Frame & Reference Podcast - 188: "Severance" S2 Cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Today we've got an absolutely INCREDIBLE conversation with Jessica Lee Gagné, here to talk about her work on Severance Season 2 and so much more.Enjoy!F&R Online ► https://www.frameandrefpod.comSupport F&R ► https://www.patreon.com/FrameAndRefPodWatch this Podcast ► https://www.YouTube.com/@FrameAndReferenceProduced by Kenny McMillanWebsite ► https://www.kennymcmillan.comInstagram ► https://www.instagram.com/kwmcmillan

Hello and welcome to this episode 188 of frame and reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Jessica Lee Gagne, DP of Severance Season 2. Enjoy. Susie shot episode two. Two and five. Two and five. I think it's episode two where I physically was like, this looks different.

And then I looked up and it was her. And I was like, I like this. Whatever this is, whatever this vibe is. Yeah. Not that you didn't also do a great job. But that one was just visually distinct.

It was all night, all like the outside world. So that's like quite different. Because we're not, you know, usually we'll have a mix of the inside. outside. Episode one, this season was all iny, and episode two was all outy.

Yeah. Well, Halsey Dale, they're listening. She'll go fight her and get a hold of us. Well, she's in Europe, though. I don't know. Her timing might be a little different. Oh, yeah. Should have got her when I was in Spain. I was in Spain. Again, documented.

Oh, but then I had another thought. But it's gone now. Um, do you watch, you said you don't, uh, listen to filmmakers. I've, I've certainly kind of aged. The more I work, the less I want to hear about other people's, uh, opinions on it. Like, I'll talk to you guys because it's like, all right, I want to know your opinion. Like any, you know, online, uh, discourse kind of not so much. But, um, do you find yourself watching a lot of, uh, film or television when you're working? or not working?

You're like, is there a balance there? No. I mean, the hours are so crazy. You don't really have time to do anything, except for work.

And this season, I had a lot on my plate since I was directing and DPing. There was just no free time. Like, my weekends were just me working on the directing portion

because I didn't have time to do it since I was shooting. So if I do watch something, usually kind of knock me out. So I wouldn't want to, you know, watch anything that I really cared for. I kept trying to,

if I did even. watch anything this season but you get home so late and you're just dead right that's the thing when you're saying like i don't listen to podcasts i there's like three that if you looked at my stats you'd be like oh he loves these but really it's like just those three have the most i suppose neutral voices and i fall asleep very quickly listening i don't think i've finished any of them no i can't fall asleep to podcast though just having like a voice in my head it would probably drive me crazy as I'm trying to fall asleep. It's certainly about sometimes you need, or I need nothing, but every once in a while, it's

like, maybe I should just wear earplugs. I actually do wear it. It's just loud. Yeah, for me, the sound, I live in the old port, which is an old part of Montreal, but it's, you know, in the downtown area. So there's a lot of people, a lot of tourists, a lot of noise. And in the summer, I wear like noise canceling earplugs because I just can't sleep with the sound. It's one of the reasons I moved out of the city while shooting severance to Nyack because I just wanted to be away from the noise.

Right. What was the commute like? It was so fast because the drop is actually close to Nyak. So my commute from Nyack to the Bronx where our stages are was shorter than my commute from my apartment in Midtown. I started Seed and 2 that was longer because then I would get stuck in that like Midtown Tunnel traffic. Right, right, right. Yeah, all. Wouldn't it be great if the train was actually a viable way to, like, get to stages or anything like, especially if you have to bring gear?

Depends which stage. If I, you know, if, yeah, it really depends where you're going. It gets tricky. But I love taking this up way. I'm a big way per cent. Oh, yeah. I'm lucky here in L.A. I'm right next to one of the main, like, newer trains.

so you know pop to downtown and stuff pretty easy same thing hockey games we're just got to go you don't want to bring your car to these situations no yeah even going to work for production you kind of I mean sometimes you have to in severance we go to all these locations that are just far out so it gets comp

there's no subway my sort of like back end goal has always been to be rich enough that I could just have a driver It doesn't have to be fancy, nothing, but just like, just someone that I can be like, I would like to go somewhere and they just come and get me and it's my buddy, you know, I hate driving. Well, no, but you have Uber.

You can use Uber. Oh, now we have the automated cars. Oh, those is the Waymos. No. I know the last time I was in town. It's very freaky. No, they're good. They drive way better than people.

So you get in them, you can actually take them now. I thought there were just like a test. Oh, there's an answer. Yep. Oh, I did. Just hop in. And not to make it too weird, but every girl I know is like, yep, I'm taking Waymo. Because there's no driver.

There's no dude trying to chat you up or sell you a screenplay or anything. You know, it's just like. Yeah, but then you have like a robot driving. I'm not quite ready for that. I understand it. I'm just a, you know, baby steps for me, I think. Yeah. That, you know, that, that's an interesting dovetail.

I wanted, I, you probably can't tell me. But why is it in severance that everything is in the 70s, but people have, like, smartphones? Oh. Like, everything's retro. Is that just an aesthetic or is there like a plot reason for this? It's more of an aesthetic and just to kind of not associate it to like a specific year or time. They always trying to keep that really vague. Right.

And they really try not to put dates on anything. It gets kind of challenging. But yeah, it's just to keep it mysterious. And also, this is a show where we can have fun with aesthetics. So we just kind of do what we want. Well, no, so that was the thing is like, I loved it. And then after a while I was like, am I supposed to be reading into this? Because it's one of those shows where I'm always like, is this something I should be paying attention to or am I being stupid?

