If you’re a fan of Jordan Peele and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema and their awesome collaboration on Nope, you’re about to be very happy. That’s because I recently got to sit down with the two of them and during our conversation they talked about shooting in IMAX, why they framed the movie for the theatrical experience, and so much more.

To me, the highlight of our conversation was hearing Peele and Hoytema talk about the new technology they invented to make Nope. If you’re not aware, the night scenes in Nope were actually shot during the day. Yes, you read that right. Here’s Hoytema explaining why they had to invent the new technology:

“At night, your set is only as big as the ability you have to light, right? So if you can light a whole block, and you have the amount of light to do that, and you place that amount of light into a valley, for instance, it turns out that in wide shots, the amount you light is merely a very small little part of the entirety of what you want to light. So we, very, very, very early on, knew that we want to shoot the nights during the daytime, because daytime gives us the ability for our cameras to register it. The only thing is the cameras, they are not registering the day as night, or as the kind of night that we needed, so that's when the engineering started.”

Peele went on to explain how he didn’t even think about the issue of filming at night during the writing process because he counted on people like Hoytema to solve problems.

“Obviously, I'm in a lucky position I knew I could write a script without thinking about the production because of my ability to get top-tier collaborators. So obviously the problem I've laid out, I didn't even realize the problem at hand, which is when you have a space this big as the set of Nope, this big valley, it's two miles long, and it doesn't normally when you light at night, you're literally lighting a night, you're bringing in these big, expensive cameras, but you can't do that for that amount of space, and so what you would get is just nothing. So Hoyte needed to come up with this system to get the vastness of the night really. So yeah, I mean the system is the first time it's been done in film.”

It's not too often when a film fundamentally changes how movies can be made, but I'm sure that the technology that Hoytema and Peele invented for Nope will make its way to other productions soon. In fact, Hoytema told me, “It's kind of already happening a little bit.”

Check out our full conversation below.

nope jordan peele behind the scenes image

COLLIDER: I heard rumors that there was going to be a longer cut of Nope at some point coming out. Is that actually true or not true?

JORDAN PEELE: I can neither confirm nor deny anything of the sort. There's been a lot of response to people sort of finding things in the trailer that aren't in the actual movie. I can say I do think people will see more in the future. That's kind of all I really can say. I'm hopeful.

Got it, because I was thinking maybe you were going to show a longer version at TIFF as a surprise, but that didn't happen.

PEELE: There's a lot of enthusiasm clearly to sort of dig into the layers of this film. It's one of the things that I am most excited by, is that I think there's a sense that people do see that we haven't cheated, we've made a film that if you watch it, it's telling a story and the pieces of the puzzle that feel like they're missing upon another viewing, reveal themselves to not be missing. So I'm very energized by the fact that people want more from this story. They would want to know those details.

I want to know more. So I'm hoping that you will release an extended version. I love the IMAX format and I just want to thank you guys for shooting an IMAX, because there is nothing like it. But what I want to specifically talk about is how you pulled off shooting the day scenes at night? Because a lot of people don't even realize who watched the movie that you shot the night scenes during the day.

VAN HOYTEMA: We did. Yes.

Can you talk about that aspect, because I believe you invented a new technology to be able to pull this off.

VAN HOYTEMA: We kind of did, yeah. We built a device, a very big device, that helped us shoot night scenes during the day, which helped us a lot in the ability to see through the conventional film night, to see more at night, to see wider at night, and to experience more scope at night.

PEELE: Part of the setup in this is because of Hoyte's work. I'm just a huge fan. I knew I wanted to go big, and I knew, and he's shown the ability to do the nuance and the heart and bring emotion, but also be extremely ambitious. There's a point where for whatever reason he had to pass on the script. I don't know if you remember, but there was a conflict that ended up not happening. But in that brief period, I reached out to a couple of other cinematographers, and they promptly told me the nights, that's impossible, can't do that. So there was a point where I just got this hunch or feeling I reached back out, it just so happened all of a sudden it worked timing-wise. He was the guy who said, "Yeah, well it doesn't make sense, Jordan, but I have an idea."

VAN HOYTEMA: By the way, passing on the script sounds more dramatic than it is. I knew for a very long time I wanted to work with Jordan. It's just that when Jordan asked me I was involved with another film that then I think luckily fell apart or COVID came in between or something like that.

PEELE: Timing worked out.

VAN HOYTEMA: But then circumstances, timing. So when Jordan came back, I was very enthusiastic. Also, when somebody plants something in your head, it kind of seeds.

spectre Hoyte Van Hoytema

PEELE: Because you read the script.

VAN HOYTEMA: It starts to grow, and you start to itch, and it starts to live a life on its own then. When Jordan came back after a while, I kind of had already figured out some stuff I think, I had already an idea of how we were going to do it or how I would like to do this stuff. Because the other side of the story is, you can come up with a lot of crazy ideas as a photographer. You can come up with devices or anything like that, but you need to work with a person, with a director that somehow sees the merit in it as well. You can come up with the craziest ideas, but if you don't get the enthusiasm, support, or cooperation in it, most ideas, they go very quickly to the graveyard and die.

