By Randi Altman 

Apple TV+’s The Afterparty is a murder-mystery-comedy that focuses on a murder at a high school reunion’s after-party, and everyone is a suspect. Each episode focuses on a different character’s point of view as they are questioned by a detective. Their stories are told in a variety of ways, such as a musical, a rom-com, a cartoon, an action movie. It features a killer cast, including Dave Franco (the hated dead guy, Xavier), Sam Richardson (Aniq), Ilana Glazer (Chelsea), Ben Schwartz (Yasper) and Tiffany Haddish (the detective who is just about out of patience).

Carl Herse

The Afterparty was created by Chris Miller (who also directed) and Phil Lord, the team behind 21 Jump Street and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

With so many different stories to tell and in so many different ways, you can imagine this was a fun challenge for the show’s cinematographer, Carl Herse, who learned of the project through production designer Bruce Hill. “He was in the early stages of prep when he mentioned that director Chris Miller was in the process of meeting DPs,” explains Herse. “Bruce gave me the elevator pitch for this Rashomon-inflected murder mystery, with each installment depicted as a different film genre, and as soon as the call ended, I was cold-emailing Chris.”

They had a relatively short prep considering the ambitious concept of many types of shows within one. And this was made more challenging in the late summer of 2020, as it was conducted almost entirely over Zoom. “Luckily, my meetings with Chris were immensely productive due to his excitement and dedication to the visual experience of the series. We spent many hours video-chatting to brainstorm the overall arc of the season and how each episode’s look would be designed and fit into the whole series.”

Let’s find out more from Herse…

How did you work with Chris to set the look?
Chris and I hit the ground running with our ideas. He has been working on this series for nearly a decade, so the show is a passion project, and we both wanted to give the audience an experience they’ve never had before.

The first step was to figure out our present timeline, which we referred to on-set as the “Parlor Mystery.” This mostly takes place after Xavier’s been murdered and comprises both Detective Danner’s investigation as well as Aniq and Yasper’s improvised scramble to clear Aniq as the prime suspect.

Can you talk about the Parlor Mystery and the different genres visited for the series?
From the start we were looking at locked-room mysteries like Clue, Gosford Park and so forth, and eventually we expanded that to include Coen Brothers films like Burn After Reading and other examples of material that had a polished, formal approach. We realized early on that the Parlor Mystery should really have two variations. Danner employs a more calculated interview approach, observing evidence and comparing her subjects’ stories. Meanwhile, Aniq and Yasper are sneaking around in the background trying to solve the mystery themselves.

We approached both perspectives very similarly in tone, with the main difference being in the composition and camera movement. Because Danner’s method relies on control, we photographed scenes in which she holds court with cameras in a studio, locked off or in Steadicam mode, creating tableaus with the composition of our characters in depth. Any time the scene is subjectively with Aniq, we tend toward a looser, hand-held approach, with composition and movement very organic and improvised.

What about each character’s flashbacks?
Chris brought many references to the table that he had been preparing alongside the project for years. In our early meetings, he would describe not only the genre that he was hoping to capture, but also the different films that came to mind as strong examples of what he had in his head.

We spent a lot of time just talking about movies we love from each genre and trying to identify the different similarities between them that we responded to. When approaching something like an action movie, there is a lot to draw from, and much of it doesn’t correlate between projects. It became a conversation like, “Do we want to harness the tone of Die Hard or The Fast and the Furious? How reined-in or ridiculous should we get? How does that relate to the other episodes and their own tone?

Such a big part of the process in developing our intention was looking at how each episode was a complement or contrast to the others in the series and determining the best way to tell a cohesive story from beginning to end.

How did you choose the camera you shot on?
One of the important factors that Chris and I wanted to take advantage of was using a camera with the ability to shoot in a variety of different formats. We wanted the ability to shoot full-frame spherically, anamorphic and with a reduced-sensor area for specific visuals. I knew from my previous experience that the Sony Venice would be hard to beat, as it offers a wide range of capture formats, great exposure sensitivity and an incredibly rich image.

What about lenses?
Chris and I knew that we would want to use different lens sets for our variety of looks, so in anticipation of our camera tests, Panavision basically emptied the shelves, and we spent an entire day exploring their library.

