Jordan Peele Explains the Crazy New Technology Used to Capture the Night Sky in NOPE
Jordan Peele released his third film this summer with the thriller Nope, and it was a layered movie with lots of intriguing elements and mixed reviews. It follows a brother and sister who are trying to run the family business of horses in Hollywood movies in the wake of their father’s death, when suddenly strange things begin to happen at their ranch. It’s an alien story with a creepy side story, and some really great characters.
One of the best parts of the film, though, was the visuals, and as it turns out, there was some new tech utilized to give us the vast night sky we were able to enjoy in the movie. In a recent interview with Peele and the film’s cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema at the Toronto International Film Festival Q&A on Monday, Peele explained:
“I haven’t wanted to ruin the illusion, but I’ll ruin it for you today. The night shots, for the most part, were shot in the day, which is due to a technological and strategic thing that [Hoytema] brought to the table.”
Peele and Hoytema spoke at a special screening of Nope at the Cinesphere IMAX Theatre, in a conversation moderated by TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey. During the Q&A, the duo — while avoiding spoilers for attendees who hadn’t yet seen the film — discussed how they brought the night scenes to life.
According to Hoytema, conversations around how to photograph the night scenes began when the two began scouting locations in Agua Dulce. While visiting the desert, Hoytema was overwhelmed by both the darkness of the night and the beauty of the sky and the stars, and began to believe that there was no possible way to correctly capture it.
“There’s no way to photograph this, this feeling of vastness, and grandeur of the sky, which was such a big part of our story. We kind of immediately started thinking ‘How can can we portray exactly that feeling that we have when we were out there in the field?’ I started very much exploring the technology, how can we do this? How can we photograph in the way eyes see it or the way that we experience it?”
Ultimately, the two came up with a solution where they combined two cameras — one that shot infrared light with a narrow bandwidth, and one that captured 70mm film. The two then would overlay the images, with the infrared capturing how people’s eyes respond to darkness and light at nighttime. They then used the film camera to capture all the color and grain information they wanted for the shot, resulting in the memorable nighttime cinematography seen in the film.
“It’s really cool shit,” Peele said. “This thing really pushes film forward, and was difficult and it’s something that I’m excited to work with in the future and continue to push.”
Nope is still in some theaters, and is available to rent On Demand.
via: Variety