The comic book Dystopia tells the story of Jessica Hyde, a young girl on the run from the evil Mr. Rabbit, who holds Jessica's scientist father captive and forces him to create unthinkable biological horrors. Written and illustrated by an anonymous artist, Dystopia has earned legions of fans, some of whom have found far deeper meaning in its pages and believe clues to real-world viruses and pandemics are layered into its artwork.One such group of obsessives, who have only known each other through their online interactions, come together and finally meet in person for Fringe Con, where an unwitting couple has plans to auction the recently discovered original artwork for Utopia, Dystopia's unpublished and never-before-seen sequel. Desperate to unlock Utopia's secrets, these friends are instead thrust into the heart of a vast conspiracy and forced to run for their lives alongside none other than Jessica Hyde who is in fact a real, living person, with a backstory that exactly matches the one told on the printed page.
So begins the eight-episode series Utopia, developed by showrunner Gillian Flynn and now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. As cinematographer Stephan Pehrsson, BSC says of the story's happenings, Everything is calculated, and there are dark forces controlling all of it.
When Panavision spoke with Pehrsson in mid-September, he was in London, nine weeks into production on another series. Despite Utopia's subject matter, the cinematographer says the series' release comes at a time the filmmakers never could have imagined during production, as the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefully people will see it as a piece of entertainment, he offers, and not a handbook for how to live life.
Pehrsson was brought onto Utopia by director Toby Haynes, who would ultimately direct Episodes 1, 2, 3 and 8. Pehrsson shot each of Haynes' episodes as well as Episode 6, and cinematographer Shawn Kim came aboard to shoot Episodes 4, 5 and 7. Kim joined the production after Pehrsson but still very early on, Pehrsson notes. We sent references back and forth, and he brought a lot of visual ideas. It was great to have him as a collaborator and be able to pick his brain.
Toby and I go way back, Pehrsson adds, noting that he and the director attended the U.K.'s National Film and Television School together. We have a shorthand. We know what the other person is thinking before he says it. Their professional collaborations have included the Emmy winning Black Mirror episode U.S.S. Callister, and it was in part thanks to that project's success, Pehrsson says, that Toby was invited over to the U.S. to direct Utopia, and he brought me along. We've done it before where we set up a show in a different country with a new crew, so we were confident we could make it work.
The series was shot in and around Flynn's hometown of Chicago, Ill. Pehrsson began his prep in February 2019, with production starting in May and lasting into October.
Flynn's story was inspired by and adapted from the British series of the same name, which aired for two seasons. I was in awe of the original, Pehrsson says of the show, which was created by Dennis Kelly and photographed by BSC members Ole Bratt Birkeland and Lol Crawley. It was super-strong, incredible television, with a distinct style. It's very controlled, with stark frames that are all about the graphic nature of the surroundings. But Gillian had her own take, so when we started, we took it our own way.
Given the central conceit of its storyline, that a graphic novel contains world-shaking secrets, we knew we wanted to merge comic books and conspiracy thrillers, Pehrsson reflects. We looked at classic conspiracy thrillers like The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor and The Icpress File, and we talked about pushing the colors and not being afraid of making it bold in that way.
Gillian was very hands-on and very clear, but Toby was also given the freedom to be creative and put his own vision and ideas into it, Pehrsson continues. He loves handheld and the sense of immediacy of being with the characters. Jessica Hyde [portrayed by Sasha Lane] has been on the run since she was a small child, and she has this crazy energy; it felt appropriate to follow her energy and be a bit wild and handheld with the camera in her scenes.
The filmmakers did follow the lead of the original Utopia with their choice of the 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Where the original had been captured spherically, however, Pehrsson and his collaborators made the choice to shoot anamorphic. During prep, the cinematographer shares, We were blown away by the qualities of Panavision's anamorphic lenses, especially the T Series. There was nothing we could find elsewhere that could beat the look or the technical benefits. Normally with anamorphics, it's a 4-foot minimum focus, a T-stop of 4 all those things you have to compensate for when shooting. But with the T Series, it had all the right visual qualities, the anamorphic flare, but with a 2-foot close focus, and you can shoot them wide open [at T2.3 for every focal length up to and including 135mm]. That made a huge difference. This was the first chance I had to shoot with proper Panavision lenses, which was very exciting, and the T Series was great.
In particular, the cinematographer notes, The 28mm rarely left the camera. The whole show was pretty much shot on the 28mm and the 35mm. We wanted to shoot wide, close to the actors, and put them in the center of the frame. The actors were often looking at a tape mark on the matte box because we were so close!
Sourcing their package through Panavision Chicago, the filmmakers paired the T Series optics with Panavision's Millennium DXL2 camera, capturing 5K with a 2:1 anamorphic squeeze. We l
