
Created by Tony Basgallop and executive-produced by M. Night Shyamalan, the horror series Servant has delivered 40 episodes of psychological torment across four seasons as it tells the story of a young couple coping with the loss of their 13-week-old son. The series consistently takes viewers to unexpected places both narratively and visually; in the fourth and final season, those destinations were reached with the help of cinematographers Lowell A. Meyer; Gabriel Lobos; Marshall Adams, ASC; Greta Zozula; Pete Konczal, ASC; and Michael Gioulakis, ASC. Meyer, who also photographed three episodes of Season 3, recently shared his perspective on maintaining the series' signature style of camerawork.
Cinematographer Lowell A. Meyer (right).
Panavision: How would you describe the look of the series?
Lowell A. Meyer: This show is all about tension. Why are people doing what they're doing? Why aren't they doing another thing that could save them? What is outside the frame? What is that person eating?! It's about the parceling of information at the exact right time and withholding whenever you can.
This translates to the photography by way of holding shots as long as possible and letting the suspense, drama and even comedy play out in real time. It also usually means a lack of coverage, so we're not giving ourselves or the audience a way out of that tension. It means seeing far down hallways and keeping the lighting moody, with lots of shadows and corners to hide in. Our camera is almost a character in and of itself, in every nook and cranny of the house, peering and moving to keep pace with the action. But it's also a matter of contrast the camera can seamlessly go anywhere it wants until it suddenly can't and is locked off.
Everything was meticulously storyboarded in advance, so there was very little improvisation on the day. Our shots could be incredibly complex and sometimes required the camera to go in a very odd space in the house under a door, in a garbage disposal, etc. Having the resources and team at Panavision New York so readily and closely available was a necessity to ensure the creative success of the season. We knew their cameras, lenses, and gear could handle the crazy shots and tasks that we were asking of the equipment and our crew every day.
Were there any particular visual references you looked at for inspiration?
Meyer: Being Season 4, the show's look was so established that there was little more needed than the source material itself. The directors and I were always mining earlier episodes and shots to see how we could one-up them or do something unique in sets we'd seen so many times before, all while staying grounded and keeping every creative decision in the perspective of the characters and the emotions of the scenes.
That being said, Fincher, Hitchcock, Bong and Shyamalan were all names that the directors and I looked to for additional inspiration when stuck or presented with something unique for the show. Rosemary's Baby and Parasite were big references for me since they deal with status and relationship dynamics within the confines of elevated and subterranean spaces.
What optical characteristics did you see in the Primo 70 lenses that made them the right match for Servant?
Meyer: The Primo 70s were an established lens set on the show, and for good reason: They're fast, lightweight, relatively small, and they come in a wide variety of focal lengths. These practical advantages allowed them to be employed with our Mini LF on a Ronin 2, which we used for nearly every shot on the show, even with the Primo 70 zooms.
They're really gorgeous lenses, with a sharpness across the frame yet a softness to the focus roll-off. Paired with a subtle softening filter, these lenses shine as full-frame beauties and give the show its melancholy and modern look.
More than anything, we used very wide focal lengths on the show. The 27mm and 29mm were the hero lenses by far, but it was important to have the wiggle room of a variety of wide focal lengths that held up in their sharpness and lack of distortion. Even though we were on a set where we could remove walls and built-ins to get any achievable angle, we tried to stay true to what would be possible in the physical confinements of a real house. Having smaller lenses and a variety of focal lengths helped us not break that creative limitation we imposed upon ourselves.
How does this project differ from others in your career?
Meyer: Servant was wholly a beast of its own, constantly reinventing what's possible to do with a camera and how complicated a shot can get. I can't count how many oners we did that were long takes, full of compound movements, pans and tilts that were tack sharp and needed to hit a critical mark with a critically tight depth of field. The crew was always chomping at the bit to tackle these big shots. It's a powerful sight to behold when you see an entire crew working in sync to get a complicated idea on its feet and then accomplished on time and on budget that's an art in and of itself! There's truly no better feeling to me than to be on a set that is running smoothly and producing scenes that make the whole crew proud to contribute their pieces of the puzzle.
We were nearly always single-camera filming, with the second camera preparing for the next scene. That helped us get ahead of these complicated setups. Working on a TV schedule, we often didn't have a lot of prep time, so instead we would leap-frog the camera teams, going from Steadicam on A to dolly on B, then to Ronin on A, then a rigged mount on B, etc. We were always trying to stay one step ahead to make our days full of these bespoke rigs and shots.
Servant is also unique in my career in that it's a TV show that really is director- and DP-driven. The directors
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
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...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
31/03/2026
MeyerPro delivered the LED production for the Microsoft Ignite 2025 keynote at Chase Center in San Francisco, using more than 2,700 ROE Visual panels across mul...
31/03/2026
The Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF) is expanding membership outreach in 2026...
31/03/2026
ViewLift and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) have announced the launch of ViewLift Conversational AI Search on the MyOutdoorTV platform. The feature enables natural language...
31/03/2026
The Atlanta Braves and Gray Media have announced a multi-year agreement to simul...
31/03/2026
Gravity Media has delivered broadcast services for TAB Golden Slipper Day at Rosehill Gardens on March 21 and will now cover The Star Championships at Royal Ran...
