The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Awards are a window to both the immediate past and future. On the former front, some TV shows are in the mix which have already scored at the Emmys back in September. At the same time, other episodic TV and streaming fare recognized in this go-around by the ASC could surface again come the 75th Emmy Awards, for which nominations will be announced on July 12. The primetime Emmy Awards ceremony is scheduled for September 18, a little more than a week after the Creative Arts Emmy proceedings on the weekend of September 9 and 10.
SHOOT delves into a cross-section of current ASC Award-nominated shows--from Hacks (HBO Max) to Chef’s Table: Pizza (Netflix), Better Call Saul (AMC), Interview with the Vampire (AMC) and Lost Ollie (Netflix), gaining insights from their respective cinematographers. One of those DPs actually has two ASC nods this year--for episodes of Hacks and Chef’s Table: Pizza.
Here are observations from nominees Adam Bricker, Marshall Adams, ASC, Jesse M. Feldman and C. Kim Miles, ASC, CSC, MySC.
Adam Bricker
Bricker earned the distinction of having earned two ASC Award nominations this season--one in the Episode of a Half-Hour Series for “The Click” installment of Hacks, and the other in the Documentary Award category for the “Franco Pepe” episode of Chef’s Table: Pizza. This brings his career tally to three ASC Award nods, the first coming last year for the very first episode of Hacks. Bricker also has scored three Emmy nominations in recent years for his lensing on Chef’s Table (“Corrado Assenza” episode) in 2018, and Hacks in 2021 (“Primm”) and 2022 (“The Click”).
Asked to reflect on what the two latest ASC Award nods mean to him, Bricker shared, “I’m lucky to make these shows with my dearest friends. There’s a lot of crossover between the crews for Hacks and Chef’s Table, and I’m thrilled that everyone’s hard work has been recognized. That the recognition is coming from the ASC makes it all the more special--so many of its members are idols of mine.”
As for the major challenges posed by “The Click” and the Chef’s Table: Pizza episode, Bricker said of the former, “Season two of Hacks followed Deborah [Vance, portrayed by Jean Smart] as she got back to her comedy roots, and that meant hitting the road. Our aim was to make dive bars, small comedy clubs, and, of course, her tour bus feel as cinematic as the grandiosity and glitz of Vegas felt in season one.
“The tour bus in particular was a fun creative challenge. Our art department, led by production designer Alec Contestabile, built a replica of the bus interior on our stages at Universal. I was looking for ways that we could realistically convey motion on our stationary set, so I rode around on tour buses during prep, photographing the interiors as a light study. Chief lighting technician Daniel McNutt and key grip Randy Garcia were able to use those studies to program and rig concert movers, mimicking the natural bounce and play of sunlight. Suddenly it looked like our wheel-less bus was speeding down the interstate.”
Bricker added that “although we mostly shot in and around Los Angeles, our showrunners [and co-creators] Lucia [Aniello], Paul [W. Downs], and Jen [Statsky] made the key strategic choice to take Jean [Smart], Hannah [Einbinder who plays Ava Daniels], and a skeleton crew to the Grand Canyon to shoot at sunrise for a pivotal scene. We then sent second-unit DP Charlie Hoosier Panian on a road trip to film the actual tour bus as it drove through some iconic American landscapes. His beautiful frames made it feel like that bus was all over America, because, in a way, it was. All together, these elements give the episode so much scope, depth, and texture.”
Regarding his ASC-nominated work for Chief’s Table: Pizza, Bricker related, “This episode of Chef’s Table features world-renowned pizzaiola Franco Pepe. He’s a legend and director Brian McGinn and I knew we needed to do justice to his multi-generational story. Luckily Franco’s approach to making pizza (he still makes all his dough by hand) and his incredible local community of farmers and artisans from the hillside village of Caiazzo gave us all the lustrous visuals we could hope for. Picking tomatoes in the foothills of Mount Vesuvius? At sunset? Yes.
“Pizza itself can be hard to shoot. It’s flat, it’s reflective, but, influenced by the Italian sun, I was committed to using hard light as our primary source. Gaffer Randy Garcia always found a way to shape it. We found a great balance that made the light feel both naturalistic and magical.”
