Frame & Reference Podcast - 175: "Unstoppable" Cinematographer Salvatore Totino, ASC AIC

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Today I'm beyond thrilled to have Salvatore Totino, ASC AIC on the program to talk about his work on the new film Unstoppable. As an ASU alum from that time, this one was a lot of fun! 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 174 frame and reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest Salator Totino, DP of Unstoppable. Enjoy. no i was just telling the jack there i it was funny because again went to the screening for um unstoppable a couple weeks ago but i went to as u at the same exact time so i was just watching the movie going like that building wasn't there that building wasn't there yeah yeah that wasn't the logo we used to use that but you know there's a bit of that going on it's like what are we going to do you know can we afford to remove them or will anybody really know and no one would

bother like sometimes that gets that gets hard you know well and it was just me being stupid and like you know i it's only because i remember those things going at like for instance the um when i got to as u was 2008 and they had just started their initiative for like sustainability and and all these things and really blowing the school up uh in in a good way you know making it better and bigger and so like just seeing like the the parking lot um solar panes and stuff. I was like, I remember when those went in, you know. Oh, that's funny. I don't think you're being hard at all. I think, you know, we do try to be authentic when we can. And when you have the money, you go back and like really erase it and make it identical. Unfortunately,

we weren't in that position. It's, especially for campus. They're sort of scrutinize it. Hey, look, I did the offer that the TV is the offer. And when we shot the exterior of Colombo's social club, the backlod at Universal. And literally, next to the storefront was an alley. And then the street corner like 25 feet away. And the AD's like, oh, if cars coming around the corner and blah, blah, blah, I have some bum in the alley.

I'm like, no. I mean, that's Mulberry Street. Everybody knows that. We've got to put a plug here. I've got to put a fucking green screen over here. You can't have cars coming, you know, showing him pictures of Mulberry Street, showing him like that shot Donny Brascoe with him walking across the street.

I'm like, look, we got to try to make it at least look like New York. Right. No, it doesn't have to be exact, but we got to get it close. And we did that, you know, against the producers. wishes you know because it costs more money but um honestly the only it was funny because i when i started checking in on that stuff uh the only thing i i really pointed out in my head was uh we didn't really use that pitchfork logo that was kind of new yes and that took a long time to phase in and there's that that top shot of um of uh don chiel meeting up with anthony

and they're on the basketball court in Wells Fargo Arena and it says pack 10 and I was like yeah and this but then it was the pitchfork and I was like no I love the book I did actually want to ask you about sure the offer because I know I was supposed to interview or maybe I wasn't but Giovanni Rubisi as a DP what do you guys talk about DP stuff you know yeah let's talk about Giovanni

I met Giovanni years ago, camera mage. We were both judges on the main jury panel the year that Son of Saul was in it. You just reminded me of Son of Soul when you said, you just saw that, you know, Nicholas Boy who was all P-O-V and a lot of Son-O-Soul kind of had that feeling to it. So we became friends there. You know, he is always a huge camera bus. And, you know, he started buying cameras. He owns film cameras, lenses, film scanners.

Oh, wow. Ors your picture film scanners. Yeah. And he builds, like, he's like a little mad scientist. He builds all these things. He's been working on a distance-diction camera. Oh, like rebuilding one? Yeah, the Paul Thomas Anderson used on a slightest film.

Oh, wow. Yeah, which is pretty amazing. He's a proper nerd. He's a proper. He's a great guy And when we did the offer He sat on his couch for two months Before he and he'd job peanut butter every day

To gain that weight And if you know If you know him He's like he's like like this He's since lost the weight I saw his film You should see it It's fucking really beautiful

And it's really amazing For a first time DP And for a little bit of money they had And they shot on film He did a great job So I had asked Giovanni to come in and operate C camera on the wrestling. So he's an operator on Unstoppable.

Oh, wow. The wrestling sequences. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. So it was kind of nice sort of bringing him in, working with him on a different levels that way, too. Yeah.

Was that a trip for everyone, like the actors and stuff? Like, wait. Because some people didn't realize that all of a sudden, like, is that you got out of your BC on set, you know? Because Ben Affleck, he's another camera. nerd you know it's a bunch of shitload of gear and lenses too and Ben was originally going to come in and they play on C camera from time to time but that his because of the writer strike everything changed so it was kind of funny when I was we were sending him pictures of Giovanni going hey

to Ben going this is your replacement right it's I've actually mentioned a couple times on this podcast I wanted to have like a whole I did uh like lens month a few seasons ago where I was talking of like you know kind of the lens experts in the field and whatnot and then uh i want to do colorist month i know i have um man the sleep the lack of sleep is really killing me uh what's her name she's the most famous one of the most famous colorists uh jill jill i got jill on the hook for it but uh but i've also wanted to do actors who are dp nerds so like ben was one of them giovanni was one of them uh joly's one of them apparently.

Oh, really? Yeah. I was talking to another TV and he was like, no, you got to get Angie on because she's like deep in that. And I was like, no shit. Okay. Yeah. I'll talk to her for an hour.

But both Ben and, and I don't know about Jolie, but I know Ben and Giovanni, they both own gear. Yeah. They're really, very knowledgeable. I know you, uh, you bought like a, uh, uh, S4 set a whole long time ago. Yeah, yeah. I have a full S four set. You still have it?

