Branded entertainment: Money, freedom, and audiences unite

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As traditional broadcasters battle decreasing budgets and attention spans, brands have come to the fore as collaborators in an increasingly lucrative and creatively fertile strand of the media business.

A video about the construction of 10 full-size F1 cars out of Lego has become one of the most celebrated brand campaigns of the year. Bricks on Track is an hour-long special available on Amazon Prime, Sky Sports, Fox Sports, Peacock, Viaplay, and Now alongside a social campaign that’s generated over 16 million views. Yet it started life as a brief from the Danish toy giant to create a YouTube short about the car’s drivers.  

“We realised that the people behind the scenes actually making the cars were just as interesting,” explains Leo Birch, Creative Director at creative agency JustSo. “Regardless of whether you like Lego or Formula One, you can feel the joy of everyone involved, and that story made it such a good watch.”  

Bricks on Track, winner of a British Arrow advertising award, is a prime example of how brands are increasingly looking to experienced TV producers to expand their reach. Conversely, in an age of squeezed budgets, producers and broadcasters are finding brand collaboration a creatively fertile and lucrative partnership.  

“It’s one of the biggest shifts happening across our industry,” confirms Sabrina Scollan, Development Producer at Climate Spring. “Storytelling still sits at the heart of it.”  

Finding the right formula 

Production companies are desperate to get original IP on screen while broadcasters are commissioning reboots and imports. Commissioners are under pressure to find new hits despite shrinking budgets. Meanwhile, brands need to reach audiences that have deserted both traditional platforms and conventional programme formats.   

“Content is now central to how brands communicate and grow their audiences,” says Jane Gerber, Co-Founder of Peanut & Crumb, a multi‑platform content and communications studio based in Brighton.  “Whether that’s on social, YouTube, or podcasts, brands want storytelling expertise. They don’t always know how to tell emotional or entertaining stories.”  

“A broadcaster is now anyone with an audience,” says Lucy Smith, Creative Director and Founder of producer Fawkes Digital. “A producer is anyone with scalable IP. Audiences are people wanting to be entertained, and brands can be where the money comes in.”  

Brands as creative partners 

Nevertheless, producers with experience of brand-funded entertainment stress the nature of partnership. Anyone who thinks corporates are a cash cow ready to be milked will reportedly fail.   

“Traditional programme‑makers often treat brands like a loan shop or a bank,” says Claire Prince, Head of Entertainment at creative agency Elvis. “That’s the wrong attitude.”  

Prince spent a decade working in unscripted TV during which she helped produce Channel 4 series Bangers: Mad for Cars in partnership with eBay. The broadcaster needed funding; eBay wanted to reposition itself as a car‑parts retailer. However, what surprised the production team was the depth of insight the brand brought.   

“They had all the data on what people search for,” Prince says. “That’s invaluable in development. Brands have in‑built audience insight that researchers used to spend weeks trying to gather.”  

Brands are also distribution channels. Partner with Boots, Tesco, or M&S and your programme can appear on in-store screens, end-of-aisle displays, recipe cards, or bags. “Funding might be why the conversation starts, but the value goes far beyond that,” Prince enthuses. “You’re no longer relying solely on the broadcast schedule.”  

To illustrate this point, Birch recalls a travel series JustSo made for Expedia. The show looks and feels like a traditional TV show, explains Birch. “Expedia acts like a publisher,” he says. “They’re not expecting a long‑form ad. They want something genuinely entertaining that retains an audience and offers cultural insight.”  

The series lives on Expedia’s shoppable OTT platform. There’s no call to action in the episodes, no hard sell. But if viewers want to book the restaurant they’ve just seen, they can scroll down and click.   

“People underestimate how sophisticated many brands are,” Birch adds. “Some of our regular clients are Emmy‑winning producers and Bafta‑winning directors who now work in‑house at brands. They want to make entertaining content, not crowbar ads into stories.”  

Unlocking the front door 

One of the most encouraging messages for filmmakers is that branded entertainment is no longer an exclusive club.  

“The barrier to entry is lower than it’s ever been,” Birch says. “Brands used to expect everything to be a big, high‑budget commission with a streamer or broadcaster. Now many already have their own YouTube audiences, strong social channels, or their own IP.”  

That shift has opened the door to smaller‑scale projects. “You might not land a huge campaign with a global brand straight away,” Birch said, “but you could absolutely secure £8–10k to make a smaller piece of work. You’ll still learn how to collaborate with brands and build your portfolio.”  

Broadcasters are keen to work with brands too. ITV runs BE Studio, a department dedicated to producing ad-funded entertainment (AFE) such as Saturday night quiz show Win Win with the People's Postcode Lottery, DNA Journey with Ancestry, and John & Lisa Down-Under with Trailfinders.  

“The bar isn't lower because it's an ad-funded proposition,” says Paula Thomas, Commissioning Editor of Daytime and AFE at ITV. “First and foremost, any shows that we put on the channel have to be good ideas.”  

