Emmy-Winning Watchmen
Cinematographer Greg Middleton

By Randi Altman

With 26 Emmy nominations, HBO’s Watchmen netted the most nods of any series this year. In the most recent interpretation of the popular graphic novel, we spend a lot of our time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, getting to know Regina King’s policewoman Angela Abar, her unconventional family and a shadowy organization steeped in racism called the Seventh Kavalry. We also get a look back — beautiful in black and white — at Abar’s tragic family back story. It was created and written for TV by Lost’s Damon Lindelof.

Greg Middleton, ASC, CSC, who also worked on Game of Thrones and The Killing, was the series DP. He just won the Emmy for Best Cinematography for a Limited Series or Movie for the episode "This Extraordinary Being." Not long ago, we reached out to him to find out about his process, workflow and where he gets inspiration.

When were you brought on to Watchmen, and what type of looks did the showrunner want from the show?
I joined Watchmen after the pilot for Episode 2. A lot of my early prep was devoted to discussions with the showrunner and producing directors on how to develop the look from the pilot going forward. This included some pilot reshoots due to changes in casting and the designing and building of new sets, like the police precinct.

Director Nicole Kassell (Episodes 1, 2, 8) and production designer Kristian Milstead and I spent a lot of time breaking down the possibilities of how we could define the various worlds through color and style.

How was the look described to you? What references were you given?
We based the evolution of the look of the show on the scripts, the needs of the structure within the various worlds and on the graphic novel, which we commonly referred to as “the Old Testament.”

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