Frame & Reference Podcast - 100: "Star Trek: Picard" DP Jon Joffin, ASC

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

Episode 100! Thank you for being part of this amazing journey :) This weeks episode Kenny talks with cinematographer Jon Joffin, ASC about "Star Trek: Picard." Enjoy the episode! Follow Kenny on Twitter ⁠@kwmcmillan⁠ and give him some feed back on the show! Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out ⁠Filmtools.com⁠ for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ⁠ProVideoCoalition.com⁠ for the latest news coming out of the industry.

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and you're listening to Episode 100 with John Jophe and ASC, DP of Star Trek Picard. This is a great conversation, and I'm sure you're going to love, and I just wanted to to quickly say thank you so much for listening for the past three years. You know, 100 episodes is certainly an achievement for me, and I'm glad to share it with you. And I look forward to the next 100. So that out of the way. Please enjoy my conversation with John Joffin. Yeah, totally. Well, the whole F-1 thing, we started watching that a friend of mine told me about

the Netflix show started watching with my 15-year-old son, and we're totally into it now, but it's amazing how far they've come, and I can't imagine how much money they're pouring into that. Yeah. Jeez. You watching anything else, cool? Yeah, I mean, we love succession. It's always a great watch.

I actually just, I read this great book called Unscripted about Sumner Redstone. It was sort of like a real life succession. just finished that it was pretty cool um what else what are you watching uh succession we we kind of just got started on a foundation oh yeah which uh just because we're big sci-fi nerds which obviously we'll get to in a while but uh but uh yeah succession was good um or uh foundation's been pretty cool what else i've been so busy recently which is funny because this is usually the opposite problem where i asked them with yeah i just got off a film i haven't watched anything And now I'm in the same position.

I'm like, man, this, you really don't have time, which kind of sucks because, like, I feel like that's kind of where you get your creative juices flowing, eh, when you, like, watch other stuff. Completely. I've been watching, because I've been watching it from the beginning, but I love Martin's Mrs. Mezell. I love it. It's so great.

It's so fun. It's so light. But the photography on that is just next level. It's just, it's so good. It's insanely good. And it's a. also in this season it's changed quite a lot too because they're aging and they take it further but um yeah i mean on that show the production design the costumes the colors it's like it's really

really inspiring and david mullen like i's got to figure it out david mullen uh i don't know how online you are but david mullen has been a really uh i'll say important voice online because he's like on every forum just like helping jipple out and stuff like that like that. One time he politely jumped down my throat when I had a large format cinematography all backwards. I had to have like I fell into the fallacy. This is, you know, like four or five years ago, but I fell into the same fallacy that everyone falls into where it's like, oh, there's like a large format look and all this and like crop factors. And he was just like, no, stop. You're hurting. You're hurting this all. Yeah. You know, another guy. Have you ever met Jay Holbin? He wrote

that Lynn's a good friend of mine, a good acquaintance, I should say. Yeah, he's amazing. And I mean, any question you have, he can answer, and he has a snack of answering in a way you can understand, too. Yeah. Because speaking of fallacies with large format, I didn't totally understand large format. I've been shooting it pretty much exclusively lately. And I thought that there was a similar kind of thing that happens with 16,000, 35, you know, as you get larger, you get thinner, depth of field and it's inherent to the film stock and the ways. And so he he actually explained it to me and it's actually in digital. It doesn't change. It doesn't matter how big your sensor is. The depth of field is always the same. However, once you get into large format, you're seeing

a larger field of view. So you can use, so instead of using it, say, at 29, you can maybe use a 40. And so you get the inherent quality of the longer lens. There's nothing to do with that. And he just to explain them. I was like, oh, no, I had it wrong. There you go. Yeah, no, he, he, uh, yeah, I, I got my sinny lens manual signed by him and, uh, and, uh, proapsed and, uh, oh, those guys are amazing. Yeah, Jay, Jay is a treat. Actually, there's a, um, there's one of these podcasts with Jay, uh, last year, about halfway through last year. I had lens months. So I interviewed him, Alex Nelson from Zero Optic, uh, yeah, the Atlas Lensco guys. Um, the dude from Tokina, what's his name?

Uh-oh. Ryan Avery and one other person. But yeah, I had a whole lens month about it. That's cool. That is the... Sorry, I can interrupt you. No, no, no. You were mentioning the Atlas guys.

I actually just finished shooting with those unreleased Mercury, large format, animal effects. and I really like those they're very nice yeah they're very interesting lenses and small too that's the big thing

I don't know how they like the original atlases are the size of a bus and then they're like we actually only needed this much yeah it's weird but yeah they're fantastic they do like a nice

sort of double flare and they do a flare street and they do a warm one too which is really really great yeah I'm happy with them I got to see him at Senegere last year they only had one

like they physically only had one I think it was a 40 and he brought me up into this like secret room in the Las Vegas Convention Center was like here look at this and just showing me the whole it's they do have a really

I think the sort of nice thing about the atlases is that they're relatively modest in you know if you want an anamorphic look but you want to keep pretty chill you go for the

the atlases whereas the mercuries i think have a way more character yeah they sure do and then for me i'm always shooting i just i'm addicted to shooting wide open they actually perform really well wide open um i found the same with the t series the panorism t series they're really doing work beautifully wide open i mean you get a little bit of inch distortion and and and sharp rest issues but it's totally i i find it really pleasing so yeah i quite love them yeah they got we're excited us. They got a 36, the 42, a 54, and a 72. And when we were shooting our little short, they gave us the 36, the 42, and the 72. And then for the last week, they're like, hey, we're just first week in the 54, you want it. And I'm like, hell yeah. And so they send it to us

and we really liked it. Yeah, we spent a lot of time on the 72. I spoke to, I'm going to say his name wrong, but, uh, or aren't so far. Oh, speaking of watching new things, did you see the trailer for creator yeah dude holy shit i was blown away like oh my god but yeah he and greg did that and i spoke with him a little bit about the mercury because i think they used i think they used them on that show i'm not totally sure i know i'm not yeah obviously yeah yeah but yeah he was a big fan of them and yeah he was totally right we're beautiful i've heard uh i can't remember who brought this up but it was a sony fan boy, for sure, but someone said that they, or no, it was Greg who was, who was doing a podcast and he was like, he maybe misspoke or maybe he did, but he said they were planning on

shooting that whole thing on the FX3, which I was like, oh, it's a boss of the truth. That is, that is a bold choice. I mean, what you consider he can probably use any camera in the world to choose that. Yeah. Right. Yeah, Sony's killing it. I mean, I used the, I used the Venice a lot of bees in the Venice too lately, but all the other, The little FX6 and FX3 and all of that, it's amazing, just having those tools in your pocket, you know.

