Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 394: Lighting Big Budgets and Indie Films with Shane Hurlbut

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BPS 394: Lighting Big Budgets and Indie Films with Shane Hurlbut · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more
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Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifagpodcastnetwork dot com.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three ninety four.
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Speaker 2: Whatever you do, be great at it.
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Speaker 1: Shane Hurlbutt broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
0:23
Speaker 1: when we really should be working on that next draft.
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Speaker 1: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
0:30
Speaker 1: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
0:32
Speaker 1: screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
0:41
Speaker 2: I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show
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Speaker 2: is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
0:48
Speaker 3: Now.
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Speaker 2: Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
0:53
Speaker 2: on the kind of project you are and the goals
0:56
Speaker 2: of the project you are, so we actually break it
0:59
Speaker 2: down by three categories, micro budget, indie film, market and
1:03
Speaker 2: studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a
1:05
Speaker 2: reader that's used to reading tempole movies when your movie
1:08
Speaker 2: is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars.
1:10
Speaker 2: And we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof script coverage,
1:14
Speaker 2: our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, w MEE, NBC, HBO, Disney,
1:19
Speaker 2: Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more.
1:23
Speaker 2: So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
1:27
Speaker 2: by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Now, Guys,
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Speaker 2: today on the show, we have cinematographer and educator Shane Hurlbutt.
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Speaker 2: And you might know Shane's work for movies like Semipro
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Speaker 2: with Will Ferrell, Swing Vote with Kevin Costner, the two
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Speaker 2: hundred million dollar plus budget Terminator Salvation, We are Marshall
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Speaker 2: Into the Blue, the Greatest Game ever played in the
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Speaker 2: list goes on and on, and Shane and I go
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Speaker 2: deep into the weeds on what a take to light
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Speaker 2: a good scene with no budget, with a lot of budget,
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Speaker 2: his experiences in the business, his journey from where he
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Speaker 2: started to where he is today, how he's changed his
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Speaker 2: point of view of how to run a set, how
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Speaker 2: he runs his team, and we also talk about his
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Speaker 2: amazing educational products for cinematographers and so much more so,
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Speaker 2: without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Shane
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Speaker 2: hurlbut I like to welcome to the show, Shane hurle butt.
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Speaker 3: How you doing, Shane Alex, how are you? I'm doing amazing,
2:34
Speaker 3: I'm doing freaking fantastic.
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Speaker 2: I feel that's the pandemic talking sir, No, not at all.
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Speaker 3: I've had a I want to. I love to stay
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Speaker 3: positive in every way, shape and form. And one of
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Speaker 3: the things that I was told by a mentor years
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Speaker 3: ago is like, everyone always comes in to work and
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Speaker 3: they always ask you how you're doing, And I only
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Speaker 3: have two words, fricking fantastic. Every single day. It sets
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Speaker 3: the bar.
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Speaker 2: That's a great that's a great piece of advice, and
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Speaker 2: it does. It does. It does at the day because
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Speaker 2: if you're the cinematographer, you walk on set and your
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Speaker 2: crew is like, how're you doing, You're like, oh man,
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Speaker 2: it's gonna be a rough day. That's just exactly kill
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Speaker 2: kills the day.
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Speaker 3: Kills the day, kills the day. But when you say,
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Speaker 3: you know, because a lot of times I'll be walking
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Speaker 3: in and you know, electric could come in and say hey, Shane,
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Speaker 3: how you doing, I go, I'm fricking fantastic, how are you?
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Speaker 3: And they're like, whoa, this is gonna be amazing day
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Speaker 3: and it just never changes.
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Speaker 2: It's a good piece of advice as directors listening as well.
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Speaker 2: How you doing freaking fantastic?
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Speaker 3: I love it exactly. Yeah, stay positive, Stay positive.
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Speaker 2: So, Shane, your career has been varied. Man, You've gone
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Speaker 2: from indie stuff to all the way to two hundred
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Speaker 2: million dollar plus projects. You've you've done. You've done it
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Speaker 2: all pretty much, and that can't be done with in cinematography.
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Speaker 2: How did you get started?
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Speaker 3: Man, Yeah, that was an interesting journey. I thought I
4:03
Speaker 3: was going to be a DJ.
4:06
Speaker 2: I've never heard that before.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it was a good one.
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Speaker 4: So I was.
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Speaker 3: I started doing the morning announcements at our high school
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Speaker 3: and everyone was like, wow, you got a really good voice.
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Speaker 3: You should, you know, go for radio. And up in
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Speaker 3: upstate New York, we had this radio station that had
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Speaker 3: this incredible guy. I think it was like ninety four rock,
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Speaker 3: you know, and it was a station that I listened
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Speaker 3: to all the time. So I started to become a DJ.
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Speaker 3: So I started doing dances and prom and homecoming and
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Speaker 3: all these different things and went all over the local
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Speaker 3: Upstate New York area. And then when I decided to
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Speaker 3: go to college, I was like you know, I don't
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Speaker 3: want to really burn my parents' money. They were kind
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Speaker 3: enough to say they would help me with my education.
4:59
Speaker 3: So I was like, let me test the water, so
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Speaker 3: let me see if I like this. So I went
5:04
Speaker 3: to a small community college just to see if I
5:07
Speaker 3: really fell in love with radio. Well, the first year
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Speaker 3: was radio. Totally loved it. The second year was television,
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Speaker 3: and the television just blew my mind. That's where it
5:16
Speaker 3: just started to open up these kind of ideas and
5:21
Speaker 3: creative inspiration and everything. And then a friend of mine
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Speaker 3: was directing. He was in the USC directing program, and
5:28
Speaker 3: he came back to our hometown and he was doing
5:30
Speaker 3: a small movie that summer and I just wanted to
5:36
Speaker 3: be a part of it in any way I could.
5:38
Speaker 3: And I was a PA, and then I was a
5:41
Speaker 3: little I was a grip and I was an electric
5:42
Speaker 3: and I was doing everything I could. And at that
5:45
Speaker 3: point I got in with a full ride scholarship to
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Speaker 3: Emerson College in Boston and I went there and that
5:54
Speaker 3: was where I just fell in love with film. But
5:58
Speaker 3: the funny thing is is I hated cinematography. I thought
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Speaker 3: I was going to be a producer because I could.
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Speaker 3: I could convince anybody to do anything I wanted. And
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Speaker 3: I was good with numbers, fair enough, right, I had
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Speaker 3: that passion. I was positive. I was like, all right,
6:19
Speaker 3: you know, I could sell anything as well, you know,
6:21
Speaker 3: so I was like all right, and you know, after
6:24
Speaker 3: about three months of me wearing my mom got me
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Speaker 3: a nice three piece suit, and I was like pounding
6:30
Speaker 3: the pavement in Boston, knocking on doors, and every one
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Speaker 3: of them was just slammed in my face saying, you know, no, no, no.
6:38
Speaker 3: I went back and I said, all right, let me
6:39
Speaker 3: go back to the internship that I had, which was
6:42
Speaker 3: at a local grip electric and camera house in Boston.
6:46
Speaker 3: And that's where I started, and I started to fall
6:48
Speaker 3: in love with grip and lighting and camera, and then
6:55
Speaker 3: I got to a point where within three months, I
6:57
Speaker 3: was running the whole rental division. And then I decided
7:04
Speaker 3: that I was started to go out on jobs because
7:07
Speaker 3: I came from a farm, right, So that's my upbringing.
7:10
Speaker 3: I was we had like a three hundred acre farm
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Speaker 3: in upstate New York, and so I could drive ten
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Speaker 3: ton trucks, forty footers, whatever it was, I could drive it.
7:20
Speaker 3: I started driving trucks and I was the grip truck driver,
7:24
Speaker 3: and I started going out. I was managing the rental
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Speaker 3: division and also going out on jobs, and quickly I
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Speaker 3: saw that the only way I was going to move
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Speaker 3: up in Boston is if the guy or the girl
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Speaker 3: that was above me died. So I knew it was
7:44
Speaker 3: a very limited pool there. So I, you know, my
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Speaker 3: fiance at the time, who was my high school sweetheart, Lydia,
7:54
Speaker 3: who I met at three years old. I said, Lydia,
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Speaker 3: let's go to LA Let's you know, make this mission,
8:04
Speaker 3: this exodus out of the East Coast and go to
8:07
Speaker 3: the West coast. And that's what we did. And I
8:10
Speaker 3: started right back at the bottom again, working at a
8:14
Speaker 3: small little rental house, and then I got a job
8:20
Speaker 3: that they asked me to be the grip truck driver,
8:22
Speaker 3: which meant I had to leave my job at the
8:24
Speaker 3: rental house, which was you know, I finally had a
8:27
Speaker 3: full time job, and I was starting to bring in
8:29
Speaker 3: some money. Ooh, five dollars an hour. I'm with steel
8:32
Speaker 3: toed boots and T shirts and jeans working in the warehouse.
8:38
Speaker 3: But I finally said, okay, I'm going to go for it.
8:41
Speaker 3: So I got on this feature, and this feature was
8:44
Speaker 3: called PHANFASM two.
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Speaker 2: The ball is back nice And.
8:50
Speaker 3: I worked as a grip truck driver and I was
8:52
Speaker 3: averaging about eighteen hour days. I was getting three hundred
8:55
Speaker 3: and fifty dollars a week, so it ended up being like,
8:58
Speaker 3: you know, seventy nine sense an hour or something like
9:01
Speaker 3: that when it was all said down. So that was
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Speaker 3: my break in. And when I was, you know, I
9:10
Speaker 3: was because I knew the truck and organizing everything. I
9:13
Speaker 3: got a call on set Terry Wimmer the key grip goes, Shaye,
9:17
Speaker 3: run me in an eighteen by twenty four flag. So
9:20
Speaker 3: I ran in the grabbed the flag off the truck
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Speaker 3: and ran it in. I was going down these steps
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Speaker 3: into the crematorium set and this best boy electric Brian Coin,
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Speaker 3: very good friend of mine, is an amazing director of
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Speaker 3: photography and director as well. He's walking up the stairs
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Speaker 3: and he goes, would you be scared? And I go, Brian,
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Speaker 3: what the hell are you talking about? I got to
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Speaker 3: run this flag down into Terry. He goes, would you
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Speaker 3: be scared? In the theater.
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Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
9:56
Speaker 2: And now back to the show.
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Speaker 3: Every nook and cranny is lit. There's no shadow. It
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Speaker 3: was like, damn. From that point on, all I looked
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Speaker 3: at was light. And I went from a grip truck
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Speaker 3: driver in nineteen eighty eight to shooting my first music
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Speaker 3: video for Nirvana, Come As You Are, in nineteen ninety one.
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Speaker 3: So in three years I aspired and it just from
10:25
Speaker 3: then on it was just off to the races.
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Speaker 2: That's awesome. What was it like shooting Nirvana? Man, I
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Speaker 2: mean that must have been a god.
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Speaker 3: I did three I did Come As You Are, I
10:35
Speaker 3: did in Bloom, and I did Lithium, I did Stone Temple, Pilots, Vasoline,
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Speaker 3: Interstate Love Song. You know, we did all the nineties,
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Speaker 3: all the great nineties, the drunj era. Yeah, I was
10:51
Speaker 3: really hot on the grun era.
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Speaker 2: That's that's amazing. I have to ask you real quick
10:56
Speaker 2: when you were when you were coming up in the
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Speaker 2: grip departments today, did anyone ever just point over to
11:02
Speaker 2: a pile of cables that were about a mile long
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Speaker 2: and said, entangle those for me?
11:09
Speaker 3: Oh?
11:09
Speaker 2: Yes, so did I.
11:13
Speaker 3: Absolutely? And yeah, there were a lot of lot of
11:18
Speaker 3: crazy gigs. I got myself into condor operation was the
11:24
Speaker 3: worst for me, because you know, they put you up
11:26
Speaker 3: in that condor eighty ninety feet in the air, and
11:29
Speaker 3: I'll never forget one day. It was one of those
11:32
Speaker 3: stories that you remember back in your the history of like,
11:36
Speaker 3: oh my god, I could have died kind of moment.