Yeah, I still have a. action they're for sale if anybody wants to buy them well because i was going to ask is that do you think that's still as relevant now as it used to be yeah i think so especially super 35 in the you know alexa 35 it's perfect for that i bought those lenses back at 2004 i meant lens ownership not the s4s the s4s are fantastic yeah but i mean i bought those back in 2004 during uh soon before i it's Cinderella Man. And I've only used them. They've only been in my hands.

I never rented them out to anybody else. That was a time when there were very few lenses out there. Right. You know, there was your typical Zyce, Beckman, and there was Panavision, and the coax had

similar qualities to the Primos. And you couldn't own Primos. And I always shot Aeroflex cameras. So that's why I bought those lenses. And what's happened over the years now with the average, with, you know, the digital world.

coming in is that there's, you know, been a resurgence of old lenses and different types of lenses and a lot of new lens manufacturing and the technology, computer technology and CNC machines and computerized lades and all that. It's re-housing old lenses and modifying them and adding electronics to them. So they actually, the metadata works with all the digital the cameras now, is become, you know, much more mainstream, meaning easier. So now that there's more lenses there, I feel like, I'll use my cooks when there's a job that's appropriate for them, but I don't, I'm not behold into, you know, that I've paid those lenses off a long time ago, so I don't have to worry about that. So I want to be free

to use whatever lens look that is right for the film that I'm doing, like 65 in the offer, I shot on Hawk and a Morphx. That was great. I love the Hawk V lights. I love them. The fantastic. And I think they make great lenses, Hawk. I love the company. They're really supportive. They're great. Then I did ghosted and I used the Supreme

Primes. Also great. I thought that was, you know, good look for that. And then for this, we went to the Arginus. Because The Zunes? Arjuno Pripes. Oh, the Aux. We were optimum primes. because they had really good close focus. They had a nice warmth to them

that reminded me a little bit more of the cooks. I wanted to bring in that sort of Arizona warmth. I couldn't shoot out of morphic because he was wrestling in the close focus. So I felt that they were a really good choice in that way, that I wanted that, you know, we shot Los Angeles for Arizona. and I really wanted it to feel subconsciously that we're in Arizona.

So I lit the house, the interior, daytime, the exterior was warm. And those lenses are slightly on the warm side. So I kind of felt like it added to it. Yeah. And so that's my dog, Barks. Oh, I was wondering. I was like, I just came home and she's got to announce everybody that's here. Sorry.

Yeah. No, no worries. Yeah, the sudden influx of lenses has certainly become a topic of discussion because, like, I just got sent these. Lowa, full frame, 1.5, nano, maybe I shouldn't enabre.

They're not releasing these yet. They're not. Sorry, I'm just trying to get on more light in here. Oh, yeah, no worries. But it's like, you know, throwing these on the camera, it's like they're they're kind of perfect and I don't mean like in a good way or a bad way or whatever I just mean like with the ability for basically computers to grind down optics you know that there's it's anamorphic but there's not really as you're saying like that kind

of hawk style character or cook character or whatever that I don't know if that's a hand ground thing or what the deal is but there but this does feel like it was made by a computer in a way. Interesting. They look great. I mean, they're sharpness. I do like old lenses. I do like, you know, especially with the hawks, the V-lights, I try to shoot them wide open.

Right. Because I like that bending. I like that softness on the top and on the edges of the frames. Kind of adds another dimension to it. I found honestly like, so over the pandemic, I had to start freelance coloring because I would color my own stuff, but

you know, pandemic, no one's shooting. But there's a lot of stuff still in post on the low end. And over the years, I've found that like a lot of that, a lot of that like edge funkiness can be pretty effectively art directed and done in resolve. Not perfectly.

Not in a way that like I would say like, oh, definitely do that. But it's certainly like on a really low budget if all you can afford is like Sigma Primes. If you just need to like make it a little more interesting, you can get that kind of an approximate. of like an anamorphic fall off or like that kind of fudginess that's interesting. But if you dial it too much, it's obvious.

Yeah, it's not quite the same. No, no, no. We could get a little bit. I'm a fan of trying to do what I can in camera. Of course, yeah. And, you know, some people rely a little bit more of the postworld. I rely on it for certain things, like lighting-wise, if I need to fix something and I need to move quickly or I need to have multiple cameras. So don't have enough flags.

Yeah, exactly, that kind of thing. So, you know, it's in different ways. This is great. It was funny, because I have a full collection of ASC magazines, I pulled, I pulled yours from DaVinci Code. And it made me think it's so interesting because, like, it seemed like a lot of the topics in that interview were primarily about heat and weight of lights and a lot of CG, which is that. actually something else to talk about. But like, if you were to go back to 2006, would it look the same? You would just be using LED technology?

Do you feel like the LED technology? Because obviously camera technologies change the way that we shoot. But like, I guess that's a better question. How would LED and digital change the Da Vinci Code, knowing what you know now? You know, I think it would, let's go to Angels and Demons, actually, because. And I'll just tell you why, because I did different type of lighting in there? And I used mold beam projectors inside the Sistine Chapel and the Sal Reggio and the Pantheon. And I don't think today with LEDs that you can achieve that type of look with that light.