Cooking with the Stars, produced with M&S, is now heading into its sixth series. The last run peaked at 6.7 million viewers, and the commercial impact is extraordinary: when a featured ingredient (like a mango) appears on the show, M&S sees sales spike up to 300%.   

“As a commissioner, you might think: ‘Should I really care about that?’ But we do because it means M&S keeps spending money with us, and we can get a successful show. When it works well, it works for everyone,” Thomas says.  

This speaks to the reason why brands would want to work with TV producers in the first place. Understanding the problem that they want to solve is key.  

Getting the green light  

“Every brand has a business problem,” Prince explains. “They want to change attitudes or reach audiences that traditional advertising can’t. It might be that Tesco has a perception problem around the quality of its fresh produce, or Lynx needs to reach 18–24‑year‑old men who aren’t watching Britain’s Got Talent. Entertainment becomes the solution.”  

She advises producers to approach brands just as they would a broadcaster. “You might have the best idea in the world, but commissioners have structures, budget pots, and KPIs that you know nothing about. It’s the same with brands. Translate your commissioner mindset into a brand mindset.”  

A brief from Cancer Research UK is an example. “Everyone knows the charity, but few people understand where their money goes. Traditional advertising couldn’t communicate that because it’s too complex and too dry. So, we proposed a documentary.”  

Prince took the brief to three production companies known for sensitive storytelling. One hadn’t read the brief while another couldn’t secure the access. Dragonfly, makers of Ambulance, had the right idea and the right relationships. “They got the job, but they still had to get it commissioned in the usual way,” Prince recalls.   

Cancer Detectives: Finding the Cures became three 60-minute observational documentary episodes that ran on Channel 4 last winter. 

Producer research is essential since brands will spot an idea that’s had their logo slapped onto it from a mile away. “You might think you’ve had a great idea for a product, but it won’t necessarily solve the specific brand problem that company is facing at that moment in time,” Prince says.  

Flexible feedback 

Nonetheless, brands are reportedly easier to work with than TV execs, who can face more red tape.  

Documentary Director Liana Stewart made a short film for Johnson’s following first‑time parents for a year. “I had one meeting with the brand in that entire year. They trusted me to make the film,” she relays. “The notes are often minimal. Sometimes it’s just: ‘Can we see the product a bit more?’ That is nothing compared to TV.”

She adds: “It’s not something I want to do full‑time because I still love working in TV, but it expands your skill set and your experience – and they pay well.”  

Birch reports a similar experience. “Brands often give you more creative freedom than TV. They bring you in because they want heartfelt storytelling, and they trust you to do it.”   

Looking to the future 

While broadcasters can offer brands mass-audience reach, producers with existing digital shows or IP have their own hugely valuable commodity: community.  

“Historically, IP has been a format or a show that [a producer] has a stake in, but actually, in the digital space, IP is your audience,” notes Holly Graham, Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer at Little Dot Studios. “Brands are looking to tap into your engaged audience as well as your creative development. If the brand is not aligned with that audience, then your show will not be a success.”  

Independent producers are also encouraged to push back. “Sometimes we get briefs from a brand where we say: ‘You’d be better off making an above‑the‑line campaign.’ It’s important to have the confidence to say: ‘No’. You only get that through long‑term relationships.”

Sabrina Scollan and Claire Prince, Jane Gerber, Liana Stewart, Leo Birch were speaking at Sheffield DocFest. Lucy Smith, Paula Thomas, and Holly Graham were speaking at Creative Cities Convention earlier in 2026.

 

BTS Cape Fear

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It’s a jungle out there. Celiana Cárdenas, Director of Photography, explains how they evoked the oppressive and unsettling atmosphere of a stalker hunting its prey in Apple TV’s pulp fiction.

 Apple TV’s Cape Fear is a prestige reimagining of Martin Scorsese’s kinetic 1991 thriller executive produced by Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. The series also draws on the original 1962 black-and-white feature while building its own updated identity.

“The question was always how do we capture the spirit of the 1991 movie without remaking shots?” explains Mexican cinematographer Celiana Cárdenas who alternated the ten episodes with British DP Eben Bolter (The Last of Us). “It was about creating the psychology of this menacing person slowly invading people's minds, their home and their lives.”

In short: Charismatic criminal Max Cady (Javier Bardem) is exonerated of murder and released from prison intent on revenging the lawyers (a married couple played by Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson) who put him behind bars.

Unlike the relentless pace of Scorsese's two-hour feature, the episodic format allows the tension to unfold gradually. Rather than presenting Cady as a straightforward villain, series creator Nick Antocosta steadily destabilises the audience's perspective.

“We start asking ourselves, who is really the bad guy here?” Cárdenas says. “Max enters their lives and begins exposing the cracks that were already there. That psychological unravelling dictated the camera language.”

The first episode begins by mimicking the colour-inverted negative effect that Scorsese used in his version but is otherwise deliberately restrained. With ten hours to play with Bolter and pilot director Morten Tyldum wisely decide not to throw everything at the screen at once.

