Production: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
Posted on Dec 6, 2025 by Admin
DOP Benjamin Loeb, FNF sits down with Definition to discuss A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
Words Oliver Webb | Images Matt Kennedy © 2025 CTMG, Inc
Starring Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is director Kogonada’s third feature film. After hiring a car from an unusual rental company, two strangers, introduced to one another at a mutual friend’s wedding, set out on an adventure of self-discovery. On their separate journeys home, they’re presented with the chance to relive moments from their pasts, illuminating how they got to where they are in the present.
Benjamin Loeb, FNF served as the film’s cinematographer, having previously collaborated with Kogonada on the sci-fi film After Yang (2021), which also stars Farrell and playfully explores the ensuing fallout after a faulty AI robot is introduced into a family.
“We’d always wanted to continue our collaboration and this project had been circling around between us for a while,” begins Loeb. “For a moment the film seemed to be slipping through the cracks, but once Margot came on board things quickly materialised and we jumped at the opportunity to work together again.”
While the two spoke about classic musicals and Ernst Lubitsch films during pre-production, “it was really thinking about Makoto Shinkai’s anime that clicked the look of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey into place,” details Loeb. “There were lots of films and references that we discussed, but Shinkai’s films such as Your Name (2016), Suzume (2022) and Weathering with You (2019) were a guide for the tone of film we wanted to create. With the actors, locations and approach we had, it made sense to translate the feelings of anime into live action, while still grounding it in a reality.”
Loeb explains that the collaborative process with Kogonada is fluid and natural. “We find common ground in a mixture of conversations about films of course, but our collaboration is deeply inspired by food, ingredients and more intimate conversations about our flaws, mistakes and life lessons. We try to work those conversations into a form of visual representation and language building. We’ve been friends for a long time, and with time comes a sense of trust, so we are developing this as we move through life and our common projects.”
Loeb opted to shoot the film using the ARRI ALEXA 35 because he wanted to capture it on a digital medium, with a 2:1 aspect ratio. “The ARRI systems are cameras I’ve used for a long time, and I find relief in the trust I have with them,” he says. For this film in particular, the ARRI ALEXA 35 “had the dynamic range, access to colour science and, when combined with the PVintage series from Panavision, the feeling we liked the most during testing. Along the way we also used a series of slant focus lenses, some Primos and a very small zoom. Generally speaking, it’s a feeling we’re looking for, and that’s not something we can pull out of a backpack. Testing and feeling our way through it was the approach.”
Some sequences involved precise choreography, such as the umbrella wedding scene. “The choreography involved figuring out how we wanted the two characters to initially see one another, and for the moment to feel like one that slipped away,” says Loeb. “It was quite simple in reality – the issue was photographing both sides of the characters with the sun moving through the day and the rain we needed. So, it was logistical more than creative.”
Capturing the high school theatre sequence proved challenging, however, due to the limited number of shooting days. “With our shooting budget we had to capture it all in two to three days at the high school. So, we had to be strategic about how to get through script pages in a way that fit the movie. A lot came down to planning, blocking, rehearsing and, since we could only afford to fill the audience for one day, figuring out how to maximise that time. Generally, we needed one objective and one slightly more subjective view, so we had both a camera that could easily move and pick up pieces and a main camera on a Technocrane for ease and mobility.”
The film was shot across 35 days, with three pick-up days later in post. “Damien Vandercruyssen and I both spent time building a LUT (lookup table) that would pull the colours of Shinkai out of the sensor – so that greens would pop, blues would separate from them and the general palette would not feel too over the top,” Loeb explains. “We built just one LUT that was applied on day one and was then adjusted, but other than that it was a one-and-done deal. We used it throughout and ended up building on this in our colour grade.”
Loeb’s lighting approach was put together alongside gaffer Alex Gaynor, borrowing some lessons from After Yang. “We used a mixture of HMI bounce and tungsten direct sources for our daytime scenes, utilising a 20K Molebeam for our sun where we could,” he explains. “Easily one of my favourite lamps of all time, but just not so happy to be sitting in the rain. For the nighttime scenes in our ‘present time’, we wanted to give our spaces a little baseline exposure from the moon and so utilised ARRI SkyPanel S360-Cs on Pettibones with movers hanging underneath, so that we could line the mountain ridges and trees with some texture.
“For the actors we built softboxes with a number of vortex units and had the pleasure of having the UFO-X for a few of the night exterior days,” he continues. “Within the doors and our interior nighttime spaces we let the rooms and practicals dictate our approach using smaller LED sources and tungsten units. I even managed to get Norwegian representation in there with the Kelvin Epos 600.”
One of the elements that Loeb enjoyed most about being a part of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey’s production was collaborating with the Los Angeles crew. “I really enjoyed working with them, they were so amazing,” he concludes. “I also loved being able to give back to the city and the people that I have worked alongside for so long now, as well as my conversations with Koganada about love, life and films.”
This story appears in the November/December 2025 issue of Definition
