Frame & Reference Podcast - 141: "Blackout" DP Collin Brazie

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

Today we've got the wonderful Collin Brazie on the program to talk about his work on the new film "Blackout" that just released in April. Collin is a Director of Photography (ICG – Local 600) who specializes in narrative, documentary and branded content. He received his MFA (Film Production—Cinematography) from the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University. He has lensed a wide variety of projects that have played film festivals all over the world, including Fantasia, Rotterdam, Sitges and Frameline. He shot the award-winning drama Retake and the upcoming Larry Fessenden directed horror film BLACKOUT. His other work includes Emmy-winning commercials and TV shows for the CW and Hulu, as well as a renovation show for Executive Producer Ashton Kutcher. His documentary and branded commercial work spans industries and locations, including numerous Fortune 500 companies across the country. 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 141 with Colin Brazy, DP of Blackout. Enjoy. it's funny the world seems so big but then small at the same time you know what i mean like the production and and you know cinematography world and yeah it seems really big but then at the same time you like run into people and uh and yeah another one your guess that you just had on recently um uh sherry talk oh yeah literally tuesday yeah yeah yeah yeah and i had just listened to that one like this morning and her and i had films on the festival circuit at the same time and so

I remember I met her to have a couple film festivals. And we had, you know, like, we're friends on social media. Again, haven't spoken to her in like six years or something like that. Oh, I remember like meeting her on the festival circuit. What's she up to nowadays? I was listening to it. And then I was listening to the podcast. I was like, oh, holy shit.

Like, we grew up like 10 minutes from each other. No kidding. She's like, oh, yeah, I'm from like tip city, Ohio. And I was like, wait, what? Like, I had no idea she was from like the day and area. Yeah. She literally like grew up like, we grew up like 10 minutes from each other, which is like insane. Yeah.

Had no idea, but yeah, it is funny. Like, you don't really think about it. I think when, when you get into this industry, you think like, oh, it's an industry. Like, there's going to be a million people. And then after however long, I've been here, which is not very long, it's like, oh, damn, like, when people say, like, don't burn bridges, they fucking mean it. Like, you don't get out. Yeah. Yeah, especially, I mean, yeah, it's like, I always kind of told myself, especially, like, early on in the career and stuff like that, it's like,

It feels like a lot of making it in the industry is just sticking around. You know, it's found, you know, it's like having the willpower and finding, just having the know how and figuring out how to like, you know, stick around and make it work even when like things aren't going super well or when you're not making a ton of money. It's just like figuring it out and being able to stick around. It's like, I feel like that's like one of the most important parts of the business. Dude, the pandemic, I saw so many people be like, well, I'm moving back.

Just a wherever I'm out, you know. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I need to start bartang. Yeah, it's, it's definitely not, that is something that kind of sucks about it. It's like, unless you have multiple revenue streams a lot of times, it's like. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's real hard to just be doing like a single thing, especially like early on and what that. You know. How did, how did you get started? So how did I get started? So I got started like a lot of people where it was like I, you know, I was really interested in making videos and things like that when I was in, like, like high school, you know, if a teacher gave us a project where it was like, oh, yeah, you can do a

report or a PowerPoint or you can make a video. It was like, I was always like, I'm going to make a video or I'm going to go do something goofing my friends and call it a project. You know what I mean? I did that every time. Yeah, yeah. And so that's kind of where like, I guess initially started like, you know, and growing up in Ohio, it was like the idea of like being a filmmaker for a living, like didn't really commute or really like, you know what I mean? There was nobody in my life who was like oh yeah that's something you can do for a living or that you know that's like a passion you can pursue um so then when i went to undergrad i went to undergrad at seaton hall university which is on the east coast and um and it's like right outside new york city um and i

love the proximity but i didn't go there for like film initially um i had gone there for uh it was like a business major and i was in the business school and um and gone there and then was in that for like three semesters and like hated it and then started exploring like the the other passions that I had, which were like photography and, and, uh, and filmmaking and stuff like that. And so then I, uh, like basically transferred ended up double majoring in like communications film and television production and business. And then I went to grad school. Then I went to Chapman University and did my MFA there. Um, and did the cinematography program. Um, and so that's that's and then, you know, so spend, spend time out in, uh, Southern California for a while.

And then, you know, after school moved up to L.A. and worked in L.A. for, yeah, I mean, you know, doing lots of different things. Like, you know, for eight or nine years. And I moved to Brooklyn, like seven years ago. So, oh, damn. All right. You really did hit the whole, except for Atlanta. You're pretty much all over. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So, yeah. So I was based in L.A. for, you know, basically post-grad school. Yeah, for, you know, like seven, eight years. And now I've been in New York for like seven. Yeah, it was the, I guess, you know, maybe a little too young to have a beat on this, but like a lot of people say, you know, most cities you grow, I grew up in a tiny little town, but like most cities people don't even conceive of a film industry. Did you have enough friends to shoot stuff extracurricularly or was it always like school projects and stuff like that? No, it was definitely more like school projects and stuff like that. It wasn't like, I wasn't why I wish I could claim I was one of those like eight year olds who was running around on the camera and making little like, you know, stop motion, uh, you know, videos or something in like motion, a little short films. But no, it was very much like I would do it for like school. And then once I was in college, I was like making short films. And that's what I was like really like getting into the idea of like, oh yeah, this is like maybe what I want to do as far as a career and exploring like, you know, you know, really understanding what the camera is doing and their standing editing and things of that nature was yeah more as far as like growing up in a small town things like that like honestly like my dad just loved going to the movies a lot and so he would take me you know and he would take me and my siblings and stuff like that and so we we watched like a lot of movies went to the movies a lot and so it was just kind of like a

and then i think once i started probably around like seventh eighth grade i started going to like the art house theater in dayton and so then that kind of like opens up your idea to like oh what a movie can be and what sort of different movies are out there other than just your, you know, like bigger, you know, like Indiana Jones type movies and stuff like that that you watch when you're, you know, really young. What were some of those films?

Because I was certainly not, like, when I got to film school, I went to Arizona State, but when I got to film school, they were like, all right, well, this is, you know, whatever, Citizen Kane. And I was like, this sucks. I don't, right?

You're like, yeah. Apocalypse now, that's rad. Let's do, let's keep. doing that. Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean, yeah, back to the, I mean, some films that definitely like always like stuck with me and are still some favorites to this day are like, I mean, like Fargo, like that definitely came out when I was, I was born in 85. So it was like that movie came out. I think when I was like 11, I probably saw it when I was like 12 or 13 or something like that. You know, so that was always one that really stuck with me and is still probably one of my favorites.

Like, Goodwill Hunting was a big, big film for me when I, again, also came out when I was in like six, seventh grade, something like that. Another one that I loved in high school, I haven't watched it in a while. I mentioned it still holds up to an extent, but it was like clerks, like his Kevin Smith's first film, was a huge fan of that just because in the same way that he always cites Slacker being a big influence on him being like, oh, like, I can go do that. You know, I could figure that out. You know what I mean?