So I would then want to go back to that. With DaVinci Code, I'd be probably mixing LEDs with. some HMI's, which I kind of do today. I do. I'm trying to remember, I didn't use as many, like Maxi Brutes or Dinos on that as I did like on Cinderella Man or on Forst Nixon,

which was later. Sure. So, you know, it's kind of, you know, depending on what you want to get, I would have to, you know, What I do notice now that a lot of strong sunlight is done. A lot of people take a lot of multiple sauces, whether cream sauces or, you know, S-60s or vortex.

I do love the cream sources. And put them together and stuff. And, you know, you kind of get a nice soft kind of sunlight. But if you wanted, like, a really hard punch, like a big, a beam projector and give you, or a dino where you're kind of cross-checking narrow pars with medium pars, just mixed inside that light to give you that kind of shaft and that throw. I would probably go back to, you know, Vellas for that,

which, you know, presents a whole other problem. You don't add, you need gels. Oh, yeah, right. You know, if you dim them, you're changing the color temperature. you need more NDs, you need nets when you do have gels with lights like that, like on angels

and demons, over St. Patrick's Cathedral and Ciazza Navona which we built here in Hollywood. We had two construction cranes with 40 by 60 soft boxes with 12

light Matsy Brutes with blue gel. And at the end of every night, the rigging crew came in, took out all the blue gel and had to put new blue gel in because the heat of the lights start to melt the gel. So the cost of that is tremendous. Chorosco was thrilled to be on that gig.

Yeah, Roscoe was thrilled to be on that. Today, I would make those soft boxes with, you know, S60s and 360s and easily dimmable and you can change the color and that. But that's what the technology we used then for that example. So, you know, I think you use every tool that's available depending on what the need is. Well, I saw the one thing that I thought was funny, actually there's two things in one of them, but there's a line in there where you were saying like, oh, we used a tube light and my brain immediately went to Astera.

And then you said, no, it was for DaVinci Code, it was a 700. 575 watt 1 meter snoot I was like that's a tube light That was a tube light back then Yes That's funny

I thought you meant a steroid I realized you were talking about that You said it I did I didn't remember What did remember The other thing that I did want to ask though Was because around This would have been

I guess for you guys like 2005 We certainly started to see the D.I. become more prevalent, you know? And in that interview, you had mentioned shooting a specific film stock because it was a little more, a little less contrasting, and gave you a little more room to play, as you said, specifically in the D.I. And I was wondering, when did you start to realize that the D.I could be trusted and that you should shoot for that versus like just going for traditional color timing? Yeah, my first film, D.I. was The Missy. I had done two films before that. Any Given Sunday, my first feature film, and Changing Lanes with both bubble chemicals. But, you know, I was used to telesceny world in the commercials and music videos. Right.

So you kind of, it was sort of taking that technology and bringing it into sort of features, but some had more limitations than it did on. But that slowly changed or quickly changed. So I knew right away that here's this new technology and every day it's going to evolve and change. So you start thinking about how are you going to use that technology. So there are times like on DaVinci, I just say to Ron, don't worry about that.

I'll darken that wall later. So I put a window in there. And otherwise I'm going to have to take an hour now or I've got to eliminate a camera and then we could, you know, shifting angle and don't worry about that wall, but if you want that angle and then, you know,

I'm going to have to compromise, but I can deal with it later. So knowing that post tools very, very fondy in that way. Yeah. Yeah. But so, yeah, it kind of came quick because of the commercial music video world.

I'm surprised it took so long to get into feature films. Honestly, you know what's, so, uh, I they didn't even tell us so at granted ASU's film school was minuscule I mean there was like 10 of us fighting over a 5D or a DVX 100 it's a film school now now oh yeah now it's the Sydney Portier School of film and television at the time it was the uh Rosco's chicken and Waffles theater the arts or something like that and um and uh they did we just had um final cut That was it. You know, so there was no such.

The idea of a power window didn't even occur to me until, like, 2015. Like, we didn't, we didn't hear about it, you know, in the, like, Indy. Now, you know, there's 470, uh, resolved tutorial. Well, I guess when Blackmagic bought Resolve, that was probably the, yeah, because what I used to have to do is I would cut, I would mask out, you know, another piece of footage and then, like, feather it and then dim it. Yeah. But on a piece of shit computer, you know, that's going to take an extra 10 years to render out. So you had to be real selective about how you did that, you know? Of course.

Wow. Yeah, it was a fun time. Now it's, now I have so much fun in the grade. I'm not going to lie. It's pretty amazing. It's a lot of fun to like, but I do think I will say. Level tracking grads and, you know, like, softening tools and. I mean, he just keeps it on and on and on as he keeps going.

Well, and you get to... Every time, like, six months later, or a year later, you're doing another film, and then, like, the color's like, hey, check this out, you know? Some other new tools. Yeah. But also, it's like, at least for me, because I'm, you know, I mean, traditionally shooting my stuff and then editing and coloring it and delivering it to the client. But it's like, I know what I got, you know, and now I just get to see how much I can

plus it up. And then while I'm working on one project, I'm going back and using that old footage that I know by heart and seeing like, what do these new, how can these new tools or new things I've learned, could I have done better? And sometimes the answer is no. And I'm like, okay, good. That's it. That's flash.

That's not something that I need to focus on necessarily. That's helpful. Oh, I did want to ask about, because you brought up, you know, obviously we'd talk about Ron Howard. I watched Ron Howard's Masterclass I don't know if you've watched that But really good for anyone

Who is interested It's very educational Like there's some that are more conceptual Or Perhaps not that helpful But he literally runs through Like this is how I block a scene Which I thought was cool

But I was wondering Because you've done what four films with him Seven Seven Jesus I think so What have you learned from him as a D.P. that's helped you on other gigs? Oh, I mean, he's just, he's a brilliant director, and he's somebody that very focused, knows what he wants, understands about actually, you know, getting extra so that he has the tools to restructure scene if it isn't quite working out right, or if the length of the film is not running, where he wants it to run, and wants to restructure. structure the film. He's got a toolbox of shots to go back to. So, you know, I learned a lot

in regards to coverage with one. And I think it was great because we pushed each other a good deal. He was like on Cinderella and he was really concerned about putting the camera in the boxing ring. I'm like, I'm going to get in the ring with the camera. He goes, well, what if What if you get hit and it hurts one of the actors, I'm like, it's not going to happen because we're going to work together. We're going to understand the choreography. We're going to make sure. And nobody, not once did anything like that happen.

Well, and you know how to box. Yeah, I do actually. Oh, yeah, I heard you say in a different interview, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Slip a punch. It'll be all right. So, um, so, you know, the thing about Ron that, you learn the most is about how to be really excited about what you do.

He's been in this industry for close to 70 years, and he started out as a toddler very much. And every day he comes to work, like, it's his first day. He's so excited to be there, so enthusiastic, so driven that you realize you're working with somebody who loves what they do because that's who they are, and it makes you rise to the occasion more and really look within yourself, that's who you are and who you want to be. And that's pretty amazing. And you've learned, I mean, you learn everything about how direct the communicates. It's interesting, like, when there's frustrating moments, how somebody could sort of lose their shit in a frustrating moment.

And Ron sort of takes a breath. He thinks about it. And he comes back and he works on it. And he works on it with the actors or, you know, with the technicians, depending if it's some technical thing or an acting thing. And learning that sort of patience is invaluable. Yeah. In that way. And you start to realize how he's getting ahead of problems

because he's starting to see where they're coming from and that's from experience and sort of how he starts to adjusting the game plan to head that off and deal with it before it even comes into an issue. And that's a big thing, you know. They, it's all blocking and technical size, filmmaking is, you know, everybody is different

and everybody tells a story differently and some people will continue just to tell the story the same way no matter what the story is. And I think Ron also finds ways to tell a story that's helped that story. He doesn't keep doing the same thing.

And you learn a lot just from that too. So you'd like, you'd look at things differently. You know, with Unstoppable, you know, Billy wanted it to be really handheld. And I don't like kinetic handheld. You know, Succession is a great show. That sort of whipping back and forth and zooming kind of thing. You know, it lends itself to that because it's that kind of energy. I want to be really conscious that, you know, when Billy said, I want to go handheld,

I was like, oh, okay, well, why don't we make it the audience feel as though they're part of the roblous family and the roblous house so that hand held had a breathing type of consciousness to it but it wasn't chaotic and phonetic where it took you out of it subconsciously all of a sudden you as an audience i mean hopefully or what what i was hoping to achieve there is that you're sitting at that table with a worldless family that you're a family member and you're feeling that pain that uncomfortableness that anthony's feeling when his stepfather's being an asshole and and the film you know my my camera operates james goldman and kent hovey uh really really very subtle with the handful in it i i was really very conscious and it wanted

it that way and i think that it really helped tell that story um yeah no so you know that that's an example of how how like you know approaching a film helped tell you tell a story, not to take away from it, you know, camera work-wise, and to sort of be in the audience along. And, you know, that story could have been told differently from another director or not a DP on how they wanted to tell that thing with the visual language of it. But that was our choice there. And Forrest Nixon was sort of similar in that way.

It was a lot of handheld with Forst Nixon. Yeah. Where Da Vinci and Angels and Demons was, you know, a lot more traditional. yeah and you shot uh unstoppable on the venice venice too yes that's too yeah now i uh unfortunately like i said i watched a lot of screeners so uh like back to back to back i saw a boxing movie right before i saw unstoppable so there was a bit of blending in my heads uh because it was like a few weeks ago so you'll have to correct me from but the look hopefully this isn't stopable the look if I remember correctly changes a bit from like

the home to like later in the or does it is it look pretty consistent because it's one of the other for you guys. Did you change that did you consciously change the look at all? Because if not this is not the question I was going to ask. In where in the wrestling? Just just from the beginning of the film to as it progresses

I'm pretty sure that's the boxing movie. Okay that's definitely the boxing movie. I did notice though in the Robles household sometimes you do get pretty bold with the lighting and I was wondering kind of what those choices were like, you know, because especially like when he confronts his stepdad, you know, that's a very like dramatic looking scene that could have just been like, oh, it's lit by, you know, the street lamp from outside or something like that,

but you even got like backlight and really nice like pools of light kind of scattered around and stuff. Well, thank you. I try to light, I don't know how environmental. I guess. Sure. It might be a word. So, like, daytime scenes, I really lit from outside the house as though light was streaming in from outside. I hate mixing my color temperatures and have lamps on in the middle of the day because we don't

live that way. And at night in the Robles House, I really tried to make it feel like it was being lit from practical lights that were there. I wanted the audience to feel like that back light was coming from. practical light. That, you know, I did put a few stereotubes up in the ceiling and places, but I really tried to keep that down to a minimal

so that that lighting did feel like it was the lamp. And so if somebody moved out of that, they were out of the light there and they were just, you know, maybe backlight or silhouette a little bit. J-Lah was amazing about it. Because, you know,

she did not say one word, nor did her you know how people about the lighting right all about her character and gave me the room to help express that you know which is really hard sometimes with actresses you know um you're playing a very tough war scene in a home that is you know a low-income home there's not going to be you know fancy lighting and soft light everywhere and you're not going to look all perfect all the time I am, you know, she's at the stove. She's been lit by a fucking light bulb on the stove. Like literally, I put a bulb up right above the stove.

And that's when I lit her, I'm like, me, and Jay, he lifts your chin a little bit, you know? And, you know, this has to be teamwork. It was. It was teamwork. And it's great. It's great to sort of, and she really got to know Judy Robles extremely well. They became friends. So she understood Judy's life.

I think there's some similarities in the way J-Lo grew up. Judy had to be stoked. Hey, someone's going to play you. Who's it going to be J-Lo? Well, you look at them together. It's, you know, it's, that's a no-brainer right there. And she even, you know, she even wore some of Judy's clothes from that time period. Judy Kepa.

Yeah. So in the scenes like in at the match and stuff like that, it's just, it's remarkable. So to be able to work and sort of light in the interior of a house, like it's coming from a lamp or an overhead light in a house that isn't a high-tech modern type of house, but just the low-income raw, and to try to create these sort of pools and give the actors room to sort of move. And when they were out of the light, they were out of the light because that's kind of real. And, you know, it worked and it float like that. It slowed really well. yeah you know what's crazy is speaking of actors acting for other people uh initially so i don't know how to tell this story without it being obvious why it's hilarious but i guess the other night

i was i was doing a little research for this interview and i saw the uh vfx interview the before's and afters podcast with the vfx team from uh unstoppable oh really i did see that and so i was like oh yeah probably like crowd replacement whatever whatever because initially when I first was watching it because like again I was watching with a modicum of a critical mind because I'm you know taking notes and I was like it's crazy that they found a one-legged actor that was this good and then I'm listening to the podcast and they were like the first person who said that yeah apparently everyone said it like that no one had any idea and I was like damn okay well done VFX team because I had no fucking clue.

And that was a hard leg replacement because it's not just you're not you're not just like your leg at your thigh he also is like

part of his hip's not there he's born that way. Right. So you put a green screen sock on the leg but then they had a rotoscope the material out

and then 3D animated back in and track it. It was saying pretty difficult and really interesting how well they pulled it off yeah well and something I find interesting on this topic is like a lot of people upset you know people I mean the people not like us but you know there seems to be a common sentiment that like oh VFX

no one likes VFX and Todd Vizier said a million times online you know no you just don't like bad VFX. And one example of someone who does a VFX film pretty well is you, because I think every movie you've made has had a pretty serious amount of VFX, you know, your Spider-Man's and even DaVinci Code

and shit, all have had a ton of VFX and no one's noticed. Well, VFX supervisors, I think if, look, if you if we sit down together, I'll stop pointing it out to you. Oh, sure. You'll see it. you'll see it

but I think that the as you were about to say I think the the dance between the VFX supervisor cinematographer director I think is interesting and one that I think is an easy enough seems to be an easy enough thing for

certain producers of movies that people get upset about to do and I just don't know why they don't do it's like we've done it before just get the guy on there to look at it and go oh do we shouldn't do that. Yeah. Well, it's time and money.

Yeah. It's time and money. And that's like, oh, yeah, we could do it that way, but we're going to need all this extra time and money to get all that in, or can you figure it out some way later to goidoscope it? Yeah. Or however. So, yeah, it's interesting.

I think that relationship could be amazing and sometimes it could be really difficult. You work with a great visual effects supervisor. It's pretty incredible. It's a great collaboration. You're working together. When my back is against it, time-wise, or I got an issue with something, and a good supervisor will come in and say, don't worry about it, I'll take care of that, I'll help you out here, whatever.

It's wonderful. But when you're working with some people that don't have that experience is enough or the budget's just not there for the expectation, sometimes you get stuck in the middle and that's difficult. Yeah. I mean, so on unstoppable, was there anything that you got, you had to particularly take, like, be cautious of this? Because, I mean, it's not like you're constantly shooting the leg in every scene, but it's certainly, there are wides. Yeah. Yeah, we had a limited budget, visual sex-wise, and so we had to really think about when we're shooting it, you know, hey, I'm a little wide right now when I see that leg, can I, can just be in just a hair-in tighter where I won't see it? So that it can avoid a visual affection out there.

And would that language work at that moment? And sometimes it did, and sometimes like, nope, we need to be wide here. Yeah. And, you know, we were conscious of that. And we try to work together on that, Billy and I. Sure. Supervisor. What I did want to know, like, and you don't have to go too deep into it.

I've interviewed a bunch of people who've shot for Marvel. And I was wondering what a production like that, it seems like everyone really enjoys shooting for them. But that is a machine. You know, that is a well-oiled pipeline. And I was wondering what your experience shooting, what was it, Homecoming is versus like working for Ron Howard. Mostly in terms of just kind of the day-to-day mechanics of it, like the things that those massive tent pole films tend to bring with it that most other films don't. Well, I mean, the day-to-day mechanics are, you know, those rules are pretty much laid in stone. know that this is a big visual effect scene and it's green screen or blue screen and

you know you work in prep with um the production designer the visual effects supervisor director and you're figuring out okay what you know how big does that all need to be how does I want that what do I want that to look like how I'm going to need to light that um and it's kind of you know it could be disorienting when you're shooting because you're in a blue or green world sometimes that's mixed in a little bit

with a set and so like how, like for example St. Peter's chart of silica all we had was an altered a floor and all green screen

so you have to visualize what it looks like in St. Peter's and where the sunlight was coming in through the windows at the time and, you know, how are you going to make it look like that? And, you know, you kind of have to rely on your gut there and some past experience, I guess, while you're looking at this green world, this green void. And that's the sort of interesting part about it

is like bringing a look to that kind of world. So I think whether it's big or small, you know, you have these sort of rules and sort of in place and it's like how, what you're going to need to execute that. I think what happens when you get bigger, like I came in and took over on Space Jam. Right. There was a whole thing that happened with the director

and he was replaced after 17 days of filming. And so they brought in a new director and the DP. And, you know, coming in that world with four days prep and having to jump in. Oh, geez. Yeah, yeah, it was tough. and jumping in with ILM and figuring out, you know, the basketball, they had 130 motion capture cameras

and it was like how to learn all this stuff rather quickly and how it was being used. And then it's like, okay, this shot and this shot requires motion control. And we had to build another green screen stage, put a motion control crane arm on, and how we were going to move, you know, LeBron and the crane. and, you know, getting LeBron in a rig and, you know,

suspending them and moving the crane around them and all that. And that was really challenging. And sort of, and that was happening on fly, too. Right. So Grady from ILM, I was really relying on the visual effects supervisor. There are a lot. And, okay, Grady, what do we need to do this? Because this kind of seems like this to me.

And he's like, all right, it's a combination of motion control and motion capture. I'm like, all right. right okay what do i need what do you need for me motion control wise you got the motion capture covered blah blah okay we can do this we can use this under my lo or whatever and work with it that way yeah so with four days of prep that must have been a very uh educational experience for you know what it's like it's like okay so you've you're in the military And you've done only basic training, you've had wartime experience, you know, now all of a sudden, you're dropped into a war zone in the heaviest firefight. And you're like, okay, where's my team?

Where are they? How do I get here? What do I do? Where are the radios? Yeah, exactly. and bombs are going off all around you and you're like, oh, God, and you're figuring out navigating it. You know, and it's fun.

I mean, it is fun. You know, it could be, look, I like that kind of challenge. Well, and it's space jam, too. You know, it's not like, it's not a heady script. I was saying it's, it's space jam too. You're not like remaking Godfather, which would probably be more stressful. Yes, it's not. Fun script like that.

It's more. technical thing. And I kind of like, I like that sort of challenge where you're thrown into it and you've got to really figure things out. And there's no time to allow any stress because by the time it comes in, you're done with your day. You've got to figure something out. So roll your sleeves up and get to it, you know? Yeah, the stress dump just results in a quick nap and then it's back to work. Yeah, yeah, exactly. we kind of talked about digital but yeah we oh you know what I did want to ask

because this podcast is ostensibly about mentorship you know just trying to mentorship by way of listening to other people I wanted to ask about what it was like training under Harris Savides and kind of the things that you learned from him early on and if you know if you're mentoring other people how like what lessons from him you pass on? Well, I met Harris when Harris was transitioning from still photography to cinematography. I'm a camera system with him.

So I started working with him as he was navigating and learning the motion picture world and taking his photochemical and photographic background with it. And so it was always about experimenting and trying different things. And what I learned from Harris is not to be afraid to bow. To try and experiment, work on your ideas and test them, see if they work. They don't work, learn from them. And be nurturing of other people. So when I moved on, you know, it was a combination of Harris Savides and a director by the name of Peter Kerr,

who Peter was this incredible visual director who did amazing music videos and commercials but a lot of music videos and you know Peter and you know I liked my eye because Harris would allow me to be subjective

and sometimes you know Harris like Sal go get on the B camera go get on the B camera so I'd start shooting B camera with him and Peter gave me an opportunity and Harris was very supportive of that, where, you know, some DPs back in the day would have been, you know, not kosher with it. So when I moved on and moved up,

I asked Harris, I said, I said, how am I going to pay you back? And he said, by paying it forward. So I've always done that. And, you know, his name was Jesse Green, was one of them. And Jesse, I met as a camera PA on a Peter Care commercial of all things. and he became a second assistant, then he became a first assistant.

And then he started operating a little bit. Then he went off, started shooting. And I brought him in sometimes to do second unit. And on the unstoppable, he was second unit director and DP. Hell yeah. Also, second unit, in my opinion, one of the more fun gigs that you can get just in general. It really can be. And I knew that Jesse would be able to.

keep my look, help tell the story, his personality, you know, he knows how I work because we work together. You know, there are other DPs like Ben Martinson came up through me. Toby Erwin was a gaffer with me, you know, and I, you know, Roxy, Rexanne Stevens, she was a camera assistant. She became my operator. She operated a B camera on the offer. You know, the other people like that, and I think it's just an importantness of nurture, because that's all I have is my knowledge.

You know, what are you going to do with it? Right. Except passing on, you know, and I try to encourage people to be sort of open and kind and curious and experimental. You know, being curious is a big thing. Yeah, well,

and also, I don't the only reason to withhold information is because people want to monetize it I found you know what good is that do I mean it certainly can be helpful if you need a buck but in general as a lifestyle choice I don't think it's it they're not going to suddenly come and take your job because you have the experience knowledge doesn't immediately give them the time spent that you know you look you can give them a nugget exactly but people always going to take your job. There's going to be DPs out there that are way bender than me just as good and a lot worse than I am and they're all going to take a job over me. It's just the way

it is. So you can't, I'm not going to focus on that. I'm going to focus on what I do and I'm going to focus on giving that to other people. Yeah. Well, and the job that they took a lot of times maybe it, you know, it's one of those things that I think about not necessarily like other people take Sometimes those jobs are like, hey, I would have liked to do that jobs. But then I've found that like, oh, no, it's fine. I was just going to say a lot of times I feel like it not just with getting gigs, but like in life, when things don't, I guess I guess I'm trying to make long everything happens for a reason. But it's like you'll learn later like, oh, that was actually a shit show gig. And you're like, all right, well, the reason that they went with someone.

cheaper is because they needed someone cheaper, you know, or whatever. And then you're like, I guess I dodged a bullet. Yeah. Or they went with somebody more expensive. Yeah, in which case I wasn't for you. And you go, I dodged a bullet. Yeah, yeah. You know, you mentioned experimentation and it's something that I always think about, which is, you know, you've shot hundreds of commercials and music videos and the music video landscape that you and many DPs like you kind of came up in certainly has disappeared and I was wondering if you can point to anything that you see as like the current kind of analog to that because certainly you could go and make your own videos put them on YouTube but it certainly can't sustain a career in the same way or at least I can't

see it now I'm also not on YouTube I mean I well I don't know I think that's That's some of those, I don't see music videos anymore today. But I do, Taylor Swift. But, you know, Taylor Swift is a lot of, you know, music videos. I'm assuming they're hiring people of caliber that have done a lot. But I think younger people doing music videos is great because it's an experimental place and it's a stepping stone. And it's giving them a knowledge and experience.

experience and it's, you know, it's, you know, it is the moment now for them, but that's not where they're going to be in the future. You know, when I was doing them in the 90s, it was a different type of, different type of animal. Right. And it, you know, the industry was very different. And they were really considered art pieces. And they were there to help promote an album, and the budgets were really big. You know, $400, a half a million, $700,000 music video in the 90s wasn't unusual. Right. You know, I shot Bruce Springsteen's Secret Garden.

We shot the thing in five days. It's four days. We budget for four days, and the fifth day, a bunch of us worked for free, and we shot in my house and the producer's house, because we just kind of wanted, the director wanted more, speed of care, and we wanted to do more. And we had Bruce for two days, and that was pretty amazing. Those kind of videos don't happen like that now, but it was also different then. It was all film.

And the digital world, I think that younger cinematographers and directors have a lot and a lot more of an advantage, because you could go off and shoot different types of cameras and lenses and you don't need photochemical and all that. You could edit it in your computer and you could go color it and get it up on YouTube and look great or Instagram and have it

sort of be a stepping stone and a calling card and it's amazing. It's amazing that they have that opportunity and it's really at your fingertips and much more accessible. So, you know, I think that's a great advantage today to the younger filmmakers.

as regards to making a living, I don't, you know, again, I think it's a stepping stone. It all changes, but, you know, I, well, and also I'm wondering about from the experimental side, because I kind of have two minds of it, and I'm interested to hear what you think, just because with film, obviously, you didn't, you had an idea of what you were going to get, but until, you know, the filter plus the stock, plus the color timing, plus, plus the how it interacted with the set and all this. You know, at the end,

you end up with something. That element of like, let's see how this goes. I think is both personally, maybe enriching is the wrong word, but like exciting and makes you want to experiment. Whereas I feel like with digital knowing what it's going to look like, which is great for,

you know, feature film because you want to know it's going to look like. But that that spirit of experimentation might not be, might not feel the same. No, it doesn't feel the same, but you can find a different way to experiment, feel it. You know, like, we did light, I did a band called Live, and we shot with Jake Scott, the music video that launched them called Lightning Crashes. And it was all in-camera double exposures. You know, I'm talking about fucking not knowing about what's going to look like the next day.

Yeah. I'm doing the math and making sure of what, you know, with riot and, you know, and it turned out really wonderful. So today, it's like, how am I going to do in-camera double exposure with a digital camera? Right. I'm going to have to now experiment to find another way to do that. Yeah. Right?

I don't know right off the top of my head. So my point is, is the experimentation is shifted. Because the tools is changed. So how are you going to use those tools to make that different? You know, it's like when a suede came out for chefs. Right. You know, again, that water at a certain temperature and keeping it constant there so that they, and it's like, how did you do that before that?

You know, it's funny. Speaking of film, the suveed changed the way people did. developed film because you could keep your water at a consistent temperature and not get those weird fluctuations out of the tap or whatever. Exactly. Exactly. There you go. There you go. So, you know, you're adapting tools to experiment in a different way, I think. I mean, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head. I would have to see it on and really start to play with ideas. Well, a lot of it's just in post, you know. Yeah, so it's in post, but then, you know, hiring that knowledge of post or trying to do something and, you know, can I take, can I

shoot two digital images and then overlay one over the other to make it feel like that one's transparent, like a double exposure and the other one's solid? Because like if you look at live video, some of the people in it are solid, but the ghost, the woman, the angel in it, she's transparent, you know, so it's like how do you create that to that, you know, how can I get that digitally? Yeah, a lot of people I've noticed younger people are going back to older tech and getting like mini-d-b cameras and like going through. And obviously this is more textual. This is something I've thought about a lot, which is just like how the focus. has gone a lot from storytelling to aesthetics.

