Frame & Reference Podcast - 246: "Spider-Noir" Cinematographers Darran Tiernan & Peter Deming, ASC

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Another rare two-fer this week! This time we've got the legendary Peter Deming, ASC and Darran Tiernan on the program to talk about how they shot Spider-Noir (and plenty more)!Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this episode 246 of frame and reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest's Darren Tiernan and Peter Deming ASC, DPs of Spider-N-War. Enjoy. I was looking through your guys as IMDBs and like, Peter, I feel like half of a shelf here is your movies. Awesome. I was going through here and I'm like, what do you mean Austin Powers and? the menu. That's crazy. That's a wild chub. Well, you know, you're doing this long enough. It's all mixed up now.

Yeah. There's something great about that, Peter, though, isn't there? Like mixing it up? Like, it's... I remember, I remember going to a very early screening of Lost Highway with industry, and then the next day going back to the set of Austin Powers thinking, what have a... Wow. What have I done? Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's creative whiplash for sure. But I love that about your work, Peter. It's so eclectic. Well, you know, Darren, they all try to pigeonhole us, so we've got to do everything. Yeah, no, I feel very the same. I was like, you know, even them, you know, I would have loved to have shot more movies than I have.

but I'm very grateful for the chances I've been given in wonderful TV shows. And I've always kind of been like, I'm never going to go back to a show twice. You know, I've been very much like, let's move on for the next thing. But I couldn't resist going back to Perry Mason. Like, it was very, I really enjoyed that experience so much. And David Franco, who was, you know, who started the show in season one, was so gracious and lovely. It was a real great collaboration, you know, and that's the interesting thing about, you know,

the difference between a film and the TV show. Like when you're doing a film, it's just you, you know, and, you know, but in a TV show, you're coming in and everybody else has different talents and different ways of seeing things, and it's really exciting and encouraging. And you get, like, even a friend of mine was shooting another show in L.A. and I had dinner with him, he was telling me something he was going to do, and it gave me a great idea, you know, for something else. That wasn't really connected to what he was talking about,

but it really, like, you know, you just bump it off people. This is really nice, you know. Yeah, did you work with Marioli Revis? Yeah, I did episode eight with her. Yeah, she's wonderful. She was just, I think this was her first TV show, and she did so well. That sounds right, yeah. Yeah, no, she's cool.

and she used to go around to taking Polaroid portraits of the entire crew and by the end of the shoot she had this beautiful book that we'd all wrote her names and a little message to her and the white part

and the Polaroid for her as a memory and I was like that's such a cool thing you just did Maria like it's beautiful you know yeah she's great

yeah I will say yeah I will say Perry Mason was good you know I will say I was a very big Westworld fan. So that's another reason

that be excited that you're here because... Yeah, I'm back with the gang now doing Fallout so that's interesting. Oh, that's awesome. We'll definitely have to have you back on

to talk about that. One of my favorite brags is two of my friends, husband and wife couple, are work at Legacy Effects. And so my friend Carrie built the power armor.

Oh, wow, fantastic. Yeah, brilliant. So you'll see him standing around that thing all day every day. I know. Yeah, it's always a big concern. I know they get hot in those suits. But they look amazing, the suits.

They really do. And Peter, I'll be calling you a lot because I'm shooting on film. So, yeah. I will need some of your advice and wisdom, please. You know. Seven times, yeah. That actually, we can shortcut that because that's a question that last night I got, I didn't get a lot of sleep because I started,

I was getting in an argument on YouTube, which is a terrible idea, because I have, I write for this website called Pro Video Coalition. A lot of this stuff is intended to be educational, a lot of other things that, you know, because I feel like film education kind of almost died

with the beginning of the internet. Like, people are only learning from as far back as they can Google. And even having 15 years of film school experience or whatever, production experience. Suddenly, like, it's just lost in for, you know, we have the books and stuff. But the argument was about speed boosters and full frame versus super 35 and stuff. And I was getting really in the weeds about it. But then I started dovetailing into other, you know, the history of digital cinema and and camera technology going from like cinema sensors and photo sensors and

combining. So I wrote five articles last night. Oh, dear. I'm not a writer. I mean, legally, yes, but I don't, I don't know where that came from. hyper ADHD. But all that is to say, one thing that has always been an interesting question is how do you, not how do you like it's a, but how do you personally approach the shooting of celluloid versus one of these modern digital sensors? And did any of the older cameras change the way that you had to approach it? Like in my case, like I own a Sony F55. Like that still holds up really well, but it's not a Venice. It's not an Alexa 35, you know. Yeah.

Peter, please, give us your pounds of wisdom on this. I spouted off about this a couple of years ago. I feel like the cameras are like film stocks. I mean, when you were shooting, when we shot on film, you pick stocks for different reasons because they had contrast, the color rendition, you know, whatever it was. and I feel like to me the digital cameras are sort of like that. It's sort of like, you know, which one has the best dynamic range, you know, which one has the most speed, which one do you like to color rendition of?

And I think, you know, sometimes I have to call DITs I worked with and say, hey, I'm doing something I really need high end, which camera should I use? Because it's really hard to keep track. Because not only do they keep coming up with cameras, they keep updating the firmware, and so the cameras he kind of didn't like are now great you know so it's it's a constant you know homework to to keep up with it but I think it's I think once you settle on that then you know then you sort of move forward and of course we all know the control you had with digital it's sort of ridiculous you know so I try to sort of pin that in to not give myself

too many choices, which sort of leads into what Darren and Pankaj, the color is set up for Spider-Noire, which is two choices in black and white and just one in color. And if you want to change that, you had to do it on set with light and costumes and what have you, you know? Yeah. There's discipline to that, I think, is really great. Yeah, that's really interesting, Peter,

because I didn't feel like that. I think maybe we talked about this very early on when we met before you shot on Spouty Noir that very much the Lutz that we created were we even named them film stock names. You know, there was a tri-X and there was an Ilford. So you had the beautiful American tri-X and the beautiful British Elford.

