Not only do films of the 1990’s feel different than ones released today, but they also look a lot different. Why is this? One of the major factors was the actual type of film that was used. Many movies in the 90’s were shot on vibrant film stocks that emphasized contrast and saturation. The chemical processes that were used in developing these films often produced rich colors that are less common in digital cinematography. Those rich colors were also accentuated through different lighting techniques, which changed to a more naturalist look by the early 2000’s.
When DP Powell Robinson signed on to the Hulu horror film, Mr. Crocket, one of the main directions the film’s director, Brandon Espy, told him was that he wanted the film to feel like a gritty '90s drama. The reference films that were specifically mentioned being Menace II Society, Juice, and New Nightmare for the horror aspect.
To get this specific look Powell says, “I made the choice to forgo vintage lenses for a lens that matched the direction lens makers were going during that time period with the PV primos in 89, and the Zeiss Ultra Primes and Cooke S4 at the end of the '90s—aberration free, sharp, but still having their own distinct attitude.” He talks about this and many other ways of achieving a '90s look in the below interview.
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No Film School: How did you become involved with Mr. Crocket?
Powell Robinson: The production company behind Mr. Crocket actually produced the last film I shot for Hulu as well, Appendage. It was a great on-boarding process because they brought along a bunch of other close friends and dept heads who worked on Appendage as well: editor Alex Familian, production designer Michelle Patterson, wardrobe Naomi Wolff Lachter.
NFS: Can you break down what preproduction looked like for you on the film?
Robinson: Very fast. I only had two weeks of hard prep in New Jersey, so it was very lucky Brandon Espy, the director, lived in Los Angeles as well so we could meet up in the month leading up to our travel out to Jersey to get a head start on our shotlisting. During that process, even just at a coffee shop, we’d start taking reference frames for really specific angles we knew we needed for the cut.
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
Once we got out there, a lot of our time was spent nailing down the utilization of our sound stage with Michelle (PD) since we had both the Mr. Crocket set and the partial interior build of the Beverly household (hallway, Major’s bedroom, and Summer’s bedroom) packed into one room.
But most important was figuring out our lighting setup for both the happy Mr. Crocket’s World show and the hell world version. We knew it would have to be based around the same units / overhead, so we came up with a plan to use a classic ring-of-fire, tungsten overhead rig to get that high key, blasted broadcast set-look for the 70’s show (shot WB neutral), and then use the same units, but blow it all up for hell world.
NFS: So, on a technical level, what was actually done to create the change from the happy world of Mr. Crocket’s show, to the hell world version depicted in the finale?
Robinson: We hung black velvet 30x30 rags around the back edge of the stage for infinite black void fall-off, slanted the overhead rigging pipe, panned the lights all over, and the most fun part of all, we sent all the tungsten units into a massive ratpac receiver rigged in the ceiling, which was then transmitted to my gaffer’s iPad so we create an oscillating pattern that runs throughout the whole hell world finale.
It always seemed fitting that hell world be fire-y orange and red, but we didn’t want to deal with VFX fire, and having it be motivated by a nightmare-version of a once happy lighting setup felt much more in character for Crocket. The oscillating pattern, as well as white balancing in camera to 7000 Kelvin gave the now partially dimmed tungsten units a very warm light, which felt fire reminiscent, but not exactly like a traditional fire effect.
Before and after:
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
Once we got to post we also made one very small change to the whole hell world sequence: we’d been working with a thicker grain pattern for the whole film when we started the grading process, but switched to something sharper for the movie overall. However, we left our original thick grain structure for hell world—it kept it feeling grittier but also, on a character-level, it feels like vintage '70s grain, so even outside of the show, Crocket seems to manifest a more retro aura in his realm.
NFS: Did you get inspiration from any other films for Mr. Crocket?
Powell:Yes! The main references Brandon gave me were an invaluable influence on the overall look of the film because they were so refreshing to receive in regards to a prepping horror movie.
Brandon told me he really wanted Mr. Crocket to feel like Menace II Society and Juice. On the horror front, we did discuss New Nightmare as a good reference as well, but to us, the specific feeling of gritty '90s dramas needed to drive the overall aesthetic of the film, and then we could sprinkle '80s horror characteristics on top.
