American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 41

Unit photography by Anne Marie Fox, courtesy of HBO.

Opposite:
Journalist Camille
Preaker (Amy
Adams) returns to
her hometown to
cover the murders
of two local
teenagers in the
HBO miniseries
Sharp Objects.
This page, left:
Camille reconnects
with her
estranged mother,
Adora (Patricia
Clarkson), and
young half-sister,
Amma (Eliza
Scanlen). Below:
Cinematographer
Yves Bélanger, CSC
(second from left)
discusses a scene
with director JeanMarc Vallée (right).

Bélanger had committed to a start date
on another project that posed a conflict,
so he and Vallée determined that
Bélanger would shoot the first 55 days
of Sharp Objects - essentially the first
four episodes - and then turn cinematography duties over to Ronald
Plante, CSC. "Ronald is a great friend
and I trust him completely," says
Bélanger. "In Quebec, when he or I can't
do a job, we give it to each other. Ronald
came to the set a week or two before I
left, watched us work, looked at the
rushes and then just took over."
Logistically and creatively, Sharp
Objects represented some departures for
Vallée and Bélanger, who together
created an aesthetic Vallée happily calls
"raw" and "imperfect" on such films as
Dallas Buyers Club, Wild (AC Jan. '15)
and Demolition (AC May '16). Practical
locations and an available-light look are
essential to their approach, but on Sharp
Objects they had to achieve a similar
verisimilitude onstage at Los Angeles'
Occidental Studios, where interiors and
partial exteriors of a key set, Camille's
family home, were built. Roughly half of
the shoot took place on this set; loca-

tions in Barnesville, Ga., doubled for
most of the other sites in Wind Gap.
Exteriors of the house, a
Victorian mansion, were shot at a
private residence in Redwood Valley,
Calif., but because the set that production designer John Paino built onstage
included the mansion's veranda as well
as interiors, the filmmakers could also
shoot some exterior action onstage.
Surrounding the set almost completely
was a 400'-long-by-40'-high Translite
created by J.C. Backings from stills
www.ascmag.com

taken on location. "We wanted to be
able to see outside without cutting,"
explains Bélanger. "With Jean-Marc, we
often do all the angles in one take. It's
nice for the actors because they're always
in the scene and in the mood."
The series' opening sequence
showcases the filmmakers' skillful
blending of exterior location work with
interiors shot onstage, and it also fluidly
links the present to the past, establishing
that the latter is never distant for
Camille. In the dialogue-free sequence,
August 2018

41



http://www.ascmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - August 2018

Contents
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 1
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 2
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - Contents
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 4
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 5
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 6
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 7
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 8
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 9
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 10
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 11
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 12
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 13
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 14
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 15
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 16
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 17
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 18
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 19
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 20
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 21
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 22
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 23
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 24
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 24a
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 24b
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 25
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 26
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 27
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 28
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 29
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 30
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 31
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 32
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 33
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 34
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 35
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 36
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 37
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 38
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 39
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 40
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 41
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 42
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 43
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 44
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 45
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 46
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 47
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 48
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 49
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 50
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 51
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 52
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 53
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 54
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 55
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 56
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American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 79
American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 80
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