Frame & Reference Podcast - 247: "Widow's Bay" Cinematographer Christian Sprenger, ASC

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

I'm very excited to present you with my conversation with the lovely Christian Sprenger, ASC, here to talk about his work on the hit Apple TV+ show Widow's Bay!Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this episode 247 of Frayman Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Christian Springer, ASC, DP of Widows Bay. Enjoy. You know, that's funny. So I was watching the episodes, and it's like to end of episode three. And I was like, damn, that's crazy. That looks like my friend Meredith. And then I, like, my brain went in the, like, found the recesses of when she was like, I'm in a new show.

Oh, no way. Meredith Casey, the chick who plays like his, I guess his wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's my friend. Whoa, that's amazing. That's awesome. When she appeared on screen, I had like this out-of-body experience. I was like, damn, was that the chick from before?

Am I bad with faces? Because that looks like my friend. Oh, that's awesome. Oh, cool. Great. So she comes back. I don't know how much you've seen, but she comes back a little bit. That's good.

Yeah, I was able to, so I was supposed to put in, I was supposed to put in like to Apple screeners like, oh, hey, give me all the screeners. I miss Reddit. I thought they just said, it's in your thing. And I try to watch everything like right before the interviews. So that, because I used to watch like the second I'd get stuff. And then I'd have these notes that I would just say like, blurry the second time. And I'm like, what the fuck does that mean? I don't understand my own notes.

And so I didn't tell Apple in time. But so I watched up to where we are now, so episode four. Okay. Yeah, okay. But feel free to, well, I guess this will probably come out before the end of June. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we can talk about a little bit more forward into things. I'll give you a couple of previews.

What's headed your way soon. Well, and I'll probably just see if Apple will give me the screeners anyway. I'll finish it up quickly. Because it honestly, it's like my watching. habits have changed drastically doing the show because now instead of like seeing stuff not that I didn't already want to watch this but like instead of being like oh that looks interesting it's just force to me which is almost better because it makes me watch stuff that I maybe wouldn't have chosen to I I just think it's life is so it's so hard for me to like sit down and just why like

exactly I have 10 hours of an episodic show like I really want there's so many shows that I'm like dying to watch but I It's crazy. I have a kid, so most of my free time is spent with her and not watching television shows. But it's terrible. I definitely, I have, like, anytime I get on an airplane, I'm just, like, binging everything, like, possibly. I've just been, like, keeping everything in cue, and then I'm just, like, binge watching. It's good.

Yeah. It's tough. Stuff, stuff to watch things. Well, so a lot of times, like, there will be a show that I'll get where I can kind of skip through it and get the idea. And this one actually, that was my intent. And I ended up watching the whole no skip. Like it really does grab you quite. No skips. No skips. No skips. Well, you know, it's like if I'm just, if I know I'm not going to. Well, because sometimes it's like, all right, I do want to watch this show. I don't really want to ruin it for myself. So I'm just going to get the gist of the cinematography.

Sure, sure, sure, sure. And then go back and watch it. But this one I just went because it is, it is a very arresting show. and especially when it starts to get even spookier, it's just a very fun ride thus far. Yeah, yeah. No, it is a very fun ride all the way through till the very end, I promise. It's cool. It keeps you on your toes.

There's an episode six is this is a very big standout episode that at the time of recording has not aired yet, but it is a pretty big like left field Kerr ball episode and yeah it's it will be out when this comes out if you want to address it if you think people will probably be interested in it yeah sure sure I more so just didn't want to spoil it for you but it's uh for the no greater good

basically there's an episode episode six is a flashback into like the 1700s basically as settlers discovered the island and started um living on the island and it's sort of like is somewhat of an origin story you know the show there's a lot of like unexplained things that you're like keeping in the back of your mind trying to like hopefully piece uh you know mysteries together and six starts you know things start to like make a lot more sense than six um but as six was directed by tie west who is also our like kind of our big

like horror forward director of the season. And so it is also probably one of the kind of creepiest episodes. And it's really fun. We shot it on a different camera in different format, different lenses.

Like it's kind of like a total it diverges away from the show in a really fun way. But yeah, but the whole show is a really fun And there's, you know, there's like, I think what's fun about it is a lot of the reviews, you know, have sort of been like poking at the idea that it's sort of like a Stephen King mixtape, which honestly, we never had a million years thought about that as an enormous compliment. But there is definitely like genre. There's tons of genres that were just kind of like, you know, referencing or pointing our fingers at.

And I don't know, it seems like the horror community has been very, like, welcoming and embracing of that concept. I saw, I saw it's Schitt's Creek plus Jaws. Yeah, that's great. And I was like, I don't know if it's, because it is a, it is a funny show, but I would not necessarily say it's a comedy. Because a comedy, there's no jokes. It's just funny. It's very dry. It's super dry comedy. You know, when we were, very early on, we were talking about, like, what is the brand of comedy?

Katie Dippold, who's the creator, you know, she comes from, like, Parks and Rec. She wrote, like, Ghostbusters and I think Haunted Mansion. I mean, she has some pretty, like, comedy forward pieces on her, on her resume. And obviously, Hero and I have done some comedy-ish things, but things always, you know, the comedy is definitely, like, of pushed down. And so we had a lot of conversations early on about like, what is this brand of comedy? And we were just like kind of scratching our head at like,

how does this work? I think you can kind of screw the horror up very easily if the comedy gets too wacky or isn't grounded or is too jokey. And I was driving, I was driving somewhere in Los Angeles. And I was like, I think this is like Norwegian comedy. I was like, I called Hero and I was like, what do you think about like Norwegian comedy? Like that comedy is like the driest comedy on the planet.

And I was like maybe that's the thing. Like maybe we lean into that direction. I don't know if we did or not. But that was like the first time that I like was able to like wrap my head around like what the brand is that we're trying to make. Like where the comedy sits in a scene. And ultimately it kind of like sits in a very low underneath it all and in a very dry place. but yeah that that like modulation was something that like we talked about very early in prep we talked about

when we were pitching this whole thing to apple and our idea for how to make the show and then it was like nonstop conversation during production nonstop conversation in post like even down into like the di we had conversations about like how funny should this feel in this moment or how much should we step on that uh and it's cool that when you talk to people about the show, that's kind of like the first thing that people bring up is like, I don't even know how to feel

or what I should feel like or when I should laugh or not, but it's funny, but I'm not like laughing out loud to jokes. So yeah, it was like a two-year calculation. Well, I think too when you underplay,

so like I produced a stand-up show. That's how I met Meredith. And one thing I've noticed is that there's some audience members who are they're used to the comedy cadence. Dada, da da da da, da, da, da, da, da, da punchline, but they will laugh at anything that follows that cadence. But also if there's, if it's not in that cadence,

even if it's the funniest thing in the world, they won't laugh because they don't know it's time. Yeah. And so I imagine when you're, when you're stepping on the joke a little bit, it allows for people who are not necessarily that funny in their own life to just settle in on the horror part. but people who are a little more,

I don't want to say intelligent, because that's not what I mean, but like keyed into that kind of thing can enjoy the joke without it being too. Like one I loved was when he's talking about picking up the chick, whatever name was. And then he's like, do you want to ride? And she's like, no, or do you want to ride tonight?

