By Robert Goldrich

One Emmy-winning cinematographer collaborated for the first time with Alexander Payne, taking on a feature film which reunited the director with actor Paul Giamatti.

Another DP sought and got a return engagement with writer-director Rebecca Miller–this time on an emotionally relevant romantic comedy with a tinge of the absurd, bringing a new dimension to the love triangle storyline.

And our third cinematographer helped to create and evolve the visual language of a queer pirate action-adventure romantic comedy series over two seasons, starting with the pilot directed by Taika Waititi.

Here are insights from lensers Eigil Bryld on The Holdovers (Focus Features), Sam Levy on She Came to Me (Vertical Entertainment), and Mike Berlucchi on Our Flag Means Death (Max).

Eigil Bryld
The chance to work with director Alexander Payne for the first time–and to do so on a film that takes us back to the 1970s–made The Holdovers an irresistible proposition for cinematographer Eigil Bryld. Originally Bryld was to have teamed with Payne on earlier prospective projects which wound up falling through. But happily the stars finally aligned for The Holdovers. During the process of discussing the proposed projects that didn’t come to fruition, Bryld developed a kinship with Payne whose work he had long admired. As for the allure of the ‘70s, Bryld grew up watching movies from that time and they helped to shape his visual and storytelling sensibilities. He was inspired by the humanity, playfulness, mood, texture, natural lighting and characters in such ‘70s films as director Hal Ashby’s The Landlord and The Last Detail, and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, to name a few.

Payne wasn’t looking to just make a film set in the ‘70s. He wanted it to feel like a movie made during that time. Bryld became enamored with that goal and became a key part of that quest.

The Holdovers takes us back to a New England boarding school over winter break in 1970. Paul Giamatti stars as Paul Hunham, an adjunct professor of ancient history who gets stuck with the task of being held over at Barton Academy with those kids who can’t go home for Christmas. The curmudgeonly professor is generally disliked by his students but through circumstance he bonds with a held-over lad, Angus Tully (portrayed by Dominic Sessa in his feature debut). Also at Barton during the holidays is the school’s head cook, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), whose only child Curtis, a recent Barton grad, was killed in the Vietnam War. Hunham, Tully and Lamb become an unlikely trio who together find a semblance of family–something they either tragically had lost or never truly had before.

Bryld similarly characterizes working with Payne as being part of a film family. It’s a family that comes together to find the best ways to tell a story. While Payne has a clear vision, Bryld said the director is open to ideas and new wrinkles emerging from collaboration. Bryld related that “rather than forcing a particular sort of stringent way of looking” at something, Payne embarks on an exploration with his team to “find the movie.” The locations, for example, can spark a new direction, pointed out Bryld who recalled being on location at a bowling alley, which helped to shape a scene. Payne saw the need to write part of a scene again with the location in mind. “It’s an intuitive process–one that also involves having a lot of fun” as time is spent together to consider other possibilities.

Making a movie the way it was done in the ‘70s held its own set of challenges. “Film stock today has become sort of digitized, made to go into the digital space,” observed Bryld. So shooting film today would not be the same as it had been back in the day. Bryld said that he and Payne worked hard very early on toward how to get the “contrast and grain, those characteristics and imperfections that the movies from that era had.” Bryld noted that “oddly enough, shooting digital and giving it a full makeover” later to bring those imperfections into the equation turned out to be the best option.

Bryld went with the ARRI Alexa camera coupled with H Series Panavision lenses. He realized that The Holdovers wasn’t necessarily about using the same film stock or the lighting of a time gone by. Bryld noted that “rather than going in and replicating the techniques of the era,” he and Payne found the journey to be much more about having the freedom and playfulness with the material to capture the spirit of the 1970s in terms of cinematic feel and experience. 

In that same vein, a film historian might have recommended shooting The Holdovers in a 1.85 aspect ratio, which was more typical in ‘70s movies. Instead Bryld and Payne chose 1.66, “a little more square” skewing towards a European preference, noted the DP. This, continued Bryld, was “a little more intimate, a little more vertical” and “suited the story better,” capturing the ‘70s feel that Payne sought.

Bryld’s experience on The Holdovers also impacted him personally and professionally. “I’ve always strived to not have my work be about my own vanity or my own ego,” he shared, acknowledging at the same time that “we all want to be loved, cherished, applauded and whatever.” But the process of making this movie not only with Payne but artists such as editor Kevin Tent, ACE and production designer Ryan Warren Smith–communicating with them daily–reaffirmed for Bryld the importance of serving the story and its characters, prioritizing “what we were actually trying to bring to life.” In that regard, he views The Holdovers as “a turning point” for him, “an experience with a lot of gravity” that will inform his future work–as well as his love for the work.

