Niki Cruz
Apple TV’s series Palm Royale serves 1960s opulence and some serious eye candy in its fashion and shimmering set design. At the center of it all is Maxine (Kristen Wiig), a former pageant Queen who’s married into the regal Dellacorte family. Maxine is an extreme outsider to the high society ladies that roam Palm Beach, Florida, but she’ll try anything to get acceptance from the community. Based on the novel Mr. and Mrs. American Pie by Juliet McDaniel, the series follows the elite high society ladies and the outsiders vying to get into their inner circle. It’s a fun show that leans on its campiness and satire while exploring social structure and classism.
To capture the show’s look and feel, creator Abe Sylvia enlisted a few top-notch cinematographers to bring the 60s glam to life. “It felt like you were allowed to push, and you were trusted to push and move in a specific direction. The idea of the characters and the look was very, very strong. I think when you have those pieces that are so rich, either costume or the production design, as a cinematographer, it’s a dream,” said Director of Photographer David Lanzenberg.
Awards Radar spoke with the Emmy-nominated cinematographer over the phone to discuss how he approached developing the look and feel of episodes 1 and 2 of the series, his favorite sequence, and 1960s inspirations.
Niki Cruz: You started in the industry as a camera assistant. Did you always know you wanted to be a DP?
David Lanzenberg: No, not necessarily. I have a little bit of nepotism. My mother was an artist. She was not only a painter and sculptor but also made movies and documentaries. My brother, who was quite a few years older than me, was an assistant and then a cinematographer himself. I kind of just followed the trade.
NC: What films did you love growing up?
DL: Definitely some of Terrence Malick’s films. Days of Heaven was one that has always been very impactful. It was one of those films where I was gobsmacked when I watched it. I think I was 13 when I watched that for the first time. Every time I would dig into that film, there were more and more things about it that I found so incredible. I became a big fan of the cinematographer Néstor Almendros. The idea of being able to shoot at one time of day, which I think a lot of cinematographers and directors have tried since. It’s such an incredible achievement that one can do in this day and age.
Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter was another one that I really loved. It’s one of those very, very long pieces and rare performances. At a very young age, I never quite fully understood what those films were, but they were very striking and emotionally charged, and the performances were incredible.
NC: It makes sense that you’re drawn to those particular directors because their storytelling is so visual. You’ve worked on music videos, another visual medium. Has working on music videos informed your work in terms of storytelling on a larger scale, for instance, with something like Palm Royale?
DL: One of the greatest things about working for me on music videos is that there’s really no one way to get from point A to point B. They push the envelope creatively to try new things and experiment. One music video that really led to a lot of other things, as well as a narrative career, is the music video I did for Lenny Kravitz, “Where Are We Running.”
There’s a wild sort of willingness to experiment and push boundaries. For instance, for Palm Roayle, we were trying to push to see how far we can take it to create a look. We were trying to push on all cylinders designing this look, as well as working with the amazing lenses, and create some sort of distortion and really just pushing the envelope on that front, all the while keeping a very sort of classic way of capturing or framing. It’s a very classical framing, which is very much in tune with the show’s period.
NC: What were those initial conversations like with Abe in terms of servicing artistic goals? How did you all collaborate with him to develop the look and feel?
DL: I got to work with director Tate [Taylor] before I met Abe. There was a very clear and specific idea of where Tate wanted to go with the cinematography. One of the great things I enjoyed was really working with the production designer, Jon Carlos and the costume designer, Alix Friedberg. All three of us discussed a lot as far as the colors and the tones, but also, where is this going? What is the scene about?
I was able to do a lot of tests with the fabrics, and we were very much in tune; we were able to queue the image before we started filming those scenes where we already had a look built into the image that we were able to show Abe and Tate, and they loved it. I remember when we were doing our hair and makeup test we had a very simple lighting design. It was a spotlight kind of mimicking Maxine’s pageant days, and she had she had her hair done incredible, and the wardrobe was incredible. The set pieces, too. Then we had these lenses and we had this camera with the looks already built into it, and everybody kind of took a gasp just because it was one of those special things where we thought, “Okay, the bar is high. If we’re starting here, it’s only gonna get better from here.”
NC: I’ve been watching a lot of television this season, and the pilot that you shot is so wonderful because you get the specificity of every single character. As a DP you’re setting the tone and setting the audience’s expectations by introducing the characters in such a specific way. Of course you have choices made by the actors in their cadence of how they spoke or how they moved. I wondered, did the pilot feel daunting, or was that feeling of being off to the races really freeing?
DL: I think it was really more let’s go off to the races. I was coming off of another show when I met with Tate and his partner, John Norris. I was finishing Netflix’s Wednesday in Romania, and it was a very gloomy environment over there. It’s a very great country, and the people are wonderful but certainly, coming off of the heels of that show and reading this amazing script, the story of Maxine and the idea of photographing a period piece inspired by an amazing photographer was kind of like the sun rising over the horizon for me. I was super excited about the potential of being a part of something that is a completely 90-degree turn of what I was doing at the time with a great script that was fun and a little bit dark as well. It was really the idea of going to the races. It felt like you were allowed to push, and you were trusted to push and move in a specific direction.
NC: I couldn’t help but wonder what references you all were taking from when you’re capturing the world of these characters, specifically with the country club.
DL: Abe showed John, Alix, and me an incredible documentary. It was filmed in Palm Beach in the 1960s about high-society ladies. There was something very rich and very telling about the environment.
We filmed in multiple different areas and spaces throughout LA and Pasadena. The pool was fantastic. The pool was designed by Jon Carlos. Originally, we were looking at places over in Hancock Park. It’s a very old area that can double for Palm Beach. There was one area out in Calabasas and it was this raw space that was all cement and Jon Carlos and I were very much so excited to have an incredible space and greens department take over and make this place as lush and as amazing as possible.
NC: Is there a sequence that pops up into your mind that you were really excited to shoot?
DL: The sequence when Maxine and Dinah (Leslie Bibb) are at the bar, having a drink. There was something about the bar itself. It was so rich and elegant, and it had a period feel to it. That was delicious to photograph in a very simple manner because you didn’t have so many different angles. The performance and the place itself just tell the story.
Another one was in episode two for the Ceil Chapman dress store. It was cut with a very montage-y vibe. We have Maxine, who’s in front of a mirror, and there’s a bit of a duel between the ladies who were dressing and changing, and I found that to be a lot of fun. There’s a great kind of looseness to it. Kristen Wiig is an incredible actress because she transforms amazingly for the camera.
NC: What’s next for you?
DL: I was delighted to be invited to do two episodes on Severence in New York. Adam Scott was a true gentleman. That was another 90-degree turn. I like these hard turns every time, but what’s happening now is that it’s been a crazy time with the strikes; it’s very uncertain. I took on The Morning Show, so it’s nice to be home and nice to be working, so that’s what I’ll be doing for the next couple of months.
Check out Palm Royale on Apple TV!
[This interview was edited for length and clarity]
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