Strange Stories The Boys' Dan Stoloff and Snowpiercer's John Grillo design compelling visuals for sci-fi worlds. S 40 / JULY 2021 cience fiction presents insightful perspectives by way of fantastical scenarios and thrilling impossibilities. AC has chosen a pair of sci-fi series to examine how cinematographers help create the extra-normal elements necessary for these stories to play out. As The Boys director of photography Dan Stoloff tells writer Iain Marcks, depicting an everyday world was essential to the design of an environment in which superheroes believably exist - as were bursts of hyper-reality that reflect a manufactured corporate fantasy. In contrast, Snowpiercer cinematographer John Grillo was tasked with capturing environments that are - much like in shows within the Star Trek universe (see pages 26 and 30) - otherworldly nearly all the time, which called for regular use of techniques normally relegated to special circumstances. Like Lost in Space or Flash Gordon from decades past, these shows explore human circumstances through a filter of speculative imagination, and it's the cinematographers' responsibility to assist in engaging audiences with unbelievable experiences. - Andrew Fish THE BOYS PHOTOS COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS.