Frame & Reference Podcast - 192: "Silo" S2 Cinematographers Baz Irvine, ISC BSC & Ollie Downey, BSC

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Hot on the heels of the Ed Moore and Kate Reid interview, we've got Baz Irvine, ISC BSC and Ollie Downey, BSC on to talk about their work on the second season of Silo!If you missed Part 1 with Ed and Kate, it's episode 191 and was released at the same time as this one!Enjoy!► ⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠► ⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠► ⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠Website⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this episode 192 of frame and reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Baz Irvine, ISC, BSC, and Ollie Downey BSC, DPs of Silo. This is part two of the silo. pose series. The first one being with Edmore and Kate Reed, which it's also out. So go ahead and listen to that. Not necessarily first, but they're both out now. So that's just covering all that. I'm sure you're going to love this one. Give it a listen. Joy. By the way, I wanted to congratulate you guys for having by far collectively the most British

names. I think have ever, Baz and Ollie might as well be its own television show or like a rap group. We did think about that. We did think about it. That's interesting.

Because sometimes people think Baz is like more Australian because like a lot of like Baz Luhrman, like effectively all of the barries in Australia get shortened to Baz. My history, the history of Baz is so

complicated, we'd need to do another show to talk about it. So I'd say, would you just move on from that? But I'm Irish as well, so you have to be careful. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, yeah. Northern Irish. Northern Irish. I sit on the British Irish boundary in a way that suits me depending on the day. Yeah, depending on what the taxes are like. Yeah, all of that. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever heard of the, the old rap guys, Pete and Baz?

Oh, I'm not sure I have. You're going to have them up. That's okay, I will say, yeah. It's a very, no one is really, it's like, they, they do it live, so you know it is them. But they're probably like 80. Oh. And it's some of the most aggressive rap. All right.

Ever heard. And you're just like, who, are they writing? Like, there's no. way to writing this. Okay, I've got to look that up. It's a good time. Yeah, but yeah, we just had Ed, who I've had on before

and Kate already. Yeah. And so this will definitely be the first time we've had this many DPs on for one show. Usually it is just two, but it's kind of wild that I don't know how many shows I've talked to where people, there is even four DPs on a show.

Usually, you know, two, that's three. Well, who kind of set the look? Well, on this season, it's very much. Yeah. Well, on season, but yeah, so Wally's in the distinctly advantageous position of having just finished season three and I only did season two.

And I was lead DOP. But in the interim between season two and season three, the elitist hierarchy was brought crumbling down. And sorry, I shouldn't say this. But moving forward, I believe it's a more egalitarian approach. So, but, you know, I mean, I set to look at as much as I was the first D&B hired for season two and, you know, had all the preliminary conversations about it, you know, how it should be and with the director, Michael Dinner, who was the kind of lead director.

And, you know, at that stage, Kenny, to be honest, we, I'd only really seen some rough cuts of season one. So it wasn't like we had the DDNA show imprinted in our, you know, in our psyche. You know, we didn't, you know, we were second guessing a little bit. but a lot of the decisions were based on wanting season two to be maybe just to be a bit more visceral and real and, you know, those kind of things. But, Ollie, you came on just after me. You were the second DOP join the gang. You did season, you did season, did you do season one as well? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, just joined with you.

just off to you, as you said. I think it was just Ed who did season one. Ed, Ed, no, Ed didn't do, no, Ed didn't do season one. Oh, no, sorry. I was talking to him about hijack when he meant. Yeah, that's right. Yes, yes. Yeah, no, no, Mark Patton, uh, started season one, set, set the look.

And, and, and I spoke to Mark in the early days, uh, you know, just for advice. Because when you walk into the silo, this is all he knows. It's not like any other show in terms. of what's there to shoot and what isn't there to shoot and also the internal rhythms and logic

and just sheer scale of the challenges make it a very unique proposition you know you definitely have got it's a kind of classic situation where you're walking somewhere

and you've got to instantly think vertically like but not just vertically like a mile vertically but you've only got you've only got like a what do you call it a floor did we have a floor

was that like one official like from one bridge to the other Ollie on a stage yeah I guess yeah we've kind of had two floors yeah two floors yeah two times spiral I don't know how I don't know

the spiral yeah it must be how high is that state it's it's I mean, it's not, it's a, it's a, it's a stage in the sense that it's a, it was a Kentucky Fried Chicken, a refrigeration plant, re-calibrated to be a set, which had its distinct issues because we had some problem, you know, issues with rigging and cutting into the metal. But yeah, I think we had like about, what do you think, like, already fate or something of set? It might be more. I'm just thinking about those. You might be a big word.

When we had the technical reins in there and stuff, I think the 55 was almost touching the ceiling, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's great. We struggled to get anything in because did they ever make the door the doors bigger? Oh my God. You've got this huge space. It's just, it's vast, and it's really impressive.

And everyone walks in, it's a real show-stopping moment. It's like going to a football stadium. for the first time as a kid, you know, you walk out. You see it. It's incredible. And there's just one door to get kit in. And it's just, it can't be, it can't be extended. Yeah, it made me bigger, Felix.

Yeah, so we had to get the grips to sort of like, if they had a bit of kit that needed to come in, just run as fast as they could at the hole and just hope that, that, just hope it kind of managed to squeeze through. I think there was a few, I think, yeah. It was protected, but it was, weirdly, the building has got some sort of protection order on it, or my memory was that it was, we weren't, yeah, we weren't allowed to because it was, I guess it was still a rented property or it wasn't owned. I think, I think I'm right saying it wasn't owned by Apple, but leased in some shape or form. But that's the, you know, as you probably know, Kenny, other DOPs have mentioned the beauty of modern film studios. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, Chris, last night was talking about, like, the one thing that the location manager, whoever's in charge of getting the stage, will always do is they make sure they find the leakiest roof in the country that you're shooting in. And if it's not that, if it's not leaky enough, they won't pick it. Yeah, yeah. And just before you turn over, they call Heathrow Airport, it's like, could you, could you, could. we rearrange, just because planes do tend to come in over West London, could you rearrange that they just come right over the top of the sound stage? Just like, just as close as possible, you know? Do you guys build a train next door before we get started? We'd love just some train tracks, just right along. Oh, yeah. We had a canal, which didn't, I think barges don't cause

too much sound issues. I think it was pretty, I think sound was actually pretty good, Ollie. Yeah, we had a few.

It wasn't too bad. But after saying, that, as Ollie said, and this is the thing that really struck me is when I started at the end,

it was December 22, and I drove one day, my first ever day was snowing in London, which is quite a rarity. I drove up to end, to hottest in the place where the studio was.

And, you know, I was skidding around and finally found the studio and finally somebody met me. And when I got walked into the stage A for the first time, it was like one of those moments where you go, this is just a thing of beauty. You know, it was, you know, the original production designer had set to show up Gabon Bouquet. It's like it was really, it was one of those moments where you feel very. a tingly feeling about being a lucky enough to be in the in the in the movie business and and be to be a cinematographer and being presented with something that's just so beautiful and graphic and brutalist and all of those things so yeah it was a it was a it was a real treat yeah i imagine it's like one of those things where when you're a kid and you

want to start getting into film you know usually it's something like star wars or whatever that gets you into it. And even if the sets in reality were small, you know, when you see the film, the grandeur's there. And you guys got a set where the grandeur was there. Definitely. Minus the Blue Walls. Definitely. Yeah. Minutes the Big Walls. Yes.

Oh, dear. Yes. I mean, it was it was, yeah, that was, I mean, I'm sure Ed talked about it. I'm sure Kate as well. The mad thing is you'd have so many shots that would start looking into blue and

end looking into blue and or sometimes shots had just always looked into blue but you were on the set that was kind of hard to get you know so I think all of the DOPs sort of over time sort of sort of had a like a rep burst into their retina a kind of a sort of 3D kind of previs that you know and you sort of had to I mean actually I thought we'd end up looking at like previs is more on set ollie but we did you did you do a lot of that yeah we did do i did we did a little bit i think the v effects team is so good aren't they and i think yeah they're so on it and they're just they're there every um their remit sort of goes beyond v effects i think they're sort of they're involved in every conversation about every part of design and and and and and yeah conversation

so their knowledge is is like he's second to none you know dan yeah particularly we can he can tell you what's on every floor and, you know, the dimensions and where the light would be coming from. And, yeah, it's really, I mean, they're, they're kind of vital to the process. Oh, no, no. Yeah, they do. They were, they're definitely very invested in the show. I think Daniel is definitely, like, an exec on the show. And, you know, he, he had a, it was nice to work with a VFX supervisor who really,

You know, really had a, felt, had a real empathy for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the filmmaking process and, you know, so we'll put as much as he could on screen because, you know, it is tough, um, the, you know, it's never an end. You know, it's never an endless. amount of VFX, you still have to have a lot of re-approval, talk the ideas on in advance. Well, and it's, you know, it's, uh, have you, you know, the, the VFX artist Todd Bizzari. He works at, uh, he works at IEL. I heard the name. Yes. What is, what is he? Uh, he's on I, he's at ILM, but he just, yeah, and yeah, he, uh, is, you know, relatively prolific online, you know, shows up in YouTube videos or Twitter or whatever, blue sky. But one thing that he's constantly talking about,

which I think you guys really had the privilege of, was that people don't like, you know, people always talk about, oh, I hate VFX. It's like, no, you like, you dislike bad VFX. And the solution is shot design and pre-planning. And obviously giving the artists enough time to actually do the work. And it sounded like the, you guys had, you know, the VFX team there basically helping with blocking,

like at every step of the stage, you know, And because I didn't realize how much of that stage was fake. It looks incredible. Yeah, it's, it's, I think, I mean, personally, I don't know what you think, as, but I think it's, it's a remarkable level of VFX for, I mean, it's a big budget TV show, but it, you know, it's a streaming TV show. It's not a, you know, 200 million movie. Right.

