Frame & Reference Podcast - 251: "Urchins" Cinematographer Tom Ford

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

Today I'm joined by the incredibly talented Tom Ford, cinematographer of the new indie film "Urchins" .Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Welcome to this episode 251 of Freeman Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Tom Ford, DP of Urchins. Enjoy. I was looking at your website and the cinematography on Urchins makes a lot more sense now seeing how much fashion stuff you've done. Because I feel like I personally have shot some fashion stuff largely for this company called P& Co out there in the UK. and they and it's very much like hey you're going to be embedded with a photographer there's no lights or anything go make it work and uh yeah obviously that wasn't the case with urchins but there a lot of the stuff i'd seen on there like you were making a lot of stuff work with what seemed to be

limited resources yeah there's definitely a lot of that um i kind of like i came um i worked in house at this kind of like more documentary style company for most of my 20s. And it was great, I got to travel the world a lot. But it meant I was always kind of shooting with natural light. And back then it was like on 5D mark freeze and yeah, also taking stills at the same time. And then I kind of like,

I wanted to transition back into like DEPing, but focusing more in that kind of a commercial fashion space. And I was like, like found editorials were a really great way to kind of get in and build off a bit of that portfolio on like some kind of slightly lower stakes projects where kind of photos Twitter focus

even if sometimes there's some you turn up and you're kind of like the BTS guy and they're like, that's not what I was told, but yeah, it's quite demoralizing. So most projects will never see the life of day on my site.

But yeah, some of the other ones where I could get more involved and actually bring on some, like a gaffer and actually kind of light the sets. we're able to kind of push it a bit more. Yeah. How do you work your way into editorial? Because that was always something that I was interested in.

Same thing. I mostly shoot documentary now. But those types of gigs seem fun because, A, they're fast. You know, it's a date usually. And then sometimes can pay well. But also you just meet a lot of cool people. You know, a lot of the makeup department usually has worked on a bunch of cool shit. And you've got to hear a bunch of fun stories from them.

stuff, but how did you find your way into that editorial stuff? Yeah, so actually in film school, I wasn't on the foundation course, but one of my best friends and political collaborators was, and his tutor actually set up a magazine with his wife. So from that, I was able to kind of like, I hit him up and, yeah, we shot some stuff for Pispos magazine, and then they kind of expanded on from there. And the great thing about it was like you, like, the commercial world can be quite, you. superficial.

So they see a celebrity's face and they're like, oh, great, you work with Brook Shields. And it kind of just instantly like helps you get other jobs. Which is, so it was a good way in. But yeah, it was not all the sets for the best. Yeah.

So how long were you doing the kind of like fashion editorial type stuff before you started bouncing into the narrative? And so I kind of arrived in New York in like 2019, start of 2020. and yeah, just full code. Great timing. Yeah, I know. And I mean, it's such an expensive city. My focus was on like, I didn't really have any network here.

So I was kind of like just focused on building out of that kind of commercial network and the fashion stuff and just trying to make money really. And it was only after like maybe maybe like two or three years ago when I was kind of like felt like I was settled. I had like kind of regular directors worth and weird. I could like tip my toes into the narrative side again. That was always a dream. but yeah, I definitely put on hold a little bit when I first got here. Yeah, the, that whole like networking side of things, I always think is funny because you'll hear a lot of students oftentimes, like, how do you network? And obviously people make like networking events, but I oftentimes feel like those events are to make whoever's hosting them feel important and not really that valuable.

Like someone, like some high value director is not going to be going to these networking events. but you could find someone that could, on your level, who could start something cool, which is, but I find, like, just hanging out at your local bar and, like, wait in L.A. And meeting cool people sometimes can lead to something. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I definitely went to my first show of networking events.

But I found the best approach was, like, hitting people up directly through, like, Instagram, grabbing coffee with them. Even better if you can grab drinks. Like, I think I'm still 100% with anyone I've got drunk, with, I've always worked with them. Yeah. But yeah, it's funny.

Even the coffee is like you might have a coffee with someone and then you might not hear for them for a year and then you share some work on Instagram, which is a line for a project they have coming up and then the next thing you know you're like, yeah, should have a commercial gang with something. Yeah. So is Instagram a pretty big, because it seems like it's changing for everyone, but is Is Instagram a pretty big, I guess, marketing arm for you? Or is it more word of mouth?

Yeah, it's definitely a mix. I mean, I'd say it's probably like 70% word of mouth, but I do get the odd job, which just come through Instagram. There's a production company in Guatemala I started working with last year, which all kind of happened through Instagram. So, yeah, there's definitely, like, there's definitely benefits to it. But I kind of do hate how online you sometimes have to be. be to navigate that world.

Like, I'd rather just put it on my website, but I don't think people are rushing to my website all the time. Yeah, but you do have to have the website, right? Like, it's like Instagram's like the hook. And then if you don't have a website, they're like, oh, he doesn't care. Absolutely, yeah. But I think it's key to have both.

I mean, unless you're like, I know, Dubeschi and at that point, you're, yeah, chilling. But, yeah, a bit different at my stage. I definitely have to. I look forward to the day where I don't have to be on the internet at all. You know, just share from photos of my cats all day. That's the dream. Totally.

