Feels Like The First Time

This year’s festival is filled with debut Sundancers, many of whom are also first-time filmmakers who leaned heavily on their more experienced union cinematographers.

by David Geffner / Photos Courtesy of the Sundance Institute or as Otherwise Noted

Scanning the program for the 2025 version of the Sundance Film Festival (which arrives just weeks after a series of devastating wildfires in Southern California, impacting film and television crews around the region), the first common thread that looms is the many debut filmmakers coming to Park City. And given the festival director is longtime indie film champion Eugene Hernandez, the return to a more low-fi Sundance makes sense. Although 2024 was Hernandez’s first year in charge, his sophomore run appears packed with more edgy, alternative storytelling than Sundance has seen post-COVID. And why not? Hernandez’s indie credentials are impeccable: co-founder and former editor-in-chief of Indie Wire, director of the New York Film Festival, deputy executive director of film at Lincoln Center, publisher of Film Comment, and one-time Sundance juror. He’s a film nerd to the core, which may well account for the many bespoke entries that may (or may not) have any commercial life beyond Park City’s snowy streets.

What also jumps out from the 2025 line-up is the deep level of experience on the camera side. Longtime Local 600 Directors of Photography Tobias Schliessler, ASC; Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC; Jonathan Furmanski; and Oliver Bokelberg, ASC (along with their union crews) have all carved out brilliant careers away from such indie film festivals asSundance. Other Guild members, including Doug Emmett, Thorsten Thielow, Mia Cioffi Henry, Eric Yue, and Matthew Chuang, are all returning Sundancers who bring deep knowledge to the indie narrative feature/narrative documentary formats. Having any one of those camera professionals in your corner is spectacularly helpful if you’re a first-time director (such as Eva Victor, Carmen Emmi, and Hailey Gates, to name a few). Working with an experienced director of photography and his/her equally experienced union camera team can make or break prospective Sundance projects, given the always challenging schedules and budgets.

Also sprinkled in among all the first-timers are some old-school names who are the stuff of Sundance legend. Thirty-four-year ICG member Liza Rinzler, who won the 1999 Cinematography Award at Sundance for the sumptuously filmed Three Seasons, is back this year with the Premieres Section feature documentary Move Ya Body: The Birth of House; while longtime DGA director Justin Lin, whose 2002 feature Better Luck Tomorrow launched a wave of new Asian-American cinema still cresting today, returns to Sundance with Last Days. Lin, best known for his five films in The Fast and the Furious franchise, debuts his haunting thriller (based on the true-life story of Christian missionary John Allen Chau), shot by Oliver Bokelberg, ASC, with a full Local 600 team. Back in the day, Rinzler and Lin were lucky enough to experience Sundance for the first time, just like ICG Director of Photography (and two-time Emerging Cinematographer Awards winner) Patrick Meade Jones will get to this year. That through-line is encouraging for union film and television workers as it speaks to Sundance’s greatest strength: continuity. Year in and out, the festival gives filmmakers a chance to have that Sundance feeling – sometimes for the first time, and sometimes for what feels like the first time all over again.

(Note: This article was compiled with information supplied by Local 600 members before the start of the festival. We are not responsible for the omission of films and crewmember names not provided to www.icgmagazine.com by the posting date.)

U.S. Dramatic Competition

Atropia – Sundance veteran Eric Yue shot this satirical debut feature from writer/director Hailey Gates about an invented city – Atropia – that’s home to war games, rendered in dazzling 4D (smells included), and just close enough to Los Angeles to double as a film set — and just far enough away that the performers who live on-site to bring the bustling faux-Iraqi streets to life are not exactly flourishing in their acting careers. Yue was joined by a full Local 600 camera team that included Operators Luke Rihl, Jake Magee and Jose Manuel Espinoza, 1st ACs Riley Keeton, Kyle Petitjean, and Evan Wilhelm, 2nd ACs William Hayes and Cleo Palmieri, DIT Mason Harrelson, Loader Samantha Chadbourne and Unit Still Photographers Tobin Yelland and Gunther Campine.

