postPerspective Update

Cinematographer Robert E. Arnold
Talks Shooting Reasonable Doubt

By Iain Blair

Reasonable Doubt, from executive producer and director Kerry Washington, is a new crime drama from Hulu and Onyx Collective. The series is centered on a high-powered female criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles, Jax Stewart (Emayatzy Corinealdi), who uses her questionable moral compass to guide her through the policies and laws in the LA legal system.

Cinematographer Robert E. Arnold shot the show as a first-time alternating DP with co-DPs Kira Kelly, ASC, and Michael Negrin, ASC.

I spoke with Arnold — whose credits include the TV series Astronomy Club and The Tam and Kevin Show as well as the award-winning film Gun and a Hotel Bible — about shooting the show and how he collaborated closely with the post team on the visual effects.

Can you describe the look of the show?
During the pilot, the two major references were the George Clooney legal thriller Michael Clayton and Licorice Pizza, and I was fortunate enough to have Licorice Pizza gaffer Justin Dixon as my gaffer. We’ve worked together on various projects in the past, and on this one we went for a very artistic, cinematic look centered on an almost architectural composition in some ways — though things shifted when we were on location.

Did you work with a colorist in prep on the LUTs?
No, we went with the preset LUT from the pilot, and then the colorist, Gareth Cook at The Foundation, and I just refined it.

Tell us about the DI. How involved were you?
I’m very involved, and I went to pretty much all the sessions with Gareth and the showrunner — except for the finale when I was out of town. It was mainly about dialing in one scene to the next and making sure that if some color temperature was off or if some VFX shot was a little bit off color-wise, it all looked seamless in the end. We wanted it to look rich without being too saturated, and we were very meticulous.