Frame & Reference Podcast - 262: "Fall 2: Deadpoint" Cinematographer Andy Strahorn

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

This week it's an absolute JOY to have Andy Strahorn back on the program, returning all the way back from EPISODE FOUR of this show! Andy was one of the very first people to help kick off the podcast, going so far as to pull over on the side of the road after a shoot to call me from his car for the hour, and I'll always remember that. Anyway, in this episode we're talking about Fall 2 but honestly, a whole whole lot more. You're gonna love it.Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this, episode 262 of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and you're about to drop into a conversation between me and my friend Andy Strayhorn back from episode four of this podcast, which is very exciting. Andy shot fall to deadpoint. And we talk about that and so much more. You're going to love it. Please enjoy this episode with Andy Strayhorn. I was very lucky. I, you know, when I met you, I'd come off lethal and then just.

just done my star. I, you know, um, those, uh, those worlds are very few and far between where you get to, um, play with campuses on TV schedules.

Right. It was, uh, I had a lot of fun on shows. That what, what has been, this is, again,

it's just exciting to talk to it. What has been the, uh, past near half decade. Since we've spoken. Because both of our lives have changed a lot, but I'm more interested in yours. Yeah. Well, you know, I got married about two years ago to my long-term girlfriend, Funce.

So that's great. And got a dog. So, you know, we're doing that. I moved into a home, you know, five years ago. So that was nice. But since then, you know, it's been really interesting. Since then, I probably have seen. I did a show called Bel Air for Peacock and Universal for season three and four.

And, you know, I find myself in these scenarios where, for whatever the reason that the studio deemed, you know, I think all shows, whether you're featured or episodic or streaming. Every studio's looking at their numbers these days. and it's a reimagining of how do we push the visual limits, but cost-effective was. So I think every cinematographer, every filmmaker's going through that process now with every turn. And so I was the,

they went from two cameramen to one camera. So I was the only cameraman. So which I enjoy, you know, I enjoy the challenge of being the only cameraman, you know. So I did that. But for the most part, I was very fortunate to start doing a lot more feature work and start doing, like, you know, studio second units.

And in really interesting places like Bogota, Columbia, or, you know, then back up to Canada. And where else was I? Was I New Zealand? Yeah, I was New Zealand. and then Thailand and then everywhere outside Los Angeles. So it's been a really interesting time

the last like years of photographing outside of your crew with communities and film communities that might not necessarily look at filmmaking the way we do. So that brings the time challenging. just that, you know, as the studios go aboard with their productions and so forth, it's still

LA schedules, but you're having to play a gang of chess with sometimes, you know, your crew that might not necessarily being exposed to these different ways of approaching filmmaking. So that's been really interesting. And that leads to fall too, where, we were in Thailand beautiful country amazing company lovely lovely people hard

spicy as food in the world yes yes very much so I meant but you know really nice people hard working and diligent but it was you know it was it was an interesting challenge

to meet a logistical movie in an environment where English wasn't their first language. So you have these challenges of on any normal English-speaking set that when approaching something like Paul II, you lose so much time just through the nature of safety of literally getting the characters anywhere from 20 to 40 feet in the end. Right.

And that's how the, that's how the, that's how the, movie was photographed was they were always applied. And so you lose, you know, we lost probably, not loss, but it's quite most appropriate, but we would have to factor in probably 40% of our day was physically getting the characters to position. Right. On the tiny little boards and whatnot. Yeah. So we had to photograph. entire day's schedule in probably six hours, seven hours. So it was a very, and with the directors, Peter was very great guys, very smart, very diligent about tone.

So I was lucky enough, I worked with them 25 years ago on their first speech here. But then we went different paths and I came to the States and so forth. then we've always been dear friends and dear mates but um they brought us up they said people do you want to come and do this i was like hell yeah i mean i enjoy an invention you know like cross off thailand okay so i've got now a hundred countries to do but um so it was it was that was an interesting challenge but we you know knowing that we hadn't worked together in 25 years it was just a very we picked up where we left off from either but an artistic

extent, but they also add like a 3, 400 page very detailed storyboard, animatic storyboard. So knowing that I'd come from those action-based oriented shows, it was an interesting blend of,

okay, totally we can get this, this, this and this by doing this and this. and so we still achieved where they needed to go but we did under constraints that no one really knew off but it was like yeah we can do this and this just based off those six, seven years of doing that type of work, you know?

Yeah. What was pre-production? Like was this something that you guys, that kind of you realized on set like, oh shit, like the language bearers? hitting us or was there enough pre-production done that you're like, well, they can speak an alien language and it wouldn't really matter.

Well, we knew that we knew that they understood filmmaking and they understood what we were asking. Well, I've heard that crews almost all over the world now that we've exported so much work that you can pretty much go anywhere and there's at least somewhere like a really good crew in the middle of nowhere often and they someone's got. 100%. The difficulty, Kenny,

where I think it really defines itself is that it's the approach of the execution, right? Like US-based is, you know, somewhat, you know, you're thinking big picture, big scale and all of that. And so it's sometimes that's the growing period of understanding that. But the way we approach that type of film was we knew that. I think every DP, the most important thing is knowing where your parameters are, whether it would be financial, whether it be weather or schedule or what have. Once you know that, or for me anyway, then I can approach it going, okay, how do I make it look to me, need it?

Right. So what might be a hindrance becomes at home because you just play with in the goalposts, right? So once we knew that going into pre-production, that language wasn't a bit of an issue, in sensual gear that we would use in continental United States, we weren't going to use that. So now it was one of the greatest assets, I think,

is that Peter, Michael, and I all in our craft in Australia. So even to this day, it doesn't matter where I am in the world, they always think, what would I do in stride? Because you wouldn't have techno cranes and all the rest of it. So, okay, so now,

if I was to make this outside of the Merida, and that was basically the approach. So some of it was really low tech with the way we approached it. And essentially, knowing that once the characters were in position and doing their sequences and scenes and giving them as much time

to, with the directors as well, to discover and to get performance similarly. So the logistical approach for the photography was one that allowed a lot of flexibility. And so in doing so, you know, it was a random conversation with Peter three, four months before we left

and I wasn't on the show it was born and he just said I mean how would you shoot a what would you shoot a show on a mountain but the characters are at high but how would you get cams up that creep this is me

100 feet of track use some fixed arms you can get them anywhere in the world track and fixed arms and you basically be it 48 feet, 46 speed and be it 36 feet and be it 36 feet and have two of them and basically like massive chitru trains and it allowed you to go from you know longer lenses wide lenses and jump from one to the other and you can literally keep that moving

that allows the director and the characters to discover the rest of it without tripping over the technical aspects of shooting. Yeah. I mean, I didn't think I think more of it. And then he said, well, do you want to come and do it?

No, yeah. Yeah, I'll be there. It's how it went down. You know, you're in good company because I feel like every, like I even remember like,

I interviewed Greg Frazier. And I think it wasn't just him, but I've noticed that all of the Australian DPs have such a workman-like approach. to filmmaking. And I always am like, something's in the water over there where you all are just like, well,

you just get it done. Whereas I feel like there are certain other sections of the industry that can be very, my joke is always like, that's when you get a scarf. You know, you suddenly are like, well, I'm an artist and you throw it over your shoulder.

