Frame & Reference Podcast - 176: "September 5" Cinematographer Markus Forderer, ASC

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Markus is back! This week we're talking about his *excellent* new film September 5. 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 176 of frame and reference. You're about to drop in on a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my friend Marcus Forder, ASC, BVK, DPK, DP, DP of September 5. Enjoy it. Has the lens website going? Ah, the cineflare is good, good. I mean, basically I'm in the middle of a film in Australia. I just came back over the holidays to LA.

I'm flying out tomorrow. Don't have much time, but I keep publishing stuff. We shot so many tests, so we have banged, I think, another 50 lens sets. It just takes forever to do the post, like to sync it, to tag everything and upload and, you know, post about it. So it's slowly growing, but so many, like, there's some really lens through the ass deep diving and turn shooting messages. That's quite fun. Yeah.

I can't remember if we talked about it last night, but how are you getting the repetition? Because I imagine you could just get a motion control device for like the lens flare on black, but now especially with like that desert scene, is that like a rendered scene or like what's the... That's a composite basically. so we didn't go out to the desert with 600 lens cases. It's the only way to keep adding to it and the landscape not changing is so it's a shot with a clean plate with a very clean lens.

The sun was right in the center and I blocked it with a flag and then did a clean plate to paint out the sea stand and the flag. So the original plate has no sun, no flare whatsoever and then we overlay the motion control material shot on black. But I had a reference. lens in like to like a vintage spherical lens and an anamorphic lens, which are also shot in that same scenario to compare later when I overlay, how does the overlay look versus the real

vintage lens? And it's pretty close like a font will find a right setting and because it's all shot in black with if you used to write blend mode. Right. Soft light or whatever. Acity like 94 or something. It's like it's like 90% like the like the reference end of the shot. And this way we can add, you know, every other week and new lens is coming out, so we can keep adding it and you can really compare. But we even map distortion, not on the old ones, but all the news that we're shooting, we map distortion and light fall off. So you see the natural vignetting. So you can, the only thing you cannot judge is image sharpness or chromatic aberrations. So it's all about flare, color cast, fall off and distortion. But for new stuff, we also capture

now a bouquet plates that's complicated we found something that's also repeatable but it's something

for another special yeah how do you actually that does bring up a good question though is like now since

you know I got to stop playing this piece of belcro now that you you know that's really

you can choose any camera but you know usually you're going to be on your Alexa your red your Venice

I feel like lens tests have become more important than ever, especially because you have so many options. Like in your mind, what goes into a good lens test? Like how, you know, let's say you're only given a small amount of time in one of these bays. Like, how do you make sure you get the most out of a lens test?

I think it's very subjective. Everybody does it a bit different. And I think I do it quite different. I don't like to shoot charts. And I really do it, like, as if I would shoot a little scene. Like, bring a person, I don't do it. you know, like not in a test room with a chart and some Christmas lights

because like when do you ever have that, right? I want to see somebody standing by window like when you're in a rental house and just go somewhere ask can I go in your office corridor or something or just outside, shoot like a day exterior, depending what the film is, right, if it's all a lot of night or whatever.

Or I go in a car in a parking lot just to have some real background and then I pre-select a couple of lenses I want to compare, right? I think everything, they say everything was great until somebody shows you something better. It's so subjected. You have to compare two or three lenses next to each other and then say, this one stands out for that particular project, right? And then we can say, what is it? And now I always, because we have to sit in a flash platform, I always run the lenses through that if we don't have them already in the library, run it through this.

That's my technical part because there I can see, it's not a test chart per se, but I can see what's happening and if the lens is very, I don't know, sterile and wants to, like, or shows a lot of character. So with that, I pre-select two, three lens sets and then I go to rental house and test specifically, you know, maybe bring candles or, and just shoot as close as possible to what a shot could look like. Like you can't test everything, right? but like maybe close-up in a medium somebody standing by a window and then I take it from there. Yeah, well, because I was thinking,

like when I was, you know, looking up behind-the-scenes stuff after I saw the movie, uh, it occurred to me, I was like, this guy probably, because I saw you were using like lenses that I don't think,

like I had never even heard of, what were they, the, uh, not the zines. The other one. September 5. Yeah.

We used a detuned a set of DZO pictor zooms. Right. And then we used Apollo and Amorphics. Those ones. Yeah. I'd never even heard of those. Amazing lenses. They're made in Ukraine, like in Kharkiv, really close, really close to the frontland.

Close to Russia. And they're still making them. And I saw some early tests and what's so unique about them. their close focus is insanely good, almost like a macro, every lens is like a macro lens. And I knew for September 5 we would be in that tight space. It's almost like shooting in a submarine, right? We are with our characters in that control room. And I knew we have to be able to get close and not just stop. Now we need a diopter or a swap to a different lens that has a better close photo. And you look at the style we want to film and things here on the director. He's all

about, you know, capturing something authentic in a moment, so we needed gear and lenses and cameras that allowed us to be flexible and react to what's happening on the camera. And it makes all kinds of lenses, like, you know, the 70s period film, and we talked about it for a long time. Should we shoot the whole thing on film? And but then I also didn't want it to look really like a film shot in the 70s. You know, it can, it should like invoke the period. it so you feel like right you you buy into it and you follow the story you know distracted like sometimes you see a film that read a period film and it looks like wait a second somebody shot this yesterday in their backyard you know like on a native whatever modern high resolution camera

and so i think it needs something to make people forget right like that they're watching a movie and and immerse themselves so we used actually we used native back then latest generation 8K Red V-Raptor cameras because they're complex and they allow you to shoot this multi-format sensor, right? We could window down to Super 16, Super 35

or large formats so some scenes, whenever the tension is really high, I switch to anamorphic primes, the Apollos. So we use the full sensor because there's a large format anamorphics and the stretch Boka I think adds to

attention in the frame like people always know they literally focus on when you test the lens on or sharp is it how the skin look like but if you're in a movie theater and you have this massive anvass 80% of the screen is out of focus right we focus on the character's eyes so how that oka how that out of focus area looks and really affects how you feel about right the scene and the characters and for us was so important to the real events took place over the course of 22 hours, the live broadcast on ADC, showing that hostage situation. And we knew we had to compress time into like 90 minutes and how can we make our audience today watching this, hopefully in the theater.

