Cinematographer Jim Joliffe on shooting 'Pompeii - Out Of Time'
The director Tom Barbor-Might (TBM) and I worked very closely about how we were going to shoot this and we both shared exactly the same vision. We wanted to tie the past to the present and the first decision to help this was to shoot with the same anamorphic lenses in both the drama and documentary. I chose Caldwell Chameleon anamorphic lenses and paired them with the Arri Alexa 35 camera. They have a lovely, soft, organic feel that I always look for in lenses, and they flare beautifully. To enhance their softness, I used various diffusions throughout the series.
Much like in the films when Tom Hiddleston talks about the ‘phases of the eruption’, TBM and I set similar phases for the camera and lighting. These references were shared with my team (camera and lighting) and the colourist, ensuring everyone was on the same page and could interpret the vision TBM and I had set out to deliver.
These phases essentially transition from a bold cinematic feel to a war reportage feel and then to a horror feel as the show progresses. The look I created was for a lovely golden feel before the eruption, with a tiny hint of cyan in the shadows. Here, the camera movement feels very smooth, using steadicam and a dolly. This early warm look was also used in the present-day documentary to again help connect the visual language of the two timelines. As we move into the later phases, the cooler shadows become more prominent, and the warm tones start to recede. Also, the camera is more handheld, and at times, I am literally throwing it about. In the final phases, the camera stays handheld but is a little more considered and closer, giving a very claustrophobic feel. The blue/greens have now taken over, and the warm tones can only be found in pockets of light, like lanterns and fires. I used the ability to set LUTs in the camera, so we could see these looks on set.
When people imagine volcanic eruptions, they often picture rivers of lava. But Pompeii was quite different—it was all ash, pumice and darkness. That’s why I chose a dark and blue look instead of a warm, fiery one.
The budget was tight, so we couldn’t use big lights or fancy equipment. Back in AD 79, Pompeii had only olive oil lanterns and fires for light. I was happy to try and recreate that with minimal lighting. My gaffer, Nikos Kalamerakis, and I decided to only use LED lights, which really worked well because it meant we could light scenes more simply and work faster, especially with the tight schedule. Nikos and I also picked a beautiful warm tone to match the architecture of our sets and hand-dyed some 20x20ft muslins to bounce the sun and add warmth. Along with some negative, this was pretty much all we used for the day scenes. For the night scenes, we bounced a light into them to give the feel of distant fires. Most of the close night stuff was just a handheld LED light on a boom to feel like an oil lamp and a soft cool top light for subtle ambience.
Shooting TH in Pompeii was a whole different story. We were only allowed a tiny documentary crew and had to work incredibly quickly without grips or lighting. I didn’t get to decide when to shoot each scene to make the best use of the light, as we had to work around the public and locations. We shot everything of TH with two cameras for coverage and only with a couple of reflectors and two tiny battery-operated lights. It was a real challenge, but one I really relished.
Working with TH was a dream. Some of the scenes we shot were pretty emotional. I’ve worked with many actors, but I’ve never seen an actor walk onto set and immediately bring the whole crew into the emotion of that scene as Tom did. It kept everyone focused and was a lovely thing to watch.
With this shoot, we covered a big drama production, a small documentary shoot with minimal crew, location work, studio work, special effects, visual effects and stunts, all on a relatively small budget. And I loved every minute of it.
Pompeii - Out Of Time is available to watch now on Disney +