There is a cinematic sensibility to Amazon’s stunning series “Hunters,” which follows a diverse band of Nazi hunters in NYC circa 1977 who discover that hundreds of escaped Third Reich zealots are living and plotting in America.
Much of that is due to pilot director and EP Alfonso Gomez Rejon’s approach to the material, beginning with his purposeful choice of talented behind the camera artists – including cinematographer Fred Elmes (Blue Velvet), production designer Curt Beech (Blackkklansman) and costume designer John Dunn (Boardwalk Empire).
Part of the insistent energy and character-driven storytelling is reflecting in a rigorous color code that Gomez-Rejon and his crew imposed, impacting every craft and ensuring an intense, close inter-departmental collaboration so that everyone knew where color would be used, how much of it, which hue and why, which department would be responsible for the majority of the color per sequence and how the others would complement.
Gomez-Rejon knows a thing or two about bold, singular projects – he earned an Emmy nomination for his work on “American Horror Story: Coven” and his feature films include the critically acclaimed dramas “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” and “The Current War.”
He joined the series after receiving a letter from creator David Weil in which Weil described stories of his grandmother.
Gomez-Rejon was profoundly moved and found a personal connection to the material as well – of Mexican American descent, he grew up in the border town of Laredo and the plight of the outsider, the immigrant and justice appealed to him on a cellular level.
Gomez-Rejon always planned to approach “Hunters” in a cinematic way, given the larger than life scope of the story and characters.
It is no accident that the pilot has a sweeping look and a 90 -minute, feature length running time.
Also in the first episode, there is a shift in tone and a reveal setting up the entire series that required a big-screen aesthetic and that led to the color code that would guide the series, beginning with extensive visual research that Gomez-Rejon provided his crew and became the template for the show.
