By Randi Altman

Based on the best-selling novel by Kristin Hannah, Netflix’s Firefly Lane follows two best friends, Kate and Tully, over the course of three decades. The series is now streaming its second season.

DP Vincent De Paula, CSC — who has extensive feature and television credits — has been on the show since its inception, working with showrunner Maggie Friedman to get the right look for the many time frames the show depicts.

You were the sole DP on Season 1 and Season 2. How early did you get involved, and how did that help?
I met with showrunner Maggie Friedman early on, when there was just one pilot script. We had a great meeting. We clicked right away while talking about the look and style I had in mind for the show.

I thought it was a fascinating story about friendship with American culture and history as our canvas. We could cover many topics as the background of our story and emphasize how things have changed for women regarding equality and rights from the ‘70s to today.

I also connected with this story a lot; I need to have a connection with the stories I am working on. I remember growing up in Spain with my best friend and how everything back then was about creating adventures, exploring life, dreaming about the future. All these memories and experiences were a key factor in how I saw this story from a teenager’s perspective.

When I was hired for the job, some of the real locations had already been chosen, so sadly, I didn’t have much input on those, and some have proven to be quite challenging logistically. But I had enough time to develop the look and style I had in mind.

What were the challenges (or benefits) of being the only DP?
Because I was the only cinematographer on the show, I didn’t really have time to prepare episodes with the upcoming directors or scout locations properly, but we tackled this show as a long feature film, with a specific look that would change between all the different timelines. And having just the one voice behind the camera allows for a very unified and consistent flow throughout the episodes.

Did anything change significantly from S1 to S2?
I decided to change lenses for Season 2. We had Cooke S4s in Season 1, and we moved to Panavision Panaspeeds this season. These weren’t available for us when we started filming last season. I used Panaspeeds while on the TV series Maid, and they have become one of my favorite lenses. I have used Panavision Primos extensively in my career when shooting with spherical lenses, but they are very popular and weren’t available for us last season.

The Panaspeed spherical primes are a high-speed, large-format companion to 35mm-format spherical Primo optics.

We had created a style and look in Season 1 through lighting, framing and camera movement that we carried on this season. Season 2 has some very strong dramatic moments, and we introduced new plots that required their own style of shooting. We also briefly introduced the 1990s as another timeline on the show that had its own style.

One of the main differences is that we built more sets this season instead of relying so much on location shooting, which we did in Season 1. Our 1970s interiors, the 1980s apartment in Seattle, and the 1980s news station were built on stages in Vancouver, BC.

When it comes to period stories, smoke/haze also plays a part, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Unfortunately, COVID and other factors prohibited us from using as much haze or smoke as we wanted.

Can you give more detail about the looks you established for each time period?
I wanted the different decades to have distinctive looks, although we did not want the different periods to be too radically different. Of course, when filming a period drama, everyone interprets how these different decades should look based on history, culture, films, photographs and experiences. But I wanted to approach these different looks from an emotional and character perspective rather than just a period-accurate perspective. Transitions also play a huge part in our visual vocabulary, especially when transitioning between different periods, so we are always trying to find interesting ways to create these.

The core of our main story lives in the 1970s, 1980s and early 2000s.

The 1970s has the warmest look in the whole series. It is our happy and warm period. This is a time when our girls get to know each other and explore youth together. In the ‘70s, yellows and greens are very prominent, with milky blacks suggesting a pastel feel.

For the characters, it should be about exploration, hope, adventure, youth, friendship and learning, creating an environment that should generally feel safe and warm. It should be the time that the girls would always look back to, their special moment, dreaming about an amazing life ahead of them, before they would grow to experience the reality of life.

To help achieve this overall tone for the period, I had stockings in the lenses and an 81EF filter at all times. There was almost always a hard and warm light coming in through the windows. As both characters have very different personalities, I also wanted a different approach for our camera movement and framing for this period. I introduced a more dynamic feeling to young Tully’s character (played by Ali Skovbye), contrasting with a more still and isolated feeling to that of young Kate (played by Roan Curtis). It was more obvious earlier in Season 1, and as her relationship with Tully matures, they will share the frame more.

