Frame & Reference Podcast - 250: "I Love Boosters" Cinematographer Natasha Braier, ASC ADF

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

This week for the TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH episode of Frame & Reference we've got Natasha Braier on to talk about her work on I Love Boosters as well as her cinematography education platform "Deep Light".Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this, episode 250 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Natasha Breyer, ASC, ADF, DP of I Love Boosters. Enjoy. When sinners came out and they were like, oh, look, we're going to do this video about IMAX and stuff. And I was like, oh, that's very cool. And then you guys got the same exact treatment from Panavision, except it's hella goofy.

And you're like, you guys get, did you get to keep the scientists? Coats? The what coats? Oh, the coats. Yes, yes, we did. Yeah. Good. Good.

Yeah. Booth wanted to do something inspired on the Ciner's video. And so we kind of like the beginning of the idea was, you know, just to do the board and the explanation of the anamorphic and stuff, which I thought, you know, people asked me so many times in my life, you know, what's anamorphic and can you explain it? So I was like, great. Like, you know, we can't explain it for everyone. Really easy. But then we went to scout the place in Panavision where we could do it. And we saw that these boards, you know, to do tests, that they were like sliding.

And when you put two together, you had this kind of roof thing, you know, ceiling thing. And I was like, oh, this could be like, you know, Boots' little attic where he has these ideas. And then we could open and then just like the idea kept growing and growing and growing. And we just couldn't stop ourselves. and I did that in this like kind of very sweet piece. I am very proud of. It's fun. You guys did that in Woodland Hills?

Yeah. Oh, wow. I didn't even recognize it. Yeah, it's one of the rooms in the back where they actually test, but it's not like, it's not where you test when you're prepping cameras. It's more when you're testing, like when they're developing new technology or, you know, like tuning lenses and stuff. It's kind of like the backstage.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it was great. You know, I was going to, I was, for a split second, I was going to be like, is that the first time you've been on camera? But no, you're doing your own interviews on your own platform on Deep Light. Yeah. Yeah. I really, you know, like any cinematographer, I think, I really don't like, you know, camera.

And in Deep Light, I guess, yeah, it's the only way to get this. conversations with my friends and heroes and get, you know, the tone and the level of deaths that I want to get for Deep Light and to talk about the things that we want to talk about, which are the ones that, you know, the topics that usually get left out from the PR, you know, award season tour and just, yeah, just go to the, you know, the things that you don't learn as at film school, the things that you don't read. the things that you're listening in post podcasts, which are actually the most challenging parts of the job, right?

And the parts that I always felt I needed support with since the moment I started and it was very hard to get. Like sometimes if you're lucky to have a mentor, you can get a little bit of guidance and stuff. So, yeah, I'm on camera for those conversations. But yeah, normally I much rather hide behind. to come. It's actually kind of cool because I think you're the, in 250 whatever episodes of this show

over six years, you're the only person, I think, that I've spoken to that, because like I'm a DP, but I mostly shoot documentary. Okay. So we all have that in common. You're the only person who has something in common with me in that regard, which is you're the only other person interviewing DPs. Yeah. Although Katie Williams is now, but.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I haven't. I mean, I've done it before a couple of times for the ASC conversations. You know, they ask the members to interview the other members. And yeah, I just never thought, I mean, my life is already very busy and hectic. Like I never thought, oh, let's do a podcast now. Oh, sorry, let me to switch the email so that you don't have this noise is coming. So I didn't turn it off.

And maybe also the message. Yeah, sorry. message is the one that'll get you. Yeah, yeah, there. Yeah, like, you know, Deep Ly was born to create this space of mentorship, to create workshops that are kind of focused towards the things that workshops are not focused, usually towards, you know, like not so much the technical side of things. And to create a community where people can support each other and nurture each other.

and to invite a lot of different voices and a lot of different DPs, which is what we're doing. But yeah, I never thought that actually maybe somebody's going to be the one that has to talk to all of them, you know, at least at the beginning, right, to host it. So I was like, oh, fuck, I have to be in front of the camera now. I hate it.

But it's actually been great because, you know how it is? Like, everyone is always traveling, so it's very hard. Like, I'm always trying to, like, get together with friends and hang out and do these kind of deep-piece dinners. And we always like email each other for like months until like once a year. It's like, okay, five of us are in town and we're going to have dinner. But it just, it takes forever because everyone is so busy. And in a way when we started the series through their eyes series,

it was actually like, oh, I get to see like five people, you know, in a week. It was actually pretty cool. And so I love, I love having these conversations because. They go deep and, you know, I think they're very useful to people, but they're really useful to me as well, which means it's a real thing, you know. You rarely have the time to talk about this, you know, more intricate part of the jobs that have to do with, not with the stuff that is in front of camera, right? But more with like how you manage your relationships with directors, with producers, the onset politics, the life and work balance, you know, leadership, all these things. And so it's been amazing to have the time, you know, a couple of hours to talk in depth

about this with all these different amazing deeps. And, you know, everyone has a slight different experience and a slight different point of view. And so it's very enriching to hear how other people deal with the same kind of issues, which are issues that we all have to learn as we go because you don't learn anything. nobody teaches you, nobody gives you like an instruction manual when you're like starting in the industry. And it's a little bit like trial error, right? And it's painful. And it can have a high price tag as well to learn by trying and error.

So with my mentorship program in Deeplight, what I'm trying to do is kind of give this kind of navigation map to people, you know, which I'm hopefully, I'm not somebody that follows the rules or the navigation map. So I'm more like an off-road kind of person. And I think the people that we are attracting with Deep Light are also off-road, which is great. But I think it's just nice to have some kind of guys so that then you can go off-road, you know. So that's what I try to do with the mentorship program, which has been kind of the beginning of Deep Light and the core. And with these conversations, it's really nice to hear how everyone, had to also find their own way because there was no map,

there was no rules, we were all alone in the jungle with a torch, you know, fuck, where do I go? And yeah, it's just been so nice to have these conversations with peers and,

and, you know, and get to see how they deal with these things. And also to see them light, because, you know, we do this exercise before. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a torture, you know.

I thought the idea was, okay, what are we nice to get them to light it? Because then you give everyone the same tools, the same location, and then everyone is going to do something completely different, which kind of reflects the whole philosophy of deep light in a way and the series, which is through their eyes. And the mentorship is called your way of seeing. So it's always about your identity, right, as a cinematographer, and how that your unique way of seeing the world.

it's kind of your biggest asset and it is what you have to develop and nourish instead of trying to blend in and how that unique way of seeing is who you are and is what's going to get you higher or not higher and it's going to make, you know, that your movies, people see your movies and says, oh, you know, this is spread for, you know, this is lull, whatever.

So, so yeah, that was kind of the idea but then when I started to see them do it, I was like, wow, it's actually really amazing because it's not just about how everyone lights differently, but it's also how they talk to the crew differently, how they collaborate differently. And I also didn't realize, because I don't do a lot of multi-camera,

that it was going to be such a torture, you know. It's actually super difficult. It's not, I mean, I would not want to like that. you know, four cameras, you know, cross coverage plus the wide. So it became like an exercise on torturing my friends, which, you know, I think Mike Balman will never forgive me and I owe him like a very good dinner, very expensive dinner. But yeah, it's also interesting because if you would have been an easier exercise, you would have seen, you know, great people at a world that can kind of light with their eyes close.

But because it's so fucking difficult, it's really interesting because you see somebody problem solving, not just like, oh, I'm going to show you this great lighting, you know, it's actually like, fuck, how do I solve this? And this is reality. This is what we deal with every day. So it turned out to be way more relevant than what I thought. it was going to be when I had the idea. And yeah, the first time we had somebody lighting and, you know, we're like following with the documentary cameras and watching. I was like, wow, this is actually way cooler than, you know, what I saw when I, when I thought

about it. Yeah. I mean, it's like the, like you're saying earlier about creating like a workshop and how that, like, I've never thought that workshops were ever generally that helpful unless they're telling you a specific thing. You know, if it's like, here's how to light, I don't know, underwater scenes. You know, it's like this. Here's something very specific.

But if it's like night scenes or portraits, it's always going to be key back fill. Okay. We're done here. Right. Give me $1,000. Yeah. You can't. And I've had the same problem on this show where it's like the most interesting stuff is

when people fail. But a lot of times, like you were saying with like awards season or whatever, no one wants to talk about how they failed. You know, they want to talk about all the success. or maybe gloss over some of the harder parts. Yeah. And by giving them a challenge right up front, we're like, that just bypasses all that.

And you get to go, all right, so fail in front of me. And then talk about it. Yeah. And it's also because it's not even about fail. It's about process, right? It's about process and collaboration. And I think that's what really became super interesting. You know, like some of them, you know,

like Loll was lighting with the lights, with the house lights on for the first 30 minutes. That confused the hell out of me. I was like, what? I thought he was going to use them. I know. I was like, wow, that's so strange. And then, you know, like Bradford, Autumn were like, kill everything.

Like, start on darkness and then start to do you. I was like, okay, that's a bit more like me. You know, but everyone is so different. And, yeah, and the results are already. I think we've released three. We have two more to release. We have Bradford and Drew, Daniels, to release. yet and they're also different, but also the way that they talk to the gaffer and they

collaborate and the way that they play jazz, you know, with the collaborators. So, yeah, it's fascinating. It's fascinating. And I think you learn a lot more. And it's not really even about the end result, you know, like we can see the end result and we can do like a plan of, you know, what, what light you had and what filtration or whatever, but it's just really about the process. And I think it's also like humanizing your heroes and seeing, you know, everybody's got it figured out. Nobody walks and it's like, okay, this is what we're

doing. Poon, boom, boom. The gaffer electricians execute and it's done. No, it's like you do something. You look at it. It didn't quite work. You move it to the left. It's okay to change your mind. Like, you know, how do you talk to people? I think, I think that's what, you know, people don't have so much. so much information out there, right? So many resources. But like really to see our heroes doing it for real, almost in real time. I mean, of course we edit, but we're editing in a cinema verite sort of way. We're not going like boom, boom, boom.

And I think that's what is interesting, you know, just to see, to be a fly on the wall and see the process and see how everyone does it differently, you know? Yeah. Well, but also to your point about how like, you can either take a path or go off road and stuff. I think one of the hardest parts of film education is attempting to meet the student, let's call them, where they are. You know, like, you don't know.

They'll come to you. Could you have any tips? And you're like, all right, well, what are you doing right now? And what have you done for the past 10 years? And so I've always been of the mind that like stuff like that where you just watch people work relatively uninterrupted, far more informative. because you're going to learn, you're going to see something that you've either done

or didn't know or whatever, and then glean from that instead of someone prescribing to you what they do. Like if Lawl told you how he lights, that would not be as informative as watching him do it. Because he's also not going to tell you all, again, that iterative process,

which may include failure, he's not going to tell you like, and then you're going to screw up three times and then figure it out and then probably stand with a cup of coffee for 10 minutes. you're going to want to do all that because that's part of the process. Yeah. Well, we talk about that in the interviews,

which is the great kind of this side of the whole experience. But yeah, I think what it's important is, yeah, it's just to see people doing it and to see how it feels and to see how they doubt and try one thing and stuff and how everyone does it with their own personality and their own unique approach. And it's more than learning how lull does it or how Bradford. does it or how autumn does it.

It's more really like being like, oh, they're being themselves. They're not trying to prove anything and not trying to pretend that they walked in and they know exactly what they're going to do. It is about the process. And they come to it with some level of humbleness. I don't know how you say in English. In the way that they figure it out and talk with their crew. And I think just that's probably the most important thing.

You know, it's just validating that because when you're starting, you're so insecure and you want to blend in, right? You want to play the part of what you saw somewhere of some guy doing like a great demo or whatever that it's what you're... In a suit with a scarf. Yeah, or whatever, you know, like showing how cool they are and they're like lights, do, do, do, do and everything happens perfectly. And, you know, you're not going to be that, right? It's fake. It's not real life. And so, you know, like, yeah, and our documentaries that are capturing somebody doing it for real in a real set, but they're also like just some moments, right, some edited moments.

And so I think everyone forms a perception of who they have to. And of course, now, today we have more diversity. But like when I started, like the only two documentaries where I could see what ADP is, you know, or if I had the lack, which I didn't, to go. go to a real set and see somebody, you know. It was white guys of a certain age, which would behave in a specific way. And, you know, it would be very, very kind of old school. Like the way of relating and talking would be very militaristic, which, you know, still is, of course, is part of how we make movies. But so when you were starting, you felt, okay, like, I have to fit in this archetype. And so, you know, obviously for women,

or people of color was, you know, even harder. But even if you were, you know, I had, you know, on film school, you know, my friends were like, you know, white guys, you know, that spoke English as a first language. So, but even that, they were struggling. They were like, came out of film school and they were like growing a beer to look older so that they would be more respected. So everyone, right, everyone. Same.

Same, right? Yeah, so you're just trying to play a part. And in that part, one of the things you're, you're. are also trying to play, it's the confidence that you know what you're doing, but you don't because you don't have the flight hours yet, right? You might know what your vision is, hopefully, what you want to say with light, with framing, with camera movement, but you don't necessarily how to execute it yet because you're learning. And in trying to play this part, this role, you're kind of projecting this thing externally. And because you're projecting this character

that you feel you need to project in order to be safe, right, and be allowed to be there or to stay there. It's very hard to, at the same time, go inwards and figure out who the fact you are, right? As a DP, as an artist, as a filmmaker, as a collaborator. So it's a very weird place to be because you would think, you know, as an artist, you should be just going inwards,

doing this self-discovery thing, and allowing all these things to inform who you're going to become, but because you're so busy with this protective armor that you're building and stuff, then it's, it's your, the energy is either pushing out or allowing in, like, to do both. It's, is the whole game that we have to master, right? All our lives as deep is. So I think, like, Deep Light was born in a way to help with this contradiction. And to give a path that validates you as a unique person, as a unique human, as a unique artist, filmmaker and cinematographer that is going to find your own unique way of doing it.

And to validate that actually, even though you're very busy trying to blend in and not be different, actually try to validate you that whatever is that thing that makes you different is your biggest asset. and instead of like hiding it, you actually have to like recognize it and nurture it and develop it, you know? And it's easier said than done, you know? But to me that's, you know, that's been my journey because, you know, I started almost 25 years ago and, you know, but then it was way harder

to be a female DP. It was also in England. My English was even worse than now. You know, I'm small, you know, people were like, how can you even carry the camera? Like all, it was, it was really like an uphill journey to, to, to be allowed, you know, to be in, to play the game. And, and I, it was not only all these things I just mentioned, but on an artistic level, I was kind of like a little bit to art house for the context. And, and, you know, I was lucky that I had some mentors.

or I cross path with the right people at the right time that validate me that what I was doing, even though my teachers were saying it was wrong and everyone around me was like doing something way safer and stuff. I was lucky to get enough validation to believe in myself and keep going and keep my compass, you know, of what I want to do and what I don't want to do and on why. But it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. And so, yeah, the whole idea for DeepLight was really just to create this safe container, you know,

where people can really find a place of reassurance, of validation. And I don't know why the message just sounds because I switch. Oh, I can't hear it. You're good. Okay. So, yeah, it was just to create this place. you know, to give people reassurance, validation, to give a compass. As you were talking, I had a thought about, like, how you might change,

how you think previous you might have changed the way you worked, given today's world of like there seems to be an element of having to promote yourself, which I became a DP because I, like you, didn't want to be in front of the camera. I'd be behind the camera, right? I don't want to be in pictures. I don't want to have to self-promote. That's insane. I'd rather just do the work and get with it.

But now that you've brought this, so I do want the answer to that question, but also the thing that I did that is just so infuriating is I was an Android person, my whole life, Android and PC. That's just what I did. I used to play professional video games, whatever. And then one of my best friends and another producer who I work with were like, bro, you have to get an iPhone.

We're sick of this. Like we have, we need I message, blah, blah, blah. So I get the iPhone. phone, I get the laptop. And now I'm having all the same problems you have. We're like, the stuff doesn't do what you tell it to. It used to just work. Doing DIT stuff by yourself is a documentarian. It's so slow. Why is it so slow? My PC does it in 30 minutes. How come eight hours? What do you mean eight hours? Yeah. I hate technology in this industry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's horrible. And yeah. And I think for the people that are starting now,

it's there's something great about technology, which is actually, you know, now you could do your first movie with an iPhone. And you actually can. Kids get so frustrated when you say that. And I'm like, you weren't there back when it was either film or DV. Like you actually can make your first film with a phone. It's not like flippant. Yeah.

No, you can do something amazing. So you don't need to wait to be giving permission and stuff. we should have a friend, you know, a good director with the script and your TV. Like, you know, like when I first, when I did my first movie, we actually shot it on mini-d-b. The director was my husband at the time and we went to film school together. And after graduating from film school, it was like a few years where he was like developing, developing. And it was just like, it seemed like the film was never going to happen. And suddenly he got, well, not suddenly, but he applied.

to a development fund with the Rotterdam Film Festival, Huber Bowls, to develop a script for countries, third world countries. So he had like five pages synopsis or two pages synopsis for a story coming of age in Patagonia where he's from in Argentina. And basically they gave us,

they gave him $15,000 to develop the script. And we basically took those $15,000, bought a mini-d-V, the Panasonic camera, you know, the DVX-100, with tapes. This was with tapes, 2004. So that was a 10% of the budget. I had an XL2. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I love those. And, you know, so we went there, you know, with the remaining, so 13, 500 to Argentina.

And we just shot the movie, you know, with friends. and we casted some kids. And if we hadn't done that, I don't know how much longer it would have been until he gets his first feature. And I get my first feature. And I got my next three features because of that movie. Because we won a lot of awards with the movie.

It was in Rotterdam, in a lot of festivals. And so now with an iPhone, like, you don't even need to buy the camera. You know, like you, and, well, I love that camera. But, yeah. So, I mean, that's something great. Yeah. When I went to Boosters yesterday in Beverly Hills, there was one of the trailer, you know, it wasn't like Marvel trailers before it was like indie trailers. Because I think there was a film festival happening at the same.

It was like a film festival and then your movie in the theater for some reason. Like you could either go see Boosters or this film festival. But so there was all these like indie trailers at the beginning of the film. And one of them, I think. thought was an old movie that because it said 4K. I think it said 4K restoration or something like that. But it was clearly a movie that came out like within the past two years. And it was clearly shot on DB.

And I was like, we're going back, huh? We're doing it. What movie was that? Yeah. I fucking can't remember what it was called. It was a, it was a queer film. It was like a road film of some kind.

Okay. Two queer folks. I'd have to, I can look it up later. Okay. I was like halfway getting ready to, I was more, honestly, the DV threw me off because now I'm going like, have I ever seen this? Was this clerks? What? Like, somebody shot on VHS something lately.

I can't remember what I saw the other day. It was like, shot on VHS. I was like, oh, that's cool. A backroom's attempted to. I mean, it's weird how the kids are getting into that now. Like after we just got done talking about how difficult DV was. now they all want to go shoot DB again. And I'm out here going like, hey, go for it if you want,

but at least get a recorder for it. They're like, no, I want tape. I want it to be the real thing. I'm like, you don't. There's nothing magic about tape. It sucks. The image might be great, but log and capture sucks. Yeah, but it does feel different.

You know, it's this beautiful analog thing that is, I don't know, I feel it. The DV is the same thing coming out the back. You can just record the tape is immaterial. Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, maybe it's just like a romanticize thing of the past that they didn't have. Yeah, I'm always confused about the nostalgia for a time you weren't in.

Like I shot 16 in film school and I'm nostalgic about that. But at the same time, it's the same thing where like the work. I'm not nostalgic about it all necessarily. Because a lot of people talk about, oh, when you shoot film, you slow down, you think, and I agree with that. But at the same time, it's like, or you could just do that. Like to have a format limitation finally allow a producer to be like,

all right, well, I guess they need to switch the reel or whatever, you know, the magazine. I'm always like, couldn't you just plan for that? If people inherently need the, if it makes a better product, so to speak, when you're shooting film because of time constraint, why don't you just slot that in? And also not worry about the film dying and exploding on you. Yeah, I think because they won't because, you know,

that time is money. So they can tell you, but then at the end, you know, always rush it. So at least with film, I mean, I think there's a lot of other advantages with film, but also like that time and that respect that it buys you, people would just rush you if you wanted to tell you wouldn't have it so it's kind of like a like an arm or you know in a way for that

yeah I just wish I guess what I'm saying is I wish it wasn't I wish we could just use the format we wanted and still and have that discipline yeah yeah but yeah yeah but it's a different world I did want to actually get your answer to that question earlier

is like now having you know, if you were to go through the same thing you were going through as a film student and stuff, but you still had to deal with today's sort of self-promotional world. Oh, you got to have an Instagram account or whatever, a website and a real... What would you do today that would be different?

I mean, I guess I would have had... Like, right now, like, I don't really care about the Instagram account. I only really use it when a movie comes, out just to help the movie. So I did use it a lot with boosters because I, you know, I love the movie and I wanted to help as much as I could.

And I know these things count, you know? But otherwise I really try to stay away. Social media, I think, is a very dangerous black hole to me, you know. I guess

for everyone, right? It's like I don't have the willpower to just look at whatever I need to look. You just like start scrolling and then you can't stop. And yeah, I just find you very dangerous. I don't have the self-control. But I think, yeah, if I was starting now and I had to build a brand and all of that, I will be using it a lot more, you know,

I would be putting personal work there and images all the time. I mean, it is a full-time job. Like even with boosters, like I was trying to post every day just to keep the algorithm and, you know, just keep like, okay, you know, everyone that follows me, if all these people go and see it, you know, in the opening weekend, then we're filling all the screens. So I was like, okay, just how to keep going, you know. And even just like posting every day, like one thing and answering to the comments and stuff, it was like a lot of work, you know. So it's hard if you're like shooting, if you're doing a movie or whatever, commercials, like

building a career on top of that. Every day you have to dedicate like one or two hours just to create it. I mean, let alone create the content, but just like post it and write the caption and all these things. It's a lot. It's a lot. So I'm and I see it along with my mentees from the mentorship program in Deep Light. You know, this is like a whole thing. Like everyone asks about this.

And of course I don't, I can't offer. a lot of guidance because to me, like all the guidance I offer in this program is all like real shit that comes from my own experience. I don't feel like I'm teaching anything. I'm just honestly and candidly sharing. And so I, you know, this is something that I don't, luckily, I don't need to deal with that much because, you know, I luckily I created a name before all this shit happened. But we get, but we invite agents to, you know, to do Q&As with the mentees. And this comes all the time. This is the first thing that comes out, you know, like how do you handle, you know,

like the social media and how much you have to do and all of that. And, yeah, according to the agents, like you have to do a lot, you know, it is a tool. And yeah, that sucks because most of us shows to be the piece. because we want to be behind the camera because we're introverts and we don't want to do all of that stuff. But you have to now, you know. When I started, obviously,

it was not such thing as Instagram. But like, I didn't even like, you know, going to, you know, like I went to film school in England, right? And so for three years, after you finish a school at 5, we took a bus back to London because it was in Beaconsville outside London.

and the baths would drop you in front of a pub in Marilabon. So everyone goes to the pub, right? It's England. And everyone's like, you know, drinking a few beers. They're compressing for the day before they go home, sleep, start all over again the morning after. And like, I hated the pub. You know, like, I'm not a pub person. So I hate, but he kind of had to do a little bit of the socializing.

That's when, you know, like bond with the other people and stuff. And I just hate it. I hate it like when you go to the film festivals. and how to go to the parties and meet people. And you know, and you really love that movie. And the director is there and you want to go and say, hey, you know, I love that movie. You know, I just shot whatever, the rover. Like, this is who I am.

You know, my name is Natasha. I'm from Argentina. I just love your movie. Like, you should be doing those things to meet people and for people to meet you and find, you know, the other filmmakers that you resonate with and that they resonate with you and find your tribe and all of that. And I always was so shy about that, you know, it's like all my kind of. fears of rejection and insecurities, you know, play.

And I think it's for a lot of the pieces, it's very similar situation. That's why we are not actors or directors, right? So I, yeah, I always dreaded that and now is more necessary than ever. But something I did do from the beginning to answer your question. And it wasn't like a decision, it wasn't like a strategic or a marketing decision. it was really coming from my heart and my soul and my instinct. But now I'm understanding it like 25 years later. I'm like, oh, that was branding, right?

But at the time, like, I didn't even know that word. But something I was very clear about from the moment I started to do my first short films in film school was that I never wanted to film something, even for the exercises, something that I wasn't like passionate about, that I didn't have a vision like, oh, I can do something exciting with this, you know? Like sometimes it was like, okay, this week we're going to learn like how to, you know, light for process trailers.

So we're going to have these two models and they're going to be like driving and talking, blah, blah, blah, and then in the day and in the night, and then you light it and then you learn. And I was like, I can't do it unless like I'm choosing the costumes and it's a cool car and it's got the right colors. and, you know, we have a good, like, it always had to be kind of like 100% for me. Otherwise, it didn't work out.

And so with the short films, it was the same. Like, you know, there was all these short films, you know, coming around from people in film school were only like six deeps, six directors. But then you were meeting people from other film schools or from, not from film school, but, you know, from London, whatever, like inviting you if you wanted to shoot their shorts. And a lot of people were just, like, shooting as much.

as they could, right? Like taking every opportunity to practice a new thing. Oh, I never done exterior night. I never done rain, you know, and whatever. And yeah, to me, new people and stuff. And for me, it was like, I could never say yes unless I was like, oh, this is going to be a good short zone. Like it has something to say. I somehow resonate with the story, with the message. And I want to tell this story, you know, there's a need for me as a human to do. tell this story. And I didn't really need to completely understand why. I dissect it. Now, in retrospect, I can understand each one of them, why I wanted to tell it. But I just had to feel it, right? Just feel it in my stomach, in my heart and like, I want to tell this story. And as an artist, I can see

how I could create this visual world that is going to support this story. And if I see that the director is kind of resonating with this proposal, then, okay, we're in. And so I said no to a lot of short films. And I shot a lot of short films. But every short film I shot, I was very proud of. And some were better than others, you know, like everything you learn from your mistakes. But in all of them, I was trying something bold, something brave, not for the sake of doing something different. Or like, oh, I saw Priestdoll doing that with one car why I want to copy it.

But if I was copying my heroes, which of course I was, it was always with a reason, right, with the intent of creating a similar feeling or expression or vibe or whatever. And the same thing with the movies, you know, from the first film I did, like every film I've done until today. And hopefully I can continue with this ethos for the rest of my life. It's been very curated, you know, I've been very, very selective.

And that was always my instinct that in a way, the only way to really develop myself as an artist and grow with everything I do is to be fully in tune, like an instrument. Every time I play the instrument, I kind of go out of tune. I kind of be playing the wrong tune just because I'm practicing, you know?

And so it always has to be a story that I feel there's a reason to tell this story, you know, it's going to contribute to the world somehow. And then it has to be the right partner. So I feel like I can partner with this director and kind of bring whatever is that I bring to the table to tell this visually and be able to express that. And I'm going to be giving that room as a cinematographer. And so, yeah, it's kind of like all those stars need to align. And I think by doing that, what I managed to do was to always stay very passionate about what I do.

But also to build my voice, to find, you know, what my unique voice was. And then to, for, then people started to recognize me for whatever was that thing that I was, which I wasn't aware of. I was just like trying to just be like a kind of like a pure channel in a way, right? But that kind of attracted the right people that kept coming to me with the right projects that I would in turn resonate with. And I think if I had done a little bit of everything just to practice more to tick boxes, then people would have been a bit more confused. Like who is she?

Like what does she have to offer? No, that's that's the, uh, A couple. So when I started in earnest, like I went to film school. I'd been shooting my whole life. But I like got sidetracked working at Red Bull for a while. And then, you know, I thought I was like, I'm doing a cool job. And then that ended.

And I was like, oh, crap, I guess I'm a filmmaker again. So that was like, I don't know, 11 years ago. But making a reel. Same thing happens where you haven't done a lot of work. So you just slot everything you've ever done into your reel. And people go like, well, they won't tell you. but they'll just look at it and go, who the fuck is this?

Like, I don't, I don't know what you do, you know. But if you make it real specific and short, then it's like, all right, I know how, you won't get as many gigs necessarily, but you will get hired off the back of that more than the jumbled mess real. Yeah, people don't want to see quantity. They want to see quality.

Like this, again, this was very clear to me from the beginning, you know, like, you know, I graduated from film school in 2001. The world was very different. I was doing my reels in eumatic, you know, in the film school, going with a suitcase with 20 eumatic tapes, you know, and the train and recording them all. And then you leave them in the production company and just like a whole pile and they're like, they're never going to see it.

So it had to be curated, you know. But I mean, now it's multiplied out by like 20 because now people don't even have an attention spam. So you really had to curate 30 seconds, right, to get them interested and to get them like, oh, this is different to what I've seen. And the thing is also now there's so many more people because luckily it's the whole process to get to shoot something. It's so much more democratic.

A lot of more people has access. And then a lot of people, it's also easier to show the stuff because it's not the eumatic tape that you have to put there and it's an adept. It's kind of like a link, an Instagram, a website. side. So, but that means also the people on the other side have now access to like hundreds of people to look at. They have way less time to look at them. They have zero attention spam, maybe one second because they're used to swiping. So how do you stand out? You know, it's very hard. And I know my mentees in deep light, you know, this is, this is a big problem and people are

are very confused about it. But again, I think that the answer comes to the same place. Like, you can only be you, you know, because everyone can do great images, especially if you're only going to see photos in an Instagram. I mean, you have to be pretty bad nowadays to not have, like, beautiful, soft contrasting lighting, right? Like, you can just capture it with natural, I mean, you know,

like before you had to have a good eye for lighting, but you also had to manage to do it, you know, like exposing, you know, for like, you know, 250 ASA, maybe, you know, a T4 or whatever with all you had was a Fresnel or an HMI, you know, so you had to like soften this hard light, do something interesting, not look at lit, but you still expose it. Like, now it's like, you don't even need any of that. You have beautiful soft lights everywhere, but also you could just capture amazing natural light and model it and stuff with no money, with no... So how are you not going to have good images if you have a good eye?

It's just... Of course, you have to have the good eye, but the rest is democratic. The rest, like, if you have the good eye, you're going to have like a great fucking Instagram page, right? But the problem is, not the problem. The good thing is there's thousands of people with a great eye in the way. world and thousands of amazing Instagram accounts with great photos, which is not the same skill as telling a story with images, of course, but also not all the producers or directors are

going to take the time to see how you're telling the story with the images. So the first thing they're going to see is just the images, right? Unless they are discovering you in a film festival with their shorts or your first movie or whatever. So, but so I think at the end of the. of the day, the only thing that you can do, let's say, to survive in the jungle, but also you don't really want survival. You don't want surviving.

You don't want a life of survival in the apocalypse. You want to thrive. So I think the only answer is just to be yourself, you know, and just try to get in tune with yourself, like tune your instrument, who am I? Why am I making these images? where are these images coming from, what kind of process makes me happy and makes me thrive and give the best of myself

and try to do that. And then that's what you try to show to the world. And then hopefully the right people are going to resonate with that and get attracted to that and you're going to create your community, your family and make movies together. But if you are just like trying

to do whatever you think. It's like the fashion this week or whatever is getting other people work. Yeah, I think it's going to a casino. You know, it's so hard that you're going to win. Well, honestly, I think Boosters is a good example of that, right? Like, it's incredibly unique. It's quite out there at some points.

I had one about halfway through. You know exactly what scene I'm talking about. I literally just wrote my notebook. Wow, that got weird fast. But like, you know, with a relatively, what did you guys shoot that for? Like, not a lot, right? We had, I think it was $14 million. Yeah.

And I did that bust in a bit more afterwards. But yeah. Yeah, let's round up to 20. Fuck it. Who cares? Like, it's not a lot. And the amount of. road, what do you call it?

Runway you were able to get out of that was incredible. Like every, every scene looks perfectly polished, wonderfully colorful, wonderfully. The production design is incredible, but relatively modest resources, all things considered. Yeah. And that I think that has to come down to you in Boots's eyes.

Yeah. I think everyone in every department really went above and be. beyond to stretch, you know, our badges. But yeah, it all comes to Woods' vision, really. And his choices as director, you know, were to compromise and were not to compromise. And a lot of his choices are not the choices that you would expect. You know, a lot of us that have more years to do movies than Woods where like our first instinctual choices would have been different.

You know, let's cut this, just simplify this, because we won't have the resources to do it. You know, let's have like, you know, this simpler so we can get more takes and, you know, whatever. And boots would be like, I don't want to cut anything. I'd rather we have one take for each thing, but we keep all these crazy ideas. And we're like, everyone was like so scared

because we're all like, oh, my God, we're going to fail. Right. And obviously no one wants to fail. Well, we all are there because of boots and his amazing genius. And we want to bring all these visual ideas to life. So we're like, okay, but these are like the minimum things that we need, right? And most of the times we didn't have the minimum things that we needed. So we were kind of like trying to negotiate that.

And Woods would always be like, no, I'd rather, you know, we have two takes to do this. And we'll just get it done in two takes. And it's not going to be perfect. It's going to be a little bit rough. but, you know, we only have whatever, like two glasses to break or whatever, like, we still, we still leave this in the story, you know? And so, so we got everything, you know, which when you read, when you read the script, you were like, everyone was like, okay, we're obviously going to cut 30% by the time we are,

you know, one, you know, one month out in prep. And we never did, you know. So we, every day, it was extremely challenging. Every day was something technical that we were not fully prepared for and that kind of like you were shooting the test or the rehearsal. And like everyone had to be super focused and giving their best trying to, you know. But we did get it only in the can and, you know, it was it was the right call, you know, from hoots. It was like, no, this is my movie and I'm not compromising any of it, you know.

and what just don't have to do things in a different way than what everyone is used to doing in this film industry and how it operates. And we did. And I'm glad we did, you know? Yeah. Like one example, yeah. No, go ahead.

No, one example is the chase sequence, you know? Chase sequence we were, in theory, we were only going to do miniature for the shopping mall because of course we were not going to destroy a shopping mall. and drive through the escalators. So that was supposed to be miniature. But then when we were in prep and we were scheduling and scouting,

we had very little time to do that chase sequence. So we were going to have to simplify it. And, you know, it's kind of like a James Bond chase sequence. You know, like James Bond would take like three, four weeks just to shoot that and with a lot of resources. And we obviously didn't have any of that. So as starts to get, everything to get, you know, real with the time and the money we had and stuff, it was like, shit, this is going to start to get very compromised. And so my first instinct, the first instinct was like, okay, we're just going to cut the scene, like, you know, make it simpler.

The movie's fucking crazy anyway by the time you get to that. So maybe she's not going to go in the roof and the, you know, the skinless people are not going to jump in the roof to her stuff. maybe, you know, like this we're saving like two or three days and green screens and all the thing. And, and Bush was like, no, no, no, this is all super important because he sees it as a piece of music as well. Right. So even if it's not indispensable, you say indispensable? Yeah. And dispensable for the story, it is for the musicality, for the rhythm of the movie, you know, the music.

Like this musical composition is building up and it needs that climax. You cannot just like impress it. So we're like, okay, how are we going to do it? And then we're talking with the miniature, Chris Warren, about the part that was miniature and we're trying to figure out how to do the other. And there was like Chris said like, well, you know, I have like two blocks of city already. I have the buildings. I just have to like incline them, like to make it look like something.

Right, because it's San Fran. Yeah. And because in the street, it was in the script, it was always, you know, and one of them, we went to San Francisco to scout these streets. But imagine like, okay, we need to put like a Ukraine here. We need the distals. And, you know, there's like, you know, this, this lamppost and the water things. Like, we never had the depth to get the white shot.

It was like crazy. And so he said, no, I have this trick. And then Booth's eyes were like what? And then, like, suddenly were like, well, if we do that all in miniature, of course it's going to look miniature. But it's going to free the language so much more because then the cars come fly and do all this weird shit, which is perfectly in tune with the rest of the movie. I was going to say it's not even that it doesn't look realistic and it looks like miniature. I didn't even necessarily.

I didn't realize half of these exteriors like about, I don't know, a third of the way through the film. I was like, wait a minute. All these are like green screens and exteriors for like when they like walk into shopping stuff, right? Or am I losing my mind? Yeah, the montage when the girls are going, heisting all these shops, we didn't have time in the schedule to do that outside. So the interiors are all like mini sets, just little corners or like one wall, which is one color. but the exterior, yeah, we couldn't afford to do. We had like, I don't know, two hours for like five exterior.

So they would just, we'll do green screen. They will go and change clothes very quickly. And we didn't even have the time during prep to find the background. So I was just changing the lighting. And then they had to find backgrounds that match kind of the lighting that we had done in the green screen. And luckily that all, that's all very fast because some of them are not great. But again. It doesn't even, it's not even that bad.

Like, I didn't even clock it for a while, except I was looking for it, you know, because of this. Yeah, yeah. I think if you've seen the movie five times, then maybe you start to see it. But the thing is you're looking at the girls, the camera is moving. You're looking at the amazing wardrobes. Like, you're not going to be like, wait, that shopping mall in the background looks like a little bit too sharp. I mean, I see it, of course. And when I was color correcting the movie, which we also didn't have the time, you know, enough time to color correct everything.

