Frame & Reference Podcast - 139: "Shotcraft" w/ Jay Holben

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Today I'm thrilled to have my friend Jay Holben back to talk about his new book Shotcraft. A former cinematographer, Jay is an author of three books on cinematography, a contributing technical editor for American Cinematographer Magazine, faculty instructor for Global Cinematography Institute and international lecturer, an Associate member of the ASC and the chair/co-chair of several of the ASC Motion Imaging Technology Council Committees. He is also the author of the highly lauded independent lighting manual: A Shot in the Dark: A Creative DIY Guide to Digital Video Lighting on (Almost) No Budget and the compilation of a decade of cinematographic journalism in Behind the Lens: Dispatches from the Cinematographic Trenches and most recently the exhaustive The Cine Lens Manual: The Definitive Filmmaker’s Guide to the Design, Implementation and History of Cinema Optics. In his more than 30 years in the motion picture business, Holben has, professionally, embodied every major role in production and post on a film set with the exceptions of makeup/hair, craft service, composer, stunt performer and production assistant. 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 139 with my good friend, Jay Holbin, author of Shotcraft. Enjoy. have you been re the last time we we spoke was probably sine gear for a brief moment that could be um it was a bit of a blur and most of them are yeah um this is a tough year bad and uh you know our business shut down for eight months and uh yeah and it is still sort of in this weird limbo so it feels like covid all over again yeah i i'm lucky in that the majority

of my work right now is just like corporate stuff or like web ads so they're still shooting so I'm still getting some work but it's just like everyone I talk to who's a little more advanced in their career than me is just like sitting on their thumbs and it's not great

no no it's brutal and getting a little older in my career and it's it just feels like several years I'm just a major step back and major loss. So it's a, it's, yeah, it's rough. Yeah, the, I saw a clip from the cinematography salon where you guys were talking

about like what to do when you're not working. Yeah. And, uh, it kind of made me think because like, I think of you and probably David Mullen as don't get too crazy, but probably two of them most important like educators right now in the field. Like, David is just on every forum answering questions 24 hours a day. No.

And I have asked him about this on multiple occasions. Like, how do you get it? I don't get it. I actually, I think he's got like a whole team somewhere in the way that just answer things for him. It's the only way. Yeah. But what do you do to learn?

Because like you're, you've written for. how many magazines like, you know, so many outlets, like at this point, what do you, where do you learn? Or are you just kind of like refining smaller things? Oh, I'm always learning something new. There's always some sort of challenge and new understanding. Last year, it was really diving deep into high dynamic range and understanding the aspects of that, understanding limitations of, you know, emissive displays, understanding limitations of

laser displays going through intense testing to not only understand how we utilize idemic range, but how we see HDR. And, you know, even personally, a real frustration with a set that I bought to finally be able to watch it at home. And after multiple conversations with the manufacturer and their tech support, dealing with the VP of tech

for the manufacturer. It determined that I had a bad monitor. Oh, cool. And then it wound up, you know, scrapping it and getting another. But yeah, you know, I'm always studying and always learning. And for eight years, it was about lenses. You know, I try to listen to educational things and read as much as I possibly can. Yeah. I don't do well with being idle.

Yeah, me neither. I think one of the great, I don't want to call it joys, but when my girlfriend moved in with me like four years ago, and so that means I got to turn this bedroom into an office. And I've really come to appreciate people like David Lynch or like, what's a? name, Aaron Draplin or or even Adam Savage, where like they really focus on having what Lynch calls a setup, just having the place for you to exist and like, what author was it? I think there was an author who was like, if you want to get two hours of writing in, you need like six hours of uninterrupted time. And I've really started to appreciate that. Oh, we lost your audio there.

It's good. I think it's the Zoom like noise cancellation like if I start talking it kills ears yeah it could be I also have this weird thing where I have to bounce

back and forth between the two mics on a constant basis or I shoot monk or something weird I'm a huge Adam Savage fan I think that what he does and what he does not only for physics and for science and for education

is amazing and he makes it fun and he makes it interesting. I don't really know David Litch is set up in the middle guy that you mentioned. I don't know who that is. Jeez, why am I blanking out of his name somebody? I just got back from the gym. So I'm like, Aaron Draplin. Aaron Draplin's a designer.

And he worked pretty heavily in the snowboard field. And much later in life, I realized all the design stuff I loved about snowboarding, down to like the magnet. He worked at Snowboarder magazine. All came from him. so I was like oh that's cool but he has the same thing where it's like all about kind of like having your space and and just iterating and letting things inspire you like he'll go what he calls junkin which is just to go to like you know not junkyards but um garage sales or whatever and just trying to find little little thing like he has this appreciation that I that I really appreciate where if you like flip a cardboard box over there's like a logo from the company that made the card he's like someone had to make that and that you Usually is, and it has to be very, it has to get the point across. It doesn't need to be fancy.

Like, that's, that's good design versus there's a lot of like over, you know, overdoing it type stuff. And, and, and, yeah, those three guys. The thing with Lynch is just his, his idea of having, quote, a setup, which is just the area that you go to have the ideas come to you and for you to work, you know, like a classic work bench, but for writers or filmmakers or whatever, it's like, so I'm surrounded by all kinds of stuff that I like that just kind of makes me think a little bit. He's similar.

I know you have all those bookshelves. Oh, yeah, I got dirty crap all over the place. Yeah. I have an extremely tolerant wife. Yeah. That's why I have this separate route because I, like, she's a, she's a professional dancer, so she doesn't need a special space. Oh, yeah.

I got to keep it. But actually, are you going to be at NAB? I will, yes. My, my camera guy is Adam Savage's camera guy. His name's Joey Fameli. I was just going to say one of like the highlights of releasing the lens manual

is when Joey did a post about it and I was like that's just camera me that's so cool you know forget the ASC people and the Academy Award winners I got really excited when Joey was like this is like the thing

yeah no he's great we'll definitely we'll have to meet up for a for a bit at one of whatever parties end up showing up there I'm I'm I got like too hey where's the B&H party it's like dog I work for film tools I don't know they don't invite me but you get in anyway yeah I sneak in I did want to know because I was doing a quick look at your website because what's funny is the last time we spoke the Cine Lens manual hadn't even come out and you were there for Lens Month and I remember you said something along the lines up I'm working on a book and

And it's like, that's a hell of a book, dude. Yeah, yeah, thanks. It was a little project that took a couple of weeks. Yeah. The, um, we'll get to that in a minute. But I did want to know, like, were you, were you born in Phoenix? No, I was born in Chicago, but, uh, we moved to Phoenix when I was five. So I got in Phoenix, Scottsdale, um, left there when I was 22 or 23, so I remember.

Yeah, I, uh, so you did, you did the Spielberg. because I went to Arizona State was that? Almost did the Spielberg thing. I don't quite have his career. True. Same longevity though. But how did Phoenix in any way

kind of mold the way that you look at filming? Because even when I was, the film school is a lot bigger now, but when I was at ASU, there was just no thought about film as an industry pretty much at all. And we were given carte blanche to do, I would just walk into a

restaurant and be like, can I film in here? And they'd be like, sure. I have lights. They're like, whatever, man, over there. Go for it. Here, no, no shot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I went to Scottsdale Community College. Great school. I, the only reason I went there was because it was the only school in the state that had an actual production program. Now, the quality of that production program when I went there left a lot to be desired. I found myself just starving to learn and more often than not teaching my teachers. And I was deeply, deeply frustrated. And then I was penalized because I was actually working. So I would miss class because I was actually out in the field working and then I would get in trouble. And I wound up dropping out. I didn't. I'm a junior

college dropout. But yeah, I think Arizona had a huge influence on me and wanting me to get the hell out and get to Hollywood. That happened to a friend of mine where he started. I mean, he wasn't like working, working, but he was out shooting like music videos with some artists who are still like pretty big right now who were not at the time. I'm in one of them. And the same thing happened to him where he got, he like, they were threatening.

to kick him out or whatever. And he's like, I'm doing what we're supposed to be doing. Why are you mad at me? Yeah. I'm paying to be here. I'm paying you to provide a service to me and I'm already accomplishing what you're supposed to be teaching me to do. And your role. What should teach you? I hate to complain about this, but this is a classic story for me. I walked into class one day, and the lecture was on composition, and they were using Raiders of Lost Ark as an example of composition of what, you know, Dougie Slocum and Stephen Spielberg did. But they were using a VHS tape of a pann and scan of Raiders. And I said, but you're missing two-thirds of the picture. We can't talk about what the director and cinematographer did in composition when we're only seeing a third of the picture that is arbitrarily chosen in a in a deliverable.

And they had no idea what I was talking about. It was a huge argument. And I wound up actually just walking out of that class. I was like, this is nuts. So, yeah, deeply frustrated. Was that experience kind of what kicked you more into the educational sphere? Was that just always something that you enjoyed? Because I'm not necessarily an educator, but even writing for pro video, like, I do take it kind of seriously as like, I want this to be more than just, you know, unfortunately on YouTube, there's a lot of beginners teaching beginners.