What about the ‘80s?
The 1980s have a deeper contrast with a more saturated palette since the ‘80s had more vivid colors and a particular look when it comes to clothing and hairstyle. Therefore, I introduced a different filtration for the 1980s using Schneider Classic Soft filters of different strengths.

At this point, our characters are experiencing the real world, first jobs, relationships, etc. Everyone at this age has a higher energy that should also be part of this style, so the camera movement can get even more dynamic. Here we are not so much observers of two girls growing up together as we are participants, so I feel we have now moved in closer to our characters. The use of wider focal lengths closer to our subjects helped achieve that feeling. We want to feel like we are there with them, helping them transition into adulthood and the real world.

Instead of casting different actors for this period, like in the 1970s, Katherine Heigl (Tully) and Sarah Chalke (Kate) played themselves in the 1980s too, so we were doing de-aging in post production to help sell their younger selves.

What about the 2000s?
We treated the 2000s as our “present” period. In Season 1, we showed how Tully had had a successful career, contrasting with Kate, who is struggling career-wise but who managed to start a family. Framing for this period is more dramatic, and some scenes feel like the framing is calling for a more short-sighted composition. Until now, we have seen our girls growing and becoming women, and we have witnessed the development of their strong relationships. But now, in this period, we see more of the ups and downs of two mature women dealing with the routines of everyday life.

Overall, it feels more current, and the camera movement is looser for this period. I had a subtler filtration for this period, with the use of light Black Satin filters (or none at all, at times) and softer lighting coming through windows. The images have a more desaturated palette overall.

What direction did the showrunner give you about the look she wanted this season (and last)?
Our showrunner, Maggie Friedman, is not only a great leader in our show, but the writing she brought to all the scripts was just so good that it was amazing to be able to translate those words into visuals. We had a great collaboration together that I hope will carry on in the future. When I am presented with such quality scripts, it makes my job so much easier, and it allows me to dream bigger when prepping the episodes.

Did you work with a look book?
I always work with a look book. Last season I was gathering references from photography and other shows as a way to communicate our visual language to the directors and crew. I look at photography a lot for references and inspiration. Saul Leiter, Stephen Shore, André Kertész, Alex Webb and Todd Hido, among many others, are always present in my visual language as inspiration.

This season I used images from Season 1 to create a visual lookbook for Season 2 and a bunch of references for some new periods we were about to cover.

How did you work with the directors and colorist to achieve the intended look?
All the directors that came in this season were also fans of the show, and they knew it really well. We established a specific look in Season 1 that we continued this season, so everyone coming in was familiar with it and knew the look we were trying to achieve. I also shared my look book with everyone, and it was a pretty flawless process overall.

Company 3 has been taking care of our dailies and color timing for the whole show since last season. Claudio Sepulveda was our colorist, and Chad Band was our dailies colorist.

Prior to Season 1 of Firefly Lane, I shot the feature film 2 Hearts, where I also had the same team doing the color correction for me. So I knew the team very well, and it was a great collaboration again.

Were there on-set LUTs? DIT?
I always use just one LUT on every project, and I light for that LUT. Every now and then, we would make some subtle CDL adjustments that would go straight to our dailies colorist at Company 3. But I always try to get the look in-camera as close to delivery as I can.

Brian Scholz was our DIT on Season 1, and he came back for the remainder of the series. He knew the show so well, and it was an amazing collaboration once again.

Where was it shot, and how long was the shoot?
The series was shot in Vancouver, BC. We only filmed 10 episodes in Season 1. For this season we had 16 episodes to film over nine months, plus about four to five weeks of preproduction. Netflix is splitting Season 2 into two parts. Part 1 released on December 2, and part 2 will be released sometime in 2023.

How did you go about choosing the right camera?
Last season, Netflix’s mandate to originate in 4K ruled out my camera of choice, which is an ARRI Alexa, so I tested the Panavision DXL2 and the Sony Venice. I already knew what I could get out of the Venice, but I was pleasantly surprised by the images coming out of the DXL2. I also love its ergonomics and especially the viewfinder.

