Frame & Reference Podcast - 161: "Hell Hole" DP Sean Dahlberg

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

This week we've got a helluva conversation with Sean Dalhberg talking about his work on the new horror/action feature "Hell Hell" as well as a lot of yapping about film vs digital, working with clients, the joy of filmmaking, and much more! Enjoy! 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, Kenny McMillan, and you're listening to Episode 161 with Sean Dahlberg, DP of Hellhole. Enjoy. on like 20 minutes into a conversation and been like oops oops I forgot hit the button yeah do you do happen on set sometimes too unfortunately dog I like I will I'll know I'll see it I'll see that it says record and I'm still like I'll go check something else and then I like look back I'm like oh fuck no okay like I don't know why I think it's just going to magically turn it has never magically turned off.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. The battery might die, but... Exactly, exactly. You'll notice that first. Well, to do you one better, the last shoot I did, it was a small commercial shoot, but we were shooting on film, and my first A-C

hit run by accident, and half the roll just... Oh, like no one was paying attention, it was just running over there? Yeah. Damn. And I like, you know, if there was a situation to get burned while shooting on film, like this was the one job. It was pretty small. People were pretty cool.

Everyone can give an extra day. And I also had extra film stock in my fridge that I was like. Was it like a 400 footer? Yeah, just a 400 footer. Okay. 200 feet burned. But like I have, knock on wood, never been like burned on a film shoot like with stock before. and that was the one.

So that was like the hit the record button on steroids. But anyway, I got, I don't know if this is one better. That's pretty rough just because you can, you know, it's film. It's expensive. You don't get it back. You hear the money going away. Yeah. I just did a corporate gig a few weeks ago.

And I've done 10 of these videos with this client. And every time we do one, I try to make note of where I can like slim things down and, you know, make it easier because it literally is. just me and the guy. Yep. And I've been like, hey man, like I'm willing to take a bite on these rentals,

but I can bring like another person, you know, a gaffer, AC someone. And he goes, no, I think I like it just does. Keeps the,

because we're interviewing like lawyers. Yeah. You know, they're not, you know, whoever, real estate people. They're not camera ready or anything.

So I think having less people involved is, but so I get to the shoot. and I can't sleep before a shoot same and so I spent the whole night like prepping the new Pelican case I get there set up and I didn't bring I have a C70 and a C500 mark two

and I didn't bring the power cable for the C70 and nine times out of ten not even nine ten times out of ten I bring like extra batteries backups for backups everything this time I was like it's literally never gone wrong. What could go wrong? So C70, no power. Uh, used the client's iPhone to shoot as a camera. Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't a new one. Wasn't a, uh, iPhone 15 max or whatever. It was like a 13 or 14.

So it's like regular. You could, you could set it to 24. Okay. And then I just locked the exposure. And I didn't even have a tripod mount for it. So I set up that tripod that was for the C70 and just put my hands on it and just held it for 30 minutes. Yeah. And it's the best coloring exercise I've ever had to do. Okay. I got it pretty fucking close. Yeah?

Not obviously like optically it's a little, but I've found a good way to fake blur. Okay. It doesn't quite match because I was shooting full frame 1.8 on a 35, you know? Yep, yep, yeah. But the color I was able to basically get dead on. And then it's just like a texture things that like I had to really dive through. But like if once it's going by with like B roll and stuff, you can kind of tell.

But I guarantee you no one would think, oh, that's probably an iPhone. I believe it. I believe it. Are you grading yourself? Are you proficient in result? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Once the pandemic hit, I had to pivot to a different job. You know, so I just started hitting out all my friends up like, hey. do you need a colorist and they're like actually yeah and yeah you know learned a lot on those always smart move smart move yeah that's cool that's cool did you not doing the same thing i'm sorry what oh no what were you going to say i have my first shoe coming up uh on an iPhone actually next week so i'm about to you know on the new one yeah on the new so you got log and everything yeah yeah so so yes so it's like more of a camera um

But I've avoided it as of so far. That's not great. The Black Magic Camera app is pretty neat. That's what I've heard. I was actually, I was talking to my first today, and he got me pretty excited about that app. I mean, as excited as one can be when, you know, your camera is going to be, or your, yeah, your camera, be your phone or a phone.

But no, I'm excited. Like, again, I love doing what I do because, like, every project just poses a new set of problems and it gives me an excuse to learn so right I love it um even if I bitch about it once in a while but yeah well and I used to do uh a lot of photography on my phone but I had that moment you know those moment lenses a little yeah this little like screw-on ones yeah and uh I don't know whenever I start interviews throw my phone away uh but that they had this like 60 millimeter telephoto

and it was real fudgy around the edges and on my on my pixel 3 was a pixel 3A actually that combo was great and then I'd edit it in visco and it just looked really

and on these newer phones it's like it doesn't there's not the same amount of magic it's funny how like precision seems to always be the enemy of art yep yep like my my girlfriend got a new 15 and she dropped it and it cracked the the camera

and she's all pissed off and i'm like you just you just add a diffusion in front of your lens this looks great now like now it looks cool or it's like sterile and like it's it's it's very good they're very good cameras um too good did you always uh work with did you go to film so i was gonna say did you always work on film or like how did you get kind of put into like super 16 land so i i did um out i went to film school um for four years at a pratt institute and it was very like theory-based art school uh and the sort of things we learned like they wanted to pump out like stan brackage type right filmmakers you know you have a 16-mill camera or a DSLR because those just came out at the time.

Those were the hot new item. And you do your one-man band weirdo little videos. There's no money to be made in that corner of our industry anymore. So didn't really learn much. But outside of school, one of my buddies who worked in documentary and documentary reality TV got the bump to DP and just hired me as an operator. I definitely had no reason to be. hired as an operator.

But it was a documentary TV show in Supermax prisons in New Mexico. And I just, I kind of killed it. I did, I just, it was a two-year run, and I was the only crew member that, like, lasted the two years. So, like, after that was done, I kind of got spit out. And I was like, okay, I'm an operator now for documentary and docu-reality type stuff. did that for maybe six, seven years pretty consistently. That's it.