I was like suffering a lot because you have it in pause, right? So I'm like, this is just like a photo in the background. You know, it's not show with my anamorphic lenses. It doesn't have gray. So I'm like trying to massage it as much as I can. And, you know, like, and I only have like whatever, like five minutes for each show. So I'm like, okay, super focused. And then when I saw the movie the first time at South by South,

who is in the big screen, you know, with the audience going real time. I'm like, this was like a blink. Why did I suffer so much? You know, like people love. The brain doesn't have the time to actually see all these things, you know? But yeah, these kind of decisions, you know, made it possible that we didn't have to cut things from the script. Because, you know, it's the only way that you can do all those trips, you know, in one day and get the montage and get all these things. But I think audiences don't even care necessarily.

Maybe the green screen stuff they would a little if it wasn't executed well like it was here. But when it comes to like miniature, I think audiences prefer it at this point. You know, like you go super big, you get mandorraine and Grogu. Like Grogu's hell of cute and stuff, but no one's going to say he looks realistic. Baby Yoda looks like a puppet. But they like it. And I think hopefully a film like this makes more people want to use miniature. Because I think not only is it very charming, but it's a very effective way to get your movie.

made it any budget, you know, if you can. Yeah, no, for sure. And it's more fun because then, you know, there's the gravity rules. I mean, yeah, actually all the, all the loss of physics applied the same way, miniature and you have to calculate, you know, exponentially with some things. So, but, but obviously you still have a bit more freedom because, you know, you're, you're playing with toys and stuff. So it brings you back to. childhood a little bit. Yeah.

Also, I have to say this film definitely speaks to something that I have tried to to tell students for years and years, which is stop buying. If you're making like your first film, don't go buy a red, hire a costume designer and a production designer. Like those two things alone make this film look like, you know, $400 million movie. Yeah, of course. It's always what you put in front of the camera, you know. And it's not only getting those people, but as a cinematographer,

then you have to play jazz with that and work in collaboration with them because obviously the way that a great dress can stand out is if the production design behind it is complementing that color in a good way. And then you also have to light it in a way that you are enhancing or erasing this contrast. you know, on these contradictions of colors or clashes or whatever. But yeah, of course, as a starting point to have the right things in front of the lens are key, but that does not guarantee that you're going to just instantly have good cinematography, you know? Like in the old times, when, you know, when technical or appear, right,

and color came to Hollywood, you had a person that was her and it was, you know, usually a woman, funny enough, whose job was to coordinate all the colors so that it would work with the technical technology. And so it would be like, okay, we're going to have this dress, you know, like for example, here, right? The gray with the great sofa doesn't work at all. But like it's, you know, by this, like now it stands out, right? So as a cinematographer, your work is to really be next to the director. And, um, and, um, and, you know, working with the production designer and the costume designer in how these things blend together.

And like in my case in Buster's, you know, the production design many times is going very over the top, right? This is what Wood is asking to really, like, heighten things, heighten the contradictions and go like kind of biliwanka, you know, in many places. And the costumes are also like basically like carte blanche, just like go crazy with design, with color, you know, just like go for it. But then I have it in front of the camera. And my mandate from boots is also, of course, be yourself. That's why I hire you, you're Natasha Ryher like go crazy, go bold, use your color or your magic.

But his main thing was like, I need to feel for this. characters, every decision you make has to be based on emotion. Right? So I'm behind this camera and I'm very responsible that all this fist of colors that are coming from all these other departments eventually don't take me out of the movie. Because if I'm just like in this like roller coaster of crazy colors and stuff and I, and I get out of the movie. because I don't engage or because I'm distracted with these fireworks,

then the movie doesn't work. And the whole point of puts making this movie is not like, oh, let's have some fucking crazy colors and be weird, right? It's actually, let's get people on a crazy ride that, yes, involves colors and images and camera moves and all these things to get people engaged. But these are just elements of destroy and horrors. where the ultimate goal is let's connect with these humans that are in the screen with these characters, let's connect with their journey so that we can connect with the ideas that we're

telling through these character journeys, right? So that at the end, when everyone comes together and all the workers unionize and God's strike and discover that the only way. to make a better life for themselves and for their communities is to to unite with each other right this is what the this is the idea that Woods is interested on that this is the idea that he's been interested on for what 40 years you know since lecuk so this is not just like awesome cool fancy costumes and crazy sets like everything has to actually actually actually contribute to be part of that emotion.

Yeah, the end goal, that end emotion at the end, that when everyone goes on strike, you get this thing in your stomach, right? Or here and you're like, fuck yeah, right? So the colors in the wardrobe is like a bait, you know, like, ooh, look how fun, look at me, look at me, there's a thousand things to look at. Look at this.

It's a cool, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the set design still has the color kind of bait, but it's also ideologically, it's kind of saying something, right, where the inclined said with the eye, like it's already kind of delivering the message, the messages, the things that we're talking about, by heightening the contradictions, and by putting a magnifier glass in the ridiculousness

of today's world that we're living, in and making you sit big so that you finally sit, right? But I had to come and kind of blend that, put all that inside my lens in a way that I am about emotion and I keep you engaged with these characters for an hour and a half so that you love them, you feel for them, you understand them, and you want the best for them and they're people.

And so what I'm doing with the camera has to always be anchor on emotion so that it stays real. So I'm not doing acrobatics or fireworks of camera moves. And the lighting has to play jazz with whatever they brought in front of the camera. And sometimes when it's totally insane and crazy, find a way to ground it so that the audience doesn't get out of this journey

out of the movie because suddenly it's like a music video or something like visually like two out there. I need to keep them inside, you know, the movie. So maybe this dance is not very visible to the people

that are not cinematical, but it was actually quite challenging, you know? Sometimes I have to, I have to use a color in the light that is accentuating this color contrasts in the clothes, in the background, and sometimes I have to somehow soft, you know, it's too crazy, and I have to put a color light where I like, I bring it, I ground it a little bit more, you know?

So the colors, the colors normally, I'm also heightening the contradictions or putting this, you know, enlarging glass. So if, you know, if you are in a factory where it's usually kind of fluorescent lighting that is unhealthy and unpleasant and, you know, feels like something wrong, I will exaggerate that green, you know, and push it, you know, boost it a little bit and things like that. Or, you know, if she's desperate trying to get the red candy and is, you know, she's been through three places and she can get it and whatever then, well, there's. a neon light in the street, so I'm going to enhance that red because it is the right moment.

It's not just I decide I want to be fancy and put the red. Like there's an emotional reason for that red neon to come in that moment and things like that. So I had to play kind of like my own game of language with the emotions in the script and what I want to say with the camera move, the framing and the lighting and the color of lighting. But I also have to kind of manage all the, you know, candy that everyone is bringing from different departments and making sure that I'm still making a meal, right? Right. That is kind of like at the service of the bigger purpose, you know? So, yeah, that was, that was really interesting.

I'm very challenging. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, I could see how. you could, there's just so much color that like it, I was wondering like how are you managing not just having this become some kind of weird peacock of an image that you can't quite suss out, you know, what you're supposed to be looking at. Because you could just light everything with white light and just try to like print everything down in the back, backlight someone be like, right, that's who you're supposed to look at. But then it doesn't fit the tone of the film at all. Yeah. It's not a 50s noir.

Yeah. No, of course. And also like, you know, it's a, it's a low-budgeted movie. So it's not that we have three months of prep where, you know, the costume designer, the production designer, boots and I are sitting on a table and choosing every single color of every single set and, you know, having total control. Like you would, I don't know, like in a West Anderson movie, you know, this is more like some places are locations that they are at. they are and we of course try to find something great but we cannot paint the wall. You know, some costumes is like, you know, Shirley is like finding great costumes from like student designers in Atlanta and sourcing from different places. So it's like this dress is amazing for this moment, but maybe it's not exactly the perfect color for the background that we have, but we don't have control. We have to make it work and then I can put a light of a color that helps us, you know, like change the color in the dress or the background or the, you know, the dynamics between these two colors and stuff. So we, we had to, you know, we had to play

jazz in that way and, you know, makes things work. And sometimes we have the perfect stuff, you know, the perfect costumes in the perfect set. And then just a white light would do. And sometimes they had to do magic to blend it together, you know. Yeah. We've gone a little bit over, so I want to be respectful of your time. But before I let you go, I did want to know about the rig for Lakeith's close-ups. Because every single one of those just got a bigger and bigger laugh every time he was on screen. It's such a great little detour every time you get to the film. But it is like, were you just sitting there like lens-whacking the thing?

Or like what did you have to? Yeah. We tried a lot of things because Boots wanted like the whole world. around him to change, you know, to create this emotional state when you're like in love with somebody and everything else. And so when we first met, he was like, can we put like an acrylic in the back and move it and do something? I was like, yeah, sure. That's a good idea. Yeah. But then, you know, then when I was looking at the schedule and I was like, we're not going to have half an hour to set up a rig every time we have to do this shot, you know, like we were shooting a lot of stuff

every day. I think we had like 38 days shooting of principal photography. Yeah, without the miniature. The miniature was separate. But still, you know, that's quite intense for all the stuff that we had to do. So I was like, we have to find something that we can, you know, it can take us maybe fine maximum 10 minutes to rig, but not much more because we just don't have the time. So we tried a lot of different things and we're playing in Panavision. I was asking Dan, you know, explaining more or less what I wanted. I was like, I don't know, show me some weird shit that you have there. And I just, I was try everything until I find something.

And so we tested a lot of different stuff. And then we found this lens, which was like a little bit loose. So when you were like walking like this, it was creating this kind of thing like that. And so we basically manually would try to do like a hard bit, right? And then I'm mounting an eye light that I made myself just on top of the lens so you wouldn't have a shadow. And remotely we'll dim it up. And at the same time, as we're dimming it up, we close the iris so that his face gets leads kind of by a, you know, shadowless source that comes from the camera. and his face remains in exposure because as I'm dimming up the light, I'm closing the iris.

So his face stays correctly exposed, but the world gets darker because I'm closing the iris. I did try the Ari was the name of the device. I always forget. You know, there's a device that it does it by itself. Like it compensates with a shutter. Yeah, it compensates like iris and the other But it only does like a stop and a half Yeah, but it's not really, it's not very good

Because Sorry with an ND That's it with an ND But Oh yeah, like the one built in the in the Venice The like electronic ND Yeah, but it's kind of like only worth

For like a stop and a half So it wasn't like noticeable enough So it wasn't really good And so I was was like, okay, we're going to do it manually. So basically we had one person doing the hard bit on the focus, then one person closing the iris, and one person dimming up the front light. And obviously the heartbeat is kind of independent, but the light and the iris have to happen in sync, right? So that it's as seamless as possible. And so, you know, you need to, it's too humans

that have to look at each other and look at the thing. So it's never perfect, it's organic, but that's okay. But it's like a level of imperfection that is cool and a level that is like, no, this looks bad like a mistake. So we're like, okay. Did the iris person just have like false color on the monitor and just try to keep it? Because obviously with the light, you can't really, I imagine you can't just go like, this will be one stop ever, you know, like a third of a stop every four seconds.

No, we just looked in my monitor. by eye. Yeah, I was just next to my gaff. Yeah, it was my gaffer, my gaffer and I or my d-at and I, depending on the situation. So one was doing the iris and the other one was doing the light and we're kind of like looking at each other's hands. We put the hands next to the monitor so we can see our hands

and we can see the monitor at the same time. And we always thought, well, you know, we'll have a few goals, right? We'll practice a few times and then we shoot it. It's okay. And I told me this is like, you know, this is going to be like a manual thing. I show him the test, you know.

We'll do it this way, so we'll practice a few times. And it's going to be perfect. But it's like you like it a little bit, you know, 90% there. What happened was the first day we did it. Like he gets in front of the lens to do the shot. And then, you know, whatever case here, this is the lens. A quick rehearse or run the line, whatever. And then he starts like crying.

And we're like, fuck. Like, you know, we can't wait. We can't like have three takes. We can't rehearse. Like basically we had to get it right because he's like in the zone. So then the stakes were much higher. And then every day that the scene comes, we know it's going to be the same because basically he's kind of crying every time he sees her.

So it became very stressful for us because, of course, we had designed a method, right, that was supposed to work with some rehearsals and a little bit of trial and error. And then we ended up in a situation where we have an amazing actor crying and you have to capture it. So you can't fail. So that was kind of funny. But, you know, every day in the movie there was a big challenge, like kind of like that. because every day there was something weird to do, something technical,

that we probably hadn't had the time to prep or test and we're kind of like semi-ready to do it and we are going to have two takes. We're basically going to shoot the rehearsal and then have one or more two takes. And then we have to move on because otherwise we don't make the day. And so Boots would always be like, if we had it like 70 or 80%,

he'd be like, great, let's move on. If it was good with the actors and the technical side was like pretty good, he would not want to keep doing it until it was perfect. And so that was a big challenge because you have all these technicians, you know, like Dolly grip, key grip, Gaffer, you know, like operators that are really excited about a script that every day has something crazy to do and how we're going to do it and how we're going to achieve it. You know, this is what all these people do.

And same thing with like special effects and everyone on set, right? And everyone is like, wow, we're going to be doing all these tricks. It's going to be great. But then everyone obviously wants to deliver. And everyone knows that in order to deliver you need time and money. And we don't have either of them. So everyone is like working super hard. And then it's like have to get it right.

So it was sometimes it was frustration and said because you would be, you know, you have like a very good rehearsal, but it's like still the rehearsal, right? And Boots would be like, this is great, let's move on. Because he wants to get the whole movie in the can, which is the right thing to do, you know. And now we have the whole movie and this is why it works. But on the day, everyone's like, no, why? Why can we have another take? You know, this was just like, I can do it way better, you know?

So that was kind of like like the most challenging for most of the technicians you know but it also kept everyone on their toes like okay you're only going to have like one or two takes like you had to get it right you know so everyone was also super focused and really like giving the best of themselves

because they knew there's not time for you know five takes here. It's like just be brilliant and move on. that's the the Clint Eastwood method right doesn't he do like a take I don't know apparently his directing style is he he like wants everyone to be able to go home by five so he's just like you get one shot at it and don't fuck up please and then if you do he's just like damn that sucks moving on like kind of a wild way to where I get it if you're under time to rest but if you're not like just make everyone have a panic you're doing those crazy like

Super Zollies in your film. You're like, yeah, you only get one shot at that. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, in those cases, we were on. The solis, like, I don't remember. The first soli in the green place, I think we did it three times.

Because that also, like, you know, moving the racks and everything. The second one in the shop, I'm not sure if we did it two times, maybe or three. She bangs into the cooler. Yeah. But this is, nobody really wants to go home early, you know, but we're also not. not allowed to go home one minute later than Rob. But it's basically like in a conventional way of scheduling, the movie would not fit in the amount of days we have.

And so we do it, all these discussions, like you're having every movie you do, and you have those negotiations like you have in every movie you do. What was different in this one was like Boots said, like, I commit, I will do it into takes and I will move on so that we make our days, but I'm not cutting my story. I'm not cutting my script. And all of us were like, well, you know, but all this stuff,

like in only two takes, like we're going to fail, right? That was our fear. But, you know, I think he was right. You didn't. Yeah. Well, you know, some things we failed. Some things weren't as good as we could have been. But I think the magic of the movie is to be a bit rough

in the edges, you know, is to not be always perfect. It makes it more human. It makes it, you know, tangible and real. And it got the whole movie in the can, which is, which was the best decision, you know, like a movie which we would have done with a bit more time, more comfortably, with people a little bit like less care of failing, but that it would have 20 pages less wouldn't have been the same movie and it wasn't the movie that he wanted to make so, you know, in that sense,

you know, it was the right decision, you know, just to take some move on. It's not easy, but yeah. I think the rough around the edgesness of it doesn't, uh,

it doesn't look like it doesn't look like it was like phoned in or anything. Like it, like, I think it adds to the charm like you're saying and isn't visible. You know, it's not like, oh, there's a C stand in the shot and this one's out of focus. You know, it's not like that kind of rough. It's like it's just handmade, you know, whatever. It's not it's not even rough.

I think it's rough by today's standards where we're used to everything being like so perfect. Right. But when you look at the classic movies that you love and that made us want to be filmmaking, from the 60s, from the 70s. And I'm not talking necessarily about the Nuel Back, although it's what made me want to be a filmmaker, but where like roughness was the thing. But if you're talking about classic Hollywood movies,

you know, where they were trying to be super clean and whatever, if you look at those movies now, yeah, like the dollies, shakes and vibrates and the musical, the sum of ripe lights. So they aren't perfect, they are handmade, they are analog, they are human. So in a way, it's also like a, very good approach to not let us do four takes to get it all perfect because then you lose you know the spontaneity and then lose it in the actor but you lose it yeah i think the i think the mistakes and i wouldn't call them mistakes but this kind of like unperfection right that

not perfection i think is i think is really good and especially in this time where everything is so polished and not even starting to talk about ai right like i think this This also brings the humanness and, you know, the quirky things. Which people want. Yeah. Everyone keeps, every time I'm on the internet, everyone just wants it to be less perfect and absolutely no AI. But also, I just want to say, the other thing I think I was trying to get to is it doesn't look like a student film. You know what I mean?

It's still, it's rough by professional standards, but it's not like. Hopefully, hopefully. Yeah, yeah. It's not like, oh, they had to. you know, whatever, use a green screen for the exterior and it looks cheap. No, it just, that is what it is. It's not. Yeah.

Yeah. Because I don't want, I don't want anyone who hasn't seen the film to leave this conversation thinking like, oh, does it look bad? No, it looks phenomenal. It's just not a Marvel film, but it's not supposed to be. Yeah. Yeah. Although you do have Marvel action sequences almost. The fucking escalators got one of the biggest pops I think I've ever heard in a theater.

Just the two, yeah, it's good stuff. I think in many moments looks better than a marble movie because also we don't have CGI. Everything is done on camera. And of course we have comps, where we're comping stuff, but everything's been created on camera, even like the water in the teleporter,

all the elements are real. And so it's just... The water's an element? Yeah, everything. Everything is elements. So the only... Wow. The effects...

Yeah, the only... the effects that we have in the movie is just like comping some green screens and you know like just paint out jobs and we have the rigs to like throw their clothes you know or like bring the clothes so you have to raise the rig you know that it's just behind the teleporter and stuff like you know double impostered things but everything is real and i think i think that looks really good you know so there's there's a lot of movies that have 10 times or 20 times the budget that's how have some BFX sequences that I don't think look as good as I love boosters, you know, and I think it's because of that.

It's because of things. It's real. Well, it goes back to our first thing about film giving you the armor is like by having to do it for real, you do have to plan. And I think that's what screws up a lot of VFX heavy movies. Isn't the VFX. The CGI can look phenomenal today, any movie. But what happens is all those.

CGI people are given a rewrite the day before and they have 10 minutes to implement it. And they just go, okay. And that's it. And then they're done. And they don't get to, you know, work to their full potential, which sucks. But just do it for real sometimes. And again, you just got to find that armor you're talking about wherever you can, wherever you can get it. You know, give me a little more time.

Yeah. And it's also like everyone that when you're doing it for real, everyone is. It's an artist in their craft. So the miniature, DP director, you know, the prop maker, you know, the people that make so the miniaturs. I don't know. Just everyone is bringing their craft and they're bringing soul to every object that you're filming in a way. So I think that's, I don't know, it just makes it, it makes it different. Yeah.

Well, I like it. Yeah, thanks for spending an extra time to talk. I don't want to keep it all that. I've been a three-hour podcast, but... That's totally fine. I don't care. I would love to have you back on to keep chatting, though, next time you're able. Yeah, sure.

Awesome. And I will see you on the Discord. Yes, please, please. There's almost a thousand DPs now. I think we're like 989. or something like that. And there's, yeah, there's the peace from all over the world, inspiring and supporting each other.

And it's just the beginning. We're going to be one year next week since we launched it. And yeah, we'll come a long way. But it's, yeah, it's just the beginning. And I think it's really exciting. Unfortunately, Discord is not a platform that filmmakers are very proficient on. So it's a little bit of like an obstacle, like a lot of people that, my God, it's too complicated. We are going to be doing some tutorial, community tutorials.

But we wanted to have a forum where you can do all these things that we're doing, right, on disco, which is kind of impossible, like to build that on code and build it on an app or whatever it would be, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So right now we are interested in building the community, make it accessible for everyone is free. And so we have to use an existing platform. And Discord, even though it's not very instinctive, once you take like 20 minutes to navigate it,

then it's totally fine. I also think, though, that like one downside to Discord, not yours, but as a platform, is if it goes away, it's just gone. Like all that information is just gone. Whereas like the old school forum method of doing things is like, unless the hosting goes away, data is still there. However, I would argue that now, the more and more young people you get on

the platform, the more and more they will have already, because gaming is so popular and there are other Discord communities outside of gaming, there's going to be more younger people who already know how to use Discord and would be very unfamiliar with how a forum works. Yeah. I would argue that forums are honestly more confusing to the, to a modern mind than Discord, which just looks like a chat room or Slack. You know, if you're a 20-year-old, 30-year-old, you know how Slack works. All right, well, you know how Discord works then, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think most of the people joining Deep Life are more in their 30s than 20s because it's kind of like when you're in your first years as a DPE. I mean, the first decade, mostly. That's the biggest democ. We have people from all ages and levels of experience, but the biggest demographic is, you know, those first 10 years

where you really need something like Deep Life to help you navigate. And so for that generation, already Discord is like kind of too modern. You know, it's like they are not Gen C. But I think we're getting there. And my dream would be to build an app that is super intuitive and you have everything that we have in the website and Discord all in once because we have the international crew director. which is great.

It's basically as a member, you just put crew that you love around the world and you recommend it and you say why you love them. So it's not like a, you know, one of those, I don't know, a LinkedIn profile or like those websites of like just like lists of people. This is like, okay, betted by the members. And it's like very personal.

You know, I have people and I'm like, yeah, this was my stetica. I'm in Peru in this movie. You know, so somebody that is going to Peru. It's like, oh, okay, I'm looking for a steticam operator. Oh, I'm not talking. last this guy, she did this thing and then she did that thing with him and that's why this guy's in the list.

And so everyone has to put what, you know, why you love them and something so that is really personal. But that's not in the Discord. That directory is built in our website with the right filter. So you can put which city and which positions you're looking for. And my dream would be to have it all in one app so that you just, you know, it's very easy, very intuitive. But for that, we'll obviously, we'll have to charge a member.

so that we can build the app and all the stuff. And I think the most important thing now, especially with everyone being broke, is that we can keep this community accessible for everyone, that it can be free and we can keep building it. And then we'll see in the future, you know, like maybe when we're a lot of people, we're like, okay, if everyone chips in like 10 bucks,

who can build the app, you know, and you know how to do Discord. But right now it's like, okay, you know, just make the effort for 10 minutes to figure out the Discord. And then you have a thousand friends in the world that can help you with anything you need. You know, I think it's a, well, if you are not ready to make that effort. Yeah, then you're not, you're not ready for the help. But I will say two things, though.

One, it was really fun that like, so I logged in. I was like, hey, I'm Kenny, whatever, this is me. And the first person who said something was my friend Brandon Keller. And I was like, oh, all right, we're all here. Great. This is awesome. But also I think this might sound counterintuitive. I think a mild bit of friction to access a very loving, supportive community is probably good.

Because if it was very, very famous and very, very available, you just get a bunch of tire kickers that come in and are not all supportive of the same cause or just trying to extract value from it and not give back that kind of thing. you look at most of the subreddits, right? There's people who will just come in, not use the search function, ask a question that's been asked a thousand times. It's a very half-assed question. They ran it through chat GPT, so now it doesn't make any sense.

And then you go, like, what are you talking about? And then they go, what do you, like, why are you yelling at me? And it's like, I don't, I don't know what you know. I don't, I can't try to help you, you know. And you don't necessarily have that on deep light, which I think is probably for the best. steady growth, not exponential growth,

I think is probably the move. No, I think there's a kind of level of filtration that is happening because of the discord, but also because of the type of people that were, I mean, we're bringing the best pieces in the world, but the type of conversations that we're having, right? The approach, the whole philosophy, like, okay, this is created not to give you tips

or to tell you, you know, how to prep in seven steps or how to, you know, like. Things no one's talking about about pre-vis. Yeah, exactly. This is not who we are. Well, like this conversation that you and I are having, you know, just like, let's just have a real conversation. You know, let's go deep. It's not like a five minutes TikTok tips video. And, you know, if we're going to watch the piece lighting, let's watch them.

like struggling and lighting something for real, almost in real time, see how they are. Let's not do like a demo of how cool we are. And if we're going to have a conversation, let's have a real conversation about the shit that we've all been struggling with for decades. Even when you have an Oscar, you know, we have, you know, Loll and Autumn, you know, where the first people we launched, you know. And they're still struggling with the same shit that I'm struggling and with the same shit that my mentees are struggling, you know? So let's talk about those things, you know. So I think the people

that are getting attracted to deep light and to my mentorship program and to the workshop with it with Bradford are the people that are interested in these conversations that are ready for these conversations, that they've been enough out there to be like, fuck, this is what I need now. I don't need another class of how to light or how to break down a script or whatever, I need to talk about this. This is the real shit that nobody helps me with. And it's like what I struggle the most when I'm out there. No? I think what you just said, though, about the ready for it is the most important part. Because we all did it, right? We're in college and someone gives you a piece of advice and you're like, that's old advice, old man. I don't need to do that. I'm new and fresh. And then

20 years later, you're like, shit, I should have listened that one time. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, until you've been out there out of film school, you know, in your first professional jobs and you encounter all these situations and you have to deal with all these kind of real life challenges that are being thrown at you on set and offset, you don't know that you are going to need this help, right? Yeah. It's funny, like I went last year I was in a film school that I went to briefly, like 25 years ago in Spain. I left. I didn't like it.

But I went last year to give them a masterclass the day that they were graduating, right, cinematographers. And so I'm trying to give them like, this is what you're going to need in the real world, right? And so I talked with them for three hours and it was kind of like a presentation of the mentorship program in a way, which is specifically designed for like people in the first 10 years of their careers, doing the first features and all that stuff. And so I was giving them like, you know, very quickly, like the kind of intro to that, like a, you know, free sample of like, you know,

this is what's going to happen to you in the next 10 years. this is where the challenges are going to be. This is what I can tell you, you know, in a couple of hours to help you, you know, like make it a bit less painful, but you will go through this pain, but just remember this because this might help, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And, you know, I see them like, kind of like, listening to me being very inspiring because it's not all about, you know, these things that I'm also trying to inspire people, that they can do things, that they can do the first film with nothing. You know, they don't have to wait now that they're out of from school. I share my personal story and my journey,

which I think is inspiring in the way of you can do something with nothing. So I come from, you know, very poor country and doing always indie movies with no resources and stuff. So it's also a lot of empowering, right? It's a combination of, you know, inspiring, empowering people to find their own voice, to understand as their biggest asset, to just, go and do things with whatever you have available. But then also like, okay, but let me give you some, you know, some tips and some shortcuts so that you don't, you know, suffer so much with the punches, right?

Yeah. And I could see them kind of all very inspired with the inspiring part of my talk, but kind of not fully getting yet when I'm getting into all this kind of like, you know, the politics of it all and all the things that you'll struggle because they haven't because they've been protected in this environment that is not the real world. And it's funny because this was, I think it was last year.

Yeah, I think it was last year. And so this year, we just did the 2026 mentorship program. I do it once a year, right? And I only take 35 people because it's very intense for a weekend. And I have to look at their, you know, they have assignments and stuff. And then I keep in touch, you know, every year we take new people, but I keep in touch with everyone and we do like three times a year.

We do like live Q&A. So I can keep answering all the questions that are coming as the career keeps growing and life happens and all that stuff. And so this year, I had like two people from the ones that graduated last year. Oh, wow. They already been gone. And so now they're like, fuck, I need this now. You know, last year I were like, yeah. I didn't quite, you know, understood, like, these things that you were talking about, but now it's like, I need this support.

And I'm sure next year it's going to be a couple more, you know, ask you, yeah, there's no, nobody can really teach you any of this until you're on set, right? On a professional set for the first time when I'm preparing a movie instead of a short film for the first time. and you're just encountering all these new situations for the first time. Like there is no shortcut. There's a little bit of support from mentors and a lot of support from a community of peers that can all, you know, share their experience.

I think that's invaluable. And that's why I was passionate to create deep light just to give all of this to the community and make it for everyone that is coming, you know, a little bit easier than what it was for me. But it's just like, it's just support. Like I'm not, you know, it's like a parent that has a kid and wants the kid to have a good life and not suffer. Of course, it's impossible, right? You have to suffer. You have to make your own mistakes.

And it's great to make them. And you have to fuck up to grow. And that's the only way. I love the episode with Mike Baumann that we did. He talks a lot about this about fucking up, fucking up, you know, as the only way to grow. And I fully believe in all of that. So I don't think that I can do a shortcut for people not to make mistakes or not to suffer at all. But definitely can make the journey, which is inevitable, a little bit easier, right, with the support of a mentor and the support of a community.

So that's the hard part, right? is like I'm going to screw up in a different way than you're going to screw up because like our our native like I'm actually quite good at going to those like bars and pubs and like meeting people and my girlfriend hates it. She's like why do you make friends everywhere? And I'm like, I don't know. I'm good at that part. I'm actually not great at the politics part. I need to take like beta blockers to deal with directors. But the.

Yeah. You know, but I'm going if I try to teach some kids like, oh, you know what? Actually, all you got to do is hang out at. bars and make friends, that's not necessarily. That's what I, that's what my strength, not necessarily your strength. And like, maybe you're great at, you know, so I think having a larger community of people, all of the lessons together, you can pick and choose what makes sense to you. And then as you go, there's a whole backlog of, of things. And you're like, oh, I remember reading something. Okay. Yeah, yeah, because that's the thing, right? The value, the value is just to have a

mirror first, where you can see yourself reflected in other people. And I think that happens with mentors as you are growing up and finding your own voice at the beginning, you're imitating the people that you love and admire. And that's totally fine. It's like babies start speaking because they imitate what the parents are saying. Nobody invents their own language, you know. But by putting a mirror also, not just in your work, you know, because it's not like, oh, how do you did you do the red lighting neon dimo? What gel was that? It's not really about what was the gel, right? But it was like, why did I do it and how did I have the balls to do it or whatever? So I think like when you put a mirror for people that are needing to gain confidence on who

they are in a world that is not going to give you confidence, right? It's going to undermine you all the time. In this environment where you are starting, and there's so much competition and blah, blah, blah, blah. So to give a mirror where you can validate, can see yourself validated because if you, for example, you like my work and you got attracted to Deep Light or to my mentorship program, you want to hear what I have to say. And then what I'm saying about my choices or about my method or about how I talk to my electricians somehow resonates because you see there's a mirror where you see yourself reflected. you're like, oh, I do the same or I make this type of decision, then it's validating you, which is the whole point. The whole point is not to be like, how does Natasha lied or how does Natasha do whatever?

Like I have no one to teach anyone any fucking method. I'm not going to do the Natasha method of like, you know, five ways of whatever. But I think just by honestly sharing my experience and sharing how I do think, how I learn to problem solved or approach certain situations one way or another, if I can offer a mirror where people can be like, oh, okay, yes, like this also happens to me. And so she's doing that. I relate to this. So it's fine. Like I was, you know, in the good path. Or they can be like, I don't like at all what she's saying. And that makes me more clear now that I'm 180 degrees opposite. That's also okay, you know. But I remember when I was coming up,

Like the first one or two years after film school, I was already kind of the weird artie girl in film school where everyone was more like kind of industry base, right? And I was more like the poet, right? And I saw I, yeah, I had an instinct that that was me and that I wanted to do what I felt it was right. But of course, when you are the black ship, you know, you can be a rebel, but deep inside, you're also feeling like,

fuck, I'm fucking weird, right? And so you cannot be super confident about yourself, you know. And if you're not getting work and the other more normies are getting work or whatever or right now, like nobody's getting work, you know, how can you be confident? And I remember, you know, one of my heroes at the time was Chris Dole. I mean, my biggest references were, you know, Slalemir Aetiaq and, you know, other people. like from before, you know, but from the contemporary people

that were making movies that were like new, you know, Chris Dole, you know, in the 90s, you know, Chunkin Express and days of being wild and later are happy together in my own country and stuff. That was like kind of like the revel, right? Like the poet, like was doing something different and experimental and fucking up the grain and the speed and stuff but to transmit some feeling.

I saw myself in a mirror in what I was seen. And I remember I met him the year I graduated school. I had a short film in Edinburgh. And I was kind of good friends with Seamus MacGarvey because he came to teach in my school and we really got along. So we kind of became friends. So I ended up going to his house in Edinburgh and Chris Doyle was there and also like Anthony Dot Mantle and Chris Yeah, it was like kind of all my heroes in one night. It was like an amazing night. But I remember, you know, I stayed drinking with Chris Doyle until nine in the morning only because at 10 he had to give a masterclass. And I remember like that, you know, that was such an important conversation because, you know, I, something inside me was telling me that I was right to make the decisions I was making. Like, for example, don't shoot every short. film, just do the things that you feel you can express something.

You know, it's better to shoot less, but like everything you do is like your piece of art or whatever. Like, it's all these doubts that I had about how to navigate the industry and the relationships in the world and the choices and experimentation and all these things. And just having the opportunity to discuss that with a mentor. I mean, he wasn't like my mentor, but he was my hero and he spent all these hours talking to me. So just to have a mirror where I could really be like, okay, this is how I see the world. This is how I'm doing things.

This is how I'm making decisions. Like, is this right? And having like my hero saying, yeah, this is the same. I'm doing the same. Like basically it was discovering like he had the same philosophy of life. It wasn't like, how do you measure with your spot meter? He was just like, what is life for you? Like, you know, you chose this.

this job, but when we're choosing this job, we're not just choosing a job, we're choosing a whole lifestyle. This job invades everything else in your life, relationships, family, living in a place or being on a suitcase all the time is such a holistic decision, right, to be a filmmaker and to be a DP. And there's a huge price tag as well sometimes on, you know, what can fit and what cannot fit in that life, right? Depending also of how, you know, what kind of movies you decide to do or what kind of projects you decide to do and stuff.

And, you know, I had so many existential questions at the time, you know. I was, you know, on my late 20s and making this life-changing decisions. And having the possibility at that time to speak with somebody that I deeply admired and see myself reflected. and some things in that mirror I liked and they really gave me a reassurance and confidence

and some things I was like, I don't want that, right? So that also gave me confidence. You know, it doesn't mean like you have to be like your heroes or that you have to do my mentorship program so that you can be like me. Like, no, I'm here to show you, you know, my good choices and my bad choices. But I'm just going to be real and honest about,

listen, this is what I chose. This took me here. It didn't take me here. I gained this, I gave out that, you know, and all these things. But I think just to be able to have an honest, you know, candid, unfiltered conversation with somebody that is a few years ahead of you in the path. I think it's a game changer, you know. And so I remember that conversation with Chris.

And then I was also lucky to shadow Slalmers. who was my probably biggest influence when I started. And I was with him in Blackhawk down for two months in Morocco. And, you know, those type of conversations, I believe that they can really change so much. So that's kind of what I'm what I've been trying to give and to build, you know, with people like that. We can have these spaces. So you can talk, but not just with us. somebody that you admire, you know, it could be me or Autumn or Bradford or Lull or all the people

that were inviting, but also with people at your same level, you know, because again, like for us, for example, we can talk a lot about how we started and I can tell you, yeah, you know, I financed my first movie because I didn't know if anyone was going to give me a movie. So, you know, but I didn't have to deal with Instagram at the time, you know, none of us have to deal with Instagram. So now there's also different things that only people like you know, right? People that are at your same level can talk about all these things. So community is as important as mentors, you know?

They really complement each other. What I'm trying to do is take the 250 of these episodes and then try to figure out a way to distill down what every, what all the commonalities are and put it in a book. But yeah, okay. Let's have you back on in a while. We'll do it. We'll do a separate two hours, but it's getting very hot in my apartment.

And also, I think the sun's going away. But it was so lovely to talk to you. And also, like I said, the deep lights wonderful, but also boosters was so much fun to watch. And I'm really glad you guys got to make it. And I'm also glad I got to see it in a theater. Yeah, I was going to say,

I'm glad that you got to sit in the big screen because it's a lot. It's a it's a fist and yeah, everyone that doesn't get to see in the big screen. It's going to be, I mean, you need a big TV and get close because it's a lot. And also an audience. The audience is amazing. Yeah. I mean, when that moment comes that we cannot talk about, you want to be with an audience.

There's two people behind me go, wait, what? Like, and that was my fake. because then they were just like my head I was like because I remember sorry to bother you and so I was kind of like mentally ready for something like that but it's it really jumps at you

and that's before the sci-fi plot starts even that's very early in the movie before you get to the other stuff that I don't want to spot so Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's nonstop. I watched it now in the cinema six times with audience. I don't think I ever shot a movie that I want,

if I had the time, I would go to the cinema every day to see with people. Because I love seeing the movie. Just first, like, I don't get bored. And it's so fast. And there's so much that I feel you have to watch it a few times. So I like watching it and finding new things and with the sound and stuff all the time. But I obviously also, I love seeing it with the audience because just like the audience reactions, it's like amazing to, you know, to go to the theater. I did never have that experience with any other movie I've done, you know, that I could just like, I would just keep going every day to experience it on the big screen.

Hopefully you get a couple more in you. Yeah, but I think there's something, I don't know, something special about. the reaction of the people and experience it. I think every movie, but somehow, I guess because this one challenges and surprises, it's like the audience is more part of the movie, you know, of the experience of seeing the movie in a way. You know, I don't know how to explain. Well, people just have to see it to get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I'm glad you're talking and we'll talk soon. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, bye-bye. Bye. Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny Macbillan. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can do so by going to frame and refpod.com and clicking on the Patreon button. It's always appreciated. And as always, thanks for listening.