DOP Adam Newport-Berra talks lensing The Studio

By Oliver Webb

(Images: Apple TV+)

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s latest project, The Studio, follows newly appointed head of the fictional Continental Studios, Matt Remick (played by Rogen), as he navigates his new role. Struggling to meet the studio’s demands, Remick longs to produce high-quality movies amid an increasingly IP-driven entertainment landscape. Featuring an array of guest stars playing themselves, including Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Olivia Wilde and Ice Cube, the show was captured by DOP Adam Newport-Berra.

Newport-Berra initially heard about The Studio through his agent, who mentioned that Rogen and Goldberg were looking for someone who could capture the show in oners. “I love shooting oners!” he begins. “I really pushed to meet Seth and Evan so that I could talk about it with them. They said they wanted to shoot the show with one camera, on one lens, and to capture every scene in one shot.”

Rogen and Goldberg set out to pay homage to classic Hollywood cinema and capture the nostalgia of the golden era of filmmaking. A number of classic films served as visual inspiration (as well as famous oners being name-dropped throughout the show), including The Player (1992), Soy Cuba (1964), Boogie Nights (1997) and Goodfellas (1990). Episode 5 opens with a shot that echoes the opening sequence of Touch of Evil (1958), although Newport-Berra points out that this wasn’t intentional. “It’s funny because we didn’t even think about it when shooting that opening scene,” he admits. “We weren’t always designing these shots ahead of time. We were having to just show up and block them, figure out what’s happening and then find a lyrical, poetic way to have the camera flow through all of it.”

FORGET IT, OLIVIA. IT’S CHINATOWN

Newport-Berra captured The Studio with the ARRI ALEXA 35 and ARRI Master Prime 21mm T1.3 lenses across a period of two and a half months, with four to six days required per episode. “We had an incredible camera operator named Mark Goellnicht,” he says. “Mark has a great attitude, and can just do take after take. He’s an absolute machine, and I sought him out because I knew how athletic he was. We also had an additional operator, Jesse Cain, who handled all the DJI Ronin work as well as helping with the handheld work, as many of the shots required multiple operators.”

The Missing Reel episode pays homage to the noir genre, notably Chinatown (1974), with the film’s score even featuring in the final sequence. “The episode was written like a noir, and the goal was to make something more impressionistic and dramatic, all with a sense of humour,” adds Newport-Berra. “There are layers of jokes in the show, and we wanted it to be self-aware so we could lean into it without fearing it would feel too kitschy, because it was supposed to be, in a way. But I think it turned out quite beautifully.”

Newport-Berra utilised the set and lighting from Olivia Wilde’s movie within a movie. “It was nice that we were shooting on a film set for this episode because we could see all the lights,” he explains. “It was easier to inject colour and stark lighting, as I could just put a light directly in the shot if needed. We weren’t able to do that for the majority of the show because we had to light a set 360°. The noir episode gave me the opportunity to be a bit more impressionistic.”

Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen in The Studio

At one point in the episode, a stern-faced Matt descends a stairwell surrounded by smoke. For a moment, it’s as if we’re seeing the opening of another movie. “It’s funny because the smoke wasn’t originally part of the shot, but I was adamant about putting it in this scene,” says Newport-Berra. “Seth and Evan were both a little sceptical at first, as they thought it would be ridiculous, but of course that’s the point. We ended up basically filling up that alleyway with smoke right before each take, to the point where you could hardly see anything.”

ONER OF A KIND

One of the most physically demanding episodes to capture was The Oner. This follows the very complicated process of shooting a oner for Sarah Polley’s fictional romantic drama starring Greta Lee. Matt’s presence on the set causes tension and chaos inevitably unfolds. Newport-Berra shot the episode over a period of four days. “We couldn’t shoot the entire episode in one shot because of actor availability issues. There was never a day in which we had all the actors together per se, so we had to piece some parts together. We shot the majority of the episode handheld. It’s the most responsive, dynamic and intuitive way to capture scenes.”

Towards the end of the episode, Matt and Sal return to Matt’s car and hurriedly drive off, which required lots of planning. “There’s a moment when we were moving through the space, in a pan we stitched into a Ronin shot as they were moving outside,” details Newport Berra. “That Ronin shot took us out the door into the driveway. We then tracked around alongside the guys running to the car, and there was a hood mount on the car that had electromagnets on it. Once the Ronin was set on that hood mount, there were two metal plates that landed together. Someone flipped a switch, turning the magnet on, and then the guy carrying the gimbal could run off and hide around a corner among some bushes so the car could drive off. Then we had somebody operating that Ronin head from a car ahead of the picture car. I was in that car alongside the operator, the AC and Evan, and we were basically just leading that car down the driveway.”

For Newport-Berra, the most rewarding scenes were the numerous comedic moments throughout the show, which were all meticulously choreographed. “It was about finding the timing between the camera and performances; that’s where the real artwork comes into the show. For example, when Matt trips and falls in the oner episode, it’s almost easy because we know it’s going to be funny and surprising. We found a way to single out that moment and make sure we had the right people and tools in place to let that unfold. We found stitch points to get in and out of it so we could carve that out.”

The camera was constantly up close to the actors and in the heart of all the action, so ensuring it could spin 360° in any direction was an integral aspect of the shoot. “It’s designed to feel that way, and I think that’s a testament to the actors. We were always riding this line of being really precise, well planned and choreographed, but with the chaos of really great comedic actors who will always inject something new.

“We did lots of takes of all these shots, but the actors would always tune it and try out different things in each take, while always knowing they had to hit the same marks and have the same timing. The camera would also do something slightly different in every take, since it was handheld. There was this volatility to the camera and actors that lent itself to the show feeling like it was on thin ice.”

Behind the scenes of The Studio

Working in this way ultimately meant lots of takes ended up on the cutting room floor. “We would get really close to nailing something, then one little element would veer off course and it would immediately mean the take was unusable,” explains Newport-Berra. “When it did work, though, it was really magical. I think this approach can become sterile and clinical if you’re too prescriptive with it or too specific. There needed to be a breath of air inside of it, so that during a given take someone could make a small improvisation or something unexpected could happen and the camera would catch it. I don’t love the camera being so prescriptive that the cast have to work inside a box.”

Newport-Berra had a blast working with the numerous guest stars who came on throughout the show. “Seth and Evan created a fun and positive environment that wasn’t intimidating,” he says. “However, I think the way we were shooting was maybe intimidating for lots of the guest stars. There were a few people who showed up and didn’t really understand what we were doing because Seth and Evan were often too afraid to tell them ahead of time, as they didn’t want to scare them off.

“Actors would show up and Seth and I would explain we were shooting this as a oner. It caught some people off guard, but they quickly caught up. I think that’s a testament to the whole core cast being able to lift up the guest stars, to really accommodate them and make them feel part of the scene.”

TRIBUTE TO TINSELTOWN

Every location throughout the show posed a unique challenge too. Rogen and Goldberg both wanted to shoot in the most incredible, iconic Hollywood locations possible. “A lot of those are up in the Hills, so even just getting to them with equipment trucks was often a huge issue,” adds Newport-Berra. “Matt’s house is a tiny, one-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills that we couldn’t even get our trucks up to. We were parking trucks miles away, putting kit in a pickup truck, driving it up the hill and then scrunching ourselves into a tiny canyon I couldn’t put any lights in because there was literally no space out on the property. I was finding ways to hide lights in bushes or float a balloon light over the set. There was also nowhere for the crew to hide, so they were often tucked into closets.”

The house used in the oner episode is a famous John Lautner house in Silver Lake. “There’s no real flat ground on the property, besides the little patio, so there’s nowhere to place lights, and we couldn’t put cranes in or anything. The entire house is glass walls and you can see out in any direction. We were constantly moving the crew around just to stay out of the shot. “Because of all the glass walls, I couldn’t use most of the normal tricks to make the time of day feel like dusk. We often rehearsed for eight hours, then had to wait for that two- or three-hour window at the end of the day to actually roll. That’s because of how we were shooting the show; wanting the camera to see 360° all the time and being able to scan every inch of each location.”

There were lots of technical elements to The Studio too, of which Newport-Berra is particularly proud. “What’s cool about shooting oners is that everyone has to be firing on all cylinders at all times,” he concludes. “You’ll find that, sometimes, an actor will save themselves for their close-up. They don’t want to burn their energy because they know the camera isn’t going to see them. It’s like being on a soccer field with the ball on the other side of the pitch. You’re not going to be sprinting towards the ball if it’s 100 feet away from you.

“For this project, everyone had to be prepared to be on camera and everyone was working collaboratively all the time, so there was a collective energy, which made for something really special. The chemistry and energy on-set was electric, and when we pulled off each take it was the best feeling because everyone knows it and feels it.”

*This article originally appeared in the May/June edition of Definition Magazine.