The Holdovers adds to a feature filmography for Bryld which also includes Martin McDonough’s In Bruges with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson; David Chase’s movie directorial debut, Not Fade Away; Gary Ross’ Oceans 8; and Julian Jarrold’s Kinky Boots. On the television front, Bryld won an Emmy for his lensing for an episode of House of Cards–and was nominated for another for You Don’t Know Jack. Bryld shot the latter as well as the telefilm Wizard of Lies for director Barry Levinson. Bryld has served as cinematographer for director Scott Z. Burns in both television (the miniseries Extrapolations) and feature film (The Report). And the DP won a BAFTA Award for best factual photography on the strength of his work on the James Marsh-directed docudrama feature Wisconsin Death Trip.

Sam Levy
Cinematographer Sam Levy was immediately drawn to She Came to Me. He loved the script. But beyond that, he became enamored with two prime opportunities the feature film presented–being able to not only reunite with writer-director Rebecca Miller but also to try his hand at staging, lighting and lensing a couple of operas within the context of the story.

On the former score, Levy some eight years ago shot Maggie’s Plan, a feature helmed and co-written by Miller. The collaboration between DP and writer-director was artistically and personally gratifying as Levy found a kindred spirit in Miller whom he described as “an incredibly creative inventive filmmaker, artist and thinker.”

Originally Levy and Miller were to have teamed again much sooner. Miller after all had written the script for She Came to Me not too long after shooting had ended on Maggie’s Plan. Production of She Came to Me was slated to get underway a couple of years after Maggie’s Plan wrapped. But circumstances intervened and the stars didn’t realign for some time. Still Levy was happy they finally did as Miller and he eventually embarked on a delicious hybrid form that’s part romance, part offbeat comedy, part drama and part fairy tale–with all these genres somehow converging to shed light on matters of the heart and creative soul. 

Well received upon making its world premiere in February at the Berlin International Film Festival, She Came to Me had its U.S. theatrical release in early October. The film introduces us to Steven Lauddem (portrayed by Peter Dinklage), a composer who is suffering from a severe case of writer’s block. At the urging of his wife Patricia (played by Anne Hathaway), he ventures out in search of a creative spark and finds it during a walk through the Brooklyn waterfront, meeting Katrina (Marisa Tomei), an off-the-wall tugboat captain whose vessel is docked in Red Hook. A fleeting carnal encounter between them on the boat makes her his muse of sorts, inspiring Lauddem to pen an opera based largely on Katrina. The new opera is a hit, bringing Lauddem out of the career doldrums–but causing another internal struggle within the composer, exacerbated when Katrina by chance attends a performance of the opera and then re-enters his life. Meanwhile Patricia has her own self-doubts, hiding her crisis beneath a mask of tranquility. Furthermore, Steven and Patricia’s 18-year-old son Julian (Evan A. Ellison) falls in intense like, if not love, with 16-year-old Tereza (Harlow Jane), a relationship which threatens to jeopardize both their futures due to the girl’s overly zealous father (Brian d’Arcy James).

Miller wrote two operas to support the narrative. Levy collaborated with her, composer Bruce Desner, production designer Kim Jennings and an ensemble of singers. The DP loved working on opera, helping in the design of intricate theatrical set pieces. “I came away with even more of an appreciation for what opera represents,” he shared. 

Levy fed off the challenge of staging, lighting and lensing two operas. But the overriding challenge was presenting opera within a feature film “in a way that honors the opera,” he affirmed. First and foremost beyond the opera, though, was doing justice to the love and life stories realized by a rich cast of characters in the film.

The DP observed that Miller’s approach to both opera and storytelling reflects how disciplined she is as a filmmaker. And Levy was motivated by and mirrored that discipline as he came together with her. “I like to sit down with a director as early as possible and go through the script page by page and break it down, make a list of shots and start talking about the color palette.” He cited Miller’s rigorous preparation and “fantastic color sense.”

This meticulous, thoroughly planned approach, however, is not the be-all and end-all, continued Levy who pointed out that a delicate balance needs to be struck. While Miller is totally prepared and has a clear vision, she does not allow herself to be bogged down by military-like precision, related Levy. She is also driven by “the poetry of the story,” its characters. Levy observed that Miller is adept at finding the proper mix of “poetry and precision,” collaborating with others toward that end.

Levy deployed the ARRI Alexa LF and Tribe 7 Blackwing lenses on She Came to Me. Developed by cinematographer Bradford Young, ASC, the lenses captured what Levy described as “a certain softness and quality of light flare that suited this material.” Levy added, “We explored shooting film on this project but it wasn’t meant to be. Logistically and economically it didn’t make sense for us.” Shooting digitally with Alexa provided some of the filmic sensibilities to which Levy aspired.

Levy also opted to shoot half the film in 2.39:1 wide screen aspect ratio, the rest in 1.37:1. He explained that different thematic parts of the story told in the movie correspond to wide screen while others are best told in square format. For example, the square format suited the tight interiors of the tugboat captained by Tomei’s character. Lensing took place on an actual tugboat.

