Most of the movie happens inside the theater, in a bar, or in a few places around this theater on Broadway. There are a few scenes that are exterior nights that we didn’t really use any big film lights because we were able to shoot with these cameras at 1200 ASA and the lenses were probably F2 -- enough light in New York, especially for Times Square. In fact, what you are doing is fighting the city to turn off lights all the time because it’s so bright.

We did something that also can be scary; we combined a lot of color temperatures. For example, when Michael Keaton is walking in the theater hallways: sometimes we have two daylight fluorescents, then he would step into a greener environment and then into a tungsten environment. It made it more naturalistic and dirty. You think these great theaters are all glamorous, but when you go into the guts of some of these places, they are pretty rough, ugly, small, uncomfortable, smelly...We wanted to capture that.

What lenses did you choose?

We used a combination of Leicas and Master Primes. I love the way the Master Primes are, one of the best lenses probably ever made. I like how clean they are. You can have all these lights in the frame and they are not really causing bad flare or things like that. They allow you to have clean images, and that I like very much.

The film has been getting amazing reviews, including notable mentions on how you shot it.

I think it’s different than a lot of stuff that we’re seeing these days. It’s a bit of a miracle that Alejandro put this together, that the studio wanted to do it and the actors wanted to do it. It was a lot of fun.

Sometimes I wish nobody would talk about how the movies are made. The idea would be that the audience goes to the theater and they don’t even notice how it’s shot. I want the audience to just become immersed in the movie and feel the anxiety that the character goes through while his life implodes. That would be ideal. 

All photos courtesy of FOX Searchlight