Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 395: The Art of Television Cinematography w/ Jayson Crothers

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BPS 395: The Art of Television Cinematography w/ Jayson Crothers · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  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 five,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Light Up the Darkness.
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  Speaker 1: Bob Marley broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: when we really should be working on that next draft.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
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  Speaker 1: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: screenplay bulletproof.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble
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  Speaker 2: host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof
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  Speaker 2: Script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script
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  Speaker 2: and the goals of the project you are, so we
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  Speaker 2: by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Now, guys,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: today on the show, we have veteran cinematographer Jason Cruthers. Now,
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  Speaker 2: I wanted Jason on the show because he has been
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  Speaker 2: dping now for decades, not to make him sound old,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: but for a while. And during his time, he has
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: been lighting shows like Chicago Fire, where he was a
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: cinematographer of seventy four episodes, dealing with fire on a
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  Speaker 2: daily basis, and has worked with huge stars like Al
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Pacino and Mel Gibson who stars in his new movie
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  Speaker 2: Force of Nature, directed by friend of the show Michael Polish,
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  Speaker 2: and much much more. And now I wanted to really
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  Speaker 2: dig deep into how he used his low budget cinematography
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  Speaker 2: techniques not only in his early years shooting those dozens
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  Speaker 2: of independent films, but also what he was able to
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  Speaker 2: bring to his bigger budget projects and how those techniques
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  Speaker 2: still work for him even to this day. So without
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  Speaker 2: any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Jason Cruthers.
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  Speaker 2: I like to welcome to show Jason Cruthers. Man, how
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: you doing, brother.
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  Speaker 3: I'm wonderful. How are you?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm I'm living the quarantine life, my friend, living
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: that quarantine life.
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  Speaker 3: You at least are shaving. Like I just gave up
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: on shaving.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: So oh, I shaved my head. I shaved my head.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I gave up. I've had longer hair for about two
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: and a half three years, and I just said. I
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: looked at my wife and she's like, why don't you
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: just shave it off. I'm like really, She's like, yeah,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: just shave it off. Like you're not going to see
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a barber anytime soon soon. So even if you just
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: let it grow out, by the time it's grown back,
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  Speaker 2: you'll be well.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: You should feel you should feel privileged. I've actually, you know,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: I've been living in like gym shorts for weeks, so
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  Speaker 3: I've actually got pants on today, which is weird.
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  Speaker 2: I I appreciate that. Well, this is this is this
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: is my formal wear currently h here at the the
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Indie film Hustle. For people not watching this, I have
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: a hustle T shirt and a hat.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: What's below I am wearing pants? I can in my background,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: so you can, I can. I can attest to that.
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  Speaker 2: I can either confirm nor deny what's happening below the waist. Anyway,
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  Speaker 2: let's move on. So Jason, I'm thank you for being
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  Speaker 2: on the show. We've been trying to do this for
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  Speaker 2: a year now. Yeah, we met a while ago and
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  Speaker 2: and through a good friend of ours, Austin Nordell, who's
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  Speaker 2: my DP on my last film, on the Corner of
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  Speaker 2: Egan Desire, and we've been trying to get you on
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  Speaker 2: because you are. You have a fascinating story about how
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  Speaker 2: you became a DP. You have a way a wide
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  Speaker 2: range of experiences from low budget to you know, a
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  Speaker 2: really complicated network show that we will discuss the complexities
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  Speaker 2: of shooting that show and all that. But before we
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  Speaker 2: get into it, man, how did you get into the
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  Speaker 2: film business?
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  Speaker 3: That's a really good question. So I got my start.
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  Speaker 3: I went to scott Till Community College, which is in
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  Speaker 3: scott Till, Arizona. Now, they have like a respectable program.
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  Speaker 3: They have like a couple of small sound stages and
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: equipment and whatnot. When I went there, Like the film
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: room was literally a closet that the marching band department
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  Speaker 3: had given them, which was sufficient because all the equipment
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  Speaker 3: they had fit into a closet. Like we didn't even
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  Speaker 3: have movie lights until like I think, like my third
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: sem like we were shooting like one case scoops that
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: we'd stolen from the theater department and like soldered baby
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: spuds onto. So I got my start there, which is great,
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: you know, like my first like my first day of class,
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  Speaker 3: like two hours into the class, they were showing a
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  Speaker 3: super eight camera in our hands and I'm like, all right, great,
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  Speaker 3: came up with three other students, go outside and shoot something.
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  Speaker 3: So that's kind of how I got my start. I think,
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  Speaker 3: like a lot of people, like you know, I grew
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  Speaker 3: up loving movies, being fascinated by movies. I've told the
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  Speaker 3: story before. Like my dad, you know, I grew up
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  Speaker 3: in Alaska as a kid, amongst a lot of other places.
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  Speaker 3: My dad was like a projectionist, part time projectionist at
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  Speaker 3: a theater in Alaska. So like I can remember watching
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Gremlins like when it first came out, but I remember
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: I saw Gremlins dozens of times without sound because the
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: speaker in the projection booth was busted, so I didn't
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: actually see that. That was the first movie. I remember
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  Speaker 3: seeing and seeing it dozens of times, as you know,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: as a little kid, and understanding that like, oh, this
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  Speaker 3: is all make believe because I'm sitting right next to
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  Speaker 3: the projector. So I was fascinating by movie. Side note.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Didn't actually see Remlins from Sound until I was a
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: junior in high school, and.
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  Speaker 2: Then it terrified you, and then terrified, and then I.
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  Speaker 3: Was like, I was like, holy shit, these people they
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: have names and voices. There was a time when I
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  Speaker 3: could tell you every edit of that movie by heart,
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  Speaker 3: and I remember in high school being like, this is
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  Speaker 3: like seeing it for the first time all over again.
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  Speaker 3: So I'd always love movies and fascinated by it then,
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  Speaker 3: but obviously I didn't understand. I think, like most people,
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  Speaker 3: you were starting off what the difference in a director
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  Speaker 3: and a cinematographer was. So I was fortunate that when
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  Speaker 3: I started in film school, I had a teacher that
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  Speaker 3: recognized like, oh, you're really interested in camera and lighting.
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  Speaker 3: That's what you're interested in. Your strong suit is, and
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  Speaker 3: very politely was like, maybe you should consider cinematography and
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  Speaker 3: then when I picked up it's I mean, it sounds
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  Speaker 3: kind of hokey, but like I picked up a light
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  Speaker 3: meter and you know, shot my first like real thing,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, this just clicked and made sense.
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  Speaker 3: So after that, after Scottsdale and went to a move
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  Speaker 3: to Chicago, got from Columbia College in Chicago, uh intern
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  Speaker 3: for Panavision. Intern on the film Barbershop. The first barbershop
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  Speaker 3: movie for it was MGM. Kicked around a little while,
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  Speaker 3: went to a FI and I, you know, again, it's
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: a little weird now because now there's so much information
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: like this, you know, this podcast is there's like so
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  Speaker 3: much information available. When I was starting out, it was
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: like there's basically like two online forums and then otherwise
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  Speaker 3: it was like going to the library and like stealing
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  Speaker 3: books in the library to learn about cinematography. And also,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: you know, I started an interesting time too, when you know,
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  Speaker 3: the industry was transitioning from film into you know, HD,
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  Speaker 3: which then became you know, full digital cinema. So I
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  Speaker 3: started learning on film and by the time I got
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  Speaker 3: out of school, it was making a hard transition into digital.
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  Speaker 3: So I was like attending school and learning how to
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  Speaker 3: enter this industry while it was in the middle of
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: up people and it's a lot of change. I yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I mean I just kind of fell into like, this
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  Speaker 3: is something I really love to do, and I think
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  Speaker 3: ignorance and a lot of luck and I just kind
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  Speaker 3: of kept stumbling forward and finding people that kept asking
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  Speaker 3: me to shoot things. And you know, here I am.
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  Speaker 3: I started when I was eighteen and I'm forty one
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  Speaker 3: now and people are still foolishly hiring me to shoot things.
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  Speaker 3: So eventually someone will catch on.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you and I both are of similar vintages, so.
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  Speaker 3: That's a right nice way of putting it.
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  Speaker 2: We're of similar vintages. So when you're saying that, it's
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  Speaker 2: exactly when I I mean, I'm a little bit older
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  Speaker 2: than you, but not by much. And it was the
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  Speaker 2: exact same thing. I started off with film, and I learned,
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  Speaker 2: you know, in film school, I learned online editing and
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: film editing, and there was like this nonlinear computer running
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Windows three point one in the corner called the Montage,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: which never worked. And then I got out into the
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: workforce and they're like Avid is the thing, and you
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: have to learn Avid and twenty four P and all this.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it was just a weird thing because a
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff I learned in school it was pretty
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: much obsolete by the time I got into the workforce,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: so it was it all sounds very, very familiar.