And I was like, I might not be a beginner, but I don't want to fall into that space of basic information. Like basic information is almost everywhere. Anything with any nuance is a little harder to find unless you buy one of Jay Holden's books. But, yeah, was that kind of. What got you there? Was that always a thing for you? You know, it's hard to pinpoint where that happened. My first foray into that was my senior year in high school.

I started as a student teacher. And the whole philosophy behind that was I was working for the drama teacher and I wanted to just be a better director. And I thought, okay, this is a way to kind of move in and kind of, you know, work with communicating with people. and I was really, really deeply involved in technical theater in high school. And when I was graduating, the current technical director said, you know, it's really a shame that nobody else here knows what you do because we're going to be struggling for the next few years

until people kind of catch up. So the year after I graduated from high school, that summer, I actually created a program to teach the students in a kind of mentorship level program but to teach them how to be professional theatrical technicians

and I came back and I pitched it to the administration and they hired me to become an addendum teacher so the year after I graduated high school I started teaching and it was a total fluke it was just like

oh yeah I can pass along this info and I taught then basic secondary education for three years and that sort of had this foundation of teaching and sharing. And I also, when I left college, I had to teach myself. Right. And I learned how to learn during that process of teaching myself, which is frustratingly something I never really learned in school.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I understand looking back what they were trying to teach, but it never really, it never really worked. I didn't learn how to learn until I did it on my own. Yeah. And I also realized in order to really understand a subject, I could know that I really understood a subject if I could explain it to somebody else. So my poor mother and my poor girlfriend got a lot of lectures on what I was learning on color temperature and color theory and science of lighting and what foot candles are.

Because then I knew if I could explain it, I could understand it. And that sort of wove its way into more teaching. And, you know, writing for the magazine was a fluke. Yeah. I've admitted this in multiple discussions and interviews in the recent past. But my writing for the magazine was inspired by the fact that I got fired from a job. I was producing and shooting a feature. We had a little bit of trouble, shut down the feature.

And then when it was rebuilding, they just would like, okay, bye. And the woman that I hired to be the line producer, Wanda, replacing me with her friend. And I was pissed. Right. Here developing this project. I was really depressed. I was really upset. And at the same time, I'm a computer nerd.

And I was spending a lot of time finding software to learn more about cinematography. So I hitched to American cinematographer. I got all this information about all this software, D1 story. And they're like, yeah, sure. And then they came back and assigned me another one, and then another one, and then another one. And eventually I realized, I have the opportunity here to connect to the world's greatest cinematographers and pick their brains and steal from them. And that's what I did for 207 years.

Yeah, I mean, that was this podcast for sure. I just had Pro Video's name. And then I was like, wait a minute. I got an email from one person I was like we have a bunch of DPs you could interview and I was like let's fucking go because I've learned I've learned this done 140 interviews

and like most of you know it's just the two crazy things are like I thought it was going to be more complicated I thought I thought there was more like the people at the top of their game were doing something special the only one that I think is still special that I can't quite figure out is why do movies

maybe you can answer this. Why do movies look like that? Like, I shot something on an Alexa and it didn't look. Then I shot, I was second unit on a feature. And the feature, I had no lights, right? It was just all, but it still looks different. Like, is it an encoding thing? Like, the colorist didn't do anything particularly special.

It didn't look like. Like, what is it about, is it the, is it the Blu-ray encoding? why do movies look like movies and if I have the same camera and the same lighting setup, it doesn't That's a really, really tough question Yeah, I have no You know, I was Yield Bondanovitch

on the hook for in a couple months So I'm going to ask her I would actually really love to hear her answer on that Because you'd be like, well, it's me Yeah, yeah, it's always her And it's me Yeah There is a part of that

I remember very early in my cinematography career, I shot a short film for a new director and I was, you know, really holding her hand throughout the whole thing. And when we got into post, I was talking about color timing and she was, didn't understand it. Like, why? Why do we do that? It doesn't make any sense. You shoot it. We saw it.

It looks good. I said, because this is the way you finish it. And sitting with her in a color suite and watching the understanding of this is what happens when you take the image, we lit it right, we exposed it right, we composed it right, but now we're adding that extra final polish to it. And it was a huge light bulb moment, like, oh, wow, okay, I get it. This is what the next step is. So not to put too much on Jill, but hopefully she'll have a good answer for that. Yeah. But you know, you can say the same thing. What makes Roger Deacons, Roger Deacons, or what makes Greg Frazier, Greg Frazier? There's an intangible

involved in the choices that are made and the way that they approach things from beginning to end that make them very unique. And you can use the exact same lens and the exact same camera and the exact same lighting and not achieve the same thing. And I think that's what makes an artist and artist. There's also, I saw recently an interesting discussion on Reddit of all places where there people were getting mad at a guy basically for what they called gatekeeping and he was just sharing he was showing his i think it was like a vfx thing like a real and people were like well how did you do that and he's like well i don't you know this i'm just sharing it everyone's like oh why are you gate and i'm like i think we've lost the plot on what gatekeeping

is not sharing i just saw this great clip from um josh homie from Queens of the Stone Age. And he was saying that he doesn't like sharing his like rig set up, you know, his obviously can see what guitar he's playing, but like the pedals and the ants and stuff. He doesn't really like people knowing because he wants people to do what he did, which is try to find his sound on your own and then discover to yourself. And I think that's a way more, that applies to all art. I think you look at people you love and then by attempting to replicate it without knowing

the answer, not only do you learn more, but you learn more. about what you like and what you don't like and you know melding other influences and stuff and it does seem that we're kind of right now in a place where anyone new coming up wants to have the answer and go you know and that gatekeeping is the idea of keeping people from struggling and i'm like i don't think that i don't think that's what it is getting you obviously gatekeeping in my head is keeping literally keeping people from joining the industry you don't get you know you don't get to know anything you don't get to be here But not sharing exactly how you did something, I think is a weak argument.

You're absolutely right on all fronts there. This industry is designed to be exclusionary. It's designed to keep people out and to be extraordinarily difficult to break in. And part of that is a jealous guarding of what already exists. And part of that is a refinement process to try and make sure that. who gets in, deserves to be there, and belongs there, right? I think that on the other side of that, cinematographers in general are a unique blend

where by and large, they are extraordinarily generous with their secrets and with their information. And I think that, you know, I've been incredibly lucky to be associated with the ASC for a very long time and to be a member of that club. now. And it's it's a ridiculously generous environment where everyone is free to talk to anyone and they will completely open the doors and say, yeah, this is exactly how I did this. And there's a, there's still competition. But I think everybody understands in this particular

field that sharing of information about how we solved this particular problem might inspire you and might be informative, but we'll never solve every other problem for you, and you will never necessarily replicate what we did because of all of the intangibles. The other sides of the industry are not so generous with each other. Actors are not necessarily generous with each other. Directors are incredibly competitive and not so generous with each other. But I find cinematographers as a very rare breed to be very open. Yeah.

I kind of a, so I've been a magician my whole life. And I get to interview Larry Fong in a couple weeks and probably just going to talk about magic, if I'm honest. But he, I find like, like magic is an incredibly. in that same if you were to use that what I consider the wrong definition like an incredibly gatekeeping community but no one it's fucking vaudeville no one is trying to stop you from being a juggler or a magician or a theater it's just like the whole point of magic is like you're not supposed to know so but like if I went uh started filming for people at the magic castle and the second they learn I'm a magician it's just knowledge they're like always talking about how they do certain it's as long as you can I think you can I think you're it's the same thing with cinematographers. As long as you prove you care enough to actually join that, I hesitate to say community, because that's another word that's kind of lost all meaning. But like, because there's like a difference between people who want to shoot film

and television and people who want to make videos. And the film and television world, I think, is much more kind of like magicians where it's like, yeah, but there's like a whole history here that it's kind of important, you know, like this does not need disruption. Like, the tech industry likes to do. Oh, you really enjoy Google Podcast? Yeah, we're getting rid of that. Enjoy YouTube. And it's like, come on, man.

Like, yeah, it's you and I related already on magic. Oh, right, right, right. Oh, yeah, I gave you. Oh, that's, yeah, I forgot. You did. I'm very appreciative. You know, and you asked me about learning. I, for most of my life, I have picked a new subject like every year or every couple

of years to learn. and I spent eight years learning only lenses, so I kind of took a break to do that book. But magic is one of the things in the last couple of years that I have really been studying and learning. And I am an absolute neophyte. I mean, I'm nothing. But I really do enjoy the whole art and the science, again, melding into performance. And it's very similar to movies. And like yourself and Larry, I'm finding.

an endless supply of cinematographers who are also magicians are into magic like Dean Cundee. Sure. Who was huge into it and did it for very long. Then Larry, of course. So it's a fascinating sort of once you do open that door, it's like, oh, wow.

