Frame & Reference Podcast - 253: "America's Sweethearts" Cinematographer Jonathan Nicholas

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

Today I'm joined by Jonathan Nicholas to talk about his incredible work following the legendary Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders on the Netflix docuseries "America's Sweethearts"!Enjoy!�� ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Welcome to this episode 253 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest Jonathan Nicholas, DP of America's sweethearts, Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Enjoy it. To what you said earlier, there's, you didn't miss a lot at Sine Gear this year. Obviously, there's a lot of people. It's fun to see all the people, you know, and that was like every 10 steps I saw someone else I haven't seen any year. And I'm like, oh, should I?

But, yeah, for the soul of the show. being equipment. It was very much like, this is all very nice. Like, nothing. I mean, like,

I mean, the Eternas been out for a while. That's always cool. They did have the 65, um, Rialto block or like just the Venice 65 block. They had like a handful of those. Well.

Um, and that's pretty cool. They had that weird, um, uh, like, internally focused anamorphic that Zeiss made. Have you seen that?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I was curious about that. I was curious if you talk about the booth, one class is in that. I haven't really dealt too much. Me and my Aces are looking at that. I wonder, you know, what DNA line of glass that comes from from them. So it's just an astroprime animorphic, so it's probably, I mean,

it's a 2x. So it'd be whatever, I mean, I guess it doesn't have to be whatever 2x they have, but um i did we went up to him and and i was like so real talk like why yeah and they are like just to prove we could kind of i was like okay i'm fine with that i'm fine if it's like an engineering sample or something but every ac i spoke to is like but what happens if it breaks i can't replace the motor mm-hmm although someone did bring up that if you like put it on a drone or something like it's up in the air you know you don't run the risk of the motor slipping off or whatever yeah the beginning of it and i'm sure this is like them testing the waters uh to see how

well it does work in the field i mean it could be the future i mean i'm all for getting rid of spaghetti all over the camera whenever we can yeah i was at pennivision it feels like a decade ago and they had the dxl2 and i can't remember the name of those primes that were all internally uh geared as well and i was like because the time i'm i'm always going back in Fort Wayne narrative and documentary. And always trying to find the simplest, camera package possible that's also got a cinematic punch to it. And that can be hard on certain budgets

or just certain projects. You just don't try and eliminate as many accessories or big accessories as possible. But as soon as you take something off and miss you, like, dang. That's kind of been my whole career, like fine-tuning the best, tightest, slimmest

like cinematic camera package possible. So, yeah, that right now I've, I mean, my documentaries are not as grand in scale as like the sweetheart show and shit, but

right now the only thing that like, so I primarily just shoot on my C500, you know, and that's got all the kind of shit, you know, I don't, I mean, I'm down, I'm with you. I'm also down to like, I shouldn't, but I use just the stock monitor. It's just like a one cable solution and it, you know, feeds itself from the battery and stuff. Like the second I got to add another battery and another cable and I got to figure out where to charge them, I'm like, but it's the transmitter that pisses me off.

I can't. No one makes like a transmitter just fucking sticks to the camera. You need to go wireless or adding gunk to the camera. That's like where it all begins really. Yeah, maybe start with the monitor and yeah, as soon as you need wireless. No, no. You start adding a whole accoutrema that is saying. Yeah. What shooting package?

You guys have like Venises and Baranos on Sweet Arts? Season one, we started on the Venice 2. But was it, yes. During season one, they came out with the Barano, and I can't remember how I got in contact with Sony-Sinney, and we were chatting, and the rip at a time offered to, sending us a Burano to test and it's actually great timing because it was during the football season and we had it for a weekend or so so I used it for a game I just wanted to put through all its

pieces and wanted to check out the high-base I-so all the different crop factors especially going like 120 so on that game we used my crimes we had a cannon or the 50 to a thousand We threw it on for something like to get some game day footage on the fields. And then we also used that second day, I believe in the locker room to get some specialty stuff with more of our cheerleaders. So we put a snorkel lens on and got a chin strap. We'll get basically our cheerleader to have her eye right at this snorkel lens. And it was kind of like part of a cold open. We didn't make it on taking it off and like the show credits open as her eye opens.

and we were shooting like 120, 32-100-2-0-2-0. So like pushing the camera as much as possible. So I really put it through his paces with the one or two days that we had it and realized that was where we wanted to go. And then as soon as the firmware 2.0 came out with the Super 35 and a 4-3 mode and the 13X de-squeeze, that was where I was waiting for. I was begging for that to get a beta version of that because I, Use 1-3 in amorphics on game days and on regular days just on, like, veritate on see if I get the studio or four field practices or just hanging out with the girls in real life.

I shoot my rehoused Venge's lenses by ancient optics. They're Manova Roakores. And we've used it for every season. I invested in those. And right away we started shooting with them. And in three years on, we're still using that same glass, which it's kind of gorgeous for me. It's the perfect, you know, lens for this show. It's got a little bit of built-in halation, softness.

If that's enough for what we do. But that combined with the barano is like my dream package for this documentary. Yeah. And what do you? So what are you having to add to the bro? My buddy's got a barano. James Jake Bain. And when that thing first came out, I feel.

like me and a lot of people, especially like those in the sort of film journalism space, were like, this feels like a huge whiff. Like it was like 25 grand or whatever and it like was missing a bunch of features and like couldn't do false color or something like yada yada. And then yeah, with that 2.0, you got to give somebody credit. They're like, ah, yeah, yeah, our bad. Click, click, click. You know, now it's better.

