Cinematography Style: Adam Newport-Berra

INTRODUCTION

Adam Newport-Berra’s work as a cinematographer has been spread across every category of filmmaking: music videos, documentaries, narrative features, shorts, TV and commercials.

Although he changes his approach to photography depending on the tone that the director wants, there are some common threads across projects that he’s shot.

He leans heavily on prep work before he gets to set, he focuses on selecting crew with the right energy and he surrounds himself with like minded collaborators. 

I’ll use this video to further unpack Adam Newport-Berra’s cinematography by going over some of his thoughts and philosophies behind creating images and then dive into some more practical examples and look at some of the gear setups he has used to pull them off. 

PHILOSOPHY

“I think the most inspiring person, as far as people I look up to, is Robby Müller:  Dutch cinematographer. How he was able to carry his sort of touch and his vision but make it fresh every time with every director. I want to be hired for my working style, the way I collaborate with the director, how I’m able to bring out their vision. And I think Robby was always able to do that.”

Adam Newport-Berrra’s cinematic journey began when he studied film at NYU. It was there that he started building relationships with his peers and shooting shorts. When it came to crewing up he often ended up behind the camera due to his prior experience and familiarity with cameras: which was informed by him shooting skating films with his friends when he was young.

As his career evolved and he moved into the HOD position of cinematographer on bigger budget projects, choosing crew and getting the most out of them became a priority. When employing someone, whether on a crew or in any business, the skills that they have are of course important. 

However, when you get to hiring a certain level of personnel, you can begin to assume that all the applicants with enough experience will be competent at their job. But, something that he sees as equally, if not more, important is the energy and kind of personalities that they bring onto set.

“I had to spend a lot of time interviewing people and, you know, making calls and reference calls to figure out my crew. Because the energy of the crew is very important for me. Creating the right environment is just crucial. I expect everyone in my crew to have ideas. Down to the loader, the grip. Everybody. Like, everyone’s going to bring something to it. The more you arm them with ideas and your vision the more you set them up for success the more you’re going to get out of them.” 

One way that he gets everyone on the same page is due to the prep work that he does before shooting begins. Early in the process, once he gets the script and is beginning discussions with the director he’ll compile a mood board or look book based on any ideas he comes up with. 

This includes a compilation of visual references, such as frame grabs from films, or pictures from still photographers.
He uses this in the initial exploration phase to see what ideas resonate with the director. 

“I try to take my first impressions from the script and just put together sort of a collage of images that come to mind. I’m pretty transparent with  the director that this isn’t how I think they should shoot thir film, but rather the sort of things that bubble to the surface as I was reading. And it’s a great way to sort of take the temperature of a working relationship to see what they respond to.”

After feedback and discussions with the director they’ll start to get a better picture about the tone and look of the film that they’re after. They can then dive a bit deeper and go over specifics, such as what kind of lighting is nice, what framing works and which colour wardrobe is best for each scene.
As this gets more and more refined he’ll compile these ideas into a sort of ‘shooting bible’ complete with more specific notes, the sides and location stills or references. This ascribes a PDF page with each scene that they need to shoot. So if they’re shooting scene four, his crew can look at page four of the cinematography bible and see the ideas, technical notes and tone that he has in mind for the scene.

He uses this as a tool to catalogue specific ideas about scenes so that they don’t get lost, which can happen on a shoot that is weeks or even months long which constantly bounces around with a new scene from a different part of the script each day.   

Although of course light can be artificially added and shaped with filmmaking tools, another important way that light can be controlled is by scheduling scenes that take place on location for specific times during the day when the natural light is best.
This is another part of his pre-production workflow and takes place before shooting begins. 

On The Last Black Man In San Francisco he managed to get a key to the house they would be shooting in and did much of his pre-production work at a desk inside the space. As the sun moved outside the building he could observe the time of day where it cast the most interesting shadows and gave the most shape to the space. 

He could then note the time and try to schedule the interiors so that they were shot within a specific time window.

In this way the preparation that he puts into discussions with directors, the formation of visual ideas and the more practical scheduling, before even having a camera in his hand, is a large, unseen part of his cinematography.    

GEAR

As I mentioned, beautiful natural light can be achieved through careful scheduling, but a bigger part of his job is how he works with artificial, film light sources.

He often uses a lot of coloured lighting in his work which is tinted to colour temperatures other than just the standard 5,500K daylight and 3,200K tungsten light.

To get different hues he places gels in front of large fixtures, such as warm sodium vapour gels, and uses RGB LED lighting fixtures which allow a specific colour temperature and tint to be dialled in.

“I’m not technically that proficient with gels. I kind of just look at stuff and figure out what I like and then tell the gaffer that’s what I like and they remember it. I’m totally game for using LED RGB colour. It’s just difficult because I love the quality of fresnel lighting that comes from tungsten lights and I feel like LED lights aren’t quite to that quality level yet.” 

A technique he has used is to create different colour pockets of light in different parts of the set. For example using some fixtures that are warmer and then keying through windows with something cooler. Having different areas with different colours creates more separation in the frame and a greater sense of dimensionality between different planes of the image. 

He often uses practical lights that we see in the shot, like warm, tungsten lamps, or overhead off-green fluorescents.

An advantage of using RGB lights over gelling is that it allows you to change the colour of a light during a shot. For example if you watch We Cry Together you can clearly see the Skypanel LEDs that he bounces through the windows change their colour temperature from a cool blue at the beginning, to more of a warmer purple, into pink and finally into a warm orange. 

I’d hazard a guess that he rigged all of these Skypanels to a DMX board that his gaffer could control remotely during the long take shot. I’d also hazard a guess that the motivation for shifting the colour of the lights during the shot is meant to mimic the shifting of emotions that happens between the characters during their argument.

Another show that he worked on that featured a combination of coloured lighting and cueing lighting effects was during the last two episodes on the first season of Euphoria. 

“I was a bit intimidated and daunted by taking on such a huge production so late in the game. You know, by the time I came in they’d been shooting for like eight months. I wanted to bring my own vision and my own style and my own inspiration to it but I also had to honour what had already been done. I was worried that that was going to be difficult.”

This balance between bringing in new ideas and staying true to the established look is a challenge for DPs that are employed to shoot later episodes in a series. 

Usually the cinematographer that is hired to shoot the pilot episode of a series, in collaboration with the director and showrunner, crafts the basis of the look for the season and the show. This cinematographer will establish how certain locations are lit, and once lit, they tend to stick to this lighting for the remainder of the series.

For example, Adam Newport-Berra shot the first episode of The Bear and established the camera zoom language, the use of practicals, different pockets of coloured lighting and the saturated, contrasty look that he’s known for. This remained in later episodes.

Coming back to Euphoria, he stuck to the lighting plans that had already been established in earlier episodes by Marcell Rev, but was allowed to light some newly introduced locations and advocated for using a mixed medium approach for certain scenes that were shot with 16mm film.

He’s shot on both 16mm and 35mm film and in different digital formats. He largely sticks to Arri cameras for digital capture, such as the Alexa Mini, the Alexa 65 and the Amira.

A lot of his work is done with spherical prime lenses that have a fairly clean look to them, such as the Master Primes. His selection of focal lengths is varied, but he has been known to use wide angle lenses for close ups of characters. 

Going through his work, a consistent visual feature that I found that spanned a few different projects is his use of slow push ins with zoom lenses. This BTS photo shows him working with what looks to be an old Angenieux 10:1 25-250mm that is strapped up to a Microforce.

A Preston Micro Force is a zoom control device which is linked up to a motor - and works in a similar way as a wireless follow focus. It’s powered by a cable which is plugged into a battery port and another zoom cable links up to a motor that slots into the zoom gear on the lens. The Micro Force is rigged onto an arm on the head of a tripod with a bracket called an Oppenheimer. 

This allows the operator to use the Micro Force as a handle to pan and tilt the camera, while also allowing them to trigger a zoom in or out button with their finger. How hard the button is pressed determines the speed at which the motor will zoom. The motor torque can also be adjusted to make the zoom faster or slower. 

He uses this device often to smoothly push into or pull out of shots, particularly establishing shots or to pick out a detail in a wide frame by pushing in to it.           
 Another type of shot which he’s used in quite a few different projects is the long take, where the camera floats around either on a Steadicam, like in We Cry Together, handheld on the shoulder for the short film Run/On or presumably with some kind of tracking vehicle like a Russian Arm with the camera mounted on a stabilised remote head on Baby Keem’s music video.      

CONCLUSION

“My advice to everyone I think is to just keep making things and not be too precious. That’s something that we all struggle with is this idea that, like, whatever we make has to be the perfect calling card for who we are and what we believe in and what we want to be making. I’m always unsatisfied with where I’m at. I always want to be at the next level. And you’ll find that any DP is going to feel that way. You just need to keep creating things and surround yourself with people that have similar values and beliefs as you and will push you to create things.”