Nobody Cinematographer: Pawel Pogorzelski Interview

The director wanted to shoot on an Alexa. Pawel Pogorzelski asked him to wait one day.

Before every film he shoots, the cinematographer runs an exhaustive camera test. Every body, every lens he can get his hands on, projected big enough that the choice makes itself. For Nobody, he loaded a RED Helium, pushed it to 1250 ISO, and put a set of older anamorphic lenses in front of it. When he and director Ilya Naishuller watched that footage on the big screen, the reaction was instant and mutual. The image was dirtier. Rawer. A little bit broken, in exactly the way a film about a man pretending to be ordinary needs to be.

"He's like, 'Well, I never thought I'd shoot a movie with the RED camera.' And I was like, 'Yeah, that's why I test everything.' You never know what surprises you get."

That one test is a good way into how Pogorzelski works. The Polish-Canadian cinematographer behind Hereditary, Midsommar, and Nobody sat down with Zebra Spotlight for a long conversation about craft, career, and why he has spent twenty years refusing to be anything other than a narrative filmmaker.

From a Photography Class in Montreal to the AFI

Pogorzelski was born in Włocławek, Poland in 1979 and moved to Montreal with his family when he was two. At seventeen he was on the science track, like most of his family and friends (health sciences, physics, chemistry), and understood none of it. What he did have was a habit of taking photographs on family trips, and a father who noticed.

"My dad, when we were going on trips, I would take photos, and he saw that I had an inkling for it. He's like, 'Why don't you take a class?' And I took a photography class and I loved it. I loved the people there, I loved the creativeness. I picked it up right away."

Then came a video class, and the word cinematographer. At nineteen he had his answer: photographs, but with moving images, and a story to serve. He took a degree in media communication at Concordia University, shot his first feature, the Canadian science-fiction film Sigma, and in 2008 moved to Los Angeles to study at the American Film Institute Conservatory.

He went with one specific goal. Not a job, not a reel. A person.

"My one dream of going there was to meet my directing partner. That's what I wanted from this. And I did. I met Ari."

The Ari Aster Partnership

"Ari" is Ari Aster, and the two met as students at the AFI, where Pogorzelski shot a run of Aster's shorts, including the deliberately provocative 2011 film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons. The plan he set for himself was patient to the point of risk: wait for Aster to get his first feature financed, and hope the producers would let an untested cinematographer shoot it.

That film was Hereditary (2018), and it nearly didn't happen in time. Pogorzelski was thirty-five, barely earning, his wife studying medicine in Montreal while he held on in LA.

"It's hard when you're thirty-five and barely making any money. You're there alone, pushing for your dreams, but you're getting older. It was very much a time when I could have given up and done something else. Not everyone gets the chance."

He got the chance. Hereditary announced both of them, and the partnership kept going: Midsommar in 2019, which earned Pogorzelski an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Cinematography, and later Beau Is Afraid with Joaquin Phoenix, a shoot he described as tough but one he could not wait to see cut together.

Why He Only Shoots Stories

Ask Pogorzelski what kind of cinematographer he is and the answer is narrow on purpose. He needs a script. He needs an emotional journey. Commercials and music videos, the make-it-look-cool work, leave him cold.

"My understanding of visual language is through story. I need a narrative, an emotional connection to my visuals. When I read a script and get a whole emotional journey, that's what inspires me."

That focus comes with a warning he learned by watching others. He saw successful commercial cinematographers in their fifties try to cross into narrative work and find the door half-closed, typecast by the very thing that had paid their bills. After Hereditary he pushed hard not to take every horror film waved at him, for the same reason.

"It's very easy in this industry to get pigeonholed. So it's important to keep a path: this is why I want it, this is my dream. If you keep that goal and persist and be patient and work hard, you get there."

He has the receipts. Offered a well-paid camera-operating job on a gaming project, he turned it down to shoot a short film he funded on a credit card he could not really afford, because the short was narrative and the operating gig was not. "I was poor from my mid-late twenties to my late thirties," he said. "But now it pays off, and I wouldn't have changed anything."

Nobody: Making an Action Movie Like a Drama

Nobody was the film Pogorzelski almost passed on. His agent sent the script; it read like John Wick, and he had no interest in a straight action movie. The thing that changed his mind was a phone call with Naishuller, a young Russian director with, in Pogorzelski's words, intoxicating energy and a clear idea. Naishuller wanted something colourful and brave, closer to a Korean genre film than a Hollywood actioner. (The script, as it happens, came from Derek Kolstad, the writer who created John Wick, so the resemblance was not an accident.)

The production was lean. Thirty-odd days, a small budget, a shoot in Winnipeg where both men were far from home, so they simply worked seven days a week.

"We'd just work Saturday, Sunday, shot-listing and location scouting, and have everything dialled down. Because it's such a small budget and short time, we made sure we were super prepped and knew exactly what we wanted."

Out of that prep came the camera test that opened this piece. Pogorzelski is methodical about it on every project. He gathers every camera and lens he can (for Nobody he ran through the Sony Venice, the RED Monstro and Helium, and the Alexa Mini and LF), shoots tests close to the agreed look, and lets the projected image decide. The pushed RED Helium with anamorphic glass won. You can read the whole approach in RED's own breakdown of the film.

What he is most proud of, though, is how the action got made, because he had never shot action before and treated that as a reason to listen.

"These guys have done it so well, so many times. They tell me to put the camera here, I put the camera there, it's going to work great. It's no ego. Let them do what they do best, and I step back and learn."

The stunt team had come off John Wick and Atomic Blonde. The VFX supervisor had bigger films behind him. Pogorzelski built the look and held the frame, then let the specialists shape the choreography through stunt previs, suggesting a push or a lens only when he felt the shot could be better, and dropping it the moment they told him it cost the action.

