By Iain Blair

Reasonable Doubt, from executive producer and director Kerry Washington, is a new crime drama from Hulu and Onyx Collective. The series is centered on a high-powered female criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles, Jax Stewart (Emayatzy Corinealdi), who uses her questionable moral compass to guide her through the policies and laws in the LA legal system.

Cinematographer Robert E. Arnold shot the show as a first-time alternating DP with co-DPs Kira Kelly, ASC, and Michael Negrin, ASC.

Robert E. Arnold

I talked with Arnold — whose credits include TV series Astronomy Club and The Tam and Kevin Show as well as the film Gun and a Hotel Bible — about shooting the show and how he collaborated closely with the post team on the visual effects.

How many episodes did you shoot and can you describe the look of the show?
I shot episodes 3, 4, 7 and 10, which is the finale. I also operated on the pilot, before I was awarded the alternating DP position, so I had a good idea of what the look was going to be before I began shooting. Since I was there at the inception, it wasn’t too hard to maintain the look.

During the pilot, the two major references were the George Clooney legal thriller Michael Clayton and Licorice Pizza, and I was fortunate enough to have Licorice Pizza gaffer Justin Dixon as my gaffer. We’ve worked together on various projects in the past, and on this one we went for a very artistic, cinematic look centered on an almost architectural composition in some ways — though things shifted when we were on location.

The goal wasn’t to have a ton of key-stoning and buildings. We also wanted to stress the contrasts levels without making them too heavily rooted in our references so we could make the overall look our own.

There are two other DPs, so how does that work in terms of continuity of look?
I already knew Kira Kelly, who brought me on to operate for her on the pilot, and we had at least two meetings where we discussed creating the look in detail and how we’d approach the pilot, which was directed by Kerry Washington.

Then Michael Negrin, the other alternating DP when we went to series, actually ended up having to defer to me, as I was there for the pilot. And along with Raamla Mohamed, the showrunner, I’d adapted the pilot look for the series. The main thing was not to let it get overlit and too bright, like a sitcom.

Tell us about collaborating with Kerry.
She’s definitely an actor’s director in the way she works and approaches a scene. She knows exactly what she wants, and she trusts the DP to get her there.

How did you decide on the camera and lenses?
We shot the pilot on the Sony Venice 1 and kept using it for the whole series. The thing that changed was the lenses. We began with large-format Panavision Primo lenses and then switched to Zeiss Supremes. I’m a big Panavision lens fan, but for various reasons, we made the switch to Zeiss Supremes and Falcon Gekkos.

Director Kerry Washington on-set

For most of my episodes I stuck to the Supremes because I like their contrast, the lens flare and the way they perform. I didn’t use the Gekkos much.

What about the lighting?
The goal in paying homage to Michael Clayton and Licorice Pizza was to make it all look as natural as possible, and that’s always a challenge when you have a variety of your work on-stage versus at practical locations. On a nine-day shooting schedule, we were on-stage for about three to four days, and I always aimed for natural realism. I added a bit of haze in a room whenever I could for some diffusion and to get that atmospheric look along with a hard light pounding through a window.

My gaffer Justin Dixon also introduced me to the Cineo Reflex R15 lights, which I really liked. When he had to move on to another show before I shot the finale, the new gaffer, Mike Cruz, introduced me to the Fiilex Q8s & Q10s, which I loved. They’re sort of what you’d get if a Leko and Source 4 Joker had a baby…and great for creating hard flashes of light or contrast.

Did you work with a colorist in prep on the LUTs?
No, we went with the preset LUT from the pilot, and then the colorist, Gareth Cook at The Foundation, and I just refined it.

Tell us about shooting the season finale. I heard you used a device by Camtec called the Color-Con. How did that influence your approach for the season finale.
One of my favorite films was Se7en by David Fincher, and back in the day when people still shot film, flashing film was a look I really loved. Color-Con basically gives you the digital version of that look, as it adds light into the shadows, and I wanted that for some of the scenes. It lifts the blacks so that when you crush them in post, it gives you this milkier black, almost like overexposing it and pulling the film down.

I discovered it last year when I was operating on the Ryan Murphy show Monster and fell in love with it. Then I found out that one of my idols — DP Matthew Libatique — had used it on various projects. If it had been up to me, I would have used it for the whole show. I also used the Camtec Falcon lenses, which were used on the last but one Star Wars for the finale flashback. I wanted a grittier lens in the large-format family that would give me more of a vintage look. The finale climax scene in an auto body shop was my favorite to shoot, as it was the payoff from the pilot. I used smoke and peppered color in with the Color-Con to amplify the softness and push light into the shadows.

There are some VFX. How involved were you?
I worked pretty closely with post supervisor Bob Dussault and VFX supervisor Chris Hagerthy and his team at Big Lazy Panda. Sometimes they’d get footage where I’d used the Color-Con and think something had gone drastically wrong with the camera, or they’d have to deal with a plate for something we hadn’t necessarily discussed in prep.

We also shot a lot of bluescreen for all the car-driving scenes because we didn’t have the budget to go out on a process trailer. We also had some VFX for the occasional office scene, replacing backgrounds in sets, and of course all the usual clean-up.

Tell us about the DI. How involved were you?
I’m very involved, and I went to pretty much all the sessions with Gareth and the showrunner, except for the finale, when I was out of town. It was mainly about dialing in one scene to the next and making sure that if some color temperature was off or if some VFX shot was a little bit off color-wise, it all looked seamless in the end. We wanted it to look rich without being too saturated, and we were very meticulous.

Finally, what were the main challenges of shooting this series?
TV shows are almost always tough in terms of budget and time, and we also had heavily loaded scripts, so there was a lot on paper but not necessarily enough time to shoot it all.

Having a second unit would have helped a lot. Actor availability was also a challenge sometimes, and we didn’t have the budget for some gear I would have liked. It was a case of champagne taste with a beer budget (laughs).

Industry insider Iain Blair has been interviewing the biggest directors in Hollywood and around the world for years. He is a regular contributor to Variety and has written for such outlets as Reuters, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe.