Anora cinematography Drew Daniels likes the uncertainty of working with film stock.
“It puts a little bit more faith and trust in the cinematographer because people don’t know if it will come out,” he says. “When your dailies look good, there’s always a surprise and a sigh of relief.”
The cinematographer of Sean Baker’s latest — which won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or and is nominated for a slew of awards, including a Golden Globe nomination for best musical or comedy — believes that shooting on digital removes variables from the moviemaking process, but also some of the potential for happy accidents.
“It takes away a lot of the magic,” says Daniels.
Baker makes stories about working-class Americans and the complex, often big choices imposed by their diminishing options. Accordingly, when it comes to cinematography, Baker and Daniels try to impose limits on themselves — besides those created by budgets and time — to force creative solutions.
“Every decision we made on Anora was the more difficult option,” says Daniels. “Everything from where we shot the movie and how we shot it was difficult, but I think it yields a better film.”
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When Baker made his 2015 breakthrough, Tangerine, he did his own cinematography, with Radium Cheung, and they used iPhones.
After Tangerine’s success, Baker and cinematographerAlexis Zabe chose 35mm film for the 2017 follow-up The Florida Project. And when Baker began collaborating with Daniels for 2021’s Red Rocket, they shot the movie on 16mm.
How Drew Daniels Filmed Anora
For Anora — in which Mikey Madison plays an exotic dancer romanced by the son of a Russian oligarch — Daniels shot on 35mm film using anamorphic 1970s Lomo Round Front lenses and a Lomo 40-120 zoom lens. The entire project was filmed with one camera, except on one day when they used two.
They shot the film mostly in Brooklyn in 2023.
“Oh, God. Shooting a film of this scope and ambition in New York City,” Daniels recalls with a laugh. “Every day you had no idea if we were going to capture the scene or if we were going to get shut down.”
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Baker was inspired by the New Hollywood films of the ‘70s, with special deference to cinematographer Owen Roizman’s work on The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and The French Connection. Both movies use rich black shading on character’s faces, in their shadows, and in background angles, whether they’re outdoors, inside, or on a train.
“With this film and with my others, I told Drew, even though this film takes place in 2019, I want it to feel somehow like it was shot in 1974,” Baker explains.
Daniels says the “old” and “milky” condition of their Lomo Round Front lenses gave the film “that Pelham One Two Three feeling.”
He was also inspired by Jean-Luc Godard’s sumptuous 1963 film Contempt.
“I love the compositions, the way Brigitte Bardot’s body is composed across the screen, the use of the anamorphic image and the colors. The way the red pops out,” he says. “I really leaned into that.”
You can read more about Anora in our cover story about Sean Baker and Mikey Madison, featuring Drew Daniels, here. We also invite you to read this piece in which Baker and Madison share a few predictions about the future of film — and life itself.
Anora is now in theaters, from NEON.
This piece first appeared in our fall issue — aka The Future Issue — on sale now.
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