Apple TV+’s detective drama Sugar starring Colin Farrell has an unconventional visual style that includes footage shot on iPhones, multiple camera setups and classic film noir clips inserted into scenes.
Scripted by showrunner Mark Protosevich with Farrell as executive producer, Sugar is directed by Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles, co-director of City of God and director of The Constant Gardener. The series is shot by cinematographers César Charlone and Richard Rutowski, ASC and edited by Fernando Stutz.
“We really work as one,” Meirelles told IndieWire’s Chris O’Falt. “If I can’t take César and Fernando, I won’t be able to [do the project], that was my only condition.”
As O’Falt explains, Meirelles’ approach to directing is to play a scene from beginning to end rather than dividing it into camera setups, while Charlone documents it with two to three and sometimes even up to seven cameras.
“The first thing we learn in film school is never jump the eyeline,” said Meirelles. “I tried on purpose to jump the eyeline just to test [it out], and it really worked. It gives a dynamic to the scene.”
“We have developed what I would call a documentary style,” Charlone said. “We leave the actors very free to move around, my crew does not put [down] any marks, the actors just move around and we follow them with the camera.”
After each take, Charlone changes the camera’s angle and movement. Meirelles said that after two hours of shooting, he will often have 15 to 16 different angles, each master of the whole scene. This approach often leaves them an hour or two ahead of schedule, which just encourages more experimentation.
This gives Stutz a lot of material to compose with. “I start by looking through César’s lenses because it’s the way he moves through the scene,” the editor told O’Falt.
“When he operates the camera I’m always interested where he’s going, what he’s looking at, and then from there, start to build the sequence.”
READ MORE: ‘Sugar’ Is Not How American TV Usually Gets Made (IndieWire)
One of the most striking aspects of Charlone’s work on Sugar is his use of iPhones to not just capture reference stills but footage for the show.
“I’ve been using iPhones for some time now,” Charlone explained in an episode of the Kingdom of Dreams podcast. “They are incredibly versatile and practical, especially in confined spaces. For Sugar, we did extensive testing to ensure the footage could blend with that from the Sony VENICE cameras.”
The iPhones proved especially useful for filming car scenes, where their compact size and flexibility allowed for unique angles and dynamic shots.
“For all the car scenes, with Colin driving, the iPhone is very practical because I can put it behind the steering wheel, move it around easily, and I use VR goggles to see the image I’m capturing.”
This approach not only saved time but also kept the energy on set, allowing actors to perform naturally without the interruptions typical of traditional setups.
“I try my best not to interfere with the relationship of the actors on set,” Charlone says. “We avoid marks and traditional setups, letting them move freely and following them. This way, they don’t have to follow the camera, and it helps them perform better.”
Cinematographer Richard Rutkowski, ASC picked up the reins from Charlone for his block, working with director Adam Arkin on Episodes 3, 4 and 7. This included using multiple cameras.
“We’d plant cameras strategically around the set, sometimes hiding them to capture different perspectives,” he explained to Tara Jenkins at American Cinematographer. “This method was particularly effective for scenes involving security camera footage or social media posts.”
He also aimed to evoke classic film noir while incorporating the vibrant, sun-drenched atmosphere of Los Angeles.
“We talked about classic noirs, private detective stories, and films like The Long Goodbye. I also brought up The Constant Gardener because of its selective saturation and beautiful use of color,” Rutkowski recalls.
“We knew we’d be traveling with Sugar in a car through broad daylight in LA, and we wanted that LA blue sky without it looking too candy-colored.
“Digital can be unforgiving with overexposure, so planning the route and managing the iris was crucial. We used a low loader for some shots and relied on natural lighting for others, capturing the authentic look of LA.”
Rutkowski also talked about the “meta” nature of the show which actually inserts portions of scenes from classic neo-noir films (The Long Goodbye, The Grifters, LA Confidential) into the on-screen story.
“It’s sort of a semiologist’s dream that you have a lead character whose own identity is entwined with his search for others,” he told David Philips at Awards Daily.
He said he didn’t know when he signed up that this was going to happen. “It wasn’t known that there were going to be such explicit cuts to classic noirs. We knew we were sourcing visually and tone-wise from those films.
“I’m not sure when it became apparent that they were going to actually cut in scenes from Mike Hammer, although it made sense because we were treating LA very much as a character in the way that it becomes a character in those films.
“And all I can say is, while that would have given me hesitation if they told me we’re literally going to cut in these classic films to your work, it wasn’t there for me to worry so much at the time.
The show is one of several recent series that has used black and white photography to tell its story. Others include another Italian-set noir murder mystery Ripley, and the third episode of FX’s Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.
READ MORE: Cinematographer Richard Rutkowski on Upending Conventional Noir in Apple TV’s ‘Sugar’ (Awards Daily)
Sugar begins with a black-and-white opening sequence before color seeps. The B&W was shot in color and converted in post.
“Fernando wanted to start that opening in Japan in black and white as kind of a throwback to [Akira] Kurosawa films, and for it to feel a little otherworldly as well,” executive producer Audrey Chon told Hunter Ingram at Variety. “It just added a whole other dimension to the show and to the character of Sugar.”
As Ingram observes, taking color out of the picture literally opens a whole new world of awareness for a viewer. In these extreme darks and blinding whites, more can also be concealed.
“With black and white,” adds Feud cinematographer Jason McCormick, “you can get away with murder in ways you couldn’t when you are shooting in color.”
READ MORE: Black and White Visuals in ‘Ripley,’ ‘Feud’ and ‘Sugar’ Create ‘Otherworldly’ Settings Perfect for Gritty Murders and Glitzy Balls (Variety)
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