Emotion is intangible.
For centuries artists have struggled with how to visually depict feelings which don’t
exist physically.
How do you show something emotional which can’t be seen?
One approach is to depict events literally, truthfully, purely in a style known as Realism.
The Paraguayan Woman by Juan Manuel Blanes uses this style to show a single woman surrounded
by the horrors of war.
A realistic colour palette is used, the lighting is naturalistic and the depiction of the woman
is lifelike.
The painting tries to be truthful, depicting an event literally.
Some artists however became tired with Realism as a medium for depicting emotion.
They felt that human feelings could be better expressed through an emotional distortion
of imagery.
And so, Expressionism was born.
Reality was thrown out the window.
Images were distorted, figures mangled and colour exaggerated to try and express those
deep emotions visually.
Euphoria, a teen drama which focuses on themes such as sexuality, mental health and substance
abuse, takes this Expressionist visual style and uses it as a way to express the emotional
state of the characters.
In this video I’ll unpack the cinematography in some of Euphoria’s season one episodes
by introducing how the production process of a TV series works, break down the visual
approach of the show and show the technical approach taken to achieve the desired on-screen
look.
This video was made possible thanks to the contributors on Patreon.
If you would like to support the channel and get early access to these videos please consider
helping out by following the link in the description.
The production process of creating and filming a series is similar to that of shooting a
feature film, but with some important differences.
A feature film is commonly shot in one chunk or ‘one block’, which means that crew
will work 12 hour days, 5 or 6 days a week, continuously until the production wraps or
completes shooting.
The length of the shoot is dependent on many factors such as the number of scenes required,
the budget and the number of different locations.
An average single camera style TV series typically requires far more on-screen content over a
season than a feature film does, so production will often run for longer.
As a result, a series may be broken up into different blocks and will often use different
directors, DPs and crew members over different episodes or seasons of a show.
Sometimes shows even shoot different episodes with independent, separate crews or units
simultaneously to speed up production.
For example one main unit could be shooting episode 1 and another 2nd unit shooting pieces
of episode 2 at the same time, with the cast jumping back and forth between the two sets
as required.
So to maintain a coherent visual style across the series, it’s common for one DP to be
selected to shoot the first few episodes of a show to establish the look of the series.
Other DPs employed on the show to shoot later episodes will then replicate or build upon
that initial look set by the first cinematographer.
In the case of Euphoria, the look of the show was established in episodes 1 to 4 by DOP
Marcell Rév.
Let’s take a look at the approach he took, along with show creator Sam Levinson, to produce
the look of the series.
While I was watching Euphoria the first reference that immediately came to my mind was Skins,
a 2007 teen drama series which deals with similar themes in a very direct style.
Not only was the content similar, but the cinematography of the two shows both used
colour in an expressionist way which visually matched the emotional experiences of the characters
on screen with sometimes unrealistic, emotive lighting.
Rév describes how the philosophy behind the camera work was developed early on with Levinson.
“It’s not really based on realism.
We called it ‘emotional realism’ that’s more based in the characters’ emotions,
and not how the world surrounding them really looks.”
They used the content of the script to work out the emotional direction of each scene
and then built the visuals around that, customising the approach to lighting or camera movement
depending on the emotional content of each scene.
Rev then worked closely with the storyboard artist to plan the shots, framing and movement
in each sequence.
Like most DPs, he likes going into shooting with a solid foundation, yet tries to remain
flexible and will deviate from the planned shots if necessary.
A mix of structure and fluidity.
“The storyboards are a good plan, but we were never really sticking to it.
Sometimes it’s great to shoot the storyboards, but sometimes you come up with something better,
or there’s something happening on set that’s a little different than what you expected,
and you just roll with it.”
Despite this, certain sequences such as a long single take in episode 4 at a carnival,
were carefully designed in pre-production as a way of linking together all the characters
in a single shot, connecting them in the same space without a visible cut.
In Euphoria the camera rarely sits still.
The movement is smooth and often takes on a roaming, omniscient perspective which isn’t
only focused on one character.
Where directors would commonly shoot various shots separately and build them into the edit
through cuts, Euphoria often combines multiple shots though camera movement without cutting.
The effect is filmmaking with a constant flow and feeling of forward momentum, like you’re
being guided by a deliberate, all knowing, omniscient storytelling force.
Like the Expressionist painters, Rév tried to emulate emotion through his use of colour,
particularly in his lighting.
“It has to be colorful in a way, I think, to feel that elevation.
But we didn’t want it to go like rainbow colors, or with no real system in it.
So, most of the time, we’re using primary colors, and I’m relying a lot on the orange-blue
color contrast, which is a really basic one.”
The strong, deliberate use of red, yellow and blue helped raise the visuals out of reality
and pushed a heightened emotion into the images.
Rév’s use of complementary colours, which are colours at opposite ends of the spectrum
from each other, such as orange and blue, created a strong contrast and increased separation
in different planes of the image.
This complementary colour look which is commonly referred to in the YouTube filmmaking community
as the ‘orange and teal look’, is actually what I’d call a ‘daylight and tungsten
look’.
It comes from mixing cooler daylight sources with a colour temperature of 5600K with warmer
tungsten sources with a colour temperature of 3200K.
LED lights such as Arri SkyPanels were used for their RGB ability to change colour temperatures
quickly and achieve coloured lighting effects.
However, Rév notes that most of the lighting was done traditionally with daylight HMI sources
and tungsten bulbs, which were softened by passing them through diffusion or a textile.
“Of course, we’re using the advantage of the SkyPanels, and LED lights.
But I think it seems more like an LED-lit show than it is, really.
Most of the time, it’s old school lighting, and a lot of big light boxes and special light
rigs that our rigging crew is suffering with a lot.”
Part of the look of the film comes from the large format capture medium, which has become
popular recently.
Euphoria was shot on the Alexa 65.
Shooting with a large format sensor means that longer focal length lenses can be used
while still maintaining a wider background, which you’d only be able to achieve on a
standard Super 35 sensor by shooting on very wide lenses.
Rév chose to shoot on Arri DNA primes, which is large format Hassleblad glass rehoused
by Arri.
They’re sharp, yet have beautiful, dreamy out of focus areas which fall off quickly.
They often used haze machines, particularly when shooting night exteriors, which degrades
the sharpness of an image in an interesting way and emphasises an ethereal glow in the
air coming from the light sources, which enforces an otherworldly Expressionist feeling.
As mentioned, in episode 4 at the carnival, they shot in long sequences which were stitched
together in post production to give the appearance of one long take by wiping foreground across
a frame, cutting and then starting a new sequence with a new take.
To give the scene more dynamism and inject it with life, they used foreground and background
elements, such as extras crossing the camera.
To achieve smooth, sweeping motion they used a Chapman Hydrascope crane which can extend
or retract in length while being boomed up or down.
The camera was mounted at the end on a Spacecam M7 EVO which is a stabilised head that allows
the DP to wirelessly pan, tilt or roll the camera by using wheels.
They also used a dolly, set up on a long 300 foot track, to follow alongside the characters
as they walked.
They then turned around with the camera and shot another tracking scene in the opposite
direction.
All of these technical tools were employed in a very deliberate way to achieve what Rév
refers to as emotional realism.
By not trying to capture reality, but instead trying to elevate the story emotionally through
a cinematic Expressionism, the makers of Euphoria achieved a visual style which brought the
audience closer to the emotional state of the characters on screen.
The result is a show which effectively chronicles the experiences of a group of teens and tells
their story in an intensely personal style.
In trying to convey intangible emotions, sometimes shooting using a realist style works.
But sometimes, in order to get to the deepest emotional depths of a character, capturing
a feeling, rather than reality, is more important.
Thanks everyone for the continued support, as always, liking, subscribing, commenting
or supporting on Patreon would greatly help the channel.
Until next time, thanks for watching and goodbye.