How the ‘We’re All Strangers’ Cinematographer Created ‘Organic Nostalgia’ – The Hollywood Reporter

Director Andrew Hay (wearing glasses) and cinematographer Jimmy D. Ramsay filming a scene from All of Us Strangers for Searchlight.

Courtesy of Scout Pictures

When reading the scripts, South African cinematographer Jimmy D. says: Ramsay says he searches for “personal anchor points” that allow him to “channel the honesty of creativity.” And to paint a picture of Searchlight’s loneliness and loss We are all strangers, which follows Londoner Adam (Andrew Scott) in his relationship with Harry (Paul Mescal) amid recurring flashbacks to his younger years with his now-deceased parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), DP leaned into the feelings of isolation he experienced when he first moved from South Africa to his current home. in London. “We’ve all felt lonely in our lives,” he says. “That isolation was a very cerebral and conscious feeling. I thought the interesting thing for me that I would be able to do with this film was to cultivate this wound that I obviously hadn’t exorcised and use the emotions that came from that. This might be a way for me to do a catharsis while filming as well.” .

The $10 million film was shot in and around London on a tight five-week schedule, and included filming at director Andrew Hay’s childhood home in Croydon, which had been used as Adam’s childhood home. “The directors obviously have a piece of themselves in the film, and I know this film was healing for him as well,” Ramsay says. “The fact that Andrew used his house[for]that bonding moment between mother and son is heartbreaking. For me, that scene just needed to be as warm, honest, relatable and accessible as possible.”

Overall, he wanted to create a responsive yet personal feeling. “Nostalgia has been one of the constant themes, which shows up in the music, in the fashion, and in the idea of ​​flashbacks,” he says. Ramsay wanted to achieve this in a subtle way, which led to him choosing to shoot the film on 35mm film and giving the two “worlds” a subtle difference in appearance. The past relied on “analogue presence, such as the use of ancient tungsten lamps, and the use of practical incandescents”, while the present world was “a collision between analogue presence and digital presence”. The lighting of the latter included the use of fluorescent, neon and LED lamps. They also watched an Ingmar Bergman movie Screams and whispers And Hayao Miyazaki kidnapped For inspiration.

In the scenes with Adam and Harry, Ramsay relied heavily on the camera’s eye lines to follow the development of their relationship: “Slowly, as the relationship calms down and they get to know each other, I just tighten the eye line, bringing the characters closer together. Longer lenses, then they use the lens to explore As they explore for themselves.

This story first appeared in the December stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.