Set against the backdrop of New York in the late 1950s, the gritty, noir-esque, and malevolent drama, Motherless Brooklyn, follows Lionel Essrog, a lonely private detective afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome, as he gamely ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna, at the hands of unidentified mobsters.

Lionel is certain that Frank's killing was down to him being on the brink of exposing corruption at New York's City Hall and a conspiracy to ethnically-cleanse minorities from areas ripe for financially-rewarding redevelopment. Despite his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, which isolate him from most of the world, Lionel is bestowed with a superb intellect. His investigations into the mystery propel him into contact with a discontented local who knows inside secrets, a shrewd and well-connected neighbourhood agitator and, ultimately, to a ruthless politician with immense governmental power and the dark forces plotting the future landscape of New York City.

The Warner Brothers' film was written, produced and directed by Edward Norton, based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Jonathan Lethem, and is a project he had been developing for the screen pretty much since the book's original publication. It also represents Norton's second film as both director and star, following the well-received Keeping The Faith (2000, DP Anastas N. Michos).

Along with helming the action, Norton also stars in Motherless Brooklyn as Lionel, along with a host of A-list Hollywood stars including Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Cherry Jones, Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe. The film features a stirring soundtrack, including the song, "Daily Battles", written by Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke.

Pope's crew included Craig Haagensen as A-camera operator, with Eric and Tyler Swanek working as first and second ACs respectively. Pope operated B-camera with the support of Bobby and Justin Mancuso as his first and second ACs. His gaffer was William Newell, with David Stern heading the grip team, and Patrick Cecilian performing on-set grading and data wrangling services as DIT.

"People told me that I had one of the very best teams in New York, and so it proved," Pope enthuses. "They were all incredibly professional, resourceful and helped to make my experience very positive. Craig, in particular, had the most amazing knack of being able to operate a fluid head with one hand, whilst holding the detached Alexa camera viewfinder to his eye in the other. I had never seen this before, and it was seriously impressive watching him work like this in tight spaces, especially in cars, creating even the most difficult of panning shots."

He also adds, "Although we had to be very careful and specific as to where we pointed the camera, there was still a lot clean-up work needed in post to take away any modernity, and replace it with something suitable from the era. Our VFX supervisor, Mark Russell, did an amazing job in this respect, as well as recreating Penn Station and seamlessly composting the backplates, for such things as our car work, which were shot at a much later date during the editorial part of the process.

"And, I have to thank our tremendously talented production designer, Beth Mickle, too. What she gave me to photograph, in terms of the build, dressing and décor on our many different sets and locations, was wonderful."