Director Carey Williams and DP Mike Dallatorre on directing and shooting the film Emergency

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 171: Carey Williams and Mike Dallatorre

Emergency is a comedy about three men of color- college roommates Kunle, Sean, and Carlos, who are about to go out for an epic night of spring break partying when they find a white girl has accidentally stumbled in and passed out on their apartment floor. Concerned about what might happen if they call the police, they decide to take the semi-conscious girl in their van and drive around town for hours, trying to find a safe place to leave her and not get in trouble. Meanwhile, the girl's friends chase after the men as they track her phone and call the police.

Director Carey Williams and cinematographer Mike Dallatorre met about twenty years ago and have worked together on several music videos and other projects. Emergency began as a 2018 short film directed by Carey and shot by Mike. The short won a jury award at the Sundance Film Festival and Best Narrative Short at SXSW. Carey and writer KD Dávila worked together to expand the story into a feature, and Temple Hill Entertainment and Amazon Studios produced it before the feature premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

As two men of color themselves, both Carey and Mike have had personal experience with being profiled and detained by police officers. In Emergency, once the roommates are caught and detained by the police, Mike and Carey decided to make the film feel extremely terrifying, shooting the encounter in slow motion and selectively out of focus. Mike deliberately kept the police officer's faces out of frame so that they feel like scary monsters in a horror movie.

Having worked together for so long, Mike and Carey had an easy shorthand way of talking through the shotlist and visual feel for each scene, and put together a look book as a reference. Emergency is Carey's biggest movie to date, while Mike brought a lot of experience with seven other features under his belt. As a visual director, Carey always wanted to know what the movie would look like and feel like. The most important piece of the movie for Carey was to show the relationship between the friends, their emotions and vulnerability as they go through a crisis together.

Emergency is currently playing in theaters and on Amazon Prime.

Carey Williams: Instagram @cdubig

Mike Dallatorre: Instagram @dp_miked

Hear our previous Cinepod interview with Mike Dallatorre

Close Focus: Is this the end of Peak TV? Several networks have canceled or scaled back on shows, and Netflix has also canceled and scaled back as they've lost subscribers.

Ben's short end: The FX series Pistol  about the band the Sex Pistols, is now streaming on Hulu. It's directed by Danny Boyle and shot by Anthony Dod Mantle.

Illya's short end: The FX series Fargo is coming back for Season 5 with Jon Hamm, Juno Temple and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras

Sponsored by Aputure: The amaran F21x light is a 2'x 1' bi-color flexible LED fabric light mat that's bright and affordable. They are slim, easy to use and lightweight. Since it's a light mat, it can be rolled up and put into a bag and even taped to a wall. You can buy the amaran F21x  at <a href="https://hotrodcamera...