Filmmaker Interview: Adrian Peng - Experimenting with Indie on Nobody Wants This

Nobody Wants This is an indie series at heart that is designed to look and play like a big studio movie in both story and visual language. Capturing this type of show created a unique production environment that Correia found familiar but also ripe for new creative opportunities.

"We had eight hours a day to shoot, and five-day episodes," Correia explained. "So, it was 40 hours of working per week. It's not a ton of time to shoot that many pages."

"I come from super low-budget features, so I'm trying to marry some of the elements of that go-for-broke aesthetic and still hold on to the studio look that makes everyone above the line feel happy," Correia said. "We're making a show that's elevated as opposed to something we just try and capture."

To meet this strict shooting schedule, the production team opted to film on location in, and around, Los Angeles instead of on sound stages. Leaning on his experience shooting independent features, Correia would shoot all the episodes of Season 1, partnering with five different directors.

"We shot [the series] pretty quickly," Correia shared. "And there were some pretty specific mandates that made the VENICE 2 a clear advantage to me. There were no sets either. It's all practical-location work."

"The producer, Jeff Morton, was like, 'I want to try an experiment and run this very, very small. I don't want any lights bigger than what you have to plug into a wall. I want to see if you can just walk into a location, see what the existing lighting is, and run.'"

The plan was to create a workflow that allowed the production team to arrive on location, sight unseen, use minimal lighting, and shoot efficiently. To maintain this rhythm, Correia and his team would use light readings and photographs of each location to lean on already available practical lighting, light in 360 degrees as much as possible, and cross-shoot each scene. 

"The existing lighting provided us the baseline to cocoon our set lighting around and then still make it feel like a practical set," Correia said. "It was often small [LED] units and high ISO."

It was here that the Sony VENICE 2 became an asset. Being able to squeeze every stop of exposure from even the smallest lights allowed for creative freedom in each location. With the camera's high sensitivity, every light became a pigment on Correia's palette. 

"The VENICE was the camera for me right from the beginning," Correia explained. "I liked the color science [of the VENICE 2] very much, and I thought it gave great skin tones, which I knew was going to be important. Especially in close-ups with Kristen, Justine, and Jackie."

While early tests had the team consider using the Sony FX3, Correia decided to stay with the VENICE 2 to give him that extra edge in clarity, color, and form factor. He needed a camera that was easy to rig, could make limited lighting shine, and was comfortable for operators to handle. 

"I wanted to make sure we had the room to get a really thick negative, even in those high ISOs," Correia added. "And still have all that contrast and color in the faces and not feel like I was sacrificing anything."

Filmmaker Interview: Adrian Peng - Overcoming Challenges with the Sony VENICE 2

While shooting quickly with limited lighting posed its own challenges, Correia also had to tackle difficult lighting scenarios posed by wardrobe and the show's locations. 

"[Noah] wears more dark earthen colors," Correia said. "Against white walls with that blistering contrast outside the windows, it was really difficult to cut and shape light anywhere or to hide things. So, the dynamic range of the VENICE 2 was important."

Whether it was Noah's house with big windows or a dinner scene at night in the Hollywood Hills, the VENICE 2 provided the extra support needed to capture those elements. 

"I was at ISO 4000 for most of the season. I even shot a few things at ISO 12,800 when I just couldn't fit a light anywhere," Correia said. "That's why the VENICE 2 became so critical."

"The fact that I could use two small lights on arms and my existing atmospherics at night in the Hollywood Hills and still be able to hold all that incredible detail in that dinner scene, that's when I knew I wasn't going to have any problems this season."

"It was exciting to see the camera at work in that scenario and still make something feel romantic and edgy without being muddy," Correia said. "[The VENICE 2] gave us bandwidth photographically, to be able to realize all those faces and all those colors and all these dark wardrobes against pretty dark backgrounds."

This can be seen most during the kiss scene between Noah and Joanne, where the VENICE 2 combines a wide spectrum of colors from a movie theater marquee, balancing shadows with bright lights and vivid colors. 

"The thing that's impressive about the camera is the gamut of colors it can handle," Correia said. "During the kissing, the purple that's on Noah's face is from the Vista Theatre. So, we go through these massively hot top lights and all these different gamuts of colors, and then this really robust purple on Noah's face. 

"Then there's this kind of apricot key on [Joanne's] face, and [the VENICE 2] can really hold all that color information, all that depth. And it makes it feel not garish. It just feels very rich and cinematic."

Filmmaker Interview: Adrian Peng - Finding Freedom on Location

Shooting a series that demanded elevated visuals with a nimble workflow often found on independent film projects requires confidence that only comes with experience. By combining his extensive experience with the support of the VENICE 2, Correia brought to set a freedom of expression not often seen on fast-paced productions.   

“[The VENICE 2] allows you to conceive of things graphically in different ways," Correia said. "It allows you to be more nimble, it allows you to improvise, and it allows you to take greater chances because the camera can recover for you if you're really trying to be aggressive with something."

"It allows me to hold on to what makes the scene photographically relevant to the page and then expand upon my idea of what that is without having to worry about the tools."

Stream the entire first season of Nobody Wants This on Netflix to see Correia's work in action. To learn more about the Sony VENICE 2 and the other cameras of the Sony Cinema Line, check out our camera comparison tool.