This ‘The Office’ Lighting Trick Would ‘Get You Fired From Other Shows’ Randall Einhorn Said
The Office paved the way for many shows to employ the documentary style to comedy. Parks and Recreation used it in the local political milieu. Modern Family used it to bring new dynamics to the sitcom. Abbott Elementary still uses it in the teacher comedy. The Office cinematographer Randall Einhorn was instrumental in developing that style, which could be easy to take for granted on the show.
Einhorn was a guest on Brian Baumgartner’s Off the Beat podcast on June 22, 2021 to discuss his work on The Office. Baumgartner was in awe of the cinematographer’s agility in capturing both subtle and elaborate scenes. Even Baumgartner was surprised to learn about this controversial lighting trick.
‘The Office’ was lit just like an office
The first season of The Office was actually filmed in a real office. Even when they moved to a soundstage, Dunder Mifflin had to look like a real office with cubicles. So they used the same lighting that illuminates mundane offices, even though that’s not what most television studios would employ.
“We were really using fluorescents,” Einhorn said on Off the Beat. “Get you fired from other shows. I didn’t know any better so it all worked out.”
How ‘The Office’ used fluorescent light in a studio
Those overhead fluorescent lights still don’t provide enough light to illuminate an entire set for cameras. Einhorn still employed Hollywood tricks to spread the fluorescent light enough to make it look like a real office.
“We were shooting 360 which is a tricky thing about lighting that set because we were just using fluorescent lights to make these scoops, these light scoops to send out a soft wash,” Einhorn said. “So we made these boxes out of cardboard with mylar inside of them and a piece of diffusion. You would stick that box on a light and that’s the light that would send a nice soft wash to the rest of the room.”
The Reality TV influence
The Office was based on Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s British comedy. American creator Greg Daniels spoke frequently about the influence of reality TV on The Office. Einhorn himself had operated camera for Survivor. So, The Office camera crews applied the same philosophy to the scripted comedy.
The cast of The Office may have had lines written for them, but the camera operators filmed them as if they were a real documentary crew capturing stuff on the fly. In more slapsticky moments like the fire drill episode, that meant standing in the way when Kevin (Baumgartner) came running through the kitchen.
It also meant when Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) stole romantic moments, the cameras snuck around to film them. To maintain the reality of The Office, lighting was absolutely a component. So thank you, Randall Einhorn, for explaining how Dunder Mifflin looked fluorescent no matter where you looked in The Office.
