Frame & Reference Podcast - 173: "Interior Chinatown" Cinematographer Tari Segal

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

This week we've got a really fun conversation with Tari Segal about her work on the Hulu show "Interior Chinatown". 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 173 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop in on a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Terry Siegel, DP of Interior Chinatown. Enjoy. NAB like I want to say two years ago the guy the guy who runs film tools was like showing me how to play craps so we're playing crap and it's fun and I am not doing well and the year before that he'd showed me but I forgot and I did quite well so I was a little upset and they're like you know what you go to the B&H party he like found me a wrist man and I go into the B&H party in there all night running to like J Holbin, who I'm friends with and we're hanging out. Oh, yeah, Jay. He's great. He's the best. Yeah.

And, uh, and, uh, Katie was there. Uh, and so then I leave and don't see the guys, obviously, they had taken off the next morning. They're pretty hungover, but in like a really good mood. And I was like, all, I'm going to be. And like, on the trip back, my, my buddy Adam was like, I'm not going to lie, man. We each won like five grand. oh man because I guess the guy who owns like Bentley or something like that

Maserati he was wearing a Maserati jacket just drinking straight milk and someone goes like oh because it was like the race team jacket and he goes some guy goes you you're a fan and he goes I'm in the family and then rolls oh that's a sight yeah

yeah I mean I was just trying to get quick games in like I say when my buddy was coming down the elevator to meet me for something and just he came down and he saw me with this look on my face and I was like I just lost $50. Do you think next time you could come down a little bit quicker? Yeah. And maybe it could be trouble. But it's fun. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. The thing that I hate about that whole experience is like it's nice to go out and meet people, right? So you're like, oh, hey, let's go grab a drink somewhere. I've only found like one bar in Vegas and it's really hidden, which is hilarious. that has drinks for like normal prices otherwise if you're hanging out in the casinos it's it's cheaper to lose money at the craps table yes and get free drinks which of course they engineer yeah you gotta just hang around the slot machine and wait for a wages to come around yeah it's worse it's worse than staple center prices and staple center's pretty bad yeah i never really hung out with people um outside the convention or or the casinos like they weren't really

any like hangout spot no there's there's this one really good one it's in somewhere but it's called ski lodge and it's modeled after a ski lodge but it's very small but it has just like normal probably normal for L.A but like normal prices for stuff and it's like a nice hang I usually go in there because I'm only I'm literally only in Vegas for NAB yeah I've never been back to the rest of the time are you in L.A yeah yeah yeah same I mean I go out for during there with, you know, people for meetings and it's all, you know, $20 martinis. Yeah. Yeah.

It can be. Yeah. I was just in New York and for a documentary I was shooting. And I was just riding the train to go. My friend owns this bar called Death and Co. So I went down there. Great place. Great place.

Great place. And so I go there for a couple hours, leave. And I just get on the train to go somewhere else. And this kid was like, oh, no, you got to go to martini's. I think he might have been like a bar back there or something. He's like, you got to go to martinis. You got to go to martinis. It's like, okay.

So I'd go over there. And yeah, same thing. All the martinis, very expensive at martinis. But everyone was so nice. Everyone talks to, says New York people are not nice. Everyone wanted to show me where to go. And I was wearing L.A. gear. I had a Dodgers hat on.

You know, I avoided New York for such a long time. And then I had a job there about six years ago. I did FBI there. Right. And I just, I fell in love with New York. And now I try to go as often as I can because I loved the, you know, in L.A., sometimes you're a bit secluded or, you know, you have to drive out to go to your bars and stuff. But in New York, it was just so many places to go.

And they're so small and they're never really crowded. I mean, in the off time set, people in our industry work, you know, not the regular times. And so it was great, you know, and it's like every place was good. Yeah, it's, well, it. And, like, especially in your, I just learned all the geography, but like in your Chelsea or whatever, you know, it's a prime, prime competition in terms of not just real estate, but there's so many other great things going on that you got to be on it, you know. Yeah, and the decor environment, the mood atmosphere of these places is just, the vibes are tight. Right. The vines, right? Because you grew up in Chicago, right?

Yeah, that's where I am right now. Oh, word. See, that's another great underrated film city. It's a great city. It's such a beautiful city. And, you know, I always thought that it was just a very iconic town to shoot in. And I'm surprised that not more shows come here, except that I get it. It's in the middle.

nowhere perhaps, but it's beautiful. It's clean. Everyone's afraid of the seasons, but honestly, Michigan and Wisconsin get worse weather than we do. Everyone's like, oh, they're afraid of the windy city. And I'm like, it's only windy because of our politicians. I mean, that's why it's called the windy city. It's not actually called that because of the wind. Right. Boston's windy as shit. Boston's the windy city. Boston's cold as fuck in the winter. Yeah. Yeah.

You see those videos, too, upstate and all that stuff on the East Coast, and they're shoveling out six feet of snow. Yeah. Yeah. Chicago's tight. Yeah, Chicago's dope. Boston, I visited, I was dating a girl once who lived out there. She moved from where we were to there. And, yeah, it's when I finally understood the term bone-chilling cold.

I snowboard semi-professionally every winter in Colorado. It can get cold, but that was a different Chicago by was much better, not bone-chilling. No, Chicago's fine. I mean, just like in the summers, you'll get like two, three weeks of really bad humidity where it's awful. In the winter, you know, I say this and everyone's probably scoffing at me. But I mean, you know, when you grow up in a cold city like that, you kind of learn how to get used. to it. So it has to be really cold for you to actually complain where

like the hairs in your nose freeze. Right. That's that like bone chilling cold you're talking about it. Yeah. Well, and to your point about people not shooting there, it's like, first of all, most of these productions are taking it to you know, Bulgaria or wherever, which is not in the middle of nowhere, but much further away than

Chicago. But also, think of all of our favorite films from like the 80s and 90s. Tons of them shot in Chicago. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And I remember, I remember, you know, it's one of the reasons I became a filmmaker, too, was, you know, walking around downtown Chicago. I have a big Chicago family.

We actually, we have a jazz club in my family that we've had since 47. Oh, sick. So I was always downtown with the musicians and stuff, and you would see these movie trucks parked all the time. And it was a, you know, it's a big teamster. town, mafia town, in a way, that history.

And it was always very exciting to know. And yeah, all these movies were made. I went to film school at Columbia. And then we lost all of this business to Canada at the time. It was like the early 2000s. And there was so much business that had left that Kodak even closed their offices, I believe, at that time.

And so for me and my friends, it was like, oh, maybe we should go to L.A. at this point. So I left to LA I have friends who have stayed and you know right now they're doing really well and I was so excited to see them

like I am a friend of mine is the Gaffron the bear you know and they're just like you know I'm so happy for them that Chicago has become such a great place to shooting and that a lot of work has come back

but for a while though it had really just dry it Was that due to the first writer's strike when I say first, but the second to last one? Right, right. It was before that. It was before that because I remember that movie, my Big Fat Greek wedding came out. And everyone was up in arms towards to Chicago and because we're like, it wasn't shot in Chicago. It was shot in Canada.

And it really was a sign of that, everything that was supposed to be in Chicago is being shot in Toronto. Yeah, you guys trip me out with the interior Chinatown because I saw the bungalow and I was like, oh, so they really did shoot it in Chinatown. And then I go on your Instagram and I'm like, it's a set. Oh my God. Yeah. It was an incredible set. I've been on some big sets, but this one, you know, we were at the Fox studio and they built basically a whole street. So on the pilot, to get some scope, we did go to the universal lot.

And Mike Berlucci shot that with Taika. And I shot some stuff there, too. But we only had it. We could only afford it for about a week and a half. So they built just the exterior on the back lot. And then all the interiors for the whole show were built on the stage. So the restaurant was a working restaurant. They built it to scale.

And out the windows is a whole block and, you know, storefronts and stuff. And we lift that with like hundreds of sky panels and everything. And it was a, it was so much fun because you look out the windows and it really didn't feel like we were on location. Yeah. I wasn't asked about that because that first episode does look at probably only to my eye. And also I'm watching it because I'm like looking to ask questions. But like it did look slightly different than all. Because I know you and your shooting partner, you know, alternated them.

But the first one, the first episode looks different than all of them slightly, at least to my. Maybe it was just more lighting cues or something, but it was the first one, I mean, the first one was really, it's, first of all, it's a very complicated story. And we were all just like, we're all just like, how are we going to, you know, translate this to a visual medium? because it's all, like, written in the words of the script. Like, the light follows them. And we would ask Charles, who's the showrunner and the writer, we're like, so what does that mean, Charlie? And he'd be like, that's a good question. What do you think it means?

I'm like, wow. And we'd have these conversations where we're just like, I think it's this. And they're like, let's see it. Let's try it. And so there was a lot of that going on. And so anyway, so they're trying to establish it in the first episode. and so they wanted to take advantage of outside the restaurant. So they actually shot a lot of outside the restaurant

because they knew we would be on stage for so much of it. That's why it has a different look because it was actually outside and in the elements, which is sometimes you can control and not, you know, that whole thing. And the ideal of the Willis world or the Chinatown world was to try and not control so many things. it was to be more in the practical lighting and not do so much film like lighting

so that it really has a different vibe from the black and white show. Yeah. And then, you know, when episode two comes around, my job was really to establish the black and white show because now we have to see more of it. And so it had to be something, you know, we had a eight-day schedule

for every episode still. It was eight or nine-day, It was still pretty tight. That's like back when they used to do like Star Trek and shit, you know, 87 episode season. Yeah, it was, you know, it was not, it was pretty tight. And that's why it was so exciting to shoot because they gave us a lot of freedom to do what we had to do to get it done. And it, I could be wrong, it was maybe nine days. Still.

But these lighting cues, they were things that just had to be done on the fly because you had to see, you know, you do a blocking. You can guess where people might go and stuff, but you don't want to corner them into something, especially in such improv world. So you really had to be on the fly, like, where can we get a light to backlight them? Because the black and white show has to have tight eyed lines, studio mode, you know, a strong backlight and a strong key light.

And then you have to dissolve that out into the real world. And so everything was tried, you know, we tried to do it practically. And even going from handheld to studio was a whole thing, too. Yeah, I mean, that does unlock. So I'm not going to lie. I was going to watch the first episode, obviously, and then your four. And then I started at like 9 p.m. last night.

And then episode three rolls around. And then I was like, whatever, I'll watch it. And then four. And then I was like, well, I'll just, I've finished. And so I finished it. So I went to bed at six this morning. No. But you finished the whole show?

The whole show. Yeah. It's a great show. I really liked it. But the reason being was I was just having so much fun, like, watching. It goes all over the place. It goes all over the place. But also, like, I just kept, I was taking notes on my phone like an idiot.

Normally I read on paper, so I don't have to look at my phone when I'm talking. but the number of lighting cues and the number of looks I just kept going like that had to be fucking fun like to get that much like I'd probably be wrong but I counted at least

six different specific looks versus you know outside inside might look different but like and I was wondering if you guys had like if you have a count of how many specific looks you had to invent

and also what went into them besides just like, this one's blue and this one's green. I don't have a count because it was kind of like running off of adrenaline because, again, the schedule was so quick. So Mike and I would just share, and by the way, you know, you alternate with DPs and sometimes the relationship is very like you're just on your own and there's just no relationship there. with Mike on the other hand it was it was so much fun he's so collaborative we were like you know we became good friends and what we did is we would share notes and like what we were doing because every episode is so different and requires different things like oh I did this and you know what are you doing oh cool I'm going to do something like that you know and so we were building upon each other's looks and you know there's there's I mean just to

start, there's the Willis World, which was really based and influenced off of early Wongarwai Christopher Doyle stuff. I didn't want to say it because I didn't want it to sound racist, but I was like, this is very much Wongkar-Wy looking. It's definitely fallen angels. It was the idea was to be very dirty, mixed color light, rainy, wide lenses to feel to feel the locations really trapping you in there. I mean, the bedrooms, the bedrooms and the SRO literally were built that way. They were really small, really small rooms. You know, we didn't move, even though we had the ability to move walls, thankfully,

to a great rigging team, we never did. We just stayed true to being in the space. I have interviewed plenty of people who have talked about this. And I, it's not that I've been converted, but I now fully believe it. It's like, the audience can tell. The audience can tell when the camera has to be in there versus when you can fly out. a wall and just and it and it might it might change things for the better or the worse on that sort of perception but they can tell whether they know it or not I I agree you know I with an

audience when it comes to an audience I don't think they always know the things they like but they they do respond to the things we show them and get them and I think it's always good to keep you know pushing for that even though people don't know how to explain the things that they like but it is very fun to know that you're in a practical place that feels small and is small. You know, there's just something about inequality to how you're forced

to shoot people like closer and everything. I think it was, yeah, very appropriate. And then, you know, Lana comes around and at the beginning in episode two, Lana, to me, was very like a film noir character. And it could be because I saw her and I was like, you're, you know,

I was like, Chloe's really cool. So I'm going to shoot her very film noirie. And so everything was like low and wide and static for her. Until she starts to unravel becomes this like a person with a lot of fault. But in the very beginning, you know, she's even on the phone call with Willis just like, you know, with her sunglasses at high angle, just look down at her. And, you know, she's in charge and in control and she can't drive. So, you know, the joke is that we shot on the LED stage and made it really fake. and we had airbags under the car

just knocking Willis around and she's just looking back and not even looking ahead that whole, yeah, that whole joke. It was so much fun. Yeah, I love, it was hard to tell it first, but it's part of the narrative. This is probably the most meta-narrative show

I think I've seen in forever. But her not being able to drive and just like not, but like not even realizing that she didn't know how to drive. was just one example of me of what I thought was a very playful way

to approach to like they're in a TV show thing because even with a show like Kevin can fuck himself I was like are they gonna actually use this and then they don't really they use it as a storytelling convention but they don't go into the idea of like

no they actually are in a TV show which I was kind of hoping for and I think this show does a great job of going just far enough that it's interesting without it being like too much of a gimmick, I suppose. Yeah, I always felt like the TV show part of it, which exists but doesn't exist, right?

