How ‘All of Us Strangers’ Cinematographer Created a Sense of “Organic Nostalgia” With His Camera

When reading scripts, South African cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay says he looks for “personal anchor points” that allow him to “channel an honesty of creativity.” And to paint a portrait of loneliness and loss in Searchlight’s All of Us Strangers, which follows Londoner Adam (Andrew Scott) in his relationship with Harry (Paul Mescal) amid frequent memories of his younger years with his now-deceased parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), the DP leaned into feelings of isolation that he experienced when he first moved from South Africa to his current home of London. “We’ve all felt loneliness in our lives,” he says. “That isolation was a very cerebral feeling, very conscious. I thought an interesting thing for me to be able to do with this movie is to implant this wound that I obviously hadn’t exorcised and use the feelings generated from that. It may be a way for me to go through a cathartic process while shooting, too.” 

The $10 million film, shot in and around London on a tight five-week schedule, included filming at director Andrew Haigh’s childhood home in Croydon, which was used as Adam’s childhood home. “Obviously directors have a piece of themselves in a movie, and I know that this film was also cathartic for him,” says Ramsay. “The fact that Andrew used his own home [for] that bridging moment between mother and son is heartbreaking. For me, that scene just needed to be warm, heartfelt and relatable and as approachable as one could make it.”

Overall, he wanted to create a feeling that was also responsive and personal. “One of the perpetuating themes was this nostalgia, and that’s exhibited in the music, in the costumes, in the idea of the flashbacks,” he says. Ramsay wanted to achieve this in a subtle manner, which led to the choice to lens the movie on 35mm film and giving the two “worlds” a subtle difference in look. The past relied on an “analog presence, like using old tungsten lights, using incandescent, practicals,” while the current world was “a collision between analog and a digital presence.” The lighting of the latter included use of fluorescents, neons and LEDs. They also viewed Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers and Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away for inspiration.

For scenes with Adam and Harry, Ramsay relied heavily on eyelines with the camera to follow the evolution of their relationship: “Slowly, as the relationship softens and they get to know each other, I just tightened up the eyeline, bringing the characters closer on longer lenses, and then used the lens to explore them as they are exploring themselves.”  

This story first appeared in a December standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.