Frame & Reference Podcast - 105: "Star Trek: Picard: DP Crescenzo Notarile, ASC AIC

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

What if every frame of a television show could be a beautifully composed photograph? Join us as we converse with the master of visual storytelling, Crescenzo Notaralie ASC AIC, the lens behind the latest season of Star Trek: Picard. Crescencio's work is not just a series of moving images but a complex dance of light, texture and emotion that pulls you right into the narrative. We delve into his approach, from his influences and the art of photography, to the technicalities of lighting design and visual effects, especially during a global pandemic, and the importance of collaboration in bringing a script to life. Crescencio's insights span the industry from the recent evolution of television content, with mentions of popular shows like Euphoria, Succession, and Your Honor, to the often overlooked but crucial roles of below-the-line members in the industry. He emphasizes the importance of composition, the fundamental difference between pictures and photographs, and how renowned photographers like Irving Penn and Rembrandt inspire his work. Crescencio also shares captivating details of how his team used over a thousand lights to breathe life into the visuals for the third season of Star Trek: Picard while adhering to pandemic restrictions. Lastly, we discuss his experiences working with the likes of Jonathan Frakes on Star Trek: Picard, where he beautifully managed to respect the show's canon while adding his own creative touch. Our conversation extends into the realm of cinematography and lighting in film production, and the importance of fewer, high-quality shots in television production. Join us for this enlightening episode, filled with practical insights and untold stories from the world of television cinematography. And remember - it's not just about capturing a scene, but about painting a narrative with light. (0:00:15) - The Importance of Photography in Cinematography (0:08:08) - Photographic Influences (0:23:46) - Creativity, History, and the Cinematic Process (0:37:21) - Season 3 Visual Effects and Lighting (0:43:36) - Film Set Lighting Design Collaboration (0:50:49) - Cinematography and Lighting in Film Production (0:59:56) - Frakes as Director and Team Captain (1:12:51) - Quality Shots in Television Production (1:18:28) - Cinematography Discussion and Appreciation ⁠⁠Follow F&R on all your favorite social platforms!⁠⁠⁠ You can directly support Frame & Reference by ⁠⁠⁠Buying Me a Coffee⁠⁠⁠ Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coast's 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 105 with Creschenjo Notarale, A-S-C-A-I-C, about his work on Picard. Enjoy. I mean, I'm sure you've been pretty busy, but have you found any time to watch anything cool yourself? Well, you know, it's interesting, you know, with this time of the strikes going on, there's been a lot of time. So the mind is wandering left and right. How I preoccupy my, my downtime is my personal photography. You know, that's very, very important. I mean, that's my creative release. I'm in a process of doing a new book on my images. And that's what I've been doing with my downtime.

But, you know, there's so much beautiful content out there. It's kind of hard to keep track right now. But this is what we do for a living. So I watch a lot of television, especially at night, you know, just to keep my ears and eyes to the ground as to what's going on, who's doing what, what's out there, what's stimulating me. So it's been daunting. You know, there's a lot of wonderful shows out there. I've loved the show visually very much. it hasn't been on this particular season

but just freshly off last season called Euphoria. I love that show. It's a lot of visual stimulation. I just totally love that show. And of course, Succession. I've been watching Succession. I think that's the greatest ensemble that we've had this year so far.

You know, I also did a show other than Picard. I also did a show called Your Honor for Showtime with Brian Cranston. And that was a really fantastic show to work on. Thank you, Kenny. great ensemble as well. I've been infatuated watching this documentary on, I think it's HBO, yes, HBO called

a 100-foot wave. I interviewed the DPs of that. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. A fantastic job, and it's daunting to watch these people riding these cavernous waves straight down like a cliff, straight down. I don't know how gravity is holding them onto the water. And then as they're going straight down, you see this gigantic shadow, this grim reaper just looming over your back, ready to eat you alive.

And one mistake, you're like almost dead. I don't know how these people hold their breaths for like five minutes on the water, you know, in a washing machine that way and getting turned and tumbled. So I've been very infatuated with that. But I do tip my hat off to succession. I super loved what was going on. And I did enjoy the finale very much. I did raise my hand to the finale. I was very content with that finale.

And my show, too, you know, with Your Honor prior to Picard. And also Picard, you know, we had some great fineries. Yeah. There's a lot of great, wonderful content out there, Kenny. And, you know, I don't call it the Golden Age of Television. I think, you know, I call it now the Platinum Age of Television. And I'm so honored, deeply honored, to be part of the television community. Because, as you know, the creative content and the bar, the bar, and the caliber and the people involved is at its utmost top level.

And therefore, you have to pay attention. You have to be really sharp. You cannot be complacent. You've got to walk onto the set, doing your homework, having a tremendous, tremendous involvement in your prep. So when you do walk onto this set, you are very, very well adverse as to what's going on to answer any kind of questions that come about and to do your job because, you know, it's daunting. When you walk on to that set this day, you know, you look over your shoulder, you know,

there's 200 people there. There's, you know, 19 tractor trailers full of equipment. If you're outside exterior day, the sun is rotating and all of a sudden, if you're behind with one shot, your schedule, all of a sudden a light starts to change. and it becomes very daunting. So you've got to really be prepared. I enjoy that. I'm very proud to be part of this community.

And you know, with this new way of watching television, this so-called binge watching, it was a funny term at the beginning, but I personally enjoy that because when you're watching a show in a chapter of a novel, you don't want to just stop right there sometimes and wait until an entire week goes by.

You want to read and see a couple of times, choppers at a time. So that's a wonderful thing that we have in the television genre. And obviously the community of all the high directors and the DPs and everybody that does feature films, they're all coming into this genre right now because, you know, you have a lot of legs to the stories, to the arcs. You can tell a larger story. You can get people and more involved grabbing into their hearts, keeping them sustained, keeping them interested. And it's really fantastic feeling when one episode ends that in your heart and soul, you really want to know what's going on in the next episode. So it keeps your alert, keeps you alive, keeps you entertained.

And I'm proud to be part of this community. And I'm very proud to be part of his interview as well, Kenny. Thank you. Because, you know, as a below the line member, you know, very rarely we get the recognition and the support, the pat on the backs as to the amount of hard work what we do. In my opinion, we're the backbone. We are the backbone of the community. Without below the line, without us, you're not going to have this kind of content, this kinds of television, this kinds of entertainment. You know, you can have the greatest story in the world and greatest actors in the world and the greatest directors in the world and all this great information and content and stories in the world. But if you cannot execute it and to put it onto the screen

for people to watch physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, you're not going to have anything. So it's the below-the-line people that I tip my hat to that are truly the backbones of this community. So I'm very proud that this recognition of this interview and this little tap on my back about the show is really nice. I really appreciate that very much, Kenny. Thank you.

Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, that's, that's why I made it was, uh, you know, plenty of interviews, uh, all over the internet about how, oh, um, you know, we talked to this director about how they crafted the show. And I'm like, every once in a while, you get, you know, who did, um, what's his name? Um, the comedian. Oh, for heaven's sake. Yeah, yeah. Um, in any case, he does a very good job of like, he does, hauling out even the dolly grip, you know, who made a shot work. He's, he's very graced by that. But I did want to, uh, you know, up top you had mentioned, we're going to go back to image making at its core, that you were doing more still photography. And I was wondering, because I had heard in an interview that you, you know, do a lot of still photography and you have hundreds, if not thousands of photo books. Yes. And I was wondering what, um, if maybe you had some essential photo books you could share and then also who has influenced you photographically and kind of the, um, well, I have follow-ups for that, but I'll get you started there. Well, you know, it's photography is very,

very important to me, obviously, because I'm a cinematographer. Sometimes, you know, when I give seminars and young filmmakers and young cinematographers, ask me that quintessential first question, what does it take to be a cinematographer? And the very, very first thing I say immediately is you have to be a photographer first. You have to walk around with a camera on you at all times, whether it's a, you know, a pocket camera in your pocket, an iPhone in your pocket, a DSLR camera around your shoulder, whatever it may be, and you have to walk around and take pictures, pictures, pictures every day, like brushing your teeth, like tying your shoelace, like putting on your t-shirts every morning, you have to take pictures every single

day. And you may take 50 pictures one day, the next day you're taking 100 pictures, the next day, 200 pictures. And then all the same. sudden, like after a week or two, you will realize after 200, 500 pictures, maybe you have three photographs. So they ask you, okay, so what's the difference between a picture and a photograph? A photograph is something that you sustain your interest when you're turning a magazine or a book. When you just stare at it, just a beat longer than you do with a magazine, for instance. These are pictures. We all take pictures. But not everyone, takes a photograph. And a photograph is a narrative that you want to evoke within that four

lines, that box, that story within that frame, you want to evoke and tell a story, a narrative. And not necessarily sometimes what's within that box, but sometimes what's outside of that box to allure, to evoke. And when you're taking pictures every day, all of a sudden you find yourself, okay, I'm going to explore. Maybe I'm going to get on my belly on a street and look up at something, or maybe I'm going to climb a tree or get on a second story of a building and look down on something, rather than just taking everything eye level. Yeah. And that's the difference between photographs and pictures. All of a sudden now, your composition starts to change. You know, then you get a sense of your backgrounds and your shapes within the frame

geometrically. There's a lot of geometry within the composition. You know, I'm looking at you straight off, but if I move my body lower and look up at you, I'm giving you presence. All right? If I get my body to the side a little and maybe dutch the camera, just slightly, maybe I will accentuate the lines in the background of what I'm looking at,

just to stretch it a bit more, just to bring more attention to it. That's composition. That's photography. You have to know these principles before you become a cinematographer, because I'm very daunted that there's a lot of great cinematographers out there that do not do photography that often. And I guess because, you know, when you're working as a cinematographer, you're working hours upon hours upon hours doing that. And then maybe they just get, they just want to change a pace and do something else. For me, my photography is extremely personal to me. For the main reason is this.

It's me against me. It's just me. The strap, the camera, whatever is around my shoulder, my neck, and it's just me. My eyes, my heart, my perspective, my narrative, no one behind me, no producers or crew or anybody looking at the monitors that I'm shooting behind the DIT village and telling me make it warmer, make it cooler. Can you do this? Can you do that?

And you look over your shoulder. There's 200 people, you know, executing your vision. It's a tremendously collaborative medium. Tremendously so. Not one person could take full credit to anything because it's a collective, you know, camaraderie of our hearts collectively as a whole for a single vision when you're on a project. No one can take full responsibility of a project. There are as many, many people involved.

But when I do my photography, it's just me. It's a single voice. And sometimes I can get off on taking one photograph that I get stimulated about and inspired about than I do on a multi-million dollar project sometimes because I know it's purely me. So my photography is very, very important. You know, I have a lot of greats. You know, Irving Penn, Joel Peter Wittkin. There's so many, many great photographers that I study, that I look at. That's part of my homework. that we all do as cinematographers. We have to get knowledge as to who's out there, who's doing what,

and have a history of the background, the history of these photographers, and the forefront runners of these photographers, the grandfathers of these particular mediums that we do. You know, the young generation, I mean, God bless them, I consider them to be young whippers, but they're very myopic. They just look at the present sometimes And they don't look at the past You got to go to the roots

You know, instead of going to a museum And to feel and to explore And to see a brushstroke Of a Caravaggio or a Van Gogh You know, to see the textures of those brushstrokes So look at a Rembrandt painting And know what that That expression is Rembrandt lighting

What is that? Young filmmakers don't know anything anything about that. They get on their iPhone, they take a virtual tour of a museum, and they think they did a tour. But you have to get back to their roots. Same with photography. You have to know what an F-stop is, what a T-stop is, what an iris does in a camera. What's the difference between a 16 and the iris of a lens versus a 1.4? What does that mean to a photographer? This is old-school properties that we must adhere to and know and educate ourselves with. And I find that very frustrating, especially this day and age, you know, with the advent of new cameras and technologies

and 2K, 4K, 6K, 8K, you know, everyone is getting so involved in that, which is very, very important because cinematography is not just an art that's also a craft and science. We must know all of this. To me, the most important thing is not necessarily the camera per se. It's the glass that I put in front of the camera, the lenses, you know, whether it's an Aereo Lexa, or whether it's a Sony in Venice, whether it's a Panavision film camera, whether it's an Aeroflix film camera. The cameras, to me, is just to transport or to record. You have to know all those color spaces and the technical things that are involved in menus. But to me, the most important thing of cinematography is not so much that. The young generation gets really caught up in that. but it's about camera placement, camera movement, color, lighting. People think, oh, you know, we working with 6,400 ASA, now cameras, we don't need to light.

You don't need to light anymore. I get shivers when I hear that. You may have an exposure now when you go outside at night. You have an exposure, but you're not lit. You know, to me, when they say that, that's ignorance. You have to now light for ratios. You know, your highlights, you don't want them to bloom and to lose detail. Your shadows, you want to lift up so you can feel the textures of black.

Black is not just black. Black has texture to it. And when you've got two different spectres between highlight and shadow, yes, you want to light. So it comes a little closer to reach into the details of shadows, to reach into the highlights of the highlights. You need to light that to manipulate your ratios. You're not lit just because you're working at 6,400 ISO. You know, so what people said, we don't need to light anymore.

