9-1-1: Lone Star director of photography names top moments from season 1
9-1-1: Lone Star season 1 spoilers follow.
There was good news last month for 9-1-1: Lone Star, as Fox announced that it would be returning for its second season. Starring the likes of Rob Lowe and Liv Tyler, the spin-off proved to be a hit with viewers.
One key person behind the scenes of the show is Andrew Strahorn. As the director of photography, his job is to work with the team to bring the scripts to life through camera movement and lighting.
"Within those elements, I have exposure, shadow angle, frame rate [and more] to play with, along with tools like a dolly, steadicam, Technocrane... it's very much bringing what's the page and finding a way to reflect that in a visual medium," he explained in an interview with Digital Spy.
9-1-1: Lone Star has had its fair share of impressive set-pieces in the first season. And one of Strahorn's favourite episodes to work on was the pilot, which kicked off with a massive sequence ending with most of the 126 being killed in an explosion.
"I really enjoyed the pilot because it really set the tone of where we were going," he said. "There are some really interesting scenarios and set-pieces that you don't ordinarily get the chance to do – like within the first ten minutes, you're setting up the 126 and you're blowing up a factory at night.
"It's probably a couple of hundred yards squared of this factory just exploding.
"And then you're in New York, and you're hanging a guy off window cleaner apparatus and he's 57 storeys up from the ground."
Strahorn also mentioned the fourth episode, in particular shooting scenes with a Prius stuck upside-down and wedged in between an alleyway following a tornado, before discussing the first season finale.
"The finale was a lot of fun," he recalled. "Shooting the plane upside-down, stuck in high-tension wires 30 feet in the air – technically and logically, it was a really fun challenge.
"Lighting's in the air, cameras are in the air, everything's in the air, and you're fighting for space along with stunts and the art department, who both have 90-tonne cranes. And you have cranes for lighting and for camera, and all of a sudden, everyone's fighting for space in the air as opposed to what would normally happen on the ground.
"From my end, Lone Star has been a lot of fun from a logistical standpoint of these set-pieces and executing them in a way that hopefully always has the camera close to the action. That means you're always leaning towards wider lenses in order to be closer to the performers.
"But then [you think about] how to do it in a way that still has a sense of style and more importantly captures the moment. Those sequences in particular have been a lot of fun and I've really enjoyed doing."
And when asked about how he approaches his work on 9-1-1: Lone Star, Strahorn explained that one thing requested by the showrunner that he always keeps in mind is to make sure that the camera always feels like "the additional member of the 126".
"And so whenever we're with the firefighters, whether you're out on a rescue or in the fire station, the camera always has this element of movement," he continued. "We're always moving with them.
"So it's adrenaline when you're out on a rescue and then when you're in the firehouse, the camera is still moving but in relation to witty banter like as a family would be. You'd be ragging on each other, so it's trying to keep capturing that energy.
"And then obviously when they're in their private lives and they take off their jackets and their badges, they become normal people and deal with normal issues, so the camera becomes more classical."
9-1-1: Lone Star airs on FOX in the US.
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