Frame & Reference Podcast - 119: "Appendage" DP Powell Robinson

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

This week we have the wonderful and funny Powell Robinson on to talk about his work on Hulu's "Appendage"! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow F&R on all your favorite social platforms!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can directly support Frame & Reference by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buying Me a Coffee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coast's leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out ⁠⁠Filmtools.com⁠⁠ for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ⁠⁠ProVideoCoalition.com⁠⁠ for the latest news coming out of the industry.

Hello, and welcome to this another episode of frame and reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and you're listening to episode 119 with Appendage DP Powell Robinson. Enjoy. have you been uh have you been watching anything cool recently uh you know what did i what did i i've been enjoying uh followed house of usher um that's no shit okay yeah i've literally only seen billboards for it so i don't even yeah no i was you know i like all this stuff but this one in particular there's something i don't know what they did photography wise to quite make it look the way they did but i haven't seen anything quite like it

Oh, jeez, I'll have to check it out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's funny because I was interviewing a couple people who, you know, couldn't work because of the writer's strike. And then so they were like watching tons of shit. And then I had a few people who were working in the UK that were like, I'm currently shooting something and want nothing to do with a screen. That's usually how I am when I'm working. But, yeah, it's been a little quiet. Yeah.

Has anything changed for you since the. rider strike ending or is SAG pretty much created the exact same amount of work? Yeah, the SAG halt. I mean, what it means to me is like, at least there will be a lot of stuff that has now been back into development and started writing again. So hopefully when the actors

figure everything out, there'll be a lot of stuff to do. That's the, that's the hope. Yeah. How are you occupying your time with all the breaks? You know, I'm, I work besides shooting. I also do a bit of producing and, and writing work.

And so I've just been doing that. I have two shows that, one I wrote, one that I'm just producing on. And so a lot of stuff to do for those, helping, uh, yeah,

just helping get those off the ground. Yeah, I saw that you, um, which wouldn't necessarily be affected by the sag strike. I don't think, but you, you shot whole grip of music videos.

Yeah, that's all I got into this whole thing was, uh, was music video. So I'm up to, to God, God knows how many now, but yeah, that was my beginning. Yeah. Well, it was, it was cool, because I, how old are you?

30, how old am I, 31? Yeah. I've done that. I'm 33 and I keep on going, fuck, really? Yeah. Like, that's, I thought it was 29. Did we cat here? Yeah. So roughly the same age, but it felt like the same thing happened where like, we all,

tell me if this is you, uh, you know, you grew up watching like Spike Jones music videos and skateboard films you know fight club comes out whatever and you're like this is all rad the matrix have talked about the matrix a million times and then uh and then everyone who could have theoretically been a mentor was like well music videos are where you're going to cut your teeth and then we get here no music videos there was like seven people you must have been one of them that got all the music videos yeah it's it's you know when i was right when i left school it was I would say the market was probably a little bit bigger

but also there was more room because TikTok has changed the whole face of music video production now people don't want to pay for a bunch of music videos and they can pay for TikTok videos they get them more views and so you've got a select number

of big artists who are able to do actual music videos and then yeah the the sort of 5K to 15 or 30 K music video range I don't know if it even exists really as big as that was that was how I came up was like yeah I graduated, you know, the five to 30 arrangers what everyone was doing for the first, like, two years of school.

And so, yeah, all the ones that I got were two to five. Yeah. You know, it's always like someone has a buddy who's a musician. And then you're like, oh, what is the music good? It's good. All right. Well, then we'll do it, I guess. Yeah.

He just needs you to. He's got a, there was a lot of, speaking as a producer, or you could probably. speak to this as a producer the importance of like micro producing for stuff like that like my friend has my friend's old roommate owns a bar that won't be open till two so we can shoot in there kind of like stuff you know all the friend deals all the time yeah yeah do you have any uh interesting ones you can think of when from the lower budget days where you had to pull off a few miracles okay yeah uh i did um remember you're remember Feddywap? That's my way. Yeah. So that was one of the earliest ones I did. And we obviously had no car rigs at the time. We didn't have like a, you know, any sort of Russian or now the Ukraine arm for the, the, uh, no, it's just cool. Yo crane. Yeah. So I, so I, there's no arm. So instead, we got a, uh, a pass van with like, with suicide doors. Well, I had an easy rig on and we ratchet strap my easy rig to the like the passenger seats. And I just hung out the back. And I just hung out the back. And I just hung out. of the van and we filmed all the stuff with me just yeah suspended by one ratchet strapper a bungee cord just

barreling down some side street so yeah that's OSHA approved very much yeah that's clearly a union jump yeah the uh the the larger I looked at your IMDB I didn't write down a list but like you you are working with some of the largest the one I remember Jack White for

what's the trick great which is a great track but um uh what do those higher budget music videos kind of look like production-wise, is it still the kind of same chaos you just got a lot more going on or is there a certain smoothness to it?

You know, some of them a lot, like the ones I've done for like Doja Cat or Youngblood or those like the big top tier pop star ones, those are pretty much run and paid like commercials for the most part. There's still a scrappiness to them because music videos always, like

there's so many things between the artist and the label and like what everyone else wants like you're always adding stuff for changing things and so you'll build a whole setup and the art of it. I don't like it. Okay. What's the video now? Like I like that corner of the room over there. Let's shoot over there and then you just have to pivot.

Just figured out. Luckily, you have the gear and the people to pivot. Whereas on the smaller music video, so it's pivoting is you only had the money for one bank of lights. Like one bit of set design so you can't. So there is still a lot of improv more so than in commercials. But, you know, something like that Jack White, the what's the trickle on very small budget you'd think it was not but like there's a weird thing going on where even big artists um you know just because of between all the split out of

I knew how many different people are making content now and just like where where stuff is being streamed they aren't putting in as much as they used to like whereas like someone a star of Jack White's size in like the 90s or the 80s might have done like a million dollar music video that was I mean who knows but it was I was under 100k I was like probably 15 and so like but you know you just again it's sort of what you were saying you do it for the love of the song and like i would have you know if they told me he wasn't paying i've been a fan of jack white since i'd like well i would just fucking flood at the tennessee and done it myself anyway like um sometimes you just have to do the ones that make you feel good because a lot of the times you don't get to

choose what you're working on and it just things just come in um but yeah 16 mil jack white that was an absolute no brainer so yeah well and it it's something too about like not that that that That's necessarily, I mean, it's low budget in the grand scheme of things, but like even lower budget stuff, I've always found that taking those gigs or taking gigs where you're just like, you know what, I like this person. I'll do them a favor. You end up meeting other people, like maybe let's say the production designer on what's the trick. And they're like, oh, yeah, I was the production designer on, you know, the Avengers, whatever. And they're like, I just like this song. And then you end up, I think people flip. They think like every low budget film is a way. waste of time. And it's like, you're going to end up meeting people who are also, you know, coming down for the love of the project. And then they can kind of. My gaffer of seven years, I met on a job. Oh, God, longer now. I met on a job. I did a favor for a producer. I'm like, hey, our dolly grip bailed. And this was like when I was really getting started. I was, you know, I was shooting, but I was still doing a little bit of gaffing work and a little bit of just whatever

to pick up money. And I need a, I need a dolly grip. And I'm Dolly Grip. I left school basically just shooting and gaffing, but came out, Dolly Grip for a day, and I met my gaffer, and I've been working with that guy ever since. But like that, you know, that's, it is true. Like, you never know the smallest project, the weirdest opportunity, you will meet someone who can probably change your whole career. Yeah, well, I was reading up on you. And it does seem like you still work with a lot of the people, including like a banditian shit, uh, that you met. at USC.

Yeah. And obviously all of us at the time wanted to go to UFC. Now having done 120-something episodes of this podcast, I found that what we all should have wanted was going to AFI. But those people are just crushing it. But how important was SC Film School? The best thing the SC Film School gave me was all the contacts I've got now. I, the person that I've written with and produced with now, we have a movie going

after Austin Field Festival that I'm going this week. He and I were freshman dorm neighbors. The guy who edited that lived down our dorm holiday, he's one of our closest friends. The guy who directed it was his neighbor. So we were all on the one big dorm that like dorm floor. It was the film floor actually in the fratiest dorm of USC. Yeah. But so yeah, we we just all, we've stayed friends that long.

And say, you know, like, Anna, I met in the, like, the intermediate film production class, and I just thought her work was awesome. And so when it came time to do our senior thesis, we co-ed a thesis together. And that's how we met. Oh, cool. And really got to know each other's working style. And since then, I've shot, barring one thing where I had surgery and I couldn't do it. I shot basically everything else of hers or I've been on set in some capacity for her since then. So that was, yeah, like 10 years ago. And then Alex, Alex, familiar in the editor and produced her appendage, I went to high school with. We were in like film, they gave a little film class at high school for us, which was cool. And yeah, we've known each other since then. Yeah, I was, I was going to say, it's, it was nearly the same thing for me. We had a arts dorm at, and went to Arizona State. And we all, we're all still in touch for the most part. There was like, I, I'm from California, but like, you know, about 12 of us moved back to L.A. and like, one of them's gotten pretty good acting and is like in a bunch of television shows and you know one's a producer now and then my my buddy nick um was always at a documentary just was nominated for his um an emmy for his doc this year

this yeah so it's it's like it's weird how if even anyone can be someone yeah you know these are all people at ASU that were just partying around you know and then now success they say that by it's It's like the first orientation day at the film school, you'll see. They say, like, look at the person on your left and you're right. Like, you might be working with them. 10 years now, once you graduate, you know, you can never know who you're going to meet. I think that's one of the things I wish they kind of drilled how more the longer you went there is like, you know, I think you think when you're early on, like, well, if I just do really good work, like, everyone will hire me. And like, that's what matters.

Just do really good work. It's like, no, you got to be someone that people want to work with. and and that goes back all the way to who you beat in college and you're a, uh, you know, a dick, uh, that can pay off 15 years later down the line when someone will hire you. And I'm sure, unfortunately, I hope we run into that at some point. We all do. But like, you know, it's, uh, yeah, it's interesting. Just how, how, how people come back around to like, I don't, people that I hadn't seen in 12 years. Some are like, hey, I just started this new production. company. Thoughty that one thing you shot in school and it was like, hey, we're doing that now. You want to come out and, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I certainly had to do some image rehab coming out of college. Not a lot, but enough that it took a minute. But there is definitely one person that comes to mind from our film school that literally just blazed a trail through Hollywood. Like, I would hear his name come up on random sets with like, now fuck that guy.

And I'm like, geez, you really can like, you can screw things up if you're, you know, super fully yourself and think you're God's gift of filmmaking. It's tough too because when you're that young and you think you know the right way to do things. Like you're like, oh, I've already shot two things and they're great.

Like I know what I think you're, I don't know. I think it's easier to be difficult a little bit when you're younger and you haven't had the experience of being humbled repeatedly. Yeah. I think that's a very, very important post film school process is getting it down to the fucking ground.

Starting your place a little bit once you left. but you know and end of the day yeah you find the people that you're the happiest working with and usually those are the ones that you go the farthest with well and i think that actually brings up a great you know getting get a kick to the ground repeatedly it's actually like a this is going to sound weird let me let me try to think this through uh it's like a comfortable place to be like i don't think in film school that they give you enough time to realize you will not be shooting like what is it tier one tier what's the

high tier tier three yeah i don't know i've got tears the number they they stand yeah yeah uh stuff like off rip you're gonna be shooting you know things that as a film student you look down on the joke always being like mayonnaise commercials or whatever and then you end up having more fun on that than anything else because they're smaller you're with your friends whatever and it's far more comfortable yeah first feature i did out of school budget was like 70k and you would would think that that would be a nightmare for one involved, and it was. But it was also the experience that I still talk with people the most of the crew that was on that were also a lot of friends. I mean, Michelle, who PD Dependage actually did a couple days of art

direction on that one. And so, you know, again, it's just always, it always comes back around. But people still reference that shoot as like, we were all living in the mountains together in a cabin shooting like a slasher in the cabin we were living in. So there were times that it was, you know, we're shooting a scene and there's people who are legitimately sleeping in the corner of the same room that the set was in as we were filming and just one of the craziest like some people were still in college while you were shooting it it was wild but yeah the small ones can often be them the most uh life changing yeah well then after that one your next bigger one you you totally shot on an iPhone or a couple iPhones right yeah yeah yeah threshold um that was

so Patrick who I've now done two movies with um produced that new one with as well um We were waiting on money for a bigger film. We'd been commissioned to write a script, and they were, you know, they were like, yeah, it's going to be $2 to $3 million. It'll be great. And it was just taking so long to get off the ground. We got to do something. We got to like, got to just occupy our brain somehow.

So yeah, we did an 11-day improvised road trip horror movie. And it was very small crew. It was us to, two actors and our producer. And just we drove to like Utah and down to the border and back. basically. And we just did it for us. Honestly, we thought it was like, well, we might as well just, let's do this weird experiment, have some fun to keep ourselves occupied. And then, you know, I think because it was such an organic fun process, the movie just came out actually pretty well and sold it to Arrow and love Arrow. Yeah, they did. Man, we were so stoked. We could

not believe we're getting a Blu-ray, like an Arrow Bluer release on an iPhone movie. That was one of the funniest career moments, I think. But yeah, cool. Because Arrow's basically, uh, the young, hot criterion at this point. Yeah, for, for, for, for cult horror. Exactly. Yeah, they're, they're great. Well, even, are they really expanded so I have a pretty, right, they had expanded

beyond that now. Yeah, like the, I, I, I don't want to say that, uh, uh, Robocop was like the first one. That was certainly a big one. But yeah, I got a bunch of air shit. Do you have a large physical media collection? That's been real newsy lately, and I certainly do. You know, I don't, but I also don't have a lot of stuff.

I'm not, I, like, so. The room suggests you should see this nonsense. Yeah, no, I'm, I actually like, I have the same five black t-shirts and pairs of black jeans. And I, I'm, I just like the least amount of decision-making possible. and so I keep things simple and clutter free and my brain is already a mess so I you know helps me out

yeah the that's something that I have recently been thinking about even just down to like clothes but something that shout out to my friend Joey Fameli he shoots with Adam Savage for his tested YouTube channel has been going for like a decade

and one thing that Adam said once that has always stuck with me is like and this goes down to more like when problems arise on set, but it still kind of applies to everything. It's like if something happens in it, that you can't control, like it just hacks a decision off of your, or it hacks a limb off your decision tree, which makes things easier. The less limbs you have on the decision tree, the easier your whole life is. So being cluttered, having too many options of things to wear, stuff to do, things to spend

money on places to go, you know, it actually makes life worse in some ways. I hear you know the thing that blows up on the most is like people talk about like my set outfits like oh I got to get my set outfits ready for the shoot this like the last thing on my mind is what I'm going to wear when I'm filming I need that to be the last thing on my mind because I'm like I'm trying to get my way through a shawless my brain before I shoot the last thing I'm being like does this fucking match like no you know it's like a basic outfit I know it works I don't have to think about it throw it on I can use my brain for better things but yeah I've got I've got like a set pile it's mostly just just all of the three t-shirts I've gotten from, like, Matthews. Hell yeah. This one, yeah, this one from fucking frame I.O., whatever. Like, those are the gnarly one. Keep it simple. I think that's, I think it's important.

Yeah. Speaking of simple, oh, great, what a great segue I just came up with. John McPenid simple, yeah. Yeah. So obviously, like, for, for horror films, uh, lighting can be sparse, you know. And, but if you keep it sparse, You know, you just don't get a good enough exposure.

What are some ways that, because you've, you've done a lot of horror, you know, you've got three big ones on you right now with appendage being a horror comedy. What are some of the ways that you're able to move quickly, be efficient, stay light, but still light in such a way that's dramatic and keeps the tone? Like, do you have any kind of, not specific setups, but like styles that you lean on so far? sure uh i would say that well yeah so i make it a little more difficult on myself than maybe so like i don't i i typically don't like to use can't you know all these cameras out dual native sensitivity iso setting i'd be like 30 300 ISO and shoot with like the back of your iPhone light reflecting off a mirror in a room that's like 10 feet away like i don't love that because i really i think i'm sure i will

rely on it when i need to go on a super super crazy fast moving set but i haven't yet i prefer to do the opposite. Something I talked about before about this movie was before I shot Appendage, I was doing a bunch of stuff on 16 and 35, like that Jack White video. And, you know, fastest films without pushing the film you're going to get is like 500 ASA, you know, stock. And so I just got used to lighting for 500. And so, and you know, when you did appendage, like, I'm just going to, you know, a lot of the movies that we were referencing were all shot on film. And to me, part of the look of those is not just that they were on film, but you had to light those movies to a certain level to actually get them to look like that.

And so it's not like just, when people shoot on film, they're like, well, now my movie's going to look like a shot on film. Modern film stocks are so clean that, like, unless you push them or you actually expose them badly, you're not going to get as much grain as you think. And that was sort of one of the things that we also mess with on appendage was there's very little film green added to the movie later. But, yeah, we did appendage all at like 500, except for two or three digs interiors, where I got screwed by the weather

and like we turn all the lights off all the jennies off and we just had to be like I guess but up a two um and so um you know I don't rely on that for speed I know a lot of people do I think it totally works there's some gorgeous stuff that like obviously like you know look at the creator was shot large like 12,000

ISO FX3 like that's rad um and it totally it totally works I think the way that I just process lighting I tend to like a significantly higher contrast ratio and that's also gotten me into trouble a few times. But when you shoot at something like 500, unless you put a light somewhere,

there's not going to be light on the face. You know what I mean? Like, it's really helpful for getting exactly the contrast you want because you're limiting everything around it. So, you know, as far as how I actually do move fast in those situations, I don't do any real work anymore without making sure basically every light I've got is either blackout luminary or on a DMX4.

obviously features like indie features like appendage can't afford the MX board but even like in yeah the iPad even on the like the tiniest like appendage was what's funny is everyone sees this on Hulu but it was actually produced

at an indie level like it was acquired you know and and picked up but it wasn't like a Hulu original with like 12 or 15 million dollars this was I won't say it but it was significantly lower than that it was produced as an indie and And so even at that level, though, taking some hits on like maybe the number of lights I had available for lights that I knew I could control from my iPad so that like I wasn't fencing around with level and having to send someone out to dial the sky panel knob to like get things to, you know, to be honest, actually only we only use vortex 8s, no sky panels. But no, the vortex 8s are better than sky panels, in my opinion.

They are. I've got a four right here. the for me I like I like sky panels when I got to do a big wash like if you're doing

a big soft box overhead it can be nice because they are slightly less they have that less directional I mean

you get to throw a diffusion panel on the vortex but like if you're not tight budget the sky panel

still work great for that but I like the vortexes because yeah if you don't want it to be a wash there's no way

to get a direct beam from a sky panel and so we did a lot of stuff with the windows and appendage where it had to be sometimes it was

supposed to play as a street light Sometimes it was supposed to play as moonlight So we had basically outside every window at Hannah's That was a real real room Like we had no set builds in this movie Which was tough for all in a number of years Yeah, yeah, yeah

So I tried to I tried to set it up like it was a stage set up as best I could One light through every window so I could control Even during the day If I wanted extra punch through the windows You know those vortexes really can kick If the sun's not hitting on the same side of the building And so, you know, we could slip in diffusion panels if it was moonlight, pull them out if it was streetlights, take that out for daylight.

And so that just gave us a lot of control. And I could, you know, touch a button. So I hit them all to daylight. Great. Done. All right. Easy. Whereas, like, if you had them all on a sky panel set up with no DMX board, no DMX cable running in, that's your whole lighting team out there, just dialing everything to daylight.

And that's the difference of maybe 15 minutes to two. And so embrace, embrace the iPad. love the iPad, learn the iPad. Know the lights that work well with it too because there's something that don't. There's kind of, you know, a stare is magic. We lit half of appendage with the light sock 40, basically. Life like 40 in a stereo tube in it.

You'll see that in almost all of our BTS. There's like a, there's just a tube sock right out of frame everywhere. And that thing is truly one of the most magical fast keys you could have when you're moving at our level and you can't, you know, some, I do a lot of bigger sets too where I, you know, the bigger music videos, I'll build full. bar soft boxes like you have a u basically a u bar i don't love overhead soft boxes i think you i don't love top down lighting i don't know i just never have so i prefer to know either use or what i call like an a frame and it's basically two diagonally tilted soft boxes instead of

one flat overhead one just because it means then i can sculpt that base ratio a little bit more instead of just um also helps wrap into the eyes but uh you know when you can't set up a full room and you can look anywhere and just turn on or off bars. It's really important that to me at least you have something that gives the feeling of kind of a big bar light, but it's very movable. That's why I like those two socks a lot, because it's had that horizontal width, but it's very slim and so you don't get like spill everywhere. That's the other thing is just controlling. I think I'm a big tape dove on every wall I can when it's not on screen kind of person, which you can't always do on a movie this side.

Like you said, sorry, circle back to your moving fast topic. That's not always possible. And so the best next thing is ISO down and use a soft, like a very controllable soft key. You know, like that thing had the built on skirt so I can trim it as much as I need. And even if there's a little bit of spill, at 500, it really knocks it off the walls and knocks it off the far side. And it's very controllable. Yeah, I mean. Long, long answer.

Sorry for that. No, no, no. I was literally about to say that was a almost everything I've ever said in my own thoughts condensed and down to the fixtures and like style I do like an overhead but I use that more for I guess everyone does use that more for ambient yeah exactly yeah I've never I've never thought of the the TP situation that's actually yeah it's it's a little tough because you have to make sure you have the the weight bearing capacity to do it because tilting a 25. 12 softbox that's fucking heavy and it should be a chain motor thing you can do it with ropes if you have enough uh talented grips and it's totally possible but it is a little more it's that's not a easy you can do it yourself kind of assembly like i i only trust a really good grip that safely yeah the uh i was i also didn't want to interrupt you because you're on a good role but uh i always i always make a point to mark off when we've uh mentioned the astera tubes because

Because every single person, every DP, as a set of esteratubes, sometimes it's one kit, sometimes it's more, but they always show up everywhere. They are like the most, sky panels were a big deal when they came out. But I think the astirotube has absolutely changed everyone's workflow in some way or another. And then the light sock changed it again after that too. Like, like, Astero's came out and people like, oh, these look good at the shot. And they just sort of throwing Astero's into everything. Right.

The music video, the cheat music video move. They're all vertical. And then that's when they were the AX-1s and they were only bright enough to be like in the shot but not bright enough to really light the shot itself. And they came up with the Titans and suddenly like, oh, I can key with these now. Hell yeah. And then we just started like, I mean, you know, people started wrapping them in what we call it snow. It's like a white kind of foam or putting it in a pool noodle. And then light sock came out with the actual controllable dip and the skirt and that just, I see those on TV sets.

I see those all over the place. They're amazing. yeah so for appendage where you so like your key so to speak was your motivated light is coming through the windows with the vortexes and then you just bring the tube with the sock on it for the actual key wrap it around yeah and i you know there's there's a few things that the tube can't even do or because it is a very soft light often what'll happen is you lose some of the um the specular like the harshness of the shininess that you get from a bare tube and so what i started to do especially in the ending scenes or some of the scenes when she's lying down and I had the room to do it, I would do a slight sock that had more wrap to it. Like, that was more of a key than anything.

And then I would put a bare tube like two feet below it. And so, and then turn that on to get skipped. And so you got the soft key, and then you got a hard edge to, like, kind of motivate it to feel like it was wrapping around better. And so that became a little combo that I was using all over the place. Like, if you watched the end of the movie,

when she's lying down and facing herself, spoilers. that whole scene is basically lit by that combo there's like a light sock about five feet off the ground and then there's another bare tube like two feet

straight below and that's why she's got that like crazy hard glint and like shimmer across her cheeks and it kind of what gave it more of a horrory edge because on its own the light sock is so pretty

and such a flattering light that it's not actually aggressive enough for horror movies sometimes and so I've learned ways to either skinny it with the you know the skirt to make it a thinner

source so it's a little harsher or yeah double edge it with another tube to add the specularity that it's losing and that sort of that combo seemed to work pretty well yeah i mean sorry i had like three three branches yeah yeah that was actually one thing i learned i think i learned it from a photographer actually but one thing that i that really helped me when it came to making more realistic light was putting a hard source inside of a soft source I think the photographer had a big umbrella and they had one flash into the umbrella and one flash aimed out.

Outwards. Yeah. And then they would do that. And it just looks great and you can use it for film. And especially if like the umbrella is a little cooler than the key, that kind of looks a lot more natural because, you know, shadows are always cooler and shit. But yeah, that's a great idea with the two tubes.

Yeah, the other one, I just remember the, as far as speedy setups, you know, everyone loves practicals. But if you have more individual hand squeezers, it can be again kind of tedious to do. So that's why I'm, I always, if I have any practicals instead, I make sure I have like a kid of Nixvolds, you're Sarah Nixvolds as well, just because color control from those is just the best. You know, it's like when you, sometimes, you know, you want a practical to play even warmer than you can get it from dimming it and you dimming it and you dim it's so low. It's no longer playing. You're like, oh, now it's the right orange. You can just, you know, it's just so fast.

Have you used the hydrop panels? Yeah, my, so my L.A. gaffer, Nick Thompson, he's, yeah, he's going to introduce me to those as well. We put some diff on those and we'll stick them under cameras and get like really nice highlights from those all the time or when it's we use them on a feature actually did a second feature with with Hulu and Worthing Brooks this year and hopefully it comes out soon but yeah we did we had a lot of stuff with TVs and that and it was it's um it takes place in the 90s and TVs then were square and so if you you know it was four three and so we were realizing that in the eye lights you could see that our are like the light mat four was a rectangle and you could see

the tubes or tubes like oh shit that doesn't look like how a tv would look in their eyes at all and so we started to either use like four like four hydras stacked into a square or we do um we take a light mat four we put do over half so it was a square because you know the thing we realized was the quality from those hydros when you stack them it looked very much like that CRT kind of harshness when it was undifed and just four of them in a row so that's me uh yeah use of the bush now they uh they listened to this podcast it was the craziest thing i was wandering around like nab and this guy jumped out at me and he was like hey i like your stuff and i was like there's well he well no this is a couple years ago and i was just like no there's

no there's no way because i like i'm a i'm a i'm a dp but no one's seen what i've shot and i was like maybe he's read my articles but how do you know what my face looks like so i was like no and he goes yeah you did this that and the other i did a um when the a x1 tubes first came out. I did a poor man's process with him, basically. And I guess he saw that with a strange old down the road. And so I guess he's in that yada, yada, yada. The other day they sent me a four pack of the hydropanels. And so I've been trying to, I was like, has anyone else use these? Because I haven't, since I've gotten them, I haven't gotten a gig where I can use them. But like using them as little mini kines like places has been nice. That little magnet on the back is pretty handy.

Yeah, no, they're super punchy. They're useful for very specific things. But yeah. Oh man, the far, yeah, doing that, yeah, Titans definitely changed four men's processes. I've done that a lot with like three old keto housings on the either side of cars. So you have like nine banks and then you just put four to you of the niche and you can do perfect like light passes and chase. It's great. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to touch on was the kind of getting deeper into the idea of just shooting everything at 500, which is also something I strongly believe in. Because when people talk about how film looks better than digital, I often.

think that the color wise maybe you know because because obviously the colorist is going can make any camera look like anything but like um I can see an argument for that but in my opinion it all comes down to contrast and back then you had to hit everything with a pretty hard light like getting soft light was a novelty when the kinos first came out and now everything is you know bare tubes and and and a bank chimera light um sky panels and stuff and so I To your point of shooting a lower ISO, plus you get cleaner shadows, shooting a lower ISO and using the more, let's say, traditional lighting style does make your stuff look more premium, I suppose, or filmic, quote unquote. Yeah, I hate, I did enough stuff. Again, like music videos, sometimes you have to just, ah, I'm going to shoot $1,000, $1,000, sure, why not?

And like, when you get into the grade, the amount that music videos get pushed in grades farther than features is all, it's pretty drastic. and like if you don't have clean enough shadows you'll start to get all that crazy colored noise and they try to introduce a heavier lot and I just don't like the look of hushed, lutted you know, in-camera color noise. Right.

So that was the beginning of my like, I'm just going to start ISOing down. Just got to bring it all down. But even if they want to throw a heavy grade on, it's still clean and then we can control how much grain goes on there. But yeah, everybody has a different process.

I'm just, that's how my brain works. You had mentioned it earlier, But even like with the creator, I remember seeing the trailer before Oppenheimer. I was in the IMAX, like the 70 millimeter IMAX projector. And those shadows, this is the trailer. I haven't seen the movie yet. But the chroma noise was insane.

And I was like, oh, okay. So when you see it on a big enough screen, you can see it. I'm sure on smaller screen, TV, whatever, not a big deal. But like, it was aggressive. And so when all these articles came out, I would love to interview Orrin about it. He's rad. You definitely should. he's a cool guy and

yeah yeah and I had followed him on Instagram for you're probably like Twitter whatever for years you know I've loved that guy's work but it was you know when everyone was when all the Sony fan boys I don't know if you're an online person but boy Sony's got a fan base yeah they try not to I try not to yes I try to say off that as much as I can yeah the it's brutal but they're all like look at

we can do I'm like I'm so glad you're motivated keep that motivation, but also, ILM touched a lot of this. Yeah, I, what I think works for that is they're, you know, because they were embracing the 75 mil Cowah thing and like it was, it had that aggressive vintage kind of vibe to some of the sci-fi, like there was, you know, you look at some little different, there was a lot of chroma noise, honestly, in earlier film stocks that it's stressily different, it's a different kind of noise to me with, with what a Dave called of the colorist who worked on that in Dune and Batman, he's like one of the.

you know, the best out there. I feel like the contrast curve and the sort of film push they did on it, you know, I was worried. I used to own an FX3. I'm very aware what the noise pattern looks like. And like I thought I was going to bug me. But the way that they, they kind of tweaked the image, it just felt like, kind of the error.

I think they were, to me, like, they were shooting for enough. They're like, you know, yeah, if you analyze it, like I was able to see because I'm a fucking dork and I own the camera, like there's one scene. I was like that FX3 noise. But like if you don't know, and you're just a 70-s sci-fi fan or an 80-scypha fan, you might just be like, this looks like exactly what my favorite movies used to look like. And that's, I think, you know, the power of embracing the, yeah, some I-Lan magic, a really, you know, knowing your color science and getting it to kind of line up and post it.

You can do a lot of things now. It's pretty amazing. Yeah. That's what's been so hard. First of all, like I said, I haven't seen the movie. So I am just looking forward to seeing, because I am. squarely in that camp of people who loves that type of film. Yeah, you could

barely string together a plot and I'm fucking there for it, you know? But I was trying to think of a few movies that that counts, but I don't need to. Anyway, the Nope, completely lost that thought. FX3 noise. Oh, but also it's just like it makes it really hard to review cameras because part of my job

writing for Pro Video Coalition is reviewing gear, whatever lights came and stuff like that. And at this point, it's getting really difficult to receive a camera and not just sound like you're bitching because every camera is amazing. So you end up trying to find the little things that aren't amazing and then the whole article is just complaining. Yeah.

No, I understand. But same thing. Like only probably film nerds are going to, like technical film nerds are going to look at any movie and be like, oh, croma noise. No, people don't know the word crominoise. That's not. No.

No. No. And so it's, yeah, it's really, you can get away with the just slide. Yeah, I just, I'm actually in the, I have to return it technically. I'm hoping they will let me keep it for longer. But Fujifilm sent me the GFX 100 the second, they're calling it. Ooh, yeah. Dude.

So in terms of mirrorless cameras, yeah, this might be the best one. Whoa, cool. Like, like period. Autofocus is fast enough that it works. I just shot, like I said, I was shooting the race cars of Laguna Seika, kept up fine, eight frame burst, no problem. It's got a buffer like crazy, so you can just ratchet off, you know, like 40 raw images before it starts to freak out on you or infinite JPEGs.

But, yeah, eight stops of stabilization, 8K pro res files can do raw if you go to like an atomose or whatever. And it's a 100 megapixel medium format still camera. So it's just every it's got everything going for. And then the Fuji film color science, which is nice. I got my XT5 somewhere in a shelf deck there. Oh yeah. I got I got that. I got the actually just bought a while ago. I bought the GFX 50 R. Oh yeah. I really like. I have X100 got a whole of them. XT3. I did read that you were kind of a similar to me, a bit of

a nerd growing up where you were making your own gaming PCs and whatnot, which I also did. What was your game of choice? Oh, good question. You know, I did a lot of, a lot of MMO things. I loved RPGs,

just story-wise. I think one of my earliest memories gaming was actually not on PC. It was, the Nintendo 64, it was Gotlet Legends. it was the arcade yeah the arcade adaptation they turned to the n64 game and like uh i played this shit out of that game i loved it um i fantasy has always been a big thing for me and so um sure loved that but uh yeah no i mean building the PCs i think once i started to get into like

you know i guess elder elders rolls with marroland that was Xbox i guess was there a PC version Marlon? I don't remember that. There was, but Xbox was first, I believe. Yeah, yeah. Jammed on that a lot, too. Yeah. The, uh, I same thing, like I was playing, uh, you know, as they came out, your Final Fantasy 7 through 10, I think was my kind of era. Six, not really, but, uh, and then all the Nintendo 64 games, there's only like 15, so. Yeah. But, um, when I was get started getting into, there was like a, I grew up in a really small town in the, and this, the library had this little, like, who wants to learn how to make films course?

And looking back on it, they just grabbed like two guys from San Francisco who had just graduated college or maybe were in college to teach it. But I realized, we were on Premiere like seven or something, and I realized that I couldn't, no computer I had could run it. You know, we were running the e-machines, whatever.

And at the same time, I was really getting into Counter-Strike. and so I was convincing my parents that I needed the computer for Premiere and I was like it's just the same stuff like if I'm playing Counterstrike it's basically the same thing so I was able to like start building

a Counterstrike rig and we played semi professionally hell yeah nice now looking back on it I should have stuck with that everyone making millions of dollars just hanging out it was yeah I'm glad that was the route because there's a

I meet a lot of people now and a lot of first ACs who tell me there's a lot of, you know, other other DVDs that other first agencies who, like, learning just the basics of the tech side of it, aside from just like what the gear is, like, you know, there's a larger people that took that was their biggest learning curve with just how the internal camera technology even work. Not just like, how do you stick a terror deck on? How do you pull focus? Like it's, you know, what is the computing inside the camera actually doing? What does it mean? And I think I'm pretty grateful to have the nerd back. who have been willing to delve into that kind of stuff. Yeah. To your point about not going online, that in the past like year, I've really started to decline on my interest in, like even this is going to sound shitty to say, but like even trying to help people.

Because there will be conversations, there'll be conversations on Reddit or whatever where someone will ask a question and you're like, oh yeah, actually same, you know, if you lower your ISO, you actually get less shadow noise. And then here comes nerd PhD to give you a dissertation on why you're wrong. And you're like, I don't, I don't, whatever.

Like, I know when I do it and I see the shadows, I see their cleaner. If you have a reason that you think it's the raw, like, sure, you do, yeah. I think that's why, like, people, there's so many, so you get asked a lot of questions where it's hard, it's hard to answer for everyone's experience sometimes. It's like, you know, to everyone's eye, not even the word clean necessarily even means the same thing sometimes. It's very tough to subjectively describe an image. I mean, there's some things that are inarguable about how an image looks. But to some people, you know, clean to them is color separation and clarity rather than graininess.

Or like that, you know, there's so many different ways to talk about the way these things mean, especially when you're dealing with a lot of people online, the language can be a little difficult. It's not worth arguing. Well, the big one now that I've been, it feels like I've been beating my head against a wall is, and I got to have Jay Holbin back on to just do a. We had a lens month last season and everyone really liked it. And so, but Jay just came out with a new book of all of his shot craft articles from American cinematographer. So we're going to use that as a launch pad to get him back on. But I want to have a segment where we just debunk the top five internet myths that keep popping up. Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah. So one of them, tell me if you can think of any after I named the first couple. What speed boosters do? I'm sick of hearing people say, oh, I got a speed booster.

So my camera's now full frame. I'm like, please stop doing that. No more words. Yeah, none from you. Just the difference between full frame and Super 35, like legitimately. I think as much as I love Steve Yedlin, I think. that level of specificity

should have been locked behind a gate. Like you need, there needs to be like, you need to prove that you know what you're reading before you get to read those documents. You know what I'm talking about? It's like, yeah.

Oh, they are dense. And I really appreciate them, but they're very dense. And you can get lost in them. And you aren't like really, really doing this like every day and try, you know,

it's a lot. Yeah. And again, I love when people get confidence, but when they get confidence and then want to shout other people down or whatever and use something that they don't fully understand to justify their ideas. It's just like, or people, oh, jumping off the back of that one that I've seen a lot, people will be like, oh, look at Steve Enlin. You can make any camera look like anything. So what I do is I just use a color space transform and resolve to turn my Sony into an Alexa. I'm like

Oh God Like I'm glad I've stayed out of this I'm glad I'm glad Yeah No yeah it's You know I like it's

At base level Like I guess technically You are Doing what they said you're doing But it's like it's not You know There's so many factors behind that

That like The sensor provides That you can't just Fake with a color space Transform Right But you know Well, my argument was always, if that was true, we would all be doing that.

If it was that easy to just doot, dude, like, that's not a secret you found. Well, yeah, it's like, well, the thing is, you know, what they're not, you know, what that argument doesn't work for me is like, yes, you could do it. And the yes, you have now put your image into log C, Ari's color space. What you don't have is the dynamic range of the Alexa baked into your image. and you don't have how in, you know, sort of interprets motion. You don't have how, you know, there's so many different, like, even the, like, the way that Ari manufacturers, pixels versus someone else, like, the subdivisions on red versus, like, the bigger photosites.

Like, there are so many little factors in this. Like, you can't just smack in the same color space. Like, yeah, I can put my iPhone into Ari Log C. It doesn't mean it looks like an Ari. It just means it's in the same color space. Like, there's so many, there's depth. There's layers. It's an onion.

It's a track. Um, it's, it's always, it's always Shrek. That, that you, you brought back out some, I forgot to ask about the iPhones and your experience shooting an iPhone. Cause yeah, um, that's appeasing. And also tied into online. A lot of times new people start, they go online. They ask, you know, what should I do? And me and a bunch of other people like, literally just grab some friends, write something and just shoot it on your phone. Don't invest any money in this. And then there's always this pushback of like, no, that you don't get it. Bob, blah. I'm like, well, if we had a, at, at, at, mini dv was a big ass problem but it was never easy like iPhone is easy you know and cheat because you probably have one or he but even i i've never owned an iPhone i shoot android and even the android phones are really really good i have a pixel whatever um but what was your experience shooting that film on that system and what kind of workarounds did you need to use and things you needed to consider to make sure it came out looking its best so this was when we did it there was the iPhone 8 so there was no cinematic

There was no built-in brand lock. There was no built-in Wi-Bahn. So we were using Phil McPro to control it all. It was like a year after Unsaid had come out when we shot the movie. And so we knew like, hey, they paid that work. We could probably, they could make that work. A large part of it was also, because it was all improv, initially I was like being a fucking DP. I was like, well, we could use like a 5D.

We can use something. I don't want to do an iPhone. I was like really not sold on the iPhone and Patrick Pitcher to me. I let me find another option. realized it was going to have to be almost all two camera the whole time and he was going to have to operate one. It's a very good writer. He's a good director. Has not really done cinematography work. And so asking him to suddenly focus his own 5D and like learn all the setting all that in three weeks. It wasn't going to happen. And I wouldn't ask anyone to go through that and then be stressed

and like whatever. And so, you know, I watched on saying, be good. You know, I got to like, I guess we can do it. We're going to do an eye. Let's just go over the iPhone route. And so we did get a moment. I just like I think the moment telephoto lenses had just come out. I love that lens. It looks cool. We shot a lot of the moment telephone lens. The chromatic aberration on the edges is fucking great.

Yep. Yeah, add some nice grit to the image and like we were, we used a lot of those. We had a little handheld rigs. We had Zoom recorder is strapped to the handheld rigs. Like, you know, just to try and get some audio. I mean, like half that movie's ADR, but it is what it is. I would Hey man

All of Star Wars Episode 1 is ADR Look yeah And say it's worked for some people So we We did it We did what we had to I mean

Another reason we went The iPhones was we were stealing All of it Like we had no permits We were shooting in very public places And like restaurants And on the road And

And to everyone else I think it looked like We were shooting Like a travel log Or a documentary or something And You know It let us get by

And that was Because we didn't build out Now there's like iPhone rigs. You know, like now there's stuff where you're going to be like in the same with the FX3. You can build that thing out to be like this fucking big. It's crazy. But we opted for nothing like that. We had little travel tripods.

We had like two handle handheld rigs and we just tried to be as low profile as possible. The main thing that helped us out to make that not look like absolute ass image wise was just pillic pro and then exposing for the highlights and out of the situation. Just like make sure the highlights were in. Because the ugliest thing the iPhone does is blow loud, its highlights still, and like it can't handle, it can't handle the upper range very well. So we would just always expose to that, and we were like, it's an iPhone movie. It's a war movie. If it's grainy, when we race it up later, the horror movie, and it's going to be grainy.

And we're actually pretty surprised at how well, I mean, the colorist was able to push the image. Like, he dropped on a full, I think this was, again, before, you know, film box and DeHanser were out, like, all these new film emulation software. so I think he had like an iPhone film convert plug-in and like surprisingly by example to push the image around a fair amount and there's some shots in that where like because the sky was kept in like when you

soften the contrast and redo the actual curve on it later we have very few blown out skies in that film which is kind of surprising but again it was constantly paying attention to the actual like film the pro just had always checking the exposure always locking it like it would reset your white balance in between takes. It was a very early early version of it.

So being very aware of settings the whole time. I'll just sound along. Well, now Black Magic's got their app, which apparently it's only for iPhone, but apparently it's way better than Filmic. Really? Like far more usable. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I don't think I'm ever going to do an iPhone movie again. But I'm glad that I'm glad the software is better. A big thing we did with Threshold was done was we did a doc on how we shot the movie because we knew, like, it was kind of the classic joke. Everyone was like, well, everyone has a camera in their pocket. And I was like, go back yourself. Every time you hear that, you want to punch whoever says it.

But to a certain extent, we did want to be able to say, like, look, if you're, if you are desperate to make something, like genuinely, you're waiting on money for a bigger project, you don't know how to break in, you don't know what you're doing. You technically can do it. And it'll be hard, and it won't be exactly how you want to make a movie, but it is doable and it doesn't have to look like ass. Like, then this is how. And so we basically did it an hour and a half. making of threshold. Now I'm making of Doc. It's on like the Blu-ray and Arrow and all that. And it dives from super deep into how we actually got away with it. Now I'm going to have to get that arrow Blu-ray. Because like I said, I got all these criterion films. And then I started collecting

arrows and I'm like, now I need a separate arrow shelf. So I'll just get that. But also that like, I remember that was the one that a lot of people got mad at was David Fincher famously said that about iPads he was like write it on the iPad email it to your friends from the iPad shoot it on the iPad you can edit it on the iPad I don't know what you're mad about and it did occur to me that when you when you and I were in our respective film schools they kept saying like if you have a story to tell then you'll succeed and I think now because stuff is so accessible it has made people who are curious about film that don't really have a fully thought out idea or whatever want to and think

they can come out with something amazing like off rip and I think that that urgency of need like when it's the when anytime anyone asks what camera should I get I'm always like what's your script like well I don't have I want to get into it and I'm like nope nope story comes first every time otherwise you gotta be mad at yourself if you just have a camera and no story well that was the craziest fart for us as we thought like, oh, we're using, you know, we're using these iPhones. They could do crazy shots on them. We can throw on the steering wheel. They can turn and it'll spin the camera. And we realized day one, like 20 minutes into shooting, we weren't going to do any of that shit. The reason the movie was working even that early on was because the story was

good. The actors are giving it everything. We're like, okay, this is just, we're just going to shoot this traditionally. We're using iPhones and it's just is what it is. We have one or two fun shot. We stick it on a door and you open a door and the door swings open. But again, that's something that people could do with actual cameras too you know you put a door a car mount on you can swing a door open and do that it's just easier to duct tape an iphone to a window but like we realized the gimmick and the and the yeah that part of it didn't make any sense and it just came down to got to tell the story the right way yeah totally there was something else i had written down not to pause everything so i can oh well now there's two things

yeah I did want to speak in of so one thing this is the another reason why I asked me if they've listened to it before they've been on is uh I'm very bad at having like I really feel like I've stuck the landing if all the questions had something to do with the thing before it they're very rarely happens um but going back to the music videos thing I was wondering what uh do you remember any moments that got you on to the next level of music video you know starting obviously super low budget like what people were involved what projects um and and why do you to this day feel like you're still the person to call for all these really big pop artists you know what or other

artists are not all pop but yeah yeah it's it's really strange it's the music video career was always a fun thing that happened surprisingly alongside the narrative one because to be honest the two styles of shooting are very different and I've actually lost I you know more than how I got to the next level I think I probably can tell you how you won't um is a lot of the stuff you shoot narratively typically or you should be there's a lot of thought behind each frame and the lighting fits the mood of the frame and it fits what the character's feeling and you're looking for meaning and everything you're shooting you're not just trying to pop off like when everyone says just shoot it that's my like that gives me a heart attack. When I hear just shoot it, I want to walk like off this

because that means that you've lost the thread of why we're all here. And sadly, you hear that a lot of music videos. It's like, it's just a shot. Just shoot it. It's like just a, it's just a, just easy to see a couple shots to the room. Just shoot it. And, um, surprisingly. I love that one. Yeah. Especially early on when I was more difficult, um, I was trying to put too much into each frame. Like I was, I, I, I, I immediately came out of college did that feature and did another one like the year after and was just like in narrative land at least one feature a year basically and and so I had to kind of learn how to turn that part of my brain off a little bit where it was like you know sometimes something can just look cool

and that's also fine and like that's allowed and the lighting doesn't need to come from somewhere like you can just it can just be fun and it can just be like oh well that it looks good because it needs to look good. And I would say early on, my inclinations were also, I like making sad things when I was younger. I was very into bleak art. Yeah, we all do. And I still do. I still think that like there is a lot, like one of the craziest feelings on set is when you got an actor who walks in the room and you can tell they're in it and they're so committed and the room gets quiet and no one says a word and the sticks are quiet and they call action very quietly. And it is like don't fuck up because this is a once in a lifetime thing to capture right now they are so

deep and you just got to do it and um that's still the best feeling to me i think and that's why maybe my uh i can track my narrative career moving in a certain path as just the stuff i've chosen to shoot and who i've chosen to shoot with has um lined up in kind of a nice way music video is Wild West there's no there's no way to know I would say that my biggest breaks in music videos

have not come after my biggest videos but like I it's it's so bizarre and like you'll never know what's going to be the one that takes off a couple years ago there was a little

song that was called If the World was ending it's the J.P. Sacks Julia Michael's song was the big song at the time we did a music video for it very low budget music video very simple it was in two houses and the street connecting the houses up the block we had no idea it's like one of my it's like 300 fucking four and a million views on youtube now like one of the like my most few things it's a huge song and like a year later saw you know a clip of my own cinematography like in the voice as they were playing it for like someone who was going to sing it on the show it was fucking crazy but we had no idea like that thing is you'll sometimes you can tell like if it's for a big artist like oh for course a bazillion people are going to see this. Like I did a doge cat video. I'm like, I got to

mail this because there's so many people's eyes going to be on this already. What you don't know is when that's going to happen on accident or when that's going to happen because something goes viral. And that's why I hate the just shoot it attitude. Because your just shoot it and your phoned in video might be the one that people see the most out of everything you've ever done. You're going to really be mad. If you, as I think also as a director or a DP, phone some shit in. And then suddenly you're like, this is what you're known for is you're known for phoning some shit in. and I hate that. And so I try and approach everything now.

I won't take on something if I don't want to pull it like music videos. I got to be want. I got to want to bring everything I bring to a narrative to the music video. Even if on set I'm chill about the like, you don't need to tell me what she's feeling in this. Right, right, right. The artistic intent behind everything. I mean, you've got to at least be willing to bring,

bring some of you to it. And if you're doing stuff, where you don't give a crap like hope you're getting paid well for it it's another one you know it hurts it really does wear down on you

after three or four years or shooting stuff that you don't feel and don't care about like it sucks and so you know I try and find like I did this you know I did a music video for Youngblood with Chris

Chris Brasselauer who I work with a fair amount and we've done a lot of a lot of big favorite videos we've done together and um that one was just such a cool experience because he knows me

he knows how I like to shoot now I think he'd rock just shooting a punk show that's what we're gonna do we're just gonna make a punk show we're gonna get a warehouse it's a dead empty warehouse and you watched the video it looks like it was

it's meant for that kind of thing but no lights in there there was nothing in there there's no stage there was like straight up and you know we just got to build an underground punk scene for that one

and like that was you know that's the kind of video I can get behind it was like build a world make it like really distinct and like let's let's just shoot around in that world um i think that that might be the best answer for you is like just make sure you you do you even if it's a video you don't understand or you don't know why you're shooting it put some of you into it because if you don't you're not going to you're not going to want to talk about it after

well and i've certainly done that before where like the pay sucks maybe the people aren't your favorite whatever and you're kind of like especially like the motivations thing you're like no one's caring about the motivations and that well that just reminded me something else but and then it hits

and then you have this feeling of wanting to take it away from people's faces and go no no wait wait wait I just need to polish that up and just like no it's too late like I freelance color a lot and even then I have to like sometimes take a couple days away just to come back because I'm like sick of it

And I'm like, it looks good enough. Like, why are you complaining? And then just go, all right, no, they want it to look different. I'm going to make sure it looks different and good, not just different for different sake. Because otherwise, you know, it ends up in front of someone who's like, oh, who's the color? She was the DP. And you're like, oh, that's not my best, you know? Yeah, and you can't always help that.

And that's kind of why I also, I dig, you know, I was doing these music videos for a long time. But moving into commercials more so recently in narrative, it, there's some, there is a soul. this quality occasionally to commercial work or there can be. But what is there is intent. No matter what, even the, even the worst commercial you'd be on, you're like, man, why am I filming a napkin commercial? Like what is the, but at least then it's all boarded and like everyone at least put thought into why you're doing it. And even if you don't like the thought, it's nice to know there is thought. And that's one of the things I do really appreciate working with someone like Chris, like he sent me videos and it's frame by frame.

He's already animatic the whole music video before I took the time code. And the video that comes out is exactly mad. Like, I know that he's not going to look. It's like, just still, but it's fine. Like he'll, he's someone who also cares kind of the same about. And it's why Anna and I get along really well. We've been knowing our, like, Anna and I've shot so many things together. And I've noticed since so early on and she's amazing so early out in college, we definitely have a bit of a high of mind thing.

happens where we're on set like she's very prepped you know i don't get me wrong there are shot lists there are storyboards we have reference that we shoot on like cadrage or artimus to match the storyboards and it's all there but when it comes down to it if there's a moment we're like she doesn't feel right what are we missing we're missing this close up she's like i need this kind of close up and i won't even have to ask i'll be like you want this lens right you want me to be on this side of that you want exact this she's like yeah this is great it is like we just know i know her taste she knows my taste and we just you know there's never a phone in situation with her because she cares a lot

and luckily we don't have to over communicate too much to get there. Yeah. Was there anything, you know, every project you end up learning something, especially, you know, like we've been saying, but was there anything on appendage that you came off the other side going like, oh, that's something I got to think about for the future,

maybe a trick or something that you picked up off it? Yeah, I actually wrote a list. I'm not going to go through the whole list. But as we went, I had an ongoing list of things. questions to ask on my next feature and me and my first AC would add to this add to this note daily and it was just things that we missed on the prep for things that like do i still have it close because there's something i was going to say you got to email me this list because i'm just

interested for my old worker let me say i've got questions for questions for features there we go yeah i mean stuff where even down to the nitty gritty where like we were getting nickel and die by some of these rental houses and and the budget on that were like getting so specific as to ask do you have budget for carts beyond like rental do you have money for extra carts if we need it because we were shooting in places where we couldn't there were no elevators and there was no easy access walkways and if they asked us to like hop every box up individually we would have died um you know things like uh making sure you have paid color supervision on a smaller movie that's not often there um got to check for that i think Even if it's a week, even if you have to do one week unpaid, one week paid, still good, making sure that you have it in there that you are consulted on the colorist. Because there's a lot of people, a lot of producers, a lot of people who will just like, I got this guy. And it's like their cousin. Right.

And you know, have you graded anything ever? And you, you know, I, some people popular opinion, some people unpopular opinion. I think the colorist is up to, it's like 50% of the cinematography. process. Nope, that is a very popular opinion on this podcast. Yeah, there is, I think you can't obviously have a colorist fixed just bad work, objectively bad work, but you can have a color's ruin good work very easily. And you can have a color's misinterpret, I think worse than that, misinterpret what the movie is. That is like, that is the biggest problem I think you see where, especially with all these online color courses now and people,

just learning how to make things look so punchy and so polished and so over-colored and so over-produced, you have an army of independent colorists who maybe before they've done features are going to push a narrative too far. And even bigger color houses, too, they've got people who've only done music videos and only done commercials where the tonality that you choose on something like a music video, you wouldn't really think about it, but it's radically different than what you might choose on a feature. And sometimes, you can distract from the narrative by pushing by making it all about the image and you can really or turn it into the wrong kind of movie by grading it to your own personal taste rather than paying

attention to what the film is and no no amount of work as a DP can save you from that sometimes where yeah unfortunately especially if you're not you are not in the supervised sessions and you're um you know you're you get maybe three days with our five days of them on a movie it's you only have a five-day color, basically that's the typical number on like a pretty low feature you get five to seven days. Five days is enough time for them

to put a look on the whole movie and you to give notes on that and say like totally wrong direction or right direction. They'll do one round of notes and whatever that next round of notes is, that's what you're doing as basically your final pass. Like you can tweak it, you can power window,

you can do a little bit, but like you have enough time to go through one round where you just say it's wrong or right. And if you haven't, you know, if you don't have the right person on board and they don't get it right twice, that's the, that's the luckier movie. So you need someone very intuitive and that you trust and who knows you and knows how you expose to like hopefully take it home the right way. And that's why I really appreciate Sam Gilling on this one. We actually hadn't worked together before, but I'd seen his work.

And On and I had done a very intense color selection kind of process because we had to submit certain people to the, you know, to, you know, to. in the studio to approve. And so we had a list of great color as someone who'd colored like the original short. I'd worked with a ton and I loved him as well. And it was just, it came down to who they approved first, you know, who, you know, our top selection. It could have, it was a list of 20 that we trimmed down to three

and we presented those three to them. And, you know, you can always say who you're favoring or whatever. But we were very lucky that they listened to us. And they took into consideration from those three who we all thought would work. And Sam is, you know, from the beginning, he took the image in. Like, he's known for doing really excellent film emulation. Like, he's really good at it.

And he even said, I'm not going to push this like I normally do on like a music video or commercial. I feel like it's not right. It'll be distracting. The story is a little more, I can't believe I'm going to say this. The story's a little more realistic. Like, in some ways, like, there's a lot of ridiculous shit in Appendage. It is a very silly movie.

and it's a very heavy movie and it is a very funny movie and those three tones very hard to navigate and so getting a look that is not so pushed it forces you into any of those realms

was really important and it was also it was his choice to be like hey normally I know you'd want some grain I'm not going to put any grain on this I think we're going to do like maybe 10 15% to help

with like internet compression and besides that you won't even notice and it's a very clean looking movie and that's because just didn't fit the movie. The short film was a little capier, a little more retro feeling,

a little sillier. And so we went for like a very pushed look, a lot of grain, a lot of retro shit feature. It had a very distinct horror and comedy approach. If you went to horror and too satchew, like too bleak, the funny wouldn't be funny.

And if you went to like, right and punching clean and saturated, then the scary wouldn't be scary. And he was very on it, tracking where the weak character was feeling. the whole time in a way that I think a less a less tasteful colors

might not have interpreted the right way and the movie wouldn't feel the way it does. You even talking about that makes me imagine sort of a like a vector scope and you got all the colors on the edges and I can imagine those being genres and if

you push the vector scope in too many directions now it's oversaturated so you know if you're trying to hit multiple genres the best way is to just rain it make it a little more neutral. Yeah, well, the thing was we lit with such a distinct color palette on set. We had a really clear, a really, really clear color story for Hannah that he didn't need to introduce the colors in post.

Like, the color was there. I'm not shy when I'm going to use a color. Like, I'm happy to go super gritty and super bleak and super cold or whatever. But if I'm going to use their color, like, I hate half-ass colors. And so I hate what it's like, it's almost purple. It's almost pink. It's like, just you're going to use it. Like, go for it.

and make it mean something give it a reason why you're going for it even if it's just part of the world I'm going to like the scene of the purple neon light because in my head up in that skylight there's a purple neon side and like in a sci-fi movie that feels totally correct

there doesn't need to have an emotional reason all the time but like this one did just because of the complexity of the tone there was a reason we used all these colors and so Sam when he got the footage in post was like it's already there like you guys shot it the way it's supposed to be um i'm just going to like he i think what he did

was give it sort of just help make it feel earnest i guess like the movie just feels very much like it's not trying to push too much on you in terms of the like the look it sort of just is what it needs to be seen by scene a very i would say for the most part not showoffy kind of thing like there weren't a lot of like crazy light chases and there weren't pulses and there wasn't like shit going on everywhere that I was like look at all the stuff I can do which is often what music videos are it's like look at all the stuff I can do

and this had to be the opposite of that this had to be like look at all the stuff the actor can do like look at all of this look at all this stuff that the script is doing and me I'm just going to make it look like it's supposed to in a way that you don't think about you don't think about how the movie looks hopefully that's the good

that you just made me remember again another thing I was going to ask her that we were talking about sticking to one eye ASO and shooting everything like that. Do you, are you the kind of person who will white balance to whatever, or do you just 56-32 it and call it a day? No, I have, I have three that I like. I will do, uh, I will also throw 4,300 in there. Um, actually, I'll lie.

And, no, four. And I'll use 3,700. I, like, I don't just dial it like randomly, like 37, 4-2 for no reason. Like, it is, uh, I choose the white balance strict down like, what I need usually stuff I'm working on I don't like especially narratively don't always have the time to have every light be LED

don't always have the time to control daylight to be exactly the day light ton I need I can't gel the windows I can't do whatever and so you know if I need to do like a seed where I can't adjust all of my my tungsten warmer and it's like a day for night scene or whatever

I'll just go to 5,600 and shoot the bolts at like 32 and it makes it as normal as I need it to. It's easy. Like, I'll do that when I, when I don't have, for speed. Um, but I don't like to just go so far off of like sort of established white balances where like you lose track of like in the same way I like for contrast ratios. I think that's how I like for white. Like I use white balance. Like I know in my head, with 500 are getting for contrast ratio. I know in my head what like 4,300 will give me with daylight versus tungsten. I know like if I'm going to do moon like moonlight at night. You know, say you don't have of money for a condor, you can put a couple S360s in there and actually colored tone the

moonlight, I know what's 4,300 from an HMI is going to give me. I know what 4300 with HMI with blue on it will give me. Like, I can kind of, I can design it that way. It's sort of, it's my, it's my, yeah, the cheat code pro when you can't gel everything or put LEDs on everything. The, the sheet code that I've, so I'm the same way, it's like, you know, 32, 43, 56, whatever, 65. Yeah. But the one thing that I've really come to enjoy is having a color meter. Because like, it's because I have one of those new ones too where you can actually test the like,

uh, spectral output of certain lights, which is also why I don't like sky panels because they're actually, the quality kind of sucks. Um, the, the, Enoflow is actually number one. Kenoflow has the best spectral output of any,

the LEDs, not the bolt. Yeah. Um, but like one little trick that has made every like corporate interview I've ever shot better is just getting the incoming window. setting the camera to that and setting the LED with the X, Y coordinates, so that it matches exactly, not just the color temperature. Because you never know, that's what made me buy it initially was like, you get a sky panel, you put 5600 on the back.

Is that? It's not, it's not 5600. Yeah, no one knows. And so I was like, I just didn't know. So you click it and you're like, oh, actually that funny thing, sky panel is pretty good at being the color temperature that you put in the back. Yeah. surprisingly but the but the output the spectral output isn't great but there's certain lights that are like 200 500 Kelvin off and it's like maybe you don't talk but I notice it yeah

at the sure lights man I'm not uh I can't get on board I'm I like Nanlux a lot I love the Nanlux 1200 that that the Nanlex 1200 I get some real fucking mileage out of but um I yeah you know there's just, I feel like I just fight, I fight like the, you know, the new or newer, newer aperture stuff is getting better, but like, when the 600 first came out, like, some of their panels, like, you can't, unless you're hard lined in, I have so many issues with the iPad connecting to, like, the, you know, the 500 panels, it'll flash. When it loses connection, it'll just start doing its own thing. It doesn't just shut off, like the vortex.

Some saw their lights learn to either hold their, hold their light, or they'll just go fully off. And the average, it's like, ah, fuck, you, here's purple. And, yeah, there's, there's, that's, I'm just a vortex fanboy. That's what it is. I'm really just a cream source and then like fanboy, and that can't help it. I'm 100% with you on that. I love the people that work at Aperture.

I love them as like a company. I've never been as big of a fanboy of their product as other people. Once you hardline it, really great. Like, once you hardline, hardline their lights into an actual board, it works really, it's fine, no issues. But like, I have a lot of, you know, sometimes. you can't and I don't want any shooting a narrative where I've got a aperture panel instead of a vortex outside and every

30 seconds it flashes purple because it loses a signal to the iPad like I can't have that, I can't interrupt a performance like that. Right. They will use that take. That's, you right. And you know, I think it's important to safety your own work a little bit by getting the gear

you know that works right. Totally. We've got a little over so I'll let you go here but I did final question because I saw it another thing that apparently

we came from the same parents that got separated what what in what ways being a drummer being like a DP you know what

you just you gave me an easy segue it ties into exactly what I was saying about you got to just do what's right for the

for the movie think drumming if you make it too much about you, the song has no meaning. I think you're the backbone. You are what keeps everyone playing on time. And you can do a fill and have fun. And like, you can show off a little bit. But if you lose track of what the song is, what it's about, what the dynamics are, I mean, tracking dynamics of the song is very similar tracking dynamics of the scene. I think if you're not in tune with when things should amp up and like maybe go handheld

berth being sticks or like when the lighting should start to flash and strobe and do some crazy shit versus when it'll distract from a performance. It ties directly into playing drums. I mean, you've got to be the shadow at the back of the stage and people are just like, oh yeah, the song works and the drumming, like the deal.

Like, I could dance through it the whole time. Like, I don't know why. It's because the fucking drummer played very basically and in time and to a great rhythm the whole time and you didn't even think about it. You've got to be the invisible thing that makes makes everyone able to immerse.

That's what it really is. I feel like some of my favorite DPs, you don't, like, I feel like one of the reasons Roger Deacons went so long without an Oscar was because he is not flashy. He does exactly the pocket drummer. Yeah, he,

Roger Diggins is the pocket drummer of cinematographers. Absolutely. Just does exactly what's necessary for the story and puts his own flavor on it. And that's why he's also the legend that he is. but like never does anything and the thing out of pocket. The, yeah, I was just thinking,

actors do guitar solos, not DPs. Exactly, yeah. Drum solos, John Bonham and Sheila E. Are the only two people, I'm going to let do a drum solo because it's like part of the song. John Bonham is the Robert Richardson of drums. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. that dude can throw backlight

fuck it anywhere and I'm cool with it. Wow, they really picked the table to sit under that just has a fucking hole in the roof. That's interesting. Equates to, yeah, Moby Dick. Basically the cinematic equivalent of like the drum solo of Moby Dick is where he chooses to put

like bounce light and backlights. Yeah, absolutely. Right up. Well, yeah, like I said, I'll let you go. But it's great talking to you, man. Yeah, you too. 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.