'New years': photographing time through technique

Lali Rubio, director of photography The new years, series of Movistar Plus+ created by Sara Cano, Paula Fabra and Rodrigo Sorogoyen, it reflects on the use of technology at the service of narration, time and emotion.

Ana and Oscar they meet in a new years eve. Each one of them has a different life; a practically opposite context that will make them, in one way or another, end up falling in love. For 10 years, The new years will accompany both at the turn of the year, portraying with an intimacy unprecedented in Spanish serials. pain and hope with a generational seal that leaves a mark.

After this original series of Movistar Plus+, in collaboration with Horse Films and in association with ART France, they meet Sara Cano, Paula Fabra and Rodrigo Sorogoyen who leads the project as executive producer and director of four episodes. For this adventure, the winner of the Goya Award for Best Director for The Beasts y The Kingdom is accompanied by the photography direction of Lali Rubio.

This Barcelona filmmaker, as part of a new generation of professionals with the seal CHESS y Take Content (he photographed the second season of Cardo of her former teammate Claudia Costafreda), has managed to combine time and emotion without falling into most common codes of cinematographic language. Her work joins that of the director of photography Alana Mejía González, responsible for two of the ten episodes.

In this interview, Rubio dives into The new years without avoiding reflection about his work and cinematography. Taking as reference this fiction and its artistic references, helps to understand how the technique has been closely related to experience and narration to, without falling into clichés, translate the vital moment of its protagonists through a whole decade.

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Realism, in cinema and in life

How would you define your favorite photography, regardless of whether each project adapts to your requirements? What about Lali Rubio in The new years?

For this project, we were looking for a Photo realistic. When we talk about this concept, I don't think about approaching the worlds of documentary, far from it... but I do think about looking for a photograph that allows connect with a series of common places. It was important to be able to convey what a bar smells like, what kind of lights are in a after or the way in which we remember the rooms of those apartments in which we have lived our great relationships. I have always been very interested in this realistic photography, but since its embellishment or poeticization.

Realistic photography in The new years part of his experience in projects such as Cardo, where you might have already explored this area?

There is part of the learning that we have done Claudia Costafreda me too. We study together, we have worked on projects and in the end we have given each other feedback in a way of seeing reality, where to put the camera or tell certain things crudely; accessing things in a very direct way, but at the same time generating a strange poetry, which sometimes has to do with visual rhymes or certain details that are in other layers.

In The new years, it was important to be able transmit what a bar smells like, what kind of lights there are at an after party or how we remember the rooms of those apartments in which we have lived our great relationships.

With Rodrigo, it has had nothing to do. I think Rui is the person I have heard the most say “This is very set, we have to change it, we have to find another way to do it"In that sense, it has been a challenge, since it forces you to constantly think about how to fight against certain clichés or tendencies when approaching those common places. It makes you go look for the most natural and try fight inertia of the staging.

In the end, film language and our imagination conditions our way of seeing the cinematographic medium. Perhaps, by reflecting a situation with the naturalness of real life, something strange was generated on the screen.

There is something interesting in that question of estrangement. I really think that what we portray has more to do with a slice of life. You enter, you look and you have a little while to see through a crack what is happening.

Therefore, it is true that when you do the exercise of thinking about what those things are like cinematically, you tend to make something very complicated that you remember was very simple or that was not particularly beautiful, but for you it had an impact. Maybe, precisely for that reason: because it wasn't a very memorable moment, but, suddenly, in your memory it was.

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The fragmentation of time, in The new years

How did you become involved in New years?

I met Rui through his partner: María Ferrer, who was assistant director on my previous projects. She sees that there may be a chemical cool between us, and we know each other in a casual way. And, indeed, we began to talk a lot about cinema and we understood each other. Suddenly, he calls me one day and says: “Hey, I thought I would like to talk to you to propose something that we are starting…” And from there, until today.

When did that conversation occur, the beginning of your work on this series?

It was around June 2023. I had recently finished another Suma series, Dressed in blue. The summer passed and in August we started to plan things, see the first locations and have meetings. Pre-production began in September and October we were already rolling.

One of the central themes of The new years is, evidently, the amor. But another of the big themes is the passage of time.

What possibilities does the approach of photography offer, from the prism of photography direction? The new years like a serial fiction?

It not only allows power extend in time much more, but generate capsules within that period. There is something interesting: a way to understand the fragmentation of time. Suddenly, he offers another mounting possibility which does not have to do with each chapter, but at a structural level.

One of the central themes of The new years is, evidently, the amor. But another of the big themes is the passage of time. That feeling of the passage of time interests some of the directors we had as a reference, like Linklater.

Do you consider that the cinematographic technique used by cinematographers is enough to mark the passage of time?

Within a photographic approach you generate a kind of language commitment. You make the viewer participate in a series of technical uses through photography. In fact, there are great commonplaces on this issue: a grainy image refers to the past, black and white... There are codes in photography that the viewer associates with time.

There are codes in photography that the viewer associates with time, but we never had the idea of ​​doing something so precoded, so common. We worked very hard to find a way to technique could make the weather event.

In our case, we never had the idea of ​​doing something so precoded, so common. We worked very hard to find a way to technique could make the weather event. For this reason, we decided to use anamorphic lenses, with the formats that this entails, at the beginning, since we wanted to refer to this spectacularization of love, an initial stage of relationships in which everything seems like a movie to yourself, and you are alienated by that energy. And, in fact, it was a nod to the characters' own perception, who understood what they were experiencing in a movie-like way.