11:40
Speaker 3: I was working on some really bad, you know, d
11:43
Speaker 3: movie for deferred pay that was a big thing when
11:48
Speaker 3: I was getting.
11:49
Speaker 2: Did you get that? Did you get the defer paid?
11:51
Speaker 3: Oh? Never did? Like twenty of them, man, like twenty
11:55
Speaker 3: the PA never got paid to die. So I'm in
12:00
Speaker 3: this condor and the wind starts kicking up and it's
12:02
Speaker 3: got two eighteen k's in it, and the the gaffer says,
12:08
Speaker 3: you know, we need to bring it down. So I'm like,
12:14
Speaker 3: I go, I need to come down. This is way
12:17
Speaker 3: before all the you know, high tech wind devices and
12:20
Speaker 3: everything and all the beautiful safety things that we have
12:24
Speaker 3: now that this would have never happened. But I was
12:27
Speaker 3: freaking out because the basket was moving around like crazy
12:31
Speaker 3: up there, and he's like, you know, you're not coming down.
12:37
Speaker 3: It's it's fine, you know, And I said, okay, you know,
12:40
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, this big wind gust came up,
12:44
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden that condor just started to
12:48
Speaker 3: go no. So the thing starts slowly going and it's
12:53
Speaker 3: starting to pick up steam and pick up steam and
12:54
Speaker 3: pick up steam. And I'm just looking and I'm like, okay,
12:59
Speaker 3: I'm gonna and it. It's over a ledge, right, It's
13:02
Speaker 3: over like this ravine. No, and that thing is just
13:06
Speaker 3: gonna go right over it. Right. So I'm thinking to myself, Okay,
13:09
Speaker 3: that's gonna crush everyone down below me. And everything is
13:12
Speaker 3: coming down. So at about twenty feet I disconnect my
13:17
Speaker 3: safety harness and I jump, so I land, you know,
13:23
Speaker 3: and roll, you know, just to the side of the
13:25
Speaker 3: ravine so I don't go off of it, and this
13:28
Speaker 3: lift literally comes down and parallels and everyone. It was
13:34
Speaker 3: like it was watching paint dry, even though it happened
13:38
Speaker 3: a lot faster, but it was like and then it
13:41
Speaker 3: just hung there and and then all of a sudden,
13:44
Speaker 3: it was like and then it just started gathering steam,
13:50
Speaker 3: you know, and everything. And then it just went quack
13:52
Speaker 3: like this, and the eighteen K.
13:54
Speaker 5: Shot out of the dam lift and it was the
13:58
Speaker 5: coolest lighting effect I remember see in my life, because
14:01
Speaker 5: the ATK's went boom and then everything went jet black.
14:05
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
14:07
Speaker 3: The gaffer came over to me, and you started yelling
14:10
Speaker 3: at me, like yelling at me. I was killed by someone.
14:14
Speaker 3: I was going to kill everyone else too, because this
14:17
Speaker 3: thing would have gone right over the ravine. It was
14:19
Speaker 3: going to take out the whole camera department. Oh my god. Yeah, yeah,
14:24
Speaker 3: he yelled at me. Yeah that was That's that's how
14:27
Speaker 3: that's how it was done back then.
14:29
Speaker 2: Oh my god. So you literally, I mean if you
14:32
Speaker 2: would have been it could have easily instead of stopping
14:34
Speaker 2: and you could have kept going because of your weight.
14:36
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it would have kept on going because uh
14:39
Speaker 3: you know, here was the this We were shooting on
14:42
Speaker 3: a road like this, and the condor was out like
14:44
Speaker 3: this backlighting end, yeah, poplight. So I was going like
14:49
Speaker 3: this over the ravine with the eighteen case. So I
14:52
Speaker 3: jumped just to the side of the road and rolled
14:54
Speaker 3: down this thing, so it would have gone over caught
14:58
Speaker 3: that neck, and then the whole door would have gone
15:00
Speaker 3: over the edge.
15:02
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's insane. What what you was? This
15:05
Speaker 2: was this the nineties? This eighties? Eight Yeah, oh yeah,
15:09
Speaker 2: that's the eighties were how we survived. The eighties. As
15:11
Speaker 2: a general statement, is right, It's like people kids today
15:17
Speaker 2: are like looking around like, oh, oh this hurts or
15:20
Speaker 2: that hurts. I'm like, are you kidding me? What we had?
15:23
Speaker 2: You are just looking at our playgrounds in the seventies
15:29
Speaker 2: and eighties.
15:30
Speaker 3: I know, our playgrounds were literally torture chambers. Now they're like,
15:35
Speaker 3: you know, they got the foam o the row everywhere.
15:39
Speaker 3: So if you fall and your bounce and it's beautiful.
15:42
Speaker 2: It was straight. It was straight concrete. It was straight
15:44
Speaker 2: concrete five stories up on the monkey bars. You would fall,
15:48
Speaker 2: crack your skull, or you would go to the top
15:50
Speaker 2: story of the slide that was metal and then your
15:53
Speaker 2: schwarts in the middle of the summer and get their
15:55
Speaker 2: degree burns and your skins peel off because it's so
16:01
Speaker 2: damn hot. You're like, now it's all plastic and it's
16:05
Speaker 2: all like, oh, it's that's what, Yes, exactly, That's an
16:12
Speaker 2: amazing story. That's an amazing story. So so you, I mean,
16:17
Speaker 2: you've you've lit some very large sets and some very
16:21
Speaker 2: big action sequenceys and thinking of Terminator, how do you
16:25
Speaker 2: approach lighting these massive set pieces. I mean, these sets
16:29
Speaker 2: are massive with you know, hundreds, if not thousands of
16:32
Speaker 2: people running around the effects. You're thinking about practicals, I mean,
16:38
Speaker 2: just as a cinematographer, how do you approach mentally to
16:42
Speaker 2: to cover that and light it and then cover it?
16:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know the big the kind of big
16:49
Speaker 3: footprint you know, lighting setups or something that I absolutely love.
16:55
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of you think about it. I
16:59
Speaker 3: kind of take it apart. Like a let's say a
17:01
Speaker 3: football field, right if you can shoot three directions on
17:05
Speaker 3: it with the light. If I if I light it
17:08
Speaker 3: from this direction, then it's a sidelight to this way,
17:12
Speaker 3: it's a sidelight that way, and it's a back lit
17:15
Speaker 3: this way. So you got three areas that you can
17:20
Speaker 3: cover from creating one big light source. Let's say so
17:24
Speaker 3: let's say Terminator Salvation for example, the processing plant that
17:28
Speaker 3: we did where you know, all those people are being
17:31
Speaker 3: pushed by that bulldozer thing that you know, I embedded
17:34
Speaker 3: these spikes in it and these lights that eruughed and
17:37
Speaker 3: it starts pushing the people and we kind of, you know,
17:40
Speaker 3: I wanted everything is all about the you know, lighting
17:45
Speaker 3: the background first, then lighting the mid ground, then eventually
17:50
Speaker 3: the fore ground where the actors might be playing. So
17:55
Speaker 3: my big thing for that was, Okay, how can I
17:58
Speaker 3: create this incredibly you know, really scary tone in this
18:08
Speaker 3: terminator salvation processing plan. So I was like, all right,
18:12
Speaker 3: what if I get some metal haldline lights and get
18:16
Speaker 3: like sixty of them and line them up on basically
18:21
Speaker 3: creates stadium lights. So we created these massive fifty five
18:26
Speaker 3: foot pettybones with I think it was like twenty metal
18:30
Speaker 3: halides on each one, and they were like in racks
18:33
Speaker 3: of you know, five across, four high, and we catapulted
18:39
Speaker 3: those up. And what I wanted to do, and you
18:42
Speaker 3: don't see it in the movie because they cut it
18:44
Speaker 3: out beforehand, but what these things did is they aim
18:49
Speaker 3: straight up in the air and they were all full
18:52
Speaker 3: spot and it almost looked like a tractor beam. And
18:57
Speaker 3: that was the whole idea, is through the fog and
19:01
Speaker 3: the dirt and all that stuff, this was the guiding
19:05
Speaker 3: light for you know, the transporters to come in and
19:09
Speaker 3: settle down into the area. It was like this tractor beam.
19:12
Speaker 3: And then I racked them straight up and then as
19:15
Speaker 3: they came in and landed, these things started to tilt
19:18
Speaker 3: down and just you know, expose the whole bed of
19:23
Speaker 3: several transporters that are dropping all these people off. So
19:27
Speaker 3: that was my first big approach for lighting something that
19:30
Speaker 3: was like five football fields long and a football field
19:35
Speaker 3: wide is just the motivation of what the emotion is, like, Okay,
19:41
Speaker 3: these are the machines. Let's go metal haldline. Let's turn
19:44
Speaker 3: it that blue green kind of nastiness. Let's inject these
19:49
Speaker 3: white beaming lights that flare the lens and are foreboding
19:54
Speaker 3: and dangerous for people.
19:56
Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
20:04
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
20:07
Speaker 3: And then do it in a way that you know,
20:10
Speaker 3: I put a very subtle amount of fill, so it's
20:13
Speaker 3: still had that dark, dark nature to it, but you
20:16
Speaker 3: could barely see into the shadows areas to to uh
20:20
Speaker 3: you know, to see uh that emotion from their faces
20:24
Speaker 3: and stuff. So, you know, lighting the big venues is
20:27
Speaker 3: usually starting with just one big source. And where is
20:31
Speaker 3: that one big source coming from. I could go to
20:35
Speaker 3: like Greatest Game where I would take a huge grand
20:41
Speaker 3: ballroom and Copley at like the Copley Place, and it
20:44
Speaker 3: was up in Montreal, and we found this amazing ornate
20:51
Speaker 3: turn of the Sentry ballroom and it's like the the
20:56
Speaker 3: bones are there, there's beautiful warm practicals and everything. But
21:02
Speaker 3: if it's just that and just the window light it
21:06
Speaker 3: doesn't feel grand. So it's like you have to bring
21:09
Speaker 3: that out with you know. I put a huge source
21:12
Speaker 3: on the right hand side that was out of frame,
21:15
Speaker 3: that was twelve by twelve, you know, bleached muslins and
21:21
Speaker 3: I pounded eighteen k's into them and then shaped it
21:25
Speaker 3: with siders and toppers to feel like more window light
21:28
Speaker 3: that we don't see, like the ballroom goes on forever,
21:33
Speaker 3: right right, right right, And again that's also the thing
21:36
Speaker 3: of selling the illusion. Right, So this we still have
21:40
Speaker 3: a beautiful wide shot from the second story and we're
21:42
Speaker 3: pushing in ever so slightly, but wow, there's this light
21:46
Speaker 3: coming in, so the ballroom must be going on for
21:49
Speaker 3: even more, you know. So lighting also these elements create
21:56
Speaker 3: the illusion of bigger locations than they actually are. So
22:00
Speaker 3: just by bringing in that kind of cold tone mixed
22:03
Speaker 3: with the warm practicals and the sconces that are on
22:06
Speaker 3: the wall, it was a very easy light in that
22:10
Speaker 3: location because it just basically was started with practicals and
22:15
Speaker 3: one huge source. I try to kiss it, keep it simple, stupid,
22:20
Speaker 3: Like the more you add lights, the more complicated everything gets.
