Frame & Reference Podcast - 128: "The Creator" DP Oren Soffer

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

You're gonna love this one, we've got Oren Soffer on the pod this week to talk about his work on The Creator and oh so much more! On top of its worldwide theatrical release, The Creator screened as part of the 2023 Energa Camerimage film festival, was on the shortlist for Best Cinematography at the BAFTAs, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards. On top of shooting hundreds of incredible commercials and music videos, two of Oren's other recent features premiered at the TIFF and TriBeCa film festivals in 2022. He has also shot multiple award-winning short films, including 'Opera of Cruelty,' which won a Student Academy Award, and ‘See You Soon,’ which won the audience award at the Palm Springs International Shortsfest before subsequently premiering on Short of the Week and receiving a Vimeo Staff Pick. During his studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Oren was nominated for the ASC Gordon Willis Student Heritage Award, and was a finalist for the Arri Volker Bahnemann Award for Cinematography. Enjoy! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.frameandrefpod.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for everything F&R You can directly support Frame & Reference by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buying Me a Coffee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coast's leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out ⁠⁠Filmtools.com⁠⁠ for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ⁠⁠ProVideoCoalition.com⁠⁠ for the latest news coming out of the industry.

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of frame and reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and you're listening to episode 128 with Orange Sofer, DP of The Creator. Enjoy it. How's it going? Good, man. How are you? Are you here in L.A.? Yes.

At least the, we finally got, well, some form of, I like this, like, soft, diffuse side light that we both got going on right now. I will say I did cheat a little bit. I do have a thing of 251 on my window. Mm. So just, just to kind of. I'm going on natural, baby, but I got, I got these nice floor to ceiling. This big one of those trees.

Yeah. I've got a nice nice soft light over here I've got the what do you call it the the apartment manager special you know it's just like this big and it's been painted over 600 times are those all Blu-rays in the back there the yeah these are except for this down here these are all field notes books but yeah that was another pandemic project was collecting all the criterion I possibly could because they just kept doing sale after sales. and I felt like I wasn't educated enough, you know? Now you are. Well, now you have a PhD. Well, how many of them have you watched? Yeah, a little less than half. But some big ones are like the, like, Scorsese, like, World Cinema Projects, the box sets, yeah.

Fantastic. Well, hey, man, listen, sorry, I hijacked it. I'm in, I'm in your court. I'm in your capable hands. No, no worries, man. Normally, I ask people up front, what have you been watching? But for you, it's like a lot, this kind of the same thing that happened with Hoyta, which is like everyone's been watching your movie.

I did watch my movie too many times last year, not on purpose. I imagine. Just from grading and then you have to do a watchdown at QC, and then there's some screenings and festivals. And I went with a bunch of friends to see it in theaters. And so, you know, it was. nice, but I'm sick of it. I've seen it too much. Well, I was going to say, thanks for, I actually just watched your shot talk yesterday with Larry. And I was like, man, you've got to be sick at talking about this fucking fifth. No, weirdly no. Still got a few, I guess still got a few more

in me. Sure. It's fun to talk about. You know, it's a big, it's a big deal. It's a big film in my career. And I love the film and I'm very proud of it. And, um, there's a lot to talk about in it. It's very unique filmmaking process. And I just love movies. Like, I'm a movie geek. I'm like you, man. I used to have a shelf.

I've since I've distributed the Blu-Rays across multiple little pockets of shelves. And then I have the rest of them in a drawer. But, uh, but, uh, yeah, I can still answer that original question. What was it? What do I, what have you been watching? Yeah. I've been on a kick. So I watch, I try to watch all the major movies that come out in a given

year sure um and for some reason i gave i give myself an arbitrary deadline of like well i got to put out my best of list before the end of the year so like i need to watch all these movies before the end of the year so i do and usually november december is quite a rush like with screeners and everything to kind of get through everything um and so so after i finished that project and i still have a few stragglers but i've seen pretty much every major film from last year um i've been on a of nostalgic mid-2000s comfort movies for me. Like dramas that I loved in high school, many of which I haven't seen since high school. Right.

And it's been putting me in a bit of a weird mental state because I think low key, the mid-2000s, people say 2007 was a peak year and it was, but I think it was the peak of like a very tall mountain. that started in 2000, I would say, and like carried through most of that decade, there are some great movies, like great movies. These are all studio films, too, mid-budget studio dramas with great casts.

And it makes me sad to watch each and every one of them because I love them and they're all great. And I'm like, well, you wouldn't get that made today. You wouldn't get that made today. That would have a fraction of the budget. That one would be on a streamer. Like, it's just a little sad, but the other night I watched The Constant Gardner. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Actually, one of my favorites from that time, like, I think I watched that multiple times in high school, which really was affected by that movie, but I haven't seen it since. So I got that on Blu-ray, and I popped it in, and wow, great movie. you know I think you're actually on to something though because I've noticed like around the holidays I like I run college ski trips every winter so I end up talking to it I'm able to talk to a lot of people and sometimes I do like weird little surveys and one of them there just seemed to be in general this um I want to call it boredom but it seems like overall most people Gen Z and up are just kind of done with whatever we're we're doing right now. Whatever the current, we're just, we're like, we have become, I saw someone yesterday saying, isn't it weird that you can look at like clothes or movies from 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, early 2000, that all looks the same. And then 2000 to 2024, no change. Like, even the radio is like, we've got music from the 80s, 90s, and today. Yeah. And today is 20 years.

What are you talking about in today? Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right. I mean, actually, I, this This is something I've been actively thinking about. I think it goes a little further. Like I do think that culture in general has been frozen in amber since the late 80s. Like there's a lot of larger cultural, political strains that really are unchanged since then fundamentally. Even with the advent of the internet and all this other stuff that's disrupted it quite a bit, like there's still certain major cultural forces.

like even just like casual dining, you know, fast food, like these concepts before mid-80s did not exist as a concept. Nowadays, ubiquitous. I mean, it's evolved, but it's like there's pre-regan and there's post-regan. And it's the same with culture. Like filmmaking today is really just a direct lineage from the studio system in the 80s. Right. Which was just so fundamentally different from the 70s and prior. And so even today, like minutiae, like details are different, but the overall economics of it are the same. And that's why I think the 2000s are so distinct because it feels very different from

that. Like there was this weird moment when every, now there's focus features and there's searchlight. Those are the only two vestiges of this time period where those are, uh, those are, uh, Indy divisions in larger studios. I guess there's Sony Pictures classics, but they don't produce films. They only distribute. Say, you're like Miramax.

Well, exactly. I mean, at this point, Miramax is a subsidiary of a larger, but, you know, used to be. Oh, sure, sure. And in the mid-2000s, every studio had an indie division. There was Paramount Vantage. There was Warner Brothers Independent. There was, you know, like Touchstone.

Disney had their live action kind of indie branch. Which I guess now they own searchlight, so that's sort of replaced that. But, and that's who was making all these movies. Like, that's who was really pumping all this stuff out. And they still, the ones that are still around are still doing that. Searchlight and focus are still at it. And 824 has emerged. And, you know, there's a few others, neon.

And just not what it used to be, you know. It's just not what it used to be. Makes me a little sad. But what can you do? That's life. I mean, Netflix, Netflix is a big producer. these kinds of movies, sadly. Like, that's sort of the reality of it.

It's like, a lot of these movies are getting made at Netflix nowadays for better and worse. So, you know, you take from that what you will. Well, I think you've got a great point because I was going to say Netflix as well, but it, I guess something that I've thought tacitly, but never really put into words is like the advantage that a lot of these films have, and I remember on hot ones, Matt Damon brought up like how DVD sales was a yes thing none of these films from netflix get a opportunity to hit the theater and find an audience correct you you have to go digging through Netflix which is you know all all streamers are wonderful for for having stuff but like they're not like criterion where you have

the criterion streamer where you have these cultivated bars you know here November this is what we're doing you know it Netflix doesn't have like an indie month it's not curated yeah it's not curated you either have to seek it out or you have to watch enough of it that your algorithm learns that that's what you're into. And yeah, I think that's scary, honestly. Like, that's scary to me. I mean, talking about Matt Damon, air,

which is a great movie that I really enjoyed, air is one of these movies. Like that from the mid 2000s, probably would have been a hit. Crowd pleaser, A-list cast, fun movie, topical, you know, like popular topic, well, known, breezy, entertaining. And now it's like, it did okay in theaters, but it's, it doesn't need to be a huge blockbuster.

