Frame & Reference Podcast - 3: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom" DP Tobias Schliessler, ASC

Episode Date: February 11, 2021

On todays episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast, Kenny talks with cinematographer Tobias Schliessler, ASC about the new Netflix film "Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom." Tobias has quite the filmography including “Beauty and the Beast”, “Lone Survivor”, “Friday Night Lights”, “Hancock” and much more. Make sure to check out his IMDb for a full rundown of his work and enjoy the episode! Liking the podcast? Leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app!  Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry.

Hello and welcome to this, the third episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan. I am a cinematographer and the founder of Owlbott Digital Cinema here in Los Angeles, a small production company, and I've been a contributing writer at Pro Video Coalition for about four years now. Today we're talking with Tobias Schlisler, ASC, which is kind of hard to say in English. He is the DP of the new film Maureenies Black Bottom, starting Viola Davis and Chad with Bozeman, which is available on Netflix. We have an amazing conversation.

I really loved this one. I learned a lot. Tobias is very generous with his time and his knowledge. You know, we talk about how important it is to always be working and take, you know, whatever job comes your way, more or less, you don't just take anything, but, you know, surround yourself with people smarter than you, always be learning, always be progressing. Tobias's CV is

incredibly long. He shot on top of really sort of powerful dramas, I guess it's not a document docudrama, I don't know what you can call it, historical drama like Maureani. He also shot Battleship. So, you know, huge

wealth of information and talent. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Tobias Schlisler ASC. So, Tobias Thank you so much for joining us on the second episode of Frame and Reference. Where are you joining us today? I'm in Vancouver right now in Canada.

I'm working on a Netflix movie here, but I'm thrilled and honored to be on your second show. Thank you for having. Oh, no, the honor is entirely mine. I was just given me and my girlfriend watched the film in question Ma Rainey's Black Bottom last night. Loved it. We'll get to talking about the lighting. and lensing and all that later. But I was just taking a quick look at your CV.

It's long. It's long. I was a lot of these. I love, you know, Pelham 1, 2, 3, Hancock, Dreamgirls, Friday Night Lights. Just great. The Omen. Oh, the TV version. Still, excellent, excellent stuff.

How did you get started? I got started. I grew up in Germany. And actually, my father was a mountain climber that, did a lot of expeditions all around the world and to finance it he ended at first he did slideshows and then he did documentaries on film television documentaries on his expedition so i grew up with literally cameras in our basement and my mother was editing his films so it was kind of like a family production and so i grew up with it then i got into photography when i was

younger and moved in my early 20s to Vancouver where I'm right now. I've lived here to the mid-90s and then moved to California, but I started really here in the film business. I went to Simon Fraser University here in Vancouver and studied film. I always loved images. I always loved, you know, cinema. But, you know, growing up, it was more like a documentary style that I was accustomed to. And I really liked the traumatic end and telling stories. And so I went to film school. I wasn't quite sure. at the time whether I was going to get into directing or, you know, editing. I mean, I was always drawn to the photography site, but going in, I was open,

but, you know, in my first year, I started shooting student films, and everyone kind of meant, like, well, you know what you have a good, you know, sense for it. So I ended up shooting a lot of student films. I just loved being behind the camera, right? Even in film school, I just immediately was drawn to it. and the lighting aspect and the camaraderie and the team effort on it. It's not just myself. I love working with my crew.

And so it just became, I got, you know, I fell in love with it and never done anything else. I was very lucky. I mean, I started here coming out of university. It was very quiet in Canada and Vancouver. There was none of these, like, you know, right now there's like 70 production shooting here at the time. There was really like one or two movies. And it was really hard to get. in as a camera system and anything so coming out of school having done quite a lot of student

films and actually one of my you know right out of film school i did a documentary for the national film board with one of my fellow students charles wilkinson who gave me my first job and and so i got out i ended up buying a camera and saying like i'm a dp right because i really don't even have much choice. And then I just started slow. I started just working my way up from like tiny little documentaries to very small independent movies and industrials. I mean anything I could get my hand on whether I got paid or not for the first 10 years. I mean, I remember my first movie I got paid I think $1,800 for like three months of work and included my van and my camera and everything else that came with it, right? We had a budget of like $30,000.

$40,000 to make it. But really, so I just started small. And I, you know, I learned everything from the crew I worked with. I always kind of made sure I hired a GAFA that knew a little more than I did. And my key grip or my assistants or my operators later, right, it's just big, I learned from them. I didn't learn from, you know, there's two ways of going, I think, in this business is like you work your way up as a camera assistant, you learn from DPs, you work, you know, become an operator maybe and just move up but you see you learn why you're on set i just did it the route of going small small small taking chances but never chances where i felt like i can't do it because that's one of the things you know you have to be careful was when you when you're not really

officially trained and you're learning for on the goal but i really learned i always had like a fantastic crew and you know i would ask my god for what did you do on your last job with this d peter really admire the, you know, and I would learn the tricks and that's how we go. And then in Vancouver, once it, you know, it became like in the late 80s, it became, you know, there was a lot of television movies coming in from the States and I was one of the, you know, a few DPs in town, right, that had a bit of experience. So I started doing television movies. And then, you know, there came that point where I had to make this choice. Like, I had to, I felt like I wanted to just, work on bigger scale movies and it was hard to do this here at the time and so i ended up

moving to los angeles and working my way up there again i started doing commercials there and then through the commercials i met the directors that i wanted to meet and you know i was you know it took me a long time i think i always think like a career of a dp you know i mean of course you can be lucky and you can be on the one independent movie that you make right out of film school and it wins Sundance and you're moving on, right? It happens, but in general, I think it takes 10, 15 years to really learn your craft and for people to trust you that you can do certain budgets. I mean, I always meant like from $50,000 movie to $100 to $500 to $1 million to $10 million

to, at the end it was like $250 million movies. But, you know, it took me time, right? I was not one of those overnight successes, for sure not. I've worked really hard and I always felt like I just kept on shooting, right? I just took every job. I could because I always felt like I learned from every job. And from every job, you can meet someone. You never know who you meet on any movie or any job or any music video.

It always usually leads to something else, right? And you have to have patience. You never know that comes around two, three years later. Or the things you thought, like, why am I doing this? It ends up being the one thing that just moves you forward, right? Yeah. Well, and also too, like when you take, I think it's really important what you're saying about just like working and working and working. I think a lot of people can get too caught up in trying to be the auteur as a DP. And I don't think, you know, you're not going to pay the bills that way. And I think everyone, you know, you get the big movies. You get even the big for you if you're on the lower end. But everyone's got to pay the bills and being kind and working on whatever you can. You end up meeting people. people who are also just paying the bills, but then maybe they get a break and they remember that they liked working with you. And then off you go. It is like that, right? And I mean, I see

sometimes friends of mine that are starting out, right? I have assistance or, you know, they're all going, oh, I don't know if I want to do this because it's not that great in the script. And I go, like, well, you're at this place at the beginning, like, the chances of you just working on something, you know, if it's not that great, but you have the experience, you learn what, you know, like, to this day, I learn every time I do something, right? Like I say, I learn every time. this is our business nothing is the same and the more you learn the better you will be and you are always come you know something might happen i go oh i did this like this worked for this right and even though maybe it was not a great project but i learned something and it's just dealing with

the experience of dealing with directors producers ades getting things done on time this is all stuff that yes if you're lucky and you don't have to work you know you you might sidestep a lot of this stuff, but in general, it helps as a DP to have that background, right? It doesn't matter. I find, like, you know, it doesn't matter how talented you are, but you need that experience, right? You need the experience of how to move a crew around or how to make a day or how to plan your day or, you know, that you can learn on things that are maybe not that great, right? Or that you feel like it might not do something for you, but eventually it will do something for you, right? well and I think to that point like you can we were talking about this in the last podcast like you can go to as many schools as you want you can read everything you can read every episode or a edition of American cinematographer you can hang out on Roger Deacon's forums and read everything but you'll never get the onset you can't you can't buy onset experience so it's better to just take the job I agree with you you can't it's it's a different thing and it's funny because I see it you know I might have

an operator or a gaffer that's been doing it for a long time they've been on set for a long time but you know you throw me in the situation where i'm like oh i can't do this or can you do this shot or can you do this and they don't know how to do not that they don't know how to but it's a different thing right like to actually it's one thing of learning it or seeing it but you have to physically do it right i find you to be physically there with a camera you have to understand where the light comes from you have to understand when you suddenly you establish the light from one side and you haven't thought about that the next shot is really coming from somewhere where the light doesn't look that great. Now what do you do? You've established it. All those things that you, it's hard to

learn unless you do it. And timing, you know, when you're under that crunch, things change very drastically, you know, in academic setting, you don't really get to, you have a lot more time to think. I mean, I compare cinematography to playing chess, right? It's a chess game. I come in there the morning and i literally have to think of every i think of every try to think of every set up what it's going to take me to do all day long like i establish a scene how is it going to be in my last shot when i have to come around and that's you know that's not something that you can just learn right that's experience right yeah you know how much time you can spend on one shot how long it you know how far you can push it and where you take sometimes more time and less time that's all

stuff that you, you know, you don't learn how to be a good chess player in one day or in one year. It takes time, right? Yeah. So while you were coming up and you were just kind of working through whatever you could get, were there any cinematographers or filmmakers or anyone that you were kind of keeping an eye on as you were going around? Anyone who helped you or anyone you didn't have access to, maybe? I mean, we didn't have this, you know, it's interesting because we obviously didn't have the same access as we have now with all online education and everything. And, you know, I used, you know, of course, I've read the American cinematographer when I was, you know, at the beginning, I still read it, but then it was like back and forth and back

and forth, really studying everything, you know, I mean, of, you know, my time, whether it was Owen Royceman or Gordon Willis or, you know, all these DEPs when I went to film school that I admire and still admire, you know, like I, you know, one of the movies, the conformist from Victoria Destroyaro is still one of my movies that I go back to and go, oh my God, it's so inspiring. I like to watch it. I know how many times before I'd do another movie because it inspires me. So there is, you know, a lot of cinematographers that, you know, in the past or now that,

you know, I'm always inspired by other people. Do I, you know, I mean, obviously now it's like you want to create your own world. It's not that I'm going saying, oh, I want to copy this or copy them, but I just get inspired by their work, right, which is the most important thing to me. Well, and you'd see, I mean, for me, for sure, like, I draw a lot of inspiration from non-cinematographers, you know, photographers especially. Dan Winters, do you know Dan Winters?

Yeah, he, like, love his style completely. And when I set up, like, a portrait shot of someone for filming, I'm always kind of like, man, should I just, like, pop a little ringlight and just kind of take that thing because I think we have sort of similar, I think you are attracted to other photographers, cinematographers that seem to be going for the same vibe you're going. And you can kind of, you know, it's not stealing if you take from five people.

It's never stealing. It's never, I don't ever think of stealing, right? Because it was even like on my, you know, I had a talk with Larry Cher and who did Choker and I did a movie last year called Palmer that's coming out in a couple of weeks. But, you know, there's a,

I loved his car mounts in Joker the way he set it up outside and you can see the world and you see him and all it's reflected in the windows and everything I mean I literally stole this shot for him for one of my favorite shots in this movie that I did and I admitted to him

but I feel like it's like a it's like a compliment right like I look at it if someone wants this copy I don't think of it's being inspired by something it's never the same anyways right but of course you should be inspired I get inspired by painters, by photographers, by, you know, like, yeah.

You know, how are you going to later on and apply it in your own photography? But, I mean, the one thing is I'm like trying to, you know, I always feel like I don't want to be, I have my own aesthetics that I like, but at the same time I feel like I need to stay open for interpretation of the script of what the director was. because basically I think as a cinematographer, which I'm quite proud of, is I learned, I think, the techniques first of, like, you can show me a picture and I can completely copy it, like, where you would never know who did what, right? I mean, I'm not saying exactly, but, you know, I have the technical skills to do. And I think as a cinematographer, you want to learn this, right? you want to learn that if you have to create something, because a lot of times you have to

create things that are maybe not necessarily your aesthetics, right, that works for the movie. So I think if I would want to give any advice, it's like really learning the craft, learning what all the lighting pictures do, what quality they do, how you can use them and how you can, you know. I think that's actually a big one because a lot of, I was, when I started this podcast, I went online and I was just like, hey, who, if you could ask any cinematographer or anything, what would you ask? You know, and obviously we're, I'm asking the people. I'm not asking other cinematographers for these questions, but trying to keep it interesting for everyone.

A lot of people have very, very technical question, you know, like what exact lenses, what exact camera, okay, what exact lighting fixtures did you use? And I feel like after a while and you can start to see light, it doesn't really matter what the fixture is as long as you know how to modify it, uh, whatever, to get the look that you're trying to get the result, you know. But you have to kind of know what how, you know, the one thing is, is I find about that is, you know, like it's, it's interesting because, you know, I've done it for this for so long now, right? That obviously I have experience in it, but a lot of times young, you know, my cinematographers that work around me or operates that we are young,

they work around, they go like, how do you know which light that you had to use this light right now, right? Like, and I go, you know, obviously because I've used them, I know exactly what it does. I know the quality it does. I know if I bounce it, if, you know, I have to control over the color temperature. I have the control over this. This will work for me, right?

