Behind Bthare s - ludovic litteeludoviclittee.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/08/...72 July 2016 American Cinematographer always handheld, it created one mood all the time,”

I t’s tough times for the inmates in season four of the Emmy-winning Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. Followingits privatization, Litchfield Prison is spinning out ofcontrol, with severe overcrowding and chain-gang labor

masquerading as vocational education. Meanwhile, PiperChapman (Taylor Schilling), the self-absorbed Brooklyn

yuppie whose story kicked off the series, becomes entangledwith white supremacists. On the lighter side, we see the introduction of inmateJudy King (Blair Brown) — a television chef who’s the prover-bial “steel magnolia.” There’s also the continuation of inmateand guard backstories, which take the show’s subplots beyondthe drab prison walls. As always, the writing is sharp andtimely, referencing such topics as Black Lives Matter, AbuGhraib and Eric Garner’s death by police chokehold, as wellas the broader debate surrounding appropriate punishmentsfor minor crimes. One person who’s happy to be back behind bars isLudovic Littee, the show’s cinematographer since midwaythrough season three. For Littee, Orange is a significant mile-stone — his first major credit as a director of photography.Born on the Caribbean island of Martinique and schooled infilm at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Littee spentmuch of the past decade working as a camera assistant andcamera operator. He first joined Orange Is the New Black as anoperator in season two, with Yaron Orbach serving as director

Behindthe Bars

Behindthe Bars

70 July 2016 American Cinematographer

Cinematographer Ludovic Litteeemphasizes planning, communication

and efficiency for the series Orange Is the New Black.

By Patricia Thomson

•|•

www.theasc.com July 2016 71

of photography. (Vanja �Cernjul, ASC,HFS held the position for the pilot andfirst season.) Recalling his formative years,Littee points to Sean Bobbitt, BSC asone of his most important mentors.Littee’s takeaway as 1st AC while work-ing with Bobbitt on Shame and ThePlace Beyond the Pines (AC April ’13)was “understanding camera placementand keeping it simple.” Today, he says,“the question I always have is, ‘Do weneed more coverage? Is it necessary?’ Ifyou feel you have a frame that tells astory and the pacing is right, you don’tneed anything else. Also, I love thesimplicity of Sean’s lighting — verywell-placed lights and not many ofthem. Just watching that was an eye-opener.” Another influential experiencewas operating B camera on season twoof Netflix’s House of Cards. What helearned from director of photographyIgor Martinovic and A-camera operatorGary Jay was “really understanding howto use dolly and movement. Igor has somuch experience and understanding ofhow to use blocking to move thecamera. The two [disciplines] coincide.If the camera moves just to move, it’snot as dynamic, but if the blocking isworking with the camera, that’s wheneverything comes together and you havesome really powerful shots — and, inthe end, a powerful scene. That’s what Ilearned from House of Cards, under-standing that dynamic.” Littee put those lessons to use inOrange Is the New Black, as he explains:“What I’ve tried to do with the show isto always have a reason why we move[the camera]. For me, the camera is anemotional tool, and you have to use it assuch.” The cinematographer is happywith how the series has evolved. Orangebegan as a predominantly handheldshow; in season one, the rule was thateverything shot inside the prison washandheld and everything outside wasnot. That approach was largely aban-doned, however, by the end of seasontwo — and for good reason, in Littee’sview. “When the entire prison wasUni

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Opposite: The incarceration continues for Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling, middle) in the fourthseason of Orange Is the New Black. This page, top and middle: Chapman and her fellow inmatesat Litchfield Prison struggle with overcrowding and chain-gang labor. Bottom: Cinematographer

Ludovic Littee lines up the Panasonic VariCam 35 on the cafeteria set.


always handheld, it created one mood allthe time,” he says. “It limits you.”Litchfield is the inmates’ home, after all,and sometimes for years, so friendshipsform and moments of happiness occur.“There are a lot of moments in theprison where it doesn’t need to be hand-held, where people find peace and arehappy,” Littee notes. “The camera has torepresent that.” Littee has solidified Orange as adolly-oriented show, and a series shot onprimes. “That’s really important,” saysWylda Bayrón, who operates A camerawhile Spencer Gillis handles B camera.“We’re not just hosing stuff down,taking the fastest route. We’re reallytrying to go for a more cinematicapproach. It’s not slower, in my opinion;it sets [the show] up [to have] a veryclear vision. Just by being a prime show,it helps to have that second to composeproperly and move the camera a fewdegrees. Having that extra second tobreathe makes the show better. Evenwhen we’re on zooms, we still take anextra minute to get it right.” Nowadays the show uses hand-held just 15 percent of the time, inLittee’s estimate. A handheld camera isalways used inside the prison green-

� Behind the Bars

Top: Chapmanfinds herself in atense situation.

Middle andbottom: Litteeand crew ready

scenes inside thecommunalbathroom.


house, and then when the scenewarrants the technique — such as thebrutal fistfight that a sadistic guardforces upon Suzanne “Crazy Eyes”Warren (Uzo Aduba) and anotherinmate. Steadicam — operated byLittee — is used for long walk-and-talks on the grass or running track,sometimes with the Steadicam travelingon an electric cart. Though crane shots are still rela-tively rare, this season deploys morethan in prior years. Director PhilAbraham, a fan of moving camera, put acrane to effective use in several episodes;when a dorm construction has theprison garden being ripped up, forexample, the crane swoops down froman overview to a close-up of a disem-bodied hand emerging from the dirt —the telltale remnant of an earlierepisode. Season four’s biggest change wasa switch in cameras from the Arri Alexato the Panasonic VariCam 35, due toNetflix’s desire to upgrade Orange to 4Korigination. “It took me a whole episodeto really understand the new camera,”Littee says. “[The VariCam is] so sensi-tive and the curve is so massive — [itrequired] just getting used to not over-

Top: Inside theprison dorms,Tasha “Taystee”Jefferson (DanielleBrooks) tries tosilence Suzanne“Crazy Eyes”Warren (UzoAduba) whileCindy Hayes(Adrienne C.Moore) looks on.Middle: The crewpreps a scene withBrooks and Moore.Bottom: Twocameras roll for ascene featuringthe charactersChapman and AlexVause (LauraPrepon).


If a shot can be a gut-punch, thenOrange Is the New Black delivers a

double-whammy in the final twoepisodes of season four, using an over-head crane shot and a 360-degreeSteadicam to powerful effect. Directed by Matt Weiner andAdam Bernstein, respectively, episodes12 and 13 advance a storyline —spoiler alert — that centers on thedeath of inmate Poussey (SamiraWiley). In episode 12, the denouementbegins quietly in the office of kitchensupervisor Red (Kate Mulgrew). Aguard, Piscatella (Brad WilliamHenke), bursts in, hauls her into thecafeteria, and talks tough to the wholeroom. One inmate has had enough andstands defiantly on a dining table.Others follow, and all hell breaks loose.During the melee, Poussey is pinneddown and inadvertently suffocated.The scene ends with a graphicallybold, ascending overhead shot ofPoussey and her wailing friend Taystee(Danielle Brooks) on the floor, encir-cled by a ring of blue uniforms andjostling inmates. During a press conference inepisode 13, the warden calls the guarda “victim” of the system, and Taysteestorms through the dorms with thenews. Furious prisoners stream downthe hallways. At a convergence point, aguard loses grip of his gun and it slidesinto the hands of an inmate. As shedecides whether to fire, the Steadicamcircles as prisoners scream at her fromall sides. This cliffhanger ends seasonfour. The uniqueness of the two shotslends them added power. The craneshot, effectively a goodbye to Poussey,had “a kind of religious theme, with thecamera rising,” beckoning her soul toheaven, Littee opines. As for theSteadicam shot, he notes, “I like theSteadicam turnaround because it’s ashot you rarely see in Orange — that

kind of movement. It worked becausethere was this peer pressure going onat all sides. She has to make a decisionin the midst of this chaos.” The cafeteria skirmish wasOrange’s biggest scene ever, requiring59 principal actors, three cameras anda 16-hour Sunday at Kaufman AstoriaStudios. After blocking, the crane wasbrought in during lunch, and the finalshot was executed immediately after“because it was so important,” saysLittee. Getting the desired heightrequired some effort. Key grip DaveStern had selected a Scorpio 23' withremote Mo-Sys L40 head because ofthe narrow crane base, which could fitthrough doorways. But to go fullextension, they had to cut a hole in the12' ceiling and lighting rig, then steerthe camera through that small open-ing. Plus, to exploit the checkered floorpattern, Littee had operator AndyVoegeli line up the tiles with the frameat the beginning and end of thecamera’s 90-degree pivot. “You reallytry to control the graphic shots,because we live for those moments,”notes A-camera operator WyldaBayrón. When shooting the melee, “weused camera moves very deliberately,”Bayrón says. “On a scene like that, youprobably think you’d spray it downhandheld, but we kept to our intentionto make [the shots] on a dolly.” Theirmeticulousness yielded visuals thatshowed the shifting power dynamicsand the unspoken communicationbetween inmates. “In this show, everycharacter is a planet,” says Bayrón, andeach had her moment in the cafeteriasequence — like the look of forgive-ness exchanged by Poussey and hergirlfriend, or Taystee spottingPoussey’s lifeless body. The dolly alsoenabled subtle, emotionally chargedmoves, like the push-in on Crazy Eyes(Uzo Aduba) when she spots a sadistic

guard. “We rarely use shots that aregratuitous,” says Bayrón. “We alwaystry to [infuse] some emotion into thecamera move. You could have just hada static shot of her, but that little push-in really adds emotional power.” Framing signaled the momentthe tables turn in the power dynamic.Initially, Piscatella is shown fromRed’s seated POV, a looming presencein the doorway. But after the inmatesclimb onto the tables, there’s a wideshot of the protestors that boomsdown behind Piscatella. “The women[occupy] the majority of that frame,and he’s lower down in the [fore-ground] corner [with his back to thecamera], so it’s not about him — it’sabout them,” says Bayrón. “They havethe power.” In the following episode, asinmates race down the corridors, theproduction switched to handheldcamera on a dolly. “[Doing that] addeda dynamism that we wouldn’t have hadif it had just been handheld, becausewe could acquire tremendous speedwhile giving [the shots] that uncer-tainty,” says Bayrón. Dolly grip MikeMorini built a boomable seat forBayrón on one of the PeeWees, and“since it’s red, Mike and I called it the‘hot seat,’” says Stern. Mounted on theMitchell head of the PeeWee boomarm, it gave Bayrón a high angle onthe converging waves of angryinmates. The final Steadicam shot, oper-ated by Littee, was director Bernstein’sconcept. “It starts out slow, then keepswrapping and wrapping,” says thecinematographer. “His idea was tospeed up the shot as the voices getlouder in her head. I just went as fastas I could go without getting too dizzy.It was a pretty cool shot to do as anoperator.”

— Patricia Thomson

•|• A Dynamic Double-Whammy •|•


lighting.” The production shot 4K 4:2:210-bit AVC format in the VariCam’sVLog mode to onboard P2 cards, andmoved to 4K 4:4:4 12-bit for green-screen or visual-effects work. For season four, Littee didn’tdelve far into creating customizedLUTs, “but I do want to start playingwith that next season,” he says. “I wantto work the curve between the falloffand the blacks. The falloff is very soft,and I want to make it steeper. A lot ofthat you can do with your lighting andhaving more negative fill than younormally would, but I want to see if thecamera can help me out with that.” Along with the camera, Litteechanged lenses, moving from CookeS4s to Panavision Primos. “First ACScott Tinsley and I spend a lot of timediscussing and testing lenses — not tomention I’ve always wanted to shootPrimos,” he notes. “The look was quiteconsistent [with the Cookes], so it wasan easy transition.” Plus, “the Primoslooked softer on skin tones, especiallyAfrican-American skin tones,” he says.“I felt it was gentler and just a hairwarmer.” The camera package wassupplied by Panavision New York. The production carries a coupleof Panavision Primo zooms — the 24-275mm SLZ11 and 19-90mm PCZ(both T2.8) — but Littee tries to limittheir use. “A lot of directors just want tosnap in from a wide to a close [shot]. I’vebeen fighting that constantly, becauseyou light a wide very differently thanyou do a close-up; I don’t think it’s fairto the actresses or the crew. We do usezooms, but mostly for exteriors.” As in years past, Orange was shotat New York City’s Kaufman AstoriaStudios, as well as at some of theremaining operational locations at thesemi-abandoned Rockland Children’sPsychiatric Center in Orangeburg, N.Y.Standing sets at Kaufman Astoriaprovided most of the prison’s interior:dorms, kitchen, cafeteria, commonroom, visitation room and guards’ livingquarters. The psychiatric instituteoffered additional rooms — including alibrary, hair salon, basement laundry

Top: Kitchen supervisor Galina “Red” Reznikov (Kate Mulgrew) meets with a guard inside anoffice. Middle: Another angle reveals more of the scene’s lighting. Bottom: The camera is lined

up over the shoulders of Schilling and Prepon for a scene in the prison cafeteria.

� Behind the Bars


room and guard offices — as well as theprison exterior, with its basketball court,gazebo, garden and parking lot. Seasonfour also utilized a real correctional facil-ity, the Queens House of Detention,that has a section open to film produc-tions; this was a stand-in for the maxi-mum-security facility down the hillfrom Litchfield. All of the show’s backstories areshot on practical locations in and aroundNew York City. For this reason, theshow makes use of Chapman/LeonardPeeWee dollies, manned by dolly gripsMike Morini on A camera and JoeyPaolini on B camera. According to keygrip David Stern, “Ludo felt it would beeasier, since we do a lot of small loca-tions [including a five-floor tenementwalkup]. We do a huge amount ofdance-floor work, and it’s just physicallyeasier to get the cameras closer togetherwith the smaller dollies. Since both dollygrips are really good, they can handle thesometimes-problematic ‘stand-up shots’on the boom of a PeeWee just as well ason a bigger studio dolly. Ludovic expectsa lot out of the camera movement, so webasically have two A-camera dollygrips.” In addition, Stern continues, “Ihave a ton of different camera-supporttools on the truck. Between key rigginggrip Alan Blagg and I, we have twosmall jibs — an 11-foot Aerocrane thatwe break out sometimes and a 4-footElemack Mini Jib we call ‘the reacher,’which we use as a balanced long-cameraoffset — as well as vibration isolators,over-under speed-rail wheels, 6-footand 3-foot sliders, standard aluminumdolly track and precision ‘I-beam’ trackfor the rockier terrain, a lazy Susan, aleveling high hat, a bazooka, a rockerplate, a Dutch head and a couple tiltwedges/plates, and a bunch of differentadaptors for rigging cameras whereverLudo wants them. We try to make thecamera support as important as thelighting support.” A HaloRig handheld stabilizer isone item that can help create subtleemotional cues. “The interesting thingabout it,” says Littee, “is that you can

� Behind the Bars

Top: Brooks andAduba share

another scene inthe dorm. Middle:

Constance Shulman(center) and Blair

Brown prepare for ascene betweentheir respectivecharacters, YogaJones and Judy

King. Bottom: The Bcamera gets an

angle on a prisonguard from over

Schilling’s shoulder.

arrange the Halo so you have a staticfeel, and then as the scene progressesinto a shakier world, you can slowly startto move the camera so you’re changingthe emotion within the scene.” Thistechnique has been used several times inthe prison visitation room, during sceneswhen tensions develop between charac-ters. Orange is billed by Netflix as a“comedic drama,” and while it’s not Oz,it is heavy enough on the drama side forLittee to avoid generalized sitcom light-ing. “I approach comedy and dramarelatively the same,” he says. “I try topush a little more with the darkness,”favoring a chiaroscuro effect. “I lightmore through windows, and that allowsme to work a little faster. I like how thelight slowly falls off to give it a naturalfeel. [Gaffer] Bill [Newell] and I likewhen the light becomes part of thescene but never overtakes it.” Littee has nine days for eachepisode — eight for shooting and onefor tech scout and prep. “We don’t story-board anything,” says Bayrón. “Blockingis very intuitive; it always starts with theactors.” Because of the speed televisionrequires, Littee is a big fan of pre-rigging. “Bill, Dave and I are alwaystalking about the next shot — it allowsus more time to tweak,” he says. Onelesson the cinematographer carriedforward from all those years as a 1stassistant is to think ahead. “Say we’relaying a long track,” he says. “I’ll pull adirector over and say, ‘Can we walk overthere and talk about the next scene?’Then I’ll bring my key grip and gafferover, so they have a notion of what we’redoing. And the process moves forward.That came from being an AC, andlearning to always anticipate the nextshots, so you’re ready. On a lot of shows,they don’t do that.” In addition to the expected arrayof HMIs and Kino Flos, Littee’s light-ing package includes a number of itemsthat facilitate speedy setups. BargerLites — both the 6-Lite and 3-Lite— are his go-to for soft sidelight, typi-cally coupled with a Chimera and 8'x8'

Telecine &Color Grading

“Jod is a true artist with a great passion for his craft.”

