Spring Breakers

Netflix’s episodic reimagining of the 1981 feature, The Four Seasons, is packed with comedy talent – and plenty of expertise behind the camera.

by Jon Silberg / Photos by Jon Pack and Francisco Roman / Framegrabs Courtesy of Netflix

 

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In 1981, Alan Alda, at the height of his M*A*S*H star power, wrote and directed his debut feature film, The Four Seasons – an adult dramedy that examines the relationships of four couples vacationing together over each season of the year. The new eight-episode Netflix series from creators Tina Fey (30 Rock), Lang Fisher (Never Have I Ever), and Tracey Wigfield (The Mindy Project) emulates and expands on the film, which Fey has named a childhood favorite. The series stars Fey, Will Forte, Steve Carell, Colman Domingo, and Marco Calvani. Kerri Kenney-Silver and Erika Henningsen round out the cast.

Local 600 Director of Photography Tim Orr (Fleishman Is in Trouble, Pineapple Express), who shot all eight episodes, landed the job because Fey and company felt he could bring a sense of visual refinement that would also complement the characters and situations. “We wanted the cinematography to play a larger part than it has on shows we’d worked on before,” describes Fisher, whose experience is in sitcoms. “We’re adapting a movie that has a lot of beautiful scenery in addition to the comedy and the drama. We felt Tim could bring an elevated, polished cinematic quality to this show.”

As Orr recounts: “We started filming in the fall in upstate New York, and one night we saw the Northern Lights. It wasn’t common, and it was very special, and I think that inspired the actors to take in the surroundings and make them part of their performances. Whenever you’re on a stage, there’s artifice. That’s why, when I do shoot on stages, I try not to pull walls unless it’s necessary. I want to treat [the stage] as a practical location. But ultimately, nothing is better than the real thing.”

Each of the four seasons is covered by two episodes of the series, with Production taking advantage of each season in New York-area locations. “We wanted to make this as cinematic as possible,” Orr continues. “Classy, elegant, and timeless.” To that end, Orr employed ARRI’s Mini LF camera paired with Panavision Panaspeeds, detuned to Orr’s specs by Panavision New York’s Senior Optics Specialist Jeff Marzigliano. Orr also made extensive use of Schneider Classic Soft filters in various grades, depending on the focal length, to further enhance the elegant look.

Generally shooting at a T-2 or 2.8 – on the wide side for lenses that cover the LF image area – Orr’s goal was to limit the depth of the field. The series was mainly a two-camera affair designed to offer the comedic talent room for improvisation. Elaborate sequences, such as the group of vacationers out on a boat in the ocean, playing ultimate Frisbee, or a large wedding vow renewal ceremony, sometimes call for a third camera. Some scenes were covered with a single camera, particularly when that was all the available space allowed for.

 

The location that sets the tone for the series, as well as Orr’s approach to the visuals, involves a large house on a lake with a beautifully manicured backyard. The sequence that sets the dramatic action in motion involves a surprise event, in which one of the four couples is supposed to renew their wedding vows on the lawn by the lake.

Upon scouting, Orr recalls that “the location checked all the boxes. But the ceremony needed to be out on the front lawn. Based on the sun’s positioning with the house, the lawn would be in full shadow for the first five hours of each day. Then, as the sun rose higher in the sky, the shade would quickly recede. “I couldn’t just come in with an overhead silk to soften the sun and make everything visually palatable,” Orr adds. “The area was just too big.”

The solution was to use three cameras, with the thinking being that the camera team would get the wide coverage first, and then tighter shots later in the day to better control the lighting. “It’s one of those locations that can become a nightmare for cinematographers,” Orr continues. “So, we had to come up with a specific order of shooting to maximize the shadows. The schedule was tight enough that we could not schedule this over two mornings. This was a perfect example of where planning and teamwork come into play. Every location on every scout ever, I always want to know where the sun is and when, and I try to work with the AD to schedule the right things at the right time. That and the help of a very experienced crew and sun-tracking apps were the only way to pull it off.”

 

Chief Lighting Technician David Skutch notes that “the interior locations were great for the story, but tough logistically. The Lake House, both winter ski houses, the parents’ weekend lodge, the funeral parlor, and other locations required multiple box-truck loads in and out for riggers and shooters. Grip and electric semi-trailers functioned as warehouses at distant base camps. But these inaccessible locations still required a full complement of big guns, as well as LED’s. As we needed to keep on-set gear to a minimum, we lit day interiors with 18 Ks and other HMIs, pushed in from the outside through magic cloth frames or bounced. Day and night interiors were wrapped around, outside the windows, by ARRI S360s, also through heavy diffusion. From that base approach, we shaped the individual shots on the interior with Vortex 8s and 4s, booked or direct through diffusion T-bones and frames, well off-camera, and then small LEDs in close to clean up.”

For shots designed to see inside and out of windows, Orr and Skutch worked closely to bring the light level in the room up to something close enough to hold the exterior detail. They used Kino Flo FreeStyle Air Max RGB LED Light Panels – rigid mats with RGB capabilities. “It was about having a balance where the outside was always brighter than inside, but not to the point where you lose definition out the windows,” Orr shares. “For the scenes with the lake, it was very important to see the lake and some definition in the trees. We’d let the outside go about two or three stops over, as you’re always trying to hold onto information in the ‘negative.’ But you don’t want to bring the exposure into ‘perfect balance’ because that always feels a little false.”

Further units inside included Titan or Helios tubes, and either a light sock or a white pool noodle over the tubes to soften them. “They were great because there are times where you have no space, and you can sometimes just lean them against the wall,” Orr explains. “You’re always trying to keep the room as unencumbered as possible. In a lot of these scenes, there’s quite a bit of movement from the characters, so the smaller, soft lighting became the main tool.” They also made use of practicals for accents, and strong color contrast for interior scenes. The cameras were balanced for 5600K, allowing the practicals to read warm.

 

 

A-Camera/Steadicam Operator Philip J. Martinez, SOC (Dope Thief, Prodigal Son), had plenty of experience shooting comedy while operating on classic SNL shorts, including the live-action version of the “Ambiguously Gay Duo” with Jon Hamm and Steve Carell as well as several other viral hits with a variety of performers from Andy Samberg to Paul McCartney. Martinez was used to working handheld or on Steadicam and being prepared to adapt to the spontaneity inherent in comedic performers. As there were many scenes requiring small, specific moves best achieved by laying down dance floor and shooting on a dolly, the tight locations didn’t offer room for such a setup, so Steadicam became an option.

“This was the first time I’d worked with Phil,” Orr remembers. “And I usually go into things with the idea that there’s a right tool for each shot, so I was initially resistant to using Steadicam.”

“From my background, where I started before episodic television,” Martinez adds, “I’m used to being in the rig all day, and I enjoy that style of work. The Steadicam is my go-to tool and where I feel the most secure.”

Sure enough, after a few successful setups, Orr was convinced the Steadicam – at least in Martinez’s hands – would accomplish the subtle movement the scenes called for. “I don’t think all Steadicam operators are completely suited to something like a slow push-in,” Orr offers. “But Phil did a fabulous, fabulous job that felt unnoticeable.”

Martinez says, “The stillness is always the trickiest part. It’s as still as you can be when you stop. Hopefully, I did right by Tim and everybody else on the project.” And he adds that he learned something else operating on SNL digital shorts: “I saw that even after we call cut, to just keep rolling briefly, because in comedy sometimes there’s that release the actors have right after a take, and those can make great moments.”

 

 

Given the shallow depth of field and an ensemble of comedic talent, 1st AC Waris Supanpong had a heavy lift. As he explains: “Sometimes you have no idea who’s about to speak. As these are great comedic actors, they’re just going to say something that comes to them, and they have to be in focus! The camera was always moving, and my job is to anticipate where they’re going to be and make sure when someone speaks, they’re in focus,” says Supanpong, who likes to use Preston systems for focusing and his own SmallHD 1303 13-inch monitor as a reference.

Nowhere was maintaining focus more challenging than in scenes shot in Puerto Rico with the couples on boats. Much of it, Orr recalls, “was shot handheld from inside the boat, à la the original Jaws.” Martinez elaborates on the lessons learned from the Spielberg classic: “If you lock the camera to a boat, then you see the whole horizon shaking behind you. If you use the Steadicam, the camera’s going to float independently, which just feels weird. For me, the way to do it was a very stable handheld resting your elbows on things.” Martinez’s rig of choice was the Daufenbach Camera Spider Grips, “with the handles right up on my matte box. I just have a shoulder pad, and we keep a nice, small, tight camera. I’m an eyepiece operator. I want as little around me as possible because I like the freedom to move.”

 

Before principal photography, Orr worked with Colorist John Crowley at PostWorks NY to create show LUTs for on-set and dailies. Orr says a show LUT is like his “film stock” and he tends to create one, or just a few, with the overall characteristics he’s looking for and subsequently light and expose for those attributes, rather than building many specific looks up front. During production, DIT Paul Schilens would ensure that the color pipeline was correct on set as well as when material was sent to Crowley for the final color.

“We were thinking in terms of a clean, natural, neutral look,” Crowley explains. “We wanted the seasons to have a nice, clean, rich feel. When we needed to warm up the highlights, we did that in [the final color] session.” The LUTs, Crowley adds, brought global feelings of warmth and saturation in fall and spring, and slightly less richness for summer and winter. The LUT for the spring sections was rich in contrast but had somewhat soft blacks. “For fall,” Orr adds, “we wanted to punctuate the foliage, and we leaned in a bit warmer. For summer, we had a bit of a tropical look, leaning into warm highlights.”

When it came time for the final color, Crowley, a dedicated FilmLight Baselight user, worked with Orr to fine-tune the imagery. “On one of the spring episodes,” Crowley adds, “we had to make sure the trees and the grass and the flowers look fresh, new and clean.” As Orr notes, “We’d shot late summer for spring, so a lot of the greens came out dull and we were looking to make them the vibrant limey green of young leaves in spring.”

Crowley made use of a hue-shift tool within Baselight to augment certain colors. “It worked well when we were taking dead grass shot in summer and making it look vibrant and rich,” he explains. “We worked to ensure a lot of the foliage was orange and yellow and that it looked presentable for fall.”

 

 

For winter, Crowley says, “We were pushing cooler tones, but we always had to make sure skin tones still looked natural and interiors were still warm and inviting. For that, I used more traditional tools; X-Grade wouldn’t be appropriate for that.”

Crowley also made significant use of the Base Grade tool. “If you’re controlling contrast,” he offers, “it gives you a smoother roll-off on the low end than the high end,” which helps a colorist make contrast corrections, even significant shifts, appear more natural. “I used Base Grade frequently to manage the changing light for a lot of the exteriors,” he says, referring to setups that Orr’s crew had limited ability to control through lighting because they were wide shots covering large exterior areas.

“There was one scene where a storm is supposed to be rolling in,” Crowley continues, “but they had to shoot it on a very bright, sunny day. Achieving that look was about taking this direct, hard sunlight and transforming it in Baselight into the diffuse light of an impending storm. So we took the approach of knocking down those highlights and of cooling everything off enough to look like it’s dark but still daytime.”

The Four Seasons premiered to some 11.9 million viewers in its first four days, making it Netflix’s most-watched title of that week, and it continues to sit in their top 10. Wigfield says the intent was always to provide audiences with something amusing and not too heavy, but also scenes that resonate. “There are some almost slapstick moments, but down deep, the things that the couples are going through feel grown up,” she shares. “The show has many different layers.” As Orr concludes, “I feel like we accomplished the goal of making it feel relatable. It’s one of those shows where you can just let it wash over you. There’s this nameless sort of thing that makes you feel good, and makes the characters feel like real people that you either knew or would like to know.”

 

 

Local 600 Crew – The Four Seasons