It's good to have that, right? I feel like the more you can learn what actually a physical light is doing, it's like having a paintbrush, right? What is the brush? How thick is it drawing a line on a painting, right? It's the same kind of thing, right? Which is, that's one of the things that just experience will get you, right? But I find that some of my young DP friends, they get intimidated by, I don't know what lights I should order, right?

Like at the lighting house for this job, right? Because it is like, what do you, you know, I was the same thing at the beginning now. It's like I know I'm in small rooms. I know I'm going to reuse as stereotubes because I won't be able to, you know, hide lights necessarily or have big fixtures in there or, you know, I don't have enough power. I'm not having enough manpower. So I'm going to use a big LED. a 360 sky panel, for example, through a window.

That kind of stuff, you know, it's good to know, it's good to learn. Yeah. And I mean, these days, too, like, when I went to film school, you know, this is 2006 onward, we didn't have LEDs. You know, we were still using those lowels and all that. Man, like, it, I don't want to sound like an old fogy, but it's so, it's like, it feels easy now. Like, I've got four at least this light back here is a bunch of light bulbs in a, in a,

like a little plastic, but they're LEDs, but they're just in a little plastic chandelier. Like, you can get decent looking light. Well, you lit yourself really nicely. I'm stuck here in a corporate apartment in Vancouver. If I was in my house, I'd have a nicely lit around me too. Oh, yeah, trust me. When I started this, I was like, especially yesterday I interviewed someone and out, or two days ago.

And I was like, man, I got to start warning people that this is what mine looks like because this is a C-500. You know, this is a full-frame camera pegged at 60. Nice focus, everything. I would normally do it, but I'm stuck in my corporate apartment here, so I can't do anything. Don't worry. How do you, this is actually another question a lot of people have. If you go into a room like you're in, how would you light your two camera piece, like, right here?

Right now? Yeah. I'd have a big soft source right here, cut it off the wall. Maybe right here, because I have a little painting there that I found it, I just put it against it. It was not a white wall. I might have a little stair tube down there just to glow it up a little bit, right? Obviously, I would use a camera that's a little out of focus, a shallow depth of feel, right? All those things.

But normally, the bigger the source, the higher, you know, right above the camera, slightly off, you look good angle, you look good, right? A little bit underneath it. When you have my age and you need a little help, but. Sure. those are stair tubes man like i've seen every single person ever is using those tubes now they're so versatile lifesavers right and yeah they're incredible right i mean i use them all the time whether it's like you know when they first came out like i had to do a car shoot on the street and we wanted

to use available light and the people just driving on their own you just roof rack like you know eight stair tubes just right out of frame on a lot of iPad created a little dimming and color and whatever else we wanted and we just drove through town, right? And it was amazing. It looked amazing. And, you know, I can make a soft box in the ceiling if I am stuck without getting power to it, right? And I hang eight into the ceiling, put a little eight by eight light grid underneath it with tape and I got a soft source over top. I mean, they're so incredible, right? I've also found that you can, well, I've done this before, get those little, like, cell phone battery packs, like the USB, I guess maybe the stairs don't

work like this, but certain LED tubes, you can just, or like what I've got set up here, a little panel, you can plug in those little cell phone chargers, you know, tape it to the wall or something, and it'll go for eight hours. Yeah, no, it's incredible. It's, I mean, the whole technology now with LED lighting to me is so exciting, right? Like, I've, that was But I was always, I wasn't good with switching from film to digital. I was so scared when it happened because I was so used to film. I was so used to looking through that finder. I used to always, like, because I started in the independent world as an operator,

I always kind of like, even once I had operators and I just had to look at the lighting, I turned the camera on because just the flicker of that shutter gave me the idea of the contrast and how much, you know, whether my exposure was good. I was so used to it. So I would do that. Turn on the camera for a second, look at my lighting, turn it off again because I was so accustomed to it. So the idea of switching over to digital and being at a monitor,

and that all scared me, and I'm not a very technical person. I got used to it and I've been doing digital now for the last 10 years, and I love it now, but it took me some time. LEDs, I was like right into it because I've always loved changing light doing a shot. I've always loved having light changes whether someone comes in and they turn on a light. I want to change the room, right? And it was always so hard because, like, let's say I have a little ambient in a room that's cool because there's just like ambient light coming through the window, but now I'm turning on the room lights and it's practicals

and suddenly I want this overhead, the ambience to be warm, right? It was difficult in the old days with regular lights, right? Now with a changing of color temperatures in the middle of the shot, with like the intensity, changing, you know, I'm constantly like my most important person now is my dimmer operator that I have literally right next to me, my DIT tent is either in it or right next to me because once the lights are up, he's my guy, right? He's the guy that's my lamp operator now that changes the color, that changes the intensity, that does all that. And I'm getting so used to it. I mean, I love it, right? I mean, doing a shot, I would change intensity. I would change color.

the temperatures and you know well now there's there's even a lot of uh wireless dmx stuff out there like you could still be on the iPad and just yeah yeah all no but it's all they're all wireless but he for example i mean the person i'm working right now they're still like that big board for some reason right a lot of i've done movies that are you know the guys that just use the iPad right I'm working with someone who likes his board still, but he's right next to me. But, yeah, I've done movies where my demarc just walks right next to me all the time with the iPad and do-to-to-to-took, done, done, right? It speeds up.

I mean, it can be so much faster now, right? Instead of changing a gel, instead of having someone to go up there and throw it double into the light, right, that we used to do, and now it's like, but, boom, done. What was your switching from film to digital, I think, is something that doesn't necessarily get talked about. a lot in terms of how it affected the way people worked, but also the aesthetics and the way that you thought about lighting, because you know, nowadays

you can, I mean, like I said, I'm lighting with barely nothing here. Film, especially if you were used to shooting film photos, for those of you listening, you know you need to punch light in there. Of course. What was that transition like for you? How did that change the way you think about shooting? Well, I was, you know,

I was, it's a comfort level for me. was a comfort level right because i'd done it for 25 years or before i started shooting digital i was so used it i you know i knew exactly with my light meter what three foot candles meant or what six foot candles meant or you know i knew my rate my you know i knew my film was like after three stops under it's going to look like this right or or the shadow the blacks will fall apart and it's going to get noisy or under-exposed i i was so comfortable with this So my light meter being on set and looking through the camera was just something that that's how I, you know,

it'd be like painting a brush and suddenly you're getting on a computer and painting on a computer, right? So it was that transition. So I was just like, I was really scared of it. At the same time, friends of mind, DEP, friends of mine, I always said like to buy it's like you'll be shocked how much more control you have or how much more, how far you can push it further because you won't go to bed at night worrying whether you were like under-exposed. I mean, the shooting sometimes under those, you know, at night or in scenes where it was really supposed to be dark and you're pushing that film and you're just at that right at that line. If you were like a half a stop or stop under, it became grainy and muddy and just waking up in the morning, looking at having the, you know, talking to your print it, to the color, you know, to the timer at the lab and he's giving you the printing lights and you go like, oh God, like I was under. It made you sick.

