Frame & Reference Podcast - 156: "Jim Henson: Idea Man" DPs Igor Martinovic & Vanja Cernjul

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

A rare two-fer! We've got Igor Martinovic & Vanja Cernjul on the pod to talk about their work on Jim Henson: Idea Man! Igor and Vanja not only grew up together but have some INSANELY good projects under their respective belts (House of the Dragon, Dr. Death, Crazy Rich Asians, Nurse Jackie, Orange is the new Black, 30 Rock, House of Cards, Man on Wire, Tillman all kinds of amazing projects) so this is one you won't wanna miss! Visit https://www.frameandrefpod.com for everything F&R https://www.patreon.com/frameandrefpod 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, Kenay McMillan, and you're listening to Episode 156 with Igor Martinovic and Banya Surniel, DPs of Jim Henson Idea Man. Enjoy. Are you guys watching anything right now that you like, or seeing anything recently? I've been watching mostly classics recently with my girlfriend, yeah. It's we got into this habit of, we just saw Seven Samurai at the film forum yesterday. Oh, wow. That's been, what we've been watching lately.

Yeah, I got that on in the Bluroy. I saw a very interesting documentary in Wenders called Anselm. It's about Anselk Kiefer, a painter. I think for me that was like the best doc of the last year. And I like actually his teacher as well. Is it a perfect day? Is it perfect days? I couldn't tell you.

Yeah, Vivian Wendez's new. of a teacher as well. It's the last year, right? Second? It's from last year, right? Yeah. Yeah, I missed that. Yeah, it's pretty good.

I mean, those two are like really, really, and from Sandek, I was really surprised. Yeah, I've been stuck in, I got that AMCA list. So I've just, any movie that comes out now, I'm just like, yeah, whatever. Like, it's like me and six of my friends, and we'll just all book tickets for each other and it shows up on your calendar

and you're like, well, I guess I'm going to go see that. What did you say that was good? Dude, I like, D-D. D-D., the movie about the Taiwanese kid growing up in the early 2000s in the Bay Area. It mirrored my own childhood so specifically, me and my sister, that we were just, I mean, everyone was laughing.

It's like a half-f funny, half-drama. film, but it was incredible, very well made. And I just saw, uh, yeah, yeah. And then, and then last night, I, uh, saw my buddy's film, uh, good, bad things about, uh, it's not about the guy with muscular dystrophy, but he has it. And he, and he's just trying to, you know, find love and stuff. That was, that was pretty good too. That was more of an indie feature. They made that with like a canon, R5, uh, C and just like,

one or two lights and it looks great i spent half the film going like yeah man if i could ever get one on the big screen i was like oh that's right he shot on an r5c like that's yeah yeah this was not an lf production yeah i had i had an experience when uh with a friend of mine uh in croatia friend uh the director who uh you know how croatia government government government uh it's a government funded industry so um he got uh he got some uh money from the from the government to develop a script and he never wrote the script and the producer was like we have to give this money back it's not like you know it's it's a this is the one pre we have one producer in the country it's not like you cross the street and go to another producer so um so he's like

no no no let's i'll make a whole film just for this just for this money and he asked me if uh if I would be up to doing a film, shooting a film in 10 days without the script and with just like minimum crew, like 10 people and just the camera and a couple of lenses.

I was like, yes, just give me a, I just need a good camera and a nice hotel room. He's like, yes, you got it. And it was one of the best experiences I had in a long time.

It was fantastic. And a film looked great because everybody was on the same page. Everybody understood, like, this is what we have, this is how we can make it work. You know, the scene has to be by the window because that's where they're like this. It's not like a, and it was, it was, it was fantastic. Yeah, I was actually just talking to someone who, her name is Bella Gonzalez. And we were kind of going back and forth on like that initial, there's like a happy medium

in between not having too many cooks in the kitchen and having like a smaller crew and being able to be creative with people that, uh, you, you trust and, and enjoy and all the way up to, you know, in your case, like, you know, well, I don't know. I was, I was going to say, um, House of Cards, but I actually spoke to, um, um, um, Iigel about that. And he was like, that was actually a pretty small crew too. But, but, but, you know, those larger things where, uh, maybe there's there's a little too much and yeah you get all the toys but the experience isn't necessarily the best or the same um yeah i mean i wouldn't call house of cars small crow well yeah yeah that's like you know at least hundred people so uh i don't think it's uh yeah you know you have pre rigging crows you have ringing crows you have bringing clothes you have like the yeah it's yeah I don't know I'm not sure what you refer to that

like I guess if you're looking for like really huge budgets then it's not but yeah I don't know yeah that I would like to talk about that a little but you guys have both shot a lot of great stuff but Vonia have you found that like there's a happy medium for you

because you're like Dr. Death is great and stuff but your CV is pretty wide in terms of the types of projects you take on. Well, I think it's like, you know, it's good to have, you know, train all those muscles, you know, it's good to be able to go in with just the camera and know how to do things quickly without, without a lot of equipment

because sometimes even on a big project that experience will help you for example on House of the Dragon last year we did a couple of scenes in a very remote location where we couldn't bring many people and we couldn't bring we had to hand carry basically a camera, tripod, the slider and a couple of bounce boards

and we got some of the most epic shots that way in the hole in this huge enormous production. So it's good to, you know, on projects like that where you have massive scenes with four cameras and huge stunts and 150 extras and horses and all of that, maybe, you know, two days later you go, you know, and you shoot something that is just you and director and a small skeleton group. So I think it's great if possible and it's hard to do, but it's great to go back and forth and always, you know, keep kind of a, stay in shape in every, you know, in every kind of a, just so it can be able to adopt quickly. I remember on crazy occasions, we had, you know, it was a studio film, but still we shot it like a small indie. It was like every day in your location. It was 42, I think we had 42 locations in, actually, no, 38 locations in 42 days. So we were moving every day. And, you know, some, days, it was literally like a shooting

in a student film. It was just 12 people and we had to get the scene quickly because we had to be out of the location. So it's not you know, it's good to be flexible and you know, and keep you know, stay in shape as I would say. Yeah.

It's not I think then you're just, oh go ahead, sorry. No, just specializing in one type of production. It's not you have to be able to do different levels of at the court

no no I mean I just wanted to say like when you have like a four five six camera shoot you're a manager you know like you have also then you have second unit shooting pile they have splinter unit you're managing the crews you're managing people you're managing

trying to figure out both locations how to do it so it's a little bit less focused on on the core of the heart of the of the project and what is like you know like where the photography is you know because at the end it becomes more about about uh trying to to keep it under control yeah well and uh there was a point in the document in um idea man that that that i thought would be interesting to discuss and that and it it kind of brought it up on you. It's like, Jim got kind of sketched out about getting pigeonholed as a, you know, children's educational creator and wanted to do other things. And I feel like that's something

that ends up happening to DPs where you start out and you just want to make movies or whatever it may be. And then you find out that the only way to get hired is, you know, you make a Western and people go, oh, yeah, we need a Western guy. So then you just keep doing Westerns or whatever. you know and I was wondering how you guys kind of approached your careers in regards to avoiding that pigeonhole or leaning into it even you know but it sounds like you don't want to lean into it I don't I don't know you're going to do have a I have like for me it was I got you know in it initially I have a story about that because I was a I was a you know when i when i when i film school i put my reel together i shot couple you know shot

a few low budget you know dark low budget indies in new york i did my reel and uh you know i wasn't you know i was looking for work i was trying to just you know things were going well you know i had films in festivals and everything but i couldn't pay the rent so i was like uh you know i went to talk to my agent i have to do something i just came maybe i should try comedy i don't know And she's like, no way you'll ever get a commenter. Look at your real. It's just all depressing silhouettes. And it's never going to work.

And then I met the director at Sundance Film Festival who was there with a film, Richard Shepard, there with a film called The Matador. And we met, he wanted to hire me for his pilot. The pilot was called Agli Betty. It was supposed to be big, glossy comedy, you know, with just a, very bright and lots of color. And he decided that he was going to hire me to do this

pilot. And, you know, people from the studio were like, what? You're crazy? This is like, you're going to hire this guy. And he insisted and I somehow miraculously got the job. And I it was a very successful pilot

and all of a sudden I was getting only calls for just comedies. And I couldn't, you know, and it wasn't necessarily my choice. It was just something that so all of a sudden I was, I was, all the scripts I was getting and all the jobs I was getting for, you know, at least four or five years was, was common. And this was never my choice. And I enjoyed that work. I did, you know, some, I met

some amazing people and everything, but this was not necessarily the path I was, I would choose when I, when I got out of a film school. So it's it's tricky because I always give advice to young filmmakers and students so it's like you just have to work

work as much as possible take any work but then you could get you know on a path that you don't necessarily you haven't necessarily chosen and it's really hard

to to change that so it's I don't have wise words about that it's just something to be aware of when you are when you're

young filmmaker yeah yeah i mean it's interesting i agree about this work work work but the only advancement in my career they have done at times when i stopped working you know uh for because like when i started i did uh some documentaries then i did man-o-wire and after men-in-wire everything uh like the documentary doors open and then i was getting calls just to documentaries. It was like nothing else, nothing but docs. And I love dogs. That's why I do them now a lot. I just basically two projects that I believe in. And I tried to at least, you know. And balancing between documentaries and narrative is actually very helpful because documentary work gives me kind of

like something to fall back to, and then in narrative world, I have a little bit more flexibility to choose from. But basically, I stopped, and I stopped doing documentaries, and I said, I'm going to just do narratives. So I was doing lots of narratives, lots of old budget films. And then I stopped working. I said, okay, I'm not going to do a single lot budget film. And then for two years, I didn't work at all. There was absolutely no work. I mean, it was hard. And, I mean, I got offered for a lot of budget features, but I didn't do them. And that's when House of Carters came in. And then they changed as well.

So I think it's important to kind of draw the line itself. Okay. From now on, I've done enough of certain type of films or certain budget or whatever, wherever you want to do the next step. And then you start considering yourself as a fiction, cinematographer, documentary whatever is your goal and then everyone else is going to start considering you as well as one yeah well because you know uh obviously you're real or your i mdb or your website tend to be the way that people decide whether or not they're going to call you to see previous work and stuff like

that so what led to you getting house of cards then after you had said like right i'm only doing top tier stuff that's that's an interesting one so basically my asked me to go to an interview for a TV show. It's a TV show I didn't want to do, and I didn't want to go for the interview, and she was like, no, you have to go. I'd set it up. So I went there, and thankfully I didn't get the show, but there was a person on that interview that was sitting behind. I was talking to people in front of me that was a production,

one of the one producers who was actually behind listening to the interview and a year and a half later he gave my information Fincher and then I just got the call for my agent Fincher like to talk to and I was like, I was shocked

I mean it was like beyond shock because I've never done television. I've never done, I mean the only thing in television I've done is like when I worked actually between it I was like just maybe they're playing for him. So it was is that on Nurse Jackie?

Yeah. Yeah. We went to film school together and we go way back. Oh, wow, cool. Okay. Yeah, we both from Croatia and we studied together. It was like five or five in the class. And we were together in Schen class.

Yeah. That's awesome. I've actually interviewed a few of Fincher's previous DPs like Cronin Wendth and Eigl and Mezzer Schmidt. Yeah. And I'm always interested because he is such a, I hesitate to say famous, but you know, amongst filmmakers, people do look up to him. And I was wondering as a DP if there's anything that you learned on that production that you've taken with you to other productions. Oh, so much. So much. I was a film school because I did all 13 episodes as the second season. And so each day, you know, he would watch, he would watch every shot.

for those, I don't know how many months, eight months, and make notes. And he would make notes that certain things that I didn't even consider that are important. And so much, so much about, like, you know, because it was a very specific show. And he's like very, very detailed about how much detail do you have in shadows. Does your black jacket blends into the seat or you have some separation there? Like things are just like so many notes, like, you know, about framing, about, you know, how about this? You know, it was beautiful. It was amazing and we all like spend every night we would go to, to MacGafair and camera operator,

would go to my apartment. We would sit down and prepare for the next day because you don't want to. like, get a bad note from Kinscher, you know? Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, he's, he's amazing. He's, like, literally a better cinematographer than many. You know, he sees everything. He's, like, completely aware of, like, every light that comes in and, like, questions, everything.

And it's amazing. You should have amazing. Yeah, I've always been fascinated by his lighting, because obviously, There's been a lot of different DPs that have worked with them, but the lighting and the look tends to remain pretty consistent, except for maybe Darius. Apparently, he got to do whatever he wanted, but the first seven, but I was wondering, because not only is the light, you know, pretty, but from what I've heard, there's a, there's a great economy of motion for everything. Like there's, everything's got to happen relatively quickly, but precise. And I was wondering if you could speak to how you can achieve in any production like that economy, that efficiency. I mean, first you need to prepare.

You need to, if there is a pre-rigging crew, they have to know what you're doing. Also, I think it's simplicity. It's like, first, you have to find the concept that is, that corresponds with the narrative. and that concept is basically is something that will give you direction

how you're going to light, how you're going to frame and simplicity is always something that I look towards, like the most simple lighting. I mean, Wainan and I we come from a school where like, you know, we try to light things with like single light source. You know, so like instead of having like 15 sources and people walking through the sources, if you can light with a single light

source, you light the space, like the space would be lived in the natural environment. You know, that's one of the ways. And, you know, like, I think finding the right position for the camera, it's also kind of dictates, the story dictates where the camera it's got to be. you know like and I don't know I don't think I'm not never I'm not like so much for a flamboyant style of filmmaking I I try to find a simple solution but when you can probably add to that there's a famous a quote from Albert Einstein that I always say there's supposedly he said everything should be as simple as possible

but not simpler. I just have to see how old is there's also a line where it's like now it's as simple as possible. It shouldn't be any simpler. Yeah, there's a I think it was a crap.

Who was it? The DP. Oh, Christ. Godfather. Gordon Willis. Yeah. He has a pretty famous quote where he was like there's there's a important difference between simple and simplistic.

Right, of course. Yeah, simplistic. I think he says, like, simplistic is a pie in the face, but simple is, you know, fine. I often think of that similar quote. But, you know, kind of the same question back on you, Von you, but you know, you go from 30 Rock and Nurse Jackie and Orange is the New Black. How do you weave your way into House of the Dragon? well that was a you know it took um i i wanted to do more dramas and i was always drawn to like a you know period shows and uh that was something i wanted to do uh and it's also you never

you never know what's going to get you get you there uh i remember i did uh i did uh i was uh i was on vacation uh on an island in the adriatic and i got the call from my agent that uh if I would like to come back to do a short industrial film and I didn't really want to get, you know, leave my vacation back to New York in August, but she's like, you know, it's an interesting director, you should meet him. And the director was then Minahan, then directed some Game of Thrones. And, you know, came back, we did this short film. Igor, I think, was also part of that production.

And it was nothing, you know, just we did it and I just thought I ruined my summer and now I came back to New York to do the short, whatever. A couple of years later, Dan called me and he said, I'm a showrunner on a Netflix show Mark Apollo, would you be interested in to come, you know? And I jumped on the opportunity. I thought it was at that time, it was a perfect project for me and that started changing things. But as I said, you never know, you never know how, you know, what's going to, what's going to change your career path. So it was, it was Marco Polo, actually, they started

getting me more towards that kind of material that I was more, more interested in. So it took well. Do you find that working on those, not that it's like an effects heavy show, obviously the dragons are BFX, but like, do you find on, on, the, those types of shows that it's any more different than shooting something, you know, a two-person drama in a room, you just have to account for where there might be some actual special post stuff? Or is that scale of production, does that scale of production take up a lot more brain power? Well, that show specifically is interesting because as I said before, you have you have days where it's just a skeleton crew and you go up, you know, hike.

mountain and just getting some like epic epic shot of the landscape in north wales but then you have you have scenes there are you know old blue screen or you have scenes with a you know in in the medieval town in spain so it's very every day is very different so i like i like that kind of television but it's really like a film which just every day is completely different and you have to adjust you can't really fall into a you know cookie cutter mode you have to like it's every every day you have to be have to be focused and adapt and and and and And, you know, every scene and every day is specific. So that's why I enjoyed that show, because it was, and also a lot of location work.

It would be surprised how much of House of the Dragon season two was practical, actually. You know, all those sets were built. You know, the first season, they shot a lot on the volume stages because, they still had to be deal with the pandemic and they couldn't really go on locations and I think they built the largest volume stage in the world there was something huge I haven't seen it because they took it down and they decided for season two that they would put those assets into going on location more and building more sets so when I arrived there when I saw the sets I was just really blown away it was you know I always say this is a you know it was

like when I was in film school you know you look at the classical sets from like a you look at photos from like making of Cleopatra or Ben Hurd oh my god I'll never be able to do this because it'll all be virtual cinema and green screen and all and this was like that it was like a you know like you are on a set on Cleopatra so um yeah so it's a very diverse very diverse show and you have to basically have all the You know, every skill that you ever picked up on any kind of show before, you can really use on something like that. But really, it's always, you know, as a cinematographer, we're always really dealing with the same, you know, same, same, you know, how you tell the story. and a basic how inform, first how inform the audience of where they are,

what time of the day is, and what's the scene is about. So it's really always, once you adjust to the circumstances of whatever level of production you are, you come back to the same question always. Yeah. You know, obviously in America, Ron Howard was pretty much in all of our lives for a very long time, both as an actor and as a filmmaker. What were some of the filmmakers that you guys looked up to

when you were coming up in Croatia? Go ahead, Igor. American filmmakers? Sure, but also Croatian. I mean, I'll have less knowledge of the Croatian ones, but... I think I learned the most just watching

a taxi driver with Paul Schraders' comment. I think that was kind of a light bulb that went into my mind because basically what he was talking about, he was saying that they were trying to make a documentary of Travis's mind, Travis is the main character of the taxi driver. I was like, what does that mean? How do you make a documentary of somebody's mind? And then he started to talk about subjective filmmaking. And I started to listen and read a little bit more what he's saying. And I learned about about subjective ways of expression in cinema

and and that is I would say half of the filmmaking is that obviously not all projects are dealing with the same thing some projects take more like objective point of view a little bit more distant and so on

but that was that was something that I learned a lot I think Scorsese and him obviously a lot and yeah go ahead I was like first time I remember watching a film and realizing that photography

is a element of cinema was I didn't know anything about film photography or anything about how films are made but it was the Blade Runner when I realized that there's a photographic aspect of this film that's very strong

that it's part of the experience and it's as important in everything anything else in the in the film and in that film i still think it's the truth it's the experience of of the world that's that's that's you know constructed photographically that is uh one of the most important part of that experience of watching that film so i think that would be the first time i I realized there's a there's a photographer involved I didn't know the word cinematographer yet there's a for involved in you know in in in in making making this experience you know it's because it's cinema really is for me still it's it's more the it's the experience it's it's not story is just is is one part of that

experience so that was that was then but you know I I still have I always have a couple of a films that I always go back to and look for inspiration whenever I'm starting a new project. And it's been three or four films that are, you know, changing. Some one year is this, but it's always, you know, two or three films. And, you know, one of the films that I always see whenever I'm starting something new and just need inspiration is the Michael Mann's Insider. I see that twice a year probably

and in the mood for love and it's because it's such a different films it's just I always completely different storytelling, different stories, everything's so different than I always it just always gets me going and inspires me to then look at something else

while I'm looking for inspiration or for references so those two films are like I think I see them every year couple of times so it's funny because when did in the mood for love come out like 2003 yes something like that maybe I'm not sure but it's funny because I grew up watching like skateboard films and music videos and obviously the client your Star Wars is and you know the Matrix and fight club and all that and but there was this director so I don't know if you've heard of it there's this director's series of like box set of DVDs or it's like Mark Romanek and and and

and Spike Jones and for me and a lot of my friends that was like the moment where we're like oh there's a lot of fun stuff you could do here but now because now it seems like in the mood for love is like everyone's like well that's the movie that's the movie that made me want to be a cinematographer like that thing had such an impact on so many people from across generations i saw it recently with my son he saw it for the first time we saw it projected at the iFC center in new york and he was speechless when I thought this is maybe something that was important for me because it came out at the time when I was just out of film school

and I wanted to do it. But he is not interested to be a filmmaker and he had the same reaction. It's really a special. I think also, lately it became kind of, again, in focus, the Russian film Come and See Oh goodness

And that's the movie That's the movie that kind of shook me like Literally shook me I couldn't believe this I was set in cinema I was doing I think I was like In the high school or beginning of college

And I was shocked I was like I couldn't like Eat afterwards Like It's not a film I would see twice a year No

No but I have It once every 10 years. No, I've seen it much more. I've seen, I watch it a lot. I'm just joking. I also watch it in parts. You know, like I just go and watch like set up scenes because that's the best also in later, you want to analyze things.

So you don't get drawn into the film too much so you can actually observe it. And that film is like something to analyze like. It's becoming more and more known, more people refer. I remember like nobody really knew about that film it's becoming you know I hear about it and it's incredible

I mean it's incredible story because the director stopped working up today you know he and because it's also his wife Larissa Sheppico who I really highly recommend to watch his films

she was she was incredible filmmaker and you can see in both of their work of Both of them, there are many similarities. There are certain scenes. They're almost kind of mirror images of each other. And yeah, I think that, yeah, those films are amazing.

Yeah, I think it's probably becoming more popular because, obviously, like, right now in the world, the past like five, ten years, if you type in the cinematographer on YouTube, it's like 17 videos of Roger Deacons. like there's there you know how like every magician is David Blaine it's like that's for DPs so uh I think just a lot of younger people who don't necessarily have a deep knowledge of film history he he suggests it all the time he's like that's my favorite movie yeah it's hell of dark and it's funny because I'm just imagining someone going like oh yeah I love the big LaBowski let me go watch this coming see flick and then they just leave devastated

this guy likes this okay um Yeah, those are great film. I'm so happy the Criterion Collection exists because otherwise all these things would just be so much more difficult to get a hold of. You know, you guys worked on Idea Man with two other DPs, but the majority of the film is archival. And I was wondering, why were there four DPs? And how much involvement did you guys have in the, because all the interviews are, in like that box, but there's also some stop motion elements

and I was wondering if there was anything else that maybe I wasn't picking up on that the four of you kind of did and how is your working relationship like between the four of you? We'll start with you. Basically, I was hired

to ODP on this because I worked with Imagine Entertainment the company that produced it. I worked with Justin Wilkes, who is a producer there. So the beginning was very interesting because I didn't work with John before. And I was like unimpressionally directors like this would come in

and you would basically execute things what directors have in mind and he and their help. But he was very interesting case because he came in and he was. like he was just like asking people what they think so it was like seven of us sitting in a room and and everyone was teaching ideas and and then so we came up with the idea of the cube which is actually one of his films right yeah one of his films he's done in a cube it's actually kind of like a reflection that he had and the cube was kind of almost like this

psychology session, room for psychology session. So we thought that it would be a good idea to create that. So we built it physically and on the first interview with Frank Oz

and so that was kind of like a blueprint for other interiors and then we did some stop motion as well. And then at some point there were other interviews to be done and then I asked why not you can come in and continue so when I then took over from there the process was that you know

the whole they a lot of you know what the film was going to be came out of interviews so you know it was a first all the interviews were done and then you know then the what the film was going to be started shaping up but It was hard to get a hold of all these interviewees, so they never knew when the next interview was going to be shut. So when I took over from Igor, my task was basically to standardize this, you know, the way that first interview was done so that it could be recreated anywhere in the country any time. So, you know, if there was another interview coming in three weeks and Igor's not available or I'm not available or, you know, we know exactly how to put the box together, how to put the lighting, together so it looks it's always shot in the same in a same same place so we we then went as far as you know you know first first I recreated what Igor did with Frank Oz but then you know we went

as far as like we did the precise floor plan of you know which lenses are we using how close we come to the actors how far this light is from this so so that it could be basically always always recreated. And sometimes they would shoot a couple of interviews in a row in the same week, and then there would be maybe a month or two where there would be, right, Igor? That would be months in between. So that was why there were more DPs because it was impossible to schedule all these interviews ahead of time. Sure. And what was the, just for novelty, what was the kind of set? I mean, they're gorgeous looking setups, but I tried starting to count at one point, like how many cameras there were but then and this happens to me i'm sure it happens to you but i i started watching

the documentary instead of analyzing it so i so i stopped paying attention you know it's a sign you know it's a it's a really decent decent documentary yeah but uh it is it is a gorgeous looking shot and i was just wondering you know how people get asked all the time like or i should say people me i get asked all the time hey uh yeah we want this interview to like masterclass and I'm like well do you have a master class budget because I'm pretty sure you don't but this had a similar

kind of look to it so I was in order if you could walk us through what that standardization was for the lighting and camera setups yeah I mean the lighting was very simple it was like you know like one light a little bit higher in the light and cameras

I like to shoot with multiple cameras I do a lot of work with Carol Morris and he's known to shoot like, you know, for five, six, eight camera interviews, you know? So I think this one we started with four cameras and but the idea is that you shoot, like let's say you shoot two hours with one setup or like an hour with one setup

then you change the setup and all those four cameras change and then you shoot for another hour. And then, yeah, so basically it looks like you have 15 shots, and in reality, you have four cameras. Because then, you know, it's cut in that way that it looks like you have more, more cameras than it is. But the idea was to kind of have, like, oftentimes, I think interviews are shot very distant. You know, like cameras are very distant from subjects, you know.

So some of the shots, you know, we went like really kind of like a little bit more, angles, camera is closed. I often shoot with diatres in narrative or in documentaries. Coming close and shooting with diopters kind of changes all the bit. The background falls out of focus, so we played with that a lot. Yeah, and when you can continue. Yes, basically it was two cameras. We had one camera. Eventually we figured out that it's the best to have one camera on Dolly and one camera on a G-bar so we quickly

just you know once we knew what the positions where we you know as Ego described you know there was each after I think every 20 30 minutes we would change the camera positions but we wanted it to happen

as quickly as possible so so we basically before the interview even came we marked the positions where the Dolly was going to go and where the train G-bar was going to go so that we could change that basically like a press of a button and we would be in a different

different positions without interview we even having to you know leave the chair right just get them some water real quick and exactly yeah so i think the first the first interview was a little bit more uh involved because that was the skeleton of the interview to trancos so that's why we had more cameras you know because uh they knew that because friends was like as a collaborator and kind of like a long time working partner had like a lot to say so they just wanted to capture as many angles as possible with him and then I probably due to budget restrictions you know just the cameras went down to so you had three cameras I think we had four but I had Sony I had Venice at Venice and then I had the F

FX 9 is FX 9 I think yeah that's pretty common yeah so we had like few FX nines and one one varies yeah I did see in an interview with Ron Howard that he kind of said that after the Frank Oz interview the whole thing kind of changed a bit I was wondering if you could speak to that maybe if you knew kind of what he was referenced it was one of those short you know like morning show interviews he was like yeah we did that and then the whole thing changed and they didn't follow up with him about what that meant. I think it's basically what happens is like you have an idea for a documentary. And that idea changes after you do, you know, like a major interview.

And then then you start actually restructuring your idea, trying to try and to restart a restructuring what the other documentary is going to be about. I think that's what it is. I'm not, I don't know for sure, but it often happens in documentaries that you have an idea, it's going into that direction, it's going to be this kind of a documentary, but then as you do that first interview, then you do a paper cut, and then after that, you are, you like have much clear idea where it's added. One thing I think that might have changed in terms of composition, and I'm not sure,

we never talked about that. I'm not sure if that's, but I think it was a, it was, it was, getting clearer that the archival footage was going to be used as kind of projected on the walls inside of the box. So we- Were those actual projections? No, it was putting in the post, but we already knew that that was going to happen. So we, you know, the compositions were then even more deliberately, you know, off framing was, you know, was basically framed so that you could, there's enough space in the background to put in these these projections and also then you know once we knew that we wanted to have depth of field that's deeper so that it would be in focus the

backgrounds would always be in focus but that came out of the you know the idea that was developing as as the editor started putting footage together and yeah that's that's maybe what visually changed yeah For the interview part, if he was maybe referring to also editorial style, I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not the best at interviewing editors because I'm only a, you know, amateur editor myself, but that had to be a big hard drive. That's a lot of archival. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. Was Ron doing the interviews? Yes. Ron was doing most of the interviews there. It's my first, my first interview, Ron got COVID that morning, so he had to do it remotely. And we had to put something together really quickly. We didn't have the right equipment, you know, because we were not expecting this.

So we quickly had to put something together, you know, like a Zoom, basically Zoom interview like this where we, you know, put the monitor as close to the lens as possible and set it up for him to do it remotely. And it works. He still did a great, great interview. But he was there, I think, every other time. You know, it's funny. Because of this podcast, I carry a, what ended up being an incredibly small package where on a moment's notice, I can hook up the camera to the Zoom with just a USB to HDMI adapter and get the and the audio comes through just like

you know and I've used that quite a bit. That has been a production saver a couple times. I'm not enough. But yeah, I was wondering kind of like I actually watched Ron Howard's master class so I have a decent idea on what he

thinks of directing academically but I was wondering if you could shine a light on what he's like to work with collaboratively. Go ahead, Igor. You had a lot of time with Ron in pre-production where this came, the whole process. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't that much time. I mean, it's, as I said, he's incredible collaborative.

He's smart. He's super pleasant. The atmosphere on set is really, he going, there's no tension whatsoever, and he knows what he wants. And when he gets it, he's like, okay, that's

enough. Like, we would do this stop motion. And, you know, like, when you start doing it, you know, you basically want to do like six shots now because we were thinking, we're going to do like you know, a few shots.

And then after two shots, he said, that's not. And I was like, well, wait. I'm having fun. So, because, you know, we just did this chair moving, and we did this thing with, this train course moving like our, like, in stop animation. That was it. You know, it was like, okay, let's get. We have it. And we still had, like, at the day, it was like, maybe we're like in seventh hour or something like that.

You know, we all used to work like 12 hour of days, you know. And so we were all shot like, well, that's it, you know. So, yeah, he definitely knows. I've heard Spielberg's kind of the same way where he'll be like three lines into a script and he's just like or like a page and he just goes yeah yeah yeah we're not going to use the rest of that let's move on yeah yeah nowadays with digital everyone's like we're going to shoot the entire script from one angle and then we'll cover it at least that's been my experience yeah yeah um I mean It takes courage, to be creative, takes courage to not to cover and take courage not to cover and take courage not to do things in one shot or to do things out of focus or to just like do anything that is a little bit different, you know, because people are so used to the usual coverage, you know, and that's, and it's beautiful when you actually meet people that don't and that they're just like, know, that, you know, you can do a scene on a closet of an actor

and everyone else that is talking doesn't matter. It's all about what this person is experiencing and you just stay there. And I think stuff like that is amazing. When you experience that, when you're on set, when those things happen, that's like poetry. Yeah, I've, I've, That idea of, earlier in my career, that idea of, oh, crap, I got to cover all this, pretty much only came from working with directors my age, you know, in our early 20s.

And now, yeah, the idea of someone just being like, I know exactly what I want. As a DP, you're like, sweet, I don't, I'm not going to give myself more work for no reason. Let's just do that. But it's not just that. It has to have, it has to, it has to be motivated. It has to, there must be a reason behind it, because if there is no reason behind it, I'm against it completely. It has to be something that, you know, like it tells you, it tells you like a certain perspective or it tells you like what, or where the narrative is going. Just like it has to have that.

Otherwise, it just, if you just do it because it's fun things to do, you might regret. You might regret in the editing. Yeah. Did you guys, did you guys ever edit your? your own films earlier on like in film school or whatever like that i have in film school but not not beyond film school yeah yeah because i had i had the experience like uh that was educational for me early on i was i was working as a news cameraman uh for a little while uh and it was uh obviously in the days before um before internet so you know you know you

you had to send your footage for wherever you are in the world. You had to send your footage via satellite, which you could only have, which you could only do in, you know, in several places in any country. And it was very expensive. So you were respected if you covered everything that needed to be covered, but also basically edit in camera, right. Not overshoot.

So it was like, but not undershoot either because, you know, there's always, you had to match. whatever the competition had. So that was a very good training for me because you had to, you know, in the, you know, sometimes weren't in a difficult situations. You had to think about how to get every angle that's necessary, not overshoot and kind of put it in order.

So it's already in some shape that could be understood what, you know, how it could be used. So that experience of in-camera editing was something that I think was one of the best bits of education for me. Yeah, I mean, that's more or less what I was about to get at, but that's kind of the hard mode version is, you know, being an editor definitely helped me be a better DP. But now that you mention it,

I went to when I was in film school before I went to college, we shot on 16mm and we were able to edit, but they only gave us like one to three reels. Right. So we ended up just shoot it, you know, if anyone just had like a simple scene, which you'd have to because you only had what, like seven minutes on a reel or whatever, three, four minutes. You would just shoot it in order and same thing, except because we were shooting MOS for everything. You didn't get that nice little thing we got on mini-d-v which was the end of someone saying action at the beginning of every take. It is.

And then somebody, you know, going off. That was always fun. That's a good example. how medium dictates how you tell the story. It's like, you know, when I was a reporter I was looking at, for example, you know, what people were doing with a 30 feet rolls in the, you know, Second World War

you know, they had to do that this is how much can we have, this is, you know, and there was a lot of thinking going behind us, this, I'm going to position myself here and then I'm going to roll for this, you know, so it's like it was a lot of, you know, you had to think about every shot in a ways that that you don't necessarily have to today but then it shows

you know I always say this you know when you go to any family's home and you pull out the photo album you know four albums from the you know from your from my dad for example you know he bought the camera in the 60s and then he was you know

all these gorgeous black and white films he was not a photographer he was just you know he was expensive and he wanted to do you know, so he was thinking about how he will he get the well-exposed, you know, negative. So he put people in the right places. He was thinking about the light. It wasn't just like, whatever, you know, just I'll get exposure anyways.

He was thinking about the light because he was forced to think about the light. And then sometimes in the 70s, when the, you know, every camera all of a sudden had the flash, you see in the, every family has a photo album from the 70s. All of a sudden, everything looks exactly the same, right? Exactly. Same. It's like completely. and then now it's all

you know everybody's taking pictures with their phones so that would be interesting I was always thinking about maybe a cream creating an exhibition of like evolution of family albums you know from different parts of the world

that'd be great honestly I'd go to that I'd go to that show can start the museum you can start a museum like that and just like every just change every every month or two months you change

you know we should Kickstarter it I'll put down five bucks that actually does bring up an interesting question though which would be now that not all digital cameras make the same image but you know all digital cameras make a pretty excellent image you know it comes down to and at least in my opinion it comes down to you know between Venice red and Ari and Canon or whatever it comes down to what your favorite workflow is more than anything um how do you make your mark on something that can be so easily affected by a colorist that maybe you don't get a lot of contact with or you know those those choices aren't set in stone like they were in film

so yeah how do you maintain creative uh control over that image i mean i uh i try to create a workflow that is kind of iron plan so i'm a little bit of uh of uh of uh uh uh uh uh dictator in that in that so basically I mean I I spend a lot of time with DIT. A lot of time with DIT and CDLs go out and the next day you get steals they have to match the steals that we send to the lab and the moment a film goes in

in post there was an example where I one color is changed it before I came on and I've made them change back because the look is there. I really don't think you cannot search for look in the post. Look has to be there. It has to be printed in the material in some way. Yes, it could be changed like hundreds of ways,

but you don't want it to be changed because there is a reason why I spend time thinking how this is going to look. And that might not be the look that is the best look. There must be better looks. There must be, but it's my look. And it's something that I stand behind, and that's why I was hired to be a DP on the project. And I think we have to stand up for this.

And I think when people know that you're serious about it, first of all, you meet the color is before you start a project. And you make sure that they know that this is the way you want to do or if you don't then as soon as they start they please follow the things so when we start you're up you're already at this starting position where we let you can come in and you can even it out it needs to be done or you can you know do a power window here and there you know things like this before before we work together but uh it helps to be there because if you start reinventing it from scratch, it's like, why?

Why would you work so much in production then to change later on? My philosophy was always to do as much in front of the camera as possible, you know, and I was always, I take, like Igor, I take, you know, the prep a lot and the workflow very seriously. I involve the colorists very early on. I like to have their input, but then once we lock things, I don't want to mess with it until the final grade. And only if I'm really in trouble would I ask the DAT to do something to the image as we're shooting. I try to do it all with lights and with traditional photographic means. that way that way the look is built it's like you know it's constructed in front of the camera

basically it's natural contrast the contrast is such because you lit it that way not because you adjusted a couple of knobs so that was always uh in me the basically the the the lot is like my stock and i don't mess it's like i decided how i'm going to expose it and i i i I tried always to use AISIS because I think AIS is more consistent than gives me more control over AIS as a car space, as a whole workflow. But, you know, and, you know, there has been trends, you know, early on when when we transitioned to digital where, you know, and it was obvious that most cameras look the same. there's been a trend and that you can adjust anything in the post there's been a trend to try to find

the funky lens the lens that will do something to the image that then is that baked in something that the colors cannot do so you'll do something that nobody will later be able to change and it became gimmicky you know it's just like you have

you now have manufacturers who are doing like you know just this little like lenses there are there are just not very good lenses. Yeah. Just because they have a look.

I always thought that was a gimmick. I think you make, I think cinematography is created in front of the lens, not so much beyond the lens. Yeah. No, totally. I mean, good Lord, how many people shot on K-35s for like half a decade, a full decade, just because they were goofy? you shoot them wide open

and you're like there's a look you're like yeah it's a look I've found ACEs to be finicky but then again I don't work with like picture shop or company three I think it's getting less I've been I've been using ACE

now on every project since 2017 I think it was the first first project I did with AIS was crazy rich Asians and I just know it makes you work a little harder on the set because it tells you the truth

you know but then you know you get to I always feel like I'm much closer to the final product and when I get to the final grade the colors

can really help improve things rather than fix things you know just some things that you wouldn't even be with just regular art We wouldn't even be able to tell how some lights are off balance. So it was, it's a, since I switched to Aces, I think all my final color grading was much more efficient than I was always, I would, I got to the result I wanted much, much faster. Yeah, and I'm sure that whenever they're involved, the VFX team is probably happy with that too, because Lord knows what they've been getting.

The hour has flown by, so I will let you go, but I wanted to ask one final question, which was that one thing I didn't really know about Jim Henson until watching this doc was just how involved he was in experimental film and how much he wanted to explore art in all its forms and puppetry was kind of not a side thought, but it wasn't, you know, he had competing passions. And I was wondering, when was the last time either of you were able to explore an art form or try something new that kind of excited you? Um, you mean, something like new in a different medium or? Sure, yeah, a new medium or just maybe something you did behind the camera that, that excited. You know, just any, anything that kind of allowed. you to push beyond your usual, I suppose, routine is not the right word, but something to that effect.

Well, in terms of like cinematography, that film that I mentioned, which was like a, you know, 10 days with no equipment, just the camera on the shoulder, that was, I think this, when I was forced to work with such limitations, I came up with some techniques that I was later able to use on a much bigger, on much bigger shows. But for me, it's really still photography. I started as a still photographer. I ended up as a cinema accidentally because in our hometown there was no college for still photography. And I heard that there's a cinematography department at the Film Academy.

I thought maybe that might be similar to photography, I don't know. So I ended up as a cinematator accidentally. But I still, because I'm not a professional photographer, I do a lot of just work kind of just for me, just experimental work just for me that I don't show anybody. And maybe I think I have like 10, 15 photos that maybe I'll show to somebody, maybe to a year in a couple of years. Yeah, put it at the end.

end of the exhibition of all the family, family photo albums and others just your stuff. Yeah, and I mean, I don't know, for me, I, I, the night off was, uh, the series, was a project where I could play with framing in a way that I, uh, I was allowed to actually frame it the way I want. And that was really freeing and be able to do certain things that are just really off, really strange and weird.

And also, many times working with Alan Morris, who is who really likes to experiment. Yeah. I mean, he really likes to experiment and it's beautiful to be on set with him and like we just play with like who's going to outdo who, you know?

Like he comes up with a shot and I'm like oh my God, where did he find it? try to do it you know and it's oftentimes it's like it's very uh often weird and and and unconventional in a way you know so i think those are those are the moments when when uh you know i could play and be uh like a kid you know it's funny is uh the past two documentaries i worked on both of them were like we kind of want to do this uh errol morris thing and it's like damn That guy really set the tone for documentaries in the past like 10 years. Have you seen that?

What's the name of the pigeon tunnel, Igor? No, no. He's talking about internet. But I'm asking, Kenny, have you seen the pigeon tunnel that Igor did with Errol Morris? No. I hate that down. I think actually, actually, Bournemwood is even more interesting. And Wormwood is something that I did.

narrative part, I mean, narrative within documentary. And I think that's more interesting than the pigeon tunnel because it was, yeah. I will absolutely watch that. And also interviews are done with 10 cameras. What I liked about the pigeon tunnel, because, you know, Wormwood, obviously, you had narrative live action pieces and different. This was just interviewing one person, you know, and how you made so visioning interesting. and you know it must have been very super complicated to set it up the way that so i you know

just because there was it was just basically interviewing the camera and then and a couple of set pieces that that's why i thought it was really remarkable thank you yeah i mean like like i said at the beginning i've been uh just watching stuff non-stop because work slowed down in l. uh so those you know put those right right on the list and watch them tonight um thank you so much for hanging out with me guys. It was a great chat and I'd love to have both of you back on individually or otherwise because there's a bunch of stuff y'all have done that I'd love to dig in deeper on, especially Nurse Jackie. It's my girlfriend's favorite show and she would be mad if I didn't say you guys did a great job on that. Excellent. You made it easy. Thank you. Thanks guys. We'll

see you soon. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye. 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 do so on Patreon by going to frame and refpod.com, where you can get all the episodes and clicking the Patreon button. It's always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening. Thank you.