Frame & Reference Podcast - 164: "Little Bites" DP Andy Patch

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Hopefully boosting the mood a bit, we've got Andy Patch on the program to talk about his work on Little Bites! 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 164 with Andy Patch, DP of Little Bites. Enjoy. I was just going to say, I was looking at your website. Did you start in photography or like illustration? Yeah, well, yeah, I kind of started. Well, I started an illustration when I was a little kid. And so I always was drawing my entire life.

And that was what I wanted to do for most of my life. But yeah, I think I learned high school. I started doing photography. And then it's kind of just like a natural progression. I feel like you talk to most creative people in film. They usually started from, you know, doing something creative when they're born. and then naturally is a progression into an actual career.

And I held on to an illustration for a very long time. I actually wanted to do that for, you know, quite a few years. But I slowly start giving that up because I realized I didn't want life at a desk. I really really didn't now. I'm going to do that. Because I would get calls to do documentaries

and just fly around places. I was like, this is, it's a much better lifestyle. Yeah. Because I was going through it and I saw the, was it like a mass, on poster or like a out like what was that it was just like a tour poster or concert poster they did

once yeah yeah i did i did some of that work for a while um yeah and i've debating like keeping that on my website or like taking it down because i'm like i don't know is that how i want to represent myself i think it's cool and i've got compliments on it but it's like is it even related to what my career is i mean not really i mean well first of all i'm a giant mass don fan so at least that part. I was like, fuck, yeah, same. But, but that's a good. I mean, like, yeah, somebody always end up talking about is like reels and like how much you get. Because on the one hand, there's a school of thought of like, what you put on your website is what you're trying to get hired for. But yeah, on the other side,

it's like sometimes you haven't done what you want to get hired for. So you have to put something on your site. There was many years there where I, like, my real, was. Like, my reel was It was annoying to, it looked nice, but it was annoying to me because it was like absolutely nothing that I wanted to get hired on. But that's what I would continue to get. Hey, do you want to do like the world's most low budget music video and like, you know, last second fashion gig? And you're like, yeah, I think it's pretty common because I feel like a lot of times people are doing work that they never show anyone that it never goes anywhere. They do it. They don't post about it. And that's like a huge percentage of like, I'd say most of our work. And it's usually pretty. be fun and enjoyable work, but it's like not something you want to promote in any way whatsoever because I'm actually doing a job right now that I don't, I would not put on my website. Yeah, yeah. I'll leave it at that. Well, and like I do way more documentary than I ever thought I would.

And it's like, I love doing document. Like it's great, it's great learning about people and meeting people. And like, I'm lucky enough that the ones that I've worked on have been like, kind of been important, not like in the sense of film, but like, you know, with the, the, the, it, I'm sure I'd love to do just like a fun documentary, but like they're, you know, enacting social change and shit like that. And, um, but yeah, I don't know. I guess I've done enough of them that I could put them on my website. But at the end of the day, like, I would love to get into narrative. But, you know, you just keep, A, there's not really any narratives happening right now. Right. Unless you're in horror. And then, uh, yeah, and actually, I'm doing a lot of horror now. Yeah. And then B, it's, you know, such a large, it's a completely different muscle, you know. Yeah, it really is. I think it does translate, though. I mean, I feel like I did, actually, they started doing documentaries and that was a majority of my work for a very long time. And I think specifically, if you're doing low budget movies where you have to work really, really fast and very, very quickly, I do feel like it's kind of a transferable skill in the sense that you're, thrown into an environment we have to think so quickly and so fast you to know they're like you

you get into like you go from one scene to the next and as soon as you're in a new location you're blocking out and you need to have a plan within like like minutes because you have to start talking to your crew you got to start lighting it you got to figure where cameras are going and I feel with documentaries it's I'm sure you can relate to this is kind of like the exact same thing like you go into a room and you got to get coverage of a scene that's happening and you immediately need to know exactly where you need to be. what lens you want and you got to think

very, very quickly and I do think at least for me doing that for a lot of years really does transfer over to specifically low budget movies because you're working so fast, so quickly

and it's pretty much the same skill set. Yeah, I've actually said this before like when people haven't heard the podcast and I'm like, oh, definitely listen to the ones where you like recognize the name but then just go find a random one

because the intent of the show is to be half educational, half entertaining. And like, the lower budget guys and girls are like, have a lot more to offer in terms of lessons. Because A, the people listening are probably about that level. But B, I hate that I've done A, B twice now in the span of 30 seconds. B, at a super high level, you know, your Bob Richardson just go, well, I put a soft light over They're in really, they, you know, they talk about emotions. They're like, well, we wanted it to feel really moody. And you're like, well, what does that mean?

And they're like, well, just, you know, a light push from this side. And then you talk to the low budget people and they're like, all right, well, that was a vortex pushed through 215 over here. And then that was set to 600, you know, and you could get a little more, um, uh, nitty gritty as it were. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Absolutely. Yeah.

And those guys always have like prelight days. Like, I never get a free day in a movie. Like, are you kidding me? Um, which, you know, I, I, I, I, I would love to get to that point. And like, the movies I'm doing a slowly getting bigger. So I am noticing, um, thing like a forward trajectory, which is why I'm very glad that, you know, this movie that we did is doing, it's doing pretty well. The little bites. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, yeah, the, the, the, the, the trajectory from doc. Well, fuck it. Um, what's his name? Roger Deacons. He went from Doc to being Roger. Yeah, and he still talks about documentaries. I feel like the more I have listened to him, the more I realize he is like

almost disinterested in film. You think so? I think he wants to make specific films. But when he talks about any other movies that aren't like in that same wheelhouse, he's very bored or like dis- You know what I mean? But he's like, documentary is

very personal and like these films that he tends to make are very like personal. yeah simpler even like a blade runner is the second you obviously the same one is so large in scope but from his perspective he's just filming in a room with a single

person you know all the CGI that's later and he always used one camera too yeah even on a movie like that one camera and one light I mean like even what 1917 with that massive fire box like or when the church is on fire that's just it's a lot of lights but it's

essentially one it's one source Yeah, I've heard him talk about that actually Where it's just trying to get as simple as possible Just to get to the point where you're really using Like you said, one source Yeah You should not impress I have found

I can't remember who told me And I think I've quoted it enough times And someone DM'd me and corrected me But was it Gordon Willis Said like if you have two problems Oh Well anyway, I'd have to think

I think it was like episode two of this point It's where someone told me But it was basically Yeah, it was basically his mentor is like cinematography professor, whoever it was like, you know, if you have two lights, you have two problems. If you have one light, you have one problem. Oh, wow. And then the Gordon Willis thing was him just talking about like, oh, lighting is good. And then he like holds up a light bulb.

It was for some documentary. And then he like turned up the all of them off and he just had like the one light. It was like a TNX dash or something. And then he like turned that off. He's like even that's better. You know, it's like was that Starraro because I remember seeing a documentary in Phil's. Oh, it might have been Starraro. It was like holding the light bulb.

But yeah, it's like the... It felt so pretentious, but it was actually a very good lesson. Well, that's, dude, that's the thing that I find so fascinating is like the more and more, I think it only comes with experience where this works, right? But the more you work and the more you get done, the more you realize that what you once thought was pretentious was actually refined. 100%. Yeah.

You know? Because it's like, you know, if you've never had, like really good food or whatever, but then you eat a shit ton of food, you start to appreciate really good because the difference between Taco Bell and like three Michelin Stars is is so ridiculous. You're like, it's not that much better than anything I've had outside of Taco Bell, but then when you've seen all the gradations, you're like, oh, now I actually know where the expertise comes in and you can talk about it in an educated way. Yeah, absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So that's why I've started even with, with anything, not just like fancy

shit, but anything, I'm always just like, let me try to learn about it and not immediately. Because I was, dude, I was a big poo-pooer. I was pooing a lot of people. In terms of what? Just anything like popular or fancy or, you know, I grew up very punk rock too. Oh, yeah, yeah. I feel like I can kind of relate to that. Like, everybody loves it.

You just have to hate it. Yeah. Still don't have an Apple product. Oh, really? Yeah. That I don't get. That doesn't make any sense. Too cool.

Everyone was too cool, man. And then I was like, nerds. And then the iPhone 16 came out. And I was like, see, don't. I told you. But what was, that was a big diversion. Oh, I was going to say, your photography, all the photography did was really, like, really stunning.

And I was wondering kind of like what. Oh, I'm on my website or in, yeah, no, on your website. Oh, thank you. And I was wondering like, what were there, did you have like photographic influences or were those kind of like experiments, were those even four projects or those just your own? All that said that's on there is personal work. That's so cool. Yeah, so everything on there.

So I don't know which ones you might be. being of specifically, but yeah, a lot of those, so for example, there was like a series that I did that might be like at the top of the page. When I went to Kenya, maybe like two or three years ago in a documentary, I just brought some extra lights and I just hung out there just to get some extra, you know, extra work when I was out there. Yeah, so I think a lot of times on my travels, I've definitely prioritized that. I really wanted to do a lot more of that. I actually think that I often said this is like I wish I could stop doing film for like a certain amount of time and just focus on doing photography. If I could only do that for like a year and like really

push myself, I think that would be a really fun thing to do. But I know it's never going to happen because I'm never going to stop, you know, the path that I'm currently on. But it would be kind of interesting just to just a solely focus on that for a little bit and see where it goes. Yeah. Do you find photography easier or just like more fulfilling or more? more interesting. I think what I like about it, or maybe it's just because I'm probably naturally introverted is I feel like it gives me a sense of like calm and quiet versus working on a set. I think a lot of working on a set is really just managing personalities and saying the right things and being responsive to people. All I was just listening to people.

So you're constantly focused on like what other people are saying because you have to always be soaking in what's going on around you. So I feel like actions to it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's And it's a really good skill to have, and I'm learning them more and more. And I think that's probably the skill that I'm probably been addressing more recently is trying to just be a very good listener and really responsive to people. But anyway, I feel like with photography, that kind of cuts all that out. So if I could just be alone with the camera and just focus on just the work itself, it's a very, it's very calming, I would say.

It's a very calm experience. And I really, really enjoy doing that. So if I got to do more of that specifically more travel stuff, I'd then to be a really great thing to do and all the I get to do you know do you find it's easier to talk do you have like an easier time talking

to models than the coworkers because I have every time I've had to like pose someone I'm like can just do I hired you because you know how to model I don't I don't know how you model but yeah no I actually no I've actually had with models I find it pretty easy because they're supposed to be in front of the camera

with actors is pretty easy I feel like with non actors when you're doing or non models maybe even photography like some of the documentary stuff I feel like that can that can be a little bit more challenging because that's obviously you have to talk to them first and you have to like

join friends with them or be friendly with them right but yeah specifically if you're doing with models where they're actually used to be on camera I personally find that to be very easy yeah yeah because usually it's you know if they're good and accomplished models they really are just

very comfortable being in front of the camera and they can just give you options yeah I've been done I've been done too much of like fashion photography. I've done a little bit. I would like to do more. Maybe you've done a lot of it? Not photography,

but I do a lot of fashion like video. It's ostensibly moving photography. Oh, got you. But the company I work most with, basically what they'll do is they'll just hire a photographer and then like a couple models and then I'm like picking off shots behind the photographer.

Oh, got it. But what's funny is they keep hiring like sometimes they're models but a lot of times they're not they're like people that just fit the aesthetic that they're going for and so for instance I've worked with this one guy a few times who like owns an agency

and so they finally like cut me loose and let me shoot an ad for them you know completely different monster than photography and he was the main model in it and at the end of like our second 12 hour day I was managing a crew of four and we were doing the entire like every you know everyone was doing five jobs right um and uh at the end of

the day i was like really starting to burn out because i just was hired on as a d and i thought and then suddenly i'm directing and producing an ad and like all this other shit uh and uh that burs you yeah and the model quote unquote what just started like would lean over me like what if we do this and i'm like thank you you know i mean everyone was doing it but to get it from his and then i was like oh that's right he owns an agency like he knows what the clients look at for right right like micro was giving me ideas he was like here's what will get us out of here quicker you know like that's our yeah that's awesome so listen to everybody you know yeah pretty much yeah i hope to do more work like that i feel like there's always like so much work that i want to do

because i feel like i feel like in this industry there's like so many different paths you can take and every like the genre that you work in is like this you know obviously like a subgenre but if you're doing like narratives a lot of times people just do narratives or then just do certain types of narratives and I feel like I'm drifting into doing a lot of horse stuff right now. I feel like I could do it for a long time but I'm not getting calls to do any sort of like fashion commercial stuff but I kind of really want to because I think that stuff's awesome and I'd love to do that kind of stuff and I feel like I'm as I started doing more movies I'm probably getting less documentary work right which is probably fine because I feel like I prefer to be doing the

movie thing, but at the same time, it's like, I kind of want to do everything. And if I can keep doing everything and have that balance, I would absolutely love that. Yeah. It's kind of hard to do that in this business, because I feel like you very much fall into your, into your lane. Well, it's either your lane or like, you know, everyone is, yeah, each like sort of quote unquote genres is a niche in its own. It is. And there's always people in that niche, right? So it's like if you're constantly getting horror work, you're gonna be, your name's gonna get passed on

to other people who do horror. And then maybe your name gets passed on to someone who's doing an OLA campaign, but like it. Probably not. Although to be fair, there's a ton of makeup and horror films. What's that?

To be fair, there's a ton of makeup and horror films. So there's probably some, you know, some way into like a beauty ad or something. Yeah, maybe like partly into that at some point if I want to. Get a real industrious makeup artist to help you out.

Oh, yeah, yeah. they always get bookups I feel absolutely I will say I've never been like a horror guy but I'm certainly interviewing more horror DPs but I have seen just from the outside

that like in the past 10 years I mean horror has always been like a huge genre but especially recently it seems to have gone from like kind of a more niche thing with streamers like Shutter are Shudder a streamer they're pretty

are they just actually I just met the I don't know exactly what his position was but he was one of the higher ups at shutter but they're now doing original content but their original or street gamer started doing obviously just buying and licensing

and then I think in terms of actual shutter originals I feel like I want to say they do like 10 to 15 a year so they're not doing it see that's great no it is it's awesome it's perfect because you can't do I mean, for the streaming model it's obviously getting really bloating

going a lot of different directions but they're being very selective which I think is great. Yeah. Or they're not massive budgets. Right. Well, and the horror, like I kind of akin to horror fans

to like, I don't mean this in the derogatory way, but like Disney adults. Yeah. You know how like people, it's a theme park, but there are people who are so fanatical about it and like it's kind of their shit.

Like horror fans, like the diehards, you know, are constantly wearing their super niche, you know, horror t-shirt they got from a con that only four were made in the 80s or whatever, you know, they have a deep knowledge of every filmmaker. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, of course, of course. Yeah, the whole, like, convention aspect of it is massive. I feel like it's kind of like country music fans in a way. You still buy physical CDs.

Like, no other genre music is, like, buying CDs like country music fans. And I feel like horror is such, like, a very, like, very passionate fan base and they're always buying buying the Blu-rays just because it's like it basically merch like if it's like

a piece of merch if it's a movie you love you buy the Blu-ray buy a t-shirt and there's obviously like sometimes action figures and like all sorts of different things go along with it so I don't know

that's why horror's been growing but I think that because I think like you said that element's always existed I think yeah because if you notice how horror is a genre is getting it feels like it's getting

bigger, right? Way bigger. And I have to think, so my theory, first of all, I have a theory about the country music thing. I didn't know that about the CDs. My guess is country music fans buy old trucks. And old trucks have CD players. I don't know if it's true or not. This is something somebody told me once, like five years ago, and I've held on to that little bit of information. Well, vinyl's exploding, too. Across Sharmes, but those are like vinyl nerds, not genre nerds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, vinyl's amazing.

I love, yeah, I'm the I'm the, I had to accept that I'm just a fucking regular ass hipster. You buy a lot of money. Buying records, keeping you know, Blu-rays around. Oh, nice.

I don't buy Blu-rays. I really should. I'm a big special features guy. Although special features, I've said this in every episode, special features are dying and I hate it. But that actually does kind of swing me back. there are ads now they used to just give someone on on set like a mini dv camera and go i don't know film something

and then you would get some like germo del toro seems to do a really good job of oh really yeah like the hellboy two i think it's two making of documentary is longer than the film oh shit i got to watch that i love that movie yeah so love them and like the and you get a lot of time with like the the production designers and the and the costume designers and the makeup team like they really go into it. And I love that shit. That's awesome. But that kind of brings me back to your question about like, it's horror getting bigger. I think film, I hate to put everything at the feet of Marvel, but it's, we can just call it like the marvelization of film where everything is a billion dollar tent pole or it's nothing. I think that's created an environment where people who do like movies

have to try much harder to find something that isn't so commercialized. Yeah. And, and I, see it kind of everywhere where like kids are going back to like 90s jinko jeans skate punk stuff because that's not popular no is that and it's just anything that's not currently commercialized and polished oh like for instance everyone wanted to make digital look like film because that was polished but now no one likes polished and now everyone's trying to shoot on old mini dv tapes and VHS tapes and shit I see a lot of that as well right so I think it's this overarching I try to distill any of these like trends down to a more globe, not global literally, but just like a global change than a like movies are doing this or whatever.

So with horror, I think it's just that it's low budget, it's fun. You know, if you're in if you're into like horror and like, you know, it's fantasy a lot of times. You can see the creator's work. You know, it's not it's not overly massaged. it's like that's my that's my favorite director made that or whatever um and it's accessible you know if you do go to a con or something like that it's the four people that made the film or whatever they're there to say I and the actors are usually more excited I think it just feels more yeah I think it's something part of it I also think the types of four movies that are

coming out are changing considerably um because I feel like I was never like the biggest I've always liked horror but I never thought of like horror as like my genre and I still don't know if it necessarily is but I feel like there's types of horror movies coming out there very much like my favorite types of movies and actually speaking of Macedon I kind of feel the same way about metal music

where I feel like metal music as a genre I would say it's my favorite genre or one of my favorite genres but I'm thinking of like 10 bands like there's 10 bands that I like absolutely love but there's so much stuff in the genre that I think is completely terrible I don't listen to it

it doesn't even sound like the same genre to me but to people that don't know metal, it seemed like the same type of music. Right. People show me like these metal songs that they're like, oh, you'd probably like this. I'm like, no, that sounds horrible.

If I can't read the logo. If I can't read the logo, it's probably not. I don't like it. Exactly. So I feel like I have a very specific taste. Yeah, with horror, I don't know.

I feel like there's a new type of horror movies that are coming out. There's something like, I mean, it's kind of pretentious, but it's like the elevated horror where I feel like there's a lot of social commentary. And I don't know. I just feel like they're getting,

probably more interesting in past just like, you know, the straight 80s slasher, which you know, it's always been there and it's still obviously there because tear fire is like apparently like the biggest movie in the world right now. And that's still like an homage to those old movies. But I don't know. I feel like

even like with hereditary or like it follows it's obviously like they're unlocking new layers of what horror movies can be in. I think that's pretty interesting. So I feel like a lot of I don't know. I feel like a lot of new directors are getting into that and like probably just exploring what they can do within that genre because I feel like you can do

well and I feel like the slasher films were very punk rock in that yeah you they that that was kind of I'm making this up no one told me this this is me making shit up in my head but like it feels kind of like a response to an exorcist which was like

really you know high high brow so to speak yeah and then you get Friday the 13th or whatever which is just like don't fuck and you won't get stabbed you know what's the actresses consider highbrow when it came out because they feel like now it is but I'm wondering no that's that's what I'm saying I don't think it was when it came out but then after it came out it was okay after 10 years or whatever yeah because now it's considered like

eyebrow and like high art and everything but yeah at the time I can't imagine that's what the response was no I imagine it was like um you know Blair witch yeah or whatever or not even Blair Witch but because Blair which had its own aesthetic but just like a spectacle like a gross spectacle, because especially when did Exorcist come out, like 73? I was, that's exactly the number I was going to say, so we're going to go with it.

Oh, yeah, we have the internet. But, oh my God, it was. Holy shit, it was 73. Nailed it. Hell yeah. But I wonder if that film was also, when was Satanic Panic? That was the 80s.

80s, yeah. But even so, they're the 70s like iron maiden and slayer and all the player metal band but like when I'm thinking of like global responses to shit right you had uh the 60s were like free love and whatnot and then the 70s was a little more relaxed and I imagine that the exorcist was kind of a response I imagine like I guess I wasn't there so I'm just talking out my ass which I hate to do but like it feels like that was probably a response to something

in film or culture that was like we need to kick everyone in the ass I'm sure there was a college course I could have taken that would have explained all this that I didn't do half a decade and a half ago I feel like the things that are like shocking and people keep getting

they keep get they I feel like over time people have like a sensitivity threshold that keeps getting raised so I feel like if you look back at like God I want to say like the early 60s like when the movie and the band Black Sabbath came out everybody was probably terrified of them thinking that they're so evil

and like specifically the movie Black Sabbath probably just terrified everyone but then in retrospect now if you look back at it like nobody's scared of that movie they sound like the Beatles yeah like there's nothing like shocking about those old horror movies now but like over time things get more

and more intense and more and more extreme so that's when you get to like Terrifier 3 which I haven't seen but apparently it's extremely shocking from what I've heard and I feel like you just have to keep raising the bar well and I think I can go

well that's so actually I think it goes back to your point about elevated horror I think the bar of ripping heads off and body like body horror essentially is is tapped out to a degree not that you can't make more of it but just like it's not new and exciting and I think right now we're a culture

that kind of wants to see something new or be shown something and that is psychological horrors like your midsummers or whatever yeah absolutely Are you not necessarily a horror person? No, no, not really. I don't seek it out, but, you know, I interview people and I either watch or skip

through the film. Oh, you got to it. It's a, it's a cinematic, it's a hobby, I don't have a story sometimes, but, but, but, or I just don't have time, unfortunately, but, um, no, the, I think people, like, or, or the substance, like, I don't even know if that would be considered a horror film necessarily. Have you seen that? No, but. I got a quick snippet of it, and I was like, don't, don't do not tell me anymore.

I want to, I think I'm going to go see it tonight after, after this. Okay, you're going to have to, like, add me on his grip, DM me, like, tell me what you thought. Because, because I think stuff like that is more in the realm of like weird psychological. Because that, I guess it is kind of a body horror type. Apparently it's very body horror for when I've heard. Apparently Demi Moore is like naked in like most of it, but like not in a good way is what I told. it's not like flattering for hers and I've been told from a lot of people that it goes in directions that they would not anticipate and they had they just didn't see it coming yeah which already is like kind of a spoiler for me because I don't even want to know that yeah so I yeah I'm not going to say the one thing that I learned about it because it was like that made me go oh shit because I thought you know it's called the substance I was like and then you have like that poster and I was like are they just like injecting people with stuff and then my sister was like no no no no no more oh yeah yeah yeah it's simco like black mirror almost

spring what I first saw of it, but I think it goes way beyond that. Yeah, but I think that's the thing is like, I hate that people keep going like, oh, you know, audiences have short attention spans. Oh, everything needs to be in the first three seconds. Oh, that, you know, they can't, audiences are dumbed down now. And it's like, but look at the

films that actually get, don't look at viewership number. Like, Netflix just canceled chaos, right? The movie about all the gods and the, um, yeah, and it's like, you. I wanted to start watching that. I heard it was good. It was good. But you all get one season now because enough people, like a billion people didn't watch it like the first weekend. So they're like, sorry, Jeff Goldblum.

And it's like if you give people enough chance, people don't have time right now. Give them time to watch your six episode minutes. It's not even like 25 episodes and see what the, you know, sort of scuttlebutt is. Because like something like the substance, I keep hearing people going, shit, I want to see that. Shit, I want to see that. And it's like, give them time to see it. don't take it out of the theater after a weekend. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, because I have been hearing about that show, and I have been meaning to get around to it, and I'm sure that's the case for a lot of people, where I feel like you want to hear, you know, you hear from like two or three people, and you're like, okay, now I'll check it out because I'm getting this word of mouth. And then again, it's like by the time you finally get around to it.

Yeah. I hate that. I saw that show, um, was it 1488? Do you see that show? Oh, sure. The, it's like, it went like Yellowstone. and then like 1918 or whatever I wasn't yellow stone it was by the people

that did the show called Dark it was a yeah no it was like took place on a ship it was like pretty cool but it dealt like time travel it felt it felt pretty high concept I'm not really into it so I you know I gave it all 10 12 episodes of my attention and they canceled

it right after I'm like god damn guys yeah I was talking to a writer about this at this event and she was bemoaning the fact that we've And we all were that like the 25 episode season is gone. Yeah. And I was like that also not only is that annoying because, you know, it was kind of like a schedule.

It was like you had it for the whole year. You had a break and then you had it for the whole next year and then you had a break. And not only did it employ people, but as a viewer, you know, it can kind of become part of your routine and ship. Right. But also like I was, I had just kind of rewatch Stargate SG1 a few months ago. What? What? I got to watch that.

Oh, it's great. but you'll notice this that like it's it's a you know uh planet of the week show every you know every week they go to a different planet often times it's the same aliens whatever but like you know it's same thing like star trek used to be you know or it just kind of but then that means that they have room to have a weird episode where like because they're dealing with time and dimension space travel and all this like at one point the main character gets turned into a 13 year old why not you know like it's just random shit like that words like that's fun we not everything needs to be so like it has to be six episodes eight episodes and it needs to be perfect right right not every show

has to be fucking you know there's just too many shows as well i feel like that's also problem or apparently not anymore they're there were there's too many properties the shows themselves don't answer one yeah did was it music like this is i don't know how to do this uh gracefully but i did want to know was it music that introduced you to spider how did you get was Spider-Wood. I saw that as the director, and I was like, from Power. Yes, from Power Man, $5,000, okay. Yeah, it was funny.

So he's married to Chrissy Fox, who is in the movie. There was one time where, okay, so I think this was like in 2019, I got recommended to shoot a short that Chrissy was directing. And it's kind of something I was dealing with for a while, are shooting like a lot of like branded content like documentary stuff so like I had like my day rate for like going out but then I've been asked to do narrative stuff as we all are as things pop up

and the rates are like incomparable so you get asked to do something that's like it's no money and I was in the habit of turning that stuff down for for many years so I wasn't doing that because I was like well my rate is this if I get asked to do a project you know I feel like I need to be at that level anyway long story short I knew an actress who was

in the short And she just connected me to Chrissy, Spider's wife. And I think just kind of caught me in a good moment. I was like, I'm sure I'll do whatever. And I was like basically all the money they gave me, I just paid my crew just because I figured, I don't know. I felt like I was in a generous moment. I was like, I should just give them my time. And yeah, we did that short.

And yeah, I met Chrissy and she was just amazing. And I really love this short. It was a really good experience. And then I think it was like the next, I want to see the next week or two or the next month. she call me again because Spider was doing his own short and I was like oh okay I'll work at you guys again um so he did one pretty quickly and then I think around this time is when COVID hit and I think we started throughout that year started doing a few other shorts but anyway we did um yeah I think we did like five or six shorts that ended up being his first movie

allegoria um so this was yeah I want to say it was 2020 so yeah and then everything since then it's kind of crazy because they just keep making stuff like they just like don't stop it's like kind of incredible like that me saying yes to that one phone call like set up this whole track of like working with these guys on like so many projects

I think Chrissy has done she did two features that she directed and now Spider is on his fourth we actually did another movie that isn't even out yet we did it after Little Bytes so yeah they're they are definitely on a role so

I'm very excited to be working with them. Yeah. And what was the timeline like on Littlebytes? Because I imagine you only have like what, like four or five kind of main locations, really. One big one then, you know. Yeah, I think we had, well, it was actually three locations, timeline in terms like shooting days. Yeah. God, it was 12 days straight, no days off.

I don't know why I knew that. I was I don't do it yeah no that was that was really tough so we're at this house the main location in Simi Valley which is that house have you seen that house

in any other projects because I feel like since I did that movie I've seen in like music videos and like other commercials and stuff not consciously but you know now I've got a pretty having watched the film I have a pretty good map of it like

right right yes you might you might see it yeah because after we did that I feel like I saw it like in a bunch of things Yeah, we did that location And then we just did one day at the grocery stores We had like a half day there And then a half day at the bus stop location Gotcha

Yeah, at the end of the days We were just fried That like outdoor park area Was probably just next to the house then That was outside the house Yeah, I got you Yeah I'm being really convenient

But yeah, it was a very tough schedule for sure Yeah, what was the pre-production like for that? Did you like hit the ground running Or was it very like let's change things as they pop up? You know, what was pre-production? Like, I remember just going to the location, like walk around with the script

and just talk about every scene. I feel like that's always the best kind of pre-production you can do just physically being in the house. Because the big thing was just mapping out how to use the house effectively because that was such an amazing location. So basically every room that we shot in,

I was like, you got to do something here, we got to do something there, we got to do something there. Like, we didn't really avoid any area of the house. We just tried to make use of everything. right um yeah so i think when we're there we just spent a lot of time just walking through the house with the script in hand just figure out where we can do things um so that was like a pretty was like a full day of just being in that house with the script which was nice because i feel like you don't always get a chance to do that and then um yeah we didn't we didn't actually talk about movie references

that much it was it was funny spider gave me one movie reference and that was the only reference they gave me for the entire movie. It was one scene. It was a scene in Apocalypse now where Marlon Brando is laying in the bed and he's just got that warm light coming in. Yeah, yeah. And he talked about that scene in the basement. He's just like, I want to look like that.

Like, that's what I want. Great. One of the best cinematographers ever. Let me just do that. I think I could do that. But yeah, just that scene was this one reference for the monster egg yard in the basement. And then from there, we kind of just extrapolated how to make it appear. You know, it's a period piece. It's

1970s. We try to make it look as close that era as possible, you know, given the tools that we had. Yeah. And what was the decision? I was wondering, was the decision to make it a period piece just because you get to have costumes and it kind of that adds to production value and whatever, whatever in the house looks like that? Or was it so that people don't have cell phones? I think that was a big part of it. I think the cell phone aspect is definitely a big part of it. But I think specifically, Spider, he actually, I heard him say this in an interview. He's a child in the 70s. I think he just has a lot of, like, I'm a child of the 80s.

He's child of the 70s. So I feel like give this natural, you know, inclination to just adore that era. So I think that was just him, you know, living in his childhood era of the type of movies that he likes. Sure. I can totally relate to. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah.

I will say I'm not, I'm a child of the 90s. And I definitely am kind of excited about all those trends coming back. Because it's like, oh, I was steeped in this. I can capitalize on this one, you know? I'm ready this time. But so what was your lighting pack? I imagine you had to be pretty fucking nimble to shoot all that in 12 days. Yeah, super, super nimble.

Yeah, obviously a lot of LEDs. We use a lot of MC pros, MT pros, a lot of battery power, like a stereo tubes. Those are used constantly in every single setup. one thing that I because I did another movie before where I was really struggling with just lighting people's faces in a very pleasing way

in a really fast way because I feel like if you're you know if you really want to light a face to get like an actual really nice close up I feel like doing a book light is always the best way to go but you're always up against the clock

so you always figured I needed a faster solution so because of that we actually took an MT pro and just kind of jammed it in like a china ball and it didn't really fit in there right but we always had those on stand by like all the time

so I was always using china balls constantly and I find those to be because with the MT pros you can add I think like two layers of diffusion because they have those extra like the little bubble that goes on the front and then into the china balls it becomes a bigger source

you always pick like the biggest china balls we can that to me has been the fastest way to get the best type of soft lighting so we're just always using those I can 100% identify with that because I came up with a thing for I needed a mobile a big soft mobile key for a low budget thing on a street and so and I still use this like boom pull like a compact one oh yeah that goes out to like 60 inches but it's like starts off at like 12 and then on the end of it is like a very firm clamp with an umbrella

hole like photographic umbrella and then I got a 30 inch I think It's a 30, maybe a 36 inch umbrella that like compacts down to like the size of, I don't know, you know, a deck of cards, like two decks a card, I don't know, four, whatever, this big. I'm trying to verbalize it for people that are listening. Two fists. And then I'll put a two foot quasar tube, basically in a starr tube and a clamp and then the big photographic umbrella in front of it. And you've just got this nice thing. I bet that was really good. Yeah.

The only issue is anything coming out back. Luckily, the back of the Quasar tube is flat, you know, so it's not kicking light backwards, but there is a lot of escape coming out the sides of the umbrella if you can see walls or whatever. Yeah, we always have to wrap the China balls and like doobotene because they're always trying to control it as much as possible. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's crazy what you can get away with these days with like inexpensive stuff. No, absolutely. It's pretty amazing. I like, we kind of talked about a brief. I was like, you know, this movie takes place in the 70s. We have to use all tungsten. We got to shoot at like 300 and so. and that just like I quickly realized that was not going to happen there is no way I would love to actually try to make it look like and we shot in the 70s and I feel like it has that feel but we can never go full in that direction just because of time there just would have been no way yeah did you see the holdovers yes yes so I interviewed Igel you should go back it was amazing you should go back and listen to that oh my god yeah I read a few articles about how he shot it um yeah I will say I think a lot of those articles

probably listened to our episode just gonna, it came out pretty fast. I think I'm definitely going to now. But yeah, his whole point was like, we wanted to shoot it like the 70s and the perfect marriage of it was modern technology, 70s sensibility, right?

So locking everything off, not using tungsten necessarily, but the style of lighting, the style of modifiers. Yeah, of course um you know not not using off speed white balances right leaving everything at tungsten where which i i i don't i'm pretty sure he did i can't fire him here but shot digital shot with LEDs yeah um because they found that uh 5219 film stock is too clean so they would have to go

back and dirty it up anyway yeah it's crazy because it's it's made to be scanned right right so he's like if we're just going to scan it in to fuck it up let's just feel digital what's the point like yeah I heard that they added like gateweaves about yeah everything you know gate weave halation grain right you know yeah they did a pretty

impressive film emulation model yeah because I feel like I see stuff like that just like on YouTube because there's a lot of options for that now like I use do you know de Hanser it's like most yeah I use that one a lot and it's it's really really good but I also feel like Sometimes when I see a use, it feels very effecty.

So whatever they did it, it was just like the perfect amount. Like it was done so tastefully. Like I was so surprised if I know that it was actually shot on the mini. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. The, I think the issue with a lot. I think the reason it works there is because it goes, it fits the sensibility of the thing. And I also think that one issue with a lot of the younger creators using stuff like DeHancer or film box or whatever.

Yeah. Is it just clicking all the boxes, but and just going. like it's an effect for them you know yeah and it's not they don't have a frame of reference for what that should look like and for instance halation is something that's bothered to shit out of me recently sinistill comes out with their films you know they pull the rem jet off the 5219 and then they sell it which means that you get these crazy red highlights all the time so people are constantly going to gas stations at night taking photos of yeah and they get these big red bloom so when they go off and make their videos they're adding all this crazy

crazy halation. I'm like, halation is a failure of the film, not a feature. And so by you expanding it, it looks fake. Right. So the gate weave thing, you know,

they're really going for it. But I think the big one with something like the holdovers was like they put, I think there was more effect on the titles. Yeah. You notice that the titles were going, but the actual image was pretty. Yeah, because they have any gate weave on the actual image.

They probably had like some. I imagine there was a little, yeah. Yeah, yeah. God, yeah, they did such a good job. Whoever did like that whole, I need to watch a podcast to learn more about that. But yeah, that post process was mind-blowing. I will say he had been asked so, so I was interviewing Eigold, my friend who shot it.

And I was like, well, okay, at the beginning, I think he said, like, everyone keeps asking about that. And the colorist was just like cagey or something, but not in a bad way. But I go, so how'd you do it? And he goes, well. She just did it really well. Yeah, the colorist. He mentions their name. I can't remember who it was, but they, yeah, knocked it out of the park.

