A sense of familiarity balanced by a set of fresh new eyes–a mesh reflected in the innovative perspectives of production designer Martha Sparrow and cinematographer Greta Zozula–helped to shape the look and feel of The Testaments (Hulu), the much anticipated narrative continuation to The Handmaid’s Tale.
Sparrow’s familiarity was forged in her capacity as art director spanning seasons 2, 3 and 4 of The Handmaid’s Tale, working closely with production designer Elisabeth Williams. Sparrow’s integral involvement in the show was valued by its creator Bruce Miller and executive producer Warren Littlefield, among others. So when the time came to revisit the dystopian theocracy of Gilead, years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, Miller and Littlefield gravitated to Sparrow for The Testaments, this time advancing her to production designer. She thus became a key contributor to telling a coming-of-age story centered on a new generation of young women in Gilead–led by Agnes MacKenzie, the Chase Infiniti-portrayed biological daughter of June Osborne, and Daisy, a Canadian teen turned undercover Mayday operative played by Lucy Halliday.
“I was very honored that Bruce and Warren had the confidence in me,” related Sparrow who worked closely with Mike Barker, director of the first three episodes and the season finale, and DP Zozula to create a new world for “The Testaments” with a foundation from the old one in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Sparrow recalled extensive conversations with Miller, Barker–who was a director/EP on The Handmaid’s Tale–and Zozula about what the visual language for The Testaments should be, carried through in some respects from The Handmaid’s Tale but also substantively different. Sparrow shared that Barker’s vision was to expand beyond the “symmetrical and formal” feel of The Handmaid’s Tale. Sparrow credited cinematographer Zozula with bringing a new dimension to the narrative, citing specifically her skillful, thoughtful handheld style which helped to reveal the storyline from a different side–through the eyes of a 14-year-old girl.”
Whereas Sparrow and Barker had the advantage of a visual lineage with The Handmaid’s Tale, Zozula brought the advantage of no such history, offering some of that desired fresh perspective–which in turn could be embraced and expounded upon by the production designer and her core team, including supervising art director Kimberley Zharko and set decorator Patricia Cucha.
Zozula–a Best Cinematography Award winner at the Tribeca Festival in 2020 for the dramatic feature Materna–observed that Barker and his colleagues wanted someone like her “who hadn’t been in that [The Handmaid’s Tale] world very specifically. He [Barker] was adamant about that. The first thing I did was build a lookbook full of what I sort of envisioned–certain colors and lighting. I was figuring out how to adjust the lighting so that it felt like this world [in The Testaments] was a little bit more inviting and a little less aggressive.” At the same time The Testaments was profoundly influenced by and still had elements of that stoic, harsh world of The Handmaid’s Tale that was so ingrained and iconic. Zozula said she had to figure out “how you keep some of that yet soften it a little bit and open it up a little bit, just to reflect the point of view of Agnes. She’s not trapped. In her mind, she’s happy in her life, she’s a teenager.”
Zozula went with the ARRI Alexa 35 for The Testaments, citing the dynamic range of the camera. She also went with Canon K35 lenses, which had been deployed on The Handmaid’s Tale. Keeping that lensing the same helped to carry over a certain feel from the original show to the sequel.
Zozula–who shot the first three episodes as well as episodes 6, 7 and 10 of The Testaments–summarized the challenge as “sort of finding that fine line of where you keep The Handmaid’s Tale world and where you depart from it.”
Helping Sparrow attain that delicate balance was having a collaborative rapport already in place with supervising art director Zharko and set decorator Cuccia. Sparrow and Zharko had worked on a suspense drama series, Cross, the year prior. “Moving from art director into production design myself, I was worried about being reluctant to let go of control and organizing certain things,” related Sparrow. “But Kimberley is so experienced that not for a second did I worry. She did it better than I could have done it. She’s an amazing art director. She has an aesthetic eye. She’s a painter who comes from an architectural background. She managed the big [set] builds expertly.”
Sparrow also had teamed with Cuccia before on some select projects. Sparrow noted that she wanted to bring Cuccia’s eye into the MacKenzie house, among other sets, for The Testaments. Cuccia’s credits include extensive work for director Sofia Coppola whose films, said Sparrow, were a creative inspiration for her and Zozula. Cuccia also garnered her first Oscar nomination last year–for director Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.
