When it comes to crime drama/thrillers, John Travolta has starred in classics such as Face/Off, Get Shorty, Pulp Fiction and Swordfish to name a few. Fans of this subgenre can next see Travolta in Saban Films’ Mob Land in theaters now and VOD August 25th. Mob Land follows a local sheriff (Travolta) who tries to maintain the peace in a small town when desperate family man Shelby (Shiloh Fernandez) robs a pill mill with his reckless brother-in-law, Trey (Kevin Dillon). But the supposedly easy score takes a violent turn, alerting the New Orleans mafia’s revenge-seeking enforcer Clayton Minor (Stephen Dorff), who then threatens Shelby’s wife (Ashley Benson) and her daughter. An aspect of the film that does not go unnoticed is the cinematography by Nick Matthews (Spoonful of Sugar, Saw X) who uses unique camera angles and lighting to accentuate the grit of the story. That Moment In conducted the below Q&A with Nick and had him discuss everything Mob Land.
First, could you touch on briefly what some of your responsibilities were as cinematographer for Mob Land?
As a cinematographer, it’s my job to realize the visual world of the story using lights, cameras, and lenses. You function as an artist, technician, and a manager to oversee three departments (camera, grip, and electric) all while crafting a unique vision that supports the thematic intent of the director. In this case, I worked closely with director Nicholas Maggio to devise and then execute the visual language for Mob Land.
Before filming began, did you storyboard out Mob Land? If not, what did you do to prepare?
Preproduction was a mad sprint! We landed in Georgia and immediately started scouting, casting the film, hiring crew–all while listening to Knocked Loose, Nails, and others … This was a 3-week pre-production from arrival to our first shoot day. Given that timeline, we devised a set of rules for our photography to guide us along the way since so many of the pieces were coming together quickly. When something moves at this pace, you have to remain adaptable while never losing sight of your vision. We didn’t have time for storyboards, but shot listed our set pieces and created a rough shot list for our other scene work. However, when John Travolta and Stephen Dorff come on set and bring these characters to life and devise new blocking–you throw away the shotlist and take advantage of the magic happening in front of you.
How was Mob Land different than some of your other films, such as Shudder’s Spoonful of Sugar?
Every film tells a unique story and the visuals are a fundamental component of that storytelling. On Spoonful of Sugar we used a controlled camera and the lighting shifts from realism to surrealism. We’re playing with heightened subjectivity, but in an elegant way. There are shafts of light, backlight, heavy contrast, and the characters are photographed sensuously. There are a smattering of handheld shots in the film, while the majority was shot on a dolly and tripod.
For Mob Land, we approached the material with a commitment to pervasive darkness, naturalistic lighting, and a cinematic handheld approach that placed the audience into our gritty, immersive Southern neo-noir. We wanted the camera work to dance with the actors and give them the space to deliver incredible performances. The story and director dictate the approach, and I’m all about taking risks with the photography.
Can you talk about using a handheld camera versus one on a tripod in Mob Land because there seems to be a lot of handheld. How do you decide when to use what?
There are three shots in the film that are on sticks–pay attention and you’ll find them. For Mob Land we were inspired by films like French Connection, I Saw the Devil, The Battle of Algiers, Place Beyond the Pines, Donnybrook, Un Prophete, and Snow Town Murders. They are raw and dirty and messy in a way that feels brutal and unsettling. That’s the sort of atmospheric energy we wanted to capture. In addition to the creative intent, it gave us the speed to shoot the film in 11 days (with 3 splinter days afterward).
The color palette for Mob Land seems to lean towards blues and on the darker side. Why did you choose to go down that route?
The film is blood-soaked with pervading darkness, rusty & sapped colors, and brutal imagery. We used naturalistic lighting motivated by real sources that puts the audience into the spaces – harsh golden daylight, dimly lit interiors where the sun pokes into the darkness, a noir-use of shadows and contrast. Practical lighting & natural light define the look – mercury vapor greens, dirty amber sodium vapor, fluorescent greens, ruddy tungsten lamps, golden sunsets, slate blue cloud cover, and harsh sunlight. There’s no backlight, frontal lighting, fill light, or rim lights. Only sidelight, toplight, and reverse-side key light. We were after high contrast and lots of falloff. Pervasive darkness and silhouettes. Mystery and terror.
What were some of the challenges, individual or collaborative, you encountered working on Mob Land?
Our greatest challenge was time. We had 14 days (11 principal and 3 splinter unit) to tell this story. We scoured the south to find just the right locations, the right cars, and the right guns to keep the film grounded in the reality of the characters. This takes the audience along a gritty, intense ride through the murderous south. The pace we shot the film at reads in the gravity of the performances. We only achieved that by shooting 2 units at the same time for half the film and using 2 cameras for our main unit work which was a new approach for me. A lot of the preproduction was spent figuring out how to creatively capture the set pieces, while staying on budget and schedule. Lighting for 2 cameras is tough, but with our use of practicals and natural light was invaluable to that approach.
A lot of the characters in the film were shot from a lower angle. Was this a conscious decision?
The stakes in the film are epic and shooting characters from a lower angle aided in this sense of mythos, rather than shooting characters from eye-level.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
We wanted the film to feel textured like pushed 35mm stock. To achieve this we did the following: Alexa Mini LF in 4K, Vintage-esque BlackWing Tribe Primes, & Augeneuix EZ Zoom Lenses filtered by 1/8th Hollywood Blackmagic for a little blooming. We shot at 2000 ASA & implemented film grain in the DI. I had such a great time making this film and I hope audiences enjoy the experience of watching it as much as we did making Mob Land.
Learn more about Nick Matthews at https://www.nicholasmatthewsfilm.com/