‘Wicked’: Shooting the Love Story Between Elphaba and Glinda in a Rainbow-Colored Oz

When director Jon M. Chu asked his go-to cinematographer Alice Brooks what her goal was for “Wicked” while they were prepping in London, she replied: “To make the greatest love story ever told about these two friends, Elphaba and Glinda.” Every lighting choice was to ensure that intent was fulfilled. It’s a grand, epic musical, but their conflicted relationship was key: It was all in the performances of Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda, who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch. Brooks even assigned them their own flattering lenses: 65mm for Erivo and 75mm for Grande.

“Jon wanted this movie to look like our own version of Oz,” Brooks told IndieWire. “It was really important to him that we made our own world that no one had ever seen before. And so we decided we’d make our own version of what Technicolor was, being very selective about colors. While we were talking about different ideas, one idea I had was throughout the movie I would use specific colors of the rainbow to light each scene, whether it was red or yellow or green or purple or pink. That came from reading the original L. Frank Baum ‘Wizard of Oz’ books. Every single paragraph has this rich, beautiful, poetic color description and color means something in Oz.”

Brooks spent nearly 18 weeks testing for color, lighting, camera, and lenses. One rule that came out of the testing showed that Glinda be accompanied by sunrises and Elphaba by sunsets. The first color they landed on was pink for Glinda because of her bubble motif (using tungsten units with gel). This is most prominent during the “Popular” musical number. For the Ozdust ballroom scene, in which Elphaba and Glinda dance together and solidify their bond, the cinematographer seized on blue light, which made Elphaba’s green really pop. This was inspired by a piece of blue fabric that costume designer Paul Tazewell tested against the white resin background.

For cameras, Brooks initially decided on the ALEXA Mini, but switched to the ALEXA 65. That came from testing an experimental anamorphic lens from Panavision, which threw off an amber flare that she liked for Emerald City. In tests, though, it looked best with the 65. However, at first, there was a problem: Dan Sasaki, Panavision’s vice president of optical engineering, didn’t have enough time to make the lens (now called the Ultra Panatar II) fit over the 65 sensors. But then production got delayed six months when it moved from Atlanta to London. “I would describe it as soft, romantic, magical, and effervescent,” Brooks said.

Behind the scenes of ‘Wicked’Giles Keyte

The other important testing involved the green makeup for Erivo with makeup supervisor Frances Hannon. Originally, it was decided to digitize the makeup because green only worked with cool light. But Erivo insisted on using makeup because she wanted to feel the green. Then, Hannon discovered a neon base that would allow the cinematographer to light any shade of green more favorably.

Filming mostly occurred at the new Sky Studios Elstree, outside of London, where massive backlot sets were built. But three of the sets needed more room (they were each the size of four football fields), so they built on a turf farm north of London. “Wicked” begins in Munchkinland, highlighted by nine million rainbow-colored tulips, then flashes back to the exotic-looking Shiz University, where Elphaba and Glinda (as Galinda) first meet, and winds up in the Emerald City to meet the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum).

“Jon really wanted it to be touchable, tangible, real, raw,” added Brooks. “At the same time, have big spectacle. The first 40 minutes of the movie is all day exterior…the brightest of bright. And, as the stakes get higher, the darker the movie gets.”

Cynthia Erivo in ‘Wicked’Universal Pictures

The emotional high points are the Ozdust ballroom scene and the climactic “Defying Gravity” musical number. In the former, Elphaba finally gets the approval of her classmates with the help of Glinda in a moment of redemption. In the latter, Elphaba finds liberation in her escape from Emerald City as the Wicked Witch, tapping into her inner child.

“During the Ozdust ballroom scene, she comes down the stairs and does this dance, and it’s her first connection with Glinda, and Jon wanted to shoot her close-up first without any rehearsal,” Brooks said. “And it was roughly 10 minutes [shot as a oner]: her entrance, her dance. And it ends up being this 360-degree shot around Elphaba. We knew they were going to cut it up, you have to. You need to see the people laughing at her, you need to see Glinda, otherwise you don’t have the connection. But Jon wanted Cynthia to walk down the stars as Elphaba and feel everyone staring at her and laughing at her.”

Then Glinda joins Elphaba in the dance to repay her kindness and sudden approval erupts throughout the room. “And it ends in this moment where Elphaba has a tear drip down her face, and Glinda touches it, which isn’t scripted, and we had never seen them do that before,” Brooks continued. “Luckily, our camera operator, Karsten Jacobsen, is so good with dance. And our focus puller, Lewis Hume, pulls right next to the camera. It was pretty crazy.”

For the thrilling 20-minute “Defying Gravity” finale, which ends with Elphaba escaping from Emerald City on her broom, Brooks wanted it to span from sunset to sundown. That meant shifting the sunset earlier to the Wizamania stage spectacle, which glows at night. Once Brooks found the right reference for the sunset, she began working with Pablo Helman (the production VFX supervisor from ILM) on lighting the arc of the sky, making her lamps become the digital sun.

“When Elphaba and Glinda come up the stairs, it’s just as the sun is setting, and then she jumps off the building,” Brooks said. “And, as she falls down from the very top tower of Emerald City, where the sun’s still setting, to the bottom, it gets darker and darker and darker….And this is the only sunset that falls on Glinda.

“For me, ‘Defying Gravity’ is actually like the culmination of every single department,” added Brooks. “We all had such passion for telling the story and every single detail is there and it had to all work together.”

“Wicked” is now in theaters.