The Big Picture

Cinematographer Pierre Gill discusses the evolution of his craft and the new technology and tools he’s used to create visually striking scenes in Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Gill shares his excitement about working on the project and the joy of being able to share his work with his own children. The use of ILM’s Volume technology in Percy Jackson proved a challenge to master and to use for “realism” versus sci-fi, but ultimately led to successful results.

Cinematographer Pierre Gill has been around for quite some time and, in his words, he has the gray hairs to prove it. He’s done everything from work with Denis Villeneuve on his early film Polytechnique to the upcoming series Dune: Prophecy that is set to take place before the films. However, it is work on the acclaimed new series Percy Jackson and the Olympians that provided the opportunity to try out a whole lot of new technical work and give fans of the Rick Riordan’s original novels the adaptation they were looking for. With the series currently airing on Disney+, we sat down for an interview with Gill for his thoughts on the way his craft has evolved, the technical innovations he’s seen, and what is coming next.

Disney’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians stars Walker Scobell, Leah Jeffries, Aryan Simhadri, and Jason Mantzoukas, Megan Mullally, Glynn Turman, and more.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians Demigod Percy Jackson leads a quest across America to prevent a war among the Olympian gods. Release Date December 20, 2023 Creator Rick Riordan, Jonathan E. Steinberg Cast Walker Scobell , Leah Jeffries , Aryan Simhadri , Jason Mantzoukas , Adam Copeland Seasons 1

COLLIDER: To start off, I want to talk about your technical expertise. What have you discovered in your profession as a craftsperson has changed as there’s been new technology and new tools for you to use to create your art? I think Percy is great, and I imagine there will be fans of the show that are reading, but when they like it and why it’s great, a lot of it comes down to the way you visually capture things. I think of the very striking scene where he falls, I think of the water conversation at the end of Episode 6. I think of all these details. I’m curious about when you’re bringing those to life. How is it different now than it would have been 10 or 15 years ago?

GILL: Well, it’s a good question. I love this question because I really, really love my time, my era. I was born long enough ago to start on Super 8 movies, 16 millimeter, 35 millimeter, and I loved the first digital camera. I loved the first ARRI ALEXA, which was a game changer, and now I loved the fashion of 3D movies. I’ve shot 3D movies, also, and stuff like that. The technology of this new medium, which is a good mix of these lighting devices, that are DMX, LED lighting, change color. No more gels. It’s very, very different. I love it. It’s really cool.

It’s very funny you ask me that because yesterday I was thinking exactly about that in my journey of life, saying how privileged I am and how lucky I am, and how fun it is to be able to live that and work with this. So I’m working now on a lot of digital cameras. I work on film a little bit also, of course, but it has to be a specific project. But what I’m doing is, I’m mixing the way I work. I’m mixing the new digital camera, which has great sensors like the Sony VENICE for that show, and the old lenses. What most DPs have to do is, we call it the old glass, and we put it in front of the new lenses. I work, also, with a software for Livegrade, so I’m doing my own color correction on set. I’m one of the few who’s doing this, to be honest with you, but what it does, it makes a really fun journey for me because I’m controlling all my color correction right now, live. I see where I wanna go, I show to the producer and to the directors where I’m going, and it’s very, very good. Plus the new amazing LED lighting, which are these fixtures that we control on a board. That is a big game changer for us, because what it does is you can quickly, because of course, time is always an issue, we can change the color and the intensity live. It’s great, actually. It makes a lot of things to take care of, you have to make sure you don’t get lost in it, but it’s a pleasure. I love it because when I finish my day of working I’ve seen what I’ve done, and I feel what I’ve done. I can go home, have a glass of wine, and get ready for the next day.

The Journey to ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Was an Epic Quest

When it came to Percy Jackson, how many days of shooting did you do? I don’t know if you have younger kids, or if you were familiar with the books at all?

