Jonathan Krisel & Christine Ng on collaborating for Adults & English Teacher

Cinematographer Christine Ng and director Jonathan Krisel talk us through their partnerships on English Teacher and Adults, and what makes them gel creatively.

DEFINITION: How did you guys first meet, and what were your first impressions of one another?

CHRISTINE NG: We met on a pilot in New York. I was the B cam operator and a bit of a fly on the wall. I remember Krisel had this amazing blue Moncler jacket – I was obsessed with it. A few years later, I got called to shoot English Teacher and that’s when we worked together as DOP and director. I was like, ‘Oh, the guy with the jacket. Yes, I want to work with him again!’

JONATHAN KRISEL: Christine’s name was definitely around a lot. She had a good reputation. And then when it came to hiring her for Adults, I knew she’d be the perfect vibe.

DEF: What do you remember about that first collaboration on English Teacher?

CN: I loved Portlandia and was excited to work with him. It was also fun for me on English Teacher because I was coming in on Season 2 – which I hadn’t done before – and it was this process of figuring out the tone and how to step in creatively. The first meeting I had with Krisel and [show creator] Brian Jordan Alvarez, we thought about how we wanted to film this in a way that is helpful for the comedy. It reinvented the way I approach comedy: how do you maximise coverage and maximise the tone of the comedy and the scene? Traditionally, I’m trained to start with the wide and work your way in. But on English Teacher, and Adults too, we started with the coverage and worked our way out, which I think was helpful for the performers and the writers to have more play with it.

JK: It’s trying to figure out, where can this be funny? I’m thinking of the edit right away. But from a lighting perspective, it’s nice to see, so you’re not painting yourself into a corner. Christine figured out how to do that, knowing I’ll eventually have to see all these walls at the same time. But once the cinematographer becomes aware of that, actors are also part of the cinematography, and their performance can elevate the cinematography. It’s not just about the lighting.

DEF: And the oner at the start of Season 2 is the perfect example of the cinematography and performances working together…

CN: It was such a technical and performance-specific thing that it really helped bond all of us together quickly. We were able to play around a little bit and let everyone feel it out – the timing, the crosses, the dialogue. It was really fun to just dive in and do something hard.

JK: Yeah, and there’s just so many oners around now, we wanted to call attention to it with a wink to the audience, but we still actually had to pull it off and make it a decent one! We got in there early, way before the day of the shoot, to start mapping it out. Christine shot it on her iPhone first, which was super helpful. It was kind of like a puzzle, as there were certain things we had to service. We were fine-tuning as we went, and in that way it felt very alive. But yeah, oners are really hard.

DEF: Christine, what excited you about coming on to Adults?

CN: I thought it was so funny. And with Krisel and I, the comedy is grounded in reality. It’s trying to figure out how to make the reality of what I can control help elevate the comedy. Krisel does something really well, which is the collaboration with the performers and writers; maintaining the integrity of the scene and giving everyone their voice, while keeping it contained.

DEF: For Season 2 of Adults, how did the two of you approach the task of evolving the existing look?

CN: My strategy is to screenshot the whole show, Season 1, and then just be very objective and ask Jonathan and the showrunners what their favourite frames are. The overlap – that Venn diagram of which frames overlap – is then our North Star. For Adults, it was trying to get the house to feel like it had more natural light, bring in a little more saturation, a little more contrast, a little more pop. I swapped out the shears, which was a really little thing that made such a big impact.

JK: It’s hard when you’re going from a pilot where you’re shooting on location to the second episode where you’re building a set. How can we re-infuse the reality back into it? Christine came up with this ingenious thing where she magnetised parts of the ceiling so they could move little lights around. Those little, smart things ahead of time really free up the creativity down the road.

DEF: You seem to really enjoy doing that planning and problem-solving together. What is it about that part of the process that works so well?

JK: The planning and prep phase is very enjoyable. You have time, you’re not under the gun. That space and time for collaborating and coming up with the plan – which is going to change because somebody’s going to say something funny! You’re trying to catch all of this stuff that’s falling while also thinking about how it’s all going to edit together; you need someone like Christine who has an attitude of ‘yeah, we can figure that out, we can do that’. You can’t just be trying to stick to the plan: if it was good, you’ve got to get it.

CN: On English Teacher, we were shooting in a real school, which had constraints, so we were keeping it loose and just making it work; seeing how it feels. I always think: if it feels better, then we should absolutely do it.

DEF: Looking back at both of the projects you’ve worked on together, is there a scene or sequence you’re particularly proud of?

JK: I loved how the Covid play turned out in English Teacher. The comedy is so good because something happens on the stage and then it pings throughout the audience and all these different places that we’ve set up. You need those little additive pieces to take a scene that’s good and then go: ‘OK, get more plates spinning on it’.

CN: The fake ID episode in Adults, because the club was actually quite small, but when you watch the episode it feels like they’re hanging out in 20 different places. We just went around and carved out these little spaces. I think you always want the world of whatever show you’re creating to feel really full.

DEF: If you could make anything together, what would it be?

JK: I think the dream project is where Christine and I are in charge 100%. And we could just have these big ideas and figure them out together.

CN: I would love that!

This article appears in the October/November issue of Definition

Interview: Nicola Foley. Images: FX. Lead image: © CHRISTOS KALOHORIDIS