And if you shot film, even still, you know, and you use those stocks, that was all Darren needed to say. I knew what they were, you know. And a lot of, well, most film noirers were probably shot in one stock by the looks at things when you tried to dig into it, you know, when I think there was this super XX, was it? Just before, just before. Try X was, yeah, double X. That's what it was here, which was more in 1930s.

And actually, we had a very, I would love you to being there, Peter, for this, but very early on when we were in prep, Sony, Columbia Pictures gave us a 4K version of the Lady of Shanghai restored and that we could project in Poncage's suite and Poncage's place is the best place to kind of look at things, of course. And from that, we were kind of able to reverse engineer

what it looked like. and how that would translate into a lot, a digital lot. And it was really interesting, you know, because only the style of the film, but you could tell when they were, you know, how they handled different places. And Wells is always, you know, so kind of interestingly unique

in his vision of where the camera should go, etc. And the way things are lit. And it was just, it was really interesting experiments and kind of wonderful to watch the film because I've heard comments, like, oh yeah, it's not, you know, Spider-Noire, it's like it's not as grainy and, you know, really like old films. And I'm sorry, but when those films came off in a first print in the cinema and you went to see it, it looked beautiful. You know, they looked incredible, you know.

It's just true lack of care over the years and if things aren't looked after, that they do look not great. But they back then, they looked as sharp as we can watch things on, you know, on an image on a TV. Yeah, my argument is always, I have the Blu-Rays of Twilight Zone and that restoration is flawless. And I'll, I don't show people, but I have shown people like, look, you shouldn't discount some of these older films because you think it's going to be inaccessible on an aesthetic level. as long as you have like a decent master and, you know, Criterion and Arrow and all these other companies are doing wonderful restorations of a lot of these films. Like you would have no.

The thing that really threw me off is like that first, I don't know, it's in like the first five episodes of the Twilight Zone. They're like, it's a guy going to the moon. And I looked it up and we hadn't been to the moon yet. And they nailed it. Like it's correct.

And it's like, but because of the aesthetic perfection, you're like, of course they're just taking the idea that we already. did it, but no, it was like 10 years earlier or something like that. Yeah. You know, and there's, the younger audiences, like Nick Cage has said it beautifully, that he hopes that the black and white and the color they watch in both versions,

that it will open the door to that film history, because it's so inventive and so incredibly rich. And it would be such a shame if it was forgotten about, because there's so much there we can dig into. And I think Spideonois is a testament to that because the story is an old story but it's mixed up with it. It opens the door for a younger audience

because of the superhero elements and the comic book elements as well. And it's a good blend and I hope it's a bridge. And Peter has said before that it would be great and encouraging if people consider more projects than black and white, you know. I'd love that.

And coming after a really, Ripley, as you mentioned, Peter, it's like, you know, and then, you know, you think about that, you know, Roma, the film, Alfonso Curran film Roma, which is beautifully done as well. It's like there should be more room for it, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do want to talk about the diversions of the two things because I think that's a pretty big point. I'm sure you guys have already talked about it all day. But I did briefly, just because I don't want it to get away from me and I think both of us are interested in this. But Peter, do you, slightly going back, do you shoot film today differently than you did in the past?

Like have modern, because with digital obviously, with modern grading tools, you, almost any sensor can be like even the Viper stream was putting out like raw data. So if you've got that footage back, you know, talk about remastering and stuff. Yeah, does your film, has your film workflow changed? I largely no I would say you know I still try to do as much on set as I can and sort of you know leave as little as possible left to post mostly because well a couple reasons they're not giving us really enough time most of the time for the time you need so I sort of you know I don't have to do a window or if I don't have to do secondary, you know, I'll, you know, I'll ride stop or I'll do lighting cues on set to keep from having to do that later. And sometimes, you know, the window comes up to grade and you're not there. You're not, you know, you're away.

And granted, you can do that remotely to large success, but it's not as intense and as scrutinized as if you're in the room with someone. working shop to shop, you know, so I'm just trying to protect my ass, basically, by doing it the way that I used to do it. And, you know, if it's a 2D window or something, then I'll let it slide if I can say 20 minutes, absolutely. You know, but by and large, I try to stick to the same working aesthetic that I've always had. Cool. Yeah, the getting into the color and black and white version,

I was reminded of, I don't know if it's a famous photo, but it's a photo of the Munsters set, but it's a color photo. And everything's like pink and yellow. Yeah. Because that's what looked best on black and white. And they gave me the screeners.

It kind of sucks because they gave me the screeners on a, on a, for Spider-Noire, on a timer. So I watched them like two weeks. I tried to watch them like right before the interview. So it's fresh, but I had to watch it like two weeks ago. So I'm a little, I guess it's out now. Anyway. Yeah.

Yeah. But I tried watching the color version and I was like, no. Like I watched the black and white one and then I watched the color one. And it wasn't the color that I was, it's, I feel, correct me if I'm wrong, that it was, it must have been shot for the black. I mean, it's fucking spider noir. Like, it must have been shot for the black and white with the color. Because just looking at it. that production design, I'm like, those choices were made, the costuming were made for the black and white

response. Yeah, yes, but they were also made for the color response as well. And like, you know, there was months and months of, you know, research and development and how, you know, we create these lots through all the departments. And they had cameras with the same color science as we had on set. so they could check everything. And, you know, there was always conversations. It'd be like, you know, Warren would ask me and Peter to come down to his art department. He'd have a little setup with a lighting setup and his camera and his monitor. How do you think these colors work together?

