Frame & Reference Podcast - 117: "Totally Killer" DP Judd Overton

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

This week on Frame & Reference we're talking with Judd Overton, DP of the new smash horror/comedy hit Totally Killer! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, Cam McMillan, and you're listening to episode 117 with Judd Overton, DP of Totally Killer. Enjoy. Yeah. Have you, uh, have you been watching anything cool recently with the, uh, the break and all? Well, I've, um, I've actually just been, you know, fortunate enough to be shooting in Europe over the break. A documentary, a documentary over there. So, um, feature doc. So I spent, you know, kind of the second half of the summer driving around, uh, over there for making, making a movie, which was a good

little escape, um, from the, you know, the stasis. of summer in the States at the moment. Yeah. Are you able to talk about what the docs about? It's, I probably can't say too much about it, but it's an environmental documentary. Oh, cool. Yeah, so, yeah, we took a bunch of school kids around in a big yellow school bus,

and they were put in a test of CEO. So it was a good, you know, felt like a good project to be involved in it and some good visuals. Sure. Yeah, that's always been kind of a, I don't, I guess I don't talk about it. I mean, I talk about snowboarding a lot, but I've been a snowboard in my whole life. And so, like, on the low end, like, I'm always trying to help most environmental causes because every day, you know, there's this, um, I don't know, what do you call a charity that, um, I support called Protect Our Winters, this two Jeremy Jones, professional sober started in every, every email we get is like, and this season's probably going to be weirder, you know, yeah, yeah, or seeing that. Sure. Yeah. I was doing some quick research on you as much I could. And I saw that you started in, like, news gathering and stuff. Yeah, well, I mean, I started in Australia, you know, and sort of worked in the industry for over 10 years there. And when you're in Australia, it's a small market, so you kind of do everything to get a leg up. So, you know, I was,

lucky enough to um kind of find my way into the australian cinema photography society um and they you know kind of put me in touch with some people and so one of the first opportunities or one of the early opportunities i got was you know camera assisting and sound recording and and that sort of stuff with the news crews and then doing some stuff in um you know at tv stations i one of my claim to fans was i used to put up the letterboard on wheel of fortune that was a that was a pretty fun early job while i was at high school um so yeah that was was a really good connection and and you know and the aces has been great you know ever since they're really all bond together and um having those societies are so fantastic because if you ever have a

question about something or you ever see something you're like how how they achieve that you know um you've got people you can get on the phone too and i mean it's it's a less of a thing these days when you can youtube everything but um i think it's always great to have you know to kind of get to speak to often some of your uh you know some of your heroes and uh and have a chat about how they achieve something and what they're thinking when they shot back. Yeah. Well, I guess the PR people are here.

Let them in. Yeah, I've found with, I haven't spoken to a ton of Australian cinematographers, but certainly the American cinematographer guests have always been very helpful even to me, you know, someone who's not in the society, as it were. But all the Australian DPs I've spoken to all seem to have this very, I think it must come from,

what you're talking about being a smaller market, but this is very kind of workmanlike attitude towards the cinematography specifically, but filmmaking in general where it does sound like all of you kind of just, you know, the project is the project and there's not a lot of pretense or anything about it, you know, because there's only maybe 100 of you. So you're all working on the same shit or doing a lot of jobs. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, like there's, there are quite a few of us. And I think there's, you know, over 400. at working, I was probably more now, but, you know, cinematographers in Australia and there's not that much made.

So it's competitive, to be sure. But I just think it's, you know, maybe it's just the Australian nature or just the way we've come up that everyone shares their knowledge and, you know, is really supportive of each other. I just think that's kind of the deal. And, you know, speaking to working in different genres, I mean, I was lucky enough to go to film school and, you know, do a two-year master's course there, which was all about cinematography, and I'd been in camera

assistant. I'd worked, you know, loading film and focus pulling on 16 and 35. So I'd seen a lot of professional productions before I even got to film school. It was a bit like, okay, rewind, go back in the trenches and start, you know, learning from scratch, and this is how we, you know, load a magazine, and this is how we behave on set. So you sort of get good all the way through it. But I think that, you know, that coming out with that camaraderie and that sense of working with other people and, you know, the person who you're going up against for a commercial today might be the person who either you're asking them for an operating job

or they're asking you to operate for them or, you know, like there's not that much work in that sense. So everyone needs to know each other. And, I mean, a lot of hidden still, all of the recommendations, a lot of the work I get is from other, other cinematographers who can't do a project or were attached and they've had a clash and you know would you like to take this over me and yeah so it's it's a it's a it's a big world and it's a small world to be even here in states yeah i mean i to the british cinematographers i've

spoken to there does seem to be a lot of like well we all started at the bbc and then moved on is it is it kind of the same with australia where it's like all local kind of like news or drama stuff and then eventually there's there was like an influx of uh larger projects or I don't quite know what the timeline is necessarily. The history of Australia. Absolutely. There definitely was that history of, you know, starting off at the ABC it was over there. And even, you know, there were some sort of newsreel companies and stuff earlier, you know, back in the day.

And, yeah, a lot of the cinematographers have come from that background, you know, the John Seals and Dean Semlers have come through that sort of training and the Steve Windens and, you know, all those guys. guys who've gone on to massive movie careers now. But I think it's still, now there's a lot of different ways. As with everything, there's film scores and there's people who have bought a camera and then you just go out, start shooting things and get together with your friends. So there's so many ways to make movies and make a career for yourself now. You know, there's not just the one pathway for anyone.

Yeah. Do you notice a kind of a noticeable difference between working on? you know, a project in Australia versus a similarly, let's say, budgeted project here? Like, do crews kind of act the same? Is there a different, you know, type of person that works on those jobs, I suppose? No, I think actually that you've hit on the type of person. I think you find that same type of person everywhere around the world. You know, these days, there's really great crews around the world. And you'd be amazed how often, you know, your focus toward type or your GABA type or your group type, you know, you just kind of, you find those people,

and I guess they find, they find those careers, whereas they're just, they're the right person for the job or something. It's, it's quite interesting. You often find similarities in the crews. And, you know, obviously, I've been really lucky, but I feel like there's, there's super talented people all around the world. Sometimes I get to take my crew with me these days when I'm, you know, shooting across America, but often, you know, you're hiring local cruise and there's and there's great people yeah the uh yeah i guess it's kind of like you know music where a metal band or a pop band or whatever they all kind of have similar types of folks that gravitate towards that music so you know gaffers are always like here's your uh or grips are

like here's your uh you know your your your cargo shorts you're gonna need these yeah shorts all year around. Yeah. You had touched on a second ago, but do you feel like, you know, I personally would, would immediately gravitate towards asking, you know, ACS members, ASC members, whatever about whatever I was trying to do, but most people don't have that resource. Do you find that if you have been on like YouTube or whatever a lot, that there's good information out there? Because there's certainly bad information you know amateurs teaching amateurs and bad habits and stuff yeah exactly i mean look i think if you go down that rabbit hole there's nothing you can't um get a get a perspective on you know like everyone everyone is out there trying to share their information or what they've just

done or you know it's like the new things they're playing with the new gear they're playing with so you can find that but there's nothing that beats experience and there's nothing that beats actually getting your hands on a camera or, you know, testing, you know, testing smoke levels and how to maintain that and, you know, things that are just, you can't, there's so many variables in that that you can't just watch a tutorial and say, oh yeah, I've got that. You know, it's not like you've got a piece of software and it always performs in that way. You know, you really need to kind of get out there and tested in different environments and also, you know, filmmaking is a collaboration. So how you manage or, you know,

test or work when you're, you know, a one-man band kind of running around with a camera on your shoulder and doing your own sound mixing versus when you've got a, you know, a crew with you and people that are going to manage each and every part of it. So, yeah, short answer is, yes, there's a lot of information out there, but, you know, the wiser path, I think, is just to, just to take what you want from it and do your own testing, work out how it works for you. Yeah. That is the hard part, too, especially if you're in a, uh, a less served market is like getting a hold of that like I live what 10 a 15 minute walk from my rental house like I have a really good friend you know good friends with them and they're always

open yeah I feel like any rental house is always open to let you just come in and mess around with the tools and try to get boned up on them I think so as long as it's on the shelf I mean they're they're all looking and thinking this is going to be a rental for me you know down the track and you know the more people that know about either you know about the gear the less chance someone's going to just come in and take it out and destroy it, you know, if they could, if you could learn about it in the shop with someone there to help you. And especially at the moment, it's a really good time to do that because, you know, a lot of the gear is sitting on the shelves. Yeah. Well, yeah, not to mention, like most Brannel houses, at least here in L.A. are offering crazy, you know,

Alexa LF mini package for a thousand bucks a week, you know, like ready to shoot. the problem is that you know the producers are going to want them to stick to that when we go back to it yeah what do you mean it's $5,000 now yeah do you find yourself excited but obviously everyone kind of enjoys gear a little bit

but do you do you find a personal enjoyment like nerding out about that kind of stuff or I mean I you know I really when I was a focus pool I really enjoyed doing all that stuff and I kind of you know ran a rental house I worked for a commercial production company in Adelaide and South Australia for a number of years. And that was the

rental shop as well. And then when that company closed, I sort of kept on the rental company going while I was ACing. And yeah, love the gear, all the things to play with, all the new stuff. And now, I mean, this is the time that it was 35 mil and 16 mil and a little bit of digital just coming in, but not really. And now there's so many new cameras and so much new gear. You know, every day there's new stuff. And I need to keep the rest of it just so that I know what the, you know, how to achieve shots and how to, you know, oh, maybe this will be good for this sequence you've got coming out so I can keep those ideas so I can use the technology for a creative purpose.

But I think, you know, one of the traps for cinematographers is to hide behind the gear and to sort of be playing with, you know, with all the toys and not keep your eyes open and noticing that the director really means something or, you know, or there's something's going along with the set that you might be able to help out of this. I think, you know, your first nature sometimes is, well, I know, know the toys and I can, you know, really get into this. But at the end of the day, you know, there's a record button, but it's the, you know, the most important thing. Make sure you're rolling. Otherwise, I really work with my team and, you know, try to have the right people to

handle all that stuff so I can take it off my plate and just concentrate on, you know, helping the director, helping the showrunners, whoever, you know, achieve that vision. Yeah, the, the other problem I've seen a handful of times too when I've, seat or whatever it's like you'll have a DP who really loves their package especially if they own it obviously but you know and then if they're handed something else they'll it really trips them up you know to your point about staying abreast of what's going on but not being so precious about what you can especially if like a budget won't allow for you to have something and then you get all like oh I'll never be able to achieve my vision this way you know it's interesting

I listen to a few of your other podcast and I heard you know you're asking about what the What's it like what's the worst piece of advice you ever got? Oh, yeah, yeah. And I think that's one of them is like, you know, you've got to invest in gear, you know. And it's like, yeah, when you're an AC, it's great to have some stuff and it can help bump up your, you know, maybe your day rate goes up a little bit because you can throw in something or other. But the further you get in your career, it's exactly that. You know, it's like, well, we have to shoot this on red because I've got seven reds sitting there with packages and they've got to be working otherwise, you know, and the number of people I've seen lose jobs because, well, we don't want to go that way. You have to be flexible.

And, yeah, and kind of go, you've got to be true to what the project is and what it needs. And, you know, there's a lot of ways to skin a cat. So, you know, yeah, that is funny because, like, you always hear people ask, like, what camera system should I wait? Because they want to be a DP. But the only people who really buy their gear are like sound people and ACs. Everyone else is renting or doesn't really have gear. Or I guess, you know, gaffers or whatever tend to have a. tool bag of some kind but yeah i mean i think so you know um a lot of the gaffers kind of pick up

bits and pieces but even you know as soon as you're shooting on studio lots and things like that that you've got to go with the the package if you're shooting with nbc you've got to use their gear first so it can be a you know an encumbrance to have those monthly payments and especially times like now it's you know there's a lot of people that were like yeah you look at all the forums and people are offloading gear very quickly um i mean i've been lucky that you know i've probably We've got 10 monitors sitting in different storage units in different countries, different parts of the country and a few tripods and things like that. But I haven't heavily invested.

I have some Blackmagic cameras which are very affordable and other kind of thing. So if they sit on the truck and don't get used for a whole project, it doesn't cost me anything if we get to a stage where, you know, running out of light, we need to throw two more cameras on an action scene or something like that. I can just say, hey, just bring them out and throw them on. and it's, you know, if production shows me some money, that's great. If they don't, it's just nice skin up my nose, but I'd rather get the day, make sure we get all the shots.

Yeah, actually, you're not the, so, sorry, I had three thoughts at once. If you've heard, since you have heard this podcast, you know, I tend to bounce off the fucking walls, but the, I saw an interview you did where I think it was for killing it. It was funny, you were supposed to come on for killing it at one point, and then I think I didn't have time, and now you're here for, I suppose, totally killer, which is funny. Yeah, great. I'm running, I'm doing a run, anything with killer in it, I'm Ego. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's every, oh, I'm a comedy DPO, I'm an action DP.

It's like, and if your title has the word killer, and I'm fucking there, bud. Yeah. But I saw that, I think it was on killing it, that you had actually been using the black magic cameras as sort of B&C cams to your Alexa package. Was that, like, were those your cameras or did the, because I, yeah, okay. Because there's, there's been a few, I remember I was talking to, um, Oh goodness Blanking on his name right now But he shot the boys

And he said that he would just bring in It's awesome right But he would bring his personal Fujifilm XT3 And if they ever needed a camera somewhere That they couldn't quite get the Alexa in Or the Venice They would just chuck the XT3 in there

And cut it in and somehow that worked well whereas I've heard a lot more people Using the black magic cameras In conjunction with the Alexa I guess it's going to create I mean, look, I think the black magic, I've been using it for many years, you know, since the 5D days. And I sort of got frustrated with everyone, you know, like what you shoot is, what you get with the 5Ds. And, you know, the black magic came out with this little box camera and finally, you know, it shoots raw and you can grade it.

And I was like, oh, this is amazing. So I've sort of had one of them in my bag ever since. And obviously they've developed and they've become quite a professional camera now. But, you know, yeah, I think they've really set out to make them match. I mean, when you're shooting raw, you've got a lot of versatility anyway, but I think they set out to make them match the ARI look or, you know, with not too much work. You know, they fall in line with the ARI pretty well. And I tend to shoot most of my projects.

I tend to shoot with a basic lot, like a K1S1, which is just a, you know, a basic Rex of 109, slightly flatter, and try to shoot raw. as often as I can where the projects allow it but that gives you the most versatility for you know if you have to throw some other cameras in or you've got a drone or you've got whatever you know like your baseline is is always that k1s one and then most cameras sort of fall into line in a rexipro9 space pretty easily and then you can apply you know whatever your show lut or your cdl's on the top of that yeah are you designing uh your own let's to a degree or are you just relying on uh color to help you out in that way

I don't, you know, it's only if it's on like a low budget show that I'll put a lot together. You know, most of the time I try to work with the DIT and, you know, we'll do some testing at the start of the show. You know, this is kind of what our daylight looks going to be, is what our nightlight night's going to be. So they have a CDL, but what I found from doing a few shows in different ways, if you get too many luts and it's going through too many people, you can sort of come unstuck. So I like to keep it really simple for the post house. And often, like I'll work with my colourist. We'll be working with Segee First or Company 3 for a number of years.

And he'll be on board at the setup time. So we'll do our test with the DIT, run through it again, and make sure the pipeline works and get his feedback. So he would usually put out some of his luts back to us. So we've always got that as a reference. but then you know whoever's doing your daily's timing or whatever could be someone it's one of the juniors colorists at night or or whatever so i'll then send stills each day and and the CDLs from each set up which obviously sometimes changed through the day but i found

that if i can just keep that baseline of the one lot the one show lot as long as you're not taking it as long as you're not doing too extreme well obviously if you start doing um i mean some of the stuff we did with, we're totally killer because we had like a 70s, you know, sort of 1887 for our flashback sequence, which is actually most of the movie. And then we had a contemporary look, which was a lot more contrasting. We used different lenses for that. So they both fell into precise luts. But within that, there's still a lot of variation. And each day, sometimes you're shooting, you know, the 80s in the morning and you're shooting the 2000s in the, in the afternoon. So, you know, you have to be able to sort of have a communication pipeline

in the path layoff. And, you know, we finish five o'clock in the morning and send them straight through. So by the time I wake up in the afternoon, the colors has already done them. So I need, you know, I need to make sure that he's seeing what I'm seeing and that the right stuff's being uploaded for all the news just to say. Yeah. That actually, I was going to get to this a little later but since you brought it up i so i'm trying not to like spoil anything this podcast is going to come out after

the movie comes out but okay um try to be nice about it but the the uh the moment where the main character steps out of the photo booth that what lens was that was that the Orion 21

millimeter no we actually used it we used it animorphic for that but it was the uh the cower uh okay okay So, which is actually kind of like an adapted cow, I think the original lens was a 40, and then they've got like a wide angle adapterer, but it was just really funky. Yeah, look, we explored actually using anamorphics to, you know, to sort of split up, you know, so that all of the 80s stuff would be shot on anamorphic and all of the Embry stuff

would be shot on primes, but it just, you know, because so much of the movie is set that way, it was just a little too funky. It just wasn't quite, you know, we wanted it to be, we wanted the 80s to be really, you know, inviting, I guess, to the, to the audience. So having all that animorphic wonkiness going on wasn't quite the right way to go for what's basically an ensemble comedy. Yeah. With a lot of bloody bits. Yeah. I was going to say it's not, I wouldn't even necessarily call it like a horror comedy or slasher comedy or anything, but it is a very funny film. Like it's a lot of, a lot of really good jokes on it. I don't know. Absolutely. Yeah, and that's, and Anachka's strength has come from, you know, she's got a great background in comedy and that's where I worked with her before on a number of projects, you know, doing all the Young Rock stuff. And I've worked with her on, Threat Shop the Boat for a couple of episodes. And yeah, so she's fantastic and obviously really comfortable in that, in that comedy mode. But this was a real, you know, a learning process for us both. I've done a few horrors. I work with Blumhouse once operated on the show, just a second unit for,

for Insidious, one of the Insidious movies. But it was really fun to kind of, yeah, play in that genre. You know, you get to do so much more. And not to say that my lighting, even though I do some network work, it's not a straight, flat comedy kind of look that I've been known for. But it was, yeah, we've got to have a lot of fun with this. Yeah, we're going to touch on all those topics. you basically spoke out loud my entire note

my internal card well it's just now I got to figure out in what order to address them but that's great because yeah the first thing I thought was I didn't even obviously that's the first like 80s shot you see with that with that kawa and I just remember the like 360 pan you do I out loud

was going whoa whoa whoa whoa it's really and I had shot with the Orion 21 and it has that very similar, like, fishbowl look. And I was like, oh, man, I bet it's out. That's awesome. Yeah. And I think especially putting it on the, on the LF mini, you know,

you're really using the whole lens. So, yeah, it's pretty great. Yeah. So what, in what way, when would you switch between the anamorphic and the spherical lenses then? In the end, we only used, we only used that anamorphic for a handful of shots. We used it inside the time machine, and we used it for that one shot. That might have been it.

Oh, so that was like a mid-shoot decision? No, we prepped, we tested everything, and, you know, we went into, I guess, actually, we ended up going with CEM up in Vancouver, but Kesslo were really helpful. We did a lot of testing with those guys when we were looking at lenses. And we basically, you know, went through that whole process, do we want to go anamorphic for the 80s? And it was just too, too strong a look. So what we end up opting for is the geckos, which are...

Oh, sure, yeah. So there are, yeah, yeah, so they're a rehoused vintage lens. Kind of like a K-35 sort of, you know, 70s vintage blast, but they're very clean and they behave nicely, you know, nice fall off. And you get the occasional sort of rainbow flares and things like that. So they're vintage without being too, you know, they don't put up too much of a patina between the audience and that, you know, and what's going on. So I showed them to Natch and she really liked them.

So, and then to contrast that, we went with, with the Sigmas and Sigma primes, which again, are very clean. They're kind of like a master prime look, but because we had to run two sets of primes for the whole, the whole shoot, they were a little more affordable. Yeah, those sigmas are, I was talking to my friend Matthew Duclos about it. Well, maybe I don't know if I should quote him directly, but he suggested, I will say, full disclosure, his wife works for Sigma. So he might be slightly biased. And so I just don't want to get him in trouble.

But he and I both seem to agree that the Sigma's are an excellent alternative to the master prines, as you're saying. They are very, people like to say clinical. I don't necessarily think they're clinical, but they are very clean. They're very neutral, very sharp. They look great on any camera. I love those things. Totally. Yeah.

And they don't have, you know, the look of, the cooks always, you know, are another amazing, you know, really, well-designed, well-made look. And the likas as well are just incredible. But the Likers are really good. Each lens has its own, you know, characteristics that it's bringing forward. And, yeah, you've just got to choose the right thing for the right, the right tool for the right job. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the other thing Matthew says is there's no bad lenses. There's only the right lens for the right job. But so were you using any filtration on the film? Because I noticed like during the party scene, you know, the little twinkle lights are getting a little bit of blue. Was that just because of the rehoused glass or were? That was the vintage glass. We did have some, I think we were using glimmer glass for a couple of times, you know. Love the commercial ass.

Yeah, and usually I just, like, I don't like a lot of diffusion. I used to be more into the black diffusion, so it doesn't bloom the highlights too much. I'd rather do it with a lens than not, but often, you know, those scenes where we're shooting on zonballs and we're shooting with smoke. And you just, I just use a little bit of diffusion just to kind of, you know, balance up the wider lenses. We'll have a little bit more diffusion on just so I can still shoot with long lenses without at all going mushy. Yeah, it's funny. you uh i was just uh the past two days i was talking to the dps who shot um foundation the apple show it's great great sci-fi show if you like sci-fi uh but they said almost the

exact same thing they when they did use filtration it was glimmer glass they don't really use diffusion much anymore because i guess sensors especially the large format sensors don't really need it and we all prefer like the the black diffusions that kind of bring it down and nothing above like a quarter all kind of in the one-eight zone i mean i think we we probably Because I also used a couple times we had some premise to zooms on. So if I was trying to manage those in with the vintage lenses, I'd throw in, throw in a bit like a half or maybe one on a rare occasion. But, you know, if you're just, if you're pushing through it on a long lens.

But rare. Yeah, very rare. Yeah. How is your approach different, I guess, technically for the modern scenes than anything, but between killing it and totally. It's funny to say them back to back. Because, you know, killing it ostensibly a dark comedy. I don't know how you'd want to call it.

But, you know, lighting is going to be a little different. You've got a TV show versus a film. Budgets are probably different. Sure. I mean, look, in terms of the... There wasn't that much difference in the approach. I mean, obviously very different projects. And I think a lot more daylight work.

you know, in killing it, we're in swamps and outdoors a lot and a lot of practical locations. So not as much set building and killing it, although, you know, look, I don't feel like the sort of budget point was too far off. And again, the gear package is probably similar in that we had, you know, a couple of sets of primes, you know, three camera bodies. You know, we didn't use three cameras all the time on the feature. Or, you know, if we did, we'd often, Jeff would go, our camera operator would sort of step off and go and do some inserts or some montage stuff for us

if we, you know, had the third body out. We had an operator for that. Whereas on killing it, three cameras rolled the whole time. If I could get more cameras in, I would, you know, like we were, you're shooting at such a pace that you just, you shoot rain hail or shine. Right. But again, you know, like, I think I'm trying to remember the schedule

on the feature was something like 25 days or something you know like it was not a oh damn it was super fast so it wasn't that far off of kind of what you would expect for you know a series versus versus a film

but you know shooting in in Canada obviously the money goes a little further and yeah we were shooting in I mean Vancouver has nine months of the year rain so we were shooting night sequences over summer with rain 90% at the time.

So just the number of grips. And we would shoot under, you know, we'd have condors and great olds with big tents on them and shoot everything. So we're starting, you know, in daylight and sort of lighting with small LEDs and stuff like that under the tents. And then as soon as it went to shootable dark,

we pulled everything back, fall back to our big condor lighting and doing our wides and doing any reverse shots that we need. And then basically the end of the night, you know we had about four and a half five hours a shootable night so to do a horror film in four and a half you know four and half hours a night for 25 nights is uh you know it's it was pretty tight so um yeah we we i think that was the real difference between um you know shooting the last show and shooting the movie looks great i was wondering how um you know i i like to ask this to people who you know I don't know what the budget was, but I would assume mid-budgeted.

How do you, when you're not given, whatever, $150 million to shoot your dream, what are ways that you're able to move quickly, stay efficient and still maintain that sort of, I hate to use the word cinematic, but cinematic, you know, look, that, that quality level that you people expect, especially nowadays. I mean, I think it's all, it's all about planning. I mean, this definitely wasn't anywhere near that kind of budget. and I haven't shot something at that budget. But from everyone that I've spoken to,

you know, every budget has its own issues. You know, and I think, I don't know if you mentioned or I heard her another podcast, you know, they're talking about Oppenheimer, you know, they needed to cut their budget in half so they could shoot on film and so they could, you know, build these sets and they wanted to go to all these different locations, but they ended up having to, you know,

shoot one location for multiple things. So everyone's got the same problems. the real thing is working on, like, getting the script to a place that's suitable, getting scheduled to a place that's suitable. So the hard work on that is obviously done in PrEP. And we did a lot of, you know, I think we had five weeks, maybe, yeah, I think about five weeks of PrEP. And a lot of that time was just, you know, and there were rewrites happening that whole time. But we've got some great set pieces in the film and we just wanted to hold on to those.

So we were happy to make compromises on other days and on man days and on equipment. You know, so we sort of squeezed everything as much as we could to make it work for, to hold on to be able to shoot, you know, like to have two days on the Gravitron, for example, and to be able to, you know, get a Scorpio head and to be able to, you know, I was like, well, we can shoot these overhead shots or these shots here can be done on a ladder mount, you know, like we don't have any crane for this. So we're just making compromises this green screen we can do in the car park and we'll just drive up some, we don't need to go to a stage.

And, you know, so you sort of, it's really a juggling act with not just myself, but it's the same for the art department. It's the same for all the departments. And we all need to kind of work on it together and be in the same page because something that one department saves on can go to the other department to make, you know, building a carnival, you know, look much better. if they can save some money here from there. And, you know, so it's all a negotiation and just having an understanding from the script

and from the director what those really key, key moments are. Well, and to your point about the art department, I mean, the production design on this film is excellent. Yeah, there's the, even, again, that house party like doesn't look, you know, it's been, especially on, you know, student films, not that you guys made the student film, but there's always like, oh, we live in a house, let's throw a house party. It's like six red cups and they're like, that's about it. Yeah, that's all you got.

Yeah. Yeah, and I guess that was, you know, like we had extras, but we're still in the middle of COVID. So, you know, we were limited. You know, you sort of ask for a certain number of extras and that gets cut in half. And so you have to shoot this sequence out, looking in this direction and then go and change costume on everyone and that all takes time. So, yeah, I think there's, it's all about negotiation. It's all about, you know, how do you get.

the best bang for your buck and how do you get the you know to really look like a big a big picture um when you're on a tight schedule yeah how are you approaching the lighting in a lot of these like um uh sets where you know it's ostensibly like the school or that house or anywhere else you know where there's kind of overhead lighting traditional house lighting like how are you augmenting that to make it look good without being too obvious that you're adding a lot of or maybe you're not adding anything I don't know because then I always like to

I mean I think working with this again with the production design and and the set to to find a way that feels naturalistic to have the light come from a at least the light that's established that's going to stay there you know to be practical

so we you know for example in the school you know we chose a certain area that we were going to do all about whole way work in so that we could change out those tubes for something that was, you know, the right color. But again, I think we were shooting, you know, you start shooting daytime and by the end of the scene, it's nighttime. So we did need some, you know, some sort of condors and things out the window.

It really depends on the budget. And, you know, sometimes you can't get, if you're in the city or if you're in a neighborhood, you can't get, you know, big lights up into areas. So you have to bank it a bit more localized. But luckily for the party, we managed to get, you know, we had some condors up, you know, from a neighbor's yard. or from the street so um you know we the benefit of that obviously is we can do quick turnarounds you know so it's right we're not shooting 360 at any one moment but we can quickly you know

bounce to the front of the house or the back of the house and we have some some stuff in place for that and then when i get closer you know obviously i'm just bringing in LEDs or whatever's um sort of appropriate to to that world but um we you know we've been using a lot of the nick's globes and things like that still moving now into using little um like the little roscoe dash pods and things like things that can be run from a dimmer board again just so that you've got that speed of being able to make little changes

little trims quickly without having to go and do big gel operations when we were doing killing it it's a bit of a different story because it's so much exterior so we did have people up on condors and you know 18Ks and you know ARI Maxes and all that sort of stuff

but again you just you know it's horsey course and So whatever needs to happen, as much as I can, I try to get the first choose a location and see what it looks like and be a part of that discussion to choose locations that I know are already going to work, you know, some of the work's already done for me. And I also tend to embrace, you know, if there's a colour scheme there or if there's something going on there and it's not too far from what, you know, feels right for the movie. I'll embrace that and I'll just, you know, kind of enhance or match our lighting to those

colors rather than oh it's all going to be stripped out you know we've got to change everything um that seems like well you're in the wrong place to start with yeah yeah actually i'll show you or do some show until one second astera just sent you know that i assume you've used the astera tubes yeah absolutely they just sent me these oh they make they make it's the exact same LED thing but they got these little like yeah i have yeah i have i have one of those my my my gaffers got like I think they come in a floor four pack as well. So you can attach them together so they become a bigger unit. But yeah, yeah, they're fantastic.

So I'm glad you said that because they sent me these and they're like, all right, like, you know, I write for pro video coalition. So I was going to do a review on these. And I was like, I would love it if I could ask other people what their experience was because I haven't really been able to shoot anything in a while. Yeah, they've been great. They've got the little built-in fire effect and you can do, you know, flashing, you know, flashing, you know, know if you need to do a police car or you know they've got a lot of stuff that you can dial in rainbow mode for the industry you can put a party on yeah the i like the app just the wireless dmx app and it's all night lumen radio or whatever but yeah because the only other one oh go ahead

i was just going to say you know then the only problem when you start using a multiple different um LEDs is obviously not no two colors are the same you know so right finding out the right way to match those and having enough time with your dimmer board to sort of say, you know, all of these hysterias are kind of have a similar color, but then as soon as you bring a light mat in or as soon as you bring, you know, the Ross go in, you know, what's it, what does our sodium look like, you know, and trying to try to pick it and you're, sometimes you just need to get it to eye and, and put it on the camera to really work out what the, what the settings are there because it's just too hard that even with a light meter, culture, machine

meter, you can't really, it's hard to read that spectrum and get it. exactly right yeah well and those two uh those rascos i've only used once or twice but speaking of color meters like they're those things are shockingly accurate they're pretty great i don't see them getting used that much yeah i think they're i think they're coming out i think they're you know yeah i mean a sir has had a real corner in the market for a while but a lot of stuff like the aperture stuff there's a lot of there's a lot of yeah new stuff coming out that's um i I mean, there's always new toys. Yeah.

Well, and like we were saying earlier about getting kind of bogged down with toy stuff, again, just because it was the last two days of interviews with the foundation people, Owen McPaulin, me and him were talking pretty extensively about how getting too focused on gear will interrupt your flow state and make things worse. You know, if you're too nitpicky about stuff or you don't trust your instincts. you'll eventually, you know, where I think it's easy to think that, oh, if I'm really focused on everything, I'll be efficient. It's actually the opposite where if you kind of just let go and trust yourself, things tend to work out better. You know, 20% of the work usually does 80% of the result. And you can kind of just, yeah, flip me, you know, hit the flow state and just get to work. Well, I think it's also about delegating and having a good, you know, a team and trust around you. And obviously that's why we, we, we, we, we work with people that we've worked with before and build those relationships and you know what each other's strengths and weaknesses are so you kind of you know inner team can can make that work and you know what you can hand over and you still need to obviously double check but um you know you can trust you trust in your operators and you trust in your aces and then you actually find you're getting you know like words to give people a little bit of um especially creative freedom um what comes back is often often much better

And you thought, you know, you're seeing things, you know, you've now got three sets of eyes on the set instead of your one set of eyes. And, you know, so people are finding things and seeing things, you know, that you can then take that to the director and say, oh, here's my great idea, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think, yeah, definitely empowering people on set is something's a great way to go. Well, and it's also such a, and I feel like, you know, I certainly have felt this way. I'm sure potentially you have. I know plenty of people have, where you spend all your effort trying to learn a craft. And then for some reason,

everyone's knee jerk reaction is to believe that no one else has put in this amount of work to know this much. You know, so I can't trust the, I can't trust the crew because they don't know as much as I know. It's like, no, they probably know,

if not more. Like, there's always someone has a good idea, always. For sure. For sure. I mean, interesting going back to what you were saying about,

you know, um, coming from I've lost it it's gone oh was it the Australia thing the small yeah yeah we're just saying about

I've just lost it fully lost sorry that no worries I did in the random break of thought I did want to I noticed that you were what was it second unit or pickup unit for at Astra

yeah yeah I did some pickups for that what was that experience like because that's a fantastic film. It's a fantastic film. I never got to meet Hoyta, unfortunately. I was working with Adam Chambers, who's his gaffer on the project. And we just had to do some pickups with Ruth Nigger. So it was some of the stuff at Mars, and we just had to match in and do sort of build some, without building the whole sets. Of course, we had to just do a few sequences there. So it was pretty small. But it was really, some really nice stuff with Ruth. And you know and getting all of their lighting plans and sort of going over that stuff was really

really fun and we did one scene which is all in this white room and um and ruth talking to to Brad Pitt and um we're we're trying to work out I'm like did you I mean this is probably it was quite a long process I think there were quite a few pickups and it was quite a long process in post on Anastra um so when I talked to Adam I'm like so what was the you know did you have a chase or do you know what the you know we're sort of working out where the light sources are but it's this constantly swirling chase going on and i think what do you say it's just like it's like a um it's like a heartbeat or it's like a an ecg or it's like you know like so that's using you sort of the tempo of the chase it's like yeah and that's kind of the instructions we had so we

we just had to reverse engineer it from you know i had all the cuts and i had um i didn't have a lighting plan to that location but i had what the set looked like so we obviously had to make us little of the set as we could. But yeah, kind of reverse engineering. It was a good mental challenge. And then James was directing virtually for that. So he actually came away from that project saying, oh, I'm going to do all my projects.

This is so great. I can just sit there and you sort of FaceTime me and show me what you're getting and I can make little changes or little directions from the comfort of his office. I think he was pretty happy with working in that way. Right. Was there anything you remember picking up?

up from that shoot if at all that you kind of carried with you into your following gigs um i mean i think i i've always you know liked using using it like ever since the dimer boards and the LED lighting has sort of become a a reliable thing i've really liked that but i think um you know the way that they uh the way that hoiter has used light you know like constantly moving and changing and you know like keeping that keeping the lighting alive is a really great thing Unfortunately, it's not something I've had the chance to do because the stuff that I'm shooting, you know, it's less about that mood in that sense. And really the stuff I've been doing, you know, both on the horror film as well as on the shows is about creating a space for the actors and kind of having as little effect. The cinematography is kind of in the background as possible.

Like still, they need to have their own look and match and be. stylish and stand out from from other stuff that's around but on set and in the moment but no one wants to be dealing with oh I'm just got to get you know I've just got to take time to do that so while I admire that it was a lot of fun to play with it's not something that you know it's not the priority on the stuff that I've been doing in of late yeah well and I think it's probably a little easier to do not to bring up the foundation dudes again but we they were saying that like because it's a sci-fi and because it's in space you know yeah moving light is kind of

it's same thing with that astro it's like if the light static everything feels incredibly still yeah so you kind of do need to keep things moving a little bit just to give the space some life you know exactly well look on the on the um feature that basically the whole the final set piece and i think you talk about it because it's you know coming out after the after the movie's related and you know hopefully everyone will be already talking about this scene but we shot the whole end of the the the film takes place on a gravitron and right so you know So that is, you know, as close to outer space as I've shot. And obviously we couldn't, we had to shoot in a real gravitron.

We couldn't build it. And they're very specific about what you can do because it's a working piece of machinery and it has to get signed off by an engineer every time it's put together and put back so they don't have any accidents. So they let us take out one small piece and they really, we could only put lights in to places that were already structural, that were already, you know, in the machine. We couldn't take anything out. So to create the sense of movement in that space was actually, it was a real challenge.

It was a lot of fun. We ended up getting some LED strips, but they had a casing on them that basically looks like an old neon. So it was like a rubber-coated strip. So when we hung them out, you know, it still felt like it was a period, you know, practical light. and then with the dimmer board we kind of created a chase that really felt and we could build it up so that as the film progresses and as the gravitron speeds up you know you see it in the lighting and then we put on the floor we put down some flooring and we put like a slightly reflective plastic sheeting on it so you're actually seeing the reflecting lights in in all the surfaces

and to be honest even when we were shooting on there you know even though the gravitron wasn't moving we were really you feel it you know you're in the space and you feel it so the camera really sees it and people would have to step out every once in a while because it starts to feel like you're actually spinning um so that was a lot of fun and then we we kind of brought in an oculus head and um just had had you know it mounted on a dolly but we could do these big sweeping 360 moves right around the right around the inside of the gravatron um and make it feel like there was not going on the stunt guys due the great simon burn it was the stunt guy up in dancuba did some great rigs and so we could get people walking on the walls and flying back towards

getting stuck back towards the walls and things so that was a real a real fun play with with light and again you know our department a very important can you know stunts everyone sort of collaborating on that to to really pull pretty pretty awesome scene together i've never seen anything like it so yeah if no respond to that yeah 100 percent and and actually it's a good thing you brought up the stunt team because the stunts are excellent yeah like they're very clean like they're not the you know no no expenses spared on this on in the stuff department no i mean i think we we really looked at it like um then actually wanted it to be like a real john hugh's kind of 80s family ensemble you know

like the comedy stuff and that you know just to be really accessible to people to kind of lure them into this you know this innocent world and conversely she wanted the you know all the all the all the gore and all the horror to be ramped up to i mean you know so you know so Right. So that's, so the stuff that we worked out, like the stunt, you know, the set pieces and the stunts, we worked through those really early on. We sort of allocated those. The first things we started working on, we broke them right down. We did storyboards. And then we've got to put those storyboards together, hand them over to the stunt team, and they would do a previous. So we did it, you know, as professionally as we could. And then they, you know, they had limited time to put all the fights together. I think there's four or five fights and three. three or four kills, something like that. You know, like there's quite a few big sequences in the film. And, you know, we tried to hold onto those. You know, we didn't want to, we didn't want to drop any of those.

We wanted to sort of show that we, we'd done our homework. They were all really, they were shot very smoothly. But, you know, there wasn't any messing around. It was all by the number and we had our boards up and we crossed them out when we had that shot moving on. So it was, you know, it was handled almost like a paid by numbers because we've done such great prep to get that all together and with the stunt team. And obviously the actors, when they stepped in, Keenan was fantastic.

It's with all of that action as well, very good physically. And then we were happy to kind of cut corners and shoot faster with those ensemble beats and with those comedy beats because we've shot television of those kind of scenarios before. So it was okay that we knew that we could crunch those and still get great performances, but we had to hang on to the, you know, onto the scares and onto the action sequences. yeah i mean even that first uh initial fight with the mom uh i remember her about halfway through it i think it's when she gets thrown through the table like enough had happened where i was like all right joanna wick this is pretty cool yeah yeah it's shot very nice actually not to not to this is later in the

film but i not to continuously bring up gear but you did something that uh another thing that i shouted it out loud. And that is, do you know Todd Viziri? He's a VFX guy. There's no reason necessarily he's worked at ILM for decades. But he's pretty active on like Twitter and Blue Sky now and shit like that.

But big split diopter fan. And there's that shot where the main characters locked up the stairs. And I was like, split diopter. And they're rare, man. Yeah, we used to we had, yeah, we used on quite a few. It didn't get.

as many shots in the movie as, as we thought. There's an early shot where her dad drops are off at the car, and he's in, he's in focus and she's in focus. And, yeah, we pitched it a few more times, but it didn't, you know, but it just felt like one of those, you know, really old school kind of filmmaking tools to use. So it was, yeah, it was great. Yeah, it's, it's sprinkled in there enough that it's a seasoning

and it's not overpowering, you know. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, we definitely didn't want it to draw attention to it, but it's just, yeah, sometimes nice to do. Well, I don't know, they're just fun. Yeah, what was the process like shooting stuff for VFX, where you, was that, obviously, it was storyboarded, but were, was there a supervisor on set kind of helping you out? Or were you kind of giving them what you got? Do you know, do you have a VFX brain to that degree? Like, how is that operation working? Yeah, I mean, we had a, we had a BFX guy for, on-set supervisor for all of the, for most of the, most of the work. you know again i've done a lot of visual effects especially you know in television so you get

pretty pretty um both say with what's what you can do and what you can't do and when there's any problems so whenever there were problems um you know i sort of uh i i bump them back to the to the house to see if they you know they had a preference for how we shot it or whatever there wasn't a lot of great screen work only a few handful of shots in there um but ingenuity did the did the post on this and they you know done a lot of a lot of shows but both for myself and for Nanashka before. So we had a good relationship with those guys. But yeah, you do get a little shorthand with what's going to be possible.

And you kind of know what the rules are. And if you're going to break the rules, you give them a call and make sure, you know, are they going to be okay with that? Or is there something we can do? We need some different plates or, you know, what do we need? I mean, obviously, you know, things like, um, the sprouting of the Gravitron, you know, we just, we literally taped a GoPro onto the outside of the Gravotron and took a miss spin at a few different speeds.

And then, you know, it was just about getting the right. level the right height so you know there was a bit of dialogue back and forth in post just to make sure that the angle that the camera was seeing matched you know obviously a go pro is quite quite warby so you know you need to kind of say well it's only you should only be seeing this part of the frame it shouldn't be seeing too much and you know it should be moving at this speed and you know we put a bit more motion blur on if we need it things like that yeah the it all the vfx looks good i did have one question about and maybe i'm making this up in my head uh because again it all looks good. I couldn't quite tell. But there's like a photograph. Was that replaced? There's

like a tight shot of a photograph that I felt like it. She's looking through and she sees that, yeah, so we did a green screen, I think, on that one, which is just we hadn't seen, we hadn't shot that sequence when we, you know, I think that was our first day that we were shooting in that in that sort of garage. And when we didn't have that, that plate yet. So they, so they took a, yeah, we just put in a blue screen or a green screen for them to handle and then they comped into that later. Gotcha. Yeah, because the follow-up question was going to be, was it a script thing? Like, I was wondering if maybe you had shot something else and then it was like, oh, that doesn't work anymore. Now you had to change the, or if it was going to be like a back-to-the-future thing,

which, you know. It was going to disappear. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's not true. That wouldn't happen. As you know, maybe. That's what Back to the Future got wrong. Yep, that's the river. Actually, to the other touchstones in the film, I had read in an interview that you only had like a handful of VHS tapes growing up. Were you the reason that they're watching Robocop? I think that was all Narnashka, but yeah, that was definitely in my, in my wheelhouse, you know, Terminator, the first Terminator, Robocop. You know, I think my parents had the killing fields, you know, all very inappropriate, inappropriate movies that you shouldn't be seeing as a child. But that's, that's all we had.

That's a handful of tapes. We had Greece. So that was my for the kids, I guess. And yeah, a few others. E.T. at some point. Sure. Yeah, when I was younger, we would just rent, you know, we had a local rent, like locally owned rental house, Peter's video.

So we didn't really own anything. But when we did buy a DVD player in like the mid-2000s, it came with like two free DVDs. One of them was the mask and one of them was get shorty. and because I was with quality both great films great films but I my parents wouldn't let me watch Get Shorty so I watched the mask probably a hundred and ninety times and that's probably that's probably the least less yeah it's more the mask is almost more problematic than get short I was going to say that I was going to say that yeah get Shortty's pretty straight up the middle but mask has got some issues yeah it's a tough it's a tough although that's that is where I discovered my love for Cameron Diaz of course what else

there was something else I wanted to ask about the film but now I'm blanking because now I started talking about the fucking mask oh it was so you know the the opening the film you meet the parents right and I was like man I recognize that guy why do I recognize that guy I was

second unit pickup DP on the detective night series which Lachlin was in oh fantastic So I never met him, but I was just like, why don't it's because I saw the film. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. And I think he's a cool guy. Yeah, and he was he.

I mean, it's obviously, you know, Vancouver royalty. But I think it was it Riverdale? Was he? I believe so. I had just looked up the IMD be like, I mean, I think it was Riverdale. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, they are really great.

To work with. Julie Baum was fantastic. And, you know, so out for what we put her through. yeah she came on to say she's like right let's go here we go so punch me in the face yeah yeah she was great I'm I'm jumping on top and I'm yeah that's awesome yeah the I did briefly want to touch on young rock because I had not seen it

oh yeah and I was kind of wondering how you got because that that came before all this right young rock was like the first was that that wasn't the thing that brought you to L.A. was it? No I came over for I mean I'd be coming back and forth I'll be shooting music videos in New York, I'd be shooting documentaries or, you know, traveling all around the world. And every time I'd stop over in the States and sort of, you know, being based out of Sydney is a long way from anywhere. So, you know, I sort of started to think about moving over here and started setting things up, started getting my union days, all that sort of stuff. And then I was shooting a show, I went back to Australia, a shooting show, it's called No Activity.

um and it was we did i think two or three seasons in maybe two seasons in a telly movie in australia and it got picked up by by sunny or die by um will fowrell at mcgay over here so they and you know to play on paramount plus on that for cv s so we remade that and did four seasons of that over here that was really the first kind of yeah big show but you know it was just when streaming was really was really happening um and uh you know you know it was they loved the look it was definitely not a conventional look it's the show is written to be super simple it's all a series of two handers um you know two cops on stakeouts trapped in a car and what do they talk about you know two crims sitting in a building what do they talk about um you know

the women at back at the dispatch office and what do they talk about so and then we would sort of shoot all that stuff out so we got these amazing actors jk k simmons and um bob odencirk you know some of the best sort of comedy comedy people around but we'd get them for eight hours we have to them out for eight episodes within that time so you know just shooting super fast um and then at the end of it we do there's a raid or there's some sort of big action sequence that we you know each year we do and that take a couple of nights to sort of put that together but we were shooting at really you know kind of i want to say like 15 days for eight episodes or something like that so it's really it's a really fast shoot um and then you know through that you get to know some some of the actors

some of the producers, you know, Trent had worked on Brooklyn Nine-Nine with the guys from killing it. You know, I did some operating and, you know, through some other friends. I did a, did a telly movie. And then some of the guys on the telemovie, you know, worked on fresh off the boat. So then I went on fresh off the boat. And, you know, met nuts through that. And, you know, long story short, that's sort of how I ended up getting the cold to do Young Rock. They ended up shooting the show in Australia, so I didn't end up shooting the actual show for in the first season. But I shot all of the, all the, basically the ins and outs and all the Dwayne Johnson stuff. So, you know, basically a big part of the first season I shot. Second season, I wasn't available

because I was doing killing it. And then the third season I came back, you know, set it up. They shot in Memphis. So the whole season was shot in Memphis last year for the final season. And I shot, again, all the Dwayne Johnson stuff. We shot that in a couple of weeks. And then the first three episodes I shot and then handed over to another DP. So I could continue on to the second season, killing it, which we brought back here to L.A. Yeah. Because the thing I was interested in is obviously the rock is enormous, both physically and. And I was wondering how much, you know, I don't think people, obviously, it does kind of feel like the rock plays himself in a lot of stuff.

but he's you know especially the movie about him or a show about him but uh it did be i don't think people give them enough credit for beat he's like a decent actor and uh you know creative mind obviously coming from w i was wondering how much um control or how much uh creative input he was offering on that show and kind of like what working with him would be like on a uh sort of behind the camera rule i mean he uh a lot of that stuff happens before before i'm brought on but my understanding is that all the stories, you know, at least one or two of the blog points per episode are true stories and then the rest of it is obviously, you know, a TV show. But, you know, he definitely, if there was something that he didn't like, you know, it wouldn't go through. Like he's a producer

on the show. And so, you know, there's nothing in there that he hasn't signed off on. But in terms of, you know, working with him, he comes in and he's ready to go. you know we we again shot him out very quickly which he's a busy man so we we sort of hit the ground running and did some did some long days and and well actually not long days but you know we crammed some pack days yeah for sure um but i think again in probably in 10 days we're shooting him out for 13 episodes you know including a Christmas special when each year the amount of um the amount of the show that he's in has gotten bigger and bigger so um you know, it started off and it really was just kind of like an intro and an outro and obviously

the amazing Randall Park, you know, sort of leaking it all together as well. He's the best. Yeah, he's so fantastic. And so see, you know, having that set up and, you know, we're doing our news broadcast and whatever we could do without Dwayne, but just bringing him in and knowing that we've got him for a certain, let's say it's eight hours, it's probably probably never more than eight hours a day. You know, he's got it really worked out and set up, and we get him in there and you shoot. And if you move him for one set to the next set,

it's, you know, you're standing by right next door. So it's a lot of pre-production, a lot of working things out, but just to maximize your time with him. Yeah. It sounds like on a lot of these shows, I mean, it's everyone is, but you're working very quickly.

I feel like I asked this already, but I'll just ask again, just in case is, does that does your kind of background in documentary help shape what you do narratively like especially working quickly like that do you do you find that that has an influence on you or does it kind of work the other way where the narrative kind of influences your documentary approach i think um you know it's sort of a two-fold question i think every you know especially these days everyone every any cinematographer is going to is going to work fast you know

you don't you don't you don't sort of get to a certain level without being able to be able to hustle um but i think what documentary has taught me is you know is is being aware and being alert in the moment you know um i think that's the that's the thing um it's less about the again about the gear or the structure or you know being able to light faster um but it's more about just being seeing things in the moment that um and being out of pivot you know so you've done your preparation so you know that you're going to get your day and this is what we're we're setting out to achieve, but still having those sort of eyes in the back of your head and being able to feel a vibe on set or on a documentary or anywhere, you know, so that you can,

if the story starts going in this way or someone's tapping their foot or someone's looking, you know, like if there's something going on there, you can have a little quiet word to the director and say, oh, they just did this. On that last take, they did this. How about we focus on that? Or, you know, you're sort of being alert and finding things. But then, yeah, I think absolutely the narrative work I've done absolutely affects my, my documentary. And, you know, like I'm always pushing to make everything as great as I can, you know, and you work with crews, you work with gear, you know, you sort of find out what's around. And then, yeah, I think there's cross-pollination.

I think all the, everything you do, you use somewhere in your work, in your three. Yeah. Well, we're coming up on the hour, so I'll let you go. Like I said, man, I actually just watched the film right before we started talking. I just woke up early and hit play. And I was like, okay, good. And then ran over here. Not that it surprised me for any reason, but I, but it did.

It surprised me at how much I enjoyed it because I tend to just kind of, especially when I'm handed a screener, I'm like, all right, all right, all right. And then about halfway through that, I would found it. I was like, I'm not taking notes. Like, you know, it's great. Yeah, it's a, it's a great film. I'm probably less excited for people to watch it than you are. But I am excited for people to check it out because you did a great job on it. Thank you.

Yeah, and we've got a couple of, you know, some festival screenings coming up as well. So I'm really excited for people see it on a big screen. You know, that's always kind of how you make it, even though it's made for Longhouse and for Prime, you know, to play primarily on Prime. You know, it's great to see it on a big screen as well. I've had the chance to see it once on a big screen. And I'm really looking for seeing it with an audience and seeing how those jump scares work. Yeah. Thanks for spending the time, brother.

Really appreciate it. Yeah, good to me, Kenny. All the best. Frame and Reference is an Albot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. As this is an independently funded podcast, we rely on support from listeners like you.

So if you'd like to help, you can go to buy me a coffee.com slash frame and ref pod. We really appreciate your support. And as always, thanks for listening. Thank you.