Bricker continued, “We wanted to do everything we could to transport audiences into the special moments in Franco’s world--tracking the sun path on my Sunseeker app to shoot the apricot field in the perfect 4pm light, sending second unit DP Charlie Hoosier Panian to capture portraits of local residents, enlisting a local tile artisan to make the backgrounds for our pizza food symphony, all of which helped us bring Franco’s work alive on screen.”
Relative to camera choices on Chef’s Table and Hacks, Bricker noted, “I’ve shot on the RED system since graduating from film school, when my best friends and I raised the funds to invest in a RED ONE. The RED camera has always been the tool with which I’m most comfortable; shooting on it is second nature. It’s been a pleasure to progress from one generation of RED camera to the next over the course of our nine seasons of Chef’s Table.
“The RED V-RAPTOR was just becoming available as we geared up for season two of Hacks, and we were actually the first major production to shoot on it. Downsizing our camera body to the Raptor from season one’s DXL2 saved us valuable space as we navigated some tighter sets, such as the aforementioned tour bus.”
Reflecting on his biggest takeaway or lessons learned form his experience on Hacks and Chef’s Table, Bricker said, “I feel so lucky to do this work, and ultimately every challenge we faced on Hacks and Chef’s Table was just another welcome opportunity to be pushed creatively. I’m deeply grateful to work with amazing filmmakers and a crew who are equally interested in striving for these visuals that can sometimes feel out of reach at first, especially when it forces us to think outside the box. It’s helped me grow as a cinematographer, and all I can say is I look forward to more.”
Marshall Adams, ASC
For the third consecutive year, Adams has landed an ASC Award nomination, the latest coming for the “Saul Gone” series finale of Better Call Saul in the Episode of a One-Hour Commercial Television Series category. His first career ASC nod came for the Better Call Saul episode “Saul: Bagman” in 2021. Sandwiched in-between the two Saul nods was an ASC nom for the “2:00” episode of Servant (which also garnered an Emmy nomination for its cinematography).
Adams started his Better Call Saul run on season 3 after the first two were lensed by Arthur Albert. Helping Adams immeasurably in making the transition to Better Call Saul was his experience on Breaking Bad, the lauded series which spawned the Saul spinoff. Adams first got the chance to do some pickup days on season 4 of Breaking Bad and that led to the opportunity to shoot the first episode of season 5.
While he got acclimated to Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and co-exec producer and director Peter Gould’s approach and process, the real revelation for Adams came when he met with Gilligan, his Better Call Saul co-creator Gould and executive producers Melissa Bernstein and Diane Mercer to discuss Better Call Saul over lunch. Adams recalled their telling him that they would rather have to reshoot a scene than feel like he took the safe route and didn’t take risks. “I’d never heard that from producers before,” said Adams, who thus immediately knew that Better Call Saul was about striving to tell a story in the best possible way and breaking new creative ground towards that end.
This created a working environment in which cast and crew were fully invested in the show, knowing they had the freedom to think outside the box for character development and optimum storytelling. Having stellar writing to begin with, of course, gave them a leg up in those pursuits, noted Adams.
The series’ last hurrah upped the stakes. “It was a very different experience in a lot of ways,” observed Adams who alternated on season 6 episodes with DP Paul Donachie. “We went from 10 days of shooting for an episode to close to double that. This final season was much bigger, a lot more detail, bigger scripts, more locations.” Adams got to extensively prep the episodes much more than before. “We were upping the ante for the final season in many ways.”
Gould directed “Saul Gone” which, assessed Adams, “was a great way to go out. He’s such a good storyteller, an incredible leader. He and Vince are both such classy guys. They treat everybody with respect. You have the real ability to offer up ideas and look for better ways to do things, more interesting ways to tell stories.”
The choice of cameras evolved over the course of Adams’ tenure on the show. Season 3 deployed what was the latest version of the RED camera at that time while also introducing the Panasonic Varicam for low light scenes. This continued into season 4. Between seasons 4 and 5, Adams shot the Breaking Bad movie El Camino, which opted for the ARRI Alexa 65. By the time season 5 of Better Call Saul started, the Alexa LF became available and then the Alexa Mini LF for season 6.
From camera choice to creative approach, the underpinning of every decision, said Adams, was rooted in story and character. The DP recollected having dinner with director Michael Slovis before they were to team on the first episode of season 5 on Breaking Bad. “Michael told me if I was ever looking for an idea, I should always go back to the script, to take a deep look at the script, think about it and the idea will reveal itself. That is so true. Just about every frame we shoot is based on the story. It has to be about developing the characters and the overall subtext of the script. It’s an incredible piece of advice which has carried me through to the very end [of Better Call Saul].”
Following season 6 of Better Call Saul, Adams wrapped lensing for Knox Goes Away, a feature film directed by and starring Michael Keaton.
As for what’s next, at press time Adams had on his calendar a new Vince Gilligan show starring Rhea Seehorn.
Jesse M. Feldman
Earning his first ASC Award nomination--for the “Is My Very Nature that of the Devil” episode of Interview with the Vampire--is “a big deal” and was “a total shock” for cinematographer Feldman. This current nod came in the Episode of a One-Hour Commercial Television Series category and had Feldman “over the moon,” describing it as “maybe the biggest honor I could get since it’s coming from my peers. The ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) is an organization I looked up to since I decided that I wanted to be a DP back when I was 17 or 18.”
Feldman found himself drawn to the story, not only for its foundation in Ann Rice’s iconic Gothic horror novel but also in being able to provide a modern take on that narrative. While he has high regard for the 1994 feature film, there was “a different sensibility at that time while this series is very modern in its sensibilities,” observed Feldman who noted that he and his colleagues had the freedom to delve into the gay elements of Rice’s work in a way that “we as a culture were not willing to put out there as much” at the time of when the movie was made in the 1990s.
The series, he continued, is “a little more unapologetic about that which I really liked and can get behind.” Feldman found it gratifying to be involved in a project which he considered to reflect “positive social change.”
Adapted by creator, showrunner and writer Rolin Jones, the TV show follows the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (portrayed by Jacob Anderson) who recounts his life with his maker Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) and teenage vampire Claudia (Bailey Bass) to veteran journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), accompanied by ancient vampire Armand (Assad Zaman).
Still, there were logistical challenges to clear in order to do justice to that story, including “trying to make a really big, ambitious show within a pretty tight schedule,” shared Feldman who credited a positive working relationship with cinematographer David Tattersall, BSC as helping to make that possible. Tattersall shot the first two episodes as well as installments 5 and 6. Feldman shot episodes 3, 4 and 7 (the season one finale).
“David started the series. He did a great job of setting the tone for everything. His work was phenomenal,” assessed Feldman who noted that he and Tattersall “talked about the show’s style from a general sense before either of us started shooting. We discussed different ideas. David is a great, easy going collaborator. He told me early on, ‘I want your episodes to be yours.’ I was proud about getting his support on that. At the same time, part of my job was to make sure the show is cohesive as a whole. I studied everything he did on the first two episodes and took some elements from that.”
Affording Feldman some creative latitude to bring his own touches to the series was the introduction of Claudia--technically at the very end of episode 3 but fully in episode 4. That enabled Feldman to bring a whole new tone to the story, mimicking her character visually, bringing a bit more camera movement to the proceedings.
Feldman and Tattersall went with the ARRI Alexa LF--the Mini LF as the “A” camera with the studio model serving as the “B” camera, paired with Panavision Panaspeed lenses. Feldman explained that “the large sensor is something David and I both wanted to have for the grandeur and scope of the project.” Feldman described the Panavision glass as “nice, clean but not crazy,” still retaining “a little bit of attitude” but “nothing that is going to hit you over the head.”
Seeing Interview with the Vampire come together has been gratifying for Feldman who said a prime lesson learned was simply to “not run away from something you think is good.” He shared that “there were a handful of things that almost had me not do this project. But when I thought about it, I realized this was something solid that I wanted to do. When you feel something is going to be good, stick with your gut in terms of your belief in the material.”
Interview with the Vampire adds to a body of work for Feldman which includes episodic lensing on American Horror Story, Genius: Aretha, Star, MacGruber, and The Chi as well as the features 1 Night and Take Me Home. His earlier TV show exploits came as a second unit DP on a couple of episodes of Homeland as well as the pilots for Pose and The Politician. The latter two were from series creator Ryan Murphy, a relationship which continued with Feldman serving as an additional DP on Murphy’s Feud: Bette and Joan, The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story and American Horror Story. Feldman then went on to serve as full fledged DP on multiple episodes of American Horror Story.
C. Kim Miles, ASC, CSC, MySC
Cinematographer Miles recalled hearing from a good friend, producer Brent Crowell, who described an upcoming project as “Toy Story meets Lord of the Rings.” Miles had worked earlier with producer Crowell on The Flash, making the DP even more intrigued by the prospect of taking on what sounded like an unconventional live-action/animation hybrid series, Lost Ollie.
Another connection bringing Miles to Lost Ollie was friend and colleague, production designer Stefan Dechant, whom the DP worked with on the feature Welcome to Marwen. While Dechant did not work on Lost Ollie, he is a friend of Peter Ramsey, director on that series. The production designer had recommended Miles to Ramsey. Upon meeting with Ramsey and Lost Ollie creator Shannon Tindle, Miles struck up a rapport with both.
Based on the book “Ollie’s Odyssey” by William Joyce, Lost Ollie follows a stuffed toy rabbit named Ollie (Jonathan Groff) who is determined to reunite with his owner, a young boy named Billy (Kesler Talbot). To do so, Ollie must first escape from a thrift shop, which he does with the help of a toy clown, Zozo (Tim Blake Nelson) and a rough-and-tumble teddy beer, Rosy (Mary J. Blige). Meanwhile Billy along with his parents (Gina Rodriguez, Jake Johnson) are dealing with adversity--an illness in the family.
Drawing Miles deeper into the show was the affection and commitment everyone had for the story, “Those kind of shows only come along once or twice in a lifetime,” said Miles whose prior work entailing miniatures on Welcome to Marwen gave him at least a familiarity with what he could do with puppets to realize the Lost Ollie story in concert with live action in a photo-real manner. He also credited the yeoman work of Hayden Jones and Stefan Drury at visual effects house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Miles was very much attracted to the opportunity to work with ILM.
Miles was taken by not only ILM’s contributions but also the musical choices made by Tindle and Ramsey, along with other nuances and voiceover performances. “I had done my color correction passes without the score laid in,” related Miles who described himself as “blown away” by the final product.
Lost Ollie, specifically the “Bali Hai” episode, recently earned Miles his third career ASC Award nomination, this one coming in the Pilot, Limited Series, or Motion Picture For Television category.
For Lost Ollie, Miles deployed the ARRI Alexa Mini LF paired with ARRI Signature Prime lenses. This was in line with his priority of not wanting the series to end up in a whimsical environment but rather to take place in a seemingly real place with the characters and story taken seriously, striking a genuine emotional chord.
Personally, Miles said his experience on Lost Ollie gave him a dose of humility. With cinematographers gaining more control as series deploy rotating directors, Miles didn’t like the sense of self-importance that fostered and found Lost Ollie as a path to improvement. The shared love of the Lost Ollie story on the part of all involved, and the very nature of the hybrid project necessitated that a patience be baked into the process and that ego be put in check, observed Miles who was also inspired by Ramsey, an accomplished animation filmmaker (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Rise of the Guardians) making a deft collaborative segue into live action.
As for what’s next, Miles has wrapped the Bobby Farrelly-directed feature film, Champions. The cinematographer’s credits prior to Lost Ollie include multiple episodes of Yellowjackets, the lauded psychological horror and coming-of-age drama series. He also lensed varied projects for Robert Zemeckis, including Welcome to Marwen (directed and co-written by Zemeckis) starring Steve Carell, and Project Blue Book (exec produced by Zemeckis). The latter TV series earned Miles his first two career ASC Award nominations--in 2020 and ‘21. In ‘20 Miles won the ASC Award for “The Flatwoods Monster” episode.