Linus Sandgren La La Land Pastel

Linus Sandgren: La La Land Pastel

Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren's work on Damien Chazelle's La La Land (2016) produced one of the most visually distinctive studio musicals in decades, winning Sandgren the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The film's visual palette - oversaturated primary colors against neutral environments, magic-hour purple skies, and the wide-screen CinemaScope format - created an aesthetic immediately recognizable as a contemporary homage to the golden age musical.

The Visual Philosophy

Sandgren and Chazelle shot La La Land on 35mm anamorphic, a choice that gave the film its characteristic horizontal flare patterns and the slightly soft, organic quality that distinguishes it from the digital sharpness of contemporary studio films. They used CinemaScope's 2.39:1 aspect ratio - the same ratio as the MGM musicals they were referencing - to give the dance sequences the wide-open space they required.

The color strategy was deliberate contrast: figures wearing bold primary colors - Emma Stone's yellow dress, her red dress, her blue-green final dress - are placed against the neutral grey-white of Los Angeles buildings, freeways, and sidewalks. The effect makes the characters pop as if they were colored figures in a black-and-white world, directly referencing the hand-tinted quality of early color cinematography.

Magic Hour as Religion

Sandgren's La La Land is essentially a film about magic hour. The Griffith Observatory sequence, the freeway dance, and the ending montage are all shot in the purple-and-pink late-afternoon light that Los Angeles produces in abundance. Sandgren and Chazelle scheduled their outdoor shooting around this window, sometimes waiting days for the right sky. The purple-pink sunset sky became the film's emotional register: romantic, transient, warm.

Subsequent Work

Sandgren continued his collaboration with Chazelle on First Man (2018), where he applied a contrasting approach - tight, handheld documentary realism for the biographical sequences and large-format IMAX for the Moon landing. For Babylon (2022), Sandgren deployed a maximalist, overexposed golden palette that deliberately pushed Portra-like film aesthetics into excess.

His work outside Chazelle includes Joy (2015) and American Hustle (2013) for David O. Russell, where he demonstrated range across period aesthetics. Sandgren represents a generation of cinematographers who combine deep film craft knowledge with digital post-production literacy, allowing them to achieve precise emulation of historical stocks while maintaining the productivity of digital workflows.