I got a lot of friends in this room. That's cool. But I would never call myself. I'm an admiring. young student. I think it's fair. There's another weird, like, I suppose dichotomy or similarity where people get mad if you call yourself a cinematographer,

but you've just shot, like, YouTube stuff. I've always said, like, hey, if you shot a short, you're a cinematographer. I say, like, if you know how to do a trick for someone, you can call yourself a magician. I don't think there's such a, being a magician, I don't think carries a, a status thing, you know, you can know a little magic, you can know a lot, but I think you just put big, and he's a big magician. He does like, you know, that's a, that's Daniel Garcia. He's a big magician. But then, you know, you can still be a quote unquote little magician.

I got a dozen card tricks that, you know. Yeah. My, uh, my pedanteller magic kit over there. Oh, that's a, dude. The Penn and Teller Masterclass is actually really, good. I have gone through about half of it. Yeah, but because I was working with it and was struggling with some of the stuff, I dropped out. Yeah, I got to get back into it. It's fun. I did, obviously, the way I do everything is jumping the hell around, but I did want to know, was the ASC magazine the first publication you wrote for? Because I know there was a bunch, like, up to and including like the Hollywood reporter. Was it, were those all jumpoffs from the ASC magazine.

Quite literally. Yes. And I never had any intention of being a journalist. It's really hard for me to even say that. I still don't. That's another thing. I would consider you a journalist. There's research.

You write a thing. That's journalism. Right. Interview people. I've got like two million words in print and still struggle with that whole idea of being a journalist. And ironically, I had just given up writing. as like, okay, I did that.

I wrote several dozen screenplays. I had things that were produced, and I've written short stories, and I'm done being a writer. I prefer working with better writers than me. And that was my whole thing. And then I got published and spent 27 years writing. And man, did 20 of that,

I struggled with that whole idea. Like, okay, I'm making a side living. publishing and writing, but I'm not a writer. American cinematographer was the first, and David Williams was one of the editors at American cinematographer, and he left AC to be an editor of the hollered reporter, and he brought me with him. So I did some writing for special issues while he was with the holiday reporter, and then he left the hollered reporter, and he went to DV, which became digital video, and he brought

me with him. I wrote a column for digital video DV 101 that kind of became the basis of shopcraft now that I that I write the foundation of writing educational pieces every month and David left there and I stayed writing for DV for a little bit longer and then that spun off into writing for videography which is a sister publication of DV and TV technology and government video, all of those are under the new media

or sorry, New Bay media publication. So that was kind of all within the same. But basically I just followed Dave Williams. Gotcha.

Round because he kept dragging me and be like, hey, man, you want to write? Oh, okay. Yeah. And it was all a fluke and I still really struggle

with it. And my editors really struggle with my grasp of the English language. When did Shotcraft start like five years ago? A little bit more than 2017, April 2017, the first issue that ran Shotcraft. So the first book that just came out collects the first five years.

And you know, it's funny because I pitched that as a concept to the magazine almost 10 years before. And they flat right to turn me down. Like, no. We're not a beginner magazine. Well, a little bit. Yeah, we're not a beginner magazine, but also like, no, you're not the guy to do this. You're not appropriate to write this in this publication. And it was a little like ego bruising at the time.

Like, well, what the hell? Like, what I totally get it? And it took me a long time to kind of earn a position where I can write in my voice, an American cinematographer, and have ASC members come up and be like, I really love what she wrote and be that voice. So it took a long time to get there, basically. Yeah, it is something I'm very happy to do now. Yeah, I mean, it's, I've always recommended people get.

any like students or whatever like just get the magazine first figured out from there like you know like i said youtube's great for technical stuff but doesn't really do the same thing and putting them all in one book i've been screaming from the rooftops like literally just get that you had filmmaker in a box i think that might be more important than filmmaker in a box oh man that warms my heart that you even uh remember filmmaker in a box um yeah that was you know that was an incredible little project and I'm really proud of what it was. Our biggest mistake was marketing to a community, sorry to use that word, but who is used to getting things for free.

It didn't want to pay for the information. Yeah. I just looked it up. It's 16 bucks right now. Yeah. Although it said for nine hours, I'm like, that's one of those things where it just drops a fresh cookie and goes, oh, you only got nine hours. 9 out of the 17 and a half

Yeah, it's on the UDEMI platform Yeah Would you say that the Shotcraft book is almost like a spiritual successor Or is there maybe room for updating that product to the modern age Because that's a little more HDSLR or like camcorder era Is it not? We had shot on the Panasonic P2 cameras Yeah, the HVX

3,000 Yeah, exactly Oh, yeah, 370, anything like that. The technology aspect of what's discussed in filmmaker in a box is way outdated. But the production aspect of what it took to do a $100,000 feature film in Hollywood with Hollywood pros still stands. What was really hard about that project, because my producing partner of the time, Ryan Harper, and I had tried to do. filmmaker in a box with another feature that he had produced that went to Sundance that was commercially released but we tried to do it after the fact and it was impossible it's impossible

to get everybody together it's impossible to get people to to talk about mistakes yeah um so what we did with filmmaker in a box and the feature two million stupid women was we built that project into the feature from the get-go, from green light of the feature, we threw a filmmaker in a box in it, and every contract with the crew and the actors cleared this production to follow everything and to reveal everything. And that was the whole idea of that was total transparency. Yeah. So every good, bad, and ugly would be covered and discussed. And we had to get everybody on board with that. And once we did, great, that thing was able to be made.

But to do it again would be really difficult because you have to have everyone on board. And when somebody isn't, the whole thing doesn't work. It's reminiscent of some of I've said before, like, I was a big, still am a big special features guy. That's half the reason I have all these, you know, 400, 500 blue rays. And the unfortunate thing is now a lot of movies will come out with either no special features, you know, you're lucky if you get a director's commentary, but also they've turned into ads. Like they're just repurposing the like quick like two minute sort of sizzles of various like this is the DP. He shoots the this is lights and you go, great, what else? And they're like the and then you get the studio line and then loads the next one.

You're like, what the fuck? You know, I think it was like moon or something. thing, you, or alien, aliens, there's like a video of people like arguing on set about like a setup and I'm like, yeah, what are they problem solving? Yeah, I think, yeah, you're right about aliens because there's a, there's a whole segment of people talking about how difficult Jim Caron is. Clips of him being abusive on the set. And that's in the, behind the scenes, like, oh, wow, this is.

This is really interesting. Yeah. And it's not to denigrate anybody. It's to say this is the reality. This is part of the project process and you can learn from it. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's become a sad kind of state of affairs when it comes to that kind of material.

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of the same thing. Like what I was going to say earlier about getting people to subscribe to the AC MAG is like, A, you've got Shotcraft, but B, the articles themselves are more like special features where you are looking at some kind of individualized problem solving, although they, similar to even people I talk to, not really loving talking about any failures or missives, which is where the education comes, you know, but no one wants to admit that they fucked up. Actually, that's not entirely true because I've had of innumerable conversations with

cinematographers about mistakes and errors. In public or in private? In private. In private, it's a completely different story. I mean, during the course of the interview. Yeah, yeah. But what happens is that they realize the studio is on their back, the distributor's on their back, that everything they say has to reflect that production and their commitment to that production.

And so they have to be really, really careful because the backlash is pretty massive. So there's a real delicate line there and actually bleeding into promoting something else. But I'm finishing up a new book right now. Jesus Christ. I know. It's a glutton for punishment. I was literally about to say that. Good heavens, man.

It's a companion to Shotcraft. And so, you know, what Shotcraft the book does is compile five years of that column in, you know, a curated, form. This next book, Lessons from A.C. is based on a lecture that I've given a couple of times that takes every other article that I've written over 27 years of every TV and film. And it does what I did as I was writing them, which is I want to learn. So I'm interviewing you. I want to get that tidbit from you. That's a great lesson. It'd be like, oh, yeah, okay, I'm taking that away because that's why I'm talking to you. Right.

So now I put all of that into one book. And it's like every story and what I learned from that story and what that little tidbit was. And there's a couple of pieces in there where the cinematographers are very candid. In one of them, a cinematographer, talking about working with an actress and the struggle of that actress is doing promo all day long. And then coming in and we're working nights and she's exhausted. And what do I have to do to make her glimmers? Right. And I'm like, this is gold.

This is amazing that you're having this conversation. There's 80 or something different stories and DPs are incorporated and all these little tidbits. So that's the next book coming out this year. Oh, damn. All right. I'm very excited for that. I don't need to gas you up so much, but I just love reading your shit. So I very much appreciate.

How do you pick? Yeah, keeping it's fine. This is what I'm here for. How do you pick the subject? So I imagine like when you first started the column, there was probably a few that you were like, oh, that's an easy, like first one. But once you kind of got through it, how did you start selecting what topics to cover? There's been an evolution to that.

So there are times where, you know, the last month, actually that didn't run as a shotcraft. I said, that's a terrible example because we actually read it as a feature instead of Shotcraft. You know, there are times that I'll be like, I have wanted to do a test of diffusion and really dive deep into diffusion and what the differences are. I've wanted to do it for years, so here's an opportunity. So then we find, okay, the lighting issue is coming up in three months, then I need to start and do these tests now. And that's one of the columns. Another way that the idea has come up is that every issue has a theme. And I'll be like, this is the TV issue, or this is the international production issue, or this is the still photography issue.

And so they'll kind of poke me and be like, what can you do on that subject that goes along with that theme? Well, I can talk about it. about BTS photography and just the one coming up next month. And then there's ideas that'll be thrown at me. Like every once in a while, Stephen Buren will call me up and say, you know, you should do something on diopters. Okay. That's a great idea. You know, you did the diopter thing.

You should do something on cookies. Really? Yeah. Let me tell you this, this and this. We'd be like, oh, wow. Okay. Damn, there is a whole story in here. Yeah.

So there's a real sort of a give and take. And, you know, what we try to do is sit down with C. Bezello and Andrew Fish. And before that, it was John Whitmer, who I, the editor I started with, with this piece, with this column. And we have lunch and we discuss like the next six months of ideas. And then that just gives me something to kind of run on. And every once in a while, I'll be like, oh, crap, this is coming up this month. I don't have time to do this.

So, guys, are we okay? Let's just talk about how to expose film. Right. And then they'll be like, yeah, okay, that sounds fun. And then, you know, I can kind of pump that out. Yeah. Well, crap, I should have written it down when I had the thought. But you just brought up the film thing.

I know you had just done the test with Katie. about film versus digital as it pertains to virtual production. Yeah, and that's actually the example that was just in my head because that was originally going to be a Shotcraft. And it just grew. It kind of got too big to fit in that space where the column sits, so we made it a feature story instead. But yeah, that was, you know, again, one of these things.

Actually, that was Katie's idea. We are developing a feature project. she wants to shoot a significant portion of it on film and I was saying there might be aspects of incorporating LED volume into this and the question was like well does it work right then let's test it and I said well if we're going to test it then let's test it for the world and let's do it right and that became out of a little monster of a production yeah Well, it's kind of interesting because, like, especially when Mandalorian came out, everyone was like, this is the future. And like anything in tech, it was like, well, this is a future. It wasn't the golden goose that everyone thought. But it's fascinating to kind of take a, I don't think anyone had thought like we should shoot film on this. Because I know LED walls are so persnickety when it comes to which digital camera you use was what did film actually end up being, um, without giving, you know, without given too much away.

you know, go read the article, but what were some of the advantages to shooting film? Katie points out one of the greatest advantages, which is the fact that you're doing an anti-symetric sampling. So, you know, every frame of film has a different pattern of grain. That natural grain structure helps to blend the practical world and the virtual world better than the digital camera does. I mean, it almost sells the gag better because, of that. And, you know, spoiler alert when it comes to color fidelity, which was my biggest concern, does film read the very narrow bandwidth of LEDs properly?

The answer is yes. Yeah. And actually, we used the Alexa 35 as our control, as our basis. And that was just as imperfect with color rendition as film was. So it kind of went, well, yeah, it's okay. Yeah. And it was a really great, astounding education. And also, you know, it's been a long time since I shot film.

Right. And, you know, thanks to Tim Kang being part of that test and really doing deep color science with me on that, we looked at the color reproduction of all of the Kodak emulsions, which will come out of the white paper. It's not in the AC story, part of the ASC white paper, and seeing that there are limitations in color reproduction and spectral reproduction on emulsion with the 50 speed being the best. I mean, just a beautiful, wide color gamut on emulsion, really tight grain. It works as a daylight stock because you should be shooting daylight balance on an LED stage,

which is something we try to, you know, evangelize in this story and push forward, even though we did test tungsten because a lot of people think that's where you should go. Right. Yeah, I'm kind of going off into the weeds with this, but. Well, that's this podcast, so you go forward. Great. The weeds podcast. There were some really, really great revelations. Yeah.

I remember when Hoyta went up and was like, hey, at the Oscars, and he's like, hey, everyone try things. film out and there was like a huge pushback I saw our people were like how dare you like I can't no one can afford that you're you that you high horseman and and literally last night or like two nights ago I went and priced it out and I just used random web I didn't even look for deals and it's like if you needed to shoot for an hour so like a music maybe like a small music video or something like that it came out to like after processing and getting you know files by like scans back it was like 2,800 bucks which if you're going to go out and buy an fx3 to shoot stuff like granted you get to keep it forever but if for an individualized project like it's not actually

for 16 mil it's not terribly expensive certainly if you're you know just starting you No one has like $2,800, just to drop on camera. But like a little bit further on your career, that's not, that's not horrible. You could potentially get a producer to sign off on that, I feel. Well, it's part of my philosophy as a producer is to support the artists and support their choices. You know, I have really ever since David Mullen introduced me to the F-900, many, many years ago. with his film Jackpot, the Star Wars camera. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

But I honestly think that David was more successful with that camera than Star Wars was. A little bit. And he blew my mind. The Jackpot was the first digitally shot film that was released on film print theatrically, because Star Wars was released, mostly digital. I think they did make some prints, but it was mostly the JVC, DLP projectors. It blew my mind and I went digital immediately.

I found the next job that I could on that camera, and I almost never looked back. And at that time, I wrote a piece for American cinematographer that basically said, shooting HD and down converting to DV Dailies and shooting film and down converting to DV Dailies. It was the difference between $4 a minute and $75 a minute. Sure. Yeah. So it was huge.

But as a producer, it's my job to support the artist. So even though I have all this in my head and I have arguments that I don't feel that there's anything that film does that we can't do in digital. Totally. It's still a tool. It's still a tool in the paintbrush. And I have an artist that I work with like Katie Williams, who says, film is right for this.

This is what I want to use it for. Then it's my job as a producer to make it happen. And not dictate and say, no, no, no, no. We're going to shoot this with, you know, a 5D. Right. No, it's my job to say, okay. that's a justified choice and let's find the the funds and make that happen it is no but it's it's fascinating i'm watching you know obviously there's there's always been an interest in the film versus digital thing

but i'm noticing now a lot of younger creators are because when because back when we wanted the film look in the like DDX days, 5D days, whatever. It was more about just making it look good. It wasn't about like a photochemical replication. But I think that was just a timing thing, right? And now kids are not doing that. They're doing DV. Like the fact that I have a Canon XL2, people like, I'm getting, like, can I rent that?

And I'm like, why? It's going to suck. You don't have firewire. I just had that. Chris Probst. called me up a couple of months ago and he was like dude you still have those DV cameras

yeah yeah I've got an Excel 2 can we use that and he wound up using it on a Lana del Rey it's happening yeah it's but you know everything old is new again and people get nostalgic

and it's kind of the same thing you know when CDs became the thing and MP3s became the thing people still love vital and they still buy them And we're still making that. They're all choices and they're all great. And I'm a lover of film.

I love the part of the camera next to my ear. So I'm happy that it's still an option. Yeah. Well, and side note, if you ever need a second XL2, you let me know because it's just sitting. I still have the original case. I got the whole thing. I actually, I did a test for just on YouTube basically where I, because my buddy, I lent it to my friend in college. came back with a broken tape deck.

And, yeah, it kind of sucks. And Cannon was like, well, we don't fix those now because it was like 2011. We haven't seen one of those forever. And so I used the S video tap and put it into my Odyssey. And it's not bad. Odyssey's a monitor? Yeah, the monitor recorder. Yeah.

And yeah, I just went S video to HDMI and plugged it into the Odyssey. And it's near as makes no, the quality is slightly different, not necessarily. There's a bit of like this kind of smearingness sometimes in the high motion stuff. But I think a lot of people who are trying to shoot D.D. want the imperfections. So giving it a little bit more doesn't, you know. You know, it's funny. And it's in the new book, but I did a piece on vice that Greg Frazier shot.

And they did, you know, a lot of historical recreations. they shot those recreations with the same cameras that were originally used. Right. And then we're finding that it was too clean. So what they wound up doing with some of the footage was like uploading it to YouTube, downloading it from YouTube, and then reinserting it back in. So you get that extra compression and you get that extra step on it, you know, to get that original look that was such a disaster.

Yeah. Do you know the comedy group The comedy group five second films No No So they they were pre YouTube pre vine

And then buying came out and stole their thing But they were literally just five second jokes And like they all work in Hollywood now separately But they're coming back kind of But they had this movie called Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 There was no one or two And They shot

They shot everything on like a Mysterium Red I think and then ran it through a tape deck because it was spoke the idea was that you found this VHS tape that was recorded off of a late night public access channel and it only aired once so there's like snippets of like commercials

in between them as the film gets more absurd the commercials get more absurd but like all that stuff so they ran it through a VHS deck and just hit it with a baseball bat as it was reading back to the can to the computer well that's a technique yeah I did want to know especially you toured the hell out of

the Cine Lens manual what you all over the world what were kind of some of the responses from people who had who had looked at or maybe even didn't look at it but like what were people kind of most interested in there because it's kind of like two sections there's education in the back there's just straight up like

here's what these lenses do and blah, blah. Was there kind of like a common theme you saw with people's interest in that book? Not really. It kind of runs the jamming, but we decided to do that. We realize as we're putting it together that we're doing the absolute stupid thing and trying to make this book do everything at once, which is what you're never supposed to do with a product, right?

