[Minor spoilers for “Stranger Things.” We need to talk if have you not seen this fantas-tacular series yet.]
A void can be a gorgeous thing.
In some of the most glorious shots to grace TV, Eleven (the massively talented Millie Bobby Brown) stands lonely in a black realm; every time she inches forward a thin layer of water beneath her feet rattles her reflection. The decision to use a page from Jonathan Glazer’s minimalist exercise, “Under the Skin,” elevates the Netflix supernatural series from “something watchable” to “better place you on a pedestal.”
[Minor spoilers for “Under the Skin” ahead. Clip contains glimpses of nudity. Best of luck to you if you’re watching this at night.]
All right, back to “Stranger Things.”
Other than serving as neat recall—that realm of nothingness is exactly like the flip side of the kids’ “Dungeons & Dragons” board—the photography dresses this small-screen production in blockbuster garb. And through the eyes of Tim Ives, there are no ill-fitting issues here.
In an interview with the creative industry-centric podcast, Go Creative Show, Ives sensed the series’s impact right when everything was an outline package named “Montauk.”
“I read it and I was like, ‘This is so good, I’m never getting this—there’s no way I’m getting this,'” Ives said.
How wrong you are. After eight episodes, Ives proves that not only does he deserve the gig but he is the perfect person for it.
The interview is worth a listen, especially for those who want to know about Ives’ beginnings, using a Leica Summicron and shooting his favorite scene in the series.
“We definitely didn’t want to do an ’80s piece that felt like just a sort of copycat,” Ives said in the Go Creative Show interview. “We really wanted to inhabit the style and everything that was good about filmmaking in that time.”
In a field where budgets are limited and there’s a notable decrease in TLC for style after the pilot, Ives and the crew demonstrate a tendency to get even more creative and more cinematic. For that to be possible, the show creators, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, let Ives work with top-notch equipment.
“We shot on the RED Dragon (camera) and we then added film grain that was scanned from ’80s film stock on top, which is cool,” Matt said in an interview with Empire magazine.
Add that to the angle choices, the affinity for practical effects and the lighting that dance between natural/hyperreal, no scene in “Stranger Things” is unappealing or looking out of place on a wall-to-wall screen. BuzzFeed writer Ellie Bate has created an absolutely righteous gallery to prove the point.
“I think it’s a tribute to all departments—the casting down to the background extra that’s 100 feet back, the wardrobe that person’s wearing and the way their hair’s styled (are) just remarkable,” Ives said to Go Creative Show. “I really noticed early on in the show when we were in the school, in the hallways and the kids are all moving around that I was like, ‘This is unbelievable, it looks amazing.'”
A glance at Ives’ résumé will show you that he had worked on the series “Girls” over at HBO, two episodes of “House of Cards” and, most importantly, the pilot of “Mr. Robot.”
In fact, in an interview at Vulture, “Mr. Robot”‘s mainstay cinematographer, Tod Campbell, was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to match the pilot’s fantastic look when he stepped in for Ives. Campbell shot two episodes of “Stranger Things.”
On Aug. 31, Netflix releases a trailer revealing that the series will return. Not much is known besides the chapter titles, but one has every reason to transform into a Demogorgon if Ives doesn’t return (or, at the least, serves as visual consultant).
Oh, the void that is in my heart right now…
See more of Ives’ work at his official website.
Recent Comments