'In the Heights' Cinematographer Alice Brooks Talks Jon M. Chu, Abandoned Subway Stations, and Washington Heights
Lights up on Washington Heights, up at the break of day…
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Before we were ever taken to “The Room Where it Happens” or thrown smack into the middle of a rap-battle cabinet meeting in the Broadway smash-hit HAMILTON, creator Lin-Manuel Miranda first took audiences into a day in the life of his hometown neighborhood, Washington Heights. IN THE HEIGHTS made its Broadway debut on March 9th, 2008, and was nominated for an incredible 13 Tony awards, ultimately taking home 4 of the trophies. The resounding success of the show perked up the ears of film studios, and it was in the same year the show premiered that the early workings for a film adaptation began. After a decade of bouncing between potential studios, Warner Bros. finally acquired the rights in 2018 and tapped CRAZY RICH ASIANS director Jon M. Chu to helm.
The film follows a large cast of main characters, but primarily centers on bodega-owner Usnavi (originated on Broadway by Miranda, and now played onscreen by fellow HAMILTON alum Anthony Ramos), who struggles between staying in Washington Heights to continue running the bodega his parents left for him and pursuing Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the girl he’s in love with, or giving it all up to move back to his home in the Dominican Republic. A girl-genius who drops out of Stanford, a father who has to sell his family business, the beloved Abuela who dreams of creating a better life for her community, and a winning lottery ticket equating to $96,000 make up just a portion of the familiar stories happening throughout the neighborhood.
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
To convert IN THE HEIGHTS from stage to screen was no easy feat, and Chu enlisted the help of those he had spent years working with. In addition to the film’s choreographer, Christopher Scott, Chu brought on cinematographer Alice Brooks to bring the bright, colorful, and bustling streets of Washington Heights to life. Brooks had grown up on film sets and in the theatre and knew from an early age that she wanted to be a cinematographer. “When I was about 15-years old, I decided I wanted to be a cinematographer,” she begins. “I loved the camera people—my sister worked quite a lot and after school, my mom would pick me up and we'd go to whatever studio my sister was working at. I loved watching all the camera and lighting people work. And I loved being in a dark soundstage and the lights slowly turning on and so after school, I’d sit in the corner and do my homework and observe what was happening behind the camera.” She attended the University of Southern California where she met Chu while shooting one of his short films. She maintained her friendship with him as she continued to build her resume shooting short films, documentaries, independent features, and TV series until eventually the two were able to join together once again for IN THE HEIGHTS.
“ The three of us have been preparing our whole careers for this moment. ”
With Chu, Scott, and Brooks already having an established work flow, it made the pre-production and shooting process easier because they all had a universal understanding for the vision they were trying to bring to the screen. “It was amazing because the three of us really love the dance rehearsal process,” Brooks says. “Jon and I love sitting in the corner and watching Chris work with the dancers, and then jumping in and throwing in our ideas in terms of what would be interesting for shots, and then Chris re-choreographs based on ideas we have, or vice versa—Chris shows us something and we get really inspired and we go, ‘Okay, let's do this here.’” Shooting on an anamorphic lens, Chu went one step further and purchased an anamorphic lens iPhone adapter that the three of them could use to pre-visualize what the scenes would look like. Brooks continues, “The three of us would wander around the dance rehearsal space and start to find different angles and see what would be the most powerful way to shoot the dance . . . just [the] sort of the ease and flow that the three of us have with each other, the familiarity, and that we're good friends.”
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
There is a mixture of styles when it comes to the music of the film, with some songs being danceable salsa numbers (“The Club”), snappy hip-hop pieces (“In the Heights”), or intimate character ballads (“Breathe”). When discussing how the decisions were made to shoot these different scenes, Brooks says that it came down to character. “Something unique to our movie is that each character's hopes and dreams, their fears and their desires, can be expressed not only through song and dance, but through the environment around them. And there are several numbers in the movie where the world emotionally shifts to where the characters are. And so each number has a very different feel and style to it. And it's based on each character’s dream.” She notes how one of the film’s most ambitious numbers, “96,000,” is about everyone’s dream, and so the scenery is larger, brighter, and creates a space for all of them. Comparatively, during “When the Sun Goes Down,” it is a love story between Benny and Nina and therefore is much more intimate in its overall feel. “We [Brooks and Chu] have a language of musicals that we understand. And then some of those elements were then incorporated into IN THE HEIGHTS.”
One of the most compelling scenes in the film is a celebratory dinner that takes place at Abuela Claudia’s apartment. They’re celebrating Nina being home from Stanford, Usnavi and Vanessa are getting ready to go on their first date, and the sense of community as they dance and dine is a much needed source of comfort for the characters. Brooks opted to shoot this scene as if the camera were a fly on the wall. “We shot that in a real 900-square foot apartment in Harlem, [with] our 10 leads at the dinner table. And we shot it over two days. And the intention of that scene is for the audience to feel that they're part of the conversation, that they’re sitting at the table as one of the community members.” Capturing close-ups of the character’s reactions to each other as the scene progressed was important to Brooks, and so both by desire and necessity, the camera almost literally became another character. “We were in such a confined space that the camera would literally be right between two actors’ heads,” she states. “So, it really was our intention to feel like the audience was part of that dinner. And that was our intention for the whole movie, was to have these really intimate moments. These are real people with real dreams and real struggles. And so those intimate moments are so important.”
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Another standout set piece of the film is Abuela Claudia’s deeply personal song, “Paciencia Y Fe.” The number plays out like a ballet, shot and choreographed beautifully as the parade of dancers act out the intimate story that Abuela Claudia is telling. Brooks says, “[It’s] about Abuela Claudia's dream, and what her life has been like. That she has fulfilled her dreams, she did help her community, she served her community, she was there for her community. And at her stage in life, her dreams have come true . . . when she first starts walking, the whole world around her is out of focus. And I love that she's the only thing in focus and I love that her whole journey through the subway feels like a sort of receding memory of her past as the lights dim.” The number plays out in a subway station (specifically, an abandoned platform at the D Avenue station in Brooklyn) with virtually no added effects and no use of a soundstage, which was not without its challenges: “There was no elevator and it was a five-day rigging job to rig all our lights and cables and for [the] art department to go in and dress everything,” she begins. “We shot one day at the at the graffiti tunnel and it was so hot and humid that the tunnel was literally sweating. So it just had this beautiful glisten of a wet down, like what special effects could do if you had the time, but it was 900 feet of this wet tunnel and our chasing lights just reflected in the most spectacular, beautiful way . . . it was just a magical shoot.”
These are just a few of the notable numbers throughout the film, which is so colorful and immersive that audiences forget they’re sitting in a theatre and not joined dancing around the city’s fire hydrants. There is seemingly no better film to evoke such a strong sense of community—a feeling that the world could use now more than ever as movie-goers slowly begin making their way back to the cinema. The film guarantees that you will laugh, cry, sing, rejoice, and leave feeling inspired and hopeful.