Frame & Reference Podcast - 248: "Murderbot" Cinematographer Tobias Datum

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Today we've got Tobias Datum on the program to talk about shooting the Alexander Skarsgård show Murderbot !Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this episode 248 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Tobias Datum, DP of MurderBot. Enjoy. Two things happened. One, I started watching MurderBot late at night last night. And I finished at 6 this morning. It is now 11. Oh, shit.

I took in that. Well, it was good. So I didn't mean to start by saying like any, you know, shitty sci-fi. But, I mean, the show was like. because it's good was like genetically engineered for me because it's like funny and it's sci-fi

and it's also like production design is really good and shit but it was it was a joyous and just selfishly for having to marathon things before I interview people the shows are you know they're only 20 minutes

or whatever so I was able to actually I watched all of Spider-Noir the other night and that was eight and a half hours or something yeah something like that bang Yeah. Some people complained about, about this is a concern for the season that we currently are having. And I kind of disagree a little bit because there was some complaints about the episodes being so short.

And I was like, well, is that so bad? It makes you want them more, I guess. No, and then you can just decide. But maybe it had to do with the release as well, that it was like one or something a week. Or I don't know how they did that. But personally, I felt like, hey, you know what? I don't mind it because especially with. streaming you can like watch it however you like you know and and I felt like they all worked

so nicely um yeah just as each episode well and also you're you're converting a novella i didn't read the book but the book's only like 150 pages you know if you have 10 10 hours to fill that i mean you would be just stretching shit along yeah it gets tricky because that entire book is all voiceover really. The entire book is just murdered about telling you what's happening. So sometimes it gets a little tricky to just even extract stuff from the book. And especially

like very early on, I now for the season two, I read the books. It's three. It's book two, three and four. I'm not supposed to say that. But that's the next scene. I'll cut it. Exactly. But it's denser. And it's good to like read back because like when I first read the books and then Paul showed me the first sort of scripts.

I thought of it like differently and then, you know, obviously every step along the way. And then when you see Alex and how he plays his character and that it really is like, it's a teenager, you know, it's like he's becoming human. But at the same time, it's the journey sort of of a teenager too that has been at season one sort of like found a family. and now for season two, actually he's pushing himself away from that family to find himself only to realize he does not live in a vacuum. And I hadn't registered that early on and at some point I was like, oh, wow, that's what he's doing. It's amazing.

And then Noma as Dr. Mensa always was the heart of it all. You know, like any time you looked at Noma, it was clear that there's something at stake and that there's sort of a deep sense of love and, you know, belonging, sort of like a counterpart of murder. But he should become when he grows up, basically, you know. Right. So, yeah, just. I read too that, because I got like a synopsis of the book that he's like 20 or 30 years old, which is apparently old for one of the sec bots as well.

Yeah, can you imagine? I mean, in the future, like when now, I mean, you look back and what was 20 years ago stuff, I mean, there wasn't even an iPhone, I guess, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's also something sketchy to think about, right? How quickly all of our lives have just ramped, you know. It's always fun to think about, oh, like, how accessible filmmaking is now, you know, like how difficult it was when we were certain, even when I was in college, but certainly I imagine when you were like at air.

fine shit like you know having to having to shoot on film it wasn't even an option to yeah i mean there's always like pluses and minuses but i did have a friend who uh jean pier caner who recently made his first movie which is fantastic and was in some festivals and because he for many years had been telling me about a story and he had his lead actor and

and so at some point i was just like you know let's just because i had during covid I had filmed this, you know, a little short film with friends on my phone and or on phones. And I was like so shocked because in color timing, I found myself so often just trying to tweak stuff forgetting that it was iPhone footage. And that got me thinking like there really isn't any excuse anymore to make a film. So if you want to be a director or a filmmaker, then just do it, you know, stop talking and just do it. it might not look like, you know, a giant budget movie, but it might just tell you what it needs to tell you.

So with Jean-Bierre and I, we spend a day just filming his lead actor. And just that, just having a camera and filming and stuff is exciting, you know, that I don't know if I guess it is a lot simpler than it really used to be. But I never thought of it as that hard. The hard part is to start. That's the high buy down. Well, it's becoming less of my job now, but for a very long time,

a big part of my job was film education. I worked at NIFA for a while in college and right for Pro Video Coalition. And even this show is vaguely educational. And the big thing that I've seen students push back on, because I've given that same advice, you know, just use your phone. It's like right there.

And I think, for those of us who came up in either traditional film school or, you know, back when film was the only option and stuff, we spent a lot more time focusing on the script because we had to convince someone to give us any amount of money. So like that's still in us. Whereas the current generation of filmmakers seems to be highly anxious in general, but about fucking up. you know, they don't want to. That's the whole process. I mean, that happens every single day. Yeah. That's the whole point.

And I think you have to leave a, you have to leave room for that as well, that errors happen. And because this, this thing takes on its own life and, and you need to leave room for that. So I would say, the margin is like 10 to,

10 to 20% fuck up and then you'll have something great. You know, I think, and that sounds, it sounds maybe a bit stupid, but I think there's some truthhood. So currently we're shooting in Madrid, and Madrid isn't a town that can really, this is relatively new here. They've had parts of bigger, you know, American shows filmed here,

but they're not entirely able to, I don't think, really support it by themselves. So we took a leap of faith and it's going great, but in the context of this, the first two weeks where I had to sort of figure out how to, I fit in here because I don't, there's no point in coming here and then being like, oh, I need stop to work, you know, they have to see how, how it all sort of like vibes together.

We did have Paul and Chris and I, we had Paul and Chris White's and I had this exact conversation that like, you know, ultimately the mess ups, if it is just little stuff, you know, that when at the end of like the last, like, oh, bug, I wish I had, you know, dimmed down that light or what thought of this or whatever. it is in the end that does lend that does make character of the project and I think we need to be okay

in letting that happen the next time it'll happen again differently but each time you sort of you know it gets better and better and better better but I find that you know obviously that great is as often you know the enemy of good of course yeah well and to your point about

that is like I just today saw someone on Reddit asking about you know oh, how do I practice complex lighting setups? And immediately, my knee-jerk reaction was to say, well, there aren't any. Like, if you look at Greg Frazier's lighting breakdowns for Dune that they put at the ASC website, like there's a lot of lights. Like, there's thousands.

But it's only because the set's really big. You know, it's still just ambient, key, maybe some fill, maybe negative. but it's like, it's still, it's still not three point lighting. Three point lighting is sort of changed to almost two point lighting at this point. But it's still the same concept, you know, and you're going to, like you're saying, like, oh, maybe that should have been dimmer, but you're only going to learn that by doing it. No one can tell you in a vacuum, oh, when you light this, you know, what is this? You can't know until you're presented with it.

Yeah, exactly. And then it's still my change. You know, this does happen with, on Murderbot anyways, that happens a lot because Alex makes it his and the scenes are written in one way and you kind of plan for it, you know, a certain way and then something else might occur. The luxury of Murderbot is that I have a lot of prep

and that prep I spend with Sue, the production designer, and we do spend it in designing the sets and built in lighting to the set so then you can have either your goggles on or just sit with whoever this year the person's name is Martin on Unreal Engine and just play around with the lights that are built in

so that on the day you just have to move either negative fill or an eye light or something like that around so that's nice to have I think season one we were more on locations and exteriors and it was all day and obviously like every single weather event in Ontario, that could happen, happen from heat wave to thunderstorms,

to snowfall, to high winds, you know, and all these things affect you. All of a sudden you can't, you know, have your flies water up ahead because the wind's too strong. Or you have to put the flies water up because it's raining and you need to keep your actors dry and keep shooting because there's no backup plan. I mean, that's what you're saying is correct.

like the lighting is very much the same. The difference is time and money. Well, really actually time because money translates into time. And whether or not you have directors or collaborators with you who have the patience and the vision for that sort of stuff, I imagine if you work with somebody like Mileneff, he's very much a visual and sort of like atmospheric storyteller, you know so I feel like there's probably somebody who is is very yeah things things through a camera I imagine

not I'm not sure yeah the one thing that did occur to me was just because of how much uh Alex is is narrating you're just on him the whole time like it's the first in memory uh in my memory which is terrible. First time, I can't remember anything. First time I think I've ever seen a show that is so literally photographic. You know, like, it's just a still. It's a moving still of someone just sitting. And I imagine that must have been kind of nice for you because you're like, well,

he's not going to move. So just like light him correctly and walk away. You know, there's a couple of, of, interesting things that developed over the prep and then shooting that I wasn't really... So first of all, murderbot became murder bot

in the designs. And I was like, oh cool, mirror ball, thanks. Yeah. Someone was... Oh, I was talking to Larry Fong and he was talking about how like he was when they shot 300 and they brought out the immortals and he's like, great, a bunch of mirrors.

Thank you so much. Thousands of them. Exactly. So that was one. But then when we tested it, I was like, oh, it's interesting. It was actually not that difficult, you know. Like, I don't think we had a lot of lighting, light removals in the helmet. And then also I was so surprised how just like, you know, how expressive even just the helmet and the physicality of Alex was.

So that was also nice. I had thought of the, and episode one maybe starts a little bit this way. I had thought of a lot more sort of like real close-ups than just so like how many different sizes one could use for how many, you know, different sort of like, you know, states of mind or such. And then it became all very, very simple, really, you know. I mean, that's part of the whole thing.

It's just to just lay out, you know, a whole array of like, sort of your arsenal and you set your compass and then, oh, okay, I only need those. It's similar to like lenses where oftentimes you have a set of, I don't know, you have 12 different ones and you end up using four of them the entire time, well, almost the entire time. So that was interesting. I like that stuff. I like that, you know, you plan for certain things and then it turns out to be not

really necessary or you discover something else that leads you. I like that way of working to not entirely be, you know, in control. It doesn't freak me out. Yeah. You know, my friend, well, he's my internet acquaintance, but his name's Devin Scott, and he's a writer and filmmaker. And I think he's a teacher as well. And he was just talking reasonably about going back and reading Masters of Light, you know, and he got to the Gordon Willis chapter. And Gordon's sitting there talking about how like you break the rules only by knowing them, you know.

And the interviewer was like, because wouldn't that book come out, like the late 80s? The interviewer was like, well, like how, so you're just like, you know the rules and then you, you know,

to throw them to the wind, you're just, you know, whatever. And he was like, no, I have to know my contrast ratios and my white, but like I have to know all that.

Like I, there's a goal. It's just doesn't have to be written the same way. And I think you only find that, day up, you know, it's, it's all creative problem solving. I don't think anyone goes in with a full plan. It's all the process of like, yes, and, you know, like something gets thrown you away. And like, it's basically sort of like the principle of improv that you're like, yes,

and, you know, like something comes your way and you take it and you, you go with it and offer something else up. The two people that I, that really impressed me as when I started working out and when in film school that I met. One was somebody I worked with as an assistant, his name's Alec Thompson, and very dead now, but did a couple of Jim Hansen movies

and such sort of a British cameraman. And I worked with him, when I worked with him, I noticed he only uses the light meter. You only use the light meter twice at the beginning of the day, sort of the setup and then after lunch once and he was always super nice to the crew and I thought that's cool this sort of level of confidence but also of like

just being so generous and letting people do their thing to not have to like tell them exactly but just let them let them do it and then see how it goes and if you can always say know, but unless something's wrong, you don't really have to, you know, be sort of over-explaining

something. And I really liked, I really liked that. And then I took this to my, in Berlin, I always loved like guessing the stop, you know? Sure. And then the second, the second person was Conrad Hall. But I think his was more something, because he kept saying it, but he was saying, we were saying, we had a lighting seminar and there was like a light bulb on it. It was like, oh, and somebody turned it off. It was like, oh, what was that? And they kept talking about like happy accidents. You know, in particular, of course, that story of in cold blood and such.

And I thought, like, yes, that's also great. You know, that's also how I would like to be when I grow up, you know, to somebody who's not so like this, everything has to happen exactly how I want to because it's just really frustrating. And why it is a collaborative art is that, a lot of people get to be, you know, creative and make this their own. And that is what makes everything unique, you know, that the combination of individuals that, that, that contributed to it.

Yeah, there, you know, that, if you, I always, I interviewed Eric Mezershmut a couple times. And one thing that he impressed upon me was like, you're going to get, you're going to get blamed for whatever happens. You know, so the more, now I'm putting words as about this is kind of what I took from it. It was like, it's better to let a lot of people do their own thing and say yes or no because, A, you're crowd sourcing ideas. You know, you're not going to be, you're not going to always have the best idea no matter who you are. And so that'll make your work better. And if you get blamed for it, you at least mentally you can go like, well, I shouldn't have taken that idea, but at least it, you know, you can kind of,

your ego can kind of be like, well, it wasn't my idea, but I'm going to keep that inside. You know, you don't want to blame anybody. But then also, if it was a great idea, then you get to go like, yes, everyone, thank you for my Oscar. Oh, yeah. And then you text them on the side. Thanks so much for that idea. Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally.

Yeah. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm naive in that regard, but I'm always like, I always try to be just honestly. open about you know whether and and and i do i do i do i do hear a lot that i don't have a filter you know so if i may say something that you know is it's just you know we just had this too and there is like i do feel like very strongly when i watch some things i do have sort of like a more of a you know a sort of emotional borderline physical reaction to if i like something or if i don't

like something and i think that's just being german maybe yeah There is certainly like a directness that doesn't exist. Like English is a much more formal language. You have to go through a whole bunch of sort of like formalities to get to what you're actually. And this was my first day at AFI where we shot these like projects in half a day each that are not supposed to be. They're just so like, you know, you pull that out of your butts. And I spoke to one of them and then I said like, I don't like this. and I don't think this was very successful.

Oh boy, like, that was my AFI long nemesis that did not take that lightly. But, but yeah, I think, yeah, that's exactly it. You need to be okay, not always having the best idea or the idea that wins and you need to be okay. Let's just sort of trust ultimately. And if something is kind of wrong, and you have to change yourself.

You can't change other people. That's, I believe that's pretty much impossible. You can push them, you know, to, to their best, but you can't really, can't really change them. But to me, that's nice. Ultimately, I only, I only work for myself. Because what I enjoy most these days is being an audience, as well as sort of involved in the creation of this stuff,

If it entertains me, then fantastic. And then I don't really care about any of the other stuff. It doesn't really matter to me. I also don't really talk to a ton of people about work, except for you. Yeah. I mean, that's why this show exists. You know. Yeah, a lot of people have said, like, you know, this is weird because no one ever asks DPs anything.

You know, it's like, you don't even, you don't often get like an opening title card. Like, half the, I still have. I've been doing this, not that even the show. I'm a DP as well. And I've, I still got friends that I've known since college, you know, over 15,

almost 20 years that still are like, so what do you do? They don't, most people, the average person doesn't necessarily care about the cinematographer, unless you're like on the camera, they understand camera operator. When you say,

when you say cinematographer, they're like, so your management? You're like, yeah, pretty much. Kind of, yeah. I mean, it depends on who you're working with. I do like operating myself.

And it is a nice place to hide, you know. Like it's, if you don't want to, depending on who you're working with, it can be just quite nice to be behind the camera and not. And also, I love that you basically are feeling you're really connected to what's happening on set. Because sometimes when, especially when your monitors are physically removed, I always sit with a director.

I don't really, get into the you know with the DIT then you don't quite know what physically is happening so it's hard to like speak to what needs to be done and I do I do miss that when I'm physically

removed for sometimes it's necessary yeah I kind of I mostly shoot documentary right now and so this isn't as much of issue, but earlier on I did kind of miss the

when you were doing more narrative stuff me when I was doing more narratives. I did kind of miss even though I was the DP but you're in film school right so you're wearing 40 hats or you're young like working with the actors

like that's the one part of directing I know I'd like is that part I don't the rest of it sounds terrifying. I don't want to put all that on my shoulders but that part specifically like, you know, if you do that for the camera, it's cool, like that kind of thing. I did enjoy that, which is, again, with, with a documentary,

you could just tell random people like, hey, just turn. And they're like, yeah, okay, whatever, you know. Regular people will just take direction. Yeah, it depends on who you're working with. You have to be careful. And also not just actors, but just to really respect. ultimately what we're doing is we're just

creating a space in which they can in which they can perform that's the way I see it I don't want them to do anything for me I don't want them to like you know be conscious of anything else ultimately is like we're

providing ideally so the best seat you could possibly have in the house if it was a theater and for you know actors and directors to feel like they because they got their pants down, you know, that's what's so hard about it. It looks so simple, you know,

and sometimes you just, especially as a DP, you could fix, you feel like you could fix this in like 10 seconds, but you don't know what else happened. You don't know what they talked about over dinner last night or something like that, you know, or you don't know like whose idea they're trying to respect and protect at the moment, you know, if there was maybe a writer or if the actor had a note

that they want to try out. You know, like it's definitely not working. And we please. And then it just takes like that hour of rehearsals until you're like, okay, cool, we found it now. So, you know. So I have directed a little bit and I did love it, but it only worked because those were all friends, you know.

No, exactly. Yeah, on Mozart in the jungle and impostors, which was, it was great, but, you know, I don't know if I would do it with people who I don't know. Yeah. Well, and this all goes back to the idea. at kind of what we were talking about earlier, where it's like if you are to, well, just generally, like the way that all this works, the experimentation works, the failure, the working with your group,

getting ideas, all only works if everyone knows what the end goal is, right? If everyone's just putting in their ideas because they think it's cool, that's going to lead to failure. But if it's, if everyone goes, oh, I know what the, because that, I mean, I've, I've read plenty of books about like, military strategy and stuff because it's weirdly applicable to filmmaking. And one of the big ones is like the only way that this works, at least with the U.S. military, I know a lot of different militaries do different things to various levels of success. But the big one for us at least is make sure everybody knows what the goal is so that if there's a communications breakdown or whatever, you see it in MurderBot.

communication breakdown and then everyone starts going rogue and now we're in trouble. Yeah. Today we actually shot that massacre that is haunting him. That happened today. It'll continue tomorrow because it's a rather big sort of stunt and NVFX situation. But yeah, that's where we are right now. That's in shooting. and he worried about thought this would this would give him answer and provide some piece and to a certain extent it does but

I'm excited it's going to be great it's much because we're all out of space we're not on a planet anymore there's a lot more fun to be had with different lighting and looks and you're not kind of bound to the elements of you know Ontario

so we'll see I was it was it was great I think we all had that same thing that the first couple of days between Paul Chris Paul Chris Alex and and the Sue the production designer

and I at various times Zoom you know first and second day we were looking at and we're like oh yeah there it is oh yeah you know we missed we missed him we miss murder pot there he is you know and that was nice

you know that was that was good certainly because it was it wasn't so we weren't entirely confident because we're in Madrid now you know that what is going to how is this going to be is it going to be

a recognizably different or is it still the through line but yeah no it's it's really fun yeah that actually brings up two things I wanted to talk about one is like the first nine episodes of first season are all, you know, in three places.

It's like outdoors in the habitat and in the hopper. And then you got that 10th episode where it's like, oh, boy, hold it. Which I know is the one that got submitted for Emmys. I'm like, I get it. I get it. That one. That one's the most, you know, visually exciting. I suppose there's a lot more going on.

But to your earlier point about leaving a space for the actors and the directors to do stuff, you had mentioned even earlier that like keeping things simple just using the habitat or actually even the hoppers as an example like how much how much grip and lighting was actually on the floor because it feels like that that habitat dome

was kind of just a giant diffuser and all you had to do is throw some egg in there yeah the habitat was insane because it filled the entire sound stage and it was not very thick in terms of like you know this is all translucent so you had to basically just surround the thing with

you know like scenic backdrops and light and it was a lot so it was a constant so like dim this up dim this down and and you don't always want to just like and I also don't really like working so much I always look for ideally like the scene has a pace set of itself and then it makes me want to just sort of like okay and then the camera moves this this way and then you find this this one setup that essentially tells you the entire scene like

that could keep you entertained which is not always possible and also Paul does like to edit stuff like that really survives but i still think of like setups that they give you maximum sort of mileage and yes there was a lot of like negative fill moving around and and a lot of like soft light and then to, well, the one tendency that Sue has is she likes to build skylights into sets that, especially in 235, when are you going to see those things? Yeah. You know? Well, in the hopper, too, is one big skylight.

Yeah. That actually was kind of nice because, like, I had this light floating over it, you know, an open alpha 4K. So it's very hard light because it's basically just the HMI globe. So it gave you a sense of like, you know, floating and movement. So that was actually kind of fun. And then there was an LED wall outside the front, which was a little bit of a nightmare, just getting all these. Because you never have enough time to get all these like things ready.

And then on the day you also don't have enough time to tweak them a little bit. And I secretly hope this whole LED wall stuff's going to go away. I was going to say that the number of people I've spoken to about like when it first started there was a lot of like cautious optimism and now like being I don't know five six years later I think everyone's pretty much like it's fun I don't love it. Yeah not really I mean there's certain things that are just like that are convenient and good about it and I'm speaking to a friend who used it just outside windows as translights but even that is because you know, then are you always able to track, you know, the parallax? And that requires a lot of work on the set and these witness cameras and all this nonsense. And then sometimes your production will end or whatever, they'll mess that up. And then you still have to like VFX the whole thing because it doesn't track properly or, I don't know, man.

I think it's, I'm not a huge fan of it. But yeah, the habitat was the combination of that, just a lot of lights outside in the entire sound stage. And then a negative fill and a sort of bigger, softer unit to move around. And then the one thing that I, you know, that I was like, ugh, I wish I hadn't was that I'm like, oh, I guess there is that top light there. So just for to do something different

for another scene, we use it. But at that distance, because it's two-story highs, there wasn't really a great lamb to be had that could point straight down and put out that amount of light to create something interesting there.

So we had like these M90s basically, which are not that great anyways in terms of just light qualities, whatever. So that's my little regret. but instead still look good yeah I mean look

there's like Tim Vincent the colorist I've worked with and work with again he's fantastic like he really puts in

a lot of effort to make sure it you know like he has also a personal pride you know I don't know how many hours

he puts in just by himself you know and I really appreciate that you know that there's somebody who's committed and loves

what he's working on enough to be like, okay, you know, I'm going to just get this, you know, to, and again, that's also, like shaping the image in the grade. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and, uh, helping, you know, some, some stuff out that, like, of course you have a very wide ranging cast and skin tones and hair colors and, you know, and they're all just sort of like walking around this sort of hard top light while the camera is like spinning in, you know, you know, and they're all just sort of like, spinning in circles essentially was the was the was the coverage so there's a good amount of like you know windows and tracking those that in that somebody doesn't catch fire and somebody else

doesn't disappear and and that sort of stuff but it all looks very natural which which i did like i mean ultimately that habitat because we knew where that was going to be and then like you also know you're going to have to shoot this at a certain time and you don't have the luxury of a of a of a big long schedule so you can't be so specific and to say I'm only going to shoot this at magic hour and then we're going to do this there you can kind of move the day around as much as you can but then there's certain times when you just can't so it was okay we know there's going to be the sun traveling across and and the habitat needs to be sort of oriented a certain way and and that that reality that you encounter while filming obviously lays

the spells the is the law of how the physics they work you know yeah for some reason that reminds me

or like bring something to mind which is was the voiceover recorded prior to shooting so that was like playing I read this somewhere

that it was like playing the whole time so everyone knew how to time their yeah well our first a G became

became the prime voiceover reader and he was He actually just now laid down the because he was reading because he did it so so well and he also remained

the voiceover through some of the edit except for where the voiceover was changed. So he was reading those lines to you know while we were filming. And

so he's doing that I was doing that again and just last week finally they hired somebody to do that because he's like I cannot be the line reader because there's there's a lot of like... Got stuff to do. Yeah, yeah, because there's not only

voice over there's all like coming. Oh, I shouldn't get into that. There's other forms of communication in this season that someone's like, dude, I'm only reading out loud I need to also AD this at some point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was red.

Yeah. Did, going back to the idea of the 10th episode, it felt like you, like just watching it, like you could have shot the first nine episodes in, you know, whatever, I'm making up a number eight weeks. And then the 10th episode looks like it took another eight. Like, was that last episode like really involved or were you kind of hustling? Because, you know, you got that really cool location, whatever that is. but you are doing quite a bit. That's a lot of moving around.

That's the University of York. Is it York? I guess it was York. University of Toronto, York is a brutalist building, though a lot of those universities in Toronto and surrounding are brutalist building for some. And not only that, but the faculty building here for film studies is also a brutalist building here in Madrid.

The exact same, raw concrete and, you know, from the same time. period, 60s or whatever that, early 60s or whatever that that was when people were so excited about concrete. Now, it was really just like light control, like covering

up, because the way it was designed you didn't have, or you don't have many windows, there's one time where I just straight up used sunlight. But then other than that, we just covered up skylights and had like, you know, balloons floating around. And then a lot of, which are

doing here again as well. I do have a lot of lights that I can build in just sort of run along banisters or layer along the floor. To me it was really just sort of you shouldn't so much, you know

use light shouldn't necessarily come from where it would come from if we were in the real world, so to speak. Our logic was that once you're on this essentially meteorite that all this is

tacked onto it does have an artificial sort of atmosphere and therefore also an artificial night and day cycle and you see that once at least when he's about to board the ship where that near where that turns off and then to me

it was also a matter of like then that sunlight isn't quite sufficient so that's why I was thinking of like it's more starlight to use that in this case you know the HMIs with a black mirror and no lens so it's a really hard light that's not very

bright but it is like as hard as it can possibly get yeah and then there was a subway station that we were filming in at night and so it wasn't a ton of moving around but and when Paul

Chris and I especially Paul and I we've worked together for a very long time we do move at a clip you know and in Toronto we also really really lucked out with crew we have fantastic camera operators Sasha Morge and Greg Frankovich we had a fantastic Gaffer

Chris Harmsworth and you know a great just a great crew all together and so we were of course by then moving at a very good clip

yeah the when you talk about like the lights going I noticed that because that is like a very sci-fi thing and also John Wick, but, you know, strapping the Titan tubes to the edge of handrails and stuff like that. But the one, the one, I've mentioned this a bunch before, but I've really trained my girlfriend in spotting Titan tubes now because I was one of the, I was one of the first people to test that when they first came out. And I'm friendly with the Astera people. And so, you know,

But I liked when they put a murder bot in the little cage to incinerate them. And you just see those. I really appreciated that you really dressed up those four, whatever they were, Helios tubes, whatever the long ones are called. You know, they had a little extra stuff going on on the cap. So they didn't look like, you know, just straight up, Titan tubes. No, that was the deal I made, like when in absolute trouble, just make whatever practical fixture we have so it fits Titans.

but we also had like light ribbon so for instance the banister of the long banisters and for instance the university David's going up that stairwell yeah yeah we that's that's just LED ribbon like we had a great team of electricians who could always just

like you would go to the location and went on into a set and at first there was you know the line producers pet peeve because it was a ton of money that was spent on on LEDs you know and sometimes rgb and sometimes individually controllable diodes and stuff then obviously it's when adds up but i think it to me it's like worth worth

investing in because then you have so much less lighting to do you know and all the lights can live in a murderbot's helmet you know it's because it's not wrong it just belongs to the hopper or to wherever he is in whatever environment yeah the um i was talking to Steve Yedlin about, you know, because he's always deep in some science stuff that I barely understand. But he was telling me that he is developing this,

he's going to turn it into a piece of hardware, he said, where you can get regular LED. Instead of having to get like light ribbon or whatever to like the expensive stuff, you can just get kind of off-the-shelf ribbon and then you plug it into his control box. and then you can accurately give it like certain coordinates. And it'll, so if you have like a regular film light,

I'm editorializing a little bit. Let's say you have the X, Y coordinates for this film light. You can type that into the box and it'll control, as long as you've measured it, like off the shelf LED ribbon. And so you should be able to, not you, but whoever's in charge of paying for stuff, we'll be able to save a little money on that. Yeah. I mean, it is interesting how easy stuff can be in one place and then hard and another

because here in Madrid stuff does happen where you're just like, oh, wow, yeah, I guess I never thought of that. And here I do have to do a lot more homework from lighting plans to just like really stupid shit. Based on location. built while also sets you know so that like you have two different LED

built in LEDs in the set but they're also plugged into two different phases so you know then all of a sudden like oh fuck what the heck is this oh shit oh yeah right you know I shouldn't be the one coming up with us you know that should have been

you know the best boy really but it's it doesn't it doesn't happen here so much. So we had a lot of like ambition and sort of dialed down on that somewhat. But again, then that gives other sort of flavor

you know, to what it is that you're doing. Yeah. And I think this season does look more like episode 10 because we are in outer space, you know, and there is more fun to be had with lights and imagining lights. We just have like this shuttle spinning out of control. and they again have like a big crane with a alpha 4K on it that was like wildly swinging up and down

and the entire thing was sort of shaking. It's kind of cool what you get away with when it doesn't have to look like sunlight or when it doesn't have to look like reality. I really enjoy it. That does make me think of, I know you've talked about it before, but the damn that show in the show has got a real wild title but the sanctuary yeah yeah

sanctuary um um i guess that's not wild why did I think it had like 70 words in it anyway um that must have been a fun reprie you know because like you said earlier like the regular show looks quite natural and not in a um you know it's just impressed upon enough

where it still feels very sci-fi but isn't so crazy. And then you've got the other show, which is, I imagine you must have just been like, hey, everything we're doing in the normal show, just whatever the opposite of that. We're going to do that here. Yeah, I mean, it's a telenovela, you know? And in that particular case, actually, in the LED volume, was dope because, yeah, we could, yeah, that was great.

Also, just in terms of staging. And all these actors are actually good friends of Paul and Chris. And so that was super fun. When you also know, like, you cannot go. wrong here. Like, whatever you're doing is going to be great and just do like maximum, you know? So that was really fun. This season, there's two

different shows as World Hoppers too. Nice. Hoppers and Sanctuarymen. So there's, so that was a nice concept to come up with as well as like what that could be. Yeah. Now it's, it's, it's good. It's, it's nice to have that much stuff to play with.

and also, you know, that it doesn't take itself serious, you know, that it's just, it's, it's just fun, you know. Yeah, because my question was going to be like, what, was there a limit to, like, how playful were you guys on that specific set? Was it just like, that'd be, you're sitting there going like, you know, it'd be funny and then just do that or were there, where is there a sort of a set of rules and constraints for it? Because it still does have to have its own language. Yeah, I mean, we came up with, with an idea. and obviously I had to pre-light and spend a whole day in that volume of the ship

and then some other concepts needed a lot more planning because they involved then maybe individual LED walls and then one thing in particular was before we even had anything that was just

green screen but yeah we went pretty nut and also because Paul and Chris love actors and appreciate them so much. So once they get there, they get to play, you know? Like, they really get to have fun. So it's a lot less of like,

basically just like, okay, so it's kind of what we thought in a nutshell, but enjoy. You know, and then John Cho is such a funny guy. And yeah, I mean, obviously, like that entire cast of Sanctuary Moon is just, you know what to do once you see them, just like when

Jack Beck Bryce is, stars, captain, you know. It's like, wow, you know. Yeah. That says, yeah, or DeWanda. Yeah, it's just funny, man. And a bunch of these scenes, we kind of just improvised anyways. Not all of them were written, you know, a handful of them.

We just did when we had extra time on the day when we had all of them. Yeah, because a lot of the storyline of that telenovela does obviously parallel the storyline of the show, but it doesn't all have to. There's like 7,000 episodes of that show. He's got a, you got room to do something.

Premium quality entertainment. Yeah, actually, yeah, actually that the murder what does spell it out, how many exactly it is. And he's also like fiercely defensive of it. Yeah, it's great.

I mean, that was fun to to think about what that could be. And obviously, like you do go as with a normal show too you just sort of like build a big house of cards and then hopefully the the shape will remain at the end of it you know but but it's nice not to be sort of limited by too much logic or you know I mean it develops its own logic to a certain extent but like but it it's not supposed to be um it's not supposed to be you know

too rigid yeah exactly yeah Did you, I know, I think I read you, this was like a two camera shoot. How are you using, because, you know, like, I know there's like the Finchirian move of like, oh, it's the really just stacked on top of each other getting something for the editor. How are you using the two cameras? I mean, when I have no idea, then I do right angles most of the time. I do a profile and a head-on, for example. That gets you out of trouble oftentimes.

and it's not that hard to light either, you know. I don't really like this because that means nobody moves, you know, that I think then everyone's just so much in each other's way and all of a sudden the actor just does whatever the camera needs and they need to hit marks and that sort of stuff. What I really loved actually was both Greg and Sasha were Stadicam operators. And Sasha was a very good Ronan operator too. So we could put two cameras kind of on its feet

that was really nice to have. But yeah, two cameras is, here we even have three cameras just because it seemed like a smarter move to have three operators on the entire time in case we needed a third camera because there's obviously like always, you know, VFX elements or stunt units

or any of those things to shoot. And then, you know, every now and so often, And it's like, well, couldn't we use three counts? And you're like, oh, they gross. Right. I guess we're not lighten anything today. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, like you just have to be.

And it's anamorphic in two, three, five. So you do get away with murder, you know. Like there's a lot of floor and there's a lot of ceiling that you don't see. Oftentimes, it's just the sides gets a bit tricky. But then again, like you're in outer space. And again, I've had like a ton of practicals made and a ton of like practicals built in. So there's always there's always And really if something's wrong

It's because you turn on a light Not because you you know you're missing one That's that's really what happens But yeah I try not to like three cameras It's just two cameras gets really tricky But yeah if if in real trouble Then I would go for right angles Always before two sizes or so

So I also think like two sizes is so lame You know just It is yeah it's it's hard to conceptualize sometimes what you're... I don't know if having more cameras is ever a good idea. You know, your point about turn off a light instead of turning on a light, it's like, what if we just stayed with one camera? Yeah, totally.

I mean, you just don't have time. Oftentimes it's just like, today, just all the stuff from special effects to stunts to like all the things that need to be ready at exactly the right time. and then the truth is there was only one take when it all coincided and then in that particular case it's like oh great thank God three cameras were going you know while that happened

and I do treat most of the time then one camera is like the hero camera and I don't really worry so much about the others today was actually really great because I feel like today also like all the camera operators really found

like I hardly talk to me at all today you know, he was always, and he was always providing great stuff. It's good to have people you can trust to do that. Yeah, I guess it's just always like, you just sort of find your groove and then ultimately you just make decisions anyways based on your taste, you know, and what you can tolerate. Yeah. Did this show, you know, obviously you did the expensive Doctor Who, but did this show provide any

sort of new challenges for you that were educational. Which one? Murder bot. I guess the first season. Like did you because it was, I guess it's, well, I don't know, you tell me, but like it,

you hadn't done a ton of sci-fi. Yeah, I mean, it's all the same principle, you know. It's all about doing your homework. And it's all about doing your homework so that you don't have to say no. you know, that's the way I see it. The principles are all the same. I mean, starting, when I started working,

I just did a whole bunch of different things from grip lighting, camera, but also post-production. And that was good to have because the principles are all the exact same is that you squeeze three dimensions down to two and only to make them seem like three again. Right, that's sort of the core of just the camera part of it, really.

And then everything else is just different tools. And I did notice this music very similar that like anytime a new tool comes along, that sort of like shifts to look, but the principles or, you know, that tool might inspire something, but the rest is all the same. So if it is, so when it was like the, and for some reason I had done early and a lot of like LED wall stuff. So to me it was clear again, it's a principle like you're filming a positive image. You know, once that's filmed that that's sort of like that's the one that is least manipulable, at least not without money. So it's the same thing.

like then that is is what what locks you into a certain extent to a lock so you have to then treat it to be um what it needs to be and then to ask for the time to do it and not be like okay cool we'll do that on the day because that that won't work and and no one's objected to to you know a good reason for something and I think it's also just like to not if you're just honest about this was the same as with the with a painted backdrop in and Doctor Who is like cool we can film it but it's still going to require things there's no way that I could or would say like I can promise one thing or another because there's too many elements for that to happen but I think yeah I don't I don't know if there's such a difference in genre

the only thing that's sort of different is your personal you know just again the combination of individuals and your own individuality that makes it makes it sort of different. I'm not very analytical or even I don't have a set system either. Like I'm always, it's very frustrating to me really.

This is even shotless thing I do sometimes not at all. Or I write stuff with my hand and then never look at it again. Or I do, I draw storyboards. You know, it's just like it's different every single time. And I find that entertaining, but I also find it really frustrating. Sure. But the principles, like there's just a set of principles that are always, you know, that are always very helpful. Yeah, you brought up working in post and I did want to ask you, like, is there, I always say that learning how to edit has made me and, you know, I think all of us who came up during non-linear editing being very accessible, probably edited our own stuff early on.

and that certainly helped me be a better DP. Is there anything that your post-production experience has informed being a cinema talk? Like, are there pieces of coverage that you make sure you get because you know it's going to be in the edit, even if someone's not thinking about it? Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think more of, like, rhythm is something that I really feel while doing things. So that's really more what it is. I think that gets me to like,

and certainly with directors that I've worked with a lot, you know, that I then, you know, come up and suggest where the camera should point when and but to not lock myself in. I don't believe that you should, which was actually part of the education that I got in, and certainly in Berlin,

not so much at AFI that it's like you, you know, you only allow for this to basically happen. as a cinematographer, I think that's kind of nonsense because you don't know what's going to what's going to happen in the edit. I've yet to shoot anything where the script is the movie

that just doesn't happen. And also why should it? I wouldn't understand why. So you basically are like, to me, it feels like filming is like you, you know, you've gone to the supermarket or to the market and bought the ingredients for your meal, but you also picked up a bunch of other things that you find like,

oh, that'd be interesting to try out and actually why not, you know? And then filming is kind of like you're now preparing the meal, but you might still run back to the market and get something else, and you get to taste, you know, some of it while it's cooking or so, but it's not yet the finished meal. Yeah. Well, the hour has gone by very quickly.

And so I know you've got to get back to work at some point. And also, I don't know what time it is in Spain, but probably not early. Yeah, yeah. I do have a little bit to do, but not terribly much. actually. And this was nice to because it's nice to just remind oneself actually in the middle of something how blessed I am to be able to do this in the first place because it is like the has been greatest job on the planet. And one of the greatest industries to work in the first place because everything we do is just play, you know. And even though it feels like we have deadlines

and there's tons of people and all that sort of stuff. end it's all just play and um and that's something to always remember that this is you know there's a this is an incredible privilege to be able to to make a living doing this yeah i'm glad to hear that and i'm also glad to hear that there is that you're already working on the second season because once i finished i was like apple is i love so many of these apple shows that but they don't advertise them at all and i was so i finished the first season and i was like they better make a second one because like I don't I didn't hear about this till I watched it. So I hope other people get to find it too.

I don't know what the watch numbers were, but we'll get a few, a few thousand extra eyeballs on it. It seemed like it was, it seemed like it was a good amount. I mean, it is really charming. I'm not like the greatest TV watcher, but I feel like it is, there isn't a ton like this out there, no, in terms of tone and what it is. And what I really love, and this is something that I really love about. anything, Paul, in particular, because we've worked for over 12 years together now.

And Chris, too, it's always, it's funny, but it always is about the, it's like the human condition. And like, isn't, to me, the most, the greatest scenes of season one was when Murderbot led Mensa, when he shares a sanctuary moon with, with her while they're stuck in the, and the crashed hopper. And at the end, when Murder Bot leaves. his family essentially and tells Gerath and

David does malch and he's got to check the perimeter you know and then David knows what's going on and in his still like I got to check the perimeter you know and then sort of that yeah when he talks about like his favorite European Spoo all like

you know it's just so yeah it's so touching and I really appreciate that about about the guys I really uh it's funny you mention that because I did rewatch that short conversation like two, three times. Because part of me was like, did I miss something? And then I was like, oh, he means the perimeter of his life.

Like I knew because David's character picks up on it immediately, right? Like you watch him absorb that. And I was like, did I did? Oh, no, it is literally just he gets it. He understands that he's trying to get him to be him. Yeah, like in the middle of his. It's just very good writing. Yeah, no, it's fantastic.

it's not always obvious, which to me is so entertaining, you know, that you get to film it and you're like, oh yeah, I get the scene. We've talked about because we always work very early on together, you know, so we've talked through the scenes and the scripts and such plenty. And then still stuff is like, it doesn't hit me until, you know, much later for actually the submissions, the award submissions and such, I had to watch stuff. And I was like, oh, my God, look at that. Look at what he's doing. I had no fucking clue. And I do like that a lot. It's really rewarding ultimately, you know, to be, to have something that is not just sort of a picture book

of your own like professional life. But, but that, you know, you've, I mean, where else do you get to learn about humans so much, you know,

if you pay attention? And then just that, you know, like you feel, you know, because obviously we set it up this way, the way they sleep and the, we designed the set we had in mind that he has to sort of traverse all of them and

where Garapin was laying and obviously where Mensa was in what bunk she was and that sort of stuff and then you still feel like oh wow that worked out really great and you know you didn't sort of necessarily even though it it was all planned you know he didn't necessarily inspected or I didn't you know to hit me like that you know it's it's great that's it's really rewarding So it's definitely not just a job that I, you know, don't, but you're just like, I've done my work, you go home and then you forgot what you were doing. Well, David's just an insane actor too. I think he gets underutilized in his career.

Like, he's very good. Oh, he's fantastic. I mean, they all are, you know, like, and what a, what a group, too. They loved each other so much. Tatiana would be on set, like, even when she wasn't working. you know and and yeah just just incredible was actually like the one thing i was dreading of season two was like because they don't up when i was reading the books they don't appear in the first the second and the third book at all it's murdered by himself and i was like oh fuck man

but then comes the scene with pin lee um and i was like oh man that's going to be so dope i was imagining, you know, their, their banter. And obviously now reading the books that have their, their faces, Sabrina and, you know, and Alex and mine was like, and Sabrina was so great too, you know? I mean, it's just, yeah, it's just great.

When you have this cast that love each other so much and love the project so much, and everyone does. I mean, it is really shocking. This doesn't happen very often. You know how you just have your first high in filmmaking and then you just chase that for the rest. And murderbot was definitely one.

season one was one of those highs like everyone in Toronto is like still in touch and it's like what's going on we miss you you know and this was so great and tell each other stories and yeah I think this I think that that does show you know that that that's sort of like heart yeah yeah I'm I'm really really glad well I'm I'm glad for you but yeah I'll let you get to sleep and then please come back and shout with me when second season comes out because I will

watch it as it does. Okay, awesome, man. Can't wait to hear what you think of it. All right. Have a good night. Take care, brother. Thank you. Chow.

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