Tina Kakadelis
The 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival may have wrapped up a month ago, but the movies keep coming. Chelsea Devantez’s Basic premiered at the festival and offered moviegoers a riotous look into modern dating culture. Gloria (Ashley Park) is in a steady relationship with her boyfriend, Nick (Taylor John Smith), but something is nagging at her. Nick’s ex-girlfriend, Kaylinn (Leighton Meester), seems perfect. The sort of perfect that’s alluring, confident, and makes Gloria feel like a slob in comparison. Part of what makes Kaylinn untouchably cool lies in the hands of Director of Photography Veronica Bouza, who sat down with News Editor Tina Kakadelis after the madness of the SXSW festival died down.
Before we dive into Basic, I want to start with your previous film, The Gutter. You’ve talked in the past about how comedies can look good, too, and how that was a main concern when making The Gutter. Why do you think a cinematic look is something people sometimes overlook when they make a comedy?
Veronica Bouza: It’s funny you mention that. Growing up in the ’90s and the 2000s, comedies always looked good. When you looked at the DP, it was always someone well-known. The DP who did The Parent Trap also did Escape from New York, Jurassic Park, Apollo 13, and Death Becomes Her.
In the modern era, a lot of times people are making comedies quickly out the gate. For myself, I’ve been wanting to make comedies that still have that magic and are still beautiful. My process is the same for doing a comedy as a drama. It’s more diving into the characters, seeing where they’re going emotionally, and then making our visual choices off that.
There’s no reason that the medium changes because of a genre. It’s been really fun being able to do projects where I can just focus on making people look good, feel good, but still have the freedom to have fun. It’s all over the place when it comes to comedies and, as a DP, you have to be on your toes.
You really value the long-term director/cinematographer relationship. You’ve mentioned Barry Jenkins and James Laxton as a collaboration you find compelling. What about those long-term creative collaborations is something that’s intriguing to you and that you’re searching for in your career?
It’s beautiful to just grow with someone. I think the DP/director relationship is so hand-in-hand. When you go from project to project, you get to bring that previous experience onto the next one. Same with the crew that you bring on, as well as the other department heads that kind of stay in the same family. It just becomes so familiar. It doesn’t feel like I’m going to work. I feel like I’m just hanging out with my friends, and we’re pulling off crazy ideas.
You see these amazing duos, like Autumn Durald Arkapaw and Ryan Coogler. By having those duos, you’re able to move up as a team rather than every project being a new relationship.
Basic premiered at the 2026 SXSW FIlm & TV Festival. How did you get involved with the project?
I got a meeting for Basic after finishing The Gutter. The director for Basic, Chelsea Devantez, is the wife of The Gutter director Yassir Lester. Chelsea was on set, and she saw how we were navigating things. After we wrapped, she showed me her script, and then it went through development for a few years.
During that time, we were shot listing, pulling references, and building that visual language. It was great because most of the time, I’m just thrown onto a project and it’s like, all right, you got a month to figure it out. With Basic, you feel like you’re cheating in a way to spend so much extra time before prep officially starts.
The feature is based on a short film of the same name that was supposed to play SXSW in 2020. How much of the short film did you use for inspiration for the look? Did you and Chelsea feel like you needed to keep the essence of the camera work from the short?
The short film is the opening scene of the feature, and we did reference a ton. I think the beauty in going from short to feature is how to pay homage to the short. We really dived into a lot of the shot selections in the short. For me, it was about how to amplify it?
In the story, we’re in Gloria’s head, looking at this perfect ex-girlfriend. For me, it was how can we put it over the top? We made it a little more glowy; we put it in your face. We had a ton of fun doubling down on the nonsense. From there, it was like, how can we keep it going?
When we meet Gloria, she’s kind of spiraling. We wanted to stay true to the vignettes of when someone tells a story. It might not be the whole story, and it might be a little flawed in a way, but it’s true in some way. As the story progresses, we’re able to lift the narrative, flip the perspective of how we see that scene. Did we see the whole scene?
You have those beautiful comedic highs and emotional lows of the movies that you were talking about from the ’90s and the early-2000s. They had that nice duality. How do you give space for the emotional arcs while keeping these fun, outlandish sequences, and make it all come together as one film that flows visually?
It goes back to prep, how we’re building our visual language. I think it’s about knowing the spaces where we can take a back seat. There’s a sequence later in the movie where Gloria and Kaylinn are under an umbrella. For that, it was doing less, pulling back. Not playing with crazy camera movements or moving around, but just seeing them for who they are.
The main image that’s been used for promo is of Kaylinn with a glow about her that’s immediately striking. Can you talk a little bit about the development of that shot and how it captures Kaylinn as Gloria perceives her?
The big thing about it was building the illusion of Kaylinn as just this epic, perfect person. We were playing with the lights and this kind of pink, purple vibe. Then we had the idea to give her this halo around her. It’s like the God light, but it’s sassy. It’s all over the place.
It’s really difficult sometimes when you’re doing sequences, when the actor is looking at the camera, because you can’t shy away. You really have to lean in and go all for it. That was the sequence where Gloria sees her, and she’s like, “Oh no, maybe she is perfect, maybe I’m the basic one.” It helps us double down on Gloria’s insecurities.
You’ve been to SXSW with projects before. What was it like this year? What was the reception like at the premiere?
It’s surreal to go back to SXSW. The Gutter premiered there two years ago, so it feels insane to come back and do a night premiere. The first time you come here, you feel like you’re in the right place at the right time. The second time, you’re like, “Oh, I’m doing the right things and building the right connections.” People are seeing my work on the big screen. It’s a great moment to reflect on all the hard work.
As a DP, you fluctuate. You go from shooting a movie you’re super proud of to shooting a really small commercial or documentary, or you’re shooting a short. Sometimes you forget when you’re going through the days that you’re building momentum to do something great. SXSW is that kind of culmination. Just being in that room was electrifying. I’ve seen this movie so many times, but there’s nothing like seeing other faces, and you’re like, okay, cool, it is funny.
That’s the stressful thing with comedies. You think it’s funny and you laugh out loud at your own jokes, but you’re like, wait, I need to make sure, is it funny? It was great to see people of all different ages and ethnicities really kind of fall in love with these two characters.
Speaking of, is the world going to get to see it soon?
I hope so. I think right now they’re trying to figure out a distribution deal, but it’s definitely a movie that needs a theatrical run. It’s a movie for the people. You’ve got to laugh with the people. Especially in this day and age. Anything to get more people to the theaters would be really great.
