postPerspective Update

Grace and Frankie’s Final Season:
DPs Talk Evolution of Look

By Randi Altman

Netflix’s comedy Grace and Frankie is coming to an end with its seventh and final season. Initially focused on how two women deal with their longtime husbands leaving them for each other, the series has evolved to be so much more. The audience gets a deep dive on how this modern-day Odd Couple deals with friendship between women, finding love in your 70s and how wacky adventures can make you feel younger. It stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston.

Set in San Diego, the series’ look was originally set in Season 1 by DP Gale Tattersall, a veteran cinematographer who has worked on all seven seasons. We reached out to Tattersall and fellow DP Luke Miller, who started as a gaffer on Episode 1 and graduated to co-DP in 2019. Tattersall describes the show’s initial look as “cinematic, lyrical, believable, evocative and emotional.”

Let’s find out more…

How has that look evolved over the seven seasons?
Gale Tattersall: The greatest change of all was for Season 3, when we were able to switch to the Canon C300 MKII. I also think the show became slicker over the seasons. Our complex lighting techniques became more efficiently employed, allowing us to move faster and thus give the director/editor more coverage, which in a comedy is so important for getting the best out of the script and pacing.

With a long-running show like this, how did you work with the showrunners/directors to get and keep the right look?
Luke Miller: One aspect of shooting a long-running series is trying to keep the look and feel somewhat consistent over many years and many directors. I like to sit in with our directors in all their prep meetings to help develop their ideas in ways that are consistent with the look of the show. If a director had an idea for a specific shot during prep, I could make sure we had the right tools or plan to accomplish it in the established language of the show. Often directors would come in and reference a scene from a movie that had a feeling or a look they wanted to integrate into their episode. We would take that influence, put it through a sort of Grace and Frankie filter and translate it into our show.