In 2018, Variety named Johanna Coelho as one of the Up Next generations of filmmakers -- for good reason. The cinematographer has worked on a diverse number of projects, including TV shows, movies, and music videos. Most recently, her talent and visual approach were on full display in The Rookie. The procedural follows John Nolan (Nathan Fillion), a middle-aged man who decides to actively pursue a career in law enforcement after a life-altering brush with death. At 40, he's also the oldest rookie cop in the LAPD, and it's not always an easy path for someone at that age to follow. The show combines drama, action, and comedy -- a cocktail of genres that appealed to Coelho.
Johanna Coelho recently spoke with CBR about the road to becoming a director of photography. She also dove into joining The Rookie, the series' action-packed shootouts, and capturing those funny moments.
CBR: What lit your fire to become a director of photography?
Johanna Coelho: For me, it was a pretty progressive revelation. I love telling stories. I was writing stories when I was a kid. I liked to borrow my parents' VHS camera, and I started to make movies or fake commercials with my friends. I was the one always behind the camera. I started discovering the editing process and what I should shoot for editing. Then I went to high school and was a science major, but I did an option for cinema. When I finished that, I realized I wanted to go fully into that, and I fully loved it. I decided to pursue cinematography because I love being around people. I love all the different stories you can tell through the lens. I love the editing process, but I really love creating the image and the director's vision.
Cop dramas were new to your repertoire. What appealed to you about The Rookie?
I was on The Rookie in Season 2, but I was an additional DP on that, so I was doing all the double-ups and second units. I just loved the action side. It was so interesting to get to learn more about shooting sequences, or we do a lot of explosions, fire, visual effects, and car chases. All of those aspects are very interesting in how you want to approach that visually because there are so many different beats in a small amount of time. You really have to find the system that works for you. I was really interested in this aspect of technique, but how do you make the technique cinematic at the same time? The combination was very attractive to me.
Your first Rookie credit as director of photography came in Season 4. What do you recall about that baptism by fire with the episode "Five Minutes?"
I felt like we were ready [and] prepared for it. It felt exciting being present for every single scene as the director of photography and putting the ideas behind prep into action. I had to get up to speed as fast as I could, knowing it was my first episode. It was mostly a lot of excitement and that it worked out pretty well. It felt like I had done it before. I had shot scenes on The Rookie before, but never that many.
How big of a deal is it to work on a season finale, in this case, The Rookie's Season 4 finale, "A Day in the Hole?"
It's a pretty big deal in the way of expectations for the audience that they are going to have to wait a long time before seeing another episode. That is the last thing they are going to see for a while. It was a big deal here, as well, because the director of that episode was Alexi Hawley, who is the showrunner of The Rookie. I believe that was his first time directing. It was a real honor to be on set with him.
We tried to make every bit of it cinematic, but this one was a little bit different in the setup of it. We really talked about establishing a look for all the parts in the desert and all the parts shot inside, so it felt like two worlds happening at the same time. There was definitely lots of action scenes in this episode and more stunts, as well. This was something we had to plan as much as we could beforehand. At the same time, we didn't have a script very early on for this one, so we had to go with it. It made it difficult to plan, but it actually went really smoothly.
Let's break down this episode. It's the season finale with lots happening. Nolan's adventure unfolds separately from everyone else. Between the diner and the long stretches of road, it looks like you filmed on location. What was it like shooting in a less-controlled environment?
We do that a lot on The Rookie. For an episode, we shoot nine days, and four or five of the days are on location. The challenge here was the wind. It was very windy, and we were there for six days over two weeks. The first week it was extremely hot, so it is always difficult when you shoot outside in the sun, and it's extremely hot. I don't know if it was the week after, but we had two days of extreme wind. So, we couldn't use all of our crews because the wind limited us.
We tried to replace people in different places, so they could naturally be in shadow and not overhead because it was too dangerous. We had to rethink our blocking on the day because of these conditions. We tried to embrace as much of the location because it looked so good naturally. The little motel that was here and the bar and diner. It's been used as sets for filmmaking, but it has such a cinematic aspect to them, so we tried to embrace them as much as we could.
The episode features a big shootout. There's some cool fight sequences involving Nolan and Bailey. To begin with, how much of those beats were Nathan Fillion and Jenna Dewan as opposed to stunt doubles?
Jenna is really good at stunts. She always has a stunt double, but she does a lot herself. I would say we mix it up. What we do is a pass or two with the stunt double and a pass or two with Jenna and Nathan. I would say half-and-half, but we can see Jenna's face sometimes because she does a lot of her own stunts.
The diner scene involves the shooting, fight choreography, stunt work, and glass shattering. Take us behind some of that action.
This kind of sequence takes a while to shoot because there's a lot of little bits that need to happen. We do have window replacements that we can blow with special effects. So, when we replace them, the idea is that once we are going to blow them up, we have to make sure that all the other shots after that are going to have windows that are blown up. We cannot reset it. That will take way too long, and we don't have time on our schedule. We planned to shoot everything that is manageable before the big windows explode. There are little things, like a cup of coffee blowing, that we can do before if it makes sense in our shot. I had a lot of little sneak cameras everywhere, so you could have angles right there. There were a lot of wires everywhere.
Once we brought down all these big windows, then we keep shooting all the little bits we needed to add. We added a bit more glass. We placed some specific objects on the counter that we didn't blow yet. In addition to all of that, there's all the effects, all the stunt sequences. We do it bit by bit, basically.
We can't forget the comedic beats. There was Tim and his criminal mirror image, dubbed "Dim." What were some of the logistical challenges behind Eric Winters playing both characters?
For the ones where Eric was outside on location -- he's on the streets when he gets arrested for the first time -- all that was shot at the same time. What I mean by the same time is in the same period of time, not one day and then another day. I think we started with Eric dressed as Dim because he had a lot of tattoos. It was more heavy on makeup. The shot wrapped around to reveal one and then the other. The Steadicam was on Dim, with behind the double of Eric as Tim, and do the move so we can see Dim's face. We did the same exact move when we changed Eric. So Eric had a double, who we used for the back of his head every time, for one of the other characters.
Audiences have eagerly been waiting for Tim and Lucy to lock lips. What was it like bringing that moment to life?
When I saw that in the script, I was like, "Yes!" Even me, watching it on the show, we've been joking around about that for a long time. I actually didn't know it was going to happen until I read the script. Since people were waiting for that moment so long, you really want it to be special, visually as well. Alex has this brilliant [idea] doing this shot around them, and then to bring the comedy of Tamara just arriving. That's how he saw it when he wrote it because he also wrote the script for it. So, we wanted it to feel intimate and awkward at the same time.
Stream all four seasons of The Rookie on Hulu.