Judd Apatow is the undisputed king of 21st century American mainstream comedy.
His films are built around traditional comedy templates but with an added personal, sentimental
touch.
They bridge the gap between being commercially successful yet maintaining a degree of originality.
In this video I’ll take a look at the cinematography of his recent film, The King of Staten Island,
a coming of age character study about a young man, played by Pete Davidson, dealing with
issues from his past while trying to get his life together.
When you watch a Judd Apatow movie you usually know exactly what kind of cinematography you’re
going to get.
Most of his movies are bound to the classic American comedic visual style: well exposed
images which are not too dark or textured, cut using conventional coverage from wide
to medium to close ups, grounded by smooth dolly movement or stable frames.
A pretty vanilla visual style which makes sure to never distract from the performance
of the actors.
“I certainly get afraid to move the camera because I’m serving the jokes more than
the action.
With this movie, I decided not to worry about that at all.”
To achieve a more invigorated, dynamic visual style which was still held together by well
exposed images focused on performance, Apatow hired Robert Elswit as the DOP.
“He shoots in a style that I have always wanted to use in one of my movies.
I’m a big fan of all of his work because there’s a lot of energy and movement.
He is a real storyteller as well as being an incredible technician with an amazing eye.”
As I mentioned in my Cinematography Style video on Elswit, which I’ll link in the
description, his technique is rooted in a classic, naturalistic, 1970s American New
Wave style.
“His style is very alive and energetic and reminds me of films I love from the 1970s,
from directors like Hal Ashby and Sidney Lumet.”
For this personal, semi-autobiographical story, Elswit was tasked with mixing up Apatow’s
usual visuals by injecting a bit of dynamic naturalism.
“Judd did not want it to look at all like a traditional Hollywood movie – shot from
the dolly, with the actors in flattering beauty light.
He wanted more of what you might call an ‘artificial’ documentary feel, handheld, with a definite
edge.
It was the opposite of what I expected, but he was adamant.”
Let’s take a look at what gear Elswit chose to capture this anti-Hollywood aesthetic.
The first technical decision that was made was choosing which medium to shoot the film
on.
They opted to shoot film over digital on 3-perf 35mm.
Part of this decision was driven by Apatow who wanted to shoot 35mm for both practical
and aesthetic reasons.
Practically, he liked the idea that shooting on film limits the duration and amount of
takes shot.
“I asked him why we were not shooting digital.
Surely the actors would have more time to riff and be less constrained if the camera
were allowed to keep running?
But he said he didn’t work that way.
He did not want to walk into an editing room with two hours of material from a two-page
scene, and felt that after shooting either 400ft or 1,000ft of film the actors would
usually be done anyway.”
The crew and actors also enjoyed the rhythm and discipline of shooting on film.
It allows for a natural break or pause on set while the camera takes time to reload
magazines, which usually wouldn’t happen when shooting on digital cards.
Aesthetically shooting on a traditional, cinematic, textured medium also fell in line with the
look of the film that they wanted to create.
“With The King of Staten Island, we wanted the production to be naturalistic, to connect
to the performances with a real and gritty feeling, and I believed we would be able to
accomplish that much better on film.”
Elswit, who favours shooting on film whenever possible, agreed that overly sharp digital
capture wouldn’t have the same effect as shooting on celluloid.
“The problem with digital is it is so sharp, so clear, so bright, that you are constantly
trying to defeat it.
In many digital movies these days, on close-ups and medium close-ups, you can see every pore
on an actor’s skin.
People get nostalgic about the soft and romantic film look and try very hard to emulate the
same quality of light and fall-off that you actually get straight out of the box with
film.
So it’s best to start with film, if that’s the look you want.”
Elswit opted to shoot the entire film on Kodak Vision 3 tungsten film stocks, using 200T
for exteriors and the more sensitive 500T for interiors or night scenes.
He likes the grain structure, contrast and the way skin tones are rendered on tungsten
stocks.
If we examine the skin tones on tungsten film we can see that there is a subtle magenta
or red which gives the skin more life.
Unlike many modern cinematographers Elswit doesn’t believe in underexposing the image
and rated the 500 speed film at 400 ISO so that the film was overexposed by a third of
a stop.
With negative film you are able to retain more colour information when you overexpose
it, than when you underexpose an image.
Elswit chose to shoot the film on Panavision Super Speed lenses, spherical glass from the
1970s.
They’re fast lenses with beautiful falloff that aren’t too sharp.
Shooting with spherical lenses freed up the actors and the cameras to move around more.
“While I love Anamorphic, shooting spherical widescreen allowed for more improvisation,
for me to move the camera around the set and to be much less restricted by the depth-of-field.”
The lenses were fitted to a Panaflex Millennium XL2, Panavision’s modern 35mm film camera.