The second episode, lensed by Cárdenas, takes the visual language up a notch. “We start introducing zoom-ins and zoom-outs. I wanted to bring back some of that Scorsese energy. That episode really became the blueprint for where the series was heading.”

The long lenses position the audience as observers watching the family from a distance and, as Cady tightens his grip, the cinematography becomes increasingly subjective.

“We wanted the feeling that someone is always watching them,” Cárdenas explains. “But it’s not just about voyeurism. We want to show how the family is being destabilised so we begin using Dutch angles [a tilted camera] and sudden movements to express how Max is getting inside her mind.”

“As the series progresses we move closer to Anna's point of view. In the 1991 film, the story is divided more between the husband and wife. In our case, Anna becomes the main character driving the story.”

Having previously collaborated with Antocosta on horror drama Brand New Cherry Flavor and true crime A Friend of the Family, Cárdenas knew she had a creative partner willing to embrace unconventional ideas. She says, “You can go to him with something completely crazy and he'll say, ‘Let's try it.'”

One of those ideas became the monochrome sequence at the beginning of episode 2 depicting Cady in prison.

 “When we started doing the flashbacks in the weight room at the jail we wanted to do something different. We didn't want to just exaggerate the colour. I proposed a stark black and white because it adds another layer of time and memory to the story.”

A rotating shot of Cady at the start of the sequence was designed as an homage to Scorsese (who, with DP Freddie Francis, shot Robert De Niro as Cady talking upside down on the phone).

“In this scene I wanted to create anxiety. Max sees three guys coming towards him. He knows what's about to happen, but it's about how we see him transform into this killer machine. I didn’t want to use a shaky camera. I wanted something more organic.

Her idea was to use mount two small drills onto the handheld camera rig, switching them on and off, as the violence increases.

“If you watch that scene again, you'll feel this subtle vibration in certain moments. It's subtle, but I think it really worked. I wanted something visceral, something that created physical anxiety.”

For a scene in episode 4 set in a room filled with snakes in glass terrariums, Cárdenas opted for saturated RGB colours over naturalistic lighting.

“Normally you'd light snakes with reptile greens or white,” she says. “I wanted purple, orange and sickly green. I felt the lighting could help Max's character feel even more menacing and threatening.”

She asked production designer Jamie Walker McCall to colour the terrariums accordingly then she matched each enclosure to distinctive coloured light sources.

“Javier gets close to one of the terrariums that's lit with red light and I loved that because it added another layer of fear, especially from Anna's perspective.”

For an acid-trip sequence in episode 6, Cárdenas rejected the more obvious depictions of on-screen psychedelia. “I didn’t want to distort the frame with optical tricks or exaggerated visual effects,” she says. “I wanted the audience to experience what the characters were feeling emotionally.”

Interpreting this visually, she shifted from a 2.35:1 aspect ratio to 2.0:1 and swapped the Atlas Mercury anamorphic lenses for vintage Super Baltars rendering the image “softer and dreamier.”

“In that episode the air conditioning is off, so the family is hot, sweaty and uncomfortable. The heat itself becomes part of the experience so I asked myself, ‘How do I make the heat visible?’ I came up with these orange flares that pulse gently, almost like waves of heat.”

She adds, “I love that sequence because nobody behaves in an exaggerated way. Everyone retreats into themselves and experiences things differently. We stayed close to the actors. The lenses almost break the fourth wall because we're so close.”

Colour as emotional weapon

Set in Savannah, Georgia the production made use of its lush Spanish-moss-draped trees and leaned into creating an atmosphere of oppressive humidity.

“When you go there it's incredibly lush. The greens are almost like a jungle. The vines grow everywhere. It's very humid. We were shooting in summer, so it was important to feel the humidity, the sweat, the discomfort. We wanted the skin to feel sticky, the clothes to feel damp and the air to feel heavy,” she says.

To enforce that, the team kept streets wet, spritzed actors’ faces and wardrobe, used haze in rooms to create a foggy atmosphere and chose expressive lighting choices.

“The sun was incredibly important,” she says. “Even inside the house we wanted to feel its presence because that's what creates the heat and discomfort.”

Since the house was a real location there wasn't a ceiling lighting grid. Instead, they pushed light through the windows and used practical fixtures. “That forced us to be more creative because we treated it like a real place rather than a stage.”

The mood is enhanced by dark interiors that feature floral-themed wallpaper “that almost photograph as black”. Rather than finish the walls with matte paint so that it wouldn’t reflect the light, production design used a slightly reflective texture to enhance the shininess. The teal colour of the swimming pool outside the family home became a recurring visual anchor, influencing much of the night photography.  

“We didn't want another desaturated series,” she says. “We've all seen that before. We wanted to bring some of that rich 1990s cinematic colour back.”

Cape Fear is photographed on ARRI Alexa 35 paired primarily with Atlas Mercury anamorphics, whose lightweight design and close-focus capability allowed the camera to move intimately through the actors' performances. A bespoke LUT, developed with colourist Damien Vandercruyssen, was continually refined as locations changed.

