Frame & Reference Podcast - 229: "Percy Jackson" Cinematographer Jules O'Loughlin, ASC ACS

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Jules O'Loughlin returns! This time we're talking about the second season of Percy Jackson & The Olympians! Jules is a wealth of knowledge and a great hang, so I know you're gonna love this one. Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Candy McMillan, and my guest, Jules O'Loughlin, ASC, ACS, D-P of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Enjoy. It was funny. I was, obviously, you got to, like, figure out what you've been doing since the old man. And I thought we had spoken last, like, this year, but it was, like, legitimately almost a hundred weeks ago. Oh, was it?

Yeah, for the old man. Yeah. But the old man for season... What was that? For season one, was it? Or was it season two? I'd have to look it up. But, yeah, it was...

I still loved that show. Yeah, bummer that it got cancelled by FX. That was a shame. Although, we were... Every time we'd shoot, one of the producers was so nervous. He was just terrified. We were going to kill Jeff Bridges.

Oh, sure. But geez. Yeah, he said he had a new health hiccups and a few while we were shooting. And, you know, he's so loved, right? But I, oh, and so he told me afterwards, he goes, when the show was canceled, his stress levels kind of way down because he was never, he wasn't worried any further, Jeff dying on the set. Yeah.

Well, from Jess's position, it's hard to be, you know, John Wick at that age. Right? Yeah, and he was doing a lot of his own stuff. Yeah, I mean, yeah. It was pretty full on. So, I just got an email about his new Wide Lux, where they're like, we're all in production.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, I mean, he's been shooting on the Wide Lux for years and years, and he's put out a couple of coffee table books, and he used to have it on that all the time. But he told me about it. What's that? I got volume two of the coffee book.

I do, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cool. So, yeah, so it shouldn't be much longer before that release to be cool. Yeah. What were you doing between Old Man and Percy Jackson? Were you just kind of bopping around doing commercials? Yeah, well, Old Man finished last year.

about April May and then I started Percy straight afterwards really I can't hope for a little bit in June and then Percy last this year I finished in December and then I started again in June

so I had six months off I came home and did a few commercials but then we went travelling my kids were in Europe and my partner was a producer and we thought that her film, she's got a film that's in development, that that was going to go in London.

So we went, oh, there's Max is in Manchester, and my daughter, Indy was at university in Maastricht in the Netherlands. So let's go over, because, you know, the film's going to get up, and we'll do, you know, we'll see them. So then off to the Lake District with them. And then the film kept getting delayed, so we went traveling in Spain for, This was in March, I think.

Yeah, we went traveling for a month. And then the film didn't happen. By which stage it was like, oh, Percy's about to kick off again. And so I came home for what I was hoping to be, you know, four or five weeks of sunshine because we live across the road from the beach here in the northern beaches. And it just rained the whole time. It was like Vancouver.

I mean, we had to flee to the country to get away from the rain to go to Vancouver, of all places. Right. So then this year, so all I've done work-wise, really apart from a couple of commercials, is Percy season three. So once again, I started in June. It's a long show, mate.

You know, it's a bunch of movies in a row. Yeah, the biggest problem doing, for me doing Percy is trying to avoid becoming a tax resident of Canada. So, yeah, It's a real, well, it can be problematic. So I can only really work for six months in the country before I become a tax resident. So I've got to find creative ways to kind of get around that.

Or just like last year, I had to leave by a certain date in December. Yeah. Very early December. And they shot then for another couple of weeks. And that was part of the reason why I shared two episodes with Francois, the other DP. Yeah. Was that five and six? Five and six.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't say that. Oh, I had to share because I didn't want to become a tax president. But I didn't want to pay tax and cap. So I was, you know, for personal and professional reasons. Yeah. Oh, we just shared.

That's how we broke up the show. I was able to blast through. all the episodes on the Disney debut on the screener site. I've signed my life away. There's snipers on the roof. So, but luckily this won't come out. They're a careful Disney,

mate. Yeah, you'll end up in some bike site, you know, and somewhere very remote. Yeah. Luckily, this won't come out until,

this won't come out till the season's over. So it'll be, we can. Kenny, how was it? How were the first seven apps? I enjoyed them. I, because I remember I interviewed someone else for the first season, this escapes me at the moment.

And I found that to be quite fun. I noticed not only in the way you've spoken about it in other interviews, but kind of a step back from looking very, for lack of a better turn, like children's show and a little more realistic, which I thought was nice, you know, a, touch that I think you definitely brought. I was wondering if you could kind of talk to me about because funnily enough, the last time I spoke about the show, a lot of stuff that I thought was volume wasn't, and a lot of stuff that I thought that was. Yeah.

But you guys kind of took a step back overall. We did. Well, actually, a big step back from season one when it comes to the volume work. In season two, we did a little bit bit of volume, but only for for vehicle travel. So for car travel, some of that was done on volume. But we kind of pull back mainly because we just weren't 100% satisfied with what the volume brought us. You know, one of the big things for Percy is it's got to be grounded in realism. That's a big

thing for the showruns. Always, it's got to be grounded. It's a fantastical. There were these kids experience fantastical things. They say, monsters, they see creatures, and occasionally they go to the underworld or somewhere else fantastic, fantastical, but for just general punters, they don't see any of this stuff, right? So we just, so it's, so that the rule is keep it grounded. And we thought that the volume in season one, just on a few of the sets, just wasn't 100% for us. So as much as possible, we wanted to take it back to, it should call traditional,

if you could call CGI, against blue screen, traditional way of film, but mainly real sets, real locations, and then occasionally we'll do blue screen set extensions and things like that,

but as much as possible, we shoot on location, or we build sets. And some of the sets we build are pretty big. So there's a reason why we call the studios that we shoot in, Mammoth Studios,

I mean, they are really, really, really big sound stages. The two that we shoot on, they're enormous. They're warehouses for some big clothing company, I think, back in the 60s or something. Or, you know, like the equivalent of David Jones or Grace Brothers in Australia. I'm not sure what the equivalent is in America. But a big department store, it's where they held all their stock.

Sears. Sears, right? Yeah. And this is where they'd keep all the stock before distributing it to the various stores around Canva. And the stages are massive. And so we're able to build really big sets on those stages. And that's a lot of fun to be shooting on a big set rather than volume. Although having said that, you know, the volume work we did do in season one, you know, you build a set on the volume. stage. It's just the background, of course, which is virtual. And you see it as well. So, you know, I actually really enjoyed shooting on the volume. It had its limitations as far as lighting. But, yeah, after season one, yeah, we moved away from the volume and the more real

environments. Yeah. Well, and I feel like, you know, I remember the early inklings. of the volume when watching like Mind Hunter or something like that, you know, where they would put the screens out outside. And watching it evolve has been really fun, but it's also kind of funny that it's kind of going back. I've heard a lot of people going like, yeah, we pretty much just use it for process shots. And now, you know, it's just gone out. It expanded and then now it's coming back. Yeah. You know, we pushed it. But although one thing that I heard from the first season of Percy was that like they found that the volume looked better on camera. If they made it look more fake, the more photorealistic it looked, the worse it looked, or something to that

effect. And I thought that was an interesting note. Yeah, well, it's more that, my take is it's more that the environment is real. Like one of the most challenging environments you could shoot on a volume is out on a street in the middle of the day on planet Earth somewhere. For instance, outside the Met in New York. You know, that was a really tough thing to pull off. I think the more that an audience kind of recognizes an environment and the more real it is to them, then the more the depth cues and the fakery kind of don't work, you know.

So somewhere on a strange planet, you know, or in a strange cave or, or in that case, the one I shot, one of the ones I shot, Medeusus's Cavern. Yeah, that's, that's, that looked good. Yeah, that's a fantastical kind of environment and an audience, you know, all those cues that, that are, that, that, that, that, um, traveling to the brain and that's not, synapses are firing and, you know, a million synapses a second going, oh, that's real. And, and you thin slice and go, that's not real and you don't know why or it has an emotional

effect that you just don't quite buy it, but you can't really rationalize. I think the real of the environment, the harder you've got to work to pull it off. So, but yeah, the Medeusus, that was a fun one because it was not only, you know, we had it on stage, but I had real fire on that stage. I was actually going to ask about that because I, there's a few things that I think everyone does differently. One of them is fire and one of them is night time, which you had a handful of nighttime scenes as well. That would be fun to talk about. I was just talking to Steve Yedlin a couple days ago

and in the New Knives Out movie, he literally just got like a crappy TV screen and played an image of fire. And that was a catch light. And I was like, come on. That's smart. Yeah. But being able to use real fires, like,

because I've never seen the LEDs quite do it right. Yeah, well, the thing is with that cabin, it was vast and there were fires in the background. So one of the hardest things was having real fire in caldrons on the stage, and trying not to burn the overheads LED roof, and having virtual fire on the wall. So fire cauldrons deep in the background of the cave and matching the two, or really matching the virtual to the real fire,

because there's not a whole lot you can do real fire to change the way it looks. That was one of the more difficult. things and that took a lot of work. So it's fun, you know, fun when you go, when you're surrounded by LED screens and you've got all these fire, real fires raging on set. Everyone's got to be on their toes, mate. Everyone's got to be on their toes. Yeah.

So how do you bet, like, are you making custom programs in the LED lights? Oh, you're talking about the LED wall that you had to play fire. Right. Okay, okay, okay. So that's a little easier to color match. You know, some of those were getting a little funky. Yeah. You know, but the wall was great for, you know, what you mentioned before.

You know, often you'd use a light or even a flame bar off camera to create interactive light. And Flamebar, I'm always kind of a little careful of because it makes skin go really red. So often if I'm going to have interactive light, it'll be a movie light. But of course, I could create a fireball just on the screen just off camera that was lighting the subjects and lighting the set.

And that's a great thing about the volume. It's, you know, while you do have movie lights on set and, you know, coming out of the route. And you can use the actual walls themselves to do a lot of the lighting. And it's fantastic. You do a cracking shovel. You're following a character. And just out of frame, there's an interactive light that's kind of tracking with you as well.

So not only, you know, a lot on when we should, we're constantly trimming. Often in an actual take, lights are trimming. and dimming and fading down and fading up. But to be actually be moving lights as well, that's a greater degree of difficulty when you're having to move real lights, but when you're a virtual world and you can shift that light across the screen

as the camera is tracking, you know, say an actor walking across the stage. That's really cool. Yeah, that was one of the, I remember coming out of film school with the mindset that all lights once you set them up. Because obviously you don't have a dimmer board op in college.

And I just thought you had to set them up and that was it. And then I remember seeing behind the scenes of Fight Club. And there's this scene where Brad Pitt's like on a moving sidewalk. And there was just a guy with a keynote tube just following him. And I was like, wait a minute. You can move the lights. Yeah. And now we're here where you can just program them into a screen.

Well, back in the day, when was it, 2010? I shot a movie called Sanctum and it was a 3D film. We used all of the 3D cameras that were used on Avatar because Jim Cameron was our executive producer and he actually carried a screen.

Because you worked with him on the deep sea thing, right? That's right, deep sea challenge. Yeah. But now most of that film is set inside a cave and so I wanted interactive line. Like the light had to be moving, you know, as you're in a black cave, and all of a sudden you see the heroes slowly walking towards camera. You know, the light has to bloom inside the cave,

and it's got to always be moving. And so I had a bunch of electricians who I really wore out over the course of that film because they all had inside the drive cave sets a piece of polyboard and a park hand. And they're all on radio to me, and I would say, okay, Jeff, coming on slowly with your park hand. And he'd have to physically have a hot park hand in one hand and a piece of polyboard, bounce board, on the other. I'd slowly kind of bring the light on

because you couldn't fade that up and on. Otherwise, it had changed colour. So you just had to bring it on to the board and move with the actors. Okay, mate, fade off. Okay, Barry, you're fading on now. And so I had like six or seven electrics on these sets, physically moving lights and bouncing it into boards and a bit different to how we would do that

today, you know, with the technology we have. But yeah, it's still the same concept though, right? Moving light, interacting light, interactive light. So, yeah. Well, and on the other side of that, you got that what appeared to be, correct me if I'm wrong, like a real real uh ben-hur kind of chariot race type thing going on in the second episode um i did did want to talk about that because that felt like a pretty large thing but i really quickly did want to know was the like canisters on the back of that one chariot that blows up was that a reference to actual ben-hur the canisters on the haphastus uh chariot well listen there was a lot of that that not particularly that um you know what i'm talking about where you can see it in the bottom

of the chariot in actual in the movie ben-hur oh well you see right that you see that you're not supposed to see it right you see it that wasn't that in gladiator oh is that's definitely one gladiator yeah yeah there's definitely one in gladiator where the not been her gladiator is that a is that a kind of a homage to, well, to explain to your audience, if they don't know this in, often when with vehicles or chariots or whatever, if you get them to flip, there is a gas cylinder, something that drives a pile on into the ground that flips the vehicle. And apologies to all the stunt and special effects guys out there that I don't know exactly what it's called.

But to drive that, you've got to have it. It's a gas-driven pole that fires into the ground. And in Gladiator during that sequence where the, you know, the woman engulfed with the arrow and they're flying around the Colosseum trying to kill the gladiators and chariots. One of those chariots flips and you can see the gas canister in the back of the chariot. So no, that was not a homage to that sequel. Well, that would be deleted today, but we have a fun story because it wasn't. Right.

Well, that's right. I mean, listen to, in a lot of Ridley Scott films, you see those mistakes, right? Because it's back, you know, now you would just erase them. But I don't think Ridley really cares. As long as it's, you know, 24 frames per second in the movie theater, you can't see it, who cares? And talk about a guy that doesn't care about continuity because he knows that. he knows how the human brain works

and he knows that, you know, in a two-hander shooting you and me, you're in a black shirt, I'm in a white shirt, cuts back to you're in black, cuts back to me and I'm in a blue shirt. 70% of the audience don't even realize that because it's all about this, right?

And so Ridley, there's a lot of continuity errors in his films because the audience just doesn't notice that stuff, especially if it's a good movie. Gorsesey. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's discussions. You've got to find good actors. Because good actors will keep the audience here. Yeah. You know? Yeah. No, that's right. And then those discussions come up on set, you know, about, oh, that's not the same as it was, you know, in the last take or in the sequence.

And, and, you know, with making a movie or a TV series is always really serious time pressure. And so it's a discussion. to be had, do we worry about that? Do we go again and fix that problem? And unless it's glaringly obvious, I always err on the side of an audience just isn't going to notice that. Let's move on. But everyone wants to do, you know,

talking of crew, everyone wants to do their job at 100% and do the very best job they can. So if it affects costume or it affects art departments, those people are invariably fighting to go, no, it's got to be right. And so it's always the equation, right, of weighing up time. And I think with Ridley, Ridley's famous for shooting films, they come in under schedule,

and he's five cameras on everything. And so if he's got to go again, because, you know, there wasn't quite as much coffee in the actor's cup on this take as it was. Move on. Do you know what I mean? He's not worried about stuff like that. Were you single camera on this show?

No, we were. Well, we had probably at times 20 odd cameras on the cherry. But ordinarily, on main unit, ordinarily I run two cameras the whole time and often on kind of bigger days, bigger sequences three, three or more. But three is not uncommon. And as Percy, as each season progresses, I'm finding I'm using three cameras more often, much more often now on season, shooting season three than I did on season one. But on season one, season two, always two cameras, unless I can't get that second camera in, the B camera in, or unless the B camera is really compromising the A, then I'll run a single camera.

But every day I've got, you know, it's my two operators, Dean Heseldon and, and, Chris Gibbs are always there. Gibbsy and Dean, so always two cameras and, yeah, off and three. But the chariot, right? Yeah, getting back to that gladiator. I mean, I did watch that sequence many times, and that was a reference for us, as was, and more importantly, Ben Hur, that's, you know, the 1925 Ben Hur,

which is just, it's out of control. And when you dart into that, into how they shot that and how dangerous it was and the injuries that were and the deaths and deaths of animals as well. Pretty out of control. And also the 1959 chariot race, which is pretty wild as well. I mean, that's a really iconic film, especially the 59. And the most iconic sequence, of course, is the chariot race. So when you guys Intentioned like I guess you can

Chariot races are kind of one of those things that I feel like you you almost have to Watch the other ones because they're so uncommon but so grand Like there's plenty of scenes that you can subtly reference you can't really subtly reference You're just referencing it when you shoot yeah, what was the pre-production like for that? Because that's kind of one of the more tent pole scenes of the season of the season Yeah, we always knew after season one, season two was greenlit. We knew what was coming down the pike. We knew that the chariot race was going to be a big part of the season

and probably the biggest sequence that we would do in season two. And also that it was really important to the fans of Percy Jackson, in particular the fans of the books. So we really had to do it justice. big responsibility coming our way with that sequence. So very early on, you know, the discussion is always, the very first discussion is on a big sequence like that is how are we going to do it? Like just, you know, a broad kind of let's throw some ideas out there.

You know, there's a volume, is it on stage against blue screen? Is it, do we go and find a stadium somewhere and dress? or do we build that ourselves? So very early on it was, you know, because of this thing that I spoke about earlier about being we have to be grounded, we knew it wasn't going to be volume. We didn't want to do it against volume and, you know, there are some great examples. There's only a few chariot races out there as far as in film history. And there's a couple of the earlier ones, as I spoke about it, were done practically

and there are and also for gladiator as well but there are ones that have been kind of done with a lot of visual effects and so we really studied those film chariot races and kind of like the do's and the don'ts so the big thing driving us from

really from the first meeting was we've got to do this practically so how do we do it how do it so it looks really real and it looks cool and it looks fast and exciting. But how do we do it so that we keep our, firstly our actors safe and secondly, we keep the horses safe.

So then it was like, right, okay, where do we? So we know we want to do it for real. So that means we've got to have chariots. We've got to have horses. Okay, cool. Let's tick that box. We'll work out the nuts and bolts of that. later. Where are we going to do it? Okay, where are their chariot courses? Well, there aren't any

in British Columbia. And the only one I kind of really know of is the Circus Maximus in Rome, which is huge, and it's a big endeavor for us to take the company over to Rome and address the circus maximus. That's not going to happen. So, okay, what about other stadiums know that all the wrong shape. The chariot course is kind of elliptical in shape. It's very kind of distinct. Those kind of stadiums don't exist. We have to build it.

So we decided we would find a block of land and we would build a chariot course and we would build a stadium next to it. And that's what we did. So we know a few farmers. in British Columbia because we've rented land from them before. And there was one who was super corn. He said, listen, I've got this block of land. It's just grass.

Occasionally, I think he runs cattle on there. But anyway, but it had a bit of a hill on us. And so, long story short, we had to level part of that field in which to build out our course. And then on the remaining part of the hill, we build our stadium. Now, the farmer said, listen, you can do all that, as long as you return the field to how it was. Now, I've been back there this year, right, to shoot other,

to shoot season three. And that field, when I went back in July, this year, we shot this in, you know, a year ago, a year before that, in August of last year. And in July of 2025, I went back, and you would never know that we had built a chariot course there, like the construction team and art department and greens and all those people who do all that stuff did an amazing job of returning it to its natural beauty and now it's a beautiful green

paddock again with a nice big hill on it. So yeah, so we built the course. Okay, now how do we keep the actors safe? So to put our actors in a chariot drawn by a horse that was off limits. would not allow us to do that, nor did we want to do that. Fair. Yeah. It's pretty fair. It's actually a really dangerous thing. Now, unlike Ben Hur, our chariots are drawn by two horses rather than four.

But still, there were, gosh, how many were on the paddock? Six? Were there? I'd have to, I think there's about six. Anyway, they, the width of our, our, our course, we could just slot in six cheek by jail. So that's the end with a little bit to spare. So, okay, so we know we're going to have real chariots

and we're going to have real horses drawing them. They're going to have to be stunt doubles in those chariots. And we would only see them in the background of our actor's shots or backed off on longer lenses or shooting with chase cars and tracking vehicles and all that kind of stuff. But we do that all the time with action sequences. We use photo doubles or stunt doubles for our actors, for a lot of them.

Our actors do a lot of their own stunts, but they're really hardcore ones. You just have to use stunt doubles because it's too dangerous. And if we lose number one on the coil sheet because he sprained his ankle from doing a stunt, or a hardcore stunt, then that can shut the production down and cost a lot of money and blow out schedules and cause all sorts of havoc.

So it was like, okay, how do we shoot the actors on the course? Do we shoot them against blue screen and compose them into the actual chat? No, we don't want to do that. It's got to be grounded, remember? So it's got to be real. So do we stick them, you know, and a fact, what's the actual? Listen, what we decided to do in the end was, and it was an ingenious idea that our stunt coordinator and special effects coordinator came up with, and that was to create a process trailer. Sure.

Now, ordinarily, these days, a lot of vehicle work. A couple of people inside a motor car driving around the streets, talking, acting. A lot of that stuff is done on a virtual stage, on a volume stage. But still, some of it is done using process trailers where you take a motor vehicle, you plonk it onto a trailer that's built very low to the ground, you put cameras all around the car or inside the car or mounted to the car, and then a truck pulls that process trailer around the streets of New York or Vancouver or wherever. And the actors can pretend that they're driving, but very safely act and not have to drive.

drive. So we came up with this idea of doing the same thing for chariots. Then we built two process trailers that could be hauled independently. So we could shoot just a single chariot. But ingeniously, we could connect those process trailers. And at the bottom, the wheels were taken off the chariots. The chariots would sit right on top of this low-lying trailer. So it was very low to the ground. and when we did a side angle of the actors on the process trailer to stunt doubles in them, you know, to the side of them, they looked as though they're on the same level. Now, these process trailers sat on track,

so one of them could move north-south and the other one could move east-west. And so then you could have chariots coming together and charioteers fighting and clashing and, you know, Clarissa's wheel spike going into her. his wheel and shattering it and we could do all that kind of stuff with this process trailer, double process trailer. And then on in the front of that, we would have our camera operators and in this case strapped in to the vehicle using Steadicam. And the reason why we went

to steady cam was that we wanted the operators to be able to move, to push into the actors and pull out and pan and to be able to have, you know, lightning fast reflexes to catch moments and but to be in there and be immediate with the actors. Handheld, we try, but it was just too shaky. There was too much agitation to the frame. And remote heads, we did use a crane occasionally, but the remote head just didn't kind of work for us, so it just didn't give us that. the immediacy that a steady cam operator can have by moving close to the actors and

and whatnot. So we would always run two A&B steady cam on the process trailer. And then in the back of those shots, so then the truck would haul the process trailer around the track. And in the background, we would have stunt doubles on real horse drawn chariots. Yeah, that's pretty involved. Honestly, the Steadicam, that's pretty smart because I feel like a lot of people would probably go easy rig and then there's honestly, there isn't a lot. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there wasn't really a lot of handheld at all in the show.

Yeah, there's a little bit. I mean, in episode eight, the final battle, there's a lot of handheld in that. And we have actually moved, you know, we have evolved the camera work from season one where we didn't use much hand-hound. at all. There's a handful of just shots in season one. But there is a bit more in season two. And that's, yeah. So, but there were other techniques that we used for the chariot race that we ordinarily wouldn't use in Percy Jackson because we do have some pretty tight rules. And there's got to be a good reason why we deviate from that. Yeah. What are those rules? Because I love that.

of well keeping it grounded so so as a cinematograph so light for instance always has to be motivated um by real sources rather than it's just a pretend kind of source or beauty light or beauty like you know it's okay to have beauty light but you know if we're say in the in the big house and um and i've got you know an actor who has his or her back to the big window at the front of the big house where all the light is motivated by, you know, I come in with the movie light and beautified to an extent,

but it still has to feel as they were tossed from those big windows. So that's one of the big things for, as cinematographer, my principal, well, I'm principally responsible for photography, but one of the big parts of that is lighting. so the light has to feel real, right? And then the camera work can't, it just can't be distracting.

So, you know, if we're distracting the audience from the story because of the techniques that we're using, then in a way we're kind of failing and we're breaking that kind of rule that we have of being ground and being real, make the audience feel as though they're in the environment with these characters that. they love, put them in their shoes, put them next to them. So, and don't break that, that kind of contract that you have that it's, it's going to be grounded, it's going to feel real. And, and so that's a, that's a big one for us. And so, for instance, things like reduce shutter. Now, with a chariot race, just, just backtracking a little bit, one of the things were it had to be fast and

it had to be exciting. Now, with a chariot, which is made of wood and steel, it's got a infrastructure underneath that's made from steel. And the actual chariot itself is mainly fibreglass and foam for the ornate parts. But then you've got a wooden wheel with metal around it. I mean, it's really heavy. And so drawn by two horses, the horses, we knew we could run for about two to three laps before we had to change them out

because it's really hard for two horses to draw a chariot of that size and they would only go at a certain speed I can't remember what it was it was 40 or 50 kilometres an hour down the straight but we had to increase the speed or make the the chariots look faster than than what what they're actually going. And so we used a thing called reduced shutter, which makes fast-moving objects or objects that are moving through the frame.

It gives her the kind of a sticatic effect that sharpens the frame. You know, with motion picture, we're shooting effectively 24 still frames per second and then projecting it or playing it back at 24 frames. and it's something called the persistence of vision gives the illusion that everything is actually moving. But what you're watching is actually a whole bunch of stills,

still frames on your screen or in the movie theater. And so what the reduced shutter does is it sharpens those frames up so you don't get your traditional kind of motion blur. And so everything has a more of a frenetic kind. You're talking like a 144 degree shutter or something like that versus the other direction. Yeah, so we'd normally shoot it up 180 degrees, and we were going down to 90 degrees and 45 degrees.

So that then chate. And the films, you know, where you see this, saving Private Ryan, the TV series Band of Brothers, the opening battle in Gladiator, you know, with the big, the got the big mace and, oh, he hits a shield and mud flies through the frame, It's got that really sharp effect. That's reduced shutter that does that.

So that's something that with action that we haven't done in the past. And I had to get it through my QC, my quality control, which is my two showrunners, Dan Shots and John Steinberg. And okay, Jules, pitch it to us, tell us why we should use reduced shutter. and so I'd show them various references, and then I'd go, I went out and tested it, and so they had to be absolutely sure that it felt like our show. The other thing we did is that we shot at 48 frames,

so we overcranked and then we printed back at 19 and 20 frames, something which we tested. So ordinarily, it'd be played back at 24, but if you effectively under crank and shoot something at, say, 20 or 21 frames and then play back at 24, it can speed things up. Now, the exaggerated example of this

is, say, a Charlie Chaplin film. Right. Which I think that were back in the day. They used to do them at 16 from memory. Yeah, something like that. So everything would look at life faster than what it actually was. But also fake.

And also a bit fake, yeah. So we wanted to speed things up, but we didn't want it to be noticeable. And we didn't use it for all the shots. There would be particular moments that we would do that. And so it would make the chariot look as though it's going a lot faster. Then you have shots of hooves and snouts and other things you do that we did. we use tracking vehicles

a vehicle called an arm car and an arm car is a vehicle in this case I think it was a Porsche Cayenne where the operator can sit in to us. They usually are for some reason they're always Porsche's well they got a lot of torque right and on the roof of the of the vehicle would be

a crane with a remote head and the camera attached so this crane could swing around and inside of the operators and the focus pullers and so you can fly around the track at speed. But if you go around the outside of the track and between you and the galloping chariot, the horses with the chariot, you're having things move through foreground, whether they be spectators or fencing or flags that we had along the course. and all that stuff is flying through foreground really quickly,

then that can increase the feeling of speed on track. And also lensing. You know, long lenses, as horses come around a corner, the background's moving really quickly in those shots. So that gives the apparent feel of greater speed or in close down low to the ground on wide lenses with the ground rushing through frame, that's also really handy.

So the thing that didn't work that well was just like a standard, you know, 50-mill lens, just plunked on the action, shooting at 24, playing back at 24, no shutter effect. Then that just kind of, you know, the horses are still going fast, but come on, it's the movies, right?

Yeah. and make it really exciting. So we're going to amp it up, you know. So we used all those techniques and took a lot of testing and a lot of pitching to my showrunners to go, I think this is what we should do. And also pitching to our director, James Bowen, who was really heavily involved in these, you know,

choosing these techniques as well. So, you know, I saw something, or it was an interview you did maybe, where you were talking about how you're kind of teaching the younger actors about camera work and cinematography and stuff like that. And I was wondering what kind of questions they, I mean, obviously these people are around the, you know, the creation of television and film. So they're a little more educated than the average film student. But what kind of questions are they asking you? Because like I can, I always love getting a beat on where like students are at when I'm trying to create.

this show or educational content, whatever. Like, what are they interested in? You know, where are my blind spots? Well, the questions they're asking me now on season three are very different to the questions that are asking me on season one. Now they go, Jules, what focal length are we on?

Right, okay, we're on a 75, what, we're in, like this, spot on, mate. They're experts now. Yeah, that's, yep, you've got it. It nails it. That's where we are. on season one there are actors come in all shapes and sizes

and some actors are super aware of a camera and of lighting and what works for them as a performer in front of a camera and some actors are more you know you'd go

you've probably done a lot of stage work a lot of theatre work not very aware of the camera now with our actors and our principal actors, you know, Leah and Walker and Ari and Dior and Charlie in season one, they, apart from Walker, they hadn't had a huge amount of experience, so they weren't very camera savvy at all.

And I saw this very early on. And it's something that I always, I feel as, and I think cinematographers, we all do it. it's that thing of help me help you. Like, I want you to look your best. I want to give you the freedom to move in the space, to be able to do what you need to do as a performer and have the camera capture that in the best possible way.

And so often I'll say to actors, listen, this is the cameras here. If you can throw a look past lens at this moment or this is where your key light is, on this angle you can get to look great on this angle you're shadowed and it doesn't quite work you know so with any actor role

in the moment if I feel as though they're not aware or they're maybe just not concentrating on that aspect of the filmmaking because it's a you know it's a very demanding scene that they're doing or whatnot I always try and help them out

and as I think most cinematography if it's due. But with these young actors, I did notice that they weren't very savvy about what was going on behind the camera in particular with the camera. So, you know, the first thing I always say to them is see this camera here and see this lens that's shooting you. See inside here, this is where your audience is. All the people that are at home watching this show in their in their lounge rooms and sitting on the couch and eating popcorn, they are in this lens. So you've got to be really aware of where this lens is

whenever you're performing in front of it. And it will help you as a performer reach your audience in a much more powerful way. And so early on, I kind of just tried to teach them about that, where the camera was. And occasionally I'd go on the set and I'd say, hey Leah, the camera is over there.

Just, oh, thanks, Jill's saying. You know, after a while, they really got it. So I go, just don't forget the camera. Oh, yeah, I can't know what I've got to do. And that might be just, you know, throw a look past the lens. You know, if the cameras here, throw a look straight past lens, don't throw a look over there with a wide eye line. If we feel as though you need to connect in this moment.

And so it was pretty basic things in season one. you know, mainly the lens, what the lens was doing, where the camera was placed, why I was moving, why it was important at times to hit a mark, and why it was, you know, eye lines were important, you know,

and why sometimes we have a really tight eye line because we want to connect with you more and sometimes we just want to be watching you, want to be observational on you, so that's why the camera is off to the side. But towards the end of season one, they were becoming pretty clever and they knew their stuff because they're young right and they're smart and they're just they're like sponges they're just absorbed so much so much

information so then in in season two uh they would come at me with much more kind of advanced questions about what the lighting was doing a while was changing the light during shot or why it was this color and and and their questions become much more detailed and they became really interested in all aspects of filmmaker. I mean, Aryan and Walker at various stages have had the steady cams on or operated the remote head or, you know, all that kind of stuff to teach them, but also to keep it fun for them. But as the seasons have progressed at the beginning of, when was it, season, season two, season two, to your, came to me and said, listen, can I shadow you for a week,

Diorho plays Clarice? I want to learn more about what's going on behind the camera. And I went, okay, sure, and we found a week that she wasn't acting. And she shadowed me everywhere on set, everything, all of discussions I would have, whether it be with the director or the gaffer or my key grip or the operators, that you'd be in the DIT with me as I was talking to my DIT or my board op and were fading lights and what now. So she was privy to all those discussions.

And with the or came up, she had her book and she had a pen and she was taking like pages of notes. I mean, it was just incredible. She was so good. I love that. She was present there for a couple of tough conversations I had to have with, because, you know, filmmaking is it's you know as I said before there's always time pressure and it can be stressful

and sometimes you've got to have you know very direct and tough conversations whether it be with a director where you're kind of you know you're not arguing but you're kind of extruding an idea and by to extrude an idea

you might be at if you have different opinions about how to do something right and you're going to get there but you need have a tough call, well, I don't agree with that because of X, Y and Z, and the director might say, well, I want to do it because of blah, blah, yeah. And so you'd be having a conversation that ordinarily you wouldn't have in front of the other crew. And Dior was right next to the world. Brilliant. We got to publish that notebook. Yeah, I know, right? That's all the

thinkers are in there. And then she went on to shadow, you know, people in the art department and costume. She spent time with the producers. And so then they were. all got kind of winded to that and then Walker was like, oh, can I shadow you for a few days? And Leah was like, can I shadow you? And the VFX Super's daughter who's at, she's a school in Los Angeles, an art school and wanting to be a cinematographer. She came and spent a week with me. And so it was like, I've never had this desire to just to leave being a cinematator and just go

off and teach, you know, it's just like, I want to be doing it. But to be doing it and teaching at the same time in these young minds was such a buzz. And so you're walking, Arrian was attached to the camera department for a week. So rather than shadowing me, we had him working in the camera department. And my second AC, Lucas, you know, put him through the ringers kind of. Now, Arion, you've got to shine that and don't handle the lenses like that. And they do this. And so he was fantastic.

So they've all kind of spent time either with me or in the camera department learning about what we do. And they're just fascinated. Like some of these kids are going to become directors and producers and writers and because they love filmmaking. And not only do they now to. turn up and hit a mark and they've always been able to say their lines, it's where they fluff the line, and they turn up on time and so professional.

They now know so much about why they have to hit that mark and why they've got to throw a look towards the P light and throw another look over the top of the lens and work that B camera a little bit and they know that. And it's making them better actors for it. Well, and they're probably, you know, I'm just thinking like their future career as they get older. Like you always hear stories of actors who understand the filmmaking process and that's why they keep getting to work because they're not a pain in the ass.

Even if they're not intention, you know, because there's like, obviously there's divas or whatever, but like just in the sense of that lack of awareness can make the process more difficult. And it's like you can't sit there and explain, just please, I need you to do this. If they already know, you know, now they're part of that, the greased wheel, you know. Yeah. When you see an actor, too, who has such a great concept or understanding of what the camera is doing and what the key.

I remember my, I was, I think my third movie, I shot way back when I was working with Sam Neal and he did this scene where he was on the phone. I had two cameras running, and I was operating one of them, and the B camera operating. And on particular beats in this scene, on this phone, he'd throw a look over the A camera, and then he catches key light, and then yak, yak, yak, yak, and on another important beat over the B. And again, and I was just, I was like, oh, my God. And that's when it really struck more when actors have this power, because they understand what's going on behind the camera and how powerful that makes their performance. And I've never forgotten that moment, the first take of that scene watching Samuel and just

going, good Lord. Now there's a guy who knows what he's doing on a film set, you know, and so that's the kind of thing I'm trying to bring to the kids. And I would say to them too, listen, when season two is released, watch it, enjoy it, but then go back. and watch again and watch your performance. And have a look at, you know, what angles work really well for you and what angles are powerful for you. What did the editor choose? What did the editor choose?

Yeah. Yeah. Because they were there for all the coverage, but then seeing, you know, what was chosen, like, all right, maybe you start making decisions in a different way because you know, like, obviously you don't want to make choices for the editor. You don't want to spike the ball. but like, yeah, I think knowing editing has certainly helped me as a cinematographer and, you know, realizing like, all right, especially on like an indie set, you know,

going like, buddy, we're never going to use that. Trust me. Just the editor's going to get rid. Let's just keep the schedule for that one. That's it. But learn it, right? Like go back and a lot of actors go, I don't, you know, I don't like to watch the shows I do and I don't like to revisit.

But I say to these young actors, go back and watch. and watch yourself and learn about yourself, learn about your physicality. You know, what's working for you, what's not working for you, and look at how you move and, you know, and then go and watch a few Harrison Ford movies and watch the way he moves.

Watch the way he does. Now there's a physical actor, right, that understands physicality when it comes to perform it. It's got this one. It's good of pointing. Yeah. Yeah, so that was a really, really fun and rewarding aspect of shooting Percy Jackson for me. And I think they have a lot, as in the actors, they have a lot of fun doing this kind of stuff as well.

So it's not just about cinematography for me. It's not just about acting for them. It's about this family and about these bunch of film, this filmmaking family, learning from one another and having a great, time working with one another. Yeah, I mean, that's certainly what drew me to filmmaking was that sense of collaborative problem solving and, you know, being, obviously it's a privilege in one way to be able to make art for a living. I feel like every human being comes out the womb, capable of making art, you know, they don't come out the womb, knowing how to do taxes. So, you know, it's innate with us to create.

And it's really fun when you get to hear about those experiences, like the way that I think life should be lived, you know? Maybe not necessarily on a set, but a sense of community and creation is always lovely. Yeah. I wish I'd come out of a whim knowing how to do my taxes. Bro, same. I started getting emails about it the other day, and I was like, already? Like, God damn.

Not tax time. Oh, no. How do I do that? Okay, maybe I got a cold stuff. Yeah, call Jeff. I was going to say, speaking of students, I have an intern now whose name is Jackson. He's a other guy on the call here. Yeah, cool.

Hey, Jackson. I've been thinking whenever he's able to sit on the calls with us, he's been sitting there taking notes for me for the edit. But Jackson, if you have any questions for Jules to round us out, you're more than welcome to ask it. Howdy, yeah. I'm Jackson. It's been a pleasure hearing y'all, hearing not talk about this topic. It's so eye-opening. I'm a senior in college right now, and I'm about to enter or move to L.A. here soon. So it's just been awesome just to hear like, just get embezzled in the whole world of all this.

What college you at? I'm at Arizona State. Oh, yeah, cool. And they have a semester in L.A. program where I'll do my last semester up there in L.A. Right. So super dope. opportunity for sure. I guess one of the questions that I picked up from when you're talking is when I've noticed,

especially dealing with actors that aren't as experienced, having them like knowing where the camera kind of hurts the performance in my eyes. So like, how do you navigate that to like take that kind of, how do you say this? Like take that initiative to tell an actor, okay, the camera's here and have it not influence their performance in a negative way. That that makes sense. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Listen, there are some directors who, particularly an Australian director,

I don't know, back in the day that didn't want to have a used lights on a shoot because he thought it was distracted. and didn't want the actors. You didn't want the camera to make that much of an impact because of distraction. But my view has always been, like this is the filmmaking process, right? The only people that we shouldn't be distracting is the audience.

And actors, by the very nature, I mean, this is what they do if you're going to be a TV actor or a movie actor you're going to be able to act with a camera there and with sometimes a big light and a big bright light. I mean, sometimes the camera is right there.

You know what I mean? If I always think, if I want to put the audience right into their shoes and be right with them in this moment, I want to be in close, you know, on a wide lens.

I don't really be backed off on a long lens, you know, Michael Bay. Yeah, like more observational, kind of like. Yeah.

So sometimes the camera has to be right here. And so for the, I think if, if an actor is like, oh, that's, that's distracting me or I'm being distracted by the, they're probably in the wrong business.

Do you know what I mean? Like, that's just part of the process. And they've got to get used to it. And they've got to become one with it. And, and I think part of it for me and part of it, kind of helping these young actors

was there's power in this camera. There's power in this lens. Like you use it. Understand it. So you're able to use it for your benefit. And so I think for them, knowing that, like I never ever got the sense

that anything that we were doing with the camera was kind of distracting for these young actors. Now I know, I kind of find the older the actor gets, the more they may find it distracting. I know actors who find like a stills photographer

right next to lens, shooting, distracting. Or if I've got behind the scenes and they're right next to the camera and it's a scene which requires everyone to chill and give the actors the space. and I get them out of there. So I'm really mindful of that, but to actually have the A camera backed off in a way

or hidden because it's going to be distracting, then that I kind of go, that's just part of the craft. That's part of what you've got to deal with, you know, and very quickly that any actor, I think, who does TV or movies just understands that. And it's just, I mean, when you stand on a set, often I'll go and I'll sit or stand where the actor's going to be.

So I can have a look, see what's in their eye line. Is there anything distracting? Okay, there are crew that guys get out of there and just want the operators here in the Bermi. Is there anything else distracting? So I tend to clear a set like that or look after a set like that and look after the actors like that. But also I want to stand there and just see what's, how bright's that light. and the actors are going to be okay with this. So it's not that I don't, that I discount it,

not by any imagination do I do that, but the camera is going to be there and the lights are going to be there and we'll make it as have as little distractions as possible. But those things are just part and parcel of the business. Yeah. Awesome. Because a lot of like, through our whole college experience, a bunch of my buddies were kind of, like,

learning about like Derek C in France and like John Cassavetti's and that those guys are just like how like the realism yeah really works with like um actors who aren't totally like like seasoned yeah and um I love how like you challenge that philosophy I'm gonna I'm gonna tell my friends about this that like I mean imagine how this tract that must be standing at the Sydney Opera House on stage there and there there are there are 500 people staring at you yeah I'd go wow I'd find that that's what the distracting than a camera with an operator who's kind of hiding, you know, in the viewfinder. Yeah, for sure. So, but it's, yeah, it's just part of the kind of of the landscape, I think.

And it's, I think we as cinematographers have a, the onus is on us to make sure that what's going on behind the camera during a take is not distracting. and everyone who doesn't need to be there should get out of there. Because often crutes who don't really aren't thinking about, oh, the camera is pointing in that direction. So I stand here by and here, you know,

that's fine. But then, you know, they might be on their phone because they're answering an email producer or what have you. And it's just like, we're going to be always mindful of what's happening from the actor's point of view, from where they're standing.

And so, yeah, so it's not as if it's not, thought about it. I think about it all the time with our actors, but those big things, cameras lighting, yeah, they're going to be there. Yeah, on stages, I've definitely seen the grip team set up like massive floppies right, like under a light, not really to do anything, but just so that crew can like kind of hide behind it, you know, so it's just a black wall instead of folks, you know, and especially if you've got those craft services, people who bring food around and everyone's sitting there eating out of like a pudding cup in the middle of a

shot. I know. Yeah, and like Shepherds Pie has just arrived on set because you have this overpowering smell. Often that's that is something that I think about. It's like, oh my God, these actors have been here for two hours doing this scene and I know they haven't eaten anything and everyone's behind the camera

eating Shepard's Pie. Yeah. What's that sound? The sound though says, oh that's the actor's stomach rumbling. Yeah. Well, I gotta let you go, buddy. But it was phenomenal talking with you again. And I really look forward to the next time we get to chat.

Thanks, man. Great to meet you, Jackson. Likewise. It's a pleasure. Take care, guys. I appreciate you. Okay. Thank you, see you guys.

Bye, bye. Bye-bye. Frame and reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny McBelley. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can do so by going to to Frame and Ref. dot com and clicking on the Patreon button. It's always appreciated. And as always,

thanks for listening.