The collaborative, character-driven nature of how The Testaments was created served as a source of inspiration for Zozula who recalled that her conversations with Barker often centered on character motivation. And in turn they would share those observations with the department heads, bringing everybody into the process. It was the foundation for the visual language developed for the show by an ensemble which included her, Miller, Barker and Sparrow. “I just don’t want to work any other way,” affirmed Zozula. “It makes it really fun. I feel like I was so excited to come to work every day…It was a really good energy and just something I want to bring to every project.”
Sparrow added that the experience felt like “the perfect combination of people between Barker’s vision directorially and in terms of performance and staging, Greta’s vision as to how it gets lit and shot, and what I could contribute, all in service of the story. Having writers come in, going back and forth between each of us–with one person contributing and affecting another part of it, and sort of weaving all that together. It really was the perfect storm of people to create a new world.”
It’s been special, affirmed Sparrow, to help build and do justice to the worlds depicted in the two Margaret Atwood novels–”The Handmaid’s Tale” and now “The Testaments.”
For her work as an art director, Sparrow has earned six career Emmy nominations, winning three times for The Handmaid’s Tale. She’s garnered a total of five nods for The Handmaid’s Tale and one for Poker Face.
James Laxton, ASC
Cinematographer James Laxton, ASC was creatively carnivorous over the opportunity to lens season 2 of Beef (Netflix), having been a big fan of season 1 and the work done on it by DP Larkin Seiple. And upon meeting the show’s creator Lee Sung Jin (aka Sonny) as well as director Jake Schreier, Laxton knew he wanted to be part of the season 2 team. At the same time the success of the first season–13 Emmy nominations, eight wins (including Best Limited Series and Outstanding Director for Sonny), and a TV Academy Honor–carried an inherent pressure and high expectations for season 2.
Laxton, though, felt comfortable with the sophomore challenge–having experienced it before in his career, after lensing the Best Picture Oscar-winning Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins. Laxton earned a Best Achievement in Cinematography Oscar nomination for Moonlight. So the creative bar was set high when Jenkins and Laxton–who first met and worked together as students at Florida State University film school–next teamed on If Beale Street Could Talk. The expectations for the next film after Moonlight were sky high and in retrospect helped Laxton when faced with the prospect of taking on season 2 of Beef. If Beale Street Could Talk turned out to be a well-received gem and Laxton felt it was his trust and adherence to the process that kept everything in perspective. “I decided to keep my head down [on If Beale Street Could Talk], approach each day like it was my first, react to what the cast was bringing–and I could see what we had was strong. I kept my pace throughout. I knew if I stayed the course, it would work out well.”
That process, however, requires talented and caring collaborators. Just as he had Jenkins as a guiding light on Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk and other notable projects–Laxton benefited from the strong creative bond that developed among him, Sonny and Schreier.
Telling intimate stories with first-time collaborators is a learning process, observed Laxton, “much like meeting friends at a schoolyard for the first time. You strike up great friendships quite quickly when you have something to offer each other. I found that with Sonny, Jake and others [on Beef]. You figure each other out, how to inspire each other. Even with all the challenges, it’s clear how much we got along with each other. While there are always differences, we all sort of felt the same about what the goals were. The end result is something we feel genuinely proud of.”
Season 2 last month landed Beef a Gotham Television Award nomination in the Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series category, as well as nods for Carey Mulligan for Outstanding Lead Performance in a Limited or Anthology Series, and Cailee Spaeny for Outstanding Supporting Performance. In addition to Mulligan and Spaeny, the Beef season 2 cast includes Oscar Isaac, Charles Melton and Youn Yuh-jung. The spark this time around centers on two couples—Josh Martin (portrayed by Isaac), general manager of an elite country club, and his wife, Lindsay Crane-Martin (Mulligan); and two young country club workers who are engaged to be married, Austin (Melton) and Ashley (Spaeny). These couples’ lives intersect over a blackmail plot–with the young couple gaining leverage after witnessing and video recording a violent domestic encounter between the Martins. From there everything spirals into a toxic game of manipulation, deception, privilege, country club politics and class war as trust, love–and for that matter life itself–are up for grabs.
A new wrinkle in Beef’s second season is the generational dynamic–as we grow to see that the problems that plague the relationship between Ashley and Austin parallel in many respects what the Martins are grappling with. While there’s a clash of generations, we also see a common ground between them.