And she goes, no, it's harder in the mornings. And he just eats that. And there's nothing else, right? Like, that's a great one that like, that could either run completely under the race. radar or land, but it certainly landed for me. Not to say I'm like the smart guy, but I just, I loved that there wasn't a button to it where you just sat there and ate it. Yeah.

And then you get up to, well, I was going to say, then you get up to like episode four where I know you didn't shoot it, but just that pan, the pan past the mirror. Oh, he's doing her to. I said, bro, actual, actual goosebumps. I was like, oh, fuck. Nope. Don't like that. Don't like that at all. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's such an amazing moment. I remember I was on set when they were filming that and I was just like, God, that's so good. Like, I mean, but it's somewhat the same philosophy, though. And I think that's what's kind of interesting is that, like, I do think that that obviously originates a little bit more from, like, the drama or horror genre of things. but like the sort of like letting something sit there and not acknowledging it, I think is, and it kind of ended up being how we addressed the comedy. And there, and truth be told, there were, like in the pilot, there were some big jokes,

like some gross jokes. There were some very big jokes. And I remember us shooting those and being like, maybe this fits, I don't know. And then slowly in the edit, those things kind of like filtered their way out. But I do think that like, I think what we kind of discovered was that like not, you know, like stepping on something and pushing it down and letting it be something that like you catch as an audience, not something that's like thrown in your face. Whether it's a comedy beat or whether it's a horror beat tends to land a lot better. You know, it's playing to the smartest person in the room, you know, like it takes a lot of confidence to like believe that that's going to work. but I don't know.

I think it worked. I think it worked in this. I think so too. And also I think it's a, it's refreshing. I don't know how true it is, but the whole, you know, people reporting that like, oh, Netflix is making people right dialogue that is like explaining what they're doing. It's not that, which is refreshing. Yes, yes, yes.

And I don't think that, and I think that type of stuff, not to, go on a tangent, but like that type of stuff trains the audience to not watch. Yes, absolutely. Hero, H. Hero, Mirai, who is the creator of the show. I love the man. Never met him, but all his work is fantastic. You know, he always kind of like philosophically talks about this concept of like things that you can do as a filmmaker that cause the audience to lean into the interaction

of the piece, right? So, like, I think what you're talking about having, like, exponential dialogue or I think I've read a similar thing where it's like characters have to, like, walk in the room and announce their purpose, like, that Netflix, I'm sure that's not, I'm sure it happened on like one, you know, in one-dose room at one point and then everyone's like, oh, my God. But, um, but I do think that sort of the core of his philosophy of filmmaking and directing is that, like, you do have to kind of, like, you do have to kind of, like, you do have to kind of, the audience work a little bit hard for what they're getting, right?

If you're just like spoon-feeding people and people like don't care or don't, after a while they're going to get sick of it. But if you're giving only the most minimal amount of like bits of information or you're teasing out things, it like, or even with like interesting casting or interesting performances, you really are causing the audience to have to engage in order to like figure out what's going on, figure out what the tone is, figure out how they should feel in this moment. And that kind of like core philosophy, you know, I think gets applied to how we shoot our stuff, how we, you know, the type of coverage that we get, how things are edited, the pacing of things.

It's really all, I think it all kind of comes from that like core philosophy. which is good. The Miyazaki thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just sort of good filmmaking. Yeah.

The, yeah, because I was during the, you know, I was looking up stuff that Hero said and stuff. And it was the Miyazaki, like, Ma concept of space or whatever, like letting stuff kind of exist and letting you come in with that. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Is that the kind of stuff that you guys, like, actively talk about? like I'm trying to or so in that instance like I'm trying to leave this space like

Miyazaki does or granted you guys have like probably a pretty good shorthand now but early on or was it more like he would just tell you kind of what he's thinking and eventually those types of explanations made it out into the ether we did I remember early on in Atlanta and we also made this film Guava island for for Amazon I do remember we had several conversations about Miyazaki films and just that sort of like slow pacing and like passive camera. I mean, obviously there's, I think probably a lot of that influence in Atlanta, especially in the early seasons where it's, you know, sort of like observational passive lockoff, you know, wide shots where there's a lot of scene work that's happening without a lot of coverage. So yeah, I think, you know, I don't think it's as explicit as like, I love this movie. Let's try to copy it or let's try to reference it.

We have a lot of big sort of just like philosophical filmmaking conversations, I think. And, you know, I think it's also like, I mean, we've worked together as a DP director collaboration for like over a decade. And so there's like an aspect where there's some some of it is like our language that we've sort of developed to talk to each other and to discuss how to do these types of things. And, you know, from that is built, you know, like all of our tastes and aesthetics and framing and lighting and whatnot. And then, of course, when we're starting a new project, we are trying to start from scratch, clean slate, not. try to, you know, force our agendas onto what it should feel like. And we really do try hard to, like, not just repeat ourselves or not just copy what we've done in the past.

And then I think naturally what tends to happen is, like, all of your tastes and influence, like, seep through the process. And they kind of do get in there anyway. But I think that's fine. I mean, I think, you know, I think as long as, like, we aren't approaching. something from an egotistical standpoint where we're like, oh, we have to do it this way because we always do it this way.

You know, I think clearly that's not how one should approach designing a look for something. And we know, Hero is like the Michael Jordan of like forcing everyone to make sure that we're all like not going cart for the horse, that we're all sitting there and really understanding like what the intention of the project is and what the project is and what wants to be. And then from that, that is what decides like all the technical stuff and all the specifics

and all of the designs and everything. So we really do try to like spend a lot of time just kind of philosophically discussing like what's the world? What's the show? Who are these people? What does the audience want to feel when they're living in this world? Which is great. I mean, that's like the most fun.

part of the whole process. And then we like from there start breaking it down into like technical and execution. Yeah. I mean, just having seen other interviews you've done, I know like the technical isn't necessarily your like favorite thing just, you know, especially. No, I was talking about it. Well, I mean, specifically like how many times you got raked over for like, so you, you rated the Alexa brighter and then you know, it's like, okay, yeah, yeah, please thank God.

