While Menges operated handheld for most of the production, she had to school actress Stefanie Martini, playing Mars, on how to operate the camera for several scenes involving mirrors, which included carefully choreographed handovers between the pair. The camera and lighting crew included Connor Hammond working as focus puller, Leo Windsor as loader, and Simon McGee as gaffer.
“Andrew did not want LOLA to look lit, as that would break the concept,” says Menges. “This was quite a task in itself, as I needed certain levels of illumination to bring contrast to the image when shooting on black and white. So I used my own CRLS reflectors to bring light in through windows, and had strings of festoons, antique Lowell lights, plus Tungsten bulbs in practicals.”
As part of co-production agreement, the final color grade was completed at Gorilla in Cardiff, with colorist Stuart Fyvie. “As the looks has been baked in on film, very little was needed by way of VFX or image enhancement to blend the footage together,” Menges notes.
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