The new feature Haunted Mansion delivers spooky fun inspired by the famed Disney theme park attraction. Telling the story of single-mom Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and the eclectic group she gathers in an attempt to rid her new home of its hauntings, the movie reteamed director Justin Simien and cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron, who had previously collaborated on the first season of Simien's Netflix series Dear White People.
After the thrills of Haunted Mansion, Waldron rode straight into writer-director Nicole Holofcener's dramatic comedy You Hurt My Feelings, about married couple Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Don (Tobias Menzies) and the strains on their relationship after Beth overhears her husband's candid comments. The gear-shift from one project to the next offered a creative rush for Waldron, who recounts the journey's twists and turns in this Q&A.
Panavision: How did you become involved in each project?
Jeffrey Waldron: Justin Simien and I clicked on the first season of Dear White People, sharing a love of film history and a lot of visual instincts. When he reached out about Haunted Mansion, I was so excited, not only by the idea of getting to shoot with Justin again but because I love the visual world of the source material, the original Disneyland ride. Actually landing the opportunity was an uphill battle like Justin, I was coming from independent film and television, so I worked hard to prove my potential and communicate a big vision for the film.
During the final stretch of shooting Haunted Mansion, I got a message from Nicole Holofcener we had shot together on HBO's Mrs. Fletcher and had stayed in touch and she asked if I might be available for a movie in New York City. I was heartbroken that I wasn't able to do it. When we wrapped Haunted Mansion, I checked back in to see how it went, and she told me it had been pushed. Suddenly our dates matched up, and we did You Hurt My Feelings together.
How would you describe the look that you and the director sought to create for each film?
Waldron: Well, these are very different looks!
For Haunted Mansion, we wanted to create a rich world built upon the visuals of the ride. To me, that meant a lot of color contrast between warms and cools, a lot of practical lamp sources, candles, firelight, shafts of moonlight, and a soft, dusty, painterly feel. There are a number of other looks in the film, from a flashback told through a crystal ball to the Ghost Realm' an astral plane painted in stark colors inspired by everything from a film negative to Hitchcock's Vertigo.
The script for You Hurt My Feelings managed to balance a very natural flow with a bit of a heightened, satirical edge. I took my approach from there: a softened realism lit from real-world sources but heightened to emphasize drama or lightness in parallel with the characters. We shot a lot of exteriors in New York in the spring, which fell into this soft, pastel approach well. I like to think of the result as natural and realistic but filtered through Nicole's nuanced writing and directing voice for the film.
For both projects, were there any particular visual references you looked at for inspiration?
Waldron: For Haunted Mansion, Justin and I brought in a lot of references: Hitchcock, The Twilight Zone, The Cincinnati Kid, street photography of New Orleans. I looked at lighting references from Crimson Peak and Tim Burton films like Beetlejuice and Alice in Wonderland. I'd say the biggest visual reference for all departments was consistently the ride itself. How did it strike this balance of scary and funny, and how do we bring that into a timeless-feeling but visually modern film?
For You Hurt My Feelings, I put together about a page of images I'd pulled from New York City photographers and some smaller personal films that leaned pastel and soft but felt real. Nicole looked at them only long enough to feel we were headed in a unified direction and then just started putting together the movie.
Rather than trying to emulate the entire look, there's often one small thing I like in each reference. I might use the picture to communicate a kind of green or cyan I love, or a specific kind of framing, or how they're using a super-wide lens or whatever it is. For me, rather than looking at a few whole images, it's about putting together a lot of them that each have one or two things I'm inspired by to add to the soup.
What brought you to Panavision for each of these projects?
Waldron: In early testing for Haunted Mansion, while they were building the sets, I took a camera around with a handful of lenses. When we put these images on the projector for Justin to see, it felt like a no-brainer that we wanted to shoot anamorphic the way they bend and fall off and everything, it just felt very haunted? Right off the bat, I had a lot of ambition for the film lens-wise. I knew Panavision had a long history of anamorphic optics to pull from as well as the ability to match them or modify them, plus the Herculean organizational ability to put all of this together in time.
For You Hurt My Feelings, it was a Tier 1 film with not a lot of money for a camera, and I appealed to Sal [Giarratano] at Panavision New York for help!
You used a mix of optics for Haunted Mansion. How did you determine which series to use for any given scene?
Waldron: I wanted to differentiate our waking world, which we shot with T Series; Madame Leota's crystal-ball story, shot with a special portrait' anamorphic lens set; and the Ghost Realm, which was shot with modified G Series. Each of these felt perfect for their role in the storytelling. The Ts felt more classical and buttoned-up; paired with a subtle bit of filtration, they looked great for the bulk of our scenes. The portrait lenses had heavy, glassy smears all around the
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
29/05/2026
At just 20 years old, Sean Melia from Summerhill Co. Meath has been revealed as the winner of Super Garden 2026. Sean is the youngest ever contestant and winner...
29/05/2026
Experimental HIV vaccine achieves a long-sought goal In a first for the field, all non-human primates given a new series of vaccines generated antibodies capabl...
28/05/2026
Thomsons Climate Crisis Toolkit is already being put to work, helping journalist...
28/05/2026
FOX Sports' MLB coverage dominated the night at the 47th Annual Sports Emmy ...
28/05/2026
One of the most memorable postseasons in baseball history would have had no memo...
28/05/2026
NBC's Sunday Night Football is among the most-decorated and most-watched pro...
28/05/2026
The 2026 Sports Emmys marked a watershed moment for Prime Video Sports. After bu...
The new feature Haunted Mansion delivers spooky fun inspired by the famed Disney theme park attraction. Telling the story of single-mom Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and the eclectic group she gathers in an attempt to rid her new home of its hauntings, the movie reteamed director Justin Simien and cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron, who had previously collaborated on the first season of Simien's Netflix series Dear White People.