A few details from the shoot stuck with him:

• ▪Bob Odenkirk, sick and silent. During the climactic shootout, Odenkirk was vomiting into a bucket between takes from a flu that ripped through the crew in late 2019. He never complained, never made it a problem. "I wouldn't have known if his people hadn't told me. He looks great, he looks fine. Such a professional."
• ▪The bus fight, in a real bus. No removable walls, three nights to shoot the whole sequence. The stunt team built the fight for that confined space deliberately, and Pogorzelski lit it with tube lights he could raise and lower depending on the camera position. Fast, simple, and true to the claustrophobia.
• ▪The home invasion, on stage. The opening break-in was a built set, which let them do real damage take after take.

The Cinematographers Who Shaped Him

Pogorzelski's list of influences is a short course in the craft. He named Anthony Dod Mantle for his bravery and range, Rodrigo Prieto for his chameleon elegance, and the Polish cinematographers around Krzysztof Kieślowski (the Dekalog and the Three Colours trilogy) for a kind of poetry he still finds stunning. Darius Khondji, Gordon Willis, Conrad Hall, and Robby Müller round out the older guard.

What taught him to respect those names was shooting film himself. He bought a Hasselblad and started shooting portraits on 160-ISO stock, and the sheer quantity of light it took to get an exposure reframed everything.

"Back then you had to fight the studio for the look, burn it into the negative, keep the director on your side. You had to know your filters. Today you can change it all in the grade, bring the magenta up later. Those guys were geniuses."

It is a useful tension to sit with. The tools have made the image safe. Pogorzelski's whole career is an argument for choosing a look on set and committing to it anyway.

What He Tells Young Filmmakers

The advice is unglamorous, which is the point. There is no red carpet in it.

• ▪There is no one right way. Film school is not a requirement. What matters is being on set and watching how every department works.
• ▪Ask the annoying questions. Pogorzelski came up pulling cables on the electric crew, and he asked why constantly: why level the track for the dolly, why that flag, why that diffusion. The tricks he still uses came from those answers.
• ▪Shoot, watch, repeat. "The best film school is shooting stuff, watching it, seeing the mistakes you made, and trying again."
• ▪Set a path and protect it. Decide what you want to be known for, then turn down the work that pulls you off it, even when it pays.
• ▪Find the brave ones. The directors and collaborators worth chasing are the ones looking for their own language, not a copy of someone else's film.

Why This Matters for a Home Cinema

Nobody arrived as one of the earliest 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray releases of its moment, and that is not a footnote. The whole reason Pogorzelski pushed a RED Helium and shot anamorphic was to build a specific texture: grain, controlled colour, a slightly degraded edge that carries the film's tone. That information lives in the shadows and the fine detail. Compress it for a phone or play it back on an uncalibrated screen and most of it collapses.

This is the case Zebra Home Cinema makes to every client building a dedicated cinema or media room: a film shot with this much intent deserves a system that can actually reproduce it. The cinematographer fought the studio, the camera, and the schedule to get a look onto the negative. A properly calibrated room is what lets that fight reach your sofa intact.

Key Takeaways

• ▪Pawel Pogorzelski is the Polish-Canadian cinematographer behind Hereditary (2018), Midsommar (2019), and the 2021 action hit Nobody. He studied at Concordia University and the AFI Conservatory, where he met his long-term collaborator, director Ari Aster.
• ▪He works almost exclusively in narrative film, deliberately avoiding the pigeonholing that follows commercial or single-genre work, a discipline he credits for a career built on story rather than spectacle.
• ▪For Nobody, his first action film, he tested every available camera and chose a RED Helium pushed to 1250 ISO with anamorphic lenses for a dirtier, rawer image, and approached the action as a collaboration with the John Wick and Atomic Blonde stunt teams rather than something to control.
• ▪His advice to aspiring cinematographers is practical and patient: be on set, ask relentless questions, shoot constantly and study your own mistakes, and protect a clear creative path even when off-path work pays better.
• ▪For home cinema, the lesson is direct. A film shot with this level of intent only fully survives on a calibrated reference system, which is the entire point of a purpose-built cinema room.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who shot the movie Nobody?

The 2021 action film Nobody, directed by Ilya Naishuller and starring Bob Odenkirk, was shot by Polish-Canadian cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski. It was his first action feature, following his acclaimed horror work on Hereditary and Midsommar with director Ari Aster.

What camera was Nobody shot on?

Pogorzelski chose a RED Helium, pushed to 1250 ISO and paired with anamorphic lenses, after testing a range of cameras including the Sony Venice, RED Monstro, and Alexa Mini and LF. He wanted a dirtier, rawer image than a clean digital capture would give, and the projected test footage settled the decision over the director's initial preference for an Alexa.

What films has Pawel Pogorzelski made with Ari Aster?

Pogorzelski and Aster met at the AFI Conservatory and first worked together on Aster's short films, including The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011). Their features together are Hereditary (2018), Midsommar (2019), and Beau Is Afraid (2023). Midsommar earned Pogorzelski an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Cinematography.

Where did Pawel Pogorzelski study?

He earned a degree in media communication at Concordia University in Montreal, then moved to Los Angeles in 2008 to study at the American Film Institute (AFI) Conservatory, where he met Ari Aster and began the partnership that defined the first decade of his feature career.

What is Pawel Pogorzelski's advice for aspiring cinematographers?

He stresses that there is no single correct path. The most valuable things, in his view, are being physically on set and understanding how every department works, asking constant questions, and shooting as much as possible while studying your own mistakes. He also advises setting a clear creative direction early and protecting it, turning down work that pulls you off your intended path even when it pays well.