I mean, I feel like there's definitely some internet fatigue, especially with AI now, which we could end up going more that route. But, yeah, I don't. The amount of, like, for how quickly the sort of AI it's taking everyone's jobs, like this is going to revolutionize the planet type stuff happened. It seems to have backfired just as quick. Like the number of, if we just look at the youth being the future, like, they can smell AI generated content from a mile away used in commercials or movies or whatever.

Not that it's always in movies, but, and they react very strongly to it. They're like, fuck you. I want to see, you know, my thing was always like, if you've got a. group of kids that were starting to push back on lazy CGI, not CGI in general, because they can't see it if it's good. You think that they're going to appreciate

AI, which by definition is lazy, because it's just an amalgamation of previous work, you know? It's only backwards looking at it or forward, looking like, no. Totally. I feel a bit more positive about the AI situation in the film industry. I'm also because I think we're actually It's a bigger threat to wider society before it's going to kill movies, I think.

So I think there's a bigger question which we will have to solve before. It's maybe taking all of our jobs. Yeah. Well, and the other thing, too, is like, yeah, it's all fun in games now, but then it's the VC companies that are floating it. Like, it costs billions of dollars a week or whatever to run. And the second anyone has to pay out of pocket, you know, it's the Uber model of like, oh, rides are 50% cheaper than taxis and it's immediate and oh my god and then now it's like the exact same price and just as sketchy yeah yeah now i'll get a taxi if i can because it's actually cheaper in the city

yeah same dude same thing with lax everyone complains about you know the lax situation but it's like there's a line of taxis just waiting for you to jump in and go and at least in my case i live relatively close to the airport like same price totally Yeah, I think it'll be fine. I do too. And also, like, on the positive side, like, some of the AI tools they've put in, like, Resolve and, you know, like Magic Mask and, and I guess, I don't know if depth mapping is really an AI tool, but, like, audio cleanup, good Lord.

From the documentary side, the audio cleanup stuff has been absolutely transformative. Yeah. I bet some of those scenarios you maybe wouldn't have the budget for a sound mixer to do, did you like the post sound design and all that kind of stuff say. Yeah. Or in one case, I remember we had everyone accept the main talent mic, the main talent's love pack was muted. And so I had to pull off of someone else's mic and then just the Adobe podcast thing,

like cleaned it up. It sounds like a little too studio, but that's better than echoey thing from far away, you know? Oh, yeah. I wonder if they use that on that. urchins actually because it's funny when we scouted it was like like a quiet peaceful night in the middle of Florida the occasional cricket and then a month later when we're down there shooting it turned out to be like this rare cicada kind of like um oh yeah and that it was you could

better hear yourself think so we had to actually like yeah move some scenes to different locations because it was too loud and then like build these walls of like neck to try and and, yeah, drown out some of the noise. But yeah, I think you can still definitely hear it in the final cut, but it kind of adds to the vibe a bit. Well, they're in Florida. I mean, that's going to happen, you know. Totally.

Totally. It sound weird if they were in a studio. I mean, you guys had a pretty good sound mixer, I think. It sounded pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, he did a great job. How did you end up getting that gig, too? because I know the, what was the director's name again?

I'm sorry. Adam Ryu. Yeah, Adam was on my friend Alex podcast, my first film, and I think that's how we got tied in. And I listened to that. But that was a little more high level than just talking about the cinematography and your guys' relationships and stuff.

But was that like an Instagram thing? Did you guys, how did you get linked up? So we actually met at one of these filmmaking groups in New York City. Okay, so I got to shut up about that then. Clearly it works. But I actually wasn't meant to shoot it. So he had another great DP Alejandro, which he's worked with for like most of his shorts and stuff. And he has like, I think like nine or so features under his belt.

But I think because it was such a low budget project, like it was, we weren't making like proper, proper rates on it. He couldn't commit that far out. And it got to like a point, I think it was four weeks out. he still couldn't fully commit, like he said, if a commercial came in, you'd have to take it kind of thing. So, yeah, the opportunity came my way. But, yeah, I was, I actually already had two holidays, two weeks of holiday booked to go back to Europe for a wedding. In between that, so the prep was tight. But yeah, we made it work.

Yeah, because you got a shot for like barely over two weeks, right? Yeah, we were down there for like three weeks, but we only actually shot for 16 days. because we got rained out so often. Yeah, I mean, shooting in June in Florida is not the best idea. But it was originally, I think, meant to shoot in March before I was on board. And then it got pushed back. And I think Adam was worried if he pushed it back again, it was going to kind of, yeah, lose some of the actors and stuff because they had quite busy schedules.

Yeah, I know you lost one, right? Like he had a bigger opportunity come up. Yeah, he had a bigger role which came in. Yeah, like I think 10 days or so before we were due to start. Sweet. Just crazy. And yeah, they managed to find Ted Sutherland. He was great.

He did a really good job. But yeah, it was definitely a scramble, which I wasn't too a part of, thankfully. But yeah, I was originally pushing to, I was suggesting we should shoot it in more like October time or, yeah, in the shoulder season. so we could kind of lean into the natural light a bit more. Like, I would have loved to have shot it more like American honey style where it's a bit more raw and really leaning into kind of like slightly lower sun. But, I mean, the sun was so harsh from pretty much 10 till 4 p.m. So we kind of had to, we had to treat it a bit because otherwise it just would look to horrendous.

Yeah. I did want to get into some of your exterior stuff because it's excellent. but you did mention the prep phase like how what did that look because you guys have a shit ton of locations too it's not like a you know one you've got that one like cabin but it's not you're not just there you know you're in a lot of places so what are you what were those discussions like how were you pitched on them you know what did you know you could like get away with not using on such a low budget totally i mean the the great thing i think which adam did really well was picking the locations which had like multi-use. So a lot of the kind of shots of them kind of trekking through the trees, for example, to get to the spring or when they're out shooting the fireworks, that was actually all filmed around the treehouse, just different angles we found. So it was kind of in the middle of nowhere.

So it had so much places we could shoot. So that really worked to our advantage. But the other thing is Adam really wanted a place which was a treehouse, which was on a riverfront, and that just didn't exist. So we had to kind of divide that into two separate locations and kind of cheat it through how we framed it and stuff. But they were like it was still in this small town in Old Town, Florida. So it was all about like a 10 minute drive from each other. So it wasn't it wasn't like any crazy moves.

And then scheduling wise, we just like shot out each one each day versus being having a move in the middle of the day. Because we felt like it just slows down too much. Yeah. Did you, so what was your sort of a. crew and camera and lighting package, what did that look like? Because obviously you got to remain kind of light. Yeah.

And it was probably, it was pretty generous given the scale of the production. We had like a three ton package. It was a Junie team of free. But they did like, I don't know, make it look a bit bigger than that. Because, yeah,

we weren't afraid to kind of use rags and quite a few. and then yeah we had a couple of HMI's some LEDs and like many light mats I think we had a 1200d and a 600 C I believe and then some tungsten units for particularly for fire gags yeah and also to use as like into muslin just as like a bounces in the tree house

hmm but yeah it was I was going to say it's that because it was in the middle of nowhere. We actually got the deal from Atlanta because the original DP had a connection there. So we kind of already had a bit of a deal agreed with them from Cinder. And the challenge was we couldn't really go back and drop stuff off halfway through to shoot. So everything kind of had to be with us the whole time. And we had to make sure every unit had like multi-purpose versus like just like a specialist thing for one day. Yeah. And were you doing diagrams ahead of time or were you

just like get there and figure it out. Yeah, it was a bit of both. I had half the diagrams done beforehand, but when we got there, the approach is quite often changed. So most nights, I was kind of redoing diagrams and firing over to the gaffer who was staying in a room next to me. And then over like morning coffee, we would, yeah, disgust them, the new versions of them. But we have a, it's a great gaffa called Eric Dargan, who I've worked with a bunch here in New York City. And yeah, we have that kind of shorthand so he was very good at kind of adjusting as and when we went yeah going back to the outside stuff like all of it looked like very polished but in like i was saying it kind of felt like your fashion background was kind of kicking in there but it doesn't look like overly

manicured you know like where it looks unnatural um and i was wondering kind of what your sort of generalized approach for let's say like some of those more harsher day stuff and then some of the nights if I'm remembering correctly

there was some day for night going on or maybe it was just very low light and colored appropriately but yeah like to be able to achieve that look so for such a long you know

time and then also not have it look too different from scene to scene, you know, it was all very uniform in a good way, like intentional. So yeah, what were some of your approaches to handling those situations? Holy, yeah, I mean, it wasn't necessarily something we wanted to do. It was more, it felt like a necessity just from when we got there, we had a couple of days of testing.

And we kind of just, yeah, we got me, I think it was like a highlight was the fusion we ended up. using just to kind of softly take the edge off. And yeah, we were, like, we were realizing that higher we could get it, the kind of less saucy it started to feel, which I guess makes sense. And, yeah, that just allowed us to kind of just shoot in these more terrible windows because it was, yeah, we didn't have a production designer on this one, which would normally be a red flag on a short film, but there's someone,

who was keen to shoot his last seat show. I was like, yeah, just down to kind of go with it. And knowing which we're doing so much outside and the locations were kind of already giving us so much in that place. But yeah, we didn't have as many like hats or stuff to kind of help us out in those scenarios. So we figured we'd kind of just soften it a bit. And then, yeah, push back in from the side where we could.

Yeah, I assume a bunch of nag. Yeah, quite a lot of nag. And also just like choosing. where just where the tree coverage was already giving a snag to kind of work in our favor

so that we didn't have to kind of have too much stuff going on. Was there anything that sort of became easier than you thought and then anything that was ended up being a unique challenge? Yeah I think the

the kind of just the day to day became pretty easy in a sense. the going again, going again, going again, which I thought I'd maybe get more burnout during it because your mind's just so busy kind of the whole time, especially when you're kind of like doing like maybe 12, 13 hour days and then you're chatting to the director afterwards. And then you're also having your conversation with the gaffer beforehand.

So you're kind of really doing like 17, 18 hours. But yeah, it kind of definitely felt like I got into a good rhythm with it. But the night stuff is definitely yeah, that's always a challenge on a budget. When you're, we have some of these kind of like almost 180s, which are recovering and you only have, you don't have that much light and you can't kind of do a big kind of soft balloon overhead. So yeah, there seems that I'd probably maybe retweak a bit.

