the cinematographer for spencer(Larrain, 2021), Claire Mathon, Shoot on warm 16 mm that allowed her to amplify Diana’s haunted quality. “It evokes ghostliness on the level of image,” Mathon said, noting the grain and timelessness of film. The ghostliness was compounded by the light Mathon used. Though the movie takes place in December, Mathon kept warm lights on in the home and had fireplaces burning in as many scenes as possible.

Mathon and Larraín also reviewed sequences from films by Stanley Kubrick as much for the style of the camera movement, the rhythm of the shots and the use of short focal length lenses, as for the plasticity of the filmed image, especially on faces, “We then started experimenting and testing to define our own palette and the texture of our images,” Mathon says. “For aesthetic reasons, but also for its lightness and the ergonomics of the camera equipment, we chose to go with Super 16mm for most of the production. The economic advantages of shooting Super 16mm were, of course, also part of the discussions.

“However, there were times when we didn’t want to show too much grain in the image, so we chose to shoot the more fragile, darker night scenes, which took place in low light, on 35mm film. For those scenes, the 35mm allowed us to retain softness and detail in the dark areas, while keeping fairly fine granulation in the overall image.”

“Although the story takes place in 1991, we wanted a certain timelessness and looked to depict more of the iconic side in this portrait of a woman. We talked about softness and the colour that is ever-present in Diana’s world.” https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/10/spencer-princess-diana-claire-mathon-cinematography