22:25
Speaker 3: So I try to, you know, start with one big
22:29
Speaker 3: source and then slowly add on to that. And the
22:32
Speaker 3: background is something that is everything to me. So I
22:38
Speaker 3: light that first and create all the depth and dimension,
22:41
Speaker 3: whether it's boca, whether it's you know, out of focus,
22:44
Speaker 3: other highlights or or whatever it is that plays with
22:48
Speaker 3: light and shadow back there to give it depth and dimension,
22:51
Speaker 3: that three dimensional quality. And then I slowly move to
22:54
Speaker 3: the mid ground and then to the foreground where the
22:57
Speaker 3: actors are moving. And I generally try to light an area,
23:02
Speaker 3: not marx. One thing that Harris Savits uh taught me,
23:07
Speaker 3: and he was so spot on with this. He goes, Shane,
23:11
Speaker 3: light an area, not a mark, because you want the
23:15
Speaker 3: actors to feel that they can move in this area
23:19
Speaker 3: and that it feels not so perfect and and a
23:23
Speaker 3: little like it's beauty raw, I would say. And that's
23:26
Speaker 3: where I'd say, Ben Heutman, you know, he's a he's
23:31
Speaker 3: another amazing director of photography, and he lights exactly like that.
23:36
Speaker 3: It's imperfect, but it's still beautiful. You know, it has
23:40
Speaker 3: that rawness to it. And Uh, and you do that
23:44
Speaker 3: by just lighting an area and not necessarily lighting marks,
23:48
Speaker 3: because lighting marks, you're gonna they're gonna nail their mark.
23:50
Speaker 3: And you can have the perfect wrap on the key
23:52
Speaker 3: light and the perfect back light and nice fill and everything.
23:55
Speaker 3: But when you have to light a larger area for
23:58
Speaker 3: them to move in, the perfections of the light actually
24:03
Speaker 3: add to authenticity and reality, and I feel it feels
24:07
Speaker 3: more organic.
24:08
Speaker 2: There's a movie that when I speak to cinematographers of
24:11
Speaker 2: all status from the early you know, guys just trying
24:15
Speaker 2: to come up to establish established cinematographers like yourself, there's
24:19
Speaker 2: a movie. And there's many movies that we can point to,
24:21
Speaker 2: but there's one movie that I personally love, but it
24:24
Speaker 2: is kind of like this holy grail of cinematography. In
24:27
Speaker 2: many ways, there are many holy grails of cinematography, but
24:30
Speaker 2: this is one searching for. Bobby Fisher is one of
24:33
Speaker 2: those because and I always ask him, like, it's it's
24:36
Speaker 2: a family film. It's like, it's not grand, it's not flashy.
24:41
Speaker 2: And but when I talk to cinematographers about that film,
24:44
Speaker 2: it was Conrad, right, was Conrad Ad Hall?
24:46
Speaker 3: Conra and Hall?
24:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, he was doing things that no one had
24:50
Speaker 2: done before. He was using mirrors. Do you know what
24:53
Speaker 2: he did and how he lit that?
24:55
Speaker 3: Yeah? I worked with Conra at Hall a little bit
24:58
Speaker 3: for a very short stint as like a gaffer kind
25:01
Speaker 3: of slash grip scenario. And one of the things I
25:06
Speaker 3: was amazed with is he's a hard light lighter. That's
25:09
Speaker 3: what he does. Hard light is his best uh, that's
25:15
Speaker 3: his toolbox. And what he does is every light on
25:20
Speaker 3: set is full spot. Really, there's no full flood. So
25:25
Speaker 3: if he's trying to cast shadows, yes, of course he's
25:28
Speaker 3: gonna full flood it so he can get the hard shadows.
25:31
Speaker 3: But when he's lighting a face, that light is full
25:34
Speaker 3: spot and then it's scrimmed down to exactly the right level.
25:38
Speaker 3: So we were constantly like, I was like, when I
25:41
Speaker 3: walk on side, I was like, what is with all
25:42
Speaker 3: these double and triple scrim bags on the damn lights?
25:46
Speaker 3: Who the hell needs that many scrims, you know? And
25:49
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden he's like, you know, spotting
25:51
Speaker 3: the thing in and I'm like, damn, that's bright, And
25:53
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, the full house became the thing.
25:56
Speaker 3: Two doubles in a single boom, you know, full house.
25:59
Speaker 3: It okay, another full house, and I'm like, how the
26:02
Speaker 3: hell does that even fit in there? And there, you know,
26:04
Speaker 3: grip clipping the things on the outside you know, take
26:08
Speaker 3: it down. But that was how he lit and searching
26:11
Speaker 3: for Bobby Fisher used tons of that hard shadow and
26:15
Speaker 3: hard light to really show the emotions of them and
26:20
Speaker 3: all the characters. And you know, another great one is
26:24
Speaker 3: Road to Their Dish. You know that's all hard light,
26:30
Speaker 3: and you know the way he positions them and the
26:34
Speaker 3: you know, once working with him, my moonlight is always silver.
26:39
Speaker 3: It's like he really dialed in the silver moonlight. There
26:44
Speaker 3: was nobody that did silver moonlight like him. And that's
26:48
Speaker 3: that's something that I responded to and I've always done
26:51
Speaker 3: my silver moonlight is where it's at. And you know
26:54
Speaker 3: another person that does that very well is Bob Richardson.
26:58
Speaker 3: Like snow Falling on Seedars is probably within the top
27:04
Speaker 3: five greatest cinematic achievements ever.
27:08
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if you've ever seen I haven't
27:11
Speaker 2: seen one.
27:12
Speaker 3: Snowfalling on Seatars is an absolute masterpiece. Wow. And you
27:17
Speaker 3: know it's people always say, Shane, what is this with
27:20
Speaker 3: your style of only lighting from one side? I'm like, guys,
27:25
Speaker 3: just look at snowfalling on Seedars. It's it's got it,
27:29
Speaker 3: you know, It's like, because what I love is that
27:32
Speaker 3: just that timeless light from one side. The film never
27:36
Speaker 3: crosses over to this side. Everything is lit from one
27:40
Speaker 3: side of the other. And then you use the background
27:43
Speaker 3: to separate the dark side and that thing.
27:47
Speaker 2: You don't feel that, and you don't feel or you
27:49
Speaker 2: do a little film.
27:50
Speaker 3: I fill from over camera. I never fill from the
27:53
Speaker 3: opposite side. Reallything is one hundred and eighty degrees.
27:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, interesting, so you never So you don't do standard
28:00
Speaker 2: real point lighting as as they've taught in school. It's different.
28:03
Speaker 3: No, it's it's three point lighting, all from one side. Interesting,
28:09
Speaker 3: back light is on the same side as the key light,
28:12
Speaker 3: the same side of the fill light, so everything is coming.
28:16
Speaker 3: So the backlight is not a dead back, it's a
28:19
Speaker 3: three quarterback. And then you add the softness of a
28:23
Speaker 3: key or a hard light of a key, so you
28:24
Speaker 3: gotta so that's like a key on key scenario, as
28:27
Speaker 3: I call it, because you're keing with the back light
28:30
Speaker 3: as well as wrapping the fill. And then what I'll
28:33
Speaker 3: do is I'll do this kind of kind of a
28:36
Speaker 3: J shape that goes from hard to semi hard to
28:42
Speaker 3: soft just super soft all the way around. And that's
28:47
Speaker 3: kind of you know, if I'm doing any kind of
28:50
Speaker 3: scenario where people are walking into frame or I'm lighting
28:53
Speaker 3: an area. That's kind of how I attack it. It's like,
28:59
Speaker 3: you know, it starts and then it moves around to like,
29:02
Speaker 3: you know, just a cream source with magic cloth. Nice.
29:06
Speaker 2: Nice. That's a very very interesting way of going about it. Now,
29:09
Speaker 2: there's an we get caught up so much with cameras
29:13
Speaker 2: or cinematographers and filmmakers get caught up with like, what's
29:16
Speaker 2: the latest K? What's the latest this? What's how many?
29:19
Speaker 2: I need? Forty five K? Really do you need forty
29:22
Speaker 2: five K? Do you do you really need? Are you
29:24
Speaker 2: shooting Imax? Really for five hundred for fifty thousand dollars? Independent?
29:28
Speaker 2: Independent feature?
29:28
Speaker 3: You need?
29:29
Speaker 2: You need the forty five K? So what is your
29:33
Speaker 2: The one thing I always tell filmmakers when they're like
29:35
Speaker 2: what should I invest in? I go glass. If you're
29:37
Speaker 2: gonna invest it's always glass. Glass doesn't go unless you
29:42
Speaker 2: you're shooting forty five K. Then you might need to
29:43
Speaker 2: figure out a glass that's big enough to cover the sensor.
29:47
Speaker 2: But but what glass do you are drawn to for
29:52
Speaker 2: your projects? Is it a per project basis or is
29:54
Speaker 2: there a specific kind of glass that you really like?
29:57
Speaker 2: Because I know cinematographers in their glass is very they're
30:00
Speaker 2: very specific about We'll be right back after a word
30:04
Speaker 2: from our sponsor and now back to the show what
30:12
Speaker 2: they really love.
30:12
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, you know it is based on per project
30:16
Speaker 3: because I feel that the glass is the soul of
30:19
Speaker 3: the movie. The camera is the tool, you know, it's
30:24
Speaker 3: it's kind of the let's say it's the the foundation
30:29
Speaker 3: of of of of you know, and that the foundation
30:34
Speaker 3: and let's say it's the mortar, but the bricks, the
30:38
Speaker 3: soul of the building is the glass. And you know,
30:44
Speaker 3: I've gone like every project like let's say, greatest game
30:48
Speaker 3: ever played, right I you know, working with Bill Paxton,
30:53
Speaker 3: you know, we we stumbled onto a look of this
30:56
Speaker 3: book called Bound for Glory, which was all these reclaim aimed.
31:00
Speaker 3: They found them in some person's addict in Kansas City, Missouri.
31:08
Speaker 3: That were all these old codachrome prints from the FSA
31:12
Speaker 3: area era. And because the FSA had shot black and
31:16
Speaker 3: white throughout the whole time. But when Kodak came out
31:20
Speaker 3: with codochrome in the late nineteen thirties, they sixteen hundred
31:26
Speaker 3: prints were struck and these were printed in this book
31:30
Speaker 3: Bound for Glory, and both Bill and I really resonated
31:34
Speaker 3: that this is going to be the look for the
31:36
Speaker 3: Greatest Game. We wanted it to feel period, but we
31:39
Speaker 3: also wanted it to have a contemporary style to camera.
31:44
Speaker 3: So it's like we delivered a period look, but the
31:47
Speaker 3: camera we flew with the camera, you know, with the
31:50
Speaker 3: ball and went into the hole and we showed the
31:53
Speaker 3: power of each individual golfer got inside their head. And
31:58
Speaker 3: so I did a lot of search on you know,
32:01
Speaker 3: old glass, and I went to Panavision and I just
32:04
Speaker 3: dug into their archives for about three days, and I
32:09
Speaker 3: came out with these old Zeiss ultraspeeds Mark two's. They
32:16
Speaker 3: were like made in the late sixties, and their coding
32:21
Speaker 3: was not the greatest, and when you put them down
32:25
Speaker 3: to a T two they started to really full pull
32:29
Speaker 3: point one three. There was even there was a lens
32:32
Speaker 3: that was specifically done for Stanley Kubrick, and that was
32:36
Speaker 3: a fifty mil at a T one, right, so I
32:40
Speaker 3: had I always had that one in my arsenal. I
32:42
Speaker 3: grabbed that one. I had the fifty five. We called
32:45
Speaker 3: it the jacked up fifty or the double nickel. They
32:48
Speaker 3: were all these weird focal lanes A twenty A twenty nine,
32:53
Speaker 3: twenty nine Wow twenty nine, which was is the greatest
32:57
Speaker 3: steadycam lens on the planet. The uh it had you know,
33:05
Speaker 3: like the double nickel to fifty five, it had sixteen
33:10
Speaker 3: you know, just all these very weird focal lengths. And
33:13
Speaker 3: we did a series of tests and I it took
33:16
Speaker 3: me twenty different sets to find a matching three set right,
33:22
Speaker 3: either yellow or just all jacked up. And they were,
33:25
Speaker 3: you know, everyone was like, why are you shooting with
33:27
Speaker 3: these things? Shane? These things were fifteen dollars a day
33:30
Speaker 3: to rent. That's it. Fifteen dollars a day.