Because everyone is real. It's just an added layer to the story, the story of Willis trying to find his brother. But there are a lot of clues and funny things in it For example, in that episode, too, she comes around, she hits that garbage can. Like, she always hits that garbage can. And that janitor outside is always cleaning it up and resetting it. You know, you don't notice it, but he's always cleaning it up.

I didn't even pick up on that, but, you know. And it's the only, it's the only prop on the street. Yeah, it's the only prop on the street. And then when Willis is, like, trying to get into the police door and he's talking to him, if you look at the background, the background is just resetting itself. And they'll stop and frame. and turn around and go back the other way. You know, as if a second second second is like, you know, when you get here, go back, you know, that whole thing.

So you'll see the same background just doing the same thing if you were to pay attention to it. And then when this, because the show, you know, you never know what's in the background of the show. So that's why they're doing that. But when the show was gone, all the background disappear. Yeah, right. That's the idea. So, yeah. You know what else threw me off about the whole like meta-tarative thing was, so I was watching on Hulu, on, which by the way, was the show pitched to Hulu first?

I believe so. Okay. I don't, because I want to, I want to have like an open discussion about this show, but I don't, for people who haven't seen it yet, I'll try to be as vague as possible, but what a pull to have that note. you know, towards the towards the end there having the Oh yeah, yeah. And that work out. Well, I won't

I'll tell you later. Go ahead. Okay. Well, you tell me now, I'll just chop it. No, I was just going to say that was a good thing about shooting with Hulu. I mean, we didn't have a big budget as far as a lot of shows. And Hulu does that,

but they do allow us to be more creative. So you might not have as much money, but I do find that Hulu does have a tendency to, like, give people a chance to do something different. Right. And we do appreciate that big companies. Yeah, right. But another thing that threw me off was, so I was watching it on my TV, on my computer, you know, I just, I build computers. I'm a giant nerd. I'm tech guy. And the, so there's like ad blockers and whatever, whatever. Sorry to take your half a penny. And so when I switched to my computer, I didn't notice it. But the first few episodes I watched on my TV, and there was a FedEx ad, but the FedEx ad starts with two women talking to each other like, hey, are you watching Interior China?

And I was like, and it didn't start like FedEx. It was just two women talking in front of a FedEx box. And I thought it was part of the show. Oh, that's funny. And then it was just a FedEx ad. And I was like, wait, hold up. And I was like, this is a brilliant tie in. if this was like intention.

That is a brilliant tie-in. I want to know who did that, not who shot it, although it's brilliant, but. It's brilliant because, you know, the show dabbles in commercials and going to commercials, you know, which is, and it kind of just throws you off that way. That's pretty funny. That's really cool. Yeah, it's one of the few times that like, like I used to, I've mentioned this way too many times. I need to get out of the past. But I used to work at Red Bull and I was fascinated by the way that they, this would have been like 2010-ish.

I was fascinated by the way that they would subvert marketing norms, especially in collegiate settings. And so I've always just been given people their props when they do something that just exists outside of, especially nowadays with like social media and stuff. It's like, well, we have to have an Instagram campaign. We have to have a TikTok campaign and we need to pay Google SEO. And you're like, okay, but what else? and they're like, no, those are our four things. I'm like, that's boring. I know.

I miss being excited for Super Bowl ads. Yeah. That makes, you know what I mean? Like, I miss, I miss, like, the, the really, you know, innovative, creative advertisement world that used to, like, push limits and, and, and exciting things would happen every year. that was fun i am starting to notice i mean it's it's been brewing but like now it's really starting to hit and that is that the i guess the younger gen ziers or maybe they're in their mid-20s now i don't really but whoever whatever demographic we're saying is pushing culture

um are very aggressively swinging back to like quick post 9-11 culture and i mean that like early internet jingo jeans you know that whole thing yeah and but like the starburst berries and cream boy and like all those really off the wall type ads are all starting to gain popularity again and even you know films from the era and stuff there's a lot of at least chatter on like ticot or wherever like why can't they do this again and i'm just hoping that we're not so far into corporate ownership land that won't take a chance You know, especially because we don't have, like, traditional media. I guess there's always ebb and flows of everything and it always goes like all the way to this side and then maybe starts to come back a bit.

But I can't imagine people don't miss that, you know, and that's the thing too about EGI and HAY where I'm like, you know, you can dabble in and stuff. But I do think that audiences at people, they really do crave a bit of authenticity. They crave some texture, you know. that exists and you still need creative people to bring that you know like the like charlie writing this book i mean it's so different and cool it's just out of the norm and and i think things like that are kind of cool to still have around these original concepts well and so i'm i'm fascinated you brought that up because uh you know probably once in a uh episode i bring up that i need to get off Reddit, and then I don't because, you know, something like this happens where I need to bring

it up. And Reddit will suggest things, you know, like anything, you know, hey, check out this community. And recently it's been sending me this AI Wars community, which is primarily people arguing in favor of AI art generation. And it's fascinating to really. read because I'm bringing up one of the quotes, but it's fascinating to read because it does feel I don't want to speak about the pro-AI community so aggressively right now because I still haven't had the time to read all of these things. But they're all looking at it in such a technical, clinical way that is the kind of what I believe to be the antithesis of art. they're all results based

you know why should I pay someone X amount of dollars for X amount of time to get something that doesn't meet exactly what I want and I'm like

that's not the point one person in this current the threat I was thinking of was like hey you know the journey's kind of the point and they were like no what are you talking about

and I was like this is so fascinating that all these people this like contempt for artists and they will all I've gotten in a few comments where people have like a legitimate

intimate contempt for the art of art or the process of it. They just want the result and they only want it for themselves. And if they do want to share it, they want credit for having prompted the thing to make the image. Like they put in, but it's empty calories. I mean, we've been talking about empty calorie content for how many decades now. But it's so ego-driven,

which is with art. it's um i mean eagle driven from the that's fine to have from the artist and the creator you're creating your own art but it is for the masses you're creating art for the masses so i wonder how that conversation goes of what what it is that they like themselves that's not theirs so the thing that i've seen well a lot of people will on one hand say like it's not stealing content and then on the other hand they'll be like look what that this thing i made and it's like star wars stuff but um the uh nope completely lost that thought where the hell was that um it's it's them saying i've got such an amazing idea my idea is perfect i'm just unable sorry unable to execute it and that's what

a i gives me now in some cases if you're severely well i shouldn't say severely but if you're disabled to the point where you can't make that thing i understand that being a tool for you to and yada, yada. But the idea of, I have the most amazing idea ever. Yeah. We were all young enough to also think that. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people think that every day, they have the most amazing idea.

And you put it out, and there it goes. And that's it. You know, either gets received or not. You know, it's a tool. I think my opinion of it is you know change is inevitable and like when HD

was first starting and a lot of DPs are I'm only going to shoot film me and some film schools I won't mention which we're like you know our DPs only shoot film you know

I can embrace people so I don't Oh, we lost it. Dang it. Oh, thank. It's crap it out again.

It's probably me. It's the AirPods. I'll blame Apple for anything. Listen to AirPods. Not Apple TV, though. They're great. How's that? That's good.