It was the same thing with like clerks where it was like I would watch that movie over and over again and you know obviously you know the cinematography of it and you know the camera placement it was like it's it's very minimalist but it does have a quality to it that is like oh this is like something i could do this is achievable you know what i mean it's not like you were you know you're not watching like Jurassic park or something where it's like oh this seems like insurmountable like i can't even understand how you would do any of this but like you see a movie like clerks or or uh you know movie like um before sunset or something like that and you're like yeah like this is a different type of filmmaking, but you're still creating, you're still doing something. It's these more intimate

stories about people. And, and yeah, it just, something clicks about that when you're like younger, I think, and a little more impressionable where you're like, oh, yeah, like, this seems like I can, I can maybe get into this, you know? For me, it was specifically clerks. And then very soon after that, watching dogma. Because I was like, wait, the clerks guy made this. Because it was the same thing where I was like, I could make clerks. And then, And Dogwell, I was like, well, I can't make that, but he made that. So that means I should be able to make that. Right.

Right. Mm-hmm. I, uh, there's a, this is a stupid story. And I'm already going to take up too much time telling it. But when I was younger, I was like 13, I was on the view askew forums. Mm-hmm. And, uh, Jay had just gotten out of rehab. So they threw a, they threw a party for him.

Oh, yeah. And, uh, Ming Chen. who was the web admin of the forum didn't know that I was 13 and invited me to New Jersey to go to this party. So my mom and I fly out to Red Bank, New Jersey, and she just fucking drops me off at a bowling alley at like 10 p.m. With all these other people. And I'm dressed like Jay from Dogma, like full cosplay, minus the hair. and as I'm walking around with my fucking autograph book

just I'm watching you know like Brian O'Halloran Brian Johnson like all these guys Kevin they're all just like oh what the fuck are you okay I've got my little camcorder you know it was

that's hilarious sounds like you got a cool mom sounds like a cool mom well she certainly was supportive to do that but yeah it was weird stuff like that can make

the industry seem more approachable I don't know if anyone would do that these days but you know late 90s early 2000s fuck it let's all meet up strangers sure yeah I'm strangers yeah absolutely good times

have you seen his new uh some of his newer stuff like shit what was it the uh like Tusk I did see I think Tusk might be one of the last ones of his that I saw I did see Tusk actually I remember because I was living in LA at the time and I saw it at the arc light and he did like a Q&A afterward and he's such a great you know like public speaker you know yeah and

yeah it was a fun fun night out for sure a couple of us went out and and saw it at the now defunct to our light arc light but but yeah that was last one I don't think I've seen I know he just did like a Clerks 3. I've not seen that. Oh, I saw it was very, he's in his emo era for that one. Right. Yeah, yeah. He's really feeling, uh, feelings.

Yeah, but yeah, so I haven't seen Clerks 3. Trying to think what else he did before that. Red State. Oh, he did Red. See, yeah, I saw Red State. I think that was before Tuss, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I liked Red State.

I remember liking Red State when I watched it. Yeah. Yeah. So you feel different avenue for him too. Totally. So when you're watching a film like Fargo as a kid, was it just the general film experience or were you at that point paying attention to the cinematography? I mean, I think early on it's just more or less storytelling. You know, you're like, oh, this is like, this is like different than what you're used to seeing. You know, it's such a distinct point of view. It's very distinct type of filmmaking. And I think that's kind of what like you end up like ends up sticking with you. You know what I mean? It's just like these, these either like odd but beautiful moments. You know what I mean? Like just, you know, like the car ride back after at the Woodchipper stuff. You know, like all that stuff that just seems like so unique and like, you know, out of the ordinary when you're, you know, when you see movie like that, when you're like 1213 or something like that. I think that it's really like more just like, oh yeah, the storytelling was just so much different than, you know, what you would have been watching like in those formative years like leading up to it.

But I do remember in like, you know, in like Goodwill hunting, like I do remember the, the Gus Van Sain film like the feats of like I remember them like, you know, over cranking the film. You know, I remember there being slow motion shots. I remember there being like depth of field changes. And I remember there being like harsher types of light eating, you know, like there was, you know, some stuff that was slightly overexposed and under exposed. And like, even though I probably didn't know like what that all was at the time, it still like affects you. You know what I mean? it's like it's doing what simith how great cinematography should do where it's like it's you know it's emotionally manipulating you without you realizing it you know it's it's helping tell the story it's it's you know it's helping get across you know what the director and the screenwriter and everybody like the intent of what was going on you know yeah without drawing like you know too much attention to yourself so it's but i think they're like looking back on it there was definitely like moments from that film too where i'm like oh yeah this is this like resonating with me in a different way yeah so the the

Film school question often comes up, but I'm actually kind of fascinated by the idea of getting, was it like a business minor or you just bailed on it all together? Yeah, well, it was funny. Yeah, I mean, I ended up basically, yeah, like double majoring like business and then and common production and then I had an Asian studies minor, actually as well. See, you did it the smart way, though. I think like whenever I tell like students or whatever what to what to do, quote unquote, I'm always like, yeah, go. Go to college. I don't know if you really need to go to film school. Just hang out, like, go find the kids who are in film school and just offer to help them. I would have really loved having a bit. Like, I got to do my taxes still. Like, a business degree would have been smart.

Yeah, I guess it's a good, good thing to be able to fall back on. Yeah, I mean, the film school thing is always, I always tell people when they ask you, like, oh, should I go to film school? Should I do this? I'm always like, like, I think. you get what you you get out of it what you put into it you know what i mean like i had a good film school experience because i put a lot into it the people i was there with put a lot into it you know you're you're all working on each other's films uh it's set up uh a conservatory style like chapman at the time um and they had just opened a brand new like state of the art building that was like you know 50 60 million dollars or something like that so they had just like opened up a brand new film building with sound stages and like a cinematography workshop stage and different sound stages where you could like build your sets on and shoot your short films on and stuff like that.

So like I had an advisor and undergrad who was like if you're going to go to film school because he had gone to NYU for grad school and then he was teaching and he was like if you're going to go to film school like the place you should go to is the place that's going to have the best equipment and the best access to the equipment. So like whatever you can just like, they're going to give you like free reign. They're going to let you take it out on the weekends and like it lets you take it out during the summer

or different breaks. Like that's going to be where you're going to learn the most is just taking out the gear and going like doing stuff. So that was like a big thing for me and with Chapman having just like redone a lot of their facilities and they had just like bought in a whole bunch of new equipment. It was like a no brainer for me.

It was like, oh yeah, this is like a good place to be. Yeah. Did they have you shooting? film ever or was that so yeah it was like i think my class actually was the last class where all of our thesis films were shot on film either 35 or 16 so it was like we were doing digital projects in our first like year or two but then once you were doing you're like more sophisticated projects if you will and you're like thesis projects they were basically all on film so it was like we were the last year

that was all 35 i think and then after that it was like the red yeah yeah Because at that time, like, they didn't have, like, good full frame, like, cinema cameras. But then the red came out, I think, the follow. DVX. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, so then once, you know, the red came in and, um, what was the, uh, the genesis, the, that wasn't the genesis? Yeah, exactly. It was like once they had those come out, then it stuff started changing. Obviously, the quality of those cameras developed so quickly. And, you know, then it was like every 18 months, there was a new cinema camera, a digital camera camera camera coming out. Um, but, uh, but yeah, but yeah, but we were, you know, we were the last, last, last, last hope of a 35 millimeter film when we were film school, which I enjoyed. You know, it's like, there's a lot to be said for learning to shoot on film, I think. And I think there's still a lot of stuff that I, you know, practice in the way that has shaped my eye, shaped the way that I approached certain things is because you like learn shooting film versus, uh, learning, shooting digital. And I think you, and you make a lot more mistakes. And you learn a lot more from mistakes. And you learn a lot more for mistakes. And you, and you learn a lot more for mistakes. And, than you do from your successes.

And so that's also a thing that I think when you're shooting film early on is, you know, something that probably at the time you're pulling your hair out over, but like in the long run might have been good for it. I honestly like, so I should, before I went to college, I went to New York Film Academy in L.A. And they had a shoot 16 the whole time. Yeah. And I, at this point, I think, you know, it is, it's not terribly expensive to shoot 16. If you, if you were, I just priced it out because someone got real mad on the internet, a couple people got real mad on the internet about Hoyta at the Oscars suggesting the people try film and they were like that that's way too expensive. I can't do that. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like a little taken a back by it because like he's not saying you have to. He's just suggesting. I mean, the man's trying to keep a medium alive. Like, you know, he's advocating for something he likes. But, uh, I priced it out. And if you were to do a one hour like, like,

No, I think I priced it for a three to one ratio shooting for an hour. And plus rentals, if you were to use the camera I learned on, which is that, the three lens. The three lens, yeah, it was like $2,800. Airyx. Airy flex, yeah. And I was like, for a, if you were to dedicate that money to a project, that's not terrible. I get what people are saying, like, to own and learn on something, that's going to, yeah, you can't do that perpetually. But for one project, like, you know, it's not true.

But I do, I do feel like it teaches you exposure. That's the most important. Like, just grab a 35 stills camera and learn exposure because I still see amazing stuff that could be amazing today where it's like you just shot it too bright. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there definitely, I mean, exposure is a big thing we were shooting on. film obviously when you're exposing digitally as well. But definitely because monitors have gotten so good now, too, monitors when you're on set and when you're shooting digitally, it's like it's definitely changes the way you can take risk. You know what I mean? It definitely changed

the way that you can, you can be like, oh yeah, I can, I see I've got a little bit of room there. I can under expose that. You know what I mean? You can look at your raw image and you can look at the waveform and you're like, oh yeah, like I'm okay. I'm okay. Like I know everybody else is saying it's dark, but I know what's there and I know we'll be able to like fish out there and post. you know whereas like yeah it's a completely different ballgame when you're shooting you film and you're kind of like yeah maybe I should you know it was the the old rule of like you know under or I'm sorry uh overexposed everything like two thirds of stop just so that you get a little thicker negative and you know that was like the big thing when I was in film school

is like you know you'd have you know one cinematography or professor being like don't be afraid of the dark and the other one would be like yeah you should probably like get a deeper negative on that next time yeah yeah probably you know set your light meter to 320 so you get a little thicker negative on that. So, but, you know, it's like, you know, it's all about experimenting, you know, when you were in film school and stuff like that. And going back to your comment about, like, the price of film, I mean, I've shot some, like, commercially stuff on film. I haven't done a narrative project on film in quite some time. But I know, like, you know, somebody like Alex Ross Perry is like a big proponent of shooting on film and he shoots a lot of his projects on

16 and 35. And he says the same thing. Like, you probably, you know, echo what Hoyt was saying, where it's like, yeah, like, you can do it. Like, it's just a matter. of like anything it's like price it out and you know and if you set aside money for it for the budget like you know you can make it work like yes it's not going to be as cheap it's just like you know grabbing a 5d and you know shooting but you know it's uh it's you know it's it's doable it's doable you know especially like on a much bigger budget i think like obviously if you're working like a studio budget or like a bigger oh yeah or film like that you know the amount of money they're spending on hard drives and camera packages everything like that it's like i think the it's pretty

negligible as far as like the difference in cost would be yeah well and i was just thinking like when i was pricing it out i was like you know when i do event coverage or if i do like a corporate interview video or whatever those you know you shoot for about an hour so it's like if you really wanted that to be on film you could like i don't know you can for a corporate video especially you can easily clear eight 10 grand you know take a haircut on your own price and if that was what you're, I don't think it would be worth it. But you really wanted to, you know, and find it. But it's hard to find those budgets when you're young.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And also if you're, you know, just a matter of like, is it right for the product deal? Yeah. For, for the, uh, the specific thing that you're telling. Yeah. So who are the DPs that kind of, um, shaped the way you, who are you stealing from basically?

Yeah, who, yeah, who, I mean, yeah, who, I mean. Um, I mean, Bobby Mueller is one that always, I always come back to. He was a big, big influence on me, especially once I was in, in film school and was like really studying the artist cinematography. Um, I love his stuff. I always go back to it. Like Paris, Texas is a movie I go back to time and time. Yeah, I would, uh, I would, I would, you know, I'll steal from that movie every day until I die probably. Um, uh, I mean, it's cliche now, but obviously Roger Deacons, like I said, Fargo was such a huge inspiration on me. It's probably the movie. I've seen more than any movie in my life probably probably so I so I yeah I mean that's such a that's again one of those movies that like I you know probably no front to back just like in my brain like every you know image of that is just seared in my brain sure um those are those are two good ones should I should I should have prepared for this question um well no because I mean it makes sense because I was I was checking out your reels too and they they do have I can see those I feel like I can see those influences now that you've set in.

You know, there's certainly a more naturalistic quality to them. Another one too. And again, this is back in my like film school days, another guy that I, um, love studying. It was Harris Civitas. Oh, sure. Yes. He was a huge proponent of lighting the space, you know, like really like, you know, finding location or if, you know, it's a set and like lighting that versus just

lighting pockets where the actors are going to land in you know what i mean obviously if you're coming to for coverage and stuff like that like you're probably going to want to you know lift them up a little bit or give a little you know something to them uh once you once you're landing in that but the idea of just like lighting this space i always just thought was so much more interesting than you know try to like light for every single individual shot um and i just i i just i don't know there was something that always stuck with me about about the way that he approached things as well well it also makes it easier to glue your subject into that. I think that's a big beginner mistake too.

It's like just putting a key light in a room and going like, he's lit, you know? Right. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Where is I going with that one? Oh, good.

This has happened to me on like the past four interviews. I'm like, I've got something great to ask and then that shit's gone. Well, so I did want to ask you had, what was the film? Because again, I was doing my research, this journal. What was the film before Blackout, the war film? Yeah, Foxhole. Foxholt. How did you get involved in that film and how did the ASC article come about it?

Because I would lose my shit if a movie I made ended up on an ASC feature. Yeah, yeah, obviously, I mean, yeah, I mean, same. You know, I was excited about that as well. So, yeah, the movie Foxhole, it was really, you know, was an interesting film because it, you know, it spans three different time frames. So it was, you know, a cinematographer's dream to be able to be like, oh, yeah, that, you know, not only is it different time frames, it's different looks, it's different aspect ratios. You know, we did different lens packages for each time period. And how I got involved with that actually was, funny enough, it was through a first AC that I

work with a lot. His name's Jesse Lacosio. And he had first AC'd on a bunch of movies for Glass Eye Picks, which is Larry Fisendon's. production company based in New York. And so he had worked on a lot of their movies. And then I had worked on him, or I'm sorry, I had worked with him on a few, on a few commercials. And so Jesse and I become friends. And when they were looking for a DP for that film, since he was kind of, was close with them already. He threw my name in the ring and I guess they liked my stuff and then they reached out. And so then I had a conversation with them and they sent me over the script and And we talked like, you know, 48 hours later.