I think quality of the VFX is phenomenal, really. I think particularly when you go back. five years and you look at BFX in TV shows and the early days are sort of bigger budget streaming stuff. There's a real, there's a big leap between TV, BFX and movie BFX. And I think, yeah, I think it's pretty, pretty close to movie standard, if not at movie standard. I think it's highly. But you're right.

I mean, it's all, it all comes down to the planet, doesn't it? And having Daniel there supervising and keeping an eye on it and just sort of rainier. in when like you want to do something that isn't clearly going to work or it's maybe going to take that one episode over budget or whatever it is. I think they're really smart putting the money on the screen as Baz was kind of alluding to like we could do this but actually simple way and that would free up funds to do these other great shots you want to do so maybe we should look at that. And they as again as Baz was saying that there's I think it's a lovely thing about silo i think i don't know how you feel bads but i don't think i've ever

experienced quite so much um i feel like everyone's the works on it's very committed and feels very um passionate about this about the world that's created really and stay and keeping it honest and everything motivated and and you know um yeah and i think a lot of the a lot of the crew have been there since day one you know props guys and and you know they they um that everyone really understand their area of expertise um you know i was just uh thinking while you guys were talking about the the silo construction uh because obviously lighting is such an important part of the set because there there aren't any windows or anything like that so you're throwing practicals around but the the top of the silo in story in the story is that a window or is it like cemented off

no i think it's cemented off and it's and i think the what we said was there were some very big lights up there and they they kind of change with the time of day in terms of temperature and brightness um so the inhabitants of the silo they feel like they're still going through you know their the sort of daily rhythms yeah because because the thing that the thing that uh was interesting to me as you guys were just talking about it was obviously you know distance to subject makes softness but the

the overall look of the silo has that soft kind of ambient tone that is punctuated but then I was like but it is like a mile up there so technically you'd be a hard light but then it bounces through all that concrete yeah so now it's soft again

I was just like thinking of the physics of it you guys kind of like yeah I think liberties are taken sure yeah but i think actually like physics wise i think you actually did nail it i think that's what would happen because yeah that's a tough one a lot of the a lot of the sets you know they've they've most of them have got these lozenges in which so the general look is this kind of soft top light even when you're in the smaller spaces off the main silo he's back

of the hotel. The Kendrick suite. I'm by the Kendrick suite. Yeah. And it feels like I might have better Wi-Fi here. It does seem like it. I'm, yes. So classic.

Anyway, I've got some nice overhead lighting. Oh, wow. Oh, I thought that was trash bags taped to the, it's just artwork. And a little bit of soft, ambient fill light from the dying day which is quite a nice mix what are you talking about you guys are talking about lighting

yeah I mean because we talked with Ed and Kate about this a bit but I love obviously everyone has a different approach to what they think is a good light or a pretty light or whatever and the look of silo is so consistent between the forest of you, obviously because the set kind of dictates it to a degree. But what I was bringing up with him was like with the main light of the silo being so far out, technically it'd be a hard light.

But then because it's filtering through so much atmosphere and concrete and shit, I guess it would be a soft light. But I was, it brought up a third thought for me, which is like at any point were you guys taking any liberties, like little moments to be like expressive with it or was it was it kind of a like uniform system? I think with with with the new silo when with in season two and you know when Rebecca discovers the sort of 17 Sado 17 that I think liberties were taken only in the sense that I kind of wanted it to be as dark and sort of under exposed as possible but clearly I mean

there was at one point they wanted to have it completely dark. There was going to be absolutely zero electricity and which, you know, I, you know, I just felt that that was just going to be too much so aggressive. Yeah, well, the compromise, well, it wasn't a compromise. It was more about testing and trying things out. But that was to say that the big sort of silo light, the big fridle that's at the top was in a kind of a backup power mode and it, you know, had decayed over the years.

It was green. And so there was this very low-level light. And I think that to work with those relative levels of under exposure and keep it as dark as possible, I remember we tested that big silk underneath the balloons that we had and hung it, although I certainly hung it really low, so that even though, like, Rebecca, could be two or three stops under or more, the there was a sort of a, it was a kind of beauty light in one respect because it just gave

a, um, a, uh, a lovely soft sort of ethereal kind of crepuscular sort of feel of like kind of twilight. Um, I think the thing we struggled with, Kenny and Ollie, you probably found it again on season three was if you do a very specific lighting beam, of light or something that will traverse more than one floor, it's very hard for VFX to build, to take that over unless it's a pretty so, so when we, I was thinking, you know, and I think we looked at the ideas of like more dappled light or little harder shafts here and there, but the, that was, it was just going to be very tricky to kind of, you know, extrapolate, you know,

let's not let's not let out to 100 floors and how, you know, things. So there was a, we had to do a pragmatic approach to Sino 17. And I think that the other liberty that we took was that in my mind, in my logic, was that if there was a bulb that could still be working or had been fixed 15 years previously, whatever, and then it could still be working. So any kind of old style emergency ball, headlight so that, you know, we don't, you know, we don't always find a way to have a little bit

of red light down the end of a corridor or, you know, one light still working in an apartment. But, you know, but, but, but, but, but, and of course, in that silo, there has to be electricity because eventually she sees the IT level lit up and that's the little kind of beacon of hope in this kind of empty, empty, empty world. Did you, but you know, we both took, you know, you have to, as a cinematography, you got, you gotta, you gotta use whatever tools you can to, to, to make it work. But I think we, we all respected the logic of the silo, Oli. you know there is you know there were certain rules weren't there we kind of adhered to

yeah i think that's right i think i think it's important as well isn't it you know it's a very well established world and i think you've got this sort of i don't know i mean as it said it up beautifully anyway but i am a believer in it's a block of a bigger thing so it's got a big co here cohesive and you know with with the episodes around it and yeah i think i think i'm just trying to think what i think the odd liberty we took eric who uh avalino who directed the block i did who's brilliant and he's very visual lots of you know creative ideas and um he loves lighting and he loves framing um and he it you know occasionally he'd be like just turn the top light off and be like well

Oh, yeah, but I mean, I think that if you're like, just turn it off, light through the window. Okay, let's just go for it. It wasn't very often, but it's just a couple of, a couple of times when it just felt we needed a bit more, maybe a bit more contrast or a bit more, you know, shade to it or then the situation was. But, no, I think we, I think we stuck to the, we stuck to the kind of the manual pretty quickly. Yeah, well, so, obviously, With modern cameras, what did you shoot, Venice? Mini LF, many LF, yes.

Well, even so, I mean, any of these things are just monsters in any amount of light. But with this show and kind of anything you're shooting, I'm wondering like, because I assume you guys shot film in the past, what, how is your light? your lighting approach changed because obviously with film you had to punch light in there and now it's much more judicious judicious um and especially for a show like this where darkness is part of the story um you know what what keeps you from you know lighting to a five six and then just pushing that down in the grade versus just working with you know the absolute razor's edge of the toe. I mean, you go on, Oli, because I'm trying to formulate my eye.

I think I was just going to say I, I underlight everything. So I sort of, but going back to film days and lighting with a meter and everything just looking horrendously bright because you're shooting at, I don't know, thousand frames or whatever it was, you know, you're totally reliant on your meter, probably more than your eye, really um i tend to light to eye on digital so you know if it's meant to look dark it usually the set's quite a dark place um i think it's just the way my yeah it's just the way it works for me i don't know how you feel bad i mean well i think yeah i think for me the the i mean i'm like you i i do use the meter occasionally because i just sometimes want to know

where i'm at or i kind of want to know how brave we're being But I think the thing with Silo for me, and I'm not sure what happened in season three, was I knew that if we didn't, we had to use Atmos to just fill the shadows in. You know, if you can use Atmos successfully, you can definitely under-expose. And, you know, it was a funny one, Kenny,

because Sino is a dark show. And season two does start off quite dark. So, you know, I did con. constantly feel that we were on the edge. But I always find, and I don't know what you think, Ollie, is if you think you're on the edge, you're not quite there because I find there's always a little bit more information than you think. And, you know, and I suppose that's where it's important to monitor

and to watch as controlled an environment as possible. And also the luck that we created, Kenny, which I think on season two we pretty much use, only really used one lot was that that lot had a bit of protection in it anyway like a half stop protection

but I'm like Dolly I just love under exposing because you know when I watched films the things I loved were like stuff like Harris Savinas was doing you know where he was like what was that crazy film The Yards

where it's like it's like it's not it's not the toe it's the bit under the toe it's like and even then it's so thin You feel it's just going to evaporate off the screen at any given moment. And that stuff's really beautiful. But I think we, me and Ollie, in fact, we all came from a film background. And I don't know.

I feel really, I've done quite conflicted, Ollie, about film, because as much as I want to shoot on a film. And Kenny, you may or may not know we did shoot some of Silo on a film. I didn't know that. They're okay, well, Apple may or may not know this. Well, they know that we did shoot a little bit because they gave us permission to shoot a couple of very small sequences on a hand-cranked, Ari, I think a 2C,

and so we could reverse it and go backwards. One of the shots, actually, the film snapped and we ran out of time. We didn't realize that until we unloaded the mag. There is an early shot in episode one of season two where Rebecca climbs up the berm of the silo and looks down upon the horror in front of her of the 10,000, whatever it is, bodies, skeletons.

And there was one of the little sequence of close-ups that was shot on 35 mil, that actually got used as one of the first ever stills for the show. And I kind of thought about it. And I thought, I wonder on a subliminal level, was that still picked because it just had a quality that was so beautiful? And it doesn't look out of place. It cuts seamlessly into the sequence. But it was just really interesting that that still was, it became kind of symbolic of season two.

it was kind of yeah you know it's um it's something i end up talking about a lot just because obviously i grew up i went to film school we shot 16 and then i go to college and um they're they're like we could only if i went to a book the biggest school in in the country smallest film school i think that you know there was 10 now it's the sydney portier school of film and television and they have their own stages but when i was there there was 20 of us So we were fighting over a DVX 100, and I was just opining for the, you know, 16 millimeter days. But watching that transition from film to digital has been fascinating in a way that I feel like, I don't see a lot of people taking on the educator role of being like a historian. Because, you know, I see students or kids like freaking out, what camera should I get?

And I'm like, not to be the old man's shouting at clouds, but like, just whatever. just it you'll be fine you know it's not DVD tape but there is obviously nowadays you can make anything look almost exactly like film but it does take a lot of work and I think if you sneak a little

I think I think I agree with your hypothesis that maybe there was just something about it that they're like that's a good frame you know yeah yeah yeah I really too you know and I think but hey you know it was and it was michael the dinners uh the director's idea he he his reference was a little sequence from man on fire the tony scott movie and where they had did some sort of you know

uh variable frame rate stuff and yeah yeah and we you but i think we put a zoo we did a zoom as well and stuff but we did a shot of tim robbins as well and that was the one that i was so aggressive in my ranking forward and back and clearly the film snapped it was like heartbreaking because it was the last shot of the day Tim went home and

the loader kind of came back to me or the second day scene came back to me and said you only shot it must have broken right at the start of you going like absolutely insane I know I know because it was I'd shot a test and it looked really it was a shot

in early on where the Sado goes dark and Tim is kind of running back towards the IT level and so it's still you know the denizens of the Sado realize at that point that so they are controlling

the electrics and they've still got our and it would have been a beautiful thing but hey-ho you know we got the shot anyway on digital in fact that we ran the digital camera and the film cameras side by side Hey, Ollie, did you shoot season three on the mini-LF? We did, yeah.

You did? Yeah, we're an almost big, but, yeah. You shot, I know, I know what you shot on, because I just was speaking to Simon Sertes at Ari, because I'm about to use the alphas on the agency. So you shot on the alphas? Yeah, they're great lenses. Yeah, they're great lenses.

You know, I tried. I tried to get them for season two. and they just didn't have there wasn't enough sets in existence in the world at that point and because we double banked Kenny or we double banked I think you know you needed to know

you had access to four four full sets of lenses all the time and I'm so pleased to hear that you did go back to Alamorphic and you went to the alphas because I think it's also good that it's incumbent upon each season to have a fresh perspective and even if it's only subtle to the audience

I think a show can become very staid and prosaic if it doesn't choose to try and advance the look in some shape or form that's why I love shows like Fargo that each season it's just such a kind of brilliant you know it just takes a very loose theme and runs with it. Obviously, Silo's not that show,

but it's good to hear that you guys did something different. Ollie's got all these brilliant stories so he can tell us about season three. What, Ollie? Let her rip. Come on, just tell us. I'll say anything, come on.

You can't say anything. Oh, I'm sorry. If you look at the corner, you can see Sydney Square, just vibrating. I can see the Apple helicopters are kind of coming in over the back of your roofing yet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to be like Minority Report. Yeah, remember that, see? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually just watched that like two nights ago. I've been ripping all my Blu-rays, so. It's incredible. I love Minority Report.

It's just, it's so bold the look. And it was, oh, it's just amazing. It's like, you know, it's, it's such a great film. It's also a great film. When did that come out? Like 2002? Yeah, yeah.

Because there was that whole era of just bleach bypassing that or just ENRing everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, I think, I think the youth yearn for the ENR again. I think we need to bring back bleach bypass. Well, the thing is, what happened on those films when you had a very brave director working with a very brave D&B is people. really committed to just an extreme look which had such a, you know, it had such a kind of emotional register with the audience. And, you know, that is the downside of digital filmmaking.

There's a kind of democratization of the image that also comes through the fact that everybody can see a perfect image and set. So, you know, there is that, I think sometimes it's harder to be brave. I mean, obviously, when you're working on certain shows anyway, I mean, in the realm of film, you know, I think the reality, they just turned on some additional lighting in my found. Sorry, I could a little bit of a flare that. They, you know, I think that that's why when you see the best cinematography films of the year, it's that most of them do, are still and celluloid because those DOPs are the ones who

who fought to use that medium and are still trying to do things with that medium in a, you know, in a way that maybe is more artistic. But the tear sinners is on.

Oh, I haven't seen sinners yet. Oh, I haven't either. But even just the amount of discourse around it from, like, Ryan Ryan Coogler, who I'm from roughly the same part of California, he is, and I really enjoy. I feel like I just talked about this, but he has done absolutely nothing to polish up and try to be Hollywood. He is Oakland as fuck, and I love it. Oh, wow.

Yeah, he's like, it's just, he has the most Bay Area accent ever. It's awesome. But anyway, he put out this video with GQ or something, like where he's explaining 70 millimeter versus IMAX versus 35, like, just. all these. And I had probably five different friends of mine who do not work in films, you know, healthcare professionals, construction, you know, a guy who runs tour companies for like skiing, all sent that to me and go like, have you seen this? Does it like, do you know about this? And I'm like, do I know about film formats? Yes, thank you. But like, you know, but the average person now is getting educated on film from Ryan. And it's like, it's such an

incredible, I think there needs to be more of that. I think we need to reach out to the audience more now that, you know, especially home viewing, we were talking about this with Ed and Kate, but like home viewing, you know, HDR screens, not quite displaying things correctly and like viewing environments and audio. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, I mean, I, even I will admit that I don't get to this, I haven't been to the cinema as much recently as I'd like to, I'd tend to do a big glut during the BAFTA viewing season. But then, just last week I was staying in the barbican in London because I had a temporary like apartment

there and two nights in a row I just went down to the barbican cinema and it is it's it's like so special still to to go to the cinema but yeah I agree the home viewing thing is like it's just like so many issues with you know how do you you don't you know there's got to be yeah there's just got to be better calibrations and better advice i mean i you know well and the the problem is the tv manufacturer i was just talking to um eric coritz about this yesterday uh that the tv manufacturers absolutely do not care right so they they want a perfect image but they don't necessarily want a cinematic image so what they'll do is they'll charge the customer three thousand dollars whatever it is for like the nicest tv and then you would assume as a customer

like if I don't know any much about the product but it's really expensive I'm going to assume that it's everyone else's fault that but mine that it looks wrong you know I spent the most money on this TV the fact that it looks bad must be the filmmakers didn't know what they were doing or whatever you know exactly and it's yeah that that sort of audience education I think is going to be a tough step for yeah everyone oh yes oh yes I was in a coloring suite at Company 3 in London a couple of weeks ago and they had like this

am I allowed to say product names and stuff? Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, it was like a Sony something like a Ace. I was going to say an A7 but I think I might be getting confused by the camera. Anyway, it was just stunning. Was it the FX3?

I couldn't. Was it a little one? No, no, no, this is a screen. No, this is a screen. And it was it was the big, you know, sometimes when you're in a coloring suite you have the bank of three monitors that the colorist refers to but then they have a bigger viewing monitor and this one was it was huge but it was beautiful and i and of course it's you know quite a

lot of money but i've i'm currently renovating our house in camden in london and i've there is a wall that will be adorned with a product as yet to be um Discover, you'll have to tell me what they... I'm open. If anybody wants to give me anything to test for this wall, I would be very happy to... Yeah, you need to get a... Yeah, maybe what is it, like the Panasonic

U-800 or like a PlayStation 5 or something, and just start throwing 4K discs in there and see which ones are like reference quality. Yeah, exactly. You know, talk about the colorist. I read somewhere, was this about Silo? trying to remember that it was kind of like you had based it on like a Technicolor

look or something or it was at Technicolor um well Bill did Bill do season three um uh Olly and company three did you or have you done season three grade yet

no oh God no no oh God I'm just realized something I mean yeah okay so no the colorist we used or I worked with in on season two I've done season one and his he's called Bill

and he works in Toronto Company 3 and he famously did The Handmaid's Tale and set the look at that show with Colin Watkinson and Reed Morano and Bill was

I must admit he was brilliant I don't think there was no I don't think specifically referenced technicolor, but I think there was references to filmic looks, you know, there was talk about Fuji stock and, you know, all those things had happened. But, you know, it's, I think also, you know, I think Sado is very filmic,

but, you know, my theory with Sado was that when you shoot so much stuff, visually, like the concrete, which has got such a granular structure. And you use Atmos and you have the depth, et cetera, and you have such brilliant VFX. You sort of, is what you were alluding to earlier. You do, and because of me and all these backgrounds, and Ed and Kate, who all came from film because I know that all of us have shot film and I know that I've shot, possibly as much film as I've shot digital, which

is scary, but it's, you know, it's, you, you, you, you, you always hark back to some sort of romantic call from the wild, you know, and, uh, but I think silo, being a dystopian future

with a retro look. Right. Was crying out for a sort of film, make, you know, lot. But yeah, I don't, specifically re-referenced anything and of course I know that on season two we were trying to be sensitive to season one and season one

hadn't even gone on air at that point but yeah it's interesting that you guys are filming these so on top of each other and then severance was like you know what let's take four years off I think this it's probably quite a simple reason for that actually it's a hell of well yeah that that always helps

doesn't it it's not always the case these days as we know um the uh there's a lot of studio space taken up in london was these sense that's been there for you know four years probably now and um i guess that kind of puts a bit of pressure on and i guess i guess cast are contracted for a certain number of seasons as well right so they're probably been to you know Yeah, I guess when you are making a book series,

it is easier to point to, like, the end. Yeah. Yeah, I think they're shooting season four, aren't they? Are they going to, like, try and get it going soon, Olly? Or maybe with less of a gap? Starts shooting August prep starts shortly, I think, yeah. And when did season, when did season three finish? Last week.

I don't know. Oh, okay. Hey, but also, Kenny, there's also the madness of modern filmmaking where you can still be shooting a show. Like, I just did. And on the same day, the premiere is on in Leicester Square. Right. That's, that's also another, uh, another, uh, telling me about this past.

Was Garreting that finally? Garret. Garth was, Garth was grading it. Yeah, he did an amazing job. Yeah. It was just, it was a late show. there was many reasons that, I mean, you know,

there was, it just, there was a, it was going to be broadcast on a certain date, but the show didn't go into production till way later than it should have, which just meant that

there was always going to be this moment where, we were, yeah, I mean, I graded my Epps on, on Mobland three weeks ago. And my ep is on earth. Well,

one of my apps is on there this weekend. So that's pretty cutting it tight. You know what's funny is I keep getting emails because it's like Emmy season. So a lot of people are trying to get, you know, press up. And it's it's been like you and maybe like five other DPs where their episode of my podcast will come out. And then I'll get an email like, do you want to talk to Baz?

And I'm like, I just did. Look, you guys are busy. Busy over there. well you know not when when the the uh the tv and film industry left l.A um you know and came to london oh oh did i just the elephant in the room that's what i'm well luckily for me i hadn't quite broken in fully to the i'm in dock world so uh you know there's still documentaries to be made in the country probably the next one is going to be the documentary about the film industry going to the UK and moving moving back no i mean it's it's

It's a, you know, it's an interesting, you know, it's an interesting subject that obviously has sort of gained, you know, more international attention with Trump's announcement. But, you know, it's, it's, I mean, look, there's one thing that rules the film industry and the TV industry. And it's an economic imperative to shoot somewhere that costs. that's than the place you were shooting in before and it has been that is what has run the the industry for time in memorial and i'm sure you guys know that when the your industry went to canada at one point and still is yeah and you know and i but i must admit when i was over at the asc awards in february i felt you know sad that obviously with the background of the L.A. fires and stuff that it felt like there needs to be some redress. You know, there should be more stuff happening in L.A.

I've just been watching the studio, the Apple shows. And it's just, I fucking love it. It's just brilliant. But also, it's just brilliant to watch a show that's set in L.A., that's shot in L.A. And it's just about the industry. and it's so magical and brilliantly written and some of the camera stuff is just

fantastic. Oh yeah, the movement in that shows. Oh, it's ridiculous. Yes, the choreography of the operators and the movies. And I've watched a little bit of behind the scene stuff but I just, I've so enjoyed it. I'm like, you know, it's one of those shows. It's really excited

about the next step. But, you know, it's, you know, we've been a huge benefit The streamers coming and shooting in the UK has obviously had a huge impact in me and all these lives. You know, we've, we've felt very blessed and lucky to get such high quality work, you know, but, you know, it's also ephemeral, Kenny. You go back a few years, it wasn't like that, you know.

You've had a doctor who? We've had doctor who, if we will. I know, you know, it's, it's, it's, you've got to make hay while the sun shines, you know, it's, it's, it does. It does. It does. It does. You know, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's, I feel, I feel blessed. Well, it was, we, we have, we have work when others don't. It was such a weird thing to what, like, my perception of, of the shift, not like only being, you know, living here and working adjacent to, uh, you know, Hollywood proper, as it were was like, oh, Marvel's going to shoot everything in. Canada and then really quickly they went you know what Atlanta and then so for the longest time everyone was saying oh if you live in Los Angeles you have to go move to Atlanta if you want to work but it was just pretty much Disney that had shifted over there and then they just kind of kept going east but yeah it felt like Disney was the main push over there and I think a lot of the streamers followed yeah and Marvel's now in London they've actually

I mean, I shot Daredevil in New York. They shot Daredevil in New York. I know they've just shot Vision Quest in London. I think maybe they're still shooting Vision Quest. I mean, they're certainly doing some stuff here. But, yeah, it's... When I was at the Clubhouse Conversations Tating last night, obviously we were all talking about it.