GILL: Yeah, I was familiar with the book. I didn’t read it. My kids read it, so I was familiar with the project, with the movies, everything. Then when they called me for it, I was like, “Of course.” I’m interested in those projects because I have kids. My youngest, she’s 12, and it’s always cool for Dad to work on something that is their generation. And by the way, she’s super proud. She came to Camp Half-Blood, and she was an extra. She has her T-shirt, a real T-shirt from Camp Half-Blood. We were there at the airport the other day and people were like, “Oh my god, this is the T-shirt from Camp Half-Blood!” She was like, “Yes, and it is the real one.” So I work on this, and of course it’s interesting for me because I have kids, so I’m happy to share what Papa is doing — working really hard, actually [laughs]. But being able to allow them to see something that I can talk to them [about], that’s one thing, for sure.

After that, it’s a prestigious project. It’s Disney. And then the producer, which I haven’t worked with before, my discussion with them was great. I loved the way they were, and I can see very quickly the truth about them. That’s very important. Journeys and movies are extremely difficult, you’re going through a lot of emotion. We always say we’re a big family, so we love and hate each other a lot during this process, and you need to work with people that are going to be a good journey. These people were like that — Dan Shotz and Jonathan Steinberg, and the director, James Bobin. Then I met, also, Jet Wilkinson, which was amazing. And then, just to answer all of your questions, we shot, I think, 150 days, which is a lot. So basically, I was there in March and I left in February. I was there for one year.

That’s a big amount of time to work on a project. That’s more than some features for people.

GILL: Oh, yeah. First of all, we had a schedule that was very good for us because it was not completely packed, because Percy was in every scene. Bottom line, you have 12, 13, 14-year-old kids shooting every day, so there’s a limit of how many hours you can do. So, we made a bit shorter days in a way. We still made big days, of course, but with a little more time, and also not to stress them was very important for the project. If they’re gonna invest so much money…

You can’t burn everybody out.

GILL: I mean, you have to try your best to make sure it’s gonna work because it’s a lot of money, and then there’s a lot of pressure. You see now it’s quite successful. People love the show, and it’s proven to be really a good choice.

Working on Volume Is Like Driving a Lamborghini – “It Was Perfectly Working”
Image via Disney Plus

Was there a scene or day that you particularly enjoyed shooting that was one of your favorites from this process?

GILL: Man, I shot so much stuff. We shot so much big stuff, so much interesting stuff, because it’s all a very highly creative process. But when I could enjoy myself and I had more fun, because sometimes it was very difficult, I would say when we did the Tunnel of Love in Episode 5. It was very, very, very successful, but of course, there was a lot of preparation before. When we got there I was completely ready with the ILM team. We did a lot of pretests and everything. But shooting it was so amazing. It was so successful. We shot this on a Volume, and it was like the best Volume ever. It was really, really fun because it was perfectly working, so then it’s like driving a Lamborghini. It was perfect.

Another thing that was really, really fun to shoot was when they leave the casino. That’s probably the end of Episode 6, maybe. They leave the casino and they go downstairs and they get into the taxi, and Percy is trying to drive. That was fun. That was really fun to shoot. We had a major cool rig. We had a cab that was rigged with a driver so it looked like a spaceship, and all the kids are inside. Walker is not driving.

Oh, obviously [laughs] you don’t want the kids driving.

ILM’s Volume Tech: ‘Percy Jackson’ Vs. ‘The Mandalorian’
Image via Disney+

I was gonna ask because you had mentioned this, and I feel like there’s, to audiences, maybe a misunderstanding of what people say when they say the Volume. People imagine you just sit in a room and it’s like The Batman or how The Mandalorian used it. How was it that you were using this tool? What is it that you think, especially in the context of this show, people should know how you’re integrating it into the scene to make everything work well?

GILL: It’s a good question, and it’s a very important question because anybody who knows about Volume, yes, they will refer to The Mandalorian, which is the people I was working with. ILM worked on that a lot and created that. One thing that is extremely different on that show is the idea, which goes to the core of the show. So, the first creative discussion of that show was, “We don’t want to make a superhero, we want to make a Percy that is a real guy on a real journey, as natural as possible.” And my take on it was to make it natural and elegant. So, gorgeous but not over the top, and also keep colors. I was like, “I wanna keep colors.” I’m tired of everything desaturated or monochromatic. That’s easier. To keep colors is more difficult. I tried to say I wanted to see the skins, I want to see the faces. So, the bottom line is we wanted to keep it more, like I said, realistic with elegance, meaning you get in a Volume. The Volume is great for sci-fi, but we discovered that doing realism is quite difficult, like, seriously difficult. Even the ILM team were like, “Oh, boy. We didn’t notice it was going to be so hard,” because it’s very hard.

It’s perfect when you do sci-fi because the human brain will embrace anything that is not perfectly real because it’s sci-fi. So The Mandalorian is fine, and you have the Star Wars characters with ears or noses, or makeup. Star Trek is the same because what they’re wearing is, like, blue with stripes and the background is like that, so it’s very different. So when we started to work in the Volume and tried to do the exterior Met, I can tell you something, we sweat a lot. We did a lot of Volume. I think some of them are very successful. They’re not perfect because it’s very hard, and it’s very time-consuming to make it. I think we all learned, also, to achieve it you have to know how to do it. But bottom line, we’ve done more realistic Volume, which was a big task, and I think some of them are very successful. Some are okay. But most of the audience, they don’t realize that it’s the Volume, and some of them are actually very nice.

I’m very proud because, to be honest with you, it was a very, very hard task. For example, the Minotaur fight. As soon as they crashed the car, they go in the ditch. They’re in a ditch, and the ditch is built on a stage, so this is not outside, so I had to light the ditch. Then they walk up and then they walk in the Volume. So first of all, I have to match the stage to a location to the Volume, and then you get there with mom and it’s raining, and she’s telling him, “You have to go. You have to run.” And now that sequence is all Volume with very little touch-up. All the car lights, we put a real piece of the car inside the Volume, a small, small piece, but everything else was built prior to, and all the forest was built by the ILM team and also me. The first thing that happened is they created a forest with bulky trees, and if I go in a forest and I know it’s a nice scene, I’ll tell the production, “No, we don’t come here. We’ll see nothing.” So they were like, “Okay, so what do we do?” I said, “Well, we’re gonna change the trees,” and this is where you play God because you just stretch them, make a longer tree trunk. So you have a longer trunk, and then the tree is here. So then behind, you see the distance. So then in the forest at night, I would put smoke back there, and the smoke creates fog. So, that’s how we created this scene.

So if you see it again, you can look at the background. It’s completely taught and there is depth to it. And my work, to work with all these great creators that are working more in the digital world, they see the world very often in a wide lens, in a wide shot. And yes, I know, but we’re shooting people, and it’s always close-ups. So the goal for me is to create a background that, when you put a longer lens, you still have definition. So, “If I go here, there is this and this. If I go here, there’s only gray.” This is very important. So, there’s a lot of work into it which people don’t know. We’ve done a lot of work on the Volume. Some of this, like the interior Met, is completely Volume, almost no touch-up.

Image via Disney+

With what you were saying about sci-fi being good for the Volume, I think fantasy fits under that, too, and there’s kind of a lot of crossover.

GILL: Totally. Absolutely. Also, it’s the best tool for driving stuff. Every time you drive, you want to be in a Volume. It’s amazing. But no, absolutely not. The thing is, I learned so much because it was actually so difficult that I really, really, really learned it because it was beyond the normal, I would say. I think I would have learned it faster if it would have been fantasy or sci-fi, but by trying to have it more realistic, it was very hard. So to go to another project and not have the Volume, it’s fine because I can come back to a project and I know exactly how it works, completely. Actually, I really love Volume, and I [hope] it will become a bit easier because it’s a great, great way to shoot.