I also introduced the idea of filming the series for a 2×1 aspect ratio in Season 1, as it would fit these two characters’ stories, allowing us to frame them together and have them share the screen more often than not.

Can you talk about using lighting and framing to emphasize the emotional weight of the scenes?
As I described earlier, every period has its own approach toward lighting and framing, though I like to play this in a pretty subtle way between all the timelines. But the camera work is definitely more dynamic in the 1970s and especially in the 1980s. We used the Steadicam for those eras more often than any other periods.

The 2000s timeline feels a bit more static and somewhat the camera is a bit looser. The framing is also less “centered” than in other periods.

Lighting-wise, I used harder and warmer lighting for the 1970s to evoke emotions from that time, when our girls are still teenagers. I gradually change to a softer approach for the ‘80s and a cooler, more neutral tone for the 2000s.

There are times in the 2000s when we wanted to isolate some characters due to the emotional scenes they were playing. I tend to short-sight the compositions and use wider lenses that allow us to identify with the environment that surrounds the characters.

Any happy accidents to talk about?
There are always happy accidents on a film set, and I am the first one who will embrace them.

I remember there was a scene we were filming in the 1970s timeline, when young Tully is visiting her mom “Cloud” in jail, and eventually they would be sitting together in a table in the middle of the room. I wasn’t planning on having a two-shot with the window in the background, but as the camera was rolling into the set, it was pointing at this window and table with the stand-ins sitting there. I noticed how powerful it could be to actually let them be in a silhouette against that window, so I decided to light them that way instead, and it was only because I just happened to look at the monitor as the camera and dolly were getting to set and were “accidentally” pointed at this table.

Any challenging scenes that you are particularly proud of or found most challenging?
Filming in Vancouver in the fall and winter has its challenges. In addition to the seasonal rain, it gets dark pretty quickly. Many times, I had to film night for day, and some of the locations were quite challenging in order to pull this off.

Earlier on in Season 2, Tully is filming a documentary in which she is trying to trace her father’s past and whereabouts. There was a scene where they all visit a restaurant with the camera crew, where they believed Tully’s father had worked in the past.

Due to scheduling reasons, we had to shoot at this location in the evening when it was already dark. There were windows all along one side of the restaurant. We had shot another scene there for the 1980s that plays in the same episode, and in that scene, I was able to feature those windows fully. But for this scene, sadly, there was no room to place any lights outside those windows, as the restaurant was over the ocean. So any lighting had to come from inside the room.

My approach was to deny seeing that part of the restaurant and place the fixtures inside the room as close as possible to those windows. In the background there was a door leading to a patio area where there would be more tables for customers, so I had a bigger light over there to recreate where the sun would be coming from. Overall, it looked really good, and to this day, no one can tell that it was actually night when we shot this.

Also, not being able to scout this real location beforehand brought more challenges because I had to come up with a very quick plan to light the space with its limitations, and I was only able to see this location on the actual shooting day.

Now more general questions….

How did you become interested in cinematography?
I was born in Galicia, in northern Spain, where the film industry is almost nonexistent. There is no film background in my family, so it wasn’t the path my parents probably expected for me. So when I mentioned my desire to be involved in the “movies,” it was pretty clear that I would have to move elsewhere.

After I moved to London, I got involved in documentaries, music videos and many commercials early on in my career and then I slowly got into more narrative work.

The rest, as they say, is history.

I was always watching films as a kid, and I remember thinking that I would always get something out of any film I would watch. Even if it wasn’t a great film, there would always be a message or a great adventure to witness. That sparked my attention, and like everyone else, I wanted to be a director, but I quickly discovered the importance of an image and all the things I could say with the use of light and composition, so I decided I wanted to be a cinematographer.

When I moved to the UK, I started working mainly on documentaries, and this taught me so much about using natural light and how to use what was available to tell a story. It allowed me to develop a naturalistic approach that I still always prioritize today.

When I started doing more narrative, commercials and music videos, I was able to apply that naturalistic approach.

I tried to enhance it to help the story in a more dramatic way, which I have since been calling a “poetic realism” approach. I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, being able to paint and write with light and composition to tell a story.

Short films were my introduction to narrative. I also learned how wonderful the collaboration with the director, the production designer, the gaffer and all crew members could be.

It’s always important to be bold and push your creativity in every project you do, and I have been learning new things all the time. I was at a point where I was filming mainly on 35mm and S16mm, even though digital already had a presence. But learning to expose and work in a film environment is the best school. All the projects I did early on in my career were telling me that I had found my path.

What inspires you artistically?
I am constantly looking at photography and painting as main sources of inspiration. I think I have more than a couple of hundred books on photographers and painters. Saul Leiter, Stephen Shore, Gordon Parks, André Kertész, William Eggleston, Alex Webb, Roy DeCarava, Todd Hido and Fan Ho are some of the photographers I always reference.

I also love the masterly treatment of light by painters like Vermeer, the use of color and perspectives of de Hooch, the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio or Monet and the Impressionist style.

I always learn so much and find so much inspiration from the work of cinematographers like Conrad Hall, Gordon Willis, Sven Nykvist, Nestor Almendros, Ed Lachman, Robby Müller, Chris Doyle, Robert Richardson, Janusz Kaminski, Roger Deakins, Emmanuel Lubezki, Rodrigo Prieto, Linus Sandgren, Greig Fraser, Bradford Young and Natasha Braier, to name just a few.

And away from any visual references, I am always listening to music. I think if I wasn’t a cinematographer, I would have tried to become a musician.

Literature is also a huge influence for me, and I am pretty obsessed with the Beat Generation.

What are some of your best practices or rules you try to follow on each job?
I like “fixing things in preproduction,” and I always do a lot of research on the subject or themes I am filming. I think that one always has to have a plan. Even if it is a very small scene with very little time to prepare, you always want to have a plan to execute, or at least have an idea that usually develops into something bigger when on-set on the day.

I always have so much fun on the job, and I think the cast and crew feeds from it. I am very passionate about my job. I believe I have the best job in the world, I love what I do, and I am not shy to show that on-set.

Explain your ideal collaboration with the director or showrunner when starting a new project.
When I first read a script, I don’t want to immediately have an idea of what I want the film or series to look like. Naturally, as I read it and react emotionally to the story, I start to develop ideas in my head, but I like to come to my first meetings with showrunners and directors with a blank page that I will gradually fill with references and ideas to a look that I present to everyone involved. But I do want to hear their initial thoughts too.

Communication is key, and looking at references — discussing films, photography, painting, etc. — is part of that initial process. Even if one wants to have a very distinctive look, there is always room to look at other forms of art for inspiration.

It’s also very important to connect personally with the director I’m working with. I don’t mean we need to become best friends, but I have learned to read people quite well, and I like to know what goes on inside everyone’s head when working together on a project.

What’s your go-to gear (camera, lens, mount/accessories) – things you can’t live without?
I became a cinematographer in England, and at that time, digital was starting to be very present, but I was lucky to shoot on film early in my career. Learning to expose for film has taught me so much and has given me great confidence in my work as a cinematographer. I still love to shoot on film, and I think of it as another pencil with which to write a book.

Lately, I have been mainly shooting on ARRI Alexas, and it is my favorite sensor to shoot on. I think it is still the closest look to film to date. I love Panavision glass. I have been working with Panavision on 90% of all the projects in my career, and it is such a wonderful collaboration with them. They have always had my back, from my time in London to the US and Canada and beyond.

When it comes to anamorphic, which is really my preferred format, I love the Panavision C series and T series. I have shot with both on my last two feature films. One of them luckily had a large theatrical release worldwide where you can really appreciate the larger aspect ratio.

I genuinely think the wider screen from an anamorphic image can also be a really intimate format. You can frame two actors in a medium close-up in the same frame and let things play, and it allows the camera to move in a way that doesn’t force you into as much cutting.

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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.