That's fine. Okay. Speaking of AI, I use the Adobe podcast enhance on every episode, and it makes it sound perfect. Well, yeah. I haven't quite invested in the AI yet, but, you know, I was just saying that there is an appreciation still for art of the past and films of the past. And I think you learn a lot about how do you want to say things from that. And I don't think that'll change. AI is a tool.

I mean, I'm excited to see if it helps with pre-vis. That's for sure. Yeah. you know that that would be exciting um anything that could help narrow down or expand on ideas to to capture it better but i mean i don't want everything i shoot to not exist you know it's bad enough that we're shooting i don't want to say bad enough it's it's one thing that we're now shooting digitally and everything is you know translated to ones and zeros versus a photograph that happens with you not felt but to not even have anything in the room and it's all generated

I think you know that and it well it's interesting it's to our point about you know being able to fly out walls and or not like you can feel it you can tell and the argument on these discussions these AI discussions online seem to be like well at one point it'll get good enough that you can't tell and it's like so you want to live in the matrix like you're fine with that and I remember an interview with Keanu Reeves a couple years ago

when the fourth one came out and his like nephew or his friend's son daughter someone said that they didn't care like they were he they had never seen the movie but he described it to them

and they were like why would you care and he thought that was fascinating and I'm like I don't I find it fascinating to try to get it in them

to truly understand other people's points of view no matter what they are and that's one that I'm really grappling with because that means that we haven't given these people enough to look forward to in the real world that they, right? Because that's why you want to be in the real world

because it's better. Yeah. I always think it's fascinating because I don't know that it's an original idea then if you leave it up to AI. Right. You know, like if it's such a collection of everything. And lately, stealing from all these scripts,

that have been written from the Shonda Rime Camp. Oh my God. I mean, so are you saying that it's still an original idea or is it a collection of everyone's information? So they all seem to say and again, I'm speaking out of turn because I'm not the people who are pro-AI

but they all seem to say that the data set is wide enough that it's not copying. It's a diffusion of everything which is no different than a human mind doing the same thing. My argument is it's worse because a Human mind has taste and chooses what they want to make,

filter their own story through, let's say, three to five influences and create something new. Taking everything and generating something, quote, unquote, perfect to your taste is what I heard someone described as perfect mediocrisy. When you average out everything, you get 50%. Yeah. So that's my thought. I'm a bit positive about it all. I'm not a big AI in the future person, but I'm positive about audiences going back to the things that they like and they want.

I mean, it's just like every generation that goes back, you know, and they want, like you said, the Gen Z people saying, oh, let's go back to these commercials and stop seeing people saying the same things and like tapping on like, yeah, oh my God, that whole thing of like, They understand auto focus, but they don't understand setting focus. I know. Just so funny. The ASMR thing.

You know, I don't know, there's a place for it. I'm just going to keep, I think we just keep doing what we're doing and, you know, be open to new tools, I guess. I did want to read one comment that I saw on Reddit because I thought this was brilliant. I went and looked up what other people thought about. the show in the Chinatown. And so many people, first off, were like, this show looks incredible. So you nailed it there.

Great. But this one I thought, was speaking of youthful ignorance, I'm writing a book. And if it ever got popular enough to be turned into a TV show or a movie, this was a very toxic subreddit, by the way. Just want to throw that out there. I won't say what it is,

but it's in cell adjacent. I'm writing a book. And if it ever got popular enough to be turned a TV show or movie, I would 100% demand that the contract states that I have the final say in all casting choices and can shut down the project at any time if I'm displeased with the direction. I don't care if they offer me $100 million. I will never be a miserable sellout. Oh my God. Okay. Well, I don't think that person even understands what it takes to do and make a TV show. No. That's a very ego.

view on the business. That's someone who thinks AI will make their perfect book into a movie script and make their image, you know, whatever. Also, point of story point kind of towards the end of the series. Yeah. I love Ronnie Chang, though, by the way. Ronnie Chang is great, isn't he? Yeah, big daily show fan and he's always been so good.

It's so funny. working on a comedy I don't always do comedies I mostly because I like to shoot stuff where the cinematography can you know where you can draw from a story and there's

like these motivations and stuff and comedies can go either to live in a world of realism and like a comedy drama which is fun or if it's just a straight up comedy then you're you know, you really are more just exposing. Right.

Yeah. But I operated on this is 40 with Bader and Papa Michael many years ago. And, you know, we had like an S&L writer there and Judd Epito and they would just spit out lines to like Melissa McCarthy and all of them. And at the end of the day, in the edit room, they could go. from G-rated to X-rated with the Ed and the Cut. And it was so much fun to see. And when we were doing Interior Taito-Tal, some of the things that would come out of like Ronnie and Jimmy's mouth,

like, as they're just spitting with each other, I mean, when you watch the final cut, sometimes I'm just like, oh, I remember him saying this instead. And, yeah, there's just so many options and ways it could go. Yeah, the shit, what's her name? Again, I've only had a few hours sleep. because uh but the the um the cop uh what's her name the blonde one yeah Lisa Gilroy yeah Lisa Gilroy have you seen that game show like I mean she's done a bunch

of like improv and great stuff but that that game show I love that game show hilarious oh my god like at the ends of takes two like she would do so many like funny things uh that a lot of them that didn't even make it into the The cut, I mean, it was, it was so funny. One of my favorite things for the cop show was, it was early on in episode two. If you know police procedurals, you always have the walk-and-talk, right? Now, you just have to gather a lot of information and you do it in a walk-and-talk. It saves your schedule.

And so we did this one where they could have just walked straight to their desk, but instead we have them walk around in a circle just to get all the information out. And also, like, someone comes in and they perfectly line up, like, the medical examiner walks in with the file at the right time. And it was kind of a, you know, a joke on the walk and talk. But it was, it was so funny because she was just leading the way and the way that Lisa does. And her timing is so impeccable. Also, we will get back to cinematography. But I did want to say, hilarious to get CSI's tech guy.

Yeah. To be uncle. I know there's just so many layers that we've added to the thing it really is like you know everyone likes to say like oh you can you can rewatch it endlessly and I'm like but I actually think on this one you probably could um they they brought me on they're like yeah you know you have familiarity with the dick wolf world and stuff and I'm like uh-huh and I'm reading it and I'm like but this what you're describing as a look

for the black and white show or law and order is not very law and order because they actually, especially in the beginning, were much more gritty and desaturated on the wolf shows. What they were actually describing was more CSI, a lot of color and a lot of backlight and stuff. Blinkies in the background. A lot of Blankies. Exactly. And just blinking lights and stuff going on and, you know. And so, like, they were like, oh, my God, I didn't even realize it was like how different it is.

But in your head, it's like the same thing. So we did a lot of like coverage like law and order, but the lighting style came more from like CSI. Yeah. And I did want to know like what how much because I could I, I'm a freelance colorist, so I can tell, I can tell. How much were you leaning on post to do some of these. like color shifts, you know, between worlds, essentially, and how much was it lighting cues? But because a lot of the thing I love about most of the stuff in Chinatown is just how much color you guys are able to use. Um, it's just so fun to see and, you know, it's not very common.

