Director Yuval Adler's Sympathy for the Devil is a road movie designed to subvert expectations. The story depicts one extremely long night for one sorely unsuspecting man (Joel Kinnaman) who's forced to drive a gun-wielding maniac (Nicolas Cage) through the neon-clad streets of Las Vegas. Cinematographer Steven Holleran was tasked with capturing the nighttime tour of Sin City's darkest corners, placing viewers inside the car's claustrophobic confines. In this Q&A, he outlines his creative approach and technical solutions, which included shooting with Panaspeed optics sourced from Panavision Woodland Hills.
Panavision: How would you describe the look of Sympathy for the Devil?
Steven Holleran: Sympathy is a surrealist pop-nightmare thriller set on the forgotten edges of Vegas. It's got melancholy and rage fighting for space in front of the lens. We're exploring the in-betweens of good and bad, truth and lies, past and present, right and wrong both in the script and with the cinematography. It has upside-down, head-turning relativity at its heart, with who is good and what is true coming into question, and so the film's look leans into asking these questions of the audience subjectively through composition, movement and color choice.
Did any particular visual references provide inspiration during preproduction?
Holleran: Modern fine-art photography was a starting point for me, photographers like Henri Prestes and Christophe Jacrot who work heavily with surrealistic, hazy textures. I wanted there to be something akin to a soft veil across the image, as if we were in a nightmare upside-down world. The other reference was Las Vegas' Neon Museum, which is a great boneyard of old neon lights from the city. Walking the museum at night was a wonderful playground for color inspiration, say the way primaries fade and turn strange with time. Then ultimately, it's the themes in the film that have the final say.
What brought you to Panavision for this project?
Holleran: No two movies are the same, and so my approach to cinematography is rarely static and always evolving. Panavision has proven to be a wonderful place for optical discovery, which I find to be so critical to putting a distinct stamp on the image as cameras continue to develop and see farther into the shadows and highlights. It's like working with the world's greatest sommeliers when you're looking for a specific feeling out of a wine but you've never tasted it before. That's the magic of Panavision.
What considerations went into your choice to shoot with Panaspeed lenses?
Holleran: Often when choosing lenses, I start with two sets of parameters which don't overtly align. On Sympathy, my first set of needs were lenses that were fast, lightweight, and had a range that leaned towards the wide side. This instantly cut out a large chunk of glass, much of it vintage, some modern. Then I wanted a specific creative look, for instance a set of glass that bloomed the highlights, had heavy halation, lifted blacks, with a cat-eye effect. Those prerequisites didn't already exist together or were not readily available, so we turned to the modern Panaspeeds for their customizability, so we could tune' a look into a set of lenses that matched my technical specs.
How does Sympathy for the Devil compare to other projects you've shot?
Holleran: This film was a tightrope walk a car movie to be shot nearly entirely in an LED volume. It's rare to do a film set in a car; it's even more rare to do a car movie on a volume, particularly at night on desert roads. So there were a lot of firsts requiring a high amount of research, experimentation and testing running simultaneously during production. In some ways we were fielding two productions at once, shooting everything that happens outside of the car while testing plates in volume, knowing we'd need it all to match what we were going to do during the last week with the car on stage. Luckily I've grown comfortable with being off the edge of the cinematic language, and technology continues to be at the forefront of my work and the direction of the cinematography industry as a whole and there I feel at home.
Most recent headlines
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...
20/12/2025
Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...
19/12/2025
With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...
19/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...
19/12/2025
2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...
19/12/2025
Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...
19/12/2025
College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...
19/12/2025
AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...
19/12/2025
Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...
19/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
19/12/2025
Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...
19/12/2025
L3Harris technology for the SDA Tranche 3 Tracking Layer program will provide in...
19/12/2025
Partnership brings Nielsen ONE measurement activation directly into XR's adv...
19/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
19/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
19/12/2025
Berklee Announces Spring 2026 Signature Series This season's highlights include the Gospel Extravaganza, the 40th International Folk Festival, special gue...
19/12/2025
Performing arts centres across the globe have doubled down on live production infrastructure in recent years. For venues like the Queensland Performing Arts Cen...
19/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
Director Yuval Adler's Sympathy for the Devil is a road movie designed to subvert expectations. The story depicts one extremely long night for one sorely unsuspecting man (Joel Kinnaman) who's forced to drive a gun-wielding maniac (Nicolas Cage) through the neon-clad streets of Las Vegas. Cinematographer Steven Holleran was tasked with capturing the nighttime tour of Sin City's darkest corners, placing viewers inside the car's claustrophobic confines. In this Q&A, he outlines his creative approach and technical solutions, which included shooting with Panaspeed optics sourced from Panavision Woodland Hills.
