“Weaving a texture of human behavior”: DP Manuel Billeter on Cat Person

Cat PersonKristen Roupenian’s viral story that first appeared in The New Yorker, could reignite the flames of discourse with director Susanna Vogel’s film adaptation. The premise remains the same: student Margot (Emilia Jones) falls in love with 33-year-old citizen Robert (Nicholas Brown). Yet when Margot’s attraction to him fades, she becomes the target of Robert’s misogynistic rage fueled by rejection.

Narrated by cameraman Manuel Billeter Film director about his experience working with Vogel and filming the anticipated short story adaptation.

See all the answers to our annual Sundance Filmmaker Interviews here.

director: How and why did you end up cinematographer on your film? What were the factors and qualities that led to your being hired for this job?

Tickets: You never know, but I guess someone contacted my agent who forwarded the script to me. I was quite intrigued by it—and curious to learn more about it—as it wasn’t an obvious or easy story, more essayistic and observational than action-oriented. I really connected with the tone and structure of the script and the psychological trajectory of the main character. If you’re not passionate about the material, you can’t really make a case for wanting to work on the project. So, after the first zoom meeting with the director Susanna Vogel and the producers, the subsequent presentation of a book for review and a follow-up meeting, we found some good prerequisites to start a creative collaboration together. There were probably other factors, such as positive feedback from the first assistant director and line producer who knew me well.

director: What were your artistic goals for this film and how did you realize them? How did you want your cinematography to enhance the film’s storytelling and treatment of its characters?

Tickets: The script was very ambitious in scope and in terms of its intimate portrait of Margot – there are many different aspects of her journey, internal and external, and the film touches on many different genres, from psychological thriller to horror to rom com and even action drama – and I wanted to I found a way to visually represent the stages and encounters she goes through with lighting and composition, adjusting it so that it becomes an expression of her psychological state. There are many gray and unresolved areas in the film, its structure weaves a texture of human behavior and interaction rather than following a classic linear narrative, and I took the initiative in this approach – constantly changing, bold or subtle, depending on the scene, but with an aspiration to being true to the moment and finding the right emotional response in cinematography.

director: Were there any specific influences on your cinematography, whether it was other films, visual art, photography or anything else?

Tickets: Suzanne started the process by sending me a playlist of songs she envisioned for the film, loosely describing the various voices in the script, and invited me to contribute. It was a very unusual but interesting way to start the creative journey, as I have always felt that film has a lot to do with music. It also helped us dance to the same music, collectively if you will. From there we also started watching sessions of different films that touch on the different genres and themes present in the film – to name a few: Let the right one in, Annie Hall, Black swan, Social network, A parasite, A ghost story — a very eclectic collection of films reflecting the different aspects of the script, which don’t necessarily provide a blueprint, but keep the discussions flowing, which is crucial in the process. When creating my lookbook, which I always find quite difficult because it’s a gut-first approach that can potentially be very inappropriate, I included visuals from Wong Kar-Wai’s films, Let the right one insome La La Land. The Neon Demon was also influential in its pure visual celebration, Punch Drunk Love, Blue velvet and many other lesser known films, just to present some specific ideas for related visual conceptualization and describe my sensibilities or preferences for the project. Fortunately, Suzanne responded very well to him.

director: What were the biggest challenges posed by the production for these purposes?

Tickets: Having a limited budget, the schedule was quite tight for a script that had about 130 scenes in it. Even somewhere very brief, more like bubbles of thought, daydreams or imagination, they will still need the necessary care and preparation, deployment of time and resources in all departments. Many scenes were written for nights or driving in cars, and it takes a special effort to make that happen, and it’s usually not a quick process. Moving from one scene or location to the next often required me to light two very different sets almost simultaneously, and even though our team was limited in numbers, they absolutely nailed it by giving their best, strategically planning every step of the day.

director: What camera did you shoot with? Why did you choose the camera you did? What lenses did you use?

Tickets: I used the ARRI ALEXA Mini because it’s still a great and versatile camera that I’ve trusted for many years, and its small format helped keep operations nimble. We shot ArriRaw Open Gate using Zeiss Master Anamorphic lenses as I wanted the film to have a scope that transcended the intimate and personal and opened up to a more epic cinematic scale and public discourse, just as the short story had achieved when it was first published in The New Yorker.

director: Describe your approach to lighting.

Tickets: I tend to light in a naturalistic, authentic, almost imperceptible way, strongly motivated by windows or other light sources and situations that are present in the frame. Lighting from the frame, so to speak, using off-screen sources so that you don’t feel an outside hand manipulating the frame – unless a more vivid and emphatic stylized approach is needed to express a particular emotion or stress a particular moment, such as for example, in the dream sequence, or the barrage of angry texts that Margot receives from Robert, as they are the climax and sudden violent end of the original short story. I tried to keep it simple by incorporating existing practical light sources as they were useful integrated parts of some places, but I always tried to be as emotional and truthful as needed and give it form and emotion.

director: What was the hardest scene to pull off and why? And how did you do it?

Tickets: There were a few difficult scenes, but perhaps the most frightening was the opening scene of the script, featuring Margot simply walking and talking across the vast space of her college at night. The first scene is always challenging because you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and there were so many nuances to adjust—and it was the last scene we shot that day, after a full day of work during the day. Since this was an independent film, we had to be resourceful, so to create the foundation I decided to rely mostly on existing practical sources that I had previously studied and observed at night on my own, and came up with a plan for which sources we should or would we could change with gels where to put the few lights I had available, with only very limited access to power, and which practical sources I should have excluded. As night began to fall, it turned out to be much more difficult to turn off the lights on the chosen campus than previously promised, so we had to improvise a lot and also be very patient – all the while the clock was ticking and we still had so much work to do, . Thanks to the great team we were able to do it, but it turned out to be a bit stressful for everyone involved.

director: Finally, describe the ending of the film. How much of your look was “baked in” versus realized in DI?

Tickets: Except for the specific look that the types of glass in the lenses essentially create, not much is “baked in” these days in terms of image manipulation after the basic photography is complete. I had two main LUTs built that I would use while shooting, one for day and one for night, which combined with the lighting choices I made on set – I was lucky enough to have a very talented operator on a dimmer board every day to help me – adjust the levels and colors of the lights as I shot them – brought me much closer to the end result I was aiming for.

TECHNICAL BOX

Movie Title: Cat Person

Camera: Ari Alexa Mini

lenses: Zeiss Master Anamorphic prime lenses

Ratio: 2.35:1

Lighting: Mostly LED sources

Processing: ACHIEVE 3.4K Open Gate

Color Gradation: DaVinci Resolve, DCI-P3