But that was a crazy, specifically, I'll dress it here in public. That was a crazy thing because I, like, very early on in Atlanta, I had done some interview with, like, no film school or something where I was talking about, like, how it was exposing. And we were doing a lot of, like, you know, essentially like digital push processing on the Alexa Mini. And then it just got like wildly taken out of context. And then there was this huge thing, like on Roger Deacons's website where he weighed in and he was like, this is him. impossible. And I was like, oh, man, this is a total, like, press backfire situation. It was very funny. But anyway, here. Did you just do that for one shot and then everyone? No, no, no. On Atlanta, we basically, like, I rated the camera for day exteriors. For example, I read the camera like 1250.

Sure. We, we, my colorist, uh, Ricky Gossis and I basically did this like very, uh, specific bracket exposure test where we essentially, using the shutter, we started at normal exposure and then we bracketed down like essentially until it was like, you know, fully under exposed where there was just like black. And then we essentially built Lutz for like one stop under. exposed, two stops underexposed, three stops underexposed, four stops underexposed. So basically where we kind of landed was like, it was like one and a half stops.

It was 1280 and one and a half stops under exposed. I think what happened in that interview was I was talking about metering, you know, African-American complexion skin that was coming in like four stops below where it normally would be. Uh-huh. Somehow someone was like, that means that he's five stops or six stops under-exposing. the whole image and then I think that's where it kind of blew up. And also, I had heard stories where there were like cinematographers that basically just were like, great, I'll do that and did that and then totally shot themselves on the foot because they just copied some total false information that someone blew up on Reddit or something.

So anyway, I think the moral of the story is, for all the DPs out there, is just you can't, You just can't copy something that, like, you hear or read because it's probably not fully accurate. But also, like, you just have to test. You have to do your own tests. And you have to, like, spend a ton of time testing. And especially if you want to, like, break. I mean, our MO is like, let's 99% break the Alexa. And then, like, if we just, like, consistently keep it at that 99%, then it'll look like a really cool choice.

but you have to like figure that stuff out for yourself and for the project, for lenses and your filtration and your workflow and it's different every single time. There's certainly a, well, I'm glad we could clear that up for anyone. Yes, yes. But also there's, there's, yeah, there's a, I won't name them, but there's a person on YouTube

who makes videos that are very prescriptive about cinematographer. this DP does this prefers to do that and this sounds great it's it's clearly well it's just clearly like they read one article yeah yeah yeah that said that thing and then they say that because they're trying to be authoritative

in their presentation that this is the way it's done and that does make trying to learn I'm putting on the hat of someone who's trying to learn cinematography online if you're a student or just getting into filmmaking and you find those videos, they do sound very authoritative. And they do, they read an interview with you. And you're like, oh, that's a cool thing. And then you'll go on Reddit maybe and talk about, hey, can anyone clear this up?

And everyone saw the same source. So they're all going, yep, that's correct. Or someone says, no, it's not with a little more experience. And everyone goes, how the fuck do you know? Here's the source. Shut up. Yeah. And so the internet does become a very difficult place to.

or can be a very difficult place to learn. So I'm always telling people to get books or listen to this show. But the testing is huge. Yeah, and also, I mean, like, God, when I was in film school, you couldn't go out and buy, like, a $1,500 camera that shot, like, mind-blowing images. Like, you literally can just, for such a small barrier of entry, you can just, you know, do your own tests, like, infinitely.

Or like now you can shoot stills. I tell, you know, like young deep pieces all the time. Like you can shoot, you know, film stills that are literally recans of Vision 3 Kodak. And you can get it processed and you can use Lutz that you can use, you know, Kodak Luts to like practice how to expose or how what push processing does to film stock. Like it's unbelievable how simple it is to like learn. experiment on your own for like very little money and I'm really just saying this out loud because I should just also be doing this all the time. And I do when I shoot film I like I'm like oh God I got to go like shoot 10 rolls so that I can just practice where I'm setting exposure or

see what see what pushing is going to look like or whatever. But yeah, I mean it's I I truly feel like you should just always be testing, always be experimenting and like especially because everyone's using essentially the same gear and all the sensors are all incredible and they all look kind of the same now. Like, you know, building your own luts and all that stuff. Like that's really how you're going to set yourself apart, you know, when you're kind of like coming up. Well, and with how depressed shooting has been recently. Yeah. rental houses, the ones that haven't closed yet, unfortunately, are really open to people just showing up.

Absolutely. They won't take your money. They'll just, hey, can I go play with the Alexa 35? I want to see what's up. They'll be in you go, buddy. Have fun. Absolutely. A hundred percent.

Bring a memory card or dump it there, you know, whatever. They want you to come back, you know, the first ones for you. They'll drug dealer you. They will drug dealer you. No, absolutely, absolutely. But on the subject of, you know, testing and achieving that look, I do, I'm going to start with that first thought. I do, I do really love the look of the show. And it's great because at some point we do roughly answer the question, when is this?

When the mayor meets that chick and he's like, we don't have cell reception. I'm like, okay, okay. So it is just a quaint looking town. And this isn't the 80s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're served so well by the production design of the island in all these places. It's just gorgeous. But what were you doing on your end to kind of be the spice of that life?

So, you know, I think obviously there's so much of the show is this kind of like concept that like these people, like you're saying, you kind of don't almost know when this takes place. It definitely feels like a lot from the past, right? There's like old cars. So there's very little technology, which is also such a gift when you're making a TV show. You don't have to have everyone like text messaging. Right.

And so we knew that we wanted the look and the feel to feel nostalgic and a little older and dated. We had explored, like, maybe shooting some of it on film or printing to film. We've done a lot of film outs on stuff in the past. And so we explored a lot of that stuff. And then what we ended up doing was we shot side-by-side, all of our camera tests. We shot side-by-side the Alexa 35 and 5219 and basically, like, match the lenses, match the filtration. match the exposures. And then we sat in a D.I. suite with Damien, Vandercruzen, and our DIT,

Keow Moon, and then Cody, Jacobs, our other DP. And we basically just, you know, sort of fetishized over all the great things that we loved about the film and everything that was missing from the Alexa. and the color science team at Harbor basically built like a translation lot once we we basically built the look and sort of set the grade using the film stock footage and really fell in love with that. And then basically all of the color scientists at Harbor built a translation lot and then Damien built this like brilliant stack of like, you know, halation and frame jitter and all that stuff. So the goal was that by the end, we would be kind of flipping back and forth and really couldn't tell which one was which. And so I think that was where we started.

And I was having this conversation with Cody the other day now that the show's done and now that we're watching it in context on through the streaming app and on your television at home and stuff. And I was like, you know, I don't, I think we have, convinced ourselves in production or in prep that like, oh, we like crack the code.

We like got digital to look like film. And I think where I've sort of landed on all of that is that like I don't necessarily think that's ever entirely possible. But I think that what we did was we landed on something that's kind of like holistically its own thing. And it's different and it's unique. And it's something that we built specific that makes sense for the show. and it's I think referencing the nostalgia of, you know,

what some of these older films look and feel like when you experience it as an audience. So, yeah, but, you know, ultimately, you know, I give Damien and Harbour and Keough a great deal of credit for being so hardcore consistent with, you know, once we've figured out what that look was, like making sure that the show. show continued to be that look through and through.

And our VFX team, there's an enormous amount of VFX in the show that are fairly seamless. And those guys were so deferential to us and making sure that like anything they did didn't step on the final look that we were trying to go for. Are the VFX just like paintouts or additions and stuff? Obviously there's some like fire, giant fire elements or whatever. Yeah. know, there's some of that stuff, but when you say a lot, is it the invisible stuff?

Yeah, it's almost entirely invisible. Later in the season, there's this, like, really crazy storm. And we, you know, we went through great lengths to do as much in camera as possible with rain machines and wind machines. You know, but ultimately, there was a lot of the effects kind of like on top of that or marrying a lot of that stuff together. And, you know, the world of the show, we didn't shoot on an actual island. So, you know, anytime you're seeing an island, that's something that we built or sort of modified. And then there's tons and tons of paint out, set extension, clean up, that type of work. And also, you know, just like we shot – we did shoot in New England.

We didn't shoot in Maine where the show takes place. We did a unit, a merely unit out there. but, you know, some of the locations are like hours apart from each other. So the marrying of everything together and it all feeling like it's all like one little town all in the same space. Took a lot of puzzle pieces that were glued together with an incredible VFX team. Yeah. Are you guys a split comp team? A little bit, little bit. We'll do some sometimes.

Because I've certainly, I mostly do documentary. I've certainly taken to, if I'm the one editing or coloring, I will get the mic. I mean, you could usually get the mic pretty close, but the mic or the light or whatever. I'm like, not going to be a problem. I'm going to get rid of that later. Or doesn't happen in documentary. But I just do love the idea of just retiming, you know, two actors talking. We definitely did a lot of that.

We've done a lot of that in the past. I don't know how much of that ended up happening. But yeah, we'll do that type of stuff here and there. I did real quick just to sort of dummy proof the colorist conversation. When you say that you were making a translation lot, where you basically saying that they graded the film and then created a lot that made the film look without the grade look like the film. match, exactly.

And then you could just dump the film grade on it all extinct. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's smart. I did, that's how I stole the live grain look. Once I learned what they were doing at Live Green, I was like, I could fake that. I can do that myself and resolve. That's not too hard.

I mean, yeah, ultimately, like, there are tons, you know, there's like so much incredible, you know, there's all these like unbelievable luts these days that do like you know codec emulation and stuff that were great we all use them and i i shoot them all the time on commercials and whatnot i think this felt like something very specific that we were after you know like cody and i built like a visual bible that was like very specific to like what the lighting in the show wanted to look like what the you know what the contrast ratio and then like the color section was very specific and we we played around with the idea of like starting with, you know, like Kodak emulation luts. It just wasn't getting us to this place that we were sort of after.

And so I think, you know, it's such a thing. Like the Alexa 35 is just like the most incredible sensor technology in the history of cinematography. And it can literally do anything. I mean, it's like so much unbelievable amount of latitude that you're just like, it's an embarrassment of riches. I think what something like Kodak or what film offers is just like a really rock solid, tried and true 100 years of testing reference. And that's the thing that when you shoot film, it just comes out looking great like that. But it really is this like, you know, you can make digital look literally like anything.

But I think because of that, you can get lost to the wheat so quickly, even if you do have a million references. And also things tend to get like too complicated or too messy or it's doing too many things. And the film stock, we did this on Mr. and Mrs. Smith actually initially. It was just like really helpful to have like we didn't copy the look like we did this time. But on Mr. Mrs. Smith, I used it just as a reference for how I wanted skin tones to be rendered in with the Lut. And it was just like having a really nice, you know, they used to have like China. doll strips that they would put up when you were like timing film prints just to always have this reference of like this is what the best skin tone should look like. And so I find it really

helpful to just like have that as a backup anytime I'm like setting the look of something that I can point to it and be like that's the best version of it. Yeah. Talk to me about the the look Bible because I was going to ask, I use it as an example all the time, but to this day I still think that the holdovers is the best example of like faking film. Yeah. And when I was talking to Eigle about that, he was like, well, it is that for sure. There's like the film emulation to a degree, but it's the way that they lit it. He was like, they still used LED, but they were like, we just stuck ourselves to like only doing what you could do in the 70s.

And that really. So I was going to ask you about the lighting, which I'd love for you to touch on. but you've already addressed the sort of look Bible, which so how, like, how deep does this go? How, how, um, because I really do love the, again, I've said this to other people. I just want to steal your, your ideas. We, so, yeah, I mean, I think, philosophically, I think the look Bible, obviously is like, super, super important when you're doing anything, but specifically when you're starting a show and

designing a show from scratch. It's just like, you know, it's just, like, you know, it's just. like a very simple visual way that you can have discussions with like everyone like i would bring you know the art department the set designers and the costume department and we would like go through the bible together and um you know we when we did our camera tests and we i arranged like a screening where we all sat down and watched the screening and then you know i went through and showed people references and explained what we were going for and why and how so you know i think it's just such an invaluable means to communicate,

especially since you're talking about a visual thing. On this show, we decided to use this app freeform that's like a Mac app that everyone has on your Mac computer. It comes on the phone, yeah. It's actually like a very, very simple app. It's basically just like a digital whiteboard, but it does really go with loading tons and tons of imagery. And you can write on it with your,

Apple Pencil. And so Cody and I started using that because we could collaborate and share the file back and forth. And so we would just sort of like dump tons of images and references and whatnot and then start organizing them. And it like kind of was this big giant sort of collagy mess for a long time as we started started to like filter through. And also, you know, you're kind of have like some of the scripts but not everything. And you're like during prep, you're getting more and more of the stuff. And you're still like during prep, you're getting more of the. scripts and so then they'd be like oh now let's find references of like this and that but i would say i think for us what was really helpful because we're sharing the show and because we're you know obviously i have to hand the show off to him he shoots several episodes and then he's got to hand him back to me like that continuity is so critical and um so we used it a lot sort of to define like like philosophies of how we would light, which was really interesting, and how we would expose.