To soften up the image even more he shot with a low strength Tiffen Black Pro Mist filter,
such as an eighth or quarter, in front of the lens.
This softens skin tones, making them more flattering, and subtly blooms the highlights.
The movement of the camera in the film is dictated by the emotions and movement of the
characters on the set.
There are some moments of stable motion, but a lot of the film was shot handheld.
“Bob is one of the greatest camera operators of all time.
A lot of the reason why the movie looks so good has to do with his in-the-moment choices
as to where to point the camera.”
Now let’s break down some scenes from the film based off behind the scenes footage to
see how they were lit and shot.
Naturalistic lighting doesn’t mean that scenes are not lit, it means that scenes are
lit by replicating and supplementing the naturally occurring light sources.
This way the light looks real, yet still cinematic, without being flat.
Elswit stated that his lighting approach in the film was: “To make it look as if it
were not lit, nothing overt or theatrical, and never a statement.
There was some expression to help convey the emotional mood of a scene, but the lighting
really never called attention to itself.”
This scene at a baseball stadium is a good example of how Elswit’s lighting can look
natural, yet still be interesting.
In reality the main light source here would come from the stadium lights being bounced
into the pitch and up into the stands.
We can see here that the stadium lights are on and providing the base ambient light, however
this isn't the only light source.
Bounced, front on light alone would be flat.
So to increase contrast Elswit adds a light that hits the characters from the front, right
hand side.
This creates more light on the right side of the face and shadow on the left, enhancing
a subtle contrast.
We can see that this light passes through a cloth diffusion to soften the light source.
It would have to be a large source to balance with the powerful stadium lights, so I imagine
he’d use a strong HMI such as an M90.
To break up the background in wider shots Elswit hung a string of tungsten practical
lights in the background.
They opted to shoot the film with two cameras which allows the performances to be covered
faster and with more coverage from multiple angles simultaneously.
When shooting with two cameras, it’s important that both shoot from the same side of the
line.
This is called the 180 degree rule.
Imagine that there is an axis around the characters.
If you divide this axis in two parts half of the axis will cover 180 degrees.
Traditionally two cameras then shoot at angles on the same side of this line, usually at
around 45 degrees.
Although this is the convention, some filmmakers purposefully break this technique for an effect
called jumping the line.
In this prison visit scene where the two characters sit on opposite sides of a glass partition
the 180 degree rule is also used.
To capture the look of hard, top down fluorescent prison lighting we can see Elswit’s team
rigged 4 foot 4 bank Kino Flos to the ceiling.
He added a layer of diffusion to soften the fluorescent light source.
He fills in the face with what looks like a LiteMat with a snap on grid.
This grid, made up of square cells, helps to shape the light, giving it a more singular,
defined direction and making it spread out less.
The overhead light creates soft shadows under the eyes, adding a grittiness, but the LiteMat
fill lifts up the face so that it’s not too contrasty.
Elswit also uses a flag, which is a black textile on a frame.
This flag blocks the top light from hitting the wall, making the wall darker.
This creates more contrast between the woman lit more from above and the darker wall which
serves as her background.
The more ambient light there is at a location, the more difficult it becomes to control and
shape the light.
Exteriors, where sunlight is everywhere, can be difficult to manage.
The sun is the strongest light source that there is, so adding light using lamps to compete
with the sun can sometimes be a futile effort or appear unnatural and heavy handed.
Using textiles to bounce, shape and diffuse light are great ways of dealing with exterior
sunlight.
This is the approach that Elswit uses here.
To achieve a more flattering, softer natural light his team erected a 12x12 frame with
a silk or grid cloth diffusion.
When the overhead sunlight passes through this textile the light levels are decreased
and the light quality is softened.
The light and shadows on the actor’s face are cushioned and the foreground light levels
are decreased.
This creates more separation between a darker foreground and a brighter background in full
sunlight, while still looking naturalistic.
The amped up emotions in this scene are also increased visually by shooting with a loosely
moving, handheld camera.
Film buffs can often be overly critical, or even snobby, about mainstream films.
However I have a great respect for filmmakers who are able to walk the tightrope between
telling slightly more nuanced stories which still have mass appeal.
It’s one of the hardest things to do.
Visually this is also what Robert Elswit is so good at delivering.
His lighting style balances between a good, commercial exposure and a more gritty naturalism.
His visuals have mainstream Hollywood appeal but with a nuanced, personal sensibility.
The cinematography in The King of Staten Island always serves and supports the performances
and story, delivers an intimate semi-documentary aesthetic.
Apatow’s filmmaking takes the stock standard Hollywood comedy template and twists it into
something much more interesting, a blend between reality and fiction, between tears and laughs.
Thanks everyone for the continued support, it really motivates me to continue making
these videos.
As always, liking, subscribing and commenting would greatly help the channel.
Until next time, thanks for watching and goodbye.