The Love Season

[Daiana Parthemore]

Loveis an American romantic comedy-drama television series created by Judd Apatow, Lesley Arfin, and Paul Rust. The series stars Rust, Gillian Jacobs, Mike Mitchell, and Claudia O'Doherty. Netflix originally ordered two seasons of the show. The first 10-episode season was made available on February 19, 2016,[1][2] and a 12-episode second season premiered on March 10, 2017. Netflix renewed the series for a third season one month prior to the second-season premiere.[3] On December 15, 2017, Netflix announced that the third season would be its last.[4] Season 3 premiered on March 9, 2018.

The series is presented as a "down-to-earth look at dating", exploring male and female perspectives on romantic relationships through the characters Mickey and Gus, played by Jacobs and Rust, respectively.[5] Mickey and Gus are two untrustworthy people, each with significant emotional baggage, attempting to build a trusting relationship with each other; Mickey is an alcoholic, a love/sex addict, a pot stirrer, and someone who tends to be dishonest with herself and others, while Gus is awkward, emotionally needy, oblivious to social cues, and prone to occasional outbursts when things do not go his way.[6]

Love has received positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for the cast.[7][8][9] On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, season one holds an approval rating of 88 percent based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Judd Apatow's Love is an honest look at building a relationship, helped along by its two appealing leads."[10] On Metacritic the season has an average score of 72 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[11]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the second season has an approval rating of 94 percent based on 17 reviews, with an average rating of 7.19/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "In its sophomore season, Love treads the balance between comedy and drama with greater confidence, going deeper into the endearing, frustrating, delightfully realistic relationship of Mickey and Gus."[13] On Metacritic, the season has an average score of 80 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[14]

The third season was also well-received, with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 11 reviews), and a consensus that "Love concludes with a moving final season that explores the work that goes into making a relationship succeed, allowing its central pair to surprise the audience, each other, and ultimately themselves."[15] This season scored 77 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[16] On The A.V. Club, Erik Adams wrote that "More than the love story itself, Love's greatest achievement might be that it managed to make Gus and Mickey feel like fully realized, complicated individuals independent of their love story."[17]

At each end of the soundstage, I have Dinos to create a backlight. Overhead are spacelights. On this last frame, though, I wanted a toppier backlight so I extended a 20K on a small condor with an articulating arm to get over the porch trellace and create that shadow pattern on the side of the house.

This first one cuts with a wide shot made at dusk outdoors (this was not on a soundstage) so I had to fake a dusk look when I got to the close-ups at night, throwing soft blue light on the background. I armed a Kinoflo with daylight tubes over the car door to get the soft light on the door sill.

I shot about a fifth of #1 (Jim Glennon's episode), and quite a few little pick-ups in #4 (Haskell Wexler's episode), not really whole scenes. Otherwise, in each of the later episodes starting with #7, once Bill Wages was hired to be the co-DP, there often is one scene shot by the other DP because of scheduling. We try to match each other's approach and ask each other how they would light it.

There is one scene in the last episode that I originally shot... but Bill Wages had to reshoot because of a dialogue change, so he matched my original lighting set-up. That creates an odd conflict about whether I can put it on my reel, since I didn't shoot it, but it's almost a perfect match to how I originally shot it...

Bill taught me a lot about soft bounce lighting, plus the use of Source-4's for bouncing and to create hot slashes of light. I was doing that effect on all my episodes though, with flags and PAR's mainly, but it was easier to do it with the Source-4's later. Working fast was an important consideration. In this scene, I was able to sneak some Source-4's off-camera in the wide shot to create slashes of hot light falling onto the table, and then use them in the close-ups:

I've been particularly interested in the issue of multiple DP's on a single show for awhile, and the collaboration or communication and design that goes on between them. I've done a fair amount of 2nd Unit DP work where I take some pride in emulating the DP's style, and I have also replaced DP's for TV shows where I have to inherit a style or technique and slowly evolve it into my own. In both cases I've taken a slow approach and look to the director and producers for feedback. It's always interesting to hear the "unspoken mandates" about how the show should look, especially when you're not given any...

Well, the "look" of the show is supposed to be natural, not too stylized. On the other hand, it's partly a comedy, and they also want the cast to look good, so the lighting is a bit lower in contrast or more frontal than would always be natural, if I ever have to choose between what is realistic and what looks flattering, depending on the dramatic content of the scene of course.

The main bit of stylization is that the home scenes are timed brighter and more saturated than the polygamist's compound in the hills, which is timed to be drab and darker. That's an approach that started with Season One.

Trying to find the "art" in this mundane setting without drifting too much into stylization or artsiness is the challenge. The frames I picked are not necessarily typical of the generally straight-forward look in the office scenes, the hardware store, etc., I wanted to pick something that had more of a distinct look. The show is so subtle in some ways in tone and humor, rarely is anything pushed or forced. So the look has to be grounded in naturalism (while being flattering... and while dealing with the fact that half of it is shot on soundstages.) I've been trying to think in terms of the kinder, gentler look of Nester Almendros, Sven Nykvist, David Watkin, people who could create art with a soft gentle light. It's hard to be that subtle.

It looks great David. I particularly like the exterior soundstage grabs in the first post. How many Dinos are you using for the backlight? Have you any units on the floor for close ups etc or are you just working with the spacelights?

Some of those shots are veering into Gordon Willis territory! :P Looks great, though. You definitely sell the backyard scenes as real exteriors - since I haven't seen the first season, I'm curious now to see how your approach differs. I think you mentioned before that you wanted to get in those hot slashes of hard light to mimic real uncontrolled sunlight. I think the only thing that might give the game away is the size of the shadows the actors cast on the ground, since I guess in real sunlight they'd be smaller because the sun is a smaller point source than the units you had. I also remember you saying that the ceiling of the stage was rather low, so I guess you were not able to put the lights as far away as you wanted. Were you ultimately happy with how the scenes turned out, or are there things you'd like to change?

I'm also curious how much you were allowed to vary your lighting style from the DP shooting the other episodes - what would you say the basic guidelines for the show are, in terms of lighting* and lenses? Have you felt like you've ever gone too far in deviating from the show's look, and if so, when and how?

Bill Wages is better at creating really natural-looking soft light with some contrast, but oddly enough, he was also less likely to stick to the reality of where the windows and sources were, if they were off-camera. He'd hang this big bedsheet and bounce light off of it from wherever it looked good, even if the windows were on the opposite side of the room. I'd be more likely to stick to the logic of the room, so a scene might be front-lit because of where the windows were.

I was a little more insistent on using eye lights and/or low fill for the eyes to get rid of some of the imperfections, whereas he tended to just make the key softer. This combined with the net diffusion created a softer gentler look starting on his first episode, #7 (the one where Margene is visited by her mother, played by Bonnie Bedelia.)

Those just went up on my netflix queue. Since watching the whole first season in a couple days, I've been dying for these discs to come out. It's a very well-written, well shot, fun to watch series. Look for some questions that arise after watching this season :)

I imagine that there's greater variation in how the two DPs would suggest covering a scene than in the lighting - do you also try to stick to certain guidelines there as well? I remember you were talking before about setting up a shot with Bill Paxton where there complementary action going on in the background and not being able to shoot it the way you wanted to because Bill wouldn't go for it. How do you figure out the best way to cover each scene and also factor in consistency with the previous episodes?

I imagine that there's greater variation in how the two DPs would suggest covering a scene than in the lighting - do you also try to stick to certain guidelines there as well? I remember you were talking before about setting up a shot with Bill Paxton where there complementary action going on in the background and not being able to shoot it the way you wanted to because Bill wouldn't go for it.

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