Frame & Reference Podcast - 12: “Assassins” DP John Benam

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

Welcome back to the Frame & Reference Podcast, this week Kenny talks with two time Emmy winner John Benam about the documentary “Assassins.” “Assassins” is an account of the two women convicted of assassinating Kim Jong-un's half-brother, Kim Jong-nam. John won his Emmy’s for his worked on “Untamed Americas” and “Great Migrations." He is also the DP for the upcoming documentary "Rocket to Venus."   Enjoy the episode! Liking the podcast? Leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app! Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts 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 today we've got two-time Emmy Award winner, John Bedham, DP of the film Assassins, which is about the assassination of Kim Jong-un's brother a few years ago. which was carried out by a couple of 20-something girls. And it seemed pretty cut and dry when I remember hearing about it. Or when I, it seemed cut and dry when I heard about it back in the day. But all is not as it seems, as any good documentary highlights. You know, as much as this documentary is about that murder, It's also about, interestingly enough,

online culture to a degree. I think you'll find it fascinating. Give Assassins a watch. John has also shot stuff with the BBC, Nat Geo, Smithsonian, all kinds of amazing documentary work. So if you love that kind of stuff, please check John out. But in my classic petering off

before I get to Rambly style, I will just wrap this up and let past me take it from here. So please enjoy this discussion with John Benham. So I actually was able to rent and watch the film last night. Through one of the virtual cinema theaters? No, it's on Amazon. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, I mean, they had it in theaters for a while.

You could sort of rent it and support it. your local like you know theater but yeah i wish i knew about that yeah yeah yeah well that was early they i think they that happened that started happening in like early december or whatever early november oh got you but thanks i'm glad you got to watch it yeah well it's it's a really it's great uh i i it starts off strong man it's like this isn't ruining anything for anyone but it's straight up just like here's a murder here's the people that did it let's move on and you're like oh shit all right we're just getting getting right into it um how did you get involved with that story because it seems like the camera person you were there the whole time with that

journalist and explain that dynamic to me like how did how did you get involved there yeah so i do i've done other work with tripod media before and um i really like working with uh Ryan White and Jessica Hargrave there an incredible tandem and we as you might know we did the keepers together and the this was just sort of a we're going to find out what's going on so let's just go to Malaysia and so we really didn't know what to expect it's kind of a the classic just take some gear and figure it out when you get there documentary style shoot which I love and they know that I love it. So it wasn't hard to book that ticket. But the story had come to them through a friend of theirs, Doug Ma Clark, who had written the sort of very extensive

article about the assassination in a GQ article many months prior to that. And he was getting lots of calls about people wanting to look into it. And so he reached out to Ryan and said, hey, love to give you a look at this, see what you think. And it just seemed like the story initially had fallen off the radar because it was the election, 2017, you know, Donald Trump. There was a lot of other stuff going on. It kind of was like, here's the headline. And then it just moved off.

But Doug's article really kind of drew it out and expanded on what people knew and what they didn't know. And so Ryan wanted to figure out more. And so we took a small team out there and met with the legal team and just kind of just heard from everybody what was going on. He had to figure out whether it was real, like, you know, how deep and how far the conspiracy went and whether these two young women were believable. Yeah, because it's, I remember that story coming out. And I guess, yeah, it must have been the election that kind of threw everything out. but I remember having an opinion.

I was like, this is North Korea. They're definitely hired, you know, this is open and shut case kind of thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you guys did a real good job. I mean, it's a very, I mean, it's, it's, it is definitely like not, not the world's saddest, or I don't want to get too into it because you do a great job of playing with the emotions, you know. Sure.

But, uh, you feel for the girls for sure. it's I personally was like how the prank show you know like I'm not a I'm not a prank show guy so the fact that someone would want to be the star of prank shows

sits weird you know it's like the influencer culture type thing we're like man whatever but well that's that's the existential dichotomy is that you when we arrived I was thinking I kind of assumed that these were like some badass killbill style assassins and right they pulled this off and you know somehow they didn't get away but then

when i realized then when i heard more details about how they were arrested and we saw some of the video and they were like carrying a teddy bear around one of them was carrying a teddy bear around in her hotel room you know uh one of them had gone back to the airport you know um or both of them at some point had gone back to the airport and it was like why why would have passed and do that uh Because I had assumed from the beginning that they were just some accomplished assassins that, like, did their dirty work in public and pull it off. But there were too many other little details about their background. Why don't you start to learn, right? And then that's the whole point of a good documentary is, okay, let's unpack this.

So there was a lot of that first couple of shoots there was a lot of unpacking and a lot of determining. you know what was truth and what was fiction and we weren't sure right away so it just took some time to meet folks and and it took lots of time to convince folks to talk to us but Ryan's really good at that and that's what's what makes him so much fun to work with and you just had to be persistent once they realize you're not going anywhere and you're not just like the news you know, and that you also have the confidence of their legal team. You know, that's big. I get into this quite often is that you're only as good as a filmmaker.

You're only as good as the relationships that you develop and that you nourish and that you sustain through sometimes two, three, four years of making a documentary. you know those it's not just access it's it's how that access is perceived on on the end of your of your subjects as well and and if they see that you're not committed or they think that you're not a fully objective you know it can turn it can turn bad and they can turn that that access switch off and so we were lucky you know and the legal teams were both really great Once we started to learn more about the backgrounds of each of these young women, a lot of new kind of things came to light,

and we just kind of followed the breadcrumbs wherever they took us. And I feel like that comes through in the film, is that you follow along as the information starts to be imparted to you as a viewer. You're like, oh, okay, if we're talking about this, the next thing you see is like, oh, that person knew the police couldn't find. Oh, we're with them now. So there's all these little twists and turns that we take you through. And it's very much almost like the chronology of how making the film was.

We're kind of following, literally, it almost feels like that's how it was cut. That, yeah, because I was going to ask, like, did, did you just go back to all these locations and film B-roll of like, it's kind of scary how like, you're like, and this is where the murder happened and this is where they met. And this is the bar where they were grooming people. And you're just there. And there's no, like, falter all around it, you know? I mean, look, the, the location of the assassination was easy. Well, as an airport, yeah. Yeah, well, it's not, but it's also not totally easy.

They didn't want me just like wandering around. That's why it's nice to have sort of incognito style cameras or these cameras that have a little bit more low profile, you know, their, their build isn't as big and you don't have it on your shoulder. The moment you put cameras on your shoulder in a place like that, it's like, oh, that's the news, get them out of here, you know? So you just got to be like a little more subtle. use a camera with a form factor that is more conducive to kind of flying in,

getting your shots, and then getting out before anybody realized anything happened. So there was a lot of that. And I, but certainly there were a lot of other locations that were like, okay, going into a sketchy spot, let's carry the camera in a bag so that we don't tip off everybody before we start rolling. And we look like just a bunch, a couple tourists, you know, moving around. through the, you know, back alleys of Hanoi and, and, and, um,

Quolampore and, and Jakarta. So were you shooting out of the bag or you just had the back or you just had the back would pull it out and then go back? No, I just had the back to pull it. Yeah. It wasn't like a full, like spy, you know, buttonhole camera or anything like that. No. Um, you know, it was, again, it was just about sort of cultivating those relationships

and letting people know that they could trust us and spending, sometimes spending days with them before we did any filming, you know. So it really comes down to all that. In the end, the technical part is like the technical part. It's people know what that's like and know exactly what they need to do. But I feel like the real work is in developing those relationships and sustaining those. And that's what Tripod is really good at. Yeah, I was going to say there's right through it, there's a credit that I only learned about from

parts or you know all of all of Bordane's documentary series and that's the role of the fixer can you explain to me what a fixer is and your relationship oh my god person yeah no that I'm so glad you asked

because I like to bring that up I think it's a super important point you know I the first 10 years in my career I was a I started out kind of as a producer shooter and learning my craft at National Geographic as a wild-dife documentarian. And so I was doing mostly blue-chip films that had no humans in them,

no David Attenborough was kind of poking their head into the frame and talking about what's happening. It was all just animal behavior stories and really long, sustained kind of sequences about different animals around different continents. And we could never do any of that work without a proper fixer or liaison on or whatever you want to call them.

And that's just really just a local who lives there knows all the streets, knows all the places to go to see this or see that. In wildlife terms, it was, oh, yeah, I know that park. I can take you to the area of this one spot. Or sometimes the fixer was like a biologist who said, you know, the animals really like to come to this one spot and only I know where it is.

So come with me. And so you kind of, you know, that's the service they provide. but certainly in a big city like these big sprawling Southeast Asian cities, you have to have it. You'd be completely lost. So we had a number of them in different countries, and they're all essential people to a film crew like us, who are just kind of popping over for a couple weeks at a time over many years.

And, you know, just speaking the language, whatever it is. There's so many things. There's all kinds of, you know, cultural things that maybe we aren't so familiar with. You know, we could study in a book as much as we want, but this local fixer who lives there knows exactly what to say, when to say it, how to say it. And it's just a really, you know, essential guide when you're doing things like that. So we had a couple really great folks. And Doug acted as some of that as well. He does speak the language.

And he was essential in a number of regards and did a great job as a producer and helper and kind of helping us make those contacts, find people that he'd talk to, that he'd grown a relationship with. And so, yeah, fixers are a really important item. And I feel like in the industry, when you have like offline conversations or you have like Facebook groups or social media groups of folks within the film industry, it's one of the most, I would say other than maybe gear, it's one of the most discussed topics is, hey, I need a fixer here. I need a fixer there. It's constant. There's no shortage of needs and or requests for a good fixer. And rightly so, it's like I said, essential. Yeah. Speaking kind of of the gear to a degree, is there anything that you learned as a wildlife cinematographer that differs from sort of standard cinematography, documentary, standard photography, and something that you carried over, something that like you kind of, the secret sauce that you're bringing over from National Geographic? Because that's definitely not something people could do. I mean, people tend to do. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't think there's any secret sauce,

but I definitely learned a ton of lessons from having to sit somewhere for a month waiting for one thing to happen. You know, and it was, you know, patience. Also being ready for anything all the time because when you're trying to make a Verte film or documentary like this or wait for a moment that may never happen again,

you kind of have to be on guard all the time. And so as a wildlife camera person early on, the moment you rest or the moment you turn your head away from what you're looking to do, it could happen. And it has happened. So there are lots of lessons about patience and persistence, but also just being like constantly ready and having a sense of fomo.

You know what I mean? Like the fear of missing out. out. If I take my eye off the ball for a second, I'm going to miss this one moment or I'm going to miss this really important thing. And those are really, those nuances and those details are really important to me as a camera person. But I know they're important to the process in general of just telling a good story. And so, you know, I think there, yeah, there's so many other things. It was a really interesting. And I always bring it up because it was a really interesting evolution from starting out in that sort of wildlife. territory, where there was no plan, you know, you could plan all you wanted, but if the animals weren't going to do what they were going to do, like you couldn't control any of that, you know. So when I started moving toward like social justice documentaries and more people-centric documentaries, I don't know. I mean, it certainly shaped me. I don't know exactly how, but maybe in, I get a lot of comments of friends

who see films that I've done with people on it. I always, one thing I do as a result of having been a wildlife and still as a wildlife synodafed is I get distracted very easily when I see something happening with animals within the realm of this

like people documentary. If I see like a squirrel running over and like hiding a, you know, or birds doing something interesting, a lot of that footage somehow ends up in some of the films. I like how it gets integrated because there's no shortage of it. I can tell you that even if I'm doing this thing, I'm supposed to be doing with these people,

if there's any downtime and I could see something else happening with animals, I kind of like integrating them into the film, and you can use them in all kinds of cool, symbolic and sort of meta-type ways to relate or run some sort of, sort of parallels with your storyline or your characters or your subjects or whatever. So anytime I can, I'm always

you know, I'll text it to when I's sending a drive back to production or I'll say, hey, got lots of good shots of vultures. You should look at that stuff. You know, it has nothing to do with, but I, you know, it ended up in many ways it gets integrated and it has value

and it's just something that's sort of like an ADD thing that I do on on different productions. I actually have a note here. My second note after strong opening was always a barking dog. Oh, you got to love the barking dogs. Whenever you need to know, you're a really great.

There's some really beautiful architecture and some of those neighborhoods in Kuala Lumpur. They have these great sort of like, I don't know, you know, like Adobe-type fencing or walls around their houses or the front. And there's all these cool little, you know, architectural windows and frames and stuff. Anyway, yeah, there's lots of barking dogs.

Yeah, there's no shortage of that emulation. I mean, this should not sound reductive, but it might. That career in Nat Geo must have made you the master of B-roll for, like, quote-unquote, traditional documentaries. Well, it opened my eyes. I mean, you know, it was a really incredible cultural experience, to travel around these different places around the world. And a lot of the times I wasn't spending time in those cities or towns,

but I was taking that all in. You know, it's all experiential, right? And you definitely learn about, you know, observing your spaces. And you really, I guess that's another lesson, is that when you're sitting in one spot for such a long time, you kind of integrate, you become part of the ecosystem and the animals and people kind of forget that you're there, especially if you camouflage yourself. So you get to observe everything as it's happening naturally. No one's doing or performing for you.

So I kind of, I think that when I'm working with people, I like to have them forget, it's hard to forget that I'm there, but I like them to forget that the camera is there. and really let their guard down. So that's all kind of intertwined, I think, all those thoughts, is that my goal is to get the subjects to completely forget that I'm there so that their anxiety about it or their perceived anxiety or their discomfort with the camera pointing at them for 12 hours on one day. It's a lot to have a lens pointing at you and following you everywhere you go. So as much as you can make them comfortable

and forget that you're there by just not moving a lot or settling into a spot and, you know, whatever it is. I think that's all important as a technical lesson as well as just a human lesson. Yeah, I can't imagine that for this documentary or any other ones, you're shooting everyone on like a 200 like you would in nature. No, no, exactly.

You know, you're definitely dealing with lots of longer lenses in the nature world, even 800s or, you know, now that amazing canon 50 to 1,000. But I digress. I'm mostly, I'm mostly going to, you know, in many ways, yeah, somewhere on, I love the 70 to 200. So I shoot a lot on that

because I can steal all kinds of moments with that, people not even realize I'm filming. And I do that a lot, actually, when I am trying to just like capture a couple sort of candid moments with different people, or even people that aren't subjects, just people that are watching or doing something, I'll often roll on them and then look away, you know,

and act like I'm not, you know, focused on them, you know? So I do all these little tricks and stuff to try to steal shots of people that think they're not being looked at, but I'm totally filming them. You know what I mean? So totally. The 72-200 in regards to kind of staying camouflaged, have you, like, painted it or you just let that big white flag fly?

No, you know, I definitely, I do have camo tape that I do, that I put on lenses when I need to. And if I'm doing a wildlife, wildlife stuff. I don't know for people, because like in the airport, for instance, like walking around, you know. Oh, no, you're right. You're, no, you're right. No, you know, I just, I just keep it super trim. I'm a minimalist. I like to keep it, you know, real small and strip it down to its like bare bones.

But yeah, that's funny. I should definitely think about that next time I'm in a public space. that. But there's so many people in there. As long as I didn't call too much attention to myself, I kind of got in and out of there pretty quickly. Every now and now we would get caught and say, you know, they'd say, off you go to the exit this way. But for the most part, we'd try to keep it quick and nimble and get out of there before anybody even realized we were there. Even locked off shots from a tripod. And I would, I would, you know, go to a Starbucks or go to a coffee shop and set the tripod down steal a shot while I was ordering and then take it as I was

going you know what I mean so oh yeah that's smart keep the flow working and no one ever felt like you were settling down and you know because we did have backpacks full of equipment and it was pretty we were kind of obvious but yeah you just have to be a little subtle I kind of like that little cat and mouse game I that doesn't bother me at all I actually get joy out of getting in there grabbing a few shots and then getting out just as they realize who we are you know yeah the the tripod definitely can be a big red flight in l.A it's brutal you know oh my god uh so you were shooting what c300 mark two yeah um Ryan shoots as well which is great um and so we do a lot of two camera interviews when we got people to be comfortable but a lot of our interviews were on the fly or in a car

and a taxi or whatever it is. So we did a lot of single camera, but C-300 mark two, when we're traveling light like that, you know, we kind of carried the quiver of Canon L series lenses because they're just easy. And we also, you know, for other situations where we were kind of trying to hide and be sort of tourists

in different locations, we would carry around like an A7S2 and we had a couple primes and yeah but but really low profile really you know I'm doing my own audio there's a lot of other stuff going on so I just try to travel super light I was going to ask about that did you just have everyone loft up or or what was your audio solution there yeah mostly just electro loaves and and little little handheld pistol grip you know, that I would give Kristen the producer or Ryan, you know, we kind of kept it really, really low profile, maybe a couple backpacks, a tripod, and a duffel bag, you know, it was like as small as we could be and as incognito as we could be. It was better.

Is there any reason you chose the electros? Because I know nine times out of ten out here, at least, it's the Senheisers, the G3s. Yeah. I mean, I just, I've always owned them and had them. And then, You know, we had a couple of that I can't remember. I think they're the 400 series. They're real small ones. And, yeah, they're just super lightweight. And I could stack the receivers pretty simply.

But, yeah, it was just, I've always just owned electro and I've always preferred it. And, you know, I can scan channels. In a city like that, sometimes I had to find a less busy channel or frequency. And to me, they're just easier to scan and find with that digital readout. You know what I mean? I could do it really fast with Electro. And so as much as I could save time, especially since I'm lighting and doing sound and camera by myself, I kind of, you know, have to, any few minutes I could shave off

is a win for us and the crew. Yeah. What was your, because the documentary doesn't necessarily feel lit at all. what was your lighting package? What was your solution when you needed lights? Oh, sure, yeah. I would, I'd carry out a small travel-sized light mat with me. The light mats are dope.

And I could put those anywhere. And, of course, I have a number of the quasar lights that I keep in a backpack. Those are easy to kind of whip out and, you know, drop onto a wall or attach it to a metal pole or whatever. The magnetic ones, the Q's... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are great. And so I just had a few of those. But very minimal, I'd just try to accentuate practicals. And I like shooting what is happening.

I like the room to look the way it is. And as much as I could, I'd keep as much of the practicals so that my wides were true. And then I would just sneak in a light every now and then to pick up if there was necessary to kind of boost the key a little from wherever the light was. I love natural light. I'm just a minimalist in general. And frankly, I'm just not as good as like some gaffers or other DPs that are used to lighting with like a one-ton grit truck.

You know, I've never worked that way. I've never been in most locations and films that I've worked on don't provide for that. But, you know, I'm learning more. I'm always trying to kind of up my game in the lighting realm. But, yeah. Sure. This is kind of, pardon me, this is kind of a two-part question. One, I've been asked this a lot because I own Canon and, you know, the Internet likes to ask questions when you put videos online.

How do you expose for the Canon Camerons if you've got any kind of institution? institutionalized knowledge on that. And two, what was the coloring process on this documentary like? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, obviously, we were shooting in Log C. And, you know, I typically, I typically stay away. I mean, you know, just like everybody else, I stay away from highlights. In certain situations where it works for the scene, you know, let certain things blow out, but, you know, because of the latitude with the canon, I, I like to ride between that, I can't see that if I have, if I have, you know, a REC 7 in the viewfinder, or right on the edge of, I don't like blowing out at all. I actually like to shoot a little bit under, under, you

know, it just, it suits me better, and I, and, um, uh, it just, I, it just, I, it just, I, I don't know. Maybe I'm just fear. I mean, I'm always in fear of the highlight, you know. I'm the same way. No, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I just trust the lot on and, and I don't know. I'll have to ask Helen. You know, I wasn't unfortunately around for the mix or or or the or the timing session and color. but you know I got a couple good looks at it afterward and you know I'll ask Helen Kearns was the editor she's fantastic and I know how she waited through this much stuff because we brought home a lot of stuff but just the CCTV stuff alone was insane and I mean I'm sure that took her months to go through I can't imagine it was any quicker

how many hundreds of hours of footage did you deliver to her gosh i i haven't put together the all i could say that it is that um it it it had to be you know around i don't know 15 or 20 terabytes i mean it was a lot that was a lot yeah brian does really long interviews he's like and you know and he likes to ask the same things over like multiple different periods to see how the you know things change and how they evolve and how the subject evolves so they're very long and and and it's funny um we don't use tripods often for so i'm hand-holding for those long interviews so it's a really and i don't i don't you i mean especially in situations like that where we're on the move uh quite a bit um

I don't bring an easy rig. You know, I don't carry an easy rig unless I know that I've got space for it and time for it. So, yeah, I get a good workout. Let's just say that. For sure. Yeah, because that was another note. Well, I actually had two that you brought up. One was, did you have a support package?

No. And then two was, why is CCTV footage always so low resolution? If the whole point- It drives me nuts. It's like we're supposed to be solving crimes with this. in my apartment building I saw them replacing all the cameras and I made a joke to the landlord

I was like oh what were we on like the old VHS thing and he goes yeah I was like wait hold on what there's still VHS or they're probably there's the chance they're probably in high eight still or something like that something crazy they weren't changing out the tape either it was like the same tape from like 1999

that they were just overriding over and over and over again well I guess I mean look it's it's economics right they probably just don't want to spend the money on it. And it's kind of annoying. I mean, unless something like this happening,

there's no reason for you to go back to it. You know what I mean? So fine, roll over it a bunch of times. Because like I was watching the airport footage and that, that, that 3D visualization that you all did was super helpful, by the way to like really get,

that was an excellent. Oh, that's all a tripod. That was, that was great. Yeah. I feel like it was able to separate all the other stimulus out of the frame. Because, yeah, there's a lot of pixels on that. But, yeah, that was helpful.

But where was it going? Oh, yeah, the airport. I've like, I've seen Vegas CCTV. It's really high-deaf. You can read, you know, someone's business card from across the room. But airport's just like, eh, Lois Bitter. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that must be frustrating.

That's funny. So we kind of touched on it earlier. before we kind of like got going but what what attracts you to the to the Canon cameras because I'm definitely I haven't actually talked to this I know Canon's hooked up all these interviews I haven't actually really talked about it to anyone because most people aren't like real gearheads but yeah what well I'm I'm I'm a camera shop rat so I started that's where I started before I started assisting and that and I'll age myself here a little bit but I started when

there was you know when camera shops were still just 16 and 35. So I got a good education on Airy and Aton. I sort of fell in love with Aton just because their form factor was smaller and a little bit more like nuanced and I just love, you know, the XDR prod and all their film camera stuff. And so area was always bigger and kind of bulkier and, you know, that's fine. On the East Coast, we didn't have much Panavision, at least where I was in Baltimore. more. So I was there during this just, just before I went to Natchio, that's when the

when it was turning over to digital video and sort of smaller cameras. And I just, I think I just, at first I was, you know, totally, Sony was doing all the best kind of small digital cameras, the PD 150, yeah, the DSR 500, all these kinds of types of digital video cameras that you could put right in your hand like this and suddenly everybody's a documentary and you kind to give one i remember in nat geo i was sending out to certain shoots you know four or five six seven of them at a time and i was like who is who's filming do you give one to the cook you know does everybody feel um because i always like their equipment manager for the for the first couple years before i started producing so um but i i don't know i mean over over time uh it you know

I was doing a lot of Panasonic and then when that sort of C-300-style camera came out, I definitely thought, okay, this is cool. And I bought a Mark 1, a C-300 Mark 1 early on. And I just really liked it. I just really liked the idea of putting it to my eye, you know, and I've never been, just because I'm old school, I think viewfinders to me are more natural. And so, you know, I mean, don't get me wrong, I've got a small HD now and I do everything with it.

My hybrid seven is I can't go anywhere without it. But I, if I have a preference, viewfinder, even if I'm using red, I like viewfinder. So to me, Canon was this small, incredibly gorgeous cinema style camera, the smallest type of, you know, form factor for a camera with that kind of visual, you know, delivery in the end. And it worked for everything. All the Verte stuff I was doing. And even I was shooting wildlife with it. And it was super lightweight, you know.

So I use a little bit of everything. But if I ever have my choice to shoot like sort of a Beret documentary, I'll always go into that sort of canon form factor space. And so, you know, after I wore out my mark one, I bought a mark two. And I just really like it. I think I, and I think for all the reasons I mentioned earlier, I'm able to kind of disappear more with it. A lot of other cameras where you're beholden the,

I mean, I used to put my C300 on my shoulder sometimes when I had it hooked up to a viewfinder or with a viewfinder. but now I'm more often just putting it up to my eye and I just really like that that this feels more natural to me and I like using my body as a as a dolly you know and and so that's kind of just what feels comfortable me I can do I can move myself around I can get it into places that you know big cameras can't and really in a lot of documentaries I've been a part of the moment I would have perhaps put the camera on shoulder um i would tip off everybody that i was there i would make them all think that what was happening right now is going to end up on the 11 o'clock news right uh and i can do all the filming i

need to do with my c300 and not and not make anybody uncomfortable uh and i can stay off the radar a little bit and i mean look it's it's it's a beautiful looking camera in the in and it's lightweight and I can I can stay nimble and move fast and I just really like I've always really liked the results you know and so it's it's it may not be for everybody but it's definitely my kind of camera I shot the whole keeper series on a C300 mark one yeah I completely agree I've actually I like to shoot kind of down sort of near the bottom of my rib cage and now with this C-500, I've got it instead of on the top handle, I've got it on a Noga arm. So I'll have the camera down by my waist almost. And then the monitor is like here, you know, up near my mouth. And

I do want to get like a little eyepiece attachment for it. Yeah, just, you know, for that kind of exact reason. But like you were saying, I used to shoot a lot of concerts. And, you know, there's all these other guys shooting, you know, because it's a feeding frenzy at concerts. Of course. there's guys with gimbals and all this other wild stuff and then I'm just off in the corner getting I basically would do the move of see everything they're shooting and don't get that and you know kind of hide in a little corner and plop down and get you know something yeah no of course and so yeah I think that um in many ways uh I could just get to a lot of places and film a lot of things much more quickly than with a big, bulky, kind of shoulder-mounted type of camera.

I mean, I've seen plenty of people put cannons on their shoulder. That's fine. And they'll drop down the monitor or whatever. You know, I just really have always liked that smaller form factor that Canon accomplishes in their different sort of models and iterations of the C-300, C-500 kind of family that that that's my kind of camera totally and it's probably a uh i would assume like a usability thing too like with with the a mirror like you were saying i would rather rent in a mirror for even a commercial shoot or whatever just because it's got all the for some reason i feel like uh films you know

whatever you want to call it like filmmakers want to avoid documentary practicality and i'm like why it makes it so much faster like if i can just plug the audio straight into the into the amira with no issues into a fan and whatever do it i don't like if i don't need a sound guy i mean you want like a boom operator or whatever picture but if if you don't need them if you're just running lobs and you can you know do that oh absolutely you don't need to be flashy here you know yeah no of course and that mean when you i i i and that's the world i live in you know that sort of small crew um do it yourself kind of thing um i i i you know i some films i i i I have sound mixers on, you know, on location, and I always thank them profusely because they

they save me often. And I prefer that, but just it's not in some situations, it's not the, we're not capable of carrying that extra person and all that extra equipment. And so you just do what you got to do. But yeah, practicality is what drives to me and every step of the way. And and I use a more minimalistic style so I'm always going to just say okay what do I really need to accomplish this and it I'm going to trim pretty I'm going to be pretty brutal in my trimming of of kit even though look I'm a gear nerd this is how I grew up you know I like I like carrying two of everything especially if I'm going somewhere remote where I know that that really important thing I want to have two of those you know so

That's partially why we always carry multiple C-300 of our two bodies. But yeah, I like gear as much as everybody, but you have to be brutal in your choices and the way you sort of trim and what you can carry on any given scenario. This is just different. I mean, for me, the Assassins, this is a type of film that we were in and out of taxis running around through alleys looking for people who, who, thought we you know we who we sorry we were looking for people who we thought wanted to talk to us and then they changed their mind the last second and we had to kind of find out where they went and where they went to hide you know there's just there's a lot of little extra things going on and can you imagine having to move like multiple giant anvil cases around right all of stuff trying

to do this it's just it's just not practical it's not necessary a caravan of vans and it would it would kill you trying, you know, trying to get from point A to point B to point C, you know, in any given moment, if you'd be, the moment would be gone and you'd still be carrying the cases to the taxi, you know what I mean? So if you couldn't put it on our shoulders or you couldn't hand it, hold it in your hand, we just didn't take it. That's fair. I mean, these days especially, it's like, that's much easier to do than in the past. What, uh, speaking of gear, because like I said, not a lot of, uh, the DPs I've interviewed necessarily been gearheads and I am, Is there anything out there that's kind of exciting you right now?

Any like stuff on the horizon or stuff that just came out that you're kind of stoked on? Oh, you know, I haven't really... It feels like the Komodo came and went. Yeah, well, yeah, and I was on an Under Armour set where we used the Komodo and a couple of other things. And they did great stuff with it, but we were shooting on the Phantom. I mean, it was like, it was sort of like one of every camera on location. but I honestly haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to like the lead up. I've talked to some of my sort of serious nerd friends every now and then and ask what they're what's happening with Airy or what's happening you know with Canon and my most recent colleague told me about the experience with this with the C500 Mark two and I've just been sort of obsessing about that and figuring out when it is that I'm going to pull the trigger on that.

And how to do it, you know, I mean, the media changes. Everything is changing, batteries, et cetera. So I just got to figure it all out. But right now, I'm pretty happy with what I have. And I try not to get too much. I try not to go too far down the rear rabbit hole and get too greedy. But, you know, I wouldn't say there's anything specific right now that I'm obsessing over. other than maybe trying to pull the trigger on that C500 Mark 2.

I will say it's my favorite camera by far. I've talked about this before. I'm friends of the rental house down here. And we did a test between the LF, the 500, the FX9, and the Venice. Oh, wow. And in my opinion, the C-5001 real close tie with the Venice. I really love the Venice. But it, you know, it's small-ish.

But really, it's more a production camera, you know, C500 is so tiny, so light. It does everything, you know, Venice, classic Sony. You got to, like, buy all these upgrades unless you're renting. Hopefully they've included them, you know. But, yeah, especially like compared to the, it was the mini LF. Not a lot of features, you know, lens, battery, all right. No, but I love that. I mean, I'd love that about airy.

I don't want to have too much stuff on it. And I shot like a Quibi series, a Quibi episode with an ARILF, yeah, the former Quivie episode with an ARILF and I loved it. I mean, I was gorgeous for sure. Yeah, yeah, a close friend here in Baltimore owns it. So I have a good direct source for it when needed. But I'm kind of that I am the all-purpose camera person who, the right? for the right job. And so in one month, I might use five or six different cameras on five

or six different jobs. And I'm totally fine with that because that's because it's a it's a comfort level that I have from working in a camera shop. Like it doesn't bother me. You know, like I kind of like it. It kind of keeps it fresh and like, oh, okay. Now I can do this with that. But it's also nice now. What's that? They're also nice now. Like it's, you don't. Oh, yeah. It's all about ergonomics and kind of usability more so than the image. The image is always good at this point. A hundred percent. I mean I'm not the type of person that's

going to stand there and like scream from the mountain that this is you have to use this camera only forever it's the best, you know? Because I just don't believe that, you know? Oh yeah, I hate the best. Yeah, exactly. I don't think that that camera quite exists.

Yeah. I will say the one thing that is a slight knock on the C-500 but it's kind of just the future like you were saying is those C-Fast or the CF Express cards, they're expensive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was definitely sad to see that we went from the C-Fast so quickly. They're great.

I mean, offloading a terra, basically a terabyte of footage in 12 minutes, 20 minutes is like insane. Yeah, I mean, and is that like to solaceate 12 minutes? Yeah, I wrote an article about it But I believe, yeah, one 512 card I was probably offloading in 8 to 12 minutes That's pretty amazing That's pretty impressive

So even if you just had one card Like if you only could afford one for some reason Well, that would not be smart If you got two By the time you've loaded one, hand it off They'll dump it and give it back to you before like you've got two more takes you know right right so that's

definitely a plus gotcha we're kind of coming up on the end I don't wonder what other notes today I had a bunch of them uh sure oh the one this is kind of a little aside but um the when he's shown the initial prank video on the

laptop and he goes is it funny and the guy goes yes I watched his lawyer happen because if he said no that ruins his entire case I wouldn't say it ruins his entire case but it definitely is indicative of his you know

I don't know his expression of empathy or his expression of like okay yes this you know to me it was very much a very simple cultural moment where this is a guy who like almost barely understands how to log in to YouTube, much less understand the comedy of millennial YouTubers, you know?

So he's just old school. You know, these, these, these guys haven't never grew up with any of this stuff. This 21st century digital stuff is totally foreign to them. And so it's actually really funny to watch him. It was, it wasn't, to me, it wasn't so much he was asking his lawyer self to, to, uh, to say yes or in the affirmative that there's money or not but it was almost like he really doesn't

know if it's funny or not yeah i'm sure he doesn't he doesn't find it funny that this jokester is like pouring you know they're pouring stuff on people's heads and then saying sorry and running off well the clip he was showing too was just them playing with like a toy like it did oh right right it would right and at some point if it bit her finger she would have to give him a kiss or something It was like so dumb Hard shift because now I'm looking at my note The the sort of last line in the film is Is the subject

I can't remember my friend's name so I can't remember her name The world does not pink Oh yeah Brutal Brutal Oh yeah I mean you right away as soon as you heard or say that It was like it was so sweet And so

And I feel like you could go on through a lot of the film no matter how you feel about each of the young ladies you could go all the way till the end to somewhere around that line and still not be sure about their guilt or their innocence, you know? But that is a very tender and sweet

thing for her to say because it's true, you know, that, like, her, her basic human level trust was so severely, severely violated that it almost got her killed. Yeah.

And I don't know how you come back from that in terms of, like, trusting people, you know, and who you call your friends and, who you confide in in the future. when it could be violated that easily. It's just, it was so sad to see her kind of processing that type of a moment. And, but it was a really innocent and lovely expression of how, you know, poetically, how she was feeling, you know, it was really, um, amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That, yeah, that hit me like a truck. I was like, that is, that is a, it, it, it immediately made. the documentary that takes place in a very real point in time, timeless. Because that's going to be a lesson that everyone continues to learn forever and have in the past. You know, I feel like everyone has a moment in which their innocence is violated in some way.

You know, whether that's growing up, whether that's something that happens to you, in this case, a really aggressive thing. And especially, too, in her end, like, if we're to believe her end of the story, she was just trying to be an actress or whatever just trying to live an innocent fun carefree life yeah she just wanted some attention and she was getting it and she was getting paid for it well you know getting paid well and um i mean it brought it like her efforts brought her to this place and you know i you know i always wonder uh and i feel for her you know what um what she's going through in terms of how each of them feel personally

of having been duped in that way, you know? So it's hard, you know. There's a lot of like, you know, as a camera person, you're technically there to gather what's happening. But as soon as the camera's off, I have a much different demeanor, you know. Because I want the people to know that I'm human also and that I'm not just a machine collecting images of them, you know.

So I think it's really important for to remind myself of that as much as possible and to talk and have as much interaction with them off camera as I do, you know, while we're in the moment. I think it's just important for me personally as a human. Right. Well, and in certain cases, like there's a handful of people I interviewed where like that type of interaction would not be good, not be chill, would affect what they were doing.

But in this case, I feel like that's probably the right thing to do. You know, you're not going to affect the story by showing someone that you empathize, you know? Oh, sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so, you know, I, the whole experience was surreal

in making this film and sort of keeping up, you know, because the court case, you know, legal stuff, all that legalese takes forever to kind of unravel. and they're constantly delaying court dates and pushing forward testimony. But the Malaysian court system was just hard to kind of keep up with and certainly a little bit hard to understand. But what was very clear was that had they not sort of gotten their release through sort of diplomatic channels and things like that,

they were going to be found guilty and they probably would have been hung, you know. Which, by the way, that's nice. It was really a bad situation. That's a terrifying prospect, too. Like, you're going to get hung? Yeah. And it'll wait. There's no death row there.

There's, okay, you're found guilty. One or two days later, that's it. Audite goes. Jeez. Well, our time is kind of up. I really appreciate you spending it with me. Not to end it on that note, we're going to flip to what I normally ask everyone, which is two things.

One, what kind of everyday thing, whether it be a behavior or an item, have you adopted that appreciably changed your career path or just your day-to-day work? And then also, if you have anything to promote any personal projects or anything like that, feel free to send it. So you mean what type of item or what kind of? Either way. So like one guy said, you know, just he brings his light meter, everywhere. One guy said, actually

last night, it was the moment that he trusted himself enough to write cinematographer on his business card. You know, for some, it might be like meditation. You know, good shoes was one. Yeah, I know. That's funny. I would say that I would say for me, just the process of

of always trying to sort of capture the moment as it happens and not losing sight of not ever having to like do something over or ask to do something over. So that's just to be ready all the time.

I think that there was definitely a time where I didn't totally trust myself as a camera person. I wondered whether I could pull something off like a full film, you know, until you get that first full film under your belt, you're always wondering whether you can do it. Confidence is one thing, but another thing is just preparation. I think it's accomplishing something good and shooting something well is definitely one thing.

Being prepared to do that mentally is another. So I always like to just bring a level of enthusiasm. I think when I, no matter who I'm working with, I think that I lean on my excitement, my enthusiasm to kind of carry me through lots of difficult moments and lots of really stressful moments because when you're working with a small team, the way I do on documentaries, one person can affect the other two or people quite easily. And so I think just make, well, I always tell, when I talk to students, I always say that to make yourself indispensable, you know, learn how to do a lot of things. You can be a master of one or, you know, I think it's important to be able to do and wear a lot of hats and not just get stuck into doing one thing only. in fact I think that makes you a better cinematographer or a better DP if you're able to kind of take in all of the elements around you and not just be stuck in lens world only you know sometimes just creating a good vibe with your subjects and with your team is way more important than figuring out how to accomplish some masterful establishment. shot or something like that um so i don't know i i my big my big thing is i just like to figure out how quickly within whatever given scenario i've been thrown into how how how how i can quickly

um establish a rapport and and uh and express myself creatively and and and with enthusiasm so that people know oh wow this this person is like really excited they're really open to me you know i like i like to just make people feel comfortable and settled right away and also just make them feel that that that this is that what we're about to do or what we're this project that we're embarking on together is super important to me because i feel like if they don't get that first impression that you're committed to what is happening um they're always going to be in the back of their mind thinking is Is this person even really want to be here? Am I, you know?

So I like to just create conditions where, and maybe that's my anti-conflict trait kind of affecting me a little bit. But I just like to get on with people like right away and sometimes, you know, show up somewhere. And this is a big thing, I would say, is that when I do show up to a location or show up to meet subjects, I tend to not like to carry any gear in my hands. I like to just come as I am right away and not look like I'm here to get something day one or moment one.

So I like to leave the camera stuff in the car or whatever and show up as I am, just as a basic human looking to make a connection with another human. and that's tended to work for me. And I think it makes the subjects feel like I'm not trying to commoditize them. I'm not trying to figure out from the moment I met them how to get a good shot of them. The camera stuff comes later, but the human emotional relationship comes first for me. And I think that that's made my job as a camera person a lot easier. Because I tend to feel like establishing that rapport early on makes them more open to allowing me to get things that maybe they wouldn't normally have allowed me to get because they just weren't totally open to me or weren't, you know, totally on board with with with with with with my presence. So that's sort of a bit of a meta thing, but but it relates to what you're able to do later in the in the process.

no meta things are perfect there's a lot of guests are always like sorry to go off topic i'm like dude i am the king of off topic let's go thank you for that i appreciate it and uh your second question was any uh personal projects anything you want to promote or any that kind of things yeah no i mean i i i am i'm i'm working on uh a few films and uh i'll just tell you about two of them um One is a documentary they've been working on for about seven years called Rocka to Venus. And this is a, it's just a documentary that's taken a long time to kind of unravel because there's a lot of mysterious characters and information that's been hard to find. But the log line is essentially it's about these three guys from Baltimore who grew up in 1928.

They came to build a spaceship in the garage of one of their homes. And their goal was to fly that spaceship to the planet Venus. And it is quite a really amazing tale. And this is real stuff, true story. There's newspaper clippings of the ship and everything. And I have always wanted to impact that. So I have a really great group of friends who are kind of tracking down. the mystery vehicle, you know, the spaceship itself, as well as the mystery characters and these

sort of like pioneering astronauts that that started this process. So that's that's kind of out there. You can find out of some information about it. There's a really great Washington Post magazine article written about it last year that you could find about rocket of Venus. And then the other film I'm working on, which is in process. Almost Done Principle is a documentary about the life and times of Billy Ray Cyrus. Okay. This is a really wild film that we started to make in the months prior to the explosion and dropping of the remix of Old Town Road with Billy Ray Cyrus and Little Nas X.

So it started out as this sort of traditional documentary about a really iconic interesting cultural kind of icon and but really cool musician, Billy Ray Cyrus, and then it turned into this amazing, wild, kind of very present and active Verite type of documentary about, you know, this sort of lightning striking twice for him in this Old Town Road. I mean, he's done a lot of music, but I think everybody remembers him for Iggy Bricky Heart. lot of people mischaracterized him as a one-hit wonder, but then you had this smash success of Old Town Road, and there he was again doing his thing. And so it's this great parallel between

that old world achy-breaky kind of roller coaster ride and this new roller coaster ride that he took with Little Nas X on Old Town Road. So I think it's going to be really exciting to to remind people about what a crazy thing that Old Town Road was, but it'll also kind of take you into the archives of Billy Ray's home movies and what it was like for him just to kind of grow up as this sort of famous dad who now has a bunch of other famous kids, you know, and what that family life was like. And it's been super fun to do, and I cannot wait to share it.

yeah no those both sound great i'm really excited for rocket though that's like right up my alley okay well yeah you should dig into it and i'll definitely keep you in the loop about that and maybe we can talk about them another time please yeah um well once again thank you and uh that's the end of that frame and reference is an owlbot production it's produced and edited by me kennie mcmillan and distributed by pro video coalition our theme song is written and performed by mark Pelley and the F-Affat-R mapbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Truax branding company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to Pro Video Coalition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot respectively. And as

always, thanks for listening.