“It was edgier than most comedies,” says Alsobrook, “and they liked that approach. We used that as a jumping off point. However, there is a certain expectation from the audience, and often from the studio, as to how a ‘comedy’ is supposed to look. You can’t go too dark or the audience won’t be able to connect [to the comedic elements]. In a drama, with darkness in the characters and situations, you can go darker and edgier, more silhouette and half-light, and the audience will accept it. I always say that the script and story informs the style, and if you’re telling the story in the best way possible, then the style will make itself known. We settled on an approach I like to call ‘enhanced naturalism’”.

Generally in comedies female characters are shot with an emphasis on attractiveness. But in Tammy, where Susan Sarandon co-stars as Tammy’s grandmother – quite a few years older than Sarandon in real life – Alsobrook and his gaffer of over 30 years, Curtiss Bradford, had to take it down a notch. “We needed her natural glamour toned down,” Alsobrook explains, “making her look much older and to devise lighting to help emphasise her fictional age.”

Tammy’s lighting was also very specific to the fairly radical character arc she endures. She begins the story as a broken woman, beaten down on the worst day of her life. Throughout the course of the movie she gradually transforms, coming out the other side looking beautiful and glamorous. To help that character arc and the audience experience of it, the lighting and lens approach factored in a great deal.

“Tammy goes through a substantial change from a lost and lonely woman, with near-zero self-esteem, to a bright and energetic woman ready to take on the world,” offers Bradford, who was able to give additional insight. “To further that intent, the early scenes have a hard and edgy look where the sunlight streaming through windows doesn't bathe Tammy in a golden glow, but rather it gave us the opportunity to put her in angular shafts that show the flaws in the character’s predicament.

“In the drive-through burger joint, where we would typically take an actress out of the unattractive florescent overhead lights, we let Tammy wallow in their green cast. For night exteriors, when a diffused 18K in a condor as a back light and a 12x12 bounce light that makes a beautiful key would be pleasing, we chose to go with pools of light and generalised fill to make it a moodier, grittier atmosphere. As Tammy progresses though the story we added a complimentary fill light here, a touch more glamorous back light there, until it was time to give her the full beauty treatment: luscious key light all around the lens with a back light in just the right place to reveal her true beauty.”