NO SPICE GIRL
By Natasha Block Hicks
This article originally appeared in Issue 21 of Cinematography World.
Polly Morgan ASC BSC was planning to take a well-deserved rest when the script for Back To Black (2024, dir. Sam Taylor-Johnson) landed in front of her. She had just completed Where The Crawdads Sing (2022, dir. Olivia Newman) and The Woman King (2022, dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood) in swift succession, then shot her husband Keir O’Donnell’s directorial debut Marmalade (2024).
But the Back To Black narrative – an intimate exploration of singer Amy Winehouse’s personal experience as she rose to fame in the 2000s, with Marisa Abela in the lead role – persuaded her to reconsider.
“I never really understood that the lyrics in Amy’s music were a reflection of what she was going through at the time,” relates Morgan. “The way that the script used her songs to tell her story was really special. I just couldn’t say ‘no’.”
Morgan arrived at the Back To Black offices in London to find that the production designer Sarah Greenwood’s team had covered every single wall with personal, press and performance photographs of Winehouse and references to the places she frequented.
“I just couldn’t say no”
“We were really fortunate to visit a lot of the real locations and shoot in the pubs and the Camden flat where Amy lived,” relates Morgan.
“We couldn’t always use the exact concert venues,” she clarifies, “but we could recreate them as best as we could, based on the actual material. Then we’d give it a twist with the camera to convey Amy’s emotional state at the time.”
Marisa Abela stars as Amy Winehouse in director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s BACK TO BLACK
Although Back To Black doesn’t mince its filmic words when it comes to Winehouse’s addictions, it is her relationships – both tender and explosive – with her cabbie father Mitch (Eddie Marsan), her glamorous grandmother Cynthia (Lesley Manville) and her on/off husband Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell), that are the focus of the narrative.
“Amy had her demons, and she used alcohol as a crutch to combat her insecurities,” explains Morgan, “but, to her, to feel loved was the most important thing. Losing Cynthia and Blake is what ultimately turned her towards drugs. We chose to shoot 1.85:1 aspect ratio as it allowed us to do some powerful close-ups and get very internal with Amy. We wanted to invite the viewer into her world and show them an Amy that they didn’t really know.”
Morgan chose the then newly-released ARRI Alexa 35 for the project, loaned from ARRI Rental in London.
“I was really excited by the new colour space of the LogC4, which has an extended latitude that I felt would help me for running around Soho at night,” she explains. “Also, the return to a 35mm sensor was very appealing, it felt like a classic approach.”
Morgan combined the Alexa 35 with Canon K35 prime lenses, and found that the 35mm wide naturally offered itself to many of the scenes.
“The K35s have very beautiful, soft, vintage glass which gave us the feminine quality we needed for this story,” she illustrates, “and they have a lift that helped counteract the high-contrast, bleach-bypass LUT I had chosen.”
Morgan utilised some in-camera effects sparingly to capture what became known as “Amy Vision”, such as a narrow shutter angle, swing-shift lenses, flare lenses and prisms in front of the glass. She also ran the camera at six frames a second, which when played back at six frames a second would give a slow shutter strobing effect.
Marisa Abela stars as Amy Winehouse in director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s BACK TO BLACK
“It was a way to help the viewer understand Amy’s perspective when she was either drunk or high on drugs,” she explains.
The mounting and movement of the camera, whether on Technocranes, dollies or handheld, became another part of that language. In one heightened scene for example, the camera cuts from a descender rig plunge down a spiral staircase to a SnorriCam shot on a fleeing Abela.
“It all depended on where Amy was emotionally at the time,” explains Morgan of her choices.
“I had an idea of the tools I would need for specific sequences,” she continues, “however, Sam isn’t a director that likes to pre-prepare every shot, she’s more instinctual. Often, we would just watch the rehearsals and then figure things out on the day.”
Universal Production Services put together a lighting package which would encompass set-built and location set-ups, including ARRI SkyPanels, Astera LED tubes and traditional Tungsten heads, however the LUT that Morgan had chosen challenged her to think laterally to achieve the look she wanted.
“There were certain colours I wanted to recreate – like sodium vapour – that I just couldn’t get to play through the camera with modern LED film lighting units,” she reveals. ‘So, I had to go back to celluloid-era units, like Wendy lights and Maxi Brutes, with gels.”
Contact was made with Winehouse’s concert lighting designer, Chris Bushell, to discover which theatrical lighting he had employed for her performances.
Marisa Abela stars as Amy Winehouse in director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s BACK TO BLACK
“We used the same units when shooting,” reports Morgan, “it helped me get the saturation I needed.”
The scene depicting Winehouse’s chaotic performance at Glastonbury 2008 was filmed early in the schedule, on a compact Pyramid Stage recreated by Greenwood at Elstree Studios.
“I’ve always shaped the light to create mood and emotion, but this time I explored front-lighting, which was a first for me”
“When you’re live on-stage with the lights shining down you can barely see the audience,” relates Morgan, “and with drugs and alcohol, I would imagine that it was completely overwhelming for Amy. We had the camera on the shoulder and for point-of-view shots I used flare lenses so the lights would bleed into the image. Everything was a little more abstract, to show how messed-up she was.”
Stock footage and VFX crowd extensions helped to sell the feeling of the festival at its full force.
“With an added bit of wind, you really feel like you’re there,” laughs Morgan. “We shot that scene in a day, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out.”
The colour of the images in Back To Black were an important storytelling tool for Morgan.
“I chose the bleach-bypass LUT, with its high-contrast and desaturation, partly because Amy loved bright colours. Her flat was painted bright pink and orange and I had to figure out a way to be true to the world that she surrounded herself with, but also create the right tone.”
At the start of the story, before Winehouse is signed by Island Records, Morgan and Natasha Leonnet – senior colourist at Picture Shop – subtly enhanced the saturation, easing back towards the natural desaturated tone of the bleach bypass LUT as Winehouse’s life spiralled.
“There’s a colour arc throughout the film,” Morgan details, “the image takes on a more contrasty, raw feeling as desperation takes hold.”
Morgan credits the “hands-off approach” of European production company Studio Canal in allowing her the freedom to move away from commercially glossy cinematography into more edgy territory.
“I wanted to show off Amy’s vulnerability and not make it so beautiful all of the time,” she explains.
“As a DP, I’ve always shaped the light to create mood and emotion, but this time I explored front-lighting which was a first for me. It’s flattering for the actors, but it’s not particularly cinematic.”
Morgan admits that there was a certain amount of “letting go” required, and gaffer Justin Paterson was somewhat uneasy when she put a big light directly behind the camera in an intimate bedroom scene where Winehouse is confessing to Fielder-Civil her dreams of domesticity and parenthood.
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“When I watch the movie, I just love that scene and the front lighting works perfectly in that moment,” declares Morgan. “It’s powerful because it shows her state as she’s opening herself up.
“I had such a lovely time on this film,” Morgan reflects. “Sam made a conscious effort to ensure women were well represented in the crew, and would encourage an open dialogue and ask our opinions which made for a very collaborative environment.”
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Many crew members also felt a personal connection to Winehouse herself. Some had crossed paths with her or seen her perform, others felt certain songs reminded them of a nostalgic era in their lives. For Morgan, the single Valerie – a Zutons cover which was the result of Winehouse’s collaboration with Mark Ronson – was the soundtrack of her days living in London before her career took her to the States.
“Hearing the music takes you right back,” reflects Morgan, “I think that’s something special about her particularly.
“Delving deep into the moments of Amy at her worst, when the paparazzi were really hounding her, was upsetting at times,” she continues. “I’d like to think that, if someone in the public eye was struggling like that with mental health and addiction issues nowadays, we’d all be so much more understanding.”
