Just binge-watched Crazy Ex Girlfriend - Guess Who DP'd almost half of them?

[puredrifting]

You guessed it, Charles Papert. Charles, if you read this, I loved your work on this show, it is so tastefully and beautifully lit with lots of loud exuberant color. Not sure if you have considered but an episode breakdown and some of the more interesting setups would be MUCH welcomed by those of us who are up and coming. Your work, along with Todd's on this series is so good. The show is hilarious and the big musical numbers are legitimately some of the best staged song and dance numbers I have seen in years, possibly decades. Your work on Key & Peele obviously translated very nicely to this show, it would be great to hear about how you overcame some of the challenges.

 

[puredrifting]

No love for Charles' work on this series? Too bad, the wife is now going through the episodes, some mighty nice lighting on this show.

 

[DPStewart]

I dig Charles Papert's work.... but to be honest, the title of that show is a huge turn-off for me. Yeah...I've HAD enough crazy ex-girlfriends. I hesitate at the thought of watching someone else's.

 

[CharlesPapert]

Haha, thank you puredrifting.

CXG was a very large challenge. Trying to fit two music videos per episode into the schedule was indeed a serious challenge. Happy to answer any specific questions you might have, as much as I can remember, that is!

DPStewart: I think a lot of people got turned off by the title or what they thought it was about. Certainly the ratings were very low the first season. It's quite a different show than it seems. Rachel Bloom is a fresh voice and a major talent (and a fantastic person to boot).

 

[puredrifting]

Charles, thank you for responding. I think that's the fun of the show, it begins with a simple premise of the CXG, but by midway through the first season, it has really evolved to fully realized characters and yes, while everyone is celebrating Amy Schumer, Rachel Bloom is sharper, much more sophisticated humor to me. DPStewart, might be worth your time, it is really well done and the music videos/song and dance number in the pilot are pretty spectacular.

Charles, if I may?

1. Can you tell us a bit about what the typical production schedule was for your episodes? Days of prep, pre-light days, how many days you typically had to shoot an episode?
2. I assume this was shot on the Amira? Or was it Varicam or RED?
3. Can you give a little break down of how many practical locations there were versus sets?
4. Did you co-develop the wild color palette used in the show or was that already established by a different DP?
5. Looks like a decent amount of green screen, especially for the music videos? Was that a financial or aesthetic decision?
6. As show creator, how involved was Rachel in working with you, versus all of the different directors? Did she have a lot of specific ideas about the visuals or did she leave that more to you and the director?
7. How would you compare the tone of the set versus Key & Peele? Lots of fun and laughter or more serious, down to business all of the time? I shoot BTS and EPK on several series and it is always interesting to compare how sometimes serious dramas have a lot of goofy BTS stuff going on and some comedies are all work and pretty serious.
8. Any particular scenes or episodes stand out as special and if so, why?
9. Any specific tools that you were able to utilize that you hadn't used before (Technocrane, squishy lens, ???)

No hurry, I appreciate any answers you have time to type out. I am a big fan of your work, you are very talented and I learned a lot of your Key & Peele thread. I am more in the documentary/BTS/EPK world, which, as you know, is small crews, small lighting setups and doing a lot with a little so I enjoy learning about how DPs work when they have more resources, yet still normal budgets and timelines. I have shot BTS on huge features where the DP has almost unlimited resources, but not time and that is a whole other world too.

 

[DPStewart]

DPStewart: I think a lot of people got turned off by the title or what they thought it was about. Certainly the ratings were very low the first season. It's quite a different show than it seems. Rachel Bloom is a fresh voice and a major talent (and a fantastic person to boot).

Well consider your ratings increased by one!
I'll dive in then.

Thanks Charles.

 

[CharlesPapert]

1. Can you tell us a bit about what the typical production schedule was for your episodes? Days of prep, pre-light days, how many days you typically had to shoot an episode?

