'Spider Noir' DP's Peter Deming And Darran Tiernan Talk About Crafting The Show's Film Noir Aesthetic
FilmSpeak had the pleasure of sitting down with Peter Deming and Darran Tiernan, the directors of photography for Amazon Prime’s new superhero series ‘Spider Noir’ where they discussed crafting the show’s singular and enveloping film noir aesthetic.
‘Spider Noir’ centers on down on his luck private detective Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage) in the 1930s who, after a personal tragedy involving the woman he loves, decides to hang up his mask as the city’s superhero nicknamed “The Spider” once and for all. However, a new case descends him into a rabbit hole of corruption that propels him back toward the fight.
The show’s first season is a superb piece of pulpy superhero television, elevated tremendously by some wonderfully immersive cinematography that not only pays homage to film noir classics of the past, but creates the series’ wholly immersive visual aesthetic. The first season of the series gives viewer’s two options to watch each episode in, black and white and true hue color. Naturally, shooting for both black and white in addition to color brings about a multitude of challenges for any cinematographer so when asked about the topic, DP Peter Deming stated, “It’s a pretty heavy lift for sure…the designers Warren and Trayce had to do a lot of work of what colors would work for both, what hues, what sort of densities of color in the costumes and sets were going to work for the color look and the black and white look.” Another challenge of filming for both was retaining a consistent tone and aesthetic between both of them.
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Speaking to the subject, Deming expressed, “I got to do both which was great. I got to do the hardcore noir that Darran and Pankaj had set up which was so fantastic and then sort of tackle these new elements of the story and when Darran and I talked about it, we sort of hemmed and hawed about how much do we sway from the film noir? At the end of the day, it wasn’t really at all.” Speaking of film noir, when asked if they were able to check anything off their respective noir bucket lists from a visual standpoint, DP Darran Tiernan excitedly shared, “I go to do massive, clean black shadows on lit walls like The Third Man, running into smoke, super low angles and wide lenses.” With Deming shooting episodes five and six and Tiernan shooting the remaining episodes, when asked if there was a shot or sequence that they appreciated from one of each other’s episodes, both of them were eager to give one another their flowers.
Tiernan quickly chimed in by saying, “The World War I sequence, just like everything about that and Nic, you know, when Nic is going through changes in the hospital and that whole confrontation…those two sequences immediately jump into my mind.” Deming, having not had a change to watch the show due to being away on a shoot, still returned the favor by stating, “Everything I’ve seen in the promos and clips has been really dynamic and spectacular.” Their work feels like a proper love letter to film noir, never poking fun at the genre. When asked if that was an important goal in getting that across, Tiernan expressed, “I think it was always very important and this comes from our end again and our showrunner, writer and creator that it shouldn’t be a parody. There is humor and comedy in the show just like there was great screwball comedies in the forties…personally I came from such a deep respect of that genre.” Deming quickly added, “Yeah I would agree…it’s from a place of reverance, absolutely.”
Deming and Tiernan’s work on the series is top tier work, not only making this film noir style pop off the screen in both black and white and in true hue, but effectively creating a wholly immersive atmosphere that sucks the viewer in for all eight episodes. Their love and affection for the genre bleeds through in each and every frame, aiding in making this story sing as the first season’s central mystery is slowly unfurled. Simply put, if the show does return for a second season, it would be a tragedy to not have this dynamic duo return to the fold to deliver even more wonderfully dynamic visual panache.