
Based on Patricia Highsmith's bestselling Tom Ripley novels, Netflix's eight-episode limited series Ripley stars Andrew Scott as the eponymous antihero, a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York. When Tom is hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy and convince his vagabond son, Dickie (Johnny Flynn), to return home, he takes his first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud and murder.
The series was written and directed by Steven Zaillian, who partnered with cinematographer Robert Elswit, ASC for all eight episodes. Elswit's primary lenses for the production were Panavision VA primes, supplemented with select Primo 70 and Ultra Speed focal lengths as well as Primo 70 and prototype VA zooms. Here, in his own words, the cinematographer details the creative collaborations that brought Ripley to the screen.
I'd worked with Steve Zaillian a few years earlier on the pilot of his series The Night Of. I knew from that experience that Steve has very specific ideas about the lighting design and overall pictorial style of his shows. Very much like a cinematographer, Steve believes that the lighting of a movie, the way the spaces and characters are lit, is a way of making a direct connection to the emotions of an audience. When he told me that he wanted to shoot Ripley in black-and-white, I knew he had very different ideas about the nature of the character and story in his version of Highsmith's novel.
When I came on the show, both Steve and our production designer, David Gropman, had already spent months scouting and photographing locations throughout Italy, and theyd created a vast collection of black-and-white images not only of the locations but also the work of many Italian photojournalists that Steve felt were evocative of the era. The pictures became a great reference tool for thinking about shooting in monochrome.
In Steve's script, Toms actual talent initially seems to be simply that of a con man. A cold and calculating sociopath who's able to manipulate and exploit, to hide his emotions and play any role. But soon after Tom arrives in Europe and is exposed to the life and culture, language, food, architecture, and especially the music and art of Italian culture, it changes him in unexpected ways. It's Toms introduction to the work of the 17th-century Italian painter Caravaggio that makes a particularly strong emotional impact on him.
Caravaggio appears nowhere in the Highsmith novel. The inclusion of his art and then the painter as an actual character in Ripley is a pure Steve invention. Toms initial response to the painter's work is reinforced as he learns more about the painter's life. He begins to identify with him as he learns of the many parallel events in their two lives. As Tom travels through Italy to avoid the police, he seeks out Caravaggio's paintings wherever he is. His obsession and identification with the painter becomes one of the central themes in the second half of the story and it's Caravaggio's depiction of characters and spaces with a strong emphasis of contrasting light and dark that could also be seen as a metaphor for the narrative drama in Ripley.
The specific style of Caravaggio's painting, chiaroscuro, refers to the use of strong contrasts between light and dark that direct the eye and also strongly affect the overall composition of his paintings. This creates an underlying sense of drama and tension that we see in much of Caravaggio's work. It's this lighting style, emphasizing the contrast between light and dark, that is particularly well suited to black-and-white cinematography. We see examples of it in early cinema, especially in the great German expressionist films of the silent era. It's a lighting style that becomes associated with the American film noir movies of the '30s and '40s.
From the very beginning, Steve wanted this style of lighting, along with strong graphic compositions, to become the unique way we see the world in Ripley. With the sets, locations, costumes, weather, time of day and lighting, we tried to emphasize strong contrast between light and dark. For me, this meant the use of harder light sources throughout with the resulting stronger shadows and emphasis on texture that, in color, could seem theatrical and unrealistic, but in black-and-white becomes dramatic and somehow more truthful.
We had a 160-day schedule with an almost endless number of locations in various cities and lots of nights. Because of the large amount of VFX work and the 4K delivery requirement, we decided the best production camera for us was the Alexa LF. Steve was promised a black-and-white release, but there was no thought of using a camera without a color filter array. The advantage of using a camera without a filter array is that you pick up extra stop and supposedly there's finer gradations in the mid tones but also, no filter means a sharper image. The digital image is already too sharp, so that's the last thing I wanted.
The images were recoded as color files, but all the on-set monitors were black-and-white. I used a black-and-white LUT that I thought looked like a slightly more contrasty version of the old Kodak 5231. It's what I looked at and lit to in the DIT tent. We got two sets of dallies each day, one in color and the other in black-and-white; we never looked at the color files, and Steve edited the show with the black-and-white Avid files.
Not needing to deal with color allowed our wonderful DIT, Marco Coradin, to each day download a very accurate black-and-white version of what would be the final look of the show. I just made sure we were always exposing to hold the sky or whatever highlight detail I hoped to retain, but that wouldn't be visible in the dailies. We worked at ISO 800 for almost everything except the nights, which we shot at 160
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
09/10/2026
September 10 2026, 06:00 (PDT) Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026
New Sports Intelligence helps providers better unders...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
24/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
24/09/2026
Viewers watching videos from the Austrian Parliament online will soon find it easier to verify the authenticity of the content. Big Blue Marble, an internationa...
24/09/2026
nsign, the digital signage SaaS platform built around its Simplify Complexity principle, is now officially certified for BRAVIA Professional Displays from Son...
24/09/2026
Encompass Digital Media today announced the successful migration of multiple Viaplay free-to-air channels, including TV3, TV6, TV8 and TV10, to its Altitude Sch...
24/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
24/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
24/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
24/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
24/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
24/09/2026
Music Supervisor, Composer, and Mixing Engineer Santiago Uribe has built a career around producing music for film and television, contributing to more than 40 p...
24/09/2026
The North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) will hold a full-day cybersecurity summit focused on defending against growing cyber threats facing the broad...
24/09/2026
RT Radio 1 Folk Awards Tickets on Sale
Dolores Keane to be inducted into the...
24/09/2026
A warped Manhattan is waiting in the cloud this week. Remedy Entertainment's CONTROL Resonant brings Dylan Faden's extraordinary abilities and a paranat...
23/09/2026
Four control rooms support B1G+ streams, videoboard shows, creative content, and...
23/09/2026
By Andrew Cohen, SVG Coorespondant
The Mountain West debuted its new Replay Operations Center at the start of this football season, bringing real-time collabor...
23/09/2026
The Taylorville, IL, native is pushing creative boundaries at Ball State, gaining reps across directing, technical directing, tape, and more than 100 ESPN+ broa...
23/09/2026
Alexander Heller, Nevada Jose, Will Brill, and Giselle Bonilla pose with cast members at The Musical premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles...
23/09/2026
Includes natural and processed patches
The Crow Hill Company's latest sample library captures a children's choir comprising a troupe of boys perform...
23/09/2026
Plug-in offers six bands of saturation
Kreuzberg Audio's product range includes a selection of plug-ins and virtual instruments aimed primarily at hard-...
23/09/2026
Latest DAW update now live
SoundBridge have announced that the latest update for the remote-collaboration-focused DAW is now available. The release of Sound...
23/09/2026
Koori Knockout returns home exclusively to NITV and SBS On Demand in 2026
11 September, 2026
Media releases
Fans can catch all the live action exclusively ...
23/09/2026
Rohde & Schwarz acquires NEOSAT and PHYTRONIC and strengthens its competencies i...
23/09/2026
1. ABOUT THE PROGRAMME
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) invites applications from experienced producers who own or manage a South African product...
23/09/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce the opening...
23/09/2026
Download Now!
To receive a short case study showcasing NHK Technologies, Inc. (NT) s audio setup, please enter the following details:
--
First Name* Fir...
23/09/2026
Nielsen CMI data reveals a changing fast-food landscape, with value, convenience...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
COW Jobs: Blender on Windows - Generalist - Remote
Brie Clayton September 23, 2026
0 Comments
Application Users - Blender on Windows - Generalist
Se...
23/09/2026
Version 1.8 recognised for new workflow tools, boosted control panel flexibility and ease of integration into IP networks...
23/09/2026
Hiltron Communications reports a successful 2026 International Broadcasting Convention, held at the RAI Amsterdam. Exhibiting on stand A37 in Hall 1, Hiltron ex...
23/09/2026
Reinforcing its long-term commitment to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) broadcast market, LiveU is presenting the Q Era at CABSAT 2026, on Stand H1-D35 ...
23/09/2026
Agence France-Presse (AFP), a global news agency, and Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced a partnersh...
23/09/2026
Berklee Connect Unlocks the Power of a Global Network Katie Vitolins BM '04 knows firsthand what Berklee's alumni community can make possible. Now she...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Westminster Schools, a K through 12 school in Atlanta, Georgia with approximately 2,000 students, has transformed its student broadcast and digital storytelling...
23/09/2026
The 2026 edition of CABSAT and SATExpo may have a new home and dates in the diary, but it still retains a strong presence from UK companies in the GREAT Britain...
23/09/2026
Glensound will return to CABSAT with new developments in professional monitoring and Dante interfacing, alongside its established commentary, esports and parlia...
23/09/2026
September 23 2026, 17:00 (PDT) Dolby and Meta Expand Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision Across Metas Ecosystem
Across Meta AI glasses, Instagram, and VR devices, ...
23/09/2026
A great watch - Radio Times
TV's most likeable proper bloke - Daily Telegraph
23rd September 2026, London: Guy Martin returns to free streaming service...
23/09/2026
Wednesday 23 September 2026
Sky Sports to show England Men's tour of South ...
23/09/2026
Comscore Partners with datafuelX to Bring Seamless Currency Adoption Into a Comp...
23/09/2026
Luxembourg, 23 September 2026 - SES today announced the appointment of Mr. Michel Scholer, Secretary General of the Luxembourg Government and Chief of Staff to ...