--
As Hawthorne College winds down for the Christmas holidays, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority sisters one by one. Produced by Jason Blum (Halloween, Get Out) for Blumhouse Productions, Black Christmas is a re-imagining of the 1974 cult classic to a 21st century audience. The horror film was directed and co-written by Sophia Takal (Always Shine). Although Takal was a fan of the original film, she wanted to bring attention to contemporary women's rights issues, in particular the Me-Too movement. The film was shot by cinematographer Mark Schwartzbard (Forever, Master of None) with Panasonic VariCam cinema cameras rented out of Panavision New Zealand. The original Black Christmas was made in 1974 and it was a Canadian low budget horror movie, explains Schwartzbard. A lot of people believe its the movie that invented the slasher film.
Schwartzbard got involved with the film having shot Takal's previous feature, Always Shine. Black Christmas was shot In the summer of 2019 in New Zealand with a goal of a December, Friday the 13th release. Because they were shooting a Christmas movie during the summer, the producers decided to move the shoot to New Zealand since it would be easier to re-create a winter environment. For Schwartzbard, the bigger challenge was that it was a low budget horror film with a lot of action sequences that had to be often shot with Christmas lights as his only light source.
That 70s Groovy Look
Black Christmas is the first horror film Schwartzbard has shot and although he used the original film for inspiration, he was more influenced by the 1970s films of Brian DePalma and Robert Altman, especially their use of long and slow zooms. Other films he and Takal looked at were the 70s films of Hal Ashby, filmmaker Luca Guadagnino's recent 2018 remake of Suspiria, and Stanley Kubrick's 1999 psychological drama, Eyes Wide Shut.
Schwartzbard had extensive experience shooting on VariCam, having shot Netflix series Master of None and Love with the VariCam 35. For Black Christmas, he again chose the VariCam 35 because it was the best camera to employ the vintage zoom lens he and Takal used on Always Shine. It's a first generation Angenieux 25-250mm zoom, which is a T-3.9, reveals Schwartzbard. From what I understand, it was the first long range zoom lens made for 35mm. It originally came out in 1962 and it was the only 10 to 1 zoom lens, until Cooke came out with one in the mid 70s. It's has a really groovy look and right now, you can find them all over eBay. Schwartzbard also made use of a Cooke 18-100mm lens.
Since the Angenieux zoom was pre-Super 35, Schwartzbard wouldn't be able to cover a full-frame sensor, so the VariCam 35's Super 35mm sized sensor was ideal and he was still able to capture a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. The zoom lens was also slow at T-3.9, so the VariCam's 5000 ISO feature compensated a slower stop. I prefer dialing down from 5000 Base to 3200 or maybe 4000 if I'm really in trouble, he explains. I usually click to 3200 and that usually gets me where I need to be.
During testing, Schwartzbard created a viewing LUT with Technicolor LA colorist Pankaj Bajpai. Since we were deep in the South Island of New Zealand, we did a remote session with an iPad remote viewing/grading set up, explains Schwartzbard. We Aspera'd Pankaj some of our test footage and we sat in our hotel room looking at an iPad while he created the LUT in Los Angeles. He developed a LUT starting with our funky lenses and filters and he made use of a lot of proprietary Technicolor emulations of photochemical processes. He came up with a really groovy look.
Winter In July
With the VariCam 35, Schwartzbard captured 12-bit 444 2K files since Blumhouse's delivery requirement was 2K. We went to New Zealand for Christmas in July, but it turned out it doesn't actually snow where we were shooting, reveals Schwartzbard, We made as much snow as we could afford, but we realized we would have to augment the snow in VFX. We kind of bumped up to 4K whenever VFX were involved. We were constantly switching back from 4K to 2K to save money on hard drives.
For lighting, Schwartzbard made use of Christmas lights with one 20-minute night sequence lit entirely with Christmas lights - both practicals and fastened to boards. According to the DP, lighting with Christmas lights turned out to be much trickier than anticipated. My understanding is that incandescent twinkle lights are outlawed in the EU, which has gone over to LED, explains Schwartzbard. New Zealand isn't in the EU but it is a 240-volt country and nobody is making 240-volt incandescent Christmas lights. All of the household LED lights we tested strobed at one frequency or another - either 50Hhz or 60Hhz so if you had enough of them you were likely to have a mix of frequencies so that you couldn't dial it out with the shutter. Our alternative was shipping a ton of incandescent Christmas lights from the U.S., which meant we needed to run 110 power on all of our sets with the Christmas lights in addition to the 240-volt power we were using for everything else. It became a huge pain for our electrics.
For post-production at Technicolor LA, Schwartzbard really loved the LUT Bajpai created, so the final look was not changed much, although Bajpai cleaned it up and made the shots seamlessly match.
Although he's a fan of American films of the 70s, Schwartzbard was not a 70s horror film buff. One of the executive producers, Couper Samuelson sat down with Schwartzbard and presented a taxonomy of classic horror movie scares. Shooting a horror film was a great learning experience, reveals Schwartzbard. From the camera point of view, so much of it is about cycles of tension. There's so much about guiding the eye, which is essentially the magic trick of c
Most recent headlines
01/01/2026
Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation Announces 2026 Noel Schajris Scholarship The scholarship will cover tuition and housing for one Berklee College of Music stud...
01/01/2026
New year, new games, all with RTX 5080-powered cloud energy. GeForce NOW is kicking off 2026 by looking back at an unforgettable year of wins and wildly high fr...
31/12/2025
Back to All News
NFL Christmas Gameday on Netflix Scores Again With the Lions-V...
30/12/2025
As the College Football Playoff Enters the Quarterfinals, ESPN Blows Out Its Meg...
30/12/2025
SVG's Best of 2025: Original ArticlesTake a look back at all our coverage of big-time productions, game-changing technologies, and state-of-the-art new faci...
30/12/2025
MELBOURNE, Fla., Dec. 30, 2025 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) will release its fourth quarter 2025 financial results before the market opens on Thursday, J...
30/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
30/12/2025
It marked the first civilian operational authorization for a HAPS flight in Europe, led by Space42's subsidiary, Mira Aerospace
The flight demonstrated HAP...
29/12/2025
San Francisco 49ers Strike Gold With Halftime Laser SpectacularStunning display caps $200 million renovation of Levi's Stadium techBy Dan Daley, Audio Edito...
29/12/2025
The Cup's Around the Corner: An Inside Look at Broadcast Preparations for th...
29/12/2025
SVG's Best of 2025: Longform VideoWatch the standout keynote conversations, deep dives, and panel discussions from the year for free on SVG PLAY!By Brandon ...
29/12/2025
From crisper Lossless audio and immersive music videos in beta to new Audiobooks+ plans, custom transitions between tracks, and in-app Messages, we keep levelin...
29/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
27/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
26/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
26/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
25/12/2025
Holiday lights are twinkling, hot cocoa's on the stove and gamers are settling in for a well-earned break.
Whether staying in or heading on a winter getawa...
24/12/2025
What is AI good for? Posted by MTI Film on December 24, 2025
What is AI good for?
What is AI good for?
It's been three years since ChatGPT first cap...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
The Boyfriend' Season 2 Unveils Heartwarming Trailer, Key...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
Love, Fights, and Everything in Between: Badly in Love' Returns for Season 2
Entertainment
24 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied t...
24/12/2025
Scripps Research study links sleep variability with sleep apnea and hypertension How consumers' digital activity trackers could enable personalized health s...
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today!By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
P...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's The Great Flood and Culinary Class Wars 2 Top Gl...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things By the Numbers: How the Global Phenomenon Shap...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
-- 
