Don't Think Twice
As seen in the January 2025 issue of ICG Magazine
By Matt Hurwitz
Photos by Macall Polay / Searchlight Pictures
Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan doesn’t say much – unless, of course, he’s singing. We see the camera flowing around the legendary troubadour, first showing the audience, warmly visible in a dark club, before turning to the actor’s face, just inches away. The camera settles, revealing a version of Chalamet not yet seen on screen, and to the actor’s credit, a chameleon-like inhabitation of the enigmatic singer/songwriter.
Co-Writer/Director James Mangold, whose career began at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival with the surprise indie hit Heavy, is no stranger to complex movie protagonists. From Girl, Interrupted to Ford v Ferrari, the filmmaker has shown a flair for film heroes whose journeys share upheaval and unpredictability. In his new feature, A Complete Unknown, for specialized distributor Searchlight, Mangold takes us from Dylan’s arrival in an artsy, politically percolating Greenwich Village through his growth over the following four years – from struggling poet meeting his heroes to overnight cultural icon.
As ICG Director of Photography Phedon Papamichael, ASC, here lensing his sixth feature for Mangold, shares, “Bob asked him, ‘What is this movie about?’ And Jim said, ‘Well, it’s about this young man who leaves his family in Minnesota, moves to New York, and creates a new family – and then he leaves them.’ And Bob goes, ‘I like it,’” he laughs. In addition to franchise tentpoles like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Papamichael and Mangold’s other musical drama was Walk the Line, about Johnny Cash. “Jim and I are like brothers,” he states. “Our thought processes are scarily in sync.”
More than just a simple music film, Papamichael says, “Jim is very good with characters and story. But besides portraying iconic figures, he’s more interested in the human aspect – what makes them tick, as artists, with all their flaws, and what makes an artist create.” And perhaps because the pair had just come off Indiana Jones, where they had to be faithful to the formula of a historic franchise, for the Dylan shoot they desired something different. “I decided early on that I didn’t want to shoot this in some shaky docu-style,” Mangold explains. “Better to make the world feel shaky, exciting, and vibrating, without turning it into a pseudo-documentary, and instead telling a real fable.” Instead of looking at Bob’s world, we’re in his world with him, “without being a POV movie, we do a lot of location shooting and just moving the actors around and letting it feel alive.”
To craft the film’s look, Mangold and Papamichael brought in several key players. Production Designer François Audouy had worked with Mangold on six previous titles, eventually creating 75 sets for this film, including whole city blocks representing Greenwich Village of the day. “Dylan arrived in New York at an extraordinary time,” Mangold relates. “Culturally, things were just bubbling in this petri dish of art, poetry and music.”
The city – and Dylan’s life in it – were well documented, allowing Audouy to assemble massive lookbooks with historical photography from Saul Leiter, William Eggleston, Ernst Haas and Daniel Kramer. Those references helped Papamichael establish a look that was saturated and contrasty, representative of the feel audiences will have known from those images of the day. He also worked to evolve that look over the four years in which the film takes place, as well as reflect seasons, working closely with Fotokem colorist David Cole.
“It’s winter when Dylan comes to New York, so we play that a bit muted, more in the brown and gray tones,” Papamichael describes. “And then, as his personality blossoms, and he becomes Bob Dylan, we heighten the visuals, in terms of saturation, color, contrast, harder lights and harder cuts, with the camera becoming more active.” Adds Cole, “We wanted this idealized time, especially when Bob first comes to New York; he is idealized about what he wants to do. We wanted to move through all the different palettes and colors, to keep it visually stimulating – draw the audience into the time and the story.”
Papamichael approached four different colorists in prep, asking them to create a sample LUT rooted in the feel of Kodachrome images found in Audouy’s lookbook, as well as in movies like The French Connection. He eventually chose the LUT Cole created, who says, “Working with our color scientist, Joseph Slomka, we generated various iterations. What we came up with emulated film from the 1970s – neg stocks and print stocks – as well as Kodachrome, pushing certain colors in certain areas. Kodachrome has strong, rich, primary colors, with some slightly off-key. So, it was a combination of all of those.”
The LUT’s were applied on set by DIT Patrick Cecilian, using Pomfort’s Livegrade Studio. As Cecilian shares: “I’m not doing big swings in the CDL. It’s all balanced. I also would adjust the white balance in camera, using bitbox. It’s a wireless camera control device that allows for adjustments without having to approach the camera, either on a crane or in a tight corner.”
Another key part of the look was provided by longtime Steadicam Operator Scott Sakamoto, whose past work with Papamichael includes Ford v Ferrari and Ides of March, as well as other musical films, including Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and A Star Is Born, shot by Matthew Libatique, ASC. “I think Scott gets the call from Bradley before Matty does!” Papamichael laughs. Notes Mangold, “Scott’s not just an exemplary operator on a technical level; he’s always thinking about what I need to tell the story. He has an innate consciousness of how it’s going to cut.”
Mangold says Sakamoto’s sensitivity to the actors was vital to the film’s approach. “Scott has an instinct about the story that always puts you in the right place when the actors are doing their thing,” he adds. “Watching Timmy so closely, seeing that he is about to turn to the audience and give this look, and moving to meet him there; the camera and actor are just finding each other, making it feel alive and unrehearsed. That is where Scott is miles ahead of anyone else.”
Papamichael shot Ford v Ferrari at faster lens speeds, often at 2.8 or 4.0. “But for this,” Mangold states, “we were looking for a deeper depth of field, and also sharpness, even in places with very low light.” Lensing at stops of T8, T11, or higher led to choosing the Sony VENICE 2 (supplied by Panavision). “The camera has two EI modes – 800 and 3200,” Cecilian explains. “We shot a lot in the 3200 base, but with some scenes, shooting with a 5.6 or 8 on a night exterior, we’d set the camera at 12,800 EI!” Panavision’s Senior Vice President, Optical Engineering and Lens Strategy, Dan Sasaki, custom-built anamorphic lenses, because, as he describes, “Phedon was keen on coming up with a lens set that would share many of the characteristics he had gotten on Nebraska and the nostalgic flares of Walk the Line. He was also interested in getting lenses to photograph close to the actors.”
While shooting Ford v Ferrari, Papamichael discovered that traditional Panavision B Series and C Series anamorphic lenses didn’t play nice with a large-format sensor, so Sasaki offered to expand them. “The expanded lenses [used on Ford v Ferrari] were actually quite flawed,” Papamichael recounts. “They had vignetting, falloffs, and a softness on the edges that I loved.” After that film, Panavision took care of those flaws, and the lenses became quite popular. But, for Papamichael, they became “optically perfect – and less interesting.”
For A Complete Unknown, he asked Sasaki to put together a hybrid set that combined the vintage qualities of the B Series and C Series, with the aberrations he preferred, while allowing for the close focus he was seeking. The set included six such custom lenses, ranging from 35 (T2.8) to 100 mm (T2.3). One important quality the lenses offered was unique flaring, inspired by the look of the spherical lens flares in Walk the Line. “They have a nice blooming effect,” Sakamoto observes. “You see the elements in line in the frame, and it’s quite beautiful.”
A Complete Unknown was shot on a 10-week schedule – late March through late May 2024 – with Papamichael taking advantage of the early months to show more wintry periods. With rare exception, the production shot in New Jersey, with carefully dressed Hoboken and Jersey City streets subbing in for Greenwich Village. Stage work was done at Palisade Stages in Kearney.
As they typically prefer, Mangold and Papamichael opted to shoot single camera. “Neither Phedon nor I are particular fans of multicamera,” Mangold explains. “We both feel happiest when we’re rolling one camera, one shot at a time, one composition at a time. Scott shot almost every frame in the movie.” (B-Camera 1st AC James Schlittenhart was full time on the main unit, with B-Camera Operator Ethan Borsuk day-playing as needed.)
With the iconic MacDougal Street long since changed from its 1960s look, the Art Department poured over the many references Audouy had assembled to recreate the historic street, mostly in what became their “MacDougal Street Hub,” built on Jersey Avenue, between Wayne and Columbus in Jersey City, with other key venues scattered around nearby downtown Hoboken. The locations were captured with a combination of careful lighting and shooting the VENICE 2 at 12,800 ISO, revealing city blocks that were indeed always alive, with plenty of detail visible.
“Phedon and I discussed how we wanted it to have a tungsten feel,” recalls Chief Lighting Technician John Alcantara. “He wanted to have dimmable control. You can’t do that with sodium, so we decided to go with a bigger traditional tungsten bulb. And the more I dimmed it, the more we would feel the warmth of the street.” Alcantara, who recently worked with Papamichael on Daddio (2023), says the approach to lighting throughout the project followed a simple mantra. “We just kept saying, ‘Natural, natural, natural.’ We didn’t want this to feel super-stylized.”
Audouy took advantage of the massive amount of photographic documentation of Dylan’s Village apartment, reproducing it on stage item by item. “We recreated every artifact we could find in those photos, as it’s like a holy place,” the designer describes. A soft drop with the New York skyline was used outside and lit with ARRI SkyPanels, while S360’s – with full color controls – were used to push soft light in through the windows. Inside the apartment, Alcantara’s team placed Astera Titan tubes, often in Lightsocks, and more S360s to provide a global ambient feel. Papamichael also utilized practicals inside the apartment as much as possible, swapping in Astera NYX bulbs to allow controllable color “without having to worry about getting too much of a warmer cast, like you would with tungsten,” Alcantara explains. Adds Mangold, “I admire the way Phedon is always looking for ways to use practicals and real lighting in the frame.”
One beautiful shot in the apartment took advantage of the VENICE sensor’s extreme sensitivity. With the camera rated at 12,800, we see Dylan grab a cheap gooseneck lamp to sit on the floor with his television, watching coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s a single shot, which starts high and wide, dives down into a close-up, then rotates around and reveals what’s on the TV, with the VENICE still making the rest of the room visible. “The way it was scripted,” recalls Papamichael, “was, ‘He’s in his apartment, taking down notes.’ But those kinds of scenes, we just throw them together quickly. ‘Try sitting on the floor here,’ and we just design a shot. That’s the beauty of discovering one shot that tells a story.”
Another dim, and beautiful, space is the interior of Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, where, one evening, Bob meets his two heroes, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. The location was the former Essex County Hospital, a mental institution in Patterson, NJ (also used in Joker), while the interiors were filmed at a closed school in Newark, the Dayton Street School. While the hallways were institutional – lit with 300 Astera Titans in place of the existing fluorescents, allowing varying adjustments of color, including the ability to add a green tint to match a traditional fluorescent tube – Guthrie’s room was another story. The space is lit with vintage tungsten sconces by each patient’s bedside, allowing Papamichael to have the VENICE to provide a sense of the space as well as warmth between the characters.
Some of the film’s most memorable (and sure to be talked-about) scenes are of Dylan playing live (filmed, for the most part), with Chalamet playing live for the camera. The scenes take place, initially, in small clubs in Greenwich Village, and then later, in larger theaters and other venues. The club work was shot at a variety of Hoboken locations, with the iconic Gerde’s Folk City and The Gaslight shot in the town’s Elks Lodge. These scenes were lit with simple tungsten sconces and PAR cans, as well as traditional maroon Mole 407s, period-correct for that era.
In the clubs, and especially the larger theaters, Mangold avoided a traditional performance setup, i.e., perspectives from the middle of the house and the side of the stage. “That’s the language of rock documentaries,” the director explains. “Phedon and I wanted the camera where you can’t put it if you were shooting a live event,” using wide lenses, close to the actor, and having Sakamoto swivel out to reveal the audience. “We’re not here to recreate a famous concert, as you’d see it from the audience. We’re here to recreate a famous concert as it felt to perform it.”
Since Chalamet was performing live, the team took full advantage of Sakamoto’s instinctive gifts. “Jim and I have a lot of respect for Scott – his experience and his instincts,” Papamichael shares. “We can’t have the operator waiting for us to say, on comm, ‘Okay, push in here, then rotate around.’ My instruction to Scott was, ‘Let’s start the song and go find it like we’re making a documentary.’”
Sakamoto’s keen ability to connect with the actor – and Chalamet’s gifts for awareness of the camera’s presence – created a memorable experience. “You learn from the actors how they’re going to move and where they’re going to move,” Sakamoto describes. “He’s playing the guitar, and my rig and monitor are right up against his guitar – and he knows it. He can’t hit me, because he doesn’t want to ruin the shot. It became this wonderful dance we did together.”
Alcantara provided Papamichael with a 12-channel DMX-iT dimmer board, connected to programmer Michael Hill’s lighting console. “I could walk around with it, back to my monitor, constantly adjusting lights – keeping just enough eye light or eliminating it altogether,” Papamichael recounts. “I’m live-mixing my lights during the shot.”
Pressgrove had to exercise similar instincts as Sakamoto, revealed in a handful of stunning focus pulls that substitute for coverage and cuts between actors. As Papamichael explains: “Jim and I like to be physically close to actors, and we like to have people create close-ups by walking towards the camera – and then you get to rack, and it becomes an over-the-shoulder.” That approach requires the 1st AC to be fully involved in the story, to know where and when beats will happen – and to be aware of the actors’ instincts, not anticipating the move, but landing on them as they occur. “Craig understands story,” Sakamoto shares, “which is why he’s such a fantastic focus puller.” “And,” Mangold adds, “it helps to have actors who know the limits of their frame and operators that trust that.”
Fotokem’s Cole handled final color timing, where the project was output to Kodak 3205 50 ASA camera stock, in a process known as Shift A.I. (Analog Intermediate). As Cole explains: “We grade the film, make it look beautiful, under the lookup table – and then strip all that off and output to film.” That film is then scanned back in, and the color science is reapplied to the footage. “We’re picking up all the little aberrations you get from film, even a little bit of projector movement, and real grain, not LiveGrain applied on top,” Papamichael describes of the process. “It breaks that sense of ‘I’m watching a movie’ for the audience,” Cole adds, bringing them into 1961 and Dylan’s first years in New York.
The hope, concludes Papamichael, “is that through this movie, Gen Z’rs will discover the spirit of that era. They’ll see how relevant Dylan’s experience was to today’s world – a young person finding themself in tumultuous times and expressing it. Hopefully, this will inspire a new generation to start listening to more than the one or two famous Dylan songs they’ve heard, and discover him as an artist.”
Local 600 Crew
Director of Photography: Phedon Papamichael, ASC
A-Camera Operator/Steadicam: Scott Sakamoto, SOC
A-Camera 1st AC: Craig Pressgrove
A-Camera 2nd AC: Eve Strickman
B-Camera Operator: Ethan Borsuk
B-Camera 1st AC: James Schlittenhart
B-Camera 2nd AC: Alec Nickel
DIT: Patrick Cecilian
Loader: Naima Noguera
Still Photographer: Macall Polay, SMPSP
Publicist: Frances Fiore
BTS Director of Photography: John J. Moers
