American Cinematographer - March 2010 - 52

◗ Home-Screen Hits world but doesn’t become camp or farce,” says Baffa. “That realism serves as a safety net, in a way. If the material were combined with aggressive, highly stylized visuals, I think it would be too much.” The pilot was shot at several schools in the Los Angeles area, but John Burroughs High School in Burbank was the main location. For the series, production designer Mark Hutman borrowed elements of the actual schools to design hallway, classroom and office sets, and Baffa incorporated some lighting schemes from the practical locations. For the pilot, Baffa often lit from the ceiling, either changing out existing fluorescent fixtures or bouncing light into the ceiling and flagging it off walls. “Sometimes, usually on close-ups, that bounced light was further diffused by frames of Full Grid,” he says. “The overall approach gave us a nice, realistic high-school feel and allowed a lot of flexibility to do exploratory camera moves.” On the soundstage, Baffa replicated that look with overhead fixtures, sometimes blasting light through bleached-muslin ceiling pieces to create a single large, glowing source. Working onstage with greenbeds also allowed him to create more directional light when necessary. Glee’s permanent sets are built on four stages at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. They include school hallways, one classroom that is redressed to portray a variety of classrooms, and a couple of offices, including those of the school principal and Sue Sylvester ( Jane Lynch), Schuester’s archrival. Other key sets are the choir room, where the Glee Club meets, and the teachers’ lounge, which is almost an exact replica of the lounge at Burroughs. “We loved the teacher’s lounge at Burroughs because it had two glass walls that gave us layers to play with and let in some daylight,” explains Baffa. “On location, ambient daylight was generally just there, but on the series we had to create that feel.” Positioned outside the lounge’s glass walls are almost 20 six-light coops The misfit kids in the Glee Club put on a show in a scene from Glee, shot by Christopher Baffa, ASC. Glee Cinematographer: Christopher Baffa, ASC One of television’s newest series, Glee, takes a sometimes-snarky, sometimes-sincere look at the politics and peccadilloes of a high-school Glee Club. Matthew Morrison plays Will Schuester, an earnest Spanish teacher who hopes to revive the club, which is populated by an array of hormoneaddled students. Characters often break into song, and more elaborate production numbers are designed to communicate the magical thrill of performance. “We have moments of heightened, exaggerated comedy, as well as some surprisingly dramatic material,” says Christopher Baffa, ASC, the show’s cinematographer. “We’re trying to do that M*A*S*H thing, where the audience is laughing one moment and genuinely touched the next.” Baffa and Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy previously worked together on the hit F/X series Nip/Tuck (AC Feb. ’04) and the feature Running With Scissors (2006), but their first collaboration occurred back in 1999, on two seasons of 52 March 2010 another high-school dramedy, Popular. Baffa says he found Murphy’s script for the Glee pilot “very fresh, clever and insightful, and I was happy for the opportunity to do something this unusual.” When 20th Century Fox TV picked up the show, Baffa stayed aboard. “The challenge of doing the series — taking what we’d learned on the pilot and carrying it out on an episodic schedule and budget — was compelling,” he says. “I know some cinematographers are wary of the commitment involved in shooting a TV series, but I’ve come to appreciate the stability.” In their discussions about the show’s look, Baffa, Murphy and cocreators Ian Brennan and Brad Falchuk focused on accessibility. “That’s been a staple of my work with Ryan, who is interested in characters and situations that can be a bit difficult to identify with,” notes Baffa. “I think he has a real gift for depicting the intricacies of the human condition.” That outlook, in turn, leads to mainly naturalistic visuals. “We want Glee to be rooted in reality so that when the drama or comedy is heightened, or when there is a musical number, it contrasts with the everyday American Cinematographer Glee photos by Carin Baer, courtesy of Fox Broadcasting Co.

American Cinematographer - March 2010

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