Jake Polonsky, BSC on The Sparks Brothers documentary, working with director Edgar Wright, The World’s End, Black Mirror and Billions

Director of photography Jake Polonsky was a fan of the band Sparks
for several years, a love he developed after seeing the band
perform at a music festival. Jake had frequently worked with
director Edgar Wright, shooting commercials and music videos in the
early 2000's, and then as the second unit DP on Wright's movie, The
World's End. Both Jake and Wright shared a love of music, and in
2018 he saw Wright had posted a photo of himself with Sparks. He
congratulated Wright on finally meeting the band. Wright let Jake
know he was going to make a documentary on Sparks and asked if he
would be the cinematographer. The Sparks Brothers documentary
combines interviews, live and archival concert footage and
collage-style animation in an eclectic style that reflects the
aesthetic of Ron and Russell Mael, the Sparks Brothers themselves.
In spite of putting out 25 albums over the past 50 years, Sparks
has remained under the radar for most of the public. The brothers
had some success at the beginning of their careers, mainly in the
UK, writing and creating an unusual sound admired and imitated by
many other bands. Sparks continues to reinvent themselves and has
never stopped touring, building an incredibly devoted fan base.
Both Jake and Wright knew that all the interviews for the
documentary needed to have a certain look and visual continuity.
They settled on a photograph from the cover of the 1976 Sparks
album, Big Beat. The photo was taken in black and white with a
large format camera, so Jake decided to shoot all of the interviews
in black and white, using several large format Red Monstro cameras.
Everyone would wear black so that each interview had a consistent
look, no matter where it was shot, and each interviewee spoke
directly to the lens, using an Eyedirect teleprompter. When Jake
heard Wright was getting ready to make The World's End in 2013 with
DP Bill Pope, he was eager to work on his first feature film, and
asked if Wright needed anyone to shoot second unit. Wright was
happy to give Jake the opportunity. Jake saw that even with a
comedy such as The World's End, Wright found it important to have
even the smallest scenes exactly right for comedic timing. Jake
went on to work on several other UK based television shows, such as
the Black Mirror episode, The National Anthem, and the interactive
Black Mirror special, Bandersnatch. The executive producers of the
Showtime series Billions noticed Jake's work on Black Mirror, and
he became the cinematographer for 27 episodes of the show, as well
as directing one. Jake was able to learn from many different
directors on Billions, and loved working with actors Damien Lewis
and Paul Giamatti. He thinks that as a DP, it's much more
stimulating to work with a director you like and respect. It
becomes easy to deliver what they want to achieve because you know
it's going to be great. Find Jake Polonsky:
http://jakepolonsky.com/ Instagram: @jakepolonsky You can see The
Sparks Brothers in theaters and streaming on VOD.
https://www.focusfeatures.com/the-sparks-brothers/ Find out even
more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links:
http://camnoir.com/ep132/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras:
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