Yeah, yeah. I don't have the barret and all the rest of it. And I just like, you know, like it is a very, much, I think the industry back home is not, it's not

as revered it's a job. It's a job. And so, and the culture in essence has that work, that common blue color approach. But also, we all start from the same

it's some pieces where you know, we are, you got a camera, a lens, we got the worst light in the world. Yeah. Right. Absolutely bloody horrendous. And so, and you learn, okay, go out there and do it.

And so when you start shooting commercials and features in Australia, when I get any minutes, it's, you know, that was that where money wasn't there, the US hadn't really arrived there. They are there. It's their presence. Was there a hole in the ozone layer at that point as well? Oh, hi, everyone. The aquinas are still hitting. Everyone gets taken out by skin cancer. Nothing else.

So don't worry about crocodiles or bloody sharks. The cancer will get you. But anyway, it's, you know, you have these very rudimentary swords. You know, you know, when I first, you know, you have bounces. like reflectibles instead of source lane. So you learn, obviously there are bulbs with more money, but for the most part, you learn to do a lot with a very little. And then you learn to really analyze and manipulate life, the exterior.

And it's interesting because you come to the northern handspeer. Obviously, you're a beautiful light. When I was in London, it was beautiful overcast, right. I felt the same way about France I was like, the light really is fucking different over here. Yeah. And it's nice.

And it's beautiful. But we never had that. So, and it's interesting coming to this country where, you know, I was doing a show just recently on the beach. And sometimes there's a, there's a thought process to disfuse all the time. Diffused a lot,

particularly northern, spirit. I've noticed that. Not that it's a hard and fast rule, but there's a bit of that. Because back home, we never really had that ability. So it was always learning how balance. So how do you balance high blood and you have no overheads? So you learn to really play those midtones and learn to go, okay, for this tone, for this look at the movie, for this show, for this, whatever, does this scene of applicable does this fit in? And then, you know, at first it was a bloody nightmare. But once you understood it and learned how to work around that,

then it became a whole different asset that it gave you a different view of light as opposed to, I'm going to soften, soften, no, I can't control that. And there was a lot of the shows I've worked on. For whatever the reason, the field of view might be 210 degrees, 280 degrees. So you've got characters moving 30 to 60 feeds. You're never going to really cover that unless you have to 60 by 60 or whatever. And then you're getting into big dollars and rest of it. So it was always that approach in Australia, it was terrible at the time.

But I look back fondly now going, and glad I end that experience. You know, because it serves you doing shows like that in developing countries where they just don't have the resources we are accustomed to him but how do you keep the how do you execute a high level without the tools

so so it was to me it isn't really I find it now a huge asset because nothing's you kind of look at things nothing's really awesome should be right mate

that's fuck a better you know because it's like can't get any worse than bloody midday sun in Australia so you know it's like you know you learn to work with the ADs and schedule around the lights and you know and manipulate as much as you can uh existing by you know yeah which i think so it's a different type of approach to photography I'd love to shoot everything at sunrise or sunset but that's not the reality. And then, but to actually have that, I enjoyed having that experience of knowing that, okay,

this is how you do it. And obviously there's phenomenal, you mentioned Greg. There's phenomenal camera before, D&B, Inversney, Dink Simler, Domic Alpine, Russell Boy, Peter James, all these incredible photographers. that have come before. And, you know, I was a big fan of Dean, Dean Semmelis and Domby Kalpines and John Seals work as I was coming through, a big piece.

I always saw what they did with natural light and was just truly beautiful. And, you know, how they made the Australian light look fantastic. Amazing. So that was, yeah, and then you couple that with, you know, you just got to get it done. Right. And there's no real other option. And I kind of like those, those, you know, those parameters because then it forces every

scenario, every day and every shot into a very unique way of going, okay, we know this is where we're at, however we do this. And I think ultimately that's, you know, whether it's right or wrong, that's, that's been more experience. Well, I've said it before, but the, a quote that I always think about is from my friend Joey works with Adam Savage on his YouTube channel. And so I've, you know, kept tabs on that because it's always fun. And I'm a big fan of Adams. but he said that like it's always nice when you can hack branches off your decision tree. Like constraint makes your life easier.

You know? And so it's I actually really look forward to when I hate, hey, do whatever you want. I'm like, I don't know what I want. I'm here to serve you. You know, this is, I'm a plumber, man. Like you tell me what you want shot and I'll make it work. But do whatever you want is like, well, all right, well, today I want to film it upside down. I don't fuck, you know, like, I don't know what you want.

And so, like, I primarily shoot documentary now. And I'm lucky enough that my director and producer, well, specifically the one director, but they switch jobs. But his name is Dylan. But he comes from narrative television and film. And so now that we're all doing documentary, he does his best to, give me on no budget,

give me the like pre-production and scheduling that he would normally give to a television show. So we do get to film at sunrise and sunset. We do get to, you know, like, I can't, you know, we'll fly to West Virginia. You know, I got a dock coming out, I think tomorrow. I don't know. It's a short. It's like 16 minutes. But it's for the Honnold Foundation.

I personally think it's some of my best work. But, and also my Emmy nominated friend who directed it said it's the best stuff he's on he has. So I'm like, good for me. But it's all because of the, as you're saying, the scheduling, knowing like where the light's going to be and planning a documentary around it. Like I found that at the time we were just doing it. But I was like now looking back on it and watching the thing. I'm like, yeah, you don't really do that with doc. You don't plan.

it doesn't seem like people plan them visually like that. You just ask like where are the people and we'll follow them. Whereas we went like, hey, we're going to talk about this. Like they did, you know, pre interviews with everyone.

And then they were like, we're going to meet you at this park, you know, as the sun's going down. So we've got like this, this couple and their child and they're like playing catch for an hour and a half, two hours.

Well, they're like, are we good? And I'm like, got the sunseeker app. And I'm like, 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

And like, all right. You know, we're just. just doing that. I'm like, what, what a privilege? I didn't realize it at the time, but it really is. I hope everyone gets to experience that. Because as you're saying, like, having, having the light where you needed, if that's all you got is I think the biggest sort of cinematic cheat code compared to having a 10 ton grip truck or whatever. Like,

will that look better? No, it'll look more shaped maybe, but I don't know if it'll look better. Yeah. Yeah, and we were, it's funny you bring up those things. I was shooting a couple episodes on a show in Los Angeles on the beach. It was a Baywatch. It happened to have been Baywatch. We've got one show on the beach, man.

You don't got to be coy. So, um, I just don't know where they're on it with the guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in, but, um, you know, we were in a couple, you know, it's, you know, I mean, I hadn't, you know, back home when I left in 2005, when I was shooting from 97 to 2005, and every second bloody shot is on the beach. You know, because we were at the Gold Coast at Warner Brothers. For whatever reason, we always ended on the beach somewhere for whatever reason. And, you know, it was interesting in all the little tricks we did back then.

And we were in this scenario on that show where, you know, it was like, okay, you're running out of life. You can't photograph the scene and then turn around blue's light. It just doesn't work. You're not coming back either. But it was interesting that that type of, you know, stuff back in Oz and all the rest of it, is like, you know, it was obviously different demands. It would cast and needs each day

with regards to action sequences. Something's nec manga, something's done. You know, and next thing you know, you're shooting at a tower and it's 630, and the sun goes behind Malibu

at, like, when we were shooting, it's like 7, 10. Right. So you have 40 minutes to do a two-page scene. And just not enough, like to, you know, for the characters, the director, you know, and just moving the gear in.

So it was just, it was one of those times where it's like, you know what, there's a very small window here. But I can balance both sides and shoot cross coverage with cranes and steady cams. And we walked away. We were very fortunate, of course, because some of us was where what needed to be. But again, that's coming back to that shooting in those environments where it was. like normally it would be the kiss of debt you can't cross cover but very very rare situations it was like the light was beautiful on the actress and she's taken directional hard light because it's just you know perfect enough that all shadows are gone but it's hard light right

And the fill light on the reciprocate actor, the lake looked phenomenal, even though it was balanced to the hot sheen out of the ocean. So it was interesting balancing from this T-stop to that T-stop, but also closing that down, you know. And normally certain lenses love every deep. has its own philosophy. Some people like shooting exteriors 284 or, you know, for the best look for the lenses.

But it was interesting on that day, I discovered that, you know what? On a 65 mill at 5, 6 feet, 7 feet, with the actor, you know, a loose midshot. That blinding light out of focus was such a detriment. And I thought,

what should be doing straight, I agree. Shoot, that one at T4 in the direct light. I'll shoot that one in the leadens. And by doing that, all of that overexposure sheen on the ocean started getting less and less and less and less and less and less. I was like,

we can I do that early? And it was like, this has been such a long time. I used to do that back 20 years ago, but I just haven't done it since then. But it was a lot of that type of stuff and because of where you are with characters in the sun, perfect light

for the wide shot and over and then you turn around for whatever reason and now the sun's directly over your shoulder and you have camera shadow and you're running in a light

so at that point it's like okay it's just bringing 20 by negatives bringing in an 18K and recreate a light where I want because you're not going to

see, you're going to see that the front lighting on the background, as long as I match that color and that intensity and that shape and design in the foreground, you'll never know that it was recreated by artificial source on. So those such of things were great to read, to rediscover that, you know, we'll learn all that years back in Australia because it was just like, we're not coming back. We've got this amount of time. sorry that the lights crap but you'd be going to have to do something with it you know so so it was well and when you when you've got the when you've got the ocean you know it's infinite so you don't have to worry you know everyone's predilection to shooting 2 8 it doesn't you know you

nature is giving you the depth of field you you can forget it you know just let it let it ride just stop down well actually that well no that's a perfect example because everything's going to Even if you threw NDs on it, having the lens wide open would still bloom, it would just be dimmer. Right. Right. Yeah. So it was just, it was, it was, I had an amazing time on that show. It was just great to shoot with all that changing exterior light from the wind layer to, to burn off to afternoon light and always trying to find the dignity and the beauty in the light.

for the characters without all filling always uniform, having a sense of time, day, so that was a lot of fun doing that. And we did something similar on the movie that just came out, fall two, and where we were always positioned with the mountain in this, we basically had an abandoned quarry that took over.

in a ratchet view in time and the directors were very, very smart but they're actually cannonmen in their own role so prior to me actually even getting over there they'd already looked at where

they needed to be within this environment so there was always source law so literally the way every set was was it had literally light on from morning to night

like it was always had light. It's great but you can't have people going up a mountain with the same light on them all the time. So at that point it became more about okay what's Mother Nature giving us? It was about taking away all the light

on the grounds much as possibly with negatives and then basically use the fly swallows with beards so that it's like 40 foot by 20 foot and putting three in them together and starting to manipulate each scene I would say to the to the grit electrics that let's put half silk on the top let's put a single net on the bottom let's put a negative on the next one that's put a full grid on the next one on the one below and they stood so we would do these different

patterns for each scene as if they're ascending and the environment around them is there's different lighting scenarios so that's how we tried to manipulate so even though if we were in the same environment hopefully there was transition with daylines and so forth that it felt like there was always the light was changing I've noticed with digital especially, the prevailing wisdom is often used more negative, or kind of what you were saying earlier about like everyone just kind of likes to diffuse

direct sources, but prevailing wisdom being a throw as much negative as you can in there. Did Greg shoot Vice? Whoever shot Vice, I remember seeing a behind the scenes photo, or like it's like George Bush and Dick Cheney are out having lunch or something. And the behind the scenes photo is like the entire house and the overhead all blacks. Right. And it was just the non, non direct light coming in. And I was wondering was that ever, because they didn't teach me that in film school.

We didn't know. I remember a rental house that used to exist over here. I was talking about negative fill. And the owner of the rental house was like, that's not a thing. And I was like, yes, it is. And he goes, what do you mean negative, Phil? That's what? And did you find that like in Australia that you were like, oh, we can take away light or was it always bounce?

I mean, I think for the most part, it was always bounced because the contrast was so extreme. It was almost like, I mean, back then it was XR, Vision 1 and then Vision 2. I like Division 2 stocks. They're nice. Beautiful. You know, I, on my favorite stock of all is the, is the 5293. Yes. The old 200 and when I saw that.

Yeah. And when I saw John Toll use it for the last samurai, because it has this very definitive look, which is basically, it has this kind of magenta bias in the, under-exposed mid-toms. Well, that's how I noticed what, but there's a beauty to it.

There's a beauty to that organic curve, which is just really quite lovely and painterly and whatnot. And, you know, but back home, because

the, well, from what I remember anyway, the light always feels a lot sharper and harder. And I think that said something to do what you touched on earlier. The ozone layer, there's less crap in the air. And so, you know, you're finding yourself more often.

You're not typically a digital, but digital first bringing out in Australia in late 90s to 2000. It was a night. Because a contrast ratio is just so extreme. You know, it just didn't have that beautiful fall off. and what the one. So from that end, it was more always about feeling and trying to balance those extreme exposures. But, you know, it's funny as a DP,

I don't know how other DP's still. But the more I'm starting to recognize and realize about taking light away more than adding, or using whatever's there based off the prevailing you're set or like having gone my eye can just take this way and take this way take that way rather than and and you know there's never going to beat mother nature and so to Greg's point it's probably with all that beautiful soft light to take away now you build your contrast in the reverse where you're just adding that in some shadows

but using the ambient contrasts the ambient light as you keep you know and uh obviously it's very flattering in a great sense of realism in the world feeling like it's fabricated yeah the one of my uh job actually the way this podcast started was i was one of my main jobs was writing for this website called pro video coalition and so through that i was able to get all these interviews and stuff and so uh for the longest time and to this day like even with this show but i still write for them but um is education. You know, I'm always trying to make sure that like, as you were saying, you know, before we started, like, these resources didn't used to exist when even when I was in college.

So trying to get them out there is important to me. But it's hard now to fight with basically YouTube where you've got all these younger creators who do have a good sense of style, but it's very specific. And it's often guided by the gear that they are given to. review or to keep or whatever it may be. And it's really hard when you're like on Reddit or whatever it may be and going like and they're like, what should my first lens kit be? And they're listing all these and say, I saw someone recently who was like, I would just love a camera that does raw, 32 bit float audio, has built in NDs and blah, blah, blah.

