Cinematographer Paula Huidobro talks with Filmmaker U about the challenges of shooting the recent film "CODA." For this film, Paula had to work with deaf actors, shoot tons of scenes on a boat and many other unique scenarios!
Paula Huidobro was born in Mexico City. She attended the London International Film School and later on specialized in cinematography at The American Film Institute.
Her feature film debut as a cinematographer was “Gardens of the Night” directed by Damian Harris in 2008, which received a Golden Bear Nomination at the Berlin Film Festival.
She went on to shoot Paul Bettany’s directorial debut "Shelter" with Jennifer Connelly and Anthony Mackie (TIFF Official Selection), "Tallulah" for Netflix (Jury Grand Prize nominee Sundance Film Festival), and most recently Oh Lucy (Cannes Film Festival Golden Camera Nominee 2017, Critics Week Grand Prize Nominee 2017 and Independent Spirit Awards Nominee 2018). Her latest film is Apple TV’s "CODA."
Gordon Burkell (GB) - This week, I'm joined by Paula Huidobro, whose work includes "CODA," "Barry," and "Fargo," among many other great films and shows. Welcome to the show. Paula.
Paula Huidobro (PH) - Thank you very much.
GB - I have to ask you about "Barry," because I love that show. Particularly Season Two, Episode Five. With the little girl who's doing all the stunts and everything. When you got the script, how did you envision shooting that versus how it came out? Because it looks it's it's quite a chaotic and exciting episode, I guess you could say.
PH - I think it was, it was pretty close to the way Bill Hader and I talked about the way we were gonna shoot it. I mean, for him, he didn't want to sort of glorify violence, even though it's all about the violence on the show. So he wanted to do like really long takes composed with them taking time to pan across the room or to track and let the shot play out instead of like covering it in a million pieces. So we watched "The Apartment" and also "Roma" for inspiration. Bill and I thought a lot about that episode, and the little girl was really amazing as well. So she did a bunch of the stunts.
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