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  Speaker 3: It was also weird because we were learning, you know,
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  Speaker 3: because I was always I took a lot of editing
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  Speaker 3: classes too, because I learned very early on I was like, oh,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: a big part of cinematography is editing. Like it doesn't
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  Speaker 3: matter how you like and shoot if you don't understand
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  Speaker 3: editing as well. So actually I took a lot of
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  Speaker 3: editing courses, a lot, you know, in conjunction of all
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: the cinematography course I was taking. And for me, it
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: was always fascinating, like I'm learning, you know, on Monday,
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  Speaker 3: I'm learning and getting experienced cutting on a flatbed, and
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: on Tuesday I'm learning how to get AVID certified. So
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: I'm like, this is such this is such a weird time,
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  Speaker 3: like years of transition of like here's how to shoot
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: thirty five millimeters, but also here's something, you know, here's
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: the F nine hundred and you're like, what, what, what
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: is it?
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: No, it's funny because I learned I learned nonlinear then
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: online like the CMX thirty six hundred in Grass Valley.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show. And then I went
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: to flatbed and when I cut on flatbed, I literally
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: looked at the teacher. I'm like, this is barbaric. You
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: mean you want me to cut with a razor blade?
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: The edit and if I like it, I tape it.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: But if I really like it, I use glue. What
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: is this? But what are we the flintstones?
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: What is this? It was we should have gone the
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: other way. In hindsight, they should have started you there
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: and moved you up to the more advanced technology. But
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: it was, it was, it was.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: It was botal. I've told her in the past. I
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: did a show a couple of years ago and during
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: our camera load out, you know, you got a camera
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: truck and some of the other acs were laughing. They're like, oh,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: I asked Jason. So I had a very young member
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: of my camera department. It was like, hey, just they
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: won't tell me. I think it's funny. What's the what's
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: that closet for? I was like, oh, the dark room
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: and they're like, yeah, the dark room. I was like, no,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: that's what it's called the dark room. They're like, yeah,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: the room that's it's like it's all black out, it's darkness,
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: no light in there. It's like, yeah, that's called a
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: dark room. And I'm explained to them like it was
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: the first you're actually young enough that you've never worked
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: with film and you don't understand what a dark one
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: for me. And as I'm explaining, I'm like, oh, you
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: go in there and you'd load your film. You don't
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: load your film. They're looking at me like I'm a
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: crazy person, Like so so wait you like you can't
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: see anything you've done, and no one can see what
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: they're doing, and they're doing the like feel and like
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: this is how you used to make movies. Like they're
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: looking at me like I'm I'm insane. Yes, And I'm
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: describing like a like a godless world, like some kind
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: of mad maps apocalyptic world of filmmaking. I'm like, like,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: look up until a couple of years ago, that's how
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: it was done.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Oh no, wait a minute, you had a dark room
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: that's like the lap of luxury. You didn't did you
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: tell them about the bag because there was there was
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: the tent.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: The whole thing of like that there was like a
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: changing tent. It was like if you couldn't if.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: There's a changing tent, which is like the next level
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: down from the dark room, and then if your ghetto,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: it's the bag.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: It's the bag. And then after that it's you're locking
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: yourself in the bathroom and taping garbage bags over the
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: window and hoping you don't bump into the light.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Oh it was it really. You look back and we
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: were like we were savages. I mean it was, it
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: was really. It was really barbaric. You know the process
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I mean. And it's so funny because I mean, I
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: shot my first commercial. All my commercials were shot on
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: thirty five when I was coming up and did my
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: demo reel and stuff. I shot thirty five and did
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: the transfer, and I still remember the smell, the smell
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: of film is this that is something about the smell
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: of it just takes me back. But I remember shooting
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: one of my first commercials and it was I was
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: shooting at a one hundred and twenty five frames a second,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: and it was terrifying because you hear that film going
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: like fly through the through the mag.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: And you're like, if it's that money you're like money.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Every time you turn on, You're like, that's not the
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: sound of film rolling, that's the sound of like dollars
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: just flying out of my pocket.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: And I was just like, don't break, don't break, don't break,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: don't break. Those snap those snap those snap, don't snap.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Oh So it was but you go back and me
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: talking about it, it was it was savagery. It was savagery, sir.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: It was. It was absolutely savage in some ways. Yeah,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: it was more crapit no, no, look, shooting doing that
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: whole process was very more artisanal, uh in in the
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: way it was like you felt the film and there
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: was like you really needed to know what you were doing.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: You needed to know light, and you needed to know exposure,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: needed to know film stock. There was a level of
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: education that you needed to have where now you know
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: a red or an Alexa, you know, you shoot it
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: down the middle somewhat, you could save it and post
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: and like if you could, you know, and it's still
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: not going to be great, but it's acceptable and and
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: unfortunately it's become more acceptable now and now in the
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Corona COVID nineteen world. This is what we're doing right here.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Service fantastically acceptable right now for network television. Obviously, it's just.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Like quasi HD camera on my computer. Here, this is fine,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: this is good enough.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: It's it's fine, it's I'm just cinematographers. They have no
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: problem with this. And it was funny that you're saying
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: you were an editor, you edited too. There was always
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: that joke is like, what would happen if the DP
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: edited a film and it would just be long crane shots,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: non cut, no cut, long crane shots, long dolly shots
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: that it was just basically the whole movie would be
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: seven shots.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: The whole It's interesting. That's why in school I learned
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: really early on and I was like, oh, like so
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: much of story, you know, so much a cinematography is.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: It's not just shots and angles and lighting. It's how
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: those shots are going to go together, because the power,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: you know, like one shot by itself is one thing,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: but it gave the shot, you know, shot A games
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: a lot more power and story significant when it's shock
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: supposed to shot B, when it shocks the shot C.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: And so they're like, oh, this one image is powerful,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: but these three images together create something altogether different. And
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: I learned very quickly. I was like, Oh, if you
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: don't understand editing, not only are you kind of cutting off,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: you're removing some of the storytelling tools you have, but
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: also if you don't understand editing, you're shooting this stuff,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: handing it to an editor and then later on going well,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: this just doesn't work, Like, well, it's not the editor's fault.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: You didn't give them. You didn't give them material that
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: cut well together. I in school, like I never wanted
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: to be an editor. I've never edited professionally, but I
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: took a lot of editing classes and spend a lot
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: of time studying editing because I was like, oh, that's
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: I mean at the end of the day, Like you know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: cinematography is one thing. The way it's presented to an
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: audience is through editing. If you don't understand editing, I
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: think you are you're I think cinematography do understand editing
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: shoot very differently than those that do.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Right because you're giving you know, I came up as
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: an editor, so when I'm directing, I edit in my
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: head on set, so I'll be like, no, we're going
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: to need this angle here, and I'm already thinking about editing.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: So same thing goes for a cinematographer, if you're not
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: getting the coverage that you need, that's gonna cut well together,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: because it might be a great looking shot, but if
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: it doesn't cut with the rest of the stuff, it's useless.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Or even even sometimes you go like, oh, no, we
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: can do this scene, you know, in one shot, because
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: the scene before this, you know, this is how we
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: shot it. It's like it's it's both within the scene
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: but also the film overall, like what's the tempo, what's
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: the pace? They start getting like network to studios. You're like, oh, also,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: you know, great this movie. You know, I know they're
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: going to chop this movie down to eighty five minutes.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: You're also shooting something going all right, I get that,
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm in love with the director's love with it,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: but I know it's never gonna this is never gonna
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: make it to air, Like this is going to get
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: chopped down. So we have to shoot things because they
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: just practically this can't play out that long. So there's
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: also it depends very much too, like there's a world
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: of difference in terms of I think feature and television
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: in terms of you know, shooting for an edit and
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: I think features you've got a little more freedom, or
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: especially with television, especially network television, you're going, yeah, there's
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: a different style and tempo, and that tempo is not
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: just the language of the show, there's also practical things
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: driving it, like you know, commercial breaks, a so you're like, oh,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: you've got to think about some of those things too,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: and those are those have those that often drive the
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: edit far more than story does sometimes.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Now you you've been, you've been, You've got a lot
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: of features under your belt, and you have television, but
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: a bunch of television episodes under your belt as well.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: When you go into let's go, let's start it off
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: with the feature world, and you are approaching a low
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: budget project, I'm not sure you're doing much of that now,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: but when you do do kind of low budget produt
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: how do you approach it? Because I find that, you know,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: sometimes especially with cinematographers who are used to a certain
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: box of tools, a tool box with certain things that
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: they need to get to do their job, as opposed
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: to a cinematographer is like, look, we've got an iPhone,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: light and a dream, let's make it happen and still
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: able to do it. So how do you approach little
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: budget cinematography as opposed to more network or bigger budget.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I I'm I'm a very big fan
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: of the idea that everything we do is scalable. So
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: what you do on you know, a five thousand dollars
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: short is scalable. You know, it's the same. It's the
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: job you do and how you do it at the
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: end of at its core doesn't really change. So whether
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: you're doing a five thousand dollars short, you know, a
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars micro budget, a five hundred thousand dollar movie,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: or you know you're doing you know, a five million
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: dollar movie, it's the same job. It's just a matter
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: of like what the expectations are, what the resources are
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: that you and the production as a whole have. Before
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: I sign on to any thing, you know, I asked
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: some practical questions about what's the budget, what's the schedule,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Do those things track with what the script is, and
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: what's everybody's expectation. Uh So that in theory, by the
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: time I sign on, I'm like great, I you know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: I sign onto something go, you know, for the cigar ard,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Let's say like, oh, it's a you know, this is
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: a fifty thousand dollars movie. Okay, great, I I know,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: you know, the script is reasonable for the resources we have,
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: and what everybody's expectations are is reasonable for those resources.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: And then you you know, you ask for, you fight
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: for the resources that you need to do those things.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: But yeah, if you're doing you know, if I'm doing,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: you know, a five thousand dollars short for as a
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: favor for a friend, the tools and the resources that
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: I'm going to ask for and expect are wildly different
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: than the you know, than the five million dollar movie
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go do you know the week, you know,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: the month following.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, not every I can't speak for anybody else,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: but I don't have like you know, oh here's like
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: my you know, these are the tools that I need,
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: that I always need because every project's different, and every
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: you're I think, every project not only should it be different,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: but every project just practically is you what I need
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: on a five million dollar movie is not necessarily what
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: I need for you know, a five hundred thousand dollars movie,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: and vice versa, so it changes and I think you
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: need to be open to that too, if you look
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: and go like, great, Okay, I would love to shoot
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: on you know, I would love to shoot on an Alexa.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: We can't afford that, and I can't get a favor
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: for what we can't afford. So what can we afford? Okay,
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: that's great, that's sufficient, you know. And what's more important
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: to me? Camera or glass? Well, I'll get this camera
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: so I can have these lenses instead. And you know, great,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: we'd love to have an eighteen K. Well, obviously that's
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: not going to happen. Can I get an eighteen H? And?
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: My oh, I can probably swim that, Like everything becomes scalable.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Got it. And So when you're working with because I've
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: worked with directors m dps who you know are unique
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: in their style and they're unique in their approach to
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: the filmmaking process, how do you work with the director
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: as far as the collaborative art, because there are there
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: are dps who want to imprint their way of doing
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: things on a younger director or more inexperienced director, sometimes
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: as opposed to a more collaborative way of working. So
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: how do you like to approach working with director? Because
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: I know there's so many different kinds of directors. There's
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the Marge Scorsese that's going to tell you I want
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: the lens here, I want to twenty five here, I
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: want a dolly in here. Can we get this light
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: over there and that laid over there? And then there's
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: the other guy that goes just make it look pretty.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and it's interesting. I think, you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: it's funny. I think I'm forty one now and I've
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: been you know, shooting features and making a living since
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: I was like twenty five, right, Like I got lucky
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: getting an early start. I think the first few years
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: when I started, I definitely, you know, the the the
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: arrogance of youth. I was definitely like, oh I think
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: I know better. So I definitely the first couple of
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: years I was shooting, I definitely was like, no, no, no,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: I think needs to be this way. We should approach
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: it this way, because I thought like, oh, my way
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: is the best way. And after a few years that
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: I was like, that's dumb, that's not true. I don't know,
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm moderately okay at my job, and the
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: real joy of collaborating with people is learning from other people,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: and I had a real big revelation. I think it
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: was in two thousand and seven. I did this this
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: very small movie called Leaving Barstow. This is just like
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: thirty five millimeter drama that we did for like three
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: hundred and seventy thousand dollars. And the director is a
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: friend of mine named Peter Page. It was our first
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: time working together, and Peter had a lot of experience
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: as an actor and so he'd worked with a lot
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: of directors and he was very collaborative, but very specific
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: and demanding in a good way, not like in an
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: unreasonable way, but like he had high expectations and expected
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: everyone around him to rise to those challenges. And that
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: was kind of a revelation for me because I was like, Oh,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: this is the director that knows at the very least
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: as much as I do, but really probably knows a
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: lot more than I do. And I learned a lot
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: from him, and if anything, the biggest thing I learned
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: was shutting my mouth and listening. Suddenly, I was like, oh,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: not on am my learning a lot, but he's putting
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: me in a better position in understanding what he wants
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: and puts me in a better position of going, all right,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: if that's what's important to you and that's what you want,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: then based on that, these are my ideas of how
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: to get there. And that was a real kind of
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: a rebirth, and I think ever since then, I I'm
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: a big proponent of When I come on board and
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: a director is like, how do you like to work,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I usually kind of throw it back at them and go,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: I'm happy and I'm happy to work any way that
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: my director wants to. If my director wants to come
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: in to shot list the whole movie, wants to storyboard
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: the whole movie and go through with you know, Artemis
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: and figure out every shot, every focal length, great, let's
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: go do it that way. If that's the way they
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: like to work. If I've got a director who's like,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: you know what, let's just show up on the day
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: and we'll do a blocking with the actors and we'll
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: figure it out, great, I'm happy to roll with that too.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Every director is different, and part of the fun part
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: of my job is every project's like, oh, I get
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: to flex a different muscle and work a different way,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: because at the end of the day, my job fundamentally
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: is to support my director so if what they need
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: to be comfortable is you know somebody, they can go, hey,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: I want to be really specific about camera placement and
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: focal length. Great, let's do that, and I'll focus my
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: energies on lighting. If they go, I that is great,
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: I'll take care of you know, the blocking and the
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: coverage and everything else. Like every director is different, and
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: that's it's I think my job. Our job is cinematographers
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: to support that whatever it is they however is they
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: like to work, and with that obviously comes to its
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: own challenges. But you know, I think that's that's how
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: to answer that question.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Now, you got on the show Chicago Fire, and have
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: you shot like at least two or three episodes of that.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Two three episodes?
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, what did you, like, say, eighty episodes? Like
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: you were on that show, you shot a lot of episodes.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Some are around there because I started on the show
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: as their second unit DP in season two and they
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: ended up shooting I think two episodes that season, and
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: then season three did second unit and they ended up
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: shooting I like another six or seven episodes, and then
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: it took over the show season four and then did
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: it season four, five and six. So I probably did
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: some between seventy or eighty episodes as the main DP
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: and then probably like another thirty or forty episodes doing
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: second unit for it.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, that's a fairly large network show.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: That is a large network show.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: And that is a fairly large network show, and also
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: a fairly complicated show to shoot. It is not your
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: normal police drama, which has its own you know, car
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: chases and fight sequences and things. But you you the
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: amount of practical effects on that show mixed in with
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming visual effects, and I will ask about.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: How that's actually incorrect? Is it? About ninety eight percent
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: of what was on that show was real, So.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Then goes back to my first day. But the amount
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: of practical effects to shoot with, I mean, I remember
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: watching you know, I've never personally shot I don't think
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: I've ever directed fire. I don't think I've ever shot
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: with fire before, because that's the thing you don't do.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: It's not a thing bad fire bad, so insurance don't
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: like so uh, the you know, I think the most
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: experienced I have was watching Backdraft and then the behind
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: the scenes of Backdraft, and I think the Universal Studios
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Florida Backdraft Ride where they wasn't that amazing how they
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: showed you how they did and stuff. So that was
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: my limited experience of of doing that. How how the
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: hell did you shoot on a television schedule which I'm
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: assuming is what how much per episode?
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Eight days per episode?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: So you're shooting eight days an hour of action content
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: basically explosions fire everywhere all the time. Because I was,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: you know, it was I've seen some episodes of it
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: and I saw a bunch of your work and I'm
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: just going this hurts, like, this hurts. This hurts me
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: watching this. I can imagine. And for the actors, I
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: mean the actors aren't, you know, in danger. I mean
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: they're not, but they are, like there's they geuron, there's
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: there's real it's real fire, maybe be controlled, but it's
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: still real. Yeah, how the hell did you do? How
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: do you do something like that? Man?
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: That's a really good question. I Mean, the real answer
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: is the success of that show is one hundred percent
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: on the crew, like the whole production staff, Like you've
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: got from the top down producers that are really supportive
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: when you go like, hey, these are the tools that
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: we need, this is the time we need. These are
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: the resources we need, they get it, and you get
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: the tools and the resources you need to just every department.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: It was one of the It was one of those
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: shows that I think the success of that show is
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: is just by kind of dumb luck, like a perfect
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: mixture of the right people all came together at the
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: right time. You've got there's no weak links on that
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: entire production, Like every department is just firing and all
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: cylinders at all times, and so that's the only way
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: that kind of stuff can happen. Because also keep in
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: mind that the show specific to like my role to
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: the DP when I was on. Even now, they didn't
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: we didn't have rotating dps, so as you know, twenty
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: two or twenty three episodes every season, it wasn't like, oh,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: you know, you're doing odds or even you're doing every episode.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: So my prep was also basically a day. It was
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: like a tex scout day.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: And that's why why not.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: Or like you know, you're in between setups on one set,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: you know, the director for the next comes down, it's like, oh,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: in between setups, they're like, hey, here's the blueprint for
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: the burn stage and here's where we're going to put
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: these like thirty flame bars. Can we get your eyes
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: on this? You're like spotting it really quick in between
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: other setups. You're like, okay, hold that thought, I have
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: to roll in this scene. Cut. Okay, let's move on.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: Run back, give some notes like the prep is very
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: much squeezed in between other things.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: To do the show. Really, what it comes down to
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: is it's just a lot of trust and everybody else
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: like it's you know. The production designer was a gentleman
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: named Craig Jackson, who is fucking brilliant. Probably shouldn't curse. Yeah, uh,
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: And it was brilliant, you know, and also was great
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: at not only designing sets that just looked amazing, but
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: we're also very like, very shootable and very friendly to
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: lighting and camera placement and fire. And he thought about
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: he put a lot of thought into like what what
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: looked good on camera? You know, so very he'd come
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: by and show me his plans for sets he was building.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: I was like, okay, I have no notes to like,
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: very brief notes. Uh. The effects apartment run by John
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Millinek him and his whole department same thing, Like they
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: were just great about how do we how do we
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: create a scent of danger but do it obviously in
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: a safe way. How do we give people options? Very
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: rarely I ever hear anybody go no, you know, it's
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: usually like we can, It'll take X amount of time,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: and then you're like, all right, how important is it?
