Frame & Reference Podcast - 170: "Nosferatu" Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Welcome to Season 5 of Frame & Reference! To kick things off we've got Jarin Blaschke joining us to talk about his work on the new Robert Eggers joint Nosferatu. His work also includes Robert's other filmsThe Lighthouse, The Northman, and The Witch, as well as the recent film Knock at the Cabin. Enjoy! F&R Online ► https://www.frameandrefpod.com Support F&R ► https://www.patreon.com/FrameAndRefPod Watch this Podcast ► https://www.YouTube.com/@FrameAndReference Produced by Kenny McMillan Website ► https://www.kennymcmillan.com Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/kwmcmillan

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of frame and reference, this being the first episode of season five. We've got an absolute barn burner to kick off the season with Jaron Blaschke. He's the DP of Nosferatu. He works with Robert Eggers a lot. You might remember the lighthouse back in the day. Great conversation. You're going to love it. I'm not going to spend any time wasting your time. And I'm just going to let you get to it.

So this is episode 170 with Jaron Blaskey. I actually, the past four days, I've just been bouncing through screenings and so on Sunday I saw Nosphiratu on Monday

I saw Nickel Boys last night I saw Wicked I just spoke to Alice Brooks an hour ago

and I got you and Jomo I spoke to yesterday so it's been it's been a very whiplashy kind of

this is going to be the best yeah and I've been going through and just like trying to marathon interviews with people because I hate like no offense to anyone who does interviews but I fucking hate when it's like

so tell me about yourself it's like let's let's wait let's waste 20 minutes. Someone asked that you can look that up if you're looking up interviews with someone you probably found the interview where someone asked I grew up in how'd you get into this and whatever I don't know right

and also how did you get into this we it's always the same we liked movies we had a camera when we were a kid my friend worked at a video store I watched Star Wars Empire Strikes Back really hit me hard now I wanted to do this

Yeah it's always something It's Spielberg and Lucas for everybody In a certain generation For sure Yeah I mean like so for instance You grew up in a small town of like 2,000 people I grew up in a small town of 5,000 people Oregon for you northern California for me

Local video store Yeah same fucking story every time. Have you been watching anything recently? I don't, like, I want to go to all the screenings, but I haven't had time just because I'm doing this. So it's, um, it's the most press I've done. I mean, like awards time for Lighthouse was my first proper exposure to that.

And then this is a little busier than that even. So. Yeah. Well, and I've noticed that I just got to stop asking people. Because, like, I've noticed that especially right after coming off a gig or sometimes people are shooting something in the moment. I was talking to Greg Frazier about Dune and he was, like, just wrapped with Hail Mary. And he's like, I don't have time to watch. Like, I'm shooting a movie.

I don't want to think about other things. Yeah, yeah. He seems nice. I met him at Keremage a couple weeks ago. Yeah, he's cool, dude. But, yeah, it must, it must be hard to try to, like, for me it's easy because i shoot documentaries or indie films or whatever and uh i can just check out and go film something else or uh watch something else but i imagine it's hard to stay

kind of i'm i'm artistic artistically checked in i should say when you're i mean i'm not doing anything i don't know what to what to how to follow up not as fraught to so i'm just like I haven't been doing anything. I just been trying to, like, set up a home somewhere for the first time ever. Has it really, has it been like a long, like just nonstop since, I guess, pre-lighthouse? The lighthouse was the, like, when I moved out of my crummy apartment in L.A., and then it was fine. It was fine. I built a little dark room.

It was nice. But then the, yeah, I then moved to Nova Scotia and then come back. and then we moved to Marin and then personal stuff and then went to be near family in Massachusetts and then the Northman and that takes ages and then it was

that kind of went into Nostratu Part 1. That got canceled essentially and then stranded in Prague and then okay let's live in Europe because it's such a pain in the ass moving here and they got her into the school and I'm all embedded in Prague and so

let's try to survive off of commercials that the agency I got was like excellent I was like oh just talk to them and they're like they just got work for me immediately so then I just kind of do commercials for a bit there and then the shamlon movie and that one and that's Pennsylvania so I'm homeless again and then then I was there for my daughter for whatever that was I guess nine months and then I was like okay I got to move somewhere and I had some money because I just did a movie so yeah I moved to a place in London and just went to commercial mode again I had to

just and then we travel all summer but not bad i mean i've heard that frog gets a lot of where i mean here in l.a it's been deader than it's ever been but i i know prague seems to be pretty consistent of a certain kind yeah most the crew does uh i'm sure like most places does a lot of tv um so which is fine for some things but i mean so you have to bring in certain people for like a movie movie right i did uh i did hear in an interview you did talk talking about the difference between a European crew and an American crew and your preferences. And I was wondering if you could expand on that. Because I was someone who works in the lower end of budgets.

I'm always trying to steal good ideas from people when it's not union and no one fucking cares. It's just like good, good leadership qualities or practices. Yeah, I mean, you find kind of generalizations in each place. And maybe also my any observances I have have to do with like where I was. and the kind of things I was shooting at the time, like New York, that was my scrappiest period. I was there for 15 years. And, yeah, I'm doing, like, donkey budgets.

And so maybe that has to do with, like, the people I was working with. And then I found some, like, really, but you find some gems that are just kind of just nerds, which is who I really want to work with. I know people get really into, like, the blue collar, like, union camaraderie and all that. I just, I kind of just want dorks around me. just to like come up with when do things so but yeah so i found you can find some dorks in new york among all the other new yorkiness of it and then yeah la tends to be just about

getting their benefits and they love to talk about the a list deps they worked with before and tell stories and then oh you go get there overtime and go home and it's very much very professional in good and bad ways to counter the LA of it. Yeah, my best experiences so far is with UK crew. She kind of get the, it's humane. Right. And I like that it's a one-stop shop for my lighting. I don't have to like go to two departments because it's like,

that was kind of the big thing I was thinking. You're risking like a miscommunication because it is a holistic approach. Like I'm shooting something into a mirror and this kind of, this amount. this part of the beam has to go into a mirror and the other part of the beam is reflecting off white can you take that down or whatever and then like

I don't have to explain it twice and so so that's kind of what I guess because I never worked in the UK and that was like I guess the clarification I wrote a bunch of notes last night and half of them don't make any sense so I'll say something and hopefully you bring it up like just there

but that was actually it was why how are they or is the like gaffing and lighting are like two separate I mean, like they're, yeah, you gaffer, the grip in, in Europe, as you may know is, yeah, just move, just moves the camera or places the camera. That's, that's it. I don't know why it's in America that's grouped in with like your 12 by 20 Muslim frame. Right. You really get that other than it's just not electric. So I'm imagining some sort of you're trying to make unions in the 1920s. So less people die or something. And then it's just like, oh, they plug, they're dealing with electricity. So that's, that's those people. And then these people just pick up everything else. I don't know, but obviously I'm ignorant, but it's, I kind of like that it's, in Europe,

I can kind of work more holistically and creatively than a single person. Well, and that is the, I guess the reason I was like, ha, is because again, low budgets. Yeah, I'm going to tell you about this one. Yeah, I'm going to tell you about this mirror and then I'm going to go into the crane for the camera. Like, I don't know, I don't, right. And then, and then you have to, you got a, no one can, no one can go near the mirror. You got to wait for that. Yeah.

Yeah, there is a little bit of, oh, real life in Europe. Like, okay, the last permission, okay, outside of my department, but all the gray areas. There's like, people kind of work together. So, yeah. Speaking of nerdiness, you big, you big light meter, color meter guy then. What do you mean? I mean, like, I find, I, I am very meticulous with the color meter at least, but also the spot meter.

But I find that a lot more modern DB tends to, maybe because I also came from film, like photography, but they're, they're perfectly happy looking at the monitor and just hit color and going, yeah, yeah, all right. Yeah, that's hack shit. Yeah. I mean, obviously, if you're shooting film, you have to be a meter, but yeah, like a third of a stop makes a difference. as I'm concerned, especially in low light situations, because that'll, the lower you go or

outside of, yeah, the lower you go, that that third stop really makes a difference because that's the difference between being visible and not sometimes. Yeah, well, and honestly, that is, and all zone system it with a spot meter and the rest of it. Color meters I used to, I would always, they were really expensive, so I never got one, and they asked the gaffer, but I really, now I kind of match color by eye. I find that that is more accurate than, because I've had, I had a, I'm not as far out to, I had the gaffer. He would check all the lights and stuff, and he'd put a quarter of magenta on

to correct the h-minded of the other one. I'm like, that still seems over. I think it's an eighth. He's like, it says it's here. It's just, it's an eighth. So, and it never let me down. So, yeah, I kind of, I'd rather do that. It's just more efficient than.

Sure. Well, and with practice, obviously. If you'd be a decent color vision. Yeah. For me, it's like, I'm often matching, uh, LEDs to like window light and the you can do it by eye for sure but I've noticed that with X Y coordinates especially like that's speaking of nerdiness like getting it's going to bounce around some trees some buildings out there there's going to be some color that you set the thing

to 5600 what what does that mean I just I just look at the damn thing because it's like yeah you're going to get bounce off the leaves of the grass or the brown trunk or the whatever costume and yeah I guess for that I prefer to use my eye so well and and to your point about the third of a stop thing I think that was one of the biggest

sort of aha moments for me was learning that because you're taught stops so everything is very rough when you're in film school whatever you're like oh that's a stop difference that's close that's one that's a

unit of one, that must be close. Not realizing the granularity and exposure. Now, it's double. Yeah, sure. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's fun. Have you, so you've always been a film guy then, like even when you were young, you're shooting. Yeah, my dream. I mean, the first films I made were, um, super eight animated things when I was, uh, 11 years

old. Um, and we were in central Oregon, uh, in a, in a town of 20,000. And there was a, uh, yeah, uh, teacher, animation teacher. would come down from Portland and there's the stereotypical church basement each inch animation and we just get a flip book and then you could just transparent enough you could trace whatever you want to remain constant and do the new thing on the new page and so yeah you'd have like a you spend a week and you'd have a 20 second cartoon and then I then I this is like night this is before the Lego movies by about 25 years but like I animated Legos

which is more common than I realized at the time, I thought I was like, oh, this is so easy. And then so I had like a one Lego movie and then I had like one drawn movie in that week. So, yeah, that was like magic. Anyway, that was on Super 8 and then you go and then you make movies in high school with your friends. And then those are like on Super VHS.

Right. This is 1994. VHS C or Super VHS? Super VHS, which probably maybe no one remembers. Yeah. Oh, it's super. It's the better. It's still probably worse than beta, but, um, but yeah.

But then I, but I, my dream was to shoot on film even then. Because I had, I did still photography on my mom's Nikon and Wanda's would skip class and wander all over town and do that and then develop in the dark room and like college. I, I have said it from the rooftops, like, I think one of the most in the same way that like learning. color correction these days with resolve being free ostensibly as a DP like getting into the dark room is not only so educational but more fun than almost taking the photos just sitting there and playing with the exposures and all yeah yeah it's hard to get into one now because yeah i i'm i just moved into a new place in bath england and i'm trying to like there's a room in the basement that i have to turn into a dark room just figured out the fan

um right but yeah it's nice having ventilation because usually don't uh four dark rooms who was i talked to jovo and we were he was he we were can't remember the topic but basically he was like oh kind of in the way that the sous vide changed cooking and i was like the suveed changed film photography you can keep your your developer your baths all at one temperature you didn't have to ride the the spigot like a yeah college yeah that that's yeah that's yeah Yeah, I put a space heater in the room and then I had the jugs. I have to use distilled water. I use exotic developers.

So everything has to be distilled water. So it's like the distance from the radiators, like the temperature. So if I get the, I just get the room to 68 through tweaking of the space heaters. And then, and all the jugs are in the room already. So, yeah, the wash, you got to futz around with that. Are you primarily a black and white guy? Or do you, do you, yeah, you can do more, you can just customize it more. So colors just sort of, you send it to the lab and whatever.