Not on stage, but in the audience, you know. And the one thing that's kind of giving me hope is, you know, everyone keeps talking about like, oh, the industry's dying. And I'm like, no, they're still getting made. They're just not getting made here. But also it's not, at least in America, it's not just film, right? It's the whole country is dealing with various forces. So I think it's, we're not, we don't have to rally the 200,000 or, you know, a million film workers. It's, it's going to take the whole. It's going to take the whole. whole country. But at the same time, that's enough people that, like, you know, it's going to rise. The tide will rise all boats, as it were. So I think it might be a tough boat to row for

the next three years. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Also, you can't tear off films. That's stupid. That's not a thing. Yeah. Oh, it's not. Yeah. Well, that's a good. Yeah.

Well, and also the thing, not to belabor the point, but the rule that he's trying to use to do that specifically has a cutout for film anyways. So it's not even that you can't like what a DCP, all right, give me 20 bucks but like, but you actually

can't. Not only is it impossible, but you can't anyway. So yeah, it's just it's a tough be out here. But it is, I mean, at least you guys are doing good work, right? It would suck if all the production went over there and everything came back looking like shit.

I mean, look, it's like even when you're based in London, only, you know, like, we have these chats. Like, you know, in the last sort of 10, 15, 20 years, you know, Belfast is obviously a huge production place. Glasgow's huge, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff. You know, it's just the industry is, and it's this nomadic thing. And Budapest now seems to be like,

Is there anybody who's not shooting in the Budapest? Right. It's like, it's, it's, it's, I've, you've seen it all, you know, I'm sure, I mean, yeah, I'm sure there'll be another place and then it'll come back full circle and, you know, it's, it's nice to be, you know, I think the one, the one mutual thing that us, Brits, Irish Brits, Brits, and the, you not all. share in common is that we both have an incredible history of cinematography that you know that we and we've got this kind of kind of kindred you know uh you know thing that and i felt like when i was over at the asc in in feb it was so brilliant to be with a load of people who feel the same way and take it even more seriously than us lots it was it was so amazing to be there and uh i I meet and talk to some of my heroes, you know.

Holly, have you been over here? To the ESC Clubhouse, I mean? No. Oh, it's a good time. It's half museum. It's awesome. Museum, yeah. It's great.

It's, um, they hide camera. There's another building, uh, behind the clubhouse. And they've, I don't, and then also Steve Gainer, the, um, uh, museum curator has probably hundreds of cameras. So like, depending on when you go there, they might have them all on display or have them all hidden but they have like

I went there and filmed a video about like the history of cameras with my friend Joey Fameli and I got to hold the first anamorphic the first it's just like it's a square piece of glass about this big and like a piece of tin

and he's like yeah this is the first one it was made by the French and you're just like what the fuck like it's crazy to be able to hold that history like literally hold and see it you know Wow. Yeah, yeah. It's a special place. Technically.

We have a BSC clubhouse, Ollie, but we didn't. I remember going there when I was first to DOP, and we'd see the show screenings in Pinewood and then you'd go to the clubhouse. But the problem with that, Kenny, is it's like, it's too far out of town. And what we've been doing in the BSC is like having little social gatherings in Soho. you know, and trying to sort of have more, yeah, just trying to, we're a very close little community. I think there's a real, it's very sharing and caring, you know, community in London, but yeah, we've definitely been trying to make it, you know, take it away from the studio and be a bit more central. Yeah. Well, it's certainly one of those things that I feel like every DP

whatever three letters are applicable, you know, everyone always aspires to have them. Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. My mom actually called me about this yesterday. She was like, what is an ASC? It's like it's like a club almost. So it's not like PGA. I was like, no, it's different.

Except when you look up the ISC online, you will get the Indian Society of Cinematologists before you see the Irish. before you see the Irish society is that yeah the Indian society cinematographers will come up I know I was

we would sort of half jokingly I was talking to Stephen Murphy who until very recently he was president yeah he was president he was president I see he's great cinematographer good friend and we would think of

a variation of to make it distinctive but obviously that's a whole political yeah well what about Yeah. What about? Don't just, Kenny, don't even go. No, I was going to say Italy.

Italy is another eye that you can't. Yeah, but hold on a second. There must, there must be a, an Italian studies. They've definitely got their letters in a different order. Yeah. That's the other thing. You just go, SIC sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah, the Italians can have sick. We'll figure out a new one for Ireland. Yeah, exactly. exactly oh my gosh well uh i uh it's a that's roughly weird place to end but i have to jump and do another interview in in a few minutes so uh i'll let you guys you guys go but um allie will definitely have to have

have you back on for for season three when that wraps uh wait it just fucking wrap all right well when they start showing it uh and then it's finished yeah yeah and then uh bas when you do uh the agency we'll definitely have you'll watch uh season one and then yeah yeah yeah all right guys Does he yelling. Nice to see you, Ollie. Good to see you, mate. Take it. He's a good one tomorrow, right?

Yeah, thanks. And catch up soon. 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. I don't know. Thank you.