American Cinematographer - May 2021 - 51

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM

Below: Comparing five 8mm formats. Right: Frames from the American Horror Story
episode " The Origins of Monstrosity, " shot on Super 8 by Michael Goi, ASC, ISC.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY FRAMES COURTESY OF MICHAEL GOI, ASC, ISC.

For our discussion, Goi supplied a brief clip
from his work on " The Origins of Monstrosity " - Episode 6 of AHS' second season. Shot
on Super 8 negative, the scene depicts a 1960s
pool party in which a character is humiliated by
a cruel practical joke. " The scene wasn't scripted to be shot on Super 8, but it was a flashback
and I wanted it to have the feeling of an unpleasant memory. The scene is brief, so the effect had to work in an immediate way, playing
off everybody's experience with home movies.
" That creative approach was the reason why
I frequently used different film stocks and formats on the show - to visually express the
story through the use of a particular medium
in addition to the framing, lighting, and everything else that goes into a shot or scene.

correction baked in. That makes it easier to be
played with later. "
Goi notes, however, that cinematographers
working in television rarely have the time to
participate in those timing sessions, meaning
that shooting film is also one of the few ways
to help maintain the show's visual integrity. " I
got a lot of compliments on my work in American Horror Story, and I was very proud that I
was able to take the images from my head and
get them on the screen using primarily in-camera techniques, with very little done in post. If I
wanted the image super-saturated, with deep,
rich blacks, I'd use color-reversal film. If I wanted everything desaturated, with pastel tones,
I'd pull the processing on a particular color
negative by two stops. If I wanted black-and-

" I was very proud that I was able to take the images from my
head and get them on the screen using primarily in-camera
techniques, with very little done in post. "
" As an opposite example, I shot a pilot where
it was scripted that a flashback scene should
look like a home movie, so I thought, 'Perfect,
we'll shoot Super 8.' But the producers wanted to shoot in high-def and treat it in post to
look like Super 8. Well, we shot it and then they
spent three days playing around with the image
to make it look organic, as Super 8 does. So they
increased the grain, then added sprocket holes,
and, in the end, it just looked pretty ... fake. And
it would have been so easy to do if we'd just
shot it correctly, on Super 8. It would've looked
exactly how they wanted.
" These kinds of situations come from the
fear of not having options. It's the same thing
that drives the request that everything digital be shot in raw format, without any color

white, I shot black-and-white film. It was easy
and immediate, and that helped us get our episodes done on time. But that approach requires
the production to be confident in the cinematographer and the vision everyone has agreed
upon in prep. "
Says Edward Lachman, ASC, " Our control
of the image is dictated by the technology that
we're given and choose to use. " The cinematographer earned Emmy and ASC nominations for
his work on the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce
(AC April '11), and Academy and ASC nominations for the theatrical-release drama Carol (AC
Dec. '15), both shot on Super 16 and directed by
his longtime collaborator Todd Haynes. " Our
experience on Mildred Pierce informed our approach to Carol in that we wanted to re-create
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American Cinematographer - May 2021

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