You pick a problem and you try to solve that problem, but this was trying to pick 12 problems and solve them all simultaneously. I think one of the most heartfelt I had a gentleman, an older gentleman approached me when I was at an event in New York almost in tears and said my, his father was an optical designer and, you know, spent his life working on lenses and really never got acknowledgement for it, but we mentioned him in this book and celebrated his life and what it meant to that. And it was, I was crying along with this guy, like, oh my God, that was not what we intended to do, but we intended to celebrate people

that nobody talk about. We're not talking about directors and cinematographers. We're talking about optical engineers and optical designers and fabricators and people who have extraordinary influence over what we do, but don't get recognized.

Right. And then I get the cinematographers who come up and say I was having the hardest time getting a production to sign off on lenses and I handed them your book and opened it to the section and be like, this is why I want to use this and they get it. And that makes me super proud too. Like, yes, it's the tool for getting that information across and allowing other people

to understand what your intent is. So it's been an overwhelmingly positive response. I would fully admit that I was terrified. Just look, you know, I was terrified that people are going to be like, no, this is wrong. No, this is crap. And no, it's supposed to be this. And people have, if either we really did our job right or the detractors are really quiet, just rare. Right.

They're just researching like, I'm going to find, I'm going to find something to yell at this man about. And it's happened. And luckily, we did our jobs well enough that every once in a while it comes up, be like, hey, you know, this isn't right. And I'll be like, well, no, actually, Greg Tolland said himself in 1941, an American cinematographer, this quote came directly from the source. He used that. Yeah. You know, well, you have a, okay. The, uh, I feel like you might need to re-release just the section, the two page section on speed boosters.

Yes. This, I cannot with these every day, there's someone else who comes out and goes, well, I got a speed booster, so now I got a full friend camera. I don't know why everyone isn't jumping on this. I'm like, oh, at least. Me and, me and Matt Duclos had a whole, well, an hour long conversation about that. I'm going to let you froze.

I got a frozen moment like this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I was saying that he and I had like an hour long cover because I was, someone was yelling at me on, of course, on the internet. And I was like, I started responding. And then this is before the Sydney Lens. it had come out, but I had another conversation about it on TikTok after. I literally brought the book out and just filmed the page. And I was like, here you go. But I emailed Matthew and I was just like, hey, can you just answer this for me? He wrote an answer. I just copy pasted it. Like, there you go. Yeah. It's a, it's a, that's actually, you know, well, for educational purposes, could you, uh, succinctly, hopefully,

what is the difference between having a full frame sensor capture versus a super 35 capture with a speed booster? Okay, succinctly? Well, you know, we just spend a little bit of time with that. No, I don't think I can do it succinctly. Yeah, I mean, my whole thing was just like a full frame, aside from the fact that you see like a speed booster

allow you to see the full character of any lens as a full frame sensor would assume it's a lens for that. But I've always just found that the full frame sensor gives you smoother gradations in the image and like a higher perceived

resolution and that's about it. Both of those can be true and it depends deeply on the processing and color matrix and and compression and what goes into the camera, you know, that bleeds into another argument, which is when we first moved into digital. So when we first went into two-thirds-inch

digital cameras, there's a lot of complaint about HD being too sharp. Right. And that was much less a property of the format than it was the electronics that went into it. And there's a lot of sharpening, digital sharpening that went into those formats. But there's this idea that the more photo sites that you have capturing something, the sharper it is. So God, why would I want to go to an 8K camera? Because 4K is already too sharp. And that's absolutely not true.

You are correct in that the more samples you have, the more you can reproduce fine gradations. And there's even, we have not done this test side by side, but there's argument to prove that you get more character out of the lens with more samples because you're able to reproduce those fine gradations. So if you're dealing with 8K of photosites, you can get more finer aberration reproduction than you can at 4K. A speed booster is a beautiful and kind of magical tool, but it sure is how late the end-all be-all. And it is adding another layer of glass on top of a lens that has its own characteristics.

Right. Well, and that was actually something that I feel like I knew intrinsically, but Matthew actually kind of spell it out for me, which was like, When you do that, when you put another element behind any lens, you are literally creating a new focal length. It's because something I see a lot that's a bit of misinformation is like you put a 50 on a speed booster. Now you have a full frame depth. Now we're going to be using all the wrong terminology, but I'm just doing it for education. Full frame depth of field of a 50, but it's the whole, but it fits on a super 35 sensor. Matthew was like, no, no, no, now you have a 35.

Now you got to think, it, it, background blurriness is not depth of field, right? So then now we got to separate those two thoughts. But he's like, no, if you put a 50 on a speed booster, you have basically a 35. So all your calculations have to be that. It's not just a 50 squeeze down. That is correct. And it's, it goes against, you know, the thing that I rail on, when people talk about crop factor, which is if you make a 50 full frame and put it on a super

35 camera. Well, now it's an 80. Right. No, it's still a 50. But Matthew is correct. When you put another set of optics behind it, that does change the focal length of the lens. It changes the property of the lens. And it becomes a different lens. Yeah. That's it's Matthew explained it much more succinctly than I said out. Well, I don't know. I think I think that was about four emails deep before I got him to answer what I was trying to figure out. because like I even I couldn't like I was like I it's the depth of field blur circles problem of like we've started using words interchangeably you know or it I don't know if this is quite related but I always remember like trying to learn cinematography and having people refer to what could be a generic light but they'll use the name of the light because there was only like one of them and so so you thought you needed like Aquino when really they just meant like soft light. And if you don't know what a Kino is, you're like, so I need this, I need this thing. And it's like, no, they just mean soft light.

Like it's somewhat different. I did want to ask, you've never been a PA. You've done everything except be a PA? That is partially true. I spent one day as an art department assistant which was my first big set job when I was still in junior college and it was on a commercial, it was a diaper commercial

and I ran around town buying props for the art department so technically I was on the call sheet as art department assistant but I kind of, I was a PA for the day. So the answer is, no, I never really did that, but kind of, I guess I had one day. So what did your, I know we're going a little over time, but I'm doing this list I wrote in reverse, basically. You moved from Phoenix to L.A. What was your experience like, you know, I suppose finally getting into the jobs that you wanted? Like how long was the, you know, whatever?

period. What brought you to a corn music video? You know, like, how to eat? Oh, man, you did your research. So when I was in Arizona, although I was doing film and some TV, I was mostly working in theater. And at the time that I, and again, I did, you know, everything in theater. But at the time that I made the move to L.A., I was mostly working as a lighting designer and a master electrician. So I just kind of arbitrarily made the choice of calling myself an electrician. And luckily, through the Internet, which at the time was America Online, at a chat room in America Online called Hollywood Tonight, that was nowhere near as salacious as it sounds. It's where I met Roy Wagner and Russell Carpenter and Stephen Poster. There was an extraordinary collection of people in this chat room.

And because of that, I had a job literally the day that I moved to L.A. Wow. So I was working on a short film as an electrician and getting a massive indoctrination over five days with a great gaffer, Russ something at the time and that whole first year basically was working nonstop and it was it was great that second year was terrible

I worked like 70 days out of the year and most of them was like 100 bucks a day so that was a big rude awakening but the work as electrician allowed me to stumble into work as a gaffer and that happens really as again as a fluke because a gaffer quit a show

and they were like, can you do it? Of course I can't. Yeah. And then, you know, go out and buy Harry Box's book and read like, what the hell? Yeah, yeah. As a gaffer, what am I supposed to do in a prep? Okay.

And that led into starting to work, you know, do more work in music videos and gaffing second unit and things. like corn and uh khan brandy and monica yeah do a lot of work with the jessa con uh for a number of years yeah it's uh i i respectfully want to push back on all the fluke talk because i feel like uh what's the phrase like luck is just preparation and being there at the right time you know like if your number comes up you got to go there are like three instances in my life where I'm like wow I could have been the luckiest guy I knew and I absolutely tanked I got a meeting with the

resident of ABC television for a half hour when I was 19 and the whole time and he was like how can I help and the whole time I was just talking to him about this winery he was opening like I want it like that's what I was asking him he's like what do you want to do and I was like I want to be DP anyway tell me about what what vintage just idiot dude like that's just one of like three that I can think of where I really blew it out oh yeah yeah yeah and now I'm shooting corporate interviews which is not a bad thing don't know certainly pays the bills they have budgets over there absolutely and I have done more than my share of that Ew.

Not working docs and corporate videos and HR training videos. I mean, yeah, I did a medical training video once. That was interesting. That could be fun. Well, it was funny because the guy who was running it had been doing it for like 40 years. So everything that we were, it was like the first like HD cam ever. We were still using zip lights. and stuff and I and I was like you know there's like LED and the guy I was shooting for goes don't

we're tungsten only here don't like don't bring it up okay I will say seeing the zip light in person I was like shit I've made it because I'd see them in magazines it all the time right like that was like an it wasn't just a mold you know it had a thingy and I was like I was very intrigued by the the zip light there you go Everybody has their moment. Yeah. Is there, is there a kind of wrapping it up like where I've interviewed so many DPs who really got kind of on ramped into film and television by way of music videos.

That kind of was in like the 90s and early 2000s. Like not the key, but you know, the whole like directors series box set with like Michelle Gondry and Spike Jones and, you know, Mark Romanek. It's almost all music videos. Do you see? I've asked a few people this, but like, do you see an analogous track that exists right now? And I wish I did. And I wish that I had jumped on the music video track. And I, unfortunately, I kind of thumbed my nose at it.

You know, I watched my buddy Chris approach struggle and struggle and then thrott. and then thrive in that world. But I always kind of looked at it like, yeah, that's not where I want to be. Right. And as a precocious and, you know, egotistical youth, I found my nose in television, too. Well, that wasn't just you. That was the entire. Oh, you work on, what is it?

What do you do? I had a sign on my childhood bedroom that said, theater's life, film is art, television, as furniture. Jesus. Right? And that world has changed, man. Now I desperately would be like, oh, my God, I've met with a dozen showrunners, be like, I want to break into this world.

I want to tell these stories because it's amazing. Yeah. And maybe that's kind of the answer is that TV is a way. But it's, man, it's such a hard. hard wool to break into. Music videos are so easy to break into. You have a band that you know, go shoot a music video for him. Yeah, those budgets have shrunk, though. Oh, yeah. But that's kind of the point, right? Yeah. You know, I look at Joe Con's career. Joe started in Texas, and he started making, you know, $500 music videos for bands that he knew and just continued to roll that and grow and grow to be

one of the top music video directors, you know, that we have. Yeah. And that was in an era where there were no digital cameras. There were no LED lights. So every job, you had to get a film camera. You had to develop the film. You had to get a full crick truck full of whatever you could throw on. Yeah.

So it was a hell of a lot harder then. I would like to say that the TikToks are. YouTube's of the world are we in, but I don't necessarily know that that's true. I think that most of the professional industry still thumbs their nose at those things and doesn't look at them as a like, oh, wow, you're an artist creating something. It would be really interesting to see you create here. Yeah. Well, and there's been a few examples of like, at least personalities from those fields getting television gigs or whatever and not quite doing well. I mean, It's kind of the same. The example I use a lot is I help run these college ski trips every winter. And one year, we always throw on a concert for the students. And it's like college students. And one year we had Lil John. And then we had another, I won't name him, but I don't even know if he's still around, but a SoundCloud rapper. So he, all of his music was just on SoundCloud.

and he had never really performed in front of a audience. And in his writer, he made it very apparent that the only way he would do the show is if he was the headliner and Lil John opened for him, which I thought was bold. And so, of course, little John goes out there and just crushes because that man's been working his entire life, you know, figuring out how to get crowds to move and like reading them. And then this kid would come out and literally clear the audience in 10 minutes. and he'd get really he'd get mad i'm telling you 10 minutes i have footage of this uh i think we had him on six shows all six they would people were riding high on little john who by the way is one of the nicest men of the world and then uh this guy comes out and just blows it and i was like the struggling and going through playing shitty shows day after day is so important to be a good

performer and i think the same is true with you know your tic talks and youtube's is like you don't have, there's not as much of a, you know, it's a direct connection to the audience and you can learn on the go and, but it's not, um, there, there are very few, if any, people on YouTube making a TV show. Yeah. You know, and I, and I think a lot of them don't see that difference. Like, like we were saying earlier about like magicians and like, as long as you can prove you want to be in this world, people will let you in, but it's not, like, oh, I know how to turn on a camera. I know everything about the FX3. Why am I not being let into this world? It's like, well, it's a completely different world just because

you use a camera doesn't mean it's the same world. Right. But this gets into kind of a discussion I've had many, many times that this is a risk adverse business. Yeah. High risk business, but it's a risk adverse business. And anyone who hires you wants to mitigate that risk as much as possible. So they want to see proof that you can do what they want you to do. And that proof is not just videos of you understanding cameras. If you want to be shooting Game of Thrones, then your real better have Game of Thrones on it. Or something of that nature. It's all about kind of that proof of concept, show what you want to be doing. Because they don't want to take the risk. You've got to prove it already.

I know. Oh, go ahead. I was going to say we kind of talked a little bit about Arizona and unfortunately I there's a bit of a mentality you know, being this aspiring kid and this little town that you just think you're going to get discovered, right? I'm talented. Everybody tells me I'm talented.

I'm the next greatest thing. So Stevens Bilber is going to call next week and say hey kid come on out to hollywood and that is not the way it works yeah well it's i don't mean this in looks but i mean like if you're a talent wise if you're a 10 in your neighborhood you moved to hollywood you are a four well yeah that that's that's true as well yeah you know so it's like you got to get over that huh to your point about reels uh i just had to update mine because i had a few potential gigs where I was like shortlisted but the producer whoever it was said yeah that all looks great I don't see any evidence that he worked with any name talent so we're no so in my new

reel I just frontloaded all the famous people I've ever worked with it doesn't really like it doesn't flow very well but I was like there you go there's first 30 seconds there's all the famous people there's the one feature I shot and then the rest of it's like all the fashion giggily every day. Yeah. Do you think it's reasonable to make multiple reels or do you think you should chuck it all in one reel? No, absolutely not.

And I'm even a proponent of making a custom reel for a custom job. You know, if you're up to shoot a horror feature, then make a horror reel. And I'll put comedy and don't put documentary and don't put music video on it. And if you're up for music video, be real selective about any narrative. you put on there, put music video on that. And unfortunately, if you have a reel that combines all of it, people start to look down at it. Like, okay, yeah, it's some nice work, but yeah, none of that pertains. And who are they?

What are they doing? Right. You know, so even if you kind of go through my website, I give way too many options, but I give drama clips and thriller clips and apps. and action clips to say, what do you want for me? Well, okay, here's an example. But you're not going to see comedy

and you're not going to see too much in the way of music video because that's not what I'm trying to sum my myself. Yeah. That was kind of why I asked because when I was looking at your website, I was like, damn, this man's got like six reels up on here. Yeah, and you know, there's a really funny aspect about that.

I am still, for cinematographers, a major fan of the montage Reel. And, you know, I host a panel with agents every year at Synegear, and we talk about this every year. And those agents sit on the panel, they say, no, reels are dead, montage reels are dead, you don't need it. We'll do a website. Exactly. Have a website. Show your work. Everybody wants to see more of you work. And I would say, that is true for anyone who is represented. So if you have an agent, then it's absolutely true. They are going to hand you to a producer and say, here is a client, look at them, or here are three potentials for your project, look at them.

They're already vetted. Here's the stuff you want to look at that's related to your project. Great, wonderful. But for those exact same agents sitting on that panel, I say, if you are looking at representing someone, what's the first thing you want to see? And they all will go, Well, yeah, we want to see real. Right? Yeah. So if you don't have an agent, it's the most powerful tool for you to show your work in one place and be smart about it. Keep it to one genre.

Make it have, if you are a narrative, make it have a narrative flow. Make it feel like a movie. Try not to take one project and spread it out and keep returning to it over the course of the real. then it looks like well you've only shot three things right shorter's better you know there's a lot of tips to that so as a director i still make a montage reel i think that's stupid i think it's it's terrible you can't really tell anything of what i can do as a director from a montage reel or like an editor's reel that's always weird yeah that too like i edited the reel here you go i've seen camera assistance reels which just like

What? What are you doing? Everything's so focused. Good job, bud. Yeah, great. Wonderful. Oh, look, there's a rack. Yes.

But it's a promotional aspect. It's something I can put on Instagram. Yeah. And at 60 seconds, say, here's my work. So if somebody come into my site can look and see, oh, here's his work and here's who he is and then they can look a little deeper into it. So I'm still a huge proponent of the real. It is.

Yeah. It is interesting how Instagram went from children's play to like now the biggest DPs in the world have an Instagram now because I guess that's just where all the hirers are now. And it's like, wow, that for being such a crappy app, like we need just like a filmmaker version or just give it or just give Instagram completely to filmmakers. Because if you're a photographer, you put photos on Instagram, no one sees it. It's got to be a video now because the algorithm.

That is very true. the algorithm man it's a freaking nightmare like uh you know i i was a master of instagram and building an audience on there and it's plateaued for years because i don't understand the algorithm anymore and hashtags don't do anything hashtags don't do anything anymore um and there's there's techniques of the way that you post uh stories or reels i mean it's kind of beyond me but nuance of, you know, trying to build the audience and the following. And for the most part, for most people, that's not what it's about. And I get a lot of pushback when it comes to social media and talking about that. Like, oh, God, it's such an exhausting thing. And it's all

about likes and follows and it's, no, it's not. It's an extension of your website and an extension of your real. And it should be a little bit about you, a little bit of evidence of what you do. and some behind-the-scenes photographs and some samples of your work. And a combination of that. And that's what Instagram is. And it's come to a point now where if you're going to hire somebody,

that's one of the first places you go to look at it. Is, okay, who is this person? What's their Instagram like? And if I go to look at that Instagram and it's all just pictures of their work, it's useless to me. It doesn't mean anything. It's basically that's their website.

Right. If it's all pictures of their cat, that doesn't mean anything to me either. Great. You got a cat. Wonderful. It needs to be this combination because that's what that tool is and how it works. It is supposed to give the idea that it gives you a personal connection. And it's still curated.

It's still very carefully, you know, depending upon how you do it. But it should give that idea of who is this person? What do they do? oh yeah okay cool yeah that that bad doesn't no no that's it's perfect because last thing i said was okay cool what the hell does that mean no that's perfect because uh the thing that i think i've certain of my friends have given me a little guff for is like i i you know when i was in college i was much more freewheeling with the instagram they're like oh now all you do is post film stuff i'm like yeah well now that's exactly what you say it's like that's how people

are going to like I still post fun stuff I guess but there's like no photos of me at like a party or whatever like it you know like a party party not like a not like an event party but um you know it's you want you don't want to if that's your new business card you don't want it to be like and I love whiskey you know well it depends on on how you present that and boy I've had a lot of discussions about this too um If you love whiskey, that's not a bad thing to be like, hey, this is my favorite. I enjoy this because there could be a producer being like, oh, my God, I love whiskey. Sure. And that's the thing you bond over, and that's kind of the tool. If every other shot is you drank and hanging out, then it might send the wrong image. It might send the right image. But either way, it might not get you hired.

Yeah. So there's just a real careful crafting. And if your thing is mosh pits, then, you know, a video of you and a mosh pit might be the one thing to be like, oh, my God, this guy's nuts, right? Right. Well, and it brings up to something that I was trying to get to and then I went off track, which was people being like, oh, this is fake now. This is fake. And it's like, no, you just, fake is when you're trying to impress someone. real is when you're just curation is not fake no fake is is you're at nab and uh you're standing

next to the latest red camera and posing like you're shooting with it that's fake yeah uh and and my wife who's a marketer uh is sitting in the other room listening to me and so she text me that there could be somebody looking for a whiskey commercial and that you know your whiskey love could be uh shooting by my ghost producer in the other room is always great tag team right there it yeah well and it i wasn't planning on asking this but now i guess it's part of the conversation is at what point does someone feel like they i've asked a few people this but like at what point do you feel like you need representation or uh or looking for it because that's a big question i see asked a lot online is like

because a lot of people think that that's what gets you jobs right the agents will say they will come to you when you're ready. And there's a lot of truth to that. But probably the best answer that I've gotten from that is that the agent needs, and depending upon who they are, they need at least one thing to really sell you on, basically. So if you as a cinematographer, your film that you shot ends up at Sundance, that's the time to reach out to agents and be like, I got a film at Sundance. And then they can grab that and run and go, this is a new client.

They've got a film at Sundance. They can take that and run with it. If you have a film that you shot that is top 10 on Netflix for the week, boom, that's something to run with. But they need that win, that like one significant thing to really go with. And before you get that, you're a hard thing to sell. So most agents are not going to put the work into finding you work because they have other clients to sell and it's going to be harder to work on you. That's one of the most, like, succinct, honest answers that I've gotten from the panels

on agents. But it's a very true thing that when you hit that level, they'll generally come for you. Yeah. And they'll be knocking at your door like, hey, congratulations at the film at Sundance. what do you got going on? Let me see your work. There are some agents who are combing Instagram and YouTube and looking at things and being like, this person is the next one to watch, but they probably aren't going to come to you

until you have that thing that they can really sell. That makes you special in the moment or unique or hot for that moment. Right. And you can reach out to agents, but that's a real craft. The better way to do it, when you think you're ready and you think you have that thing, you can reach out to them. Or the better way is to go to someone you know who has an agent and say, will you recommend me to meet with your agent? Yeah. And they will almost always take a meeting with somebody that their client recommends.

Sure. Well, one thing that I've said for a while is like when I was in college, I worked at at Red Bull and learning all of their marketing strategies taught me a lot that I wasn't expecting as a cinematographer. And exactly to your point, one of them is like, you like agents aren't the development farm. Like you need to give them something to, you know, they need to make money too. You need to package yourself in a way that looks good to them. So I've always been like learn marketing, like learn and start doing that or look at at least look at people you look up to and see how they're potentially marketing themselves and kind of maybe steal a little bit of that because it is a, it is as you said, a risk averse industry.

And to mitigate risk is probably one of the stronger skills you can have. Yeah, absolutely. of skills. And we're all screaming in a crowd. Yeah. So how do you get the attention and get hurt? I wish I had examples of that. But it's constantly changing. The second you learn HDR, now you got to learn Unreal 5. And you're like, wait a minute, that's not me. But it could get you somewhere, you know. Yeah, 100%. And I am a huge proponent of staying on top. of technology. Obviously.

I've gotten some backlash for being a supporter of AI technology. But it's really, really important to me to understand what's coming, to understand how to control it and how to embrace it. Yeah. There's nothing makes anyone more obsolete than ignoring the next wave and not being ready for it. Yeah. that's honestly the reason I got a TikTok that was still years late was there had been a few things where I would like I was behind on two things that come to mind always one when Netflix came out the DVD version I was like who's too lazy to go to the store I live right next to one that was dumb and the other one was the Apple watch I was like oh what you can't you can't pull your phone out it's like now I have a smart watch I fucking love that thing like it's being a poo poo or of me

new stuff, because it's trendy, will get you in trouble very quickly. Yep. Yep. It's another moment that's included in the new book was sitting at an ASC Technology Committee meeting in the early, early days of digital with Roger Deacons basically standing up and saying this whole battle of film versus digital is bullshit. And if we're not understanding and embracing and following this, we're going to get run over. They're both tools.

Use it. So people who get terrified about these things and want to just bury their head in the sand, I don't understand. Yeah. I mean, I certainly have been on the side of the artist, as it were, where it's like, making AI generated content based off of it just stealing, I was trawling, whatever, training itself on everyone else's work and then having a producer sit there and type it. I know this isn't the reality at the moment, but this idea that like someone can just type in, you know, Jay Holbin style cinematography, beer commercial and get that. Like, I understand not wanting that, you know, that's taking, I don't, I do agree that like, there's so many other versions of AI that are super, like I was saying, the podcast enhance thing from Adobe. I don't quite know how it works, but it makes laptop audio sound like it was recorded in a studio. You know, being able, there's an app that I don't use, but I kind of wish I did, but it's too expensive. But like having it when you're editing a podcast, like having it intelligently know which speaker to cut to and just doing that automatically, that'd save me. like 20 minutes, you know, there's like two people in my podcast, but like, uh, there's little

things that like AI could, or even just like using chat GPT for like first first, first blush research, first blush research, you know, because it knows more than you. So just being like, give me the trick I learned was like, if I were to write a book on whatever lenses, uh, what would the chapters be? And then it'll give you those and you go, all right, what would the subheadings be for those chapters? And then you can kind of ignore what it thinks, but that can at least, get you to start what you know what does the internet think you should look up and then see if that doesn't kick you off into what your professional um knowledge brings up you know there's stuff like that that i think is incredibly valuable and there's there's a viable fear of you know

some producers just typing into a computer uh roger deacon's oh brother where art thou feature and it generates it right that's a viable fear and and there will be people who will do that. There will be people making full features AI, but that isn't going to be the norm. It's going to be what you're talking about. And I had these discussions with writers, when the writers were striking and worried about AI, and so many of them were saying no AI. We have to outlaw it. And me saying, the hardest thing about your job, especially the TV writer, is breaking the episode, right? So if you have a tool, that can look at 200 episodes of your series and say what should we do next and it gives you 20 ideas

you can break it in an hour right then go off and write it it doesn't mean the thing has to write it for you but use the tool for what it can do and still incorporate the artist and it would be stupid not to yeah well and it's also like i think the big i think the biggest argument is just about the data set, right? Like looking at 200 episodes of television you wrote is a way different argument than someone trying to start a show that competes with yours based on your scripts. You know, that's where it gets hairy. It does, but we all do this anyway. And this is where I kind of negate that argument because as an artist, I am made up of everything I've ever seen. Right. And I'm constantly stealing, right? I'm going to be like, what am I doing in this

moment, oh, you know what? That shot from Jaws. That's what I'm going to do here. Right. And we build lookbooks based on on shot deck and stealing shots from other people and say, ooh, this is my inspiration for this moment. We do it constantly. And now there's a much wider sample in AI. First of all, I don't think we should be using it as necessarily final pixel generation. Right. But it's a great inspiration tool and it's a great concept tool and it's a great jumping off point and it's going to make a lot of tedious things better.

It's going to put rotoscopers out of work. Right. It's going to put censorship into a much better category, right? Where we can replace the foul language that people don't want in their television version with a complete natural mouth and speaker. I remember that demo, alternate word.

Or the different languages, too. That one was amazing, amazing to be able to see a French language film in English language completely natural spoken opens the world to more international cinema. Right. I mean, these are phenomenal tools. And then, you know, somebody's going to say, well, it's going to put voiceover, you know, people out of business and unfortunately

that's probably true AI will probably put rotoscopers out of business and a and voiceover artists and I mean not and Resolve already has the resolve already has like a tool that you know there's like smart mask

but there's one that's even simpler which is just the depth map tool that I use all the time to pull keys on stuff you know which isn't quite AI but it's close enough you know select subject in Photoshop is that's you know machine learning

in a sense of where built. Yeah, continent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, I'm a, I have in the last year, year and a half, gone deep down the rabbit hole to have a better understanding of that technology. Your lighting just failed. Yeah, I know. It's whatever.

It's battery powered. So that I can embrace it and make sure that it's not going to replace it. Yeah. I mean, that's like the thing that I just want to know is and this is kind of tangential, but like there does seem to be an antagonism towards artists that a lot of tech enthusiasts feel like like artists are some kind of royalty that deserve to be unseated. You know, on Twitter you'll see all this like get ready fucking filmmakers like we're coming. for you. Now I get to generate something and be creative and you like you don't get to run out and I'm like why is that? And also like why is all this

AI tech first aimed at creative fields when the Jetsons told us we were supposed to get like flying cars and like you know or like Star Trek you know L cars or Jarvis from Iron Man are all like you know a chat TBT like object but why are we not as you said

starting with the tedium why are we aiming straight for cinematographers as the whoever you know whoever invented SORA they're like now you can because oh like B-roll or people who shoot stock footage they're they're done like that's another thing that like we that was a career now that is no longer yeah unfortunately that that's probably very true and those individuals have to fight another way to deal with it maybe they become SORA Prout engineers and you know it's a you have to evolve with the time it's the same thing of being a you know a factory worker is replaced by a robot right uh technology marches on and you can sit and and cry about it or

you can find a way to work with it yeah i guess we do have kind of an idealized view of what is fair you know like why would why would like what i just said you know like why would you do that it's like they're going to do it. It's not your choice whether they do it. It exists. Not at all. And I think that those people on Reddit, if they want to make a movie and now this is their opportunity to do it with AI, there could be a genius out there. It'd be like, this is their one time. I mean, oh, this, hey, man, go create something. And when most of those create something and it sucks, they're going to learn that it's not just AI. Right. So it's not take a hell of a lot more than that. I remember a conversation with a filmmaker. many, many, many years ago who thought he could reverse engineer any movie, right? You could make the next E.T because all you have to do is look at the structure and the way

that it's done and kind of go make E.T. Well, no, you can't and good luck and tried and fail miserably because there's a lot more than just paint by numbers involved here. And even the greatest artists fail. But at the same time, you know, Renaissance painters, would look down on impressionists, right? And if Caravaggio was alive at the same time as Jackson Pollock would probably look at what he was doing and thumb his nose and be like, what this dude is flat, literally splashing paint on a canvas. What a joke.

Right. But they're both artists, they're both extraordinary and what they create is amazing. So if more people have a chance to create, great, beautiful. And I think that's actually a great point because I think being an artist, what I, the, what I've come to realize is that being an artist is not a career. It is it is a personality type. It's something that kind of infects your entire being and you approach things. Like I saw a woman get confused as to why she got into college and it was.

steam like what we're we're including art why is art part of science it's not it's there's no way it's more important than science and tech and blah blah and i was like yeah but art teaches you human stuff like engineering is the physical world but art tends to be the the the not emotional but the the personal the art world and so giving people all right here here's a tooler you can make visually et great now i'm going to make it it's like No, you're not because you're not an art. You haven't taken the steps to become an artist. And creativity is within everyone.

Like I'm not saying that like you need to be special. But it's certainly like kind of a life path type thing, in my opinion, where you, you understand the more human elements to stuff. And it isn't just paint by numbers. Every new technology that comes out, there's a horror story to it, right? people thought that movie would replace theater it didn't happen people about television where replaced movies that didn't happen everything has a place in which it exists and co-exists there are major disruptors digital technology was a major disruptor in filmmaking but it didn't kill it yeah it evolved and we work with it um yeah anyway like i could continue to to espouse on this

all day long. I know I've kept you for much longer than the allotted hour. But the thing I've always said, too, is just like the audience that seems to historically hate even the idea of CGI being used in a movie, even if it was or wasn't or they could tell or couldn't tell. I don't think is immediately going to turn around and go, yeah, yeah, I want a completely devoid of human touch AI generated film, at least not today, you know. Until it's indistinguishable.

And it will get there. It'll absolutely get there. I mean, SORA, look, this technology is advancing on a weekly basis. And that's not hyperbole. It's quantum leaps every week. Sora is a major, major step forward. Right. And by next year, it'll probably be able to do long scenes in absolutely

imperceptible difference to photographed reality. I was just going to say like just the idea of being able to type in like I use the generative fill all the time in Photoshop like if I had a shoot and it's like shit we need a drone shot of a field

like isn't it nice to just be able to go drone shot field boom like it can help it can help like I'd be stupid to not use that tool if it was available to me if it was part of the, you know, premier, you know, your Adobe subscription. And Adobe's done a very smart kind of way around it and only utilizing their assets to train their tools. So they're the kind of skirting around that controversy of it.

But that drone shot over the field that you generate, even through AI, is going to be different from anybody else's. Right. to you're on shot over a field. So it's still an original piece. You're still making the choice. You're iterating. You're putting in your parameters of what color that field is, what's in that field.

Are there flowers? Are there animals or their trees? And so you're still imparting your artistic vision on that creation. Why does that make it any less? Right. I don't think it does. the controversy is when you can just sit at your computer

and create an entire movie yourself but if you can do that man and it's a great film more power to you well and I think obviously everyone's worried about especially in a time where not very many people are working everyone's worried that like the second jobs come back we're all going to lose them again to

three producers and one director who are already famous who get the go ahead to use these tools to you know they get the platforming whatever whatever and all the below the line people are out of a job. But it's awesome. Jim Cameron or somebody like that is probably going to do it. Yeah.

But is that going to replace the other 5,000 projects that are shot every year? Probably not. Yeah. Then the Chris Nolan's and the Quentin Torrentinos, who will say, no way we're not doing that. We're still making it our way. And that's just the way. the way that's going to go.

And more than likely, that project the Jim Cameron is going to make would not have or could not have been made otherwise. Right. So is anybody really losing on that? Or are we gaining something new and interesting? Yeah. I had several pitch decks that I've done through mid-jurdy in the last year. Sure.

Which that's a great use of that tool, honestly. like pitch or yeah yeah and so tangential but even the film test that we talked about that Katie and I did every one of those shots that we did started as a mid journey concept me as the director

iterating getting oh yeah this is what I want to do this is the scene from the film this is what it should look like and then that becomes the inspiration for exactly what we wind up shooting right we still shot it We still hired an actor. We still created the background.

We still shot it. But that was like, this is the way to communicate how this image should look in a real short. Yeah. But I had a pushback on Instagram from somebody who said, you know, my husband is a conceptual artist and you're putting him out of work. Right. And I went back like, look, I'm not. First of all, I don't know your husband. Second of all, I don't have the money to hire your husband.

So either this wouldn't happen or I'm going to use this tool so that I have the ability to do this. And maybe if I get the job, I can hire your husband. Yeah. Because one thing that I can't do it in Mid-Jurney right now is fine detail change and iterate the way that I can with a conceptual artist and sit down and be like, okay, I love this. I love the eyes, but let's make the eyelashes a little different. Right. You know, could luck doing that with AI. It's getting better, but anyway, well, and even if you could, I mean, it's a much easier to tell a person. Like, can we just make that a little more versus like AI? You're like, you just keep typing. You're like, now, do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. You know? Right. Takes a little bit longer. Well, Shotcraft is great. That was a beautiful, beautiful segue. I can tell 140 interviews. You are. are, you are so, oh man, I'm just dialed in.

Well, that's the problem is like, I've always said this is like the chatting podcast. Oh, dude. We got, where we got here? We got, we got Shotcraft. We got ice. I've shot in Dormick. Oh, wow. Look at that.

We got final ones. We got, uh, I think there's two more, but they're over there. Anyway, got a lot of books. But I true, I mean like honestly man, I've been I've been telling every like film student or like aspiring person like just this is much. I went to a film. I went to New York Film Academy before I went to college and I learned more there than I did in college. Granted that again, the ASU film program is better now. But at the time it was brand new and we were all fighting over a 5D. But this is certainly I would I would suggest anyone attempting to get into this. Like if you have this down, you've learned more. than I did in six years and it's all very legible and good and I love it and I appreciate you making it a lot of them and I'll tell Joey that you were stoked on he's going to flip I did I did tell him that too I know oh did you okay on Instagram but yeah man that was that was just such a cool moment be like it's Adam Savage is DP yeah yeah well we'll definitely uh we'll we'll we'll link up in a

couple weeks at NAB, but thanks for spending two hours with me. We'll wait for the next book and then we'll schedule for two hours so we can do three.

Perfect. All right. All right. Take care, brother. Thank you. You're back. Frame and reference is an Albot 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 repopod.com and follow the link to buy me a coffee. It's always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening.