Beyoncé’s Lemonade Cinematographer Talks “Hold Up” Video: “Like a Playground for Grown-Ups”

In 2010, cinematographer Pär Ekberg worked on Lady Gaga’s Beyoncé-featuring video for “Telephone,” directed by Jonas Åkerlund. Since then, Ekberg has worked with Beyoncé again on the videos for “Superpower” and “Haunted,” both from 2013′s self-titled album and directed by Åkerlund. In 2014, Ekberg again collaborated with Åkerlund on HBO’s “On the Run Tour: Beyoncé and Jay Z” concert special. Earlier this year, he teamed up with Beyoncé and Åkerlund again, serving as a director of photography on the “Hold Up” video from her Lemonade visual album. Pitchfork spoke with Ekberg yesterday afternoon about how working on the explosive video was “like a playground for grown-ups,” Beyoncé’s skills at performing underwater, and keeping the project a secret.

Pitchfork: What exactly was your role in the making of the “Hold Up” video?

Pär Ekberg: I’m a director of photography. I’m the designer of the frame and the light basically, together with the director. I collaborate with Jonas Åkerlund, in this case, and figure out the concepts and a way of doing it, and how to light it, and what style is it going to be, and all that. And then we go ahead and scout it and shoot it.

Pitchfork: What do you remember about this particular shoot?

Ekberg: She’s always great, she always performs in a fantastic way. But performing and doing all the things under the water, it’s not an easy task. To me it was striking how well she did that. She was amazing. Being in the water for that long, it’s not easy, I can tell you that. Another guy with me shooting was Ian Takahashi, who is a very seasoned underwater photographer and a great guy. We just had a great time and it was fantastic to see how well she did.

Pitchfork: What other specific memories did you have?

Ekberg: Well, the street setup we did was big, and we had all these vintage cars, and we had the stunt motorcycle drivers. We had fireball effects and wind effects. It was so much stuff going on that needed to be managed. It’s one of those shoots that stays with you for a while. It’s a great experience, a great day, a lot of stuff going on. It’s like a playground for grown-ups, I guess. You get to do all the things, cool explosions, and what have you. It’s a lot of fun. It gives you so many opportunities to create nice images when, first of all, you have an amazing artist who always delivers, and secondly, you have special effects, cool locations and special effects. You can’t really go wrong.

Pitchfork: Was there any difference between this and your past projects with Beyoncé?

Ekberg:  Everybody’s shooting high-definition computer video cameras, and that’s basically the only thing going on right now. For this we went back and shot film, which was truly interesting and a great experience. It’s a big difference, both in the technical aspects of things and also the feeling of things, that you’re actually working with a physical medium. It’s actually a strip of chemicals running through a mechanical camera rather than a chip. All that brings memories back. It’s got that gritty, grainy film look to it, which I think it works really well.  

Pitchfork: How does a project this huge stay under wraps?

Ekberg: That’s a big concern for everybody involved in production and management. To be honest, I don’t really give it that much thought. To me, it has always been important to be courteous to whoever I’m working with. I’m always really careful trying to keep their integrity intact. There’s enough stuff to deal with when you’re a big artist—you don’t have to have any more thrown at you.

It’s really funny, to be honest. There’s always a lot of things involved with big artists. You have to sign a release and be careful what you say and what you do. Social media is always a big issue with any artist. Sometimes they ask you to put a sticker on your mobile phone where the camera is when you’re on the set. It always makes me laugh a little bit, because I’m the guy that’s putting tons of different cameras on the set, and I have to put a sticker on my phone. If you’re in production or in management, it must be really hard to keep a secret like this. I don’t know how they do it.

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