Happy Hauntings

Hubert Shubert Hubie Dubois was born and raised in Salem, Mass. He loves his hometown, and as Salem's self-appointed official volunteer Halloween helper, he makes it his duty every October 31 to ensure a safe and fun holiday is enjoyed by all. But when a patient at the nearby Westfield State Mental Hospital goes missing, a mystery is set in motion that will change the town, and Hubie's life, forever.

Directed by Steve Brill and starring Adam Sandler as Hubie, the Netflix comedy feature Hubie Halloween was photographed in Salem and neighboring towns including Danvers, Marblehead and Beverly. We shot for 40 days, and we did not stop to breathe once, says cinematographer Seamus Tierney, speaking with Panavision on his lunch break during production of the upcoming Disney+ series The Mighty Ducks.

Cinematographer Seamus Tierney (reaching, left) gets an assist from Shaquille ONeal.

Hubie Halloween marked Tierney's first collaboration with Brill as well as Sandler's Happy Madison production company. As soon as he was on board, though, he knew he would reteam with his longtime partner Panavision. Panavision's my go-to, he says. I've been a Panavision guy since before grad school, when I was starting to shoot smaller stuff in New York.

For Hubie Halloween, Tierney elected to capture large-format 8K with Panavision's Millennium DXL2 camera system. I knew the DXL2 was the way to go because of all the visual effects we were going to have I wanted to give them all the Ks, as they say. We shot the movie in the summertime, and they turned it into fall with a lot of digital help that included changing all the leaves.

This was Tierney's first foray with DXL2, and it was great, he says, emphasizing details like the internal FIZ control module that allows assistants to streamline the camera's build and minimize its footprint on set. I was in Boston while my ACs were prepping at Panavision Hollywood, and 1st AC Gunnar Mortensen sent me a picture of the most slimmed-down build he could do with the camera, Tierney recalls. It was literally just the camera body, the lens, and two little transmitter antennas on the back of it. That's all you need! That was another reason I loved it, because you're getting all of that bang for your buck with the image, but you don't have a huge camera. It blew me away.

Throughout the movie, Hubie primarily gets around town on his bicycle. Shooting his rides more than one of which devolve into a chase as he's pursued by a particularly menacing group of kids required that the filmmakers employ myriad camera rigs, so we needed the camera to be light an agile, Tierney says. For some shots, he adds, We had Adam on a bike rig, and other times he was free-riding, and we followed him with a stabilized head on a Miniscope 7 crane on an e-car.

Framing for the 2:1 aspect ratio, the cinematographer paired the DXL2 camera with Panavision Primo 70 lenses. I love them, he enthuses. Coupled with the 8K sensor, there's more dimensionality to the image with those lenses. It's like you can reach into the screen and touch it. The Primo 70s coupled with the DXL2 worked out perfectly.

Tierney worked with technical marketing manager Guy McVicker at Panavision Hollywood to sprinkle unicorn dust on the lenses, the cinematographer says, laughing. That's what I tell the actors when they ask, How does it look so good?' I say, Ah, we put a little unicorn dust in there.'

I wanted to soften the image a little bit and have some of the highlights go kind of bloomy like an older film stock, he adds. He achieved the look in combination with diffusion on the lens. I used an older Net 1 filter, which is more than I normally would on a movie, but I just fell in love with it. It reminded me of that softer look of Peter Weir films like Witness or Dead Poets Society.

In some shots, the Net diffusion's pattern can be seen in the out-of-focus highlights in the background of the frame. Tierney remembers, The AC asked me, Are you okay with that?' And I thought, The rest of the image looks so cool, let's just embrace it.'

Tierney's lens package also included Primo 70 zooms 28-80mm (T3.0), 70-185mm (T3.5) and 200-400mm (T4.5) which, for example, were employed at certain points to underscore the comedy-horror vibes with a snap zoom.

With his prime lenses, Tierney tended to stay on wider focal lengths, and he typically maintained a shooting stop of around T2.8 . The director likes clean singles, where you're wider and closer, which can be funnier and a little more visceral, the cinematographer explains. With the large format, the depth of field is shallower, so when you're closer and wider, it falls off in a very nice way.

The combination of large-format optics, rich contrast and bold colors lend Hubie Halloween a distinct look that perfectly suits its subject. We talked a lot about making it look like an '80s movie, which let us have a little more pop in the colors, Tierney says. It didn't have to be so naturalistic. I wanted it to be darker, more saturated, with richer colors, and juxtapose the comedy against that. We allowed ourselves to have a little more fun with it because of the subject matter and because it's an Adam Sandler film.

The palette includes a pronounced use of the color orange, which is woven into the wardrobe and production design as well the lighting, with Halloween-themed holiday lights often visible in frame. Perry Blake is an amazing production designer, and his team always had accents we could throw in the background, Tierney notes. I wanted as much scope as possible, and one of the easiest ways to do it is to throw holiday lights around a bush two blocks away and add a little twinkle back there.

Perry and I talked thro

LINK:	https://www.panavision.com/highlights/highlights-detail/happy-haunting...
	See more stories from panavision

Most recent headlines