PRODUCTION PERCY JACKSON
Turning YA phenomenon Percy Jackson into a TV series was the ultimate quest for cinematographer Pierre Gill , CSC. Sticking to the source material, with Percy at the centre, was key
WORDS Katie Kasperson
T wilight, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Divergent – the nineties through to the 2010s were ripe with young-adult (YA) fantasy novels and their on-screen adaptations. Percy Jackson & the Olympians , a six-book series written by Rick Riordan, was another big title in this this trend. Though the first two Percy Jackson novels were made into movies starring Logan Lerman, critical reception was
poor, particularly slamming the films’ deviations from the original Riordan story. So, when Disney picked up Percy Jackson for a television adaptation, fans were cautiously optimistic, hoping for something truer to the source text. When Disney initially approached cinematographer Pierre Gill, CSC – whose daughter has read the series – for the project, he kept this hope in mind. The books, written from Percy’s perspective,
served as the principal inspiration, with Riordan on board as an executive producer. “I wanted to do a project my daughter would enjoy,” admits Gill. “Every day, when I read the scenes we had to shoot, I was becoming Percy Jackson.” ALL IN THE EYES Gill established Percy Jackson and the Olympians ’ visual language – as he does with every project – by first creating a lookbook. “It starts with a page titled ‘faces’: I wanted to make sure that the focus is on the actors. And then the last page is called ‘scope’: big flashy shots that would play into the adventure side of the show,” he explains. For the latter, he cites ET the Extra-Terrestrial, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lord of the Rings and The Green Mile as inspirations. The ‘faces’ in question are Walker Scobell as the titular hero, Aryan Simhadri as Grover Underwood and Leah Sava Jeffries as Annabeth Chase. A range of guest stars (including Jason Mantzoukas and Lin-Manuel Miranda) also appear as supporting characters. The series retains Percy as the first-person narrator, which Gill and his
VISIONARY Director of photography Pierre Gill (centre) was sympathetic to the original books
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