And also like I remember rolling shutter being everyone complaining about that. And I was like, especially after I use the Eterna. I was like, I don't know what you would be doing where rolling shutter, modern cameras with rolling shutter, like, presents itself in such an intense way that you'd be like, oh, no. Like 5B world, yeah, back in the day. Yeah, exactly. Darly. And yeah, and just the other day, I was on a long lens and just like moved the camera.

I think we're on the 50,000 just yesterday. And I was just playing around with it. Dude's sitting in that panic came to this wind and just saw that wave. I'm like, well, okay. at, you know, 800 mil. You should have the camera around, yeah. But normally, no, it doesn't really feel like an issue anymore. You know, more A's each of gone the wayside as well with all the newer cameras.

That is not to say I won't take improvements. I would love that. But so for our package, at Brono Base, we use a left-sided master grip. Even though I have someone pulling my focus, my first is in Cassie Coker. but sometimes she loses a signal. We're in a stadium where there's crazy RF going to work sometimes. So if I ever need to take over focus, I can just tap that button and I've load the master grips for years and years now.

They're heavy a little bit on the heavier side, but way, way better than the, what was the, the TILTA nano? I like the bigger wheel. and instead of using my thing, just like one little finger. Oh, it's just more precise. And you can dial it in really nice. Rarely do we have, like, carry a zoom on the camera,

but I can always add that back right grip for Zoom control. The first monitor I ever invested in was the small HD Ultra 5. I'm so glad that I did. I'd always wanted something about that size. You know, I wish we could just make our iPhone, you know, for me, that's the side. You know, I'm not pulling my own. focus so that's big enough for me to judge you know the frame color all that kind of stuff um

i bought two of those i'm so happy i did because i've they're working nonstop for me um and then we're using you know whatever camera what karyana what tear decks we have for for wireless but they're pretty strong um on game days we have to use the high five system because the RF interference is so gnarly. And we have to give the NFL all of our signals information and stuff. So it's also for audio and for video purposes. Any kind of RF we're going to use. They have to approve that or give us like, you know, certain channels we can use.

But we lend our lesson in season one, like how gnarly that stadium can be. Because I'll be on the field on gaming. Cassie was going to like had to like literally ride my hip sometimes. I just keep the signal. And then trying to think other than that. Easy rigs. Easy rig, yeah. I've kind of morphed from easy rigs.

So, like, we did wrestlers three or four years ago, and I was all in on the Very O5 and the stabilized system. But, man, is that a heavy system? Like, you're adding, feels like when you put that thing on 20 pounds. And then for that show, we were doing the Venice 1. So that was a heavy, heavy package. Yeah. And then the summer of, in Kentucky, where it's hot and humid.

I lost a lot of weight that summer. But we've now migrated towards the Burrano. And I actually went back to my 14-year-old Easy Rick vests, my Easy Rick 3000 arm coupled with the, or is it the snow click vest, the gimbal vest, the gimbal vest. And then I, well,

actually the last time I was at Sine Gear, I saw that Chris Hurer was coming out with his Mantis rig. And I was stalked at Instagram like crazy and messaging him. I'm like, hey, I'm coming to Senegal. I want you at the side.

I think it's like a perfect tool for me. He's like, yeah, sure, come on by. And my buddy's kind of friends with him and gave me his number and stuff. Anyways, walked into Senegere, first day,

right at 9 a.m. went straight to the booth, tried it on, reminded him who it was and then I ran over to my buddy Clint who owns ancient optics and he's uh co-dip with me sometimes sometimes comes out and operates for me and I go come try this thing on and I guarantee in five seconds you're going to know and he did you tried it on he goes yep you're right told Chris I was like I need two but I need two like next the week and they weren't even supposed to go to production like delivers until like a month and a half I go I'm working on it

like this Netflix dog, we're going to go for months. It'll be in the field. I'll do whatever you need to do. Take as many pictures you need. I'll pay you money right now. He goes, okay, okay. Message me after Senegal. We'll figure it to them now.

So he did. We got two of them. All my operators use them now. Anyone who tries that thing on, you know, they're like, you like that thing. I've seen that online. And I'm like, yes, just do it. You'll love it.

And everyone who tries it on loves it. Yeah, it's not. It's nice. I feel like, especially with doc, getting, and a lot of times you're like bringing your own gear. You know, I feel like on narrative, maybe a lens set, but other, you know, light meter. Okay, you're not bringing much else. But it is kind of a more fun angle of docs to like have everything really hyper-personalized to you because it's your shit, you know. Yeah, Cassie has bought our entire A package.

So I own the lenses. She owns the Brono. the master grips, the batteries, the wireless, I own the monitors. She owns most of it. I have kind of like, yeah, base of the glass. So anytime, you know, we live in Austin,

we shoot a lot in Dallas. So production knows, like, if we need to high-tail it to Dallas for any reason that something's going on, because we shoot year-round. You know, summers are busy season, but we shoot throughout the fall, and then we'll go into your pickups

and widespread interviews and uniform trainings, like, in the spring. Like we really shoot, I think last show we had 85 shoot days. Good Lord. And that's not on top of, you know, travel days back and forth as well. So they just know we're ready. I don't know if we need to be up there. She has her own van and everything.

So she's kidded out. Dude, I, you know, I shot this documentary about Spud Webb, you know, the basketball player. He lives in Dallas. He's from Dallas. and I got to give credits all the like We didn't work with a ton of crew But the various crew members that we got Locally in Dallas

Like all just dialed Like really dialed Okay It's uh well it's coming back because those incentives kicked in you know All the Taylor Sheridan shows are here now like I would to school actually at TCU in Fort Worth And I got to L.A. as fast as I could

When I graduated I spent 11 years in L.A. Never in a million years I ever think that Fort Worth would now be the pinnacle of Texas production that it is now. Taylor Sheridan, I have a buddy who kind of like runs sales at a nice hotel in Fort Worth, and they use that place all the time for scene work on multiple shows. So it's crazy. Dallas is now, because in the 90s, Dallas was really big in production.

They have a lot of shows here. But then Louisiana and New Mexico got these incentives. That was kind of the start of the incentive craze. and everyone in Texas had to leave because there was no more work here. And now it's all coming back. So it's pretty cool. And we're a massive state that has so many locations to choose from and so much talent here. And in Dallas, so many freeways.

People bitch about driving around in L.A. I was like, have you tried driving in Dallas? Yeah. Yeah. It's nuts. 400 years to drive anywhere. Just because of distance. Yeah.

And the amount of exit you have to take. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's pretty credity. Yeah. That was a bit of a detour. But,

detour. But going back to kind of the gear stuff, but, you know, I got a bunch of like behind the scenes photos of the sweethearts. And A, you know, we already established,

you guys are pretty rigged out for what ostensibly could be done with any camera. but you guys seem to be going, not any camera, but like you got the full cinema package. The show is not like cinema, when people think cinematic, usually dark, moody, whatever, whatever, but it still has such a polished,

like very high end look for a dock. I was wondering what kind of pre-production goes into that and also like obviously you have to work fast. Like how are you able to achieve such a high budget look at a dock's pace for that long. And what are some of the keys that other people could steal from you to boost the production value on their stuff?

You know, once you find your crew and the people who make you look good, you keep them around and you kind of become a little family. So we go show to show season and season with our core camera people as much as possible. That's also a lot of those people came from Grey Wiley's world

that I was kind of introduced to. You know, I have to give massive, massive props to our specially camera up, technically a SC camera. David Newton. So he is like our segue way. Matt Steadicam, he uses a run-in-two. But his combination of Steadicamp, of Segway and his running two with our cinema package, he's like a human dolly. Right. So I told people before, I just wait to you see what he can do.

because there's not many people to walk and do what he can do. And he's been doing it for over a decade now and slowly building up his rig and slowly changing things out and he's just so dialed in with his rig and stooped up segways like, you know, going over, I mean,

he can go from a football field over a curb, you know, on the driveway into a building and into an elevator if you really, really need him to, he will figure out how to do it. And the precision and speed he can do it is pretty awesome. So he is like a, very nimble, steady cam, you know, doesn't need rehearsals.

And also his AC, Devin, his works magic with what he can do on wide open lenses. Again, with no rehearsals, just on a monitor, watch what he's doing. And you're also telling him if he's safe or not. So he's telling him, you're good, you're good, you're, you know, keep going backwards, you're fine. Nothing's there. Well, pulling focus. Good Lord. You know, yeah.

So those guys making you look good. And it's really fun for us to like in our off time or like right now, actually, we're about to go just hang out the pool and just like, we always end up talking cameras. We always end up talking shots. What can we do different? How can we improve? What kind of toys can we bring?

And whether that be something we rent or like, you know, something we've been dreaming about. Finally, some solution comes out with maybe we can invest in and just use it year after year. But find those people to make you look good. Stick with them. And, you know, also, like, I have a great colorist. Marco at the Sini House. He's in L.A.

He does all a great while he shows as well. We created the palette for this, you know, C-1 and kind of stuck to it because I don't really want to change it because I think it still is kind of unique to the Doc World. Really suits show. Mainly I was, I think I sent him like one or two random photos. I was like, I don't know what's about these photos. but like I just want to implement these in to our color palette and one was like this old

World War II Navy plane just had this like certain type of blue that popped and I wanted to implement that into the blue of the cheerleaders was kind of give this like royal blue a little darker than like what the cheerleaders uniform looks like but I was like I want to stay true to the color but just add this like depth and like royalty to this uniform and the second I like want to keep the girls like bring some pink back into the skin just make them look beautiful and pretty

but that little bit of halation that's already in those lenses like it's a great combination and then he came out or he came up with the idea of adding this kind of like pastel look to it all because at the time that's where I was headed yeah

it's really interesting he got that from that West Anishan movie What was that? Grand Budapest? No. The one that's out in the weird desert

And it's like really pastely and bright. Oh, Asteroid City. Asteroid City. He submitted that. I'll go, Oh. Because it kind of incorporated some things we're talking about. Like keeping us soft and feminine, you know.

But never like going, you know, out of the ballpark and dreamy. But just just giving that little touch of beauty to the project. Yeah. And like no like especially with Asteroid City, which you guys don't obviously ape, but I can see that comp. Asteroid City famously like no black level. Like everything lived above like 20. Yeah. So it was like kind of taking those things and like, you know, molding that and finding the look at the show.

It was really fun. How are you getting? Because, well, first of all, there's like two things that immediately come to mind. One is like how are you dealing with lighting? because in a lot of situations, you just either you get the arena. I'm sure you can put sunlights in like the dressing room, wherever they do their makeup and stuff. But then on the flip side, as I have that thought,

I'm like, I just saw a bolt arm at one point. Like you are given like room to kind of send it, you know? Yeah, I try and choose wisely when to spend the money. And that was, so the bolt was something we did this patch of January. and it was kind of this dream idea that I had of like capturing these gruel's you know kind of bullet time and these crazy moves that do in sync together right

I always thought to be insanely cool because in the show Kelly the director always talks about these picture moments right like when you strike a pose and someone takes that picture like you're looking perfect and in sync everyone's you know

working together and I just wanted to take that idea but you know or TV show so but a little emotion to it. So what's to find allowed that well with like a thousand frames a second? So getting that jump split at a thousand frames or you know,

jumping in sync or whatever it may be, I was just kind of like marinating on the idea and dreaming about the idea for like three years. And, you know, surprisingly, they let me try it out this year. And I think some of the shows cold open, some really

awesome shots. I just kind of elevate the girls, you know, athleticism and what they can do while still being beautiful. It's a pretty awesome thing what they can do. Yeah. So that was a big day for us.

We, because I never used the bull before. So a learning curve, right? We brought out some big balloons and because I needed, you know, to light a massive space, but not seen anything on the floor really.

And we, we, kind of done something similar for season two on like kick specialty to kind of show off their high kicks stuff and kind of just like put that on steroids so because before that we were using um

it's the um that the black yeah the black magic um oh gosh where is the camera system I'm going to now I'm going to lose my mind orsa no it's the other slow motion camera by um

free fly system not black magic oh the ember the ember yeah so we actually have the ember just about every game now and that is such a talk about a compact tool I mean really you just have the body now the um the card um

the external card you can like take to the outside instead of doing everything internal a prime a motor and a monitor and we can use some pretty awesome stuff so you'll see that on game day and I now have added the the hawk and a more

to that because that can also do a 13D so use. So I don't feel there's a lot of people doing that. And if you can get, if you have enough light in the stadium, you know, we can get about like sometimes 500 frames a second, but really think we've ridden a lot more like 340, you know, maybe 420 frames a second.

It's a little bit harder to match in post. It's kind of a muddier image, you know, more two-dimensional image. On the barano, we shoot the XSEN LT, which is what we were always

shooting on the Venice as well. That gives us plenty of latitude and information to work with in post to give her a look. So when the Brono came out and it said, you know, maxing it out was the LT, we're like, all right, that's fine. We're good with that. But yeah, implementing the Hawks

on game day was a dream I had season one. We got to start doing a season two, and the idea behind that was, you know, shoot these girls in their real life scenarios and then practice on my minotas. And then when they're in their uniforms and on the stage of the world, looking like these, you know, superheroes, I wanted to give them that Marvel superhero look. And what is that? Easiest transition is anamorphic.

But I didn't want to change aspect ratios, right? So the one three is you shoot that in a 4-3 chip mode, de-squeezed the 69, and there it is. Yeah. So it just gives a little bit of extra pop and sharpness on game day. Yeah, that's actually a great. You answered a question I didn't have, and it's awesome. The idea of like switching lenses for different between like the girls as they are as people and the cheerleaders, you know, how those are two separate entities, more or less. And I want to be subtle, but, you know, kind of noticeable.

Just like, it's something you feel, right? Yeah. The, but you did bring up something that I've really wanted to know about, which is the very sexy topic, media management. Like, how many cameras do you guys have and how are you, like, do you just keep 70 cards on you and swap them out personally? Is there someone running to dump them? Is there like, because that's got to be a huge undertaking? It fluctuates insanely, right?

So we have days where we're shooting the in-person auditions, which is usually at the first or second episode of the show. And there's, you know, 60 to 80 girls, depending on what season it is, coming to try out. And they each get to have their own solo dance, and they go to the field and do the group, more like cheerleading type dances. And then the director and the staff call,

if it deliberate and one with the judges that they like the guest judges and then we go back to the field and then they call everybody down and then we celebrate so season one was like a crazy like 17 hour day we didn't know we were in for we had like i think three operators um now to what we've you know most recently done is bringing in let's see one two three four five six seven seven to eight cameras on that day. You know, like three, three or four lockoffs. And then two hand-up operators. You have David on a Segway. Season three, we actually got an EGU system to run in front of the judging table. So it's just like a three-foot-high little motorized camera system. Like a phys or PTZ kind of thing?

Yeah, like it's like they use them at the Oscars. It's kind of like four wheels. It's kind of like a souped up, you know, remote control car. Oh, I've seen something like that. Yeah, yeah. You can put whatever camera you want on it. Yeah, yeah. I think of whatever you can choose, actually,

whatever stabilization system you want. So you can kind of build up and build it down however you want. You can put towers on if you need to. But we cut those really low. And you can lay down magnetic track if you need. But our, you know, I thought we were going to maybe do a whole. or shoe around but then knowing

we had David I just let them do simple back and forth so no need to even lay down the track for that and our operators on a wide fast zoom so that was kind of the expensive tool we got for season three which was kind of fun on top of having that big

bold day what was it seven months after that so and then yeah you just have like a couple long lenses on there no drones inside. Yeah, so those days are crazy. Dedicated DIT, or I should say DITD, dedicated media manager person all the time when we're going.

