Danny Jarabek
James Laxton’s work as a cinematographer (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Underground Railroad) has established him as a talented visual storyteller across film and TV mediums. Now, Laxton brings that same artistry to Beef Season Two, the anthology continuation of Lee Sung Jin‘s acclaimed Netflix series, where he has helped shape a visual language that is simultaneously rooted in Season One’s foundation and boldly its own. Awards Radar spoke with Laxton about shooting on large format 65-millimeter lenses, the joy of working with such a talented cast (Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Cailee Spaeny, and Charles Melton), and the imagery he is most proud of in the series.
Read our full conversation with cinematographer James Laxton below.
I am super excited to have with me the cinematographer for season two of Beef, James Laxton. Of course. I have to say, it’s surreal talking to you, because a decade ago, when I watched Moonlight for the first time, you rewired my brain chemistry about what a camera could do. So it feels really amazing to chat.
James Laxton: Thank you! I’m happy to be here.
You weren’t part of Season One, but was that a starting point for you in your initial conversations with Lee Sung Jin about what you wanted to do this season?
James Laxton: 100%. I was a big fan of Season One. I thought it was a fantastic piece of work that was specific, unique, and a personal take on things. Not to mention all the fun that the show is, alongside being a really well-crafted production that spoke to me in a way I was surprised by. I had no prior knowledge of Sonny’s world and didn’t really know a lot about it, so it just felt like, what a world this is. When I heard there was a Season Two coming and they were interested in having me in the cinematography seat, I was very excited to talk to Sonny [Lee Sung Jin]. It was a classic meeting of the minds over Zoom, and I think very quickly I felt quite tied to his perspective. There was a lot coming around about how the creative process would go, and the things we were interested in expressing within this new story felt great. The starting point, as you said, was very much Season One. They wanted to make sure there was going to be a visual language that maintained the foundation of what Beef is. That said, Season Two is a different story, and we wanted to be conscious of that language while also branching off into what this new story wanted from its photography.
Were there any major touch points in those early conversations with Lee Sung Jin about what he wanted to do? Season Two does feel like it expands in scale and scope with more characters, and more settings.
James Laxton: Scope and breadth were definitely part of it. When I read the script and talked to Sonny about what he had in mind, there was this very thousand-foot view on things. It’s a character study, yes, but it’s also a bigger voice towards generational love and watching and witnessing how different generations connect with one another and separate, and what love can do as it transitions from one thing to the next. These characters were almost standing in for each of those generations, serving as metaphors while still being unique and specific individuals. Sometimes when people speak about grand topics, things get too broad and too vague. I want to be clear that I didn’t feel that way about the writing. At the same time as having these big ideas, it still felt really unique and specific to these people. That’s a real credit to Sonny’s writing. It was just so smart, with this ability to do so many things at once. When I thought about these grander, broader concepts, a couple of things came to mind. First, on a camera format level, it was about choosing a capture medium that would provide a scope and make these character portraits feel a little larger than life, not just slice-of-life moments, but something with gravitas. That led me to what we now call large format. We wanted to go as big as we could, which for us meant a 65-millimeter sensor. That’s where that technical direction came from.
[cont.] In addition to that, the way the camera moves, or sometimes doesn’t move, fed into it as well. We referenced photographer Martin Parr quite a lot. The way he captures moments felt to me, and I think to the rest of the creative group, like it was doing a great job of having multiple things happening within the same frame, speaking to a social context all at once. Roy Andersson‘s work as a filmmaker and Ruben Östlund‘s work felt similar, providing a platform within a single frame where the viewer can analyze rather than just follow a classic close-up and medium-shot pattern. It’s a way to create tableaus that can speak to many things simultaneously. You see that throughout the season. One example is Oscar and Carey’s characters at the retreat, where Carey is outside by the pool in cool blue light and Oscar is inside in warm light, with a dividing wall between them. That motif returns at the end of the last episode, where they’re in cells with dividing walls, and you see their silhouettes through the windows. There’s symbolism within the frame that takes on emotional resonance in a way that isn’t just relying on formulaic, classical television language.
You mentioned shooting on large format, which is already quite rare for a series. Something else I found compelling while watching was how much of it takes place at night, particularly the whole sequence searching for Burberry. How did you navigate that?
James Laxton: It’s true. The night work is tricky. There’s just more lighting going on, of course, and the technical effort behind that is not insignificant. We got a lot of support from the production and studio side to make sure we were covered throughout, but they were not easy feats, a lot of late nights. In a way, though, it can be freeing because you get a control over tone that you can really manage and navigate to make sure you’re hitting the emotional beats the way you want. So yes, a lot of technical legwork, but also a real creative opportunity.
There’s also a really dynamic quality to how the characters interact. They’re all pulling different levers on the plot at different points, and later in the season they all converge on the plane. How did you go about shooting that sequence?
James Laxton: Planes are hard. They’re tight spaces, there are seats to move around to get the camera in position, and the effort that goes into just that is considerable. You’ve got lighting rigs on jibs outside the windows trying to maintain some sense of movement and flight, and as the plane dips and shifts, all of that has to move with it. That said, I sometimes like being put into corners, because it does end up creating pretty interesting frames. Especially when you’re shooting an episode about what’s hidden, you can’t see around corners, you’re in small rooms, there’s something inherently functional about environments that inevitably provide frames and camera movement that make you feel like there’s something under the surface. The play of not being able to see past the coach curtain, characters in different cabins, only hearing things through walls, it’s really playful. There are some frustrations about why a seat won’t move back two inches, but more than that, I think it lends itself toward the kind of storytelling we were trying to provide in that episode.
In terms of production, what did it look like balancing locations versus built sets? I would assume there was simply more of both this season.
James Laxton: There definitely were a not-insignificant amount of set builds. Grace [Yun] and her team on the production design side did a fantastic job creating the world we were photographing. She made my job very, very easy, and I really opened up to her and her department. The scope was absolutely about that, there’s a class element to this season, a grand sweep that creates a changeable space and environment and lighting that provides something with a scale broader and bigger than Season One’s story called for. I think the topics being discussed, the generational love stuff, inherently provide a need for that scope. It wanted something different from the visual vernacular to reach a bit further. Though I want to be careful with that word “reach,” because my intention, and I believe Sonny’s too, was never to make it feel more expensive or bigger for its own sake. These scenes simply wanted something different from the visual language, and that was always about what the story needed from us, which is a real credit to Sonny for making that a goal for everybody.
To wrap up, is there a particular sequence or scene that you’re especially proud of?
James Laxton: There are a lot. I love Episode Four, all of that hospital material. The surgery room with the hard light coming down, the drama of that. The surrealism of that episode visually was a really lovely canvas to paint within. Episode Eight is another favorite, for all the work within the cells, the silhouettes of characters seen through windows, the shot with the dividing line between Oscar and Carey’s characters. There’s a reason why you see Oscar and Carey’s perspective framed that way, but not Ashley and Austin’s, or Charles and Cailee’s. There’s intention behind that structure, and I think in the edit room it really pays off. That’s what I’m most proud of, when the intention lands.
Those are some great call outs. Well thank you James, really appreciate your time. I loved watching what you did here on Season Two of Beef. Congratulations on the effort and best of luck with everything moving forward.
James Laxton: That’s very kind. Thank you very much for having me.
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