Horshit, you need to like, you need to sculpt, you need to shape, you know, you may have exposure, like I said, because of these high ISO cameras and sophisticated cameras, but you still need the heart, the spirit, the mind, the creative zeal to understand lighting. If I'm looking at you and like I love putting a back edge on the subjects that are talking, that are expressing themselves, because what a back edge of light to me does, it chisels them out from the background. Me personally, when I don't put an edge, they kind of blend in to the background. Personally, I don't like that because when you're looking at a screen, it's two-dimensional. it's two dimensional but when you light and you create edges whatever all of a sudden it does this it comes out at you there's that third dimension so that's lighting i love putting a little

line of light on the dark fill side of the face when i'm key lighting on this side just to put that line of light to chisel to separate this edge this jaw from the background it's things like that maybe sometimes i do want the face to blend in to a dark backer background and be ominous if someone is coming out of an alleyway or what have you. Of course. But there it again goes. You have to know how to light, how to tell your story, what the story is about. You know, if I'm lighting a woman, you know, naturally I would bring my light a little lower perhaps. Maybe I would not bring in so much to the side, but come around just a little in the front, just a bit more than normal, just to get into the eyes, to shape the face a little

more beautifully, maybe put a piece of extra diffusion on front of the light, just to soften the shadows a bit. You have to know how to light. So when you tell a story, you have to know what the story is about emotionally, whether it's drama, whether it's haunt, whether it's comedy, whether you want to evoke it, but not foreshadow, something that's coming around the corner. You have to know your story. What is propelling the buttons of the story in the way? In the the heart. And as a cinematographer, that's our job is to know how to tell this story visually. You know, I do an exercise when I travel. I travel a lot because of my occupation. I'm constantly perpetually on airplanes. And, you know, you always have these monitors in front of you in the

back of the seat in front of you and people are watching movies. You're watching a movie. You put it on to entertain yourself for five hours, whatever may be. But I never watch a film with the sound, ever. I just watch it just for the visual aspect of it. Because I want to know what the story's about just by looking at the visual captures, looking at the visual roller coaster, how to cinematographer, the director, the filmmakers are telling the story visually. I want to feel the story. I want to hear the words by looking at the visuals. And it's an exercise they use all the time, you know, and another exercise I use, you know, to keep my imagination sharp and my synaps is constantly firing is music. I listen to a lot of music as we all do, but I listen to

soundtracks. Very rarely I listen to music with lyrics. Of course I have my favorites, you know, my favorite bands, of course. But when I'm in my own state of mind and I'm kind of meditative, my heart is pumping creatively, and I just want to wander. It's my own personal meditation. I will listen to soundtracks of just music. And when I hear the music, it forces me to think and come up with and create visuals in my head. And when I first started out as a cinematographer, my background was music videos, you know, after doing commercials. And in music videos back then in the day, it was a glorious time because we were inventing, we were exploring, we weren't nervous about making mistakes. We didn't have account executives or producers or networks

or studios on your back. God forbid you made a mistake. We were pioneers. We would explore and just balls to the walls, invent. And when you're doing a music video, when you listen to a song, you know, a director at that time, you know, still does, would write a concept from what they hear and feel from the song. And you would use your visual, creative imagination to tell that story in a music video way. And now is my background. So music is so, so very, very important to me. And I use that often when I look at things. You know, right now, my time off, you know, I'm trying to put together another book of my images. And it's interesting. I've been doing a creative exercise for myself, because instead of sitting on my ass all day, I would post some of my

photography on stories, on Instagram. And because it's on stories, I'm able to put music to it. You can do that in a post now, too. Yes, you can, yes. And I love that because it's an interesting exercise. And I really strongly advise people to do this because it really, it really, it really gets inside your creative heart to get out of that shell, to explore, and to feel different emotions when you look at an image. But you put one image on, and then it's your job to think

about, okay, what kind of music what I want for this particular image? What am I hearing in my head when I see this particular image? And it's a great exercise. And then you choose your music, and the music plays to that an image, and then all of a sudden an image takes a totally different perspective. It takes on a life that's very, very different onto its own. And you start to smile, and it gives it a little more extra emotional flair. And I just love that about music. You know, a lot of people ask me in interviews,

Preshenzo, you know, if you were not a cinematographer, what else would you be doing? What would you want to do? And I always answer that very succinctly because I've always wanted to be a musical composer. You know, when I was a baby, when I was small, you know, I was starting piano. When I, my mom was, you know, a Bernstein fan and Elmer Bernstein, and we had pianos in a house.

And I was playing a lot of piano, classical piano. And I always had that affinity, that love for the music aspect. And when I was in college, there was one course, you know, musical recording. I super loved that that direction that I was maybe going into because I love when you have an image and then you start scoring music to these images. It just gives me the chills. I just love it.

And there was a few times where I had the privilege and the honor and the blessing where I would work on a project and a director would invite me in the post world in the studio where you have these composers, these orchestras, you know, looking at the time code of your film that you just shot and the scoring music to it. And I would just get chills. I would just love that aspect of music. So music and film

to me is a fantastic marriage. You know, that's something, it does sound like you and I are very similar. You know, I would say maybe I was more interested in Victor Borg. But, you know, I've tried to articulate a few times on this podcast how, like, being a music, I'm a drummer and I've played guitar, but being a musician and being a cinematographer are very similar. And something I've heard you mention in a handful of podcasts interviews is sort of lighting or crafting the image from the heart. And earlier you had mentioned how, you know, these days younger filmmakers tend to get a little stuck in the technology of it all. And I think it's kind of easy to forget or not value the past as much because new stuff is coming out

every time and it feels like you're just kind of playing whackable trying to learn everything that realizing that there's a large volume of stuff that will never change that you can go and learn. But I was wondering if you could sort of potentially articulate how to rise out. obviously just going out and shooting a lot is going to give you sort of the confidence, you know, enough failures will give you the confidence to not think about the tech so much, but in your own way, how would you articulate not only how to get unstuck out of that gear mode, but also how to marry that history and maybe mentors with your own vibe and your own flavor. Very simply. You've got to surround yourself with that support group. Your friends,

your peers, your artists, your directors, your cinematographers, your production designers, your editors, your visual effects gurus. You've got to surround yourself with people like these, socialize with them, hang with them, have conversations with them, go behind the scenes, see what they're doing, look what they're doing, ask questions, digest what they're doing. And then You grab this, you grab this, you put it in your head, you put it in your heart, and it becomes part of your subconscious library. You know, a lot of times I look at photography books. I'm a freak with photography books.

I have thousands of photography books in my house. And before I start a project, I will look at my shelves of stacked with books, and I will look at the titles and say, okay, and I will pull the spine out just like an inch out. Well, this may be good for this project. This may be good for this project. this may be good for this project and then a day goes by and says okay i'll push one in but maybe push one a little further out and then by a couple of days later i would have maybe about 20 books out i will take all 20 books out stack them up on my desk and i will just flip through them just to see

these images get it in my head get it in my subconscious library i want to open up my drawer in my mind and feed myself i want to feed myself with these images not only what's still photography but also with films. You know, you go on to IMDB, you go on to iTunes, you know, you go on to your DVDs, your TCMs, you know, and you make a list of what's going to inspire you, and you watch these films, you look at these photographs, you collectively put it in your subconscious, and then you try to get inspired. And before I do a project, you know, I come up with a lookbook.

You know, I'll go to Kinko's, I'll get all my photography books, you know, underneath my shoulder. I'll maybe print out of maybe 100 images, I'll bind it, put it in a binder, hardcovered, and I'll just keep it for myself. So in between episodes, in between days, in between on weekends, whatever, you know, sometimes I'll just flip through it just to remind myself just to fire a synapse in my head. I may not be conscious of it, but it's going through my eyes and in my head and is going somewhere in my creative heart. And that's important to me.

So to answer your question, you know, to get out there and these young filmmakers, you know, technology is very, very important. Yes, there's a lot of technology now. I just came from Cine Gear this past weekend. Oh, I was there too. It was a bombardment of equipment. Yeah, yeah.

