Frame & Reference Podcast - 171: "Wicked" Cinematographer Alice Brooks, ASC

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

This week on Frame & Reference I'm joined by the wonderful Alice Brooks, ASC to talk about her work on the smash hit Wicked. 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 episode 171 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop in on a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Alice Brooks, DP of Wicked. Enjoy. but yeah i i was supposed to watch it when did it come out november 22nd so yeah the thanksgiving era yeah whatever it was is that we were all supposed to see it i had the the a list you know the amc you know everyone signs everyone up and then it was like we all had something to do all at the same time so i so i ended up watching it last night but um yeah it's it packed theater i mean I can't think of the last time I was in a, like, you cannot find a seat screening.

It was certainly, it happened in the past year, but I just can't remember it. Like, people are very stoked on the wicked. That's it. I know. It's very, I mean, it's sort of like a dream because the leak, you know, just the reaction has just been amazing. So it's really wonderful. Yeah. I assume you have not heard.

this podcast before i have not heard your podcast that's perfectly acceptable uh it the only reason i ask is uh very very casual so don't uh you know it's not variety it's not it's literally i'm i'm i'm a dp like i said i'm in pre-production of doc uh what kind of dog are you doing uh it's about spud web um he's a he's a he's a five six NBA player he won the dunk contest in like 85 or something like that oh fantastic um and so Yeah, I got put on that. Thank God. It's finally one of those like, oh, my network actually helped me out.

My buddy's a producer. And he's like, hey, we actually need a DP. And then you find out they need a DP because I'm cheap. All right. Well, I'll take it. What theater did you go to last night? The Century City one, because it's objectively in L.A. Like, that's weirdly enough.

The silly mall by my house is like where they. And also, a little fun trick that I've started doing is you'll see the little black tables put out sometimes. And I'll just go to the mall and I'll walk up and I'll just be like, yeah, Kenny Macmillan, they'll be like, you're not here. And I'll be like, oh, yeah, I'm for Pro Video Coalition. It'll go, oh, we'll just write you in. And I went, I've gone to a few pre-s. I got into Indiana Jones when that came out. Just flex and press credentials that I was not supposed to be there on.

but, you know, they're so obvious. They're just, and they don't care. So they. Yeah. Actually, last night I saw someone else do something similar and she wasn't on the list. And I was just like, hmm, I wonder if she ever was on the list. Yeah. Well, and I, and I, you know, it's not like I'm going to turn around and start spouting off.

You know, I just want to see the thing fast. I saw, you know, what's funny is I, uh, there's been a lot of screenings recently. So I saw Nosferatu on Sunday. Well. I saw Nickel Boys on Monday. day. And then I saw Wicked last night. So the whiplash just

Wow. Crazy. Yeah. Nassaratu looks incredible. I'm actually interviewing Jaron right after you. So this is it's it's been a cinematographic.

That's not a word. Journey. Have you been watching anything recently? Um, no, I have not seen anything this year. Really? It's sad. But I'm, I think like next week, I live in Maine.

Well, right now I'm in L.A., but I live in Maine. And on Monday, I'm going to go home. And I'm just going to shut off my phone and watch movies for two and a half weeks. Yeah. Because I'm pretty much every D.P. I've interviewed who's just come off a gig, basically, has been like, I, I've been shut down this whole time. Because it's hard. I assume it's hard to like. obviously just shutting down just in general on a shoot but letting in outside influence

you know especially if you're on something very specific yeah i don't watch any i don't really watch any contemporary movies when i'm making a movie so i i um Barbie came out while we were finishing bob barbie and oppenheimer came out while we were finishing wicked and i was just like Everyone was going to that opening week. And I'm like, I can't do it. I just have to get through a couple more weeks. You missed out on a cultural moment, though. Oh.

