Frame & Reference Podcast - 217: "Frankenstein" Cinematographer Dan Lustsen, ASC DFF

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Today we've got one of my favorites on, Dan Laustsen, to talk about his work with Guillermo del Toro on "Frankenstein"! Plus a little bit of John Wick of course.Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello, and welcome to this, episode 217 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Dan Louts, and ASC DFF, DP of Frankenstein. Enjoy. I have to say, I was, I was very excited to see you come across my desk. Because I've, your more recent work especially has been some of my favorite. I mean, I love Camille de Toro, but obviously John Wick and all that is like, you know, teenage boy, even though I'm 35 dreams, you know. Of course, but you know, I think everything is great. I love John Wickward and I love Gamma's world.

you know, it's, it's, uh, both of them is a dream for me. Yeah, well, it does, it does feel like, uh, people do seem to call you to create very, like, uh, heightened reality style. You know, they're not that, even though Guillermo is very fantasy, it's not, even like, you know, your nightmare alley could be considered fantasy, but it's still very grounded. Yes. Yes. And that, yes, for sure. But that's, uh, again, that depends on the story, of course, you know, I'm very much into the directs. That's a word with story. So I'm following.

that. It's not like, I think as a cinematography is very important, you're following the story and the director's vision. And whatever projects you're doing, you have to change your style and your vision. But of course, I like this like moving camera, single source lighting, colorful things, but I would love to do a black and white movie once, but it never came up, so I don't know. Yeah. Oh yeah, didn't they remake Nightmare Alley to do black and white, but you didn't shoot it that way? No, we did that in posts. And of course it still looks very nice, But I'm just saying, if you shoot it black and white, you should go black and white. But nobody wants to go through black and white.

Everybody's shooting. Most of the people are shooting color, and then changing to black and white later on. And I think the nature should be like, what are chromatic as you're shooting black and white. I was just a couple days ago, I was looking up to see if anyone was selling those red monochromes. And they're not online. They even made a commodo. monochrome, but can't find them. No, I think Alexa are making a monochrome as well, but I don't know if you can buy.

I have no idea. And I'm sure it's super expensive. Well, on the other side of that, I can't, was it you got, did you, you shot which John Wicks, four and three? Two, three and four. Two, three and four. So was it you who ordered every Astera Titan tube in the world? Plus two. Yes, we did.

We did that. Special number three, we have a lot of hysteria. tubes in it. But number four as well. So, you know, because it's so, it's a really good tool. It's super fast and you can control it from my iPad and it's really handy and it's not too expensive. And it's just giving if you have, it depends what you want to do, of course, but you know, shooting in New York and it looks a little bit dull and you want to pepper it up. Those tubes are really, really cool. So I think it's a very, very good piece of equipment. Yeah, I'm friends with

Robert over at Astera and I think he's the one who told me that that tidbit he was like We don't we didn't have any for like months They took them all Yeah, we took them all We took a lot of them But it's a fantastic good piece of equipment

So I like it Depends up the story You cannot use them on Frankenstein I think But that's a lot thing Well now that Nestara makes those All kinds of different bulbs and stuff They've got the new like projector bulbs

They've got the next bulbs Yeah they just They keep making great tools. Of course, they keep doing some nice stuff. Yeah. The, uh, I, so my girlfriend obviously watches movies with me and I've got her to now point out when the tube show up. She'll be like, oh, there they are. I'm like, yeah, they're in every movie. And all, that, that is one of the issues sometimes, you know, we're using them and then everybody's using them and then you have to do something else because you, you know, she just tried to do

something new and more cool. But again, on Frankenstein, we didn't use that kind of But we went back to the old-fashioned, like big lies outside the window, like 20Ks and DeNos and all that kind of stuff. Oh, go ahead. No, but that's in other ways. You know, we just think that was better for that movie. Every movie has the own world and the own tours to show. Yeah. Well, and to your point about doing something different, I feel like we're kind of experiencing the same thing that happened with, like, when Kino came out and just everything.

And I feel like we've been on the tail end of. this big soft Kino experiment for 30 years. Yeah, no, for sure, because it works really well. It looks nice and it's fast and it's easy. And that sometimes you have to go away. It's something easy. You have to go back to the reason everybody did direct light in the old days because you need exposure and stuff like that, but you want to be more precise.

When you have this soft light, access can go everywhere. And again, there's no rules. You can do whatever you like and whatever you think is good for you. the movie, but sometimes I think direct light is, it's nicer and it's, of course, a little bit more difficult to control, but I just like the look of more direct light. Well, so do I. And I think, especially, I always try to think of things from like the audience's perspective and I think sameness tends to make them tired, you know, when you have like the big superhero genre, you know, taking up 20 years of everyone's mind. And hard light, I feel like as one of them, I'm seeing even like

students become more interested and even even not well managed hard light just because it's something and also I think people are more interested in either sort of theatricality fantasy like you tend to do recently or um raw and kind of messed up yes sure you know perfection I think is it's it's so easy to be perfect now it's like how do you know if it's real it's weird but isn't that the whole problem right now with everything what is real and what it's what not real and the AI is coming in and some of that stuff looks. If you just see it right away, you know, if it's too perfect, it looks like AI. And, you know, I think that's, that's the reason it's so cool to like working with

Guillermo, for example, like, you know, because he wants to do it for real and he wants to do it real on the real way. So there's not too much. It's like, it's like they're going back to the old traditions and that it works. I think when it works, it's really, really cool. but I have nothing against new technology you know, it's just the world have always changed and everything has like, we have to try that now and remember we didn't do that for 20 years ago

and now we tried to do it again it's just another way to tell the story and I think that's important you have that feeling about what is actually the story about well and I feel like it's to me it's such like a privilege

to be able to focus on the story when you have someone like Garamo, who has such an attention to detail that you can focus on your job versus someone coming up to you and going like, but how do we make this look good? And you're like, well, it's with Garmo, it's like, it's all there. The production designer figured that out. You just pointed it, you know. Um, no, but no, again, you know, when you're doing production design, you know, everything is, you know, it's one movie. So, you know, when you're working as cinematography, you're working very close to this production design, because you're talking about where should

the windows be. What do we need? What do we don't need? It's just, it's a close relationship with everybody on the movie and that is the beauty of course you have the director Guillermo as a captain and he's just decide what way the ship should sell

yeah speaking of that ship you mentioned the everything being for how much of that ship was was that I assume on a you know the ice ship from Frankenstein

was that whole thing built on a set because that whatever that set extension is whatever you did there is flawless Yeah. No, we shot. The ship is built in Toronto on a parking lot outside the studio. The full ship is built there, not the full, not the full mask and not the full, you know,

but the full, the whole 100 feet long, 100 meter long ship is built there. Of course, then we put artificial ice out and extended CT, but the ship is a ship. It's built like it is in the movie. And it's pretty impressive. It's a huge ship. And of course, a huge setup with a lot of lights shoes. So, you know, you want to do that as real as possible, a lot of steam and smoke. And it's a full ship, and the ship was built on a gimbal.

So, you know, when the creature is pushing the ship, that's actually on a gimbal, it's not like C-G-G-T. So it is for wear, and it was very fantastic. I noticed in Frankenstein, I've got so many notes, I'll just start in the middle. um lots of camera movement obviously with a lot of your films there's a lot of camera moving but this one i i at a certain point i was watching at netflix you know so i was able to there was only a few about it was like me and the entire spanish press team that's nice it was very nice the sound incredible but um you know it gave me time to think academically it was hard i was getting sucked into it was a phenomenal film but uh the i was wondering like how much

of that camera movement is instinctual how much are you planning when everything's blocked off or do you have those shots pre-planned and then everyone kind of works around them because it's very it's almost like a dance you know everyone's always yeah but that's the you know that's what we like camera and me you know we like

to move it we really like to move the camera I think the camera if you're moving the camera and you're doing it right is like the third dimension of movie making you know of course you can just put the camera up and that's things happen in front of that and there's nothing around wrong with that but we just like to use the camera like

a right with a camera and painting with the light. That's a big deal for us. So we are shooting everything on remote hits. You know, we haven't shot one single shot on a movie on a dolly where the operators looking into a camera. So we shot everything on the crane or j-barm or steady cam. So the camera's moving all the time. And, you know, we shot a lot of, a lot of movies on a techno crane or movie bird or whatever we used. So all those shots are kind of planned. But Guillermo is,

he's making the shots as we, you know, he's talking to the grips and to the operators about when we are shooting because go a little bit off, go a little bit left, go leave it right. So it's going to be a little more like a dance is improvising, but it's very precise on the same time. So we know, of course, where we are master is, and a lot of the stuff, we are starting on a big white shot and coming into a close-up and the same shot. And of course, it's a challenge. That's a challenge as cinematographer because you have to have the light far away. and

so the white shot in the beginning helps to look fantastic and the close-off has to be magic so it's a little bit of a challenge but it's fun to do it and it's very, very great storytelling I think well and you guys don't shoot

at like an annoying stop right? I imagine you're in the you're not at like a 1-4 no no not at all I'm shooting I'm shooting the whole movie on T4 yeah I do that all the time outside and inside I'm shooting the whole Because I think that's the best T-stop for what we like to do.

And on Frankenstein, we shot everything large format. We shot Alexis 65 all the way through Steadicam and everything. And we shot with like a chariotel lenses. And our main lenses was the widest one they're making the 24mm. So we shot 80 or 85% of the movie without one lens. Oh, wow. And so that's the beauty of shooting last format. you know, it's holding very much up in the close-up as well.

So you can go in and make a nice close-ups in a 24-millimeter, and it doesn't look like two-wide-angled. Yeah. But because the sensor is so big, it feels really nice in the close-up as well. Well, and one thing I noticed was, again, how much heavy lifting the production designers doing in terms of the sort of, you know, quote-unquote look of it. But while the, from the cinematography side, it's still clean, but it doesn't feel clinical,

which I think is something that isn't much of a problem anymore. But for years, everyone was always worried that like, oh, if we shoot, you know, some really crisp likas on a high-resolution center, it's going to look bad. We are shooting with a diffusion filter inside the camera. So we have a click on my own diffusion filter behind the lens. Oh, which one? black chromished quarter or eight

black promisished but that's behind the lens I don't like to have a filter in front of the list because I like to have a lens flare I don't want to have a filter flare and when you put it behind the lens it's taking this digital look away and you're still diffusing the highlights

but the black is going to be black, black and rich and I think you see that clearly in Frankenstein the highlight is burning out in a nice way but the black is still very black and again we try to do much more steam

comparing to using smoke because steam is disappearing faster but you still have it's getting organic thing where smoke is just building up so a lot of times we use steam instead of smoke and of course that's the special effects guys are doing amazing job

there that's digital look away. Right. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that because I like the look. But, you know, a lot of people talked about this getting too clean and you're right about that. But I don't think that is when the sensor is smaller. Yeah.

Then you have this like, it's getting so, because everything is getting sharp. And it looks a little bit artificial. And that's the beauty of the last sensor because the depth of field is very small. from my point for my taste and well I'm with you there and also the thing that really because when I was in film school the 5D had just come out

oh yeah about my sophomore year I think yeah and um but that was still soft right because it was like 1080p and it was real mushy and everyone of course was shooting on a 1.2 yeah yeah for sure um but uh so I was kind of poo-pooing large format for a while, or not large, whatever you want to call it, full format for a while. Yeah, but there was pretty big format, you know, Super 35, it was pretty big.

They used to call Super 35 digital large format, which I always thought was, micro four-thirds was almost large format. But the thing that I'm noticing now is the more modern, larger sensors create a, not a lower spatial resolution, but just like a softness, the transition, the gradation between tones, Like, the bigger the sensor nowadays seems to create a much more nuanced, quote-unquote, film-like, I guess, image versus, like you're saying, the smaller sensors, which just kind of looks sharp. Yeah. And, you know, again, big sensor, the diphtrophil is just getting nicer, I think. And, you know, the color separation is nicer.

Yeah. The dynamic range is good. You know, it's, again, it's a man of taste. But I just think this is for us, it works. should we do it. Yeah. When did you make the transition from film to digital with open arms or was that like a tough one for you?

I was so much against digital in the beginning. I was shooting film too. I couldn't do it anymore. But then I run into situations where people said, we don't like this grain. What is that grain thing? And then you have to go into noise reduction and I was really a backseat driver there. I didn't like to change. But I did it and I like it. I think it's it's you know the movies I've done the Guillermo and everybody else. It's like shot Dissal for some years. It's it's it's nothing against that I think it's fantastic. It's it's a it looks great I think and you know there's not like oh I'm not dreaming about shooting on film I have no nothing against shooting on film because I've done that so many times

But the look of Frankenstein and John Weeks, those, you know, it's, I'm pretty happy about that, too. Yeah. The thing I've noticed in Frankenstein was I really, and I think obviously you've done this before, but whatever combination of green and yellow that you're using is just, my eyeballs really enjoy that. That's a very, where do you come up with that specific? Are you sitting there and Yeah, how do you come up with that color palette And know like when's too far

When does it look to, you know, LED for instance If that's a good way to describe it versus I just think it's a matter of taste You know, again, you know, we try Every time we're doing a movie gear with me, for example, we are talking about we should go away from from steel blue You know, still blue is like this greenish look

Yeah And we try to find shooting a lot of camera chest And lens test and color chest And we're just coming back to the same This is actually the way we want That's the look we really love And of course

Then when you're shooting For example, on the ship we talked about before All the moonlight is still blue We're starting with a tungsten light And then I'm putting steel blue on Or you know, you can go vortex or whatever LED lights and just dial that steel blue in And then

When we have the torches for example but that is the orange. So that is just a combination in between. And I think the steel blue is very sensitive for exposure. So if your exposure is not right on, the color is changing a lot. So that is one of the keys to, I'd be sure, where your exposure is for the steel blue specific. Of course, color is always changing exposure.

But it feels like steel blue is very sensitive for the color palette. And again, the way we are shooting the movie, on our dailies and the final movie, the final looks color-wise is the same. We're not changing colors in post because the whole color palette on the movies I'm doing is so specific, the clothes and the wardrobe and the sets and everything. So if you're changing the color a lot in the DIY, you're changing the whole look. And we don't like that. We're spending so much time to find the right colors, of course, costumes and set design.

is dialed into that as well. So, you know, if I just took a little bit green out, everything was going to change. So our color palette from the day it is to the final movie is exactly the same. Of course, when I'm coming into the D, I'm doing a lot of power windows and all this kind of cool stuff. But the color palette is the same. Yeah.