33:34
Speaker 2: Wow.
33:35
Speaker 3: And then once they were like Panavision kept on saying, wow,
33:39
Speaker 3: Shane's really you know when I did Semi Pro, I
33:42
Speaker 3: used that same glass and it did we are Marshall,
33:44
Speaker 3: I use that same glass because it has a great
33:47
Speaker 3: period look. And they're like, what is going on with Shane?
33:50
Speaker 3: Why is he always shooting with these things? We got
33:52
Speaker 3: to investigate these. So then they took them and turned
33:57
Speaker 3: them into the classics now so I think they call
34:01
Speaker 3: them the vintage primes. So all the Mark twos were
34:05
Speaker 3: rehoused because one thing shooting with them, which is difficult.
34:10
Speaker 3: Some lenses said this, some lenses said that, someone said this.
34:13
Speaker 3: You know, they were all over the map, so it
34:14
Speaker 3: created all these doughnuts and all these Yeah. Yeah, they
34:18
Speaker 3: slows the filmmaking process down every time you change a lens, right,
34:21
Speaker 3: So they pee vintaged these, put a new coding on
34:25
Speaker 3: them and then rehoused them so they're all the same
34:30
Speaker 3: millimeter diameter.
34:32
Speaker 5: Uh.
34:32
Speaker 3: And you know, now they go for one hundred and
34:35
Speaker 3: fifty dollars a day, but it was the same glass
34:38
Speaker 3: I use for per fifteen dollars a day. And you
34:41
Speaker 3: can still get the Mark twos that are not pee vintage,
34:44
Speaker 3: and I go to those a lot as well. I'm
34:46
Speaker 3: always constantly, you know, bringing my set that I had resurrected.
34:50
Speaker 3: I'm like, can you find the serial numbers from back
34:53
Speaker 3: in the day of yore? And they're like, yes, we
34:55
Speaker 3: have them in your system. Here they are, And those
34:57
Speaker 3: are the lenses I end up shooting with. So I
35:00
Speaker 3: love the old vintage glass. I'm not the big anamorphic guy.
35:05
Speaker 3: I know. Anamorphic is a massive craze right now, everyone's
35:10
Speaker 3: all into this thing. I couldn't be further from that.
35:16
Speaker 3: I like spherical spherical feels more real, Spherical feels more intimate.
35:22
Speaker 3: And when you get those wide angles pushed in close
35:26
Speaker 3: and really into the scene, which you cannot do with
35:28
Speaker 3: anamorphics because they cannot focus, you don't feel intimate with
35:33
Speaker 3: the actors. I always feel anamorphic lenses, you're a pedestrian.
35:38
Speaker 3: Why would you want that? Now? Of course there's tons
35:41
Speaker 3: of movies that don't feel like pedestrian that have been
35:44
Speaker 3: shot on anamorphics that are awesome. This is just my
35:47
Speaker 3: point of view. This is how I look at lenses
35:50
Speaker 3: and how I feel because I'm much more of a
35:54
Speaker 3: person that not a long lensier, stand back and lens in.
35:59
Speaker 3: I like to be much more immersive. Not really started
36:05
Speaker 3: with all the sports movies. I started to do because
36:08
Speaker 3: I felt, you know, getting inside the action and inside
36:12
Speaker 3: the game was much more powerful than showing the audience
36:18
Speaker 3: what they've already seen on television right from the outside. Now,
36:23
Speaker 3: what you have to do is a beautiful balance of
36:26
Speaker 3: lensing from the outside to show geography and getting into
36:30
Speaker 3: the game. You can't just do in the game because
36:32
Speaker 3: nobody knows where the hell you are on the field,
36:35
Speaker 3: So you do those outside in shots and that's something
36:39
Speaker 3: where I call it the inside out right. It's like
36:42
Speaker 3: I try to first take apart the scene from doing
36:46
Speaker 3: it all inside inside the game so you feel completely intimate,
36:50
Speaker 3: and then you say, what do you need to tell
36:53
Speaker 3: the story? Geography, and that's what you use from the outside.
36:57
Speaker 3: So it's not like, Okay, let's establish it. You know,
37:01
Speaker 3: it's not outside in, it's inside out. Now.
37:04
Speaker 2: Did you ever have you ever shot with the kinnoptic kinnoptic?
37:07
Speaker 5: Uh?
37:08
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I got that thing to me.
37:11
Speaker 2: No, not the camera, the lens, the kinnoptic. The Oh I.
37:14
Speaker 3: Thought you were talking about that weird Chinese No.
37:17
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no that one. No the the uh
37:21
Speaker 2: this because this is my I love vintage lenses, so
37:23
Speaker 2: I'm a vintage hound for lenses.
37:25
Speaker 3: Uh.
37:25
Speaker 2: The Kinnoptic nine point two, which is what Kubrick shot, Uh,
37:29
Speaker 2: shining inside the inside the maze, shining following the following
37:33
Speaker 2: the boy, and then in clockwork orange if you the
37:37
Speaker 2: panning right before the uh they break in, they pan
37:41
Speaker 2: from that, that's all it's It's a it's a nine
37:44
Speaker 2: point two without without fish eye. So then I got
37:48
Speaker 2: the sixteen version of that. Sorry, guys, we're gonna geek
37:51
Speaker 2: out for a second. I got the sixteen I got
37:54
Speaker 2: the sixteen millimeters version of that, which is a five
37:56
Speaker 2: point seven and connected into the Black Magic Pocket ten
37:59
Speaker 2: eighty and it's stune. I shot my last feature with it.
38:03
Speaker 2: It's done. It's just no, no, no fish eye. But
38:08
Speaker 2: you need light. It's great for outside, inside you gotta
38:10
Speaker 2: pump some light into it. But it's I always thought
38:13
Speaker 2: some of dps about that, and they're like, you mean
38:15
Speaker 2: no fish eye, Like it's such an old lines that
38:17
Speaker 2: it's it's I call it the Kubrick because Stanley loved,
38:20
Speaker 2: love shooting with that. Have you ever shot with it?
38:23
Speaker 3: No, I haven't. I got to check that thing out.
38:25
Speaker 3: I mean, I I do love the Cowas always was
38:28
Speaker 3: a fan of the Cowas. I I really like those
38:32
Speaker 3: I like the old you know, the the a lot
38:37
Speaker 3: of the the seist that they took, like the coatings off.
38:41
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah no, and all those guys have uh
38:45
Speaker 3: you know, done a lot of re engineering on a
38:47
Speaker 3: lot of the older glass. But I I do, like
38:51
Speaker 3: I said, it's project by project. But one thing that
38:54
Speaker 3: I've been doing a lot lately is using Laika and
38:57
Speaker 3: I've always been a fan of Laika. If you look
39:00
Speaker 3: at all the Panavision glass, Panavision were Lights glass. It
39:04
Speaker 3: was not Panavision glass, it was Light's glass. So and
39:08
Speaker 3: that's what I really responded to coming up in my career,
39:11
Speaker 3: I was all about the Panavision Primo Prime. So when
39:14
Speaker 3: the new Sumicrons and sumaluxes came out with the Laikas,
39:19
Speaker 3: I did tests on both and I found that, you know,
39:23
Speaker 3: the Suma luxes with the one three give you an
39:27
Speaker 3: amazing you know, shallow depth of field and much more
39:30
Speaker 3: of a flatter field. They're very clinical. But the Sumicrons
39:38
Speaker 3: at a T two and basically ten thousand dollars less
39:43
Speaker 3: a lens, they have more of the imperfections, and they're
39:47
Speaker 3: better with skin, and they they don't flatten out a face.
39:54
Speaker 3: The face has dimension.
39:57
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
40:03
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
40:06
Speaker 3: So those have been like my secret weapon for a
40:10
Speaker 3: lot of the work that I've been doing lately. Is
40:13
Speaker 3: I just love the sumicrons and they I don't need
40:18
Speaker 3: a one three. I love my T two, no problem,
40:22
Speaker 3: you know, but then you go for like need for speed.
40:25
Speaker 3: I shot with cook S fours. I love that Fathers
40:29
Speaker 3: and Daughters Cooks fours terminator. I shot with Panavision Primos.
40:36
Speaker 3: I loved the way they flared. I loved the yeah contrast,
40:42
Speaker 3: also the contrast of those lenses. They have a real
40:44
Speaker 3: good contrast ratio. So yeah, it's it's it's really per
40:49
Speaker 3: project for sure. And I think, you know, I was
40:52
Speaker 3: I was interviewing for a project recently, and I was like,
40:58
Speaker 3: there were kind of two differ worlds, and I was
41:02
Speaker 3: looking at a lot of tests with the az News
41:05
Speaker 3: those new Premiere primes that came out, and that glass
41:10
Speaker 3: has a slight magenta to it. It's got a slight
41:13
Speaker 3: softness in the center and it creams out beautifully. So
41:18
Speaker 3: I was going to use that for this area of
41:21
Speaker 3: the movie. And then the more kind of you know,
41:26
Speaker 3: raw and gritty I was actually going to do, like
41:30
Speaker 3: the Zeiss signature primes that have much more of a bold,
41:36
Speaker 3: contrasty look. So just using glass to tell the story
41:40
Speaker 3: and not necessarily your color correction. Pay.
41:44
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you. I always love asking dp's this,
41:46
Speaker 2: what was the best time you've ever had on set?
41:50
Speaker 2: Like the most fun that you Like, everything was clicking
41:54
Speaker 2: either either just something that happened fun on the set
41:57
Speaker 2: or the lighting was just like, man, I nailed it.
42:04
Speaker 3: Let's see. There's been a lot of those moments. One
42:10
Speaker 3: I think that really comes to mind, and it has
42:13
Speaker 3: a soft part in my heart, was when I was
42:16
Speaker 3: doing We Are Marshall. We were shooting and in Huntington,
42:22
Speaker 3: West Virginia for the first three weeks of the movie,
42:25
Speaker 3: and so we were all at those locations where it
42:30
Speaker 3: all went down. We went to the airfield where the
42:33
Speaker 3: plane crashed, We went to the university and took all
42:38
Speaker 3: that flavor in And there was a scene that we
42:44
Speaker 3: did out in the middle of nowhere on this lone
42:49
Speaker 3: road where Matthew Fox, who was Red, who did not
42:53
Speaker 3: hop on the plane, he drove and it was my
42:59
Speaker 3: dad had come down with pancreatitis. And I've never had
43:04
Speaker 3: to leave a movie, and I had to. They told
43:08
Speaker 3: me he was going to die. So I went to
43:11
Speaker 3: mcg and I said, Mick g I need a week off.
43:14
Speaker 3: I gotta go see my dad. He's on his deathbed.
43:17
Speaker 3: So I flew back to Syracuse, New York, and stayed
43:22
Speaker 3: with my dad for a week and he actually turned around.
43:27
Speaker 3: And when I flew back. The first shot I did
43:32
Speaker 3: was this lone road with the isolated gas station in
43:36
Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere, and I just remember coming up
43:40
Speaker 3: and I'm like, you know, all right, let's encircle that
43:43
Speaker 3: thing with yellow fluorescence around the exterior. Let's put a
43:48
Speaker 3: metal halide back behind to glow those trees, and let's
43:52
Speaker 3: put one loane, you know, two twenty four light dinos,
43:56
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty foot condor, and just bring moonlight
44:00
Speaker 3: down the street, wet it down so it has that glisten,
44:04
Speaker 3: and I just put the camera. The camera didn't even
44:06
Speaker 3: have to move. It was just like bam, and we
44:10
Speaker 3: see that lone car with the headlights and he pulls
44:12
Speaker 3: over in the gas station and it was like, those
44:15
Speaker 3: are one of those iconic moments where my god, I
44:18
Speaker 3: thought my dad was going to die. I, you know,
44:21
Speaker 3: stumble on set basically got off the plane right, you know,
44:26
Speaker 3: in Night Exterars, So I had to turn myself around
44:28
Speaker 3: into Nights and you know, this was the first frame
44:32
Speaker 3: that came out of me after all that emotion that
44:36
Speaker 3: I had gone through, and that was like a very
44:39
Speaker 3: defining moment. And then recently I worked on this movie
44:44
Speaker 3: that was like a teen rom com and it was
44:48
Speaker 3: with a director Emily King, and it was she was
44:53
Speaker 3: from Hong Kong and she had amazing pitch deck on
44:59
Speaker 3: the movie and her vision was very strong and we
45:03
Speaker 3: just completely bonded shot listing and coming up with this thing.
45:09
Speaker 3: And the last three days of the film were our
45:14
Speaker 3: big dance numbers because they did the musical Bye by
45:18
Speaker 3: Bertie and I and Emily and the production designer did
45:24
Speaker 3: not want to do it like most high school musicals
45:29
Speaker 3: would have done it very literally. We wanted to take
45:32
Speaker 3: a very kind of surreal take on this and very
45:37
Speaker 3: abstract and the lighting and then working with the dance,
45:43
Speaker 3: the dance team and the choreography to be able to
45:46
Speaker 3: put all these lights in and how they positioned and
45:49
Speaker 3: moved with the dancers. And I'm just telling you, I
45:54
Speaker 3: was at that monitor and when the shit all came together,
45:58
Speaker 3: it was apps loop magic and it was like one
46:03
Speaker 3: of those kind of moments where you just look back
46:05
Speaker 3: and you say, my god, I just I'd love when
46:09
Speaker 3: you know it's all the departments just all you know,
46:13
Speaker 3: fueling on twelve cylinders. It's like you got production design
46:16
Speaker 3: just knocking out the set and the abstract nature of it.
46:19
Speaker 3: You got my lighting team that is just bringing the
46:22
Speaker 3: excellence and precision. You got the dancers delivering every single time,
46:28
Speaker 3: no matter how many times I said, Okay, we got
46:30
Speaker 3: to do it again. And it's like the eightieth time,
46:33
Speaker 3: and they were like saying, you know, Shane, we see
46:35
Speaker 3: so much of your passion and what you're in. When
46:38
Speaker 3: you told us we had to do it for the
46:39
Speaker 3: eighty first time, we were all in, even though we
46:42
Speaker 3: were spent, you know. And it's like that kind of
46:46
Speaker 3: positive nature and seeing it all happen on screen, and
46:51
Speaker 3: then the wave of accolades from the choreographer to the
46:57
Speaker 3: dancers to everyone saying that they just felt like, you know,
47:01
Speaker 3: this small little unit was was making everything so special
47:06
Speaker 3: and we cared so much that they were represented so beautifully,
47:13
Speaker 3: And I don't know, it's just just one of those
47:15
Speaker 3: kind of moments where you kind of just you sit
47:17
Speaker 3: back and you say, God, I love what I do.
47:20
Speaker 3: I absolutely love what I do.
47:22
Speaker 2: Awesome. Now, do you have any business advice that you
47:26
Speaker 2: wish you would have heard at the beginning of your
47:28
Speaker 2: cinematography career.
47:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, the biggest advice I can give to people is
47:41
Speaker 4: that it takes time.
47:43
Speaker 3: To be a filmmaker. It's not something that you can
47:47
Speaker 3: just pick up a camera and start making movies. Experience
47:53
Speaker 3: cannot be overlooked, and it cannot be so shortcut. It's
47:59
Speaker 3: not a shortcut. You have to go through the process
48:03
Speaker 3: of failure and succeed and failure. I mean, I failed
48:08
Speaker 3: so much when I was first starting out. My god,
48:12
Speaker 3: I'll never forget my first gaffing gig. I was doing
48:15
Speaker 3: a Barbie commercial and we had we had started outside
48:20
Speaker 3: day exteriors, so I had set my meter at fifty
48:23
Speaker 3: ASA and I was out there exposing film and all great,
48:26
Speaker 3: and then we came into the sound stage. Well I
48:28
Speaker 3: forgot to oh, oh, so we're lighting this thing, the
48:34
Speaker 3: whole thing. And then I went up to the DP
48:36
Speaker 3: and I said, I just want to tell you I've
48:38
Speaker 3: been rating this at fifty ASA and he freaked out.
48:43
Speaker 3: You know, that was two and a half stops over exposed.
48:46
Speaker 3: He was worried with the Barbie and the client shot, but.
48:50
Speaker 2: They were they shot at that at that essay, like
48:53
Speaker 2: they shot this is this is pre shooting or after
48:56
Speaker 2: you lit it shot?
48:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, we're shooting this whole time. And then I
49:02
Speaker 3: realized after lunch that I had set my kneed a wrong.
49:05
Speaker 3: So everything that we had shot up to lunch was
49:09
Speaker 3: was basically two an a stop's over exposed. So you
49:13
Speaker 3: know we had to go back to the agency and
49:16
Speaker 3: the creatives, and that put him in a very difficult place.
49:19
Speaker 3: And you know, these are things that you know, these
49:22
Speaker 3: there's big mistakes, but you've got to learn from them.
49:25
Speaker 3: And this is what I talk about with the experience.
49:29
Speaker 3: You got to put yourself out there and you got
49:32
Speaker 3: to know you're going to fail and and uh and
49:35
Speaker 3: I just that's my whole mantras, like I just want
49:38
Speaker 3: to continue to challenge myself, push myself out of my
49:41
Speaker 3: comfort zone. You know there's even as in my career
49:46
Speaker 3: right now, I make mistakes. You know, I try new
49:49
Speaker 3: things and I'm like, god, what was I thinking with this?
49:52
Speaker 3: You know that didn't work, But you know, you pick
49:55
Speaker 3: yourself up since those suspenders and you.
50:02
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
50:08
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
50:11
Speaker 3: And so my biggest advice to anyone starting out in
50:15
Speaker 3: this industry is you want to start at a rental
50:18
Speaker 3: house bar none. If you want to be a director
50:22
Speaker 3: of photography, you got to get your hands on the camera.
50:24
Speaker 3: You got to listen to the people that are coming in.
50:27
Speaker 3: You've got to listen to what they're using. You got
50:29
Speaker 3: to take all that in. That's experience that you're building.
50:33
Speaker 3: That's happening just organically. It's like all you have to
50:37
Speaker 3: do is get that camera out there and you just
50:39
Speaker 3: listen while you're doing stuff. Why are they using this
50:42
Speaker 3: type of filter or why are they why are they
50:44
Speaker 3: setting the camera up this way? I'm going to mental
50:47
Speaker 3: note on that. And the same with a grip and
50:51
Speaker 3: electric house. You know, I started out at a rental house.
50:55
Speaker 3: So on Terminator Salvation and the big mine escape, you
51:00
Speaker 3: know where they go through the landmine and it's all
51:02
Speaker 3: one shot, you know, beautifully Tory Graft who we're going
51:05
Speaker 3: with them and all that stuff. We had a Xenon
51:08
Speaker 3: four K xenon on a scaffolding tower is our quote
51:11
Speaker 3: unquote searchlight. Right when we were about ready to go,
51:14
Speaker 3: the light goes out. Well everyone's scrambling and they don't
51:19
Speaker 3: know what's happening and all that stuff. And I had
51:21
Speaker 3: this duster jacket. They called me the crow across and
51:26
Speaker 3: the thing flipped in the wind, you know, and I
51:29
Speaker 3: run to the xenon and I pop out the side
51:32
Speaker 3: panel and the fuse is blown, and I take it.
51:35
Speaker 3: I grab some aluminum foil, I wrap it around the
51:38
Speaker 3: damn thing, jam it in there, hit the transformer and
51:41
Speaker 3: boom the lighting nights and I run back and they're like,
51:44
Speaker 3: holy shit, how did you know how to do that?
51:47
Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, these were workarounds in the rental
51:50
Speaker 3: house when you know, we we wanted to see if
51:53
Speaker 3: the light fired and we didn't have the fuse, and
51:55
Speaker 3: these fuses were a specific one that necessarily we didn't
51:59
Speaker 3: carry all the time, and this was the workaround. So
52:02
Speaker 3: it's like I'm constantly at even to this day where
52:06
Speaker 3: you know, there's so many new people coming up the
52:09
Speaker 3: ladder and with this tax incentive, States and Atlanta just exploding,
52:13
Speaker 3: and there's not enough crew there to really support the movies.
52:18
Speaker 3: So a lot of people are just walking off you know,
52:22
Speaker 3: farming community and construction sites and all of a sudden,
52:26
Speaker 3: you know, right to work. They're gripping electrics. So I'm
52:29
Speaker 3: constantly trying to you know, teach this. You know this
52:34
Speaker 3: this new age of people that were quote unquote did
52:37
Speaker 3: not go to film school. They just are doing it
52:40
Speaker 3: for the money. That's that new regime that I'm seeing
52:44
Speaker 3: through the dustry. That's been a big shift that I
52:50
Speaker 3: started feeling in twenty and eighteen when I went up
52:55
Speaker 3: to Canada and all the all of my electrics were
52:58
Speaker 3: on permits and they had all been on oil dykes
53:02
Speaker 3: just a month earlier, so they.
53:05
Speaker 2: Had never been and they'd never been on set before. Now,
53:09
Speaker 2: But how do you hire someone who's never been on
53:10
Speaker 2: set before to work and grip an electric? How's that work?
53:13
Speaker 2: I mean there's so much you have to learn?
53:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no kidding, Yeah, Like what's what's that?
53:20
Speaker 2: What's a flag? What's a sea stand? I mean like
53:22
Speaker 2: basic stuff? Yes, and you're so you're and that was
53:25
Speaker 2: the crew that we've given to you, and you's like,
53:27
Speaker 2: I gotta roll with this And I got to teach
53:28
Speaker 2: everybody And did you just send them to your academy online?
53:32
Speaker 3: Basically yes. I started after that moment in twenty seventeen
53:36
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, I created a Grip and Electric platform, so
53:41
Speaker 3: it teaches them how to use c stands, how to
53:43
Speaker 3: set flags, what they are, what they're called, how to
53:47
Speaker 3: run power, how to plug it in, how to distribute
53:50
Speaker 3: power all that stuff. I just started doing grip and
53:53
Speaker 3: electric because I'm like, I come up and the first
53:56
Speaker 3: thing I do is I gifted to every grip and
53:58
Speaker 3: electric that's on my crew. And the people that are experienced,
54:01
Speaker 3: they are like, ah, I got this. Or the people
54:03
Speaker 3: that aren't they take it and a lease. They have
54:08
Speaker 3: some kind of of infrastructure and awareness to like what
54:13
Speaker 3: things are called and how to use stuff.
54:16
Speaker 2: So is that is that a I mean obviously, I
54:18
Speaker 2: mean you're a seasoned as a cinematographer, so some of
54:20
Speaker 2: these projects obviously you can't fly everybody in from LA
54:23
Speaker 2: so you have to deal with locals. Yes, And that's
54:26
Speaker 2: the locals they have because there's just literally is no
54:28
Speaker 2: other crew in the area that could handle or when
54:32
Speaker 2: they're busy on other projects or something.
54:35
Speaker 3: Yeah. Correct, When I did Resident Alien in the fall
54:38
Speaker 3: of twenty eighteen, there were seventy eight series in a
54:43
Speaker 3: film in Vancouver. Yeah, they're right, So everyone was gone,
54:48
Speaker 3: you know, So.
54:48
Speaker 2: You do what you do. You roll with whatever you
54:50
Speaker 2: had to roll with at the.
54:51
Speaker 3: Time, and you know, this is the new norm I see,
54:54
Speaker 3: because you know, there's so much production going on and
54:58
Speaker 3: it just literally you know, and most of these places
55:02
Speaker 3: might have eight to ten teams deep might, right, so
55:08
Speaker 3: that's eight features, and then if you have rigging teams,
55:11
Speaker 3: then you're taking out a whole other plethora of you know, technicians.
