TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

Following the success of the award-winning “USS Callister” episode of Black Mirror season four, Stephan Pehrsson BSC was thrilled to embark on a return voyage to the videogame space world for a feature-length sequel in series seven. He explains how he expanded the visual approach for sequences on board the spaceship and on new planets and the techniques used when shooting some characters alongside their digital clones. 

For a cinematographer, Black Mirror is such a joy because it’s the closest you get in TV to making feature films. Every episode is unique, everything is a new world and the tone of each episode is so different, some are comedic and others darker. On this occasion, and for the first time in Black Mirror history, we returned to a story that had been explored in season four’s “USS Callister” episode. Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons) and CTO of Callister Inc. – a company that makes the game Infinity – creates a simulation of a space adventure using his colleagues’ DNA to turn them into virtual prisoners within his game. When a new recruit, Nanette, discovers the truth, she plots an escape plan for her and the crew. 

The great thing for me as a DP working on Black Mirror is the freedom you and the director are given. They want your voice on top of series creator and writer Charlie Brooker’s voice, so each episode feels different. When I shot the first “USS Callister” episode with Toby Haynes it was exciting even to be getting involved with Black Mirror. And then to get a Black Mirror story that riffed on traditional sci-fi like Star Trek as well as the twist that it takes place in a videogame was even more exciting.  

When that episode received positive reviews and awards, it felt like there was something there that could develop. Plus, the whole episode feels like an amazing pilot for a TV show — there’s a great set-up and at the end of the episode the characters are ready to go on new adventures. Quite soon after we finished the episode, the team was even discussing making a series out of it and other various options but as we were about to start shooting, the writers’ strike happened. When we then found a period when all the cast were available there was time to make the feature-length sequel episode “USS Callister: Into Infinity”. 

Visual consistency and new worlds 

We had set up the overall look well in the first episode and a lot of that was down to the production design. We had to rebuild the Infinity corporate office set from scratch at Shepperton Studios, because we couldn’t use the original building from the first episode. We also had to rebuild the spaceship interior there and I was keen to keep the continuity. In the first episode we started with a ‘60s version of Star Trek in the spaceship and at the end of the episode it became more of a J.J. Abrams version. We carry that more high-end, modern and glossy sci-fi world into the sequel while also being inspired by first-person games like Fortnite and another colourful and pastel-toned game Charlie [Brooker] suggested called “No Man Sky” which was more of a visual influence for the different worlds the characters explore. 

Visual development in the sequel was driven by production design and story, rather than lighting. Working with gaffer Chris Stones, I tried to maintain continuity but just do it slightly better than we could last time when LEDs were still fairly new technology and SkyPanels were still a novelty. Now technology has moved on and we can do so much more with pixel tape and the expanded selection of LED fixtures like Astera Titan Tubes, Creamsource Vortexes and LiteGear LiteMats. 

One significant change in the sequel episode was the evolution of the big viewport at the front of the spaceship which allows the characters to look out into space. In the first episode, there was a big green screen there and space was added in post. This time it was more cost effective and looked better if space was displayed on a video screen. The brilliant team at Video screen services (VSS) led by Jonny Hunt set up a screen with a slight curve to it which they projected star field animations onto. 

We upgraded the spaceship set a little and filled it with practical lights thanks to a fantastic practicals team led by HOD practical electrician, Dominic Aronin. They were all RGBW so we could choose any colour we wanted which was worked out with desk op Callum Crisell, deciding which looks we needed to achieve through lighting presets to making the set brighter, darker or more colourful. We hung Toning Digital RGB pixel LED strip — which we also used on the first episode — behind the teleportation station which we ran animations on to create swirling or dripping effects. 

Some new environments are introduced in the second episode such as a pink jungle planet and a snow planet. When we shot the episode in series four we filmed in a quarry in Lanzarote which was filled with red sand and looked brilliant and very alien in a ‘60s sci-fi kind of way. But this time we were not able to travel outside of the UK so when exploring where to shoot our snow planet a member of the team suggested a quarry in Wales. The amazing ex copper mine offered a weird multitude of colours; turquoises, reds and greens. So that became our sand planet where we discovered Walton in his caveman outfit. The perfect location for the jungle planet was discovered at Black Park in Slough where there are incredible big Redwood trees like the ones in Return of the Jedi. 

Innovation station 

The first episode was shot with the RED Dragon camera, supplied by ARRI, and most of it was on Zeiss Master Anamorphic lenses as the VFX team advised we used that specific anamorphic lens. We wanted to shoot anamorphically because it was a wide screen production and it felt like that was the right look and what they would shoot Star Trek on, but the VFX team said they couldn’t track any vintage or different lenses apart from the Master Anamorphics. 

As we wanted one scene at the end of that episode to look like J.J. Abrams Star Trek, it needed to have beautiful flare in there. ARRI told us they had amazing Toyo lenses; they’re vintage lenses made in Japan and not many exist. Even though they’re quite cumbersome to use, the look is amazing and had exactly the beautiful anamorphic flair we wanted. But when we came to the new series, we realised using those lenses for the whole shoot may not be practical, but would work well for a few shots. So once again we went back to what they would have shot J.J. Abrams Star Trek on which was Panavision B Series and C Series. Panavision makes a modern version of the C Series called the T Series which worked perfectly for the sequel episode. It has excellent close focus and beautiful anamorphic flare, all the things you want from a sci-fi lens. This time we shot on ARRI Alexa 35. We then graded some sequences a little differently such as when Nanette visits Robert Daly in his garage which we softened so it was a little more blurry and we did the same for sequences in the past using a   Tiffen Black Satin 1 filter. 

Like other Black Mirror episodes and TV shows I’ve worked on with camera operator Ed Clark ACO Assoc. BSC, he shot A camera and Steadicam while I was on B camera. I enjoy the B camera role because I’m free to play around and have fun experimenting. Sometimes I’ll sit on a profile shot or look around to find an interesting shot I feel could be a good way to start a scene. 

In the grade with Sam Chynoweth we had the reference of the first episode because where we end in that is where we set off on the second episode. There were a few negotiations in terms of the look as there was a more drab look for the office in the first episode which was quite green, grey and desaturated, but Charlie and Toby wanted it to be more colourful this time around. So we tried to give it a bit more colour range and punch in the grade. But for the spaceship, we stuck to pretty much what we did last time in the grade, keeping it colourful. The new planets we visited such as the jungle planet needed more of a teal and orange look, so we were a lot more extreme in our first pass in the grade which we then took back just a notch. 

Seeing double 

It’s always a challenge when you have to shoot doubles of characters which we needed to achieve for scenes where there are two versions of Nanette and Walton. One of the looks we created for the first episode was whenever Nanette was in a scene or it was real life in the office, we shot it handheld and sharp. And whenever we’re in the game world, it was shot in a more fluid and smooth way. But when Nanette comes into the spaceship game world from the real world, we felt it should still feel handheld.  

But we now had the situation in the sequel where she comes into the spaceship and there are two versions of her but you can’t shoot doubles handheld because you can’t lock off a handheld shot. How do you track it? So we had to find a tool that could help us with that. We came across the TechnoDolly which is a bit older now, but is a great bit of kit. The little programmable dolly allows you to go from A to B and then do the same move again and again, but it also has a function where if you leave the camera head completely loose, you can operate it like you would operate handheld, although someone has to move the arm for you.  

So that was how we designed the shot; walking around with Nanette in a wide shot and then moving her into a position and panning over her shoulder. When we had a take we were happy with we saved it, and then came back in the afternoon and we could play the take back and the stand in actor would stand in the other position, and you get the same handheld shot. The great thing about that was we just put the track and dolly down one side of the set where you’re never going to see it from that position. And because it’s a telescopic arm, we could get four different set-ups. We then just had to shoot the plates with the other actors in the other positions for those different takes and then we got our wider shots that still had a handheld feel to them. 

This production and those sequences in particular emphasised the importance of giving yourself a test day when shooting anything complicated such as doubles. The main problem we had was actually sound-related because you only want to play some of the dialogue. You want to play the dialogue of the other character, but not the dialogue of the stand in for the actor, so that has to be erased. You need an editor to quickly edit the sound together, synch it and play it back on set. You also need to make sure everything else synchs up in shot visually. We had a lot of animated pixel tape which played in quite a random motion and the video screens playing in the background which all had to be synched for the shots to be successful.