The Cinematography Podcast

The Cinematography Podcast


Lawrence Sher, ASC, talks about creating the look of Joker with director Todd Phillips

December 10, 2019

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 56: Lawrence Sher, ASC

When setting out to make Joker, Lawrence Sher and director Todd Phillips decided to go for an intimate, 70's style of movie that's character-driven, rather than the large scale, elaborate looks typical of today's comic book superhero/villain films. Joaquin Phoenix had some leeway to improvise and play with the character. Larry and Todd Phillips' background of working with comedians on movies such as The Hangover made them feel comfortable with improvisation. In order to prep and create the look of Joker, Larry used a visual database called ShotDeck, which stores and sorts images to reference and share inspirations for shot ideas, focal length examples, color moods, set design, etc.

Find Lawrence Sher: https://www.lawrencesher.com/

Instagram: @lawrencesherdp

Episode Sponsors:

Hot Rod Cameras

Aputure 

Aputure makes very good LED lighting products and accessories. The Aputure Lantern is one of their fastest soft light modifiers yet. This spherical softbox can pop open and be ready to use in mere seconds. Find Aputure products at Hot Rod Cameras.

Close Focus discussion: The high school movie genre, past and present.

Ben's short end: Mocha Pro, which is a great tool for tracking and replacing or adding effects, very effectively and with little effort, and it can be run in Adobe Premiere.

Illya's short end: How hackers figured out that hooking up numerous Playstation consoles can create supercomputers, something that can't be done with the gaming system today.

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Podcast Credits:

Editor in Chief:  Illya Friedman
@hotrodcameras instagram
@illyafriedman instagram

Ben Rock:  @neptunesalad twitter
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Producer: Alana Kode
Editor: Ben Katz
Composer: Kays Alatractchi
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