Now streaming on Disney+ is Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which is based on the novels by Rick Riordan. The story follows 12-year-old Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell), who, upon learning he is a demigod, has to lead a quest across America to prevent a war among the Olympian gods.
DP Pierre Gill
Cinematographer Pierre Gill, CSC, helped set the tone of this VFX-heavy series, which was shot in a variety of locations, including on an ILM LED volume. We reached out to Gill to find out more about his workflow on the show.
When did you get involved on the series?
I got involved very early, three months before shooting. I had many discussions with showrunners Jon Steinberg and Dan Shotz and with director James Bobin. I knew we were going to be shooting in a variety of places, so I was able to start testing hundreds of lenses to find the best fit for the volume, bluescreen, VFX, location and stages.
You worked on the first episode, so in a sense you set the tone. How did the showrunners direct you in terms of the look?
The showrunners were very specific on one thing: make Percy Jackson look and feel real and down-to-earth. They didn’t want to create a flashy artificial superhero-style series. Instead, they wanted the tone to be grounded. A big part of the book is that Percy is relatable, so visually we wanted it to be grounded in the world around us and believable — giving the idea of Percy being a regular kid.
Did you use a lookbook?
I typically create a lookbook for every project I work on. My references were already quite natural, but I wanted to be realistic… but with beauty. I start my mood board with movie posters and visual aspects from those films that I would like to include. With this one, some of the references included E.T. for youth and adventure and The Lord of the Rings for scope and power. Jon Steinberg really liked all of the references I showed him.
Another important part of my lookbook was the focus on youthfulness along with the faces and eyes. I wanted to make sure the show felt youthful because the characters are so young; the visuals needed to reflect that. I tried to make sure that faces and eyes are the main focus in many scenes because actors’ expressions tell us so much about what they are going through.
How would you describe the look of the show?
Natural and realistic. I also wanted to keep colors. I see too many shows that are all desaturated, which is actually easier to do — it’s harder to keep it colorful while staying elegant. Part of making it look realistic had to do with light sources. Even when we used a volume, I tried to introduce natural light sources, like car lights, bonfires or candles, to create dimension and blurriness to make it less perfect, just like the world around us.
Does that look stay steady throughout the series?
It does. Even though we changed sets frequently, I always went back to the tone and palette I established in the beginning. So regardless of whether we shot on-location, onstage or in the volume, we made sure that visually all those elements were connected. Jules O’Loughlin was the second DP on the show. He shot episodes 103, 104 and 107, and he did a good job following my lead.
What were some of the challenges of shooting on-location at different places for each episode?
The biggest challenge was to try to mix locations with the volume. For example, the minotaur sequence was shot in many different environments. I shot some of it in a real car; the house on the beach was built on a stage; inside the car was shot with a bluescreen; the crash was again shot on the stage. And then, when they get out of the car, they are on the volume with elements of bluescreen when Percy fights the minotaur.
With complex sequences like this one, we had a lot of discussions on what was feasible and how we could achieve each element. For example, we could shoot them talking in the car on a location, but because the scene is long, they would have to drive quite a distance with each take. This would make it much harder to light them properly outside of a moving vehicle, so doing it with the bluescreen was much more practical.
We also had to be more mindful of the shooting schedule with such a young cast. , Sso, there was a lot of prep and discussions that went into making each of these scenes work and for us to figurefiguring out the best way to bring them to life.
What about shooting the realistic interiors and exteriors in the ILM LED volume? Is this an area you have worked in before?
It’s very hard to do a realistic volume; it’s great for sci-fi but not for reality. I worked incredibly hard with the ILM team to create content that would allow us to make it look real. For example, they created special tools for my request so I could control the sky and the sun. It made a big difference. At the end, we succeeded pretty well in the exterior MET, the interior MET, the minotaur forest fight sequence and in later episodes.
Did you work with a LUT? What about the colorist? How did that relationship work?
In prep, I created a special LUT for the look of Percy. I have a very particular way of working on-set, as I do my own color. I apply a CDL on every shot using the Pomfort software Livegrade. After, I worked with colorist Charles Bunnag from Light Iron. I sent him many stills with the guidance of the final look, and he worked on his own to make it better. I’m very happy with his work.
What camera and lenses did you choose and why?
I tested hundreds of lenses to make sure they would fit perfectly in the volume. I wanted to shoot anamorphic because it has scope and keeps you closer to the actors. My final choice was Cooke Anamorphic 2x iS35 with a Sony Venice 2 camera. It was a very nice mix.
Pierre Gill
I also worked with William F. White production services in Vancouver, and they provided me with very good service. Their lens technician, Alex Theodore, tweaked four sets of Cookes for me to change the flare and make it bloom. I called them the Cooke Velvet. I also like the Sony Venice. It’s a good camera and is very versatile.
What about lighting?
Most of the sets were huge, so lighting was an important element. I could have a lengthy and in-depth discussion on that, but the general goal was to try to match real location versus the volume versus the bluescreen versus stage sets.
For example, the minotaur sequence is in all of the above; the same goes for the MET sequence, the Camp Half-Blood sequence and many others.
What about working with the author Rick Riordan? What were those conversations like?
Rick is a great person, very down-to-earth and collaborative. He is a gentleman. He left most of the guidance to go through Jon Steinberg and Dan Shotz, in whom he had great confidence, so I mostly interacted with them.