And they're listing all these things that like traditionally would be a $50,000 camera. And now they can have for two grand or whatever. And I'm like, God, it must be so difficult now to have. again, there's too many branches on the decision tree. You know, they'll be like, what light to the point is like, what light should I get? And a lot of times I'm like, don't, don't. Like, just don't, maybe one, like if you can get a $200 light panel that's kind of nice for, like for rap or something. But just don't focus on the story, man.

Like, just get some bounces, get some nag. That'll be much cheaper and you'll use it forever. I wonder because the systems are a lot far. It's a lot more available. I sometimes wonder if the tradition of understanding the basics, the very basics of everything, what light does, how does it, you know, like, you know, I, when I first started, like, it's 5,600 or 32, running for the most part, you know, with you guys, Sohisha, mild tungsten, Besson.

And then as you start to progress and you learn more and you start to absorb more, I particularly take, I'm more interested these days with the infinite possibilities of color. So I've found myself, I have been very, very fortunate or unfortunate to have been lot of situations where you're either recreating on stage, location work. And, you know, obviously that's a very tough hill to climb. But I realize what I find myself when I photograph every day, regardless of what day it is or what have,

I'll literally take the color temperature meter out. And I'll just take readings always between, and I'll just put it in my phone. 11 a.m. The direct source sunlight was this color. Ambient was this. Phil was this. And I'll just do it several times a date while I'm shooting.

I have a spreadsheet of exactly that. You really? Yeah, yeah, because I had a couple. Well, I can't remember. Someone at one point was telling me exactly about that, about recreating natural light on stage. And then they offhandedly were like, Well, obviously the like ambience or the bounce is one color in the direct light.

And I just went, oh, shit. I've never thought about the sun bouncing everywhere. This is a couple of years ago, so now I know it now. But it was such a silly revelation to have like, oh, yeah, I never really. But unless you have a color meter, you don't know. Yeah, you're not a line, mate. I had the same discovery too. And like, we were very fortunate.

I love that. loved shooting on the backlight of Universal for Bel Air. And we would have this, in New York Street, we would have this one set for one of the characters and it's a record store or something like that. And because of where we were, the time of year, and the height of New York Street, by 3.30, you started to have shadows really break into the down the street

looking up with the nurses. It's a tall set. tall, very tall. And by 4-4-15, you're really having that coolness really start to permeate the shadows. Now, and I thought to myself, well, that doesn't work because we're shooting a sequence from, you know, 330 to 5.30, 545. This doesn't work. But you're going to see the colour shift all over the place and then, you know, can you get in there? and, you know, once there's separation in color, yeah, maybe to a degree. But, you don't know, I never want to spend that time, first off, delivering dailies that look like, well, why does that look like that and that looks like that?

Right. It would never be, never thought of that. I've always thought, get a 90% there on the day. So I basically had the interior sets all LED-based. obviously the exterior lighting that was the ambience or sunlight was HMI's. So we would, I learned to, just by discovery, was to start the source lighting at whatever it was, right?

So say we were at 3,500 Kelvin inside and had a little bit of colour separation from interior to exterior. And then as it got cooler, the camera of colour temperature would go, it would be matching. So I would start at say 4,500 and get to like 8,000 by any scene. What would happen is all of the LED inside, I would keep making like a thousand degrees cooler,

thousand degrees cooler, and I keep chasing it. So I'm balancing based off the cool shadows and just adding CTBs to all the HMI's. So you're basically, to the eye, you're looking and it's like, wow, everything's got a wash of blue in it, but to the camera, it's looking like you did two hours ago without any bites. So that was something that I thought, wow, that's a really interesting thing I never knew before. And that's where Marvels of Modern Technology and LED allowing us to play with those color temperatures. And that's where, particularly shooting that show, it was an all black cast, how colour really is another semi-form of contrasts.

Yeah. You know, particularly those skin tones, beautiful skin tones that, you know, but warmth and the coolness, how that resonates on someone who's supposed to color as opposed to Caucasian. Yeah. You know, and so that was like,

oh, I can my soft directional source lighting here, that's flattering for the character, that then add another layer of contrast just with color. You know, and so, so that, you know,

that's definitely, to me, you know, I try to every morning walk around this neighborhood that I live in, just, I look at light every morning and I just go, I,

we, we just notice something different every day. How will I recreate this? What is this? And what, is that, oh, it's interesting what happens in 10 in a lot,ons from 5 a.m. to 6.8. Yeah. Yeah, it looks a lot.

So, well, the big one for me was learning, because obviously with older color meters, you just get color temperature. And that's helpful. But in my spreadsheet, but also just in general, especially on dock and stuff, when you're trying to make stuff look natural, I learned to your point about wonders of modern technology, the X, Y coordinates. Because obviously, like, color temperature doesn't really exist on that plankian curve in reality, right? There's always bounce from trees or buildings or whatever. So when you really like the way the light is, you know, I live on the west side of L.A., so we're often getting a lot of really nice light.

I make sure to write down all the X, Y coordinates, because that's going to give me, the exact like I guess dirty number. Yeah. And that just makes everything look just a little bit more real than, because that's a big beginner problem. I'll see a lot is they'll literally just set. They're like, it's supposed to be daylight. They set their light to 5600.

It's usually a cheaper light. And it just looks like blue, even though it's still the sun that they're matching to. It's like, but you did. How do you even know the light is giving you 5600? If you don't have the tool to, measure it. And it is more that I've realized

as you know schedules and shoots become more compact. Compact and becoming versions now as hybrid and VR sets and so forth where the live action

might be in the foreground and the virtual would be in the background and what have you. You know, now more than ever, I find that as you do LEDD walls or virtual sets or whatever you, I find myself more often than not playing with color and dirtying it up to such a debris that as you create ambience and the illusion of mid-ground, you know, when you're shooting, what will be car driving stuff or creating that illusion. from that ring to fall in. Colour to me is something really interesting

where we had this sequence on a show in ballet where we had a character. We'd already photographed the final singing of the show in the series, and then they added a character a month later. Basically we got Will a month later and it was Will talking to Will.

so it speak. And it will be, it played as an inner voice. Right. And we shot overlooking Griffith Park and then it was like, hey, we're going to do this pickup

in Universal on an LAD wall and we're going to go editorially from light action to stage to live action to stage because we'd already shot the coverage of one of the characters. And I was like, oh, God damn it.

I mean, this is like, this is a hard cut, you know. Yeah, yeah. But it was interesting that I didn't know when we photographed that this would ever be the scenario to your point. And so I was just taking light readings all day long of the changing lights and the bounds coming from the asphalt and the bounce coming from the trees. You know, what color was that?

You know, the yellow grass. off to the side and what did that look like. So by the time we got in there and he did that, there were 20 different colors within this environment to blend the foreground to the backgrounds. And I thought it did a really, I thought it was a, it worked, you know, I thought it was believable.

But that to me, if I would say it to anyone, I would concentrate more on color these days because it's we're in a position you as a cinematographer myself and whatnot where for whatever reason we're blending more

interior to exterior than ever before and that those old notions of where I left was 5,600 or 32 hundred it just doesn't look at it and go well

why is that blue or orange from country and to your point it's because it's bouncing around everywhere is very different to there. And that to me is like really exciting.

And I think that's my favorite part of photography now is color. Yeah. Well, and I always tell people who are trying to learn like grab some old photo film camera and that'll be far more instructive than investing in any digital system because, well, for contrast,

specifically in like what light is and what there's a hilarious thing that happens on the subreddit for film photography where someone will have just purchased some camera on eBay. They shoot their first role and then they post, hey, why do all these images look like shit? And there's this image of Gordon Ramsey screaming, it's raw from Hell's Kitchen or whatever it was. But they've done an edit on it where it looks horrifically under exposed and it just says it's, under and it's everyone always rushes to post that photo first because it seems like every single photographer who just gets into film doesn't understand they're so used to their digital camera fixing it that now that they're like wait why does this look grainy and green and the and it's like welcome to the club i mean to your point too it's it's i've been fortunate enough but i always

try to work with a UPM and line producer whether it be a feature or series of what have you of doing camera tests or the makeup or drive, what have you. But really, there's just to see now in the digital realm a lot with a character in a controlled environment so you can see, okay, what's soft white, what was hard light look like?

And some of it's not going to be flaring. Some of it's going to be, okay, that's going to work. That's not going to work. And it's funny that that used to be something that was done back in film days where you would do camera tests and you'd do up and down

six seven stops and you go holy shit this is seven stops under but it wasn't to it wasn't anything more than just you're finding the film language at that point of that of that subject and so you're going oh does that work or is that not work

I mean you know Harris Sabini's work on the game I think that It may David's One of my favorite films over And I think You know

That was I think the negative Was two stops under But then it went through A Bleach bypass Where I remember See it in the theatre And going

Those midtons look under But the blacks of Milky Sorry A jet black Like they look like Chains Yes Just look beautiful

like it's just gorgeous the shadows but those mid tones I know they're under how the hell did he do that you know and that I'm sure for looking at daylies it was like two stops on and we're shooting nighttime

prior to the contrast of the incident you know and but but that but obviously that was something that deliberate in the nature because they knew via testing this is with the path that we're taking.

And now, I think some of that's being lost where it's, you know, that I would encourage everyone to be bright, more bright. Yeah, I mean, the I've seen a lot of

audience bemoan the look of modern films. And I think it is largely, overstated. I think people only see, you know, I produce a stand-up show and we're starting a new one. I've been doing it for like eight years, 10, almost, yeah, like eight years. And something I'm noticing now is like people don't search comedy show. You know, they see whoever's on their

Instagram or their TikTok or whatever, but they only know one to three names. And I think film is starting to become that same thing where it's like they only see. one to three movies. And if it's not The Odyssey or whatever, they're not exposed to, I don't want to say good filmmaking, because that's obviously subjective, but I do think that like,

the low budget floor has been raised so aggressively. You know, you get a competent camera, competent lighting. You know, it used to be that like 16 millimeter that was lit terribly, you're like, oh, that's an indie film. And you gave it that grace. and now you don't because it's all on Netflix, right?

So right next to the best movie you've ever seen is something that costs $3 million and it's given the same platform. And yeah, I do think that it is that level of that attention to detail maybe is a little lost. I don't think people necessarily fix it in post, but I do think there is a lot of we can shape it in post. 100% and I I hate that word to be words because it's like if it's always served me well there's nothing better than you're looking at dailies or you know a lot of people these days look it's just sales as opposed to looking at pics or what have you and if people can look at them go yep that's the film or that's the show or whatever then then it's it's it's also job

security too you know but it is it is interesting that I always have this belief in this philosophy that no one cares if someone got sick. No one cares if the set was washed away. All that matters is what goes in the tin. So now that everyone's in the same boat, all cameraman are in the same boat. Everyone has challenges each day because you're working with people. And that's just people. And so now that you know that you have the same canvins, there's no excuse.

what goes in the can. And a lot of that is just problem solved. And that's all it is because we all have the same camins, you know, cast member or an actor, location or a set, and a camon. So now what do you do? And I think,

I think boiling it down to those basic forms is like, okay, there's no excuse to think. There's no Kiron. I only had 20 days to do this or whatever. It's none bits of shit. It's like, did you deliver as best you could within for that film? You know, because everyone's going to be in the same butt.

Everyone's going to have the same scenario. We do, I do. We're all in the same bar. And speaking of Fincher, that was actually something that Eric Messerschmitt told me that it stuck with me a lot was like, no one is going to give you points for making your day. no one no one's gonna be like i like you know oh oh that looked kind of ify but they made their day so i'm gonna they don't fucking know no one knows that and so it's like just if you got if you have

to make your day we all do then you know the work in i think a lot of times too and this isn't just with film but i think this is modern people you want to it's really exciting to get started on something. I think that's like why a lot of people are attracted to AI is you can you can get you know really far ahead just with like an idea. But if you don't know how to if you don't know what you're doing, you just know you just have the idea. It doesn't you're going to get on set and then start shooting and like, where do I fix this? And if you don't have those those prior tools, like I, you know, like you were saying earlier, like knowing how to make build contrast with celluloid.

It feels semi-archaic, but it's like that's going to help you when things get quote-unquote easier. It's going to help you make your day in a way that what goes in the can is good. And it's tough too because for all of us as filmmakers, it's, you know, the industry is evolving constantly, but we are in a situation now. where we will have to be able to photograph and deliver in shorter time periods. And so, you know, it's a much different canvas and landscape that we're making art in. But at the same time, it's just, okay, these are now the new golfers, how you do it.

And I feel very fortunate that I was lucky to start at the beginning of my career in the mid-90s in Australia when films still prepping. And it was great to, you know, back home, we were very heavily ary. Right. So it was all B-L-4s, RRI 3s, B-L-3s, SR2s and threes. And then the campaign along and what my time. I mean, Parodicine was definitely had presence in Australia, but it was really Araflex that was straight.

And it was just great to, you know, I miss those days where we would just be rolling and you just hear the flutter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Next to your ear and, you know, it was just, it was something, I'm glad I got a chance to actually experience that, you know, because it would be very different to be learning now without that magic of, well, just the deliberate nature of film,

you know, because it costs them. Well, and I think something I've always, obviously, well, now, you know,

Kodak is starting to, because of, like, Nolan and, and, you know, they're buying so much film that Kodak's allowed,

able to spool up their machines again and, like, get film out for everyone. That's great. Oh, dude. I, so I was at the Kodak. How does that work with all the labs?

like, like, so, In Australia, I think we only have maybe one lab. So here, here I think it's basically, I think it's just technicolor and maybe like one or two other. Like the labs are few and far between. But I was at the Kodak Awards last year. And maybe this is two years ago.

But the guy who runs it was like, yeah, they hired me to shutter this part of Kodak. Because obviously Kodak makes like medical engineering and all this other stuff. And he was like, they. hired me to spool it all down. And he was like, I'm not doing that. So he figured out. And it was either last year or two years ago, it was the first time in decades that Kodak is in the black.

And they're seeing more and more pick up. I think, I think, speaking of the AI thing, I think people, the average audience member, and I think to people that work in the industry, are sick of immediacy. Like people are just like, I want to slow down. I want to make sure this is real, whatever. And when you have people like Nolan and a few of the other guys that are like film only, investing in creating film, you know, Kodak can make a lot more of it for the rest of us.

And so that is becoming easier for the average person. But mild tangent. But I always tell people like it's still best to learn that way. Like everyone likes to say, even in film photography, like, oh, it slows you down. like it makes you more deliberate and it's like you can still do that. You don't have to just because you can go fast doesn't mean you should. Yes. It's just difficult when you have that tool that allows you to go faster.

I won't go fast. Of course we all want to go fast. Race cars are fun. It is interesting that I love film always will. Soft spot my heart. As the industries force its hands into the digital realm, and whatnot, and imposed itself for the better part of the last many years. Trying to see an upside of that, as we are all purists, but it is comforting and it is nice

to have the lad if you have to shoot digital right there. And then so now you're manipulating the CDO and whatnot. And two, does this feel like this is the tone of the movie or the show of what avenue? And seeing that right there. You know, if you can't have film, then the alternatives, well, then give me the light right here. So it is great to see that films make resurgence, that's for sure. And I think that, I think there's a place in the sun for it all to exist. it's always the money well it's it's always the money in that you find a dollar for every

conversation of going well we we have to fly to film to you know this location to to this lad what happens if this goes wrong the way I mean that was just the norm back then I just I mean it didn't change the way we approached it but I think to your point the immediacy's changed the way we approach it, that now tradition almost seems cumbersome. Yes. And I think we could be tripping over that to a degree in as well. I mean, a lot of our hands are forced by the budgets and the producers and whatnot. But I think that there's a responsibility as much as we can to, to,

follow tradition and to, you know, continue that because it worked for so long. And I don't know where I would be today if I was learning photography for the first time now in the digital realm as opposed to back in film days. I mean, I started way back. My first ever job in the film business was I was a cleaner at the light single screen theater that I grew up in the country town. Australian. At 2 a.m. I'd be doing popcorn seeds and all the rest of it. And the movies appeared around the open three nights a week.

But I learned lighting, very rudimentary and raw, from sitting in the projection booth watching Breakheart through the eyes, Forrest Gump, you know, 70, 80 times. and trying to look for the shadow on the ground. And then I work out, okay, the light's coming from there, then if it's over there. Or staring at eyeballs. Yeah, staring at eyeballs. You know, that's how I kind of,

because there was no film school for me. So I was kind of trying to teach myself how to do this. But then again, that comes back to the tradition of film, learning. And it was almost like when you see soccer players, sometimes with certain coaches. They won't have a soccer ball. They'll just basically be doing everything else

but kicking the ball. Because you're learning the fundamentals. We're learning that, okay, once I understand this, now you can do this. Yeah. I'm a big hockey guy. Yeah. And playing hockey is certainly, like everyone says,

oh, hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sports. And it's like, yeah, when you have an MLB pitcher, I think it's off of a pitching machine. It's kind of trivial, but hockey by far the hardest thing to do and shooting the puck isn't one of them. You know, skating. Skate like, skating is impossible. And so you'll see, like, when you're getting started, all you, like, learning to stop is a multi-month affair. You know?

And I think, I think that's a good comp is like, I often think of filmmaking as analogous to sport because. you're on a team. There are fundamentals, as you're saying, there's a goal, whether physical or otherwise. You know, you all got to move in the same direction. And a lot of it isn't,

in this case, the camera. You know, it's the management of people. That's another thing that don't fucking teach you in film school is you're going to be, you're a department head now. You know, we all think, oh, we're going to, we're making music videos with our friends, this is great, let's do this forever. And then they're like, well, now you're a bureaucrat.

And you're like, ah? Yeah. Well, and to your point, it's, I always, I think the photography, the actual part that I love is really only 20% of the job. Yeah. The underrated percent is, is navigating the political mind filled of studio producers, creators, writers, actors, and, you know,

working within that system of essentially getting people to hopefully buy into what your vision and your art is even though there's a cost to it. So how do you do that? How do you have someone who's like,

look, either way of doing this and we're not going to put money over here, we're not going to put money over there and you're like, no, no, if we do this, it will benefit the visuals and the picture as a whole, but let me offset this in order to pay for that and all the rest of it. And how do you, how do you motivate 150 people? You know, how do you, you know, it's 2 a.m. in the morning, everyone wants to go home, you know, and it's, in the productivity, each one's less and less. And so, like, it's, you know, it's, and so, Like, you know, it's, it's so much, and maybe I'm only noticing this more the older I get,

but there's so much more, you know, that I'm only a small piece in the puzzle. And I need everyone to be part of that puzzle. I'm no different. But how do you encourage people to have ownership of the show? and how do you bring them in? Yes. Once they do that, then the collective is, it's amazing what can be achieved with the collective. I was shooting a bunch of like seven or eight sort of testimonial videos for this business consultant.

And the business consulting company was called EOS. And they, I learned a bunch from that that I applied to film. And the crazy thing was it didn't matter. It was car filters. It was lawyers. It was bars, whatever. And they were all like, yeah, we were stuck and wanted to kill each other. And we weren't making any money.

And then we started implementing these ideas. And now we're like quadruple what we were making. We're all friends. And a big part of that was getting everyone to, as you said, exactly, have ownership of the final product. Even if you're making, again, car filters. It's like if people just feel like they're a cog in the machine and no one's watching them and whatever and any idea they have gets shot down because they're not the right person to say it, that will kill any project, whether it be film or otherwise.

But when everyone feels like they're heard and they have a hand in what's happening and that they're a contributor and even better if you can find some way to have a metric for that. Yeah. That can't always happen. But, you know, no, you don't get, there's no leaderboard for like, had a good idea, check. But they then will go that, you know, even if it is 2 a.m. and they're tired. Like if they feel like they have ownership,

usually they'll, I'm not saying you should overwork your people, but they will want to get us across the finish line versus the alternative. 100%. And I think part of that too is, is anyone who is in a leadership position is, we think it's a big,

it's an important fundamental of don't ask someone to do something you haven't done or wouldn't do. And so part of that is, It is like, you know, hey, let me, you know, a lot of it is, you know, I think having people trying to believe in what you're doing. And I feel like all great filmmakers, they embody this ability. It's not true randomness that Finch, Spilberg, and Cameron, Nolan, and Mark, man and, you know, all these directors consistently have a high level of, you know, excellence regards of the subject matter that they're creating.

Because somehow they have the ability to pull together a bunch of filmmakers and use those strengths to overcome the natural resistance of time, money, locations, weather, and still deliver something amazing. Like, amazing as Odyssey is, it would have been rough as guts trying to make them. Just because, like, and, you know, people are going to be sitting out there wet, cold and all the rest of it. And, you know, it's, it's for Hoyt and for Chris, it's like, okay, this is great. this is what we want, but for maybe the third company grip,

it might be like, this is bloody miserable, right? But how do you get that, everyone walking in that same direction? Because I think ultimately, I think those types of scenarios, they end up to seep onto the screen

when it's made out of, I don't know, so when it's made out of love and things like that, it ends up, everything that, whether we, as artists, a glutton's for punishment,

that every production that is hard somehow creates something that is, you know, like every one of the movies that we love is as audience meetings, Star Wars or aliens, or it was a bloody nightmare to mind. And given any point in the day,

you're probably like, this is going to be terrible. We're never going to see the end of this. But it's that resilience, right? think that's what filmmaking is to every person, whether an actor, a director or a DP or producer or writer, what have you, there's resistance every single day that's going to be standing in front of you saying it's easy, just give up. Yeah. Phone it in. Phone it in. And you're fighting beyond tired. It's Friday and you've put in 75 hours. You've slept four, five hours a night. and it's like, we've got to push through it.

Because ultimately what everybody's achieved that week will be there forever, and no one cares if you slept or you didn't sleep. Yeah. Did you ever read The War of Art? No, no. Because you just quoted it. Oh, true. It's, I think Stephen.

Yeah. Yeah, I think his name is Stephen Presfield. But the idea was that the hardest thing for any, artist, he was mostly, I believe, talking about writing, but it applies to anything, is what he deemed resistance, what he called this force, this unseen force that he calls resistance, which is exactly as you said, the thing that tells you like, hey, you know what, you can just, just call in sick today, just pretend, lie to them, tell them you can't make it. Like, it's best, it's best if you just don't. Or the other version that I have found, especially in filmmaking, is this

pernicious idea that you need more prep or more gear, not prep like pre-production, but like, you need to take more classes, you need to own more gear, you need to, before you can get started. This idea that like, oh, you know, you can't start yet. You're not ready. You know, there's just more, because it's so much easier to learn than it is to do. And that's, so that's the same thing as sleeping in or whatever it may be is, oh, you know what, don't, don't get started now. that's going to be so much.

You know what you should do? Go back to school. Get a doctorate in photography, you know, which obviously is... It's hard to put you so about there, right? Like, when you really think about it, we're all very vulnerable with your take on the world, your contribution to this craft and whatnot. and, you know, just by nature,

as being people, no one wants to hear that it's garbage or it didn't do very good or what have you. And so there's probably 50% of the population that will run and hide from that. And I'd rather just feel perpetual learning where I'm not put to tasks. And then the other 50% is like, okay, I just want to get on the field.

I just want to Like if I drop a ball So be it I want to get on the field You know And that's and that's really You know That's life right

Like it's like You don't want to be Well I don't want me I don't want to be looking back at my life And going I didn't take it I didn't take a chance I didn't take a shot

And like Yeah there's always an element Of risk of failure And rest of it But that's okay Because the more I understand what I can control and contribute, then I realize the more that is actually on me than anyone else.

And so, and I'm like, I'm good with those odds. Then it's like, okay, so if we all have, you know, the proverbial mountains we're climbing in our minds, whether it be life goals or career goals, whatever. Or literal mountains. Was that? Or literal mountains, like the fall. Little mountains.

And I always look at it like, you know, if you don't even make whatever it is the craft or the arts or the peaks that you want to achieve in as well, you know, ultimately the only person to blame is in the mirror. Yeah. A big lesson for me was figuring out that like when I was younger, I was real like, you can do anything. I mean, I think every, a lot of young people are just like, yeah, I can do anything. everything's possible and I'm capable. And then, you know, you get beat down in one way or another. And then you become scared. And a big lesson for me in my like mid-20s, late 20s, which feels like it too long,

but was learning that the best way to get away from fear is to do. The one thing that you actually, you know what, I can simplify that. anything in my life that I am cautious about, not cautious in like a security sense, but like where resistance shows up and tells you to phone in it. Normally that's the thing. You should like the dishes. You know, you're like, oh, that's a lot of dishes. And like you're like, I'm going to do that late.

If I ever have that thought of like, I'll do that later. It's like that's the perfect opportunity. That is exactly when you should tackle it when your brain tells you not to. I like that. You know, it's funny that you bring that up because it's like, I look at, I look at, you know, whether it be life or film, I look at it now through the perspective of, you know, you break it down to the sum of its parts.

And so I always think about it each day, if I'm not on set shooting, what did I want today about? about photography. And so I, even if it's five minutes of thinking about it and go, oh, that's interesting, that's a day. And then by the end of Monday to Friday, you've learned five things. It's trying to be consciously aware of where that is, where you are in relation to your craft and your art or life and whatnot.

And it's amazing how much. that I've discovered it that aids you in your choices as an artist gone forward as it would not necessarily be self-away. You know, and there's something in that. But to your point, mate, I think you made the best point throughout this was that it doesn't matter about gear,

it doesn't matter about, you know, you're ready once you cross this line sort of thing. I think the beauty about this industry and this bra. Anyone can start at any age. There's no right, there's no wrong. And when we watch film, when we watch news and series and commotures, all it is is a person's perspective. Right?

and everyone has a different perspective. If we were to look at colour, you might look at gold or yellow or red or burgundy, different to why I do. You're not wrong, I'm not wrong. It's a perspective. And when you start to deal with things like that, it's like, oh, now everyone's on the same playing field

because it's just someone's perspective. And someone's perspective might be more in line with the general audience than say someone else. it doesn't mean it's right or wrong, but it's just, that's just the way they see the world. And then when you look at it, you go, huh, we're really at the same starting points.

And I think that's hopefully the healthy way of looking at, you know, people, filmmakers, you know, regards of what cultural or ethnicity or, you know, where they come from around the globe is like, it's just your perspective in the way you see the world, you know, and there's something beautiful about that.

And then, you know, so many different people can coexist, like, you know, the Darius conjis and Wolskis of the world is extraordinary how they see shadows and darkness. And then you have the Dean Seminus and the Garpons and the sealers and the Eric Mischischitz. And everyone, you know,

obviously Baja Deacons and Chiva Labetsky and everyone has a different way of looking at the world. And no one's right, no one's wrong. It's just, it's really cool that all of those different flavors can coexist. And then once tonight it's like, shit. I like these types of shows. I like that. We'd go out and do it. Well, and there's so many people that don't.

So, you know, we look at all the Chivos and the deacons of the world and go, well, I can never do that. And it's like, well, but if you do it, you'll be one of 20, let's say. And then you'll be someone potentially that someone else goes, oh, I like the way that, because you just did it. Yes. So many people don't do it. They don't see your point of view. So we don't know what exists.

So if you go do it. It's crazy how paralyzing fears. Yeah. And I think it's an important element. in filmmaking this fear. I think it's an important element because I think it ultimately keeps you alive because you're never going to

and one failed. But having that little bit of fear that you could fail, you may not make the day. You may not live up to what you envisage in your mind. It's a good reset button to go, well, how do I not get to that point where I don't fulfill them.

What do I got to change? What behavioral? What things do I need to learn? What do I need to? Because all of these people, imagine Cameron when he did the abyss. It was our underwater line. Yeah.

So going to the studio going, what's this line item for this lighting? Oh, we have to build the underwater lighting because it's only 500 watts currently, but we need to get it up to 2K, 4K, whatever. And it's like, we have to develop the tech in order to make the moon. Right. Can you imagine the undertaking of that?

It must have been extraordinary. And, you know, he had this amazing thing that's in this Docker where they had, I mean, obviously, James, obviously, an extraordinary engineer. They discovered these black balls and beads that they'd put on the top of the nuclear reactor. And cast and crew could just go through it. and then it just closes up. And it's extraordinary when you think about it and it floats. And it's like, that's ingenious. But they had to come up with that in order to black out and shoot during the day

as if it's underwater, what knows how many miles. And it's just, what an ingenious thing to come up with, you know? Because normally people would go, well, let's just foot blacks over top. Well, then how do you get in and now the weight of it? And it's all problem made. They're going to get ripped and all the rest of it. And so yeah, Cameron comes up with these little lightweight beads. He was at a chucky cheese and he sees his kid go in and he goes, ooh, actually.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's extraordinary. Like, how do I make this movie underwater where I need to use models and rear screen with the tiniest rear projectors in tighter model? Coexisting with a live action. And I mean, all of this stuff, it's fear, right? Like the studio's on his shoulders. It's like, you got to deliver it.

You said you would. I'm sure there's an element of fear going, how do I do this? Okay. I know today I've got to find out how to do it. Fear is driving me to do it. So somehow I'm going to find a solution. Yeah. I think that's a really important part of a human condition

of using fear to scubble. Well, and failure. Yes. Right? Failure goes hand in hand with, because if you don't fail, like the worst people are people who are handed success early and they think they're invincible.

The people who have failed a million times and then become successful, it's like, I'll follow you into the sun. I've known a few filmmakers like that, Mike, that at an early age had a lot of success. It came fast. and for the rest of us that had to, you know, earn new stripes, so to speak, they lost that ability to learn resilience.

So when they were tested later, they hadn't learned those attributes to be resilient to conflict or hearing the word no or what have you. And it was really sad because it almost became, it fractured this exterior, so much. You know, I think you need to have that because it humbles you too. And hopefully, you know, we all make mistakes with life. And hopefully we learn from it and it makes us better tomorrow.

And then you just, you know, who wants to live a life without making mistakes and going, I'm better for it. Yeah. I always think of like Sam Jackson. You know, he started acting when he was like 40 or something. And it's like, yeah, he had a whole life. At this point, if whatever movie he was making early on didn't work, he's like, well, I'll just go back to my, you know, not a big deal.

My girlfriend is in the dance industry and she has some coworkers at the studio she teaches at that like, we're on like dancing with not dancing with a start. Like America's got talent and like one. or were like really famous in the dance world when they were kids. And now knowing these women in their mid-20s, late-20s, and you, I'm thinking of a couple specific ones, but certainly I won't name them. But watching them struggle with like, I was on fucking television and now I'm dealing with these nine-year-olds. Like they don't necessarily verbalize it, but every once in a while if you're hanging out with them outside of the job, you know,

that sort of thing kind of pops up. And I'm like, I hate that for you. I hate that like you got a taste of it when you were young. And you didn't, not that they didn't earn it, but they didn't go through what I believe to be a prerequisite necessary struggle. Because then it's like, why isn't my life? And of course, they're all transplants. They're not from L.A.

So you got that whole like, I live here shouldn't. I live here and I want to think. Like every time I talk to someone who like won an Oscar or something like that, you know, they'll be, I'll be like, what did that? changed and they're like nothing. Yeah. It's easier to get meetings. That's about it.

I, you know, it's, I, I look back at, you know, at the film and, and I love the idea that we started off as a second A.C. And then you lighted and then you became first A.C. You know, but by that stage, even fast track, that might be seven or eight years, nine years and then you might be, you know, an operator. Back home in Australia, we pretty much operators, D.C., you've shot your own stuff. So, right. We genuinely operate a lot of their own stuff.

But it was, you know, it may be even fast-tracked seven or eight years to get to shooting. And but I enjoyed those times because I was always looking at what was happening around the set. Once you perfect it being a second A.C. And then in Lover and the first AC, you just got this oodles amount of time and you're just watching. I was always watching the DP and how they would communicate

and just basically on the set and all that type us up. And it's, I think, I wonder if some of that's been moss now with digital because you can literally consume product and now you can go out and start making movies. And really the understanding of all these traditions, you're kind of not being, you know, exposed to. Not that it's wrong or right.

It's just I feel for those people that don't get to experience that. Well, and another thing that like this show I've been trying to do, because I learned early on mentorship is debt. You know, there's no one. I mean, you've got like the ASC vision program and stuff, but that's really hard to get into. And also, I think, no, the classes are expensive. I think the mentorship's free. But it is, you know, it's much harder to get learned knowledge than it is to get, you know, like I said earlier, like YouTube people who are competent, but not built within the system.

And also to your point about like being an AC and stuff, you get that time to learn. and sit around. If you jump straight to deep, and I say this is someone who basically jumped straight to DP. So this is like, you know, kicking myself in the teeth.

But like, you get on set and you're the DP. Now you, you don't have any time. Like, you don't get to talk to anyone. If you're, if you're a grip and they're shooting,

you can just chill and talk and watch or whatever. But, you know, when you're in charge now, it's like you don't, that's not learning time. That's go time. And if you,

you know, if you're learning, hopefully it's a, quiet lesson. You know, it's, but I would say this, what an exciting time

it is to be part of this film business. Like, you know, for anyone that's coming into the business today or is a veteran or is, is shooting and working in wars with.

What an exciting time to be part of this business where the craft and it is now, it used to be beholden to people that had access or productions that had access to rent and all the rest of it. And now anyone can do it all. And that to me is really exciting for all those new film makers. The next generation, the rest of it.

Whereas I remember when I was the second, they see, you know, probably for about five to six years, I had nothing but film stock in my fridge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe two liter of milk. But that was it, and I, you know, and so I would, the friends, you know, the production that I was on, you know, and I would take the film cameras on a Friday night, and I'd just go shoot on Saturday. I knew the lab, so all I had to pay for was telecitting.

And so that that was how, it was such an ordeal to do that back then. And now it's great that you have these amazing camera systems that are cost effective and that you can go out and start doing that yourself and learning and all the rest of it. And that to me is like, wow, is everything that's at your fingertips, which is really exciting. And I think it's an exciting time for the business because of it. You know, I'm glad. Well, an exciting time for artists, the business might be a little sketch right now. I'm grateful for when I learned when I did because, like I said, I was glad to learn film and at least see that side of it and whatnot and see the transition from film to digital.

And, you know, but at the end of the day, you know, it's just great to be around people that are like-minded and going, you know, it doesn't matter who you want. are anyone on a film set is there because they love Thurn. And they will have a sorrios. What was the movie that influenced you that you wanted to be part of this business? Because it's not like you just turn up on a work site and you, hey, we're going to grab you and you're going to be a PR. No, no.

You have to actually outsource and seek it. And so everyone has a story of why they want to be part of this business. And I think that's an exciting thing. You could have 150, 200 different sets. And everyone has a story as to why they won't be here. I think that's really cool. I think that's really cool. Yeah.

That's probably a good place to end it. I've kept you well over your allotted hour. And I have to be cognizant of people's time. But I would love to continue the conversation as soon as you're able. Let's not make it six years. No worries, mate. No worries. But please stay in touch.

And I think this will be one of the more instructive conversations I think we've had in some time. So I'm really happy to have you back. Yeah, it's great chat with you, man. You too, mate. And thanks for your time. And yeah, we'll do this and might be six years. Yeah, sounds good. All right, Mike.

Take it. Bye. 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.