STANDOUT CINEMATOGRAPHY
– Katie Kasperson WICKED: FOR GOOD
Based on a long string of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz adaptations, Jon M Chu’s Wicked: For Good completes the story of Elphaba and Glinda, two witches and best friends who’ve been wedged apart. Like the 1900 L Frank Baum book, the 1939 film and 2003 Broadway musical, Wicked: For Good is ripe with all the colours of the rainbow – pink and green holding extra meaning, of course. DOP on both Wicked: For Good and last year’s Wicked , Alice Brooks, ASC worked with Universal Production Services to light each scene in a different shade. UPS provided nearly 10,000 lights – including over 300 Cineo Quantum IIs – to cover 17 stages at Sky Studios Elstree. The resulting film delivers all the magic and emotion of the original book,
movie and musical combined. From the Emerald City of Oz to the enchanted Ozian forest and even down the yellow brick road to Munchkinland, Brooks creates a visual language that stays true to its predecessors while expanding the canon. She does so with an ARRI ALEXA 65, alternating between two Panavision prototype lenses – one
for Glinda’s bubbly, picture-perfect world and the other for Elphaba’s raw reality. While Wicked: For Good follows on from Wicked , it’s heavier both thematically and visually. The dire moments are darker, the celebrations grander and the stakes higher; Wicked: For Good is a visual spectacle that deserves to be seen on the big screen.
– Katie Kasperson SEVERANCE
On its surface, Severance is an office drama set primarily in a sterile, white-walled, windowless room, yet it’s one of the most visually compelling, technically precise TV shows of late. Led by Jessica Lee Gagné, the series’ cinematography isn’t about showing off what the team can do (and they can do a whole lot); every decision has been carefully considered, every camera movement orchestrated. Paying homage to everything from French New Wave cinema to Alfred Hitchcock to The Twilight Zone , Severance is truly a treat for the eyes as much as the mind. Key to Severance is the innie-outie dichotomy; the protagonists head down to the severed floor at Lumon, where they do work that is ‘mysterious and important’ – or so they are told. When they leave, they forget everything, and when they clock in the next morning, vice versa. They live two lives, and the show explores the practicalities and repercussions of this dual existence. To do so, the show’s DOPs define the innie and outie worlds as aesthetically distinct. They play with lighting, lens choice and colour theory to set the two apart, giving viewers a visual language that’s vital to their understanding. The DOPs also utilise ultra-wide shots, symmetry, extreme close-ups and other framing techniques to establish the show’s unnerving tone. There’s an element of surveillance at all times, and the camerawork succeeds at speaking to that.
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