But I think it does have to do, because I mean, I'm sure you've noticed when you shoot something amazingly, the colorist makes it shine. When you shoot something okay, the colorist makes it better. Yeah. You know, so I think it's the marriage of intent that makes anything like that really work. yeah absolutely yeah for this film I basically colored it myself and I really wish

we actually did go to post house just to get sort of the final thumbs up just make sure the pipeline just make sure everything basically essentially work on all screens which is one thing

that I'm not too knowledgeable about but yeah I would have loved to have gotten like a full sit down to color us and just done that whole process so were you using anything outside of resolve like any additional plugins or like what was your What was your kind of workflow for coloring it yourself?

Basically, everything I did was I tried DeHancer. We kind of agree that was like going too far because I feel like it was low too on the nose. Because it was, again, resource intensive. What's that? It's resource intensive too. When you operate under it, your whole computer slows down like crazy. Yeah, I definitely experienced that. I was like, I don't know if this can actually, I don't know if we can do this for the entire movie.

I think it's like way too ambitious. But there was some looks that we liked. But yeah, just going through DaVinci Resolve and just, doing some pretty basic. Thankfully, I feel like that location, it was such a blessing because I feel like ever we shot, it just looked so incredible

that I feel like so much my job was so much easier just because we're in this amazing location. So I feel like when it came to actual color correction, it just, I just feel like any direction I took it was the right direction. You know, like it would be hard to mess it up.

Yeah. Were you, did you make like a shooting lot beforehand or like were you just doing kind of the normal what did you shoot on Alexa yeah I shot Alexa Mini Super Speed Smart 2 and then what did I use I think it was an H

1 8th HPM Nice yeah I prefer I prefer that over the fucking black promis I hate seeing a black promis on anything you don't know out of here Do you have a really strong opinion on black promis I do really wow

They have All the strengths or just black promis in general? All the strengths, but only because of how much of a kludgel it has become. Yeah. It's just like, oh, I put a black problem. But it also, the biggest issue for me, and this was Ellen Kouris said it to me, and I've stolen it from her. And as she said, it's the same reason she doesn't like full grid. And now that I see that, I'm like, God, she's so right.

This is why I like highlight instead of like me, like, instead of a thicker diffusion for like, son or whatever is black promist regular promist whatever uh full grid has no sensibility it's just fuzzy it just it just is it just is so it's like you're you're not making a decision you're just saying oh i want it to be soft and then kind of covering your eyes you know and right the hollywood black magic does a much better job of like keeping it looking like it a black promise looks like an effect yeah i think i've really like done like a side-by-size. I haven't really like, but a lot of time thinking about it. It's just one of those things where I instinctually thought it looked better. And that was kind of it. Yeah. No, it does.

Yeah, it really does. But I don't really use a lot of filters ever, to be honest, because I know there's obviously so many filters out there. And there's also, there's also a plug-in now, too, that emulates. Scatter. Scatter. It's perfect. Yeah. It's perfect. Yes, so you like it. Yeah. I bought it. I was like, I think this is something that I definitely want to try. I, um, Mezersmith. What's that? Mezershmit told me about it when he used,

he used it on the killer. And he's like, yeah, we tested it and it matched perfectly. So fuck it, we're using that. What kind of filtration did he use? I don't know. Or in post,

like post filtration, I don't think he said. He just said, we put scattered on it. Oh, gotcha. And they, they dialed in the strengths and they were like,

art directing where there would be, because, you know, in the killer at one point he goes to like Miami. So they probably used like a smoke or like a fog or, you know, really like die like bang maybe a regular

pearl mist but I have to do I'm supposed to write an article about it which is how I got a copy of it but I've just been using it

on everything so much you know it's like it's such a great way to just and then sometimes you don't want it so you're like I don't want it on this one you know

right right I'm trying using it more like I said I did get it but I don't often find myself using filtration and I think in I don't know like in the context

like doing a movie I feel like you want to show the director what they're going to get and so doing it on set because also I feel like you do lose control in posts right well I tend to color all my own shit as well yeah so I'm always thinking well no one does right but uh but when you're this low budget uh you get to do it yourself but um I'm always thinking of like what is this I'll make like a shooting let that's roughly what it's going to look like throw that in the camera and then you can do all the the textual stuff in post late because they're watching it on like a five inch or a seven inch

you know yeah so if they're not going to see the bloom necessarily until you get them on an iPad or like on a laptop and you're like look I added the blue so do you normally make your let's before you start production or like after day one or two I so I have not been put on anything where it required me to have a set look but I tend I have worked on my like color I have like three or four like looks that are mine I guess and I have those four luts ready to roll. Nice. And then I'll kind of like just pick one that feels right for whatever we're shooting.

And then that Lut is associated with a whole node tree in resolve that then when I go to color it, then it gets all finessed. Gotcha. Which I don't know if that's the best solution, but because I'm the colorist, it's fine. Yeah. So you know what you're going to do. yeah yeah that makes but were you that that was oh go ahead sorry no i was gonna say i feel like i've been in situations where as i'm shooting then i want to like develop a lot because i'm kind of developing the look as i go like i have an idea like what i'm going to do going into it but i feel like it's

not until like day one or two where i want to like spend the time and like set it for the rest of the film um and i've done projects with dITs where they ask me if i was shooting a lot i'm like i have lots that i like but i feel like i want to start shooting first which i don't know if that's a good thing to do or not but i feel like that's been my experience I can't recommend it. I was literally about to say I do the same thing where I will, if it's like a fast shoot, I just throw on the regular 709 in the camera and then just make it look good there. Because I know I can pull it together.

I know I can do it. But like when you have the shooting let ready to go, this is why pre-production is great, right? But no one ever lets you do camera tests at this button. When you have the shooting let, you know. for a fact when like that's actually going to be in the shadows and looks good and that highlights not blown because then you throw the Lut on everything and it looks exactly the way you want the colorist doesn't have to do a lot when you don't have the Lut whether you're the colorist or not

now you're sitting there and having to massage each clip to actually fit where your mind wanted it and depending on the size of the production that could be too time consuming are you normally working with like the same oh you're doing all your colors so you're never working with the color as a d i t right well it's not drawn all the documentary stuff i'm not the colors but luckily they said hey just shoot with the 709 lot and i mean oh great you know oh got yeah so makes sense a lot of times what i do is and it's always is really i mean directors always love it where like after day one is shooting like i'll always bring all the footage in like i'll get a copy my own copy

i'll spend like 40 minutes to an hour just going through da Vinci and just getting stales and grading all my stuff. I do the exact same thing. Yeah. And like I feel like it's really good for the project because you go the next day and it's like you just show everyone on your phone. Like, and people get excited. Yep. And there was been like a day or two where like I show up and like I didn't do that because I was so exhausted. Like I just had no time to do it. And actually Christian inspired and be like, so do you have any photos of the show us today? And I'm like, I couldn't. I didn't have the time to do it. But I feel like that's something I do like where as I'm working, I'm developing basically the look as I go, which I wish I had more time to do the camera test.

I wish I had more time to develop it with the colorist. But I feel like just out of the nature of necessity, I like I have a general idea of where I know it's going to go. And then I'm just working on it as we're shooting the entire time. Right. So in that process with Littlebytes, you were basically just operating under the 709, the Ari like 709 lead or like a color space transform and then just...

Yeah, I actually, I did have a lot after day two or three, but then I just kept that on the 709 Lut. shit yeah do you uh this is gonna how nerdy are you because I can actually go deep on this um in terms of lutz I'm not sure no not let's but just like in resolve like uh i actually so I spent a lot of time of resolve I don't think I'm particularly well versed in it

I I mean you you can see how far we can go with this because I would love to hear what you have to say well I was going to wonder like what um everyone always goes like how many nodes do use like it's not about the number of nodes it's about like the order of operations and like what tools I find my I have like the output all then not even that just like I have found that I read I did the classic like bell curve of like not knowing anything doing way too fucking much and now oh my simpler like I like I do everything in what's ostensibly for very specific nodes and then there's like a bunch of other shit that's like you know, for edge cases or or textual, you know, like grain or like lens emulation or like

whatever. But yeah, what? I'm sorry, what you said? I was just going to say what, what are the tools that you kind of lean on in it? Oh, I was going to say, actually, like, I bought a few like on what you were saying about the nose. I actually bought a few power grades that I thought looked really good. And I downloaded them and just like as you click on them obviously applies every single node to your image. And there's a few. And there's, There's one that I really liked the way that it looked, but it had like 30 nodes or something. And I was like, is this what I'm supposed to be doing with all my old footage? Because I never do that.

Like, I just have one for exposure, one for denoising, one for shadows and highlights, and one for color. And it's like very simple. And I mean, how many, you say you're also typically using four? Well, so my general node tree right now is I think like 27. but it's but not all of them are being used so no trees are for organization not for you know more is better or worse or whatever so like the when I have it's the same layout every time and then just the stuff the modifiers inside it changed so to speak for like those four looks I mentioned so um when I apply it a lot like all the textual stuff's turned off obviously

there's no denoising, there's no flags or windows or anything, but they're preset. There's no, there's no adjustments on them, but they're just there. Right. So if I know I need to like window something, it's just there instead of me starting a new node and then like figuring it, you know, it's just to save time.

But really it's like I got one node for exposure, but then that node is, so you have your color space transform, right? And then after that I have a node for exposure. that actually someone made a free DCTL that I've been using for a minute. But basically what I would do is you go into the HDR wheels and then make sure that the color space and gamma are set for your camera or for whatever you're, you know, in this case, didn't she wide gamut? And then that makes it work photometrically.

So if you, if you're like, ah, this is like half a stop too hot, you just type negative point five. Oh, wow. Instead of an arbitrary number, right? Right. Next nodes for contrast. bunch of windows that I may or may not use and then color density. My friend Jason Bodash made this thing called hue shift. And so you can not only change the hue of each individual vector.

So like red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta, you know, and then skin. Right. So you can change the hue of all of them, the saturation of all them, and then the density. There's a new tool in resolve called color slice doesn't seem to do as good of a job. I've noticed. I've compared them if you don't want to be buying new shit, you can just use color slice for this, but hue shift is very good. And that way you can add density to colors. So that, you know, like if you see that skin, it's like looking a little flat.

You're like, it needs more contrast, but like this, it's just like I don't feel like it's, you know, you hit the skin slider, pop the density. and it gets darker but richer. Interesting. Because, you know, saturation and lightness are inversely correlated. Right, right. More brightness and more saturation looks fake. You say there's a plugin they use, or? Yeah, it's called Hughes Shift by pixel tools by Jason Kodach.

And then there's another free tool called Tetra that is an abstraction of something that Steve Edlin invented, which is basically just, it, it, I, I'm not a mathematician, but I guess there's a... I feel like that guy is a mathematician, because I've read some of the articles or tried to read some of his articles, and that is, man, that guy's incredible. Yeah, I really had to rewatch many of them. But someone saw, like, he did like a talk, and he showed, there was like a split second where he showed his, like, the math inside of, I think it was nuke. Yeah. Or something like that.

And so someone went off and made DC Teal for that in result. but it's not it's not anything special necessarily but you're just adjusting colors on their vector uh in some slightly different way that resolve doesn't do necessarily natively and so i'll use that someone an end one that has like white point black point and then all the colors and i'll use that to like fiddle with the um the overall look like in the shadows and highlights in kind of a different way but what i found this is this whole podcast is just me ranting i'm so sorry All right. It's quite all right. What I've found is another color showed this thing where if you just take a single regular node

and then set the gamma to linear and you use the gain wheel, that's like more, that can set your look right there. Wait, say it one more time? So single node, regular node, right click it, set it to the, at the bottom, you can set the color space and gamma of any node. to set that gamma to linear and then in the regular three wheels lift gamma gain

you go to gain and then just move it around and it'll change the way the image looks color wise but in a way that looks

more akin to a white balance adjustment but it can use the whole wheel and you can get crazy with it but everything looks kind of more natural

and it's like fun so I have found now to answer your initial question exposure but using like the HDR wheels in a photometric way contrast same thing and kind of that little linear trick and then after that hue shift to dial in densities and like you know skew any hues that I don't like you know to get shit to match right right and that's kind of it but then there's like 26 notes your work flow

because I feel like I want to try everything you just said I can just send you the power grade I mean you'd have to buy hue shift but I can I'm actually planning planning on making it like because I need money to sell this power grade but there's so many elements of the power grade that are other people shit so I can't sell that obviously but I'm I've slowly been developing an alternate version that like gets because the argument that you have requires the plugins they're using yeah like scatter or these DCTLs that other people have invented that like I you know it doesn't feel right to sell something that someone did the work to do and then gave out for free.

Oh, yeah. I see what you're just saying, yeah. Like, it's fine because... You also do a lot of work for that to get to that point, so... Yeah, but I can, you know, my plan is just like, here's where I would put the DCTL. Here's where you can download it. You do it. But it doesn't feel right for me to include it in the zip that someone purchased.

Yeah, that makes sense. You know. Do you work as a colorist sometimes? Or are you just only coloring your own work? No, because of the pandemic, I started freelance coloring because... about them. I couldn't. Yeah, I mean, you seem very knowledgeable about it. I'm very. Only as of recently. I was, I, but it's that classic, you know, you think you've got, again, it's, it's cognitive dizziness or whatever. It's like, you think you know a lot and then you learn one thing. You're like, oh, shit, I don't know anything. Yeah. So for all I know, like, any colorists listening are probably like, yeah, duh, idiot. You know, like, I don't, I said a lot of words. That doesn't mean I know a lot. Right. But I mean, if you're doing it every day, it sounds like you're probably doing it a lot. It's fun. It's like shooting the thing again. Yeah, it absolutely is.

I really want to get a proper setup to really get into it. I think the one thing is preventing me from really diving into it is having the proper monitor, because I feel like I need to get the really good top end monitor, like the Flanders. Like I need, well, what's the other? There's another one that I actually looked really good. Either, like you're having the proper setup at home to really do my own footage and color it. because I've never really had that so I feel like until I have that I'm still

like kind of just winging it and trying to figure out what works and I would say the the first thing to do is you can get like LG makes really good computer monitors that you can at EZO EZIO

make very good computer monitors that can that can hold a lot but you also need a computer with a deck link I guess they make an external deck link but that bypasses your computer's color management. Oh, interesting. And that's why the deck link is like the most important part, kind of.

And then the monitor, especially if you're doing your own stuff, like every colorist is going to shout at me. But like if you get one of these nicer, like an LG, this LG that I use, I can't remember with the model, it's a 32 inch. Cost like a thousand bucks. Oh, but you know, you got to keep it calibrated. through resolve it's like a whole thing but the whole point of a monitor there's a tool to use that actually goes on screen

yeah it's um it's called they don't get spider it's called well that isn't spider spider the model just sucks but it's the i1 display pro I think Technicolor ended up buying whatever company made that

but yeah it's like a little I believe it's called a probe and you rest it on the front And then it reads the colors and the thing. If you can get it, laptops are very difficult at getting dialed in. But if you can get that Delta E like under a very, very low number, I don't know what number you're supposed to pick. But like technically, technically it's good enough.

Not good enough, but good. But you are right. Like that's kind of the main hang up. But if, you know, first step, get a deck link. second step, get a probe, and then work on getting a nicer monitor from there, you know? Because at least that, those two things will get you way closer than just the, just the monitor. Because if you just get a nice monitor, even a Flanders is only going to show you the data that your computer is giving it.

Yeah. There's no, there's no one to say that data is accurate. The monitor might be accurate, but the data might not be because of the OS. Yeah, I think I need to do that because I do feel like I lose control of the post site so often on so many projects. And now that I'm doing all these movies like back to back, I feel like I lose control of all the movies too. Like I did one in February. I did one in July. And yeah, I feel like all I've done so far is I color my stills. I send them out. Hopefully whatever happens in post matches that. But yeah, I feel like it's unfortunate though because

I feel like that happens a lot, a lot of DPs. Yeah. No, it's a big, I mean, it's the biggest thing that kind of made me more interested in coloring is that like a lot of DPs that I interviewed were saying you know you do you do everything you can but then on feature films it's less true because you know there's a change there's a higher chance that you'll get at least a day with the colorist

to like look at it but especially on lower budget stuff or like commercials or whatever that now it's the producer yeah or who's going to who's going to make it look the way they think. Yeah. And it's really taking a lot of agency away from DPs. And you hear that a lot from a lot of DPs?

I wouldn't say a lot in the sense that it's like an epidemic, but it is a common. Yeah, it does seem like it. Yeah. And so cinematography squarely has two, you know, one foot in post and one foot in on set now, which is cool but frustrating or can be frustrating. Absolutely is.

Well, well, I guess. thanks for interviewing me I think that I don't really don't do podcasts conversational I feel like I always just ask a lot of questions well that's how you're supposed to have a conversation yeah exactly instead I rant it oh I you know what I will I will end up

with this why is share producing this because Chas Bono was in it oh right okay yeah yeah that checks out hey mom yep pretty much I know Chrissy is so Chrissy is friends with Chaz and I think they met through

I think it was like it's through the horror community like in the horror community like everybody knows each other Right Cissy met Chaz Um because Chaz was in American Horror Story And so they have mutual friends

And it might have been through I don't know if it's Barbara Cramson Well either way Through the horror community she met Chaz And they just became friends and then because of the script and then one thing led to another and yeah she produced the movie because I love the idea that like has she produced horror before uh to my knowledge no see that's I don't want you to produce a movie at least not recently for a while so that's really

yeah that's a feather in the cap for sure yeah well I hope she had a good experience because I know they have like a ton of movies that I want to do I've already heard about you know four or five other potential movies so I think they're just going to keep going in that direction so I mean I think it's a pretty safe investment because I mean for spending a few hundred thousand dollars on a movie you know they gets picked up and sold

that does well I mean it's a you definitely make more than your money's back yeah well I've definitely kept you longer but I hope it was fun I'll uh I'll send you the um that power grade and you can

take a look at it oh yeah please do um Let me find you in Instagram. Yeah. And then, oh yeah, the film is out now, right? On Shutter?

Yeah, it's out on Shutter. Perfect. Okay, that's where everyone can see it. I got a screener, so I didn't, you know, I never know. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it just came out.

So it was out in theaters last week. I think it's out in theaters. I want to say it's today. Yeah, I just saw somebody post about it. So I think it's wonderful. Yeah. Well, hopefully a lot of people see it is actually like,

again, I'm not a big horror person, but I did, I did enjoy the, the concept. I enjoyed how like it's again, it's not necessarily about the body horridness of it. It's more about like this idea

of it happening. You know? I was going to say something that would ruin it. But anyway, you guys did a good job and it was a lot of fun watching. All right. Yeah, it was tough. We did the whole thing with like, God, we had like, the crew was like four or five people. It was like unbelievably small.

Yeah. But yeah, thank you. I'm very happy that we pulled it off. But okay, actually, all right, that's how we'll leave it. What were those like four or five people? Because crew positions are so important. When I did a shoot where we didn't have an AD, that was awful. Oh, really?

And the, and the, what guy, a shoot? What's that? What kind of shoot was it? It was like an ad, like a commercial. But it was like a narrative commercial. It was like a short film, basically, but it was only like two minutes. Because I feel like I'd been on shoots where having AD has been a detriment, to be honest. We're silly.

Yeah, this one, I'm glad we had an AD, but. Well, I think an AD is very much like a personality. I feel like certain people are cut out for it. And I feel like if you're a very, if you have a very strong personality, it is possible to have conflicts with the crew, especially for doing a longer project. I see. And I feel like when you're doing features and you're really grueling it out for like two or three weeks, you really kind of push people to their limits. Because it does get very difficult and really challenging. And sometimes that AD becomes a problem.

Right. It definitely does happen. And then there's been times where we didn't want to have, you know, we want to have less of them. It's good to always have them. They always have their purpose and their value. But yeah, I've seen some conflicts with certain ADs. For me, it was the one person I wanted to hire, I know it's an excellent AD. And it is a strong personality in a good way, not strong, like, imposing, but like very, like, bubbly.

Oh, that's great. That's exactly. Her name's Jessica Doe. Everyone should hire Jessica Doe. But, uh, and I didn't have. ever and now I'm having to create like schedules oh really you are as a d p right well it's the same gig I said from earlier I was like directing d ping and produce so like now I'm you really are producing yeah I really felt that

that one was a real kick in the nuts but anyway yeah what were the what were the five that were able to make you five or so that we're able to get you across the finish line with this film uh Gaffer key and then I had um two swings and then first AC and then we had a DIT I don't think we had a second AC so it was it was pretty minimal and actually in that location like it kind of looks like a big house in the movie but we're actually in this location with all these bodies like we actually wanted less people there sure well not less of my department just less people in general um but we did it with very minimal people but i've been working them for a long time and thankfully they're still

they're still willing to work for me so i'm very very very well that's about it too what's that no crafty no pas oh i'm talking about talking just in terms of like my department. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying, let's explain it. Yeah, we had crafting PAs and all that. I think we had, you know, probably two PAs, crafty and all that.

Yeah. But my department was particularly small. I think we actually had to black out the entire house at one point. Actually, like he grew up Danny Valentine. I'll shout him out. He blacked out of the whole house pretty much by himself at one point in like two hours.

I don't even know how he did it. Nice. He's the machine. Yeah. Yeah. well shout out to small kids also those shoots can be a lot of fun as well when you're moving in the same direction and shit like that feels very good yeah because we've all done all these movies with them together so we've kind of seen the natural progression we see that they're growing uh it's now getting to the part where they're getting more money and it's you know we're all kind of growing up together so it's pretty nice great well uh i'll let you get to the rest of your day uh thanks so much for for chat with me and yeah i'll send you that uh that thing please do All right. Take care, brother. I see.

Care. Bye. Frame and reference is an owlbot 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 refpod.com, where you can get all the episodes and clicking the Patreon button. It's always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening. Thank you.