THE OLD MAN PRODUCTION
and then subsequently Season 2 for The Old Man .” During the prep for Season 2, O’Loughlin, the showrunners and the individual episode directors had plenty of early conversations regarding re- establishing the series’ visual language. Initially, their collective lookbooks drew primarily from westerns, with a handful of still photos thrown in for good measure. “For the opener, we wanted to have a western sensibility,” recalls O’Loughlin, but that changed somewhat as the season progressed. “For TV, it’s always an ongoing process,” he states. “It swings and moves in different directions.” WILD WESTERN While best described as an action drama, The Old Man derives its intrigue from its characters and their conflicting motivations. Season 1 is ripe with oners (long takes), which were useful for introducing the various protagonists. “By the time we get to Season 2,” remarks
O’Loughlin, “we know [Chase] and are well versed in his characteristics. The idea of the oner was, to an extent, pushed aside, but we still wanted to incorporate that long, languid camera style.” As for the wide shots of Afghanistan and the US, “we wanted that to fit hand-in-glove with the Season 1 look.” To do this, O’Loughlin upgraded from the ARRI ALEXA LF – used on Season 1 – to the ALEXA 35. “It’s the latest, greatest camera from ARRI,” he explains. “It has better dynamic range, dual ISOs and a whole bunch of features that made an improvement. It’s the ALEXA look with the same anamorphic lenses. That was the only difference.” As for glass, “98% of the show was shot anamorphically,” O’Loughlin explains, “but we used a bit of spherical here and there if we needed to get particularly close to a character.” The spherical lenses came into play when O’Loughlin wanted a flare effect. “They’re all in camera,” he claims, adding that the show itself relied fairly little on VFX added in post. “Our VFX supervisor
WE LIKE TO stay true to the photography – AND TO NOT IMBUE IT WITH anything that isn’t grounded ”
WITH THE BEST A star-studded cast of actors and talented crew are what drew O’Loughlin back to The Old Man for another season
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