Frame & Reference Podcast - 220: "Loot" Season 3 Cinematographer Jason Oldak

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

My buddy Jason Oldak is back! This time we're talking about his work on Season 3 of Loot and basically everything else we could think of in an hour. You're gonna love it.Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello, and welcome to this episode 220 of Frame and Recklets. You're about to join a conversation between me, Kenny Macmillan, and my guest, Jason Oldack, DP of Lute Season 3. Enjoy. yeah no i i do like that song drum i do i've been what i should ask you what song for kenny one was because i've been one it is my internal joke i'm like there's another one out there there's another intro song and maybe in what season are we in this is that this is going to be the end of five end of five so you know season six maybe there's a change yeah could be could go back to this or like uh we do like um i'd well also now

Now that we're thinking this through, I was like, he probably deleted it. It's probably not a same. I don't know, maybe he's, I mean, I've got every project I've ever shot still on hard. Like, I've just got it. I do you too. Drive of C. of Theseus, you know. I have stuff from 2000 on, on CDs, like, scanned and, yeah, and, you know, up in my attic that I'll never look at. Well, especially for all the, like, client work that I tend to do.

Yeah. First, I kept it because they would always be like, hey, do you have that. that thing. And now I never get asked that anymore, but part of me does go like, because at first I was only shooting, you know, like 8 bit, you know, not even really long footage. So I could store thousands of hours on like a, oh, yeah, 10 terabyte drive.

And now it's all like raw and shit. So it's, you know, a 24 terabyte drive is like 12 projects. But it's amazing you have a 24 terabyte drive now. Oh, dude, I've got, right? I've got 196 I've got like a bunch of and then I built

I got a new computer for I usually build my own but Puget Systems made me this one and I turn my old one into a server because I'm doing

all these docks and obviously there's that whole like hey make two drives give them to people on separate planes in case one of them goes down maneuver

and so I was like well what if I just you know in the hotel just start uploading to my server at home you know because it's VPN again, so it's safe. And my director was really excited about that.

You could do that. I was like, yeah, you guys should actually set up a note at your office, so I don't even have to send it to my house. But, yeah. How have you been since some lessons? I've been good, yeah. I mean, work has been, you know, all over the place, like all of us. you know lots of changing things in the guards of our industry

but I have been able to work and I've been thankful for that you know and this project that we'll talk about in this podcast I am very thankful to be a part of you know I mean I think you do some of this and this and this you know but I think as long as I'm working and I'm you know challenging myself then that's the most important thing yeah Do you normally, like, when you're not doing, like, major projects like that, are you

normally doing, like, commercials or like, what do you do side gigs or do they? You know, I, I would love to do. I, unfortunately, this industry really typecasts us, you know, for better or for worse. So I always really wanted to get into commercials, maybe more for financial reasons. Sure. But I just, I've, since film school, I've really just had directors that have been in the narrative, either movie or television world, hoping that one does a crossover where I could do commercials as well, because when we have downtime, it would be a great thing to do.

My wife generally does commercials. She's a costume designer. So I feel like, you know, we balance our schedules that way a little better because we have a child as well. So, you know, she has shorter scheduled shoots and it makes it work for my longer schedules. But yeah, I would love to do commercials. so anybody listening who is a producer

look at my work do you find that a reel is still necessary at your level or is it all pretty much off the back your last project I have been thinking about that in the last couple of years

I have not done a new reel since maybe 21 or 22 I still I guess yeah I think what I do now now what I try and do if I can get the footage from the shows I do is put together a little montage reel of that show because I think I have enough work now that somebody could go watch

the show and know what my work is but if you happen to go on my website and you see you know season three of loot and you want to see four minutes of it I'll pick out the best shots because the trailer sometimes doesn't put in what I want them to put in you know but yeah I guess the real thing I don't feel I have to do anymore. I don't know what the answer is. So obviously my reel is just a mish bash or whatever.

A buddy of mine was like, hey, this might be two separate reels because half of it is like documentary and the other half is like commercial, not like real commercials, but whatever you want to call them. But in the middle there, I was the only feature I've ever worked on was the last Bruce Willis movie ever made called Detective Knight Independence

and I was a second unit. And I was like, well, that's the only feature of it. You know, I don't have Bruce Willis. I didn't shoot with him. But I was like, I need that. And the Blu-ray wasn't out. I didn't know how to rip Blu-rays yet. So I had to illegally download the movie.

But I own it now, so it's fine. I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean? I bought the Blu-ray. And I ripped a higher-quality version of that's in the real now. But I did think it was funny to your point about like getting footage from you know oh it's so hard you know they're not going to get to you it's so hard to get you know um i yeah we don't have to go into this conversation but i feel like if you need to get it

you find a way to get it you know um yeah i mean even with still everything it's like you should be able to easily get it so you just want to promote your work you know you're not trying to sell it on canal street you know um but it is what it is That would be a nice, like, if we ever get to a world again, we're like, well, I don't know about again, but where production companies or producers are, I guess, more friendly or something, where there's just, like, in the edit, they do cut out, like you said, like a little four minute, like, all right, so here's the clips you can use in your outfits, you know? Yeah, that would be great. I mean, sometimes I never do this, but sometimes when I'm in color, I think about, like, should I just ask the color house? right there to like give me some footage because i know i'll never be able to get it but i never do that because just shouldn't you know it's great it's it's it's a gray zone well and also

you know like i imagine potentially someone like apple might be more affable to that but like if you work on like a marvel show or something i bet that shit is so locked down they're like no you're not even allowed to look at it you know oh yeah oh yeah you have to sound india's just to go into the color sweet yeah yeah the uh which by the way my friend just did a he did oh he did season two of daredevil uh he was one of the dps with illory and yeah he was saying that he came out in l.A no uh jeff waldron is his name i he's the upcoming season yeah um but he said that he came out here to l.a just to go to the colors that marvel uses like you can't you know it's not a picture shop or company three it's

they're colorists I guess which maybe you talked about with her I don't know maybe there was one I was misinformed I think someone had told me that like the marble colorist was like

or marble was like really open to like letting different shows use like other projects Lutz or like but I guess that wasn't I think this this may also be television I don't know about their movies but At least in that show, that's what you were saying.

It is, I'm always fascinated by the higher end color situation. Because like when I, you know, when Resolve became affordable, just the ability to use power windows, like changed the look of all my work. I mean, because I end up coloring my own stuff a lot of times. I'm just always fascinated by what those higher end colorists are going. Like so much rotoscoping that like now it's literally two clicks and Magic Mass does it for free. and I'm like, or, you know, instantly. And it's like, you can get so granular to the point where I imagine certain DPs are like, that's not what I shot.

You know, you just gave them data and they made it look however they wanted. Well, that's, yeah, there's so many conversations that could spawn from what you just said. I mean, the first one is, you know, technology, right? The fact that now somebody on their own could shoot a really great looking project and then take it into their personal color suite and do what they need to do. I don't have any of that, any of those programs. But like what I watched, the colors that I used on Lutti, I worked with them on multiple projects and like just showing me some of these like

AI quick things now to, you know, like you're talking about rotoscoping, like it tracks the eyeballs. Yeah. If you want to bring the eyeballs up just a little bit. I mean, it's just like a click of a, you know, where the shape is and then it tracks it. It's there's no rotoscoping. anymore it's pretty incredible um and that obviously that's on a bigger studio uh whatever his program is that he's using but i'm sure it's in a prosumer availability as well right it's in result

oh yeah no you're not even off faces at all like the um you know refined masks for like faces are all uh you like you say you just click and then it finds the face and tracks it and if like i said i got this new like workstation that it's if you have a high end enough computer it's not even because like when I was on my older computer like even laying in grain would slow it down to the point where I'd have to do all the like fun stuff you know all the textural work at the end like at the very end whereas now I can just like work at the speed of inspiration which is such a huge thing I think one of my biggest pet peeves in any in anything not just film is having equipment slow you down because like that I think I stole the phrase from a

the Queens of the Stone Age front man, Josh Hami, the working at the speed of inspiration. Like the second there's friction, you either won't use that thing or your work suffers because you intended to and won't. You know? Yes, exactly.

Do you rely on, because I certainly do, do you rely on the DIY to like save time on set? For instance, you know, the thing I was shooting yesterday, like the left side of the frame, was like pretty dark and I just checked this is the false color and I was like I can bring that up

and then sure enough I get home and I you know one stop up looks even and I was like great didn't even have to like that I do I mean I try and not talk to my Gaffir and key grip too much about what I can do in in the final process because I think it would you know sometimes you see the grips like struggling to put you know a row of duvetine just to kind of skirt the light and what not and And I think like anything, I think if you, you know, if you can do a post effect in camera, you do that because it's easier and it's there, right? But if you don't have the time and you know you could bring that wall down, sometimes in this show, particularly, you know, we may have tried for a three quarter wrap. It maybe goes a little flatter than I wanted. And if I can vignette or put a window just on the non-key side just to kind of have that shape in post.

I mean, it's there. We did it a bunch, you know. So it's very useful. I think that, you know, I, this is another conversation I've been having recently with some people about the whole idea of having a DIT onset also. Because what if I, what if I didn't have the control? What if I didn't have the control or I didn't have the availability? Like, what if I went right to another project and I wasn't able to be in the DI suite? Yes, I could look at it, you know, via they can send me a file and I can give my notes.

Of course, if I'm on good terms with those producers. But, you know, that DIT also is like, sometimes I have one, sometimes I don't these days. But it's such a great tool to like, you know, set the precedent at the beginning, you know, if setting a look, you know, an initial look even or, you know, they're not doing power windows, but they're, you know, sort of giving an idea of what everybody's going to see when we go into the D.I. I don't know. Yeah. But yes. to the longer answer to what you said is yes of course i do things like that i think sort of like maybe a decade ago it was maybe felt a little more faux paw to like lean on

the the suite like that but i think now especially with like yedlin's you know the wealth of information about like what the pipeline can be i think people are are a lot more open to the idea of like the color suite being one step, like a necessary and useful step in the cinematography. It's not just creating a look. It's also, you know, cinematography has one foot firmly imposed versus, I think, especially older DPs probably feel a little protective of the frame,

as they should be. But to ignore the DIs is, I think. Which, by the way, until about a year ago with our year and a half ago with our contract you know TV dealt cinematographers weren't paid to go into the color suite so it was on my own time which is crazy to me it's like you're photographing a show the second part of the photography is the finishing it's like when you go to develop a photograph you know you got to go through the whole process and the colorist and I've worked with amazing colorists are not the same

cinematographer, you know? So then it's like, if you're not involved, then who is making those decisions? It's crazy. So I'm very thankful our union, uh, brokered that deal because I would go in no matter what, but now at least I'm getting paid for my time. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, and also it, to your point about even being allowed, it is like in the, in the, in the D.I, you can do it's one of those things where like you can do anything and not having the creative voice, i.e., the DP, in the room, they can make it look amazing,

but what does amazing mean? You know, if it wasn't the intent, you know, it's like under-exposed for a reason and they're like, oh, this is under-exposed, up two stops. And you're like, ah, shit. Right. Which is why if you could get that DIT in at the beginning,

then at least you're like setting what everybody's eyes get used to in the edit process, right? Um, you know, I've had experiences where not really bad ones. I've had some friends that have some bad DIY experiences where the producers just took over. And, uh, I have not had to deal with that, thankfully, but it's terrible. Well, and, uh, to your earlier point about, you know, like adding some contrast to faces or whatever. In result, there's now a relight tool where it'll get like a depth map on whatever.

And then you can do we like this or do we not like? like this. It's not like basically all the... It's like an AI thing? No, it's just a depth map, which I mean, it depends on how loose your definition of AI is. But it's just instead of a map, instead of a window that is indiscriminate with,

you know, it's just a global adjustment in the circle or whatever. The relight tool is using the depth map. and then you can mask out where you want. So in this instance, like a face, you get the depth map where it knows that, you know, the distance from here to here, it knows that this side is naturally shadowed or whatever. And then you just raise the exposure that way,

and it looks a lot more photometrically accurate, which is... I think that's awesome. I've been fudson around in Adobe with Photoshop and Illustrator and even Lightroom, and it's like even any of those little capabilities that they put into the AI thing now is, especially when you shoot something on an iPhone, and it's like everything's in focus, everything's fine.

