
HBO Max's revamped Gossip Girl follows a group of privileged private schoolers as their not-so-teenaged drama is strategically shared on social media by the anonymous titular character. The series boasts a look that oozes the kind of affluence that's unique to Manhattan's Upper East Side, making the often-uncomfortable situational drama nevertheless a pleasure to watch.
Director of photography Jeffrey Waldron established the look with the first two episodes of Season 1, after which a group of cinematographers carried the visual style forward through the remainder of the first as well as the second seasons. Lush and glamorous' pretty much sums up the look of the show, says cinematographer Tom Clancey, who has photographed nine episodes across the show's two seasons.
With his fellow cinematographers on the show Jamie Cairney; Crille Forsberg, FSF; JP Wakayama and Trevor Forrest Clancey notes, We've been following the lead of Jeff Waldron, the DP for the pilot episodes of Season 1. We chose the Primo 70s when comparing full-frame options, seeking an optical vibe similar to many of the fashion-film and perfume-commercial references we were studying. The Primo line is precise and modern but has a more human character than comparable primes, which we draw out by staying close to wide open much of the time, emphasizing shallow focus unless desired for a specific location or story point.
The filmmakers pair the Primo 70 lenses with Panavised Alexa Mini LF cameras, with the equipment package provided out of Panavision New York. Panavision has been my go-to company for the past 20 years, Clancey shares. Their expertise and customer service are without compare. They customized the lenses for us to lower the contrast, bloom the highlights a bit, and invite more flares, infusing some vintage characteristics to lift and soften the modern and contrasty nature of these primes the best of both worlds.
Dailies and final color for both seasons were provided by Light Iron, where senior colorist Sam Daley performed the final grade using DaVinci Resolve. Season 2 continues with the elegant, fashiony look established by cinematographer Jeff Waldron in the first season, Daley observes, highlighting the look's warm, lush colors with a gentle contrast that mirrors the modified lenses from Panavision.
Clancey adds, Sam and our DIT Chloe Walker have been the keys for helping to maintain the look of the show across multiple DPs. Sam helped design a LUT that allowed us to light with large sources with very little fill. Our LUT lifts shadows, rolls down highlights, warms highlights, and adds a bit of coolness into the shadows.
Reflecting on his experiences behind the camera for Gossip Girl, Clancey offers, The thing that most attracted me to the project was showrunner and director Josh Safran. He really empowers us to make beautiful images without compromise.
More from Panavision France
23/05/2023
The BBC drama series Blue Lights tells the story of three rookie cops on the police force in Northern Ireland's capital, Belfast. Directed by Gilles Bannier...
16/05/2023
Director David Cronenberg's 1988 horror film Dead Ringers, about twin OBGYNs whose penchant for tricking others threatens to shatter their own psyches, has ...
16/05/2023
Chief lighting technician Julian White's credits include features such as Locke and Murder on the Orient Express with Haris Zambarloukos, BSC, GSC; Control ...
09/05/2023
The four-episode HBO Max limited series Landscapers focuses on an ordinary couple, played by Olivia Colman and David Thewlis, who become entangled in an extraor...
03/05/2023
Created by Tony Basgallop and executive-produced by M. Night Shyamalan, the horror series Servant has delivered 40 episodes of psychological torment across four...
21/04/2023
Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski and writer-director Ari Aster began their long-running collaboration when they were both students at the American Film Institu...
18/04/2023
My celestial ride with Star Trek: Picard began when I was shooting Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 in Toronto. Thank you to Olatunde Osunsanmi, who gave me that c...
18/04/2023
Viewed over 19-million times, Tourism Australia's G'day, the short film has set a new bar for tourism videos. The short follows two talking toys, one a ...
18/04/2023
Cinematographer Erik Henriksson knows how to deliver a well-curated visual aesthetic the expertly blends experimentation, experience and craft. Having worked wi...
12/04/2023
LOS ANGELES (April 12, 2023) LEE Filters, a leading manufacturer of high-quality lighting gels and photographic filters and a member of the Panavision family ...
12/04/2023
The CW original series Kung Fu follows the life-changing decision of Chinese American college student Nicky Shen (Olivia Liang) to trade her life as a student f...
12/04/2023
For the Apple TV+ limited series Black Bird, cinematographer Natalie Kingston worked with Panavision New Orleans to assemble a camera and lens package that incl...
05/04/2023
Cinematographer Sebastien Pfaffenbichler, AAC has been behind the camera on commercials for such well-known brands as Adidas, Toyota, American Express, Samsung,...
05/04/2023
As the storied fast-food chain's recent U.K. ad campaign makes clear, Fancy a McDonald's? is a question best asked and answered with a raise of th...
05/04/2023
For director Ryan Coogler's feature Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, ASC worked with Panavision's Woodland Hills a...
29/03/2023
TORONTO, Can. (March 29, 2023) Panavision, the entertainment industry's leading designer, manufacturer and rental provider of high precision optics and ca...
29/03/2023
The feature Soft follows three adolescent queer friends as they navigate the pardons and perils of summer break in the streets of Toronto. Written and directed ...
29/03/2023
Written and directed by Zach Braff, A Good Person tells the story of Allison (Florence Pugh), who unexpectedly befriends an elder gentleman named Daniel (Morgan...
