Frame & Reference Podcast - 189: "The Last of Us" Cinematographer Catherine Goldschmidt, ASC BSC

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Today I'm thrilled to welcome back Catherine Goldschmidt, ASC BSC to chat about her work on The Last of Us Season 2! Catherine shot episodes 2, 4, and 7 of the series (the latter of which we don't talk about for spoiler reasons!)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 189 in frame and reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Catherine Goldschmidt, ASC, BSC, DP of The Last of Us Season 2. Enjoy it. Was there only two of the two of you are the DPs, just you and, um. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Me and Cassania, we were alternating. So yeah. Yeah. So she did one, three, five and six. And I did two, four and seven. Gotcha. Dude, you're in the USC. You're in the USC now. ASE. I know. I know. I know. It's excited. How'd they, they were like, oh, shit. We got, we got an American got away. We got to. We got to. We got to. We got to. We got. get her, hold on. I got a track her down.

Yeah, yeah. The Brits got her first. Yeah. Yeah. How was that like induction phase? I mean, very exciting. Obviously, a little bit intimidating as well. But yeah, I had some great sponsors and lots of support.

And honestly, yeah, it was very cool. And basically, I got in right before the ASC awards this year. So it was nice because I was nominated. got to go and I got to be like I'm in now and everybody was like yay so that was cool yeah who were your sponsors um amy vincent was my main sponsor um she was my professor at afi and then i had some of my afi classmates Todd ban hazel and Matthew lloyd and oh i've talked to matt he's cool yeah yeah yeah and then uh and then fabby and wagner as well that's a good one yeah i keep I keep getting, people have mentioned, um, uh, Amy Vincent a bunch.

I haven't spoken to her before, but, uh, I keep for whatever reason, I keep confusing her with St. Vincent. And so I'll tell me, like, oh, yeah, I know them. And then, and then I'm like, no, no, no, hold on. Oh, wait, no. Do not know there. I do not know their work. You can be related, but yeah, yeah.

So that's what have you been doing between? Did you just go straight from house of the dragon to the to this? The last of us, yeah. Yeah, that's basically what happened last year. Yeah. Yeah, I had a little bit of time. I was actually in the middle of, like, buying a flat and moving. And so, but I did some remote Zoom calls and stuff.

And then, yeah, and then I showed up, showed up right after the MAs of, which were the weird delayed January Emmys. So that was, yeah, that was last year, January last year. Yeah. that's why I had to you know a lot of times you talk to people and they're like oh yeah you know my director friend

how did how did they just see oh this chick worked on house the dragon she's probably we can trust her and you come kind of thing or was there like a more involved like vetting process yeah it seemed that way it seemed like you know because I had a meeting obviously with Craig and Neil

and the producers and yeah it seemed like because I had done two seasons first the dragon and you know the ASC award the Emmy for nominations, like, obviously very helpful. And, yeah, so it seemed, I don't know, seemed groovy. And then I got to meet with Kisena, actually. And that was great because she was wonderful and she was very, you know, like each episode is

kind of its own standalone thing and you'll have tons of freedom and, you know, it's a family experience. And anyway, she said all the right things. So, yeah. And I'd obviously seen the show and love the show. sure i was not a game player did not play the game um i was very upfront about that but um but i watched a game on youtube before my meeting and i thought it was very cool yeah you know very cinematic yeah oh incredibly i mean the second game came out like right after

not right after but like a few years after i had graduated college so i played the first i didn't play the second one but i knew the storyline and stuff and um yeah i think that was one the first games that I can remember that that like I probably put my foot in the mouth for like other games but but in terms of like the the look of it the storytelling of it was actually a factor it was like that and god of war which came out in like 2016 I remember everyone going a god of war I think got nominated for like a cinematography award somewhere right did I tell you about that I feel like we talked about this last time really god award takes place place in a one take.

All right. The whole game is one take. Wow. There's only one cut. That's amazing. Yeah, it's really cool. It's an interesting thing. But I actually did watching the whole season.

It's not necessarily your episode that I'm thinking of, but in general, throughout the episodes, you guys do a really good, there are moments in it that are very of not that video games specifically, but video games in general. like dialogue can be very gamey in like a good way I feel and also like certain shots and like talking about climbing obstacles and stuff I'm like yeah that's I don't know if this is for I didn't play too obviously but I don't know if that's from the game but it but it is of gaming and I thought that was like a nice do was that like a thing you guys talked about like trying to make nods to the game well definitely there's there's definitely stuff in the show that comes directly from the game and there's definitely stuff that we did where Yeah, we're Craig and Neil will be like, yeah, we want this to be really like the game. So whether that's in terms of production design and the set or in terms of how we shoot it. But, yeah, like, I mean, I'll give you an example, an episode two, you know, the part where Abby gets crushed by the fence and is sort of crawling along and there's all the infected sort of bearing down on her. That was, yeah, a really specific part of the game that people who played it, you know,

had this, like, visceral reaction to. And so, yes, I remember that being, you know, very important that we replicate that feeling. And so, yes, there was a lot of focus on, like, how to get that feeling as claustricobic as possible, how to get the camera to be able to be in that sort of tiny space with her, you know, leading and following and that sort of thing. So, anyway, I can tell you how we did it. It was, it was like, you know. okay so yeah so everybody had to sort of like come to the table and do a little test to see like exactly how low can the fence go that lets Caitlin still you know because she was obviously going to be doing this herself right um still crawl through and then how big was that hole and and what kind of a you know camera situation could we could we do and so in the end what we came to was um it was a ronin 4d on a

A filmo-technic makes this very lightweight, portable, a telescopic arm on the F-27. And we could take it off the base and we could lay it right on the snow. And then we could be able to, you know, pull the camera back, push the camera forward. And the whole clearance was something like, I don't know, 14 inches or something off the, off the ground. So, yeah, it was cool. It was great. What camera were you shooting on? So it was the Ronin 4D.

So that's the whole. Oh, sorry. I just didn't really heard the gimbal. I forgot that's a camera. Yeah, it's a camera too. Yeah. That's cool. You know, that camera is getting, it's so crazy because like,

ostensibly that's a prosumer camera, but it's popping up on so many more film, like, like, you know, real TV and film set. Like, obviously, Civil War was a famous one. I think adolescence is using it. Yep, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. So I had used it for like all horse riding point of view shot on House of the Dragon and just that. my God, this is amazing. So that's, you know, I just immediately thought of it as soon as we were just trying to like get smaller and smaller and smaller. And yeah, performed incredibly well. Don't you have to do something a little wacky if you have, what was your lens package? Because usually I feel like if it's too heavy, the goose neck gets a little floppy or whatever. Yeah. So we were shooting the main, the rest of the show, let's say, is shot Alexa 35 and these took

S4 is that KSenia actually had Airy Rental Modify so that the iris is like a perfect circle. So those were very nice, very special. So, yeah, so I mean, I had to switch the lens in for that shot, but Cook makes

I'm not going to remember what they're called. Is it like SB3? Yeah, that's what they are. Yeah. So we use those. Gotcha. Yeah, I've seen some people do tests between the SP3s and like some of the other cooks and it's like I can totally see that because it's not exactly like a S4 or anything but it is close enough I think that coloring was even pretty close like one of them might lean a little cooler but that's about it probably the SP3 yeah I mean and honestly for like how much is going on those shots and the duration of

them and you know what I mean it's sort of I think you get away with a lot actually yeah and honestly like I was thinking about this the other day like for the longest time we were trying to solve for dynamic range and now that's almost purely taken care of and even if it's not all you have to do is just manage it in your frame you know oh no my camera only does 10 stops it's like oh figured out like yeah old film used to be six yeah I mean that's the other thing you know I I know it was day exterior like I wasn't I wasn't too worried about that we did do um We did actually put it side by side with R35 at the start of the show just to, you know,

because I also wasn't clear if I was going to use it again for nightwork and stuff like that. And, and I decided not to, but for that, yeah, it was totally fine. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I was talking to Chase, who's the like product specialist for Ari a couple weeks ago. And at the ASC Clubhouse, weirdly enough, I was, I was, I was. doing they're filming something and I was like hey I got to do a podcast in like five minutes can I just use your office and you're all right so but um Rie has the craziest like this is probably too nerdy but Ari Arri's approach to camera making so interesting because like the Alexa they were like oh no display can display more than 12 stops so we'll just film for that and then now the 35 was like oh HDR and modern displays can now show about 16 so they're like that's our new target and obviously 4K because of netbooks and everything.

But it's like, I've never heard of any camera manufacturer just going like, how do we future proof it in the most like German way possible, right? It's like, oh, what's the standard? All right, we just beat that. That's problem solved. Yeah, exactly. Why not? Really nice.

I've never used it. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, so yeah, I've used to my class three jobs now. And, and yeah, if you're doing like a side by side camera shootout and you're interested in like, you know, present. Like, for example, on episode two, again, like, there was a lot of concern about, like, how much detail we'd see and all the flame work, you know, and especially because all that's outside, you know, when you're already, you know, in a day exterior environment, already in the snow. And, and, and I felt pretty confident that that camera would be able to handle it. We shot some tests. And, you know, it's, you know, it's very impressive. You can't blow it out. It's the most insane highlight retention I've, I've ever seen. of any camera. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, what I did do, you know, I did, and I think maybe, I forgot if I'd done this on the NASA Dragon, but I did rate it at, um, at 1600 just to give a little extra in the highlights. Um, so I did do that, but yeah. I can't remember when I learned that trick. It was like last year or something, but when I, when I finally understood how ISO works, even though I had seen a chart a million times, I was like, wait a minute. Yeah.

If it gets bright outside, raise the ISO. Because that's not your first thought, right? You always go dark ISO, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah. No, it's counterintuitive, and it means you have to, you know, wear a lot of ND a lot of the time. But, yeah, but I actually like working with a Rota ND, which I always have to get the camera assistance into that idea.

But once we have that, then instead of writing the iris on the, on the, you know, handset, we're right in the filter. And so then you can just pick a stop and stick with it. And it's just a lot more flexible. You know, the sun comes out, it goes in. It's like, it's an English trick. Gotcha. It's an English trick.

The, uh, in a cloud in a, in a cloudy country. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, they must love the Sony's over there then. That, like, that electric ND that you can just ride the little wheel on the side. oh definitely yeah yeah do you not find like who which one did you use because every time i i refuse obviously i'm on a much lower end than you uh but i always just make sure i have um internal n ds anytime i buy a camera rent but uh the thing that i always avoided about vndes was just the

obviously you get that weird xing pattern at a certain point like a lot of times the coloration is really bad so like what was what's a good one yeah i would good question and we definitely do test a bunch to find the good ones and it was tricky because we had you know like to shoot the battle sequence for example we had five cameras and I remember it was like getting tricky to match all the filters so but yeah to actually remember they were I'd have to go back and look um but yeah I mean once you once you find one that works for you the only thing that did happen is like because it's two filters, you know, two polaris filters, like you can get, and, you know, I mean, you've seen the episode, like, there's so much snow and crap in the air everywhere and

we're in these, like, crazy conditions. So we could, we got sometimes stuff stuck between them, and that was bad. So that we had to keep, we had to keep them clean because otherwise, yeah, then, then everything goes wrong. So, I mean, it probably stands to reason that you would get the unless something happens in seven I'm unaware of like the largest battle scene of this of the season you know how how was your

experience from obviously like House of the Dragon and stuff kind of informed that obviously your familiarity with like VFX and like what they might need and stuff like that but like was there any other kind of like oh I'm actually prepared for this kind of stuff with that one also the heaviest that's not the heaviest

but you got the episode which probably wasn't uh you know it was probably a little stressful well that's just it i mean like we had this great big battle we had to prepare for which obviously takes you know a lot of planning and coordination and all the rest of it but we also had you know the death of joel and that and we had to shoot joel dying our first week of shooting oh no which was just like yeah absolutely brutal for everybody involved um so yeah it's anyway i can talk a lot about about either one um but as far as like my experience on house the dragon you know i've shot some action stuff but to be honest yeah it was nothing nothing at this really um yeah like anyway yeah definitely yes this is you're

allowed to rant this is the i don't know if you remember but this is pretty chill uh no one's here to listen in my ass. Rant. Okay. Well, I mean, let's let's talk about the Joel stuff first, actually. Because I do feel like, you know, the battle can go on and on and on. But the Joel stuff we felt, I mean, that's just like the heart of the whole episode. And so Mark Filed, the director and I Yeah, 100%. And so we were

really wanting to get that right. now one thing that I hope you cannot tell is that we were shooting that in a real location with changing weather outside those big windows so even though you know and it was one of those things where like so much of the episode is day exterior so much of the challenge is to sell this snowstorm throughout you know so many days of the schedule and And obviously, yeah, the weather's going to change all the time. But to be shooting an interior scene and be that weather dependent was definitely like just more, more challenging, basically. So yeah, so that's a real location where those, you know, two-story windows actually sit, you know, a whole story up off the ground. And the ground is sort of sloping away. And then there's woods. And so...

You know, so it was, and it's south facing. The south facing. Yeah. So, you know, so my, like, and, you know, we were in there a week to do all the work we had to do. And I really just wanted, you know, to give Mark and the actors, like, as much freedom and flexibility and time to do what they had to do. So it was, it was, you know, it was a sort of, you know, it was, it was a thing basically to be able. able to convince, you know, the line producer that actually we really did need, even though this is an interior scene, I really did need to get the large grip, you know, like construction

crane and 40 by 60 outside this big window because there was no other way to control the sun and no other way that we could just keep soothing. Because, yeah, that sun just poured like straight into that room. And that was the only way to deal with that. So that was, that was exciting to get that over the line when everybody else is trying to just put all the money into, you know, the visual effects and the big battle and all the stuff. And it's like, what?

You have to spend money. You have to spend that much money on this. What's a 20-time grip truck? Who put this down? So what, were you just like to just big-ass diffusion? Hope for the best. It was a black. We were just trying to kill all the sun.

Well, because then you just had a shit ton of bounce coming in from the snow anyway. So it's. And not only that, well, it wasn't actually, I mean, it was funny. When we scouted the place, there was real snow out there. But when we showed up, there was snow one day and then it all melted the next day. So that was the other problem. It was just like, oh my God, like, you know, because the whole point of shooting on location is to avoid copious amounts of visual effects. And that's why they had made that decision before Mark and I began.

But in the end, because the weather changed so drastically, and, you know, and we had to, that was the other thing, like, you know, Mark is so wonderful with the actors. He's very protective of, you know, shooting in an order that's going to prioritize their performances and not doing anything that will be screwy for that just for in terms of light or anything like that. So it wasn't like, anyway, so we didn't change the plan as far as, you know, shooting order or anything, even though we knew what the weather report said was going to happen. So we just, yeah. So anyway, we for that location, that was not Whistler. I can't remember where that was. No. Some place outside of Vancouver where we were hoping it would snow and it did snow.

And then it didn't. So, yeah, so it was tricky. And, you know, in the end, there are, they're, you know, they did have to do some visual effect work outside the windows, obviously. But I had to make sure that there was no sun coming in ever. So, yeah. That was kind of like the mantra for the whole thing, like no sun. Right. We can get away.

Hill the sun. Yeah. Yeah. And it's so you're, that's, that has to be a tough scene too because I mean, obviously emotionally, but like it's borderline a black. black box theater. There's just nothing in it. It's just some walls and some wood floor and then the world's largest window and it's like, totally. You're hated that and you're like, I don't even get production designed to help. Well, yeah, because if we had built the set, we would have shaped that room slightly. Like, it's a very awkwardly shaped room and especially for that many actors and

what that action was. And we had three cameras. So it was, you know, it was challenging. But, Um, but I think, you know, anyway, I'm, I'm thrilled that, um, that it all worked, obviously and very relieved because it was, you know, it was definitely like, starting with the meat, basically. Yeah. Um, so. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, but, um, but anyway. So that's, that's, that's, that's what that was. And oh, and I had to make the production designer. Um, because basically like, I knew I could, I knew with this 40 by 60, we could basically. we could basically track the sun. I feel like there was sort of one corner

where we had to get in another machine just for when the sun got low. So we could block the sun, but there was still so much ambient that would come in these massive windows. And so again, just to work quickly, I bagged the production designer, you know, would they please install

these like blackout blinds that we could just control? Sure. And he was like, you can. I just don't ever want to see them in the picture. And so we tried our very, very hardest to never affirm them. But every once in a while, I see one. And I'm like, I'm sorry, Don.

Sorry about that. And VFX is like, no, I'm not. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, VFX is like, we've done, we've done our share on this episode. Yeah. It's part of the scene now. You guys did this to yourself. Yeah.

Nobody notices it except for, except for us. But, yeah. I did notice the whole, like, overall the show, obviously, except for like some of the interiors and the, more dramatic, like, spore room, for instance, towards the end of the season. But the lighting in most of these exteriors feels very, I suppose, hands off would be a word. And not like it slapped together or anything, but it just feels very lightly seasoned, if you will. And I was kind of wondering what the general approach was between you and I wrote her name down, but I fucking.

Ksenia, yeah, yeah, there you go. I kind of, there we go, make that look like a real letter. Like how you guys talked about doing, obviously, a lot of the show takes place outside. You know, doing those exteriors and also like if there was any kind of different approach from the first season. Good question. I'm trying to remember what some of our early conversations were like about that. I mean, I think, I think they definitely wanted to continue. some stuff from the first season.

First of all, the handheld look I think was really important to continue because that sort of like grounds it a little bit more in reality. And just the fact that they that they want to shoot scenes with three handheld cameras and they want the freedom

to have those cameras be able to move around and follow the actors. And, you know, that fact alone means that you know you're definitely lighting spaces and you know and making um you know and trying to come up with 360 solutions because all the sets are built you know for 360 and so it really is just like wanting to create this environment where actors you know can play and um yeah as far as the day exterior work goes i mean again it's like you know the production design and the set dressing in some of these exteriors is tremendous.

And so you just want to be able to, you know, show that off, really. And yeah, I would say, you know, I would say the style is very naturalistic. And that, you know, and that's to sort of, again, keep it, keep it feeling grounded, keep it feeling real and not too precious, you know, not too pretty. Although some things are very beautiful. but like there's this sort of like ugly beautiful aesthetic going I would say just definitely in terms of in terms of the design of everything but I think that you know sort of seeps a little bit into the photography sometimes too sure so there wasn't any like um you know some poor grip hollywooding like a bounce all the time or anything you just kind of let it play well I mean I am trying to remember I mean it just depends on what the scene is you know what i mean like like for the big battle stuff and indeed actually like so much of the snow work and up the mountain like like you didn't have to put a bounce in because

there's a lot of light bouncing around the place you're more often than not putting down blacks on the ground just to like try to have some contrast um so that was the the approach i would say for the um for the yeah for for episode two um Yeah, I guess you guys lucked out. You don't have a lot more snow work after that. Times to change. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Spring comes and then we're done with the snow. So yeah, but we definitely got a lot of snow in episode two. But yeah, for example, in episode four, you know, like there's that scene that we shot out on the Nimo, which is an island actually off the coast of Vancouver. Or, yeah, it's on Vancouver Island, I should say. and we took over their whole main street, and that's where Ellie and Dina sort of ride on their horse

and see all the, they found the tank. Yep. And that was the scene that we shot over the course of two days. The weather was beautiful, but I was, yeah, I was trying to not have them be in direct sun because I did want it to look nice. I'll admit it. You know what?

I wrote a note here in the, in the, what I will call the guitar center. Yeah. There's two things. One, it's very video game. It's so, it feels like you plucked it out of one of the games. But when she walks up stairs and there's that hole in the wall, I was just like, bro, come on. Like it's so, it's like if a DP designed a shot, it would be that one. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that, like you say, that comes, that's directly from the game 100% Oh, is it? And my direct...

Yeah, yeah, it is. And Cain Herron was my director on that episode, and she loves the game and is a huge game player. And she, as soon as she found out that we had that scene in our episode, she was like, oh, my God, we have to do it exactly like the game. And so, yeah, so we definitely watched that scene again and again and tried to make all of our choices be like the game. So, yeah, that's an example where we were very attached to what

what the game was yeah sure and then the i was that location was that set no that was a set that was that was that was quite a cool it was actually a two story set done macaulay the production that there built it all in one um much to the producer's chagrin i was going to say i wouldn't have expected the first floor to actually be also part of the same building yeah yeah yeah so it was all one And we did do a shot that connects it so that we could show off that fact. But of course, you know, in the edit, it all, it all gets chapped. So it's hard for people to appreciate that. But yes, it was all one big set that we did light and shoot as one.

Yeah. So what was the, you know what else is nice to is like all of the overgrowth that takes place in all these places must be like really nice to shoot. It's just, you know, giving every literally everything, a nice texture that's dim is Like, it's amazing. It's amazing. And the Greens department is so phenomenal. I do, I do not know how they do it, honestly, because we would show up and it would be done, you know. That main street in the Nymo is a perfect example. Like, they took over the entire street and greened it. Like, it's amazing. The, um, that episode is a is a real kick in the nuts emotionally too. Because it's, uh, yeah, that, that's, that's a tough one. What a, yeah. Yeah. that's a that's a charged one uh the i noticed too oh also i love what's his name i just he came on screen and i went bernard uh from westworld uh the actor geoffrey right jeffrey right yeah i was really excited to see him yeah yeah yeah no he's amazing we loved working with geoffrey um yeah

that scene in the kitchen was like so brutal And it was a Saturday, and we had to, you know, work with a different unit. And, and I had to, you know, tell them, like, I'm really sorry, we're going to do a Saturday where we're just going to watch somebody being tortured. And I'm sure people would rather be somewhere else. And, but actually, like, because Jeffrey is such an incredible performer, people were just thrilled to be able to see him do his thing, basically. And the other actor in that scene being the tortured person was also, I mean, yeah, that's. the thing. I was so impressed, really, because

yeah. I mean. Because also, I never, I never really get to, like, the last thing I saw Jeffrey Riden was American fiction. You know, very, very lovable character in there. And then in this one, he's just like, yeah, fuck off, you know? So aggressive.

Well, I was, I got, sorry, I got distracted, because I was really excited to see him, but yeah, Klammoot did that. Oh, this is just a notes. I'm just going to bring it up, but this is what I was going to say. But on, obviously, there's a lot of flashlights. Everyone's got a flashlight. How are you, this is such a stupid question, but whatever, like, are you having to gel the flashlights, like do special lighting? Like, how are you guys handling that? Because otherwise, you know, I don't know why. Yeah. Yeah, no,

totally. No, no, we do. We have to gel the flashlights. So, and actually, you know, for the for the shrewd observer, um, you'll see that, you know, that changes to depending on what the scene is. I mean, I wound up picking a certain combo that suited my needs. Like, basically, what I really needed the flashlights to do in episode four was actually reach into that subway tunnel. And I knew that even though we could play on their backs and swap them out for something more powerful, like, I really wanted it to just all be one thing,

because then we could, you know, it just makes two day in one way, shooting the other way. You know, like I said, we want to be 360. We want to just keep going. We want to just have it flow. So that was sort of my limiting factor that I worked backwards from as far as, you know, because I think, anyway, yeah,

you're picking the ND you want and you're picking the color you want. And you're also working, you know, with the props department if you need more punch. I think in the case of episode four, I was trying to punch them up some more just so that, yeah, just so that we could really be finding the space through that flashlight. Yeah. Well, and when Dean is holding up Ellie, you know, while she's whatever, I really enjoyed how you let that just bail out, you know, just like obscure her because that's obviously way more interesting and scary. I think that was a good choice.

Yeah. Oh, cool. Thanks. Yeah. No, that was actually, I mean, I have to say, like, Craig writes some of that stuff in the script. So I'm pretty sure I'm trying to remember now whether that specifically was in there. But he's also on set and we're also sort of, you know, like riffing on that stuff sometimes. And, you know, because then she picks up the lantern. Right. Yeah. That was definitely in the script. And, you know, and the first time she did it, you know, Craig was like, oh, well, Do you think she could hold it higher? Like, so that looked dumb. And I was like, that happens in every movie. Can I get in frame, please? Yeah, yeah, everybody always holds their lantern right next to their face because obviously that's how you. It's like in sci-fi movies, you know, you'll see like people with space helmets on and there's just like a string of LEDs pinging them in the eyeballs and they're like wandering out like, I can't see shit. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, when you wear a helmet, of course you want to. blind yourself. Every time I wear sunglasses, I make sure the the sun is on this side, you know? Yeah. How much of that subway set was built out? All of it. It's all in cameras.

I know. I know. It's crazy. Don McCully did and his team a phenomenal job. So that set is built into this super long, thin building and Vancouver that used to be a printing press. I think it used to be like a like where they made some newspaper. I forget which one. So yeah, all the tile is that's what the room is. So they built the tunnel into this place. So we didn't have it was all set. There was no, you know, the set wall

is here. And then here's where we put our hearts or whatever. The whole thing was one big set, which was a little bit like oh god um so and that's a real train that they got into this room yeah which which was which was intense as well um because once that train was in it wasn't ever going out again right so you know so as far as like the order of things like i definitely had to hang whatever lighting i wanted to hang in there first and the ceilings are incredibly tall um oh so you could get some something up there oh yeah we could we could definitely yeah we we wound up rigging um it was all sky panels basically it was sky panels and um i picked i mean i always about it remembered i think it was like quarter charcoal gray or something that would something

that would sort of make it feel because everybody you know nobody wants it to feel lit right like You need a base, you need a base layer because, you know, when they first come in and they don't, they have, they're not shining their flashlights in there yet. You still need, it can't be black. You have to see something. And so this was my sort of solution to try to, yeah, have very low level ambience that also wasn't, you know, hanging off of anything shiny like the subway cars or. Right. So that's, that's what we did sort of down the whole tunnel. maybe it was you or someone else but someone one of y'all told me about the using charcoal as like diffusion trick maybe it was you like two years ago whenever we last talk but it's it's such a smart idea and I never would have thought of it or bounce even for that matter or like bouncing off neck sometimes or whatever yeah well we did it on the else of the dragon season too specifically because of the wings and wanting to sort of like kill some of the reflection off all the wigs um

And I just carried it with me because, I mean, I think, yeah, I really like it for, you know, stuff that you want to feel not lit, but you do have to light. So, and then obviously there's all the flares that come into that scene and there's a lot of discussion, a lot of testing ahead of time about what the flares could be, what they should be, because basically, you know, it turns out that health and safety in Vancouver was. theoretically happy for us to burn layers in this enclosed space that didn't have really any actual evental, you know, it wasn't a real stage, it didn't actually have like a yeah, venting system or anything, but

so yeah, in theory, they were happy, but we were like I bet that's not really going to fly at the end of the day because they are very smelly. Oh, yeah. And, and yeah. So, you know, so anyway, in testing, we were sort of testing out like how long we could withstand that. But then we were also just trying to match the color, the quality of the flicker of the light using other other units.

And so in the end, again, we were collaborating with the props department to make these prop flares so that, yeah, they actually looked like the flares, but had our LEDs on the end. And then we could, you know, control those really easily intensity and flicker and all that stuff. but we build LED flares you build LED flares exactly because they were they were easier for you know if they were in shot which they were

it was easier for VFX to just turn them into a real flare later than if I had just stuck you know something else in there like Nistera or whatever when we weren't seeing them we could do you know we could do as stares we could do sky panels but um but when we were seeing them

then they had to they had to actually be an easier thing to to switch over and become a flare in post. So yeah, so they were wired so we couldn't actually throw them and also the throwing of them would break them.

So we did for the actual like throwing of the flares, those are all real flares. But then yeah, I mean the actors were really they did not want to be breathing that and they were so it was all, it's all these LED ones that we made. Yeah. Well, and also again, the stupid nerdiest thing in the world but I know for a fact the A35

they the original Alexa has a hard time with like really saturated bright reds and I know the A35 they fixed it so good choice yeah yeah totally no it was yeah it was great yeah that was great

I mean it was still you know it was still like hardgoing that scene because you know everything in the actual train car you know we were running down the length of the train car with the camera. So we're seeing the entire train car and how it makes sense for the light to be in that space obviously is on the outside, right? Because they've thrown the fliers around on the outside. So it should just be, you know, red from outside. But what happens, practically speaking, is you have your lights outside

and then a ton of infecting comes in the windows. So there goes all your light source. Wonderful. So, you know, so we had to sort of like, anyway, try to just like squeeze it in where we could. And then, and then, yeah, obviously they're carrying flashlights, which gives you some excuse to have that kind of lighting bouncing around the place in the tunnel. I mean, in the car. But there's literally no place to put it because you're rushing down this train car and you're seeing everything. So the only place I could put anything was on the camera. So we put those little aperture, I forget what they're called, but yeah, exactly.

These things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we put, so every camera had its own little camera light. So that was, yeah, that was just for a little bit of exposure. Was it more like an eye light? Yeah, it was a little bit of an eye light.

But, you know, again, depending on sort of where they were in proximity to the camera, we could be right in the level of it. Right. You can do that, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, it was all on my, my dimmer board operator was just, was right in that. And then, and then the other tricky thing in there is there's all those sponge shots, which, you know, again, it's like it's too enclosed and not safe

to be using any kind of blank. Right. But visual effects needs to be able to, you know, do that lighting effect. So tricky. So anyway, so anyway, those those little aperture emcees were great because we could, we could flash those as well and just give them like, you know, the exposure that they needed. And then obviously they made it look slightly better. But, um, but yeah. The, even in like the first John Wick, for instance, there's like a, there's a scene specifically where it's unfortunately pretty apparent that they're adding the, the, the,

the flashes later and it's not even the muscle flash itself that looks bad it's well not but but is noticeable maybe for just nerds like me but it's it's it's it's that environmental pop that is really hard to do yeah for the fact so it's really smart yeah that's a great idea yeah yeah especially when you know the whole thing you know is is so dark wants to be so dark um so yeah that was those were some of the challenges and the whole car is like shaking and anyway I was I was always very impressed with Robin Smith who did the camera because you know I I obviously put him in some very hairy spots but yeah the I was like you don't want to give this one no yeah I don't know whether like he's shaking train car or sliding down the mat I mean the thing is he loves it like you know he was psyched to to do all this stuff. But, yeah, it's definitely like a very physically demanding show for the operators. Well, I think it was on your Instagram the other day.

You posted the, like, just where you were just like absolutely Canada goose out or something. Like, was that you? Yeah, that was, I mean, it was so, it was cold. I mean, we were, so this mountain, we shot up in, we went to Alberta for eight days to shoot everything that needed, you know, maximum. snow and mountain so so basically not not the not the jackson high street right because everything in jackson is a set build that is outside of vancouver in a place called manati bay but everything that's like when kaitland's up on the mountain looking down and then she slides down and then gets chased by the infected and all that stuff we had to do and um and yeah so it was quite

something to bring because they did also do some shooting for episode one up this mountain and then, you know, a lot of the horde stuff is all second unit. So we had three units sitting on this mountain and they told us that, you know, on the same mountain, it's often used as a film location. So they shot Inception of this mountain. They shot Revener. Yeah. It does look like the Inception Mountain.

That's fun. It is the inception. Yeah. Yeah. So, but supposedly we brought like 600. people or something like we were bigger than you're enormous I guess three units yeah

three units and all the infected and all the inherent makeup people that have to make the infected look how the infected look and you know all that you know it's really like intense yeah production value all all up this mountain so you know

but it was amazing because every morning you'd show up and everybody would get into their snow cats and I tell people it was like Mad Max on snow or whatever in the mornings, like everybody getting into their little vehicles. And yeah, it was incredible. But it was cold. And yeah, the actors, I think the only way they managed was because they had these amazing, like, electrified long underwear. Oh, cool.

Under their clothes, which is I had to buy. I had to buy some electric socks. And yeah. I run these like college ski trips every winter, snowboard. And I'm pretty. good at like after whatever 30 years of snowboarding uh I've gotten pretty good at like exactly the right amount of base layer for standing or right because obviously you just know what you're exerting yourself a lot and like the guess the math you have to do to be like okay don't wear

you know cotton because that'll hold the sweat and then you get I freeze to death and then like all this like you know wilderness learning that I thought I'd never need I don't go camping Well, the costume department was really helpful. They were like, they were like, yeah, you need to buy wool underwear. It's like, I didn't know you could, but cool. Yeah, Heli Hansen makes a really great base layer that's like super thin. And you almost don't feel like you're wearing it, but it like keeps you. Yeah, I could, fuck, I could do an hour on just like snow textiles.

Yeah, seriously, seriously. And just, you know, I mean, I really, I can't. I cannot say enough amazing things about just everybody who went up that mountain and came down it every day. And, you know, because it's 10 times as hard to do what we have to do in the snow. And, you know, like where Caitlin first goes on patrol and, you know, is on the lookout point, you know, that was a part of the mountain where when they first took us around, you know, we were trying to find all the spots. And so they took us up as high as they thought it was possible to go. And of course, Mark Myelod looks up further and it's like, what about up there? Like, how do we get up there?

And the mountain guys were like, oh, okay, well, you know, leave it with us. Like, you know, come back. Like, we had to go away, like back to Vancouver and come back. And when we came back, they had like installed this whole rope course to get there. But literally that was the only way to get there, like hand over. Overhand up the mountain, we could only take 15 people because of, you know, avalanche concerns and also there just wasn't a lot of space up there. And so, so yeah, so that's how we did that was literally everybody, you know, carried what they could carry and what happens about. That's great.

Yeah, Av controls another huge. Like, that's weirdly enough is one of those things that doesn't like freak me out. But as a kid, hearing them do Ave pops, you know, like basically to just throw fucking bombs into their side of them out and go, boom. So you'll wake up in the morning, just hearing, you know, and that can. Yeah. Well, they did it for us every morning, actually. Oh, yeah. We'd gather at the base.

We'd have our little safety meeting. And they would be off doing their avalanche control stuff. And, yeah, it was quite something. You know, and this is apropos of nothing. But I went to France to run a trip. And they have these two. tubes set up in the side of the mountain and they they're connected like compressed air canisters and they'll just blow instead of using dynamite they'll just go they're aimed down they're like

they're massive and they just they it's fun what words um I assume like you know the the cameras are built like rocks but what were some of the other like challenges of shooting that inclement weather beyond like obviously cold and then making sure I like I assume battery life took a huge it Yeah, it's funny. Somebody recently asked me how we dealt with that. And I was like, oh, I have to ask my first day to see Luke Towers because I actually don't remember what they did. But they, Luke Tiles made they had this whole sort of modular like heating. I don't actually think it wasn't electrified, but it was just, yeah, it was like a modular blanket. Let's say, insulate, yeah, that they just sort of wrapped the camera in, but could still access where they needed to. And that that, you know, kept. the heat in basically so that the cameras could keep running so that was good

so yeah we didn't I mean honestly the crew was so good I don't remember ever needing to you know wait for anything to warm up or sure you know

like yeah to be fair miraculously yeah well I was going to say you're probably busy with other things I doubt with any problem Catherine the battery died who cares they're like we'll fix it

yeah I mean, we did have, you know, because there's tons of rain. I'm sure you noticed in episode four and not to spoil anything for seven, but lots of rain and seven. So we were wearing rain spinners all the time. And we did have problems with those. I seen Turcall. You know, but anyway, it happens.

Yeah, if you had a preference, would you choose rain over snow or no? I love the snow shooting, actually. I mean, you know, we knew it was just. quite contained with an episode too but no I loved it and there was something else that you know I did

just because we discovered it in testing because you know my big my biggest fear was the sun you know on this episode and when we were up the mountains I could do nothing about it you know we could we could take no machines we could take no big solids you know it's too windy or you know any kind of

inflatable cloud like nothing And so we just had to pray, basically. And we got very, very lucky. But what I did, because we were sort of testing ahead of time, like different storm levels with like what special effects could give us and their smoke and snow and wind and all that stuff. And so I looked at these night fog filters in testing just because, yeah, we had looked at, I'm remembering, yeah, the VFX supervisor. it's when he had sort of, yeah, gone on YouTube and found all this, like, actual footage of, like, people going out into a blizzard and, you know, show you with their camera. And obviously, like, the lens gets fogged and snow all over it and this and not. And so, and so I said to him, like, well, do you think I should, you know, have something in my back pocket that would replicate this sort of thing in camera or, you know, or do you think you want to, you know, just be adding layers of the stuff in post? And so we tested it. And he was like, you know what I think you should

you know like why not have those in your back pocket because you know if suddenly the wind blows the wrong way and all the smoke that you know special effects is trying to like blow into this thing is not there or whatever and so so I had

I had a couple sets and in the end I honestly wound up using them more like a low con filter it was called night fog they're called night fogs yeah so I think Tiven makes them they're pretty new

they weren't new actually because Erie had to I think buy some so that I could have to. Oh, because you were renting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because we were through area rentals.

And yeah, what they, what's, what's awesome about them is like, you know, especially for shooting exterior, you know, white snow, but they, there's no highlight blooming, right? So they're,

they're sort of adding this, they're adding this sort of gentle, you know, fog layer without that kind of, you know, gross and weird, you know, diffusion-y. The diffusion-y look was not the vibe. The vibe was just like how, yeah, yeah, they were, in the end, that's basically how I used

them. And so, and they were really useful that way because we used them a lot on the, you know, on the Jackson High Street. We did have some of control there because that was a backlog set. There was a lot of discussion about, you know, how to have that for the right money. So, for example, like, the first, you know, when I read the script and they'd already started building the set, we went to see the set, and I said to the key grip, Spike is his name, Spike Tashra. I was like, oh, well, do you think we can do what they did on memoirs of vacation? Just, like, silk the whole set, you know, can we do that? And he was like, uh, and anyway. And so, like, bless them, like, you know, I actually, Um, yeah, this is a long-winded story, but Dion Bebe had done like a sort of, um, masterclass during the pandemic over Zoom with the cinematography group that I'm a part of. So I was able to write to him and be like, hey, like, you know, how did you guys do that? And he was, and he put us in touch with, I think, their rigging grip maybe. And, and so he got on a Zoom call with my whole group team and talked us through the whole process. They had the benefit. They had a couple of things that. we didn't number one their set was smaller and number two they were able to you know design their

whole system in concert with the production design with the actual set build sure sure and and our set build was already well underway um and the last thing that people were really worried about is that where they built the set is a place called manatee bay supposedly manatee is a first nation's word that means something like a windy place. Great. Erd. Herd, chef. So there was that as well.

So anyway, but they did still, you know, come up with like a rough design for that idea and a rough budget number. And the line producer looked at that budget number and said, I'm sorry now. That is not what we're going to do. But I got Dion on the phone. I know Bob did that for

One Spawn of Time in Hollywood All the like Western scene I remember seeing it behind this and they just They grade it Same thing, the half gray or whatever The whole top of it Yeah I'll do it one day

I'll do it one day It would it would have been Yeah anyway It would have been good But honestly as well because we had like All that rooftop action Like I think in the end It was for the best

but but so so we had to you know again this was like in talking with visual effects about how best to sell this and what they could do and obviously it's like you know you always want to be controlling the light that's hitting the people but in this case in this scene there's a lot of people and they're running down an entire massive street and so yeah so we we did what we could which i think at its largest scale and we also had two units shooting there as well sometimes um so at its biggest scale i think we had three 40 by 60s on construction cranes just trying to take the curse off of the main action area right and there was like overcasty looking yeah exactly yeah and looking like like it was like it's actually so and um and there was one terrible time which of course you know was my nightmare and it did happen which was it was incredibly sundy and incredibly windy so then we couldn't you know so then the you know the grains have to land and we waited we had to wait and it was it was one of the hardest most stressful moments for me of the entire shoot because

you literally have like a hundred dressed infected stunt people there you know they're ready to like the AD is just, you know, looking at you hard. Yeah, right. It's like it's literally your fault. But, you know, again, it's like it's always about having a supportive team. And, you know, and Mark Milad was like, it doesn't make sense if we shoot this because we'll just have to reshoot it because it won't be right. And Craig knew that. And our producer, Ciso Connor knew that.

And so we did wait. And, you know, we tried to shoot inserts and little things that we could control so that we weren't all just standing around looking at the sun. But we definitely, you know, but I think as far as like a 24 day schedule of meaning of photography, like to have one day where you lose, I don't know how much time we lost that day, maybe two, three hours, something that feels in the moment, it feels awful. It just feels like Jesus Christ. But, but, you know, but, but, but that, it could have been worse, basically. Sure. Yeah. So, yeah.

I'm sure crafty loved that three-hour chunks. We don't have any more fruit snacks. Yeah. Well, that was a day. We, we had the dogs that day. So we were trying to like shoot little dog inserts and see what the dogs could do. And that's how we spent the time. but yeah you actually that that just reminded me something in episode four i had a note here that

you a lot of really great inserts yes there are a lot of great inserts so yeah you want to know about the inserts so so so Greg writes in a lot of the inserts because the details of the world and the texture of the world it's very important and so I think something that they learned on season one was a very about how, you know, the shooting in Vincent's, I think they had to go back and do a lot of that work. And so part of the thinking with having, you know, a fairly dedicated second unit, they weren't totally full-time, they weren't shooting every day. But we had them a lot, you know, we would have, like, I think I was asking the AED because I couldn't remember. Like, I think, for example,

for episode two, we shot for 24 days, they shot for 12. And episode four was, was I'm sure, less than that. Because we don't have 12. So this is the second unit, right? And the second unit is not just doing inserts, but they are also doing inserts. Right. So that's, so, so, you know,

so like, for example, like episode four, I'm sure you, well, I don't know. Did you notice there's like a little insert of the caterpillar? Did you see that in the record, in the record store? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so that was a day where supposedly they had, I mean, I wasn't a better than second unit, but yeah, they got in,

Because, because Kate was like, oh, I really think it would be beautiful if, you know, this place had like this caterpillar. And so they got in all these caterpillars. And they had like a morning of caterpillar shooting or whatever. Second unit's the best unit. It's the most fun. I've only got to do it twice. And I'm like, I would do that forever. The crew loved that day, actually.

I heard about Caterpillar Day for a while. But no, but they shot in episode two, they shot so much of the horn. action work for us, and, you know, loads of stuff that doesn't involve main unit actors is them. So, yeah, I definitely want to shout out JP Pass. It was the DP and Mads Manson was the director. And, you know, Mark and I had to, you know, I mean, basically that whole sequence, right, that's pre-vised, it's storyboard, you know, and then we break it up and we say who gets what and when. And, you know, and we talk through the shots and how we think they should be done and all the stuff. And to be honest, because we were often shooting in tandem on the Jackson back lot,

you know, it was easy for us to, you know, obviously have their image and, you know, be able to talk to them and all that stuff. And then we combined the units when we did, like, for example, when the hoard first comes around the corner and Maria's up top and Tommy's down below, we just had them join us. So they did the rooftop work. They were up there with Maria doing the rooftop stuff and we had our three cameras down in the street with Tommy and and the horde and so we were able to just shoot you know a lot of that all as one which was which was great yeah well listen it was it was so great to talk to you thanks for having me back yeah of course it was very excited it was crazy i was looking at the instagram and it's like it was

two years ago i felt like we it was like a couple months but no i know i know i know the show's worth. Yeah, I know. Wild. Wild. Stay in touch. I mean, when the show finally, when I finally get to C-7, I'll let you know how many tears. Oh, yes.

Yeah, please too. All right. Well, have a good night. And thanks again. Thank you, Kenny. My pleasure. Nice to see you. Yeah.

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