Frame & Reference Podcast - 42: "You Go Girl! " DP Tyler Maddox (Sundance Select)

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

On this weeks episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast, Kenny talks with cinematographer Tyler Maddox about the Sundance Film Festival "You Go Girl!" Like Kenny, Tyler is a Canon C500 MKII shooter so they spend some time talking about shooting with that camera as well as Tylers transition from a photographer to cinematographer. Enjoy the episode! Follow Kenny on twitter @kwmcmillan 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. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for more!

Hello and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today we're talking with Tyler Maddox, the DP of the Sundance film, You Go Girl, which obviously just played at Sundance last week. Or two weeks ago? Doesn't matter. This one's a lot of fun. You know, I learned that Tyler's actually a C-500 owner as well. So we talk a little bit about that. We talk about his career starting off in photography, traveling all over the place doing action sports and nature and all that kind of thing.

Back when it was more difficult, you know. And then transitioning into cinematography, again, back when it was more difficult during that kind of the mini-d-d-d-dave and stuff. So I think for those listening who are kind of maybe doing both now, potentially you could learn a lot from Tyler. And, you know, again, we get into the gear stuff too, which is a lot of fun. It's always fun to meet gear folks because maybe it's not always, you know, emotionally or artistically satisfying, but it is a lot of fun, which I think most people would be willing to admit. But yeah, so we had a lot of fun talking. Tyler was like infectiously happy. So, you know, you just smile listening to this whole conversation. We did have mild technology issues, you know, little internet connections.

And at one point my battery almost ran out. So you may have to forgive a little bit of editing wonkiness. But aside from that, fantastic conversation with Tyler, and I will let you get to listening to it. So here's my conversation with Tyler Maddox. What got you into cinematography? Were you always like a visual person or did you start in a different art form or how did that kind of come about for you? So yeah, you know, I was 22, 23, somewhere right in there and just really still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. But at the time, I was surrounded by a few people that just really hated what they did, you know, for a living. And I just didn't want to get to my 50s and be like, man, I hate what I do.

I hate what I've done with my life. And I happen to be up in Alaska on a fishing boat, helping my uncle, who was a commercial fisherman. And we had been out at sea for, you know, weeks on end. And we had like one day off where we went, we climbed this mountain. And I've always been a real mountain, you know, been into the mountains and the outdoors. And we have this one day away from sea and we climbed this mountain. And it was just like the skies cleared up and we were surrounded by all these beautiful peaks.

And I just had this like euphoric moment and I just had this revelation at that point of saying like, I want to do something that takes me to places like this. I want to do something that I like and something that, you know, gets me into these incredible places and allows me to travel and allows me to be in, you know, incredible scenery. And I just had the thought of like, well, photographers come to places like this, you know, know, it's beautiful. And so on my way home, you know, so a week later so we were done fishing and I was at the airport flying home and I grabbed a, you know, outdoor photographer magazine and just devoured it on the, on the plane ride on the way home. And I just thought, man,

there's like, this could be amazing. You know, this could be a really fun career path. I never was like into photography. I wasn't, you know, like this visual person. I wasn't into cinematography. just, you know, it was just a dumb kid at the time. And, and sure enough, you know, I just kind of dove in head first and found everything about it fascinating. A few months later, I was actually married at the time. My, it still am. My wife and I moved down to Ecuador. Yeah. Yep, same one. Yeah, we moved down to Ecuador and she was going, she was finishing up. She was doing like an exchange program down there through school, and I was just long for the ride. And I really spent like all of our time down there taking pictures and honing in, you know,

the craft. And of course, we're, you know, we were traveling. We were in an amazing place. And so it was a really good spot to just kind of start cutting my teeth and researching, you know, everything. So that was about the year 2000. And when we came home, I bought a couple cameras online. I had them waiting for me when I got home. And I started up a photography business.

And I originally just started shooting what I knew. I grew up riding dirt bikes and skiing. And so those were the two things that I knew. And I went and started shooting races within those two sports. And it was actually at the time that the first digital camera had first come out. You know, this is, it sounds so stupid now. But the idea of taking a picture and being able to see it immediately was like brand new at the time. Nobody had ever seen that.

So, you know, I went and shot a ski race and I took a laptop into the bar afterwards and I started a slideshow of the ski race. And pretty soon, I had the entire bar surrounding me looking at the laptop and people were going, that's from today. Like, they had never seen that before. And literally, people just started, you know, saying like, I wanted an 8 by 10 of that. You know, like, would you make me a print? And I started writing down names on napkins and address.

and phone numbers, people started just handing me money. And I came home to my wife with like 400 bucks in my pocket. And I was like, it worked. Like we would like, there's something to this. And so that was, you know, it was an exciting time. Like say, now that we have these, you know, iPhones in her pocket, we're also used to that. It's not that the novelty isn't there anymore.

But at the time, it was a really novel thing to be able to do that. So that took me down, you know, about a four or five year rabbit trail of shooting all sorts of different motorcross events and ski races. And we had a, my wife and I bought a motor home. We were traveling all over the U.S. and we're shooting all these different sporting events and just selling the photos to the participants. And pretty soon we got into contact with a lot of the magazines and we started selling to the magazines. And then that got us in contact with some of the sponsors of the races. And we started selling, you know, photos to the sponsors. And then they'd start asking, oh, well, can you, you know,

can you take some pictures of our products, you know, also for, you know, ads or whatever. And I started doing that. And then it was, you know, then right about then was when, like, digital video was becoming a little bit more mainstream and it was like a little bit more, you know, before that, it was kind of, you know, it felt a little unreachable. You couldn't just buy a camera and start editing, you know, it was when we had decks, tape decks and, you know, editing systems were $20,000. and like, it just felt like unapproachable for a guy like me.

But, you know, it was right in that shift to where it started to become, you could have a normal laptop or normal computer. And, you know, we were shooting, oh, I can't even remember the form in a mini-d-vis. I guess it was. And you could digitize that, you know, all that kind of in that revolution. And so I started shooting, you know, some video. And then that video side of it just really started to take off. And the photography side, you know, slowly, I mean, I've always done it, I still do it.

But it's just always gone down and down and the video side just went up and up and up. And then I, you know, learned about this thing called a DP. I mean, the first, the first DP job I had, I didn't know what a DP was. They just hired me because I knew I could make images, but I didn't even really know, you know, what that term was. I didn't take that normal path that so many people take of being a PA and getting, you know, know, on these bigger sets and learning about the whole process, I came in completely in the back door and stumbled into it and just kind of had to figure it out along the way. I mean, it really was just an image maker that people started hiring to make more and more images. And I just,

I kind of had to learn that process and figure out all the different roles of a film set and how that works. And so, yeah, I had kind of a different, a different dive into this whole world, I think than a lot of people, but it worked and it's and it's been just a fantastic ride and I've had a great career and I can't imagine doing anything else. Yeah. It's funny because you say, A, I think there's definitely something to be said for being on like the first wave of anything in this kind of field. So like being the first person with a DSLR when those came out or just like even being it

because I, fuck, I remember when mini DV you still like had to plug the find a wealth. you had to find like a firewire card to plug the mini dv and and if you didn't have like a mac there was just no firewire so you're completely i remember when when we could start to shoot on sd cards oh my yeah what a what a difference oh yep um it was instant yeah yeah no it's been a you know it's been a fun wave to ride like i feel like i did get into it where you know i shot film photography for while, you know, and even the early video was, yeah, putting cassettes into decks and having to fast forward tape and, you know, and so to go from that to what we have today has just, you know, and especially for guys, you know, that are a little bit techy and like that stuff. I mean,

it's just been a fun ride, you know, for 20 years I've been glued to blogs and the latest, you know, things that are coming out and it's just been so fun to see all the advancements and ride that wave. Yeah, well, and the funny thing, too, is like, I'm sure anyone listening who's younger than, I'll say us, probably here's like, oh, photography to video. Yeah, duh. It's like, no, that shit wasn't around for till what, 2009 until that was even remotely possible. Yeah, you know, the learning tools that are out there now. I mean, things like this podcast or, you know, the infinite YouTube videos and behind the scenes, you know, like there's such a tool set out there for people to learn. figure it out. You know, back then, like the way I, the way I even learned grip gear was like

watching DVDs. And, you know, there used to be that you get a DVD and it would have a little behind the scenes at the end of it. And I'd watch it and I'd pause and I'd be like, oh, what is that stand or something? And then you'd grab your B&H grip book that was this thick and like, you know, go through all the pages and find like, oh, that was a C stand. You know, and like, that's how I learned all, you know, what all the, you know, all the, all the, all the, um, grip gear and different things was literally like trying to find that through the end of DVDs and looking through big catalogs. And now you can just Google it and, you know, somebody will give you an explanation of every piece of gear out there and teach you how to do it. And,

and it's all for free. So there's such a wealth of information now. It's, I mean, it's, it's fantastic. Yeah. I mean, me and, uh, we've actually, this topic keeps coming to these neck like the previous two and probably the next three are going to all kind of sound the same because we keep talking about this but like there's a positive and a negative to that positive being the democratization of filmmaking obviously more voices are allowed to express themselves which is great but then on the other hand because the information is instant and you don't have to work for it like you did where I feel like you know when the the passion maybe isn't fully developed yet and the expectation of

I know how to do this, why isn't anyone giving me a job? You know, you'll see, I mentioned this in the last podcast, but like, you know, I'm a professional editor, or I'm a professional DP. I'm looking for more work. I've been, I've been doing this for two years now, and I'm just not seeing it. And you're just like, oh, geez, like, yeah. Yeah, it's true. And I think, too, that when you learn it kind of, I guess, quote unquote, the hard way, you know,

kind of the school of hard knocks making mistakes fixing them like i feel like you get a a bigger depth of understanding when you do that you you you know not just the what but you know the why because you did it wrong at one point you know and so i think sometimes you you watch and you learn just from youtubes or whatever and you haven't made the mistakes you haven't gone out there and really like grinded it and done that you've just you've learned it and so you copy that but then you get in the real world and the things come up, the things that you might not think of, you really can only learn through doing a lot of it and making mistakes along the way. And so, so yeah, I think there's an advantage, you know, to kind of some of the old school ways of doing it and coming up that are

helpful. But it's certainly not the speed that you can do it now. Do you remember specific? Because we've talked a lot on this podcast about special features and how I think there should be a special features for, or Netflix for special features, like featureettes and stuff like that. Do you remember any specific ones that come to mind that like really you either learned a lot or just, you know, maybe excited you? You know, I'm so terrible with, with that kind of stuff. Like, I get inspired by things that I see and it'll be on my mind for a couple weeks or whatever. I might even, you know, save some reference photos or whatever. You know, I do keep like your reference library, but like, remembering and and, I don't know, kind of ruminating on any certain films or anything.

I don't know. I'm just, you know, so many guys are like, oh, yeah, it's, you know, this movie and this thing and, you know, X, Y, Z. And I don't know, I'm just not like that. I just get, like, inspired by random, you know, things, but they never really, like, stand out in my mind and they never, like, last more than, you know, a couple weeks. And then I'm on to the next thing. Um, so I always feel stupid answering that question in that way, but like, I don't feel like I've had just these like really clear moments of inspiration from certain films or certain directors or certain DPs. Um, you know, sometimes it's just like an Instagram post. Sometimes it's, you know, something I, you know, saw in some other feed or whatever. And I'll, and I'll file that away or I'll kind of like glean something from that. But, um, yeah, I wish I had a better answer for that. Uh,

that's fine. Just how my mind works, you know. Yeah. Everyone's path's different. Did you find it, how is the transition from going to, from photography to cinematography because I was just talking in the last podcast where photography, you know, was described as a capture of the defining moment, as Henri Cartierre-Besson said, and cinematography is telling a story with many pictures.

Was that switched in sort of the way you perceive that visual language difficult at all? Or did you find that you just kind of came to it? Well, I think there's two different things. There's the actual making of an image. And after I was doing a lot of the race photography, what I then did go into was a lot of advertising, you know, very stylized photography, a lot of lights, a lot of setup. you know, a little bit more similar to what, you know, we would typically do on a on a film set. So I think there was actually a lot of crossover

from that world as far as purely making an image. So having a blank canvas, being at a location that looks dull, and it's like, okay, we've got to make this look good. And knowing how to light and, you know, especially, I've always said that a photo strobe is, you know, like a $600. $100 or $1,000, whatever, photo strobe really gives you the light equivalent of like an 18K, you know, light in the film world that may, that's like, you know, when you're starting is

unreachable. Like, you don't have the finances to rent that kind of stuff. But, but with photo strobes, like they have an immense amount of power, but it's only for a second. And so like, I felt like I really learned what I could do with matching the sun's exposure or like having the power of some really big lights and being able to do that, but on a much different budget. And so I felt like some of the bigger setup advertising photography gave me a lot of the tools in how to shape light, how to create an image that is compelling. that it doesn't teach you is how to tell it, you know, how to tell a complete story and how to do that in coverage and how to, you know, how to shoot for an edit. You know, that's, I think, the piece that

took a little bit, a little longer to figure out in that like, oh, I can't just take this one pretty picture and it tells the story. Like, we need cut points and those cut points need different angles and different compositions. And, you know, I think that's the part that took a little bit longer, but certainly like the image making ingredients, the toolbox for that is the same. It's shaping light. It's understanding light. It's understanding all the mechanics of light and shadow and, you know, ratios and all these things, you know, that is just the same.

And so I find that that carries over, you know, really well. It just, you know, the other hard part was just like at first learning all these all, you know, especially back then, it was more confusing back then, you know, in the early days, but, you know, frame rates and codex and interlacing and, you know, like all these things. There was just like so many things that you'd have to Google all the time of like, what is this? You know, like I just, I just felt like it was harder to wrap your head around back then than it is now. I feel like things or a little, you know, camera, the camera technical side is a little bit more straightforward, I think. Maybe it's just that I, you know, I've gotten

used to it. But so anyway, that's what I would say. The image making stuff absolutely translates over, but there's a lot of other things that go into cinematography that are more than just making a pretty image. And so, sorry, I forget to mute my phone here. And so those, those have been the things I've had to learn, you know, outside of making images. Did any of that come, or did most of that come from just doing it? Or were you leaning on any sort of, uh, like mentors or anything like that that were kind of pointing out like, oh, no, no, no, you need a wide here or whatever. Yeah, no, it was a lot of making mistakes.

Yeah, no, I, I never, I never have had any real good mentors on the cinematography side. I definitely have had to kind of forge my own path and figure it out on my own. And I think it was, you know, especially I think it's really good for, for guys to edit their own stuff. I don't consider myself an editor. I can do it. I do a lot of it. I don't actually enjoy it, but it's also, like, very helpful because you understand what

you need in coverage. And, you know, that's a huge part of what we do is just, you know, trying to, working with the director and trying to figure out the best coverage for a scene and how to tell it right. And so, I don't know, I think I'm very, like, perceptive. I definitely will watch film. Like, if I've got to shoot a certain scene, I'll. often try to find, you know, a film that has a similar scene. I'll really study like all their

angles. I'll take screenshots and I'll look at it and go, okay, you know, they did these five different shots. Like, what did each of those do for the story? And, you know, did it help? And what would I do different? And, you know, so you kind of just start to, you know, you grind it out and try to plan ahead and try to figure out what is going to work to both cut together, but also how is it going to tell the story the best? Yeah. Are you sort of tangentially related? Have you been on shot deck at all? No, I don't know. He basically built a website, which is just you can search either by movie or shot type or color or subject or anything. And it'll just populate a bunch of screenshots that he's pulled off like Blu-rays. And you can go through and like set up shot decks with that. It's pretty cool tool.

Yeah. That's awesome. There's been a few. And maybe he's, has been one that I've gone to. I have Googled a few of those that just pull a lot of, you know, reference photos. And maybe that's been one of them. But I love those two. I love, you know, I love that. I love screen grabs. I love having, you know, all off and print off all of my reference images and have them on set. I just find that so helpful to talk to the director, to talk to the gaffer, to, you know, like really have these visual tools. Because we can talk about it all day long. about I want this soft light here and this hard light here and this you know but like until you actually see it we might be on totally different pages and so you know I'm a huge fan of

reference materials. Yeah the it's you know what I just watched tenant again the other night and uh I watched the special features on that and they were saying like yeah we read that script like six times and no one knew what the fuck was happening and then when we got on set and and started setting up the shots, everyone went, oh, okay, okay, okay, I can see it now. But at first, oh, and they did like 3D renderings, you know, where it was like, well, this guy's going to go here and this is the protagonist at a different time. And here's the, and everyone just went, all right, I trust you, man. Like, yeah, I can see that.

Going back to when you were talking about doing, uh, advertising, like photography and stuff, um, do you have any tips for anyone who might currently be in that, uh, space? like whether it be working with clients or maybe you know kind of a setup that you would lean on that you knew like all right this is going to this is going to please them you know kind of a bread and bread bread and butter situation yeah you know i think i found some success and all of that by there's a million people out there with a good camera and they can find good natural light and and shoot something nice and that space is very crowded but if you can if you can teach yourself and have the knowledge of how to go do a shot that requires five lights and some

gack and it's maybe a little more technical like that space is much much narrower you know that that tends to alleviate a huge, you know, chunk of photographers. So for me, I was all, it was, I think a lot of it was about like expanding my skill set and knowing how to do something that maybe other photographers didn't know how to do. And, and if you look at most advertising photography, it's shot that way. It's rare that it's just, you know, some outdoor setting and it's just some real nice golden light. I mean, that that definitely exists. But there's a lot of studio stuff. There's a lot of stuff that is like more stylized because advertising is about this hyper-reality. And what you're able to do with strobes is create a hyper-reality instead of

just the regular reality of the golden light, you know, with a mountain in the background. And so I think that that helps me find kind of a niche. And there weren't in my in my area here, which is a smaller area, there just weren't many other photographers that could do that kind of stuff. So if there was a higher-end project, I was just automatically getting those jobs because I was the only one in, you know, in town that could do these bigger setups and have the equipment to do bigger setups. And it's honestly, it's not like that major of an investment to be able to have some of the gear to do that. But it does take, you know, it does take an investment and it does take a little more learning, but it gives you an upper edge on maybe, you know, quote unquote,

the competition around you and allows you to be able to create something that maybe a lot of other people can't create. And then, like I said, that shaping of light and learning how to use all of this artificial light translates into a lot of other things, especially cinematography. So I don't, so that for me, I guess, was my go-to. Like, that's kind of what I position myself. as was, you know, this guy that had the ability to do something that was a little more out there and a little more stylized. Yeah. Well, and going back to what you're saying about being in a small area versus potentially, you know, quote unquote missing out on being in a big city. The problem with being in a big city is you don't, you know, it, you might you,

you, you were one guy who could do that. Here in L.A., there's probably a million, you know. Yeah. You got real fucking gregarious. Yeah. It's true. You know, I've had a real mix of, you know, at times, like I say, feeling like it's been a rough go because I'm not in a major metropolitan area. And in other ways, it's been a real advantage because I have been able to be kind of the big fish in the little pond and where there isn't a lot of other competition and there isn't a lot of other people doing this. And yet there's enough big businesses around. I'm able to get on high level stuff, but it's definitely a much less crowded space. You know, and on the downside, there just isn't nearly as much production. There's the resources aren't here. And so, you know, that's been a little difficult. There aren't rental houses.

You know, I've had to become the rental house. I've had to, you know, a mass gear over the years because I can't just go down and get it from the rental place around the corner. You know, the closest camera rental or grip rental to here is. is four and a half hours away. So yeah. So yeah, I'm like, if you go, if you go between Portland and San Francisco,

there's a town, you know, called Medford, and it's like right in the middle. And then, and it's just, you know, me inside town. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. So then outside of Medford is a little tiny town called Jacksonville. And then four miles outside of Jacksonville up in the hills

where I live. So I'm like, you know, like fairly removed. But, you know, it's also been great. I mean, I, I, we shoot on it. We have property out here. We shoot on their property all the time. We've done all kinds. We've shot Budweiser commercials here and like all kinds of stuff. And so it, uh, it's kind of cool, you know, we like people come up all the time from LA and shoot stuff here. And, um, I don't know. It's kind of a breath of fresh air, you know, it's like we don't have to do with permits. And yeah, literally. Literally, like we're out in the country. It's beautiful. You know, we can do a lot of things here that you just can't do in the big cities. So I don't know. It has its, it's ups and downs for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's funny to say rental house around the corner. I literally live around the corner from a rental house. And advantage, like, I'm really good friends with them. They've hooked me up before. Like, I make video content with them sometimes, you know, because we like making educational stuff for their YouTube channel. Downside, no land. No land at all. I'm going to. being an apartment for the rest of my life.

Yeah. Walk me through, because this is kind of like a combination of a few questions now, but it's interesting. You say that. Walk me through what it's like to shoot a Budweiser commercial. You know, how is that interaction with the client? What were their expectations? How were they managed?

What mistakes did you make? Well, I got to back up on that one because that one I actually didn't shoot. I, funny enough, I ended up being the talent in that one. And it was because they came, they came looking in the film industry. They thought that the, that the talent that they were searching for, which they didn't want an actor, they just wanted a Joe Blow. And they thought that they might find it in like the film crews in Oregon. They thought they might find the right person.

And so a casting director was, was calling to a producer friend of mine up here. and he ends, you know, talking about what they were on for this, but it was a commercial, and they ended up, they ended up casting me for it, and we shot it here at our house and lying in that way. I did not shoot it. I was just gotcha. Yeah, you lagged out there for a second.

Sorry for my probability delay. Yeah, no, all right. Disadvantage to potentially living in the mountains. Wi-Fi might not be. You got it. It's been my number one struggle. Yep. It is internet.

Yeah. We were just talking about this. L.A. actually doesn't have great internet anywhere. Like if you want fiber internet, you have to go to O.C. or San Diego. Really? And I assume the Bay Area. But like, yeah, L.A.

completely just owned by this company's spectrum. And they're just like, you'll get. we give you yeah yeah thank you yeah yeah it's been it that's it's been a challenge yeah for sure so uh talk to me about how you got the uh the uh the you go girl gig how did that come about and like um and the shooting because it's a short so how how i assume you shot that what three four days yeah yeah something like yeah i think it was only three days um uh yeah so Where I live is nearby a town called Ashland. And Ashland is a real arts town.

It's a real arts community. And it has a huge Shakespeare festival that's well known around the country. And right at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a director from New York that was directing a play at the Shakespeare Festival here in Ashland. COVID hit. And New York was the epicenter at that time and, you know, was completely shut down. And so her and her significant other, who is a producer, they were basically stuck out here for, you know, eight months or whatever it was. And I'd say stuck. They had the choice, but it was a much better place to be during the pandemic than New York City. And the Shakespeare Festival was

kind of scrambling, you know, they, their business model has been to sell tickets of, of plays and have live performances. And now they're shut down. They can't do that. And they're trying to figure out what to do this. So they quickly realized, we need to start making film content. And so they ended up writing a short. And Sharifa, the director who was who was there from New York, ended up directing it. Well, it was her first film that she directed. She's done a ton of theater stuff. That theater has been her world, but she also wanted to make that move over to film. And so anyway, they put together a short and they got in contact with me to shoot it. And same thing. We actually shot that here on our property along with on a creek in Ashland, but a lot of

was here. I also have a studio here and we, you know, a lot of that film took place in this little tiny, like, camp trailer and we brought it, brought it into the studio and, you know, shot day for night in there and did, you know, some fun stuff. And anyway, and that was a fantastic experience. We really hit it off. I really connected with the director and the producer. It was a really fun collaborative experience. And, and the film, you know the film was great it didn't get you know nearly the accolades that this last one did but all that's to say is that was kind of their first foray into filmmaking so then they went on and ended up getting a grant to do another one in oregon and that's when they end up writing

you go girl and then we kind of got the band back together and they came back over from from new from New York. And at this point, I think we all learned a lot from the first, you know, film. And I think especially they did having it been their first, you know, time. And we just went hot and heavy into this next one. And it just, you know, from the moment I read, you know, all the time I'll read scripts. And, you know, sometimes it's kind of hard to visualize it. You know, I'm not the best at visualizing it straight from the words. I need to like see it. And sometimes I have a hard time seeing it. When I read this script, it was like, oh, man, this feels powerful.

Like, this feels like it could really be something. So I was really impressed with it. And, yeah, so we dove into filming. They, like I said, they came back out here and we shot it over a few days. We shot it in some really beautiful Oregon country. You know, there again, we have an advantage of some really beautiful country around here, a lot of mountains. There's some great scenery in it.

and shot it and and now here we are. Yeah. What this might be a more of a director question, but did you, could you speak to any of the sort of lessons that were learned transferring from a theatrical production to a film? Because obviously, like, if you're an actor, I'm sure, you know, you have all your lines memorize. You're like, no, you just have to memorize a page and like, what? But like, you know, aside of that kind of thing, the production side of it. Yeah. Absolutely. That's a great question.

And it, funny enough, it was very similar to my stepping from photography to cinematography. It really was about like coverage and editing. Like, like having enough angles and things to be able to have the cut points that you need. There was also, she purposely chose an aesthetic with the first one of doing these very long oneer takes. But I think that also posed a problem. When you do like a really long oneer, you don't have anything else to cut to. And so if it doesn't work or if it's taking too long or the pacing isn't right, you can't really manipulate that. So you're kind of stuck with it. So I'm, I, that's my guess on what, what I think that Sharifah would say.

I definitely, you know, I think when we shot this next one, we definitely did the coverage way different than we did the first one. And I, I think that that was, you know, part of that lesson that was learned is like, really understanding, like, how can we have more flexibility in post and like, let's give ourselves options and let's make sure that we can, you know, cut this together the way that we need to. So I think that was probably the biggest thing. And because in theater, there's no editing. You know, like, you don't have that. You're not used to that. And it's a whole new art form that I think the theater side, you know, has to learn. And once they do, once the light

bulb goes off, it's like, oh my gosh, it's like being able to back up in a, in a live performance and do it again, but from in a little different way or whatever. Like, it's a new, it's a new avenue for them. So I think that when that light bulb went off, I think it, I think they, they understood it and they grabbed onto it. And then we, you know, we ran with it. Yeah. What, uh, especially on that first one, but even on you go girl, were there things that the theater folks taught you and vice versa that you could, that you can think of? You know, I don't know that I have a great answer. The biggest thing that stands out to me is like theater feels like a tighter knit community. And I don't know why, but maybe it's

just because they are like doing these live performances that have all of this, you know, energy and and these live shows where you have this big audience and then you you come backstage and everybody's on fire and like I like I feel like all that all those experiences um really mold people into this like really tight-knit community so I think the one thing that stood out to me is like the community was so um was so interconnected and they were so like appreciative of each other and accepting of each other. Like, I just really found this, this, like, um, an air that was, um, extremely collaborative, extremely like, um, I'm going to loss for words for it, but just like, so accepting. And, and they just all loved each other, you know, like, and I don't

know, like, you don't always see that on a film set. Um, you know, sometimes there's like, maybe a little more budding of heads. And, uh, I don't know. know and i really bonded you know with that crew like we really um are a are a tight knit where we've all become extremely close we really bonded um and it just felt like a more like meaningful special experience like going through the all the all the day in and day outs of of uh you know of long film days i mean when we ended even this thing that was two or three days or whatever when we ended it was you know tears and it just felt like man like we had really done something and I don't know, and like that human element can really make a project a lot more

meaningful, you know, and it can make it go from just like another job, another paycheck or whatever to like, wow, I just, like, my life was changed in that experience and through these people. And I think everybody that was on that crew from the shoot would say, yes, like this wasn't just about making a film. It was about making lifelong, you know, connections. It was pretty spectacular. I, uh, I'm going to have to switch out of battery. Okay. I fucked this up. Hold on. No worries. Okay. That'll save it. One nice thing I like about the, the, uh, C5, I'm shooting on a C500. It's the most over-engineered web game in the world. Um, yeah. But the one thing I like is,

is if you, if you're running a Vlock power, like through the 12 volt, if you put a BPA 60, BPA 30, whatever, standard battery in there, if the Vlock dies, it immediately switches to the in-camera battery. That's sweet. Yeah. Yeah, because I just sat here and went, oh, no, I have to swap. That's going to kill it. No, it won't.

We have backups. I didn't, I didn't know you could do this with the C-500. I thought it was like I, I'm doing it on R5 through the like EOS web, you know. cam thing or whatever. So how are you doing it? I don't know. You're going to have to like search for these because Amazon stopped making them. I mean Amazon China, whatever, but they're these. Hold on. Got to do the makeup influencer thing. These things. And it's literally just an HDMI to USB adapter that I run out of the HDMI of this camera. So you can do it with any camera. I've been, I have. Yeah. Whatever company, I mean, it literally just says HTML. There's not a company

name on this thing. But I've been, I bought like seven of them because I just started like giving them to friends and stuff because they're like, yeah, you know, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. I was just like, yeah, this thing has worked flaw. It's totally plug and play. The camera or the computer sees it as a webcam. And so like this microphone is just XLRed into the camera and then it's just pulling the audio from the monitor inputs.

I guess I'm surprised that it shows up as a webcam. I thought that took like some special sauce. whatever you know well so it does if you're going like through USB but because it's just straight hdmi it treats it like a regular uh the camera treats it like a monitor and the computer because the little adapter treats it like a USB webcam very cool yeah good to know good to know yeah and this was 16 bucks like wow not even an investment so um yeah little little tip for if I leave this in. But what I was going to say about the theater thing is I don't know if I ever said this on this podcast,

but when I was a kid, I was a theater actor. Okay. So that's something that I kind of had to mentally switch. And I grew up in a really small town too, so that like interconnectedness that you're talking about that, loving and acceptance and all that, was a little more. And because when you, I went to a high school at 80 people, there was, you couldn't really have beef, you know, you just, you really just accepted everyone for who they were. And you had like some weird ass friends and you're just like, well, I'm not his mom. He's just going to have to figure that out. But that was something that I had to kind of figure out switching to film, not like in a super strict sense, but like when you get into the film industry, it's people have jobs. You know, you're not there to make friends. I think. think that's what it was. The, I think the thing I had to learn was, I'm not there to make friends. Now, that isn't to say you don't end up making friends, but your goal is not to make friends.

And I think theater, the first thing you do is like team building exercises, you know? Right. Yeah. Yep. That's exactly. That's exactly what I felt like was, was that those people came from that kind of an environment. Whereas, yeah, the film industry, it's, you know, maybe not quite that same way. But, but, you know, I find it when you do have that kind of collaborative experience with a crew and you all jive and you all respect each other and you do make something magical, it's the most rewarding thing ever, you know? I mean, that's just like such a fun experience and so much better than to be like, oh yeah, we made some really pretty images, but everybody hated each other and three people walked off set and, you know, whatever, like, I've been on those. And

that's, uh, you know, that's not fun. So, uh, you know, if you can have your cake and eat it too by, by having this, these friendships and make something special, like, that's a win win. Yeah. Uh, what, uh, what were you shoot? Because as this is going to, we're going to just launch right into gear talk, but what did you end up shooting, uh, you, you go girl on? Or do you just like, do you have a set of gear that you just use for everything since you're kind of the rental house as well? Yeah. Um, you, you hit it on the head right. there. I've always been a fan of owning cameras, you know, I just, I've never liked the renting thing for a couple of reasons. A, I can't rent them here easily. I mean, you know, the last few years

with things like, you know, lens rentals and all these online companies has made that process way better. But still, you rent something and you get it and, you know, especially if you're doing an internet one, it's not around the corner like it is for you. You go into prep. and you're like, oh, we're missing the handle or, you know, like, whatever. Like, I hate that kind of stuff. I like really ironing out all of the camera things and having the camera dialed in to where everything on the camera is second nature because you use it all the time. I hate being having the, you know, there's enough pressure on set on the day anyway.

And so if you then compound it with like, how do you do this and why is this acting up? you know how do you get change white balance you know whatever it is like i i hate adding that layer of confusion to an already um stressful day so yes i i'm a huge fan of owning equipment um and so yeah you know i've gone through several different iterations i shot red for a long time and then i shot sonies for a long time um always had cannon still cameras still i mean i was originally always shooting you know camera canon with with photography and then have always you know ever since 5ds came out and you know had good video stuff I was always using those as B cameras but my A camera would be like a red epic or something and then yeah maybe

whenever like the C500 mark two came out I just was fed up I was I at that time had a Sony F S7 2 and and along with some smaller Sony's and or of course cameras. We're across cameras and they're great, you know, but the thing that I struggled the most with with both those was skin tones. I just was never happy. And every time I saw something shot on a cannon, I just was like, man, that skin looks so flawless. Like, it just looks right. It looks the way it's supposed to be instead of like a weird red green thing or, you know, like, I don't know, I was just having issues with that. So, yeah, when the, when the C-500 mark two came out, it just to me felt like the right blend of everything. I could shoot, I could shoot

big rig stuff on it. I could set it up and build it out in more of a studio type rig and have everything that I needed. But I could also pair it down and make it small and put it on a gimbal and operate it myself and not need somebody on the other side. And I had NDs. And, you know, it's just like everything is at your fingertips. And to me, that just because, became my go to. You know, I bought one. And I'm definitely like, I'm not pigeonholed into one type of shooting. That's for sure. I shoot a really wide range of things. And I go from day to day or week to week shooting absolute opposite kind of content. And so that camera for me has been able to change in morph into whatever I'm doing. So, you know, we were, we shot you go girl. And we

did it, you know, cinema lenses and, you know, a little bit bigger build out and shot a lot of it handheld with an easy rig. And then, you know, literally three days later, well, actually, you know, that week actually, when we shot those last spring, the week before I was shooting a national commercial for Herring David and same type of setup, big cinema glass and, you know, bigger setup. And then we shot you go girl. And then the week after that, I was shooting the other main show that I shoot is. is Jim Belushi has a show called Growing Belushi on the Discovery Channel. And I'm the DP and one of the executive producers on that show. And yeah, so, so, you know, that's all reality show. And it's completely different style of shooting.

But we shot it on the same camera. You know, we're just shooting on a different lens. So, you know, with with You Go Girl and some of the commercial work I was doing before we were shooting it on the C-500 with their Sumi ray lenses. And then, um, you know, we would jump into like the, uh, the 17 to 120, you know, um, for and, and set up totally for reality. A lot of zooms, you know, a lot of zooming in and out. And, you know, they want all this like shakiness and searching for focus and whip zooms. And, uh, so we go into that, you know, mode. Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, that call of like, hey, we want it, we want it more shaky and, you know, more focus.

focus finding and more zooms and, you know, as a DEP, you're like, ah, this is what I like fight against all the time. But reality, you know, that works for the reality space. So, so anyway, all that's to say, that camera platform for me has just been like the sweet spot. It's able to do all the different things. And it is attainable, you know, like some, some of these cameras aren't just, they're just not attainable for an owner operator, you know, that's not renting him out, you know, every week or whatever. And so like, it's affordable. It, uh, you, you can own it.

And so then you can learn it and, and have it be your just every week camera. Um, and so yeah, I've been a huge fan of it. That's, uh, almost exactly why I bought it. I was kidding out a C 200 and that morning, I remember I was just up really early for some reason. And that morning, I was like, I wonder if they're ever going to make like another C 500. and I just Googled it just to see like I was because in my head I was like should I just buy an old C 500 like you know what and it was like that morning was the press release yeah for the for the Mark 2 and I was like no shit

and so I put it in an order I called my contact at film tools and I was like hey you're going to get one of these right he's like yeah we've got like we ordered a handful I was like cool I put me down for one and he's like wait seriously I was like yes right now do it I got serial number eight no way wow I was oh that That's awesome. Right in there. Yeah. But yeah, just being able to, like, I've said the same,

nearly the same thing in the article I wrote for Pro Video Coalition, which was like, it can literally do whatever you want. Yeah, it can't. I think, yeah. Only, I think the only gripe I have is right after that, they released the C300 that does 120 frames. Yeah. And I was like, because I don't, the DGO sensor is like, whatever.

And I was, and I don't see myself using one, although I will say the C500 does, for anyone listening, the C500 does do 120 frames. in super 16 crop right yeah but i was like can i just can we you can't figure that out engineers right yeah i know so you know what my solution was um i bought a c300 also so uh so uh you know at the time i was doing it was actually when we when we came back on for doing season two of growing Belushi, it's, you know, it was a two to three camera shoot and it just made sense to like, wow, you know, I actually, the pairing of the two cameras has been fantastic because there are

a couple things that the C-300 does better and a couple things C-500 does better. And I found that owning both, you know, like the other day, we were doing like a tabletop shoot where we needed 120 and it was a lot of macro stuff where I actually preferred having a super 35 sensor. And so, and it is with that sensor, the DGO or whatever it's called, is a little bit cleaner in the shadows. And so, you know, it ended up being the perfect camera for that. And so I do bounce back and forth. And with the show, what we did was we shot ACAM with C500 in Super 35 crop mode because we were shooting on the 17 to 120, which is a cropped lens. And so I shot that in 4K and then, and then, you know, the same thing on the, on the C300.

And so it made a really great like two camera setup. And then if we needed 120, which we did occasionally, then we would shoot that on the C300. If I needed like crazy, you know, shallow depth of field or something else and I'd go to the full frame C500. And like I've really found that having the two has been like really a sweet setup. Yeah. For me, I mean, like, my work's almost always single camera. But I was thinking of picking up a C70 because I don't need like, really for like if I was to do like corporate work interview, stuff like that where I just plop it down. Right now I use my Fuji XT3. And I have found that I actually can match them. Wow. Nearly identical, which threw a bunch of people off. I wrote a whole article about it. Yeah. But even, same thing, wrote an article comparing the 500 and the 300. and I found that, as you said, the shadows are less noisy on the 300, but if you shoot at 400 ISO on the C500, there's too many hundreds now.

400 ISO, shadows clean up immediately. Yeah. So I just shoot everything at around 400 unless it's like super bright, then I'll jack it up. But yeah, just like a little bit of tint adjustment and pretty much identical image. And I would have never said that the 500 was noisy in the shadows. You don't, you know, until you put it at 200% side by side and they're like, oh, this one is a little cleaner, but it's not like you ever actually notice that in the 500. It's, it's so clean. It's just a beautiful image. So yeah, yeah, fantastic cameras. I can't recommend it enough. I just have been

extremely happy with this platform. Is there any sort of gear in the future that you're kind of looking into or like any, because my position has kind of been like, you can come out with almost anything now and I'm not amazed like camera technology feels like it's peaking like I don't know where we're but like give me 12k I don't care you know I don't yeah exactly right you know we have 10 bit we have raw we have so now it's down to like hardware like you know um ease of use or whatever but is there anything kind of that you've seen that's kind of got you a little excited just kind of as a gear nerd yeah um I think I think the only thing thing, and it's such a specialty nuance thing, but that I'm looking at right now is more high frame

rate stuff. So I do have a lot of like tabletop, you know, food, things dropping, you know, stuff that I really would like to be able to shoot at a thousand frames a second. But I'd be plenty happy with 500, 480, you know, like even 240, you know. And so I'd say that that's, that's the one kind of specialty nuance thing. It's not in every job, but you know, whenever you can splice in some of that really slow-mo footage, if you're doing any kind of action, you know, if you're shooting a skier and most of it is all live action and some of it's at 60-120 and then they throw that one big spray of powder and you can go to a thousand frames, like that's magical. So you're right, though. We have peaked in so many ways, like the drones that we're getting.

now for four grand or whatever are all mavik that's saying okay yeah i mean i just picked up that latest the mavick three and it's like you know i'm getting i'm getting you know this beautiful log image and at a high bit rate and you know so many things and then like say like with the cannon system there's like i don't feel like i'm missing anything in there you know besides a really high frame rate i would love to be able to just crank up you know you know you know, to 480 or something and be able to do it. But, you know, that is a, it is a specialty camera thing. And there are, you know, there are some cameras now that are coming out with, you know, in the 10,000 and under range that'll do 1,000 frames. You know, it's not just the

phantoms anymore. There's a few other options. But I've got quite a bit of that, you know, this year. So I am kind of looking at like, gosh, what are my, what are my options? And do I need to just rent in or is there something that I could buy. So that, that's really about it for me right now. I feel like, I feel like King on the Hill, like having some of the latest stuff, having cannons, you know, latest cameras. I also have a couple R5s and like that camera is insane for, you know, for, I also shoot a lot of like really adventurous, you know, like, you know, fly in on a float plane and Alaskin get dropped off in the middle of nowhere and you can only bring 50 pounds of gear and you're out there for two weeks and you know and so i use our fives for that kind of

stuff and to be able to take these unbelievable you know um still images at a really high resolution and then with the touch of a button be able to jump back over and and and record video is just like you know it's that tool for that application has been really game changing for me as well yeah you know it's funny because talking to like strict sort of let's say old school cinematographers, a lot of those tools completely unnecessary. You know, photo modes, totally unnecessary. Anything that's not 24P pretty much unnecessary. So it's nice to hear someone say like actually all those tools were made for me. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. No, I think, you know, as as content creators with a lot of different disciplines. I mean, you're right. There's a lot of jobs I'm on where, you know, it's just

strictly 24 frame, you know, cinematographies type stuff. But there's a lot of other things where I have to be, you know, I have to play both hats. And, you know, if you're working for a brand and they send you out on this, you know, on a backcountry ski tour or on a remote hunt in Alaska, like they need both deliverables. And they actually, a lot of those jobs, the the photo delivery is like just as important as the video content and sometimes even more so. I know there's a I shoot another like adventure hunting type show that's on the sportsman's channel called the most wanted list. And most of the sponsors of that show, the the images for their social feeds are more important than than the actual show. Like that's what they want, you know, sponsor wise and they're the ones

kind of paying the bill. But that's, you know, more important. So I have to jump back and forth. and be able to still shoot a storyline and be able to jump over and get these images really quick. And so I find myself jumping back and forth like a ton. And I've never been able to do that on a camera where I had so many tools where I could do slow-mo. I can shoot, you know, I'm shooting full frame and I'm just getting these gorgeous images and video side by side. I mean, it's really, it's been pretty game-changing for me. I like to end all this podcast. asking the same two questions, first of which is what's a piece of advice that you either received or read or just something like that that you feel is stuck with you throughout your career as a cinematographer? I feel like maybe the biggest thing that has that has helped me along my career is, is just to never settle for like it's okay or it's average.

Like to set you, I always refer to it as the bar, you know, to set your bar like really high. You know, in LA, the bar is high. There's great work everywhere. Well, so. Signal to noise ratio is pretty fucking high. I know, I know in my, you know, area that's a little smaller, there's just a lot of average work out there. And there's a lot of people that just kind of like, you know, settle for this like local commercial. you know, look. And I just feel like I've always just kind of set my bar a little higher. Like

I even if it is a local client or a small job, like I always try to shoot it like it's a multi-million dollar project. You know, like what, what, how can we make this thing look and how can we develop the story to make it be way above, you know, what it is? And today there's, the tools are available to do that and to do it, you know, somewhat affordably. You know, you go girl is a good example of that that was not that had no budget you know i mean we did that on a shoestring and uh and i think it looks fantastic you know and and it and it made it into sundance so that's saying something um and so i think that that's a big one is just like not being okay with okay like always like you know like grind it out and and i i would also say that that never comes

easy. I don't, I've never done anything that it was just like, oh, that was so easy. We just threw up a camera and it came out and it's like amazing. Like it's usually come, everything good I've done has come with me pulling my hair out at some point, like agonizing over how we're going to do something or you know what I mean? Like you have to go through that grinding process to make something great. I keep thinking that there's going to be a shortcut. and that like eventually you'll just have all this knowledge and experience and you'll just throw something up and it's amazing and it never happens like you have to grind it out you have to do your homework you have to prep you have to pull references you have to do all those things and it just

doesn't come easy but if you do and you go through that process you know like what we we see so often in in in movies and whatever like the writers process you know where the writer is at the typewriter and pretty soon, he's, you know, it's two in the morning. He's pulling his hair out and he's throwing crumpled up paper, you know, and you finally like come up with something. I feel like that is the process of anything great. At least I haven't found shortcuts, you know, around going through kind of the ringer to get there. So, so that would be my advice is just setting the bar high and realizing that that takes work and it takes effort. You won't just like, you know, slide right into that. You have to like, you have to do your, your deal.

your diligence on it. Yeah, I think that does kind of go back to what we were saying about the democratization of filmmaking is that now that everyone can do it and at least on like YouTube, it seems to be a lot of amateurs teaching amateurs. And you get, I think, what you're seeing, you know, locally and definitely here is in L.A. where that sameness, that base level sameness where there's not a higher target to hit, you know, people are talking, I'll see people like, I really, want to be a cinematographer. My goal is to make films. And it's like, well, what do you do now?

And they're like, well, I watch a lot of YouTube and I make tutorial videos. And it's like, great shit. I do that. But like, are you watching, are you watching films? Are you trying to like work on films? And it's totally chill. If you're happy doing that, like people make a ton of money, you know, doing that. And it's, it can be fun, especially if you're a gear person. But yeah, I think setting that higher goal like you're saying is, is laudable, but all. make sure that you actually have a target. Yeah. I think I want to be a DP is not a target.

Right. I want to shoot that kind of stuff. Now I need to figure out who makes that is a little more. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you can also, you know, you can get a paid gig. And let's say it's just, you know, a few thousand dollar gig or whatever, you know. And I have so many times blown everything that I'm going to make and then some on like using that

as like a platform to make something even bigger. I mean, we talk about doing, you know, passion projects or whatever. What doesn't always have to be something that's separate from work, you know, sometimes I'll just take something where they're not really expecting anything amazing, but I'll treat it as like, hey, this is a Budweiser commercial, even though it's, you know, what something stupid. And that gives you a chance to try to achieve, you know, if your goal is to shoot Budweiser commercials, then, you know,

treat your your little local, you know, side project as if it is a Budweiser commercial and go through the motions and try to do everything you can, even if that means you're going to make a lot less money because you blew it all on getting the hazer and the right camera and the filters and the things that you need to do it. But like, hey, that's, that's, you know, a way to, it's a way to learn it. And at least you're getting paid something. And you're not just doing it all on your own dime. So I've just always treated projects bigger than what they were. And I feel like that has worked out. Yeah. That's fantastic advice. Second question, a little easier. Suggest a film for people to watch that isn't yours.

Oh boy. This is where I have a hard time. It used to be what's your favorite movie, but that's a horrible question. Yeah. I get inspired, but you know, you take you take little bits from from different films you know and and sometimes it's story elements sometimes it's camera elements and like you know one film uh it's rare that one film like changes you know a lot for me it's just that you know you saw you saw one thing in this film that you're like oh you know that was cool um you know I remember and again I have a terrible memory for films and I'm not like a you know I'm not like a huge uh uh i don't spend all my time like watching and memorizing and and studying film um and but i you know i remember watching like ford versus Ferrari and being really like inspired by a lot

of their like outdoor um you know outdoor lighting a lot of i mean honestly it was a lot of golden light a lot of sunset stuff like a lot of beautiful stuff um and then you know there's other stories like, you know, the Green Book that were, you know, are just super inspiring and, you know, and it may not even be the visuals. But then you go like, okay, you know, some of these good films, like at the end of it, you go like, well, the cinematography didn't stand out to me, but man, I was so involved in the story. And then you need to go back and look at the cinematography because it kept you in the story. And it's like, it didn't stand out, but it didn't pull you away. So what did it, what were they doing and how did they use it?

You know, so, so yeah, I don't know. Again, I'm terrible with, with movies. That's fine. But to be fair, like, I think that a lot of people would argue that that's perfect cinematography when it doesn't draw attention to itself. Right. And it just serves the story perfectly. Yeah. And you notice it.

You know, when it's bad, you, you definitely notice it. And then you go like, oh, what's, you know, like, it pulls you out of it. So I think when it's just really well executed, you know, it can. it can be magical yeah well uh that was i appreciate uh giving me a little extra time that was a fantastic conversation i really enjoyed that yeah likewise it was fun yeah thanks for having me alone i appreciate it