And a friend of a friend of mine was making their first feature film with the bit of budget. And saw some short film I did at Pratt. Well, I liked my work. And he started talking. Long story, kind of short, is I was vetting for this film with another DP who actually turned out to be a very close friend of mine now, but they wanted to shoot on film. And I didn't lie, you know, I was like, I've shot film in art school, but I, you know, I know how to read false color and like histograms. I don't, I'll probably expose film stock in, in years.

So lost the film. That broke my heart. Uh, I took all the money I've been making on, on all these documentaries and just, just bought a Aton XDR prod kit. nice and learned just bought it to totally learned and that opened up my world into you know narrative and commercial and music videos which is that's more delaying that that that that I think I thrive in and that excites me so yeah it was just born out of like I didn't get this this job that I really wanted and I also, I wanted to be able to call myself a DP and I felt like, I feel like anyone can learn how to understand what false color or what L-Zone or any sort of exposure tool.

That's it, Lockman. Yeah, it's telling you. And I just remember the first time I shot film, I was so, I was scared shitless. I called the lab every, every day. Is it ready? Is it good? Is it good? They got, they were so mad.

at me but but but um i just felt so like proud of myself for just being courageous of like all right the meter says two a the spot says you know for like and interpreting that in terms of how i want exposure to land rather than just painting by numbers it felt more like an abstract oil painting than like all right here's my one here's my two here's my three that makes sense cool um and and i i'm so happy i did that because i i love shooting on film i'm very i'm much more confident shooting on film especially with my lighting uh and i just love i love how a set is run on so i also love shooting digitally i'm not this is not going to be a knock on on digital digital cameras are great use them all the time but i definitely uh i bought

I came here to learn and I'm happy I did because it changed my brain and my outlook on the world, really. Yeah. You know, when I went to New York Film Academy before I went to college and buddy, well, I haven't really spoke to him in forever.

So maybe I shouldn't call my buddy. An acquaintance of mine. A dude named Todd Martin was like in the class with me. And we all learned on 16 on those like Ari's with the turret. you know the three lenses three lens turret yeah and uh i think he did the smartest thing in the

world which is kind of what you're saying which was i think he just didn't stop shooting film because this would have been 2008 or so yeah and 5d hadn't come out and even if it did no one was like taking it super seriously unless it was like vincent lafrette or whoever oh my god about that guy yeah yeah i saw him the other day at an event and i was like oh shit i remember you yeah wow I hope he's doing well. I think he is. Yeah, he was surrounded by people who looked like they had money. So, you know, they're still talking to him.

Right, great, great. Anyway, go on. But, yeah, Todd, like, I often look at his Instagram and I am politely envious of the way, you know, when you're sitting next to the same and you're both, like, that's my buddy. And then it's like, oh, shit, he's shooting all the coolest stuff on 35 because he just didn't stop shooting. Like, what a, I don't know if someone was in his ear about it or if he was just a smart kid. but like being young prior to college and he probably did this throughout college and just going I need to really sell this fact that I know how to shoot film and have films and to be fair his stuff did look better than most of ours at NIFA but I don't know Todd but I follow him on

Instagram his work's beautiful um but no I mean that makes sense he just had the foresight and could see where the curve was was going because fast forward uh that's 2008 fast forward to about a decade. Bill is like hot, hot, hot again, you know. But yeah, his work's beautiful. But I think that's the thing. If you build it, they will come, you know. Just takes a long time to build it sometimes.

Does being an owner-operator with the Aiton matter? Do you think to, not to your own personal work, but like just getting hired on, do people go, oh, great, you've got the whole package? Definitely. Definitely. Especially for starting out, you know, trying to push film on the projects. Like, I definitely the first year or two, you know, I'd get my day rate, but, you know, the camera package might be, I might bring it on for the, for cheap, you know, because you're, and I fucking hate saying this because you wouldn't put anyone in the position unless you trusted them, but because you're giving me a chance. Yeah.

but yeah it's definitely I think a big thing and I recently just got my package consigned with a rental house in New York and it's because it's it's working out okay I think because I've already established myself as a DP who has this camera but it's definitely like older clients are coming back to me and they're like what do you mean I need to pay X amount now like well because they gotta make their money now too you know it's not just in my closet collecting dust whenever I'm not using it um well and I help

I assume too like at that point the client probably maybe gets irked a little but it's like you can you can stick with me because you know I work well and my you know my pedigree or you can go find a new guy who bought one that might work out go for it bud

you know it could it could yeah it might want to your point usually at that point they're like yeah i i mean we're going to you because you're our our person so but fuck yeah you know but i've i've that's actually one thing i notice i have to tell a lot of like younger filmmakers is like if you're investing in gear like charge the client for it yeah let like everything is obviously a calculated risk like you said you know you hate to put people in the position of you're giving me a chance and all that shit but it's not nickel and diming them to rent out your own gear it's like it's par for the course it makes total sense who else was going to buy that you know like yeah yeah and i mean

and there's like a point where someone is buying a product and they know there needs to be a camera that needs to shoot it they know what it costs this isn't their first time yeah and so it is it's mind boggling when when when when producers are asking for things on the cheap or for free unfortunately for me that was the path I had to take for a minute but I mean yeah at this point it's you make production pay for the box that they're building I mean and if they if they can't then fucking build us another box like whether you're talking about crew rates gear rates like and I don't know if you've experienced this but like especially this year post not even posts we're still kind of in all this but like our industry trying to figure itself

the fuck out yeah budgets are getting smaller and smaller and smaller the expectation of crew size smaller smaller smaller smaller but the product they want is the same or better or a more polished product and I can't I like I try my hardest not to be a no person right but I've been doing this long enough where I'm like, you just need X amount to do what your creative treatment is describing I need to do. Yeah. And if I can't do it, we need to figure out what we can do. Because there are options. It might just not be what you thought you could do. Yeah, I'll give you, I'm literally actively, one of the calls that I was rolling today was that exact thing. It's a company

that I love to death. I love the people who work there. They just don't do a lot of video. They mostly do photo. And so they're like, we want to do a whole, like we want to do this for real. So I got a producer buddy on.