Very, very important. But as an audience. A lot of displays. That's another thing. Yes. Displays, that's a good way of saying it. But now, you know, it's your job to take these displays, to take this information, and to not get so bogged down with the technology aspect. And I'm old school. So I say this very positively because I'm old school. You have to know the basics. You have to put the technology aside for a second. And you have to really try to rise above that ring. of circle there of the creative aspect, not so much of the science technical aspect, but the creative arts aspect. And where does that come from? It comes from your aesthetics. Your aesthetics change from day to day. I truly feel you can grow your aesthetics, just what I just

finished saying to you about photography, watching films, having conversations. Your aesthetics will evolve each day when you're in tuned, taking pictures every single day, then all of a sudden you're taking photographs every single day. And when you're taking photographs every single day, and I'm very privileged to say this, very honored and blessed to say this, I don't want to come across corny by saying this. But when you're an artist, especially as a photographer, painter's sculpture, what have you, you are seeing things differently than the normal person. Things are a little more magnified that a normal person would never, ever see. And to me, that's a beautiful thing to live your way of life, is to see things

that are so magnified, but so small in detail, but you as an artist, because your sensitivity and your creative aspect of your DNA is heightened and growing, those little details that we see that perpetually go over our heads every day are now in front of our heads and faces and eyes in a big magnificent way and it's our job now to structure that in a in a composition in a graphic in a placement of a photograph an expression of a painting of a sculpture whatever it may be and i think that's a beautiful thing that artists have and it's so important to keep that sharp you know so again getting back to our first initial discussion you know downtime you know a lot of times when you're in a downtime you atrify your imagination starts to atrify a bit your synaps is enough

firing as much you know I'm at my strongest one I'm at my busiest it's very interesting process you know and I can atrify technically speaking you know when I'm sitting on my ass for a couple months not because of this strike. Technically, I may atrify. Creatively, I can atrophy because I'm not on the set, but that's my photography now. So I try to keep my creative aspect as high as I can all the time, even during my downtime. Brantley, when I get out to the set, I'm a little daunted, technically, you know, I've got to educate myself. I've got to constantly read my brochures and go through my notes, speak to my crew, speak to my gaffer, my key grip, my chief camera assistant, you know, make my test, go to Panavision, wherever may go, and to get myself abreast now of the technology

and the sharpen my senses again. And then from there, I can choose what technology I want. You know, you got 10 brands of lenses. Why does one go with this brand versus this brand? You know, you have to know those nuances and what these lenses and glass and optics are expressing. Is that what you want to tell your story with? So it's a very interesting thing that we as directors of photographers cinematographers go through that a lot of people are unaware of it's it's a beautiful job it's a beautiful occupation yeah and i was going to say that going back to what you're saying a little earlier choosing those lenses because i think someone listening would be who's you know maybe younger more an experience would be like well how do you know what those lenses show and

the answer is history you know anamorphic lenses only give us that feeling because of let's say Spielberg you know setting the tone like that now that's what an anamorphic is that's correct the previous uh masters the previous uh artists kind of inform and then maybe you get to not you specifically but you know you as a person get to uh decide what the next technology is you know there's that um that guy who was like flying drones all over the place and for a while everyone was like this is the thing and then it ended up in ambulance it's not the same guy but that stop style of, you know, first person, you know, new technology. Yeah, you get to set the tone. But you were, you had mentioned, you know, making lookbooks and stuff and kind of pivoting into

Picard a little bit. Um, you did season two and three of Picard, right? Correct. And prior to that, I was up in Toronto doing Star Trek discovery. Right. That's another fun one. Um, I very much, like I said, or off camera, like very much enjoyed Picard. Season three, obviously everyone's over the moon over, but I enjoyed all three seasons. But the look of season two versus season three, obviously pandemic aside, very different, locations very different. But I was wondering what those sort of look books or lighting inspirations were between those two seasons.

And then specifically this season, which is so much more dramatic, you know, as John was saying in our other interview, you know, the bridges are dark. Everything is incredibly dark, whereas season two basically takes place outside. Yes. Well, there alone was the big difference, was the concepts, the stories, what season was the difference between each season. Season two was more on location, more in Los Angeles, which is very unorthodox, in my opinion, for Star Trek. to be on location in Los Angeles. They should be in San Francisco.

Whereas season three was more inside the spaceships, more in the canon of the Star Trek world. So season two was very different not only because we started season two with the very start of the pandemic. It was very interesting. Pandemic started March. We started in March. We were wearing masks and face shields. And it was very difficult that in itself to work. work. But now we're on locations, wearing all this paraphernalia on your face, trying to light

people, trying to light your actors when all your standards are wearing these masks and face shields. Very, very different. And we are exterior, mostly season two. Season three, mostly in our ships, Stargazer, the Titan, the Shrike. It was a love letter to the fan base season three. I think Terry Mattalus did a very great job of giving the fan base what they wanted. It was a love letter season three. Therefore, we wanted to

make the spaceships a little darker. Season two, we were in Stargazer. That was canon, meaning that's the way it was lit. It was a little brighter. It was a little more pleasant. Season three, things were getting a little more darker regarding story.

And, you know, in my particular episode, You know, I did a beautiful episode 307 called Dominion, directed by Deborah Capmire, you know, with Amanda Plummer, Amanda Plummer playing the character of Vadik with her ship Strike. And in that particular episode, it was a cat mouse happening between Vadik's ship, Amanda Plummers' ship Shrike, you know, with the Titan, with the Star Trek cast. And it was a cat and mouse. So I had the luxury, I had the blessing to be a little more out of the box with that particular episode in terms of lighting. You know, I had shafts of light coming through the windows, flarings of light, kinetic energy of light, flickering, pulsing, chasing, color changes. I had all of that during this episode.

And one would set back in the minds and say, how does that work in out of space? What does that mean? What is the reality of that? but it was creative license because of this cat and mouse chase. You know, one side of the moon, I mean on one side of the ship is there's sun coming in. And if there's sun coming in those sides of the windows, it will allow me to be a little more harder with the shafts of light, the beams of light, to come through the ship. If one side is moon and other planets, maybe I want to be cooler and softer with the lights. You know, you have to pay attention to the story and to the visual effects.

You know, are there nebulas outside the windows? You know, you have a giant view screen in front of the ship where all the cadets and commanders are sitting in the chairs looking outside the windows and there's space, giant space outside the window right in front of you. Are the nebulas out there? What is a nebula? Do your research. What is the colors of the nebulas?

What are the movements of the nebulas? What are we doing visual effect-wise with the nebulas? It is my job to marry that kinetic energy and lighting and color scheme through those windows by way of my lighting. So I would have this very visceral shapes of light, colors of lights, my programmer Josh Thatcher, my Gaffer, Len Levine. They were extraordinary executing right on the fly, right on the spot, the choreography that we would come up with on the fly as we would block. and rehearse and express what this is about and then all of a sudden start executing this. And we would have over a thousand lights in our dimmer board and to execute each light in a different way, different colors, different chasing, different pulsing.

It's quite extraordinary when you're trying to choreograph maybe a two second moment. You know, maybe it's an explosion outside the window, et cetera. So it was a very fascinating process. A tremendous difference between season two and season three. mainly because of the scripts. Scripts on season two was basically L.A. Exterior Day, a lot of locations. Pandemic didn't help us. It was very odd.