Love, Brooklyn – Local 600 Director of Photography Martim Vian shot this story for first-time feature director Rachael Abigail Holder about three longtime Brooklynites navigating careers, love, loss, and friendship against the rapidly changing landscape of their beloved city. With humor and keen observation, filmmakers invite us into a world where past and present collide.

Vian shares that when discussing the visual approach with director Rachael Holder, “I realized that the most important thing would be to balance believability with sensibility. Rachael wanted to see people like herself on screen, characters that aren’t often shown in movies in this honest and open way – real lives and real stories that we felt deserved an authentic yet cinematic treatment,” Vian describes. “Photographing the nuances in time of day or weather, staying true to the real locations and environments we shot in, and ensuring all variations in skin tone had their space to shine were paramount to the movie’s look.”

Vian adds that one of the first decisions he made with Holder was to photograph the spaces as much as the characters. “We went for relatively wide compositions, in mostly static shots throughout the movie, creating a window into the world the characters inhabit,” Vian states. “People exist in the context of their surroundings, and being able to see and feel these spaces, and bring Brooklyn to light was an important way to illuminate who these characters are. We decided to stick to wide lenses and shoot at a deep stop, allowing the viewer’s eye to move through the frame and take in the surroundings, as opposed to isolating characters in blurry backgrounds. We lit scenes to T8.0 or more to achieve that result and mostly used focal lengths between 21mm and 40mm. The camera was often placed quite close to the actors allowing for a feeling of intimacy without voyeurism.”

The lighting plan for the film was to motivate from logical sources that were often visible in frame, while “also enhancing and imbuing them with a care and beauty that elevated the visuals,” Vian notes. “We were walking the line between real and romantic, attempting to achieve a grounded result that was also poetic and cinematic. After shooting some camera tests during prep, we worked with colorist Roman Hankewycz at Harbor Post to create a show LUT. Rachael’s references all had a lot of warmth and were mostly from movies shot on 35mm, so we went for a pretty strong look that was somewhat inspired by movies and street photography from the 1970s and ’80s. That LUT was carried through from set to post and was the starting point for our final grade.”

Keeping the set free of gear to support the actors and their performances was a key concern of the Local 600 camera team, who often relied on two cameras I was lucky to have an incredible group of filmmakers help bring this project to light. The core camera team consisted of A and B Camera Operators Ben Spaner and Zach Rubin, A Camera 1st AC Vanessa Viera and 2nd AC Taneice “Neicy” McFadden, B Camera 1st Martin Peterson and DIT Dustin Hartough, with additional operators Christopher Gleaton, Michelle Marrion and Malcolm Purnell, and additional 1st ACs Elizabeth Cavanagh, Josue Loayza and Edwin Herrera, as well as additional 2nd AC Brian Cardenas.

Omaha – Guild Director of Photography Paul Meyers, ASC shot this spare road drama about a father, who after a family tragedy, takes his two young children on a journey across the country, experiencing a world they’ve never seen before. As their adventure unfolds, one of his kids begins to understand that things might not be what they seem. Director Cole Webley makes his feature debut from a screenplay by Robert Machoian (The Killing of Two Lovers, 2020 Sundance Film Festival).

Plainclothes – New York-based Director of Photography Ethan Palmer shot this first feature from writer/director Carmen Emmi about a promising undercover officer, who is assigned to lure and arrest gay men only to fall in love with one of his targets. Straining to fill a prescribed role in the implicitly straight culture of the police force, Lucas (Tom Blyth) carries the crushing weight of his challenging undercover work as well as the threat of exposure after his clandestine encounters with Andrew (Russell Tovey). Palmer and Emmi use lo-fi VHS footage at key moments to ramp up the sense of unease, alternately signifying the police surveillance that haunts his conscience as well as flashes of memory.