'Mr. Crocket'hulu
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
One of the most important things that grew out of these references were the colors of Mr. Crocket’s portal (seen in the first photo above). Early on in Menace II Society, there is a party scene lit exclusively by red and purple light, and the second I saw it I immediately made the connection to the look of the portal and I called Brandon on the spot. It brought an element of cosmic horror that I enjoyed, as well as just being both an unexpected, but fitting, choice for a character as colorful as Mr.Crocket. My team would build me a “doorway” out of asteras in a strobing pattern moving between those two colors anytime a scene called for the portal to open so the actors could actually walk through it.
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
NFS: How else did you go about making sure the film looked like it belonged in that '90s era? What camera and lenses did you use on Mr. Crocket and did you experiment with anything you have never used before?
Robinson: A few ways: First, from the beginning Brandon knew he wanted a 1.85 aspect ratio, based on both our ref movies.
Second, I made the choice to forgo vintage lenses for a lens that matched the direction lens makers were going during that time period with the PV primos in 89, and the Zeiss Ultra Primes and Cooke S4 at the end of the '90s—aberration free, sharp, but still having their own distinct attitude. I landed on Signature Primes, which we then exposed between a T4-T11 for most of the film, since deeper stops were also far more common in the pre-digital era of filmmaking—something I would say was newer for me, since I usually love a good 2.8.
Third, our moonlight is based on the HMI plus full CTB heavy blue look of '80s and '90s moon, especially in horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street.
And fourth, close-ups! In the current age of volume walls and large format sensors, so much content is currently shot in mediums. Film was so beautiful and forgiving in portrait/close framing, since the shift to digital I feel like people have gotten scared of close shots.
And lastly, what marries it all together is a '90s film emulation grade + grain texture from maestro colorist Damien Vandercruyssen.
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
NFS: Mr. Crocket’s world that we see on the tv screen has a very different feel than the world that the film takes place in. Can you talk about the tv screen world and how you filmed it differently than the rest of the movie?
Robinson: Absolutely, it’s one of the elements I’m most proud of with this film! We knew from the beginning the show was going to have to feel as authentic as possible to sell people on Crocket’s backstory feeling legitimate, and Crocket himself feeling real, as if the clips from the show were archival footage we licensed from an actual '70s kids tv show.
To start, we shot that in s35 cropped mode on the LF sensor rather than open gate like the rest of the film. We switched to zoom lenses, and lived on a fisher dolly, in dance floor mode on the stage floor to feel more like a multi-cam/broadcast setup. And as mentioned earlier, the lighting was designed to mimic the overhead rigging of in-studio tv.
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
Then once we got to post, the real fun started. We teamed up with Circuit Bent TV (run by the analog mastermind Danny Erb) to remaster the footage using a CRT scanning process and create custom glitch art for all the times the tv goes on the fritz as Crocket’s influence gets stronger. The base plates were sent to colorist Jared Rosenthal for a '70s film emulation pass, then to Circuit Bent to be run through a VCR, using his custom chain of DMX-controlled circuit bending glitch boards, which we filmed on a Blackmagic pocket 6k on a fancy CRT TV to capture the highest quality possible interpretation of the analog signal, with the texture of the screen itself and all the strange halation, aberration, and chromatic weirdness that accompanies playing something back on one of those TVs and seeing it close up which post can’t fake. This dramatically helped the compositing onto the plates we took on set of the CRT’s feel far more authentic, and it’s something a VFX overlay could never accomplish because the glitches are actually based on or sampling the real footage, not just some flickering static stock image you cut to randomly.
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
NFS: There are many vibrant color choices used throughout the film. Can you talk about the thought process behind this palette?
Robinson: It came naturally from the reference films and media from the era and cascaded from there—the choice to do the red and purple portal and the blue moonlight really pushed us to feel like the movie wanted to be more rich and vibrant overall than what you usually see in a horror movie.
Combine that with Crocket’s kid show history, and his Freddy Kreuger-esque psycho glee, it seemed fitting to play with the color palette much as we could.
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
NFS: There is a great shot of Rhonda trying to connect with Crocket while touching the tv with Summer and Eddie behind her. How much of this shot was inspired by Poltergeist?
Robinson: This type of shot will always feel reminiscent of Poltergeist, but I wouldn’t say it was the first thing that came to mind. I felt this was our most sci-fi moment in the film and I wanted to lean into the ‘hacking the Matrix’ aspect of it and play up the cool, but grimy blue and green tones. Maybe just cause I’m a huge Matrix fan…
'Mr. Crocket'Hulu
Let us know what you thought of this interview in the comments!
Mr. Crocket is now available to stream on Hulu.