Then there is an abrupt cut in chapter 5 and the series changes format. we are going to spherical lenses much longer. It all has to do with the emotion of the characters and how they are. Sometimes, they are so boxed in with telephoto lenses for show that they can't see beyond their noses, alluding to the issue of egos they need to sort out. For this reason, starting with chapter 6, the series begins very closed and little by little it opens up to include both of them again.

But, for me, all these technical issues have to do, more than with time, with the emotion, narrative and direction. The photo itself is always at the service of management.

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Combining technique and vital evolution of the protagonist couple

How was the process of technical discovery developed to relate the passage of time in The new years?

This is one of the things I remember with more love of the entire process, because it is one of the things that we started doing with Rui in August, at the beginning of the process. We started throwing out a bunch of ideas on a whiteboard and getting our brains boiling. We felt that there were two large blocks, and we began to launch a lot of references.

In it first chapter have handheld camera, tripod, dolly, crane, sliders, tracks…There is everything, including full focal range! From that starting point we went removing elements, because we wanted to get to chapter 5 with a true arrest.

We talked about the issue of anamorphic with Paul Thomas Anderson, and we were talking about how Licorice Pizza The camera almost never stopped. Therefore, we approach that idea of ​​pure freedom at the beginning of the series. In the first chapter we have a handheld camera, tripod, dolly, crane, sliders, tracks... There is everything, including the full focal range! From that starting point we went removing elements, because we wanted to get to chapter 5 with real detail, with the absolute stagnation of the relationship. At that time, it made perfect sense to us that the camera was secured to a tripod and we had only one optic. In chapters 6 and 7 there are some daydreams that allow us to leave the TVs and switch to the handheld camera, which is the technique that we will find in chapters 8, 9 and 10.

Somehow, we were technically meshing everything that happened: they are technical decisions that allow you to have a almost imperceptible continuity, but it marks an evolution. Everything keeps changing until 10, which is a sequence plan camera in hand.

Sometimes, cinematography technically translates the creative ideas of direction. But it may not have been such with Rodrigo Sorogoyen, right?

The dialogue was a true dialogue and there was a lot of conversation, even though Rui has things very clear. It is a great decision maker and, furthermore, a very technical director: knows very well what each of the focal lengths does, the effect of placing one support or another, how to work the spaces, the relationship of the distances between the optics... It has a lot technical awareness, which meant that I did not have to translate too much, but it did generate a very interesting brainstorming session.

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ARRI and Cooke, in favor of naturalism and realism

To The new years, they chose the camera ARRI Alexa 35. What led you to make this decision?

It was playing it safe, because I was clear that I was not interested in filming in full frame. I tend to roll in Super 35, since there is something about the depth of field that makes me feel that the image is more complete. We wanted to tell those places in Madrid or any city that everyone has lived at some point. Therefore, for me it was important not have characters floating in the void.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen it's a very technical director: knows very well what each of the focal, the effect of putting a support or other…

In addition, the Alexa 35 sensor is really a very interesting novelty, since it offers facilities with ISOs, enhance y sensitivity in very critical lighting conditions. We check it with him IT, given that due to this condition of naturalism and realism I did not want to overilluminate certain spaces and I could rely on those Expanded ISOs.

In the optical section, what has been your favorite option?

I did a lot of camera tests, and what made me decide on the Cooke was the treatment of skins. It has very beautiful, warm and elegant tones. Furthermore, both the anamorphic and the spherical had the same glass.

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Creativity and color in The new years

What scenes do you remember that were especially interesting or challenging when applying all this photographic treatment to the narration of The new years?

I am very fond of the series, so I have several favorite scenes. For example, I think of the travelling from chapter 1, which we shot three times with three different focal lengths. It was crazy to see the 70 meters of that travelling mounted on a street in Madrid. It was something very nice, because it allowed you to accompany the characters along that street without cutting off what was happening, being able to remain connected to the narrative because there was no temporal break. Furthermore, it is a very thoughtful sequence at the palette level, since we wanted it to end in a location that had a different color than at the beginning. In the end, we found a blue, which I also think is a very iconic color in terms of art and lighting palette throughout the entire series.

Then I also think about the daydream that Oscar has in chapter 6. He arrives home with a 290 zoom, opens the door, leaves his shoes, moves into the room, the camera pans and, when he is taking off his shirt, Ana wakes up. It is a dream moment which technically seems very beautiful to me, since it maintains continuity and makes something very traditional collide with a mysterious moment of silhouette. The shot of the last chapter should also be highlighted, in which time is also highlighted.

How has the treatment been? The new years from the color room?

It has been a very long process, the truth. I have felt as if I had done several movies. But it was really beautiful. In the end, it allowed us to give cohesion to those ideas that were proposed, refining, polishing and elevating everything. We did the process in Elamedia, initially designing the treatment with Juan Hernando, but with Sandra Otero as colorist throughout the process. The maximum recognition for her, since she has been a super good companion to make this whole trip. We have fought with the images, we have reopened things to return to what we were looking for... He has had enormous patience, a very good eye and great pleasure in finding those palettes that are so representative of the series.

After The new yearsWhat projects do you have on the horizon?

I find myself doing the locations of I always sometimes, a new series that produces Take Content with Marta Loza and Marta Bassols as creators. Direct Claudia Costafreda again, accompanied by Ginesta Gindal and Marta Loza, who also directs a chapter. I am going to photograph the six chapters of the series and it is going to be very bonito. I like having the opportunity to change directors and see how they understand each other. In the end, when you're alone, you have that responsibility to maintain cohesion and organizing information. The project looks very good and I really want it. Tired, but happy.

An interview by Sergio Julián Gómez