Jess Hall, ASC, BSC: Marvel’s WandaVision, Hot Fuzz, working with Edgar Wright, Wally Pfister and more

For the Disney+ series WandaVision, cinematographer Jess Hall had
the opportunity to create the most avant-garde looking project in
the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Jess explored every era of sitcom
television to create seven different looks for WandaVision, ranging
from the 1950's all the way through the 2000's. Each episode's look
came down to researching the film stock, lenses, aspect ratio, the
lighting, and whether it was shot with three cameras or a single
camera. WandaVision director Matt Shakman was able to give Jess
plenty of sitcom television research material and ideas, since Jess
did not grow up around American T.V. One of the biggest visual
touchstones for Jess for the earliest episodes of WandaVision was
viewing a print from the original negative of the 1960's show,
Bewitched. He found the black and white image to look warmer than
modern day black and white- the contrast in the whites weren't
quite as cold. Jess tested a number of vintage lenses and ended up
using 47 different lenses over nine episodes, even having
Panavision create a set of lenses reconstructed from older lens
elements. He also used lighting technology that fit each time
period, including early diffusion techniques over the lights to
create the look. Jess grew up in England and studied film at St.
Martins School of Art, embracing film more as an expressive art
form. After graduating, he began shooting shorts and commercials,
and then had the opportunity to shoot his first feature film,
Stander, with director Bronwen Hughes. Stander is a biopic about a
police officer in apartheid South Africa who becomes a bank robber.
Jess' next film was Son of Rambow, a coming-of-age story about two
boys making a home movie. Jess and Son of Rambow director Garth
Jennings went to St. Martins together. Jennings carefully
storyboarded the whole movie, but once they were actually shooting,
they did not strictly follow the storyboards. Jess credits director
Edgar Wright with being the most accurate storyboard-to-execution
director he's ever worked with, which is important because Wright
likes to work fast with many setups and quick cuts. On the movie
Hot Fuzz, Jess accomplished over 30 setups per day, and famously
did 50 setups in one day. He would try to light the room simply,
and worked with camera operators who were used to shooting fast
action movies. For the film Transcendence, cinematographer turned
director Wally Pfister asked Jess to shoot his first film as a
director, after seeing Jess' work on Brideshead Revisited. Jess was
flattered, and found it wonderful to be able to communicate in a
technical shorthand and to see up close how another DP works and
thinks. Find Jess Hall: http://www.jesshalldop.com/ Instagram
@metrorat You can watch WandaVision streaming on Disney+ Find out
even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links:
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