First of all, for example, the Minotaur scene, or the interior Met, which is even more classic. You frame the camera, you’re on the actor, but everything is like you’re there. It’s exactly like the location, so you see it. It’s not possible to shoot in the Met. You cannot book the Met. It’s in New York, it costs thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So if you want to do this on blue screen, it’s very boring to shoot because, again, people don’t see a blue screen or a green screen. The Volume is so fun because you are actually seeing what you frame, and it moves the way the camera is being captured by sensor, and so there’s a lot of value. Also, in Percy Jackson, we did some controlled environments. With the kids, you’re not gonna bring them outside to shoot at night from 12 a.m. to 4 a.m. We’re gonna build a set inside, put it on the Volume, make the night, and it’s good for the schedule. So, there’s a lot of value to it. It’s just a beast to learn.

Related How ‘Percy Jackson & the Olympians’ VFX Supervisors Created the Underworld Erik Henry and Jeff White also reveal which creature they needed to tone down.

When you were first entering into this, was it intimidating? The thought of doing lots of underwater sequences since he’s the son of Poseidon?

GILL: No, not at all. I’ve done everything in my life, almost, meaning I shot the snow, the water, over the water, in the helicopter, everything. So, you know what? No, it’s not, because with experience the only thing you know is it’s gonna be long. So then the experience tells you how to do it and what to do. Right away it’s like, no, this shot has to be a small tank so he can be sitting like this on his knees. We don’t need a 20-foot tank for that, or we don’t need a pool for this. So, you break the scene in pieces, but it’s very long, so that’s the only downside.

No, absolutely.

Why Book Series Like ‘Percy Jackson’ Keep Getting Made
Image via Disney+

Percy Jackson is based on beloved books in a fantastical world. Do you want to continue working in these types of genre projects as a person bringing them all to life?

GILL: Well, it’s a good question. First of all, I like stories that have any human value or any human relationship, so that’s one reason why I like the script of Percy, because it was not just a kid show. It was a story with good lines, good dialogue, and good relationships, and I was like, “It’s cool because we can build that.” And one of my very strange references when I got the interview, because I make a mood board every time of the book, and I always like five movie posters, and one of them was E.T. [the Extra-Terrestrial], of course, for the youth and all that, one of them was, I think, Lord of the Rings, of course, for the school, but one of them was The Green Mile. [Laughs] The producers were surprised, and asked, “Why did you come up with The Green Mile?” And I said, “Well, because it’s the best movie about differentiation.” You have two characters that you cannot have more opposite — the white security guard and the Black prisoner. But it’s not about the race, it’s about the job. It’s about many things that separate them completely apart, but brings them completely together. So, I don’t know, for me, I was like, “This is the example that I can give to this.”

So yes, I like the projects with that type of story. […] The thing I love with those projects in a way, which is very strange, I really like when it’s very complicated to shoot something very big. I’m not afraid of big, and it’s very hard because you need a lot of experience to do that. I started very young, but as soon as it was big I felt good. I have to learn it, but now I have a lot. I feel very, very confident. And, too, because you get in a studio that is humongous and you have to figure out something that does not exist, meaning a lighting set-up, a schedule, a time, budget, and complex shots — the technical aspects of it. So I like when all these elements are together because of the experience I have, I guess, and because it thrills me. And at the same time, I did a series there in Quebec which had no budget, all handheld, wide lens, and just following the characters with natural light, and I loved it because it was a good project. So, yeah, of course, it goes with the script first. But I love any big project, first of all, because […] you’re gonna work with the amazing, beautiful production design and you’re gonna work with these amazing costumes and wigs, and then there’s gonna be VFX, and there’s gonna be rigs and stuff like that. So, it’s a candy store.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is available to stream on Disney+.

Watch on Disney