Frame & Reference Podcast - 231: "Primate" Cinematographer Stephen Murphy, BSC ISC

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

It's the season of returning guests! This time we've got Stephen Murphy back on the program to talk about his work on the new horror flick Primate. Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Oh, and welcome to this episode 231 of Freeman Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Stephen Murphy, DP of Primate. Enjoy. Did you go straight from hard eyes to primate? I did actually. I literally went, we wrapped hard eyes on a Friday. We were in New Zealand. Myself and my fiancé flew to Australia for a week.

And then I flew to London and started primate on the Monday. So it was a back-to-back. Yeah. How do you mentally decoupled? Like, how did you not? I mean, luckily, they're both like horror films. Many, many, many months later. That's when you, that's when you mentally decouple.

You just, you know, it's, you know, it's every, well, look, you've got the prep period, you know, so, you know, you're, you're winding down from one feature because, you know, you know, you're coming to the end. And it's like, okay, we've got two weeks out. I've got one week out. And you're just, you know, you're racing, you get through that schedule. And, you know, you're ticking all those boxes and going, okay, this is great. We got that scene.

It's great. We got this evening. It's great. And, you know, I'm not thinking about the next job that's coming up. Then you hit rap. And, you know, then you've got prep for the next job where you slowly then start to go, okay, wow, it's a whole new team. It's a whole new country.

It's a totally different set of problems. You know, different set of challenges. That's the fun part of the job, too. But, you know, you have that. You have that prep period to sort of, you know, gently ease yourself into, you know, it's not like you hit the ground and suddenly it's like, we need all the answers right away. It's like, you know, this is what we're doing. Why you think, oh, I think this.

And then it starts to build, you know. But yeah, but then you get to the end of that race of two movies back to back and you go, wow, that was crazy. I probably should have taken some time off between movies. Hey, hell. You know, you take the work when it's there and you take the opportunities when they're there. and, you know, it's, you make it work. Yeah.

I mean, like I said, I'd do the exact same thing if I could. Yeah. If I had the opportunity. Yeah. So that wasn't a set? We're primates? Yeah. Primate was a combination of a location and a stage.

It was mostly a stage. I think we were on location for maybe, maybe four days in total. And then the rest of it was all on a stage. So they had, you know, they found this house just outside of London, which looked like it could possibly, because it was in its own grounds with, you know, forests and stuff, and it could possibly be Hawaii and had a really interesting design and shape to it. And then Simon, the designer, sort of took that and then interpolated what the back of the house would look like in that same style and built the pool and built it into the cliffside and all that kind of stuff. and then we just did this really interesting, you know, a blend of the two. Yeah, because I think at a certain point, I just realized, like, I don't know if this is indoors or outdoors. And I mean that as a compliment.

Like, I was like, this could either be manufactured entirely or this could be, like, quote unquote, real. And I was like, that's an impressive feat. Because obviously, like, interiors probably, oh, maybe not, but, you know, most houses are kind of, especially when they look that nice. but I got to say the theater I was in you know people asked me like oh how was the movie I was like it's like a classic like teen girl horror film and not including the actors but like my I'd say I was in like a half full theater because I saw it like three o'clock on a Monday I think earlier in the week and that whole half all teenage girls scream like screaming that the whole whole whole time, like having a great time.

And I was like, see, the kids are all right. We're doing fun. We're having fun. It was a little shrill on the ears and like the kicking of the back seat. But, you know, I got the full 360 experience on that one. Good. Yeah, 4D, right? Yeah, 4DX with the popcorn and the whole thing.

That's it. Yeah, it's good. Talk to me about how much time you spent in a pool. I spent absolutely in zero time in the pool. My camera operator spent quite a bit of time in the pool. The pool of it was a thing. You know, the pool of it dictated a lot of the set build because we were in a stage.

It was very busy in London at the time that we shot. So we were in a stage that didn't have a pool, you know, in the floor. So we had to build a set up to have a pool of whatever, 8, 10 feet deep. and there's a lot of conversations about how to work in the pool do you go with a full underwater camera and all that kind of stuff which is slower and things of that but what we ended up doing was a much simpler system where we had we had our regular camera or Sony Venice in a splash bag essentially

and my key grip built a little system of flotation devices and the camera could literally just sit on those flotation devices and sit on the surface of the water with the lens sort of half submerged in that classic sort of jaws fashion and John, my operator, could just literally float around almost like it was handheld and just damped around the pool with the cast

and it was super flexible, way better than having a full housing meant we were relatively quick doing the water stuff and then I could stay dry and stay on land and bounce around between the B camera, which is on land, and obviously work with the Gaffir and the electricians to get it all this. Yeah, because, I mean, that after a certain point,

I was like, this is, this might as well just be the whole film in the water. They're spending so much time in this pool. I don't feel, I don't envy the camera. Who was the camera op? Let's shout him out. John Beecham was the camera operator who was in the water. He was my A operator. He's a really great operator.

Yeah, shout out to John. Did you guys have any kind of I assume you did But just like what were the References going into the film? Because like I said it felt very like classic Kind of slasher Yeah

Dien thing Did you just go into it like Let's make it look good? Well the first conversation I had with Johannes We talked about I think essentially what he said to me Was he wanted to make it It should look like a movie that can play in 3,000 theaters

It should look like a commercial movie I said, okay, great. That sort of steers me in one direction. And then the thing we very quickly sort of shared a love for, realized we both had a shared love for, was John Carpenter's movies. And I'm particularly fond of Dean Cundee's work who did a lot of the early movies of John Carpenter. So in my head, that's kind of what I was channeling when we were, you know, mapping out how we were going to shoot it and how he's going to light it. And the, you know, the thing I was really keen to do, was just to have the space be very present all the time. It was a really interesting location and an amazing set build, but it was also challenging because the location is full of glass, huge glass walls, and that can be tricky, obviously, for a crew. But instead of trying to, you know, hide that or shy away from that, we decided to lean into it because you could play with this whole thing

of someone could be two feet outside, glass at night time and you wouldn't really know unless they step close and get list and you know you've got all these amazing sort of open spaces where ben could be hiding just above the frame and you can play with attention in the widescreen frame so uh so we leaned into it um and it was definitely us channeling a little bit of john carpenter and and just sort of the you know movies from the 80s and 90s that we loved you know um just probably all derivative of john carpenter to be honest, but yeah. Yeah.

Now, the other thing, too, is, and again, I mean, this is a compliment, is it about halfway through? I was like, wait, does this, is this low budget? Like, I could, at once we weren't leaving the house.

And I mean that like, in the academic sense where I was like, wait, we're never going to leave this house? What was the budget on this? Because it, like you said, it looks, I mean, I certainly saw it in one of 3,000, but it absolutely floats as like, could have been 20 mil,

could have been five. I have no idea. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think are some of those elements to church up like, oh, and again, I don't need to know if it's like low budget or not, but to like when you have something like that where you're in one place, how do you keep it from being stale and like maintaining that high end look? I think you've got to think of it or at least the way I think of it is it's in that particular case, it's a box within a box within a box. so the guys are trapped in the pool at one point and then they're trapped in a slightly bigger box

when they get out of the pool and they're down in the cave area and then they're trapped in the bigger box which is the house on the upper floor and you really do have to play with the space because some of the other one location movies that we see you very much feel

after a while it's a kind of a gimmick and it can be clever and you know you can go wow they they worked that really well but you are aware of the restrictions of the space. And I think with this, we were keen to try and shoot every single possible angle and nook and cranny of the set on the location that we possibly could to try and eke out as much value and as much

variety from that space as possible. I think part of that comes down to the shooting anamorphic, having a 240 frame, so you can really feel that space in the corners of the frame or just above their heads and stuff about. and part of it becomes about, you know, luxuriating in the space a little bit, not being super cussy, you know, doing a little bit of what they do in the thing, you know, where they get to show you the corridors. Maybe there's nobody in the corridors, but you're just still feeling the space, you know? Yeah, you know, one thing that I, again, I'm having to remember my notes, so they're like coming

to me as we're talking. one thing that I really appreciate and I think audiences will probably appreciate is legible nighttime. Right. It wasn't just black for black. We saw at a stylized legible nighttime and I was like, we can still do this.

Yeah, I've sort of talked with this before a little bit but it's like I'm as guilty of doing the dark gloomy thing as everybody is or has been. But I definitely think that There's a lot to be said for legible nighttime is a great way to describe it. A kind of a luminous night work, you know. There's, you see it, you used to see it all the time in the 80s and 90s, and then we slipped into this sort of love of supernaturalistic lighting,

which then maybe became lighting with almost no lights, and then it became just practicals, and then it became, oh, actually we can't really see anything. So there's a fine balance. You know, you want it dark, but you don't want it too dark. I mean, I wanted the actors to look by movie stars, but I also wanted it to be scary. So it's finding that balance of sort of luminous night work that helps you see and helps you understand the story and still helps you feel afraid. Yeah.

How are you achieving that? Because at one point, I was like, right, so we've got potentially some colored light. I couldn't tell really if it was when I say I can't tell. I mean, all this is a compliment. Like, I love when I'm like, I hate when I'm in a movie. And I'm like, all right, that's, all right, there's this guy pay me. Good. You know, I want to be able to, I want it to feel real, you know, even as someone who's talked about movies forever and made some.

But like, what were your approaches to making that night led? Because at a certain point, you could almost do like a day for night and kind of achieve a similar effect with how like, you know, a lot of, I remember the light being quite hard at certain points. It's obviously got some of that blue characteristic. It was very stylized. I mean, what we're doing basically is, again, it's very simple. And part of the reason why it's simple is because there was, you know, I knew there's going to be a lot of the cast moving around. You know, we didn't have a, you had seven weeks of shoot, which is fine.

But we didn't have loads of time to shoot us. And obviously working with sort of, you know, animatronics and performer in a suits, or soaks up a certain amount of time, shooting time. So I needed a flexible lighting solution that could cover me on multiple levels. I needed something that I could implement both on the location, which is quite a tricky location from a rigging perspective, and something I could have on the studio,

so it could feel the same. So we ended up doing really simple. We just built a really, really big, huge softbox above the stage, which we could replicate to some degree on location. and the soft box became our soft night source or soft night ambience and then within the stage and on location I could have specific harder lights

if I wanted to add an edge light or a kicker or something to somebody and that kind of and an eye light so that is sort of the formula you know soft under exposed couple of stops undersposed hard kickers

and then a little eye light to catch people wherever they were going. The eye lights became a really interesting thing because, again, the house being so full of glass panels, every time you pull a light up, you're going to see the light reflected. So Sean, my gaffer, has what he calls noodles. And noodles are, there's this foam, this extruded foam that you can get over here, I'm sure you get at the States too, and you use it to wrap

scaffold tube to protect scaffold tube So it's like insulation almost Almost right And it's like it floats You know you could It's like the things you get If you're learning to swim

