Frame & Reference Podcast - 108: Christian Sebaldt, ASC

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Christian Sebaldt, ASC has shot shows like CSI, CSI: Vegas, Lucifer, Pacific Blue, Greys Anatomy, films like Resident Evil: Apocalypse, On a Wing and a Prayer, and Feardotcom, and is currently in pre-production on Final Destination 6. Enjoy! ⁠⁠⁠⁠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 108 with Christian Sebalt, ASC, DP of shows like CSI, Lucifer, films like Resident Evil Apocalypse, and the upcoming film Final Destination 6. Enjoy. Are you watching anything cool recently? I'm trapping for a movie

for a new line called Final Destination Bloodlines. Oh, nice. Sorry, yeah. A lot of people get slaughtered. I feel bad already. and so I've been what I've been watching is mostly

just to get ideas to make suggestions to maybe capture some stills here and there so it's mostly for that not so much for you know what's the coolest movie that's out you know and with shot deck

of course I've put together hundreds of shots already too many and no doubt that will go through and on the 3rd of June I'll travel up to Vancouver of all nice places and get to the serious part of the prep

yeah well for all we know Vancouver will have better weather than we've had the past like week and a half for months we've had rain this year I mean you know if the world is screwed up I mean we have some little bit of an evidence here yeah well kind of for the final destination films is there any kind of

because they are kind of more of like a at that there's got to be more of those than Fast and the Furious But is there like a visual coherency throughout them all? Or is each project, do you know, like, kind of its own thing? I think, first of all, it's their true formula films, you know, obviously. You know, they have their set rules and you have to abide by those. But I think in order to really believe what you're seeing, which is so outrageous, now here and there, you have to ground the characters in the real world.

think you can't go stylized and too wacko and too weird and you have to believe that those are real people like you and I or like I and you know so the setting when they're discussing their life and what's going on and how to defeat the devil and blah blah blah you want to believe that and so I think we'll try to make it look good and not overlighted and not make it flat and boring and we'll find nice angles and things and on a rack from one person to the other and blah, blah, blah. But I think until you get to where things get really scary, you know, you have to be realistic and believable. And then you can let loose and, you know, whatever, you know, have colors and contrast and silhouettes and blasting things out with light.

And, you know, so it's, I think, a mix of two things. Totally. Yeah. Well, and you've probably got a great amount of experience. Just your CV is full of varying. genres. So I feel like that balance probably is, you know, going from something more naturalistic to, yeah, CSI as an example, is pretty stylized. Yeah. It's so funny. When I started there in, what, 2008 or so, I walked onto the set, you know, to observe what the other DP was doing. And I'm going, holy shoot, there's like 50 lamps over there. Whoa, there's another 30 there, you know. And then I'm looking at the monitor and they're all out of focus and it has that glorious, Now I know it's a Brockheimer film saying, wow, that was really beautiful.

And then I look away from Martin. That looks like a lamp store here. Yeah. This was pretty funny. And I learned a lot, obviously, you know, about a particular kind of style for that kind of show. And so it was fun. It was very educational for me. Yeah.

It feels like it's a lot easier these days, not just with like LEDs, but just I mentioned this before. And like a, well, that podcast is not out yet, but a couple conversations ago where, the rise of more sensitive sensors and also cooler, smaller, more versatile LED lights has made it so you maybe don't need a million lamps. Well, I mean, practicals are one thing, but just a million lights to make something look natural.

You can literally just put big soft source near face in it. Right, yeah. Yeah. The question is, are you satisfied with that? You know, that might work for one genre, you know, to basically let the world be what it is. And then just, like you said, keep mind like a soft half light or so. And it looks really pleasing, you know, but for another scene, another genre, is it dramatic enough?

You know, do you want to not light the face at all and just give a little edge light, you know, and keep the audience guessing? So I think there's a, you know, we with our new tools, with the new lights and the new cameras and 3,200 ISO and all that stuff, you know, and more, we're in a fabulous world, you know. And I mean, if you're a young cinematographer today, you can do anything. You know, it's just fabulous. It's just absolutely exciting. Yeah.

Have you shot with the Venice a lot? The last jobs were with the Venice, yeah, Venice 1 and then Venice 2. And on the last series, which was, again, for Brookham, Assius I, Vegas one season, we were at 3,200 a lot, you know, and it was totally clean to me. Also, when I went to color correction, and we didn't see any artifacts. quite astonishing. I didn't under-expose, I would assume. But the option of having to move, or the

you're stuck, you have to move fast. You've got like 12 minutes to lunch. You've got to finish the scene because we're putting the stuff on the truck and we're going on location. And I can light the background because it would take 20 minutes and so let the background go and just lower the intensity here and go $3,200 or we

would be at a lower ISO for one camera and then the other cameras are on a 250 mil lens, you know, trying to get close-ups and go from person to person with a 2-8, and it's just almost impossible, you know, without rehearsals. And I say, go put the B camera on the 3,200, and we gained two stops, and we were ready to go. You know, and so I love the flexibility of all the new tools. It really does feel like everything, it's kind of unfortunate. Maybe, well, it's probably worse now that technology is speeding along, but it does feel like

everything I learned in film school, only like a third of it stayed, you know, because, like, I learned on 16mm film and, uh, and, and, uh, and on, I'll cut seven. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. I still use a spot meter. I still use my spot meter. And then now having a color meter, like one of those newer ones that gives you the full spectral readout and everything. Oh my goodness. Absolutely. I'm able to work so much faster just with the color meter. Yeah. Because you got false color. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I, um, always used a spot. meter all my life. It just made more sense to me because I'm thinking, okay, here's the camera. The camera is looking this way. How can I walk around with the little egg-shaped thing? And then

how do I translate that? And when I have a very dark wall there and I have a silhouetted person and there's somebody sitting in the sunlight here that is really bright, you know, that never made any sense to me. So if you're using a spot meter, that's what I did. And I could just calculate Like, that person is three steps over it. Well, we'll hold that. The wall is three steps under. That will be fine and ready to go. Yeah.

It's, well, you're, you have a background pretty squarely in photography, though, right? Because that's a, I came from the spot meter making sense from the zone exposure system, you know, zone system. So that was like, even though that's hard to wrap your head around at first. Once you get it, you're like, oh, yeah, everything makes sense now. Boom, boom, boom. Right, yeah. Yeah, photography was more when I was very young, you know, as a hobby. So I didn't do any of that for money or income or as a job, but I think that's the basis of everything, now, to understand what the long lenses do and what the white lenses do.

And you can start with an iPhone now, of course, no. But in the end, the real experience comes during 16 millimeter film or whatever it is, just doing it, you know. And I often meet young people who would like to and who want to and who a dream of, you know, getting it to the. film business and I said well why don't you go shoot films no you think so no I'm saying just here's your camera you have friends right you don't you have any friends that help you on the weekends go out shoot stuff you can edit it for free and you know and I mean learn learn learn you know and suddenly you get things you move you move on yeah I think there's a and I've run into this in my own personal experience but I think the the sort of modern student or

young person mentality is to not approach something unless everything is dialed in, you know, which is like good in general. You want to go into stuff of the plan. But I've heard a lot of pushback from younger people on the idea of like, just go shoot it, quote unquote, because they're like, yeah, but no one will take it seriously or no one will, it's, I don't have the right tools. And so why would I get started or it's not that easy? You know, and I think they're missing the point of like it's supposed to be, this isn't supposed to go to. con you know it's supposed to teach you stuff right failure you're supposed to fail right learn by doing you know now as simple as that um yeah i have a director friend who when he's not working he just makes

little little short films and so at some point he sent me a text now check up my little my little fake commercial called impeachera that was when when trump was just getting started as president and so i'm watching this commercial that he shot you know with a buddy it was two people he shot it he edited, he wrote it, and he said it cost him like nine bucks because they had to get two Starbucks at some point, not just to get to finish the day. And it's hilarious, and it's just smart. And I'm sure it was shot with an iPhone, you know, and it's basically about a guy who's having anxiety attacks and he's going, I can't breathe. I mean, the world is going under and there's so many bad things happening in the world in politics. Oh, my God. But now

I discovered in Pichera, you know, and once I've been in Pichera, you know, and I feel much better. and I see the world's in a better light, you know. And it's just a clever idea. So, you know, come up with an idea that people will amuse people or scare people or whatever or educate people and use the phone and go out. Yeah. Well, and the iPhone, too, I yesterday did a favor for a friend, although they did pay me a little bit. But, you know, and I was just shooting behind the scenes of this commercial they were doing. But the production company, not them, but like the corporation didn't have, they wanted BTS, but didn't have a budget.

So they just sent them an iPhone for me to use to film the behind the scenes on. And, you know, I'm trying to get good angles and stuff. But I was actually, I have a pixel, you know, an Android. And the photos this thing takes are great. But I have to give credit to Apple. The image quality on those iPhones is outstanding. Yeah. Especially the telephoto lens looked, you know, you're able to go like a 26 mill or like a 33 or something.

You know, it's like a nice medium lens. Yeah. Yeah, I, I was, I've been embarrassed a lot. I had an 8 iPhone 8 till recently until somebody said, you know, this is not good. Why not? I just don't like giving Apple my money, you know, but that's my personal problem. That shouldn't be discussed here, you know, but anyway, I'll discuss it. I never want to get on my money.

I don't have any. I have an iPad and that's it. And that was a good. Yeah. Well, I broke down. I bought a 14th. There you go. Hopefully it will last a long time.

It is a venous. I actually. This is my daily cameras, the old Vooge film, yeah, X100. Oh, such, even though, I mean, this is the V, the one that is impossible to get, but all of the X100s are so good. Yeah. Yeah. I did want to ask, because we were talking about it briefly, but, you know, with like so many television shows that you've shot, I was kind of wondering, especially, you know, they have different, you know, your Lucifer versus your Grey's Anatomy versus your CSR. whatever, a lot of different looks, but television inherently is a fast-paced, you know,

environment. And I was wondering if you can kind of track, like, how you maybe first started approaching those jobs and the things you learn to help speed, you know, be very economical with your setups and get the pages in for the day. Yeah. Yeah, when a young filmmaker is waiting for everything to be perfect, you're never going to get anywhere. Because it was is never perfect, you know, I mean, the things change the AD comes not doing lunch to me and says, we're not shooting that scene in the afternoon. I'm saying, but we're going to be ready.

They're prepping it already. Well, we've got to go outside because the actor's not going to be there tomorrow. And so we have to shoot the other scene that was planned for tomorrow today. I'm going, okay, let's do it, you know. And, I mean, what helps is to have experience and have a good crew who really supports you. But in the end, you know, you have to very quickly figure out how to do something in a simple way and still achieve.

the look, the feel, the rhythm, you know, of the show that you're working on. And I must say, I always have to give credit to the crew, you know, who then supports and says, you know, well, if we shoot it from over here, you know, then we see out the window and we, you know, it's going to get dark, but we put something out there, we can light it, we can light it, make sure it looks like they. And so I think simplifying it in your head, you know, and then getting everybody on board is my little low-budget solution. yeah do are you uh when it comes to lighting are you are you kind of obviously no one has like a set

plan but have you been able to sort of uh simplify those setups in a way to achieve that you generally want or it is a completely different per uh per project you know it it is a little bit different but they're not completely different i mean in the end uh all the showrunners is they want to see their people's faces and they want to hear them talk you know the engaging dialogue that we have on every television show. And I'm talking about the network show that I've done, you know. And so in the end, also we often have, you know, two, three, four, five, six, seven people in the same scene. And holy shit, we can't spend an hour looking this way and then turning around and relighting and looking this way.

You know, so I try to light 180 degrees, you know, by hanging lights, I'll tell the AD is going to take a little longer because we're going to not have no stands on the floor. we're going to put all the lights in the ceiling, but we're going to cross-shoot and just get it done before lunch. And so I try to simplify it in a way so that I can still achieve, you know, as much really solid footage for the editor, if that makes sense. Totally. Do you have, most people do, but do you have editing experience yourself? I'm from editing my own reels and, you know, people giving me material where they're saying,

you know, this is what I want to show. You know, how do you have any notes for that? And then I'll go through it. And then I write down all my notes and then they ignore them. That's usually how it works. You know, or I have done favors for friends like you, you do, where I shoot stuff for them. And then they cut it together. And then we watch it, you know, and then we all say, well, the pacing is not right, you know.

And why don't we take this out and why don't we jump to this or, you know, reconfigure the scene? And then we watch it together. So I have editing experience, not as a professional editor, but a long time ago, I already started producing stuff for a BBD in Munich when I still live there. And those were all little things that I edited, you know. And so I think that is a very crucial part of a DP's base. You know, you've got to know about editing. And when I see the episodes, the TV episodes that I shoot, I am often shocked how. fast they're cut, you know, and what we, and that's also an educational process for me, you know,

where I can say to the, to the director, the way you're staging that is going to be chopped up beyond belief. You're staging it, staging it too slow. If you're waiting for the person to come in and grab the keys, which is important, then I walk all the way over to the couch to pick up the gun, you know, and then pan over and then the other come, the other person comes and their witness that sees all that. They're going to chop it up. It's going to be an insert of the keys. It's going to be an insert of the gun, and then you're going to be in the shot that you're doing. And so I feel like with my experience, I can also help a director, you know, with the future editing process to pace it and to speed it up and get it done properly. Absolutely.

Yeah, that's definitely something I've seen in, you know, smaller indie films, like, you know, beginner indie films or student films is people walking places. There's all these people just walking places. Yeah. Yeah. I must say I'm not a very patient audience and so when I watch a movie that somebody recommends and there are people talking about something that has no interest to me. They're talking about a relative or something that had something happened and it never goes anywhere and I'm going, oh God, come on guys.

And then I look how many minutes I'm in. I'm going eight minutes in. This is not good. And then I'm waiting. I give it like 12 minutes. And in 12 minutes, I have no clue what the movie is about. I abandon. I'm a terrible audience.

You know, it's funny. I was just the other, I've done this a few times, I think I started doing it like last year, because I really wanted to, I'm not a writer by any stretch, but I often do a lot of one-man gigs. And so I was just thinking about writing and pacing and all this. And so I started, whenever I caught myself noticing like a beat, a story beat, I would just write down the where we were at the runtime and what the beat was. Right. And I realized that the first one I did this was, was Dr. Strange, the Marvel film. And by minute 15, and I've noticed it's minute 15 almost across the board with most films. Minute 15, he is already in the spiritual sanctum learning shit. Yeah. Like we've already, you know, been introduced to him. He has the crash. He almost dies. He's now like in carmatage or whatever. By minute 15. And I'm like, all right, so that's where a lot of people are going around. If you scale that down to like a student film. Minute, two, we need to be on the move. Yes, absolutely. I recently, to distract myself, watch some of the alien movies.