Couldn't sleep, right? Now I can sleep when I go to bed at night. I also found it like, so I did my last real movie that I shot on film with is a movie Battleship, right, which was a big event movie. Yeah. We shot an anamorphic and I was on that movie for a year because he got pushed and then we did more prep and then this time. So I was literally gone and I do in between movies.

I do a lot of commercials. And in that year, year, for some reason, I think it was in 2010, everything switched in the commercial world, everything switched to digital. I don't know. That was 2012? Was it 2011 or 2000? Somewhere around that, Alexa came out and I come back into the commercial world and everyone said, well, we're going to shoot this on Alexa, and I go, oh my God, I don't

know how to do this, right? I was so scared, right? And then it's always like you get into it and you realize it's, you know, it's not that scary. And then I really embraced it because I suddenly felt like, wow, it's like I can actually push it a little further because, you know, a lot of times when there's a lot of things writing on you, do you really want to push it that far, right? like you have big actors, can you play them in a silhouette? Can you not see them? Or can you, maybe you don't want to see their eyes. Or whatever you want to do, now it's pretty simple.

Like I can put my director into my tent and say, like, this is what I want to do. Are you okay with this? And they say yes or no, right? We didn't have that before, right? We didn't have that luxury. I couldn't show him. I mean, it always looked too bright. Everything looked too bright on set when you were shooting film, right?

Because the levels had to be higher. Your A is A. I mean, now, like, you know, a five. 500 ASA on my meter, when I look at the digital, it's too bright, right? It doesn't, I mean, you can come, you know what it is at the end, but it doesn't transfer the same way. No, and cameras don't even match. No, no. Like, 400 on this camera looks like 800 on the Alexa.

I know, I know. And I shot, I didn't, I was, I mean, I shot on, I used to Sony Venice lately quite a lot. and... Love that camera. Great camera. And you can switch that to 2,500 days if you need to. I've done it a few times, but I've never seen it used. My daughter is an upcoming director, Aisha.

She shot a short film at my house in the summertime during COVID time with, like, her DP friend and my ex, he used to be my DIT, Jeff Tom, show. He has a Sony Venice, and he shot for her at 2,500 days at my house. I mean, I could bear it. They shot at night. All was available light except a little light for the actress. But it was so dark, right? It was so dark.

I could barely see the marks on the floors for the actors or something. It was crazy. And it came out beautifully, right? And I mean, that you couldn't do on film, right? It's impossible, right? So I think it's exciting. It's definitely exciting now the technology. And it makes it to more creative filmmaking.

And you look at the quality of work that's out there right now. shocking, right? Like, it's shocking when I see the work that's done in the streaming, whether it's Netflix, the limited series, or the series or anything on television now, the television series and the movie, they're getting, I don't want to admit to it, but they're getting as good or better than any movie that's out there right now, right? Yeah, that, that's sort of TV versus film rivalry is gone at this point. Gone, gone, gone. All we can do is try to catch up with the TV Because, you know, I mean, sometimes they have a little bit more time, not time, but they can establish a look a little longer, right? Because in film, you get into a movie and, you know, you're in there, you don't get another episode to push a little further, another episode to push a little further.

We don't have that luxury in today in television. But, yeah, the works become great, but I think it's also a sign-off because we can be, you know, it used to be all about time in television, but now we can be faster, right? because we have available light. We have these cameras that can capture under low light. I still think you still have to light the same way in a way. There's no difference. I still, I mean, and sometimes I think I have to light even softer for digital. I have to use bigger sources, softer, bring them in.

But it's just become faster because I don't necessarily have to light the background, right? I can shoot in the city and worry about the actors, not worry about what's going to be, you know, five blocks down. I used to, you know, do movies where I had 15 generators for, like, four blocks of the street and 20 Ks on each rooftop down, you know, and it took a week to pre-light three city blocks. Now I just shouldn't worry about the actors in the foreground, which is different. But you still have to, you know, especially phases I find, and I'm sure you know that, see that too, you just have to do pretty lighting, right? You can't just, that doesn't go away.

and how you, where you put the light, and how you light it, it's all the same, right? I found, I find myself, I mean, this camera, I use this primarily now because I'm on it. I find it's a little flat, so I end up having to use a lot more neg. Yeah. I'm like, I'm deleting light more than I'm adding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, I find that, though, too, same thing for me. It's like a lot of times, it's like, take this away, put blacks all alongside and the solids all alongside and, yeah, and create negative.

But it's just a different style of lighting. comes to the same aesthetic, right? Like, you're creating contrast, you're creating separation, color, right? The beautiful thing is now with the LEDs, I love that. You can just create, like, color, you know? Like, I was just shooting in a, in a hallway, and there was a staircase, and, you know, it was just, oh,

let's try, like, a real greenish cyan in the background, soft, like, you know, and we put it, it was beautiful, right? There was one button, right? Let me see that green. I'll just make it a little more green. Oh, let's make it a little more. It used to be like, do we have cyan chels in the truck? No, probably not.

You had to think about it before and you had to kind of figure out how much you need. Now it's like one button and it's there. So I find a lot of movies now, which I love is the color separation is getting, like people are really playing with that. Yeah, and you're doing a lot of on-set grading. You know, I think, I mean, I'm very fortunate. I work with really good, good DITs, they can color and they can do it, right? I work, we work so fast, it's hard sometimes to do. What I find is I create showlut with my DIT and the colorist that's going to do my movie.

I work a lot with Stefan Sonnenfeld, the company three. He's been doing my last, for the last 20 years or longer I've been working within commercials and then in movies and my first, you know, DIY movies, he's been with me, he's done everything. I go to him with my DIT. I shoot tests of what I think scenarios of the movies, lighting setups that I think we're going to do, take it into the lab with him,

take it into the color suite, and then create that lot. And then I want my, you know, it's interesting. My DIT is really, you know, like I talk to him, like, what do you think, right? Like, what do you think about this? But I hire people that I really trust and that I love and that I have aesthetics similar to me. And they're my second eye, right?

They go like, oh, Tobias, maybe this is a little too bright, or you take this down. We work together, which I love. That's what I love about making movies and shooting. It's a collaboration. But I don't go into trying to over, you know, like I try to keep it as simple as possible my daylies if I can. I still do a lot in camera, right? I still use grads, even though you can do this later, but on movies, we can't do color timing like that

for all the visual effect, for all the editing. It has to be, I don't know, we can't manipulate that. I can't add grads to my dailies or, you know, so I do it in camera. And we just try to keep the color as consistent as possible on face tones. You know, he works on that for me all the time because sometimes you don't have time enough to jell something. or to change the color or everything sometimes the lenses or the way you look it changes the color temperature a little bit of the color so he adjusts all that for me and we put it into

a edit list color edit list for the colorist and but i don't usually i have a daily colorist that i send it to on those movies because there's just too much stuff you know that we do too much material that and i want my i want my d-it not to be so involved in having to do all the coloring. I really need them next to me, right? And talking about it, and I usually because I shoot a lot with two cameras. And I do a lot of exposure, slight exposure changes, especially if cameras move around. I do a lot of movies with Pete Burke, for example, that, I don't know if you know him. He does a lot of his style is like three cameras, very documentary style, even on big movies. I have to kind of light a 360. He gets in there. He just has to

operate as moving around. And he might even say it like over the over the megaphone. He uses a megaphone. He goes like, be camera, go get me that close up right there, right? Or get me that insert right now. He does that, right? He likes to run the camera. He likes to run the scenes and he covers everything. I mean, I've shot like four or five page scenes in like a couple hours with him because he just goes. And that's how he likes to do it. He doesn't tell the actors That's what to go. So in that case, I feel like I'm constantly talking to my DMAP because he's going to bring up lights and down. I go, oh, God, this camera's over here and I bring this down, right? And I adjusted on my remote iris control. And my DIT is right next to me. He runs one camera. I run one camera. And so I need him to be right there. I don't need him to color any. Totally. So to get to the film that you're here to talk about, Ma Rainey, Uh, like I said, I saw it last night. Um, great film. Loved it. Uh, I'm a big, I came up in theater. So seeing, uh, a more theatrical film was kind of fun for me. Um, in the movie for those who haven't seen it's available on Netflix. Just go watch it. Um, plus a little behind the scenes thing is also available on Netflix. But, uh, it mostly takes place in two locations. And I was hoping you could run us through. And then if we have time, the tent scene looks really nice too. But the, uh, the basement and the, um,

and the studio what were what was how did you i assume that was all on stage oh and outside that was all digital yes yeah i figured yes um it looked like too perfect like it was it was beautiful and i was no way you know that was all controlled i got me obviously that was all controlled um i had that was one you know one of the challenges you know it's it's it's a it's a It's a movie that I was really, you know, a little scared of when I first read it, right? You read that script and you suddenly realize it's 50 pages, half the movie is in a basement rehearsal room. And in the script, it's described as a windowless room, right? So, and originally the director was adamant about not having a window, but we ended up creating this small window.

I can get to this if we have time. Yeah, it's, but reading the script first, it's like, wow, what do I do? The room is described, and it was only, the basement is like literally the room was 22 by 18 foot room. It had those, and we didn't build it bigger. The room that you see is the size it was. Because normally what you do is like you realize this, like, and it was one of the first things I said is, can we not build this bigger? I'll make it look smaller. I can make something look smaller, right?

But George Wolf, the director, wanted the actors to feel the walls are creeping in on them, and they have no place to escape from. Originally, the room was described as a windowless room. It's just a practical. He wanted it to feel like it's like the underbelly of a slave ship, and they can't go anywhere, right? It ended up that we were on a scout, just looking at texture for this room, where we saw a little storage room that our production designer led us in. and it had one of those little windows and we were going like wow and it looked beautiful the light came

through there and it looked gorgeous right and i'm mark ricka the production design i said to choice this is kind of like something that we were thinking about and he goes like well you know what i can i can i can now i can see it because he really wanted that heat and i don't know if he felt it in the movie there's a lot of heat and so like he went and i go like i can bring that sun in there so you can feel the heat and because it's high up and it's small and it's small and there's like it's like it's like a grate in front of it they they won't reach they won't be able to reach so that's how he justified it at the end it was like they can't reach it so it is something to the outside but you can't reach it and you can't get there but the heat is coming in that you

can't escape that was sort of the theme it was definitely he wanted chicago to feel as hard as it can possibly be and when you mentioned the outside and that it was so controlled or that it looked so you know, control. We did control it because I wanted to feel that heat, and we were shooting on the street. There was the only street that worked as that, we shot it in Pittsburgh for Chicago for 1927. Of course, that recording studio was on the north side, so I had the sun behind me the whole day. If, and sometimes it would go behind buildings. That's the first thing I do. I check with my son's secret and go, oh, okay, I'm in trouble, right? Invaluble app. Everyone should have that.

That's my first, that's the first thing you have to have, right? And you get, that's your, if you're shooting outside, that's your life's safer too, because you can go, you can schedule things when it's going, but you also know when it's going to go behind. And, you know, the scenes, we shot all the scenes in front of the studio over three days, but the one scene, the accident scene is really over like a day and a half. The sun comes up there, it goes behind the building, it comes out, it goes out, and it goes out and the other side.

How do you control this? How do you make it the same in the summertime? time. You never know what it is. And unfortunately, there was like wires, electrical wires everywhere where my key grips said, I can't put, normally I would just hang like a 40 by 60 silk over the top of the thing and light it with a big BB light or something. And that was not possible, but my grips there, Phil Flaherty, they were amazing. They came in with like smaller flight squatters and sometimes hung like 20 by 20s of the building between things and paths you together. So I did control it and then I used instead of the BB light, I got these LAXs that are 18K

paths that you can remotely control and we put six of those together on two condos next to each other and spotted them all into this area. So that's how you got the heat and then we used I used like just an 18K through Chimera for like wrapping the light around a little bit more but yeah it was it was all controlled because we wanted to feel that kind of heat and that kind of golden light that uh you know george wolf had a painting that he referenced that mark ricka had found that was chicago 1906 that had really that kind of sweldering heat and those tones those warmer tones so yeah yeah the it's really like everything not everything is back let obviously that'd be silly but The backlighting, that sharp heat, the warmth, very rich film.

Like, I found myself just constantly going like, damn, this is like, I can grab it. You know, it's very, the contrast is beautiful. Oh, thank you. I also used this Tiffin Glimmer Glass that. I think I have that on this lens. You do? I don't know many people. I don't know many people that hardly anyone has ever heard of Glimber Glass.

Yeah. I love that filter. They make it a screw on, too. Oh, really? You don't even, yeah, you don't even need the big one. I haven't, quite honestly, I used the Hollywood Black Magic a lot. I haven't used the Glimber class in like 10, 15 years. I used it sometimes on commercials, and I just, when I did the test, I had, I tested all the lenses for, like different lenses, because originally I was going to use, maybe some vintage

smartphone lenses or some hawk and a morphics, and I had Kesslo Kamas and then. me all these lenses out to do my first test. And I had them send a whole bunch of filters because I wasn't quite sure, skin tone, color. But I wasn't really thinking about what it would do in terms of heat or shine or anything like this. But then in the last moment, I remember I used that glimmer glass that was kind of blooming the highlights more than other filters. And then I remember this bronze glimmer glass. So I used the bronze glimmer glass, which has like some warmth in the highlights. Right. It just creates a little bit of warmth in the highlights.

And that combination between that, you know, blooming the highlights and adding some warmth too really helped to sell that, that heat, right? And then, you know, the makeup artists were amazing, right, just to get that shine on everyone and keeping that shine. Also, production design was insane. So good. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Mark Ricker is amazing.

And he's one of those, you know, really good. production designers that work with the DP. It's a collaboration, right? I can make his sets look good, but he can help me all the time. We help each other. If it's a good collaboration, we help each other, and he's great that way. And, you know, he fought for me for a lot of things like the window. He fought, even though it came across, you know, it came naturally later than it worked. But he was definitely, he's definitely a person in terms of practice. A lot of times, you know, you need the set decorator as a really important person for a DP in terms of practicals and how they you know how what you can get where we put them and how they

work right so that's another elaboration and what lenses were you shooting on you know ended up using the size supremes uh which i would have not i mean i had done a movie with him before but it was a temporary a contemporary movie and a little action mark warver for netflix and it would it worked great for that and i've seen my uh my daughter did a little demo for them I'm directed a demo for that with a good friend of mine as a D.P. John Joffin, who's an amazing DP. They went out and shot this, and when I first saw their short film, the demo film, I went like, wow, these lenses look amazing, right?

It looked beautiful, and they shot on the Sony movies. But for this film, I didn't think it was the right choice, right? I wanted to use older vintage lenses, possibly. So I got the Canon K-35 send out. I got the Lyca M set out. I got the Hawk anamorphics, because I thought maybe we want to use anamorphic. Kessler sent me all those lenses out. and then I did the test

and I wanted to involve George Wolf in picking the lenses a little bit at the end I thought for safety I'd get a set of the size Supremes right in case he really doesn't like the idea of a vintage lens or something I just wanted to have one set there that

you know so I shot them all I do I always in testing especially if I want to show the director something I do that at the extreme focus pulls right because I knew in a movie we're going to be a lot of focus pulls we wanted to be very close so close focus was important and then the rack focuses was important and the

distortion on the wider lens was important so i shot all of them i was drawn to the can of k-35s because i loved the flare of those and i like the quality they did but when george saw them all and he saw the focus shifts and he saw a little bit of the distortion goes like i don't i feel like i want to be the least distracting with the lenses as possible right so ended up using the size Supremes. Then that was the reason why, you know, with the Canon K-35, I may never use those, the glimmer glass because they already have a softness to them. But the glimmer glass in combination with those Supremes,

combination with the Sony Menace, who is really beautiful, you know, I love the way it renders the colors are like the, what you get in the highlights, right? the detail and the highlights. It's a good camera. And then I love the NDs, the switching off the NDs, right? Oh, my God. Yeah.

Do you find, I mean, now they're so accessible. Like I said, I'm shooting on one. Do you find that you're enjoying the full frame capture more so than Super 35? Yes, definitely, definitely. Because I love what I got from anamorphic, right? I love the shallow depth of field, and that's what you get in large format, right? You get the slightly shallow depth of field. I personally love being close on white lenses, right?

I mean, I love Emmanuel Lubitsky does it on his movies, which I love the look of them. He's very bold, right? He can be in there on a 16-mill on someone. I sometimes get scared with that. But I do like being closer and wider, and what it gives me in large format lenses, you know, something like a Super 35 lens would be like an 18-mill.

Now I can use a 29, get the same effect, but I don't get that really distortion on the face which I prefer and then quite honestly I find these days a lot of times the directors

if they want to be a little closer to an actor they push in right they push in post and the amazing thing is if you shoot 6K large format like you can push in 25% you never know right

you would never notice it where if you shot you know regular like on the older Alexa's something in regular Super 35 format. It was harder if you had to push in. So that's sort of, I mean, not that I want to give it, you know, ideally, you don't push in

because that's the frame we shoot and this is what we like. But I understand that's the way our world is, right? People are going to reframe. I mean, a lot of times, I also like now that you have all the format, like for visual effects. So if you do have to be coming up or lower a little bit or they need a little bit of room or need to shift something, they can, right? So it's good. It helps everyone.

Yeah. I wanted to go back to the lighting in the basement because I was watching that special features thing, which I hope Netflix does more of those because the whole, growing up, like watching special features on DVDs and now Blu-rays. Like you learned so much. I saw in the basement you had sort of like a balloon light on the floor. Yes. Was that just there all the time? Like what other lighting situations were going on?

No, no. because basically the idea was for me is like I have strong lights coming through that window right that's my main source the sun is out there up there right and for that I used like it outside that window even small window I used the 20k finale that's I mean that's the only regular lights that I used was outside that window I used the 20k that came really strong and hit the floor and my idea was like I get this hot sunlight coming in and now everything that that is inside should kind of bounce off from the ground as a motivation, right? And then I had another couple of 10 case that would kind of highlight the sights a little bit. I had some park hands where I could all coming through this one window. I think I had about 50,000 watt shining through that window at the end, right?

It was quite hot. Could have melted the set. But inside then, my thing was like, you know, like I did have a soft box up and top. I had like a soft box that I just, however little I need. Sometimes I run them at like a couple percent. never run it much but I just want something there in case I need just a little bit of ambient film and then we had practicals that came on when they walk in and I used those as a motivation

for just like highlighting a little bit in the backgrounds where I needed but the idea was to let the walls fall off if we can right but I also don't want to fall them off that you can't see something but I always like to see into the shadows too but yeah so then I strategically I mean you saw that one ball it was a Jamera ball But I had, really, I had sometimes, I use regular lanterns, Chinese lanterns sometimes. I sometimes used, you know, if I had to be low and more directional with it, I would put like a light mat two, a light mat three or four, or the two L on the ground. I mean, I had them pretty well, I strategically.

Whenever we did a blocking and I see where the cameras would go around, I'd throw them on the ground. And wherever I can, turned off. But there was times like there's this one shot that a lot of. one of my favorite shots in the movie where Chadwick ends up talking about his mother being raped. It's super emotional and he walks into this close up, right? And I had a light on the ground, right? We didn't know how far he was going to come. We didn't know how long he was going to stay there.

You know, it was one of those magical moments where the camera was at the right place. He started tracking and my operator started, you know, but I also wanted the light come up. So I had this, so I had my dimmer up just bring it. up just as we're pushing in, like I was brighter and brighter and brighter as he's talking his emotion story. So, yeah, I kind of just try to, because a lot of times we shot with two, three cameras and sometimes. In that little room? In that little room, yeah. I shot with like three cameras. They were hiding behind things, right? One camera would be there and it would fall away. The other camera would come in and cover something and then fall away again. I mean, we did

like some, we did even the 360 in there. Like, we did a little, when you look at a, closely, yeah. And because some of the scenes, especially the emotional scenes that are like eight page long, George did not want to interrupt the actors. So I had to have multiple cameras at the right place to capture this. And this main monologue that Chadwick Boseman has, at the end, the last three minutes is two cuts, right? Or you can tell two angles. It's like the one that he walked into close up. And then there's a front angle that when he turned. around and walks towards the guys and talks to them this camera picks it up and then the same camera the other camera picks it up again and he goes back to his locker it was two cameras for shooting

simultaneously and all on sliders and all on dimmers and yeah it was a real ballet between camera and actors and and being out of their way but yeah so so it was like to me it was like a combination of light mats digital you know the LED light mats and the boss, but I was like, I like, I was like lighting for motivation, right? Like in that window, it gave me that motivation. And it does bounce off the floor and that's why the light should come from below, right? I mean, I did the top light. I usually just use for a little ambient if I needed. Yeah. How do you, this is actually just kind of a personal question at this point for me. When you're, when you're contemplating the color contrast between

like an ambient fill and your key light. Are you trying to make the ambient match? Are you going for a slightly cooler fill? Cooler. Cooler, yes. You know, I mean, it, you know, I mean, obviously it depends if you have, it just feels like, especially if I have warm light coming through a window, especially if I have, like, you know, I find color separation always helps, right?

And, you know, like, it's just, it's also just like, what would it be, right? But in a day where the sun comes in, the shadows are cooler than the sun, right? So I would play the ambience cooler for sure. That's a painting technique, isn't it, that they teach you? Yeah, yeah. It's always, yeah. It all comes back to that. It's what's natural.

And, you know, like, you don't want to, you know, like, you don't want the sun to be cooler than your ambience, right? Like, it just doesn't, you know, like, it seems like it's natural and that's how you, that's how your eyes get. And also, I find shadows look better when they're a little cooler, right? It's hard to make a shadow look, like the dark, the shadow side or the darker side. And I don't know, when it's warm, it gets kind of muddier, right? When it's cool, the darker side gets a little more, stays crisp. I don't know what it is. Well, everything is, I've said this for a while.

Everything is contrast and context. Yes. So, you know, everything, you know, music, lighting, yes cinematography filming all of it um in the i noticed in the uh in the studio scene they they go the characters go and black out all the lights was that story based or was that you guys story based and of course i was crying first right like i'm going in this room they established it we have these windows uh i got like you know 8 20 case hanging everywhere blasting in there it feels like a hot chicago day In the script, it says it, George Wolfe says it.

As soon as they start recording, the sound has to go away. We have to close the shutters. We have to close the curtains. It's not a real recording studio, but they would never record with the windows covered because you get the street noise, right? So it was like, oh, God, why do you? Who would know? Of course you would know, right?

And then I was trying to go and I said, like, can we have a translucent? curtain because I wanted to get a little light through the windows and then it was like, no, we have to have shutters. Like, oh, God. And then I thought, like, let's just have like some slits of the shutter so we can push some light through there. So, you know, it has to be a solid curtain. But as soon as we started shooting it, it made sense, right?

It would be like, why are the windows lit, right? Then you're in a recording studio. So it all makes sense. It's just one of those things were, you know, like, you know, at the beginning of your, In my career, or whatever you want to call it, when I started shooting, it was always like, oh, I want to make this look beautiful, and I want to make this look this or that, right? But, you know, later you realize, like, it is about the story, right? They're not shooting your demo reel.

You're not shooting your, you know, like it's so easy to think you want to shoot your demo at the beginning. Everything has to look great, but it doesn't, right? It has to be appropriate and it has to work for the story. And in this case, you know, once we started shooting, I realized. it would have been really stupid to have like these lit curtains right but at the beginning you just think visually first right because i go like wow there's going to be another 40 pages now where i'm in this room without any kind of highlights outside this windows it's like what do i have just walls

but then you know in that room because we shot a lot of 360s not 360s but i had cameras everywhere for the performance piece and we shot with three cameras always and you know the whole idea You don't want to interrupt the performance either. So I wanted to be quick shooting around everywhere. So I did light it basically with a big soft box above, right? But that became my real source now because I could justify they had some practicals inside there, hanging practicals. So that was my motivation for having a top light.

And I made the top light big. It was on chain motors. So it was always right outside my frame line, right? and if I can bring it, like when I shot Viola Davis, Marini, for example, at the microphone there, and I was shooting in front of her, I would just bring that whole soft box right in front of her. You know, I would drop it down right over top of her head. And that's a great thing with like LEDs, because now I can just bring that level down or I can just bring this side of the soft box down a little bit and keep the same color temperature. It used to be if you had

like tungsten lights, you'd dim it down, suddenly it'd be way too warm, suddenly you'd have to start adding gels to it, so that's all a nightmare. So that's the stuff that, so yeah, in top light to me, I like top light. It was one of those things that's, you know, it's not that easy to use sometimes, right? Because it's not necessarily the most flattering light, but it can be, right? If you're able to bring it super low, just so the light still creeps into the eyes, I did have like some LEDs behind the camera right that like sometimes four by the light night forces I'm just for wrapping it a little bit more but the source was really coming from

the top I love I'm a huge fan of top light like I when I realized that with digital especially you can you can get away with a lot of soft topy stuff and it won't be too contrasty in the face oh I know it's nice right I know it was it would that's another thing that's a hard thing that was hard to do on film, right? Because I know it was like, how do you get it in there? Do you have enough for the eyes, the ratios? But now you see it.

And if you have to just add a little bit of highlight, you add it. But it's a beautiful light form on top. Yeah. Well, I don't want to hold you forever. I've said this before, but I could talk to DPs all day about literally everything, but I assume you have life to get to.

So just to wrap it up, I like asking, what everyday thing do you find most important to help you get through this career path? And also, any personal projects you're working on? Patience. Patience, patience, patience. I think, you know, it's like as a DEP, I find the pressure of the time pressure, the you know um it's just every day i feel if things don't go quite fast enough or if things go you know like i feel like i have to kind of meditate and breathe myself down and go like i have to have patience

because nothing everyone that you works for you works as fast as they can right and and you that's sort of one of these things i've i've learned more and more and more is just be patient and be calm and and and also be, you know, good to everyone. You have to be, it's all about how people, you know, like, they want to be around you because you're a good person. You want to be around you because you want to have fun, right? I try to keep my set as fun as it can be, obviously concentrating on what we have to do,

but I like to keep it light. I like to keep everyone involved. I like to praise people, right? And I want them to be part of my process. and I want them to give me all the ideas they have and I take them or, you know what I mean, to me it's a big collaboration. That's why, I mean, I love going to work

because the fortunate SDPs, we can hire our friends if we want to or we hire crew that we want to hire. So I always feel like I'm the most blessed person in the world because I work with my friends, right? And I treat it like this and we respect each other like this. But, yeah, patience and, But patience is all, you know, that's one of those things.

Being patient about your next job or what you, how you progress your career, right? It's all about being patient and not giving up and just staying on it and, you know. But then there is, you know, obviously tools, like you said, you're your son seeker. That's one of the things you can't do without. You're light meter that you still have, right? like there's things that make you awesome awesome i like to see that's awesome because there's a lot of people don't have them anymore like i've walked out of my house sometimes where i go oh because now it's like you don't you don't need them all the time right you don't like once i established my lighting

setup i mean i'd like to go in there and make sure just double check and walk around and know where i'm at but i don't really need it but i wanted to have it but i've gotten into my car before it's Especially when it's, on the movies, I have it on my DIT table or in the camera truck, but on commercial, sometimes I get in my car, I go like, oh, I don't have my meters. And then I go, oh, I don't really need them. But then I stop, I reverse, and I go, like, I can't leave my house without it, right? Even though I can get away with it, but I won't, right? It's one of those things.

And I have it in my head, I had the same one for 30 years and, you know, the leather and it just becomes like a comfort thing that you have with you, even though you don't need it. no absolutely before i got this uh was this the l 358 i had that little tiny like 50 box one that i was using when i was shooting 16 and uh yeah it's it's it's like a sanity check yeah it's a sanity check it's also like one day you know if everything breaks down and you don't have your monitor your wave monitor or whatever you don't have right i will take a reading and expose it properly and shoot yeah yeah so uh yeah any any personal project anything you're doing that It's not necessarily film related, but anything you'd like to tell the folks about?

I live and breathe for a film, what I do, right? I'm a workaholic for sure. I've been having a lot of fun with my daughter, who's not that young anymore, but she's been inspiring director. And, you know, in the COVID lockdown, we work together on a, on a treatment for for a movie and we also helped her produce her short film and and we become like you know we work together on on on projects that are more passionate and smaller projects but i love doing that i mean i'm very lucky you know she wanted to be originally an actress and then you know started she had she wanted to do a commercial spot for herself and didn't have a director so she did and suddenly fell in love with it and I never saw her growing up that she had this you know

passion for photography and for filmmaking really except acting at the time but she gave up the acting and got behind the camera and you know I did a I did a short film for her for Fujino lens because she did she did a short film for the size Supremes with my friend John Joff and then she got approached from Fuji known to do something for the Primista Lens and uh those are nice yeah and so we did a short film together it was the first time we worked together i try not to you know i tell her you have to you know she needs to work with other deepies she can't but we really see eye to eye and we have got the same taste and she helps me a lot with like presentations and research and all this so it's been fun and

that sort of was my you know like i feel like i i get to do a little bit more creatively with her by helping it. She calls me and she does music videos and she asks me what I think. But vice versa, right? I sent her my scripts into that. So that's been fun. But I really like, it's terrible because I always say if I had the choice to go on a vacation on a film set, I'd pick the film set, right, any day. I'm this, I'm genuinely the same way. I mean, I, yeah, my whole, I'm surrounded by it, but intentionally, you know, I never felt like, What are you back there against the wall? Are there snowboards?

Yeah. So I've been snowboarding my whole life. I used to run the college ski club. And, yeah, so I got two snowboards and I was a magician for a very long time. So these are both uncut card sheets back there. Oh, great. Excellent. I actually grew up skiing and I did my first.

All my first stuff was like actually skiing for ski films and assisting a ski cameraman for a while too. So I know. Yeah, the only thing that sucks about snowboarding is you can't film while, it's very difficult to snowboard and film. Skiing, at least you're, you know, aimed forward. I know. I can't say I try to snowboarding, but I'm too much of a ski. I try to use that technique and I crashed so hard that, you know, after a couple of times, I went back to my skis. Yeah, I mean, I lucked out.

I grew up. I think I got put on a snowboard when I was four. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's second nature now. Well, Tobias, thank you so much for. spending this time with me. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you for having a conversation. And yeah, hopefully we'll be able to talk again soon. I'd love to come back one day soon. That'd be great. Thank you.

So that is it for my conversation with Tobias. I really hope you found that as enjoyable and as educational as I did. You know, if they all go like that, we've got a hit on our hands, folks. Yeah, that's kind of, you know, what I'd like this podcast to be is just what that was. And like I said, you know, as we go forward, I'll probably be a better interviewer. I've already learned a few things I'd like to do differently or, in fact, not change going forward just on the heels of these past three episodes. So like I said, you can watch, listen, or read these interviews at provideocolleation.com, YouTube.com. slash owlbot or wherever you find your favorite podcasts in audio form. So I'll just leave it at that.

Thanks so much for listening or watching or reading. And you will hear from us next week. Frame and reference is an owlbot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the F&R Matbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Truex branding company. You can read or watch the interview you just heard by visiting provideocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot respectively. And as always, thanks for listening.