You know, and sometimes, you'd have a discussion. You might change it. But Warren's concept as well was based on historical fact. Like all the colors that you've seen in the show were actually very popular colors of the late 30. or the late 20s into the 30s so we're in a depression era but it's kind of the faded glamour

of the 20s. They were the colours that gay people happy emotions or they responded well to those colours and Tracy as well was very careful with her kind of historical context

but then they would have you know Tracy would have the freedom with the actors to make them stand out in black and white and colour and it was a great collaborative process all through all departments. And I really felt like we were all trying to stay in the same page, swim in the same lane, you know, at the same time. And it's a rarity, actually.

You know, it doesn't happen on every show. I've been very lucky in the last couple of projects I've done. It's been incredibly collaborative. And when it works, it works, you know. obviously you don't want to compromise, but having to shoot for both. It's almost like when they're like, hey, can you shoot vertical and horizontal? You're like, thanks. Let me just shoot myself in the face.

But was there any time you needed to lean in one direction or the other? You're like, you know what? The black and white might sacrifice a little here, but we do need to consider the color or vice versa. Or you just found the perfect medium. For me, there was very little of that. Yeah, there was. Yeah. I mean, me too.

If I had to prioritize, it'd be black and white. But, you know, when I would check the color, I'd, you know, really look it over and go, you know, because you're more in charge, I guess, or as in charge of the color as you are the contrast in the black and white. So if there's something you don't like, unless it's ingrained in the design, it's within your power to fix it. And that's sort of, but for the most part, it fell in. I don't know, Darren, how you feel about that. Yeah, I would say the same. Like, probably 95% of the time.

I'm actually trying to think of a time that I might have been a bit frustrated, but I don't think I was. I think because the choices were made beforehand and everybody was involved, and it was you know this is right and this is you know a course on a TV show as well you're compressed for time a lot of the time but

the guidance came from Aaron and you know hats off to him it's such a beautiful job of always being there for every decision and coming up with great solutions when there was problems and encouraging us

to just like you know go you know do your solo here, you know, if you wish. And, and it would be a discussion. And, you know, nine times out of ten, everybody was on the same page, you know. Like, I think the only times that there might have been bumps in the road was like when we were struggling to make something work in the time that was a lot of it to us, you know, but that's part of any, anything that you're photographed and trying to sell a story, you know, it's, you're always going to find those things are happening. But generally, no. It was like it went very smoothly. And people were very excited to

come to work, you know. Like I don't think I've ever been with a crew that, you know, we're smiling. You know, oh, this is really hard and we got a long day ahead of us. But, oh, we're going to see Nick doing this in this scene or we're going to see Lily sing or you're going to see Brendan being, you know, a bad ass building. You know, it's like, yeah, they, day, day, were our entertainment all day, you know. It was, you know, and that comes from the scripts, you know, on their performances. Yeah, there was, I haven't been telling anyone any story. Well, now the show's out, so it doesn't matter.

But between when I watched it and now, I wasn't giving anyone any story plots or anything. Because, you know, you talk about what you're watching. And I was like, I got to see Spider-N-Wart. The number one thing I always said was Nick Cage gets to do Nick Cage stuff, you know? it's just so it's really fun to watch him you know i guess choose scenery a little bit but it's not over the top you know it's not a caricature of himself it's just like oh man he looks like he's having fun yeah he was having fun i think he was very focused focused on the story of ben riley you know he was very into that you know the struggle and the struggle with his hidden intensity

as well it's good it's like you know you know and peter park in his leg 50s is that what would have been like who knows you know it's like very interesting yeah one of one of the uh cageisms that i just it's rare like usually when you're watching something like i'll kind of laugh to myself but when he's at the phone booth and he like finishes his sandwich he goes i lied i've i had to pause i was like that's cackling um yeah i did uh there's been plenty of neo-noirs that have existed. I've loved many of them. Many of them again are on the old shelf.

But this is not, I think neo-noir is almost its own genre at this point. And then you guys have kind of created, I guess, modern noir, because it's not, you know, it's not a pastiche necessarily of noir techniques. It still employs a lot of modern camera moves and choices and stuff. And I was wondering what the sort of rulebook was.

on like what was grounding you both with like I said moves or lighting or whatever and what you allowed yourself to use modern film language for um it's a really good question um Peter do you want to start well I mean certainly because from the from the get-go you're an expert in the yeah right from the get-go it was um you know before I had a chance to talk to Darren I immediately was going to gravitate towards film lighting gear that I came up with, you know, the whole Moe Richardson line, you know, Frenels and what have you, to sort of lend itself to that style. But of course, found, you know, once I started prep that Darren was already doing that.

And I think that, to me, lends a lot of, you know, authenticity. to the look, the film noir look. And I think it's only, the show is only modern because it's digital. You know, if we shot on film, you would have gotten, you know, it would have been, quote, unquote, more authentic. I still think it's authentic

and just in the way, you know, we approached it. And, you know, there's maybe, I think there's a couple LED lights that Darren and I talked about that he used and I know some of the stuff in the club was digital because

of the control that Darren was able to have on it. It just would have been clunky to use that all the technology in that space. But by and large, I mean, there were a lot of sets. It was all a tungsten light. No LED, nothing.

And I think that really, just by virtue of those units, you know, drives you in that direction. Yeah. I remember the Ross,

agaffer, like, you know, it's, he asked for a baby or a pup. And he actually turned to me and said, I don't think I've said that in about 20 years. Yeah.

And like, I know some of the lamps that they had, they had the dust and off. You know, there was like dust all over them. And Peter, did you, like,

I actually had a lot of fun using the open face lamps every now and again, because you get the most purest shadows out of them. And it's kind of, oh, great, I can use this. And this is going to look cool if I put it here, you know, when Nick runs through it. Like having fun like that is, you know, it's like, you know, it's the expectation of film noir so we could have fun with it, you know. Yeah, I bet the line producer was stoked that you were like, yeah, all those lights they're giving away. we're going to use those. I think it helped. I think it helped a little bit.

But I'm sure all that money that was. We'll pray you to get these out of the warehouse for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that money back to rough. I know. Yeah.

We even, at one point we were shooting on Universal Studios. And, you know, there is areas that if you walk into some of the standing sets, and there was just, there was like 25, 10Ks in a row being stored there. And it was like,

you know, that's what I, truck looked like. Yeah. You know that earlier when I was like, I was watching the black and white version, not the color one intentionally, one of the things that I did that for, which may have bit me in the ass from a doc or like a journalism perspective is it's a lot easier to figure out how someone lit something based on the color and like quality of the light. But in black and white, you can use whatever you want. as long as the, you know, exposure's correct. It'll, so, um, did that come into play for you guys at all?

Because, you know, it's certainly if it was just black and white, you know, you're in a situation where you got mixed lighting and you're like, man, who cares? You know? Right. No, yes. Yeah, it did. Yeah, we had to be honest there, I think. Yeah.

Yeah, we did. And there was probably just, um, like we were like for me anyway, personally, I was like, um, you would only use HMI's bigger units if you needed the blast of sun or you really wanted to cut true on the mole riches the mole beams like we used a lot are so cool you know but it would be you know it would be important to pay attention to what color temperature they were depending on the scene that you were doing but also you could take license with that I did did you find that Peter as well

as far as what you could you could like well I'm going to put a half blue in front of, you know, a mole beam just because I want that little tinge of blue. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And there's places where, you know, maybe like coming through a window set where, you know, you could use an LED,

you could use an HMI, but we were sort of being purists, you know, it's like, no, get a 10K, get a 20K, and put some gel in the other thing, you know, because it is different, you know, the oscillating, filament makes a huge difference. Yeah. That actually... Oh, go ahead.

No, sorry. Just to mention about the lenses as well, I went through so many different lenses. And, you know, and actually, Aaron really threw his eye on this as well, our showrunner. And then with Pankajas as well. But the ones we settled on were rehoused,

cannon lenses from the 60s because they just had a kind of quality they reminded us of the killing actually the look of the killing when we kind of set them up first and they weren't too textured, they weren't too crazy but they just gave us a nice look

and I found myself, Peter, I actually found myself quite a few times but we were in the office and there's like five people in the office or four people in the office and one person's 10 feet away from the closest person I would go on deeper stops because it's suited like there's quite a lot

in the war that do that. The Maltese Falcon is great for these scenes with a lot of people and everybody's in focus and it doesn't bump you, whereas nowadays the 10sia is to go minimum you know, very minimum depth of field or shallow depth of field at least

and that was fun to play with it as well because it suited the drama that was going on in a wide shot you know and there was all these you know, I remember just writing out things for films gone, oh, they did this, and Greg Toland did that in a long day's

long journey tonight. And just the minimalism sometimes, like how to solve a problem, when we don't really have that set. But there's a scene with Nick Cage in the cinema watching a Bogart movie where specifically, and it was shot quite late that scene because they decided they needed a scene

where Nick is learning how to be a person because he may be a bit too much spider. And that was literally a black box of, you know, we had black curtains and a screen and a projector and some seats, a row of seats. And then it was just a case of choosing the angles that were correct. And that's very in the spirit of noir. It's like they literally had three things and an actor

and you managed to tell a part of the story, you know. So from that, it was, it was, it was, a lot of fun in those ways, you know, as well. And not just the big, the big pieces and the big setups, you know, there's the smaller things that we're doing with very little resources, you know, just like they did back in the day, you know. Yeah. The, I did want to know, because I don't, I don't know out of the two of you who to ask

like specific things because it, I wanted to know why, Peter, you only hand. handled two episodes because I feel like just from a workflow perspective it would make sense like I split a half and a half yeah I think you know and that was the original plan uh when Darren signed on and I came in very late in the game uh there was sort of a a change in personnel and I by the time I started Darren was already on episode three and so you know with with the checkerboard system block three which is five and six were then allowed Darren to have some time off because he is getting his ass kit there um we didn't say it's quite true because at one point you know they wanted me to shoot the whole show and i really felt like especially five and six were such

their own thing as well and they're very specific in the show um i said i think for the for the you know for the benefit of the show and to honor what we're trying to do is like somebody should be given the proper time, a cinematographer should be getting the proper time. And Aaron said, I think Peter might do it. And I was going, oh my God, I'd be amazing. And he did, thankfully. So, yeah, and it was brilliant that you came in, Peter.

And also, you know, what you did in those episodes is so gorgeous to me because it's, like, different to what I did as far as the story is concerned. And it's like, I, I, you know, you know, I actually love all our work throughout the whole, it just feels like one unit, you know. Yeah, I mean, there was a question about, there was a question about whether I was, you know,

sort of scared or intimidated about continuing look that Darren was establishing. And first of all, you know, when I saw it, I was like, I was on board. You know, it's like, yeah, let's do that. But there was enough in my episodes that was completely different and never to return in the show that, you know, that I could sort of create the look for those, too. So it's sort of best of both worlds. Yeah.

Yeah, remind me, because I marathoned it just in one shot, so I don't know where the delineation is of episodes, which briefly was five and six. Basically started with his retelling of his life for World War I. Right. And that getting bit and all that. And then Sticks was a lot of him being sucked into the mad scientist's world and getting drugged up and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the woman, I'm sorry, the woman they cast as a scientist, that face was incredible. Amazing. Yeah, just incredible face. And her assistant, her son. Yeah. So, yeah. You know who that guy was, the older version? Yeah, he's in them.

Remind me, please. He's the guy that Clint Eastwood said, make my day. That's right. No shit, that's cool. He's a Scorpio killer, isn't he, and Dirty Harry? Exactly. Yeah. It's hilarious.

It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, you guys were not struggling for cast. No. No, they were all so excellent, you know. They're all so excellent. And they all hit on the name. They really did a beautiful job of being actually like those,

that liked the actors from that particular time. Like, I think, you know, when the dialogue is much faster. It's more ratat-tat-tat. Yeah. And the overlapping. And it's really interesting. Yeah, the guy who played Electro, I think, or whatever his character's name is in that universe. The.

Megawat. Yeah. Just absolute, like right on the razor's edge of too much, but it's just perfect. Oh, yeah. He's so good. Yeah, he's so good. Andrew. Yeah, I didn't know that guy.

And, you know, we did a couple of scenes with him. And I turned to R and I, yeah, who's this guy? He's really great. And the funny thing is, he's kind of like that a little bit in real life. He is. He is really wonderful. He's really wonderful. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. And I loved his drawl. Like, the way he spoke as well. So good. And then to have them Jack Houston in the room as well, you know, it was like, you know, his grandfather is one of the

greatest film American filmmakers ever and it's like, and I don't know Peter of you, Jack, I saw Jack a couple of weeks ago and I said to him, you never told me about your film and he was going, really? I think I bored everybody to death about my film. Oh, no, he didn't say anything.

And I came across it by accident and it wasn't until after I watched it that I realized that Jack directed it. and it's called Day of the Fight. And it's shot in black and white. And it's beautiful. And it's a really good film. So he's one to watch.

Let's see what he's going to do next. But he was so good at being like the Clark Gable character in our show. You know, he was expert to. They all were. And how many scenes did you do with Karen? Did you do a lot of scenes of Karen Rodriguez? Yeah, yeah. we do one oh karen yeah karen a fair amount we did more with lily than karen i think yes yeah you did

both brilliant though and and i actually really enjoyed shooting scenes with two of them actually that was that was a lot fun when they finally kind of come about each other but yeah we were we were spoiled for choice with actors we really were yeah i actually should have asked this uh probably at the beginning for narrative reasons, but I was wondering if you guys could walk me through the pre-production process. I mean, you kind of touched on it,

but like, you know, was there like a show Bible? Was there a, you know, one thing that I always find it, elucative is like, where there are things like,

all right, this is not that. It's when you can do anything, you know, you get a, I guess it's not a marble show, but you get a, you get a larger budget for a television show probably.

And you can do anything. So it's like, what informs the look is what you don't. don't do, you know. Yeah, it was a long process with like we shot tests and then we we looked at millions of references and like, you know, I remember, do you remember the conference room, Peter where we'd have our meetings? Yeah. Like everybody was encouraged if they saw an image that they liked that they would print it out and stick it on the wall. And eventually we had the whole wall was filled.

So that was kind of always a little bit of a reminder of where we were. But the process really was to make sure that all the departments were on the same page. So we did all our testing together, whether it would be costume art together, makeup and hair as well. And through that, we discovered, you know, we would discover, and Poundcage was heavily involved in this, our colorist as well, is to find the right recipes. So you end up with your looks, your lots, your lookup tables and everybody's on the same page.

Everybody knows what things are going to look like. So it was very collaborative, but also very informative for everybody to be on the same page. So, you know, basically we spent a lot of time R&Ding everything and then making decision and sticking to that decision. And I think we were talking about this earlier, but it was like having, this is our black and white film stock. We had two different looks. So we had two different film stocks.

And this is our color film stock. And, you know, and that's, this is the story we're going to tell on these particular film stocks. That's kind of how it worked. Yeah. The kind of,

I feel like I'm just restarting, but there's different questions. There's certainly some VFX in the show. You know, I actually did appreciate how little Spider-Man we got. I did like sitting with Ben Riley for the majority of the time

because I thought that was not only cool for the superhero genre, but just cool because the character is interesting. But you get plenty of VFX with that, but were you employing them for your own help? You know, we're talking about, you know, windows and keys and stuff, but, you know, were you allowed to kind of do the classic?

Like, I don't want to move that. Can we just paint that out? That stand needs to be in the shot, you know? For me, no. I mean, there was, you only use those resources when you needed them, you know. I'm trying to think if there are any BFX in mind. It just really set extension, you know, you put up a blue or green screen, if that hallway needed to be longer or something that sort of back necessitated itself on budget,

you know, is cheaper to do it that way. but I think, you know, Darren can speak to his episodes, but we mentioned earlier, you know, you're not going to throw Nick off a huge building. So there's certainly not of effects in that. And the scope, I think, of New York, certainly in the other episodes, is by necessity. Yeah.

Like set extension would be a huge part of what was going on. But in saying that, we shot on a lot of studio backlots and we had freedom because it was dressed in every direction. So I'm with, you know, period, cars. So you really felt like you were grounded in that world. And as Peter was saying, because of the extension, that's fine. You know, it's like the Brooklyn Bridge sequence. Well, we built a piece of the bridge,

but everything else built out of it is, you know, V effects. But, you know, it's all mindful. They often had concept drawings, you know, so you give you a feel. of where it was going. And quite often on some important sequences, they'd actually, in a week, you'd actually see what was starting to happen with those.

