Frame & Reference Podcast - 151: "The Acolyte" DP Chris Teague

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Right on time this week, we've got Chris Teague on the program to talk about his work on the recently finalized first season of the Star Wars show The Acolyte! Chris is an absolutely stunning Cinematographer who recently shot Only Murderers in the Building, Glow, Russian Doll, and Broad City so it's a privilege to have him on. Enjoy! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.frameandrefpod.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for everything F&R ⁠⁠⁠You can now support Frame & Reference directly on Patreon!⁠⁠⁠ 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 151 with Chris Teague, DP of The Acolyte. Enjoy. have you been watching anything cool recently um i saw you had an episode about sugar i was watching sugar recently and oh yeah enjoying that yeah uh i caught colin farrell is amazing in that just uh just an incredible actor i mean and really i don't know and i think a very cool take on that character i don't know there's just like a real sensitivity uh that almost like makes more mysterious because you know from the beginning he just you just know so little about him and he seems

like almost like an archetypal figure uh so i i thought that that was a fun watch um but other other series i feel like i've been behind lately i haven't been staying on top of things or or i've just been like watching old movies you know i watched jacob's ladder recently which was really fun um the filmmaking in that it's just it's just spectacular um And I love, like, I love a movie that kind of makes you question what's, what's real and what's not, you know, and, and Jacob's Ladder is so good at that. And just, just like playing with, like, playing with the uncanny, which is somebody we could talk about with, with, um, the accolade, actually. Um, something about Leslie and I talked a lot about, like, what, what, what the uncanny is and how you achieve it on camera. Yeah. Well, you've done a lot of, I mean, the last, like, well, to your, first of all, to your point about not being on top of shows, there's a lot of shows. it's a lot easier we can just get the AMCA list and go like I'm only I'm here for two hours you know let's go and then move on well yeah now but we're all I feel like every conversation I have on set now is is like you know on the one head as as viewers we're

complaining that there's too many shows to watch and now as as crew we're like well wait they're gonna they're not they're gonna be making less shows because that's that's not good have you uh does that uh pretty much everyone I've spoken to, whether on this podcast or in person, you know, especially living in L.A. Everyone's like, nope, there's nothing happening. There's literally, we're, like, is that your, um, your perception? Like, is your kind of, I suppose working friend circle also kind of slammed? Or have you guys been, uh, blessed with gigs? It's, it's a mixed, uh, bag. I mean, I was, I was working through April. I just did a couple of days on a, on a film here in

New York. So there are people working here, but I think there's a sense that the work is going to drop off pretty quickly. That things are going to dry up in the near future. I was just, this show I was just on was shooting in New Jersey, and they said the film commission was telling them that, you know, last year, this time of year, last year, they had over 20 shows going, and right now they have four. I think, yeah, there's just a lot of anxiety about the strikes and a lot of weight.

see happening right now so yeah that's frustrating i i saw the uk some study was done in the uk where they went from like i'm making these numbers up but it was something along the lines of like 180 million in investment from the UK last year and then this year it's like 12 yes wow but i think the UK is going to do all right i mean as the people i've been talking to like my accolac crew there they seem like everybody's working out there right now so i don't know i mean there's a lot of work is going over there um so i yeah well we'll see i mean it's i don't i don't have the full perspective on everything yeah well and until like because everyone's been saying oh yeah wait to see you know what deals are signed with the unions or whatever it's like well until that

happens we can't even guess you know because it that's what's holding everyone up i'm i'm less bullish on the idea that like a i's coming for everyone's jobs more and more that seems like it was incredible hype and then like every day it's like all right well actually it can't do that but it could you know yeah oh so this isn't all right it's not an immediate problem yeah it made me not immediate it just it feels like there will probably be this emerging genre of AI created you know films shows I mean and you know obviously with a creator behind it manipulating it but um it doesn't feel like it the first step is for a time to usurp, you know, the entire industry.

But it feels like there's a world where could get kind of a toehold, you know, and in a way that might be interesting to see, you know, what people can do. It's a very powerful tool. It just feels like the means of controlling it is not very well refined right now. It feels like the way that, you know, the kind of whole text product thing feels like it's designed to kind of prove its capacity for generating material but not necessarily for refining it

basically. Yeah. Well, and also the you know for an audience that is historically upset whenever there's a width of VFX used in anything. You know, obviously it's the VFX they can see

but they get all upset. So I, in my head I'm like I don't see the it feels like a solution without a problem like I don't I don't think the audience is going to turn out and go actually yes I do want something that's completely AI generated because I've loved that in the past you know yeah yeah the artificiality of it like it seems more and more want real people making stuff well and then I think you're right and that's the thing I wonder about is if AI allows you know a 16-year year old to create a sort of a sci-fi film that's like purely from their imagination, you know, is it, is it singular? Like that's what it goes back to. If they can refine it,

if you can have, if you can use it as a tool and, you know, have a singular perspective behind it, which, you know, it's definitely not there yet. But I could, I could definitely see it getting there, you know, in the not too distant future. And, um you know is so then does it become even though it's fully generated you know and it will have this new aesthetic with that it'll probably feel very strange but also very familiar in the same way and um maybe maybe maybe you know these creators will will start to build an audience you know with this with this tool i don't know yeah i personally having been on the internet since it's inception i feel like what's going to end up happening is it's just going to make very advanced memes

right you know how like if you even if you look at I actually saw oh hell some a couple guys were doing this interview and they were talking about how it'll it'll enable you know younger creators you know marginalized creators whatever to make stuff but in the could be their example was TikTok not AI they were saying like there's new tools where now younger people understand editing in a way that like you used to have to teach and framing and comp not necessarily like excellent composition but just you know like juxtaposition whatever coolish off effect and um but they make they they make tictox out of it very not very often does a film come out you know uh even though the medium doesn't quite ask for that but even like youtube you don't

really see a horrific amount of short films you see a lot of people sitting behind a desk you know talking about washing machines true true yeah that's true yeah that's true yeah that's true True. That's not where we're trying. But if you end up having a tool that can create something that feels like it has scope and production value, somebody's going to want to take advantage of it. It wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't be the kind of person who's trying to be a personality or, you know, create a specific kind of following around their personal brand necessarily. But maybe, yeah, so maybe it's just a different type of person, different interests. Yeah. I know you went to Columbia for directing, but are you generally a,

a tech-oriented person? Yeah, I mean, it's funny that I am, you know, especially when I was younger, I was very tech-oriented, and that was exactly the reason that I chose to go to Columbia because they have very little to know tech instruction whatsoever. And I thought I don't want to go massively in debt to have somebody teach me how to use cameras and lights and things

because I know I can tinker with that stuff and, you know, become reasonably competent. and I don't want to get kind of like stuck in that, stuck in that world. You know, I want to push myself and think about screenwriting and how to work with actors and, you know, visual storytelling from a non-technical standpoint, which is what Columbia really offered to me. And it was an amazing experience. And then, you know, of course, ironically, because I did know how to turn a camera on,

I became one of the, like, de facto DPs in my year at film school. So then I just, I did start shooting, you know, a lot of stuff for people. And I knew at that point I knew like next to nothing about lighting. And that was a process that was years and years of like trial and error and watching other people and everything. But I coming from in an undergrad, I, in high school, I did photography, you know, photochemical photography. And so I started to develop an eye for composition and that kind of thing and for, you know, processing. and printing and you know doing that kind of thing so it was there was one element of it that I could do and then you know in undergrad I worked for a better part of a year as an assistant

to a documentary cinematographer and in Boston named Steve McCarthy who really was an incredible mentor for me and you know taught me a lot of tech stuff but also a lot of how to compose yourself you know in a professional environment you know and and um how to how to um yeah how to deliver something that um the client is after you know like this is kind of really nitty gritty great like life life skills for for you know getting buying yeah that that's something i've actually started asking more of guests on the show is just like when you're a department head you know what what are those kind of core soft skills that you have to lean in on because that's certainly not something they teach in film school, in most film schools.

Yeah, yeah, and it's been a big learning experience for me, particularly when I transitioned from very small indie's, you know, non-union features where it felt like we were all kind of film school nerds, and it was like we all shared the kind of language and, you know, had a shared experience and then starting to move into union shows where I'm working with crews where a lot of the grip electric crew are you know coming at it where that's that's primarily what they're interested in but it's it's their job and and they a lot of a lot of crews particularly in new york are come from a lineage of other other you know fathers and uncles and brothers and you know sisters who have also done it before them and so they bring to it this

kind of um experiential knowledge that was incredible for me and and it was But I felt very intimidated by it at first. You know, I had to get over this hangup of like going on to shows and having a gaffer, key grip who had done much bigger shows than me and wonder like, oh, do they, do they think my stuff looks bad or do they, you know, are they judging me behind my back? And I feel like at the end of the day I realize like they just want somebody who's good to work with, like who's a decent person to them who's like clear when they communicate. And, you know, that's the most important stuff.

you know that that um so that they kind of uh have a sense of what their day is going to look like you know um so and and and then you know i think one of the other big things i learned is is um you know if you can the more you can trust your crew and um include them creatively the more they're going to um the more they're going to bring to the show you know the more they're going to bring to the movie in terms of ideas and an effort and enthusiasm and, you know, all of that, which is just incredibly important. And I've always felt like I've been very collaborative and then tried to pull ideas from anywhere.

You know, I just thought it's almost never at a movie. It's never like, almost never one person's idea. You know, it's like, I want to introduce an idea and barely certain it's a half-baked idea, but just for the sake for you to, whether you're the director or the gaffer, say well what if instead what if we did this you know and you know or what if we you know and just iterate on these ideas until you get to something that's that's a combination you know

or you know the that that other person's what if leads me to say well no actually that that's not going to work because what it really needs to be is this and now I'm getting more specific about what I'm trying to accomplish with this lighting setup or this camera move or something like that so you know communication is so is so critical um you know and particularly in you know when you're talking about camera operating you know i'm working on i've done television for the past i don't know seven or eight years where typically i have two camera crews and i'm not operating the camera and so uh the need to be very specific and clear about what the camera needs to do at a given scene is is like of utmost importance and um i

where you know I do miss being in the room with the actors and and kind of like sharing that experience it's it's really unfortunate not to always have that but I what I gain I feel like is is a real perspective on what's what's being created and you know it's just a necessary eye that you have to have on both cameras if you're running two cameras at a time um such in like video village instead of on camera basically exactly yeah I'm always like one room away you know um and you know we're always on calm so it's it's like a fluid communication but there's things you know there's things that operator can read like when an actor walks into the room and they're just a vibe that you can sense you know that i might not necessarily you'd be able to sense being one