It has been interesting to see how the perception, I don't know, I know one person at Sony now because of NAB last month, but I, for my whole, like, you know, journalism, quote-unquote career, I have never gotten a hold of anyone at Sony, so I've never been able to, like, test these cameras like I have with, like, Canon or Black Magic or anyone. And so, but it has been funny to watch the perception of, you know, like the A7 line of cameras. They just put them in a new body, the FX6, the FX3. And now they're like, oh, yeah, no, we'll use those totally before they were unprofessional. And now. Yeah. Yeah, no, completely. And they're really good.

There's actually a really cool thing that those cameras do that I'd like to see them put into the into the vandis. It's like, it's a liquid, I'm not that technical, but it's a liquid crystal. ND. So instead of being a physical indie, it actually darkens by the LCD darkening. So they've got that. So when you're doing stop pulls, you know, or I remember the area, the 530, the 535 used to do it. When it came out, it was cool. It had like, well, it had not that, but it did like a shutter rank so that when it did, you could do film speed ramps in camera. But instead of the stop changing, it was done with shutter. So you didn't see that phase. So this is, yeah, it's not, they didn't have a liquid crystal, but this allows you to do, you know, you can pull like seven stops without, without affecting the stop,

which is really cool, I think. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the, it's, I think it's called the VND, the variable ND, or the END, yeah, electronic indie, something like that. But I hope they didn't patent that because I would like to see. The only thing that I, is a bummer about that.

So I have a Canon C-500, and it's got 10 stops of ND, and I am like you I perpetually wide open so the other day I'm lighting myself while we're talking I'm lighting myself with documents I'm opening a white

I've done that there to get a little bit of fill light there that's too much something more like around there yeah I do I know deep black stuff do you have the one vertical monitor I actually have a huge and not that I'm a yes I'm a Sony fan boy but I have this new it's a it's called an A95

K and it comes in 55 inch or six. It's called a Q-lit. It's a quantum OLED. So before I used to have all these LTC ones, I still do. I love them. But I use this one for editing and coloring. It's phenomenal. I saw a test last week where I saw it next to the, you know, they have an X-300, which is what they use in suites. Now they have an X-3-10 coming out, which is even more nets. It's like 4,000 nets. And they had this next to the X- 310 and it's like this is like a $3,000 monitor compared to like a $25,000 monitor. It really holds out and it's much bigger too. So yeah, I have one of those, not vertical. Oh, you got it. So two things. One, I just bought a my color grade. It wasn't a color grading monitor, but the monitor I was using for color grading just

completely burnt out. So I was like, all right, time to get a new one. And I got an LG computer monitor and I was a little worried about the accuracy because, you know, you don't know. it's a computer monitor. And then I colored this documentary on it. And then I go to NAB and I'm talking to the guy who was like head of PR for LG. So of course, he's going to be a little biased.

But he was like, no, we've been installing those things in color grading suites everywhere because they're super accurate. And I was like, okay, cool, cool, cool. It still didn't know. And then I'm sitting in the theater for final notes on the documentary. And it's exactly the same as my monitor. I'm just like, oh, oh, thank God. That's a load up, mommy. But yeah, you got to get the vertical monitor on the one side.

Because that's, because think about it. All documents are vertical. All websites are vertical. When you're in Premiere, you can put all of your like data stuff, you know, effects, audio mixer, all that goes on the vertical. It's a nice little life. And that can be anything, you know, you can buy a cheap monitor for that. Yeah. But that's how I, that's how I like myself is I put a big white document on that one.

to open Google page. You know, I was just thinking you were asking what we're watching. And another thing we've been watching, it's really fun. It's love and death. It's the HBO. Oh, oh, I thought you're going to say love, baby row. He's saying it's just, it's just fun. I watched that with, no, I know about love and death.

But it's really good. It's really fun. And it's like 70s and 80s, and it's great music. And it's just fun. It's like, you know, I did it on. I think I did that just. come out i feel like i just saw like a billboard for it or something yeah yeah i think it's been out for a while yeah no it's definitely good and then uh something else i've been joining silo on apple

tv yeah it's science fiction it's really good it's really good i mean i like really i like really i like thoughtful science fiction i like you know like for me the benchmark is a rival that's probably my favorite yeah that's i'm that's every god yeah so it's more thoughtful you know but um yeah it's pretty good. I'm really quite enjoying that. Talk about a D.P.'s dream with arrival, too, because half of it takes place in a black box with a giant white screen on one side. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, yeah, that's what I want. I want that on every show. That's what walking. You're not to one of my sense. I just build it wherever I am, outside, inside black box. You need to start somewhere. You need to start with nothing and then add.

You know, I was going to wait until a bit later to talk about Picard, but it did occur to me because I got to see the last two episodes in IMAX, which was very cool. Oh, nice. Actually, I think I mentioned this on a different pod, like a couple episodes ago, but it was very educational to see something I had just watched on TV, like on my computer, and then watch it in IMAX, see how well it holds up. You know, it looks way better. It looks way better.

And then watch it again like on my television and just, note the differences in how it was like the ultimate thing where I was like, oh, we can't, theaters won't die. It's just not the same thing. No, it's not the same. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't see it in IMAX, but we had a premiere at the Chinese theater of the first two episodes. And that was great. And honestly, I was really nervous to see it on the big screen because it is quite, it's quite ballsy and quite edgy. But it's not large format. It's, You know, we shot with Airy Mini, so it's not quite, in my opinion, not quite large stuff, but it held up beautifully. But there's no way in how you're getting me into the IMAX.

You didn't watch that. I would be terrible. Sweat and bullets. Yeah. Yeah. I did. The only thing I did notice was just because, you know, you're shooting for, well, tell me if you did this or not. But this is my perception.

It was because you're shooting for television and not IMAX, you know, closeups were close. sitting in I have actually just like oh god yeah yeah we didn't do some shock yeah we never imagined there was never talked about it being in the theater I mean the whole the whole idea of the show and what's so exciting about it is I met Doug Arnikoski the producing director I did the lead director of the first two episodes and Terry and they talked about this whole idea I heard it was never really final Star Trek next generation feature film and they wanted to this to be the feature film.

So that would be the underlined theme and the game plan in the marching order that's trying to make this look like a feature film. So we were trying to, we were trying to really push things, you know? And I know some of the fans at first, I mean, I'm not really a Twitter guy, but I took to reading a little bit of the Twitter comments.

