Frame & Reference Podcast - 245: "Beef" Season 2 Cinematographer James Laxton, ASC

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Today we bring you James Laxton, ASC, here to talk about his work on the second season of "Beef"!Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠��⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Oh, and welcome to this episode 245 of Frayman Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, James Laxton, ASE, DP of Beef Season 2. Enjoy it. I mean, off-rip, the first thing I noticed about it was just, uh, I, like, I, it all kind of happened at once in my head. So like, I was just allowed to play with Fuji Films' new Eternna. Cool. Camera. Yeah, you know, you're ahead of me.

I've not had a chance. But yeah, cool. that's awesome. I think they only have two of them. Okay. To like rent to people. To like to like if you call the people, I think there's two or three. Wow.

Because I had it. I had to send it in. They were going to let me borrow it for a doc. And then they were like, hey, we need it back. I send it back. And then my friend Joey texts me and goes, hey, I've got this, Aterna. Didn't you just have it?

And I was like, wait, where'd you get it? And he goes, this place in New York. And I was like, that's the one I just sent back. Son of a bitch. Like it went to New York and then came straight back to California. I could just driven it back down to you. Yeah, exactly. That's very funny. That's very funny.

Oh, wow. How'd you find it? Is it cool? I loved it. I had like a few little minor gripes, but they're very workflowy. The image is incredible and stuff. But one thing I noticed about beef was it looked. I've just had to accept I'm a large format guy.

I like big sensor. I don't. It's not necessarily the blurriness. You know, everyone gets real. excited about shallow double field. It's not necessarily that, but there is kind of a spatial thing. But a buddy of mine was asking,

did you shoot that on Alexa 65? Was it the 265? Was it IMAX? What was the deal? Yeah, so we shot on the, we were the first people out the gate to be able to get our hands on the Alexa 265.

So that just, you know, I talked to Ari about that camera coming out a few months earlier. and had sort of, you know, known this project may come about in the fall. And it was, no, not 12. Sorry, the winter. And sort of the timing sort of makes sense. And it was also able to sort of talk to the show on Sunday about, like, why it felt like it might make sense for the show. And after a lot of back and forth and testing and things like that, it did feel like in the end it worked.

So we went with it. But yeah, we were like, I mean, it was a little nail-bidding in terms of getting it for day one. But it ended up happening, which is amazing And area really, you know, credit to them may it happen for us. But yeah, so it was a 265 for us. It was my first time for anybody's time using that camera, which is always a bit of a sort of nervous thing as you go into a project, like, you know,

that you care about deeply and et cetera, et cetera, like, is this going to work? And, you know, you hear stories about bugs and things breaking and blah, blah, blah, blah. I think we had to restart the camera once in all of the weeks we had it. So it was, you know, it was great. And it didn't have a, didn't have a fuss about it at all, which is amazing. Yeah.

Was there a specific reason to shoot? Are you just like me? You were like, oh, it's bigger, bigger, better? Or was there like a secret narrative reason you could lie about? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. No, there are. I try not to do too much of it.

I mean, it's funny. Like, I'm not to, you've ran along about too many things. But, like, you know, I tend to try to use different things. different projects. I'm not the like, oh, these are my lenses guy. I only shoot on these things or this is my sensor thing.

I only shoot, you know, I do tend to go airy for a while now as opposed to other camera manufacturers and sort of sensor and color science stuff. So I am sort of in that way, I guess I do sort of follow that path. But in terms of lenses and what format we're using within the airy sort of color science stuff,

I do sort of vary actually. but to me you know you know sometimes you can sort of make the theoretical argument for things and does it really make sense or not is obviously up to debate but but there were some theoretical ideas about why it made sense for us

and it really stemmed from the writing of the show and the stories we were talking about with Sunny the showrunner about like his interest in in telling these very kind of big topic stuff like very sort of generational topic thing and, you know, as you watch the show, it sort of evolves into different parts of characters, lives and generational topics and things.

So what I sort of felt like when I was hearing somebody talk about these concepts was, gosh, these are like really, you know, big human discussions about, you know, what our lives are all about. And these characters almost want to be, so you sort of stand-ins for these generations and how they find love and how they communicate and things like that. And so to me it felt like it wasn't, well, at the same time it was like a character study. It wasn't like slice of life stuff. It was like big sort of big things being discussed.

And these characters wanted to like stand in and be almost symbols for their generations in a way. And so what I thought about that, I just thought, gosh, well, I want to make sure I'm presenting these characters in a way that makes them feel powerful or makes them feel bigger in a way and makes them feel bigger in a way. and makes them on screen feel like they're not just the sort of classical slice of life kind of filmmaking we want. We want it to be more presentation in the way. So all those sort of things let me to feel like, you know, not even just large format, but like a very big large format as we could. You know, of course now there's, there are technically some bigger formats around if you go into sort of the film sort of, you know, a world. But in terms of digital filmmaking at the time anyway. It was the biggest way we could choose

And it seemed to make sense in that sense in that way So it was about that It was kind of about like portraying these characters When you're in a portrait close up or in a medium shot And making them feel like they The impact of how the audience might receive them from the screen Might make them feel like You know they they carry a different weight with them

Yeah well and on either side of the like Practicality versus image thing Like you've got a lot of discussions Which you know larger format makes just a talking head look nice. Sure. But then also with the 265, it's not like that big honking... Yeah.

65. It's not an IMAX. You know, it's a normal camera. It's not really... I can't imagine it was a difficult thing to slot into the workflow. No, yeah, that's where I see sometimes. There's some sort of idiosyncratic things about them that are positive and negative, depending on how you look at them.

I like, like, for example, the rear NDs, like some people don't like that. I happen to think they're great. I love the fact that I'm not dealing with like multiple glass in front of the lens that might cause different reflections and things like that. So that back flap opening where you can sort of insert these things I think is really cool. I think it's really fast as well. Like, you know, opening, not take the map box off to take a tray out and do the funny thing with your hands as you put them in the tray and put them back in. Like there's something quite like effortless about how those going in and out. You can do some, you know, we didn't really do it on the show, but you can do some fun weird kind of old school effects by leaving the flat.

open and put a flashlight in there. There's all kinds of fun things you can do with that thing, that opening that as a DP I'm a fan of. I mean, you know, there's some downsides to it. Like, if your build is a certain way, the access to that port and slot can be funny, funky. So, like, as your APC builds it and you're on a Ronin or something weird like that, how you're still opening that slot is interesting. But as long as you're sort of calling some of those things, it's, I think, more positive than negative, actually. But, yeah, what you touched on before, it's true.

Like, you know, it's like the things that we're all used to, especially in the speed of television and sort of what your schedule looks like and also like the tools that you might be using. You know, in the scene, we oftentimes go from studio mode to steadicam and sometimes even within the scene go to handheld. And, you know, if you're building it right, your transport times between these sort of tools can, you know, be much faster than if, yeah,

we were using the classic 65 one and not to mention the Steadicam guy's lower back issues you know things like that so I you know there was a I find it to be a really great tool I mean I was really impressed by it it you know

talk about color science forever but like the color science in that camera I find to be really beautiful and um the latitude etc so anyway not to make an area commercial I don't want to do that but I do find the camera I've already done it before don't worry I do find the camera to be

I had Art Adams and uh Chase Hagen on before. So they got their time. Anyway, cool. But yeah, I found it to be useful. Well, kind of on a more meta scale, I suppose, something that I've found interesting in the, you know, now the audience is a lot louder, I suppose. You know, like you normally would only hear from people in your sphere about something.

But now with the internet, everyone has an opinion. and in my line of, you know, doing this podcast and just working and stuff and being, you know, in my mid to mid late 30s. I'm on the internet. Don't say the actual number. Yeah. And it is interesting to see how audience taste has changed with not only with the idea of AI, not even the advent of AI, but just the idea. but also the sort of perfection and stuff. All that is to say, the perfection of images or potentially,

for a while there was a lot of like, oh, let's put filters on the thing to knock down the digital sharpness or whatever. Sure. And so all that is to say, do you find, not specifically with this show, but just kind of in your work that there is a push towards kind of maximizing the image to stand up, you know, obviously we've got Nolan shooting a movie completely on IMAX, which is both rad as a DP, but also is a bit of spectacle junky stuff, which

does get butts in seats, you know, this division, et cetera, stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. It's a reason to, it's a marketing ploy as well as it is a technique. Yeah, sure. Agreed. Yeah. How do I find that, is that true or not? Is that kind of your question?

I do think that some truth to that. it on your end. Because obviously the marketing department wants that. But like when you're having these discussions about shooting film, shooting television shows, like, is there a like, oh, we should shoot large format? We should shoot these wacky, you know, pets fall anamorphics to get people to lock in, you know. I hear you. Sorry, the no is the short as the short answer. I mean, the chats I'm having with directors and, you know, collaborators, producers, etc.

I think maybe it's just the world that I work in and the people I'm around I think this not to be not to be too naive but the chats I'm having are just generally about making the show good

you know and I think you know the goals are really much more simplistic than that and then there it is behind them that sort of yeah start to churn as you go into sort of talking about the show etc and presenting the show and the show coming out.

You know, those are sort of different in a way. And I think like, I think you can, you know, I think audiences are pretty savvy at this point. They can smell that out pretty quickly. I think,

you know, like what is a talking point and what is a genuine sort of, um, uh, attempt at, at expressing oneself. Um,

um, I hope that's true anyway. I think, you know, it seems pretty obvious to, to me anyway. No, I think it is.

I mean, yeah, truly the, the, the, the meta-anal about the question about meta analysis is just that like I think I think people are very savvy and then there's kind of a dunning crueger effect of like well clearly they did this not that

I've seen this conversation about beef I'm just going off of the large format you know shooting large format because to shoot uh Alexa 65 on a television show me even four years ago would have been crazy and now it's just an option yeah yeah yeah yeah I think I mean you know I think I think the way I talked about in a minute ago about why we chose it, like, you know, as an example, as a counterpoint to what, you know, the narratives around these things can sort of be defined by, you know, like, if I'm making like a sort of docu-style film that's really like a character study that's like slice of life, you know,

like, like Marty Supreme in Alexis in Alexis, in Alexis, Alexis, 65 or large front of it would be weird as a good example to me. You know, that's like, to me, the choice of, that Darius and those guys made on that show, on that film, you know, I think we're perfect, and I really, I think that show is great. And I think that film is fantastic. And the visual choices behind it about why film and not something in large format, to me, were made perfect sense.

I think that show would be strange if it was on IMAX. Yeah. So there's just reasons behind some of these things, as my point ultimately. And, you know, some choices make sense for others. And some shows are right on 16-mill. And that's why that makes sense for me. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, so that's the other side of the coin is people who will go like, oh, shooting film is now a gimmick. Shooting, you know, it's like, I'm basically with various guests trying to trick them into saying what I want them to say because I already know the answer. And it's like, it's just let it go, guys. Just watch the film, please. Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, I think what I would hope happens at some point. And I think I honestly genuinely would say, I think we're probably close to that point now, is that because, you know, it's like we've eaten ourselves a few times here with like the discussions about formats and what makes the most sense and what's popular, et cetera, and what is a standout thing. And that's, I can sort of go off on a tangent about that in a second, too, about style and Seminopathy's style and things like that. is that I think we've eaten ourselves so much

that maybe at some point it won't matter and we'll be bored of these conversations and there's just going to be a genuine discussion about like that was a really a great choice for what that material wanted from you and the way you worked for the director about with that format clearly made sense and just clicked, you know?

You know, I think that's true that hopefully that these conversations about you know, shooting film is involved and if you want to be like a hip filmmaker that you're clearly going to have a vintage lens discussion at some point, you know, that kind of stuff. I mean, yeah, what was it, the K-35 era? There was the cook on a mini era. There was the, yeah, all kinds of areas. I did, moving off of camera, I didn't mean to get stuck on cameras for so long.

