‘The Pitt’ Cinematographer Johanna Coelho Describes the ‘Live Theater’ Aspect of Shooting the Max Drama Series

The Pitt cinematographer Johanna Coelho talks to The Contending about why the Max drama series shoots like live theater and when we can expect to see the hospital at night.

Max’s The Pitt takes the audience through one day in the life of the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Cinematographer Johanna Coelho, who shot all 15 episodes, said you’ll notice little shifts in the lighting throughout the first season, indicating a change in the time of day.

“Obviously, it starts at 7 a.m. and it goes to 10 p.m.,” said Coelho. “That’s something we talked about when we approached the lighting for this. We’re going to have to feel that transition of time throughout the episodes.”

Because the show takes place in “the Pitt,” or a sublevel section of the hospital, there are very few windows to show what’s going on in the outside world, but they’re important.

“If you start paying attention throughout the episodes, it’s super subtle, but we are switching the lighting throughout those windows, little by little. You’ll see the progression to sunset and twilight and night. Every time you see them at the exterior ambulance bay, you’ll see the passage of time happening more. We’ll get into night once we get into Episode 13 or 14.”

Even the change from the waiting room to The Pitt is a purposeful distinction, the area based on Allegheny General in Pittsburgh.

“It has darker tones and feels rustic. We wanted to give this overwhelming feeling, like you can almost feel the sweat from people. And then you step inside the ER room, and there’s this bright light and white walls. We wanted to feel this transition from the waiting room to the ER itself.”

“This Show is Almost a Live Theater”

Unlike a lot of medical dramas, this one stays in the hospital. We’re not going home with these characters but spending the day with them at work, creating an intimacy with the staff as well as the patients.

“It’s called The Pitt. Once you enter there, you’re stuck there, and you don’t have a second for yourself. The lighting inside the hospital doesn’t change because, in the real world, they do not adjust the lighting for safety reasons. But to have this feeling of isolation, we picked a full-format camera, and we shot with lenses pretty close to our actors. So the depth of field is very shallow with the large format. You’re here with them, but you don’t see anything else, which gives you the sensation that you’re really in it with them.”

Because of the show’s intense concept, Coelho said she and the crew had to get creative with lighting.

“This show is almost a live theater. We are doing 360 shots. We do not have any lighting on the ground. We picked every single light and type of light on the stage.”

She even worked with production designer, Nina Ruscio, to find “the perfect white” for every room.

“Because we have such a range of diversity and skin tones on our show, we wanted to find the perfect white, so that when you look at it with different skin tones, it reflects perfectly for everyone. We did a lot of testing and found the right one for our walls. That really helped.”

And because the 360 environment doesn’t allow for lighting stands on the ground, the key grip, Maxwell Thorpe, designed frames, or magnets to the ceiling, to the troffer lights.

“They won’t be in the shot; you won’t even see them. We just invented new tools that would work for this live theater 360 environment, between moving lights or the gripping department to soften them. It looks cinematic but it fits with the environment.”

100 People in the Background Every Day

Coelho said the biggest challenge of working on The Pitt is the choreography.

“We don’t do any marking on our set. Actors do not have marks! So the coordination and choreographing between all the elements has been the biggest challenge. But it’s also been the biggest creative aspect. We have to work together with everyone. We have a giant background team and some 100 people in the background on our stage following us, and because it’s one day, you get the same background all year long.”

Nothing moves on the stage except the actors. The team aimed to shoot it like a documentary, like you’re on location and won’t be able to move anything on set. Coelho said that being the sole cinematographer on the first season of the show has been so special.

“It’s a continuous show, but we do have different directors. I think it was helpful to have one person be the base to make sure things stay continuous throughout. But the other thing is that we shoot in order, as much as we can; almost 90% is shot in order. Having the same person throughout all of this helped, and I feel grateful they trusted me with the show and the visuals.”

The Pitt streams on MAX Thursdays at 9 p.m.