views.

Bazelli made it a point to analyze the original Murder Mystery which was directed by Kyle Newacheck and lensed by Amir Mokri. In fact, Bazelli reached out to Mokri, a cinematographer he’s known and respected for many years, asking about the visual approach to the first film. Bazelli took note of the coverage and blocking of scenes, contemplating ways he could add, enhance and build upon what was done the first time around. Bazelli said that he and Garelick were mindful of the actors, wanting to make them look as good as possible visually while affording them some measure of freedom to move about to inhabit their characters. While the latter could be realized through an omni-directional lighting approach, that at times might come up short in terms of best showcasing the actors’ physical appearance.  So Bazelli adopted an approach which kind of meshed both worlds, lighting to do justice to actors’ faces via portrait photography sensibilities yet at the same time blocking in such a way that accommodated enough movement–that could still be lit properly–so as to naturally capture and facilitate the performances of cast members.

Bazelli said that “mutual teamwork” among him, Garelick and the actors was integral to the film, as was prep that was quite extensive and painstakingly detailed in certain sequences in particular–a prime example being the Indian wedding, replete with a Punjabi musical dance number. The beginning of the wedding, the exterior portion, was shot in Hawaii. Then weeks later, lensing took place on an elaborate set in Paris for the Indian nuptials. The Paris shoot required some six weeks of lighting prep and other planning to take optimal advantage of the creatively ambitious set.

Bazelli deployed an ARRI Alexa 65 camera and ARRI 65mm DNA lenses to give Murder Mystery 2 more of a portrait/photography feel and produce beautiful visuals. He custom-built a light to shoot the stars in a specific way and tailored the lighting for various sequences in the film, especially for improvised scenes shot from different angles that required freedom of movement and adaptable lighting. Also, the Obi light used by Bazelli delivered the clarity he was looking for in illuminating the eyes.

The DP–who’s opted for the large-format Alexa on his last several movies in part because of all the info it captures–credited Garelick in the big picture with helping to create a set that was “funny, spontaneous and human.” Though the work was hard, it becomes all the more enjoyable when you have fun doing it, observed Bazelli who described Garelick as a filmmaker who affords his collaborators freedom and accommodates them so that they can create and do their best work.

Prior to Murder Mystery 2, Bazelli shot Peter Pan & Wendy which is scheduled to debut the end of this month on Disney+. Directed by David Lowery, Peter Pan & Wendy stars Jude Law and Ever Anderson.

Peter Pan & Wendy and Murder Mystery 2 add to a body of work over the years for Bazelli which includes director Michael Bay’s 6 Underground; the Gore Verbinski-directed Cure for Wellness as well as The Ring; director Adam Shankman’s Rock of Ages and Hairspray; the aforementioned Mr. & Mrs. Smith directed by Doug Liman; director Dominic Sena’s Kalifornia; and director Abel Ferrara’s King of New York. Kalifornia garnered a Montreal Film Festival Award for Best Cinematography while King of New York earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination, also for Best Cinematography.

In the short format space, Bazelli has won two AICP Show honors for Best Cinematography–for Isuzu’s “Giant” and Mercedes-Benz’s “Cupids”/”Rhinos”–as well as a Best Cinematography Gold Clio in recognition of work for Pepsi.

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