And the things you can do, it's pretty amazing. Dude, you got to, I don't know. Adobe came out with this app called Indigo. It's a camera app. If you have a more modern iPhone, by that I mean like 15, 16, 17, 17. Yeah. Indigo basically intercepts the camera signal like at the sensor level.

And it, the photos of, are phenomenal. Like, it won't, like, I was at a concert, and they had, like, a backlight. I'll always test, like, the iPhone camera versus Indigo just to see, like, if I, this is like, if I'm making it up in my head. You know, the iPhone app will, the, it was, I saw the beaches. And they had the sign in the back that was, like, a classic, like, Lexan letters, you know, with, like, light bulbs behind it.

And, uh, iPhone camera clipped it to white. They were, in this photo, they were red. indigo kept it i mean it looked exactly like it did in person like it it won't it's such a fun tool to use because i you know i i love taking i take this thing around all the time you know but this isn't this is a x100 b fidgeto you know it's like the yeah built in lens and all that a phenomenal tool but the iPhones in my pocket all the time and sometimes you see some great light and the iPhone does too much post work to like bring it to or like i don't even know if you want to call it post but it processes

too aggressively and indigo just makes it look like and indigo apparently does use some form of machine learning to figure this out which is like it's such a weird that's very very cool it's very cool i i'm people keep saying that a the i i this is the best it's this is the worst it's going to be they're like oh it's only going to get better this is the worst it's going to be and i'm like i used to think that but then like anything that's been funded by vc money it It does get worse. Like, Uber's a great example. You know, it used to be cheaper than taxis.

You didn't tip. It was always like a black car driver. And now it's almost obnoxious to use. And everyone's like, Waymo, no driver, good. But even Waymo is like, you know, Google funded. Is that going to get worse? Yeah. With the billions and billions of dollars, the AI companies are wasting to get everyone

hooked on it. I'm wondering, you know, is it going to get worse. And then, or like, I've heard that Chad GPT5 is like worse than four. I don't know the things, but I don't, I think I'm firmly in the position that it is not going to be taking our jobs. The experiment is interesting, but I agree. I mean, you know, I think there's lots of jumping to extremes with this technology. And when you use the word technology, I mean, it's a giant umbrella because it's a, it's AI is really affecting every industry, right? I think people are reacting so strongly because of what we kind of saw, at least for me,

what I saw during the strikes with how our studios reacted to how they seem to care about all of us as workers, it was an eye-opener. And so, you know, with any technology, if put in the wrong hands, it could not be great. But do I think that we're all just going to watch AI movies in five years? No, I just, I don't believe that. You know, I also think that if you look at the film industry over the years, technology has constantly been changing this industry. You know, and I think that, I think that there will be some jobs that are lost or adapt, you know.

ROToscope artists. ROTOPE artists. People in post, I think that will be, some people will be affected initially. Um, you know, I mean, my color, the colorist that worked on Lute even talked about this with some of the people in his pipeline. I don't know yet how it's going to affect us on set, but, you know, when you were talking about that thing, I, I, I seen AI programs where it's like, it'll just light it for you. Like, just shoot somebody flat. And it's like, well, yeah, you could do that, but I don't think everybody's going to do that. You know, I don't know, man. No, I agree with you. And also, uh, I always. whenever I have these conversations with people who are nervous about it,

I'm like, take a step back and look at it from the viewer's perspective, right? If you know any Gen Ziers, they're all pivoting to trying to buy old VHS cameras and they're carrying around like digicams from, you know, that they probably should have just grabbed from their parents, but they're paying $300 on eBay for. It's in a box next to the cables we don't use. I guarantee it. You don't have to go buy one.

but um you know they're they because they grew up in a world that is increasingly ephemeral they're looking for things that remind them even if they weren't around for it of something quote unquote real you know we saw that with the um kind of mid level film versus digital debate you know film is real digital space and so with i agree like no one's going to be like oh i want to watch this certain people church but uh the vast vast majority, 98%, I don't think you're going to be like, I want to see what AI made up. They want to see real artists

working. I mean, they want to see real light. Because I think the audience is smart enough that they can tell when something's been over polished. Like, you'll see people commenting on movies all the time. Let it's like, this is overproduced essentially. It's like they don't want to. Yeah. Yeah. And

I was going to make a point about the analog and the new generation. I mean, my daughter's eight years old. We got her something. I'm not promoting. this company but they're called tin can and they sell these old school phones right you pay 80 bucks it plugs into your router and my daughter is now talking to our friends the way we use to talk to our friends when we were kids and i don't know how long it'll last but it's pretty awesome to see it's just like just like a voip hand regular phone yeah exactly just a cord corded phone and uh she's not

on FaceTime, you know, and I think it's like, I, like you're saying, I think some of the youth is going to revolt because it's too much AI, it's too much stuff. But then, you know, AI, like we talk about it as this big umbrella, but some of the things we were just talking about are really revolutionary to make our jobs easier, you know, to make things look better and quicker. And so, you know, it's, I don't think it's going to completely take us over. No. Well, and not. No. But I mean, so I was about to say if you, you know, you're, you're an indie filmmaker or whatever, using any of these generative AI models for storyboarding, you know, could be great. Then, and I would say like, yeah, why wouldn't you do that? Of course. Like, if you're not, you know, an expert at drawing and comping a thing together and Photoshop would take too long, like, yeah, okay. Although I don't know if you've seen Bong Jojude Ho's storyboards, but they are stick figures. He's just like, yeah, the fuck there, you know, but then the question, when I, go ahead, go ahead. I was just going to say that the question is because the thing that becomes iffy is, yeah, you would use that for storyboarding, but the way that the model was created was unethical, you know, scraping everyone's data to get, yeah, the model is not.

Did you, did you see that ASC? They had like an AI forum. It was about a month or two ago. I think I was invited to that and I couldn't make it, but yeah, I didn't see it. I watched it on Zoom and, you know, I listened to some of the companies and they spoke about how, you know, you could use storyboarding or presentations for your boards, you know, if you're looking for an interview and whatnot. And it was very interesting. If it's used that way, I think it's great, you know. But like you're saying, you're scraping the internet.

You're using all these prompts to find images of people. people, you know, I don't know, the legality of it just seems a little shady also. But if you're only using it for boards, then I guess that's fine. If you need to do that, you know. My friend Michael Chione, who he founded light ironed and all that. Yeah. Yes. He's very bullish on, it's bullish the right word when you're for it.

Anyway, I'm not sure. Yeah. On AI, he started a company called Strata. and oh yeah every time I talk to him it's like I can't tell what the company does because there's just some new cool thing he's doing but the one thing that I found incredibly useful

like one of them is like me talking about building my server and doing all that like now he has a service that does that without having to configure a certain like I don't know how to code in Linux but he handled all that but there was one thing that he had a few years ago that was really cool which was you dump all your footage into the strata platform

and then you can search by idea basically like instead and so if you've got a hundred hours of B roll for a doc you can type in like girl in red shirt walks

to the left or like bowl of grapes and it'll find all the clips with that that's amazing that's super helpful so that is that or dialogue

or you can type out like you know blah blah blah the guy says Steve that so that's taking away the assistant editor's job right yeah I guess yeah but but if you're doing something solo and you're you know looking through like hours of footage

i mean that's amazing yeah you know um there was a thing also if just back to that asc thing where like let's say you had a movie that was shot in poland and they wanted to dub it or something like you know they basically the actors could speak english they it would like make their lips look like they were saying english as well as polish I thought that was pretty incredible if you're doing that for your movie you know, or if you want to do that. And

it's, yeah, it's tough because I'm pretty deaf. You know, I spent a lot of my younger years shooting concerts and never warrior protection. I know, and so I read a lot of lips. And if something gets dubbed and the lips now work correctly, because I don't like captions. I like,

I know everyone. I hate captions. I hate it. Yeah, it's great. but it's like you you have that you know what captions have taken actors jobs the actors i mean i'm using you something and you're just reading the the book version of the film absolutely i like captions when it's a foreign film i don't like captions when my daughter my daughter has it on all the time and i'm like you're not looking at the image you're looking at the words like just look at the image you know what they're saying it's very strange and i sometimes i find my

tv automatically is turning it on like i have to go turn it off i don't I don't know why. Anyway, I think TVs are going to have to be the next frontier of technology getting better. Like, I know some TVs have a filmmaker mode, but the fact that we still don't have like a standardized, you know, when you had NTSC, that was standardized. Now it's just whatever. Like, how many, in loot, how many trims did you have to do? I guess it's not going to go to DVD or whatever. So that's what do you mean trims?

What do you mean about that? So when I've interviewed people who shot like features that for verbal or whatever, they say that they have like when they get into the grade, there's like 40 versions, one that's HDR, one that's SDR, one that's, you know,

a version of 4K, one that, you know, to try to accommodate all these various viewing environments that aren't. I mean, right. So usually you'll have more of that with a movie because it'll be seen in different platforms.

But with television, you definitely have an HDR and an SDR pass. And we generally color with the HDR and then he has to sort of make a pass on the SDR based on that. But the color suite is the best place you're going to see that image because then it goes into, you know, 100 million households and who knows what their TV is piped like. And, you know, and they may have the motion scan on. And I mean, it's, it's the brightness is all the way up. You just got to hope that, I don't know, it's, it is a problem. I don't think it'll ever be solved.

Because then it's, you know, there's so many different television providers, right? So why would they all standardize their TVs? They want to compete with each other, I guess. I don't know. I mean, when you go to a Best Buy, they're all in that really pretty. And they all look different. Yeah. You know, at the bar that I was at, the TVs that were in there.

I was sitting next to a guy who works at Company 3 in calibration. And once he mentioned that, I was like, cool and we look back up at the game and then we both started going why are all these tvs different that one's blue why is that one blue you know just immediately became of all guys for you to be sitting next to that's hilarious yeah and it didn't bug him until i brought it up you know because he wasn't thinking about work until he was yeah the uh what was I wasn't gonna say oh to back to the the color grade thing I was watching luckily all three of your episodes of blue came out so I could watch them um

because when the interview was booked, I think it was only one. So there's an amazing consistency throughout the lighting, even like outdoors. And I was wondering, like, A, how is the key light soaking? Obviously, with a comedy show,

everything's like kind of an unnatural natural naturalism. You know, like they're in a plane and it's very well lit, you know? Yeah. So like, how do you, how do you, maintain the consistency between like you had an entire episode outdoors that

you know how much of that are you able to do with you know G&E and how much of that is closed and then also what the the key light always seemed to be you know the the heightened reality thing but it was always naturalistic at default I guess yeah

well okay so the yeah that first episode was entirely outside on a beach or near a beach in January when I know we shot it in February when there's minimal light, right? You know, I think the biggest thing for me

just broad strokes at the beginning was we had a, I don't know how old Maya Rudolph is, but let's just say she's probably in her 50s, right? And, you know, the gaffer, his name is Eddie Reed and I, we just really wanted to make sure that she looked great, right? still keeping with story still trying to create shape

on all our actor's faces you know I you know what I've always loved about Lou is that it does have some sort of visual intent you know it's not just like you know oh another wacky comedy and it's just super

bright but you know yeah when we're in these all sorts of situations where we are dealing with the sun rather than controlling our key source how do we control that light. And I think with outdoor stuff, as best I can, is it's about scouting and really figuring out where the sun is and which direction to shoot that's going to be advantageous. I mean, our key grip Adam, Collegas is his name. He was nailing it in terms of like sculpting

with, you know, especially for exterior work, sculpting with diffusion. But I think it's also about putting the camera in the right place where the sun is, you know, so that it really is acting as our light and giving us ratio. And, you know, not everything is backlit, but trying to sort of keep that aesthetic if we can, or at least the person that needs the backlight more, shoot that direction, have the other person get the front light.

Yeah, I mean, interior is obviously is easier because you can control it. We didn't really cross-shoot that much. So we were always shooting directionally and I had control. But thank you for saying that. I, you know, I did want to keep a consistency, especially when we're outside and inside. So, yeah, were you, were you employing? Because to your point about, like, it's not just a bright, that, that always seems like such a far more difficult line to toe to make everything, you know, keyed up a bit and not have it just look flat.

You know, when you're allowed to just shoot with the Gordon Willis one light bulb maneuver, it's like, that's kind of easy. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah. When you, you, I never want to have too much light. So, you know, obviously some of our spaces like the jet. It's like by giving that base, that ambient base in the jet, you know, we're sort of filling. But it's all overhead. So you still have to get into the eyes. So we would, you know, bring some small units in here and there to get into the eye light or shape the face.

And then our son's doing, you know, architectural lighting in the background. But, yeah, it's always always a challenge. is there a big old I'm always fascinated by you'll see like behind the scenes the one I remember vividly is a vice I can't remember who shot vice

but the movie but there's this photo where Greg Frazier Was that Frasier? Maybe what I think maybe I asked him about this but there's a scene where George W. Bush and Dukaney are talking outdoors

and I saw the behind the scenes and it's just pure neg ever i mean the entire house is neck from the floor to the side it's all neg and then there's like a reflector and i was like that's i got to learn more for you dude he's he's taking he's taking away all the light you know i've heard bradford young when he was shooting would do that as well like that's that was his style um they're funny enough if you go on my instagram on the third episode of btas there's a shot where we were shooting in san anita and maia is is on the stage and she's talking to all these British people. And we had, it's like diffusion, diffusion, diffusion.

We had this balloon light. Like, it looked like we had light everywhere. But there was ratio. It just was like just getting in some of the areas that needed to get in there, you know? Yeah. So it's like the opposite of what you just. Right, right. Well, what I'm getting at is like, you know, neg diffusion, relatively inexpensive.

Yeah. I was wondering if you could like simplify. for me like what how one could achieve a look like loop without breaking the bank you know you're on you're making an indie comedy maybe and you want something that kind of feels similar to be able to have that much control without you know however many thousands of dollars of lighting you were privy to i mean i guess that you know because even when we were on the beach like we would have an 18k burning just in case you know like let's say we were using the sun as a backlight we weren't just using bounds to push back.

We probably had a light as well as bounce just to wrap that. But if you're doing it on an indie level, you know, I think you're using the sun to your advantage, you know, does the person, you know, who needs more of the light, maybe that's where they're more frontal or three quarter

and you diffuse that enough so it feels like a soft wrap and then the other person's getting the backlight. You're just using the sun as your source. You know, I, on our show, we had a budget. It never seemed to be enough, but, you know, we had enough that we had tools

to make outdoors work as well as indoors, you know? Yeah, I guess that's an answer. Yeah, but it's specific, just a little bit further, the, like, office interiors look really good, but not,

you know, for certain shows, you can tell that it's just like, and these are maybe older shows, but you can tell that it's just, environment lighting and then they'll like wheel in a key and that's great but this this felt like that but way more natural like i could see the control and i was just fascinated by like what what's going on in that set that you're able to control like are you adding a bunch of light

or is it kind of like all not practicals but is it like one look and then you wheel in that key i mean i think i always you know like anything uh what is what is the architecture lighting of the space. What did our production designer set for us? And what do we have to add to it from there? You know, because you don't want to just add a key source. And so they're bright. And then everybody in the background is kind of, you know, whatever. But if they, if we are adding a, you know, I would say like our workhorse in the office just to kind of give a broader, because we have these giant windows on either side. Right. So the motivated key, if it's daylight, is coming from one of those. So we generally use the 360 or something like that as like the main source and then but you if you do just that inside but like

through a T-bone you know diffusion spaced enough away that it like carried but I wouldn't just use that because then there would probably be enough of a ratio that you know do I have to get into this eye how do I do that so um you know sometimes we would bounce something we would use aperture lights to bounce into another piece of diffusion. But then it's also about bringing up the background, you know, if you notice a lot of like, you know, let's say we're looking in one direction, you see the windows, we would use our sun source to just have some hotspots and maybe add another interior source to bring some of that up so that it's balanced ratio-wise.

It feels like the daylight's carrying through in both windows. Our source for our actor is next to our camera. but we're also filling in spaces so that it feels that the sun, the ambient sun on the other side of the building is also filling in the space, you know? So it doesn't feel too much. But it's, you know, it's like,

we'll see what our practicals are doing above us. I really never, we did have like scoop lights. So we would turn those on subtly just to kind of get a little ambience over the head. But, you know, generally our stuff was coming from the ground. I don't know. It's all about just like, piecing the layers together, anything in filmmaking, right?

It's like you get your key source, but if it's just coming from there, then everything else is going to, it's going to look lit. Yeah. The whole idea is to not make it look lit. Yeah, and especially in that, obviously, it's set. Is the office a set? It has to be, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, the office is a set, her house or like bedroom and bathroom and all that stuff, yeah. But when you, when you have a set built, obviously it's nice. You're like, the motivation never leaves. that you know and we built it that way um it's you know i i find over the years with you know different sets like that that i've been on it's like to try and have an understanding of what time of day it is just so you're not because it truly is it's like is the sun always on that side is it does it does it track over us and then it's also on that side i mean we kind of took some creative

liberty to do that just because you know we didn't just want to have it come from say you know the south side of our building or whatnot but um you know i did i shot a show where like we we discussed how what the sun's track was so that there was a motivation of an understanding of the sun's always coming in from this side of the house you know yeah um yeah i mean it because it can get old yeah well and the the big one that i learned in an interview really i can't remember i think it was was it Greg again? I don't know. But having to design light for, like, I think it was for like VFX, basically the idea

being that like, yes, the sun is whatever, it's 5,600, whatever the sun is. But then shadow isn't. So when you're having to redesign a set, it clicked for me like, oh, there needs to be other, like the ambient needs to be a different color temperature. Like the color contrast. And I don't know why it never occurred to me, but I had that aha moment. I'm like, I don't know anything.

No, especially. You know, we talked about that a lot on the jet because, and I recently, I was flying somewhere and I was looking at that just because I was like, I was unsure at first, like, is it really like a different colored ambient, like on the other windows that are the non-sunside? And there really is a, there's a cooler side to it,

you know, and you can get away with a lot more than I thought. You know, but sometimes you just have to see it in reality and trust your gaffer. Yeah. Oh, trust. Yeah. When I got my color meter, I became such a freak. It was just everything, man, just sun, shadow, this corner of my room. That, you know, I did all the light bulbs in my house and I wrote an article about it.

That's amazing. Well, I was trying to find what's the best light bulb for household, like for film use. And come to find out there are, because we're all on LED now, obviously, especially in California. Yeah. And none of them, the only good one was GE sun-filled. What temperature is it? They have a daylight and a tungsten. And they were both spectrally very accurate.

But is the tungsten 32 or is it 28? I think it was 27. 27, yeah. It's got to be lower than 32 probably. Yeah. But yeah, like LADWP sent out a bunch of LED bulbs to get everyone trans. And they are gross. I know.

Oh, when I used to shoot documentaries, I would go into some people's homes and I'm like, I look at some of the color of the light bulbs that they're using and I'm like, why do you have that in your house? Like, how is that not bothering you? You know, like just a fluorescent blueish white light that's in your living room. It's like, oh, that doesn't work for me. Well, and I'm surprised too. I'm constantly dimming stuff in our house, my wife that she knows now, but it's like just, I don't have the, what are the Phillips Hugh ones yet, but I, but I. I feel like I need to get those because then I have full control. See, I haven't tested those.

I would be interested to know if the LED engine and those are, you know, like a light ribbon, you know, high quality or are they just whatever off the shelf LEDs because they have to make, you know, whatever neon red potentially. Right. I don't do. When I see people like streamers, you know, on like Twitch or whatever, and they've got all the LED ribbon everywhere that's like sort of flickery and some all weird color. I'm like, your eyes have got to just be shot.

Like, that cannot be comfortable. Get some good lighting, bro. I did want to ask about the deep fake ad in, what's the second episode or whatever it is? And it's the third episode. Yeah. Did you approach that differently from the look of the show? Did you, like, did you go into the mindset of like,

oh, this is a different ad? or a different look you know i asked about that because in episode two we do these super bowl ads later in the season we do this korean drama like we have all these looks that are happening within a show within a show and i asked them about you know specifically our showrunner i said what are you what are you wanting to get out of this do you want it to feel different and really what they wanted the deep fake thing ended up vfx wise being very subtle but what they wanted was just that it felt like a polished corporate video, you know, like, and she's, you know, she's so great talking into the camera like she does, but, you know, so our director, Rebecca Asher and I, we, you know,

just kind of did this like crane thing at the beginning, so it feels a little like, oh, the production got a jib, you know, and she's like talking into the camera and stuff. I mean, I don't truly know, you know, there's a lot of creative liberties taking because it's like, how much, how did they deep fake all the whole group in the video but it's so funny that i think you just don't care when they start dancing behind her you know um but i think also what really helped and this was i just have to give the costume designer credit because i didn't ask for this but that red outfit that she's wearing it's so punchy that it really helps our look that much more she's amazing by the way uh she's been on the show since season one her costumes i mean i i'll

I'll always tell anybody, you know, a cinematographer can only do so much, right? But with what's in front of your camera, whether it's, you know, the production design palettes and the costume design, it really adds to what we're photographing. And she is constantly putting Maya and other people in amazing outfits. And that red outfit really stood out so much to the intention of that ad. And it pops, right? And our lighting, I think we enhanced the lighting. a little more just because of that.

I think our key source was a little brighter, like we were talking about before, was a little brighter just to kind of make it feel like it's a video that they're shooting. But yeah, no, I mean, it's I think in the end, the subtleness was there in terms of like what we wanted to feel like.

We just wanted it to feel like some company came in and was shooting an ad for Wells Foundation, you know, internally. Yeah. the uh on any tv show obviously you have to work fast you know yeah and uh were there any sort of like i don't know workflows or anything like that that not only on this show but just anything that you've learned that like help you move quickly besides just like having a plan you know yeah so i i mean first thing i will say that i was very lucky with the schedule of this show they

I mean, usually a comedy could be FX does four and a half days. Most shows do, which is crazy to me. It's like a mandate, supposedly. I haven't done an FX comedy, but the comedies I have done have all been five to six days, Max. They're like, it's always sunny, does it in two days.

I know. I know. Maybe that's where they sort of modeled it off. But from first season to second season, I don't know who expressed, I think I know, but let's just say somebody expressed that they needed more time with the shooting schedule. And so that allowed Apple or whomever they added another day. So we have seven days an episode, which is really great because it really gives us the time. Now, within those seven days, we tend to do 10 to 11 hour days because we have that time to really focus and,

find the look and find the shots, etc. We have three cameras all the time. Now I was shooting it directionally and if I really felt like our third camera wasn't needed, they would sit down. But we, they all worked 70 to 85% of the time

and that really helped too. That really pushed it along and that was Blake McClure pushed for that in season two for three cameras. And that really does help us with getting our days done, getting what we need, like you know not feeling that crunch because sometimes we have uh i think there's six

principles you know if we're in the conference room and we have to shoot all of that i mean it it's like shooting a dinner scene you know um it's a lot so that really helps our our schedule you know and then for me you know just with my experience over the years of shooting is like it's a puzzle man You know, it's like we, thankfully, I, and I also have two hiatus days in between blocks. So I was able to sit down with our directors, properly shot list, you know, look at locations if we haven't looked at it together, and then figure out how we're tackling it. And then for me, it's figuring out the puzzle of how is our coverage going to work for lighting if I do this, this, and this. And then we'll go to this, this, and this, you know, and it's kind of like moving us along and getting everything we need. So it's just me constantly strategizing to, you know, I'm thinking two shots ahead of, you know,

how to make our day, you know, and get beautiful shots. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I don't think I've ever asked anyone this, but it's something that I always think about, which is like whenever I'm asked, like, you know, hey, how long is this going to take to set up? I just make up a, like, I don't know. I'll just be like, give me 15.

I just pick a number, you know, and then I hope that I do it. Like, is the, do you, have you just built a muscle where you know how long a shot will take to set up? It's so funny you bring that up because any AD that's worked with me. I, and listen, I, I do not take, you know, an hour to set something up. I'm, I'm quick, but I will, oh, I will never tell NAD 30 minutes, never use the three. Okay. I generally never. I will always go to at least 20.

I, 20 is like gold standard. Okay. Even if I know it's longer. And, you know, I really. should like at the end of a season clock with the AD and be like so where did I really you know where was I really we need metrics uh you know it's usually 20 to 25 I'll never I don't think I'll ever say 15 unless I truly know it's like a very quick thing but the 20 is like the thing never use the three don't go to the 30 mark unless it truly is like a big turnaround like you

know but you know by getting that 30 if I say 30 minutes Then I'll express something like, we're going to do this, but we're going to be able to get this, this, and this. And then they'll be like, great, you know. And really what, I think what happens with that relationship with the DP and the AD is as you start a show, the AD starts to see like really how quick you are or not. And are you making your dick? Because if you're making the day, those times that you present to the AD, at the end of

the day, it doesn't matter. I think what does matter is when, you know, some actors I've worked with, they want, they want their 10 minute mark to come out of their trailer and that's really on loop i would get that a lot it would just be like you know Maya wants to know when her 10 minute mark is so you know whether it means they need to prepare whatever they need to do and i totally respect that so i try and be accurate about that where i think we're getting to a place and sometimes if it's kind of out of my hands where i see our gaffer doing what they're doing i'll like chime in on them be like how realistically you got seven minutes great right we're at 10 minutes you know just to give that little buffer

you know um but yeah i think i think in the end the ad is really trying to figure out you know with with lessons in chemistry brie also wanted a you know a timetable of when she had to come back in so um yeah i think it's i think it's a little bit of like you know what is going to sound good at the beginning you know you know i mean i think also as you you go through a television show, you start to realize the tools, you know, the team that you're working with, the Gaffer I worked with. We had not worked before on, on the show. So this was a new partnership, new learning experience. And so, you know, we're all kind of figuring out how long it's going to take. And I think by episode two or three, you know, we all get it. Yeah. You know,

that brings up a thought. Obviously, there's certain departments that work far more than the DP in terms of like you know multiple projects uh either on this show or or recently or whatever or whenever uh the great timetable can uh have have you ever like has a gaffer ever taught you something or you're like i'm taking that from now on absolutely oh it happens all the time i i really pride myself on um being a collaborator with my team i don't try and pretend like i know everything I think everybody, as they go through this career, they learn on every job, you know, whether it's things not to do or things to do. And with lighting specifically, I'm always picking up things that, you know, I, my gaver actually, he's quite young for how experienced he seems he is, but he's very experienced. He's worked under some really great gaffers himself.

And, you know, that experience that he's bringing to me, like, that's awesome. So a big thing that he would do on this job that I tend, I will probably carry on to the next is, you know, just this kind of wrapping, you know, we'd be in a small room. We'd be in like an office, right? And it's like we have our key, but we would put up muslin or ultra bounce above the camera and we would bounce the aperture in. And I remember, like, years ago in film school, um, uh, running. Robert Primes was his name.

He came in and he did this whole thing with a great filmmaker name, Primes. You don't, yeah, he was ASC guy. I don't, I don't know if he's still alive. I don't know. But he was the king, you know, we'd have this lighting class where DPs would come in and they would talk about one thing that they love

and he would do this source for bounce thing. And that's what, and I forgot about it. I haven't used it a lot, but Eddie would do it all the time and it was really great. It did that. It just gave enough of a wrap. Sometimes it would just give enough for if you have this group shot just to get into the eyes. It was a trick that I feel like great.

You know, we had some dark skinned actors on our show. He would also like, I think it was like the Felix, like the smaller lights, like the Q5s. You know, he would like angle them on the ground just or somewhere off just to get like an edge for our darker skinned actor. you know things like that that are great you know and then i think also something that i also learn as i go with each show is you know technology changes and gaffers i've noticed certain gaffers like i'll ask them at the beginning like you know what's your um you know what's your light that you like to use all the time because some people like the 360s some like vortexes some like apertures felixes like the LED lights are constantly changing right so um just so i

understand who they are, what they like, I tell them what I prefer, and then we have this partnership, you know, and a collaboration, I guess, is well. Yeah, I should start doing that because what I've been doing, anytime I'm lucky enough to get a gaffer, not have to do it my damn cell, is, you know, that maybe the, the, like, I'm thinking of one example where we used, we did one setup, production liked that setup. So then they sent the, on the next, I was, I was second unit doing all these interviews all over the world. So, you know, it had to be consistent, but I was everywhere with different crews every time. And they would send a ostensibly a parts list to the next gaffer of like, all right.

So for that one we liked, it was this exact light, this exact. And then I'd get there and be like, just fucking, or I'd text them, you know, whatever, it's, it's light. We're not. And also, it's on a, it's on a blank, you know, so it just needs to be the same quality. We don't need, it doesn't need to be an R.E. fixture, you know, like, whatever you like, just use that. Sometimes also actually, you know, rather in terms of unit of light, it's more about what I've learned is like, what diffusion do I gravitate towards. You know, I tend to use a lot of grid these days. And, you know, lessons we're using a lot of magic cloth. We used it a little bit on this. But, you know, it's like that quality, what's going to

front of the light also creates yeah that feeling also and that was that was the one that I did maintain yeah no it was quarter grid every time I mean in a way that's I think that's more important than is it a vortex or a 360 it's like that quality of the quarter grid is going to give you probably the same feeling yeah yeah you know you know it was one of my first interviews on this podcast it was with Ellen curris and she changed my life a little bit because she was talking about how she, like, hates, probably putting words in her mouth, but she was basically saying how she hates,

like silks and certain on lens diffusion because they have no sensibility. They're just fuzzy. And so she was like, I only use, I think it was a grid or anything that still has directionality to it. And I was like, if she's doing that,

I'm going to start doing that. It's interesting how people, I agree with her. I really don't ever, put filtration in front of my camera. I did do it on this show for sort of to set a look of one of our

pieces in episode 7, but generally I don't. I just feel like you know, if you need, unless it's calling for it, like something specific. But yeah, the silk thing is something you like are given in film school, and I feel like I never use that now. I had a friend, he just

hates 250. Like, just won't use 250. I don't know why, but I remember working, when I was operating more than DPEing, I was like, I would work for him. And I'm like, okay, that's an interesting choice. But, you know, everybody has their own thing, you know. I, is it written on that? I, uh, when I bought my first role of diffusion when I was just, you know, having to do everything myself, you know, I was putting it on these kinos that I had. The, the original ones, not the LEDs. And, um, because ever, is it written on any? 251. Yeah. I, uh, I, uh, 51 that's yeah so here's the thing i because everyone was using 250 as in my educational sphere at

the time uh i was just being very punk rock about it i'm like i'm not getting it everyone uses it i got 251 like it fucking matters but it's on my window it's like the diffusion for for this setup is just taped to the window is it isn't 251 is thinner right it's like uh yeah by a little bit i think it's an eight which when when i first went to film school and tried to like like it was so much of an overload of like light different types of lights and different numbers of diffusion. I was like, wait, why is 2.51? Why is that thinner than 250? Like, shouldn't it be more? It didn't make sense. And then there's something called opal and it doesn't even have a number. Like it's very, you know, 260. It was very confusing at the time. Yeah, and 216 is thicker?

Thicker, yeah. It's like very thick. And then there's trace and all that. stuff. I'm glad I don't have to remember any of this anymore. Gaffer. I don't got us. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Although I guess if you're an ultimate control freak, you call for a diffusion, you know, that's that specific. And there are DPs that do that. And I find in the past, like, you know, I've worked with crews like you're saying, where you're going around the world, where I've shot stuff in other places where I've just met them. And you kind of have to feel out who you're working with. If there's somebody that

doesn't have a creative quality to give you ideas. You know, if you express, you know, I'm looking for this quality and they find something that works, then you have to call it out. You know, you have to know what you want. Yeah. But I try and, you know, with all of my, my team, I try and make it feel like a team instead of just telling them what to do

because I have to do the 20 different things, you know. Well, and they're obviously part of the, Everyone like, I was just talking to somewhere about this, but like everyone likes to, A, feel like they contribute, but B, use their creative mind. Like even if it's just strapped and pipe together, like there's some level of artistry there. And when you're able to, like on that gig, I was just saying, the fun part was every gaffer I found, because like the production company I work with very, like, dialed. Like, they, they've got networks all over.

And so they would always give me, like, just the most grizzled ass 40-year veteran gaffer on every shoot. And I was just like, this is great. Because you're able to just talk creatively. You know, just like, I want it to be like a little sourcey, but not too much. And, you know, whatever. And he goes, got it. And then it's up and ready. You know, I don't have to think about it.

Yeah. I agree. It's fun to meet those people. Especially because my young, dumb ass shows up. and I'm sure they're just like, oh, another 30-year-old DP, cool. Great, what do you want? Yeah. What do you want it?

Oh, a Sony. Wow. The big one for the longest time was that my joke was always like, oh, it was it like, what was it like SpongeBob where he's like, oh, you know, Squidward's like changing, huh? Oh, or he's getting the same. This is a terrible story. Anyway, it was just everyone, when the Alexa Mini came out and everyone was just strapped cook S-4s to it all the time like that was just the like everyone that I knew that was like

the thing like if you had that package you were getting jobs because somehow that was I think we didn't have a lot of lenses like we do now I don't know what the difference was yeah do you feel overloaded with the amount of lenses that exist the options no I think I think one issue is that because there are so many and a lot of them are coming from these wonderful Chinese manufacturers, but they are all built by computers. So there's a lot of sameness. So I think in one way, it's frustrating because it's like which one is the one that I'm trying to give. But on the other hand, it's it's kind of freeing because you can kind of pick any of them, you know, at a certain level. Because there's like just a level of, you know, you used to have to go to like Sigma to get like really like clean

neutral, sharp, beautiful glass. And now you can get it for something like that for a lot cheaper. And I'm noticing a lot of these companies, you know, writing for Pro Video Coalition, they send me a lot of lenses to test or whatever. And, you know, your Nisi Athena's, your Lasars even, like there's all these random companies that are making interesting lenses that aren't necessarily

breaking the mold, but are affordable. So you can get something close, you know, to whatever, you know, Panavision, maybe not that. But like, whatever high-end glass that you were trying to get, there's just a lot more, at my level, at least, a lot more available stuff. And it doesn't have a ton of character to it necessarily all the time. But, you know, some beautiful fall off boca, you know,

that's not like crispy. It just kind of melts in the back. You can get that for like 800 bucks a lens now. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. What were you guys shooting loot on? We shot with Nestle.

Primes, which we had, you know, sort of a redesign because the second season, they used Supreme Primes. But, you know, I think we, when we approached the beginning of the season, there was, we started to talk about sort of the direction this story was going to go this season and where Molly was and all this stuff. and sort of came up loosely that changing the look a little bit. So, you know, we kind of did a test with a bunch of different lenses, you know, not trying to like pull too much away from what this show is because I don't think that that was necessary. But I think the Supremes are a little too sharp for my taste. And the Masters, we generally kept them between a one, three, and a two.

And so there was a nice fall off. Yeah, you know, the shallowness is something that I think looked very nice in certain frames. And it really helped also with faces and, you know, like we're talking about with bouquets and background elements and whatnot. So I love those lenses. I think we, I used them on one other show back in the day. Classics and they look great. And, you know, there's there was this trend for a little while, even in my own photography using the, you know, large format lenses and it was nice to go back to super 35 and you know frame for that and um yeah

yeah people strapping like a k35 to like a uh a venice you know it's just like yeah yeah kind of again it's like the sense of it can get if you you know shooting wide over wherever just get a little yeah yes yeah yeah i mean you know sometimes with like depending on what we needed to see we between a two or two eight but nothing ever deeper than that yeah yeah i was talking to uh it was either chase hagen or it was art adams uh they both work at a r a art also yes yes um and he was saying that the i think it was chase but in any case you know the early Alexa you'd see the log and it would be kind of green and he was like no it's the master primes because everyone was using the Master Primes on the Alexa, but those were built for film.

And so whatever the optics were compensating for the film, which was coming out to Magenta. Oh, that's interesting. And so when you put it on a neutral observer, like a digital sensor, it would push it green. Wow. I did not know that. Yeah. So they changed the sensor at some point, right?

I think people, A, were not using R.E. lenses as much. so you would start to see a quote unquote neutral color but then also that's why the Supremes exist Supremes were designed or digital sensor I see yeah

yeah there's lots of options these days but I think it's good options you know yeah well and to the earlier point about all these like random manufacturers pop up a lot of affordable anamorphics if you want to shoot anamorphic

now you don't got to spend 20 grand a lens yeah that's true get a really fun look that way yeah That's true. Well, the hour has flown by. It has.

I would like to keep you longer, but I have another one. So no problem. Let's go. But it was wonderful seeing you again. And let's hope that today's game only goes nine and eights. I agree. All right. Yeah, great.

Please keep in touch and I'll see you soon. Of course, Kenny. Thank you so much. Yep. Bye, bye. Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can do so by going to frame and refpod.com and clicking on the Patreon button. It's always appreciated, and as always, thanks for listening.

Thank you.