Frame & Reference Podcast - 218: "Bugonia" Cinematographer Robbie Ryan, BSC ISC

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Oh goodness, what a pleasure! Today I'm joined by the electric Robbie Ryan, BSC ISC to talk about his new film Bugonia, plus so much more!Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello, and welcome to this episode 218 of frame and reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Robbie Ryan, B.S-C-I-S-C, D-P of Begonia. Enjoy. You know, it's actually great because a lot of times what will happen is people will be like, oh, do you want to interview this person? Like, yeah. And they're like, great, we'll send you to a screening. And then they send me to a screening.

And then like three months later, I interview him. Oh, flimmy. Not what happened. This time I saw it last night. Oh, amazing. That's really good news. Yeah. He reminds me what it's about because I haven't seen it for a few weeks.

yeah no um that is that is a benefit i have to say no matter like our attention spans are pretty short at the best of time so i'd hope you well it is it is a uh you only saw for the first time last night then yeah yeah yeah in a smith about yeah good where are you living uh los angeles and where it was in a film screening or was a digital screening uh digital screening it was the IMAX. Oh, well, Limex,

you know, the, yeah, the lies. I like that. But, uh, I will say the,

the, the, you know, the thing I like, it's this, uh, this, this mall by us has just a phenomenal,

uh, like relatively new theater. It's only a few years old. And so the sound system in it is phenomenal. And like, it's pretty bombastic soundtrack in begonia. Dude, some of those.

Like, even the title screen popping up, like, kicked me. Like, it felt like everything shifted to one side. Amazing. Yeah, no, it's, it is like, if you're not ready for it, it's quite a shock, isn't it? Yeah, my sister described it is, I think everyone should see it, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I like it. I like it.

Wow, you know, my take of that is I want everybody to see it, and then maybe go see it the second time because you get, You get to enjoy it more. You know, I, I catch to it as your sister, though. I fully agree, though, because, like, leaving it, I was like, you know, it's, you guys do a really great job of threading the line between, um, what you, you know, you're sitting there going, like, is she, isn't she kind of thing. And, uh, you, I mean, you really nailed up until, like, it's obvious. I'm trying to be a little general. leaving that question questionable, you know, I thought that was phenomenal because usually I'm

pretty good at jumping ahead. And even I was like, it seems to have gotten people quite, you know, like caught them a little bit unawares. And I've got to put that down to, you know, the performances of both Emma and Jesse. They're so blub and good in it, you know, because I was reading somewhere that, you know, it could be read a bit flat in that way. And then if it, if it, if it, if, if, if, if, if that at all had kind of missed a trick. It would have been, you know, a lot more game over earlier on. So, like, you got a hand to the way they performed it. It's so bloody good.

Yeah. I mean, if anything, the only thing that did you a disservice was y'all being so successful that people kind of know that there's, like, if that, if this, if this film just kind of, like, came out of nowhere, I think, but unfortunately, you were very good with four things. So I think people kind of knew. Oh, let's hope they get people to tell people to go to the cinema to see it because it is good in the cinema, isn't it?

Like, tremendous. It's a film for the cinema. So, you know, I really can't say enough to people watching your podcast. Go to the cinema. Well, it's also like, I went to a relatively early screening. It was like noon.

Oh, yeah. So it was like, you know, half full Monday. People are at work, whatever. Yeah, yeah. And just, I love, especially in a film, this where I'm hearing pings of laughter where they quote unquote shouldn't be just like yes this is good I know and they're you know it's a comedy so it's it's always nice to hopefully land a few laughs I truly do hope uh Jesse gets some kind of nod from somebody he's doing amazing work and it just

gets better and better, you know, what a, what a talented person, you know, and a lovely man to boot. So it's a real pleasure to sort of work with somebody like that and see them do some of their best work. It's like me, I'm privileged to kind of just be in that room, really. Yeah. I did want to ask, you know, you're talking about working a lot. It feels like you've been working a lot since you started. Like your IMB is dense. Well, there's a lot of small things on there. You know, I do a lot of short films. And now it seems that sometimes they put music videos up on the IMDB.

I don't really understand. There used to be MVADDB or whatever it was, MVDB. That was for music videos. But for some reason now music videos get put on. So I don't know. But yeah, I do like working. It's true. I've only done one film this year, though, which is interesting.

Hopefully next year. Well, I want to get to that because that was kind of the thrust of the idea was basically if you could walk me up to, let's say, the James Blunt, your beautiful music video. And then now we're going back. That's 20 years old, I think. But it's probably, but it's like, hey, over 20 years. The best songs, you know, like to be involved in that's fun. That was a nice video, actually, because that was one of the quickest music videos I've ever done.

And we were on a lovely little place outside Pam. New Yorker. So we're on a lovely, like, amazing sort of spot. And we finished, we got up early and we finished it by like one o'clock, I think, in the afternoon. So I was like, shit, we're finished. What are we going to do now? So it was a real pleasure. I never expected it to become quite the super, you know, like hit that it was. It was just another video. And, you know, he's a nice lad. He trained to jump into the sea. He did it twice. And he cut his foot the second time. So, you know I always felt like I was going I'd give that a go I'd try to jump in the sea there but I had a producer at me that is yeah it was a very I've got fond memories of it and yeah I'd

never expected to be talking about James Blount 25 20 years later right but did you did you like because it you know sometimes there's people who've done a lot of interviews and I can look them up feels like you you've you've done a good job off keeping your head down and just getting to work. So I was just curious as to your sort of rise to stardom. My gosh. I think you've got a film school that or what was the? Yeah, yeah.

