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Throughout the year, IndieWire runs a survey for cinematographers with films playing at major festivals around the world to ask them about the formats, cameras, and lenses they chose. Most importantly, we want to know why directors of photography make the choices that they do, given the logistical and budgetary demands of their projects.

At SXSW 2025, 45 cinematographers took the time to answer these questions with a range of insight — and humor! — into how they assembled particular camera packages so that, for instance, they would be assumed to be YouTubers (“Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie”), or which specific lens works to subtly inform the audience that Ben Affleck is having an internal moment.

“It’s always a fine line, not wanting the audience to notice the cinematography but wanting them to be affected by it,” Marc Spicer, the director of photography on “Drop,” told IndieWire in his survey answer...

Aubrey Plaza's newest movie is officially a critical success — which also means the studio behind the super popular film, Amazon, is pretty happy right now.

In "My Old Ass," we first meet the movie's protagonist Elliott as her younger self played by Maisy Stella as she prepares to take hallucinogenic mushrooms with her friends; when she does, she "meets" her 39-year-old self played by Plaza (who recently stunned audiences on the Marvel series "Agatha All Along"). When Older Elliott dispenses some advice — including a strangely specific note to stay away from some boy named Chad — younger Elliot is suspicious at first but realizes that following it actually helps her solve some critical problems, so she starts seeking out her older counterpart to try and get through her younger years unscathed.

"My Old Ass" is funny, unexpectedly emotional, and features two outstanding central performances from Plaza and Stella. Clearly, critics...

Shot lists, storyboards, models, pre-viz: There are many different ways for a director, Dp, and a camera team to plot what a movie will look like before they start shooting. But cinematographer Kristen Correll and director Megan Park have a delightfully lo-fi, surprisingly useful approach to conceptualizing the world they’re about to create.

Correll told IndieWire that, as part of starting to talk about what the film would need and how they would shoot it, she had Park read aloud the script for “My Old Ass.”

She tries to do that with all her directors, because hearing a script helps Correll locate the exact tone she will need to create with her camera.

“The way I’m reading things in my head, I might think I have it correct, but then, you hear it from the writer/director and you’re like, ‘Ok, I got that wrong,’ or ‘I was spot on,...

The Alexa 35 is booming! As IndieWire released its camera survey, it seems that the new Super 35 flagship from Arri is among the most popular cameras chosen by Sundance 2024’s filmmakers. The Arri 35 causes the notable Super 35 format to go back to the game. Furthermore, the Arri Alexa Mini is the most popular camera five years in a row. Watch the segmentation.

Sundance 2024’s Narratives: Camera Manufacturers’ chart

As you can see in the chart, Super 35 is the dominant format. As we thought that large sensors would pull down the notable Super 35, it’s not as simple as that, since the Arri 35 kicks the Super 35 to the popularity line again. Additionally, this is the first time that we have seen a solid presence of the Arri 35 in our charts. Head to head with the old (and mighty) Alexa Mini, the Arri 35 is climbing strong and may become the most preferred camera among storytellers.

In My Old Ass, an incoming college freshman encounters an older version of herself during a mushroom trip, spurring a journey of self-discovery. The film is director Megan Park’s follow-up the 2021 SXSW premiere The Fallout and stars Maisy Stella (Nashville) alongside Aubrey Plaza (Emily the Criminal). Kristen Correll served as director of photography. Below, she talks about going with the flow during shooting, the film’s nostalgic tone, and the ’90s favorites that provided influence. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were […]

The post “Adapt and Let the Film Show You What It Wants to Show You”: Dp Kristen Correll on My Old Ass first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In My Old Ass, an incoming college freshman encounters an older version of herself during a mushroom trip, spurring a journey of self-discovery. The film is director Megan Park’s follow-up the 2021 SXSW premiere The Fallout and stars Maisy Stella (Nashville) alongside Aubrey Plaza (Emily the Criminal). Kristen Correll served as director of photography. Below, she talks about going with the flow during shooting, the film’s nostalgic tone, and the ’90s favorites that provided influence. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were […]

The post “Adapt and Let the Film Show You What It Wants to Show You”: Dp Kristen Correll on My Old Ass first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In 2007, just after her breakout movie role as brittle, sizeist mean-girl Amber Von Tussle in Adam Shankman’s “Hairspray,” actor Brittany Snow took to the pages of People to talk about her own longtime battle with anorexia. But in a cultural moment that was peculiarly hostile to the mental health crises of young female celebrities — it was also the year that Britney Spears shaved her head — the response to her op-ed was dismissive. Now, 16 years and something of a sea change in social attitudes later, the sheer sincerity of Snow’s directorial debut is quite the rebuttal to those who accused her of mere attention-seeking back then. Unmistakably informed by personal, painful experience, “Parachute” pulls its ripcord early, determined to let its self-critical, struggling characters drift down to the soft landing Snow herself was not granted.

The film, which Snow co-wrote with Becca Gleason, is deeply felt and certainly proves that the actress,...

Megan Park’s heart-wrenching directorial debut “The Fallout” shows how a seemingly normal day in the life of high schoolers is swiftly destroyed by a horrific shooting — and how that shooting is then refracted through social media. The film won the Audience Award for Narrative Feature at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival, and arrives on HBO Max January 27. “The Fallout” also features a leading turn from “Scream” breakout Jenna Ortega, starring opposite Maddie Ziegler. Watch the trailer below.

Jenna Ortega stars as Vada, a high schooler in emotional freefall after a school shooting alters her friends, family, and other relationships in her orbit. Others affected by the shooting act out in different ways to cope with their pain. Once-silly Nick (Will Ropp) becomes an overnight sensation as a victim’s advocate, while Quinton (left injured by the shooting) proves to be the most surprisingly emotionally stable. Meanwhile, Shailene Woodley co-stars in...

Warner Bros. has acquired rights to South by Southwest award-winner “The Fallout” and plans to debut the film on HBO Max.

Written and directed by Megan Park in her feature filmmaking debut, “The Fallout” premiered at SXSW and took home the grand jury and audience awards at this year’s annual film festival. The story follows a high schooler who navigates the emotional fallout in the wake of a school tragedy. The cast includes Jenna Ortega, “Dance Moms” alum Maddie Ziegler, Julie Bowen and Shailene Woodley.

In markets where HBO Max is not available, Warner Bros. will distribute the film in theaters.

“Making ‘The Fallout’ was a journey I never expected to take and one that has changed me forever,” said Park, best known for portraying Grace Bowman on ABC Family’s teen drama “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.” “If by seeing this film just one teen feels less alone,...

Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired the worldwide rights to “The Fallout,” a teen drama starring Jenna Ortega that swept the top prizes at the SXSW Film Festival this year.

“The Fallout” is director Megan Park’s debut film and follows a high school girl’s journey after the emotional fallout of a school shooting forever alters her worldview and her relationships with family and friends.

The film will be released exclusively through HBO Max where available globally, and distributed by Warner Bros. internationally. No release date has been set.

Ortega leads a cast that also includes Maddie Ziegler, Niles Fitch, Will Ropp, Lumi Pollack, John Ortiz, Julie Bowen and Shailene Woodley. “The Fallout” won both the Grand Jury Award and the Audience Award for Narrative Feature at SXSW, and Park won the Brightcove Illumination Award honoring a filmmaker on the rise.

“Making ‘The Fallout’ was a journey I never expected...

Vada’s life doesn’t look that much different than that of any other American teenager: She loves spending time with her snarky best pal, she’s not super-serious about school but she’s still smart, she thinks her parents are kind of square but knows they love her, Starbucks is a major part of her diet, and much of her existence plays out on social media. Today, however, Vada’s life is going to change forever. In “The Fallout,” Vada (Jenna Ortega) starts another seemingly normal day, only for it to be destroyed by a horrific school shooting.

Park, an actress and singer who has steadily built up her directing bonafides with a variety of music videos (including Billie Eilish’s “Watch”) and a pair of short films, makes a big leap with “The Fallout,” taking on a major emotional undertaking for her first feature. It works. Vada is...