Never know. You never know. We like to sneak things in there. No, but it was an aesthetic thing. Yeah. So what I was listening to some interviews you did about the first season in this one. And you had mentioned obviously switching from like Venice one to two was a difference visually. But you're ostensibly in the same places. But you wanted to look to, as you said, you know, Ben told you to make it look better. So what I was hoping you could kind of define for me like what the looks were. in season one and how those changes season two. I know you based a lot of sort of the production design and ideas around that office book,

the photo of all the offices and them. Oh, yeah, Lars Tunbjerk book. Yeah, I certainly was not going to write that down. I don't know that. Yeah, I don't even think I have the pronunciation perfectly, but yeah, that was one of the reasons as well. Yeah, Lynn Cohen is a big one for a set design. But for me, those books are just kind of what,

well, especially the office book specifically. It's what sparked something in me in terms of excitement to work on the show because when I found that book, I was like, okay, this I think visually is like a very interesting rendering of an office that I can like dig into that I really, it really connected with me and it got me excited to start looking for references for the show

because before I was a little depleted in terms of trying to find, like, the right visuals. I mean, there are, like, amazing shows that have visuals that can, you know, speak to it, a little bit like a Brazil kind of thing. But then you don't expect that necessarily from severance when you're reading it. Well, not the versions that I read. But, yeah, that was the start of it. In terms of season two and the challenge of making it better,

I think there were things that we did that didn't really work out. And then I had to, like, backtrack on. Like, I tried to light more in some of these spaces. just didn't end up looking right. Like I even see it in episode one when I watch it. I can tell which shots look lit. And it's just very sensitive to things that look like they have an extra layer or like film lighting on.

Like I work really, really hard with the gaffer and the grip to kind of model light in a way so that it feels, you know, it wants to feel heightened and special and contrasty, but it wants to feel real above everything. I really don't want people kind of questioning that part of the work. And ultimately the production design and the collaboration between the production design team and I in terms of building the ceilings for these sets and all the practicals in really I think was successful in season one and didn't need to be challenged that way. So what we would start doing is more just playing with different levels of different lights above them, you know, and just kind of modeling the light a little bit.

But I don't like to add too much because I just feel like they feel lit and then it's just weird to me. Right. So that was kind of the main, at least for the bullpen kind of area. That was going to be my main question. Because you see that a lot in like almost any show that has is kind of maybe that office style lighting, which is as you said, like turning up or even Adriano Goldman was telling me for Andor season one. He had a big white room. Did you ever watch that show? Great show. But there's a scene where it's like a it's a Star Wars. show you know so it's yeah yeah you know past but not the future but yeah so the big white prison same thing shutting off parts of lights to build in contrast because that was one thing i wanted kind of wanted to talk about like exteriors or not exteriors but like outy stuff very contrasty very moody interior stuff very like you would look at it and go like i i heard you talking about how it was a little scary because it was like it's there's no contrast there's no it's not cinematic it's top so it's just did you

even bring in negative at all? I rarely, rarely, rarely do it. So it depends on the set. You know, and the different EPs have kind of had different approaches with it. Sometimes I would catch them kind of doing things that felt a little too different. But in general, I try not to not to intervene. But I feel like MDR doesn't win by having a negative fill. Then there are sets like Cobel's office that you can really play up the negative fill.

and O&D, a set that we saw more in season one, is one where it's more fun to kind of actually shut off parts of the set to get different light lighting looks. And we did that in season two as well. And there's this one thing where Irving and Felicia are, they're like sitting at the corner, looking at the book where you see the drawings of Burt and then you see the dark hallway. I basically just turned off the whole other half of that set for that conversation.

because I knew we weren't going to see there, so it was, you know, it was never going to, like, play or look weird. I don't tend to push and look for that kind of, like, dramatic lighting if it's not necessary, if it doesn't flow well within a scene. Yeah, that was what I was stumbling at, was turning off blocks of light to make things. Because, again, I'm now that I'm, like I was saying earlier, I'm in such a documentary brain that I'm like, how do I make everything look good? And a lot of times you're faced with that kind of room, you know, and it's like trying to, although I did hear in an interview, were you saying that a lot of, not a lot of times, but you would also like bring in like a bounce card off the ceiling to kind of just get push off the sky panels up there. I mean, in MDR, we do that quite a bit.

You know, like the panels being dark green, sometimes we'll just cover them in white or just add a white surface if I want to kind of mold it. I one thing I really don't do often because I like direct I use direct light a lot but like the reflex of bouncing a light into something which is super common for cinematographers to use I almost never do that I just don't have that reflex and the amount of space usually that that takes up kind of bothers me I don't like bringing a lot of things around the actors or even I get kind of nervous sometimes gaffirs have to push me to go there because I just I feel I feel almost self-conscious about having too many things in. So I always try to do a big part of the work in prep

in terms of the set design, like participating there and making sure that the set works. Like when we build Gemma suite, you know, everything in there, all the details of added lighting here and there were the things that I knew I was going to need to kind of do different things. So why, what kind of drew you away from bounce light?

Certainly a lot of people use bounce. I feel like most people these days want to booklight everything, you know, bounce through diffusion. Was there like a person that you studied or whatever that kind of drew you away from that? Or is it just the physics of it? I think it's the physicality of it. Yeah, physicality. You're getting it right there. It's just like the, just seeing the gear bothers me.

I like shooting multiple cameras. So I'm always like trying to sneak in an extra one for the director if I can. And then when you have all of this lighting, taking out so much space, it just bothers me. And there's something unreal about it that doesn't feel like it would have been that. I guess sometimes it makes really beautiful things. I just, I don't feel like I make that kind of beauty. I think I look for other stuff. And I sent a light from outside when it's, when it sees that are not office scenes, you know,

when they're like spaces with windows. That's my preferred thing to do when I can do sunlight. I love making sunlight. I like, I love painting in that sense and just having that time where you're just putting in random details in the background. Like that Christmas room is a good example. That's a gorgeous shot. I love that shot.

Yeah, that's my favorite lighting setup, probably of the season in terms of it. It looks like a postcard. That backdrop that you see out the window was drawn by our, one of our illustrators that works on the show, Danielle Avelis. He also does the storyboards for me. And I mean, I love working with him. I asked him, could you just actually draw the backdrop? and I gave him a reference of like some

Stefan Schorff, I think it was Stephen. No, it was a Stefan Shore photography of like the suburban kind of stuff that he does with like those I have that book. Yeah, I think there's like a little tricycle on like the cover.

Yeah. I'm like, is it Eggleston or Stefan Shore? It's Eggleston. It's Agleston. I'm confused that sometimes. The little black book. Oh, you know what? It's portrait's not. Oh, no, it's not that. I have that book. But no, it's a little black book.

