American Cinematographer - August 2021 - 24

A MUSICAL BLOCK PARTY
Left: In the phantasmagorical musical sequence
" Paciencia y Fe, " set in a subway, Abuela
Claudia (Olga Merediz) reflects on her life as
an immigrant from Cuba. Right: Chu directs
Merediz while shooting the sequence.
Reteaming on Tick, Tick... Boom!
Following the production of In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda and
Alice Brooks teamed up again, on Jonathan Larson's musical Tick,
Tick... Boom!, Miranda's feature-length directorial debut. " I saw how
well Alice and Jon worked together, " Miranda says. " I could see that
it was a true partnership, and that was exciting to me. I also saw
the magic she was creating with Jon. In the Heights and Tick, Tick...
Boom! could not be more different musicals - in tone, in the stories
they're trying to tell, full stop. When I got to sit down with Alice to
talk about Tick, Tick, she said, 'My father was a playwright. We lived
in New York and moved in 1990.' And I was like, 'I really don't know
how else you could be more qualified.' She has a lived experience
of the Village [during that] time and from the same angle that I did,
which was as a child. We were both 10 years old in that era. I knew
she would make it look like I wanted it to look. And we just had an
amazing time making the film together. We would shake our heads
while we were shooting these musical sequences and go, 'Why do
people want to make anything but musicals? They're so much f---ing
fun!' I'm so happy she's been able to do this double whammy, going
from Heights straight to Tick, Tick with me. "
Tick, Tick... Boom! is scheduled for release on Netflix later this
year.
not observing, but actually participating as one of the community members
seated at the table with everyone else. We wanted [the tone of the
scene] to feel very warm. Jon grew up around food, so [for him], food is
nourishment and showing your love and respect for other people. At the
beginning of the scene, we wanted to invite all of those sensory experiences
of food, so we did all these detail shots of food, mostly lit with
practicals. We did a lot of long-lens shots - over people's shoulders or in
between people - with 10 people at a dinner table for a scene that plays
for nine minutes of screen time. It was hot, and it was intense. "
The apartment shots are juxtaposed with a crane shot that pulls
back to reveal a vibrant, fast-paced night of clubbing, with dancing and
drinks, after Usnavi and Vanessa embark on their date. The nightlife sequence
was shot at a club in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood; in an
effort to be economical and expedient, the team used many of the venue's
existing lighting units, which were already programmed into a dimmer
board. Brooks met with theatrical lighting designer Christina See
to pick the setting's predominant colors: rust, amber and an occasional
cyan light that panned through the club. " We wanted to make sure there
was a cool color somewhere so that you always feel the warmth, instead
of just getting used to it, " she says. " We programmed all the light cues to
be locked into the timecode of the music track.
" At the club, our characters are experiencing all of this internal turmoil,
and their confusion and frustration play out in the music and the
dance, " Brooks continues. " The moving lights [of the club] bounce off
reflective surfaces, creating this chaos. We use a lot of crane shots and
Steadicam as we flow through the space, but it's really about these two
people who just can't quite get together. Then, as the lights go out, we cut
24 / AUGUST 2021
American Cinematographer - August 2021

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