BAFTA Award-winning cinematographer Andrew Dunn was profoundly influenced by director Philippe Lacôte’s cinematic vision, enriching the modern Greek tragedy in the noir thriller Killer Heat.
With an impressive portfolio of over sixty feature films, Dunn collaborated with Lacôte on Prime Video’s adaptation of Jo Nesbø’s short story “The Jealousy Man.” Set against a Greek backdrop, the story follows private investigator Nick Bali (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as he probes the suspicious accidental death of a young shipping magnate, Leo Vardakis (Richard Madden). Shailene Woodley portrays the victim’s sister-in-law, who questions the official police narrative.
Filmed on location in Crete, Greece, the breathtaking scenery is beautifully captured by Dunn, who approaches the camera as an audience member—observing from a distance while fully immersing viewers in the escalating tension. A pivotal sequence shot on the expansive outdoor terrace of a mansion allowed Dunn and his team to explore the camera’s voyeuristic nature, transforming it into an additional character.
“You’re casting the camera as a character, providing a secretive lens into the situation,” Dunn explains. “The goal is to keep the audience from becoming self-conscious; once they feel that awareness, they’re pulled out of the story.”
In a conversation with Awards Focus, Dunn shares insights from his early meetings with Lacôte, his belief in the importance of adaptability for cinematographers, his collaboration with actors on the choreography of the climactic scene, and his advice for aspiring creatives entering the film industry.
Awards Focus: I wanted to start with your extensive filmography and ask about your approach to cinematic storytelling.
Andrew Dunn: My approach is always the script. To me, it’s the foundation. If the script is there and you believe the story as it’s told in text, then you can start to visualize that story in pictures.
AF: How did you come to join the production for Killer Heat, and what was the focus of the initial conversations with director Phillippe Lacôte?
Dunn: I’d worked with producer Brad Weston before, and he got in touch to see if I was interested in the project and sent me the 108-page novel. They’re great airport books by Jo Nesbø. I knew of Phillippe, and he was from the Ivory Coast and was French-speaking. The whole scenario set in Greece, when most of the books were set in Scandinavia, was fascinating. I looked at the cliff faces and a modern-day Greek tragedy. We talked about styles, what we like, and who we are, and we started on this journey together. He was already in Greece, and I was in London, so it was tricky at first.
I liken it to getting married after the first date. You embark on this intense relationship together. You’re feeling your way a bit, and there’s excitement. You’re both desperate to make it work but never quite sure how, and you become friends, but you’re not so close. You can actually be honest.
AF: Did you have a shared vision of how the film would look or were you coming from two different perspectives?
Dunn: Phillippe came from a documentary background through Journalism and that’s where I came from way back. He made a wonderful film called ‘Night of the Kings’, which is set over one night in jail on the Ivory Coast, so that intrigued me.
But, you know, every human sees something different. I’m in this room here looking at a picture out the window and if you were here, you would see something different to me. That’s the beauty of movie storytelling.
It’s also what makes a great producer: they can bring people together, mix them up, and hopefully, the ingredients all together make a wonderful cake. As cinematographers, we’re chameleons because we’re always working with different people. My quest during preparation is to always get inside the director’s head. I looked for the truth of the storyline, which is very important.
AF: Richard Madden plays twins in the film, and there’s a scene in which both appear in the bar sitting opposite each other. How did you make sure he would be differentiated as each character on either side of the table?
Dunn: It’s actually interesting. We made a bit of adjustment so that one of the twins would be sitting by the jukebox. It was one of the less complex visual effects shots, really, because we could keep them separate in the shots and through the edit. Richard’s acting here really helped, too, because great actors do so little because they know the audience knows them already. The audience wants to be ahead of you, so don’t give them too much. We could see the duplicity in his eyes, even as he was just texting.
AF: Did you find that the shot at the end of the film with the big reveal as the camera spins around in the group was more complex, and how did that shot come together?
Dunn: When you have a group of people in a room together, or a car or stagecoach, there’s a lot going on in a tight space. When we first looked at that villa, we chose that one for the terrace. Initially, there was a thought that there was going to be a fight over the terrace and down the cliffside. This is where I can talk about the collaboration between actors, directors, cinematographers, and producers. Actors don’t want to just come in and ask where they should stand. So, what we did was we spent a day and a half rehearsing for that scene. In a car setting, it can be intense and claustrophobic, and the way we conceived that shot in the film was a confluence of collaboration.
Our camera operator, Michael Tsimperopoulos, the actors, and I choreographed this so the actors would know when they were just about to come onto camera. It took us a few takes, and it’s one of the high points of the whole shoot to watch this scene because it’s so technical. It’s like a perfect dance.
One of my things is that the camera is an audience member because they see all of this. The camera is a voyeur and a character itself. You’re casting this camera as a character and experiencing a secret way into this situation. You don’t want to make the audience self-conscious by being there. As soon as the audience feels self-conscious, you pull them out of the story. A shot can easily fall into, like, these guys are just trying to be clever. Hopefully, this one doesn’t feel that way because I found it very effective.
AF: I find it so interesting how you talk about the camera being a character because throughout the film, I felt that we were observing from a long distance, and your explanation makes me feel like that observation was participation.
What advice would you give creatives looking to get into filmmaking and storytelling through cinematography?
Dunn: I was about eight years old when I wanted to be a cameraman. I didn’t know all the ins and outs, and I pursued my own routes.
Go and shoot short films. Find a short story and expand it. You can do it economically, though I won’t say cheaply, obviously. You have a reasonable camera on an iPhone and iPad, and movies can be made with them. One of the best advice someone gave me when I was in my late teens was to be single-minded. I was lucky enough to know I wanted to make films, but it wasn’t like these tough times trying to find work at the moment. You can get seen. Your movies can go on YouTube and film festivals. So just be creative and make stuff.
Find collaborators and don’t give up.