Netflix’s newest book-to-film adaptation, Remarkably Bright Creatures, is a heartwarming story of a grieving widow (Sally Field) and a directionless young man (Lewis Pullman) in a seaside town as their lives intertwine with the help of a remarkably-wise octopus named Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina).
Director of photography Ashley Connor was tasked with bringing to life the POV of the octopus that is so vital to the book. Here, she breaks down her custom rigs and how her collaboration with director Olivia Newman allowed the production team to bring a slightly magical aura of the aquarium to life.
How did you approach creating a visual language of the movie and what was your collaboration like with the director?
“The director, Olivia Newman, and I had worked together before on her debut film First Match, and I knew we connected on our approach to (the) story. We started with tone and shared films that felt emotionally similar for what we were trying to accomplish. We wanted Remarkably Bright Creatures to be able to complement the strengths of the book, which to me were the multiple perspectives the audience inhabits. Our goal was to make the visuals approachable and emotionally honest, while letting the beautiful colors and light of the Pacific Northwest guide our palette. During prep, we broke down every page of the script, not only shot-listing the entire film, but also storyboarding every scene that involved our CGI octopus, Marcellus.”
What camera & lens choice did you go with?
“We worked with Panavision Vancouver and shot on the Alexa 35 with Primo primes and zooms. The Primos are probably my favorite lens set. They have character and softness without being too distracting.”
How did you approach the POVs for the octopus?
“Livi and I knew the biggest challenge would be making Marcellus feel as personified as he is in the book. He is our narrator and needed to feel grounded and real to add deeper emotional resonance. Collaborating with our head VFX supervisor, Chris Ritvo, we wanted to photograph him similarly to our actors and give him proper closeups. But we also wanted to inhabit his point of view, so in prep we did testing to try and find what visual language would highlight that the most. Guy McVicker at the Woodland Hills office helped create a special lens attachment to create a unique effect in-camera. The Octo-Vision filter helped to give life to how Marcellus might see through the thick glass of the tank.”
Photo (L-R): Director Newman and DP Connor
What sequences were the most challenging or your favorite?
“Anything with Marcellus was time consuming. Those sequences were storyboarded and we needed to be as precise as we could be with our coverage. Livi and I both approach actors similarly - we love to let them have space to make the blocking their own and move freely, but we knew that any shot that had Marcellus’ POV, we would need to shoot in a specific order.
“We’d shoot the scene in our aquarium stage set with the actors, then fly the ceiling of the set and dunk in our designated underwater camera rig to shoot the POV, trying to minimize downtime so the actors could stay in the moment. Then we’d come back around and release the actors, and do VFX plates of Marcellus. It was definitely a logistical puzzle.
“The other most challenging sequence was when Tova releases Marcellus into the water on the pier. We had to control a good amount of the town because we knew we’d be seeing almost 360 degrees from the pier. We were working off boats with cameras on technocranes. There wasn’t a good place to stage actors because we couldn’t build anything on the pier. And to top it off, it was raining both days we needed to shoot that sequence, and we couldn’t move the schedule around. It ended up elevating the sequence and really adding to the emotional reality of the scene, but they were very difficult days. Sally Field is an absolute beast. She was so focused and locked in to her performance that having a great crew meant we could quickly move through our coverage in an extremely difficult shooting scenario.”