This first rule of House of Cards: No handheld camera work. The second: No steadicam. The third: No zoom lenses. That didn’t slow down Danish cinematographer Eigil Bryld to team up with director David Fincher on the politically charged drama from Netflix. Ticketed with nine Emmy nominations, one being outstanding cinematography in a single-camera series, the show developed by Kevin Spacey, Fincher, and Beau Willimon frames itself in the back dealings of policy, power, and manipulation.
After reading the first four episodes, Eigil was hooked. “I was immediately intrigued by the project. It was unique and interesting in so many ways. Knowing Kevin Spacey was going to play the lead (Francis Underwood), he can be very charming. He can be this charming, seductive beacon everyone looks up to one moment and then easily switch to someone sinister and evil. He’s like a chameleon. Even Robin Wright’s character Claire Underwood isn’t the traditional woman you see in shows today. She’s just as or even more threatening than Francis. The script had such an appealing dynamic I couldn’t pass up.”House of Cards was the first project between the director and cinematographer, and knowing that David was involved, Eigil knew it was going to be a visually unique. The first two episodes, including the Emmy nominated Pilot, were directed by David to establish not just the visual style of the show, but the economics of how things were to be shot. “We had about 10 weeks to prep, and were given 14 days for the two episodes and used every bit of it,” says Bryld. “This was my first episodic, but since Nexflix had the plan to release the entire season at once, I wanted to approach it as if we were making one long movie rather than an open and closed episode.”
During testing, the decision was to utilize two RED EPICs simultaneously. “We had to shoot in a way that was quick and effective, and create a flexible lighting scheme that could be easily tweaked. We didn’t want the set to always look the same,” mentions Bryld. “We wanted to create a process so we could go into different textures and tonality quickly.” Shooting this way allowed Eigil to spend time and create very deliberate setups for both cameras to be used efficiently. “Working with two cameras this way was very liberating,” adds Bryld. “We were able to find a nice balance in order to move fast and get coverage.”
Darkness and shadows played an important role in creating the visual tones to the characters and sets. “There was definitely tweaking in the beginning in to order figure out how far to take the darkness of the show,” says Bryld. “It takes a lot of guts to go that dark. When people say they want to make it dark, they usually don’t end up going this far and want to see everything that’s going on still. We wanted to create a sense of undercurrent and drama in order to give the image volume and a stronger sense of space. David understands darkness and the medium. He is very technical, knowledgeable and straight-forward, it was easy to run ideas past him.”
Using ARRI Master Primes, Eigil shot wide open, mostly around a 1.8, and centered camera movements on track or a boom. Other techniques the director/DP combo looked to avoid entirely were pans. Yes, pans and close-ups. “Blocking became even more important,” says Bryld. “You create a different sense of space when you take those out of the mix. We motivated everything based on the idea to make it look as powerful as possible.”
Cast support helped move production along as well. “They had a great understanding of the camera and what the camera could see,” says Bryld. “We always chose to shoot realistically over cosmetically. To give a sense of presence and volume, you’re shooting at lower angles which can be unflattering, but there was no pressure from the cast to change it otherwise.”
When collaborating on set, there was very little energy wasted talking about how an idea could or couldn’t work. “The way I communicated with Fincher was very hands on,” explains Bryld. “He prefers not to subtitle things. He is very receptive, but you put the idea out there and you go with it or you don’t. When you condense your thoughts, it’s incredibly efficient and focused way to work.”
Gaffer Patrick Lennon was key in helping light the locations and sets. Shot mainly in Baltimore, with additional coverage in Washington D.C, the goal was to find fixtures that could work efficiently enough during the months of shooting. A combination of Kino Flos and industrial fixtures rigged to dimmer boards created the moods to places like Baltimore Sun where Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) works as a news reporter. “We wanted to control the color temperature as much as we could,” says Bryld. “We would mix up daylight and tungsten tubes on the dimmer board so we could dial in the color up or down. Patrick was amazing and went above and beyond with whatever we tried to accomplish. He ended up going out to the Metro Station set 5 or 6 times to gel the lights and take stills to get the existing light in the right place. When we did arrive there, we were incredibly efficient because of his preproduction work.”
Using ambient and source lighting was their way to inspire a scene. “We didn’t try to overpower anything,” says Bryld. “We would always look for light sources like an iPhone, a match or a car headlight and then built from there.” With only a crew of about twenty-five on set, Eigil didn’t have a DIT or set up LUTs for shooting. “We would change the color temperature, but then everything else was in front of camera. We shot mostly in 4000K. Since the RED is more of a daylight chip, it can go a little pink or magenta, so we always strived to make everything a bit cooler by adding practical bulbs in front,” mentions Bryld. “Most of my career I’ve shot film and I found that instead of dialing the different knobs and changing the curves in the digital world, to rather just do everything in front of camera to provide a consistent look.”
Due to the busy shooting schedule Eigil couldn’t be too involved with the final post process. Between prepping the next week’s episode with the incoming director, Eigil would receive a few high-res stills to give notes, but that’s about it. “David and his colorist Paul Yacono did the bulk of the work, and it turned out really well,” says Bryld.
As a DP, Eigil enjoys the moment when you first turn on the camera. “It’s like putting pen to paper,” says Byrld. “Whatever happens in the next few minutes may live forever. The collaborations you have with the people around – it’s visual poetry, and I had a lot of those moments working on House of Cards.”
You can catch the first season of House of Cards by jumping over to Netflix.