Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 397: The Art of Low-Budget Cinematography with Suki Medencevic, A.S.C

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BPS 397: The Art of Low-Budget Cinematography with Suki Medencevic, A.S.C · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three ninety seven.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist, moving an audience, making
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: them think the way you want them to think. Painting
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: pictures in the dark. Gordon willis broadcasting from a dark, windowless.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Room in Hollywood when we really should be working on
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: to make your screenplay bulletproof.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage.
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: on the kind of project you are and the goals
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: of the project you are, So we actually break it
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: down by three categories micro budget, indie film, market and
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a
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  Speaker 2: reader that's used to reading tempole movies when your movie
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  Speaker 2: is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars,
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  Speaker 2: and we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof Script Coverage,
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  Speaker 2: So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
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  Speaker 2: by professional readers, head on over to covermyscreenplay dot com. Now, guys,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I want to welcome back to the show returning champion
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Suki Medendovich. And Suki is an ASC cinematographer. He is
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: one of the original top ten guests I had on
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the show. He is episode number nine and I've been
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: friends with Suki over twenty years now and I absolutely
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: adore him and I wanted him back on the show
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about the coronavirus, how he
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: sees production working moving forward, what he's heard about, how
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Hollywood is planning to reopen Quibi and how that whole
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: world and how changing a format and how cinematographers are
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: shooting for that platform, as well as to discuss his
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: new course, Light and Face the Art of Cinematography Now
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I've taken a lot of lighting and cinematography courses over
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the course of my career, and I've worked with some
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: amazing cinematographers and taken master classes and workshops with some
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Oscar winning cinematographers. But I got to tell you that
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: this course Light and Face is by far my favorite
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: cinematography course I've ever ever taken. I loved it so
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: much that I begged Suki to make it part of
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Indie Film Hustle Academy and launch Indie Film Hustle Academy
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: with this course in place, because I needed to get
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: this information, this course to the tribe. What is so
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: wonderful about how Suki teaches this course is he takes
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: you from the very beginning the basic how to light
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: a human face with one open light bulb, and from
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: there he takes you through this journey in the course
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: that at the end of it, you're lighting blade Runner
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: style scenes all around the face it is. It really
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: is a game changing course. I'm super excited to have
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Suki on to talk about that and everything else we're
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: going to be discussing in the episode, and at the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: end of the show, I'm gonna show you how you
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: can say, four hundred dollars on this amazing course, but
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: we'll get to that after the interview. So without any
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Suki Midenthovich.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: I'd like to welcome to the show, Suki Midentovich. How
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: are you, my friend?
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: I am very good, very good. Good to see you,
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: my friend.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Good to see you as well. You are a reach
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: turning champions, sir.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: You are You are one of the first guests of
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: the Indie Film Hustle podcast. You were episode number nine
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: back in the day when I was just a fledgling
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: fledgling podcaster. You were so kind to be on my
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: show and I never forgot that, my friend.
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: Well for you, my friend, anytime, and I'm very happy
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: to see that how Indi Film Hustle has grown and
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: become the empire, which we're very happy to see that.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know about an empire, but it has grown
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: a lot, and there's a lot more ears now than
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: there was when you and I first had our conversation
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: about the art of cinematography.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: But I thought it was a good time to bring
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: you back.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: On the show, not only because you and I teamed
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: up to bring a new course to Indie film INDI
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Film Hustle Academy, which is lightened face the art of cinematography,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: which we'll talk about later.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: But also, you.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Know, we're recording this during quarantine. We're recording this in
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: a very unstable known time time of what's going to
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: happen in our industry, and I definitely want to touch
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: based on that little later on in the episode as well.
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  Speaker 2: But let's get I want to get into well, first
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: of all, for people who don't know who you are,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: how did you get into the business.
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  Speaker 5: Oh well, that's a very long story, but in a
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: short my entrance to the business was basically as straightforward
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  Speaker 5: as it gets. I studied cinematography in first in a
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  Speaker 5: film school film academy in Belgrade, back in Yugoslavia, and
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: from there I continue my education in Prague at FAMO,
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: which is one of the world's very prestigious film schools
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  Speaker 5: and probably one of I would say top schools for cinematography.
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  Speaker 5: So up and completing my five years of studying cinematography
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  Speaker 5: Master Program of Cinematography, I managed to get to the
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: United States first as a guest of university. So I
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: came to UCLAs what they call a visiting scholar, spent
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: a few years among the students, but mostly doing like
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: seminars and workshops with students, and also learning English, because
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: when I came to the United States, I really didn't
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: speak any English, and.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: So I felt that was very important thing.
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  Speaker 5: And gradually, gradually, I think I was looking forward and
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: trying to figure it out ways to get in a
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  Speaker 5: film industry. Getting to university was just my kind of
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: like entry port of entry, but really getting in a
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: film business was a whole different game.
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  Speaker 4: And when I reached the.
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: Point, even though I felt I was educated and qualified
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  Speaker 5: to do the job, I reached the point that really
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  Speaker 5: to start in a film business, the moment you get
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  Speaker 5: a chance, you have to really deliver a hundred percent.
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  Speaker 4: This is your moment. And I had.
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  Speaker 5: Also choice in the beginning to choose either going with
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  Speaker 5: a traditional Hollywood route from like becoming a camera assistant
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  Speaker 5: and gradually make it up to be a cinematographer. But
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: in my case, I realized that would be kind of
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: like waste of time because I felt that I spent
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: enough time in a film school to get educated, so
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: I wanted to start as a cinematographer, which.
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: Is more risky, more longer route.
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: But back then that was the way kind of like
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: you had to wait for the opportunity because the traditional
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: way of getting a film business was still very.
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  Speaker 4: Present, like you know, you go as assistant and go
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: on and go.
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  Speaker 5: So I eventually get my first film break in nineteen
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  Speaker 5: ninety four.
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  Speaker 4: My yes, I'm very familiar.
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  Speaker 3: I'm I'm very familiar with that film, so.
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: I know, and I think that's the that's the You're
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: my biggest fan. And when it comes down to the
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: movie Embrace of the Vampire, my first film I did
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  Speaker 5: with Alisa Milano and the Jennifer Tilly and Martin Kemp.
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  Speaker 5: It was low budget vampire horror movie shot in and
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: sot in I think.
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  Speaker 4: Twelve days we had and that was it. That was
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: it pretty much from there and you and you launch
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: from there.
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: Interesting interesting detail is that from the movie, from the
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: finishing the movie Embrace of the Vampire, from the last day,
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  Speaker 5: I took a taxi to the airport in a Saint
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: pol and took the flight to Taiwan, to Taipei to
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  Speaker 5: do my second picture film called In a Strange City,
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  Speaker 5: which was as opposite as it can be from the
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  Speaker 5: horror film.
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  Speaker 4: It was like the nice love story drama.
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  Speaker 5: With very nice budget, very relaxed schedule, and uh that.
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  Speaker 4: Was my second picture film.
