SPOILER ALERT: This story contains plot details from Ryan Coogler‘s “Sinners,” now playing in theaters.
Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw vividly remembers when Ryan Coogler sent her the script for “Sinners.”
It was January 2024, the day before she would start shooting “The Last Showgirl,” and Coogler sent an email seeking her thoughts on the piece, which he’d told her was quite personal to him. She read the script later that night, all in one sitting.
“I was blown away. I had no idea about it being a period piece or that Michael [B. Jordan] would be playing twins,” Arkapaw tells Variety. “I had a huge email that I sent him about my thoughts. He always teases me, because for me to read something all the way through in one pass is more difficult these days, but that’s the kind of script that you just can’t put down.”
Amid the bloodthirsty and lustful vampires of “Sinners” sits a story layered in culture and history, with blues music anchoring the film’s soul. It’s 1930s Mississippi, and Jordan plays twins, Smoke and Stack, who return to the Deep South and decide to open a juke joint. Their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a young sharecropper and the pastor’s son, has a passion for music — he carries around a 1932 Dobro Cyclops guitar — so the twins recruit Sammie to play at the party. But his voice attracts more than revelers looking to cut loose and have a good time; it acts as a beacon to a sinister spirit lurking within the town.
Arkapaw signed on but didn’t have further details, like Coogler’s format of choice. The initial plan was to shoot on 16mm. “It was a progression of discussions,” Arkapaw says. “The studio called Ryan and asked a question about large format. He called me and said, ‘Maybe we should explore this.’”
Arkapaw’s first call was to the film lab FotoKem to discuss shooting on film. “We did a test shoot where we explored Imax and using a 15-perforation film frame or a 65-perforation film frame. He had mentioned ‘The Hateful Eight,’ because in his mind, he was thinking of the wider landscape photography for this. So we went out to the desert in Lancaster, and we watched some tests from ‘The Hateful Eight’ and ‘2001 Space Odyssey’ and some stuff Andrew Orin had, and that was 70mm. Ryan sat up and went close to the screen, and he said, ‘This is what I’m missing.’ We did our test and we knew it was a lock after that.”
A transcendent moment in “Sinners” comes not from the bloody showdown against the vampires, but rather when Sammie plays with such passion and heart that the dance floor fills with tribal dancers, electric guitarists, hip-hop deejays and more. Arkapaw’s camera weaves through the musical jubilation that fuses the past, the present and the future of Black music and dance to capture one sublime scene, which was referred to as “The Surreal Montage” during filming.
Arkapaw and Coogler had meetings about how they’d pull it off. It took a lot planning, rehearsal and some preparation with the visual effects team to determine how to break down the scene. “This sequence is grounded in reality, and then it takes a turn and goes up to the roof and burns away and comes back down into a surreal moment. It transitions into the introduction of three strong characters, and then you’re back into the film,” Arkapaw says, noting that there are five shots overall.
Each of the three shots inside the juke joint are “all on Steadicam and shot on 15perf Imax [70mm film turned 90 degrees],” she explains. “And there’s a blend of a VFX takeover that tips up into the roof that’s based off of a burning roof plate that we shot on the last night of principal photography. Then, it transitions into a night exterior shot that’s on a 50-foot techno crane that pulls back in a night exterior where you see them dancing with the effect of a burned mill around them.” The camera also reveals the three vampires — Remmick (Jack O’Connell), Joan (Lola Kirke) and Bert (Peter Dreimanis) — observing it all from a distance.
“There’s so many layers to that sequence — how to execute it, but just historical layers about ancestry and music and culture and where we came from,” she adds. “It was fun to do, and ultimately it turned out really cool, because it means so much to different people. That’s what makes it a good conversation piece.”
Production designer Hannah Beachler was also instrumental in helping pull the sequence off by building a real space. “It’s important that when the actor walks on set, there’s not a bunch of film gear around that they have to step over or walk around. These sets need to feel like real spaces,” Arkapaw says. “I think that informs better performances, but also sets a vibe for everybody on set.”
When it came to lighting, Arkapaw lit mainly from above. “By doing that,” she says, “it allows us to move the camera more freely, which is great, especially in that wide of a format.” Beachler also strung lanterns, which Arkapaw could use as source lights to help add to the authentic and moody lighting.
Arkapaw says the scene is emotional for her to watch because of what it represents. “When the camera tilts downm you see the mill that’s burned away. The people are still there, and they’re still strong, and they’re still dancing and singing. I read it as nothing can be taken away from us ever, and I feel that very much in my own family history. It’s very special that I was able to be a part of that.”
As for capturing Jordan’s performance as identical twins, it was important to Coogler that the story always be grounded in reality, so they aimed to do as much as they could in camera, with old-school techniques like split screen and limited use of face replacement technology. It was about breaking down the script and “figuring out which scenes could be shot split screen, which scenes could be done in camera, which scenes would need the halo rig,” Arkapaw says. But, once they arrived on set, she notes, “Most of the pressure is going to be on Michael. He has to repeat these things multiple times, and we have to do them in a certain amount of time. If it’s an exterior shot, and the sun is moving, that’s not easy.”
Arkapaw, who made history as the first woman cinematographer to shoot on 70mm feature film, also spoke with fellow cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who shot Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” on 70mm. “Drive it like you stole it,” Van Hoytema told her. “He said, ‘Don’t let the fact that the format and the cameras are bigger than you’ve shot before, feel like it’s cumbersome and that you can’t do what you normally do with it.”
Arkapaw found that he was right; the format never got in their way. “We put it on cranes, on Steadicam, we moved it around a lot with handheld shots,” she says. “We just told our story in the best way. I look back at that and now I understand what Hoyte meant when he said, ‘It’s all there for you to grab.’ It’s more invigorating, actually, if it’s bigger and heavier.”