And we were like, what's your budget? And they went, well, we don't really have one. Just let us like, let us see what we got. And then he goes,

okay. So it was like a three day shoot in the middle of nowhere. He puts together budget. I think it was like 87. Sure. And they looked like we shot their dog in front of them. You know, they they pull me aside separate from the producer like right after our call and they go dude we have 30

and i was like damn okay well let me figure that out uh we do some reconfiguring producer comes back with 38 actually it was 41 because we had to put up people in still for a three day shoot right yeah and then they go no no no no we have 30 total so you have 20 we need 10 to get from where we're going the creative team needed to come from elsewhere and like set themselves up and stuff and so it was like basically 20 for a three-day shoot and i was like all right here's what we're going to do i literally just have this conversation today i was like uh and if they end up listening i want them to know i love them this is just a educational sale um i was like we're going to do it your way the way that you've always done your photos shoots and stuff i'm going to pay me i'm

going to pay a friend or two and we're just going to absolutely run a gun this. And they're like, well, what if we? I'm like, don't worry about that. You let me handle what I'm going to handle. You handle getting locations and people. We'll do the rest. Like, just however you want to do it, make it a vacation, I don't care. I'll produce something for you. But, you know, 10, 10 grand a day is like, unfortunately, nothing. No, I know. Yeah, I know. It is unfortunately nothing. Um, do you, you, you're an owner owner op as well yeah i got a c 500 and a c70 and assorted random things i tried to hate the c70 so much i can't i know it's great it's great it's like it's great like it's great like i

tried to hate them they're really great um aside from the fact that the handle doesn't rotate doesn't have sdi and the little hinge is kind of bad it's like the image coming out of that thing is sick it's great n ds are snappy shoots raw now like Like, yeah, no, they're cool, they're cool, they're cool little cameras. But yeah, I also, see, I feel like these photo video hybrid shoots also are kind of difficult with budget always in my experience. Because they're just, I do a good amount of like small commercial work for companies that are primarily photo and they dabble in motion. And they just come at it with a photo budget. And photo is just so different than what we do.

And I'm not trying to be on a high horse or. No, it's just actively different. It's not even, it's not better. It's just way different. What this one is like plumbing and electricians. You can't do the same thing. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. But, but that's my, yeah, is my big issue. Is it like when I give them my, my, my electric budget, that's always when they're like, what do you need? Yeah. Well, we need permits. how many of these do we actually need it's like i didn't list them for fun yeah yeah i don't make i don't get this money yeah exactly they make it seem like you are

getting that money sometimes which is funny but i think the biggest issue that i've seen with the photo video hybrid things is scheduling they don't realize how long it takes to set up not only one shot but a collections of shots that tell a story whereas with photo it doesn't matter the context of where these models are

is irrelevant you know make it as vibe as you want there you go yeah as long as you bring a boom on set you're cool you know as long glass of music it's fine yeah yeah yeah anyway I joke about it

I love all my my photo video hybrid jobs I get I mean like you said they're all a learning thing and they're all like fun usually like and especially with the ones that I've done recently like I know their priority is not in video so I just don't let myself get stressed out

you know it's like I know they're like 90% of the work I do is not going to end up I mean last time they just had me shoot everything vertically they're like they sent me out for four nine second reels okay so I was like shot yeah hell yeah dog brought that C70 out just got the clips no one even knew I was there you know it was like Danny DeVito and it's always sunny you know just in and out and out no one knows

in and out that's funny yeah the uh you mentioned that shooting film is like preferable to the way that you light and I was wondering kind of what you meant by that because I think that could be pretty instructive. I find myself really enjoying every aspect of how I work when celluloid is

the is how we're capturing. With lighting specifically I when I work I love being a filmmaker at D.P because you're working with a bunch of

people. It's a collaborative effort. I like being able to talk to directors, to talk to actors, to be present in the space, to watch the light fall on a wall and just actually stand there and watch it. When I'm shooting on film, I feel like I do that. And when I feel like I'm satisfied with the feeling, the emotional reaction I'm having to the space, that's when I do my math and science of like the light meter to make sure, you know, we have enough of a stop to shoot or my ratios are making sense where when I'm working digitally

I really find myself unfortunately really attached to the monitor really attached to L's own like I'm just possibly flipping to like look to see where my grays my oranges my blues whatever are and I think my my images and my lighting specifically suffers from that just because there's weird things in my head where like if I was by that window, even if I wanted it to feel dark and dingy, I might light to a middle gray or even pass up over if they're my complexion because in my brain I'm like, no, that's what it should be. That's what the sensor is going to love. So like, let me get there. When I'm shooting film, even if I'm like by the window, I want it dim and dark, like, I'll just shoot it a stop under key, two stops in your key, whatever kind of iteration of dark you want.

But I just find myself a lot more confident and also just present. And for me, I'm a much more emotional DP than a technical one. I rely on my technicians I hire, my first, my guys. for my grip to really guide me into the tools and the tech that is needed to achieve what I want visually. But I really am like that a dumb reactive DP, if you will. I like to sit back and react emotionally. And I feel like that's my job. I have said on this podcast probably once an episode, enough that it could be on a t-shirt if anyone gave a shit, that emotionally correct often usually supersedes technically correct in most things when it comes to art.