There's definitely a couple, which in the edit, it looks like there's some practicals nearby, which wasn't originally the first intention. But when we started going that way and it kind of, it started, It looked that way and actually this works, so we kind of, we went with it. Yeah, definitely that's the most challenging ones. The, I found, you know, I was talking to my friend Larry Fong a few episodes ago. And that was one thing that I found shocking about him shooting 300 because that was his first feature, which is crazy. But he said like, yeah, the endurance, he thought the endurance was going to be a much bigger issue.

And I was like, that's actually, I've never thought about that. because I've, my longest shoot was like three weeks and it was only like a couple days, then some travel and then we're hanging out, you know, and then a couple days. And we're in like Paris, you know, so whatever, we'll go hang out and, you know, do. But the creative, like back to back shooting, if it's fulfilling, I find that like that creative flow state that you can into really can carry you pretty far. Totally. No, I fully agree with that. And you almost get like into like a like a high. of just being on this like, yeah, wave, you're kind of riding.

And then afterwards, you definitely, I remember, like, for a week or two after as you feel like this kind of post-shoot depression a bit from, like, not being asked all these questions and, yeah, doing all these things on set. Do you find, okay, so does this happen to me too? You get home and then you still have that, like, go mode thing going on? Does your house then become, like, the cleanest it's ever been? Like, suddenly you're doing errands you never wanted to do.

Yeah, my fiance, they probably wouldn't agree with that. But I think I'd just go to the gym more and, like, spend more time kind of, like, hitting up directors and I hang out and grabbing those coffees. That was all sort of funny things. We'd shot for, I'd been down there for almost a month by the end of it. But the rate wasn't anywhere near, like, the kind of commercial rates up here. So I kind of used to get back into working pretty quickly. It wasn't like I had, like, a big payday from it.

So yeah, it was I kind of had to jump straight back into this end. Yeah, how do you find you have to balance that? Because I personally am like totally fine with, as you're saying, like commercials being kind of vapid. It's like I think of myself as like a plumber, you know, whatever you need me to fit like film. I don't have like a, this is kind of probably shitty to say, but like I don't have the same creative drive I think as a lot of people do like where they're like, Disney. to mean something. Like I don't, maybe it's just because I've never shot like a full on narrative before.

Maybe that would change for me. But it probably would, you know, you put your stamp on it. But a lot of stuff I do doesn't have that. But when you're trying to balance stuff that's creatively fulfilling for you and pays the bills, like do you just go with the flow or is there like kind of a,

you know, two for them, one for me kind of thing going on. Yeah, more of the latter. I think like I kind of need to always have. have a certain amount of creative projects kind of in the mix within like a year, for example.

Otherwise, it's like, yeah, why am I doing this? I'm just like lugging your camera and it's not looking that if it's not going to go anywhere, then, yeah, I'd much rather be on the creative ones. But then I also appreciate it, but like they help make way for the more kind of, yeah, creative projects down the line if you make a turn out of money earlier on in a year. Yeah.

also, you know, I was again looking at your website. Like you've got some of that more of Dior kind of interesting fashion. I shouldn't say interesting, but visually, you know, interesting fashion stuff that I think a lot of people would be like, ooh, but then you've got like that crest strips thing, which looks very standard commercial, which does that do, does one get you more gigs than the other? Yeah, so I put that on there because I was getting a lot of feedback that yeah we love your work but uh yeah it's a bit too dark and dystopian and it's like that's not great if someone's trying to sell a product so i kind of felt like it needed i need something on there to show that i can do the like kind of high key bright stuff if you need

that um yeah it's always a balance isn't it between like do you do you go like full um stand in one direction and like really show what your kind of um style is or do you have a slightly wide in that, hoping you will get more gigs. I'm still figuring that out, but I think it's a balance. No, I mean, that that's the big thing, like, especially early on when you're building you're real. Like, I think we all have a habit of putting everything we've ever shot in it. And then the first note I got and a bunch of my friends get is like, hey, this doesn't

show any, like, who you are or whatever. You know, it's like when people put in their Instagram bio, when they're a student or whatever, they'll put like director, DP, editor, color. And it's like, no one's going to hire you because what are you? What am I, where do I slot you in my workflow? I think you'd be the same thing with your real or with your website or whatever. Like if it's a little bit too exploded, no one thinks about you when they're thinking of a certain project.

But then you also might not get gigs that you're capable of. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was just, I just wanted to turn it down a little bit because I think especially the fashion world, it has kind of a bit more bright recently. So I think it was good to have a bit more of that kind of balance to it. Yeah. Was the, I can't remember, I think, Vogue, I don't know, but was the film stuff, actual film, or was that post? I guess a better question, have you shot film?

Yeah, I've shot a bunch of film. Not as much I'd like, but I think there's one on there which is digital and then done in post. And there's another one on there, which I think it was super eight. And then I picked up a Borex earlier this, well, late last year, which I've got like a PR mat on, which I kind of shoot some stuff on. Yeah, I'd love to shoot more. Some of us just a fight with, is there a budget, or is that better going to production design and those other things,

which normally I think the production design wins. Especially with younger directors, I think you're kind of like sometimes really pushing how important production design is. It's kind of my first question. It's like, who's a production designer? Because we can only do so much with like an white wall. Well, and the, it's, you know, if you own whatever, an Alexa, you can save some budget there.

