By its third season, ‘Shrinking’ had already established a distinct visual identity, leaving cinematographer John Brawley with a different challenge: finding new ways to support the story’s next chapter.
“There’s just a little bit more positivity just because we’re coming out of the darkness into this idea of moving on,” Brawley says of the visual look in the third season.
John Brawley told Awards Focus in early May how the visual language of ‘Shrinking’ evolved in its third season to reflect the show’s thematic focus on moving forward, incorporating a brighter, warmer, and more optimistic aesthetic through new camera technology, lenses, lighting choices, and color grading. During the conversation, the cinematographer also reflects on collaborating with the season’s directors, adapting to unexpected challenges on set, filming pivotal emotional scenes featuring Harrison Ford and Michael J. Fox, and balancing the show’s naturalistic style with the technical demands of television production as work begins on Season 4.
‘Shrinking’ started as a comedy series where a grieving therapist, Jimmy (Jason Segel) breaks the rules and tells the blunt truth to his clients. In ignoring his own training and ethics, Jimmy starts changing people’s lives as well as his own. The series has certainly grown into a true ensemble comedy series where the writers have found the right balance between work and home life.
Created by Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein, and Jason Segel, ‘Shrinking’ stars Segel, Harrison Ford, Christa Miller, Jessica Williams, Michael Urie, Luke Tennie, Lukita Maxwell, and Ted McGinley. Season 3 guest stars include Brett Goldstein, Damon Wayans Jr., Cobie Smulders, and Candice Bergen while Michael J. Fox and Jeff Daniels make special appearances.
All episodes of ‘Shrinking’ are streaming on Apple TV+.
Awards Focus: It’s so nice to talk with you again. How are you doing?
John Brawley: Yeah, I know. I think we did this like for last season, right? If I remember, how are you doing?
AF: Under the weather, but pushing through.
John Brawley: Yeah, it sounded like you weren’t doing so well. I’m sorry to hear that.
AF: Thanks. After taking over for Jim, heading into season two and staying on for season three, did it feel less daunting as a cinematographer since you don’t have to worry about establishing a look, tone, or anything like that?
John Brawley: I don’t know that it’s less daunting. I think every season has its own challenges. I always try to come up with a way to track the visual arc of the season for that very reason, because you want the story visually to evolve as well. You want to try and have some growth in that. You’re not doing the same thing as last season. I think there’s always a bit of a desire and an effort to try and really wrap your head around what season three would be about, and then kind of reflect that visually as well.
AF: How would you say you evolved the look visually this season?
John Brawley: Well, season one was kind of about grief and season two was about forgiveness. Season three, the overarching idea was about moving on—taking that idea for the whole of the season about moving forward, it felt like there was a little bit more hope, a little bit more positivity, you might say, going forward. Visually, that can be represented in any number of ways. We had a look that was a little bit more open, a little brighter, a little bit more optimistic, you might say, a little bit more warmth in the overall look and the grade of things as well. That was one option in terms of how the grade itself looked and the way that the images looked out of the camera. The lighting as well had a little bit more, let’s call it sunshine in there as well. There’s just a little bit more positivity just because we’re coming out of the darkness into this idea of moving on.
AF: Can you talk about collaborating with the directors this past season?
John Brawley: Yeah, we had some great directors this season. Anu Valia came back, Randall Winston, who’s the producing director, Zach Braff as well. They’re all fantastic directors. We had a new director, Rebecca Asher, come through this season who did a great episode as well.
The directing for Shrinking is hard coming in as a guest director because, especially on season three, the show feels like it already has its own momentum. It’s always exciting to get to work with new directors for the season because you kind of get to introduce them to the show, talk about what the show does and what the mechanics of it are, and then find a way for those directors to bring their own stamp and their own take on how things should be done. To me, that’s actually the fun part of doing this, why I like working in television so much more as opposed to features—having this rotation of directors and trying to very quickly kind of get them up to speed, but also to get them comfortable to work the way they like to work as well.
AF: Were there any changes to the camera and lens for this season?
John Brawley: Yeah. I can get really technical if you want to. Going back to that idea that we talked about earlier about being more forgiving and having some more positivity, we actually went to a whole new camera platform. Otto Nemenz International supplied us with some Blackmagic URSA Cine Pro 12K LFs. That’s a very technical name. I believe the first time these cameras have ever been used on a series, we used them for season three.
The 12K camera, we actually delivered also for the first time 8K masters to Warner Brothers. There’s quite a bit of consultation that had to happen. Warner Brothers had to approve, and Apple had to approve all of that, of course, and sign off on the codec. We shot with a new codec, Black Magic Raw, or BRAW as it’s called.
There were quite a few innovations in the camera side of things. That all fed back into that idea of having a different look and having a little bit more openness. Even though the resolution is very high, it’s not that it’s sharper so much, it’s just that you have more data points and more images, more information in those images to reference and work with, and sort of gives us a little bit more room.
The show still has a very naturalistic feel. It doesn’t feel like it’s a highly kind of crafted image, but we, of course, make it look like we are doing it very casually. But of course, we put a lot of effort into making it look like it’s very naturalistic. That supports the storytelling a little bit as well.
We also used some new lenses. We had some Zeiss Supremes. So, yeah, it was quite a few things that changed.
Season one to season two, we also made some changes as well. We try not to kind of make wholesale big changes, but certainly season two to season three, that was a pretty big change. But I think it worked really well considering, as I say, where the story itself was going.
AF: Was there a particular scene or sequence that brought about the most challenges in terms of cinematography?
John Brawley: Yeah, there was a few. That final scene actually in episode 10 between Harrison and Jason, where he tells him to meet him at the coffee shop and he has that great speech to him. That was a hard scene to shoot because—originally, Randall Winston was the director. We originally were thinking we’d shoot it in a different section. As the wonderful actors started working in the scene, they wanted to change the actual physical location. We had to be able to adapt very quickly and accommodate that. You don’t want to get in the way of this big emotional performance by saying, Hang on a second, I’ve just got to take all this time to put in all this infrastructure to light things.
We were able to adapt very quickly and still make a fantastic, amazing scene, but it was never planned to be in that exact location. It was meant to be somewhere else. I love that process because it feels like you’re responding to what the actors emotionally want to do in the scene. And then, to be able to have a great crew that can kind of pivot and adapt and make that work still is fantastic. The scene is so great.
AF: As a cinematographer, what was going through your head when you were behind the camera and you have both Harrison Ford and Michael J. Fox in front of you in the same scene?
John Brawley: Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing that if anyone outside of industry asks you about those kind of moments, being in that room—because those two had never met before. To be in the room when Harrison meets Michael for the first time and then to do a scene with them as well was just kind of staggering to me.
They’re both individually such iconic figures, especially from my youth and I’m assuming from yours as well. You sort of know them so well. And then to put those two giant icons together in one scene and to witness them meeting for the first time was incredibly special.
With the extra layer, of course, of Harrison having to represent a disease that Michael has as well, it just makes it even more poignant.
AF: I’m surprised with all these industry events over the years that they have never met until then.
John Brawley: I know, yeah. We were all kind of staggered as well, but they’d never been in the same space. It was wonderful to see that happen. They got to do a few scenes together. I think they were really funny. I’m hoping Michael comes back for this next season coming up.
AF: Yeah. I was initially surprised when they made the announcement because a few years ago, it sounded as if Michael decided to retire from acting.
John Brawley: I think that is true. I think because Bill Lawrence and Michael have a very special relationship—really Harrison’s Parkinson’s storyline is a little bit lifted from what was happening and I’m speaking secondhand, but forgive me, I’m paraphrasing—I believe that when Bill Lawrence was on Spin City with Michael is when he was first diagnosed and he went through a period of time of hiding it and not wanting to disclose it and trying to cover it up. A lot of that, you see in the storyline of the first season of Shrinking.
I think Bill had gone through that with Michael and they were close friends. I think when later there’s a show that Bill’s doing where there’s a character with Parkinson’s, I think my understanding is that Michael volunteered to do it and wanted to be a part of it and sort of put me in coach.
Bill obviously found a great way for him to be a part of the show.
AF: Yeah. It helps that they have that previous connection from Spin City.
John Brawley: History as well and trust. Yeah, absolutely.
AF: Yeah. As we look ahead to the Season 4 reset, especially when what feels like part of the cast moving across the country now, are you already thinking about how you’re going to evolve the visual look even more?
John Brawley: Absolutely. I wish I could share with you what’s going on, but literally, today we’re two weeks out from starting shooting, and so it would be premature to spill the beans or spill the tea, as they say, too much and not give you a reason to chat to me about a year from now. (Laughs)
AF: Yeah. I was curious with the scenes where they’re talking through the tablet or whatever it was, is that footage filmed earlier and then playing back on a video screen, or is that something that gets added in post?
John Brawley: Something that gets added later. You’re talking about with the baby monitor material?
So that stuff, or if they’re phone calls, usually it’s done—sometimes the actors will do the voice in person so they’ll be on set or they’ll do it via a phone call just so the actor being filmed, even if it’s on a phone, has the real performance to react against. But usually they’re composited.
I always like to try and do them for real, but it’s often logistically hard to schedule it and make that happen and also make it look good. It’s very hard to shoot a FaceTime call over the shoulder of someone because you tend to be in the shot that’s actually being filmed so you don’t get to sort of see the screen easily. There’s lots of reasons it can be hard to do.
AF: Yeah. I was thinking more of the when Jason was on with Harrison.
John Brawley: Oh, yeah. Most of those times the phone calls, yeah, they’re usually done separately, but often, the actor will call in and do the lines just over the phone so each actor can sort of hear the rhythm of what they’re saying.
AF: All right. I can’t wait to see what next season brings. And hopefully, I will not be under the weather next year when we chat again.
John Brawley: I’m looking forward to it. We’ll have to do it in person sometime.
AF: I’m in Chicago. I don’t know the next time I’ll be in LA.
John Brawley: Okay.
AF: Especially with flights being what they are these days and Southwest cutting free bags.
John Brawley: Yeah. Well, I don’t know if you need to stay in Chicago, but the weather is definitely a bit nicer here in sunny LA.
AF: Yeah. Except for when it rains and pours.
John Brawley: (Laughs) Exactly. All right.
AF: All right.
John Brawley: Thank you. Take care. It’s good to talk to you again.