American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 22

Campbell
(second from
right),
showrunner
Sam Esmail (far
right) and crew
plan their next
move.

Sometimes you only get to see one eye.
There's this cloudiness that surrounds him
because the truth of his environment is
obscured.
Did your crew stay the same?
Campbell: A-camera first assistant
Michael Garofalo and B-camera first Wes
Hodges have been with me for both seasons.
They're incredible focus pullers, considering
we're never above a T2. I had the same key
grip, Richie Guinness [Jr.], and he's the person
I lean on the heaviest; he is literally my righthand man. I can show up to work in the
morning and everything is built and ready to
go. Rigging key William Kerwick and his team
go above and beyond. Gaffer Charlie Grubbs
and rigging gaffer John Woods also really just
blow me away.
What's your shooting schedule
like?
Campbell: In season one we had
seven days to shoot an hour-long episode, so
we had to move very quickly, shooting seven
to nine pages a day. Going into season two
we had eight days an episode. We did the
first four episodes in one block, went on
hiatus, then came back and shot two threeepisode blocks. Some days might touch all 10
episodes if you're trying to shoot out one
location in a single day.
How involved are your camera
operators - Craig Haagensen, Aaron
Medick and Brian Jackson - in designing
your shots and compositions?
Campbell: When I first met with
Craig, he came in with tons of stills and video
references and we went through them all. I
told him, 'Look, I know you've been doing
this for almost as long as I've been alive, so
this is going to seem very awkward and
22

November 2016

bizarre.' Aaron has been the Steadicam guy
for both seasons so far, and he was also our
A-camera operator for season two, when
Brian came into the B-camera position. Both
of these guys quickly adapted to the unconventional framing, and that first episode we
did together, that's where we found it. Now
we'll set up a shot and Sam will either love
it or hate it or noodle with it a little bit until
we find that 'Robot shot.'
Does the framing affect the
kinds of sets and locations you shoot
in?
Campbell: It definitely influences
our locations because we're looking for
things a more conventionally photographed
show might not consider. For instance,
when we do our scouts we look at the lines
in the ceiling, which will more often than
not be in-frame. In some locations, the floor
is terrible, but we don't have to worry about
it because we know mostly we'll never even
see the floor.
I imagine this poses some unique
challenges for your locations managers
and production designers.
Campbell: Sam is with us on every
scout, and we decide on the locations
together. He wants to make sure everyone
is happy with the locations we choose.
Demian Resnick, the locations manager
from season one, was very aware of it and
would come to us with photos of just ceilings. Anastasia White [took over as production designer for] season two. She'd worked
with us once before as an art director. She's
very smart and aware of what's going to be
on-camera. It was a language we were all
speaking.
How much do you rely on visual
American Cinematographer

effects to help you tell the story?
Campbell: Sam's not crazy about
visual effects, so we try to keep it minimal.
Sometimes we can't get around it for things
like gunshots and blood spurts due to the
reset time [necessary for practical effects]. Any
time we have a larger shot, like the scene
where Elliot is released from prison and the
camera tilts up from the basketball court to
the sky, then back down to the prison yard, I'll
request that the supervisors come with us on
the tech scout. They'll always be there on the
day, even for the smallest stuff.
Are they helping you design these
shots?
Campbell: I definitely look to them for
creative input. I can tell you where the sun's
going to be, how the actors will be blocked,
and I can shoot greenscreen all day long, but
I can't tell you exactly what we're going to
need to pull off a complicated visual-effects
shot.
Do you like to color grade on set?
Campbell: We shoot Robot in 5K
[Redcode] raw with Red Weapons, and when
I'm shooting I try to get the image as close as
I possibly can to what it's going to look like
when people stream it or watch it on TV. I had
the Low-Light Optimized optical low-pass
filter installed in each camera, and our LUT
starts at 10-percent desaturation, with the
blacks slightly lifted. There's a little warmth in
there. Sometimes Sam will want to change a
shot with subtle white-balance shifts and
maybe some contrast tweaks, but largely we
do it all on set before it goes to colorist Laura
Jans Fazio at [Deluxe's] Encore in Hollywood.
[Ed. note: Fazio works with a FilmLight Baselight system and delivers 1920x1080 HD files.]
It might be slightly darker on television
because of the compression, but if you don't
go that far right away and everyone at the
studio gets used to seeing dailies look a
certain way, they freak out the minute you
change it in the grade. Our DIT, Doug Horton,
has been with us for both seasons. He's also
my therapist when I'm freaking out about
how dark the image is.
What kind of technical support did
you receive from the camera house?
Campbell: NBCUniversal has a rental
contract with Sim Digital out of Montreal; we
shoot on location in New York City, and we
used TCS in New York City as our point of
contact. Erik Schietinger is one of the owners

American Cinematographer - November 2016

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