Powell Robinson is a narrative and commercial cinematographer based out of Los Angeles. His clients for music video and commercial work include such big names as Doja Cat, The Weeknd, Jack White, Pedro Pascal and Megan Fox, but his main passion is working on feature films.
Robinson has shot a horror film for Hulu and Worthenbrooks (previously 20th Digital) called Appendage, which was premiered at SXSW this year and had its final festival screening at Sitges Film Festival in Spain in October. Other work from Robinson includes Threshold (Arrow Video), Greenlight (Horror Collective) and the documentary feature Conversion (Gravitas Ventures) narrated by Zachary Quinto.
Powell Robinson
We recently spoke to Robinson to walk us through his workflow on the Anna Zlokovic-directed Appendage, which follows a young fashion designer who struggles with terrible self-doubt, so much so that these feelings manifest themselves as a ferocious growth on her body.
How early did you get involved on Appendage? If early, can you talk about, the benefits?
I actually shot the original short film (that was screened at Sundance 2022) that the feature is based on — so about as early as possible (laughs). Because the tone of the feature was fairly different from the short, it helped tremendously to have the reference of shooting the early version of the story to know what worked and what didn’t. We knew that certain lighting tones still matched up with the feature script, but the texture of the image on the short was too grainy and retro for the more modernized horror-comedy approach Anna wanted to take with the full-length film.
It also was a great practice run for working with the Stage 1 appendage “birthing” scene. We learned a lot about how much freedom we’d want with the blocking and camera motion after working around the restrictions of the rods that animated the hands of the puppet in the short. It meant we had to shoot locked off on each frame where we wanted the puppet’s arms to move, which would help the VFX team paint out the rods. For the feature, the puppet was fully self-contained on Hadley’s side [Hadley Robinson, who plays Hannah]. It had no limbs to animate. Instead, it had fully remote-controlled eyes, brow, and a mouth that was animated by one of the puppeteers, who spoke into a microphone that translated the mouth movement to the puppet. That setup gave us way more leeway to run around the room and film hand-held, which was a lot of fun.
How did you work with the director Anna Zlokovic? What direction were you given for the look? Were you provided examples, look-book, etc.?
Anna and I have been shooting together since college, so our on-set short-hand is well-established at this point. But we did a lot of prep for this film since the tone/genre-blend was so specific, and we knew that communicating that preparation to the rest of the crew would require very clear references and previz to move through our very tight shooting schedule efficiently.
The whole process was very collaborative. When I landed in Wilmington, NC, Anna had already written out a full shot list and had storyboarded multiple key scenes, which
gave us a great foundation to begin our conversations. Over the course of our two prep weeks, we drew digital overheads for every setup as we collaborated on editing her original shot list to fit our locations. We took reference frames for most of the shots in the film using the Cadrage app during our scouts.
We made sure we had enough to fully previz the scenes with the puppets/any VFX, and we filled a Google Drive with stills from all of our reference films. That was separated into highly specific folders, like tungsten versus sodium, different temperatures of daylight and varying levels of saturated fluorescent tones as the tension in the movie becomes more and more heightened.
How did you work with the colorist? Was it all remote?
We were incredibly lucky to work with Sam Gilling, who has been doing some of the most unique, subtle and tasteful film emulation grades in the indie film scene, as well as on huge commercials and music videos.
It was our first time collaborating, and we managed to do almost the entire grade in person (which was a blessing). From the beginning, we knew Sam totally understood the film, and he was very careful to track its overall tone and where Hannah stood in her emotional journey every step of the way. Each choice he made was from a character standpoint.
He also encouraged us to go for a very clean, low-grain approach, which was very complementary to Anna’s focus on making a film that feels modern, with the tone riding a thin line between horror, comedy, and drama.
Can you talk about doing camera tests? What did you end up shooting on and why?
Anna and I had actually done a very extensive camera test for another in-development feature project of ours, so we had a good variety of lens and sensor pairings to reference. However, we didn’t end up doing any tests specifically for Appendage. We just used our main reference films and my prior work to decide on gear.
We ended up using an ARRI Alexa Mini (classic, not LF or 35) and Panavision Primos with a 19-90 Panavision compact zoom. It was the best combination of cost to quality and desired look. While the film was released on Hulu, it was produced at an indie budget level, so we had to be very concise and particular with our camera gear list (and our G&E package). There were no extraneous pieces. The Primos lined up with one of our main references, the movie Se7en, and most of our films are from the Super 35 era, not large format-based, so the Alexa Mini classic fit that characteristic as well.
Can you talk more about the lenses and the lighting?
I primarily shoot on Panavision or ARRI glass, so I’m pretty familiar with the qualities of their flagship lenses. The Primos are clean and crisp and maintain a nice contrast level, which was vital for the amount of nighttime photography we were doing and how soft-in-quality but high-contrast I tend to light. In addition, we have a good amount of VFX clean-up and alteration, so lenses that threw fewer surprises at the VFX team and gave them less distortion/aberration to work around helped to keep post time to a minimum.
Earlier that year, I’d shot a few projects on film (16mm and 35mm), and a lot of our reference films were also shot on film, so I decided to rate the camera at 500 ISO for 85% of the interiors on the shoot. There were some daytime interior scenes where we lost power, so I had to go with 800 to maximize available light. And for others, where curtains were open and we were getting extreme highlights, I went up to 800 or 1000 to preserve that upper-range info.
The main benefits to doing 500 ISO interior/night shoots when working with a non-dual-native ISO camera like the Alexa Mini classic are that you get cleaner shadow information and more control over your contrast ratio/ambient light. The higher the ISO, the more ambient light will affect your image — so on tiny practical sets like ours with a lot of uncontrollable bounce, this was really helpful.
Also, less sensor noise going into post means less accentuated colored noise when you start applying a strong film emulation or an aggressive grade. You also have total control over how much noise/texture the image has by applying additional post film grain or leaving it clean. When you light as soft-key but high-contrast as I do, those qualities are vital to keeping a pleasing fill-side that doesn’t look gnarly when projected on a large screen — silhouettes or an underexposed fill-side skin tone don’t just turn to noise/mess.
Are there some scenes that stick out as challenging?
The big Stage 2 appendage scene, when it crawls out from under the couch and speaks with Hannah, was definitely one of the more difficult ones. It checked all the boxes for a challenging work day: an overnight shoot with practical effects; a jump-scare sequence; constantly moving camera and blocking; an emotional performance; and a tight, high setup-count schedule.
Since the whole scene takes place on the floor, it required a very controlled, well-planned shot sequence that moves between a Dana Dolly (for smooth, repeatable motion to help the VFX team clean up the puppeteers in post). We placed the setup directly on the floor to capture the 4-foot-tall puppet as it walks, talks, gestures and travels across the room to get closer to Hannah — and Hannah’s fully hand-held coverage.
I had to sit on an auto mechanic’s dolly to make it look like the appendage was smoothly crawling toward Hannah as she backs away from it. This was less jarring to cut with the Dana Dolly move than it would have been if I just walked/crouched with the camera toward the actor while she was on the floor. We couldn’t use a Dana Dolly to cover the actor’s side because she would have had to move over the rails and past the couplers since it was a direct push toward her as she crawled back. Navigating the rails and couplers would have both been too hazardous and would have caused a tremendous amount of camera shake.
Spoilers Ahead!
Another interesting scene was when Hannah kisses her appendage clone in the finale. We had to shoot a series of meticulously locked-off matching plates, with Hadley Robinson and her stunt double in both positions, swapping costumes and doing the action. We had Hadley both leaning down to do the kiss and lying on the floor being kissed. This gave us accurate shadows and skin contact in both plates.
The stunt double had her hair up in a net so no unwanted shadows/hair would come down into the frame before Hadley’s would have, or in a way that wouldn’t mesh right with Hadley’s hair. Then we used Hadley’s hair, draped over behind her head when she leans down, to diffuse/block the hard back key light. In that way, the impact point on the lips was two to three stops underexposed and less clearly defined to help hide the roto and compositing of the plates.
Looking back on Appendage, would you have done anything different?
I learned a lot about what it means to shoot in tropical storm situations over the course of Appendage. And since then, I’ve done an increasing number of projects in that kind of climate. The first few days on Appendage, however, I was not as prepared as I am now to get ahead of generator and lighting limitations during severe lightning storms.
Powell Robinson on-set
I’ve learned to be ready to switch from genny power to weather-safe power with no significant delay and to leave nothing on the truck that you could possibly end up needing in subsequent setups. Those two things make a huge difference — not only in terms of the quality of lighting you can maintain but in how much time you can save on rerouting power/relighting when lightning forces you to shut the generators off.
Any tips for young cinematographers?
When you’re approaching your lighting, contrast and light color, don’t get lost in what you personally or arbitrarily think will look best or be the most eye-catching. Try to consider what your lead character is feeling and what the scene means in the context of the film. There is only one of you, and no one will look at a set from the perspective you do, so your “look” or taste will naturally come through anyway because you’re the one making the choices while you attempt to best serve the story.
