Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra on Shooting A24's 'Club Kid' in New York

A24's "Club Kid" opens this weekend, shot by cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra — named one of Variety's 10 Artisans to Watch for 2026 — with a signature sequence timed to the exact moment of sunset. The film, directed by and starring Jordan Firstman, follows a queer party promoter whose life changes when he meets the 10-year-old son he never knew he had. Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Reggie Absolom round out the cast.

Newport-Berra has made a habit of working with actor-directors. This year alone his credits include "The Invite," with director and actor Olivia Wilde, alongside "Club Kid." He says the appeal is structural, not sentimental.

"I tend to enjoy working with actor-directors because we get this dynamic experience on set where they get to direct the film both from outside and from within during the scene, which I think is a special opportunity for a director to be able to be inside the scene, guiding it as it's happening," Newport-Berra said.

What happened to the piano scene?

One of the film's most memorable moments — Peter and Arlo seated at a piano as the camera slowly pulls away — almost did not exist in that form. Newport-Berra said the production originally planned a full montage of the pair spending a day together, culminating in that moment. Time, budget and production priorities killed the montage. The focus shifted to moving the piano up a flight of stairs.

After weeks shooting inside the apartment, the crew grew claustrophobic. "We were like, 'What if we were looking at the apartment from this window or from that roof?'" Newport-Berra recalled. The team scouted until they found a building willing to host a rooftop shoot.

The resulting shot required two cameras and roughly an hour or two of setup to catch the right light. "We had this amazing zoom-out shot timed perfectly with a dolly shot inside," he said. "The camera outside doesn't see the camera inside because it's just off the window, hidden behind it. As the dolly camera pulls out, the other camera zooms out, keeping itself out of the shot so we could time everything perfectly to the exact moment of sunset. It became this really magical moment."

How was the film planned?

Newport-Berra and Firstman shotlisted the entire film in advance. That plan, however, stayed flexible. "But we were keen to take the temperature on set and figure out what the moment needed," he said. Some scenes called for a handheld camera positioned between the actors — "the three of us in the room." Others demanded a locked-off camera observing from a distance. "The nuance of everything very much came from being in the moment together in the room," he said.

The city itself was a collaborator. Newport-Berra started his career in New York on indie films, student projects and music videos. "I know the city very well. I lived there for over a decade and really fell in love with it," he said. He and Firstman wanted "Club Kid" to feel like an iconic, nostalgic New York movie, though with a fresh perspective. His local crew connections, dating back to his student days, helped.

The scale was small. "We were all carrying camera cases upstairs, cramming into the back of a van to get from one location to another, loading film on the sidewalk and politely asking random bystanders to move out of the way so we could steal a shot," he said. "It was very much a New York indie movie and I love that. I'm proud we got to make that movie there."

What does this change for audiences? "Club Kid" arrives this weekend as evidence that a major-distributor release can still be made the old New York way — on film, on sidewalks, on a budget — with its craft, at least, visible in every frame.