After the Hunt: Cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed Returns to Feature Filmmaking

Celebrated for his visually expressive collaborations with directors Spike Lee, Hype Williams and Arthur Jafa, cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed took a step back from narrative features in 1998, shifting his focus to music videos, commercials and documentaries to prioritize his family. Luca Guadagnino’s drama After the Hunt marks his return to dramatic features, an endeavor he calls “a marathon” as opposed to the “sprint” of a short-form shoot and “middle-distance run” of a documentary production. (Back in runner’s shape, Sayeed has since reteamed with Guadagnino on another feature, Artificial, shot in San Francisco last summer.)

Set at Yale University, After the Hunt tracks two philosophy professors, Alma (Julia Roberts) and Hank (Andrew Garfield), whose respective bids for tenure are thrown into chaos when Hank is accused of sexual assault by Alma’s star student and mentee, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri). Sayeed, a self-described “student of Bresson” who is “from the tribe of Gordon Willis [ASC],” eschewed an overly cerebral approach to the project, working instead to “elicit emotion and feeling in the audience” through his creative choices. AC recently caught up with the cinematographer to discuss his work on the film.

American Cinematographer: You got your start working with Spike Lee. How did making a feature with Luca Guadagnino compare?

Malik Hassan Sayeed: Spike is a little bit more structured in terms of how he approaches the set, whereas Luca is prepared but present in the moment. Luca doesn't storyboard or shot-list; he reacts viscerally to what he engages with in the rehearsal and how he feels about it at that moment in time. And that could change tomorrow for the same scene. That honesty comes through onscreen. Our primary references for this film were cinematographers Sven Nykvist [ASC] and Gordon Willis. There's a timelessness to Nykvist’s collaborations with Ingmar Bergman and Willis’ with Alan Pakula. That's what we were going for. However, we also wanted the story itself to feel as if it might've taken place in the ’80s. Therefore, we only used lighting technology that existed up to 1988 — no LEDs. It was HMIs, incandescent lights, fluorescents and Xenons. We tried to bring arcs to London from L.A., but they wouldn't let us into London with them!

This movie isn’t afraid to exist in the shadows, and the color palette of the actor’s faces in those shadows seems to lean more green.

In the film curve, which shows the exposure range of film, you have middle gray, which is where our cameras probably average. At the shoulder of the curve, it peaks to white. The middle is horizontal, and then it goes down into the toe, which is about 5 stops of light from middle gray to completely black. The toe is where drama exists; in the shadows is where the story we’re telling exists and where we like to hide. Characters harbor a lot of secrets in this story. I'm interested in talking about things that aren't spoken about, and looking at things that need to be looked at for us as humans to progress and move forward. So, with a story like this, that toe is the space we're going to reside in.

In terms of color, I tend to skew away from magenta, and the opposite of magenta is green. The world looks out of balance if it's skewing toward magenta, and Luca wanted everything to feel as authentic and real as possible. We’re not manufacturing hidden truths; they're buried in sreality. Wherever we are, we understand the source of the light. It's not hyper-realistic or fantastical. Harris Savides [ASC] once said he lights the room — that’s atmosphere. We're building a world.

What considerations went into your choice of optics?

We used one focal length for the whole movie: 35mm. This was a decision Luca and I both felt created a kind of simplicity, and the singular point of view that we were aiming for. We tested several different lenses with many different film stocks and a few different ways to process the film. It's almost like a recipe: this film stock with this lens, processed this way under these lighting conditions. We landed on Canon K35 lenses, which were created as Japan's response to Germany's Zeiss Super Speeds. When it comes to any older lenses, you have to be precise, because they've aged in different ways. There are two sets of K35s I know very well out of Camtec, which is my go-to rental house. I've been working with the Camtec team for close to 30 years, and I knew those two 35mm lenses matched. Since you can’t just rent a single lens, we had to rent two full sets of K35s. In some scenes, we had a third camera, so we added a 35mm [Camtec] Falcon, which is made out of the same glass as the K35s and was rehoused by Camtec.

When shooting with a single focal length and without a shot list, there's only so many ways to approach it.

I love working that way. By limiting the possibilities and creating parameters, you can now surge creatively, get into a flow state, because you're not guessing. Thelonious Monk is famous for recording his sessions in a single take. If the musicians didn't get it right, you just didn't get it right — you got to live with it. Luca is like that. He does single takes, maybe two max. It creates a certain level of urgency and spontaneity. It's like theater in a way. This is our proscenium; we know how we have to move the camera to capture the performances. We got used to that rhythm. It was an incredibly intuitive exercise to have those restraints.

How did you go about testing film stocks?

Sayeed: Julia wanted us to shoot our camera test and actor rehearsals in San Francisco. The other tests were done in London. These were extensive hair-and-makeup, plus wardrobe tests, along with shooting different colors for design swatches for backgrounds and materials. We processed those tests at FotoKem. At one point, Luca and I were considering shooting the film in black-and-white, so, we tested and shot that way, but we eventually we decided on color. FotoKem was dialed in on processing black-and-white because of Oppenheimer. We also shot film tests in London at the recently opened Kodak Film Lab. It was helpful for the lab in London to get the black-and-white right, just on a competitive level with FotoKem. They didn’t get it right on the first run, but they figured it out. Antonio [Rasura], who runs the London lab, was phenomenal. We eventually landed on [Kodak Vision3 200T] 5213 primarily and [Vision3 500T] 5219. The negative was processed at Kodak in London; the DI was performed at Harbor Picture Company by Joe Gawler and was facilitated by James Corless, who provided his immeasurable support.

Is there a particular shot or setup you're especially proud of?

Sayeed: Most of this film was shot on stages in London at Shepperton Studios — everything from the Quad to the Beinecke [Rare Book and Manuscript] Library to the Tandoor restaurant. We did not shoot any scenes with actors at Yale. Even for the Three Sheets bar, the exterior was shot on a set, and the interior was onstage. We built the liquor store. We built the pharmacy. We built Alma and Frederik’s [Michael Stuhlbarg] apartment. We built the wharf apartment. The exterior of the wharf was shot on the River Thames in London, but heavily greenscreened with background plates shot on location in New Haven. A producer on Artificial studied at Yale, and he thought we shot at Yale! That speaks to the level of craft that went into these sets from production designer Stefano Baisi and the crew. I'm very proud of all of that. Greenscreen work is daunting, and it’s the most green- and bluescreen I've ever done.

The other thing I’m proud of was the atmosphere and world building, especially with Alma and Frederik’s apartment. There's a lot of backstory built into that apartment, and Luca spearheaded the dressing. Everything had to be real and connected to the characters. The backstory is that Frederik inherited the apartment from his grandparents, who came from Eastern Europe after being persecuted. And then Alma came into that space, and her things added to that space. Walter Murch talks about harmony not just in sound, but in all the elements coming together to make a singular sound. The singular sound made every time you're in the apartment with Frederik or Alma is one of safety and calm. The production design, dressing, wardrobe, music, lighting and photography all come together to create a singular vibe, a mood. The apartment is a womb, a space of comfort for Alma.

The apartment space was really central to how we wanted to convey the emotional isolation of the characters — particularly Alma's. When it came to camera movement in that space, we kept things very deliberate and restrained. There were moments in which we keep the camera static, letting the emotional tension in the scene unfold without any distraction. Other times, the camera moves slowly and intentionally, but we avoid any unnecessary movement. We didn’t want the camera to compete with the emotion of the moment; it had to serve the story, not overshadow it.

Lighting the apartment set presented its own challenges. We used hard, directional lighting to make the space feel cold and oppressive, almost like a character in itself. We really wanted to avoid making the space feel warm or inviting, because that would’ve been in contrast to the characters' internal struggles. The lighting had to emphasize the characters' emotional distance — not just physically, but psychologically, as well. We had to be precise with our framing, especially in a tight space like that. But rather than seeing those constraints as a hinderance, we leaned into them. It required a lot of coordination between the camera and lighting team, but it all came down to making sure that every element within the frame reflected the emotional state we were trying to capture.

Unit stills by Yannis Drakoulidis. Images courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.