“Plainclothes was the best version of an independent film production,” Palmer asserts. “Carmen Emmi’s wonderful original script led the way to a super-collaborative cast and crew environment, working nimbly over an 18-day shoot in Syracuse, NY. We filmed on the Alexa 35 and Sony FX3 using older Angenieux and Zeiss lenses, with Carmen supplementing texture and environmental shots on his Sony hi-8 camera.” Local 600 members joining Palmer on the film included Steadicam Operator Lizardo Reyes Jr.,1st AC Symon Mink, 2nd AC Thunnyahnondha Kaewbaidhoon, and Camera Loader Josiah Weinhold.

Sorry, Baby – Sundance alumna Mia Cioffi Henry lensed this poignant and tender debut from writer/director Eva Victor, who also stars as Agnes, a graduate student-turned-professor navigating life post-trauma. Infusing the character’s sardonic wit into its cinematic language of isolation and confusion, Sorry, Baby uses its nonlinear formal structure and five-year duration to capture the triumphs and setbacks of Agnes’ attempts to heal. Cioffi Henry says the film was shot on the North Shore of Massachusetts with a stellar East Coast Union Crew. “As with many of my past projects, I was working with a first-time director,” she describes, “but this time, our writer/director was also the film’s lead. Working within a low budget, Eva and I knew we had to spend copious amounts of time in prep talking through not just her shot list and plans, but really getting to the heart of the story and what we needed out of performance so that we could be in tight sync when we got on set. Very rarely did we second-guess if we had the shot as a result, even though we couldn’t sit by monitor together for most takes.”

Along with the film’s five-year span, Production shot over all four seasons. But Cioffi-Henry says it was “less about defining the different time periods by changing our tech specs on camera, as with how we lit the film, leaning into the character’s emotional state to dictate where we went with the colors, lenses, and framing. Our biggest challenge was undoubtedly a three-minute locked-off shot that turns into an exterior nighttime Steadicam oner, expertly executed by our A-Camera/Steadicam Operator, Dean Egan, and seamlessly lit by IATSE Chief Lighting Technician Melanie Nesteruk and Key Grip Brandon McGinnis. We used an Alexa Mini LF with DNA lenses from ARRI Rental in New York.” Cioffi-Henry was joined on the film by Local 600 members Egan, 1st AC Nolan Ball, 2nd AC Tom Bellotti, Additional 2nd AC Matt Meigs, DIT Nicholas Pasquariello, and Unit Still Photographer Phillip Keith.

Twinless –Award-winning indie filmmaker James Sweeney writes, directs, and co-stars in this unlikely bromance, shot in Portland, OR, about two young men who meet in a twin bereavement support group and form an unlikely friendship. Dylan O’Brien, who starred in the 2024 Sundance Dramatic Competition hit, Ponyboi (shot by Guild member Ed Wu) co-stars with Sweeney in this off-beat comedy-drama. Local 600 members included Operators Phillip Anderson, Mike Vukas, Tyson Wisbrock, and Thomas Greer Firestone, Assistants Lane Clark, Kyril Cvetkov, Patrick LaValley, Eric Macey, Loader Allison Hoffman, and Unit Still Photographer Allyson Riggs.

U.S. Documentary Competition

Sugar Babies – L.A.-based Unit Still Photographer Jacob Yakob lensed this feature documentary (with his non-member brother, Joseph) about a college scholarship recipient and  TikTok influencer, who growing up poor in rural Louisiana, creates an online “sugar baby operation,” that thrives on talking, flirting, and sharing photos and videos, all without meeting the men who give her money. Director Rachel Fleit’s film is a deeply personal statement on poverty and dignity in modern America.

NEXT

By Design –16-Year ICG Member Patrick Meade Jones shot this feature about a woman (Juliette Lewis) who swaps her body with a chair, and everyone likes her better as a chair! Writer/director Amanda Kramer, whose last feature Please Baby Please won the 2022 Outfest Grand Jury Prize and opened the International Film Festival Rotterdam, crafted this fable-like story with Lewis’ character falling in love with a chair she can’t afford. When she becomes the chair, she is gifted to a beautiful piano player-for-hire, Olivier (Mamoudou Athie), by his ex. Jones shares that “with many contemporary filmmakers attempting realism, with an Amanda Kramer film you go the other direction. You lean into the simulacrum of the set and the artifice of controlled lighting.”

Jones says By Design wears its aesthetic choices on display. “As with any indie film,” he adds, “when you can’t throw money or more time at something to achieve your goals, you have to be wise with the approach. So, I assembled a camera, grip, and electric team comprised of people I’d worked with on short-form projects in the past few years.  We chose to shoot in 4K Super35 mode on 2x Sony Venice at 2500 ISO with Panavision 11:1 zooms, specially tuned by Guy McVicker.  I wanted both cameras to be able to do anything at any point, allowing the actors to be the variable. Many times we’d shoot wides and close-ups simultaneously to minimize the amount of takes the actors would have to do and help us get through our 15-day shooting schedule swiftly.  In post, working with Alan Gordon at Picture Shop, we assembled an array of emulative elements on top of traditional color grading to finish the look of the film in a unique and timeless fashion.” Jones was joined by Local 600 members Terra Gutmann-Gonzalez (A-Camera Operator along with Jones) Melisse Sporn (A-Camera 1st AC), and Milana Burdette (A-Camera 2nd AC).

Serious People – Local 600 Director of Photography Nicholas Bupp co-shot this project with Neema Sadeghi about a successful music video director and expectant father who pushes his work-life balance to the extreme when he hires a doppelgänger to handle his professional life, while he is left free to spend time with his pregnant partner. The co-directors of the project form an eclectic duo made up of Pasqual Gutierrez, who won a 2022 MTV Video Music Award and has worked with Bad Bunny, Rosalia, J Balvin, Madonna, Travis Scott, and The Weeknd, and Ben Mullinkosson, who win an X Games gold medalist for skateboarding in China. The film was shot over the course of four weeks with each cinematographer shooting various days in tandem. “There were no hard and fast rules when it came to the visual style, but we sought out a very simplistic and dogmatic approach,” Bupp describes. “Given the small scale of the film, there were numerous challenges and restrictions but we used them to explore a non-traditional approach to the visual language.”

Bupp notes that a large majority of the film was shot with only the directors,  cinematographer, and a sound person as the essential crew on set. “Directors Pasqual Gutierrez & Ben Mullinkosson used an outline of scenes each shooting day for the actors to come in, explore, and react to,” he continues. “We wanted to keep our footprint as minimal as possible, so we shot mainly with natural lighting and little to no camera movement. At the start of each shoot day, we would talk with Ben and Pasqual about the scene, and then find the best possible frame to emulate the emotions visually. The biggest challenge – but also a blessing – that we faced was flexibility. Becoming reactive and adaptive to our surroundings each day was essential. We are grateful to Pasqual and Ben for placing their trust in us and for fostering such a creative environment.” Local 600 member Cory Burmester was 2nd Unit Director of Photography on the project.

Premieres

Come See Me in the Good Light – Director of Photography Brandon Somerhalder lensed this touching feature documentary about two poets, Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley, who go on an unexpectedly funny and poignant journey through love, life, and mortality. Supported by executive producers Tig Notaro, Brandi Carlile, and Sara Bareilles, director Ryan White (Assassins, 2020 Sundance Film Festival; Ask Dr. Ruth, 2019 Sundance Film Festival) returns to Park City with this moving portrait.

Deaf President Now! – Sundance veteran and long-time ICG Director of Photography Jonathan Furmanski [ICG Magazine.com An Affair To Remember] lensed this feature documentary for fellow Sundance alumnus Davis Guggenheim, co-directing with Deaf advocate, actor, and bestselling author Nyle DiMarco. During eight tumultuous days in 1988, four students must find a way to lead an angry mob — and change the course of history. With two Deaf candidates up for the role of president at the world’s only Deaf university, Gallaudet, students saw the possibility of finally being led by someone like them. But when the board of trustees — composed overwhelmingly of hearing individuals — selected the lone hearing candidate, the groundswell of student activism that followed forced eight days of reckoning. Furmanski notes that “like a lot of historical documentaries, this film is largely archival-based with some present-day interviews and dramatic recreations. The interviewees are all deaf and use ASL, so we chose to shoot them simply, against a black backdrop, to highlight their signing; the staged recreations, however, used many techniques including new lens technology to represent a deaf point of view.”