So when you're designing your shooting lot, is it? I don't use your shooting lot. Oh. You're just 709 in the viewer. And exactly. And then day to day, I'm just making a look for the movie for that scene. But, you know, it's very close. It's a little bit color, saturation, and then smash the blacks. If I want to change color, I'm changing the color on the light. I'm not doing that in the D.I or not in the D.I. Or not in the D.I. So it's a little bit like we shot on film in the old days. You put a film in and you know the color temperature on that film. And then you

changing the color on the lights. So I'm working still this way. You know, there's because I saw the movie in the Netflix office, it was dark. It was like incredibly dark. So half of my notes are like written over each other. But I do have here. Sorry about that.

Oh, that's not your fault. I need to find, I need to like get like a like a dark red glow stick or something that I can. Because it happens in any theater, you know, where it's like I'm trying to take notes and I'm like, I can't see. You gotta do like this one. But I've got here, Memento Moray lighting and then five check marks.

When they're in the, I had to think about it for a second. When they're in the state and there's like that skull like tableau thing when he's taking pictures, I think, or he's painting or something. You know what I'm talking about?

There's like flowers and then like a skull. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That, whatever that was, that was the most painterly image. I've ever seen set to camera. I was just fascinated at it. Were you just blasting light through the shears and that just happened to look great?

Or did that take a lot of finagaling? Because it looks phenomenal. It takes a lot of equipment outside. You know, we have, when we're doing a movie, there's not, there's very little, oh, by the way. Everything is like designed very precise, but we have a shitload of light outside those windows.

And some smoke in there, you know, it was a very old house in Scotland. And we have a little bit of issues with the atmosphere smoke. But we was allowed to do that in the end. So it's very light atmosphere smoke. And, you know, a lot of 18Ks outside the windows blowing in and a lot of negative fields. So because, you know, what I'm doing, like, you know, we have a negative feel outside the window. So the sun is not interfering and then we put a light in front of the bags. So all that light is

It's a lot of light out there And I'm happy you like it Because I think it looks pretty cool But there was a lot of a lot of lights out there How much? Because you'd mentioned earlier About most of the light Being outside the set and coming in

How much are you doing Like in the You know, firms or like on set Do you try to keep everything out of the sort of acting zone? I'm not trying I'm keeping everything out Yeah There's no lights in the set

It's all light is coming through the windows And if the daylight scene, the smoke is bouncing a little bit around, if it's a night scene, you know, we have some fire effects from, you know, some ADD lights from to make fire effects on the fireplaces or from candles. But again, moonlight is outside. Everything is outside. And because the way we are shooting, you cannot sneak any lights in or very little light in for the close-up because we are starting, as I talked about before, we're starting super wide. Right. And coming into a close-up in the same scene and the same shot. So, you know, it is a kind of challenging to do that. But it's, and again, if we are using atmosphere as we do a lot, if you're bringing lives inside the rooms, you're just smashing the smoke right away.

So you have to have it outside. So the windows are going to be a kind of a global that keeping the light to run too much around. Right. And it's, it works really well. of course, it takes some equipment outside the window. It's just, it's, it's not easy. Did it take, I saw an interview you did, or he was a director, but mostly with, I think it was on the color purple and the studio interference and stuff.

How long did it, was there a moment for you where you were like, oh, they trust me now versus people coming in and meddling and trying to get you to like, hey, we're spending, in a lot of money here. Can we please, like, you know, get, get a fancy light in here for the actress so that she looks to be a focus. No, no, no. Nobody's interfering with that. You know, that's me and the director is making the look of a movie.

And that's the beauty that trusts, the director that trusts me. So nobody's coming in and said, this is, and sometimes people say, this is too dark or whatever. And then you just have to adjust the money because a look will be seen the monitor. So, you know. And whatever. But, no, we. The look of the movies is a look we like. Nobody's, you know,

yeah, nobody's interfering with the look of the movie because the direction of me is making that look. So we are pretty lucky there about this is the way it should look and this is the way it's going to look. Yeah. But nobody's from the anybody, nobody's coming in and said, of course the director can talk to me about. They says, but we're working so close together.

It's not a battle. It's a pleasure because we want to do the same thing. I think that's the beauty about moving making is you have to work together with the right people. You know, you had mentioned all the steam and whatnot and obviously in nightmare alley. It was just coming out of the floor. This is something I've always struggled with whenever there's a haze machine or whatever. How do you maintain the exposure and the density? of that when you're working with so much of it.

It's only the good part that's going to be in the movie. Okay, fair. You know, of course, when you're using smoke and steam, you know, it's an organic thing, and you can not always control it. But you know, a nightmare, for example, we're building steam pipes on all the gangwakes that cat, all the cotton, the catwalks. And it works really, really well. But that was something we have a deal we have from the beginning.

beginning. We want to have steam coming up through the catwalks. And again, steam is much better than smoke because steam is disappearing and smoke is just building up. Of course, you cannot have steam inside the room as we talked about before. They have to be smoke. But maintain it is like you have to fill the room up with smoke and just try to keep it as good as you can. And of course, you're fighting with that. Sometimes this looks like the forest is going to burn down because whatever it's just very organic and said it's the best thing is going to stay in the movie but it's it's a very organic thing and sometimes you just hated it because it's it's so complicated and this special effects people are fighting like crazy to do it um but again it's

just if you want to do that and the drags likes to do that you just have to fight for it and everybody's going to help yeah well and and When you're aiming for that, you know, precision, is it kind of like a Fincharian thing where it's like we're just going to keep doing takes until the actor's correct and the smoke is correct and the movement is correct and it all comes together? Do you kind of have to go like, all we got to move? No, you know, a lot of times, you know, it depends on the movies. Of course, you have to go.

That's the nature of making movies, you know, that's going to be a X where you, it's not Lawrence of Arabia, it's Frankenstein, but that's more or less the same. or just, you have to aim for the best, of course. And if you're running into serious problems with somebody or something, when the performance is perfect, you have to fix that in post. And that's the rare, for example, visual effects coming in and clean up. And again, you need all the help for everybody. And we try to do it as perfect as we can in the camera when we're shooting.

But if we have any issues, on nightmare. Frankenstein, Dennis, the visual effects supervises, cleaning it up and helping, you know, adding a little bit more, take something away. But most of the time we do it in the camera. And that is our goal. Our goal is to make as much as we can in camera. And again, sometimes it's not possible because again, you have no wind in the morning. And then the afternoon, we have a lot of rain and the smoke is disappearing. And we just have to go.

Yeah. On a film, how many weeks, I'm just going to try, I learn in comparison and analogy. But so, like, how many, how many weeks was Frankenstein versus, like, the fourth John Wick? Shooting days? Yeah. I think it was more or less the same, a hundred plus days. Right. Around hundred, hundred, something like that.

I don't remember exactly, but it's around hundred days of shooting. Of course, it's a big, a lot of shoot. Yeah. A lot of days of work. That's it. my question being is the sort of uh what i guess they call the the john wick action of it it's its own thing now does does that become more tiresome than something a little more because there's there's a lot of movement in frankenstein there's some action scenes there's a lot

going on there's a you blow up the building but it's not at the john wick level you know it's is it this is it kind of just the same mentality or is how how are they uh the same and how are they different? No, you know, two different directors, two different stories. Sure. Same cinematographer. But it's the same amount of work, you know, you still have to shoot a lot of action.

You have to shoot a lot of dialogue. And both movies have a lot of different locations. Right. You know, Frankenstein is a lot of locations, you know. Some of the Frankenstein's castle is shot in Scotland, you know. But inside some of that is, is built in Toronto and something is shot a location in Scotland. So, you know, it's a lot of different locations.

So you have to keep track on that. And that's the same on John Wick, you know, a lot of different locations. But I think the biggest difference is, is less, John Wick is more editing, you know, faster cuts. And John Wick, we are always shooting with two cameras. On Frankenstein, on Guillermo, we only shoot with one camera. Everything is one camera on all cameras movies. So, you know, that's the biggest difference, I think. It's one camera against two cameras.

But, you know, on John Wick, we are pretty good to find B camera, the right angles for the light. We try to do everything so it looks this cool and the same atmosphere. But Frankenstein is one camera and much more like seeing the sole sliding because it's shot from. one angle. And I would say less colorful because John Vig 4 was pretty colorful. Yeah. But that was terrific for that movie.

But again, we like Guillermo as well, you know, we have a lot of saturation to the color. You know, the orange is really orange. And so that is, but the two different, the difference between those two movies is one camera, two cameras, I think. And of course, it directs, a huge thing.

Yeah. Each direction have the old style. so I just tried to support them yeah what were some of the things that you learned from was it Chad directs all the yeah yeah so Chad and Guillermo like obviously like you said two completely different

styles but what what's some some stuff you've learned as a DP from from either of them that that you've carried on through your other work I just think I learned for both of them everything has to be perfect yeah that is would be both directors, if you're talking about those two directions, but I'm just saying

that I think most directors want them do it perfect, but both of them, they want to do it as perfect as they can go. And that is fantastic. That's a cinematographer is like, of course it's a challenge, but it's a fantastic challenge. And you know, nothing is good enough because you want to do it perfect. And I think you can see that on the movies because they're very stylish movies and it's great, I think. But that's, you cannot do that as a cinematographer. You need to do that with the director because the director is the captain. Of course, you're working together and you're with saying, talking the same language.

But it's you cannot make, I don't think you can make a really good move, good looking movie if the director doesn't want to do it because it takes time. You know, you cannot just shoot, shoot, shoot. You have to design the thing. You have to do it correctly. And that is coming from the direction. Yeah. I mean, you'd much rather them look at you and say,

can we do that better versus them telling you like, hey, there's no budget for that. Hey, you know, we got to move. Hey, you know. No, I've been in that situation a million times in my life, of course. You know, when you're young and you're starting like that, that's the money is difficult. And it's a very luxurious thing to shoot 100 days on a movie, of course.

But everybody, I think all filmmakers in the world want to do it as good as they can. It's just sometimes the time and schedule and money and all that is a different thing. But that was the same. When I was starting as a young cinematography, you know, everything was much smaller crew, much smaller money. But again, I don't think, depends on the story. You can still make a very cool-looking movie with less budget. It depends on where it is and what it is. but of course, you know, working with Daraxas

just wants nothing is good enough except the best and that's fantastic. Well, and to your point about making things cool on any budget, do you feel like that is actually sort of achieved by limitation? Because I feel like if you're someone who is just given

the world, you won't end up making something cool because if you say do anything you don't know what to do but if you're like do anything under these constraints and you self-limit a little bit it can it can actually end up working out for you better in some yeah but it's always like movie making it's always like that because it's time and money so we cannot shoot for 500 days you know it's always like whatever there's always something we have to go you know the next I think it's all depends, you know, movie making is a very expensive artwork. And it's, it's, you just have, again, that's about the story.

It's about what is the story, how should the story look like? And I don't think, I don't feel we're spoiled. If that's what you try to see, we just try to do the best looking movie for that project. And again, it seems like people like it because, for example, week. A lot of people went into the cinema to see that. And that is, I think that definitely you can, people want to see a high quality product. It's not like you can shoot everything on a flashlight and just make it like that. You can do that. There's nothing again, as I said before, there's nothing wrong. All styles are cool right now. And I think that's amazing because when

I started as a cinematography, there were so many rules about you cannot do that and you cannot do that. And the edits are on your bag all the time because, oh, you cannot cut those two pictures together. So there was a lot of old-fashioned rules there. And I think now the world have opened up. And it's so much more perfect because there's no right and wrong anymore. It's just what you like. And I think that's a matter of taste and that's a matter of directors, the cinematographers.

And everybody else, because it's a teamwork to make movies, this is the look of the movie we want to do. And you have to, you have to do that as good as you can. Because if you have a very nice built set and you light it like super flat, it looks flat. That's the power of light. You know, light is like light and shadows is the power of atmosphere in the scene. And it's fantastic. And that is, I think that sometimes when you see some movies, this looks maybe flat.

But I think those people like it. You know, it's, again, there's nothing right and wrong anymore. We like the movie we're shooting looks exactly like the way we think you should do. Well, and I don't, obviously this is a sweeping statement, but I do kind of wish more movies looked the way you guys make them. Because I do think that it is like much easier to get carried away with a story when there's a bit more, I don't know, correct.

adjective, but like theatricality, I suppose, to the image, because when things are too, I mean, obviously it depends on the story, but when things are too naturalistic, too maybe documentarian to a degree, you start thinking about the reality of the situation, right? So like with Frankenstein, if you were like, this is a real guy, like that would, I mean, emotionally, obviously, you want to believe it's a real guy. But if you start thinking about the mechanics of putting him together, you'd be like, that wouldn't happen. And that comes with obviously the way that you light it and the the colors you're using. I'm sure you're right.

But, you know, again, it's a matter of taste. You know, if you want to shoot everything very documentary, very darkly. You know, I'm from Denmark where we shot a lot of documents. And I think that was those, that time was really, really good. And I think everything has changed a little bit. That was a period where everything has to be no lights. Everything has to be shot on the handheld. And again, I think that was real situation.

Yeah. And it works really well from some stories. And I have nothing against it. I think it's really good. But when we're doing Frankenstein or John Wick or whatever, it's, it's, the light is so big part of, of the movie and the atmosphere and the costumes and the sets is like, everything is so precise design. So for us, there's very little, oh, by the way. Right. And that's the reason we're choosing the lenses and the camera and all that and the lighting because we want to do it.

this is the way we want to shoot it and this is a way it should look like. Yeah. Yeah, I will say, I don't off the top of my head and there's not a lot going on up there, so I'm probably doing some people, but

there aren't a lot of people that whose work looks like yours and I was wondering who yeah, I definitely mean that as a compliment. Who inspired you? Like, who did you learn from where, you know, where did you build this, this eye? I cannot tell you.

I don't know. I'm educated as a Danish film school for many years ago. And I think before that, I was a fastened photographer for a very short period because I'm educating as a fast photographer when I was very young and that didn't like to do that. So it changed. And then I went to the Danish film school. And of course, I went to the film school and was totally open eyes. I have no idea what movie was.

I'm not this kind of guy that I wake up when I was three years old and said, I want to be Bergman or Sven Newkrist or Storado. So, you know, I just think you're getting, you learn of life. You know, you learn about, you know, you see stuff on the streets. It's a long process about how you want, how your style is changing. But I think I've always been fascinated about the light has to be the right position. I've never been. I shot a lot of documentaries when I went to the film school, and before, after that as well.

But I'm always been fascinating about the power of light and don't be afraid of the darkness. I think that is, it's, and of course, there's so many fantastic cinematographers now, and there have been so many fantastic cinematographers. And, you know, as I said earlier, you know, this, what I like about the old black and white movie is just like, there's a light and the actors have to stay there. But that was just getting too stiff, and that was the reason everything changed, you know, in the 80s and 90s, because I think a lot of directors didn't like to go that way because the axes have to stay on the exactly specific spot. And of course, we try to do that the way I'm doing right now. But again, the camera's moving, moving, and the actors are moving, and it's just getting more organic.

Yeah. So I don't know where my inspiration is coming from. It's just coming from painters and other movies and, of course, all the movies everybody likes. But there's a very famous Russian movie called I'm Cuba. You should check that out. I'm Cuban? I'm Cuba, like the country. I'm Cuba.

Okay. It's shot of two Russian direction and Russian DP in 62. And it's a masterpiece. Everybody should see that movie because it's unbelievable. book. It's a documentary, shot documentary, but shot extremely precise as well. That is one of my hero movies. It's so fantastic. But again, I'm getting inspiration for everyone. You know, the directors I'm working with is like inspiration to me a lot and see another movie. I see a painting. And of course, my world is getting much more colorful here in the last couple of movies.

And that's really cool. And of course, color is very powerful, but you have to be careful. Because if you're coming on the wrong side of the thin red line, it can be cheesy. But again, it's like, it's just, it's just, just matter of style and taste. We, we, we just try to do it the way we like it. And, you know, I really like single source lighting. I really like to be in the dark side, you know, on the, on the line for light. So that is my, that's what I like. But, you know, sometimes you work in Guillemus said, let's shoot it from this way and we'll do that.

We talk a lot about the lights, of course. And again, we have the same feeling the same taste and that's the same with John Wick. You know, it's, you have to try to work together with people when you're saying red, they don't think blue. Because then that's far. It's a long journey. But again, you have to be open-minded. And I think that's the most important about movie making. have to be open-minded because I really like to be together with people that

clearer than me. And it's not so difficult to go. And be open-minded. You know, there's no, I don't have all the answers. I just want to do it as cool as we can do. And if somebody have a better idea, let's go that way. But you cannot do that on the day, you know, you have to be thinking ahead. Yeah. That actually brings up a good question that I neglect to ask a lot and they should get a more front of mind. But when you're working on these more elaborate films, any of the Garevote films, obviously, John Wicks, that you, what is your, like, when you, everyone does pre-production probably a little different. But when you, when you're going in, like, what is the first couple things that you're trying to set baselines for? Because there's,

like, a famous venture quote that I've quoted, which is like, we need to figure out what we don't do. You know, we need to go and it to be like, this isn't handheld. This isn't, you know, know, this color, whatever, you know, do you do that kind of thing or what? No, no, we just try to figure out what is the story about, you know, where are we going to shoot it, how are we going to, but it's, it's a long process. It's not like, of course, if we need to, on Frankenstein, we didn't shot any handheld stuff at all. We shot the whole movie on remote heads. Right. As I said before, you know, no, we didn't want, we didn't do one single shot where the operator was looking into the eyepiece. We shot everything on remote.

Mold Hester Steadicam. But John Wig is more like we're doing, using handheld Steadicam, cranes, everything. I just think it's more like what is that scene about how do you want to do it, you know, what is the lighting situation, is it? And it's because of Prev is so long so you can, we have a lot of time to talk about, you know, what is actually, what is that scene going to be and where are we going to shoot it and then we find the locations and when we find the locations, we're going to change the color palette again.

So it's a very soft and very long process about how we're going to shoot it. But pretty fast, we know the color palette of the movie. Depends, of course, what movie it is, but it's not like we're waking up in the morning that this is the way it should be. It's, again, it's a lot of inspirations and the directors is normally, you know, the director have the movies in the head from been a bit of years a month. So I'm listening to the directors all the time. You know, for me, it's like, you know, what is the director's dream and how can I help

with that and how can I support that movie? Because I'm working for the direction and for the movie. So for me, it's like, I really like to support us 100%. And I just try to do it sometimes. What about be doing that and that instead of that and that? And it's, it's a cooperation. or this is great. Yeah.

Well, and especially with Germo, those, those colors, you know, all the behind the scenes I've seen. I've mentioned a million times at the behind the scenes on like Hellboy 2. I think it's longer than the movie. Like I love, I love how giving he is with the information, you know, but he's so precise about the use of color. And I really, I really do appreciate that. Yeah. And that was coming all the way back from mimic, you know, and from, I think his first movie was

Crohn, shot. Yeah, I got that on the, uh, the old. criteria. Okay. Yeah. Fantastic movie. And when I saw that, I'm falling in a lot of you right away because I didn't know about Guillermo when we took first time.

And you know, that's the same. Very colorful and very strong colors. But the light is colorful, but it's very precise, you know, single source lighting again. It's not like flat lighting. And I think that's what we like, you know. We like very strong colors, but we like darkness and we like single source lighting because Because sometimes you see very colorful movies and the light is a little bit all over the place. Right.

But we are more like, we want to be in the dark side of it. How do you, when you are using like a lot of colorful lighting? Yeah. How do you keep that from becoming muddy? I don't know. No, because again, you know, I know what we like and I know what I like. And I think there's a color separation. Again, it's a matter of taste, and sometimes you cannot explain taste.

It's just like this is, we know the color palette. And I think it's a lot about when things are getting modded, that's because you're losing your exposure. I think, you know, as long as you have a value, and that's because I'm coming, my background is film where the worst thing you can do in the planet was under-exposed because you're under-exposed, you have problems. and I think that's the same

everybody's talking about the digital world you have to keep the exposure I'm not using a lighting meter anymore and of course that's a shame because when I shot on a film that was my best friend on the planet like you slip with your lighting meter on your pillow because nobody wants to touch it but I think that's a lot about that

you know you have to have the exposure in the collar as you talked about earlier you know color is getting very sensitive for exposure and sometimes you you forget that and if you start to shoot super low light it can get muddy very fast because you're just gaining a lot of noise in the in the in the black and that's one of the reason I like to shoot t4 all the time because all this like what I call dirty light is disappearing on t4 um and it's just and I like you know I like when the the light

have the direction. That is, but again, it's just a, I'm just talking about what I like. I don't, I like the light have to direction. The key light is coming from one side and the black is just going on like your face right now. It's nice and. You fixed. Yeah, exactly.

No, but I'm just saying that is, that is what I like. I like, the light has to have a direction and a deputation. Yeah, you know, you've, you've just tacitly encouraged me. I've been thinking about this for it. I would shoot a lot of documentaries that are a lot for. But that's a lot. But all simultaneously. And obviously you can't change the look mid projects.

But they've been overlapping. So like, you know, I haven't really had the same thing. But I'm starting a new one on Monday. And I, in the back of my head, I'm like, I'm just going to shoot with like at least two stops of NDA. And so I'm forced to light more. and not just you know because exactly what you said about the when when exposure

cameras are sensitive I know I'm just preaching to the choir but I'm walking myself through it you know when cameras are so sensitive the light does get much that is where the muddiness comes from because any anything you know a cell phone will

throw some extra light in there you know and again I think sometimes that's really really cool depends what you're what's to do because when you're shooting in time to sound and you just shoot with a light

that is from the neon and all that it's a very cool look but it's again the way I work the way we work is like we don't like too much or very little oh by the way

we want to control everything we want to like if you want to have a lens flare we're going to make a lens flare I don't like to shoot the lenses that they're flaring all the time because I cannot control it but it's again that's the way I like

that's the reason I like those lichen It's like, they're not flaring too much, but if you want to make a flare, we just make it. We put a light off, so we got the flare. But there's, and I think that's a kind of, you don't have the muddy light because the exposure are pretty high. And of course, you need a lot of light for that. It's not like you can just shoot with the light there is because you can not do that if you're shooting T4, for example, and 800 Eastern. But again, it's more like the direction of the light. I think that's more like what we like.

And I like, you know, it is the key light is coming from one point. And that is where where you come from. Yeah. The, yeah, because when you say, I think for people listening, like when you say single source, it doesn't necessarily need to be one unit. It can be multiple units, but it's coming from one direction. That's correct. It's always a lot of, you know, it's not one 20K, it's a lot of 20Ks.

through a windows, but it's coming from one direction. And the black is just going to be black. And a lot of negative feel. I think that's the most important for young filmmakers right now is like kill some light, bring some negative feeling because that make the atmosphere, but that is much my taste. Because everything is bouncing some much around. So negative feel is your best friend.

Yeah, I did want to, I know we got to let you go here soon, but when you mentioned the lens flare's thing, in my notes, I did, did, you don't shoot a lot of anamorphic, right? We didn't shot any animorphic here. Yeah, not here, but just in general. No, John Wiggis animorphic. Oh, it is? Because I thought, I thought you shot Master Prime and then put like a fishing line.

Yeah, but that was number three. Oh, that was three. But that was still master animorphic. Oh, I see, okay. But we didn't get enough flare out of those lenses because it was not, it was not, But if you're shooting Panavision, you get much more flare. But we just choose to go mass dynamorphic. And on, yeah, so we shot with fishing lives inside in turn big number three.

And that was nice look. Yeah. It is, it is funny how, you know, there's so many, there's so much software and new cameras and everything. And then sometimes it's like, yeah, just fishing line. Yes, exactly. Well, I really appreciate you spending the morning with me, man. Of course, that's fantastic. Yeah, and like I said, I'm an enormous fan of yours,

and I can't wait to see the next thing that you make. So it's always a privilege to watch. Thank you very much. Yeah. 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'm going to be able to be.