The season’s finale takes place during a hurricane which plunges Savannah into darkness. Cárdenas approached the central 21-page dialogue sequence with a lighting plan that drew on live theatre.

“As the hurricane increases, branches come through the windows, the lights fail, then we move into candlelight. I designed the lighting like an orchestral score.”

She worked with the lighting programmer to map every cue. “The flickers, the pool light entering the room, now only the wall sconces, now only candles, now everything goes black. The lighting wasn't just about creating physical danger it was tied to the revelations that unfold during the scene.”

As the tension mounts she transitions from Steadicam into handheld.

“The amazing thing was that Javier didn't know exactly when I was changing the lighting, but somehow his performance aligned perfectly with it.”

When the Night Falls: Jean François Hensgens Conjures Moral Unease for Holocaust Drama

interview and words written for RED Digital Cinema

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In Nazi occupied France, 1942, a group of ordinary people risk their lives in a race against time to save dozens of Jewish children from deportation. This terrifying true story is recounted in La Troisième Nuit (titled ‘When the Night Falls’ in English) by director Daniel Auteuil in a taut thriller that premiered at Cannes Film Festival.

Rooting the story in such a dark chapter of French history, underlined by a decision to shoot inside a real former WWII prisoner camp, guided the instincts of cinematographer Jean‑François Hensgens AFC, SBC from camera tests to colour palette.

His creative partnership with Auteuil began on 2023 feature Un Silence, in which Auteuil starred but did not direct. “We got along very well,” Hensgens recalls. During that shoot, Auteuil confided that he wanted to direct again and handed Hensgens the book that would become Le Fil (An Ordinary Case) which world premiered at Cannes in 2024.

So, when Auteuil sent him the script (co-written by Camille Lugan) for La Troisième Nuit, Hensgens travelled to Auteuil’s house in the south of France for a weekend of uninterrupted conversation.

“At that moment we both felt the film should be in black and white — but the producers were worried about distribution and financing. At the same time, we were very conscious of not wanting to mimic Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List [which is based on similar events].”

Rather than compromise, Hensgens decided to test cameras and lenses and present them in a blind test to both Auteuil and the producers.

“This is a process I like to do before any film so that we are not prejudiced in what works for the particular story,” Hensgens says.

At Panavision in Paris, he presented tests shot with ARRI Alexa 35 and RED V-RAPTOR 8K VV using several Panavision lens sets, including the vintage B‑Series anamorphics from the 1960s and ’70s. The result was unanimous.

“The producer was sure it was Alexa 35 but it was RED V-RAPTOR with the B‑Series,” says Hensgens. “Panavision had modified the lens to cover the V-RAPTOR’s large sensor.”

The choice aligned with the references that Auteuil and Hensgens shared of classic Orson Welles (Touch of Evil) and Alfred Hitchcock (Dial M For Murder), deep‑focus compositions in which foreground objects dominate the frame. Hensgens used old “bonnette” close‑up filters to mimic the split‑diopter‑like look of Welles’ films.

“A big object in the foreground and the background still readable,” he explains. “It gave us a subtle visual tension that suited the story’s moral unease.”

Given the period setting, 16mm might seem an obvious choice but Hensgens disagrees. “Super 16’s depth‑of‑field characteristics didn’t fit the film’s language. Daniel wanted to play with focus as a storytelling tool and this is something the large‑format V-RAPTOR enabled beautifully.”

Building a palette from photography, painting and war films

This idea extended to using a severely restricted, almost monochromatic color palette built around browns, cyans and sickly yellows.

Touchpoints for this included Pierre Soulage, a French painter renowned for his innovative use of black and whose work was in retrospective at a Paris exhibition only yards from where director and DP were prepping the film. The work of distinguished photographer Dolorès Marat was another reference as well as Christopher Nolan’s 2017 Oscar winning Second World War drama Dunkirk shot by Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC.

“In Dunkirk, the skin tones are brown and the costumes more in the cyan direction. The separation of tones became a key reference for us.”

The film’s extensive use of flashlights (two thirds of the story takes place in a refugee camp with no power) pushed him toward the stylised yellow light reminiscent of Robert Rodriguez’ stark adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel Sin City.

“It wasn’t conscious. I only realise the connection when I’d finished grading.”

He says, “The color in La Troisième Nuit was emotional. I was trying to create atmosphere - a feeling of dread - with colour, with focus and camera movement.

“I had worked with RED before, and I love the texture and dynamic range. I expose using a spot meter, choosing whether to protect highlights or shadows depending on the scene.”

Hensgens shot RAW but created two LUTs and relied on daily grading from Paris lab M141. “It’s important for Daniel to have something 80% finished in the editing room,” he says. His long‑time colourist Richard Deusy handled the grade, continuing a collaboration that spans more than a decade.

“I often shot at 2000–2500 ISO on older RED cameras to create grain, but now texture can be added cleanly in post — though I still want it present in dailies.”

After two weeks in Lyon, the production moved to Thorée-les-Pins, near La Flèche, a former military camp which from 1944 to 1948, was one of the largest internment centers for German prisoners in Europe. Six of the watchtowers are still intact, complete with original searchlights and were used as part of the set.

“It felt very strange to be sure and I think the emotional weight of the place helped shaped the film’s atmosphere. It was something very special,” he says. The production added modern automation to the towers’ lights, allowing the team to choreograph sweeping beams and flashlight effects with precision.

Hensgens worked with Stéphane Bourgoin the gaffer he has known for 20 years. They used 9K HMIs for daylight but relied heavily on concert‑style fixtures controlled via iPad to create the shifting, unstable light of a powerless camp.

The schedule was tight: 28 days, unusually short for a French feature. But Hensgens had six to seven weeks of preparation and a crew fully aligned with the visual plan. “All was clear. We are on the same page and we can go very quickly,” he says.

A second camera for instinctive moments

Alongside the V-RAPTOR, Hensgens carried a Nikon ZR compact camera with a Panavised adapter to take the B-Series lens. He used it for vehicle rigs and at times when the A camera was being prepared for set. He also grabbed it when the camp’s atmosphere demanded an immediate shot.

“Sometimes I’d go out alone into the camp when I had five minutes because the light was very good at that moment,” he says. “It’s so easy to use and the workflow is the same as RED camera which is a huge advantage to me.”

In the final film, the Nikon shots blend seamlessly. “The second shot in movie is from the Nikon and it's impossible to tell the difference.”

Auteuil not only produces but plays the role of humanitarian Alexandre Glasberg in the film. He put his trust in the expertise of HoDs like editor Valérie Deseine, costume designer Charlotte Bétaillole and Hensgens himself to steer key decisions.

“Daniel likes his creative team to propose a strong direction but it is always a matter for dialogue and debate. We share a visual language that is both modern and rooted in cinema history.

“We are making a period picture using older lenses but the most modern camera. It's a contradiction but I think the combination is ideal for Daniel. We are trying to create an unsettling atmosphere and texture by mixing an old style and modern sensibility at the same time.”

Patrick Stewart on Larry David’s HBO history sketch show “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness”

interview and words written for RED Digital Cinema

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The highly anticipated new sketch comedy show from Larry David is a whistle stop review of 250 years of United States’ history. Twenty eight iconic and historic moments from the Boston Tea Party to the Second World War via the Wright Brothers first flight are recreated over seven episodes in HBO series Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, effectively presenting cinematographer Patrick Alexander Stewart with 28 mini-period movies to shoot inside a fast‑turnaround sitcom schedule.

“It’s different period stories, from the 1700s to the 2000s, and as with Curb (Your Enthusiasm) this is structured improvision,” explains Stewart. “We know the destination but the actors decide how to get there. We shoot a take, then Larry, Jeff and co-producer, writers Rory Albanese and Tom Gammil huddle, adjust lines or beats, and we shoot again.”

Stewart is vastly experienced at shooting comedy and comic drama. He has photographed two seasons of Flight of the Conchords, seven seasons of The League, the last season of Arrested Development and the last four seasons of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. He also enjoys a long term relationship with writer, producer and director Jeff Schaffer on more than 150 episodes (The League and Curb) and now on Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness where Schaffer serves as director and showrunner.

“This series demanded something Curb never could which is scale, multiple locations, period detail and expressive lighting,” Stewart says. “Unhappiness is full of light and shadow. I could be more dramatic with color and contrast, even use lantern light. It opened the toolbox.”

In addition to David, the series features guest stars including Bill Hader and Kathryn Hahn (as Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln); Jon Hamm and Sean Hayes (as the Wright Bros’) Jerry Seinfeld as explorer William Clark and even Barack Obama, whose production company Higher Ground is a producer of the show.

Stewart and Schaffer began by mapping out every story in advance. “This didn’t just mean color palettes,” he says. “We made initial decisions for each segment such as whether to go high contrast or muted and low‑angle, and with what camera movement. Whatever suited the period.”

He tested ARRI Alexa, Sony Venice, and the RED V‑RAPTOR XL [X] side by side. The decision came down to extended highlight latitude.

“I knew I wanted a different camera [from Curb]. I felt that the Alexa hasn’t changed much in recent years. The Venice was good but the Raptor XL [X]’s extended highlights sold me.

He explains, “I knew I’d be shooting big bright windows — like the Declaration of Independence scene (a studio set for the Independence Hall, Philadelphia) — and I wanted to hold detail in the highlights, not blow them. I didn’t want nuclear white. The RED gave me the range I needed. We shot with and without extended highlights depending on the scene.”

Reliability mattered too. With David in every scene and already having been two hours in makeup before the day’s shoot began, scenes needed to be shot with efficiency. “This is the kind of show where I can’t have cameras down. The RED never failed. Not once. And we covered each scene multi-cam with three V‑RAPTOR XL [X].”

Stewart shot 5.7K RAW (6K/S35), with and without extended highlights depending on the scene. He avoided LUTs entirely, preferring a clean negative and shaping the look later with colorist Gareth Cook at The Foundation in Burbank.

“I don’t always like working with LUTs. In this case, I’d already tested the camera and knew how far we could push the image. For black‑and‑white sequences, such as the segment set during the McCarthy communist ‘witch hunt’ we’d turn off color on the monitors, but otherwise we shot clean and built the look in post.”

Most of the look ultimately comes from color correction. “Gareth is fantastic. He’ll try different approaches before we commit, so we don’t waste time going down the wrong path.”

From the OK Corral to Deep Throat

Some sequences demanded faithful homage. For the Watergate episode, where David plays Deep Throat in a parking garage, Stewart and his team studied the iconic scene from All the President’s Men (1976).

“We wanted to get as close as possible to the darkness tinged with blue light, the cigarette smoke,” he says.

For the OK Corral, they revisited classic westerns like Gun Fight at the OK Corral (1957), analysing everything from low‑angle framing to costume tones.

“Sometimes we copied closely, other times we just borrowed ideas, like pushing yellows and greens or pulling reds to create subtle imbalances. Sometimes grain worked beautifully. Other times it took you out of the story so we used it selectively.”

Despite the show’s ambition, Stewart stresses it wasn’t a high‑budget production. Wardrobe and extras consumed much of the spend, so he had to choose his “toys” carefully.

Movement came from a mix of Technocranes (20‑, 30‑ and 50‑foot), a small electric vehicle with a mounted arm, and frequent use of sliders for subtle, elegant motion. Handheld was rare, reserved for iconic moments like the V-J Day kiss in Times Square.

Lens-wise, Stewart relied primarily on Fujinon Cabrios — the 14-35, 19-90 and 85-300 — supplemented by cine primes and specialty lenses for sequences like the stark monochrome chosen to depict the McCarthy trials.

“The Cabrios are so functional. Operators can follow action, zoom, adjust quickly. If I wanted really shallow depth of field, we’d switch to primes, but most of the time we were on the 19–90s.”

A daily creative challenge

Every day brought a new era, new costumes, new makeup, new lighting challenges, and new visual rules.

“I was wonderfully challenged day after day. Every day was a different story, a different time period, a different everything.”

Stewart credits his longtime collaborators including gaffer Carlos M. Torres, A Cam Patrik Thelander, B Cam Miguel Medina and key grip Ron Tondreau with helping him execute the show’s visual language.

“I can’t wait for people to see this,” he says. “It’s unusual, smart, and really timely. Some lines land like harpoons because of what’s happening in DC. I’m just so proud of it.”

Crafting the Contenders: How Beef Supervising Sound Editor Christopher Gomez Rebuilt the Series’ World from Scratch for Season Two

Interview and copy written for Sohonet

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Netflix's comedy-drama Beef returned for its second run with a new cast, new locations, and a new story, but with the same expectation of emotional precision and sonic authenticity that made the series an award winner. Season Two received 16 Emmy nominations including one for Supervising Sound Editor Christopher Gomez of Formosa Group, who notes that the approach to the anthology's sophomore outing was almost a complete reinvention. 

‍“Season 1 and Season 2 both feel like the world of Beef,” Gomez explains, “but thematically they’re very different. The stories unfold differently, the environments are different, and the characters inhabit completely new spaces. We had to start afresh.”

Season 2’s palette was defined by an exclusive country club, immaculate interiors and lavish gated communities. Filming took place in a variety of California locations with additional scenes set in a hotel in Seoul, South Korea. 

Under the direction of showrunner Lee Sung Jin — known to the team as ‘Sonny’ — and director Jake Schreier, the sound department was tasked with building a world that felt clean, polished and sharply controlled. 

“Our guiding principle for the season was less is more,” Gomez explains. “We tried adding sounds, and sometimes it just felt too busy or not pristine enough. So, we stripped things back. Then we added back sounds of distant waves or seagulls for minimal ambience. It took a lot of trial and error.”

The series follows an argument that spirals out of control. Whereas S1’s ‘beef’ was the result of a road incident between strangers, the toxic feud in S2 is sparked when a heated exchange between a married couple Josh and Lindsay, played by Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan, is used as blackmail by another pair played by Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny..‍

Because the anthology format meant nothing from S1 could be reused, the team had to build every environment from scratch. Jin’s script and creative brief helped shape the soundscape, but intuition on the part of the sound team played an equally important role. 

“The goal was to create a world that felt real, but also emotionally charged,” Gomez explains. “A place where silence could be as expressive as noise. When you go ultra-realistic, the emotion can disappear. We had to find ways to keep it grounded but still resonant.”

A caught-on-iPhone video of the initial verbal sparring in episode 201 between Josh and Lindsay reappears throughout the story. This incident not only sets off everything else that happens on the show, but the viral clip needed to be identical every time it played.

“We worked closely with the picture editors because the moment was tied to VFX,” Gomez explains. “We built the fight in real time first with all the yells, crashes and impacts of Lindsay breaking paintings and glass objects [with a golf club] then extracted the exact section that becomes the loop.”

Production recordings were blended with sound effects for the offscreen action and with ADR work from Isaac and Mulligan, creating a layered, escalating tension. 

“Even though the physical altercation happens at the end of the cold open, the build-up starts the moment the episode begins. It’s a slow, deliberate rise toward an eventual cacophony where Josh and Lindsay are screaming and breaking things.

“Sonny and I spent a lot of time shaping that progression. The offscreen yelling had to feel perfectly timed and emotionally accurate. We worked closely with our picture editors to determine exactly what the audience should hear and when, so the tension ramps into the final explosive moment.”

‍The ER needed to feel like hell 

If the elite country club demanded restraint, episode 204’s hospital scenes demanded the opposite.

“The ER needed to feel like hell,” Gomez says. “A place you desperately want to escape. The challenge was creating constant activity without distracting from the dialogue.”

Nurses, patients, distant yelling and equipment was placed with surgical precision. The sound never stops, but the viewer isn’t always consciously aware of it.

Then, when Austin (Melton) steps into the hallway for a phone call, the soundscape collapses into near-silence. Just the hum of fluorescent lights and a vending machine.

“That contrast makes the environment feel suffocating,” Gomez says. “It’s one of my favorite moments.”

Needle drops from the early 2000s pepper the soundscape and are skilfully integrated with Finneas O’Connell’s score.

“We usually get a temp score early, but the final often arrives the night before the mix,” Gomez says. “The first time we hear everything together is on the stage.”

He credits music editor Luke Dennis’ role in aligning the score with the sound design. One standout moment in 204 is when Ashley (Spaeny) on a hospital bed gets wheeled into surgery at which point the score takes over entirely.

“It becomes almost music-video-esque,” Gomez says. “It’s relentless and emotional.”‍

Gomez worked closely with re-recording mixers Andrew Lange and Penny Harold on the eight episodes. “I handle all the editorial materials — prepping dialogue, cutting ADR, and making sure all the sound effects (courtesy sound effects editor, Jerry Lafuente) and Foley are ready to go. Then I bring everything to them.

“For Beef, Penny is our dialogue and music mixer, so she handles all the dialogue, ADR, and Finneas’s score. Andy is our sound effects and Foley mixer. They each have their own workflow, but they work in tandem to prep their elements and then bring everything together into a cohesive episode.

“Once we have a version that feels like a complete piece, that’s when Sonny comes in. He’ll sit with us, review the episode, give notes, and we’ll fine-tune until we reach the point where he signs off. There’s always a fair amount of prep involved before we get to that review stage — making sure the episode is in the right shape to present.”

‍From railroads to re-recording stages

Gomez’s recent credits include Only Murders in the Building (2024), The Lincoln Lawyer (2022), Say Nothing (2024), Washington Black (2024), and the revival of The Wonder Years (2021–2023).

He has had an unusual route into the industry. Before joining Formosa in 2019, he worked for over seven years at a railroad. Dreaming of becoming a music engineer he decided to return to school and his life changed.

“A post-production sound class changed everything,” he says. “I didn’t know this world existed. I fell in love with the idea that you can build sound for picture, that you layer effects like chords in music. [Composer] Danny Elfman was and remains one of my heroes. It just clicked.”

Equally adept cutting dialogue, ADR and sound effects, what Gomez loves most is the collaborative, interpretive part of the craft.

“I love supervising and the opportunity to interface with clients, understand their sonic vision, and shape it with the team,” he says. “It’s storytelling through sound.”

 

BTS The Odyssey

IBC

Art and technology combine for epic storytelling, if you believe the marketing for Christopher Nolan’s latest

article here

If you’re going to make a film of a poem compiled 3000 years ago and based on events 7000 years before that, you may as well as do so with the scale of set, ambition, spectacle and technology that Hollywood used to recreate Babylon back in 1919.

An all-star cast, thousands of extras, multiple exotic location shoots and a budget reported as $250 million all spell epic but it was the custom camera technology that allowed writer director Christopher Nolan to film The Odyssey entirely using IMAX cameras.

No-one can have failed to miss that. It’s such a huge part of the film’s marketing that there was surely a risk that this dry technical feat could swamp the drama. The reason is simple: There’s no way streaming can compete with the scale of this format.

Nolan has said it’s been his dream to shoot a movie entirely in IMAX since he was 16 and first saw IMAX documentary films. He’s shot progressively more of his films in the format from The Dark Knight to Oppenheimer, always wanting to go further.

“The thing that always stopped us was the sound,” he explains in a promo video released by Universal Pictures to accompany release.

IMAX cameras have gained a reputation for being noisy when turning over, perhaps unfairly since all film cameras will make sound due to the mechanical sprockets and rollers operation of moving negative through at speed. It’s just that IMAX 70mm film is bigger; three and half times the size of 35mm in fact. Each frame has five perforations and is run vertically through the camera.