That was a very fun. Actually, the chick I was sitting next to in the Wicken screening was, you know, we were just chatting before the movie came on. And she was like, I don't go to any movies unless it's like a big thing. The last thing I went to was Barbie and now this. And I was like, oh, really? And so she's talking about, you know, her movie going habits, which I was a little, I was like, you should please go.

more but but it was she started just ripping me on everyone has uh all of the my buddy gauge who works at the uh uh idly over there at the at the century city mall was was like hey if you need me to sit in on the interview uh i have all the all the uh what do you call it trivia like everyone has all the trivia about how the movie was made and people are very into the bts which i love because i i'm a big proponent of like good BTS. I'm hoping the Blu-ray whenever it comes out will have someone, BTS for this one, because

people seem very interested. Yeah, I know people keep emailing me going, because John and I broke down dancing through life for Vanity Fair, and I keep getting emails going, can you please do this for every musical number? Which would be lots of fun,

a lot of work, but a lot of fun. Yeah. Well, and it's so educational, too. Like, I, you know, I I, um, I went to college in 2008, you know, but I had gone to film school before that. And my film school was, I think, a lot of people in the 90s, early 2000. My film school was special features, you know, for the most part. Same for me.

Like, yeah, as soon as DVDs came out and you had the special bonus features, it was like total film school. It was amazing. Yeah. Did you have the, uh, the classic director series like Mark Romanek, Spike Jones? that package, yeah. Yeah. So cool. Such a great era of cinema as well.

Yeah. Honestly, like I, yeah, I try not to be, I feel like I'm starting to become the like old man in regards to like, oh, it was better back then.

But then I'll turn around and actually go watch a movie. I'm like, nah, it's still pretty fucking good. Like, it's not. I think there's just more now.

So it's, you know, signal of noise and, and whatnot. Yeah, because we have so many. Yeah, because of the streamers, there's just so much more to watch. Yeah.

And really good television now, too. That's, I think that's the big one that I think often slips into my blind spot is just how good television has become. Because when I was watching TV, it was like house. And then Breaking Bad came out. We were like, wow, that's storytelling. How that's odd. And now if Breaking Bad came out, it would probably be not a,

footnote, but, you know, somewhere in the middle. Yeah. And then the great series, like super amazing series that actually were incredibly cinematic in the late 90s, then were canceled very quickly, like my so-called life, which our writer, Winnie Holstman from Wicked wrote as well. So I think, I think, yeah, she was the creator of that show. I think there's just a very, you know, and of course that got Jared Leto and their deans their start. And but I think the show just was a little bit forward, you know, future, just a little bit ahead of itself, ahead of its time. Yeah.

You know what's funny is the other night, me and my girlfriend were just watching movies and one finished. And I go, what's Stardust? And she goes, you haven't seen Stardust? And I was like, I don't know what that is. And she turns it on. Have you not heard of it? No, I don't know about it either. So it's Claire Daines is like the secondary main character, or I guess, you know, whatever, co-lead.

And it's every 15 minutes, I'm like, oh, this person's in this movie? Like, it was just this massive studded film. And it's like a very cute. I would consider it a holiday film. There's no holiday in it at all. But it's a very like fantasy kind of. It's fun. You should watch it.

It's a good one. I did want to ask you, though, apropos of nothing. You grew up in New York, but then moved to L.A. Yes. Tell me all the ways L.A. is better than New York. I don't know. I'm then also left L.A. and now I lived in Portland. I know.

I know, but I don't want any L.A. slander. I want to hear only good things. The best part of L.A. is I can go hiking 365 days a year. It's somewhat warm, although I just. This December's not so warm, but it's warm compared to almost everywhere else in the country. No, I love L.A. And I love all my friends here. I have the most amazing human beings I know are here and I love them dearly.

Yeah. My real question about that, actually, is I have so many friends who shoot in New York and stuff. And it's normally like, how'd you get started? Oh, well, one day there was a law and order episode that was shooting in some. I got on that and whatever, whatever. But I was kind of wondering if you could speak to the shooting differences between the coasts because there is a certain pace that I personally do, I have to give New York credit. The few New York shoots I've been on have been, I've preferred the, I don't know if you want

to call it professionalism, but it's that that pace is a lot, fits my brain better at least. New York, is that I said? Yeah. Yeah. You know, New York is fantastic. I've made two movies or in the recent years, I've made two movies there and I've made a bunch of other projects there. And I did in the Heights there and Tick, Boom. And there is. There's just an incredible energy and a pace and a sort of an efficient way of working through your day that feels like everyone's working towards the same goal. but the conditions just aren't easy, right? You're either up like 20 flights of stairs or you're shutting down New York City streets and everyone's angry with you.

And so it is different than L.A. L.A. L.A's much, I think the pace here is much more chill. Well, and you're trading elevators for parking, I guess. But you want to do. to make musicals your whole life, right? Like, that was kind of your jam? Yeah, I grew up in New York. My dad was a playwright, and my mom was a singer and a dancer, and musicals were on in

our house all the time, and music was on in our house all the time. And my parents, we didn't have much money, but my parents figured out how to get us to Broadway shows often. And so that was a complete, it was everything I wanted to do when I grew up. And I met John Chu at USC, and he asked me to shoot his short musical film. called When the Kids Are Away and we bonded over our love of musicals because it was at a time no one was making musicals. It was pre-Mu Mon Rouge and pre-Chicago.

And so, um, and so like we just had this dream that we grow up and make musicals. And now we just did two or three in a row, if you consider wicked two movies. Yeah. That was a sneaky one too. I try not to know a ton about movies that, you know, that I'm getting screened for or whatever. And the, you know, old, the old school. title card comes up goes part one i was like you doomed me i wasn't ready for dune to be a two-parter either when it came here

no yeah yeah y'all keep doing it but um yeah the the so wait hold on so there so this was pre chicago and all that i remember that being a big so what were your your influence must have just been kind of like what gone with a wind type of where where were you guys pulling your musical influences but but sound of music Sure. Cabaret, Sound of Music, Meet Me in St. Louis, Music Man, Wizard of Oz, all the great Hollywood musicals.

I still have, not here, but at my house in Maine, I have this book that my dad had, the MGM musical, and it's just like this big, huge coffee table book. And I packed it and brought it to London, even though it weighs like 25 pounds. But I was like, okay, I'm taking this to London when we go make Wicked because these are the movies that inspired me for so many years. Yeah. It did it feel like you were kind of going up against something?

Because I remember when I went to film school that, you know, I wanted to make, I'm a fucking boy. So I was like, I want to make, I want to make the Matrix, you know, action movies and shit. So, but that still felt like I was going up against, you know, there's a lot of work. Granted, I was watching Wicked and going. this is more choreography in camera work than John Wick. Like, this is quite, but. Well, if you actually look at Wicked, like, or musicals in general, like, John Chu actually, actually I'm not going to say this, but if you look at musicals in

general, it is, like, it is complete choreography, like, and big action sequences. Like, everything has to work together, not just dance choreography, but like action choreography and and our key grip guy mcclady he has done every big action movie you can imagine from the batman to dune to and to musicals too like the little mermaid and anyway massively huge jobs and in the middle of wicked he came to me and he's like i have never done this many really complicated crane shots in my life i was i was as i was watching as i was I was, I try to watch these movies like, and I try to only do like the first 30 minutes being analytical and then watch it.

Watch it. And I, I had to give up really early on the analytical because there, there's just so much. There's just so much. And it's, I've watched a few musicals this year within the past. I'm not like a giant musical guy, but, but the, as a, you know, uh, indie DP, I've been like, you know, I can watch a movie and go like, I, I, I, I, I, know how I do that or what this was not the case I flat out was like I would not take this job there is so I I can only uh congratulate you on the herculean effort um thank you like I was just

sitting there going like the poor first AC it's just I don't I mean our AC we had these long beautiful very complicated shots we were shooting wide open on our lenses and on Alex the 65, so very shallow depth of field. You shoot these all in the 65? Alexis, the camera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and then, of course, they come out with the mini, like, right after you're done. Well, I mean, we finished almost a year ago.

So it's not right. Right, Asker. They couldn't help you out. I'll be like, here's the perfect. But our steady cam operator, like, never loses his horizon. A lot of, like, some of the time I'm like, you can't feel the camera. I'm just like, people think some of the shots, like, how did we, we might. be on some sort of crane or dolly or something to be able to move around and then suddenly

slow down and then completely pause because he has no float whatsoever to his camera, to his steady cam. He's wonderful to Karsten Yacobson. And our focus puller doesn't pull off a monitor. He pulls off right next to camera. He measures everything. He's like, brilliant. He is just the most amazing focus polar i've ever worked with lewis hands it's it is genuinely like the woman i was sitting next to who was said she's never gone to movie she looked at me and she goes so what did you think because i told her you know i'm a journalist or whatever and i was like i i don't know what to think right now because i truly like you know even dune i was talking to greg about dune and in my head i can i could conceptualize shooting dune i couldn't i can't think of shooting wicked

The fact that it took you three and a half years doesn't even surprise me. I'm like, yeah, that's a big ass movie. Well, the first year, I'd say the first year and a half, John and I were just talking about the story. He was developing doing his draft of the script with the writers. And so our conversations for that first year and a half were purely, or maybe it wasn't a year and a half. Maybe it was eight months, nine months. Anyway, for the big chunk of the beginning. It was all we did was talk about story and humanity.

And it's all, John is an emotional storyteller completely. And everything needs to support that relationship between Alphaba and Glinda. The rest doesn't, the rest is the world of the film, but really and truly the most important thing is that is that relationship, that connection. And so, so then I need to get into John's head as much as possible to figure out, okay, how do I tell the story he wants to tell? and the vision he has for for wicked yeah so what was prep like because i i know i'd seen in a different interview that you were talking about like you know as granular as like oh in the in the um dance ballroom whatever seen yeah you know having to go like all right here's some here's some uh plastic you know it has this light up right we'll make it a little bigger how's it but like

in terms of conception again because i know you guys built the majority of these sets and And, you know, everything is so expansive. And whatever VFX extensions there may be, you know, I couldn't fucking see him. How are you? Yeah, just walk me through the prep on how I'm, I'm stuttering for words because, A, I'm sleep deprived. And B, movie's really big. So we go in, we get to London, about 14 months, 14 months, or 18 weeks before we're going start shooting. So I'm there for 14 months roughly. So we get to London and we start scouting locations

and like real like real barley fields and flower fields and cliffs and because John told us to dream bigger than we've ever dreamed before among all the departments. But the reality was we were such a massive film unit. There was no way we were going to travel to these places. And so, but it inspired all of us. Like we went out all over the UK for a week. And. And, And it started, the idea of nature started to like seep into us. And so instead, and then Nathan had this idea, okay, well, let's not, well, we, let me backtrack. So John, Pablo, Nathan and I all agreed, Pablo's our visual effects supervisor. We wanted to capture as much in camera as possible, right?

Like the world of office. And Nathan's a production designer? Nathan's the production designer. Yeah, we want to capture the world of Oz and create the world of us. Oz and our own unique version of Oz. So how can we do as much in camera as possible and not just rely on visual effects? And that was the first challenge John posed to us. And so then as we start prepping, Nathan starts drawing these sets and they get bigger and

bigger and bigger. And so my first week on the ground in the production office is this is after our scouting and I went home for a few weeks. And then we're back August 1st, 2022. and I hadn't met the gaffer in person before and he comes right into my office and barely any hello is how are you he's like we've got to get up to the art department immediately he's like this movie these sets are bigger than anyone understands yet and so and his name's David Smith wonderful wonderful gaffer and we went into the art department which was up one floor

from my office and basically lived there for the next 18 weeks as we just went through the plans and started working with Nathan so that we could build lighting into the sets or be able to know where, what walls needed to move so we could do these amazing crane shots and really started diving in with our department. So that was a massive part of prep. And then, of course, we got another part of prep, which is the choreography part of prep. And so going to dance rehearsals almost every day and getting into Chris Scott's world, who was our choreographer.

So that's a little bit of what prep was, but it was pretty intense. Yeah, because I did want to know, like, you know, any, even the biggest movies are just a bunch of small problems to solve. Is there any that kind of come to mind in terms of like something that hit you as like a big concept that you were able to kind of narrow down and bite through and get going? I think, right, like movie making is. That's all it is is challenge after challenge problem. after problem. We get to be problem solvers and we get to go, okay, we want to do it this way, but it's not going to work this way. So what can still give us that exact same feeling? And the thing, I mean, this was the hardest movie I've ever done. I think it was the hardest movie. John Chu

has said it over and over again. It's the hardest movie he's ever done. It's Avatar minus the 3D. Yes. And you've got like 28 movies inside this one, the first. part of our movie so wait to be part two and um and so it's all but the thing that works so well is the team we had our core team was all on we were all telling the same story we all knew exactly john is such an amazing leader we knew exactly what he wanted and at the beginning of prep two we all sat in the um we all went to see the stage play wicked in the west end in london and I just had this vision where we're all lined up watching the show, but that we were all linked arm in arm walking down the yellow brick road the same way Dorothy and the scarecrow

and the Tin Man and the Lion art all, but it was us. And the fact that we had each other and we knew we had each other's backs and I've known John Chu for 25 years almost. I've known Chris Scott for 15 years and the editor Myron for seven or eight years. So the fact that we have like this incredible core team and then new people, people added on that John just brilliantly picked. And we all were. We worked so hard together. And it was, we'd start our days every morning in what we called the war room, which was this huge office space that had 3D models of the sets and, and images on the wall of what we

wanted the movie to look like. And Paul Taswell's costume designs. And then, and then Fran's green makeup and Ari's makeup. And that just was like, our sacred space where we got to to create what the movie was ultimately going to become. Yeah. I mean, because I saw it in a, I had been mainlining interviews that you've done last night, hence to lunch of sleep. But, you know, 1.75 speed really helps when all you need is information. But I was interested because you had mentioned, and correct me if I'm ever wrong, but you had mentioned, I believe in a separate interview. that you basically had been working with John since USC.

You know, you had done, what'd you call it, the League of Extraordinary Dancers. How did, did, were you guys able to kind of bring that film school feel to a movie this large? Yeah. I mean, at one point, John, during this whole process, John was also writing a memoir. And so a lot of his, like, videos. were being archived and he kept coming up with all this footage of us making his student film and like footage or like video cam footage or stills and at one point in um in emerald city towards the end of the movie he looks at chris and me and he goes he's like it's just like

when we were making the legion of extraordinary dancers and we're like except we're in the middle But I think we're like huddled together on the ground. It like looking at an iPad like milling over ideas and and and but it is it's this it is a very film school spirit. Ariana Grande said in an interview recently too that it felt like we were we were making a student film in many ways. Yeah. I got to give her. Obviously we've seen it because of S&L. But her comedic timing is excellent.

she's so fucking funny uh always funny she's hilarious and who knew yeah people knew because they hired her but she's brilliant yeah her i guess her demeanor doesn't you wouldn't think that someone that's at least i've never met her but in you know interviews she seems very like reserved and usually that's not someone who's funny yeah someone who doesn't want to talk um talk to me about the the uh the pre-light weekends that you had where you were able to kind of work with just your crew and

keep everything again i'm trying to i'm trying to make this bite-sized for my brain but i imagine those weekend pre-lights must have been kind of a breath of fresh air yeah i mean people were like aren't you exhausted and yeah of course i'm exhausted but you like the adrenaline's also keeping you going we've shot for eight and a half months 155 days and because you shot both films and we shot both films. And I was, but the weekends were like this incredible space that was just just, it was me and the electricians and sometime a couple of other other people from special effects or depending on if what we needed or set dressing or the Greens department. But it was, you know, it was 14, 15 people instead of, you know, the whole army of people that it took every

day to be on Wicked. And so I got my own quiet time and thinking time and creative time with no real pressure, right? It was just, I was just, and my daughter actually got to go to those too, which was nice. And so it was, it gave me a chance to take the script and walk around and pretend I'm Cynthia playing Alphaba or Ariana playing Glinda and how would the space feel to them and how would the light hit my face if this is the feeling I had in this moment. And then we were able to work all these lighting cues into the movie. And we never would have been able to do that. We have almost 6,000 lighting cues.