It's a mistake, yeah. But there were a lot of comments where people are, and they're not even pleasant about it, you know? Too dark, too dark. Yeah, too dark. Couldn't bridge be brighter? Well, it could be brighter if you were shooting the show, but actually I'm shooting the show

and I'm working with the executives and directors, and this is how they wanted to look, you know? So, yeah, there was a lot of that. And it was good vindication because people, people, a lot of people, like my film, they talk about it feeling like a feature film and whether they can put it into words, the look is a big part of that. It really, I mean, I come from the first break I had

was on the X-Files. I shot the X-Files. I shot a couple of quite famous episodes. I shot home. I don't know how much. I don't know the episodes, but I watched a ton of X-Files. It's the same thing with Next Generation, like, huge fan, but I couldn't tell you. I'm not one of those, what's Mark Hamill call it?

Same period. Yeah. Yeah. But the whole theme of X-Files for us was the less you see, the more scary it is. And, you know, it wasn't about being too dark, but it was about not showing things. So your mind. And it's like when you read a book, that's why I read the book. You know, it's what's happening in your mind that that really happened.

So, yeah, so it was dark. But, yeah, at first, there were people who were sort of like the, you know, that true and tried, Tchaikis thought it was too dark. But then I started reading things where people were saying how the show was dark, but it wasn't a dark way you couldn't see people. And I took real pride in that because I've seen a lot of shows. And I can tell as a cinematographer that they being shot, you know, the certain brightness and they've just overall being crushed down.

That's completely different to lighting dark, you know, where you light the background's dark and you know you have separation and you know you have enough light on the faces. You're not crushing it down. You're actually calculating what is the end look. It's not just a general darkness. So some people got that and that made me happy and proud that people did. Yeah, the, the, I feel like maybe I'm full of shit.

But I feel like I can tell when it's been crushed in the grade because there's just something about like skin tones especially just gets so flat and kind of meh. Yeah. And it doesn't, yeah, it feels artificial. But I was going to ask, because you brought it up with the X-Files, if, you know, shooting for darkness on film, you have to, you really have to take into account where the toe of your exposure is. Whereas digital seemed, especially on something like the Venice or even the elects into a degree, you've got way more latitude.

What kind of how do you, how are you considering those dark exposures and X-Files versus something like Picard? Oh, in back in the film day, when I was shooting film, it was all math. It was all running numbers. So yes, you can use your eye, but you couldn't really trust your eye and you didn't. I mean, I was never really looking to the camera. I was looking at a video assist, you know. So, yeah, it's all math. I mean, I have my spot meter from back in the day.

And you can see my hands, like, my hands burned into it. You can see where I was holding it. And I was just constantly, I know a lot of people used incident. I would kind of start with an incident, but I would run that spot leader, like, crazy. It was such a great tool while you were rolling and just go in. But, you know, it was just always about. And then the meters, when we were shooting on Xbox, we were shooting, wide open. They only went down. My mob meter, I believe only went down to 0.75. So we had to do all these

tricks where we have to change the ASA and you have to do all this math in your head because sometimes you were at really 0.5, you know? So yeah, it was all math. And then you still didn't know what you were getting once you had the shot, you know? So you were doing this this, this ballsy bowl kind of lighting, but you didn't know until the next day. So I mean, I love shooting film. I'm going to be rock, but I love digital. I like knowing what I'm getting. I like knowing how far I can push it. And I think my lighting has improved dramatically. I think the world's lighting has improved dramatically because you can see and there's, you know, there's measuring devices knowing how far you're going. On Descartes, we ended up, we built a lot where it was my, my DIT Ryan Conkelman, who's one of the

greatest I've worked with. Fantastic. He built a lot that was in effect like an NV. I don't know how like he was doing it was a stop or whatever but just to keep the blacks deep and you know i i came in there i just started i just thrown right into it i didn't have a lot of prep time so i was just figuring it out at the beginning but when he saw how i was lighting it and how far i was pushing and he's like you know we got we got to give you some more more room to play with over there we need to do this with a lot so um yeah he was great with that so but still we were quite bold with that i mean you've seen it so yeah the so he basically built you a lot that was a lot that was like one stop, I guess,

under-exposed, so you would light a little bit higher and have enough info for the grade. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I actually did that on a, I just finished, I did another show that I'm quite proud of that just came out recently called Shwiga-Dood. Yeah. And it's an Apple musical,

but not to talk too much about it, but the showrunner wanted to be like three-strip Technicolor. So we built Joe Bogdanovitz, company three, she built this technical color lot for us. us. I get to interview her later all the time now. She's here. Oh, she's great. Well, getting her here because she's hard to get a hold of. She's very busy. Oh, I'll talk to, I'm talking to her today. I'll admit something for sure. I saw her at the Kodak Awards and I was like, hey, podcast. She's like, yes, I'm busy. And I went, yeah, I fully get that. She's really

interesting, too. I know I don't know all about her, but her family, her dad is a famous color scientist or this perfect colorist. It's all in the family. I can't imagine. I was bugger. It would be like a Thanksgiving dinner around the table talking about the colors. But yeah, she's amazing. Anyway, the short version is I built this a lot that she gave a bunch. We did these tests and we lit to the lot. And then what I realized is with technically color, the reason the color, well, you had all these different strips.

So it was about separation, not saturation, which she goes on about all the time. But you needed a lot, a lot of light to get that color information. And because it was gone through filters and film ASA was so slow, they were blasting light. And it was really flat. So I wanted a technical look, but I wanted the rich contrast of modern lighting. So all the words are building up to say that the light that she built sucked so much light. It was almost like a two-stop indie. We had to pump so much light.

So even in the shadows, there was lots of color information that she could then dig out afterwards. But yeah, it's a really good way to go to. You just have to watch what you don't go too far and you don't burn out your highlights too much. But yeah, you want to preserve the dark areas for sure. We did that a lot on Piccarre. Yeah, it's something that I've postured on in some of my articles is that the advent of modern sensitive sensors, you know, where you're, especially on something like a Venice Reiki. What's the second ISO, like 2,500, 4,000, something like that? It used to, on the Venezuelan, it was 500 and 2,500, and now it's 8,3,200.

Right. So, it's insane. You can light everything on one of those little aperture, you know, MC pucks now. But I think the new modern sensors that are really sensitive coming out alongside of LEDs that historically are not very bright led to many years. felt of very flat soft lighting, you know, because it was like,

oh, we can just pump the ISO and we can use two sky panels. We're good. Sky panels are pretty bright. But yeah. And now I'm seeing a lot more hard light, a lot more punchier light in it. And it does look,

I hate the phrase, but it does look more cinematic. When you light, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. No kidding.

Yeah, you know, it's funny that the Veniceite use, I do. I don't often, Honestly, I don't often use the higher ISO. And when I do, then I'm very much so using that in these. So I'm exposing more at like 1600.

