Drama & spectacle

10 min read

DRAMA & SPECTACLE

Trevor Hogg gets dangerously close to kaiju to uncover the secrets behind Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

MPC, Rodeo FX, Rising Sun Pictures and Weta FX all worked on Godzilla, which appears in two different forms during the course of the series

Looming large on Apple TV+ are kaiju, as well as the mysterious global organisation founded to keep track of them, which lurks in the shadows of public consciousness. Created by Chris Black and Matt Fraction, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters bridges and fills in the gaps of Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) while following its own narrative in the past and contemporary times.

The overriding throughline for the 10 episodes is how the histories of the Randa family and Monarch are interwoven with each other. “The show is so many things,” says Jess Hall, the cinematographer on episodes 101 and 102. “It’s both a family drama and a story about trauma, and then you’ve got this action element. Matt Shakman [series executive producer, and director of episodes 101 and 102] and I talked early on about not wanting the action scenes to be tableau. We were like, ‘How do we balance the drama and spectacle?’

Jess Hall decided to go with anamorphic lenses as they compress perspective, which brings the kaiju closer to the viewer

A constant challenge for VFX was conveying the creatures’ proper size and scale

One of the ways to bring those elements together was to say that, ‘Action should be drama. And how does it become dramatic?’ It’s dramatic because your characters are in the action. If you can’t smell it, you’re not close enough. It’s like war photography.”

This desire to be closer to the action motivated the choices in lenses. “Matt and I are big lovers of anamorphic photog raphy and were like, ‘This should be global, cinematic, anamorphic, and have big scope,’” states Hall, who shot mainly with the ARRI ALEXA LF camera, and for the big VFX shots on an ARRI ALEXA 65. “One reason aside from all of that that I liked the idea of anamorphic was that you compress the perspective. Even if you have creatures shot on an 18mm lens, they disappear into the backg round and become smaller. If you shoot them on a 50mm anamorphic lens, you bring them twice as close as a 25mm spherical lens. I liked this idea of bringing them closer, and making it intimate and immersive.

“The most inventive thing I did was design a super wide angle anamorphic lens so we could be on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. The iconic shot of the show for me, or certainly of what I shot, is when Cate Randa gets off the bus, trying to rescue the children. You’re behind her and for the first time you’re over her shoulder, and you see Godzilla right there and turn. It