So, yeah, I just prefer black and white. I wish I could shoot more black, white movies. Yeah, well, you know what's funny is my memory of Nosferatu is black and white. But even so, watching it, I was like, this is kind of desaturate. And then there would be like a pop of red or something that would go cruising by, like in the streets. I remember there was like food vendors or whatever. And I'd be like, oh, shit, hours or the original one? Yours.

Oh, right. There was just like elements of color that I'd see. I'm like, oh, it's not just heavily desaturated. This is like also the, the, obviously the production design and stuff. It's very cohesive. But my memory of it is a very rich black and white, even though that's not the case. Yeah. Yeah, I think maybe we're just very sensitive to it.

It's like people who are very sensitive to salts or something. Like, I just a little bit of color. it's just so salty so yeah well and obviously i was watching you i'm in a press screening and i'm watching it to talk to you about but uh it was it was funny because i didn't i my goal is always to like just go in completely blind for any of these and uh so i didn't know how spooky we were going to get or whatever and i and i'm sitting there and uh main characters having her sort of moment in the grass as it were and uh i was like oh is it it's got to be spoopy and then

it's like, oh fuck. Yep, all right, cool. Buckle in. All right, here we go. Yeah. Loud noise, boom. Yeah. Well, and that,

those prosthetics are just so excellent. Yeah. They, yeah, went through some rounds of that for sure. That's fun. Yeah, you find yourself like,

I remember I was like on set. When does this come out, by the way? Like, how much can't talk about the movie? It'll, it'll come out. after Christmas, so you're good.

I don't know if I can spoil it. But yeah, I just remember being in a, in the Hutter room set toward the end of the movie. And there's like, it's a modest little room. So it's like Rob and I in like regular clothes. And then there's like this fucking vampire hanging out in the, in the sunlight talking to us about the scene

and trying to figure out, okay, the camera's going to go here and when do I move then where and not whatever, working it out. And then there's like, then Lily's there, half naked and it just felt like a weird it was just kind of cool it's just like an art

artist troupe just like hanging out naked prosthetics and everything in between just in this puffer jackets and we're all trying to figure out this theatrical smoke and everything it really felt like just a weird artist colony colony and it was

kind of cool well and it's it's it shows because obviously lighthouse very meticulous and it's framing and stuff but unfortunately I didn't see whenever Northman came out I was like everyone was like oh this movie

fucking rocks you gotta go see it yeah and then I just never got to it which sucks because now I'm talking to you and I wish I could have but I'll have to go see it now and then I'll shoot you a text and a lot of it was not so far too in training so well excellent I'm very happy a lot of it but once you

once you do the next generation and then all of a sudden what was good is now you know right so but you guys were so I loved the sort of I guess restraint in the compositions it felt it was very like proscenium and very kind of formal yeah it's it's like illustration it's like very now that I'm talking about it more this week I end up saying this more but but I because I graded it we graded it for such a loan four months or whatever and then I took nine months off or and then I'm seeing it again and it's like, oh, yeah, this, this kind of looks like a storybook the way we shot it. I wasn't in my mind lining up the shots or anything. But yeah, it's kind of, it's just a little flat. It's meant to be two dimensions. We're going to shoot flat into a room. And I didn't have a way to define it before. But yeah, it's just like opening a little fairy tale book and, and having these very neat little illustrations. Well, but also,

the camera moves are so precise I mean like any any kind of panning is like just absolutely I hesitate to say mechanical because it sounds like it's lifeless but it's just it's so yeah precise it's excellent

it is mechanical and yeah we lean into it so yeah I mean when when I'm lining up the shots it's I don't the first rehearsal is just getting still frames of the shot, like, okay, we're here. I'll mark several places on the, on the floor

with a finder. And then when I'm here, we're here. And here, we're panned here. And here's the height. It's going to be here. And then it is a series of stills. And then the camera goes on the crane at whatever support. And then we confirm everything. Oh, this one should be a little lower, actually, because this is whatever, the convergence or overlap or whatever. Finesse it. Once it's on the camera support then you have the real marks and then it's uh and then you move it and then it's terrible because the pacing's wrong but yeah it definitely comes out a series of stills that then connect the dots uh when you move it so it's yeah it's done it's a low overwrought but it's done i i think it shows up no i i don't think it's overwrought at all it was i i really loved it

because it does give itself a um certain dread i guess Because it's happening whether or not If it were to be handheld or something Maybe you'd be Disconnect yourself No it's leading That's what we try to do The cameras is kind of the boss

It's like it's It's dictating It's not following action at all It's tugging the actors And everything else by like Their caller almost Yeah And also the

Quick shout out to the sound mixers I watched it in Dolby these there there is some like sub base frequencies that were shaking the room yeah like like roller coaster so good mark yeah yeah i guess but sure you gotta get the ear um yeah he's i mean a lot of a lot of the sound is is in post it's very he's very very careful with that yeah well and so like i was telling when i was watching uh wicked last night this girl was sitting next to me and saying uh oh she only goes to like the biggest movies that matter to her. So like the one before that was

Barbie and then she hadn't seen a movie in theaters for like four years. And I was like, you should see Nosferatu. And she was like, really? And I was like, yeah, go for it. But make sure you see it in the theater. Just really shake her perception of cinema. If those are the last two movies, yeah. She'll hate you forever.

Hey, listen, I think cinema is where we learn about ourselves. So I did want to ask about The lighting in the, obviously. Eventually. Yeah. I could help you.

Was it all like it felt just kind of led by, did you shoot on film? Yes. Yeah. So it felt very led by practicals, but obviously I don't know if 500 T is strong enough for it. So how are you like augmenting all that? Because it feels incredibly natural. No, you, um, yes, I suppose it's practically based. I mean, I'm not, I'm, I'm, I probably missed out because I, I'm of a certain generation that it's after the studio era and, and everything being fabricated.

I'm well after, um, the more stylized people, uh, who are still working today. Like Robert is not doing naturalism. Yeah. He is not doing naturalism. So I'm, I'm kind of doomed to some extent by my, by my generation. but I try to do it in a in a very polished way I'm trying to make it look natural

even though it's completely artificial lighting through windows so it's a little bit forensic like I'm just going to the feeling of 4 p.m. in February is the feeling we're going for and whatever that means to me I'll put that out there and you'd have a warmer horizon

so I actually will put a warmer horizon against bouncing everywhere make it okay so make a big sky and then it's blue here. There's a gradient down to a warm horizon and then the sun, then a hard source that's a mirror that's reflecting a light that's 200 feet away or whatever.

So that's crossed the stage. So I'm trying to recreate the real thing as much as I can. I don't know why. It's just some OCD shit, I guess. But I think the audience feels it, honestly. Hopefully. I think modern audiences are smart enough

even if they don't intellectually know when something looks real or not, I think they can feel it. Yeah, and the same thing, like all the flame is, there's no electric anything. There's going to be a lot of candles off screen, of course. And then sometimes, like, in the monastery, we had to see the ceiling and, like, no candlelight's going to reach enough when you're shooting straight up to the ceilings.

And then it's like, okay, then it's at a flame bar, and then we'll put a mirror under it and give it a little extra oomph, or a series of flame bars in that case. We'll just barely hide it behind our nuns and everything. So, um, well and i noticed a lot of like really delicate toplight too where you kind of was that like um all the time or was that just the one time i took a note about it just uh yeah a few places just in the harding house i think just in the downstairs i think it's the only place that actually

happened um which robin never had before like i had it before of course but rod never had it in a movie just because his his stuff never takes place where they're like chandeliers so far so right um even in the short films so uh he kind of liked it because you're not everything it's above everything and you can uh move around a little faster than usual um so but yeah i was i was playing with that too and trying to find the right shape of softbox how you get it off the walls but still wrap nicely in a person so i think i'm doing this like kind of concave slightly umbrella shaped softbox which is much more difficult to do but um or just more labor intensive than like a flat one because like a flat when you always get that weird hard edge on a wall where it kind of ends so that if i

just bring down the corners a bit i think it began with like i don't know if it was gem balls i'm kind of hanging them in a in a slightly concave thing and then it sort of it gets it away from the walls and wraps the face a little bit more so that's that's where i'm experimenting but even i don't doing rob movies i don't really get to do softboxes much anymore but more much so that was um what are you doing normally on his films well window light and firelight or fake firelight and that's it so our moonlight so yeah i guess i guess i guess i guess i guess i don't have chandelier they don't have top light i mean they have they have like skylight top light which we had in the long house but not like a top light that you feel you feel

that nice rapy or close proximity that you get uh like an interior light at night so um yeah certainly puritans didn't have them and lighthouse keepers didn't have them so right except for the the big one yes sure but that's shooting out too yeah um i the other thing so my memory of the film was it was like you could have obviously done kind of a vintage it's not it's not uh one eight five right it's like six six i heard that yeah i heard i mdb and uh i think rotten tomatoes or something has it in as one eight five but it's not one six six yeah i was a I just saw the two black bars on the side of like, huh. Yeah, one-six.

That's interesting. It's a cozy, it's a cozy shape. Yeah, I like it. I just wish the theater would bring it. The theater people don't. By the curtains? Yeah, they don't. Unless you get the, have the milky.

Yeah, but it's AMC's fault. Plus, it was a press screening, so I don't know if they were even paying attention. They might not have had projection notes. But, what do you want? It's free. You know, I sure. I got what? They gave me the AMC.

popcorn bucket the oh yeah the big metal one yeah I did get that early so that was that was fun

but yeah what I was getting was you you obviously could have gone sort of vintage with everything being a film in

yeah but to be the eras 1920 pre photography the era so it doesn't really make sense to have a

photographic reference yeah and so like the lensing seemed pretty clean but I heard you saying that you actually

shot I mean, the lenses are still 80 years old. Oh, what did you shoot on? What? The same lenses. The primary lenses were the same as the lighthouse. And not, I'm trying to be literal. I mean, with anything, I just like the way they look.

So they're just a little. They don't have too much what you would call microcontrast. It just has a, the skin looks nice. It's sharp enough, but it's still got ginsiquois to the texture. And so that's just the reason. Yeah, I guess in my head When I was thinking of cleanliness I was mostly thinking like oh

You could have gone real fucked up with some pets falls Or something like that But I did see that we'd done that Yeah I think yeah But that's it But again that's once you go that strong You're sort of referencing photography

And that didn't make sense for me Sure And you shot Nasferatu himself On a different lens That specific? Yeah, anything to do with Warlock We shot on a lens called a a day gore which is a lens design primarily is for for sharp photography in the early 20th

century it was it was I believe it was invented and I think I've said 1890s but it might be 1880s actually now that I'm thinking about it but it used to be called a doppel and a stigmat which is like a pretty sharp lens is a high contrast lens because it's before coatings but they did a lot of corrections but it's like two groups of three cemented pieces of glass. It's a symmetrical. So you have like these three cemented together and you have these three cement

with a stop in the middle. So the symmetry made it took care of a lot of corrections and then all the cement as opposed to air spaces keeps the contrast high. So that was sort of a very important lens design

which I just had Dan Suzuki make just out of curiosity. And then, but I think it just ended up when you use it close to wide open which is not how it was historically used is used for landscapes really or yeah I mean except for later on

in the fashion industry is a dig or for portraits but the um it was known as a sharp lens but they're using a mid aperture whereas on this movie we were using it open but it's how it looks is tied kind of relentlessly to what aperture you use so if it's near wide open it has this like beautiful pictorialist

look to it that doesn't and the way it falls out of focus is unlike any other lens I've seen. I thought the the baltars were like my favorite portrait lens until I Dan made this and this because even the ball tors

they sort of look a little photographic in that you you see the field curvature and like the edges of the image kind of fall out of focus different than the center and almost looks like pulls back into focus as you get towards the edges, all this stuff. But the,

the, Degor just kind of, it just like mists out. And it's, yeah, at a 2.8, you just get those highlights that just kind of glow a little bit. And, but if you go, if you open up more, then it's just kind of a piece of shit.

