Frame & Reference Podcast - 135: "Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction" DP Nick Ramsey

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Nick Ramsey is the DP of the new season of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction featuring Jonathan Frakes. Nick received a scholarship to attend the MFA filmmaking program at Chapman University.  There he learned the true art of bringing stories to life from masters like Bill Dill, ASC and Johnny Jensen, ASC.  His hard work and collaboration on multiple projects earned recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and The American Society of Cinematographers.  Since graduating Nick has shot a multitude of different types of projects, with narrative always being closest to his heart.  Many of his most recent music videos and a spot for Lamborghini have received millions of views on sites like Facebook and Youtube.  Some have even remained at the top of the trending list for days. 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.

I don't know. Yeah. Have you been watching anything cool? Let's see. What did I just finish watching? I was just watching The Outsider again. Oh, really? Show with Jason Bateman. He's like one of the directors. I feel like it was shot by one of the Ozark DPs, but I haven't done the research to figure out who was shooting it actually. Let's find out because I interviewed one of them. His name was Eric Coretz. It was very cool. Yeah, I mean, it has a very similar look and style. It's pretty dark.

I haven't seen that shit. Oh, it's, of course it's Stephen King. Yeah, it's pretty wild, you know. So you were just rewatching it? Yeah, my wife put it on and I was like, I think we've seen this already, but I can't remember what happens. So let's watch it. Yeah.

Oh, dude, I do that all the time. They're like, what were we doing here? Eh, fuck it. We'll just watch it again. Been watching that. Like, Loki. Looks great Yeah

Isaac Baumann shooting Bowman shooting the second season Yeah he uh He was another guy who was really Educational to talk to Yeah I'm sure He's very talented Yeah he's cool good

He like takes these pictures Where it like all looks super dark But they have like a really bang and eye reflection Just really super cool stuff I always wonder like I feel like that has to be one of the most, maybe not contentious, but like, every DP has their own opinion about whether or not to include an highlight or just let it be the key,

you know? Definitely. Like, I feel like that's the most, that's probably what most people would fight over more than anything. No, you're right. I mean, I feel like you get that question a lot and like everybody has a wildly different answer and you're doing it right. It should be there already.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw on your, on your website that you started in the military? Yeah, well, I started working for the military. Gotcha. I actually, I did go to West Point, but I didn't end up graduating. And then how, you know, through my path of the career, ended up working as a contractor for the military. I worked for the Enterprise Multimedia Center. We were like a regional facility that we handled.

kind of like everything that was above what like a garrison you know a little video department would handle um but like below the like official be all you can be um commercial so we kind of like did everything in between um and like we were only supposed to cover from like the mississippi to the east because at that point i was in virginia um but we ended up we were the first organization that kind of stood up completely so we were covering all over the the country i was you know shooting in fort irwin out here in california um texas kansas city levinworth all over the place so um i was mainly just like videographer camera operator kind of thing but yeah we got got to like get a lot of experience just like holding the camera and uh running around following a squad doing something uh even sometimes we would do like mOS videos and we made is like the military occupational specialty. So like we made a video for combat camera. So basically like the soldier was following somebody with a camera and then we were following them and it was and all the actual people playing the war games had paintball guns. So like the

cameraman, you could actually be hit and it was supposed to kind of give you the idea of like, well, this is what it's like you're actually, you're out there shooting, but you have to take cover too. Right. Of course, like I don't think the people were shooting at each other. I think they were just shooting at the camera man so right we definitely took a lot of hits yeah they're like not today kid but yeah exactly what was what was that kind of um experience like in can um in comparison to a kind of normal you know commercial or music video set because i imagine you know the military is nothing if not regimented with you know you got to do this then this then this and it doesn't feel like well i know it's a it's kind of a misconception that the military isn't a place

for creativity, but I think at certain levels, it's encouraged, not most levels. But yeah, what was kind of the, what, A, did you learn from that experience that you were able to take into, you know, traditional film work, but also like what kind of were those differences? I guess what I would have learned would probably be like patience and, you know, just learning how to like roll with the punches because you're dealing with such a big organization, and lots of red tape and bureaucracy it definitely doesn't move

like a film set or an AD would want things to move there's a lot of process that takes and goes into things so you know it's a lot of like hurry up and wait to get things going so I would say like they focus a lot less on the creative

you know because there's a lot more going on than just your video so like usually if you're shooting a video and and you're dealing with some sort of specific training that a lot of times like you're involved in that training. So you're like taking a squad that is physically going through that training. So you have to wait for them to get there or wait for them to be set up or reset or whatever it takes. So just lots of logistical things coming into it. And then yeah, just figuring out ways to make it creative in a situation where it's just out you out there with the camera by yourself, you know, running through the woods with these guys.

Yeah. I imagine lighting wasn't a primary concern of certainly not in those situations. I mean, we did plenty of like interviews as well. Sure. So like we were located right near like trade doc, which is training and doctrine doctrine command. It's like all the four star generals and stuff like that in the army making decisions and policy. So we were constantly doing that kind of stuff too.

But certainly like more at a videographer. type way, you know, just like me showing up all, you know, by myself or with one other person and the director and like just making it happen versus having a big crew and, you know, a lot of creative that's going into it. Yeah. Yeah. So what was the process going from that into? Because you've worked on some really like fantastic looking ads. And I'm wondering, you know, going from a situation where, you know, it was more about. the content than the flair so to speak sure like how how are you able to hone that you know creative eye to get you know a Lamborghini commercial or um like that Patrick star bit that looks really good

or i mean it all looks really good but i was just going through your website and it's like it all has such high pause the glow for jad you're selling a of fucking printer basically and it looks incredible you know no thank you very much i i do appreciate that i mean one thing was like since i did kind of have a lot of experience just running around with the camera. I decided I wanted to, I was ready to be more creative and get into a market that like was bigger and it had more opportunities. And I was like California, that's like the way to go. So I decided I would get like my MFA and kind of get alone to help me get across the country. And then since I had a lot of experience behind the camera, when I got out here, I was like, I'm going to really focus on lighting.

I feel like that's really what's setting the good stuff apart from like just mediocre things and really helps telling the story and pushing the boundaries. So kind of like threw myself 100% into lighting and was like gaffing as many of everybody else's projects as I could when I wasn't shooting my own and just like doing everything I could to just fully immerse myself in it. And I think film school is a great way to do that certainly like. focus completely on watching movies, studying movies, hanging out with people that all they're doing is watching movies and

studying. And yeah, I just was able to, through all that practice, you know, kind of come out with my own style a little bit. And definitely always trying to push the look and, you know, always have, feels like it's a smaller budget. And then we're trying to do something bigger with it. Even as the budgets get bigger, then the creative gets bigger too. So it always feels like you're trying to come up with creative ways to make that money work, even if you got a whole bunch of it.

Right. Yeah, the film school question always comes up, especially for students or prospective students, I should say, are people, you know. And I feel like there's always like half of the people usually online try to say like, oh, you don't need it. You can just watch my videos, you know, whatever it is, whatever they try to sell you. I sell a masterclass, but there is something that you don't get from even like really well-written books or, you know, J. Holden Shotcraft, I think, is probably one of the most important books to come out for filmmaking in decades. Because, I mean, it's just every piece of knowledge put together. But the one thing you don't get from something, even as great as that resource, is the stuff you learn on set working with people. I think the personal, I was just talking to another guy right before you. And we were talking about how, like, the interpersonal element doesn't often get taught, probably at AFI, but doesn't often get taught at many film schools.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think being from Chatton, I think we have a unique experience that we are like really close to L.A., but also 45 minutes to an hour away from L.A. So instead of some of the film schools that like seem to be a little bit more cutthroat and everybody's trying to like do better than they're. project. It feels like we had more of a cohesive kind of community. And I felt like we had some great instructors, definitely, the best, you know, Bill Dill and Johnny Jensen, ASC, both ASC guys, and complete polar opposites. Like one guy was super technical and like helped you figure out all the way down to like how much the photo sites are like filling up with specific types of

lights or whatever. And then the other Johnny is just kind of like, feel it from your heart, you know, like just fucking do it kind of guy. And it's like marrying those two together was great, but then also every weekend you're on set, you know, with your with the guys that you're there every you know, you're just kind of bouncing from project to project and the DPs are rotating. But like you worked on his project. So he works on your project, that kind of thing. He or she, you know, and it just like everybody's building and learning and growing. And I feel like, you know, the rising tide kind of raises all ships in that situation. And like, yeah, like I said, We're a little bit farther away. So I feel like it forces you into like that kind of community. There's not a lot of other sets for them people to be branching out to work on. So like you end up working together all the time. And, uh, yeah, it just, it was a great environment to learn and grow and try things.

Certainly I'm still paying for it and I'll probably be paying for it for a long time. So I don't know. My advice might be to like live next to the film school. Right. Just work on a couple things. work on the film projects during the weekends and then like eventually like you'll be in the class talking about the projects with the people or something you know just because you're on set every weekend but yeah we definitely had people like that or people from another school that just like they were always on set and once people realized they were an asset they were always there and they ended up you know just as good as all the rest of the guys that graduated with me so yeah well and just i think too like it sounds like with chapman but i think on some of those big schools I went to Arizona State so I didn't you know but I imagine that kind of I need to stand out behavior is antithetical to being on a team that's another thing about the military is they're like you know this is a team you are not an individual sure and I have I have thought often about the the similarities between like military groups not like the not like the army but just like you know um i don't know what you call it but the group of the group of

people that are one unit you know and how that yeah yeah and how that kind of applies to filmmaking often but uh anyway um the uh what was i going to say the chavin film school no oh yeah so you said uh both the teachers you know one was real technical one was real kind of uh holistic maybe or like uh emotional it yeah just feel it which we're in touch with your emotions that you know trying to tell sure like one of them we would would have like all the apps out and you know you're you're reading and getting measurements for everyone and the other ones like just trust you know it's all about what you feel what your eye trust your eye right which you should get a reading you know making sure

exposing properly which uh which one were you drawn to more uh I mean both of them actually you know like Bill who was the more technical one like I he was like my main teacher. I've had more classes specifically with him. And then Johnny, like, I ended up being a TA for one of his classes. So I ended up getting very close with both of them. And I think that's like I'm kind of right there in the middle. I have all that technical knowledge.

And then I like to just kind of feel it and, you know, light from the heart and let it come through there as opposed to like getting too specific about like my reading. and I'd rather just take one reading and kind of base everything on that than get too specific about making sure every single thing is where I needed to be on my light meter. Yeah, I mean, that's, I think I said I should put this on a T-shirt like two podcasts ago,

but I've said a hundred times that emotionally correct, usually trumps technically correct. Especially when it comes to narrative. Definitely. Yeah, I mean, emotional continuity, like always, I'll take that over lighting continuity any day, you know, I'd, I'm, I love to flip the key and sometimes

Crip Supervisor might flip out, like it's not coming from that direction. No, but it's emotional continuity. It feels, feels right. Yeah. They'll accept it. Well, and, but on the other side, you know, like I was talking about with all your commercial work, like, it's, it's so polished. Uh, what, what do you think kind of goes into making those, um, those types of ads and, and making sure the producers are happy and the clients happy. And, like, what are some of those maybe, I don't know if there's tricks necessarily, but things that seem to come up often around those ads that kind of every, all those clients kind of tend to want?

I mean, I think everybody is looking for it to look good and look slick. And then at the same time, you know, they want their face fully exposed and making sure that like they have really nice soft light that's hitting them. And it's not bringing out the blemishes. and all that stuff. So I think it's like pushing the envelope like you would in narrative and then just making sure there's something extra there

to expose in those places that you need. And then just kind of getting a good idea and being on the same page of the creative with the directors and the producers and trying to, from the very get-go, planting ideas and pushing things a little bit further. So it's not like a surprise on the day of. You told them like,

oh let's we're going to go silhouette at this point and you're not going to we're not going to see anybody's faces but it's going to come back later and we're going to identify who everybody is um so then like everybody's ready and prepared and excited about those risks that you're taking as opposed to like you show up on the day and try to do those silhouettes and you know it's a makeup ad and they don't you know they want to see the face you know so right certainly there's always a little bit of that i think i sometimes i feel like if you know if i don't get get asked to add a little bit more light sometime. I'm not like pushing myself hard enough. Sure. You know? Yeah. I've got to walk that line. They're always like, are you sure we can

see that? You're like, yeah, yeah, it's fine. The color is still figure it out. It's all there. It's all there. Don't worry. Yeah. Got to show them a log. You're like, yeah, see. Usually like always have a little bit of safety, whether it's in the Ludd or, you know, something like that, to pushing it down. So it feels a little bit dark here. It's probably just right, you know, isn't it? Yeah. There does seem to be a, uh, what I find to be a, um, nice push towards like more kind of contrasty, interesting ads, unless you know, a bounty ad is pretty much all white,

but, uh, you know, anything else or just some, some ads where it's like a car ad and it's just like the interior of the car, someone talking, like narrating. And then that's the whole thing, you know? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, like certainly television in general is just pushing and going darker and with all these great cameras that can capture so much information in the low light, like we're really pushing the boundaries and, you know, ads are trying to sell lifestyles and, you know, be a very specific thing, make people feel a certain way. And, you know, what better way to make you feel like a life of luxury than be sitting like in the nicest car with the nicest materials and the nicest looking images that you can, super soft lenses and good contrast, rich, like, you know, everything looks like a movie these days. And, you know, unfortunately, you might say that TV is better than movies right now just because, like, the stories and things they're trying to do, the things they're trying to tell are like not superhero movies.

and it's like more grounded and cooler storytelling is happening and then yeah like we are able to take more chances um you know there's always arguments now over like did they go too dark you know like are you trying to watch the game of thrones in the middle of the day with all your windows open and you can't see or like you know and is your internet connection five meg like this one of the biggest things i'm always talking about is like buy blu-rays like i'm telling you you're gonna your experience will be vastly different if you just watch whatever whatever the season eight of game of thrones on a blu-ray yeah no that's that's true and like there's the image by the time it gets to the television these days you have no clue like where it really is and then

TVs are doing all kinds of things inside of them to make the experience better but like driving this all crazy as filmmakers so yeah there's only like it's funny because they just don't always seem to assume that the TV manufacturers that the majority of the con and maybe there's a there's a study that this is true but like the majority of users are only watching their television for sports like why does motion smoothing come on it like default yeah i mean i guess it's because it's always around the super bowl right like that's the big tv tv selling time of year so yeah you know they're preparing for that i guess to show the big game on you know invest by you know that's that's something that AI should fix AI the TVs need AI where it knows what channel you're on sure and applies the correct you know or just what content you're what you know oh I see this is hockey we're going to put on sports mode or whatever motion smoothie oh this looks like a movie or a TV show we're putting on filmmaker road or whatever that's Samsung LG absolutely I mean I know I've had some TVs that have some form of that auto in there but like

you you can't trust those things to make the right decision so no Turn it all off. My, yeah. My TV has a game mode. It knows when the PlayStation's on, but I don't know what game mode is. I don't know. Like, is it, it says it has 120 hertz. Yeah, maybe the refresh rate goes up and at some point, you know, your eyes can't see

the difference anymore. And it's just that Sony is selling you something. Yeah. Well, and or if the content, you know, what's the point of 120 hertz refresh rate on a TV, if the content is shot at 24P Sure Like it's not No one's going to notice

You're just inventing frames And yeah Do you Do you find that Did you That was a strange question I'm like Somehow the caffeine has

Completely worn off in the last 15 minutes Caffeine shot going Dude Risa Just find some pre-workout Did you do you are you a um physical media person do like did you kind of learn on special features like i know a lot of people i certainly did sure yeah i mean like for the longest time i prided myself on

my big bookshelf full of dvds and you know i was loved when blockbuster was going out of business because it was like five for 20 bucks you know getting all the all my favorite films um and then slowly you know i didn't have cable at the time and then slowly like the streaming sources you know services got better and better and it got to the point where it was like I wasn't taking them out anymore and eventually I don't have it anymore but certainly like so many tips and tricks picking up like you know deacons talking about I think it was on prisoners like he's like oh I couldn't find a place to put a light so like I just put a news van there and opened the door and that's where the lights coming out oh that's pretty interesting way to do it so lots of cool things and so that's like

Now it's like documentaries, I guess, right? They have like a little documentary that goes with it or after the episode they talk about it or something like that. Yeah, I find that because I'm a giant special features nerd and I find that it can be disappointing those little like after show because instead of it being like an interesting doc, it's kind of just an ad for the show you just watched. Sure. Like there's, I can't remember what movie it was. I think it was like it wasn't. Moon. Maybe it was like a Guillermo del Toro. It was like, like, Guillermo has like two hour long, you know, but, uh, where they're just show, it's, it was probably early 2000s and it's just someone running around with a handicap. And you're watching like, department heads argue with each other. And I'm like, you would never, like Marvel would never put out. No. Special people at each other's throats about something. Well, they, they don't get to have that creative process in Marvel, right? comes from the top

there's only one person that it's Star Theater I did want it because obviously you're here to talk about the Beyond Belief show how did you get involved in that show and also where am I allowed

to stream it well right now you can really only stream it in Germany that makes sense because I was shit rolling unless you can get the link

from somebody sometimes they have a couple of episodes floating around here and there actually i think there might be four episodes on youtube of last seasons so basically how i got involved was i was working with friendly film works and um rara and laura are the producers that worked for that company and they met up with holger who was the showrunner executive producer of uh you know X Factor Beyond Belief and they at that point they're just talking about trying to get something going so we ended up like shooting

a pilot where we shot all the L.A. Jonathan Frakes stuff like I shot all that, all the standups, you know, all the throws between the episodes kind of thing and then they took that back and they shot the actual stories for that episode

in Germany. And they like, because the Germans just love X Factor is what they call it Beyond Belief. And Jonathan Frakes is like a superstar over there. So they were all about it. They did a bunch of focus groups and things and they said they loved it. But one of the biggest things that they missed was like the dubbed aspect of it and like being made in the U.S. Really? Into Germany. Yeah. I was like they really liked the cheesiness, I guess, or like what that kind

of did to the to the whole experience. And by not having that in the pilot, they felt like it was missing that so worked out well for us because that means all the stuff would be shot over here so they did end up picking that up um we shot what would have been the fifth season of beyond belief or like they were calling it the you know the first season of ex factor here in the us right at you know um for all the sag contracts or whatever you know you got to be very specific of what you call it um yeah so then it's like four short films shot throughout

eight episodes so like nine weeks it's a different short film every single dead jeez new location new cast new script and a lot of times

new director as well I know for my first the first season we had like I want to say 13 directors or something like that throughout the 80

short films um and then yeah so it's it's definitely a grind and every day trying to come up with something new and like try to feel like the old show and be creative at the same time um so then this past season and also there was a there was a german dp who had shot the stories in germany and he would come over and shoot like a week's worth of the stories um so the next on the following season they didn't end up uh hire me for the main season um but like flow got hung up in the german dp got hung up in customs and last minute they needed somebody and i had worked

with rena the director who was coming over to work with flow um and he was like yeah let's get nick and you know i came in and i worked for those that week um on this sixth season um yeah and it worked great you know turned out great so how many uh you might have already said it but i blacked out what how many of those little shorts did you end up shooting so for the i got hung up on that 80 number yeah it was uh it was four 40 total i shot 32 the first season and then i shot pete this past season and uh eddie salerno shot the other 32 so what does pre-production look on 30 or do you just have like one lighting package and show up and go like i'll figure it out when I get there.