And, you know, like, for example, like a night exterior, obviously there's lots of different tastes as to like what the exterior should, how they should be lit. And, you know, are you three quarter back lighting everything? Or like, what does under-exposed front light look like and all the type of stuff? And so we had, it was just like a really great way

of communicating what the plan was. And then once we both kind of agreed, like, okay, this is the plan. This is how we're going to approach night exteriors. Then, like, we could sit down with our gaffer and we could sit down with the rest of the team and then we could start expanding that out into, like, technically, how are you going to achieve that?

But it was just like a really simple way to have those conversations. And then, like I said earlier, we just like kept refining this. over the course of the whole season and kept organizing it into like this is what like the ocean at night is going to feel like

and then when we would go into a meeting about like how the hell are we going to do this ocean at night sequence so we would have like we already have all the references and then I would also you know we would be having those conversations with Katie with hero you know I would pitch like episode nine there's this foggy ocean sequence

that was supposed to be shot at night in the middle of the night, in the middle of the ocean, in the 1700s, lit by a lantern. And I was like, I don't think that's a good idea. I think it's going to not look great. And it's going to be really hard to shoot like a dialogue scene with five characters and someone falling out of a boat and all this stuff with one little lantern as the only light motivation. And so I built this whole like a visual pitch for doing it. it, you know, more like a dawn fog fogged out like dawn, crack of dawn sort of feeling where like you're sort of thick gray pea soup and you can't really tell where or when you are.

And, you know, I had like 15 references that I had pulled from various places and I was like, it's kind of a combination of all these things. And, you know, it meant we had to like build a huge water tank and meant we had to like, you know, wrap an entire stage and gray it was like a huge thing but being able to visually pitch it up on a tv screen and share it with all the creatives and everyone sort of deciding like okay fine let's change what it says in the script let's do this let's invest a lot more time and money into this because we all believe in this idea so i just it's just like so important to have that as your backup when you're going in to like have those big big conversations or big

creative swings. And then, you know, that continued all the way through color. Like for episode six, I was talking about as a flashback episode, like, I, that's like a very different look and aesthetic and change for many reasons. And I had built a completely separate show Bible just for that episode that I then like sat down with our colors. And I was like, I know we've done five episodes with this lead and all this stuff. But like this episode's going to be. all of these references now. So yeah, I mean, it literally like even to this day, like when I prep for an interview, I'll like look through and just be like, oh yeah, man, we were talking about that or like that film

had a big influence, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, it's a massive part of building a show like this. For sure. What was, you said, so Lex 35, K-35s? No. So we shot a combination of the tamashi's, zero-optics tamashis. Shout to Alex Nelson. Yes, Alex Nelson, the OG, one of the best.

And then we also shot the Olympus Ombi-Soycos, which are also zero-optic rehoused, which are lenses that I started playing around with in season four of Atlanta and just absolutely fell in love with. And I think there are some very close similarities to the movie cams that Airy has, which I shot on Mr. Mrs. Smith. And then for episode six, we shot on the ASC's Tadeo spherical large format lenses. Nice. We're the first show, first modern production to shoot on those lenses, actually. Is that the only lens of the ASC owns?

Well, the ASC has an enormous, if you or anybody ever makes to the clubhouse, there's an incredible just collection of like vintage gear. I mean, they have like Lunier cameras and like, I mean, an unbelievable like historical museum of gear. And these lenses were sitting in, the ACC magazine did like a big expozoanum a few issues back. but these lenses were sitting in the library collection, or the museum collection, and I think it was like Shelley and I can't remember who else. There was like a few ASC members that were sitting around, like just looking at these lenses and they're like,

I wonder if those are good. And then Alex, Alex, like, grinded them out, like manually had to, like, grind out all of the, you know, it was all like seized up. You know, they're like 80s. 70-year-old lenses or whatever. And they were like, these are incredible. And they cover Alexa 265.

And they're like beautiful, beautiful vintage lenses. I mean, they're so, so good. And Brad Wilson at Keslo, when we were talking about 265, he like texted me and he was like, there's these like top secret lenses that the ASC has been like kind of like secretly making with Alex. Would you be interested in exploring them? And I was like, yes, absolutely.

But they were amazing. It was like such a dream to shoot on them. Yeah. And what did you put those on? 265? 265, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I actually have been to the clubhouse a few times.

I shot a few videos with Steve, which, you know. Yes. If I had Steve on the podcast, that was the first longest episode I'd ever done. And then he has a really good, he has a great YouTube channel. No, that's because of, that's because of me. Oh, really? Oh, amazing. So, well, not me specifically.

So it's my friend Joey who runs the Adam Savage tested channel. Oh, yeah. So, well, he doesn't run. He's the DP for that channel. So Joey comes into town and he's like, hey, man, I'm going to, we have this tested side channel. And I want to go and talk to Steve about all the cameras that they have. there. Can you film it? I was like, sure. So I go, we go film it. And then like you say, we got to see the Lumiere, you know, the first anamorphic ever made, all this fun stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then like the video comes out and does great, you know, it's like 150, 350,000 views, whatever, you know. And like, fucking four days later, Steve puts out his first video, texts it to Joey and goes like, we're on the move. Like, all right. I had, you know, I went and did like this. Shout out to Joey for that one. I went and did this like a little private tour where he, you know, it's like a two-hour tour where he just like shows you the most mind-blowing stuff. Like, yeah, this was like on an Apollo mission and all this.

You know, it's so amazing. And I was like, why isn't, I was like, the ASC's got to like do like a, like a YouTube channel about this stuff. And he was like, I kind of been doing one on. And then he sent me a link and I just like devoured like 10, videos straight. But it's, it's amazing.

I mean, there's like, how many people on the planet Earth like possess all of that knowledge? And also, like, he also just like fixes the cameras and like, well,

he like had just rebuilt this hand crank cameras. Like, feel how smooth this is. And I was like, this is so cool. It's amazing. Really awesome. Well,

it's like, you kind of touched on it, but it's the knowledge, but also the ability to actually use them. It's not, I mean, they are museum pieces. but they're functional.

Yeah. If you really wanted, you could take a lot of that stuff out. Oh, 100%. Was it the Technicolor camera who's got there, whatever that is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like a three-stri-a-beaut three-strip

technicolor camera that is like immaculate. I mean, it's awesome. I mean, that's what's so cool about these lenses. Like, these are literally like historical. I mean, they shot like Sound of Music and Cleopatra. And like, I think they were saying that they shot all, a lot of the like step printing VFX for the original Star Wars. You know, they're like, they have an unbelievable, like, legacy to them.

And then they just sat in a museum for, like, 30 years until someone was like, oh, we could totally use these. They're awesome. They're, like, they also, Alex built them with this, like, really cool. I can't remember the whatever, like this acid coating or acid wash that he did. But they're sort of, like, built out of, I guess they're, I don't know, iron or something. but they like are oxidizing. So they like look incredible.

When you see them, they like look like. Yeah, yeah, on the outside. On the outside. On the housing. Yeah,

yeah. But yeah, I was like so, I mean, so honored to get to use those. It was really, really quite cool. That's right name.

Yeah. The, I'll have to bug. I want Alex to rehouse my NICorp primes, but he's not going to cut me a deal. So I don't have that money. I'm not successful enough. take you like four years he's like so

that's fine guys so backed up oh the the shackles of success no I mean truly I think zero optic has done like so many incredible I mean the Tamashi's are like really cool weird lenses we we basically like kind of intentionally carried them

as the wackier lens set and then we had like the you know more straightforward lens set and then we sort of like could modulate back and forth I'm very much like I don't like using a lot of lenses. I don't like carrying tons of lenses. Atlanta was like one set of lenses for four seasons. But I it was kind of like we shot the Tamashi's on the test and I was like there's something so cool and interesting about them. But like I think if we use them the whole time it might be like one step too far. And so I pitched here of this concept. I was like what if we just have like some wacky lenses and then we'll just like use them when it feels. And is appropriate. There's like episode 10, it's a very big reveal, so it won't give it away, but episode 10, there's kind of this, like, big storyline with Ruth Loftus's assistant, and I basically, anytime I filmed her, I shot her on the Tamashi's and lit her, like,

very intentionally, like, very soft and very kind of angelic. And then any time I did reversals, I like did the complete opposite where I like, you know, used like a deeper stop, a lot more contrast. And it was just like, I don't know, it was really fun. I certainly haven't invented this concept, but I tend to not do those types of things. And it was really fun to like have that extra paintbrush to sort of, you know, help tell the story a little bit. It was cool. Yeah, I should have asked this way earlier. but was there a kind of

M.O. when it came to quote unquote normal stuff and then the horror stuff, was there like, hey, we're not going to unleash green or we're going to use these lenses for horror or was it all shot? Obviously, I could use my eyeballs, but I'm wondering from your perspective.

Was there a difference? No, I'm trying to think. I mean, I think in the grade maybe a little bit, like I know that Cody in episode eight, Episode 8 is sort of like a classic slasher reference. And, you know, I think in the grade we definitely did some things where we sort of like leaned into the grungierness of things or where we placed exposure and whatnot. But I don't know. I don't think we weren't like suppressing color palette or anything like that for specific moments.

I mean, I think, again, we were like trying to not like play the keys too loud. when it was like supposed to be something or supposed to be something else. We really were trying to like, I think we were just really into this idea that like when you read the scripts, you're kind of like, I don't know if I should be laughing. Like, what is the tone of this? And we were like, instead of trying to define that, we were like, maybe that's what should be. Maybe the whole thing should feel like, I don't know, what is this?

And so I think the cinematography, there are a lot of moments where, like, hero would be like, this should not feel scary, even though it is scary and it will be. scary. Like, don't do anything to make it extra scary. Just, like, kind of play it normal. And likewise, we would also, like, do things where we're like, oh, we know that this beat is not going to be scary, but we can really, like, play with anticipation or, like, kind of, like, you know, fool people into thinking something's there when it's not there, that type of stuff. But, yeah, I don't think that we, we, like, went super specific where it was like, this is a horror scene. so let's do it this way.

Right. Get the flickering florescence in here. You did mention a few times, and I did kind of want to dig into it, which was where you're placing your exposures. I feel like just from a purely educational perspective, I think that's something that's not necessarily taught beyond like, hey, zone system, skin, get that about key, maybe a little higher, maybe a little lower.

but don't do much else. But I really, really like the way, like, even just the first two episodes, how, like, you're handling some of these interiors, like, what is it, the bar or whatever, like the launch kind of thing. Yeah. Like, you've got them just sitting by the window. I think this also goes into lighting a little bit, but you just got them sitting by the window and you could have, you know, if you didn't know better, you'd be like, yeah, they just put them by the window.

But then also, like, where are you putting that exposure? Is he lit for key? Are we printing up? Like, what was the whole... Yeah, I don't know. I think that, I don't know. I would say that exposing faces is probably something that I kind of carry with me from project to project specifically. I think I have like probably not good ultimately, but I have this like aversion to like people being exposed properly always.

I think when you watch a TV show and like every shot just so happens to always land into like the perfect key exposure. Like it just feels manipulated and fake to me and I think that like Atlanta really I really broke my brain on that show

like just trying to never think about where people's exposure was. And it's such a it's such a frustrating and scary journey for me sometimes because I'm like sitting at a monitor trying to think like it's pretty dark and you know like you have like years of studio notes saying like their faces are too dark we can't see their eyes or whatever so like that's just playing in the back of your head and you're like but I can see them but it's not where and you know like the skin tone

false color is like not even anywhere on their face right now but like is it okay and like And I feel like I'm just in like a constant state of stress or anxiety around that concept of exposure. And maybe that's what my has then become what the look of my style is, is just like me stressing out about like where exposure is. But I would say that I think I tend to prefer things to feel not necessarily under exposed, but just like not being like perfectly lit to the same place each time. So, you know, I think like when I'm doing coverage, I really dislike when both people look like they have the same exposure

or the same light source that's lighting them, unless it's motivated unless they are like literally sitting next to a soft bank of windows and it should be natural. But I don't know, I think I just, I tend to obsess over that stuff, probably too much. But yeah, I think, you know, my sort of like initial pitch was, it was tricky because we were also referencing things like the shining and jaws. And there are a lot of portions of those films where like everything is lit to one stop over key. And we, you know, Hero, it was interesting, like very early on in the prep process, he was like, I think I want the.

showed to like feel a lot more lit than like anything we've done in the past. And I think I initially was like, okay, great, well, we'll get a bunch of tungsten lights and we'll like bang key lights on people. And we, you know, we started testing and testing and played around with those things. And there, you know, there were definitely times where we did do more lighting of faces than I think we've done on previous. projects, but I don't know, there was also this, like, kind of conversation of, like, it's referencing the past, but it also, it ultimately still is a modern thing. We're still shooting it on it with modern lighting and we're still, you know, it exists in modern day. So there was like this kind of like duality or bouncing back and forth between those two concepts. And yeah, and ultimately, I think that like, I think that television, there's, I think movies tend to spend a little bit more time. using contrast ratios and exposure to help tell the story. And a lot of times with television,

you have a formula of how a TV show is made. And then you're kind of like using the same formula often because you're just having to execute a schedule. And so, yeah, I think, I don't know, I try very hard to like have that not feel consistent. and always be changing and always be, you know, motivated from the realism of the scene. And I don't know. But I don't know.

That's also me then, like, injecting my own agenda into things. I don't know. You got to do that to a degree as any type of artist, you know. So does that mean when you're going in and, like, are you a light meter guy? Yep, yep. I do, I mean, you know, I think we will go in, like, basically before. we have cameras up and I'll check levels and, you know, I do, when I shoot film, obviously there's like that wonderful feeling when it's just like you and the light meter and you're

sort of trusting the flow of the experience and you're not like obsessing over scopes and things. And I so like I so romantically love that experience. And I always, when I'm starting a digital project, I'm always like, I'm going to just shoot it like film. I'm just going to use my light meter. I'm never going to look at the monitor. And then, of course, you're at like 2560 extended exposure range, and you're shooting at a 1-4 in your light meter is not reading anything.

EU, EU. Thank you. Fine. Exactly. So, you know, I think, but yeah, philosophically, I mean, I always carry a meter with me. And I, you know, we'll definitely go in and check levels. and kind of like start lighting the scene. And Josh, our gaffer,

who is just like the most unbelievable, incredible gaffer in Boston, uh, thank God has a lot of film experience and a lot and, you know, used his meter religiously every day. And it was really encouraging for me too to be like, oh, yes,

okay, the gaffer and I, we're going to have this conversation with our meters. And, you know, there's certainly, a lot of gap, you know, like younger or more, you know, digital people that have come up just through digital that don't really use meters as much anymore. And I do think that like when you are using a meter, you, you are sort of like forcing yourself to think in terms of like how film is

exposed. And it, you know, you kind of like just are falling back on those like film conventions. And I do think that that kind of like helps, you know, make things feel. like film. Yeah. I just personally like using it, A, because I also learned

on film, but B, I think we're all tweakers. You know, give me 20 minutes. I'll take 25 to like the thing. And I would rather, because they,

you know, director always wants to see, again, I'm working a documentary so it's a different story, but director always wants to see the shot up as fast as possible.

But I'm over there doing meter, meter, meter. because I got burnt, not burns, but you know, you set up the camera, turn it on, and then you start tweaking, they're like, hey, it's too bright. You're like, no, give me a second. They're like, no, but that looks bad.

You're like, I'm not, you know what, I'm saving battery. Fuck you. Yeah, yeah, no, totally, absolutely. I also think that, like, weirdly, I think when people see a cinematographer, like sitting there, staring at a meter and, like, taking readings,

I think people are like, Okay, he's got, he's working on it. You know what I mean? As opposed to like, if you're sitting behind a monitor, just like staring at the monitor, then everyone's like, oh, let me give you my opinion on what it looks like. I do think that like there's something to be said about,

you know, there's something like a little bit more sacred about sitting there and checking exposures and having like an internal dialogue about contrast ratios and stuff as opposed to like everyone looking at a 25-inch monitor kind of all like, what do you think, you know? Which we do also non-stop all day. Oh, sure. But that actually brings me to something I was going to ask because you had mentioned it earlier

about like you did your little film emulation, you're looking at it in the DIY and you're like, sweet. And then you watch it on Apple TV on whatever monitor. You know, maybe your friend's house. Like I know like on my computer here because of the way that, and this isn't just Apple, this is any streamer. it won't hit me with anything higher than like 720p right because it doesn't want me to screen capture it right you know so the the and i got a really nice this is my color calibrated monitor you know and it's i can't enjoy it because the bit rate's too damn low so then i got to go put it on the tcl you know um but you had mentioned like oh you saw it in both places and you were

and you were thinking about it. What, like, I learned, who was it? He shot the first season of beef, and he did fucking... Oh, Larkin. Larkin, yeah. He was telling me that, oh, yeah, the iPad Pro is like the best monitor.

It is. It's unbelievable. When we were calling Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we had this, like, Dolby... I can't remember the model number. It was like a $50,000 dollar Dolby H-D-R monitor that was like, you know, we had like the consumer television that had been like perfectly calibrated by Harbor.

And then we had this Dolby monitor, which is really what the colorist would sit there next to. And I had requested that we also could do a live stream to my iPad. And at one point, Damien and our colorist and I like put the iPad next to this Dolby monitor, which is obviously larger and probably has a lot more brightness. output also yeah, the Nets, thank you.

But side by side, the color, I would say the iPad was like 97% as good as the Dolby was. It was like mind blowing. I think the biggest downside of the iPad is just its size.

But in terms of color accuracy and, and, you know, like brightness output, when you have the right settings, it's incredible. It's an incredible reference. And we colored the fucking MacBook isn't.

I know. That's insane. Although I'm curious what the brand new current models are. But yeah, I think the iPad Pro has literally like the best OLED technology out there or whatever it is. Micro. I don't even know what they are these days.

But yeah, they're incredible. I mean, they're like literally, but Cody and I, we had this conversation during the show because when we color, at the end when we do the we watch it in reference mode that's the trick also is you have to be in reference mode

to get like the most accurate color when you're on the iPad and that locks you into like I think it's 50% brightness or 55% brightness or whatever and so we were saying like anytime we were watching Daly's anytime we were looking at stills anytime we're looking at references we were always watching it in reference mode

at that 50% just to like train our minds as to a standard. And then I was telling him when we were making this, the studio had just come out, which also Damien Bandercruz colored as well. And we were having a conversation about like their grain, how much grain they used and how well it translated into like streaming it through Apple. And I was like, I've been watching the studio in reference mode at 50%

just to like get my brain in just trained on. what it is the like consistent gold standard that everything should be sort of judged on. And then, you know, when now when I like go and sit and watch it on like a big monitor, I don't, I like don't know if that's what I should be ultimately trusting. Not because I'm like so, I've obsessed so much over like what it looks like on the iPad. But that being said, I will say we did our premiere for the show.

was at a regal in Manhattan, and we watched it on an enormous screen. And then a few days later, I went home and watched it on my TV at home. And I feel like consistency-wise, I think Apple's platform is actually, like, pretty remarkable in terms of preserving quality. And, like, the grain gets preserved really well and sharp, you know, like, that didn't feel like there was no surprises. when the show came out, like, I was like, oh, I'm so pleased how consistent this feels to, like, what I thought we were grading and what it actually feels like on a TV.

So, yeah. Well, and that, yeah, that all goes to kind of what I was wondering was like in your life experience, not just was this show, but do you find that people, uh, I've always said that when people bitch about like, oh, the, you know, Game of Thrones is too dark or whatever. It's like, are you sure you're not watching at noon with your window open? on a TV, you know, but do you find that you have to do something in the grade two account for that? Because, you know, there's plenty of discourse about like, oh, lighting is so flat these days because everyone does all the lighting in VFX, which I'm like, that's crazy. That doesn't exist.

And then not true. And then also because they have to account for a lot of displays. And I was like, that might be true, but I doubt it. I don't know. I think to be honest with you, I think. think what it, a lot of that conversation, I get those like memes sent to me all the time where it's like comparing them to me too and I'm like stop. It's pissing me off. But I think what it is is that like, you know, you used to work in 10 stops of latitude. That was always the rule of thumb. It was like there's 10 stops. And also when you're exposing like three stops down or three stops over anything beyond that, you don't have it. And so I think because of that like everything was in that very narrow package, which I don't think, necessarily meant that it was good. It just meant that's what it was for so long. And we all became

accustomed to it. And it also is referencing our nostalgia of like our favorite movies, right? Like all of our favorites Spielberg movies and all of our favorite Kubrick movies, like they all were made that way in that, that six-stop container, maybe 10-stop container. And I think now you're working with, you know, cameras like, can do 16, 17 stops, and you're also, you are watching it on a whole bunch of different devices and phones and, you know, computer screens and TVs during the day with bright windows. And so, like, the environment is not a dark theater with a very consistent projection, with a very consistent film stock. The environment is everything and everywhere.

and also you now have all of this access to more latitude, different types of lighting. You can place someone five or six stops under-exposed and you can still see their performance. You can blow things out and still have detail. It's just like the sandbox has gotten double, more than almost double the size. And so there's just more choices to be made.

And I think that people get frustrated when it's like not the same thing or it's not the thing that they want it to be from the past, I think. That being said, I also think that a lot of times the argument like there was like that whole

there was like a meme about like Harry Potter TV show I think where they were like oh, that's doubleware's product. Yeah, exactly. They're like this show I think it's less so criticizing like the visual the actual like technical cinematography

or the technical lighting. It's more so just like like the visual style and concept that you're applying to the show, I think that's the thing that has changed, but also like, I don't know, the art form is advancing and changing. And everything shouldn't be like lit a stopover and super high saturation and contrast.

Like things can be whatever they need to be to support like the mood and style. And I haven't watched it, but I'm assuming the Harry Potter show is not just trying to rip off the Harry Potter movie. I'm sure it's trying to do its own thing. But yeah, I'm very sick of seeing those things. Like you said, they get sent to me.

I don't seek it out. People are like, look at this uneducated take. Don't you agree? And you're like, no, thank you. Can you do anything about this? Can you fix this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I do have to let you go.

but my conspiracy theory is that everything with art is a result of like the ether, right? I guess this isn't a conspiracy. This is just a theory. And so when people are frustrated with the current times, they will not meet the art where it's at. And instead we'll fall back onto things that make them happy and comfortable. so they're going to go back and like I'll see posts on Reddit like how to you know right next to the oh teal and blue is the dumbest thing in the world or sorry teal and orange is the dumbest thing in the world right under that there'll be a post from

Terminator 2 like look at this awesome blue yeah yeah like how beautiful is it height time and with the you know and it's just the contextualization sells it more than the actual thing I think that's very interesting that sort of like a sign at the times or like the unrest of culture but I also think that like art I think I'm pretty sure that like since the beginning of time art has the current art has always been challenged and then we're always looking back retrospectively on art and like worshipping it right and I mean so many contemporary artists like their work doesn't even really get appreciated or recognized until they die and then all of a sudden people are like oh my god they're a genius and they're like doing the most amazing stuff but you know during their life they were not impressing anyone. I think that like and I think also with entertainment specifically

because entertainment is this thing that people grasp onto for comfort. I think that like I in times where people are seeking perhaps extra comfort due to maybe political unrest or the chaos of life that you know if they if there's any threat that

their comfort is being compromised, then I think people get like super angry or upset about it. Instead of like understanding that like all art forms are constantly changing, constantly evolving as like a new artist enter the space and they're taking what they've seen in the past and then, you know, making new, you know, something, inventing new things from it. And I don't know. I think it's, I think it's natural.

I think those memes are great actually. They're actually great. You know what? I love those memes. Keep sending them to me. No, you know, it's fine.

You know what? Make them for me. It's, make them of my work. My work. Mega Woodles Bay memes. Oh, that'd be great. Oh, boy.

Yeah. I think it is just the new, any new work necessitates some amount of listening. and if you, you know, if you're the type of person that's going to watch the office 400 times in a row, being presented with new work isn't necessarily something you want to give your energy to. Yes. In all cases.

If the rest of your life is hunky dory and you're like, I want to go try some new stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can be going to the park. It can be watching a movie. It can be making new friends, you know. When you're not in the mood of, I'm going to go try some new stuff, I think art becomes challenging. Yeah. No, I agree.

I agree. And you get to meet the really cool people at the theater. We solved the problem. We solved it. We solved all the problems with art. Yep. Well, thanks so much for chat with me and take some extra time. Yeah, thank you, man.

This was great. It's really fun. Yeah. Like I said, I'm really enjoying the show and I'll see if Apple won't just give it all to me early, even though the tech. I'm sure they will. The interview is already over. But yeah, man, like I said, keep in touch and it was great chatting. Awesome.

Thanks, Kenny. Take care, brother. All right. Have a good one, man. Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny McBillen. 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.