How can we make them feel like how we think the audience back then was glued through their televisions, not knowing. But it was the first time in history that, that there was a live broadcast of a terrorist event that had never happened before. And talking to people, I was not around in 72, but talking to people who have witnessed this, they said, like, this was unimaginable people were, like, glued to the screens and, like, I didn't know what's going to happen, right? Any minute something terrible could have happened,

and you just didn't know. So we had to create tension with every technique, like, so the lenses, the camera, the lighting, editing, like we had a brilliant editor, Hansiok Weisbrich, and we flooded him with material, like the way Tim Philbaum and I, like, we would like to shoot his like, specifically for this film, but we wanted to not have any, like, marks on the ground and light for specific close-up, but in the morning I came in and I tried to, I knew, of course, where the action would take place. And that scene, they would probably look at the monitor wall and the next thing, there will be,

walking down the corridor but i tried to rely it all for 360 as much as possible with everything it was on a demo board had like amazing lighting crew so when and i had i was operating a camera on this film and but i had a little headset on so i could quickly give notes in between takes or during the take we would like you know fade like dim down lights that would come to flat in certain angle um and it was quite quite amazing so that has this period look but it's actually it's all done with modern technology everything like LED lights then it put into old period housings made to look like all fluorescent tubes but it's all stereotubes pixel programs so we had individual pixels flicker in the tubes to you know take the edge off right

sometimes when you see something that shot on the sound stage you feel it's too perfect too controlled so always if you study like old the resin tubes they have some subtle fluctuations usually towards the ends where they're mounted right into the housing there's little flicker so with the asteras we could pixel program that so the ends had a little bit more flicker the center is sometimes some random flicker and then also some color variation when we had like a corridor with like whatever 100 tubes along corridor they all have slight color variations programmed in because they're so perfect out of the box and then whenever something dramatic happens like Peter Saskar's character

gets like some piece of important information and runs from his office into the control room and panic. And like we increase that flicker frequency in those tubes. It's like super subconscious but it does something

and the same actually in the control room, right? We knew the televisions are the window to the outside world. Like we are in this in this submarine style it's like a bunker, right? There's no...

It's no... It's going to say bunker, yeah. And the director was saying, no windows. We're going to do it like in a real location. And I said, oh, my God, all I'm doing is usually is I'm bringing lights through windows from the outside and how we're going to make people aware

that time is passing. It's like in the middle of the night or it's like the next morning. We had those clocks on the walls. You can at least look at those, yeah. Yeah, they're moving. Continuity, a nightmare. But, yeah, so we did it.

with lighting programmed in like a program like a night look and like a brighter day look and so it's every time we leave the control room for example go to another location come back the light has changed always based on the need of the scene and and whenever they go live right to feel that tension like there's a guy it's almost like a rocket launch if they count down three two one the lights turn off in the background and we and then we ramp up the again the flicker of those TV screens. So the TV screens themselves

with synced to the camera shutter so they appear not to flicker but I was so inspired by watching documentaries from the time there's like

this brilliant documentary one day in September which is actually about the Olympics hostage situation it's amazing intense documentary and other

films from the time when you see in documentaries you see monitors flickering because they didn't have to take to sync, like in a motion picture film, right?

We have like special people who modify a TV to run at 24 Hz and we have synch boxes and try to make it as perfect as possible. But then it also almost looks like a comp, like a bit of effects comp, right? We have this perfect burn and like I saw it in documentaries. That's what I found so interesting to see those flickers and the analog artifacts. So we installed a row of LED software. those like sky panels and big snapbacks just above the TV wall

because most of the time our characters are watching that TV wall and interacting with that. So we pushed soft light into their face that appears to come from the TVs and there we had pre-programmed different flicker frequencies so whenever like in the beginning we just established that the TVs are flickering so it's very subtle.

When the tension goes higher, we increase the flicker frequency and that's super effective. Like when you, there's actually studies, scientific studies I found in pre-production where they tested this with mice and later with humans that if you flicker was between 25 hertz and 40 hertz you can affect the humans heart rate there's a sense of heightened alertness going on and like I think that's really similar like what music does when you hear certain beats right how it can affect your your heart rate

the light flicker in a dark movie theater and you see that screen pulsating like we don't from black to white, right? You would go crazy or, but it's a subtle effect. It's basically the ambience light in the room is strobing. But the monitors themselves are, if you look at it closely, they're not strobing. That's why I think that's why people don't get annoyed by it, because I tested this in reproduction. If they would strobe themselves, you get annoyed by it or you get a headache.

But so you know, your eye always locks onto the brightest part of the frame and like a bright monitor in the dark room, you focus on it, but then the ambience light in the room is strobing, but it makes you think it comes from the TV. That was quite effective, especially with the climates of the film. Yeah, you know, what's funny is I

thought watching it that it was a location, and then I saw some of the behind-the-scene photos. I was like, of course it's a set. Like, why wouldn't it be? But I also just assumed that everything was practical. Obviously, I know he was like film lights, but I just assumed they were all in the fixtures

or whatever and then I saw that wall and I only noticed I only noticed the flicker probably because I was watching it a little critically so I could ask questions but like there's like one very close up of the main I don't know any of the people's names but like then I could see it and I was like

oh that's like an interesting because it feels it doesn't feel fake exactly as you're saying like it looks like the TV would I know you and your second go for it yeah almost like when you watch it in a movie theater I feel it almost reminds me of the Protector flicker from

film protector but it is not a constant flicker it's like dynamics so that's quite interesting about it yeah and then I guess you and your wife programmed all of the

astere tubes like in your hotel yeah there was like the movie was in development for a long time like I think three years before I started filming we started scouting in the Olympic Village like I went to film

school in Munich with the director and some of the producers. So the Olympic Village is like a protected heritage site. It looks, certain areas still look exactly like in the 70s. So we scouted it several times and then talked about how we would film it. But then by the time they got the green light to shoot it, I was on another show. And I had only two weeks from wrapping that show to coming to Munich,

prep quickly and then start shooting. So I knew there's not much time. and I know I was so passionate about this film with him like we gotta get this as good as possible so my wife was a dimerboard operator she was working with me in Berlin at the time at this show it was constellation I think we talked about the last one yeah

and so on the weekends she brought her dimmer board to the hotel room and we borrowed an astera tube and we could because everything on our set in September 5 everything was astera tubes or hydropanels so it's all the same

light engine and pixel mapping so we could copy paste effects so we sat down for a couple of weekends and experimented like what flicker frequency makes you feel

like makes you feel uneasy or gets your your adrenaline up or what frequency do you cannot get a migraine you know like at some point it becomes and if you flicker too fast

the effect disappears it becomes it looks like It's not staggering at all. And then we programmed, preset certain colors. Like we created a dirty fluorescent, the green fluorescent and like warm fluorescent. Like this is all things that's so subjective. Yes, you can match to accessing lights, but because we didn't have any real fluorescent tubes to match to, we could create it what I felt like with our cameras and

lenses looks good. So we preset all of that. And then I went to Munich and my wife was actually, she stayed on that show. They were still filming other episodes when my episodes are wrapped. And then our local crew with my Gaffer, Will Griner, and his board operator, Matthias, we loaded the files on their board, and then we could quickly pre-light, which is amazing, because they had already rigged everything, so all the hallways and office spaces, had all the tubes built in, and then we could just walk through the sets.

Okay, dead room, let's make this green floress on dead room. As a subtle flicker, as a base, you barely can catch up with it. And then when we were filming, again, it was super fast. Like on a headset, it was a, we had to be so fast. I think we had only 27 days on sound stage and a couple days on location on the Olympic Village. So we like shot a scene and then I could quickly say, okay, we turn around, just, you know, like cut those in half, make those night. We had a night fluorescent look because there was no windows. I wanted to create a sense for like magic hour, even if there's no windows, but at least they feel a sense for time passing.

