By Randi Altman

Jason Oldak is a cinematographer with almost two decades of experience across large- and small-scale feature films, episodic television, documentaries and numerous commercial projects. He recently shot episodes of Apple TV+’s Lessons in Chemistry, starring Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman.

Oldak was nominated for the ASC award for Limited or Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for TV for his work on Episode 7, titled Book of Calvin. We reached out to Oldak to talk about that particular episode and his other work on the show.

How early did you start on Lessons in Chemistry?
I was hired onto the team in early spring, but prep didn’t commence until midsummer. It’s always beneficial to join the team early and talk about the origins of the project. It was also quite helpful to discuss the process with my co-DP, Zack Galler, and our production designer, Cat Smith.

Cat had a plethora of images and colors she pulled to discuss her intentions and how the world would be built on the stages. That helped us to think about lighting and the design of the LUT. Zack and I shared our lookbooks from our respective interviews and found shared images. Moving forward, I knew we were on the same page with our visual intentions for the show.

Generally, when starting a show, there is a meeting with the studio to present a lookbook across all departments. As I mentioned, both Zack and I shared similar images in our own interview lookbooks that happened to end up in the presentation to the studio. Although many of our images had a period feel, nothing was forced or overly dialed-in. Our objective was always to find the right cinema glass to tell the story appropriately. Our lighting and our LUT would balance the palettes that our production design and costume design teams created.

What was it shot on? Why was it the right camera for the series?
We photographed the series on the ARRI Mini LF camera system along with TLS Canon K35 lenses. I love the ARRI camera. Its color science seems to react slightly better to skin tones and has a softness to the image compared to some of the other systems out there.

The camera is also small enough so that it never was an issue when mounting to cranes, remote heads or Steadicam. However, I really feel that the lens choice is your paintbrush when it comes to designing your visual language for your show. The TLS Canon K35 lenses, supported by our friends at Keslow Camera, are rehoused vintage glass that really accentuated the period we were after. We added a mix of atmosphere, and it was exactly the right recipe for the series.

 

Did you follow the look created in the pilot?
This show doesn’t necessarily have a pilot in the traditional sense. It was an eight-episode, straight-to-picture series for Apple TV+ based on the best-selling novel of the same name. Lessons in Chemistry tells the story of Elizabeth Zott’s journey. Each episode of the limited series tends to create a different emotional and physical stage in Elizabeth’s life, and that gave Zack Galler and me a jumping-off point for tone and the visual language for our particular episodes. Zack Galler photographed episodes 1, 2, 5 and 6, and I photographed episodes 3, 4, 7 and 8.

How did you make your episodes your own?
It all starts with the story you are telling. As a cinematographer, you have to be truthful to the pages you’re given. In Episode 103, we dealt with an immense amount of grief and sadness. It’s quite the departure from the first two episodes, where their love story began. Losing someone close to you creates a sensation that the world has stopped moving. It felt necessary to visually depart from the light and embrace the darkness and the stillness. There were a lot of scenes in the episode that needed the stillness to process the pain.

In Episode 104, we deal with birth and new beginnings. The episode narrates an initial discomfort, which eventually arcs to determination. Our lighting and camera work was distinctive of these emotions. We opted for some hand-held work and extreme shallowness with our focus during the scene when Elizabeth is giving birth to Mad. We used a device called the Deakinizer on the front element of the camera to create a dreamlike state, when Calvin enters her vision and guides her through the birthing process. We started that episode with a level of stillness, but by the end there was determination, and we created more camera movement to justify the change.

Episode 7, the penultimate episode, takes us back to the origin of Calvin and his side of our love story. This episode had a plethora of visual opportunities. Tara Miele, the director of episodes 7 and 8, and I created a unique look for young Calvin’s world in the 1930s. It felt appropriate to strip down the color since this is where Calvin’s life started.

Once we bridge the gap to adult Calvin and his scientific achievements, we contrast the world with warmth and color. Another opportunity that challenged our visual vocabulary was the correspondence between our man of science and our man of God. Tara and I created a cohesion of imagery that flowed back and forth, sometimes metaphorically, to the spoken word being said. We romanticized the influence each of them had on their worlds through camera movement and composition.

In Episode 8, we come full circle, finding focus and a clear path ahead. A big arc to the final episode is Elizabeth’s decision about her future at Supper at Six. We devised fluid camera moves, and our lighting felt clear and controlled. The number of shots we devised and how we introduced the show was important, as this would be the last time we step foot in the Supper at Six studio.

As we reveal Elizabeth’s new profession, we contrast this with a more simplistic approach to the set design, lighting and shot design. In one of the final scenes of the series, we are in the Zott residence, and Elizabeth is hosting a dinner party with all of the characters under one roof. She greets them as she passes through the house from room to room. We designed the camera to dance through this interaction with only one or two cuts. My intention was to have the audience feel as if they were as much a part of this POV and this journey with these folks as Elizabeth was. It felt like a perfect way to say goodbye to our show.

For Episode 7, there are different time frames and looks … young Calvin, Calvin as a chemist, Calvin in 1951. How did you differentiate those with the camera, lenses and lighting?
There is a distinction between where Calvin starts in his life and where he ends up. As a young man, he was stripped of a family and a home. But he had a drive and perseverance. As we start our story in the 1930s, we decided to strip the color away and create a cooler palette with blooming highlights.

As we transition to adult Calvin, who has become established through his scientific achievements, our world has more color and warmth to it. It felt important to give these two worlds their own characteristics. The way we moved through both time periods felt true to the style of our show. The lenses were the same throughout the series. The true distinction between the 1930s and ‘50s is the color palette of the two periods, a collaborative effort by camera, costume and set design.

You were nominated for your work on Episode 7. Can you talk us through that one?
First off, I want to say what a complete honor it has been to be recognized by my peers for the collaborative work my team and I were able to create. I strive for creativity and to have a passionate sensibility toward the work at hand. To be recognized with an award is the icing on the cake.

When thinking about what episode I should submit for the awards, Episode 7 spoke to me. I love how we go backward to tell the story from a perspective other than our main character’s. I love the unlikely friendship that Wakely and Calvin form via the written word and how their lives influence each other’s.

When I first interviewed for the job, I remember reading a scene involving Calvin at dawn, crewing on the open water. I had this immediate vision of what that would look like through the lens in my head. I really wanted to photograph it right then and there. In Episode 7, I was able to do that!

That first shot with young Calvin — was that one camera move until the classroom?
In general, our approach to camera movement in Lessons in Chemistry was striving to take, for example, three shots that you need in a scene and make them work as one. We tried to design blocking so that the camera moves from one piece to the next, acting more like a oner and telling the story in a non-cutty way. Our A camera operator, Mikael Levin, and B camera operators, Jan Ruona and Ilan Levin, were masters at this.

When Tara Miele and I discussed the opening sequence, we wanted to show off how Calvin had always been so curious about the world, and that took his attention away from his schooling. The opening shot was not one shot, but it was intended to feel like one. Because of the geography in front of the boy’s home location, we had to use a crane to tell our story. As Calvin is called out by the first nun, we telescope back, leading him to run around the corner and up the stairs. As he rounded the corner, we shifted our crane on a dolly track down the line with him, and as he ran up the stairs, the crane started to telescope forward, feeling as if we were running to class too! It was a game of measurements to see if we could achieve it, but thanks to key grip Adam Kolegas and his team, it was a success.

Once inside, we actually did the whole shot as one move on Steadicam. Alas, in the edit they needed to break it up with another shot midway through, but it still works. The intention was to tie the boy’s name, Calvin Evans, to his face at the very end of the sequence. We start on his feet as he enters the hallway and pull back, leading him.

We do a dance with the camera and wrap around the back of Calvin as he rounds the corner; we are now in follow mode as he approaches the class door. As he opens the door, we creep in behind trying to get to our seat before the nun turns around. As she says his name, we wrap around and reveal Calvin in the light, sitting in his chair. I loved the orchestration and the timing of that shot. It told the story in the most effective way possible. This was truly a collaborative effort with our operator, our director and me.

What about the crewing scene you touched on earlier?
Being on the open water and filming the actors crewing was one of the highlights of the show for me. It was such a tranquil and beautiful experience. We had a large pontoon boat that carried the crew and a 35-foot MovieBird crane with a camera on the end of it. We treated the row work like you would with a car-to-car sequence.

However, every cinematographer will tell you that their biggest fear is watching that sunset and knowing that they did not complete the work for the day. Our day on the water, shooting all of our row work for Episode 7 and Episode 8, was an extremely tight schedule. The plan was to shoot the row work on a lake in San Dimas, California, in the early part of December — a time of the year when the sun sets at 4:30pm, if you’re lucky.

We arrived way before the sun came up and had everything prerigged to get out on the water as soon as the sun was rising. Tara, our AD and I worked out a very specific timetable, so it left little room for error. In addition to our own water work, we also were tasked with shooting a portion of Episode 5’s row work that day and two scenes along the edge of the water, one being a lengthy dialogue scene in Episode 8. We had our work cut out for us. In the end, the light always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, and our team was on their A-game and knew exactly what needed to be done. The success is in the results!

What about the lighting at the lab and at Calvin’s house? It seems like the windows are the main light sources.
The term naturalistic lighting comes up a lot in contemporary cinematography, yet it doesn’t always seem successful in its final execution. I truly feel like this was one of the first shows where I got there.

We really strived to make it feel like the light was coming from our window sources or from a fixture that you can see on-camera in the interior sets. We augmented these frames with our own lighting, but just enough exposure to feel as if that practical was creating the luminance on the subject’s face. At times, it was about finding a source that was more of a ¾ back angle to the subject, and we would wrap that light subtly with atmospheric smoke and grip attire so that the lighting never felt heavy on the face. If we did bring units inside to help enhance the source of light, they were always used very subtly.

In the lab, we used a heavy number of lights outside of the set to sell daylight, and they also worked as the sun, pushing their way through the blinds to find the point we were lighting. However, we also rigged par cans above each window almost directly downward onto the blinds. The heat from those units would hit the blinds and carry into the room to really sell the hot California sunlight. It helped us light minimally in the room and be able to move throughout.

I can go on and on….

What was it about Episode 7 that you think resonated with your peers?
I am truly happy with all the work we did on Lessons in Chemistry. Each of my episodes was so unique, with various challenges and success stories. I really felt that my creative gears were constantly moving, and for me, that’s a dream job.

In regard to the selection of Episode 7, with most award shows, you select an episode to submit. I felt that Episode 7 showcased the most range in regards to my cinematography on the show. The episode allowed us to create a look unique to the 1930s, there was a range of new locations, we showcased a lot of physical activity in Calvin’s running and rowing, and we saw the perspective of the accident in a different light. Episode 7 felt the most diverse with my range of work.

What about the other episodes you shot? What was most fun or challenging about those?
In Episode 4, as Elizabeth gets more clarity, she decides to convert her kitchen to an industrial lab. The directors, Bert and Bertie [Amber Templemore-Finlayson and Katie Ellwood], and I created an elaborate number of shots, all designed to feel like one fluid movement of the camera to create the feeling of time passing.

The camera moves in and around the kitchen, with stitched edits in a few places, as the viewer watches the transformation unfold. Different characters come and go, building the passage of time. In the end, we land on Elizabeth and a vision of Calvin reminiscing about their past and their love for one another. The way they are both lit in this moment is one of my favorite scenes in the show.

They are gazing into each other’s eyes. As the viewer, you know this is in her head, but in this moment, I wanted it to feel real. We enhanced this feeling through dreamlike lighting on their faces. We do a slow dolly push into each of their faces as they talk about their pasts.

I truly love how we orchestrated that sequence. The scene had to be shot over several days because the art department had to change over the kitchen while we moved from sequence to sequence, so you can feel the kitchen changing and time passing. It was quite the undertaking but such a success in the end.

What about working with the show’s colorist? Were there on-set LUTs?
Ian Vertovec at Light Iron was our colorist for the series. He oversaw the dailies and was involved in each of our episodes for final color. This was my first time working with Ian, and he was wonderful, a true artist and talent. I consider us lucky to have had him on the show.

Zack Galler had a working relationship with Ian prior to Lessons in Chemistry, and since Zack went first out the gate, he sent some images to Ian in regards to building a show LUT. Ian looked at the images and immediately thought of the old AGFA film stock from the 1950s. It had a warmish quality, but with room for cool tones to pop through. He gave us a show LUT to work off of with those qualities in mind. It was a subtle LUT that complemented that soft 1950s color palette beautifully. Our DIT, Scott Resnick, was able to monitor the LUT based on our lighting and sets and make it work for the changing locations.

I was able to work with Ian in the final color for all of my episodes and had a great rapport with him. That stage of the process is always one of my favorites.

What haven’t I asked that’s important?
I truly had the best of both worlds on this show. I worked with three talented and artistically driven directors, who worked alongside me and prepped the heck out of these shows, pushing me to make great work for the screen.

As closely as I worked with our directors in prep, I was in full communication with my camera, grip and lighting teams to make images that we were all so proud of. Half the battle is hiring a talented team behind you that you can communicate your vision with, and it’s executed with ease. This team was a sensational bunch that understood the story and knew how to tell it in a compelling way.

Finally, I was in awe of our cast’s performances throughout the series. They brought their all on-set each and every day. They were so powerful and brought such talent to the frame. I am truly honored to be a part of the Lessons in Chemistry team.

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