American Cinematographer - August 2011 - 24

Left: Nurse Violet McReady (Christine Donlon) preps for revenge against Laz (Robert LaSardo) in “Bad Medicine.” Right: Beth (Carlee Baker, left) and Darla (Anya Monzikova) hatch a plan in “Something Like Murder.”

Klutz. “It’s really the workhorse for us,” he says. “We put it on a dolly track at the end of the day, and we can get wide shots and tight shots all with the same lens.” Layering a noir aesthetic over episodes that vary wildly in tone — hardboiled drama, comedy, horror — is probably the biggest challenge the filmmakers face. Some of this aesthetic is achieved as one might expect: with less light, lots of silhouettes and plenty of contrast and diffusion. “But we also want our actresses, the femmes fatale, to always look glamorous,” notes Chingirian, “so sometimes it’s hard to go as dark as we might want. In those situations, we’ll have them come in and out of light, for example, but really, a lot of the show’s look is achieved with color contrasts.” For example, several episodes have been set in hospitals. “We aren’t afraid to shoot on a location with institutional-green walls and really go with it, mixing up color temperatures along the way,” continues the cinematographer. “We’ll also add and take away light in shots. Our colorist at Tunnel Post, Sebastian Perez-Burchard, and I will later take it further if necessary.” Gaffer Steve Lundgren says the look “is all about playing with shadows and highlights in deep backgrounds. We often position practicals such as Christmas lights, sconces and floor lamps beyond the main action to create depth, so we don’t get stuck without a solution at our [various locations].”
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Chingirian uses camera placement and movement to not only highlight the blocking of each scene, but also to maximize the strength of each location. “We recently shot a robbery sequence in a 1930s Art Deco bank that had incredibly high, ornate ceilings,” he explains. “We put the camera on the ground so we could angle up on our actors and get all that architectural detail in the frame, and it was a great visual. That’s how we take advantage of practical locations; we’ll walk in, identify its best features and then figure out how to enhance those with camera angles and lighting. If it requires a specific piece of gear, we’ll try to arrange that.” A heist-gone-wrong episode, “White Flower,” was shot mostly in a small space in the old Los Angeles Herald Examiner building downtown, and the filmmakers “strived to utilize a constantly moving camera in order to allow the confined space to become a character of its own,” says Chingirian. “Key elements of the approach involved using a Fisher dolly on dance floor and adding foreground elements to make the space come to life. A malfunctioning neon-sign lighting effect staged outside one window [achieved with practicals and additional lamps on flicker boxes] added visual interest and noir ambience.” In the supernaturally flavored episode “Haunted,” he continues, “we essentially added a horror aesthetic to our noir approach to suggest a haunted house.
American Cinematographer

Our director said he wanted to get as close to a Hammer Films look as possible, so we experimented with negative space, creating a layering effect by framing the audience’s attention toward the actors in the scene while keeping the edges of the frame in complete darkness aside from firelight and candle effects. “We usually choose locations that we can play for exactly what they are, but also play as more than one thing,” he adds. “We’ve shot in a warehouse that also doubled for an alley, and in a mansion that also doubled for a park. Those are things we do all the time. That’s how we make our schedule and give the show a ‘bigger’ look.” The production carries a fairly extensive tungsten and HMI lighting package, which allows the team even greater flexibility in solving creative and logistical problems. Indeed, the collaboration between Chingirian, a former gaffer, and Lundgren accounts for many of the production’s solutions. Lundgren explains that the lighting strategy is about “working in layers, maintaining contrast while creating separation by adding kicks and hotspots in the background. We also use a number of small practical sources that can easily be dropped into the background for separation.” For night exteriors, the production tends to use an 18K or 20K Fresnel mounted on 60' or 80' Condors, along with

American Cinematographer - August 2011

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