To reflect this, Laxton felt that the foundation of season 1 was valuable. He described the first season of Beef as “a real character study,” driven by a realism in which space was provided to understand these characters. “That’s not untrue of season 2 as well,” noted Laxton. A big addition to season 2, though, was that generational cycle–to be able to touch upon and provide a stage to understand big questions about life and love from one generation to the next. We can see parallels between generations as well as differences. Towards that end, Laxton wanted “to create images that felt larger than life while maintaining realism…to provide scale and power to these characters in closeups, medium and wide shots.”
Laxton wanted to capture the big picture along with the intimate to shed light on the characters–how they connect and pull apart. He opted for the ARRI 265 camera which has a 65mm size sensor. At the same time, though, the camera is compact, enabling him to move setups in quick turnaround from Steadicam to handheld to studio mode.
Laxton’s body of work also includes multiple collaborations with Jenkins. In addition to Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, Laxton lensed Jenkins’ first feature, Medicine for Melancholy, as well as the limited series The Underground Railroad, and the theatrical motion picture Mufasa: The Lion King. Laxton was a Film Independent Spirit Award nominee for Best Cinematography in 2009 for Medicine for Melancholy, and in 2017 he won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography on the strength of Moonlight. His cinematography was nominated for a primetime Emmy in 2021 for the “Chapter 9: Indiana Winter” episode of The Underground Railroad. He has two career ASC Award nods–for Moonlight in 2017, and winning in 2022 for “Chapter 9” of The Underground Railroad.
Laxton also directed the first episodes of such shows as Black Monday (directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen) and Here and Now (directed by series creator Alan Ball).
Yasu Tanida
In 2018, Dan Fogelman, creator and executive producer of This Is Us, received the Television Showman of the Year honor at the International Cinematographers Guild’s (ICG) Publicists Awards. In his acceptance remarks, Fogelman observed that in this “dark, weird time,” he finds it gratifying that This Is Us, a show which “wears its heart on its sleeve,” reflects that we all have much in common with one another and can all universally relate to loss, joy, the responsibilities of parenthood, being brothers, sisters and friends. Fogelman affirmed that we “may not be as divided as we think.”
That This Is Us case for what unites us is all the more compelling and artistic, continued Fogelman, thanks to the contributions of cinematographer Yasu Tanida. Fogelman cited Tanida’s talent for supporting story and emotional movements through his thoughtful cinematography which never calls attention to itself.
The bond between Fogelman and Tanida began back in 2015 when the DP shot the pilot for Pitch, a fictional story penned by Fogelman about the first female Major League Baseball pitcher. Fogelman and Tanida struck up a rapport and this led to their teaming again on This Is Us. Their collaborative relationship continues this awards season with the second season of Fogelman’s Paradise (Hulu). And upcoming is Fogelman’s NFL family drama, The Land.
Also bringing continuity to Paradise are Tanida’s director/exec producer compatriots on This Is Us–Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. Another This Is Us alum, Sterling K. Brown, stars in Paradise, portraying Xavier, a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the President of the United States, played by James Marsden. In Season 1, we learned that Marsden’s character and a small number of privileged people escaped to a bunker just as an apocalypse was about to hit. Xavier and his kids also made it to safety, but his wife got left behind. In Season 2, he sets out to find her.
Shailene Woodley joined the cast for season 2 while Marsden and Julianne Nicholson–who portrays a tech billionaire in control of the titular city–returned to the show.
Tanida, Fogelman, Ficarra and Requa teamed to set the visual language for Paradise right out of the gate, and then segued in a different direction for season 2. Tanida recalled that for season 1, they went for widescreen format and anamorphic lenses, looking to create a look “significantly more stylized” than what characterized This Is Us. “There’s a mystery that the audience really doesn’t know” initially, explained Tanida–namely that they are in a dome in Colorado. “We had to visually give clues and hints as to why this place looks ‘a little off,’ which was really exciting to do,” related Tanida. “You look at the first scene in the kitchen, the sunlight is a little more aggressive, more halo-ey…And when the reveal in the pilot is given, the audience realizes why this atmosphere seemed so unique at first.
Ficarra and Requa went more for dolly versus handheld shots–dollying in, dollying out, pushing in on Brown when he’s thinking–blurring his face at times, going with a stylized technique to make viewers wonder what they’re looking at. Yet at the same time, there are similarities between Paradise and This Is Us, observed Tanida, as they walked a fine line–”to be stylized but not so stylized” that the audience doesn’t follow what’s happening. The closeups are still there, with Tanida noting that Fogelman likes over-the-shoulder shots so that viewers feel like they’re part of the scene, connecting to the characters and those whom they’re talking to.”
In contrast, season 2 was a departure in some respects, assessed Tanida, as it leaned into the reality of actual locations such as Elvis Presley’s Graceland, shown so people would still recognize it. Season 2 begins with Annie, a museum tour guide played by Woodley, who’s survived alone at the Memphis estate for the past three years. The estate, though, said Tanida is in real life more like a house, smaller than what many might envision Graceland to be–so much so that a couple of feet were added to the living room via set work. Still, the overall smallness made the location more conducive to natural lighting–illuminating through a window, making for a lived-in feel.
Actual locations as well as realistic sets–many of the smaller variety–marked season 2. The choice of camera and lenses remained the same for each season–the ARRI Alexa 35 with Panavision Ultra Panatar 11’s 2.3x squeeze anamorphic lenses and a 2.39.1 aspect ratio. “I tend to use a lot of highlights in my images–strong backlight where the sun is brighter, especially in season 1 in Paradise city. The Alexa 35 is made to handle highlights and retain them. It’s also able to soften the highlights,” said Tanida. And there’s the option with Alexa 35 of adding some noise “to get away from the clean, sharp visual image as needed.”
Also remaining constant from one season to the next, continued Tanida, was cinematography designed to do full justice to actor performances. When the cinematography stands out instead of those performances, that’s the red flag that storytelling has somehow gone awry. “The greatest compliment I can get is when the actors get noticed–when their performances and the story come out and connect,” said Tanida, adding that he’s most proud when actors like Brown and the overall ensemble get nominated on the awards show circuit.
Last year Paradise scored four Emmy nominations–for Outstanding Drama Series and three for performances: Brown as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Marsden for Best Supporting Actor, and Nicholson as Best Supporting Actress.
Michael J. Pepin
Cinematographer Michael J. Pepin has become a visual valedictorian of sorts on Abbott Elementary (ABC)–beginning his education during season one, lensing all the episodes right after the pilot which was shot by Kurt Jones, and then taking on seasons 2, 3, 4 and 5. It’s akin, he quipped, to freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years, then earning a Master’s degree in the current Emmy-eligible fifth season, with post-doctorate work ahead.
Looking back on his progression, Pepin sees the first season as the opportunity to build chemistry with the cast, his crew and the other departments. Season 2, for which there was a little more money to work with given the success of the show, gave him the chance to try different things, incorporate a little more LED technology for instance. “I knew my cast better, what I could get away with–this actor doesn’t require as much fill light, for example.” He had the opportunity to evolve the series from a camera/lighting/design standpoint.
Based on their first two seasons, cast and crew were “confident and comfortable” going into the third season–but were thrown the loop of industry strikes, resulting in a shorter season. There was also a new wrinkle in the storyline as Quinta Brunson’s character found herself at school district headquarters, necessitating the creation of a whole new set for the show. While retaining its mockumentary comedy roots, the show took on a “procedural” element with the opportunity to mature and shape the look a little more from a camera/lighting perspective. Season 3 also saw a change of camera–from the ARRI Alexa Minis of the first two seasons to the Alexa 35. Abbott Elementary became one of the first shows to deploy that camera–benefiting from the fact that Pepin already had a chance to test out the Alexa 35 on another series pilot. Abbott Elementary has been shot on the Alexa 35 ever since.
Season 4, continued Pepin, began a run where cast and crew have been “at the peak of our powers.” The show and cast grew, with the production becoming a well-oiled machine–yet still very much human, collaborative and creative. “We’ve always been a ‘fast’ show–mockumentary, three cameras,” said Pepin but as a series develops over the years, you get even faster, able to take on more challenges without breaking anyone’s creative momentum. Season 5, he observed, has been a continuation of that with “an interesting trajectory” of shooting situations that have alternated between big/major and smaller-sized/more intimate. Going up and down in scale has helped to series to advance and evolve technically and creatively.