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: But it's really just trusting everybody to be on point
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: and showing up and going great. Everybody. Everybody is doing
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: your job incredibly well, so when you show up, you're like, great,
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: all the elements are there. You just have to not
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: screw it up at that point. But all that stuff
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: is I mean, yeah, like ninety eight percent of what
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: you see on that show was real. Like the only
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: visual effects really was you know obviously like wire removal
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: for things.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure, but.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: In terms of like all the fire and explosions, the
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: only time there's ever any visual effects are either if
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: there's a safety concern. More to the point, like if
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: one of our actors is running down a hallway on
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: that show, they're wearing like real firefighter gear, so like
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: they're completely enslaved, they're completely protected, But if they're getting
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: like a victim out, like you know, victims is usually
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: like you know, oh it was in my bedroom, my
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: apartment coming fire. So they're wearing you know, like T
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: shirt and you know, pajama pants, so they don't have
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: the same kind of protection, but they're still running down
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: the hallway that's engulfed in fire. So the crew has
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: got firefighter gear on and the dolly grips and everyone
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: else is suited up except for that one, you know,
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: day player actor who's just wearing shirt.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: The one the red shirt. The red shirt is what
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: you said, the red shirt.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: That's always a stunt person. But they'll you know, they'll
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: put them up with burn Jael. But there's also like
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: a limit, so sometimes like all right, great, well they're
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: running down the hall with the victim. Maybe instead of
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: the fire being you know, at an eleven, you know,
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: we'll dil it down to like a six, just on
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: one side of the hallway that you know that day
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: players near, and then they'll just do a little embellishment
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: to make it match the bigger size before. Or it's
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: like there's a lot of wind because obviously shooting in Chicago,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: especially during the winter, like a lot of the bad
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: wind would make fight you know, an explosion would go off,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: but the wind would physically push the fire down. It's
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: like visual effects might embellish it a little bit, but.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: There was a there's always a practical basis.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Like I said, it's literally any firework is minor embellisment.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Ninety eight percent of what you saw on that show
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: was done in camera for real.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: So the funny thing is that a Chicago Fire set
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: is arguably the safest set to be in Hollywood right
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: now because it kills corona virus quite quickly.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: I hadn't thought about that.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, actually, I mean the heat alone. I'm assuming the
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: heat coming.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Off with that show, and everywhere everybody we're wearing like
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: reperators in full body suits. Actually, you know, maybe Chicago
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Fire will come back. It'll just be nothing but forty
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: two straight minutes of fires.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just and everybody's wearing their gear all
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: the time, even when there's a love scene, gears.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: On surrounded by fire, so rounded.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: By fire at all times. To make sure the virus
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: is going to.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Contact Dick Wolf and pitch this to.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Them, please, I'm sure.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: I'm sure the effects department will hunt you down.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly because since I've never shot fire. Really, I'm curious
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: about it. You're talking about firebars. I'm familiar with what
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: these things are. But you're literally just dialing fire up
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: and down on a board essentially, and you have complete
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: control of the fire and the very different places where
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: it is, so it looks like it's out of control,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: but it really isn't. And then the set itself is
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: treated with multi anti flammable you know, agents that even
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: if the fire does move or something like that, it
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: doesn't catch fire right away or something along the SUTs.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so the effects department, you know, a flame bar
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: for anybody doesn't know, it's literally, you know, a two
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: or three or four foot bar basically holes in it
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: hooked up to propane and they're just pumping propane into
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: it and you ignite it and then so depending on
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: the amount of propane you're releasing, you can control the
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: size and the intensity of that fire. And then you
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: just hide them around the set. Often the sets were
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: built so you could put them, you know, like into
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: the floorboards, Like the floorboards were actually built so you know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: when you look at it, it looks like it's just a
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: normal floorboard. If you stand directly next to the wall,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: you realize there's like like a two inch gap that
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: can put a lame bar in there, so it looks
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: like the walls on fire, but in reality it's just
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: a flame bar hidden by part of the set dressing.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: So the sets were designed for these flame bars to
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: be hidden and built into the set. And yeah, it's
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: every I mean shooting, it's funny shooting that show. You know,
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: under normal circumstances, we might do fifty sixty seventy plus
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: setups a day. You get into fire scenes and you
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: get into like ten, maybe twelve setups, because suddenly everything
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: takes forty five minutes or an hour or more, depending
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: on yeah it should that you get into like a room,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: you're like, great, here's this room. Okay, great, So there's
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: for the sake of argument, I say there's nine flame bars.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like a relatively small fire. So first
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: everybody clears the set. The effects apartment's alreadyrigged it, but
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: they're going to recheck the safety because they rigged it
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: the night before. But they're going to recheck every single pipe,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: every single flame bar, make sure there's no leaks, make
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: sure it's all working. Then they'll bring back on the
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: set and you start doing you start setting levels for
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: each in individual flame bar, and then when you set
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: individual levels, then you start turning them on in groups
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: because obviously, you know fire is competing for fuel, which
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: is not just the propane but also oxygen. So what
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: worked individually some of you start printing in groups of
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: two or three or four might change how the fire's
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: were acting. And then you see the whole room going
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: and from there you start determining, oh, well, that fire
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: is taking oxygen from that one, so you have to
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: make adjustments or you start having safety concerns of this
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: side of the room's getting too hot, that fire is
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: getting too big, and everybody's in there, you know myself
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: effects stunts, there's fire, you know, real firemen in there.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: The actors get involved, and everyone's talking about what's happening,
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: how it's happening, what's going to go on. What's funny
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: is you have a shot of like one person running
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: down the hallway. In reality, what's chasing that person is
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: the operator a dollar grip spotting them affects people on
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: set to keep an eye on fire, real firefighters literally
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: standing by with hoses. You've got somebody, you know on
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: the controls of the pro pane. So if anything goes wrong,
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: if any point anybody has a concern, yeah, they turn
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: everything off instantaneously. It's it's interesting for all of the
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: like the chaos and the danger. There were so many
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: safety nets in place that during the five years I
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: was on the show, nobody there was not a There
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: wasn't a single injury relayed to anything because safety was
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: obviously of paramount importance and there's so many safety nets
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: in place. I remember talking to somebody once we had
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: a day player operator who's concerned. I was like, totally valid,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: and I kind of walked them through it, and I
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: was like, look for something to go wrong, you'd literally
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: have to have like seven people fail at their job
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: almotaneously in the most colossal way for anything to go wrong.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating that a show like that, where the danger
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: is at like the ultimate, I mean it's literally really
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: high and every shot that mistakes could happen, and nothing happens.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: But then yet alone on some you know, some other
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: show or independent film or even studio film, a stunt
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: goes wrong and someone yes and there's a major accident
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: or something like that. It's fascinating.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: I think on that is because I'm talking about this
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: a lot too, Like I think because you know, every
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: day we worked on the burn Saves, you know, the
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: ad has always had the same kind of speech, which
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: was usually started with I know we've done this one
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: of thousands of times, We're going to do this again,
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: and nobody get complacent, because the minute you get complacent
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: and assume is when something goes wrong. So I think
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: a big part of the safety of that show, and again,
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: the reason we're able to do those things is because
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: nobody ever got complacent, and nobody ever cut corners and
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: everybody was like, oh, it's not a big deal. It's like, no,
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: there's a there's a routine for a reason, like we'd
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: go through these steps every single time because we're not
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: we're not doing them because we were doing them to
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: make sure that the thing that you assume is not
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe it's been that way for the nine
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: hundred and ninety nine times you did it before, and
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: here we are in time one thousand and now there's
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: a new variable that you just missed. Like they made
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: a point of going through step by step by step
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: so that people don't get complacent because I think people
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: get hurt on stunts when you know it's it's accidents.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like it's usually human, it's usually some
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: kind of human error.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Now, since there is so much fire on set, I'm
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: assuming there's a ventilation system that pulls all that smoke out,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: because on just a lighting standpoint, this does give off smoke.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Am I wrong?
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, although not not as much smoke as you might think.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, actually all the smoke on the show was
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: us adding artificial atmosphere. But yeah, the sets are the
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: individual sets were vented so after you set everything up,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: the grips would come in and literally the ceiling pieces
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: were built in such a way you could adjust ceiling
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: pieces to vent heat because obviously heat rises. So if
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: you've got you know, a hallway.
• 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: It's one temperature, but when you've got that much fire going,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: literally within seconds, the temperature is going to jump, you know,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: one hundred some odd degrees within seconds. So they invent
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: the ceiling to let heat out, and the stage is
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: built with special ventilation as well. To start trying to
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: pull up you know, actual smoke or whatnot. Yeah, the
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: whole set, the burn stage was literally the only things
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: we shot. There were things that were on fire. It's
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: basically especially modified sound stage to handle all the interior
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: burn stuff.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: So I have to ask, did you lose any did
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: you lose any lenses? Did you did you lose a
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: camera ever? No, Actually, on that.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: Heat a real testament to a real testament to airflex.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: We never had a single camera problem in five years.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: We show on the classic Alexa like the original one.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: But it's I mean there is still heat there, like
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: you're still dealing it's hot aslens ship heat.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's but also again it's like the
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: shitload of heat. But then you know the next day
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: you're going to go outside, you know in Chicago in
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: the winter where it's like twenty five below zero, so
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: you have both extremes, you know, or sometimes you start
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: outside then come back to the burner stage. You're like,
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: you know, layered up for like twenty five below zero,
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: and you come to the burner stage, you're like you're
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: peeling down to like jeans and a T shirt because
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: you're just you know, it's like one hundred and fifty degrees.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: We never had. The closest we ever came was we
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: did a locked off shot with the camera and a ladder,
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: like a twelve foot ladder with this high angle shot,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: and even I was looking at my key grip and
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, man, there's a lot of fire
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: in here that heats. It's hot. Just putting the camera
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: up there. This might be a bad idea, but we
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: did it anyways. And the closes that happened is like
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: a little warning popped up in the camera. Bec was like,
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: oh the camera body got really hot. We were like, oh,
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: did we just screw up the camera? We let it
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: cool down. Eventually took it down off the ladder. Thirty
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: minutes later. It cooled down. Data was totally the car
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: was totally fine.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: So but lenses never had no lenses.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: No lens issues, No, we never. That's actually lying. Sorry
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: we lost. I think it was in season to three
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: we did a sequence where we flipped a fire truck
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: and I think we lost, like we lost a five.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: You know, we put we put something like fourteen or
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: fifteen cameras on it, because you're only going to flip
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: a fire truck once, you know. I see, we had
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: a bunch of like five d's as crash cameras, and
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: I think we lost like two lenses on five d's.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: But yeah, but that wasn't a crash, that wasn't on
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: a burn crackt.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I got it, but in a burn No, we
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: never lost no damage any equipment, no damage any cameras
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: or lenses.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Now I want to ask you. I want to ask
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: you this question because I've I have a lot of
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: experience with this and I would love to hear your
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: technique on the sure shooting haze or smoke in a
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: scene is brutal. How Tony Scott did it for every
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: single movie he ever made and made it look flawless,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I have no idea. Or Ridley, both of the Scott brothers,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: they were mass at the haze. But Tony, like you
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: watch True Romance and like that scene between walk In
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: and Hopper and there's just this gorgeous haze with shafts
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: of light coming in. I'm like, this makes no sense,
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: but it looks awesome, amazing, it looks amazing. So I've
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: shot Hayes multiple projects, I mean just a ton of them. So,
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: and I remember the difference between smoke and haze there's
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: a huge difference between smoke and haze. But what is
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: your technique? If I was said, Okay, Jason, look we're
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: gonna shoot this scene. I want a nice haze here.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: I want that. I want the Tony Scott vibe. I
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: want Blade Runner. How do you set it up, prep
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: it and shoot?
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: So to answer that, I say, because I don't think
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: huggle fire is a good example, because then they're like,
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: you know, you're doing it because's supposed to be simulation. Sure, sure,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: because here in reality something that was interesting because the reality,
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: you know, is in a building that's on fire like that,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: the smoke is literally said that you can't see more
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: than a couple of inches in front of you, right,
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: that's time at like the actual firefighter academy, like the
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: drill that they run people on, and they're literally just
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: shipping containers. They've like maybe sit together to make like
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: this maze, and you get in there, you're like, oh wait,
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: once you put the smoke in, you're literally you're you know,
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: you can see two inches in front of you. So
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: our fire advisor is like, he's like, look, it's not real.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: Because it was real, we'd be making a radio show.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: So you're trying to get like heavy levels of smoke
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: to get the impression of what if an interior burn
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: would look like. But in that case, it's never about
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: maintaining the levels. It's because you know, you're not trying
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: to you're not trying to do haze in terms of
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: trying to light it, like you're shooting that kind of
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: smoke because it now becomes part.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Of it's ambiance versus practical.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So what you're talking about is, and it's funny,
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: is like, you know, I left Chicago Fire in twenty
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: eighteen and last year twenty nineteen, I did three movies
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: basically back to back, and two of them were were
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: with Michael Polish.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, oh you worked with Michael. Yeah he's yeah, Michael
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: friend of he's a good friend of his shop.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I've done three movies with Michael.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Oh that's so cool.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: Very good friend and one of my favorite collaborators. So
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: I did two movies with Michael last year, and Michael
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: loves his atmosphere. Yeah, like Michael loves his atmosphere. So
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: like a good example. The reason I bring this up
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: is like a better example is like Key and I
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: did this World War two Drama with al Pacino. I
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: think it was last I think which did that January
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: through March twenty nineteen, and then that had like a
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: very kind of big classic approach. It was, you know,
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: a lot of big wide shots and lots of hard
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: shafts of white, and we basically had atmosphere in every
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: single damn set for every single setup. In general, maintaining
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: atmosphere is I use a technique of using a spot meter,
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: so once I find a level that I like, you know,
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: I'll make a good technique. I use where based I
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: stand on the same spot on set and I take
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: a reading of the same spot on the wall, and
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: that's how I'm mad and I'm checking that in between
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: every setup, and that helps me maintain a certain level
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: of consistency of hay. Yeah. The the real I think
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: the real way to maintain that kind of level of
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: haze and really work with it is you need to
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: have really candid conversations with the director, like I always
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: with the director in the A D and go, look
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: we can do this. I'm happy to do it. Atmosphere
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: looks great, big shouts, so like it's all wonderful, but
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: it is going to slow us down. Its slow us
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: down because you have to maintain it seemed to be
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: shot to shot take, but it's not just maintaining, it's
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: it's maintaining but also you know, it's not enough, just
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: like okay, oh it's a little thin. Let's wait, let's
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: you know, blast them. We're in. They're like, okay, hold on, everybody,
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: just wait a few minutes because now we have to
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: let it settle, because there's nothing worse than shooting and
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: the like seeing the smoke swirl.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: So more than anything. Like there's a lot of tricks
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: and techniques to maintain consistency, but the real thing for
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: me always is whenever that comes up, I'm like, great,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: everybody needs to understand, like we're going to work at
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: like half the speed for the scene to maintain this consistency.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Like the first movie Michael and I did, that was
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: a big thing, and it was yeah, we'd be set
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: up and go great, we're going to add atmosphere, okay,
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: and everyone just sitting around like sitting on the dolly
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: waiting for it to settle and going and no, not yet,
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: not yet, not yet, okay, now roll, okay, cut, Okay,
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: let's adds more atmosphere.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's brutal. It's brutal.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: That's that's I mean. Unfortunately, the secret to it is time.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Like if you want to do it well, you just
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: you have to everyone has to be understanding that you're
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: going to have to be retouching it basically every single take.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: And you can't just pump it in. You have to
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: pump it in and then let it settle and be right.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: And you know, when you start rushing it is when
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: it starts looking like crap.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: The funny thing is is that there's two on a
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: post stand point with Hayes hay shots, because I've I've
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: colored many films that had Hayes as well as my
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: own projects, and there's two things. One inconsistencies within the cuts.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: At a certain point, I just let it go like
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: you know what.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's done.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: It it's fun. You can't you can't fight it. You
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: can't fight it. And two, you can't really dig into
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: the nag the negative when you're in color. It's it's
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: that Hayes that screws up the color. So like I
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: can't dig in the contrast. I can't.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: It's interesting. It depends on it depends on the look
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: of the movie. It depends on the exposure. And yeah,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: and I mean so it's interesting, like the first movie
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: did with Michael, like we had like every day it
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: looked like this set was on fire. So we had
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: so much damn Hayes. But we also we you know,
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: we've done we've done tests beforehand. We knew that the
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: final grade was going to have a very head, be
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: a very heavy gray that added a lot of contrasts.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: We learned, you know, during testing it was like, oh,
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: we have to pump in a shit ton of haze
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: because what we're going to do in post is going
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: to make most of it, Hayes disappear to get all
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: that contrast back and so on set. You know, when
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: you looked at the set, you're like, this is absurd.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: You can't you know, it looks like the whole house
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: is on fire. But once you got to the grade
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: and add all that contrast, you go like, oh, no,
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: this looks natural with that kind of nice you know.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: The shots of light coming in. The one we did
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: last January was interesting because that was also for schedule reasons,
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: we had multiple cameras, so that became an interesting challenge
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: of well, look, you know, like if you want the
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: wide shot with the big shots of light, we can't
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: do you know, be camera can't do this shot over here,
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: you know, or we can run both camps at the
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: same time, but then we're just gonna have a very light,
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: hazy look to contest with, you know, cut to cut, like, oh,
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: this shot doesn't quite match there.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show. Yeah, it all depends.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Like what you're talking about makes absolutely perfect sense because
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: you've actually given thought to the Hayes and you've given
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: thought to the entire workflow. The projects that I was
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: working on in post a lot of times did not
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: have that foresight. So they just there's different levels of haze.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to match haze and match color, and like
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: if one's super heavy and one super light, it's it
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: was very difficult. And also that just the exposure the camera.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I am I shooting at this a ten
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: adp AM I shooting at a four K? Is it
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: a red? Is it an Alexa? There's a lot of
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: variables involved in.
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: Think I think a lot of that just comes from experience. Yeah,
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: you can look at something and go, oh, that totally
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: you know, you can look at my eye and go, oh,
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: that totally looks like the same level from the shot
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: I just did. Yeah, you get tired, like your eyes
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: get tricked. And it's not until I think it's a
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: DP when you see it all cut together, you're like,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: oh shit, this doesn't work at all. And you know,
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of like you learn your best
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: lessons from your failures, Like nobody really learns much from
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: your successes, but you get spanked hard and you're like, well,
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: that's a lesson I'm never going to forget.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about COVID and oh yeah,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: I know, because God knows, we don't. There's not enough
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: information about that.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: The rhythm, there's not enough discussion.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: There's not enough discussion about COVID nineteen. The world of
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: production has come to a pretty much of a halt
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: in the US. There are other countries that are starting
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: to ramp back up a little bit. In Australia. I
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: heard that, like you were saying earlier and off air,
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: that there is a production that didn't stop in that
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: whole process. How do you see production moving forward in
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: the next coming year, and what's your feeling. I know
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: no one knows, and there's no way that anyone could
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: figure out what the hell's gonna happen. But in your opinion,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: how do you think we move forward?
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, I think first and foremost, so it
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: needs to be a better understanding. Again, I say this
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: as like I'm just a DP, you know, like I'm
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: not a doctor. I am woefully unqualified to rendered opinion.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: But I think first it needs to be a better
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: understanding of of of the virus, so we actually we
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: all can agree on what we're actually talking about. And
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: I think there's so many other factors between you know,
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: insurance companies, between IASI and SAD and DJA, and there's
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: so many factors that have to come together to all agree.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, if we're back at working, but if
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: I'm back on set by the end of this year,
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: I'm going to consider that a big victory. And I
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: really hope both for my sake, because you know, I'm
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: kind of bored, we don't. I love my I'm loving
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: all this time off and hobbies and spend time with
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: my wife is wonderful, but you know, I'm a junkie
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: for the work, and I love being on set, and
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: I'm not on set, so I'm missing that, and then
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: just the practicalities of you know, we all have to
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: make a living. So yeah, I hope I'm wrong. I
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: hope I'm on set, you know, August or September this year.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: That'd be wonderful. I will not be entirely shocked if
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: i'm you know, I'm not back on set until next year.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: But I also think I think right now, anybody that says,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: you know, oh well, this is gonna be this is
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: probably what's going to happen is wishful thinking because there's
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: still so many variables that I think it's it's I
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: think it's impossible to really make an accurate assessment because
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: there's still too many variables.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: If history serves us correctly, When SAG, the DGA IA
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: SI all get together, they work very well together with
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: unions and producers and should be coming We should be
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: coming together very soon with this.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's the issues. Like there's there's
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: too many movies, part many people. There's so many there's
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: so many moving parts and so many different people that
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: all have to come together and agree on something.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: As you said it out loud, I'm saying twenty twenty two.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: I'm just thinking twenty twenty two, as you just said
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: that out loud. It's just like, in what world does
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: the teamsters? I see DGA, SAG, every other union that
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: needs to be involved, insurance companies, studios, producers, it's all
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: come together.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: You also get into, like I think, moral issues too.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Like yeah, going like yeah, are you putting someone in risk?
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Going like yeah, as a producer or a director, going,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: do I feel comfortable asking people to do that to
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: come back to this production? And can I create a
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: safe environment for them and for crew members? Going great,
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: you know, everybody said it's okay to do this? Do
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: I feel safe and comfortable doing this? And then then
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: weighing out like, you know, is my discomfort with it
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: versus like I need to pay my rent so I'll
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: take that risk? Like there are there are hundreds of
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: variables that all need to come together, and we still
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: don't fully understand the virus. So I think, I mean, look,
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: I'm glad that there's a lot of people talking about
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: how do we get us back, you know, how do
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: we get production back up and running. I'm glad that
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: everybody's talking about it, It's on everybody's mind, and everybody's
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: working towards it. I also, you know, I hear and
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: read all so many different different pitches and ways of
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: approaching it, and I think, right now it's there's still
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: just so many variables. I think my opinion, I think
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: it's it's right now, it's still too premature to really
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: be able to say with any kind of certainty what
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: may happen.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Well, the good news is that Hollywood is not a
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: fearful industry and loves change and loves to adapt to change.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: It's very fast, very not risk averse, and very fast
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: moving with adopting change. So I think are in good shape.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: But you know, in all seriously, I just think, with
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: that said, I think production is by their very nature,
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: are you? I mean, look, we we work in an
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: industry that's that's by its very nature is nomadic.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: Like we know we're carnies, we're carnies, can we're.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: High tech carnies. Absolutely so, to a certain extent, I
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: would also I could make the counter argument that we're
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: an industry that's incredibly well equipped to try to figure
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: out like, oh, how do you adapt to this? Absolutely
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: so despite all the many hurdles, I also look and go, okay,
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: but this is an industry that our specialty is like, oh,
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: these are curveballs. Okay, well, we're all paid, we're basically
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: paid to deal with curveballs on a minutely basis, Like
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: that's what we're all paid to really do. So I'm
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: wanting I could make the argument on the other hand
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: and go, yeah, I'm a little I'm optimistic because this
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: is what our industry really really thrives at, is going, oh,
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: here's a new problem that's never popped up before. How
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: do we all collectively get together to solve it?
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: And this is something that it's the whole industry trying
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: to solve it. It's not like it's it's not like
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: distribution or like, oh what are we going to do
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: with this streaming platform, or how are we dealing with
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: film versus digital? Or like, it's not a pocket of
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: the industry. It's the entire industry focused on one problem,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: which I really haven't seen in the history of our industry.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: It's never happened before where every aspect of the industry
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: is trying to figure out the answer to one problem.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Kind of like the world is trying to figure out
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: the cure for this.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: And it's interesting. It also impacts you know, it's everybody
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: that works, you know, in the office side of productions
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: and the physical crew, and everybody in post production and
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: you know, large budget studio films and independent films, like
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: every everybody everything of our industry.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: YouTube, YouTubers, YouTubers, like content creators.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: So you certainly have the literally the entire entertainment industry going, oh,
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: we're we're literally all in the same ship together.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's never happened before, so it's unprecedented times
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: without without question. Now, I want to ask you one question,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: uh sure that I'd love to hear your answer to this.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: What are the top five films to study for cinematography?
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: Oh? That's like if I had children, You're like, which
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: which which is your children?
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Just five that come to mind today won't be on
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: your gravestone.
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: Oh oh oh, I wish I had a lot of
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: time to think about that. One. That's such a hard
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: it's it's I don't know that one. Three, three, I
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: can tell you. I mean, like, look, I uh, the
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: movie that got me into cinematography was was seven? Oh
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: oh god, it like I remember seeing that movie and
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: literally like staring at the screen and going, I don't
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: know what the hell's happening. But I was. I was
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: smart enough to recognize that. I was like, the way
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: this movie looks like this is before I even really
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: understood what cinematography was. I was like, the way this
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: movie looks it has a certain kind of texture that
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: is every bit is important as a storytelling, as the acting,
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: as the editing, as the story. Like, the way this
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: movie looks is part of that movie. If you took that,
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: you know, in the hands of a different sematographer, a
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: different approach visually, I think that movie would be completely different.
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: That's a movie that I still go back to to
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: this day. Sometimes I need inspiration, I'll just go back
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: to that and go like, Okay, yeah, I know that's inspiring.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: So can we can we geek out for a second here?
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: Because I studied seven heavily, I had one of my
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: good friends who worked on seven, so I heard a
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: bunch of the behind the scenes stuff that Fincher did
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: have a lot to do with that look with the
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: DP like they were right back after a word from
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: our sponsor, and now back to the show. Fincher is
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: one of those directors who's just he's on it. He's
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: one of the most technicals.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: And it's also like it's Darius Kanji, who, by the way,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: for anybody who's listening, like Darius Kanji, like you know,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: like his you know, had a heyday in like the nineties, Yeah,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: but also recently has been doing some mind blowing stuff
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: like The Lost City of z Oh Yeah. Immigrant Like
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: both those movies are stunningly shot. Like I watched both
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: of them. I was like, I should just retire now,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: come on.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: But I remember seven because I had the laser disc.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: I had the Criterion Collection laser disc of it, and
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: they actually it was the first, the first laser disc
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: that actually had the settings how to set your TV settings,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: the contrast to set it so you could actually get
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: the full experience of it. And Fincher he was doing
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: something very unique with the negative, which was he was
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: going below the toe the below the toe of the black,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: so he was pushing it far beyond wards normally is
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: and I think they added No, they didn't add more
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: silver to it, but I think they did.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: They were doing a silver retention process to it.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: They were so but the but but then the fun
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: The part about it is if you saw it in
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: the theater, there was a handful of full prints with
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: the silver in it.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there were the there were like, yeah, like fifty
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: show prints, right they had they had the process done
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: to those prints.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was it was just too expensive to do
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: for all the prints. But yeah, he just got it
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: through that one. So funny side note. I was in college,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: uh and seven comes out and I go see it
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: and I'm my mind is, I'm like what did I
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: just see? And I walk out and for whatever reason,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: I looked into the garbage can that was right by
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: the the the the exit, and I see film in
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: it and I'm like, what is that film? And my
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: buddy's like, do you want to take it? I'm like,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: it's in the garbage why couldn't we take it? So
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: I start pulling because we're like, okay, you're kidding me,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: like thirty five millimeters. I'm like, what is thirty five
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: Plin like, I'm like, it's like the Holy Grail. I
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: found it right, I'm pulling it out. It's the trailer
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: for seven. It's the trailer for seven. So I yanked
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: the whole thing out. I pull out the garbage's an
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: empty get bag inside of it. I pulled out and
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: this is back in the nineties, guys, it's a different time.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: And so I pulled that out, I put it in
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: and took it home with me. I still have it.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: It's in my closet right now. I still have it.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: It's wrapped up, and I'm really taking this story. Is
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: like the first time I saw seven, I was rooting
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: through the trash, that's.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Right, yes, yes, So I actually I threw it in
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: the tub to clean it from the coke and the
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: gum that was on it. So I cleansed it and
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: I put it up to the light man and it's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: the freaking trailer a thirty five millimeter per trailer of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: amazing seven. And it's one of my favorite that in
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: Fight Club or two of my favorite films of all time. Okay,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: but the only the other two or three films I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: would throw on that list Blade Runner, of course. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: Blade Runner is just one of those. When I first
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: saw Blade Runner, I was just like, what is going on?
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: A lesser known one? Searching for Bobby.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: Fisher, Oh that's fantastic.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Searching for the subtlety of how he did it. And
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: then I did research on it. How he was bouncing
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: light off of mirrors.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or he would do things like you had put
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: a light and put it on the pin, like full
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: spot and like you're just aiming at somebody's waist off
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: camera and like let the residual light come up, and
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: that's what he was exposing from.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: It was just it was he was in a completely different.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: I would also say this is a movie that very
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: few people have ever heard of burn, which.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: One I'm sorry to say that again.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: Birth Birth, You were seeing birth.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: No, I haven't seen birth.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Oh you're in for a tree. So it was shot
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: by Harrisavitees. I passed away a few years. I don't
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: actually don't want to tell you anything about it, but
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: it's it's uh yeah, actually I don't want to tell
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: you anything about what I visually. It's interesting because you
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: see it now and obviously you know, like one can
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: play to have is is. You know when they do
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: streaming or go to Blu ray, a lot of times
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: they'll they'll do some clean up for the noise. But
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: I saw a print and that movie is you know,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: Harrisavidez was known for for massive under exposure. You know,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: like he did movies like The Game where it's like
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: you'll have the look. Yeah, but his most of his
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: work was you know, like Elephant or like Last Days
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: or you know, he did a lot of really beautiful
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: work that was very under exposed. That movie was so dark,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: so dark, but he just kind of masterfully rode that
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: like that razor thin edge of just a couple of
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: foot candles the wrong way and there's nothing there and
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: had just enough that it was so grainy and so murky,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: but intentionally done. It's traditionally you'd say it's not a
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: well photographed movie, it's not a pretty movie, but I
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: would argue it's some of the most beautiful like lighting
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: and under exposure I've ever seen. Like I still watch
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: that movie and I'm like, I still like my brain
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: hurts trying to wrap my head around. I'm like, I
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: understand what he's doing, well, I mean, I just don't
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: understand how I could ever possibly do it myself.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: Well, if you want to, if you want to start
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: going into under exposure, you need to talk about the
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: Prince of darkness. I mean Gordon to Willis so yeah.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: I mean if you look at you look at Godfather
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: part too, and you just like, yeah, I still remember
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: what's his name? Oh god, the producer, Oh the famous
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: producer who fought with Copola. Oh god, the kid stays
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: in the picture.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, they we're both dough in brain farts. Yeah.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: But you know what I'm talking about. I see his
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: face right in my head. He saw the Daily So like,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: what is this? I can't see anything? And that was film,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: and you know, like it's all about how it's developed,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: how the timing is in the in the in the
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: lab he was on. You wan't to talk about Razor's
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: edge cheese. It's it's it's stunning, man.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: But like also, you know, you take you know, I
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: think also you go back to mother class, you get
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: things like like the Conformists. Yeah, of course that's you know,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: like Apocalypse now. Like it's funny there are movies that
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: uh nowadays or things like the Godfathers, any good Godfather,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: Apocalypse now, Blade Runner, there's those aesthetics have become such
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: a part of modern movie.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: It doesn't even look impressive.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but when you go back and look and go,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: oh wait, until this movie, nobody was really doing that
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: until came that hadn't happened. I mean, I would argue
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: say that Citizen Kane. I know it's like a cliche,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: but Citizen Kane is an okay story. It's probably religious
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: for me.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, I agree with the underd perscent. I can't.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: I can't personally, I can't watch it. I can't watch
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: it all.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and like that movie is that movie's entirely done
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: in the visuals. Oh, you know, and you watch the
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: movie now and go oh. And also, by the way,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: like you watch a movie like that and go you know,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: they're doing that with like you know, Asa like twenty five,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: Like you're watching that and going that's Those are cinematographers.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: Those are people that have a complete mastery of craft,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: you know, whereas nowadays we're going like, oh, my camera
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: can only go up to eight hundred iso, how am
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: I positibly gonna light this?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Like oh god, there was there is one director and
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: then we'll stop geeking out because I'm just geeking out
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: with you now at this point. There is one director
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: that's considered probably one of the greatest non cinematographers, even
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: though he wasn't officially the cinematographers of his films. Let's
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: see if you can guess what it is. He's a
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: legendary director who was not officially the cinematographer, but has
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: given a seen amounts of credit for the lighting and
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: the look of their films.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: They coul apply to a lot of directors.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: No, but this one's like he did things that no
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: one had ever done. He had lenses designed for himself.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Oh Coubric exactly, I gave it to you that one.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: I mean you look at Barry London and just Barry
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: Lindon and you just just like what was the ASA?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: Like how exactly? But you know it's the same thing
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: with like you know, it's the same thing. If he
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: takes away like like Ridley Scott, I think it's gonna
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: be coful too. Like there's a reason Ridley Scott has
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: worked with a shitload of different dps. His movies all
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: have a certain kind of a similar sensibility. Like I
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: think there's very few directors you go, you know what,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: they work with a DP by choice, But if they
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: wanted to shoot it themselves, they probably could.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: David Fincher, Michael bay Tony Scott. They have such unique
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: styles that they easily could have kept just you know,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, like you look at Michael Bay's movies from
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon to the Transformers films, it's
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: a Michael Bay movie. Yeah, it's just it's.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: Not there's not a conversation, different dps, but a very
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: similar sensibility.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Ridley and I mean Tony, I mean, I
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: mean Tony's where I mean Days of Thunder top Gun.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: I remember Top Gun showed up. Top Gun was like,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: Everyone's like, what is this like he brought He was
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: kind of like, I know, really he was the big boy,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: but I think Tony, I gotta miss Tony too. With
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: Top Gun, he brought this commercial sensibility, real heavy commercial
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: sensibility to the art form, and like it was just
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: a very different energy as opposed to like Ridley who
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: did Alien of course and Blade Runner. He brought that
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: same kind of commercial thing, but it was just different.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show. He was a slower
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: hand where Tony was more a little bit more is shooting.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, there's a lot more. There's a kind of
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: a frenetic energy to it versus like Ridley. Scott's always
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: had a much more kind of classical approach to think
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: of like incredibly composed, incredibly well lit, where Tourny Scott
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: his movies look amazing, but definitely have a more of
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: a commercial vibe to them. I mean like it takes
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: something like uh uh a Man on Fire, Well that
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: was he was.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: That was he was in his experimental stage at that
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: blood He was doing like crazy stuff I love.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: But I think that's my point, like you look and
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: go that still has some kind of frenatic energy, but
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: completely different aesthetic I think, largely in part two also
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: to the DP.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: Right exactly so even his last movie Unstoppable. I mean
