As a director of photography, Paul Cameron made such disparate films and TV series as “Man on Fire”, “Collateral”, “Déjà Vu”, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales”, And Westworld. He has worked with a variety of top tier directors including Michael Mann, Tony Scott and Jonathan Nolan. Now for Paramount+’s acclaimed limited series… Special Forces: LionessPaul Cameron – how he did it with Westworld – both worked as a cameraman and director.
Created and written by award-nominated screenwriter and actor Taylor Sheridan, Lioness Zoe Saldaña plays Jo, the head of a CIA special operations unit called Lioness, which recruits and deploys female operatives who infiltrate terrorist organizations to eliminate specific high-value targets. Here she recruits tough Marine Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira), sending her to the family of important Middle Eastern oilman Asmar Al Amrohi, known for funding terrorist organizations, in the hopes that she can take him down. Cruz is supported by a loud but abrasive Quick Response Team (QRT), also under Joe’s command, who quickly make short work of Cruz as one of their own.
The cinematographer on the first episode of a series usually sets the look of the show, along with the director and production designer. In this case, Cameron did it with director John Hillcoat, the pair filming the first two episodes together. The series had a last-minute change of showrunners, with Hillcoat joining the cast and quickly sending Cameron the script to see if he would be interested.
“I loved the concept of the show,” Cameron explains. “Taylor usually writes for male characters, so I found this quite intriguing. It felt like a great opportunity to delve into this dark world of women.”
They only had three weeks to prepare the show and began a fast and condensed pre-production period in August 2022. “I love working with John. We operated as a think tank, working 20-hour days, trying to figure out how to launch this show in three weeks,” setting up camp in Baltimore, which, among other places, stood in for countless locations in nearby Washington. , COLUMBIA REGION.
The production also filmed in Morocco and Mallorca, Spain. The ISIS territory shown in the first episode was filmed in Marrakesh, as was Cruise’s first meeting with her target, Aaliyah (Stephanie Noor), Amroha’s daughter, filmed in the city’s new upscale shopping district, similar to Rodeo Drive, Q. Street crossing to Kuwait City. The show’s wedding scenes were filmed in a beautiful oceanfront home in Mallorca. Additional sets were also built in Mallorca, including the White House Cabinet, which was seen in several episodes. Beach scenes depicting the Hamptons were filmed in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, 120 miles from Baltimore.
When Cameron and Hillcoat first started, no other directors were chosen. Anthony Byrne was soon brought in to direct two episodes (103 and 104), shot by cinematographer Eric Koretz, with Hillcoat directing the final two episodes. There are two more left to appoint. “When I signed the contract and found out that there were no other directors yet,” Cameron recalls, “I immediately called Taylor and told him that I would really like to direct a couple of them, and he agreed.”
Cameron assembled a talented team of cinematographers, typically shooting most scenes with three cameras: Joe Chisio (A-camera), Kimo Proudfoot (B-camera), and James Ball (C-camera). Cameron worked with Chichio on several feature films and even gave him the role of the second DP block sometimes. “He’s a very authentic person and knows the essence of the material,” says Cameron. “He has a good sense of where to get a camera, and he can get it there.” Although he had never worked with Proudfoot before, the director of photography appreciated his good sensitivity to camera movement and ability to stay in the frame when necessary.
In Ball, a renowned Washington documentary cameraman, Cameron found what he calls his “secret gun.” “It’s important to me to have someone who can not only help find those key emotional moments that go beyond what cameras A and B get, but can also take risks and really go there,” he explains. “Often when you have two or three cameras, people like the same shot. If I’m busy as a DP or director, I need the C camera to really keep going like a bull terrier until I find the shot,” perhaps a backward glance or a glance from the actor as a reaction that others might not catch. “That’s the kind of emotional shot I’m hoping to get.”
There were very few seconds He says it is a one-off job, but what was done there was done by a second. The unit was directed by Jeff Dashnow, who also served as one of the show’s stunt coordinators. Second The unit’s cinematography was handled by George Billinger III, whom Cameron greatly admires. “When you have a second on a streaming show, there is so little time to prepare. And they so quickly find themselves in a situation where they are asked to match the look of the show with extreme lenses and a photographic style that they may not be used to. And George was able to slip in and do it.”
