Frame & Reference Podcast - 19: “Halston” DP Tim Ives, ASC

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

On todays episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast Kenny talks with cinematographer Tim Ives, ASC about the new Netflix series “Halston.” New to Netflix, “Halston” tells the story of a man who leverages his single, invented name into a worldwide fashion empire that's synonymous with luxury, sex, status and fame, literally defining the era. Outside of this series, you likely recognize Tim name from his work on series such as “Stranger Things”, “House of Cards” and “Manifest.” Enjoy the episode and make sure to check out “Halston” now streaming on Netflix! Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry.

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of Freeman Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today we're talking with Tim Ives, the DP of the miniseries, Halston, now on Netflix, as well as, you know, stranger things. I did a couple episodes on House of Cards, you know, a Trem, a bunch of really good stuff out of Tim. I'm sure you've seen it. Really love this conversation. Probably one of my favorites. You know, every episode I end up saying this one of my favorites, I feel like things just keep you in better and better. But yeah, we have a really great conversation about photographers and photographic reference.

I actually picked up a couple of the books that he recommended. Some of them are incredibly expensive, but a lot of them are reasonable. I'm always trying to build up my collection. So I'm going to let you get right to it. Here's my conversation with Tim Ives ASC. So I like to start every conversation with just how, what got you into cinematography? When did, when did you, were you always into filmmaking or photography? Did you go to school for it?

I didn't go to school for photography, although I did take some cinema classes and film appreciation classes. I always had a still camera in my hand, or I did when I was younger, and then I sort of lapsed it, lapsed with it, and then came back to it and started taking it more seriously when I realized that this is something that speaks to me and I enjoy doing, just to, you know, understand film at that point. I mean, still cameras you can expose it. I think of the second is essentially the same thing as a motion picture camera, as you know. But yeah, it, I think it, I always was a visual person, even as a kid, where it was like making up little stories with animals in the woods because I lived up in Vermont

and trying to, you know, to visualize those. with my still camera, you know, make a little story. I guess I wound up looking like storyboards probably, but unbeknownst to me. But it's been, it's been, photography's been with me for a while. My dad was a good photographer as well. So maybe that's something from there. I saw a interview that you had done where you were saying, or I guess it was with, with lights with LICA lights.

And you were saying that you had, when you first got your, like, you know, your good money check, bought an M6. Yeah, I got it right here. It's so good. Oh, my God. Yeah, that was the first thing I bought three lenses and nothing is set on the shelf for a while because of a digital, but I'm in Charlotte now on a film and I brought that

down with me here too. And man, you know, I have a Q2 now also, which is just maybe the best camera I own by LICA. But, you know, I mean, that was one of those things. both were purchased towards the end of the financial year on approval from my my wife I had to call her I'm like how much money do we want to spend for tax reasons it's like I used to say it's like the sign you know and bugs bunny when you see the guy holding the sign and then this he just zips out and then the sign just drops it was like that was me going to sammy's camera you know

yeah the yeah I'm a big fan right I like I've always for film I've always shot on a Nikon F2 and a RZ 67 but I'm really enjoying those those Fuji film digital cameras they're they're very uh tactily very enjoyable but the look out of them is fantastic yeah they're yeah they're they're really nice too i mean i decided to stick with with like a um i had a Fuji and uh my one of my daughters is a really good photographer and she sort of was like i lent it to her and i don't think i ever got it back um but uh i also So I'm a Nikon person, the DA50, and I just bought some vintage Nikon lenses manual focused on eBay that I'm just super excited about. The 105 especially is this 1980, 105 is beautiful.

I have that lens. I have a full Nikor set. Wow. I mean, they're stunning. And I don't even have an 80 millimeter anymore, 85, whatever, whatever the millimeter is that, that portrait lens that everyone goes to. Yeah, that 105 is just, I'm just so excited. excited about it. Yeah. Do you do a lot of like personal filming? Do you because I like for me, you know, my job is sort of also the personal work. So I'll chuck on those, those Nycords

onto my C-500 when shooting a lot, even though they're stills lenses, but I'm usually pulling my own focus. So it's not as big of a issue. Um, I, I don't outside of filmmaking, I don't really use any of these cameras for recording videos unless it's like, you know, just kids running around and that sort of stuff. And my still photography is probably mostly landscapes. I still haven't quite mastered that being able to go up to somebody cold and saying, hey, can I take your picture? It's like, I just feel like it's such an invasion.

And I need to get past it because I have so many friends that are amazing photographers. And they're like, it's no problem. Most people want to do it. If they don't, they'll just tell you. But still, you know, I was going to take the online Annie Lieberwood's class because I feel like she's much more, I feel very akin to her as far as like lighting and working from an emotional standpoint standpoint versus technical because I'd like to think of it like in terms of the story you're trying to tell and when I start getting too technical about it it just takes away from that.

I actually did I took that master class and you're right it is very there is almost no technical information. That's what I love. Yeah. Yeah. It was a good. Did you like it? Yeah, at the time I was looking for, I was trying to get better at portrait photography. And so I was looking for more technical information. But I think once you might agree with this. Once you get past a certain level of technical knowledge and it's in the back of your head, any more is just reinforcing what you already know. There's not like, at a certain point, there's no new information under the sun in that regard.

And you need that like, how did you shoot a portrait session with the queen? you know what what how did you work with her it's really that's the biggest thing is like how do you you know how do you get comfortable with somebody a very good friend of mine um jocelyn lee is a wonderful portrait photographer and she does landscapes too and she um you know when she was in living in Brooklyn I once I'll go over and help her out just with like I drag a light over just because she was more of available light and she needed a little bit of fill so I'd bring a kina over or something, a helper, but she, I learned something from her is that she, you know, spends a lot of time with the subject before, without a camera before, before, before you

bring a camera into it. So to gain that trust and to let people know that you're not just there to each other there to tell a story, not just like take a quick snap for your own, your own, your own career's work. So, yeah, she and also Will de Beron, who's my, my big camera operator, she's also an incredible photographer and does the same thing. Yeah, there's definitely, yeah, I haven't figured out street photography either. It does feel very, you know, that old adage of like, oh, it steals your soul or something, but it definitely, it can feel painful. So just walk up to someone and be like, give me, you know.

Well, you also, I mean, sometimes you're walking down a street and then all of a sudden the light is amazing and it's hitting something or somebody and you're, and they, look amazing. And in New York, you find, you know, people will walk out in a non-pandemic world. They walk out to be seen. A lot of people do. And so the truth is, they'll probably be, if there are wearing something that's funky or doing something that's just different, then they probably want a little attention. But I'll let you know. I'd like to get better at it. And I don't mind, I don't mind the journey to figure it out either. It's, it's been a long journey so far. I definitely haven't mastered it, but I guess you don't really want to master anything because then

what is there to learn? No, oh man, that's that's the big thing too is like I recently, I don't know if you feel the same way. I started to love failing. I really enjoy it because not in the sense of like, oh, I've ruined my career, but like when you when you blow it and you learn something and you go, oh, the world just opened for me. There's a whole new series of things that I can learn that I didn't know, you know, you don't know until you don't know or do know. That's a really incredible thing to point out, I think, and for people that are starting out and, you know, and even just, you know, kids, you know, trying to get through high school.

It's like failing is not really failure unless you don't take anything away from it, unless you don't learn from it. I think that, you know, most cinematographers, myself, I mean, I would imagine everyone has a story where they screwed up things. And, I mean, that's how we get better. what we do is by something coming out a little differently than we thought or or having to confront a situation, you know, that that puts you at a disadvantage and I can still be able to get through it. Yeah, failure, failure, the term doesn't really, really mean what most people

use it for. It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I think. I think, I think, I think the failure is it's too close to final yeah it's not it's not the end it's uh hopefully you're failing at when you try something not just like i think if you apply the same knowledge you've applied for 15 jobs and then you blow it it's like well that probably wasn't the same no you're like if you blow it if you blow the same thing twice especially on a on a gig that uh that's not just you filming your kids in the backyard then you know maybe you got to figure it out you might not get that third chance. Yeah. Did you, when you were coming up, did you have the opportunity to sort of practice

your craft sort of at home, or did you always have to find a job to sort of hone that skill? No, I think I took my, when I knew that I wanted to be a cinematographer, I knew that I was, you know, moving in that direction. I definitely had my film camera out and kept it in manual mode. And my old, I think it was a Pentex, was it K-1000. I think it was all in one, everyone had on a 50-millimeter lens. And I just walked around an appreciated light and checked out different exposures. I would shoot at a vegetable market, I'd shoot with different exposures and see what I liked. And I always market, so I knew what I did there.

And that really helped me learn. And it was a relatively affordable way to do it then. And even though, you know, developing all that film, you know, on a PA's budget and it could, you know, it was, you know, it was expensive. But so, yeah, I did that. Still photography helped me a lot just to understand exposure and light and light appreciation. But everything else, oh, yeah, I did have a bolex, too, a 16 millimeter bolex that I loved and learned on that. and would buy, you know, the 50-foot rolls and, I want to head some money and test that that way. So, yeah, I think it's a combination of both. Did you have any photographic influences

coming up, or was it largely trying to replicate things you'd seen in the theater? Yeah, well, I think still photography-wise, definitely, you know, I think I think Egleston, and which many people would say is an influence, was an influence for me. I mean, there are so many. I mean, there's the painters of Dutch masters, of course, you know, it's the usual crop that you probably hear about. But my wife and I are still avid collectors of photography

and photo books. And when I first started, you know, assisting, I was working with Arthur Elgork, who's a fashion photographer, made famous in the 60s. And I, you know, watch him. I work with Philip Dixon also. I work with Robert Frank. I mean, just Philip Dixon was many times, Arthur was many times, and Robert Frank was once on a Patty Smith video that I'll never forget it as long as I live. But just being in the same, in his presence, you know.

But Robert Frank, obviously, you know, and Diane Arbis, and I forget who her contemporary is. I forgot her name. You know, I mean, it was like, you know, Sally Mann was sort of from that Diane Arbus school as well. But, yeah, photography will always influence me for sure. Were there any, are there any, I actually just started collecting photo. But I recently, especially during the old pandemonium. the Panda Sanctuary, the pandemic. I, you know, I bought a huge lot of back issue American cinematographers off eBay, you know, getting a lot of criteria and DVDs just for those

extra, or Blu-rays for the extra supplemental stuff. And got a lot of books, but photo books are relatively new to me. Are there any that you suggest picking up? I have a bunch with me here in Charlotte. If you give you a second, I'll just go and look at him for a second. Yeah, please. I'll bring some of my favorite over. Okay, here you go.

Yeah. Saul lighter. One of, he didn't, he didn't really, he didn't really, he didn't unfortunately live long enough to see his fame, but his use of color and his,

his use of reflections through glass is just absolutely stunning. His work, His work in New York and elsewhere, it's just to this day still, you know, so inspiring. And seeing, he used to get a lot of reflections. Oh, wow. Work with reflections. Really beautiful.

This is a must have. And then we have lots of, lots of Egglestons. I got like a bunch of them here. This is somebody that my producer on Stranger Things, Ian Patterson turned me on too. I didn't know Luigi Gehry, I'm not sure I'm even pronouncing it right. Codachrome, Italian, Italian guy.

Oops. Just beautiful. Composition, just, just beautiful. This is a newer sort of thing. I mean, he has that kind of desaturated Eggleston kind of feel and is a photographer who's living, who did a lot of seaside portraitures. I can't remember his name right now.

I'll remember, okay, I got more. Eggleston, Eggleston, Eggleston. One of my favorites right here is Tina Barney. She did a lot of portraits of her family in the 70s and 80s that to this day I still love. And this book is a main reference for lighting right now on a film I'm shooting. um i was trying to find something here that i mean her portraiture is is is pretty remarkable use of color

goodness um really really wonderful um and she captures this sort of bougie uh upper class that's like that's that's just remarkable um this is going to keep going on the big fan of linda mccartney paul's you know uh uh diseased wife her access to rock and roll uh back then was remarkable and she was a really good photographer um i got a couple of hers this is like this is one of my favorite ones of hers uh just she's wonderful this is also a must have many most cinematographers know and Philip Glorca DeCorsia who's

who does work that looks like it's natural light and caught but it's all set up like hyper real lighting in a natural setting everything is pretty cool yeah his this is a must have

book I think I've referenced it maybe on every single job I've ever done you know That's fantastic. He did a lot of New York Times as work as well. Again, my friend who I mentioned before, Jocelyn Lee, her work is stunning.

Portraiture, one of my all-time favorite portrait photographers. Wow. natural light. She's just, it's just beautiful. She's doing a whole, there's a new book out on skin and aging. Of course, Bruce Davidson is great for that in the 70s, New York thing. Stephen Shore, you can pick up any book by Stephen Shore. Yeah, you know. And then here is the painter that is probably most, I reference on every, every, every, every, every, every every film, John Register, who's amazing. Larry Sultan is fantastic.

He actually did a lot of work on X-rated sets, which is interesting, but not my favorite of his. This one is a lot of that. Yeah, this one is... In Los Angeles? I think Los Angeles, yeah. Just that cover. That cover looks very hills.

Yeah, yeah. It's a good book. but let me like um yeah oh wow really interesting compositionally uh fred Herzog modern color um really really great look and this one's a good reference for something i'm going to shoot this fall uh as is john register that sort of framing within a frame and and um and color Yeah. Really, really nice. That's fantastic. If you've got any skin in here, too, really the most important thing is skin because, you know, like I was saying, look, when you're walking down the street and you find that light that we were just talking about, and you're like, oh, my God, I wish I had my camera with me. It's like, you know, it's just amazing. And then I have another Stephen Shore book, but those are the ones that I took with me on this job on this film I'm working on now.

And, but they, a lot of them translate, you know, for so many, so many other things. Yeah, that's fantastic. I'll have to pick some, yeah, I've got, um, Brooklyn, the, the Rebecca and Alex Webbook. Um, uh, what do we got? Jeff Bridges. I like Jeff Bridges, uh, oh, yeah, widescreen, his, uh, what's that called? The, um, that widescreen camera that he uses. It's not a Lomo, is it or?

No, it's, uh, um, shit. I got to like I got to get on anything of his what a decent human being he is too oh yeah I've heard so this is a he goes wide um does it say right up front what camera is using uh it's got a couple of his like selects I don't know if you can but like it's hard to say but I'm going to look it up after this yeah um let me see if I can figure oh there's like a whole intro but yeah since since he shoots all these wides, he's got these amazing, like, double-wide prints that you can Oh, yeah, look at that.

And just his access, obviously, to sets that he was on. Right. And all these insane behind-the-scenes things. It's so smart about to keep that camera right next to him. So, like, when they're landing of a shot on, you can just take a picture of it. So it's a point of view that none of us ever really get. We're always, you know, so if you get that, always on the other side. Super education. I will say to your point about not having your camera on you, my favorite setup right now, if I can get the battery grip off because that kind of defeats the purpose. I was just in South Lake Tahoe and I was able to get a bunch of great photos because this setup fits in my pocket. Just the little Fuji Film XT3 with the 27 pancake. Oh, beautiful.

So that's, I mean, just I'm having so much fun because this is a jack, you know, like poofy jacket, just chuck that in your pocket. and pull it whenever. That's a fixed lens on there. It doesn't come off, right? No, it does. It does. The X100 is the fixed lens. Right, right. I think my daughter, yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, the thing I like about this is I'll keep this on for most of the time. And then if I ever get a professional job, I'll use a real lens, but quote unquote, but this little pancake is just such a joy.

It's nice and small, too. Yeah, yeah, it's like the size of my palm. The lens cap is almost adding too much bulk to the front. Yeah, those Pugis are great. I think my daughter has an XT too. Yeah, they're dynamite. Do you think, is there, when you're looking at composition, especially using those references,

where does that reference kind of fall apart when it comes to cinematography? Because there's a lot of photos that are just, I think, a bad robot, Mr. Robot was maybe a little more adventurous in the compositions, maybe that might be a little more photographic. Well, yeah, I mean, I think it can fall apart once you start moving the camera, like in stills, we just take the shot and we were done, we're out. But, you know, I do like to move the camera for storytelling purposes. And, you know, your frame is just, it's hard, it's mostly going to happen in a portrait shot

or still shot is where you're going to be able to keep that frame and light and all that sort of stuff. So it does fall apart a little bit when you start moving the camera and we did a lot of that in Halston, a lot of moving the camera. But Mr. Robot, I did the pilot for that and Todd Campbell did the series. A beautiful job on the series. That, Sam Esmail, the directing producer, and it was his baby. He wanted to see Elliot in that off, off, off sort of way in a way that that made it feel like, like his world was different than everyone else's. I think Elliot was the character's name. Um, um, but, uh, that was a, that was a really cool pile to work on, uh, with him super creative through everything, through everything out the, out the window and just

started fresh. And, uh, and, um, yeah, that one, that one, it's references were, really just, you know, I can't even recall any photographic references on that. It's just like we just want to really, like, put them on the edge, literally put them on the edge, and that's what we did. Yeah. With, uh, with stranger things, you had, like, you know, there's plenty of articles that you were saying. You had, um, you know, T2 and all these 80s films and, and that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah. How do you, uh, translate, I, correct me from wrong, you're rather technical person like you know technical knowledge not as much as some as others probably but certainly you have to have to know the tools yeah how do you translate um i mean this is the million

dollar question right how do you translate that cinematic old school big air quotes film look into a modern like um is the red really instrumental in that or could you do the same thing with arey is it is it the lighting because you need harder lights back then than you do now how do you sort of translate that? Well, the Red was one of the first cameras that actually shot in 4K, and Netflix prefers all their content in 4K. So I think there was a Panasonic camera at the time, too, which is nice. I haven't had an opportunity to film with that one on any, on a movie or TV show.

But, you know, Red had one thing I've always liked about Red, and I said it in lots of interviews as well, and I'll say it again now. that it does have a unique look that's very different from Airy. It reminds me of that 200 ASA Kodak Stock 5293 that always had like soft. It felt soft and round on the edges. And I feel like the red had that. But I think for stranger things, it was really about, you know, we really were dead on with our references and just appreciating a style of photography

that, or cinematography that was prevalent in that same time period. So we did bring, you know, usually you try not to bring it, bring any technique or technical into it for a period piece, but we tried to, we try to do that exactly with the lighting, mostly a reference, at least in season one from ET, you know, you know, like cool light coming through the windows at night. which wouldn't make any sense in most storytelling. But we were a fantasy show and we wanted people to feel like this thing had been locked in a closet and someone just found it. And here it is, you know.

I felt like we had a really good chance of being able to pull it off. So, you know, softer lighting, a little more theatrical sometimes with edge lights and color, really, just thinking about color. But it also, Stranger Things, was just around the advent of LED lighting when that was just starting to come out. So all that was just changing too. And we were able to light a little faster and really like, you know, change color temperature without having to swap a gel was a big deal. Yeah. And still is a huge deal walking into something and thinking, you know, you wanted it warm, but now you're like, maybe it should be cool. And being able to change it like, you know, boop, done.

do you uh that's actually i'm glad you brought that up because i i am fascinated by how LEDs have changed um the look of films obviously modern cinematography has gotten a lot softer especially you know kinos come out and then everyone's like up big soft lights let's do it um but LEDs uh at first getting very poohed uh are now like no one you know being able to the DMX on the iPad or i assume you're on that move yeah incredible it's it's a game change and you can't go back. You can dial it all in on that in a way that's very efficient and you can change it up in a split second.

I feel like Kino Flows, remember those were like the first port, you know, smaller soft unit, but they still had to add their own look that wasn't necessarily natural. LEDs, you know, can do similar things as Keno flows, but so obviously, you know, has, I think they're joined LED ranks as well now, but but um the LED lighting can besides being able just to reproduce any color in the gamut um and they also then can help with uh with the appearance of moving lights and and fireworks and and campfires it's like

it's just bananas how how much you can do with them and and how to look really really uh believable in a in a almost a pre-programmed sort of way but you know we find the we find the right cocktail for i mean we did a car shot where you had a line of a stairs running down had it had like the pulse like sliding sliding down on the side so you see the reflections in the chrome on the window on the window car window just going look like it's going like a street light it's going right past you and i could change up the speed of the car by alternating how fast those went past us in in 20 15 seconds you know it's it's it's incredible it's incredible it's cool it's funny it's said that me and a buddy in mine he runs strange old films the rental

house in west LA and we did they had the the original the x1 tubes had just come out and so we're like let's do let's do a demo for those so we did that exact thing we did a process shot in in his little stage with just using a stair tubes with nothing else and I guess Yes, people saw it because I would be at like Sinegear and someone would be like, hey, we've worked together, right? I'm like, dude, did you just look up the stair tubes recently? And they'd be like, that's what it is. But yeah, those tubes are great.

We're using them for everything now. Everything. And they're wireless. And so you throw them in a cage with some muslin wrapped over them and you can bring them in really quickly. And all of a sudden you have a light that normally you would have to double diffuser book and bounce a massive light just to get that quality in. it's it's right there and um most of the time it's right there um yeah they're they're they're

great are you uh are you uh are you big on the do you use a color meter at all or you are you kind of trusting with what the uh the back of the panel says um or do you light by eye they i don't um i let my color meter to somebody once and i never gave it back and i have they're above a little. But I would like to have one again, I think. But I am sort of trusting. We have noticed that on some of the LEDs, that their version of color temperatures can be off by like 300 degrees.

I think that I'm not sure exactly which ones, but we're noticing that 2,900 on some feels more like 3,400 to my eye. So I can, I mean, I've done doing this for a while, So you can, you can tell. I know what 2,900 looks like. I know what 3,600 looks like, 3,800, you know. I think within 200 increments, I can be, I can be pretty close to picking a light color, naming that color.

Yeah. But yeah, some are off a little bit and, and we, I just adjusted. Totally. Yeah, I, the reason I ask is I just got the, the new Cconic color meter, the C-800. And I had never had one before. And so I was going around my house metering every fucking light in the house, going outside, sun, shade, just, and then it's got, you know, the spectral graph. So you can see like exactly where each light and exactly what you're saying. A lot of LEDs are three, four hundred off from their rated.

Yeah, those bulbs now that we can control wirelessly too, they seem to be a little cooler than than what we're used to for a household bulb. But yeah, we suggest just warm it up. Yeah. Do you, are you pretty standard with your, with your on-camera color temperature? Are you doing, you know, it's either 56 or 32, or do you really tune in the way? It goes all over the place. That's the beauty of digital as I change it up all the time. But a lot of interiors recently, I put it 4,500, so the windows are a little cool and the light bulbs are a little warmer.

It seems to be nice. Skin tone is, can be not oversaturated. But I slide it around a lot depending on, on, on, you know, mixed light. I mean, I use a lot of mixed light sources. And, but it's been nice to, you know, you use it like a film stock, just adjust that. And that does a nice job. Yeah. Do you have a, are you sort of, I guess, allowed in the, in the, in the D.I.

very often or are you kind of having a conversation with the colorist a lot or what's that relationship like for you um yeah for sure we're um i mean during production yeah just in general because now i mean the big thing now is like if you if you're not i'm my own colorist because I work in a relatively low budget environment but um I've heard that in the in the big boy leagues a lot of times you shoot and then you're like I hope the colorist and the director pick what I picked because, you know, especially with Raw, you can do whatever you want. It's a level of concern a bit and something that I try to talk about up front on jobs is who is the color is going to be. And I've been very fortunate to be able to work with people

that I can pick. Sometimes you can. Sometimes you can. Sometimes you can. Sometimes it changes. But yeah, most of the people I work with these days are, you know, They're just, we're like-minded. So it just turns out that way. We're interested in the same things and we're interested in the best thing for the, for the show. So, so that hasn't been in a shoot really too much. You were talking about how you've worked with people who kind of have the same,

you all have the same vision. I noted that you did a couple episodes of House of Cards. And I was wondering what that experience was like and if you learned, because that's a very, I was just talking in the last podcast about how specific David Venture is with his look, but I know he wasn't necessarily fully hands on with that whole series. What, uh, what had you learned on that show, if anything? And, um, how were you able to apply your own sort of, uh, um, impetus? It was season one and Igo Brill, uh, was the cinematographer, uh, he's the cinema photographer. Um, he had some unexpected thing that

had to leave on and I was asked to come in and finish up the last two and I obviously did not want to rock the boat. I'd worked with Alan Coulter before who was the director for the last two episodes. We went to other a long time and Alan's a very buttoned up director. And I also knew David. I'd met David a couple times in the past and I know I know him and I know I know how he thinks and I mean, just I'm not, you know, I'm not that close with them, but I know that to pay attention to every word he uses in a sentence when he's describing something, he expects you to take that direction and not misinterpret it because he says it clearly. So I know that about him. And I think that that served me well. He would watch dailies every night on it.

I came in and like I said, I didn't want to change it up too much, but I also knew what I felt like I took a couple chances in some scenes, just knowing that, knowing what I've seen David done in the past, and I can't, I just remember it was, I can't remember exactly what scene it was, but I know that I took a chance. He was, he was very lovely about all the work that I did on that, but I did learn, you know,

David's use of color is sometimes going to be very monochromatic and we weren't, I was told, really to refrain from red. There was not a lot of red in wardrobe and red colors anywhere. And maybe I've told this story before, but we had a strip club scene and we scouted the location.

There was going to be some girls dancing and there was poles and they had some red lights in there and just seemed like, well, this is just, well, am I going to change the color over here? So I asked him, he said, no, that's completely fine. That makes total sense.

And I said, okay, so, but other than that, you're not a big fan of using red. He's like, no way, he likes red when you see it in blood. But when you don't see it, and then you do see the blood, he said it just makes the impact of the blood much stronger. And he's 100% right about it. I found that that that's something I took away from that show that I'll never forget. If you're going to do something that's going to have, you want to have an impact. Like, even in Gone Girl, I remember seeing that scene, there was a, there's a murder scene in it. That's just, the blood just was like, you didn't see red until then, and then all of a sudden you see it.

And it's just unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah, but that was a good experience for me at the time. It was, no, it was just, I just was doing a TV show in New York and just starting my narrative career. I was doing commercials up until I was about 40 or so. and had been reading scripts, but then, you know, not, you know, being somebody who hadn't done, you know, major motion pictures, you don't necessarily get those kind of scripts that you'd want to do. And the ones that I did get, I just, they weren't really up my alley.

So, but that wound up changing as, you know, the more I stuck to stuck by it. Is there anything that, from your commercial work that you have taken on into your theatrical career? I think my understanding of green screen, believe it or not. I mean, it used to be so difficult to do it. Now it's not so bad, but I did a lot of target commercials. I did a lot of music videos back then that I think I take more with me than the commercials. Because the videos have, you know, we had nobody over us telling us what to do, so we just did what we wanted to do.

And then that winds up translating people like it. And it's just because we just came up with it, you know, ideas. of shooting and light and composition and film speed and all that sort of stuff. So the music videos still probably stick with me mostly as far as if I'm thinking about, you know, lighting in a way that I had to bring, recall things from my, you know,

before my theatrical career, before my narrative career started, it would be for music videos that I shot for sure. Yeah, I mean, that's actually something I've asked a lot of DPs about, because there doesn't necessarily seem to be a current analog for the sort of glory days of music videos with your, you know, Spike Jones level experimentation. Yeah. Do you see sort of a space that people can have that room to fail, as we were saying, today

is it mostly just putting stuff on YouTube and hoping for the best because that doesn't seem as, for lack of a better term, professional? Well, I think the room to fail thing, you can't, you know, the level of jobs that we've been talking about, there's, there's not, like, you can't, just failure is not acceptable or being, you know, or oops, you know, it's like, sorry, I tried something that didn't really work. It's like, you got to, you know, I'll bring the experience that I've had that I had to, to, to a decision on how far to push something or to. And, you know, a lot of times I'll, I'll, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll always, if I have some kind of different kind of thought, I'll just vocalize it or verbalize it to my director saying this might not be the best thing here, but I'm just, I'm thinking about it. So what do you think? And even if it winds up being something that we don't do, it informs us later on to how we should be thinking regarding that project. This is what we've been thinking about. And maybe we shoot down that idea now, but maybe something kind of like that or a less a smaller, lesser version of that later on in this scene would be really nice to do. But more specifically, it was, I was thinking about how music videos were an entire industry. I'm just, I guess I'm asking like, do you see any place that or any sort of type of work that has supplanted the music video industry? because that used to be a vehicle for people.

And now, like, there's, that doesn't really exist. Yeah, I don't know what it would be. Look, I often say, you know, I was in the right place at the right time for music videos because, you know, I, we did the first few videos I did. We didn't even, we didn't light. We just shot at the right time of day. And I had an appreciation of light, but, you know, if I screwed in a light bulb, it was a cause for major celebration.

It was like, wow, look, we got a light. It's, look at this. Look at what we're doing. We're doing that, you know, and we were so excited. My collaborator, the start of my, my filming career was Frank Sacramento. Great name. Yeah, he's great. He's a surfer, photographer.

He's such a great guy. Lives out in L.A. with his family. And we always, we appreciated the same thing. And he's still shoots with his bouleu. and does a lot of surf stuff, surfing stuff now. But we basically, you know, we're going around L.A., you know, shooting some things, you know, just as very experimental, like you said. It's like we did a spot for a friend of his who owned jive clothing.

And we got And Dea Davenport and the brand new heavies who they were, she was big at the time. And we had some rappers in it and all kind of wearing the clothes. and we shot on, we just went around and shot these, you know, this sort of fun like L.A. vibe cruising around L.A. and on rooftops and my camera had an old spring in it. So when it was before it ran out, it would also start speeding up. And it was all over the stuff that we shot in the beginning.

And it was sort of like a trademark. Tim, how did you get, how did you do that effect of the film speeding up? I'm like, like, my camera needs to be fixed. But I don't know. I mean, we just had so much fun, but I don't know what that is these days for that. Yeah, Chekhov-Varisi was saying that that was a time of transition, and he feels that we're kind of in the same thing now, especially with television becoming so, it's not even television anymore.

What would you call it? Episodic storytelling now becoming so huge. Yeah, I mean, you know, Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it shows like Halston that we did last fall. I mean, it had that same sort of spirit I'm talking about with Frank Sacramento, that it had that, it was a few of us, I mean, it's a big production, Ryan Murphy production and trucks everywhere,

but still the approach is still insular and still between a few people. And you huddle together and there's four of you making decisions. and and it has that, you know, we on that job, we had that sort of similar approach. We were all buttoned up. We had every shot plan, a shot listed before we started, and, you know, we didn't always stick to it, you know, but having that work done allowed us the freedom to sort of create on set and to change things up and to really find the best shot. Dan Menehan was the director of that.

and he he uh he uh he uh he's such a great eye as well to uh collaborate with when you work with somebody like that who can really um who's really got a photographic sense um and pushes you to to just you know do the unexpected yeah because i'm i'm glad you dovetailed for me uh i was going to ask because you shot during covid did that feel more um sort of indie that production because it had to be so paired down or was it kind of more of a hindrance but you got the job done still the same kind of it was a hindrance it was a hindrance no it was um definite hindrance and something always in the back of my mind was like this needs like everything that we work on we wanted to be the best version it could possibly be but we knew that no one was going to look at this

and say you know if we didn't bring our a game or if we weren't able to bring our a game people were going to be like oh well it was during COVID so I understand right so that that was like that was the something that I thought of every single day like like you know like got to make sure that we're not cutting corners and there were a lot of times when you couldn't have as many people around and we were also nervous you know Frank you know because we were of the guinea pigs for putting all those people in a room together and filming and you know nobody wanted to get sick nobody wanted to

get anybody else sick and and wasn't lost on me that our cast was trusting us to keep them healthy. So, yeah, it was a little more, there's always pressure, but it was different on this one. And I mean, we still managed to have a lot of fun with it. I was able to catch the first two episodes the other night. And I was really impressed with how well you used window light. There's a lot, especially, I mean, I know, I've seen you do a couple interviews about Studio 54, and I've yet to get there. I'm headed there. But those first two episodes are very naturalistic. Can you talk to me about how you got those very beautiful sort of window light scenarios?

I can do a degree. Halston was an interesting project in that they had started before, before COVID hit and were in, and had actually, shot the first episode beforehand, Will Rexer was a DP of the first episode, and Will and I are friends and admire each other's work and feel like we're kind of similar in some ways. And we have mutual friends outside of the business, too, which is kind of funny. So, yeah, Will, I'm sure, would tell you that he used a lot of bounces outside of windows for that first episode. And then when I came in for episode two and there's some leftover footage from some those fashion shows that are in there as well well it shot those but um but in in further episodes

uh you know two three four five um we did a lot of uh bounce lighting like like like you noticed from outside and let the practicals play on the inside but tried to keep the light um uh you know feeling motivated uh like i'm looking around in my apartment right now it's just you know uh natural for the windows and and um and uh you know certainly um LEDs were a big help for the 360 light panels were a big help for that um and then you know we're more traditionally when we had bigger bigger sets which you'll see in one of the versa i think versa i think versa i think versa i think versa i might be episode two yeah yeah were the the sort of theatrical oh okay yeah so the theater show yeah yeah yeah so that that that uh and the work

workspaces there and the dilapidated house that we found up in New York to be for Paris. That was all high bounce light coming in, mixed light sources on the inside with worklights mixed with bounce light coming in and letting character as on the, as Halston walks through the upstairs work spaces, letting him dip in. in and out of the light a little bit too. And, you know, the cameras today also, that was with the red Mastro as well. They're so good in a low light that you can really, you know, you don't need as much fill at times for certain things.

But, yeah, I'm a big fan of lighting interiors from the outside, maybe daytime employers, yeah. Do you do any, not like, compulsory? but I'm sure you have like kind of go-to techniques. When you go for a close, I assume you're lighting for the wide. And then when you hit close-ups, do you modify it all? Are you kind of just really hoping that that initial setup works? I'm hoping, but I am absolutely thrilled when I don't have to modify it.

I feel like I feel like, you know, the greatest thing is like, wow, this works all the way through. This is so exciting. It's great. But a lot of times, yeah, you have to change the fill to key ratio a little bit. and or soften, you know, a light to not be so harsh on an actor. You know, a big wide, it can have a little more, a little more oomph to it. But then to keep it natural, I'll bring in either more fill or diffuse a light differently or add a second diffuser to it or change the light up altogether and do something different

to give, you know, good close-up lighting. Yeah, going back to the idea of shooting large format now, are you kind of like, I'm not going back to smaller sensors. I'm stuck. I'm stuck on large format now. Well, my first time I did that was on Stranger Things, I think. Was that the third season went large format? I think so, yeah. Like Athalias, it's when they came out. And, you know, you can really play with depth of field more so in the pixel count and I think the large format is nice to have with the six and eight K for post VFX and for you know for well like depth of fields I was just saying being able to really have strong you know focal points

on a wider lens it definitely it definitely is nice but I mean I've seen so many beautiful we've all seen so many beautiful movies that aren't are you know large glass large formats and i don't think it would preclude me for going back but um um the hard thing is getting used to the different lenses like a you know they're they're a little they're just a you know a 35 is a 35 but it's different in large format yeah well because yeah the one uh i i think i just said this but i was i was um watching the episodes with my mom uh because i was visiting her this weekend, which those first two episodes, uh, intense to watch with your mom at points, uh, but, uh, no, yeah, everybody should understand that this is, um, yeah, it can be a little intense at times.

A little, uh, luckily we're both adults, but, uh, there's one moment where he's being told, um, you know, we'll give you like seven mill and, uh, the, the slow pushing that just suddenly like razor thin on his eyes. I thought was, I was like, this has got to be, not that you can't achieve that with any other camera of course we've seen very narrowed up the field but yeah those are a couple of things that dan wanted to do on those those were those were the camera was quite close to you and and he really couldn't see past the camera at that point so they were those those shots were super you know getting inside of his head sort of moments and used very sparingly but um effectively i think yeah totally yeah they were you know i mean i'm even probably lighting up to like a five six or an eight

on those shots, I'm so close to it. I needed to give, I mean, you need to have something in focus. Right. So, yeah, my Aces did a great job with that. Yeah. Were you still using the lights lenses for this show? Alston was shot on Sigma Primes. It had started on Primes, and I didn't see a reason to change it.

I tested them against other lenses and, and I think Will had the signature, I know I'm sure what they're called, the regular Sigma Sigma is, I mean, also the Sigma Classics, which tend to kind of flare and then go lower contrast in a very unique sort of way, which we wound up using only in Studio 54 to recreate the feeling that maybe we had atmosphere or smoke there, which we were not permitted to do as a COVID protocol on this job. No one really knew at that point how that would affect the spores, the virus, whatever it's called. Yeah.

The, how do you, what's your opinion of the Sigma's against something like a, like, or lights? I'm going to, it's going to take me forever to get out of that habit. the LICA lenses or, you know, maybe the master primes or something like that, because they all are pretty neutral lenses, right? Well, the master primes, I think, are those are those are the super sharp ones. I mean, I look, I don't own lenses. I don't own any equipment because I like to try, I like to think of the, you know,

I like going to the process of looking at lenses for everything the director and I have spoken about and what feels right, some are sharper, some more contrasty, some are flatter. So there's reasons to use lenses, different lenses for different shows. The Likas, we like the Likos a lot for Stranger Things, and I've used them on other shows. We used, like I said, the Sigma's on this show. And now I'm working with some vintage Panavision lenses on the film I'm shooting now. so um so you know i do have some favorites out there um i mean i think the likas are always going to be a favorite of mine um but i do i do love panamaging glass and and it just uh i'm it's like candy

for me yeah i uh we're coming up on time here which suck because i'm really enjoying this conversation um i kind of wanted to quickly uh i forgot to ask when we were talking about photography because that was, you know, we're enjoying the conversation. But was there any fashion photography influence on the cinematography of the show? I don't know on Halston. No, I think, well, let me put it this way. For Halston, I looked at, you know, the Ian Schrager book, CD-54 for a lot of that.

And we looked at a lot of archival photography of Halston, Liza, and his house, the places that we were going to be filming in that he actually were at. We just looked at mostly at the historical photography that captured Halston's life. And no, I don't think on this one. one that I really went deep on my photographers. I wanted to capture, I wanted to capture this not with a treatment of a look that said it's a period piece. I wanted to let it let the characters live in full color like, like they actually did back in the time. And like we all, like everybody did like, you know, I mean, we're finally seeing like World War I photography in color or painted or World War II.

more of real color cinematography there. And when you see this stuff restored and it's not steppy and it's all 24 frames, I mean, Peter Jackson just did that wonderful World War I. So amazing. It was so amazing that, you know, we thought growing up that everything was black and white, but you realize that people live with color, if not more color, or the same amount of color that we have right now. So I didn't really want to, I wanted to put them in the real world, which, which, um,

with just color in it. And that being said for Halston, color did evaporate out of his life a little bit towards the end. And we pulled it back a bit in Tonali from his, you know, from his heyday as a designer to his downfall. We dropped out of it a little bit. Talk about having read in a shot. His whole office was red. It works for him, for sure. It was quite the personality. but no I don't know I think I think Dan and I just looked at a lot of references that on Halston's life as well yeah for sure yeah before I let you go I like to ask everyone I screwed this up sorry to everyone screwed it up in the last episode didn't ask him I like to ask everyone the same two questions to end and so the first one is what

is the one thing that you can point to, and it doesn't have to be the one thing, but just like off the top of your head, one thing that, whether it be a life decision, life change, or a piece of equipment even, or a resource that you can recall bringing you to the next step in your career. So what is like a piece of equipment or just any, like, you know, some people point, they're like, you know, the day I bought a light meter, my whole life changer. We had one guy who was like uh he was he's a one guy it was um j holbin he was saying just even shooting shadow side like the second he started shooting shadow shadow side his whole career changed or um one guy said learning to be kind like just learning to be kind to everyone and really

working together you know stuff like that i i think whoever that one guy is it said learning to be kind or embracing kindness is is um has it i think that's really that's really really it. I think, you know, the wonderful thing about this business is it attracts very like-minded people is that, you know, we all come together like a circus and we pop up our tent and then we perform the circus and then we take the tent and we disband and we go, some of us stay in one tent, but then some of us don't see each other for a while. But I think learning to work alongside people and handle stress and to be kind. I was going to say smiling. is a very important part of it

and thank you is a very important part of it and people are working their asses off to get our visions made and I think including everybody in that process and making them feel a part of it because they are a huge part of it. We can't make this film,

we can't make these shows without all of us as a collective. I think just sharing that experience with everybody and everybody feel a part of it is really besides being great you know creating a great onset morale it's just I think I benefit from it greatly trying to be uh not trying but just you know not not freaking out if I don't I can avoid it yeah I'm not always the best at it but I try I try yeah No, that's fantastic. And then the second question is just very simple.

Besides Halston, is there any maybe personal projects or anything you'd like to promote at the head here or at the tail? Oh, I think everybody should watch Halston, and we'll talk about those later on. No, Halston, Halston was snuck up on me as something that wound up being something that I'm super proud of and proud of work with all these talented people. and Dan. And I think that there's, I like projects that have redemption in them, which is this one, I think, they're like Halston, Halston found some peace in his life with work with designing for Martha Graham and also just reflecting back on, on everything. You know, I'm working right now doing, are you there, God, it's me, Margaret, which is the, the, the, that's the, the, the, the children's book, not really children's book,

it's coming of age book. Judy Blume wrote it. Kelly Freeman Craig is directing and James Brooks is our main producer. And, you know, I just like stories that people can relate to and that shine a light on sometimes the struggles that might seem like no one else is having them, but yet everybody, you know, everybody has their own issues. and, you know, it's just redemption.

So I'm happy to be part of that. I'm happy to be part of Halston. I'm happy to be part of all of it. Awesome. Well, thanks again so much for spending the hour with me. I really appreciate. I really enjoyed that conversation. Oh, this is really fun.

Yeah, no, this is a nice conversation. You were right. Not too, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Frame and Reference is an Owobot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. The theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the F-At-Art Mapbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Truaxe branding company.

You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to provideocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot, respectively. And as always, thanks for listening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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