Furmanski says that when he consulted with deaf people on the crew, “we had a lot of deaf representation, including co-director Nyle DiMarco,” he continues, “They spoke about how being deaf gave them heightened visual awareness and sensitivity, that they would focus in on things they know would provide sound but can’t hear – like a mallet hitting a drum. So, we used Ottoblad and Petzvalux lenses, from Otto Nemenz and Old Fast Glass, respectively, to add defocusing and curvature to the corners and edges of the frame, bringing the audience’s eyes into a similar concentration. The advantage of those lenses, as opposed to some post solution, is a wholly organic and integrated effect with a great deal of adjustability from shot to shot  – or even within a shot. Of course, we had more typical everyday challenges of a documentary – a lot of location work, not enough time, limited resources —but we also got to shoot in some of the real-world locations where the story takes place, and one day on an LED volume stage for our car process work, which was one-thousand percent the right choice, but still felt a little luxurious for a documentary,” he smiles. Furmanski was joined on the project by Local 600 members

Jimpa – ICG Director of Photography Matthew Chuang shot this story for co-writer/director Sophie Hyde (2022 Sundance feature Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, 2019 Sundance feature Animals, and 2014 Sundance entry 52 Tuesdays), about a woman who takes her nonbinary teenager to Amsterdam to visit their gay grandfather, lovingly known as Jimpa. The girl’s wishes to stay abroad with Jimpa for a year means her mother is forced to reconsider her beliefs about parenting as well as confront her past.

Kiss of the Spider Woman – Guild Director of Photography Tobias Schliesser, ASC, lensed this reimagining of the Tony-award-winning musical (and 1985 feature film) about two men in an Argentine prison who form an unlikely bond as one recounts the plot of a Hollywood musical starring his favorite silver screen diva, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez). Oscar-winning filmmaker Bill Condon (1998 Sundance hit Gods and Monsters, Kinsey, Mr. Holmes, and Dreamgirls) writes and directs this visually sumptuous political fable that also stars Diego Luna as the political prisoner sharing a cell with a gay window dresser (Tonatiuh), convicted of public indecency who recounts the plot of his favorite Hollywood musical starring Lopez’s screen diva.

Last Days – Sundance OG Justin Lin, whose 2002 feature premiere Better Luck Tomorrow signaled the beginning of a new voice in Asian-American cinema, returns to Park City with this haunting thriller that’s based on the true-life story of Christian missionary John Allen Chau (Sky Yang), an idealistic dreamer driven by overzealous faith and a reckless desire for adventure. In Lin’s propulsive drama, shot by Oliver Bokelberg, ASC, Chau embarks on a dangerous mission to convert the uncontacted tribe of North Sentinel Island, while a detective from the Andaman Islands races to stop him before he does harm to himself or the tribe. Shot in Phuket/Thailand, London/UK, and Trona/CA, Bokelberg says he had just worked on a TV pilot with Lin, “and we were able to expand our collaboration and friendship on this beautiful project. We shot with local crews in each location, on the ARRI Mini LF with Leitz Hugo Lenses.”

Bokelberg says location work on the project was “fun and challenging. The first three days were on the ocean,” he continues, “and our DIT setup was a small boat. Getting on and off, was quite challenging, so we pretty much spent all day in the water. Other locations included a very humid Thai jungle and dry heat in Trona exceeding 110 degrees. All our crew was amazing, keeping great energy and spirit throughout. – it was a blessing to have found such talented crew members all over the globe. Our Local 600 crew in California was gathered from my long-standing relationships with Camera Operators Harry Garvin (A) and David Mun(B), Tony Schultz was A-Camera 1st AC and George Montjano III was our A-Camera 2nd AC. Andrew Deanna was our B-Camera 1st AC, and Hannah Levin was our B-Camera 2nd AC. Our DIT was Andy Lemon, and Utility was Andrew Oliver. Our Chief Lighting Technician was Roger Sassen and Dameon Carter was our Key Grip.”

