LETTING GO
By stripping back gear and embracing an organic visual language, Łukasz Żal PSC immerses audiences in the raw, spiritual story of Hamnet, a production crafted by intuition, the natural world and the emotional impact of love and loss.
Bringing Hamnet to the screen began with discussions about energy, contrast and the cycle of life. By starting from a place of simplicity and vulnerability, Łukasz Żal PSC and director Chloé Zhao’s organic visual language translated the emotional tale about the beauty of love and pain of grief into cinematic form.
Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same name, it is a fictional account of the impact of the death of William Shakespeare’s 11-year-old-son Hamnet and its role in the playwright’s tragedy Hamlet. Set in 1580, Hamnet (the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable) begins by exploring the early stages of the passionate relationship between William (Paul Mescal) and free-spirited Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley). Having wed and had three children, William pursues a theatre career in London while Agnes cares for the children in their Stratford-Upon-Avon home. When tragedy strikes, a shared trauma sets the stage for Shakespeare’s masterpiece play.
Believing Zhao (The Rider, Nomadland) would bring art and authenticity to the project, Hera Pictures, Neal Street Productions, Book of Shadows and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment approached the filmmaker to direct. Immediately connecting to the story spiritually, she found reading the book a “visceral experience…almost like poetry”; the “type of cinematic language” she loves. “Seeing images added together in a rhythm”, she felt “there is a heartbeat in this book that matches the rhythm of the heartbeat” of her as a filmmaker.
Drawn to the story which “touches on death and impermanence and grief and how the act of creativity and imagination could give meaning to the inevitable suffering that we go through in life”, as well as directing, Zhao wanted to write the screenplay with O’Farrell.
Before reading the script or novel, Żal met Zhao who set out the story’s core themes including cycles of life and death and the power of nature. “We talked about the subtlety of relationships, how people connect with each other and with the natural world, how we’re all part of something bigger,” he says. “We explored the multidimensionality of existence, the cycle of death and birth, how everything flows together in a natural rhythm. These themes deeply resonated with me. Something clicked.”
Having “devoured” the book and script, his personal connection with the story grew, spotting aspects of himself in Agnes and William; their passion, pain, impulses and mistakes. This aligned with Zhao’s creative goal for her films: for the “audience to see themselves in these characters”.
“Once they go through that catharsis, then they, like these characters, find some meaning from these difficult life situations, and hopefully become more whole through the experience of viewing the film,” she says.
Stripping back equipment allowed the filmmakers to be present in the moment and emotion of each scene. The director also offered a phrase to convey Agnes’ connection to nature and William’s more ambitious, work-focused traits: “A man is like a rock, and women are like an ocean.”
This metaphor and sense of duality and unity guided camera movement, lighting and framing of characters. “The sentence resonated with me: men and women need each other to be complete as William and Agnes did,” says Żal. “In Hamnet, there’s grief, but it’s also about how we transform everything, all our traumas, and how they shape you. Even all those imperfections can be transformed into something beautiful.
“I also wanted to create this feeling where we’re immersed in their lives and feelings. They meet, find love and it’s so intense. And then we jump out and see them from a distance, and witness their struggle.”
Finding inspiration in the forest
Weeks before principal photography, Żal flew to the UK to join Zhao and a small crew of four, immersing themselves in the wilderness of Lydney Forest in Gloucestershire, with the natural world helping craft the visuals.
With minimal gear — including a slider, macro lenses, and their phones playing Max Richter’s beautiful soundtrack that would accompany the film — the core crew engaged with nature, complete with mud and rain, as the elements became a character rather than a setting.
“There was no rush,” says Żal. “We just shot a lot of macros and wide shots, we found holes in the forest that looked like black voids which symbolised where we’re all heading, towards death. We crawled into the forest’s rotten layers, let the wet earth seep into our clothes and captured nature’s emotional tone.”
This experience reinforced they needed to avoid technology forming a barrier between actors’ performances. “We realised we wanted to shoot in a stripped back, modest way, moving the camera only when actors move. We wanted to use tableaus to build image compositions, using central composition, and be simple in terms of camera work,” he says. “I love being in nature too and it was a huge task to show nature as a living organ. I didn’t want it to be attractive or flashy, I wanted to go into nature, and just show it, lush and full of life.
“An early idea was to shoot 4:3 but then we realised it’s a bit limiting. We wanted wide angles for the forest scenes, to feel the air and space and that it’s infinitive, so we switched to 16:9.”
When two worlds collide
The forest was Agnes’ world and, in Żal’s eyes, became the beating, hypnotic heart of the film. In contrast, the farmhouse interiors were William’s domain and more constricted and defined by walls, ceilings and narrow passages compared to the forest’s freedom and purity.
Locations around Lydney Park Estate and the Forest of Dean provided the perfect backdrop for the forest scenes, contrasting with settings such as Weobley and Cwmmau Farmhouse in Herefordshire where Shakespeare’s family life were filmed.
“William was a man of words but was restricted by his father. The forest was a sanctuary whereas the house was a trap so we needed to convey that contrast,” says Żal.
Rather than finding a historical location for interior sequences in the Henley Street house at the centre of William’s world, the team — including production designer Fiona Crombie — built a house on a parking lot at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, which was a composite of houses they visited across England. Simplicity remained key, as did a visual approach based around “tableaus, long takes and avoiding unnecessary motion”.
When recreating the Globe Theatre as it stood in Shakespeare’s day, Crombie’s goal was to build a pared-back version of the open-air structure that did not distract from the action when Agnes is among the crowd assembled for the first performance of Hamlet.
The observer
To capture the story in an unobtrusive way Żal explored a non-human point of view using shots from above that were detached and floating as if something was watching the characters. This invisible, almost ghostly observer and presence aligned with the cycle of life and death at the film’s core.
“We sometimes referred to it as the CCTV camera but it represented something spiritual,” he says. “I wanted to jump from our characters’ perspective to this feeling somebody is watching our human struggle, capturing the presence and a different point of view.”
On occasions the camera is handheld and tied to a character’s movement but more often it is locked off. At times it drifts like a spirit with its own rhythm. For instance, when William and Agnes’ child falls sick, the camera slowly glides above the panic.
“I operated for that sequence and it was just intuitive. It’s a great example of what we aimed for, really capturing this presence, this moment, a snapshot of truth where everything coincides.”
Having initially planned elaborate crane moves for a crucial forest sequence, Mescal said he wanted more freedom when performing. “I realised the gear was getting in the way and would not allow him the space he needed to explore,” says Żal. “I didn’t want anything between me and an actor. I don’t want any gimbal or gyro head, I just want to be connected.”
Abandoning the crane, he returned to a more basic approach. Similarly when initially using a Technocrane for the pivotal scene in the Globe Theatre, it felt like “an alien which did not belong there” so Żal removed it, adopting a more organic and responsive “dance” between actor and cinematographer to capture emotive performances.
Focus was always on actors and performances, frequently shot in close-up to capture the intensity of the emotion. “Being honest and just looking at people and what’s happening with their eyes, conveys so much,” says Żal.
Żal and Zhao selected Arriflex/Zeiss Super Speed lenses (18mm-85mm range) for daytime photography, and wide-open ARRI/Zeiss Master Primes (ranging from 14mm to 100mm) for night shoots. Additionally ARRI/Zeiss Standard Speeds (14mm, 20mm, 28mm, 40mm) and Angénieux zoom lenses (19.5-94mm) were used.
“For me, every shot must be a composition, a piece of reality. The most important thing is combining a human face with a world,” says Żal, who wanted the lenses to let the character and setting shine rather than impose a signature. Like the Master Primes, the ARRI Alexa 35 was partly chosen for its ability to handle candlelit environments with extended ISO and internal denoising.
“We wanted to build this film like a mosaic, putting together fragments and allowing the viewer to really feel, also with sound, what is beyond the frame, where we can really imagine. Sometimes showing less instead of very wide shots.”
The approach was about absorbing certain philosophies of filmmaking — particularly from Tarkovsky who showed them how to “not use the camera in an obvious way, treat time, space and camera movement in a way which is not always functional and that the camera can move in its own rhythm and can make its own decisions”. This merged with compositional ideas from films like Barry Lyndon and Raise the Red Lantern, while the forest sequences owed something to the tactile detail in Diamonds of the Night. Bresson and Godard’s high angles found their way in too, but always in service of the film’s own logic.
When grading with Harbor colourist Damien Vandercruyssen, Żal initially leaned toward heightened contrast before he and Zhao returned to the film’s foundation of honesty and opting for a natural, grounded approach over a dramatic grade.
Honesty and restraint
Before joining the crew, gaffer Sol Saihati was captivated by Zhao’s productions including Nomadland which he believes is “a rare film that is utterly captivating and you can totally lose yourself in”.
“Łukasz and I spoke a few years earlier but never managed to work together. His films Cold War, Ida and The Zone of Interest are masterpieces,” says Saihati. “So when he called to discuss Hamnet, everything else was put on hold.”
While Britain has a long storied history of period filmmaking, from the outset Żal and Zhao set off on a contrarian journey which Saihati was keen to be part of. “We would not reproduce tropes of a period or costume drama,” Saihati explains.
With death’s perspective an overarching theme and the audience often acting as observers “it was the most judicious choice of coverage” Saihati has seen. “Many scenes were shot from one single camera position,” he says. “’Coverage?’ Łukasz would often exclaim. ‘Is that some kind of bitter herb?!’ And Chloé said, ‘The audience wants us to cut; it’s what they are used to. We will deny them the comfort of that cut.’”
In prep, Żal and Saihati pored over the script for hours, searching for understanding and the meaning of the scene for them, the characters and audience. Their lighting never drew attention to itself. If making a statement, it would be invisible. They were tasked with “resisting and revolting against beams of light, or anything too comfortable”. Their goal was often to “introduce discomfort”.
“Our film lighting would not be beautiful in any traditional sense. We would present scenes to the audience carefully, sometimes matching their expectation, only to deny them that comfort in the next scene,” says Saihati. “We would lure them in a safe space and then take that away, sometimes in harsh, unexpected ways.”
Less is more
Whilst Żal and Saihati determined their approach for each scene months in advance, they designed a method offering freedom to operate and react within the space. Sometimes Zhao adjusted the focus of the scene on the day, perhaps moving to a different room or location.
Sahati has carried a similar, versatile floor kit for years comprising Creamsource Vortexes, LiteGear LiteMats, Astera Titan Tubes and every shape and size of textile. The challenge for this film was making their environment asorganic and unencumbered by equipment as possible.
“Typically, grip equipment or stands on the floor should be black and without logos. We extended this to blacking out logos on fixtures and LED displays with tape,” he says. “Technical equipment would melt into the set. Natural textiles, like bleached and unbleached muslin were key; if a fixture was deployed, it usually had at least one layer of muslin, be it on the softbox or layered in front.”
Żal and Saihati discussed at length the perfect orientation and layout of the Shakespeare family home with the construction department, landing on a north facing arrangement to ensure maximum light control. Their workhorses for day scenes were 18kW Fresnels, usually bounced into 20 x 20 muslins mounted on Manitous above the windows. Outside windows would usually be Cineo Quantums with various dressing from 6’ x 6’ Chimeras to head egg crates for directionality.
For evening and morning scenes the 20 x 20s transformed into overheads, blocking ambient light from the street outside. Quantums were used at very low levels, dialling in colour to match the look, sometimes as bounces for a soft evening ambience.
The church scene was shot on location in Weobley, Herefordshire, with the clandestine nature of the wedding meaning it would take place at night. “Our base ambience was a very soft overhead glow from a row of three or four Skylite LED balloons. We made two walls of muslin, either side of the church, we could dial in and out to give enough shape to augment the candlelight,” says Saihati.
Battling the elements
The crew were sometimes in difficult terrain when lighting exterior forest scenes. A few weeks after Żal and Zhao had been on scouts to Hereford, Saihati continued to scout forest locations with them, often for days at a time.
“They would wander over acres of land, looking for the perfect place for each scene, sometimes deep into woodland that had been untouched for extensive periods,” says Saihati. “My rigging gaffer Al Brown and rigging team, regardless of terrain or distance from a road, fulfilled every requirement unfazed, often carrying kit hundreds of metres into the woods or running miles of cable.”
Since working in the Yorkshire Dales on The Innocents, Brown and Saihati had extensive experience with spider booms (generally the only type of lighting crane that can be transported across difficult terrain), knowing their strengths and limitations. ARRI 18K Fresnels were carefully positioned across the location to ensure coverage.
“The rigging crew knew lighting needed to be an invisible force and technical kit was made discreet, hidden by black waterproofing and camouflage netting or even by grass and leaves, be it an 18K on a Long John Silver or a Rosco DMG Dash and Dot,” says Saihati.
In their first week of filming, lighting deep in the magical and ethereal Lydney Park estate in Hereford was a delicate balance of how to bring hundreds of people into the environment without spoiling it. “Should we stand back and stay out of the way? When should we react and make adjustments? It was a tricky first week, fraught with trepidation,” Saihati adds.
Their goal was to work mostly with bounce and negative, introducing light sources when necessary for the scene, or to keep consistency. They needed to give the actors as much space as possible, ensuring their working environment is comfortable and organic.
The ancient tree which plays a central role early in the film was in a dip of land, with a 10m ridge either side, swathed in canopy. For light control, Żal and Saihati wanted to avoid heavy, noisy disruptive machinery. Helium balloons were a natural choice, sometimes as sun cover, but generally as negative.
“We’d worked with Lee Mills and Francesca Bonomini at Skylite Balloons for years. They deployed a crack team of balloon techs into the forest. A perfect solution: no stands or hardware, silent and organic,” says Saihati. “Combined with muslin bounces and negative of all sizes on the floor, we managed to keep our distance, whilst carefully sculpting the beautiful available light.”
Authentic night lighting
“Period filmmaking is riddled with traps we were determined not to fall into, especially over-romanticising our night lighting. We had to keep it transparent whilst maintaining shape when needed,” says Saihati.
To avoid adding too many candles or misplacing them and washing out a scene that needs higher contrast they did extensive camera testing with different types of candles and candle wax. “The Alexa’s new enhanced sensitivity mode was a revelation, especially when looking into very dark areas of the set,” says Saihati. “So many scenes had extensive blocking and we needed to understand the staging of several actors in one room, but bear in mind we would often have little to no coverage.”
Therefore they needed to find perfect candle positions for each scene with the help of a candle team deployed by the art department to move flame sources. “They also designed candle trays that could be used off cameraon a C stand, or on the floor, each with three or four double wick candles,” he adds. “Once we laid down the foundation we carefully added a directional fill, usually three or four Titans with softboxes through 6x or 8x muslin. We then added edges, again Titans or Helios, sometimes with egg crates and thin muslin on top.”
The exact level of fill and ambience is crucial for Saihati when getting exteriors to sit correctly, “so it’s vital to work with overhead rigs that are soft, but also flexible and nimble”. On The Essex Serpent he faced brutal weather, and in lieu of a traditional overheard softbox on a crane, he and Best Boy Jim Agnew designed a Titan rig arranged in a grid 20’ x 20’ in size and light enough to fit on a small cherry picker.
“We’ve used them ever since,” he says. “Wind can easily pass through them and when used in multiples they create a lovely, natural overall softness, and allow you to dial in very specific levels across a set. They can be tilted or panned and powered from a small battery that can be mounted to the crane base. Similar rigs have become commonplace and it’s usually my first item on any night exterior lighting plan.”
On the floor they normally worked with Titans or LiteMats pushed through layers of muslin or bounced Vortexes. For the London night exterior scenes meetings with the art department months in advance established where flame sources and candles were best positioned for each scene.
“Highlights in windows or in the background would usually be Hydras, or Aputure MC Pros (which have a great standalone effects modes like candle and flame) bounced or wrapped in muslin,” he adds. “Edges would be augmented by Vortex V4s, or Creamsource Micros with egg crates, always on batteries so we could manoeuvre them quickly and easily.”
Force of nature
When working with natural light, Żal and Saihati discussed schedule and timings of exterior scenes extensively with 1st AD Marc Wilson, organising their schedule to correspond to sun position and with Wilson allowing flexibility and sensitivity should scenes run long, or need to run over a series of days.
This relieved pressure when they needed to take control of the light of day exteriors. They generally worked with negative fill and bleached or day grey muslin to shape the daylight, occasionally introducing a fixture to bounce when called for.
The Globe set was a structural reproduction, made of oak but with an entirely original interior. The scenes there take place over a few hours, but were to be shot over a few weeks during British summertime, complete with sun, wind and rain. “Extensive sun studies using Sketchup, Google Earth and a scaled model helped us understand precisely how to position the set on the backlot, prior to it being built so we could ensure a continuous look,” says Saihati.
HOD rigger Steve Fitzpatrick and Saihati had extensive experience working with large overhead textiles and knew the pitfalls of dealing with rags of this size. “Considering unpredictable British weather, Steve designed an astounding rig, built from the ground up, allowing us to span the entire roof of the globe with textile,” says Saihati. “Four 80’ x 30’ 15% grey gridcloth was the custom order from LA Raghouse, arranged by Steve so they overlapped, allowing wind to easily pass through. They could be quickly teased in and out to shape the overhead light as required.”
The mammoth rig was surveyed by Alan Quest to be suitable for conditions up to Force 10 on the Beaufort Scale. “It worked seamlessly in rain, wind and shine, offering consistency and control,” adds Saihati. “Augmented with rows of 18K Fresnels bounced through grid cloth on balconies, and Cineo Quantums on the floor, we had flexibility to shape these vital scenes.”
A creative collective
Żal brought some of his trusted Polish collaborators onto the production: his first AC Radoslaw Kokot, camera operator Stanislaw Cuske, key grip Tomasz Sternicki and DIT Krzysztof Zawieja. The emotional impact of the story and performances was experienced by them and the whole crew who felt compassion for the characters.
“Everybody was whispering,” says Żal. “When we were shooting those heavy scenes of Hamnet’s death, my focus puller was crying. It was not just a film; it was a beautiful journey with this collective of people.”
The cinematographer found meditating during the shoot beneficial as a form of release and to process the emotional weight of the story. “Sometimes between takes, I would close my eyes, breathe and find an inner place where I could keep this distance and refresh myself. This helped me keep this creativity and energy and go through these heavy situations and also reflected the film’s themes of letting go and accepting the cycle of life,” he says.
Żal has enjoyed ambitious and stimulating collaborations throughout his career on productions such as The Zone of Interest (dir. Jonathan Glazer) and Ida (dir. Paweł Pawlikowski), with each project making a profound and lasting impact. Hamnet was another transformative and fulfilling experience that shaped him as a cinematographer, becoming an intimate and personal chapter in his life. “It was unique,” he says. “I really believe in this energy people carry and bring to set which transfers to the film. We were trying to make something beautiful and honest which you can really feel on screen.”
After shooting the film’s final powerful scenes, Zhao played music on set so cast and crew could process the intense emotions they had experienced as a group. “We were just all in this vortex together,” she says. “In the end, we put on Rihanna’s “We Found Love” and we did an epic dance number with the entire cast and crew in the Globe Theatre. We were just all crying, hugging together. There was no line between truth and fiction, behind or in front of the camera, past and present. For a brief moment, there was no separation, and that is why Shakespeare wrote his plays— so everyone can come together.”
