Note: This article was originally written in November 2021 for the Daily Grindhouse Patreon. However, it was only available behind that paywall for a spell. I really loved this interview and feel it is now worth bringing into the light and re-publishing. I hope you enjoy it.
Regardless of where one’s opinion falls on the subject, we are truly living in an unprecedented age of reboots and remakes. However, that certainly does not mean that all are created equal. While some simply retread the tired tracks of their IP predecessors, others use the opportunity to explore new territory within a familiar framework. With Amazon’s new I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, the creative team embraced the more adventurous approach to rebooting a franchise and has created something refreshingly new that’s full of surprises.
Along with a talented cast of young actors, incredible music, and a storyline that will genuinely leave you guessing, it is the beautifully cinematic look and feel of the show that gives it its extra edge. Impressively capturing the breathtaking landscape of Hawaii and the nuanced performances unfolding on screen, there is an effervescent feeling of authentic youth and danger that permeates each and every frame. While it takes a village to make any film production happen, much of this specific feeling can be credited to the show’s cinematographer, Anka Malatynska.
A true visual storyteller, Malatynska has helped dozens of productions shape and craft engaging, effective narratives through the lens of her camera. Along with I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, Malatynska’s work can be seen on projects that include MONSTERLAND, DELILAH, BREAKING FAST, and LITTLE WOMEN (2018). And, while she is a familiar name on many prestigious lists of top rising stars in the field (with a shooting schedule to match), Malatynska continues to spend countless hours mentoring, teaching, and supporting those just starting out in the field.
In celebration of I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER’s recent debut on Amazon Prime, I had the extreme pleasure of sitting down (virtually) with Malatynska to talk about her experience working on the series. Along the way we touch on the show’s visual style, unique challenges, issues of representation and gender parity within the field, the differences between working in television and film, and what advice she’d give a young filmmaker with limited means.
These Things Matter: How did you first get involved with the production, and what attracted you to this project?
Anka Malatynska: I first got involved in the series through Craig [Macneill], who was the pilot director. We had worked on MONSTERLAND together, and we had a really, really great experience working together. And then he got this series when I was very actively looking around for the next thing. So, that's where the conversation started, and he then introduced me to Sara [Goodman], the showrunner. You know, in general, as far as what attracted me to it, I'm super attracted to fantasy, horror, things that allow us to step outside of our reality to be able to make commentary on the reality that we live in.
TTM: Because this series has ties to a larger franchise, albeit loose ones, what were the initial conversations like regarding the film’s visual style and direction?
AM: Well, for me, I know the first thing that I really attach to on all the projects that I sign on to is the story and the characters and the character development. And for me, this story is really a reflection of the millennial experience in the United States right now. Ultimately, deep down, it’s a story about friends who are branded without any really great role models or adults that they can turn to. Because all of the adults are totally fucked up. Then, you wrap it up in genre, and I feel like it becomes really relatable and really engaging.
So, with that in mind, the first conversations that we had about looks were actually looking to Andrea Arnold’s AMERICAN HONEY for that feeling of raw youth and authenticity. So that way, it didn’t just feel like a TV story world, but that these kids felt really real and relatable. I also think that within the confines of a larger franchise, there’s a bigger picture that sometimes varies that really authentic indie feel. And I do feel like we struck a really happy medium. So, we looked at Andrea Arnold, we looked at independent films, and, at the same time, we also got notes from the studio that they really wanted to feel Hawaii in there.
I feel like there’s a Hawaii that people imagine Hawaii to be, and then there’s the Hawaii that’s actually the real-er Hawaii that is a lot darker. You know, there are storms, and there are rain clouds. Then there are overcast days, and there’s more than just sunshine and rainbows. So incorporating all of that, I feel like, gives the show a really nice tonality of starting out in a happier, more aspirational world and then slowly paring down the facade to look at what’s underneath this pretty world.
TTM: The locations are really truly stunning in this series. As the cinematographer, are you involved with scouting and picking these locations at all? And if so, what exactly are you looking for?
AM: I actually didn't get to scout until some of the primary locations were already chosen, just by default of the hiring schedule. But what I’m really looking for in that respect is to kind of understand both the showrunner’s vision and the director’s. I think the cliffs were awesome and a nice tip of the hat to the original. And I feel like that's our biggest tip of the hat to the original because the storyline is so vastly different.
I also look for a feeling from locations that it has a sense of place. Even from a technical level, I oftentimes think that the feeling, the poetry, the kind of intangible quality of a location, if they seem great for a story, will prompt the technical issue that a location may have. I feel like, as a cinematographer, you straddle that world of logistics and making it happen and the imagination. But I really think it’s super important to empower the imagination and then try to work the logistics around that.