16/03/2023
For three seasons, the Hulu original series Wu-Tang: An American Saga has chronicled the life and times of seminal '90s-era rap group the Wu-Tang Clan. Cine...
16/03/2023
Nominated for three awards between the 2022 Berlin and Toronto International Film Festivals, writer-director David Findlay's short Lay Me by the Shore is a ...
16/03/2023
A revenge story unlike any other, the six-episode Amazon miniseries The English follows an Englishwoman (played by Emily Blunt) who traverses a mythical 19th-ce...
14/03/2023
Winner of the Panavision Spirit Award for Independent Cinema at the 2023 Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the RBC Emerging Canadian Artist Award at...
14/03/2023
Written and directed by Sam Mendes, the period feature Empire of Light marks the latest collaboration between gaffer John Biggles Higgins and cinematographer ...
14/03/2023
Creed III finds Adonis Creed son of the late boxing champ Apollo Creed, the erstwhile nemesis, mentor and friend of Rocky Balboa a successfully retired heav...
14/03/2023
Adapted from the 2015 Swedish film which itself was adapted from the Swedish novel En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove), director Marc Forster's feat...
08/03/2023
Awarded The Golden Frog in the Short Documentary Films Competition at the 2022 Camerimage International Film Festival, A Mouthful of Petrol brings viewers into ...
08/03/2023
On Sunday, March 5, cinematographer Mandy Walker, AM, ASC, ACS made history as the first woman to win the American Society of Cinematographers' Theatrical F...
01/03/2023
In the summer of 2021, after more than 30 years of selling its lighting products in Canada through a distributor, LEE Filters established its own footprint in t...
01/03/2023
Expertly blending flavors of comedy and horror, director Mark Mylod's feature The Menu follows a young couple on an extravagant date to an exclusive restaur...
01/03/2023
The path toward lensing great films is even more varied than the platforms that distribute them. In the case of Netflix's Blonde, an artful balance between ...
22/02/2023
For three decades, Film Independent's Project Involve has fostered filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds, helping many of them such as Jon M. Chu a...
22/02/2023
Taking its cues from Robert Bresson's 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar, director Jerzy Skolimowski's feature EO follows the wayward journey of a Polish cir...
15/02/2023
Created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, the FX comedy series Reservation Dogs centers around four teenagers figuring out life as they grow up on a Native Am...
15/02/2023
HBO Max's revamped Gossip Girl follows a group of privileged private schoolers as their not-so-teenaged drama is strategically shared on social media by the...
14/02/2023
LONDON, England (14 February, 2023) Panalux, a leading rental provider of lighting and power solutions for the motion-picture industry and part of Panavision&...
13/02/2023
In October 1948, Jesse Brown became the first African American to complete the U.S. Navy's flight training program and received his Naval Aviator Badge. The...
08/02/2023
The popular National Treasure franchise has embarked upon a new adventure on Disney+. The 10-episode first season of National Treasure: Edge of History follows ...
07/02/2023
The lived experiences of writer-director Elegance Bratton are brought to the screen in The Inspection, which follows the character Ellis French (played by Jerem...
06/02/2023
Set in the West African kingdom of Dahomey in the year 1823, director Gina Prince-Bythewood's feature The Woman King focuses on the historically inspired bu...
02/02/2023
Director Sarah Polley's feature Women Talking about a group of women in an isolated Mennonite community in 2010 who share refuge in a hayloft while weighi...
02/02/2023
It's not often that a cinematographer is tasked with shooting a film within a film, but for writer-director Adamma Ebo's feature Honk For Jesus. Save Yo...
25/01/2023
Adapted from the novel by Gregory David Roberts, the Apple TV+ series Shantaram tells the epic story of an imprisoned criminal (played by Charlie Hunnam) who es...
25/01/2023
Inspired by Stephanie Land's memoir of the same name, the 10-episode Netflix limited series Maid centers around Alex (played by Margaret Qualley), a young s...
24/01/2023
Lucas Delangle's Jacky Caillou gives audiences something to believe in. The director's feature debut follows the eponymous young man (played by Thomas ...
20/01/2023
For Vincent De Paula, CSC, shooting the Netflix series Firefly Lane felt like a dream come true. Over the course of 26 episodes spanning two seasons, he was tas...
17/01/2023
In Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Mexican filmmaker and expat Silverio Gama (Daniel Gim nez Cacho) undertakes a mind- and time-bending journey o...
14/01/2023
In December, cinematographer Mandy Walker, AM, ASC, ACS made history as the first woman to win the Best Cinematography Award from the Australian Academy of Cine...
13/01/2023
In December, cinematographer Mandy Walker, ACS, ASC made history as the first woman to win the Best Cinematography Award from the Australian Academy of Cinema a...
12/12/2022
The feature Mascarade reunited writer-director Nicolas Bedos and cinematographer Laurent Tangy, AFC, following their collaboration on the 2021 release OSS 117: ...
12/12/2022
For director Jakub Michalczuk's lauded comedy Tesciowie (aka The In-Laws), cinematographer Micha Englert, PSC sought a natural look that he achieved with P...