– John W. Simmons, ASC

Contact Jod @ [email protected]

or 12'x12' diffusion in the more spacioussettings. Applying 8'x8' and 12'x12' eggcrates to make diffusion more directionalhas been another time-saver. “It createsless flagging,” Littee says. “When youadd flags, you add time.” Newell alsoemploys LiteGear LiteMat LED unitsfor convenient fill. “The fact that you canput them close to walls, dim them andchange the color temperature allows youto move pretty fast,” the cinematogra-pher notes. In the prison setting, Littee has nofear of toplight — typically tungsten-balanced units with a touch of blue gel, acontinuation of season one’s lighting— nor of the sun. Outside, he says, “Icontrol the light with a bit of diffusionand maybe some negative [fill], but forthe most part I let it go. We are shootinga prison show, and there’s a harshness toit.” And in the scenes that revolvearound inmates breaking ground for thedorm construction, Littee explains, “thesun becomes a player in the dilemmathey’re dealing with, working outside.You have to embrace that. A lot of times,too, I’ll toplight them. My gaffer looks atme like I’m crazy, but it’s good! It doesn’thave to be all pretty. Let’s live throughthese characters and what they’re experi-encing.” A large part of Orange involvestwo given characters engaged in conver-sation, and many of these tête-à-têtesoccur in the prison dorms — which

happen to be Littee’s most difficult set,as it’s cramped both inside and out.None of the exterior dorm walls comedown, and on one side of the room thewindows are fairly large, while thoseopposite are narrow and small. “Thebiggest challenge is that we don’t have awhole lot of room outside the set,” saysLittee. “There’s 15 feet before I hit thebackdrop — sometimes less. Bill and Iare constantly fighting for space.” Littee often places 5Ks outsidethe dorm windows. “Inside, I try tomatch Image 85s with massive rags, justto help fill,” he explains. “Then I comein with smaller lights, either theLiteMat or small Kinos, that will gothrough another frame. I also like tobring some Kinos up above; if two char-acters are talking, I want to feel the lightright above them, to give them a three-quarterish feel. I like to keep that harsh-ness alive from overhead in the prison.” Shooting for six months in thoserooms over the course of a season, Litteerelishes his time outside the prison asmuch as any inmate would. On thevarious backstory locations, the colorpalette expands beyond beige walls andbeige uniforms — the entire spectrumavailable, offering Littee the ability tocreate special flourishes. “When I shootthe backstories, I always try to do a fore-shadowing of prison life,” he says, bothto enhance the story and as a personalchallenge.

One instance was the backstoryof Blanca Flores (Laura Gómez), thecurt, unibrowed inmate who had asurprising prior life as a caretaker for anelderly woman. “There’s a scene withBlanca in the shower, and I wanted toadd this feeling of bars somehow,”Littee explains. “I had the opportunityto do that with reflections of thewindow on the shower door, whichcreated a bar-like pattern. When I findthose moments, it makes me happy.” Orange’s postproduction takesplace in L.A., with color timingperformed via FilmLight’s Baselight atEncore Hollywood for a 4K IMF finaldelivery. Littee communicates withsenior colorist Tony Smith by phoneafter sending stills — but just a handful.“If you send too many, they tend not togo through them because it becomesoverwhelming,” the cinematographernotes. “They’re coloring many shows;it’s not like you’re the only one, so timeis a constraint there as well.” All 13 episodes of season fourwere released on Netflix on June 17. InFebruary, the streaming serviceannounced it would be renewingOrange Is the New Black for three moreseasons. Littee is already at work onseason five, which began shooting inJune. He still marvels that this opportu-nity came along when it did. “Did Ithink I’d be director of photography ona show like Orange at the time I wasoffered the job? No, that wasn’t even onmy radar. I thought I’d have another fiveto eight years as camera operator andshooting my little shorts. Then thiscame along, and it was very difficult tosay no — but it took some courage tosay yes.” �

� Behind the Bars

Cast and crew prepare to shoot an exterior prison-yard scene.


TECHNICAL SPECS 1.78:1

Digital Capture

Panasonic VariCam 35

Panavision Primo

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Behind Bthare s - ludovic litteeludoviclittee.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/08/...72 July 2016 American Cinematographer always handheld, it created one mood all the time,”