Lurker – Sundance veteran Patrick Scola [ICG Magazine May 2024 We Grown Now] returns to Park City, lensing this tale about a retail store worker (Théodore Pellerin) who infiltrates the inner circle of an artist on the verge of stardom. As the “lurker” gets closer to the budding music star (Archie Madekwe), access and proximity become a matter of life and death.

Middletown – Longtime ICG Non-Fiction Cinematographer Thorsten Thielow (who just shared an Emmy with fellow Guild Directors of Photography Laura Huddock and Laela Kilbourne for the Apple TV+ feature documentary Girls State – ICG Magazine November 2024 She, The People) lensed this doc for co-directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine about an English teacher at Middletown High School in the early 1990s, who enabled his students to conduct a multiyear investigation into illegal dumping, organized crime, and political corruption in the area. Thirty years later, they revisit and confront the film’s legacy.

Move Ya Body: The Birth of House – 34-year ICG member Lisa Rinzler returns to Sundance with this captivating non-fiction feature about Vince Lawrence, a Black child growing up in Mayor Daley’s segregated Chicago, who set out on a journey that would lead him to become the first person to record a house song. New York-based filmmaker Elegance Bratton concocts a loving mix of interviews with the lively characters of house music blended together with an archive treasure, creating a definitive history of a cultural revolution rarely told. The film is a road map of how a rebellion against bodily repression can clutch joy and creative expression. Rinzler, working with ICG members Ben Spaner (Operator), Chris Green (1st AC), and Patrick Dooley (Camera Assistant) used an ALEXA LF, to recreate flashback footage “that was meant to look as if they are from the time period,” she shares. “This current footage was intermixed with archival from the actual period.”

Rebuilding – Writer/Director Max Walker-Silverman’s second feature is a personal story of a community’s life and resilience. Shot by Local 600 Director of Photography Alfonso Herrera Salcedo, this follow-up to Walker-Silverman’s debut feature, A Love Song (2022 Sundance Film Festival), is a loving portrait of the American West, told in the aftermath of an environmental and personal disaster. Against the backdrop of charred lands and a struggling small town, scattered lives coalesce in grief, and a uniquely resonant love story emerges. Going Herrera Salcedo on the project were Guild members Jason Brownrigg (1st AC), Amanda Lettieri (2nd AC) and Jake Westphal (DIT).

SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden Black Genius) –Local 600 Director of Photography Laura Merians shot this documentary for returning Sundance filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (Summer of Soul) that is an examination of the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone — the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic and enigmatic Sly Stone. Thompson and Merians, working with Panavision lensing, capture the band’s rise, reign, and subsequent fadeout, while shedding light on the unseen burden that comes with success for Black artists in America.

Merians says she and Thompson were inspired by the portrait photography of Irving Penn and wanted to approach the interviews as elegantly as possible, while still feeling intimate. “Our main goal was to evoke a casual one-on-one conversation like you were sitting across the table from the subject,” she shares. “We wanted the interviews to look and feel consistent, especially since they would be all over the map and at different times. We used an Interrotron system so the subject could keep eye contact with the interviewer. We wanted to color our backgrounds to evoke the flag on the album cover for “There’s a Riot Going On” and got custom-painted backings from Oliphant Studios in N.Y.  that we traveled with. We shot on a Sony Venice and I had two Panavision VA lenses that Dan Sasaki de-tuned; everything was shot on those two lenses.”

Midnight

Opus  – Emmy-nominee and ASC Award-winning Director of Photography Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC, shot this clever pop-horror feature about a young journalist (Ayo Edebiri) who is invited to the remote compound of a legendary pop star (John Malkovich) who mysteriously disappeared three decades back. Surrounded by the star’s cult of sycophants and intoxicated journalists, she finds herself in the middle of his twisted plan. Guild members joining Maddox-Upshaw on the film included Additional Photography by Director of Photograph Eric Branco, A-Camera Operator/Steadicam Matt Harshbarger, A-Camera 1st AC Alex Lim, A-Camera 2nd AC Camera Royce Leii, B-Camera Operator Kevin Emmons, SOC, B-Camera 1st AC Rob Salviotti, B-Camera 2nd AC Dorian Blanco, Loader Daniel Duerre, and Drone Pilot Spencer Valdez. Drone Camera Operators Marcus Del Negro and Jason Schultz also worked on the project.

Together – Guild Director of Photography Germain McMicking shot this Midnight Section drama from director Michael Shanks about an urban couple’s move to the countryside and the ensuing supernatural experiences that envelope their already troubled relationship. Starring (real-life couple) Dave Franco and Alison Brie, the film is infused with wildly nightmarish moments and a progressive range of visual nastiness that echoes the pair’s dysfunctional relationship. As McMicking describes: “I was instantly drawn to the originality and humor in Michael Shanks’ script.  It was a kind of rom-com/body horror, with a concept that felt strong, and a genre I hadn’t played in as a cinematographer before. This interested me as I’ve always tried to be fairly eclectic in the films I do.”

McMicking says the low-budget feature was not without challenges, including its Melbourne, Australia location doubling for the Pacific Northwest. “Trying to find locations that felt appropriate and vistas that occlude the eucalyptus trees that cover so much of the Australian landscape,” was tricky he shares. “But we managed to find a number of key locations up in the Dandenong Ranges that had more European foliage of oaks and pine and some architecture which felt right. The schedule was incredibly tight – about 20 days, with remote locations, set builds, prosthetics, and intricate VFX sequences all made on a very modest budget. Even though Michael Shanks was a first-time feature director, he was extremely well-prepared throughout, communicating his vision clearly, and drawing everyone in with his energy and enthusiasm. Michael has worked for years in music videos, and commercials, often specializing in VFX-heavy projects, so he had a lot of confidence in forming an approach to the more complicated sequences.”

Given the tight schedule, McMicking says he needed a camera package that was quick and nimble. “After much testing,” he adds, “we landed on shooting spherically with two Sony VENICE 2 cameras in 8K. Although mostly a single camera show, we kept one VENICE in ‘Studio mode’ for handheld, Steadicam, stabilized head and dolly-based work, and one constantly in ‘Rialto mode’ for tight locations, jamming the camera into corners, up flat to the ceiling, very low-angle shots and for the many moments where we needed that small form factor for particular movements on small rigs. The ergonomics of the Sony VENICE 2 in Rialto mode ultimately tipped the scale in camera choice, but the 8K resolution was also great for VFX, with occasional reframing for the final 4K finish. The dual high ISO also came in handy a couple of times in darkened interiors and night exteriors.”

Working with 1st AC Cam Gaze, McMicking tested a large range of anamorphic, spherical full frame, and super 35mm glass. “We were drawn to the full frame Zeiss Supreme Primes, liking the clarity and color rendition they offered,” he notes. “They felt honest and unfussy. They offer a great range of focal lengths, and at the wide end and are still quite straight without too much distortion. They are also great in low light, resolving well wide-open, and with 16-18 iris blades retain fairly round out-of-focus highlights throughout. They are all similar in size and weight, which makes lens changes fast and sped up that flow on set.”

Episodic

Buck’s County, USA – Local 600 Operators Antonio Rossi and Ben Bloodwell co-DP’d this docu-series from four-time Emmy-winning Producer/Director Barry Levinson about Evi and Vanessa, two 14-year-olds living in Bucks County, PA, who are best friends despite their opposing political beliefs. As nationwide disputes over public education explode into vitriol and division in their hometown, the girls and others in the community fight to discover the humanity in “the other side.”

Rossi says Bucks County USA is an in-progress five-part television series. “The project’s creators, director/producers Robert May and Barry Levinson, along with producer Jason SosnoJ, wanted to create a program about political division, and to actively look for characters who were willing to meet the challenge of finding common ground amidst the division,” Rossi explains. “The project has been filming for close to three years and there are still a few shoots remaining. Initially, most of the shoots consisted of long sit-down interviews with members of the community who had been identified as being on different sides of political issues. After the filmmakers zeroed in on specific subjects, we dropped the formal interview format and principal shooting methods shifted to verite and informal interviews. We also were able to get many of the characters together to talk through their differences.”

Both Rossi and Bloodwell come from the same New York documentary community and were inspired by many of the same DPs (Maryse Alberti in particular). “We have collaborated often in the past and we speak a common documentary language,” Rossi adds. “We did use different sets of equipment while we filmed  – Ben worked with Canons while I worked with the Sony FX9 and FX6 – but we shared an aesthetic. The main challenge was that we had to be ready for multiple types of shooting at all times, from formally lit interviews to many hours of long handheld conversations, with a minimal amount of support and only an SUV or minivan full of equipment. Robert May developed a great rapport with the subjects and we eventually gained incredible intimate access, which led to an engaging and personal shoot for everyone on the crew.” Longtime non-fiction Director of Photography (and frequent Sundance filmmaker) Guild Wolfgang Held also worked on the project, as did Directors of Photography Martina Radwan, and Sam Painter, who filmed in Los Angeles.

Bulldozer – Guild Director of Photography Michelle Lawler (Insecure, Big Little Lies) shot this story about “an undermedicated, chronically passionate young woman who lurches from crisis to crisis of her own making.” Actress Joanna Leeds wrote the screenplay for director Andrew Leeds.

Hal & Harper –Longtime Sundance filmmaker Doug Emmett shot this new 8-part episodic series for Director Cooper Raiff (2022 Sundance Audience Winner Cha Cha Real Smooth), about a pair of siblings (Raiff and Lili Rienhart) whose close relationship is built upon decades of inside jokes and shared pains, portrayed via flashbacks (with Raiff and Reinhart playing their elementary school-aged versions). Emmett says the project was shot on Sony VENICE, taking advantage of the camera’s high sensitivity rating and shooting at 4000 ISO.  Other Local 600 members on the project included 1st ACs Buddy Allen Thomas and Aaron Judlowe, and DIT Greg Gabrio.

Pee-wee as Himself – Western Region ICG Member David Paul Jacobson lensed this two-part non-fiction show for documentarian Matt Wolf about the artist and performer Paul Reubens, aka Pee-wee Herman. Wolf and Jacobson use a series of interviews to attempt to unravel the complexity of Reubens, who, sadly, in later years was more talked about for his off-camera troubles than his innovative TV series (and later feature film) Pee-wee’s Playhouse. 

Family Matinee

The Legend of Ochi –Western Region Director of Photography and 11-year ICG member Evan Prosofsky shot this imaginary fable from writer/director Isaiah Saxon about a farm girl named Yuri who is raised to fear an animal species known as Ochi. But when Yuri discovers a wounded baby Ochi has been left behind, she escapes on an adventure to bring him home. Dense forests and alpine terrain form the backdrop for the young heroine’s passion and determination to do the right thing, despite the cultural biases of her world. Helena Zengel stars as Yuri with four-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe, playing her Ochi-crazed father.

U.S. Fiction Short Films

Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting – Local 600 Director of Photography Scott Siracusano shot this short that’s set in the Depression-ravaged countryside of 1930s America, where adolescent girls are expected to fulfill a long-standing rite in which they hunt and slay a mythical beast of their mother’s choosing. Siracusano says one of the major challenges was that the project “was self-funded by Director Alexander Thompson and it also required a heavy amount of VFX – typically those two things don’t go hand in hand,” he observes. “Alexander wanted to strive for photo-realism with our creatures to make it a truly immersive experience for our audience. This meant that we had to take extra time between every setup to ensure that we captured accurate photometric data. We also had to work with puppeteering a realistically sized griffin head so that VFX and talent could properly track, and give our framing a sense of scale for what the final composites of the griffins would be.”