No, I think to kind of answer the question as far as why am I still hanging around, I guess is because I do like working a lot, you know, so it's the, the, favourite part of the job for me is the work part of it. Not necessarily to prep, but I love shooting. And I kind of just, I did go to film school. And it was actually a really good thing for me to do because I'd done a few short films before film school. And then I did a load of short films in film school. And then I got out and I spent like about seven, six, seven years filming more short films. And then I ended up moving to England. And that was from Ireland.

And Ireland was kind of a unionized town. So it was hard to get out there. So, or so it was hard to get work in Ireland because of the union situation. So friends of mine got a job. They were directors and they got signed up in England, in London. And they were going, oh, come on over here. It's great crack over here. There's loads of work.

And there's a lot of, like, there's no hassles with the union. So me and another DP Darren Thiernan jumped over there. And then we landed and we're like, shit, man, there is lots of work. And it's all like really interesting. stuff and you know there was a lot of like commercials and music videos and then luckily i bumped into andy arnold and she was making a short film and she'd seen all the short films that i'd done so like having done a lot of short film narrative stuff really benefited me as a dp in london because i guess a lot of dps would have been more commercial based and like not so much

drama if you know what i mean and i but without me knowing it had a bit more of a and it a little bit of an advantage could have done a lot of narrative short films. So I kind of had that language about my work. And I think that helped me kind of get a little bit further ahead. And then I got absolutely lucky to land into work with Andrea. And from there on, it was kind of like, you know, surfing a wave. It was like loads and loads of really interesting directors kind of got in touch because of my work with her.

And, you know, that was, it was an amazing, lucky break to meet Andrew. already yeah the it's kind of the opposite of what i hear a lot of um from more experienced dPs which is you know a lot of times more specifically in the u.s but um a lot of times people came up through music videos a lot of twas uh commercials obviously um and i've always been interested you know i'm i'm 35 and so i you know we had that director series box set you know to teach us stuff and yeah yeah yeah it was like that and like the decalogue and it was like somewhere in the middle is your career um and uh you know that we weren't really suggested like everyone would be like oh shoot you know shoot as much as you can

shoot as much shorts whatever whatever um but those very rarely ended up with careers uh because you got to pay the bills, you know, so you end up doing, absolutely, whatever. So it's cool to hear that you were just like, yeah, I was kind of the eternal students. I can kind of like sort of sleep on couches and stuff and that. So I was always never too, like, I guess when I moved to London, I needed a bit of money to survive. But, you know, I could have, I could live on small means. So I was all right. And I don't have a family. So that was kind of like, there wasn't responsible in that regard. But for sure, I think this business is great if you do want to make a bit of money as a DP as well. Like, you know, if you're lucky enough to get into that slip stream, it's quite a good sort of way to earn a bit of money and do something creative.

But I've never really, I've never, I've always been doing. I'm one of those people are like, wow, you get paid to do this shit. You know, it's like, I'd be doing it without doing the payment thing. But if you're going to pay me, thanks very much. And that's, that's my very much a kind of a big part of my. mantra or whatever you would call it. Like my approach would be

try and do it. And I still do a lot of short films for free. So, you know, I'm yeah, I kind of like the balance of all of the madness really. And doing short films like I've done five this year.

And, you know, each one of them was a learning curve and really interesting to sort of meet new directors and just see the energy. The energy coming off of doing a short film still to me is almost, you know,

bar none apart from a feature film. really because there's just nothing but passion about a short film and obviously it's first time filmmakers and you know there's a lot of mistakes get made and you know things that you'd go oh you're not doing that and you can't really tell somebody that's not the way you should do it because they have to learn themselves so you kind of you bite it now and again doing them but the energy kind of kick you get off of it is so great and I've I've kind of you go okay five is enough and then you go maybe I'll do that other one you know and it's it's just mad I don't know why I keep doing them, but I think it's because of that energy level, you know.

And that's why I love doing them way back when I started out. And when I met Andrea is because there's that chance to create a narrative and like maybe do something that hasn't been done that much before. And if you're doing it with people who've never done it before, then they might do something fresh than you. You never know. Yeah. It is, it is wonderful to get linked up with. It's like two sides of the same coin, right? Like you work with one director a lot.

You know what they want. shorthand everything's great but kind of more to your point you you don't uh potentially learn as much and and personally i find that the learning new stuff to be quite addictive you know the idea of just showing up and and you know framing a picture you know i mean it's like a carpenter you know like there it is all right we're done you know that that can get boring quickly I think with films as well is like, you know, you're usually filming interesting characters, you know, like you'd hope that a film you get involved with will have like an interesting story and an interest in, you know, people performing the story. And that is never the same. Never, like every day is different. So I think there's always a freshness in that regard. I'm not like sort of, I don't, I just don't feel ever that I've been on this day that I've gone, this is the same old shit every day. You know, it doesn't, you never get that. Which I'm you know there's not many jobs you can say have that maybe that that level of freshness on a regular basis you know like it's sometimes quite stressful as far as like what's going to

happen now but that is such a driving force to kind of be daily kind of like assaulted with a new idea or a new thing that you have to figure out and I'm you know it keeps me going it really does it's it's such a draw a draw you know yeah with the with newer directors if you're doing these smaller short films and stuff do you find like how many of them

are significantly younger than you? How many of them are significantly younger than you? Like are you taking on gigs where people I'm getting old much fresh about James blood like 20 years ago

don't worry. Well, not that far but just everybody is significantly younger to me. No, I listen, the great thing about the film business again, And it doesn't really judge that.

I don't think it doesn't judge what age you're at. And I think that's a really, it's a major plus point of filmmaking because you can be 88 and making a film like Ken Loach or you can be 28 and making the film like people have just worked with 18 nowadays because everybody's getting so savvy and a lot more city literate at the younger age, you know, because like the thing I have noticed over the last 10 years, I guess, is that you just meeting people who are really savvy to films, you know. and like you go wow how do you know all this stuff and it's because they're they're they've got it all accessible so instantly and like if they've got an interest you can really go down many really you know you can learn everything you want from the computer you know and like yeah just learn about like if you get an interest in in ingmar bergman you can watch all of his films you know and you know that is got it's amazing yeah i could have done that back in when i was a teenager or a bit but like it would it cost a fortune you know i would have been really hard

source that was more my point less about the age thing more about just the the quality of director that does have access to all because i'm i you know i was listening when i was in film school the only way to get anything was you had to buy the dvds you didn't yeah and that was money it was expensive now you pay 10 dollars a month yeah no i i agree i think um there's definitely a huge benefit in that and it's uh it's it's one of the the good things that about, you know, spending too much time on your computer is you can really go down into, like, watching great cinema, like really good cinema. So, um, hopefully it will give you that interest to go and watch it in a cinema. But I think it has. I think it does too. I think, you know, what's interesting, I go to all the film festivals and, um, always try and go to Can, always try and go to Venice. And what's really interesting is going to see the, um, the restored films, you know, a lot of people. And they're packed out every time. They're always like, people are so keen to see. all these like restored i was at the bennis film festival i saw a lot of restored japanese cinema and it's like it's it's great to see that it's like the old bands going back on tour he's

like yeah we're still valid and like these these feature films that were in the 60s that look amazing but like had you know where why would that be shown at a new festival but because it's been restored to 4k or whatever it looks amazing in the cinema that's getting and And Venice are very good at that, you know, sidebar of their festival. So I tend to go to those more than the new films, which is bad. But, you know, there's a lot to catch up on. Yeah. I mean, there's two restorations that I think really sort of lit a fire under my ass in terms of like,

oh, it's like our memory, like, to your point about going to see things in the theater, Our memory of films, older films, is marred through the delivery medium, right? You know, you'll see clips on YouTube or whatever that are a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. And you go, oh, old stuff looks old and it's hard to get people to get excited about something that's at, you know, 240P copied from a cell phone from 2001, you know. But it was the conformist and the brand new restoration of the Twilight Zone, both of which I was like, these look like they were shot yesterday. And I just kept telling people, like, just go, you know, the conformist is a little harder because people have to get the Blu-ray, you know, it's not like necessarily streaming.

But the Twilight Zone specifically, you know, it's on streaming stuff. I'm like, just go watch it and change your mind about what, quote. unquote older film looks like because you guys change it it it's inspirational absolutely like i like instantly go to a criterion channel and i watch any any noir movie that's on there because it's generally shot beautifully you know and so kind of like evocative and individual and just way out of the league of what's on our plate all day long most of the time you know so it's it's yeah you're in a good space now where that's like because come a really good place to go to get your um you know your kicks yeah and uh yeah long may

continue i'll sure it will well and it it to not to blow too much smoke at you but like it i do feel like uh folks like you are helping people want to go into the cinema and i yeah it it it whether for good or for bad you know we've reached this point we're like shooting best division iMacs is in and of itself something that makes people want to go see it they you know with with i have a lot of i could this is a very ranty podcast so feel free to rant uh as i but uh but you know everyone's worried about AI and all this other stuff and uh i'm like yeah but i think people are going to reject that because it feels whatever fake you know people not that it looks fake. A lot of times it looks very real, but they'll know, the audience will know that it's not

real and not buy in. So when, when you all shoot film and especially get to revitalize these old formats, the, the, even if those formats are going through new processes, you know, a more modern T.I scanning, you know, color correction, whatever, they still feel. I think this year's been an interesting one for sure because Paul Thomas Anderson has gone way back and he's done it, like obviously Christopher Dolan did it, but Christopher Dolan's. iMac's photography is so kind of like it's its own thing that i kind of really was personally drawn to the paul thomas anderson film because he's done a photochemical you know if it was a film that came out in the 70s or the 80s you would totally that would be

the way that film would look down as well and it's it's just so beautifully reminiscent of that era of going to see a film that was photochemically uh you know uh developed and printed and it's in a cinema the way it was always done and it's so not done that way anymore it's like one of a kind in a way and I went to see it in London in the vista vision projection and I just felt like I was in a gallery because it was like this is I'm not going to this is going to like I can keep coming every day but it's only going to last for three days three weeks four weeks so I got I went to see it twice there I went see it in 70 mil somewhere else to see what that was like parable but it may I totally made me want to go see it again and like enjoy it because I knew I wouldn't be

able to enjoy it for much longer because they've got a schedule, you know, so it goes. And that is the first time I've had that in a while where I've wanted to go because I knew it wouldn't be there for much longer. Whereas the problem a little bit at the heart of what we're saying about the theater going experience to what you've got with, you know, why don't you watch it at home is because if you go to cinema and a DCP, you kind of know that it's kind of what it might be like if you played on your projector, you know what I mean? at home that knowing that's kind of there that makes it a little it erodes a little bit of the

cinema going experience to that point and I think that the the statements that Paul Thomas Anderson's made by a doing it the way he's done it for the one I would hope and I'm pretty sure it's because he loves to look a bit that way and he he wanted to go there to get that particular you know a like style look whatever you would call it but you know I do think it's such a great statement in a way that rubber stamps why it's so great

to go to the air. Yeah, well, and shooting film and projecting it. Yeah, I was just over in L.A. and I was in the labs

that did all that and I was kind of trying to bend the ear of the guys in there and asked them, what did you do here? What did you do there? And honestly,

it's like going to a garage. It's like, you know, going to a post suite, which is all digital now and all that and everybody's got all there's shenanigans and like your espresso machines you're like very comfy couches and

you know it's it's geared around people with the money to pay for that sort of stuff whereas you go to a lab and it always was like that it always will be like that it's it's a workplace it's a garage you know like i remember going in to visit ken loach when he was editing on a steambeck for one of his films and it's one of the coolest places ever because it was really noisy you'd go in and you'd have to shout because there's like the rewind in a roll or there's another going on you're like hey

how's it going and like totally the opposite of what we've been geared up to is like oh yeah it's very slick and you know it's been as always with these things if there's a way to make it sort of feel cool it will be done but there's no way you can make Edison Steembeck and being in a

laboratory cool it's just a workplace and it's like a factory workplace that it's fucking great but um you know, I'm for, like, I really, really hope that it's maybe a tiny bit of a turning point and people might try to do photo chemical, but there's only one lab that can do it, not photochem, so that's a bit of a problem. But hopefully it will be a problem. Yeah. Well, and also, I think we're weirdly enough, far enough removed from, because I think people forget that we were still

projecting film up until like 2008. Yeah. I remember like it was the eye was came in around I remember the only film I've ever done two films actually that were photo chemical finished were a film called

How did she leave the certificate and a film called isolation by my friend Billy O'Brien and I remember going to see the rushes and then the final answer print in the cinema in Leeds because I was filming up there and it looked amazing. I was like that looks so great. And I never really,

I was very young and innocent back then, but I didn't really know the whole process and the kind of talent and the sort of craftsmanship that was going on to get that up there for me to see it. I wasn't aware of it. There was an amazing guy called Clive Noakes,

who was the technical sort of genius guru in Deluxe Labs at the time. And he just had our back. He knew why he's going on. And like Spielberg, you know, worked with Clive all the time and would always go to him. There's always one guy, but that Clive now is retired a long time.

So that one guy thing kind of is hard to find. And like there's luckily a few guys in photochem, a couple of guys in photochem who are talented in that regard. And hopefully that talent might, you know, get nurtured back into the system. Somehow everybody's aware that that's a really good system to go with. And, you know, it's expensive. I know that. But look at the results, you know.

And I'm definitely going to be promoting that as much as I can. yeah i will i will say like obviously uh having even if you shoot film being able to uh fix you know add a little flag here bring up a little something there in the di i very nice very nice when you're like i didn't have enough time back to the pta film like he he was nuts or uh warts and all sort of like done a lot of testing and all but i think their their aesthetic and their approach was like let's make this and you know make it feel like it's on film it's not you know the the mistakes or whatever the flare and the bits that you would try and generally fix in the die they're not there to be fixed they're there to be seen and you know he had an amazing crew and like the film is

flawless really but the fact that he let it be feeling a bit like maybe kind of have rough edges is the selling point of it if you know what I mean whereas like you know that's not for everybody and you know I'm sure begonia would have been a lot more tricky film if we tried to go on a vista vision photochemical route you know and you really need to test like crazy to get to that place where you start your shoe and then go on knowing that you know this will work and he was watching film dailies all the time that's you know wouldn't have happened if we're filming in england and there's only the lab in america that could do that so there's there's a huge amount of hurdles, but I'm so happy that that was done and I'm, you know, inspired by it.

Yeah, it kind of what I was saying earlier, I think people, it's weird to think of the timeline because right now, obviously, you know, there's basically four companies that own all of entertainment. And they, yeah, and they want assuredness, right? So they're the type of people that are going to want to make sure that everything stays digital so they can pixel fuck every little thing that they want to

but I don't think I don't think the audience wants it well I remember a certain company telling a director I worked with that you know or telling a lot of people we only shoot on digital you can't shoot on film

and then that director was no I'm shooting on film and they went really? Oh okay and then they sir went all right yeah obviously yeah that's a great idea

and then you know that was it it's down to that like you know no, no, this is why we're doing it. And the director is still has a little bit of power. So that was a kind of an initiative that was coming in. And there's always these crazy initiatives that you hear about you're like,

what's that? Like, why is that? That doesn't make sense. And if we're making it, we should do it this way. You just, it's a, it is a struggle. It's a constant struggle. And I, I, um, I have been very lucky to work with directors who have got that sway to go, this is the way we're doing it.

And if you don't want it to do that way, well, what are we going to do? And like, you know, that is a, again, I'm really lucky to be amongst people who are like that. And it rubs off because then I'm like, I'm quite honest as well, like, oh, what's the fucking point of that? You know, so you kind of and the more you do it, the more people go, oh, well, they've kind of got a good track record now. So you can't argue against it. And that helps. But at the early stages, like, it's difficult for directors to kind of imprint what they want or like really push for what they want and say that's, that's going to be making the film better. than any other film or better than it could be.

You know, it has to be done this way. And they get, you know, it's a, it's a constant sort of like, you know, barrage of nose coming back at them. But they're like, I have to, you know, directors, people always go, why wouldn't you be a director? I'm like, why the hell would I want to be a director? And that shit they've got to deal with on a plenty of basis on every level. Like, I'm easy. I get really easy. So, no, I would never want to be a director.

And, you know, people don't see. the amount of overwhelming sort of time-consuming stuff directors have to deal with. And like, it's impressive that they come back for more. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned a couple days ago I was on this Amazon gig. I wasn't shooting and I was just filming behind the scenes for a very specific case study thing. But I was talking to one of the like Amazon project managers for the, they like handled advertising and all this.

And I was trying to explain to him the difference between the lady sitting behind the camera, me, you know, the DP versus the director and he couldn't fathom, A, that there was a difference and B, why I wouldn't want to be the person behind Video Village. I was like, it's different. The person, that lady behind the camera has to deal with three things. Those two sitting behind Video Village is a co-director situation.

they have to deal with a thousand things including you you know yeah no no it's um it and it's like again to go back i'll be really blessed that there's the director our director of usually that i get to work with is the person who does have the final say like you know they're the top of that there's no other voices in their heads as we should say like so there's it's not like situation where they are getting given new notes that they have to react to in that day and that seems to happen a heck of a lot from what I hear. I don't do TV stuff, but from listening to some people who work on TV, it's always a bit chaotic because directors are getting told what to do on a daily basis.

It's like, well, I'm only every, very luckily used to directors having full control, you know. And it's, again, it makes for an easier job. But I understand that those people with money want to be able to tell directors what to do. would you want to do maybe not like a full television series but you know we've got a lot of mini series now

no I made a rule I made a rule to myself and said I don't want to do TV I don't watch TV except for you know Twin Peaks or Alaparte so I don't watch

merchant like a not kind of realm of like you know comedy or David Lynch I don't really I don't watch TV series so I certainly haven't really the person to be making the stuff

so I'll go off and do a short film or an indie film a lot quicker than I'll do a TV series and you know I do I do what happens if a director I really like working with is going to do a TV series and I actually went do you know what? No, that's simpler to say flat no

and it just frees up your life for other things and you know I do know a lot of people who do TV and it's great for them they've done really really views amazing work but it's just not something I would find satisfying. I did a film once. Get this. I did a film and it was always

meant to be a film but then they went oh shit the finance and changed so we're actually going to just release it as a TV movie. I'm like what? That's that all about? And then it got shown for a day and then that was kind of it. I'm like, what the hell? Whereas if you work

in a film, let's talk about something like Begonia, you work on it and then a year later it's edited and it goes to a festival hopefully and then when it goes to a festival it gets a bit of a buzz and then it gets released in the cinemas and then it goes to streaming or whatever and like you know there is a life to it

and it's just that energy feels like you're the work you put in gets a little bit paid off by having all of this excitement around it for its little period of time and you know right now is great listening to people who have got to go to the cinema to watch bigone and they're really kind of like you know

it comes back slowly whereas if you imagine a TV show hits like a lot of people in one hit and they're all going to come and torture that day it's like but it's only it's so short-lived you know so I really like the kind of like the life of film has a bit more than you know something that just gets like thrown in and there you go that's it yeah it does you're popular streaming shows they they are there forever and ever you can always tap into them and like you know people sometimes well it's hard to find them sometimes isn't there yeah sometimes they just go you know what uh that show's gone now and you're like oh can I get it on blue ray they're like yeah

never did that. That is a weird truth. Yeah, I don't know what. That's because of rights, I guess, isn't it? They own it and they won't show it. It's infuriating. I mean, there's this one, I'm not like, I enjoy Star Wars like anyone else, but I'm not like one of those ultra fans that, you know, and they had this show called Andor that came out. Oh yeah. And I was begging the ether to put that out on Blu-ray, and they did. And I was. And I was, I was like, thank God, because I knew that was, if it, if they didn't, that was going to be one of those shows that was like, well, it was really popular, but it didn't make a billion dollars. So we and then it would just go away. And that's a bit like what I was saying about the Vista Vision projection of the Paul Thomas Anderson film. I knew that that's the only time I'll get to see it. It's like, yeah, it'll be on other things and you'll see it around. But that particular way of seeing it was rare. So that's what the cinema needs to do to get people back in. And I guess that the Christopher Olin's and Paul Thomas Anders and the August Lantimosters are trying to do that, you know,

and the Brady Corbets and, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of them now, you know, they're all trying and it's a coogler. Coogler, amazing, yeah. Like, it's been a good year. And like every year, basically, if you look at the kind of the best films of the year, they're usually kind of like stand out for many reasons, but sometimes it's because they're shot on film as well. Well, and also, I would just love it if we could go back to having a movie being the

theater for longer than 35 seconds. Yeah. This is the thing that the, you know, the thing that's killed it is the window between the two. That's insane. It's insane. It's longer. And now that, that being eroded has really kind of hits sort of a certain type of cinema pretty

badly, you know? Like, it's all what it's done is it's created this thing where everything is really has to be on the first weekend, much more than it used to be. And there's no such thing. Like, look at a razor head, man. That stayed in the cinema's for 11 years. It was, It took 11 years to make it, maybe seven years to make it because they were doing it in college when they were, they were like trying to get the film stock every night whenever there was a bit of free film stock and knocked around.

They got it and they chew a bit more. So it took a long time to make it. But it hit the cinemas. It stayed as a Friday night classic for 11 years. So it's a long run. And that's what it would have been back then because there's, you know, number one, it looked great to cinema. And number two, you probably wouldn't have got even a VHS of it back then. So, you know, it was rare to get the VHS as even.

So that's gone. Let's face it. That's not there anymore. But I do think when they got rid of the window, the theatrical window, which they were kind of like forced into a corner on doing that one, I think. You know, that was like, okay, it was a, you know, a bit of a barter system. Or like, you know, okay, you do this, we'll do that. And somehow it landed where the window got eroded.

And that was unfortunate. And I think that's why this new thing. of the first weekend has to be a big weekend otherwise it's a dud and that's where it's wobbled it completely for indie films or a certain type of film you know in that in that regard talk to me about the importance of film festivals because there's a lot of discussion I see um with students who are kind of disillusioned with the idea of festivals because they feel like it's a um for lack of a better term sort of like nepotism

they don't actually have a chance and I'm like maybe not at Sunday but there's millions of festivals some of them are scams not all of them are perfect but I get child festivals

I think I would have to sort of see where they're coming from with that one like a can't film festival the main competition you're like why is all of these films made by directors who've been in before right you can look at that two ways that's a loyalty thing from the festival

and they really do champion their cinema, their directors and you know, they're only able to put 20 in the main competition. So I kind of, I think what I, from going there a lot and being that a lot of, over since

2006, I've pretty much gone to nearly every camp film festival. So what I do now is I go to all the uncertain regards and the director's Fortnite strands because they will show films that are first time filmmakers, really interesting cinema. So you've kind of got the audience is there, but they know that this dream is going

to be, or this strand is going to be the best new cinema. And like obviously the big hitters are in the, you know, it might be a big director is not their best work, but well, whatever, they're still, they've had great stuff. Let's go see it. And you always like, you always look at the line up and when it comes out and can go, holy shit, there's a lot of good directors in that main competition. And then you come out, have you gone, have seen any good films? I don't really get what's going on there

but you know you'd luckily hopefully see one or two good ones in the main competition and let's say half for them are half decent but then the you know on certain regard is really good and I always like go some really good stuff coming through here and that keeps me going

the best film I saw on can this year one of the best films I saw in camp wasn't even in any of the competitions which is weird and it just had a special screening or two and it was the heart that remains by Heilnar Palmer, which is the guy who made Godland, and that is a knockout movie. And it was really good.

I'm like, why is this not in any of these competitions? I don't get it. So the thing that what I would say to the people you're talking about were disillusioned a bit by the nepotistic, whatever, blah, blah, blah, is that, you know, there is obviously the main competition, but there is so much other films getting shown at these festivals that you will find a gem.

And hopefully, I went to Venice and I sort of came out with five films I really liked after seeing 25s. Anyway, yeah, I think for filmmakers, it's still like, or for new filmmakers, it's still like a great chance to have a chance for your film to get an audience and then get a run. Whereas if you don't have that, it's like, you know, how to hell. like distribution is insane. How you get your film out there and get seen by people like unbelievable sort of even on a film of Begonia scale

like I've got friends here and I'm going so if you can't see Begonia and you're like oh for next sake. Have you not seen it? The advertising that is needed to get people to just even to sort of sense it now is epic and it's it's you know it's well documented how much money that costs

so for a first time filmmaker what else how else can you do that except for a film festival i i would i would ask that question you know um and you know good stuff will get found out and it will hopefully find its place but um you know jeez it's so hard to get distribution and get it like seen by people i mean like even living here in l.a like which is cinema right but it is crazy something i noticed like a decade to go, but it's even more true today because they've gotten way more intricate with them is billboards.

Like, you know, I travel around. Other states don't have the, like, every billboard in LA is cinema. It's great. I literally go there and I go, oh, this is so exciting. It does what the film and the cinema thing we were talking about earlier does. It makes you go, oh, wow, cinema, cool. That is nowhere.

Like, London has gone from that. They don't do that at all. You're lucky if you get on a bus. You might get it on a tube. But it's all social media now. It's all this like we can put so much more, get to so much more people via somehow getting on their social media. And, you know, it's a kind of like sad state of affairs because I love a poster, you know. The good thing is the Yorgos Lantemos posters and,

you know, he's got a great poster. Well, that's because they let him, Vasilis, his designer and himself, they went with their designs, whereas a lot of time they go, don't worry, we've got people who can do that for you. And Yorgis gone, No, no, I really like my guy's Vasilis to do it.

And they go, oh, really? I'm not sure if that's the right way. We're going to sell it. And this time, to be very fair to folks' features, they completely got on board with the design. And there's about five or six posters by Vacillis that are circulating around and they're all beautiful. So I just, the guy's a genius.

And it's a joy to see those big posters in L.A. So you're very lucky with that, you know. Well, and like I live next to this set of billboards that are like kind of L shaped. And a couple like literally last year, maybe two years ago, what I can't remember what the first film was. I wish I documented it because me and my girlfriend, I remember us going like, oh, that's interesting. Like they like physically like with art blended the two together. And we were like, oh, that's cool. And now that's all that set of billboards.

does is they sell them as a as a as a as a twofer and I haven't seen them used anywhere else in Los Angeles it's only these two that either using each other and it's so fun I was down I was down to promote promoting bologna and there's a is it was just the silver lake there's a big kind of an old a bodega store that's closed down it was like two walls and they just put them on the two walls it was like that looks great so you know yeah Like, I have to say, hats off to L.A. for still being a cinema town. You know, with all the trouble it's been through with union, like strikes and stuff and that, it's still totally loves it cinema.

I really, I love that about L.A. Well, and to your earlier point about, you know, the social media thing, I do think in many ways the medium is the message, right? If you get it on TikTok, that might as well be your friend, Jeff. making a video. But when you see it on a billboard, you go, oh, I should see that. If you see Bagonia only in, you know, a clip form. No, it's like, oh, yeah, exactly.

I agree. I agree. But, like, that's, that's been an executive decision that that gets more potential viewers than a poster will. They've done the, they've, unfortunately, they've kind of think they've figured that out. I'm with you on it. Like, every time I see a poster, is like, oh, that looks good.

Yeah, I think it's a quality versus quantity thing, you know, like, if you get a hundred people that see the like well though which is a bit like yeah so you know sometimes I did want to give you a compliment about the film because a lot of you know I go into the theater

I've got my little notebook and I'm trying my best to use the bounce flight to see what the fuck I'm writing you know every DP always goes like I hope no one noticed what I did you know because you don't want to stay in too much, usually. And with this film, I found that,

not that it's formulaic or simplistic, but there is a sort of unified look to it, where at a certain point I just went, I got it, and I was just able to put down the notebook and watch. Like, that doesn't always happen. A lot of times I'm like, oh, what about this scene? What about this thing? But you guys were able to frame it in such a way

that it's like unified and serves the story in such a beautiful way. But there is kind of a recipe to it, I suppose. Yeah, no, I think with Yorgas, he's sort of like, he's on record for saying that he likes to kind of get a bit of a language to each film and like, you know, make it so that there's a bit of a rule book that we follow that and it kind of helps inform the visual language of the film. And like we will kind of pick a certain amount of lenses that we choose to kind of go with

and the camera system and all that. So it kind of, he's very kind of conscientious of trying not to be too scatter a gun and try and have a vision, you know, and it does it. I totally, it's all set in the basement as well.

So like, nowhere to hide. It's like, that's the place that you're at a lot. So I kind of, I think that might help kind of make you realize, okay, I've been in here for nearly half of this film.

So I kind of, I know this room pretty well. Whereas obviously if you're wandering off into other places you might get a you know your sensory sort of like sort of taste buds will get a bit more satisfied but we we I do love the fact that we chose the vista vision as the format for the film because it's sort of like it elevates it that bit much more and the fact that there's so many close-ups of faces in the film it's great that they're all so gorgeous looking you know it's a yeah I'm very glad it was all down to that VistaVision, you know.

It's great that everybody's talking about that. And it's almost like become a bit the norm, which is really nice. And hopefully a few more films get made with it, you know? Yeah. Well, you know, they've finally started making reasonable IMAX cameras. Hopefully they'll start to make more reasonable. Yeah, I heard there's a few people out there looking Vista vision cameras as well. because you know mechanically they're sort of basic enough it's just about because the machine

the the mechanics of it need quite a lot of power so they're quite noisy but they've worked out a way of maybe next gen blimping them a little bit so hopefully that will continue you know and it's it's all good people are still trying to figure out stuff like it was like a stunted growth for that format like it was the beta cam to you know cinema scopes VHS if you know they kind of got stopped. So it never, it never was evolved. And the fact that it's kind of got this rebirth

and now an excitement about it and potentially, you know, people coming and trying to make new versions of it is amazing, you know? And long may that happen. I hope it does. Yeah.

Well, and also it's like, you know, digital sensors got bigger and bigger and bigger until we hit, depending on who you can find. Five now. Is that the one?

The witch now? It's two. 365, isn't it? That's the... Oh, that's... Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's big. Fujifilm made a a quote-unquote medium format sensor that's literally

about that big. It's the tallest sensor in the world. It's taller in the... It's taller in the 265, but not as wide. Oh, I see. Really good for my friend, Orrin Sofer, shot a little sort of short film

preview thing for Fuji film on it, but he was saying how, like, because it's such a tall sensor, it's perfect. for anamorphic. If you can get an anamorphic lens to hit that whole sensor, it's just like you walk into it. Oh, no. Like, where can it go?

Yeah. How far can they keep pushing that? It's technology, isn't it? It'll always get better, I guess, or will progress. I'm not sure it'll get better. Well, that was the thing that I found funny with like people going like, have you heard of this Vista vision? Because it's, if we want to be reductive, it's, it's full frame.

It's the RELF. It's an SLR frame, yeah. yeah we have it we know I know I know make it tall and the camera is like it is it's vintage and that's saying that's giving it a very nice sort of like ring to it because you're like you're dusting off a lot of old bits and parts that haven't seen the light a day for a while so you know just like it is funny how people kind of get a ring to something oh this to me it's like you know honestly lads that it's like as I said before with

the slick kind of like edit suites and DIY suites versus the garage that is the laboratory in the photochemical world. It's the same with digital cameras and film cameras, you know, digital, it does everything you want and it looks amazing and it's really user-friendly and totally reliable. Film cameras, absolutely not reliable.

Totally like, you know, hard to get your head around. You know, you need to get new parts. You need to get new battery cable. It was you need to get the HD tap on it. You're like, so much stuff needs to be fixed to get it even anywhere close to the digital smoothness as far as, you know, workability, right liability. But, wow, the results are great. That's the same with the photochemicals. So, you know, I'm just, no, it is really, it's a really lovely to be, you know, you end up kind of which side are you on in this regard.

Like a lot of DPs would be loving to be doing both, obviously. But I'm kind of been super lucky to kind of work. people who like work with films. So I'm now feeling the, you know, the promotion in me for film is swinging that way a lot more. And like, come on, guys, we can all do this, you know. And like keep fucking Kodak going because they nearly collapsed themselves last year or this year. Oh my God.

That's the worry is that the film stop falls apart. But I think they're back on track. Great company. Yeah. I mean, Kodak's been doing a lot of events. It like, they are filmmakers, like here in L.A. Yeah, the LAM, oh, what's her name? Vanessa, Eddie, so nice. She's so damn cool. I met her, her and Jake, I think, or Jack, or Luke, I remember. Anyway, they were really helpful to me. And so, like, you got to, what's so great about Dyer now is they're in this little place on sunset. And it's a total welcome house where you come along. You can just, I've got a merch from there. Yeah, you gave me a T-shirt.

Oh, can I, can I do this? And like, if you went to them and said, I've listened, honestly God, I'm trying to do this thing. Have you got any access to any kind of free short ends of stock? They'd try and help, you know. And it's, it's, I really, really felt totally at home there. And it was a really great surprise because in London, London's quite far spread out. L.A.'s huge as well. But for some reason, there's a kind of a center for all that world that you kind of, you kind of can literally just go one place.

So you kind of, you meet the Kodax at the world. Another place is the Panavision. So it's, it's a special sort of town in that regard, whereas London's quite spread out. So, you know, I don't see it. It's not as homely as that. So, you know, whatever happened there, they landed it with a really good thing.

Yeah. Speaking of merch, Panavision merch, hard to get. But the, I did want to ask, I know I got to let you go because, you know, you got real shows to do. But the, I did want to ask about the lighting. in Begoni, because it is so naturalistic in a way that I was like, is this literally just shot by practicals? Uh, like, it's, it's such a, it feels, it feels so effortless in a way.

Yeah. I was wondering. It's something, like, something. I've learned, like, every day in the Orgas, Lance Moss world is like a film school day. You're learning all the time. And, um, he's always, like, his photography is so good. Like, he's, like, he's, been releasing a few stills from the photographs he's taken on the on begonia and they're so amazingly great you know as always it's like shit that sucked you good angle or you know and he he is he's the vision behind the whole film and he's so good at like finding naturalistic but beautifully effortless images you know and um it's because of that he's always like always followed the aesthetic of, you know, natural light looks great.

Why not? If you can get an exposure, we'll find a good frame and that we take advantage of whatever we're seeing in front of us. And like, you know, obviously had a quite good learning curve with the favourite because there was like the truck with lights was told to go away and we just had all the budget went into buying candles. And, you know, I was like, shit, are you sure what these candles are going to like this dark room?

And he's like, yeah, give me a try. And then he pushed the film stock, push it twice. Just because he was, that was his language on that film. we wanted to really follow that rulebook. And, you know, all of this stuff I've done since we've very rarely used film lighting except for poor things, which was completely film lighting. I went from no lights to like a studio with 600 lights, you know. But the thing was, the aesthetic was always like create a daylight lighting effect

outside of the set. So the lights still aren't in the set. They're outside creating this like bright sort of ambience that the sets can take. know, so it's a lot to do with the design as well, like the production design on begonia was James Price and he built the house with that in mind, you know, and he built our basement with fluorescence and work lights in mind. So we, we all talked about that in prep and, you know, it was kind of always going to be practically lit. It's just a matter about which practicals, where'd we put them, and let the film and the lenses do the rest with

the beautiful actors in front of it, you know? Yeah. So, so, so, though, was fluorescence and the worklight and stuff. I'm assuming those were probably like what, like astera tubes and then not an actual work? Or did you just sit there? We use real tubes and then kind of like put one astere up to help it along. But generally we chose the different color temp tubes. And, you know, that was, you know, there was a stereo tubes in there as well.

I won't deny that. But it was kind of like a good mix up and stuff. And generally like we went to find LED. work lights or we found like a tungsten light that was a film light but used in the work like scenarios so there was an aesthetic that we tried to follow that was kind of like what would be found in the basement and that's what it was and then all the stuff upstairs was all definitely all practicals with like practical bulbs and you know when you look at the yorgas film at night time those people have a lot of lights in their house yeah yeah you look at a

lot of films go geez there's a lot of lights in that house and that's because that's the way he plays it. Did you see Death of a Unicorn? No, what was hot? Larry Fong shot it. It was a A24 pieces. A lot of fun. But I'm friends of Larry

and I gave him a little bit of shit because the whole thing takes place in a big fancy house basically. And after like three or four angles, I was like, boy, they've got a lot of lights in there. It's true. It's good for the lighting companies. Yeah, literally, if you got four lights in the four corners, you might get an ambience in the middle and you can get away with it.

And then you just, that's like what's great about film is it really does like it deals with all that and makes it so special. Like I think if that was digital, then might not quite get to that place. So I think the second point is the big part of that where if you get an ambience, you get a thing and your two stops under, it somehow renders the image is really beautiful at two stops under. You know, oh shit, there still is. I can still see a face, you know, and it looks amazing. like scared to go there but then you go fuck i should have done that should have left the two stops under instead of like trying to get to the f2 so that it's all okay and i still i still am scared to do the all under i i need to get braver in that regard but yeah as i said working with

the orgos it's every day's learning curve and the film school day really yeah well um i got to let you go but i i would love it if you'd come back because i yeah no i i'll rant away i i i feel full of energy now. I was a little bit sleepy an hour ago. And now I'm jazzed. Good. No, it was really nice talking to, Kenny. I wasn't expected it to be so nice and relaxed and ranty.

So, and I didn't have to kind of hit into the sound bites that I sort of landed myself in Spain. Well, let's just have you back on next time you got a free hour. Yeah, give me a shout. And I'd happily talk to you. Yeah, no problem. Awesome, man. Well, enjoy the rest of the day, really. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks very much.

Take care. See you. 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. Thank you.