But that aside, you know, they'll take, you know, not even a DVX, but just like the home camcorder, shoot to tape and then like plug it into a TV, play that back and record that 4K, you know, and get that really kind of interesting 90s skateboard film kind of look, our memory of it even, because I was looking back at XL2 footage that I have. And I'm like, this actually looks pretty good. It's better than people remember. But even that, even that, it's like, okay, where am I going to play it back on?

Am I going to play it back on a flat screen? Do I find an old tube TV? That's what they're doing, yeah. Is there, you know, liquid crystal TV that looks better? Like, you know, it's endless. Like where you could go with something like that. Yeah. And how much more you want to degrade the image and what, you know, older technology will

use to degrade that image, you know? Yeah. You know, I know we're starting to come up on time here, but I did want to ask because I'm starting to shoot more. When's the last time you shot a commercial? Actually, just recently, but not a commercial. But two months ago, a commercial. Recently, I was just doing this weird project with Martin Scorsese and the Pope.

Yeah, they shot the Pope in the Vatican. Well, Martin Scorsese and the Vatican. And they knew about the DaVinci Code stuff? Well, they knew about the Da Vinci Code stuff? No, no, I didn't tell the total total at all about any of that. But the reason I asked is because, you know, we were saying, you know, music videos creating a livelihood back in the day and stuff like that. And it made me think about just the commerce of commercials. Commercials used to feel very weird when I was, you know, in high school and college.

They really took a lot of chances. And now it just seems to be like you just sell the, make it look pretty, sell the product. And I was wondering if you had, with your experience, any advice on what modern clients seem to be looking for? Because I have noticed, at least at my level, that clients don't know how to articulate effectively what they want. A lot of times, they'll say stuff like, get creative with it, or we want it to look premium. And you're like, I don't, I need more. I need more. I know.

But then when you start to go in that sort of direction, they're like, no, no, that's not what I want. and you wind up back in the sort of most of the times back in the same place that you've started how they all kind of look similar yeah you know it's interesting because if you record a show that's on TV as commercials right say you watch a sports event and you record it later and you come back and you fast forward through the commercials and you look at them fast forward and you go okay same same same same same and every once in a while like wait wait wait wait stop oh that's something different somebody did something different there you know um sorry you hold on a second yeah yeah i'm in the middle of a podcast go you back

hello i'm concerned that bailed immediately my agent sorry oh we'll let you go after this um you know and that like you stop and you go oh my god you know there's something different and which really interesting i have no idea of who this is. I don't know if it's a Christian group or if it's the Mormons. Maybe it's not the moments. The Jesus ads? The Jesus adds, yeah.

Yeah, it's the Christians, the Chryzos. They're fantastic a lot of them. They are. They're so annoying. They've got a nice quality to them. And, you know, it's like, okay, somebody's actually taking a visual chance and pushing the look and taking it away from the, mainstream and I think that there's a problem with advertising today is that they're so stuck on

the mainstream and you have people that don't understand or haven't been sort of trained like the old creative directors were back in the 80s and the 90s in art and so you know when you're lighting a scene it's like oh I need more light I need more light I need to see more I need to see more I need to see more. It's like, well, you know, you show me references and you've done, you know, a 25 page treatment with all these incredible references. And so now I'm lightened the scene with a little contrast in it. And you're like, no, no, no, it's got to be flat, but I want it to look like that. It's like, well, this looks like that, but that doesn't look like that. So, you know, it's interesting. And I think that the advertising world is having a hard time because people

aren't watching TV or they're fast foaming through it and it's winding up on social media and YouTube. We know where you're looking out of a small device. Yeah, right now I'm noticing the trend is like very, we're starting to get hard light back, which is fun. And then either a probe lens or a very wide lens moving quickly, either from or to a product, then like spins off and goes into like a kitchen doing the same. It's a lot of movement, a lot of hard, single light, oftentimes colored, and like a probe lens.

That seems to be, you can make a career on that in the next three months because you know it'll change in three months. But right now, that's the, that's the slave. Yeah. You know what's funny about those Jesus ads is during the Super Bowl when they played them, it started just doing it. Like, you know, because at the end, you don't know it's for Jesus until they're at about halfway through. It was either me or someone else. You know, we're at the Super Bowl. It's a little hazy.

And I go, is this for Jesus? And someone went, no, you can't just advertise Jesus. And then it was just like, Jesus, he's cool or whatever. We're like, like the room exploded. That got the most reaction of any ad. That's funny. Because you can't just advertise the Lord. Lord.

I wonder if they gave Jesus discount for those ads. Jesus just took scale. Everybody else is playing $3 million for 30 seconds. He's playing one and a half. Yeah. That's actually a great bit. I have a bunch of friends who are stand-up comments because I've got to be like, hey, did the Super Bowl give the Jesus commercial a discount or does the charity only go so far?

That's funny. Well, man, I'll let you go, especially so you got people calling you. Next time you got a chance, I'd love to have you back on in chat. Yeah, yeah. I'm around. So anytime. I love it. 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. Thank you.