Frame & Reference Podcast - 223: "A House of Dynamite" Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, BSC

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Today I'm joined by the legendary Barry Ackroyd, BSC to talk about his new film A House of Dynamite. Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello, and welcome to this episode 223 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Barry Aykroy, BSC, DP of House Dynamite. Joy. I was going to say before we even got started, like, I remember, it's exciting to have you on because I remember when Hurt Locker came out. I mean, I think we were all, what year was that? Oh, eight? Yeah, yeah, it's that far away.

Yeah, it was a long time ago, wasn't it? Yeah, something like eight over. Yeah, I was in college. And for whatever reason, that movie just really stuck out from. me and all my film school friends. We were just like, that's the greatest, but maybe it was high school. But in any case, we were just like,

they don't make movies like that. That's different, you know? That's cool. That's really nice to hear. Yeah, that's good. I think, yeah, well, we did. I mean, that was Katzine. It'd be, you know, just as an aside,

because we talked probably about the new film. But, you know, we got together and you, Catherine gave me a lot of freedom. and I offered what I knew I always presumed cinema should look like, like, you know, intense and real. And it's, you know, everything came together, the story, the great actors who came into it and Catherine, you know, we were just, yeah, it was a good moment, yeah, good.

And then I was shocked that people took to it so well. I honestly was shocked because to me, what he should have been looking like that's all that's all I thought and um but I think you had a big impact in America maybe that's because the style that stepped outside of the norms I guess I don't know yeah I think if my well A I think that time in American history certainly was we were all kind of still being sold the the policy of the wars and to be given a little bit more of a realistic look I think we were like ooh shit good well that's cool that's I'm really pleased you're saying this because I

know you I know it got a tremendous kind of recognition you know six Oscars six bafters and and although the cinema photography went to Avatar I'm not at all bitter about that at all. No, I don't mention it very much. But, you know, there were four other good films there. But anyway, that's my view on that kind of cinema. And, you know, the clash in that moment was either, you know, a film by Catherine Bigelow made in this style with,

which was, you know, revolutionary to a degree. And Avatar, which was only revolutionary. and it's, it's, um, it's fetishing, if it's fetishization of, I didn't say that, but a fetishization of technique and, and, and, and the technical ability. And it's, I don't know, I think it was a, something, something to the part. I don't know what the cinematographers were thinking. Yeah, you, that's, that's it. That's kind of a great point I hadn't thought of.

So that must have been around 08. but the the idea of a movie shot in a documentary style on 16 millimeter versus a movie still shot but essentially created an animated film yeah yeah yeah yeah you know excising all of the you know the bleeding edge technology versus borderline the opposite that is an interesting uh oscar's uh conundrum i suppose Not that the Oscars matter so much. But it is a, first of all, that one's yet, obviously.

But it's an interesting thing. Yeah, you know, I think he's, you know, I think maybe, you know, I've just been with quite a few of the American cinematographers. Actually, it would have been a question, you know, at how many much? I could have maybe put it to them and said, like, how did this happen?

You know, like, what was the thinking behind this? who is who was the motivated? I think I believe that it's the cinematographers who have the final word really should be anyway so anyway like you said

I'm not bitter I don't care I honestly don't know I think there is an element of favorite not favoritism but just like whatever's popular I think there should be like a popular

movie Oscar? Like, what was the one that just the audience seemed to just eat it? Because I remember there was like, I think one that bugged me as a kid for whatever reason, maybe just because I'm a David Fincher guy, but like, I remember Benjamin Button lost to

that film out of India, I think. It was like shop on TVX's. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah? The train, the one, they're on the train.

Oh, in India. Wasn't it the Darjeeling Express? I kept trying to say Chunky Express, which is not it. No, no, Darjeeling is the Darjeeling Express. No, no, Darjeeling Limited is, God, everyone's brains are going right now. What? What, all right. I'm not going to Google it.

Whatever. I'll just say, let's move on. Yeah, yeah, I'll copy the view. But same thing where you're just like, was that, you know, but again, that's an interesting thing. That movie, you know, again, I believe shot on DVX's versus, you know, the ultimate control of David's, but that was also shot on Viper. I know you have a, you know, you've accepted the digital wave of cameras.

Do you find that nowadays they've gotten to the point where it's like literally not even a factor? or do you still kind of pine for selling? No, no, no. I mean, film is still very popular, very, you know, Kodak is still producing stock and processing it. And, you know, we've had all the two or three films there made on VistaVision and the old cameras are coming out and all that kind of stuff.

And I'm, you know, I'm very much of that. It's just that at the time you make the film, when you try to make the decision, according to the story as 16mm, super 16 millimeter on our tongue cameras for Catherine on the

Hurt Locker was absolutely right. It's a digital camera but you know, it's fine for me because I want to still use a long lens and people want a 4K you know

resolution to broadcast so that they can prove that we have 4K TVs and you can actually watch a very, you know, your TV may be shit. You may have it set for the sports, you know, viewing. And it's, you know, the green is like out here and, you know, for the pitch and the, you know, the red for the shirts that are over there. It's like, you know, there's nothing to do with cinema.

So it's, you know, it's a very, you know, it's a very, I know people like Netflix are very much interested in trying to improve the image and make a cinematic version of the world but there's a conflict between cinematographers, the world of cinema and the world of TV makers, you know, TV manufacturers, you know. Anyway, that's again we've gone off another tangent there. No, this is what I was saying at the beginning. This is the tangent podcasts. This is just, I can spend the entire time

podcasting, and that's great. We all love it. Okay, yeah. The answer to your question is, yeah, as I still love film, and I got to, here's a little a little thing for you.

The last thing as we finished on House of Dynamite was Catherine whispered to me, we'll do the next one on Super 16 again. You're not too. you know and that's not a promise or it was a comment it was a comment and uh yeah but but i i take that to my heart i know what she means by that yet so okay yeah one for them

one for us kind of thing yeah yeah yeah you know the a lot of a lot of your films i didn't realize you had shut you know like even between like i enjoyed the old guard i know that's kind of a popcorn action sort of flick, but I enjoyed it. You know, obviously born. Kind of in the same vein as Hurt Locker, a big short, you know, being a

growing up in early 2000s and stuff, like having that kind of laid out very sobering. But I didn't realize that more than I think a lot of people, the style that you bring to these shoots is so evident and yet fits the

content so well. Like, I don't, I don't sit there and go like, oh, that's Barry's movie. But then looking at the list of them, I'm like, oh, of course they are. You know, okay, he had a wonderful job of interfacing with the, um, the concept, with the, with the script, you know, I'm, okay. I think, I think that all of those choices you've made, all those, um, yeah, agreements you made to shoot those films. I were all perfect, you know, you were perfect and asked as it were.

Yeah, no, I mean, that's an interesting way of putting it. I think as people come to, to, see, see. you to games for me in this case. There you go. You know, I was making films with Ken Lodge. So, you know, it was a call from Ken Lodge, you know. I know you're very busy and you wouldn't want to do this, but that's Ken's approach, you know.

But it was a direct call, you know. Paul Greengrass is the same, you know. And I said to him, oh, is it because I work with Ken Lodge? Because that was the most known thing. He said, no, it's this little TV drama you did, which is called Out of Control. I loved it. And now I want you to shoot this kind of unknown project, which was, you know, in 1993.

And we invented a way to shoot it. So, you know, and that was, and by then, you know, I wasn't shooting the Ken Lodge thing because that's very, it's very classical and beautiful in, in, in, in, in, in's way. I was much more fluid using my documentary background. So that's it. And that film should have won an Oscar. It was, that is a masterpiece of filmmaking.

And then, you know, and we did a few films like that, and Captain Phillips and so on. And, and from that, Catherine called because, oh, I love Unite,

93, you know. And then Adam McKay calls, and he goes, I liked Unin 993. It was, he said it was a very clean film and I thought, no, my memory is it. It's just like, it was a lot of mess, you know, but you like the way it was filmed. And that was a beautiful liaison because I get like you pointed out, it wasn't a film, it wasn't an action film of, of, you know, where the camera was physically involved in the story as the other films. But he was talking more about, and this has also become a kind of part of my genre, I suppose, people sitting at a desk talking, counting numbers, you know, try to make decisions whether, you know, what do we do next kind of decisions.

And which is, again, bringing it back to House of Dynamite. That's exactly what we're filming. It's got, you know, the energy is there. and the camera has to interpret that. It has to be in it. It can't, if we made it in a conventional way, I don't think we would have the same drama, you know? And I think that's what Catherine thinks.

I know that's what she thinks. Yeah, but I mean, I think when I said that your cast, well, I didn't realize I actually mean that almost literally because your style of operating, people say like, oh, the camera's a character, but the way that you are able to anticipate character movement, you know, I know you guys don't really rehearse in such a sense, you know, people don't really have traditional marks and everything.

Definitely don't, don't you? You, you, this is something I had to learn as a documentary DP is just anticipating where people are going to go, right? And you're at the top of that craft and it makes you forget that you're watching. move like it just i guess that the simplest way to put is it does feel like a documentary but it's beyond that it's there's no artifice it's it's as if your eyes you know i heard one one dp say like or maybe as a director who's like the camera work is like if you were to grab someone by each ear and just direct their head and so when you do a lot of this you know it can be how is anyone

going to see anything and you do a great job of grabbing everyone by the ear and going that's important that's important that's important um yeah and yeah something Like Dynamite, I think, is a perfect, you know, a new look at that, at that style. I find it fascinating. How do you keep it from looking like a documentary? You know, obviously the camera work can be the same in both genres, but there is in all of these films you've done, even with this operation style, the look of it is still cinematic. for lack of a better term. Is that under the grading and placing yourself in a good lighting situation? Like, what are the additional things you're doing to make it not look like crap? No, I mean, it wasn't in a good lighting situation in this film. You know, we had copied and reproduced government buildings that were pretty horrible places to be in.

They're not attractive, yes. But that was always my role as a documentary filmmaker was, you know, is when to switch the lights off, you know, when to, when to move handheld style so that the light hitting the subject was more beautiful than just shooting it. So, you know, for me, documentary isn't just to shoot whatever happens in front of you.

It was part of this role of understanding the subject matter. being completely, um, in tune with it, you know, I was just thinking today of, you know, doing a film about people who were down and out and sleeping rough many years ago, you know, probably under the statute of years, you know, they ate it. And then we were filming that on the streets and, you know, the amount of humanity that you, that was on in the faces of people, you know, the dignity. you know if I if I wasn't shooting something that was dignified about that I wouldn't I would not turn the camera over because you know that you have to respect you the subject you know and I've done everything from the Queen of England to the poorest peasants on the earth you know as documentaries and everything in between and I feel like all the time it's it's finding those those moments and then the camera just responds it's not a it doesn't have to be frantic or but i find the tool that i like the most is the zoom legs you know

and this and using my left hands to respond to my you know my brain and my hand working simultaneously there's no there's no delay there's no interaction between it oh did you just oh that's interesting i should yeah i'll go a bit tighter you know it's not that it's like i see it there it is. I'm looking last night, I did another Q&A when I got back to London. And there's a moment in, which I realised it was very beautiful,

only last night by watching it again. So it's when, towards the beginning, when they know that in the, what's it called, fork really, those five or six, eight young people who were,

who were tasked with this, unbelievably scary this you know making decisions and being the ones who fire the the rocket up there to cut intercept they

and they hold and then they hold all that in their body after and their mind afterwards and one of the one of the characters he goes to talk to his mother and just says you can't say you know the world's going to end or you know he just

he just says you know we try out there and then he lifts his head and that moment I've got the camera on him and like the eyes from looking down to looking up alter completely mis-miniscually but completely and the camera just you know like a breath it just moves forward a touch in my hand just with a zoom and then it's cut gone you know and but perhaps without that little move that that moment wouldn't be as intense as a still frame, a lock off shot or something. I mean, that's how I see it. And if other people appreciate it, that's why I can't say anything about that.

It's not my, everybody has their own opinion. It's like, I just wanted to keep doing it and be lucky enough to work with people, you know, like the directors I've already worked with. And the new directors who still want to go on and find a way to express themselves in making films because for me that's the highest art form we have is

cinematography and cinema and I'm proud to do it you know do you find because I for sure know the feeling of being able to look through the viewfinder

or the screen or whatever you got and kind of hitting that flow pardon me that flow state of not reacting in a conscious way, but just kind of like, you know, you play, playing the camera like an instrument, you know? Yeah. Do you find that even after all the experience you've had, that you still are, are, like,

kind of holding your breath? Because if I think back on the times I've been, like, really dialed when I hit, when I, you know, stop recording, I'm like, like, I didn't realize that I was like, you know. Yeah. Are you able to, are you able to be in that flow state in a more comfortable way, perhaps? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I, and I do a bit of yoga, I can do all that stuff, you know, I can keep a, you know, you want to keep a steady, you know, a steady, a steady, clear head and steady feeling, you know, and as, you know, the very first thing I shot when I went to, so I was at art school, the first time I had a film camera, which was on a film course, and the first thing was to shoot credits for, for a film that another student had made,

which meant in those days you had to create the lettering director, Bob Ead. Luckily, he had just six letters to his name. That was good. And I did the letter set, and it was only the name of the film. And I got a, I had a camera, it was on a tripod, and it had film in it, and I set up, and I lit this little piece of cardboard, eight by four.

I know it's like a piece of, we've got my light meter. I metered every, you know, square inch of that little piece of, you know, blackboard. And went to the camera and my heart started to beat. Yeah. And I think that's the feeling I want to get when I go to work every day. You know, not that you necessarily, but you, that's that, it wouldn't be that intense, In fact, it would be just the fact that I could actually be behind the camera with the eyepiece. I don't prefer to be using a monitor.

I find that just a void between the action. So I get to the eyepiece, no matter how uncomfortable that makes it seem. And my left hand is always there on the zoom. And the right hand is more cradling the camera. It's very loose on the head. and probably have a slider so you can move like you do is a you know a few steps left and right and then the action starts and we fall into the story and you know with the other camera operators doing the same thing and it's you know it becomes this uh mutual dance like you

know rhythm music you know it is it's like a music to me yeah and it's and i you know when we get all the team working together and everyone's finding that shot and they go to, wow, that's great, that's fantastic. There's a beautiful thing in the, and I hope I'm not boring in it, but there's a beautiful thing here. You just have notes down here,

so I'm just constantly checking. No, no, so the, no, and when Rebecca, it gets the news, you know, that she knows it's all disastrous and her child is perhaps in danger and she is in danger. And she goes into a room and just compose herself because those people are not meant to show emotion. That's part of the training.

But she can't obviously help this. And she performs this so beautifully. And then she comes back and there's one camera that shows that she is, has a tear, which is kind of a weakness. And then, but the other camera, which I'm not sure which one I was on about it. The just shows the back of the head. And they edit, it's smart, you know, Catherine and Kurt Baxter, the AI could be a really great editor, you know. They knew that that, you don't need to hold a tear being shared

when you've got the back of the head of someone where you can, and the audience then read into that. You know, that's the kind of beauty you can, you know, And so there has to be done with two people. It has to be two cameras. It has to be, you know, editors and directors who understand that that kind of imagery is what is powerful. You know, not the in your face kind of feeling to things, yeah. Well, and I was going to bring up Kirk Baxter because I think, yeah, he has had a hand in probably some of the greatest films of at least the modern era.

Yeah, yeah, sure. And you guys shot on a ton of cameras, didn't you, all at once? Like, it was kind of shot just. No, I mean, I think that there's a, it's the kind of thing that's going around. But we had many cameras. We'd be somewhere in rooms with performances going on, which were then streamed onto the screens that weren't to say. But they would be doing that all day. They wouldn't do one take and record it and then just play back because that would have dictated.

the rhythm of all the dialogue in the room that they let us. So they kept playing it as if life, which was, you know, quite a feat. That was Catherine's idea of, see. And then, so, and the other cameras were there as, which was set as, because like I said, we, we managed to copy all these interiors

of these buildings, bunkers underground, and they all held witness cameras. So we had those witness cameras, But we had them all working and I think at a resolution, a high resolution that we could downgrade if we wanted to make it look like more of an observation camera. But if it wasn't that, it was a quite a beautiful shot. And if it was necessary or important, it would go into the film.

But only three cameras were operating with operators fully conscious and turned on and tuned in. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah, because I did see that, like, they were shooting 20 cameras at a time, and I was like, where are that? Because that was going to be my next question is like, did VFX just paint all these people out? Like, how many? No, no, that's, you know, it's a little bit of a set. It's a myth that's kind of, it's based on something, but it's not really the truth. It's not the, it's not the physical truth today. I will say, I've had this thought recently. This is semi-related. I do think that

you know there seems to be this audience push where they feel like they know how films are made and that has resulted in displeasure a lot of times they'll see a movie and they're like

oh I didn't like the color grade or I didn't like that that but well and then in the same token there's people coming out like oh we didn't use VFX and secretly they did but there's this kind of myth building that I guess PR teams, marketing teams are trying And I've come around on that

And I do think it's actually important To a degree for the audience To have this myth of the film being made Still exist You know, we don't have movie stars anymore really Because those myths have been shattered And whether that's better bad is one thing But I do think that the artifice of cinema

Should expand beyond the screen In a world where we know everything You know where the internet exists stuff I think that fourth wall needs to be pushed out further okay yeah yeah i haven't really thought of it but yes you know um you know the fact that it is a mystery and you know in one sense you want people to know that cinema cinematography actually exists well yeah sure i mean people just think there's a film and that's came about you know and of course pictures have to be made but they don't have a concept of how or why or you know are they

It looks really beautiful. You know, it's like looking at a painting or something saying that, well, I like that painting, it's very beautiful, not analyzing the technique and the, you know, and the work and the, you know, dedication that goes into it. And, you know, and, yeah, I don't think he would, I don't think there should be a show on TV. It's like, the cinematographer. And here's today, he says, this sort of cinematographer. who's going to teach you how to, you know, it's not that kind of stuff.

It's like just acknowledgement, you know, and, um, and, you know, usually the credit is right up there, you know, I think people just deal, DOP director of photography. I like to say cinematographer because I just think it's, uh, it more descriptive. Director of photography is a bit misleading, isn't it? And also it also implies a bit of, a bit of, uh, a bit of, uh, a bit of, uh, what's the word you know there's some authorship over the the very film and the role of a cinematographer is to to enhance the authorship of the of the film maker you know the director writes a support role it's it's the it's the but just think the other way you're looking at which eye I think of it unless we'd invented the moving image cinematography we'd be talking about plays now, wouldn't we, in a radio show,

you know, podcasts would be okay. But they, you know, but it is, it is the moving images, which is the first and most important art form. You know, it gave rise to cinema actors, to stars, to directors. Editors also come along with that

because they would have nothing to cut if it didn't make them. Those are the two art forms in the sense that generate the image. Sound is beautiful and totally important as well, but could exist and it's not right. But those two art forms are unique. Yeah, people should know about it. I also think that the two editing and cinematography, if you are one or the other, learning the other

this incredibly important learning how to edit made me a much better cinematographer instead of just overshooting everything I'm like I know how that's going to cut together

we don't have to waste four hours on coverage yeah yeah which is yeah exactly but that takes me back to my documentary days I was editing

in the camera so not like oh cut now we've got to you then we run around there and shoot that I was I knew when the shots would flow. You knew how to take the shot away from the subject

enough to get the editor time to find things. You know, we wouldn't call them cutaways, but you would follow reaction shots, you know, whilst the dialogue's going on. And that's that, you can see it all in the films we just talked about. You know, Captain Phillips, that final sequence in Captain Phillips because we shot it instinctively because we had the real act

the real medic on board the ship she played herself and we dropped in on that because we hadn't you know as a whole group of people we hadn't worked out the ending of this film until you know we had with short endings of the film

but no one knew what the final reality of it was until we got ourselves all into that situation and I think it was the real captain at the real ship who said well he wouldn't come here he would go to the medical room and of course he would what are we thinking about

so we just took a quick look got ourselves set and walked into the room with the camera running and followed it and if you actually look at it it's one of those real documentary things where one line is on camera and then you're waiting for another line but it's coming from behind so you go back and she's finished my life and you know and you learn not to you know start tromboning you know get all okay I'll hold it she's listening again now she'll come up with her like she did come up with like great now I can take that line to to back over to Tom and Tom was probably finishing a line. So it's, you don't have to be in the face on, on the beat to get reality.

And that so, you know, we did another take and I still tried to get it right. But, you know, you're trying hard, but you're not necessarily achieving it. And then the edit makes it look as if it was, it was what it was really. You walked in there and you, you, you saw something for real. Her dialogue was incredible her before not it wasn't a performance it's wrong just to say that her job she did you know beautifully so and tom's reaction was absolutely you know mind-blowing as well and then we knew we had a film and it finished her film you know i've done documentaries where you know you have to get the finish end of film because we spent six weeks out here and we haven't got we haven't got this you know when when will we stop

driving towards the end of something you have to finally get there you know or maybe you make a film with just peters out and there's no ending which could bring us back

to you know Dynamite yeah so technically no ending yeah but this is a film that has no ending so that's the point and that's a very

again editorially, you know, director, you know, written by Noah Oppenheim, he says, it was like This is also a journalist. Yeah, that we is a journalist. Yeah, that's his deal, yeah.

I think now he might start trying to knock out a few more scripts. I hope so. But he's, but he was a subject that he knew. That's why. And Catherine got him to put his knowledge into this film. And he did a brilliant job at that.

But, you know, our knowledge ends at like the decision is down to you, Mr. President. We don't know anything else after that. No one's ever got that far yet. You know what I mean? We haven't reached that point. And the drive, the whole idea of the film is we should never get that. We should never have these weapons and we should not be telling us. You know, and that's if we all take that away,

and enough people see it and there's enough power and information to change all that then this will be one of the few films that ever did change the world because I think it can't film doesn't do that film just

either it affects you or it doesn't you know and that's all it is really it's yeah there's this great quote Ethan Hawk was on pull bear they think and he was saying

that a good movie is like hitting a bell where you ring it and then it reverberates throughout the audience you know the and then someone else somewhere I was like oh you know movies start when you leave the theater and I think this this film is almost on the nose that

where it's like the end the ending is what do you think now what's your opinion of all that You know, you have that discussion with your friends and family because that's that's the intent of the film. Exactly that, yeah. Exactly that, yeah.

And it is, you know, I think I put it like this, the fourth, fourth film is, because we have the written word, and then the intention of cinematography and the performance and acting and everything that goes into that making of the film is the crucial pit, but it's the second film.

It's come after the script. Third one is the edit and the decisions and the finishing and the polishing of the film to what degree you want to do that. And the fourth one is when the audience, like you just said, walk out of the cinema and us are breathless or dumbfounded or chatty or happy or sad or, you know, or very thoughtful. And I know those are the films that inspired me to try to be. come and do what i do now you know from a place where i was at no concept of how you would make films or how you could ever ever be part of it or let alone be a cinematographer or something but bit by bit small steps you know you know i got you know i was just kind of i was almost driven there because art teacher says you don't have to go to the factory go to the art school

Instead, oh, okay, I'll go to the art school. Art schools kind of drives me through the next period of my life. Oh, you need to go and get into the industry. Here's the keys to an apartment. Tell them Chris sent you. And, oh, okay, I'm going to go up to London. I'm moving to London now. Okay, now you've got to find a job.

Oh, yeah, there's a job going around because no one else would go to Northern Ireland in the troubles, right? then unless you were they were scraping the barrel but you know you turn that into oh and that's an opportunity and running to Roger Deacons and end up shooting

you know assisting him on documentaries and then before he moved on you know all this stuff Ken Lodge for you then Paul Greengrass and then Catherine Bingo and Anna McKay and Jay Roachie and you know it's like

and then lots of people between and you just feel oh i never even thought i'd get to be behind a camera and now here i am you know yeah going to the oscars being beaten by avatar oh i told you i wouldn't talk about it yet no there were four films they got beat there yeah okay yeah yeah that's a job that's a but uh it is it i have noticed that about even myself you know clearly not as um accomplished as you but you you do set I think in any profession or but especially ones where you're kind of the driver of your success um freelance whatever uh you have like this goal and you're like oh if I just I will have made it when I do that and then you get there and you're like okay I did

that and it doesn't feel it's not it doesn't feel as monumentous as it should and so you're like well well I guess I need another goal like you just keep doing that over and over over again. Yeah, because you know, I always, I just feel that I keep saying must try harder, you know, like we, I say to the crew, you know, even when, when you finish one of those days, you've been at

and, like, they, a night shoot and you're exhausted and you put all your efforts into it. You know, you kind of jokingly look at each other, they're like, we must try harder next time, you know, so yeah, but that's, it's a job, but it's about, yeah, we could

there must be something else to do that's better that's more that's you know gives gets close to we learned something you learn something today i learned it you know when i learned it when i watched but watching the film last night when i was i learned it when i was learned it when i was in um then camera much and i'm you know chatting with ed lackman or you know all these you know really great great cinematographers that i look up to you know because And I look, you know, Robbie Ryan, you know, he's not like an age thing. It's at all, it's all about.

Yeah. He's great. He's a bundle energy. Oh, I know. Yeah. Should I, I'll try and be like, hey, come on. I said, no, no, no. Beat yourself.

DJing his way, DJing his way through the nights, you know, like, how do you do that? You know, how do you do? I, I can't, I wouldn't, you know. But, yeah, I admire his energy, yeah, and all that stuff. I admire all these cinematophists, because it's, it's um there's a real beauty to doing it you know you yeah i think you've got the idea that i really love cinematography i don't have to keep saying but i do love it i love the the process and the action and and the moment like you said when your eye goes to the camera and i loved it

when it was the film camera and you heard the purring of the camera you know like the oh it was like yeah you know that was great yeah i learned on a on an ari uh was it just called the ariflect 16 the little turret the three turrets yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah not blimp so that purring was yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he's put blimp on the on the on the on the actual blend and so kind of weird things and how yeah because they were not they were not it was not ergonomic at all yeah yeah though we had those but you know I'd be remiss if I didn't ask because with the advent of the internet

there are, you know, certain I don't, certainly not losers, but there are certain, seem to be winners. When it comes to anything, you know, people who just seem to become the hero of, of any given story or whatever. And one of those people seems to be

deacons. He seems to be, you know, everyone's just like, he's the best. You can let you that for sure. He's that. I don't know if he's, I think like you're saying, I, one thing that I really loved about my, uh, hate the word journey, but my journey as a cinematographer was learning, not even learning, but just finally having the experience of appreciating everyone's take on cinema, whatever they did. I'm like, oh, that's a cool choice. That's versus saying, ooh, I don't like that or like, oh, that's not for, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just being like, oh, interesting, you know, and just loving. I, that was a great phenomenal thing. Anyway, uh, with deacon. working with him, was there anything that you learned from him early on that you've carried forward or even in your, I'm sure you've run into him since, but, um, yeah, yeah. Um, like, why do you think people think he's the, the greatest when, well, there are so many great

cinematographers out there. Yeah. It's a good issue. Um, I mean, he is great. I mean, you know, I think, again, the choice of films that he's, is, is made describes something. And Those films are loved by, you know, just about everybody. You know, they're very hard not to love his film and his technique. And, you know, I disagree with his technique because, well, we work together on documentary things. We went to, like, Sudan to film indigenous people there. Like when I say indigenous, like back to the beginning of mankind, you know, And that was really a real fantastic thing.

And then other documentaries with Van Morrison and things like that. But he was, I always watched the other cameraman that I work with. And I always felt that there was another element of truce that wasn't quite being found, even in the documentary. So when I set up, when I set get off the chance to start shooting documentaries. that was my first break from being a camera system was to try and experience that and that's what I did you know and that's where it's so it's from there it led it's it was more of a divergence than coming together if that makes it you know I looked around and I thought I should do something different I should look for this unique thing and that's been my still is

Well, I, you know, it reminds me of like playing music, learning what you don't like is as important as learning what you do like. Because if all you have is stuff you like, you tend to, this definitely applies to some of its hard. You tend to not be very focused. When you know what you don't want to do, it's easier when you start running into that. You're like, no, no, no, no, no. You can just ignore it versus having all the options in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, having to choose from, yeah, affinity.

Well, yeah, we'll go back to Roger. I mean, he has got a, he's got his vocabulary. He's very precise. He can, you know, start on the podcast or the talks he does around the place. It can be absolutely defined about what he likes and doesn't like, you know. And, and he can show you and he can prove, he can prove to you. He can show you endless shots that look like that. And, you know, it's, but it's just the, it's kind of opposite to what I do.

That's, that's, you know, if, if, say, he believes a close-up should be like three feet away from someone on a 20-mill lens, and that's the close-up, you know, that's the single shot. And then you turn around and you do the reverse on someone else. to me it's I try and make that into one shot you know I try to get three things in my shot rather than have three shots 40 feet away yeah and also as far away as you can get

yeah Ken Lodge in a number of closets or through doorways or you know I remember one of the first moments I work with Ken was he wanted a shot of a huge factory and you know that you're standing

20, 30 yards away from it and you kind of imagine this is what, I mean, a lot of people just do this, just think, oh, you want to see the whole thing, okay, have you got the wide lens, give me the wide lens and you stand there until you've got every inch of it in, but

you haven't thought about the framing, you haven't thought about the, what does this wide lens actually is that saying something to you? Right. you know and so ken goes no i think um and we start walking and we walk and walk and walk and walk you know i'm probably carrying the camera on a triple in those days it was like documentary to sound again we'd walk off and we'd get probably a quarter of a mile away put the camera up and put

the long lens on and there's the factory but it's like it's compressed it's in there you know human figures in front of it are still human And there's space and this mid, mid-ground and background, you know, and I are straight away, well, I know which, I know which one I like. That was, you know, you know, that's how you learn, you know. This kind of brings me to something I was going to ask earlier than I got carried away. But when your style is so improvisational to a degree, what does pre-production look like? Is it, are you guys talking more about kind of emotions and vibes or like how much, how much actual planning like, like, you know, camera go here, like go here? Like how much of that is actually happening versus kind of just talking about maybe the emotions of the singing are.

No. I mean, yeah, no, but the preparation for me is to be ready, is to be no, ready to experience the event. Of course, scouting, finding the locations, picturing all this in your head, you know, maybe describing, illustrate, not like doing drawings, but saying like, you know, we should drive, you know, this far, we can do this, and we then we should bring them into here and, um, excuse me, particularly strong. And then we could, but not, you know, storyboards can get made and, you know, and moved around. To me, it's like, well, we're probably going to change the location, and we don't know that actor anyway, so I don't know what they're going to do. And, you know, they haven't been cast, and we've, you know, and that's just been added to the script.

It's not in those drawings, you know. It's like, there's only so much, it's, yeah, it's some people just, you know, just again, being in camera image, you know, cinema, to always saying, I have to do this I have to draw these things five hours a day I put into for the first five weeks

I put into storyboarding so I know every shot I know every place and I know all this and that's how they work and I go I could do let's keep looking for locations

let's do a little testing but you know I'll probably go back after testing all different equipment and lenses I'll go back to my roots you know

And if it works, it's good, it's not, we'll change it. Yeah, I guess it's kind of like, you're almost like a sort of a hockey player in the sense of like, well, you practice, you know, stuff. But once you get on the ice, it's like, the other team gets a say. Yeah. Well, it's very much like, yeah, yeah, you can't, I can't, if I go in there, over anticipate, I've lost the concentration because I'm trying to, I'm trying to do something that I've, that's been thought out or taught to be or, you know, we've written it down, you have to do this. And then you start, you find yourself just trying to capture that one thing

that we have to get this moment, you know, I have to get this moment, you know. Oh, you missed it, we've got to get again. And it just gets worse and worse for me, you know. I remember doing this with some musician with um uh uh uh god forget his name cocker uh not jewel cocker um anyway british musician and he was directing actually and he had a band in front of him into music video and i was brought in with him not as the dp but just to operate for a frame of mind you know so i'm operating and he goes like okay on the on the on on the fifth beat you know whatever i don't know much i don't know anything about me on the fifth beat you have to go boom and you pan then and you find him over here right so now my heart's going

like i'm no idea five i'll count the five i don't know whether what if it's a beat or not and i and i and i could never do it because i got there and there was no motivation he was just in the middle of a chord or something and he and then he looked and i and i I had to wait for the moment when he looked because that was the visual it and you know so I was not not favored because I wasn't

I was going like well that's the shot and then no you have to do it on fine and then you'll stand by you and like the Damien Chazelle method of movement yeah and like tap me on your shoulder and now I'm just like him

why you tap me on the fucking shoulder you know it's like It's like, yeah, get someone else to do this. I only came here as a, you know, favor for a good friend. You know, I don't, you know, leave me alone. It's, yeah, Jarvis Cocker is the person I was thinking of. Jarvis Cocker, he's a British musician, yeah, who I love, you know, dearly. His music, his politics, his concepts and everything are great, yeah. Yeah, but he's, yeah, that's what I mean.

If someone gave me beats to do, I'd start to panic a little bit. And I think the sort of storyboard is, it's a side series of beats. And I'm not saying don't do it and don't go through it and don't analyze everything you want to do. You know, I'm sure absolutely brain films happen like that. Well, but so for something on like Old Guard, do you, is the approach any different? Because that's a little bit more involved than your, you know, dynamite or big shorts. do that. I can get involved in it. I mean, I don't have

a book. Clearly, probably, in either way. You know, it's not like in either or all. You know, I see on the first, oh, God, for whatever reason, I got a call to come and take over on the shoot, Catherine,

and, um, Charlize, who had to work with him and she, I don't know. She likes to work. Did it bombshell first with her? No. No, no, it goes way back to a film called Battle in Seattle, way back in, yeah, it's, and she's in that, yeah.

Anyway, it's, and no, I dig, there's quite a few films I've done with her, actually, that, they're not all, like, blockbustery type films, but, you know, anyway, so I get a call, I'm working on a commercial in Columbia or somewhere, and, uh, she, she, So I get a call, not from her directly, but her team. Charlie's wants you to come over and go like, no, no, no, no, I'm not. And I'm not going to, I don't want to take over on another film from one of the cinematographer. It's, please, it's not my thing anymore. I did it once. I was really bad. And which is, but they keep conventioning you.

So I only got there. And this is, that was a bit of a ridiculous story. But anyway, I took over halfway through the film. So I had no prep. I'd seen nothing I got off a plane they draw me straight to the to the studio

oh no to Shepperton literally literally and then and then the designer who is also a friend

and a colleague that I've worked with a few times he was on he was on the show so he was like this is this is we're building this thing here we've got this this isn't construction I'll take you around there

later on these are the drawings for where we're going to be putting this. This is going to be, you know, I hadn't even seen the script. He's telling me about the actors and where they think it would be. And we're planning that they're going to be here. And it was like, oh, yeah, okay, I think I've got all the information. You know, again, they give me piles of paper, you know, like there's a, there's a drawing and there's a drawing of that.

And then go, I get, get, they drive me home. I get showered and get and meet my wife again and then come back and go like all right I'm going down and I didn't start that day I think it was two days later or something

but you know drove drove me on set and then introduced to the crew and then you start shooting so and I can do that I kind of was the same thing then yeah it's not I'm not advocating it and I said it before

I did that on another film and it was pretty disastrous, you know, but I was my show and it was a and it was a difficult film to do but it was, you know, this was you know, I just accepted what was there and I could see it and, you know,

I could probably have done a better job if I'd have known more, but, you know. I think you did a fine job. Obviously I don't know what parts you did. Well, you know, yeah, yeah, you can't really tell there's no much difference. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it did, yeah, yeah. You know, I read this, this is complete pivot.

I read this thing that was saying that you used to put like a Kino tube in a piece of pipe and use it as like a little, just like a little cheater light. Yeah. And I was wondering with a little distance between the old Kino days and now, are you still doing that kind of stuff of just like making your own little? The manufacturing, no, because I did, you know, some years ago when LADs came out, I thought, this is a thing. I'll make an LED light, an eye light type thing, because that's what you could do. The LEDs are really crap, really bad, and it was a real uphill, you know. So, you know, I respect the fact that people took that concept and have turned it into very valuable and interesting lights, you know, with good color correction and variations in them and dimmable, all that stuff. You know, a lot of engineering and things.

I was, I'm not an engineer, but I got involved with design and stuff with it. Disastrous thing to do because I still wanted to be a cinematographer. I wasn't going to like make a light. That was a stupid idea. And those, those tubes of draught, you know, downpipes, that's what they were. The downpipes paid it weren't on the inside. That's all been replicating that in digital materials. So they're lightweight.

Stereotism is a key member of that but it's a lot of other things that every time you're like every time you go to a show now the new equipment is you know maybe a new camera or a new development of a camera or two and then you'll have a lot of equipment you'll like ways of moving things and lightweight machinery and jimbals and things that all that technical stuff around it is expanding all the time and lighting you know another version of another light you know one inflatable ones and you know because image you know I think the one thing I did when I was trying to get this plan

for LED lighting was come up with all the concepts that you could have and I pretty much wrote them all I've got a document where I wrote that I'd love to see that you know you could have them where they kind of

click together and do this You know, which is now, of course, what you build TV screens, you know, massive TV screens from, you know, they're, they're, uh, the Lego, you know, they're made to fit together. There's clip, clip, clip, clip, all that stuff. I wouldn't know how to do it, but I just knew the concept, you know, you get balloons and you could have all kinds of things happening. I wrote it all down and did some sketches of what it should be like. That was it. Yeah. You know, you know, Steve Yedlin, the D.P.

yeah yeah yeah so i was talking to him a couple days ago and um he he's invented this thing where it's just i don't know what it is but it's a program where he can drive any LED doesn't matter like as long as he can profile it like even the crappiest little walmart LEDs he said yeah yeah yeah yeah he would and he can make them cinema lights like DMX controllable accurate to whatever his meter I'm just like that like way beyond my pay grade but really fun to listen to

you know well he just yeah but you know I mean his real work was in ink understanding all the nature of different grain and camera of celluloid so that could be applied to film and when I did meet him

it was we were how many I was in the New Orleans yeah New Orleans and we started to film I don't know I've got to go on a good coffee shop with us one of the first things I got to do so I left the production office went to the coffee shop and there's a guy sat in the coffee shop and he's got his script which nowadays so well for a long time has had your name written across it on every page

to make sure you don't I don't know what if you lose it you get blamed for so um so it like just looked over his shoulder steve yetling wow I saw them go googled him okay hey Steve I love that film you did. And then, but he was what he's actually doing was working on a computer to grade someone else's film, completely different. He's just, he has a, he has a, you know, he's a beautiful filmmaker as well,

but he has absolutely the most scientific. I think he is a mathematician, I think, I'm not sure, man, he's a mathematician by, you know, definition. and he is a genius kind of person. I'm the opposite. I'm just like the absolute opposite. So it's a different type of genius. To be able to walk onto a set and just be like,

I know where this is going. Like that's, or more specifically, you don't know where it's going, and you can still get everything out of it and not be stressed out. That's a particular level of genius. I'd love to hit. Yeah, yeah.

You know, you know, when you get, when you get, when you get some, support you know you've got somewhere the producers behind you you know like don't worry you know like and i and you know as it happened you know you walk on to the same it was always it was it was they were filming in um in britain and so the crew were you know not not my crew that i might have used but you know what i mean you can you can really get on with saying people and then we you You talk the same language, you have the same humor and jokes and, you know, and, you know, things to chat about.

So that works fine. That whole was fine. Actors were fine about it all as well, you know. Yeah. I got to let you go here in a minute because I'm... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could know. But it's been a phenomenal conversation.

But I did quickly want to ask about, as a last question, for... Dynamite or really any of your films, when you are shooting in this improvisational way, do you find that you need to spend more personal attention to the grade to any potential, like, you know, sometimes VFX will paint out stands or whatever? But like, do you have to spend a little extra time in post to get what you want to help? Well, it does it have a word like that. I agree both the Ogart 2 and Dick and has a dynamite. back to back

pretty much this year and to finish them both off both with Stefan Nakamura he's just a brilliant colourist and worked with him a lot you know well a lot as many times as I can

and he was obviously on these two films unfortunately he sounds didn't he? Yeah yeah he's the top he's got yeah you know he's got he's got it and he um

And he knows that my style is not to bring too much style to it. It's about really capturing the, you know, the lot is very simple. It's something, yeah, we kind of just general sense of density and, you know, and color range that's in the, you know, but that varies as well. And then he, so, you know, I can trust him and, you know, the process is he will, you know, take the edited film and and have a two days, three days a week with it so he can get it straightened out, make sure everything flows and then we start to spend another couple of weeks where we'll try and bring it into here and there. So, you know, sometimes you got that shot, I just got, we just got stopped up, we've got to really get onto this because

I really ate that, that colour in the background, killing it. And you know what I mean? Because of good things that you yeah yeah and you always then you know now you know if it stopped a lot but when it when when we went digital and you know it was you just said oh we can fix it in post we'll fix it in post we'll fix it in post you know especially on commercial or something so it would be no you don't have to fix it in post if we do it right so let's try and keep it let's try and keep the whole process as real as we can you know and of course you've got the visual effects supervisor with you on the entire shoot so there it's mostly a question of if we're going to have to you know we want to shoot 360 here and

this is fine but you're okay with that you know and we don't have to put it oh it'd be great we could put a green screen up there like you really think so because you know by the time we come here we might not even be shooting that the horatia you know yeah and whatever and you know you do you're just trying you try to help everybody in everybody's department all the time you know whether it's makeup and wardogue or you know definitely the sound department to make sure sound is is good that's always been from back to documentaries if you're shooting a documentary you don't have the sound yeah you know it wasn't you have to put a piece of jazz over there you like the early days you know and someone would have to tell you what they're saying you know that was

You know, we've gone beyond that. And the combination of a good team of people is a fantastic, you know, thing on set where you can turn around and, like, you trust, you know, the trainee and the, you know, and the most experienced people on set. And you can see them communicating with each other, you know. Oh, you should do that. Let me show you this, you know. And that's, that's good.

And even if, even if, as a dynamite, you know, was, you know, seen by half a dozen people, no, a bit more than that. But, you know, and we'd finish the film, I'd still be really happy because the process and the, and the dedication and the feeling on set was, was wonderful all the way through the film. I don't know, that's a lot to do with Catherine. You know, Greg on the producer side, you know, all this, everybody was there. I know, of course, First AD, you know, Simon Warnock, they don't get mentioned enough. A first AD is like, you know, Captain of the shit, really. Yeah.

Yeah. And the first, the first film that I worked on that had like a competent first AD, just one more. Oh my God, I just fight for it now. I'm like, hey, I'll take less money if someone else can schedule this, because then I end up scheduling it if I don't. Yeah, yeah. How long is this going to take?

I don't know. Yeah, yeah. No, that's what it's about. Yeah, and constantly updating everything. Because it is, it is like a jellyfish, isn't it? Or, you know, it's not, it's not a fixed object. It's something that is constantly fluid, you know, and things don't go right all the time and things that you never imagined happened in front of your eyes.

You know, that's the beauty thing. 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.