Whereas obviously the, uh, black and white show is a lot more just like steely blues and white light and all that. But, um, yeah, just talk to me about kind of like all. the amount of color you guys were allowed to use on set versus how much you had to lean on the colorist. We had an idea of what we wanted to do and there was we shifted

color temperatures more especially in the light so in Willis's you know in the restaurant in Willis's world you do have a lot of mixed color and fluorescent lighting and when the cops come in all of that lighting becomes very clean so we take the green out and it's

just straight 32 if that's what we're doing and so there's that match there and then and they're all just asters i assume yeah yeah a lot of titans and stuff like that and those you know nix bumps um and then we would so we were neutralizing the greens and stuff and had a place to go um in color correction we went further and really drew black and white apart by by adding a little bit more contrast and desecis saturation and then desaturation in some ways and then adding a lot of richness in the blues too to really make it a bit colder in that kind of cold cop feel. So there was a big, there was a big practical difference on set. And then we were able to pull the colors even more in color correction. But that came later. We actually thought we were going to do it all internally. And I think, I think the, decision was to ham it up even more. Sure. Well, it was, Aden really helped with finding that. Yeah, I mean, it looks great. My, my main thought was more like, was this, I guess it was a leading

question. Was this, were you building a show lot ahead of time? Or did you have like different luts per sort of set up or like, how are you monitoring on set? Yeah. Or even pre-production, that matter. Yeah, we had about two different, we had well, we had maybe like three different luts aside from episode eight. So we had the Willis world, we had the cop

world. Again, if we were shooting one one was transitioning in, we would stay in one world and we would mix that lut later. Right. And then at the end, when worlds combine and we go to 240 in anamorphic, then we were leaning

more towards Mind Hunter and True Detective looks. And so there became a different, a heavier look with a bit of that green overcast of things and that kind of palette. Episode 8, though, was a series of commercials. And so I had to build a new look for each commercial. So that one was different. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up all that in that order. Because for episode 7, shot by my buddy Pete Chapman, not shop by, but directed.

Shout out to Pete Chapman. He was on the podcast. I wrote down seven. I thought I had very much like a seven look to it. But Mind Hunter also kind of works. The Fincharian sort of crime look. In episode eight or episode seven? Whichever one has, when they're trying to solve the, when they're driving around,

Maybe it was it. Again, I binged them all at once. Around 7. So at the end of 6, there's that last scene that shifts from Koppeluk to the new Koppeluk, which is more like worlds combined. And from that, it stays on that throughout 7. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's what I was getting at with all that was. That was really cool. I do want to talk to you about all those ad looks. But before getting there, I just wanted to finish up, like, what were the, lens packages for, were there different lens packages for each look? We shot with the P vintage primes for the first six episodes, whether or not a cop look or whatever. Of course, some of the cop stuff, we would also break out the Zoom to give it that, you know, we had a 1990. And sometimes we used some, I'll say vintage, but, you know,

video cameras from the 90s you know for stuff and then when we went to anamorphics we went to the C series classic yeah literally with the C but anyway the episode 8

again I was having so much fun with all the looks you guys got to do and then now it's buffet time for for looks and I was really I don't want to stay impressed because it sounds like it like oh wow obviously you're capable

but just like going from you know having seen these two looks two to four looks you know kind of back to back to back and then now it's like high polish ad world and I was wondering we'll combine the questions like besides

you know the Wongar Y stuff like and CSI were there any other influences that you guys pointed to for the sort of let's call it main show and then what were you guys drawing from from for episode eight. I mean, yeah, for the main show, it literally was the early one car Y works and also some some Bruce Lee stuff.

I'm sure you've seen the montages. I mean, we copied frames from the Bruce Lee movies and recreated them. And then you have the law and order stuff. For the commercials, you know, I think we did like five different looks And again, we're prepping this in eight days and she don't. So crazy.

But the first one's a whiskey commercial. And so obviously I was like, well, let's look at Matthew McConaughey whiskey commercials. And so we really referenced that. And, you know, they left a lot up to me. They're like, go, Terry. These are the commercials. And I'm like, okay, cool. Let me just figure out all these different lighting styles and different looks.

And I work with the colorist and trying to find things. And there was that musical oneer. Yeah. It's insane. Very red shoes almost. Yeah, we built that within like a week and a half. They just built on an empty stage. We had to build grids.

We had like 20-something lights going on on cues. And it all just had to happen really quickly and built and designed and like six hours and executed. And the steady cam pulling back on the platform crane and looking down and then coming off of it. And that was based off of those, you know, just brightly, those bright colorful tied commercials and stuff and musical type things. And then there's the watch commercial. We looked up a lot of like Rolex commercials and stuff to see, you know, it had to be, I was just like, I want her just to be gold and flowy and in that kind of like perfume commercial ad. Right. Referenced a lot of those for that.

Well, and the champagne ad, I suppose you'd call it, and the watch thing, I was, again, I was looking at your Instagram and I saw a small behind the scenes photo of the, at least the watch bomb diffusal ad and relatively simple lighting setup. Yeah. I was, I was shocked because normally a lot of those things tend to be not overlit for the sake of overlighting, but just to get that look, it takes a lot. And I was wondering if you could walk me through kind of how you got that look and also the champagne look. Because I feel like those are very achievable on like even a modest budget. First I was like, wait, you wanted to look like a commercial, but you're not giving us any time to shoot it or profit. And so I had this idea of what, you know, you do for those sorts of things. And I kept on a very tight mobile package.

So like there's an exterior of a bank we used. and I just had them like build this tent outside and whined it out so it was white and flowing and we you know I you know we're at a location I'm like this is what it's one of those things where you're at a location you're trying to use what they have because you don't have the raking time right kind of just went with it and one of my main lights we got a breezy light because I was like let's let's use that and we don't use it any other time in the in the show but it literally was the beauty. light that we would bring in behind camera to give them that look that would really hit their highlights and everything. People would call that an octobox these days because all the photography stuff has moved on, but yeah.

In fact, I don't even think we ended up with the breezy light in the end because it was pretty expensive and we ended up getting the spider version of that. Oh, the redback. Yes. Love that thing. I think that's what's in the picture.

Yeah. And it was just going into a place and quickly, like off, off, off, on, on, add this, and we'll get that look. It was very, we didn't have to shoot a full-on commercial. It was very specific, so it was just, you know, pulling out all the stops to kind of, you know, fake it as much as we could. Yeah. Well, because in the photo, yeah, it's just like the, I guess the red back and then kind of a scratch light. And, oh, and some top, or were those turned off?

Yeah, the chandeliers turned off because in the wide you want to see it, but, you know, up close it was just all these shadows and you couldn't have that in the commercial. So, and then there was a place that was really old and you can't rig anything. And so the guys came in through a light and, you know, did some crossbeams up there to be able to get a light map because you have to have some sense of top lighting, but it really has to fall nicely. And it was just kind of approaching our lighting, you know, very different for every setup. And the crew loved it. I mean, we just had a gaffer was just like, I love this.

I love this. Like not having to do the same thing every day, just always changing it up. That was fun. And then we would immediately go to post-commercial on the same location and have to create a different look. Right. It looked like those commercial lights aren't on anymore. Well, and it goes back to what we were saying about like process versus results is like I think most people in the, film world, at least that I've met, that I've worked with, including myself, prefer to,

it's just creative problem solving. It's like anything else. You know, it's just, in this case, the end result is a film versus like, you know, building a house into an interesting, you know, no one's pissed off at architects. But it's the same, it's the same, you know, mental process of like, oh, I've been given a lot. How do I make the, you know, the client happier or whatever, but. Hold on your experiences. I mean, you have to watch a lot of. things to know a lot of different things and you have to work fast because there is no reshoot time there is now like I can't take three hours to light this person you know to really but that's the beauty of of these sorts of shows is having such a great rigging team so you're

planning as much as you can because they'll they'll have it all set up for you by the time you land so once you're there you know the tools you're going to use to make that look and so it actually happens pretty organically. Yeah. What, and what about the, the, uh,

the champagne, the sort of night apartment scene? Oh, that, that was, I mean, it's always, how it's always a thing when,

when directors and producers, they all want to shoot, like with the downtown view, the city view, with these big windows and you're like, it's just a mirror of all the lights that we have. And if you want to see that and we're shooting, anamorphic,

our lenses are at 2.8, you know, and it's, you know, I want to stay at, you know, 12.50 or whatever. It's a thing. It was a challenge. But, you know, we just kept it simple with our lights very controlled so that we could cut it from the glass. Honestly, I think a lot of that is hidden away in some PTSD closet of mine. sure like how the holiday light myself out of that i mean that happens a lot somehow you do it and you look back and you go you just like wipe your brow and go i can't believe i lit myself out of that disaster you know it was because of the glass windows and it's at night and you see everything and it wasn't as big as you'd think it was actually you know you get to these places and it's very narrow and there's not much room you could put a light mat and a frame and then you start to

see it in frame you know so it becomes challenge challenging. Yeah, I've yet to hit the point in my career where I'm being faced with challenges like that, so to speak. But whenever it's like a short film or I just shot a clothing ad, that was supposed to be like a short film basically. And they always want to shoot in a bathroom and they want to shoot in a practical bathroom and they want it to look really good and they want it to be an over the shoulder. And I'm like, please, anything else. And they're like, but what about the bathroom? I was like, we're not doing it.

We're just not. Trust me. We don't have time or we don't have money. They want to do that and you're like, we're going to see ourselves. No, we'll just angle this. And then you just start sitting. It just doesn't become the shot you wanted it to be. And it's like, you know, and you do that a couple times and you're like the next time

they ask me, I'm just going to say, can we give VFX on this call, please, and just talk about. I know what you want. And it doesn't happen that way. Like, you know, there's just different. ways, you know, maybe if you gave me a big enough bathroom, maybe I could do it, but you're, you want it on this location. The thing that I did was, uh, that actually got me out of this was I walked the, because the, the shoot I'm thinking of right now, there was only five

of us, me, Gaffer Grip, PA, and then creative. And I was directing as well. And, uh, so he's like, oh, we want the bathroom shot. And I go, come here. And because he was taking photos. And I was, and I was like find me the angle that you want the shot that you want and take the photo and show it to me and then we'll do that and he spent maybe three minutes zooming in and out getting you know and then he goes all right i get you and then he just we dropped it my favorite mirror shot that was ever done i think is the one from um the jodi foster movie with contact Contact without the steady cam shot, you know, and it was basically just put in an in post into the mail. I mean, it's such a great shot, though.

That's, contact. This is why the death of physical media is upsetting to me. I got contact over here in a little lyric show. Contact is such an incredible film that I don't think is on any streamers, and you wouldn't advertise, you know, go pick up this movie from 97. remember golden eye it's the same it's the same uh antenna array you know like isn't that it's cool i love that movie yeah that's why i still try and keep as many DVDs as i can this movie is like there's movies also i've referenced to people i'm like oh you have to see levity and they're like that and i'm like well you can't get it on streaming it's not out i mean every time i check you need

you need to order the DVD but it's such a good movie and it's roger deacons Yeah. A lot of people don't know about it, but it's actually quite poetic and they do some really great things and, you know, that like flashbacks and dream sequence things. It's such a great movie. And it's not available. It's up on DVD. Yeah. Or you get in a Kevin Smith situation where someone has a vendetta against you and holds your movie. Yeah. Like you couldn't see dogma for your like dogma blue rays go for $80. Yeah. because that horrible last person decided I had no idea yeah it was he's in jail it's fine but yeah he was a problem

do you know what I saw actually I forgot to bring this up at the beginning your first gig was interning on sideways right yeah so I grew up in St. Alina California the first movie said I was ever on was sideways no kidding I was 13 at the time probably and I brought

I was they were, my dad knew where it was going because his friend owned like the winery they were shooting on or whatever and I wanted to get into film because I was a kid and I was a kid and I was like and I fucking printed out a resume. Oh my God, it's so difficult. And just walk onto the set and I like handed it to it must have been a PA. But they all looked like adults to me. And I was like I'd like to. help for the day and then they're like uh all right just stand there and i just stood there by like

the honey wagon or whatever and then they like they had a conversation and then they came back and they're like uh maybe tomorrow and i came back tomorrow and they had rat oh my god it's so sad they bailed on me that was that was such an amazing experience that movie um and that's how phaiden became my mentor on that film uh because we both had a love of French de Wape, obviously because his family are the Cassavetes. Oh, I have such a funny story. So I, you know, I'd come from Chicago. I never lived away from home.

It's my first year out. And then not only am I living with roommates for the first time in L.A., but now I have to live up in Santa Barbara and work as an intern on this big-ass movie. And it's Thanksgiving, and I'm super depressed, and I don't know where to go. And he goes, oh, come to my Aunt Jenna's house. And I'm like, okay, cool, thank you, you know. And I go there and I'm like in this old Hollywood house. I'm like, oh, this is, it's like, there's Emmys and there's pictures of all these famous people.

That's cool. And I go on the back and there's Jenna Rollins just chilling out. And I'm like, oh, my God. And then Zan Keseabetes comes and, and, you know, what's his name? The sun comes out. Nick comes out too and his and I was just like, I am, I have come from. Chicago, and now I'm in the house of the Cassavetes. This is the coolest thing ever.

Right. Am I being punked? Yeah, no, really. And now it's just like, thanks for the turkey. You know, like this poor little wannabe filmmaker, just, you know, hanging out with these icons who I knew about and I, you know, I loved indie filmmaking. So, I mean, it was such a cool experience. And Alexander Payne and all of them on the set, I mean, they were just so.

subtle, generous and nice, and all the wineries gave us free wine. I still have a couple bottles. And my job, which I wish they still did this with interns, my job was to shoot all of Fadden's lighting setups with the old Polaroid films, you know. For the setup itself or to get the exposure to figure out the exposure. So every setup in front of the camera, I'd go in and I, Rafi Sanchez, his gaffer, I'd have my light meter and he goes, oh, we're shooting at this stop and I would read the stop. So I have, I have the book still. That was my gift from Faden of every lighting setup of Sideways with all of the

pictures. Oh, wow. That's how they used to check their contrast. Right. Lunchtime, there was a film trailer and everyone was in their makeup, AD, focus polar gaffer, and they would watch the dailies and you could feel people sweating but also i mean that's how they all made it better every day and i remember thinking oh one day i'm going to be in that hot seat and i'm going to have to face my dailies with the producer and director in the film trailer projected dailies at lunch and it never happened but right i don't do that anymore but it's on an ipad can you imagine like as a focus puller too i mean that's when people were like focus pullers they get fired they're day one if it's not in focus they're out yeah oh yeah being a first

a C I must have been I shot film uh and I went to film school before I went to college and we shot 16 there but we were pulling our own focus you know so it was like you just and you couldn't do it by and we were kids so you know we're not measuring appropriately or anything so but I can't being like eyeballing it too without like laser measures and shit just putting tape on the ground being like I got it I know. I know. Bold people. It's a talent I can't do. And that's why ACs are a little weird, you know? Yeah, they're like hockey goalies.