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  Speaker 5: But getting on that film was very unusual because a
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: year before I was in Taiwan doing a series of
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: lectures and seminars, so I saver some connections in Taiwan,
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: but I never thought I'll be doing film there. And
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: then a year later I get invited to do the movie,
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: which was very unusual in many many ways. We can
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: even have a whole podcast or meeting Skype meeting just
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: talking about experience working in different country with the crew,
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: with a crew that doesn't speak English, and I don't
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: speak Mandarin or whatever the local dialect they speak. So
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: we still manage to make the movie despite all these barriers.
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  Speaker 5: But it was a challenge drive to tell.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: You so, so you've been, you know you've been. You've been.
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  Speaker 2: You've gotten a lot of shrapnel over the years working
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: in this industry. You know you've worked, You've done a.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Ton of movies.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: What is the biggest mistake that you see young filmmakers
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: make when they start out. We'll be right back after
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: a word from our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: Well, things have changed now in the last whatever twenty
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: years since i'man in this.
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: Business, things have changed because more and more.
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: New filmmakers and the cinematographers, the accessibility and being able
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: to get in a film business and make the film
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  Speaker 5: is far far easier than it used to be twenty
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: years ago. Now anybody who has even iPhone or any
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: kind of cheap camera can do something and make something,
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: make whatever the narrative form it is. The mistakes, well,
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  Speaker 5: I see some great works by very aspiring starting filmmakers
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: and cinematographers, but I also see a lot of not
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: so good stuff, And I think mistake would be not
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: investing in educating yourself in the language of what you're doing,
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: so understanding visual storytelling. I think when it comes down,
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: just in case of cinematographers, to me, is the key
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: element being able to point the camera. You will for
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: sure get it properly exposed. You will, for sure, with
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: a couple of plug ins, easily manipulate image to look
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: kind of fleshy and you know, maybe even interesting and
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: capture somebody's attention.
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: But mistake is.
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: If you think that form will overpower the content. Is
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: the way that you're going to tell the story. That's
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: to me something that it's most commonly and most commonly
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: I see it, and I see tons of films on
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: Vimeo on all kinds of stuff.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: I see it.
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: I'd see on YouTube, people post in their own channels,
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: and you know, but.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: Very very rarely I.
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: Would say I see clear artistic intent behind whatever you
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: do it, even if it's a small experimental film. I
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: mean I do see, of course, some great short films
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: and some experimental things that but to me, majority of
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: the content that I see now in the social media
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: obviously is something that is more designed to just grab
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: your attention, just to grab somebody, even for a couple
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: of seconds, get a click, so you can make extra
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: whatever money you're going to make by somebody visiting or
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: liking your content, and that's the goal. I think, it's
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: not the goal to be really storyteller, and it's more
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: like show how many likes you have and show how
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: many followers you have. And so I think in the journal,
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: in approach and philosophy, why are you doing what you're doing?
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  Speaker 5: I think it's the main main mistake that I see
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: among filmmakers and cinematographies.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Now you, I mean, when you first started out, you
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: started out doing low budget work, and is there any
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: tips that you can have about how you would approach
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: lighting on a lower budget, because I know that the
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: gear is a lot cheaper.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Than it was when you were starting out.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Now you can get lighting gear very affordably, good lighting
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: gear very affordably. But how do you approach creatively lighting
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: a low budget project?
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: You know, I approach every project differently, completely differently, And again,
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: it all starts from the script, it all starts from
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: the story.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: And if.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: Regardless of budget, I've seen some big budget films done
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: with really really minimum lighting minimum package because the style
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: calls for something that is very might call it naturalistic,
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: something that you want a camera to be very much
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: participating in the story, not being intrusive, not to tract,
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: not attract, make a point of being present in the story.
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: So I've seen some really big budget films made that
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: way where you really almost have no lights. And I
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: can just name couple like The New World Is It's
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: the one that comes to mind, which was done pretty
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: much without any single light, maybe just like one Signal's
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: done and The Revenant also the one that Chivlobtski did
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: a few years ago is exactly the example of that.
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: I think the whole lighting package he had was a
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: couple of light boarded he used for like one signal
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: or on the fire.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: But that's it.
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: So you really don't need to have a huge lighting
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: package in order to tell the story. In order to
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: make interesting visuals, you better understand what is the purpose
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: of the visuals that you're going to use and how
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: you're going to support the story. Believe in times where
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: it's easier than ever to make to make interesting image.
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: We have cameras that are now digital camera. They are
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: so sensitive to light that you can, if you really want,
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: you can shoot any film without any single light, basically
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: relying just on a practical light sources and with very
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: little supplemental lighting. And I think this is kind of
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: the way the filmmaking in general is now going going
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: in the direction that we now because of the just
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: like technical capability of the cameras that we are using
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: is enabling us now to rely far more on the
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: actual practical light sources than we used to. Like every
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: light source then you have to augment it, supplement it
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: and create something that is motivating. This time you can
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: just put actual whatever the light source is and it
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: will give you what you need to get.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: So to answer you really your.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: Very complex question, how you approach in low budget I
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: think doesn't really matter if it's low budget or big budget.
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: It still has to again come down to what is
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: that you're trying to accomplish. And sometimes you might need
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: more help from the art department, and it's addressing to
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: provide you with the proper type of practicals. Then you
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: will need from your group and likely department to bring
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: you all kind of lights, and you might actually ruin
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: the whole thing that you might be able to just
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: capture if it's unwell.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like you know Chivo, if you look
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: at Tree of Life or The Revenant, the kind of
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: shots that he was doing doesn't lend itself to large
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: lightning packages. You can't just mirander around and do these
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: long takes. It's much more complex, it cost It would
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: cost a lot more money to do that correct.
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: Yes, but there's also another approach which is kind of interesting.
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: We even see on some pretty decent budget films and
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: TV shows that this kind of a naturalistic or realistic
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: approach is very common.
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: Like you will get on the set and you will
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: have a set.
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: Which is built on the stage, but it's built with
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: the real ceiling, real walls and everything. Of course flying
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: walls if you need it, but in general you still
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: light it as if you are on real location. And
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: there's something about studio lighting versus location lighting. It's very
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: difficult for a lot of cinematographers to switch the mode that,
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: even if you're going for a very much realistic look,
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: it's very difficult to switch to the mode then that
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: you can actually not turn on the light just because
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: it's there, not to turn on all the lights because
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: you have them available. I think it's far more interesting
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: to not to even think that you are on the stage,
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: to think you are on real place relocation and understand
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: the logic of the light and then create something that
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: looks very much believable and naturalistic in terms of how
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: the light works with the place. And lets cut a
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: mistake to be present, like if you have let's say sunlight,
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: it's just like creating some hot streak on the floor
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: somewhere that you would normally have in location. You have
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: to kind of think backwards and say, how can I
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: introduce light which is more realistic and naturalistic if you're
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: going in the direction then making it all perfectly balanced
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: and controlled and putting back lights where they belong and
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: and have a light coming from whatever direction. That doesn't
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: really make much sense. But again, it all depends what
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: you're going for.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: So if you were if you're going to have one
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: light that you were going to bring with you into
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: battle in a low budget scenario, what would that light?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: What would be your go to light? Like like if
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go to you, And again, I know
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: it depends on story, but let's talk generally.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: Well, I think if there is one light that I
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: would use, I would use two lights. I will I
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: will have I will have to have too. You use
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: two lights, but I will use one or another sure
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: and one of the one of them would be would
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: be maybe, uh, you know, one by one, just like
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: one by one light panel, but light one the light
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: And there are many manufacturers that make you know, the
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: small Rosco led LDS led one by one, why elid
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: one by one. I've been so many times in a
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: situation that you know, everything looks perfect and all you
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: need is just to get a little bit beautiful light
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: or just get to be gleaned in the close up
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: of the actor, but you want to like it without
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: lighting whole set. Having that light, just a little light
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: next to the camera will give you that very invisible
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: yet beautiful light which will not affect anything on the
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: scene on the set, and it will it will make
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: people look look nice without any kind of distructing shadows
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: or something that does make match sense. So that would
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: be that will be my choice because these lights nowadays
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: Alied technology has gone so far that they're so powerful.
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: And also the color of these lights is now so
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: good that you can easily blend it with many many
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: other Tanksten sources or everything else you're using. And of
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: course my choice number one will be ery Sky panel
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: of sixty, probably because sixty is good size.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: And that that type of bigger, much more versatile light
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: source can give me far more options if I need
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: to light you know even why there area. I can
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: use it as just like a panel which is size
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: maybe like one by two, or I can I can
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: I can put like soft box may make it like
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: convert it and turn it into something that is even
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: nicer and bigger and make it beautiful like soft key light,
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: wrapping light and so. And also these lights, especially airy
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: sky panel is design in a way that has extreme
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: color accuracy, so the skin tone, everything's going to look right.
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: But also it gives me option to change the color
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: temperature easily just pressing the button or if I want
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: to create the effect of let's say I.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: Don't know.
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: The candle or TV or or lightning, even it's very easy.
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: It's designed it's almost like pre programs, so you can
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: just press the button get whatever you want.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: So can you really, can you quickly talk about color
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: accuracy with these LEDs, because I know that's a big
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: issue with buying lower quality or cheaper LEDs, and people
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: don't really understand the difference with this as a cre
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: and like what's the rating of it?
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Can you explain that just a little bit.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: So the whole thing about LED lights is that I
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: don't want to get too technical about it about it,
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: but people should understand that, you know, not all LEDs
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: are created equally. Why because not everybody needs high end,
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: super color accurate LED lights which is matching perfectly the
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: whatever spectrum of your regular normal tungsten source. So in
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: the early days maybe like six seven years ago or
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: so when LEDs really started like coming to the market
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: and exploding as everybody is now making LEDs. There were
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: so many manufacturers. But when you do really very accurate
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: tests and line them up, you will see some of
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: them are green, some of them magentas, some of them
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: are purple.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: They have very.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: Weird color shift which we don't see by our eye
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: because our eyes are not so sensitive to the all
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: these color discrepancies. Cameras and our eye very quickly adjusted
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: to white balance and we have perfect color balance very quickly.
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: But cameras don't you tell camera what the color temperature
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: is and camera will follow this. And if you say
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: this is threeenty two hundred and you look at something
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: that's lid and looks kind of greenish or whatever, it's
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: going to give you kind of very strange color rendering.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: So a lot of manufacturers based on the research and
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: based on the suggestions from Academy of Motion Picture and
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: their scientific department, as well as also American Society of
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: Cinematographer's Motion Image Council, which had also one division which
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: is specialize only in research and product advising for the
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: LED manufacturers, they developed the system of this color rendering
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: see our color rendering index, which basically explain how accurately
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: the color is reproduced compared to whatever the standard standard
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: light sources. But color rendering innersy is not only one.
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: There's another way of there's really another way of really
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: analyzing good what the difference between good and not so
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: good LED lights is. And then basically you get into
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: individual color and then it shows how each individual part
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: of the spectrum is reproduced in the spectrum of your
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: ELI D lights. So bottom line is this bottom line
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: is this technology is advancing constantly and if you are
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: going by some more recognized brands when comes down to
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: the LED light source, you will be probably doing well.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: And of course it comes with the price in media technology,
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: definitely get what you pay for now.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Lenses glass as it's called on the streets, it is
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: no matter how advanced the technology gets, know how matter
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: how beautiful how many CA's you're shooting. Generally speaking, the
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: glass is the glass. It is the eye of the
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: sensor and your what is your go to lens or
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: style of lenser, manufacturer of lens, because I know that's
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a really touchy subject for a lot of cinematographers that
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: they just like, I'm a seis guy, I'm a cook guy,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: I'm a clear guy. You know, like a you know
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: what is the lens that you love and why?
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: Well, I will tell you.
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: Just recently I had opportunity to see a really amazing
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: test of thirty three lenses lens sets, one of the
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: most comprehensive and extensive lens testing done by Dannie Lenoir,
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: who is wonderful friend of mine, a member of the
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: AC and also French French Society AFC. So what they did,
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: I think a year ago they did this amazing blind
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: test thirty three sets of lenses. I don't even know
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: that there are thirty three different types of lenses, but
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: actually they are, including some of I never heard of.
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: And so what they did they photographed identical scene by
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: changing lens basically white shot and medium tighter shot of
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: the same. So they did thirty three takes of identical
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: simple scene and a girl inside the studio, she walked
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: to the window, comes back and they talk.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: She walks into medium close up. But enough of the setup.
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: It was really well done to show how the lenses
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: handling white shot, high contrast, flare, sharpness, skin tone on
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: everything we can see in this very short clip that
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: was done with every lens. What we did watching this
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: test was we had no idea what we're watching. We
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: had no idea what lens we are looking at. We
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: just had some kind of whatever code and while we
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: are watching, we had to give it a grade what
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: we like, do we like it, we don't like it,
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: and without knowing what we are evaluating. And then we
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: watched it three times in random order, which is a
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: great way to do it, so it's not like you
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: will recognize the pattern, so there is no pattern. So
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: after reviewing these three times, we were given the key
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: and say the lens AC l x y was cooked
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: as for and the lens b L four m N
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: was I don't know semilax or size or whatever. So
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: it was really amazing because there was a lot of
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: mostly members from the a C Cinematographer and it was
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: very interesting because after the screening we all ended up
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: sitting and having coffee and kind of comparing notes. What
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: was shocking to me to find out that some of
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: the lenses, which we would automatically just discard as like
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: oh no, that's just you know, they's are like no,
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: they don't even bother. These are not serious lenses had
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: some of the most highest score I can tell you
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: CP two CP twosses, which CP two is a cheap lenses.
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: I mean they're good size, made by size, but still
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: they're just like still camera lenses modified sauce that can
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: be used in digital cinematography all across.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: People love them. They're not like highest high scoring lenses,
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: but they're lenses.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: They're they're all solid. They're solid solid.
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: So all solid performance CEP two. I mean, I don't
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: even bother deal with them. But I changed my mind
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: because I looked at three times, three different three different events.
