CRAFT CINEMATOGRAPHY


PRODUCTION


NICOLA DALEY ACS


I try to read the script the first time as if I’m the audience. I want the cinematography to come from the story. It’s not about me overlaying style on top. It must be truthful to the characters and what they’re going through.


CREDITS INCLUDE The Handmaid’s Tale, Benediction, Harlots, Half Bad, Domina, Gentleman Jack, Pin Cushion


There are a million places you can put the camera. However, you put it in a certain spot because that’s how the character is feeling. Or that’s the tension in the scene or that’s the power dynamic in the scene. It all stems from the script.


Initial response images can be anything from paintings to photography. I’ve used passages out of books or poems before, it doesn’t have to be images. On The Handmaid’s Tale [actor/producer] Elisabeth Moss was my director on three episodes. First, we separately collected images in a deck, then we’d swap decks and talk about them and do an in-depth page turn. We’d dissect the scenes, asking ‘how is this person actually feeling right now?’ That’s the joy of reading good scripts: what is the layer underneath the layer, looking at the subtext and bringing it out.


I did observation documentary for 10 years, which taught me so much about lighting. I was travelling around the world with one camera, one light and a reflector, which taught me to look for the light that’s working in a scene. So now I think we should be at a location at the right time to make it work, and corral everyone to be there at 6pm, instead of me setting up like huge lights to light an exterior.


I don’t really like to light my exteriors, sometimes it just looks artificial. Obviously, in some situations, you must do it, but I prefer to use bounce. The quality of lighting is better when you’re controlling the natural light.


Natural light is so complicated. When you’re in the studio, if you put a light through a window, you also need to think of what is ‘outside’. What is the landscape and what is it bouncing off? Is it on the cool side of the building and is the sun on the other, and how do those two things mix?


I love colour and the way it can represent character and


emotion. Colour contrast in the scene, even if it’s very subtle, just rounds out the image. I will often have a key source like a big soft frame, but then behind it I’ll have two lights: one with half blue, one half orange which delivers a painterly colour mix in the shadows.


I now always carry grey grids, [light cloths] that use a grey colour as a diffusion. When you put the light right through it, you don’t have as many spectral highlights in the skin.


Blocking is the unsung art of cinematography. It totally depends on the actors you have, it’s got to be a collaboration, but if it can come together then the shots are going to work much better.


We used horror films as references in the finale of The Handmaids Tale. The episode is not a horror, but I looked at how you create tension with the camera. A lot of that is in camera movement, creeping in, creeping out, partially seeing something, partially not seeing something, looking through a crack in the door.


Winter 2022 televisual.com 73


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152