Show Notes
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 Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Blue Sky: @thecinepod.bsky.social
More from The Cinematography Podcast
Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh explains how natural light, practical sources and an invisible camera shaped Netflix’s East of Eden, shot in New Zealand with director Garth Davis.
Cinematographer Matheus Bastos on shooting Gazer and Anima on 16mm with little money, how handheld and zooms track character, and why focusing on the work beat chasing an agent. This episode is a candid look at how limitations, story and trust shape a career, from a scrappy $80K film shoot to the call that changed everything.
Scott "Smitty" Smith, the IMAX camera technician behind Oppenheimer, Sinners and The Odyssey, on large format film, servicing cameras and why film costs less than you'd think.
Furious DP Doug Emmett breaks down how the production team aligned on tone, lighting a penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows, and creating a red-lit party scene.
Director Dave Boyle and DP Patrick Ouziel on making the ghost story Never After Dark in Japan: a 28-day shoot, a backlit zoetrope mirror, and in-camera magic.