I was fortunate to have my gaffer, Oliver Alling, with us for the tests, so in addition to the usual camera and lens breakdowns, we were able to light for each genre and walk away with clips that our colorist, Dave Hussey, could use to build preliminary LUTs. As always, Panavision optical engineer Dan Sasaki floored us with his knowledge and suggestions and, ultimately, selected four main lens sets to serve our various needs.

Carl Herse, with camera, on set

In the end, each genre in The Afterparty had its own recipe, with a unique combination of capture format, lens type, filtration, aspect ratio, ISO and LUT. Beyond that, we emphasized a specific range within each lens set depending on the episode, differed our camera movement, and employed radically different lighting approaches.

Can you talk about the lighting and look?
A major goal with the design of The Afterparty was to build rich, unique looks for each character’s flashback that both hold their own as well as contribute to the arc of the season.

The first four episodes depict the events of the same evening leading up to Xavier’s murder, and in the latter half of the season, the flashbacks begin to go deeper. For that reason, there is a progression from the beginning to the end for our episodes.

The present timeline had its own unique recipe, captured in 6K spherical mode on the Sony Venice using Panavision Artiste prime lenses with a 2:1 aspect ratio. We arrived at the 2:1 aspect ratio because it has the fewest filmmaking precedents — aside from Vittorio Storaro’s use of “Univisium” — giving us the more common aspect ratios for our episodic genre references.

With so many ensemble scenes set against the Parlor Mystery backdrop, this wider format also offered us greater possibility to create tableaus with composition and depth for the blocking and placement of our sizable cast within the frame. We approached our lighting for this present timeline with a controlled realism that could feel naturalistic or expressive depending on how it was dialed for each scene.

Chris and I knew that our first three major flashbacks — romantic comedy, action and musical — were perspectives imagined by three characters who saw themselves in the most aspirational way and had the highest inflection of cinematic flourish. With that in mind, we shot these first three episodes in a 2.35:1 anamorphic format using Panavision T series lenses. The anamorphic look immediately imparts the strong filmic quality that these early recollections inspire. While the aspect ratio and lenses are shared, there is very little else to correlate between these looks.

What about the look of Aniq’s flashback?
Aniq’s flashback, told as a warm romantic comedy, was born from a thousand Hugh Grant movies. The camera movement is very intentional and specific, with glassy dolly and crane moves and shot with longer lens increments to compress depth and separate our characters from the background with shallow focus.

The lighting is warm and cosmetic and includes touches of artifice with strong backlight and a dreamy quality. In contrast, we approached Brett’s (played by Ike Barinholtz) flashback in Episode 2 as an action film, tapping the steely electric tone of films like John Wick and Atomic Blonde. Rather than working with the longer lens increments of Episode 1, here the camera is in close, with very wide lenses, always subjectively with Brett as he stalks through the story.

We achieved the camera movement primarily with Steadicam and handheld to echo the loose, improvisational aspect of his personality while still feeling slick enough to live up to how the character sees himself. I worked closely with gaffer Oliver Alling to create a much cooler world for Brett and populate the frame with small, vibrant sources to flare the lens and to add to the kinetic tone.

As the series continues, we move away from anamorphic lenses with Chelsea’s flashback in Episode 4. Unlike our first depictions, Chelsea isn’t sharing the best version of herself, and her story takes on a darker, more sinister timbre. Because her account also takes us through the same evening as the others, we maintain the 2:35:1 aspect ratio while moving into a vintage, spherical-lens visual language, achieved with the Panavision H series lenses in the 6K full-frame format.

The look of this episode was informed by psychological thrillers and David Fincher films and employed a more stripped-away stylistic approach. Rather than the additive approach of our action or musical genre — with a dizzying array of lighting and camera tricks — we used simple language with shadow, the movement of rain and withholding visual information to express the tone.

What about the look of Walt’s episode, which seems to have a retro ‘80s/’90s feel?
In Walt’s (Jamie Demetriou) Episode 5, the recollection is now of our characters in high school, when potential motives against Xavier might have first taken shape. Chris and I knew this needed to be a departure from the highly cinematic wide-screen style of our prior installments, and we wanted to frame the story as a nod to high school party movies.