Yeah. A little screws loose. It's just different. They work differently. Yeah. You able to do that. I saw you had a, you and I have another shared thing. I want us, Anthony Stavallier's light meter holsters. Oh my God. Yeah.

It's the best. It's the best. I got one for my color meter, too. I just got one. I was so excited because I was going to shoot, hear this, I was going to shoot the biggest show of my career and go up to Canada and shoot this period piece Western before the strikes, right?

And I'm like, I got to get me one of these holster things because we're going to be riding horses and scouting and stuff. It's going to be amazing. And I got it, which was fantastic. But then when the strike happened and winning, came back I totally got dropped from the movie

because at that they were like we have to go local the Canadian wouldn't a lot like they weren't giving the work visas and you know

I mean I had like the scripts and the storyboards and I was like you know everyone's sweating over the strikes and I'm secretly like I'm good

I got a job oh man when that's like psych but at least I got my holster finally for years so yeah I know I hit him up like when he I can't remember who posted it but I hit him up like the day he started offering maybe like that month and I was like I was just asking like how much it would be and at the time I think he said like 300 bucks and I was like all right let me get my money together because I wanted one for the color meter and for the light meter and then I finally like two years later get back to him and he's like buddy there's like a six month wait and the price has gone up and I was like that's fine let's

I wasn't even supposed to get mine so soon. I mean, I had mine on order for like months, but my DIT Eduardo is like his neighbor. And went and said, hey, rush this forward. And I got mine early. I was like, oh, my God, that's so cool. I'll have to send you a photo of mine because it's a, he puts some really good work into it.

All right, we're coming up on time. I got to let you go soon. I did want to ask, just because going back to the show, obviously, the, the whole meta aspect of the show is inescapable, you know, and I was wondering how you approach shooting the show with that in mind. Like, were you at, were you visually trying to explore like a meta-narrative within the cinematography of the show, or were you kind of letting the text do that work and kind of what was in front of camera?

I felt like the meta part of it was really in between the lines and about, it kind of, it was a bit subjective and that my part in it was making sure that, like, with, you know, you work a lot with the second seconds and as a DP and getting the background right. I mean, sometimes you have great second seconds.

We had great ones who were able to set back back. But you're working with them to hide those little clues in. And then with the lighting, just always trying to work hard and not be lazy about it, but adding those backlights and cues and just trying to support those different ideas every single set up and hoping for the best. I mean, honestly, I'm very happy that it's being received so well. And I think as a crew, we were like, this was crazy. We hope people get it and like it because it was just, you know,

sometimes for us we were trying to figure it out, you know, and that was fun. But, yeah, I think it was just leaning on things that we knew that were specific to the genre. And it was very genre-based and leaning into that. So, you know, even there's a point, too, when I think it's in four, when Lana comes up and it's at sunrise and she's got the gun and she goes, freeze at the docks and all the cops come. And we had to get that right because it had to feel like that movement and crescendo moment. And so it was just like, that's meta because in its perfection, it is exactly what you would accept.

expect at that moment. And so that's kind of, that was the goal. Yeah, there's certainly like a lot of, like, I think there's one shot of her, like walking to her car. It's like a day shot. It might be the second episode. And it's just like a low pullout. And that just felt very 90s action, 80s, 90s action move for whatever reason. I was like, yeah, uh-huh. Terminator. I don't know what this is, but I know it. Yeah, leaning into the genre and that's, style of shooting was was big like even when we did the kung fu and we did with all guys and the old cops it was like camera started we we went up you know because we weren't shooting low we were shooting up higher and shooting you know um like you know i did a kivinsky music video a long time ago and he's very into 80s nostalgia americana right so we pretty much limited colors to like those primary colors that you would see pop up so much. It was kind of like that. You kind of embrace that time period and just set roles because honestly there's a thousand ways to shoot something. So I feel like some limitations are helpful. I'm so glad you brought that up

because it escaped. This is what happens. I don't write my notes on the paper. My phone kept buzzing so I had to throw it away. One one thing that took me a really long time to understand was it was it was in the director's commentary for the game of all films and David Fincher was talking about it's way more important than what you do than what you don't do and I never understood what that meant until I had you know about 170 of these conversations and then at one day it like clicked and I was like oh because that's you're you're telling the audience what this isn't and on a film or on a show like yours, there is so much going on that what you don't do is so much more important than what you did do because it keeps it constrained to something that is

manageable for the audience and probably you for making it. But like, if you, you could just do everything, you know, this is an open playground almost. So I was, I was really curious as to what weren't you guys doing. What like rules did you put on yourselves to make sure that everything stayed coherent and cohesive? Um, I, well, I can definitely, um, easily talk about Willis's world because, you know, it, you have this feeling like, uh, you should do more coverage, you know, because there's these dialogue scenes and stuff, but it was really in that style of early Hong Kong films or whatever. It's, you know, it's why it's almost documentary like, not quite, but it's wider

eye lines and it's just letting them take you from one and being more free. Like if they want to walk all the way over there, I mean, that's what you're lit for. You're just lighting the place to have to be able to let them move because you want to feel like you're in their life. So having that rule of let's not limit so much and let's not worry about so much coverage and see where it goes and staying handheld was a thing. The remote now is like, boy, this just feels like we should just be pushing into Lily, you know, and doing like a slow push in. She's just giving so much. But no, it's not, we're not going to do it. We're going to stay right here in this medium shot. And you watch it cut together and, you know, you get drawn into it just because of the character.

So that was definitely something. And then in the cop show, it was the camera always has to move, you know. And that's like, you know, it's difficult for me because you always want to motivate a camera movement but even and it's over the shoulders you have to just we're constantly moving it you know and and that was something even though you just why that's difficult is because our show still moves so you're not just planted there so we were doing things with dolly tracks on sliders because wherever we stopped we had to keep moving but then we have to follow them you know that kind of stuff gets a bit complicated yeah i mean i'm sure there's a ton more things but but um Maybe there be a commentary, episode commentary, and it would come to me.

You know what I mean? I legitimately, I should just be the change I want to see in the world at some point. But I really miss directors' commentaries. And I'm like, how easy would it be for Netflix, whoever, to instead, you know, English, Japanese, Indian, fucking, oh, that's a real language. Sorry. director's commentary Yeah Like how big is an audio

As an MP3 It's not that big You know I I really loved The Penguin They came out Yeah My last gaffer and

Kigrup They did the lighting on that And so we were talking about it On the show I was doing And so I was like Well I can't wait for it to come out And so I watched it And they didn't have

So much commentary as just HBO had special features. Yeah, yeah. You could access and I was like, this is great because I actually loved

hearing about the things they do, you know? And there were a couple episodes I was just really curious about and I was like, I wish more shows did that. Well, and specifically, so I have,

I've mentioned this idea before. I think there should be a special features streamer. Yeah. But the issue is a lot of these old DVDs, the special features are different. there was, I think the turning point was Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings trilogy, special features, 12 hours. It's longer than the fucking trilogy. But everything kind of before that was a lot more like giving someone a high eight camera and just recording. And there was no commentary. There was no interviews. And really, you were just watching the film get made. And it was being edited as its own narrative. And that's hugely instructive.

because there's no like PR company coming in and trying to like fix what you're seeing. You know, a lot of the modern, um, special features are ads. Yeah. With a, with, yeah, you get interviews and sometimes you get a nugget, but like the, the, the nugget to noise ratio is kind of high. But, um, one of the great ones that I always think about is, uh, Hellboy 2. Actually, all of Guillermo's films. Guillermo does great behind the scenes.

Yeah, right. Yeah. I love, I love, I got, I mean, again, when you're coming up, you're watching the behind the scenes just to see how it is it doing it. I mean, that was the best part. When AC magazine used to show more lighting plots, I feel like they used to show more lighting plots and more designs of like how they technically did things because you were just like sewing on like, wow, how did they create that? I love really good technical behind the scenes. Atomic Blonde has some good ones with the operating. And I modeled a camera on FBI based on that backpack camera he had rigged because we needed the chase people.

And I saw that behind the scenes. I was like, oh, we got to get the camera really small and tied to the waist like that. And to be able to do chase scenes. Yeah. I guess your episode is going to come out before his. But did you see Greg Frazier's lighting plot thing on the AC magazine website? Yeah. for anyone who hasn't see it 132 pages or something of lighting plots and really great like close-ups of the set just textures and stuff and I kind of scared him because I was like hey man I love seeing that on some of these you had at times a thousand fixtures every cream

source vortex under the sun in whatever city they filmed that in Budapest and yet it still is just like you know soft top light soft outside slash

that's it you know the concept was small but the execution was big I was like because that that makes it so that anyone can see that and go like oh I can do that it's not hard and he's like if anyone looks at that and thinks they can't do it because it's too big that I should not have put that out. I was like, no, no, no, no. It's exactly the opposite, I think. I think it just shows,

even on a movie like Dune, concepts are simple and are achieable. And I think showing lighting plots can do that. As long as you have a commentary, I think for new people like AC would do, where like, think of these in singles. Don't think of all the fixtures. Think of what light they're applying, you know, especially when you see a bunch of space lights. Like, that could be scary. It's problem solving. It's control. You want to control. And the bigger, the set, the more you're going to need to control it. So that's what it is. Yeah. Do you find that being on a set is infested, incandescent light bulbs, buy as many as you can. Where can you get them? My garage is filled with lightbults. I just, when I can, I try and buy 40 watts and 60 watts,

clear and frosted, you know? Where are you getting them? Because here in L.A. I know you can't in L.A. anymore, but like a year and a half ago, I bought some online. And I think they still play through that like Canada or whatever and I'm going to start shipping them to my family in Chicago just to get my hands on some. I shot in Prague for hunters and I needed a bunch of you know clear glass bulbs and the guys were like we brought all the ones we had and this is all that's left because we can't get them anymore and I was like oh this is like having gold I mean you know I hope that we're still able to get incandescent bulbs Well, you can get, I've done this where you can get like a chandelier, like a plastic chandelier basically.

It's like a spider basically. It's like, you know, like that with one in the middle. And you just have to make sure that obviously with LED, we haven't had to think about like wadages and like burning anything out forever. But you have to think about if this chandelier can handle the wadage you're putting through it. But you can get oven bolts. Oh. They're like 20. But if you get six of them.

You're right. You're absolutely right. I mean, the color is so beautiful. I was making homemade lights when I started off, which are still some of the best lights are homemade lights, right? And then the chicken coops and stuff, they still have the best color and quality and texture, batch strips and stuff.

I still, we use that on Interior Chimshadow. We use some old batch strips. Yeah, it's, I actually did. So I'm a giant, uh, once I, got a color meter I went crazy I was writing so many articles about I've also if you'd like to know

the best practical bulb that I've found LED GE Sunfield okay G E Sunfield so in your house if you're just looking for like a nice tungsten or daylight GE Sunfield is the move

highest TLCI highest color say again these things are very important these household light bulbs and stuff. Yeah. Very important because, you know, Nix bulbs don't always cut it. You know, they got the weird shadow thing right now,

and I'm sure they're working. I'm fixing that, but you can't just pop a Nix bulb into every fixture that you want to control. You know, you need those light bulbs. Yeah. Yeah, Stara has some of those. Obviously, Aperture has their bulbs.

You know, they got that battery at the bottom and the quality, you know, you don't always get the hard light. And then at the same time, at the bottom the lampshade you can see the shadow of the battery pack and stuff so they're you know they're useful a lot but not for everything and you still need to be able to get some light bulb yeah well and to your point about the light quality like that was the thing I was most interested in is I put if I remember correctly I put what I measured as a really decent LED tungsten bulb

and then I measured it and it looked good and then I filmed it same camera same everything just filmed the light. Actually, with the chandelier thing I just told you about. That's why I may, I have it in there. Um, and the thing that was shocking to me is I was so perfectly fine with the tungsten LED. And then when I saw the real tungsten, it was like, the tungsten LED might as well have been black and white. It was so lifeless in comparison. And I was like, that's crazy because we see that so much that we don't even think about it anymore. Yeah. Yeah. It, it really, it. It really is.

Like when you see them next to each other, it's, you realize, like, it makes you want to hoard light bulbs. Yeah. Well, and it's like, you wish you could use, my theory,

you can tell me if this is a reasonable theory because you've worked on larger sets. Is it possible to just light everything with cream sources and sky panels or whatever? And then have your key be a true tungsten, you know like a 5k or whatever or would someone push back on that and be like why are we doing that or would that even be would that be annoying that all the time yeah yeah i've done that quite a few times um and and i think gappers understand it too especially experience ones because they know

about the quality of time extent you know but it saves them a lot to be able to have these broader LED sources and stuff like that and you know but the quality is, you know, I once had to take a Fresnel lens off of a 5K just to get the the hardness that I wanted from a 5K, you know, coming in through a window.

So, yeah. Well, so until that improves and matches, I mean, yeah, there's something about. Yeah, it's something, it specifically was skin, too. Obviously, like, now if you pointed at a bookshelf,

it'll look. the same but there's something about the way that skin reacts to flame it's primal again it goes back to we under as viewers we just get it we don't have to explain everything it's these waveforms that hit those skin tones

you know I don't know how like and with the makeup too I mean the makeup will pick up any kind of green that's out there yeah yeah well I uh I've thoroughly enjoyed this but I got to let you go because it's not only

it later for you but I have to go do something but I would love to have you back on though because I'm sure we could talk for hours about this kind of shit we're for fun conversation we should do it again yeah 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 it's always appreciated and as always thanks for listening I'm going to be.