Frame & Reference Podcast - 114: "SAW X" DP Nick Matthews

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

I'm not gonna lie everyone, I've given this AI "summary" program quite a few tries the past few weeks and it's been total ass, so I'm just gonna say enjoy this fantastic conversation with Nick Matthews, the DP off "Saw X". I absolutely adored this conversation, he's a fantastic DP and a wonderful man, and it was a privilege to talk to him. --- NOW, a little inside baseball... I've been emailed too many times from this "podcast assistant" company about giving advice to them... so now having used their product (that I paid for) you tell me what you think of their work. Here we go: "Listen in as I'm joined by the talented Nick Matthews, the Director of Photography for Song X, as we journey through the evolution of camera technology in filmmaking. From the days of traditional tube cameras to the digital cinema revolution, we reminisce on the progression and reminisce on the good old days of stacking ND filters and metal tubes. As technology continues to evolve, we share our insights on how filmmakers are becoming more camera agnostic and how to maximize resources even with limited budgets. We continue our engaging conversation by sharing our experiences on transitioning from non-union to union work, discussing the nuances of false color and the unique approaches for DPs. Gearheads will love our chat about the gear I use and how I prove to people they'll love the results. We also fondly look back at the Nycore lenses and the T2i camera, which I bought as a hipster. We then move on to the essential aspects of workflow in shooting a scene, lens selection, and how a c500 can simplify the process. As we conclude our discussion, Nick and I explore the exciting world of film lighting and color palette. From discussing the challenges of incorporating glamorization techniques into cinematography to creating a unique color palette for films like Saw X, we touch on various aspects that go into creating a compelling visual narrative. We even discuss the emerging Chinese lenses in the market and the challenges of working with international crews. Lastly, we share our experiences in color grading, the importance of hiring a colorist whose vision aligns with yours, and how to build a successful filmmaking career." I'm sorry I subjected y'all to these show notes. I guess I have to do them myself. Again, I do this all for free, I've yet to recieve a cent for this show, so if one of you wants to be the first, you can support the show at www.buymeacoffee.com/FrameAndRefPod I very much appreciate it, and going forward we won't be using this AI nonsense. I won't mention the company because it wouldn't matter but it's Podium. Hey the chapters below were generated by them as well! --------- EPISODE CHAPTERS --------- (0:00:15) - Evolution of Camera Technology in Filmmaking (0:14:21) - Discussion on Camera Gear and Lenses (0:25:31) - Workflow and Lens Selection in Filmmaking (0:33:26) - Zoom Lenses vs Lighting in Film (0:37:11) - Film Lighting and Color Palette (0:46:32) - Lighting and Color in Saw Film (0:59:31) - Cinematic Techniques and Visual Approaches (1:08:48) - Learning From Shooting Film (1:21:37) - Finding Colorist and Building Filmmaking Career ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, Candy McMillan, and you're listening to episode 114 with Nick Matthews, DP of Saw X. Enjoy. It's like they've been doing yeah like they I remember when the first like black magic cinema camera came out and I was like okay like you know because I the one that was the screen with the lens mount yeah and like yeah because they're I mean yeah this is like the very specific like camera in terms of camera technology like I started shooting one it was like I think my first camera. cameras I was using were like the Z1U like the so wow yeah yeah okay yeah somebody like HDV where I was like they had like a line skipping and like you know but it was pretty early and then the XL1 the XLH one the XLH one the I still have my XL2 in the closet yeah yeah oh my god like the HX 200 the very first cameras I ever touched were like Ikegami like the tube you know yeah

Yeah. And then like, because I used to work for, I worked for a religious organization when I was in high school and college. And they did a lot of like promo things and shit like that on those kinds of cameras. And that was kind of where I started playing with cameras. And then when the DSLR revolution came out, you know, sort of happened. And like suddenly I was in, I just finished college at the time. And I remember being like, holy shit. This is crazy. You know. And at the time, it's like the red one, like the red M and the red MX, like those were kind of happening. And so everything was sort of, yeah, there was so much transition. And like, I'm one of those people that did like start in a digital cinema was like really starting to take off. Right. And so I never had the opportunity to shoot on film except for I've had three opportunities.

I've shot on it on 16. One was, you know, I was in high school. and someone had an old like Canon Scoopic camera, which is like, it's, yeah, like Vietnam War era technology, they're designed to be used in war photography. So it's a really easy loading system. You can do it like a solo and you can do it in under, you know, under gunfire. And then a couple years ago, a friend of mine, I was like, no one's going to let me shoot on film until I do it. So, right. I was like, if you have a music video or you have something come up or short or like you want to do something on spec like let's shoot something on 16 and that we had this

music video with this you know this indie rock band it was all like it was a narrative there was no performance in the video and we're like cool let's toss our rates in you know i think we had 10 000 total so it was like all right we'll put in like neither of us will make any money we'll hire good crew, you know, we'll do everything else we need to do and then make something on 16. And yeah, so I've had a couple of those experiences. But both of them were great learning experiences. But it was weird to kind of reverse engineer like shooting on digital, being really familiar with like zebras and false color and wave forms and histograms and those being like the ways in which I started to understand like darkness and how I shot. And like I remember very early on being like,

oh, with digital, if I blow it out, like, it will look horrible. You know what I mean? And so I got really in this space of like, let's start with like shooting images with a certain level of darkness and kind of etching images out of the darkness. So it's like on those old cameras where they weren't, you know, full frame sensors and they weren't like APS, you know, C size sensors or 35 millimeter size sensors. You would stack the ND, you would shoot longer lens and you would open up. Or, you know, I never was a cool enough kid to have the, like, those like lettuce or, oh, yeah, there was like the Red Rock.

We've talked about these a lot on the podcast. There's a lot of people who, like, I don't know if we look back fondly on them, but we've all been like when we're talking, you know, old men screaming at clouds. It's always like, you don't know how hard you had it. We had to take a DVX 100 and put about a mile and a half of metal tubes on the front. Yeah. And then the results were some part, you know, at the end of the day. Like, they, yeah, you lost like four stops of light. Yeah.

Yeah. So it was like a big, I don't know, like, that's always been a weird thing. Now I'm like, I am not. I mean, I do care about cameras, but I am a little more camera agnostic. And I just think the technology has gotten so good. You know, I have my preferences. But at the same time, like, the last three movies I've shot, I did. I shot this movie in Georgia that just came out called Mabland.

It's got John Tramolta, Stephen Dorf, was one of those, like, very much a movie made by, like, a company that does direct to video type movies, and we're like, how do we elevate this and make this something more? But in the process, you know, it's a $5 million movie being made in 11 days, and I think we did shot three days' splinter unit, you know. But as a result, like my camera decisions were, A, like what was affordable because we were shooting in Atlanta and gear in Atlanta goes were higher value because the market is pretty saturated. Yeah, super. And also, yeah, there's just actually not as many rental aisles as you would think.

And so we flew gear in from L.A. for that movie. And we were shooting on mini LF with easy zooms. And then we had Black Wings, which when we got into some of the night work, we had to flip to those. And then we matched in an Alexa Mini as our C camera to that with the set of standard speeds. But then that was just, you know, I've tended to shoot on airy products just because I'm very familiar. I know the color science. But then when I got on to Saw, we had a 4K capture mandate on that as well.

And at the time, this was back in, I shot, we shot principal photography for Saw X in November, October, November. November, and then we shot in January, February, because the prosthetics were not going to be finished in time for us to shoot in the first half of the shoot. So we ended up pushing, basically, we went down for December, and then we came back and wrapped the movie. And on that, so I was shooting in Mexico City, and the availability of cameras and the availability of lenses became a determining factor because we had the Vennists and the Venice 2, you know, those were options we looked at. The Venice 2 was very unavailable and pretty expensive.

DLX and Mini LF was available, but the lens options for it were very unavailable. And we were on Saw X, we were very much looking for a vintage quality glass. We wanted something that, you know, Even though we knew we were going to be shooting digitally and we knew that we were going to be shooting Forte, we wanted to turn back to the earlier films, which were shot 35 millimeter. They're gritty, they're dirty, they're grimy, they're textural. There's a bit of a, you know, they make you feel like you want a tetanus shot. And so for us on the movie, it's like, how do we bring that in knowing who we're using a digital sensor?

And so for us, it was like, we shot on a set of the cook classic eye, pink rose, however. The naming convention of that set of lenses is so terrible. But lenses in general don't have great, until you get to like the black wing or like the hogs or whatever. It's like, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

But those like, you know, they're my speed, pankrow super. You're like, who makes that? Yeah, like great. You know, they're modern glass in terms of the design and the, like the quality control. But then the aesthetic of it is vintage. And so, like, I did a bunch of tasks

to show Kevin Gert, the director, And I showed, you know, I did, I showed him a ton of different, like, large format lenses. Nothing quite spoke to us in the ones that did we couldn't afford. And so even though, you know, this is a franchise movie, these are, I mean, this franchise is started from, like, something that was very much in this, like, $1 million range. Obviously, the movies have gotten bigger than that, but these are not $100 million movies. These are movies that are being made, you know, we still couldn't afford to.

set the lenses. We had two venuses. The main reason we settled on the Venice was Global Shutter was an issue, you know, was a thing we wanted. 4K capture meant everything but the Vary Cam, the Mnielas, the red, which I just haven't used the red in so long. And there's still, the Raptor's nice, but they're still. Yeah. Yeah, and they just have, you know, they're not for everybody. And for us, the Venice made sense because single stop N.D. Also, we wanted to shoot at higher ASAs and start to bake in some grain as well, which that could have been done on the MidiLFs or the Venice. But ultimately, it came down to we could get Super 35 lenses on the Venice in a way that

was going to work better for us than on the MIDILS. And so that veered our decision making. And we ended up using a prolescent one for that film. And we filtered it. It's great. You know, we added Green Impost, but we shot mostly at. 2000 a essay and you know and that's an example of like okay that's a 4k capture mandate we shot it in 4k but then i wrapped saw in a month later i was in georgia shooting another movie so i had like

a string um which was really exhausting and really great and then the right the strikes happened and i've been pretty dead and you're like nailed it like oh cool like yeah it's great sitting around um because i just you know i do commercials but i'm not I wouldn't say, I'm not, I'm somebody who sometimes gets to do commercials and I've been able to do movies. And so, like, it's, and it's still an arena that I would love to play more in. But, um, yeah, and this last movie, it was my second feature with this director I had done a horror movie for shutter with, which the shutter movie, you know, we had 18 days. It was $600,000. We shot it on the mini and we shot a sort of super speeds and sent me as a black magic as our B

camera. Um, this movie that we did in Georgia was, you know, four or five million tier one union film bigger toys you know we had condors and 18Ks and we shot but we still ended up shooting on two Alexa minis we shot on a set of Hawk the lights and then you know we ran two cameras similarly couldn't afford to lend sets from the run of show like we just had to make you know once that work and so you know and that's an example like we didn't have a 4k capture man, they, you know, we knew that shooting every raw and like highest resolution, which I think is like 3.2K or 2.8K and anamorphic. Oh, anamorphic. I think you're right. I think it's 2.8. Yeah, but the blowup is like something we weren't worried about. You know, we shot it. Yeah. And we shot it all at 1600 ASA. And it's like, you know, knowing that we could like, we'll deliver and sell the movie and it'll end up on streamers and whatever. Um, and. And, And so that's where I'm like, yeah, the camera technology has gotten to a point where, you know, there is, there are advantages, like the Venice is heavier, the Venice is a little bigger. But at the same time, like, you know, if you're doing stuff like with flashing lights or you're doing stuff with where you're doing like a lot of daytime exteriors, there's advantages to that camera system, you know.

So we didn't use Realta mode very much on Saw just because we similarly, it costs more to have Rialto mode available all the time. Yeah, it's like an expensive little cable, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, and there's the timing it takes to break the camera. So, like, even on something like, you know, we were running two cameras for most, like, all those shoots I just mentioned were two camera shoots and they were pretty much running two cameras nonstop. So, like, we did not have the luxury of shooting with a body that then we would break a body off. We still did that a few times or it's like, hey, we're going to steady cam. like let's drop this body and like how to start prepping for like 15 to 20 minutes and then

you know that kind of thing we would do in order to speed our transition time up but in general it's like no like you're lighting and shooting for two cameras most of the time um yeah i don't know so like i think we're in a really like fortunate space now where there are a lot of great digital options and then at the end of the day like it still does come down to the right color is or the right amount of time with the right colorist no matter the like you know in Mexico City

I didn't have my DIT on much before the shoot I think we were doing makeup and hair tests on a Saturday before we started shooting on Monday and I'm like this was enough time for me to change the luts you know

and so like our lot for socks was fan I had only tested it indoors I'd not got a chance to test it outdoors and it just didn't work outdoors And so, like, we, you know, it's like, I'm operating a camera, I have a B camera operator, and I'm trying to also work my DIT to finesse the lot. And you're just like, okay, I just need to know, like, in the grade,

have I blown anything out? And like my brain with that camera, too, it's like the false color on the Venice is a different, like, color palette than on the Lexamine. And so for a while, I was like, oh my God, am I severely under? exposing this image because the like the color of blue is so close to their color of purple for like different IRA but anyway yeah is like does the venice use the lockman zones i don't even remember at this point i think it's like to say EL yeah i don't say i don't only reason i ask this i get to interview that guy uh you know like a couple weeks really not

because he just shot something but i was i was like i didn't occur to me that like a dude like normally like something like false color you imagine was an engineer but it's like the end it was but then there's ed lockman who was like no no no this needs to make sense for dPs so he like made his own version that various camera companies have started to implement um really i didn't realize he it because i love i mean obviously like carol's great and some of the like his other films have been like it's just like so stunning yeah yeah that's interesting yeah I didn't realize that.

I think the Alexa does it. I think the Venice. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, just like those are really, to me, those are such like because I came from doing like smaller like, you know, it's my first lighting sort of started with like just me and a camera. And it's like it's gotten bigger over time and there's been more pieces involved. And like even this shift from being non-union to union has been like a transition for me. Um, and so like, yeah, like every, like there are certain just rhythms and expectations and

sort of approaches that become, you know, you know, you're a C500 back and forward. You know what I mean? You know where the buttons are. You know like, oh, if I hit this hot key, like it's going to take me to this sort of a thing. And those, to me like learning the gear is actually like so much of that. When I started my career, it was, that was a big part of my thinking and my time and my process now like my testing and my interest in gear it exists but it's very much like I want this to be that like that thing that happens in the background that I don't consider and need to consider um and this is just like you know it's like when you're you it's like I know how to you know how to do addition and now we're in like physics class like you're not thinking about

that sort of minor computation that's right and I feel that way with gear but every time you use a new piece of gear it's sort of like there are idiosyncrasies and stuff like that that you're sort of figuring up and picking you know picking up along the way it's definitely something that like it's hard because um like you were saying like most people don't actually use canon stuff um and i'm always having to be like because i'm a freelance colorist as well so i'm work on all my own stuff and so i always have to be like trust me you're gonna like the way this looks you know and especially paired with like these guys uh i know you mentioned it online but the uh yel a i s yeah yeah uh nikors i want uh i want these to get rehoused so bad but it's going to cost me

like 20 grand so that's not for i know i've been looking at the i haven't shot anything on them but i've been looking at because i know there's a couple people who upset that are yeah rea and i'm so curious because i used to shoot on them a bunch they're and i own it. Yeah, they, I think it's the perfect, you know, when people were really getting horny over the K-35s, I was just like sneaking the Nikors on a set because I'm like, it's not, like the K-35s almost go a little too, too much of a look. Like if you want that great, but when some people are like, I don't know, we just kind of like they weren't married to this idea of having such a strong look. Like the, the Nyquors are that perfect balance between vintage, but all. also sharp and like high quality and whatnot because yeah the only weird thing about those lenses they do like the focus wheel is reverse yeah which i don't know if something they can change if you get them housed if they're they can't what yeah my my buddy who runs zero optic has rehoused a bunch of them and that is one thing they do is they swap the focus yeah well i mean zero up

yeah i mean they're one of yeah exactly them and like there's one other company i'd seen that but i was that's something I've always been, I've wanted to use some of those because I also think I just would love to see them on 16 or I love to see them on like 35 and there are the couple DPs in the UK that I've seen doing work with it and I'm just like, that's so stunning. The bulk is great. Yeah.

There's a lot of things I love about those lenses. Yeah. My first set of lens I ever really was shooting with that was like not just like a 24 to 105s can't, you know. Right, right. ones were the night the nightcore you know like that series of like those still ends and they just yeah they're there's something pretty special about them you know what's funny is so i i i know you were saying like your first cameras are those the camcorders same here but then i got that xl2 and then you had mentioned off camera about the the t2i which i don't know what how that i think everyone was just really stoked on the 5d and then the t2 i was affordable but like everyone i knew had a t2 i and my dumbass, which was just hipstery from the beginning, bought a Nikon D90 because it was the first camera to get video. So I thought that was cool for some reason. And it did 24p because the 5D at

the time only did 3rd. And I thought 24P was like, I was like, this is the real, this is real cinema. So and you know, and you weren't going to post post conversion was like way hard. He had to do pull downs and shit. But I had all these Nyquors. My uncle sold me. his F2. So I had all these NICORs ready to roll. And I never thought to use them. It's the same mount. But like when I was using the D90 to shoot stuff,

I was always using the like 18 to 55 Sigma Zoom. Like at the time lenses were not like, well, I was a fucking college student and I was focused on other things. But, you know, Evan. Yeah, I mean, I think there's also so much to like, you know, you just learn so much in the process. And like you learn so much as you continue to make things and grow and like that affects what you do in the future. And, you know, I probably still shot more like pieces of work on the superspeeds than any other pieces or glass, you know.

And like even the very first short film I ever did outside of college was like, you know, right at max on. And it's like maybe there's something I like about them. And also, they were fast and pretty cheap and had a great look, you know what I mean? And I think that's kind of been the fun aspect of the like continuing to get to shoot and continuing to get to test is like, for me, like most modern glasses pretty much you can put them all in the same category, like handle most of the world the same way. Like I know there are minor differences. And it's like you're obviously like if you shoot on a master prime versus like a, you know,

you're going to get different looks. But at the same time, like, there are a lot, you know, it's a fairly minor difference between a lot of this, you know, a lot of this, like, very modern glass that's very clean and very, like, perfect. And then getting a chance to play with those vintage lenses and some of the newer lens that, you know, modern glass that's been designed to peel vintage. Yeah. I remember. So, like, you know, everyone again talks about the vintage lenses and wanting a look and all this. And so I remember when we were at Sinegear, I was talking to a guy who put put up a lens test. You know, it was like all the major lenses. And then I think I could be editorializing here, but I think they wrote down what they thought would be their favorite. And then it was a blind test.

And then they wrote down what their favorites actually were like in order. And apparently across the board, CP2s. Wild. Everyone thought the CP2s was. And I, that shocked me because I always thought those things. were like CA monsters but yeah and I watched a couple lens tests recently and I think what happens is when you just get like the same image back to back to back to back you very quickly become annoyed with imperfection you know oh I can see some CA there oh the contrast is a little

low there and then like a really nice sharp thing pops up and you go oh yeah I can see that and then it ends up being a master prime a CP2 uh Nycore like whatever you know one of those kind of more modern sharper lenses yeah i think kind of and and like you know solex was my first like first movie that was made under the umbrella of a studio and also like is a franchise because like mobland is a lion's gate release but it was made without a lot of involvement from anyone and then essentially like i think a distribute you know it's like a distributor sells it to Lionsgate and then it's sort of like a co, like a released right now or something. That's the Lionsgate MO, baby.

Yeah, exactly. And then whereas Saw, I mean, technically saw, I think, you know, when it was produced, I think it's, they discussed it as an independent production, but it's like, you know that it's a Lionsgate property. You know that it's going to release under the Lionsgate banner. And so I still had no studio involvement in terms of like setting the looks. watching anything, like there was no, even the only person that watched any of the lens tests were me and Kevin the director. And it's like, you know, the two of us in a room

ultimately on a laptop because, you know, the time was so compressed. And then you're, you know, you sort of end up in this situation, I think, where it's like, you're sort of like, I'm watching this like two hour test that I shot. And I don't even know if I can discern. we tell the difference between some of these. You know what I mean? And I'm having like, it's hard to get a director's attention. You know, they don't have a lot of time. So inevitably what ends up happening is you have to just like scan through it very

quickly with them and be like, this is what I resonated with. What do you resonate with? You know, and then eventually you're just like, you're sort of like, I think for us, the big decision started with, I think I did four different camera tests. It started with shooting on the Venice and the Alexa mini. or the MIDI at last, and then looking at three different lens sets on each of them. And then the next time we tested like, you know, four or five sets on the Venice because we had kind of settled let's go with Super 35 with the Venice. And then I was testing once we

settle on a set of lenses that I was testing filters and like like literally just like gels, you know, or like you had a sky panel set up and then a 5K with, you know, a variety of gels. And so I was testing those in order to see how they would fall. And also so I didn't have a DOT on at the time. So I could build my Lutz with specific colors already built. But it's, you know, that's the sort of thing where I'm not like a bits and like I'm not like a zeros and ones like sort of person. Like looking at a chart doesn't do anything. Oh, it doesn't help anybody.

It's great for building Lutz to match cameras. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like actually looking at them. I'm like, no, I actually want to just like go shoot a scene. And then I'll know, like, oh, this works or this doesn't work. You know what I mean? Yeah.

It's like I'm looking at like Christmas lights and a lamp and some like charts. And I'm like, I don't. Those are this. Yeah, no, those are only good for lens tests. Yeah. And that and like for objectively looking at like, okay, that's how a point source will flare. That's how, you know, you can. And I don't even really think you need a color chart, but if you don't put one in,

people are going to call you an idiot but like a great a great card we'll just tell you uh how the lens skews you know yeah but uh oh but oh that's what i was going to say about the c 500 actually was like convincing people to use it i'm like it's it's easier to use this camera than other cameras a because i just know it but b like you're saying at a certain point all these cameras are so nice it comes down to workflow like the bits and bites don't quite matter when everything is looks so good it it comes down to what's easy to you, you know, if you've got five lenses in front of you and they all kind of look the same, it's like, all, well, which ones are all geared in the same place and

like aren't going to shatter on me or like maybe, you know, are just the least expensive, you know, I think all those workflow is, what's that quote, you know, like experts talk about logistics? You know, the amateurs, amateurs talk about something. Experts talk about logistics. Another quote. It's some military general was just like, yeah, you know, when you're younger, you talk about, like, the translation would be like gear and focusing on that. And then when you're an adult, it is logistics. It's figuring out how to get the thing done with the correct result while still maintaining ease of work workflow. Yeah. I mean, even like, I think that's been something that steered me away from like, you know, even on saw, I would say that I steer. away from actually vintage lenses partially because the time it takes to switch a lens. And also, like, my camera team, for the most part, there was stability within the camera

department, but we did have people shift in and out. And, like, you know, we did have a shutdown from COVID on that movie. So you also need gear that, like, a variety of individuals can show up and know how to use them work. And even on, like, this last We made it at Bone Lake in Georgia. It's a erotic horror thriller. We wanted a really strong look. Dark and I both love the Hawk V lights. Yeah.

But part of why we aimed for the V lights was there's a 55 millimeter macro in that set. But unfortunately, in Atlanta at the time, that was unavailable. And we were going through Keslo, and I'm sure they had it. But, or if they didn't, they could sub rent it. But when you're talking about running a set of lenses of that expensive, because the hawks are just pretty expensive. Yeah. We were running into issue, like,

we ended up having to carry specialty lenses for a lot of the movie, and we couldn't. And frankly, we ended up, after like a little bit of shooting, I ended up carrying a 14 millimeter spherical lens because we were doing enough multi-axis moves in a house that the wide angle anamorphic lens with a three-foot, close focus was killing us on these, like, push and pull out, move, you know?

And it's like a long take that you can't, and like we can't afford it. And frankly, anamorphic is giving us very little in terms of like there's no real. I mean, it's the widest angle animorphic in the set, whenever it is, a 28 or a 35 or 32,

I don't remember. But it's like whatever that lens was giving us, it's like, no, it's giving us a little bowing and some boca occasionally, but not really. Like it's a wide angle. It's on toast.

Yeah. So ultimately, Yeah, so we just decided, you know, I was like, I need a 14 that I can just carry, you know what I mean? And not like fight like when we want these big wide angle masters, like we'll crop it and post and like we'll get the shot. You know, so even on that, it's like we spent all this time and energy and resources to get a very, you know, get the hawk in a more of excuse me used to, I think we used to Hollywood Black Magic One, you know, with that. And then, like, they were pushing for a very specific, specific distinctive look. But ultimately, at the end of the day, like, both on that movie and saw, I carried extra lenses. On saw, I carried a 200 millimeter at 180.

And I also carried a 12 millimeter. And it's like, there were enough times that I was like, I want this or I need this, you know, and that we've just carried them the whole show. And same like, like, by the lake, we carried a pro blends the whole show. So it was like, nice. We're doing enough, like, yeah, we do some weird, fun pro blend stuff on that. movie that I can't wait for people to see, which was difficult to like because it's a T-13. Yeah, I was going to say as I look at the 11 or whatever.

Yeah, so you're like, but yeah, like, you know, I had enough manpower and firepower that we could do that on that movie. And I think I told the director after that movie, I was like, I'm not sure I'll shoot on the locks again for a long time because the amount of challenges we had with if using diopters and class focus was deeply challenging. and restrictive. And at a certain point, you have to say, well, you know, I've seen the movie and I'm like really happy with the way it looks, but then it's like, is there another set of lenses that we can get this with? Or is there something that we're not fighting the close focus of so much? You know, I mean, I'm talking almost every shot we did was a diopter involved. And it's

just painstaking when you're trying to move quickly, to constantly have the diopter be in it out. And there is a precision involved, which there is something I really like about that, which is like, you know, you can't, especially if you're using a diopter, you have a set range of focus. So like, there is a precision involved in that that's nice where you're like, this is the shot. But, you know, this was still the movie, the, even though the first movie I'd done for Shutter was 18 days with this director. Her name is Mercedes Bryce Morgan. And then this movie I did with her was 18 days, you know, 60 weeks.

We just had a lot more money. So we scaled up in terms of what we could do and how we could do it. But, you know, ultimately, like, speed was still on the essence. And it is on every project. And I do think if you let speed be the only determining factor, you know, you could end up. Everyone would be like, Zoom lenses on, you know, the fastest possible camera. And I'm like, that's not necessarily the look for every movie, you know, and, and especially because most zoom ones can't open up past a two eight, there is something special that happens

out of two or one three that a zoom lens just can't replicate. But, you know, I mean, sometimes it's just the right way to go. Yeah, the last zooms tested those, um, Tokina zooms, the Vista zooms and those are, those are quite nice and then um i don't know where they are um laua sent me the ranger full frame zooms yeah uh and i'm noticing that all of these chinese companies are are suddenly coming out with really great lenses but don't you know like the the ranger zooms are great you know they open up to a two eight i believe full frame um geared nicely very lightweight little long but certainly no character in you know they're like optically perfect there's a little

c a but like optically basically perfect you know they don't breathe or anything um and that that's great for a lot of reasons but sometimes you do want a little something that a zoom doesn't quite give yeah i i did want to ask about lighting because you know in a movie like um uh shit what was the the john travolta one you said bob lones yeah yeah it's called american metal and the distributor changed the name and we were just like what the fuck yeah like the metal is so much better and mablin yeah about far far done i was i was the second unit on this one movie that went through like we're we were filming it and then uh the director ed was like i don't i don't know what this is actually going to be called they keep changing it and it ended up being

detective night and then there was like three there's three of them but uh we thought it was going to be called like third night or something like that in any case um it was a bruce willis film uh well with brandon talks shoot that or was it uh he did yeah yeah yeah they well they i interviewed brandon uh his podcast i think is coming out this week or next week oh yeah um as the time of this recording people yeah um because what happens is that i end up interviewing if i interview four people in a month that's the month right but sometimes like it's award season i end up interviewing i end up interviewing 15 people. Yeah.

And then it's like, well, when's this episode coming out? Like, I know, I know. Like, but I'm not, if I dump them all in one month, we don't have things for people to listen. You know, I want the audience to have something to come back to every week. Anyway, lighting. So, mobland, a little more naturalistic versus something like Saw, which obviously I have not seen Saw, but the, your Saw X. but I was wondering like what kind of

cause saw in in a lot of ways all about kind of I guess extravagance like it is it is out there you know every everything the first film was such in like an indie darling and then it was like what if we just murder everyone in the grossest way possible and everyone was like jazz and so

talk to me about the kind of like lighting the approach to the lighting that film and like some of the fun things that kind of gave you the fizzies when you were able to really lean into that potentially genre and the specific style of saw. Yeah, so for a film like Moblin, I like, you know, I designed a visual style guide for that movie and it's very much was pulling from naturalism.

We're looking at images from Larry Clark and Gordon Parks and a bunch of these sort of photographers as well as looking at, you know, movies like Placed Down the Pines and Donnybrook and, of course, no country for old men and stuff like that. And so for us, like Mobland does have like a much more heightened naturalism to it. Um, it's practical lighting. It's natural lighting that, you know, it's existing ambient light that were shaping and stuff like that. For a film like Saw X, I was brought in with, you know, part of the immediate conversation was the last two saw movies spiral and jigsaw deviated

from what the franchise had done. Um, they were two, three, five. They were cleaner. They were more blockbuster in terms of the style, aesthetic, and the feel. And part of what Kevin and myself wanted to do was, how do we walk into this film? It's set between Saw 1 and Saw 2. Yes.

Yeah, so it is, you know, obviously the actors are older and we're not doing the aging techniques. Where, you know, we are, it's, it's, that was a big question and conversation for me, which is like, you know, how much do I try to glamorize, photographically, these actors to look at a certain age versus, you know, it's got a man done in it, it's got John Kramer in it, versus accepting that the audience has to make that, you know, that a mental cheat and be like, okay, these people are

20 years older than they were and that is what it is, and we accepted this and stuff between one and two. We bought it with like Obi-Wan and shit. People are willing to. Yeah, exactly. And also, like, the Irishman has a bit of a deep fake quality to the whole movie that, that is a bit crazy and weird and all-putting. And even though, you know, some amazing filmmaking. And so we knew we weren't going to have that kind of post-production funds. So part of the vintage quality of the lens is part of that, yes, that's also a factor that we're considering.

And so for the federal one probably. Exactly. But ultimately, like, it gives us like this ethereal quality where it's blurring. You know, it's sort of blooming the highlights. It's, it's, and there's a deep, like, deep falloff in this movie, really sharp contrast, really, you know, heavy, thick contrast. So very dense blacks, very, and we knew we were going to sort of, for us, the world of Saw was something that has a lot of Gialo colors that, you know, I sort of described Saw as like seven by way of a new metal video. Like, there's a lot of it, you know, everything has a bit of an exclamation point to it. And so the color in the movie, I wanted the color in this movie to sort of, you know, speak to the touchstones of Saw 1, you know, the original Saw 2 and Saw 3.

Like I looked at those movies. I looked at the color palettes of those movies. And inevitably those movies came out at a time where Di was sort of becoming a thing like this is early 2000s. they really pushed the the D.I. and the grade, like, extremely far on those movies. The memory of the first saw was very blue, very contrasty. Yes.

Yeah. Very grainy. Yeah. And that's accurate. And then two has this very, like, ochre yellow, rhino, rusty yellows,

jaundicey kind of colors throughout it. And there's, you'll find in some of the traps in saw one, like the bear, the reverse bear trap. You'll find like the razor, wire trap, where it's like the guy inside that razor pit, those are very like arsenical green, very like, you know, a very rusty, dark, weird kind of green. So I was taking those colors

and looking at them. And then our production designer, Anthony Stably, and the director, Kevin, and I were all looking at those colors and talking about our palette. In Saw X, you know, the script, and this much is available even in the trailer and sort of online right now, there's you know the film sort of follows john kramer it takes his point of view it's very much set in his world and it's subjectively in his space um it follows his emotional story he is the protagonist of the film and so the camera work and the lighting also bends to that and in our movie it's like john kramer starts in the u.s he discovers the possibility of a kind of cancer treatment that is experimental and not, you know, being performed in the U.S.

And so he ends up going to Mexico in order to get this experimental cancer treatment. In the process of that, he ends up discovering that he's been scammed. And then, you know, the people that have scammed him, you know, become a part of this, these trap sequences. So in our world, we sort of are playing with, there's really a, the movie starts in a very just dramatic character drama. sort of fashion. You know, we're with him.

We're a part of his world. We're using monochromatic silvers and blues and whites and grays for our U.S. And then when the movie ends up in Mexico, we're leaning into those golden colors, those lush greens. We're leaning into these kind of maroon crimpsons, these golden colors. And then once the scan starts to happen, we sort of, you know, we arrive at like a very beautiful, like, sterile white. and you'll see it in the trailer, like there's these sterile kind of clinical whites, you know,

within this sort of this cancer surgery that's happening. And so the movie kind of arcs into this moment where it's like the most like clinical neutral palette and then it arcs out of that. And as it kind of moves from this, you know, this sequence and we have to figure out what is the most saccharine like version of saw? Like what is the most like, you know, what is the brightest, most cheery, like, high key virtual songs, the other than it is are in the trailer, even. You know, and it's, it is how we light it. It is like, once we sort of, you know,

the movie still has deep shadows. It's light sort of, you know, pinpricking into darkness. It is kind of like etching things, images out of the blacks, you know, it is sort of pervasive, right? And then the question is, how do I work this palette that's, then Deltzance will design. It is also in the wardrobe into the lighting itself. And so I'm looking at, okay, well, you know, before things shift in the movie, it's more gold and yellows.

And when they shift, they're more ochre and more like, you're specifically using an Oklahoma yellow. It's something I played on the very first movie I did and I just love the look of it. So this is actual gels, not the, not the gels in the sky panel. It's both. Whatever. Um, yeah, it's both. Like, ultimately most of the movie, like, takes, you know, once this scam sort of happens and, you know, the abduction sequences happen. Um, the abduction sequences for me, like, I sort of saw the movie as happening in three-dimensional color space. So every scene has a primary color that is playing over top of the scene within the background. We're working in accent colors and we're working tertiary colors within that. And then we're using some degree of, of like keying and filling to sort of play with those palettes. So and I knew that even though in the in this course of the movie and most of the

traps are set within a scene, you know, a main game space, I would say, which is typical of most of the saw movies. I didn't want every trap to have the same look across the board because you're talking about maybe two thirds of the movie or half the movie all playing out, you know, in a certain sort of trap space, right? And so, for me, what that meant was if we jump into the mindset of John Kramer, I know I'm having to shoot 360. I know I need to think I'm going to see everything. So I need to design a world that we can set cameras inside of that has dimensionality, that has, you know, darkness and depth and gravitas to it. And so for me, what I did was we sort of designed a base lighting for the warehouse and for this

main trap space, which is industrial fixtures, it's in, you know, all industrial housings. I worked with the set decorator and the art director as well as a production designer to design what those would be. And so what I did was I took the space. I threw it in Photoshop. And part of the challenge is the sets are not built into the space until later on the process because you need approval from producers and director.

You need, you know, it's a big spend, right, to do all that kind of construction and all that sort of work. So I'm only seeing all those set builds later in the process. And I'm still having to think about how I'm going to light it in advance because I have to rent gear. I have to rent all the tools and know what I need. In our case, it was a giant warehouse where in Mexico city and I basically tented all four sides of the warehouse. We put sky panels and maxibruits and you know, around the edges of the house, like, or around the edges of the warehouse, like, you know, and they're sort of designed to push light in, and they're kind of my background layer. Then I am lights uplighting and doing lighting around the edges of the space.

I've got like green and sort of industrial, like, they're not puck lights, but it's Astera, you know, AX1s or X3s or X5s. Have you heard of light hydrop panels? I have. I got a box of them right here. Yeah. Yeah. I need them, I'll let you borrow. I mean, yeah, like, one of the challenges was, what do we have available to us?

I was, like, you know, in Mexico with the Gaffer I had, it was like the aperture, whatever this, the bulbs. Oh, the bulbs, B7C. Yeah, those lights. So I had a range of LED, and then what I had done was be basque, I think I had 40 or 50 lights designed into this space. And then I had probably 50 emergency lights for some of the, like, for some of the cues in the movie. So essentially what we did was we designed base lighting for the room and then ended up designing every trap has its own unique lighting look. But because it's built within the world of John Kramer, for me, that meant when a trap is initiated, circuits are timed with that trap that slip on and bring on lights overhead or within the trap. And then when the trap ends, all circuits associated with the trap shut off.

So the trap itself shuts off all the lights connected to the trap shut off and over top of them. it. So you have this, it's a great day to fit into the story. Yeah, and you have this game room that's sort of constantly shifting. And so it gives you the space for like tonal shift within the movie as well as then what I was able to do is backtrack what those pallets were and then the abductions could be like a really strong color that was reflective of a tertiary color in the future trap that you see in the movie. So it's sort of like designing color separation because I wanted to have those arsenical greens, those crimson reds, those deep blues. You know, we were very much, we didn't want cyan in the movie. We wanted to be green or blue,

but not cyan. Sion felt too storybook. It felt too Pan's Labyrinth to like, you know, there's a, yeah, and there's like a blockbuster feeling. When I see Sion or teal, I'm kind of like, I'm in a blockbuster. And we wanted something grimy or something a little grittier. And so for us, it was like, I designed the space, but even, you know, even saying I designed this, that meant that I'm working with the Mexican crew. Their English was not amazing. Some of them is, but for the most part, I don't have very good Spanish. So I actually, 10 years in LA and you don't know. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah, just don't know very much. I know, like, I knew how to like ask for, you know, like, Verde and like, you know, Roja. Like, they need green or I need, but no, like, I just have bad Spanish. And so you got to learn the whistle, but you put it in the, and they always go, yeah, I got it. I started, but I created a document with location stills, like Google, I kept everything in Google Docs. And I had a document in Google Docs that had every practical listed for the movie and had every lighting set up for the movie. And so there were overheads. There were a mixture of overheads and

drawings where I would just take a location still and I would paint in like, it's an M90 pushing this from this side and said all the colors I worked out there and then for the material in the trap space, one of the great challenges you face is we're shooting the control room out and then shooting the main floor out at separate times because you can't have your crew moving up and down, up and down, up and down all the time. It's too much time. But as a result, you're looking through the windows of the trap, like the control room and seeing the world outside and you have to know where am I headed with my world outside while I'm shooting inside this control room. And so what I did was I created a document that every scene listed, and then I did reference

images for every scene. And I had it beat it out that way. And then I did just one that had no visuals and was just the color palettes listed for every single scene. That way, when I got the sick of it and we're jumping from scene to scene to scene where there's a lot of intercutting because it's saw and there just is a lot of intercutting. I think there's 4,000 at it. in the movie. So it's, you know, it's a, it's a fast cut. I had to have that sort of plot it out so that I never lost track of it. And in that process, it's like, you know, I had to have all those units available and rented. And then once we did get into a situation where, like, I operated for four or six weeks on the movie. I got COVID on the fourth week. And director

tested positive four days later. So we did shoot for two days. days where I had COVID and I just was in a trailer right off the set with like DNC running into two monitors and my lighting you know plots I had my ops on headsets and the Gaffer on a walkie and I had the A cam operator who had been on the movie and he also was our well he bumped from B cam to A cam and he was our second unit DEP and field promotion exactly and so I basically was like well Edgar Luzania like you're like you can communicate with Kevin about setting these frames because frankly Kevin had you know seven pages of shot list for every I mean a lot of the traps are shot on a day and a half so it is not like

it is very fast you know and and we did do one final day that was all inserts and so we were able to clean up a lot on our insert day but you're shooting you know a ton of prosthetics a ton of stunts a ton of special effects like just a lot of every trap has every department is playing some way, right? Right. And so, and those don't get kicked off to second unit for you guys then. Because they're just so integral to the story. No, the inserts or the, just all the, all the trap stuff.

No, I mean, saw is the traps. You know what I mean? Like everyone is going to see the traps. And so our second unit was mostly like landscape stuff from Mexico. It was like that kind of pretty chill gig for them. Yeah. And I think we only had three days of second unit. everything else was all a main unit.

So for, and we were running two cameras. So it's like, yeah, the traps are integral and the traps are the film. Like, you know, everyone's going to saw it to watch the traps. So for us, it's like, it's a lot of fun. You know, I mean, it's really violent. You're showing up to set with like dismembered legs and arms on, you know, and you're like, oh, yeah, this is my workspace. This is what I'm doing here.

But for me, it was also, I did, I was able to ring lights, for I think we had one or two days of pre-rigging but this is all happening while they're testing traps and stunts on the main game space so like you know you can't run a condor on a space that there's a stunt team like in the wedding up and so we ended up having to do all of our the only like pre-lighting I got to do was the Saturday before we started on a Monday we finished finalizing where all the units were set

and then I was able to take my black magic around and set rough levels because I didn't even have our main cameras available to me. So you're not a light meter guy? I would use a light meter, but in this case, you're looking at, I was looking at basically what I did was I looked at all four directions of the warehouse

and put a person in and then was like, you know, the one advantage of a movie like Saw is once people are in their traps, I mean, they're not going anywhere. So you are actually able to like, you know, you can figure out where you're keying them from. Inevitably, it's harder to key from below or from the side because the nature of the traps. But right, you still have to. And like, you know, it's, yeah, it's just a part of it.

So I do use a light meter, but in a case where I have like 40 different units and I'm like, you know, I wanted to know when we turn to Venice on, it was going to look roughly what like I needed it to. I just used my black magic with false color in a monitor and just looked around the space and was like this is good enough and then once we got into it luckily when I got COVID you were already into it enough

that I could sit and dial units and I had like highlights on both the cameras and then I was able to at least still communicate hey can you bring a fixture out and like lift their eyes or whatever but you know we're shooting 80 shots a day or whatever It's a crazy amount of coverage because you're doing the crap all in one day. So it's like, you know, and the aesthetic approach is like mostly head held for once we

were into that material. But then, you know, we need our sort of buttons like, you know, the big dolly push, the techno crane, you know, I think we had four or five days in techno crane. So you're trying to figure out how to work those shots in and like Lambda had. And, you know, I also was shooting under crane, you know, this classic circular. dollar dolly track under cranked like you know low shutter speed kind of you know whipping sort of shots and something like that so right it it's like a yeah you're just like you're working with the speed that you have but then it it i sort of looked at it as like i'm lighting a space that has like fall

off and that has like you know these deep like chiro sort of like shape and shadows and i'm using that kind of and and you know at when we're looking at In pre-production, of course, we're looking at the early saw movies. We decided on 185 partially for that reason because all the other movies have done that. But frankly, in our trap spaces, it's like you have monitors, you have close-ups of John's face, you have traps that involve height disparity between the control room and then, you know, so there's a boxiness to some of that that just 185 made a lot of sense. And so we actually shot 4'3 with a 185's like frame.

you know, pulled out of that because Kevin, I was like, do you usually shoot, you know, when you, because Kevin's edited for his entire career, he's been an editor and he edited saw one through five. He's done a lot of other horror. Oh, no shit. And he directed six and seven. And then he's directed like this movie called Jackals and some other movies. And so Kevin has, you know, he's really a great storyteller and he has a lot of, he shoots like an editor. That's part where there's so much coverage, you know, they'll, without giving anything away, it's like, you know, a basic, something that happens in a movie. It's like someone getting hit in the face and like falling to the ground. Like, you know, some directors I've worked with, we would do it in one shot and we're

pushing in and they hit and fall. We tilt. With Kevin, it's like a shot for this, a shot for the land, a shot for them sliding, you know, across the floor. And I see the cut and it works, you know, but it's a different, it's a different way of showing action where it's like the action happens in these beats. But then you just center punch a little more. And he's like, yeah, I usually end up reframing on almost every movie. And I was like, well, one of the challenges the 185 at 1699 is just, you have very little reframe if an operator fucks up or whatever. And it happens, you know, including myself. Like you just, it happens when you're moving fast. So once I looked at the specs, I was like, well, we're technically not losing anything on the left and right when we go to the

four three versus the 17 by not fine. So I was like, with ship 4.3, and it didn't become a thing we used a ton, but here and there was like, you know, it added a little bit of data, you know, and it added some time for processing. But overall, it's like it gave us that flexibility to make those adjustments, which was super valuable. And, and yeah, I'd lease it in IMAX. Oh, my God. We could, I guess, but I don't think it's if you ever. Do you want to see your gore in IMA? I mean, look, it would be fun to see it in IMAX. We've, I guarantee you some psychopaths want to see a nightmares. I've seen the HDR, I've seen the SDR, I've seen the DCP, I think Kevin just watched the Dolby Digital.

So like, we have seen it. You know, in those, that process is a little frustrating because it's like, unless you, every screen is slightly different. And even if you're, you know, we did our color up in Toronto and that we watched the masters down in L.A. And it's like I wrapped doing the DCP the day we finished color. So like technically I was able to set some of the like transfer from the DCP to the SDR and HDR. But not, I wasn't in the room for it. I set like some, you know, scan through it and get those costs because we had two weeks to do color, but it was technically nine days. And frankly, it, you know, is 4,000 edits and it's a lot of material.

put together and the colorist I was working with did a fantastic job but also he was an in-house colorist at the post house that had the deal and so frankly like she hadn't watched the movie when he started you know and I was like oh like we got a set looks for the movie which took us a couple yeah so anyway you know we took that whole time to get the DCP in the right place and then yeah you watch the HDR and the STR and you're like no I would like to change this little thing or this but by that point in the process it's like no this is the QC pass, like unless there is a technical flaw, not something you dislike, but an actual problem that requires them to spend the money to open the project back up and, you know,

finesse it. You're not going to get that. So, you know, yeah, it's a process. Like, it really, you know, it was a lot of fun to light this movie and it was a lot of, like, I loved leaning into those, you know, those big color. Like, when people see it, they're going to see the Gialo references. is they're going to see, you know, they're going to see like this heightened color palette and the traps I go a little more heightened. But ultimately my question when I'm shooting that is like, what's going to make the prosthetics look good?

What's going to make the blood look good? And then also for saw fans, you know, what is going to speak to the worlds that they've seen, but then be our own twist on it. You know, we're not, the colors are not being added in the gray. The colors are baked in in the lighting. and you know then the grade is accentuating that so that a lot of my time was spent actually thinking about I think we had probably yeah a lot of every light is embedded into the space it's built

into the space it functions as a practical light and then occasionally for certain sequences yes I came in and I cleaned it up more um but it's on an egg or an additional key or whatever yeah a lot of it would be there's certain spaces in the room we just would we would soft we would, you know, cut it with like a, like diffusion and then we would bring something and to fill their faces in. But what I found was the more that I, the more glamorized we went, the less it felt like saw. And the more like as the movie progresses, like my, the wings of the room are starting to close down and take us more into the center of the room. And I had those lit with like four orbiters from above. And they, I think they were going through opal, but they were very hard.

And the more the movie gets into that, the more you're starting to get double shadows and downwinds, which is traditionally not what I would do. Right. You know, it's not what I would call classically appealing. And frankly, when you have older actors, specifically older actresses, it is not the approach they want. But at the same time, you're talking about people covered in blood, people covered in sweat, you know, this is, I wanted the movie to move from more beautiful into more brutal. And by going from softer, rapping, kind of like softer light, and then to like, blah, you know, it just create an aesthetic. You know what I mean? And I really honestly, like, laid awake and not a lot in Mexico, worried about if I was, like, mistreating the actors with the lighting approach I was taking.

Yeah. Because this is so gruesome, you know, just it is like any, any light. they have in their faces, any sort of like, you know, imperfections in their faces are going to like, be raked by these lights

and lift it up. And I just, but then when I would fix it, I would be like, it's just not as ugly as it should be. So there was a balancing act and like, frankly, time,

you know, every time I brought it up to Kevin we're like, well, there's probably 15 shots of a movie I would love a do-over. You know, I mean,

there's probably more than that, but there's at least, 15 I can think of. And Kevin's like, we'd still be there shooting this movie if you're lighting every shot. You know, and you're like, you have to accept that like that is kind of what it is. And like, what's been exciting is like I was able to be there for the, the horror convention they released the trailer at. And it's like the audience just fucking eats, you know, they really are so excited to see these colors back, this level of darkness back, this level of grittiness and just kind of you know they resonate with it they know the aesthetic of saw and so it's actually

been exciting to watch them connect with it and um i felt like what i was able to bring to the table was to bring like an elegance to what we're doing and also like because i was able to operate for four the six weeks i was able to actually bring like a subjectivity and trust and like frankly saw x's when i read the script i was thrilled because because I'm like, A, I thought it was the best script of the franchise. B, I felt like this is the first movie. You can't, forgetting the first one because it's set it off and like, whatever. But this is the first film is its own thing.

Yeah, this is the first movie in the franchise that lives in John Kramer's head. And like, you know, this is the first movie where we're with him. And Tobin Bell is a legend and he's a great performer. He's a very kind person. He's, you know, deeply passionate about his work. He's, you know, still will write. on set hours in advance and we did have it because of his age at this point it was stipulated we couldn't shoot at night with him which oh thank god we like a good day for night instead of

all this like night work that would have killed us all and earned a nap yeah right it's like yeah but he's he has you know been at it or i mean he's been in everything we're like mississippi burning to you know to these films so it's like right he he's a fantastic performer and for to finally get a chance to like sit with him and it's actually like yeah that was such an honor and you know so delightful and then of course it's exciting when like billy the puppets on because i'm like this is my chance like billy you know i'm like okay like let's do like big jallo backlights and like you know kind of go for it and like john kramer is a bit theatrical anyway like he's designing these like beautifully ornate traps to like teach people life lessons like you know i can get away of the lot so um yeah

like it was a lot like yeah totally different every movie is different every movie like I jumped from saw and on bone late you know we were referencing a lot of crudson a lot of Todd Heido you know it's a much more mobland is very like dirty and documentary is like a bit of a docureal like you know kind of a neon oar thing where it's dark and it's got these like you know built in colors but then it's very like naturalistic and dark and then it's very like naturalistic and dark and that and And it saw us darken in another way. And it's gritty and scuzzy and grimy and, you know, textural and has all the, you know, poisonous kind of color. And then you're, you know, Bone Lake, we were going for a very, like, sexy, you know, very, like, erotic kind of film. And so there's a lot more, it's actually this, like, French photography, like it's a lot of the name, Stefan Kutel, I think, in his name.

But he did this book called, and I'm probably butchering all the French bullshit, but insomnia or insomnia or something like that, but it's very just like beautiful colors, like purply twilight colors and like Krutzen does that too really well. But it's like, you know, so every movie you do, you do have these opportunities to play with visual language and play with like unique, you know, palates and unique approaches. and right now I'm just like trying to take a lot of risks and they don't all work. You know what I mean? The critics fucking hated the handheld work on Bob Land.

Like they just were like, oh, I hate that it's so handheld. And I'm like, well, we had to make that decision for our schedule. But also it was the decision the director and I have been playing with in all of our commercial work together. And we love Battle of Algiers and a French connection and placed down the pines. And like, you know, yeah, did I have, I had to have. my, there were three operators on Lobland. There was myself, a B camera operator on a second unit TV, and like, you can't make a movie at 11 days.

And I'm like, we shop, and some people hate it. And for some people, they'll be like, I love that it's gritty and it's kind of messy and it's not, you know, ornate. And so, like, it's all like we're playing with the range. You know, we'd have a lot of dolly work and shit on sticks and a lot of stuff that's handheld and techno crane and, you know, some steady cam in there. So it's like, and then for Bone Lake,

there's two hand-held shots in the whole movie like it's or maybe like two little mini sequences that are hand-held the rest of it's you know very controlled so I love getting to work with different directors and getting to play in different spaces totally and yeah it's kind of what I love about it you know I have a lot of anxious nights sitting up thinking about all these things yeah well at least those anxious nights aren't the classic you know I've spoken to a lot of like older GPs and they're like man I do not miss the waiting for dailies

and just sitting there and going like oh fuck that was the most important scene is it okay you know yeah I've never shot a movie on film and I would love to

but I do think my anxiety would be pretty poignant well I did want to add you had mentioned it at the very beginning of this conversation how and I wanted to follow up on it

and then I forgot until just now when you were saying that you know, when you initially shot digital, it was all about basically working in the, in the toe of the image because anything would blow out and look like shit. So when you did that first transition into film, um, had you shot, I assume you shot film photography before. So you had like a, or maybe not. Not much. I had shot, I'd shot maybe four rolls of 35. Oh, okay. So really not much. And I, I had shot one of them, the very first 35 millimeter roll I shot was it was a engine T-s and still.

And I... That's a lovely Yeah, I went to Detroit with somebody and we were scouting for a project that unfortunately didn't happen but it was a really beautiful

post-apocalyptic idea and we broke into a lot of places that, you know, were pretty grungy. And so we shot a bunch of stuff there just like, you know, in scouting,

but digitally on, I shot like a couple of rolls of 35. But the camera, I since discarded it, but the camera I had at the time I hadn't tested it and it was used.

camera and the role didn't rewind. And so I popped the back of the camera off. And I was in a hotel room and at every light off, but like something in the far corner, that'll still catch it. It did. And it was beautiful. But all that to say, like, I had not, I didn't have a lot of experience with it. I was very like, yeah, I hadn't shot. I'd shot maybe one role of 35 millimeter still like film. So when I actually shot my first job on film, I'd actually never shot anything. So that was going to be my question was what did you learn through that experience about lighting for? Because I try to ask every DP about the film digital thing because I think a lot of people are interested because most people won't have the chance to shoot film these days. But like

lighting for film and just shooting film in general, what are some of those considerations that you learned about, you know, obviously learning? It's pretty fascinating when you go, oh, we need way more light. Like you, you need, it's not just an exposure thing because it, oh, I can just shoot 500 speed film like I would shoot 500 digital. It's like, no. Yeah. So if you ought to expose that by a stop, you're fucked. Yeah, I think, well, the main things that I did, one was I rated, um, I rated the camera for about two thirds of a stop. Like we shot in 500 T film and then I rated it for 320 because I tend to under expose anyway. So I was like, I'm just going to like, you know, sort of set myself up for

success by doing that. And we were going for a darker look. That's the, the dude with a bloody hand in the eyeball. Yep. Yep. Yep. And that was, yeah, that was on 16. And like we, yeah, same approach in terms of like three dimensional color space, you know, where I play with background and foreground and that. And I'm, I think I shot everything two stops under, um, actually. actually because I wanted to start from that, but I had already rated it 320 to just like keep myself from going too far. And there were, I think the main thing was just,

it didn't end up feeling that different. It just I used a meter a lot more. You know what I mean? And like inevitably, I don't meter much with digital because I just can see it. Yeah. And color too. Yeah.

So it's just the speed of like cooling a meter out and then being, I'm going to take this reading. And I'm just like, I don't need that. But on this, I was taking. shitloads of readings and then which ended up being like

yeah I think the main learning was I just love the way that film like the way the highlights roll off I love the grain I love and the texture

I love the way that the colors sort of like mush together and blend a bit more there is just like a you know that like sort of red rim you get around the lights

which is less of it more of a lens thing and less of a the film thing but it is the film and the way that it like registers over exposure. So that was like bouncing off the rim jet, right?

Like the like goes through all the layers and then bounces back into that red layer on high contrast. Yeah, beautiful. Yeah. So all of that was the part of the appeal. And then I actually did a, I did a commercial on 16 with the same director, it's a name Joe Misho. And that was in a way more difficult because we shot six frames a second and did undercringing. Oh, damn.

was an African-American who was our lead. And we were also doing like deep, like, you know, steep contrast with lots of darkness and lighting a basketball court, like a fool in shit. And then we did some daytime exterior work, which, you know, I just gave the director of camera and set the stop and that was like, go crazy. And so, like, I think the advantages were, the advantages were I'm actually like, my paranoia about things I've already seen. I can be a bit

like perfectionist and fidgety and like I didn't like this bone like was my first union film and I wasn't able to operate the camera because I joined the union and while like in pre-production and they were like you're not going to be able to get a letter of intent

and like be able to actually put yourself in the operating shoes they're like maybe you'll get top rate four days in this 18 day movie so I was like well I'll just accept that this is where my career is kind of going right now and just, you know, try to learn and grow. And so I ended up at the tent a lot on that movie, and I didn't like that.

And but, you know, the images look great and I was able to style in like images pretty substantially doing that. But I think with film, I was sort of like, well, we know the range of what's possible, you know, so let's, like, I don't have to worry so much. I can just like, you know, and I still, I still, I still, kept like a DSLR or Black Magic, like set to the same stop, just so I could do a quick, like, hey, my completely little of shit here. And, um, they used to do Polaroids to do that. Yeah, which is wild. Yeah. It's just, like, unreal. Yeah, but it, I would say, like, what I loved were the results. Like, sometimes with digital, you see that, you see it on set and then you get back and you look at it and you're disappointed by the results. And with film, my experience has been it's got something.

unexpected every time and like even the rollouts you know look beautiful and these are always fun yeah and you're just like for the sound of it that's terrifying yeah and so part of me is like I really do want to shoot in there of you know I've done a music video that has a narrative structure to it and I've done a commercial on it but I haven't actually gotten to do a narrative project and part of the challenge of that was also on both of those projects the director and I were putting in money or time you know we neither of us was making money. And so we weren't backed so heavily that I could just be like, let's just go waste a roll of film or let's just go shoot some like fun imagery together.

And I wanted to under expose this to the breaking point and overexposed this to the breaking point. So ultimately, I would say I played it not played it safe because I still was taking some risks with those images. But I played it safer in the sense that I'm like, I'm not going to like, you know, shoot this four stops under and then try to bring it you know i was like now like i'm gonna protect my negative and like i'm going you know i was just a little more conscientious of that um but you know i love the results and like there there is something about it that just i just can't lay you know i add green stuff i fuck up the image i do all this but i just it's just not quite the same and um you know i think film has its place for all the reason but it's been around

for so long yeah well and i also think like i am a firm believer that you can get let's say 95% of the way they're shooting on a venice and then making it look like how do you think film should look and that's great but it does take a lot of effort or it can take a lot of effort and there is something to be said about um you know i have a theory that friction in any form will stop you from creating um so like i was i was talking to this one kid on reddit the other day where he was like i i have this canon dslar but i really want this fuji film am i being stupid and everyone was like yeah you're being stupid learned to take photos dude and i was like to be fair if you don't want to pick up that dslar you're not going to

take pictures even if you're the if you love for everyone's trying to tell this kid like oh you don't love photography you're you know borderline telling him he's a poser and I was like but if you have a tool like a camera little Fuji film whatever it was XT20 or something and it makes you want to pick it up and use it that's honestly that velocity is going to carry you further than being an expert so in the same way like yeah you can make digital look like film but if shooting film gets you what you want quicker and you don't have to think about that anymore again that velocity can carry you a lot further certainly there's workflow considerations but um i i i've kind of flip-flopped on my on my position on like the importance of film and now

i'm like actually i think it is more important than i used to kind of give give it credit for because i love shooting film but i never thought of it as being like necessary and now i'm like there there are definitely like reasons to want to shoot it yeah i mean it's just even you know it's Like, there was never going to be an opportunity for me to do a film out from Ligerd for Saul. And it's like, I would have loved that. We talked about it for all these movies because the, frankly, for Bob, like for Saw, I have nine days to come from. For Mom Leonard, it's three, you know, and it's like, cool.

This isn't, you know, there's no, where he is wild. Yeah, the only reason we were able to do it was Jacob McKee was the colorist and Jacob's fantastic. And does a lot of short form. and I'd worked to them a few times and he just our process on that was he sent me a bunch of

like probably 45 stills and then I on frame I O and then I went through gave notes on all of them and they got another batch and they were much closer and then so by the time I went in it's like the movie actually

was already like dialed and then I was just like watching the movie hitting problem spots you know what I mean and basically doing that for the course of like three like six hour days or something you know it's not enough time but it is enough time that you can at least like you can kind of get a sense you know most of the time i'm not

it's just different on every movie i always ask for as many days as like a guy was color but sometimes you know they just they don't want to go like they just refuse to spend money there which is crazy but it's so it's such a vital part of the image like it's not it's not just polishing like yeah the cameras was that that uh steve edlin sign a kind of idea of like the cameras just a data collection device whereas with film like we were saying like you get the image there and the color really is polishing but like it i've said this a few times on this podcast like cinematography has one foot squarely in the color grade like it's not they are inextricably linked you can't you know undervaluing that is is you do so at your own peril in many cases sort of like

and it's the most not saying anything to me because you're like we have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars getting a certain camera system getting lenses right analyzing the lens building these fucking shots nothing like doing all this work and then you're like we're going to run it through something that will change the tonality and palette of every single one of those decisions right if we're not going to invest in that process you're going to end up with some power results and like that just is so mind-boggling In fact, I've learned, like, I colored both of those things I shot on 16 millimeter I colored because partially I've colored, I colored one of the movies I shot and I've colored a movie someone else shot because when I first started, I just couldn't afford colorists and right while I was a middle of resolved. And but the advantage is also I've seen what, you know, what can you do with an image?

And like usually what happened, like Lobland, I have all the raw files. So I did a mockup of everything. And I've done that on some movies. I've kind of giving up doing it because what I've found with colorists is it doesn't matter how many references I give them from other movies or even stills I've locked up from this movie, they are going to do their own thing. And I'm going to have to sit with them and find it together. And like, that's just the nature of the beast. And like, there's a couple colorists I've worked out to.

I'm like, you get me. You know, and like we don't have to sit through a bunch of bullshit to get there. Right. In general, it's like all of these people are working with, you know, hundreds of people probably, hundreds of DPs, maybe not. They need 50 DPs, whatever. They're working with a lot of different DPs in a lot of different contexts. They might be jumping from a toothpaste commercial to your movie.

And like, they might be able to do your movie because they're doing the toothpaste commercial. But those are very different aesthetic, you know, driven in this different aesthetically. And so, yeah, I mean, I think it really matters. I think you're totally right that there can't be separated. I feel for the cinematographers in my life that don't have any understanding of resolve because I have a very good understanding of resolve to the point that I will talk to the colors about the node chain and what they're doing, but also with respect, some of its curiosity, some of it's like, you're doing this for a living. Let's find out what your structure

is. But then at the same time, I'm like, well, I can get lost in the sauce. too. Like I can, you know, like I need time to go sit outside. I don't like sitting in a dark room for days on end. I need to go elsewhere and come back with fresh blinders on, so to speak. And that just takes time and you can't, you can't rush that. You know, I hate commercials and music videos where you set a look and then you're done within three hours because I'm like, I don't know. I never later. I may hate that. You know, and I'm like, ah, so, I mean, it does come down the taste and like there's some colorists who I think they just have taste that aligns with mine and there's some colorist who it doesn't and you can get there with a colorist whose taste

doesn't align with yours but you know I sort of have like overtime I'm not sure your experience but overtime and working with other artists and working with other like gaffers and colorists and whatnot you're just like you have to hire the person that does the kind of thing you like you can't talk somebody else into it like they just people do what they do well because it's what they keep doing you know and like so you're not the right it's also kind of in a lot of ways it's important to stick to what you do well and and not necessarily be um so malleable unless you're great at it but like i think when a lot of people are starting these days you know because every tool is so accessible, there is a lot of, like, putting yourself out there as a multitasker.

You know, how are you going to be a DP if you're telling everyone? Like, you'll see a lot of people's Instagram, you know, bios. It's like, director, DP, editor, producer. And it's like, no one's going to hire you. Pick one. Yeah. And one thing. Yeah. And if you want to do the other thing on the side, it's like, great. Like, that's one of the things I tell a lot of, because like, even in starting to do this as a career, like, one of, that was a thing I had to figure out. It's like, where do I land, you know, and even now, I'm like, for years that I wanted to do like thrillers and horror and eventually I'd love to do like, I love a world building. So it's like I would love to do stuff like in a science fiction space. It's because, yeah, I want to build a world. You know what I mean?

It's like I want to build a world. I want to do something like. And I think that, look, I'm 30. So I'm like there's, you know what I mean? I'm very much. I've done 10 movies and been doing this for 10 years. I feel very much like I'm starting my career, you know, and, like, there's so much that I've gleaned in that process and at that time, but it's like, how do you discover your voice? Like, the only way to do that is to make mistakes to, like, hone what you do well, and then at a certain point to only reflect a certain kind of work, you know, like, you're not going to be the person called to do a horror movie. It's, unfortunately, there's just, there are thousands of the apiece. There thousands of people shooting. There's, you know, a select number of done movies. There's a

select number of done movies that you've heard of. You know, don't edit. At a certain point, you're like, everyone is looking to be putting you at an issue. And like, this is why I, even though I understand that people sort of like don't necessarily buy into the idea of having a reel, I'm also like, yeah, but when you're, when I'm a DP looking at 10 operators, I don't watch the work on their website. I watch the reel. And I look at their website to be like, have I heard of any of these? Do I know any of these things or these celebrities? You know, just as like check marks. And so I still subscribe to the idea of having a reel because you will be compared to 10 other VPs. And maybe the 10 other guys who have an EDM song and it's like sloppily cut, like having a

song that's like, you know, used in Zodiac and you cut to a minute and a half instead of a bloated in three minutes. We'll leave an impression. You know what I mean? And so it's like I do think there's a value when someone's like got 10 people and they're just like, oh, this person, this person, this person, you know, and that is like, what is your voice? What is your niche? You know, what are you bringing to the table? And it's scary. You know what I mean? There are things I've turned it down that I'm like, now that I'm a little older, I would tell my younger self, take every commercial job you ever get offered and make the money and meet the people. And then you don't have to put it all on your website or refucked it all. That's fine.

And it was a younger version of me that was trying to curate that a little too much. And it just led to not developing new relationships and not making more money. Now I would probably push that further and then just be like, you know, on my narrative work, I would say six of the ten movies I've shot are things that one's ever heard of or will. You know what I mean? And that just is what it took. You know, I'm lucky that I had the opportunity to shoot some stuff. You know, there are people who have done 20 movies.

And at a certain point, you have to be like, stop doing low budget bad movies. You know, like you're killing your career because at a certain point, as you're like, I've done 20 movies that no one's ever seen or heard of. That is a negative, you know, not a positive at a certain point. Right. So I don't know. It is tough. It is tough starting out.

Like when I moved to LA, I didn't, I had a reel. That was it. You know, and I worked at a religious organization and shot stuff for myself. I didn't want anyone to think I wanted to do religious stuff. So I didn't tell anyone about it. I didn't show any of that work. But then, you know, it's been just Craigslist and Mandy jobs. And, you know, eventually, like, you're not working and your own contacts and some luck, a lot of luck in there.

And also, like, I can't go without acknowledging that I'm like, I'm white and I'm straight and I'm, like, a man. And there is also, there have been jobs I've received and interviews I've had that I'm like, this would have been more, like, they would have asked me more questions and asked to see more. frankly if I hadn't been those things for sure so yeah but I mean I don't know it's like if it's what you love and it's what you want to do I think you're to your point earlier it's like find the tools that let inspire you to tell the kinds of stories you want to tell and the people and you know and you and you just keep setting off until you either go bankrupt or you make it yeah yeah Well, I've definitely kept you longer than I should have, so I will let you go. That was actually like a perfect way to end on like a vaguely inspirational note.

But that was a lot of, yeah, but that was a lot of fun. We'll definitely have to have you back on. That's great. Thanks so much. Have a great. Take care, brother. Frame and reference is an Albot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition.

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.