I'm staring at it because it's actually right across from me over there I got it everyone this is great television there you go yeah Eggleston

I was here I was saying step and short but yeah those kind of houses that you have in the background of that and so he drew it and we printed it up big

and that was our backdrop we wanted to have that like fakeness to it I don't know people ever even noticed that and outside the plane it's the same thing he did he drew clouds

and that was also often Egleston and pick the reference for that. I mean, so you're into photography. Like, do you collect photo books? I do. And you know what it was? I've told the story before,

but it was like episode three of this podcast. So this is like five years ago. And I had Tim Ives on who shot Stranger Things. And I was asking him about like what his references were for the show. And he goes, oh, well, I've got these photo books. It would take too long to show you. I was like, buddy, we got an hour. And he goes, all right, one second, walks off frame and brings a stack.

And for like 10, 10, 15 minutes, he's just like walking me through all these photo books. And I was just like, I need to be buying photo books. So I ended up buying probably. It's an expensive hobby. It's so expensive. There's ones I want that just are not going to happen. No, and I have like, I'm a sucker for a first edition or a signed edition. I have a whole library.

I'm definitely like very obsessed with it. But well, your, your major was in. your major was in photography was it not my major in film production but I have a minor in photography yeah and I got to you know it was like when lab work was still very much a thing I got to do four by five and print in the dark rooms color and black and white that's where really I think the black and white because I mean color color there's like a limit to how much you interact with it but in terms of processing my own negatives and being in the dark room for so many hours in years that really was like a dark room rats, you get to a level where you really understand how film works. And funny

enough, it translates so much to digital. Like, you just understand the medium in another way that's more tactile. And I kind of see it, you know, as this like physical shape because of what I was able to do in the dark room. Yeah. Well, it must make conversations with not only your understanding of the medium, but the conversations with the colorist might be a little bit easier because you've done your own, you know, personal dodging and burning and whatnot. Yeah, and just talking in terms of like, oh, take a point of this out or a point of that out. And I'm definitely very intense when it comes to color matching stuff. I see things very quickly. Like my, because I've done a lot of color dark room as well, you know, when you're on the wall and you're trying to get

your print to look the right color. You just, you get in and you go crazy a little bit, but like that kind of experience is really helpful. Well, and I heard that you're not necessary. Because obviously There's some film work in season two, but you didn't shoot it. It was, what's the same? Jack Goldman. Yeah. I need to, I need to make a better note sheet because I just write names. What does that mean?

Yeah, it's so small. It used to be a Post-it. First four years of this podcast, it would just, if I could fit it on a post-it like this, I knew it would be enough. It's very tiny. It looks like your font. Like, wait. I've got a font.

Yeah, I do have a font. but my problem is I'll write down like there's Max's name but it's like what did what did that mean anyway but I saw an interview you aren't necessarily the person who's like we need to shoot film on whatever project it may be um is it because film is difficult digital you don't have to sit there and complain about it all the time one thing that I know is I mean there's different reasons why you shoot film and why you don't I think that you kind of have to take everything into consideration when you make that choice. The first time he came around between Ben and I in terms of like,

oh, should we shoot on film or not was Dan Amora. And that was going to be like the first time I worked with him. I understood from reading the first episode and seeing like how much of a beast this project was that, especially working, knowing that we were going to work in the wilderness and wanting to shoot many things simultaneously, like multiple cameras and stuff. It just felt like we were going to be. more efficient, you know, especially being on television show. And I just thought myself that it would be the best way to get him, like, the most material.

I think if we would have been shooting on film, it would have been quite restrictive. There are things that we wouldn't have gotten, especially being like the first television kind of limited series thing he was doing and working with me for the first time. It just felt like a huge leap. And it didn't feel necessary. He also hired me because when. And he saw Sweet Virginia, another film that I made. And it has like a pretty filmic look.

And it's something that I kind of thrive in in terms of making digital have a filmic feel, even though it's not necessarily exactly like film. Like I think I'm good at creating that illusion. It's something that I have worked on over the past couple years or a decade, I should say now. But severance was a different reason. Severance I didn't actually even feel should be shot on. film because I thought the texture in my mind should have been cleaner. He mentioned it because he just has a love for the media, you know, but it was just ironic

that on my episode, I asked to shoot on film because it just made the most sense for these flashbacks. Like if you're going to do the way, like the way of doing it in this situation without having to, you know, put some look on something, it was film. And well, and you know what's funny is those sequences popped up and my girlfriend and goes, ooh, they shot on film. And she never, like, she's never the person who pulls up. It's usually my dumb ass.

He's like, you know, that looks like probably 16 or maybe two-perf. I don't know, you know. Yeah, well, it wasn't two-perf. So you got that right. It was spherical two-perf. We shot on Master Primes. Then there was from Super 16, Bolex footage. Which, that was you, right?

The one, every time it's like animals or the moon or, like, trees and seasons, the snow melting. That's me because I was doing time lapses. I lived in that house. So I was doing time lapses throughout the seasons. I had this fear that no one would understand the like the length of time they were together and just like these moments of like casual happiness and just simple things that they weren't in the script. So it was just my way of like guaranteeing to get extra. It's like sneaking in extra material. Ben on on the, when we were doing the whole flashback unit, he actually came and shot as like a mini second use. He was like a mini second use. it some of the work with them outside where they're just like messing around yeah everyone

kind of pitched in in there but that uh that was another thing i do like about uh documentary as we were saying is like off the past that doc i was telling you about we oftentimes stayed in the Airbnb that we were doing the interviews in so you're not traveling to set at all you're just like you wait for them to show up that must have been was that nice for you to have production show up to to film all the the that stuff or was that a little intrusive no it was very intrusive I don't like I'd ever want to do it again um it's not like you're showering in the house where like the crew is really weird um sure but because I was shooting 10 at the same time as we were prepping seven it was the only way I could see the

sets like I didn't I mean that's not why why we did it we did it because this house was perfect for it and it wasn't let it be it was the production designer's idea um I had been living in this house for two years, like, on and off. And I was describing the sets to him. And basically he stops me, like, mid-conversation. He's like, oh, Jess, you realize we're going to shoot in your house? Like, you're describing your house. And, oh, I did not realize that.

Okay. And it took me, like, a minute to register because I had to, like, see all the rooms in my house and be like, and then it's a, there was like a three-story house. It was huge. Just me no sense wine was there alone. but um and it had these beautiful fireplaces i it's just a gorgeous gorgeous house um and i thought about how i wanted it to be a really intimate setting for that whole flashback world and i realized okay yeah we could actually all be together in this house like we can hold everything in here and the options of like how many rooms i had and like the bathroom's so beautiful and i even had the idea for the shower

shot in that shower while taking my own shower um and i mentioned this before on another interview but the light, you know, how at the end, when you see Mark, he realizes, like, the cops were pulling in before he sees them in the window, the light, like, moves through the ruin. I saw, like, I had not thought about that. Literally, I was waiting for a door-dash Chipotle order in the hallway, and I noticed because there was a roundabout in the front of the house, and the car that was delivering the Chipotle went around. And as it went around, the light sweeped through that, like, green room and that office so beautiful and it gave me the idea to make to put him in the office for that scene and do the same lighting effect yeah that you know that uh that kind of touches on something

i did want to talk about but before i'm going to make a note uh um before we get there you had mentioned uh your work being more filmic even if it isn't you know uh celluloid driven or yeah um I think a lot of people learning cinematography, at least a lot of the conversations I see online or whatever, even hear about and talk to the students and stuff, is a constant pursuit of what they call the film look and what I kind of have editorialized as professional. Because I don't think people necessarily, I think there's been enough conversations since Digital came out, let's say, an artist in like 2010. that when we were talking about the film look in like the DVX days, we literally meant film because digital looked awful. Now that digital looks good, that phrasing has stayed,

but you don't have to make it look exactly like film. So to you, what do you do to build a sort of filmic or let's say, professional look? And I guess more importantly, what don't you do? You know, what are the things that you avoid to make sure that the,

you know, you carve away at the market. get the look you want. I think that's actually like a good way of looking at it, like what not to do. I think it's realizing when you need to light and when you don't need to light is really important. I think you over light and you're shooting digital, it automatically gets away because film has a realism feel to it.

It just makes something human. And it's very hard to put this into words. We all can't really like explain the magic of it. but the naturalness that it gives like even if you light a face in film and you let you overlight it somehow in the grade you can manipulate the negative in a way that it doesn't look overlit like it's something that like retains the quality of the skin in digital you can't do that like for sign you're you overlight it you overlight it I'll never look right um so I do propose to always under light if you're comfortable with that I take very very big risks like if you

if you would be beside the DIT and I and we would toggle like here's like the look that we make for the show where we pull up a couple stops and we show you really what's being recorded and you'd flip like I can't not see what I'm doing because if they would they would be like

what's wrong with you but these cameras are so powerful and if you want that grain to come out you need to under expose a lot like in general we'll under expose a stop and a half sometimes two if it, you know, which is, that's crazy. But we, even in white rooms, like we just, and then I, Luke Taylor, the D.I.2's been working

me for seven years. He knows me now. We don't, you know, we, it's easy to, to communicate, almost funny now. But I'll be like, pull it up, pull it up more. I can tell, like, when I'm looking at them on which cameras are not underexposed enough. And sometimes I push too far, even in digital, like there are times where it becomes mucky, especially if I'm shooting, like, a longer zoom and an older zoom. There's this one close-up on Adam when he's talking. He's explaining to Brit how to use the computer in season one. It's like a long-land shot on him.

And I remember like, seeing it in the grade. I'm like, okay, that was not going to really hold up. But you make those mistakes. And that's when you know you're like on the right edge to make it feel like something, you know. Because by bringing out the grain, you're kind of making it, you're bringing out texture. You're making it tactile. But yeah, not overlighting, I think, is really key understanding the camera you're working with. So like having a good period of testing where you can push the camera and see.

And one of my rules, I think, is that if when I see an image and I'm looking at it and it's not kind of like on the edge of making me excited and scared, then there's something wrong. Like I love the feeling of being unsure that I may be making a mistake in the exposure. like I kind of get a high off of that so I don't know I love that well and that that kind of this is working great that kind of frees you back to some what I said that makes me think of some again you haven't heard this pocket very bouncy just no there's no flow to it at all like as I'm the same in my conversation and I'm moving around a lot today I don't know why I'm like in wonderful I know I got I got some movement too but that was in a bunch of interviews I heard you in. There was a lot of conversation I felt about sort of the way you felt about

production, not specifically as production, but just in general, like I remember there was talking about like your perception of time or your opinion on time, which I had just read a book like last year called The Order of Time, which was a great, I don't know if you haven't read that from what I heard. I'm going to write it that because I'm obsessed with books about time. The order of time. I like the idea that really applies episode seven. So it's, well, basically, it's a book about theoretical physics, but it's very digestible.

But it does, it does state like basically any equation that includes time in it, you can, there's a way to remove the time variable and still get the same answer. so I guess the the the thesis of it is that time isn't a thing I don't think so this is what I want to dig in with you a little bit about what do you mean by that because I think I agree with you but I want I want to get your opinion on it seven one thing and that's one conversation but like I think that in time you can see you can talk about it in many ways I just see it as our mind to understand what's happening and to be able to compute what's what this all is, it needs time.

Because by you, it's like, okay, so your whole, we can use the idea of just one person's lifetime from the moment they're born to their debt if we want to contain it in something. And, you know, movies are amazing because you can kind of actually just, if you picture a movie of someone's life and it's this big long piece of celluloid that you like unroll and you can kind of rise above it and see all of these scenes within it, you know, that perspective. on time is possible where you're outside of it and you can kind of scroll through it. But what I believe, and I don't know, yeah, I have no proof of any of this really. I just have like my personal experiences which have pushed me to see time differently

and have like very, very interstellar kind of like experiences when you can kind of like see it from above, you, you can't process it because it's too many events happening all at once. just too many things. But in reality, our mind is like honing in on a scene. So you can imagine that you take this film and you hone in on one scene, one frame, one moment, and to understand reality, like to perceive it as an experience, you need, your mind makes time up so that like it focuses on each individual moment. You know, like, okay, this is now.

But now technically is infinite, you know? There's no end in beginning to now. Right. It can get a little weird, but I try, I'm trying to. explaining it in the most pictorial way. Yeah, well, so there's two things. One, you definitely need to read the order of time because I think you flip the fuck out because it's exactly what you're talking about. But from like a physics perspective and two, I think like a lot of, you know, your Alan Watts is or whatever, your Eastern sort of philosophy folks have a similar view

of time, maybe phrase different ways. But I, discovering all that for myself, Because again, I agree with you. Did make it hard to, for a brief moment, care. I think there was a bit of, I would, I guess I wouldn't call it ego death, but there's a difference between nothing matters and, oh, nothing matters. You know, it's an outlook on life that I think, because what I wanted to get at, what you were talking about earlier was like when you're talking about like the edge of fear, I guess, when you're looking at a frame and it's not a.

exciting you or whatever that you had mentioned a bunch about how like you alluded to maybe a fear-based life or needing courage to do to direct to go back to season two whatever and i was wondering if you could kind of elucidate maybe what you were feeling in those things that the the the overcoming that fear to to go on and do you know the show is already successful it should be pretty easy you would think to uh oh yeah i'll come back and do but but there was like something keeping you from there. And for a moment there, you chose not to and then obviously did. But I was kind of wondering if you could talk to me about what those blocks were and what in your life was kind of holding you there. I'll talk about it. But I just kind of want to mention the thing about

because to me, it's even more interesting than the show, just talking about when you get to a place in your life where you understand that nothing matters, you know, like the one question that I've had to ask myself, because I got to that point. got to that point before deciding to do season two and it's what pushed me into directing when you live an experience that takes you out of your reality that's so powerful and so mind-blowing that you're just like oh what is this like how does this even work what's really going on um i kind of had to like rediscover a purpose and i had to like re-understand why i was here and what i was doing and i started asking myself the questions of destiny versus free will you know and how that was

works. And into that specific question, does it even matter if you do anything? If your ego, do you want to just like sit and meditate all day? And I don't know. Maybe like for me, it's not the path. For some people, it's going to be the path because they're trying to achieve something else. But I still, that is like those are the main questions I ask myself is are and I'm testing that right now in my own reality in terms of trying certain things and fear. Like when you move through it, it's the most interesting, like the most interesting things will happen in your like direct experience in terms of like changing that material life right so I'm questioning that it's like if there is a destiny and I am supposed if I'm meant to be doing this one specific thing then I should

be carried to it right but I don't know I feel like the free will element really is important that you have to move through kind of like things that make your body physically uncomfortable and for me directing just because of the way I was brought up and also things that I think I carried from past generations, it wasn't natural or normal to be the captain of the ship. I was more comfortable being behind. Well, and so I'm glad you said that because that's almost exactly what I wanted to dig in about is like being a DP is already to some people, you know, a lot of people think like, oh, that shouldn't be me. You know, that's, that's too. But you're already in a position of shooting feature, shooting television, whatever.

And just like, I think from the outside, a lot of people think, like, that's just one extra step to director, which obviously, it's not just like that much of a step. But from the outside, you know, what made you look at yourself kind of from that perspective of like, oh, it is achievable? I've already done all this. Well, I didn't know. I didn't know it was achievable. But like that, I had, you know, maybe now, now I think that.

But before, first of all, like cinematographers are. of a kind of a very giving nature in a way they're they're I mean they might have very different attitudes you know you might have very different types of personalities but there's an innate art of them that wants to give and that feels comfortable in that setting and that's actually quite beautiful um like because like the direct thing is really different and so it's through different energies and I think when I was about to do it. it, I didn't really understand what it felt like to direct because I had never had that experience. I had never lived that. So for me, understanding that I could do it, well, understanding

that I wanted it and understanding that I could do it are two different things. Understanding that I wanted it happened in prep because I started being really happy and I started smiling more. And, you know, people noticed. And I was like, well, I feel like I, I deserve in my life to be happier and I should do these things just even for myself. And then personal experiences that I lived and that I started being interested by things like time and consciousness and these themes, it's almost like it gave me a reason to want to be a filmmaker because I found like this like hat thing I was so passionate about that I wanted to talk about.

And also just getting in touch with my own emotions, which I hadn't been for a very long time in my own life. and then moving through it, doing it, surviving. Right. Seeing that people liked it, that was one thing. But then when I watched the episode in the mix, like the kind of the mix is that final moment when you wrap up something, you know, you're kind of like this like seal that goes on things.

Like I knew what the color grade was going to look like. And I understand visual effects and all of that. But the mix and that, that sensorial experience that you have when you're, listening to sound. I cried when I saw the episode because I couldn't believe that I had done something like this. Like it to me that I did that I was able because I really orchestrated it, you know, and I had spent so many years thinking, not even thinking because it was unconscious, you know, just it kind of hurt me in a way to realize that those, that I didn't let myself do that. But if I look at it now with like much more space and perspective,

perspective, everything that I put into my work in this industry, everything that I've done and the people that I've worked with technicians to directors and producers, you know, whether it was positive or negative experiences, because there were all kinds, has made me the person I am. And like when you look at time and you look at like the movie of your life, like all of this, like if you take all the scenes, you take every single frame, you cut it and you stack it up in a stack of frames and you look through it like it makes up the entire thing and i'm here right now it's you and i'm this person just because of all of that well and it speaks exactly your point about doing things that make you uncomfortable not uncomfortable truly dangerous but you know uh putting yourself

out there um maybe i suppose emotionally gives you those experience that make you that person if if you stay stagnant, that that film of your life looks like a photo, not a film, you know? Yeah, there's no evolution. You know, there's no change. And that's what's beautiful is that we have the potential to change. You know, I believe everyone can change. And it's, you need to have perspective. Sometimes perspective is a, it's a luxury, you know?

It's like, it's a privilege. Not everyone gets the same level of perspective or gets all the same opportunities. But you can't get stuck on that, you know, you have to kind of like think outside of that. Well, and that's why I'm a big proponent of meditation, not necessarily in the strictest sense, but just the ability to not do something and sit quietly for an extended period of time. Because everyone has that joke about like how you'll be talking to someone and then you turn around to go like walk up the stairs and you're like, oh, I should have said that. Like that's meditation basically in a nutshell is like whenever you're away from whatever

it may be, a shot, a movie, any work, anything. that's where the stuff gets made, not when you're physically, when you're doing it, that's when it's being assembled. It's being made when you're away from it, in my opinion. Yeah, it's challenging to meditate. It's not easy. I try to have a practice. I go in and out of it. But to be honest, if you want to work outside of time, like if you want to step outside of your timeline, meditating is the simplest way in my mind to get there, even though it's hard. And like personally, I have a lot of thoughts and my thoughts have controlled my weight. I couldn't hear before there were so many simultaneously. It was just like noise and it was just subconsciously moving me around. When I worked with my subconscious and really,

you know, dug to kind of like reprogram a lot of that stuff, I was able to kind of clean out the voices. Now I hear them. But I'm like, oh, that's my grandfather's voice. Oh, that's grandmother's boy. Like I know whose voice it is or my fathers or my mother's. And it's funny. Like you can, you can identify and you just can't really listen to them. That was such a big lesson through. This was therapy, not meditation, but identifying whose voice is talking because this is something that I always have to tell

some of my friends who haven't got in therapy. It's like, when you're the only one in here, right? So when you tell yourself no or whatever, whatever may be, that's someone else's voice using, your mouth. Uh-oh. This just, I... Oh, no.

Hold on. That's the weirdest thing. I know. They don't want me to tell the secret. Battery, by, what I said? Is it because you have one of those cameras? Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a C-100 mark two. Oh, you have a fancy camera here.

Oh, no, it was a, it was a, I started the podcast over the pandemic and, um, they, uh, they, I had just bought a C-500. So for like the first year and a half, it was a C-500 mark two. Do you do documentaries with the C-300? I feel like that's where when I was doing documentary. That's what was. I used to.

Now it's the C-500 mark-2 and C-70. If I'm bringing my own stuff, but yeah, listening to identifying whose voice it is that is using your sort of of a voice. Whose language is using your voice, I think, is incredibly important because, yeah, like you said,

your grandfather who was maybe, you know, told you that you couldn't do anything or, you know, your friend who told you you could do anything. Right. And identifying like, oh, I choose to listen to that person, not, you know, Johnny, who was mean to me or whatever, you know. you have to acknowledge you know i say don't listen to it's like acknowledge it you hear it i say so it's so much easier said than done but like just now i hear the voice and i know i don't feel comfortable doing something but like that's where i'm going to go and i'm just like okay

we are we are acknowledging that we're afraid of sending this email just as simple as that is not for me it's like a daily thing i'm like because i don't want to bother this person or i don't want this person to not like me. But now we're just like stend. Stend. And like for me directing that was that. It's like you're not going to care what other people think. Just going to do it. And like to do an episode like this with the kind of crazy stuff we did. And first of all like severance is that. Severance was made in this vacuum of like not knowing if people were going to like it. And so much went into it. You know, there's such a big risk. But I really do believe when there's a big risk, the payoff can be so much bigger. Right. Yeah. Because that's another thing, right?

if you know exactly what you're doing, aside from the danger of complacency, like, is it fun? You know, like, and not that we're all out here trying to have fun, but like, there's, you want to, especially in a creative medium, you want to feel something when you're doing it, you know, especially if you're trying to make other people feel something. Yeah, I think that's the only interesting work when you're, when you're feeling real things.

And when you're in the flow of creating stuff, I get really excited even just even as a cinematographer on the show when we have these huge setups at Lumen and I get to like wear the headset and talk to three or four different camera crews sometimes at the same time. And it's like an orchestra. It's like we're an army of like cameras moving around and someone's on a lift over there. Someone's on 200 feet of track over here. And we're shooting like the sequence where Mark is running into the office. and it's all these like kind of like 70s fun shots like that for me is where I have the most fun because I'm just like talking to everyone and just making sure everyone's getting the best thing and then you're like okay it's the next the next camera waiting for us inside ready and people

everyone's moving and everyone feels like they have a purpose and there are many beautiful moments on severance that are like that where we all kind of like really come together and like move forward yeah well and it's funny too you uh I just thought about it when you saying that is like you stillness is scary like organizing everyone and having a bunch of chaos i think that's why anyone's really drawn to production is like oh there's an addiction there yeah yeah because like sitting still for a long time is is terrifying but like being in a room where you're having to direct you know as a department head directing people and getting all the the bees buzzing in the right direction is like that that feels good you should try the boss in a retreat i did that a couple

weeks ago. Do you know what that is? So what now? Vapasana meditation. Does that ring? Oh, no. I did this a couple weeks ago. Really, this is really fresh for me. But I went two weeks to this center where, you know, you can't, you don't have your, they take your phone away from you. You have no means of communicating. You're not allowed to look at people to talk to anyone for two weeks. And you meditate 10 hour of the day, starting at 4.30 in the morning and you end up like nine. um such it's the same hard it's it's really hard but you learn things you know and the things we've been talking about over that past hour like you already seem like I feel like you would at least be curious to live that experience and see certainly two weeks is a invest in 10 days

it's 10 days doesn't count the day you so it's 12 days because you like arrive there's a whole initiation and the day that you leave there's like this unpacking thing so it's like you have to for like two weeks. Gotcha. I mean, yeah. I was, I had a bunch of people when I moved back to L.A.

after college in like 15 years ago or whatever it was, 10 years ago, that were all trying to get me into the Transcendental Meditation. And I was like, because I liked the idea of sort of like helping myself in the way that I needed to be helped. But I, but I, you know, the punk rock side of me is like, I can't be joining an institution or, you know, I'm not going to, I don't want to be part of a team.

But I'm trying to do those kinds of things. There is kind of a little bit of a like, oh, this feels like a sector. It feels like this or that. Right. I mean, everyone will find their thing and whatever brings them in. I just think that kind of experience specifically, the speaking behind, like the, like the theory behind it, some of it, you know, in terms of like, where. it came from this like societal right it was brought up as like specific to a time and place but when you get down to the core essence of it it's really it's very simple it's very simple and

it makes sense it's just kind of taking away all thought you're not supposed to have thoughts or you're not supposed to visualize so you can't even do those basic things um and you're it's all about just sensations not emotions like what what are you feeling um and you can't move there's like three hours out of the 10 hours that you're not allowed to move like literally you're not allowed to move like your finger you know so it's kind of right so I I did the uh the float tanks instead which is kind of similar but those are nice um they are I like I like that I'm painful than sitting up for 10 hours a day yeah and I've got no core strength so that's you know um people are probably going to want me to ask you about cinematography yeah sorry we went off on

And no, no, that's, well, the intent of this podcast, not this episode, but the podcast in general was to, I think it's so important to obviously, you know, when I mentioned, you know, Adriano in the white room and the thing, every episode I've noticed more and more that the tools, not even the physical tools, but just the mechanisms for which we light things, frame things, tend to be the same and can be applied in different scenarios. It's the type of person that I think doesn't get enough attention who, it's suited for this job because I think a lot of people want to work in film. I don't know if they have the temperament for it or the personality for it a lot of times. Not that it's a good or bad, like it's not a value judgment. It's just some people would rather quietly work at home than work in the busy environment or, you know, don't realize that people think about time or, you know, these types of things outside of the work. You know, so I do actually prefer fleshing out the individual more than talking about cinematography. But I will say while doing my due diligence, you know, researching you and the show and stuff, and also being a massive fan of the show, every single time I would just look up your name and severance.

There'd be like a Reddit thread of just like a hundred people going like, give this woman an Emmy. Like there's a lot of people seem to love you on the internet. so I don't, you know. I'm afraid of the internet, so. Don't go on it. I'm starting to back off myself, and I grew up on the internet. I can't. I mean, I think it's an amazing thing.

I'm just a little bit. I'm just, I think it's right. It's course. Really? Well, I don't, I don't actually want a phone. That's one of my life goals is to not have a phone, but that's, you know, like you and your driver situation.

I don't, you know. Yeah. You have to get to a certain place to be able to not have a phone. We're not there yet. Oh, I'm worse. I have an Android. And I guess you can only be in the G&E department if you have an Android. Everyone else is pissed off.

I mean, they're like, get an iPhone. I'm like, are you going to buy it? And they're like, you know, good. Anyone should be allowed to have whatever, like communication device that they have. But it's a lot. The reflexes that are built in. Actually, you know, what was really interesting coming out of the meditation retreat was when I got my phone back.

My eyes had to readjust to look. I couldn't even like, even like pressing the buttons and just like something was off. It's like I was missing. I didn't know how to type anymore, and I couldn't see at that distance. It was just weird. That's honestly why I like the, I used to poo-poo the smartwatch, but I do actually like it because you can in it set what type of notification you get. So like only text messages or whatever, like only phone, whatever.

And so you can leave the phone elsewhere. And then if you need to know something's happening, like emails, like I get like 400 emails a day. I do not. And it's just, and so it, so I'll be sitting your editing or whatever. It's because I'm a journalist technically. I haven't written in a while. I need to get on it. But, um, so I just on all these like PR lists and stuff. And like, every time my phone buzzes and I'm like, oh, is that something important? It's an email. Two seconds later on, I'm on Instagram. Right. It's just a, it's a distraction. Automatic. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas with the smart watch, it's like, don't have emails pop up. Only text messages of which I get very few because I'm not on iMessage see it's a self it's a self limited no one wants to call

or text me because I'm green um but that's a fear I'm gonna have to get over um oh okay do like a human's job almost like it's crazy if you get rid of your phone you need someone to like replace the phone but depends what industry you're in but i would need to do that job yeah um okay cinematat Harvey questions uh uh We talked about the MDR area and all that. We kind of know. But like all of the nighttime stuff, all the, even actually, no, more importantly, the daytime stuff. So we've got like the, the Ortbo.

How am I remembering these? This is great. The orbow and stuff. How are you shaping the light in those sunny exterior? Like snow in general is very difficult to shoot. How are you getting the look you want out of those exteriors? And then we'll get in tonight in a minute. But I control the schedule.

I did hear in an interview kind of an 80s nightmare if it was a different project. Anything needs to just realize that it's going to be the order that I want. No, yeah, episode 8 and 4 were built like that. You know, even episode 8 before we went out to shoot it, maybe a couple of days before, we had a production meeting and I completely flipped the schedule. Obviously, I like do it in a way that I know works forever. I understand moving parts really well. So usually, and I, you know, we work with the departments to make sure it works for them

and we're not like throwing anyone under under the bus but when I know what the weather is going to be I flip everything to the right place um and Ben knows that I work like that and he wants things to look good so he's always on board I always check with him when something's a little trickier because I just want to make sure they won't affect you know the energy that he wants on set but like for for some of those sequences in uh in episode eight when we're in Newfoundland they're the blue hour stuff when they're leaving like that's shot you know over more than one day and in such a It's an orchestra of people moving in and out and doing things. And we want a crazy story that happened, that pickup truck, we were doing like, we had,

we have like two takes basically per setup because we, we rehearse before we shoot, where we rehearse with camera. So we'll actually even rehearse with lens changes. And then we'll have a big conversation. We're all like just stand in front of everyone and be like, okay, first setup is this camera's there, that camera's there. This is happening. We recap, we have like, everything's marked out.

Everyone knows like, where they're, we have to do that with blue hour stuff but then when we got to the pickup truck driving away the thing broke down so literally the entire crew we had two pickup trucks the other one was like down the hill like far away so we and we have like lighting installed in this thing so literally the crew's pushing that truck out of the way someone's bringing the other truck when we have like 10 minutes to do this um it was i wish there was a video of it because it was just hilarious I was a bunch of Canadians pushing trucks around. I was panicking, definitely.

There was a couple of moments where I was very stressed this season. That was one of them. Well, pardon. But that episode specifically was gorgeous. And I think it does speak to how important timing is. I think a lot of what makes this, quote, unquote, cinematic image is literally just getting the sun where you want it. Yeah, yeah. There's keeping the deep that.

Also, working with second units, you know, and understanding what an offload from main unit and second unit. That's something I'll do in cover and make sure that, you know, what I know we cannot achieve, I just dump on second unit. And I'm like, okay, they need to do that. Or, you know, I'll make the recommendations of like where we need it, where we need extra camera crews and what that means. This year, one of the fun things, Ryan Smith, our location manager on the show, directed the second unit stuff. He had always impressed me with his like photography and basically had talked to me about it. I was like, hey, why not? And then we proposed him to Ben.

And it just made sense because he, he's the one who originally, like, physically flew to Newfoundland. So he knew where everything was, you know. And like, to me, that would make sense that he would be doing it. But yeah, it's understanding time and the resources that you have and when it's too much, when you're going to fail. We ride the edge a lot of that, Ben and I, and since Escape at Dan Amora, we've been working like that. And there's this one sequence where Paul Daino and Benizio are on like the Benizio El Toro are at the top of a mountain and they're looking at the prison far away. And it's shot in a real blue hour. We're on the top of a mountain.

Like I cannot bring lighting there. This is not like the Revenue. We're not like, we're not able to like helicopter in anything, you know? It's just that. I'm not saying that they lit really on the Rebnan, but I just, it's a different world. And this was very wooded. We first three different setups with multiple cameras. So he would have like, I don't know if he had maybe a total of like six or seven shots for this sequence.

And, but that last take, man, there was not another. the take out for that. It's just that's it. I'm like, I don't know. He's like, can I go again? I'm like, I don't know if you see him. You go again. I don't know if you're going to see anything.

But those are the kinds of conversations we're having. Yeah. So for all the Newfoundland stuff, was it literally just or even the orpo stuff? Are you just pure timing? Are you bringing in any shaping or anything like that? There's a couple moments where I brought where we brought in some stuff. I mean, for like the night campfire thing, there's a little bit of accent stuff. And then just like lighting up a little bit of the fore.

forest, but not much. There's one moment where we snuck in a little light for Heli, getting closer to the waterfall. We did have to relight. So that sequence took three days to shoot. It was a huge sequence. And like, just. The waterfall part?

Yeah, the waterfall. The water. But just the stunts of it, they're hanging off the side of it. These guys are like harnessed in. Like there's nothing that no one's moving fast. You know, we are all being safe and chill. And then there's snow that. added and a lot of the snow is enhanced in BFX.

A lot of the snow from episode four was very in and eight as well was very enhanced in BFX. But there's a base there and working like in next to this little, not lake, but pond. And it's a tricky. The largest pond in the world. Oh yeah. Was it the largest waterfall? It says waterfall. Yeah. But anyway, so you're on rocks.

It's tricky. You can't move fast. So we had three days to do that. And it was going to be impossible to have the same. same like lighting looks. We had sun clouds, everything, and then you have to shoot outside at the time when you lose the sun over the cliff. I was going to have to deal with that being like a bunch of different things. So some was some things were relit in post because they wouldn't match. Yeah. Yeah. It just impossible. I've been talking about that with it with a few DPs now

is like some of the tools and resolve and probably baselight too, but are just the ability to maybe not accurately, but realistically re-light a shot are phenomenal now. And they're all, you know, more or less automatic versus you trying to just have to window everything and like shape every now it's like you just drop one little thing. A light bulb should be here. It's like, yeah, we got it.

You know, shadow. I think on fast shots, that works really well. Like when you hold a shot for a really long time, you kind of like want to like do it well, but like do it in real. But you just can't do it. And it's, as a DP, it's so important to help your director understand when it's worth it or not. Like, there are many times where, like, if Ben's like, oh, well, do you don't want to, like, add light or whatever or something.

And I'm like, I will do that. And or take this down. Like, it's too bright. I'm like, that's in two seconds in post. We, we get thought now. And do not worry about that. We got that. Tom Poole's going to save the day.

You know, like it's where your color is can do something like that and not have to bring out like a 20 by. You know, I just, you have to constantly make choices like that. Yeah. So the, so for daytime, you know, we're mostly letting daylight play. For the nighttime stuff, how did you avoid? Because one comment I saw, again, online, was a lot of people were applauding the fact that while there's a lot of darkness, you can still see. I have an argument for a lot of people like, everything's dark, you can't see shit, is that it's your TV and you're watching in that noon, you know? the view i could go on a whole rant about that but um well we don't want to do dark for dark we like

contrast so severance is a show about like the like the physicality of the image like it has to have a shape so there's always kind of like a search for that and i don't think it's ever really about like just being dark but you can do a piece like that like you can't do that kind of filmmaking like it's just it's not we just don't like flat so that would ultimately be quite flat you know and that's not the look of severance right because i'm thinking like with mark's apartment right you can you can see in the most of the shadows but it looks like there's only like you know maybe a titan tube tucked up somewhere and that's kind of it are you just relying on the the sensitivity of the sensor or is there like more no well every scenario is different

uh you know every setup has kind of a different approach to me always stems from what's what's the space and the architecture giving you, you know, where are there practicals? Like, if you're outside and like, okay, there's a street lamp. We're going to work around that. Or we'll create it when we need something. Most of the time I'm just taking things away, like just turning things off. But then there's also when you're lighting it, you're trying stuff. You're turning some stuff on, some stuff off. And then when you kind of like like the tableau, then you can come in and like add specific sources with like some great so that, you know, it just focuses where you need it. When you know where the actor is going to hit, I don't love to

light like that for daytime. He's don't really need to. But for nighttime, you do kind of need to add a little thing here or there. If ever, it's like he's just not, can't see anything. And understanding like what the image is, like, what are you trying to say? Sometimes the silhouette is actually really evocative and makes sense, but sometimes you need to see the actor's face. Yeah. Well, and when you're given like Devin's house being that like Brankloid Wright kind of set up like that's, it's like anytime you put a pool of light, everything around, it's going to look gorgeous. You know, it's like, how much gorgiosity do I put into this? Yeah, I mean, that's it.

I mean, everyone wants to live in that house. Like, everyone wants to live in that house. Yeah. All right. Well, they're telling me I have to let you go. But I would love to have you back on to keep chatting because I feel like we could uncover some great truths or solve a mystery. I don't know.

But yeah, we're like the secret of time. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah, we'll have to, yeah, we'll definitely have to have you back on next time you're free or something, especially if you're not working and have the time. Of course. That's been fun to talk about other stuff also. Yeah, well, the goal of the podcast kind of is, you know, a lot of times y'all are on press tours.

So it's like, let's not have you answer the same five questions every time. I mean, I try. I really try hard not to get your answers. Sometimes this is tough. And then sometimes you're like, well, I'm not going to like, I can't like tell this in a different way. Anyways, whatever. Yeah. But yeah, stay in touch.

Like, I have to say, got to be my favorite show of the past like eight years. so it's like you guys and or in the first season of Westworld I think are like my top three television shows in the Westworld that was a good one I mean my design on that was insane also yeah sucks they just kind of anyway I'll let you go please stay in touch and I hope we can talk again soon thank you

bye bye frame and reference is an Albot production produced and edit 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.