Levy began his career in commercialmaking and then diversified into features–the first major breakthrough being his cinematography on the Kelly Reichardt-directed Wendy and Lucy, which was nominated for Best Picture at the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards. 

Levy went on to shoot features such as Frances Ha and Mistress America for director Noah Baumbach who wrote them with Greta Gerwig. Additionally Gerwig starred in both films–as well as Maggie’s Plan–and over time she and the DP became close-knit collaborators. This also extended to Gerwig’s feature directorial debut, Lady Bird, nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Levy’s filmography additionally includes shooting While We’re Young for Baumbach, the TV series Green Porno for Isabella Rossellini, and the feature Mayday for writer-director Karen Cinnore. Mayday won the best cinematography honor at The Raindance Film Festival in London. Levy has also shot music videos and commercials for directors such as Spike Jonze, Jonah Hill, Mark Romanek and Fredrik Bond, among others. 

Mike Berlucchi
An ASC Award winner last year for lensing (with Marc Carter) the “Backstory!” episode of Mythic Quest, Mike Berlucchi returns for Our Flag Means Death, season two of which rolled out earlier this month, a year and a half after the first season wrapped. Berlucchi had a major hand in visually shaping the series from the outset and then evolving it further in the new season, having shot five episodes in season one–including the pilot directed by Taika Waititi.

Created by showrunner David Jenkins and exec produced by Waititi, the period action romance comedy (opening in the year 1717) introduces us to Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), a man who abandoned his wife and kids for a pirate’s life on the high seas. The series takes a romantic turn when Stede, aka the Gentleman Pirate, finds his soulmate in Blackbird (Waititi). Their on-again-off-again relationship brings a queer love story to the fore. Bonnet, though, winds up back with his estranged family only to conspire with wife Mary (Claudia O’Doherty) to fake his death so she can inherit his fortune and he can return to Blackbeard. In the last words of season one, she describes her husband as “complicated, hard-headed, really quite irritating at times–and now free. May he roam!”

Season two takes up that roaming with Berlucchi shooting three of its episodes. The cinematographer reflected on how the show has evolved visually, dating back to the pilot. Berlucchi recalled that initially you think of the traditional pirate movie genre, at times dark, kind of brooding, and dramatic. But all that wasn’t in line with the spirit of the story. Berlucchi remembered Waititi had recently seen some stereotypical pirate project and came away from it declaring, “let’s make the opposite of that.” 

What sprung forth was a playful version of what could be done, working in concert with production designer Ra Vincent and costume designer Christine Wada to infuse color into this world, to keep it kind of light and fun. Season one was shot nearly entirely inside, leading Berlucchi to keep what he described as a sort of “proscenium” feel–at times leaning into theatrical elements such as backdrops, cardboard cutouts in the distance after brainstorming with Vincent and concluding that not everything had to be rooted in the building out of massive sets.

Berlucchi and Cynthia Pusheck were the cinematographers on season one. They tested cameras and lenses and ultimately went with the ARRI Alexa Mini LF with Panavision PanaSpeed lenses. “We knew we wanted it to have as big of a feel as we could give it,” said Berlucchi about shooting in large format. The series also deployed an LED wall the size of a football field. 

Berlucchi described season one as much lighter, more colorful in a way than season two, staying true to the story and the adventure of the proceedings. However, as Blackbird and Bonnet’s relationship dissolves a bit, the tone gets darker at the end of season one–and that continued into season two. Setting that up in the initial episodes of the second season was cinematographer Nathaniel Goodman, followed by DP Andy Rydzewski, with the last three episodes of season two shot by Berlucchi. “It definitely started leaning into this world of pirates that you may know a little bit more,” said Berlucchi, noting that shooting in New Zealand opened up the potential “for us to kind of make this so much more epic” as episodes in season two ventured outside considerably more than in the first season. Ships were on a stage in relatively close proximity to some of the most stunningly beautiful landscapes one could imagine, related Berlucchi.

Nature, though, both giveth and taketh away. The DP related that erratic weather on location in New Zealand had them scrambling. But ultimately–even with fluctuations from sunny to rainy, windy at times, clouds rolling in and out–Berlucchi found a freedom in relinquishing a bit of control and being willing to “give in to Mother Nature” in that the audience is ultimately there for the story and characters–which he prioritized.

As for his biggest takeaway from the experience on Our Flag Means Death, Berlucchi shared, “If anything, I think it just made me realize that no matter how good the project may be, how good the material may be, if you’re not doing it with good people who you love, there’s no point in doing it.” Berlucchi affirmed that he thinks of the relationships he’s forged on the show, “new friendships and all these people on the other side of the world that I would have never had the opportunity to meet–whom I now consider close friends.” Over a relatively short period of time, “you become a family,” he observed. 

Beyond Our Flag Means Death and Mythic Quest, Berlucchi’s cinematography credits include such series as You’re the Worst, Teenage Bounty Hunters and Bros. For the latter he also served as a producer.

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