Cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed is searching for silver linings following the Hunt - MovieMaker Magazine.

      Malik Hassan Sayeed traveled back in time to shoot Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt.

      “In this film, we didn’t advance with technology,” Sayeed notes. “Instead, we returned to what I considered a sweet spot in technology. We shot on film and established very specific parameters for ourselves.”

      He cites only two influences: cinematographers Sven Nykvist and Gordon Willis — “during very specific periods of their careers.”

      Sayeed concentrated on the decade of Nykvist’s work, which included Ingmar Bergman’s The Silence and Persona, culminating with Nykvist winning the best cinematography Oscar for Bergman’s 1972 film Cries and Whispers. He also focused on Willis’ work from 1977 to 1988, a time that featured Woody Allen comedies like Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Zelig.

      “What Luca aimed to do was to place some restrictions on the technology we used, ensuring it functioned only within that era. I found that to be an incredible exercise for us,” Sayeed shares. “We utilized lighting units from that period, lenses from that era, and film cameras produced during that time.”

      The result is a contemporary drama featuring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri that has an analog feel.

      “I’m not convinced the technology is heading in an interesting direction,” Sayeed states, “since digital is merely an emulation. It's not an organic process; it’s simply code. I’m much more interested in the organic than in code.”

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      Cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed on the set of After the Hunt. – Credit: Amazon MGM Studios

      Born and raised in New York City, Sayeed was the cinematographer for Spike Lee’s ’90s films including Clockers, Girl 6, and He Got Game. He also shot Hype Williams’ 1998 film Belly along with music videos for artists like Nas, 2Pac, Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, and Beyoncé.

      He has a reputation for seeking out cinematic visuals in his ever-photogenic hometown. However, most of After the Hunt was filmed on stages, requiring Sayeed to adapt.

      “I’m a New York-based location cinematographer,” he explains. “We typically do not shoot on stages, and I believe I’ve never filmed on a stage in New York.”

      Yet working on constructed sets provides greater control, which Sayeed believes was a factor in Guadagnino's decision to film for five weeks on stages and backlots at Shepperton Studios near London.

      “I think he was somewhat burned out on the challenge of shooting in real locations,” Sayeed recalls.

      Control over the environment comes at the cost of the serendipitous occurrences that arise from natural conditions, making Sayeed even more determined to bring about spontaneity.

      “We are essentially hunters of that magic. This is what we search for and aim to discover in physical reality,” he describes. “A light reflects off a window across the street, creating something intriguing as it enters. We’re constantly on the lookout for that. In this context, it’s absent, so you must almost manufacture it.

      “We’re attempting to create the happy accident,” he goes on, “which is something my gaffer and I are continuously working on with lighting. We're searching for those unexpected effects that light produces that weren’t initially intended.”

      Ayo Edebiri as Maggie and Julia Roberts as Alma in After the Hunt, from Amazon MGM Studios. Photo Credit: Yannis Drakoulidis © 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved. – Credit: Amazon Content Services LLC.

      After the Hunt depicts Roberts as a Yale philosophy professor caught up in a campus scandal when a close colleague (Garfield) is accused of sexually assaulting her own student (Edebiri).

      Sayeed recalls witnessing a happy accident while pre-lighting one of the film’s most intense scenes, where Garfield’s character interrupts Roberts’ classroom to confront her.

      “I noticed it while we were adjusting — the side light was producing the best light quality,” he explains. “So we utilized several lights to create that effect, lighting the scene with the side of the lights rather than directing the light straight onto it.”

      The classroom scene was one of the few filmed on location, using Cambridge University as a substitute for Yale. Most of the production required Sayeed to work with green and blue screens, necessitating frame-by-frame VFX compositing during post-production to integrate the foreground action with the separately shot background, which took place in New Haven, Connecticut.

      “Some scenes were filmed indoors that were meant to represent outdoor settings, but we made them appear as if they were outside,” he explains. “There was a lot of that kind of work involved, making this a different type of project for me.”

      So different, in