Interview
Cinematographer Pat Scola Discusses His Work On A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE And SING SING
A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE is an experience where moviegoers witness the day the world went quiet in this terrifying continuation of the A Quiet Place universe. When Samira (Lupita Nyong’o) returns home to New York City, her simple trip turns into a harrowing nightmare when mysterious creatures that hunt by sound attack. Accompanied by her cat Frodo and an unexpected ally (Joseph Quinn), Samira must embark on a perilous journey through the city that has suddenly gone silent, where the only rule is to stay quiet to stay alive. Djimon Hounsou and Alex Wolff also star in this intensely suspenseful thriller.
The visual storytelling in A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE delivered a powerful and immersive cinematic journey that relied heavily on imagery to convey its narrative and emotional depth. From glimpses of monstrous forms to sound visualization of the characters, the beauty of the film literally permeated the screen through the lens of Director of Photography Pat Scola.
Scola, a New York native, began his career in music videos for artists like The Weeknd, Alt J, Flying Lotus and more, lensing a total of 5 nominations and one win at the SXSW Music Video Competition over the years. His film work is highlighted by Michael Sarnoski’s PIG, for which he received the ASC’s Spotlight Award for Outstanding Cinematography and was named in Variety’s 10 Cinematographers to watch.
His credits include the Miramax sci-fi film MOTHER/ANDROID, directed by Mattson Tomlin, produced by Matt Reeves and starring Chloe Grace Moretz. Scola also shot MONSTERS AND MEN, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and starring John David Washington, which won the dramatic special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018. Other feature film credits include AND THEN I GO, an official selection at LA Film Festival in 2017 and directed by Vincent Grashaw; MAYA DARDELL, a SXSW official selection in 2017 and directed by Zachary Cotler and Magdalena Zyzak; and Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU, directed by Richard Tanne
The DP’s three recent films, WE GROWN NOW, earning him a Best Cinematography nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards (Review), A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, and SXSW 24’ Festival Favorites, SING SING, all bowed in cinemas in 2024.
I spoke with Pat Scola after the release of A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE and coincidentally the limited release of SING SING. We discussed his multiple films with director Michael Sarnoski, his passion for the camera, a vested interest in all his projects, and his own personal message for audiences.
Interview conducted on July 12th, 2024
WAMG: Congratulations on A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE. The film just passed 100 million domestically.
SING SING is opening today and your other film, WE GROWN NOW, also opened this year, so you’ve had a lot going on.
Pat Scola: Yeah, it’s been a busy last two years.
WAMG: Before we talk about any of your films, when did you start your career? What made you want to be a cinematographer? And once you decided that, how did you plunge in?
PS: I was speaking to somebody earlier today and they kind of joked that because I really wasn’t good at any other art form, I got into cinematography. I always had an interest in photography. I spent a lot of time in high school in my dark room. And when I went to college, the same thing. But I wanted to be an editor, and that’s what I was going to school to maybe try and do. Ultimately, I got kind of dragged onto my first sort of student film set. I never really experienced anything like it.
I would say I knew then that I wanted to be doing something in that capacity. I didn’t know what yet. I think gravitating to photography and editing have kind of steered me down this path. I don’t think I ever could have known that it would have ended right here and where I’m at. It’s not something that ever really occurred to me. I liked shooting films. I liked having a camera. But where I am now, I‘m still not quite sure how it all happened.
WAMG: Did you work on commercials or on music videos previously?
PS: I would say my career really got started when I made this little $5,000 music video. You can kind of point to these little milestones in your life, right? And I did this little $5,000 music video for, at that time, an unknown band called Alt J.
That video was for a song called “Breezeblocks.” That record would go on to win the Mercury prize and it ended up going viral. You know, it really spread quickly. I don’t know how many views it has today but at that time, it got me noticed in the music video community, and I started to get more calls to shoot more videos. That changed a lot for me because before that, I was living in Brooklyn, and I was shooting behind the scenes on things. I was doing anything that I could to have a camera in my hands. I thought it was a win.
It was all non-glamorous but interesting work, shooting interviews for stuff. I was happy and I felt like I was lucky I was doing something. This kind of really changed it to me and propelled me into a proper career in cinematography. It’s like, up until this point, I wasn’t. A year or two after that video, is when I basically started to make my income as a photographer. That was a very interesting time. I thought to myself “Is this becoming real? A little bit, maybe? “
PIG/Michael Sarnoski
WAMG: You where the DP on PIG with Michael Sarnoski, the director. What was that conversation like when he told you I’d like for you to be my DP on A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, and how were you brought onto the film?
PS: A producer that I had done a film with was doing a budget for PIG for their producers, and I think he had floated my name to them, and then at the time, that had gone through my agent and come to me. When PIG was being passed around at that point, people kept calling it “John Wick With A Pig”. My natural inclination when I got that was, I’m not really interested in that kind of story. I do remember at the time, my agent was, have a read at it, you might think differently. I did read it, and it is very different. I mean, the movie you see is there on the page. Michael’s just a beautiful writer. There’s so much sensitivity that’s hidden on the page or just plainly there, but there’s a real weight to what he does, reading one of his scripts. I kind of saw that immediately. I really felt like I knew what he was trying to do. I got really interested and then I went and met Michael and his producer Vanessa Block at a coffee shop at that time. The meeting really turned when we started talking about pig napping. We called it the pig napping, when his pig gets taken in the film, and I started to describe it this way: ‘I saw it as this sort of where he gets hit by the door, but the camera also falls down to the floor and it kind of turns sideways and it rolls over on the ground with him.’ As I’m explaining it, Michael’s staring at me, and I’m like, oh man, he hates this. I thought, no, you’re here now, you gotta go for it.
Afterwards, he pulled out his storyboards, his hand drawn storyboards, and what he had sketched out was the same idea, very much on the same page about how this kind of should feel. That’s the moment that crystallized that we’re going to do this together. Here we are, two movies later with A QUIET PLACE.
WAMG: When did he bring you onto A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE?
PS: The moment he got the job, that was early on. That was before he even had written the script, that being said, because with this film, he really wanted me to work on it. There was a lot of red tape from the studio that we had to get through and jump over in order to get me across the line to do the film. But Michael really stood behind me and really dug his feet in and bringing me along, and I appreciate what he did there. The studio was really happy with the way it looked, what we were doing visually.
Simon Bowles / © 2023 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WAMG: I’m such a huge fan of the franchise. I spoke with the production designer, Simon Bowles, in a recent interview. He talked a lot about how much he likes Michael. They walked in Brooklyn, they walked through New York, and he mentioned Michael was like, “hey, we could just shoot on location.” And Simon’s like, “no, I don’t really think we can. We have to probably shoot this in London, and we’ve got to have these sets where some of it’s going to be filmed, and some of it’s going to be like VR.” From your point of view, because he said he met with you, he met with the costume designer, how did all of you work together to implement your vision for the movie?
PS: We did spend a lot of time walking around New York City. Simon had some wonderful models all over his office. Models and models and things being built, so we would often spend loads of time kind of mulling over these models. And we talked to Simon, and we built two major models. We built two major streets, and one minor street, and we had 260 setups to accomplish in this so it wouldn’t feel stale. Simon did an excellent job at redressing those streets from Chinatown to the lower east side to Harlem so it’s different. Michael and I were with Simon a lot, and we were quite meticulous about how, with these models that he made, how do we see the whole world in different ways all the time, so we’re not just ending up shooting on the same corners.
That was a very big part of the early process, trying to figure out how to maximize what Simon had provided for us, how to utilize every inch of that place so that it really feels like Sam and Eric are traveling from one side of the street to the other and not repeating these streets over and over again.
Nico and Schnitzel as Frodo, Sam’s cat https://www.instagram.com/lupitanyongo/
WAMG: Shooting a film with animals – you’ve worked with pigs and cats. There were two cats. What were some of the challenges for you as a cinematographer?
PS: We did a lot of tests early on with the cat and filming techniques and seeing what the cat didn’t like and did like. Here’s the difference. The pig doesn’t really care about the camera, it’s not a skittish animal. Its very food driven. There was a shot early in the movie, that we loved, that we called the “pig butt shot.’’ Wherever the camera’s following Brandy (the pig) running and waddling, and it’s on her cute little tail. And we thought, oh man, we should echo the “pig butt shot” with the cat. We have to have the camera following the cat that way. But in our early tests we discovered we could not follow the cat with a camera. It was so aware that something was behind it. They’re totally different animals, and they bring different challenges, but with the early tests with Nico and Schnitzel we found out things we can do and things we couldn’t do, things that we should stay away from.
The thing with both animals that probably, I think Michael may say, too, is we really learned this around the second week of A Quiet Place with Nico and Schnitzel, because, again, the pig is not that worried about the camera. I mean, the pig was just food motivated and Brandy was kind of messy. She would bite me and Nick. She knocked the cameras over and it was kind of hilarious and funny, but Nico and Schnitzel were just smarter, as if to say we’re not gonna play your stupid game, man. And our trainers were just absolutely tremendous. They were incredible, but we kind of figured out early on, while trying to get these really specific cat performances, we started to realize let’s just lay off that a little bit and let them be cats a little bit more. I think there was this aha moment where the magic of the cat really started to come alive and sort of let go of that a little bit. And I think we got some really wonderful performances that way and just sort of embracing what they do and allowing our frames to incorporate what they may or may not do a lot of the time.
WAMG: I wondered how much of this is really a cat and what’s CGI?
PS: It’s all real. No visual effects cat. There’s none of that and it’s all a real cat. And if it’s not real in the moment, it’s a stuffed cat that we had made that was a freakishly, realistic stuffed cat. That was more for Lupita and Eric. When we were doing something kind of dangerous, like running a certain way, we didn’t need to use the real cat. We would use the stuffed one to give them the weight, but for the most part you’re seeing a real cat. Like, when Eric’s running down the pier at the end of the movie, that’s the cat in his arms, and when he comes up out of the water, that’s the real cat!
WAMG: I was wondering while watching, is that a real cat? Because cats would flip out underneath the water.
PS: We did a lot of water training with them, and there’s obviously, we were, you know, there are very serious rules in place for getting a cat wet. I don’t remember they are specifically, but it’s like, once they’re wet, they can’t do anything for another 45 minutes. We had our animal people there that were keeping us all very honest and on the clock about it. And everything was always talked about in taking a lot of great care and making sure the animals were cool. But what was really fun to watch was Nico and Schnitzel, over the course of the film, came to really trust Lupita and Joe, so by the end of the movie, you have Joe sprinting down the boardwalk, and the cat’s just chilling, just like, okay, we’re doing this. You know, we’re cool. It’s kind of fun to watch that relationship grow and that trust between the animals, and it’s something you can see on screen quite a lot, too.
WAMG: Your other film, Sing Sing, (Review) a totally different film, opened today in limited release and then wide August 2. From what I have seen, I think Colman Domingo will be nominated for the role. Just wow. How did you join this film and did you and the directors look into filming at Sing Sing or was there another real prison that you guys could shoot in?
PS: We were working with the New York State Department of Corrections. The directors, Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley, and producer Monique Walton were working very closely with them, so we have a lot of help and cooperation from them. We have a lot of establishing shots in the way that is truly Sing Sing from the outside and some things on the grounds there, but because films have been photographed in Sing Sing before, but I think mostly like scenes, I think with the amount of density and the amount of work we had to do photographing in Sing Sing, plus we had COVID protocols on set, we knew this was something that wasn’t going to happen for us inside there.
What we ended up doing is shooting at two other decommissioned prison facilities. It’s sort of a mix of these two decommissioned prisons. A lot of establishing work at Sing Sing on the Hudson River, looking back at it and on the grounds and then we do a lot of our theater work, specifically just a sort of laddering piece of the film at Deacon High School, actually a kind of fake Deacon High School stage or the stage inside of Sing Sing’s chapel, which is a space that we use in the film.
WAMG: To get that kind of authenticity, that kind of honesty, did you shoot on film or did you shoot on digital?
PS: We shot on film. About 85% of our actors were formerly incarcerated inside of a theater program in Sing Sing called RTA, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, that’s what the film is based on. These are all alumni that have gone through the program inside and come out on the outside.
They came back into act as versions of themselves or tapping into some sense of their past and their history and their truth to put on screen for us. We felt that from a very early point, that film was the correct medium to tell this story for a couple of reasons. That was something I had seen early on in the research. Clint and Greg had all of these amazing zooms and hours of talking with a lot of the guys who ended up in our film. We were listening to one of their stories, and one of them described how they used to wear a watch, but the time was always wrong. It was something that shook me a little bit how time functions in a place like this for the people inside and maybe extending that to our viewers a little bit in the sense that there’s a very specific time period, but we really don’t show it to you. If you look closely, you’d be able to find out. But there’s not a lot of things that really tell you when this takes place and that’s kind of by design a little bit. We were kind of chasing something, a look that felt not like something that was necessarily made today, maybe something that was made in the late 1990’s or early 2000s, something that just didn’t feel digital and modern, like, wanted to feel like this is something that did happen or maybe still could be happening, and it’s still happening, by the way, and will continue to happen, but I’m still keeping it out of dating it out of a time style that feels modern, you know?
And a lot of the film is about men finding their humanity inside of this place behind these walls and it’s about to the joy and warmth and heartbreak of everything that these men go through inside. When you’re in the room with these guys and you’re in the room with them performing, you’re in the room telling their stories, feeling like there’s this same feeling that you try to capture. It’s just so warm and that was something that we really wanted to make sure we got on screen.
It was a really great choice to shoot on film, leaning into the warmth and the skin tones that we get out of that, versus something that was a little bit colder and maybe more sterile feeling. I look at the film now and I think, unequivocally, it was correct to do. I’m proud that on such a small film, we were able to kind of achieve that, which is not always, you really have to have great partners, great producing partners, great director partner that is willing to stand up for that kind of format, you know, on such a small budget.
WAMG: I read The Hollywood Reporter story where the filmmakers said they paid everyone on set the same. It was part of their pitch. They paid everyone from the PA’s to the stars the same wage just to give that kind of equity. You’ve worked on independent films, you’ve worked on a big studio films. Do you have a preference?
PS: I can’t fully form that opinion just yet. There are things that I really like about both. With A Quiet Place and a budget that size, comes a lot of oversight. I’ve never had that much, I don’t know how to phrase this, other than, movie magic potential right around you because you have such a large crew of people that you can kind of do anything. Can we set this on fire, can we improv this shot that maybe, like, on an independent film, I wouldn’t necessarily have the crew or staff to be able to achieve something as fast or that way. That part is quite interesting.
With all that comes the other stuff and it’s par for the course, but there’s this thing, in an independent film that happens where it really does feel like there’s two or three people at the head of this thing, and you’re really making the choices on the ground every day. They belong to this very core group of people making those choices. And I feel like, as a result, a voice can be stronger in an independent film that way. I think that’s what I prefer on that side. I just really prefer a singular vision and a feeling this is taken from one person.
The dream is that you can transcend an independent film across that platform and find a way to have the mainstream care about those stories. Typically, marketing is really where independent films lacks its financing more than anything. You can get a movie made for a million bucks if you really want to, but being able to get it out in front of people who end up seeing it and creating a buzz around it. That’s the hard part. I think that when Sing Sing, for example, A24 is an incredible partner and have been doing incredible work to create a word of mouth and a buzz around the film. Conversely, A Quiet Place just puts a tremendous, massive billboard every major city everywhere, it’s impossible not to think about it. We seldom talk about how marketing affects the vision of a film or what can be seen by the public.
WAMG: I loved A Quiet Place: Day One. I loved the way it was shot. There were so many parts of that film that were just so intimate, and you just really felt for all those characters during that alien invasion.
PS: That was a big part of that film because as much as it’s this invasion, the core of that story is about Sam and her taking death back on her terms a little bit. It was really important for us to be able to balance both that scope and that scale that I think you want an audience expecting to kind of see there, while also keeping it quite subjective and relevant to Sam’s point of view and her feelings. I think that there’s a nice balance there. If you’re looking for, it’s got something you appreciate. If you get a chance, Sing Sing is out in New York and LA, and in August elsewhere. If you get a chance, it’s worth the watch.
WAMG: Are you taking a break or working on more projects?
PS: I just finished one, Lurker. It is Alan Russell’s directorial debut. He was a writer on “The Bear” and “Beef,” both Emmy winning shows. This is his first film that he’s directed. It’s finished. We shot that earlier this winter.
Right now, I’m just kind of treading water until November where I will start on Michael Sarnoski’s next movie, The Death of Robin Hood. Not much we can say about it, obviously but that would be the next thing for sure.
“The film follows an aging Robin Hood grappling with his past after a life of crime and murder who finds himself gravely injured after a battle he thought would be his last. In the hands of a mysterious woman, he is offered a chance at salvation. Production on the film is set to begin in February 2025.”
https://deadline.com/2024/05/a24-death-of-robin-hood-hugh-jackman-1235925982
Follow Pat Scola on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patscola/
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