Frame & Reference Podcast - 18: “Bridgerton” DP Jeffrey Jur, ASC

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

On todays episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast, Kenny talks with cinematographer Jeffrey Jur, ASC about the hit Netflix series "Bridgerton." Jeffery is a very prolific DP having shot the 1987 classic “Dirty Dancing” as well as episodes of “Westworld”, “Dexter”, “Halt and Catch Fire”, and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” In addition to those amazing credits, Jeffrey has won two Emmys for his work on “Bessie” and “Carnivale” and received the American Society of Cinematographers Television Career Achievement Award in 2019. Make sure to check out his full IMDb, his filmography is truly impressive! Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry.

Hello and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today I'm talking with Jeffrey Jur, the DP of the hugely popular show, Bridgerton, which is available now, and he's shooting season two. as we speak. So, uh, or depending on when you listen to this, it's already out. I don't know. Time is an illusion. Um, we had a great conversation as always, uh, you know, I said this a couple times, but I feel like these interviews are getting better and better. Uh, and I as an interviewer and I'm learning more and more, which is nice. Um, Jeffrey was fantastic. Uh, we learn a lot about the, uh, sort of world of television cinematography, which is, which has changed pretty drastically because now television and film are all

almost one thing where they didn't used to be. So I think you're really going to enjoy this one. I certainly did. And I'm going to shut up and then, as always, immediately start talking from the past. So please enjoy this conversation with Jeffrey Jure. To start off, what got you into cinematography? I know you got started. You're from Chicago?

I'm from Chicago, yes. I got the bug early on in high school. I was doing a little bit of photography, still photography. I had some photography classes and then I transferred and went to a school that had a film class. I thought that'd be fun, I should try that. And this is back in Super 8 days and I started shooting films and I was very prolific in high school.

I made about five movies and I made one film It was about a kid who moves into a new neighborhood, which is my story, basically, a little bit of my life. And the principal of the school really liked the concept to show new kids, you know, what it's like to come into a new neighborhood. And he said, well, we make copies. Well, Super 8's kind of just the quality doesn't really translate very well. And so I said, can I, you know, if you give me a little bit of money, I'll shoot it in 16 millimeter. And then we can make copies from that. And so he said, okay, how much do you mean?

I said, $400. So it ended up costing $800, I think, eventually. But I remade the film with real actors and shot it in 16 black and white. And it was a film that actually got me a scholarship at Columbia College in Chicago to go there. And so that sort of started me on my journey, as it were. Yeah. So do you think there's sort of a modern analog to that sort of, because I've kind of heard that a lot, you know, for instance, I got started in high school, but no one was going to

really reward a mini DV sort of slap together matrix copy. Do you think that that sort of analog still exists today where someone can make a sort of student film and get noticed enough to make it to like high school or something like that? Or is that kind of gone? I think so. Well, it seems like the technology is so advanced now. You can make a fairly professional product, I think, on your phone or on your Mac or whatever. So, yeah, I think if you have a great story and you tell it well and it has some motion to it, if not professionalism, you know, people are going to notice. A good movie is a good movie and they're how it's made. So I think, yeah, you can still get noticed that way.

I don't know if there's scholarships available still, but it's a way to break in. And it's amazing that you have this kind of access these days, you know, digitally. The, you know, scaling up was tough. In the early days with film processing, all that stuff, you really had to, you know, be careful about spending money. You couldn't get too deep, elaborate. So it's gotten easier, I guess, I want to say.

more prevalence everywhere available everywhere so maybe it's a little harder to stand out but I think if you do something from the heart and create something that means something to you it's going to reach out to people yeah well and the key obviously pardon me the key obviously is story you know having a great story and there's so many tools now that can help you out when you were in college did you uh did you kind of have like a friend group that you worked with What was that experience like for you as a, as a collaborator? Yeah, it's absolutely where I learned about a film set and collaboration. When I was shooting these films in high school, it was basically me doing everything.

I had a friend helping me push a wheelchair for a dolly, that kind of stuff. But in film school, it's really where you learn to collaborate. You learn what your specialty maybe is. I certainly went in as a filmmaker, but came out as a cinematical. photographer. It just appealed to me as far as being at the kind of creative core of many different projects. I had friends that were directing, but it took forever. It was years sometimes to make the one film to just to, you know, to edit, to go through the whole process and to, you know, skip money if it was that kind of a scale of project. And whereas I could work on, you know, a lot of

different films and enjoy that creative sort of process. So it really caught me pretty early on in film school that that's what I wanted to do and specialize in. So yeah, I learned a lot of hands-on stuff at that school in particular. That's a really great school for just making films. At that time, you could study and sort of there was an intellectual and academic direction you could go in with film classes. And I just wanted to make. make films. It was very personal to me and it was a way of getting my voice out that I didn't have in my life other than with through films and photography. Sure. Yeah, I went I went to Arizona State for film which is a little less prestigious but I do remember there was the there was

everyone was drawn to film production and then there was film and media studies and anyone who was anyone who was in film and media studies either intended to be there half of them and then like there was always the sort of kids who, for some reason, production didn't sit. They weren't able to nail it. And so they were just like always stuck in studies. And we're all like, we're going to make it. And then using that opportunity is definitely where in college, especially like a fun college, like ASU is what can get away from you. You know, what kept you sort of driven to not get distracted by life?

You know, it's easy to, was it just a singular vision? I will make film? Yeah, pretty much. It's been like that ever since. I've never wanted to do anything else. I've only done this since probably, gosh, since I was about 16 or 17. I was very young when I went to film school. It was a school that was sort of a second school for a lot of folks there. They had degrees. They had gone to other, had studied other fields and then wanted to sort of specialize in film. So most of them were older. There was Vietnam vets at this time, too. coming into the educational system. And so, and I was, I think, 18 or 19 when I was there. So I was pretty young. But again, it was just something very, very personal, and it's something I needed to do.

I needed to be able to tell my stories through filmmaking. And then through cinematography, through other people's projects. So, yeah, it's been just that. I mean, you mentioned a bond of sort of friends. I've certainly been in touch with people for all those years. There's still some people hanging in in Chicago and doing amazing work. It's a tough place to stay in the film business because it's primarily at the time when I was there.

Certainly it was a lot of industrials and commercials, things like that. There were feature films that would come and you could maybe get on the crew, but you were sort of peripheral to the process. And a lot of people said, you know, California or New York is really, where you have to go. So I spent a few years working as like an assistant. There was a PA. I was an electrician on the Blues Brothers for about three weeks and made a bunch of money. So, you know, but I was always shooting. I was always, always shooting for free. I wasn't making money doing that. So I needed to work as a PA or, you know, a camera assistant on

industrials, 16 millimeter industrials, things like that. But eventually I got enough stuff together. And I was lucky to get a break in Chicago. There was a producer that did projects for American Playhouse for PBS. So these were real actors and real directors that would come in. And it was a local crew and myself. And we made films that were seen, you know, on television, on public television. So that sort of started me heading west into California. Sure.

You had mentioned, you know, films deeply personal to you. But as the cinematographer, you don't, I think that's something that maybe hits a lot of people, certainly hit me, was as the cinematographer, you're not necessarily speaking with your voice. Did that transition hit you funny? Or was, how did you navigate that sort of change? It continues to hit me funny. Because you're always telling someone else's story. And what you try to do, of course, is to find stories that mean something to you.

at the beginning, you're just happy to be working and you're learning from every project you're on. But eventually, you catch up, hopefully, with people, filmmakers, and with projects that have your worldview. It started with me, I started working with John Dole on some projects. We did a couple of features way back and I've been doing television together since John transitioned to television more. So, you know, when you find somebody like that

that you sort of connect with, you're able to have a lot of your voice and your worldview come through your work. Yeah. When you were working on Blues Brothers, did you, as a young filmmaker, did you notice anything that stuck with you to this day, like some lesson that you learned or a technique, maybe?

It was very old school at the time. They were using arc lights, actually, when they were bouncing them into the ceilings, they were shooting downtown Chicago. And just the scale of a project like that was amazing to watch. And it wasn't anything I really aspired to. You know, I liked smaller personal films.

You know, I grew up in the time of last picture show and the conversation, European films, Last Hang on Paris, you know, just very personal sort of stories. So this was, you know, Blues Brothers was like a huge, you know, studio picture. It wasn't anything I really, I saw myself ever doing. I've worked on some beer features for sure, but nothing on that scale. I don't know if that I learned anything.

It was just amazing to see, to witness that level of filmmaking and, and just see it, you know, sort of in front of me. But yeah, I don't know if that was my aspiration for me. Sure. Sure. You get a taste of the volume, you know, the gain of a production like that. Yeah. Get you mentally prepared. All the trucks. You say, yeah, the giant box trucks. Talking about film and television, you've mostly worked in television.

And the look of TV, it's not seems to, absolutely has changed from, you know, I was checking out your IMD. You know, even something like, It's Pat all the way to Dexter, one of my favorite series of all times. And even it's, you know, you had worked on two episodes of Westworld. Yes. How does, how has television changed from a cinematography perspective throughout the years? And are there any sort of examples from those sort of bigger shows that you can point to that were maybe tent pole, maybe even stuff you didn't work on, like tent pole, like that actually changed the look of modern television?

Well, I have to say I was part of a show for HBO called Carnival. And it was sort of the beginning of that level of production value that was very heightened, obviously really high end and feature level production design. and post-production and acting, and just everything about it was at a very high level. So it was amazing to be part of that. That was about 2003, 2004. And HBO was just starting to, you know,

get into that level of production. They had the Sopranos and Sex and the City, six feet under was amazing. But Carnival, I think, was probably one of the first period things. And then Rome and a few other projects came in after that. But it was sort of the early stages of expecting a feature quality on television. And it was thrilling to be part of it. It was amazing that that was happening and that television was going that way.

I mean, when I started out doing television, you know, it was definitely, it was considered, you know, secondary somehow to features. I remember I've been doing small movies, independent films, and I worked on a, I got hired to do a television series called. terrorist on trial. And I remember the producer calling me and saying, well, you know, this is television. Are you going to be fast enough for it? Which was funny because the films I've been doing been 25 days or, you know, maybe 30 days at the most. So, you know, I had still had to convince him that I was fast enough. But in those days, you know, it was considered, you know, well, it's television, You know, it's, and you couldn't cross over. It was tricky.

You know, I had a lot of advice about how much television to do, how many features, you know, if you're doing features, stay with features. In fact, when I was offered dirty dancing, the producer had to convince me. I was, I had actually taken another project that was a television thing. I like the script better. And I was making a huge mistake, and she told me, you really should be doing features. This is a great project for you. You should really do this and convince me to turn my ways around. And I thank her.

I'm grateful every day when I think about that working on that movie that she did that for me. So yeah, features are amazing because you're sort of working with one director. You sort of have one vision, one sort of singular vision going forward, which I like. And on television, it tends to be a little more dissipated. You have different directors coming in. Different people are the key vision sort of guide. It can be a showrunner.

It can be the head writer. It can be a producer, it can be a producer director, stuff like that. So it's a different sort of journey that you have to go through to find your creative outlet with television. I miss features. I would love to go back to them and do them. They seem to be very, very small or very, very big. It's hard to find those mid-level, you know, projects these days.

But I have to say the writing in television is amazing and so good and such a high level. And acting, you know, everybody crosses over back and forth between features and television. So I'm really grateful that it's, you know, not an issue anymore. Yeah. You had touched a little bit there on. consistency. How do you, as a cinematographer, especially in a show, I don't know if this is an example for you specifically, but it may be a show where there are a ton of directors coming in and there's not like, you know, a show, a very strict show Bible. How do you maintain that consistency and how do

you continue to work quickly when someone might come in and go, oh, no, I don't, I don't even like that. Or does that even happen? Oh, it happens all the time. And it's a struggle. I need Any television cinematographer will tell you this. You know, you have to be, you know, you have to be gingerly about it. Directors have their comfort levels. There's sometimes an energy that comes in that they'll provide, which may be a little different from the show itself. But I think there's a way to implement their new ideas into what the show is about.

You know, certainly there might be things that are, seem off base, but I think you can have a conversation about that, like saying, well, this is something that we've never done before. Are you sure this is something you think is important to do? So, you know, you have to be careful about it. There's a, it's a heightened creative space and everybody's working under a lot of pressure. So hopefully when the directors come on, they understand the film. And there's a certain language to every show.

There's a certain sort of style to every show. And it's, what's fun is to play within that, almost like a genre, you know, like you would do a Western or science fiction or whatever. Each show has its own sort of personality. And as a cinematographer, you're primarily responsible. You're often one of, by yourself, or one of two or three people that are the through line for the project. So the producers and the showrunners are relying on you. on the floor, you know, on the, on the, on the, uh, on the, uh, to maintain that consistency.

So, uh, it's, uh, it can be difficult sometimes, but, um, you know, often directors are amazing when they come in and deliver something that you maybe hadn't expected or giving you something that you've always wanted to do. Uh, that's the best experience. So, yeah, it's, uh, it's ongoing thing for sure. Sure. Is the, is there, uh, does television do to that speed and do that change in in vision does that not allow you to sort of push the boundaries of say your lighting or setups or anything like that or is there kind of a base speed that you kind of have to be at on a show on a television show yes certainly you have to get your days for the most part it's very difficult to reschedule stuff so uh I

this is something on your mind all the time. But some days are better than others. Like today we had a little easier day, and it was a way to take a few more chances to get some more alternate shots that maybe are something unique or tell a story in a different way. Some days are better than others

when you can sort of expand the look of a show. and other days you just have to get through it. It's a lot of dialogue. The producers like a lot of coverage, say. A lot of shows I find in television are put together in post. So they're expecting a lot of pieces to be able to maybe rebuild some of the scenes. It's written one way, but they wanted to take it another way, and they don't have the footage to do that.

So it's important you find with a lot of television directors, This is more network TV that I worked on where they expect a certain amount of, you know, shots that help them in post-production and editing. Other shows are more designed and more specific, and those are a dream. When you know you're telling a story with one shot or two shots and getting a scene easily, those actually tend to be a little easier to work on because you're not trying to get many, many, many pieces for a scene. Sure. I've noticed, obviously, I haven't seen all of your work, you're quite prolific, but for the few things that I have checked out, you do seem to have a relatively consistent style.

Did you, do you have any influences, anything that you kind of like to, not mimic, obviously, but looks that you're naturally drawn to, technique styles? Yeah, I mean, you know, they'll look at Roger Deacons or, you know, people that use cinematographers that use natural light and tell the story with how the camera moves and how the light comes in, but that it's not just lit, it has something to it behind a story, a vision, an idea, and you're telling the story of the script. You know, the script is really guiding you as far as what it's supposed to look like. Is it dark? Are people isolated? Is there a lot of energy in the scene? Whatever. So the script is kind of the first thing,

but cinematographers that use natural light, I'm always trying to figure out where the light should be coming from. It has to me, it always has to come from a particular place. I would be, I hate just putting up a backlight because it looks pretty. So sometimes you do have to do that. The hair is disappearing into the background or whatever.

But even then, you try to give it a reason and have it come from a real place. So authenticity is really important to me and the cinematographers that are, you know, motivated by that appeal to me quite a bit. And, you know, Roger Deacons obviously does incredible work, very natural and beautiful. It's tough to figure out. You know, it seems offhand. It seems like just the light in the room, but it's the most amazing light in that room. And it's coming from under the door. It's coming through this little hole in the wall or, you know, from headlights or something.

He finds ways to tell the story and to light a scene naturally. And that's amazing. And I always try to aspire to that. Yeah. It's not funny you brought him up, but there is. is a very large fan base of Rogers. And I've noticed the two filmmakers who seem to be the internet darlings are Deacons and Fincher. And obviously Fincher's not a DP, but he has a very specific look.

As someone who is in the ASC and maybe has met these people, can you speak to maybe why everyone is so obsessed with maybe those two specific styles because they are quite different but both as you're saying natural is you know it's i think about this a lot i try to figure out what it is and that's appealing about these kind of cinematographers and um gordon willis as well and red hall you know there's a there's a they have a voice they have a very specific voice you you recognize a roger deacon's movie when you see it recognize a david fincher movie when you see it recognize a david fincher movie when you see at Conrad Hall and certainly Gordon Willis. Not that they're doing the same thing in every movie, but that there's something about what they do and even more importantly

what they don't do. And this is when I go to Gordon Willis quite a bit because he will tell that story in one shot and he won't do the reverse and he won't do the coverage. He won't give you a lot of things that you think you might need because he found the one thing that tells that story simply and that's amazing and on a movie set there's often a lot of fear about getting enough stuff making sure you have all the pieces uh is it strong enough and it takes guts and it takes a great will a strong will to overcome that because the the feeling on sets with certain directors especially is uh i need all i need a lot of pieces i need this and this and this and this other it's like no you don't need that this is telling the story it's beautiful like this so that takes

a great amount of will and these guys are really you know these folks are really really strong-minded about it so that's something i aspire to i'm not that i don't have that personality necessarily but but it's it's it's a point you arrive at occasionally you see that shot was amazing we don't need anything else we don't need to go in closer we don't need to go wider whatever whatever it is. So I think those are the things that strong will is I think what's appealing to a lot of people seeing that strong personality behind the photography. Yeah, sort of a confidence in what you're doing. And that's proof. Yes. It's tough because there's a lot at stake. These movies are expensive, you know. There's a lot of people telling you a lot of different things. And you just have to

believe in your self and your vision. It helps have a really strong director as well. Then you're sort of not alone with these things. And when you have that, that team is incredible. Yeah. Do you kind of speaking to that point of like they always want stuff, do you, are you a multi-camera person, a single-cam person? Do you have a preference or are there maybe tips that you've learned to go from one to the other?

Yeah, I don't mind. Multi-camera. I work with two cameras a lot. Three cameras makes my head explode. I don't even know how a director can watch three performances or even two performances from three angles or even one performance from three angles. They might miss stuff. I've done it and it's kind of fun in a way. It's sort of like, you know, 3D chess. It's challenging. It's still photography and you're still trying to make it look good. But sometimes you get something interesting that you wouldn't. normally get, especially in network television, you're, you know, you're getting your over, you're getting your wider over, but then you get the off angle shot or the high or something unusual through the table that you wouldn't normally spend time getting. You can get that with that second or third camera. So we've been doing a lot of single camera on Bridgeton because often there's these sort of tableaus, which are very wide and very specific and, you know, sort of elegant and precise in their framing.

And it's tough to just slam in another camera and get something off-axis. It's not giving you something you're going to use. It's just another shot, and it may not be that, you know, precise. So often we're doing these wide sort of tableaus that they're masters. And then we'll cover. You know, then we'll go in close. We want to be closer than maybe an off-axis profile, something like that. We just did a scene last night where we were shooting tight overs on.

and two guys talking to each other. And we did an off-axis angle that was interesting because it was almost a profile. It was like you could see two eyes, but what was nice is you had a moment, you had a shot connecting the two characters, and you had one that was their own shot. So getting those together was kind of interesting.

Actors love it, obviously, because you're getting a lot of stuff all at once. Directors, of course, like it. And the production likes it because you're getting through your date, kind of getting a lot of pieces. So sometimes quantity gets the heat off of you a little bit, you know, when you're getting a lot of setups, everybody's happy, but they still have to be good. Yeah, yeah, you can't just compulsively put a camera there.

Find me something. I've heard a handful of people doing like, yeah, just put the camera somewhere, find me something. And then it's like, well, you're just wasting, well, not film, but are you wasting cards? Actually, that's a good question. How has technology, obviously in many ways, but from your perspective, perspective. How's technology aided you in working quickly? And what are things you could do today that you couldn't do on dirty dancing, for instance? Right. You know, seeing your, seeing exactly how you think it's going to look in your final on set is spectacular. I mean, it used to all be

kept in our heads. Like, okay, I know this is three steps down. I know that's going to be two steps over and this color is going to do that and that light's going to do this and you're hoping the next day that it does look like that and after a while you realize you're going to get those things but you're the only one that has that sort of vision but to see it on set and to know that you're getting exactly what you had set out to do means you you know going home that every day that you've got the show that you want to get the scenes the shots that you want to get so that You're not sweating out dailies. I mean, I don't miss those days at all where you're worried about the steps that

happen after you. And if someone is changing stuff on you in post-production, or if it's a poor dub or something or there's colors, shifts, or whatever, all those things that you can get in trouble for, certainly, you know, why is this blue? Why is it all green? and you go, okay, what did you look at it on? You know, it was a bad monitor on your computer or was a bad batch in the lab, stuff like that.

So with digital, obviously, you don't have that. You know what you're getting right away. You have the DIT there. You're seeing what you want to see. I'm working with Technicolor and an amazing color timer in a Los Angeles, Pankaj, Bajai, who I've worked with for 15 years. And he's provided, he, color time the show,

last season and he's now provided us with luts that we work with on set and it's amazing because now the show really looks like what we know is what it looked like last season we know now what it's going to look like going forward and I have four or five different luts that I work with and I'm seeing the show like as if it's airing and with some variations obviously the lighting we're having control over and all that but you know just knowing that it's going through the pipeline the way you see it and that everybody else is seeing it as well. well is a big relief. Sure. Are those, are those lots like tungsten daylight indoors outdoors kind of thing? Or what are those? Why are they different? Yeah, it's it's a there's a contrast to

it. He's provided sort of a show look, two show looks. One is a little lower contrast. So for night work and stuff, the primary show look is a little contrasty. And when we go to night work, it tends to get a little crunchy. So he did one. where it's a little more open. And then we have some flashback looks where we have different flashbacks throughout last season and this season. So it's nice to know what that's going to look like. Then you can light to those flashback luts as well.

A lot of times they'll slap a look on after the fact and it's nice to know going in what it's going to look like. Yeah. Are you still a meter guy or do you pretty much just light to the monitor? I still use my eyes. I just my eyes. I just can tell on a set what I think it's going to look like. I'll pull my meter out once in a while, but, you know, I've been looking at light for so many years that I can tell when something's not right too bright feels within a right range. I'll sometimes go to the monitor if something, if we're pushing the limits, if we're going really dark or really bright, it's like I'll look at the raw feed to make sure that I'm not losing any information on the windows or.

or if I'm seeing something I don't want to see, is it going to go away? So I use it to kind of check extremes. But as far as the overall look, I'll put up lights knowing that they're going to do a certain thing. I don't have to spot check the monitor every time I turn on a light, every time I adjust something, because I know already what it's going to do pretty much.

And color, you know, I'll still have to keep the numbers in my head, okay, this one's 2,800 Kelvin, that one's 3,600. The moonlight's coming in at 5,600 or 5,000. I kind of know what those colors are going to look like, so I don't need to go to the monitor. I mean, I'm also working with a small monitor on set, which is very handy. I like having a presence on set. I find that it changes the tone of the set. When you're there and you're lighting, like we used to do when I was with a meter, the crew understood what you were looking at and what you needed. When you're off the set and in a DIT tent somewhere, it's like you don't exist anymore, you're gone, and it's hard to get people here on the radio trying to get the shot

set so you can see what it looks like, get people to manipulate the things you need to move around. So I try to have a monitor onset that has the correction that we're working with the Lutz fed into it so that I'm actually seeing it on set small, like a 17-inch monitor, so that I can be on set, see what's going on, understand the limitations of what I'm asking for. It's like, you know, I can't back that light up because there's a wall there. I can see that when I'm on set, stuff like that. So, you know, digital has really become amazing to use. And because of, I think at first with the Alexa, I felt that that was truly like a film style cinema camera. Although, because Netflix requires, you know,

a little higher resolution, and we didn't, couldn't get the LF minis at the time last season. We went with the Sony Venice. And I had friends, John, yeah, John Joffin, as a great cinematographer, also was hesitant and loved Alexis. And I said, you know, what do you think of it? And he said, you're going to like it a lot. You're really going to like it. So he was very happy with it.

Obviously, we love the 2,500 base. That's amazing. I knew I was going to be shooting a lot of candles, candlelit scenes and stuff. So I figured that would come in handy and I didn't know how much it wouldn't matter because without a lot of grain or noise increase, you're able to shoot literally in candlelight settings. I had a couple scenes where a lot of candles were around,

but I had film lights as well and I kept turning off one film light and another film light pretty soon. No lights were on. It was just candlelight and it looked amazing. And I started using actually candles to fill in, like do little eye lights and things and it was all candles that I was.

getting from the prop guys, little low candles. I would try to hide on tables for dinner scenes, stuff like that. So rather than put up a light, which felt really crude and harsh, once you're at this sort of amazing Barry Lyndon level of lighting, you want to keep it sort of analog and keep it very, you know, natural. So yeah, and the camera is just spectacular at that level. Yeah. What is what, what, um, what was your camera?

package then you said Venice and then obviously the lenses what is it this time same thing yeah same thing uh yeah i love the venice uh we worked with uh airy signature primes last season which i loved um i don't shoot wide open i know a lot of folks do i i like my assistance so i give them a little help uh you know but i love the control we're also shooting at 6k so uh the depth of field to be able to that how much something is out of focus, how much it's in focus, that tool is amazing to have, to have that kind of control. We're putting NDs in, in night interiors because we're trying to throw the background out, so I'll shoot at a two or a two-eight. Generally, I'm in around a four. A lot of our stuff is at a four. So with these lenses, you're working with a little longer lenses because of that larger format.

that. The depth of field is beautiful. There's still a beautiful fall off, but you can still get super sharp faces. I found it wide open. The lenses, you know, the depth of field was, you know, even on a flat shot, you know, if the head was slightly back, this I would be out of focus. This one would be in focus. It was tough. It was, you know, it was, I wouldn't wish that on any camera assistant. So, uh, T4 was like perfect. You still felt, uh, that thin depth of field if you wanted it. And also the lenses were beautiful with out of focus candle wicks and things that were going to be in the background. They had a perfect circle, which I felt was right for the show and very beautiful and sort of, you know, organic and romantic. Yeah. So, yeah, we went with the same package this year as well.

I could see how, you know, I was just watching the show with my mom. mom. Like I said, I was visiting her over the weekend. And we were watching that and Halston. And I was, I was kind of, she was asking me like, all right, what are you even looking for? Because she doesn't know. She's like, I've heard you talk about, are you talking about another guy we interviewed? Are you guys talking about numbers again? Yeah, 2-8. What's your favorite again? And she would start pointing out like, oh, what's that? I'm like, oh, that's a lens flare. She's like, why? I'm like, oh, for, but I could see Yeah, like, you know, even the shape of an iris could distract someone maybe brand new to or someone who knows what they're talking about.

Yeah. Slightly off topic, just because you had mentioned the depth of field and stuff. Have you seen what, not what's your opinion? This is just a fun question, I guess. But Army of the Dead being shot at 0.95 the whole time. Oh, really? I know a lot of people are shooting wide open. And I hear this from my camera says because they're all grateful to me.

because I'm shooting at a four pretty much. So they're like, oh, my God, thank you. But, you know, I'm like, well, what's going on? Why are people shooting wide open? I have to say that it's part of the look of what's going on right now. Even finding focus and missing and having that sort of, you know, fluid feel of the lack of depth of field is beautiful. It's amazing.

It wasn't right for me for this show, but I, I understand the urge to do that. It's a beautiful stylistic choice. I know that a lot of people shoot wide open, even day exteriors or whatever. They just put a ton of ND in, open that lens up. Everything has to be wide open.

And it's part of the style of cinematography these days, for sure. Yeah. Do you see yourself going back to Super 35, given the option, or are you really enjoying the full format? Oh, I'd love to shoot. I'd love to shoot film. You know, on Westworld, They are, it's a religion, shooting film there is an absolute, you know, adamant religion there.

And it's fun, it was fun to go back to that, I have to say, because it's a muscle memory that I have, and it was fun to sort of get back into that, no monitor, just looking at stuff with your eyes and knowing what it's going to do. It was a kind of a dream to go back to that. I would do it in a second. There's a show I might do in the future, and they wanted to look different somehow, and I'm like, I have an idea. Why don't you shoot it in film? It usually blows people away.

We did it on speaking of Dexter, the much, the very controversial ending of Dexter where he goes into the woods, right? You know, the show was one of the first all-digital shows. It was amazing. The bright colors in Florida and all this sort of extreme look was incredible. at the time. And at the end, they said, well, we want to, you know, want it to feel different. The whole thing has to feel different. He's changed his whole life. He's in a different place. We want the look of it to be different. And I said, why don't you shoot it? Let's shoot it on film. It'll be sort of

creamy and grainy and soft, the opposite of what the show had been up to that point. And so they agreed. They were a little scared. I remember when somebody said, how are we going to know that we got it? I had to remind him that for the last hundred years. years, you know, they've been shooting film pretty successfully and not worrying too much. But it was unusual after all that time, shooting digital to go back to film. But it was fantastic for me. I loved it. Yeah. One compliment I have to give you is your day exteriors pretty universally look excellent. I was wondering if you could give me some tips on shooting a day exterior because I just had two back-to-back shoots. One was completely overcast.

You have days. And then one was piercing sun. Yeah. And I did not have, you know, a COVID shoot. And I'm very, very low budget. So that was not, let's say, grip heavy. Yeah, yeah. It's, I always say that good cinematography sometimes is good scheduling.

Like, you've got to be on top of the schedule. You got to know where the sun is. You got to know what you're shooting when and try to chase that backlight around. If that's important to you, which usually looks good. It's so easy to shoot with the sun behind you. You're doing a little bounce card or a big fill or something like that. It looks amazing. So I try to push for that.

And even with the idea that this is going to be a lot faster, we'll get a lot more work done. If you come around like this and shoot with the sun, I'm going to have to do all these, grip things like you said. So, yeah, you have to stay on top of the schedule. And, you know, try to jump on the weather when you can. And, you know, I've had good luck a lot of times and like the sun comes out at the right time. Other times it can be very harsh.

I remember I was shooting in Mexico on a project and, you know, usually look for where the shadows are falling. And I looked around in the middle of the day. I couldn't find a shadow. It was literally a circle right around my feet. It was coming straight down like that. So it was harsh. And I think we ended up trying to soften some of that.

But, yeah, that's where the grip, grip department really shines. Day exteriors is where they help soften things, take things away, dark and brighten. You know, I try to use natural light. I like bouncing off the ground quite a bit. So instead of bouncing from a vertical, I'll throw it on the, I'll throw white on the ground so that light is sort of coming up. That's one little tool that I like to use. that's true for even day interiors as well. I remember we were on Carnival and I was bouncing lights off of the dirt.

It was just gray dirt and I thought, what is that going to look like? You know, a card or white maybe is too bright, but it was kind of a gritty, tough, dark, noirish show. And so I was bouncing lights off of the dirt and it was dark, but it looked really interesting. and it had a certain quality that couldn't get any other way. So, yeah, I don't know if I have that many tricks about daylight. It's pretty day work, but it's pretty standard stuff. But, yeah, schedule is everything. Getting people up before dawn is a lot of fun, but you know it's going to pay off.

Yeah. Do you find with, I find this as sort of an inexperienced, I shoot film photography, but I only shot 16 in film school for a little bit. And so the lighting techniques didn't really come from there necessarily. Do you find with digital you have to use a lot more NEG or are you doing how is how is your the way you shot changed from film to digital? Does it change at all for you? For day exterior stuff? Just in general. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Where you could get away with what I call film lights, movie lights in film and knowing how to manipulate, you know, hard light, things like that, bounce light. I find that you're working with practicals quite a bit. You know, the candle thing is one example, but in a contemporary setting or we have electrical lights, things like that. Now the production design and the lighting that's built into a set becomes a key part of it. It's not peripheral. It's a very key part of how the lighting is going to go on a set. And you see a lot of projects now where the lighting is often built into the set.

As a DP, hopefully you have some input with a production designer. Hopefully you have a production designer that has a sense of lighting and how important that is and they're building stuff in into their sets

and that you come onto and they may be 80% lit by what's there and you're just sort of controlling aspects of it. So working with practicals very much more a deal now than ever before. Then in film, in film, it was, you know, practice were sort of there, but not really, not necessarily a key thing.

You still had to have film lights and things to get to a certain level of exposure. So that's a, that's a big change. Sure. With Bridgerton, I noticed that you guys didn't, well, I suppose there, I was going to say you didn't go for the vintage route, but there was no cameras back then, so there's not really a look to mimic. But you didn't go, you didn't go, you know, let's soften everything out, diffusion, yada, yada.

What was the sort of lookbook for Bridgeton? Because it's very modern. It's a modern sort of retelling of the story as well. Yeah, I've heard that. And that's good to hear. I'm not sure what we did to do that. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. And obviously, we're applying it again.

You know, the story is set in a historical place. You know, you said there weren't cameras then, But there's a long history of period films, especially English, you know, English era dramas over the years. And those are, they're often beautiful. And there's something about a period project that gives you a little more freedom to make a stylistic choice. But, you know, we looked at a lot of stuff at the time. Barry Lyndon obviously was a big influence. You know, we were on locations that were in Barry Lindel.

and we were at this place called Wilton House, which is a location that a lot of scenes took place on the, you know, we were scouting one day, and I'm like, this feels really familiar. I feel like I've seen this before. And I scrolled back through Barry Lyndon, sure enough, it was this spectacular room with paintings and all this Baroque stuff in it, that he had used.

And I found that very little had changed since 1970, whatever it was, when they shot that movie. so it was you know it's inspiring to be in these amazing locations and we were a little concerned we what we didn't want on bridgeton was for it to be too precious to be too rarefied that it would be this sort of beautiful figurine that you could observe objectively it was important to everybody i think on the show that it had this intimacy and emotional quality to it that these characters were alive they were going through these things you know we needed to be close to them. We needed to feel what they were feeling and to convey that to the audience. So I wanted to make sure there wasn't this sort of veil

literally or figuratively between the audience and what the characters are going through. So I think that's what you mean when you say modern. That's what I think is happening with the show that it's connecting to people. It doesn't feel so precious that it's this period thing

that you can sort of appreciate but not really get them too involved in. You know, having said that, there's still these amazing sort of images and tabloes that were important for me to get to set the thing. But they have a sort of a, they're a little funny. It's like it's funny that they're in this massive room and that these characters look the way they look and that this romantic story is going on in there. So there's a bit of irony to it, which I think helps. You don't have to take it too seriously. but the actors, you know, are conveying a lot of emotion.

It was important to be with them, capture that, have the camera move with them, and their energy drives how the camera moves. You know, I didn't want them to feel locked into, you know, a place that was the perfect light with the window or whatever. So it was sort of a mix of those two things, you know, that we create something that was beautiful. but and a bit like a fable, a fairy tale almost, but that it still have an emotional base, you know, basis behind it.

Yeah. If I, if I were to be bold, I would suggest that maybe the people's perception of the modernity of it, almost didn't get that one out, the modernity of it, is that, you know, we're used to seeing period pieces mimic the older film, you know, very soft. I can't remember what the film is, but it's recent where everything was shot on like a 15 with no extra lights. And I think that's kind of, you know, I feel like people sort of think of period films as looking like Monty Python in the Holy Grail. You know, just very, very, as you said, veiled. And that veil is present in Bridgeton.

Yeah, it feels like it's happening in real time right in front of you. It was important to me to be sort of clean and this is kind of in the style of how I was intended to light it and what we did in post-production as well was that it feel lifted as the word that I kept using. You know, I didn't want it to be bright and garish. I wanted it to, I didn't want it to feel dour or it was the opposite of gritty. And in fact, I feel like it's an antidote to a lot of the dark shows that are out there right now, which are capturing something amazing. That's what a lot of people are feeling, but this was the opposite of that. This was not going to be that. This was going to be something with color and romance and fairy tale quality to it and fun in that way.

And so I wanted all of that to be represented in those things stylistically. And in post-production, we found a way, that's why I can't say enough about Pankaj, my color timers, that he found a cinematic quality of lifting these colors and making all that stuff come through without it being all yellow or all orange and dark or, you know, sort of bright and garish. He found a way to keep it. It's funny.

It's sort of colorful but muted. So the colors are there, but they're not harsh. Although full range is there, but there's not this unified, There's not this sort of monochromatic color, which happens a lot. I've certainly done it myself where you'd use a filter or something to create a sense of time and period. Yeah. Has the look of the show changed or the attack that you guys are taking on the show changed between the first season and this one? Or is it just right back at it?

Right back at it pretty much. we're working with a different showrunner this year who's come in tom verica amazing director also an actor you've seen him in how to get away with murder and a lot of a lot of shows over the years and he's been he's an amazing director and he's our sort of creative production executive with shondaland and he he grabbed on a couple of the things where we pushed things a little bit we did some slant focus things I did some color correction for flashbacks things like that and he said yes let's let's do more of that let's feel free to push that further so we're doing that some of the things that

we sort of started doing he wanted to expand that and so I feel a lot very free this year obviously we know what the show is supposed to look like and the feeling is great because now we can be I I feel more comfortable expanding on a lot of that stuff. There's a bit timidity at the beginning because you're trying to figure out what people like, what works, what doesn't work at the beginning. You know, we started writing a production. It wasn't like a pilot that, you know, was a guide,

and then we did the series. We started right in. The first two episodes we shot was one and six. So we were already in the middle of the series on the first day. We were shooting episode six. so we had to know where we were headed so there was a bit of trial and error to get to a certain point but you know i had a pretty good idea of what i thought the show should be and now it's

much more comfortable in a way that you know we feel we know what the show is supposed to look like and you know we can we can attack that every day yeah do you uh you know the the fan response to the show was wild like i remember it could have been time is a flat circle i don't even remember when the first season came out, but I just remember everyone loving it. Do you, how do you, do you find that kind of like, oh, thank you. Or do you kind of take that and enjoy that? Well, I, you know, I've had a few successes in my career and it's great. It's, yeah. And, you know, I love being under the radar. It would be tough to be on a show, on a project that's expected to do a huge, you know, audience or get a lot of, make a lot of money or whatever.

So it's fun. I like the underdog. I'm from Chicago. We're underdogs. I'm a cub fan, underdogs. So the whole underdog thing appeals to me. And it's fun to be sort of below the radar as I sort of felt we were last year. And then all of a sudden have this amazing success. So it's exciting. It's thrilling. And to be at this point in my career to have this kind of thing happening is I'm grateful for it. It's incredible. it came out last Christmas and within about two or three days I think that it just hit like crazy we sort of knew we had an audience with the books were quite popular

so we knew we would be popular with you know women in Brazil stuff like that and had no idea that it would that it would be this huge around the world so yeah it's it's thrilling and it's exciting

to come back, knowing that that audience is expecting and waiting for us to deliver. So, you know, the stakes are high. We want it to be good again. We want to give the audience something worthy of their attention again. So hopefully we'll pull that off again. For sure. Well, we're about on time. So thank you so much for spending the past hour with me. I really enjoyed that conversation. And hopefully we can have you back on when you've got more you want to talk about. That's great. Well, thank you, Kenny. You were fantastic. You know your stuff, and it was a pleasure to talk to you. Awesome. Take care. Okay. Bye-bye. Frame and reference is an Al-Bot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan,

and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the F-at-R matbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Truax Branding Company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to ProVideocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot respectively. And as always, thanks for listening.