Frame & Reference Podcast - 169: "Dune: Part 2" DP Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

Season 4 Finale! I'm so happy to welcome Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC on the podcast to talk about his work on Dune as well as plenty more. We're gonna take a couple weeks off for the holidays and then we're back at it in January with Season 5! 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 the season four finale of Frame and Reference with Greg Frazier, ACS, ASC, DP of Dune Part 2. I just wanted to say, thanks so much to everyone for listening this year. We're only going to take a very short break before season five gets started. We got a lot of great interviews coming up that I've already recorded, but I'm going to take shooting a gig next week if you're listening to this when it comes out, and then, you know, it's Christmas and stuff. So January, you know, start right back up in January, every Thursday.

As usual, if you'd like to support the podcast, you know, you can do so on Patreon or even buy me a coffee.com going to patreon.com slash frame and ref pod. And if you do listen to this podcast, please share it with your friends. You know, post about it. It all helps. You know, I've never taken a sponsor for this show. So it's great just to have people listening and as many people as can listen is what I want for Christmas. But anyway, you know, I, I, you know, I.

usually keep these intro short, but as it's the season finale, I figured I'd say hello. And, yeah, you're going to love this one with Greg. He's a very nice man and really appreciate it. It's time, and I'm sure we'll have him back on soon. So once again, episode 169, nice with Greg Frazier, ASC, ACS, DP of Dune Part 2. Enjoy. I actually started this podcast because of the Deacon one because over the pandemic, I had nothing to do.

And I got to meet them. They were doing a signing of byways. Yep. And so I had already made stickers for the podcast and everything. I was like, thanks. You know, mine is basically because of years. And I like gave him and James looked up. She's like, oh, so cool.

And Roger was just like, I don't, I think like, I always tell people, I'm like, that is James's podcast. Roger's there. She's definitely. Yeah, definitely. but you know what's wonderful though is when roger um becomes like a um like a teenager again learning about things that's what i really enjoyed listening to um but you're right james is uh james is the tour de force definitely um but yeah roger's definitely kind of he's learning and i think he's enjoying that that aspect of things

yeah it's so funny because everyone obviously points to him is like you know sort of the the modern godfather of cinematography and it's like the more i listen to him the more i'm like i think he's learning a lot like it feels like he kind of got picked off documentary film and he's like I still don't know what I'm doing well one little story I tell about Roger um which I don't think's you know an unofficial story but I was I was doing let me in with Matt Reeves back in 2009 right and there was a scene in it where you know it's in the forest and this snow and it's black there's no there's no street lights like it's just black like in the forest. And I said to Roger, I was like, how would you do that? You know, like

you're in the snow, you put up a, you know, put a big balloon and it's going to like the snow too much. And like, how would you like the snow? And he effectively goes, I don't know, he goes, whenever I read that in the script, you know, exterior night, he always, he said, he gets the he beats, which means he gets terrified. And I was like, you're awesome. You're Roger Deacons and you're a human being that gets terrified about a scene not knowing how to shoot it. I think that's so humbling and so humble, you know, to know he does that. So, I don't know. I think he's obviously, I think he's just human when it comes to the anxieties that as DPs we have,

that I have, that all my colleagues have despite maybe pretending that we don't. Well, and it's also like, no matter how many reps you get in, every project's new. So it's like, it's not, it's not that I've already solved this problem. I've just solved a problem similar. And that's not the same thing. No, but also too. I mean, one of the things about, you know, cinematography is hopefully you can do new challenges every, every time you do a film. You know, that's what I look for.

I try and be, I try and problem solve different problems each film. So, you know, that's part of the enjoyment is when you get to the end of a film. and you've now learnt something new. You've learnt how to, you know, shoot on a different camera or a different format with a different colour space or different lenses or, you know, using different technology. So that's where I, you know, for example, like, love doing the Mandalorian. Like that was, you know, I think doing Mandalorian, you know, I prep that for more than six months, I think, because that was what was required to kind of come up with a game plan

about how to actually shoot that thing on a volume and, you know, how to properly give ourselves the right amount of leading so that we had success. But I remember going home every day and my head hurt. It hurt from just all this new information, learning about panels and what angle they should be and what angle they start changing color and what happens when you put that angle on a reflection versus that angle versus that angle. And therefore, okay, the chess game that we play going,

all right, so you put Mando in front of that panel doing that and it's going to have a weird reflection here. So therefore, where can you put him on the stage? therefore, where can you build that piece of the script? Like, there's a, every day, my brain would hurt, and I would learn a thousand new things, and then by the next day I would have forgotten 950 of them, because there were things that needed to disappear out of my brain, you know, that had been solved. So, yeah, that's, that's challenging.

Yeah, I interviewed one of the DPs from The Mandalorian, and I remember having to, like, wrap my head around okay obviously the volume is lighting things naturally obviously got the reflections and stuff but I was like where do where are you putting lights because at the time you know when I did the interview there was no like wasn't a lot of behind the scene stuff so it was just a concept in my head and and he was talking about how like oh yeah sometimes we'll just put like a white square you know on the screen or for like fill or whatever and there was also normal fixtures but immediately my nerd brain went like well what's the what's the TLCI of a of a screen you know like does it still give the same look or does it you know even out or whatever

but obviously that technology's gotten a lot better well it has but but you're right and there is there is issues when it comes to skin tone as well you know if you and i think some of the misconceptions about volume shooting is that it you can do anything on it and the reality is is that that you can't and when you do try and put everything onto it then you're going to have a a degree of failure. And, you know, when we, when we even conceived of the idea of shooting a Mandalorian like that, you know, we threw around ideas of like LED screens and half curves and all that stuff. But the power of the volume is the fact that when you don't have to light, because what it does is it replaces the real world. So it's like me saying to you,

all right, can you go into the desert at dusk? Are you going to bring tons of lights? I mean, know you want to enjoy the beauty of the light for the dusk like that's where the the power of the volume happens where you don't actually have to light and because there's not a lot of space for lights doesn't mean you can't add lights because of course there are you know there you can put sun slashes and you can put hmIs through windows and you know because the volume doesn't have contrast that you can't push light very hard um but you know it's it's trying to the power of it I think comes as a as a as a as a as a as a as a as a as a pre-built lighting volume that's for me where the power of volume is is there do you know if there's like because obviously with LED display or

sorry OLED displays you know for like monitoring black is black because the diode's not on is that technology going to the volume that you know because I imagine that would help some of the contrast issues yeah I don't know no I don't think that's the problem in the contrast because those those those panels are quite dense like the black is quite black and there's some of the concerns that people might have had before we built this thing was where you've got a LED screen here but there's an LED screen there lighting me what happens here when it's black like does it bounce off that and yes it oh sure a little bit there's a little bit of reflection there like it but they're quite dense they're designed to be quite dense and so they don't

really reflect light, they do a little bit, and that reduces the contrast a bit. But when I talk about contrast, I'm talking about the ability between this black panel and you put a white square on it at 100%, it doesn't put out a lot of light. It doesn't put out the equivalent of a light of a vortex, for example. So when we get panels at a higher output and the ability to run them it, I don't know if they run it, 5,000 nits now, but eventually there'll be 50,000 nits, you know? Right. And then they'll have a little bit of punch.

The light will create a bit of shadow or shape. Yeah. Well, you've been one of the sort of, I suppose, nerdy or DPs out there, like always pushing, obviously, you know, the infrared stuff and like, I took some other notes, you know, because you've been doing infrared stuff for like over a decade, right? Not just Dune. I mean, that was just like the final iteration of it almost. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I do believe that that was kind of everything led up to doing because I was looking for a reason to use infrared like that because there's such an amazing look. Oh, it's awesome. It's incredible, right? And you can't beat it. Like, every time. In the theater, I did like when that first transition happens between, which I guess you guys cross, you must have cross faded between like a regular Alexa and the infrared one. Yeah. And I just, I lean over to my girlfriend and I nudge her and I go, Imperred.

And she's like, what? I was like, never mind. Just. Is she in the business? No, she's a dancer. No. So she thought you were an idiot then, basically. Yeah, she gets enough of it, you know, for me.

It's always good to nerd out with non-film people. They're like, what? Why are you geeking out over glass? Like, I have these sometimes new lenses at home that just sit on my dining room table that constantly get moved every time we have dinner. You know, I was like, what's that? It's like, glass. like cups you know it's like that but no no no no you don't understand there's

something about that bit of glass with that bit of glass it's the radiation in it's the i don't know it's the coatings and i don't know it's a it's funny it is funny geeking out like that sort of stuff yeah well and it's like uh the uh amount of like this has been talked about a lot on this podcast but just there has been an explosion of lens options you know it used to be you either get your cooks or your master primes, maybe a K-35 here or there. And that was kind of it. And now, like, a lot of these, like, Chinese companies or local rehousers or whoever, it's, it feels like there's almost too many options. I mean, I don't, I don't think you actually can have too many options, but I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. But we start to go,

whoa, you just swamped with choice. It just, it brings a smile on my face. Every time I see a new lens released I wouldn't want to be an old school film like lens company right now like right you know but the same time those companies we need to embrace like the cooks and the Zices and the you know the the companies that have been making lenses for for that long because there's something about that glass it's very beautiful but but you're right it seems to be that you know there's a lot of new Chinese glass like a lot of Soviet era glass like with the iron glass team, you know, and I think it's fantastic because I think when with film disappearing at the rate it has been disappearing, you know, it used to be that we, we had access

to multiple stocks and multiple 500 tungsten stocks. If you recall, there were multiple 500 T's that had different contrasts then. Exactly, Fuji's gone and, you know, we now really only have access to a few different stocks. Thank goodness. We still have those. But, you know, there's not that many cameras working at the moment professional cameras either when you think about it i mean yes we know about cannons and we know about you know the the doranos and stuff like that but there's actually not many much choice when it comes to cameras either so the more choice we have the the more exciting it gets you know and you know i'm a strong advocate of of suppliers who go out the limb to create products that we can use be it from lens companies be it from

rehousing companies, you know, like the Zero Optic in LA, who I just love what they're doing. I love their mantra. I love their philosophy. I love him. Incredible. I mean, what a, what a cool geek, you know what I mean, lens geek. Talk about geeking out on glass. I mean, you know, like, and I don't know, like, I think that there's something really good

about that having those options, you know, and I would love it if somebody was to shoot a, you know, a lens off. In fact, lens grid did something like that. In fact, because I used it for when I was choosing lenses for Vice, I went and saw a screening that they put on for me and I narrowed down my choices. I had the same problem because I had cooks and Master Primes and K-35. I had like too many choices and I was going a bit stir crazy with all the choices. And the test that they did, I remember or I narrowed it down to two or three lenses to chest. So yeah, that's a good point. I should do some of that again.

That would be a great idea. Yeah, I think they have a website now. Whatever test you saw, I think is online, and it's primarily anamorphics. But maybe it's also spherical. But yeah, it's like the same exact shot. Well, now you've got Marcus Forder with his lens flare thing, which is really instructive. It's great. I mean, it's really fantastic.

I mean, those type of resources, I think, are also really fantastic as well. So, yeah, I mean, I love it. I also love the fact that these lenses are getting quite a bit cheaper as well. Yeah. Meaning, you know, obviously if you're making a movie, you need the backing of a rental company. And rental companies, you know, that's what you're paying for when you're renting equipment is the backing of the support. But, you know, if you're an owner-operator, you know, and you want to go out and do a small movie,

or a short film or you know there's no reason not to you can't buy these or borrow them or yeah well it laua just sent me they're sitting behind me i just got them like two days ago the uh these nanomorph full frame 1.5 x because there was way too many 1.3s and i was like that's not enough anamorphic to be interesting but uh they're they're looking pretty good my my main concern now with with like these modern lenses coming out even the anamorphics is that because they're it's like the reverse problem of original lenses, which are all handmade and had like character and everyone was trying to remove it, you know, because film wasn't, yeah, it was receptive. And now it's like the computers are grinding them.

So they're like too perfect. And now especially with something like anamorphic, but certainly was spherical. You, you lose a little bit of that. Now it's like animorphic in name only. You know, it's like technically it looks like that. I don't care necessarily about the flares, although they're fun. But it's like, I kind of want a little like to your point about like all the new lenses and people making them.

I want to take Nikor AIS primes and put them behind an amorphic block. Yeah. I think that'd be, that'd be my hero lens. That would be beautiful. And that's what I think, you know, the manufacturers that are making lenses, either in China or in, you know, in Europe, that's what they need to, that's what they need to hear. Yeah. But I'll also, I'll push back a little bit against the one point.

point three times squeezes, I know what you mean by not being anamorphic enough, but there's something about them, which is very interesting. And I'm talking about the Viltropses particularly. Sure. Because the Viltrox is a technically superb lenses. And yeah, they do lack some of that kind of that funkiness that exists with some of those, you know, the blazes or whatever. But they're very interesting.

They're very interesting. Yeah. Well, obviously you, it doesn't surprise me to hear. talk about like those because I interviewed Oren for obviously the creator and stuff and I kind of wanted to pick your brain about the sort of sweet spot between you know I heard in an interview you were talking about how like Fincher has these sort of unreal reality moment you know fight club and all this and that doesn't work for a much larger film and I was wondering in your head with all the new very affordable technologies where do you go from like

a, let's say, low budget film that needs a little bit of extra production value and a little bit of extra judge versus a huge film such as Doom that needs to be bolted to the floor basically, you know, or Batman where it's like the camera's got to be on the lens or not on on the camera. We can't be flying around because that takes it too far into the other direction. Yeah. I don't know how that, I mean, what don't necessarily agree that if you don't have budget that you need to azouge to I know I do know what you're saying

obviously on a one million dollar small movie you're not going to put a person on a sandworm and you know write in for for 15 minutes I know because of all the limitations of that but but there's something really about I mean I'm I'm deep diving at the moment just I've just finished a film and it's a classic thing it's like I've saved up all of my my film bullets for the

you know for the time that i have off so i can rewatch and rediscover and re-learn and you know because i don't watch any films what i'm shooting so um you know i'm re-watching rat catcher again you know than ramsie i mean talk about like a juge like there's no josh on that film whatsoever but it's stunning it's one of the most stunning films that i think i've ever seen you know what i mean like it's it's it's all about intimacy with characters there's you know it doesn't do anything that's funky or interesting in a traditional sort of way. It's very grounded and very simple and very beautiful. So I don't know, I'm going to, I'm going to Lynne Ramsey deep dive at the moment.

Lynne Ramsey and Alan Critcher deep time. I did want to talk about sort of going back to the idea of like, you know, modern, affordable gear and stuff like that. I was looking through the ASC document that you'd put together that like 135 page joint about the making of Dune 2. And on the one hand, I'm looking at it. I'm going like, well, that's 1,000 fixtures, that's 200 fixtures. But then you see the images and you're like, this is relatively simple conceptually. You know, it's like liberal use of ultra bounce just for, you know, light, a couple spots, some top light. And I had heard you mention a bunch about how you like to keep things simple.

And I was wondering if you could kind of elucidate how you conceptualize ideas of, you know, needing that many fixtures or that much space or whatever versus you trying to keep things simple. It's funny because when producers here that I want to keep things simple, they assume that I don't need many lights. But the problem is, is that when you've got a large stage, and a big lighting, like, idea, be it, you know, slashes of sun, let's say, in the seats, right? You need lots of lights to create that, or you need the biggest light that has ever been

made, the gods ever made, the sun, and you need it to be consistent in the sky at the right time of day, you need to have no roof on the studio, none of which is going to fly, you can't do any of it. So the only thing we can do is we can try and imitate what that sun does. And like those slashes, as easy as an idea as they sound like they are, they are really hard to create. Like, you know, everybody who's ever lit with two lights know that you put them side by side, you create multiple shadows. And we know, the audience knows somebody walks through multiple shadows, so they looks like they're on stage. They're being lit by multiple. park hands or something. So the challenge with that was always to create big single light

sources, which again is very hard to do. And we tested multiple fixtures. We tested multiple ways of doing it. We tested HMI. We tested all sorts of things. And we discovered that the vortex, the cream source vortexes love them, which love them. Game changing must say, the film exists. the film exists the way it exists because of the vortexes not only because of the fact that they could withstand the dust I mean, you know, there's a lot of dust in this film but just the punch, the punch and the soft

they imitate the soft sun better than a soft sun and the ability to shape them and cut them and pixel map them and all those things meant that that was the reason why we were able to create those slashes the way we were because of vortexes And we had great support from MBS and getting us the vortexes as well. That must be said as well because you must have had all of them. Maybe.

I mean, we had a lot. We didn't have all that we wanted. I mean, I'll be a little bit, you know, I'll be a little bit ungrateful for a second. Sure. So we didn't quite get all the ones we wanted to get. But again, I know I'm being a little, you know. Yeah. Who's the, who was the character in Willy Wonka that fell into the Augustus?

Come into the vent. Yeah, was it like a sister? That was the, it was the, oh, in the vent, uh, Baruka. The girl, Violet, Violet, very God. By, oh, Violet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she didn't have, she, she, she, she got all this, no, Violet ate the gum. Sorry, this is one of my favorite movies of all time.

Violet hit the gum and Baruch assault fell into the, uh, after her singing, she fell into the goose chute. Yeah, because she, she got given everything, but she just didn't quite have enough. Yeah. That was me on this film. I was Baruch assault. I was like, I was. had all the, I had some amazing lights, but I still needed a bit more. I wasn't like that.

I was, I was very humble and nice, hopefully. Well, I mean, but still, conceptually, it's like you said, one large soft source. Because like, part of the podcast, I try to like, obviously, it's like, I just like people hearing what goes through people's heads and just, you know, not necessarily specifics all the time, but it is primarily, uh, or I guess, secondary. I don't know, an educational resource. And part of that is like, I think. My point was just to say that you can someone can see those diagrams and get very like, oh, I'll never be there.

But it's like, think of it as, you know, copying someone's lighting setup will never give you the same result because nothing's ever the same. But if you just look at it and conceptualize, it's one soft key, big, you know, one top light. That's achievable, not on maybe not on that scale for everyone, but the idea is there. And I've noticed that with a lot of like the Batman and, well, specifically Rogue One and. and even vice i remember sitting in vice and there's a scene where dick cheney and uh bush are like sitting there outside talking like it like coach or something yeah yeah and i remember sitting there in the theater and going that looks way too good and then i saw the the uh like behind the scenes photo and it was just neg just neg everywhere i loved it there was a bit there was a bit

Nick there. Neck's cheap too. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Next cheap. I learned that in Australia from D.P. named Graham Wood, who was a DP out of Melbourne. And I used to be a film loader on his sets. And that was how he used to shoot exteriors. And it makes total sense when you're doing stuff with not very much money. Neg Phil is very cheap.

It shapes the light really well. Don't need a generator for it. You just have to hope it's not windy. And it shapes the light beautifully. Obviously, when you're on stage, you don't, like, Negfill doesn't really work because there's no lights. It's just to put lights in. Yeah, yeah, Negfill exists.

But I think going back to that point about looking at those lighting diagrams, I would hope that people don't look at it and go, I'll never, that's so many lights, I'll never get to that point. I pray, actually, that is not, that wouldn't happen. And in fact, if that is happening, I would feel. I'd be slightly regretful about publishing that document because what I hope people take away from it actually is the organization required from a group perspective. Yeah.

You know, we did at times have a lot of lights and I'm very, again, very fortunate about that. No jokes aside, of course, I'm very fortunate to be able to have been supported so well. the same time you know it's about there would have been other lamps to use have we not had cream sauce

we would have figured out another solution you know what I mean I'm 1,200 Ds on there that's well exactly I might have had products of light

with 12,200 HMOs I might have had you know and so there are other ways and I think to hopefully it's more about the aesthetic choices that one makes

as opposed to technically how they actually make them yeah Oh, man, I've said this a million times on the spot every episode I say this. And you almost said it verbatim in an interview I saw, which is, I'm going to put it on a t-shirt or a sticker. I don't know, but technically correct is almost never better than emotionally correct. To your point about, you know, backlighting Darth Vader instead of, you know, it's always like the feeling is always so much more important.

And that's why I really appreciate in that document, you include the photos. Because if you see that, you know, if you're a somewhat experienced photographer or cinematographer, you'd go like, oh, backlit, soft source. Okay. And then you see the diagram and you go, oh, got it. Versus just seeing the diagram, you know, and going, gosh. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Hopefully the, hopefully it looks simple. That's the takeaway for me is that when my mom watches the movie, that she doesn't, that she doesn't think about anything that I've done. Like, it literally just, it blazes away. way and it becomes part of the emotional journey again going back to veda i mean that's the thing it's like that that moment needed to have a punch in the guts to it you know and and the way we let it first the way i lit it first didn't and i was just like oh head scratch with you know i thought this was going to be amazing the the lightsaber comes on and and it wasn't it was like like the air was let out of a balloon but i think on june part two you know we were able to sort of illuminate these

beautiful sets that Patrice built. And again, part of that, that document was a love letter to Patrice. You know, I've, I've said to him personally that I love him. Yeah, the insert shots of everything are just gorgeous. I mean, listen, it's a love letter to his, is, his, his talent, you know. So, you know, and the way he and Denny worked together is incredible. I mean, to be part of that, to be a witness to that, to those two, you know, Denise directing Patrice and the world building. that they do together. It's a, it's quite quite fantastic. Well, and that brings up another thing that I've said a million times.

It's like, again, we're talking about the simplicity of the lights and, and a lot of times. I remember you mentioning somewhere else that like, you know, simplifying the frame. And that actually brings me to coloring in a minute. But simplifying the frame, keeping everything, you know, only the stuff that it needs, highlights how important for any film production design and costuming are because you could do that same lighting setup and have it be an apartment and it might look cool but it's not going to look the way it does you know the way it doesn't do anything like that I mean it's again I'm it's one of the things and I know that I'm

hearing myself talk about this but if I was 20 years ago or 25 years ago I would be sort of pinching myself like I am anyway but to be able to work with people like Patrice, you know, and, you know, our incredible design and costume department and construction and, you know, all those things. Just to be able to put that in front of the lens is quite a miracle, quite magical. But it also puts a pressure, put a pressure on me to perform. You know what I mean? Like, I'm faced with such beautiful costumes, such beautiful design.

It's up to me to now, like, not celebrate it. Yeah. Yeah, and not screw it out because the thing is that I could have very easily if I didn't work as hard as I could have pre-lighting and getting the lighting mood right, you know. Yeah. Well, in the, you know, revisiting the idea of like natural light and egg and stuff, obviously in the sets, as we've mentioned, you know, big soft source, top light, whatever, but exterior, obviously in the desert, mostly sun. And I was wondering how much modification of that sun you were actually doing in those desert scenes. In short, very little, bounce, a little bit of egg sometimes, but very little. It's about where you place people and how you place them, you know, and what time

a day you shoot. Because the second that you start running, again, this is purely my opinion. And I, and I, what I like about, well, what I like about cinematography, though, is that everybody has a different opinion. Like, you know, everybody, when you speak to other cinematographers and other filmmakers, they all have different, you know, differing opinions, which I think is so healthy. Yeah. Because I don't want to watch a movie that looks like I shot it.

You know, like, and that's probably the last film that I want to see is a film that I shot. Because, you know, I know how to solve that problem. I know how I would have done it. So I don't want to see that. I want to see how somebody else would have done it. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, in the case of daylight outside, it's been possible to replicate daylight, like outside. So I think, I mean, I wouldn't say impossible because somebody will prove me wrong, but

I think it's impossible. He did a good job in the first one. Those, that like one fight scene where everyone comes out of the dirt and it's like in that kind of pillar light. I remember that one being head scratcher. Well, that. Okay. So do you know how we did that?

You would have seen it behind the scenes, right? Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, I saw it. Yeah, I remember you guys discussing like that was going to be a pain and then it simplicity won out. Well, yeah. I mean, we just shot it outside. at the right time of day like it says like we actually we chose an outdoor set with no ceiling we made a gobo

that created shadow we we using unreal we tracked the sun and said okay between 1033 and 1105 it's providing that we rehearsed we shot it was it was super simple like but 100% agree like that's that's the type of scene that you see in the concept art and you say okay i can't like this that's impossible to light. I mean, it's impossible to shoot on a stage. It's impossible to create that shadow on the ground. It's impossible to have somebody go from light to shade with that much harshness, not just someone, but a group of people. And the only way to have done it was to build something outside, which in itself poses problems. So again, we had a great rigging set up with our key grip worked out where we had fabrics that came across and then the gobo was cut into them so they could

be opened and closed if the wind picked up because obviously it's a massive wind tunnel and you know if it's too windy we couldn't have shot and i do remember the wind picking up and ripping some pieces at some point as well so yeah it's a it's a it was head scratch for sure well and actually one of the things uh to give a shout out to the the the fx team because they've done incredible on both these films well pretty much every film we've worked on but uh different teams obviously but um i didn't realize like a handful of those dudes were digital like whenever we think about you know digital effects it's always big explosion flying thing you know sci-fi and it's like no guys coming out of dirt you know and they weren't i saw the breakdown i whoever was i lm or whoever did it

Who did it? Why I was guessing? D-Neg, I think. Oh, D-Neg. D-N-EG, I think. But they weren't even like that high-resolutionary. They were just, you know, very simple, you know, it's awesome when you can pepper and stuff like that. Well, on part two, what was really exciting that was different to part one is that the evolution of shooting virtually had evolved. So there's a sequence that we that we shot virtually.

Charlie's fight at the end of the film where she comes up out of the dirt she runs, she kicks someone, she does a roundhouse, she, you know, she's super badass fighter and then turns at the end towards the camera. You know, that was built through motion capture and through 3D modeling and then we lensed it and then we shot Zendaya for real and they linked it in.

Like it's a it's a great way to shoot that scene and I meant that Deney and I got to actually shoot it, but we were not standing in the desert. We were standing in a capture volume in Playa Vista, shooting something that had been captured and rendered. So again, I think what's interesting to take note of for the entire movie is how technology has evolved even over the period of time that we did part one to part two. But also that we embraced all that technology for people. for part one and part two.

We embraced all the technology that we had access to at that point in turn. Yeah, it's, I mean, I wouldn't have known that. It's, it's, you know, what Todd Vizeri over at a, uh, ILM is always harping about online. It's like, you don't like, well, another guy did like a whole series about this, but you don't like, you don't dislike VFX. You dislike bad VFX. And when you, when you have shot selection and you have intent, you, you empower the VFX artist to do the job that they're capable of.

versus rushing them, changing everything last second, doing all that. That's when it fails. And it's not necessarily the artist's fault that it looks bad. Usually it's they do the best in spite of what they've been given, you know. And that's the thing too, because I've seen it where you give the VFX artists the right intent is the right light. You know, in the case of the sandworm writing that we did for part two or the interior orthopter that we did for part one. that you shoot with the right light. Again, I think light is critical.

Again, I know it's my bent, right? But at the same time, I'm positive that as humans, we've evolved to understand when light's not right. Like it helps us understand when light's not right. You know, when the sun's going down, when there's storms coming in, when there's shadows, all those things help us evolve as humans. So when we see something on screen with the light's not quite right,

because it's been tweaked in post or hasn't been shot properly or, you know what I mean? Like, so, you know, I think shooting it as the basis properly, and this is where Paul Lambert, who is, was our VFX supervisor on, on both part one and part two, you know, he's a massive advocate for correct light. Like, of all the VFX supervisors, and I've worked with some incredibly talented teams, as you said, Paul is so. such a sort of so diligent when it comes to shooting it with the right light. And that's his, that's his band really. So, and I, I can't kind of give him enough hugs when I see him for that because it helps me shoot it beautifully. And then hopefully you don't see the link in post. You know, if you, if you freeze frame and go, okay, really, what is this? You, of course, can figure out what we shot. Like if you're a smart person and you know a little bit about VFX and shooting,

You can sort of tell what we've done. But hopefully when you're watching the movie, nothing stands out or jumps as being a VFX job, you know. Well, and anyone who's pausing a movie, Goulog. Absolutely. I hate when people go like, oh, yeah, I got about halfway through it and then I went and got dinner. I'm like, why aren't you scheduling to finish the thing? Why are you watching half of it? You bring a bedpan and you bring a snack.

You do not leave that couch. I did. I feel like I almost talked about it and then didn't, but it's nice to bring it back around to it because I was interviewing Oren about the creator. And when I think about a lot of your films, I often think about, again, that simplicity, you know, like Krennick in the field, just like gorgeous shot, stuff like that. But I also think about like color and unification of color. I'm a DP if that wasn't a parent. But, you know, over the pandemic, I had to become a freelance colorist because no one's hiring up, you know, non-union BP for anything. And it was a huge learning experience, both on the side of like, oh, here's something, you know, it's time saving on set for my own personal stuff where I'm like, okay, I know I can knock that down.

But he had mentioned that you guys, you know, we're working with the Lut and everything like that. And he had mentioned something about like kind of a way to unify colors that snapped everything into place and made it look very filmic. And I developed a version of that in resolve based on what he described with just using the. color warper and like pinching everything into two things and then dialing it down. But I was wondering if you could speak to specifically what that was. Because even my little method I use on everything now. It looks great. Listen, I don't know to be honest with you. And again, I rely very heavily on my

technical buddies. If you haven't noticed, I'm a simple person. Yeah, like I'm a simple, I have a simple mind, a simple brain, like I'm kind of a simple human. So give yourself to credit. You've done a lot of Too much information in my brain can sometimes cause me brain ache. So there are some things that I kind of let, I let people who are better at that handle. And the color, you know, Dave Cole at photochem and all of his color scientists, you know, handle that. But I think, did I explain to you the way that that Gareth explained that to Dave? I don't remember, no.

Maybe it did. He said, Dave, just imagine you're in a wedding. And the reds and the oranges on the bride's side and the blues and the greens are on the groom side, like put them onto different sides of the church wedding, like, I don't know where that description came from. But he kind of described it as a wedding and you need to make sure you divide them up so you kind of keep them in their place and you don't let them seep into each other. Yeah, yeah, I think that he didn't tell me that, but I think that was something that helped click for me was just purity of color. in the sense that, like, when you shoot film, there was a bit more purity now with digital that, you know, skin can get very blotchy very quickly if you don't take care of it. And it's also because, also, again, the technology is improving. I say that in inverted commas, like, you know, these amazing sensors are being built by these amazing companies that are doing such amazing work and they're amazing sensors.

And by giving us amazing lenses and amazing sensors and, like, sensors that have such a range of exposure. and you know, maybe we lose something from some of that simplicity of three layers of acetate and red, green and blue and a, you know, a base layer. Like maybe we lose something by having so much choice now when it comes to technology. And I think color is that exactly that way. If you watch images that were shot in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s, they are different to the frames that are now. And I know there are film emulation luts, which I think is clever.

But you've got to apply those. You've got to apply a look to something as opposed to something having a look. So I don't know what the future holds for that because, you know, I wonder if there's a camera that comes out that completely goes back to, you know, 11 stops of dynamic range that has a very distinct color look, you know. So you can choose the X, Y, Z camera when you want to shoot, you know, exteriors, that the greens are desaturated, but the reds are saturated. I don't know. Yeah.

I mean, Fujifilm has done that with their film emulations, although I don't know if you would shoot that burnt in, you know, but certainly for my stills work. Like, I love those, you know, just to kind of, you know, I'm sure you know this, but like, constraint brings creativity and joy. And I think a hundred million solutions brings chaos and fear. You know, but Adam Savage describes it as having, joyfully having branches hacked off your decision tree. Makes your choice is way easier. You're like, oh, I have three options. I'll pick my favorite. Whereas if you have a thousand, you're like, oh, fuck.

Yeah. There's decision-making fatigue that comes with as well. So exactly right. But hopefully those three branches that you'll live. left with other three ones. Yeah, one of them you want. Yeah. The hacked branches are not that.

That's the danger of having someone or somebody who's not yourself hacking those branches. Because it could be a, you know, somebody that doesn't share your aesthetic, like a producer or a, you know, a budget person or somebody that's not kind of in that same world as you. Yeah. I did want to ask because I just heard in an interview that, you know, you know, a budget person or somebody that's not kind of in that. that whenever you do kind of, I suppose, take the reins on coloring or get in there, that you do so with no audio track. Yeah. Or you said you did that at least once.

Yeah, I did that on June. Exactly. I did that generally. I try not to listen to the audio track. And it's distracting. So what's funny is I do the same thing, but mostly because my friends are low budget and they haven't finished the audio. And they're like, here's the images just figured.

But I did on one on this documentary that I had, my buddy kept. sending me notes like, no, it needs to be darker, it needs to be whatever. And then I finally heard the audio and I was like, oh, this guy's like, this conversation needed to look way different. And I was wondering kind of, does, did that happen? Especially with like a Hans Zimmer score or something, that will definitely affect the way that the images will be perceived, you know, and how often do you have to, yep, adjust, you know, for that. Yeah, it didn't, it didn't happen on June that we had to adjust very much, but you're 100% right. If there's, if there's a a track that you're not expecting, you know, that changes the tone of the scene, yes, you're

absolutely right. You're probably worth knowing about that. But you would generally, I would have seen an edit of the film. Right. In advance, you know, like, I would have known that. So, I will have seen the film. I will have known that tone that was required. So, but just grading with sounds, it's just, I don't know.

Yeah. Half the time you're pausing and advancing and pausing and you're not even hearing the the full thing anyway. So, no, no, it's distracting. And it, I don't know, it helps keep you focused on what you should be looking at, which is color. Yeah. Yeah. The, I did want to talk about, I got your, got your old book here. Ah, well done. And I love, I'm a huge, but this whole, if you can see it, this whole coffee table is just full of photo books. And it's always great when a DP releases one or at least someone, you know, I got Jeff Bridges's, uh, Bridges is.

Yeah. I got Jeff Bridges. Bridges. Wide luck's book. And it's really cool to see the behind the scene stuff. But I was just kind of wondering because I'd heard that you weren't intending necessarily to make a book about this and certainly not one with Brolin sort of writing poetry around it and stuff like that. But I was wondering if you could walk me through like A, was this all shot on film and B, how do you get like when you when you have, you know, I'm just pulled up to. Rebecca Ferguson here, like, do you go like, hey, I'm going to take a shot of you stand this

way? So the light hit, or do you, are you just like snapping like, you know, a proud parent? No, it's not as, it's not as random as that. Sometimes it is. But yes, generally I'll see a little moment that, that, you know, something else is happening that we're not having to be shooting. And I'll, I'll ask Rebecca in that case to, can you stand there? Can you look this way? you look at camera for us like the the for me was actually a very interesting process making that doing that doing the book because again i wasn't shooting for a book so that was important that's it that's that's important to note on on part one to need asked me to shoot stills he'd seen some of the stills that i was doing for fun i used to be a photographer so um you know i was

rediscovering my joy of uh film i was taking photos of the kids and you know i had some i was enjoying it actually. And he asked me to shoot for the movie. And I was like, oh, I don't think so, dude. Like that, I don't want that responsibility. First of all, it was the first film that I was doing with Deney. I didn't want to screw that up, right? It was, it was an amazing story, you know, the unmakable film. I didn't want to be the guy that screwed up the unmacable film because I was busy off, you know, taking photos of plants in the corner of the, you know, when, you know, all that stuff. And so I said, oh, listen, I don't think it's wise. but he did say, well, just think about it, you know, because I said, I'll happily do it,

but I don't want to be responsible for any of the images for PR. I don't want these images to have to go anywhere. And so the deal here is that come up anyway, I wouldn't, I've said that. I like PR people. I like PR people too, but no, I don't mean the ones we like. I mean, you'll get like one thing that I've noticed is like whenever there's a green screen in a shot, now they'll like get rid of it. Yeah, yeah, true.

Now they like edit that out and you're like, that's, I like knowing that, but yeah. So we effectively, we promised each other that if I was going to shoot, I was going to shoot for ourselves, literally for ourselves, we're just for fun for ourselves, you know. And then I got some images that worked well and I met Josh and, you know, Josh is an amazing writer. If you can clearly read that, he is, he's got a book too for people. Well, he is going to book actually and I've not yet read that. I've ordered it on Amazon and I'm desperately looking forward to

reading it because one thing that I took away from his writing are the colors in his writing. You know, like I studied John Keats when I was doing the film Bright Star with Jane Campion and I'd never really studied poetry or English literature as a kid. And what I got out of John Keats' poetry was was eye-opening. It was literally like I was reading a world of color when I was reading his words, like two words next to each other that ordinarily would mean nothing could mean something so deep. And then what I love about filmmaking is that those two words next to each other with an image that accompanies it can just be earth shattering, like life altering, mind blowing.

Because it also did the reverse too. It can destroy those two words and it can, you know, but I love it when the symbiosis works, when you have words and images that work together as a, as a. community and they they improve each other. And we were just working during, I was just reading some of his writing during part one and he was sending this stuff that he was writing. And I was like, this is beautiful. And it came the opportunity to do a book for part one, which we did a limited edition book that went out with 10 years, 10 years art of the production design for gym. Yeah. And we loved it. We enjoy it. And we loved it. And we enjoyed it. And

you know they asked us to do another one for part two so we did we did it and well yeah oh there's another one seems or are you talking about the other there is the other book no there is there is a there is a there is a limited edition but shit that we came out for part one oh not of the i'm confused now no there was it as an earlier book that was already available as a limited edition damn it anyway keep an eye out for it um but what i was going to say was something i love about exposures is to your point about like words and the way their structures is I love that the poetry is not captions it's art directed in a way and it's it it really and also like some of the paper is different like it it is an experiential book that I really appreciated

while slipping through it that there's care put into the experience of reading it yes and that and hopefully you get out of it every time you into it. It's not just a series of images. You know, I do feel a little bit, maybe I'm becoming a little bit sort of negative in my old age, but I feel like images are becoming a little disposable. Oh, no. Yeah, 100% agree. Yeah. And so it's really important for us as image makers to help stave off that overexposure of images, you know, and it seems like everywhere you look, there are people creating images. And some great ones, by the way. But I feel like we're losing an element of the enjoyment of soaking in an image and really studying it and and delving deeply into its meaning about what it means to us at that point as we see it.

I mean, I've got so many memories as a teenager, you know, reading like, you know, some beautiful Ansel Adams books or David Moore, Australian photographer. Ansel Adams print right there. There you go. nice you know and and getting something out of it you know what I mean getting a like listening to the emotional response that it gave me when I when I saw those images yeah um and so that's what I love about photography um and I guess that's what I love about cinematography is that you kind of can can do that and I was never really good at editing my stuff by the way so that was my problem is I was happy to shoot it but then hand it off to somebody to deal with which is

exactly what you do as a cinematographer you just like all right going home now see you later you can you can make the best out of this yeah well and to your point like about disposability and stuff like i think when you when you look at a painting especially if it's actually this is going to be a good way to wrap this up uh when when you look at a painting especially when it's in a museum or something you know that it took a lot of time to paint obviously so you're more inclined to sit there and kind of stare hopefully not at every brush stroke because i think people get a little too in the you know that's like oh what cameras did you use kind of thing but uh but you you take the whole thing every every stroke had intent and so you're able to

kind of sit there and read the intent and I think with photography um it's harder and harder to find images with intent because a lot of times they are snapshots which snapshots are great for memory keeping but in terms of yeah uh making an image you know like the the old photographers Ansel Adams et cetera um Dan Winters talk about making images. Oh, I made this portrait of Arnold Schwarzenegger, whatever. And I always thought that was just kind of like old school, like, you know, oh, we shot this picture. But it's like, no, there is, you're making the image. You're not taking it. You know, and I was, yep. Yep. Yep. But the, um, the dovetail that I wanted to get to was obviously Dune 2 getting re-released.

And, um, I assume you probably have the same opinion I have, but I did want to ask you, uh, How do you feel about not just more recent films, but even older films getting re-released in theaters? I personally, not to color your answer, but I personally think we should just keep doing that. You know, if audiences aren't going to theaters as much as they used to, I'm fine with them putting, you know, the OG Willie Wonka back into put men in black in the theaters again. Like bring people back out. Get the experience going. Get people in the mood to go see movies again, not just when, you know, like with Dune 2, we all loved it and just want more of it. it's like let's keep do that for all of them you know they're not movies used to be

how long was gone with the wind in the theaters for like a year and a half five years yep yep yeah well exactly i mean my my take on that is that part of the process of the enjoyment of of seeing a film in a theater is sitting in a theater it's going out of your way it's it's not opening your laptop and downloading something and like It's going out of your way. Like you are taking the time to get on a train, get in the car, wherever you, to get into a theater, to watch all the trailers, to watch the lights go down. Like, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a deal.

It's a commitment. But I think that commitment helps invest the audience in, in, in that group experience. And it's such a, I mean, I agree with you about re-releases. You know, I, I, the idea of being able to go and see, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, desperate to go on see June 2 in IMAX again. And I couldn't get tickets. No, I tried to go to the Burbank one because that's like a great one and sold out immediately. I was working here in the UK and I sent Denia a screenshot about the IMAX. I couldn't get a seat. In fact, I think I could get a seat on a Thursday morning. First screening. It was at the front on the left. And that was in about

five weeks from the date that I said. I was like, I can't get a seat. Yeah, you should be able to send an email to somebody. You would have thought so, right? Yeah. But I couldn't get a seat. I wasn't going to sit up the front, obviously, but I couldn't get a seat. So I would love to go and see us the re-screening. Well, if you end up back in LA, we can go together.

And I'll, do you guys know who he is? Because you'd love that, I bet. I did want to say right before I let you go, one of the funniest things, I saw a special screening at the Academy Museum of Ferrari. And so Deney was there with Michael Mann and then Deney was doing the Q&A. And every third question, Michael would go, yeah, yeah, you know, that was great. And obviously Eric Mezzer Schmidt, blah, blah, when do I get to see Dune 2? Like every, he would just interrupt him and go, can you send me the screener?

Like he had no interest in talking about his film. He just wanted to see Dune 2. And I was like, yeah, that's right. I'm sure they could arrange the screening from Michael Mann as well. I'm sure they did. Let's get it back in the Olympics. It is. I mean, this is why, like, I think Indistel is being released on 10th anniversary. I mean, that's fantastic. I mean, that's beautiful film. Yeah. Talk about speaking of Hans Zimmer. Like that score is is eternal. That song shows up once a day in my life. I mean, I live in Los Angeles, but still, it's, it's everything. You know, it's it's as important of a score as, you know, Indiana Jones or anything. You know, it's it's it's that's a permanent fixture, I think, in, in world history, not even just film. It's, and it's awesome when you can do that.

Well, that Hans Zimmer's power on June part two, like the soundtrack on June part two, the fact that there's all these discussions about Oscar, anyway, but the power of his soundtrack on part two is wild. Like during the sandworm ride, tears, you know, of which we worked really hard. When he stands up, when Paul stands up, there's a shot that I did. I remember shooting the shot and being super enthusiastic about the shot when we shot, right? Like as in, it's done, awesome. When I see that on an IMAX screen with Hans Zimmer soundtrack, my God, it's like atoms move within my body. You know, it's like things occur in my psyche that I never, ever, ever would have imagined when I was shooting that shot originally. You know, I loved it when I first shot at the shot, by the way, you knew where it fit in the sequence.

But seeing it with the edit and seeing the lead up to it and seeing the lack of music before that point, he stands up, Zimmer cuts in, my lord, like it's, it's beyond powerful. It literally lifts you out of the seat. I mean, it is, and again, power of going to the cinema, you know. And exactly right, because it is at the experience, at the cinema, with the proper surround sounds, all that stuff, exactly right. It is beyond. And that's the important thing. That's why I think to your point about re-releasing films and having a run, I mean, I think it's a genius idea.

Yeah. Well, I know you got a full schedule, so I have to let you go, but I would love to have you come back and chat. I mean, I've loved pretty much every movie you shot so we could go in deep on even, you know, like I said, Vice or anything like that, you know, the Batman or whatever. But, yeah, I would love to have you back on next time you have a chance. Thanks, Debbie. Yeah. It's awesome to chat to you. Yeah, you too, brother. Take care. Thanks, mate. Thanks, man. Cheese, bye. Frame and Reference is an Albot 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 nrefpod.com, where you can get all the episodes and clicking the Patreon button.

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