Because all of the action was filmed on stage, “we had to have many layers of lighting built into everything, from the interiors and exteriors of the sets to close-ups of the actors — there were many layers and many fixtures,” notes Lubezki. Dimmer-board operator Scott Barnes helped keep the entire package under control with his Whole Hog III board, and he also generated hundreds of lighting diagrams in Corel Draw to document each setup, which allowed for later reference by not only the main crew, but also visual-effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier and his team at Industrial Light & Magic.

“I’m a big believer in dimmers,” Lubezki says. “Because of the various looks we need for each set — for instance, our harbor dock set has scenes that are day, dusk and night — we needed to build in many layers of lighting that could be quickly and easily adjusted. The dimmer board also allowed us to create certain preset looks and go from full daylight to dusk in one second, or to easily change the color temperature of the light without having to go up in the ceiling with gels. And if we had to pan with an actor walking from one side of a street to the other, we could even move the light within the shot, keeping him in a soft backlight. Scott could program the board to make the change so smoothly that you’ll never notice it onscreen.

“It was extremely complicated to shoot in Count Olaf’s mansion. We couldn’t bring in cranes because the stage floors couldn’t take their weight, so the lights had to be on chain motors. It was difficult, though, because the sets had been built right up to the fire lanes. It was perhaps our most difficult set, in part because there were no square rooms; all of the rooms have many corners, and the windows have different shapes, some very small compared to the size of the rooms. They just weren’t big enough to bring soft light through, so we devised a series of wild walls. Even so, the complexity of the sets meant that the walls came in weird sizes, so it wasn’t like just pulling a wall in square room. The set was also finished both inside and out, so the same set was used for exteriors, and small, awning-like coverings over the windows made them tough to access.”

While shooting continued at Paramount, the previously described exterior sets — the harbor, seaside cavern and cornfield, among others — were being built at Downey, which offered plenty of covered space but fewer filmmaker-friendly amenities. “Part of Van Helsing had been shot there, but there weren’t even catwalks in place,” says Buckley, who assigned rigging gaffer Shane Buttle and rigging electrician Christopher Kiso and their team to prep the Downey sets. “We therefore needed to install a huge overhead truss system for our lighting, but there was a major structural problem because these were really just aircraft-assembly buildings. They had [regular] roofing and it wasn’t designed to hold that kind of weight — we couldn’t have more than 12 pounds per square inch. A lot of structural reinforcing had to be done before we could even start lighting.”

Lubezki’s approach is “all about big, soft sources, whether that means generating ambient light from the ceiling or bringing in two 20Ks and putting them through Half Straw and then 12-by-12 frames of half or full gridcloth,” notes the gaffer. “There are all kinds of combinations, but the intention and effect are the same. Chivo uses such extremely soft sources that you often can’t tell where the light is coming from. He’s also careful to make sure that the set walls are at a certain level so that you aren’t constantly cutting and trying to shape the light — that’s already worked out in the art direction. He also keeps sources as close to subjects as possible: the closer you are to the person and the softer the source, the softer the shadow. For Chivo, that last level of softness is going to be right next to the lens — usually a 12-by-12 muslin frame on interiors — about 90 degrees from the face and then wrapping around to the high cheekbone on the other side of the face. On Snicket, we used a bit more fill because of the ACE, but Chivo would normally not use any.”

The young actors in the cast created several conundrums for Lubezki. “Usually, you set the lighting for a master and then move in to do the close-ups, but we often had to do the close-ups first and then the masters, which is difficult,” he says. “Twin 1-year-old girls play the part of Sunny, and there were very tight rules about how much time they could be on the set. If Sunny was integral to the sequence, we would shoot the twins first if possible — sometimes with two cameras, though we shot most of the film with one — and then replace them or shoot around them. Getting those close-ups first was important, and sometimes the twins were simply not in the mood. We spent hours and hours working with them, but we eventually had to start dropping shots not only of the kids, but also of other things, and in order to stay on schedule, I had to call in other cinematographers.”

Two of these were Amy Vincent, ASC and Carolyn Chen, who were responsible for much more than the kind of insert material commonly handled by a second-unit crew. “They had to closely match the look we had established, so I tried to stay very organized with lighting plans,” says Lubezki. “I also took digital pictures of each setup and sometimes included specific details of the lighting and the set. But once you get people at Amy and Carolyn’s level for a show, you also want them to bring their creativity to the movie, which often results in new ideas and approaches and getting work that’s better and more interesting than what I could have done alone. They often came up with great ideas for interesting framing; in many cases, it was much better that what I had thought of.”