Lawrence Sher, ASC on ShotDeck, Joker: Folie à Deux

Cinematographer Lawrence Sher, ASC has a career that spans indie
favorites like Garden State to blockbuster hits like the Hangover
movies and Joker. But it was the arduous process of creating
lookbooks for Garden State that sparked an idea: a comprehensive,
searchable database of cinematic images. This idea evolved into
ShotDeck, a powerful tool for filmmakers and creatives alike.
Larry's initial struggle involved manually grabbing screenshots
from DVDs and tapes. Google Images offered some help, but the
images lacked the cinematic quality he sought. By 2015, he began
working with a computer engineer to build a solution, realizing
that if he found such a library valuable, his colleagues would too.
After years of beta testing, ShotDeck officially launched as a
company in 2020. ShotDeck can also be used beyond pre-production
pitch decks. “In my day to day, what I realized was every director
I communicated with, across all the other departments, we were
constantly in need of communicating creative ideas,” Larry says.
“It's difficult to communicate creative ideas with words. Having
images that you can point to with a director is the easiest way.”
Larry would like ShotDeck to become the "visual IMDb," housing an
exhaustive collection of cinematic imagery. Recently, ShotDeck
partnered with Canva, integrating its library directly into the
design platform. This allows Canva users to seamlessly access and
incorporate over 1.5 million high-definition film stills into their
projects, streamlining workflows for filmmakers, designers, and
content creators. For Joker: Folie à Deux, Larry and director Todd
Phillips continued their 15 year collaboration. Certain scenes of
the movie were partly influenced by The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.
Larry had to rely on using screen grabs from the show's DVDs as
visual references, since they weren't inputted into ShotDeck yet.
Joker: Folie à Deux maintains a visual connection to the first
Joker, but expands on the original by embracing more fantastical
elements. They scaled up the stages and sets, which provided
greater flexibility in lighting and camera movement. Larry was able
to use more color and a wider range of lighting techniques during
the musical sequences, as Arthur Fleck becomes more and more
detached from reality. He sees Joker: Folie à Deux as an operatic
tragedy, exploring the internal conflict of a person battling their
shadow self and delving into the complexities of love and its
potential to drive someone to the edge. Larry defends director Todd
Phillips's creative vision for the sequel. “When you make a sequel,
you have to have a new approach to the material, otherwise why do a
sequel to anything?” he points out. “This idea that Todd just took
$200 million and just lit it on fire is absurd. The greatest thing
about Todd as a filmmaker is he's at heart a gambler. He's a
gambler in the way that the movie business should be a gamble. What
are we doing this for if not to continue to express something that
isn't simply trying to service the audience? We're giving something
that you might not have asked for.” He continues, “The movie we
made and the way we approached it, it's exactly what we were trying
to do.” Find Lawrence Sher: Instagram @lawrencesherdp Hear our
previous interview with Lawrence Sher on Joker:
https://www.camnoir.com/ep56/ You can see Joker: Folie a Deux
currently streaming on Max. Shotdeck is now available on Canva.
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