Frame & Reference Podcast - 16: “Them” DP Checco Varese, ASC

Episode Date: May 13, 2021

On todays episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast, Kenny talks with cinematographer Checco Varese, ASC about the new Amazon series “Them.” In this fascinating conversation, Checco talks about his path from being an architect in Peru to shooting shows like “True Blood” and “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and films like “The 33” and “It Chapter Two.” Enjoy the episode and make sure to check out “Them” now streaming on Amazon Video! Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts 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 today we're talking with Chekover-Rase, ASC, about his work on the Amazon series Them. this episode is by far one of my favorite conversations that I've had so far for this podcast. I really think you're going to enjoy it. I certainly did, you know, learned a lot. I can't wait to have them back on. And if I say anymore, it's just going to sound like I'm gushing over the man. But it was a fantastic, easy discussion, easy flowing, you know, just thoroughly enjoyable.

So I am not going to take up any more intro time. I'm just going to let the conversation speak for itself. Oh, my God, that's a horrible pun. Anyway, here is my conversation with Chekhovoresse ASC. To start, what got you into cinematography? Like, what was, you know, what were the films that influenced you, the people that influenced you, the people that influenced you? influenced you, maybe books.

What got me into cinematography was a complete serendipity and mistake. I studied architecture. I was born and raised in Peru in South America. My father was a jeweler. My mother was a designer. So I do come from a background of artists, or at least a background of intellectuals.

I really never quite, other than going to the movies with my father, you know, watching in Cine El Pacifico, which was this huge theater and watching The Magnificent Seven or Planet of the Apes, the 70s version. I don't come from a background of cinematographers. Peru, it's a small country in Latin America, we have cinematographers, we have film. films, but it's very, very, and it was at that point with a military government even more seldom, you know. So I decided to be an architect. I studied architecture. I went to Italy. My family is from Italy, so I had the choice, the opportunity to study in Italy, studying a very prestigious architecture school, came back to Peru with the arrogance of the 20s, thinking, these people don't

know how to build houses. I'm going to teach them how to build houses because in economical crisis, 300 of the decade, nobody was building anything. And a friend of mine had, a friend of my brother had an older brother had a company. And when they say, what are you doing? I said nothing. You speak several languages and yes, I speak a little bit of Spanish and English and Italian and German. I have an adventure travel company. And I'm like, adventure travel. So are you going to pay me to travel and just like go river rafting and he goes yes great i mean um so monday i show up in the office and uh coincidentally wednesday they get a phone call and the guy at the other end of the bullpen says hey you the new one do you speak english yes and he answers yes we have a camera

assistant like national geographic um needed to do a documentary in peru and they were looking for someone sort of like the fixer local production contact and a little bit of cinematography experience and i so i talked to the producer and said i no experience whatsoever in cinematography but you know everything else i can't help you with and that was it that was 1983 so that was the beginning of a long love with the memories of the 20th century i think the photographers or the filmmakers we are like the scribes of the 20th century you know we keep the memories through that and one thing led to the next one i did documentary with them then i became a news cameraman i was a war correspondent for many years for 14 years um and then the 90s was very

generous to me with the music videos and mn tv some people remember what it was you know we we used to shoot 1500 music videos a month, not me, but like in general. And that gave you a lot of opportunities for creativity and being irresponsible and being innovative and using techniques that were never used. And then after that, I lean into pilots and television and features. But basically that's my beginning. So I'm not technical. I never went to a film school, though I think the organ knowledge that a that a school gives you it's important, I never had that. I've been giving master classes now for 15 years, but I'm not part of that group. I'm part of the group that came up. I don't recommend my way up. I don't recommend my path. It's very long and

contorted, but fun anyway. Yeah, I mean, that's something that I kind of have come to terms with. As he was saying, like, coming out of architecture school, you're like, I'm going to teach you guys how to build buildings. I think a lot of us left film school with that same confidence, you know, I remember specifically, I had a friend, he's still around, I still have him, who he was a VP of Viacom. And I was on the phone with him after I had moved out here. And he was like, I was like, man, I'm just ready to like get on set and make sure people are having fun. And he was like, do not say that to anyone. Don't. You are not there to have fun.

This is a dog. It's very expensive. Yeah. Well, one of my things with film school, in particular, in the entertainment business in general, is that when you're at medical school, nobody tells you, you have to be Dr. Barnard and invent the new heart transplant. When you are engineering, somebody tells you, oh, you have to design the new Empire State building, or when you're architect, nobody, nobody forces you. Your goal is not to become Frank Lloyd Wright. Your goal is to, you know, to have a decent wage, a decent living, to be a human being and work and produce something for society, you know. The problem with film school is like you come out of film school thinking, I'm going to get an Oscar, you know? And guess what?

There is only one Oscar a year for cinematography, one, you know. And chances are you're not going to get it and I'm not going to get it. You know what I mean? And one has to come to terms with in the film school system, in all around the world, I have friends in Argentina, you know, oh, no, no, I'm going to revolutionize and I'm like, oh, yes you should start with that concept but the truth is one has to be humble and honest with oneself and say what's the best I can do today let me be the best I can be today it's almost

like the alcoholics you know one day at the time how can I be very good today how can the scene be better this or how can this shot be better and one at the time and not for tomorrow, you know, tomorrow doesn't exist. Tomorrow, it's coming tomorrow, and we'll figure it out then, you know. It's good to have ambition, but also, you know, I think ambition and realism are two things that rarely go together. And I think ambition is fine, but the ambition should not be, you know, those machines that lay concrete, like roller big. The ambition should not be rolling on top of everyone. You know, ambition is how can I be better?

You know, how can I make this one shot, this one frame better? And that is, that gives you a lot of peace. I don't know if that helps a cinematographer. It gives me a lot of peace. I think it does. I actually, I was doing a little bit of research earlier. And you had said something that I, that I thoroughly agree with, which was that I think you were telling your child that you get you get about 150,000 mistakes um you know to make over

your lifetime and that's how you learn and boy like every day I'm I'm someone who's got pretty decent anxiety and a lot of that stems from remembering mistakes that I made in like college or as a kid like to you know the day the way that someone looked at me when I said something wrong or the you know the way my boss reacted to when I did this that and the other and uh It is a lot of telling yourself, you know, as an artist or as a person, like, nope, that's today's lesson. That's what that's what I've learned today and tomorrow we're going to do better. It's today's mistakes. I'm not going to make them tomorrow.

There is a drawer in tomorrow. There is a door in a closet. Tomorrow's closet has a door full of mistake. I can pick one of them. But today's mistakes, I did them all today. And it's fine. And that's great. But anyway, it's, it's, I.

Coming from architecture, actually, I thought if I were to start again, if I were to be 23 again and knowing what I know today, which is obviously impossible, I would still study architecture, funny enough. I would still study arts, funny enough. You know, an architect built spaces, you know. A cinematographer lights spaces. An architect understands light and window and sun exposure. And a cinematographer has to understand that. We understand color, art, history, you know. You got to understand why people build roof with two sides like this because it rains and the water goes that way. And in places it doesn't rain, they build it like that.

Right. And that is super important for a cinematographer. photographer. You know, you are, first of all, we're given spaces. You know, the production designer designs the space and the director works with the actors. And you're given a space. You know, you're given a kitchen. And the kitchen has to have a triangle. You know, if you think about your kitchen or anybody's kitchen. The sink is here. The stove is here. And the fridge is here is a triangle. So you go from the stove to the fridge, from the fridge to the stove from the stove to the sink. It's a triangle. And that's how it works fine. If it's not a triangle

and the stove is in the wrong place and it takes you longer to cook, a scene is exactly the same. A scene, when you block a scene and a director blocks a scene, there's some director that are gifted with the blocking and some other directors that are not necessarily that gifted. When the blocking works, then the scene flows. You can almost shoot it with one lens and maybe be a close-up. When the scene is, and this is generic, and I'm not saying everything is like this, but when the scene is blocked in an odd way, you go, who? That's going to take a lot of work, you know. So retrospectively, I think it was a good thing to be able to understand floorplants. Like a production that I give you a floor plan, you look at it, and you understand the spatial

configuration of a floor platform. So anyway, for every architect, you guys can become a cinematographer or every cinematographer and build a house, I guess. Yeah, well, I mean, like, I think there's, especially in any art, there's analogies to be made. I grew up not wanting to become a musician, but I just was, you know, my dad was a drummer, so I became a drummer, I was playing guitar and stuff. And I've definitely learned a lot from musicians on how to make movies. You know, the pacing, the contrast between, you know, loud and quiet. I was big into like hard rock and metal and stuff. And the songs that moved me the most were always the ones that weren't just a hundred decals the whole time.

You know, maybe the guy's singing for a while screaming in another part, you know, minor notes, major notes all mixed in between, you know, not hearing the same thing too repetitively. all that can be applied to film make, even technically, you know, the way that you, for instance, if you're EQing music, you never really want to add EQ, you always subtract. And I think of that with cinematography, like you learn later in life, unfortunately, like try taking, try turning a light off. Don't add more lights. No, no, no. They turn them all off. It turned one on. Yeah, exactly. it's it's well one of the blessings of my profession at least the cinematography profession if you look at the Oscars which I'm stating again I'm never going to get they all has they all have white hair they're all like other than the occasional other than the occasional

sort of weird young guy that gets an Oscar this year Eric Eric measures me he's like 40 or whatever Yeah, other than Eric and Emanuel Lubetsky, you know, and Chiwo, everybody else is 65 or 70. So I have another 15 years. So I'm fine. It's all experience. It's all what, you know, it's all what the 150,000 mistakes suitcase that we come to the world with, you know. Yeah. When you earlier, you were saying that you were doing a lot of music videos in the 90s.

And that was something that when I was coming up, I was like, oh, what I'll do is, I will follow that same path. I'll get, you know, start looking for artists and start shooting music videos. And while you can do that, the landscape is not the same. Music videos are not a vehicle for, well, first of all, not a vehicle for which you can get paid a lot. Which I feel like that was the case in the 90s, if I'm not mistaken. I, it, it depended, but yes. I mean, I met a living.

I have a house, a wife, Nissan Exeterre 2004 that I'm very proud of still having. It's almost becoming a vintage vehicle, so I'll keep it a few more years and I'll sell it as an old vehicle. I got the 06 Pathfinder. I'm right there with you. Exactly. Yeah, I don't buy new cars.

I have other things that I would like to spend my money in. No, the 90s was very generous. some music videos were very well paid some others were not as much I don't know I haven't done one in 15 years probably and there are out there but also you know one of the things that it's very interesting is nowadays you have cell phones right so most people at that point we couldn't do it you had to roll film and and In a roll of 10 minutes, by the time it was developed of 35 millimeters, and at the time he was, you know, teleseen it,

or transferring to some kind of digital or not digital, but analog video version of it. Ten minutes of film was, I don't know, five, six, seven thousand dollars? Right. You know, and a song is three minutes, so you have to shoot at least four times, you know, at least. So that's, you know, $20,000 just to shoot a little bit. You know, so it was a very expensive meeting with the event of the electronics and Internet.

But the viewing concept of being able to see things on your phone. It has, first of all, democratized, democratized the viewership. But it also, it's like, you know, anybody can shoot anything. you know my my cell phone has more power than the you know Apollo 11 computer I mean the whole NASA you know so it's very interesting it has changed a lot that that's kind of where I was headed because I hear that a lot a lot of people say oh anyone can do it now and it's like well anyone can pick up the tools and attempt it it's not like anyone can do it but also I wanted to ask where do you see sort of working class

filmmakers being able to come up now because from my angle, it seems like it's mostly dirt cheap corporate work or passion projects. And there's not really a huge space for people to sort of come into what would otherwise be sort of accepted like music videos or commercials and stuff like that. Well, there are two sides to your question. The first side is, listen, brushes in oil has been around for, I mean, brushes have been around for 10,000 years, 8,000 years. Oil painting has been around for at least, at least, I don't know, 700 years. Last time I check, there is one Rembrandt and one Vermeer. So the fact that the tool it's available

makes easier for a Rembrandt or a Vermeer or a Mozart, you know, Mozart came at the time with the piano, well it wasn't the piano, it was called the clavichord, but it was like a piano. Mozart came at the time when the piano was invented, the clavichord was invented. So he was five and his father had the first clavichord in Vienna or whatever. he was Salzburg I think so at five he was sitting in front of and you're a

musician in front of 88 notes or whatever they are more I think so for the first time a kid was sitting in front of the world of music so he could create anything he wanted right before that you had either the little lute and the thing and the Pfeiro and whatever it is, you know, and you were only that person, the person that played the one drum in the orchestra. When the advent of the clavichord, then all of a sudden you could write everything because you had all the notes there. But that didn't make 120,000 Mozart's. You know, it made one, it may be a bag, it may be a Vivaldi, but it wasn't, you know. So you still have to work, you still have to be talented.

still have to be in the right place at the right time. You haste to be blessed by the gods of music or the gods of filmmaking. So the fact that the acquisition methods have been eased, it doesn't make anything easier or better. It just make it more available. That's the one thing. You still have to know history, lighting,

you still have to know storytelling you know that's one thing and the other thing is what are the avenues now i think we're in a transition moment um it was very hard to be a filmmaker in the late 80s unless you lived in l.a new york london paris mumbai or or deli you know that was it you You couldn't be a filmmaker in... Ohio, yeah. Or in Ohio. Or in Morocco. You couldn't be a filmmaker in Ohio.

And then MTV came or the music video industry found a way to sell songs through visuals and, you know, people eating live bats or mini skirts, whatever, whichever version of music videos you like. Sure. So that was a transition moment, and I arrived on that moment. The late 2008, 2009, has become a little bit of what the late 80s is. So it's like there was a sax track, nobody was working. Film was not around with the videos and this and that and television. So either you're in television or you are in no more content, MTV or anything. So I think we're in a transition moment now because of the new business model.

And this is all about business. Believe me, there's nothing to do with art. It's the CEO for some hedge fund in some Caribbean island or Davos in Switzerland that get together and decide, oh, nobody's going to shoot film anymore. Oh, nobody's going to listen to a vinyl. They're going to listen to tape. Oh, nobody's going to listen to anything other than NAP. there or whatever it's or i do so this is not art this is capitalism this is money making this is that right so right now i think with the new streamers or whatever you want to call them is that the various hulus amazons netflix name it that means everybody and their grandmother has a streamer now i think there is an opportunity it's a little bit of the the 90s with the music videos you know You can't do the Peacock mini-series or the little shorts or the 20 minutes or the quibi that went up and down and disappeared, but the other quibi is going to appear two months from now.

It's going to be called the kiwi or whatever it is. So I think we're in a moment of transition, and that transition is a good transition. I think if you're a filmmaker, if you're a cinematographer, there's so many avenues that are at your disposition. whether you're paid or not, whether you can be paid or whether they pay you a decent wage, that I don't know. Sure. I'm a firm believer that we need to organize, whether you call it unions or groups or or gills. I think we need to be organized because the far west, it's a little complex, you know? Totally.

But I think it's a good moment, you know. I mean, I got, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, And forgetting that 2020 existed in the pandemic and the whole thing, you know, forgetting that, in the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2021, the amount of media that you can watch, it's relentless. Yeah. You know, so if you can get as a cinematographer,

as a director, as a sound man, you can get a friend of yours that is gonna do the next something. It's like the music video. I think no that makes total sense the I will say like I am I am enjoying how to how television and film have sort of merged where you can get these wonderfully produced series such as yours which allow you I mean I love watching movies I love living in that fantasy world and if I can do it for 12. hours, you know, a 12-hour mini-series or whatever, I'm all for it. You know, as long as the storytelling is good, I think sometimes certain series can sometimes get extrapolated. They're like, yeah, yeah, keep it up. Three more episodes of this. Yeah, no, yeah, I agree. But, yeah, I'm, I'm,

all for it. And the budgets are allowing that a little bit, you know. Um, unfortunately not enough that at my point of my career, I do series that have a good budget or a decent budget or an okay budget. It's never enough, you know. I'm sure that when I did a chapter two, that was a hundred million dollar movie, we were complaining about the lack of more time and more funds. And when I did, you know, the one million dollar indie movie, I was complaining about the lack of funds and time. So it doesn't really matters, you know, but But if you think of it today, a mini-series, traditional, contemporary, not complex, is between six and eight millions.

In this country, you know, a two-hour movie, a two-hour miniseries, 16, which is a very good budget for a small movie. And it's an extraordinary good budget for a more movie. So we have the resources and we have. Sometimes you don't have the time, but sometimes. So I think it's a very good moment. Yeah. I'm very, very positive and very enthusiastic about where we're going. There's a lot of people complaining, and a lot of people say, I wish I could shoot in film.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. I personally don't have a choice. So, because I don't have a choice, if there is no solution, there is no problem. You know, so I don't have a choice. So I'm happy to shoot him to whatever I can. Totally.

That's actually a great point. Because that, and that is a thing that allows you to place the budget in production design or wherever it needs to go. Because, you know, you can, hell, the camera I'm shooting on, you can make a movie on this thing, C-500, you know. 32 grand for two cameras for the whole budget, you know, and you get to keep them. Yeah, you get to keep them, and then you rent them out for the next production or you donate it to this film school or whatever. I just shot something in Dobsick. And this is not a commercial about that camera, but I just showed something, I'm using Venice, the Sony Venice. Love the Venice. It comes up all the time.

I love the Venice, a great camera, and they came up with a thing called the FX tree, which is a little, but it looks like. Yeah, DSLR thing. A DSLR. It's just an A7 in a rugged body. That's all it is. It's a, it's a bigger A7, you know. I shot a whole scene with it. And it matches perfectly the Sony Venice. I mean, if you ask my DIT, he would cringe on the work perfectly, you know.

Sure. But it matches good enough for that one scene in that particular lighting, blah, blah, blah, and in that setup and the confined spaces inside a car, it was a perfect tool. And that's a camera that is by the time you finish buying everything is like $8,000. Yeah. Buy to go and do a movie. I literally like I'll get emails from younger filmmakers who are like hey I got asked about this camera is the is the C500 still good in 2021 and I was like it came out last year what are you talking about

second of all that that AF 100 from 2007 is still good what do you like get it together it's it's when they ask me young filmmakers the problem is the same you know you you have access to internet you have access to everything and then I have a Nissan Exeterra from 2004 and my Nissan Exeterate takes me from point A to point B. That's it. They get decent gas mileage too. You can carry a bunch of stuff in the back.

Exactly. And I don't have a Bluetooth. Well, I bought a radio with a Bluetooth and it's a hanging thing there. It's not perfect, but it's fine. It's not... Let me bore you with an analogy. I believe...

Dude, I only learn in analogies, please. Fieldmakers, I think cinematographers, we are like chefs. We all go to the same. You're in L.A., no? Yeah. We all go to the same Whole Foods or Rouse supermarket. We all buy tomatoes, we all buy this and that and the other. We come all home or to the restaurant, and depending on who you are and what's inside you

is what you cook. so you can do this fantastic plate or you can do this an eatable thing with the same tomatoes it's not about the ingredient it's about who you are and what you do with the ingredients you know if you go to a chef it's because he is an artisan he's an artist of what he does and cinematographers are the same it the tool doesn't matter you know as far as you can embrace its positive sides and embrace his negative sides that fs whatever three that i was shooting the other day my assistant said oh let's get the adapter for the lenses and let's put the focal i'm like whoa whoa whoa whoa if we're gonna do that give me the venice i just need a little camera

i point and shoot to do this scene because it's an action thing and this and that and the other i don't want anything you want a monitor i said no it has a monitor don't put more weight on it is why, and the problem is we try to make everything look like a Rolls-Royce. And it doesn't need to be a Rolls-Royce. I need a Volkswagen buggy to take me, you know, because that's what I need. And you won't overheat in the sun. So when they say about that, about the camera that you're using, none of I should become a pixel counter.

We shouldn't count pixels. That's for engineers. We should count stories. I mean, that's my theory has been that, you know, it's very easy, especially, you know, like you're saying with the pandemic and everyone's just sitting there, contemplating their next move, you know, like, oh, when I'm back out, I'm going to be able to work on XYZ. So people, I think, over-obsess with the equipment, thinking that the equipment will get them to the next step. And I think that obsession comes from the fact that they don't have a story. I think if you had a story burning through the front of your skull, you would just grab the first camera that was available to you and start shooting because, you know, granted, you know,

you could say like, oh, people won't take me seriously, but shot on mini-d-v. Maybe 28 days later was shot on mini-d-vee. That's still a great film, you know? No, and, yeah, I think we can blame the, we can blame the viewer, but also, we can blame also the mercantilism of things. Absolutely. I mean, you don't need to come up with a camera every three weeks, you know. Which is happening right now. Which is happening right now.

But if you want to sell cameras, then you need to come up with a better camera every three weeks. I mean, it's a, it's a, and now I'm going to make. make a lot of enemies but it's the television you know is it oh we should all everything should be 4k uh okay explain me why oh well because it's first of all the first explanation was it's because it's a better resolution and like no theaters were 2k for decades you know and it was enough resolution and you don't need to so now we invented this myth that is better for for future content uh future proof that's the big one yeah yeah that's the big one now why because you know when you go to best buy or another store and you sit in front of

the plethora of televisions imagine a television that says this is a better quality beautiful image you can reproduce the colors and the skin tones better and there's a long letter and it's a long list of things or there is another one with a big gold letter this size that says 4K right wow I have to get that one it's gold is four it's k I don't even know what k means but it's four instead of two you know it has a k it comes from like kilos and kilos are very very heavy and it's gold you know yeah they make it the price is right label yeah Exactly. So unfortunately, we're chasing the wrong cave. We should be chasing the quality of the image, the look, and et cetera. And we're chasing the K because somebody had a lot of televisions in a storage room that they needed to sell. Yeah, that actually does bring up a good point, though. Have you worked in HDR yet? Have you been shooting to master for HDR?

Well, yes and no. I have, in every show I've done in the last three years has been the HDR or a version of HDR. I don't do anything different. So I don't change my stuff. You have to be a little more careful with the highlights. Let's say, sorry for your viewers, that window in HDR will be blown out and irrecoverable. right or even worse oh don't worry i won't see the camera track that is parked out there and actually in hdr you see the camera so there is a little bit more of thought given to the

process but it doesn't affect i don't know they could decide to make it hdr or not i i am part of the process and i am part of the hr past it usually done at night in a vault somewhere in a basement by a guy with the elbows and i have nothing to do with it yeah the the reason I'm asking is I was looking up some stuff that Eric Measure Smith was talking about and he was saying that he has an HDR monitor on set

and he'll use that to whether or not he's mastering an SDR or HDR, he'll use that as his exposure tool because he knows if he's looking at the HDR monitor it's going to look exactly like it would in the grade whereas you know I'm still meter guy

I still like meters but that's because I'm a dork Eric is a very, it's an artist and a very savvy artist. So I take his word for that. I try to get the best monitor I can, but most of the time I, I like to operate. It's best job. Yeah, myself. So most of the time, what I do is very draconianly or fascistly.

I make all the viewfinders of all the cameras, two, three, well, A and B and C cameras look the same because I can jump from the A camera to the B camera, look through a finder and decide in my head, what is it, before even it gets to the DIT because the DIT at the end of the day is a pre-grading or a pre-color correction so you can tweak in things and you can trick yourself, you know, for the most, for our colleagues that are watching, I mean, how many times we have been in a set and the DIT makes it darker and the Gaffer puts more light and the DIT makes it darker and the Gaffer put most like at 20 minutes later, you're burning the place and the curtains are melting and the actors are sweating. What happened? Oh, well, I thought it was too bright and make it darker.

And the Gaffer goes, well, I thought it was too dark so I made it brighter. So everybody at the end, it's at NB15, 1.5. And you go, okay, everybody stop. give me just the basic lot and it looks like CNN and I'm like okay let's start again take that 20k away take this lot away let's start from the basics so it's very it has become very complex and I understand why Eric says that I haven't found myself with the need of that and it's interesting but it doesn't mean I I don't like it I just haven't found myself needing that Totally. Yeah, like for me, obviously I'm not in HDR land. I'm still squarely in SDR land. And I've just found like, because I think coming up on, you know, 16 millimeter and then into the cameras that had very limited dynamic range, I was just like, I'm going to put that dude's face at key. Everything else is just going to land where it lands. And I can't do anything about it. So, exactly. Nowadays, everything kind of still legible. But well, what has to be.

careful because all these cameras now and the guy that sells the 4k has a every camera now is 14 stops of what how do they call it dynamic range yeah 14 stops of dynamic range and you go okay great so you're telling him in 14 stops perfect so let's take the guy or the girl and let's put her at noon in Santa Fe out right and then let's take her her mom or his mom inside the house with the doors open but the window shut and she's 14 stops longer so you're telling me that both can look great oh well no it's so no well you know you still have so it's all BS at the end of the day the same rule of five or six rule of thumbs you know 300

two over maybe okay four under three over but that's it so within your 14 choose five this five this five or that five that's it that was a yeah they taught us six that's actually something that I don't think it for for the the younger or the less experienced folks listening a half a stop a third of a stop matters of course like I think I think it's too easy to get long in this idea of like you're saying dynamic range or just like I'm going to throw this thing open at one eight chuck a bunch of ND on there everything's going to look great and it's like literally if you don't know where the sweet spot of your sensor is and you're a half a stop over it even when you correct it it's going to look different it won't look the way you want or your ratios dialed or

or your lenses the lenses I mean this take any lens there are lenses that are lenses that are fantastic wide open their lenses that cannot go wide open because they fall apart you know just to give you an example the engineers zooms they're perfect at two eight you know four the vantage or the hogs the hogs are great at two eight at four you take a hog open it up it's a great look but it's different it's completely different You take the Zyze Supremes or any Zyes, they're great at one nine, they're great at two, two, five, you know, if you shouldn't have five, six, you lose the qualities and it's a great lens, but it's a different lens. So you still have to know how much salt you have to add to the soup because it's not, you know, it's like too much salt is too much salt, too little salt, it doesn't taste like anything, and there you go. Well, and I think like you were saying in the example of like the bright midday sun in the, in the dark room, like even if you did have 20 stops of dynamic range and you're only shooting a close up, if your ratio is goofy, it's not just, it's going to look goofy.

It's not, it's not necessarily recoverable and put you can't fix contrast like that in post necessarily. No, you can do it frame by frame and it's going to be really expensive. Yeah, but it also, it's. you know framing you know your frame beautiful between two surfboards or two the snowboards yeah yeah yeah so you're your that's a framing you know you can frame yourself like this and it will be ugly or you can self like this and it's a statement no this poor guy it's alone in his house and the devil is going to come from that window and come and eat him alive framing it's still the it's still the grammar of the language you know framing is still the grammar the dots the comas

the the spaces in color and in contrast is still you know the the the whether it's a novel or a poem or an epigram you know uh yeah you were saying earlier that you you got started sort of in documentary is there any skills that you learned in documentary that you still carry forward through your scripted work? All of it, all of it. First of all, you have to be a fly in the wall. Second, you have to try and understand where the natural light comes from, you know.

I walked into a location, an allocation scout, and I know, and my first question in my head is where is the sun going to go, you know? And even if I have $100 million dollars to put, you know a silk on top of the window i want to know where the sun goes when i go to a set that was built my first question is okay so what faces south or north in the southern hemisphere or where are we oh this is supposed to be switzerland davos hmm great so the sun is down there and it comes to the windows yeah oh yeah so that skill comes from documentary and then i can decide whether

we have son or no son or whatever. Right. Because now I have the tools and the budgets to do it. But yes. And the other thing is what you learn in documentaries is that the only important thing that matters is a story. You know, if it's a gripping story, if it's a, it doesn't matter. Just watch it. Yeah.

And also because in documentaries, you are your own editor in your head. it helped me a lot understanding what shots I miss, you know. In a documentary, you have to show the little hut where the lady was standing in front and the other one standing in the room. And when we talked about it, so you have to shoot it, you know, because people need to know where they are. And then you have to go inside and, yeah, sorry. Oh, well, I was going to say that brings up an excellent point because on the flip side

of that coin, I'm noticing now that the role of the DP is ever expanding, where now you kind of have to be a little bit of a colorist. You have to be a little bit of an editor. You have to, what are you seeing sort of in the more professional realm that the DP is now having to absorb as a skill that wasn't necessarily the case, maybe 10, 20 years ago? If you go to any DP, successful DP, anywhere in the world, and in 1985, would have asked him, okay, what is the acidity of the developer

bath of photo cam and the temperature of the cleaning solution at deluxe, what is the difference between them? They will look at you and say, give them a call. I have no idea. I don't care. It's not my problem. If you ask me today, how many pixels are in this camera versus that camera and how many case and how many this and how many that, I sort of have to know.

Yeah. And it's like knowing the temperature of the developer in Photocamp. By the way, Photocamp was a lab that most of the kids probably don't even know it existed. Yeah. But it's fascinating. And I don't take pride of knowing and I don't take pride of not knowing. I'm very honest. I said, I don't know.

But you have become the shooter, the PA that used to take it to the lab. The driver that pick up, and the colorist, you know, you have become all of those things. It's a burden, but I think it's the result of the 21st century. So there is the same concept. There's nothing I can do. Somebody decided that that's how we should do it. And here I am, here I am, you know, looking at log C versus rec seven or nine versus things. I had no idea they existed five years ago.

Right. Yeah, it's definitely been interesting to watch, like, you know, again, coming out from film school, right around the time that all these technologies really took off. Like, when I graduated, the Alexa had just come out. Like, literally, and before that, it was, you know, mini-d-v or film. And so keeping up while just having learned the basics,

and then new things kept coming out over and over, when we were like, okay, okay, and you just kept chugging along, and now it's like second nature, but. It's overwhelming also because, I mean, in terms of camera, it's overwhelming. In terms of lenses, it's even more overwhelming. Everybody can design lenses. Guess why? Because computer power has become more available,

so you can design something that it took 20 computers and seven engineers for 10 years. now you can do it in five minutes with the knowledge obviously you know um but also okay should i use this stabilized head or that stabilize head or the running versus the thing in it and the da-da-da i'm like thank god i have thank god i have friends all over their place and they send me email saying oh have you tried this i'm like oh but i should try it it's just impossible to keep up with yeah um so kind of moving along Talk to me about how you approached the look of them versus something like, I saw you were a B camera for Pacific Rim. Did you have a lot of input there, or were you just kind of working?

No, it's called B camera. It actually was the other, I was the cinematographer in the other unit. So it's like there was no such a thing as a second unit because there was no second unit director. And to be called a second unit, you have to have a second unit director, a second unit. and et cetera. So it was called big camera. Guillermo del Toro needed 150 days to shoot the movie or wanted or need it or and they only had a hundred. So they created

this 50 day second unit that we were shooting in the morning and saying he was shooting in the afternoon. He was bouncing back and forth. So no, I had a lot of input under Guillermo Navarro which was the main director of photography, but yes. no them covenant it's a very particular them this covenant is the first episode but them it's a very particular enterprise um the the showrunner writer creator uh little marvin said to me when after he hired me said to me this is a drama with a patina of horror

that is given by like creatures that live underneath the skin of these characters. But it also, it's a drama about racial disparity and racism in America. And it's a story that it's a classic 1950s movies shot through the language of a 1970s aesthetic with the tricks of the music videos and the technology of 2020 really oh wow okay so we we try to do that i try to do that it's a very classic framing with the the you know the french connection zooms and kinetic drama or or tilting or dodging um We're taking the lens out of the saddle, the music videos, and the swing and feel. Oh, the lens whacking, yeah.

The lens whacking and, uh, and, uh, I don't know, and whatever. So it was that, that's a really interesting, because, you know, these days everyone is, uh, fiendishly obsessing over the, the quote unquote film look. Um, and I, and I don't think that actually has a lot to do with the camera. I think it has a lot more to do with, uh, you know, uh, production design. and your light mirror and your light meter where would you

so when you're saying the it's the conventions of 50s films but the aesthetic of the 70s where was that 70 because I'm loved the late 70s one of the best times in cinema ever what references were you drawing from to get that aesthetic

the conjuring the classic you know horror movies the low angles of all the president's men and the three days of the condor and

the use of zooms like zooming of the French connection with a more radical framing you know of the music video so it's like in the 235

the loneliness that a wide landscape a white backdrop, a white backdrop gives to a lonely character, you know, it's like, as I said before, you can do this and that, and I'm a lonely character. The old Mr. Robot treatment. Exactly, you know, it's like, I'm like here.

I'm sadder than I was a minute ago here, you know, and that's how we treated that scene. Yeah, because there's certain, scenes in the show that are very well disturbing but like kind of have sci-fi fantasy elements I just got done watching Hellboy 2 and going back to the idea of budget you know I was watching there's a two and a half hour making of documentary on the Hellboy 2 DVD and which another point for physical media and the whole time Guillermo was talking about I just wish we had enough

budget I'm like this dude this looks amazing for having no budget but it's kind of got that the similar polish to it is that kind of this I guess sci-fi is not the right word but I think it's more it's more it started with an homage to the American dream you know the American dream you move to Compton or whatever you move to suburbia and everything is clean and the grass is perfect and the flowers are color coordinated with the walls and so it has to have that polished to break the suspension of this belief or to break the to break the dream you have to make it perfect so then you can break you know that was sort of the attitude um and it works for this particular series you know this

african-american family that escapes the jim kraal laws hoping for a new life in sunny california and liberal California, and they end up in Compton, which is the most rich was, and it is probably, I don't know, I'm not from here, but it was racially charged. And it's all, it's all the same problem, you know, it's like they sold them houses with an impossible, an impossible mortgage. So five years later, they couldn't pay so they could recover the house and sell it now to, they started with the downtown workers, they went to the Jewish coming from, from Europe, escaping the Nazism or escaping even before the pogroms in Russia. And then they sold it to the African Americans coming from the south. And when the African

Americans lost the houses, they sold it to the Latinos coming from Mexico. When the Latinos sold the houses, they're selling it to you and me because they're gentrified. So basically, that one house got foreclosed and sold in the last hundred years 15 times on purpose by design. there a was there sort of a mandate or like a look Bible when you were making this thing or was it very like every script gave a new no it was a we we we started with a with the 1950s through the ice for the 70s with that we started with that and we started with a very contained color palette there was a there was a mandate not a mandate but it was a there was a mandate of avoiding red. So red would be only part of blood or part of something. So it only

appears when the little girl goes towards the window, there is a red curtain. So avoiding red was not a mandate, but it was an aesthetical choice. And then the rigidity of the camera has to do with the rigidity of Compton and the white neighbors, the white neighbors, the white neighborhood, you know, that is very, it's very rigid and very aesthetically stoic, you know. And then you go to the, there is a scene in episode three when she goes to her family and her friends that are all in Watts, I think it is in a neighborhood. And they all end up in Watts drinking, smoking and dancing. And it's more like feels a little bit Mardi Grasish or it feels a little bit south, you know. And then the camera is freer and the camera is

hand held and then we didn't rehearse any of the moves and it was more like a dance and more organic and down to earth and then we go back to confederate and it's all rigid so that kind of language was established it was discussed what was your sort of more technically when you're approaching lighting any of these scenes was any was any of it on set or was it all location work most that the houses are set built yeah all the houses and then we build the exterior of the house on on a street on set sure um like a back street kind of thing and then we went to several locations so i would say a combination probably 30 percent set 30 percent back lot and 30 percent location um and and when you start discussing like

one of the things is where am i in the story the next morning is in the night um are the characters happy is this a good moment or a bad moment so and that's where you design with we were two directors of photography myself and javier grovet um so we will discuss with javier what did you do there because i'm cutting from there and supposedly in the story they are is the next morning oh yeah yeah we did this and i think it worked because it blah blah so so you you you're Just try to follow the arc of the story, hoping that then the editor doesn't mix it up. Sure. And then you're like, wow.

Have you gone all LED panel everything, like pretty much everyone else? Or what's your fixture situation these days? We had a lot of, well, first of all, the LED is LED, and it's here to stay, and it's blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, LED, yeah. Yeah. Nothing replaces a big HMI or a big tungsten unit, you know. I'm a little bit of a combination because I think sometimes I bounce lights and LEDs are not the best things to bounce. I would say 50-50, 40. The LED is here to stay. The risk with the LED is that is not the panacea to every problem in your life.

There are problems that require an HMI, there are problems that require an LED. And I like them, especially when it comes to very soft, large soft sources, you know, the small tiny LED has its uses, but you know, a sky panel 360 to a window with a little diffusion, it's fantastic. Yeah. So they're heavy, they're expensive and they're. they're neurotic and meticulous about their own thing so if it's too humid they don't turn on if it's too hot they don't turn on they're a little neurotic but yeah the big one that uh i think

caught a lot of people by surprises they were trying to sell everyone on the idea of like oh LEDs you'll never have to carry a gel package again and it's like but colors look totally different under LED than they do with a gel no and also not it not every LED goes all over the place and um and you better have a very good dimmer bore up because if it's five degrees off on a hundred LED you'll see it you know and these cameras will see it there is still a learning curve you know there is still there i mean LEDs have been around for what massively for three years four years yeah five years so this is the influence Maybe 10 years, but it's the infancy of it, you know, it's just...

Well, 10 years ago was just the daylight balanced ones with that nasty green spike in the middle. Yes. Or magenta. Yeah, so maybe five years. So you and I should have a conversation about LEDs in five more years. Yeah, totally. It's like, you know, you said the Alexa came out. The D-21 was a great camera.

I was like, oh my God, that's the prehistoric story. That's the prehistoric. And it's what, 2010? 2010? No. Yeah. 2008. Yeah.

That's like my car is older than that. Yeah. Was there anything that I'm starting to ask this now because when I've been talking to people, they're already on the next gig. Was there anything that you maybe learned on them that you've carried over into your current show? Well, it was the first show I did with the latest incarnation of the Sony Venice. So I did carry that with me, carried it. I like the Venice because it, it, it's a camera that is happy in the darkness.

It's a, it's a camera that is happy in the contrast. I like the NDs and the ease of use. of the NDs. And the results obviously are fantastic. But I, I'm very agnostic about cameras. My next project will be with the camera that fits the next project better. So I, I don't have a, but to answer your question, yes, I carried the Sony Venice with it. I meant more so like anything that's like knowledge-wise that you learned that you were a little surprised. I don't, you know, I assume on any game, I ended up learning something new. You always learn everything new.

I've learned something yesterday. So yes, I mean, I cannot be pointed, I think. I think I cannot be appointed, but yes, I did learn lots of things. It's a tough question to tell me something you learned. What, in four months? Well, I think I learned that production design and wardrobe are super important. Yeah.

And I re-learn it and I relearn it every day. But in that job in particular, the production design did such a fantastic job. And the wardrobe did such a fantastic job that it's a reminder on how key, especially in a highly stylized show. You know, if you're doing a contemporary cop show in the street, then it's a little bit different. But in a show that is highly stylized,

how important is to have collaborated. that are in love with the process and that have a vision, you know, that is very important. Were you, speaking of collaboration, I know we've got to let you go here, but speaking of collaboration, do you have a gaffer that you work with all the time? I'm working with the gaffer that I worked for many movies, David Lee and my key grip, Rick Scribling. They're both with me in this project. David wasn't available, so he was in another project.

So in that project, I work with Nikki Kat, another collaborator and fantastic. You try to surround yourself with people that know more than you. So they avoid that they are the one that allowed me to have 150,000 mistakes, you know. Sure. And you let them, you let them fly or not. And then eventually you're the one that says, okay, no, you don't fly that much or I need you to fly more. you know so eventually at the end of the day all the decisions land on me but it's it's a collaborative process it's not a it's not a vertical process it's a horizontal relationship

yeah um well wrapping it up i uh i ask everyone the same two questions uh first one is um can you point to one life change or tool or uh mantra or whatever it may be that stands out to you that made you a better cinematographer? A life change event that made me a met a cinematographer is when Patricia, my fiancée or girlfriend at that point, my wife, decided to go study film. So, but she didn't study cinematography. She studied writing and directing.

And the years I spent around her when she was in school, there were fantastic years for me because I started reading the books, a director week. And I don't want to be a director. I have no expectations of that. And I know how hard they work and I don't know how to do what they do. But to me, being around the knowledge base of how they design a shot or talk to actors and the story of it made me a better cinematographer.

for sure a hundred percent yeah that's that's that's that's that's a big one definitely like for me reading but you know making movies by sidney lemay or um that's just the first one off the top of my head there's a couple books there but uh reading directors commentaries in movies exactly goodness exactly exactly or the teacher that says you know it's what who's seen is this and your answer is oh the scene of the guy coming to the door and like no no no it's not The guy coming from the door, he has more dialogue. But the scene is about this woman that is sitting in the room alone, afraid of the guy that comes from the door.

So it's her scene, not his scene. Recognizing that, it's very interesting. It's fascinating, actually. Totally. Second question, aside from pointing everyone to go watch them on Amazon. And I know that you're not same as me. I'm not really a horror person. So it was definitely...

Oh, no, no, no. I was like, oh, I got to watch this for research. Oh, shit. Yeah. Yeah, no, I got about, I got through the first episode. I was like, I got it. I got it. It's fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's horrible, yeah. But it's very, very good. But is there, is there anything, maybe any personal projects, anything else that you'd like to promote? One of my favorite movies is a little movie I did with Patricia, my wife, is called under the same moon we did it 15 years ago. And it won't sandals.

And it was a movie that I think it changed the perception of immigration a little bit. Oh, wow. And 15 years later, whatever, not 15, 13 years later, it's as current as it is. So it's one of my favorite moves.

You'll be the first person to promote a previous work. Everyone else is like, follow me on Instagram or whatever. whatever. No. That's cool, though. Now I got to check that. I love getting one thing that I've loved about doing all these interviews is like I'm,

the free knowledge, first of all, but also all the recommendations, books, movies, stuff that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. That was a movie that changed how, first of all, it became the movie of every high school, funny enough. Yeah. So it's, it's an interesting movie, a very nice movie. I will have to check that. flaws and it's not perfect and if I would do it again I would do everything different but yeah in

the future I don't know you called me and I'll talk to you about the dobsick thing I'm doing now in the six months it would be an honor I'm telling you this is probably one of the most effortless conversations I've had in the past 20 some odd episodes so it's been it's been an absolute pleasure so we'll definitely have you back on thank you so much frame and references an production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the Ethad Art Matbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Truax's branding company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to provideocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot, respectively. And as always,

thanks for listening. Thank you.