55:17
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's been a it's been a Sometimes you
55:21
Speaker 3: get just amazing talent and then there's sometimes that you don't,
55:26
Speaker 3: and you try your best to work with it. But
55:29
Speaker 3: I've kind of, you know, set a positive spin on
55:32
Speaker 3: it because I do love teaching as well, and so
55:36
Speaker 3: I've I try to set it up so they're learning
55:40
Speaker 3: as much as they can, and I take the time
55:43
Speaker 3: when I can to h to kind of educate them
55:46
Speaker 3: and get them up to speed.
55:47
Speaker 2: That's it seems like a pretty big load to carry
55:50
Speaker 2: as a cinematographer on a project live to be like
55:54
Speaker 2: shooting and also educating your crew safe time, I mean,
55:59
Speaker 2: my form, my experien on set. That's a pretty difficult
56:02
Speaker 2: thing to do. So God bless you, sir.
56:05
Speaker 3: It is. It's so funny because all the ads always
56:09
Speaker 3: give me a ton of shit, you know, all right,
56:12
Speaker 3: we're having a hurl but academy moment, you know, right,
56:16
Speaker 3: because all right, now this is how you know, and
56:19
Speaker 3: I'll go into it and he goes and then he goes,
56:21
Speaker 3: all right, hold on, crew, We're having a hurl but
56:24
Speaker 3: academy moment right here while I'm teaching the guy, and
56:26
Speaker 3: I'm like, dude, don't expose me for christ.
56:29
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a people who haven't been on set.
56:32
Speaker 4: It is.
56:32
Speaker 2: It can be. It can be a rough place to
56:35
Speaker 2: be sometimes, especially when you got those those older gnarly
56:39
Speaker 2: you know, gaffer grips, first ads, production designers like heads.
56:43
Speaker 2: They they can they can definitely uh rub you, no question.
56:51
Speaker 2: Do you have any low budget lighting tips for independent
56:55
Speaker 2: filmmakers where because there's so many features being made at
56:57
Speaker 2: micro budgets of fifty hundred, hundred and fifty or lower
57:02
Speaker 2: to get a decent image, you know, because the cameras
57:04
Speaker 2: are really sensitive. I mean you really, I mean you
57:07
Speaker 2: could get a lot out of some of these low
57:08
Speaker 2: budget cameras.
57:10
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, I think that, you know, like the Venus
57:14
Speaker 3: and the Red Gemini let's say has really opened up,
57:22
Speaker 3: and the Panasonic very cam at the five thousand ASA
57:25
Speaker 3: this kind of dual ASA scenario that the Venus as
57:28
Speaker 3: well as the Gemini and now and the Panasonic have
57:33
Speaker 3: the super sensitivity. You know, I would say you know,
57:37
Speaker 3: practicals are your your best friends. And what I did
57:41
Speaker 3: with the Cannon C five hundred on Need for Speed
57:45
Speaker 3: and Fathers and Daughters is I would literally take that
57:47
Speaker 3: camera and PLoP it down. I call them shit sticks, right,
57:52
Speaker 3: so they're like, you know, those little carbon fiber kind
57:55
Speaker 3: of plasticky sticks, and I slapped the camera on it,
57:58
Speaker 3: and I would not light the room until that camera
58:01
Speaker 3: was up and turned on because the Gemini, that Canon,
58:07
Speaker 3: the Venice and the Panasonic they see light that and
58:14
Speaker 3: add contrast that your.
58:16
Speaker 2: Eyes don't right, It's gonna be on the eye now.
58:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that you can say, wow, that practical is
58:23
Speaker 3: doing really well. I don't have to simulate that, or
58:26
Speaker 3: this is looking really good here, and then I will
58:30
Speaker 3: roll my color temperature wheel and find that what's looking
58:35
Speaker 3: really good in the set, and then I start to light.
58:39
Speaker 3: And you know, from a DIY standpoint, you know, having
58:43
Speaker 3: practicals around that you can position and kind of help
58:46
Speaker 3: light the rooms and stuff is one thing. The other
58:50
Speaker 3: thing is just embracing you know, home depot and lows.
58:55
Speaker 3: I love clamp lights. I still use them all the time.
59:01
Speaker 3: I'm I'm using clamp lights all the time. I'm uh
59:04
Speaker 3: I'm putting you know those under cabinet lights U gorgeous, Yeah,
59:11
Speaker 3: you know, from home Depot. I'm using the LED strips
59:16
Speaker 3: to stick underneath things, you know, I I I tend
59:21
Speaker 3: to uh, I like like the old dust to dawn fixtures,
59:26
Speaker 3: the metal halie and sodium vapor.
59:29
Speaker 2: Uh.
59:29
Speaker 3: So I'll buy a couple of those and I can
59:31
Speaker 3: illuminate those because they match street lights perfectly, so you
59:35
Speaker 3: don't have to worry about gel. You don't have to
59:37
Speaker 3: worry about all those things. Obviously the sky panels will
59:41
Speaker 3: will match that, uh you know source. But if you
59:46
Speaker 3: don't have the money, you know, you can pick up
59:48
Speaker 3: a dust to dawn for under sixty dollars and four
59:51
Speaker 3: hundred water puts out a lot of light and uh
59:55
Speaker 3: you know you look at swing Boat and crazy beautiful.
1:00:00
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
1:00:06
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
1:00:09
Speaker 3: And oh yeah, uh you know those films I lit
1:00:12
Speaker 3: all with those sodium vapor lights that it were all
1:00:15
Speaker 3: from home Depot and you know, just going in and
1:00:19
Speaker 3: using fluorescence for when you want to use them. I'd
1:00:22
Speaker 3: get shot fluorescence and cool white bulbs and that's what
1:00:25
Speaker 3: I'd hang in the ceiling for over the kitchen area,
1:00:29
Speaker 3: because you know, they lived in a trailer, and trailers
1:00:32
Speaker 3: always had that kind of you know, weird recessed panel
1:00:36
Speaker 3: that was there with the fluorescent lights up into it.
1:00:39
Speaker 3: So you know, let's be real, let's let's deliver the light.
1:00:43
Speaker 3: That's reality, you know. So I just screwed some shot
1:00:46
Speaker 3: fluorescence to the ceiling and put them up, you know.
1:00:50
Speaker 3: So it's there's a whole plethora of DIY tape tips,
1:00:55
Speaker 3: you know, with the with the clamp lights, with those fluorescence,
1:00:59
Speaker 3: with the new led uh sticks and strips and led
1:01:03
Speaker 3: ribbon forget china balls, yeah, always using china balls. And
1:01:10
Speaker 3: then I shape them with you know, black tablecloth. You know,
1:01:16
Speaker 3: plastic tablecloth works beautifully every You don't have to use doubatine.
1:01:21
Speaker 3: You can use black tablecloth because black tablecloth doesn't have
1:01:26
Speaker 3: the sheen of viscuen. It's matted, so it's very much
1:01:31
Speaker 3: like doubtine, just not fire retardant and and obviously stick
1:01:36
Speaker 3: and heavy. So the black tablecloth works beautifully to shape
1:01:40
Speaker 3: lights in different locations and ceilings where you can't you know,
1:01:45
Speaker 3: be ringing these big toppers and everything because you can't
1:01:47
Speaker 3: compromise the location, some good frogs, tape and black tablecloth,
1:01:52
Speaker 3: and you're off to the races.
1:01:54
Speaker 2: Great great, great tips. And which brings me to your
1:01:57
Speaker 2: online academy. Please tell me about your labor of love
1:02:01
Speaker 2: that is the academy.
1:02:04
Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah, this is something that in two thousand
1:02:07
Speaker 3: and nine, when I was shooting Active Valor, we literally
1:02:11
Speaker 3: flew around the world twice on that movie. We were
1:02:14
Speaker 3: down in Puerto Rico where we were shooting the Bad
1:02:18
Speaker 3: Guys kind of you know, layer in Puerto Rico, and
1:02:25
Speaker 3: we stayed at this amazing hotel that was on the
1:02:28
Speaker 3: west side of the island, and my wife came down
1:02:30
Speaker 3: to be with me for a week. And we were
1:02:34
Speaker 3: sitting in bed one night and I was planning out
1:02:36
Speaker 3: my shot list for the next day and she goes,
1:02:39
Speaker 3: you know, Shane, what you're doing with this DSLR platform
1:02:44
Speaker 3: and how you have kind of spearheaded this revolution. We
1:02:50
Speaker 3: need to talk about this. We need to share your
1:02:52
Speaker 3: knowledge and really ignite a revolution. I was like, what
1:02:58
Speaker 3: the hell are you talking about to shooting. He goes,
1:03:01
Speaker 3: I'm I'm a cinematographer, and she goes, I'm going to
1:03:04
Speaker 3: brand you, right, and I'm like cinemat I'm a cinematographer,
1:03:08
Speaker 3: not a brand, and sure enough with her vision and
1:03:12
Speaker 3: forward future thinking ways, she you know, said let's start
1:03:17
Speaker 3: this blog and let's share knowledge. And I was like, okay,
1:03:22
Speaker 3: sounds great. So we started this little blog and the
1:03:24
Speaker 3: blog just exploded during the DSLR revolution because I was
1:03:28
Speaker 3: doing things that everyone was like, what, you know, You're
1:03:32
Speaker 3: shooting a major feature film that's going to go in
1:03:35
Speaker 3: nine thousand theater screens on a DSLR still camera, right,
1:03:41
Speaker 3: And I'm like, yeah, and this is the settings that
1:03:45
Speaker 3: make your camera cinematic, and this is what iso you
1:03:48
Speaker 3: want to shoot at to have the lower noise, and
1:03:50
Speaker 3: this is the lenses that you want to fabricate to
1:03:53
Speaker 3: you know. So it just like exploded, and based on that,
1:03:58
Speaker 3: they wanted more and more and ask for more and
1:04:02
Speaker 3: give you know, let's start your writing is writing is great,
1:04:06
Speaker 3: but we want video content. So then in twenty fourteen,
1:04:09
Speaker 3: we launched Shane's Inner Circle and that was our first
1:04:13
Speaker 3: stab at a membership platform, and we really didn't know
1:04:16
Speaker 3: what the heck we were doing. All I knew is I
1:04:20
Speaker 3: had passion and I had this god given talent to
1:04:24
Speaker 3: really inspire people and teach and I just wanted to
1:04:30
Speaker 3: throw gasoline on anyone who wanted to be a part
1:04:34
Speaker 3: of it, to just you know, fuel that flame. And
1:04:39
Speaker 3: so we started out and we said it was going
1:04:41
Speaker 3: to be like the Netflix for filmmakers. You know, we
1:04:43
Speaker 3: made it super cheap because I didn't want all the
1:04:48
Speaker 3: way to the world on me to produce all this content.
1:04:51
Speaker 3: If it was really expensive, then the weight of the
1:04:54
Speaker 3: world was going to be on me, and I wasn't
1:04:56
Speaker 3: going to be able to be a cinematographer. So we
1:04:59
Speaker 3: started out with this little longer blog posts and more
1:05:02
Speaker 3: depth and going down rabbit holes, and then we just
1:05:06
Speaker 3: started video content. And when the video content hit and
1:05:10
Speaker 3: we saw how people responded to it, it was like,
1:05:13
Speaker 3: all right, let's start to structure where I can be
1:05:16
Speaker 3: a cinematographer and then do my movie and then come
1:05:20
Speaker 3: back and start shooting and creating this content. And we
1:05:23
Speaker 3: just started to do it at the grandest scale. We
1:05:27
Speaker 3: started forty footers, fifty men and women crew, you know,
1:05:32
Speaker 3: full on catering and production and all the stuff to
1:05:37
Speaker 3: be able to put this together. And it blossomed into
1:05:41
Speaker 3: what the Hroban Academy is right now, which is you know,
1:05:46
Speaker 3: basically our tagline now, which is going to be the
1:05:49
Speaker 3: Filmmaker's Academy very soon, is master your Craft. And we
1:05:54
Speaker 3: basically with this platform, we're bringing all my friends and
1:06:00
Speaker 3: all my loyal you know, vendors and everyone that have
1:06:06
Speaker 3: have helped shape me as a cinematographer. I'm now inspiring
1:06:10
Speaker 3: them and finding the ones that really want to teach
1:06:12
Speaker 3: and give back. And now we're going to get this
1:06:15
Speaker 3: team of a listers together and we're just gonna really
1:06:19
Speaker 3: come out swinging. And you know, the Filmmaker's Academy is
1:06:23
Speaker 3: going to be all about that top level that you
1:06:28
Speaker 3: aspire to. Right It's like, I, as much as I
1:06:32
Speaker 3: love the DIY tips and kind of the popsicle sticks
1:06:36
Speaker 3: and gaffers tape stuff, you know, if I teach at
1:06:40
Speaker 3: that level, where do they have to aspire to? You
1:06:44
Speaker 3: need to teach at the highest level. And it's their
1:06:48
Speaker 3: their learning and their experience that's going to scale it.
1:06:54
Speaker 3: Because if I do it at their level, then I've
1:06:56
Speaker 3: already filled in the blanks and I've already done their job.
1:07:00
Speaker 3: Or what I want them to do is exactly what
1:07:02
Speaker 3: I did when I was a cinematographer, coming up the ladder.
1:07:05
Speaker 3: I looked at Roger Deakins and Bob Richardson and Emanuel Lebenski,
1:07:10
Speaker 3: and I was like looking at the style of light
1:07:13
Speaker 3: and how they softened it and everything, And that was
1:07:15
Speaker 3: my mantra even when I was doing like the low
1:07:18
Speaker 3: budget music videos and little commercials and all this stuff
1:07:22
Speaker 3: where I didn't have the big eighteen k's and everything
1:07:25
Speaker 3: that they had. I just in my mind I had
1:07:28
Speaker 3: to scale it. And that shaped me as a cinematographer.
1:07:33
Speaker 3: So I'm like, this is how we educate. We educate
1:07:36
Speaker 3: at the highest level, and but we do it in
1:07:40
Speaker 3: a way that's very fun. It's kind of you know, entered,
1:07:45
Speaker 3: what do we call it, we.
1:07:48
Speaker 2: Eduitainment, editainment.
1:07:50
Speaker 3: You know, it's like I like to have fun. I
1:07:53
Speaker 3: give people shit on the crew, I'm always like, what
1:07:56
Speaker 3: are you doing? You know, Oh, nice job, you cut
1:07:59
Speaker 3: that one short, get another one. You're fired. You know.
1:08:02
Speaker 3: It's like the set really light and airy, and you
1:08:07
Speaker 3: see every single stroke. And because I came up on
1:08:11
Speaker 3: the technical side and did everything like grip and camera,
1:08:15
Speaker 3: I'm setting every flag, I'm you know, panning every light,
1:08:20
Speaker 3: spotting every light in diffusing every light, setting the lens
1:08:25
Speaker 3: doing all this so you see every finesse. And that's
1:08:29
Speaker 3: when it all started to happen for me as an educator,
1:08:33
Speaker 3: as I saw, oh my god, we when we shoot
1:08:36
Speaker 3: this like a live sporting event and there's like six
1:08:38
Speaker 3: or seven cameras, you see, you feel like you're on
1:08:42
Speaker 3: my shoulder and you're immersive. And that's what That's the
1:08:46
Speaker 3: way I make my movies is being right with you
1:08:49
Speaker 3: and very immersive, and the camera moves and flows with you.
1:08:53
Speaker 3: So I wanted the same thing with our education, and
1:08:56
Speaker 3: that's that's when we really started to kick at yes
1:09:00
Speaker 3: and to take off.
1:09:02
Speaker 2: Well. I'll definitely put a link to the show notes
1:09:04
Speaker 2: for that. I have a few questions. Ask all my guests,
1:09:07
Speaker 2: what advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break
1:09:09
Speaker 2: into the business today?
1:09:10
Speaker 3: Breaking the business start at a rental house. Know that
1:09:14
Speaker 3: it's going to take some time for you to get
1:09:15
Speaker 3: your experience. Do not get frustrated, Okay, you you you
1:09:21
Speaker 3: know there's going to be times where things don't work
1:09:23
Speaker 3: out and you're you seem like you're working way too hard.
1:09:28
Speaker 3: And you know, I gave a Herbo Academy member because
1:09:32
Speaker 3: the first one hundred people that signed up for all access.
1:09:34
Speaker 3: I gave him an hour long phone call. Nice and
1:09:37
Speaker 3: called me from Australia and he had heard my advice
1:09:43
Speaker 3: way on the blog talking about going to a rental house.
1:09:46
Speaker 3: So he was at a rental house and I said, okay,
1:09:49
Speaker 3: so how long have you been at the rental house?
1:09:51
Speaker 3: And he says five years? And I said, you've been
1:09:53
Speaker 3: there four years too long? And he goes, what are
1:09:56
Speaker 3: you talking about.
1:09:59
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
1:10:05
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
1:10:08
Speaker 3: I said, the rental house is your brick and mortar.
1:10:12
Speaker 3: That's where you're starting to figure it out. But you
1:10:15
Speaker 3: need to get on set. Now you've you've already gone
1:10:19
Speaker 3: past your cell by date, so I'm going to tell
1:10:21
Speaker 3: you how to get off and how to get out
1:10:25
Speaker 3: on sets. So I said, all right, so what do
1:10:29
Speaker 3: you do there? He goes, well, I'm the lead prep tech.
1:10:32
Speaker 3: All right, okay, perfect. So you being the lead prep tech,
1:10:35
Speaker 3: you want to go into the marketing guy and you
1:10:37
Speaker 3: say who's coming in and obviously you'll see the list
1:10:40
Speaker 3: who it is, and you call up that first a
1:10:42
Speaker 3: C and you say, hey, Alex, how you doing today?
1:10:48
Speaker 3: I am you know, John Doe, I am your lead
1:10:52
Speaker 3: prep tech at this rental house, and I was just wondering,
1:10:56
Speaker 3: you know, is there could we go get cart for you?
1:11:00
Speaker 3: Is there any place that you're storing your carts and
1:11:03
Speaker 3: I can have the truck come and get your carts?
1:11:05
Speaker 3: And are you a coffee drinker? Do you like coffee?
1:11:08
Speaker 3: And what do you like for breakfast in the morning?
1:11:12
Speaker 3: And he brought that stuff in. He started to do
1:11:17
Speaker 3: all those calls and then I said, and also take
1:11:20
Speaker 3: note of what you see them do. So if they
1:11:25
Speaker 3: are labeling the cases, then you label them the cases
1:11:28
Speaker 3: before they get there. Label them with the millimeters, the
1:11:31
Speaker 3: close focus, and the tea stop of every one of them.
1:11:34
Speaker 3: You know they do that. You know they're going to
1:11:36
Speaker 3: do velcro filter tabs, you know what their filter is.
1:11:40
Speaker 3: Start making those in your home. And he was like, boy,
1:11:45
Speaker 3: that's a lot of work. I said, these this is
1:11:48
Speaker 3: what you need to do to set yourself apart from
1:11:51
Speaker 3: all the other people that are trying to do what
1:11:54
Speaker 3: you want to do right And literally this advice I
1:11:59
Speaker 3: gave him and he was out of the rental house
1:12:01
Speaker 3: in less than a month and he's been working in
1:12:04
Speaker 3: the field ever since. Good for these is just small
1:12:07
Speaker 3: little nuances and it's not brown nosy at all, just
1:12:12
Speaker 3: preparing yourself to is this is exactly what you're going
1:12:15
Speaker 3: to do on the set when you're a digital utility.
1:12:17
Speaker 3: What are you doing. You're getting a guy coffee, You're
1:12:19
Speaker 3: getting the guy lunch. You know, You're you're doing everything
1:12:23
Speaker 3: to set him up. You're coming in early, getting the
1:12:25
Speaker 3: carts off the truck, getting it all organized. This is
1:12:28
Speaker 3: you're showing him or her that you are already in
1:12:33
Speaker 3: that mindset that you know exactly what is going to
1:12:37
Speaker 3: be demanded of you, and you're not going to be
1:12:39
Speaker 3: the quote unquote just rental house, prep tech and these
1:12:43
Speaker 3: are the things that set you above. It's the same
1:12:47
Speaker 3: way I did when I got out of the Grip
1:12:48
Speaker 3: and Electric. I was just like a guy who stacked,
1:12:51
Speaker 3: you know, grip shelves and trucks. The only reason that
1:12:56
Speaker 3: I got hired on Phantasm too is because the guy,
1:13:00
Speaker 3: the producer was making the deal where that they with
1:13:04
Speaker 3: the rental manager, and they happened to look out the
1:13:07
Speaker 3: window and they saw me running back and forth from
1:13:11
Speaker 3: the grip truck to the warehouse and back. And the
1:13:15
Speaker 3: guy goes who is that guy and they go, ah,
1:13:18
Speaker 3: that's that guy from Boston that just came in. His
1:13:21
Speaker 3: name Shane. He is a scrapper man. We offered him
1:13:26
Speaker 3: five dollars an hour and he took it and he
1:13:28
Speaker 3: just run circles around everyone. Well where was I? I
1:13:32
Speaker 3: was out of that place immediately.
1:13:34
Speaker 6: It's like, you have to do more than is required, amen,
1:13:40
Speaker 6: And when you do that, you set a tone just
1:13:44
Speaker 6: like what I We're gonna circle right back and bookmark
1:13:47
Speaker 6: this son of a bitch and bookend it right here,
1:13:49
Speaker 6: because what did I say in the beginning, There's only
1:13:52
Speaker 6: two words that.
1:13:53
Speaker 3: Come out of my mouth. Fricking fantastic. And it's like,
1:13:57
Speaker 3: you set the bar high and you always do more
1:14:02
Speaker 3: than is required.
1:14:04
Speaker 2: What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn,
1:14:06
Speaker 2: whether in the film industry or in life.
1:14:10
Speaker 3: To be a good leader? H that took me a
1:14:14
Speaker 3: long time. When I was a kid, I was bullied
1:14:19
Speaker 3: like crazy. They did horrible things to me as a kid,
1:14:25
Speaker 3: And it was so weird because my dad was bullied
1:14:27
Speaker 3: by the same individuals that their dad's kids.
1:14:32
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus, it's like a movie. It's like a movie.
1:14:35
Speaker 3: For God's sakes, yeah, Jesus, it was crazy. It's like
1:14:39
Speaker 3: the Nolan's bullied my dad and then their kids bullied me.
1:14:43
Speaker 3: It was it was insane. So when I came up
1:14:46
Speaker 3: the ladder, I had a chip on my shoulder. I
1:14:49
Speaker 3: had I was somebody that just you know, I was
1:14:53
Speaker 3: going to get to the top and I was going
1:14:56
Speaker 3: to take out some people on the way. And I
1:15:01
Speaker 3: was angry at times. I think I was, you know,
1:15:06
Speaker 3: somewhat talk down to people I didn't want. It was
1:15:11
Speaker 3: my way or the highway. And you know, it took
1:15:16
Speaker 3: me a long time to realize that that I need
1:15:22
Speaker 3: to lead much better. And that was It's like I said,
1:15:28
Speaker 3: it took me probably fifteen years to learn that, and
1:15:33
Speaker 3: that was way too long. And now I have crews
1:15:39
Speaker 3: that will go to the end of the earth for
1:15:42
Speaker 3: me because I set the tone in a way that
1:15:47
Speaker 3: they are all part of the mission and no one
1:15:51
Speaker 3: is talked down to, and we are all in this together.
1:15:54
Speaker 3: And I try to wear my heart much more out
1:15:57
Speaker 3: on my sleeve because I had to bury it so
1:16:01
Speaker 3: far down when I was bullied. I was just tortured
1:16:03
Speaker 3: so much that I just buried that heart. I buried
1:16:06
Speaker 3: that compassion. I buried all that, and now I finally
1:16:12
Speaker 3: have come out of my proverbial shell and have really
1:16:16
Speaker 3: through the education. And this is a testament to my
1:16:20
Speaker 3: wife because I think really in two thousand and nine,
1:16:24
Speaker 3: in twenty ten to twelve, that was the lynchpin to
1:16:27
Speaker 3: really start to be a better leader. And trust me,
1:16:30
Speaker 3: I've failed even along that process. In twenty eighteen, I
1:16:34
Speaker 3: failed on a movie. And I'll I just want to
1:16:37
Speaker 3: be very transparent. These are things that you go through
1:16:40
Speaker 3: as a creative. You know, there's a lot of pressure
1:16:43
Speaker 3: on you. There's a lot of you know, things that
1:16:47
Speaker 3: are are brought to the forefront, and you need to
1:16:52
Speaker 3: understand how to unite that team and take care of
1:16:57
Speaker 3: that team, and under and listen to that team as
1:17:01
Speaker 3: well as listening to production and having their best interests
1:17:05
Speaker 3: at heart, and then listening to the director. I call
1:17:07
Speaker 3: it the thirty three point three because before it was
1:17:12
Speaker 3: one hundred percent whatever the director wanted. And that's where
1:17:16
Speaker 3: I was not a good leader, because no matter what
1:17:18
Speaker 3: the director said, I just made it happen. Even if
1:17:21
Speaker 3: I had to push it through a dime size hole,
1:17:24
Speaker 3: that thing was pushed. And now I look back at
1:17:29
Speaker 3: my career and I was like, you know what, now
1:17:31
Speaker 3: I see that it's thirty three percent is the director's
1:17:37
Speaker 3: vision and thirty three percent is the production is taking
1:17:44
Speaker 3: care of them and their budget and making things work,
1:17:48
Speaker 3: and not just you know, saying this is what the
1:17:51
Speaker 3: director wanted, This is what the director wanted, This is
1:17:53
Speaker 3: what the director wanted, more like, Okay, how can we
1:17:55
Speaker 3: reach a compromise that worked for production and the director
1:18:00
Speaker 3: feels very good about And it's supporting your team and
1:18:05
Speaker 3: being there for them and thinking about the safety, and
1:18:09
Speaker 3: especially in these COVID times, I mean being scared down
1:18:13
Speaker 3: in Atlanta just recently where they just kept on getting
1:18:17
Speaker 3: four positive covids every other day and us just shutting down.
1:18:21
Speaker 3: I'm like, guys, the protocols aren't working. Everything that you've
1:18:24
Speaker 3: put in practice is not working. The people that we've
1:18:28
Speaker 3: hired obviously are not understanding it either, because you don't
1:18:32
Speaker 3: go out to block parties with thousands of people and
1:18:35
Speaker 3: then go in and start working on the lead actors. Right,
1:18:39
Speaker 3: This is not the way you move and push forward
1:18:43
Speaker 3: in this climate. Right, And that's a mindset. The COVID,
1:18:47
Speaker 3: if it's taught me anything, we have to stop being
1:18:51
Speaker 3: the me generation and we have to start becoming the we.
1:18:57
Speaker 3: It's thinking about everyone and how your actions are going
1:19:02
Speaker 3: to affect everyone, not just yourself. And that was the
1:19:06
Speaker 3: biggest takeaway. I just saw everyone being so narcisstic and
1:19:10
Speaker 3: whatever they wanted to do, if they wanted to go
1:19:13
Speaker 3: out and drink and party, it didn't matter that they
1:19:16
Speaker 3: were doing the hair and make up on number one
1:19:20
Speaker 3: on the call sheet, they just did it. Well, that
1:19:23
Speaker 3: cannot happen. That's not the days are gone in that regards.
1:19:30
Speaker 3: We need to think about everyone and the compassion and
1:19:34
Speaker 3: caring of each individual. And I constantly you know what
1:19:38
Speaker 3: I never did is I never put myself in the
1:19:41
Speaker 3: shoes that I was barking the orders out to. And
1:19:44
Speaker 3: that's the biggest switch for me. It's like, Okay, if
1:19:48
Speaker 3: I'm going to bark these orders out to somebody, how
1:19:50
Speaker 3: is that going to feel if I'm the recipient of it?
1:19:53
Speaker 3: Am I going to feel good when I tell them
1:19:56
Speaker 3: me that, you know, I call them out in front
1:19:59
Speaker 3: of everyone.
1:20:01
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
1:20:07
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
1:20:10
Speaker 3: There's some times when you need to do that, but
1:20:12
Speaker 3: you want to do it in a way that has
1:20:16
Speaker 3: an inspirational way. And there's one way to downtrodden, but
1:20:22
Speaker 3: then another way to say, guy, I understand you're trying
1:20:25
Speaker 3: your best, but you've got to do better. Like we
1:20:28
Speaker 3: had a digital utility that showed up three days late
1:20:33
Speaker 3: in a row, and you know, in a pool of
1:20:37
Speaker 3: many technicians, that guy would have been kicked to the side.
1:20:41
Speaker 3: And I just went up to him and I said,
1:20:43
Speaker 3: here's the deal. I see the passion that you had
1:20:47
Speaker 3: during our prep. I saw how much you read all
1:20:50
Speaker 3: the manuals and made all my systems that nobody knows
1:20:54
Speaker 3: how to work. You made that all happen. So I
1:20:57
Speaker 3: see that you love what you do. You can't be late,
1:21:02
Speaker 3: and I'm going to give you one more chance. I've
1:21:04
Speaker 3: given you three. But what you need to do is
1:21:07
Speaker 3: you need to come in thirty minutes earlier, because you
1:21:12
Speaker 3: know what I'm here. I'm usually here an hour before
1:21:16
Speaker 3: the camera trucks even open up. Why why am I there?
1:21:21
Speaker 3: I'm taking my time. I walk through the sets, I'm
1:21:25
Speaker 3: looking at the sheets, I'm envisioning the light, I'm envisioning
1:21:29
Speaker 3: the blocking. I'm doing all that. So you come in
1:21:33
Speaker 3: an hour early, you open up the trucks. You get
1:21:36
Speaker 3: all the gear ready for everyone, You get my monitors
1:21:39
Speaker 3: all set up, you get the comm system set up,
1:21:42
Speaker 3: so when I walk in and the crew walk in,
1:21:44
Speaker 3: you're handing everyone their comm system and communication is key.
1:21:48
Speaker 3: And that dude turned around the next day. So it's
1:21:52
Speaker 3: like it's tough love at some point, but also carrying
1:21:58
Speaker 3: in compassion and trying to inspe fire them by seeing
1:22:01
Speaker 3: their best attributes and really kind of fueling that and
1:22:06
Speaker 3: then guiding them in a way that has some kid gloves.
1:22:10
Speaker 2: As opposed to calling him out on set or or
1:22:13
Speaker 2: you know, abusing him or yelling at him or you know,
1:22:16
Speaker 2: how dare you jump off the condor that's about to
1:22:18
Speaker 2: go into the ravine? Like instead of that that way
1:22:23
Speaker 2: of going about it. I still can't believe that story.
1:22:27
Speaker 2: I still can't believe like I yelled at you, like
1:22:29
Speaker 2: I just dumped two stories? Are you kidding me?
1:22:33
Speaker 5: Now?
1:22:33
Speaker 2: You're doing? And that's you know, what you've said is
1:22:35
Speaker 2: absolutely right. And you know when I direct I do
1:22:39
Speaker 2: the exact same thing. I try to be as cool
1:22:40
Speaker 2: as I can, but sometimes you do need tough love
1:22:42
Speaker 2: and sometimes you got to pull somebody aside and give
1:22:44
Speaker 2: him a good talking to, because attitude is attitude. Ego
1:22:47
Speaker 2: is ego, especially in this business like.
1:22:50
Speaker 3: And one thing that I've always tried to do, and
1:22:52
Speaker 3: I think this is the last bit of advice I
1:22:54
Speaker 3: want to give, is you have to be humble. Yeah, amen,
1:23:00
Speaker 3: because arrogance and ego will drive you in ways that
1:23:06
Speaker 3: are not good. And I always try to be humble.
1:23:09
Speaker 3: When I walk on set. You know, everyone comes up
1:23:12
Speaker 3: to me and they're like, oh my god, Shane, You're
1:23:14
Speaker 3: a legend. You know I oh, you know, I get
1:23:16
Speaker 3: all this phrase, which is awesome, But at the same time,
1:23:19
Speaker 3: I never let it go to my head. I'm sitting
1:23:23
Speaker 3: there talking to them about, you know, what they did
1:23:26
Speaker 3: this weekend, and you know, they're They're part of my team.
1:23:29
Speaker 3: It's not me being the hierarchy, even though that's how
1:23:32
Speaker 3: it's set up. But I treat everyone equally and I
1:23:35
Speaker 3: want them and I want to toss gasoline on anything
1:23:40
Speaker 3: that they have passion about and trying to kind of
1:23:44
Speaker 3: flip the switch to them. Even the people that have
1:23:47
Speaker 3: come off of the oil dike or just come off
1:23:49
Speaker 3: the construction site. I'm trying to fill them with that
1:23:52
Speaker 3: filmmaking passion that I had when I came into film
1:23:55
Speaker 3: school and started to have these aha moments and everything.
1:23:59
Speaker 3: I'm trying to bring that to them through the Hurban
1:24:02
Speaker 3: Academy and through you know, just being on set as
1:24:05
Speaker 3: a cinematographer, as somebody that just wants to continue to
1:24:09
Speaker 3: educate the future filmmakers of tomorrow.
1:24:13
Speaker 2: Shane, I really appreciate you being on The show Man
1:24:16
Speaker 2: and it has been a fantastic conversation. I appreciate everything
1:24:19
Speaker 2: you're doing for the community with your education as well
1:24:22
Speaker 2: as just making cool films over the last last year.
1:24:26
Speaker 2: So I appreciate what you do, my friend. Keep keep
1:24:28
Speaker 2: doing what you do. So thanks so much, my friend.
1:24:31
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Alex. It was an absolute pleasure
1:24:33
Speaker 3: and I loved your question right on the money. This
1:24:36
Speaker 3: is this is the kind of stuff that you know,
1:24:38
Speaker 3: I want to open up. There's a transparency with me,
1:24:41
Speaker 3: and that's what I think people really respond to as well.
1:24:45
Speaker 3: Like I said, staying humble, I'm not using my ego
1:24:48
Speaker 3: and arrogance to say this is who I am and
1:24:51
Speaker 3: this is what I do. No, I've failed a lot
1:24:54
Speaker 3: and I've not been a great leader at times, and
1:24:57
Speaker 3: you know, I want to, you know, express those and
1:24:59
Speaker 3: say that I change. And even though that I'm at
1:25:03
Speaker 3: my fifty seven years old, I still feel like I'm
1:25:07
Speaker 3: a five year old out there and absolutely love what
1:25:10
Speaker 3: I do. And you know, I've created a long, successful
1:25:15
Speaker 3: career as a cinematographer and I want to keep on going.
1:25:19
Speaker 2: My friend, I appreciate you.
1:25:20
Speaker 3: Thank you all right, take care.
1:25:23
Speaker 2: I want to thank Shane so much for coming on
1:25:25
Speaker 2: the show and dropping his knowledge bombs on the tribe.
1:25:28
Speaker 2: If you want to get links to anything we spoke
1:25:30
Speaker 2: about in this episode, including how to reach out to Shane,
1:25:33
Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
1:25:36
Speaker 2: Forward slash three and ninety four. Thank you so much
1:25:39
Speaker 2: for listening to guys, as always, keep on writing no
1:25:42
Speaker 2: matter what. I'll talk to you soon.
1:25:44
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
1:25:48
Speaker 1: Screenwriting dot tv.