You know, everyone always, I think in the terminally online world, people are very addicted to the idea of there being rules and a proper way to do things. And I think a lot of that just comes from inexperience, you know, people aren't getting the reps in that they would like or maybe used to be the case or whatever. And so they just think like, if, you know, it's a math equation, if I do it. this, then it will be cinematic, you know, without realizing that, you know, I remember one of the quotes that my directing teacher gave me that stuck with me forever is, um, film is just making the audience feel what you want them to feel when you want them to feel it. And it's not often a dark

mean scary. It's like how, how is everything holistically presented to make you stop breathing? You know, is it holding on a shot. Maybe it is bright, but it's like the context of the, you know, there's a lot and emotionally correct always wins in my opinion no i i i totally agree with that a hundred percent and i and i think it is an experience that will make a dp believe that they need to do something a certain way because i know that's how i used to think and then one day i watched birth and then one day i read about what harris savidas did on birth and that completely changed my mind about rules and I was like all right everything I thought I knew was true is wrong uh you know like it's not paint by numbers it's like was silly kindinsky like let's just anything is possible

you just need to hone your craft you need to test you need to understand what your tool is doing and if you understand that the world opens up you know like i've had friends who shot movies that in 16,000 ISO you know what I mean where I'm like that that to me is scary but like they did it um you know Harris Savitas on birth film stock was four stops under exposed after after the exposure and the bath like that doesn't make sense

but when you watch the movie it feels different so he did something but yeah point is is like fuck rules you know understand them but once you understand them throw them out well you know the the phrase of like film is a visual language really didn't click with me until i realized how all encompassing that idea is because it's like once you know how to speak in my case english right you can know how to turn the phrase to make things funny you know put words together that shouldn't be put together to elicit a response

you would not read if you're if you're Japanese person trying to learn English no one would give you like you know Theo Vaughn's transcripts you'd be like what is this

you know yeah um yeah but uh yeah it is it is once you know the syntax I suppose of what you're doing then you can break the rules

are you still a meter person I guess then even on digital unfortunately i want to get away from it so bad but i i'm attached to it more than i would like to be the monitor uh both the meter and the monitor the meter i'm when i say i'm attached to the meter more than i'd like to be it's it's i don't use the meter too much um but there are times when i'm really nervous and i'm just spot spotting every little like what could be black what could be you know white and uh i i wish i could be removed from that more uh the monitor is something when i'm shooting digital i'm i am unfortunately just like

and i'm really trying to break that that habit um that having that reference i always just want to reference it well i mean that there is something to be like exactly like you said when i'm shooting digital. I actually had the meter and the false color. I like redundant. I was just talking to the guy right before you about this exact thing, but I like redundant information. Like multiple sanity checks.

Yeah. But you sleep. Yeah. And it also just like maybe the monitor is, I mean, I got a pretty good eye at this point, but like maybe the monitor is wrong. You know, but the numbers aren't.

Always nervous about that. like calibration monitors being on, especially now that we have these like high bright monitors. Right. The other day I had my first job where in a long time where I had a proper Flanders. Thank God I had my meter because I would have overlit the shit out of that entire job because it looked so dark.

It looked so because I've been used to these ultra bright monitors that are also super color and average. accurate to my eye, where the Flanders to me, I mean, that thing is like color accurate, that, that's, that, that, I love that, that monitor. But the last job I had, I thought, I mean, thank God I had these, these dummy checks because I would have overlit everything because it just looked to me, to my eye on the monitor. Well, and to your point about like, having to light, like, basically, I'm putting words in you're out there, but like, lighting skin at key because you know the sensor's going to like it.

That is one reason why I oftentimes ask, mostly because I work on low budget stuff, to color it myself. Because I know what I can fix and what I can't fix in post. And I don't know if the low budget colorist is going to know. Or if they've worked with Canon foot, you know, maybe they're only used to Sony and they're, you know, I just, I'm like, just give it to me and I'll give you a deal. I know the limitations of what I've shot. You know exactly. That's smart. You're also seeing your stuff front to back.

Like I have been extremely disappointed at times, you know, when the finished product comes out. I've also been surprised in great ways, too, in positive ways. But yeah, no, I know. I hear you. Understanding limitations of what you're shooting and then seeing it front to back. I mean, that's smart. the smart to know that you're getting what you want to be getting visually and the other thing I've done is like I've really built what I believe to be a pretty robust like node tree

and resolve and so all of the non-textual stuff I just collapsed into one lot and that's on all my cameras now so I know roughly what generally I do and there's like a few versions of it but um you shoot you use let's when you shoot you use 3D luck you can just load them right into the camera so it's not like a whole involved thing. And so I have like a film look. I have an Alexa match that I built because originally, you know, everyone used the cannons to be cam for the Alexa.

So I like just took the two of them and then matched them together. Uh, made one of those. I made a now you're going to love this. I made a technically it's like, I guess a 500 T with a 2383, but I'm finding more and more that the, people are looking for the film look and they're all they want is the confidence that when

they click something it may be someone said that oh yeah that's what portrait is because none of these like deanser and everything they look great but they keep telling you they're they use all these film stocks and I'm like did they are they and also who scanned it you know I shoot a lot of still photography film you know meeting format and it's like every scanner is different every developer's different like there's no true film look there are elements of film but there's no like so thank you for saying that because there are no there are so many factors in the final image if you're shooting on film whether it's no photography motion photography there's like there's so many factors and so many ways that you can inflict your hand to

create a look yeah so like that's that's I mean they're selling something right people need to sell sell something all right that's what my brain goes uh But who knows, man? Who knows? Yeah. But yeah, so I built a film adjacent lot. I don't know what it's matching, but it includes the like... Is it the old film, Nick, to you?

Like, if you side by side. Have you ever done a side-by-side test? Not on motion picture stock. I have on Portra. Actually, one of the Lutz is a Portra match. Okay. But again, you know, it's like a match in what lighting condition and what, you know. but I would like to do a side by side

because I think a lot of it's sexual I will say like people's obsession with halation is a synestil problem that like nothing has that much halation you have to try to fuck it up like that really happy you said that too you're right people are very obsessed with collation and I became obsessed for a little bit too

because you know I was chasing this film look and to me I'm like highlights are highlighted and shadows are crushed you know like add grain film yeah and it's and and I would I would create images

that look like when I'd see them I'm like oh they're so heavy handed like it doesn't look like film it just looks like digital with like a pro missed like two yeah yeah I don't let's you know but

I've always I have a couple friends who've created lots that do feel pretty filmic to me and they're gatekeeping. They haven't of course. They haven't told me their secrets but I have a friend or two

they've shot digitally and it does honestly look pretty filmic and they didn't do a film out or anything. It was proper digital workflow. But also Vision 3 is so good. Now, like, if I, anytime, I, I, I have had producers, like, who I don't really know

either even saying this. This should be my thing, but, you know, are like, we need to shoot 50D. Well, let's just, let's just get an Alexa then, because like, it's so clean and, and, and, and 50D 35, like, I guess there's, oh, I'd see it be cleaner. I don't, I don't, I, I don't really shoot 50D because it's just really clean. shoot digital to that point. The point is, the film stock is so good that it's really hard to decipher sometimes. I was interviewing Eigle Burld, who shot the holdovers.

And, you know, obviously that made a big splash because of how it looks. And he was telling me that they tested all, you know, 16, 35, every stock they could manage. And they realized that after they. scanned it in it still looked too clean and they're like if we're going to go through here and add grain and bloom and shake and all the shit just shoot digital and so they did so everyone thought that was like shot on an old film song it's again emotionally correct beat technically correct actually shooting on film was the wrong choice to make it look like the memory of film the emotional memory of film in the 70s yeah I agree I mean I think

you need to really like fuck film stock up nowadays to make it look like film and when i say that i mean things you would do as a ds a dp but like if i want my stuff that i've shot on film to look like film i i under expose my film stock like right pretty hairy level and luckily i've had people like you know harrisavidus and like christopher christopher blaveld we've written extensively on like the toenail of you know film stock so it's it's it's given me confidence to be like well let's try it they did it and you find you're like oh that actually feels like film like now because I ruined it yeah um there's a great quote from I want to say it's Brian Eno but you may have seen it where he was like you know everyone getting all misty eyed over

vinyl and uh cassette tapes and stuff the same thing's going to happen with CDs people's uh when we get past a certain technology, people only remember the artifacts of that technology, not what made it good. You see kids today, and I do mean like kids, like, you know, teenagers, really getting into the idea of using like cannon power shots or whatever, taking those to the parties, because they want that like millennial house party look, quote unquote. Yep. And I was just like, that's so fascinating.

What they really want is not their phone, which I fully understand. and an on-camera flash. That's it. Other than that, like, what do you, you know? But it's the artifacts of the medium that make people think of the medium. You know, Vision 3 is too clean. Vision 3 could be confused with really well-made Alexa stuff all the time or even red. I agree.

I agree. I totally agree. Yeah, no, I totally agree. That's like why for me, like, when I do have these film jobs, I really try to paint a picture of, like, the process. because the process is really important for me. I'm a true believer that the process is indicative of the project that you get. And I just try to stress that the process of shooting on film, for me, it just makes more sense.

It's more of a community effort, more collaboration, less directors worrying about art if it needs to be like that or like this or like this. Everyone getting a monitor can be problematic sometimes where I do like kind of being like in a very nice way but you know take a seat

enjoy the movie let the profession like you hired me to like wag this meter around and make pretend I know what it's telling me so let's let's do it and that's usually what happens and it's it's like I fucking love

that sort of collaboration so much and everyone Everyone's just super buttoned up on their toes and present. I think that's the most important for me. Everyone's present. Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing with anything.

It's just easier to point to. But like, you know, when you're finally on your first shoot where someone has that Alexa or you're on a first shoot where there's a bunch of crew, you know, some of them you don't know their names. Like it's always like you rise to the occasion a lot of times, I feel is in creative fields. What was the reason for not shooting Hellhole? on film. Was that just budgetary? It didn't make sense at all.

There was talks about it, but the directors, John Adams and Toby Pozer, they come from a very DIY sort of punk mentality

of filmmaking. They make movies with their family. And a couple key collaborators who live close by to them But they make these horror movies with very small crew and and and kind of, you know, would shoot them when it be macrary day outside. So the light is beautifully diffused. Let's go out back in the woods and shoot a scene.

I didn't want to shoot on film because I wanted them to have the freedom. to be able to make a movie in a way that they were used to. I'll be it, you know, elevated visuals, a proper crew, but like in terms of like that DIY punk mentality that is really important to them, I didn't want them to feel like they lost it because I go, we only have three takes of everything. Oh, we rolled out at the middle of that. Like I really felt like it was important to at least give them,

the ability to be very flexible and to be able to pivot at a moment's notice if if that's what we needed to do um so you know even all this romantic shit i just said about film like i i do love shooting digitally and for me it is it is a very project to project thing and and and how i will dictate that is how i think the set needs to be run at least from where i'm and i think if we shot on film, I would have put them in a situation that they would have been incredibly uncomfortable with. Sure. I was talking to Bob Yoman, Wes Anderson's DP, and he was saying that, like, Wes really

wants it to feel like a student film set, you know, like five people there. Obviously, they should film, but like, just a handful of people there. Did they shoot film on that? Asteroid City. Yeah. No, they did. They did. Yeah.

I think he only shoots 35. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. what threw me off was I was like wait a minute what was it with that Cineon scan was that digital but that was just the grade um but yeah it's definitely like you kind of I think we all wish that like DPs were bigger rock stars than we were to a degree not truly because no one wants the actual like attention because fuck that no one wants to be famous famous but like uh you know you wait for your name to come on through the credits it's a little longer you're like that's a lot of producers come on give me the but uh But at the end of the day, you know, you are there to, to usher the director's vision through, you know, and anything to make their job easier will make them like you more and hire you again, not sitting there and going, that's not my vision, you know. Yeah, well, I also believe my job is to not do what I want to do.

My job is to try to understand what they want to do visually and guide them the best that I can that way. And like, basically they show me where the room is. I make sure the light's on in the room. And if the light gets turned off in the room and like, where the fuck's the room? I go, hey, the room's over there. And the light needs to be changed a little bit. Right. Like, you know, that's how I truly believe.

