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Capturing the Classic ’90s Movie Look
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Capturing the Classic ’90s Movie Look

Shot lists, storyboards, models, previews: There are many different ways a director, cinematographer, and camera crew can plan what a movie will look like before they start shooting. But cinematographer Kristen Correll and directed by Megan Park They have a delightfully lo-fi and surprisingly helpful approach to conceptualizing the world they’re about to create.

Correll told IndieWire: film He had Park read the script out loud to find out what they would need and how they would shoot it. “My Old Ass.”

He tries to do this with all of his directors because hearing a script helps Correll find the exact tone he needs to create with his camera.

“The way I read things in my head, I might think I got it right, but then you hear it from the writer/director and you’re like, ‘Okay, I misunderstood’ or ‘That was just me.’ Correll told IndieWire. Correll and Park have developed a strong shorthand throughout their collaboration, but one of the keys to unlocking the visuals in Park’s films (often about the complex, confusing emotions and desires you encounter on the threshold of adulthood) is understanding Park’s tone. he wants. Once the script is read, you can: to listen ton.

From there, Correll will create a preliminary shot list and review the skeleton of each scene with Park, adding or refining ideas as he goes. “Megan really gives me a lot of artistic input and freedom and trusts me to be her eyes,” Correll said. “He trusts me to understand his tone of voice. He trusts me with the lens. “He trusts me in every aspect, which I couldn’t appreciate more, and I think that also enables our cooperation because I trust him in the decisions he makes, and that mutual trust gets us to where we are.”

For “My Old Ass” The place Correll and Park in particular were going for was a kind of non-nauseating ’90s nostalgia; “Unity of Their Own,” “Daughter,” or even “Father of the Bride.” While digital is of course the way to go for a number of logistical and financial reasons, Correll uses his lens choices (a Panavision Panaspeed set) to bring out a sense of visual timelessness with a light touch. It did everything right down to color accuracy.

Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza star in Megan Park's My Old Ass, an official selection of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival's Premieres program. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Shane Mahood's photo.
my old assShane Mahood

This light touch involved letting plenty of light into Correll’s Sony Venice camera. He had tried shooting at 5,000 ISO on a previous film and brought that to “My Old Ass.” “I found that shooting with ISO added a bit of a special, textural essence to the image. The ones paired with that ISO (Panaspeed lenses) were in that in-between (look) that wasn’t too sharp, wasn’t too soft, handled flares well, but it wasn’t that gorgeous contemporary look.” ,” Correll said.

Whether during filming, the LUT Correll created with Company Three’s Sean Coleman, or the choices made on set that day, Correll realized that the best way to capture the tone he heard in Park’s script was to not push it too ’90s. nostalgia but just pull “My Old Ass” to flesh out the characters and setting. “You are allowed to have depth. You are allowed to be a little more traditional in your framing (you can), you can have very classic frames. “You focus on these characters and the environment around them,” Correll said. “With all of these things coming together, we started to look modern, but our references were always there.”

Nailing the references and creating the look that will allow “My Old Ass” to have its funny, quirky, heartfelt, mushrooming, potentially time-traveling self is frustrating when a cinematographer is given so much freedom. “You say, ‘Oh my God, I hope I’m not doing this person wrong,'” Correll said. “But I’m also confident, and the fact that we keep coming back to do things says something.”

MY OLD ASS, Maisy Stella, Carter, 2024. ph: Marni Grossman / © Amazon Prime Video / Courtesy of the Everett Collection
‘My Old Ass’ ©Amazon/Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Billy Wilder He said a director doesn’t need to know how to write, but hopefully they will know how to read. Bringing together the references and creating is credited to Park’s willingness to do just that and Correll’s ability to turn this into a new coming-of-age classic.

“My Old Ass” is available to watch on Prime Video.