That means the cameras are also bulky and therefore not particularly agile. No-one’s going to be carrying an IMAX handheld – at least until The Odyssey when DoP Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar, Tenet, Oppenheimer) did shoot holding an IMAX camera on his shoulder.

A year in advance of photography, Nolan, producer Emma Thomas and van Hoytema went to IMAX to see what it could do. Turns out, IMAX bent over backwards to design for them a new camera called The Keighley (in homage to IMAX pioneer David Keighley who passed away shortly after completing his review of dailies for Nolan’s film).

“The high‑level objective was to make it feel like a modern camera while keeping all the legacy aspects [of IMAX] built into one system,” explains David Kempling, IMAX Director of Film Operations in an Instagram post.

“Each individual IMAX frame is about 14 to 16K of resolution, and that’s per colour. Digital cameras are fantastic and absolutely have their place, but when you’re talking about the best possible resolution and the best possible image quality, nothing is ever going to match what you can do with one of our cameras. We’re taking a technology that’s a century old and making it cutting‑edge.”

The innovations included a custom blimp designed to encase the camera’s mechanical operation so as to not drown out dialogue.

“In reality, it’s not a new idea. People have built blimps before, but no one had ever made one for an IMAX camera,” reports Paul Constantinou, IMAX VP of hardware engineering in another Insta teaser. “It all started with Hoyte basically saying, ‘Just solve the problem for us.’”

They took a recording of the camera and played it back through the biggest JBL Bluetooth speaker they could find through different iterations of boxes, “trying to figure out how to eliminate the sound.”

“About a month into shooting,” Constantinou continues, “I got an email from one of the techs. She said Hoyte wanted me to see this video — it was a helicopter lifting a box. They were flying it up a mountain to shoot in a cave for a couple of days.

“When we met Hoyte at the end of production, he told us that this box was the most essential piece of technology on the movie. Hearing that was insane. Every time [an actor on-screen] was speaking, the camera was in that box.”

The boxed camera however increased its already sizable footprint. “It’s a gigantic, super‑heavy box, but as filmmakers we’re not supposed to be comfortable,” says Van Hoytema in one of a series of Universal promo videos. “We’re supposed to give the audience the best experience possible.”

Star Robert Pattinson said it was like “shooting with an SUV” which could be an issue for actors who want to feed off the performance of the actor opposite them.

“The problem was you couldn’t get close enough to the lens for proper eye contact,” explains actor Anne Hathaway to Collider.

The solution was to invent a mirror system attached to the camera so that while one actor was performing their line to camera they could see the other actor as if line-of-sight in the mirror.

“It would reflect right next to the lens even though I was physically [in a different position],” actor Matt Damon told ITV News. “It worked so well that these really emotional scenes I have with Annie at the end...in my memory of shooting those scenes I don't remember that I was looking into the mirror I just remember Annie's eyes.”

The new camera is built from carbon fibre (and corrosion resistant materials) but even so with the blimp weighed 400-lb so you’d think the machine would move slowly.  “It actually moves faster than if you were shooting on an iPhone,” Pattinson claimed.

“Before we knew it we were up on cliffs with it, in boats with it, and every day it became easier to work with,” Hoytema added.

The Oscar winning cinematographer commended his focus puller, grips and gaffer for wrangling the equipment as well as the “very important” IMAX technician on set.

“These people can make life a lot easier for you. I always try to be as practical as possible [in terms of the ] infrastructure around the camera or difficulty of moving it around. These are all practical problems, [and] all easy to handle with the right mentality. So you forget a little bit about those problems and remember how beautiful the format is.”

The camera’s short magazines require frequent reloading, so they developed a protocol in which the entire set remained silent so the actors could, in Van Hoytema’s words, “stay in the zone.”

Over 2 million feet of IMAX 70 mm film was used to shoot the production which shot for 91 days between February and August 2025 on location in Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland and the US.

Nolan could have faked it on a soundstage. “I’ve developed a reputation for not liking visual effects. But, you know, my films have won three Oscars for visual effects,” he told Time. “I know a lot about [VFX] and I’m really fascinated by it. But I like to make films with a very grounded tone.”

VFX are handled by Nolan’s regular partner Dneg under the control of Production Supervisor Andrew Jackson. Wētā Workshop supported Costume Designer Ellen Mirojnick and Property Master Guillaume Delouche in creating practical creature effects. Mirojnick herself oversaw the creation of 5,300 costumes.

In a nod to the stop-motion animations of Ray Harryhausen in action-adventure movies like Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Nolan’s one-eyed monster Cyclops is a 12-metre (40ft) animatronic puppet.

While for the Trojan Horse prologue, the production constructed multiple 10-metre-high horses and marshalled thousands of extras. Nolan shot at the ancient walled town of Aït Benhaddou, in Morrocco (also famous for Ridley Scott’s Gladiator films) with the earthen architecture augmented by elaborate sets to allow for 360-degree shooting.

“Every production we look at each other and we say, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we do this entirely on IMAX?’” van Hoytema says. “On [this] film, I think we cracked the code.”