Beyond the Yellow Brick Road 

In conversation with WICKED Cinematographer Alice Brooks, ASC

This week we're getting ready to defy gravity and experience WICKED in IMAX.

The Land of Oz has occupied the cultural imagination for over a century, beginning with Frank L. Baum's 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Over the years, this populist fantasy adventure has been adapted across numerous mediums and languages. Most well-known of these, the 1939 Judy Garland picture, has been an enduring favorite since its debut.

Because of this legacy, the story is one recognizable to many: powerful wizards, wicked witches, and the idea that there's "no place like home." 

...But what if that home rejected you? That's just the beginning of the conceit explored in Gregory Maguire's 1995 revisionist tale Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Even if you haven't heard of the novel, you likely have heard of the Tony-award winning musical it spawned, 2003's Wicked, (adapted for the stage by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman).  

For those not familiar with the show's take, we won't spoil it for you here, but it's definitely not the vision of Oz that you're used to. Director Jon M. Chu (CRAZY RICH ASIANS), takes his place in this work's storied history with the film adaptation of Wicked, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, now playing.

To help bring this maximalist feat of imagination to life, Chu tapped friend and long-time collaborator, cinematographer Alice Brooks, ASC to capture the visual language of the film. We sat down with her to talk color story, the emotional pull of live vocals and why you really, really need to see this on a big screen. 

1. With works like TICK, TICK...BOOM! and IN THE HEIGHTS under your belt, you’re no stranger to the world of music and musicals as it pertains to film. Is there something about the genre that specifically speaks to you? 

So, Jon Chu and I met at USC film school. We've been friends for over 22 years and we bonded over our love of musicals while we were there. I shot his short film, a musical called WHEN THE KIDS ARE AWAY.

At the time it was pre-CHICAGO, pre-MOULIN ROUGUE. Hollywood wasn't making movie musicals anymore, but we knew we wanted to grow up and make musicals. I feel incredibly lucky. WICKED is my third or fourth musical in a row, depending on if you consider it 1 or 2 movies. Last night, Jon and I were at USC. We showed the movie to the students and sitting there doing a Q&A afterwards, just looking back at all of the young filmmakers, I realized that Jon's and my destiny was to do this movie.  

2. WICKED pulls from a rich fandom and history – How much did you revisit these source materials when approaching the visual language of the WICKED films? Did you want to pull familiarity from what was already out there, or should fans expect a brand-new interpretation of the Land of Oz? 

Jon told me while we were in post for IN THE HEIGHTS: “I know what our next movie is going to be, it's going to be WICKED.” At that moment, I decided I wasn't going to watch THE WIZARD OF OZ again. It’s in my blood, you know, I’ve seen it so many times.

Growing up, it was always on TV. I was allowed to watch any movie with my dad at night as long as I could read the opening credits. So, I learned to read around when I was 4 just so I could stay up late with him. He loved watching movies. We lived in a little teeny apartment in New York City, and I would crawl up in his lap and we would watch THE WIZARD OF OZ. So that just feels like part of me already.

What I did do was read the original books by Frank L. Baum. Every single paragraph has this amazingly beautiful, rich color description. As I was reading it, and understanding the color of Oz, I realized it just is Oz. [Color] is the threadwork of Oz.  I realized we had this opportunity to create a really unique version of Technicolor, that wasn't THE WIZARD OF OZ from 1939.  It's our version and it is it is both an old Hollywood version of Technicolor but it's also incredibly contemporary. We got to blend both of those kinds of ideas.  

3. You spoke a little about watching movies with your dad growing up. Are there any other pieces of work that influence your style or you personally loved growing up?

I typically don't watch current movies when I'm making a movie; I don't go to the movie theater and watch things. I want to make sure I'm not being influenced by what's on trend. Instead, I want to make sure I'm doing something authentic for the story we're trying to tell. I look at a lot of old stuff over time. My dad was a playwright, my mother was a dancer and a singer. We grew up very poor in New York City. They were artists and even though we didn't have much money, our house was filled with love and music and with all of these amazing artists coming through.   

I have a sister as well, and to be little kids just hearing the conversations these adults were having about plays, music, theatre, opera, dance – I was exposed to at a really young age. I think those are the things that have been my threadwork.  

My very first memory of watching a movie was THE NATURAL. [Cinematographer] Caleb Deschanel shot it, but it has Robert Redford, Glenn Close and Kim Basinger in it. It’s a baseball movie. At the end of the movie, his baseball hits the lights on the field and sparks fly everywhere.

At the very end of “Defying Gravity”, Elphaba flies down and says, “no wizard that there is or was will ever bring me down.” It’s her war cry. All the electricity starts to get brighter, and brighter, and brighter. Then all of these sparks start going off. When I was explaining it to the special effects team in London, they hadn’t heard of THE NATURAL because it’s about American baseball. I pull out my laptop, and I'm like “this is THE NATURAL, and it’s the greatest movie there ever was.”  

4. Can you tell fans a little bit about how the music was woven into the production? How did the actors singing live on set impact the shoot compared to something like playback from a studio track?  Anything about the process that might surprise people? 

You know, we did a lot of live singing on IN THE HEIGHTS and TICK, TICK... BOOM! as well. At this point, I’m very attuned to it. The thing that live singing does that I think no one really understands is that it infuses the crew with this magic. So, you would have our key grip, Guy Micheletti, doing these incredibly beautiful, lovely very complicated crane shots.  

He's done all these massively huge movies, [Micheletti’s credits include DUNE Parts One & Two]. He ended up having to re-cable one of our cranes 3 times because he said he had never done so many big crane shots on a movie before. You would see Cynthia [Erivo] singing, and his whole grip team pushing the crane, with just, tears streaming down their faces.

You don’t get that when you just playback. Whereas every moment we had live singing, pushed into the crew that we were making a very special movie and just elevated everyone's performance.

5. While watching the film, it sometimes feels that the camera is a character unto itself - you're on the dance floor, you're in the room, etc. What was it like working with your department and throwing them in with all of these dancers? 

I really pushed hard to get our Steadicam operator on prep with me. He had about 10 weeks of prep on this movie, which was incredible. He would go to dance rehearsal every day, sometimes with me, sometimes without me and learn the choreography.

His name is Karsten Jacobsen, and I hired him because he told me how he became a Steadicam operator when he was 18 years old. He was a PA on a Danish So You Think You Can Dance kind of show, and the Steadicam operator hurt himself. They said to him – he's like 6’7” or something, just this huge guy- they said “here, throw this rig on, we need a Steadicam operator.” And that’s how he became a Steadicam operator, learning on a dance show.  

So, I knew he could learn the choreography. [Choreographer] Chris Scott and I have worked together for almost 15 years now with Jon Chu. I know his choreography. I know it’s going to be very delicate and very complex. Karsten was the perfect person to go and be a part of it. 360° shots are the language of Oz for us. Not only in the dance, but we do all these 360° shots between Elphaba and Glinda, where they're connecting with each other. 

6. Of course, being IMAX we’re a little partial to the cinematic experience, for obvious reasons. With so much of the times pushing towards streaming, what might you say to fans who are on the fence about coming out to theatres? Why should they make it a point to watch WICKED and your work on an IMAX screen, versus say, on their phone? 

You need to go see WICKED on the biggest screen you can see it on, with the best sound you can see it on. It is a movie that needs to be seen with other people. Last night at USC, the crowd was just clapping, singing along, crying. It's a communal experience. 

WICKED is something that should be part of community and not watched alone.  

7. Do you have any advice for young people that might want to be cinematographers when they grow up?  

Follow your dreams and never give up. It has been a very, very long journey for me. I knew when I was 15 years old that I wanted to be a cinematographer. Every time I felt like giving up, I went “well, what else do I want to do with my life?” and there's nothing else I want to do except for shoot movies. So, it's just an endurance game and it is my destiny. It’s what I love and it's what I'm good at. It's what I'm passionate about. So, if you love it that much, then just never give up.  

8. If there was one movie you could watch again for the first time in IMAX, what would it be? 

Oh, goodness. OPPENHEIMER. I love that one so much. It is just such a cinematic experience. It’s just brilliant.  

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