It was very difficult to find our stride because of pandemic. No excuses, but it was a different beast. Sure. Season three, Terry made a love letter to the fan base. We were in our spaceships. Our spaceships were our characters. Yes, it was much darker because we wanted to be much more dramatic. at times, not all of the times, but mostly we want them to be more dramatic.

What does that mean? Does it mean going darker? Perhaps it does. Does it mean changing your colors sometimes? Perhaps it does. Does it mean changing your camera angles, lower, in between things, you know, behind things? Yes, it does. A combination of all of the above.

But we still have to maintain the canon aspect of these ships. You know, the audience wants to see the detail of the ships. You know, we spend months and months and months having conversations, storyboards, pre-vis, renderings, and then we get to the set. We build the sets. We build the spaceships. You know, it doesn't come in a week. You know, there are months of planning, months of lighting.

There's a lot of embedded lighting within these ships. So we are prepared to do whatever. we need to do based on that particular script. In my personal humble opinion, you want it to be dark, but I don't take that literally too much all of the time. I just don't make it dark or expose it to be dark because I still want to see the information. You could allure emotionally what darkness is. Darkness doesn't mean just the absence of light. Darkness can sometimes mean your compositions, you know, putting something in a foreground to allure a haunt of some sort. So there's a lot of things that register in a subconscious mind the word dark. Yes. Okay,

exposure, lighting. We were making things much darker. Yes. I was making things a little more brighter than my colleague because I wanted to see the textures of the darkness. I did not want the backgrounds to go pure black and to lose those layers of depth where a production designer and his art department works so hard in the detail of all the textures, of all the layers of the darkness. So it's my job to light it in a way with my ratios, to feel that it's dark, to feel that it's haunting and brooding, but to find that level of expertise just enough to feel the textures of that darkness. But yes, that's what season three was about. You know, we had very dark characters. There, there was a lot of things going on with the Shrike, with Amanda Plummer's

character, Vadik. You know, it was a very interesting season, creatively speaking. I think the script writers did a terrific job, you know, with the arcs of what was going on in a very dark, mysterious, dramatic way. Again, that was the difference between two and three apples and oranges you cannot compare it was just a structure on how it was written for two how it was written for three and then we start to execute it and there's your result yeah now when you mention uh you know having thousands of lights i imagine most of those uh were embedded within the set um could you could you kind of talk to me a little bit about uh your relationship with the production designer on the season because you know like like you're saying with vatic ship i mean that thing

feels like an iron forge. And then, you know, the sort of, what do you call it, the federation ships tend to have a lot more gloss, a lot more polish and fanciness to them. But how were, not on, you know, did you have input on where, obviously film lights go, but did you have input with the production designers on where the rest of these things went or were you kind of given a palette to work with? No, I had tremendous input. A director of photography has tremendous input like this with the production designer in the prep process, in the pre-process, in the design process. There is a tremendous direct marriage between the production designer and the director of photographer within the design and all of the embedded lighting. We come up this

together. Obviously, you get ideas, you get blueprints, you get previs, you get renderings from the production designer, you look at it, you digest it, you come up with ideas, you go to his office, he comes to your office, you talk, you communicate, what about this, what about that? You know what, if the cast is going to walk through this tunnel often, and I want to be cinema verite and just have the cameras roll and just follow them and lead them into one quarter to the next, I need to have embedded lighting within the set to light these faces. You know, then you come up with facets of light on the top corners, you know, 45 degree angles of lights. So it catches in their eyes. You want bottom angles of lights on the floor, 45 degrees angles up, you know,

to create some ominous angles of light. And then you can control the top and the bottom by way of the dimmer board as to how you want to evoke that feeling. Is it a beautiful, clean, glossy feel with a cadet or a captain walking down a corridor? Or is it a very ominous feel where this, they're about to embark in war, in chaos, and in explosions of artillery going back and forth. And you want this ominous feeling of life from the bottom. But you have to design it within the set. Because as you see, when you look at the sets, there's a lot of cast. There's a lot of people left, right, forward, background, walking around, cinema verity.

I love moving the cameras. I love switching the cameras from left to right. You know, I work with Jonathan Frakes, the Godfather Star Trek. He directed my blocks, and he has an expression, which I love, you know, when we swishing pan going from one character to the next when they're talking. He says, just follow the puck. And follow the puck is not easy in terms of lighting. You know, you swish pant to this person over there doing one thing.

You switch pant to that person over there doing another thing. And you want to make sure they're lit. You know, after all, we're not photoshopping. We're not doing photographs. This is cinema. So you want to be clever where the lights are coming from and how they're moving to get into the crevices of the eyes to make sure they're looking good.

This is our cast. This is what we do. Our job is to make them look as best as we can in whatever areas, whatever dynamics they're doing on the set. I love doing 360s on a set. You look at my episodes, I love moving the camera, all right? Therefore, when you're doing 360s, you cannot have film lights in the set because you're going to look at them.

So therefore, you have to be clever enough to know this beforehand in the prep process to know that you're going to rely on the embedded lighting of the design of the set with you and the production designer David Blatz in this particular instance. And then there's a marriage. So, yes, we would design it together.

It's very, very important. I learned this lesson when I first got on to Star Trek Discovery. up in Toronto and it was a beautiful thing that I've never encountered but it was a very beautiful thing to see that once a week before call time all of the department heads including the department rigors

every department would come to the art department on their big round conference table and we would have all the blueprints out and we collectively would be be around in a circle on every single department, looking at the blueprints, talking about the set, talking about the design, talking about the execution of the design, talking about the

materials of the design, every department, the colors, the ribbing, the textiles, whether you want by color, you know, all the colors, do you want to chase the colors, do we need this? and it was a beautiful thing to spend like a half hour of time to talk about the design of the sets. And it was a beautiful thing. When I came to Picard, obviously, because of the pandemic, we couldn't do that. I love being tactile.

When you're looking at a blueprint, you're with someone directly to speak and to point and to touch and to feel. We could not do that during season two with a pandemic. It was very frustrating because we had to communicate a tremendous amount of detail by way of zooming. Right. And you have to wait until one person finishes.

Then it's your turn to sneak yourself in there with the zoom. When you're looking at all the thumbnails on top, there's like 40 people trying to get a word. And it's all by way of zooming. Then you get this delay, and it's very frustrating. But this is how we had to execute it. You know, and then after that, then, yes, it was my responsibility.

and production designs responsibility, my gaffer's responsibility, my rigging gaffer, my rigging grip, my key grip, all of us. It was our responsibility now collectively to see how we could sneak in a direct meeting within ourselves, you know, maintaining the rules of COVID. You know, it was very difficult, but we had to maintain those rules. At that time, it was crazy. You had to be six feet apart from each other, even though you were wearing all these face masks and shield. You had to be six feet apart at that time. It was nuts. But that's your job now to communicate the detail and the design of our sets.

And our designs were so intricate. These spaceships are so intricate, you know, from the Stargazzer and two, from the Titan and three, from the Shrike ship, you know, with Amanda Plummer's ship. You know, these ships were detailed. And it doesn't come overnight. There's a lot of conversation. There's a lot of pre-vis storyboards, renderings going back and forth. electively with our hearts discussing this, discussing that.

And then it's an amazing process that when you get to the set in the very ground floor foundation aspect and you see it being built. And I know they had time lapse of this. I cannot wait to see the time lapse of these sets being built and constructed and lit. You know, a director of photographer, like I said from the beginning, is a very, very important part to the production designer

as to how to like these sets. you know, he's asking me, where do you want to like, Picheno, what's important to you? Where is it coming from? You know, let's design it. You know, then we've got to think about how do we design into this spaceship with its proper concept and its proper, you know, mechanics of you. I can't just design a beautiful, you know, artistic light into the set that has no meaning of a spaceship. So now he- Giant white wall. Exactly. So he gets to take that design and figure out in context of a spaceship how to execute what the direct- the photographer wants, you know, and not only design it, you know, in a creative aspect, where I want, where I want the light to come from and the facets, but the colors of it

and how I want to apply the colors, how I want to chase the colors, to pulse the light, to flicker the light, to flutter the light, do I want explosions of lightning? You know, these are all things now you've got to program specifically in the specific lights that are now going into the embedded lighting of the ship. You know, you put the sky panel lights up into these big source of these milk glass windows on top of the spaceship. Okay, the production designer asks you, how much light is that emitting? What kind of diffusion that we want to put in front of the sky panel lights? You know, milk glass, white milk glass, thick milk glass, or is it quasi, you know, transparent? You know, what is the distance behind the

light that you need, you know, for cabling, for rigging. You know, there's a lot of rigging involved when you put up a light embedded into the sets. You know, you're looking at these small little details of armrests, of banisters railings in the spaceship, you know, in the corridors, in the transporting rooms, in the floors, you know, there's a lot of little details of LEDs, and you don't just turn it on and off. Do we want the LEDs to flicker, to to flutter, to pulse, to on and off, you know, is it a red alert? Is it a black alert? You know, we've got to be prepared for all of that. Then you get these geniuses on the benches, in their minds, in their drawing boards, coming up with all these ways out to execute these lights onto

the set. Naturally, the audience has a clue as to what's involved. They're just looking at a finished product in all its glory, executed in a beautiful way and being involved in a story. But when you pull the camera back and get outside the set or boom the camera up into the grids above the ceilings of the set,

you would be amazed on the piping, on the catwalks, on the structuring, on the amounts of cabling that's involved all coming into a board of where a programmer has every light at his disposal controlling it in detail. And it's just a fascinating process, very detail. So to reiterate, to answer your question at the beginning, yes, a director of photographer is very much involved with the production designer in lining of these sets.

And I get a little upset, you know, when people look at a visual effects show and they say, well, you know, there's a lot of visual effects. It's not that much cinematography. you know, we're just going to bypass, you know, the nods for cinematography, you know, because there's a lot of visual effects. Right. And I find that ignorant. I get very upset hearing that because the ignorance is you have no idea what the conversations

are in the prep stage with visual effects in order to execute that of what I do, cinematrifically, lighting-wise. Like, for instance, our guru, Jason Zimmerman, who was a visual effects supervisor, you know, we'll have these often conversations, who's taken the lead? Does he have the material and the source material and the concepts first visual effect wise? And if so, I need to know that because I need to now mark my script in detail where those visual effects are coming in at what time of the day, what planets, what nebulas, through the windows. And I have to now execute that and mimic that lighting.

You know, if there's a red nebula outside of the window, I got to make sure I'm prepared in my lighting, in my pre-rigging, with my crew to make sure I have that red light, ready and available on the dimmer to go red. Do I want that red light to pulse?

Do I want that red light to flash to explode? Is there an explosion out there? I have to read the script. I have to mark the script in detail. You know, is there, is the nebula swirling with different colors of light. You know, now I've got to think about all the lights that I need out there with all the color scheme that we have to choreograph, program it into the board. People don't understand. We need to program every light, every mechanics, every movement, every shape of light into the board, and we have to program it. We have to...

That's true with LEDs now. Yes, exactly. So it becomes very... involved and it's very daunting at times you know i never forget i made a mistake once it was on discovery and i learned a big lesson you know between uh not to regress but getting into uh anamorphic lenses versus spherical lenses sure we're anamorphic show and with atomorphic not to be too detailed but for those who know this you know you have a this is the podcast for detail go for okay fair enough You know, the backgrounds that are out of focus, the depth of field, when you have a shallow depth of field, when the lenses are wide open and you have a shallow depth of feel, the background becomes out of focus, it becomes impressionistic, it becomes soft.

And if you have lights in that background, we call what we see from those lights, Boca. and when the boca starts to bloom from a shallow depth of field, it takes on a beautiful presence, a very impressionistic presence. So here I am shooting a close-up, a beautiful close-up of Siru. Star Trek Discovery. He's leaning up against the window, looking out into space. And, you know, you have to know what you're having outside in space, not only visual effect-wise, but am I going green screen?

Am I going blue screen? Why do I want to go green screen? Why do I want to go blue screen? You know, it depends on the wardrobe, of course. Is it a projection? Is it a rear screen projection? Is it a backdrop with a star field? You know, just to save money?

Or is it just a smoke, be hazing, have a beam of light coming through there? You know, in this particular case, you know, because of monies, we couldn't afford the the visual effects at this particular stage because we were spending a lot of money. So we were trying to cut corners. It was one shot, so we didn't want to go green screen because then there's an element and all of that involved with visual effects. So we said, you know what, just put a star field out there and have these little twinkly stars in the background out of focus.

Here I am concentrating on Siru's face in the corridor, and I lit it really beautifully. It chose my beautiful portrait lens, really happy with it. Camera comes around to an over-the-shoulder of what he's looking at. I'm now behind him, looking out into the window, cut. Press on. And I look at my dailies the next day. And no kidding. I almost fell off my chair.

I had a huge gulp because those stars, those little stars that had outside the window were blooming like footballs. Right. Because of the anamorphic. Because of anamorphic lenses. They were blooming very elongatedly. And it looked surreal. It didn't look like planets.

Planets are round, spherical, stars when they're out of focus and, you know, the luminescence of light, you know, they're glowing in a round way, round sparkles. These were very oblong shapes of light and, oh, my God, what did I do? You know, so it's things like that, you know, as a cinematographer, you have to know, you know, what's going out there. If it's going to be, you know, in camera, like in that particular situation with a star field, you know, what do I do? I want those stars to remain round.

I either go with a bigger depth of field, not be wide open, a lighter more so I can close my iris down to maybe a five, six, or maybe even an eight at that particular shot, just to keep those round circles more rounder and not so out of focus in an elongated, anamorphic way. Or is there more than one shot within this particular day? You know, then I got to go to the production manager

and a producer and say, you know what, I like to order a set of spherical lenses for this particular day. You know, and they'll ask you why, blah, blah, blah, you go through the script, you mark it down, you wait it out, pros and cons, you know, and you do your best you can. This is what we do in the prep stage is to know all those little details. So it's a very interesting process indeed. Yeah, well, and when you were talking about the ignorance of people saying, oh, it's a BFX heavy show in the cinematography, like the flip side of that that I've said a bunch on this podcast is that a lot of times cinematographers and maybe sometimes we'll just kind of be quiet and go yeah uh we'll get credit for what the production designer is done you know uh the you know

all the colors are so beautiful and and the lighting and you're like yeah that colors was the production designer i didn't you don't set the color maybe the colorist did but usually it's like the set but um i did want to ask you had mentioned uh jonathan freaks as a director and and his body of work kind of speaks for itself but i've heard a lot that he's just a fantastic, you know, team captain. And I was wondering if there was anything that you learned from him during your time shooting probably both seasons of Baccarre that maybe you're going to carry with you to the next gigs.

Well, absolutely. First of all, I love Jonathan Frakes like a brother. As the expression goes, you know, a brother from another mother. He and I are very, very close. We did a lot of work together. I've heard a coined phrase recently, which I raised my hand to because it's so true, you know, he's like the godfather of Star Trek right now. Yeah.

So true. Season three, you know, his block, two episodes. Fortunately, it was me who shot those for him, and we were side by side once again. All my work on Discovery was with him as well. And my introduction to Discovery, Star Trek Discovery up in Toronto, was fortunately with him. I was just coming off a show in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, called Gotham. Totally different show. Totally.

So I went from Gotham to do Star Trek. And how I got the show Star Trek. A little different. A little different, yes. But how I got that show, to be honest with you, not to regress a bit. And I'll get back to Jonathan Fraggs, was a director I worked with on Gotham, a director by the name of Olotunde, Olotunday. And if I could pronounce his last name, correct, it's Asun Sammi. But he went on to do Star Trek Discovery after Gotham as a director-producer.

And he called me to be part of that. And I was so happy that he called me, but I was still on Gotham. I wanted to respect my time with Gotham. That's just me being professional, maintaining professional protocol. So I stayed with Gotham. I didn't want to leave leave the ship and then go up to do another show that's just not right in my

opinion I feel strong about that season one season two he kept calling me every single season and it came to season three and I just finished Gotham I finally raised my hand and I said yes and it was a beautiful thing

so before I knew it I was up there in Toronto on a new show Star Trek Discovery but my introduction to the show was with Jonathan Frakes. That was his episode. I happened to be the one up to shoot his episode. Of course I'm nervous.

I'm, you know, my mouth is dry. I'm panicking. I'm working with everyone his geniuses up there with Star Trek. You know, true geniuses. Well, I imagine you're a next generation fan

yourselves. Me? Yeah. Well, I've watched it. I wouldn't say I was like a complete nerd of Star Trek. Me neither. It's hard to

say fan with Star Trek, but I know what you mean. So I wasn't one of those, to be honest with you. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't one of those. Yes, I've watched shows. I've had the knowledge, but I wasn't one of those. And I was working with people that they were all one

of those. They were all geniuses. They were walking libraries of factoid of Star Trek, every single one of them. So I was nervous. But Jonathan, we had a conversation. and part of the expression, he took me into his creative bosom and nurtured me.

And we had a great time. He really made sure I maintained my heart as an artist and not get so bogged down about the mythologies and the methodologies and the canon of Star Trek. Let's just you and I discuss creatively what this scene is about. What do we want to evoke dramatically? And let's just talk in terms of that. And he took all that nervousness I had about the Star Trek canon. And we just talked about what the scene should be about emotionally. And obviously, I was hired for a reason, as we all are, you know, for us to do what we need to do in our hearts, to put our own thumbprints and creative impulses on it.

Obviously, I didn't want to stray too far away because of the Grand Puba himself, you know, the Wizard of Oz, Mr. Alex Kurtzman, who's in charge of all of the legacy of Star Trek, he has a certain way of doing certain things, and he's very precise in his looks. That's underneath his umbrella. And you have to respect that and maintain that. But when you're hired as an individual cinematographer coming in, that's a different cinematographer from the other cinematographers. Yes, you want to make sure you stay within those parameters because those are a successful parameters. The show is going on to the next season for a reason because this show is successful. And you don't want to stray too much about that and start raising eyebrows. But each one of us has

different thumbprints, different aesthetics. And you want to raise it just a bit. You want to hit those buttons just a bit. You want to give it your personal heart, your personal stamp in your way that you can within all of that in a seamless, beautiful way. So it's a delicate dance when you come on to a show that is already existing. At that time, you know, my partner was Glenn Keenan. He was fantastic. We spoke a lot. He nurtured me a lot. We spoke about our personal methods. You know, my method sometimes is very different than his and vice versa. I would get nervous. Am I going too far? He would say, no, just go for it. And just do it. You can comfort me.

But getting back to Jonathan Frakes, he was one of those guys, you know, that's a crew guy. And I mean that with such admiration and affection, there's a lot of directors that don't even know the names of the crew. Sometimes, you know, don't even know the name of me at the end of the day. I'm exaggerating, but, you know, you're lucky to get a handshake at the end of the day. Of course, I'm exaggerating a bit, but not too much sometimes, you know. But there are some directors that you work with that are crew directors, meaning that they respect the crew. They respect the below the line. They respect the backbone of executing their vision.

And then they look at the crew 200 people later. They have to execute that vision. And they are savvy enough to understand that to really be loving with the crew. Because if the crew respects you and loves you. you, they will do anything for you. They will step out of their way out of their box. Hours of time that's not on the clock, whatever it may be for you. Jonathan is one of those. He's a teddy bear. He's a loving person, a beautiful personality. He's one of those guys that will walk onto a set or walk into a room or walk into a restaurant or whatever it may be.

everyone would gravitate him gravitate towards him he has that personality and he's a lovable guy and it's no bullshit a lot of people will pay you compliments because they want to grab the best out of you uh but you know they are very conditional that way jonathan is is unconditional he's he truly loves people he truly loves what you do he truly loves working on star trick he knows all about star trek he has a lot of history with star trek and his main job, as he says, and I appreciate him saying that to me as a cinematographer, Cresenzo, that's your job. You tell the story visually. I got some ideas. Let's talk about it. But that's your job. I want to tell a story with my actors. I want to be with my actors. I want

to make sure that giving the performances that I think these scenes particularly need. I want to know what the arcs are about and to carve these arcs with my actors. He's an actor-director. right he knows the story very very well and then from there he communicates that story with his actors he's an actor director so by saying that is he relies on the crew to do what they are hired to do for them to do the best they can as to what's in their hearts creatively and their education of what they know about their particular craft bring it to the table I want to hear what you have to say. I want to see what you have to do. And let's all be collective in our thoughts, in our process of filmmakers, and funnel it down to a single vision, which is always

the director. The director always has the ultimate say at the end. And that's my job, is to support as much as I can that director and his vision. And that's why PrEP is most important because it is my job to get inside the head of that director during prep. Not only technically, but where is this person going? What does he or she want? What is the visual language that they want to communicate and tell with this particular story? And you talk about the visual layers, the visual languages, and with all the tools that we have,

they affect the visual language and you need to hear that communication in order to know which direction you want to go and then you've got to figure out how to execute that direction and then it all becomes within a time frame well we got 12 hours to do this seven pages you know we need the time frame now do we want a technocrine out there is it important or do we want to have that techno crane and keep the camera on a remote head and come through a window and let it fly through and be evocative about how we move that camera in a very hypnotic, subconscious, you know, space-like way.

Or do we not want to have that piece of equipment, save the money and time, and come inside the set with handheld or with an easy-rig camera, and be a little more evocative the way the camera is moving to be a little more connected and not so polished with what the scene is about. and you talk about the equipment. Sure. Naturally, you have to talk about the equipment. And on this show, we had a lot of equipment. You know, we had techno cranes, you know, 50-foot technos. We had 23-footers Scorpio cranes. We had movies. We had steady cams. We had a lot of pieces of equipment to execute a particular vision. From there, we would think really creatively with discipline as to what to use that will tell the story in the best way as opposed to an indulgent way yeah that's what our job was about yeah the the

indulgence is definitely something you know going back to the idea of younger filmmakers you know you buy a gimbal and now everything's a gimbal shot you know especially when it's your money you know you got to get your exactly bucks out of it or whatever and it becomes humorous at times to be honest with you you know and that to be is when you see it separates the men from the boys but it's always a growing process you know you don't They've got to grow. Yeah. You had briefed them.

I know we're kind of coming up on time here, but you had mentioned the Alex Kurtzman look. And like you said, he is kind of the godfather of modern Star Trek now. And I was wondering if there was maybe a non-NDA violating way to sort of describe what the Kurtzman look is and why so many people seem to have been drawn to it over the past handful of years. Well, that's a big question. and I'm going to see if I can articulate it. But his look, I know it sounds corny, but it's not corny to those of us who have to execute it.

His look is big movie. He wants to execute the look as if we're doing a $300 million motion picture on the big screen. We don't think in the small screen, television small screen, it's not that way anymore. Obviously, we all have big systems, big, big, TV screens, surround sounds, etc. Obviously, I show, I've just seen, you know, get screened on IMAX now and in theaters at times, but... Looks great in IMAX.

Mentally speaking, you know, he thinks in a very big movie feature way. And that's how we should tell our stories, thinking and disciplining ourselves, that kind of way. You know, we rather do 10 great shots in one day than 40 mediocre pedestrian shots. shots, you know, which ultimately becomes television shots. You know, television sometimes, as you see, can be very formulaic and very pedestrian at times, simply because when you're executing a schedule of five, seven, nine, ten pages a day, and you only got seven, eight days to execute a one-hour

drama script. It becomes down to mathematics. You know, how many shots do we have per day? How How many you allow? What is the time? We cannot go more than 12 hours because of turnaround than the next day starts later, and we can't have that location because they have to start this time. So it becomes very precise. So as a result, you know, you're very disciplined on the amount of shots that we do with quality. And I'm a big fan of that.

You know, I rather have quality than quantity. Personally, you know, if there's any directors hearing this, I cringe. And we do say it sometimes. Even sometimes I will say it sometimes, I cringe at the expression when a director says, let's just hose it down. Right. Let's just get as many cameras we can. Let's just hose it down.

Cover the shit out of it and we'll figure it out in post. You know, at times, you know, I'd rather have one camera, possibly on a stunt, maybe a oneer. And on Star Trek Picard, we had a lot of intricate stunts. that was executed as a oneer, which is balzy, as opposed to getting five, six, seven cameras and hosing it down and then cutting it in quarter-second flashes each time so frenetically, you know, that you get bombarded, you know, sometimes a oneer with integrity and class and classicalness,

you become more involved in the choreography, the structure, the body language, the form, the storytelling, the drama sometimes can be in hands, executing it that way. So, you know, it comes with experience. What can I say? It comes with conversation. And every single person, every single director, every single script is different. And that's the beauty of what we do. Each thing we do, each week, each day, each shot we do is different.

You know, you walk onto the set of Star Trek. You know, people say, oh, it's already lit. You know, there's a million lights up there. Again, ignorance. Ignorance. The lights are up there. Fine. That saves us time to getting a ladder or a genie lift or a condo to wringing a light up there,

choosing its gel, running cable, patching it to a board, okay? It's up there already. That doesn't mean we're lit. It's just up there. Each job that we do, each episode that we do is differently. You know, we may be in the turbo lift a hundred times during an episode, but each time we're in there is different because is the light chasing, is it flickering, is it red? Is it blue? Is it red alert? Is it black alert? Is it beautiful and polished where the light is coming from the top? Or is an ominous when it just came out of something ready to go into a black alert onto the bridge of the ship? You know, these are all emotions. is it one person standing there are they just looking straight

or is it two people looking at each other requires different lights do we want to do a 360 around there which I've done you know it requires different lighting so these are intricacies that a lot of people are unaware of and these are the mechanics

that we do as filmmakers especially with Star Trek very very involved very detailed and it's extraordinary you know when you finally look at the finished product and hopefully you know you say, wow, that looked beautiful. That was fantastic. I felt what I needed to feel. But as a filmmaker

who was there in the nucleus, you know, in the back of your mind, you step back and you smile to yourself because you knew and you know how much it took to execute that. And it's just a wonderful thing. You know, things like all the videographics on a screen. You know, you got to come up with what information of those videographics are on the screen. What information is it that? we want to tell that story when a camera's looking at it of those video graphics. Behind this set, you know, there's an army of people in a small room with a thousand monitors, with all kinds of computers feeding these graphics to those screens. And then as a cinematographer, you know, those screens are emitting light. You know, sometimes that's lighting the cast. Sometimes

it's lighting it too much. You want to take the light away from those screens. But when you take it away, when you're photographing it, it's too dark. Or when you're lighting a subject, that light that's lighting the subject is sheaning those graphics on the screen. It's just milking it out. So now it becomes really specific of your placement and angles of light. So you don't milk out those graphics on the screen. So you can see it clearly in detail, in proper ratios between the exposure of those graphics and the exposure of the face and the exposure of the background

and possibly the exposure of the view screen window with visual effects out there. So there's so many dynamics involved when you're doing a shot. It's extraordinary. Yeah, well, I got to say you did do you and John. Were there any other DPs on season three, just you and John? If season three was just me and John, and in season two I had a partner of Mike called Jimmy Lindsay. But season three was just John and I, he joined me on season three, yes. Yeah, you guys did an excellent job.

And like I said earlier, like I'm a. I would say a normalish fan of Next Generation, but when I went to the, I was invited by a friend to the IMAX screening and the energy in there was just insane. Because those were the, as Mark Hamill calls them, ultra passionate fans, the UPS. You know, they're all dressed up and the whole thing. Yes. And the response was incredible. Very hardcore. The conversation's in line for the popcorn.

I was like, you know what? I know what you're talking about, but I have no fucking clue what you're talking about. But yeah, man, you guys did a great job. And like I said, we're coming up on time. So I'm going to let you go. But would love to have you back on to keep talking about cinematography, the general. I would love that. I would love that.

Thank you. I feel like we're in the same mental space. So we... I appreciate that. And I super appreciate the opportunity, you know, to have this a forum and to speak with you like this. Thank you very much. Of course. Yeah.

Anytime you want to come back, just let me know. Thank you, sir. Be soon. Thank you. Frame and Reference is an Al-Bod 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.

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