Director of photography Brett Pawlak reteams with director Destin Daniel Cretton for the latest big-screen adventure of everyone’s favourite wall-crawler.
The world has forgotten about Peter Parker. Well, not our real world, but the world presented in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which picks up where 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home left off, after a spell cast by Doctor Strange makes everyone — even his closest friends — forget the eponymous web-slinger’s alter ego.
With Tom Holland reprising his role as New York City’s friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler, this latest entry in both the Spidey saga and the Marvel Cinematic Universe finds Destin Daniel Cretton in the director’s chair and cinematographer Brett Pawlak behind the camera. The duo’s long-running creative partnership traces back to the 2008 short film Short Term 12 and its subsequent 2013 feature version; their collaborations also include the feature Just Mercy and episodes of the series American Born Chinese and Wonder Man. For Brand New Day, they worked with the teams at Panavision’s Woodland Hills and London offices and across the company’s camera-and-optics and Grip and Remote Systems divisions.
In the lead-up to Brand New Day’s release, Panavision caught up with Pawlak to ask about his approach to the movie’s visual language, his evolving collaboration with Cretton, and more.
Panavision: When did you and Destin begin discussing the project, and what did you focus on in your early conversations?
Brett Pawlak: Destin first mentioned Spider-Man while I was in Albuquerque on a project in late 2025. I got a call one afternoon from him, and within a minute on the phone he just asked, ‘Do you want to shoot Spider-Man?’ I was absolutely shocked and, without question, said, ‘Of course!’ I even woke up the next morning and had to check my call log to make sure I hadn’t dreamed the phone call. The prospect of potentially shooting a Spider-Man movie was nothing short of a dream. It was only a few months later that I was starting prep on the movie.
The early discussions were very big picture. Just bouncing ideas off each other about the tone and the general look. Having worked with Destin for about 17 years now, there is a comfort level in discussing a project. It’s less about minute details and specifics. Destin is a very generous collaborator, allowing everyone he brings on to do their ‘thing.’ He will inevitably steer the ship, but only through course corrections. The rest of it is on you to bring to the project what you want. Those initial discussions gave me a rough canvas to start exploring on my own. There were never any rules.
How would you describe the look of Spider-Man: Brand New Day?
Pawlak: I was really interested in creating something that felt grounded. I wanted it to feel like a new chapter in the franchise while not feeling too far removed from what had come before and, more importantly, staying true to Spider-Man.
I found myself really inspired by a lot of the comics, particularly the way the Spider-Man suit was depicted on the Amazing Fantasy cover. His suit has these incredibly saturated reds and blues, but the majority of the suit falls into almost complete black. As I started looking through more of the comics, I realized that was a common thread — how the artists depicted shadow as an inky black but still allowed the colors to stay vibrant.
That idea of pairing rich, saturated color with deep blacks and shadow became one of the foundations of the look. Visually, it gave the movie a strong sense of contrast, but it also supported Peter’s character arc, allowing us to play with light and shadow as another narrative tool throughout the film.
Throughout camera testing, I worked closely with Tom Poole at Company 3 to develop a show LUT that ultimately had a contemporary look with a classic film print curve, taking particular care to protect the reds and blues of the Spidey suit. The LUT was adjusted after each camera and suit test, and the LUT used during photography, both on set and in dailies, was version 7.
In addition to the comic books, were there other visual references you looked at for inspiration?
Pawlak: I looked at a lot of visual references. I obviously looked back at the entire Spider-Man catalogue. Those movies are ingrained within me, so much so that throughout the project there were plenty of moments where I realized the ‘brilliant’ idea I had was just subconsciously referencing an actual brilliant idea from a past movie.
I also looked at a lot of Spider-Man fan art. The luxury of something as loved as Spider-Man is that there is a plethora of fans making art over the years, giving you a great perspective on the way fans would like to see the material interpreted. They were particularly useful in helping me find the tone of this film.
Did your experience working on the Marvel series Wonder Man at all inform your approach to Brand New Day?
Pawlak: Every project informs the next, without a doubt. The aesthetics of Brand New Day and Wonder Man are very different, but approaching Brand New Day after having done Wonder Man was helpful simply because I was able to get my feet wet within the Marvel production process. Even though the intention of Wonder Man was to make it feel as far removed from a superhero movie as we could, it was still with Marvel Studios, and seeing that process from prep through post made me more comfortable and confident going into Spider-Man. It also helped inform how to approach Spider-Man and sustain the creative vision.
What brought you to Panavision for this project?
Pawlak: I’ve always loved working with Panavision. I have a long-standing relationship with Mike Carter at Woodland Hills, and there was never any question that I wanted to shoot Spider-Man with Panavision glass.
How did you decide on the lenses you used for the movie?
Pawlak: I always start each project by going into Panavision and looking at lenses. I look at lenses that I like and have used as well as lenses that I may not know as well — even lenses that I may have tested before and didn’t respond to. I’m always surprised by how differently I respond to lenses depending on the aesthetic and the movie I have in my head as I begin a new project.
I did have a loose idea of what I was after for Spider-Man. I knew we would have to protect for 1.90 within our preferred aspect ratio of 2.39. I knew I was going to be shooting on the Alexa 265. That has been done beautifully on many films to date, so that obviously wasn’t new, but it gave me the parameters of what to look for.
I absolutely love anamorphic, but for some reason I kept gravitating toward spherical. I had an idea for what I loosely described as a ‘classic hybrid.’ I appreciate lenses that have character, falloff, and all the things that Panavision is great at giving its cinematographers, but instinctively I was looking for something cleaner. I knew the large-format 65mm sensor would give me that canvas, and I was after lenses that simply performed well. I didn’t want to fight them when it came to flares or coatings.
You ended up selecting Panaspeeds that were modified by Panavision’s Special Optics team, and those customizations helped inform the design of the new Primo 65 lens series. What conversations did you have with Dan Sasaki and the team to arrive at those modifications?
Pawlak: Panavision is so collaborative with lensing. I had a brief conversation with Dan one afternoon, and he asked me what I was looking for. I told him I was shooting on the 265 and described my hope for a well-performing lens that still had a classic ‘Panavision look.’ I even said, ‘I think I’d shoot this on Primos if I could.’ After a moment of Dan’s wheels turning, he suggested modifying the Panaspeeds for the 265 to give me that Primo look on a 65mm sensor. I had tested the Panaspeeds a number of times — they’re beautiful, sharp and relatively clean, with great contrast. The idea of pushing the glass to its limits on that sensor excited me.
When I put them on the 265, I instinctively knew they were the right lenses. I was at Panavision London prepping when I got the first few. I was with [Technical Marketing Director] Charlie Todman, and neither of us could quite put our finger on it, but we both agreed there was something special. They asked what I’d like to do to them, and I told them to leave them exactly as they were — they were perfect. The next few weeks of testing confirmed my choice in how well the lenses responded to the LUT Tom and I were developing. They really went hand in hand.
How has your collaboration with Destin evolved over the years you’ve been working together, and how was Brand New Day unique — or familiar — compared to the rest of your shared body of work?
Pawlak: My collaboration with Destin has evolved immensely as the projects have scaled. Brand New Day felt completely new and completely familiar at the same time.
There is so much collaboration on any project, but especially on a film like Spider-Man. Over the years, there has developed a level of trust between us that only comes from making movies together for so long. It’s far beyond just a shorthand. We’ve gone from storyboarding every single frame of a movie to showing up with a loose plan and letting the scene dictate how we approach it.
Brand New Day is the culmination of every project we’ve done together. Destin knows that I’m there solely to support him, and I do my best to create an environment where he can do his best work while also creating a look that supports the story he’s trying to tell.
What did it mean to you personally to work on this movie?
Pawlak: Shooting Spider-Man: Brand New Day means so much more than I could ever describe. I was a projectionist at my local theater for a few years after high school, and I have a core memory of projecting Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 1. To have shot a movie within that same franchise, and to have made it with a dear friend and collaborator like Destin, couldn’t make me any happier — and equally terrified! It truly is a dream.
What keeps you inspired as a cinematographer?
Pawlak: What keeps me inspired is that every project asks something different of me. Every relationship with a director is different. Every project has its own visual language, and I really enjoy the process of figuring that out.
One of the things that has been most inspiring about working on Spider-Man has been the collaboration, the conversations with Destin, our production designer and art department, my gaffer and key grip, the operators, ACs, VFX, and our colourist. Whether you’re presenting an idea or receiving one, everyone builds on it until it becomes everyone’s. I think that’s one of the most inspiring things about filmmaking.
Unit photography by Jay Maidment, Laura Radford and Matthew Towers, courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Originally published on Panavision.com
