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Season Four of ‘Emily in Paris’ returned to screens this Autumn, released by Netflix in two parts: Episodes 1-5 on August 15th and 6-10 on September 12th.
The breakout show follows Emily Cooper, an American from Chicago with a master’s degree in communications, who moves to Paris for a new job opportunity. She is tasked with bringing an American point of view and social media presence to a venerable French marketing firm. Cultures clash as she adjusts to the challenges of life in Paris while juggling her career, new friendships, and active love life.
Seamus Tierney served as the cinematographer on all episodes of this latest series, which was directed by Andrew Fleming, Peter Lauer, and Erin Ehrlich. Cooke spoke with the cinematographer about his process, working on the series, and creating the show’s “visually delectable” look.
Tierney began his journey in film on the East Coast within the lighting department as an electrician and later gaffer. He then started shooting shorts for NYU and Columbia University Grad Students. He left New York City to join the revered AFI Cinematography Program in Los Angeles after which he continued shooting shorts with the feature 2009 ‘Adam’ (dir. Max Mayer) being one of his first breaks.
Tierney shot three episodes of Season Three of ‘Emily in Paris’ including one episode with director Peter Launer who returned for Season Four. The cinematographer had also previously worked with director Andrew Fleming on the series ‘Uncoupled’ (2022) who has directed episodes of ‘Emily in Paris’ across all four seasons. As such, Tierney went into Season Four of the show with established and strong working relationships.
The show requires a lot of scouting and planning before shooting begins. This comes down to the challenges of shooting in bustling Paris which is divided into different governing bodies, with permits having to be sought well in advance.
“Because of this, we need to lock in shooting locations and schedules early on. I work closely with Andy Fleming and our Production Designer, Anne Seibel, to determine where and what we want to shoot. This process is both a blessing and a curse. While it helps us secure locations, we often don’t have final scripts at this stage, so some of our discussions are more general. But it gives my crew and me a strong foundation to work from as the scripts come together.”
Tierney found himself having to plan out sun and shooting positions with narrow windows up to three months in advance, particularly when dealing with iconic locations such as Le Pont Neuf bridge. Helping to make this manageable he also sings the praises of VFX team led by Michael Amodio and the colourists at Picture Shop including Steven Bodner and Joshua Risk.
“Filming in historic locations around Paris, and beyond, is both inspiring and challenging, especially when it comes to rigging and lighting. Many of the buildings we work in are centuries old, often housing precious artworks or standing as landmarks of great national importance. But our crew always finds creative solutions—whether it’s Anne’s team helping to hide rigging with set dressing, some clever work from the VFX folks, or our colourists balancing out unwanted or uncontrollable colours.”
The series shot digitally on the ARRI Alexa LF and the production carried multiple cameras.
“We ended up carrying three bodies, we primarily shot with two all the time and then on bigger days which tended to be like once or twice a week we’d have a third camera, and we would just bring in whatever accoutrement we needed.”
Tierney has long been a Cooke fan.
“I’ve always loved how Cooke lenses render images—the subtle roundness, the way they handle colour. They’re also incredibly well-designed for ease of use on set.”
Previous seasons of the show hadn’t used Cooke lenses, but the cinematographer was keen to utilise them for Season Four after his previous experience with S7/i FF.
“The lenses used in previous seasons created a fantastic look, but this season I wanted to push the visuals even further. I kind of had in my mind at the end of last season that I was going to be coming back. I looked at something I had previously shot on S7s, and I love those and then in the interim we had this big break and the S8s came out. So I was like, ‘ok – great, I’m gonna test these!’ I got our actress, Philippine who is an older lady and probably the toughest for me to light because she’s standing next to Lily or whoever and you’ve still got to make it look beautiful, which the show emphasises. I got her in for a day and we put her in her office, which is a set that we shoot in a lot. And I said, ‘ok, let me put up last season’s Signature Prime lenses next to these new ones.’ Based on my experience previously with Cooke and the Cooke Look aesthetic it literally was like an aha moment – the image just came to live when I put the S8s on and just like the depth and the roundness of this woman’s face compared to… I’m not saying the other lenses are terrible… but it was just like ‘OK, that’s it, that’s the lens we’re using.’ The image had more shape to it and a more pleasing aesthetic partially because of how beautifully they capture faces, both in depth and colour.”
The show mainly uses medium and wider lenses meaning that the go-to focal lengths were usually 25mm, 32mm, and 40mm with the lighter-weight primes being ideal for Steadicam usage.
Tierney says the shooting schedule is strict and packed. This is partially due to the shorter 10-hour French days (as opposed to America’s 12 plus) along with the importance placed on costume and makeup, which can take up large chunks of time especially if there’s a costume change scheduled for the middle of a shooting day. As such, the benefit of using zoom lenses which matched the primes soon became apparent.
“To get through the material, which is a lot, we ended up relying a little bit more heavily on the zooms than I have on any other shoot, and I was completely OK with it because the result was great! Usually I’m like no zooms – but on this, after a while, knowing that I was kind of shooting it at T2.8 it just became a much easier thing to accept. I didn’t notice the difference unless it was on the extreme edges of the zoom, and it didn’t really bother me at all. The difference between them is so incredibly subtle. They match so well.”
The cinematographer owns a pair of Varotal/i FF Zooms but they were booked on other jobs in the States. Tierney sings the praises of Parisian rental house RVZ for supporting the show with a package that included two full sets of S8/i Prime Lenses and each of the Varotal/i FF Zoom lenses, 19-40mm, 30-95mm and 85-215mm making sure he was covered for all scenarios.
Cooke also spoke with senior colourist Steven Bodner from Picture Shop who has graded every episode of the show from the inception. On the overall approach, Bodner offers: “Darren Star, the show creator, has always wanted the show to be bright and colourful. The wardrobe and production design play a huge part in this. So, my job was to make sure that came through in the final look. As well as making sure all the actors and actresses always looked amazing. Which wasn’t hard with this cast. Honestly, from season to season it got easier and easier as everyone got on the same page.”
Bodner and Tierney had worked together on half of the previous season and also coloured another show together a number of years ago, so a shorthand and trust was very much present between the two.
“He always gives me beautiful footage to play with and shape. It’s always nice to get beautiful footage from the camera without me having to push and pull in different directions. I can just look at the footage and get the feeling as to what he was going for. Obviously, with the tight turnaround times and rapidly changing weather in France, there are times when the lighting and colour balance changes mid scene. This kind of stuff happens all the time and is to be expected. That’s one of the reasons you have someone like myself to do final colour. When I get a well-balanced image in the capture I can make a lot of things happen.”
In Bodner’s work he’s always aware of the differences between different lens series, “whether it be contrast and colour, or sharpness and depth, or the way they render faces and skin tones.” Comparing this season to previous ones, he “noticed that these lenses had more of a roundness to them and also had a softness that greatly helped the characters faces.”
Cooke’s /i Technology proved incredibly beneficial for post-production work. Having that data was invaluable when referencing shots across different scenes, especially for split screens or more complex VFX shots. Even though it might not be obvious, the show had quite a few VFX elements this season and having that metadata was essential for everyone involved, from production through post.
Ultimately, Tierney found that Cooke lenses supported his desire to enhance the visuals for this Fourth Season, not just in terms of faces and beauty, but also showcasing the setting of this charming show.
“The Cooke’s played a huge role in helping me achieve the more natural look I was after this season. I wanted to explore more shadow and light compared to previous seasons, trying to capture the unique quality of light in Paris—how it bounces off the buildings, reflects on the water, or streams through the old glass windows. The Cooke’s allowed me to get as close as possible to visually expressing the beauty I saw in Paris.”