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: I gave it a very good score. Of course, some
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: of the lenses. Some of the lenses, as.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: Expected, did really well, like Cooks five. Oh yeah, interesting enough.
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: My favorite was always cook As four, and I loved
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: cook As four and cook As four scored well in
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: my test in my Bland test.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: That proves that I like Cookies four.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: I like the look of it, I like the skin tone,
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: I like the contrast sharpness, all things.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: I like about this lens.
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: Cook As five scored almost perfect for me, which is amazing,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: but the biggest surprise to me and everybody else, because
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: I was not the only one who gave it really
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: really high note high grade was Russian made lens which
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: I don't even remember the name, something digital evolution.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: Something, I don't know.
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: I have to go back to my notes and find
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: out what lens. But that lens particularly was almost everybody's favorite,
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: and that is that lens scored among all of us
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: probably the highest.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: And to me there was like, wow, this lens is.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: Like fifty thousand dollars or even more, and this lenses
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: maybe I don't know, maybe like ten thousand or less. Wow,
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: and it did absolutely like perfect. And this is something
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: like it's a new new lens manufacturer. I don't known
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: the name, but to me, so this is long ask
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: for to a very simple question. Was my favorite lens?
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: You know, it all depends. It all depends.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: I think that's why we always test, because depends on
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: like what we're going for.
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: If you're going for the film that requires if it's
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: like romantic period piece, well most likely I will not
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: go for super sharp, crisp lenses that will give me
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: this very like every detail.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, every day.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: You know, you might have a lenses which already held
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: a built in kind of like natural softness in it.
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: And that's why maybe I don't know, maybe size be
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: my my my size classic.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Size will be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: And now back to the show.
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: Super Speed not not the Master Primes would be probably
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: good choice, or maybe going with the Cooks four would
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: be probably because overall that's my favorite lens and it
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: would it will do to the job. Interestingly enough, Panavsion
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: Primo lenses, which we always used as a benchmark as
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: a lens that that defines the quality scored okay, not
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: not on my not on my test, but it scored
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: kind of okay, good.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's good.
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: Not question, it's a good lens, but nothing amazingly better
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: than I don't know, let's say C two C two
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: CP two, yeah.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Which is amazing.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Like when you say that, when you say that, like
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: a CP two clads versus a Panavision Primo.
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: I know, and looking at like I don't know, maybe
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: one hundred thousand dollars piece of glass versus.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: Two thousand dollars. So it's really it's all subjective.
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: It's really what cuts down to do and not No,
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: there is no universal lens. There's no, lens that can
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: be perfect for everything.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: No, of course, you know.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: And also choice of lenses is you know, not only
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: in terms of like which lens handles skin tone and
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: contrast and flare and you know stuff.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: It's it's a complex question. It's a complelixation.
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: It's like, you know, if you look at films like
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: Saving Private, Ryan, I mean, Janos Kaminski asked Panavision to
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: actually completely remove the anti layering coating, so he wanted
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: to get lenses is really looking bad that it has
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: a flaring, It has all kinds of all kinds of
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: things that we've been for decades trying to get fixed.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: Now like, oh no, no, we have to now bring
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: me back to that completely kind of row uncorrected look,
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: because that was only lens that worked. That style of
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: lenses works so well for Saving Private trying, but it
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: will not work or right on some Avengers.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: It won't work for avengers.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all not work for Avengers for sure.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Now do you I know a lot of because we've
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: we've done some work together. We I know you'd like
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: to write down sometimes your lighting setups, do you like
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: do you do it all the time like you actually
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: just like storyboard out, you're where the lights are supposed
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: to go and give it to the gaffer.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: What's the process for you?
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: Well, the process is actually processes. I would say pretty
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: much like main main, mainstream, straightforward. If it's location project,
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: if it's location show, well, I normally during the textcout,
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: during first during the location scout, when we talk about
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: what the scene is going to take place, and when
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: I talk to director, Okay, what is the concept here?
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: Is it more like traditionally dolly with the coverage or
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: we're talking camera handheld or steadycam and we are looking everywhere,
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: going inside outside, So depending on what we are going
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: for will tell me what options I have.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: If it's let's say, traditionally you.
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: Know house, living room and we're all covering the living room, hallway, bedroom, whatever,
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: I'll make sure to have enough light that can give
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: me control. And it's all about control because on location
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: you are always in a way dependent depending on a situation,
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: what's happening outside, and very often you might be already
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: losing daylight, but you have to continue making making it
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: look like it was nine o'clock in the morning. So
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: my approach always try to be as least as possible
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: dependent on a daylight and available light, because it's inconsistent,
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: it changes during the day. So I want to have
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: enough light that I can create my light that will
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: be same from the moment we step in and the
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: moment we are up. That requires usually planning, and I
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: would tell my gofer, Okay, we will be looking this way.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: Sun is coming from this direction, so we.
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: Have to block the sun or do this, or maybe
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: soften the sun, but still get my h and my
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: lights put them in the right position so we know
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: we can maintain this consistent look that looks perfect eight
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: o'clock in the morning but looks really ugly at noon.
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: That's kind of how I approach it. When it comes
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: down to interior. When it comes down to the exterior, well,
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: it really depends on the show I was doing for
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: Disney for three seasons called Stuck in the Middle.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: We had a very challenging We had a very challenging.
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: Exterior because the set was built between two walls of studios,
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: two stages, and for the exterior part, we had a
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: window of light that basically goes between nine.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: Depending on the time of the year.
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: But let's say between nine nine thirty in the morning
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: until three and that's it.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: That's when you have a sunlight.
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: And then after three o'clock you're in a shadow and
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: basically everything just like completely overcast. So for us to
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: control the sunlight, control the daylight on this particular very
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: challenging location was a big deal, much bigger deal than
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: anybody would anticipate because I had to have my light
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: in the morning when we start to light, because we
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: cannot wait for sunlight to come out. So I had
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: to light it in the morning with a big light,
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: air remarks or something on the condor to give me
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: exactly the light when the sun comes in that will
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: match at nine thirty when some comes up, it will
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: match what I was doing with my with my light,
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: and the same thing in the afternoon. So when light
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: is gone, I can still bring my light and continue lighting.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: So the exterior presents always big challenge. Lighting for exterior
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: is always very challenging, requires far more manpower, far more equipment.
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: So I think when it comes down to the exterior,
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: it's always much better to observe really well what works
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: in terms of the angle, how you can take advantage
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: of what sunlight gives you have some light standing by
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: just in case you lose it due to a couple
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: of big guns, instead of just completely relying on what's
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: out there, because then it puts you, puts you in
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: the situation that you have no plan B. When it
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: comes down to studio, a whole different situation I can
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: tell you, Like, for instance, on this big set up
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: we had on Stuck in the Middle, we had a
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: couple of stages with the sets. In a pre production time,
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: I had my plan. I had a floor plan and
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: even three D model, three D diagrams done by the
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: production designer and another department. So they told me, okay,
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: this is what we are looking. This is a living room,
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: this is the stairs, this is a bedroom, this is
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: a hallway, this is a kitchen. So we had all
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: these sets and layout. So based on.
