Still from Serious People. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. In Serious People, a music video director hires a doppelganger to take his place at work after he learns that his spouse is pregnant. The movie, co-directed by Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson, is impressed by Gutierrez’s personal expectant fatherhood and is a 2025 Sundance Film Festival NEXT choice.
Neema Sadeghi (Noel Miller: Stop Crying) and Nicholas Bupp (Aporia, Salam) served as co-cinematographers. Below, they discuss working with out a crew and contrasting a peaceful visible model with a mounting sense of narrative pressure.
See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here.
Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your movie? What had been the components and attributes that led to your being employed for this job?
Sadeghi: I actually suppose the boys hit me up for this as a result of they knew I’d be down for something they had been going to ask me to do. As long-time followers of those two geniuses, they may’ve stated something and I might’ve stated sure.
Bupp: I had recognized Pasqual, one of many administrators on the movie, for quite a few years. We each reduce our enamel on numerous commercials and music video tasks all through the years. Pasqual and I had been taking pictures a business mission for Expedia and thru that mission he began telling me about Serious People. He stated he wished to inform a narrative about his method of grappling with the work/life stability of the movie business whereas concurrently supporting his spouse and household by means of their upcoming being pregnant. It was a theme that hit near the center from me. As a filmmaker, this matter is a continuing battle for me and one that’s by no means in stability. Initially I believe Pasqual was afraid to ask for assist as a result of the topic was so private, and he’d be asking for favors from mates. I informed him to not maintain again and that I wished to listen to extra. He stated they wished to maintain the movie intimate and create a collaborative house to discover themes of identification. I instantly stated I used to be in and requested once we begin taking pictures.
I believe one of many major components that lead me to being employed for the job is that I personal an Alexa 35mm digicam bundle (haha). Obviously, this wasn’t the one issue, nevertheless it definitely helped. We had little or no prep, and the mission was shot inconsistently and within the smallest of footprints over the course of 4 weeks. Having entry to a digicam on the drop of a hat was good to have.
In all seriousness although, my lengthy relationship with Pasqual led me to being employed. We each have a little bit of shorthand on the subject of aesthetics due to our collaborations previously. Also, working with Ben. the co-director, was a primary for me, however I had recognized his different documentary/business work, and we had been in the identical circles for some time. He was so supportive and open throughout the entire course of. I realized rather a lot from each of them about being open to adjustments, letting issues evolve and finally reacting to them all through every shoot day.
Overall, I used to be very keen to leap onboard and discover the themes that this movie touches upon, primarily as a result of I believe I’m feeling a lot of those self same feelings inside my very own life as a filmmaker presently. Your sense of achievement, life stability, and lack of relevance are all issues that I’m nonetheless processing each day. I began to get enthusiastic about how these themes might be explored visually. Ultimately, Pasqual was trusting sufficient to supply it as much as me…and off we went.
Filmmaker: What had been your creative objectives on this movie, and the way did you notice them? How did you need your cinematography to reinforce the movie’s storytelling and therapy of its characters?
Sadeghi: From the beginning, this mission was experimental, so I had little concept of what we’d be taking pictures every day and needed to belief the method and Ben and Pasqual’s imaginative and prescient. I bear in mind the day we filmed Pasqual utilizing a child doppler on Christine’s stomach. At first, it felt like a small second, however as I sat watching, forgetting the digicam was rolling, it hit me—this was actual. Hearing the child’s heartbeat wasn’t performing or sound design; it was life.
That second modified every thing for me. I noticed we had been creating one thing actually particular. I went house emotional and impressed, and I texted Pasqual: “We are making something special.” From that time on, every thing grew to become clear—the objective was to keep away from distracting from the second with digicam motion or shifting focus, as a substitute permitting the scenes to unfold in actual time. Finding our body and leaving it, it doesn’t matter what occurs.
Bupp: I believe the creative course of, for Neema and me, was ever evolving as we began taking pictures. We talked about flexibility rather a lot, stripping issues down their easiest type, and permitting room to adapt as we noticed one thing on the taking pictures day. Within that, Neema and I wished to create a form of stillness and observational model all through the movie. Give the actors house, not crowd the set with lights. We tried to not overcomplicate our strategy to a scene. The scope of the movie was extraordinarily small, however I believe what helped us essentially the most was the reward of time. We didn’t pack our schedule too tightly, which allowed us to take a step again and talk about issues as they had been occurring with out feeling pressured to maneuver on rapidly. Out of that we create a “less is more” mantra that had a couple of easy guidelines. One of these being to search out the body that conveys the emotion of scene greatest and decide to it. I believe we achieved that fairly effectively. It’s delicate however direct. It creates a unconscious feeling for me after I watch the movie, a false sense of calmness as I’m watching the characters within the movie spiral uncontrolled.
I believe our major objective was to remain out of the best way throughout taking pictures when it got here to our cinematic strategy. We need to hold a low footprint and permit the characters to evolve on display. Pasqual, the principle character within the movie, is navigating a time of nice change and uncertainty as his life with a brand new child is on the best way. I believe we wished the visuals to create a “false” sense of calm whereas the anxiousness of his character grows extra unstable and finally reaches a breaking level. We see Pasqual all through the movie making increasingly more erratic and egocentric selections adversely effecting these closest to him. With the pictures, I believe we wished to create a stillness which in flip creates pressure and even awkwardness at instances. Through thi,s we’re pressured to expertise issues as an viewers in a really observational method as Pasqual chooses his path.
Filmmaker: Were there any particular influences in your cinematography, whether or not they be different movies, or visible artwork, of pictures, or one thing else?
Bupp: I believe our largest affect was laying out some easy guidelines earlier than we began taking pictures every day. Me, Ben and Pasqual would present up early to set most days, go over the scenes we had that day, and chat about how our guidelines would affect the pictures. Some of these guidelines had been as follows: hold it easy; much less is extra; [find] the very best angle visually that may inform the entire scene with out slicing; belief your instincts; don’t reduce once you suppose you’ve bought it….hold rolling a bit extra.
I believe these pointers acted as our influences inside themselves to create the actual model inside this movie.
Filmmaker: What had been the largest challenges posed by manufacturing to these objectives?
Sadeghi: At instances, the shortage of crew made issues difficult. For occasion, I needed to pull deal with a four-minute shot of Christine and Pasqual strolling up a hill towards the digicam on a 300mm lens. I hadn’t accomplished something like that in years, so it was each a enjoyable and humbling problem to deal with alone.
Bupp: I believe for us the largest problem was the small scale of the mission. Most days it was simply the administrators, DP and a sound particular person as the principle taking pictures crew. Learning methods to work inside these restrictions was difficult, however finally enjoyable and releasing in a method. I undoubtedly realized that I’m not a spotlight puller by any means!
Filmmaker: What digicam did you shoot on? Why did you select the digicam that you simply did? What lenses did you employ?
Sadeghi: We used almost each digicam and lens conceivable. Due to the unconventional schedule of this mission, we regularly needed to work with no matter tools was accessible. While we aimed to stay to the identical household, like Zeiss Super Speeds or lenses with the same texture, there have been instances we needed to deviate. Thankfully, Old Fast Glass, a world-class rental home in Los Angeles, made it attainable to seize lenses—generally simply hours earlier than taking pictures.
Bupp: We shot on the Alexa LF and Alexa 35 cameras for the shoot. We select these codecs out of necessity and performance. In phrases of perform, they’re nice in low-light and dynamic vary and for the reason that movie was largely pure mild, we felt that the Alexas would carry out the very best in these eventualities. As far as necessity goes, it’s what we had entry to most freely because the shoot wasn’t consecutive days and we had been working off of in-kind donations for tools leases.
So many various sorts of lenses had been used as we had been asking for favors on every shoot day, a big portion of them being Super Speeds and B Speeds. Full listing is included under [at the end of the interview].
Filmmaker: Describe your strategy to lighting.
Sadeghi: This query makes me chuckle as a result of the movie used nearly no lighting all through the method. As a cinematographer, whose position is to craft the lighting for a scene, this was initially a tricky tablet to swallow. However, for the reason that movie was designed to really feel extra like a documentary, we selected to depend on accessible mild and easy instruments to form what was naturally current within the house.
Bupp: Lighting was minimal if we performed any lights in any respect. Our scale on this movie was so small {that a} majority of the shoot didn’t have any grip or electrical crew. We stayed extra minimalistic in our model, and I believe in a way this strategy gave us freedom to truly really feel the areas photographically by means of utilizing large angle lenses. We tried to maintain the house away from lighting tools by design so the actors might discover the setting.
Neema and I checked out lighting extra by way of strategic digicam place in relationship to the sunshine inside an area. Often, we selected to look in a selected route based mostly on the home windows, overhead lighting, or sensible lights inside a location. We usually would select digicam angles in relationship to the distinction and form that the house was giving us naturally. I believe a much bigger a part of this was being subtractive in our lighting model by taking away mild somewhat than including to it. Most of the time we’d actually shut a blind or shut off a sensible within the house to offer it the temper we felt was proper.
Filmmaker: What was essentially the most tough scene to understand and why? And how did you do it?
Bupp: The most tough scene to understand for me was the Drake music video scene. We had been pulling collectively useful resource/favors from all totally different locations for our digicam and lighting on that particular taking pictures day. We wished a number of cameras as effectively to have the ability to seize issues within the second and be extra “fly on the wall.” I believe I used to be most nervous about capturing the true chaos and anxiousness of a music video shoot as a result of a lot of our story hinged on realism. Having a number of cameras for this scene undoubtedly was an asset for us. It actually opened up the house for the actors to actually discover concepts naturally with out having to redo the scene a number of instances. In the top, I believe every thing labored out. The set felt actual, and there’s an actual pressure on this scene constructed by means of the modifying model and our digicam angles. It’s certainly one of my favourite moments within the movie.
Filmmaker: Finally, describe the ending of the movie. How a lot of your look was “baked in” versus realized within the DI?
Bupp: Because numerous the movie was shot in sensible places and with a minimalistic strategy to lighting, we did do little bit of therapy within the DI. For us we had been trying to strike a stability between the naturalism in our taking pictures model whereas including delicate form, colour and distinction that enhanced the picture barely. Mikey Rossiter, colorist at Rare Medium, did a beautiful job of grounding the movie within the naturalism we captured in digicam whereas pushing it in direction of a extra filmic falloff within the highlights and colour.
TECH BOX
Film Title: Serious People
Camera: Alexa 35 & Alexa LF
Lenses: Zeiss Super Speeds, Zeiss B-Speeds, Zero Optik Nikon, Minolta Rokkor, Angenieux 28-70, Canon FD 50-300 T4.9, Laowa 12mm, Canon FD Primes, GL Optics Canon 70-200 T2.9, Z-Speeds, Angenieux Optimo 24-290 T2.8
Color Grading: DI utilizing DaVinci Resolve
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