Heartstopper Deepdives
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New Instagram post about Heartstopper cinematography by Panavision
🕑 Added 2025-03-05 18:38:33 +0000 UTChttps://www.instagram.com/p/DGyX2IusUah/
Most of the pictures are old ones from season 2, I think the one indoors that I posted here is old but I don't remember seeing it before (I could be wrong, i don't remember all the thousands of pictures off the top of my head at this point anymore) but the other two I put here are new ones for season 3. Here's the text from the post from DOP Simona Susnea:
"Series three deals with a lot more narratively--it goes deeper into Charlie’s world and it happens across 4 seasons. I thought it would be interesting to adapt the colour palette to express that and use a bit more hard light. The summer is warmer, the winter has a lot cooler lighting--there’s an intimacy to the camera work and we mixed a more grounded camera with hand-held this series, which perhaps made the show look less dreamy than series two. I still used saturated colours in the lighting at times, but overall, a bit more realistic and reflecting Charlie’s journey.
I looked at stills in early prep and I referenced a few movies: Blue is the Warmest Colour for the intimacy of the camera work, Amelie for the playfulness, and Linklaters’ Apollo 10 1/2 for how teenagers were framed. Some photographers I checked out were Hannah Starkey and images that captured intimacy between couples.
I liked H series for their softness and flares--the imperfections and the texture it gave the images. They translated the vulnerability I saw in the characters when reading the script and prepping with the director. I shot close to wide open and there was something there I felt was a match for our story.
Heartstopper was my first TV project, so it was a new format for me, although I brought my indie film background to it and the spontaneity of the documentary camera work. We mostly shot hand-held, which I love, and the director didn’t want rehearsals. The process was very open and spontaneous and the focus was on the emotion of the scene. We built a close connection with the cast to pull this off.
Framing the world and finding stories and characters in the images I was creating as a stills photographer [is what inspired me to become a cinematographer]. What keeps me inspired is curiosity and passion for film and my craft, working collectively with the director and our crew, the process of creating a film, no matter the format (film, tv, doc, commercial), shooting on film and keeping the creative search alive."
There's also an article in the new issue of British Cinematographer about season 3 (preview in Simona's Instagram story yesterday below) and I'm waiting for them to publish it online. Last time when they did one for season 2 they posted the web version the following month. The text in the Insta post might be from the article, I'll find out when I get access to it.
