PRODUCTION. RUSSIAN DOLL
MINDS BEHIND THE SCREEN The show was co-created by Leslye Headland, Amy Poehler and Natasha Lyonne (above right) – the latter stars as the show’s protagonist, Nadia
“Our lighting approach was completely distinct for all of the time periods,” Pontikos explains. “Modern cinematography is built around a mostly LED world, meaning lots of softness. Distinguishing between that and the historic timelines was really important. Plus, the story takes you down many roads. I wanted viewers to be able to follow the narrative and decade changes, just by looking.” Without a mammoth budget, using historic fixtures was out of the question. Instead, Pontikos opted for emulation, led
“For the sixties sequences, I sought a lot of inspiration from Gordon Parks’ photographs”
“Many of our references were very low-budget features, and film speed was still very slow, so crews would often just punch in a single strong source. Anything surrounding the action quickly fell away to darkness, and we were trying to follow a similar philosophy. Through such high contrast, we could ensure that a number of historically inaccurate details weren’t seen. “For the sixties sequences, I sought a lot of inspiration from Gordon Parks’ photographs,” Pontikos continues. “We debated how popularised Fluorescents would have been by that point, before going with a much warmer Tungsten style of lighting. “As we got to the forties, we wanted to replicate the two-strip Technicolor film you would have seen at the time. There’s a distinctive pink and green tinge to it, and some grain within the grade.” Did you know? Although it has not yet been renewed by Netflix, Natasha Lyonne has stated that Russian Doll was originally pitched as a tripartite production
by colourist Greg Fisher’s LUTs, which she describes as a ‘guiding compass’. “The look was inspired by many Hollywood films of the 20th century – The Long Goodbye , Midnight Cowboy , Mean Streets . We leaned into a much cooler temperature, to emulate Fluorescents. There was a lot of cyan present.
LOST IN TIME Capturing a sense of history demanded vintage lenses, to diffuse the crispness of modern technology
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