That's what I believe my job is. And I really, of course, I have my subjective feelings. and I have an artistic background, and I feel too much, right? I have opinions, but I always try before I give a thought or anything on set, I try to ask myself if it's in line with where the directors want this to go. And if it's not, I realize it's my own subjectivity, and I try to shut that voice up. because it's not my film and I've definitely when I first started out like would really fight for like a certain light quality or a certain thing that I thought visually we needed to do where now I think the most important thing are actors man like I think what we connect with as as an audience member is is actors more more so than like is my key light a half stop too hot like like I think it's if the performance is good,

fucking whatever, you'll get lost in that performance. All that being said, I also know my job is to, you know, invoke the correct visuals. So, like, I want things to look great

if they're supposed to. That's a production design's job. Yeah. Honestly, so all, and I am saying this as ADP. Yeah. Fucking, like, 80% of my job

is a production designer shop. If they're good, I can, like, sit back. Mac, put like one light to the window, and then everyone's like, whoa, Sean, you're incredible. I'm like, well, that person is. You know, I just, I just put a light there. We just put a light on it.

Yeah, the only other people, I think I've interviewed maybe like one or two directors. No, no, I know I have, but maybe three. But the only other people I interview on this podcast are production designers. I am going to have a colorist month, though. But production designers, like, make or break you as a DP, I feel. percent 100 percent it's they can make your like again your day's super easy or all you have to do is either throw light on something or take light away or that can make your world very difficult where you're fighting colors and right you know and I mean and that's again that's that's that's that

would be ultimately I think my fall for not starting a conversation early enough where we're put in a situation where I have like yellow walls if I don't want them. But yeah, no, if you have a great production designer and you're in communication with them and you show up and the set is how it should be, your work as a DP is pretty easy. Well, and in the case of Hellhole,

like the location does a whole lot of heavy lifting. You know, that's a very big set-piece kind of production value add, the big like granary or whatever it is. Yeah, that place was wild. that was like such a crazy location that we found and and the

the town it was in was I've never been to a place that's like so forgotten in time really just yeah like there's nothing out there except for this like five star hotel is out there

because I guess like during the summer it's It is a tourist destination. There's these famous pyramid mountains. Yeah. That have like supposedly aliens landed there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's some like, the town right next to the mountain,

like invented the Dracula story. Like it predates Dracula and they still hang fucking garlic reuse from the front door. So it's like you go through these towns to get to set and then you're at this like, you go era mine that is yeah like falling apart but it was so cool that it was like walk into those spaces and just react to those and um

yeah yeah the energy of the town and the energy of those spaces within that town like really just kind of inspired all that we did really visually that is How were you handling? Because obviously you're saying you have to work pretty quick and, you know, be open to movement. But how are you handling like lighting? Were you mostly as just like reflectors only or, you know, a lot of neg or were you even bothering?

So John was very adamant that he did not want to use lights. I think because he was really used to never using lights for the films that that they've, they've they've made previously um but again they would wait they would only shoot to my knowledge when it would be like a mac gray you know god diffusion is in the sky kind of day so it looks okay um we were shooting in the winter in a mountain town so we have seven to eight hours of daylight a day right getting 12 hour days so you know i had to convince him like I need to light. That being said, you know, we can abide by certain roles.

Like, there's no lighting inside and less practical. All my lighting is outside pushing in, you know, and we'll, that's the way we'll kind of rock and roll. And so, yeah, that's what we would essentially do is I would just push, push daylight through windows. it would fall and that would be kind of it uh right a couple a couple shots where i was trying to sneak in sneak in some you know passive fill or some nag and and he didn't it wasn't it wasn't wanted so it would immediately go away um but i would also work kind of i would work with my gaffer Nikola who I love so much he's he's capped both features I've shot over there

great guy but we would kind of work on how we could possibly hide a light or you know pull what sneak sneak one sneak one in on him um and the resonance here yeah yeah yeah no those artists are to stairs yeah yeah yeah pretty much um But, yeah, so that was really interesting, is how to kind of work within that sandbox, just because the light went away real fast over there.

And we also, the weather was super fickle, very warm daylight one day, and then it was just a dark, rainy day the next day. And it's snowing that it wasn't. And so there was a lot of like, oh, well, this is happening. let's go inside and see how we can be productive in this space until the outside's, you know, ready for us to shoot again. But yeah, a lot of working with the first AD and the directors on like how we do this dance. Well, it looks, I mean, it absolutely fits the tone of that script. Like I wouldn't even, it's, it's, it's, I feel like it's more comedy than horror, but it's, you know the the kind of as you actually you opening with like they're more punk rock about it I was like that's honestly a perfect way to describe that film just holistically yeah and and there's nothing there that feels like out of place like oh they you know because it it could feel very easily could feel student film or cheap and it never does it's like that's the intent of this is to be a little camp a little fun a little exactly or you know exactly yeah it explodes with one bullet it's great yeah it's it's

It is a hundred percent camp. Like, it's, it's camp, it's comedy. There's, you know, moments of like creature, feature horror, but like we didn't. I don't think we set out to make like a scary movie where their previous movies. Like Hellbender was a movie I watched that they made before I went out to shoot Hellhole because I didn't know their body of work. That movie scared the shit out of me. Oh, really?

scary where this one was like more my speed because it was i i i'm not the biggest horror fan they scare me too much to be honest same it just scare me too much i'm a boring guy i like watching movies for two people talking at a table and the camera doesn't move for two and a half hours yeah kind of the same i do love a sci-fi film though i kind of oh boy and almost any side even terrible sci-fi very much my partner and i actually just had like a two-week where we watched every like you at like a space movie like ever made and that was

brutally fun yeah you're preparing for a what's the new alien movie romulus I just saw that that shit's fun it was fun yeah oh my god liked it a lot people were bitching about there's too much fan service I'm like oh what you're mad they made a movie you want to see

shut up people love up people love nowadays man also that the guy who plays Andy where the fuck did he come from I have no idea dude I have no idea no idea half of his quote unquote

dialogue is just him making faces and you're like I love this guy he was amazing incredible I couldn't take my eyes off yeah yeah no so I know I don't hate I'm not trying to dog on floor either like I do like for it's just again I think the process is indicative of the product and like

We didn't have a scary time over there. We had like a can't be fun fucking time where our two ringleaders who are these like punk filmmakers, you know? And it was also like so inspiring to watch Todd Masters and Tray Lindsay, our SFX supervisor and VFX supervisor, work. Like, because I don't come from a, uh, I have a lot of projects that have hit like SFX, BFX, other than atmosphere things, you know, rain, in snow, whatever. But not in terms of like a creature feature or like, let's blow shit up or all way over my head.

And it was it was really cool to see them work and for us to like find a practical solution to almost everything. That was cool to me. That felt like making a movie in high school, I guess. It was fun. The other thing, too, that keeps it from looking cheap is the creature looks great. It looks great. You should have seen it with the life. It was incredible.

With the what? You should have seen it in real life. Oh, oh. It was incredible. We had two monsters, one like, huge. thing with like animatronic arms and it would take like six um operators to animate this puppet and that we shot against greens um and that would be a different unit uh tray lindsay our bfx uh supervisor actually deped those units while while we would off be shoot in main unit um

and then we'd have like a small it was still like 85 90 pounds it was heavy but a small monster for like the in-scene work that we could like throw on a person or like and it was I have to that I we I don't know we would shoot stuff and I would have no idea what it was going to be because I've never shot that kind of stuff and I remember being very very anxious and always kind of asking like Trey and and Todd like wait I I can pan the camera or like my we were shooting on like ours like the lens is flaring is that kind of fuck the key up or like right or so easy to work with it blew my mind like I didn't think I was giving them what they needed and but they'd be there like yeah pretty much do whatever

you want yeah it was I'm sure they've dealt with worse than you guys so they probably you know we're just like yeah you listen we've put out every fire that can be invented so you go for it. Especially Todd. I mean, that guy had war stories, every production meeting. Like,

that guy's a legend. It was so cool to work with them and see that. So something that actually this brings up as a thought is, like I said, I'm also not a horror person. But there does seem to be like horror, obviously, I think it's statistically like one of the most watched genre.

Like, like just straight up money making wise. Like everyone loves. Yeah. Like, 824's resurfaced and everything with horror. It's, yeah. Yeah. And, but it seems like no one is clamoring for an avatar budget horror.

Everyone really does enjoy the kind of more slashery 80s style, you know, punk rock version. And I was wondering if, if working on this project kind of gave you any insight into the horror audience and like the things that they respond to and kind of like, because I, I, am not there i mean definitely just because i i'm not really one of them this is all so new to me and um you know john and toby they loved horror tray is like a horror encyclopedia by the producers who are like my my buddies i went to art school with justin martel and see your dixon horror nerds so it's been really cool to be introduced to this world of like, for lack of a better

term, kind of schlocky, like horror movies that like, I don't know. I don't know what horror films what horror fans expect. They don't, they clearly, they don't seem to expect an ending. Every horror film just kind of like

the last person dies and then the camera pans back at its credits and you're like, what? That's what we did. I know. No, everyone does it. Yeah, yeah, no. So I don't know. Because, like, I, yeah, I have no idea.

Because even when we screened it, we had a screening in New York. And the reactions during certain parts of the movie were, like, really shocking to me. And then I would think a reaction would be something else. And it wouldn't happen. And so I just, horror fans are, like, are incredible, humans who confuse me a lot. And I don't mean that in a bad way at all. It's just, you know, I like pompous criteria in movies.

So like, that's this whole shelf, baby. Both of these. Criterion and arrow, baby. Love both of them. But no, yeah, I don't, I don't know, man. Don't know. It is a fun group to be around. You know, it's like if you ever go to like metal shows, like those are always the more

fun group to be around. than uh and nice too you'd think you'd think it'd be the swifties but i probably shouldn't say this i'll get you know the laser will but uh you know those like massive chapel rones experience of this like there's a certain level of fame that like makes your fans insane and i don't think there's a metal band alive that has fans that are that kooky no you're right well i'm sure there is but you know guar maybe sure sure i mean they're that's guar there they got like gildos coming out of their foreheads or something they're on a whole other planet um literally yeah literally but um no to your point and that was what was really cool about the making of this

movie is it was fun you know like i i love shooting narrative i love shooting features that's that's if i could do every project would be a feature i that would be my life um i love it but And the movies I love are dramatic movies. Movies I would love to shoot are dramatic movies. But I have never had so much fun than I do on a horror movie set. It's just fun. The people are nice. There's very little of that, like, kind of attitude that you get a lot on film sets where...

We all think what we do is super important. And it is to a degree, but I'm not cut it open anyone's chest to, like, perform our surgery. right that cliche uh so let's all just have some and and i think because of the content uh especially this movie it was every day was so fun i had so much fun with my crew every day and like when we would rap i'd literally be waiting for like 4 a.m to happen so i can get out of bed have a coffee and get back to work like it was it was so fun that's awesome man you love to hear that because I remember the for when I moved back to LA after college I was I was not in a good place uh in many ways and uh I remember telling this producer that was like kind of helping me get on my feet I was like you know what I'm just like ready to have fun again and like get to work on projects and he's like do not say that to anyone and I was like what and he's like no one because I was 24 at the time or something like that and uh he was like no one wants some kid coming you know out of town going like I'm ready to have fun what about you guys he's like that's not going to get you a job and I was like oh okay like so it's nice when you do get to have fun you know yeah and I mean don't get me wrong like the way I like to run my cruise is like we're here to do a job and we're going to do it well but like we like there are times where we can kind of have a little bit of fun and there are times where we can kind of have a little bit of fun and there are times where we

need to be buttoned up, but we need to go. Oh, sorry. I was just going to say, I feel like the fun having is more of like, I liken it to caffeine. You know, if you have too much caffeine, you get jittery and that's visual, that's not good. We don't want that. But it's just like an emotional, it's just like a feeling, right? It's like a casual buzz, not a drunk. Exactly.

Fun doesn't need to be external, but if you're excited to wake up because it's bringing you joy, I think that's the perfect level of fun. Yeah, yeah. And this is my fucking fake. Like, this is neutral right here. I could be having a great time, but that's the...

Exactly, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I also feel like you get the best out of your collaborators when everyone's having fun, you know, when everyone feels, excuse me,

good about what they're doing and how they're doing it, you know? That's the best. It's the best. Well, you get the project. Yeah. you can certainly feel the fun in the movie

I don't know if I told you I literally like just watched it before I had a call I had a different podcast right before you and I watched his movie and your movie back to back and I thought both of them were horror films and then his was like kind of a normal thriller and then yours was a comedy and I was like all right well I was prepared to be really bummed going into these but no we're did things are great I'm happy that I'm happy about that my surprise I would be feeling the same way if I knew I had to watch maybe two horror movies in an afternoon. My anxiety would peak.

There's a reason I put off watching them to now. Instead of last night. No, we, we like, but I also think John and Toby were super inspired by these creature features that came out right after World War II. Yeah. The hammer stuff? Yeah. And like, what is it? Them?

I think them with an exclamation point. I have them. Or no, sorry, I have they live. I have they live. That's completely different. Is the movie about the giant ants, right? Oh. Like New Mexico?

Maybe. I think it is. Anyway. But these creature features that like, there's a lot of discussion about the math and science behind what's happening. Yes, you are correct. It is them. Yeah.

Yes. My brain works. Yeah. But yeah, not necessarily like an incredible amount of, action um and i just think because of that like yeah again we made like a funny little creature feature that's like fun and john and toby got to make it the way they wanted to make it and that's super important to me you know if they're happy i'm very happy you know my my job i did uh i do

got to let you go because i got again i'm rolling fucking calls all day but i did want to ask did you have a thick ass whack of diffusion on everything or was that just like atmosphere because especially at the beginning I was like this is the lens something is happening a bit of both more so so I did have diffusion the entire shoot I just and I wish I pulled it for a couple scenes and I was using black digital effects which to me is usually super super light um i always i always have some digital or some digital some diffusion that i put in front of lenses when i shoot digital just to knock it down a bit um right problem was with this one because you're shooting in Serbia in the middle of nowhere uh i had very little time to test and the like

the rs that we had were the rehouse set but it was kind of like a skittles pack like everyone kind of had a bit of a different labor. And I unfortunately did have the time to fully understand this via testing beforehand. So I forget what specific focal legs, but there were two that were just like heavy and shit compared to the other in terms of lights. Yeah, I didn't, and I didn't want to suggest it looked bad. I was just like, okay, there's got there's got to be a reason. This is, it's up there.

Also, our, one of our SFX dudes, dude, he was, he was very, he loved the, the, the, uh, why am I drawing a blank? Not the fogger, but like the smoker. The haze machine, yeah. That haze or, yeah, thank you. He, he loved the haze and, uh, I don't know, so there was like, again, it's the tone. When I would tell him to cut the haze zone, it was like he would joke with me, he'd be like, really cut it and you keep going. and I'd be like, okay, I guess we're just going to keep hazing. But no, yeah, we wanted to be hazy, though, you know.

But, yeah, mostly haze, a little diffusion, but I think the lenses gave us a little bit more natural texture than like I expected. Yeah, I'll turn you on to something that Eric Messerschmitt turned me on to, and I've been testing it for like a few months now. and I actually think it's perfect. There's a Da Vinci. Obviously, this would be if you color your own stuff. Maybe you could talk to a colorist about implementing it. But there's a DCTL called, or I guess it's a plugin, not a DCTL, but it's a plugin for DaVinci Resolve called Scatter. Okay.

And it is, and this might be in that whole, like what we were talking about earlier about, like, what film are you emulating. But as far as I can tell, this is incredible. incredibly accurate diffusion emulation. Oh, wow. You can set your focal length. Like, if you know how diffusion reacts based on focal length and intensity, like you've got that just kind of mapped in your head, you can set those parameters in the plugin.

And it'll give you that amount. And the nice thing about that is you can key out parts that you don't want the diffusion to affect. So if, you know, it's backlit, you can just knock that down. Yeah, yeah. So you can clean. And then later you're out. adding in the diffusion. You're not putting anything in front of the glass.

Correct. Oh, okay. And I now, I put it on everything. Okay. And then, you know, sometimes you don't want any, but I'll just go through it. Because it's got like every diffusion modeled in there. So, you know, I want Hollywood black magic now. It's emulating a glimmer glass.

It can emulate a glass. Wow. So, I, I'm going to write an article on it. I've just been, instead of doing actual tests, I've been just using it on stuff because it looks nice. But, like, you know, I could never really afford to buy a Hollywood black magic. But now I've got it, you know? Yeah.

You know, I like glimmer glass, but sometimes you want it down a little bit, you know, especially like fog sometimes is really good. But you want it. It's so specific. Being able to A, B test and like audition stuff, once you've shot it, you can figure out what diffusion works best for the shot. Yeah. you know he said he used it on um the killer okay uh so yeah i give that it is it is a little pricey but i think if you know scatter yeah yep yeah for for resolve wrote it down i'm gonna look you know it awesome well uh i gotta hop on this other call but

there's fucking awesome talking to you dude uh please stay in touch and uh yeah the movie is a lot of fun i really enjoyed it well thank you for watching it i'm happy you had a great experience with it and thank you for inviting me on your podcast and of course dude big fan of it and uh i feel honored to be sitting in this chair right now i the honor is very much mine like uh okay we're gonna do this back and forth no no i already did that before so so me and the last guy did the same thing it's big love fest i really want to throw up like a party like maybe like when season five launches like see how many people i can just get into space, just get all the DPs together, you know?

I roll out. That's what I'm saying. No, I'll roll up. Hell yeah. I'll figure it out. All right. Take care, brother. Bye, bye.

Bye, bye. Thank you. Frame and reference is an Al-Bot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can do so on Patreon by going to frame and refepad.com, where you can get all the episodes and clicking the Patreon button. It's always appreciated. And as always, thanks for you.

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