American Cinematographer - July 2020 - 43

Jon Joffin, ASC (q, at right,
with director and executive producer
Steven Adelson) describes the
supernatural drama Motherland:
Fort Salem as "a rich alternate
universe."

Motherland frame pull by Jon Joffin, ASC. Photo by David Skidmore, courtesy of Freeform.

Alice Brooks
Home Before Dark
Apple TV Plus
Inspired by the reporting of a real 9year-old journalist, this mystery follows a
girl who unearths a long-buried cold case
after moving back to her father's small
town.
"The working title for Home
Before Dark was Magic Hour, and that
became the title of the pilot. For the
show, we defined 'magic hour' as
somewhere between childhood and
adulthood, when the waning light is
made all the more beautiful by the
threat of its end. I used this definition
as the visual intention for the cinematography; the look is elegant, livedin, handmade and embraces the
waning light, the shadows. We shot
with customized Panavision G Series
lenses on the DXL 2, using the scope of
anamorphic to portray how the world
feels to our young hero, Hilde Lisko
[Brooklynn Prince]. The childlike
perspective allowed us to be 1,000 feet
up in the air and suddenly 2 inches
away, seeing details that Hilde sees but
others miss. We experimented with
darkness and flares to make the audience want to lean in, to look around the
corner, to see farther - the way a child
in an adult world does.
"The biggest challenge was

working with child actors. Brooklynn
was 8, and she's in 90 percent of the
scenes. She is remarkable, professional,
a great human being and a great
actress, but she is still a minor, and that
greatly affected our shooting schedule.
We all knew it was going to be hard,
and every department was up for the
challenge.
"In fact, the creativity that was
born out of this limitation was amazing. The gaffer, Trevor Crist, and I came
up with a stage-lighting plan using
LED fixtures that made the transition
from day to night or night to magic
hour take less than five minutes. This
freed up time to sculpt interior lighting. During prep, director Jon Chu
asked me to avoid obvious choices. I
worked with camera operators Jim van
Dijk and Wayne MacConnell to
develop a plan that made it feel like we
had more shots than time allowed and
gave us ways around shooting standard coverage. Jim shot A-camera
either on Steadicam or off the dolly on
dance floor, and Wayne would shoot Bcamera on either the 75mm or 100mm,
usually from low off-axis angles on a
slider. I asked Wayne to move in
between takes, even if it was only a few
inches. Children are always shifting
and moving, and the change in position within a scene really helped us get
into Hilde's head.
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"Episode 6, '88 Miles an Hour,'
directed by Kat Candler, is one of my
favorites. It travels from present day
back to the night in 1988 when the
mystery of the series begins. The
showrunners really trusted Kat's and
my instincts. The final time transition is
a three-minute oner that has 14 lighting
cues. We filmed the scene in a very
small practical location, and both the
past and present are seen within the
same shot. It was wonderful to work
out the shot with Kat during prep and
then execute it with the whole team.
"The true-life reporter, Hilde
Lysiak, uncovered a murder in her
town when she was 9. I'm thrilled that
there's a smart and brave character on
TV that little girls can admire."
Cort Fey, ASC
You
Netflix
A dangerously charming, obsessive
man goes to extreme measures to insert
himself into others' lives.
"The visuals reflect the lead
character, Joe, and his worldview.
Everything was aimed at putting the
audience into Joe's head - and what a
head to be inside! He is romantic and
sinister, loving and devoted, obsessive
July 2020

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American Cinematographer - July 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 2020