Frame & Reference Podcast - 107: "Cabinet of Curiosities" DP Anastas Michos, ASC GSC

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Step into the fascinating realm of cinematography with our special guest, Anastas Michos, ASC GSC. A seasoned expert in the field, Anastas unlocks the mysteries of television and feature film cinematography, highlighting the way technology is reshaping these two distinct mediums. We navigate the landscape of artificial intelligence and its impact on the world of filmmaking, as well as the unique perspectives of different unions and guilds. In this engaging discussion, we venture into the realm of personalized creativity in cinematography. We grapple with the thorny issue of image authorship and the absence of laws in the United States that safeguard the creators of these images. Anastas enlightens us on how he navigates projects without relying on the safe and familiar, and what elements give a project an organic feel. We also explore the role of lenses, both physical and virtual, in crafting the look of an image. As the conversation evolves, we explore the creative process of filmmaking. Anastas shares his insights on the influence of nostalgia and artificial intelligence on new ideas. We touch on the unique work of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, delve into the intriguing concept of the cabinet of curiosities, and discuss Anastas' experience working with actor F Murray Abraham. Brace yourself for a riveting expedition into the world of film production, full of collaboration, innovation, and a dash of humor. Don't miss out! (0:00:15) - TV vs Film Production (0:13:19) - Authorship in Cinematography (0:25:02) - Creativity and "The Autopsy" (0:41:01) - Imagination in Film Production (0:53:32) - Collaboration (1:01:13) - Innovative Camera Movements and Artistry ⁠⁠⁠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 107 with Anastas Mikos, ASC, GSC, DP of Cabinet of Curiosies, The Autopsy. Enjoy. Have you been watching anything cool recently? Watch anything cool. No, I have our colleagues, DP, who attended Can, and she says there's some great stuff out there. But no, I am not. Nothing that is just busy.

Just busy. And then when I'm not busy, you managed to catch me in Manhattan before I went down to But I actually have a boat down at a Chesapeake Bay. Oh, yeah, I had heard you mentioning that in a different interview. Yeah, I was on a boat. Yeah, well, also just when the restrictions came around, you were like, all right, I'm about to see. Oh, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, basically what it is. So once that habit kicks in, you know, a lot of reading gets done, but not too much of watching, you know, because of a still huge fare on the big screen.

and it's difficult for me to watch serialized things. I'm not really big on serials. I have a similar compulsion. If it's like a six episode series, you know, I know like how long there's going to be an anthology or whatever. I can get in on that. But when it's ongoing, like even something like succession,

I was like not in a huge rush to get caught up in the same way that like, for instance cabinet of curiosities was like oh i'll bang through this and you know one shot because right it has basically a different it has finality and it does not has a different totally different dramatic arc and a totally different kind of storytelling you know uh the the purpose of a long episode or a long season is to make sure that people tune back right that that is the actual drive what that arc is in that episode you know it would leave another stuff hanging so that somebody comes back in feature work or other kinds it's much more defined work it's just totally different kind of story king i believe i mean so the structure's

different so the photography's different so blah blah blah yeah well and i suppose the less so now but certainly uh in the length of time that you've worked in cinematography uh television cinematography in film cinematography to a completely separate things. Nowadays, it's a little closer. But if you were good at one, probably wanted to stay there. Right, right. I mean, I'm still, gosh, the major difference is,

aside from time and time and money has even gotten closer, is scale. You know, I mean, people have big TVs, but they're still not the size of a 30-foot screen or 40-foot screen. So you can get, one quote gets away with a lot more. in television. That's the one thing about it in terms of just the thing. And the other thing, though, is for the most part, when you're on a series and you're back in Katie's bedroom or the 15th time, right, light interior, Katie's bedroom, Katie talks on phone, you know,

through the window. Yeah, like, okay, so what are we doing here? You know, because it's also the role of the cinematographer to keep tone and camera within the same uh space with different directors coming in you know so sure so therefore then it becomes whoa people need to know that it's like it's doing a franchise movie marvel got to look like marble right you know and spider man got like spider man you know what i mean uh whatever next one is can't be a breakout and when it is a break out. People go bananas. Right. And they read, you know, it's formulaic for a reason because people want, they want what they know. They don't want to be figuring anything out when it's episode eight. Right. I've interviewed a couple of the Marvel, a couple of the folks who worked on the

Marvel films. And I was, and I kept trying to probe like, how do you guys, how are they keeping it consistent? You know, are they forcing certain colorists on you? Are they, are they forcing, are they forcing camera packages on you and the and the answer that uh gregg middleton gave me that i was like oh fucking duh was they allow everyone to use each other's luts yeah i mean it's all i was like oh yeah yeah wow didn't even think that marvel just had like a library of let's they're like yeah if you want you know if you want the whatever the iron man lut you just take that but that's the way it works too i mean it actually is it very interesting that way and of course you know, Marvel has a, such a control over their imagery in post.

I mean, you know, we shoot the scene, I've shot a series, Marvel series, and we shoot the scene. Yeah, Miss Marvel, right? You know, you shoot, yeah, you shoot the, you know, the actor, you shoot the background play on every shot. I mean, just in case we want to replace the actor. Right. For two people sitting, eight people around a dining room table,

after we're done with their close-up, the actor gets up when we roll camera. So are you doing a... And then while they're doing there... Are you doing... Are you just doing a lot of like match moving or what do you call it? Remote head stuff?

There's a fair amount of it, but it really has to do with the control of, you know, what happens if we do want to take that actor and put them in a different scene. You know, I mean, so certain times we'll just throw... we'll do the entire scene, then throw a green screen behind the scene,

and they'll do it another table with a green screen, that will FO the actor, FO the green screen and just shoot the background. And now, of course, every... Well, part of it is also, remember, one of the huge questions that the writers are out on, that DGA has tried to settle, that the SAG is coming up with, is what is the future of AI, and how is it going to be used by the conglomerates by the corporations within the creative and

the creative and ownership of image and what is the creative process and when you start to be able to scan everybody's face and also have their backgrounds and everything else you can construct your own sensibility and your own film. And one of the, I know big sticking points is because now there was actually a court case about it, you know, turning one paper, who's the rise of it, where an actor, um, not only was, uh, so normally contractually, you, the actor's voice has to be the actor's voice. Is this Chris? You can't have somebody.

It might have been that for, uh, back to the future. Yeah, it might have been that. I don't remember. But yeah, I mean, you know about that then. So, I mean, I don't even talk about it because basically... Oh, no, go ahead. No, I was just trying to... No, but the reality...

The issue is, you know, contraction now, you can't use another actor's voices as whoever this person is. But there is nothing in the contract that says you can't use an AI voice to make it sound like. Right. You know? And then at that point, we routinely put tears on somebody's face. right routinely you know um or take them away because we think they're crying too much

but then all of a sudden you're changing a performance where does that end when all of a sudden you can actually make the mouth move in a certain way and the eyebrows move and start when you're changing the entire scene and changing the entire tone of the you know whatever it is so whatever this actor brought to the brought to the table and whatever they own as performance that's you know because that's authorship and so that's a huge sort of very sticky place that we're going down in the um the fast food world of films right well and it is it is kind of a fascinating fuzzy line isn't it because like we've been perfectly fine with art directing the scene a little bit you know removing some elements here elements there that fucks with the production

designer's job but you know whatever whatever and or split comps you know maybe the two actors didn't say those things at the exact same times. But all right, timing, fine, fine, fine. But yeah, the whole, the tears thing I hadn't even thought of. But I did see that demo where they remapped this woman's face and had her voiceover actress do the words. And her mouth was adjusted so that it looked like she was speaking Spanish. Like right in sync, right in sync. So it becomes this very crazy thing, you know.

And there is a tacit understanding on set between production designer and DP that these are, you know, I mean, for the most part, it's the same way editorially. The production designer and DP have a tacit understanding of these are the tools I gave you. Right, right. To work the scene with. Now, I like the chair over here, but the light looks better over there, you know, and we have to move that out. You know, I mean, presumably on films, we've all gone through it and approved said sets beforehand, but all of a sudden, you know, you go, that's not working out. You know, I'm going to move this to here and that to there.

And the same thing with editorial is very clearly it is for the DP and the director relationship saying, these are the tools I gave you to edit this together. Right. You know, I had an editor the other day. I'm in the middle of timing something. And with the director, and I'm saying the next picture we should do is, she'll be on film. I said, yeah, that'd be great. You know, I'm just so you know, I always put a hard man in it on film.

And he goes, why? I said, because I can. And the editor goes, well, what do you mean? I go, a hard mat. That means that you can't move the frame around, you know? And he goes, well, what do you mean? I mean that you can't do what I see you doing in this thing, which is to change my frame which right because I had a certain intent but it's only in a reciprocity you did not invite me into

the editorial suite to think whether or not four frames off with this comes was two frames too many right you know I mean if it's going to be collaborative that it needs to be a two-way street in all departments and this is the same thing with we do something you hand it over you know But obviously we do it for studios because of the ones you're paying us and then they own it. And then all of a sudden, we have the person laughing in the scene as opposed to crying. And it's a different actor. There you go. Yeah.

Well, and the hard mat. I haven't even thought about that in a while because so many people are like, yeah, we're shooting Venice so we can shoot full frame so we can figure out the exact framing after the fact, you know. Or we're shooting. Sorry, not full frame, but, um, yeah, we're shooting a full frame or open the gate or. or we're shooting 8K, but we're framing for four. And then there's all that space everywhere, you know. And they used to be, of course, in the film world, we used to always do that, you know, for visual effects.

And sure, we get it. I get it too on the other stuff. You know, sure, we can, you know, stabilize. Blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of reasons to do it. But I think that's also, it speaks to the team that gets put together, which is, that's why features are different than, then theories and epixotics,

for the most part, the DP doesn't time the episodes of an episodic. For most part, it's a showrunner that goes in there that makes it look like all the other ones. That's got to, how do you, how do you, is it just by using, you know,

now you've got LEDs so you can punch a little more, let's say, pre-grade into the image, but without having to fuss around with gels, but is that how you kind of, author the image a little bit more when you know it's just going into an anonymous colorist stanza the showrunner do you just or do you kind of how do you how do you take ownership of that image before it gets to that point the issue that's a huge cinematography issue it's something

that Imago is um fighting and um in terms of authorship laws the United States has none for the cinematographer you know I mean creator of image has no authorship of image created of image creative music as a music creator of creative performance as authorship creator of image just not and it's a it's a question that is certainly niggling and certainly

you know on my mind when I'm doing a job and if it's a series which I don't do too many hours but when I am doing that you know I understand and everybody understands one is

it's an agreed upon look. Right, right. You know, when you first start, you know, so it's only when there's a change in DPs or something where some new person comes in and goes, well, we want to do this. You know, that's not what that is. So, again, I did a, I wanted to purge things. Yeah, done a couple of those, right? No, just one.

Forever purge and then, oh, I am deep. Oh, no, no, no, the first purge. Forever Purge. Yeah, I did the first purge, but the Forever Purge, that was in the middle of the pandemic, and the DP couldn't come to the United States. So I shot the tail end of the movie, but I don't take credit for the film at all. I mean, I just, yeah, I did that kind of thing. So anyway, the helped out, yeah. But I remember go talking to the producers that said, don't. And my first question is, this is a franchise, yes. Do you want it to look like the franchise? you know because what will i bring to the table well you tell me first because i i can bring a whole lot to the table but if you ultimately want to look like that then i go yeah i can't i can do that yeah yeah i can do that too no so that's sort of the same sort of thing on the series there's that much you can do and because we're pretty much mandated on series to shoot raw sure yeah and was it then it's all about the debay area so no matter what let you put you

put on it, it's raw. Unless you actually shoot the whole thing under red light. Right, right. Do you, do you find that, oh, I just had two questions. Have you used the Alexa 35 yet? Yeah. Did you use the textures in it or were you forced to just shoot raw? Yeah.

Because it feels cool, but at the same time, I'm like, I feel like everyone's just going to lean back on safety and not. burn in a textural look, you know? Yeah, I mean, for the most part, yeah, at least bank on safety. I grew up learning how to feed film. Right. Right.

So, and then it was film stocks, and it was the choice of film stocks, which then was literally baked in by the nature of if you're shooting Fuji or if you're shooting, or whatever you're shooting. But quite honestly, the computing power of the resolve these days, particularly with the AI coming into it, I mean, that's like a whole other world in terms of what that's able to do. It can relight.

I've used the relight thing in Resolve right now. It's a two-node solution. Yeah. Yeah. So then you're going, so you can't approach, I mean, if you emotionally approach a project that somebody's going to fuck this up, that's a pretty terrible place to be. Right. You know, so the best thing, what I do is, I mean, what still has an organic feel to it is the glass, the glass in front. You know, that's the first thing that the lights going through and that will affect more than any chip. because, you know, you shoot basically, I can time a DXL to look like an irony.

Right. It can look like a red, you know. I mean, you get the end there long enough and, sure, three images side by side and you start to notice the differences, but, you know, it's nobody's going to look at it on their home televisions because those are so far out of whack. But you throw a vintage lens on there as opposed to a Zeiss or, you know, or a signature or something, And then all of a sudden it's like, well, bang, you know, well, yeah, you can't, you can't make that look like that because of that lens. But now we're going into whole, plenty different places with virtual lenses, which is I was just looking at an article the other day.

Yeah, who was I interviewing? I feel like I was just talking. Maybe I was just chatting with them because I've got a few friends that work in lenses, you know, Jay Holden, of course. And someone was telling me that they were modeling lenses to be able to just click a button and head. have that quote unquote look applied to a theoretical neutral image, but I don't know how you would do so. I mean, I'm sure someone knows someone's a genius, but like how to apply fall off in the same way. Like, would you just shoot a lens that has like infinite depth of field and then somehow get a depth map and then. Yeah, that's what you do. And my guess my ultimate question

is, yeah, that really works for McDonald's and it really works for Burger King. It really does. You know, you push the button and the secret sauce is the same, except when you go to Paris, that secret sauce is tailored for that image. But it doesn't work for when I want to really have a nice meal. You know, when I, like the other night, I went to this wonderful new Mexican fish place here in New York. And the oysters were amazing. It looked like a little ginger. I mean, it was just literally right out of some little spot in a wahapah, a really elegant restaurant. But the point is you had somebody in the kitchen that had full knowledge of the creative process in a very personalized way versus somebody who is not going to say untalented but less skilled.

sure pushing the secret sauce button right yeah well and go ahead no which would you rather eat or which one would I rather watch for me personally I don't eat McDonald's things because I know exactly what it tastes like right so I yeah so you know it's the same thing uh when it does visual effects and I keep on looking at visual effects and I keep looking at visual effects and I know Okay, so where's the chaos? They go, where's the chaos in the shot? Where's the uncontrollable part? Where's the part that, oops, they made a mistake?

You know, oh, which is actually a name of a dessert by a chef in Italy, which was, oops, it's a mistake. And it literally looks like a crack something that he serves. And he was supposed, I mean, I've never eaten there, but it was supposed to be, you know, chef's kitchen. I think he's Michelin number two last year type of thing. And what brought him to that place was his chaos, his mistake brought him to a place. So you put the lens on wrong, there's a sludge in it. They didn't wipe the thing quite right, you know, and you go, you know, there's that surprise or joy of creativity of what you got,

as opposed to push the button. Yeah. You can show you 15 players. I was, there was a lot of AI discourse on Twitter. just a hellscape of a website. But it was a lot of, you know, what people colloquially call tech bros who are like, we're going to change everything, you know, photographers and filmmakers, like, get ready because we're coming because we can type some things in and it'll be perfect or whatever.

And my argument, which I still stand behind, is that, yeah, okay, you can absolutely go to IKEA and get functional, inexpensive, relative. relatively good looking furniture, but it doesn't matter how long that exists or how good it gets. If you want something of value, you will go to a carpenter and have them make you a table or a bookshelf or whatever. Because a human made. Absolutely. And I agree with you totally on the sense of I was having this discussion with my son interesting enough about Twitter and Instagram, everything else. And inherently in the human condition, things that have value, require sacrifice.

Whether it's yours or somebody else's, they require a certain amount of effort and sacrifice to either make that an amazing painting that took them 2,000 hours and 6 million little freaking fucking diggy dots on them. Right. Or that handmade thing that you're talking about with, you know, the artisan cut themselves seven times

to get the curve just right. it requires that and um because without sacrifice and then it becomes banal and banality is something that we can get anywhere so i i totally yeah the tech bro's more power to them not interested um but but the marketplace is driving all of that well and like like you said it works for mcdonald in the same way you know oh if i can type into if i'm an advertising executive and i literally just need a product shot in a white you know yes that's absolutely going to take some photographers uh you know uh lifeblood away because there there are people out there that just do those box but the what do you long shots or whatever um and i think those

people should have their jobs because that's a not a difficult uh easy thing to do and a lot of those are pretty but i mean you watch a car commercial that last shot of the car sitting there's it's always a fucking cg car like oh always we've been doing this for a while We have been doing it for a while, you know, and it's a CG car driving along the car thing, too. It's actually a real car base with expandable wheel length and wheelbair. Are they still using that? Yeah. The Blackbird?

Yeah. No kidding. They still use that because there's certain things that's way cheaper, which is the interaction between tire and environment. So if you're shooting your real environment, and then it's way cheaper to try and get that interaction done, you know. And then like you were saying, they can use that plate for their next commercial if they know where it's not a pickup now, but it's got the same wheelbase.

Yeah, but the question, and those things come or advertising, because I've noodled around what the AI stuff is, even in advertising, does it get you, where's the beef? Does it get you, I love New York? Does it get you the iconic phraseology that six people sitting around a table go, yeah, that's right. That's it.

That's it. You know? Because every time, and I know it's, I call AI, you know, plagiarism, basically. At the moment, it absolutely is, yeah. Yeah. And of course, the creative process is that because we're all influenced, you know. But I think there's something that changes because of chaos, because the organic nature of humans, that we might be thinking of that thing, but somehow we remember something from when we were three, and that made it work. Well, you know, if we're going to say like, oh, I'm using anamorphics on this project because I liked Indiana Jones back in the 80s, that's a far cry from, I live.

lifted the absolute exact look of this scene from Indiana Jones and replaced the characters, but like the lighting and the scene and everything are exactly the same, but it has an anamorphic look. Like, those are two completely different arms. And it works the other way. I totally agree. It works the other way. Several years ago, I watched back to back the Blu-ray series of aliens. hell yeah yeah i've i've done that a few times probably every other year i do that and right and i go ridley's look like it was shot yesterday i say i say that exact phrase so many times about that blu-ray cut i look at it and i go oh the other two totally dated totally within their time period totally within that thing so yeah there's certain things that you know certain i mean i and i guess

my point is, is that as far as going back, it also goes to the forward thinking thing where you're, you, you are, with artificial intelligence, you can only, I believe at the moment anyway, build upon something that has been built on before. Ostensibly correct, yeah. Yeah, you know, I'm grabbing that and grabbing that and have all this input from the Google over the world, right? but it's very difficult for it to it the program to imagine something that it doesn't have input for right you know and sometimes that's what that's what genius is is like how

did you think of that no idea you know yeah from a visual standpoint from music from everything it's an interesting place anyway is this a topic that we're actually supposed to be talking about? Yeah. Or is it like a ramble? I told you at the beginning. You could talk about pencils for 20 minutes if you want, but I didn't want to talk about pencils, but I didn't know if there was any specificity that Perry Brookman had been. Oh no.

Or are we all good? We're good. But that is a good kind of segue into if we want to get into the nuts of both of it. Speaking of people just coming up with stuff, Guillermo del Toro's always I've always been a big fan of his because all of his films feel very inventive, even though he's taking from places that, I think that may be it,

is that he's taking from places that I'm not familiar with, so it's all new to me. But very inventive person, especially like you're saying, musicians are very inventive in the same way that I can't be. But I suppose in the more press side of things, how did you get involved with the cabinet of curiosities? Oh, through a producer, Phil Whaley, I shot a film called The Empty Man. And the Empty Man was directed by David Pryor. And it was at a time when Fox was going through its machinations,

and it didn't get quite get, it's a very cerebral examination of, an existential question framed in a horror genre, right? And David, so anyway, that came out, and David got the gig to do an episode. So Guillermo had seen that, asked David to direct it, you know, and then David said, hey, we're going to do another thing together. So that's the short answer. to that one. Yeah.

The, I have to say your episode's probably my favorite out of one of them. I think it was, it was, they're all great. I love them all.

I think Garmo could probably take one photo and I'd watch it for two and a half hours. But, um, I think yours was probably my favorite. Plus,

uh, F. Marie Abraham. The best. Oh God. What a, watch that dude for. I guess,

like many times. Yeah. could watch him like just cooking hot dogs and not even serving them on a bun he'd just cook your hot dog and put it on something else you know okay this is really good um and he's hilarious he's incredibly irreverent um i mean you know he's he's old enough to deserve the right to be irreverent about anything so that was great fun i mean i have to say that was great fun um and it was interesting because david had a very i kind of tuned into david's sort of sensibility um so i i think that's after doing a feature where there i think that's one of the reasons i got

called that um to to echo student balls um and he is um he's a huge fan of camera with intent you know um and part of doing the cabinet of curiosities was to try and keep it i'm not even and say in a Guillermo wheelhouse, you know, somewhere on Guillermo's boat, you know, and you'd have to be that close to the wheelhouse, because they're all so de-separate. And basically the scripts were, I think the scripts were the connective tissue in terms of the way they were structured for the most part, because the photography certainly wasn't from one episode to another, there were no restrictions where it was like, shoot it the way you want to shoot it, you know, do it the way you want to do it.

But somewhere, I think I said this, somewhere in the back of my mind, it was always, oh, this cameras thing. So maybe we should use a couple, a couple nods to the palate. Yeah, yeah. And tomorrow was just a phenomenal production designer. Yes. I mean, I say it everywhere because unlike a series where it's about a cop show and we have a cop house and have a thread. And so therefore, 15 sets get built or 20 sets get built and you have six episodes.

and you know you go from one to another everything was just separate you know she literally had you know six movies to do right that had nothing to do with each other and sometimes trying to rework one set to for like two months from now that might get turned into something else right you know so it was um yeah hats off to her she's wonderful and i think she and you know she got nods on it as well she did she does a lovely work uh with germo on her on his movies was wrong yeah did you find that because um not all of i mean a lot of the shorts or whatever whatever you want to call them uh episodes are ostensibly take place in one place did you find that because you're basically your episode all

takes place in uh that main chunk and then the little side freezer or whatever but uh did you find that that was an advantage and kind of unlocked a lot of your freedom or or oddly enough Oddly enough, when you break down the schedule, I think we had 15 days, I think, or maybe we wanted 15 days. And we're given to you. Yeah, one of those things, whatever that was. It was more than two weeks,

so I think it was two, 10 days plus a little bit or something. It was in a pandemic too. What you recognize is that, Um, most of it was shot on location. I think we only spent three days in the autopsy room out of 17 B scheduled. A lot of that has sufficient. Well, a lot of it has to do with, A, the efficiency of shooting on a stage. Yeah. You know, you know, where you are literally a lot, I mean, you light it and

you know, now we're moving cameras, trying lights on it all right. as opposed to driving, loading, unloading, blah, blah, blah. And so it's a little somehow possibly misleading that one feels like, oh, gosh, for me, most of the work was on location. In my head, that's a location thing. That's interesting. You know, just because when I looked at the schedule, it was like, two days, one day, two days, two days, two days there, three days, oh, shit, this company moved, right? Oh, my gosh, two, do the end of schedule, one, two, three, oh, okay, four days in stage. right you know that's cool it's just how we look at stuff yeah well and also i i did not

rewatch it before this i'm i am going a little bit off memory but uh because i watched that thing the second it came out like when they when they were advertising that i was like that's yep yeah yeah yeah that's for me give me that oh yeah yeah yeah i don't know what they're doing i i hear there well might be another burst like that because it was so one received but but you know Who knows what Netflix is turned? Yeah. I know some people that maybe maybe anyway. Anyway, can you talk to me a little kind of on a ground level about what the lighting plot was in the autopsy room?

Because it's a gorgeous look that you achieved in that small. Yeah, it's not that small of a space. But in that room, you know, you've done quite well. I love the color contrast between the blues and the oranges and everything and kind of what your, was there any references for that? to that kind of yeah the whole thing had a reference because prior david wanted he said let's watch deer hunter and part of it was because it's a favorite film of his but also in terms of tone it's in the same period it was shot in the 70s right right in a small little mining town but interestingly enough it felt like the 50s because that's the nature of the 70s in a small little mining town sure um and so that's

what our production design was kind of pushing back with like we're shooting this is it's a 70s movie it's a 70s element but production design were going to be in 50s and 40s looking buildings in a town that looks like it was the newest building that was built in the 30s um And so I was embracing that in terms of the look, in terms of for the lighting as well, in terms of sources and whatnot, you know, and not trying to go too saturated and everything else with color palettes, but still, and still in the back of my mind going, all right, you know, this is, you know, this is, Guillermo likes the golden tones, and he likes it contrasting against the greens and whatnot, and, you know, and it's a horror

film, but at the same time, it's playing on a television. to be careful about how dark dark really is right i mean i remember the it was game of thrones yeah and um the entire world went we didn't get to see that and basically the entire world had their television set right a different setting that i've always yeah i mean you go yeah i was going to say that like so i'm a freelance colorist as well and okay right now i'm having the conversation with a client about, they came over, looked at my calibrated screen. I know the calibrated screen works. I've seen it in theaters, matches were good.

And this person was like, well, if it, it doesn't look like that on my laptop. And I was like, right, but my screen's calibrated in yours is who knows what. And they were like, well, if I have a MacBook and most people have MacBook, shouldn't we calibrate it to my MacBook? and I was just like that's a great thought except for then it'll look like let's say this thing lives on the internet forever gets really popular and then screens get better and better and better as time progresses your short will your project will look worse and worse and worse because it was calibrated to an unstandard target and not what is objectively correct right and that's the whole thing about calibrating a mapbook is that even on a MacBook you know you can change

is gamma on the screen and everybody got that little brightness button that they put wherever they want that was the other thing they had it they had their brightness jacked up to a thousand and they're like I'm seeing a lot of artifacting and I was like well well well then don't touch that button yeah don't do that doctor it hurts not do this yeah yeah don't do that there's a lot of that so and so it's the same sort of sensibility and I do remember and back in the film days uh and the only time I ever got to be sure that the When we were doing prints, right, it was always a range in terms of footlandverts. It was somewhere between 15 and 18 is what the screen had to be in because sort of like

Ampas, not Ampest, I don't know, NTSC had sort of said that, okay, movie screen should be at this particular level. And then, you know, I had a film open up one of my very first features at the Zickfield, you know, and I go flying over to the Zickfield, which is an enormous. It's like, you know, it's like the Egyptian, you know, it's like a thousand cedars. It's huge. And guess what? From, you know, 100 yards away, the screen is nowhere in here. You know, and, you know, the guys are upstairs trying to put a new bulb in and every other thing. And, you know, I'm thinking we got three days. Can we strike new prints? Because it's a premiere. I mean, yeah, so as much as we are, sometimes as much as I shoot the digital of it all. I do like knowing that. you know the barco in the back it's pretty much the barco in the back to matter where i go yeah that actually that actually does bring up a question that i do enjoy asking uh folks who have a hefty experience with film and then transition to digital uh and that is um

what are some of the things that uh you know film gave you i i remember hearing you talk about the importance of dailies and how that was uh an experience that changed you listen to I don't know a few years ago there's a few like two hour jams they had two speed but you know what things about film do you miss and

what things about digital do you think have are you know go better the thing about digital that's better is what we were just talking about which is the standardizations of exhibition

you know that I feel relatively comfortable in the theater that basically the last projection I saw in the di room is this is going to be in approximation very close to that you know that's that's huge because it's like I related the story about the trying to do it otherwise measuring them um what I what I missed aside from like you mentioned Dailings what I always tell you younger DPs that are just starting out and people who I've been mentoring or whatnot

is the image lives in your imagination. So when you get to work in the morning, after you've spoken about it with the production designer and director a million times, the image is in here, and so then therefore the job is to translate it out there. Be it, oh my God, it's really sunny and I gotta fly 60 by 30s out,

whatever it is, night exterior, night, you know, I mean, people say, oh, day exterior and I think, oh, that's probably one of my hardest things to ever do. And as I'm shooting away northern Canada or somewhere. You know, because, but what I find is that younger DPs cannot imagine a frame without a monitor. Right. Well, we don't have fucking viewfinders.

I can't find a viewfinder for the life of me. I don't. And what I mean by that is they can't even imagine camera placement. They can't imagine lens. No, that's not right. Let's change it. No, that's not right. Let's change it.

Let me look. That's not right. It is the virtuosity of instrument that I miss. And film gave you the training to have the virtuosity of instrument. There's a plethora. of musicians who can compose without an instrument there. Right. They literally hear it and put it down on paper.

And we know some of the big ones from way back and some of the ones today. You know, they don't need a keyboard. There is listening in music, which is an incredibly frame. Yeah. In terms of a process, which is also incredibly sharing as a DP because I don't need a camera. I'm looking at a script and I'm wandering the streets. I can imagine. Oh, yeah, that would look like that on the 75 of these.

It should be a 300, we should do something like that. I think that's the main difference is that the lack of immediate response, embracing a latent image allows you train your mind to imagine things versus react to things. And it's the same thing I was talking to with the editor and my director, James, James, James DeMonaco, perjude, about the avid, what he misses, what he likes. What he likes and what he misses, you know, because he started a film. And it was like, oh, yeah, I would go home. I wouldn't make the cut because if it was a one-frame cut, I didn't want to watch you go through the, you know, through the flatbed anymore.

So I'd have to imagine it or I'd have to wait on it a second. Take paper notes. Take paper notes. I mean, you know, and him being a writer, it speaks to that part. in the process where you're looking at a blank piece of paper and you're literally trying to imagine words. You're not just pulling words out of a thing and sticking them in there.

I like the little poetry, magnetic poetry thing on a refrigerator. And everybody always has something pithy, and you go, yeah, but they gave you those words. You know, every refrigerator looks the same. It looks profound, but it's really. We all have it live, laugh, love in the same. Exactly. They all gave you lip, lap, love.

well and it also gives i think that um sort of i suppose pre visualization that you're talking about or or present visualization uh gives you a target so when you finally do have the thing in front of you if anything doesn't match that target you'll do your best to match it and if you can't with the tools you're given you get close and and accept that but i right change totally you sure um that that is and i don't know how often that happens by imagining you you're you're you're are well, more equipped to change. Yeah. Because then you are otherwise,

because often I would be working with a director, often. Sometimes I'm working with a director, and it's not working. And they'd say something, and you go, yeah, okay, let's try it. And it has nothing to do what you talked about. But you can just look out into space and go, oh, yeah, it actually might work. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's, I've definitely been put in the position as a DP where, you know, you're behind the monitor and you've got director here, producer here, ad exec there, and they're all pointing. And, you know, everyone's got that piece of tape that says, do not touch the monitor. But everyone's pointing. Everybody's touching them going pointing at something. Can we change, can that come down? Can this? And I'm like, we can bring that down a resolve. We're like, yeah, yeah, but I'd just like to see it. And you're like, oh, for fuck sake. Everyone picks the smallest little thing.

to obsess over that has no bearing on like the final film itself everyone's like well that that little corner can't do you think people are going to see like no i think part of it is because i was talking to another director and i had a color session um where the execs were involved and um the character was on a fairer's feel uh sent him on to appear or on or on around or and i hear his voice pipe up I have a little speaker going. Why the lights moving across your face? And, you know, I stop and I look at my director and I'm thinking, you take that one, okay?

You're right. He's on a Ferris wheel. Have you seen the Santa Monica Ferris wheel? It's very lit up. Very lit up. And it's moving. Their lights are moving everywhere. Well, I find it distracting.

She's on a Ferris wheel. You know? like many times people will comment because they feel it's their job to comment you know and it's I think what you're talking about as a DP when you shoot and you have an ad agency and a director and this and that and they go oh if I don't say something to my colleagues will think that I have nothing to say so rather than there is nothing to say which is very different than I have nothing to say. Right.

You know, I mean, I sit through production means with nothing to say because I am, you know, there's nothing to say. I have no notes as a, makes a lot of people feel happy. Exactly. And they'll remember you brought them. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Rather than I have a note and the note is a stupid one, but I, but at least I'm showing my boss or my somebody that's somehow I'm paying attention. Anyway, but yeah, that, that's an issue. And so, uh, I had much preferred the, will it look like that question? And I was back in the day where I was like, well, no, this is a black or white marg very much in color. Right off the bat, it's not going to look like that, okay?

Yeah. If you wanted to see what it's going to look like, but look over there and look at the same, you know, and then, you know, use your mention of it. Sprint a little bit. I know what a 75 mil looks like at a T1 because we're using, you know, Vintu's lenses and then that will be what it looks like,

just like that in there. But if you don't know any of that, then it'll look like what it looks like tomorrow morning. And there's some of beauty just to the latent image. There is a wonderful surprise that I think energizes, the creative process. It's like letting the sauce simmer. You know, you put it all in there and you go, this is going to be really good. And then take it out of the oven six hours later.

And you go, oh, wow, because it doesn't taste anything like what you put it in six hours beforehand. Yeah. And then the next day, go ahead, sorry. I was going to say, I was talking to another DP about that exact thing where kind of what you're saying about Dailies in the other interview, which is that energy that you get from it. When you wait, you know, it's just delayed gratification. And it's also surprised because you didn't see what it looked like exactly day of. So now you're like, oh, look, we all did a good job or not. But, you know, at the best day.

Right. It's affirmation. An affirmation is really good, particularly when it's not third party, but it doesn't have a point of view. And you have reaffirmed it for yourself. The soup is good. Why? Because six hours later, I tasted it and I liked it. Right now, the soup was pretty sucky because nothing was cooked. There is something that you bring that to the process and that process among everybody.

Everybody, I think, makes better work because of it. And again, talking the delies and the reason that, you know, I mean, James has dealies, but many directors do not, and they don't like the process. I've always been one to go, but it makes it better. Doesn't like everyone sitting in a room and having a discussion about it? Like, doesn't like sharing the diffusion of ownership or something like that? I guess that's what it is. I guess it's also, I think that you have to,

because I remember being petrified as a B-camera operator, as I started the business as a B-camera operator. I never was a focus for on it. But we all are petrified of our own inadequacies. In anyways, you have to share. that with your collaborative and just because we were all there when we were shooting it doesn't mean that you know we're not carrying those insecurities with us and I think much of that comes from that and so you're able to shed that then then you the creative

process works better it's a wonderful thing and I recommend it to every film record to watch which is Peter Jackson's get back the be oh sure yeah yeah and and they go why i said because that's what the career creative process is that's what collaboration is that somebody brings in a song and sings it poorly in front of their bandmates and their bandmates are non-judgmental listening intently they fuck up what they're fucking up nobody knows where they're going with it somebody says let's sing it off key they go into some other world and start singing a samba or some the kids thing, they come back again, the juices look now flipped, and all of a sudden you get, when I find myself in trouble as a masterpiece, and you realize, when he tells

a story about that, you go, it had nothing to do with Mother Mary and then give you somebody else, and so-and-so through that line out there, and, you know, that kind of process is really important in a collaborative form, and we don't seem to have that anymore, except on these little Zoom calls, which is so antiseptic and dysfunctionally non-present

as useful as they are. Yeah. Well, I believe you started as a musician, right, when you were younger? Kind of sort of, yeah. I mean, I play music. I mean, I play. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. Me and my mother was a singer and a professional musician.

So was my mom. I thought that was going to get a career path. Yeah. Yeah, my dad was a drummer and got me. Oh, there you go. But something that I've always kind of wrestled with and actually through now 110 episodes of this podcast, have kind of figured out what it was.

And because I thought it was more complicated. But it literally was when I was a kid in bands or just goofing off my friends, that was such a gratifying experience. that when I've pivoted to film, when I, again, when I was younger, it was still that. It was still sitting in a room with your friends banking music. And then the further and further I got along into a professional career, the less and less it felt like that. And the more and more it felt like pulling teeth. And I've asked so many DPs who have a background in music, like, what is those, what's that thing?

And I think you actually just nailed it is it's the in-room collaboration. A lot of DPs have talked about how pre-production. their favorite part because it's so imagined me too absolutely I mean the world is so possible everything but also yeah but again it's the thing that you were saying as a musician and and it's the um god you when you get to collaborate with somebody and feel comfortable enough to be foolish um with the ideal you know I have a wonderful friendship with an amazing camera operator. A couple of guys that are just amazing, you know, Mitch Dubin, and Lucas Bieland,

and I've known Lucas for all right since he was a second, since he was Sven McVess's driver and I was an operator and we bumped into each other because I came down to do Steadicam on Gilbert Grape and we became friends and then he recommended me as Sven's driver or I think he might have been a second then or loader because we got along with. right, to tag along with Sven and spend when hiring to operate with him. The long story and short of that is when you're working with somebody who you trust to be foolish, then we could throw ideas out there and they will help you see through the comedy of them or the absurdity of them into the kernel of what you're looking for.

latch on to that and then you both take off together you know so I would be describing your thought and then all of this space and be looking at me and goes oh what if you go on the other way you know

oh yeah yeah the other way you know what what happens if we play it as a you know as a samba we're not playing it as a waltz you know just lay that beat in oh wait a minute

we're onto something oh no maybe too much maybe too much back off but we're on to something you can't play Strauss you know that way but let's back off of it and we might be getting somewhere well that's the that's the part that feels good right like the the final product does not feel good the final product exists and you're like you can be proud of it but it doesn't it doesn't give you that same gratification that those totally agree sessions because ultimately the final product is then they outcome a lot of hard repetitive work

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And most things, once you get that like, oh, this is working, then you got to like really work at it repetitively to make sure it's working. And then by the time you get to it, it's like, yeah, okay, you felt the work part in it all, you know? It's like, you know, doing this much of a painting thing, and God, that's pretty brilliant. And then realizing you have to get an old freaking wall that way. You had mentioned steady cam and operating it. And I wanted to ask, because you did not invent the Steadicam, but you were next to the person who did.

Well, Garrow Brown is a dear, dear friend, and he was a mentor of mine. So he and I met when I was kind of just trying to get into the business, and I was actually a news camera person who edited and shot news stuff, like local TV stuff for summer replacement. And I assisted him on a couple of things. steady cam things that he had done because he was a DP at the time and director DP as well doing commercials and then he had this amazingly brilliant idea to invent something called the sky cam which is

what we used today on football games and so cable cam thing yeah the four four cameras four cables thing in the middle NFL that thing um and he invented that by talking to he happened to be on the set of, I mean, his story, not mine, but he was having, again, it's collaboration, man. He happened to be on the set of Little House in the Prairie, right, doing Steady Camp. He and Landon, right, wasn't that the actor's name? Oh, I couldn't tell you. I've seen that show since I was again. Yeah, but I mean, he also had done a lot of movies.

Anyway, the guy who brought that to us had a football star called Merrill Olson. who was pitching the idea like more people would watch football if they can only see it from the coach's point of view. And it was like, what do you mean? Well, yeah, because it's so interesting when it's on top. When it's on top, it's like a chess game. If you could just follow it around like a chess game and you're not looking at stuff sideways,

you've actually know what's going on. And it's like that little spark that goes to, you know, the creative process that makes you do that. But yeah, so I held them out on that thing. And that's how I became involved with that account. because yeah well because i i was interested in because there's technologies will come around that that uh pretty appreciably change the filmmaking landscape you know LEDs are one of them certainly digital cameras but you know i could probably count on one and a half hands how many

like major things have come out that absolutely like even LEDs i mean lighting well things that change the language. The literal language. Absolutely, because there was all of a sudden a different language. There was a new, there was a new verb. Yeah. We had, as opposed to a handheld verb and the dali verb and the crane verb, you know, then there was a different verb, which meant something. And that's, that's what it's certainly did. And so I was wondering if you recall any interesting anecdotes from when that verb. came into the lexicon uh part of it is before the steady cam the advent of the study cam um it's always been an issue and a challenge to describe three-dimensional space in a two-dimensional

former that's what motion pictures are you know how do you give this just because they move does not it has a third dimension. It has the fourth dimension time. Yes, we get that. But what is the third dimension in immersing a viewer, an audience, somebody, into the idea that we also coexist in, you know, height, depth, and length of something? And the Steadicamp really helped that because all the rest of the instruments, a crane actually moved in three dimensions I don't dolly did, but to a very prescribed set of rules. Dolly track came in this length and became that big. You know, that's it.

So if you want to make a curve, that's the curve you made. Eight pieces make 360. There you go. Okay, that's what we got because it fits on the truck. You know, I'm sorry, doesn't do anything in your room or your space or anything. You know, and we decide things that wall to fly out to try and make it work and all sorts of, of, you know, incredible machinations. So I think that was part of the thing that the Steadicam did,

which allowed the audience to understand and be far more freeing. And then the very first, there's two iconic shots that Garrett both did. One of them was on Bountiful Glory, where it's a crane shot, and everybody goes, oh, it's a crane shot, and the crane goes down. And we go, oh, that's pretty cool. And all of a sudden, it keeps on going. And the entire step off. He invented the step off.

Yeah, and you go, what the fuck? How did that happen? You know, because subliminally, and we knew that that's where it was going to stop. Because that's it. We didn't know why, but we've seen enough of them in our lexicon, you know. And then the other one was behind the tricycle that Stanley did. Right. He did both of those?

Garrett did that one. Yeah, Garrett did. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he's somebody you should absolutely talk to. A wonderful raconteur. Yeah, I'll put you in touch with him. A wonderful raconteur, a storyteller of the nth degree, funny as all get out.

And a dear buddy of mine, but I'm not going to start telling his stories because there's some wonderful stories. But on eyes wide shut, I will tell you a story that kind of involves Garrett. So phones rings. It's 4 o'clock in the morning. I answer it. I'm in New York. And I hear his Tassanicos there. And I go, who is this? It's like for a hand. You know, landline, of course back then. And I hear Stanley. You go, what? And Stanley Kubrick. I go, fuck you. You're fine. Good. And a white says, who was that? I said, fucking Garrett. I can't

believe them. Because my buddy used to call people up like Vittorio and give an Italian accent. I told him all my friends, I want you to work in a movie with me. Right. I'm positive. And it's like Gary, he did that, right? 9 a.m. the phone rings again. And this time it's a clip British accent. Right. You know that Mr. Mr. Krubert wants to talk to me. I was like, you're kidding me. So that's what happens when you have a friend who cries wolf enough. fall for it you know because i i don't know how many phone calls i would get from garris saying oh you know either it's laslo or it's bill roche and the accent and everything we were just lined up and put it on there and say no i want you to come and do my movie and i'm thinking oh god

this is not real anyway so i got uh i got to give stanley a good fuck you so i'm sure of those people all and then sadly i like yeah yeah yeah you know i also he said it happens to them all the time oh i bet there's this uh completely random side thought there's a story i like there's this japanese all-female metal band called band made and they're incredible uh just insane musicians and i guess jimmy page went to one of their concerts and saw the drummer akana and was like holy shit i need to talk to that girl so he goes backstage and someone leaned in and it was just like hey jimmy page wants to talk to same thing she's like fuck off and then he like pops his head out and she was like what i know right that's what happens

you know it does happen to our to us and our heroes that we uh you know we can't contextualize them ever calling us or bumping into them or anything else like that's kind of right um but yeah i think there's certain instruments that have done that you know um those kind of milestones um i'm trying to think of it. I think the other one was the techno crane did it because it defined a different kind of movement, you know, lighting and LED things, not as much because it's more convenience than maybe HMI. I wouldn't need to say that because when we look, when I look at a frame, there's nothing about the lighting unless it's moving lights from the I guess smaller smaller and more powerful you know you can hide them

there's that but it's also the the quality of a mover being a episodal kind of hard shaft was something that we could not achieve before. Yep, that's, yep. And so therefore, when you looked at the frame, you went, what, what is that? What is that happening? What is that shafty thing happening? Because, you know, it was to find the physics of, it was either natural to find the physics of something or the color changers on them and stuff like that.

But very few things. I mean, the camera movement one of, I think the steady camera one was the huge one. And obviously the advent of the small hand. held camera, you know, in the early 60s before that. Well, I've always told people to go back and watch films, like silent films, because there's way more camera movement in some of those, maybe not silent, silent films. But the second sound was involved, they had to blimp everything, and cameras just got locked off. No, absolutely.

Very much so. And if you look at some of the early Harold Lloyd stuff, which is the comedies, and Charlie Chapin, not as much because it was a little bit more percent of him as a filmmaker liked putting the camera in places that it was like well let's put it there because nobody's ever seen it there before you know nobody's ever imagined that and going back to the whole AI thing is like you know if it doesn't happen as data bank is it going to show you a little camera move you know if it didn't know about a steady cam would it connect those things I don't know I mean it depends on Now it's programmed and everything other thing, I suppose.

There's a new camera out now. I want to make sure. I don't remember the manufacturer, but it's a box without a lens. And it knows, it knows through GPS and et cetera, et cetera. It looks like it's got the weird. Yeah, it got some sort of antenna array or something. Yeah. And it goes, okay, well,

we will composite an image from all the other images that I've been here. Right, using GPS and accelerometer and, oh, and time of day and altimeter. It has a thermometer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, time of day, altimeter, right, exactly. It has it, you know, has it all, you know, I mean, it's raining today, all the end stuff that it's trying to do, and it's just going to compose a photograph for you, or an image, you'll kind of compose an image. and it's like um fascinating science project

yeah I agree it's a fascinating science project I'm kind of wondering where the application the intent of artistry because when we make films and when we make photographs

those of us and when you do music and when you shoot you have an intent that might be just pretty narrate but it also is metaphoric right you know this is why

many the directors I like working with like film like looking at the world as a metaphor because otherwise I might as well just be outside you know looking at stuff looking at stuff

and putting them my own movie together so the metaphor of the emotion moment is what's lacking in that stuff, you know, by the odd compilation of a million other previous things. And I don't know if it has a button that says, this makes me feel good right now. So then I will go now, you know, right? But that's part of what we do, though. We do that as artistry. We go, this, we might not understand why it makes us feel good or why it makes us feel horrible or horror film. I mean, that's why horror films is such an interesting genre

to shoot to go back to cabinet of curiosities is that the horror film is a genre which for the most part is an allegory about something in a human existence that you can translate you know be fear of dying zombies um being fear of murder oh slasher whatever that might be that they all of them tend to be really deeply rooted in in a human condition and you're in your episode, bodily autonomy. Well, yeah, well, two things. One of it is morality. That's how it opens up.

Guy's dying. Yeah. You know, we kind of feel like he's dying. A little conversation about he's dying. I've got months to live, blah, blah, blah, blah, the stars. And like you said, body autonomy. And what is after death? And what is immortality?

You know? So, I mean, it's like, you know, so all that gets shoveled into this thing. you get a gory movie about somebody opening up their own chest um but you know um but getting back again to be a little bit more um precise about that camera or whatever is again what is the intent of the artist you know it's like you know man you playing drums and somebody putting a drum track down this is a drum machine is just two different worlds yeah it and i've i've played with the drum machines before and it's not

it doesn't even sound the same it's like some you know my fingers don't do it the same way my arms do it's because your arms are connected because ultimately it's connected to your heart yeah yeah ultimately is connected to something you're listening to and if you're not listening to that person at the time is something you actually are emotionally feeling in the moment you know that'd be anger joy pain whatever that might be you know I'm pissed off at the director moment whatever that might be yeah I mean It's a little deep, but anyway, what is what it is?

Hey, deep, deep thoughts are good. For me, actually, when I was a kid, the song that made me go, oh, drumming has feeling beyond the, like, the, like, heavy rock and metal tracks I was listening to, was since I've been loving you by B.B. King. Because that, obviously the guitar there is incredible. Oh, no, sorry, fucking Led Zeppelin. Oh, okay. But I was listening to I actually got to see B.B. King in Santa Rosa, which is incredible.

But, yeah, since the John Bonham, since I've been over the year. you, that drumming felt soulful in a way that I hadn't heard in the more precise stuff of the 90s. But BB King was listening to a ton of BB King. But all of that, I mean, I felt soulful. And then it felt, I mean, there's a million ways to describe it. And, you know, and sometimes it's deliberately lacking. Right?

within a piece that you don't want it to feel that way. You want it to be as possibly mechanically as mechanical as it can possibly be to play against something else, another instrument, and vice versa. But yeah, it's that interesting thing about where I go, hmm, interesting, interesting. And it goes back to imagining the image, imagining its track, imagining the music, understanding here what it means,

and then translating that. And I don't know if all of that comes forward when you just arrive somewhere and you turn on a monitor and you have to kind of recall where am I supposed to be. Right. How am I going to find it?

You know? So often it's turn on light, turn a light, look, make that light glass or look, turn off that, you know, rather than intuition is the product of experience. that's a good quote i mean the one that i love that's what i'm sake that'll be the pull uh yeah now the trick i always pull is i have a color meter and a light meter and i'll do

everything and then like you know especially with corporate clients like are you going to set up the camera and i'm like yeah and then and then i go boom boom done and they're like well how of course of course you do you go wow well how do guess what um yeah it is that it is that kind of thing and but also um it is freeing it's freeing because in the moment you're creating without having to check on something you know it's not yeah it's it's it's the same as if you were trying to imagine listening to keith jarrett piano the cone concerts right and realizing that every eight bars you had to go back and check it this if it sounds did everyone care that yeah And everyone hear that?

Or was my moaning too loud or whatever the fucking one will say about it? You go, well, that's not the creative process. The creative process is like, you know, like we're writing. Start writing. Do that it. You know, don't write and then edit and write and edit and edit. Just write. Yeah.

I hate to cut this off because I feel like they go for another hour, but I unfortunately do have another interview. So we'll give whoever it is my regards. It was a really nice chance. chatting with you and you have my email. I'm sure I can get it. Yeah. Yeah. And remind me and I'll hook you up to chat with GV. Garrett. Because like I said, it's a fascinating. I mean, I don't know.

There's an agenda to what you do, but you want to talk about camera movement and the add event of the steady cam. They are a really cool dude. Yeah. A buddy might actually. Do you know Rob Verona? No. Steadicam operator. He does a lot of live television stuff. But he's like, apparently he says that he brought steady cam. cam to live television and I've always wanted to spot yeah and I've always wanted to

spot check him on that I'm like I don't know enough steady cam deep steady cam operators to figure that out but what year would that be I don't know probably the early 90s there's an amazing thing I'm thinking Vittorio um lit it Bernalucci directed it but it was a lot it was I think it was you know The opera lies in something like 15 or 20 venues across Rome. What was the opera? It's an amazing look at. And the Steadicam going from one place to another and cross-cuttings.

I mean, we literally... Oh, that's cool. And like you would take somebody into a carriage and then bring them to the house. They'd have another camera ready to do that, saying while the Steadicam went upstairs and grabbed that coming down the hallway. I mean, just the interesting pressure of creativity of big,

because, you know, I mean, I know we've got to go, but being in performance is way different. Yeah, yeah. Well, I will say, when you're done with this project, we'll just have you right back and we'll pick up. Cool. I'll see later. Take care.

Thanks, brother. 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,

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