And next thing, you know, we were, it was kind of a quick thing because we started scouting immediately and we did, you know, a couple weeks of prep. And then we basically started the movie. So it was very quick. It was very quick. I don't know if it was one. I think it might have been one of those serendipitous things where like someone had to drop out and then they were looking for a replacement last minute.

I've got a good gig like that. Yeah, yeah. And so, and so, yeah, so it worked out. And like I said, it was like. a dream project to work on because it was different time periods and you know you're trying to get different looks that really set one another apart and so it was cool we shot on a couple different sets of anamorphic

films and then some spherical stuff as well for the more a more recent time period and yeah as far as the ASC article yeah and Marks reached out and you know like the film and I don't know if him and Larry had had a history before I'm not sure if he had interviewed Larry before or something like that. But Philman had been on his radar and he liked the idea of it. And so we'd chat a little bit

about it and he was like, yeah, let's do a write up on it. So I was like, sweet. Yeah. And at that time, were you mostly doing narrative or were you bumping into commercial at that point? So, I mean, I still do, I try to do as much narrative as possible. It's usually, you know, it usually comes out. I try to do at least like two narrative projects

a year if I can. That's usually kind of what it rounds out to. But I still do a decent amount of like commercial. and branded stuff. I still do some nonscripted stuff as well. I definitely came up. My first like real operating break was on like one of Hulu's first shows. Like operating it was like a

docu series. So I have like a big background in operating like docu stuff and non-scripted stuff as well. That was kind of like what I was doing early on. You know as you're like everybody, you know, when you're like first out of film school and you're trying to break in, you're taking every gig you can while also trying to shoot as much stuff as you can just to, you know, keep building out your reel and keep meeting people and

stuff like that. Um, so I still, I still will do some stuff like that every once a while, but I'm mainly tried to do as much narrative stuff as possible these days. Yeah. I mean, the commercial, again, looking at your reels, like the commercial stuff looks, you've got a good range because like the commercial stuff looks like commercials and then the narrative stuff is like, definitely seems more personal. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I'm sure most people, you know, most people in the industry probably feel that. You know, it's like you're always trying to latch on to something a little bit more personal when you're shooting narrative stuff. And, you know, obviously there's a lot more, you know, emotion and a lot more, you know, you're flexing more of those like storytelling muscles. Not that you're not doing that in the commercial world, too. Obviously, there's a large, you know, huge part of that as well. You know, it's different when you're trying to do that in a 30 second spot versus a 90-minute film. You know what I mean? It's a different type of storytelling for sure. Yeah. Well, and I feel like commercials, we said this before on the podcast, but like commercials is where you always you get to like try new ideas, you get new tools.

Yeah, those can inform workflows really on narrative stuff. For sure. Yeah, yeah, you hear and you read all the time. And yeah, I've had a little bit of experience that too where you get to play around with a little bit more, more things and some more toys. And you can move the camera in ways

that you might not have moved them on an air thing previously, but they're like, oh, yeah, I worked this out and it like worked pretty well in this one project. So maybe we experiment with it. And, you know, usually you have a little bit more time on commercials, too. Because it's like, you might have two days to shoot something that's only going to be 30 seconds long. And so you can, you know, you can utilize that to your advantage and kind of try some, try some different things, which is always cool.

Yeah. Do you see, uh, in your experience that there's, um, because we were talking about clerks and also just the idea of like music videos back in the day being like an entry point for filmmakers to get bigger things. But, you know, if you're going to like festivals and stuff, are you seeing that clerk's path as still a viable path, like trying to get out there in festivals and whatnot, or did you have to take a slightly different path? Where's your head at at the moment with all that? Yeah, do you mean it's great Kenny? That's a terrible fucking question. No, I mean, yeah, because I, did you mean as far as like from a cemetery perspective? Yeah, in perspective and stuff like that.

Getting, getting work from a touchstone piece versus now just kind of like, because it's a leading question because in my opinion, I think it's, I don't see that. Well, festivals, yes, but making a clerk's, I don't think necessarily immediately gets as much attention as it used to. Sure. Well, I'll go back to your first part of question first, which is about like music videos and stuff like that because music videos were huge influence on me growing up. Yeah. I watched way too. much MTV in the 90s. You know, I was, you know, the kid that was like waking up before school and I would watch like, you know, 30 minutes of, you know, music videos. Because I think by the time

I was also like in like junior high and high schools, it was like they were really only show music videos like in the morning and night because then they were just fill up the rest of the day with like a bunch of kind of like bad TV. And no offense to anybody because I'm sure I've made bad TV. but but I know TV so you know fuck them um so I so I would I would always watch like a half an hour music videos like before school and stuff like that and we're a huge like we're a really big influence on me like I loved you know some of the early like soft time I had like some of the early like naeage nails music videos I loved I remember loving the nice nails perfect drug video for the lost highway soundtrack I remember like

loving music video. And obviously it was like the heyday music videos. It was like when they had big budgets and stuff. By the time I got at film school, I always really wanted to shoot music videos. It was always like, oh yeah, like I love the experimentation. I love just the medium. I love that you can just do crazy stuff in music videos, try great lighting tricks, you know. And but like I shot a couple, but like I never really fell into that niche. Like I feel like you have to like, I don't know, just like already know the directors or you have to somehow get in. And, but like, I know, I with the with the production companies who were like making all those music videos and i never got in that niche i always wanted to so i guess if anybody's listening to this like hire me i would

love to shoot a music video for it uh but yeah so i always wanted to but i never really did um and then you know so but also by the time i was out of you know film school stuff it was like everybody just watches music videos like on like you know on like what vvo and like youtube and stuff like that's It's like, you know, like, by the time it was like, you know, the couple of music videos that I shot, it'd be like, oh, yeah, like, you know, we used to give budgets of like half a million dollars now. I'd be like, here's $5,000, like, go, like, shoot something at the beach, a magic hour. You know what I mean? Oh, my God, I have so many of those on my fucking real. Right.

You know what I mean? And it was like, so it was like that whole, like, heyday music videos, at least like big budget music videos. It's like, now it's like, unless you're like, you know, shooting a Beyonce video or a Taylor Swift video or something like that. Literally those are the two people I was going to name. Like, I don't know. Like, I can't imagine anybody's getting any, you know, yeah, I can't imagine, like, any sort of, like, big budget music videos anymore, not the way that they were in, like, the 90s. But, but then as far as, like, making a splash at a festival, I mean, I think you still can do that, as far as, like, a filmmaker. I think it, obviously, everything's way more polished these days, you know.

It's, like, everything has, like, much higher production value than it did, you know, 20, 30 years ago. Even 10 years ago. I mean, like, 20. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, even 10 years ago. 2012, you're talking equipment-wise, what, no LEDs? Right.

And at that point, you're lucky if you could get an Alexa. You're probably shooting on a, yeah, Sony F-3. Well, yeah, I mean, another thing, too, is like, because when I think of that time, that time frame, because that was, like, right after I got out of school is you did have some stuff that was popping up at Sundance that was shot on, like, 5Ds. Because that was a bit of deal, like, the SLR revolution. um what was a big deal i mean that's like what everybody was then going out and shooting on so it was like a lot of indie projects it was like oh i'm going to go shoot this web series on this or i'm going to go shoot this short film and and you know i shot you know a handful of short films on

like five ds 70s and things like that um just because it was like yeah you were scrapping you know small stuff together with friends and shooting it and get it out there and i think there you know there was a handful of movies that like you know broke out from that um i don't anything vincent lafferette was doing yeah right yeah it's like but i don't know if uh you know and you had the whole mumble core movement that was going on as well that it was a little bit like maybe a little bit before that but um but and you know and i mean i don't know if it was like leading to people getting direct like a five million dollar movie as their second movie but but uh but you know i think you could still make a splash that way um it's i don't know

i mean as far as like how you can you know break in the industry i don't know are there other ways than just going out and doing it and seeing if something hits uh i don't know. At this point, I just tell people, like, just keep meeting folks and be nice and figure it out. I remember two, like, going back to the music video thing, that finding out that Spike Jones and David Fincher, like, all the music videos that I liked were made by one of those guys. I was like, this is fast. I didn't know you could do that. Yeah. I didn't know, because I knew there was TV and film. And at the time, as you'll recall, that, you know, you did one of the other. Yeah, yeah. But I didn't know you could go off and make an Oscar-dominated film and then turn around and make like a skateboard film where things explode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still have the Spike Jones and the Michelle Gondry, you know, video television DVDs right there, yeah. I still have those. Yeah, those are great.

Yeah. I've mentioned that box in the past, and I just found out for people listening, you can download it. I don't know how great the quality is in comparison. but you can it's on the internet archive now the like as full like not ISOs but you can download the um at the mp4s or whatever that's so because everyone everyone cites that anyone around our age probably a few years older than me but uh seems to that seems to have been like one of the more formative you know because that was a special features girlie the whole my whole life but the that box that was like oh oh oh like that felt for the people oh yeah

Absolutely. No, I remember just like sitting around and just popping that DVD in and just watching those things like like watching those music videos like over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. So did Foxhole springboard you into Blackout or was there? Is that somehow, are they unconnected? Yeah. No, no, they're very much connected because Blackout was written directed by Larry. And so it was also a glass eyepics movie. So it was something like I got I got brought in on because Larry was a producer. on Foxhole. And then he had sent me that script and he said, hey, there's this werewolf movie and he's a big, you know, indie whore icon atore, you know, in the New York scene. And so he, he reached out and said, hey, why don't you give this a read and we're thinking of shooting it in the fall? This was like probably in the spring or something like that. And so then we

kind of prepped it throughout the summer off and on and then, yeah, and then shot it in the fall. And so, yeah, definitely was like one led to the other just by kind of getting in with that production. company. So talk to me about the the prep process on it because it's being a horror film and being, I'm going to assume relatively low budget, you know, you guys didn't get a few million for it. But, you know, how are you developing the look? What were the kind of the considerations when putting together like the shooting package and, you know, how many decent amount of locations in the film. Yeah, just walk me through that whole process. Yeah. So the prep process, I mean, it really started with just going through the script with Larry, just like anything, you know,

we went through and, you know, we would talk through each scene. And in some scenes we would be really specific with. And then some scenes, it was a little bit looser. It was kind of like, all right, yeah, we had a plan. We know we wanted to, you know, maybe attack it this way. And then, and then some stuff, it was real specific. It was like, yeah, I want, you know, this is the look we're going to go after and I'd say like just generally speaking we we definitely I think we wanted to have a bit of like a 70s aesthetic we wanted to feel a little loose you know and one of the big things about the film is that there are a lot there's a ton of speaking parts there's a ton of locations yeah so for an indie movie that usually is like a disaster you know I mean like always tell you you know like

you know limit your locations limit the actors like don't work with kids and pets you know stuff like that. We did the opposite. To a special effects feature. Right. Yeah. It was like we did it was like the opposite. It was like yeah, okay, we're going to have like, you know, 25 speaking roles. We're going to have like 23 locations. And so a lot of company moves and a lot of planning around that. Um, obviously just so that we could like make our days. Um, but yeah, as far as the prep stuff, it was, yeah, it was, it was, you know, going through the script and be like, all right, well, like, what's the best way to tell a story and what's the feeling of the emotion of this scene and, and, you know, what's the best way to get, we get this across. And, um, You know, and so it was a nice mix of, you know, handheld filmmaking and a nice mix of more controlled movements, more controlled stuff, I think, depending upon, which characters we were with and kind of who we were following. The main character, Charlie of the film, he's a bit erratic. I don't know if you had a chance to check it out or not, or if, or if you just read about it, but, you know, he's a bit erratic, and I think we wanted that to come through. So, you know, he's a, he's a loner, and he kind of keeps it himself. And so that was something that we definitely thought, right, well, how do we have? highlight that and, you know, do we ramp up the handheld? Do we make it feel a little bit more

handheld versus like less handheld in the beginning, you know? And, you know, and so there's little tricks like that that we would do. And then, yeah, we, as far as like getting ready for the shoot, we, you know, we did a lot of camera tests. You know, we tested like, I think like five or six different types of lenses before we decided on the cook paint crews is what we end up going with. Like, yeah, we like the vintage feel of those. We, we, like, we like the vintage feel of those. We like the softness of them and definitely just like that the color is also just a slightly different like the color variations on them from some of the older lenses as well and larry was really into that when we were doing those tests and so um so that's what we went with so what were some

of the things that uh we're keeping you nimble because it's not like an overly lit film you know it's leaning into the naturalism um were there any other considerations like what was the lighting package on it. Did you have kind of like a set thing or did you go purely scene by scene? No, I mean, we, I mean, we had a lighting package that we took with us every day. But yeah, I mean, being nimble was key to the film. Like I mentioned before, if there just being so many locations, you know, there was, you know, we like with any indie movie, you kind of have to, like, you know, pick and shoes when you want to utilize a lot off. Yeah, you know what I mean? Because it's like, because, you know, you can't do that every single day.

I can be able to do that at every single thing, but you know you can pinpoint certain scenes where it's like, okay, this is an important scene. Let's make sure we have, you know, an extra two hours to pre-light this or, you know, like, you know, and some people say only two hours, oh my gosh, you know what I mean? Some people are like, I need two days to pre-like that,

but it was not this kind of movie, not on this one. You know, we'd, you know, be lucky if we'd be able to get it like a half day earlier or something like that. And a lot of our locations, like I said before, we were in and out and a half a day. But there was a couple locations we were able to sort of like, you know, you know, try to pre-light and set some stuff up,

stuff where it was like, okay, we're going to be here all day or we're going to be here for the next two days. So let's really like, you know, think about, you know, the prep it and being like, okay, all right, how can we make this look as good as possible? How can we tell the story as good as possible in this scenario? But, I mean, our package was not big, though. I mean, we had, you know, we had some, you know, the tried and true, we had some sky panels. You read a couple, a couple 120s and a couple 60s for some of our. night exterior scenes that we did. We had some other LED frenel units.

I'm trying to remember. We had a couple apertures. And I think, yeah, a couple, like two or three of the six hundreds. We had, you know, so a set of light mats. You know what I mean? I think we had like a four or three and a two of light mats. You know, when you want to do just some soft push from the inside of an interior. And yeah, so we had, you know, no tubes?

Oh, no, no, yeah, we had a whole set of the... Yeah, it's just a running joke on this podcast out. Everyone's always like, well, we had these stereotypes. It's like, I fucking glad you. Yeah, we had a set of those for sure. Yeah, we had a set of those for sure. And I always made sure our gaffer. His name was Zach Hengison.

I always made sure that he was the guy operating those on the iPad. Tober angler. Right, exactly, exactly. But yeah, and, you know, so there's a scene, yeah, toward the end, that takes place in, like, a jail cell. Again, that was, you know, one that we had time to kind of like set up and prep the lighting and go in a little bit, you know, with a little bit more prep behind, which was nice. Although, again, in true indie fashion, it was like initially that scene was written like it was going to be at sunset. We were going to have all this hard light spraying through the windows.

And then, of course, when we were issued all the exteriors, it was overcast the entire time. And so then you're like, all right, well, are we, what, you know, what's our decision? Are we going to try to match what we want to do? Do we match what we'd already shot or do you just go into, you know, full on like, oh, the emotion is right. Let's have this hard light coming in. And so we kind of do a little bit of both. But, you know, it's always one of those tough things when you're shooting upstate New York and the weather changes like twice in the day. So a little different than the California style where it's like, oh, yeah, you can pretty much know what it's going to be like.

It was raining last night. And now it's sunny. Yeah, there's weather here. Yeah. We had mentioned, you know, obviously, you know, the more prep you do, the smoother the shoe's going to go. But how much were you doing, how much kind of finding it on the day were you doing? Yeah.

Especially those exteriors. There's a lot of, a lot of those. Yeah, a lot of exteriors. No, I mean, I'm a big proponent of doing as much prep as you possibly can, especially on indie films just because you don't have a lot of time you know when you don't have a lot of time you don't have a lot of money it's best to be like overly prepared and prep is free and yeah and so i i think it's always good to be as prep as possible obviously that doesn't mean that you should be rigid and you know not not allow for things to happen on set that uh you know could you know change

and become magical in its own way which is always nice um but i think the more prepped you are and the more like confident you are going in then you're you can be open to those types of things and feel like okay yeah like we have an idea of like how you know emotionally how we want to tell this film and or i'm sorry emotionally how we want to tell this like specific scene in the story you know if you already know the direction you want to go i think it's easier then to divert from that plan and kind of a call an audible um if you already like have a really strong sense of what it's about um but um i'm sorry go go back your question was about prep on just how much you were like kind of a making happen on the day right right and so yeah and

and i think larry did a really good job of um having like he's very great at just like having like a pretty loose set with the actors and stuff like that and so it was never one of those scenarios where it was like hey we have to do it this way like we would come in with a plan and if things changed we were always pretty open to that i mean obviously there's certain scenes where it's like okay this has to happen this way or you know there's a day where we you know had a techno crane it was like okay this is like the way the scene's going to play out and you know we need the blocking head you know we need the blocking that happened this way and you go this way because it's you know it's going to be dictated by like the the techno crane it's going to be dictated by the way the

light's hitting and and things like that and so certain things that you play it a lot and then there's other scenes where it's like like there's this crowd scene that takes place like outside of a outside the police station and that was all kind of shooting from the hip for the most part you know kind of the the old docu style uh you know muscle memory coming coming back at that point i mean we we had an idea of how we want to approach the scene but as far as just like executing it was like all right well let's you know we'll run the rehearsal a few times and we'll be like okay we think you know we should put the camera here should put the camera here we can turn around we'll go over that way get this piece you know and stuff like that so there there was some figuring out

day as far as just like we knew the kind of pieces and that we would need to get it was just kind of like all right well let's see let's see how the rehearsal goes and see how these you know these scenes go with you know when we had like six seven eight actors in it and then you know we'll have a you know plan going in but then like not be afraid to divert and be like okay yeah actually this moment is really nice that we weren't anticipating let's jump in and make sure we get something of that you know so it's pretty typical I think yeah I mean it's a yeah it always sucks when you get on like a no it has to be this way like

yeah yeah i i'm i'm a much bigger fan of the path of least resistance especially on like indie stuff or anytime you're handed no budget like let's just do what'll get us 90% of the way there instead of really fighting for that 10 you know sure save everyone at it yeah it's you know it's tough because it's again being a cinematographer and i feel like the d p on set always like, you know, you're one of those people that I just feel like you have to be prepared and, you know, you're always kind of like aiding in the back of your head a little bit. And, uh, but at the same time, like, you, you know, you want to be careful of like what the actors are doing. You know what I mean? Because that's very important. You don't want to like

put their boxes and you don't want to, you know, have them feel like they are being too restraint and like they don't have the creative freedom and making like, you know, interesting decisions. So, you know, it's a tough dance. It's like you're always trying to like, you know, make sure that you know you're respecting you know what they're doing but then you're also trying like you know make sure that the you know he is you know looking as good as it possibly can be you know that's everyone's working together the rest of time so that's great was there a scene that you can think of off head that like uh provided like a unique challenge uh and if so like how'd you how'd you tackle it gosh um yeah i mean gosh so many

you can go through a couple fuck it it's an educational podcast at the end of the day um now um I would say one of the one of the scenes that I like the most

it's a very simple scene that's the scene between like two of the police officers and it takes place like in just in the police in the police station and it's just it's a simple scene that two officers talking and then they exit and leave and go out to the police car right

and we'd start talking about it and it was like let's you know okay we're going to do this and then come over here, I'll get an interesting wide, and then a piece of coverage. And I was like, you know what? Like, what if we just start on this, like, basically, like, all these newspaper clippings

that are behind them, and we just pull out and we just do it all in one? You know what I mean? We'll just do a real simple dolly out. They can keep doing the dialogue and blah, blah, blah, and then they elects it out of the scene. And we did it like that. And I think it's one of my favorite scenes in the film,

just because it's like, I think it gives the actors a lot of room to do what they want to do. And I think it's just, and I feel like sometimes, you know, simplicity is nice. You know what I mean? You know, not everything needs to be like, I don't know, crazy chaotic and super cutty. I don't know, maybe that's just my more my aesthetic too is the, like I tend to have a bit more of a European approach to things as far as like editorially anyway. Well, it wonders a great way to keep people from editing it. That's also true. That's also true. Anytime you can do a wonder, then, you know, it just makes

everyone's job a little easier in post-production. Yeah. I mean, I mean, another scenario is, you know, when we were doing any sort of night exterior, obviously is always kind of tougher in an indie film, you know, because your crew's not going to be very large and, and you're not going to have a ton of time and a ton of prep. But, but we, you know, again, like as I mentioned before, When you, you know, you can sort of, you know, make sure that you're isolating those like important days where you're like, okay, this is one that we need like a, you know, a half day to set up the lighting and stuff like that. And so we were able to do that for one of our night exteriors. And again, you know, you know, making, doing the most with what you have, you know, or just hiking up, you know, at one point we were talking about, we did this sort of, it's the opening scene of the film. Have you seen there or no? Have you? Yeah, I was, well, they, they sent me the, the screener last night. I've been, I've been, I've been, coloring two projects and editing a third one. So I skipped through it. I got a good idea of the way it looks.

I don't have the story locked in. All good. All good. Well, the opening of the film, I don't know if you watch the opening shot, it's also sort of like a bit of this like oneer and these are two young, young people in love. You know, it is a horror film. So they, you know, it doesn't end well for them. That's not much spoiler because it's the opening to see the film.

But that was a, I think, zodiac. right yeah exactly and so that was you know a night exterior and um you know we we initially had you know i was like looking i was like okay well maybe we'll do a balloon you know because it's a big open field you know we're shooting at night and and one of the big things that larry and i talked about in pre-production this is uh and it's funny actually i'd love to get your opinion on this too and because you talked to so many different cinematographers but um you know the idea of what night should look like right is a big thing right yeah yeah yeah should it be blue is it right is it right you know, because Larry and I talked in a lot, big part of our prep when we were going through

the scenes was like, neither of us are a huge fan of like blue lighting, you know, and as far as like the night lighting. That's, that's late 80s chic. And it older to HM or unaffected HMI from behind. Yeah. And in, you know, if you're not careful, it can very much feel like that late 80s or early 90s like hard blue back light that, you know, it is honestly, I feel like I have found like an affection for over the years but like you very adverse too and and uh and larry and i were like yeah we don't really want to do any blue light and it's like well this is a werewolf movie like there's got to be moonlight right like they're like it has to exist in the world it's a movie about a werewolf how could it not right and so the rest of the film outside of like one or two scenes the rest of the film it was like

we very much approached it again like i am apparently very unoriginal but it was like it was very much like fargo inspired you know what i mean where it's like there's no blue light in that film it's like, you know, when you're there doing that car chase scene out in the middle of nowhere, it's, it's all motivated by headlights, you know. It's, it's all of its headlights and its rear lights and, you know, and so that was a big part of our, like, sort of visual language for the film was like, all right, well, we're not going to do a lot of, like, hardback blue light or anything like that. We just want to do stuff that's, like, motivated from the world.

But in the opening scene, it's two people, you know, making out in a field by themselves at midnight. So it's like, there's no practicals in this world. you know what I mean it is just moonlight so um so you have to say all right well how much are we gonna like lean into this well we got to lean into it a little bit and so that was one we're like all right well we're gonna we're gonna start looking into getting a healing balloon it's like oh let's put a balloon out in this field because then we can have this this nice big soft source we don't have to worry about like hiding stands we don't have to worry about you know

it'll get a lot of headaches out of the way if we can just like get this big source like up in the air and then you know and then that'll be it yeah but what I started calling around, and I think I heard someone else talk about this one before, there was a huge helium shortage at the time. Yeah. So helium was like crazy expensive. If you could even find it. Even if you could even find it, if you could, it was just extremely expensive. So it was like very costly. Parties across the world were scraed. So it was very cost pervasive. So that quickly went out the door like after me like a, you know, a week of pricing stuff and calling places. It was like, well, this isn't going to work. We're going to have to like rethink this. Um,

And so then we just went to a dry and true kind of like big soft like LED sources that we threw up on stands. And yeah, and that ended up being kind of the approach. Well, I'm trying not to sneeze. Sorry. The, uh, the night thing is funny because technically, like we all think of night as like, as you said, being blue or, uh, being really soft. Uh-huh. But the moon is the same size. eyes like this is the way I think about it well so two things right one you either go

hyper natural and you go with the what we believe the moon to be that hard blue thingy or you go realistic I mean I was just watching um the great escape the other day yep and when they come out of the grass that towards the end it looked I mean they just put a giant tungsten light on it like it's it's it's It's, it looks like day. Like, they don't even try to make it look like nighttime. It's just like they needed the, you needed to see them. Right.

And they had, they could have motivated by the searchlight, but then they, you, that would suggest that they saw them. So it's just lit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the moon is the same size as the sun in the sky, which is a weird fact. I don't know how the universe made that happen.

Shout out to eclipses. But, um, so theoretically. the light would still be as hard as sunlight. Yeah, and when it is a full moon, I mean, it is pretty hard. I mean, you see hard shadows when the full moon is out. So, I mean, that, I mean, that checks out as far as, like, the naturalistic approach. And so, yeah, we tried to, you know, I feel like I always try to have a bit of a naturalistic approach to whatever I'm doing. At least that's like.

But I think in that scene, a hard light wouldn't work. It would feel like the sun. Yeah, it would, yeah, exactly. It would feel hard. Because then it's like if you have these super hard shadows, I don't know, for some reason it does feel hard. even though like a full moon does have hard shadows in real life, but it feels inauthentic for some reason when you're doing it in, like, in filmmaking that for some reason.

So this is the thing, I've said it a million, I want to make a T-shirt, but I know no one will buy it. Maybe a mug. I've said it a million times, like a lot of times emotionally correct Trump's technically correct. Right. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And like, yeah, I mean, yeah, and what an audience will buy.

I mean, it's always covered by whatever emotional, whatever is emotionally resonating, like, within the story or within the scene. I think, yeah, you can get away with a lot. You know, you can get away with tons of, tons of stuff if it's, like, just emotionally correct. Well, that's the other thing, too, is like, it's always, in my opinion, it's always important to watch tons of other films, especially ones that, like, when I was younger, I was kind of a, punk rock contrarian so anything anyone else liked i was like god i don't like that uh and so but that those are the films that or music or whatever that informs the general audience and like i kind of think of it as like being a dj like your job as a dj is not to go to a party and educate people you know quest love has a great story in his master class about how he went to the

white house and was trying to show off by showing how much he knows about music And Obama walks up to him and goes like, hey, man, no one's having fun. Some stuff people know. Yeah, like play the hits. And I think that's kind of the case with like cinematography is like you can you can get so nerdy about it, but will the audience like it's, it's fun to put references in or whatever for like other DPs, but you know, like we're saying, like if the audience, if the general audience doesn't buy that it's moonlight, they're going to think

it looks cheap even if it's technically correct right yeah yeah absolutely yeah and you know that's why you're here you know you're hoping that the audience buys into it so you know if the audience is you know noticing the cinematography and you probably haven't really done your job it's kind of how i feel about it a lot of time yeah that's the what's that quote from harrison ford where he's talking to have you heard this where he's talking to um mark hamill after they get out of the trash compactor in star Wars. He goes, I guess Mark was like, hey, shouldn't my hair be wet? And why did I just blank on his name?

I just said it. Harrison Ford goes like, hey, kid, if they're paying attention to your hair, we're in a lot of trouble. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So the film, where is it, it's in festivals now?

Or where can you see it? Or can they see it? Yeah. So blackout, it was. In festivals, the second half last year, played at like Fantasia and Sitches and I think it's that Overlook right now down in New Orleans. I'm sick. Yeah, and so it's playing there right now, but it just finished up its run in New York.

It played at IFC Center in New York for like a week, week and a half, and it's playing Los Angeles, I think, starting this week maybe. Maybe it's next. Yeah, yeah. So it'll, it's playing a couple theaters in L.A. next week. and then it'll be on VOD, I believe, April 12th. When, now I'm just taking notes,

when's that screening in LA? April 11th, April 12th, April 13th. And then it might be playing throughout that week at one of those theaters. So I think it's like, I think it's basically like opening next April, like on April 11th in LA and it's played a couple different theaters,

I think throughout that next week. Gotcha. Well, I think it's playing up in like, I think it's playing in Noho. I think it's playing it's playing. played on the west side and it looks like what's the west side there now i'm just now this isn't even a podcast this is just me planning yeah and then also yeah there's played a lamely in glendale in noho and then it's playing someplace in hollywood it looks like but i don't so i apologize

i can look it up from there but um yeah that's right in my neighborhood that's great oh yeah how's how's the reception been to it have you been at those screenings yeah i've i've gone to a A couple of them. I went up to Fantasia for the original premiere, which is a lot of fun up in Montreal. That was cool. And yeah, I mean, I think people are digging it. You know, it's a fun genre movie. You know, if you like genre movies, I think you'll be into it. It's funny. Larry always says that he makes horror movies, but without very many horror elements in them because a lot of these movies are, you know, like a lot of, you know, good horror movies are, you know, there's a lot more like social commentary in them. You know, it's a lot about humanity and, you know, the good goods and bads of humanity and then i think that's a lot of what larry's films are about and so it's uh interesting because i think certain yeah i think he has a pretty nice size fan base and and people like his films but then i think like hardcore horror people are like oh there wasn't like enough you know there was enough like blood and that for me there was enough killing that um so he he always jokes around and says that he makes horror movies for like

poor adjacent fans. It makes war movies for not like, you know, they're not like splatter flicks or anything like that. Yeah. But there's it, but that being said, there's a little bit of splatter in this movie. So I,

I really am excited to see a potential resurgence of genre films. Mm-hmm. Because I, there's, like you said, there's like, there's always like a deeper meaning to everything. Yeah,

the classic like, um, Night of Living Dead, you know, is a hero films yeah just a very

thinly veiled social commentary but they just they're just constantly fun and I think especially post end game I literally in my head

I think the film industry right now is pre and post adventures end game I well I mean yeah I mean Marvel especially and pre and post pandemic you know

pre and post 2019 for sure but I mean yeah I mean as far as resurgence of you know genre stuff Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, or films for sure, yeah, you know, people come out for that stuff. you know but comedy not so much which those two are usually like the easy

but people want to completely escape yeah comedy's kind of harder these days you know you have a lot of people who feel like it's just difficult although I mean I don't know some of the rom-com stuff's coming back you know there's some of those in theaters and but yeah I mean I think we'll always have a place but yeah I mean stuff that you know I think if you can

get people to come out you know because it's like a community thing right you know seen a movie together in a big theater. And, you know, I think, you know, whether it's, you know, a big, big action movie with tons of set pieces or, you know, a genre film, you know, horror film or like I love neuro noir's. I love, I just saw Love Lies Bleeding recently. I thought that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that. And, you know, I think people will come out if it's, you know, if it's an interesting, different type of movie, I think people are out there. And obviously, yeah, there's, you know, there's, you know, built-in audiences for a lot of stuff, whether it's or LGBTQ or comedy said, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's, I think people come out for it. Totally. Did you see, uh, Dark City? Dark City, the like, in, like the, the one right before the Matrix. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've seen, I mean, I've seen it like once, but it was a, you know, some time ago. Yeah, I think I, I watched it for the first time last.

year. Just when you said neo-noir, I immediately thought, oh, on Criterion, they had a black and white Johnny Mnemonic. And I was like, well, that's not really a neoir, but they make it, they make it feel that way with the black and white. And then I was like, oh, wait, Dark City was actually one that I'm like, more people need to see Dark City. Yeah, I remember like it. It's been a while since I've seen it. I do remember, I remember liking it. It also reminds me of a, what was that? I watched this one recently, just like a year or so ago. It was a Catherine Bigelow film from around on the same time. That's this great.

Strange days? Strange days. Yes. Strange days. Oh, yeah, it was a great podcasting. Yeah, strange days.

I watched that like a year, year and a half ago or something like that. And I really like that too. Again, like a neo-noir, but with like sci-fi bends to it. It's, yeah,

it's a fun one as well. I'm definitely also ready for more sci-fi. Like, where the hell? Like, arrival was like 10 years ago. Like, what happened? Well, Dune,

he's been making Dune. That's what happened. Yeah. I mean, I love Dune, but I just mean, like, that's, yeah, we got the one. You're right. Yeah. Did you see the second one? I did.

I did. Yeah. I saw it in 70 mil. I'm sorry, I saw it in 70 mil. I didn't see it. I'm ex, but I saw it 70 mil. It's good. It's great.

Yeah, I liked it. Yeah, I mean, honestly, walking out of it, I mean, obviously, the scope of it is just massive and so impressive and, and what Greg Frazier has been able to do. And when he has those giant scope films, it's just, like, daunting. Um, but, uh, very, very humbling when you're, you know, from my perspective of, you know, shoot, it's like, you know, sub million dollar rubies. Uh, but it's, uh, yeah, it's pretty impressive. But honestly, walking out of that, I was just like, the sound was incredible. Like, the sound seen that on a huge screen and just like an impressive theater. Like, the sound was just like, mind boggling. And I thought it was incredible. Yeah. I saw it in the, not the Dolby theater, but I saw it in like one of the Atmos theaters. And, uh, or whatever they are. The, and, uh, they must be putting subwoofers in the chairs. Because I had to say, I was like, dude, this is like an earthquake. Yeah, I felt like my like ears weren't working properly, like the second half of the day.

Like I saw it in like an afternoon screening and it was like, yeah, I walked out. I was just like the rest of the day. I was like, man, everything, everything feels like. I remember we were actually screening blackout like late. Was it that night or the next night? I remember I just like went over to Larry like after the movie star. I was like, dude, you got to pull this up, man, turn it up enough, you know? And I'm like, I also, like, saw Dune recently,

so maybe I'm just reacting to the fact that I feel like everything needs to be, like, blowing my eardrums out. But, uh, but it's, it's very effective. It's a, you know, very well done movie. Was that, that's usually actually my question at the beginning of the podcast. This is what's the last thing you watched, but was it Dune? Um, I saw Dune recently like, uh, let's see. One of the last things I liked a lot was the, um, the new Vim Vendor's film.

Perfect Days. Oh, that makes sense. I saw him, he did like a Criterion Clause. And he did like a few. I was like, when did this guy start doing promo? And it's for, yeah. Yeah, he had his new film Perfect Days, I thought was really, really beautifully made. It's, you know, very simple, straightforward storytelling and just beautiful cinematography and very understated.

But I, yeah, I just thought it was great. I really liked it a lot. And I guess that, you know, brings us back full, full circle to, you know, Bobby Mueller and hair to sex and stuff like that. So I guess I'm, you know, not very, not very surprising at all. I mean, but, uh, but no, I thought that was really nice. I like that quite a bit. Now I got two things to check out. Well, that hour fucking flew by.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks so much for talking to me, man. I'm going to go check out this screening it. I'm not even going to check back in with the Vimeo. I'm just going to go to the screening on the 11th and then go straight to NAB. There you go.

There you go. Yeah, no, thanks for having me on. It was a lot of fun. Of course, man. Yeah. Frame and Reference is an Al-Bod 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 Fraymanrefpod.com and follow the link to buy me a coffee. It's always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening.