Features

Cinematographer Alice Brooks discusses using DXL2 and G Series anamorphics to craft a big look for director Jon M. Chu’s musical In the Heights.

In 2002, when cinematographer Alice Brooks and director Jon M. Chu were still film students at the University of Southern California, they partnered for the short When the Kids Are Away, a musical about how a group of neighborhood moms spend their day after sending their children to school. During that collaboration, Chu interviewed Brooks on camera about the project, asking her why she wanted to shoot the short. As Brooks tells it, “I said, ‘I've always loved musicals. My mom was an actor, dancer and singer, my dad was a theater director and a playwright, and I grew up going to theater. When you handed me your script for a musical, I knew I had to do this.' We bonded over our love of musicals.”