Frame & Reference Podcast - 239: "Shrinking" Cinematographer John Brawley, ACS

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

John's back! All the way back in Season 1 he graced us with his time and expertise and today we're pleased to have him back to talk about his work on Season 3 of "Shrinking".Enjoy!�� ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this episode 239 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, John Brawley, ACS, DP of Shrinking. Enjoy. Have you been since the show? You've been busy. You did the morning show. You did shrinking. Yeah.

I've done a couple of films with Pete Farrelly. I did one called, that's just about to drop actually with Mark Wahlberg and Paul, Alterhausen called Bowles Up as well that was shot in Australia and Brazil and I did a film also with Pete called Ricky Stenickey with John Siener and William H. Macy

that was fun and yeah I've just been doing some shows I did a show called Scarpetta which is Nicole Kidman, Jamie LeCodeus Simon Baker that was in Nashville and that's on air at the moment so it's it's I'm a little

bit embarrassed because, yeah, I've been very lucky to be working when a lot of people have not been working, especially, you know, particularly qualified people. It's just been really awkward, but I've been very lucky and I've had had a chance to still continue to keep working. Yeah. Do you, I mean, it's insane to try to analyze it. But would you, to your point about people being accomplished or competent, do you think some of that has to do with your, sunny disposition. No, I think it's because I'm lucky enough. I just got lucky because a lot of cinematographers,

you know, we're all artists. We work at the discretion of others. And I think there's a certain tier of producers or directors that also are not working. Therefore, they're not hiring their crew that they normally work with. So I just got very lucky with the people that I'm working with regularly that I'm returning with.

So, you know, as I mentioned, I did two Peter Fowlerly films. I've done a couple of shows with Duzer, you know, Bill Lawrence's company. And that's kind of kept me busy, really, which has been great. Yeah. No, that's actually a great point. I mean, a buddy, I feel like I've mentioned this too many times on the show, but a buddy of mine was a documentary director. And he had me film a producer. It's kind of like a small team.

But they had me film one thing that ended up being a feature. and then that feature was in post and they just kept bringing me on to stuff. And it's exactly what you're saying. I didn't know that we were, I didn't know I was still invited. I thought that, you know,

they're like, you're fit for this and then we're going to go get better people because they've worked with better people before. Yeah. No, I mean, that's the thing people, you have a little network of people

that employ you or engage you for work. And yeah, it's just, I'm very lucky that the people that I get to work with are working. You know, it's kind of really as simple as that. And I think there's a lot of super qualified, way more qualified people than I am that are not working right now in L.A. where I'm based. And it's simply because the people that they work with are also not working.

So the people that would engage them. So, you know, it's just those kind of, you know, this has always been a relationship business. And it's just, I got lucky with the way the cards fell. And I'm sure at any point, I'm expecting it to reverse and flip. and, you know, for it to not be like that. So I just am grateful for that I get to do it. Yeah. I feel lucky because I never was successful enough to build a lifestyle

that I couldn't maintain with minimal income. You know? When the work started to slip away, I was like, well, it's not great. But I don't have to sell my house, God forbid. Yeah. It's one of those kind of freelance lifestyle choices that we all make, right? when we choose to live this lifestyle, live in the circus. You know, it's funny for those same documentary people.

They were shooting, this is going to relate to you, I swear. They were shooting Venice, and then I was second unit. And so I kept renting my buddies FX-Steine. And then eventually an F-55 rolled around for dirt cheap. And I was like, oh, would that be better? And Post was like, yes, absolutely. And I was like, all right, cool. so I wouldn't got it and I'm like looking up

you know it's been 10 15 years whatever since that camera came out so I'm like looking up and I found your WordPress on the various F55 stuff it's quite helpful I still like that it certainly slow and annoying but I think it was ahead of his time

and you know Sony I think they've done better obviously with Venice they've always struggled to kind of cross over into narrative drama as well but They've definitely been trying hard and that camera was kind of, you know,

ticked a lot of boxes for sure for a certain period of time. And there's a lot of great shows that were shot with it as well, by the way. Yeah, I still, the other day I was at a, well, it was an event, but the Steadicam op had one. I was like, really?

That's maybe just for the global shutter or whatever. But I feel like especially after the updates, that camera like, like you're saying, it's ahead of its time and then, you know, time caught up. So maybe it's not a 10-year-old camera. maybe it's a five-year-old camera or something. Yeah.

I think there's always this idea of the new, whatever's new and latest and greatest, but, you know, we're so lucky now that the tools are so outstanding. You know, you can make great pictures with almost anything now. And actually, the degrees of difference that you're getting into are really kind of small. It becomes then about workflow and, you know, the way that you can use that physically in the field,

the way you can accessorize those kind of issues of the things that they're driving those choices now. The sheer kind of technical image quality and dynamic range, all that stuff is kind of pretty equivalent now with most of these cameras. Yeah. Well, and I know you've been an advocate for the black magic stuff for the longest time.

And I was actually interested in knowing how you, what the conversation was with the shrinking people to shoot it on black magic. Because, like you said, they're all, I mean, they're all great, right? But you don't normally see an ERSA Cini on TV shows or features as people's first choice. And, you know, like you said, it's often workflow thing. You know, the AC knows how to use an Alexa. The post is used to getting those prores file.

Like, let's not rock the boat. Yeah. But what was that conversation like for you? Yeah, I mean, look, you say advocate for BlackBeng, I've always just appreciated the unique look. that the camera has and the form factor and it's very adaptable you know but I did particularly

I've always particularly like the smaller size of bare cameras for the the style of operating I like to do and that means as a cinematographer yeah I like to operate like a lot of Australian DPs we all come up operating our own A camera a lot of the time so you know as a

as an operator I actually have a a way I like to operate that embraces it is great the way that camera can be built. And so that's kind of where it started, you know, for me, why I continued to sort of use them indiscriminately alongside other cameras. But eventually, Black Magic caught up and addressed a lot of the niggling issues, which go back to that conversation about accessibility and workflows on set and working with a kind of crew. And they made, they hit it out of

park with that, with that camera. So the 12KLF camera, you know, it has a lot of, addressed a lot issues that, you know, the focus pullers and the other people that have to work with that camera on set would annoy me with when I would, you know, bring this camera in and they would sort of indulge me and let me use it. But, you know, it was a pain in the ass. And now it's actually very useful. And I think it'd be really interesting that you go and ask the crew that have worked with that camera now. There's been a few shows that have happened since we did it first on shrinking season three about what they think about the camera. Because it actually changed a lot of people's minds about it.

And there's lots of things that I could go into technically. But essentially, I really like the look of the camera. I actually think the resolution of that sensor, it's a sort of giant number, but I think it's kind of a misleading number because in a way, the way I think of it is if you have more data points, the kind of infrastructure of the sensor disappears. So yes, you have more resolution, but what it actually means is you've just got more information to work with. And you're super-suit, super-sampling that resolution back down. What we ended up doing for this show, and I'm talking backwards a little bit now,

but we had to get the Kodak approved by Warner Brothers that they had to be happy. And this is on the archival side of things, not so much the production side of things, but they had to be comfortable with the Kodak and, you know, make sure that they were happy to sort of store it. So there was some investigation between season two and three. Because I had a prototype in secret of that camera, and I used it a bit on season two. And we started talking to Warner Brothers about getting the codec cleared, basically. And Black Magic, to their credit, you know, they made a codec that's kind of open that,

in other words, if Black Magic went bust tomorrow, you know, 20 years from now, they could still work out how to open these B-Raw files. that you didn't require ongoing support. And they were very smart in the way they've designed that code. And it certainly is the case that you don't need Blackmagic around now to be able to open those files for the rest of time. It's already kind of open source and out there and exist. So it's easy to decode and open those files.

That was a pretty big step that we had to get past. So once we got that approval, I guess, that meant that we could use it. The post people at Dozer here, so Dozer, you know, Bill Lawrence's company. So he does, you know, Ted Lassau. He does shrinking, which is a show I've been doing. Bad Monkey, another show I've been doing. Scrubs, they're currently doing.

There's another show called Rooster, which also used the Black Magic camera, the 17-K. So they have a lot of shows going. Their post department are very forward thinking, and they really like adapting to other technology. And originally when we first looked at the camera, we were really interested in some of the wireless capabilities it has. So, for example, you know, in theory, you could stream your files as you shoot.

They could be kind of uploading direct to post. In other words, your media on the camera kind becomes the backup because the post already have those files. And so we did quite a lot of testing. And in the end, it wasn't really the camera's fault that actually it was the Wi-Fi infrastructure, was a bottleneck at the studio. It's just getting a bit complicated to kind of keep that going at the data rates that needed to go. But especially that was one reason we decided to try this camera to see if we could get this offloading near real time streaming essentially, not proxies,

but actual camera original files to post direct, just to kind of truncate some of that download time that you have at the end of the day and get files to post a little bit quicker. The resolution definitely helps even, because it's a comedy, And I don't want to sort of spill too many secrets, but the editorial style of the show means that a lot of takes are kind of

composites of multiple takes, just for comic timing or for matching things because they improv a lot, but they try things out. And sometimes things don't exactly match. And the extra resolution of the camera means it's just a bit easier to make some of those more transitions more seamless. So, you know, we like that. I actually just like the look of the camera too.

tested a lot in terms of the third season. We're developing the look, you know, the arc of the show is kind of interesting because it has a kind of very grounded, naturalistic feel. And it's a kind of strange compromise. It's like, it's not, you sort of want that the power of drama, but it's got the kind of pace of a sitcom, really, in terms of the timing of the way things go. So we sort of wanted to make sure that this third season, the first season was about griefed, you know, Jimmy is in a very dark and deep place.

Second season is kind of about forgiveness. And the third season is really about moving on. So there's a kind of more aspirational tone to this season anyway. So we wanted to have a kind of, you know, visually more inspiring or brighter or hopeful feel for this season. So it kind of fit in well with those choices as well. And for me, because I often use black magics alongside other. cameras, it was a chance to actually just not have to worry about trying to make a camera match to another camera.

It could just look good on its own terms. And I think it really does. You know, I really had all the great feedback for this season on how it looks and for the process. And as I say, you know, it was surprisingly simple. I think we got some of the first production cameras that came out of the factory. And I think we really only ever had a problem with one of those cameras that kind of you know, had to be addressed, but, but it was such a small thing anyway. And, you know, we, we had, I think we had five or six bodies in total. We actually took the same five or

six bodies onto the next show. So I just finished Bad Monkey season two, same bodies that were used for shrinking. And they're fine. You know, they've stood up to hundreds of days and of abuse from a, from the crew. And they've been working great in all sorts of conditions. Yeah. When, you know, you mentioned the, the sort of theme. of each season. The first season was who shot at Jim Frona. That's right, yes.

So he had grief. Yeah. And you were given forgiveness and moving on. Yeah. Did the visual look change appreciably between those three seasons? Yeah, absolutely. And especially when you had control of it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, by virtue of the fact you have another cinematographer, of course it changes anyway. But I've always felt that, you know, what's the analogy? You often, if you have a restaurant that you like going to, they often have a favorite, you might have a favorite meal that you always enjoy,

that you always go back to that restaurant for. And for me, television is like that. You know, you want to go and get that lasagna that you always like, that's always made. If a different chef comes in and messes with that or suddenly says, hey, we're going to do burritos tonight, it messes with you, right? So, you know, feature films is, that's one of the big differences for me between feature films and television is you actually want to be consistent a little bit

with what you're doing. But where you can change things is as the seasons change, so does the menu. So when you have an art in the season that is evolving like it does with shrinking, you know, that gives you license then to make some changes. So that meant I could change the lens package. I can change the camera package. You know, you still want to be consistent about some of the ways that you do things, but you don't want to kind of totally change the restaurants.

menu either. Like he still want to keep the same things. You're just trying to kind of supplement it or make it a bit more interesting or adapt to the seasonality of what you're doing. So yeah, for me, forgiveness this third season, sorry, moving on this, this third season, you know, because originally the, I think originally originally that when they first did the first season, they only intended for three seasons to happen. And so I think originally the idea was that, you know, Harrison's character, Paul would probably have, you know, there'd be some kind of. end of arc that would happen, which now, if you've watched the third season, it's a bit more open-ended, you know, because there probably will be a fourth season. It's almost certain. So that's changed a little bit, but still having this idea of moving on, you know, post-forgiveness, it still creates these kind of great moments of drama, but you have a little bit more of an open door on like aspirational hope or, you know, some sense that the future is a bit something.

here, you know, in a kind of literal sense. So we kind of get to have that look evolved over time. And I'm sure for the fourth season, should it come to be, there'll be another overarching theme. And that'll give us a kind of starting point for making those choices. So I've always felt very comfortable between different seasons of shows, making those changes. Because I think as long as you have an intention behind it and an idea,

you can still be original to kind of the content, because you're usually having the same writers, you have the same actors, but you get a chance to kind of revisit your choices and let them, you know, grow a little bit. Yeah. How did those look discussions manifest in a technical sense? Like, was there, did it come down to like, we're going to shoot this warmer and softer? Or, you know, we're getting rid of the top, like, you know, whatever maybe.

Or was it more just like your emotional role? Honestly, one of the choices was like, you know, having the, using these cameras. is that kind of gives us a different look. Having the grade, yes, to definitely be leaning towards the warmer tones, a bit more brighter, a bit less. Although there's contrast, there's a little bit more, there's less darkness and mood in the frame

because the shackles have been kind of set cut free from previous seasons. So we've earned that a little bit. There's still a few shocks for people and still some kind of darker moments in the show for sure. And we get to sort of see both. those. And that's the great thing about shrinking too is that, as I said, it's kind of got this strange hybrid between a drama and a sitcom where you have these kind of absurd comic

moments and then, you know, you're dealing with the unexpected death of somebody or other characters that are in there or other very dark places of trauma, which is, you know, because the show is, of course, about therapists dealing with trauma. They're both their own and their and their clients. So, you know, you have these great kind of whiplash moments and it's really fun to kind of play with those and have those go. So it's kind of a combination of lots of things. Yes, the look changes because you've got different cameras, you've got different lenses. We have a different intention. We designed a different lot for this season that was a little bit warmer and a little bit more open as well. So, you know, all of those little choices

kind of add up to that overall end result. Yeah. You know, for the lenses, you had what, detune panace speeds for the second season? That's correct, yeah. So this season we went with Zeiss Supremes, and I think they're a great match for the Black Magic, right? Because they're very kind of clean. They're still very pretty, but they're geometrically, very straight and nice lenses. And that was a little bit of a nod to the camera having a bit more resolution.

I think sometimes, too, with some other older lenses, even though they have a great look when you have the extra data points of this camera, sometimes they show up in a way that isn't quite as nice. you know, I think less resolution means you get a kind of a different aesthetic anyway. So, and actually I think the Supremes are a really good pairing for this sensor because it's, even though they kind of, they don't seem very clinical. They still seem very nice and sharp without being too revealing. Yeah.

You know, I hadn't really thought of that that like, because I've always been kind of an advocate of larger sense. I just had to accept that I'm a, like, bigger sense. There's no reason. I just like them. But part of that is being able to see, especially like Super 35 lenses that can cover. You know,

sometimes you get some interesting wild shit out in the outsides, you know? Yes. But it didn't occur to me that like if you've got a 17K or whatever, maybe you're seeing too much of the character of the lens. And now it's just like an aberration and not a character, you know. Yeah, that's right. It really is interesting if you spend some time with this camera. at, you know, looking at it with both this 12K and the 17K.

And I encourage you to go and talk to Blake McClure. So he used the DP on Rooster, which was the Steve Correll HBO show that's shot with the 17K. And he, because it's a sister show in the dozer world, he came over at the beginning of his show where when I was doing shrinking, he was very interested in there. He loves larger senses as well. So of course, that's 17K.

has the bigger sensor. And he went for a totally different look. You know, he got to, I think, he ended up with some older Canon, sort of K-35 FD-EUra lenses that were detuned specifically, that were rehoused that made a little bit more camera-friendly. And they had a little optical extra added to make sure that they could barely cover the sensor.

And again, you know, you get a lot of those aberrations that come in with that. And I think, you know, he really leaned into it. So I think it also comes to a little bit of a choice and trying things out. But I think he also, like myself, was very surprised at how well and seamlessly it all went. And again, because we'd already trained the do-siverse post-production people to, you know, deal with the codec and the workload. They were very comfortable dealing with that as well.

I know that HBO had to sign off on it as well. And they were, again, in the end, once it all kind of when you. you all sit down and kind of go through it all. They were all fine with it as well. So, and it went very well. And I believe the shows, shows doing well too. Yeah. I think he, I might have an email.

And I'm bad at, uh, the PR people listening will know this about me. I don't, I don't respond to every single email I get immediately because I've learned, I used to do that. And then I would have 45 interviews like in one week. Yeah. And then they'd be like, where is my client? I'm like, it's next year. I don't know. So I've had to like start like really drip feeding the response. Yeah, I think I think he might be in there. You should have a chat to him because,

you know, he was a lot more. You know, he came from like never, also like the, you know, common belief within industry because people have obviously had some mixed reactions and experiences working with this particular technology platform and brand. You know, he was a little bit skeptical. But I think he saw how we were using them on shrinking. And I think he was pretty impressed and that kind of gave him the confidence to take a risk and try it out. And I think like we found we're shrinking. And actually that platform is it's a very solid camera and it worked really reliably. And he got some great results with it.

Yeah. I got to try the 12K once. And I love the look. I mean, the color depth is crazy. Yeah. The. my issue with it was that I tend to be traveling and handheld

and it is quite large for that specific thing but then they made that mini 12 that's right they made that Pixis which we used a little bit as well and that's quite a capable camera too and that's a good sort of companion sister camera and again for me like I like having going back to being able I just have one camera in the ecosystem whereas for many years because of my

desire to have a small camera with the smaller footprint black magic cameras that it's always meant that I've been sort of juggling multiple looks and codex and trying to make them match and now it's a little bit easier because they're all in the same kind of ecosystem and family as well yeah you know for the show obviously I think maybe we talked about this five years ago whenever it was but uh you've got you've got people of a certain vintage on the show. But I think, I don't know if it's the technology or your skill or some combination in between. But I think older shows, not yours, but generally, you'll get seasoned actors and they seem to have been hit with every trick in the book.

And you're like, this looks like Face Tune. What are you doing? Yeah. And this show looks very. transparent, you know, like when we talk about like a transparent compressor on music, you know, if that makes any sense. Yeah. Talk to me about how you're lighting some of these characters and, and. Look, you're totally nailing it like with that phrase transparent. The idea really is for us to not look like we've tried very hard.

I mean, that's really the goal because the show's aesthetic is grounded and naturalistic as well. So as soon as you, you know, try a bit too much or try to do something to be kinder to specific actors or faces, it really stands out. So you can't really go too far with that. And if you're doing anything, it has to be very subtle and nuanced. And that's, again, having that extra. This sounds contrary to what you would think, but having extra resolution helps because you can then do a lot more, very fine adjusting. of the detail in post as well. So that meant that rather than using any diffusion in camera,

I worked with the colourist to in Resolve. They've got some great new tools that you're going to be seeing soon where you can do some really subtle adjustments and it doesn't look like you've overworked the image. And that's always the thing for me. It's like you get this kind of very plasticy, like you say, face tune kind of feel. And as long as you've lit it with the right,

in the right direction, you can use post to kind of uplift what you've already sort of laid the groundwork for. So one of the most important things for me was to, you know, obviously we do take care of our cast and we do need them to, you know, look great in a way that looks kind of casual and nonchalant and like we didn't really try that hard. But actually, there's quite a lot of work that goes into looking like we didn't try it. That's the trick of it, right? It's like fashion. Yeah. So, you know, for this show, I've been working a lot with the, with the gaffer with all my gafer and beef, my key grip. And we've got a few like custom.

It's been great actually working here at Water Brothers because they have a custom shop where we can manufacture some rigs and some fabrics. And so we made a couple of little custom devices that work with our sets and let us kind of just shape the light in a way that's very fast, it's very minimal. You know, we have a model too where, Because it's comedy, we cross-shoot almost all the time because these actors are so good and the timing is so critical to what we do.

So we almost start off with a trying to start off with cross-shooting, which normally, for most of photographers, is verboten, but we actually try to embrace it. We kind of start with that. And in fact, we often start with shooting closer coverage. We leave the wide shots off until last. We try and start with the mediums or even the close-ups. and then let them have more takes, you know, let them try things out, try and keep all the lighting off the floor. So it tends to limit us in some ways because it means, you know, we can't always put the lights where we want to. But we've gotten very good at using really a lot of the smaller LED lights and with some custom fabrics and rigs to kind of put them into the set.

it's made a lot easier now to achieve that kind of lighting to get at least going in the right direction and then in post we can kind of help that out if we do to do a little bit more. Yeah, that makes total sense with the resolution thing because then you can't do frequency separation if there's no high frequency. If you're just pushing together.

You just said the exact right word. So yeah, so when you have a lot of resolution to play with, it actually helps you a lot because then you can dial in where you want it to see it. overall as well. It's not just for beauty work, but it's just in an overall sense. More data points.

That's how I keep thinking about people get lost with the 12K or 17K number, but it's just more data points. There's more points of color reference. There's more points of information reference that you can choose to use or not, but it all kind of goes into the bag and it just lets you start from a better position

and you can kind of choose what you have and what you use. Yeah. Can you describe what those custom rigs you're making are because I love when people make like I try to do it myself but just like when you especially if you can repurpose things that always makes me excited but

yeah I mean we end up calling this thing a hot pocket it's basically a piece of magic cloth which is normally the front surface of you know sort of soft ags and those kind of things so it's a magic cloth and then it's backed with some ultra bounce in one side

or some blacken the way you fold it or envelop it, you can either use it to, you know, hang on a light. And if you use the ultra-bounce side, that means that the light is not going straight down, for example. You can give it some directionality. And just using really simple rigs with either magnets or just simply stapling the rag into the ceiling piece, the set pieces. We've got some little pieces of wood that can kind of go in there.

And it's very, like, simple stuff with fabrics. It's just kind of made to a custom, a couple of different custom sizes of shapes. and just simply by how you fold it because it's stitched together so you can sort of fold it one way or fold the flap the other way. And then that way you can kind of custom design which way the light kind of goes once you get the live mounted, say, in the ceiling. And all of these, you know, nice, better color LEDs that are coming through now. I've always been very like against LEDs than the last couple of years they really have come a long way. I used to just stick with tungsten as much as I could because I just prefer how it looks and the beauty of it. having full spectrum lighting,

but now that the new sort of six-color LEDs are going really, really good. Yeah. So you're saying that those little, the hot pocket is like, it's a bounce into magic cloth, or sorry, into ultra bounce and then through magic cloth.

It's kind of like a mini, that's right. So you're making like a little mini booklight, but you're doing it in the ceiling and you're doing it horizontally. So you could have a light pointing this way, going into an ultra bounce this way, and then there's a rag,

of magic on this side. So it's bouncing in here coming out this way. And it's all in a very three inch deep size that can kind of be set. And you can easily set a couple of teasers using either just your black, you know, wrap cinnifoyle or those kind of things, little baffles and things like that. It's very easy. We did play around a little bit with the mirror, you know, the CLRS system, which is those little mirrors and so on. And they can work pretty well too. one of the things I find with them though is that they're very dependent on the set being very solid because as soon as the set moves a little bit, you could find sometimes the lights can move a little bit. So I always thought I could do more with those, but I do find out I struggle with those.

So yeah, I tend to use just little kind of custom rigs like the ones we just talked about, which are sort of informally like Hot Pockets we call them. But yeah, yeah, I love those. And my grip beef has built a couple of little custom rigs out of bone core and some, you know, scoring. And again, a bit of magic cloth where we can sort of put in little highlights next to camera and so on. And I always love building those kind of things. And the great thing about this crew is that, you know, you just sort of casually think out loud, it would be good if we had a blah, blah, and then, you know, two days later, it's like, hey, we built this thing for you.

you know, and it's always fun to but try those things out. Yeah. When is the last time you did a like studio, I mean like physically being on a studio show? Was it, it must have been the studio. The studio. What do you mean? No, no, sorry. What was the other show you did?

Morning show. Morning show. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that, that was a great show. I mean, it was also a middle of COVID time. So it was kind of, there's some strange things about that.

But I really enjoyed working on that. And I came in on the second season. So they'd already established how the TV studio part of it worked. And essentially they mirrored a whole, they had a whole crew. And in fact, all of the camera operators are all 600. Real broadcast TV. No, they're not like background extras. They're all on the payroll as camera operators.

So it's an expensive day when they would do those days. and then they had a mirrored behind the scenes, a mirrored kind of desk with another director who was calling all the shots, because that was the only way to do it is to make the show as a real show and then be outside of that and filming that as it was happening.

So that was a kind of a really great thing. Interestingly, too, they used all black magic cameras for that as well back in the day. It was just an easier package for them to do so the cameras and the desks and all of those kind of, all that equipment that that,

They make the show with his old black magic as well. Yeah. Well, I was just thinking with, because you're talking about WB having their own little like fabrication lab. Oh, yeah. It's, you know, I also live in L.A. And it's been heartening to see that like a lot more. It feels like the stages are starting to get filled again. Because that infrastructure that comes with the stages is phenomenal.

Yeah, that's what's been great for me. You know, as coming as an outsider, obviously coming up in Australia, we don't really have stages, not to the same degree, and the decades of institutional experience. I mean, sometimes it's kind of frustrating with the bureaucracy that they have here, but it's actually great having this kind of infrastructure that's all designed for you to, at a whim, get something built or turned up or made and fabricated for you. And I really, it makes me very happy to kind of walk these stages and see that they've been here for 100 years.

A lot of them have those plaques on the door and say what they've done. and there's a giant machine shop over the road and there's, you know, a whole Greens department that just does the plan. So, you know, that kind of level of excellence is that you only get that when you have this kind of scale of production.

So I really do. I'm very fearful of what happens in the future. I hope this stays because it's such a great tool for us to use as filmmakers. Yeah. I've been waffling on that, but I do think that my brain, if, you know, just using people's fear of AI as an example, like, those companies are losing like

$15 million a day. I don't think, you know, no film studio is losing that kind of money every day. So I don't think, you know, once the VC money runs out, I think we're probably back on board. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think they'll still be, you know, unfortunately, what's probably going to happen is a lot of that middle ground, you know, the people making pizza commercials or whatever, that kind of stuff might go away. But I think at the very top and the very bottom, truly innovative, original storytelling is always going to feel better and track better with an audience than

AI, you know, generated content. But in terms of pure AI from a storytelling point of view, because the best it could be is an emulation of what we do anyway. So having an original idea, if you need to be able to type in a prompt, you know, to make it, look like, you know, Darius Klonji's work. They have to be a Darius Klonji to start with. So you can't, you know, emulate something that hasn't already gone before. And so rather egotistically, I always think, well, someone's got to train the AI in newer things.

So hopefully I can be in that tier of making original images because it constantly needs to be fed new content and new sources. Otherwise, it just kind of kindergarten equivalent of when you mix all the paints, it all just turns brown. So you got to kind of still keep driving it. So I hope that for original image makers, people that have original ideas from a storytelling, that that'll still survive, I think.

I think it will. And also, like, if you look at, you know, like the current discourse, I guess you'd say, around Project Tell Mary, like, I've seen plenty of videos of people going like, and this is why I think people don't want to watch AI generated. I'm not against AI as a tool, you know, like what it's the research tools are better than Google at this point but like yeah generative AI but uh you know they'll be like look they they did that whole star field for real and then they'll show like 15 cg generated

clips and then the one clip of of Ryan in that like chicken wire thing and it's like yeah the audience does want to see even they'll even ignore their eyeballs if they can prove that it was made by real hands yeah you know people want to see people other people, humans make something. That's right. The children, you're in full. Part of the experience. Exactly, exactly.

I think you're right. You know, people, and that's where that kind of connectivity comes to human to human, you know, that we always want to be engaged in that way. And I think there's definitely a difference. And you're right. You know, AI is great for pre at the moment. You know, it's great for visualizing ideas or pre-production planning and doing the legwork of some of these kind of more.

tedious tasks when you're doing research or coming up with tools. But I think it's a great tool that supports us as artists. I think that's the challenge versus artists, how to use them and incorporate it into our workflows. Yeah, like magic mask. That's amazing. Exactly. The depth map tool, I use that all the time. Yeah, I mean, those kind of tools are great. And I think that's, that kind of work is only going to become easier that, you know, and there's nothing that you couldn't do before if you spend a lot money by doing it by hand with the effects, it's just going to become more of a slider that you can add into your tools, which is great. It puts it in hands with everyone. Yeah. You know, I, uh, of course

I have a Harrison Ford question, but it's not, yes, to, uh, you know, fanboyish. But I, I always wonder when, you know, the DP and the actors are often in conversation a lot, especially camera operators in conversation a lot. And especially when you get someone with that storied of a career, I imagine that you learned something from them that you didn't, that isn't like a, hey, but you should put that over there necessarily, maybe it is. But I was wondering if there's anything that you learn from Harrison or that you were like, you know what, that's that's going with me to the next project. Yeah. I mean, look, I had the greatest respect for him. Like, obviously he's an icon anyway. And getting to work with him,

realize that he it's not by accident he is a great craftsperson you know he really understands camera and he really understands what camera is doing so i have a little ritual that i like to do as as a as a deep end i usually go around and tell the actors between each setup hey we're setting up this next setup this is going to be a close up here and then when you get over to the door and you do that look that i saw you do in the rehearsal there's going to be a camera there for that and he he He likes the brand of being a curmudgeon. He pretends, I don't want to know about that. Then he actually, he listens to everything and he knows it because sometimes he'll be,

hey, I'm not going to do that this time. I think I've made a choice about the acting to do it. And he's one of the rare actors who, a lot of actors are like just grateful to have to know what the show is. He actually turns it into a conversation. He's like, what if I do it over here? Will you still see me for that? and he's kind of tracking it all whilst pretending to be a grumpy old man.

And so, you know, that's really his, and maybe it's just a years of experience, but he certainly is aware of his presence and what he can do with a camera and where he can kind of land those moments. And it just really is a joy to kind of continue to see him do that and be funny while he's doing it as well, which, you know, I don't think we've had a lot of chances to see him, you know, play a kind of humorous role. I think he's having a great time. It's really fun to be a part of that.

Yeah, I do think his, you know, not that I'm constantly looking up footage of him, but he'll pop up on, you know, interview, late night shows or whatever. And whenever they don't just, you know, earbeat him with questions, it's like, he is funny. Like, I think the curmudgeon thing is just,

he knows that's the funniest way to get a joke out because he knows what he looks like, you know? Yes, yeah. That makes him a good actor. He's very aware. He's a great, he really is a great actor. And when I say actor, I mean, from a craft point of view, like just knowing where it would be. And that kind of goes back to that answering that question.

Really, you know, it's great to see that kind of skill level. And it makes you want to raise your own game as well, right, to be able to match and to capture everything that he could do or set that he can then, you know, pay off in some way. So it's much more of a conversation with him as an after on set. And I really appreciate that as a cinematographer that he really wants to make it work. and for all departments as well whether it's wardrobe or or camera or whichever for sound even as well

he's very like he's very much a collaborator in that regard and he's very aware of what he's doing yeah is there anything from Segal's side of things that's been educational because he's done I mean he's not been around as long but he's certainly done tons of work

yeah look Jason is wonderful to work with because you know as the kind of show's main kind of lead protagonist in terms of all of the fucked up things that happened to him, you know, he is a great dumpster fire to watch as it kind of goes down because the show is about, you know,

literally putting your foot in your mouth or doing those kind of dumb things, as well as going through those kind of deeply traumatic. And that's, of course, the driving reason that you go through those things. You know, and he is a great, also a great capital A actor because he also knows that the show, even though it's funny, you can't go into it trying to be funny.

You know, he's got to play it for real. And he has a more absurd journey really to kind of go through to get there to make it believable and plausible. And what I love about Jason is that, you know, he knows when scenes are really important. And in fact, we have a little shorthand with each other. He likes sometimes when I, if it's just operating, if it's just me, we've had some moments where he's been in despair. and he's actually asked that it's just me with a camera and nobody else kind of camera us out, one, you know, boom swinger and we'll just do it. And kind of we make the room go silent.

We tell us, send everyone away and we just kind of keep it very small, low key. And he really likes collaborating in that way. So, you know, we have a great relationship in that regard. And I really enjoy getting to do those kind of moments with it because then it makes the other ridiculous moments, you know, can kind of play because you've sort of got both, both sides. are the coin it. Yeah. You know, that kind of makes me think, like, with the themes of the show, does that,

has that changed the, um, not behavior, but the sort of day-to-day interactions with the crew? Like, if you're talking about therapy all the time, do you suddenly start therapyizing in your general discussions? Yeah, for sure. It's really funny the way it happens. So Bill, he's a savant, really, with he's the way he writes, show and the way the rest of the writers bring things to the show.

They, a lot of, especially with what Paul is saying, he's very much based on a real, you know, iconic figure in therapy. And a lot of the verbiage that he uses is direct lifts of therapy ideas. I even, like there was a recent episode where he's talking about using this idea called the field. And I'm like, this is Harrison Ford. He's talking about the horse here, right? Because he's talking about using the field and having the field show you what to do. and it was such a kind of strange double up of different universes there.

But anyway, so a lot of that is the real therapeutic ideas. And the funny thing is that in there amongst the crew, now that we're into season three, maybe four, I had a Dolly Grip who's like, you cliche of a like, you know, total never going to go to therapy. Like, you know, by the end of the Thursday, he's like, you know, actually I'm started looking up there. So they get this idea that maybe.

they should like talk about it, even though the way we represent therapy is completely against probably most hipper codes and I'm completely unethical and I know most therapists that watch it are kind of like slapping their foreheads going no, no, no, no.

But obviously that's where the funny comes from in these kind of transgressions of what typical therapy should be. But at least it kind of creates and normalizes what, you know, going to therapy could be and should be. And it also shows that therapists themselves are not, you know, I think a lot of people that maybe haven't done therapy before realize or think that their therapists are kind of be holier than thou. They're just humans as well.

And having done through the same problems that we go through as well. May have suffered the same kind of anxieties and fears. And I think it really does a great job of representing that as well. And I think it kind of normalizes, you know, doing therapy and kind of making those kind of choices to go and seek help when you need it. Yeah, it is funny how you'll hire someone to fix your sink and your first thought isn't, oh, you think you're better than me? But then when it's like someone learns how to, you know, be a plumber of the mind, so to speak,

and then you're like, oh, it's like, yeah. The one I hear all the time that I'm like, brother, you got to figure this out is when someone will be like, oh, you know, I can't, I can't, it can't be quiet because there's up here, you know, up in the mind, it's too fucked up. and you're like, you know, it's just you up there. Like, stop.

Yeah. Stop talking to yourself like that. There's no one, unless it's in like your dad's voice or something, in which case, that's just you putting on an accent, you know? Yeah. Calm, you know, figure that out. Yeah. Well, no, I think the show's done a lot to kind of elevate therapy beyond.

Obviously, we make great comic material of it, but it's also how it can help people and how authentically helpful it is to kind of go through that, go through those. processes and have a lot of all we're doing it. Yeah. I forgot that I left the thing. The question about shooting on stage and stuff was just going to be about, you had mentioned that all the lights, you know, were off the floor and stuff.

Is there, you know, and especially because you're, you have the same sets a lot of times. What's the kind of, what does that grid look like? You know, is it like super even? Are we, how are we moving around the keys around, just turning stuff on and off? So we don't, we have stages for sure. So about half the show is shot on stage and about half is shot on location. And so Pasadena is a big part of our story world. And so we try to spend as

much time as we can out there. And I think as per our usual pattern, about half of our shoot days are on location, whether it's at the park or at other Pasadena locations or the other half are on stage. Now, the sets who are brilliantly designed by Cabot, McBullin, the production designer, they all have real ceilings. Like there's no, there is no lighting grid up in there. We light from the real houses. They're based on real houses that we shoot the exteriors of. We try to light, and this goes back to that naturalism,

through the windows and using the practical lights if we need to, put some night scenes. And then if I have to, because it's a set, I can just bolt a light in a very simple way to a ceiling piece that's really in the shot a lot of the time and we just have to do a little bit of touch-up work to do it. So, but that's what I was saying, like, using fabrics that are just either magnets or stapled, using LED, small LED lights that are just battery powered.

It's very quick to just put something up on the ceiling and you've just got to patch up a couple of holes later on if you do any damage there. But we're not using the traditional TV like, you know, a grid full of light. So, you know, it's always lit a stage, sorry, per scene. And depending on how the scene stages will think, okay, we probably need to put some. something in, you know, above the sink to kind of, you know, create a bit of separation. And so that gets done in the day. But it's very quick, you know, one of the things I'm most kind of weirdly proud of on this show is that we don't tend to do long days, you know, we tend to work very quickly.

And again, for comedy, that supports that, you know, if you have a certain momentum and a certain pace, we don't do a lot of kind of complex choreography. It tends to be, you know, people just talking to each other. and only sometimes that you need to kind of do something that's a bit more interesting, but a lot of the time it's really just getting the best, ringing the most out of the words in terms of conversations and comedy spiritually if you're doing therapy, they're going to tend to just be sitting in chairs, right? So you can try and come up with some other ways to do that, some flourishes,

but it tends to be more through the lighting and through those other moments when you get a chance to go outside and you get a chance to kind of have those moments of respite when you come back to those therapy moments. is there is there a sort of thought process behind matching the location stuff to the set stuff like is how are you modifying outdoor light so that the

vibe is the or do you not even really care is that just a different look um it doesn't it's been hard like the last season because of the fires we actually were not able to go to our exterior locations until we were shooting the last two episodes of the show so we actually had to shoot episodes one to eight without any we had to carry all of these shots including there's a big wedding sequence for example in the first episode including all these scenes that we had to kind of go back in time to do

because of the way the El Tadino Pasadena was affected by those fires and so it made it really hard because we were trying we also moved a lot of locations to go interior when they would have been the exterior because we just couldn't access them at the time that we wanted to So yeah, matching lighting-wise is always a bit tricky. We try to be a little bit accurate with the time of day. We try to go if we can, but not always. Like, you know, sometimes you just have to take those licenses with going with what looks good,

especially when you don't know when you're even going to be able to go out and shoot the exterior that might match to that piece because it's some time down the road at some other point in time that you don't have control it. Right. you know there's uh there's another thought i had you might not have an answer for this but i have uh i was recently talking to someone and they they had said something that i was like i need to ruminate on that and that was that like their approach to daylight or like daylight

scenes and nighttime scenes was daylight should go either be direct or bounce and night time should be diffused because, you know, lamps have a shade around them, but the sun will either come through or bounce. Yeah. Do you have a nighttime and daytime process or is it all the team that's think that hard about it? That's not far off what it would be. I would agree with that idea generally. You know, as an Australian DP coming up, we don't have a lot of the same resources that what we were talking about before, right? So I come up usually doing no, I call it grip lighting. Whenever I'm at exterior with daylight, it's almost always just use the sun and take what's there and try and be there at the best time of day to use what's there. And I tend to really resist using any lying

during daylight hours. I mean, it used to be that you would do that to be consistent, right? So you can spend a day in a location and the sun obviously moves. These days, the pace that we go out with television is such that you might only be there for three hours anyway. So I'm less worried about that kind of matching the visual continuity because you're only there for a smaller slice depending on the scenes. So I tend to use the sun. I tend to use bouncing if I can. If I'm direct, if I have to, you know, obviously I'll put something in. But yeah, like you say, that kind of idea like you're saying that it's either bounced or direct is certainly a good one. And the only extra that I would add to that is I try to just use that one source, you know,

because I think that's always the case for you. Nighttime. You can use a lot more. I don't know if I agree necessarily that night was always diffused because I think often you have very bright, point sources of life. You just have a lot of them and you have a lot more color as well. So I like using a lot more color separation. So I'll often have different colors all around the background.

And I think that's a great way to do that is with your kind of night work with a show like this too, especially because we are using real locations. You know, it's one of the great advantages of the show in a way is that, You know, it's not all stage-based, whereas a lot of sort of regular sitcoms would be. So, you know, because we're on location, we try to make them most of those locations if we can, especially if it's night work as well.

Yeah. You know, every Australian D.P. I've spoken to has kind of had the same. You know, I just had Ashley Barron on recently. I'll talk about that same like, well, it's just oppressive sun, and that's what we get. So we're just going to work with that. And so I'd be remissed to not ask you, because next week, I'm going to shoot a documentary and it's obviously super low budget

because it's documentary and we're outside the whole time in West Virginia and I was wondering if you had any tips for me on what because they were like we don't have a budget for like a Jenny or anything

because we will have some interiors but they're in like warehouses and stuff what should I what should I pack for to help you light this thing I mean look the best thing is to choose the right hopefully you can choose the location and where you look in that location if you're exterior.

So, you know, obviously my starting point would be to try and make it usually backlit and you can at least return or bounce some light, pick aside that you like to keep from. You know, if you're doing documentary or interviews, you know, I'm sure you're going to be thinking about whether you alternate those keys or not. So that would be my instinct to start with. There's always going to be the middle of the day, especially if you're in summer where it's directly overhead. Just try and have a long lunch and find a way to, you know, delay things as much as you can.

if you're in that situation, then you start thinking, okay, well, where is there some daple? Is there some shade under a tree or is there some, you know, and really you can do so much, and especially with low budget filmmaking, you can do so much by controlling the schedule. If you can control the location and the schedule where and when you are, natural light is beautiful. I mean, if you can be there at the right times a day. And even in the Docker, you can still set that up and kind of make that construct happen. So you can sort of accept the limitation.

and then actually make something of it. You know, go, how can I turn this to an advantage and use it with the resources I have? And I was to say the most powerful thing you have is choosing the direction and the location and the time of day. If you can kind of control those aspects, then you'll be in great shape. Yeah, that's the scary part is our scout day is the day before the shoot day.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you can do a lot with Google Maps, you know, Google Earth as well. I did get some photos. and stuff, yeah, but it's going to be a tight schedule. Yeah, I mean, it's hard. Sometimes you paint it into a corner and you can only do the best you can do. And sometimes you have, I mean, I drive home often and think, well, you know, I won a couple of battles or I lost a couple of battles. Like, you know, you kind of have to keep on trying and doing the best you can and learning from when you don't win, like what else you could have done differently.

But, you know, try more wins and losses. Yeah. I mean, when they told me like basically you get, you bring your cameras and hope for the best. best. I was frustrated. And then I was like, well, it's a lot less to think about. Yes. Yeah. You've got no branches on your decision tree. You're just like, well, diffuse that, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. Or choose a different spot. Yeah. Turn around. All right, cool. Yeah. Do it there. There you go. Exactly. Yeah. Well, it was phenomenal chat with you again and hope to see soon. Great. Nice to talk to you as well.

Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny McBellan. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can do so by going to frame and refpod.com and clicking on the Patreon button. It's always appreciated. And as always, thanks for listening.