Frame & Reference Podcast - 120: "Asteroid City" DP Robert Yeoman, ASC

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

This week I'm honored to have Robert Yeoman, ASC joining the esteemed list of F&R guests! You know Bob from his work with Wes Anderson (all of them), Paul Feig, on Kevin Smith's "Dogma", and many many more amazing films. Enjoy! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow F&R on all your favorite social platforms!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can directly support Frame & Reference by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buying Me a Coffee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coast's leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out ⁠⁠Filmtools.com⁠⁠ for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ⁠⁠ProVideoCoalition.com⁠⁠ for the latest news coming out of the industry.

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of Framing Reference. I'm your host, Community Millen, and you're listening to an episode of 120 with Robert Yelman, ASC, DP of Asteroid Sea. Enjoy. pretty good DVD collection and I like I like having that I like having that you know and it's Yeah. I guess it's like people with music who have albums, you know, you know, you just, you know, a lot of people I know are, I gave my albums a long time, way a little time ago. And then I got into CDs and now everyone says get ready to CDs. So, but I've got boxes of CDs and Blu-rays and DVDs. And I'm kind of old school that way, I guess. So I like having the physical thing. So. Yeah. Well, if you couldn't tell by this, Vizage, super hipster. So I've got tons of vinyl still. So what CDs are coming back? Kids are buying tapes now.

They're like, I like the warm sound of tapes. Like, that's not one I thought was coming back. Well, most of my albums were scratched up anyway. So, you know, it's like, you know, the CDs are good. I mean, yeah, the albums are for the purest, you know. And I think that's, you know, I admire that. But they take up a lot of room and I had to give something up that. But I still have my, you know, bookcases of CDs.

and all that stuff. Did you come from a musical background? For some reason, like most DPs that I talked to, we all ended up being drummers. I wish I did. Oddly enough, when I was a young child, my parents gave me an accordion. And I hated the accordion.

And, you know, when you're 11 or 12 years old, that's the last thing you want to do is practice an accordion. right uh so i was not i can't really say and then later in my life i always want to learn how to play guitar and so later in my life when i had my daughter um we took we have a piano in our house so she took piano lessons and then we started taking guitar lessons so i learned to play you know some beach boys some simple beatle songs and you know um and i i was given uh uh by bill Holad, when we did the Brian Wilson movie, he gave me a bass guitar very, the same model that Brian

used to play. So it's electric guitar, and we have an amp now, and I plunk her on. But, you know, I got to say I'm not a very good guitar player. But I've always loved music, and I've been to a million rock and roll shows. And when I was a kid, I'd go all the time. which explains my hearing loss today because when you go to see the Who and Led Zeppelin and the stones and those types of bands, you know, they're pretty loud and you come out for the next day or so. When you're 18, 19 years old, you don't think about that stuff.

You know, you think, oh, who cares? One year old, you know, that's a long time away. I don't care. Yeah. I'm starting to pay the ice now. One of my jobs, so I was a drummer, one of my jobs was in college was photographing concerts. And then afterwards, I worked for Red Bull for wear, the same thing, shooting concerts and bands. And this just occurred to me last night, but it always ends up popping up because of the way I would shoot the photos with my ear towards the state, my left ear towards the stage. I'll have like one headphone in, you know, and I'm like, that's kind of, it's kind of quiet. And I'll like jack up the sound.

And then maybe I get uncomfortable and switch it to my right ear. And I'm like, oh, my God, suddenly. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, you're still pretty young, you know, but, yeah, the concerts, though I did go, to a Ramstein a show in Boston about a year ago and it was really loud and I was offered ear plugs but I said nah you know and we weren't right up next to the stage

anyway but it was quite a spectacle if you know if you ever you know Ramstein oh yeah yeah yeah that dude was an Olympic swimmer oh is that right oh I did yeah the singer yeah well we're putting on quite a show I hadn't been to a show show like that in a long time and the lighting and everything else. I usually have tons of pyro, right? Oh, tons. Yeah, no, it's really good. And, you know, it was at the football stadium outside of Boston.

And so we were outside. And again, we weren't right up in the front. But it was fun. I mean, I enjoyed it quite a bit, you know. But, you know, I'm getting too old to go to concerts. So, you know, I don't go very often anymore. Yeah, I mean. Sure. Me and my girlfriend, for some reason, this year just got a bug at our bonnet. We've been to like six and we've got about four more left. And we've really started to take note of like the better venues to be at in Los Angeles right now. You know, like sometimes they're like what like Anaheim's house of blues is all jacked up or they'll just oversell the floor seating. You know, so you're just you can't see shit and other places, you know, the rocks. No, not the rock. Anyway, doesn't matter. A lot of good, a lot of good. A lot of good.

good bands come through L.A. right now, though. I actually got a job operating a camera at the Crossroads Guitar Festival at Eric Clapton hosted. Oh, sure. And they had Santana there, and they had, you know, Chagmere, they had Show Crow, they had Zizi Top. They had, they all would come out and play with each other, you know. And it was really fun, you know, seeing, these are a lot of legends more from my

my time period and so to see them up there rocking away at their old age was it's a lot of fun i enjoyed it very much yeah say that was that was say that was the last concert i went to and it was it was two days and it goes on for like six hours you know it's not like it's an two-hour concert you know they just keep trotting more people out and uh you know it was really i was always a big Clapton fan as a kid, so it was really great seeing that. So I enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah, that actually made me think of a separate question, but we'll get to that in a minute. But I did want in the same kind of vein. I know you just said you've been busy, but have you, uh, most people seem to not. So I'm going to change this question for next season. But have you been watching anything interesting

recently? Or are you kind of like when you get off work here and you don't want to see a screen? Well, I started, this fall, I took a job teaching at USC in cinema therapy, so I've been watching a lot of student films, and some of them are pretty good, you know, and that's been a real new thing for me, and I went to see Oppenheimer, which I thought was really amazing, and then I went to see my daughter and I went to see Barbie, which was not a movie that I, you know was dying to go see but uh i was pretty impressed with it you know i mean technically there was a lot of cool stuff going on in the film and uh you know i thought it was pretty good you know it was hilarious yeah ryan gozzling was really great you know and uh so i was surprised by that one but now that the the big movies are coming out kills the the flower moon those types of movies uh it's you know for the academy i'm able to uh i'm able to uh go to all these screenings where, like, when I went to Barbie,

Greta Gerwig was there, and Rodrigo Piottoe, and the production designer. So then you stay afterwards and hear him talk about it, and it makes it a little more interesting. And so I always try to see the movies that are up for best picture and best in photography in a theater. So I'm going to start getting busy with that, you know, and balance that. My son's a soccer player, so I have to balance it with his soccer practices.

Yeah. So the weekends are always games everywhere, so that's what we do. You know, go to Seattle to San Diego for soccer games. Oh, geez. Yeah, that was something that I was telling the one of the PR teams about was like, because I get invited to a lot of screeners, but oftentimes, you know, it's just an email blast. It's not like, hey, you come to this. But I was saying like next year, I kind of want to prioritize going to those because, A,

oftentimes the filmmakers are there, which is great. But B, I've noticed, they are not like the best networking thing in the world to do, but you do end up meeting a lot of cool people outside, you know, especially when there's like a reception or whatever. Yeah, usually they do have a reception. And, you know, you're related to people who haven't seen forever and, you know, catch up. And, you know, particularly with the strikes that have been happening, people have a little more free time.

They're not working. And so, you know, people are starting to attend these things pretty, you know, pretty heavily so I found it certain ones I had there there was a David Fincher a movie

The Killers or something I am I RSPed to that but they said sorry it's already full so you can't pull it do you know who I am card or nothing

I guess there's a lot of people who are doing you know and so you know they'll have more screenings I'll see that film I want to see it you know but yeah I looked that up

um yesterday and i guess it's not so it's not playing at amc's but i guess right now you can catch it at like a couple regals in our area or like um yeah there's there's a few but it's only like you know 4 p.m and 7 p.m. oh wow that's so weird yeah but there's a few theaters but there i think they're all just doing you know smaller selling because you know you think someone like david would give it a big what least it would be important film did did mank get released in theaters I, you know, because I saw it in a theater, but I think I saw it at the academy, maybe, you know. They had people speaking afterwards, but I did see it in a theater, but I don't recall if it was, I assume it was, but maybe it's just, I feel like he's kind of all in on streaming now. Maybe that's it. Maybe he's a one, you know, I know when I did Henry Sugar with West,

you know that that's been on Netflix you know right this is originally wanted to kind of there's four different stories he wanted to put them all together and release them in the theater so you can see all four of them but i know that netflix had another idea and um so you know that's how they released it now it's on netflix but i you know i hate to say it but i mean i'm kind of a purist but i do watch most of my movies now on Netflix or I mean watching the Beckham documentary you know

you know occasionally when I watch movies on my computer I'm embarrassed to say but the big ones like I say the ones that are up for big awards I do see them in the theaters you know that's I think that's important particularly for cinematography or best pictured

yeah well and I remember seeing this one you know I'm doing this is a other New Year's resolution I got is like, I'm just going to get off YouTube completely. Like, I can't stand it anymore. But I was, you know, hate watching some stuff. And this one kid was bemoaning the death of cinema and how Oppenheimer was going to save cinema.

And then he went on to say almost in the same breath how he hasn't been to a theater in like two, three years. And this is the movie that's bringing the back. And I'm like, sir, you are the reason that it's not existing. Yeah. Well, even like at the Barbie screening, just being with the. crowd of people. It was at the... Yeah. And just people laughing and enjoy it, you know, and there's something about that

communal experience that you obviously don't get at home. And, you know, I think it increases your enjoyment of the film when you, you know, hear other people laughing. And, you know, it's... We're all sitting in a dark room kind of sharing this experience. And it's one of the thing... I mean, I grew up going to movies all the time, you know, and that was, you know, We had just tiny little TVs in our house, you know, and it was a whole different experience. So I would probably go to the movies at least once a week, you know, and, you know, that was part of my growing up experience. So I do miss it. Yeah.

Was from Chicago, right? Yeah, originally, yeah. Was the John Hughes kind of way of impactful on you at all, just being kind of local to you, or did that not really? Oh, really? I mean, it's not like I didn't. like those movies, but they didn't, you know, I mean, certainly Breakfast Club was a big movie. And, uh, but I was kind of more, well, I, I, you know, movies like the graduate and the heat of the night. Those were the, uh, Lawrence of Arabia. Those were the movies that really made

an influence on me. And, uh, you know, trying to think other ones that just, but, you know, they, there was I like the spaghetti westerns the Clinties which were getting I love those I was fanatic about those movies and so those were kind of movie and a lot of Hitchcock movies at our local theater where I lived I live in the suburb Friday nights when I was like seventh grade everybody would just ride their bike to the local theater and go see the movie and then go get a nice cream afterwards or something you know it's kind of a social thing and and and and In that, you know, as a benefit to all that, I was seeing some of me, I remember seeing psycho and the birds and those kinds of movies and just being like, petrified, you know. But so I was getting a real education, whether I knew it or not, about filmmaking, you know, and, you know, it was, but it also, you know, showed, open up your eyes to so many other things. But as a kid, growing up in Chicago, I didn't really think about, oh, I'm going to go, working on film industry and I you know no one did my own town and it was just like that was

something in Hollywood that I made I had no you know idea that that would be where my my path would take at that time yeah so for me it was uh as I was going to say for me it was the growing up in the Bay area so there was just so much that that felt that made for whatever reason that made a film feel more accessible than moving down to L.A. and trying to do it here, like the, you know, Copla and Lucas and Holman and all them. Yeah, well, they were all up there. Lucas set up Skywalker Ranch and Coppola lives up there, you know, and so there is a certain, you know, the Bay Area has got a lot of filmmakers.

But, you know, back then, when I grew up, if you were like Billy Friedkin or some of the big director, John Hughes, I don't know, I guess did John Hesley, a lot of them moved out of Chicago, I'm going to move to L.A. I imagine you just shot out there. Yeah, I mean, there wasn't the film community. Back when I was a kid, it was L.A. and New York, basically. And now, of course, it's changed with Atlanta and all these other places that, you know, I just, I've done three movies in Boston, you know. There's a field community in a lot of major cities now. I've shot in San Francisco, you know, I mean. But back in the 70s, it was L.A. in New York pretty much. Yeah. When you had mentioned the education thing and that brought me back to the question I was going to ask, which was like you went to Duke. Did you, you played on the basketball team at Duke? I was a walk on my freshman year.

Fair enough. But like Duke and SC and now you're teaching at SC, what are some of the differences that you're seeing between the students now and when when you were there? Because obviously SC storied film tradition, there's probably a little more going on than I went to Arizona State. And the film school. had started two years before I got there, so the pedigree was not quite there yet. Now they're the Sydney Portia School of Theater and Television. But, yeah, like, what are you seeing? Like, is the access to new technology making them better filmmakers off-rip, or, you know, what's going on over there? Yeah, definitely. I think that when I was at USC, we didn't have the facilities that we have now at USC.

I mean, they've gone to two major buildings. Like when I was there, it was like a Quonset hut and we shot 16 millimeter black and white film that was it, you know, and you know, the facilities for that time were probably pretty good but they are almost prehistoric compared to what they have now, you know,

and so the facilities are much better. I, with no, I don't know how to say it's dougly, but I think that faculty is much better because people Because you're teaching there? Well, me and just you know

a lot of my colleagues are people who were very successful in the film business and now they're teaching at USC and they bring that perspective to it and I have a theory that every generation the bar gets raised in everything

you know like I played basketball and like if we played back then the kids who were playing today they would smoke us you know right you know my son was playing soccer he's 13 years old and i mean these kids are like pros i mean they're amazingly good you know and um so every generation the bars raised a little bit and i think the kids making the uh films at usc today are making better films than we did you know and they're much i think also being the access because of the internet and every and Netflix and all the things you can stream

they have more access to more things you know than we did and so obviously their brains are accumulating a much larger library of things than we were able to and i mean when i was young i mean we didn't even have VHS tapes you know and so wanted to see a movie it was shown on tv with a bunch of commercials or you you would go to a theater, you know, and there was a place when I was at USC called the Fox Venice Theater down in Lincoln and Venice, and they would show two or three kind of art house movies every night. They would switch home, and we would, you know, we would go all the time and, you know, you'd see all the USC students just to see these movies, you know, and, you know, they were usually double bills and, you know, Ken Russell movies or, you know, anything.

that just you wouldn't get a chance to see. And so a lot of our education came from the Fox Dennis Theater. Right. But today, you just go online and you can pretty much watch anything. So I think the kids today are a level way above what we were for sure. Sure. Because that kind of brings you the whole, obviously we can talk about your entire filmography, but we'll stick to the Wes Anderson chunk just for sake of the theme of this interview.

But, you know, like I said, I watched all the criterions yesterday. And the thing that was kind of interesting for me was bottle rocket looks very much, not like a student film in a in a pejorative way, but, you know, it's simple in a certain way. And then you've got something like Asteroid City, which is simple in a different way. And I was wondering if that rings true to you and where you draw, because like even in bottle rocket and even in Rushmore, there isn't that. locked off proscenium thing happening yet you know there's still a lot of um feels like you guys are still figuring all that out and stuff so in in what ways were they simple similarly in what ways were they simple differently if that's well is that a good question yeah you know i i think i can answer that uh you know i think certainly bottle rocket was west's first movie and he was

still learning you know he had done a short and uh you know but in terms of just the technology he of what was available and he depended on me pretty heavily to help him at that point you know but obviously he's a very bright guy and picks up all this stuff right quickly and um i you know so i think his style was just he hadn't quite totally figured out his style at that point and Rushmore was, for me, you know, the first one where he really started to, okay. And Wes, you know, he had directed a lot of theater in high school and grade school. And so, and he noticed in Rushmore, there's two plays, you know, and, and so as we've gone on, we've gotten a little more theatrical. And I think also when he did those animated films, which I was not part of, he learned a lot about different ways of doing things.

Because in real life, you're kind of restricted by physical whatever, you know, animating walls, whatever you want, you know. and I also think that the technology has changed so much even though we shoot Phil when you look almost everything is done digitally in posts now and and those technologies did not exist when we started you know I like I Rushmore with the curtains we actually had these curtains we put in front of the camera and we'd open them right you know we didn't use that you know back then

we didn't use any I can't think there were any visual effects on bottle rocket at Rushmore you know none you know and um it's it's it's and i remember on rail tenon bombs we were shooting down by the boat docks at new york and the the boat came in and they didn't like the west didn't like the name on the boat and so they went and fixed that digital that was the first time I recall ever doing any sort of digital effect, you know. And as time has gone on, and post-production techniques particularly have, you know, just, you know, skyrocketed. I think, and Wes is very savvy to all these techniques, and particularly having worked on the animated films. And as now, I think, we still try to do almost everything in camera, but there are,

certain things that have happened. And he also got used to, he started using miniatures and things of that nature that we never did at the beginning. And so his grasp as a filmmaker has changed. So I think that's what you're seeing in Asteroid City or you're seeing the Friends Dispatch, you know, more and more of that, you know, that it is sometimes like, you know, we'll be doing something and there'll be an element that will be added later to the, to the shot that we, you know, going to be done later so well that's it well it also what was funny was on the criterion for grand budapest there's though there's a whole half-hour minidococ about the visual effects in the film those three they said three to four hundred VFX shots yeah um and it's it it makes me laugh

because there's always these conversations online about oh and in person but like oh you know no one wants to see visual effects anymore like doing it in cameras real and you guys are very much the in camera camp but 400 visual effects shots but they're invisible so no one thinks about it you know it's just changing a facade or or adding a whatever you know yeah that's basically what it is and and you know there were miniatures you know in that and and uh you know certainly that whole sequence where uh a skiing sequence Because I remember when I read the script, you know, I said to West, what are we going to do, fly this, which I'm doing this, how are we going to do that? You know, and, you know, there was a lot of discussion about it, and then he decided to make it animated, you know, which is the same thing happened in Friends Dispatch when they have the car chase, you know, with the big wrestler guy. And I was like, so, you know, I'm going to have a big car chase and two all this at night. And he said, no, I'm going to make it kind of comic bookie, you know. And it adds an element to the film. Like the alien in Asteroid City.

That got a huge laugh at my theater, by the way. Just that I think I, you know, I've seen the movie in Numerstom. And, you know, Jeff Goldblum was the actual alien. And he had to wear these stilts and learn how to walk on the stilts. And it's just, I don't know that he could have bent down and picked up the thing. And just physically, I think it would have been impossible for him, you know. And it's, you know, so sometimes Wesley look at possibilities. And not that he's ever afraid to just say, let's do it this way.

He knew that it, that character, Asteroid City had some humorous aspects about him. I don't know that, as much I love Jeff and what a fantastic actor is, I don't know if he could have gotten that where he's wearing that heavy costume with a stilts and area, you know, I don't know. You know, and the animated character gave, like you said, it was humorous and funny, and it gave a whole other feeling that I think we probably could have gotten in live action, but maybe I'm wrong.

No, I agree. I mean, especially because the color sequences are the play, but they're super polished, it doesn't look like a play. And I think putting someone in a costume would have looked less real. Like having, because it's an alien, you know, like it's got to look otherworldly to some degree. So I think it like, like stylistically, I think it actually works better that way. Yeah. And I'm, you know, and like I said, West is if he felt it would have been better with Jeff.

doing it. He would have done it. But I think helped that you know, this gave him a little more possibilities and that's why he chose to do it that way, you know, and also obviously we can't have a giant spaceship come down. And even the

train sequence at the beginning, those are miniature trains. Which I didn't realize until I saw behind the season. In theater, I just thought that was like either a combination of real trains and something else, but I didn't really think about it. Those were amazing miniatures. Well, there's, and I think it was the guy from Germany, I can't remember his name, but he builds these things in.

They, you know, in miniatures, the larger you could make it, the better. And then they had to create miniature cactuses and miniature mountains. You know, that was the second unit that was doing that on the train stuff. So, but it was, I'm sure it was tricky, but I agree. I thought it came out beautifully, you know, really well. yeah it uh it occurs to me so one thing because you said you hadn't heard this podcast before uh my brain is in a thousand places at once so it will be a little jump aroundy but um i did uh oh yeah uh i did want to ask what was your relationship like or what is your relationship like with uh adam stockhausen in all these films like because obviously the uh PD and the and the DP have a very kind of interlinked relationship that cannot be pulled apart it's a you know the production designer is you know well the director is my best friend and the production designer is my second best friend you know uh i spent a lot of time in the art

department adam is very generous and uh obviously very bright he's thought through so much of this stuff beforehand and uh you know if if there's something that i need i will go to adam you know i'll an example, like an asteroid city, when we had to build that town, you know, certainly Wes and however involved, but, but Wes had this concept that we wouldn't use any movie lights in that. Right. I did want to ask about that, too. What was the concept?

And I knew I'd be in trouble because it was the desert in Spain, in the summer. It was very bright, very hot. And if you're inside, typically you would use lights to otherwise the people, if you expose for the outside, the people inside are dark. Or if exposed for the people inside, the outside just blows out and why are we even there, you know? So, at first I was like, oh, man, how am I going to do this without any lights? But then I thought, you know, I looked back to in the, when they first started making movies in New Jersey, they would just have skylights, you know, and rotate the sets. but so I kind of took that concept and obviously we couldn't rotate the sets but I asked if we could put skylights in the in the in the buildings where we were shooting interiors like the diner in the the Jason and scarlets the motel rooms where we were doing the shots there and then I would cover them with a very soft diffusion material and because we were shooting anamorphic and all those sequences, you typically, the only time you would ever, it's because it's, you know,

the frame is very long and narrow, the only time you will see the ceiling is at the far end, like in the diner. So we have little panels that we could just put on there. And if, you know, and then, um, and it kind of worked out really beautifully for me because, you know, if I, if, if you know anything about photography, with my meter, I could put the people, say, I was reading, like, eight on the people inside with the skylights and we shoot film and uh just put them a stop down and then the exterior was like a stop and a half over so it's a natural kind of uh perfect balance and on the rare occasions that clouds would come in that would mean the interior was down a little bit that the exterior was down by the same amount so then you just opened up the aperture so it worked out

pretty well and uh adam you know anything we ever need from adam you know we just say oh could you do this for us and and he never blinks you know he just does it and uh and he does it beautifully uh and you know if we ever need anything from him oh could you give us this or give us that or we we particularly we do a lot with practicals and and he supervises that with the set decorators and uh we always And for the night scenes, we always have a lot of practicals. Right. And we do a lot of testing generally of color. You know, like in Grand Budapest, the color of the walls of that hotel were very carefully selected.

And what Adam does in prep is he paints a little 4x8 sheets with different shades of that color. And then I try to create the lighting, how we're going to do it in the movie. And then we can look at it and select, you know, which color to paint the walls. So there's a lot of collaboration that goes on between us. And, you know, they often build these little models in the art department. And I, you know, hang out in there and look at the models so I can kind of think about things. And, you know, but, you know, Adam is a, he's a genius.

Working with him. And he's amazing no matter. And, you know, Wes is not easy on the art department. And he throws them a lot of curveballs. They always manage to come through. It's amazing. You know, they're incredible. I'm in awe sometimes of what he can pull off in his team.

Yeah. Asteroid City specifically just looks so like it's perfect in terms of that. But I did want to kind of go down the path of lighting because, obviously, cinematography podcast. But so I had read that you had done the skylight. thing just like putting in the scrim or whatever you know uh fusion but they're the diffusion but um yeah scrim goes on a regular way uh i notice out a lot of your films you'll just kind of have the either light coming from outside the set or just a shit ton of practicals and then carry around maybe a um china ball or or something to that effect uh were you also doing

that in astroids city or was that no film light rule pretty hard and fast and it was just all bounce uh in the uh in the in the in the town of asteroid city there was no film lights uh obviously the black and white stage stuff was a whole different sure the whole major lighting deal uh but in the town we kind of held to that no no lights and uh west was very eager to you know occasionally we might trying to even used silks i mean i think we even used silks i mean i think we must have at some point used a silk or something but you know there's not no electric lights being plugged it ever you know and that was kind of the concept and uh we you know we hear to that yeah and bounce cards occasionally you know things like you know most directors

at west in particular really the less gear you have on the set the more the the happier they are And so even if I had lights, typically, we try to keep it from the outside, you know. And in Van Budapest, there was always a sky, not always, but in where we were shooting the hotel, there was a giant skylight up top, in the prison, there was a skylight, and the spa, the bath sequence, there was a skylight. So we put big lights shining through the top. And so you don't even, you know, never see him you know and and then we had the practicals and then like you said we would use one or maybe two little lights to just kind of give the actors some shape and that's how we did it and it may allows you to move much faster because we actually moved pretty quickly you know and and when

when the actors are west likes to keep the momentum going so that's what we do yeah i did see in some of the behind the scene stuff for i think was grand budapest where we're at notes uh rush war looked pretty but there were some you seem to do the thing that we all love to do which is just as big of a source as possible diffused it to all hell kind of as close as you could get like this where uh jude law and uh f maria abraham are talking yeah um that looked like it had a yeah oh look like that was giant at the table there yeah that was a little bit bigger because we were in a giant auditorium it was actually a gym and the art department came in and they did a little painting and they propped it up a little bit you know bring some props in tables and everything and uh but it was pretty dark in there so we had these what they call clouds they're like blue lights up top they gave us light everywhere and then uh we did have some lights you know uh on stands and things just to kind of

fill them that we needed to because it was so dark in there you know but uh so that was a pretty major lighting set for sure but we you know i did it can look naturally so totally um but i did to the point of asteroid city did want to um ask like how besides just placing the sun where you needed it how were you uh managing those potentially extreme contrast level you know like obviously the the um huts are white so you can get a little bounce off there you had that little lattice work thing, but, you know, were you just kind of leaning back on old film school kind of techniques of just, like you said, bounce card and stuff, or where there are like specific things that you were able to do to really make that work? Was the color grade

part of that? Because obviously that's been good. Yeah. Well, because, you know, we were often shooting and, you know, we shot all day, you know, so often it was towards the middle part of the day where the lighting was a little harsher. And in the color grade, uh, and I credit West with this, you know, he, he, there's so much information on a film negative. They took a little more low call than what our dailies were. They pushed the color saturation to a more pastel look. Our dailies looked a little more realistic, like what better word. And so west came up with this concept and they said it to, he's in England. I was in, L.A., and they said it to me, and I saw it, and I loved it.

I said, well, yeah, that's fantastic, you know. And it kind of softened a lot of that. And it's because, again, in post-production, you know, this is all done digitally. So you have much more control on the image than we used to with just film finishes, you know. So there's a lot of things you can do in post to really smooth everything out. And so that was done in what we call the digital remediate, the PI. Yeah. Yeah, I've been, uh, over the pandemic, I obviously couldn't shoot anything. So I started

freelance coloring because people had stuff in post, you know. And, uh, it's certainly been educational to know what you can and cannot do in resolve. Yeah. Uh, as a DP just because I feel like it's made me a much more effective DP because I can tell the director like, oh, no, no, don't, you know, don't flag that off. Well, that'll take too long. We can fix that. versus someone going, oh, you can fix that, right? And you go, I'm not pretty sure. Not realizing what a headache you've put on your colorist. Well, you know, I tell everybody, as students, you know, that they, that's something about

being a cinematographer today. You really have to know what is possible. And I spent a lot of time in DIY suites and, you know, post-production houses. And, you know, I have a pretty good handle and think. But, you know, they can always come up with something that they, and knew that I wasn't aware of and you know it's but as a cinematographer you have to be aware of all those things because you know that's your that's the final the final go-around on your image you know and and you don't want someone else coming in and totally changing what

you had intended which you know it has happened in me over the years and particularly in commercials we'll shoot something whether it's film or digital generally digital and we'll light it a certain way, and then you see it on the air, and it's usually much brighter and much flatter than what we shot, you know, and so that's always a little disappointing, but, because they say they're doing the final color timing in New York or whatever, I can't be there, and, you know, everyone kind of gets nervous and makes it brighter and flatter, basically, and so that happens quite a bit and at first I used to get angry about that now I just let it go but for a movie I really make a point of being there or at least like well if Wes is doing it in England they

send me what they have and then I hear in LA and then I give them notes of what I think so it's important to at least be part of that process ideally you're there when it's happening yeah it is kind of frustrating because I've said this a million times but obviously obviously being a set of photographer, you have these days, you have, like you said, one foot square in post because of the D.I. And it does feel like getting the DP in the suite is not prioritized at any level. Like, I feel like every, you know, I've done 120 of these interviews and it feels like maybe less than half of them actually get to have a final say as it's happening. You know, obviously you build the Lut beforehand a lot of times, but a lot of times it seems to just go. Well, oftentimes the D.P.'s on another movie, and you might be in another country or, you know, so I think all DPs want to be there, but it's, you know, not always possible.

And, you know, because these things often go on for a period of time, like Asteroid City, you know, in England, you know, I'm back here in L.A. I've got other things going on, and, you know, I can't be there. So, but I think that at least they would do a pass, send it to me in LA, I'd screen it, and then make my comments, oh, maybe this should be darker, maybe this should be this, maybe this should be that. And send them back to us, and he can take them or not, you know, I mean, he's very, you know, more than any other director, he's very much in control of everything. Right.

Some directors will just say, oh, yeah, Bob, you go do it. And then they come in at the end and look at it and make a comment or two. Or, yeah, that's great. Or they might say, you know, if we make that one scene, a little more variety, you know, whatever, you know. And is there anything we can do about it? You know, but so it runs the gamut from someone who wants to be totally in control to that, you know, and everything's somewhere in between, you know. So, but typically do the DIs.

Yeah, well, and that brings up some I did want to ask, which was, uh, you had mentioned it, and I think it was like a BAFTA interview or something, but that, uh, Wes is incredibly precise in Joey's precision. Obviously, we can see that in his compositions of being dialed in center, center and all that. But, um, I imagine that also means workflow wise, you know, just like everything being, but also that he prefers to do things a little more handout, a little more traditional, a little more old school.

And I was wondering if there were any tips from those kind of smaller, because hilariously enough, those sets are small for people who don't know. Like, how many, like, what's the average crew size on a Wes Anderson film? Well, the, the, or maybe on Asteroid City, let's say. Yeah, it's pretty big. I don't know the number of that. Oh, really? But on set, see, Wes has this thing.

He wants to, he wants to feel like he's making a student film. Right. all the stuff the preparation with the art department or if like on the stages when we do the lighting that's all pre-lit you know he's not there so when he walks into the set it's west myself i operate the camera my focus puller the second ac the boom guy the ad maybe a producer maybe not a script person you know that's eight people on set, you know, or 90. And so everybody else is somewhere else, you know. He doesn't want, you know, a wardrobe or hair and makeup people going in between every take and messing up their

hair and doing whatever they do. And he just wants to get the ball rolling. And he wants to create an atmosphere for the actors to feel safe and not a lot of people around, not people sitting there on their phones, texting. I mean, the phones are, you know, for both, you can't have a full on set, you know. And it's a much more intimate atmosphere. And typically, we don't have a lot of gear out there either. So that the actors are actually feeling part of this room, you know. And that's his concern.

And no distractions, not people walking around in the backgrounds, you know. and so yeah on set there's usually anywhere from like on darjeeling there's like three or four people in them because we were that tiny little bit that you know it'd be me a focus puller and dolly grip and uh boom guy and west and that would be it you know because there was no rule for anybody you know so anywhere from three or four people to eight or nine people is the typical set you know and uh uh you know he he likes to keep it small and uh you know if you're not actually doing something there pushing a dolly or pulling focus or something you're probably not going to be there you know yeah because he you know he's very adamant about that and i actually really enjoy it

there's no video villages there's none of that you know he's got a little monitor and he sits next to the camera with his little monitor watching the shot and he watching the actors and And it's kind of old school that way, but I think it just creates a better atmosphere. And I've been on sets where there's like four or five, you know, giant video villages, and there's all these people, and that's just a big deal. You know, they're not as much fun I prefer. Yeah. Well, and I've interviewed Eric Mezzershmidt and running west.

And we had mentioned Fincher early. and I feel like he has a similar vibe in the sense of like the most time possible with the actors. This doesn't need to be overlit. Like, let's just keep everything kind of simple. But Fincher obviously super reliant on technology. Everything is the newest, sharpest tool. And I was wondering if in your mind, if there's any tools that you maybe wish Wes would lean into looking at? Because I know you guys obviously, like getting the sky panel I saw was like a new,

was an exciting thing for you guys. Well, yeah, I mean, the problem of the sky panels is they're expensive. Borexas, baby. You know, is that okay? Oh, yeah, no, I was just going to say the cream source, the vortex is they're. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, they're expensive. And what we typically do is if, say, I'm on a stage, we put this, we lie with a seal, with sky panels and on asteroid city uh we you know it was a little bit of a push and shove

but we got some sky panels but again they're very expensive and uh but then west could see we could change the color temperature of them and when the spaceship arrives when the they're all around in that night scene there and and the spaceship arrives and i could turn them to glean you know as as the spaceship comes down and we can make them more more intense, we can take them less intense, and it's all on board, and it happens so quickly. So I always argue, you know, okay,

maybe they're expensive, but, you know, then when you're shooting, everything happens way faster. And it was funny because when Wes saw the sky panels in Asteroid City, he said, on our next thing, I want you to just pepper the whole healing with sky panels.

So we did Henry Sugar in England. And when the producer got the sky panel bill, she freaked out and was like, are you kidding me? This is up. And I said, okay, we can go two ways. You know, we can not get the sky panels. And when West shows up on the first day I said, he's going to look at me and say, where's the sky panels?

Where's the iPad? So it won't pay for him and you're going to get fired. Or we can just get the sky panels now. and say okay and uh and then he'll be happy and it'll work much faster so yeah okay let's get the sky panels you know so that you know that was something that uh he really embraced because he knew it would saving time and it gave him much more flexibility you know and uh but we've had so bad luck with other things like we had a uh he's kind of against techno cranes and uh right we were doing a shot in a French dispatch

where Sanjay our grip and I both made a strong case to him we needed a technocrine and he was like really if you really need a technical crane oh no I hate those things so we really said yeah it's the only way to do it so he finally

agreed and it was our first shot on Monday morning you know Benicio del Toro Adrian Brony big cast everybody's there first shot Monday morning and the Technicrain had to come from Paris, which is several hours away. And it didn't work.

And Sanjay and are like sweating bullets. Like, you know, this French guy is trying to fix the technocrine. And we look over a West and he's way that just is kind of looking at us, kind of nodding, you know. And I let this sonjay. And he said, well, I guess we'll never see a techno grain out of Wednesday. There's a movie again. And, yeah. Yeah, but they never got it to work,

and then we kind of rigged this thing, Saanjay had a gym on the arm, we kind of read this, and it worked pretty well, but, you know, the techno would have been easier, but it's funny, because I've used Technic grains a million times,

and they always work. It was, you know, he's snake bit. We also did a thing where we would use, you know, condors, which are lifts, you know, so we have to do high angles.

We would, Wes and I would go up with the camera, uh in a condor and invariably you know you get up there and you have to turn it off because it makes noise and it shakes they couldn't turn it out again and we'd be so after we did that a few times weston's like okay no more of these things so then we'd have to build scaffolds like they did in the old days and just haul the camera up on the scaffold and you know do it that way uh so there's been a little bit of give and taking all this but uh you know uh he definitely prefers the old try to true over rely on technology to achieve things yeah it uh that does

kind of make me think about like um i had seen this must have been in the grand budapest special features but how like you'll shoot one scene for another like you know one side might be on a set and then you do the over and it's outdoor you know like those trains and stuff. Yeah. And I was wondering, wow, this is actually two separate questions, but whatever. Um, uh, how do, how do you make, uh, stage interior exteriors look natural?

Like how, how, because there's so many, uh, you know, I'm just thinking about trains and stuff now, but, um, you do such a good job of making it seem just as natural as all the stuff you shoot outside. And I was wondering if you had any. tips are for people trying to light an interior to look like it's, you know, not on a set. Yeah, I mean, well, the important thing is to know what you're matching. So if the sun is out and you're matching to something outside, you've got to know where the sun is going to be.

So you can recreate that on your side of the interior. And just, you know, typically outside, there's one shadow. It's the sun, you know. And so I try to create an ambience inside that's very soft. And if, say, we're on a stage, you know, we put the sky panels up. And sometimes I'll even put a giant silk underneath them. And, you know, if I can, I will. And that just moves it all out.

So there really isn't much of a shadow. It's almost negligible. And then you could put the sun in in the interior. and then there's a certain amount of color timing that try to match the two because there's always going to be a little subtle shifts in that but this again with the di and modern technology you can get it pretty close and get the contrast level this match the outside pretty well but you try to build all that in you know and and so if things are really contrasty outside I try to make it you know the same inside you know and you know even uh uh uh uh and

You know, Blue Rise Kingdom, that red house. We found that, and it was a perfect overlooking the bay there. So we shot in that direction during the day and night. But then West did not like what was across the street, and so we'd have to go somewhere else and kind of try to match that. And also the interiors were all built on. We had a warehouse. So all those interiors of that house.

because we just never could have done that, you know, in that real house. It would have been impossible. It was too small. So. Well, and that kind of brings you to the other half of that question that I should ask first, which was how are you managing the logistics of all of these moves and try to remember how lighting might have looked and even just being on a smaller set, you know, for like your students. How are you teaching them how to move efficiently and not get too into the week? and kind of, you know, maybe go more on what I've said before. It's emotionally correct and not technically correct.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we have a benefit in a movie is that they have the dailies, you know, on a hard drive or whatever. So I can go into the editing room with Wes and I'll take a snap of it off the. usually we see it on a giant flat screen in the editing the editors are always there with us you know and so I can so I have that as a reference and I just try to create the same mood that was there that's what we're matching to you know and I would create that everyone every shot is different there's no real rule you know but we try to as I said we try to keep it simple you know I can Rambudipus, the top soft light coming down, and then we might add a little something on this

side just to give a little more shape, you know, and so then, I mean, it's, it's not like some magical process. It's pretty simple. Well, and also, I think I asked that question, shitty, so I'll email you about it. It's like I can remember what that was supposed to be. But for some reason, I just woke up tired today. This is all right. Too dry. I did, One thing I did want to know, you had mentioned a few times that West puts together a movie library for each film. And I was wondering what the movie library was for Asteroid City. Well, one movie that really had an impact on me was a bad day at Black Rock. And it was Spencer Tracy was shot in the desert, anamorphic.

I don't know the year it came out I'm going to guess 60s or I don't know you know and what they were not afraid to do was just you know typically in the middle part of the day cinematographers are inclined to fly giant silks and soften the light

and control it, shape it a little more but they didn't do that and another film Well, it was Paris, Texas. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bobby Mueller shot. So those were for me, too, that really stood out, you know, as how to use the desert sun and not be a, typically,

and I tell my students this, you don't want the sun behind you. You want to shoot backlighted or sidelighted, you know, and that's typically what, with Tobias will do but at first I was a little I'll be honest a little skeptical or a little afraid to shoot front light and uh you know I was always trying to move things around to back like but then I started watching the day you know I watched the Daily's health course and and and and I saw kind of and I and I became more bold than my choices by doing that you know and And I think that another movie, I had a little movie club on Sundays because we were all in the same hotel and so actors, anybody could come, you know.

And I like to show one from the heart because even in our studio setups, just the light changes and things that they were doing with lighting was at that time very, it's very theatrical. and, you know, at that time, very revolutionary, I think, you know, and so just, and I know our studio stuff was all black and white, that was color, but just the way they use lighting and things of that nature, you know, how they shot those, so that was one that I always, with Wes, I always, because I think we were getting more and more theatrical as we go on in our, our movie, like, I don't know if you saw Henry Schindner, it's very theatrical. yeah yeah yeah oh and uh so that's that's always a reference that i like to show people is something they know um but yeah i mean to me the main two were those two of course and uh and you know he has a variety of other movies i'm trying to think i can't remember all the other ones and he also has books and so you know the actors and west and me the producers the production designer the heads of departments are all the same hotel we take over the hotel I love that idea.

You sign them out and, you know, like a library and then you return it when you're done, you know. I mean, I'm a Lords of Arabia guy, so I had that as well, you know, and how they shot the desert and Lawrence of Arabia out, you know, just, you know, how they used light in March and Arabia. That does. So, damn it, there's always two questions. For one of them, I'm just going to get them out before I forget. One of them we're going to ask about photo books, but two, I did want to ask,

because, you know, obviously you shoot, at this point, you probably bounce between film and digital, almost every other film it feels. But I've noticed that with digital, obviously, way more sensitive sensor. You can get away with being a little more simple with your setups. You don't have to go as big. But I'm wondering if you can kind of gut check me here. Harder lights, when you talk about Lawrence of Arabia, I just think of like that era of filmmaking. Most light was hard. And I'm wondering if hard light equals cinema.

Because now that we've gotten so soft, everything feels very kind of not as visually interesting. And then you see someone shooting digital with just hard lights and you're like, actually, that looks good. Because we avoided hard light for so long because digital sucked when it came to hard light. Interesting because one thing I've learned starting on Friends Dispatch and they carried over at Astro, City, particularly with black and white film, hard light often looks better, you know, I'll trust. And it's something, because I always, like many cinematographers, always lit things very softly and, you know, just look very natural. But then I started using more and more hard light because of the black and white. And then I started using it more in color as well.

and you look at some of the great like Vilmo Sigwil was really someone who are admired and you look at some of those films he made in the 60s and 70s there's a lot of hard light in him you know and and you know

there's something about it that really gives it more cinematic insights and we do those the the black and white sequences in Asteroid City we brought in a

a theatrical lighting designer from England. And he and I worked together on the lights. And, you know, Wes was hoping to achieve, you know, what a TV studio would look like in the 50s or 60s. And, you know, and so he brought that kind of knowledge. But what he didn't have was we needed more light for our film, you know. And so we worked together. He was a great guy and we worked together there.

you know just to try to keep that feeling but translated to film somehow you know and um it it just so a lot of those black and white signals were lit with hard light you know um and uh it has a you know and they also you you often have multiple shadows in theater right in film that's something like, you know, don't have multiple shadows. But, you know, I learned to kind of embrace that a little bit because of the presentation and the theatricality of it all, you know, and just, you know, I learned to do things differently than how I would have done if loved to my own devices. And I think the line to paid off.

So I incur it. And even in my class the other day, we were recreating a shot. and I was using a lot of heartlight and I you know everyone liked the way it looked and you know it's easier to cut and you know easier to shape and it was you know so I'm using it more and more now that I credit the fact that we were using black and white you know that where I really was forced to kind of learn it more you know putting edge in there so and I I love Walt Field Loire you know I love those films I you know and you know that's so much of those films were just

heart light. I love those releases. Yeah. I think genre is for Phil Gwara. I agree. They had on the criterion streamer, they had like a gaslight noir in October and then now it's noir November. So there's a lot of the good ones.

Yeah. So if you have the streamer, the criterion streamer, you can have a whole crap ton of them on there. Yeah. TCM does that sometimes too, as I'm at TCM there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I spent a year, like two years ago, two, three years ago only shooting black and white photos. And that was incredibly educational for my cinematography work because I guess at that point I realized on this side of it, I couldn't quite see light the way that I thought. Yeah. It was a lot more animorphic. It was a lot more amorphous. You know, light was just around. And then you could kind of intensify a direction. But then when I shooting black and white was very much like, oh, no, it's here. And then there's shadow here, you know, and then also getting really into photo books, which is what I wanted to ask, seeing how the masters, you know, shaped like.

But what are some of the, you know, photo books that stick out to you? I know you have a good collection. Well, I'm a Cartier-Bersoll guy, you know. Of course. And, you know, when it comes to hard light, actually, Vigi is kind of interesting. Yes. Oh, and there's a book called Havana, Robert Polidori. He went to Savannah and took these amazing pictures.

One book I often use as reference, there's a movie, there's a guy Bernie Ims who did a book called Juke Joint. I mean, they went around all these juke joints in, I believe, Mississippi, Alabama. and took these amazing photos and these juk jolts um so that's what i use as references all a lot you know uh and uh you know uh more uh robert frank in the american yeah gave that to my daughter was uh and um you know they're just compositionally uh god who is there's a guy and i'm sorry uh you did a lot of uh uh Newman, Arnold Newman, is it, Artel Luhl? Anyway, I thought you're going to say Saul later.

You do a lot of portraits, you know, and so, but, you know, for me, Cartier-Bresson, I actually own that Cartier-Agris-Song, and I also do you really? The one, I found out later, it's the one picture that he cropped, and it's the guy jumping over models, and, uh, And it wasn't, I bought it, and I didn't know, I bought it like 20 years ago and signed by Cartier and saw. And it, uh, it, uh, I didn't find out until like three or four years ago that was the

only picture you ever got out. So, oh well. Well, actually, so I, I know exactly the photo you're talking about because I remember someone had done this entire like dissertation on the cropping of that image. Okay. And how it cut, and the gist of it, if I'm going to sort of summarize and then include my own color commentary, it really did get me out of my head that like the image, whether it be photographically or on film or video, whatever, doesn't need to be, as long as you can see the end image, you're good. Because for the longest time, I was doing this whole like, if I shot film, I would never touch it because oh, that's film, right? And it's like, why?

Why would you do that? Like, we still use the DIY for movie film. Like, what is it about taking a film image that's so special? Like, why am I being precious about that? When I want it to be different, I can make it different. Yeah. Well, we do a lot of photography of my son's soccer games. And we have the N.5D.

And we have like a 400-millimeter lens because you can never get close, you know? Right. And last summer, we went to Portuguese. in Spain. He was playing over there with the Portuguese and Spanish kids. And I took a ton of pictures. And I find that I don't crop them a lot, but because if you just crop them a little bit, it makes it a much more dynamic photo oftentimes. So I would say maybe 50% of my pictures, I cropped a tiny bit somewhere, you know, or just there's something distracting on the edge of frame. You don't want to get rid of it. You know, and again, I don't blow them up a lot, but, you

know, I found it that it kind of gave me the template. Now I kind of can just make it a little more focused by cropping it a little bit. And so that's like, I'll show you. Well, it's, I don't know where it is, but it's somewhere. Fucci film lent me that new GFX 100 that they have. Were you with the ASC thing about that? Oh, it's probably at a soccer game. Fair enough.

But, boy, I've been using it for like a month. They really want it back. They keep emailing. Sorry, Fuji. But it's, you know, 100 megapixels on a medium format sensor. I was at a racetrack and I was taking photos of the cars from forever away. And I would just crop in and get like a 20 megapixel image that looks like, you know, perfect. Perfect.

Well, I, I got a Lyca M, which is the monoclonica. I had a model. They, you know, improved him since. I've had it for probably 10 years now, but it changed my life, you know. I mean, it shoots in low light incredibly, and, you know, it's all black and white and just the tones you get are beautiful.

And I probably use that camera more than any of my still cameras is the like, except from shooting soccer where you take the cannon with us. Right. Like I am is just gorgeous. I mean, it's amazing, the pictures I get. And I typically like to, to shoot with some depth of field, but with that one, sometimes I even shoot it at two, you know,

it's just, because what it does is the backgrounds is just beautiful, you know, and so if you really want a good black and white digital camera, Lyca M is the way to go, and that Lyca lenses are just something. Yeah. What's funny is I do really want, because like that, you're shooting black and white. I was like, like, now I have so much black and white film, you know, but I want. want to digit like especially because the getting in the weeds but obviously the monochrome sensor is using all the pixels instead of bidding up four at a time you know so it's like it's so much sharper and like clean it's so nice you can shoot at almost no light you know whereas film you know it's 400 asa or whatever where with these these like a cameras i mean

i go like i use a lot on the sets and and there's sometimes you're a place where there's almost no light, you know, an actor's just sitting in a corner and, like, you know, drinking a coffee or something, you know, and I get these incredible photos that you couldn't get any of them. I, you know, wow. It's outrageous. Good day. You should start your own photo book. I have the Jeff Bridges book. That's kind of the same thing. It's the law of the Vista. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. I bought the Roger Deacons one. Hold on. This is probably less exciting because you probably have met him. But I got, I got wide signed.

Okay, nice. Yeah, that's a good. You did it. It's a great one. Yeah, well, you know, and they, you know, the ASC does this thing. I'm like, I don't know what it is. I think it's now, but they collect photos from all the members. They did it last weekend.

But are they, okay. Yeah, I was off in San Diego watching my son play soccer. You can notice that's spent most of my time now. But hopefully he signs a big pro contract and then we're all set for the rest of our lives. Right. You can play for L-AFC. Oh, we're all, we're L-AFC.

Hey, we need a minute. Let me show you. You got my L-A-F-C shirt on. There you go. Hold on. I got, now it's just show and tell. and there's it about

got the whole there it goes there it is here look at this LASC so I had not I'll join the team here I got the coaches jack

they didn't have the the black jerseys they only had the green ones so I got the coaches jacket and I feel very cool yeah yeah well I I've come I don't have a green one I but I might I've come to like the green ones I like the white ones with the black you know the black lettering and stuff I mean but you know my wife gives me a lot

of shit when I wear my football stuff I have a right when we're in Portugal I got in Spain I got an Athletico jacket and you know I I I I got a Barcelona hat, you know. Were you like a soccer fan growing up or is just because your son's up to it? Oh, I was not at all. And I was basketball and baseball. Growing up in Chicago, I was a Cub fan.

Basketball became my passion. And, you know, I watched America football, but it wasn't until my son started playing that I started to really get into it. and now I'm a fanatic, you know. I mean, if you went my favorite sport in L-Aidic O.C, used to be the Lakers, now it would be L-A-F-C. No, I mean, it won't be a lot of it.

And I started following it much more and, you know, messy and the whole thing, you know. And I spent a lot of time in Europe. And years ago, many years ago, I was doing a commercial with David Beckham and Manchester when he was playing for Manchester United. I knew nothing about English football. And so I thought, well, I'll buy a Manchester United shirt, you know, and just show everybody I'm into it. So we went from there back to London,

and I wore my Manu shirt the first day, and the crew was ready to take me out back and beat me up. Right. They hated Manu, you know, and they were all Chelsea fans and Arsenal fans. You know, so I literally got to be careful. You know, you don't want to piss people off. But when I did Mamma Mia 2, I would go to the Chelsea games, you know, at Stanford Bridge,

and they were so much fun, you know, and, you know, it's, it's, I've become addicted to it. So, no, I love watching. I watch all the World Cup games, you know, you know, they were fantastic, you know. And the game when LASC beat Philadelphia last year, that final was just one of the most exciting games I don't ever see it was no we uh I was lucky my buddy had a season tickets he just stopped doing it because you know whatever but uh we you know we had what would you call floor level seats like kind of right near the supporters stands and I didn't like I grew up playing hockey and like watching hockey and stuff and I thought those found fans were like

kind of rowdy maybe no the supporter stands at an LAAFC game just nonstop drum and screaming the entire literally 90 90 whatever minutes oh the smoke and the flags and yeah i mean i spent a lot of time in canada shooting so i've become a little bit of a hockey fan too and just it's so because you were hockey players here i mean it's so fast and these guys so hard it's amazing how good these guys are and when they so this guys shoot i can't even see the puck i mean it's so fast you know it's it's i have a lot of respect for our professional hockey players. They are amazing. But the speed of which they play, it's just outrageous.

Well, it kind of goes back to what you were saying about at the beginning of the conversation about how, you know, every generation it levels up a little bit with filmmaking. Same thing's true with hockey, you know, like Gretzky's era, relatively slow if you watch like highlights of it, you know. Obviously no one could touch us point a total, but it's just insane how, you know, and it comes down. down to like nutrition programs and stuff that no one, you know, they're drinking coax and smoking darts between sets. No, training.

My son is 13. He's got a personal trainer, you know, I mean, a soccer trainer and the coaching. He goes to practice four days a week and then they have games all weekend. I mean, we never had that basketball. I was a kid. And now the best kids are all getting the same thing. I mean, you know, it's, and just the training and again, the access to media and being able to watch everything on their computers or big you know flat screens and it's just he plays

fita you know i mean it's right you know we never had any of that stuff i just go out back of my back alley and shoot hoops back there with my buddies you know that's the old world you know and and yeah the kids today film students or hockey players or basketball whatever they're way beyond what our generation was for sure yeah that actually that brings up i've i've interviewed a few teachers like you know um comes by like maria rushka she did uh she teaches at um tish i believe or at least did when i interviewed her but in any case uh is there anything that the students have taught you that that's something that's stuck with you or maybe surprised you um at well i i teach two classes and one of them is the advanced cinematography and

I totally at first underestimated how much they knew. Oh, and like I brought my light meter, it's a 35 millimeter film. And I said, so do everybody know how to use this? And they're like, yeah, they all brought out theirs. And they're taking spot for these. They're doing it all, you know. And I was surprised at the level of competence. And I saw some of the films that they had shot at USC in the,

the past and i mean i started thinking like what do they need me or for i mean these guys are already you know they're they're doing an amazing job professionally done you know and uh part of that i think is because of the digital cameras you can kind of see what you're going to get whereas phil was always a little bit of a mystery and i think that's helped people in a lot of ways even me you know as i've been doing this a long time having shot so much digital it makes me feel a little more at ease of not playing it safe. I mean, you know, I used to joke the difference between digital and film lighting was in film you pull a single out of the fill and digitally you put a double in the fill.

You know, and it's, you know, but it's kind of true in a way, you know, and it because, you know, and I always encourage them not to play it safe. I say, you know, be a little risky. because particularly young students and I was the same way tend to overlight everything and right and you know as you get on you kind of realize

that you know maybe you don't have particularly digitally you don't have to use a lot of lives I mean one thing they didn't teach us in film school which is probably an oversight I'm sure they do it now ASU but uh negative fill

yeah wasn't a thing wasn't a thing when we were there yeah no I I teach you negative Phil definitely. Yeah. You know, Tigley outside. And we always take four by floppies out,

put them up with them and still hung out. And, you know, the other thing I really stress, particularly, I don't know if you're just with my advanced class, but the other class, which is Kismore intermediate.

It's just because you turn a light out doesn't mean you're lit. You know, that's just the game. You know, it's how you shape that like. Do you put a diffusion frame in front of it?

You know, do you want to make a, top or cut do you want to cut you know and and that's something that i don't think they get taught a lot in film school is how do you shape something you know that's putting it on turning the light on as the first step in my book then you shape it i i just noticed i'm gonna have to go in yeah yeah we're way over time i'm so sorry yeah i just looked down i just looked down when you said i didn't know it either i mean it's been very enjoyable but i yeah only minute at one 15 i better run to it yeah it's been fun i hope yeah yeah

We'll have you back on. We'll continue the chat later and any time. Yeah, more to it. Awesome, man. Thank you so much. All right. Bye-bye. Frame and reference is an Albaugh 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.