American Cinematographer - July 2016 - 78

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Behind the Bars

Cast and crew prepare to shoot an exterior prison-yard scene.

or 12'x12' diffusion in the more spacious
settings. Applying 8'x8' and 12'x12' egg
crates to make diffusion more directional
has been another time-saver. "It creates
less flagging," Littee says. "When you
add flags, you add time." Newell also
employs LiteGear LiteMat LED units
for convenient fill. "The fact that you can
put them close to walls, dim them and
change the color temperature allows you
to move pretty fast," the cinematographer notes.
In the prison setting, Littee has no
fear of toplight - typically tungstenbalanced units with a touch of blue gel, a
continuation of season one's lighting
- nor of the sun. Outside, he says, "I
control the light with a bit of diffusion
and maybe some negative [fill], but for
the most part I let it go. We are shooting
a prison show, and there's a harshness to
it." And in the scenes that revolve
around inmates breaking ground for the
dorm construction, Littee explains, "the
sun becomes a player in the dilemma
they're dealing with, working outside.
You have to embrace that. A lot of times,
too, I'll toplight them. My gaffer looks at
me like I'm crazy, but it's good! It doesn't
have to be all pretty. Let's live through
these characters and what they're experiencing."
A large part of Orange involves
two given characters engaged in conversation, and many of these tête-à-têtes
occur in the prison dorms - which
78

July 2016

happen to be Littee's most difficult set,
as it's cramped both inside and out.
None of the exterior dorm walls come
down, and on one side of the room the
windows are fairly large, while those
opposite are narrow and small. "The
biggest challenge is that we don't have a
whole lot of room outside the set," says
Littee. "There's 15 feet before I hit the
backdrop - sometimes less. Bill and I
are constantly fighting for space."
Littee often places 5Ks outside
the dorm windows. "Inside, I try to
match Image 85s with massive rags, just
to help fill," he explains. "Then I come
in with smaller lights, either the
LiteMat or small Kinos, that will go
through another frame. I also like to
bring some Kinos up above; if two characters are talking, I want to feel the light
right above them, to give them a threequarterish feel. I like to keep that harshness alive from overhead in the prison."
Shooting for six months in those
rooms over the course of a season, Littee
relishes his time outside the prison as
much as any inmate would. On the
various backstory locations, the color
palette expands beyond beige walls and
beige uniforms - the entire spectrum
available, offering Littee the ability to
create special flourishes. "When I shoot
the backstories, I always try to do a foreshadowing of prison life," he says, both
to enhance the story and as a personal
challenge.
American Cinematographer

One instance was the backstory
of Blanca Flores (Laura Gómez), the
curt, unibrowed inmate who had a
surprising prior life as a caretaker for an
elderly woman. "There's a scene with
Blanca in the shower, and I wanted to
add this feeling of bars somehow,"
Littee explains. "I had the opportunity
to do that with reflections of the
window on the shower door, which
created a bar-like pattern. When I find
those moments, it makes me happy."
Orange's postproduction takes
place in L.A., with color timing
performed via FilmLight's Baselight at
Encore Hollywood for a 4K IMF final
delivery. Littee communicates with
senior colorist Tony Smith by phone
after sending stills - but just a handful.
"If you send too many, they tend not to
go through them because it becomes
overwhelming," the cinematographer
notes. "They're coloring many shows;
it's not like you're the only one, so time
is a constraint there as well."
All 13 episodes of season four
were released on Netflix on June 17. In
February, the streaming service
announced it would be renewing
Orange Is the New Black for three more
seasons. Littee is already at work on
season five, which began shooting in
June. He still marvels that this opportunity came along when it did. "Did I
think I'd be director of photography on
a show like Orange at the time I was
offered the job? No, that wasn't even on
my radar. I thought I'd have another five
to eight years as camera operator and
shooting my little shorts. Then this
came along, and it was very difficult to
say no - but it took some courage to
say yes." ●

TECHNICAL SPECS
1.78:1
Digital Capture
Panasonic VariCam 35
Panavision Primo

American Cinematographer - July 2016

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