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: Set and layout, I very very precisely.
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: With my guffer went and we talked about what would
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: be the best way to create let's say, overall ambient
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: light inside this room. How to deal with the exterior,
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: How are we going to create that behind the windows
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: we see we see part of the set that actually
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: is built outside. So we have to match the exterior
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: on the location with our exterior basically set build on
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: the stage. So to create all kinds of different moods,
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: we had to have a lot of lights, a lot
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: of lights positioned. Never of course never, it never means
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: that I'm going to use all of them. But it's
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: like being able to turn off some lights, bring them up,
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: bring them down. It would be I would be able
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: to quickly program different moods. Let's say morning, eight o'clock
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: in the morning breakfast, I knew exactly the amount of.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: Ambient amount of my my sunlight.
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: Effect, and I would create something that will be programmed
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: at the store. So it takes time but very precise
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: planning to get every light properly placed in programs. So
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: when you get in the production, when you really get
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: everybody on the set, you have to be ready to
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: go in five to seven minutes. But that's why to
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: me having everything in place, even if it's just standing by,
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: you never know director of my change is, oh, let's
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: get to maybe this shot or blocking my change and
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: all of a sudden looking different directions, So you have
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: to be ready to to react and respond very quickly.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: So Ssuki, we're currently as of this recording, living in
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: a COVID nineteen world. And you know, as of right now,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Hollywood is pretty much shut down. What do you see
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: production looking like in a post coronavirus kind of world?
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Because we really don't know it's not going to be
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: what it was, So what would you think it's going
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: Well, that's a big question that I don't think anybody knows.
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: Anybody knows the answer. Well, one thing we know for sure,
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: things will change, at least for a certain foreseeable future.
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: I would say maybe at least for a year, maybe
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: even more because it's not only film business, it's every business.
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: And of course everybody is concerned about, you know, the
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: jobs and security and balancing jobs and safety is well,
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: it's a big deal, you know, economy. I understand everybody's
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: concerned about economy coming back, but we have to be
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: super careful, super smart about how we're going to do this.
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: So I know there's been a lot of proposals developed
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: by different studios, different production entities, and they're trying to
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: figure it out what is the safest way that we
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: can go back to production still do what we do,
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: but do it differently. I know there are some proposals
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: I think by allions gate that proposing basically that entire
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: cast and crew will be in a way created as
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: a kind of like cluster and isolated for the whole
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: duration of production.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: So no outside contact. You're basically just between place of
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: stay and the studio or whatever you're shooting, and that's it.
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: I don't know how this is doable, but you know,
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: you know, everybody's everybody's trying to come up with some
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: kind of solution to get people on the set. I mean, yes,
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: we can have a mask, we can have protective equipment,
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: but how can you be on the set and have
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: your focus poler? Well maybe focused poler can do the
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: remote focus, but still, you know, somebody has to push
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: the dolly. You have to get in the close up
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: of the actor. I mean, how can you maintain six feet?
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: I don't know. My feeling. My feeling the way I'm
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: seeing how things are changing is we will be seeing
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: whole new different types of content that is going to emerge.
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: People will start doing things like you and I now
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: talking and creating something that makes sense. I don't know
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: if it can make everything look like everybody is now
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: in zoom and we can create things which are kind
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: of like zoom style show. But that might be one
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: way of doing things. People might be doing a lot
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: of like I'm sure like projects which would be skeleton
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: crew with very small casts, minimum crew, minimum lighting, minimum equipment,
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: minimum everything, and still try to get some story.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure about big productions, big shows, how they're
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: gonna do.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: It, Like how's Marvel gonna do anything?
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: Well, I think they might do it different. They might
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: do now.
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, I don't want to be like thinking completely futuristic,
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: but you know, who knows. We might get in a
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: situation that we can we can have virtual sets that
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: every big, that every every everything would be just like
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: virtual They already have it. They use it for Mineral Mandolorium, Mandalorian,
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: they use it for Star treks. So they use this
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: concept of virtual sets. So you get in the stage,
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: everything's led, get your actors and get the cameras, and
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: you're creating show, which is you can place anywhere you want.
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: So there would be one way of doing it. But
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: maybe next step would be, well you might have actor
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: who's performance you can just capture and do the face replacement.
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: There is actually very interesting film I've seen a couple
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: of years ago, which I would highly recommend to everybody
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: to see it. Five years ago. It was made is
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: British film. I forget the name of the director, but
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: the movie is called Congress and it is with the
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: Robin Wright and Harry Cattel as a lead. But the concept,
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: the premise of the film is Robin Wright is aging
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: actress and her manager Harry Cattell, is trying to lock
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: the deal that she can be basically Robin Wright at
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: this age in perpetuity, so she will never age.
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: Interesting, interesting, interesting.
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: So what they do is they put her in this
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: special kind of like sphere with emotion capturing array of
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: thousand cameras and take her to the whole range of
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: emotions and capture them. And from this point on they
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: can apply this emotion and her expression into any character
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: they do, and and she will already stay the way
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: she was at whatever age of forty, whatever she was.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: When the movie was made.
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: It's very interesting, very very interesting film because second half
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: of the film is animated.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Very interesting.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: That's really interesting.
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: Where you see now all these characters including Tom Cruise
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: and Brad Peat and everybod He's already in that world
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: of So I don't know if it's gonna be futuristic
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: to the point that we don't know that all the
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: actors will just provide the emotions and expressions and deliver
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: the lines and then they will be later on implemented
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: on three D models of some avatars.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: I don't know it's gonna to be.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: It's gonna be really interesting, I know at the at
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: the studio level. When I saw the I've been watching
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: the behind the scenes of Mandalorian and you're just like,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: this is amazing. Like I heard about it, and I
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: saw some of it, and I heard the rumblings, and
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: god knows what James Cameron's is working on right now
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: on Avatar, which I hear the technology there is like
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: at another completely other place that we haven't even even
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: heard of yet. So the technology for those bigger shows
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: I think is going to make a big difference, uh
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: in post coronavirus world. But for independent filmmakers on a
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: lower budget, it's gonna be smaller crews. It's going to
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: be you know, very minimal, very like you know, kind
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: of like I did with my my last film, you know,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: three two crew members and some ca and we ran
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: around though I couldn't make that movie now because there's
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: no sun Dance film festivals, so I couldn't shoot it.
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: You pioneered, You pioneered the concept.
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: You're a visionary. You're a visionary.
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: Wow, Well, I'll say people, no, people will really now
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: come back to you and for four you can you
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: can really consult them and advise them.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: This is how we did it.
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: This is how you can have one person in five
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: positions and still still make something.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: So I will say I will send you the check later, sir. Now,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: now there is something new on the horizon, or it's
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: it's not on the horizon, it's happened, happening now. Quibi
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: and Quibi is is a very unique thing. I'm not
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: sure if it's going to how it's going to survive
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: in the future, but it is something that's going on
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: right now. And I was talking to you off air
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: about how shooting a Quibi.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Show is different.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Can you talk about how they capture footage on set?