No, no. Am I right in having read that there was kind of a, I guess they called it a seasonal color architecture for the various. I was wondering if you could walk me. Because there are like, it's not that the show has like drastically different looks, but there are some definite like spaces that they live in that all feel unified, but very unique in their own way, especially with some of the lighting. Yeah.

So, I mean, you know, like all things, starts in the script and the ideas that Sunny was sort of talking about in pre-production about these characters. I said before just like the being stand-in for generations and the cycles of life and how love changes as you cycle through these things and relationships evolve from being young and in love and just, you know, and then you become older and how your love changes with your partner. And so that, you know, all these discussions sort of spoke to this cycle. And, you know, one big cycle in our life, of course, is as the seasons. And so the idea came about about trying to portray each of these kind of eras of love within a certain season. of their love. And as, you know, the obvious, as you probably can tell already,

you have the sort of, you know, the Austin and Ashley being the young couple, and their season is spring. And, you know, they're in love and the beginning of the show. And, you know, everything is glorious and flowers are blooming, et cetera. Summertime in the show is primarily, like, presented as, like, what the club is in summer. It's this endless summer of, like, continuous Southern California sunshine and the, the warm hues of sun are blasting through those windows at all cost and you know we try to maintain that as much as we possibly could and you have josh and lindsay um which is uh you know is autumn

and that their love is sort of crumbling and dying off and then you have charon park and her and her husband um the doctor and he is like you know they're they're in the winter stages of their lives and they're like you know uh what love is like as you get to that part of your cycle of life And I think so that these sort of seasons started to want to be portrayed in certain ways. And you had, you know, our production designer Grace Young and our costume designer Olga, all kind of like working towards maintaining this idea throughout each of our disciplines. And for me, that meant, of course, as there's already sort of talked about summer, you know, with a club and the sunlight coming through there.

As the counterpoint, there's, of course, you know, the winter light of the chairwoman's, you know, storylines and that sort of icy blues that sort of permeate through her her domains and and and and whatnot and you know as an example outside of her of her house even in the sort of beautiful lost and like so in the California sort of coastline is actually like dark clouds and we kind of suck the color out of those in the di to kind of make sure that the kind of that sort of that sort of all knowing all manipulating kind of like character that she might be, you know, was portrayed a certain way. And then, of course, you have sort of Ashley and Austin being this sort of pastel and kind of is a soft light to them.

The soft light, both for the audience and spring and away. But it's sort of these different kind of tones of sort of the autumnal, you know, warm oranges and stuff for the fall and sort of bluey, sort of yellowy pastel colors. And so we, you know, try to try the best to sort of make lighting choices like this. and then, you know, came to the D.I. stages, of course, started pushing color into certain places and taking color out of certain places and what colors would get emphasized for which seasons some of might be in. So we played as close attention to that as we possibly could, you know, and I think, you know, to hopefully good effect.

But, yeah, that was the idea behind them. And, you know, because like I said, the show is all about these concepts and, you know, trying to maintain what emphasizing we can do do within our disciplines to sort of push those things along. Yeah, I mean, the, the, the, thing that I also noticed too when you're talking about these big concepts and stuff just was the difference between this and the first season. No.

Yeah. And I was wondering if there was any discussion or what the discussion was about making a second season that it's not done really anything to do with the source material. I don't know what you would. Or was it just like, hey, we're doing our own thing. Thanks for the title. Yeah, and I mean, the hope was we didn't do that. I mean, I definitely talked to somebody a lot in pre-production. In our first meeting, we talked about this, actually,

but when I first met him through the first time, was to sort of make sure that we were going to make a show's language sort of, you know, come from a very foundational place about what is that be visual language. And then, of course, deviate from there and start to, you know, make it about what season two is about, as we already sort of discussed. but there did want to be a significant time attention paid towards, you know, what seemed to sort of work well for season one and in terms of how the story was told,

digitally speaking, of course, and sort of maintaining that through season two. And I think we did. I mean, a lot of discussions about like perspective-driven stuff. I mean, so much about both seasons is sort of about which character you're identifying with and who you're feeling connected to as an artist member and who's seen is it And those kind of concepts, you know, really are important, very, very important for, for Sammy and his filmmaking voice. And so, you know, these concepts sort of maintain through season two's visual language as well. And that had to do with a lot about, like, you know, what lens you're on for who's seen it is and who's seen it is not and how you're seeing them over the shoulder of someone and clean on the other side.

And all these kind of choices about how to sort of emphasize perspective. because, you know, the show is about, so much of, like, how the show's writing works, to me is, is so well done in a way that, like, you kind of, you know, you're identifying with a certain character

through a scene in a way that really puts you in the perspective. And I think the hope is that the symbrography can aid in that process as an audience kind of connects with one character or another. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Were you doing any, like, I was about to say fancy it's not fancy but you know like lens per character type thing it was all one unified lens set yeah good question

no no it's all one unified lens set I guess we would sort of like the thing we would do differently and maybe I should elaborate on a little bit because I touched it on a second ago but was like how we would define perspective we would like if it's say it's a scene

that really Charles you know Austin's character sorry Charles Austin Charles's character is it's his scene scene in the show and let's see we want to make sure we're already answered by connecting with him. You know, very often, if there

was a master, it would probably, you know, be taken from a perspective that would be more from his side of the room. And then when it's a close-up, it would be probably a clean close-up that didn't include the shoulder of the other character and you're probably going to be proximity-wise closer

physically with Charles in that moment. And then when it's, you know, you turn around for the reverse curvature over the shoulder of Charles looking back at, say, you know, you know, Kaylee, and that's going to include a shoulder over. So you're just kind of tying these perspective things in, and that kind of stuff we did a lot. And that's sort of, you know, we would call it like the rubric of sort of what we, how we would sort of make sure we were maintaining this sort of beef language.

And these are things that lots of filmmakers do. I certainly don't intend to imply that like there's any sort of thing that like... Magic secret sauce. Lots of people do this. but it was a way in which we made it was one of the ways in which we made sure that like some of the foundational elements of the beef visual language was going to maintain

through the seasons is more wine saying it this way right yeah was there uh you know there's not unless something happens in the second half of the season where a house blows up or something relatively yeah never know well someone knows someone who actually finished the fucking season

but you know relatively simple setups and stuff you know we're just looking at people chatting what I sure were there any unique challenges that you would run into with that or was does that allow you to like because like even the lighting is not super well not always I'm thinking like especially at night there's some really I really enjoy some of those interior

that top I love top light there's some really good there's some good top light happening. But it all seems very like manageable. When I'm looking at it, I'm like, yeah, I guess if I have the lighting plot, I can figure it out, not saying I can do what you do. But, um, no, not to mean. Yeah. It's natural. It's simple. It's not like trying. It's not like we're not heightened realism. Stylistically crazy filmmakers. Yeah, I agree. That is not the voice of, of what we're, and we're intending to do, of course. Um, with the challenges to that? I mean, sure. Uh, in a way, like being a filmmaker that isn't interested in, you know, in this,

and I'm just speaking about this season and this show particularly, isn't interested particularly in like hyper-styled stuff. You know, you still, you know, it's almost like you're naked a little bit. There isn't like, oh, I'm not going to just do some tricky stuff here and like, disguise, you know, my, my inability to make good stuff. in a way when you get simple, you sort of sometimes, if you're not doing your job well, you can fall into some traps. And so, you know, the hope in a way was that our work was going to maintain some precision and some delicacy and some, you know, really deft craft from, you know, different, all the different departments, of course, hands here. And I think the hope is that we did that.

Yeah, I mean, another reason why I really like the large format stuff and specifically the 65 stuff is because, you can sort of let things sit in a way that you know you've because of how the perspective by which you see a master shot or a medium shot you do I find myself anyway and people can debate me I'm sure there's plenty of film cinematographers that would debate me about this point but for me it works this way and that is that like I feel like I can watch and sit on a large format medium shot longer

and have my attention still be drilled in to that imagery and while that Maybe that's to do with the depth of field and how the character might sit out, sit separated from the background a bit more. You know, there's all kinds of ways in which that comes to pass. But I bring that up just to sort of touch on how some of the simplities, I think, work quite well for us in a way because of that 65-size format. For me, that, like, is a great tool when you're looking to sort of really just sit with the scene.

And when I read the script, that's kind of a feeling that I had, that I sensed would be a goal for this season too that maybe it sits in Masters more and I think we did some of that. Not everything of course does, but there's a lot more, there's a lot of that stuff in this season that I'm proud of in a way.

There's shots that are kind of this kind of iconography that sort of can, you know, present the material so much within it with a single image. And yeah, you could shoot that shot on any format, but I feel like it sits with more structure and more foundational presence in a way because of the format. Yeah.

Well, and it's something that I've noticed just to your point about the larger formats is space feels more spatial, I guess. You know, like there's a difference between. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that there's going to be, I don't know, you know, I've been able to interview like Steve Yedlin and stuff like that. And, you know, I'm like just nerdy enough where he was proud of. me which made me happy, but not nerdy enough that, like, I know I'm going to say something and he's going to text me and be like, no, you're wrong.

3D pop isn't a thing. It's like, but, uh, uh, stuff. No, it's so funny. No, I mean, he's, I mean, I know he would debate me on the point I just mentioned as an example. Like, that's not his, he thinks very differently about this stuff than I do. I am confused about his perspective, but I know he can explain it in a technical way, but I just don't know that, um, I just don't know that, um, I just,

don't agree. That's that point. I mean, some of the reasons by which he expresses himself are not complete in my mind. But I, but I respect him obviously immensely. I think he, uh, I think his point, I don't want to speak for him, but it seems like at anything, it basically, from what I gather in having like read it, all of his stuff he's written out and spoken to him is like anything technically is possible. Yes. Like there's no given, like saying, oh, large format does this?

is and saying that it's inherent to a sensor size is a misnomer. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but, but that's, that's technical. Like if once, yeah, like to have to think about that while going into pre-production is annoying and weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd rather just be like, big sensor lens looks good where I put camera normally. Right.

Well, because, I mean, it's all about the field. and focal length and all these different things. And I think he views it as like a field of view conversation. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, that's cool. But like you're maybe, I mean, not to get into the debate of Steve, not to debate Steve Yelam without his presence because I'm sure he would be. Without him being here, yeah.

Because he would do a much better job presenting his argument than I ever could, of course. But my feeling generally about it, if I can just take two seconds to explain it, is that is that like in a scene, like a night interior, you. You know, your F-stop, if you're going to generally be using incandescent lamp sources without changing them to be some different wattage in a crazy way and having full control over X, Y, Z, you're largely dealing with some things that are probably going to put you at a stop of 2 or 2-8. Let's just say, somewhere in there, for example, if you're dealing with the kind of ISO sensor sizes that were sensors, ISO sensitivities that a lot of our cameras are working at. And, you know, a 2-8 on a 65-size sensor on a 24-mill lens is different depth of field. I'm sorry, than it is on a super 35-site sensor. We all know this.

This is kind of the distinctively obvious here. And while he might say, yes, but you could change the depth of field to be a one or something like that or a 0.5 to match it on a super 5% sensor, that's not how real life works. You know, that's just that isn't out. Yeah. To clarify for you, just so that you don't get angry comments, it's this, no matter what lens, no matter what sensor you put behind a 24 millimeter, the depth of field is always going to be the same. It's where the camera is. And if you're on a 24, the camera is going to be on a super big sense.

The distance is on subject. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So therefore it is what it is. Yes, exactly. Sorry. Yeah, that is a very important point to the thing. But you just said what my point was earlier, which is that it's to have to.

explain oh by that i mean the distance close the like at a certain point your your short hand becomes longhand if you have to constantly editorialize what you're talking about my point in my point is ultimately that like yes he's right technically that like those things are all true and you can do all those things but you just don't do them because you're on a different camera and then and that's that's just the reality of some of these choices that you put yourself in when you're shooting you know like a maybe you don't have the ability to like pull the wall on a set. In a car.

In a car. Whatever these situations might be, there are some realities to our world that we exist in and not everything is just the ability to like crunch the number to find the way to get the same sort of perspective on something.

Yeah. That did. Anyway, that's just my feeling. No, and I agree. But I just said something that now I'm like,

oh yeah, which is you have been working with Barry Jenkins forever, right? I imagine, yes. I imagine y'all have a short hand. You know, when you get on set it's a lot easier. Yeah.

But what's their name, Lee? Yes. Yeah, we go on Sunny. The people are collaborating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Sunny is a new collaborator. How did you adapt to the way they spoke with you? Yeah.

Also, not literally spoke with you, but like how the collaboration worked. And was there anything that you took from kind of your previous work and were like, this is how I go? Or are you more chameleonist? Yeah, well, I definitely, I think as a DP, such as yourself, you do try to be communistic as much as you can. I mean, I do anyway. I, you know, I think there probably are some some photographers that just go like, this is my thing, I do this thing, I show up and do this thing. And if you've hired me, you like the thing I do. So I'm just going to do the

thing. And that's not really how I work. So while, yeah, I have had a, you know, I have this other, a different relationship with Barry than I would with Sunny. And because of, of, of that, I'm, you know, I'm being respect. I want to be respectful of the new relationship and start afresh in a way. And so while inevitably I'm bringing all my experience to everything I'm doing, I'm certainly trying my best to sort of start, start collaborating in a way that works for him and work for him. And, you know, I'm definitely like, you know, they're probably all, you know,

they're very different filmmakers, first of all. But there are quite a few similarities in terms of like, you know, we just talked about perspective a little bit and both of them I think are very perspective driven filmmakers and that's why some of the early conversations about how to just make sure that you're paying close attention to where the camera is as it relates to who we're with in the scene

all that stuff really felt like you know conversations I've had for a long time so there were some similarities and some differences between the two of them but but even though they're like I said incredibly different filmmakers there's some sort of structural things that are quite similar actually in how they collaborate. Yeah.

The was, this is a wild left turn. Was moonlight as impactful for your, not career, but you're like the way that you worked as it was for all of us looking in like, oh, that movie was huge? Did it, did from your operationally, was that different for you? like did you do something different or was it was the story and just the you know because my buddy just won an Oscar and he just uh he was like we just made the thing dude I don't know oh go congrats I'm yeah I mean you know um uh you know I think I mean I mean are you asking sort of like what I felt like on the day like was I doing things in Miami different no certainly did you feel like you're on a heater you know I think I

I think the truth is we thought we made a good movie. I think we probably, you know, I think I've said that before in the past. Like, I think we probably thought, gosh, that was great. Made a strong film. Maybe it goes to Sundance. Maybe something picks it up. Maybe like those things happened. But that was sort of like, at least in my mind, you know, some of the goals I was having as we wrap the production.

So, yeah, I think I felt very proud. I knew it made something that, like, whether it hit or didn't, I felt proud of. and um but yeah no that that movie is you know i can say a lot i can see a lot of things about it but it helped me in so many ways about sort of putting things in perspective for me about what goals i have um for myself and and um and uh how to think about success in a way you know and you know that was we were sort of youngish uh uh when that happened and to have that attention being given to us at a time where we're just in our minds still beginning our careers uh is a sort of a weird experience of them being honest. And it sort of taught me some lessons about, you know, success or lack thereof when it doesn't work out and how to still maintain the perspectives of what's important to you. Because what happened is ultimately nothing.

Nothing. Nothing happened in the end. That's what I've heard from everyone. You're left with yourself. And what you come to understand is, that that you are the guiding light within your own journey. And what makes sense for you is what makes sense for you. And when it's, you know, when you win like, you know,

best son award from your mom at Thanksgiving dinner or the Oscar, it's like, these things actually have to mean the same to you in the end. You know, it's like they can't, you can't let the other things tell you why it's, like, why you're so good or why you're not good because sometimes you won't be good. Like no one, sometimes no one's going to care. And I felt like what that process taught me was you have to, what matters to you is what matters to you and not the other parts of this journey. That can be nice. And we all like to be told we did a good job.

But ultimately, it can't like take over from why you make choices, you know. Yeah. Well, you actually threaded that needle perfectly because where I was headed with that. that whole thing was just the idea of, you know, it's like, what's that game like code breaker? Or where you've got like the different colors and you'll put the colors in a line and it'll tell you like, oh, two colors are correct. One of them's in the right place. I know the game.

I know the game, but I don't know the name of it. Yeah. You can do it with numbers, whatever. Sure. Yeah, yeah. I imagine that getting an award or having large critical success or public success, feels like that game where you're like,

was it, which is the peg in the right place? Did I do? Because it's not like, okay, just repeat everything I did on that last film. Shoot it the same way.

I'm guaranteed another win. You know, the game changes every single time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the beauty and the fun of it. It would be really weird if it wasn't that way.

I mean, you know, so, so yeah, like it's, you got to pick yourself up and do it again and again and again. And I think what you,

What you take from that is the journey is the fun bit. And not to get too esoterical and bizarre here in the conversations, but like, yeah, like, that has to be allowed to. Like I said, that's this, that's this show. You know, like that has to matter more at the end of the day. Because, you know, there will be times where, and it's happened to me certainly before, like, where it doesn't work. And, and I sometimes feel like some of my things I'm most proud of the things that someone else would say like that's ridiculous like don't you know that's that's not the good one or

whatever um and you know that's fine um i'm okay with that but anyway yeah that like uh you know i i guess the to answer you two questions ago no i didn't do anything different on on moonlight i think that was just us sort of trying to maintain our voices and and um and uh and you know it's always amazing when someone says well done yeah because the the the in the commercial world, I feel like it's different, right? When you make a commercial and it's like if you turn on any, I guess no one watches television,

but you turn on your streamer, it cuts to the brakes and it's like every ad looks. There's always like that wild pushing on the wide to open. And then there's like the streak of light coming in, the kind of very, you know, the probe lens. We got to have the probe lens. You know,

there's like a formula to that where you get rewarded for doing that same thing. if you were to do that in narrative, you would be shot. 100%. Yeah, it's weird. You know, I mean, but there are some carryovers, though, where we can touch on too in terms of that kind of sometimes approach. Like, I do have a, you know, I'm talking about the awards thing.

There's a challenge here. And I think it's hard to, there's some human instinctual stuff going on with like how awards-driven things function. And I know, here I am talking about this on a podcast. You know, like obviously there's awards and why we're doing these discussions are part of it sometimes.

But like, you know, you know, we are like sometimes rewarded for being stylistic. Like a thing that stands out is something that is discussed. And if you don't stand out, you know, from the pack, like, how do you find attention and how do you, how does your career sort of make sense? And I remember having these discussions,

you know, when I first started being a cinematographer way back when, you know, years and years before Moonlight, you know, seeing colleagues of mine, you know, find success and faster than me. And I was like, oh, gosh, it says, how do I, like, make sense of that in my mind? And, you know, I was trying to still, you know, maintain, like, you know, the deacon's philosophy of something where, like, you're, sometimes you should not be the thing that's in your face. And it should not be the talking point. It should not be in the magazines and being discussed as, like, the cementography on this movie is. the best thing in the world.

And, and, like, I believed in that. I still do believe in that. You know, the only, you know, like, Moonlight got some awards of intention because it was, it was stylistic in a way, but that style seemed to sort of suit the story, which is why it felt that way. And again, if you go to, like, Barry and Miles' next film,

if Bill Street could talk, like, it's a very different-looking movie, and it's because that aesthetic seemed to make sense for that film for us. And if we had placed the Moonlight aesthetic onto that story, it would have been ridiculous. And, you know, there's things that just makes sense for certain things. And sort of just how attention works within our industry.

Yeah, like the style, the biggest voice, the loudest voice sometimes is the thing that people sort of, you know, present as like, this is good, I guess, because it was sort of, it's easy to talk about. You know, the thing that, like, if you can talk about your cinematography in a film or a TV show in like two sentences in a way that is a good headline. Sometimes that can, you know, be successful. But if you have to talk about it for an hour and a half for people to understand what you did and their job, you know, that's maybe something that actually could be incredible, but maybe doesn't sort of blend itself to some of these sort of different parts of other industry. Yeah. Well, and you, earlier when you were saying like, oh, this show that, you know, it kind of left you a little naked because it is just like a heightened realism situation and not like a stylized. mildly stylized. It looks stylish.

Maybe not stylized, but it looks, you know, it carries quality with it. It hopefully has a voice still. I mean, I definitely feel like we were trying to make it have a specific voice and a specific look

and make very critical choices and make very specific choices. It's not random. And there is a style to it. And it's, you know, it's a different thing than maybe like other people might, it's not like commercial driven in that sense. That's, you know,

what might sort of, be easy to describe it in that way too. Yeah. Did actually that, I don't know why I didn't ask this like up front. Were there any kind of references for the show? Like where you're like, ooh,

we're kind of leaning or was it more just those kind of core ideas of like you were saying, like seasons and sort of monolithic ideas? There's lots of filmmakers that like, yeah, there's lots of filmmakers that like I guess we sort of talked about and other references too. But, you know, like Ruben Austin's films,

Triangle Sadness kind of stuff. and the square and all of his films. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, like that kind of voice was something that felt like akin to the kind of visual language that made sense for us. And, you know, I think there's something, there's a kinship to that filmmaker's voice to ours in my mind anyway, which is, you know, he's sort of touching on, you know, these areas sort of societal archetypes and sort of diagnosing societal and human instincts

and why they occur and I think, you know, I thought about that a lot anyway in the pre-production and production of the show too, just sort of finding frames that would, you know, sort of allow the audience to sort of

almost like analytically analyze, you know, something that is emotional but not just like, sometimes not just be like oh in the character's perspective all the time but pop out for these sort of I would almost call them tabloes where like you kind of see the character

in their depressing depressing sort of you know a dark jury office underground for Josh and his thing and there's a shot that kind of starts in a kind of medium close of him and pulls out wide through his doorway and you can sort of frame the sort of frames the hallway

and the office in general in a way that kind of like is a bit oppressive doors him and frames like that that like um that uh kind of like touch on more than just perspective driven filmmaking but also something that feels a little bit like analytical as well yeah more more uh sort of i guess i got to stop name dropping him because it's just every fucking episode but like finchirian kind of uh observational uh sure more classical frames where it's not like you know we're not going high crazy it's like like you're saying you know it's middle of the frame locked off we're not locked but yeah yeah there's a lot of that too yeah i mean there's all yeah i mean i think

i think you know it could go on and on about who our favorites are but yeah i mean like fincher's up there for sure and i'm sure even even if it's not consciously subconsciously there's some sort of you know some things in in the show that like you know do sort of pay homage to that kind of filmmaking anyway yeah yeah yeah yeah i got i got a fine new uh unfortunately i uh grew up just a regular ass teen boy. So all the, like, it was the Matrix and Fight Club and men in black and shit. And I was just like,

that's my, that's my stuff. So all my influences are basic. Those are, basic. I should say, calm. Those are all good movies.

Those are all good movies. Yeah, yeah. There's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no,

I think, funny. I think like, um, uh, yeah, no, don't worry. Don't worry.

I think like, I mean, I think it's going to Barry Jenkins. Barry, very, he talks about one of those favorite movies as all the time is diehard. You know, it's like, you know, sometimes these indie filmmakers are like, you know, people think of them as like, oh, their favorite film is some Criterion Collection movie,

but in actual fact, sometimes it's not the case. I got to tell you, this whole from here up all the way, or that way, all criteriaans, because at one point I was like, I should know more. Yeah, yeah. And I just knew they had all the good, you know, special features. So I was like, maybe I won't be a. fucking idiot, you know, I shouldn't, probably should have done this in college, but whatever.

It sounds like it's worked out. It sounds like it's my mid-20s. Well, yeah, now, like I was, the documentaries I was telling you about earlier, the director is very much that guy. Sure. Like, he'll literally,

he doesn't listen to this. I know that for facts. I'll just say, and even if he does, fuck you Dylan. But he, like, at one point, he was like, can we make this? Again, this is documentary. And I don't have a lighting.

It's just me. Just me with a camera. And he goes, can we make this more like Gordon Willis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, yeah, dude, sure. It's noon. No.

That's tough. But Gordon Willis was famous for, like, using one light and just a little light bulb. That's like he would just do all, you know, so, you know, it's part of a docu package. But as I'm saying, we are outdoors at noon, not indoors the light bulb, you know. I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. That actually, I'm jumping head in my head, but it makes sense.

have you ever run into an issue where your director wants something out of your image that you know technically is a bad idea? Like I know that one example was Roger Deacons was talking, I think he was Deacons was saying how either he or someone he knew had a monitor that they would turn way down so that he'd stop telling him to under expose the image so much because he knew it would just. ruin it and they wouldn't get that like have you run into situations like that where your technical brain has to outweigh your emotional brain because emotionally correct usually is the right answer yeah it's funny to that I mean not I don't know if I genuinely have I'm sure I'm forgetting something I'm sure I am but like the kind of filmmaker that I am and the kind of collaborator I am like if if someone shouts out something like that to me and the there's the first thing I think about is like

oh there's something wrong with the choice I've made somewhere that they're making that comment like there's something inherently like it's not like it's technically like oh gosh like um you know like what am I going to do about this issue

because I don't want to mess something up in a technical way that I'll regret it's more like there's probably a conceptual issue that's happened that I have not paid attention to that they're looking for and I probably need to solve that issue more than I mean to solve like turning down the monitor

or turn up the monitor or something like that there's more like a conceptual like deep down foundational topic that I've somehow missed is usually when my head goes when I hear a comment like that because it just means I'm not really in sync with that filmmaker in a way

like there's something I'm not really like I've not paid enough attention to what matters to them and I usually step back and think about that is my first response to be honest with you when I come up against questions like that because they do come up, of course.

But that's usually my first reaction. It's like what is, what have, what have I missed? What have I missed in terms of like the request here? Because I've clearly missed something. And then nine times out of ten, I'll usually try to like do the thing they're asking actually. Because what I find in my own journey

and what in my own process is like, it's something that like I usually figure out on the way on the pathways of fixing the issue they have found have an issue with something I usually find a better idea somewhere about what to do what to do differently and so I like that journey more than I like oh let me preserve some sort of technical thing that I'm worried about later on because I think usually the creative journey of that process I find just more interesting and more fun anyway so that's kind of nine times out of ten my response I mean listen if they say like

hey can you just like you know make that a little bit brighter or make a little bit darker like yeah I'll just maybe just adjust something very simply but if the request is like

deeply there's like there's something more inherently wrong with something it's usually like I've missed something along the way right

yeah yeah anyway that's usually yeah no that's a phenomenal that's a phenomenal answer because also it speaks to the idea of like if it's it's probably i mean you're basically already said it but it's probably not just that one thing that's wrong you're probably not conceptualizing a larger idea that is this is just one example of what will probably be more problems down the line kind of yeah it's like a flag to like re to recalibrate like kind of pump the brakes

and go like oh yes i can do that for you what really is guiding you right now because that might be more more important to make sure I don't do this a few more times. Yeah. On beef, you don't, like we said, it's not very maximalistic at all, but there's like some interesting stuff. Like at one point, I think there's like a dolly handoff to like handheld. You know, there's some fun stuff happening. Was there anything that you knew going into the show that you guys discussed that you were

like, the show is not this? Yeah, it's a great question. It's interesting because we didn't really build the show from that point, but I'm sure there very much are, of course. I mean, you know, I think it's interesting. You know, I think like, I'll give you an example. I started, you know, this idea of finding frames that would along the lines I said before

they kind of you know trope-ish sort of iconography of like wide shots that sort of maintain this sort of meaning or meaningful frame that you can sit on but I started doing them quite like high angle

at first and very quickly in that first setup there was sort of a balk at that idea and it felt right away wrong for all of us maybe I was a little late to the party but for everyone else and then I really had to say what it was which was like It was just too observational.

It wasn't perspective enough. I think that delicate balance of like finding these tabloes that I mentioned before, but doing them in a way that still felt like character-driven as well at the time. It was an ongoing topic of conversation through the shoot. But like, you know, what we weren't, I guess, to answer your question is like we weren't just observational. And we weren't, you know, purely like dokey-driven sort of like find a perspective from this corner of the room and like just let the action play out and and follow follow the action we were sort of very much more like deliberate with our camera lensing choices and blocking choices that felt a little

more grounded in character and and being with someone with a with a character so like that probably is well we weren't we weren't sort of just like yeah like sometimes like call it some different things but like slice of life sort of fly in the wall perspective stuff we were a bit more like with people at times, which I like. I mean, it's kind of a, it's a dance between the cast and the camera and your relationship with a cast is, is paramount in that way. And we had a fantastic cast, obviously. And it was, it was amazing to sort of collaborate with them in that way to not just

sort of, okay, cool, camera goes in the corner, light over here, here, here, and just, like, let them, let them have the floor. Yeah, we did that to a point, but I think, you know, you know, they, they, I think they would feel the same way. like the camera was with them through these scenes and played a role within capturing their their moments within performance in a way that felt like the camera had a role to play within that performance as well

not just sort of like, yeah, I'm sitting here watching Carrie Mulligan perform a great scene it was like now I'm going to interject myself as a filmmaker within that sort of argument, let's say, for example. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you said that because my earlier, Finchirian thing, I misunderstood you. I wasn't 60% in. I was a little bit more 20%

too observational in what I thought you were saying. No, no, no, no. But it's a balance. I mean, the show is many things. So no, I don't think you were wrong at all. I just mean to say like, like, I bring up the high angle thing to say like that's where it broke. You know, and I think that's where it felt like that was a step in the wrong direction. and then you adjust, adjust, adjust, and you find, like, how to maintain an idea that makes sense for us. And, you know, I was, you know, raise my hand and say I was trying my best to sort of push that sort of tableau language, you know, maybe more than others in a way. And it didn't work initially.