Standard length was 7 day episodes. Occasionally a musical number would require an additional Saturday. Once we started production, I had no prep time. My best-boys would go on scouts and report back to me with photos and diagrams and I would take various meetings at my monitor while we are shooting. Not...ideal. We had a rigging crew that would pre-light ahead of us and then wrap behind us.

2. I assume this was shot on the Amira? Or was it Varicam or RED?

Cameras for this show were two Alexa Plus's.

3. Can you give a little break down of how many practical locations there were versus sets?

The primary standing sets on stage at Occidental Radford in North Hollywood were the office, the bar, and Rebecca's apartment. Various additional swing sets were built for indvidual episodes as needed. There were roughly 2-3 days of location work per episode.

4. Did you co-develop the wild color palette used in the show or was that already established by a different DP?

I came on after the pilot, which was shot for Showtime under a much bigger budget. I got to establish the look of the standing sets and design the permanent lighting from scratch. The musical numbers each had a different look, which would be discussed with the individual directors, who would often have a set of references from existing videos or other source material.

5. Looks like a decent amount of green screen, especially for the music videos? Was that a financial or aesthetic decision?

The green screen work amped up after I left. Often that was a financial decision.

6. As show creator, how involved was Rachel in working with you, versus all of the different directors? Did she have a lot of specific ideas about the visuals or did she leave that more to you and the director?

It depended. She communicated her thoughts primarily to the director but I would have conversations with her that were more specific my side of it, like the color palette of the lighting and/or how much she wanted to hew to the reference material. Rachel and I go back about 4 years, I worked with her on a low budget comedy clip and we became friends, and I also shot one of her Youtube videos.

7. How would you compare the tone of the set versus Key & Peele? Lots of fun and laughter or more serious, down to business all of the time? I shoot BTS and EPK on several series and it is always interesting to compare how sometimes serious dramas have a lot of goofy BTS stuff going on and some comedies are all work and pretty serious.

Interesting question. The cast was quite fun, they were largely theatre actors and quite easy to work with, so the generally mood was light-hearted. But it was a first-season show with a tough schedule and we had to hustle pretty hard. Not much time for levity on my end.

8. Any particular scenes or episodes stand out as special and if so, why?

I particularly enjoyed the first episode we shot, which was the second one of the season. Veteran director Don Scardino, who did the majority of "30 Rock" was a delight and we were able to do some great things. Plus, I had time to sit down with him to prep properly being which didn't happen subsequently once we were in production. Also loved working with director Larry Trilling, who I last worked with as an operator on "Scrubs" many years ago.

9. Any specific tools that you were able to utilize that you hadn't used before (Technocrane, squishy lens, ???)

Well, I've done plenty of Technocrane in the past so that wasn't a new one. We used it a few times. Not too many specialty items on the camera side. Quite a few specialized lighting fixtures, a fair amount of RGB LED for musical numbers, rotating gobos and projectors, and we had to build a number of cues to transition in and out of songs without much time for programming.

I have shot BTS on huge features where the DP has almost unlimited resources, but not time and that is a whole other world too.

This was a modestly budgeted network show where we had a certain amount of resources, but time was absolutely a major factor and it was often a little wild getting it all to happen. It was often a relief to do the days on the simpler sets like the office where we could crank through setups with minimal re-lighting thanks to the overhead softlight construction of the ceiling.

 

[David_Manning]

Great insight...thanks very much for taking the time to respond.

 

[puredrifting]

Charles, can't thank you enough for your insights into shooting this series. If it's not too personal, is there any reason can discuss why you moved on from DPing the series after doing a decent amount of episodes? I would imagine you have a full plate of other projects, totally understand if you can't talk about it. Was just curious. It seems as if the show is gaining traction, hopefully will have more budget and time to keep it going, I think Rachel is an amazing talent, very old school theatrical/stand up sort of driven work ethic from what I can tell. Can you share what you are currently working these days?

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Charles, can't thank you enough for your insights into shooting this series. If it's not too personal, is there any reason can discuss why you moved on from DPing the series after doing a decent amount of episodes? I would imagine you have a full plate of other projects, totally understand if you can't talk about it. Was just curious. It seems as if the show is gaining traction, hopefully will have more budget and time to keep it going, I think Rachel is an amazing talent, very old school theatrical/stand up sort of driven work ethic from what I can tell. Can you share what you are currently working these days?

Well while we're interviewing Charles I have some Steadicam related questions if I may...

Why do you no longer do Steadicam (or do you still do it)? Age? You enjoy DPing more? Pay?

Would you say it is pretty standard for Steadicam ops to transition into full-time camera operating (without Steadi) or DP work as they get older? At what age does that tend to be on average?

Do you find DP work pays more or less than Steadicam?

Do you still own your Steadicam gear?

 

[CharlesPapert]

I have a series called "Mary + Jane" which premieres on MTV on Sept. 5th:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70Fn3eP7v8M

And currently shooting one for Audience Network called "Cassandra French's Finishing School for Girls" which is a darker comedy that has been challenging but rewarding one.

As far as Eric's questions about Steadicam: I "hung up the vest" about 6 years ago for a number of reasons. I wanted new challenges and wanted to move on from operating. I sold my two rigs and re-invested into lenses and other support gear. I have a lot of colleagues of my generation who are still operating, some of whom have also moved up to shoot and a few to directing (which I'm doing also). There isn't a specific age when Steadicam operators move on, many of the A-list guys are my age or older but personally, I like not relying on my meat 'n bones for my livelihood (10 years ago a bad foot injury took me out of work for 5 months, which definitely got me thinking that direction). Steadicam rates vary wildly but there are instances where they are higher than DP rates, plus they get the rental, which is why I have maintained the gear ownership concept. I'm often asked if I miss it, and the reality is that I really don't. I had a good long run and got to do some great things with the machine, but I'm perfectly content not to do it any more. The only times I operate now are on the odd commercial, and it suits me fine. I have an incredible 29 yr old Steadicam operator who is full of enthusiasm, much as I was at his age, and couldn't be happier with that setup.

 

[puredrifting]

Thanks Charles, Mary + Jane looks interesting, and of course, the lighting looks great. I'll keep an eye out for the other one.

 

[CharlesPapert]

From old posts on Crazy Ex-G, here are some notes on some of the videos.

The show is shot primarily on stage at Occidental Studios in North Hollywood, a bit of a ragtag converted warehouse stage that formerly housed "Sons of Anarchy". There are four or five permanent sets and each episode adds up to four swing sets, as well as one to three days on location per episode.

Camera dept. A & B camera operators, two 1sts, two 2nds, utility, loader. No DIT, sadly. 3 Alexas (one stays in Steadicam mode most of the time). Alura 15-45, 30-80, 18-80, 45-250, Zeiss 70-200. Shoot s-log ProRes4444, monitor in 709.
Electric: gaffer, best boy, dimmer board op, 4 electrics plus rigging crew (2+)
Grip: key grip, best boy, two dolly grips, 4 grips plus rigging crew (2+).

In the supermarket scene that opens that clip, there were way too many tubes to replace so I went with it. Back in the day I'd use a color temp meter but they are getting close to useless with digital sensors and modern lighting tools (LED's can read fine to the meter and poor on camera or vice versa). Now I use a gray card and take a white balance of the camera to get a general sense color temp and green/magenta shift, then light the card with a bicolor LED unit and my best guess at minus green gel. I'll tweak to eye until they are close then take another white balance of that unit on the card, making whatever changes are necessary until it approaches the value of the existing fixtures. Then we apply whatever gel is necessary to the rest of the units. In this case I think it was something like a 4200° base with 6 or 7 points of green (per the Alexa).
For the smoke fantasy gag, I used an LED Lightmat inside the freezer and a Leko hung behind and above their heads.

Rebecca has made an attempt to get in with Josh's yoga instructor girlfriend Valencia by pretending to be into yoga. The preceding scene has a straightforward look (as seen in the short interlude at 1:23) but when the song begins, it slowly transitions into a colorful Bollywood number. The director and I had carefully planned this transition with lighting cues, switching from handheld to formal conventional angles, the 2:39 matte animating down into the frame on a certain shot etc., but things were re*thought in the edit and so the transition was achieved in color as a "fix".

For the non*-musical look that precedent the song portion, I lit the room (a set on stage) with 9 spacelights and a 12x20 bounce behind cameras suggesting daylight through the front windows. On the transition, the spacelights faded out, the day fill was gelled yellow and we brought up a ring of Color Force battens that washed purples and reds onto the walls. In addition we hung Celeb 400's with the same yellow gel to act as key lights for Valencia which we faded in and out of as she moved up and downstage.
We shot with the A camera on a 23' Technocrane, B camera on dolly generally on the 45*-250 picking out tighter pieces and the C body on Steadicam.

Later in the episode Rebecca and Valencia have become friends and Rebecca develops a serious "girl crush". They go out to a nightclub, Rebecca drinks too much and things of course go off the rails.
There were three sets for this song; the "girly bedroom", the "sexy sleepover" and the nightclub where the rest of the scene plays out. The girly bedroom was a nod to Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl". My best estimation for the lighting in that was a large single source, probably a Brieze light, but we opted not to go that route for budgetary reasons and pushed a par into a mylar bounce which had a similar quality. For the overhead shots, this was a much simpler rig since only the bounce needed to be rigged up above, parallel with the ceiling. For the shots where the camera moves up her body we panned the par along the bounce to keep the hot spot just above camera.

On the sexy sleepover set I had an 8x8 push from one side and a few smaller units all gelled full CTO, with cyan backlights for contrast. Both of these sets we used a Technocrane and designed the moves on the fly.

For the nightclub, we had already lit the space for the dialogue scenes with a variety of club and theatrical RGB LED units, and I had pitched that we emulate the flashlight vibe I had seen in various music videos. We mounted a small Mole open face unit on the Steadicam and as my operator pushed in and out I would dial in the level from my monitor with a variac.

 

[CharlesPapert]

Reference videos for this number:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raB8z_tXq7A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ12_E5R3qc

The set was a cluster of steel deck topped with black dance floor and a duvetyne covered flat with a cutout. I had a 20x20 bleached muslin positioned 25 feet back with 8 sky pans backlighting it with a 20x20 light grid intermediate. A 12x20 ultrabounce hung above cameras lit with 5K's acted as key light.

For the reflective surface scenes the 20x20 muslin was swapped out to a solid and the platform top became black mirror. We realized quickly enough that the original video probably used actual mirror (which would have been beyond our budget to have a large enough section without seam). As a result the reflection was quite a bit darker than the actual image, which we equalized somewhat in post.

For the front projection patterns, we positioned a high output projector and positioned it just above and behind camera.
All of our music videos shot in half a day or less so we had to be strategic in how we design the schedule. With this one, it was a matter of starting with the biggest set pieces and then removing them one by one and repurposing as the looks become more stripped down.

 

[CharlesPapert]

The song opens in the bar set and eventually on a light cue switches to a more theatrical look. And then cuts to a black-and-white set reminiscent of Fred Estaire and Ginger Rogers in "Let's Face the Music and Dance". This was built on on the swing set stage, which had only 14 feet of height to the grid which made lighting a set like this particular difficult. We used something like 40 tungsten fresnels ranging from tweenies to baby juniors in three rows from the back of the set to the middle. The furthest back lights were literally just above the frame, which required some serious eyebrow action to keep flares out of the lens and Glimmerglass filters. For speed I two rows of chimeras for keys, I would have preferred to stay in the period look with straight fresnels but it was easier and quicker to blanket the set rather than have to focus and blend many more smaller units.

Likewise, we did a number of passes with three cameras on dollys (one left to right at the front of the stage, two on the wings) but also did a pass with Steadicam, which ultimately I think felt more like a stage crane sweeping in and out, so it didn't feel terribly out of period.

Another black and white one, this time (sort of) referencing a French New Wave style. A slightly complex concept set by the director which required background plates to be shot in Paris by a local team. My thought was to shoot a rough version of it and take copious notes on distances, focal lengths etc) and send those to Paris, then once the plates returned we could shoot the foregrounds in matching light. Unfortunately we had to shoot final foregrounds first, which meant I would simply guess at lighting (I specified preferred time of day, but had no knowledge of whether it would be sunny or cloudy etc). In the end I just shot a compromise which was shady/sourceless but with a minor amount of key light. Overall the French team did a pretty good job with the plates but it was still a ***** to marry them, and there are a lot of zooms and warps etc. in the final result.

The final shot was done on a Lenny arm with a two axis head. To achieve a straight pull-up, we corrected for the arc of the arm with the dolly chassis moving on track and a laser pointer aimed at the ground, which is a little tricky.

 

[CharlesPapert]

NOTE: both videos linked here have NSFW lyrics, not for the easily offended.

This was possibly my favorite episode of the show, where Rachel talks her way into being invited to Thanksgiving at Josh's house. This got quite a bit of attention because it depicted a Filipino-American family in a way that is rarely seen on television. The visual reference for this was, very loosely, "Turn Down for What", although the only aspect of that great clip that I could actually use was the preference for toplighting. This was a practical house with a long low living room, so I raked several smaller HMI's along the length to keep things toppy as possible. I had dialed in a, uh, "turnt" cyan look in the color session, but that was subsequently changed back to a more neutral look by the folks above me. The dance routine with the amazing turkey outfits was a three wall set on stage; we rear-projected a pattern of sliding color bars onto curtains and the resulting texture gave a great animation to the effect. Towards the end we built in some strobe patterns to the Cineos we were using for keys which make a couple of appearances.

This one is of much interest photographically. It was shot very quickly without much prep. The idea was sort of "High School Musical", and without being able to re-rig the bar set we simply turned it to night (dialing down the Cineos on the translite to a very low level and gelling them blue). After my color pass, the semi-Technicolor vibe was added and the whole thing cropped to 2:39 without necessarily adjusting the headroom shot-by-shot, which I would discover for the first time when the episode would air. That's how it goes sometimes, fellas.

Only real reason I included this one is that it makes me laugh. Rachel is a take-no-prisoners ballsy lady, and while some may find her humor vulgar, it's always intelligent.

 

[rsbush]

Thank you, sir.

 

[puredrifting]

Ahh, woke up to find this gift from Charles, thank you so much, this is great detail with copious notes on specific gear used and needed. You shot some of my favorite music video numbers on the series, it is so helpful to understand the tools you used and why you used them. Many thanks from the community trying to learn how to light at your level.

 

[BrianMurphy]

Amazing thread! Great call and thought PureDrifting and MANY THANKS Charles for your generosity in sharing with us all. Bravo and continued success! We will all be watching, learning and enjoying your work for many years to come.

 

[CharlesPapert]

Here's a fun glimpse into the madness: from the clip in post #15 above, "Sexy French Depression". This is a rehearsal of the first shot in that song with Rachel's stand-in. I had requested a 60x20 green screen with diffusion overhead but it was kicked back for budgetary reasons, so we had to go with this contraption. So that's a 20x12 green screen with same size diffusion attached rolled by 4 grips, a 12x12 additional diffusion (should probably have been attached to the other two sides but I think it was a last minute addition) and an 18K trundling along with an 8x in front of it. I imagine this was an early rehearsal so you can see a little bit of a grip collision going on, but it got worked out pretty quickly and we made the shot.

Before someone points out that the tracking markers are useless because of the green screen being in motion, that is indeed true. We helped out the compositors by shooting off the background on the edge of the frame, well into the garbage area so they could use that for tracking reference.