And now, of course, really Scott. Not the first one, because I've seen it so many times and it's so good. But he made others, of course, after that. And he's just a master filmmaker within minutes, you're on the edge of your seat. And so as a film student, you should study that. How do we get there? What are the storytelling elements? camera pacing,

whatever it might be or shots or setting or more moody lighting that get the audience going you know so you're in the movie you can't go to the fridge because you got to see

what the next minute and you know so that's a great skill that wonderful directors have developed yeah what was which one was it I think it's Covenant

or Prometheus which one's the second I think Covenant is his second one if I'm not mistaken and I like that more than Prometheus That's what I was going to Covenant really grabbed me

And I'm going wow It's not well made Yeah Covenant and I Low key I know No one agrees with me Neither do the filmmakers

Neither do the executives But I like the Alien 3 Was good The directors The whatever the not real directors Yeah But whatever that assembly was I actually

I actually enjoy it Yeah It was good too Yeah But I also like Chronicles erritic Which is like Kind of a spiritual

Success Or a signaling Yeah. I was wondering if you could, because I've interviewed a handful of ASC members, but I never really asked, like, what was your path to becoming an ASC member? Because that is kind of a lot of goals for a lot of DPs, you know, being part of that. It's interesting. I, it seemed like an elusive thing. I never really thought about, I I must get in there and how do I do it and how do I pursue it and who do I talk to? It just seemed like this wonderful, wonderful world where the famous people all hang out and chat with each other and exchange, you know, lovely information that, you know, makes them even better at what they're doing. And I had lunch with Stephen Poster at some point, you know, because I always liked him. I don't know where I met him and I called him and said, hey, let's have lunch. He said, yeah, okay, we met in Hollywood somewhere and we were munching.

He says, you should become an ASC member. I'm going, whenever I dropped my food, I'm going, Steve, really, you think that's possible? He's looking at me like, idiot. Why not, you know? And he said, you need two more people, you know, and I can help you if you need help. And so I asked me kill Solomon, who was a friend, you know, at the time.

And he said, ah, I had a great idea. And so then it just happened. And suddenly I have the interview. I put a reel together, of course. And I have the interview. And at that time, this is a world. while ago, you walk in and you go around the room, there's no COVID, you check, shake everybody's hand, you say, hi, good, nice to see you. I'm a great fan, blah, blah, blah. And you sit down. And at that

time, they had a data light, one of those spotlights up there. I couldn't, I could barely see something in the spotline singing, oh, this is really inconvenient. This is kind of scary in this, 12 men, the jury of 12 men sitting there, you know, all Academy Award members, like, shit, this is, I shouldn't be here, you know. And then they're super kind of. And then they're super kind. and they all ask you questions. How did you do that? What's your approach when you read a script? And then they watched the reel.

At that point, I relaxed a little bit. And I got asking, ah, that looks nice. What kind of lenses start? I'm thinking, shit, what lens was that? And so it just happened. You know, I never expected it to happen. And I realized that the main benefit of being an ASC member is that you can exchange information.

You can call anybody you can get advice from L&W. at the time. Now, when I was shooting a guy in a rubber suit, I called L&W, who gave me a half an hour of his time. And also we do, or used to before COVID, do a lot of educational events. You know, so now I find that fantastic because I was young once and I had no clue what I was doing.

And people just gave me advice and helped me and made connections to rental houses. And so I kind of fell into the ASC membership. You know, it's interesting. I would say probably, maybe not all of them, but the majority of the ASC members after our conversations, like, you know, we're in the portion of the thing we're going to cut out. We're just saying bye and everything. And they've always been like, hey, take down my number. Here's my email. Like, hit me up if you need anything. I found that the majority of the ASC members, if not all of them are very, that leadership thing is very important. Yeah. Yeah. It, I mean, you know, as you get older, it just feels good to share stuff, you know. And, and, and, and, it's interesting that how, you know, like you were saying, when a film student doesn't want to do something because they feel they're not ready, damn it, you know.

And so, and often, you know, when there's just like 30 kids there, and I call them kids because now I'm a little older. And I'm asking them, what would you like to know from us? And then they're asking, what filters did you use on the so-and-so? And I'm going, that was like eight years ago. I don't know what filter I used. You know, what's your favorite ISO setting? I'm going, guys, why don't you ask, how do you get a job?

You know, how do you prepare yourself for a job meeting? If you're lucky enough that somebody wants to meet you and talk about a project, what do you do? You know, and there's never anybody, they're not even thinking about that, you know. And so then I just spit stuff out. I said, no, I figured out at some point that people not only want me to be prepared for the meeting and know about the project, unlike Eric Messerschmitt.

But I found that if I bring a gift, that puts my foot in the door. So Starship Troopers, too. I read the script, the zombie movie, and I love it. It was the first film. There was the first one, the big first Starship Trooper one, Verhoven directed at Phil Tippett, the, the, the Bob. Yeah, and so Phil Tippett is directing this one.

follow-up and of course Sony wanted to make a bright colorful film but Phil Tippett wanted to make a zombie movie so really dark and grainy if anyone's seen mad god holy shit I have watched 90% of it then I gave up although I love him but anyways I walk in there and I mean I know the characters you know and we're talking and I'm saying you want it dark and grainy here I am dark and grainy it is. I know, I always like to support the company, you know, and any way I can. And I brought a box of, you know, uh, uh, uh, sugar because in the film, the zombies, you know, keep popping sugar cubes, you know, and they're all looking at it. And I could tell. There was a spark of excitement at that moment. And I got the job. I don't know if it was because of the box of sugar

cubes, you know, but so that's what I've been doing, when, when I can, when it makes sense, so just bring a little gift and something where they're going, oh, that's cute. That's funny. So, but how do you get a job? But that's something a film student should ask a professional who has been doing it for years, no? Just one example. Yeah, I think, I think it is, I've been thinking about this a lot and we've talked about it on the podcast, but I think prior to imaging devices being so good and so easily available, you know, like we said, either a cell phone or, you know, an inexpensive DSLR or whatever. You really did have to do a lot of pre-production,

but now you can, and just thinking in general about where you want to go, and there wasn't a lot of like, unless you could afford to shoot 35, there wasn't a lot of flash necessarily. Whereas now any of these cameras with, you know, even the inexpensive lenses are very good and you can get.

So I think that's why you end up getting a lot of like filter questions or favorite ISO or whatever, because they're really trying to maximize the potential of their pieces. And that's it. Yeah, they get about the rest. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when a young person wrote a script and wants to make it as like the best, you know,

demo of their work and so on, and I read it and I'm going, you know, this is not something that's unique in any way. You know, maybe it, I mean, it's been done. I've got to be polite before or before, not say it's always. times but um so friend of mine one is who's a very very good first ad and a writer and a producer and so on and a director he said you know i just feel like making my own feature film and i said holy shoot no how we're going to get the money and he said oh you know we're going to do crowdfunding and you know i have a neighbor she's really old but she loves us she's going to give me two

thousand bucks and going wow i said my wife and i will give you 1500 how about that you got 30 500 already and he wrote a script that you can make in the house you know and it's not dumb and boring and so it's a little zombie movie you know he gets infected and she's going to keep taking care of him and she has to bring like you know people home so he can eat and you know and so we shot that thing in in nine days 90 minute movie nine days because the man is organized you know and the first thing I did is when I walked in the door and I met the you know costume and and makeup and hear people. I said, guys, you know, we've got to be really fast here. So I'm going to give you five minutes. We're going to roll in five minutes. So if you need to do last looks, we're not

going to call last looks and then wait until, so I said five minutes, guys. And then you guys make sure everything is correct. And then we say, okay, roll camera and everybody walks in and we do the scene. And sure enough, we finished a movie in nine days because the script, not only witty and fun, you know, was written for that purpose, no. And movies on Netflix. And movies are Netflix or someone is making a little bit of money and it's a great directing sample. Acting was good. And so, you know, right to, you know, what you can achieve, you know, but interesting. There's got to be something about it that we want to see.

Yeah, the guy who, David Sandberg, he did Annabelle and Shazam, a few other things. He did the same thing. He had a little black magic pocket, the OG black magic pocket, I think. He shot like a bunch of shorts. I think he got Annabelle off the back of like a short. He shot in his house with like his wife. Yeah. See?

Yeah. And now he made Shazam. Yeah. Yeah, Tom, about the black magics. What I like to do is just bring a bunch of little cameras, you know. And then no matter what it is if it's a feature film or a TV series or whatever. And unnoticed to some people, I just put one over there before white lens and hide one over there behind the thing. And then if you get some cool, cool angles, you know, and the editors use them, great.

If they don't want to use them or they don't fit, you know, the scene or whatever with them, who cares, you know? But I found the quality quite astonishing of those cameras. I mean, the last theatrical movie that didn't go theatrical because it's a modern world was an MGM movie called On a Wing and a Prayer, based on a true story of a family who shot as a plane and the pilot dies. Yes, so we're in this small plane, and I'm by, holy shoot, you know, there's no, no, room for anything. And so we had two Sony's, I think Sony ones at that time.

And I think I had like three or four black magics and I would mount them somewhere. I would put one with an eight millimeter lens on a seat. And as the actor goes by through that little plane, we get that cool little dramatic moment of a person walking by and hey, you know,

and you could not, don't tell Sony. You could not tell the difference between the black magics and the Sony's. It's just astonishing. You know, we shot raw, like magic raw, so that we would be flexible in pose, and I had to make sure I exposed properly, and I also get at a focus, because the ACs didn't always have time to pull in there and make sure that I don't screw it up. But really, you know, to me, helpful, and I think the producers and the directors appreciate a few little extra angles here now.

I'm not going to charge it for that. I'm not going to come in and say, now, if you give me $3,000 more, I'll get you more shots. You know, I'll just put them in there, and if they work, they're not great. And so these are your own personal pocket cameras or whatever? Yeah. Yeah, I have some different ones. I have a little fork in old one that's really small, a micro three-fourths with some good short, tiny lenses, and then, you know, 12K and so on. And I use them, even on TV shows, you know, sometimes, you know, we put it in the ceiling and just point straight down, you know, and holy shoot, it's a long dialogue scene, the editors using it, you know, because he's desperate to go.

somewhere else than from one close up to another and um so it makes me feel good i also find it fun you know and the the crew loves it and they're saying we're putting a camera on the ceiling hey yeah let's go you know so that's me well and i also think too like you uh when you have little like placement cameras like that where it's not set it doesn't matter if it gets a good shot if it does awesome but you don't have to you know it's it's a zero stress yeah camera placement and you can probably be a little more creative uh yeah in that sense because you know it's it there's no stakes right yeah um and i don't want to push the camera crew too much because they already have a full-time job not so we're running two often three cameras at the same time they're maxed out

you know so all i asked them is you know i set it up i put it there i double check my settings and they're pretty simple on the black magics um i do check folks with an exposure and then I walk away and say please guys roll it you know and slate it you know and that's what they do and then we of course you know put it in the reports um and if they forget to turn it off it's not a big deal at some point we realize that it's still running and and like you said if you get a good shot cool if we don't you know well and if it keeps running you got some interesting bts for the DVD absolutely that's actually speaking of kind of like logistics and and like, I suppose, somewhat non-creative stuff.

Bringing your own cameras, this is something that I've spoken to a little bit on the internet and seem to have a lot of people interested in it. And that is how to price your work, especially if you're an independent creator, freelance or whatever. Yeah. You know, one of the ways to make sure that you are getting the money that you deserve early on is to, you know, line item charge for those things that would otherwise be rentals. right um but for you what are some of those things that maybe once you're you got to shoot with

with a budget or maybe you're more comfortable that um you think is a is a value add and and gets the uh executives or whoever on your side that you can do like bringing your own cameras like wow you've added a bunch of value we like you as a person because it didn't cost us anything what are some other things that are kind of similar to that that you've run into in your career i think the main argument is you brought some free cameras we love you a lot you know That's really what happens. And that's my intention, you know, to say, guys, I'm there half an hour early. Every morning, I'm there after work if you want to discuss something or take a quick look at a location.

So you guys own me, you know, for the production. And so if I can bring some extra cameras and some, I get extra shots, no great. How do I answer your question? Repeat the core of it. Yeah, I kind of, I tend to ramble a little bit. I was just saying what are some um what's a better way to phrase that like uh you know it's one it's one thing to to not charge your client for equipment you know sometimes like I don't know when I when I'm doing um corporate work like I'm not sitting there going microphone boom hole

it's just like audio set up 20 bucks whatever um but what but at the end of the day you're building goodwill with those people and they want it at the you know most people are going to work with you again, if they like you, not your camera. So I guess maybe this isn't a great question, but is there anything else that you kind of comes to mind when you're trying to build that goodwill with the gifts, bringing the little gifts that your thing is like one thing, I think is maybe.

Yeah, I mean, I, I'm hoping not to be difficult, you know, for people to work with. This is really an if he's subject matter, if you talk to other people about me. But I like to have fun on the set. You know, I like people to be very prepared. I don't like them to be late. I don't like them to play on their phones.

You know, let's really focus, make it as good as we can within the budget and the time allowed, and have a good time. Go home to our families and to our friends and to the bar or wherever people are going at the end of the day. And the same within my work with producers and directors. You know, it's not my money that we're spending. It's their money. And so I got to be a fiscally responsible. I can't order stuff that I don't think, I don't want to use that today.

I mean, I got to think about it and say, hey, guys, maybe if we get a periscope for the scene, we can get something that will really make the scene stand out and give us production value. The thing is going to cost $2,000, you know. And then if the producer says, you know, we're so tight, we're so tight, we're over in, you know, construction and this and $2,000 is a lot of money.

Then I say, okay, well, we were planning on having a little crane on Friday, you know. Forget the crane. I'm going to put it up on a ladder and we'll get a shot from the ladder. That will be cool for the edit and we'll say we'll take that money, put it in the periscope. And so I try to work with everybody so that we all get along, you know, achieve something really good and go home at the end of the day, the day happy. And hopefully they'll remember me when they have the next gig, you know, saying, that guy, what was this name? And I had that weird name, but, you know, it's like cool angles and, you know, blah, blah. And so I always want to think that I'm going to have to get another job someday.

You know, I like having good, good vibe on the set. Yeah. The, this is a, well, I suppose to rephrase what you're saying. It's good to know kind of what each department values so you can be a value add to them, you know, because maybe not. The director probably isn't. maybe they are but maybe the director isn't financially motivated so you're more speaking to their creative tendencies or maybe the you know grips you know the grips are going to have a hard time rigging something so hopefully you know you've seen something else maybe that would work there instead

yeah yeah yeah no i feel uh i have to help every department if it makes them if if if it helps them and makes their their work better or if i can i can say now that that watch that you couldn't get you know it's not that important in the scene you know we were all saying oh our watch would be great we could start on the watch and then open the scene because the guy's rich and he's an idiot he's got the gold everywhere and i'm saying you know we couldn't get the watch then then we start on the golden chain you know so i we all have to it's it's we got to work together we got to make it you know it's a it's an effort of a lot of people yeah i uh i i kind of this is going to be a weird pivot but uh one of the films that for whatever reason had a had a

lasting impact on me because of the soundtrack the CD that was released that you could purchase was resonant evil apocalypse yeah it it was for for a young angsty teenager uh you know all that all that like metal uh hard rock stuff was just right up my alley still is to this day but that's it for anyone listening that's an amazing a soundtrack for the music of the time, you know? Yeah. Interesting. But I was wondering

kind of what your experience was shooting that film because the Resident Evil films, especially the first two, I think, are, well, especially the first two are actually quite good. The other ones, I think, became more comic booky as opposed to like horror or whatever, but you know, it's a video game.

But yeah, what was your experience like on that shoot? Because it is a fun film. You know, it was great. I had known the correct colleagues on of it, you know, since I was, I want to say a kid, an AC in Munich. And so we stayed in touch over the years. And then he moved to L.A. I moved to L.A. And when that film came up, it was just a great opportunity to learn, you know, on a much, much higher level than I had done before. I mean, out of the second unit was bigger than some of the movies I had shot, you know, and the second

you was going every day all night long. It was all night shoot. I think, you know, I never saw The sun. But anyway, it was big and it was scary at times. Now, we were in Toronto for the whole shoot. And where city hall is pretty much in the middle, surrounded by skyscrapers, we added on a huge structure that we exploded on one side. And then on the next side, at night with Amila Yovic, you know, double running through as we're exploding it, with three helicopters in the middle of

downtown Toronto, one camera ship, you know, and then two helicopters who were pretending to fire. And, of course, in the middle of that square was a huge pole that we couldn't remove. Somebody from the city said, you can't remove that pole. We're all going, it's just the pole. We cut it off. We welded back on. We can't remove the pole. So we put from the Canadian FAA, whatever, the robot was a blinking red light there. And so two nights in a row, we were terrified that something stupid happens and nothing happened and Alexander

our director got 14 cameras from Panazone for Panavision 14 film cameras I don't know who loaded them all that was all so fast and so big somebody loaded them all and somehow they were all turned on and then somebody yelled

action and somehow it exploded and the helicopters were moving and then the helicopters are pulling out and we're all going Oh, my God, everybody's okay. And the guys who owned the video game from Japan, I don't know their names, they were there. And they were going, they were watching the mothers.

Couldn't believe that what they had dreamt up in their heads was real there. You know, it was like full-blown action. So there were just some very, very memorable things, you know, that I will never forget in my life. And the first shot they made me do was a deserted town square, And there was one of those streetcars, a tram in the middle. You know, obviously something terrible had happened. There were no people, no zombies there.

And so we're on a big crane. We're starting on a wide show of this whole town square. And we're pushing down. We're pushing down. We're pushing down. We're pushing into the tram. And there's Miloovich. I was sitting there going, oh, my God, what happened to me?

You're close up. And Brian, holy head, this is going to be so hard. That was my first shot. And, of course, it worked out, and I figured out how to do these things. and so I have the best memories from that shoot. Yeah, the two things that come to mind are one, obviously the action is cool. But I'm a big fan of, you know, effects and not visual, like visual effect, you know, costumes, props, production design, all that kind of thing. And the apocalypse, or what's the character's name?

The big angry zombie dude, is his name? I forgot his name, but he's, yeah. A gun that shoots 3,000 rounds a minute. That I remember. And that was a real gun, right? A real gun. It was insane. Yes.

Yeah. Sometimes, you know, visual effects look good now, but I think 3,000 blanks going off all at once is probably a sight to behold. Insane. Yeah. Insane. Do you even attempt to expose for that, or do you just go, we're going to expose for the scene and that's just going to blow?

No. somebody like Alexander, who's one of the biggest second unit directors in the world, of course, and James Bond and all that stuff, and many Reddy Scott movies, he just places so many cameras. When I turned my head, he's going, oh, there's another camera over there. And then look this way. Oh, there's a guy handheld. So there's cameras everywhere.

We're shooting in every direction at the same time. You know, even in the big square where those confrontations took place, we had 120-foot light over there and 120-foot light over there. Everything was lit up because that was. the only way for Alexander to function to just go and grab those moments, you know. And so just exposing was the way to go. Yeah, yeah. That actually, now what I'm thinking about it, my memory of it, and obviously because of the

posters blue, but every, the, you're shooting at night. Was that to primarily like an HMI show or were you doing a lot of grading after the fact? It was, it was an HMI show. It was all HMIs because it was so big, you know, we had to. to light such large areas, but we did grading then, you know, to give it shape, you know, with contrast and color, mood, you know, science and blues and whatever, because the cameras were looking in every direction. I couldn't light, you know, directional, you know, and there were also many things that, you know, like we were in a cemetery. There was three hours away from Toronto,

and I couldn't scout it. There was no way even to look at it. it. So I ordered one of those 120 foot with units with nine HMIs, not because thinking, I got a light, a large area. And then I got there, and there were thousands of trees, massive, you know, 50, 60 foot trees. And there was no way to use a light from above. It will never get anywhere. And something, okay, we put it on that dirt road over there and we'd leave all the lights on the ground, you know, then I'd get a side light from there. And so I did stuff that I can't, I'm embarrassed to say, you know. So we had this very, very, very expensive tool.

And all we did is, you know, we sit down, down, down on the ground and turn them all on, ready to go, guys. You know, and then the rest was keynoes at the time, you know, that we hit behind tombstone so that as Milas walking through there, she has a little bit of light in her face. Yeah. Yeah, the keynote era is what I will call the keynote era is such a fascinating time in filming. Because I guess that's emblematic of what was happening in like the late. 90s, early 2000s, which was HMI, everything,

tungsten is too hot, put some kinos in there. Well put, yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah, those were good lights, you know. And now, of course, we in the same housings because they're still so great. We put our four foot, you know, LED units. And, you know, you close the door if you want to, you know, but, you know, any color you want, I mean, it's incredible.

the uh i actually i was just looking up uh snap bags for mine because i have the the diva 20 you know and i and i i would just like it to be a little bigger so i need to get one of those but i've been speaking of color meters the the keynote i've said this a few times on this podcast the kino flow LEDs are like the most accurate spectrally excellent lights you can get sky panels can't hold a candle to it um you know jeminize they're all great but the kinos are the best not as not as bright as i would like but But accuracy-wise and spectrally, they're untouchable. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, very, very smart people. You know, I don't know how they did that because they developed their own gases in there. And that's, no, this is great science. Oh, the tubes, yeah. No, I meant the LEDs. Oh, you're the LEDs? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Keno LEDs.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that stuff is great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, very true. Yeah. They were actually very nice. I had a set of those diva fluorescence for years.

And then I guess they've been they stopped making them, but they still need to repair them. So they've been hitting up people and going, hey, we know you have the fluorescence. Can you turn those in? It will give you a deal. Yeah. LEDs. And I was like, okay. And then they gave me an insane deal on like truly inside.

Yeah. Way below whatever sale they've ever had is. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'll take the LEDs then. Thank you. That's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, had another thought and it's going away. Do you have like a preference in the type of material you shoot?

Because obviously with, you know, Final Destination or any of these other kind of dark or grittier things that you've got on your slate, those are fun. But, you know, even Lucifer wasn't that dark looking of a show and certainly not. Oh, no. You know, I know. I know that. The scripts have to be good, and I love being surrounded by people that I enjoy going to work with. That's probably not enough for a DP to go to work. But if the script's interesting, I shoot a comedy, you know, if it's funny, if the situations are good, if the characters are good, if my personal preferences are more dramatic, more action, more thriller, you know, darker. Um, but, uh, in, in the end is, you know, I mean, Lucifer was fantastic. It was the best gig ever because of Tom Ellis number one, you know, being a dancer and a singer and British with the accident accent and, and then good looking and the nicest number one you can imagine, you know, knew everybody's name, always on time, knew his stuff. And so what a gig, you know. And then we would go out on location to some crazy places and it was still Brookheimer so we could fudson, labor fed with white lenses long lenses was a great gig and I was just enjoyable um but I also

get a little bored doing the same thing you know so at some point I want to do something else and and learn meet new people and have new challenges yeah who are uh who are some dPs that have inspired you recently some people who've kind of impressed here make you uh want to do better yourself. Oh my God. There are so many, you know, I mean, Eric Besser Schmidt, who are just watched on your, oh, there you go. And I think it depends on also what they're doing, you know, because not everything the famous DP does interest me or do I enjoy, but then I'll catch something, which is probably the subject matter. And so I don't know if I want to many names, you know, because there are so many that are so talented, you know, ladies and

and guys. Yeah. Yeah, even on that note, I've been, I've been fortunate enough to, I think, I'd like the number to go out, but I think maybe a third of the people I've interviewed on this podcast have been really talented women. Yeah. And especially, I mean, I've named her before, but Ellen Curris was just an absolute expert. Yeah.

I would love to have her back on and talk more because that woman is clinically, like, she knows the craft in a way that I doubt us a lot of people potentially don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not a highly technical person. You know, so she asked me, if you're going too far into technical details about cameras and the sensors and the processing and the CDLs and all that stuff and the Aces, and what it's all called. I like to surround myself with people who are very knowledgeable. I'd like to have a really good D.I.T. by my side, you know, who watches so I don't screw up, you know, so that I want to hear, you know, that we're exposing just a little bit too much because I'm always a little bit on the bottom of my exposure. I feel it looks more organic and nicer, maybe even if there's a subtle hint of noise or grain.

but I think if I have the right people around me I'm succeeding no matter what yeah do you find you know there's there's a lot of a discourse about how television and and films have gotten darker and I have my own theories about what's happening there but I was wondering have you heard of any of that and do you have any thoughts

on the ever dark because I think all DPs prefer I mean measure smit in his Instagram bio it says it's a quote and it says it's not dark it's rich you know i think we all yeah that way yeah that's pretty funny um i think you know with the streamers uh and and i'm not saying anything new um with HBO and so on and showtime and Netflix um having no in-house rules except maybe 4K you know which is silly but they have no rules on you know what it looks like but look how much contrast and how many silhouettes there are and if everything's blue then everything's And I think, and I'm, and I'm hoping that that has forced the networks to let loose a little bit, you know, and let us, and when we're on a network show, you know, push the envelope a little bit more.

And I think, I think we are when, when we're there, you know, to go a little bit more cinematic and theatrical on TV, which we should, you know, and I think that's where people like Brookheimer come in, where they're pushing the envelope. And, and they come to the DP and say, you know, why did you shoot? this way. I could have looked this one. It would have been backlit. And you're going, you're right. Yeah, I should have shot it back there. And so, yeah, but I, my senses always go a little darker, you know, and give it a mood. I think it just grabs your attention more than it's something that is flat and too bright. And, yeah, it's like, I can't remember. Someone said it somewhere, but like, if you speak softly, people lean in to listen. It's kind of the same thing visually, you know, it's a little dimmer people kind of. But I think, too, it's like, it's, A, I've watched the same thing, you know, on the streamer versus on a Blu-ray versus, you know, some, you know, on a different TV or whatever. And it's, even a bad TV with a Blu-ray is way more visually intelligible than a great TV with a poor internet connection. And I think that seems to be a lot of the issues. Try it down. People just aren't educated on their display. I mean, I'm a freelance colorist on the side and, like, having to learn all these different.

display things. Yeah, and it's getting worse. I mean, everybody comes out with different TVs and different technologies, and then you go to people's homes and they're not set up properly. And you're going, I feel so bad for you. This looks terrible, you know, and it's because you bought a very expensive TV with a new technology and OLED, OLED, OLED, or whatever it might be. And you got screwed, you know, you spent too much money on something that's not set up

properly. Yeah. And I don't know how we solve that, you know, because there should be something that adjusts everything before you take it home, you know, and of course that's not possible. Yeah. Well, even I've got a cheaper TV, but it's still very nice, but it is inexpensive. And it says like, ooh, it has Dolby Vision. And then I've watched the same content on that Dolby Vision versus like an LGC1 or whatever.

And I'm like, oh, okay, this is, we tried. This TV tried. Yeah, that's funny. You can give it the same title, but... Right, yeah. But, I mean, advertising is something that you shouldn't take so seriously, Kenny, you know? Yeah. The, uh, you kind of touched on it earlier, but speaking of, like, dark cinematography and stuff

and television is, is going back to the CSI thing. Like, a lot of that show, when it's not outside, you know, all the, all the labs are very dark. And I had seen in an interview or maybe you heard it that you were saying that, like, the look was the look and no DP who touched that show really. affected it you know they kind of stuck with the look but um i was wondering was that kind of cinematography easier on oh you guys switched to digital during your tenure didn't you yeah god you did your homework yeah so so what was that transition like because i imagine shooting film you know when it goes under it just gets dark but digital kind of gets grainy or maybe that wasn't the

case or it was very interesting so i was there from i think 2008 till 2015 till the end of the series And maybe 2012 or maybe 2012, I don't know, but CSI Miami and CSI know New York had gone digital long before us. And the showrunners, the producers, nobody wanted to switch from film because everybody was happy, you know, and finally CBS said, guys, come on, man, you know, everybody else can do it. You can probably do it too, and you must. and that then there was a dictate and so on my last episode of whatever season 12 or whatever I don't know I asked Ari to give me an Alexa and the first one and we shot simultaneously and then the next day went to post group or wherever our post house was at the time we did a split screen and I had exposed it like the film and you know obviously it was the same lighting that we had

done for years and years and slowly shoot the area Alexa had a cinematic look like film the only thing that was missing because it could hold all the highlights and could hold detail in the darks the only thing that was missing was that beautiful film film grain you know and so we're all going wow this is so close and then just because I asked the colorist to plug in some whatever 52 or 19 or whatever, some grain, and sure enough, we dialed it in a little bit, and we could not tell the difference. And so there was no more argument about saying, you know, we must shoot film because it's going to look better. And then the very first episode of the next season that I shot was digital, and I was a little nervous. And I didn't make any adjustments in lighting, though,

you know, because our little proof of concept told me that the camera can handle it. And sure enough, We had two Alexis on set, and the skin tones look beautiful, the faces look great, all the out of focus highlights now looked very similar to what we had done before, and we moved on and never looked back. Yeah, that show does have a lot of, like, little background blinkies and what do it looks like a lamp store, you walk in, you're going as a lamb store. What are you selling? Yeah. Were you guys putting just little, I saw someone, you know, on YouTube or whatever, was just for their own, they were talking. trying to like mimic the look. I saw this years ago, so I could be misremembering it. But they, but they basically would take button cell batteries and just get LEDs with like a little resistor so they would blink or stay and just tape them and just like place them around in the back. Was that kind of what was going on or were they all actually attached to stuff?

I would prefer if you didn't tell people that little trick. Oh, okay. Because that's what I do. Yeah, you really forget them when the lab were going, oh, we're almost lit, two cameras and all ready to go. And I'm going, holy shit, my little lights. this little box and I pull them out and I turn them on and have double stick and I run into the set and I'm going, okay, we're going to see this machine. I stick on on there. I'm going to see this machine. Oh, on the printer that can, you know, put them, blah, blah, blah.

And they're all going, geez, dude, why did you think of that earlier? And then I ran out. I was going, ready, guys, ready, let's roll. And as long as they're out of focus, you win, you know, when the actor walks to the machine and picks up the thing and you see the little thing that's sticking on there, you're going, what, why is that light sticking on there? So you've got to think a little bit where you put them. But when they're out of focus, it brings a set to life.

You know, if you're in a lab, oh, it works. Yeah. I think, I remember there's like an urban graffiti book I had that called them LED throwies. And if you, like, tape them in with a magnet, you can, like, chuck them onto bridges and stuff. And there's just a weird single light up there for no. Right. That's funny. Yeah.

Yeah. It is interesting to hear that you didn't change the lighting for those setups at all, though, because I feel like that's, maybe I have just received that answer. a bunch. But I guess in my head, film always has to be exposed more. But I guess what was kind of the average stop kind of in those sets? Because in my head, it's like a 1.4. No, it was a 2-8 because we used mostly the big Panavision zooms, not 24 to 250 or whatever there are. There are 10 to 12-bys, 12-by. And we were stuck at a 2-8 with the lighting as it was, with all the practicals and everything, 500 ASA, 2-8 was the widest we could open. You know, and so that was the stop.

And I, we used the same zooms then, you know, with PL-L mounts. And so it was a 2-8? And was that, was that over-exposing the, or not over-exposing, but was the, I guess, was the, were the lights set to 28 or were you, were you, the background, the background lights, I mean, the practicals were, whatever they were. And we would tip them up a little bit, you know, not too much, just a little bit. but you saw a sliver and they were overexposed and looked pretty, you know, like they had on film. And in regards to lighting, the exposure was the lighting on the actors and the little edges that were required.

You must have a backlight on a Brookhammer show. They were what they were. You know, they were not, it just worked. It just, I credit the camera. You know, we moved from film to digital. And I don't want to say we didn't learn anything, but, you know, it was easy. easy transition yeah yeah yeah what are some uh kind of um did you learn any like storytelling or or uh workflow type things from brockheimer working with them for so long um

i learned that taste you know and and we we have a good relationship where there's a friendly back and forth meaning um there's criticism but it's not you know why would you do the for example, their taste is not to see what they call an orb of a practical. So if a practical is tipped up too far and you see the whole round thing, it's just not sexy or elegant, you know. So at some point, you know, when the set deck people or drop people run in and they do things, now they tip them up or an electrician that is a guest electrician dips it up so we see it. And then we're rolling down, oh, shit, no, and I didn't see it in time. And so then eventually I tell everybody, okay, we're dipping them up a little bit, just so we sizzle. So there's a taste that they have, you know, in regards to long lenses.

You know, don't be a mediocre lens. When you can go to a longer lens, back up with the camera, go to a wider lens, go close, go low. And so, you know, it's stuff that we all, I think, understand and enjoy. And so I know their style and their taste by now. Same with color stuff. Every light is white. This is boring. You know, mix it up a little bit.

Yeah. It is, it is funny because like, you know, and we learned this was shooting DV, obviously, you know, they have to zoom in to get any separation and all that. And those little tricks that we learned prior to the DSLR era to make things look more, quote unquote, cinematic. All still work, but then people go, oh, good for you. You used a 100, you know, be bold. Dude on a 24. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a strange counterculture like that. Yeah. But no, it's okay. Do you do your thing? I do my thing. You know, I mean, in the end, you know, if you like your way better, you win, you know, and if I like my way better, I like, you know, I win. So, yeah. Two opposite approaches, uh, uh, Bruckheimer versus Chivo.

Yeah. Yeah, very true. Something to learn from everyone. Well, we're coming up on the hour, so I want to be, you know, cognizant of your time. But I'd love to have you back to talk about, I guess, the Final Destination film or anything, really. Yeah, because, yeah. But the way I end all these podcasts with the same two questions, but since you're not really promoting any specific. Or were you intending to promote a specific film?

No. Okay, yeah. The brief just said, like, here to hang out. I went, okay, cool. So I'll skip that. The second question, you know, a lot of times people ask, like, oh, what's the best piece of advice you got? And I find that the answer tends to be the same for everyone, or there's like 30 set

answered. So what's the worst piece of advice you ever got? Yeah. Yeah. I think when somebody says that a DP needs to be arrogant in order to be responsible. in order to be respected and feared and all that stuff. You know, I think you should be a team player. You should have a voice.

You should earn your respect. You know, but when somebody tells me, ah, the biggest and most famous and the best DPs, you know, come on the set and they yell and they scream and they stomp up, you know, their foot. And so that seemed fishy to me when I was starting out and somebody said that. And so maybe that works for some people,

but certainly not for me. You know, I think we're all team players. We're all working on the same goal. And, you know, I think we achieve it better if we're, you know, all in a good mood and they are prepared and just go for it. Yeah. I've actually heard people mention that. I feel like that, I feel like I've said the word era about 106 times in the past hour. But that age of like, like you're saying, like people coming on set and stomping their feet and trying to be feared versus respected.

I'm hoping that's going away because I've been on a couple sets like that and everyone from you know even the director of the AD they're like we haven't seen this side of this person and we're never doing this again you know yeah I think that's the quickest way to get fired these days or not call back at least not get called back I mean we have some directors or have had some directors in the distant past you know who also came on really strong and pretended to be somebody really big and fans and knowledgeable and superior to everybody else. And it just doesn't work, you know, because nobody wants to help them either because if you're staying away, you're not going to get yelled at, you know, so why not let the guy or woman do whatever she wants and then we wait, you know, until they tell us, you know. And so everybody's standing around, and so it's just, you know,

I like to be proactive. I want everybody to just be, you know, on the same team and just, and I love collaboration. I want the camera operator to tell me about what they're seeing, you know, So if I'm saying, so guys, we're obviously here because that's where the windows are. And then, you know, the big camera operator says, well, what if I stop it on the same way to the other side and cross the window? I'm going, holy shit, that's cool. Let's do that.

Yeah, so I always the same with the focus pullers. Sometimes the focus pullers are saying, you know, what if I react slow to the other person? That will be a dramatic moment. I'm going, you know, let's do a take like that. And sure enough, in the cut, you know, as we're wondering how the scene is developing, you know, we're seeing, you know, in the foregone, the eye. and the ear and it takes too long to get back there. And I'm going, shit, that's dramatic, you know. I would have never thought of that.

And so I want people to be, you know, to have fun and just think, you know, it makes me happy. And we usually come up with great stuff. Yeah. I mean, I started in theater when it comes to like creative stuff and, you know, photography and stuff too. But that always was the fun part for me, was the collaboration the end result is kind of like it feels separate it does you know the

i got into filmmaking to work with other people on the end product but the end product is just going to be what it is and hopefully it's the best version that it can be yeah but yeah people who want to come in and like no one fuck with my vision i'm like okay mr vision whatever have you know we're all here to serve you of course yeah well if you say that on a on a tv set the editor's going to fuck with your vision and you're going to end up with whatever you're going to end up because we have our dreams on set and we have our vision and we have our dreams and we're developing things and you know and then I watch it cut and we have 44 minutes we can't have 46 minutes because it's 44 minutes with the commercials you know to leave space and so and I'm going wow that moves fast and there's so much missing you know that that seemed cinematic and same production value wise and beef up everything It is not there because it's about the dialogue and we got to get going. So that is the advantage to the streamers is, you know, like something like succession or, you know, whatever, Mandalorian and or all these shows. I'm watching, well, I guess, yeah, Mrs. Davis, I was just watching because I've interviewed a couple of DPs for that.

Yeah. And yeah, one episode's 38 minutes, one episodes an hour and a half, one episode's 45 is just like, it's as long as it needs to be. But that's how it should be, you know. I'm surprised that the network still exists. Really, who watches TV with commercial breaks? And I mean, I think commercials can be really cool and fun to watch and exciting and inventive and blah, blah, blah. But who watches a storyline that's interrupted by commercials? I can't wrap my head around it.

Yeah, cool. I mean, they still exist. It's astonishing to me. And also, it seems like the classic, like if I think back to like Star Trek, you know next generation or whatever the act breaks that were that commercials broke like there was like a definite pause you know cliffhanger type things so you could mentally and now it just feels like like and here's a commercial yeah middle of a sentence there we go by Sharman yeah well you would have to it you know but in editing everything gets so chopped up and moved around that even if you did

write for that and created the cliffhangers they are not going to be there by the time it's cut but you know people people like watching tv so i'm glad for that you know and commercials fun to work on a lot of times a lot of place to no doubt about that you know no doubt about that you learn a lot and also you learn how much you can get into the specifics into the details you know to give you nightmares of course but also you know where somebody says in a pen should really be this way because I'm don't know but I've never thought about that and so it's a very different perspective you know when you're working on a commercial than on anything else yeah i actually have the i know we're just going on i'll let you go on a sec but uh the the the client notes

i think every filmmaker before they get on a set where like your reputation matters should have to do a bunch of commercials where you have ridiculous notes from clients that you're like i'm the viewer and i don't give a shit about this like yeah yes the client notes because that way once you deal with that you you know how to zen out when you get bad stuff uh on your plate you know i was uh an assistant on a bunch of commercials for a very high profile company in munate um owned by a dp and a and a producer director and um what i had never seen before was the clients were not allowed to walk onto the stage So we had cameras that could show what is going on.

And then, of course, we had a video tap. And that was a beautiful monitor. There was a kitchen with a fridge and a bar and a very comfortable lounge. And so they couldn't go in, you know, so they had to sit out there and have to give notes and comments to themselves until somebody came out and said, you know, so you guys, what do you think? And then we would have a huge lunch break across the street at an Italian restaurant. And so they were physically separated from the making of the commercial. And I thought, that's the way to do it, you know. I've actually, have you heard of that, especially giving them a bar too, so maybe they'll

chill out, have a couple of beers. Yeah, there was everything there. Have you seen the like frame I.O. camera to cloud stuff? Not in great detail. I know about it, though. So I've used it a handful of times. It's a very cool technology. but I was also thinking like you could theoretically because the clips are coming in as their shot you could have those clients they don't have to be on set they can just be at home on their laptop the clip comes in and then just like normal frame i.o they can type in the note they have

they can draw on it and then those are all just saved and then someone else on set can like review those notes and be like oh hey and there doesn't have to be any you know it's like an email where you can yeah rant and rave and rally against whatever you're reading but then you get to send back a very polite, thank you. We've noted these changes, Bobham, you know, have their clients on the other side of the world. Yeah, I was visiting Black Magic and they were introducing me to their version of it where you have a very, very live, you know, instantaneous playback, you know, all over the place. And I'm thinking to myself, this is a bad idea, you know, because then the executives and the producers and the writers and everybody's going to be, you know, watching stuff

life and they can like give note so i hope i don't get too close to that system yeah you know do you have like a i guess this will be a bonus question do you have like a working relationship with black magic because i think that's who must have linked us up um but uh do obviously i doubt they oh maybe they do i doubt they just like pay you to go promote their stuff but how did how did that relationship with them come about um i discovered their cameras cameras at some point And I started using them, you know, with the $40,000 cameras on set and realizing, holy shoot, you know, they're easy to use. They're the color science is, you know, wonderful.

The contrast, the range, the skin tones, they intercut well. And so I just, with John Perrin Toe, who represents them, just we become friends. And so, you know, I don't get paid. Jesus, no, no, no, no. But I just love using their gear, you know. And it is reliable. It just works, you know. And so that's really where this comes from.

You know, I love their gear. And when I see other people using, I think I can say the brand, like little Sonys and so on, which also make beautiful images. I always find that the black magics now have a more cinematic feel to me, to my, my eye. Yeah. Yeah. The, yeah, like the FX3, which is just an A7, in a different body and the

FX6 amazing cameras but there is something interesting about the Sony sensors and I don't include the Venice the Venice is its own amazing little scenario but they do tend to be kind of like

people you know shit on their color science but I think it's the issue is that it's too accurate and so it's not and like you know your Canon your black magic your ARI tend to give an inherent look right off the bat

obviously any camera you capture enough data you can manipulate it and post make anything look like anything but yeah it's like you'll hear skin tones a lot and I'm like it's not that they're it's actually more correct like on Sony I look very pink because I'm naturally very pink not here on my monitor you know oh yeah it's

yeah it's a canon it's a personal point of view for no no I mean no question but I just look at an image and I say that looks really pleasing you know like the Alexis the airy cameras it's just it looks good and and you can you would have to analyze it with an AI computer nowadays and to figure out what the distance is but just looks right you know and that's how I judge stuff well and the the black magic raw is just fantastic like so good to work within the grade yeah and i mean you know they're they have resolved they know what they're doing you know they they know how to process even in that little camera

body you know yeah that is the one thing i i do really enjoy the black magic cameras all i just want that now that the six k pro is a giant football i'm like just turn it sideways just make it i don't need it to be like this just like that and we're all good you know yeah yeah yeah but just a lot inside, I guess, you know, a lot of stuff there. Well, now they put NDs in it, which is a godsend. I, that's one thing I will not. I will no longer purchase a camera that doesn't have built-in NDs. I very much agree.

All right, red coming out with the Komodo, the Komodo accent, like, still no NDs. And this, this thing, this has a four-stop ND in it. Really? Yeah. And it, like, and this is a filter. So let's, you're telling me, you can't fit an ND in something that's, what, three inches long? Yeah.

Come on, come on, Red. That's incredible. Yeah. And you have to have it at the pace that we're all going on the set, you know, changing a glass filter, you know, for exposure is not a good thing, you know. So you must have built in Indies. I totally agree with you. Yeah.

Well, we'll pick this up next time you want to come by. All right. Get to dinner or some. But thank you so much for spending the time with me. It was a very, very lovely time talking to you. Kenny, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Okay, take care.

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. We really appreciate your support. And as always, thanks for listening. Thank you.