Frame & Reference Podcast - 23: “The Boys” DP Dan Stoloff

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

Welcome to another episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast! This week, Kenny talks with cinematographer Dan Stoloff about the hit Amazon Originals show “The Boys.” You likely know Dan from his work on films such as “Screen Door Jesus” and “Miracle” as well as shows like “Amazing Stories”, “Suits”, and “The Americans.” Enjoy the episode! Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for more!

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today I'm talking with Dan Stoloff, DP of the Amazon series The Boys, which is honestly one of my favorite shows to come out of late, so it was really a exciting to talk to Dan about the production of it. Dan is incredibly generous with his time and knowledge. He's currently shooting season three as we speak, as we spoke, depending on when you're listening to this right now or maybe way earlier. I don't know. Anyway, a lot of really great things to learn in this podcast. One thing that excited me is a Fuji film XT3 owner is a little secret tip he used the xt3 for some shots so uh you know you cameras mean nothing anymore and it's

fantastic um well of course the gear does matter um i'm not a big uh the gear doesn't matter but it doesn't when it doesn't you know it's a it's a conversation for a different day um anyway uh fantastic conversation really really really love this one so uh as always i will shut up now me start talking immediately after. Here's my conversation with Dan Stoloff. To start, the way that I usually start is, you know, how did you get into cinematography? Were you always like a visual person growing up? Did you go to school for it? Anything like that? You know, I got into cinematography at a pretty early age. I knew when I was probably 10 or 11 years old that this was something that I really wanted to pursue after making

Super 8 movies with my friends in the neighborhood, thought to myself, if there's any way that one can make a life out of this, this is what I want to do, was the most fun I'd ever had. And so ever since then, you know, I took some animation classes in junior high and took some filmmaking classes in junior high, did summer workshops, went to Ithaca College, sort of knowing what direction I was headed, and just sort of testing the waters along the way. to make sure this is what I wanted to do. I loved, you know, I loved cinematography in college, and yes, I've made a life out of it. Yeah, so when you were, was there anything that you sort of learned that you can still think of

when you were shooting, you just super eight movies with your friends? Because Lord knows I, uh, shooting, you know, DV movies with my friends or VHS. Uh, I learned how valuable editing can be. Well, you know, for me, for me, it was the deception of it. that really intrigued me. It was the fact that you could manipulate things. It was like the magician's trick, sort of, so to speak. I mean, I remember the first movie that we made,

it was a takeoff on the $6 million man. That kind of gives you an idea of what era this is. And I remember setting up a shot on my dad's Super 8 camera, zooming in all the way and realized that if I just ran in place, it kind of looked like I was actually running. That was the moment that it kind of got me. that so much of what we see and so much of what we accept as reality on the screen is, is a trick. It's manipulation.

And it was the magic that drew me in, that I could convince people that something was something else. It's funny you say that because I was, before I was a cinematographer, I was a magician. And I 100% understand that analogy there. that mental analogy, because I feel the exact same way. There's something very fun about, uh, and something, two things actually. One, it's very fun to be the magician and lead people along the way, but I think it's fun to lie to people to their face and have them enjoy it. Absolutely.

No, absolutely. There's nothing in the world that lets you do that. It's the best. I mean, any, you know, even on a more nuts and bolts level, um, you know, you approach a scene and the sun is coming in from a direction and you decide that's the wrong direction. Well, you have all the tools to change nature. You know, I can block the real sun and create my own son. I can create the reality that I want to create, which is very, you know, it's very liberating.

It's wonderful to have that. It's actually more empowering, I would say, than liberating. Sure. But, you know, to have the ability to do that. And then to, you know, that becomes a tool in your box. And there are times you have to bend. nature and then there are other times that you go with it and you accept it and you you work with what's there and you embrace what's there and then as you get more experience you learn how to

manipulate the situation so that you have to do less to get to where you want to be so you know simple example would be just in terms of blocking a scene into three-quarter back light for example convincing a director that maybe this blocking is better because we just go with this rather than blocking the front-lit sun and putting your own in, you just adjust things, you move things. You know, you kind of feel your way there. Sure. So when you were in college and kind of grown up,

did you have any sort of films that really inspired your even mentors along the way? I would say it was more films that inspired me. You know, it was people like Coppola and Scorsese that were making movies like Raging Pole and Taxis. driver and the godfather and apocalypse now and you know and and you know certainly uh uh you know work of say oliver stone inspired me early early stuff the stuff he was doing with bob richardson i was seeing these relationships forming and and uh that's really kind of that's really kind of what inspired me i saw a way to move this visual art forward that these guys were doing something new

and something interesting and something bold and I wanted a part of that and that that inspired me still does yeah that's that's actually interesting you say that because that's I always seem to be drawing music analogies on this podcast and I have yet to be able to really succinctly like put all of it kind of into appropriate words but one of the things is I'd love you know having a favorite musician and then figuring out all the musicians that they worked with and then figuring out oh my goodness There's like a whole network of musicians who all work together that I love all their stuff. Yeah, yeah. And the same thing with filmmakers.

Absolutely. No, absolutely. I think that we all feed off of each other and we all take it. You know, we all absorb everything that we see, you know, whether it's filmmaking or whether it's great painting or whether it's theater or whatever it is. We're absorbing all of this stuff. And then in a way we're absorbing it. we're reprocessing it, and then we're creating something new out of it. So like jazz music, there are influences coming in from every single direction.

And I liken it to music a lot, too. I mean, a lot of times I'll tell my operators to play their camera like it's jazz. Like, I just want you to feel what the scene is and what the rhythm is, and I want you to tell the story with the camera. You know, paint the story with the camera. The guy goes over, he picks up the coffee cup, he pours it in the sink, whatever. make you know make that rhythm part of part of the dance that he's doing so yeah it's very musical yeah the uh i'm like thinking of five different questions now um how important do you think

it is sort of speaking in in musical terms almost you know your your music so to speak can in many ways be a way to teach newer people or just whoever's watching the things that you that influenced do you. Do you think that's kind of important in the way that you make films, where like you make sort of conscious nods and you kind of hope that like someone will notice, look into it, find the things that you loved and kind of keep the lineage going? Yeah, I think there's a DNA there. I mean, you know, I would think if somebody looked at my work, I would hope that they would see, you know, traces of deacons and traces of Bob and James Wong Howe, and I would hope that they would see, like, the bigness of everything that I've taken in and how I processed it and put it forth.

And one of the great things about the show that I'm on now, The Boys, is that it enables me to call on all these different chops for all these different things. It's action, adventure, it's romance, it's satire, it's politics, it's big scope, it's intimate scope. it's a bit of everything. So you have to have all these different tools at your disposal for the job at hand. You've got to understand documentary filmmaking. If you're doing a documentary sequence within a sequence, you have to understand how someone intuitively responds on a zoom lens to something happening versus we're setting up for a scene now, which is like an MGM musical fantasy sequence.

And so you have to understand how they used a single camera for a lot of these, you know, Gene Kelly and that kind of stuff and how the camera dances with the cast and how they did it in the 1940s versus, say, 500 days of summer, which was inspired by that, but then put a little contemporariness into it, which is what we're kind of trying to do. But yeah, you take it all in and nothing's wasted. everything in our in our sponge-like brains gets absorbed and the beautiful thing and the lucky thing about cinematography is there's an outlet to let some of that back out there yeah uh when you were

saying you kind of let your operators jazz about it do you keep them in that sense uh not very strict on like all right if someone's going to stand up you have to go at the exact same pace as them or do you kind of let just let the scene kind of play and and be a little more documentary about it I just marathoned season two of the boys last night. So this is fresh on my mind. Okay. Okay, good. I'd have to say, Kenny, it totally depends on the situation.

There are scenes that are very rigid and that are very planned out, and there are moments that are very specific. And there are others that are looser. So the leash is not always loose. I mean, it really depends. It really, really depends. A lot of things. Well, you just watch season two.

you got through it. So the congressional scene where the heads blow up. It has a feel of very spontaneous cameras flying around and finding things, well, there's nothing spontaneous about that scene. Every single beat in that scene was drawn up and designed and designed to look spontaneous and designed to look chaotic, but it wasn't. It couldn't be because the visual effects were so specific. So everything we knew exactly where things were happening and how they were happening. Um, but that's, you know, that's, that's, that scene. Other scenes, uh, other scenes have a more free flow feel. If you're not locked into visual effects and you're not locked into very specific things, you can be a little bit freer. And again, it depends on the tone of

the scene. Is it playful? Is it fun? Is it fast? Is it slow? Is it reflective? Is it emotional? Totally depends. Yeah, because that was actually one note that I had was that I was going to ask how that courtroom scene played out for you because I imagine were you just shooting background plates and then like a green screen plate of the actors head or like how is that sort of being assembled on set? Yes, an answer to your question, but I'll get more specific about it. It was it depended on which one, like if you take, for example, the first guy whose head blows up, which we show in a fairly long take until it happens, the modality of that particular shot was we shot the guy at the performance. Then we did a plate that was just the torso with practical blood

flying out of it. Then we did a blood bag explosion in the very same spot. Then we did, let's see, a background plate. And then there was one green screen element, too. We shot the performer on green screen as well to separate him from the background, from the background action. So a shot like that, I think it was five layers of comp. And then visual effects add to that. You know, a lot of the blood spray and things like that are done, are done enhanced, I should say, in post. sweet but we do we do as much as we can practically we do have there's there's a lot of blood on set

i mean it's it's as much real as can be but eric kripki our showrunner is very specific about things like you know arterial sprays and things and it's hard to get it exact uh we do the best we can but then they take over and post and sweeten it up sure it is such a like uh a fun show in regards to the gore, all the, like, goryness of it. None of it is, I think the, maybe the whale was a little gross, but like none of it is really gross. It's, it's, it's, it's, I think it depends on your perspective. I mean, for example, when Kamiko rips the guy, the Russian gang.

That's brutal. Some, some might say that's gross. I don't know. Some Mortal Kombat shit, yeah. My mom would consider that gross. In fact, she did. Yeah. yeah that was a good one because it just does feel like there's stuff like that happens you're like

oh shit they uh they will do anything on this show that's amazing well you know the fun thing about it is that uh the way that it's incorporated into the rhythm of the show those things just happen and then we move on we don't linger on it we don't necessarily uh zoom into it it just happens in the frame i mean that's our general approach is these things are just happening it's not we don't do a lot of slow motion. We don't do a lot of glamorization of the violence. I mean, it just explodes on the screen and moves on. We do a lot of 48 frame per second stuff,

but that's primarily so that they can do slight speed shifts and also to give it a little bit of a skinny shutter look. But rarely do we play things out in slow motion unless it's a heightened moment. which there aren't that many of it's it that the show wants to unfold as a documentary well and it's interesting you say that well not interesting but uh i was thinking about that because i was going to i like sort of was watching the show and taking notes and i was going to ask about fight scenes and stuff but really there aren't the show is not like a a fighty show it's it's

very much a drama like a dark comedy drama yeah it is i mean uh there are fights. I mean, there are, there are fights, but it's not what the show is about. I mean, it's I think our show offers something for everyone, probably too much for a lot of people. But the fights, the fights like the violence or the sex or any of it is just incorporated, it's woven into the fabric of the show. A lot of things just sort of happen. Yeah, it's, it's, I feel like it's somewhat unique in that way. I think, I mean, we're trying not to be a Marvel show, We're trying very hard not to be a show that centers on superheroes and what they do. I mean, I'll give you a good example.

Like in the first season, you see Homelander flying in or flying out of scenes maybe two or three times. In season two, maybe you see it once. In season three, we never see it. It's just not necessary. So once we've already told the story, we don't just hang on to a visual trope, just sort of for the sake of the cool of it all, that we do it the other way around. So now Homelander lands deep in the background way out of focus,

and we're foreground. I'm thinking specifically of the scene in Ryan's backyard when he lands with Stormfront, and they're out of foe. It's not a big deal. We're not saying, look at this. This is just something that's happening. We're not pointing to it. We're not underlining.

We're not even focusing on it. It's just another layer of the reality. that is the boys sure well and it makes total sense too because uh in a world where superheroes exist you wouldn't glamorize every single thing they do it would be sort of just an occurrence yeah yeah i mean another example is in season two when hewee comes out of uh the gypsy king's basement and he walks out of his uh out of the um the pawn shop and looks up in a soup is flying overhead It's never referred to. We don't know who that soup is or where they're going.

It's just, this is just the world. Like, we would take for granted an airplane flying overhead. This is how you make the world that we've created seem normal. Well, certainly in Los Angeles, I've become completely desensitized to helicopters. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny to have friends from back home over or whatever. And they're like, what's that?

And I'm like, I don't know, the cops. And they're like, for what? And I'm like, I don't fucking know. They're doing cop shit. I used to live in Venice and, you know, in the middle of the night, it was the, it was always the helicopters with the spotlights. Yeah. I'm like, fuck, this is the most surreal thing. You'd be fast asleep and suddenly there's a spotlight shooting through your, that's as bright as day.

And that's normal. You get used to it as normal. Yeah. I live sort of under the, just under the flight path of the Santa Monica airport. So there's just a lot of like single props and stuff like that. coming by and then the helicopters that come through it's all that stuff yeah um not to give my position away to the internet um going back a little bit i've noticed that it's kind of a pretty strong look for season two of the boys is this very green and yellow um color contrast can you

talk to me about like what where that decision came from and it i could be making this up but it kind of goes from a very hard look into a softer look like throughout the season, unless I'm completely misreading that. That's just how I don't think you're misreading it. I don't think that it's a, it's a, you know, a lot of things are not always conscious. I'm not sure that it was any kind of plan nor, nor was there an overriding color scheme to the show in any way. I mean, it really, it really was inspired by the world that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

Arv Graywall created, our production designer from season two, created this world. And we talked about colors a lot, but it was never a thematic thing, like a continuing thing. There's a certain, there's a certain flavor to the seven tower that is fairly consistent. It's kind of warm. It's a little bit desaturated. There's a little yellow in the highlights. I mean, that's all kind of by design. contrasting to the Gypsy King's basement in season two,

which was a lot of cyan and then Urban Vapor kind of combination. So I always love that combination anyway. That's something that played a lot in that set. But it was really inspired by the set. It was really inspired by where we were, as opposed to saying, let's build a set that has, that has urban vapor and cyan. It wasn't that.

It was, let's build a set, and this is what it would be. And just thinking in terms of always going back, checking back to what would it really be with, you know, the fluorescence in the ceiling, they would probably maybe one of the ballasts is bad and it would flicker. So we built that kind of thing. But, yeah, I think everything comes from,

everything comes from the base of the story. We're not trying to, yeah, And we're not trying to add anything else. It's just really all stemming from the organic flow of the narrative. Sure. So when speaking of the basement set, what was the lighting set? Because it looked pretty practical, but I assume you were also bringing in fixtures for like. That was a really interesting set.

I haven't talked a lot about this, but I'm glad you asked me because it's a fun thing. So that set had fluorescence that we outfitted with Titan tubes and we controlled it. And we came up with a color of the Titan tubes. It's a revolution. So those we did a little bit of cyan. And then there were these little window vents. And then where Huey's closet is, where Huey's closet is, his janitor's closet that he lives in, above, it's all these glass blocks. and we wanted it to feel like he was living right under the sidewalk.

And sometimes they have those glass blocks. So we built this system where we had, you know that game we used to play with a steel ball and two rods. And you pull the ball and you try to, you pull the rods, try to get the ball to slide. Yeah. And not fall. Well, we created a giant one of those with yoga balls and had par lights above it. So we had these moving balls above the set, that somebody would reset the balls so that you always had this shaft of light that looked like a car driving overhead and the great sound design built onto that and, you know, and synced it up with truck passing noises. So whenever you're on that end of the Gypsy King's basement with Huey, the light's always moving.

There's always this top light that's shifting and moving. and we wanted it to feel like the most hellish, most oppressive thing you could possibly think of and sleeping under a road to me was about, was about the bottom of the barrel for him. Yeah. So that was a fun one. That was one that I wish I talked about more because it was one of those things like, hmm, how do we do this? And Richard Tiagetowski, our key grip, came up with this idea.

I was like, I need something to keep it moving. this was his brilliant, brilliant idea. And it worked, right? It was silent, which was another huge thing. You're recording dialogue all the time. So how do we make something that doesn't make any noise? And you couldn't hear anything. You just saw the light moving through.

That's crazy. And just straight up big yoga balls. What's that? Yeah, yeah. We looked into very lights and moving lights. And this was a standing set, and it all got very expensive. So production was like, no, no, we're not doing that.

That's not high on our list. So we came up with the low budget version, which was these yoga balls and found that there was kind of this clear yoga ball that looked really cool when the light hit through it because it kind of sent the light in different directions. And for cinematographers,

we could just sit and stare at that for hours, but it just has to play in the scene like something you don't even notice that something is really subliminal. So all your viewers, go back and look at that and look at, the way the light moves in the in his uh in his and i bet you didn't even notice it the first time because it's also organically incorporated with the truck noise and you know in the and the traffic

um that it becomes subliminal oh yeah and shout out to the sound designers too because the sound on the show is really great oh yeah um so with those Titan tubes you were those gel or you just natural uh no the Titan tubes the beauty of those tubes is that you don't have to gel them because we run everything through DMX through a board. So they're RGB. So you can pretty much dial whatever color you want into them. So we use a lot of presets. The only time I'll occasionally I'll add a little quarter CTO to them. But because they only go to 28 is the lowest they go. And if I want just that little bit of warmer, I'll add a little gel. But otherwise, they pretty much do anything you want to do. Yeah. Because the, the only reason I ask is because

there's like sort of a hyper nerdy discourse around LEDs, which is that RGB LEDs will change the color of whatever they're, whatever's in front of them. Whereas if you were to set the LED to whatever color temperature and then gel it, you still get a fuller color temperature. And that might not be true with newer LEDs, but certainly the older ones. Uh-huh. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

that's a level of nerdiness I haven't got to yet. I had to test this, I grabbed like one of these little like Godox little kind of box lights and it's just I have this row of American cinematographers here and I was just dialing through the various colors and you're just watching the spines change like the red would turn black and then it'd turn blue and then it turned yellow. And I was like, oh yeah, no kidding. So what was that sodium vapor light? What was that fixture?

Was that? those were those were not real sodium vapors those were probably uh 2k fernels with uh with urban vapor on them i mean sometimes you use real sodium vapor lights um let me see i used sodium vapor uh the scene where they pull up to the dock where kamiko's brothers flipped the ship that was sodium vapor um but uh yeah the rest of it's tungsten tungsten tungsten with sodium vapor, uh, urban vapor, sorry, urban vapor gel. Yeah, because the, the, I just, not that I'm quote unquote harping on it, but I just love that the look of that, uh, basement scene. So now I'm just trying to kind of dig into it. Uh-huh. Sure. Were you bringing in

anything for like closeups or was, was it all kind of just playing the way that the set was, uh, yeah, you know, I like the space first. I like the, I like the environment first. And then, um, I see where everything falls and I add to it, whatever is necessary, you know, for the scene, whether sometimes it's just a white card to bring up the face a little. Sometimes it might be something more elaborate. But I try to, for the most part, I like the environment first, and I get all that squared away. And it is a, it's a bonus if everything falls into place and you don't have to add stuff. But I don't like for it to look like anything's been added. So I'll try to always stay true to whatever the physics are that are lighting the space itself.

And I cheat. I mean, of course, I cheat. I put white dubitine on the floor and catch ambience for Phil or, you know, I'll work with what's there and try to shape it to get the kind of contrast ratio or the kind of light quality on the face that I'm looking for. Yeah, because the one thing I had a note I had written was realism versus hyper, realism. The show does seem very realistic. Like there's, you know, it's, um, it almost feels unlit. You know, it does, it there's, you don't feel the, the film fixtures at all.

Well, that's the best thing you could say to me. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's the greatest compliment you could pay that, that it looks like you didn't even light it. That's, that's the ideal. But trust me, when I say there was a lot of work, making it look But that's what, you know, that's what we try to do. If it looks lit, I start, I mean, I kind of, I kind of review and say, why does it look lit? And, you know, I always try to, you know, and I embrace shadows. I embrace the darkness. I love it when a character comes into their light or somebody's on the edge of their light and then rolls out of it or rolls into it.

And trying to use that to dramatic effect without being hitting you over the head with it, keep being subtle with it, you know, what's the tone of the scene? and let that kind of direct what it is. But if you look, you'll see everybody's not always perfectly lit all the time. I mean, there are certainly moments when you're into heated moments that it is. But we don't get too precious about that. Sure. Just not that there's like one answer, but off the top of your head, can you think of what normally is the culprit for a scene looking too lit?

you mean in general yeah just kind of yeah i don't know i would say uh it's uh perhaps too much front light or too much backlight or a combination um uh yeah i mean if it looks like if it looks like a procedural show from the 80s it's probably overlit you know and if it looks like it looks like it wasn't lit, I think you're on the right track. If it looks like your basement really looks when you turn on the lights and go down there, then it's not overlit. So yeah, it's about illusion, right? It's about the illusion of reality.

And you shatter that illusion when you tamper with the perception of realism. So you have to be true to what physics are. You know, if the son, you know, if the son is over one character's shoulder, he's in backlight, the person he's talking to should be in front light. You know what I mean? It's like there's a logic. Oh, yeah, we've all cheated it. But what I'm saying is that we don't, we try to stay true to that. So I would never shoot two people in backlight unless there's a very specific reason for it.

And there is sometimes a reason for it. And I'll give you one. Like when we did Donna the Seven, the movie within the movie, everyone's always in backlight, no matter what. That's an accepted trope of big budget, you know, big production Hollywood, right? That's, that's, but it's not real. So then when you cut to our characters off of the movie, it's different. It's front lit. It's harsh.

It's top lit. It's whatever it is. Yeah, I was going to say the, uh, a coat commercial. That's when you can backlight everyone or like, exactly. Something like that. It's a, you know, there's different levels of storytelling. And I came up through commercials. So I have, you know, I have done all of that stuff.

I mean, I certainly, to me, the easiest thing in the world is backlit glamour lighting. That's, that's super easy. What's much harder is to make it look unlit and yet see the character's eyes and let him deliver a performance in a dark room that you can see. So, so that's a fine, you know, that's treading a fine line. I mean, I'll give you an example from season two when, when Butcher is with his wife on the bridge and it's at night and it's really dark. In fact, Carl Urban, the actor was concerned. I didn't have enough, I didn't have enough light on him because it was really freaking dark there. It was lit only with a, probably 18K backlight, maybe 300 yards away.

through trees and then white sheets on the ground and nothing else and it looked dark, but it was all there. I mean, you could see everything Carl was doing and it was mysterious and it was dark, but it was writing that sort of fine line between being too dark and being what would happen in real life in a situation like that. And in the story, they're hiding, they're meeting in secret, there are cameras everywhere, so they have to hide in the shadows. They have to hide in the darkness. So the story tells you it has to be dark. But there's all this emotion.

It's a hugely emotional scene. The reunion, they haven't seen each other for years. He thought she was dead. And they're having their reunion in this shadow. So that's sometimes it gets tricky. But I was very happy with the results. I think Carl was happy too. But he wasn't used to being.

not lit that much at night. He's like, you guys aren't getting the winner. Right. Right. Right. But you could see both of his eyes. I mean, you could see, you know, you could see the emotion. You could see the performance. And I know, I think, I think it helps the reality of the performance if the environment and the framework is being truthful to the moment.

Are you a big sort of planted catchlight person? Or is it like if it's not in their field of view, I don't want it in there? Um, you mean eye lights? Yeah, just like intentionally putting like a unit dedicated to eye lights. I feel like it's kind of falling in a fashion. It depends. You know, it depends. Oftentimes the key will do that for you.

Yeah. But no, I am, I do pay close attention to that, particularly in a scene like this, because with a with a little bit of eye in the eye, the dark side of the face, uh, you're fooled into thinking there's more light there than there really is. If you can see, to me, the litmus test is, can I see a highlight in the eye? And then I know I'm not too dark. If I can't see an eye light in the eye, in the eye, for me, it feels too dark, and I'll do something to put something there. Sure.

You were saying that backlit beauty lighting is easy for you. Could you give me some tips on that? Because I'm coming into a lot of that kind of work right now. Oh, that's interesting. tips on that i don't know i always found that um uh you know backlight through dapple is is unbeatable you know even if it's just a kukalores an old-fashioned kukalores break it up a little bit or give it some movement is really nice and uh yeah and it's really the quality of the front light like big soft source and some contrast and it's easy away you go yeah i'm right up smile light up the eyes all that

I've been fighting a lot with like do I because I kind of have like regular um I don't know what you'd call them fernel fixtures but their LEDs so I'm like do I really just bring someone with a giant like 60 inch soft box just following someone to you know this way do I just do that I've done that yeah doing a lot of balancing I mean what else what else works great in those cases I find are the helios tubes I take a helios tube now and I put it on like a on like a uh uh uh uh uh a painter's pole type thing it weighs almost nothing it's battery powered and you always have eye light i mean if it's a steady cam shot or something like that i'll have an electrician working working that and i find that's a really great easy fast solution because i've done things with

you know big uh big like china balls on boom poles and you're always trying to coordinate the dance it's really complicated there used to be a cable somebody had to wrangle now with this with these with Helios tubes, it just makes it a whole lot easier. And it's good quality light, you know, and you hold it horizontal and it's very soft. If you want a harder light, you just turn it vertically and it's a harder light. I mean, it's a pretty, if you know how to use it, it's a pretty remarkable tool. That is something that it sounds so dumb, but it totally, like, I just figured that out that that would actually change the orientation of the light, change the hardness.

Because, you know, I just think, oh, it's a big soft, it's LED, it's soft. so I would just put it and it was always horizontal but like it does it does affect you make it now it's small if it's vertical yeah I mean you'll see it on someone's face play with it you'll see on the quality of the no shadow you'll see it changes you do as you go as you do that which is interesting it's not something I've ever done on camera but now I'm thinking that might be a fun effect at some point I'm to slowly turn a light while the character's acting and see how the light changes on their face I might have try that that would be a i'll take that tomorrow good because you guys are shooting season three right now right we are we are deep into it yeah right now it's uh well we're we're we're in the middle of june and i'm almost done with the my second block we're doing two blocks two episode blocks this season uh and so yeah i'm nearing the finish line i've got about three more weeks here um i've been here for nine months oh geez in a hall yeah it has been a hall and where are you guys shooting. Toronto. Oh, right on. Yeah. And yeah, and it's, you know, with the COVID, the COVID has, you know, it's added, it's added like probably 30% of time to this. So we're doing, these are big, big blocks. We're doing, I think, 50 days for two episodes. So each block is like a feature film. So we prep it like a feature film. We shoot it like a feature film. You know, and it's essentially two hours.

a two-hour movie. So I get to do two of those in a season. And I'm alternating with Mero Baselik. He's doing the second and the fourth block. I'm doing the first and third. Yeah, that's a pretty generous schedule for a television show, isn't it? Yes, it is. It is.

I think most schedules have expanded because of COVID protocols has slowed things down. At least here in Canada, we're a little bit behind where the U.S. is. I'm not sure how it, how it is in production in the U.S. right now, just because I'm deeply ensconced here, but, you know, but we still have strict limits on how many people can be in the room at a time, and we still have to go in shifts and not overpopulate. And so all of that takes time, and, you know, Amazon wants, wants the show done exactly the same way. So it's a more expensive endeavor, and it's a bigger endeavor and a more time-consuming one. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to getting home it's been a it's been a long time away it really yeah good are you having to do

that i was interviewing uh tim ives uh he shot halston and i and he was saying that in certain scenes they would have to like plant 20 people film it move those 20 people to the left film that and then split comp everyone to make like big scenes we do a lot of that tiling yeah we do a lot of that i mean we had a there's a there's a movie premiere scene at the beginning where at the beginning of episode one where, I don't know, we had like 35 people and we did do that. We, you know, we tiled. Our shots were very, were executed with extreme concern about the frame

and how many people we could fit in. And every frame is really carefully set up to maximize the amount of people that we had. That takes more time. And of course, the tiling takes more time. And the stacking of the frame becomes more challenging. We do reuse extras a lot more than ever before. You know, you'll see a guy with a blue hat on green hat in the deep background.

And hopefully you don't notice it, but yeah, that's the reality. Well, if people are picking apart background actors, they probably have other issues. They certainly do, but there are Reddit sites dedicated to that. Oh, geez. they'll talk about it certain subredits for film stuff are just annoying like the classic one that i know a handful of personalities are just over uh is uh the movie deals movie details subreddit which is just like you know oh this guy's got a coffee cup from this business because he works there and you're like wow thank you thank you for that insight Some people too much time on their hands, right? Yeah. But, hey, it's job security for us.

We'll keep throwing them out there. Yeah. And this show, especially, we do a ton of Easter eggs. I mean, so for those people, we actually do, we do cater to them. I mean, there's Easter eggs all over the place in our show. There's posters on the wall that, you know, that might be like a vintage Liberty cigarette ad. And we're not focusing on it. It's just there.

And if you see it, great. If not. It doesn't matter. It's just part of the texture, you know. It's just adds to the layers and layers of this airtight world that we created where, you know, where Vought is, is everything. Yeah. Yeah. Liberty Stormfront's name is Stormfront because she's a Nazi. Oh, thank you. I did, I did notice one. It was stupid, but I laughed at it, which she's drinking like a smoothie and it says storefront on it. Oh, I never noticed that. I know the scene you made with A-Train, when there's, they're drinking the smoothie and, and she says, uh, uh, she makes a comment about your people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. I, I need to look at that again. That's, yeah. Yeah, her cup says

storefront and I was like, that's funny. That's hysterical. Um, let's see. What else do I? I got a whole bunch of notes here. Uh, oh, just, well, two things actually. Um, is, were you intention, I don't know how you do this intentionally, but it seems like a lot of the show, at least in season two, is in overcast. Was that a sort of choice or was that just the hand you were dealt? Yeah, no, that's never a choice

in television. I mean, we shoot no matter. I know if it's on the schedule, we shoot it. And we can't afford to, you know, we can't afford to wait on weather or reschedule based on weather, with the exception of a major storm, a big snowstorm.

Even this season, we shot through two major snowstorms we never we never missed a beat um we just shot you just do it you know it's tv you just got you got to make your schedule so no none of that is intentional um it's luck so yeah and then my follow-up question is going to be would do you prefer overcast or like a direct sunny day um i i well there's a certain laziness and ease in working in overcast you know anywhere where you point the camera is easy. So, yeah, there's something attractive about that. But at the end of the day, looking at Dailies,

a properly handled sunny day, I would prefer. I mean, if I, if it's not abrasive or aggressive or unattractive, I think I prefer that. We shot this scene a few weeks ago in this neighborhood in Toronto. that I have shot in before. I've only shot there in overcast, right? And it's right in this area. It's like a little valley with all glass towers all around it.

Well, the day that we had a giant scene to do there, it was the sunniest, bluest day that's ever happened in the history of planet Earth. And it was a nightmare. Every five minutes, the sun was hitting another building coming from another direction. So I felt like I was playing, what's that game, the gopher game, with the sun. Wackamel, yeah. Wackle, right. Wackle. And I'm just chasing these unpredictable, you know, blasts of ugly, harsh sunlight. They always seem to be frontlight and awful. And that would have been a day that I would have prayed for an overcast day. So it depends. You know, it depends. If I'm shooting in the country, I would rather have a sunny day. I mean, if I'm shooting in nature, I'd rather probably have a sunny day. sure so what uh what are some sort of tips you can give on on making an overcast day not just

look flat you know because it is flat like how do you handle it no i think negative fill and on an overcast day uh if i'm shooting you right now and i'm the camera um i would put on the left side i put a big negative fill maybe a 12 by on an angle on a 45 degree angle and on the other side, I might put just a Gryflon or something white to push light in, and then it would be beautiful. It would be like an Irving pen portrait. That's how I try to handle overcast. I just kind of shape it a little bit. I don't try to overpower it. I wouldn't put a backlight in it. I wouldn't, you know, I would just sort of, sort of channel a Bergman and go with, you know, like dark and brooding. And I love that.

Look, me, to me, like, give me a day in November with the leaves are off the trees and the lead in the skies and I'm as happy as I can be photographically. There's actually two scenes that I would love to know what you did for them. One is, is her name Carmen Esposito, the actress? Oh, yeah, the one who plays Rainer. Yeah, the one she gets her head. Jennifer. Jennifer Esposito, right?

The scene where she gets her head exploded. I really liked her close-up. What were you doing there? You know, in that, what I like to do a lot of times is I'll get in for my close-ups with a wider focal length lens. So it feels more like you're actually in their space as opposed to being away from their space. looking in, there's a, you know, there's a psychological difference with the way those, that, that lenses bend lines, that for me, the more compressed, you feel like you're on the outside looking in, whereas when you get in close with a wide, more present lens, I think in that case,

it was an anamorphic, cook 32 millimeter lens that I got right, right in there. Or maybe it was a 40, but in any event, it was a wider lens, but it was in, in, in her space, and I think that's kind of what makes it feel real. And in that case, what we did was, it was similar to the congressional scene where we filmed her doing her performance on a lock off, on a slightly wider lens than would ultimately be in the show.

So it's locked off, you do the five different comps, the blood bag, the green screen, the torso, the performance. And then in post, they add like a handheld feel to it. So we shoot a little wider and it has that handheld feel. I should have mentioned that we did that also in the congressional thing, which feels like everything's handheld. How do they do all these visual effects handheld?

Well, they're not really handheld. They're just simulated handheld. So that adds to it as well. And then you're intercuting with other shots, you know, with the reverses of Huey and MM and Frenchie and butcher and all that. And it's, uh, uh, that is handheld. So they'll match kind of the style that we've established with our natural shots. Sure.

And so, uh, for her, um, lighting or, or lack there of what, uh, what were you doing there? On, uh, let me think this is, was going back away. Um, probably, the shot back in the 90s. No, yeah, was chat. Well, this is all pre-COVID. So it's like another era, right? Yeah, yeah. No, in her case, it was probably, it was probably, yeah, I probably added a little front, a little front fill. I added a little negative just to look for natural, just to look, nothing special. I mean, just to look good, not call attention to itself. It's, hopefully, I mean, I think it was a light hand. Well, that's why I'm asking, because it's just, I, you know, I've become sort of fascinating.

with the exterior scenes recently. So it's just kind of a thing I'm asking a lot of people about. Because then the second scene I wanted to ask about was it's nearly the last scene in the show where Butcher is in this beautiful kind of autumn. He's just, he's standing there with his kid. And he's looking at the CIA director, whoever she is. And there's like a river behind him or something. And that just looked gorgeous.

That was Dylan McLeod shot that That was an episode That wasn't on my episode So you'd have to ask him Specifically about that Gotcha Yeah, I think

Yeah, I just, I don't know I don't know about that one Okay, we'll cut that out He didn't get any kidding Let's see what else we got here Oh, no, did that See now I'm having a

Oh, the shooting package. What were you guys shooting on? We're shooting on Venice, Sony Venice. That's what I thought. Everyone's doing the Venice. So Venice, mostly 239. 239 is our sort of our standard aspect ratio, but we do shoot within that. We'll shoot 16 by 9 for all the TV stuff.

We'll do sort of whatever the format requires. But yeah, we use Sony Venice. We use Cook SF anamorphic lenses. We use Scorpio anamorphic lenses. We have a Laura set of spherical lenses because we do a lot of spherical stuff. As I mentioned, if it's a newscast or a TV show within the show, we'll shoot spherical.

What else? We carry a Ronan, so we use that quite a bit. Yeah, this year we're carrying a Moses as well just because the COVID of it all, sometimes you're limited in terms of how many people you can get. But I find having a Moses on hand is a wonderful thing. We do a lot of motion control. So it's nice to know that we can just do a motion control shot

spontaneously if necessary. And yeah, that primarily we shoot, it's primarily primes. I'll use a zoom for the longer focal lengths or if there's a very specific reason. And in the spherical, world. I use super speed sometimes if we're doing steady cam or crane work or night work. Yeah, it depends. But that's pretty much what our package consists of. And you're shooting clean, no filtration. Yeah, no filtration. Yeah, no, I don't use filtration. We use a lot of atmosphere.

So that kind of to me is my diffusion. It's just atmosphere in the air and the quality of the light. And I try to avoid, I tend to avoid it, rarely use polarizers or, I mean, I use a lot of ND, but that doesn't really count. Yeah, nothing to affect the image, you know, nothing to affect the image. Yeah, because I wanted to ask, there's in certain shots in season two, there's a, there's a pretty pronounced pin cushioning effect. And I was wondering what lens that was and also, what do you like about that lens? That's, well, that's our, that's our series of their, their vintage style cook, uncoated lenses, and they're, you know, they're an architect's nightmare. I mean, because they just been, especially the 25. The 25 is the one that you're looking at that really does it a lot.

The longer you go in focal length, the more true they become. Also, when you shoot those lenses wide open, it's what we call the football. it's an area, football-shaped area in the frame that is resolvable. Everything outside that will never, ever be sharp, ever. And so it's kind of wacky to me that somehow we're using these lenses that can never be sharp in the corners, but it really works. It's really cool. It actually makes you frame in a certain way.

Like you don't want critical information on the corners. You want to make sure that if you're doing, say, a cowboy, boy framing that his head's not too close to the top because his eyes will be right on the edge of the football and never be sharp. So yeah, it's an interesting challenge. And this is the way this is, I mean, when you watch a movie that say pre-1970 animorphic, this is just the way they all are. And I've noticed it now, looking back, that this is kind of common. I never knew. I never knew that. And I like the effect. So I exploit it as much as possible and I shoot wide open. so that it maximizes it.

If you stop down, it goes away. I mean, if you stop down, if you're shooting it at eight, you're not going to, it's pretty much going to all sharpen up. But yeah, that's part of the imperfection of the glass that we love, that we embrace.

It's, uh, yeah, I thought I was seeing, I was like, there's a little pincushany. And then there's a scene, I think it's when, uh, uh,

starlight's like breaking into the tower. And it's like, I think she's coming out of an elevator or door or something like that. And they're like you're saying, there's a, bunch of straight lines in the background and they are just C's and Ds. And I was like, there it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, I have, I carry the Scorpio lenses too, which are very flat. They don't do that. So if I'm doing a shot and it's, and it's irritating, I'll just switch to a Scorpio and we'll do it. You know, well, it's a much cleaner, more, it's a, the Scorpios are great lenses.

They're very interesting. They're very, they're very flat in other words clinically they're sharp all the way across they do they don't flare the same way but they kind of do a better thing with highlights they do that that Spielberg et thing where it catches a highlight and it goes blue so i like that and that's something that we use but yeah we try to we try to flare the lens a lot we try to use the imperfections um so that it feels more real well and and uh it's not uh distracting in any way it's just part of the look like Like, you know, it's not the J.J. Adrian Star Trek Flair situation or any of that.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's, you're right. It's, and I always find, like, when I'm on a set, like, for example, the set where Gecko chops the guy's arm. We're in that set, and I'm looking at it and it was lit and it looked fine. And it just looked to me like a set. And it's like, oh, what can I do to make this, like, feel more like I'm really someplace. So I just lowered a T12 in the window. so I could see the T-12 in the lens and it flared it out and all of a sudden

it went from kind of clinical like just a kind of average-looking motel room set to like a real thing. Like the flare would come and go and we would work the flare. And I think that made the difference between it looking canned and it looking like a dangerous accident

that we couldn't control, which is what I'm always going for. That, you know, that what can you get away with? What's a fucked up thing that we can make? work for us yeah i can't remember uh where i heard it but i remember hearing the advice that like you should set up your scene light everything and then throw like you say a fuck-up light like something that doesn't look like it should be there and that just glues it all together like a random

sunbeam or something yeah exactly that's i mean that's exactly what i'm saying that's and that's you're always looking for whatever that might be yeah um what i haven't really asked anyone this but pretty much everyone i've interviewed in the past three months has been shooting on the Venice. What is it about that camera that is so attractive? For me, when I came on the show, prior to me coming on the show, I should say, they were shooting on red. I mean, I've shot a lot on red and red is fine. I had just come off another show where I used the Venice and I used the 2,500 ISO, dual ISO set up that that camera has is just to me is just the most, it gives me the most amount of flexibility.

The Venice is not the lightest camera. It's kind of, unfortunately, it's, you know, it's, it's probably too heavy for the world we're in right now where, you know, everyone's using Ronin twos and things like that. And it's just borderline too heavy for everything. But its color, I think, is as good as airy, which I think is, for me is my favorite color space of any digital medium right now. And it's close to that. But it has the dual ISO and I can shoot comfortably at 2,500 and confidently, I should say, at 2,500.

Generally what I've been doing, at least on this season, is I set the base. It has like, it has two bases. So I set my base ISO to 2,500 and then I set my actual ISO to 1,000. So I'm actually pulling a stop from the 2,500. And I like it. It gives a little more, a little bit more noise, which I find looks a lot like film grain. I mean, it feels a little grittier to me that way. And 1,000 ISO is a pretty good place to be working most of the time.

Yeah. Are you utilizing the full sensor or are you shooting Super 35? We're shooting well because, yeah, we're doing 6K because we're animorph. Yeah, we're using the whole sensor. Yeah, because that's been the big thing I've noticed now is specifically using full frame sensors for anamorphic because, I mean, why wouldn't you? Yeah, oh, absolutely, absolutely.

I mean, in the future, I'm not sure I would stay with the Venice. I might, my new favorite camera really is the mini LF, the Airy Mini LF. Sure. So, I mean, there's no reason not to use that camera in my opinion. But we got started on this track and I do love the Venice. It is a fantastic camera. And it served us really, really well. Are you guys using the Rialto extension at all?

We have. Yeah, we have. The Rialto is a great addition to it. Unfortunately, it's a little pricey, so it's always a thing. You know, on, you know, on even any show you do, you're always going to be hitting your budget. And the story is always going to be the same, whether you know, whether you're doing five-day episodic TV show or, you know, or 25-day, you're still, you're still want more than you can afford. And so, yeah, we're always up against it.

And the Rialto is a pricey thing. And you know what I've been doing a lot of instead is using my, uh, my Fuji FX-3 as a camera. Wait, FX-3 or X-T-3? X-T-3. Sorry, X-T-3. Yeah. Fantastic. Love this camera.

It's the best, one of my favorite cameras ever made. It's the best thing since. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think so too. And I, instead of the Rialto, I just bust that out, and I have a follow focus for it, and I have it all set up. And it essentially does the same thing. If it's a quick shot, it's fine.

It's 4K. The resolution's good. It's got enough resolution that they can prop it to 235 for us. And I find I've been using it every day. I mean, at least once a day for something, something that the Venice can't easily do. I'd always rather have the Venice do it because I know, A, I'm getting more information, I prefer to have my operators do it when it's the when it's the Fuji I do it I just jumped in and I do it which is fun but it's a little distracting too sometimes but yeah

it's a it's a great tool to have I mean it's a it does fantastic video that matches really well shockingly well with the Venice the only bad thing about it is that connector that USB connector is so cheap that I have a little bit of problems with wiggling cords and losing signal. We recorded onto an Odyssey, so we recorded it at 4K. And it's, yeah, I mean, aside from that, I wish they made that connector a little more robust. But other than that, it is a huge problem solver. Are you shooting to Flog or are you using one of the simulations?

I'm shooting Flog and then my DIT matches to the matches to the, um to the venice look that's whatever the pain is whatever's appropriate sure that's that's so cool to hear because i uh i've been doing the same thing with uh but i have a canon c 500 mark two um and then every once in a while i'm like i'm just going to get this shot off with the xt3 and i like i love that camera for still photography because i you know it's so small and especially especially with this little um 27 pancake you know you you without the battery grip you just chuck this in your pocket and And it's, you're laughing, you know. And I love, I love, I love all of the, uh, because I'm like, you know, I'm, I grew up in

the 70s. I love all the dials that you can touch and turn. And it reminds me my old Manolta in a lot of ways. I mean, it just feels more like you're in control. And I like the tactile aspect. I love clicking and clicking a knob and locking into something as opposed to everything being on a menu. So there's that.

There's that aspect. of it. I literally came from a Nikon F2, so it felt exactly the same. Yeah, that's a great little camera. Yeah, I love this thing. We are unfortunately, very unfortunately, because now I'm all jazzed about that, running on time, and I don't want to keep you all day because I'm sure if you've got a day off. But I always like to end each podcast asking the same questions, same two. And the first one is just, can you point to, it doesn't have to be like the biggest thing, but what can you point to in your life, whether it be a life change or an object or something like that that had an appreciable effect on your career as a cinematographer?

Wow. That is a hard one. It's just. so many it's just so many yeah you just make one it doesn't have to be the thing you know any things um that led me to become a cinematographer you mean in terms of just uh something that you that you can point to and been like when i started doing that or even this is less common but like when i bought that or whatever it added this to my life things got better things got easier you know some people said kindness uh learning to be kind on set some people said you know good all the documentarians were like getting a good pair of shoes like uh-huh well i agree with the

good pair of shoes hokas i swear by them um but uh hoka oh they're the best yeah yeah they're just i'm on the bloodstone train right now okay i did bloodstones for years and then uh i recently switched over so without but i don't think that's going to be my answer um uh you know i think for me, the biggest thing for me was probably breaking into television. I come from a world of independent film and commercials, music videos. And I always, coming up, I sort of, TV wasn't really even an option. It wasn't something that I was interested in. I mean, at that time, TV was largely procedural dramas and I never even saw

it as relevant to what I wanted to do. I wanted to make films, make independent films. And I think the biggest thing was when TV started to change and it was probably, I think it was 2008 or 2009, I did my first TV show. I

found a world that moved as fast as I wanted to move because I felt like commercials were, for me, were very tedious. features at the time were starting to dry up in the category that I was doing them in and like the mid-level stuff was really going away TV advertising was was basically fading away as the internet came up or it was it was dying so I went through a period of time for a few years

where I did a lot of soul searching and I didn't do a lot of working and I came out of that having landed my first TV show and found that it was what I was been preparing for my whole life like the pace the physical pace the mental pace the security of it you know the job security that's no small thing if you're an independent filmmaker of any kind paying your rent is is it's freaking hard I mean it's challenging we all know feast or famine you know you save your money we all know all of that. But I had gone through so many experiences in the independent film world where we'd be two weeks into production and the financier would would give up or financing would fall through or we'd prep and then financing. I mean, all these things, getting into television

was like, okay, I don't have to worry about that. I know I'm working for whatever it is, four months or three months. That's amazing. And then the pace and the rhythm of it. And then also just the arc of storytelling over a period of time I find is much more suited to my skill set like like telling letting the camera have an arc as well you don't really always get to do that on a movie the movie's very short whereas you're doing something over eight hours your look evolves as the characters evolve and you're on a journey with everybody with the actors as they're finding their groove you're finding your groove the show is finding its groove and And that's having that kind of time to nurture a look, that to me was, that to me was really

what I've always been looking for. Like that environment, that workspace, that canvas was perfect. So for me, that was the most surprising and radical thing. And though I would love to do a feature in the future, and I don't ever discount it, I'm really happy in this world. I'm really happy on television. I don't feel like I need to, I don't need to do anything different. This, this works. Yeah. Well, and on top of that, first of all, that's beautiful. Secondly, television now is so cinematic. I hate using that word, but like cinematic anyway. So it's like, it's, it's like we're in a long movie. Yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely right. And, and, you know,

And, you know, with my 70-inch TV over here, I have a screening room. And, you know, we all do, basically. And so, you know, the little screen isn't the little screen anymore. It's, it's, we're all meeting, it's, we're all meeting somewhere in the middle. And we're taking things that we've learned from both medium cinema and television, and combining them in a kind of unique way, which I find fascinating. I think this art form of, uh, mini-series or, or limited series. or even art, a show like ours, is new.

And it's a culmination of all of the things that have come before it. And it's exciting. It's a lot like being a pioneer in a new medium, but one that takes from everything. It really does. It really borrows from everything I've ever done. It borrows from music, video experience. I borrow from my commercial experience,

shooting food even i mean just whatever i i all i find it all works in this in this gig yeah uh i'll so i'll definitely want to have you back on to talk about your commercial and uh and work like that because i think especially a lot of people listening are kind of in that space right now um so that could be very educational but uh the second question out of the two questions is what is there anything you want to promote personal projects i always like to hear about about things that are going on that are not, you know, the big, the big thing. I'm going on vacation. There you go.

I'm going on vacation. Find me on the beach. My daughter's getting married. There's a lot going on. So actually what I really want to do and what's really important is to not work for a lot, not work for a period, you know. And my battery, I've been going. I did a pilot last September.

that went right into this. So I've been basically shooting nonstop. And I need to just get out there. And it's important to live and observe and get out. And now that, you know, COVID is ending. I'm still in Toronto. We're still in lockdown here. Going home to New York is going to be great

because the city is back and it's functioning. And I just, yeah, I just need to go to some museums. I need to go to some movies. You know, I need to go to see some theater. I need to restore my my bank of inspiration. So that's what I want to emphasize how important that is that you have to, you know, there's really two major things as a cinematographer.

Your physical health, right? You have to be in shape. So, I mean, I've been doing yoga for 30 years and I bike and I, you know, I exercise, I surf. The physical part is really important to stay in tip-top shape because when you're on 15 hour days. That's like a freaking marathon. But harder in ways because you still need to be concentrating as sharply in the 15th hour as you did in the first. So you have to be in physical

shape. And then the other part is the cultural shape. You have to be in cultural shape. You have to educate yourself. You have to open your eyes and see art in other art forms. And you need time for all that stuff. You can't just be on set. It's not good for your career. So paste yourself, save your money, be on time. That's, you know, my words of wisdom. Perfect. Yeah. No, that's, I would like to put a underline under that. Like, reading, like you said, museums, other art forms, so crucial. Absolutely. Absolutely. I found I became a much better person, let alone creator, when I started opening myself up to stuff that wasn't just, uh, metal music and sci-fi films

well you still have to have that you got to have the horse fed but it's all that other stuff and the more the more broad your education the better I mean it's gonna it's gonna reflect in the meetings and the interviews that you have

and the references that you can pull out of thin air and it's just gonna help it's really it's yeah it's all heading into the same place making us better. Better cinematographers and better people. Yeah. Well, I've absolutely adored this conversation. When you're off a vacation and feeling up to it, let's have you back on it. I would love that. I love that. Well, I will let you go and enjoy the rest of your day. All right. Thanks very much. Yeah. All right. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Frame and Reference is an Owlott production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the F-At-Art Mapbox logo, was designed by Nate Truax of Truax Branding Company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to ProVidiocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash Owlbot, respectively.

And as always, thanks for listening.