Barbie Cinematographer Reveals Major Challenge Of Working With So Much Pink

Rodrigo Prieto had to work hard to prevent the Barbie actors from looking magenta.

By Jamie Jirak

Barbie is now playing in theaters, and the Greta Gerwig-directed film has been praised by critics and moviegoers alike. The movie also managed to earn  $1 billion in only 17 days, beating multiple box office records. A lot of work went into bringing the Mattel doll to life, in fact, much of the film was made practically. The production also caused a worldwide pink paint shortage, which is no surprise when you see just how much pink was used to create the film's sets. Interestingly, the amount of pink actually created a major challenge for cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto. The Oscar-nominated DP recently spoke with The Wrap, and talked about working around the movie's pink setting. 

"One of the challenges was that there were so many props and set design that was a very saturated pink, and other colors too, but mostly pink," Prieto explained. "So anytime I turned on the backlight, the bounce on the faces was pink, so all the actors looked magenta. I didn't want to create hard contrast or anything, so I wouldn't be able to bring in black – they call it negative fill – so instead of negative fill, I created a neutral fill. So what that is, is that we had tons of neutral gray material, and we'd drape everything that was not on camera with gray. That way it was bouncing some light, but it wasn't tinted with color."

Kate McKinnon Praises Barbie's Production Team:

While chatting with ComicBook.com before the SAG strike, Kate McKinnon (Weird Barbie) spoke about the world created by Barbie's production designers and joked about not wanting to leave. 

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"Everyone who worked in the production -- artists, true, sculptors, artists, designers -- this movie is a canvas for the art of so many incredible people," McKinnon told ComicBook.com's Jamie Jirak. "Just getting to wear and walk around their art was like, 'Oh my God, this is the greatest, and I don't want to go home.'"

What Is Barbie About?

In Barbie, to live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you're a Ken. From Oscar-nominated writer/director Greta Gerwig comes Barbie, which hit theaters on July 21st. Barbie stars Oscar-nominees Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken, alongside America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Ariana Greenblatt, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, and Will Ferrell. The film also stars Ana Cruz Kayne, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans, Jamie Demetriou, Connor Swindells, Sharon Rooney, Nicola Coughlan, Ritu Arya, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Dua Lipa and Oscar-winner Helen Mirren. Gerwig directed Barbie from a screenplay by Gerwig & Oscar nominee Noah Baumbach, based on Barbie by Mattel. 

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