But on film, it's like we have to buy the film, like processing. That's an unflexible variable if you want to do that. Totally. I did pick up an Alexa a few years ago. So it's kind of, by default, it kind of often goes that way. But yeah, I'm trying to shoot more and more, but not always the case. I feel like most people in New York, it feels like every New York-based DP I've spoken to, they all have way more film on their resume than in L.A.

I don't know why, but maybe it's just because it's so photogenic over there and it feels more real. Like if you shoot film in L.A. it kind of just looks like digital. Yeah, maybe you need the grit of the city. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I got hit up today actually for a project and film. So, yeah, there's definitely a demand for it. Yeah, and I was just at the Kodak Awards and they said they're finally in the black.

Like they don't like for the years, you know, like the guy who, I remember a few Kodak awards as ago, the guy was saying that he was hired to. manage the film side of Kodak because they do other medical imaging or whatever um basically to shudder it they're like here's a job like this we're done here um go ahead and he was like no and then he brought now it's you know and i i assume you have to blame uh chris nolan but um yeah i think so god he's got to be paying to make millions and millions of feet of just whatever. Yeah.

But now they're coming out with cool new stuff. They turn fucking Portra into a film stock now. They're a lotion stock. It's great. I shoot a lot of portraiture. I've got like an RZ, so I shoot a bit of medium format. Oh, me too.

Oh, cool. It's such a good camera. I love it. Can't take it anywhere. It's the size of a backpack, but it looks great. Yeah, I took it on a trip to Morocco. I was doing like a street photography of it.

And I was like halfway through, I was like, why am I carrying this around? But it's like, there's something about the process of shooting that it was like the success rate of each image compared to digital. It was like I was nearly happy with most of my negatives whereas with a digital camera, I think you just like spray a bit more. Yeah, I'll always try to like, I don't carry around an actual camera as much as I'd like. But the Adobe Indigo app for the phone creates a really nice. negative. Like the photo that comes out of is pretty standard. But it even if you just use the like JPEG processing in it, it handles out of gamut colors a lot better. It, the exposure is a little more photographic and not that weird like iPhone. Everything's bright kind of looking thing. But if you use the raw function and throw it into lightroom on mobile, you can get some really compelling images if the light's good. The light's no good that it just looks like shit. But yeah, I'm always wandering around town just hoping for like, like, good light and it takes sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't

but yeah when you've got those medium format negatives it feels like it does 40% of the work for you yeah literally I'll have to try it out there that sounds sounds great yeah it's a free app

yeah cool it's uh and it has like a quote unquote pro mode where you can set the settings you want but um yeah even to just automatic you know just click what you want to expose for and hit go. Like it's,

it's a lot better than the other options. Actually, that brings up a good thing. For the longest time for prep and scouting and stuff, you basically just had the Sunseeker app. And then Artemis came around or Cadrage, depending on which one you got. Have any new tools come out for either your phone,

but just in general that you find yourself. I'm still like a color meter and a light meter guy. But even those tools exist. on the phone now that are relatively accurate. Yeah, so I still don't always trust the light meter on the phone. Maybe I need to give it more of a shot. But I think the light meter is great just to like, I love to know like the ambience of what you're studying with.

Just to kind of give you, give you an idea of how much more you need to kind of add or what you're kind of competing with. And also I think just like a DSLR is always like the only thing like Cadrage is you never really get that field of view as much. I often do use it. And just because it's in your pocket and it's easy, but I still think having like a deal with a deal with a depth of field is a bit more useful.

You know, this guy, let me see. Can't remember what it's called. This guy came out with Lightframer Pro a couple, whenever ago, a couple weeks ago. And it's the same thing as Cadrage. like, I don't know, this is stupid. That's my hand where you put the camera and the lens, but it's got the sun, the sun path as well. So when you take the photo, it's the sun path and the framing, you know.

But he had to your earlier point, and you can do lots and whatever in here. But I like the interface of this a lot better than Cadrach. Catterage sometimes like I can't figure out how to, I can't remember how to switch lenses and stuff. stuff and like it's just a little smoother but he was teasing a depth of field warning system so it doesn't it doesn't show you what your depth of field is but it knows based on i guess the lidar like it'll know the close focus of whatever lens you've put in and then when you are framing something up it'll

go red if you're within that so you'll know like what your actual thing is and i was like that I've never seen that and that's sick. Yeah, that's great. I would totally use that. Yeah, shout out to that guy. I'll have to ask him. I'll have to text him and be like, what was your name again?

Another thing I do use a bit is a set of light. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't use it on urchins, but I use it a bunch of commercial projects if you kind of want to, yeah, get a good idea of how much light you really need through different diffusions and stuff.

And yeah, that's pretty good. I need them to update it with more zone lights, though, because, like, it's just, yeah, they've got all the apertures and that's it. Like, I guess that's close enough, you know. Yeah, that and I think it's a few sky panels and that's great. You're right. Yeah, can you include my Kino LEDs that no one uses anymore? Yeah, totally. Yeah, they need to fix that because that is a pain.

Yeah, but dude, it's a great, it's crazy how, like, it's stupid to say, but like, light is math. Like the idea that you can't use a tool like that to get like the real look. Like of course you can get the real look. It's just math. It's just like same thing as, you know, in, you know, what is it? Unreal. You know, there's no reason why Unreal looks quote unquote more realistic than anything else

except it has better math. Path tracing or whatever. Totally. Yeah, they're great tools if you have their time, which you often don't. But yeah. Yeah. Or a computer that can. handle it.

You've got an underpowered computer sometimes those 3D, uh, path tracing and stuff can really slow you down. Yeah, totally. Totally. Uh, I saw on urchins, you guys got,

um, company three to do the color. Yeah. Which is funny because I, I think our whole crew up into that point was about 13, 14 people. And we got the credits free from them. kind of almost doubled our.

Right, because, yeah, because you have to credit everybody that works there, huh? Yeah, pretty much. But no, yeah, we worked with Jake White. He's like, I think he's like a junior colorist there, but yeah, he did a great job. So we had a few, yeah, in-person sessions. And, yeah, he was really attentive to, like, really helping us kind of like, yeah, shift things around. And, yeah, we had a couple of day-for-night steams, not so much actual scenes with actors, but some of the B-roll moments.

So, yeah, he worked a lot on those. And then even some of the nighttime scenes, which I didn't love at first. He kind of helped to finesse those a bit. I mean, a little bit of windowing to, yeah, kind of edge up with trees a little bit more here and now. Yeah, what did that experience teach you not only about color and like what can be done and stuff, but also about, which some people don't like to think about, but like shooting for the grade. Because at this point, cinematography is one foot in post.

If you're giving away footage and they're like never going to see that again, it can be anything almost by the time it gets to the screen. Yeah, this is something I go back and forth with because I have some luts, which I had made that have a kind of, you expose one stop over and it brings it down one so you just have that bit of extra room in the shadows but we didn't use that for this because because we're dealing with so many exteriors I decided to kind of shoot it just what looked good in camera directly and we're on the mini and it's although it's an old camera now it's still like does so much and I find it is a camera but if it looks good in the moment it's it's going

to be fine in the grade and I also use a lot that has quite a bit of contrast in it already so they're already kind of like pushing the shadows around a little bit. So I know there's like a little bit more room in there if we do need it as long as it's not like, yeah, completely purple on the false color. Yeah. What kind of magic did Company 3 bring to it? I mean, one of the main reasons Adam wanted to first work with them was just because of their reputation, it kind of, I think from a marketing point of view, it like really helps a little bit.

But then also just like the experience is going in there like you know the monisters are all calibrated and you can trust what you're looking at. And yeah, and Jake was just really attentive. He was like obviously we didn't have the biggest budget for posts but they were willing to kind of work with us. And Jake was like going above and beyond kind of outside of I guess the bit of all hours to like do little tweaks which we needed here and there. So I think it was more of his energy and how much he kind of. believed in what we'd shot. And I kind of, I think when you're on a scrappy project, you kind of want someone who shares that kind of level of, like,

enthusiasm. And, and yeah, he, he cured it. Yeah, I remember for my friend's documentary, which got nominated for an Emmy,

they were getting bid. Yeah, it was awesome. It was a few years ago. But they were getting bids from various colors around. And I, I am a freelance colorist on the side. And I was like, hey, can I see those like bids real quick?

And it was it was kind of cool to see how some of these larger companies will like work with you on stuff. And I don't know if that's just because there's like kind of a work slowdown. And they're like, hey, whatever. This is before that even. But yeah, even some of these bigger companies aren't like, no, we only shoot with Nolan. You know, it's like they'll, they. I think most film people. people at the higher end do understand that there's like you have to foster the next group.

And you might get a client for life out of that, you know, so it's smart to do that kind of thing. And I think he was like assistant colorist on blonde. So he'd be like being around some like really big grades. But yeah, I think he's kind of the more junior colorist to look for these opportunities for like, yeah, like a step up like you said. So hopefully it was kind of what I far for him as well. Yeah, there seems to be something going on at that colorhouse specifically, though, that, like, I'm always like, do they have a tool I don't know about? Like, did they build something in house that makes this, gives it this sheen to it? Because everything that they touch seems to look phenomenal.

Yeah, they really, they've, yeah, they really, like, carve out the actor's faces it feels like, yeah. I did notice on one of the actresses, she had like kind of a dolier face. I wouldn't call her sweaty, but, you know, she was like a makeup kind of. And it really reminded me, like, every time she was on screen, I was like, that looks good. And it took me a second to realize it wasn't the lighting necessarily. It was, you know, that. And then you think about all these older movies that you, you know, where maybe it was sweat or whatever. but like when you have like a more reflective face it does as you said like carve them out of the

image and like add some uh i guess micro contrast or some localized contrast to that like it it looks like quote unquote a movie you know that's the cinematic look is getting your market your makeup department to do that you know totally yeah i mean that was um it was something we're like fighting a little bit because it was we're filming in like particularly the treehouse where it must have been like a hundred degrees inside like everyone was sweating it's a my uh second i see jo actually bought me a a gift like um fishing's towel um to wipe away my sweat um on like day two of the production and i thought i was interesting because i'm not really a sweaty guy but i like i've never dripped on the camera so much my life um and yeah so we were really funny in that

but we kind of definitely lent into it and it's like it added to that like kind of for exploration of Florida in a way. Because yeah, it's hot and that's just life done. And I kind of love that realism to it. Yeah, that's actually why I got this hat because I don't sweat a lot, but like a baseball cap, like every time you try to go to an eyepiece or like look at these, like, tack, oh, fuck. So I got this one with no bill and it just like gets the sweat, you know.

Amazing. It's funny how like, you know, as you progress, the things. things that you think, like you'd never think, you know, you're early on in your career and you're like, oh, get a camera, get lenses, whatever. And then like as you've gotten, at least for me, you know, now it's like, okay, I need a travel kit for the travel days that has like salt for the airplane and like, you know, body towels and like mints. Mince are huge in documentary. You've got to have like Listerine strips or something, you know, all this like extra stuff that you don't think about

that's just like personnel support and not film stuff. Weird expendables. Totally. I love those like the sunglasses, like holders which go around your neck. Yeah. Because like I'm yeah, you're always going between like

looking at the bright space and then going to yeah, the viewfinder. So it's like having that makes it so much easier. Did you discover a pair of shoes that are the go-toes? I was rotating out different sneakers mainly. Yeah. I was going to stay boost.

It was just so hot I didn't want to kind of be dealing with that. So I figured rotating out sneaks was where to go. But we did run into a bunch of ticks, so that was fun. Jeez. Yeah. Like end of day one, I think I had like six or seven kind of like latched on around my ankles. Even though I had like, I'd tuck my trousers into my socks and everything. But, uh, yeah.

I have this idea that I want to pitch vans on the idea of making like film worker specific shoes that like still look like vans but have like, you know, uh, reinforced toe caps for the grip department and like extra. Because you know everyone wears like hokas and stuff like getting like that type of footbed in like of like the ultra boost or whatever ultra range shoes. Would they make like, I think it's a good idea. Early. No, 100%. I would buy days. See, there you go. That's all I needed.

I did see, obviously, at the end of the film, you've got the fire scene. I'm trying not to like get too spoilery because I feel like people are going to have a, until it hits like a streamer or something, it might be a little harder to see. So I don't want to ruin it for people. But that was obviously VFX. the other thing was like the fireworks was that VFX like when they're running around

and shooting each other with the Roman candles it was we did augment some of it with yeah with like a I think it was an F-22 we had on like a battery which we had like the gaffer and the swing having used two different lights which I kind of like

swished past the characters to kind of mimic the firework going past, but they're actually like pepper amies wrapped to look like fireworks. That's, yeah. It's the movie Nogic, I guess. Was there anything else in the film that was, because I didn't notice anything. No, it's just those two things. Yeah.

Yeah, because sometimes you get like, oh, yeah, there was a bunch of rigging that we had cut out, and, you know, there was a bunch of, that kind of thing that sometimes can populate a screen. Yeah, I wish. Definitely not in his budget, but yeah. Yeah. How has the, because you guys premiered recently? We're premiering in, I guess, like, six weeks, like start of June. Oh, okay.

Yeah, there's a couple of premieres across the country. And how, I guess I can't, I was going to say, how has that been for you? But it hasn't happened yet. Yeah, yeah, who knows? But I think we saw quite a few tickets already. it's a good start. But then, yeah, I'm excited to see it kind of out there. And also the thing of the narratives, you're always waiting so long for them to come out. So as well as they shot like maybe six or seven shorts last year. So I'm kind of waiting for that sea of, I guess,

material to actually be shareable because it's all not right now. Yeah, so I'm excited for it to kind of get out into the world. That's another thing, right? With the real and the website is like, you know, the classic phrase of you're only as good as your last project. And it's like when you're sitting on a project for two years or whatever, it's like, oh, maybe I'll be, I'll have work in two years. I just got to wait. Totally. And with narrative, I feel like your, your skills evolve so fast that by the time that

that project comes out, there's already things you'd be doing differently. Whereas to call me like commercial, it's maybe out in like six weeks and you're like, that's a more fairer of sensation of maybe where you are at that moment. Yeah, that one's actually huge because, Doc can be the same way where it's like one one documentary you've been shooting since I came on in 24 but they did like a pre shoot kind of thing in 23 and it's coming out like later this year and already like from the beginning of me shooting it to the last stuff we shot like I got way better in those two years and so like there's some shots in it where I'm like thank God they're putting archival over this because I hate that I hate that for me. Oh no Yeah there's nothing worse And like looking back at work

We're like damn it that's yeah Yeah I swear it's not as bad for As it is to you I'm sure it's just your own bias Which is kind of yeah Tainting your view of it Yeah well I mean but on the other side Like some of the fashion stuff I shot

That was like I said like just embedded with Like I still look back on some of that You know I shot it on a C100 just outside And I'm like that stuff still looks great Like I'm just need to remember what I was doing then and do that someone. Sometimes the uneducated eye can be

better. You know, you don't want to overthink things too much. 100%. Yeah. I always try and like, I love to look at things from a way of like, for example, even in the film, is this a moment with, this is a bit of a tangent, but there's this bulb, which is like one of a

bulbs outside the house is different colour to the other one. And I always try and imagine if the characters were like to go, I know, to get a replacement bulb, they're not focusing on, is this the right Kelvin or like luminance or whatever? So I kind of like those imperfections. Yeah, going back to, I guess, to your untrained eye, it's kind of how it's more really a life, right? Like, that's how we live. Like, if you're not a filmmaker, you're not paying attention to those things. Yeah.

And for the filmmakers, GE sun-filled bulbs have the best spectral output of any off-the-shelf LED. I did want to ask, we're coming up on time, but obviously we sort of danced around the idea of it being a lower budget shoot and stuff. Certainly doesn't look like it.

But what were some of the maybe things you did or tools that you employed that were able to maximize that budget for you? I mean, I think it's really the thing. team and how willing they were to kind of really push it. We even had like a scene on a dock where I was not too sure we could put like a 12 by overhead on it because it involved one of the stands kind of going in this riverbed which changes height depending on the tide. And I didn't really it was the same thing to do. But the Gaffir and Keywit were really keen to do it

and they had faith in it and they used a load of tie downs and it kind of, yeah, I think it's those kind of little things which really helped kind of push it along and keep the look kind of consistent. Yeah. Yeah, I think just like buy-in from everybody.

Everyone was like, everyone really wanted to make the best thing they could. So everyone was just working really hard and really collaborating. Yeah, there is something that can be very annoying on like higher budget shoots where there's a very much like I'm not getting paid to do that totally like they would they would if it was you know Spielberg but since it's not they're like hey this is what you had in the budget and then totally I'm so like um

a difference between here in the UK in the UK you have the Gaffer who's like in charge of sparks and then the grips are actually in the camera team for like dollies and whatnot um But I find sometimes here you get like, like the grips being like, I can't touch that light or the lighting team being like, I can't touch that floppy. And it's like, I get it for like bigger stuff. But sometimes if you're a small crew

and you see to move a floppy in two feet, having to wait for the grip to come over to do that, when there's a lighting person there can be kind of frustrating. And we didn't have any of that. So everyone was really like, everyone understood the task and that we were kind of operating on a small scale. And we needed to kind of like, yeah,

make those little changes. Yeah, the other thing I've noticed, too, with the smaller gigs is especially if you don't know everyone involved super well. Stuff that's bitten me in the ass is like back when I used to have that like, oh, you know, this is low budget. I'm going to give it low budget effort is you don't realize where it's going to end up or like how good it's going to look or or who's attached that you didn't hear about. And suddenly it like gets a lot of attention. You're like, oh, no, no, no, wait, wait. you know, no, just just give your best effort every time within reason. I mean, don't, you know, don't run a 24-hour day for 100 bucks.

But like, if you've bought in, I've just learned just buy into the best of your ability. Don't stop yourself due to some extraneous bullshit like a budget, you know. Totally. No, 100%. And I'm quite a lot of the, like, I think Eric, it was maybe Eric's first. feature he had gaffed and he'd key gripped on before. So there was like things in it for some people. I think even Trevor, who's a great ace Thursday C, he'd maybe done a couple of features, but he wanted to get more on his kind of under his belt.

So I think it was at a good stage in a lot of people's careers and for it to kind of, yeah, work out. And you hired all those guys? Yeah. So what, when you're in a position where you're hiring someone who, you know, maybe it's their first time or whatever. Like, what are you looking for in those people that lets you know, like, all right, this is going to work beyond just like I like them?

Totally. Well, both Trevor and Eric had worked with before. And what I really love about Trevor's and they see, he's very forward thinking. So he's never really on his phone. He's always seeing you, like, assessing a situation. If I'm framing something up on, like, Cadrage, he'll be there with, like, a measure. and he's instantly kind of knowing how high from the ground the tripod might need to be.

Not sure we had too much tripod on the next one, but on the short we're done together, that was the case. So I really love that kind of like attentiveness. Like everyone's locked into what we're doing. And yeah, and Eric's very much the same. He always wants to go above and beyond. And then for other people, but it's just like kind of finding out what kind of experience they had,

reaching out to people who have worked with the references. And then just seeing like what kind of job it is like, Eddie R. Keygrip had a lot of experience with tie downs and that was really his knots and that was really his kind of forte and I knew we needed a lot of bat on this. He's an excellent knotsman. So get on board, buddy. It's funny because in New York, you obviously don't get as much of that because so much than it's in like in studios or interiors. So you don't get as like, but outside stuff I do here is a bit more running gun. And like we're not really closing down streets in Manhattan. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, also when you're in a city, like this happens in downtown a lot or Century City where they shot Diehard even. But like when you have the sun careening off of a window, you get that really nice hard. Like that's instant production value, baby. That's why would we want to stop that? Totally. Absolutely. Yeah, you get all these natural flags here, which is great.

Yeah. Well, the movie looks great. I mean, all your work looks great. But some of you should be proud of. And thanks for coming on and chat on and be about it. Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks to having me. It's been really great chat.

And yeah, big fan for sure. I really appreciate that, man. Thanks. Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny McBillen. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can do so by going to frame and refpod.com and clicking on the Patreon button. It's always appreciated. And as always, thanks for listening.

Thank you.