Director of Photography Bobby Bukowski (When We Rise, Weeds, The Messenger, Arlington Road) has completed production of the upcoming Netflix series Gypsy, starring Naomi Watts and Billy Crudup. Bukowski shot the 10-episode dramatic series with VariCam 35 4K camera recorders.

Photo by Alison Cohen Rosa/Netflix

Watts leads the series as Jean Holloway, a psychotherapist who begins to develop dangerous, in-timate relationships with the people in her patients’ lives, with Crudup playing her husband. All 10 episodes will be released by Netflix on June 30, 2017.

With Netflix requesting 4K RAW acquisition, Bukowski approached Oliver and Erik Schietinger, principals of TCS (New York, NY). After hearing from him about the shooting style and look he was pursuing, they recommended the VariCam 35 for the shoot and ultimately supported the production with the rental of two VariCam 35s outfitted with Codex high-speed 4K uncompressed RAW re-corders.

“DPs we’ve worked with have been impressed with the VariCam 35, especially its ISO 5000, which sounded ideal for Gypsy: Bobby told us he wanted to light softly, using ambient light, without the use of direct light,” Oliver Schietinger said. “The VariCam opens new possibilities in low-light cir-cumstances, and essentially puts ‘two film stocks in one camera’ at the disposal of the cinematog-rapher.”

Bukowski said he conducted a long test of the VariCam 35, trying out the dual 800/5000 ISOs in in-terior/exterior, in daylight and available light, then took footage to a DI suite to evaluate color grad-ing. “I was pretty astounded at the ISO 5000 performance—there was not nearly as much noise as I’d anticipated,” he said, “and what noise existed was quite pleasant, beautifully random, as with an analog film grain.”

“Beyond light handling, I found the camera’s color space quite pleasing,” Bukowski added.

Gypsy was in production last September through February 2017, with much of the psychological drama being shot in built and practical interiors representing the therapist’s home, office and be-yond. A much smaller portion of the footage was shot in day and night exteriors. The two VariCam 35s, with Cooke S5/i prime lenses, were largely utilized in studio mode, with Bukowski able to take advantage of the camera’s relatively small body for Steadicam and handheld work. 

The DP said he predominantly shot at ISOs 800 and 1250, but would occasionally open to ISO 5000 to “exploit existing light.” He also used ISO 5000 when lighting talent. “Obviously, we wanted our star to look soft and beautiful, and we were never lighting directly,” Bukowski recounted. “I would often shoot at ISO 5000 and bounce light multiple times, off one white card then to another, then directing through a diffusion frame. I can’t imagine working that way with another camera—it essentially changed the way I light.”

“That’s the greatest gift of the VariCam: the impetus to drop old habits, reinvent techniques and re-define who you are as an artist,” he continued. “It’s wonderful and exciting to look at your craft through a different prism.”

Gypsy was posted at Harbor Picture Company (New York, NY), under the supervision of colorist Joe Gawler.

About the VariCam 35
Panasonic’s VariCam 35 camera/recorder is an unparalleled tool for high-end filmmaking, commer-cials and episodic production as well as live 4K events. The camera provides superb image han-dling in multiple formats ranging from pristine 4K RAW to more practical AVC codecs for 4K, UHD, 2K, HD and HD ProRes capture. Several assets set the VariCam 35 apart from other high-end cin-ematography cameras, including dual native ISOs of 800 and 5000, allowing DPs to realize incred-ible image quality in extremely low light situations; its ability to record three simultaneous video formats (4K + 2K + Proxy, or UHD + HD + Proxy); an optional high-speed 4K uncompressed RAW recorder (CODEX) that will capture uncompressed 4K VariCam RAW (V-RAW) at up to 120fps; in-ternal AVC-Intra 4K / 2K / HD recording to 120fps; support for an ACES workflow for full fidelity mastering of original source material; and in-camera Color-Grading via CDLs / 3D LUTs.