Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra enjoys working with directors who also act in their films. This year alone, his work includes “The Invite” with director and actor Olivia Wilde, as well as teaming up with Jordan Firstman on A24’s “Club Kid,” in which Firstman directs and stars.
Newport-Berra (Variety’s 10 Artisans to Watch 2026) says, “I tend to enjoy working with actor-directors because we get this dynamic experience on set where they get to direct the film both from outside and from within during the scene, which I think is a special opportunity for a director to be able to be inside the scene, guiding it as it’s happening.”
While “The Invite” challenged him to work with Wilde to be creative within a single space, “Club Kid” — which opens this weekend — is set in New York City. The film stars Firstman, Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Reggie Absolom. It follows a queer party promoter who has long outgrown his time on the scene. However, his life is upended when he suddenly meets the 10-year-old son (Absolom) he never knew he had, forcing him to grapple with the kind of life he wants to lead. Over time, Peter slowly begins to adjust to life with Arlo, and in one memorable scene, the pair sit at a piano as Newport-Berra’s camera slowly zooms out to capture a perfect evening and moment.
Newport-Berra shares, “Originally, we were going to shoot a whole montage of them spending a day together that would culminate in this moment.” However, time, budget and production priorities led to the montage being scrapped and the focus shifted to moving the piano up a flight of stairs. Newport-Berra recalls that after shooting in the apartment for a few weeks, the crew started feeling claustrophobic. “We were like, ‘What if we were looking at the apartment from this window or from that roof?’” The production team scouted until they found a building willing to let them shoot on the roof.
He continues, “We had this amazing zoom-out shot timed perfectly with a dolly shot inside. It starts with a dolly pulling out, which we lit and set up probably an hour or two before we were ready to shoot so we could get the perfect light. We let them rehearse and play around. There were two cameras rolling at the same time. The camera outside doesn’t see the camera inside because it’s just off the window, hidden behind it. As the dolly camera pulls out, the other camera zooms out, keeping itself out of the shot so we could time everything perfectly to the exact moment of sunset. It became this really magical moment.”
Overall, Newport-Berra appreciated working with Firstman, noting that they had shotlisted the entire film beforehand. “But we were keen to take the temperature on set and figure out what the moment needed. Sometimes it was very clear to us that we wanted a very intimate, simple handheld camera, where I could just be between them — the three of us in the room. Other times, the camera needed to be locked off and observing the pair from a distance. The nuance of everything very much came from being in the moment together in the room.”
As for capturing New York, Newport-Berra felt confident he could help portray an authentic version of the city. He started his career there, working on indie films, student projects and music videos. “I know the city very well. I lived there for over a decade and really fell in love with it.” He adds that he and Firstman wanted to make “Club Kid” feel like an iconic, nostalgic New York movie, but with a fresh perspective. Their familiarity with the city helped immensely, as did Newport-Berra’s connections with local crew members that dated back to his student days.
“It was a very small movie,” he recalls. “We were all carrying camera cases upstairs, cramming into the back of a van to get from one location to another, loading film on the sidewalk and politely asking random bystanders to move out of the way so we could steal a shot.” He concludes, “It was very much a New York indie movie and I love that. I’m proud we got to make that movie there.”