room remove dorks um which which you know just may impact how we how we approach things you know yeah or like they can see something out of frame that you can't you're like why did you do like it it would have been wall what you know but no or the good thing too is like you know they backed up into a corner as far as they think they possibly can and they're jammed up and uncomfortable and I'm like yeah but we need to get wider and like if I was there I would be like well I can't go any wider but but the person who can't see that where the cameras in the room is is forcing the issue and and thereby making it better yeah like try out oh true yeah I also imagine like because as a department head by definition you don't have as many

reps in as say your gaffer on like a union thing like that guy's probably done 107 shows by the time you've done too are there examples that you can think of on you know whatever it may be murderers Russian doll even acolyte where like the crew

taught you something made life easier potentially like with a workflow hack or a lighting setup that be uncomplicated or whatever yeah I mean there's a million instances I'm trying to think of what one that it comes to mind a lot was Gaffer Joel Minnick

who I did a few indie movies and a few projects with who, you know, when we would scout a location, I would approach it from, here's what I think the shot is and here's how I want to light this shot. And here's where the light seems to be in the room to light the shot. Joel, who would know the script but wouldn't necessarily know all the shots, would just walk into the room and say, and think, here's what the light is doing in the room right now. and here's what it'll be doing later today or here's what it'll be doing if we turn these off, you know, and thinking of it much more environmentally and holistically, which is a much, much smarter way to think about it. Because then if you put it in those terms, you can create

an approach that will work for many, many setups. And you can, you can quickly make a decision about, well, if we're in this corner, all of these things are working to our advantage in terms of the light, in terms of the background, in terms of this, this, that, and the other. And so it makes, you're not trying to make every single specific decision at that moment because you also don't know the answers you think you know where the shots are but then you don't know

the blocking changes or whatever so if you look at it more holistically in terms of what the lights doing in a space it just gives you a much better perspective on how to approach the lighting and to always try to approach it from a position where whatever you're taking the most advantage

of whatever the room or the space is giving you and you're not like pushing you're not working against it basically yeah there's it is funny it's like i kind of similar to you when i went to film school that it was just the fact that i owned a workable camera and uh actually i also ended up being like the de facto after effects guy but uh but uh you spend all this time thinking that you need to add add you know whatever grab as many lights as you can put him in interesting places and then further along in your career it's like uh it's just the window At least still use the window.

How are we going to beat that? You know, yeah. I mean, you know, somebody embarrassing times where I've struggled to add a certain light, particularly when you're dealing with like to exterior or like to interior. If you don't have a lot of equipment to work with, struggle to rig or bring in a big light in a small space. And then when you get it in there, you realize it's giving you like a quarter of a stuff. You know, that's, you know, I just, I just wasted 20 minutes for that. you know what my you know so i think yeah the more you the more you do it the more you

just are willing to kind of let go a little bit and and i think the work tends to look better for it yeah isn't there that uh documentary or whatever it is with gordon willis and he's like hold on this is he's got a light bulb and you know what i'm talking about he's like this is good and he turns it off because that's better yeah exactly um well that yeah that book that book masters of light is uh oh i read that reread that frequently and there's so many things in that book even though it's you know the interviews were all done i guess probably in the early 80s there's stump that kind of feels completely irrelevant in terms of you know i don't know struggling with production or or you know there's this whole there's this whole thread in masters of light was set where

several dps bring up uh film stocks becoming too sharp and lenses becoming too sharp and this is like in the, you know, in the early 80s and, you know, how they like to use an older stock or, you know, a different set of lenses because, because they, they are disliking, you know, how pristine things are looking. It's like, wow, that's so, so familiar. Yeah, it is weird how I have, I have both versions of that book, the yellow cover and the newer cover, I guess. There's a really good bookstore over here that has all that kind of stuff. But it is funny how we, we seem to both as an audience and the people behind stuff i say we i've only worked on one actual feature but uh a second unit um how we push back on modernity any you know anything

that is new and exciting very rarely you know like it's like david fincher and nobody else who are willing to like try a new shiny thing yeah yeah solderberg solderberg will do it yeah sodderberg's working on some 3d thing that no one's heard of probably uh and i like i fully respect and appreciate that um uh and i want to have the opportunity to um to find a project where that aesthetic you know was serves serves serves it well you know but um i do find myself you know leaning on a more filmic look uh you know almost every time um and for acolyte i mean that that felt just obvious that that was kind of the direction you go in. But I do think, I mean, the whole thing of texture, you know, film grain and streaming is

very tricky. And, you know, we were fortunate to have the resources and the ability to really test that with the acolyte where, you know, we wanted to do a film grain. We wanted to add film grain in such a way that it was definitely apparent, you know, and I've got a different shows where it's, you know, if you really look, it's there, but it's not, you know, it's not really, it's not super present. And, um, but you know, you realize what you're, you're dealing with is you're applying, uh, you're applying grain and that's going through this compression pipeline and it's sort of becoming something else, sort of, you know, the grain starts to interact with the compression in a way. And, um, you know, it's when I was talking to, um, uh, Rob Reddow,

who, who, you know, works at ILM and he's a, he's a producer on the show. And, uh, I was like, is there a way for us just to do some outputs and test the grain? He's like, well, just to see you know, there's, I forget the exact number, but he's like, there's over 40 masters for this show, you know, depending on what platform you're watching, you know, and if you're watching it on an OLED TV or, you know, if you're watching it in any, you know, Dolby Vision. So, you know, you can really go into the weeds if you want to test all that stuff.

So basically we just ended up testing HDR 4K and then 1080 like the two most common formats and seeing how much the grain survived. And you know, it was a little it's a little tough to take when you're in the DDI suite and you're looking at your pristine like uncompressed image exactly how you want it.

And then you look at like the way it's going to end up and streaming on an iPad. Yeah, I mean, you know, most people would know the difference but when you're looking at it side by side it's it seems very apparent to me but you know i have to say i you know i've watched the show now and uh maybe it's because i have a little distance from the i i was pretty happy without that compression turned out at least you know in my tv and my bandwidth and you know again that's just so many so many variables but it's like i think the thing i'd be like i need to broadcast everybody is like you got to watch

you got to watch at hDR because actually um the HDR version is the 4K version. And if the TV is not set to HDR, it's going to send you the 1080 version. Yeah. Well, it's so fascinating how many trims have to get made now because it used to literally just be like, I'll make one DCP. We're done. We're done here.

And now it's like, do you mean actually 40 or was that just like a number? I mean, I do mean that much. Yeah. Good Lord. It was above 40. And I didn't get into what they all were, you know? But I mean, my, you know, my favorite. joke on set was like, oh, this is going to look great on my watch.

Yeah. I've heard apparently, I saw what looked like an official document, but I don't know, that I guess like Netflix has an algorithm where the image gets sent to your TV and then there's processing done at the app level on your TV that overlays the grain on top of the streamed image. So it's always, so it's always consistent, no matter what happens to the image underneath it the grain is still correct. I mean, that sounds amazing. I'm sure there's a pragmatic benefit to that I would believe. I mean, I guess what I've heard is from streamers is that they can get a little frustrated with grain because it messes with a compression algorithm, you know, and it makes

the files bigger. It makes the file bigger, right? Yeah, yeah. I think the bit right. So yeah, I mean, I could see that being beneficial for everybody to add that afterward. Yeah. It is. So I'll say for, I rarely break the fourth wall here, but for people listening, the reason it makes the file bigger is because mostly with compression algorithms, it'll compare frame to frame. And because of the grain, the algorithm does, you know, sees a new frame every single time. So it encodes a new frame versus like cheating and saving a couple next to each other and whatever. Yeah, keeping the same pixel value from one to the next because they're not, because it's never the same. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I thought I had a good one there. because I was, oh, I guess this is sort of related to, I can't remember where I was going to that there anyway, but when you were earlier, when you were talking about learning on film, has that affected, like photography, has that affected the way that you expose your digital images at all, or do you treat them as two different, I mean, they are two different mediums, but do you treat them differently? Yeah, you do you definitely treat them differently? I mean, I guess my, my comparison now is more, because when I was in photography, it was all of it. available light. And, you know, I've compared to, you know, the feature love after love that I shot on 16 millimeter where it just really had to be protective of the shadows and, you know, particularly in 16

millimeter where you can't really push that image around that much. So anything that was going below, you know, two stops under exposed, you know, I felt like I had to be willing for it to potentially disappear, you know, or, you know, or, you know, be deep in the shadows in a way that I wouldn't necessarily be able to bring it back. So that's, that's, you know, definitely like one of the baselines. And with, um, with digital, it's, it's different for different cameras, too. I mean, you know, with the tests I've done on the Venice, which I've shot with a lot, I mean, it feels like if you can really under expose it and bring it up and, and, um, and if you're not, like, like me, I'm not desperate for a, like a super clean image, you know, it's, okay.

But, um, I, you know, um, I don't, I don't often find myself in a position where I need to do that, though. Um, we did do, I was just shooting, um, some pickup shots for a movie. And we were doing like a car passed by, like last light, the idea being like, we didn't, we were, did not have a ton of resources and we were kind of trying to do it available. light. So that was almost like an interesting light study because we got to see from like, you know, 8.40 p.m. when it was clearly too bright, but maybe you could time it down tonight to then the way that kind of the values between the ambient skylight straight ahead and the, the brighter side of the sky where the sun was setting, you know, shifted and where the sunset

side of the sky stayed brighter much longer. The ambient started to drop. So our fill line, it just started to go away our shadows just started to get really really really crunchy and deep um and that's that's an instance where you know we were shooting venice too where i was like no i don't i don't there's a point at which you know it was like 905 or something where it felt like it was not salvageable anymore you know those those shadows so so um i don't know i mean yeah the that that is a i feel like i'm just constantly learning about um light you know like how life is in different environments it's just kind of fascinating how its principles are always the same but the nuances can just be really different from space to space yeah a few a couple years ago I decided to just as like

a experiment only shoot black and white not for like work but just for my own personal photography my only shot black and white and just as a light study and it I became very annoyed when I started shooting color again. Because it was like now, before it was just shape and now I got to deal with color and stuff. And it's like the more fucked up it looked, the better the black

and white looked, you know? And then you get into color and it's like, oh, everything's flat. Yeah. It's true. It's true. Well, that's where, you know, that's where reversal comes into play. Like, actichrome is kind of nice. That way it has a, you get color, but you, it's just so

high contrast. You can kind of to define things better but yeah oh i remember what i was going to say earlier uh it was just about the streaming thing and this is why i always tell people to buy physical media i was uh elated when they released and or on uh 4k blu-ray because i assumed that i assumed they were just going to keep that on disney plus and we we were done here um and i'm hoping more streamers do that like for show even for shows that people didn't really like love or whatever it would still be see a physical media release because a Disney's always been on the forefront of that with

those crazy plastic lamshel VHS tapes but B like I think it'll get more people involved in film you know if they're not going to go to the theater the movies in a theater for two minutes you know like give them something that they could share with their friends or watch at home

and then also see the pristine version of it you know I'm sure I know I mean I miss the idea of owning the the the like the copy like the collector's edition of of something and and you know having it whatever you wanted and and not worrying about whether it's going to disappear one moment you know or it's the next or and knowing what it's going to look like yeah yeah I agree that would be great well and especially because like when you when you earlier you said like

I don't think the audience can tell definitely not with a DVD but even with regular Blu-ray street like it looks way better you wouldn't think even with people who have

really fast internet and like a great TV the just a regular 1080p Blu-ray on that screen looks noticeably better yeah

yeah 100% yeah and I got I love some of my criteria in Blurays of you know McCabe and Mrs. Miller is like one of my favorites and you know

it opens this interesting question where, I mean, I love the way it looks on Blu-ray, on my TV. But, I mean, to be fair, it's, it is a different experience from watching a print of it. And I'm not saying it's worse. I'm just saying it's different. And there's some things I like about it. You know, there's, the grain is very present in the, in the Blu-Rae. And the shadows are a bit deeper and richer.

and I don't know I don't I don't hate that about it either you know it's almost clinical and like I know what you mean with these are all criterion all these ones and it's some of these restorations because they you know they take a relatively hands off approach they fix what's broken but you know it's like that you're right that scanned grain can be pretty you're it's like looking at that print under a microscope versus a projection which kind of softens it out right yeah absolutely yeah um But it gets into this own question of like, well, what did, what is the ultimate? Like, what did it look like? You know, when I was researching, prepping this, the acolyte, I, you know, my friend turned me on to all these print scans of the, you know, a New Hope and Empire and, oh, cool. Where people bought old prints and did a scan and, you know, really sit with no noise reduction. tried to create somebody that was like as faithful to the original print as possible um although you know i look at it i mean they look they're really interesting to look at they're very grainy and very

noisy and and um so it does make me wonder like is that really what it looked like in the theater you know in 1977 this stuff that's just hard to say um because yeah i mean how do you how do you compare this you know well and if that print got run through like you know i wasn't around in 77 but You know, it was just basically on a loop for months. Like, I imagine if you went, if you weren't there first day, is that the real version? Like, is your memory of it, you know, in 1978, you know, the, the real version or is that the people who were in line for the first 12 hours, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I mean, all this stuff. That's just the fluid media that we work in. were you given any kind of fun I imagine you were a Star Wars fan growing up yeah were you given kind of any fun access

in in prep for the show that like you you know did Disney kind of go like all right here's the vault go have fun um I mean not not in an extensive way when you know when you know episode four and five

take place in a forest planet and so So we looked a lot at, I looked at a lot of behind-the-scenes photos of Degaba, you know, from Empire. And that was hopeful because creating a forest on a set is, I think, extremely difficult because you have to find this combination of something that has like a density that feels like, you know, you're looking into forever, basically when you look forward, but not being so dense that you can't, there's no depth, you know, to the space. And, you know, it was interesting to kind of like examine how, how they had accomplished

it and how they lit it. And, and, you know, and then, you know, that sparks discussion about, like, well, how much is our planet like that planet and how much do we want to differentiate it, you know, and, you know. But I think one of the things I love about Star Wars is, like, the Diego is not, it's not realistic i mean i don't know when it's it's i when i watch it i believe i believe it like i'm there if i stop it and i really look at it you know i i see i sense that it's a fabrication but i don't really care i mean i kind of like it it's part of the magic of it you know so

that that's that becomes this challenging metric of like well what are we what are we aiming for here you know we're not really aiming for pure realism i mean we were creating a cinematic fantastical space you know so what what do we what's the what are the requirements for that you know um yeah that was that was something that yeah well first of all my recollection of dagaba is like pond tree line black like this not you can't see any anything past there but i did want to know kind of what your guys is um again and kind of like pre-production setting up the look or the the the vibe of the show i guess were you looking at you know because because technically this is like a uh what would you call it a vintage show what What am I trying to say? I'm blanking on the term when it's old, but it wasn't made back then. What the hell is that called? You know, it's hundreds of years before we know. So were you guys trying to look like lean more into, I don't know, like the look of the prequels? Were you not referencing other material at all? I'm just thinking timeline wise. You know, it looks like and or that would be different than. Right. Right, right. I, we never took such a kind of literal approach, I think, to the. to placing the show in terms of look in the span of, you know, the timeline of the universe. I also feel like that, you know, it's the progression of technology and, you know, culture in the Star Wars universe is not, does not parallel ours, you know, in any way.

So it's like, I felt a little bit like we got to kind of take a step back from that and more, I'm more to really connect with the look of the first three film, you know, episode four, five, and six. And as I was like doing the research and rewatching them, it just struck me very powerfully how I realized how much the films were kind of embedded in me, like just in my memory as being a kid, but also like a sort of my aesthetic memory, you know, where there's something that really. resonates with me like the you know these kind of earth tones and uh you know and the sense of like a you know science fantasy world where there are ships but they're not christine they're not clean they have dirt on them they feel like they've been around and been banged up and i just like i like i always love that about it but then at the same time you know the you've got like the big battle at the end of empire where it's like deep fields of blue and and like orange light you know

know, like in the same frame, like pushing against each other. And so something that doesn't feel like perfectly earthbound and realistic, you know, but also has this kind of great saturated color to it. So, I mean, that's the stuff that I wanted to bring to the show. And, you know, and then there's the whole like martial arts component to it. and that that really informed the camera work. I mean, both, like, you know, Leslie talked a lot about, you know, how, like, always pose the rhetorical question of, like,

how would George Lucas think about approaching shooting this scene, you know? Right. And basically, you know, the idea behind it being, like, let's aim towards, like, an elegant simplicity, you know, let's let's, like, less is more, you know. and that for the martial arts work also that that also helped true in terms of the things we were looking at from you know this like 70s films like come drink uh come drink with me and lady snowblood and uh you know then on to like kill bill and you know crouching tiger which you know are granted a bit more sophisticated with the camera but as using generally what the camera is trying to do is highlight and represent the white choreography and as uh dynamic and also like clear away as possible. Yeah. You want to see what these performers are doing.

It's this incredible like feats of agility and strength that they're able to pull off. And I mean, that's part of the magic of it, right? And so it became when we're designing those sequences, if we were going to move the camera, we were almost always trying to move it on one axis, meaning like we're going to move lateral or we're going to push in or we're going to pull out. We're not going to try to go diagonal a wrap around or something like that. like that. You know, there are moments, there are moments, but it's like, I felt like those were choices that felt appropriate for that. It was like we were really trying to restrain

ourselves. And, you know, which is, which is challenging because, you know, the way the action sequences were pre-visualized was through this system that was completely new to me, which is, you know, and I know it's been in a lot of films now, but like it took me a minute to wrap my brain around this idea that they were basically having our, you know, stunt doubles perform the fight sequence and they recorded it, you know, in three to, you know, like, did it a 3D recording of the motion of it, you know, with like tracking suits and everything. And like, so not on set. So not on set. It would be like the set doesn't exist yet, basically. Right. Right. So you get it, you get a motion capture of everybody's, everybody's fight choreography that they recorded in their

kind of workshop and then you know you could put it in a 3d model of the set um could stage it in the into the virtual space and then you could take you know um our stunt action design team had a um you know a ron with a virtual camera on it basically a sensor and a monitor and so you know you could go through and change lens you could just you could walk through the space and like kind of place place the lens where you want it to and then run that part of the fight sequence and then capture it and then watch it back and then make adjustments and do infinite, you know, takes on it where you're not burning out any actors or anything

because it's just a motion recording and you're seeing what it looks like in the set. You're kind of staging it for the best place for the light and you're getting the right lens. But, you know, I guess to come back around to what I was saying, the temptation when basically you're pre-vising that way is like your camera is here in your hands.

You can do whatever you want with it. You know, you can swing up, swing down. You can wrap around. You can do really amazing, cool dynamic stuff with it. And a lot of it was like trying to, you know, and our action designer Chris Cowan was amazing, like just brilliant and also a fantastic camera operator was, was, you know, trying to like just pull him back a little bit

and be like, well, let's just try to track with it, you know, in one direction, you know, let's try to just move up to down or something like that. And then when we shot it for real, often the prior, if we could make a camera movement work on a dolly or on a crane so that it had that like real sense of control and precision, we would do it. And then if not, then Chris would do it on the Ronan, which was also had an amazing series of advantages too because Chris knows a FOIA choreography so well. and so he would do run a certain bit of choreography where he's operating the camera and he'd roll and run it and then and then get to the end of it and then just reset immediately like talk to talk to the performers make a few adjustments and then do it again and he'd do like six takes in a row you know with with slight adjustments and so the efficiency with like capturing that and the fact that he can just the it's you know he can move the camera so quickly uh with just being you know holding it with your body rather than trying to push, you know, a dolly, it's 500 pounds or trying to get a crane to, like, move through space, you know, so, uh, there, there's certain moments where that was the only way to capture the shots. But I think because Chris is a great operator and because

we were aiming for this aesthetic, uh, I think that it all cuts together seamlessly, you know, which, which is, um, which is great. I was, I was very happy with. Yeah. I mean, the, the, the fight choreography, um, or not the court, but just the, those scenes certainly stand. Like, Even in the trailer, I remember there's a camera who's fight. I think it's from episode two where they're fighting in like kind of a dirt round. And just even in the trailer, I was like, that looks, well, I think my brain was primed for, but it was very like Matrix-esque, you know, and I know you guys referenced Chinese martial arts movies a lot. So I guess, you know, and so did the Matrix.

So there you go. But then you had Carrie Ann Moss in there. So I was like, which I got to say, she's literally on a billboard out here for Disney Plus, just her, you know, and the, and the dude from the bear. And then episode one comes out and I was like, you guys, like, I'm glad, I'm glad we've gotten now at the time of this recording up to episode four. I'm like, I'm like, right, we are getting a little more Carrie Ann Moss, but boy, that was a bait switch. Yeah, I know. Don't worry. No, I mean, that was, uh, that was, like, you know, that was going into it.

Leslie was kind of like, I want to have someone very powerful get murdered. Just off-ripped. Just let's just get going. Like, let's, that's, uh, yeah. Did you? Uh, it's, it's funny because I don't think it was, speaking of advertising, it wasn't necessarily, at least as far as I saw, advertised as a murder mystery, but that's what it is.

Uh, and you had shot those before in other shows. Did you, just because of Leslie or was it, did you, let me ask a question in this whole ramble. Were you chosen to be the DP, well, one of the DPs for this show because of your relationship with Leslie or in the kind of similar genre that the show is? It was really my relationship with Leslie. Yeah, we've done Russian doll together and it was a really fun collaboration and it was an amazing. Right, because you guys didn't do murderers together. Sorry. Yeah, we didn't do murders.

We didn't. But, yeah, but, you know, there is that same narrative challenge of like, how do you, you know, John Hoffman on murders. I was always amazed at the way he would, the way he would structure things. And he could talk about it much more eloquently than I could. But I feel like the approach is like, you know, you have to figure out the ending. And then you just have to like go backwards and sort of complicate and complicate. and complicate that you know so that you've got every episode you've got a new sort of a new

suspect you know a new a new thing to pursue that has to be you have to believe that that person could be the killer you know that has to be plausible um but then you have to show at the end you know how it's you have to reveal some new information that takes you in any direction it's uh which is yeah it is what the acolyte does um and in a really fun way and that's one of things i loved about it's It's like it's got a structure that just keeps pulling you through from episode to episode, you know? Yeah. Well, and going kind of heavy pivot, I guess, but I had just, an article just came out today that I read where you were talking about like the use of color and making sure all these spaces felt like their own individual spaces. And I got to be honest, the first three episodes I just kind of watched as a fan.

And then last night I actually watched episode four critically. and in my head I felt like I had constantly seen sets and then there's like a bunch of there's a bunch of shots of like outdoor forest in stuff like there's there seems to be a lot of location shoots but also you guys have done a great job of differentiating between these very like each episode feels like it's a completely different thing visually

yeah yeah I mean you know part of it is is the nature of just like being in a different environment. But, and, you know, what helps too, honestly is, you know, James Friend shot the other four episodes. He shot episode three, which is, you know, a lot of it is on Brendoc. And so that became his world to kind of design his way, which I think is cool. Like, you know, Leslie and I definitely, you know, built the guidelines for the style of the show.

And, you know, we put together this big presentation where we got, you know, I don't know, something like 80 people together department heads operators everybody you know and and like kind of dispersed the the wisdom of like this is this is what we're aiming for and this is kind of the goalpost of the look at the show but then I think you know when you move beyond that like you don't you want to make sure like I said you know like that that everybody feels like they have some room to be creative and and and you know define their own look and it's and it's it is necessary for you know episode three like being a flashback being a different space and but it also I don't think it all like fits together really nicely.

But, you know, I mean, what I ended up doing is just kind of mapping out the spaces and doing a little, you know, timeline in keynote. I love these in keynote for all my notes and stuff. And just almost doing like swatches of color or color references and, you know, movie references for every space. And then you get to kind of see it all side by side and you see the kind of color palette of what you're going to travel through from beginning. And it becomes very apparent.

you feel like you're repeating yourself or you start to make associations with like certain colors and certain spaces or things like things resonate together so I mean yeah I love trying to find ways to visually like take up take a bigger you know or the grand view of everything and try to get some perspective on things because obviously the moment you kind of get into reproduction it's it's so much about getting into the nitty gritty and solving all the little problems and making everything work and it's it's very very easy to lose sight of the big picture. Yeah.

What were, when you were putting together that, that, uh, I guess show Bible, what were the things that you knew you didn't want to do? Um, we knew.

I mean, camera movement was a big thing where we knew we wanted to move. We wanted to really understand what the camera was saying every time. Um, and, you know, we looked at examines, of shots from films where it felt like the camera was doing some really cool stuff and there's some real like craft and artistry to the execution of the shot but I couldn't tell you what that shot was trying to do for me you know and emotionally or you know so so that that was a thing you know we look at a scene you know look at the scene from empire where Luke's hanging upside down and that creature's cave

I can't remember the name of it. And it's like almost every shot in that scene is just like a static shot, static shot, static shot. And then the one move, camera move is when he's using the force to grab the lightsaber. And it's like the saber shaking in the snow pile and the camera's just pushing in, you know, slowly. Oh, okay.

That's like there's, this is what's important. This is what, you know, what's going to, we want to resonate with the audience. So, you know, that was the kind of thing that we're doing. Color palette also like trying to strike this, thread this needle where we are, you know, using not too many colors in the frame, but not being afraid of bright color, um, finding bright colors that are complementary to each other, um, and tending towards kind of

primary rich deep colors, whether it's red or, or, you know, blue or, um, so, so those kinds of things, um, you know, and also not losing sight of the fact that, you know, this is a story about family and this is a story about, uh, relationships that feel like familiar relationships and this is a story about people struggling to overcome things within themselves and and like let's let's not lose sight of that amongst all the spaceships and creatures and all that and all that stuff which is you know i think that's very much like the world that leslie and i come from so uh it um i trying to impart that upon upon you know the um the crew of like let's like let's think of what the small like the small part of this story

is and then and then build up that I guess yeah you know to your point about a camera movement one of my favorite facts that I like to remind people is like the silent era had a lot of really interesting camera movement and when they had to start recording audio everything got locked off because now that camera was a hundred pound or like technicolor you know it's like three cameras strata it's like no camera movement yeah so there's this weird dip where it's like really interesting really interesting very static really interesting when cameras got digital um I know you guys shot on like a what like a hundred yard stage for the there was no no volume right it was just like vfx extensions everywhere yeah no volume and not that many of

the effects extensions um look a lot i should say when necessary when necessary yeah yeah uh yeah uh yeah a lot of like painted backdrops and uh yeah was there was there a particular i mean everyone that i've spoken to who has shot on a volume on this podcast has said it is not that easy was that was that was that a consideration like that's it's a little maybe potentially a little more a little more effort than it's worth uh i think that was definitely a consideration i mean i do think when when i came onto the show that things were gear starting to gear in a direction that was a non-volume direction and when we started to talk about what the look for the show is and talk about the production designer who loved the kind of an old school approach it all it all kind of made

sense. Like it didn't feel like, oh, we should, we should push back and try to get, you know, try to get volume for this, this out of the other thing. So, um, it's sort of, it's sort of nice when your options get limited because you, your approach, you know, becomes more specific and streamlined, you know. Well, to your point about having the, uh, virtual camera for previs, you know, when you're just holding, uh, like you said, like a tracker, you can do, you can move it in a way that the camera would never, you know, being given unlimited options is rarely, good for you. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. No, it's great to make choices. And then, you know, and then always be open to the fact that you're going to make, you might make different choices on set as you kind of, things kind of reveal themselves to you. Yeah. Well, and I did want to ask, because I knew you guys used to printed backdrops. This is kind of inside baseball.

But like, what do you have to go through to get a backdrop, especially with digital cameras being so, like, pristine? what do you have to go through to make a backdrop look realistic? Like, is there an optimum blurriness? You know, were you sitting in Photoshop going like, all right, 50% Gauzy in print? Let's see it. You know? Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.

I mean, they get used in so many different ways. So it's a little bit of like a case by case, you know, like outside the, outside the cantina in the first big bite sequence, it's all a painted backdrop all around there. So that's very overexposed. So that was, you know, you could kind of like, you know, you could make it look more realistic that way. One of the most challenging ones, I think, is, you know, in episode four and parts of five, two, there's a section of Kofar, the forest set, which was like the little corner, it's the moth field. That's basically where the moths come into the, the umber moths come into the show. And the one that gets cut in half.

Yeah, exactly. yeah it's this it's like where we ran out of space basically and uh you know everybody is just like well we'll just make it really dark and you know it's supposed to be spooky anyway you know and so i was like yeah well yeah kind of but you know this we're not you know we're not doing the show where you know things fully fall off in a darkness like we want to feel the world even though it's night and so you know that space basically the existing set was a bunch of vertical uh fairly small trees, which is very different from the rest of the forest. And then the painted backdrop was very impressionistic in a way where it was just verticals, you know, like dark verticals and then grays

around the verticals. And the verticals kind of recede, you know, they get smaller and more faint, you know, and suggest the kind of distance. And I mean, it, you know, it worked really well. Because because what was what was painted mirrored the existing thing very very well it helped trick the eye all the tricks of like you know the density of the the trunks becoming more and more faint as they get smaller to suggest you know and we were obviously adding atmosphere and we were keeping it fairly dark you know um so it it's it you know it's it's some of it you know it's and it's testing to you know we we had I had the good fortune of being able to do like fairly extensive pre-lighting on all these sets and you know it's so helpful to kind of

sit in a space with the camera without the pressure of you know making your day and and try things while you know just have stand-ins walk-through set try different colors try different intensities and then I would record all that stuff and then I'd sit on it for a day or two and come back and look at the footage and oftentimes it would new things would occur to me just having a little bit of time to kind of sit with it. So, you know, we change color temp or, you know, go maybe a little bit brighter. You know, it just all these little, little improvements, you know, that kind of can make things work better.

So, yeah, and yeah, it was great. The, what was it, what was your shooting package? We had a Venice 2, and then, uh, we showed area alpha anamorphic lenses. So they're, you know, full format, two times squeeze, you know, um, incredible. looking lens. It's like really spectacular kind of blurry fall off on the edges of the frame. Like very little distortion.

Yeah, they were great. We tried to stay on the middle to wider and basically the widest done that as a 32 which we used quite a bit when we went out of location and did landscape shots. It looked incredible for that and then we were on the moment we're on the stage we tried not to go any wider than a 40

and then the like 63 I feel like was our hero close up lens. We never did, we did very few extreme closeups. You know, it was our whole kind of single show. 63 on a full frame sensor probably, that's probably pretty good. That's like a, I'm now I'm just doing mental mat like that's probably like a 40 on Super 35 vibes wise. I think so. Yeah, that sounds about right to me. I mean, I can't do the math. Oh, me neither. I'm going off pure vibes only. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, man, I could. definitely pick your brain for much longer, but I know you got like a tighter schedule, so I'll let you go.

But I really appreciate you spending the time to chat with me about the show. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it through to completion because now I'm every, the way it's pace is so frustrated, like in a fun way, but it's so frustrating where it's like episode four, you know, it's like, oh shit, it's the bad. Okay, we're done. I got to right. That's Leslie, man. She knows how to bring people in. No, thank you. This has been really fun. It's a fun, fun way to talk about the show and talk about cinematography in general. Awesome, man. Yeah. Well, next time you do some, please let me know.

We'll have it right back on. We'll do. Later, buddy. All right, take care. Frame and Reference is an Al-Bot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. If you'd like to support the podcast Reck and you can do so on Patreon by going to frame and repod.com, where you can get all the episodes and clicking the Patreon button.

It's always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening.