Shōgun

Cinematographers Christopher Ross, Sam McCurdy, Marc Laliberté and Aril Wretblad use a visual language to tell the story of Shōgun.&nbsp;“We all wanted the audience to feel a visceral first-person perspective of ‘Blackthorne’s’ plight in juxtaposition with the grandeur of the lives of ‘Toranaga’ and the other warlords in their castles,” explains Ross, Director of Photography for episodes one and two. In creating a vision for the series, Ross says the key was to immerse the audience in the complex web of intrigue and wrap it in the epic scale of the feudal Japan setting. “The vision of the show sits in the balance between these requirements.”With a production this big, it was important to maintain perspective on the story while also delivering a truly cinematic experience. In the first episode, there is a dramatic storm sequence during which one of the characters is swept overboard. The set was built on a gimbal that could tilt a section of the ship approximately 20 degrees. Ross describes what it was like to shoot the challenging scene: “The boat was tipping left and right, the actors were performing a big two-page scene, the stunt team was using wire rigs to pull stunt performers across the decks, the special effects team was pouring hundreds of gallons of water on all of us from tip tanks, the grips team was using a huge rig to block the sun and Director Jonathan van Tulleken and I had choreographed a series of long takes. It was stressful but definitely cinematic.”

“The biggest note from Justin Marks (Co-Creator/ Showrunner/Executive Producer/Writer) was authenticity,” says Laliberté, Director of Photography for episodes six and eight. “He wanted nothing affected and all cinematography in service of the story, not vice versa.”The series does not look like a “Hollywood” version of feudal Japan – it was important to be as natural and real as possible. “Light and depth are always crucial elements when setting up any scene,” explains Wretblad, Director of Photography for episode three. “For Shōgun, we aimed to use natural light sources and enhance as needed.” From a cinematographer’s perspective, that meant “no split toning with warm scenes, no super slow motion to make things more epic, no unmotivated backlight, no glossy hyper blue for moonlight. No affected sources. Period,” says Laliberté.There was no electricity in this era. Winters were dark and damp, summers had long days of sunlight. The rooms relied on natural light from windows and open doors, as well as light from toumyouzara, or a small oil plate with a rope-like wick, the dominant period-appropriate indoor lighting. And so that’s what the cinematographers worked with. “There is a stark reality to the series,” says Ross. “The rain, wind, sea spray and mud were all vital obstacles in the lives of the characters and therefore should feed elementally into the imagery.”“The need to feel the changing seasons was important to me to tell the story of time and changing times,” says McCurdy, Director of Photography for five of the 10 episodes. Shōgun was shot over approximately nine months and crossed all seasons. “Getting the most out of short winter days or long summer evenings was something I wanted to take advantage of in the storytelling,” he continues. Production sometimes shot at odd hours of day to accommodate the lighting and seasonal tones. And sometimes, they had to recreate that look indoors.

In episode nine, there is a huge scene in the Ceremonial Meeting Hall of Osaka Castle, which was written to take place at sunset, moving into twilight. However, the scene was shot entirely in the studio. “Recreating a believable sunset inside the Hall and in the surrounding gardens with little or no visual effects was my task,” says McCurdy. The scene begins with “Mariko” being brought into the Hall as the sun is setting and ends in twilight with soft shades of moonlight filling the grand space. “Assisted by my amazing lighting team and grip crew, we created an incredible lighting and rigging system, and I got the opportunity to use it all during this scene. With low light pouring into the sets, fire and oil lamps and a slow setting sun, it felt like magic. I hope it conveys the emotion of what is about to happen.”There are times when nature steps in and creates exactly what the story needs. In the second scene of episode seven, there is a foreboding sense that something is coming. “We chose to shoot early in the morning with the hope of getting a rising mist,” explains McCurdy. “We had the special effects team on hand [with fabricated atmospheric fog] to add where we needed. But on this morning, we got the most amazing mist on the hilltop. It gave us the real and honest look that was always so important to everything we were shooting.”

Similarly, in the opening sequences of episode three is a scene that takes place at sunrise between “Toranaga” and “Yabushige” in the pigeon house. “For the exterior, we were waiting for the right light, and just as we were to shoot, the skies opened up and gave us beautifully layered clouds,” describes Wretblad. “For the interior, we had a light on a camera crane to further the growing morning. It moved up over the duration of the scene to simulate the sunrise.”The Japanese architecture and design of the rooms also had an enormous effect on lighting. “The engawas around the perimeter of the sets block most of the sunlight from penetrating deep into rooms,” explains Ross. “Light would tend to bounce and radiate upwards from the light fabric of the tatami mats and then be bounced down from the wood paneled ceilings as a low warm fill...a literal inversion of conventional Western cinema lighting.”&nbsp;Production Designer Helen Jarvis and the Art department team created models of Osaka Castle and the village sets, complete with tatami mats, engawas, shoji screens and gardens. Before filming began, Ross experimented with the models using scaled down versions of the lights they would be using, almost like stop-frame animation, to visualize what the sets would do in the light.“What struck me about the design of the houses was that the shoji doors were kept open, even at night, to allow for the view to the gardens, but also of course, to use the natural light for as long as possible,” says McCurdy. “It really did dictate how scenes were lit and what our backgrounds and views were at all times.”

Era-authentic lighting was combined with modern-day practicality and safety. LED oil lamps were used extensively for interiors as well as larger propane braziers for exterior shots.It was important to respect the structure of Japanese customs when it came to setting up a scene, including how lighting was used. “There are rules about when fires would be lit, when and how many oil lamps would be used, how a village would light its streets at night...there is an order to everything,” explains McCurdy. Adds Wretblad, “It is such an amazing space with its strict and hierarchic rituals – it calls for an austere and raw, yet beautiful aesthetic. We had Japanese experts helping and guiding us all the way both in prep and during the shoot, which was extremely helpful.”“Holistically one of the bigger challenges was finding the balance in both the macro and micro,” says Laliberté. “Visually, it’s about the balance between the scope of a sweeping period piece and the intimacy of the characters and their individual stories.”

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 Immersing the audience in a complex web of intrigue and wrapping it in the epic scale of the feudal Japan setting.

Toranaga’s clothing being adjusted while he faces outside for FX's Shōgun

Cinematography | FX Shōgun