Cameron says that thanks to training from people like Tony Scott, his approach to reporting is different from how most filmmakers usually shoot. “With Tony, I learned to just be fearless with cameras and place them in places that I thought were emotionally relevant and not necessarily lighting-oriented,” he explains. Looking for a shot with, say, a steep angle, too close to make it the right level of discomfort if the scene calls for it. “It’s a question of what makes it feel right, not a matter of matching lens focal lengths and distances, as happens on so many shows.”
For example, in the second episode of the show, Joe and Caitlin meet at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., where important political conversations are often overheard by strangers, and Joe really opens up to his boss. Cameron photographed the couple through a stained glass partition. “It’s eavesdropping,” he explains. “We specifically sat them near this corner so they could talk. I wanted the viewer to feel uncomfortable watching someone talk and reveal themselves in this way.”
Although Cameron and Hillcoat initially considered using a large format camera such as the Sony Venice or Arriflex Alex LF, they settled on the popular Alexa Mini LF for most of the filming.
For lenses, Hillcoat didn’t want to see lenses made after 1980, so Cameron put together an eclectic set for the shoot, including a Canon K35 and uncoated Zeiss Super Speed lenses (both back and uncoated). “They all react differently. The K35s have great softness on the large format and fall off very well at the edges. Uncoated lenses have varying properties of halo (spreading light beyond the source), bloom, and flare. So if there’s something bright, the image just blooms a little bit or the top haloes a little bit.”
To develop the look of the show, he and Hillcoat did what many directors and cinematographers do, creating a lookbook from hundreds of feature film photographs and journalistic images that reflected the look they wanted to create. Part of this included the ability to use multiple cameras by placing most of the lighting on top rather than placing lighting fixtures on the floor. “I took the risk to be able to move multiple cameras around the room,” he explains.
As is typical with a Paul Cameron show, the image is often very dark, lit by light coming in from the windows, if any, and perhaps a few practical lights on set to give it a sense of reality. For example, when important, high-stakes meetings take place, the setting is often dark and only the characters’ faces capture the viewer’s attention.
“I just can’t help but light up faces and give them shape,” he explains. “I love this dark setting with those faces popping out from the background. When Joe interviews Cruise in the first episode, in the barracks during the day, the inside is barely lit except for some light coming in from the windows behind them as they talk, the pair almost visible in silhouette. “Because that’s the level of discomfort that Cruz has there and the way she confronts Joe. In such a scene, you want to have some kind of emotional impact on the image. It may seem darker – the fall in the face is greater, and you can barely see the eyes, but there is light from them. You just see the way they look at each other.”
In the show’s second episode, Cameron was called upon to film one of the series’ most challenging – and disturbing – scenes, in which Joe secretly subjects Cruise to an even tougher version of training known as SERE – Survive, Evade, Resist – where she apparently , kidnapped by unknown people. They try to break her through beatings and torture – so Joe can find out where Cruz’s true breaking point lies.
Most of this episode was shot with three cameras. “They are constantly exchanging different moments, focusing on different moments. So I’m constantly choreographing the three cameras,” says Cameron. In some ways, it’s classic fight photography, he says, drawing on his years of experience filming fight scenes and working with renowned stunt coordinators Jeff Dashnault and his wife Tracy Keene-Dashnault.
“It starts with a quick conversation with them: ‘This is what we want this fight to look like,’” he explains. They would set up a fight and film it, showing it to Hillcoat and Cameron for commentary. “John and I will look at it and it will be a great three-minute fight, but from an editorial standpoint it may not have much of an impact. We look at this together in terms of how you structure your editing. And where to get that camera to make a particular punch work or be more impressive, more brutal or violent. This is the goal of the fight.” When placing cameras, Cameron will keep an eye on where the stunt coordinator is standing. “Where they stand and watch the fight is usually exactly where the camera wants to be,” he notes.
In part two of our feature, Paul Cameron talks about how he applies both his knowledge as a cinematographer and what he learned from his director mentors to his role as director on S.W.A.T.: Lioness.
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Featured Image: Zoe Saldana as Jo in the first season of Lioness, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo credit: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+