And, you know, things like that were always boarded carefully as well, in my case anyway, just so everybody knew exactly the shots that we were doing, what we would see and what we needed to extend. And everything is a discussion on set as well, because sometimes you dream up something and you really want to do it. And it's like, well, we didn't account for that, but

you know, then you ask for your VFX tokens and say, can I spend somebody's today, please? You know, so but we often, I think most of the time we were just trying, we're in the frame, it had to be organic, it had to be real, it had to be grounded, you know.

Actually, to that point, was this a single camera show? No. What was, what was, what was, what was, what those, what did that situation? There'd be two all the time. And I can't speak for Peter, but mostly I

shot two cameras. And we had very complicated scenes. It'd be three cameras. And one of them just picking out the texture in the scene, really. But it was mainly two cameras. And sometimes it would have to be single camera, but that was rare my

case. For you, Peter? Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, and if there wasn't a specific task for the second camera in terms of coverage it was you know it was atmospheric it was details it was you know maybe something that was a little more adventurous

that if it didn't make it in the cut was okay you know there was a lot of experimentation with shots for sure and a lot of that sometimes fell on the B camera yeah I think the kind of style that we were shooting in it as well.

It was exciting for B camera, for Jess. She would often be, you know, as we're dealing with the A camera set up on the lighting, it was saying, well, I just found this. What do you think? And it was usually great. You know, it's like, okay. She'll find a spot and add to the scene and get us another great shot.

Were there a situation, I mean, you both have had pretty, stellar careers thus far and all manner of types of shows between Westworld all the way to Mulholl and driving stuff. But was there anything on this show that you found either uniquely challenging or new?

Well, jumping between black and white and color. That's the big one. That was the challenge, really. But everything else was just, it was exciting to, shoot because of the genre and like as I said before we were always encouraged to kind of push it and push it and yeah like I mean it was it was to that end you know it's being involved in other projects where they wanted to be noir or or you know really sort of evoked that and then when

it came down to it uh they would chicken out you know that wasn't the case here you know if anything they would push you further and you know and so that that was great and and and you quickly just sort of it was sort of a challenge to push it push it push it and then you were sort of hoping to get shot down because then you feel like you've gone as far as you can go and come back but that that never happened either so there was a real atmosphere of anything goes you know and that was clear from the beginning yeah that's pretty cool because I imagine to your point it can get a little scary if someone doesn't really in because you're like what if I have a bad idea can someone tell me if I have a bad idea?

Yeah yeah yeah I think that was clear that that would that would happen they would tell you but it uh yeah I remember Arvin say you know his thing was always our and our showruner was always like you know push it until it breaks and then step back but you know you they he would sometimes say to me, I think I broke it. You know, like, you know, and I'd be like, I kind of like it. I kind of like it.

I was like very happy to be on that crazy ship with him in Wild City. It was like, okay, you know. So, and it was always going to be interesting, you know. And he always got great, you know, he'd make great comments about things and I can give you good ideas. And we're our directors as well Like they were all invested in

You know what they were doing and And understanding the world that we were trying to build as well So from that point of view Everybody kind of felt like they were really doing something That was like really worthwhile and interesting Was there a particular Scene or element that You were able to push it in a way like gave you the fizzies

You know I think for me in episode 8 the fun house for mirrors and that was that was so much fun trying it actually was quite challenging in the beginning to wrap your head around it because Aaron was like

you know obviously he was tipping his hat to Lady of Shanghai of course but he also wanted it to be you know, this is a very important scene between the mob boss and Lily's character, Carharty, you know, she wants to kill him, you know, and he has to have his monologue before he gets shot. And it was really interesting because I shot a little bit of film on that sequence on a hand-crowned camera in the mirrors. And you can see it every now and again because it's definitely film.

And, you know, we didn't try to blend it too much into our. I look, but it just gave us things because I kept rewinding the film and then shooting Brendan's performance again and like in an infinity room of mirrors. And then it was all joined together. But the way, and I think Aaron was very much involved in that, the way it was put together, and Greg Yattana is the director. And I think they did a great job, you know, like I was kind of like, we've got so many pieces here.

How are they going to put this together? And I think they did a really good job with it. Yeah. What about you, Peter? I think, you know, we had a sequence in a jail that was, the power gets cut and then the power's out and then the power comes back. And it was, you know, it was a location. It was a little difficult because it was like on the six or seven floors.

So I couldn't do anything outside for the day work. But Warren, the designer, came up with a good solution for that. So you're in a very sort of structured look, you know, with logic, but yet you're in Spider-Noir world. And I kept hearing Oren in my head saying, just make it look cool, just make it look cool. And so I try not to go out of control with bar shadows and things, but we peppered some in. and I think that would be able to do a low angle shot but Brendan Gleason as Silverman was like a bucket list brilliant yeah

I mean that guy he'd come on set and it's just there's such a presence to him that but you know a gentle giant just the nicest person so he's such a lovely person yeah and I like I was so delighted to have somebody from Dublin on set as well. And he's from the area I grew up in as well. So his, and I asked him about, I said it's interesting because he's the one that came

up with the idea to use his accent. And he said like he was ex-IRA and he had to like escape Ireland because he was going to get killed and he went to New York and became a crime boss. You know, this is kind of his backstory. But when he spoke as Silverman, I was like, but that's not your normal speaking voice. And he said, no, I'm, I based it on my grandfather. And that was really interesting that he'd actually, he was mimicking his grandfather for that. And he said, he said he was a much maligned man, his grandfather.

And he wanted to give him, he wanted to give him something back, like one for the ancestors, you know. But he was, he was incredible because he's, his, when he turns, when he's Silverman, he's just so unpredictable and kind of vicious and weird and like, dangerous, you know. It's like he really did a beautiful job. Yeah, I remember when in Bruges came out and seeing that in high school or college or whatever it was. And that was like one of the first films I remember seeing that wasn't like a strictly, because I grew up just kind of watching the pop stuff. You know, I'm not going to lie.

I went to film school and the kids who are like, oh, my favorite movie Citizen Kane, And I was like, shut up. It's Jurassic Park and you know it. But, yeah, that film definitely, like, opened me up to like, all right, there's some cool stuff happening elsewhere. Brilliant, yeah. Yeah. The, the, you actually brought up a, peter something that I've thought about.

I primarily shoot documentary these days. And I've gotten a note like that, which was just make it cool. Like, sometimes my director, you know, We're trying to make the best cinema we can with a documentary budget. You know, there's four of us. And he'll be like, hey, just go find me some cool frames or some pretty frames or something. And my reaction, now I know what he wants. But when we were first shooting our first feature, I was like, I don't know what you think cool is.

So for you guys, I was wondering, like, when you're getting a note like that, hopefully you know who's the person who's asking. But if you get a note like that, what are your initial, do you just go off what your instinct is? Do you, how do you handle that kind of thing? Well, I think in this case, you know, Orrin was pretty specific with me, you know, in the noir look about, you know, he said it in the only way he can. He was sort of like, look, you know, if it, if it isn't a logical source to the light, I don't care. just make it look cool. And that meant, you know, break your own rules. Because I know, and rightly so, it's hard for us as cinematographers

to break those rules sometimes because you don't want it. You don't want the lighting to be self-conscious. But there's a little bit of that allowed here, I think. And I think that comes from history. So, you know, if you really sort of pick it apart, there's flaws in it, but it doesn't matter because of, it looks cool, you know, and that's sort of how I took it. Yeah.

Yeah. We should have t-shirts printed with that. Yeah. Just make it look cool. Just make it look cool. That was sort of the moment. I got that from Aaron a lot as well. And, you know, and I actually remember sometimes I'd go, what do you think?

And he go, is it cool? And I said, I think it's cool. And then he's like, okay. Could it be cooler? Could it be cooler? Yeah, but that was the wonderful thing about him being around all the time and being there for us. that we could bounce off them and it just gave you more confidence

to kind of push it you know and that's a very important job like on anything like whether if you're doing a feature it's the director and the writer and you know or the director is the writer and they're usually very individually they have their own individual visuals

and like PDU worked with one of the greatest visual artists you know ever and you know I was still in awe of his body of work, you know, it's so incredible, you know. And like, but that all comes out of him and then he channels a true us, you know, as cinematographers. And then we start to get our own personality onto things as well as time goes by. And you're invested because we're all telling the same story. Yeah.

I got to say, like, Lynch's films were never like my favorite just because they're, so unique in a way that I isn't again not just they're not bad clearly they're just not my favorite but I would despise a world that he didn't live in like the fact that he was making all of them made me so happy you know I was like that's good because the more sameness we have it gets everything gets bad you know and just that singular voice was just so and like I've watched this mask glass read all his books you know just a fascinating um person to learn from I imagine, Peter, you must have had wonderful conversations. Yeah, sometimes.

I mean, Dea wasn't a big talker, really. He was... No conversations. Well, no, I mean, you do, but it's... He talks around subjects, you know, and lets you figure it out, particularly when he's directing actors. You know, we never talked about lighting. He would just show you the scene, and either you get it or you don't, you know,

and you would light it hopefully appropriately. But it's, yeah. No, sometimes, you know, we'd have chats, but it was never about film. He never talked about films that he liked or anything. You know, I knew you catch on after years and years. You know, he built a screening room in the house that we shot Lost Highway,

and he built a screening room. And the first film he screened was Sunset Boulevard. And I think, you know, then that puts, a lot of pieces together. Between that and Jacques Tattee and Francis Bacon, you know, that's sort of a lot you need to know about

David. But yet his films are his own vision for sure. And, you know, stupid me, finally put it together that Mahal and Drive was his Sunset Boulevard. You know, that was his Hollywood story, the way Sunset Boulevard was. And he took his name

in Twin Peaks, Gordon Cole from Sunset Boulevard's character in that movie, but you never see, but it's just mentioned. So it's, you know, and there's someone made a film about everything David does is based on the Wizard of Oz, you know, I don't think that's true. Oh, yeah, I saw that. But certainly he was, you know, he loved that film because it was for a pop art film, it was very dark, you know, you watch it now. Yeah.

And some of it's like, you're like, holy crap, this is really dark, you know. Flying monkeys. Yeah. It's like, wow. And, you know, one of the stages we used on Spider-Nouroir, you know, about 60 feet up, because the 80-foot tall stage, there was a bump out that had to be the landing place for the flying monkeys for a Wizard of Oz, you know. And when the studio people tell you that, I don't know, Darren's reaction, I was like,

That's like epic. That's beyond. It is so epic. Yeah. Stage 27. Yeah. Yeah. On the old MGM, I'm in love.

Yeah. And there's so many kind of memories of Wisda Vaz in those stages. Like I think that stage as well, they actually, they use it for the Emerald City as well, like where the carriage comes in. Because you can see how vast it is. It's so big. It's so big. Yeah. Yeah.

We had like probably six or seven sets there. I think all over the place. They had one. Yeah. And it was, I did a movie called Oz the Great and Powerful, and we shot it in Michigan, where there were new stages,

and we had to do additional photography. So we did it on one of the stages at NGM, then realized they had done the Yellowbrick Road on that very stage that we were doing the Yellowbrick Road. And we, you know, because they have these plaques now at the lot, naming, you know, 10, 20 movies a shot on... Sunbaked to hell.

Yeah, can't read any of them. I went over to stage 15. There was a plaque that said, Wizard of Oz, and then way at the bottom, it was Oz the Great and Powerful. And I took a picture of because it was sort of stunning to me.

Is that your first time back there to see it? Probably, yeah, yeah. Yeah, amazing. That's so cool. It's so cool. And, you know, we were talking earlier that that sort of history of that lot and film noir sort of was around you know no one talked about it but you could feel it you know yeah yeah the the post not only rings twice yeah yeah yeah

was shot there yeah um yeah really there's a lot of great films i think um the asphalt jungle as well I think he was actually shot there too. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's actually something I haven't, I don't think I've heard mentioned in the sort of getting production back to L.A. movement, as it were. Yes. Is that being around that history, like, yes, it's show business, right? But everyone is a craftsman down to the grips.

You know, they're all artists. And being around that history. I think is important. You know, if it's just the newest set every 10 minutes, it becomes a job and maybe you lose that kind of connection to the art form. Because it's a very young art form. It's not like, you know, it's only 100 years old or whatever. Like, I think it's important to remember where you came from and being surrounded right,

that must be. Yeah, I think the very first, I moved to L.A. 15 years ago, and about a year after that, I got a chance to shoot on the Warner Bros. Lod. and I was the first place I went is even though it doesn't look like that anymore is where they shot blade runner you know like I was trying to imagine like all the set bills that they moved on and then and then I remember walking back and passing one of the stages and it was like the Maltese falcon 1940 and that kind of blew me away it was just like oh and God and then it kind of all washes over you because if you love cinema you know these things are really important and that kind of blew me away it was just like oh and God and then it kind of all washes over you because if you love cinema you know these things are really important And I would like to say that, you know, definitely it was always, it was always lovely to shoot on the back lots. Because, you know, it felt like we were shooting something that's set in 1933, but in a way with all our set dressing and our cars and, you know, the people in their beautiful costumes. I felt transported back quite a few times.

Like, I just spent, this is unique and savor every minute of it because it's like it feels great, you know, to be doing that. Yeah. for sure. Yeah. And so it's a, it's kind of funny. It's, you almost restomotted the,

the back lot, you know, it's like getting a, getting a car, an old car back into working shape. Like, this is what it was made for. It's supposed to be on the road.

It's not supposed to be in a, LA was made for it. You know, Los Angeles was made for filmmaking. You know, there's no doubt about it. And it's like, like, you know,

all the westerns that were shot up and I would doltze and the high noon was shot up. a Melody Ranch. You know, it isn't just like, it's, the list is endless, you know. Yeah. The, uh, I love that. I don't know what it, I think it's Paramount made that map where it's like California sectioned off and it's like, this is the Sahara's.

This is, uh, sweet Switzerland. This is, you know, I've ever seen that? No, but I want to. I'll send it to you. It's, uh, yeah, it's just funny to be like, yeah, because I've lived in California my whole life, my whole fifth gen, sixth generation, California. And so I'm always very protective of the state because people try to come for us. I'm like, no, get out of here.

This is the best state union. But it is crazy how much production value you can get out of one border, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's true. True. One hour in every direction, you're somewhere else. Yeah.

Mild pivot. We had this event. I used to work for Red Bull. we had this event called switchboard and we got everyone surfing in the morning and then drove them up to Big Bear to go snowboarding in the afternoon. Perfect. Yeah. You know, you get them on a party bus.

There's only a few places in the world you could do that, isn't there? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know. Not many. Yeah. Yeah. So you shop, you shop the whole of Spider-N-WR here?

Yes. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. And we had, I think we had three or four stages, Peter, didn't we? Yeah. At least. At least.

Yeah. Yeah, and then downtown quite a bit. And then Universal Studios, the Warner Bros. They were our main. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. Yeah. The earlier when we were talking about like make it cool and stuff,

one thing that I kind of was really excited about and I think goes to what you're talking about, which you can't only do on stage, but it's way harder in location. It's just like real intense backlights, Like you're saying, who cares where that's coming from? Like a game I always play with my girlfriend is. Where's that light coming from?

And now she, you know, she'll start doing it. And it's fun when you're given that creative license. Yeah, it's very unique, actually. You know, I think if I turned up and anything else I'd shot with the same kind of attitude of what I was doing at Spider-Noire, I'd be asked to leave. Yeah, yeah. Next. Yeah, yeah.

You know, that does bring up an interesting question, which is like going back into that world, you know, being on the sets, having all those memories of cinema history and stuff like that. Is there anything that you took from the show that you think would be nice if future productions kind of adopted? Because it sounds like you guys had a bunch of fun and were really inspired and, you know, enjoyed the work. Not that every gig is a slog, but there does seem to be an element of sameness in production right now. A lot of, you know, specifically the cinematography, you know, like it's all kind of, with how excellent the technology is now, it's easy to just get a good image and be like, yeah, that's great. You know, and it's potentially, again, I'm speaking from an observer's place documentary. It's all throw it in the air.

But, yeah, is there any? anything you'd like to see move on in the future productions that maybe we've lost? To me it's more black and white. Yeah, more black and white and more adventurous content, I think. Yeah, I think it always starts with the script, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. Although I admit I haven't had time to watch putting anything. I haven't even watched our show except for my two episodes.

I'll get you some screeners. No, I was just, I've been in production. So I, you know, I've been in the black hole. So I'm going to watch it this week for sure. Cool. Have you wrapped now, Peter? Yeah, I wrapped 3 a.m. Friday morning. So yesterday.

Oh, congratulations. Yeah. Well done. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And then straight to Sinegear. Yeah, no.

That's not happening. Oh, we'll miss you. I'll let you guys go, but thanks again, and the show's awesome, and I'm glad you guys got to make it. All right, Kenny. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Take care, y'all. See you later.

Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny MacBellan. 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. Thank you.