HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65

HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65

Brie Clayton June 14, 2026

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Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.

Blackmagic Design today announced that HBO's comedy series Rooster was shot using the Blackmagic URSA Cine 17K 65 digital film camera, with Cinematographer Blake McClure using large format capture to create a warm, inviting look that supports the show's character driven tone.

Created by Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses and starring Steve Carell, Rooster is a visually stunning series that follows Greg Russo (Carell), a successful author who becomes unexpectedly immersed in campus life after visiting an elite college where his daughter Katie is a professor navigating her own personal crisis.

McClure was brought onto the project by Line Producer David Hyman and Unit Production Manager Dan Portnoy and was eager to collaborate with pilot Director Jonathan Krisel, along with Lawrence and Tarses. Visually, McClure felt the creative goal was comfort and elegance, with an image that supports the humanity of the characters.

McClure said the decision to shoot with the URSA Cine 17K 65 came from conversations about how the camera should relate to performance and space. There's something so tangible with 65mm photography. It's subconscious, but the viewer feels closer to the subject because they usually are. The camera placement can be much closer, and you can use a longer focal length than normal, but still see the same field of view with less distortion. These are subtle details, but I think viewers can feel the difference.

The original idea was to embrace a Super 16 approach, but McClure pushed toward the opposite end of the spectrum. I pitched going the other route and shooting the largest sensor possible, something akin to medium format photography, McClure said. The shallow depth of field and wider field of view helped in more practical ways as well. The wider view opened us up to see the beautiful sets our production designer, Cabot McMullen, created, and it also helped throw the backdrops out of focus outside each window, which we knew could cause issues due to their proximity to the set, McClure noted.

I equate the look to a wool sweater, said McClure. This show is set in autumn in a small town somewhere in Massachusetts but was shot in the Los Angeles summer, so it needed to feel warm and inviting. I wanted the color palette to be rich and lush.

McClure noted that achieving that seasonal illusion required a deep collaboration across departments, including production design, greens and AD scheduling to maximize favorable exterior light.

For lenses, McClure worked with camera rental house Camtec to test options that would cover the sensor, ultimately choosing its Falcon lenses, a custom blend of Canon K35 and FD glass rehoused by Camtec. McClure said the lens package was paired with a custom Color Con 2 filter that was updated for finer color tuning, helping create what he described as a classic medium format still photography feel.

I had the Color-Con filter turned up pretty heavily, which resulted in a very washed out, low con RAW file, said McClure. Colorist Josh Bohoskey and I built a LUT in DaVinci Resolve Studio to pull that image back down, keeping the shadows black and the highlights right at 100. So, it's a very rich image with very little latitude. It felt like Ektachrome film.

McClure said the URSA Cine 17K 65 performed beautifully at every ISO, with the production often working around ISO 2000 and pushing to 3200 for night exteriors.

On set, McClure used three URSA Cine 17K 65 camera bodies, each outfitted with wireless control for key settings. We had an iPad and an array of bit boxes connected to each camera so I could wirelessly control ISO, color temp, plus or minus green, he said. I particularly love the two side monitors because my A camera always lives on a Ronin. I can walk up to each camera and see the frame without disrupting the operators or ACs.

For McClure, the key to any project is choosing the right tool for the story, and the URSA Cine 17K 65 fit Rooster perfectly. I was excited when I heard this camera was coming out and would give me access to shooting such a large format image without breaking the bank. The camera and color science worked perfectly, and I know everybody is excited about the image we were able to create for the show.

Rooster is now streaming on HBOMax.

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