And I think, like, those adjustments had to be made to sort of make that make sense. And, you know, bringing the camera back down to sort of eye height or hip height, depending on my, where they made sense in the space, but that's where it sort of clicked all of a sudden in a way that made those moments feel right. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that. So again, I've been working with the same documentary team, the same director-producers,

they switch jobs, depending on the movie, for the past, like, three years. But we shot like five things in three years, and so I forget even. But the language kind of is the same for this team. You know, they all kind of, there's a, but it's a good Venn diagram between the two main guys. But to your point, I am, I'm 5'9. I'm not that tall and I'm handheld a lot, but I don't like being on the shoulder.

So I naturally just have in my, my natural language is a little bit up. No. Either eye light or hip height, like somewhere chest height, you know. Sure. And those two guys all want eye or up. And that's, that's been a fun, the B, yeah, the B angle. on any interview is always like here. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny what makes sense for people and what drives choices like that. And that's kind of the fun part of the job. But yeah, it is interesting when you sort of get into these like you think left, I think right conversations and when the perspectives are disparate that way, maintaining the collaboration. So it still makes sense for everybody is hard.

But that, you know, I find that juice is worth this. squeeze, that's kind of where some of the great stuff comes through. Oh, yeah. I mean, and for me, it's like, I would much rather learn someone else's language and fold that into my own than to just go off and be repetitive. That's the joy of the job. It's why I think it's one of my favorite parts of the thing. So, you know, why not? Yeah. Yeah. I guess we're, I guess the hour's on pretty much up. But I did, I did, I'll let you go with one question.

That's great. How good. I did want to go back to lighting just briefly. Please. Because I'm always very fascinated by how people can achieve, like you're saying, these sort of heightened reality looks. You know, these very, like we said, they're stylish. They're not stylized. Especially the stuff that was not in a set, but were your lighting plots incredibly complicated,

or was it kind of just like overhead fill sun through the? the window, maybe a little bounce. Like, how much money do I got to spend to steal your look? Yeah, no, I mean, I think like, let's see, how do I describe this simply? Like, I would suggest my lighting style is pretty simple. I don't think it's, like, crazy complicated. And you walk onto a set, like, an interior room, kitchen, dining room, let's just say, for example, there's probably like

two or three stands on the floor and that probably is it as an example of like how delicate some of the things are you know I'm a fan of like I'll put negative fill or you know some black

duveteen on a wall that's on the fill side to sort of make some contrast happen I'll put you know like a a light mat or some other LED bounce version or something like that over a lamp that just kind of wraps that sort of incandescent bulb shape around a bit differently and a bit more with a bit more strength and then I'll sort of glow up some windows in the background

that's kind of that's kind of generally and I'll do that like you know I'll do that technique a few different ways through the room like if the room I'm just thinking like as an example I'm thinking about like Ashley Nosson's apartment in this show and you know I do have a top light into the ceiling that's like an LED source to get some ambience in that space that can control and dial in the level and that's usually wrapped underneath with some muslin. But then on the deck, there probably would be like, yeah, like there'd be like a light mat for or the like of some kind of light like that, again with some muslin art probably. And that's wrapping around a other motivational source, whether whatever space that might be

in the room over in. And I'm trying to block the scene with the actress to sort of make that make sense for everything and they're not just standing in the dark the whole time. That's generally what I'm up to. Trying to be, like, a lot of my work has been, luckily enough, with some great performers and some incredible cast members. Oh, this cast is insane. It's insane.

I know. So this is an example. Other work I've done, I've been lucky enough to start off also work with some great people. And I think, like, when I think about that and going into prep and lighting plots and things like that, I know very well, I'm going to just mess with them. I'm going to mess their world up if I'm going to be putting up too much stuff and asking them too many favors. Can you look over here and can you do this? And so I try to be pretty delicate and dance around that to a point.

Of course, if there's something inherently going to be insane, I put it in a regret. And I say, hey, do you mind it? Whatever it might be. But I try to be pretty delicate with them because I just, I know the success of the show or film or whatever I'm making. And no one cares at the end of the day if the performances aren't killing it. And no one cares about the backlight or whatever the fuck I'm doing. You know, like that needs to work first and foremost. And then if I can continue to press upon my voice and continue to push my own work to, you know, like help elevate and help to, you know, pursue the goals of what the show is telling narratively, that's great.

But I definitely want to make sure my world isn't messing up their world in a way. So I'm pretty light on my feet in a room, I think anyway. I'm sure the people that are lighter than me. But I hope I'm pretty light. Yeah. I mean, I think it's good to hear that because that's where my brain has kind of been going. Especially now that we don't have to shoot film anymore, so you don't actually have to blast a room with 10,000 watts of light to get something.

It's funny, man. I've been shooting film more than like in the last year than I've been shooting anything else, which is really weird. It's got, you know, as you've already said, it's coming back and people are more interested in it. But what's funny about it is I don't know that I have been blasting light in a way. I think it was like a, and I used to. I mean, I know you're referencing, but I feel like I've got a little more confident and not so anxious about exposure in those in those ways. Yeah. Well, I was just given this.

So now I have to. I happen to have 8mm rolls in my refrigerator for whatever reason. My friend's like, I got a bell and how old you want it. So now I'm going to have to relearn how to shoot. Although I don't, 8mm is probably not. You'll be fine. I'm super 8. That's going to be hard.

It's just 5 pixels just dancing around. All right. Well, I will let you go. Thanks a ton for chat with me. Pleasure, Kenny. Thanks so much. Take care, brother. Enjoy. Take care.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny Macbillan. 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.