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: you watch that and and that that last series. I
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: think Men in Black amand mid Men, black Man, Man
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: on Fire was the first kind of I mean, he
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: was playing with no Domino. I think Domino was. He
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: went crazy and Domino, yeah, Domino. Like the DP. I
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: remember watching the DP and what they were doing. They
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: were just shooting reversal stock they were they were doing
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: bleach bypass and oh god, it was just like they
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: were going crazy.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: With that cross processing. Yeah, that was a cross process
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: back double exposing it yea yeah.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: And He's like, okay, now open open the bag. Open
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: the MAGA second, or open the open the lens just
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: to let a little bit of lights come in. I mean,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: and this was a studio. These are studio projects. I
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: mean to me, But you look at something like even
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: Unstoppable right before he passed, It looks like a twenty
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: some year old did it.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it was.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: It was amazing. It was really really amazing to watch.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: We could keep kicking out for hours, sir. But I
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: want to ask you a few questions that I asked
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: for my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: trying to break into the business today.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's a great question, I would say, m hm.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: Trying to think. I'm also trying to make it very concise.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: So there's a term like a twenty minute I tried.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: I think coming to the business today, you have to
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: have absolute certainty. That's what you want to do. Yeah,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: I think somebody somebody gave me really good advice, which was,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: if you can see yourself doing anything to make a
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: living and being happy with it, you should go do that.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: But if you can't see yourself doing anything else, stick
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: with this. So I think you have to really be
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: committed to this understand that it. You know, making a
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: career takes a lifetime. I think I find a lot
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: of people, especially nowadays, you know it's like, oh, I'm
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: right out a film school. If I'm not, you know,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: making my living as a DP, you know, in five years,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: you know I have I've failed somehow, Like that's just
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: not the way things work, Like there's a reason there's
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: outliers are outliers for a reason, Like they're the exception,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: not the norm for the other ninety nine percent of us. Like,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: it takes a long time and a lot of work.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: And if anything, I'd say maybe the best advice is
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: is humility. Just understand, like you know you're going to
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: work hard, and you know you're not especially when you're
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: starting off, You're not going to be recognized. You're not
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: going to be compensated for your work properly. Like you're
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: going to work really hard, and you have to learn
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: your craft and learn to respect the process of making
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: things and just be respectful to people. Actually I usually
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: give the some advice which is just good life. Don't
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: be a dick, Like, actually, it's a great T shirt.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: It's a great shirt.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: I keep saying, I'm going to make a T shirt
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: that don't be a dick, because that's actually the best
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: advice I can ever get to anybody. I'm like, look like,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: when I'm hiring people, if I've got two people, like
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: one person who's got an amazing resume and is enormously talented,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: but isn't the best human being versus somebody who's young
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: and eager and it seems really cool, I'll go with
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: the young, cooltely every single time, because for me, I'm like,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: I don't want to spend like, I don't like spending
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: ten minutes with somebody who's unpleasant, let alone twelve hours
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: a day for you know, four weeks or nine months.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: So yeah, no question. Now, what is the lesson that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: took you the longest to learn, whether in the film
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: business or in life.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm still work in progress. I don't know. I
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: said I wouldn't say, necessarily to me the longest time
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: to learn, but I do. I do think, especially cinematographers,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: it's very I mean, look, cinematography is obviously a key
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: component to any film. Like you take a camera out
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: of the equation you have a radio show. So cinematography
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: is absolutely important, and cinematographers our jobs are very you know,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: and I don't say this to like, you know, like
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: toot our own horns, but I think practically speaking, cinematographers
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: have some of the hardest jobs on set in terms of,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: you know, writing the line between technical and craft, and
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: also schedule and budget and a lot of politics, and like,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: we have a lot of influence and a lot of
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: control over most especially if you're doing a TV show,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: like you often are running the set more than like
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: a director will. And that's not for a place of ego.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: That's replaces like all right, they're here for one episode,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: but you're here for twenty two episodes, so you end
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: up kind of being a guardian of the show and
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: helping guide a director who's like, you've been doing this
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: for years, this is my first time here. What do
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: you think? So, I think it's very easy for cinematographers
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: to get wrapped up in that and not understand that like, yes,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: cinematography is important, but there is a lot of aspects
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: to every production, and I think it's important to also
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: step back and go cool, we're all gears in a
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: bigger machine. Now as a cinematographer, I might be a
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: very big gear I'm not the biggest gear and I'm
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: not the most important gear. So if anything, I think
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: have learned, like again, back to humility. Like you know,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: I always say, like I hopefully I don't have any ego,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: and whatever ego I have is what shows up on screen,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: Like I want the work to speak for itself.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: Ken, real quick, can you discuss on a politics and
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: the importance of understanding on set? Politics is just something
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: they don't teach you in film school and the only
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: thing that you got to learn the hard way.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, we could. We could do an entire episode
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: on the conversation just on politics, because yeah, I think
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: film schools. The thing film schools are lacking is they
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: teach people about art and they teach people at craft.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: I don't think film schools do anything about career management,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: especially when it comes to cinematographers and understand that, Like
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: you know, look, as a cinematographer, if I get to
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: if I get to do lighting and camera and visual
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: storytelling like fifteen or twenty percent of my day, that's
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: a good day for me because the other eighty percent
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: is spent with schedule and politics, personality and yeah, everything
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: that has nothing to do with lighting, because that's you know,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: you're a manager, like you're you're an artist and a
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: manager and a crafts you know, a crafts person at
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: the same time. And depending on the production you're, the
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: project you're working on, and who you're working with, that
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: will shift sometimes throughout the day. You're like, right right now,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: I'm a manager, right now, I'm an artist. Right now,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: I'm just a technician. In terms of politics, I mean, look,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: the easiest thing is I've learned is like keep your
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: mouth shut and listen. Like you know, very few people
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: ever get in trouble by not speaking, you know, like
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: be quiet, keep your mouth shut until you are either
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: asked your opinion or you have a strong opinion that
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: you think has value to it. But I think another
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: thing also is is again going back to don't be
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: a dick, Like I think a big part of politics
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: is just being a polite, decent human being. More should
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: do it because it's just the right decent human thing
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: to do. Also, you don't always know who you're talking to,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: and you also don't know that the person you know,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: the person you're talking to right now, you know, might
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: be working service five years from now. They might be
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: you know, producing a VP of a network that has
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: a decision about whether or not you're hired. I told
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: the story before. One of the best movies experience ever
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: had on a set came about from a relationship. I
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: got called by a producer, went in for an interview
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: and went greg got offered to do the movie, and
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: at some point during prep I was like, hey, I
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: never asked how did you get my like, how did
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: you get my information? I and they like, like, oh,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: my brother, and they throw out their brother's name. I
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: was like, cool, don't I don't. I have no idea
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: who this person is. And so I had to go
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: back and I was like, looking through my emails, I
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: discovered through serious of conversations, I had done this terrible
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: short film and this kid, who was like nineteen at
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: the time, had been the Craft service PA. Wasn't even
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: the craft service person was helping the craft service person.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: On the on the totem on the total poll of
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: of where you are on the set right, yeah.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: Thing the craft service person and apparently had told his
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: brother was like, oh, yeah, I did this short. Yeah.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: No it seemed to because it's very good, but yeah,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: the DP was you know, seem to note they were
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: doing and they were really cool to me and they
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: were really nice. And then flash forward like four or
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: five years later, it was like, oh, this guy was like, oh,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: I'm doing this movie. I remember my brother talking about you,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: and then I up and I liked your work and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: you came in and I was like, I got recommended
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: for a movie. They ended up being a great experience
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: for me because I was polite to the Craft Service PA, Like,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: you never know where those relationships go, you know, come
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: and go from. So in terms of politics, if you're
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: not sure, don't say anything and just be polite to everybody.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's actually probably the easiest advice for set
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: politics without getting into a whole other podcast about politics.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: So just basically be quiet, listen, and be nice. We'll
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: be right back after a word from our sponsor and
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: now back to the show.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've never gotten in trouble for not speaking. Usually,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: what I've gotten in trouble because I've opened my mouth,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: and I was like, I should have just kept my
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: opinion to myself.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: Jason Man, And where can people find you if they're
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: if they're looking to hire a crack a crackshot DP.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: Going to hire a crack DP. I'll get a website.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: It's just my name, jascreathers dot com. I try to say,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: especially now with COVID, I stay pretty active on Instagram
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: and post a bunch of stuff up there. Yeah, on
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: my website. Uh and uh an Instagram.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: Very cool, Jason, It's been a pleasure. I'm sure we
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: could talk probably for another four or five hours just
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: on Kubrick alone. We can have an hour per director.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: We discussed the loan, just going through their filmographies and just.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: Geeking phography of Michael Mann and David Fincher.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: Oh jeez, stop it, I'm gonna start talking again.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: It was a pleasure having you on the show man.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you. So I'm so glad we finally got to
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: do this. So thanks again, and stay safe out there.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: Likewise, my pleasure to you, my friend.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Jason for coming on the show
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: and dropping those knowledge bombs on the tribe today. Thank
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: you so much, Jason, And I want to give a
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: big shout out to Austin Nordell, who was my amazing
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: cinematographer on on the Corner of Ego and Desire, and
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: Austin was the one that introduced both Jason and I
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: so thank you so much, Austin. I appreciate it. Brother. Now,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: if you want to get links to anything we spoke
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: about in this episode, head over to the show notes
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three ninety five.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening, guys, As always, keep
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: Screenwriting dot tv.