The Woman King cinematographer Polly Morgan on capturing natural “beauty and fragility”

Director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s goal The queen of women was to create a sprawling epic based on a group of female warriors in Africa. She hired cinematographer Polly Morgan to capture the beauty of the landscape and play with the colors of the environment, which can be difficult with night scenes. The queen of women tells the story of the all-female Agojie warriors in the African kingdom of Dahomey. Filming in Africa presented a challenge for the production, but the location allowed Morgan to bring out the colors and images of the period.

DEADLINE: What were the early conversations with Prince-Bythewood about what she wanted for the cinematography?

POLLY MORGAN: I think Gina wanted to lean into the historical epic genre and give the film a lot of scope and really capture the beauty of the landscape and the colors of the environment. We wanted very beautiful, natural, saturated colors that bring out the reds of the earth and the greens of the forest and jungle, capture the beautiful light and use flare and backlighting. She wanted it to be a standout film, one that felt iconic and could stand the test of time alongside all the other historical epics we love, and she also felt it was important to make sure that the women are in a beautifully captured film that shows not only their physicality and all the work they put in to prepare for the roles, but also their beauty and their fragility.

DEADLINE: How do you make sure you catch so well?

MORGAN: Well, not to get too technical, but I think when you’re lighting a movie for a theatrical release, you really have to be aware of the fact that a projector is only half as bright as the screens we have at the would see home. And to ensure that when you expose the image you have a very thick negative with a lot of detail and information. As a photographer, I really like to have a lot of detail in my photos. I don’t like it when areas fall into inky black pockets and there’s nothing there. I really wanted to capture not only the beauty of these women, but also all kinds of textures and features of the environment, including at night, so I had to make sure I had really good backlighting that exposed the negatives.

Once I had that base lighting I made sure I could focus on the skin tones and model and sculpt the light and play with color contrasts. At night the ambient moonlight was a nice cool shade and then we contrasted it with the warmth of the fire. We used real fire to light their faces, not just modern LED tubes, which I found much more atmospheric in the lighting. You would see the flames in their eyes and just that natural flicker that only a real fire source can give you.

DEADLINE: What was it like shooting on location in Africa?

MORGAN: Fortunately, I’m a person who likes a challenge because filming in the middle of nowhere always logistically takes you a little out of your comfort zone because you don’t have the resources to fall back on if something goes wrong like a generator failing not for example. So we really made sure that we were really thorough in our preparation and we really prepared in advance exactly how we were going to do everything and we made sure we had all the tools and manpower that we needed to pull it off. But actually, it was so great to shoot on location. Not just for the cast, but for the crew to really get away from modern life and really dig deep into the story and you just feel like you’re back in the 19th century with these warriors.