Pepin shared that each season of Abbott Elementary starts with his “level resetting…getting my mind clear as to how we do the show, what the philosophy should be from my end.” At the same time, he noted that there are certain constants that endure from one year to the next. The goal is not necessarily to make the show look more beautiful, but rather to continue to strive to make the cinematography as realistic and natural as possible because it’s a mockumentary. “You can’t get too stylistic with it,” he said, unless there’s a school play or event. “You have to adhere to the documentary principles.” Pepin said that part of the process is “allowing myself to let things go, to lean into how it would naturally feel.”
In that vein, Pepin related that he often puts himself in the shoes of Mr. Johnson, the school custodian portrayed by William Stanford Davis. “That informs a lot of the decisions I make,” said Pepin, noting that the janitor character would be responsible for instance, for the stage lighting in a school play. Pepin discusses that character perspective with production designer Michael Whetstone along the lines of “what would Mr. Johnson have in the basement to use for practical lighting for one of those stage plays?”
The continuity of collaborating with artists like Whetstone over the years also contributes substantively to the success of the series–that includes, said Pepin, being blessed with a team of camera operators who have a high level of comfort with the cast, and in turn the cast has comfort and trust in the operators. Jeremiah Smith and Brenda Zuniga have served as A and B camera operator, respectively, for all the seasons of Abbott Elementary. And in recent seasons, C camera operator duties have been the province of Tom Magill, with Rubén Avendaño filling in as an alternate. (They were preceded by C camera operator Drew Thomas who is now a college professor at the University of Cincinnati.) Having a consistency in camera operators is important because they are almost like a character in the show. Viewers are seeing the characters and their actions through the eyes of the camera operators–who are so familiar with each actor and character. The camera operators’ timing contributes to the comedy, the jokes and the emotion. And Pepin enjoys a visual shorthand with his operators, trusting their instincts during the shoot.
Abbott Elementary has a rich Emmy history, collecting 30 nominations over its first four seasons–including one each year for Outstanding Comedy Series. Abbott Elementary has won four Emmys–with Brunson earning Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 2022 and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in ‘23; Sheryl Lee Ralph being recognized for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2022; and Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series in ‘22.
Assorted other honors have been bestowed upon Abbott Elementary such as a Humanitas Prize in 2022 and a Peabody Award in ‘23.
Shedding light on the latter honor, Peabody issued a statement which read in part, “If public school teachers are the unsung heroes of the country, then Abbott Elementary does far more than use its broadcast platform to belatedly sing their praises. Through deliciously funny, unfailingly thoughtful storylines, the mockumentary-style sitcom brings both depth and levity to its depiction of a grade school in Philadelphia. The show’s titular setting is an underfunded, predominantly Black school. At Abbott, a plucky group of educators work to ensure their students receive the best schooling possible, even as they face the kinds of challenges that are endemic to low-income districts. To Philadelphia-raised creator Quinta Brunson, who also plays the lovably quixotic second-grade teacher Janine Teagues, paying homage to her city’s hard-working educators is partly a personal matter: Brunson’s mother, a former kindergarten teacher, inspired the series. Part of what makes Abbott Elementary so special is an insight clearly born of close observation. The show isn’t content to present funny scenarios absent any social context; Abbott Elementary insists on surfacing the structural issues that make its teachers’ work so hard. For its commitment to depicting the inequity at the core of its characters’ struggles–amid healthy doses of sentimentality and humor–we recognize Abbott Elementary as a Peabody winner.
The mockumentary style referenced by Peabody judges is part of why Abbott Elementary gravitated to Pepin originally. Well-versed in varied disciplines, including mockumentary content, Pepin was brought into Abbott Elementary by showrunner and director Randall Einhorn. The two had first collaborated years back on the FX series Wilfred, with Einhorn as EP/director and Pepin as a camera operator. Einhorn later served as the original cinematographer and then a director on The Office, a show for which Pepin was a camera operator (but not at the same time as Einhorn was there). The Office and cinematography gigs on assorted unscripted shows honed Pepin’s visual feel for docu-style and mockumentary fare. Einhorn wanted to bring some of the mockumentary sensibilities from The Office to Abbott Elementary for which Pepin fit the bill.
This is the third installment of SHOOT’s weekly 16-part The Road To Emmy Series of feature stories, connecting with directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, production designers, VFX talent and assorted other artisans to gain insights into their work and their collaborators. Emmy nominations will be announced and covered on July 8. Coverage of the Creative Arts Emmy winners will appear on September 5 and 6, and we will report on winners at the primetime Emmy Awards ceremony on September 14.
