The Paintings and Polaroids That Propel the Cinematography for “Griselda”

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Cinematographer Armando Salas, ASC built the look of Netflix series Griselda from Polaroids and classical painting.

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“What the Polaroids were doing visually was distilling the real world because they’re not an accurate representation,” Armando Salas explained in a video interview alongside the show’s director, Andrés Baiz, for camera manufacturer RED Digital Cinema. “They’re a very painterly representation of our world because it doesn’t accurately capture color. It captures certain frequencies of color.”

Baiz started out taking Polaroids while scouting for locations, but once Salas saw them he wanted to use the same color palette in the shots.

“I started stealing some from Andy and putting them on my wall in the office,” Salas said, even going so far as to alter production designs based on the colors.

The Polaroids also started to pique Salas’ interest in pushing the style of the show towards the photography of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Based on true events, Griselda dramatizes Griselda Blanco’s remarkable rise from the streets of Medellín to her reign as “The Godmother” of Miami’s notorious drug empire during the 70s and 80s.

“I thought if take more of this Polaroid approach we could kind of create our own [digital] film stock with extreme pockets of saturation and very specific tones,” Salas says.

Baiz comments, “I thought it was wonderful that Armando saw an opportunity in my photographs. It wasn’t my intention to do so. It was it was just a hobby. And I think that’s ultimately cinema is about finding that opportunity.”

The filmmakers also took inspiration from classical painting, less in terms of color — although, the use of gold and green in one painting dovetailed with the colors of the Polaroids — and more about a feeling of the story’s themes.

“In the history of art women are always portrayed with a baby smiling, or in a neurotic pose, or very submissive. There’s very few paintings where we’re seeing a woman screaming and she’s there to shame everyone,” says Baiz.

That’s the one they drew upon. The filmmakers shot on a RED Raptor using Panavision Panaspeed lenses and chose an unconventional 1.66:1 aspect ratio. This format allowed for more intimate close-ups, emphasizing the character-driven nature of the series.

“The 1.66:1 allowed us to isolate Griselda without having to get too close to the camera. It’s a much more comfortable format and the closest to the golden ratio in nature,” Salas explains.

One sequence in which Griselda attempts to sell a kilo of cocaine at a Floridita nightclub starts with a dance before erupting into violence. The dance was shot at 30 frames-per-second, a subtly higher speed to enhance the dramatic tension and making the subsequent fight more impactful.