We began by looking at films from the ‘80s and ‘90s that we kind of grew up on, and while the narratives from those examples were certainly referential to our episode, there wasn’t quite enough visual richness to anchor ourselves to. While examining the time period for our flashback, 2006, I started to connect with the found-footage craze of this era and how that might inform our visual language.

One of the things that makes Chris such a strong filmmaker is his openness to ideas, and before we knew it, he was able to incorporate a character with a video camera to help us lean into the found-footage experience. In addition to the incorporation of low-fi material, we shot entirely handheld in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio using lightweight zoom lenses, constantly adjusting focal length as if the viewer was a documentary filmmaker racing to keep up with the story. In contrast to our previous episode’s quiet, brooding tone, the impact of this movement breathes fresh energy into the series.

Are there some scenes/episodes that stick out as particularly challenging?
Our musical episode is beloved for its richness of scale and ambition — and in many ways demonstrates the range of our series all on its own. With a baseline look inspired by musicals and contemporary pop, it quickly segues into a frenetic hip-hop music video, then a jubilant song-and-dance number with choreography and complicated lighting design. It wraps up with a crooning solo performance.

Achieving all of these on a television schedule was an enormous undertaking, particularly for our camera and lighting departments. And as with most film production, The Afterparty required shooting the entire series out of chronological order, so on any day we might be challenged with shooting in the headspace of the romantic comedy, thriller or musical.

All of our sets needed to be rigged with the various lighting looks already integrated to minimize time between setups and give Chris and the actors time to work in the scene. There were several days we needed to deliver three or more genre looks within a single location, and it was a fun challenge to push ourselves to come up with lighting that was both evocative of the episode’s tone and different from what came before.

How did you work with colorist David Hussey? Was it all remote?
I was incredibly lucky to collaborate with Dave from Company 3. It was critical to have a partner with range and the enthusiasm to take on such an ambitious visual concept. I was lucky to grade the entire series in-person, with a testing and masking program that kept us all feeling safe.

[Editor’s Note: We reached out to Hussey to ask about how he worked with Herse and team: “I sat down with Carl at the beginning of the show, and we talked about color design for each character’s story. One of the characters is a schoolteacher, so she specializes in a kind of graffiti look. Another is more of a film noir look, and another has a kind of anamorphic lens look. The show involved a lot of note-taking! We had to make sure, as we were working on the shots, that each one was colored the right way for each actor and each story. It was challenging, but it was also very rewarding working with filmmakers who had such a creative approach to the color.”]

All in all, it seems like a big undertaking.
Absolutely. Something that Chris and Phil do so well is bring great people together and get everyone motivated to do their best work. It’s truly a “best idea wins” scenario, and Chris is very open to being intuitive on the shoot day once the actors are in their stride and the scene is worked out.

The art and costume departments did an incredible job of tweaking the set dressing and wardrobe to support the tone of each flashback, and my camera team was fantastic at tracking the different camera formats, aspect ratios and lens types we cycled through each day. My genius gaffer and long-time collaborator, Oliver Alling, was incredibly fluid and thoughtful as we attempted to harness so many different lighting styles. Our key grip, Kyle Honnig, was equally supportive, with a variety of vehicle mounts and rigging ingenuity. Our camera operators were super-involved in understanding what kind of movement and composition were appropriate to each segment. It really took a village to pull off.

Looking back on the series, would you have done anything different?
There are always little moments that in retrospect could have been improved — small lighting or compositional choices that are noticeable to the DP but most likely missed by everyone else.

At the end of the day, my goal is always to do my best work as quickly as possible so the set can be turned over to the director and cast. If I can shave a few minutes out of every setup, by the end of the day it might give the actors an extra 30 or 40 minutes of time to experiment with performance or allow the director to get an additional shot that could be the difference between a formulaic sequence and one that sings.

Any tips for young cinematographers?
I’ve always found that it’s critical to surround yourself with a strong crew that is eager to support your crazy ambitions and ideas. It’s worth reaching out to people with experience, and if you can inspire them, they’ll lift you up, and everyone wins.

It’s important to take chances as long as you’re adaptive and willing to course-correct if something isn’t quite as you imagined. At the end of the day, the job is to deliver a compelling visual experience while also making sure you aren’t dominating the set, and to ensure the director and cast have time to work on performance and story.

Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for 25 years.