In the year 2024, Saturday Night Live is an institution—culturally ubiquitous and perpetually known for “not being as good as it was when I was in college.” Fifty seasons on from its debut, it’s hard to imagine a time when NBC’s late night variety show was seen as such a risky gamble that the network was, in fact, counting on it to fail.
This is the reality audiences are thrust into with Saturday Night. A frantic, frenetic, in-real-time race to get the show prepped and ready for an 11:30 pm premiere. Camera Operatorhad a chance to talk to A camera and Steadicam operator Matthew Moriarty, SOC, along with Director Jason Reitman and Director of Photography Eric Steelberg, about bringing this story to the screen, from finding the film’s voice to working with a massive ensemble cast and only 33 days to shoot the picture.
It is ten o’clock on Saturday night, October 11, 1975, and the first episode of Lorne Michaels’ sketch comedy show goes live in just 90 minutes. There’s just one problem: the show is not ready. There are too many sketches, the credits are not locked, the stage isn’t finished, the cast is on the verge of mutiny, and the network—all things being equal—would rather be airing reruns of Johnny Carson. It’s a mad dash to the finish line as things spiral out of control and the show that would become a cultural institution threatens to collapse under its own weight before it even has a chance to start. Saturday Night is directed by Jason Reitman from a screenplay by Gil Kenan and Reitman. It stars Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, Kaia Gerber, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, and J.K. Simmons.
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David Daut 