Cinematographer John Guleserian on Candyman, working with director Nia DaCosta, Like Crazy, About Time, An American Pickle

Cinematographer John Guleserian has never liked to be pigeonholed
into one genre. He's shot several romantic films, comedy movies and
TV series, and with his latest film, Candyman, he can add horror
movies to his skill set. After attending film school at Columbia
College in Chicago and then AFI, John worked on several small films
and web series before the film Like Crazy launched his career. Most
of the characters' lines were improvised- director Drake Doremus
worked from an outline rather than a script, and he had actors
Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin improvise their blocking as well.
John and Doremus went through the film chronologically in
preproduction, deciding on the basic shots they wanted for the
film, shooting it mostly in sequence. Like Crazy went to the
Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury prize. John ended up
doing several romantic movies after Like Crazy. Director Richard
Curtis (Love, Actually) saw the film, flew John to London and asked
him to shoot About Time- John's favorite movie that he's worked on
so far. On About Time, John felt he learned about keeping the
camera balanced between taking in the scope of a beautiful location
and set, while still maintaining the intimacy of the characters.
For Candyman, John was directly influenced by the 1992 movie and
wanted it to look like the original. John began working on the
movie with only about four or five weeks of prep, but he and
director Nia daCosta storyboarded and completely previsualized many
of the sequences before shooting. In Candyman, reflections play a
very important role and most of the art, windows and mirrors were
prevised and carefully placed so that the reflections could be
picked up by the camera. The visual effects team could then paint
out the camera and adjust the Candyman's movement in the
reflections. Find John Guleserian: http://www.johndp.com/ Instagram
@johnguels You can watch Candyman currently in theaters. Find out
even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links:
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