I mean, that never would have happened if we... It's a big iPad. Have the weekends. Yeah. Yeah, we had, yeah, our dimmer board off was on the iPad. And then David Smith or Gaffer also. had a wireless, wireless board with 12 channels, and he'd ride those sliders a lot of the time as well. Yeah, so I was, like, one thing about the film that I think was really fascinating was

it is, I can see a lot of hard light. You know, I'm looking at shadows. I'm a deep, and there's a hard light, but it's so delicate. Like, it's not, we're not just slamming people with spotlights, but it feels very soft and kind of pastel and and again delicate and I was wondering how you managed that because my it was like I was like are we doing this hauling the grade like how are how are we making it so yeah precise and like and like airy and kind of pretty you know I'm like I'm glad to use the word airy because when I started describing this movie long before we ever shot it it was effervescent and there was when I worked with Panavision, Dan Sizaki, a Panavision, who's the...

I love Dan. Yeah. Who, and developed new lenses for, they're now called the Ultra Panetart Toos, but we're the first movie to have shot on them. And he created our own wicked recipe within the Ultra Panetart Toos. Did you get your own label on the lens, like the wicked barrel? Well, we had a different secret name, so... Oh, fair enough.

because we tried to be quiet about making the movie for quite some. What was the name? Did you just say? I don't know if I'm allowed to say. Okay, fair enough. But we, but we, what was I? Oh, so yeah. So, but John really wanted to make an old Hollywood movie.

And he asked me what my goal was for the movie. And I said it would be the greatest love story ever told between these two women, these two best friends. And I, it would, and as that goal started to come to. fruition. And John, John wanted that connection, that love story and, and that romantic feeling of finding your best friend and then being pulled apart from them. And your best friend starts as your enemy. I mean, it's a very classic, tragic love story in many ways as well. And so, so how do we, how do we create that softness? And we've got these two very different human beings in the

same frame with each other. I mean, you have Elphaba who's green, wearing black most of the time, and you've got Ariana, who's in different shades of pink, many very, very pale pinks. Right. Skin's very pale, and she has platinum blonde hair. So she is so light. And Cynthia, you know, just the green makeup was its own challenge. I imagine. Yeah. I mean, yeah, because I did, Lord, I didn't even think about that. Just managing the exposure values between the two of them in one shot. Yeah. I imagine it.

We could really power windowed any of this movie. There's only one sequence where we had to go in. And I knew that when we were shooting. So there's the scene in the lower attic, which is at the very beginning of defined gravity. And it's the darkest part of the movie. Right. And I knew I needed. And Cynthia walks in and she has her hat on first and then she takes it off.

But I knew I needed to protect to make. sure like we could see. So all the detail in Cynthia's costumes. So I lit the scene for her knowing that Ariana was going to have to come down in the grade. And also the floor was too bright. And so I had to take the floor. We didn't have time to get them to tech it down. It was just a, it was a light wood. And it just needed to be darker. So, but we didn't have, we between the prelight and shooting. I think we prelit and the next morning we shot. And so they couldn't tech it down in that time. So we, um, so I knew those two elements were going to have to come down, but, but we didn't have to, we didn't have to do anything to Cynthia. So, and, and so we were,

we were able to balance the entire movie with lighting and not, and not rely on power windows. That is such a triumph, because I legitimately was just watching, like, well, you got to be, again, I, the, the, the, the, the precision of, of, obviously a lot of people were like, and stuff, but just by looking at the shadows, like, we're dealing with, what were your, like, exposure values then shooting? Were you just, like, spot metering, like, a madman? We do have, the Gaffir and I both had our spot meters for sure, but I mean, you rely on the scopes, you know, at the DIT, and then at some point you get into a rhythm.

But we also, like, we go from the brightest of bright worlds in Munchkin to the darkest places. And as stakes get higher, the movie starts to get darker and darker. And that big shift sort of, that big shift happens in Dr. Dilleman's classroom. And there's a scene where he's talking about the history of the animals and then a blackboard flips over. And it's sort of the thing that really triggers Alphaba to know there's something wrong in Oz. But right before that happens, the shades of the of the classroom closed and we do this big lighting effect where everything dims down

and we do this zigzag of light that turns the projector on a sun beam that turns the projector on and that becomes that starts to be our darker like that at that moment that's our darkest part of the movie and then we progressively get darker from there um oh they won't me then it's a shorty I didn't know it was a shorthy uh do you know do you know what um like what kind of contrast rate because again the thing that I was as just as someone trying to steal from you how are you keeping the ratio so dealt was like were you exposing those kind of keys at key and then only doing your fill it no I mean again it varied by C and like and we also have I'm imagining those exteriors mostly towards the beginning at the beginning yes I mean she's out of two eight Um, you know, indeed the camera, but we shot those mostly at a two eight, but then we're outside for all those scenes. So then suddenly clouds come in or, um, so sometimes if we had a like cloud to Sunday, some of those scenes, some of those shots would have been shot at a four. But for the most part, we shot the whole movie at a two eight.

Gotcha. And were you flying just like a bunch of diff up top or? Uh, different. We had, we had a combination of diff, but we and then we also had there's, there are five, 200 kilowatt. soft suns in the world and we had all of them. So we had lights. We had plenty of light as well. Because those London days can get pretty dark pretty quickly. Right, right. Well, shit, I didn't know I was going to be a, let's see. Maybe I don't know.

If you want to go for like five to ten more minutes, if you've got some really good. So, yeah, though, this podcast is usually very conversational. So I'll just write a bunch of notes. And then when they come up, I just go, oh, yeah, here's something we can talk about. You know what? Hold on. I'll end with a goody. See, now it's like, okay, I wrote movement equals restraint.

Oh, yeah. I can talk about restraints. Please. Go with that. You know what I wrote. I don't. well so like we're this massive musical right and musicals you think constant moving camera but but it's actually in the quiet moments that this movie actually takes place and we could have

had I mean we had all the toys in the entire world right but it is it is the moments that pause or slow down and the sound completely cuts out and those are the moments where the audience actually leans in and and so much is going on in cynthia's eyes or ariana's face and those that's that's where the movie actually unfolds yeah the i uh as someone again who doesn't like necessarily seek out musicals my girlfriend does she's a i'm a dancer you know professional dancer so that's right up rally uh she was the one who said this is avatar for the the gaze and the days and the good. And I was like, that's a perfect. But it is, it is genuinely like, I appreciated how accessible it was for a non, um, musical guy or gal. Because it, there is, there is plenty of acting in the middle, you know, because I think when there's a film that's, and I saw the original wicked, uh, off Broadway. I think like, I want to say like 2011 or something like that. And I love that. But when I'm in a theater, I'm expecting, you know, just walled wall musical. But in a, in a movie, it is, it. is nice to get a bit of breathing room.

Like the, even just like all the animals sitting around and having their little like secret meeting and stuff. And, um, it's crazy. You guys made me feel for the animals so early. I, the bear rolls in at the very beginning.

And I'm like, I love that bear. I would die for that bear. And for no reason. Yeah, no, I think this movie has something for everyone. And, and I think one of the nicest,

the nicest compliments I've gotten in on the movie is that, it's such this it's this big vast movie but it feels very handmade and that an eight year old can watch it and an 80 year old can watch it and all ages in between like family is when over thanksgiving you know the whole family 20 people all ages all genders and um and and and people the eight year old and then can have a conversation about the movie it's pretty it's pretty wonderful yeah well i hope in the second film that you guys tackle Return to Oz. I want to see Wheelers. I want to see

headless princesses. Have you not seen Return to Oz? I have seen it. Oh, okay, okay. But we're very different than Return to Oz. That film scarred me as a kid. Oh, really?

It's brutal. The chick shouting Dorothy Gale, all spooky, has haunted my brain for 30 years. I don't know for any of this. Dude, you got to go rewash that film. It is dark. It is, it is shockingly dark.

But, all right, I'll let you go. Thank you so much, Alice, for hanging out with me. I'd love to have you back on to talk for an extended period whenever your life freed up for it. Awesome. Thank you so much, Kenny. Yep. Take care. 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 God. going to frame and refpod.com and clicking on the Patreon button. It's always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening.