From the time it debuted at Sundance earlier this year, Netflix‘s “Train Dreams” has garnered well deserved accolades for its lush natural imagery and immersive sense of period detail. The story of a logger (Joel Edgerton) who finds himself in a constant battle with nature for much of the 20th century, “Train Dreams” casts an almost supernatural spell on the audience with environments that feel less constructed than found — there’s a sense that the camera just happened to drop in on people whose lives are not normally the stuff of cinema, but whose struggles take on a transcendent beauty in director Clint Bentley‘s hands.
For cinematographer Adolpho Veloso, the key was creating an impressionistic quality that would place the viewer in a contemplative state. “We really wanted it to feel like you’re watching someone’s memories,” Veloso said during IndieWire’s 2025 cinematography craft roundtable, presented by Netflix. “Almost like you found a box full of pictures, and you’re trying to piece those pictures together, and they’re out of order and you don’t know what actually happened. And because we wanted it to be as grounded as possible, we talked a lot about natural light and how to make it feel connectable to the audience.”
That desire to form a connection with the audience led to Veloso and Bentley’s decision to shoot the movie in a narrow aspect ratio more common to still photographs than contemporary cinema. “We came to a 3:2 aspect ratio,” Veloso said. “We thought that could connect to the audience in a way that feels like you’re watching your own pictures on your phone, or your old family photos, just from the associations that aspect ratio has.”
The sense of immediacy was further aided by the production’s choice to shoot everything on location, which gave Veloso the opportunity to respond to natural light in the moment. “Because the sets were all built on location, we had flexibility,” Veloso said. “We would plan something to be inside and then just look outside and say, ‘Oh my God, look at that. Something amazing is happening outside.’ Or if the scene is not working, go outside and see if that works better.”
Veloso felt free to take risks, an approach that yielded some of the most beautiful and surprising images of 2025. “It’s liberating, knowing that you can try things,” he said. “If you’re confident enough in your director not to use something wrong, or or maybe even understand that a little mistake is actually good, then you’re trying things without being afraid. Which is good.”
This conversation was presented in partnership with Netflix.