Between the first and second seasons of IFC’s The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, some subtle style changes were made. Jackie moved to an apartment with plenty of light. The show in general became less dark and gritty visually. This season, the tone is lighter and more comedic, though tempered with Laura Kightlinger’s sardonic tone and sharp dialogue.

Kightlinger writes Jackie Woodman with David Punch and stars in the show with Nicholle Tom, who plays Jackie Woodman’s best friend, Tara Wentzel. The show provides a refreshingly sarcastic view from the perspective of two smart and sassy thirtysomething single women in Los Angeles who can drink Patsy and Edina from Absolutely Fabulous under the table and are ready to self-medicate because life is hard and ridiculous in L.A.

Kightlinger describes the two main characters as “hapless losers who are trying to make it in a business they’re not actually in.” Stories are based on Kightlinger’s true-life experiences in Hollywood as an edgy pragmatist who doesn’t let traditional morality get in the way. Fortunately for the show, there are myriad ways to mock that very industry. In her day job, Jackie Woodman writes for Image magazine; at the same time, she schemes with her film production company underling friend, Tara. In dealing with Hollywood themes, the show uses plenty of physical comedy and many hits to the crotch.

Brandon Hickman is the operating director of photography on the second season of Jackie Woodman. Hickman shoots standard-definition footage with a Panasonic AJ-SDX900 camera and a Fujinon HD zoom lens. He keeps the lens at 2.8 or 4 for the shallow depth of field. “The 24p look on the Panasonic SDX, VariCam and even the DVX is a step above the rest. Not that the others are bad,” notes Hickman. “I feel that Panasonic really has a great look.”

Hickman knew Kightlinger from a previous project. He called her knowing the second season of her show was coming up and asked if they had settled on a director of photography yet. She said she’d put a word in with the producers and see what they could do. “Two days later I got the job,” says Hickman. “I was quite surprised because it was about two weeks before they started prep—which put me in a scramble, too.”

Hickman describes the directive for the look of the second season as a slight departure from the first. The show was going for a brighter tone more in keeping with the sunny Southern California setting. That bright quality stands in contrast to the attitude of Jackie Woodman, who is more pessimistic and bleak in her outlook on life. “Last season was a lot more contrasty and dark—by ‘dark,’ I mean it’s like they were kind of living in the shadows,” Hickman describes. “With the production team, we talked about how we wanted to loosen it up a little for the second season and make the photography lend itself to more of a comedic lighting style, but not along the lines of a sitcom.”

Hickman worked with the show’s art director to establish the look of the second season with certain colors and lighting schemes. In those two weeks between getting hired and starting production, he went on locations, found Jackie’s new apartment and the Image magazine office where Jackie works. Her office happens to be located in the same space as the show’s production offices.

“We took over some of the offices and made that our set, which was nice because they have 25-foot ceilings. It was nice to be able to put lights up there. That really helped.” But those offices also had windows over 180 degrees. “That was a challenge, balancing out whatever time of day we were shooting, balancing out those windows with the light inside.”

“What’s great about the Panasonic camera is its ability to save the settings. We never had a problem with settings falling out of whack.” On a couple of scenes, Hickman ended up using his Panasonic DVX100A. “That camera matches very well to the Panasonic SDX.”

For interiors, Hickman uses a lot of Kino Flos. “We lit it so that we could shoot 360 degrees. We’d usually be on location and would want to shoot all angles, so we’d do a uniform lighting deal with Kinos.”

On the actresses, especially on the close-ups, he uses Kino Flo Diva-Lites. “They are really soft lights, great for women. The premise of our show is these two women, Jackie and Tara. You always want to keep them beautiful,” adds Hickman.

To support the show’s attractive look, Hickman puts a little filtration on his lens. “I always had a quarter Tiffen Soft/FX filter. That’s just to soften up the video-ness of it.” The production team also softened the video look of their footage by shooting 24p. “We shot the SDX in the 24p mode to give it that film look. In so doing, it tends to be a little bit more brilliant and not so video-ish.”

IFC does not broadcast in HD, so the network wanted to keep production on a basic level, save the cost and shoot the show in standard definition. In order to differentiate IFC’s original programming from the films they show, they determined that the aspect would be 4:3, as opposed to 16:9.

Hickman worked with four directors over the second season: Russell Bates, Steve Car, John Corn (who is editor on the show) and Mary Kay Place, who also plays Jackie Woodman’s mother. “It was a challenge working with four directors, each of whom has their own ideas about how to give coverage and capture scenes.”

According to Hickman, Russell Bates was very “Let’s get on the dolly.” Steve Car liked to do “one-ers,” where the scenes are captured in one take with little coverage. John Corn’s episode used a lot of handheld work. Mary Kay Place was meticulous about her storyboards and where she wanted to be in a scene.

“As the only camera operator,” says Hickman, “it was very much about me adapting to each director and figuring out how we were going to approach a scene.” He relied on 1st AC Nick Lantz. “We had a remote focus setup on the camera, and Lantz did a great job holding focus. Sometimes there would be a spur-of-the-moment change in framing, or the actor might walk away. He was good at eyeing the distance from the lens to the subject.”

Prior to working on The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, Hickman was the DP on a feature film, Bull Run, where he grabbed his gaffer, Chris Norris. Hickman also worked on some History Channel shows, such as Shootout, for which he won a cinematography award while using Panasonic P2 cameras.

Often for the last-minute rewrites, a new approach to setup and lighting was required in the interest of time. “When you’re on set and you hear the dialogue, you go with what your gut says is funny. The scripts are great. I couldn’t stop laughing,” adds Hickman.