But yeah, we just get a ton of cards and they're around media all afternoon and all night. And I say so sorry about all this card, but here you go. Yeah. Because Ross is just kind of off speed, you know, whether we're shooting. Most of we shoot off speed at 60. frames a second. Sometimes we bump it up to 96, but not really that often. And then you have the ember as well.

It's like, you know, 320 frames a second to 400 sometimes. So that's pretty quick start, stops. The other times we're just rooting 60 frames a second. We'll ping time code, either heads or tails. And then the post can, you know, decide they want to use that regular speed or slow-mo. Yeah. I know. We're just, we'll just be in a scene shooting some fun,

some of the same of the conversation will start. We're rather like, say, excuse me, sorry, could you just stop for a second? We just keep rolling and we can add a little bit of motion blur if it looks a little jittery in post for conversation. It's not too big of an issue anymore. If we could shoot 72 frames a second, that's easier and better,

but posts is figure out a pretty fluid way to make 60 frames a second word. You just, they still really need that time code to help speed up the process. Yeah. Yeah, that I ran into, that the other day. I didn't, it just didn't occur to me. Because my,

my director loves using slow-mo. And we just shoot at like 48. So I guess, I guess it's more like off-speed than slow-mo. Yeah. But, and I wouldn't change the time code generator going between them. And I had no idea. It was a problem until I was on the Ronan 4D and it just wouldn't run.

I had the time code plugged in and then I set it to 48 and I go to record and it won't and I was like what? And I'm like trying to figure this out and I'm like what the you know we're on the clock I said what the fuck? And then I just sat there and I went one second

I unplug the time code generator and hit it and just runs and I was like oh shout out to Ronan and who makes Roan DJI. Shout out to DJI for inventing something to stop you from making your life hard. because the cannon just said fuck it go have fun yeah that's interesting get mad at you later that's one thing i've i've come so close to buying

is the 4d and all these little loser brother i know people say once you try it i hate gimbles hate gimbles yeah and uh but like i really you know obviously like anyone like the cameras system you're using is like what you're comfortable with.

And then so you kind of want to use that. The look especially, you know, I have this look, especially if you're doing your own colors. You have a color pipeline. You're like, I don't want to change.

And then I got the Ronan and I was like frustrated that we were going to have to use this thing because it's kind of complicated. And I was like, whatever. And we couldn't put my lenses on it. I didn't have initially. I didn't have the counterweight on the back. So it was too heavy up front.

And I was like, whatever, man. I'll figure this out. And it took me about 40. five seconds to figure out. It just auto balances, auto figures everything out. All the controls are really

like it's like the master grips on one side for focus. It's that big knob on the top. And once you get in a rhythm with it, it's like just an extension of her body. And the footage looks great. There's no, it doesn't feel thin at all. I didn't notice any like, you know, screwy looks or anything.

And I was able to match it with my C500. pretty easily. Nice. And now after my director and producer saw me go like, because they love it too because sometimes they have to go shoot something and they're like,

they don't know how cameras work. And for everything to kind of be smooth and automatic and stuff, they like it. Yeah, Ed Moore, who shoots silo, turn me onto those. Catherine Goldschman, who did Last of Us.

She was like, yeah, like all, those two were both like, it's fucking sick. Yeah And as a dude There's a lot of glass coming out for them too Which people are really trying to hone in on Um

Those new Yeah we just threw an e-mounts on ours And then They're pretty nice looking They just meant I was like Oh crap are they really gonna be that great And then some of the footage that finally came out

I was like okay All right I'll be attention to this Yeah And then my buddy Clint At the ancient office She also just came out with some Either like the H-1s or something

It was supposed to be quite beautiful and small compact, you know, literally making, a lot of people are making lenses for this one camera system, which is kind of crazy. Yeah, that's another camera that like, I feel like came out and aside from a few YouTubers, everyone was like, who's this for? And I think there's a lot of tools specifically in the film industry where like someone solves a solution that we didn't have or solves a problem that we didn't have. And then everyone goes, that's dumb. And then like a few years later, someone like, because it was laid to the side, it wasn't popular. Someone goes like, maybe it's low risk to test that out. And then it becomes the new thing.

Because the 4D's been out for like five, six years. And I've only seen it gain popularity in the past like three. I think I keep pulling up because I'm like, well, surely the new one's going to come out soon. So now I've gone so long. I'm like, no, now I have to wait. But the new one come out. So. I think the way they've built it, though, is you just swap out the sensor block.

Okay. Yeah, because there's a. Because I know you can upgrade the six to the eight. if you want. Yeah. Yeah. They'll finally have to do it. Yeah.

Well, but like anything, like the 6K looks a little bit better because it's not trying to cram so many pixels onto the same size sensor block, you know? Like, it's still full frame. There's just more of them, so they're, you know, photosites are smaller, the whole thing.

Yeah. More is not better. I will always say that for sure. I've still got a, yeah, I've still got a, Sony F-55 and you'd think that thing looks old. It does not. I remember before I had to use

that thing, I was dreaming about that camera. That's kind of the first Sony camera ever, like, got to go that route, you know? I was a lot of documentaries. I was a canon guy for a long time on all the travel shows I used to do. C-300, C-200, C-200s,

every C-200, and then I've migrated to Sony a little bit airing never became really a red guy I shot with it a lot but just something about it

never spoke to my my core well especially if you use the more doc-focused cameras like the C series or the FS series like reds are a nightmare were

they were now the new ones are nice but I'll say like I was doing a Discovery Shark week documentary going after the Galapagos and we had two trips

first trip was like 10 days and we went all the way out to Darwin's arch and that's like a whole 24-hour boat ride and we worked our way back slowly and they're like hey whatever camera you want to use whatever we want to use

that's when I started using the master groups like wherever you want I mean well okay I guess I need to go you know and I was also well we'll see the underwater guy because really I'm top water DP but the heroes were the underwater DP guy shooting all the sharks and the people in the water and he was on a red

and I go, well, okay, I guess I'll go that 8K red route and, you know, trying to match his footage seemed, you know, right at the time. But man, not having internal 1Ds, the amount of buttons you have to press to go from 2399 to, you know, off speed, which I did a lot off speed and both.

I was just wanting to blow my brains out. And on a boat, right? So you're like doing NDs and like, you're in your 80s, like, handing bad boxes, I'm just like, this is a nightmare. So after that, I was like four months later we did the next trip.

I go, hey, I think I want to go, you know, Alexa Mini and just like, I think I'm going to live in 2K mode so that I can go from 120 to 23 and 8, one press of a button. And I can, you know, I have two buttons for NDs and it'll save my life. And it was. And I think, first of all, they had no trouble matching AK from 2K. It looked just anymore. Maybe even it looked a little. a little better. So,

you know, learn my lesson on that. The quality of the pixel really, really matters. And the camera build, you know, really think about

the situations you're going to be in, what's important on a camera. And, yeah, that's, again, I've kind of found the baron to be

my personal favorite documentary camera. So. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of excited. What are we going to be using five years from now?

I'm kind of excited about. I think so I just wrote this article I'm right I sat down to write one article I ended up writing five because I would like start writing something and then I'd be like actually this little paragraph is like a whole interesting thing and one and one of them was just sensor technology because where it all diverged in 2008 with things going cinema and DSLR and those parallel paths and like what makes a cinema sensor and what makes a photo sensor and why are they different and how to when they merged recently, relatively recently, with your FX-6s and stuff, like what did we lose, quote-unquote, with not having a true cinema sensor? Like the F-55 in the Venice, the Canon C-700 full-frame,

and the EVA-1, I think, or the Veracam, whatever, are like the only, the last, like, cinema sensors. The rest of them have been repurposed photo sensors. And I found that the biggest issue seems to be thinning out color filter arrays for high speed.

And I can, I'll try to explain it so fast. You know, like those pin toys, you put your hand in it and it makes, it's like metal pins. Like that's how the sensors see light, right? And then you put the color filter on top and it's a literal piece of glass that is each pixel

green, red, blue, whatever, right? And so like on the F55, for instance, big thick color filter array. So colors were separated. When it did the math to interpolate what color is what based on the pixels it's combining, big thick color filter array is only that color made it in. But then your base ISO is low. Your sensitivity is low because it's a big piece of glass.

So thin color filter array to get high, you know, high 12,800 ISO or whatever, light can bleed into the other. adjacent sensors pixels photosites and the colors start to thin out get muddy whatever whatever now granted there's you're not seeing it in a disgusting way but it's eluding the pixel a little bit a little bit yeah and uh now with all these everyone taking photos sensors and putting them in cinema cameras i'm like we are losing something we are losing that aforementioned uh good pixel as you said, like the quality of the sensor versus the amount of Ks or sensitivity or whatever. That was a long diatri, but that's the crux of the article.

For camera talking, that's pretty short, actually. Yes, yeah, yeah. I did actually want to ask you about the another thing about the show. So my girlfriend's a professional dancer. She's been watching this show since fucking nom, right? not yours, but the idea of the Dallas Cowboys show. The CMT, yeah, the old one. Mm-hmm.

And so I've seen a lot of that show. And it is pretty, I mean, there's like a channel for it on one of those like free streamers. You know, it's like literally just the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader show. Yeah. And it is funny actually to watch the camera technology go from like clearly like DVXs to what you guys are doing. Even the later CMT stuff like still looks kind of wherever.

But I was wondering what the discussion. were like for you guys about that shows existence and yours and what the differences were. Famously in the first season there seemed to be a lot more openness about the process and who says what and all this kind of, you know,

there is a little more raw than the CMT version, which was basically a fluff piece every day for the Cowboys organization. You know, I haven't watched much of it and we didn't watch any of going into it. And kind of learning of its existence as we were starting the show. But that show was very much kind of a product of its time, like very, you know, reality-based show that everything's really set up.

And the process is really drawn out. And, you know, everything's got a lot of lights on the ceiling and staged everybody. And that's where you're supposed to be and stay behind this desk. You know, I came up in the reality world of that. kind, right? It's very competition reality-ish show, you know, a lot of cameras and lends everything in. And Greg's always kind of had a very similar style of just

true verite, like, we are a follow doc series. That's why I kind of get, Eric, when they recalls a reality show, I'm like, I worked on a lot of reality shows, we are not a reality. This is not Hell's Kitchen, thank you. Yeah, yeah. And all those reality shows that say the real is so set up, it's insane, maybe even word for it and for their mouth. So we are a true doc follow.

They don't wait on us. Sometimes we ask them to please win at wherever maybe, but we're just capturing the process they usually do and asking permission to come into the room, basically. And Greg's, you know, main rules for docketed areas is spend your money on the best camera package you can get and the best audio you can get,

meaning great audio tools, but also audio people, right? Right. We do the job of three people, you know, who can mic fast, who knows Linda Boone, or not to boom, how to be delicate with that situation, stay out of my shot without, you know, having to be looking at my moral all the time. Like, he's worked with some of the same audio people for a very long time, and their intuition is amazing.

So much that when I go work on other shows, I quickly get really frustrated when I don't have my core. team. I mean, it's crazy how well we, we mesh together and just know, have intuition of what the other person is doing. And I can give like subtle, like I can pull my camera, give subtle movements to my audio guy. He knows exactly what I'm about to do. Or I can even just like look at a point in the room and he knows I'm about to go over there.

He's already, you know, I'm going to ruin the boom or whatever it is. Just when you get dialed in with the crew, it's really fun. and that's how you get your best work, right? So, yeah, not having them around really sucks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much input does the Cowboys organization have in the final product? Any? Or are they kind of like pre-producing it in such a sense?

No, not really. I mean, you got to remember this is an $11 billion company, you know? Right. So, you know, Greg has a time over the edit, and he's never backed down from having, you know, final cut. And he's walked out of some, you know, won't go into diesel. He's walked out of some very, very big meetings where people are about to sign contracts. They go, we just need, like, you know, give a little bit of notes if we want to. And he's like, no, like this.

As soon as you do that, you don't have control. And then the lawyers can find their, you know, their talk and they're great. area is to exploit. So it's just a hard stop of like, no, he has final ed policy. With a billion dollar organization, like it's a little trickier, I know they are allowed to see cuts, but as far as like input and say, you know, you come with the show, I think it's about like keeping a relationship more than like demanding something, right? I think probably keep and do whatever we want, but we also want to maintain a good relationship

with the organization and the girls and, you know. we find creative ways to still get our points across well you know everyone is still relatively pleased we keep getting into the back I'll say that you know yeah that doesn't mean we have a ruffle feathers in the past you know season one was a little rough and season two was a little rough sometimes

but you know that's we're not here to make a commercial about the organization we're just trying to get a real life look and pull back the curtain so to say but no, just it's not a fluff piece. We're just trying to tell these girls of real life story. So that's a,

yeah, it's, I have a hard place to be sometimes. Absolutely. I mean, I applaud the amount of effort you put into it because, like,

I worked at, like, Red Bull for a few years. I worked at, um, ABCs or technically Disney. And, uh,

before I went like full freelance. And, um, learned a lot about brain management. And so, like, what you guys are, able to accomplish on this show while working with arguably one of the largest sports brands

in the world is really borderline inspiring because I imagine, you know, even the way that like when you were saying like I wanted the blue to be a little darker or like denser, like I immediately hear the brand like asset people going like no, no, no, no, no. Like, you know, even that is something I know is 70 phone calls somewhere that like, like you're still able to do. So treading that line is clearly a heroic effort on

a number of people's parts. And there's a lot of trust there, I imagine. Yeah, I have to stand behind Greg and like his core people, producers, everything that they, you know, they stand behind their values, but they deliver. You know, like the post process, the editors, the story

producers, like, man, do they really come out with some amazing storylines and and here's the thing that I'm always so pleased and sometimes confused by like these episodes pack so much information I'll be watching cuts for code processing you know so it's new to me I first watch it and I'm I'll pause it and I'm like I'm 30 minutes into an hour after I think there's been so much going on this one episode it's crazy yeah because like now we've kind of found our I wouldn't say formula, but, but, like, training camp is most of the show now, like five, four episodes at least out of seven.

Usually the last two episodes are really about when the girls have made the team and they go on to the crazy season of football season. But there's so much information packed in those two episodes after training camp. I'm always highly impressed with the editors and what they accomplish and post after, you know, like I said, 80s. shooting news. It's a lot to condense down. Yeah. Is there anything on the show that you surprise your, by that I mean like you're an accomplished DP? A lot of times it's just like, it's not a new problem. It's just a different problem. You know, whatever you're given, you're just like, well, I haven't done that exact thing before,

but I have the tools, you know, mentally to figure that out. Was there anything on this show that actually was a new problem? Um man You know I thought it was going to be Harder maybe to accomplish Trust

You know I'm a guy I am this Thursdays cheerleaders We're going into the locker rooms a lot You know yeah And you're always being sensitive And we also have you know Gretchen

Worthin my BKMOP Who's a legend I mean she I can't believe She still wants to work with me But we love her so much She can you know Tells me how much

she loves Orban with me for the last decade now. So we, you know, have a lot of female crew as well. But yeah, getting in the trust, trying to be that quiet personality, that caring personality, not a robot. It's kind of a hard line to write, you know, right? So you want to be friendly to be a girl. I have to remind yourself if you're a documentary. And now girls that we started with are going into their fourth year, you know, sometimes We're hanging out with them at a practice or an event or something.

Like, look at you. Like, you believe if we, like, been doing this for four years ago? Like, we started our journey together, you know, us on the documentary side, you on your chilling side for this organization. It's kind of crazy. So, yeah, keeping trust levels up professionally and, you know, on a friendship level. It's not that it's hard. It's just something that as long as the show goes. on, you know, you kind of have to think about it. And it's actually a humbling place to be. And I'm

very happy to be here because it's a great job to have. First of all, I'm working in Texas. Second, I'm working with amazing people on the crew side, but also the people you're documenting are amazing people themselves with big hearts. They care about each other. And it's nice to kind of elevate those types of personalities rather than, you know, some other talks of personalities that you can encounter in this business sometimes. totally yeah so it's a great job to have well and it's it's a great point too because like uh with narrative everyone knows what you're doing right like the actor is going to behave a different way than they do in reality and you can go be friends off in the corner but during the work it's like

where you know i don't even know you whatever go but with documentary especially if you're the camera operator and you're right here like i did a few things where i was in um these like i was in I was in cars with the talent and it was just me for like two hours. You know, and it's just the, they're listening in a different car and it's being like a high value client or, whatever you want to call them, um, important person.

And it's like at what point am I allowed to be like, oh, you're good dog. Like, you know, oh, hey, like let me fix your hair. Like,

let me, you know, um, that kind of shit. And also like you can't, let's say you're shooting with like, with someone for like a week, let's say.

obviously you've been doing four years, but even a smaller shoot, at what, like, where is that line of being friendly and being friends and not necessarily crossing it? Yeah. Because I just want everyone to be my friend. You know, I'm always like,

yeah, I'm gonna, I'll send you some screenshots. You look great. Trust me. Like, you'll see it. And then I turn around my director's like,

we're not sending them fucking screenshots. Are you out of your mind? Like, it's like, I have the, that, I'm coloring it. What?

And he's like, no, you know, that kind of thing. It's a very interesting. mental balance to have to take. Yeah, it is. And I don't think you can perfect it either.

So I just reminded me of one time, you know, me in Kelly Fine Glass of Not for a long time. And there's, I think it was like season two or something. She came back with an edit or after the show came out of something. There was like an OTF we did in her office. And she had like one little hair like coming out there. And like my brain's thinking about so many other things. and not notice that one little thing

and I know she knows she has an assistant sometimes it'll help out but that made the cut or something and she goes well Jonathan would tell me when my hair's going crazy I'm like like I'm so sorry I didn't see it at all and it's probably like she only saw

yeah when you turn your head once or something but you know like you're following someone's life right when do you cross the line of like let me help you out with whatever the little problem may be or, well, I really do need to stand back because this is what's going on

with this person's life or whatever it is. Like, if their hair is crazy, well, maybe it's crazy for a reason because they're running around like a chick with an head cut off because they're, you know, got a million things to do that. Is it tell the story or am I, you know, hurting them? Well, the way you just phrased it

was interesting because I think that's a great way to think about it. And now I'm just speaking as I think, uh, you're documenting their life. So don't, at what point are you entering like the camera if we're doing a follow doc

isn't part of their life theoretically right the do we're not supposed so that would be the boundary then when the camera team becomes part of their life unless you're doing like a gonzo thing you know like the yeah that's interesting

there's a lot situations where like you know like what you're recording or there's like you know something on the floor that maybe could be embarrassing to them but it's also like a really interesting detail about who they are. So I was like, they probably wouldn't want me to see this. And you know, Greg or whoever it is might be on my call to try to be like, Charlie, like left.

I'm like, huh? Oh, I'm like, okay. And then you just wait for your moment to like capture that insert or whatever it may be. Yeah, just you have to constant reminder yourself of your documentary and capturing, you know, these people's real lives. But, you know, if you're doing an OTAF and they have a bugger hanging out, like, well, no one really wants to see that. So let's get that up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. I mean, it's a daily occurrence. It really is a daily occurrence. Oh, sure. And also it's like, you know, we're not, it's not a documentary about war, right? We're having fun at sports and it's dancing and it's. So it's, at least for me, I imagine this is probably why I'd get fired.

For me, it'd be like, we're having fun. Why? Let's make sure everyone, let's have fun, you know. Yeah. That would be my knee jerking. Yeah. That most awkward thing, you know, can be when, you know, something terrible or embarrassing is going on in a lot of us,

and you need to capture that for the story. And you kind of help remind them at the very beginning of the projects and when they're going through something awful and hard, like we're here for the good, the bad and the ugly, right? But the good will always prevail because everyone wants to see you succeed. And, you know, success doesn't come easy or, you know, without trials and tribulations. So it's important for us to see your failures.

It's important for us to see you struggling. And I can't imagine how hard that would be to have a lens in your face for that. But you will, you know, if you work your way out of this, I'm sorry, as if I'm Greg talking to the cheerleader or whoever we're going on. But if you're strong, you will prevail and we will lift you up and show you in that light that you overcome, you know, whatever may be. like you will go through some bed, but we will bring your arc back up. Because that's what we want. That's what makes this all feel good when I watch a show, right? No one just wants to watch someone go around the dumps and stay in the ditch, right?

So that's kind of the motivation that you have to lean into when, you know, someone's going through something terrible. So, yeah. Well, the hour went by very quickly. So I'll let you go. I know you got like a, what did you say? got like a party to go to in a bit or something? Yeah, we're actually doing a screening tonight for the first time with the cheerleaders

at the star. So we're going to watch a couple of episodes of season three before it premieres on Netflix. All right, man. Well, it was great talking to you. I'm glad we finally were able to link all the constellations. And yeah, stay in touch, man. And enjoy it. Enjoy the day. That's great, dude. Yeah. Please do.

All right. Adios. Frame and ref. 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.