It's good when you need it. It's good when you're lighting for it, you know. But there's no miracle cure. Like if there's no light, there's no light, you know. So I did another show. I did six episodes of Big Sky and Oliver Boccoberg. He was the first DEP and he was shooting everything at 3,200 or 2,500 because of the benefit of one. and he was still in the bright daylight like that too

and I jumped into it. I'm like, I'm not going to change it. I'm just going to go with it. It was pretty, pretty amazing having that sort of sensitivity and being able to really soften the light and use way less than you normally would. Yeah. That actually brings up a question I had

because the first two seasons of Picard felt incredibly different. Obviously one of them was a pandemic project, but even looked different. I don't know who shot was. I don't know if there was a difference there. but and then this third one it feels like a completely in a good way not that you know uh feels like a completely different project um and i was wondering what kind of the conversations were between

you and the directors and executives whoever about like the willingness to ditch whatever they were doing for the first two seasons visually um you know if they wanted to hold anything over uh or if there were any kind of you know i don't know show bible things that they kept yeah um well they i mean they looked they saw some things on my reel that i liked and for the most part i do natural lighting natural sort of contrasty yet soft lighting and it's not i tend to my highlights are typically not too blown out they're just nice and rich and i tend to like pull them back as much as they can so they reacted well to that and then And after looking at the shows, I started, I was thinking a bit, I was looking for some references, and I mentioned to them that I went back to Star Wars.

And I said with Star Wars, Rogue One was the first Star Wars movie that I saw that actually, I mean, the movies are great. They're all great. But just look-wise, that really worked for me because the lighting was not, I mean, great, just knocked it out of the park. The lighting was so natural, so real. So I liked them when I was pitching to them, I liked the idea. of science fiction and things being fantasy light, but I want to ground it in reality. I want it to look real.

I want the light to look real. I don't ever want it to be like we're on the bridge, and the bridge is licked by, it's just ringed with sky panels, you know, with what they call them the chippers, the grids on them. The British call them chippers. Oh, do it?

The egg crates? Yeah, they call them chippers. That's how they used to cut potatoes, right? With the tulisosos or letters. That's a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I can go out for hours about, about, like, tools. This is the podcast. I do that. Just like that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I fight like crazy. Everyone always brings them up and they're an easy solution.

That said, I hate light tools until I absolutely really need that, but I will ask for them. I don't make no bones about that. But to me, big sources, close to faces always look really good. they're inconvenient to production and they're inconvenient to directors they can be more timely if it's not part of your routine sometimes they can limit the the scope of your shot how far you're looking like how many 360s you're doing well you know you really don't need to do 360s all day all the time just after a while it just loses its impact or it's just dizzying so for me and it's funny too because I recently I did an interview and someone asked me what is a classic Star Trek shop from like what's a classic Star Trek Picard shot and I thought about it and to me a classic

Star Trek Picard shot because it's such a character-based show it's about the characters it's not it's not a science fiction epic in my mind it's all the story so for me it's a really good close-up a great close-up that really you know stills an actor like chose Patrick doing his performance you know so that that's kind of more what I think of with that so yeah but anyway so So we're talking about, so they liked that idea and they were supportive of it. And we did use a lot of large, large rags on the bridge. And I think on some of those shows, it's really fast to, you know, have sky panels with their crates on them and just drop them in and, you know, send them down. But they're really not flattering to faces when a light's that far away.

And it looks lit. It looks like a set. I wanted it to feel like a bridge, you know. And that's another thing I would say. too is constantly hear people saying, oh, why is the bridge so dark, you know? When you're on a bridge, it should be dark. It should, you're looking at the view screen. You're looking at your screens.

It shouldn't be really. Have you seen a submarine? It's not about a soap up. Exactly. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because I had for Red October came up a lot as a reference to. Oh, perfect.

Yeah. So, yeah. So, yeah. So, and it wasn't just about being dark. It was just about being more rich and feeling a little. little bit more real, you know. One of the, the set that I loved was the Chateau Picard at the beginning. That was my very, kind of basically I landed in a way, and a few days later, we were shooting

and we were shooting on that set. You know, luckily, I had some great partners. I had, the gaffer that I had was Len Levine, just amazing. He's, uh, he just did Avatar. He's like, he's just an amazing guy. And he's really into it, too, as experienced as he is, he wants to do great stuff. So I was talking to him by Zoom when we were figuring out how to do that. But we were shooting in the Chateau Picard and it was all scripted as night.

And I looked at it and I was like, I want to go in there and I want to do some shabby light. I want to bring some light because they were basically, we were shooting that. They were tearing that set down and it was gone. And they were building something else in that set. I think the enterprise might have gone inside there too, actually. But yeah, I just wanted to do this daylight thing. And I said to Doug, the director, I said, can we meet one of these scenes late afternoon? He's like, it's like, okay, he goes, I'll pitch it to Terry.

But, you know, Terry feels like we've never really made that set look great. And I'm like, please, just give me the chance. So they let me do that. That's pretty much after we meet Gates, Beverly Crusher, that's the first scene in there. And I think it's really good. And it feels really rich. And I feel like it sets the tone for a rich new season. So I was really happy with that, you know.

And also I was happy with the collaboration that they wanted it to be, they wanted the light to be more natural. They wanted to be a little bit darker. They were open to like, how do we make it good? Like, what do we do? That's basically. And one of the other things was like demo, I go, the other way you make it look good is you don't put three cameras

at a posing angle all the time. You got what your shots on. You kind of work, you work a shadow side. You know, you put all your cameras in that shadow side. So then they listen. they wanted to listen and that's funny too because i remember telling lynn i had these long conversations to when i go lent uh so coming in i had these conversations with them we're going to be we're going to use big rags we're going to hang key grip um max thorpe who's great too and he was

like he thought i i had some kind of deal with with um the magic cloth company and i was getting paid by the amount of magic club i used but you know i said to lent i go you know i'm coming in i go you know talking about staying in one side with the with the cameras you know staying in the shadow side constructively working forward to the next side and he's like okay you know he was just like because he'd been there you know the season before and you know directors just want to shoot they want to shoot and we didn't have a lot of time too like Patrick doesn't work a really long day right so um I was actually I saw land last week in L.A and I was just really I said remember when I called you and I said I was going to do this and you were like okay I go well we did it so

It was nice just to have people support. It's always good to have people supporting you on a project, you know. You just, it's so hard. Like, there's so much to do and so many things conspiring against you. You want people to be on your side. You want to work for people. And I think, I think Terry and Doug knew that I would die just to get them all the shots I could as much as I could. And my, you know, my heart was really in the show.

So it was a good collaboration for sure. So were you primarily, I guess, I guess this is the ultimate question for every DB. Were you primarily using Bounce instead of diffusion? Was there a good mix of it, or were you just magic cloth all the way? Sometimes we'll use Bounce, but lately, just for convenience, we're using bigger LED sources. You know, we're using light mats, and we're using, there's so many different lights. I'm spacing on a, this one right here is the, yeah, no, this one right here is the Intellitech mega light cloth.

that's a four by three and a four and a half by three and a half uh blanket oh great great and yeah very accurate very accurate punchy as fuck yeah it's good on the last few shows i've been on with the other guy guy i work with todd he owned source makers which are great they're like eight by eight LED blankets so you can because for me it's always about getting that light far away from the diffusion i'm i'm like a i'm like a monster when i go on set and i see diffusion and I can see the light sorts to do it. I wanted to be even and soft, you know. So, yeah, they were really good at that.

But, you know, the bridge, the bridge was very tight quarters. So we had to work hard to get those lights in there. I have a photo somewhere. I got to find it, but I was, you know, I'm at the monitor with Ryan. And we used the Bolero system, which is great to know about the Bolero. Community System. Oh, my God. It's the greatest thing.

It's designed for sport broadcast. TV, but it's basically a little box. It's sort of like an HMEon steroid, so it's got your Comtech in there. Then you've got buttons, and you have different channels, so I can have grip, Gaffer, camera assistant, dolly grip. I can speak to everyone, or I can speak to people individually, but you also wear a bone conducting headset, so it's on your ear. Oh.

And it's not cheap, and it's kind of a fight to get it off the show, but luckily they had it on Picard, so that was great, you know. But anyway, so I'm sitting there, I'm on the Bullera, and it's great, because you feel like you have total contact you know you're talking to your operator he's running things and i'm talking to land i keep asking for more magic loss on the key and then i want that i want to fill i want in there and then we're left into the set and you couldn't see any of the bridge it was just like all white stuff draped around like we're using 20 buys or twice wherever we can but it looks so damn good you know it just looks so it doesn't look lit and that's what i'm

I feel like I spend my career trying to do that, not making it look lit, lighting without making it look lit, you know? Yeah, you know, the, so they gave, when we went and saw the thing in IMAX, they gave us these very nice prints of the, of the crew on the D. You know, I'm sure you know the promo photo I'm talking about. It's very red. Yeah, yeah. But the print was very nice. And I could, I put that together with, there's a shot of, um, counselor Troy where there's just this very beautiful soft light coming for a right and in that

shot alone I went oh I got I know I know this guy like suddenly I just saw like the the giant whack of soft light everywhere which is of course the DP in me I'm sure no one else is sitting there going like wait a minute but I wanted to know because that because like you said that whole enterprise D set is there's got to be a there had to have been a fight about like trying to make it look like the show versus trying to make it look like the ever show. Definitely. Absolutely. And then putting your giant 20 by 20 on the side.

Yeah. So it's funny to just to get back then the same point, one of the actors, I won't mention her name, but I love her, but she's great. She was having a bad night. She was sadded everyone.

And then she turned to me and she goes, where's my special light? Because I think one of the other DPs held like a bounce, you know, like a four-re-in-bounce. And I don't see that 12-bio? there. That's your special light. You know, that's an inch of your face.

But, but yeah, so the enterprise, it was interesting because, yes, we talked about the enterprise having, it was a lot of discussion about the lighting because that set was accurate to the inch, the carpet, just everything about it. You know, there was nothing

we could change. Right. A couple of beefs I had with the set is, you know, the panel that's right behind, there's a wall right behind part where he sits in his captain's chair, which strives me crazy. I was like, can we do something about that? Nope, staying the way it is, you know? And then I try to widen the lights that were on the side. Nope, it's safe, but as a compromise, they made the walls fly on the side so we can bring in our key light from the

side. So we had that big soft light, you know, above the Oculus thing that was over there. We talked about next generation being really warm. That was really important and always looked really warm and you know it's what's funny too so I used to watch it but I went back to look at it it's not the way I remember yeah but um my favorite part is all the the soap opera framing where you've got four people in a line fit in that four three you know and they're all somehow having a conversation like that yeah yeah so yeah so the first time we shot in we did their vehicle we turned the lights on we went more for the way it actually was licked like we went for that sort of brightness but luckily

because we wanted people to remember and we wanted to feel the same way luckily the ship was under attack and things got kind of messy and so at that point Terry gave me the license to start making things a little bit darker and more aligned with the show so I think it played pretty nicely

yeah I think it worked quite well in the end yeah it's a I think you did a perfect job making that feel modern but still because that's something we've talked about a lot on this podcast is like how important your production designer is. Oh, yeah.

I've said time and time again that the DP often gets credit for what the production designer did, you know, or the colorist, you know, and you're like, no, the wall was just green. They didn't time it green. Or get flame for something the production designer did. Yeah, yeah. And so with that said, especially for how, you know, the 80s construction it was where it was very, you know, walls and flat and surfaces and still made. didn't look. I think you did a great job with it.

Oh, thanks a lot. Yeah. Well, I mean, what they did replicating it was unbelievable. It was amazing to be in there. It was crazy. The first day we went to shoot it to watch the cast pilot and just see them all tear out. It was quite something. Yeah. Superful. Yeah. That's got to be surreal. Yeah, totally. So, yeah, the production designer, Dave Blas, he was really good. He was very, very helpful when I was asking for lights added in places or yeah he was he was really good yeah he was quite happy and he did some good stuff one of my one of my proudest uh status was the borgness the borglair

yeah and that was like there was a lot of work with that trying to get it into it was a really small room so basically you know i'm trying to think what you know the daystrom is the lab where they find data everything that's set. It's all one room when they just recycle that set like crazy. So when I got it, Elios, you know, that was the spaceship that Crusher is on. Yeah, it was, it was just everything. And then the hallways, you know, the hallways where they bump into Moriart, Moriarty. Yeah. It's just too little hallway. So it was quite a trick to kind of make it always feel different, you know. Yeah, what else did? I'm trying to think what else we used it for. And then, yeah,

became the Borglair and so it wasn't really a big set at all. So it was a lot of work getting it to working together with the art department and figuring out the best way to do that. And that one kind of feeds back into Rogue One where if you watch the original Star Trek next gen, the Borgler was always very green. It was a very theatrical kind of like a sort of a stage screen. A lot of concert lights. So yeah, but it was a, it was a very green. It was a very theatrical kind of like a sort of a stage screen. A lot of concert lights. So, yeah, but it was a particular shade and hue of green. And I wanted to push it more into an industrial green, so it made sense. So, yeah, they loved that.

And it actually went quite well, and then we mixed it with the sodium. So the color of the green is more like you would see an industry or out of the factory somewhere. It wouldn't be like something you would see out of stage, you know? So like a fluorescent degree, kind of like bad philosophy. You were stored of... Exactly, that's exactly right. That's... Yeah, yeah.

And then the orange is more like sodium vapor kind of thing. So it just feels very industrial and real. Living in L.A., I do miss the sodium vapor lights. There's a few streets that didn't get the upgrade, but those daylight LEDs are just brutal. I mean, yeah, you can see everything. Like, they're safe, but they... And then they die and they... Yeah, sodium was really nice.

There was a time when people did like sodium, but I... Yeah, a lot of them are absolutely beautiful. Yeah, that was good. And then the other place where we kept out, those sort of colors too, but not quite as green, it was sort of more muted green, was all the exterior market stuff, you know, the planet where. Wharf and that, and that, believe it or not, that's the only exterior we did on the whole season.

Basically, that was five nights. Oh, that's a real exterior. To shoot that. It's a real exterior. It's a real down. they did a great great job with it yeah i'm blanking on the name of the place it's something ranch it's near in santa carita um i'll think of it in it that's why my brain work i'll think of it in the second i know me too he shot out there for yeah we shot out there for five

nights the first night we went out we're like yeah it was blow and then the winds came up and there was lightning and everyone was had to sit in their car and wait so we were told it was safe to get out so we lost like two or three hours on the first night but it also just kind of hurt the spirit of let's go out there and shoot because really we should have been shooting there for two weeks and we were there for five nights so good but it was great we did some cool stuff there um there's a shot where the camera tilts up and it looks like it's all cg and really it's all be a little cg they're just adding in the ships floating around and yeah set deck did a great job on that they had like strip uh strip ellen these thin strip lights that were mixed up

with the wires which were really good and then i had this idea to get um to get like a track and send uh you know like for a sky cam kind of thing a cable cam we put moving lights on them and that was going to be the lights from ships and you see that it plays a little bit like flight that's a great idea but yeah so that was good and then we do there yeah lynn found these great lights lind and his demo board operated it's on these great lights they're called and i'm blanking on the name of this one again too but basically it's a like a probably like a 16 inch by 16 inch square and there's strips there's a mirror strip all around the edges and those mirror can rotate and do things and it's like a laser so in the middle is this light spinning but it's actually a safe laser because some lasers you can't have on step near actors because of their eyes this can actually work but they play a lot out there you see them a lot they're called my god I'll think of it in a second, but we embraced those, and you could shoot right into them,

seeing they were really, really great. Oh, yeah, they won't blitz the sensor and give you a nice sweet, permanent line. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That happened to me. I was shooting a concert. I was shooting a concert. I don't think it was a laser, but it was like one of their, what do you call those lights? The moving headlights that you're just talking about, just concert light, whatever.

Like it was set to, it was set to, like, full power. blue and I was looking into my camera. It was actually this camera and it blinded me or I think I saw it coming and so I looked up and it and it gave me a piercing migraine for a week. Wow. It was yeah, sometimes you got to be careful with those things. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. What I did want to know about the, because obviously the the Enterprise D Bridge is a lot warmer, softer but the other ships have very cool well both literally cool but um rad looking uh you know that rich darkness they're talking about so how are you um lighting that to the stop that you wanted um unit wise you know because obviously the set itself is giving you some form of

illumination you know whatever set deck put in there i guess what yeah what were those units too like how is that working for you the oh you mean the units that are built into the set yeah yes well there's a lot of LED a lot of it is color controllable some of it is not like the railings that were in there were not color controllable and we ended up I wanted to change them to blue and we got there so they ended up putting they had to gel those ones we yeah most of it was color changeable though but that's part it was like gels yeah pretty oh I introduced them to something from Canada that they didn't know about and I felt really proud that I knew something

Hollywood didn't know about. It's this thing called Indy Tape. Have you ever heard of it? No, but Indy Tape? Yeah. They make indie tape. So you get 3, 3, and 6 and it's just tape and you can just stick it on things. That's, I... Yeah, it was great.

Where do you get? Can I get that on Amazon? Probably not Amazon, but through probably some film coming. I'll let you know after it. I'll ask you to get it. But yeah, so we use that. But yeah, most we're using we use like a light map we use sky panels in these big sources and yeah we i play with color temperature a lot i play with shutter a lot too if you see you see the metadata from my camera i use and everyone always rolls their eye what are you doing but i've been doing about every show i've done and

and it works fine i'm not shy about changing the shutter to 270 if i need more life i'm not shy about going to 2.20 if I need a little more light and 144. I totally, I mean, I'm always conscious of the blur, but I never really see blur unless it's major sort of action, you know? Yeah. And a close up, it's not

going to. No, no, not really. So I don't see it and I don't think anyone's ever, I don't think anyone can point to it in anything that I've done, but I'm just always working to try and work wide open and I had a conversation with Dan Sasaki about that because I hadn't shot

with the T-series before, and he said those lenses are designed to shoot one. And when I think I shoot them wide open, he was like, absolutely. And they really do look great and wide open. So, yeah, well, and that was good. Oh, no, lost that thought. Oh, I was going to say, so I guess you already answered the question, but you've got the, you know, what's the classic phrase? You like spaces, not faces, but obviously that's bullshit.

But you've got the splice lit with the bridge. yourself and then you're just bringing in those magic cloths to give us the key and then just moving that around basically yeah yeah yeah yeah and on the bridge we had a lot of like there's a lot of red alert and we talked about toning the red alert down a bit I try to hold back on a little bit so it wasn't just all like overpowery red alert we did some of that I was trying to think about there were two cool things that I remember doing that I really liked one of them was it's um I believe it's an, it's an episode 10, and it's the mind, do you know, the mindside sequence when Picard's in the Borg nest and he connects with Jack and they go into this space and it's

written, yes, the mind was running for the mind's eye. Teardricker, I'm a fucking scene. That was beautiful. And we were out of, like, honestly, by the end of the show with COVID, with everything, there wasn't a lot of money left. And we wanted to do that as a visual effect, but it just wasn't money. surprisingly there was less money for visual effects than you think on the show like we would avoid shooting that view screen I was like always wanted they always wanted us to avoid the view

screen because of it cost money but so I thought about how I could do that practically like I wanted to offer something up for that you know so we could shoot and and we wouldn't have to count the shots we were doing and I'd actually be to see a Bjork concert the week before in LA. And I don't know if you know what she does, but she uses chains and nets, like projection nets that you can see through. It's not like a traditional concert. So she's got a screen in the back and then she'll have a net in the foreground like in front of her and they're projecting stuff on the screen in front of her as well as behind her. So I work clips that Todd Marks, he did the projection and the displays on the show. And I'm like, how can we do this? And he pointed me to

this product, it's a net that you can see through, yet if you get the projector at the right angle, you know, you're a light in the screen, but it's not projecting onto the acting, you know, either you can eat straight down or kind of more up and you can kind of project some lap and so it's great. So using slightly longer lenses, we could shoot through the net and then in the back, you would have a screen as well so it would feel like they were enveloped in this, in this whole world. So we ended up doing that and we pulled it off and I think it looks It looks pretty good. I've shown people how we did it. I've shown the making up thing and people don't realize that it's not visual effects. So it was a little bit limiting. Like you

couldn't do a lot of camera movement, but you know, honestly for that scene, like you said, it was a beautiful scene. You just needed a few sizes. There's one visual effect shot. I think it's it's like a wider two shot, but all the mediums and close-ups are done in camera, which was pretty fun to pull up. Yeah, that scene reminded me of a there's like kind of a similar thing in Harry Potter where like Voldemort's like under you know it's like dead Voldemort like baby Voldemort and he's like under a bench

and I always said Gannendorf too much Zelda Gandalf's talking to not Gandalf what the hell the lizard anyway he's talking to Harry Potter but it's same thing that big white room kind of thing but I think that was largely visual effects

so I yeah I was I was you have bamboozled me too I thought that was just a big like either either a virtual set like a virtual production set or just yeah we didn't do any there's no volume there is not not really any we didn't use LED walls at all on that so thankfully I might have it's a very cool I'm trying to I've reached out to a lot of companies like hey let me come in and like do some articles on this because selfishly that's what I get to do as a journalist but it seems very cool but it also does seem very finicky. Yeah, it is finicky, for sure. And I think there's a lot more, there's a lot more visual effects work after that fact, cleaning things up. So one thing that I heard about that's really cool, cool, I don't see if heard of it, it's called ghost framing. And what they do is, I'm going to describe it wrong, but they shoot at 48 frames. And so basically, you're getting, somehow you're getting four frames per frame. So one frame will be the actual volume with the footage on that.

Then one will be green and then one will be magenta to dial back the green. And then later you can go in and you can pick whatever you want. So if you're not happy with what was on the screen, you've got a perfect green screen can use, which ends up happening a lot at Bean's Hall. That people end up to your green a lot. I saw that, I think it was last year's NAB. There was a company that builds the hardware for that. It wasn't Ghost Frame, the company.

I was supposed to interview Ghost Frame this past an AB, but I scheduled that horribly. But yeah, it's wild to see in person because it just looks like a blurry. I guess they must be using Genlock for this, but it's just like a blurry screen. And then you look at the display and it's like a perfect no-flicker version. You're like, whoa, that's interesting. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Yeah, it's a lot of stuff. Um, then another thing that, um, uh, was really interesting that we did was, uh, it was

the opening of episode nine and it's when he's in the hallway. And so that's, that's one, the one big hall when he said that you use a lot. He gets, that's the biggest hallway that they have door in it. It gets flea cycle. Yeah. And so the windows are always closed. They're seal. There's window.

Yeah. That's right. Um, there's windows, but they have panels blocking them so you don't see out. So, again, there was another one of those situations where there wasn't a lot of money for visual effects left, too. But they wanted the red lines, which they were always going to do with visual effects. But he was talking about being on the planet and the blossom trees. And so I pitched the idea of starting with really happy. And then as the darkest, which we find out later on board, things go colder and more blue.

and at the same time, we're blowing the blossoms in the air. So that was like a whole, it was a PICS. They bought it. We did it. Unfortunately, we only had about five hours to shoot the whole thing, which is just crazy for what we were trying to do. But then we built a trust. We built the whole trust system that would lower down to do the setting sun

that would lower into the flags. And we looked at using all different kind of units. So we weren't back since one source that I love that. works every time that's great. They're just basically, and Lynn loves them between park hands. No, yeah. It's do like the nicest shaft, the nice and light. You can get a lot of them.

So we did that. I think we had like, I'm guessing they were probably about 12 of them. And so we lowered it down. And then we had the, we changed the light slightly. And then Stefan, in color time, he pushed it even more. He took a step on and Cody, they did the color. He pushed them a little bit more cool. So we did that.

And then we were blowing the blossoms around in there, but I didn't realize how loud it was. And then the actors were getting upset that they could hear each other talking. But in the end, we did it. I think it's a great scene. I think it's it works really, really well. It's funny you ring that up because I, yeah, when the blossoms come into the hallway, I definitely was like, oh, that's cool. It reminded me of kind of, I guess this is bad reference because I, but like an Akira Kurosawa by way of the Sushima kind of,

to Sushima kind of thing, you know? Oh, yeah. It felt very, that was very cool. The whole thing is cool, man. And you did what? One, two, five, six, nine, ten? I did six of them, yeah. So I did one, two, I couldn't do my mouth.

Five, six, and nine, ten. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I worked with, I did the opening to the season with Doggonneikoski, which is great. And did the middle two with Dan Liu. And then the last two with Terry, which is great. Harry just knows that show so well.

He's just, he's such a great guy, too, you know, and he's like, I think he's like, and the fans love him because he brought back a show and he brought it back in the way that people really love it. But he just, he loves the show. He's a fan himself. So, I mean, you can really feel it too. How are you communicating the kind of visual language to the other two? Or was it one other DP or two other DPs who did the middle ones?

It was one other DP. It was Creschenzo. No, no. questions I'm not a real. I'm actually interviewed. I'm pretty sure I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks. Oh, great. Great.

So we'll get both sides of this story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How are you communicating with him? The thing is, he was doing the previous season. He did season two and then he was doing three as well. It was a bit strange because I was approached at the last second and brought in at the last second and I didn't have a lot of time for conversation with him and they wanted to bend the look a little bit too so we tried to communicate a bit but there

wasn't really time for a lot of communication but he was sort of he was so he was doing what he wanted to do that's how that's how it is I mean you know as dv when you get your blocks you do your thing I'm like I'm not for me to say you should do it this way or that way he just he did his thing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He's really good. He's an interesting personality too. Yeah. Very, very colorful. Awesome. Yeah. We like him a lot. Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. He's very passionate. Oh, cool. Yeah. I feel like I had one other question, but we're, we are coming up on time, so I want to be mindful of your day. But I guess we'll just have to have you come back and we can keep nerding out about stuff but uh i'll uh i ask that when we wrap things up i ask the same

two questions but i feel like you already had an answer for this but we'll go anyway uh if you if you had to give a card uh if you were programming a double feature and obviously television shows difficult but if you're programming a double feature what would the other film be for picard at the same time that's interesting that's tough and interesting I'm finally out of words I thought you were going to jump right on Andor because I think that would be an interesting Well it's funny you say that though

Because for me Or not Andor but Rogue 1 but yeah Andor's so good Well yeah yeah Rogue 1 Andor for me is like the jewel in the crown I was just Just gobswacked at that show It's just gorgeous

It's the production design the costumes, the shooting, the story, it's just, just everything about it. Yeah, that to me, because I like Mandalorian, but there's times when I feel like it's a little lacking in story. And I, it's, I have a 15-year-old son, and so I value the time we spend watching together. And he never really got into Star Wars, but he liked the Mandalorian, and he wanted to watch Boba Fett, but he struggled with Andor, but I powered right through it. I thought it was fantastic.

Yeah, I guess you're right. I don't think I would show one in the double feature because I think I would show something further away from it because I think it's a it's a big, big dream to live up to it. Sure. Well, you could put Hunt for the Red October in there and that'll maybe that feels. Or caddyshot, maybe something like that. Yeah. You know, it's funny.

I've used this example a bunch, but when I interviewed Cronin with, I was, I was like, he was doing, being the Ricardo's. And I was like, what would your double feature be? And he goes, Alien versus Predator? That's he's all neat. Awesome. He, one thing about Cronum, when it tells from the loop, that's another one of those science fiction shows that I love where you think something bad's going to happen,

but it doesn't really, and the people are all mostly good people. I love that show so much. And he did a spirit one, John. Yeah. I, he, he, uh, I didn't hit him with this when I was talking to him. I did a little bit before we started recording, but his visual style is definitely, definitely what informed a large chunk of my own cinematography. Yeah, it's just very good at making things very natural.

He's just the nicest guy, too. He's just like this down to. Very casual. A sweet guy. Every time I bump into him or seeing him, he's just so friendly and so kind. Yeah. The, I was like, oh, well, I was going to say with Andor, I've been trying to convince people to watch it.

And they're like, I, you know, whatever, I'm not really into Star Wars. I'm like, it's not even really a Star Wars show. It's not. Like, it's just an amazing drama. What about that location, the location when they're out in the mountains there? My God, it's just stunning. I have been trying to figure out where that was for a while because I'm, because like, especially the fog. It's like the opening to a Rogue One where they, you know, they're in.

Isn't it Scotland or Ireland? It must be. But the fog, they got blessed with like that kind of high enough fog, but, oh, jeez. Yeah, that film or that show also reminded me that like sometimes, because it's been real gray and foggy here in L.A., and sometimes overcast looks really nice on camera because you get there, you're like, I deal with it up in Canada and I find, I don't know, I just, for me, it's a bit too flat and then it's tricky because when I do all the negative bill that I do, it kind of comes in a harsh sort of way once you do that, it's tricky to work. with I find it should be or you just embrace and then when it just looks black to me you know it could be that our overcast is slightly thinner so maybe we're getting a little more punch around maybe but uh well and also i live by the beach so like when you go back over the hill towards burbank suddenly it's like what the hell it's 75 and sunny up here like um yeah last week

there was a huge fog layer right the the green layer yeah um finally actually i just realized and wearing a shirt that says Montana that I got in whitefish that says Canada's Tijuana. Oh, that's amazing. Let's just realize. I said through this lot. That's good. But the final question. Yeah.

Everyone, I heard a lot of podcasts and people go like, oh, what's the best piece of advice you got? And I think it's, it always ends up being like, oh, stick with it. You know, what's the worst piece of advice you ever got? that's a good one I guess I guess probably the worst piece of advice is to have a vision

and stick by your vision and I find as more and yes you should have a vision there's no question about that but the more I work in the business the more I find if you open your ears and you listen to what people are saying around you they're seeing, you know, oftentimes, many times, almost every time,

the director is seeing it from a different point of view than you are. Sometimes you're Gaffer's seeing it from a different point of view. It's good to have a vision and it's good to stay strong with your ideals, but it's always good to consider what everyone is staying around you because I did this thing sometimes where I'm like, there was someone who makes sense. I'll be like, no, and I mean, oh, actually, yeah, no, let's talk about that. So I really think it's good just to hear and consider.

I think that's the most important lesson I've learned lately. And, you know, oftentimes it's a lot better when someone, you come in and you have just, you've got to be, you've got to be agile and flexible when you come to set because things change all the time and things get better. So I think it's good to have a vision, but I think it's good to feel things. I mean, mostly you should feel the emotion. that's happening and figure out how to convey it instead of coming in with a said idea. How's that?

That's great. No, it's actually, it combines two things that I've said a bunch. One is, you know, because this podcast is like half entertaining, half educational, uh, on its best days, but, uh, something that I constantly feel like I'm reiterating is how important it is to go off of feeling. Because especially with, you know, on with the internet, there's a lot of educators, whether they should be trusted or not. And there seems to be a lot of rules.

But even in film school, there are like rules put upon you. And there's a correct way to do things. And, you know, three point lighting is a classic one, you know, when you're coming up. They're like, you have to do key back fill, key back fill. And oftentimes it's the feeling that you have towards a lighting setup or whatever will make the audience feel the way you feel, which is more important than whatever, key back fill. you know uh and that's when those rules should be broken yeah i mean it's good to know the rules to start with it's good to have that basis but you're absolutely right i mean to me a film filmmaking a tv is most powerful when it's making you feel a certain way and that's what really

appeals to me about it so whatever you take to make the audience feel that way is the most most important thing you know so maybe sometimes having bright flat light is not pretty but it's the right thing for the moment, you know? So just really, really important to consider that. I don't know why, but just right when you said that, my first flash was in one-hour photo, Mark Romneck. Yeah. Was that chronic?

Anyway, there's that scene where he's dreaming and he's in the white CBS or whatever and his eyes explode with developer or blood. I don't know. I thought it was developer. But yeah, that very, very flat. I just got it on Blu-ray. Maybe that's why I'm thinking about it because I just

Yeah, it's just like Blu-Rays. All right, man. Well, I'm going to let you go, but please come back whenever you have a free anytime. But yeah, let's link up at Senegal. We'll continue the conversation.

Sounds great. Sounds great. Great chatting. I'm you, man. Take care. Take care. Frame and reference is an Albot production. It's produced and edited by me,

Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. As this is an independently funded podcast, we rely on support from listeners like you. So if you'd like to help, you can go to buy me a coffee.com slash frame and ref pod. We really appreciate your support. And as always, thanks for listening.