Right. Because Amazon is just making it for content. Like, it's just part of the content mill. And it gets a theatrical release as a part of, like, the deal with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and their production company and I'm sure all these other factors. And Amazon ultimately are smart and they want to keep filmmakers happy, so or so or Apple.

Yeah. But at the end of the day, the motive is not to create a hit. It's just to create content. And if it makes a little bit of money in theaters and, like, build some word of mouth so that people then seek it out when it's on streaming, bonus. But, like, that's not the main motivation. And it's different incentive structure. And it's like, what does that do to movies?

I don't know. But, like, it makes it so that movies like air are just quite exceptional in that regard. And it's too bad because we should. Get an air a month. Yeah. You know, we should be. Or anyway. One of my favorites, actually, as of this recording yesterday, the interview came out, the holdovers.

That's one of the best movies of the year, for short. It's my top three. That's in my top three. Love that film. And again, it's a film that feels rare, and it feels like an exception. And it feels, and also it didn't make a ton of money at the box office. Right. And I feel like 20 years ago, that movie would have made $100 million.

And part of the reason it didn't make a ton of money at the box office is because it was available on streaming like three weeks after the theatrical release. Whereas 10 years ago, that movie would still be in theaters right now, like it would just be getting started. Like it would be in theaters for four months, starting in December and then slow building towards the Oscars. And then it wins a couple and then it stays in theaters another month. And then by the end, it's like over 100 mil. and then you put it out on home video. Yeah. I don't live in that world anymore, at least for now,

unless the fundamentals shift, which they might. They always could, but. Well, I think the existence, it is, but I feel like the existence of those films and the, I don't know, because I was thinking about this too, like do the, you know, I write for Pro Video Coalition, and I've noticed that we, you know, it's one of the most visited film, not industry,

it's not like variety, but like, yeah uh film websites on the internet my joke is always you've all you have been to our website you just never put the URL in yourself right um but you know we just have this auto tweeter that just automatically tweets out and they don't really get engagement because twitter's dead yep uh and we don't really advertise like that and i kind of wonder like is this do do these streamers look at social media engagement still as the barometer for whether or not this direction is a good idea or do they have their own ideas because films like air and the holdovers and maybe like poor things even or any of these um uh saltburn are are these like a movement

towards that type of filmmaking again or and will they continue to get made because of social media or is there something behind the scenes where they're like oh you know we should be making these more i have no idea yeah i don't either i mean i think the proof will just be in the pudding and and you're right that the fact that those films that you just make mentioned are still getting made shows that it's still there it still exists but i feel like they're getting made more now whereas like compared to what like three years ago like three five years ago maybe which i guess is when they were being filmed but yeah no i mean i think i think i think there were still films like this three or five i think actually if you really look at it like

year year over year enough films like this get made to to to kind of prove that there is still an appetite for it. Um, but I don't know, it's, it feels tenuous for some reason. Like, it feels like it could go away at any moment. And that's, yeah, maybe that's a bit of a scary thought. Or maybe it's just, it just feels like the winds of change, like the people that are making these films are shifting a little bit. You know, A24 is out there saying like, well, we need to go more commercial. We're going to go more commercial. And I don't think that's innately a bad thing. Like, I think their version of commercial is still going to be quite palatable and interesting. Right. I mean, if their idea of their big pivot to commercial is like a weird Alex Garland movie about a civil war, I'm like, cool, great.

But I guess, yeah, time will tell. It remains to be seen. But all I can do is I can't help but look back at a certain time period of movies and just be like, wow, like, it's really kind of remarkable that this was sort of the norm, more so than it is now. I mean, these films were still exceptional. It's not like every movie coming out was the constant garden. Like, you still had the Constant Gardner and, like, the Tooth Fairy. Right, right. The Rock or whatever, but like those were also getting made, yeah.

But I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry or what I'm certainly. But I had, and not to mention franchise films, but even the franchise films that were like, you know, that was when they were giving Sam Ramey and Nolan the keys to these things and not really doing that anymore either, at least for now. But these things will shift. Everything comes in cycles, you know, it's all comes in cycles. Well, I wonder if the, not the death of marble, obviously, but the completion of the Tony Stark era Marvel. Yeah. Where now people are kind of, you know, they had us for 10 years on that arc.

And that kind of was the film zeitgeist for long. Because I feel like the average filmgoer, obviously there's nerds like us who want to watch everything. There's somewhere in the middle like my friends who I go to see the movies with where they want to see certain films that come out in theaters. And there's kind of the rest of them were. It's like, I'll wait for streaming. Yeah, I'm wondering.

Or they'll watch like one or two movies a year. Yeah. Or the thing that I hate the most, and you might be on the same path with me here, is when someone goes, oh, let's watch like half of it now and we'll pick it up like tomorrow or the next day. No, that's unacceptable to me. That's there. Unless I'm falling asleep, which does happen.

Sometimes I will get solo, like myself, I'll be like, all right, you know what? To be fair to both myself and the film that I'm watching, on a rare occasion, I'll be like, I'm going to pick this up tomorrow. But never in a group setting. That's that's psychotic. What are they doing? I don't like that. But moral of the story, I'm wondering if the average audience member, now that the

Marvel taking up or the sort of Avengers era ending is leaving room for people to search for more stuff because they were used to that cycle of like, oh, we used to go to these movies. It's like, well, now it's out. And then you find the holdovers or whatever. we'll see Amen This does remind me You are one of the first people

I followed on letterboxed a couple years ago And it is funny Like you've inspired me to this year Actually write reviews Because at first I got it just to log What I had seen Just to remember Or have like a playlist of like all the movies that I owned

Which is just a spreadsheet But every time I like watch a new film Or I'll get like a screener I pop it open And you're the only one who's seen it and written a review hilarious hilarious yeah i love letterboxed what a fun thing it is it's the uh and it still has its like meme areas but it is kind of one of the few social medias that's still serious yeah or at the very least uh people care about what they're doing not like

they're yeah self-indulgent it hasn't been completely taken over by trolls and and i don't know if it ever will because it's ultimately kind of niche yeah like it doesn't serve any other purpose except to be nerdy about movies so at a certain point like that can only appeal to a certain amount of people right but um yeah never read the comments i was gonna say have you gone through the creator uh reviews and just seen what the what the temperature is there i haven't um i did a little it like when it just came out and then and then i stopped i realize this a terrible idea yeah it's better to not know like you just you just have to the film is out there we feel the way that we feel about it everyone who works on it's super proud and thinks it really loves it and thinks it's a great

film the people who care enough about it that love it enough will make it known to us that they love it yeah and so that's that's all that really matters is like that the stuff that makes its way to us every once in a while though I will say this is really bad form somebody will like write a bad review and then tag me in it or oh no else who works on the movie like on instagram or something like they'll you know they'll share that they just watched it and they're like this was shit tag me and i'm like what are you doing i don't i don't need to see that like why are you exactly yeah yeah you're like what do you what do you do it i don't even think they think about it in that way they just well they're clearly not thinking at all which

is the problem so anyway don't don't do that PSA to anyone listening to don't just don't do that like there's really no well you know nobody likes that no and i think for most people it's because most people don't work in the industry once you've made the film you are you might as well be bob iger like you're you're a you're a fake person that exists so they're not tagging you they're tagging this entity that in was involved in it right not realizing that there's someone on the other side of the phone going hey what the fuck yeah the thing is like i don't even think that they're doing it out of malice like i don't think that they're doing it um out of malice like I don't think they're like, oh, I hated this movie so much.

I'm going to tag people that worked on it, just rub it in their faces. Like, I think it's just a genuine attempted human connection. They're just going about it wrong. So maybe don't do that. And if you, you know, have something nice to say about the movie, feel free to tag us. Like, that's the stuff we like to, that's more positive and affirming. And everyone likes to see that. Everyone wants praise.

That's why we do it. That's why we do it for praise, adoration, and attention, obviously. like that's that's why anybody gets into films well that's the uh speaking of like early 2000s movies that that joke was made in uh 2001's uh oscar nominated jane silent bob strike back remember they was that oscar no no okay i was like were they nominated for best song or something wrapped my brain i was like what like random you know strained it would only be song or sometimes those weird like nor norbid is an oscar nominee uh so is um bad grandpa. Yes, both for makeup. Yeah. Which Eric Messerschmitt was the gaffer on bad

grandpa. No way. What a, what a, that was my first question to when I interviewed. He was the first time. Yeah. What did he say? He goes, dude, he came in for a day. He was like, there was only one like prank that needed lighting. So someone called him and he came in and did it and like, he was like, I think he said like, Johnny was nice, but I set up the lights and then I left and that was it. And he got the credit for it. Fantastic. Good. Good for. what a great credit right that's a fun one that's a fun one that i've said this a lot but um i guess i should ask you because i because in all these interviews that you've done um you know it's i will say you guys have really fucked up the reddit discourse for camera selection it's

it's game over it's a meme now i can't go on the fucking uh cinematography subreddit yes a place that i do not go i've not no i literally as of like last month was like i can't anymore I used to try to be helpful, but this is I have never gone there and I never will. Whatever's going on there, bless their hearts. At this moment, I really can't suggest it for you. It's a lot of praise. People love you, but maybe don't, maybe don't go there. Great.

That's nice. That's nice to hear. That's all I need to hear. But one, one, what I was going to say was, I don't think I've heard or maybe I didn't look up hard enough like how you got started because I was going to say for me, it was I often cite Spike Jones. Because I thought it was fascinating that he was able to do jackass, skateboard films, and Oscar nominated. You know, I thought that was making, that felt like making movies with your buddies and still doing cinema. And then obviously as I grew older, I learned he was kind of a unique individual.

There's not a lot of Spike Joneses out there. But what was it for you? Like, what made you go out of film school? Funny enough, it was partially Spike Jones. No, perfect. Great. Well, it was, so I think it was, there were a few formative, this is also probably why I'm nostalgic for physical media. Yeah.

There were a few formative DVD experience, well, well, not just DVD, but physical media experiences that set me on this journey. And so one of them, and of the earliest one was when I was, I was nine when the Star Wars special editions came out. Same. And by the time I was nine, I was a huge star. Wars kid, like I was major Star Wars nerd. Yeah. So the theatrical re-release, not that I really cared about theatrical at the time, but just the re-release, the cultural resurgence and being able to go to the movies and see the original

trilogy, which up until that point I'd only seen on VHS or on TV or something, like, this is a big deal. And the announcement that they're making more at the same time, I mean, it was, you know, like a dream country for a kid. When the special editions were released on home video, it came with an interactive CD-ROM behind the scenes. I remember it so vividly. It's like a clickable.

On DVD? They didn't come with a VHS. No, no, CD-ROM. No, but I was saying it didn't come with the VHS. It came with probably a DVD. No, this was on VHS. So you bought the VHS box set of the films, but the VHSs don't have special features.

Right, right. The VHS is just the movies, But the VHS came with a CD-ROM that you put in your computer. I might have missed that. That's where the BTS stuff was. And it's all the material has been seen. Like later, they edited it all together into this doc called Empire of Dreams that was on the DVD release, which was in 2004, I think.

Yeah. That was the first Star Wars DVD release. So all the same material is on that. But basically, the CD-ROM, it was like, it was, it was Tashi Station and tattooing and like Biggs, just a still photo and you could click on different things. and each one would show you a little documentary, little BTS documentary about industrial light and magic, the special effects, the blue screens with the ships,

like the motion control cameras, the shoot on location, like all of it, it was like my first real exposure to film making as a craft and not just movies as a thing that I loved without any concept of how they were made or where they came from. Right. A few years later, similar thing, Lord of the Rings extended edition box sets.

Yep. I have three versions of that now. I have the original DVDs, which is what I started on. And then the Blu-Rays and then the 4K Blu-Rays. Now, the 4K Blu-Rae don't have all the special features. But the Blu-Rays do. The 1080 Blu-Rays have remastered special features. 30 hours of appendices and special features.

So that was hugely formative. And by this point, I started high school when Return of the King came out. Also, that same year, I think, director's label released the first DVD box set of music videos from Spike Jones, Michelle Gondry. Are we the same person? I swear to God, I could just point to every. We are the same person. Actually, I think a lot of people our age that are in the industry are the same person in this specific way. So that and then later they released four.

more it was um uh mark romanek stephan sidnoy and um uh Anton Corbinningham yeah Chris Cunningham was in the original three oh yeah I have the Jones Cunningham Gondry and then Romanek oh okay yes there were there were three more but anyway oh geez I didn't know that those those first those three especially the Jones Rome uh Jones Gondry and Chris Cunningham That was a box set, very formative for me. Like, very into filmmaking movies, but also you watch Lord of the Rings or Star Wars and you're like, okay, well, that's a million miles away.

But look at what these guys are doing with these scrappy music videos that look like they were made for $2. I could do that. And my, so my friends and I, we were making movies, the time like kind of fucking around in high school so greatly inspired i think by that by the energy on on those um directors label box sets so that's pretty pretty much by then i knew i was like i want to do this i want to go to film school and i want to make i want to figure out how to make this a career and make movies um so yeah that was in high school and we had a film class in

high school oh wow it was quite rare i mean it was very it was very scrappy we were shooting on vHS like with these big cameras that we just put a VHS tape in the side and shoot them straight with high eight no no that would have been way too expensive although when you got to the end

when you got to senior year this was 2006 when you got to senior year you got access to the mini DV camera which was a reserve there was only one and that was reserved for the seniors and everyone else shot on VHS but I shot my high school

thesis film on mini TV that's all So yeah, that was, that's what started at all. It's, it is funny. I, like, we could literally do an entire podcast just based on the, the filmmaking era. This is something I actually wanted to compliment you guys on with the creator Blu-ray because you had a nice, thick making of special on it. Yes. I wish we had more, honestly.

I mean, the fact that we got an hour long making of is amazing. But like, the whole time, I mean, you know, there's a ton of great. behind-the-scenes stuff like you could have done featureettes about every little aspect of the film you know you could have done a roundtable with the with the sound team which they did there's just not on the Blu-ray and we have we have so many deleted scenes and that stuff just cost so much money these days like you got to dust those off and grade them and package them like it's nobody wants to spend that on the home video anymore right director's commentary

RIP you know we're not doing those anymore and but the hour-long doc a I mean, it could have been three hours, to be frank. Like, there's so much to cover and talk about it with the movie. But Glenn, the director, the documentary filmmaker that made that and he was obviously on set shooting as well, was he's amazing. He also did the doc, the making of doc for Rogue One, same guy. Oh, cool. Which is also a really good documentary. So he's, yeah, he's a good one, Glenn.

And he made a really good film, behind the scenes film. Yeah. I just wish there was more. I wish there was more. What can you do? can you do? You know, I suppose that kind of can dovetail us into the actual making of the film because obviously, you know, it's been talked about a nauseam how you guys used prosumer tools to make it. The thing that I think is important to highlight is the importance

of the colorist, the colorists, ILM, you know, and obviously costuming and production design when it was relevant. And we can get to that. But I did kind of want to know what was the impetus for going kind of full prosumer in that, I figured, you know, you had said in the shot deck interview that like had the, you know, the FX3 cost $40 billion, we'd still use that one because it was just the right tool for the job. Great. Yes. But why stick to like aperture lights versus, you know, getting like a sky panel or proper HMI or anything like that? Well, I think it all, it all dovetailed from the same desire to create a filmmaking experience for Gareth, the actors, the crew,

everybody involved in the movie that was nimble and light on her feet and scrappy and small footprint and small scale. And so the same decisions that went into the camera and the form factor, the size, the weight, the tininess of the camera body and the lenses and the gimbal and everything,

that all of those choices were made to create a filmmaking style that's very spontaneous and reactive and intuitive and and fluid and lightweight, same decisions went into the grip and lighting equipment. Like we did not want to ever pretty much be in a situation where it would take more than five to ten minutes to set up anything. Crane, Dolly track, lighting, all of that. And so what that led us to was that these these processes. consumer solutions, it's not a, it's, again, it's like, it's not about the cost.

Once you add it up, the cost of the more higher end aperture lights, which is what we had, is not that far off from a sky panel, you know, like, but the reason we stuck with them is because the workflow and the footprint are so simple and lightweight and small that, you know, you control them all on a on a phone app yeah i do that do that way that app yeah you can't do that with the sky panel you have you need if you want to do wireless on a sky panel you need to use one of these professional solutions like wireless um uh lighting control solutions and we didn't want to do that we didn't want a dimmer board we didn't want cabing we didn't want any of that and so the aperture lights you can control on a phone app or an ipad in our case because why limit yourself yeah exactly it's just an

interface issue, but a size of screen problem. So they were on the iPad, but that was really it. I mean, the idea was just to create like a small, lightweight, tiny footprint. And one thing allowed the other thing to happen. Because we were using such a light camera, we could use lighter grip equipment. Like we used a scissor crane instead of, you know, like getting a big heavy jib or like techno crane to lug around with us because the scissor crane can be carried by two grips and, you know, it has a little base and you just flunk it down in any.

anywhere, extend it out, you got 20 foot crane right there. But the payload of it is quite lightweight. So it can take the Ronin gimbal with the FX3, but it can't take a full fully built Alexa. Same with our dolly, which was a Kessler shuttle dolly, same thing, like small lightweight. Our lights were unlocked, like we were able to light with smaller units because of the high ISO of the camera. We didn't need as many lights. We didn't need big, big lamp heads.

We could stick with the apertures and the esteratubes and the DMG little dash light that we had. That thing is underrated. Roscoe makes us color accurate fucking pocket light. Excellent light. We, you know, we used it a lot. It's in the movie, actually. I mean, it's physically in the frame a lot, like, because it has all these different attachments

that go in the front. And the light that it emits looks great. So we used it as practicals, like a lot of times. It's like, I'm sitting on a. or it's on a dashboard or whatever. Yeah, the, it's the other thing that, well, there's two things. One, yeah, oh, and a lot of these are battery powered. I'll add, so, like, that's the other advantage is that a lot of the lights we're discussing,

not the bigger lampheads, but a lot of these smaller lights are all battery powered. So talk about small footprint. Like, you can literally just turn one on and chuck it into the frame, which sometimes we would do. Like, you know, Gareth's filming, and then he pans over. a little bit and as he does one of our electrics is like sneaking in on on hands and knees under the frame and like just putting a light like behind a piece of furniture or something and then sneaking back out like we could do stuff like that because of how small and lightweight

this stuff was and even that the bigger aperture lamp heads none of them take any more than house power like so you just plug them into a wall you don't need generators you don't need any big equipment and that's not to say we didn't have that we did on bigger setups but but But Greg and I always talked about it like it's a, the approach is like a balloon. Like the default is it's deflated, it's small, it's the, that's the smallest, most streamlined version of the gear, the crew and everything. And every once in a while, when we had a bigger setup, night exteriors or whatever, there's a few others, we would just inflate the balloon.

And add crew, add gear, we did have some bigger HMI's for night exteriors, although to be be fair, we barely used them because we actually didn't need them with the high ISO. We did also do some bigger HMIs for some of the nomad interiors that we did on location in Bangkok at a train station and convention center. So we're just like shining super bright, punchy light, like sunlight as if it's on the space station through the windows. So we needed some bigger lamp heads of the 1,200 apertures were a little not powerful enough for that. So on occasion, we did inflate the balloon, but it was rare it was not our default state it was really only when in certain circumstances and and um especially mainly in Bangkok we also did some stage days in Bangkok like on a little sound

stages so you have a little bit more equipment for that but yeah tried to keep it small slender and lightweight so that we could just be flexible and shoot and not not pause at any at any point really that uh there that so the the one thing that i sort of i guess it's parallel thinking but clearly i wasn't using it on a big fucking film was the idea of just having like a battery light on the end of a boom pole yeah and using that as it as just a mobile key like i i was shooting this spec commercial and i was like fuck i wish i had just like a china and i was coming up with all these weird ideas where like i'd have a china ball and then have a um uh detap to plug adapter and then tape the fader to the stick, you know, and try to do something like that.

And then I realized like, I have Astera tubes. I actually have the Astera block. What are the hydrop panels? Like, kind of work too. Those things are great. Fantastic. And I was like, I could just use that. Like, why am I overcomplicating?

I'm going too old. Yes, exactly. Because people used to do that. Yeah. I just completely forgot because I'm forgetful. But the thing that I really appreciated about your guys is a pro. And obviously we could go on forever about the approach, because I think it's actually somewhat important to get going back to the idea of making like mid-budget films again. Right.

Yeah. Is, uh, I was interviewing, um, Igo Burled. Yes. It was about extrapolations, but he had shot House of Cards. And he was saying that Fincher would have this rule where they had a sprinter van with all the camera equipment in it. And that bitch had to be ready to go in 15 minutes. And I was like that and then obviously the thing of like Fincher likes to do a bunch it takes to make sure the actors get it But your your guys's version seems to be stay real light nimble and then shoot for half an hour

Because then no one can come in and tell you to stop or start I did like in that other interview Gareth talking about how like if you don't say cut No one that knock on effect of like one person does a one minute thing one person does a two minute thing Until you're sitting there for another half hour I think that's, I don't suggest that any and every filmmaker do that, but I think that is a valuable way to let actors act, which is what you're there to film. Yes, and it's, it's, it's funny.

Annoying for the A.E. though. It's, yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, that's, that's solvable. Yeah. Um, because at the end of the day, really that there's, there's a very simple solution for that, which is the script supervisor. Yeah. Um, the script supervisor is just keeping track of during a 30 minute take, minute take when what are the time stance of actual relevant material so later on all someone has to do is really just a little bit of extra work to like extract those clips and separate them out so that you do end up with just individual takes without any extraneous material um and that's

just one person's job like it's it's it's not a huge deal to do that and to be completely frank one day, I hate to even say it, this is something that machine learning can help with. It's like reducing the brunt human force of like the numbness of having to do the tediousness of that task manually. Like at some point you'll just be able to plug those numbers in and then some algorithm will automatically scrub through your clip and pull the from this time stamp to this stem. Honestly, somebody could probably write that now. I don't even think that requires machine learning. That just sounds like a piece of code, but we'll, I don't know anything about that, but in, uh, red actually had they had it, the DSMC2 and they deleted it, but there was a feature where I think it was for

skateboarding. Oh, yeah. Initially, where you could click a button and it would create a metadata tag so you could mark like good, good trick or whatever. Right, right. And they got rid of it. And I was like, that's such a great, I wish every camera had that. Yeah, that's clever actually, especially for like wildlife photography and something. Exactly. Anyway, um, you're listening red? Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. But yeah, the thing about on set, it's hard to talk about because I feel a little bad for the department. Like, the reason people come in. When you say cut, the reason people come in is because they have jobs to do. Like hair and makeup wants to make sure that people look good.

The AD wants to make sure that we're on schedule. The props team has to reset the props. You know, everybody has something to do. The wardrobe team wants to make sure that the wardrobe isn't sitting funny on someone's chest or whatever. So, like, there's always a reason that people rush in. But that feeling of the, like, let your breath out and relax for a second is really antithetical to being in the zone and, like, being in the moment of the filmmaking process, both for, from a craft's perspective, like, from filming perspective, but also, I think really for an actor's perspective. Like, it really breaks

everybody's concentration and momentum when you stop after every take and then come in and reset and everybody has a breath. There's something about just staying in the moment that forces you to be in the moment and then it forces you to be authentic. Like it creates, or at least it creates the opportunity for authenticity, which is really what we were after the whole time. Like that's what the long takes were for. It was not about exhausting the actors or anything. It was about fishing for a moment of authenticity, not just with the acting. Also, with the camera movement, the placement, the positioning, the reaction to the light, like getting some serendipitous moment of background action, timing out perfectly with foreground

action. Like there's a million different little magical moments that upalignment that happen in front of the camera. And they can only really happen if you're rolling. So it makes sense to maximize the time that you're rolling. I mean, we would call it, we would call it sifting for goal. That's what it feels like. It's like every take, every 30 minute take, you're just like scooping up a bunch of silt

from the bottom of a lake bed in a, in a, in a filter. And then those 30 minutes are just you doing this. Shaking out the sloppiness, shaking out the bad acting, shaking out the insincere moment, shaking out the bad camera operating until all you're, all you're left with is the gold nugget. And all you need is like a couple of gold nuggets a day and you're actually doing pretty good. But it takes time to scoop and sift in order to find that. Like you can't just, you're not just going to get them every time.

Right. And so if you're just doing quick little takes, it's like, it's like you're just scooping up like a, like you have a little spoon and you're just scooping up just a little bit and then you're like, nope, no gold in here. Okay. New spoon. You know, cut. All right. Bring me a new spoon. Okay. Let me scoop up another little piece of dirt. Sift through. No, no gold in here. Cut. All right. No. New spoon. Like, it's so inefficient. Yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, it's just not, that's just not a way to, it's not an efficient, it's not a super efficient way. It's the normal way. It's the, it's the normal way that people make films. But it's, there's something inefficient about it. And I think that that's what we were responding to. So the, the part of the inefficiency is when you cut is the dissent of everybody to come in and do their job. And it's like, is it really necessary? I mean, do you really need to adjust the collar? Do you really? need to you know do this do that do i really need to tweak the lighting like does it actually make things better possibly not you know like that's i think that's sort of the the thesis of what we did was like maybe it's not better when you tweak it maybe it's better when it's a little wrong

when it's a little when there's a bit of a mistake in it when there's a little like fucked up in this to it and i think i think i think it i think there is i think i think that's That's authenticity, you know, and that's all we were after. Well, and I think, too, like, with Gareth operating, which I think is entirely reasonable, you know. Yes. We all did it before because I can't remember who I was. Oh, it was, um, Bob Yelman was saying that, like, Wes Anderson likes to have kind of a film school, like, set. Yes.

And I feel like that's kind of similar to what you guys are doing. But with, with Gareth operating, like, if the callers too fucked up, you know, him being the ultimate arbiter for quality. in the film he i'm sure he could just go dad can we can we he'll just do it like that's all sure yeah is he'll just do it or he'll just ask the actor to do it and that's part of like at the end of again it's like i feel a little bad because it is somebody's job to do that but also those little things those little minutia's like gareth can do that or the actor can do that or you know resetting a in the moment we shouldn't in the moment yeah everyone else has their job for a reason. No, 1,000% that's the thing. But that's why it's just a bit of a different way of

thinking about it. And it just requires a little bit of a letting go of the ego that we all have on set, including me as a DP of like, oh, but that's my job. Yeah. It's not your job to reset the prop. It's my job to reset the prop. But does that make the film better? Right. If we have to wait to cut and have you come down to set versus just having the actor do it. Does that make the film better? No. You know, does it make the film better if Gareth is operating the camera and finding the opportunities for lighting versus me or an operator doing it and then him being at a monitor telling me like, oh, do the, you know, no, tilt down and then I have to tell the operator,

tilt down is that that's the normal, that's the normal workflow. Is that better though? Does that make the film better? Is that efficient? No, you know, like, well, at least for us it wasn't. Yeah. And there's there's other ways to make a film. and it's perfectly valid to do that. And there's a reason that's the norm. But for us, it was like that was inefficient. And you have to just let go of that part of the ego that says, well, no, that's my job. Well, that was one of the quotes that I did want to talk about the, well, I'll just mention it quickly.

I loved the idea of things being a little fucked up because I think that is where some authenticity does come from. when things are just a little messed up, or I wish I could remember who told me this. It might have been in a podcast. I don't remember, but that they would just put a little fuck it light. I think it was Fernando Argueyes. Maybe it was someone else, but just a fuck it light. Like they'd make the light look real good. And then they would just chuck a light in there that makes no sense.

That's coming from somewhere just because no person would ever put it there. So it must be natural, you know. I love that. That's a great idea. I've started using it in interviews. like corporate interviews just sells it immediately that we're not like

just have this you know big keynote right next or whatever but where do you put it do you just is it like a like so like a hard light yeah just yeah exactly like maybe you have like a flash yeah it can and it can be skipping

off a table or something it can be it can be hitting them in the shoulder funny um whatever you know it's just something where you kind of cool and that's that that kind of describes a lot of how we lit

a little bit yeah In a good way, like we did that on purpose for that same reason, where it's like we're not lighting to individual frames. So it's more about just like painting with it. Like, yeah, just put a light here. Put a light here. But it's, it's, it's, it's almost arbitrary. It's like a little bit. It's slapdash on purpose.

Like it's, it's slight, it's somewhat curated, but it's not, it's not, I guess I should say it's curated, but it's not calculated. There, that's more like, put a light here, put a light here. What is that based on why here, why here? Kind of arbitrary. I'm just going by gut instinct. but like it's i'm still making a decision it's not just like well you know yeah blindfold yourself and throw a dart at the wall but it isn't like well let me like calculate well from this angle out you know where we really need a slash it's right here in the frame like it wasn't that

calculated and i think that that element of randomness makes it feel naturalistic we did a lot of all of our interiors are like that that's all every time you see hard light in an interior in the film it's probably an aperture 600 or 1200d with the spotlight adapter and we would have those pre-built and we would do exactly that like they would just be on either on a stand just off camera or they would be outside and then we would just like just set it up turn it on pointed into the room and then like let's just see where let's see what it does like let's just see where it lands and usually we would just leave it like oh that that looks great like that looks super naturalistic we don't I don't want to overtweak it the minute you overtweak it it doesn't

look naturalistic anymore so yeah that was a big part of the approach I'll share with you a quote from, I think it was pure, earlier in the week, I did three interviews in one day, so they all kind of blended together. But, bless you. I learned a lot. For some reason, that was a very educational day.

But one of the quotes that I liked was the light needs to struggle to get there. Like, that's how you make it look real. Because if you put, you know, if this doesn't quite, and it looks kind of natural, but like, that could be a skypans.

or something, but if the light has to fight its way onto the set, that looks far more natural. And I'm like, I'm absolutely stealing, because he said he would, he would tell his gaffers that. Like, don't just set up a light next to the actor. Like, make it, you know, do some stuff to make, make it hard to get there. Yeah, that's a really good nugget. Yeah, I like that a lot. I wrote it down to steal that, too. But one thing that I wanted to touch on was Greg saying, when you were talking about letting go of the ego and stuff,

Yeah, a quote that I really like from Greg was he was looking for someone gullible enough to do the film. And I thought that was a fascinating way to look at it because it's not like he picked you out of the ether. Like you had, you had, you had shot major commercials and a few, you know, like features, like small features. So it's not like you were just some kid out of film school. But how did how did you guys have? What was that conversation like where he was trying to suss you out to see if you'd be willing to let go and not be quote unquote the DP? Greg has a Greg did I say I guess I don't I don't remember but yeah you can edit yourself Greg Greg yeah Greg Greg has a he has a great way of doing this actually because he does this with crew as well like when he's hiring gaffers and assistant is he'll put it he'll say like I try to scare people a little bit like I try to give them the worst the worst case scenario and just lay it all out and be like Like, I'm going to be honest with you. This is what the shoot's going to be sometimes.

It's going to be this. It's going to be this. It's going to be this. On this one, I think the biggest warning that he gave me, he mentioned this in that interview as well, is he was like, there's going to be days where you are going to question why you're there because you're going to be shooting in broad daylight in like a remote mountain top with no access to gear and no time or desire to add gear and tweak things and

Gareth is going to be off in Gareth land shooting something with an actor and he's told everyone to fuck off and you're going to be left standing there being like, okay, great, why am I here? That's how he described it. And that did happen a couple of times, but I think because that we had talked about it in advance, I had already removed that art of that expectation from me. And Greg, you know, just because of his experience with Gareth on Rogue One, where he also operated quite a bit of the film. I think most of it, Gareth operated. And same thing. Like, Greg has this story that he tells early in the shoot in the Maldives where he started operating the film, and then he sort of felt Gareth like hovering over his shoulder.

This is broad daylight at the Maldives exterior, no lights. And then he was like, oh, Gareth, do you? I mean, do you want to, like, do you want to have a go? Garrette was just very commenting on the operating a lot. He was like, do you want to try? And then he was like, yeah, okay. Now, in his mind, he's like, of course I want to try, but he's very polite and sweet. Gareth.

Yeah, so he's like, yeah, all right. And so he takes the camera and then he just gets in the zone, you know, and starts operating and starts directing and starts doing basically what he did on the creators. Like he's operating, he's directing and holding the camera. Okay, reset, come now, come through here. it's okay and go rolling the whole time and then Greg at some point was like okay great you I don't need to be here like you've got this I'll go to video village get a coffee yeah yeah or he was like I'm going to go shoot something on the other side of the island or I'm going to go prelight something and that's really what ended up happening with with with us on on those days that did

happen it's not like I didn't have stuff to do you know and that but that's it just required a different mindset of saying like okay well my job here is to support Gareth. It's not, like, that really is the ultimate job of the cinematographers to support the film and to support the director and what the film needs and what the shoot needs and what the director needs. And in those moments, what Gareth needs is for me not to be there.

Right. And the film needs me in other places. I got to think about pre-lighting the scene next week. You know, I got to think about once we started shooting, like you can only, the other thing I learned from doing a film this long, which I hadn't done before. The longest shoot I had done prior to this was 24 days, and this was 90 days. What I learned is you can actually only like really thoroughly prep like five or six weeks.

And then once you, once you start making the film and once you've gone through those first five or six like very thoroughly prepped weeks, you kind of have to prep as you go a little bit. Like, you can do broad strokes, but you can't prep in detail because things change. Right. The schedule changes as the shooting pace is determined based on the first few weeks. Locations fall through. This happens. That happens.

Like, you just, you can't thoroughly plan. There's some locations that we didn't get to scout fully because we're like, well, they're near the end of the schedule and we need to prioritize scouting our first few weeks. So we just never got to them. So there's a certain amount of prep. I'm not saying you just wing it for the rest of the movie, but there's a certain amount of detail in the prep that you save for down the road,

like as you're making the film. Right. So there's plenty to do. Like when we were shooting the tank battle, most of that is day exterior. So we didn't do any lighting on that. And Gareth is operating the camera. So aside from helping him facilitate communicating with the crew,

obviously we're using all of our gear on that. We had drone shots, crane, handheld, dolly, everything. So there's a lot to coordinate, but it's almost all single camera. Gareth is operating, but I'm helping coordinate and make sure the next thing's ready and da-da-da-da. But aside from that, you know, once he's actually rolling on a take for 20 minutes, you know, aside from me being sat at the monitor, just watching and making sure exposure is good, which it's not going to change. It's midday.

Oh, yeah, you had a roto-n-D, didn't you? Yes, I was controlling exposure on a roto-ndy. But in broad daylight, it's the exposure is not really changing. So those were times where I'm sat at the monitor. He's rolling for half an hour. And like, I'm sitting with the gaffer. Like, we're talking about a lighting setup the following week, you know? It's like there's always stuff to do.

And I think that what Greg really prepared me with in advance was to be just be mentally prepared for that. And I would hop on a second camera occasionally too. So that was the other thing. but you just have to always be ready for anything like that. And, you know, it's funny, yeah, gullible enough is a funny way to put it. But it's, in some ways, it's true. But it's also like, I knew what I was signing up for. You know what I mean?

Like I wasn't tricked into it. But I think what he means is somebody who's not jaded yet to who would, who would hear all of these circumstances like, well, you're going to co-DP, you're going to have this credit. There's another senior DP who is, you know, you're sort of working with, but also for and Like, it's complicated, but both of us are ultimately working for Gareth. Like, he's fully in control of the visuals of the film, and he's operating, and he's very stubborn and in a good way, like, very knows what he wants and is not going to rest

until he gets it. And all of these are positives. Right. And it's like somebody who- When you have a good director. Well, in this specific case, yes, they're all positives in this specific case. And so I think the gullible comment is more like, you know, somebody who just wasn't jaded about that and who didn't have an ego about it.

Right. And that was that, you know, that was just necessary. And so, um, so I had to get rid of it. I did have a little bit, you know, I think everybody walks into it with a little bit of it. But I think Greg really prepared me in advance to be like, whatever you're thinking, like, you got to change the way you're thinking about it because this film is not going to be that. It's not going to be you coming in saying, well, I think we should do it this way and this way. That's not how Gareth operates.

That's not how he rolls. Gareth knows how he wants to do it, and it's our job to support him and figure out how to help him and how to protect him and make sure that he can do it the way that he wants to do it. Yeah. The, I did, we're dancing around a larger question that I do want to get to, but I did quickly want to touch on both the sun aspect, which is like, I guess you guys only shot at like golden sunset and sunrise. Like, there's not like a noon shot in the film. It's all. Well, there is. Well, sure.

But we tried to avoid it as much as we could. And that's like kind of leaning into the larger question about like, you know, production value and stuff. But I did want to ask why, why have you on the roto ND and not writing the aperture? Because I know that's something I actually learned doing this podcast is a lot of DPs have a controller for the aperture. Yeah, I don't like adjusting the aperture because we're shooting wide open. on the lens and the minute you stop down from wide open you can see it very clearly like you see the um what happens is it doesn't adjust on the anamorphic specifically on certain vintage lenses because typically vintage lenses they have a um a natural vignette that sure happens for all sorts of

reasons and so when you stop down the first thing that happens when you go from wide open into one stop down is that the overall exposure does not change. Only the exposure in the center part of the frame changes. Interesting. And what it does is it stops that down to match the vignette. And then once you keep stopping down from there, then all the levels go down. But what we noticed in testing is that these lenses,

these are vintage anamorphics, co-Japanese vintage animorphics from 1970s. That happens. So when you stop down from a 2-8, which is wide open, to a four, it's very noticeable because it's not just, it's not just like adding an ND across the whole image. It's just like darkening the center. So it's just quite distracting.

And also it just affects other visuals. Like it affects the boca. It affects the flares. It affects the depth. Like it really is, again, especially on older lenses, it starts to really affect the visual characteristics of the lens. And so when you're doing it live,

like when you're making a live exposure adjustment, you see those things change because they quite noticeably shift and it's just quite distracting so that's why we didn't do it that do it that way well the follow up to that was which ND did you use because I get scared about all variable NDs

because a lot of times they're either that polarizer thing happens or the color shift is goofy I don't know what to tell you I mean we shot with Earth brand it's URTA No kidding. All right. It's stills.

It's really cheap. Stills brand variable ND. And it's the polarizer technique. It's two polarizers. Right. We didn't have any issues. Hell yeah. We didn't have any color issues.

I mean, you know, like between the grade, the Lut, the photocem, the dailies of it all, like, at the end of the pipeline, we had no issues. Like maybe scientifically, if you actually really sat down and studied it, you'd be like, yeah, well, this is how much color should. shift that this is introducing. Right. But it was minimal enough that we could just so easily avoid, like, get around it, that it was just not something we've really thought about. Sure. Well, that does the deal us nicely into the question about post because I think it's

important to highlight. I think you guys lived the, Steve Yedlin, that guy's never going to come on this spot. I've named dropped him too many fucking times. I'm sure he scared me at this point. No. But the idea of, you know, the, the camera being. a data capture device. Data collection box, yeah.

Yeah, and not the final image. And so talk to me about the color correction process and what things you had to do to get to where you wanted to be. Obviously, you talked about how you rebuilt the Lut three times until, you know, it was workable to where it was kind of evening out color differences. But what kind of things did the prosumer camera kind of throw in your way that needed to be massaged and posed on top of, you obviously, like windows and, and, bringing exposure you know the standard color correction pipeline i mean to be honest not much like i

i once again we'll take any opportunity to shout out photocam and and dave cole and jose and freddie and and and um hose and claire and everybody that worked on the movie because it was really like an amazing effort and they did so much work and a lot of the heavy lifting for what you see in the final film um that said in terms of the actual technical footage of it all not much like the pro riss raw 12-bit footage that we that you get out of the camera um doesn't need too much to make it work aside from like just figuring out the color science of it but once they crack that you know it's it's you're not really doing anything unique or special that you're not doing to any other camera aside from the

the fact that the specific conversion in color science is unique to this sensor, the same way that they have Alexa and Venice and red conversions. And they don't always work perfectly from one to the next. So that was the case here. So they had to crack the color science, but once they did, like, it was actually quite easy to work with the footage. We didn't have to do anything special to make it work. But in terms of what we did in the grade, like to get the final look of the film, that there

is heavy lifting, but we would have done that. on any camera like sure that has nothing to do with working around the prosumer of it all that's just once we have our image or raw image um it's like well we knew the look that we were going for um which is very kind of 1970s sci-fi inspired right alien blade runner all the good stuff empire strikes back and uh so in order to achieve that there's a bunch of things that we did in terms of color contrast film emulation um Um, uh, filmic patina emulation, halation, gate weave, um, highlight roll off, like all that stuff. It's a lot that goes into it grain, film grain. Um, so that was a lot of work. And

in addition to, as you mentioned, like just the, the, the lighting work, like the digital real light, it's not relighting, but it's massaging the, but the image, um, in terms of balancing levels and contrast and all that. So yeah, a lot, a lot of work. a lot of work, but yeah, I think it pays off. I mean, I think it looks beautiful. Like, they just did such an incredible job. And I think the film has a unique aesthetic to it. I mean, it's obviously inspired by other films, but maybe I guess I should say unique

compared to other contemporary films because it's just going for, it's not going for a full, like 100% filmic throwback, like the holdovers or something like that, where they're really going for like a look kind of as a gimmick, not in a bad way. I don't say that as a bad way, but as in it's like they're going for a specific, they're evoking like a specific aesthetic or like, what's it called, like the pilot of poker face or whatever. Right. Like we weren't going that far with it, but it was more about like just evoking the feeling and the mood of those films in terms of contrast ratios and black levels and its color balance and And color separation, that kind of stuff.

So, yeah, it was, it took a while to build it, to find it. And it took an even longer while to apply it to the whole movie on a shop by shop basis. But yeah, I do. I think that's hence the Herculian, Herculean effort from photocem. But yeah, I think it really paid off. What were some of the, like, I guess, broad strokes, like what were kind of some of those, like was they, I know, like, sometimes greens can get real fucky on digital cameras, you know, and no matter what, you have to bring those down. But like, what kind of, are you able to put into words? What kind of contrast ratios, what kind of color shifts you were looking for?

Yes. So we, this is a non-scientific term, but we called this color palette compression thing, the oval. And so the reason is, is because when you look on a vector scope and you see your color values. And if anyone's seen a vector scope, it's basically like lines that kind of emerge in six different directions. and each one is like a primary color. You have green, red, blue, yellow, whatever. Cyan. Yes, exactly.

It's yellow, magenta, cyan, red, green, blue. So those are your six spokes of this wheel. And any image that you pull up on a vector scope, it shows you all the color values. And it goes from zero to 100. So like the more saturated is it's more stretched out and the more less saturated, it's like more towards the center. So what we did is with the oval is we would take all of our,

our color, let's say our whole color wheel is a circle, and we would just go like this. All right. It's not a circle. It's an oval. Right. And the oval can shift. So it depends on what the dominant palette of the frame is. But if we're on a dominant cyan orange oval, then everything else kind of gets compressed into

that. You're not going to have magentas. You're not going to have greens. You're not going to have all these stray colors. it's all going to kind of fit in this oval. And when we have scenes with a lot of greenery, for example, like a lot of oleage, which happens in the film, we would shift the oval.

So, exactly. So now it's like more tilted towards, you get a little bit more green in the palette. But what that does is it means there's less yellow in the palette, for example, that kind of gets like clumped in with the green. So it was just about limiting the palette in that way to try and keep it two tone, maybe three tone at most. relatively desaturated, but not artificially so.

Like it shouldn't look just faded, but it should look limited in its palette. And any stray colors and especially kind of bright, annoying colors all get kind of rained into this, the neatness of the oval. So if you watch the film, or if you look on Shotdeck, you can see this in action, like a lot of primary, there's not a lot of primary red in the film.

It tends to lean a little bit more towards orange. And that's because we looked at alien, and when you look at alien, there's like, there's no red in the film. It's all just like really deep, orangey amber. Like, it never really goes full red. And there's no pure green either. It's like a cyan-y kind of turquoisey green. So that's where that came. We were studying those films and looking at what the combination of stock and lenses and lighting and exposure was doing at that time.

And that's what we were trying to recreate. So yeah, that's basically the answer. Like there's not, there's, and Gareth also just hates the color purple. So yeah, um, not the fucking hates purple anyway. Yeah, yeah. Not the movie. Yeah. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the book, just the actual color, purple and magenta.

So there's no magenta or purple in the film either. Yeah. So that, so that already quite limits the palette, you know, it's like a lot of blues, a lot of warms, yellows, oranges, and, and even the greens are like kind of a green blue and, and, and, And the reds are kind of an orange. So everything is kind of in that limit, more limited palette. That's how we, that's how we reined all that in and, like, created this more cohesive palette. But it's still colorful.

Like, it's still, it's not a muted or faded or desaturated feeling movie. It's just about limiting the palette. Yeah. Well, that kind of brings us to the large question I was kind of leaving for now, which was, uh, what, and this is kind of the educational part. you know it's not that you guys are the first to do this but certainly the most recent what are kind of the things that you learned and tools that you can take on going forward in your career you know even with just commercials or anything yeah other film um that the kind

of uh indie stuff that you did helped and what are kind of the things that working on such a large film are going to help your indie career so to speak Hmm. Great question. Um, well, it's easier to answer like what does indie help the bigger stuff because I think that that's, that's the stuff that's a little more obvious, I guess. Like, um, the smaller crew approach, the, the lighter footprint, the, whatever you can do to maximize actual time filming on set with actors and capturing moments and footage like, and not wasting time. on the machinery of filmmaking and all of that. Like, I think the more that can be streamlined, the better. And again, that's not an original idea either, like you mentioned. Like, there's other directors who are very famous for working quite fast in, because they kind of adopt similar approaches, like Spielberg, Nolan.

People always talk about, like, you go on their sets, it feels like an indie film. Wes Anderson, same thing, like tiny crew, really focused, like really efficient, small scale. Uh, um, yeah, so that, that I think, it intellectually and intuitively seems so obvious, but when you put it in action, it's like, oh, yeah, okay, and now I really get it. Uh, so it's just, you know, that is something that I think I will constantly be pushing back on as I do other bigger films. My unsatisfying answer in the opposite direction is like, it's kind of just harder to do indie films. Like, oh, yeah. I mean, yeah.

It's just harder to go back to not having certain resources. Like the best of both worlds approach, I think, is like really this sweet spot and it's such an ideal. But it is the best of both worlds, including the bigger budget filmmaking, meaning that you aren't quite limited in terms of resources, schedule, grew, like you have everything you need. You're just very selective and smart and calculated about what you're using. Whereas in indie films, obviously, it's like, you just never have what you need. Right.

And so you sometimes often can get creative, which is very good, can be good and yield good results. And other times, it just sucks. Like, it's just frustrating. And you feel understaffed and undersupported and the film suffers. And sadly, you know, I feel that way about some of my past work. Like, it's just, it is what it is, but it's shame. Like, there's certain films that I feel had really great ambition. and really great ideas and imagery and scripts and it's like we just fell a little short with

execution just because of limited resources and it is what it is it's just you know it's the most that that will influence on me going forward is like the select being selective of what movies I take on basically like that's kind of the unsatisfying answer to that but because I wish there was some nugget that you know I could like oh I've gone to the mountain top of big budget filmmaking and now I can come back down to Indies and impart this knowledge and it's like... It's money. No, the knowledge is...

Yeah, the knowledge from going up to the mountain coming back is, hey, you know what solves a lot of problems? You know, it's a great problem solver? Money. Like throwing money at problems. Solves, solves that. Like, getting creative and stuff, that's all good. But you know what?

You know what really solves a problem? Resources. Yeah. So, yeah, or time, which is money. You know, time is money. But anyway, yeah, that's my half-satisfying. answer no i but i think i think it's actually uh relevant to here because using your analogy like you'd hate to have a bunch of people go like oh i actually i've said this a million times there's

this great book by um Stephen pressfield called uh the war of art and he in it he describes a nebulous force called resistance and resistance doesn't want you to in his case write it's a book about writing but i think it applies to all art um and resistance is that thing that makes you go oh once i have this then i can do that or um you know there's a lot of different examples yeah that's always the one that's stuck with me so it's like you know a lot of people once i go to film school then i can be a filmmaker once i have this right then i can make my movie yes and resistance doesn't want you to make your movie resistance sits there and goes like yeah yeah you know you need you need an fx and three you need a c70 you need an Alexa you know yeah um

and i think it's good to hear like No, if you just don't have money, figure it out otherwise, because there's nothing else over there that's going to make your job easier. You know, just start now. Because 100%. I mean, and honestly, the biggest thing that I would say, and I've been saying this even before I made a bigger film, the biggest thing you can do to solve that problem is, like, write a script that isn't very expensive to produce in the first place. Like, know your limitations and work with work around them and work within them and build your, Like, knowing that, well, I only have X. So, you know, maybe I shouldn't be this ambitious. Like, maybe I should be trying to make something a little bit more manageable and use my resources in a different way so that I can ace the execution of something simpler versus, you know, slightly falling short on the execution of something more complex. Yeah. Well, if we, you look at, I mean, we're the same age. Like, how many times were you quoted, like, look at clerks in film school.

Whatever. Look at clerks. He worked at a convenience store. He filmed at the convenience store. Filmed at the convenience store that he worked out. You know, do that. Don't don't. Because I think a lot of people would want to make the creator because it's so pretty and it's exactly in our brain. Yeah. But. Yeah. Yeah. The other good ones to look at are like following. I was about to say following. Yeah. And hi. You know, like, and these are these are ambitious movies. story wise and scope but this is what's so clever about watching them is like the tricks quote unquote that they did to get scope like Nolan talks about all the time he's like yeah I mean just shoot on rooftops like shoot on a rooftop you get scope because it's like you have this big vista and you're high up and it like looks epic and it's like so he would just climb up to the roof of an apartment building and go up to the top and shoot and you can do that in New York City I mean I would do that a lot on student films.

You know, you shoot on your friend's building's rooftop and you get like instant production value. And that doesn't cost you anymore. It's just it's just being clever about like how you're deploying your resources and where you're going and what you're doing. So yeah, I think that's what it comes down to is, um, is that, but you know, we really pushed it, I think like we really pushed the limit of what you can accomplish. And, and even then, Gareth will be very open about this.

It's like that the movie still costs too much. and that we could have made it for less, in theory. Right. But there's various reasons why we couldn't, the main one being COVID. Right. So there's a certain, it's like 25% of the budget is that, is like. No kidding. Well, I mean, not just like PPE and stuff, but just it's COVID and the

repercussions of COVID. You got to shoot in certain places. You need a certain this. You need certain that. Accommodations. Transportation. I'll give you an example. Transportation.

We drove around in vans. the COVID restrictions made it so that we could only have four people in a van. These are vans for 10 people. Right. But we just tripled the amount of vans we needed on the entire shoe because of that. Right. So, but that doesn't matter. That's like that it would be cheaper to do with the movie if we made it now without COVID restrictions than when we did in the height of COVID.

But, um, but there's other ways I think where Gareth was like, I think we could double down. on this approach and actually slim it down even more and get even scrappier and do it for less money. I think he's right. I think he's probably right. But yeah, I still think that the scope and scale that we accomplished on what we did have is like pretty remarkable. And they did not have that much for VFX either. So it's like that that was also a lot of, I don't know the exact numbers, but a lot of similar approaches in visual effects to what we were doing on set. cheese, tricks, you know, like a lot of 2D stuff, two and a half D. Like, if you don't need to build a 3D model, don't build it.

If you don't need to render this, don't render it. Like a lot of stuff like that. And the way that they managed to do that is because Gareth used to be a visual effects artist. Right. And what Gareth told them is one thing that visual effects artists never hear is he, and he had to convince them. He was like, send me work in progress. because usually visual effects vendors are used to dealing with directors

and people who don't understand the process of making visual effects so if you send them something that looks unpolished and unfinished they'll be like I can't give notes on this because it doesn't look like anything like it's just a skeleton

but Gareth can look at a skeleton and say no the movement's wrong so let's reanimate the movement before you texture light and render it so that you only have to do that once instead of having to do that over and over and over again. Right. That's how they save a lot of money on visual effects.

Well, and the other thing, too, that I think any kind of, I feel like a lot of filmmakers today, younger filmmakers are relatively technologically savvy, you know, because one would think. Well, yeah. But there's a lot of tools available. I think, like, a lot of, you can get a little bit of production value off of if it applies to your film, like doing a lot of those sky replacements, that 2D, 2.5D stuff. I think you can pull off an after effects, like a little Photoshop,

little after effects, and get away with it. Yes. Yeah, you could do it in editing software now. Yeah. You know, it's never been easier. You just need to learn it. Yeah.

A little bit. You just need to learn it. But yeah, you're 100% right. The thing, I know I've kept you a little over, but I did want to ask, especially because you brought it up earlier, how long did it take and what did you ask, Gareth and Greg,

about Rogue One. No comment. It was immediate. It was the second we got there. Yeah, I mean, I look, that's, that experience is very personal to them. And it's not, it's not mine to discuss. Oh, yeah, fair enough. But, but, yeah, obviously as a Star Wars fan,

asked a lot, learned a lot. Um, and I, I have a, a lot of appreciation for that film and what they did on it. I, yeah, it's, I, I, I do love that film. Yep. Um, let's, sorry, I can't be more. Oh, I'm not, I'm not sad. I have, I have, I have notes that I'm looking at him. Oh, hilarious.

No, no, I know. I just was saying to any listeners, if I was, um, was looking for some juice that I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to be disciplined. No, that's fair. I, uh, about, that was more of the, the fun way to end it anyway, because I, yeah, it is, it is a, you gotta go. You know how it is though, it's like one of those things where the minute you talk about something like that, that's all that, that's all that anyone cares about.

And it's like, it's a headline somewhere. That's, that's how this podcast will finally kick the fuck off. Exactly. Some, spill some, some beans about something I didn't even work on and then. Yeah. Well, I think that's pretty much, it's funny. This is completely inside baseball, but I've found that I can only get to about this much in any interview. Even if it goes for two hours, I have all this and a lot of it kind of loops in on itself or is.

Yeah, that's true. Sometimes you just end up, it ends up naturally folding into, but I also ramble. So I've been really trying to be disciplined with my answers, like just in general in podcast, but I'm very bad at that. So we get to what we get to. I have to warn a lot of people like, hey, I will ask three questions that I should have asked earlier, but now I'm thinking about it again, I'm, I'm, okay, it's also because we're all ADHD, so it's, yeah, well, and, and again, more inside baseball. I feel like there's, this podcast is different in that it is just kind of a chat, you know,

versus trying to make it too structured and. Yeah, yeah, and I appreciate that, though. I like a chatty podcast. Yeah. I feel like we're like in a living. somewhere and there's a fire burning in the fireplace i think the candles go oh my god there you like i just i feel very calm right now like yeah should be drinking a whiskey or something even though i don't really drink whiskey yeah but it feels appropriate it's a sake you know something

ooh warm socky okay that's warm speed thank you yeah yeah well well uh i'd be happy to get a a warm sake with you for real at some point um and keep his chat going uh but thanks so much for uh for chat with me man the movie's great and um you guys did a great job My pleasure. Yeah, thanks for having me. This was great. Frayman Reference is an Alibod production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can go to frame and refpod.com and follow the link to buy me a coffee. It's always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening.

Thank you.