It’s been an eventful awards season for Anastas N. Michos, ASC, GSC. Michos’ work on “The Autopsy” episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, the Netflix anthology series, landed the cinematographer an ASC Award nomination in January and an Emmy nod last week.
Cabinet of Curiosities scored a total of seven Emmy nominations, the others for production design, period costumes, main title design, prosthetic makeup, original main title theme music, and sound editing.
Michos garnered the Cabinet gig based in part on his collaborative relationship with director David Prior, whom del Toro selected for “The Autopsy” episode. Michos had shot the Prior-helmed feature film The Empty Man, a Fox studio release in 2020, which combined mystery, suspense, horror and the supernatural. When Prior took on “The Autopsy,” he naturally gravitated to Michos based on their prior positive experience working together.
Michos noted that he and Prior enjoy a shorthand, which made it easier to navigate obstacles they encountered on Cabinet, including having to prep and shoot during the pandemic. Michos recalled having to do two weeks of prep while confined in a condo apartment in Canada, for example. Michos and Prior, each in his respective condo, would separately watch the same select films as possible visual references for “The Autopsy,” helping them develop a visual grammar for the episode which introduces us to a doctor (portrayed by F. Murray Abraham) who, while examining dead miners, discovers that one of the bodies is inhabited by an alien.
In that he worked with Prior before, Michos said he “knew what his proclivities were in terms of what he liked, what he responded to.” The DP added that the director embraces ideas, no matter the source, which help to advance story and characters. “He has a real genuine excitement about an idea that elevates or emphasizes the film language, the grammar he’s trying to use,” observed Michos who values the mutual, steady give-and-take of ideas he has with Prior.
While Michos did not work directly on “The Autopsy” with del Toro--a three-time Oscar winner (Best Picture and Best Director for The Shape of Water in 2018, and Best Animated Feature for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio this year), the DP did connect with one of that filmmaker’s regular collaborators, production designer Tamara Deverell. Michos described Deverell’s work on “The Autopsy” as “phenomenal,” noting that her responsibilities extended to the entire series, working in concert with del Toro who served as a creator and curator of the show. Deverell’s track record with del Toro has often centered on him as a director, including for Nightmare Alley, which earned her Oscar and BAFTA Award nominations for Best Achievement in Production Design. Deverell additionally served as art director on director del Toro’s film Mimic, and production designer on his TV series, The Strain. Deverell has won Art Directors Guild (ADG) Excellence in Production Design Awards the last two years in a row--for Nightmare Alley in 2022 and Cabinet of Curiosities earlier this year. And of course she now has an alluded to Emmy nomination for production design thanks to Cabinet of Curiosities.
Michos said that Deverell’s work on “The Autopsy” proved integral, capturing the 1970s’ era and helping him immeasurably in the cinematography, perhaps most notably for a mine explosion sequence, Michos noted that Deverell created a mine set that was brilliantly detailed. The construction of a mine and mineshaft with removable walls afforded him the room to realize the desired camera movement, lighting and what Michos described as “the intent of camera” he and Prior had envisioned.
Prior and Michos went with the RED Monstro camera for “The Autopsy,” in concert with Zeiss lenses.
Michos shared that a prime takeaway for him from his experience on “The Autopsy” was the kinship of collaborators. While industry artisans are "nomadic," going from city to city, country to country to shoot things, they have a shared purpose, said Michos who described Cabinet of Curiosities as "a great example" of filmmakers coming together and ending up "on the same page to produce a narrative that resonates." He noted that assorted collaborators on cast and crew share this strong bond, citing such contributors as Prior, Deverell and others including producer J. Miles Dale, camera operator Dino Laurenza and gaffer Mike Hall. “This is what draws me to filmmaking,” affirmed Michos.
The directorial ensemble on Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities anthology series included Prior, Ana Lily Amirpour, Panos Cosmatos, Catherine Hardwicke, Jennifer Kent, Vincenzo Natali, Guillermo Navarro and Keith Thomas.
In addition to “The Autopsy” and The Empty Man, Michos’ body of work as a cinematographer includes the feature films Man on the Moon, Duplex, Mona Lisa Smile, Perfect Stranger, Black Nativity, The Keeping Man, The First Purge, Vanquish and This is the Night. Among his TV endeavors are the telefilms Whitney and With This Ring, and the series Being Mary Jane, Ambitions and Quantico. The ASC Award and Emmy nominations for "The Autopsy" are the first of his career.
This is the 11th installment of SHOOT’s weekly 16-part The Road To Emmy Series of feature stories. The Creative Arts Emmy Award ceremonies are slated for the weekend of September 9 and 10, and the primetime Emmy ceremony is scheduled for September 18.