For the haunting feature film Nightingale, director Elliot Lester and cinematographer Pieter Vermeer created a visual language to underscore the mental deterioration of the only character, Peter Snowden (Selma‘s David Oyelowo), a troubled veteran who is spinning out. Company 3’s Dave Hussey re-teamed with frequent collaborators – Lester, Vermeer and editor Nicholas Wayman-Harris – to subtly grade the material in ways that subliminally underscore Snowden’s emotional state without getting so obvious as to draw attention away from the actor’s riveting performance.

“The filmmakers envisioned a progressively more oppressive look to the environment inside the house where almost the entire film takes place,” Hussey explains. “Pieter created beautiful lighting and we felt we could enhance the effect subtly by using Power Windows to help direct the viewer’s eyes to specific parts of the frame we wanted them to focus on. Peter and I were fairly aggressive in some portions but always making sure everything looked organic.”