The acclaimed feature was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA), with Anderson and Michael Bauman (perhaps best-known as an industry-leading gaffer) sharing the director of photography credit on the movie, and Colin Anderson collaborating as camera operator.
After its general release on December 25, 2021, Licorice Pizza received high praise from critics and garnered three awards from the National Board of Review, including Best Film. It was also named one of the best films of 2021 by the American Film Institute, received four nominations at the 79th Golden Globe Awards, and looks set to attract further accolades in the 2022 awards season.
“PTA and I spent a lot of time, perhaps the best part of a year, working out the particular cocktail recipe for the visual language of this movie,” says Bauman, who has been the gaffer on more that 40 celluloid-originated movies, including Anderson’s The Master (2012) and Inherent Vice (2014). He previously worked as the lighting cameraman in the collaborative cinematographic effort on Anderson’s multiple award-winning Phantom Thread (2017), also shot on KODAK 35mm film.
“Before any production, PTA tests like crazy – at locations, with the actors, with different filmstocks, exposures, lenses and lighting set-ups – all to get to the look he wants, and it was no different on this production in order to create an authentic evocation of the 1970s.”
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