American Cinematographer - April 2014 - 30

A High-Profile Fixer
By Jean Oppenheimer

Do ends always justify means? If you
are in the business of cleaning up the indiscretions of high-profile clients, the answer is
yes. And in Washington, D.C., nobody
protects her clients more assiduously than
"fixer" Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington),
whose Rolodex bulges with the private
phone numbers of the most powerful
people in politics. Now in its third season,
the ABC series Scandal is one of many hit
primetime dramas in which "right" and
"wrong" are somewhat nebulous. "It's not
as simple as being good or evil," says Oliver
Bokelberg, ASC, BVK, who shot Scandal's
pilot and stayed on when the series got
picked up. "All of our characters are flawed,
but we don't judge them. We want to like
them."
Everybody who works at Olivia Pope
& Associates carries dark secrets and bears
hidden scars. Each has chosen to operate in
a world of lies and deceit, manipulation and
cover-ups. That theme of moral compromise is echoed in the show's visual style,
most strikingly in its use of beveled glass.
Bokelberg likes to keep the camera moving,
mainly on a dolly, and some of the most
arresting images are achieved by dollies past
30

April 2014

bits of beveled glass, a strategy Bokelberg
credits to pilot director Paul McGuigan. "I
initially saw it as a visually appealing
element," the cinematographer recalls.
"What I didn't anticipate was the emotional
and psychological levels it would add."
Double and fragmented images,
distortions and lens flares are used to
suggest the duality of the characters, the
moral ambiguity of their actions and the
dark recesses of their minds. "The psychology behind the images has become
stronger and stronger," says Bokelberg. "I
think a lot happens in the viewer's mind
when he sees them." No one can predict
the result when the camera dollies past the
beveled glass, a move that is frequently
coupled with a zoom. "The effect is
random, which is the beauty of it," observes
Bokelberg. "It can't be re-created in a
computer; it [happens naturally]. And we
have great editors who pick just the right
moments."
Plain glass also features prominently
in the architectural design of OPA, which is
built on a soundstage at Sunset Gower
Studios. The set was modeled on the practical location used for the pilot. Bokelberg
recalls that when he and McGuigan were
scouting locations, the director fell in love
with a huge corner wall of windows in an
American Cinematographer

Scandal photos by Danny Feld and Randy Holmes, courtesy of ABC.

Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is a high-powered Washington, D.C., consultant who specializes
in crisis management in Scandal.

empty loft on the seventh floor of an old
movie theater in downtown Los Angeles.
"It was an enormous space, and line
producer Merri Howard and pilot production designer Marcia Hinds turned it into
the offices of OPA," says the cinematographer. "When the show got picked up, our
walls came out from fold-and-hold, and
series production designer Corey Kaplan
added the window wall and shrank the set
to make it fit our stages."
The set consists of several rooms
divided by glass doors with strips of beveled
glass around the edges. The cameras typically peer into the conference room from
the foyer. "I like the sense of peeking in on
things," remarks Bokelberg. "It should all
feel a little loose, like we are accidentally
seeing something or capturing it out of the
corner of our eye."
In other areas of OPA, and on sets
built on other stages, beveled Plexiglas
panels are positioned in front of the
cameras. "The panels are an inch thick and
come in two sizes, 13-by-8 inches and 6-by12 inches," says Bokelberg. "We place the
panels as close to the lens as possible, about
8 inches away. This only works with a lens
75mm or longer, however. The panels are
on a wooden base, and we can change the
number of them and the distance between
them."
When AC visited the set, Cyrus (Jeff
Perry), the president's chief of staff, was
engaged in a heated argument with his
husband, James (Dan Bucatinsky), in the
empty White House press bullpen. It was
the night of the Inaugural Ball. The upper
walls of the room consist of glass. "Both
cameras are on a 10-foot stretch of dolly
track laid [outside the bullpen]," explains
Bokelberg. "One camera is shooting into
the room through Venetian blinds on one
of the panes of glass. We removed the glass
from another window, allowing the second
camera to shoot directly into the room. For
the last two takes, we'll set up our beveled
Plexi panels, which will give us some transitional moments and panel reflections."
A-camera operator Michael "Woj"
Wojciechowski steps up to director
of photography on double-up days,
tech-scout days, and on the episodes that
Bokelberg directs. Steve Fracol is the
B-camera/Steadicam operator. "Oliver

American Cinematographer - April 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - April 2014