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: Well, I have not shot a Quibi project. I have
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: a couple of friends they've done it, and basically it's
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: it's a whole new new way of basically storytelling, I
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: would say, which incorporates the new trends of viewing content
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: as well as new trends of technology that we can use.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: So iPhone, I mean whole thing that iPhone is going
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: to become like, or your whatever mobile phone that you
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: are using will become the almost main way of getting
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: getting your whatever content is. So they figure it out
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: if you limit the amount of time, so we are
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: not nobody's going to spend like two hours watching a
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: movie on iPhone. I mean some people will, but let's
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: say majority will not. But if you deliver whatever you're
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: delivering in chunks of I don't know, ten minutes or whatever,
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: that's something anybody can do while they're waiting in line
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: or riding on a bus or on a metro or
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: in a car or whatever.
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: So that's something you can use your time to watch
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: the content.
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: So to start, that's interesting concept that you are breaking
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: down even if it's a full feature length film, you
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: break it down into chapters first, chapter, second, ten, whatever
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: you know, and then you have if you spice it
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: all together, you can have a film. But what is
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: most interesting about quibi is the option that you can
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: change the aspect ration actually aspect ration is the same,
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: but it's the are you are you viewing it vertically
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: or are you doing it horizontally?
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: So imagine the nightmare now for for.
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: Anybody who has to frame something that looks equally good
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: in a vertical as well as the horizontal. Well, it's
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: a challenge, but obviously they figure it out that you
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: can if you're shooting with a high enough resolution. Let's
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: say six case six kr resolution is good enough to
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: give you enough of the horizontal as well as the vertical.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: I know, so you have the same same height as
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: well as the wit depending how you're gonna how you're
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: gonna orient the image, And all you have to do
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: is while you're doing it, making sure that you know
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: the content that is in horizontal it's turned around in
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: vertical will still work for the scene.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: And so I think that's that's smart, it's clever.
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: I honestly, I haven't been really getting much into Quibi
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: because I have I still have to catch up with.
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: What was the show Game of Rance, right, I have
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: to get that.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: And Tiger King obviously Tiger King.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: But that's done, that's done, you know, yeah, you already
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: you already consumed that.
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Tiger King, I have it behind.
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: But you know what I'm saying, basically, it's like, yeah,
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: that's new technology, that's a new thing, that's a new way,
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: and I think it's just normal thing that we are
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: now seeing seeing uh, attempts by you know, big companies
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: that that creator content content creators that they're going to
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: use what is available and just create something that you
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: can watch.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: And they're shooting it with basically a six K kind
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: of camera and then just doing it all on post.
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, doing in post, but you want to do it
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: normally when if you're filming, you have your frame lines.
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: So this is for iPhone ten, iPhone eleven if you
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: turn it around, so you know, this is for Samsung nine, whatever, Samson.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: So they have all those they have all those frames,
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: they have effects.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: Yes, they have a specs so you can actually control
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: it and say, oh that's gonna work.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: That's insane. That must be an first cinematographer like the frame.
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: Yes, but you know, I think, like everything else, you
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: get used to it, like, oh okay, that's that and uh,
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: you know, but.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: You're also one of the You're very unique, Suki because
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: you've always been very open to change you've been. You
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: embrace change, You embrace technology changes, you embrace things that
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: are different in the way they're doing it. You're very
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: open minded where I know a lot of cinematographers who
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: fight to stay the way things are, and they, you know,
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: and they generally don't survive. So that's a big lesson
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: for any cinematographer listening out there, that.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: You things are changing so rare. I mean, I just
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: remember film to digital.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: That took a decade for people to finally say okay, okay,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: I Arie, okay, Red, I get it. It took but
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: you you were there, you saw it. You know it
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: was it was like ten years. But now things are
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: changing so fast, so quickly that if you don't change,
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: you're going to be left behind. We'll be right back
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: the show.
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: Well, that's a nature, that's nature of I think that's
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: nature of every business, of every industry.
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's it's.
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: Non fact that adaptability is a key to survival. So
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: if you're not willing and ready to adapt to you
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: whatever the new conditions, well you will be left You
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: will be left behind. And you know, I don't want
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: to sound too philosophical, but you know, it's a human nature.
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: You know, we as humans are programmed in a way
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: that we want to be kind of set in our
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: whatever the frame might because this is.
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: What gives you.
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: It gives you safety, gives you your like a safe zone.
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: Stepping out of your safe zone, it's always risky. It's
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: associated with something venturing into unknown.
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: The tiger can eat you. The tiger can eat you.
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: Around to teach you or something. So so it's just
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: by no human nature we are. We are programming coded
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: to you know, stage you are, especially if you invest
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: a lot of time perfecting something and creating something and
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: coming okay, now I know how to do this, and along,
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: by the way, that doesn't count. Now we have something new, well,
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: you have to be able to really at least try
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: and be open.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: Minded about it.
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: You might not necessarily like it, but you have to
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: be open to maybe who knows, maybe something something interesting
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: I come out of it. I mean, you think about cinematography.
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: You know, we've been shooting black and white for whatever,
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: you know, and then the color came on. Well there's
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: a technical color. So there are cinematographer who just they
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: know how to do technical or they don't care about
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: black and white, the black and white who don't know
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: how to do technicolor. And then and then, you know,
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: things change, and of course cinematography advance, and then we
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: get into a point that we are shooting.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: With only I don't know this lenses or death lenses.
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: I'm only televisional I'm only airy, how about the other one?
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: Then you have to be able to try different things
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: because it just gives you, gives you wider field and
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: gives you better better understanding of what you what you
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: really have available for you.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Now, can you discuss the color? The impact of color
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: on lighting. It's something that's you know, within either the
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: color of the light or the production design and what
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: that does emotionally, what that does?
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: And again another large question.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: Where do I start about color? Well, in my.
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: Esthetics, I would say in the way I think about
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: those images, color is extremely important because colors have very
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: very strong emotional impact. In storytelling, we respond to colors
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: and it's non psychologically physiologically, there's certain colors involve certain
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: kind of emotional response and for us it's been known forever.
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: And you know, when you think about in history of art,
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: how certain artists your certain color to convey certain emotion.
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: I mean, if you think about remember Caravajo offer me
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: or I mean, I don't have to go any further,
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: but if you think about and not to even get
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: into abstract abstruct paintings where it's all about the color.
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: It's all about how you respond to the square piece
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: of whatever the color orange position juxtaposed against the blue
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: or pink or I mean, thinking about just expressionism and
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: modern art of twentieth century, it's just a perfect example
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: about bringing colors as a pure emotional way to communicate.
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: You don't even know what you're looking, but you're emotionally
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: responding to the color. So in cinematography, I was fortunate
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: to get to be trained by one of the worlds
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: well at the time. You know, he was my my
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: pedagogue at a film schol in Prague, and he was
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: one of the most most worlds and fast in that
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: part of the world, most renown experts on color, Roslav Cuchara.
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: He was one of the pioneers, at least in that
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: part of the world, how to tell a story emotionally
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: just by using the color. Another great example would be
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: Victoria Strato I mean, I'm big fan of videorya Strato
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: in his work, and he's one of the big proponents
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: of using colors not only lighting, composition and camera movement,
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: but the color can have far bigger impact than no
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: matter what beautifully amazingly designed shot. And if you look
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: at some of his films, you know, like Conformists, going
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: even back into his early work like Conformists, or even
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: I would say probably the best example would be One
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: from the Heart, a film that he did with which
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: is all about the color. And there's a documentary with
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: Storaro elaborates quite a lot about philosophy, anesthetics, and psychology
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: of the color.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: So to me, the color is.
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: Really really important tool, and every time I get involved
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: in the project, I always bring up the question of color.
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: What is the color product, How we're going to communicate
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: whatever the scene is about, and how you're going to
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: support this by properly using color in set, in pieces,
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: in a dressing, in the wardrobe, and then in the light,
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: because it all has to be synchronized and perfectly perfectly matched.
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: Otherwise using wrong light color on the wrong type of
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: a set or wardrobe can completely negate and can cancel
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: each other.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: So yeah, color, I mean, they're of.
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: Course some really contemporary, great films are out there which
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: they do think esthetically using the color as a very
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: important part of the storytelling. And even in the classes
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: which I teach, I always try to remind the students
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: to think also getting one layer deeper, which is thinking
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: about how use the color to emphasize the emotional impact danger.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the one big example I could just think of
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: off the top of my head was the Matrix, the
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: original Matrix. How it uses the green teal kind of
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: vibe in the Matrix, but when you're in the real world,
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: it's completely naturalistic, very desaturated in color, and that's with
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: production design and with the lighting, but it has a
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: very powerful.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: Emotion emotional tie to the story.
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: Yes, and if you look at some of the more
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: recent films like Neon Demon, Yeah, shown by not A
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: Shah Brier, it's all about the color really or even
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: John Wick. I mean that, I mean, that's that's the
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: psychology of color used exactly to tell the story and
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: support the emotion. So that's I mean, I'm very happy
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: to see that their directors and cinematographers very strong color sensibility.
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: They understand how to use it and really convey the idea.
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: Or there are films without any color, very reduced color
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: pollet like if you think about Revenant for reastance like
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: an example, almost like black and white, almost all it's
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: all gray, gray, besh brown against the white.
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: And that's that's the world.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: And it was the world, and it was that time period,
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: it was that.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you made that very bright and very like Michael
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Bay super bright colors.
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: It will it will take you, it will take you
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: out an out of the movie without so I can,
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: I can. I can give you another another beautiful example
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: Christoph Kishlowski, very famous whose work absolutely admire, many many
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: amazing films that he did. He did also three colors, red, blue,
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: and white, which even in the title of the movie,
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: he's using specific color to communicate the emotion that this
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: particular film is is presenting. And I mean that's film
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: I always I love to especially read Read is my
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: my favorite, is my favorite beautifully coordinated, coordinated use of
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: color in storytelling. It's just just right, it's just right
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: there and it works really well.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: And and for everyone out there listening, do yourself a favorite.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: Watch Double Life of very Nique if you if you
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: get a chance.
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, and also one one the less not film called
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: Blind Chance.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember that one. I remember that one.
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: I'm an American remake of this film.
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: But also you know the great whole deck Cologue Fuecretarian
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: collection all ten episodes of ten Commandments, which is brilliant.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: No, no, it's done a very low budget, very low budget.
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: This is talking about low budget filmmaking with amazing, amazing storytelling.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that was also amazing Christoph Kislowski. Amazing
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: for filmmaker to study.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: Now's speaking of directors.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: How do you approach working with directors because I know
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of cinematographers out there. Look, I've worked as
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: a director. I've worked with good cinematographers. I've worked with
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: bad cinematographers and uh, and there's always the reason when
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: I work with bad ones, generally, from my opinion, is
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: that they're trying to impose their their you know, their
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: their their want their vision for the for the film,
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: and there's no dialogue and there's no collaboration. It's just
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: like it's my way or the highway kind of thing.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: And and that's what I have a problem with as
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: a director. So how do you approach how do you
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: approach working with directors?
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: You know, that's very interesting, a very interesting question. And
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: this is the this is a question that doesn't really
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: have straight answer. There's really there's really no rule. And
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: I will work with the range of directors which are
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: from you know what, just do whatever you want, Just
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: do whatever you want. It's fine. I will just take
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: care of performance and just let me know, you know,
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: and it will be fine too. On other parts of
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: the spectrum. I want twenty five milimeter right here, Dolly
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: from here, and we go and we boom up and
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: then and then and yeah, and I want to do
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: it in ten minutes. That's another extreme. So for me,
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: I have to be able to really adapt, to adapt
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: to the new new situation and how certain directors I
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: find it frectory exciting.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: Will be right back at after a word from our
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: So it's never the same even with the same director,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: depending on the scene, depending on what we're going for,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: depending on the type of challenges that we have at
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: this point on the set, how director will be able
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: to to communicate and come up with a solution like
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: like you know, one of the directors that I did
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 5: quite a few projects.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: He he likes to.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: Work very fast, and I understand that he likes to
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: work very fast even when he has a time, because
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: he needs to be in turbo overdrive mode mentally, psychologically
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: in order to get creative, in order to get things going.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 5: And he would even get to the on my case
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: like oh, let's go, let's go, let's go, Like no,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: it's fine, no, no, no, I just want to go.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 5: So I understand that I understand where this comes from.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: Some people would probably go crazy and react one way
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: or another. I don't tell like, okay, let me switch
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: to my turbo mode. Maybe we can synchronize and still
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: get things the way director wants because at the end,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: at the end, really is as much as cinematographer contributor
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: to the film. But it's director's film. So I'm here
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 5: to serve the director's vision. I'm not here to make my
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: own movie. If I want to make my own movie
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: that I'm gonna take camera and shoot whatever nature videos
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: or some experimental films, or just take my still camera
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: and make my still images where I'm the one and
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: only out of the image and I do images the way.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: I want, but with the director.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: This is the team process, collaborative process, and as a
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: cinematographer we have to be in the position that we
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: can adopt quickly adapt to the whole method of doing things.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: Television is specifically a good example because like if you're
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: on episodic television, you get every director every week, new director,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: and so in a way you have to modify and
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: adjust to director's way of doing things. However, as a
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: cinematographer you also have to protect the style and integrity
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: or visual integrity of the show. So that's kind of
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: very interesting and the tricky position to be in. But
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: fortunately a lot of television directors are aware as they
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: come in as a guest director, well there is a
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: style that they have to be familiar with when it
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 5: comes down to the show. So if the show is
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: designed to be all I don't know, handheld and quick whatever,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: they cannot say, oh I'm going to go now, static,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: close up, No, it's not going to work right.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: It will be different. It will be different, different show.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: You can hear and there give your own personal signature,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: but it will be always you know, has to be
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: within the who overall big picture.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: So Suki, we finally got together and put together this
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: course called Light and Face the Art of Cinematography for
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: IFH Academy. And I'm super excited about the course because
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: after being a veteran in this business for over twenty
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: five years, I took the course and I learned a
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: lot about cinematography things that I.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: Didn't even know. So it is a wonderful course.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about what made you
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: want to put this specific course together.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: Well, I've been doing seminars.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 5: I've been doing seminars and workshops for pretty much twenty
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: something years among the students, and I was fortunate to
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: go through really really good, proper training academically as a cinematographer.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: So I always felt that having a structure and a
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: method in teaching and learning is extremely important as a
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: foundation for anything, not only cinematography, for anybody.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: In any type of art.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: I found out that a lot of people, and some
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 5: of them quite successful, are pretty good in what they do,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: but they're missing depth, They're missing foundation. Like there are
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: some great musicians that I came across, and there are
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: some amazing musicians out there, but if you ask them
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: to play anything just basically, they will not even know
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: what you're talking about. If we ask them to transpose
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: the music, they will not understand. So I found out
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: that it's like, if you want to be a really
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: good musician, there's a proper method, which is learning the basics,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: learning the scale, learning the harmonies, learning the melodies, and
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: then putting it all together. And then once you reach
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 5: the point that you really understand what is the core,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: what is the essence of what you do, then you
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: are far more free to experiment and do things your
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: own way because you know the basics, you know the rules,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 5: and then you can break breaking rules just for sake
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: of breaking rules. I don't think necessarily is always productive
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: or creative. Maybe occasionally breaking some rules might bring you something,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: but then how you enture into something different. So I've
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: been teaching cinematography for quite some time in between the projects,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: doing workups, and I found out that what students and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 5: aspiring cinematographers really respond to is when we go back
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: to basics, and when I guide them from very very
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: basic one single light, starting from a dark and if
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: you have a concept okay, this is one single light,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 5: what you can do with this one single light? Imagine
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: painting that you're going to paint something and you say,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: this is one brush, this is one color. What you
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: can create only with these two things. And if you
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: find out what you can do with one brush one color,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 5: meaning if you can do the same thing with one light,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: even if it's a light bulb and one frame, then
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: you can easily build upon that further. Then you can
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: get Okay, I'm going to get now two colors, three colors,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: more brushes, then I can create masterpiece, a big, beautiful whatever.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: I'm going to go is same thing in the music.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: Once you understand how the intercasies of each instrument work,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: what's the difference between violins and pianos and harp and
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: you know, then you can create symphony. Because you understand,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: you can sit down and write and feel completely comfortable
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: that you're what you're writing for for the violin and
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: for the cellos and for the clarinet or anything, it
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: will at the end sound really well. So this is
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: kind of my metad for explaining why I wanted to
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: do what I did.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: So I felt there has to be way.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: That somebody does it, kind of like the way I
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: always wanted to be. I wanted to be taught that way,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: starting from very very basic and then building up, building up,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: building up structurally, and then explaining the styles, explaining the
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: concept and then really feel comfortable about it. So that's
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: the reason why I really created the show that the series,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: because I felt if if somebody is really watching and
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: applying this knowledge gradually after each course, doing your own
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: thing and finding out, Okay, what it takes if I
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 5: take light Bobby put it here and observe and get
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 5: understanding what you can do with the light, how you
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 5: can paint and create the light. What happened if I
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: defuse the light, what happened if I add maybe one
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 5: more light, or maybe if I put the color here,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: How is this image going to be changed? How you
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: can and again at the end it comes down the
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: whole emotional emotional respond So I wanted to create a
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 5: course which is comprehensive but geared towards really understanding the
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: core and basic of cinematography, which is using light from
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: one light, adding another one, change the color, changing the fusion,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 5: changing all this element which gives you ability to modify
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: still the same tool, which is light, and what the
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 5: subject is the face?
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: Well, why the face?
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 5: Because if you understand how to light the face and
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: all the details and intricates is interaction between geography and
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 5: topography of the face and how the whole things look together.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 5: How can you just slightly changing the angle and position
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: of the light, you can completely change appearance of the face.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: Then you will understand what you can do with this
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 5: different type of light to the set or maybe some
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: other products, you know, like some other object and the
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: subjects that you're feeling.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: So face is what the face. Face is something we photograph.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: Like ninety percent of the time in your typical film
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: or television or mythy It's all about face.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: It's about performance.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: It's about capturing a performance and you with a light
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: giving it exactly right kind of mood, the right kind
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: of emotion to enhance what this performance is all about.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm excited to bring the course to everybody out
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: there interested in cinematography. It is probably the best cinematography
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: of course I've ever taken, and I'm very proud to
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: have it as part of the Indie Film Huscole Academy.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna ask you one last question, sir, what
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: would be the device for a young cinematographer trying to
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: break into the business today?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: Well, if you ask me that question two months ago,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: I will probably give a different conswer fair enough. But
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: in the present day, I think as a young cinematographer,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: what you need to do. You need to educate yourself.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: Think about what you do as a cinematographer. Think about
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: every image that you're doing. Why are you doing, why
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: are you doing this way not that way? And understand
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: the light. Everything will change, cameras will be different, the
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 5: lenses will be maybe different, but that's one thing that
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: will never ever change, is the light.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: The end of the day, there has to be some cinematographer,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: somebody who would either put the light on the face
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: or on the set, or on the scene or on
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 5: the subject, or take the light away or control it,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 5: but create something that communicates.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: So as a.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 5: Cinematography you have to understand how to communicate visually, which
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 5: means invest in educating yourself. Study study, find art, study painting,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: see what they did, and watch the movie. I think
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: for every cinematographers you can learn a lot from just
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 5: looking at a film that's been done and all kinds
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: of amazing cinematography achievements in the last whatever decades, and
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 5: I think it can be educational, can be inspiring, an
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: be stimulative. And then when you get opportunity to film
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 5: whatever it is, don't think about how big or small
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: budget is. Think about how you as a cinematappers can give.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: You can give your best to to support the story.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 5: And that would be probably my advice. Educate yourself and
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: get the understanding what really cinematography is all about, and
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: that's going to make you very really well rounded cinematographer.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 5: And never give up educating yourself. There's some beauty of
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: cinematography is a field that is constantly changing, so that's
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: the best thing about it.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: You'll never get bored. My friend.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: I could talk to you for hours about cinematography, but
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: I do appreciate you taking the time out to talk
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: to me and to the tribe and again so excited
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: to be presenting lightened face the art of cinematography. I
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: really do appreciate you being on the show and dropping
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: your knowledge bombs as I like to call them. So
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: thank you again so much, my friends, stay safe out there.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: Okay, thank you too.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Szuki so much for coming on
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: the show and really shedding some light on the whole
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: COVID nineteen, how we're going to reopen, and all the
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: great knowledge bombs he dropped on the Tribe today. If
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: you want to get links to anything we discussed in
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: this episode, please head over to the show notes at
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three ninety seven. Thank
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: you so much for listening, guys, As.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: Always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: you soon.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Screenwriting dot tv.