American Cinematographer - May 2017 - 26

Multiple cameras are put into position around Law.

Gandolfo, the pope's summer residence;
Villa Lante for the Vatican Gardens; and
Palazzo Venezia for the Vatican's passageways and stairwells. "Rome is a city where
every corner hides environments historically
connected to the Church," Bigazzi notes.
When picking locations, Sorrentino
says, "I wanted a great deal of half-lights
and the sun entering the windows with a
beautiful light. Priests always live in places
with a wonderful orientation and an
enchanting light."
The play of extreme light and dark
was key to the show's look. "From time to
time, I wanted Jude to be struck by a glow
reminiscent of sainthood," the director
notes. Bigazzi adds, "From the very beginning, we said that our pope should have an
evident opalescence; his very white clothes
had to be a source of light. The Pro-Mist
filter [in 1⁄8, 1⁄4 and 1⁄2 densities] was
extremely useful for this. In the bright
scenes, I often had to overexpose the
image. In other scenes, we verged on the
deepest darkness - an attitude far
removed from the style of TV, and one I
could assume only thanks to the courage of
a director like Paolo."
As in their previous project, Youth,
Bigazzi and Sorrentino employed Red's Epic
Dragon camera, shooting mostly 4K -
sometimes 5K or 6K. "This allowed us to
26

May 2017

sometimes use medium lenses and obtain a
wide-angle effect without suffering the
distortions typical of extreme lenses,"
Bigazzi says. Two cameras were always
deployed, and often three, with LTO 6 tape
drives for data storage. The production
carried a double set of Leica Summicron-C
primes, a 10mm Arri/Zeiss Ultra Prime, and
Canon zooms (14.5-60mm [T2.6] and 30300mm [T2.95-3.7] Cinema Zooms, and
15.5-47mm [T2.8] and 30-105mm [T2.8]
Cinema Compact Zooms). Pro-Mist filters
were used throughout.
Bigazzi also made frequent use of
the Dragon's HDR settings "to selectively
increase the exposure latitude without
losing detail with bright lights," he says.
"This also allows me to use exclusively
natural light on the set without being
forced to worry about overexposure from
the windows or other light sources. It's a
system that has once and for all freed me
from the constrictions linked to light
balance, and represents for me a definitive
turning point that has convinced me about
the superiority of digital shooting techniques."
The series' overall look is signature
Sorrentino: long, winding camera moves as
sinuous as calligraphy, and grid-like configurations as geometric and symmetrical as
Renaissance one-point perspective. Except
American Cinematographer

for dialogue-heavy scenes, the camera is
always gliding, floating, probing. "I'm a
curious person, and to satisfy my curiosity,
the camera needs to investigate,"
Sorrentino says.
One bravura example opens episode
nine: The Pope and his mentor, Cardinal
Spencer (James Cromwell), are alone in the
Sistine Chapel, engaged in a complex theological dialogue about abortion. The shot
goes for seven uncut minutes, during which
the camera travels behind and over the
cardinal, across the vast room towards the
pope, then around them in loops, going in
and out of two-shots. The scene ends when
the pope mentions his mother, who abandoned him at an orphanage. As he exits,
the camera pushes in on the faces of the
damned in Michelangelo's The Last Judgement.
"This is a long sequence shot that
Paolo conceived as a complex Steadicam
movement, which in my opinion is surprising and successful," says the cinematographer. "Sequence shots force everyone into a
remarkable concentration."
Bigazzi continues with another
example. "One of the most effective scenes
from the choreographic point of view was
Jude Law entering the Sistine Chapel in
episode five - an entrance reminiscent of
ancient Egypt. It's powerfully formal, but
also full of meaning in the way it illustrates
the complex personality of Lenny Belardo.
We shot it using a Technocrane, with lighting balloons suspended on the ceiling
because the shooting field, as always with
Paolo, was 360 degrees. The scene was very
complex and required several frames, so we
decided to use four cameras. Of course, we
had to reconstruct the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel using special effects, and this
allowed me, in the most extreme full-shots,
to frame the lights, counting on the fact
that they'd be erased in visual effects - a
great advantage in terms of speed and light
quality. It was a long scene with a lot of
extras, and we managed to shoot it in a
single, very tiring day."
Remarkably, Sorrentino and Bigazzi
do not choreograph their shots in advance.
"I used to storyboard when I was younger,
but not anymore," Sorrentino states. "I
don't know why. I prefer going to the set,
hanging around there for 10 minutes on my

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