And it's a big you bend And you put it under your arms So it comes in multiple colors And Sean has it in white And it's the perfect The center of that is hollow And it perfectly fits in a stair tube So he has them cut to four feet

in two feet, you slide in a stereotube in and you've instantly got a tube that's covered in about like two inches or an inch and a half of soft foam. It gives you a beautiful soft light because these stereotubes are all battery powered. We could take those, we could drop them by in a couch,

we could clamp them to the ceiling, we could put them in the corners, everything. They were amazing. And we built little Corex black boxes for them so that if they were seen in a reflection, it just was a black box. You didn't see the the source. And yeah, that became the kind of main, that became our main tool for lighting close-ups

and stuff. We put them through frames if we want them even softer, but they were just super nimble, super handy. You know, if we were, if we were doing a roving shot, I could hide them behind couches, I could use them to catch someone's chin or define their eyes or catch the, you know, the hair, stuff like that. Yeah, it worked really well. Yeah, that's, man, those are stereotubes just kid. You know, it's like the tubes and the Ronin 4D are like two tools that when they came out, I was like, okay, and then

they ended up just becoming ubiquitous and the DMG dash, the Roscoe dash. Yeah, we used that very same combination. The DMGs with nipples is what I would call them, and we'd have those on the end of a boom, and we would literally, that would be kind of tracking eye like for any Steadicam stuff or things

it would, you know, we'd just swing that around. And it was a great, really great tool. Yeah. Well, and it's also rad to see such a high quality film basically use the same tools that I own. You know, like, it's, it's, it's, inspiration is one thing, but it's like, it's on me at that point. Obviously, I don't have a big ass off box in the ceiling, but, you know. What, uh, you know, before I go to that, I was going to. say at the beginning of the film i was like oh rob delaney i love rob to oh never mind yes

yeah never mind yeah i like he's such a good well it's the first 30 seconds of the film brutal the uh as effects work by the way just chef's kiss on uh a lot of those uh face sequences they did great work they did uh i mean obviously there's a fantastic you know practical effects element into the movie and there's some really fantastic visual effects elements to, you know, some hidden stuff and some augmentation. But I think everybody did an amazing job, you know, in that side of things. Yeah, it's like I said, the teen girls were. There was one.

I can't remember when it was. But at one point, I think, oh, you know what? It was the guy in the suit, first of all, monkey suit looks great. Like, I, you know, buy it. At one point, one of the teen girls behind me goes, is that real? Her friend did go, no. But like, one girl did think it was a real monkey at a point. So I was like, we win.

That's a win. I'll take it. Grace. How long did you have Delaney on that? She's probably just like a day. A day. Yeah. Yeah.

How did he just in town? I guess he does live in the UK now. You know, I don't know. I'll let you know a little secret. That was a reshoot, so I wasn't even there for that, that brief moments. Yeah. Did the original doctor get canceled? Yeah.

Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. Were there any kind of, you know, it's a simple enough film, you know, one location thing. Were there any kind of unique challenges to having to just be in one spot? Or was it kind of like, hey, we got walkaways, let's hang out. Well, I guess two locations for you, one for the movie. It's like a tricky, it was a tricky set.

Just physically it was a little tricky because, you know, the way it was designed needed to have that swimming pool and the cliff face and things like that. And so it needed to be... The most dangerous pool in the world, by the way. Yes, exactly. Like, what the fuck? No architect would do that. Yeah. It just meant that we, you know, it's open, obviously so open in that sort of.

that, you know, for us to shoot it, you know, it was a, you were traversing several levels to try and get the camera in different positions or get lights to different positions and stuff like that. So it was, you know, not without its challenges, but they were all fun challenges, you know. I think maybe the trickiest thing for me was actually, it was the monkey suit and giving that a bit of life, you know, it's, it's, I'm out to this year beforehand, but because I started off in that world and dabbled in makeup and prosthetics a long time ago. That's the reason I took the movie on because I wanted it to do a monster movie. And, you know, I'm very aware of how latex

reads on camera and silicone reads and stuff. But it's still sort of tricky to try and, you know, imbue it with a little bit of life and not have it overliss, you know, so that it reveals itself to be something that we don't want it to see, you know, but you still need to get a little bit of light in the eyes and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, we did a lot of testing on it in prep. We did a couple rounds of testing and played with the colours a little bit. And the team were amazing. So, you know, it was fun.

But it's certainly tricky, certainly challenging, you know, to try and do with that stuff. But I thought the end result was really good. So it was worth it. Yeah, it occurred to me at one point that you guys kind of had the jaws and wampa problem of like. Like, you can show it. It's a good looking prosthetic and everything. But if you show it for too long, then it doesn't read.

And I think you guys really threaded the, I guess this is a shout out to the editors, really threaded the needle of like just enough to make it scary and legible and like good, you know what we're doing, but not enough to be like, as a guy in a suit. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. It's that classic thing. It's the alien thing, you know. Alien, that was what I was amazing. And then as soon as he stands up on that last, you know, 10 minutes of movie, you're like,

And a lot of that is just proportions. And it's a similar thing with Ben, you know, there's three different, you know, masks or animatronic heads, which all have a different level of complexity in terms of the movements that it can do in its face and the expressions it has. But the trade-off to that is the more movement it can do, the more you need to stuff the head full of motors to get it to do that movement, which obviously scales everything up. So you're constantly balancing, okay, which, head we need given the size of the shot we are and, you know, when we're framing Ben and another character, you know, we have to keep an eye on how you're framing them so that it doesn't

look like, oh, actually, he's huge and she's tiny, you know, you kind of have to always preserve that proportion. And so that can be a little tricky, especially with a moving camera. But it was a constant sort of process for us to look at the shots and go, okay, actually, he He looks too big there or she's too small looking or, you know, let's change things up a little bit. So that was tricky, but, you know, it's her mantle. Yeah. When I was looking at the credits, and maybe I misread it, but was there like a performance monkey and a stunt monkey, like actors? There was a stunt performer that went in the suit for the stunts elements.

But Miguel, who's the main actor who plays Ben, was in the suit the entire time. You know, there was a certain amount of stunt work, you know, probably same proportion as any other kind of action movie. But he was doing, you know, if it wasn't a stunt, he was in the suit. If it was a stunt, we had a stunt performer. Yeah, I guess in my head, hold on, really starting to lose my voice. I guess in my head I was like, well, it's a guy in a suit.

It could just be a stunt person the whole time. it can't because the physicality of Ben is is the character and just the way he's able to, for lack of a better term, be a monkey is actually quite

quite interesting. It's like really, it's great acting for never seeing the guy's face. Yeah, he does an amazing job. You know, he really inhabited that role incredibly well physically and he sells a lot of it through his posture. You know, he studied the

the posture of chimpanzees and he he is physically unbelievable he could be standing on the table or a crutch on the table and he could jump up literally to the beam above him and grab the beam and pull himself up

you know he's pretty physically you know amazing what he's able to do but he really took a long you know or made a lot of effort to study movement and how they move and try to you know bring that to the screen you know all the time

which in that costume, you know, is tricky because it's as amazing as it is, it's still a heavy costume and he sweats like a crazy person there, you know? Yeah. You know, I, this is a wildly left field, but you're, I, there's no transition for this. I just thought of it. Your leadership in the BSC and the ISC, I,C, C, I, we, I, we, I don't really remember if we talked about it very much, but how is that... Are you going to compare me to a monkey?

Yes. It's all just, it's all easy. You know, you just go, woo, woo, and they give you an award. No. How does that manifest? Oh, my goodness. How does that manifest, you know, because I imagine, like, joining something like the BSC is like, all right, now you're in a network of your peers and stuff, and that's fun, and you get to do some stuff.

But, like, when you're, you know, I was talking to, um, uh, Ross, what's Ross's first name? BSE president at one point. Chris, Chris Ross. Chris Ross. I was talking to him and he had kind of an opinion on it. But I'd love to know your take on like what it means to you, what actually that manifests itself as. Like, um, are you teaching other cinematographer stuff at that level? Uh, am I teaching them?

I don't think so. but I think joining something like the BSE is a huge honour. It was maybe the first time that I sort of felt like I was a proper DOP and that I didn't feel like I was faking it anymore or maybe that I couldn't fake it anymore because they had recognised

that was of a particular level. It's, you know, it's, yeah, it's just, it's a really huge, you know, it's something that fills me with an awful lot of pride. I would say it's probably the highlight of my career was the BSC saying, yes, we would like you to be a member. Sort of what that does for me moving forward in terms of how the manifest say on a set or in work is that there's a certain level of confidence, extra confidence that comes with that. and there's a, you know, a recognition from crew that there's, you know, takes a lot of skill to, you know, be recognized that way, which helps. And maybe because of that extra confidence, maybe that means that I'm able to lead the floor a little better or with a calmer voice than maybe I would have done 10 years ago. But, yeah, it's just sort of little things like that. But mainly it's pride and feeling like actually maybe I'm maybe I do know what I'm doing.

Maybe, you know. Yeah, you know, it's, I hadn't really thought of that, but that's a good point about the, we're being able to work calmly because with that confidence comes. I think obviously you've been good at your job. You know, as long as I've known yet, at least. But even so. whenever you're hired to do something, there is that kind of like scarcity,

like this could be the last one, you know, and you might not trust your instincts and your instincts are what get you the next job, because that's, you know, we can all shoot a pretty picture, but none of us have, not all of us have really good, you know,

visual instincts. And so, yeah, being able to instill that confidence in you is actually pretty valuable. Yeah, I think, you know, I think, you know, I think, or maybe it was just strange, but I don't think it is,

I assumed when I was, you know, learning and reading American's a photographer and all that stuff that you think, well, all these guys are all amazing. They must know they're all amazing. And in reality, they don't. You know, a lot of them are are amazing. But a lot of, a lot of those guys, those heroes that you read about, they're just as, you know, nervous about doing a good job as you are about doing good job on whatever you're shooting. You know, and I think, you know, I think there's a, you know, there's a confidence. You know, I'm very confident when I go to work. I know what I'm doing.

I know the mechanics and all that kind of stuff. But that still doesn't mean that you aren't, you don't have some level of anxiousness about wanting to do a god. Good job. You know, I want the director to reel like this. I want the studio to like this. I want everybody to have good time and, you know, stuff like that. But I don't think that necessarily goes away, you know,

I'm not intimidated by, you know, oh, hey, it's a huge night exterior. and there's spaceships and dinosaurs, that doesn't bother me. You know, but the sort of, but making, you know, making a good movie, or at least in so far as I can control,

you know, my side of it is still, you know, I still really want to do my best work, you know, if possible, rather than just sort of, oh yeah,

you know, so I'm not worried about how I'm going to do it, but I still want it to be good. I still worry that, you know, it is good. And I want the crew around me

to have a good. have a good time doing it to, I don't think that goes away. No, and I think, I don't know if this is how you experience it, but certainly for me, it's like I will be doing something that is almost identical to something I've done before

and was, you know, that looks great, thank you so much. And then three months later, I'm doing nearly the same thing and I'm sitting there with my light meter, like, I don't know if I, I don't know if this all feels wrong. I don't, like, I'm doing the exact,

It's the exact same camera, exact same light. And I'm like, I think I fucked it up. You know? Yeah. There's just something about it. I think there's an element to that that's a sign that you care. You know, if I didn't care about stuff, I'd just be like, oh, whatever, you know. And there are those people out there that, you know, can do that or, you know, a phonity in the

and that's fine. But I think if you care about it, you know, you want it to be good every time and you don't want it just default to the thing that you do and that you do. the key light goes there and the, you know, bucket light goes there and whatever. You know, you, we're all doing variations of the same thing. You know, we're all, you know, we're all putting the big lights outside the windows and we're all switching the practicals on inside and then we're all adding diffusion. And, you know, it's all kind of the same thing.

But it's, you know, the application of that and the taste level that we apply that, you know, in each scene or in each project, you know, is what makes it different. and then us caring about it, I think, is, you know, is the bit of you that you're bringing to it, you know, as well. Yeah, you know, that makes me think, is there anything kind of non-standard that kind of, like, inspires you? Because, like, obviously, the Dolphos work on train dreams. Yes, that looked great. You know, stuff like that is kind of a move that I think all DPs go. But like for me it's like one of the weird things that'll kind of make me go like, oh, interesting is like like McDonald's commercials.

You know, just that like super stylized overlit thing. I'm always like am I could I do that? I don't know. It's it's funny. I think, you know, I think I, I think if you offered me, you know, a documentary tomorrow with an incredible subject. I think I'd be more nervous about taking that on than a 200 million Marvel movie. I think I would, you know, I look at, you know, really beautifully shot Doccos and I go, wow, I don't know how they do that. You know, I, and I think that's kind of interesting to me because I'm not sure my, I think I've figured out that my taste, my aesthetic taste level is wired a particular way.

and there's plenty of scope within that arena for me to do different things but I know you know I know the say the super beautiful docco that I could be really envious of I'm not sure I have the the right skill to pull that off I think I'd be more nervous about doing that

yeah yeah yeah well I guess too like using that as an example like I think with a documentary you kind of know that they're limited. I mean, the ones that I've shot, it's like, the one I'm going to shoot in Paris next week is like, hey, bring absolutely nothing with you.

And that can feel very, you know, naked in the sense where you're just like, okay, I know I can put them next to a window and it'll look nice, but will it? Versus, you know, like, oh, we're shooting a sci-fi movie. Here's, you know, make it look sweet. You know, I like that, you know. I know I remember we share love of all the good sci-fi films.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Very right so. Have you been watching the, I know that, what was it today or yesterday? All the Oscar stuff came out. Today, my time,

I had a quick skim through them. I wouldn't be super tuned into the award season. Award season wouldn't be my, I'm a bit cynical about that sort of things. So, you know, I glanced at it and I go, oh, okay, great. It's the five movies. I thought it was going to be,

swept them, you know. And it's great. It's fantastic. But I think a lot of the movies, you know, Oscar season is a weird thing in that, you know, I think some of the movies wouldn't be stuff that I would normally choose to go and see if not for the awards buzz around them. And something brilliant, you know.

So I'm already Supreme a few weeks ago. That's amazing. You know, Darius Conjee is working out as amazing. It's brilliant. But, yeah, I haven't, I don't, I don't really tune into the trying to avoid the noise up as if that makes sense.

Yeah, I always think as someone who's never been nominated it's easy to say on this side. But it does feel like if you're not looking at those things as like just an invitation to a fun party, like if it gets any higher than that,

you're kind of losing the plot a little. Yeah, it's, you know, I had a little taste of it last year with the BAFTA nominations. It's amazing to be thought of in that way, but it's definitely, I'd be such an antisocial, awkward person anyway, that the idea of the rapper or the parties that fills me with such anxiety. So it's not, I wouldn't be going, oh, Grace, I get to go to the Oscars again, you know.

Don't get to be wrong. If they ever want to nominate me for an Oscar, fantastic. But it's just not my scene, my world. Well, and I'm with you. I learned very late in life that I actually, do have crowd anxiety. So, like, I like going to, like, a house party with my friends, but if it's, you know, some hotel big thing, I'm like, that's scary.

Also, who do I talk to? Dude, you know what? This is completely off topic. But I'd never really looked into your background. Are those, like, giant gondoms? Oh, close. They are that side. The giant G1 Transformers, Masterpiece Transformers.

Nice, nice. Somewhere in there, there's a whole bunch of other nerdy stuff, models on that probably. Models up there, sort of Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons kind of stuff. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of nerdy stuff. A vintage Empire Strikes Back poster. Yeah, there's a lot of nerdy stuff in there. I've always wanted Revenge of the Jedi poster. I saw a Japanese one go on sale the other day.

I was very tempted. Dude, eBay's getting good now. eBay used to be sketching. Now people like, let's just use it like Amazon. And I'm here for it, but it's cool stuff. I just look at Instagram. I mean, there's too many really interesting places selling stuff on Instagram. I have to cut myself off on a regular basis because it's too much.

I've been influenced a few times recently. I saw a T-shirt and it said, it was a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro and Benicio's holding like a medello and it says one battle after another but battle is crossed out and it says small beer. Yes, great. And I was like that. Yeah, see, we're getting the same from the same algorithm. Do you paint all your own Warhammer stuff or you just collect it?

Oh, yeah. Oh, no, no, paint it. Yeah, yeah. The paintings of one bit. That's the thing. I mean, our version of that is. kind of how I ended up in the industry. It was me drawing as a kid, drawing comic books as a kid.

I'm a huge fan of comic art and building models, you know, World War II models and, you know, the Airfix model kits, which then became fantasy stuff. And, you know, this, I kind of saw a magazine, and my dad got me this magazine, which is about the making of Star Wars. And in it there was this whole section about ILM. And I could see these grown-up and making the models. models making the X-lings.

I was like, okay, I could do that. Like, it's the same thing, right? So that sort of led me on that path into, you know, eventually into the film industry. So for me, that's my downtime. That's what I do to online is I still draw or paint or make models or play board games and do all that nerdy stuff. And it's, yeah, that's my happy space. Yeah, it's one of those things that I wish I got into younger. instead I got into magic.

Not the gathering, although I did do that, but, you know, it's even cooler. It's real magic, right? It has its utility for sure, like especially like I was saying, like crowd anxiety. You can, if you give yourself something to do, like entertain people, that's,

but I am similarly drawn to like, I never played Warhammer, but the aesthetics are rad. I got one of the video games, but like I would absolutely, just sit there in paint for hours, but I know that's just a money pit. 100%. Yeah. Plastic

crack. That's like literally all of this. It's, yeah. It's, you know what, it's there's a thing with, well, certainly for me, you know, trying to become a DP and I spent years and years, you know, totally focused on that and to the exclusion of almost everything else. And, you know, what I,

what I have come to realize is since I have managed you have sort of regular work, semi-regular work, that I have more time, you know, or that I'm able to devote more time for, you know, me time. And I don't feel like I have to constantly chase for work

every single week of the year. And I am definitely a happier person and a better DP for having just some kind of outlet or some kind of hobby that's not the industry and not connected to the industry. It just helps, you know, It helps me refresh, you know, my palace and my appetite for the work.

And it just gives me something to focus on that, you know, helps me, you know, relax and also appreciate what I have. And, you know, gives me something you look forward to if I'm away for six months and, you know, looking forward to coming home, obviously. And, you know, yeah, I think it's, I think it's really important to anyone trying to be deep here, trying to be successful in this industry that they have. something other than the industry because it can be very all-consuming yeah well and also the uh i can't remember what it's called it's like the staircase effect or something you know and like you're talking maybe whatever you're having an argument and then you start walking up the staircase you're like i should just said that you know um i kind of feel like that's how at least in our field being a dp kind of works where it's like if you're constantly doing the thing you'll never have

those moments of inspiration. It's always when you're going up the staircase that you realize what you should be doing in a moment. Yeah. I should own it that way. Yeah. Or just like, not even in the moment of filming, but like, like you said, it refreshes your palate in the way other thing. You know, it's almost part of the like mental health thing that you have to do as an adult that I've been told. Yeah, it's 100%. Yeah, it's a hundred percent part of the mental health. Like certainly for me it is. I mean, and the jobs are, you know, the job is a great job. It could be really fun most of the time. Occasionally it can be really stressful. You know, it's not, it's not, it's not an industry without stress and it's not a role that doesn't, you know,

you know, come with a certain amount of stress and pressure. And I think as, schedules get a little tighter and ambition continues to grow, that pressure is not going away. So I think having an helpless is a good thing, which kind of ties back into the BSC too, because then you're doing things, you know, in my case, I'm able to, you know, help contribute to some of the, you know, the outreach stuff that the BSE does and, you know, the mentorship programs and things of that. You know, it's nice being able to contribute to that and feel like you're guiding somebody or giving them a little bit of guidance, you know, and help that maybe you didn't have,

you know, when I was starting out. So, yeah, it's all kind of good, healthy, a good healthy sort of break from the industry or from the intense work bit of the industry. Yeah. Do you find that you have to, like, maintain a level of, uh, like meditative practice as you're like you know like you said you just did back to backs how do you like is there anything that you kind of find yourself doing to um stay fresh in that or do you kind of just like have buckle in zone and then you know is it like two sides of one coin are you

able to kind of keep it going because i certainly am bad at um consistently doing anything um um i mean like a joke and say i drink a loss but, you know, maybe I shouldn't say that. But what kind of do is? I have a case of my life waiting for me. I think, you know what it is? I think if I'm, you know, if I'm going to be away and I'm, you know, let's say I do a job and it's four or five months away from home,

if it's so far away that I can't get back at the weekends, you know, I do sort of reach out wherever I'm at, wherever city I'm in and I'm like, okay, can I go find the nerdy hobbies that I'm into? Can I go find a nice movie theater that will show? 80s, 90s stuff, you know, can I go find, you know, interesting photo galleries or whatever, you know. I mean, I'll always, the first thing I do when I book a job and I know I'm in another location, I'll be like, okay, what could comic bookshops, what they got in the area? And, you know, and as silly as that my team to some people, it kind of becomes your release, you know, from that work a little bit.

and it's kind of, for me anyway, it's kind of like trying to create a little bit of whatever I have at home, whatever I've left behind, so you're trying to establish a little bit of your kind of normal. I mean, it means I'm looking at art that I like and getting inspired by Das or photography that I like or see a movie that I haven't seen projected in years and stuff like, to keep me interested and enthusiastic and excited.

you know, because it can sometimes be a bit of a grind. Like if you are doing, you know, jobs back to back, and you're like, God, I'm away, it's like month 8th and I'm away. And, you know, so you do want to kind of go, hey, remember why you're here. You know, you're working on a movie or a TV show. And you're in the industry. It's great. And, you know, you still want to be excited by what you're doing, you know,

and not be too jaded. Yeah. The, I guess to the earlier point, it, going from, job to job, you know, finding a comic book store, healthy. Finding what your new local pub is for this job, probably not as healthy. Yes, yes. That would be my first instinct. It's like, oh, I like hanging out with people.

So let's see what. I mean, if I spend the money in the comic book store, I don't have it to spend in the pub. So that's kind of how I look at it. Exactly. It's honestly, it's doctor recommended to buy more comic books. That's it. I have a bigs, I still have, I think it's like I have issue one to like two some, 250, 270 something up, spawn. That was the only one I collected as a kid.

It was the coolest art, the raddest character. And I was like that. And then people try to talk to me about like Spider-Man or whatever. I'm like, I have no idea. Al Simmons, everything. Anyone else? I only have attention for one. very good

which my one your yeah so I got into it in a big way because I would always follow the artists so I got into it in a big way

in the kind of early um very pre-image days when you had Jim Lee and Wilth Portacio and Rob Liefield and all doing X-Men books

at Marvel and it was their art that I discovered which kind of really pulled me into it. And so I was reading all of their X-Men stuff. They were across three or four different titles. And then they all moved to image. And I sort of follow them over to image and bought a lot of their books that way. But a bit, you know, a bit like with movies, you know, you start off maybe getting into it for one thing. And then someone goes, oh, have you

read like the Dark Night Returns or Watchmen? And I go, no, I haven't. And then you discover like Frank Miller or, you know, Alan Moore. And you're like, oh, wow, holy cow, this is amazing. and you go on a little spiral that way and you discover other stuff with the books on the way. So, you know, there's been a lot of, there's been a lot of, you know, artists, comic artists where I've gone,

holy cow, this stuff is amazing. And I would never have been, or I don't think I would have been a good enough artist to have, you know, been as good as them in comics. But I think I'm possibly a good enough DP to, you know, sort of be the

equivalent in the film industry. So I think I kind of think there's a correlation between what a comic penciler does with, and their relationship with a comic book writer with what a cinematographer does and their relationship with the director.

You know, in terms of the information you're given about the storytelling and then how you're interpreting it, it's very similar, you know, the dynamic. So in my head and my limited sort of headspace, I think I am, you know, the comic book penciler, but I'm just working in movies instead of in comics.

That's a great analogy. Yeah, and the, and then you have the colorist. You have the, the anchor. So it's a one-to-one analogy. That's it. You've got the colorist, yeah. Yeah. Did you, were you do, for, primate, were you doing any, uh, anything fun in the, in the

grade or was you just trying to make it look? No, it's pretty, it looks nice. Yeah, it was pretty straightforward. Dan Moran was my colourist. I've done a bunch of jobs at Dan before, and he's a great guy. And we did, so we, I got Dan involved during our prep, which was great. We built a look-up table, kept one look-up table before the movie, and that was pretty much it through the show.

You know, obviously there's a couple of small tweaks that you go along. But no, it was pretty consistently faithful to the, rushes. Dan did a lot of work in the DIY doing little tweaks around the eyes, you know, for the monkey and stuff, because what we would find is the more I, you know, if I wanted to really get light in his eyes because his eyes are so deeply set back, that his maw, you know, would be

overless or, you know, to catch the light in his eyes. So Dan would maybe darken the maw down or, you know, occasionally would have to do little sort of patch fixes because you might see the seam between, you know, where the appliance finished and where the real, you know, eyelid began. So he did a lot of really subtle stuff like that.

But on the whole, no, it's very, Dan and I tend to work in a kind of an older printer lights way. So we try and avoid using Windows and, you know, secondaries and stuff with that. Obviously, in this, you know, Dan was using Windows to sort of do the eye work. but in general we kind of fly through a pass using printer lights and keep it quite unloggy

and then just see what needs tweaking and work from there. Yeah, I kind of wish I went through the, like I learned, I went to film school and we shot on 16, but we would just get the developed film back and then straightened the final cut. I never got to learn the like printer lights workflow and I kind of, I kind of, uh, don't like that for me. Because, because, because being able to look at something and be like two points.

Like how? How do you know that? You know, it's all just taste. And I was like, I wish I was given the opportunity to develop that, uh, muscle, you know. Well, they've kind of got a sort of similar thing. You know, they're calling a printer lights in, um, and his baselight maybe, but, um, but it's, they haven't resolved, but I just don't know, like, does it behave? the same then in baseline and resolve then?

I'm going to say it doesn't behave exactly the same, but it's pretty similar. But it kind of helps me as a, you know, as a language tool, instead of it being a more or less, I could be, you know, one point more. And one point more we know is this finite amount and two points more is bisfinite amount. So as a descriptive tool, I find it more useful that way,

even if it's not 100% you know analogous to the film print workflow um but uh it's it's a really we found it really useful for being you know precise and uh delicate with the grading instead of just you know sort of having a broader crank it up kind of uh you know approach because like for myself because like i color a lot of my own stuff um you know the hDR panel in resolve is like like, they say, mirrors stops. So it's easy for me to think, like, oh, a third of a stop. But I do, I'm finding that I have to, as you're saying, I kind of simplify things like you can get way too crazy in the great.

And it's fun to do like as an exercise. But then I'll come back to something that I was goofing around with the next day. And it's like, you know, just absolutely overworked. And then you delete all the nodes and just put on your one lot. And you're like, I should have just left it like that. I think there's a lot to be said for simple. And simple, you know, we all want to sound like what we're doing is super specific to me and I'm a genius and, you know, all that kind of stuff, which is great.

But I think simple tends to be better a lot of the time. You know, simple, you know, the very, you know, the lighting on primates very simple. It's a very simple soft source in the ceiling. When we did the day work, we have a whole ring of tungsten lights for sun, you know, bacalice. there's simple tubes. You know, it's very simple. And simple tends to, you know, be very strong in a lot of cases. And the more you can simplify your approach, I think, the better,

because it usually means that you can be flexible and you can respond to change a little quicker instead of, it's, you know, oh my God, we've drafted once to go there instead of there, and now we have to change the whole thing. You know, as simple as good, I think. Yeah. Where do you draw the line for simple? Well, no, that's a case-by-case question. That's none. I was going to say like, because, you know, obviously this is a classic quote, like, you know, just use the one light bulb and that's good. But then I was going to be like, well, what about here? Like, what about this? Like, that's just, it depends on the situation. But you did. Go ahead. I was going to say, it does depend. But, you know, I made it to see you last time or someone else. But the, my day one on Atlanta was we lit it. this was an interior set. It was night time and characters traveling up the stairwells.

We added a couple of 60 watt or 40 watt photo flood light bulbs and that was it. Because that's what that set needed. That's all it needed. But there was three trucks full of equipment on the street outside. And when we went outside, we'd use loads more lights. And then two weeks later, a different location

I had two soft suns and 10, 20Ks or something crazy. But it's still, I think it's the, experience and the confidence to know that the thing I need is this. I need one light bulb or no, I need 20, 20,000, you know, looking like they're one source. And that's, but it's still, the idea of it is still for simplicity. Yeah. Simplicity in, I guess, an abstract, not necessarily an execution, one source, even if it's 50. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, which you did just remind me of one of the notes I remember writing down, which was at the front and then I guess at the end or whatever.

But you really did nail the golden hour look. That was particularly egregious almost. I was like, we're really living in this like early 2000s kind of sunlight look. It was good. It was tasty. Good, good, thanks. That was all just tungsten? Pretty much. So if you're talking about interiors,

I think the airport, I think. The airport was all tungsten, yeah, that's all tungsten. You know, loads of Dino's and Wendy's and stuff with that outside, or quarter Wendy's rather outside, and dim them down a little bit. I mean, tungsten's such a beautiful lice. You know, we, I'm, you know, I'm deep into the LED thing as well. You know, I'm using loads of LEDs like everyone else, but Tungsen is such a gorgeous lice.

When you break it out, you go, wow, everyone goes, wow, what's that light? That looks amazing. It's just, you know, they're incredibly well-engineered, you know, Tungsten light bulb. Yeah, when Moly Richardson went out of business, they had like, you know, a fire sale over here, and it took everything in my being to not just go try to buy, like,

a few 650s, like, you know. They were selling, like, pretty big lights for, almost nothing, you know, and I was like, I could afford it, but I don't need it. No one in my line of work is asking for it. And nine times out of ten, I'm doing interviews, which it would look great on, obviously. But it's like, I'm at a house, right? I will blow a circuit without, you know, doing my LED workflow of, and it goes, and then flick something.

I'll go, oh, that's why we have electricians. I should not do that. I shouldn't have out of that last mill beam. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was great seeing you again, man. I'm sorry. Good to chat.

My throat was absconding from me halfway through, but I will go now, attempt to fix that and then go talk to Ed. Ask really hard questions of Ed. Yes, I'm going to. Do you have any questions for Ed? I should ask that. What's the hardest question I could think for Ed? Ask him to tell you about his 4D. He loves the 4D.

you know what he already did twice we're probably gonna do it again he was it's great because like he was I think it was because I was I was talking to Goldschmidt and she was saying how she used the 4D on on last of us and I was telling Ed that because I knew he had one

and he just lit up like a Christmas tree it's so good he's a fun time all right man well I'll let you go and thanks for taking the No worries. Cheers. Take care. Bye, bye. Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny McBillen.

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