31/03/2026
Synamedia has announced that Mileto Tecnologia, a Brazilian pay-TV operator, has selected the Synamedia Go platform for its OTT expansion. Mileto is also deploy...
31/03/2026
KMH Integration will attend NAB Show in Las Vegas with a focus on what the company calls AV Casting - an approach built on the idea that professional AV and bro...
31/03/2026
Prime Video will carry live coverage of the first and second rounds of the 2026 Masters Tournament, beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, April 9 and Friday, A...
31/03/2026
The NHL and its U.S. and Canadian broadcast partners have announced a collaborat...
31/03/2026
Daktronics has partnered with Wake Forest to manufacture and install a new end z...
31/03/2026
The National Football League has announced that Las Vegas will host Super Bowl LXIII in 2029 at Allegiant Stadium. The announcement was made at the NFL Annual M...
31/03/2026
The NFL has announced a partnership with TMRW Sports to develop and operate a professional flag football league for women and men. The league will launch with i...
31/03/2026
Sennheiser's Spectera wideband bidirectional wireless system was used by bot...
31/03/2026
Sports Studio Inc., the company behind Free Live Sports, has announced the formation of an Advisory Board with five media and technology executives.
Each of o...
31/03/2026
PSSI and Appear have announced a new phase in their collaboration, with PSSI deploying Appear's X Platform to upgrade its mobile fleet and PSSI Internationa...
31/03/2026
As sports media organization continue to seek out new ways to streamline their p...
31/03/2026
With two new expansion teams and viewership/attendance on the rise, the league's production/broadcast arm and its partner NEP Connected Solutions are busier...
31/03/2026
Spotify has evolved from a streaming platform to an interactive, multiformat eco...
31/03/2026
Lastest New Universal Synthesizer System module announced
Make Noise Music have recently announced the launch of the latest addition to their New Universal ...
31/03/2026
True Stereo DynIR Engine, Virtual Load Shaper & more
Two notes Audio Engineering's Captor X reactive load box and cabinet simulator has built up a solid...
31/03/2026
By Kiera Williams
Every year, a new group of emerging media and entertainment professionals steps into the HPA community - curious, talented, and ready to grow...
31/03/2026
MELBOURNE, Fla., March 31, 2026 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) will release its first quarter 2026 financial results before the market opens on Thursday, A...
31/03/2026
Photo courtesy of NASA. An illustration shows NASA's Perseverance rover operating on the surface of Mars....
31/03/2026
L3Harris Technologies and Comtech Telecommunications Corp. have collaborated to introduce the next evolution in resilient multi-orbit capability for today's...
31/03/2026
Rebel Sport leads ad investment as brands compete for a large, active and qualit...
31/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
31/03/2026
CueScript, a leading international developer of professional teleprompting solutions, is enhancing its platform with three innovations that elevate flexibility,...
31/03/2026
#GALSNGEAR will host a series of meetups, panel discussions, and networking events during the 2026 NAB Show, taking place April 18 22 in Las Vegas.
The organi...
31/03/2026
At the 2026 NAB Show (April 19-22, Las Vegas Convention Center, Booth #N1328), Imagine Communications is introducing AI assisted scheduling capabilities within ...
31/03/2026
High-density upgrade for mobile fleet and PSSI International Teleport gives PSSI more flexibility for premium live event coverage
PSSI and Appear today announc...
31/03/2026
Solid State Logic Enhances Virtualized System T Platform to Deliver Scalable Clo...
31/03/2026
OWC to Showcase Storage, Workflow Acceleration, and Reliability Solutions for Cr...
31/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
31/03/2026
OpenDrives, a leader in software-defined video and rich media storage management solutions, will demonstrate several new innovations at the 2026 NAB Show in Apr...
31/03/2026
At the 2026 NAB Show, SDVI will demonstrate how its Rally media supply chain management platform continues to give media operations teams the tools they need to...
31/03/2026
Boland Communications today announced that at the 2026 NAB Show, it will introduce its new QD4K315HDR10, a 31.5-inch QD-OLED monitor delivering exceptional colo...
31/03/2026
Dr. Paul Tapper, CEO of NUGEN Audio, will lead an essential industry discussion at the 2026 NAB Show, examining whether dialog intelligibility is poised to beco...
31/03/2026
BCNEXXT will use NAB 2026 to focus on how broadcasters can turn today's operational and market pressures into opportunity. Meeting with customers in the IAB...
31/03/2026
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, will showcase its latest innovations at th...
31/03/2026
DHD announces that AI-based audio noise reduction is now available as a powerful new option for its XD3 IP Core. Developed in cooperation with ai-coustics, audi...
31/03/2026
PTZOptics will showcase its vision for intelligent video and advanced camera automation at NAB Show 2026 (#N1902). Through immersive demonstrations and technolo...
31/03/2026
Experience Commerce, a leading full-service digital marketing agency and part of the Cheil SWA Group, has secured the social media mandate for ICONIQA Hotels & ...
31/03/2026
Fabric, the entertainment industry's leader in data and operations solutions, will showcase a major expansion of its media technology platform at NAB 2026, ...
31/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
31/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...