Interview: Cinematographer Vincent De Paula on Shooting His First Procedural with ‘The Irrational’

Spanish cinematographer Vincent De Paula, CSC enjoys a challenge. Ever since getting his start in London, De Paula has worked on a wide variety of TV shows and feature films. Audiences may be most familiar with De Paula’s acclaimed work on the Netflix miniseries Maid, but his most recent work on NBC’s The Irrational is among the most exciting of his career.

“Procedural shows have a certain look and feeling, but we wanted to stay away from that by bringing that dramatic and darker feeling to this story whenever we can,” says De Paula.

Collaborating with legendary independent film director Ernest Dickerson, De Paula was fortunate enough to shoot the finale of season one.

“That episode was so wonderful to shoot, Ernest and I were inspired by techniques used by Hitchcock and we referenced a few of his films when we were filming the season finale.”

De Paula is already hard at work on season two of The Irrational, and is eager to share the show’s evolving vision with fans.

“Our stories have become more ambitious than those in season one when I joined the show,” says De Paula. “This brings even more challenges to us in regards to filming them, but at the same time I really welcome those challenges, I never like it if it is too easy!”

Check out our full conversation with Vincent De Paula:

How did you come to be involved with The Irrational?

After the strikes were over, I secured a few meetings for a few projects, some of them new and some of them wanting to restart production after the stoppage. The Irrational was one of those shows that wanted to resume filming right away after the strikes were called off, and they needed a cinematographer to join Todd Dos Reis, ASC who started the TV series many months earlier, and had to stop due to the aforementioned strikes.

The Irrational was actually one of the first shows that went back into production after the strikes. So I met with the team, and I really liked the idea of this show. I shot two episodes and while I was prepping episode 9, it was announced that NBC had ordered a season 2 already consisting of 18 episodes!

I haven’t done much in the procedural genre, so I thought of this as a great opportunity to explore it and bring my take to it. 

I always like to have a variety of genres and styles in my resume, and so far I have managed to do that through my career on both feature films and TV series ever since I started back in London, UK.

Can you describe your initial vision for the cinematography of the series? 

The show had already an established look since I was joining the team eight episodes into the first season. So in season one I shot episodes 9 and 11, the last of which was the season one finale, and I had a lot of fun working with the great Ernest Dickerson directing. So there was an inherited slight dark look to this show that I really dug, and I also wanted to play with color contrast and some odd framing compositions as much as possible. Most of our characters are African-American and I have always loved using a slightly warmer color palette in darker skin tones. 

The Irrational is oftentimes compared to other shows like The Mentalist or House but we are definitely trying to go for a cinematic approach as much as we can, playing with light, contrast, color, and composition, while dealing with the usual pressures of shooting network episodic TV on a very tight schedule!

We are currently halfway through filming season two, and in my opinion, our stories have become more ambitious than those in season one when I joined the show. This brings even more challenges to us in regards to filming them, but at the same time I really welcome those challenges, I never like it if it is too easy!

How did working with Jesse L. Martin influence your approach to the visual storytelling?      

Jesse L. Martin and I had worked together before, and he was one of the main reasons I wanted to do The Irrational. We all know how incredibly talented he is as an actor, but he is also one of the smartest persons I know, and he has a great vision and understanding of the filmmaking process. 

He is also a producer on this show, and he is always so passionate about what we do, so respectful towards the crew and the rest of the cast. It amazes me everyday when I see him deliver those performances, often times having to remember such long dialogue scenes with so many technical words. And he brings it day after day!

He is pretty much in every scene of this show. I have nothing but huge respect for him. 

With so much dialogue we tend to block scenes with camera movement in mind, where we may have them walking and talking at the stages or in location, often relying on steadicam to move along with them.

His character, Alec Mercer, is always present in all scenes we shot, we strive to always show Alec’s perspective to the story we are telling. Even though every episode is a stand alone with its own plot, Alec Mercer’s personal story takes us back to his days in college where a bomb attack at a church he was at left him scarred for the rest of his life. So as well as the case we present in every episode, Alec’s personal journey is to find out what happened back then and who was responsible for that bomb attack. We will find out a lot of that in season 2!!

What were some of the key visual themes you aimed to convey in the series? 

Procedural shows have a certain look and feeling, but we wanted to stay away from that by bringing that dramatic and darker feeling to this story whenever we can. On this show we actually have a few different looks that we like to use depending on where we are in the story. Every episode has a number of flashbacks that has a special treatment, with the use of a bleach bypass effect and a slightly cooler feel to it. We use tilt and shift lenses pretty much in each episode and our framing, light and contrast wants to also help visualize the dramatic scenes and story points we are telling. 

I personally like to always use clean-singles when doing coverage, but on TV it is very often to do over-the-shoulder coverage. I personally like to be inside, as if I was in between both characters. I feel there is a stronger connection with the audience that way, avoiding the “objective” feeling I get when shooting over-the-shoulders. We don’t always do it on The Irrational, but it is a technique we tend to do when we feel is appropriate, more so with the characters we may think of as potential suspects in every episode. Doing that we also don’t connect them with our regular cast, but it is not something we do all the time. 

How did you utilize lighting to enhance the mood and atmosphere of the series?

I mentioned earlier that I love to use color contrast when possible in a story like this, and most of the times I am adding warmth to my lights coming through the windows, which are normally 20Ks or T12s while on stage and HMIs on location. They will very often have ¼ or ½ CTS on them. The Irrational is shot in Vancouver, which has so much rain and short daylight in the fall/winter, and that is very challenging. When we go outside on location, when filming at that time of the year, I have to match my lighting to that, so my interiors end up having overall a much softer feeling that I had wanted. I always like to add layers with the use of light and contrast in the background while keeping my key lights very soft for our cast, using magic cloth as the main diffusion to go to for about 80% of the time. 

Right now we are halfway through season 2, and in the summer it is very sunny in Vancouver, the complete opposite, and we also have very long days with extensive daylight available to us, so I am able to play with a harder and warmer light in my interiors when appropriate.. 

Can you discuss any unique camera techniques or equipment you used on this project?

We are filming with the Sony Venice 2 cameras and Zeiss Supreme Prime Radiance lenses, supplied by Keslow Vancouver. Most of the time we have a Black Glimmerglass filter in the mattebox. 

As I mentioned earlier we do use tilt and shift lenses in almost every episode as well as Color techniques based on a bleach bypass process we like to have in our flashbacks. I always try to stay away from standard color temperatures in the cameras. My normal tungsten preference on this show is between 4,000K and 4400K, while on daylight scenes I tend to go 6000K to 7000K.

In the finale with Ernest Dickerson, we also used older techniques like split diopters. That episode was so wonderful to shoot, Ernest and I were inspired by techniques used by Hitchcock and we referenced a few of his films when we were filming the season finale.

Dave Kurver is our DIT on the show, and everyday we do some slight corrections to our show LUT that goes to dailies. I don’t like it when the look we have in mind doesn’t make it to dailies, so for me it is very important to try to achieve the look we are after while filming. 

What was your approach to shooting the show’s more intense or dramatic scenes?

We are always very focused on Alec, the main character played by Jesse L Martin. He is always observing, watching everything, that is what he does. He observes, that is his process to find the irrational side of every case. We like to show Alec’s perspective, his point of view and angle to the people and the environment surrounding him. 

Anytime we are covering scenes we always have a camera on him, sometimes the camera is really close to him at a low angle with a 25mm lens and sometimes it is behind his back with a 40mm. He is always present in every scene, that is the whole point. 

Camera movement is very important at these moments; if we are dealing with lots of characters we like to bring energy to the story by going handheld or creating oners with the steadicam. 

How do you think your work on The Irrational stands out compared to your previous projects?

I have been doing such a variety of work in terms of the genres I have chosen to do as of late, from the period tear-jerker drama on the feature 2 Hearts (Universal) to the very raw and naturalistic approach we had on Maid, to the different period looks we had on Firefly Lane, to the musical genre we had on Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, then the horror / thriller genre on the upcoming feature film The Inheritance (Netflix), to the superhero genre just to experiment and experience that world, to k now the procedural world of The Irrational.

So I seem to keep going through different genres, which I love because I don’t like to repeat myself, and always welcome the opportunity to take on other genres with visual approaches that are different depending on the story we are telling.

When producers ask me about my style, my answer is always the same; I have the style of whichever project I may be working on at the time, whether it is drama, period, horror, musical, etc. one just has to adjust to that story and environment.