Writer/director Chris Nash’s horror film In a Violent Nature, which screened at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, tracks a ravenous zombie creature as it moves through a secluded forest. Produced by Shudder Films, it’s a twist on typical slasher movies in that the audience walks with the killer, not the victims, and therefore gets an unexpected perspective.
We spoke with cinematographer Pierce Derks about the process of making the film.
Pierce Derks
How early did you get involved on this film?
I was involved quite early in this project; before I was onboard as a DP, I was helping the team design their lookbooks when they were first pitching the film. I had also been hired to document the shoot as a behind-the-scenes documentarian. A different DP was attached at that point, but as the project evolved, scheduling conflicts emerged, and the original DP became unavailable, so they asked me to step in and take on the role.
How did you work with the director?
I’ve known Chris Nash for quite a while. We’ve worked on a lot of projects throughout the years, so we both know each other’s quirks and workflow. He can be very particular about the approach and visual language of a scene, but at the same time, he’s very open regarding lighting and individual compositions. Everyone was wearing multiple hats on-set to a certain extent, but especially Chris, as he was also doing a mix of prosthetic and practical effects. So being able to understand his intentions and goals for the scene was crucial in times when attentions were divided elsewhere leading up to a take.
What about the color and working with the colorist? What are some notes that you exchanged? Who was the colorist?
Our colorist was James Graham from Alter Ego in Toronto. He had been hearing about this project for a while from friends and was excited to work on it. In our first session, he showed us some of the scenes he had drafted on his own, and they were graded in the vein of a lot of modern horror movies. He had always heard this was a horror film, so you know, naturally he was anticipating that we would want a traditional horror look, with a lot of stylized color casts to scenes.
The scenes looked great, but ultimately that was not the movie we shot. We did not want to make the daytime woods feel artificially menacing; it was very important to us to maintain those natural tones of the forest and to have audience members make their own decisions about whether a particular shot was serene or sinister. Once we got him onboard with that idea, James was fantastic at helping enhance and balance the tones that were in the negative without outright replacing them.
What did you end up shooting on and why?
I researched a lot of different cameras in preproduction. We needed something small and lightweight enough to work with the camera stabilizer rig I had assembled, but it also couldn’t be too small or be missing critical features. Canon’s C70 emerged as the Goldilocks camera – it was just right. I loved the Super 35mm sensor, and its form factor was perfect for me as both the operator and the cinematographer. Paired with Canon FD glass, it gave us a look that felt neither too vintage nor too modern and clinical.
Pierce Derks
Can you talk lighting?
From a practical level, we didn’t want to drive a giant G&E truck on all these dirt back roads and have to hand-bomb tons of gear every day, so we figured out the bare essentials and had a smaller package of LEDs and a little 2k genny. We used that minikit for most of the remote nighttime photography.
We wanted things to fall off into darkness where appropriate and avoid the temptation to overly stylize the setups or overlight things. We also used a fair amount of harsh and grungy tungsten practicals for the artificial lighting. That lighting kind of gets sicker in every scene, culminating with the look of the wood shed sequence.
When it came to the daytime scenes, we definitely shaped the light to our advantage but tried to avoid oversoftening things. We wanted to capture the different tones from dawn to dusk as Johnny [the murderer] goes on his journey and not just stick with one soft, overcast look the whole time.
Are there some scenes that stick out as challenging? Can you talk about those?
Every scene had its own set of challenges. We rarely had traditional coverage, and there were a lot of 360-degree setups, so we could never get that comfortable or complacent in our approach.
The yoga sequence was maybe the most daunting as a whole, not necessarily from a cinematography stance but for its execution in general. The prosthetic team went above and beyond with a lot of finicky moving parts to manage. Nash and Fletcher Barret were doing most of the heavy lifting, sometimes literally, with the operation and puppeteering in that scene. I’ve filmed a lot of practical makeup effects for films and second unit over the years, and I have such respect for the craft. The effects artists truly give performances that take a while to fine-tune, but I think it’s so worth the time and effort for the visceral and tangible reaction they give an audience.
Looking back on the film, would you have done anything different?
It’s safe to say I would have done some things differently and would’ve liked to have gotten a few more takes on some shots, but I think everyone looking back on a project feels that way to a certain degree — especially when you end up watching things a hundred times in post and begin to lose context. Filmmaking is such a lighting-in-a bottle-type event, with everyone’s instincts gradually shifting day to day. If I shot the film this year, would it be different? Yes, but I don’t know if it would necessarily be better because of that. Overall, I’m very proud of what we were able to accomplish.
Any tips for young cinematographers?
I cannot recommend enough spending time working in the AD department, especially as a third AD, regardless of what department you eventually want to specialize in. My experience working as a third was invaluable, as it taught me how every department operated, how long they need and, ultimately, what makes everyone’s job easier so they can perform at their best.
That time as an AD also helped me learn that you always need to keep the big picture in mind when shooting. It’s so easy to get fixated on every shot and want things to be perfect, but if you’re shooting a minor moment, sometimes it’s best to keep things moving so you can get through the day. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you have 10 minutes to shoot a critical moment for the film because you wasted an hour on a minor setup earlier in the day. You can’t be precious about every shot; it’s not a luxury most productions can afford, so focus on the moments that you know in your guts are important to the story, and give those the extra attention they deserve.
St. Agatha is a horror film that shot in the town of Madison, Georgia. “The house we needed for the convent was perfect, as the area was one of the few places that had not burned down during the Civil War,” explains Seth Michaels. “It was our first time shooting in Atlanta, and the number one reason was because of the tax incentive. But we also knew Georgia had an infrastructure that could handle our production.”