PEELE: Right. I mean, obviously, I'm in a lucky position I knew I could write a script without thinking about the production because of my ability to get top-tier collaborators. So obviously the problem I've laid out, I didn't even realize the problem at hand, which is when you have a space this big as the set of Nope, this big valley, it's two miles long, and it doesn't normally when you light at night, you're literally lighting a night, you're bringing in these big, expensive cameras, but you can't do that for that amount of space, and so what you would get is just nothing. So Hoyte needed to come up with this system to get the vastness of the night really. So yeah, I mean the system is the first time it's been done in film.

VAN HOYTEMA: At night, your set is only as big as the ability you have to light, right? So if you can light a whole block, and you have the amount of light to do that, and you place that amount of light into a valley, for instance, it turns out that in wide shots, the amount you light is merely a very small little part of the entirety of what you want to light. So we very, very, very early on knew that we want to shoot the nights during the daytime, because daytime gives us the ability for our cameras to register it. The only thing is the cameras, they are not registering the day as night, or as the kind of night that we needed, so that's when the engineering started.

That's when we started to analyze a little bit about what is it that our eyes tell us that we are watching an actual night. What's the light quality at night? What's the level, the balance between colors and contrast? How do our eyes perceive color? How do our eyes perceive variations in exposure, et cetera, et cetera? So what we did was very much sort a way to emulate that exact sort of analyze it or that exact thing shot during the day, looking at night.

PEELE: Immersion was the thing.

VAN HOYTEMA: Immersion was very much the thing. I might have told the story too many times, but for me, a very important moment for the two of us starting to jam about how this shoot felt and how this shoot looked was when we were scouting. For one of the first times into that valley where we were going to shoot, we were driving in with cars over a sand road, and at some point, you get out of the cars and the light had turned off, and you walk into the fields. As you take your first step into the field, it's darkness, you don't see anything because there is nothing, there's maybe some moon behind the clouds and a gap in the sky with some stars in there, but you don't see anything because your eyes are not acclimatized to it yet.

But as we walked into the field, our pupils dilated, and suddenly yes, our pupils dilated with the vastness of the landscape reveals itself and sort of opens up. That was very much exactly the feeling that we needed for this film, the fact that you would walk out of a bright room into a night, and you don't see anything, and you take a breath, and slowly you feel your pupils dilating, and suddenly you start seeing everything around you in very fine detail.

nope Daniel Kaluuya and jordan peele behind the scenes

It's really weird in this day and age, after so many years of cinema for a film to fundamentally shift and dramatically change how movies are made. I'm sure other DPs are going to ask you, "How did you do this?" Because I might want to do this on my movie, shoot during the day.

VAN HOYTEMA: Yeah. It's kind of already happening a little bit.

But that's what I mean. Have you registered at all that you have fundamentally changed how movies could be made?

PEELE: I mean, the coolest part about this thing was we knew we were doing [something]. When Hoyte pitched me this thing, it comes with this idea of gathering all this information. The other piece of the process that we have to put together, we have to work with our VFX is interpreting that information to make it feel like you're there. So the whole thing was very hypothetical and yet it was using technology that he had forged forward and Ad Astra as well. So it was using that as a jumping-off point. But just to say that we knew we were doing something sort of different and cool in film and aspirational. I think when we envisioned it, we knew it would be something that people hadn't seen before. I think what I didn't necessarily expect, which is really a very lovely thing is how people don't know that it works, the illusion works.

100%. How did you decide when to shoot full screen on IMAX's 65mm film camera?

VAN HOYTEMA: You want to answer that?

PEELE: Oh, yeah. That's going to be my end.

VAN HOYTEMA: I mean, the obvious answer would be that we were very strict in the beginning, and we had a very strong concept about what had to be shot when and what. But I think, and I'm speaking here for the two of us, I think. But to work on these formats, there's also always, there's a kind of learning curve. As you do it, you learn so much of these formats. On your road, you kind of start seeing possibilities with each and every format that you then start to apply to certain moments in the film. So even though you might be smug about it and say, "Okay, we had it all figured out," a lot of things you also figured out as the film starts to live its own life, and as the film starts to grow. I know it's very much with us is that, and especially with you, that you would come in the morning, and you would just say, "You know what? We should shoot this fucking scene in IMAX.”

And you had figured it out, and you had imagined it, and we would change the ideas about it a little bit for, it could be a variety of reasons. Because we also started shooting in indoor and very intimate scenes in IMAX supposed to, obvious was okay. In the beginning, we were like, "Every encounter is going to be on IMAX." That's something that looks great on paper, feels great on paper, and makes sense. But I think that along, we just started to use that format, we've tried to use it more cleverly and also certainly tried to apply it, its qualities to intimate scenes and smaller things. I just remember some of my favorite shots are on IMAX, are very often very intimate shots, when the small certainly becomes a landscape and I love those moments. I love the fact that somehow what those formats can do and can bring, it's something hybrid, and it's something changing as well. It's very much dependent on your experience with it and your sort of...

PEELE: I became very addicted to this idea of using IMAX in these ways that, just realizing that there's so many ways, it hasn't been used that hasn't been used in horror. This has been reserved for the sanctity of documentary and this kind of thing. So the initial idea was the end of the movie and things, where we needed to be immersed in big sky, would be done in IMAX. Then at some point, I think the most sort of impulsive was this idea of why don't we do the Gordy sequence in IMAX, as well as the interior, the digestion sequence inside the UFO? Those are the examples of the scenes that I think emerged as even bolder uses of the format, because you just haven't seen anything quite like that.

VAN HOYTEMA: Claustrophobia is very seldom an immersive experience in cinema, but what if it is? It's kind of interesting.

Comedian and Director Jordan Peele

I love IMAX. You cannot recreate the experience at home, no matter what movie theater you have, no matter what sound system you have, you can only experience it in a huge screen IMAX theater.

VAN HOYTEMA: There is a very interesting thing that I'm thinking about a lot. That is, I mean, you can make films a thousand different ways, but for me, it very often comes down to these two different ways, which is, you can do it emotionally and all based on visuality and immersion and in a very direct way. You can do it also intellectually. When I think for instance about cinematography and about framing, you can frame in that way also in two different ways. You can create a frame like a painter, a frame that has four sides to it, and has a very sort classic rules of balance in a frame, and a negative space, and it becomes a neat frame, or it becomes an exciting frame.

But when you start framing up for IMAX, you have to work with a different rule set because these sort of classic rules of frames and of framing and of photography, they don't apply to IMAX, just purely because it's such a frameless format. You sit in there and basically your eye scans to the center of the shot and the rest becomes a sort of peripheral vision. Therefore, you have to apply a whole different kind of rule set to how you should and-

Can I ask you?

VAN HOYTEMA: Sure.

How does that, because the interesting thing is it is when you're framing like that, you are thinking about the theatrical experience, but unfortunately the large majority of people are going to be watching it at home 10 years from now on their TV set. How as a cinematographer and as a director are you thinking about the fact that I am framing not only for the theatrical experience but for 10 years now?

VAN HOYTEMA: Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I mean I'm framing only for the theatrical experience.

PEELE: It is. It is. By the way, it's throughout the thing, I'm like, "Hoyte, I've got to think about 99% of the people that ever see this thing are going to see it on this little, on the fucking phone."

VAN HOYTEMA: That's their loss.

PEELE: That's their loss, right. So that was very much in the DNA of this movie from the very beginning, was this idea of it was designed when the theatrical experience felt like it was threatened. People were saying that theatrical is dead, and we wanted to make a movie that was just really a real celebration of that experience. So yeah, I mean, it really, really was this meeting of two people. How I look at trying to do all of my collaborations and I feel like we were able to pull this off many times in this film, but no more so than with Hoyte, this idea of artists coming together at that perfect point in their career where their technical ability and their ego is in the right sort of space, it's satisfied, but curious.

Where Hoyte and I are both at is a place where we feel like we've had these great experiences in film, and we know how to make film, and we share this premise of abandoning this preciousness of ideas. I guess what I mean when I say that is, you grow up feeling that directing is sort of this Kubrickian thing where you have a vision, and it's about making everybody do that vision. I find more and more, it really is something, at least for me and for us, something very different. What we were searching for was the preciousness of unprecious.

VAN HOYTEMA: Yeah. I mean, it's almost like you get experience in film purely to be able to better handle your own curiosity, right? So I felt that always working with you, that everything we did is born from curiosity and from the will that you want to figure out something, or you want to find out something, you want to learn something, rather than you're doing things because you want to make the audience understand exactly what you have in mind.

nope-keith-david
Image via Universal Pictures

Please tell me, and I'd like a confirmation on this, that you guys have talked about doing something else together and have agreed to shoot whatever you shoot in the future in IMAX, doing something similar to what you did on Nope? And I'm not looking for a scoop on what it's about, I just want confirmation you're going to do something again together like this.

VAN HOYTEMA: I can only confirm from my side. If Jordan asks me, I will not hesitate. I will say yes.

PEELE: Yes, the resounding yes. The only thing I will say is I think what Hoyte and I would do, and what we would always do for anything is to start with the story. So I don't think we would come in with a sense of-

VAN HOYTEMA: Performance, yeah.

PEELE: This is how we're going to, what we're going to do, we really, it'll probably be IMAX. But yeah, we're story first.

VAN HOYTEMA: Yeah, absolutely. By the way, that's also for me very much the case, that there's no sort of passion be created by anything else than a story, or very much for me with the collaboration of the people that are behind it, you know? The ways and the technology will always sort of following that.

Nope is now available on Digital and on Blu-ray on October 25th. For more on Nope, here's my conversation with Peele from before the movie was released in theaters.