The Making of Netflix’s Black Doves

Now streaming on Netflix, the limited series Black Doves follows professional spies and old friends Helen (Keira Knightley) and Sam (Ben Whishaw) as they investigate the assassination of Helen’s secret lover, uncovering a vast conspiracy as they proceed. The six-episode series was created and written by Joe Barton; lead cinematographer Mark Patten, BSC partnered with director Alex Gabassi on the first three episodes, and Giulio Biccari served as cinematographer for the remaining three episodes, teaming with director Lisa Gunning. After production wrapped, Patten and his longtime gaffer Brandon Evans sat with Panavision and Panalux to discuss the particulars of their work on Black Doves and how their collaboration has evolved over the years.

Defining the Look

As gaffer Brandon Evans explains, “Black Doves is a spy thriller set in the present day, which then flips back and forth to the past. We wanted to make this look like something that you haven't seen and try to be a bit braver with the colors.”

Toward that end, the filmmakers challenged themselves to present the London setting in a unique fashion. “London has been photographed many times before, but how can we give it some form of a look?” cinematographer Mark Patten, BSC, recalls thinking. “As always, every show wants to be unique to that story. It has to feel Christmas, because it takes place over that time, but we can give it our own darker, bleaker side.” 

Evans adds, “We wanted deep colors, rich colors like greens, reds, yellows, oranges, all dotted around us. That gives the audience something to look at and go, ‘It's a bit colorful as well, not the norm.’ And you try and implement it in areas that you know can use it. I mean, some bits you can't get away with that because you go, ‘Well, that just looks a bit too out of reach for the location you are at.’”

Choosing Lenses

Patten and director Alex Gabassi decided early on to shoot the series with spherical lenses. “It was then, how do we create the low-contrast look that will then lend itself to a London that hasn't been seen before?” Patten explains. “[Panavision U.K. Technical Marketing Director] Charlie Todman said that he had a set of large-format spherical glass, which they had tinkered with.”

Those lenses were modified Panaspeeds. “I'd shot a couple projects on Primos,” Patten shares, “and that glass is just really solid, and I believe that the Panaspeeds are the large-format version of that. I wanted it to not be as sharp, just to try and get it more soft on the edges so that London could have a lower-contrast look, so that the center of the frame could allow those characters to breathe within the frame. I wanted to get that big, medium-format image so that the characters can be separated from their background.”

As Natural as Possible

In all of their decisions, the filmmakers strove to keep the look of Black Doves grounded in naturalism. “In some ways,” Evans offers, “I'd rather light the background up and have the person silhouetted against the bright background and then fill them in, than having all of these big backlights hitting people from behind. It makes it look a bit too artificial. We were having these conversations because you fall into the norm about a lot of things, and you're trying to change it. Let's not have a fill. Let's only have a key, let it go a bit moodier, a bit darker.” 

Patten adds, “My mantra is to be as natural as possible. Apart from a couple of scenes at the end of the autumn where we got a good autumn light, it was the standard gray, blue hue that you get in London. With a combination of filters and grading, I was hoping to give a bit of warmth back into a Christmas London.”

Repeat Collaborators

Patten and Evans have been longtime creative collaborators at this point, with shared credits that include the series Taboo, McMafia and Pennyworth. “Once you start having that rapport with a DOP,” Evans says, “your job is to make him look good by getting everything done in time and the look and feel and tone that he spoke to you about before we even started the job. So you are trying to get it all in your head what he's actually imagining.

“With Mark, because we've been with each other for so long, he knows I know what he's already thinking,” the gaffer continues, “so you are already getting it done, which gives him more time to spend with the director, art department, not worry about the lighting side of things.”

Energy Efficient

Over the course of their collaboration, Patten and Evans have kept pace with evolutions in lighting technology. “Brandon's always tinkering away and offering out something new that he brings on set, so it's been a very collaborative and creative relationship,” Patten says. “He's looked after me for a good 12 years. He's adapted over that period to technology, so we've gone from Taboo where it was still incandescent light bulbs, how do we make that work, all the way through to, now we're looking at pretty much a full LED show on Doves.”

“We are massively into sustainability,” Evans adds. Accordingly, he says, the approach to Black Doves was such that “we are going to go LED with every location we go to. It's not just about the LED light, it's about powering that LED light, so we want to make sure we've got enough batteries, bigger batteries that are going to power that light. Panalux had all that.”

Ultimately, the filmmakers’ creative and technical choices were all made in service to the story being told. “Working with the caliber of actors that we had, you almost forget you are technically involved,” Patten reflects. “Almost everything melts away and the true drama of what you are there for, sings.”