Well, it's a little bit of that, but we did have one package for the entire season. I know on the first or like the fifth season, I guess, we tried to get as much done as we could beforehand. So we were having like a lot of meetings where we would kind of go through and have like a mini production meeting and like a virtual scout. And we would talk with as much as we could. and like it was basically asking the directors to be prepped like you know months and months in advance of their episodes um and some were able to get a bunch of information and then like

I feel like the first month or so like we we were really solid and then like there started to be things that were still getting figured out for for the additional episodes whether it was script changes location changes things like that but you know there's still things that are getting figured out along the way. So like that first two weeks, we had like a very specific play in and then it would start to become more and more general and be based on like some directors, they would come into town and they'd be coming from Germany and they'd get into town and give me a call and we'd hang out all weekend and we'd go in and we'd be super planned. And then other ones were like on set all the way up until the day before we were shooting.

and you know like we did a lot of figuring it out on the go and it just was a lot of yeah like filmmaking boot camp here's the issues how are we gonna how we're gonna solve this problem today this was this was our plan but we're here at a different time or it's raining or something's happening so we need to do something completely different you know what's your idea is go you know and that's every day something new and yeah that it does sound you know I was talking to Bob Yeoman who shot

all Wes Anderson stuff and he was saying that Wes really likes to have it feel like a film school set you know like very few people on Asteroid City they almost had no film lights like they were just you know that and I imagine that was kind of a similar vibe

you're shooting 32 in one case fucking short films and you're just like I figured out go sure no I mean we we definitely use lighting as much as possible and we were lucky that we were able to like kind of go into every set with a with a plan of some sort and and get it going but certainly there was always something new that you weren't ever thinking of that like maybe if it was just

that one short that you were shooting you know you might have caught that but since it's you know this is the fifth one this week nobody was paying attention to the fact that the sun was going to set at that time or like we were they had scheduled it this way or that you know so how do you keep that kind of energy because you're shooting those all consecutively right like there's not really too many breaks how do you keep that how do you keep I mean at least that's nice

how do you keep that like energy up and keep attempting to stake and says I know Oren Sauffer told me that you one thing you learned on the creator was you can only plan for about three weeks three four weeks and then after that it's just you know you try to keep the thing rolling but it's up to God at that point

sure well That makes me feel better because I'm like, man, is every, is this like this for everybody? Apparently, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a lot of information to take in. You know, I think it's just we're kind of like guns for punishment. The people, you know, me anyway, like this is something that I love to do. I love telling stories, love solving problems. So it's kind of like a dream every day.

Got to wake up and solve something new. I certainly can be frustrating at times. But, you know, we're here telling stories and, you know, creating cool things. And, like, narrative is always fun, you know, and it's always fun to push the boundaries and try to come up with new ways to tell stories. So that and, you know, like, we were kind of open to letting the crew work on other projects since it was so long. And, you know, there would be definitely, like, different budgets that were coming through. So when the crew is rotating out, then you'd have like maybe a new operator or a new gaffer that you're working with and like, we're doing something a little bit different than we were doing

last week because, you know, they're just bringing fresh eyes to it in something new. So like just the constant changing, constant new directors that you're working with, new actors, new cast, just new location just gives you more inspiration and, you know, right. Come up with how we're going to do it today. and like this is the exact same shot, the exact same idea, but let's figure out a way to do it differently. So we're telling the same story,

but not doing exactly what we did on episode 39 or whatever. Right. So what was, because, you know, the original show, I certainly loved the original show, but that we look at it now as potentially being cheesy. You know, obviously Jonathan Frakes doing those standups is like a meme at this point. Or he had, nope, we made it, whatever.

But I think that lighting, especially that hard, you know like purple backlight and just that all that like atmosphere diffusion and stuff is more indicative of the time not necessarily like low budget that was actually probably a decent budget at the time did you guys were you attempting to like kind of pay homage to that or were you doing your own thing or what was kind of the um amalgam of those two ideas yeah i think it was a little bit of both we wanted to keep a lot of the same elements of the original show but the original show is you know just like shot on 16 millimeter they had probably two days for every episode they had like cranes and you know big dollies and all these things that we weren't just going to have weren't going to have

and they just had a budget and support that we would have never gotten um so it was a little bit of like let's keep the feeling and the idea of the old show let's do everything we can to like knock the edge off of the modern look let's use vintage lens is you know nice Alexa camera we only did 2K at some point we were talking about like running it all through a VCR or something like that to just like take it down even further because a lot of the you know a lot of the old show and being shown now you know like the colors and the exposure is nowhere near what a modern TV show would be they think they did we dropped that idea and kind of just kept the look that we had with the Alexa and like the standard speeds And then this previous here, we used the black magic. So, yeah, it was basically, like, we, like, they did a lot of, like, moving masters. So we tried to, you know, have a steady cam operator or something like that to kind of help create that feeling. A lot of times that would be something that we would push the directors to kind of come up with is to figure out a way that we could do, like, a big move through and cover a bunch of the scene with that and then pick up.

that extra coverage that they needed to get through it and that could kind of like help us feel big budget but you know do it faster and at the budget that we were really at and then certainly once we got to the jonathan freaks stuff it was like trying to be as much like jonathan freaks the old the old look as we could so we were you know getting our blue you know lecos coming in through all the windows and as much haze as we could and Certainly, like, Jonathan Frakes would always look at me. He'd be like, you need more Hayes, really? You know, I was like, this is your show. This is the look, man, you know? And he loved it. But he was a trooper. He was like, always in there smiling, have a good time.

I know during, like, the pilot, we needed to have, like, AC in there. And it was just not really working so well. And he was just, like, smoking and joking and having a great time with the crew. And I felt like it was his attitude that kind of, like, got everybody. you through without being just like super miserable the whole time because you know everybody was 900 degrees for that time so certainly right when we came back they had like it was cold because they had so much uh stopped being pumped into it um we did have that issue again well and i imagine too like freaks is an incredibly accomplished director in his own right you know he's

obviously directed uh clock stoppers no um but you know all you know us that's like That got talked about a lot on set. Really? Yeah. I know, like, one of the ACs was, like, a big fan of clockstoppers, so he would always bring it up. And, like, yeah, no, it got talked about quite a bit. And certainly, like, at some point, you know, Jonathan Frakes was, like, pushed the Dolly grip off the Dolly. And he was, like, playing around and pushing the Dolly.

So he was just, like, a good all-around guy. And, you know, he knew who to joke around with and who to give, like, extra appreciation to, you know, and like he's always ribbing the producers and giving them a hard time and then pumping up you know whatever PA was close by so you know he really helped like bring a great attitude toward back to the set and that was like you know week eight or nine so you know it was certainly like an infusion of more energy right when he gets in and he's just nailing it and he's got these big long blocks and he's just rolling through it and having a good time um makes everybody else kind of want to do better work and Yeah. Well, you kind of answered it there, but I'll push a little further if you have it. Him being a director and clearly like taking a leadership role in some degree on the show. Was there anything you kind of learned from him that you might take on it as a department head, you know, into your next gigs beyond just like being the kind of guy that pays attention to the crew and make sure it's in good mood? Yeah, I mean, I think he just attacked everything with positivity and, you know, did everything he could to do his best and elevate the people around him in a positive way. Even maybe when things were going as smoothly as possible, he's still, while he might be arguing with somebody over here, he's still having fun with somebody on this side and still letting everybody else have that same feeling while they're fixing whatever drama needs to be fixed at the same time.

So I think that's something that I learned is just kind of like trying to keep yourself composed and like always keep us driving forward towards the goal like no matter what's trying to get in our way. Yeah. What, you mentioned that you switched from the Alexa with the, what did you say, classic? The, not the class.

It was standards or super standards. Super speeds. Super speeds. What was the shooting? You said it was a black magic 12K. What, same lenses? um different lenses we had like easy zooms we had um some like a sigma set of lenses like pl lenses and then like a longer canon like 30 to 300 zoom um so yeah it was quite a different package

um but they went through like ended up getting like a sponsorship from black magic and uh um all these things that like helped out to bring that camera in and i wasn't as much a part of the selection there um i did get like when i did come in eddie had done all these tests he had all kinds of ways that like he wanted to overexpose and really get the most out of the cameras um so yeah i just kind of like read his little bible that he sent me when i was coming in and all the all the technical notes and did my best to take all that with me and um you know implement them as as as much as possible. So what,

what were some of those tips? Because they actually sent me a 12k to review. And I couldn't really review it because I just, you turn it on. You're like, wow, that looks really nice. And that was like the best I had.

Like I can't write it looks really nice. It's not a review. That's a bad article, you know? Sure. I mean, it did a great job. I mean,

um, you know, we didn't, I never really, I, coming from the Alexa going to it, definitely like the range. seemed to be there. They did a good job capturing it. We were usually trying to overexposed one or two stops.

Eddie had created like two different luts, one with a like a one stop push and one with a two stop push. So like as we were getting darker, we were trying to keep giving the sensor as much light, but be monitoring and like everybody's seeing something that's much darker so that we know that there's plenty of information for the colorist. but like on set we're not looking at it and going oh man that's too bright right and certainly like that was all eddie was always pushing like let's more light more light let's give it more light so anything we could do um he was always like looking at the waveform monitor getting like taking everything all the way up to where it like would almost would be clipping and then bring it back just a little bit so that you have is the fattest negative that you could going into um Post-production. Were you shooting B-Raw? Um, yes. Yeah.

I think it was like 8 to 1, like bit rate. Yeah. I find that's good enough. Yeah. Or even 12 in some cases. And like we, we could have shot 12K. I think we generally shot 8K to try to keep the, you know, file size is down.

The file size is down. Every now and then, And it would be like really dark and we didn't feel like we had enough light. One of the tricks we would have would be like, you know, put it in 12K. And then like, I guess that would make your grain a little bit smaller. So then when we came back into post, everything's getting smaller. So like it was a little bit more grainy, but you could perceptibly feel it a little bit less because, you know, we were kind of making it much smaller. Yeah, that's actually something like when the arguments about, I think these, these have started to go by the wayside.

storage is a lot cheaper and most cameras shoot 4K, but especially in 4K and even 8K was coming out specifically 4K. Everyone was like, well, there's no need for it. Everything's in 1080 anyway. And, but exactly what you said, like the noise pattern when it's been down, just gets averaged out. Yeah. Especially like, especially on a larger sensor.

I know the 12K is just a not just, but it's a crop sensor. But either way, like higher resolutions. When displayed will give you a lower noise pattern generally. Yeah, absolutely. And I thought that was a really creative way that, like, Eddie had come up with to get around that. So, yeah, you know, when he first said, I was like, what? And then I was like, oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense. You're right.

You know, it's going to go away by the time they've brought it back to what it needs to be. And then, yeah, I'm sure, like, the colorist was softening it and blurring it even further when they got into post because that was the look, right? they're trying to knock it down and get it back into this world of millimeter film, you know, transfer to. So you guys, were you guys doing like a like a film print emulation or was it just more kind of the vibe less than the literal aesthetic? I think both of our luts had, you know, like origins with some type of emulation. I know that like we used started with like the, there's like a Kodak Lut in Resolve. We kind of started with that as a base the first year.

I'm not sure kind of where Eddie started when he created the left of the second season. But that's where we started in the first season. Yeah. You had mentioned having one lighting package going through all of it. What was that package and how did it tend to get used? Like, you know, were you just, you know, was it like big soft source for everything? Or was, you know, were you a lot of LEDs? lot of tongues, so what were you guys up to?

Sure. Yeah, I mean, we, um, I know for the first season, we had like a 4K and an M18, um, and like a bunch of light mats. So it would kind of always be like putting that 4K out of a window, getting that coming through somewhere. Um, and then the M18 is picking something else up or coming through a different window, different character. And then we would just taking those light mats and putting them.

rigging them somewhere in the frame to kind of like pick a location up or if we have like a following shot the locations you know the light mats are always easy to like rig but tuck away so yeah we did we had those you know had lots of astere tubes I think like when you're trying to be fast certainly like astere tubes maybe not the like the quality of light that you want but there don't have to run any cable we can get it up there and you can get up there right now and there put a little honey crate on it or something. And now it's nice and controlled and we're only hitting where we need to be. So it was a lot of actually astirotubes and magnets or something just getting stuck up real quick down and dirty. Every single day. I wish I had any other people working on this podcast because there's a few things like this that I want. But one of them is to just go through all of them and cut out the mention. not like remove but cut out the mention of the of the of the stereotypes because every single

DP is like yeah those things saves my life at one point sure I mean and they have like they're just a great tool and you know they came on the scene and like started off with them in music videos and it was like you could just do all of these effects rebuilt like they the app just always like had something extra to it and worked well from the beginning and had like interesting pixel-controlled effects that didn't look as boxed. It's like some of these other lights did. So, yeah, the esteratubes have just been great. They have, they actually over here, they sent me, they have these things called

the hydro panels. Have you heard of those? I haven't. They're like this big. I don't know what that is, like maybe 10 inches. Yeah. And they have. They link together.

Yeah, you can link them together. and they have like magnetic diffusion fronts that you can swap out and stuff and same app, same everything and those are actually pretty I'm trying to write a review for those because the tube, for some reason the tubes feel like they have more utility,

but they can't. Like they're much bigger than the little bricks, but like the, it's something fabulous because I feel like we're so used to like Kino tubes especially that our brains are just wired to accept that that's the kind of light we want. Whereas the brick lights almost feel like an LED panel,

which we instinctively want to soften more. Sure. Or put, you know, make bigger. Yeah. Well, I mean, one of them's 10 inches and one of them's four inches or four feet. So you definitely have a huge difference in the softness and the quality already. I feel like one of the biggest issues with a smaller light is like, am I going to pull this out, get it all set up,

and I'm going to be just not enough, right? And so then I end up grabbing that four foot of stare at you. because I know, like, I can bring it down to one percent and get it closer to that level if I need it. But if I bring out this little guy and it's not enough, I'm going to have to take more time to go get that guy again. But at the same time, like, just having all these little lights that are attached to, you know, apps and magnetized and you can, like, stuff it under a monitor and, like, put it on all these places and be able to dial it on the fly or, like, put it on, you know, the camera and, like, it's pushing in. and you're like dialing it down in the app as they're pushing it in and the level's staying the same.

It's just lots of things that you're capable to do these days with lights and things like that out of the box that come with an app that you don't need to have a board op and a programmer and somebody that's going to take extra time to get that rigged into the board correctly and then have full control. You can down and dirty, pull it out,

do it on your app. Yeah, the, I mean, the asserators. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the second you don't have Wi-fire or an iPad dies, you're like, well, doing it manually. The, I mean, one thing that I love about, the hydrop panels do it, I don't, I assume the tubes do it, but just like being able to put X, Y coordinates in stuff. So you can just like meter the, you know, the incoming window light and then just change all the lights to that. Sure. I want to, like, I will, unless I'm forced to, I don't think I ever want to work on a set where I either don't have lights that have an app or.

can't all be wireless DMXed into like that rat pack with Centenna or whatever it is the main iPad app because it's just so fucking convenient and just setting up a light and then never having to bring it back down to fiddle that oh god 100% it's great I mean like we were just on set recently we had a celebrity and like we weren't going to get time to make adjustments so you know we were able to hook all that stuff up and the gaffer is standing right next to me at the monitor and you know we can't run out there to take a meeting but reading but we have the waveform up and we're like oh yeah you a little more on the background a little less on his face there and he's dialing it all in and you know while the director is out there talking and everything is happening and we're not interrupting or being a distraction but we're getting to make these adjustments and and do it on the fly at the same time you'll also have times where you're whatever for whatever reason there's ghost and machines and you got like six lights and you're like just turn them on and you know something's going on with the app and and they weren't.

And it's like, can we just walk out to them and click them on? But then all the settings won't be the same. Yeah. Everybody, just give me five more minutes. Yeah. It is, it is funny that like, I guess, yeah, the, the where you spend the time has just shifted, right? Because before it was, you'd flick on the, the mole beam or whatever.

And then you spend half an hour just, like, moving in diffusion panels and, like, scrimms and stuff and kind of, you know, trying to take it off the wall. Now, you know, you just in Da Vinci, throw a window on whatever that wall was. Don't need to put that down, you know, whatever. But you're right. Like the second the app dies or whatever, you're like, well, I forgot how to do it the real way. Exactly. Like, why is it taking so long? So, but most of the time it works really well. I mean, feel like, especially when we're actually given the time and they have like a prep day to get everything looked up into the app as opposed to like we're trying to light it program it and do it all together and you know unfortunately i've

had plenty of budgets where we're we're doing all that stuff at the same time and that definitely makes it more chaotic and things start failing and then you know it's a little bit more crazy but it is you get it figured out it is funny how i i've never been on a set that has shot film, but everyone always talks about how everyone, like, slows down, you know, because you have to. And I'm always wondering, like, how can we instill that in digital sets, so to speak? Because, like, it's crazy that you show up and, because I've had this happen plenty of times where, like, you're getting the first light, like, the first out of maybe six lights set up. And the director, whoever, you know, who producers, like, how much longer is

this going to take and you're like dude what i can't i can't remember i think it was i was talking to someone or maybe it was a special feature that i was watching and they were like you know they're spending 40 minutes laying a cable and then everyone's just sitting around looking at actors going like why is this taking song you're like the cable got 40 minutes it's like but it does work the reverse way yeah i mean they expect it just takes time to new things you know like and if you want to do it right it takes it takes time so you the uh i think one one thing like whenever you have bigger talent on set i feel like you have a similar kind of effect um i think it's just like of people slowing down or going too fast like being more um diligent not necessarily

slowing down i i guess when i when you said slowing down i thought it was like when people i feel like when film comes out people like are more on top of their game yeah yeah yeah Oh, we can only do this twice. And it costs, it costs money every time we hit that record button and, like, start, you hear those, you know, reels rolling versus, like, on digital, you can push the button and just, and roll forever. Right. And I think there's certain type of films that, like, maybe a comedy or something where you want to not being limited to your 1,000 foot mag or whatever it is. And you want to just give them the freedom to roll. And then there's other times when you want to control and you, you don't need.

the extra and you go out there and you get very specifically what you need um and i you know usually i think those come out better when the more planning and more specific you are the better it comes out but sometimes you go out there and throw the plan out the window and wing it and get something even better just kind of reacting to to what's actually happening so yeah what uh i saw on your instagram you you had shot a movie relatively was i keep trying to say hell or high water that doesn't sound right that's a don't happen to a fury there you go

hell or high water is a TV show I think or something but what was what was that is a movie what was that one about I didn't even look it up I just saw that right before we started talking about what's that about

and like it was a horror film because I know you've done some of them it's like a horror thriller kind of thing it's basically it's kind of like there was another woman in the Garden of Eve

before Eve. It's kind of like cast out and then there's like a modern recreation of like Eve, Adam and Eve and he she's coming back to get him in this modern world and it's kind of like he's the leader of a mental facility and he's kind of like watching over all these people and like slowly they all start to go a little more crazy and kill each other and he starts getting blamed and it just kind of like slowly slips into pandemonium and gets even crazier and crazier so it was a cool project to be a part of we like got hooked up with the Panavision DXL and like some really cool ultra speed lenses and they really threw everything in and supported us and like kind of gave us the whole package of like extra batteries, you know,

zooms like fun diopters with like whole. drilled in the middle of them so that we could do like these funky effects of people like coming in and out of consciousness or like seeing a like you know some type of visual like hallucination and you know just kind of like throwing things off a little bit so that was a lot of fun it was like a 22 day shoot where we had like 30 to 30 locations or something like that geez it was crazy but we got it done and got it all in the can and they're working on it right now. So all the cuts I've seen have been pretty interesting. So hopefully we'll have something soon to to show.

Nice. When was that come out probably next year? Yeah. And I think they have like a sales trailer and they're trying to sell it. So I think that'll, you know, they wanted to have it out like December of last year but you know everything kind of slips and so I think in the next couple months I have that coming out and then I did I shot another feature after that called restitution with ninth house films um really excited about that one as well I've just kind of heard recently that they had their first cut done and everybody was really excited so I'm hoping I get to see that that was like another one that was super short and it was just kind of like we would run like 10 minute takes and it was just the majority of the film was a guy like tied to the

tied to a chair and it was like a woman that was getting like revenge on him and basically like kind of torturing him for most of the movie so it was a short shooting schedule but it worked out because you know it was mainly me figuring out different ways to like cover her walking around him doing crazy stuff and I like really got to like play with the camera and the performers the actors were so good and just able to like do these stunts over and over and over again because they were like already stunt people before they were like oh that's nice to be creative actors so they just like they were always hitting it and i was handheld and just kind of like felt like i was always getting to the right spots and i just felt like everything was working out perfectly and

we'd have these 10 minute takes but like i was like man you could use probably that one take if you wanted to and get through this whole scene so hell yeah i'm excited to see that how that one comes We shut it out in, like, to hatch a pee, like, on the side of a mountain. So, like, definitely, like, all this cartage that's happening in this really beautiful location. So I'm really interested to see how that one comes out. I did want to know before we wrapped up. Just Googling you, I saw earlier, like a couple weeks ago, you headed an advanced cinema workshop. Is it advanced cinematography workshop?

Or was that someone else that shares your name? Maybe. I definitely have done some, like, teaching of things. Oh, that was last year. I know how numbers work. February of 2023. Yeah, so I actually have a friend that's a teacher at a private school. And, like, lots of big, named people have their kids there,

and they have, like, a TV student. studio and that they can like take as an elective course. So yeah, he brought me in there and like would have basically like a filmmaking workshop with various age kids from like middle school to high school. We would do like different types of light a lighting workshop or we like would go through look at some of my work show like the older kids like, oh, I went to Chapman. This is kind of like some things I did to apply. this is like what I wrote about or whatever and then like tailor it to each specific

class so yeah it's kind of interesting I'm actually supposed to do it again in a couple of weeks here at the same school so well I'm right I'm the reason I wanted to bring it up a I mean it's just cool but B I'm always fascinated to know what younger students or younger filmmakers are interested in both visually and and also like what their kind of main focus is as creators because it's got to be different from I think we're roughly the same age like when we were kids and and you know when our the generation before us was probably far more interested in a Scorsese like film versus you know me which I was much more into like a Matrix or a Med and Black type film you know so yeah what are they

kind of talk about what are they interested what's what excites them well I mean they are just like inundated with video and and like platforms at a young age so like you have some kids that are in there and they have their own YouTube channels and like they're very specific like they're trying to make short films that look specifically like other films and then you have other kids that like they want to be an influencer and like that's what they're paid and they're trying to capture that kind of stuff um so i think it's you know more about them creating their own channel and creating their own content than like going off and being on a film set or like working on a big movie at least a lot of these kids there are like you know maybe three or four

in every class that you're like they're like I'm going to film school and this is my plan you know but a lot of them you know were just in the class because they thought it was fun and they weren't necessarily looking to be a filmmaker or grow up to do that but sure so it's all the pins you know well and it's you know it's uh we're painting a wide brush with a small uh selection of students but uh i i figured it would it is interesting because like i feel like most people who get into creative fields besides acting don't want to be as some people say perceived you know i certainly don't love being in front of the camera i don't mind it i mean i was in theater school like theater in high school and shit like i don't mind acting but

that's not my I don't want people to be looking at me but it does feel like now especially because YouTube especially but you know TikTok whatever is so personality based that that does if you're raised with that maybe that is creating like a whole generation of people who are far more outgoing just a general you know like the nerds like it's cooler to be a nerd now than it ever was for sure yeah I mean that's that's definitely the culture these days. They, you know, they're making fun of the cool kids. Right. Yeah, I think that they're they're just used to it and they're inundated from an early age and, you know, like they have friends that every day and they're standing in front of their

computer and trying to be an influencer, you know, everybody, everybody wants to be shame. It's like, you know, these days. It feels like, you know, they, I want to be selling this product and be sponsored and being all this stuff and it feels like a lot of the kids in the classes are saying those kind of things either that or it's like talking about whatever the critically acclaimed films are and you know I'm like I don't think you guys really like that movie as much interesting yeah I'm I like that was in film school I didn't like all that stuff so I don't know every every kid who it because I went to college in 2008 and every kid who went Oh, yeah, my favorite movie is generally

Citizen Kane. I'm like, no, it fucking isn't. No, it is. You read that you read it supposed to be. Right. Like, maybe you liked one thing that they did, but like nobody likes to watch that movie anymore. I don't think. No. I mean, it's, yeah, until you're older. See where cool things came from

like camera tricks. And that's interesting that that's the first time that they did it. But like, no, I can't say that I've ever like, been able to sit through the entire thing without like making myself like you're going to sit through this we're going to see rosebud and not fall asleep that's right the it is interesting though you'd mention it and i and i've been thinking about that for a while

a lot of youtube is so highly polished especially when they get floated you know free gear and stuff free lenses cameras whatever but at the end of the day they're just selling stuff you know it's a lot of it might be couched in a review or whatever but like at the end of the day that's Everyone is very, very excited now to sell products. I mean, that's, that's a, that's a different thing now. Like personally, making commercials is cool. But to personally be like, hi, my name's Kenny and I'm selling you this light is like kind of interesting to me, a little foreign. Yeah, I mean, it's everybody wants to be the influencer and now like, you know, they'll, if you put your code up, they'll give you 10% off kind of thing.

So it's like there's, I know, like, Lynn's baby, they, you know, you can be a ambassador or something, but really all that means is like you're going to take a bunch of pictures and post them on their website, you know, and they'll give you a tipson off. But like it seems like a lot of work, you know, it's only giving them a bunch of photos. But I guess at the end of the day, it's exposure, it's, you know, practice, those kinds of things. But I'd rather like be hired to shoot those photos than. Yeah. And you actually make money when you're hired. Right. But it's, you know, it's a different, I think like it's just a different way of looking. I know like I've seen plenty of people that only have done the YouTube and or only are posting on their own Instagram channels and they're, they start off at a certain level and then you can watch them throughout the years just getting better and better and better. And like with the technology and the access that we have to things these days, it's like the only reason that it doesn't look good is because you're not taking the two. time to figure out why. I mean, like, everybody has a phone in their pocket that looks better than, you know, a 5B or whatever when that was revolutionizing the game. So now, like, everybody has access to that in their pocket and they, like, cinema mode, like, oh, I can shoot log on my iPhone. Like, there's technology available to everybody. I know a plenty of people have bemoaned the idea of people saying, like, oh, if you're just getting started, just shoot on your phone. And everyone always goes like, well, you just don't get it. That's not enough. No. It's like, dude, that new iPhone, I'm not an Apple fan. I don't own. I have one iPad. But I don't, it's very old. I don't like Apple that much. But they really have knocked it out of the park with combined with the Black Magic camera app. That is a perfectly reasonable camera to shoot anything on.

for, you know, especially if you're starting out. Sure. I mean, I have commercials that I'm shooting with running around with the Alexa and shooting that. And the director is like right over my shoulder with his new iPhone and he's shooting stuff. And they're cutting the stuff in together. I mean, it's not like they're not trying to cut back and forth in a conversation and make you feel like it's the same thing. It's like a, you know, a video that has all types of videos in it. So you'll just accept that the video drops down a little.

bit of the quality here for this moment because you just watched three other testimonial videos that were created on somebody's iPhone edited with this all together. So like just the expectation of the viewer allows for so much more these days. Like we're going to accept all that stuff. People will accept bad video long before a little except like bad audio, right? 100%. So you can shoot it with whatever you want as long as like people can get the gist of it. They're going to enjoy it. You know, like if it's good, it doesn't matter if you shoot it on your phone or your or you know DSLR or film or whatever yeah we're going to enjoy it and they're going to watch it so well and and that new iPhone shoots uh pro res raw

which is nuts like yeah i don't know how you're supposed to get it out of there with the USB 2 speeds out of the port but that's another conversation it's crazy you can go in and with the lidar like you can be shooting video and shoot the focus and it autofocuses and it changes it and does it the way you don't wanted to and then you go back later and you can change the focus back to what you wanted it to be like now obviously it's their masking right that's happening it's not you're not changing the physical lens focus but like you can make a big difference right like i have a little like the i got a glow forge so i have like a little store where i make slates and christmas ornaments and customized slates for movies and things and uh the end basically like

I don't know, I got much, I lost my chain of thought there. Where does I go with that? Making stuff with the iPhone. Rores Raw. The low forges are cool. Yeah, no, it is cool. No, the focus thing. Oh, sure.

Like me putting the video, a video of me putting an ornament onto a tree or something and it rat focused to an ornament. an ornament that was back on the back of the tree and then came back to my hand and I was able to go through change the focus to keep it all on the ornament that I wanted it to be on and it's just crazy what you can do in the phone um you know then that's that's coming right all that information all that technology is slowly but surely coming into um the to our area like I don't know if you ever use like a ronin 4d or anything i'd never used one but i've certainly seen them i mean they have some crazy technology that's in there they have like the lydar on top of you can put lydar on

top of the camera that makes any lens autofocus right you can select people in the frame and they walk around and the the gimbal will pan and follow them i mean it's just there's lots of technology that's coming that is just making it's so much easier to create things um well even even the selective focus thing as well because do you remember the i think it was called the lightro camera yeah it's like like car thing yeah no it had like 40 lenses on it or something and it would it would record essentially like the entire space in 3d from it was an enormous box i mean it looked bigger than like um football or you know like sports box lenses bigger than that it was huge they had it and it was a and it was a

NAB in like 2012 or something. And they were like, you're going to be able to film and select focus later. And everyone was like, this is crazy. This is going to change the game. And then they went out of business. And now you can do it on an iPhone. And it was like, it was like a billion dollar project. It was nuts.

Yeah. Well, it's like, that's just the beginning, right? So it didn't work out for them. But now the technology is here to support it. And yeah, it's, it's wild. What you can do on these phones, man. Like, so cool. Yeah.

Pushing the boundaries. and I'm sure like an Android phone probably always does it first but I definitely am on iPhone boy and so like I'll take it once they get it figured out and fix so it works every time. Yeah the yeah I got a

pixel which does not have amazing I mean it looks the video looks good but the features are not anywhere close once Black Magic makes a Android app will be good we can't send you any pictures I know that's Apple's I know what who I had

Who I'm, like, dragging stuff into my computer messages with. Like, specific gaffers are like, get it in there. I always try to send it to them. It always fails. Like, that's Apple's fault. Once they incorporate RCS will be in better shape. I think they're doing that later in there. We've got a little over, so I'll let you go.

But it was really great talking you, man. When those other two films, you know, come back out. We'll have you back. Once I can see them. We'll talk about that. Yeah. That'd be great. Yeah.

I appreciate you having me. It was fun. listening to this one and your orange software one that should be pretty cool too yeah that's uh tomorrow oh awesome so when when people listen to this

it'll be like weeks ago but it does for us it comes out tomorrow well that's exciting i'm i'm excited to hear what he says about the the FX3 i know that like it's a great little camera and like it obviously they've done some amazing things with it so yeah i would say as a primer to this is for you and for anyone listening. As a primer to that podcast, the one I did, listen to the Shotcraft episode,

he and Greg Frazier did. Because I listened to that basically, it's like two hours long. I listened to that to know what not to ask. A little secret that I have is I just listen to everyone else's podcasts and then I don't address that or follow up. You know, because who wants to listen it's like your favorite DP and then you listen to three podcasts in a row and you're like it's the same thing three times it's like not here there you go it's also it's gonna be different um awesome man well like I said I'll let you go and thanks again for chatting with me absolutely I appreciate it look forward to it hope to talk to you again see it frame and references an owlbot 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 me a coffee. It's always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening.