At the 2025 Rome Film Festival, where the first two episodes of Mrs Playmen were scheduled to premiere, the new Netflix series directed by Riccardo Donna and starring Carolina Crescentini, we interviewed the DoP Federico Schlatter CCS. The series tells the story of Adelina Tattilo, who becomes editor of Playmen and immediately shows her desire to transform the magazine.
Interview by Alberto Michelotti
Federico, to begin with, tell us something about your collaboration with the director Riccardo Donna.
It is a long-standing collaboration: we have been working together since the palaeolithic days of film stock. We have shot many films and series together, and this means that every time we meet again there is a natural rapport, almost a synchronicity. It is a privilege to work with a director you know so well, because you can go straight to the heart of creative questions. In this case the challenge was complex: the network wanted a very precise visual approach, one able to reconcile the imagery of the fabulous ’70s, which everyone loves and mythologises, with a pop, modern touch accessible to a wide audience.
How did you construct the visual world of the ’70s?
We mainly compared our personal memories, as we had both lived through the ’70s. From there came the idea of portraying that decade in an organic way, with its strengths and flaws, preserving its analogue essence while working in digital. We wanted an image that retained the directness of digital but at the same time radiated charm and warmth, evoking the moods of the period and caressing the eye with the softness and nuances that could sustain and amplify the story. In the first two episodes, a super-pop Italy emerges – colourful and light, in the best sense of the word.
The use of anamorphic lenses and camera movement is highly distinctive. How did you define this visual approach?
With Netflix there was extensive sharing of ideas, mood boards and references. Usually the dialogue with a director develops through images, paintings, literature and cinema; with Riccardo, however, the vision emerged from a musical exchange. His instinctively rhythmic, euphonious approach to directing became immediately clear as we listened together to a few tracks, especially Venus by Shocking Blue: I instantly sensed the feelings that would guide and define the soul of the series. I proposed a very distinctive mood board, which was warmly received, and from there came the idea of working with anamorphic lenses. This choice was not connected to the iconic traits of these lenses but to their organic character: they allow for very tight close-ups while maintaining an ample lateral breadth, which is useful for conveying the characters’ context. Their ‘imperfections’ soften the sharpness of digital and naturally guided us towards a ’70s visual world.
Would you like to give us a few more technical details on this?
Once we had agreed the look and feel with the network, I realised the path lay in bringing together two worlds: the ARRI S35 and the Hawk V-Lite lenses, where the ‘V’ stands for Vintage. These lenses have a deep character, marked by distortions and aberrations that do not correct the image but make it vibrate, giving it a living texture and a memory of time. It was precisely in this imperfect organic quality that their charm lay for me. We chose T/4 as the sweet spot: open enough to enhance the anamorphic distortion, yet calibrated to contain its excesses and avoid an artificial look. For me it is a real obsession: modulating depth of field as a narrative gesture, deciding how much a character should be enveloped by their world or, conversely, perceive a subtle, almost suspended distance.
The editorial office is a very distinctive environment: how did you conceive it in terms of lighting and set design?
The real location is on the Pontina, but in the series it overlooks the Vatican. We had three options: an immense virtual set, a gigantic blue screen, or the solution I called ‘Fortezza Bastiani’, a suspended place where what happens outside is sensed without ever being defined. Rays of light coming from artificial sources, as if the sky had two or more suns, were designed with precision so as to appear natural and coherent. Impossible in reality, these beams transform the space into a living, believable environment, poised between the real and the imaginary, marked by an improbable yet deeply evocative beauty. The characters inhabit a realm between shadow and glare: between the social and emotional undergrowth that Adelina wants to reveal and the rigid, regulated world outside. The entire visual grammar revolves around light, shadow, suspension and ambivalence.
The series was shot entirely on location. What difficulties or opportunities did this choice offer you?
Natural light, constantly shifting, in environments that were all real and complex, would have made it impossible to maintain the narrative continuity required over a period of several months. It was therefore completely replaced by an ‘artificially’ natural light, carefully managed to meet production and directorial needs. In this way, every space can breathe coherently across different times and seasons, yielding a world that is alive and believable yet shaped by the demands of the story. Scouting was essential. The main location, suggested by our producer Gianandrea Pecorelli – the former Titanus studios on the Pontina – was perfect as a ’70s base but completely empty. Everything had to be rebuilt, including the lighting. The crew supported me in every choice: I remember one location with extremely low ceilings, where we covered everything with wired LED panels, controlled from a console, to achieve an organic, 360-degree light.
How did you manage the complex lighting set-up on set?
The support of the gaffer Giovanni Gabriele was crucial, as was the collaboration with the key grip Emanuele Salvatore. Hundreds of square metres were wired with more than a hundred LED panels, orchestrated via console by the talent of Valerio Gabriele, desk operator, transforming the space into a living set that could be modulated according to any narrative need: I could switch instantly from night to day, from winter to summer. I like to accompany the light dynamically to the acting and to the camera movements, thereby emphasising the actor’s emotional state, adjusting a tone here and the intensity of a shadow there. I must of course also guarantee consistency, with two cameras free to move anywhere. Seeing the series again at the Sala Sinopoli of the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, and realising that the cinematography had no imperfections of any kind even on the big screen, confirmed for me that the whole team had worked with skill and dedication.
What was the role of the DIT, and what was your on-set monitoring workflow?
For Mrs Playmen, every image was born from the look tests: ARRI’s Cosmetic P425 texture matrix immediately found its place, softening detail without losing volume or highlights, and together with the fixed Radiant 1/4 diffusion filter it created the materiality and density I wanted to see on screen. At night, the ALEXA 35’s Enhanced Sensitivity up to 2560 ISO ES allowed us to capture the faintest light without sacrificing the cleanliness of the file, maintaining deep blacks and vibrant volume even in the darkest scenes. The digital workflow was the true heart of our creative control. With an ACES pipeline and an LMT carefully developed with Valerio Lliberatore – my close collaborator on every project from the very beginning – the dailies already arrived with a defined, recognisable look, allowing for well-considered and artistically coherent choices throughout the chain. The beautiful CDLs by the DIT, Guglielmo Griscoli, became a second creative tool: shaping colour and atmosphere in real time, transforming our on-set intentions into images that were alive and consistent with my vision. On set the DIT, the gaffer, the desk operator and I shared an almost ritual space in front of the reference monitors. The DMX control of the fixtures, operated via MA by the desk operator and the mini console on my desk – an extension of the GrandMA3 next to the DIT’s cart – allowed us to orchestrate dozens of channels simultaneously. Even in ensemble scenes with dynamic lighting, every beam was in its place, every adjustment instantaneous. After defining the master lighting setup, during the first rehearsals we built the CDLs scene by scene in Livegrade, refining and shaping the look according to the narrative and aesthetic needs, transforming every environment into a living world, coherent and profoundly our own.
How does your role change when you move from feature films to serial drama?
They are two different worlds, though somehow ‘the same’. Serial drama demands an industrial mindset: all the creativity lies in the preparation. On set, the machine cannot stop. A series is equivalent to shooting four or five interwoven films; for the actors it is extremely hard, because they are constantly jumping through the character’s emotional timeline. It is a system that is almost cruel, yet fascinating. The stronger the preparation, the easier it is to maintain coherence.
The aberrations of the lenses are very prominent: how did you integrate them into the storytelling?
The V-Lites are lenses rich in aberrations, and therefore rich in visual information. We carried out extensive tests, cataloguing flares and reflections and deciding when to soften them or emphasise them. Nothing is accidental: certain aberrations underscore specific moments. I needed many elements to modulate within a long story full of developments.
How did you conceive the lighting for the scenes in the club?
Everything was controlled from the lighting desk. We recreated an environment that does not exist: a mix of neon and fixtures that recalls Rome’s real Piper club, but reinterpreted narratively. It is not a realistic reconstruction: it is a vibrant, colourful world charged with post-revolutionary energy. Flashes and tones punctuate the storytelling. If that feeling came across, it means we hit the target.
Thank you Federico.
Technical details
Camera: ARRI S35
Anamorphic lenses: Hawk V-Lite
Colour: ACES HDR
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Sound: Dolby Digital
Runtime: 350 min (7 × 50)
This interview, presented here in written form, is part of the Casa Chiaroscuro project curated by Alessandro Chiodo CCS, with coordination by Massimo Intoppa CCS, produced with the support of Nikon Italia, Fowa and RED Digital Cinema.
