Interview: ‘Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin’ cinematographer Anka Malatynska
By Wade Wainio
Anka Malatynska has worked the camera on projects like The X Factor and RuPaul’s Drag Race and more recently has worked on series like Hulu’s Monsterland, Amazon prime’s I Know What You Did Last Summer and HBO Max’s new series Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.
In this new interview, Show Snob sits down with Malatynska, who had a lot to say regarding her experiences working with the camera in TV and film!
[NOTE: This was edited for length and for clarity.]
Interview with Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin cinematographer Anka Malatynska
Show Snob: First, in what ways is Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin similar to the original series, and what sets it apart?
Anka Malatynska: I think what really sets it apart is our very unique visual approach. That’s a combination of the spectacular production design, the direction, and the cinematography for how we move the camera, and the lens choices that we make. I think it’s very modern. Not much that the show looks modern, but our approach is modern. It was more of like a single camera allowing shots to develop rather than just approaching it like a classic TV show and focusing on covering all of the dialogue.
We really leaned into the horror visual language, into building tension, building suspense, and that is all about the visuals and how we move the camera. So I think that’s one big difference. And as far as the similarity, I think the show takes a lot of inspiration from the original show. It’s the same core story, basically, but for us, with different actors, with a bit of a different approach, with a little bit more emphasis on horror.
Show Snob: The lighting in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin is pretty dark to give it a gloomy look, yet we can typically see the characters and the action. How challenging is that to achieve?
Anka Malatynska: How challenging? I don’t know that it’s challenging. I think it’s more about a conscious approach, where we are lighting the space. We’re lighting the space in that gloomy, kind of dark way, but our light is always either hitting the actors in such a way that when we go to their close-ups, that motivates. We can build up a little bit more light on the face.
And that was actually one of the discussions as I came into the show was like, “we love our dark look, but we also want to see the girls’ faces a little bit more and have a little bit more emotional access.” So it’s about lighting the space, but then also augmenting the lighting a little bit on the face when we go in for a close-up. And sometimes that’s really really subtle. It’s just about feeling some light in somebody’s eyes to feel like you have access to their emotions. And I think we really achieved that balance. It makes me feel like I’ve come a really long way since my days at AFI and as a DP.
Show Snob: Not that they ever totally vanished, but horror-themed shows seem to be enjoying a resurgence. Why do you think that is?
Anka Malatynska: I think the things that we enjoy are a reflection of the world that we live in. I think everybody has gone through a pretty chaotic, difficult, confusing time in our world over the past couple of years. I think this kind of horror is a way of emotionally connecting to those feelings without having to be overwhelmed by the information.
It’s like we get to live out those feelings somewhere else, if that makes sense. We get to live them through the stories of our characters rather than like, “Oh, my God, what’s happening in the news today?” We can express some of that fear. We can express our anxiety. And I think that’s my sense of why horror is enjoying a resurgence. Our world is scary, and we need stories also that can help us process that kind of fear without being directly related to the events we’re living through.
Show Snob: What was it like being a camera operator for The X Factor and RuPaul’s Drag Race? How does that experience translate to a series like Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin?
Anka Malatynska: You know, those were like my first baby steps that foray into being a union camera operator. I loved working with the team that we had on RuPaul’s Drag Race. I have to say I worked with that team for several years. I still keep in touch with the director…
RuPaul’s Drag Race was really like a family, and that had so much to do with RuPaul. He knew everybody’s name. And I remember there was one season that I was there, and then I wasn’t there for a season, and then I came back and a year later, I’m just one of our six camera operators and RuPaul remembers my name, remembers things about my family. So that was an incredible experience…
These are very different, very fast-paced kinds of live environments. It’s a completely different kind of camera operating and cinematography than what I do these days. The X factor was fun. It was really fun to watch all the performances, to watch the contestants go through the season. But I am really glad that I no longer hold a camera on my shoulder for 12 hours a day.
In general, I feel like a lot of camera operators and or DPs who come from reality television, we came from a world where you shoot the shots as they’re happening. It’s not like you have time to plan and rehearse a shot. So I think it informs a way of working that’s very quick on our feet. I think camera operators that come from documentary work have those same kinds of strengths that you don’t need as much rehearsal in. I think camera operating and reality TV, you’re always kind of [needing] to understand the story in order to shoot the story.
You’re choosing your own shots a lot of the time for how you’re telling the story. So it’s almost like a mixture of directing and camera operating, whereas coming up through narrative, you’re always instructed, okay, the shot is going to start here, it’s going to end here. Whereas coming from reality TV, coming from a documentary, if you’re not understanding the story that is unfolding in front of you while you are doing that job of camera operating, you’re going to be left behind. And I feel like I know a number of reality camera operators who then transition into directing, because, again, when you’re in the sewing room and there’s a story developing between two other contestants in RuPaul’s Drag Race, you have to choose those shots.
There’s no time for the director to be like, frame up, a close up at this moment right now. By the time he said that the moment was gone. There’s an organicness to it and deep attention to the story. And the ability to pay attention to a story, like some of those scenes in RuPaul’s Drag Race where there’s a drama in the workroom.
That drama actually took 12 hours to unfold. So it’s also not like you’re like whereas a narrative, you’re like, this is the drama, these are the shots that we need, these are the shots that we’re going to shoot. It’s a little bit more like it’s almost like human wildlife photography.
Show Snob: What are some of the best and worst trends in television right now in your opinion, cinematography-wise?
Anka Malatynska: I think there are a lot of really great trends going on cinematography-wise…You know, so I think there is a very strong trend of pushing shows to have more of a cinematic look. And what is that cinematic look? It’s allowing shots to breathe a little bit more, it’s leaning into shots that develop from the wide shot to a medium shot, to a close-up. It’s approaching things a little bit more cinematically, rather than, like, “Oh, this person’s talking, and we need a close-up and a medium shot on that person talking.”
You know, and, and so on Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin I felt like there was always a push for special shots, interesting shots, and point-of-view shots that allow us to relate to the situation and the story a little bit differently. I think, on the opposite end and in editing, the bad trend that I see is that often I feel like I’m part of a show and we talk about these spectacular visuals and letting shots breathe and not cutting into as many close-ups… Because like when a person’s talking, there’s somebody else listening. There’s a whole other world that’s going on, and there are other ways of approaching a scene than just being on the talker.
And then I still find that a lot of the time, you know, we go through all this work, we shoot all these shots, and then I see the final cut, and I’m like, “Oh, I could have just shot a medium shot, or I could have just shot two medium shots, and where is all the work that we did?” I feel like when it goes through all of the levels of the network, it’s brought back a little bit more into that television space, where the close-ups and the medium shots matter a lot more.
And I feel like historically it comes from this idea that when you’re watching something on your TV or watching it on a smaller screen, the big giant wide shots don’t have as much of an impact. Or if you’re watching a show on your cell phone, those wide shots won’t give you as much information as they would be on somebody’s face. But I think we’re also in a world now where people have projectors, and project things really large in their living rooms. People now have 80-inch TVs and that really opens up the world to approach things a little bit more cinematically and give things a little bit more scope. And, you know, ask those questions like, “what are the visual rules of our show?” I think that’s a great trend.
And then on the opposite side, sometimes I think we take it a little bit too far…I said to somebody the other day that sometimes it’s like, you know, we don’t have to reinvent the visual language all the time, we really just have to stay true to the story. So it’s a balance of the two, and it’s a good thing. And it can become a bad thing when it’s taken too far. You know, like when there was a show that I was a part of that…had some visual rules that really were overlaid by our producing director on top of a script that the visual rule wouldn’t be obvious from the way that the script was written.
And I think that becomes really hard. It’s like, we’re trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. Because somebody had an idea. They had a visual idea of visual rules. And in general, I think visual rules are fantastic.
And it’s fantastic to make something really unique. But I always say that we have to be really careful because like a visual rule is like a theory. And then when we get to set and we can be like, “Oh, that really works. And that really tells our story.” You know, and here’s one example…we embraced a lot of really low angles in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.
You know, and that kind of comes from the horror genre. But say I have a low angle on our girls, you know, our five girls talking and I have a low angle on two of them. But if I punt that low angle in this particular situation and location, I can get a graveyard behind them at night and it looks creepy and scary.
So it’s in those instances, we have to be like, “Hey, what’s giving us more of the show that we’re shooting, following this rule that we established? Or maybe punting that rule? Because look, there’s a visual opportunity behind our characters that will elevate the creepiness of this moment.” So break the rules. Of course, make the rules, but stay awake to breaking those rules.
Show Snob: What were some of the best episodes of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin to be involved in?
Anka Malatynska: Really, all of them, but I have to say episode three. I was coming in and I was learning the language of the show, but I was also coming in with Maggie Kiley, the director, who was also learning the visual language of the show. We had an incredible collaboration and I loved working with her, I feel like we made a really beautiful episode. And then I did the next two episodes with Lisa Soper who did the pilot and episode two, and from her, I really kind of got to glean a lot of her original intent and dropping the camera even lower than we had with Maggie, and allowing some things to be messy.
And Lisa is a fantastic and challenging director because she comes from animation. So in her mind, the camera is always moving and always developing into these fantastic shots. So I really, really got to play with a lot of cool camera angles and visuals and like really get grounded and what she was intending for the show so that I could carry it on through the subsequent directors. And after that, I had Cierra Glaude and I think we made the most beautiful episode together, which was episode six. It’s a little bit brighter and there are more posh moments in that episode.
But yeah, I just think we made a spectacularly beautiful episode. And Ciara was just such a gem and she was so flexible. We shot her episode through our worst kind of COVID shutdown and weather shutdown. So we could never get a stable schedule, something was always changing and delaying. I remember we had one day where we lost pretty much our entire camera crew, except for our DIT and one second AC to a COVID shutdown in the middle of the day.
And then the question was, “do we continue?” and I remember talking to our second AC, Max, and saying, “you know, Max, how do you feel about pulling focus, and stepping up and we’ll just make it into a single camera thing?” and he was a little nervous at first and then I said, “I’ll protect you, I’ll make sure that we set you up for success, you know, and no one’s gonna fault you if you’re not perfect at this job that you’re stepping into.”
And he did it, and then they have this, like, “Max saves the show!” moment. And, after that, I had Alex Pillai and Megan Griffin. And both of them brought their own spin on the show. With Alex Pillai, we used a lot longer lenses, which then embraced and used with Megan. And I got to do a hall of mirrors with Alex Pillai, which was my first time doing a hall of mirrors sequence, which has to be technically broken down and really pre-visualized.
I mean, there was something exciting about every episode and I enjoyed the lighting and the look that we were setting so much. You know, but it was hard work. how you can do work, probably an average of 70 to 80 hours a week to make that show happen.
Show Snob: Can you tell us something about your time on Monsterland that people might not know?
Anka Malatynska: …I feel like I’m getting stuck on that question because I know what most people know or don’t know. But I mean, I think one of the unique things about Monsterland was that it was a show that had permission from Hulu, to not lean into traditional coverage, but to really approach every episode like its own mini-feature. The directors that were hired to direct all had very kind of singular visions, you know, they were more feature visions, rather than coming into a TV show that is following the storyline of the same people over many episodes, because each episode was its own little story. So that made it a very unique and very interesting project to work on.
Show Snob: You also teach cinematography. What is your favorite part about that?
Anka Malatynska: You know, my favorite part of teaching and sharing cinematography is that I really get to like gleam the excitement and the fresh eyes of a younger generation on the material that I see being created. I really get so inspired and I felt like actually, before I started teaching, I hit this point where I was kind of feeling like I was getting a little bit jaded, and then teaching, really kind of re-inspired my own excitement through the excitement that I gleaned from my students.
It keeps me fresh, it like keeps me in a conversation with the audience that I’m creating a lot of the work that I do for. I learned a lot from my students and I just love inspiring people and being inspired by people. And cinematography is really a craft that is dependent on sharing and mentoring the subsequent generation.
Show Snob: What future projects are you working on?
Anka Malatynska: Well, one thing that I can tell you guys about is that in September, I am going to be going to Venice, Italy for the Venice Film Festival with a film that I shot for Steve Buscemi called The Listener. Steve Buscemi directed the film, and Tessa Thompson starred…It’s a beautiful, really heartfelt indie film that we shot in a period of six days in LA while Tessa Thompson was on hiatus from Westworld. It’s one location, one actor, and a lot of other actors on the phone with her. But it’s this beautiful Eastern European film about nothing and everything, except it’s set in LA.
And it gives us a different experience of the world in Los Angeles. That’s a little bit post-pandemic and grounded in the hardship and the truth of what people have been going through. And usually, like most worlds that are built in LA are very happy, aspirational, and bright. And this is not, this is another dark film. So I’m very excited that it’s going to premiere at the Venice Film Festival at the International Film Festival.
And I’m excited about it getting out into the world. Oh, and I have another two episodes of a series coming out called Kindred for FX and Disney that I’m very excited about. It’s both set in the modern day and the antebellum south and that should be coming out later this fall. So, look out for it or follow me on Instagram (@Ankavision) and I’ll post about it. You can just turn on the TV this fall and, you know, watch my work, in its many iterations.
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Thanks to Anka Malatynska for answering these questions. You can watch Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin on HBO Max!