And in saying that, some of our locations were really difficult. Like an abandoned bird sanctuary in the middle of the jungle where we had to have structural engineers come in and make sure that, like, a 20-year-old rotting roof wasn’t going to collapse on us. And then the idea that we were going to do a night shoot there. I really love to do night-for-night and day-for-day as much as possible from a cinematography standpoint, but that was actually the only location that we did day-for-night because it was buried in the jungle. It was so precarious. I was also like, “I really don’t want to be in here at three o’clock in the morning when everyone is exhausted.” So me and my team, we figured out a way to make it work.
TTM: In the show, Madison Iseman plays two different characters who are twin sisters. Now, not only does this pose a unique acting challenge for her, but I also imagine it posed one for you as well. Tell us a little bit about that scenario and shooting around one actor playing two different roles.
AM: Well, basically, what it does at a technical level is that the shots that they appear in together, you have to shoot those twice for visual effects. And, you usually have to shoot them out of order because there will be a wardrobe change and a makeup change into that other character. So for us, a lot of those scenes at the party that’s in the pilot and the second episode where you see the two of them together, you know, we're mapping, we're recording where we shot that shot.
We shoot Lennon, and then we shoot out the rest of the necessary pieces of the scene that we need for her. And then we change her over to Allison. Sometimes, it means that we’re shooting out Lennon for half the day, and then we’re going back, and we’re cleaning up scenes with Allison in that same shot. So, it clones a lot of the work.
TTM: That sounds like an organizational nightmare.
AM: [Laughs] Yeah, it's a lot of dissecting, breaking down and organizing, and making sure. Because you can't keep changing back and forth between Lennon and Allison or you’re going to kill your day with makeup and wardrobe change. It leans on the cinematography to adapt and make sure that we get the correct pieces of the story so that we can have that two-shot at the party. And then the party on top of it. We’re shooting the two shots, we’re shooting Allison, we’re shooting Lennon, and then we’re shooting with no background. Then, we also shoot background plates.
That's where the Visual Effects Supervisor is really important on a show like this. To be able to do all of that and help me keep track of it and tell me what they need in order to marry the shot. But yeah, it was really complicated. And then, so was inside the cave with the water, Lennon, and Allison. Some of those shots in visual effects, we couldn't recreate the water the way that we really envisioned. So, we actually went back and, at the suggestion of one of our producers, she had a great idea of shooting day-for-night in an actual tide pool. So those shots that you see of Lennon and Allison where the water is coming in, some of those shots are actually shot outside in the shade during the day.
TTM: Because this is a TV series, there are a handful of different directors that are involved. As the cinematographer, how do you balance their unique approaches and stylistic personalities while also maintaining an overall visual cohesiveness?
AM: I really think in TV, it’s a three-way conversation between the showrunner, the director, and the cinematographer. Ultimately, in the structure of television, it is the showrunner and the writers who are the creative head whose vision we're fulfilling. And then Sara also has like, 10 or 20 million bosses at Sony and Amazon that she answers to. But on set, we all answer to her.
And while a showrunner will be there for the story and writing things, sometimes they'll have very specific visual ideas. Sometimes they won't. Sometimes, they'll leave it totally up to the director. Especially on a Season One, it's a very hard rope to walk as a cinematographer. Like for me, coming from independent film, I really lean into following the director’s vision and really supporting the director’s vision. But I think in the television space, it’s really important to understand that it’s much more of a team where there has to be a creative conversation. And then the fourth part of that creative conversation that’s super important is the Production Designer and Costume. It’s not an authoritarian regime.
TTM: Oh wow. That really sounds like a whole different world of filmmaking.
AM: Yeah. Rather than like independent film, where you have a director with a vision, where it's very much the director's medium, and you can have directors who are very much auteurs, I feel like directors in television (who are very much auteurs) in a way have an opportunity to exercise their craft on somebody else’s dime. You know, it’s actually kind of like what commercials were in the 80s to cinematographers and directors. It’s the place where I can go and work on my craft in a creative way, but I think the important part of that is, again, that collaboration. The conversation and the willingness to work within a larger picture.
It’s also really like working in the studio system or on any bigger projects. You know, I think of like a Marvel movie where I’m sure there are many layers to the creative forces at hand. And on this, it wasn’t just the showrunner and the director. There were actually producers who were attached to the original movie on the pilot, like, “Why don’t you guys do this? What about this? Why aren’t you doing that?” It’s a delicate, delicate dance to keep the creativity streamlined, keep it going so that we’re not wasting time, and satisfy everybody who really does have a right to a creative say. Like, I can’t say, “Those annoying producers…” They have a creative right! They got the thing off the ground!
TTM: Switching gears a little bit, tell us a little bit about your background and why you got into the field of cinematography.
AM: The romantic story is that I was born in communist Poland, and my first view of the outside world in color was National Geographic magazine. So, to be able to see the world through photography was really planted in my consciousness early on. And then, funny enough, I was an exchange student in South America, and I didn’t know how to say that I was going to study filmmaking, so I would say ‘cinematografía,’ which was ‘cinematography.’
And then, when I actually went to study film, I found I had already been into photography. I found that playing with a camera naturally really drew me in, and that's where I wanted it to be. I wanted to be behind the camera. At the same time, I had an acting background, which I feel really played into moving out of documentary work. You know, what I say is, rather than just traveling to different countries (which sometimes I do, like National Geographic), I also get to travel into many different people’s lives and stories and psychology. For me, narrative filmmaking is like National Geographic travel but in a storybook form.
TTM: So, you’ve been working in this field a long time and have had a lot of success doing it. Because of that, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions related to gender parity and representation within the field of cinematography.
Similar to film composers, the ratio of representation in the industry is still heavily weighted in favor of white, cisgender men. With statistics only telling part of the story, have you personally seen things change over the years in regard to opportunities and hiring practices? If so, how?
AM: I feel like things have massively changed in a very, very quick period of time, actually. I remember, I think it was 2016, and I was working one of my first jobs as an A camera operator on a big Showtime series. And I had directors who had never worked with a woman behind the camera. I remember there was one director who was waiting with bated breath to see if I could move the thing. Like, “Oh my god. She can do it!?” But within a span of two years, I was working on INSECURE with an almost all-female camera crew.
I also think that leaning into diversity within programming has also kind of opened the way for diversity within hiring. I actually find myself to be part of very women-heavy-at-the-top creative teams. And I hire a lot of women. I try to hire people of diversity as much as possible. So I have to say, it’s actually been amazing. Within the last five years, I feel like I totally moved to the other side of the spectrum. In certain moments, I look around and I’m working with 80% women.
And then, I do feel like there are so many women coming up who are incredibly talented. There are also more and more showrunners and directors who are really interested and open to a photographic perspective that is not necessarily from a ‘traditional’ point of view.
I think we’re getting there. But I also feel like what’s changed is that...I remember when I was looking for an agent a number of years ago, and the story was, “Well, we already have one woman on our roster. Like, we’re good. We have 30 men and one woman.” And now, the agency that I’m with represents a bunch of women. And I think that’s where we move in the right direction. To me, the right direction is when we’re not necessarily looking at each others gender, race, and color, we’re just able to work together. And with people who don’t look and act like us necessarily.
I think, in general, the stuff that we want to progress in society is where we can communicate and have conversations with people who aren’t necessarily like-minded or don’t come from the same background. That way, we can discover a different way of looking at things. I think it’s an exciting time for women. I really do. You know, we still have a long way to go, but I was just texting with a director friend of mine who was in the Middle East and who has made an incredible feature film. She’s Middle Eastern and American, and I was like, “You’ve got to come back to L.A. Like, now is the time! Now is the time to go direct television and have that moment!” And, that’s what I feel like I’ve been living with I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. For the last several years of my career, I have just been practicing my craft every single day. Just living and breathing story and cinematography and, [sigh] it’s just a gift.
TTM: Technology has changed so much in the last decade or so, and while there’s no comparing an iPhone to an Arri, it is easier than ever for aspiring filmmakers to make movies. In relation to cinematography, what advice would you give aspiring filmmakers to make the most of limited means?
AM: Without having brand bias, I think the Sony a7S’ are a great line of cameras that are fairly inexpensive. They’ll do amazing focus tracking and have lux that looks amazing. I feel like with the little cameras you have to be a little bit more intentional with them and disciplined. Because, they don’t have the weight like when you have a big medium format camera. You can’t just run around with those things. Same with the way that it takes a team to use it. You can do spectacular things even with an iPhone, but you have to think about it. There has to be a deeper artistic layer and framework to it.
And then one thing that came to my mind when you were asking about advice, if it was for an aspiring cinematographer, I would actually say, learn how to shoot an exposed still film. Like, a classic still film. Learn exposure that way. You’ll learn the basics. And in my mentoring and working with students, one of the books I refer to is Ansel Adams’ book ‘The Negative’, which teaches you how to understand the Zone System in terms of F-stops, aperture, and exposure. But, it explains that in a pre-technological way.
You know, the approach to the ever-changing technology issue is actually grounded in the classics. And the basics, stripped of brand name and new technology, just the bare bones of exposure. It’s actually why I often, when teaching cinematography workshops, go back to Ansel Adams’ ‘The Negative.’ It’s a book that’s a hundred years old on how to visualize what a camera will see before the camera exposes it and how to understand the exposure. And I feel like, through those basics, pre-technology, you can adapt it to any new camera.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is now available via Amazon Prime Video.