Sydney-based cinematographer Emma Paine earned a Graduate Diploma in Cinematography from the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) in 2011 and has been quite prolific ever since, earning 40+ credits to her name across feature films, documentaries, commercials, and of course, television dramas. Paine’s breadth of work speaks highly to the passion she has for her craft, the great depth of which becomes clear after just a few moments of talking with her. It’s these attributes that have contributed to the flourishing of her incredible creative instincts and voice, both of which earned her a spot on Insider Film’s “Rising Talent 2022: The New Names You Need to Know” in December of 2021, and they were certainly on to something. Within a year, she would begin work on the last three episodes of One Night, one of the most gripping, beautiful, and critically-acclaimed dramas of 2023.
Paine’s visual influences for One Night included French cinematographer Claire Mathon of Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Spencer fame (just to name a few), and you can see why. One Night fizzes with similar energy, though under not-too-similar circumstances. She described Mathon’s work to us as “really beautiful and subtle” while making sure that the “important moments are still there". Paine’s frame composition is gorgeous and striking, but not ostentatious, and each image’s delicateness is as present as its power. It’s for this reason that as she describe’s Mathon’s craft, she describes her own, though you get the sense she might not realise that. But perhaps she does. You hope she does.
In earlier conversations with Read The Room, One Night block two director Lisa Matthews described Paine as “fastidious” and “so talented”. (Also, for what it’s worth “a sweetheart”.) Within just one email interaction with her, it was clear that Matthews was right. Paine’s love for her work was contagious and her eagerness to talk about the show maybe even matched ours - which, we admit, is hard to do.
RTR co-editor Helena Emmanuel sat down with her via Zoom to chat about her background, her work on One Night, and a certain viral short film she made years ago. Take a look at the conversation below.
// Please be aware that, due to the themes represented in the TV series One Night such as sexual assault, PTSD and addiction, it was inevitable that some of those topics would be discussed in our interviews. //
Helena Emmanuel: Starting broadly, what made you want to become a Director of Photography (DOP)?
Emma Paine: I have been taking photographs ever since I was a child. So it felt like a natural progression. Throughout high school I did darkroom photography and loved it.
I happened to be doing a media course in high school and very fortunately for me, one of my teachers pointed out that there's an Australian Film Television and Radio School, which I didn't know was an option at the time. He helped me put together my application, I got in and moved to Sydney. I thought I wanted to be a writer for quite a while and then very quickly realised that cinematography is kind of like writing with pictures, which is something that I already love.
It was just kind of a full on love affair from there on.
HE: How does your approach to prepping and filming a project change depending on the genre?
Emma: That's a really good question, actually. My approach kind of stays the same regardless of genre.
I'm somebody who really loves story and loves characters. I think that's come from that past of wanting to be a writer at one point. So I try to approach it from that aspect first. I generally do a deep dive into references, watch a lot of things, try to go to art galleries and see different things.
You sort of never know what you're going to be inspired by. I'm kind of always looking for that little spark that creates an idea for a scene and things. I’ll often start that way and then get down into the technical after that.
But I definitely have a couple of weeks-long periods where I like to not think about the technical at all and just keep it a sacred space of creativity. Just let everything stew a little bit. I feel like I'm a big sponge at that point. Then towards the end of the process, when everything gets practical, I'll bring out the sponge and see what sticks in there. But so far I kind of just approach everything the same way. Which is good.
HE: In an interview several years ago, you mentioned how you weren't getting approached for commercial work as often as you felt like your male counterparts were, and that most of the directors and producers that approached you for jobs were female. Has that changed at all for you?
Emma: No, I’d say it's roughly the same. I think I've made a lot more peace with it now. You know, in the past it was tough. I was trying to make it in commercials and drama at the same time. It kind of came to this point where I could either move into long form or try and keep forcing my way through the door into commercial. I just got tired of it and ended up just going for drama, which I'm very happy doing. I still get the odd commercial, but yeah, it's the same.
I feel like the narrative filmmaking world in Australia is a lot more open to female cinematographers and younger cinematographers as well. Whereas I think commercial still has a little way to go, although there's some incredible female directors now who are out there kicking butt and winning awards and things. So I think that's kind of changing as well, but just a little bit behind drama.
HE: That makes sense. I was very excited when I watched the credits for the second half [of One Night]. I was like, “Oh my gosh, the DP's a woman! That's so cool!”
Emma: I know! Yeah! When One Night approached me, I was like, “This show would make no sense if a woman didn't shoot a few of the episodes, at least.”
HE: Yeah, absolutely! I actually had a question about that. Do you think that having so many women in those higher-up positions influenced the creative output, process, and tone on the set? Correct me if I'm wrong, but your A Camera 1st AC [first assistant camera] was also a woman, right?
Emma: Yes! It was very fun.
HE: Do you think that that helped the tone of the show and the set? Obviously you don't have to be a woman to tell female stories, but I can imagine that on a show with this kind of depth on this kind of subject matter, who’s telling the story could affect the end product.
Emma: I think there's definitely something to be said for a female lens. I absolutely adore the work of Garry Phillips, the block one DOP, as well. He with (director) Catherine Millar created just such a beautiful look to the whole show that they passed on to Lisa and I. I felt there were subtleties and things that are important to me that almost didn’t need to be discussed. There were moments in the script where I went, “Oh, that's so important,” and you just naturally put the camera somewhere and try to highlight that. Lisa and I would just be like, “Well, yeah, duh. That's where the camera goes for that moment.” I feel like having that female lens is important, but that was also part of the process of pre-production. Catherine Millar had put together this amazing style bible for the whole show, which was like 50 pages long and this beautiful breakdown of perspective of characters.
Claire Mathon (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Spencer) who is another female cinematographer was a big inspiration. Just the way that she frames her work is really beautiful and subtle as well, but those important moments are still there. So that was something that was weaved into the show as a whole. Even just stuff like in Episode Four when Simone has a flashback to being a teen and being abused. First of all, it's horrible and gut-wrenching, but it was just one of the things that I read and went, “Well, it's important to me that you never see the man's face,” because it's just the abuse that happens to women in general. It kind of doesn't matter who it is. It's just that it happened and it happens to women. I wanted it to be one of those symbolic images of just, it's not about the man. It's about how it changes a woman's life.
HE: Absolutely. Did you operate the camera or are you a DOP who likes to watch behind monitor?
Emma: I can't separate myself from the camera. I tried being back [by the monitors] and the whole time I just had my hands up as if they were next to the camera to be like, pushing, pushing [in].
HE: I imagine that that would also help in much more intimate scenes where it's one-on-one. Where it's just you and the camera and the actor.
Emma: I think it's really important in something that has such a heavy subject matter and is so emotional. A lot of the show is handheld, so you have that opportunity to react to a performance. I really value that ability to be in the room, be in the space and feel the performance.
HE: Taking a step back a bit. When you first got the job, what were your initial reactions to the scripts after you read them for the first time? Was there something that jumped out at you that made you go, “Oh, I want to shoot that”?
Emma: Oh, I mean, first was that they were really beautifully written, and I think you can tell that Emily is a novelist, because the descriptions are just insane. Also there's such a sense of place to them, seeing as she had spent so much time in the Thirroul area.
I think the thing that really drew me in was how quickly the relationships get complicated and sticky, and how the situation is so layered. I found that really fascinating. But also just the way that Emily described the world felt very in line with how I see the world as well. I kind of just went, “Oh, I'd love to make images that are on the page here”. It was very exciting to read.
Then I met up with Emily, there was so much that we both loved visually, so it felt like a very natural [fit]. There was a moment where I couldn't do the job, and I was very upset for a while. I happened to move around in my schedule a little bit, and it came back to me. Definitely happy that it happened.
HE: I imagine it was fun to shoot the scenery and the landscape of the show, too, and that it added so much.
Emma: Absolutely. It's such a unique part of Australia as well. It was quite funny because we were living down there for a few weeks while shooting it, and Emily had described how it was so bright during the day and then at night time, everything became a little bit seedy and a little bit strange. It was exactly what it was. I really didn't like being there at night time very much, but it is stunning. It's just these strange things about it where you drive along the coast and there's all these beautiful beaches, but they're just full of these jagged rocks - you really want to go there, but you just can't. It was a really interesting space. Lisa and I spoke a lot about the idea of the escarpment and the sea just trapping the characters. Because I think it’s only a kilometre or less between the two. It's a very narrow town.
We'd constantly try and get the mountains or the sea in there at some point in every scene that it was available to do so. Especially Simone's house - it was amazing visually for that. You just can't see the sky. It's kind of terrifying. People who live down there were like, “Oh, you know, rocks just fall down…” This place is insane.
HE: It seemed like the perfect house for her, too. It's like they put it there for the show.
Emma: It is stunning. Annoyingly, we only shot the outside there and then shot the interiors in Sydney, which is just something that always happens, but it was a shame. It also made it practically very difficult because it rains a lot there, which you probably notice in the show. The sky is very overcast, but you can't see past the escarpment, so you don't know when the rain's coming. It sort of just forms up there and then is on you. There'd be days where there’s no rain whatsoever in the radar, and then you'd be in the middle of a scene and suddenly it just starts raining, and you just go, “Wow, okay, that just formed above us. Sure.” [laughs] You try your best to do every trick possible to not see [on camera] that it's raining.
HE: You kind of alluded to it already, how Catherine and Garry set the tone and the visual language for the show that you kind of inherited from them, for lack of a better word. What was that transition process like? Did you and Garry talk a lot, or was it just kind of like, “Here you go”? I'm curious about what it's like inheriting a vision that you have to adhere to but that also you want to put your own mark on.
Emma: You know, it's an interesting thing. Lisa and I always spoke about it. You kind of want to keep it 80% the same and 20% you. I don't know where we quite landed there, but Catherine and Garry were so welcoming and open. We actually did pre-production with them at the very start of the show, so we were part of the process and able to be part of the discussions about the look, because they didn't want to create something and then just pass it off cold. So we felt very part of the process from the start.
I also went and spent some time on set while Garry was shooting just to get a sense of the pace and the crew as well, because I also inherited the crew. It was just making sure those practical things would work. I watched the rushes (footage captured the day before) every day. I had a really good sense of the lighting especially. That was something important to me, that the lighting stayed consistent, because I knew that I wanted to change up some of the coverage style.
The thinking behind it was that it feels like the whole show is these ripples coming out from this one event - in the first half of the show, everything's really tight and changing a lot, and there's so much back and forth between the past and present and memory and reality. That’s happening until you get to the second half, and things start to settle down a little bit and fall into place and become slightly more calm. I want that reflected in the cinematography: the lighting stays consistent across the whole show, but everything gets a little bit slower and holds a little bit longer in the second half.
Garry came up with this brilliant idea of having a tilt-shift lens that creates that kind of warp-y feeling that signalled you’re going into memory and also of shooting through glass, which is so fun to do, because it feels very creative to have a physical piece of glass in front of the lens.
HE: Is that what gave the refracted feeling?
Emma: Yes. It's several types of glass. It was kind of this art - you'd want it to be in just the right spot or to move in the right way. So just adding another layer of things to think about where it's like, “Okay, it's moving here. We need to slide the glass.” It was really fun. It felt like being a kid painting. We named all the pieces of glass. We were like, “Bring out the Monet!” [laughs]
It was a very open process. We had a handoff call where Garry gave me all the heads up on everything. It was my first time taking over from someone else and it went really smoothly. Luckily, even though it was our first time working together, Lisa and I were so on the same page from the start. I think I came to the office and just had these photos on my phone that I'd started collecting from a few photographers, and she was like, “Yeah, that's it. That's perfect. Let's keep going in that direction.” The best collaborator. So supportive of new ideas. It was awesome.
HE: That's so cool that you two got to be a part of pre-production and establishing the tone and everything. I think you can tell, too. I mean, not that you wouldn't be able to match it otherwise, but… [laughs]
Emma: Yeah! Sometimes shows don't do that, but it really does pay off.
HE: What was the hardest scene to shoot?
Emma: I found the assault scene with Young Simone was really quite difficult to shoot. Just ‘cause... you have it in your mind - you approach it very practically and go, “Okay, I need this shot, this shot and this shot.” Then when you're there in a room watching it through a screen going, “Oh God, it's going to come up.” You kind of realise that it's going to work and you go, “Oh, this is such an awful thing to be shooting”. It’s powerful and it needs to be there, but it definitely was a…sombre day on set, is what I would say.
It's all done very technically. For a lot of those scenes, the young actress is never in the same frame as the adult man. You know, they kept separate. The hand on the leg [on screen] isn't on the young actor’s leg, it’s on another adult's leg. So it's all done very technically, but it was a hard one.
We were a very light and joke-y crew as well. Often if you're working on something that's a bit darker, everyone tries to keep their spirits up throughout the day and doesn't want to get too involved in the story in the day-to-day making of it. But [the molestation scene] was one of those ones where you couldn't have that. You couldn't just turn around and have a joke with somebody or lighten the mood.
HE: Would you consider that scene the hardest technically as well?
Emma: No, I think funnily enough, the hardest technically was the one where Simone is driving in a car with Lily.
It was this ongoing thing throughout the whole shoot of how we're going to shoot that scene. Cars are just difficult to shoot. We ended up on a low loader in South Sydney trying to find trees that look similar to the South Coast, because you can't shoot cars down there, especially not on a loader, which is like a huge truck with a car on it. That was kind of a technical nightmare, even though it's a really simple scene. It was three shots, but it was just this ongoing discussion throughout the whole project [leading up to it]. “Okay, we need to actually decide how we're going to do this now.”
HE: So many times it’s the thing that seems like it's going to be the easiest to shoot that’s actually the most complicated.
Emma: Yeah, exactly. And you’re like, “It's not impressive in any way! It was just hard.”
We had other things we got really lucky with, like in Episode Six and the scene with Tess and Lily on the hill having a mother-daughter chat. There just happened to be a bushfire three hours south, and the wind blew it up towards us, so there's this amazing pink sunset that just looks so real and just perfect for that one moment. It never happened again. It wasn't there for any other scenes. It was just that one scene. We showed up on this hill and went, “Wow. Why is it pink? What's happening?” We're all on our phones looking up where the bushfire is. It’s sad about the bushfire, but it looked great for us.
HE: I’m curious what your favourite frame or scene from the show is aesthetically, if you have one.
Emma: I really like the montage at the end of ep six. I'm a sucker for a montage anyway, because it's always very cinematography driven. I really enjoyed making all of those moments.
Also, I don't know why, but I just really loved the scene with Tess on the phone listening to Simone talking to her dad. It’s a really beautiful moment and just a quiet moment. After this big storm, you do have that moment of peace. It was very nice to shoot something that was - after shooting so many arguments and threats and assaults - it was just this nice, peaceful moment.
HE: This is going back out a little broader. You touched on the thoughtfulness of the creative choices you made already, but in One Night it really feels like the camera is telling the story. It's not just observing it.
In your opinion and experience, what responsibility, if any, does the director of photography have to the story that they're filming?
Emma: I feel like the DOP is there to serve the story in any way they can. It’s a lot about understanding the subtext and then coming up with images to help support that. It’s all about creating a feeling, usually through lighting. So that even when things aren't necessarily said out loud, you're going to get that feeling. That was something that was really fun on this one. It was incredibly naturalistic to a point where a lot of the scenes just had no lighting whatsoever. We'd just be finding spaces that would look good [like that]. Just leaning into a natural look and not trying to add too much artifice on top of it. It's a story that is very raw and stripped back. I didn't want to place too much on top of that. It's more about simplifying and taking away.
Mostly, a DOP’s job is to lift the performances through image as much as we can. I feel like it goes both ways. I'm always trying to amplify that subtext, and then if I'm doing a bad job doing that but the actors are acting really well, then you don't notice that there’s a relationship there. Or if the actors are having a struggle with something or it’s a scene where they don't have any lines but it’s something important [for the story], I can help by just pushing the images along.
HE: A technical question: how do you shoot the underwater stuff?
Emma: We had an underwater cinematographer come along, Chris Bryan, who specialises in underwater cinematography and surf cinematography as well. He's very, very good, and I've worked with him before!
The Tess underwater bits we actually shot in a pool. A harbour pool. It’s one of the funny [situations] where you spend a lot of time talking outside of the water so you get exactly what you want [inside it].
Chris has a small RED camera in a little tank that he takes down. He's doing his own focus. It’s pretty incredible to watch. You're standing there watching a little screen, but there's just nothing in front of you, just water.
We just shoot a lot. It’s such an unusual perspective of the world, underwater, especially seeing clearly underwater. I think it was definitely worth it. We also got the young versions of the characters underwater and diving into the water as well. There’s something magical about underwater cinematography.
HE: It does really feel like magic. My last question is: is there a genre or type of project that you haven't shot yet that you'd like to?
Emma: Oh, I am desperate to shoot a period film. I'm there for the costumes and the design. That’s the next thing to conquer. It’s that or maybe a horror. One of the two.
HE: I don't have any more questions for you, but I noticed when I was looking up your previous work that you shot the Australian marriage equality short film several years ago.
Emma: Yeah, it made its way around the internet for sure.
HE: Yeah! And I remember seeing it and being so emotional about it. So, um, I guess thank you for being a part of both of these projects.
Emma: No, absolutely, yeah. I loved making that short film. It's mostly in my house. We literally got a camera and were like, “let's just do it”. We're angry and annoyed about everything, so let's just do something creative.
HE: I started watching and I was like, “This feels really familiar…” And then, “Oh my God, I've seen this before!”
Emma: It's the only thing I've ever shot that I think went viral. Not even very viral.
I feel like shooting in Australia, it's like, “Yeah, cool, but no one will see anything you do”. I'm amazed that you've seen One Night, and I'm amazed you've seen that.
Words: Helena Emmanuel
Interview: Helena Emmanuel (with questions submitted by the RTR team)
You can watch One Night on Paramount+ UK & Ireland and Paramount+ Australia now.
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