And it was worked amazing. Like they did an amazing job, like re-rigging all of that. and everything had to have an effect or animation. Like, you know, they're watching a, like film on a steam bag, like an editing table. And there we needed, again, a flicker that had to feel different from a monitor flickering. So we also educate, like, maybe younger audience who doesn't, didn't grow up with that technology to understand. That's not a TV.

That's actually a film that ramps up, right? And does one exercise. Yeah, well, it's specifically, one thing I noticed kind of, in the, you know, when I was, the movie had just started so I, I had noticed and then it really sucks you in. So I stopped, I kind of stopped taking notes about halfway through because it really is like very tense in an amazing way. But the, um, I noticed there was a, a kind of, it's interesting you say in education, because I think that's what it is, is, is there is a tech focus, um, in it, you know, where you're seeing all these Kodak and Fuji labeled like it's,

it kind of is like a, a quick demo and like, all right, so this, you know, showing. the thing going in slow-mo, like how they did that, how they would do title comps and stuff like that and like kind of explaining to the audience like, because, you know, it's a, the film definitely makes you think about, um, you know, how media is created, how it's consumed, you know, the thought that quote from Jurassic Park kept popping into my head of like, they were so concerned about whether they could. They didn't think if they should, you know. Oh, exactly. Um, but it is a, uh, it's interesting you know we just had an attack here in new orleans yesterday and i had i just saw

the movie and it was really interesting to me to have that in the back of my head while people are tweeting and and you know red it and all these new everyone's trying to be first and it's the same thing over and over you know like some some piece of information gets out there it's incorrect they walk it back there's too much speculation like it's it's fascinating what we have and haven't learned in 50 years. I think that makes September 5 so relevant, right? Like going back, September 5, 72 was the first time a terrorist event was broadcast live on television.

Before that, there was like you would read in the newspaper or after the fact somebody would report something, right? This was life and the responsibility. And like you mentioned today, we are so desensitized, right? And it's almost like a form of entertainment, which is like absurd, right? like there's real people's lives lost or affected and it's all the competition today right with so many TV channels and the competition with like online media and right social media influencers it's gotten so extreme that's why I think it's interesting to look back at how that started

and also like you mentioned the technology behind it that also informs what what they show how like today we all walk around literally like with a TV in our camera on our pocket right our phone we can live stream like go on social media live share material take pictures or watch stuff instantaneously but back then what by seeing the process they went through at shooting something on 60 millimeter film they had a runner who smuggled the film through bypassing the police walk 8 they had a lab literally on site to quickly develop within 20 minutes they could develop up a 16mm and then they put it in telocene. There was no film scanner, no computers, right, no hard drives.

They either live, did live telisine or they put stuff on tape or like you mentioned, the guy who does slow motion by hand, right? That's how it started. There's no computers. Somebody by hand slowed down the tape as they play back. It's so interesting. And Tim was, they did deep research with his writer, Moritz Binder, and Tim was so. I think it was so important to him to also educate

the audience about how that all happened, right? And we had the real Jeff Mason who's played by John Magarro, like the lead character. She was consulting on the project. So he's retired now, but he had this amazing career in television and he told us about how fast everything happened, how

basically they were just catching up and getting footage out they never had the time or took the time to ask themselves should we show this or what if we write what happens it and we show this on live televisions

that all these processes that went into the universe so innovative right and the technology back then like today it looks antiquated but you know from every time in Olympics is broadcast or captured

they're using the most cutting edge technology so what they used in 72 it was the most modern equipment They had a live satellite. It was one single satellite, which the TV stations had to share and schedule time. And they had for the first time a mobile camera.

Before that, the cameras were these monsters on a heavy tripod. They could never leave the sound stage. But they had this mobile unit, like we see it in the film at some point, or somebody, it's almost like a Sony realto system. Like a full-size camera, then there's a massive chord to an assistant who has a massive backpack. And then there have another chord that goes out to this. station that they could move around. Yeah, it reminds me. I interviewed, because like one thought that came up while watching the film was just like, man, imagine if they just, all their cameras at SD cards, how much easy this all would have been.

But I was reminded of, I interviewed Kristen Johnson, who she made this documentary about her father called Dick Johnson is dead. He's not dead. But that's the name of the film. And I didn't know this about her, but she was telling me that like when the five. came out. It was a huge deal because she was a war correspondent and having the 5D like the Taliban wouldn't think she was filming. Whereas if you had the video camera, they knew that and so they would treat it differently. But photography, they were chill with. So she'd be filming on the 5D and able to get in there and like operate, you know,

kind of clandestinely. And I was like, that's, it's just so crazy to, again, watch how the technology change and how things. that we as filmmakers were like, oh, large format for her. It was like, they won't kill me. You know? That's that. There's a fun scene in September 5, right? When they catch him?

They hit those shots in the middle of the night, and the crew is not there yet. So they realize we have to report about it. There's no crew, and then there's only this camera assistant, and Peter Saskar's character is like, hey, you, like, can you hold a camera? Yeah. You know how to load film? Yeah. like they have the cameraman like it's not about art or expression or something can you literally

push the button you get the job right and that's what they did they put a camera there and took a picture of it and and then the people for years after asked themselves right like what impact that had like there's this iconic image of that masked man on the on a balcony which went on like the cover of several newspapers and magazines and like this iconic it's like almost like a horror film when we see this guy coming out fully mass and it's like there was like chilling to recreate this so we decided you know out of respect for the

the victims we didn't want to show any of the hostages or terrorists that we recreated all those archival pieces there's some some original stock footage archival footage the everything that shows in a Jim McKay the ABC host

that's original Jim McKay and some white shots but the majority we actually recreated because like I mentioned the Olympic Village still exists and we had like all these references so we tried to recreate as accurately

as possible even like the opening sequence you see that swim race was Mark Spitz winning just the whole thing we recreated because the Olympic pool is still around if you shoot in one direction and be careful how you frame it looks exactly like the 70s

if you tilt a bit up is suddenly you're in 2020 for and because it's actually it's quite difficult to get footage from the Olympics like it's yeah the right situation is very complicated like who has the rights to what and then also we knew we had to

compress time right at real events took place over 22 hours we had to compress time so we sometimes a scene played out over hours on live TV something happened and something an hour later happened so we had to compress those moments so that's why we recreated it. It's still all based on the actual events

but just made it possible to watch it in 91 minutes and I think the shortest film in this whole season right? Everybody's like doing this three and a half hour e-post and I love watching a movie that I think 90 minutes is a great time right? It's perfect. I literally

when I saw the you know the ticket I was like 148 yes let's go because yeah the last like four movies I've seen yeah all like 2.30 three hours which is fun sometimes but I remember they gave

Zach Snyder a bunch of shit for releasing that like four hour Justice League movie and they're like this is crazy who would watch this is like oh you you're doing it all the time yeah well people it sometimes becomes

an event thing right like I hear it now about the brutalist right at an intermission and showing a film I think we should have more intermissions yeah that's like if we're going to do a three hour movie

Give me, let me go, so I don't have to miss something. You know, let me hit the bathroom, refill the soda. Like, that's a good, bring that back. I totally agree. But it's interesting with, especially for a cinematographer standpoint, sometimes you feel, you know, he shoot all these amazing shots. And then after the edit, like, you know, they kill your darlings or they tighten stuff. There's an amazing sweeping shot and it's gone.

But on September 5, I really feel like our editor, Hans, your vice grace, you did a fantastic job. I feel like everything is there, but it's super tight. You see somebody strong down the hallway. Bam, you cut to the insert in the next room. You don't waste the time to, you know, go like all this shoe leather, getting from A to B. I think that's the moment we hear those shots being fired in the Olympic Village.

Like the tension goes up and up, and it has such as eye-paced speed. I think that's so amazing about the film that similar like our characters, that you have no time to think, like, oh my God, what's happening? next, what's happening next. And when you walk out of the hopefully theater, it's interesting for people hard to, you don't remember, like, did I see this for real or did it happen on a monitor? Because actually, most of it, our characters

observe on a monitor. So we shot what's on a monitor too, but it becomes, even if it's like low-rest, standard desk, exhalated, licking stuff, it's somehow we go close and zoom in. I think you forget about it. And it always tells me something that, right, they say nothing is as strong as our imagination. Like showing the super crisp and sharp does not make, make like a terrorist on a balcony more scary. It's the opposite, like seeing it out of focus and you can barely see what's happening when we fill in our blanks, right? It's... Yeah, lack of information

scarier than knowing, right? Knowing is the antidote to fear. Totally, right? You know, spiders are scary. Maybe you bring your own year into it because it's so subjective everybody can fill in the blanks with their own imagination. Yeah, you know what was crazy actually is I we leave the theater

everyone's feeling pretty contemplative and there was this old German couple with I'm going to assume it was their grandson otherwise good job for them but they were telling him like this is what it was like back then

and he had no idea. And the thing that was crazy to me is I had no idea. My sister asked our parents, like, do you remember this? They're like, oh, yeah, it was a huge deal. Like, it was like one of the biggest things to ever happen. We're like, no one told us. Yeah. Like, how does that, and to be perfectly honest, I've met kids who don't know about 9-11. We're born in like 2005 and just don't. Yeah. No, I'm like, how do you not know? That was pretty recent. But they, I guess I don't know, I don't know what's happening in schools, but yeah, it's like important events seem to only exist with the people that live through them.

And then the second they're gone, it's like, uh, never happened. A new generation, they have the new experiences, right? Like, but I know it's not shocking, but also maybe we sound like old man, you know. I always do. Every, every podcast, I'm an old man screaming at clouds. But it's, it's, yeah, I think it's fascinating. Like, I wasn't around in 72, but I talked. to people who watch that live.

But I drew, too, from my experience, watching 9-11 live on TV, right, unfolding how the entire day I was glued to the TV because we didn't know, is it still going on? Is there more going to happen? What is going on? And I think that's what people went through 172, but they had no reference whatsoever, right? The TV landscape was so different, like, it was so innocent, you know, to confront people live with something like this. I think that's why it made such an impact.

you know the film mentioned it at the end but like more people saw that than Armstrong Armstrong walking on the moon it which is like unimaginable right like and it tells you something about human nature too like wait we shot a second first man on the moon but how we're interested in seeing tragedy and you know like that that whole new cycle of obstin where it's like a voyeuristic part of human nature maybe that's satisfied there which and I think there's no easy answer for it like everybody has to decide for themselves but I can just say for me as a filmmaker

and literally a cameraman right like on big movies I work with operators but on this one I was operating a camera because it was so intuitive and like I mentioned tight spaces my long time camera camera operator Stefan Sossner was my big cam operator so we had great tag team

but standing there in a moment in literally in Munich realizing this is exactly what it had happened like 50 years ago the responsibility you feel what you show what you don't show and you know how it is like we there's something spooky you have there's a masked man on a balcony and we I zoom in and we do slickering light and and heightened attention it's like filmed like a horror film like it this is but it's obviously fabricated right this is objectively speaking there's a there's a human in a

mask we just we're scared of him but because obviously we anticipate bad things to happen, but these are all filmmaking techniques we use, right, to, I don't want to say manipulate, but to shape and craft the scene, so hopefully people feel and we do it justice, but usually we're doing like fictional stuff. Like this is really, this has got me thinking,

even like today I'm on a movie, a completely different movie now, but like you just feel the responsibility of what will, people take out of it, right? It's not just all fun and popcorn and entertainment, right? Like people really, my son films affect

how people think about other people. Yeah. Yeah, it's it must feel weird to go from like, you know, what was it, red notice? Yeah, like red notice to constellation to this. You know, it's kind of like that, you know, the definition of popcorn

well, not necessarily not, but red notice for sure. Like popcorn fun, a little bit different and then you know reality essentially and I think actually I did want to know about reshooting all of that actually I guess it's kind of like a two-part question the first being reshooting all of the um what do you call it archival yeah because I didn't really especially because you have those real shots of um was it Peter Jennings or whoever at Jim McKay Jim McKay, yeah. Those blends so seamlessly that I just assumed, oh, they must have licensed all this from a very forgiving ABC.

But that plus, I wanted to go back and talk about the reasoning behind using all those lenses. And how you said, building tension with the anamorphic was one. But it did look like you had four different lens sets on there. Yeah, I mean. And you shot 16, right, for some of the archival? Yeah, some of the archival footage because we had to, we had the references of the material that was shot,

some were shot on that analog, live camera, but a lot of it was shot on 16 and then shown on telescen and back from tape. And so for a long time we talked, discussed, should we shoot the whole thing on film and right for that 70s period? But also knowing

how we wanted to film this and knowing Tim Bellbaum, who liked to shoot really long takes, everything, every scene, we didn't break it up into individual coverage where you say let's cut and set up a wide shot cut

remarked the accurate position for close up changed the lighting that we never did this we shot the whole thing as a oneer

with two cameras and we always told ourselves like on the rehearsal like we shot a rehearsal obviously where's my rehearsal

cat yeah you got the it gets badge the Larry Fong badge yeah Larry gave me a couple

also so we told ourselves we have only this one attempt to tell that story and get all the beats almost like in the documentary, right? Like what they went through. So we shot, wide shot, a zoom in, walk with, you know, John McGarro's character walking up to microphone, zoom in,

grab the insert, whip hand to somebody coming into the control room door. And because we were two cameras, we could always edit it, you know, like and tighten it up. We always position ourselves in a good way. and then we did two or three takes. And then when Tim felt like, oh, we got it, we have the scene captured.

And when we were good in time, he looked at this watch. And it's like, okay, we saw it like four minutes. Let's do one more wild style. He called it wild style, where he told the actors, you guys can do whatever you want. If you feel like in the middle of the scene,

you want to run out on the hallway or go outside and smoke a cigarette. In the middle of the scene, go for it. And the camera, we would not know what they're doing. We would just follow them, whatever they did. And sometimes something really magical would happen,

but sometimes also fabricated chaos. And that's what it was all in fact. Because the real Jeffrey Mason, he told us, like back then they were so overwhelmed. It was so fast and chaotic at some point, right? Like, alone the stress of doing live television, but in doing life, they were not journalists, news journalists. They were like sportscasters, right?

like they're yeah it'd be like if ESPN got handed this out of nowhere and we just got like shack on TNTNBA going uh and yes they were right there right but they were not trained to also the political context and how you know how do we name what are these people how should we call these people on TV that that whole race of terrorists or terrorism there was not a thing back then I know this so going back to this so we discussed shooting the whole thing on film and we said like no we want to do his long takes and also want to use the TV monitors as like a key light source. I want to feel, you know, they're glued to the screens.

You have to feel the light coming from those screens. And all our actors are wearing glasses on purpose so you can see the reflection of what they're looking at. So we passed a film, but then decided to shoot digital and Red We Raptor for the majority. But then I felt like this, we have to counter this with something that's from the time. and then when research lenses

and actually there's a special edition of the American Cinematographer magazine talking about the Olympics 72 because it was such a technological milestone is an entire special edition. The whole magazine is about the Olympics and because they had invited directors from all over the world

to shoot special documentaries like artistic films during the time and so they talk all about who they bring in, what DPs and what cameras they use but nobody's like in the day mentioned lenses. You know, today all we talk about is like,

oh, I'm using that vintage lens or I detuned that. Have you heard of that new? That's rich coming from you, buddy. Yeah. But back in the 70s, no, they took lenses for granted. It was like something was stuck to the camera. There was maybe, you know, three, four options. So they paid much attention to it.

It's my take. I don't know. It wasn't around. I mean, you remember those R.E. 16s were just the turret lenses. I doubt anyone swapped those out. Yeah. This is what they had. Yeah.

The camera, right? 8, 16, and a 5 or something. I can't remember what I had back then. And so actually going through that magazine, then I saw the ads, and that was the best clue. I could see what was the latest lenses advertised at the time, because knowing the Olympics would use

the most cutting-edge technology that is what they used. And I found that lens, it's called a ZoomR, it's the first Zoom lens ever made for it, made for 35mm stills photography and it's the first ever and it looks stunning you can still find it today

about two copies of eBay the collector's items and we had them PL mounted and modified so we could shoot with them and the it's fascinating to hold

these lenses were even made in Munich the company made them in Munich said like this is a sign we have to use those and they were because the ZoomR

made a lot of range of zoom lenses really long ones. So the Olympics Way shot, a lot of that stuff was shot on Zoomine lenses for like track, like far long distance stuff. But we knew we're going to be up close in the control room. So none of those old lenses would focus close and or be wide

enough. So we used that zoomar lens that was designed for still photography and made it work for film. Yeah. Talk to me about self-modifying that DZO Zoom. How did you pull that off? And I'll say, don't try this at home.

Yeah. Yeah, so actually with that Sineflare's lens database, I started, right, which became like a passion project for years. I keep every time in between projects or I keep testing lenses, right? So far we kept, we tested 100 sets of lenses. I think currently we have like 85 lenses online

shared, but we test. over 100 length sets already. It's a couple hundred individual focal lengths. And sometimes, because it's all short of motion control, I discover like, wow, look at that. What is it? So maybe 28 mil Olympus made for stills photography. When you shoot a T4 and put a light source at the edge of frame, something super magical happens. That really makes, it reminds you on a certain period like this. That's like the 70s. So I tested all these things. I tested all zoom lenses, but there's, I knew also we have to shoot handheld and we have to shoot fast these old zooms from the 70s besides that, that still zoom I mentioned, they're all pretty big

and heavy or that if those focus is not good. So I decided to actually buy a set of those picture zooms, then fairly affordable. And I knew I wanted to just experiment and take them apart and to because what I learned from that synophers database I saw certain effects happening in certain lens groups and I'm not a lens designer or lens like optical engineer at all but I know what I like and respond to and I had a feeling where this must happen in which is this happening in front of the iris behind the iris and stuff like that so I took those zooms apart it was two zooms and I did all kinds of stuff like I did with a thin layer of dust between you know there's air gaps and then clean it off like with gentle air pressure off the center so the center is kind of pristine towards the edges there's a bit of dust some fine dust some between some there's like brought it like lint so because I like this if you if you have a real old lens they and you stop them down a bit you see the dust particles in between and it adds a little diffusion haliation effect and it's so random versus using a filter in front you know in a mat box which is like a

two-dimensional effect. So we'd spread it out over several lens groups. I'd put fingerprints, like literally in certain parts of the frame. I knew, for example, we have those hanging lights in the control room, always above the frame. And I knew there would be a lot of bright lights there. So I put fingerprints towards the top of the frame over three or four lens surfaces where to zoom, so that when you end into this lens, there's like almost a three-dimensional alienation happening. It's not just the front filter. So that all sounds very fun and great until I

had to put them back together. It's quite easy to take them apart, but it took me maybe 20 minutes to disassemble them and then I experimented with different dust and stuff, put them back, roughly back together, put it on camera, looked at it. But then when I wanted to perfectly assemble it and make sure all the mechanics work, everything was stuck. Nothing would work. Even if it was a puzzle to put it together, so it took me the entire day. and I finished and said okay it's back together it's like a puzzle but

dang nothing would move anymore everything was stuck and I need some help and I went to every rental was our camera rental they helped they organized all the camera package and stuff like

hey Manfred he's the lens genius can you help me with the thing I messed with it too deep and he said oh I give it to me and in 15 minutes he came back and the thing looked like

brand new like it's mechanics like all that the modification was still in there, but the mechanics were butter smooth. I don't know how they do it. They probably just cleaned out some of the dust you put in the mechanic. I can just tell them. I told them

don't touch anything. But the lens probably they've never touched before either. It's amazing how you cannot, there's no easy blue prints and they're all a bit different. And then it was brilliant. But I never, ever since I never touched that lens again, if it's like a one-off.

I don't want to open it or clean it Just leave it like that. Yeah, you should have someone like etch your name into it or something, you know, so that it's like real nice that looks like factory. Yeah. I'll see if I ever shoot on this again. But. So in the control room, it was mostly those DZO zooms and then the Apollo animorphic.

Were there other primes? Yeah, we used for inserts. That's like a kill fit, macro, keelar. It's like a 90 million. It's also made in Munich. It's a 90 millimeter macro lens. I think it was one of the first macro lenses that looks stunning. It also covers full frame, a lot of formats.

So use that for really tight inserts. The zoomar, I had a couple of those special old photo zooms. I put, which we didn't, we couldn't peel mount them, so I only used them for special inserts. Whenever we recreated archival footage, I would manually focus anyways. We don't need to put geelings on and make sure it works properly.

I use sometimes some old zooms, which I collected over the universe, and I knew they have that feel, it's hard to say what it is, right? But if you start with a too clean lens, you can try whatever you want is color grading and film emulation,

but if the lens is too contrasty and too sterile, I think it's like baked into the image. Yeah. Well, you had mentioned that you, went to college with director and looking at some of those behind the scenes photos just seeing you guys holding those V-Raptors

just very clean builds you know like locket box monitor that's it and it did it looks like a student film not not the final product but like just the creation of it like just you know you got a little camera you're just you know filming yeah we stripped it down I'm obsessed with it you know how it is on a big film

sometimes the camera builds road turns into a tank, yeah. And if you don't look, if you turn around, suddenly there's cup holders installed, you know, like everything in five minutes. And so there we were like an amazing first ACs, like Oliver Schill and Ken McDonald, they both focus of whither.

It's like the way we shot, like very few people can pull that off, like no marks, no rehearsals. And you also, they're such a creative choice, right, to, in that moment to decide now, do you say shallow on somebody? or you go focus deep on a monitor looking at, they were really massively important to make this work.

So in pre-production, we built those packages as small as possible because I knew we wanted small and light means speed, right, and flexibility. So we don't have to rebuild the rig for some other special thing. I knew if you build it like that, that we can do everything because we didn't do dollies or anything. We had, there's like one slider shot. and then I think

two Stadicam shots in the hallway everything else is handheld sometimes handheld on a rickshaw or very grounded yeah but I think it's so important like when I operate myself

you want to become one with the camera and I'm not a person I didn't I didn't grow up with looking through a viewfinder I'm like maybe I'm a digital kid and I'm fairly tall. Most actress are a bit shorter. So if I would put a camera on my shoulder,

looking through a viewfinder, I would look down at them. And I want to be, you know, eye level or maybe lower and make the world look impressive with them. So I hold it in front of my body. I need a monitor on top. Also like when I'm lighting and raming, I like to see the space in 3D with my eyes looking past the monitor. Like when you're looking through a viewfinder, yes, you're immersed into the moment, but maybe I'm not, I miss something. where I could react. I could take half a step to the left and react to this and frame out that.

You have a better awareness. Yeah, yeah. And also seeing what's happening with the light, like, oh, yeah, there's something up there. I can, like, turn to the other side. But it's so subjective. Everybody works different and you just have to build the camera.

The way you feel is right for you. And today, all these cameras are so great, right? It doesn't matter. I don't know. You shoot on a red camera on a Lexus. Sony if you feel like if you feel at home with a certain system you know it in and out

it's just a tool if you know how to expose and like we back then most of the references we looked at there was documentaries they shot on like reversal film and like they had like I don't know maybe eight stops latitude or something like we have

so that's so luxurious we could shoot 1600 ASA in dark corridors and I was creatively so liberating it was super tough because it was such a tight space and we had to be so creative because when I read the script I saw it and like Tim showed it to me like what do you think? I think it's going to be

is the film going to be are we doing justice to these events by staying so focused on the perspective of that ABC crew and how can we give this scope or the illusion of scope you know it's like I mean you're a magician you know how it works it only matters what's in

the frame but if you indicate that the world is bigger than what's in the frame it will feel bigger like, you know, we see those helicopters approaching. It's also something we recreated with a miniature helicopter. Yeah, they're little drones, right? It's like an RC helicopter.

We found this amazing pilot he built this over the course of 10 years and his hobby. And it happened to be this exact model that was the right laddering of this German border police helicopter from the 70s. And we could film, actually, we tried to get a permit

to or explore to, can we fly a real helicopter through the Olympic Village and we would not get any permission not even the German Chancellor was ever allowed to go there with a helicopter for like

our ceremony or something and we discussed doing a visual sex but then everything in our film is so grounded and tactile and feels real we tried to capture all this stuff in camera

that's why we used miniatures for the helicopter and we used a simple trick there to give it scale like the helicopter flies appears to fly behind the TV towers and that gives it scale in fact it flies in front of it because it's so small

and then we used a simple split screen that makes it appear like it goes behind the TV tower so it must be big and then it's the end the whole showdown you know there's a shootout happening at the airport and it was the whole story was that our characters go there

to film it take a picture of it but it didn't quite see what was happening. It's all based on the true facts. People were stuck on a sense and the police would prevent them from going too close to the airport. But they didn't quite see the outcome. That's why the whole reporting happened that they saw at some point everybody is released. It's like a happy ending. So we scouted the original airport where that happened and it's not accurate anymore. The whole surrounding changed as like a BMW. you test track around like the

dryer testing new cars like sensors and stuff so we there too discussed how we make it a like in production meetings you know you always discuss how do we tackle this problem and and I feel like these days everybody's just pointing at the Visex supervisor like you just

make it you guys build it right but then knowing again how Tim likes to shoot and like we're coming from this documentary style we're not going to just frame for nicely wide shot and leave a space to comp in the airport. We want to shoot through a fence,

rec focus, have like extras crossing, smoke and stuff and zooming in, crash zoom to the stuff you would never want to do on a reflection shot because it would be impossible to track or come. They would tell you shoot it more safe and then we'll add all that stuff later, but it would never have that energy.

So I said, dull stories about that they can barely see what's happening at the airport and we shoot it through fence with smoke and shaky and dark and then let's do it as a miniature very simple and I think nobody believed me this would work so I tested

I did with an intern, a PA at the production office I just, we had test scout pictures from the relay airport I printed it with the office printer and put it on a parking lot at night and I just lit it with one LED tube and showed them how it looks like

and this was like a proof of concept and let's move forward with this and there's production designer, they did a great job. They then Photoshop based on real pictures of the airport, made sure it changed everything. It wasn't appear, really accurate. So it's pretty much like a cutout

miniature where we backlit the windows with a couple of LED tubes with some practical smoke. And then with visual effects, they come into scale some of the muscle flash fire and the sound effects. And that

way, I think again, it's like in a magician's trick, You don't want to quite see it, but you feel that it's there, or you believe you'll probably go out of the theater and you think, you could swear I've seen it, but you didn't really see it. In your imagination, you've seen it, right? They always say, right, we don't, we think we see with our eyes, but we see with our brain. Our eyes are stocking in so much information that does not make any sense, and our brain tries to make sense out of it. And we believe, we see what we know, what we think we, we know I'm going to think of shape. Yeah. I did want to know about, first of all, I didn't know it was a cutout watching them. I thought, yeah, the real building out there. But I did want to know about the look of the film because I think it, it does lean vintage, I suppose, but it is its own unique thing.

And what I really loved was the kind of cool steel blue versus tungsten look to it. But it's not like aggressive. You know, it's all very kind of muted. I was wondering kind of like what you were aiming for there. Were you just shooting the camera at like $4,300 the whole time so you could get that balance? Were they color temperature or were they like color? Color temperature. So everything was LED.

So we programmed those colors to look right in camera. So we created one simple show lot for the whole thing that used some film emulation as a base. But then it's all done with lighting to get this balance right. like you mentioned, like most films I've seen from the 70s, they were all shot with tungsten lighting. They're usually very warm or the blacks are warm monochromatic. And I always knew like, that's why I don't want to recreate something that looks like it's shot actually in the 70s. It should evoke the feel of the period, but also feel more present. Because back then when they were walking those corridors and looking at these events happening, this was real time for them, right?

this was like the most cutting-edge technology that felt modern. And so I wanted to find this hybrid that feels familiar with the period, but also has something modern. And I think the more contemporary approach of lighting with LEDs and cooler light that comes from the screens. And then we also, we used very high ISO, like 1600 ISO, to boost the light coming from the TVs that added already a certain grain to the image. Like we did, there's some additional grain edit, but if you look at the dailies, like what we saw on set and what went to the edit until the final film, it's very close to how we shot it and exposed it.

And it was so important to have that show lot dialed in that you can really make those choices quickly, right? they say like, wow, this is no, this is too dark, or we get away with it and or we, let's, especially knowing I want to make sure all these scenes feel different and

it does have a richness, right, that came from color, like, how do we make sure that it doesn't feel literally monochromatic, that we spend so much time in the same location that hopefully when you go out of the theater, you forget about it, that we spend maybe 80% in the control room

and it's all done with lighting constantly change the lighting mid-scene when they have this countdown and they're going live on air it's almost like a rocket launch there's something they say three, two, one a certain lights turn off in the background

then the TV studio which there was the only one that a real TV studio within our film studio where Jim McKay was technically giving his live broadcast we had a double of Jim McKay

which we used to introduce that he's there. He would walk in and out in white shots. And this was all lit with real tungsten light. And I actually have to say I haven't used tongues light in forever. You know, there's some people swear on it. All they use is tongue from light in today. And I'm the opposite. Like the moment LEDs came up and I thought like even in the early days when the color wasn't perfect yet, I was like, I don't care. We'll make this work because the advantage is to be able to modify on the fly and improve from take to take without jam. and stuff is so big that and now the color is so good on LEDs but we had to use

old really old tungsten frenel lights that are on camera like we see them as like a set dressing but they also had to light the scene and I mean affected how the whole thing looked like that was a there was a fun experience yeah I mean I saw the in that actually I guess you see it in the movie but yeah like the zip lights and stuff. I remember when I've told the story before, but when I was much younger, I was shooting a medical instructional video. I guess you'd call it an industrial. And the head gaffer there on the set that this medical company had was tungsten only, right? I was like, I've got keynote LEDs in my trunk right now we can use. Or maybe it was the bulbs at the time. But

he was like, oh, we're tungsten all the time. But I did remember. seeing a Ziplight in person going, oh, I've made it. Because in film school, they were like, these are the best soft lights you can get. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're better. It's the same when I used,

I think, Kino Flows for the first time. I was like, wow, if I like, that's what the pros use, right, in my early days. And, I mean, it was such a unique soft light source. And now I feel like with LED technology, they come in all different kinds, size and shapes, but it's yeah

they still all have the individual quality right like what in a stere tube does versus like a sky panel and it's not it's not just sometimes you think it's just copy paste you put the same color values on

and we'll feel the same it still because it's the size and shape and how hard it feels or soft and yeah for us the tricky part was really using the monitors of the light source or the Steenbeck editing machine in the dark to feel like the light is really coming from that machine. We did all kinds of tricks like we used my iPad in the background. We had this editing room where we had the hero Steenbach and then in the background

there was a second editing bay and Marianne, the translator played by Leone Banish. She was like translating something and then needed to be something else. that screen but we didn't have any film to put in to play back and they said let's just make it glow it white and it kind of burn in something with your sex and then tim and i said like no let's figure something out to get this in camera and i had my ipad which i always use as a like a director's viewfinder you know with a viewfinder app and i and i had the dailies on we just had shot a couple days prior at the olympic village we shot some of those archival pieces like some people talking in the camera, hey, we're here at the Olympic Village, that stuff she would watch on her

editing machine, and I saw like this iPad sits, it's like 4x3, it fits perfectly into the scene back, you know, the ground glass, but it fits in there, it didn't even have to tape it, it was just made for it. It's like, we got to just do this now and, and play back the dailies. I'd like the dailies from the, you know, the play, like the daly system. It wouldn't use Pigs or the different system. So it just could play that back without any grab, I would just improvise it on the day, but it's out of focus and it's there, and then again, it's not just that

it saves you money because you say it's a bit of factual, but it also you can judge the sky had like a blue sweater on, like you judge the lighting and it reflects into the room and I also could make sure it's the right brightness so it feels real, like sometimes

you know, we're there on set as cinematographers, but then in post-production, months later, somebody will do a visual effects comp and then they decide how bright is that monitor and usually they play too safe maybe not understanding the exposure values when you're in a dark room

a monitor is like almost blown out like a bright window on a sunny day right and you need that to feel right and also again like we for us it was always about not showing but indicating

and we don't want to perfectly show it it's like the audience supposed to fill in the gaps to play with a contrast ratio well and the other did you guys uh kind of play with the black point at all was there like were you kind of like because it feels very crushed but not not in like a bad way but just like is was that in an attempt to kind of emulate a high ISO film kind of thing because you it's not like you know a lot of movies now you can see into the black point yeah yeah um this

I always was inspired by there was a technique when we like when you shoot on film you can slash the blacks, where basically to heighten the sensitivity of your negative, right, you pre-exposed it to very low light level, which then technically makes the film a bit more sensitive in the blacks, but it also makes the blacks milky. So it's almost like an optical illusion.

You think you see more into the blacks by lifting the whole blacks up. And so this was something I was after, because I found like if you show really deep blacks hitting zero, value right it feels way too modern and and people like you know people talk always about how does film look like and everybody has a different imagination or memory do you really want to see how film looks like for real like today in 2024 how it would look like if you expose it bring it to a lab scan it back in or is it more like a memory of a romantic memory of how film looks like and people always think film has these amazing colors and deep blacks but if you project film you because you have light

like xenon light going through this 35mm film. And even if you have a deep black, there's some light coming through that black that lifts the black slithery on a projector. And today with like digital projection or monitors and like laser projectors, so that we can achieve a way deeper black, even deeper black than film could do.

And that sometimes I think not necessarily, and it doesn't make the image better. it can be, right? You can use it maybe to see more detail in a black, but we used it to create silhouettes like where you feel

we still see into the darkness, but it's actually like crushed, compressed black. But it's all down the way we exposed it. It was fairly dark and we had this lookup table created that prevented our blacks to go to here. And like after I can show that to

Lauren Woodsey Martin who's like my colorist and is also based in Munich. and he has such a great sensibility like whenever I can we work together in creating a show lot for a specific project and be really inventive

and not just use something we used in the past but say what's September 5, it's a 70s film if you have to luxury to create your own personal film stock you don't have to just choose Fuji or Kodak or whatever area or Sony or Alexa

you can make your own film stock and this is like There's so much testing involved, obviously, but, and that's what I like to make one thing that fits it all. Like, it's almost impossible, right? How can you make something that works for day, night, exterior, interior, low light, high contrast. But if you shoot enough test sequins and dial it all in,

it's like if you shoot on Kodak film and you expose it properly, you don't need five different film starts for different looks, But sometimes I see people using 12 different lots, lookup tables, one floor, one for magic hour, one floor it. Or that flashback, like, why not find one thing that glues everything together and then you can play with lighting and production design, color choices, costumes? But there's something that all glues it together and makes it feel like, oh, yeah, this is September 5th. I always like films that can pull this off. Like if you see a shot from the Matrix, you know, immediately that's the Matrix. You cannot cut a close-up off, and not just because it's Keanu Reeves, right?

You cannot cut this and mix it into another film. It will immediately, it has its own DNA. And I like films that pull that off that have something unique in every frame or how light behaves within that frame. Yeah. Well, and I imagine having the majority of the film take place in one location probably helps. You know, it doesn't overcomplicate the Lut needs. Totally. But we also had to, sometimes it helps if you have real locations, real daylight, something to ground it. Like because we shot pretty much everything on a sound stage, everything was lit. So we had to, it's like this chicken egg problem, right? When you can create artificially the light and the colors of those tubes. Also, we didn't use with tungsten lighter. It's all made up colors like Kulsorescent and the monish light. There's like a balance that it has to be careful that something doesn't feel too stylized because at the end of the day, our film is space.

based on true events and you wanted to feel authentic, but at the end of the day, it's not a documentary, right? It is a thriller, it is a historic thriller, it shows what happened, but to make, to do it justice, to do this events, like to show how maybe people, what they went through, you have to make it thrilling, because that's what I think what I heard from people watching it, or from my experience, watching 9-11 happening,

it's a wild feeling, right? And how do you put this on the screen? And I can never say, like, Tim Philbom is such a brilliant director in me. Like, he's focused on very used specific things. And, like, you know, the movie can become really overwhelming. You try to do this and this and that. And like what I like about working with him, he's like, he wants to make it as authentic as possible.

And as, like, nothing, like, he would never settle for the, in a production meeting sometimes we discuss a problem how do we shoot this, how we solve this and then the most obvious idea it's thrown out and everybody, oh yeah, that's how we do it. He would never go for this. We always try to find something that's

unique to this project like mentioning the way we filmed it, we pretty much shot it like a one or like a birdman that has no cuts, but then we tighten it all up in editing. It was always planned that way that we get these connecting pieces

and it's tightened up so that you see somebody throwing somebody the keys and you whip pen with it and it's tightened up but you feel all these connecting pieces and that's I think what hopefully makes it feel more real

and you're more immersed because it doesn't have this constructed that's set up the white shot, cut to the medium shot, turn around, it's smoothed the furniture out of the way so the camera dolly fits there and redress this part and continuity

like we didn't do this. We built everything on a sound stage, but we never pulled a wall or something. Like our department would ask which wall should we make wild? And so like, no, let's not do this. We literally talked about the dust board. Remember this German film,

the submarine film, and it was actually shot on those same sound stages in Munich. And there's a studio tour, like for tourists, and they still have the original set from Dasport outside. So sometimes doing lunch breaks, Tim and I would go there and just walk through the set when there was like no visitors

tourists going through and every time I felt you know when we shot the entire day in our control room and it felt so claustrophobic and then I went during lunch break through the sport and I felt oh my God

this is claustrophobic after being good coming back in our luxury set unbelievable how they pulled that off and I know it used to Kano the cinematographer is amazing as one of my mentors he's retired now and lives in Munich

and what he pulled off running through the submarine set with his gyro-stabilizer and the energy like he does before his daddy camera he built this gyro-stabilizer

on a handheld camera It's like the two balls right that just like spin yeah I'd seen that and then they choreographed with all the people they also fabricated chaos right it's not

if you want to create the sensation of chaos but without confusing the audience you don't just want to confuse the audience then you lose them right They're going to look at their song and check the text messages. You have to create this eye energy, but still keep the eyes focused on a certain part of the screen. And that's why, you know, like, I think on a last talk, you're a magician, right?

Like, what you do as a magician, you direct the audience, nice. Just decks a card sitting around. That's what I. You direct the attention of the viewer to a certain part of the frame, right? In real life performance or on a stage, it's all. also like a frame. And the same we do, I think, as cinematographers with lighting and composition and depth of feel. We direct the attention to somewhere. And sometimes it's the most interesting not to direct the attention to the most obvious place, right? Maybe it's not the best to have the eyes

and focus and visible. Maybe you want a silhouette and just hear it. Like, there's no clear rule, but I think that's what's so fascinating about the language of cinema and what we do as cinematographers right and to direct the audience gets the information of what's important for the scene but also make you feel like there's something to discover there's a mystery behind it right does this shot have a soul and it's not just you're capturing a performance in bright light right it's not we're not performance captures that's all about building a cinematic at world well well i can tell you for sure, at least in my theater. Two moments, I remember the audience in, I guess, was one gasp.

I can't remember where, but like the sound cut out, basically, and there was like an audible gasp. And then laughter when the runner gets interviewed. And I was like, that's good. I'm glad we're all on the same page here. Yeah, it's such a fun scene, right? when talking about right now about all the artistry of filmmaking

but then in September 5 there's the scene that really happened these shots were fired in the middle of the night and the crew was not in yet and they knew they want to investigate and have to film something so there was no cameraman yet and there was this assistant and Peter Saskar's character

he's like wait there's no cameraman like who are you like he's just an assistant and then he's asking him like can you hold a camera yeah Do you know how to load film? Yeah. Okay, here's a cameraman.

That's all that matters. You put the camera and film document the event, right? That's sometimes like talking, maybe sometimes to producers, you feel like that's what that's your whole job. Yes, yeah. Not the good ones, obviously, right? Like you discuss more detail. Or maybe that's what really is about and we are all just crazy and trying to do this. Just up our own asses about it.

well I've kept you a little over and I know it's probably late where you are because the sun's down here now so I'll let you go but I absolutely fucking loved this movie and it was very exciting to see your name pop up on it because I was like it's my friend you know but it happens every once in a while and I get excited um actually unique film I'm so glad I was so glad to be part of this and and so excited for Tim to see what where his career is going with films he's going to do next and everyone involved

there was such a small passionate project we had no clue right we shot this like in a submarine we had no idea that one day we would it gets a golden globe nomination right for best picture like unbelievable and you cannot control it

there's no big studio behind it when we made it it was a small independent film and premiered in Venice in a side section like nobody wanted to like to what is this film and then

they got such great reviews, and I think it may, especially for people working in the media, they really see themselves in this and appreciate the detail that went into it. So there was really instrumental that have really critics rooting for a film. Now, I'm just glad that people get to see it. Yeah, well, yeah, because it comes out, this podcast will come out after it comes out in the U.S., but it comes, I guess, came out in the U.S. on the 17th, right? There's a limited release right now in New York, L.A. and Toronto, and then on the 17th of January, there's the white release.

Yeah, and then I'll pick it up on the Blu-ray, too. Just make sure everyone gets an extra buck. Thanks, I'm great talking to you. You do, man. Next time, when you come back to L.A., let me know. Yeah, yeah. I'm in L.A. now, but I'm flying out tomorrow. I'm on a movie. Same. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I leave it six in the morning, so we have to do it all the way back. Awesome. Yeah, I can't wait.

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

Thank you.