So, you got to, you got to pick your stop. So you get like three lenses and one. And were you... Sedaptor according to the look you like. Yeah. Were you finding, like, at what part in prep,

did you realize that was the move? Or were you just hitting Dan with like, hey, make this, this, this for me. and let's just curious like what a what let's find out what this looks like and so he he's like okay and then i probably bothered him again um but he made it and it's a pain in the butt because dago war lens was made for a view camera so they generally they're like at least this big right so but he's doing it for 35 millimeter movies so it's like now you're talking each each three glass grouping is like this tall and it's all cemented and they have to kind of fit on each

other perfectly and I he admitted actually just two days ago that one of them there's like a little extra glue in there they're a little bit off that may have to do that may affect why it kind of has this like messed up glow so but I didn't I didn't know that I thought it was inherent to the lens but it might have to do with like a millimeter of glue as as basically as a lens element in there so um yeah it's hard to make on a small scale but they did well and he's a fucking wizard so yeah it's fun yeah it's fun to geek out with him he made a lens that we didn't use

called a heliare I just I own a heliare I only use it a little bit again for a view camera but that is actually a very well corrected lens it was like too sharp so we never used it

I thought this is going to be the portrait lens for all the orlock stuff is like no it's like too good and it's like too neutral so but it should be used someone should use this lens

yeah I'll use it eventually but weirdly for like a modern movie even though it's a lens designed from late 1905 or whatever so right I've been having a lot of conversations about lenses recently

because the conversation always comes to like film needed when film was the only option people were fighting harder and harder for sharper lenses cleaner lenses whatever so you could just resolve stuff on film

and then when digital came around and digital got good now we're just flying backwards but this current trend of usually like Chinese manufacturers who have these like computer perfect ground glass for dirt cheap is great for getting affordable relatively high quality lenses but there is kind of no soul to it a lot of times these lenses can feel very uh I hate the word clinical because it's not it's not a fucking microscope but but perfect and perfect isn't fun

there's a there's a place for that um yeah just look at it carefully don't just yeah I feel like kind of a whole vintage bandwagon without actually looking at the what it actually looks like like I don't know if it's still going on but everyone was into what they did it is or whatever they're called

well and then everyone bought out all the FDs because they're like it's the same thing yeah I don't know I hate a K35 personally because it has no dimensionality it's just like all your colors are just flat but it's like oh this is the trendy lens right now it's like well it's there's just so many ways to whatever

have character in your picture but you're not you're not actually discerning it's just oh it's not soft so therefore it's interesting i don't know i mean i was at camry mage and there's like a new lens manufacturer that their only marketing is look how are lens flares okay well how about the picture and their ad before camera image begins is just a race car and headlights and just a big flare all over everything it's like this doesn't tell me anything like if you have a if you have a flare it's kind of you kind of fucked up like it's just I don't understand why this is the only metric in in selling your lens so it's it gets a little silly sometimes like do yes it did shallow depth field okay is that appropriate is it how is it doing it was it doing in a football fashion is it doing a

neutral fashion is it so it's um but that's it gets a little simplistic with without people actually looking at all these all these uh sub characteristics well And I think it's kind of a force for the tree of the issue because a lot, I can't remember where I learned. The lens is like the last five percent of your picture. It's like it's just the seasoning on at the end of your, this isn't everything. Like going outside with a handheld camera and shooting into the sun like all day long is that's kind of boring after point. Well, it's, I think it was Brian who was talking about how whatever the artifacts of your favorite genre of music or delivery method are now. I think I lost what I just said.

Whatever the artifacts of what is the current delivery method for music will then become the defining characteristic of it in the future that people will look back on. So, for instance, vinyl pops and cracks, loudness, wars compression on CDs or whatever it is. People are now going back to that. And I think the same thing is true with cinematography where right now kids are really into the mini-d-b-b-look. and either by purchasing NEDD cameras or VHS cameras or flooding Reddit with where can I get this effect? Does anyone have a plug in for this?

And it's like, but what are you shooting? And they're like, I don't know yet. I just want it to look like there's a weird, there's a weird current trend of only focusing on aesthetics and having no story, no script, no actors. It's interesting. Well, to be fair, Rob does that to an extent. like he just wants to create a world and it's like or like the the atmosphere he just like this is I want this

atmosphere and then tries to and then makes a story around like an atmosphere and then a setting what's the right setting for this feeling and then it kind of goes into from there and then a story will evolve but there is a story at some point yeah yeah sure versus I have this aesthetic now I'm going to it came out of an atmosphere he wants to create he's it's almost like like atmosphere first sometimes um so and he's just good and smart so works out yeah but yeah but people shoot film and they under expose it and they want it grainy and yeah exactly yeah the locked up under exposed yeah yeah that's not what film means actually this is actually a superior media or works a line of craft you just want the shortcut to say hey you guys shut on film it's just it's um

shallow so yeah no the the the amount of people i've seen share photos and they're like proudly going this expired in 82 okay yeah doesn't make it better and i had a k35 lens all right great yeah the uh what were the uh speak you i end up talking jet i don't this is a this is a perfectly acceptable place to do it um but i did want to know like kind of in uh prep for Nosferatu like what were kind of those touchstones of the vibe and the aesthetic that you that Rob was hitting you with and what did you guys kind of come up with together to that's ended up setting up that look I mean for me really it was just kind of a word just romanticism mm-hmm at word enough enough and it he'll he'll reference Casper David Friedrich of course just because that was the that was that painting was from around that time time and place and that's the kind of easiest thing to point to for me that romanticism means a lot of things or at least there's a larger aesthetic cycle in the in the culture and it wasn't just Central Europe and Germany it's is in

England and the United States and it spreads almost like arts and crafts became art nouveau became the successionists and etc it's the same thing I had different branches that went out so yeah so I'm for me might mean something slightly different technically than what comes to mind for him like for me it's it's more the the american uh painters of the sublime landscape um uh beerstat and church and these people so um but it's kind of the same it's the same uh spirit so yeah it just means you're you're trying to make something lush and beautiful uh and you're trying to convey the sublime. So however that filters through you, do that. And for me, that just means a certain, just a, a richness to the image and the light,

and that comes down to you. I'm going to give my film a rich exposure, so I get that full scale and, um, yeah, down to the way you move the camera that's a little uncanny. and less pedestrian having a camera lead like we talked about, et cetera. Yeah.

So were, were you like overexposing by a bit just to kind of... I don't call it overexposure. I just called exposure. I mean, the film looks, a code act. I'm sure that there's a bunch of sort of considerations when they label a speed to a film. They've, yeah, I mean, 5219, I rated 250 just because that's what it is to me. because I'm someone who likes a full scale and at 500 you're not going to get a black.

Yep, totally. So, but yeah, maybe they rate, maybe they call it that just because that's kind of like the, you can market a 500 speed film more than you can at 250 speed film. Well, I was talking to a, I don't know, congestion. Yeah, I was talking to Eigle Burled about the holdovers

and he was saying how they were, well, they wanted to shoot film because that was the appropriate. and then they realized after doing tests that 5219 is made to be scanned so they would have ended up having to put grain back into the image to get the

aesthetic that they wanted yeah but but film is more than just grain well yeah but just like they'll look at the highlights in that movie it's digital but that's just I'm just going to put that out there that is perfectly fair it just sucks that film is so expensive now because it's like so many people

well it's always been expensive but it's I don't know if it's with inflation it's much worse but well I just mean like photographic film a roll of 35 is sir yeah 18 bucks yeah I'm about to do a trip I'm looking at 120 film yeah it's like nine dollars a roll

like well I remember when this is four or 385 or whatever at B&H but again that was like 2002 so I don't know I lucked out I've got a fridge

full, like a Red Bull fridge full of film that I bought pre-pandemic. So I'm sitting on a gold mine right now. I got lots of film all over the place, but it's all expired or it's expiring, so I just try to get a fresh batch when I go. And then I give it away to

a school or something of it expires. Or it's about. I bought a handful of packs of Acros in 120 when they said they were canceling that. And then immediately they're like, Never mind. We made version two.

And I was like, okay, well, I'll give me some of that too. Because I really love how the contrast levels in Acros, in my opinion, or that's my jam versus like an HP5, which I feel is. I'm an FP4 guy, but that's me. FP4 is good. I've got one sleeve of it in 35. But, yeah, it's been a while since I've shot film. I'm being too precious about it, honestly. I just need to go back out.

I did get, where is it? the little Jesus the little half frame okay it's it's it's a disposable basically

but it is fun to bring out your friends are excited at a party whatever and you get 72 shots in it that's been helping me not be so precious

about it yeah 36 is too much for me so I think 12 at the nice number was that a 220 back or you just are you shooting square front 20 yeah it's 12

no to medium format so it's like yeah but I mean like six by six yeah yeah although i yeah or six six by seven it's 10 that's pretty good so i find after after 10 there's a decent chance where i'm going into a different lighting impairment i got to switch to your favorite hb5 but yeah that uh yeah because i have a rz 67 uh and so that's my dumb ass was doing street photography with that stupid thing when i first got it that looks good

No, I, it looks fantastic, but it's just, yeah, it's like plasticy and whatever. But the, because I used to, I used to use a Hassabla and I traveled, like, I went to Ethiopia with a, with a Haasablot. It's very, I mean, I think it's very compact and it's like perfectly engineered. It's such a pleasure to use, but I like the look of the lens on the Mamia more. Like, Haseblad looks closer to, like, 35 as far as just like the, the, what do you call it, the field? focus field but Mimea looks closer to 4 by 5 to me even though it's

only marginally different there's just something about the lens just the 110 yeah just rolls off a little nicer so I'm going back to Mamea hell yeah cameras at me in the ass

it's way too big I did that actually does I'm wondering if you could kind of talk me through if you expose film differently than you expose digital when shooting a movie.

Or do you think of it the same way? Are there certain considerate? Obviously, you mentioned highlights, but is there certain considerations that you make between the two? I mean, I used to shoot, when I shot The Witch, I shot at 800 because I just wanted to be true. And there's a lot of, like, stuff in the shadows there. And then after shooting film, I don't know. I don't shoot digitally except for like a commercial here and there.

But when I do, now that I shot film, it's like, well, on film, you just have less shadow detail generally because there's not as much, because digital has like a crazy toe. Now that I'm aware of it, it's like it just doesn't, it doesn't end. It just doesn't go to black. So after the lighthouse, I was like, I got that first hard shadow, which means you got to use fill light now and all that stuff. And it was like, oh, man. Yeah, we had some dailies come back like week one. It was like, oh, that's not there. Oh, shit. But yeah, now that I'm used to that shadow fall off, it's, yeah, I shoot digital probably at 1,200 now. When I, I, I, I shoot digital at 1,200 now. do so um and also it needs it needs highlight information so i'm that's why i've sort of shifted it

that way yeah that's the curve still that curve's still weird to me it's still like this whole shadows just go on forever and that's like your your highlights are too fast yeah and honestly it's not right at the film now so that's why i feel that way i think i'm like bradford young and great fraser do great with that digital palette where your shadows go on forever um that's that's is part of their look. So it's certainly a lot of merit. That's some beautiful work. But I'm, yeah, just calibrated the other way now.

I'm with you. I recently, I knew that obviously if you shift your ISO down digitally, you get more shadow detail. But it just for whatever reason, it didn't occur to me that going up protected highlights. And so now I've started doing the same thing, just ISO up, ND. Yeah. I don't like, I don't like to shoot a 1,200, 1600, like, it's just, it's just too much, then you're cutting too much, like, 400 is where I like to, the perfect, that, that, that I find it matches my eye. the image isn't brighter or darker

than what I'm seeing on set it's just easier to visualize like the lighthouse it's the other way it's like we're shooting at 50 around this table so it looks like hell so I have to sort of trust the meter

because it and then nights on the Northman same thing it's like we're shooting those 80 so it's like this this looks awful

and then because through tests it's fine you've already set your levels and this is how it's going to look yeah and around 400 or 320 then it sort of looks similar but like digital is too far the other way it's just too bright it's more sensitive than what I'm seeing

so it gets difficult again yeah I find for digital at least on the canon cinema cameras I use that like 400 is good for when you're lighting it and 3,200 is good for if it's basically nighttime in terms of what you're saying like what your eyes see you're not lighting any parts just I don't know it's like can't learn to light it

3,200 right just cannot you got to learn to light it at least 400 or less that's my that's my opinion I'm with you on that but I say I'm with you like I knew this I've figured that out probably

two years ago that I needed to just start going lower to actually get an interesting image because you're right like when all when everyone's all stoked about the Sony's shooting at 12,800. I'm like, well, then what are you

are you filming in a black box in the desert? Yeah. Well, then you're like trying to kill your street lamps on the street or whatever. So yeah, just the job of taking light away becomes great. Yeah. What are you doing in

post with film that obviously you've color corrected digital before? But are you kind of sticking traditional kind of printer light type thing? Are you full D? No, it's very No, it's very, as per dark

and parlance, like, we are dodging and burning quite a lot. So, and I'm not ashamed to say it. Like, that's just part of the photographic process. So I don't mind doing that. I think the greatest looking picture is a contact printed negative, but there's just, when you get to do that, there's like VFX are all over the place now.

So, and even when you, go shoot something. It's like, oh, this, this, this does amazing, but there are power lines. So we're going to have to, we're going to scan and take that out anyway. So that sort of thing. So, yeah, so might as well take advantage. So basically a digital movie, it was just started its life on a piece of film. So, yeah, and then I'm, then I'm just, it's just that last 10% polish of what is already there. I'm not trying to fix anything. It's simply, yeah, I'm going to light it for this direction, but hey, it's a wonder. And I go. all the way around. And so I find a situation where I can get 90% there in the room while still

getting the camera move. But I got to put that lamp near the wall to get the right. I put a lamp near the wall and whatever one of her possession scenes. And it falls off a certain way. But I want to take it a little further. I want to emphasize what's doing already. I can't really it's a practical in the shot. So I can't do anything to it. With the control I have is how sourcey I can make it, which is its proximity to the wall. But beyond that, I still want the faces to separate. And it's a wall that is light. So it needs to be light for this other scene. So but in this one, I'm going to just separate a little bit. So I think we'd all be shocked, too, like the amount of roto that Chivo does. So he's no hack. So I feel fine. Yeah. Well,

you've got your Chris Nolan's of the world who are very like, oh, like you said, contact print, IMAX. That's how you got to see Oppenheimer. That's the best. That's the most beautiful color you got but yeah but uh but he's kind of doing his stuff the last what however many movies are he's pioneering what i mean well no they are it's it's it's not the wally fester lighting style anymore it's it's very available light looking yeah strel at times so it that's you can do that you're not he's not being precious about windows and printing all this stuff so yeah i mean i definitely was lucky enough to go to i heard that he was uh not to talk about his movies now,

but I heard that he QC'd Oppenheimer at the Burbank citywalk IMAX. So I got to go see the the 70 millimeter or no, the IMAX print there. And what should be the perfect and it was genuinely stunning

compared to even the 70 millimeter print. Yeah, of course. Was it three times as big? So it makes sense. Well, it's just, I think I had I had fallen into a I got comfortable with digital projection. And I was like, how different could it be? And so I saw, I think I saw it in 70 and then IMAX.

And I was like, oh, 70, okay, I get it, I get it. Yes, okay. And then seeing it in actual IMAX and projected IMax, I was like, no, okay, I get why he wants to shoot this like this. Yeah. Well, it's not missing the option. Shockingly different. Yeah. And you shoot, you shoot IMAX and then you shrink it optically.

It's still going through that extra glass. So in theory, it would be a loss there. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's the most beautiful color you're going to get. It's a contact printed negative, like, hands down. But if you got all this VFX work and everything, Dolby Vision is laser projection is pretty good. Yeah. Do you, how much VFX?

Obviously, this film doesn't feel like a VFX movie, but I feel like every movie now has. Just do it carefully. It's 80% of the shots have VFX in them. No kidding. Various. That's what, that's Angela said at the Q&A day of the night, so I'm going to take a word for it.

but yeah it's uh everything from the tiny stuff to the it's just going in with like a little clean in the floor with a toothbrush sort of thing or the toothpick getting out the really just uh exercising care you know what i mean it's not not there to fix stuff it's just there to be even more oCD yeah which i like why not the tools are practically free at this point like computers aren't going to lag behind if you try to do one window A lot of it's just like, oh, there's a flyaway on her head that in this shot, because it's backlit or making a storybook movie, it's not, I think it's, I think it's tasteful. It's not like your digital helmet thing. But it's just like little, just little polishes like that. Or that highlight on that, on that, the shine on that clock, I'll put a window and just make that a little brighter. I already on set, rotate it to catch the window to balance out the composition. But if it's just. set that highlight just a little brighter and then the shadow of that grandfather clock a little darker it's a stuff you're only going to do and they give you four months to grade too which is

which is great but it does the accumulation of these um polishes do make a do make a difference and and i think they've done tastefully doesn't look like it and feel like it no 100% i mean the the only thing i could say about the film that maybe that would uh allude to is it does feel like a very precise movie like nothing there isn't a goddamn thing in that movie that feels accidental or out of place or uh happenstantial it feels very manicured but in a in a good way in a way that made me feel like watching a movie it's it's a rob beggars movie so hopefully it's it's in the direction of feeling stifling like that's that's part of it's like controlled like the filmmakers are strangling a little bit with like how um how controlled it is yeah you're not seeing anything

you're not supposed to or yeah yeah One, I should, I want to give you guys credit because obviously, like I said earlier, like, I was like, oh, we're going for a real scary movie. And not like, there's maybe two jump scares, two, three, and the whole thing. But it's just the vibe of it is very ominous and shit. But are we neighbors got one of the biggest last, I mean, there was like 10 of us in a room. Yeah, when, when now we are neighbors. Oh, now we're neighbors. Yeah.

Yeah. I think when it cuts to the final, the wide shot, the end of that library scene. Yeah, because we, the line basically got past me until everyone started laughing and then I heard it, like, thinking back on it in that moment. And then I started laughing. And I was like, where the fuck did that? Like, that's such a goofy. Because he's just all hunched over and fucked up. And each now we're neighbors.

Look, that's, I love little touches like that. Yeah, I don't know. That hour went by pretty quick. Oh, did? Yeah, probably two o'clock. Yeah. Yeah, I got. Yeah, anything else I can.

we just kind of I don't even know how much we actually talked about Nostrat too we've talked about more and you know well that's I mean that's half the

the concede of this show is like you're probably you're going to be on a press tour you're going to probably answer the same handful of questions all the time so I try to give an audience something else that's

sure a little more personal I guess I guess a good thing would for people who obviously like we said this will come out when people can actually see the movie

but is in theaters but is there anything that like you'd want people maybe on a second viewing. First viewing, just take it in. But something that you're kind of proud of that you were like a shot you really liked. I mean, it was a goal of ours to have an effective jump scare. I think we sort of sold like when you made the witch, we sold it on, we're just too fancy to stoop to jump scares. I mean, there's sort of one lateish in the movie with the witch

suckling the goat's teat and everything sort of not very effective one maybe but but it was a goal of ours to like okay we're not going to cop out we're just going to like do a do a jump scare so there's a handful of them and I think the most successful one

is the one I think is in the hallway with the oil lamp because the other ones are just sort of like quick cut loud noise easy fine yeah the lamp was was one that was a little bit more engineered where it's like let's try to get um lily hidden behind emma and when they turn around then you reveal her but then i realize that we have the lamp in her hand or the hand it was

casting a shadow on on lily so it was actually a very organic way to reveal her was just through the shadow moving by her hand moving the lamp so um anyway i think it's kind of funny to mention that Rob sent me a YouTube video on how to make a jump scare. It was like the formula. It needs to be at least two minutes long. You have to, I think it was like James Wan with the example. It's like, ones that work, ones that don't because of these reasons and broke it down. And I think it was a good tutorial.

So whoever made that, thank you very much. We put it in Ospreout too. That's hilarious. Yeah. So we followed the formula and goes down the hall. Like take your time. It's a little too slow. she's looking around

there's going to be tension where the camera's looking that's a little too slow in the pan like elsewhere in the movie though but oh we're fine we come back and you're like oh crap now we're going to reveal something when we come back whoa okay

I don't have this means balloons the balloons hands yeah pitchfork balloons pop pop but yeah you pan back so oh now that's going to be and then you're establishing you've already established twice everything's fine and then that's when you nail them, that sort of thing.

So that was rewarding to do that one. I honestly, I'm scared. It's just like hand, throat, a lot of noise. Yeah, bleeding from the mouth, whatever. No, that was the one I was going to bring up was the fake out. And also the pace at which that pan happens is so, like, you're just sitting there, like, almost covering your ears. Like, I know it's coming. I know it's coming.

I know it. Okay, it's not. No, no, no, no, no, it's going to come. okay no it's not it's a good it's a great uh the pacing of that is wonderful yeah i should i should yeah i should find that video again and um i just think it's a fun thing to mention that that's a good that's a good youtube video how to was it was actually this is nothing i should how much of that obviously all the interiors were sets yeah yeah okay we're like every all of them except for one yeah the i would have

the house 60 sets so yeah yeah yeah 60 sets i mean if you include the exteriors and the interiors the rung village was like the end of the inn interior was actually the end usually the you do the interior where you have more space but that one for whatever reason had to be there and we had a bunch of wall and it's in we only saw we see very little of it so we're not anything of the camera doesn't see it was not built so right because when you have a space it's only seen in one shot you can just focus on that and you have no super you aren't wasting money and resources on but the camera will never see as opposed to making a set so everyone can kind of arrive and decide

look at it and then decide how to shoot it's like no this is the shot and then build the set around the shot so well and I think there's something to be in the confines of what's historically accurate like it's Craig will come to us with like okay it would be something like this and I said well okay that thank you and then and then I'll look at what the lens will design a shot around that idea and then from there it's like, well, can you make this a little longer and this a little closer together, just building

around what the lens will see? Because that's all that matters. I was going to say, I feel like there's something to be said that I, and something I really appreciate about filmmakers such as yourselves is like that attention, that care. I think it's potentially far too easy a lot of times to be like, oh, let's just light it for 360, build everything, and we're, we'll figure it out on the day. And it's nice to hear like, oh, no, we designed it to be how it is. Don't need that wall. Or you'll need this half of the wall.

So just put your resources in them making this the best it can be. Because he's got 59 other sets too, by the way. So. And I'm sure the producers are happy with you about them too. We don't have to build the whole wall. Yeah. Or maybe it's in the way. Or you need, but

he's building a step with like a crane base in mind because we're using cranes on interior. We're using crane bases in Ellen and Hudder's tiny little bedroom and so that wall has to go away and then we're actually in that with a crane

which is kind of crazy but that's how you get that first shot in that room on the camera's like gliding over beds and doing 180s and all that so yeah and sealing pieces to let light in

and then closing again within the shot or in the as you come around to front light in that bedroom you'd have double shadows and that's bad enough but then you'd have a camera shadow

from one of those windows because you're right in front of one of those windows. As we come around, we like glide a flag over one of the windows, but then the other one has to be stronger, so to compensate, so how do you, it's like a kind of a set, it's like all this stuff happening off screen to make it look hopefully natural. Yeah, I mean, that's, yeah, it does. Again, I love the compositions you guys chose, and it feels, as someone who's not like a horror guy, I loved every second of that film, and it certainly felt.

every movie you see like I'm watching a movie but this it felt like an old old school like proper film and I was very excited to have honestly yeah thank you enjoyed it yeah we only get to talk for now

but I'd love to have you back on next time next time you're free and keep nerding out maybe I can pick your brain about more we're talking about film developers next time that's literally what I was that or isn't Bob, Rob Pattinson, cute, something like that.

I don't know. Art hitting questions. Yeah. Yeah, that's me and variety. All right, man. Well, I'll let you go. Enjoy the rest of your day and join Los Angeles. Okay, do my best.

Take care, brother. Bye. Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can do so by going to frame and refpod.com and clicking on the Patreon button. always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening.