Wim Vanswijgenhoven on Safe Harbor
Safe Harbor follows Tobias, a gifted hacker and his ambitious best friend Marco, intent on cracking into the tech billionaires club. The two are plunged headfirst into the chaos of organized crime when they cross paths with the Irish mob. DOP Wim Vanswijgenhoven SBC captured all eight episodes of the show.
“I was contacted by Berry van Zwieten the line producer on Safe Harbor,” begins Vanswijgenhoven. “He had seen 1985, a show that I shot with director Wouter Bouvijn, which he really liked. So, he asked me on board of Safe Harbor. I was interested in working on the series, mainly because of the people involved. Mark Williams, who created Ozark was attracting some great cast and crew and I was interested to be a part of that.”
When it came to initial conversations about capturing the show, Vanswijgenhoven spokewith director Arne Toonen and Femke Wolting/Mark Williams (exec producers) about the challenges ahead. They also looked at creative references, mostly for art department/locations scout, as locations and the mood of the script and scene often dictates what direction to move in. According to Vanswijgenhoven, going against that with references from other movies often feels pushed.
“We knew we were shooting wintertime in Rotterdam,” he explains. “So, we talked a lot about embracing that winter mood and not going against it which suited the story also. I think in the beginning we were really focused on locations. There were so many scenes set in different locations and so to make that puzzle was a big challenge in the beginning. The discussion on which direction to take it with the cinematography grew gradually. We talked with art/wardrobe to try to guide the colours of the show. Then your palette gets more clear and you can start to build on that. I think the challenge with working on a show with four different directors and a showrunner and exec producers and a whole bunch of heads of departments is trying to keep a clear vision. Therefore, in the beginning someone needs to take the lead in the creation of the look, once that look is clear, I think it opens up a path again for participative creative collaboration within that look. In the case of Safe Harbor, we struggled with that a bit in the beginning.”
Vanswijgenhoven opted to shoot the series with the Alexa 35, combined with the elites anamorphic. “I knew I wanted to go anamorphic on this one. We had lots of conversations with Mark and Arne about whether we want anamorphic and then frame for 2:1 or not. In the end we decided on 2.35:1 to really give us the scope when shooting in the massive harbour of Rotterdam.”
“Choosing the elites also comes with some pains,” he continues. “I mean, these are vintage lenses. I used them before on another TV show and remembered how heavy they were. I was shooting a lot of handheld together with that new (heavier) body of the 35, it’s a load on your shoulder every day. But you get a lot for it in return. These organic lenses are so beautiful on skins and render your image with a beautiful softness without losing def (at least at t4). The 35 we choose because of its lowlight capabilities. Even though we had a decent light budget, sometimes we had time restrictions. It just helped sometimes to push that ISO and to just make the backgrounds practical light of the city/harbour pop.”
Shooting the big night scenes in the Rotterdam harbour proved to be particularly challenging during the shoot. “The windy winter gave us plenty of challenges. I think the truck chase of episode 1 was the most challenging probably in terms of logistics and getting it right. It was set on a highway at night in the rain. Two trucks chasing each other with a sportscar on their tail. The truck needs to be pulled over but refuses. So Farrel, played by Jack Gleeson, starts crashing into him and pushes him to a halt. He fails, so his sister Sloan, played by Charlie Murphy, tries to convince him with showing him money (all this while in a highspeed chase). He refuses, then Farrel comes driving next to him again and pushes him into a crash against some road works. He gets the guy out, shoots him and burns his truck.”
All of that sequence was captured on a large, four lane highway in the harbour, whichproduction managed to block on both sides. “We divided it up into 3 parts, the interior shots, the chase and then the crash,” says Vanswijgenhoven. “We then divided the interior shots into driving and static shots. We had lighting rigs to emulate movement in the static shots. Also, before crashing into the roadworks we wanted some closeups of our actors, so we created this rig which simulated a road sign coming closer and closer and closer. Some of the interior driving shots were done by the actors and then we switched over to stunt drivers for the difficult stuff. All the exterior shots we shot simultaneously on a drone, on a cameracar with a blackarm and ronin and we added a handheld camera with a zoom lens. We also rigged some fx 3’s in custom built crashboxes so we wouldn’t notice them to much in the other camera angles. The guys from SFX rigged the trucks with sparks and detonated them every time they saw the trucks almost crashing. We faked the actual grinding of the trucks this way. The actual crash site we did in one take with multiple cameras and the explosion of the burned truck in the end was done in post.”
Along with Gaffer Tom Vanoverstraeten, Vanswijgenhoven attempted to use a lot of indirect light. “Which is sometimes challenging, especially in the winter in Rotterdam where it’s very windy,” he notes. “We often had big bounce or silk frames that needed to be heavily secured by the grip team of Jesse Umut. Dynamic lights were part of the story in Safe Harbor. Obviously in the port of Rotterdam to showcase and highlight the busy global machine that never sleeps. But we also used it for example in the apartment of our main character Tobias, played by Alfie Allen. Here we added a metro line in post next to his house. We then rigged a bunch of mirrors with HMIs and a bunch of vortex lights to create a tram/metro passing by. We did this because we wanted to make it clear that Tobias and his girlfriend weren’t living in the comfiest circumstances. We let the lights pass by sometimes during their dialogue, so it frustrated them in an authentic way. The conversations needed to be halted (because of the imaginary sound of the metro passing by) which created these great silences.”
Vanswijgenhoven created LUTs with a colourist. “I always test the LUT extensively before shooting. Kene Illegems who was the colourist of this show ended up creating this beautiful purple cold look which I really liked. I’m a one LUT guy, but we needed to create a LUT for the drone, the helmet cam and the Sony fx3. Colas Besnard my camera assistant and Kene compared with the original LUT and applied these to all the cameras used on the show.”
The series was shot over a duration of 81 days. “We had so many second unit days where I was assisted by colleague DOPs: Kamiel Doens (who took over the HQ garage location for me), Dimitri Karakatsanis who did a beautiful job on a lot of standalonescenes whilst I was shooting with the other unit and Xavier Van D’huynslager, who operated B cam with me on long or complicated scenes.”
Vanswijgenhoven loves spending time on set. “Especially when it runs smoothly and when you feel everyone believes in what they are creating and they execute it with passion,” he concludes. “Of course, I enjoyed working with my team, who always got my back and never step away from a challenge. I am surrounded with truly talented people.I also think this period made me realise that I needed a small break. I had been working almost nonstop for 5 years on TV shows and movies. Some of them very demanding personally and physically. So, I enjoyed getting clarity at the end of this shoot to take some time off and spend it with my loved ones.”
Key crew:
Gaffer: Tom van overstraeten
Grip: Jesse Umut
Ad: Colas Besnard
Colorist: Kene Illegems
By Oliver Webb