James Laxton, ASC is the Academy Award nominated cinematographer of Moonlight. His latest project is Season 2 of Beef, the acclaimed Netflix series created by Lee Sung Jin. This season explores themes of love, class, and generational cycles.

Key Podcast Highlights:

-How James and Lee built a color palette of spring, summer, autumn, and winter that stays continuous through lighting, costume, and production design to give each couple their own visual world.

-Why shooting on the large-format ARRI 265 was a thematic decision, presenting characters as larger than life symbols of forces far bigger than themselves.

-How light and framing portray the power dynamics, from a harsh, undiffused backlit golf course confrontation to wide symmetrical frames of opulence that trap characters inside the class structures surrounding them.

-How James and Lee established a shared visual language, honoring the DNA of Season 1 while pushing the show somewhere entirely new.

Find James Laxton: http://jameslaxton.com/

Instagram: @mrjameslaxton

See Beef s. 2 on Netflix

Hear our previous episode with James Laxton on Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk: https://www.camnoir.com/ep63/

SHOW RUNDOWN:

02:09 Close Focus

14:17-55:08 James Laxton interview

55:54 Short ends

01:07:09 Wrap up/Credits

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com

YouTube: @TheCinematographyPodcast

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