PRODUCTION ETERNITY
“It’s great having that relationship with a director who lets you collaborate on more than just the imagery”
DOP Ruairí O’Brien, ISC, BSC discusses capturing the vibrant aesthetics of the afterlife in Eternity
WORDS OLIVER WEBB IMAGES LEAH GALLO © ETERNITY PRODUCTIONS LLC
I n an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) is faced with the impossible choice between Larry (Miles Teller), who she spent 65 years with and her first love Luke (Callum Turner), who died during the Korean War. Eternity sees director David Freyne and DOP Ruairí O’Brien, ISC, BSC reunite after their 2020 Irish comedy Dating Amber . The first conversations O’Brien and Freyne had about the look of Eternity were not about the visuals, but the storytelling tone. “We both referenced The Apartment ,” begins O’Brien. “There’s something very Jack Lemmon-esque about Elizabeth Olsen’s performance. I don’t know if David ever mentioned it to her, but it sometimes felt like I was watching Jack Lemmon reincarnated.” O’Brien and Freyne discussed a number of visual references, including
Agnes Varda’s 1958 documentary Du côté de la côte , which depicts beach life on the French Riviera. “It has these very unique colours,” says O’Brien. “We also spoke about The Daytrippers and The Graduate , which we both honed in on. David also mentioned Broadcast News , as well as A Matter of Life and Death as it was obviously a parallel story. We never copied anything directly or deliberately. It was an odd mix of different films, and was about trying to get somewhere in the middle of all that because there is no point in copying one particular style.” O’Brien opted to shoot the film with the ARRI ALEXA 35, accompanied with Hawk anamorphic lenses. “We shot on anamorphic lenses because we were trying to have some of the sensibility of old Hollywood in our film, and to me the anamorphic look is part of it. It doesn’t hurt that the Hawk lenses were also very flattering to our cast. I wanted to have
a slightly dreamy aesthetic in places, given that we were going to have various versions of heaven or hell, depending on how you see them. It felt right to have a slightly unreal quality. I keep coming back to the ALEXA as it consistently produces great pictures and colours.” The first part of the shoot involved capturing infomercials to be inserted on TVs. “We looked for a cheap and cheesy format,” adds O’Brien. “It was funny turning up on day one of this big movie with a 25-year-old camera and producing super cheap-looking images. If you have imposter syndrome, they’re the moments when you’ll feel it most.” The main body of the film focuses on the area known as The Junction, where the newly deceased arrive to decide where they will spend the rest of their eternity. The hall is filled with endless eternity stands to choose from (my personal favourite being ‘1930s
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