Frame & Reference Podcast - 44: "The Princess Switch 3" DP Fernando Arguelles, ASC AEC

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

On todays episode, Kenny talks to cinematographer Fernando Arguelles, ASC AEC about the Netflix film "The Princess Switch 3." Some of Fernando's credits include episodes of "Fear the Walking Dead", "Swamp Thing", "Hemlock Grove" and "Prison Break." Kenny and Fernando dive into the challenges of switching styles from darker, heavier projects likes those listed above to a lighter RomCom like "The Princess Switch 3" for Netflix. Its a great episode so enjoy! 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 Fernando Arioias, ASC, AEC, about his work on the Princess Switch 3 over on the old Netflix. Fernando also shot the DC show Swamp Thing, which was an amazing show undervalued, in my opinion. He shot Prison Break. He shot one of the Walking Dead spinoffs, a bunch of really cool stuff. He's kind of known for doing more darker thing, you know, like your prison breaks and your swamp things. But was able to go off and do kind of a romantic comedy with the Princess Switch. So, you know, we have a good chat about those dichotomies, as it were, as well as a lot of really great discussion around the history of filmmaking and what makes a good artist in our opinions and sort of speaking to that lineage that I believe a filmmaker needs to be aware of and sort of, I guess, participate in is a weird word.

but um because you don't participate in the past necessarily but make it part of you as you go forward and uh he seems to agree and that's actually something we're going to be talking about a lot in the next handful of episodes that you'll be hearing because obviously when you listen to this i've already recorded a number of them so um yeah so that's that's kind of where we're at right now both with the podcast and with Fernando but uh here without any ado's to be further as I've said too many times, I think, in these intros, here's my conversation with Fernando Arioyas, ASC, AEC. So the way we normally get started with these

is just by asking how you got started in cinematography. I understand you were really into painting as a kid. Well, yeah, I was, I love painting. I always, you know, since I kind of remember, kind of remember, I'd always love to see paintings, photographs, movies, something that, you know, somehow communicate to me. In the case of paintings and photographs, it's a silent communication,

it's what you actually look at it and you think what the artist tried to say or what is communicating. in the sense of movies, that was different because I used to go to the movies with my parents and that everyone was fascinating of this movement. I think it's a combination of technical stuff and also the fact that you see those characters in the screen

talking and whatever story might be. But I was always interested in images And paintings was my first thing, because I grew up in Europe. I was raised up in surroundings that painting and sculpture and those things are, you know, part of the day life in terms of, you know, museums in a school. there is a big emphasis in art, in not only just art, but history of art, starting from the caves. So to speak, and so we were always artists from the beginning of humankind, this artistry was there. It's a necessity, even though some people want to make it like we don't need art. Yes, we do. Very much so.

And probably is one of the things that is saying in the world right now. So I became fascinated with that, paintings, images, all that iconography of some of the heavy Spanish painters, you know, whatever is 12, 13, 14th century, up to Goia and something like that. then other painters from other parts of Europe, you know, like Carbaccio, Rubens, Rembrandt, what not. I love it. I did.

I spent hours. I spent more hours looking at images than actually studying, reading, trying to memorize. I think it was more interesting, you know, to see, oh, look at that. You know, the chorus, the landscapes, the things than studying and trying to learn. Well, and you can also like, especially. especially with, I find when I'm, photography too, but especially like paintings and stuff, you start to tell the story in your head, not only of the painting, but like what was going through the painter's head when they made it or like, you know, looking at brush technique or

anything like that. I always find that you can really kind of, it's almost meditative, you know, versus reading a book or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There is this silent, there is the silent situation between you and the artist's work that only you, nobody else in the world communicates with that person. At that particular moment when you're looking at that thing. It's very unique.

And, you know, there are a lot of things that I was probably we were talking, I was 12, 13 years old when I started being very interested about this. Also, my father was an avid reader And at the same time, I was reading books that they were not for my age. You know, I was John Dospasos, Steinbeck, Spanish, writers, South Americans, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and whatnot. So I was at 13 years old, I was getting information that it was for more mature.

But, you know, the books were there. I was here. Why not to look at it? You know, and so my studies kind of suffer from it, a lot. And that was the dichotomy of how I grew up. But I grew up, as I said, you know, image is always interesting. And then I tried to paint and to be, only with you, I was a very bad drawing. Couldn't draw very well.

I remember one thing was a horse head. I tried to draw a horsehead, and it was a disaster. My teacher was like, what is that? And I mean, he wasn't very nice, but he was very good. And, you know, I think that frustrates me to the point that I got to photography. And my brother, I was about 16, 17, had a Jaseka then. It was not a reflex camera, but it was a 35 millimeter camera. So I put some black and white film.

I processed it and then I did contact sheets so I didn't have money for a magnifier and I didn't have money for Bats and so the only thing I have money is it was just to see my photos

in positive contact shit and it was a lot of fun yeah did you were you able to invest in a loop and like actually get in there were you just kind of doing one of these no no at that time I had better than I didn't use glasses

so I just watching and you know you could see it. And I said, wow, it was a self-discovery of technical stuff and a process that fascinated me to the point that I decided to start doing more stills and getting to the next level, which was, oh, this is great, but what about this when it moves and that is motion pictures? That's why you're the director of photography,

because then you get into the same, but now moves. It's the next kind of situation. No, that it's more or less important, still our bullshit picture, but it was somehow a natural progression. Yeah. Do you think that by kind of at first being forced to look at the small contact sheets, that that affected your sort of compositional eye in any way? You know, like you couldn't, you had to do everything in close-ups or whatever?

No, not necessarily. No, no. I mean, still is one thing. You learn some, listen, I was learning. It was a completely learning process at that time. So I don't know if it would have affected or not. Personally, I don't think so. I think when you get into the image in the movement image, things change a little.

There is a difference between a still photography and most of picture of photography or moving image, there is a radical difference between the two. One is a contemplation of a, of a, the decisive moment. Meanwhile, the other is a contemplation of a story, which is told with a camera and, you know, lenses and lighting and whatever. Yeah, you know, it's funny these days

because now all the photo cameras shoot video, So I'm seeing a lot of, and this has been true for, you know, over a decade now, but a lot of young photographers start getting into trying to make films. And I shouldn't say try to make films. That's dismissive. But they're making their films and the visual language is completely wrong. And then they, instead of thinking, oh, this doesn't look cinematic because of, you know, editing from shot to shot, they buy the shallows depth of field lens. they can get smack a bunch of filters on there. And they're like, now it's cinematic.

Yeah, right. Well, I mean, it's a lot to talk to what is happening nowadays. I think the quick, I don't know how to call it. The quick reward that somebody's going to see your work in a social media, this or that, it has becoming everything like shortened up and, okay, I do this. and then, oh, because I have a very, very, no depth of field, I am a cameraman or a cinematographer or director of photography. Not quite so.

There is a process. Any, any from, listen, from Picasso, when I mentioned in Picasso, you know, it's somebody that painted that most people know, from Picasso to whoever, there is a process of learning. I mean, Stanley Kerrick didn't get there before, was a tremendous steel photographer. Right.

He has been a stilts. They are great stills. He did in New York and some of the places. He was carrying his camera around all the time. So this quick connection of all this hand and we became a filmmaker because I put a neutral density filter and I shoot wide open at 1.7. Yeah, whatever.

That is not what it is. It implies much more than that. It implies a knowledge which not necessarily has to be technical, but also it has to be knowledge of drama, of editing, of composition. But, you know, social media is also creating this, okay, I should, this video, boom, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's like, okay, all right, fine.

And I'm seeing that when you said, you're completely right. Okay, that's good. Now, do that, but do with the most depth field you can do. Yeah. For instance, you know, oh, Greg Tholan, Orson, Wells, and all of those movies that they have. So, so, so, so, so, oops, oops. Are you there?

Yeah, yeah. Hold on, hold on, hold on, something up. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, you know, it's, I mean, it is not a criticism, but there is the immediate thing right now. I have to show it in Facebook, but I have to show it in Instagram or whatever it is. Yeah, it's, I've been talking to a lot of DPs about this recently. And like, I think the general consensus is that it's not bad.

it's just perhaps frustrating that there's not like defined lines you know because there's cinematography there's that

and then there's I suppose videography which are related but completely different languages and those languages have been mixed or the discussions around them yes

precisely there is a very good point there there is a And I like this conversation, not talking about my career, but the thing is, let's go back about 10 to 50 years, all right? And then you start seeing this proliferation of HD cameras and video cameras that they are accessible, they are cheaper and accessible to everybody. So the guy comes, buys a $20,000.

or so whether it is red camera. Maybe I use Ari, Alexa, whatever, you know, or a black magic, or, you know, a camera with decent, you know, 4K to 3.9K, whatever it is. And, you know, it starts shooting. So that is not creating, that is not a cinematographer. No matter what that guy thinks, because he was a camera, several lenses,

he's a cinematographer. does not be a sermatrofen everybody's able to buy you go to an art shop you buy the big canvas

you buy your paintings you're not going to be Carvaggio right everybody's able to buy and we don't have a Carvaggio today the thing is

that there is more and more it has been a tremendous and that socialization of cameras before was very expensive to have cameras. Okay, this democratization, let's put in this, the war socialist is scarce.

So the democratization of cameras, it has worked two ways. One is to have an excess of people trying to say, I'm a cinematographer when they're not, or I'm a DP when I'm not, and all the people that they have learned from there. You know, they have, learned from that and they have little by little done the steps, little by little or whatever

done the steps of work that it takes them to be a cinematographer. Now there is the flavor of the mouth too. Yeah. Don't really the flavor of the mouth, okay. And it's like all this time somebody shoots something and it's kind of cool, but it's one hit, it's one hit. And then all of a sudden, this person, it becomes like, oh, wow, look at that cinematographer and that's in a material for, and then, then you see that after that, there is no much more to say because, like, well, that was just appropriate for that project. But then when you, you are working as a, as a, as a, as a person that he has to do other projects, you, you are not able to do it because you don't have the background for it.

And it has happened. And I don't want to go into the terms, but I've seen things that I want like, wow, that's pretty, that's pretty crazy, no. There are two things. Dismitification of the director of photography is fine. The desmitification of the director as directors is fine, but also that creates a lack of real interest for the trade from, you know, to start from. the beginning. Yes. Those two things there are, you know, I don't know if I'm explaining myself well enough. No, you are. It's, you know, it's the, I think, you know, I certainly grew up with the internet,

you know, I, me and a friend of mine were just talking about how it's strange that we were alive before the internet. Like, we were right on the cusp, you know, but it's still strange to be like, man, I remember a world where no one was doing that. It was just, you had to sit in a room and look at each other. But what the internet has done is like, you know, I remember in school, the teacher would always be like, you will never have a calculator in your pocket. So you have to learn math. You know, that's not true.

I have one with me forever. You know, if you're in history class and you don't know about something, do to doot, I've got it right here. I've just learned it. And I think, you know, maybe you're at home and I liken being a cinematographer sometimes to being a plumber in that, you know, it's like a trade. It's a bunch of hard work. and you're paying for me to fix a problem in 15 minutes because of the 15 years I have doing it.

You know, I'm not looking it up. But, you know, go ahead. I was just going to say, but I think that immediately learning, you know, you can hop on YouTube, watch a tutorial on how to expose an image. And then you go like, got it, I'm done. I see people online talking about how they, you know, they've learned. I just bought a camera I'm trying to get more jobs

as a DP and as a director and I just need help like how do I how do I activate the ND filters in this camera? You know? Yeah. Yeah, there is

a whole bunch of things. There is people also teaching that they have not much experience and all of a sudden I see them you know, they're offering the self-teacherals. They have some kind of courses I haven't done anything of that, and I have a pretty heavy experience, I think, to be able to teach something. But I don't want to get into that because the teaching factor is for certain places.

We haven't there you see teaching classes, as you know, and maybe some of it. But I don't want to, you know, be in the social media like, I don't have the time to, you know, to that kind of stuff. And I've seen people just like, what is this guy? talking about, I mean, what is his, what is his base in all its knowledge? I mean, in a book that he read on online, what is he talking about here? So I'm not saying that you have to be too many years in the business to be able to teach or anything like it, but you know, you have to have a base. And not necessarily, and not necessarily is a base that's coming from the books or online.

It's a base coming from your experience on the field. It's not just putting a light here and say, okay, I have a, you know, and this stuff. I mean, it's a little more than that. This is an art formation of your brain with your images. Yeah. You know, that was something I was going to ask you a minute ago was something else I've talked to a lot of DPs about is the difference between technically correct

and emotionally correct. you know sometimes the the image that you need to make for a for a project isn't three point lighting you know covered the hell out of the scene you know some and sometimes it just feels right to do something else and a lot of times that's that's the correct answer yeah yeah that very good part first of all I think we are I never been a very technical person okay I am not the DP that knows that the BNC cable 320H4 goes with a box. I'm not into that very much. I just want to produce images according to my vision.

Of course, I know what a 720 is. You know, that's small stuff that it gets me what I need to know. Let's not forget that I started more in film than in videos. So I have the analog formation first. I just want the camera to be able to reproduce the images that are vision. Okay. And I know just the technical aspect of it that is necessary for that. The rest, and you know, which is tremendously big,

and sometimes I listen to, I hear people and I go like, wow, I admire them, but that's not what I want. I'm not interested. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm interested in seeing how the actors move. And I said, okay, well, the best angle might be right here. And then, you know, a diagonal that it makes the whole, I'm very much into architecture. So I love, I love the actors to be surrounded by a background that they feel, they feel correct to act. You know, if you put an actor against the wall, why wall, like, nothing happens. But if you play with the camera to find perspective, you know, false perspective as well, diagonals, I love diagonals. in fact, most of my camera, a lot of camera moves that I do, they are, they are diagonal. And why?

It's because it brings a three-dimensional aspect of the backgrounds with the actors, meaning when you start moving diagonal, things start shifting in a different way than if you, if you should, you know, like parallel, for instance, or going in. So the diagonal creates a different shape of the architecture of the places. That if you combine with white lenses, you can get more effect on that. I did a TV show, one of the first TV shows, Netflix. One of the first, I mean the first, there were two shows, Hemlock Grove and and House of Cards.

Those were the two first TV shows than Netflix started the stream. And I was the DP for Camel Grove. And we created a lot of that situation. We tried to innovate a little bit with those camera moves, with very low angles, with very wide lenses, something there are a lot of people is doing right now.

You could say that the Kubrick frame wasn't exactly the adjusted public frame. I mean, we did it because we felt it was right for that. But, of course, public is a master and it has that kind of, you know, very symmetric perspective. I am a big fan of Japanese movies. Japanese movies, they have a tremendous symmetry when you look at them. No matter, I mean, we have Kurosawa, of course, but, you know, you go Osu, Misovuchi,

many of these directors. When you look at the frames, you go like, wow, this is amazing. One of the things that I always admire of Kurosawa is that the three, when he has the triangle with the characters, he creates a triangle with the, with the background, and they're always the characters in the frame. It's always, it's absolutely fantastic his composition. And again, the diagonal traveling, I think,

and the diagonal Dolly, I think, is, is, it creates a very interesting atmosphere visually. Yeah. You know, it's funny as Checo Verriese kind of said the same thing about the architecture and moving the camera. As, yeah. It did. I know Checo, very guy. Yeah, he's awesome. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, this is, this is, it's natural. Well, we are part of our environment. You're looking at me right now, and there are big windows there, these kind of an industrial look ceiling. Okay, so I am part of this environment right now. When a production designer comes and designs, design sets according to the story, the actors have to play in the set because that's, you know what I mean? Just they belong there.

Yeah, I mean, that's the ultimate argument against the whole green screen fad from the early 2000s, right? It was just like the no environment to interact with. Well, this is the thing. I don't green screen. I'm right now maybe to do a project that we're going to have some virtual reality, meaning, you know, monitors. The volume. Yeah.

I understand we progress, the thing. We need to have new technologies and all of that. I mean, I've seen. Some of the work has done. First of all, it's a very expensive, laborious kind of work with that. Also, you have to have the means, you know, to be able to have accrual for that. And they are all, we deposed. We are not yet.

I mean, we know, but we are not totally familiar with it. But also, what I've seen, I'm not that convinced. I'm not that convinced. I'm sorry. Of course, I have a very critical eye. I'm a DP, so I see things in a different way that the audience, the audience can sell things, you know, you know. But I'm not convinced that it looks that real.

I think that like using the Mandalorian as the famous example, there's definitely, definitely in the first season, I remember going like none of this looks real. Like it looks real in that. It looks shot, but it just looked. almost animated. I think this most recent season of like, whatever it is, Book of Boba Fett,

I think they're doing a little bit more practical and leaving the screens just for the farthest background, you know, which I think looks a lot better. But there's definitely, you can definitely see it. I've noticed. Yeah, you, I see, you know what, I see more than seeing it, you feel it.

Do you feel something is not there? And you're trying to explain to someone, oh, well, maybe that, because it's very difficult, and this is the problem, it's very difficult to find, okay, I have a background, right? When you are in a physical place, okay, that makes sense. But how exactly you measure from your lens to the background or your photography and make it work? you know what I'm saying?

No matter what, there is something plastic about it. You know, something that doesn't look right. But the combination, you know what I thought when I saw the Mandalorian

I said, maybe they would have used this system, but instead of shooting in video, they would have showed it in film, film would have gave a certain death. Of course, it's, you know, it was.

of it was a thought. But maybe film would have adjusted to that, to that kind of proportion due to the, to the organic, the organic formation of the negative. So, so, so, so, you know, and I thought for a second, I said, wow, this might be, maybe that would have looked a little better. You know, it was just a thought. I don't know, but of course, the costing film is atrocious. Yeah. Well, and apparently they right now, unless it's changed, they have to use, I think it's what a specific Alexa. Like they made an Alexa and tweaked it. So because it's the only camera they could get to render that background correctly. Well, I think yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, I think like

the reds like the background just looked a completely different color. Like it couldn't render the screens. Like the physical screen wouldn't wouldn't kind of blow out correctly. I think it's an Alexa 65. I think it's the big Alexa, the 65, which has a massive sensor. And it's the camera that it would compare the closest to film in some extent. We are in the biggest steps of all these kind of production. at this point. So we're running all of us, even the people that they build that and they, so it is a slow process.

I haven't seen anything yet that it compares with real, it compares totally with real location shooting. Therefore, therefore, the audience might not see the same that I say. You see, at the end, it doesn't matter what I, what I judge or not is, you know, it's a matter of you're going to sell that to an audience and they're going to like it or not. And I think that for them, works. Yeah. Was the transition from film to digital difficult, or did you kind of come to it? And also, what sort of techniques are you glad that film taught you that you brought over

to shooting digitally and what did you kind of go like oh thank god we don't have to do that anymore if any you know it was difficult for all of us i think for all the dPs for some of us more than others or less than others but we were all in this ship that all the scientists were changing uh there was back back 12 12 years 13 years ago when the whole process was started changing 14 years ago. There were DPs, they were, some of us we were against, and some others they were completely against it. I don't know if the guy did most, a lot of Spielberg movies,

one of his first DP he worked with Alan W. Alan W. said a sentence that he ran through the DP world for many years, years is yes, I'm doing very high definition. It's called film. So, you know, I'm doing high definition. It's like, we're going to be like film. I said, I'm doing high definition. It's called film. So it was, you know, kind of a little, the whole sarcasm included. So the, and it was a struggle. It was a struggle because we were not prepared. We were not prepared, quote, but what it was not prepared were the companies that they forced, somehow, force, or the whole thing to shift into EAST, meaning they were not the right cabins. They forced us to be prepared for something that they were not prepared for.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, Sony and whatnot. not. Meaning my first film transferred. I finished I did prison break.

I finished prison break and then my next TV show, it was it was with digital. The studio came to say we are going to start shooting digital now and you have to do it or you have to say goodbye

basically. Oh geez. Yeah, it was, it was imposed in some extent. So we, I said, okay, well, let me do, I did some tests. What was the first camera that I worked with? Was a Sony, a Sony called Genesis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That it was supposed to be the first cinematography camera. So, with video, everything is going to be smaller.

They was bigger. I mean, we have more cables. We used to say, what is this spaghetti here? And then the DIT and then monitors and waveforms and more waveforms and more monitors just because at the beginning, nobody knew anything, by the way. So the only thing the piece we knew is how to write. how to write. You see, our artistry

was first than whatever technical aspects. We couldn't apply the you know, we couldn't apply this under-exposure, over-spoture, et cetera, et cetera, et over-processing that we have in film. All of that was gone.

The ASA was like, okay, well, what is the new ASA? And so these things we have to, but we knew how to like. Yeah. And I can tell you in my case, say, that's what he's saying, professional. You know, it's funny because you saying that makes me think that like, or reminds me, I suppose. But I'm sure, like, I, you know, Roger Deacons was talking about how anytime he needed to think for a minute, he would just, like, go to the eyepiece and kind of just stare and nothingness.

thing for a sec. And I'm wondering if you experienced this were like all the extra stuff that came with digital made the camera. I don't want to say repulsive, but like you didn't want to be near. It was just like too much shit happening. And you're like, I got to get away from that and start playing with lights or something. You know, no like that, but close like that. Every time I, you know, after we did a take and I got up and I, you know, I was looking at the monitor and I got up and saw the camera and I was like, my God. You know, it was like, what?

Oh, my God. He's like, oh, my God. So it was a little bit like a surprise every time I look at the camera. I mean, you were years and years. You know, your magazines, the whole system and all the value, some of the things go from your analog thing

to into a digital world. So, and, and, And there is, there is one thing people do not consider sometimes is that some of us we came from more analog structure thinking. And yeah, I know this sounds a little philosophy, but it's true. No, we love that. We love it. And I'm going to put it here because this was, has been important in my career.

Analog, my brain was built in an analog system. And then on the side, and I, I am. sucked into a digital system. So my, even my brain, my thinking, it had to adapt to new ways of it. Would you say that there's some of these new ways of thinking that have actually helped you out? Yes.

You know, now 14 years after, I can tell you many things that I think they help me out, that I'm happy with, all the things I'm not that happy with but I think there is a certain things I think that they have progress I made a progress

as a cinematographer because of that it's important going back to that that was my first camera and the second camera was a Sony the 55 also very bulky that was my second I know the show I did

and from there and you know two, three years here and the Alexa came. I was in Dallas, Texas, and I saw the and a friend of mine, the owner of NPS there, I said, hey, come here, there's new camera from

Arbycans. I said, okay, so I went there, I look at it, and just seeing the camera, I said, why I have the feeling that this camera is going to be the camera going to be using. From now on, just because I am, again, I'm going back to a little bit to the Japanese thing. I like simplicity. No simplicity, simple. No. You know

what I mean. I mean, I like, yes, simplicity. Simple but not simplistic. Yes, exactly. Thank you. So I saw the camera and I said, wow, look at that. ASA, color correction. And that's all I need. That's all I need. That's what I had in film previously. What I worked in film? Color correction, filtration, lights or camera,

and the speed of the film. So this is the same. So now I start getting a little more like, you know, when you are going to do your art, you want all that technicality taking care of. So you concentrate on how the framing and the camera moves and how you tell the story and how it's not about some kind of menu and soup menu and soup menu and suit menu the suit menu. I don't care about it. You know what I mean? It's all that kind of stuff. So, so,

um, so, so, so, so, so the Alexa, I saw the results. I said, this is very good. And then I I used it for my next show, and it had a tremendous latitude as a camera, tremendous latitude. I mean, I remember the first scene of the episode, it was somebody escaping from the roof of a prison, from a jail, and I only put one light from the back, nothing in the front. And the camera, the sensor, the light was kind of blue. night, you know, the famous, and it was hitting the, the, he did the, the roof of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, and then the bounce of it on the faces, I got detailed. And I was like, I'm, I'm sold. Now I'm sold. Because this is, this is, this is good. You know, I'm, I do. I have it. So this is, this is looking more what I used to. And I've been using Alexa pretty much since then. And I think the. the cameras are good too. Listen, red. Red has fantastic cameras out.

I think the Benis is a very good camera for what I've seen. The thing is my eye has got used to the Alexa. I've shown hundreds of episodes with Alexa. So, or features. I just finished last year this Christmas come rom-com, Princess Switch. Yeah. And I use, I use the DNA signature lenses plus the Alex ILF.

Yeah. Beautiful combination. Beautiful combination. I have said that it just looked, you know, glowing and beautiful and soft and separation and contrast. No windows were right there without blowing up into pieces. And we have like 10, 10, 4 by 7 or 3 by 7. I mean, 10, windows there, and everything, it worked well.

So the Alexa is kind of, I'm used to it. I'm finding now that most EP, I've mentioned this before on this podcast, but most EBs now talk about lighting in almost reverse terms now, where it's not about adding light, it's about taking it away. You know, tons of nag, you know, just trying to make contrast because it feels like the sensors are so sensitive now, that anything, anything can play where you don't want it to. And it's like a lot of grip or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is a poem to make there. But again, if you have that in consideration before you start lighting, then you have a little less effort. I mean, less work to do. Having consideration that the camera reads.

So one thing. Okay, if I'm shooting this direction, right? I have a white wall there, probably, probably no going to, to, I don't know what it's going I don't know, I've never seen that before. Wow. Okay, so I'm not doing any feeling because the wall probably is going to bounce quite a bit of light. You know what I'm saying? So just be careful on the field.

But, you know, I mean, you were starting. on lighting, we already know in the sense of you're going to work. I think, again, and I'm not doing propaganda for our reflects, they should do it. And they should do an interview. But the Alexa is very forgiving. One thing that film was good for us, it was forgiven. You made a mistake, and the film covered it, you know,

because of the nature of the organic element that the film had. I think they are reflects, the Alexa in this case. It kind of does that. I talked to engineers of the Alexa, and they basically, they build the camera with a principle of film, with a film principle. So, you know, some of these things, like excess of light, you know before.

You know, you have to know before, what are you going to light. Therefore, I understand people is putting a lot of negative feel because of that. I understand that you don't put too much lighting. Don't need to. You see, first of all, I'm again, I'm against too much light. If my concept is a little more naturalistic, if you want.

And you can do very stylized naturalistic as well. But I said always one light is better than two, two better than three. And so I mean, that's, I think for two reasons. One is because maybe my upbringing in Europe and also because I think I like a more naturalistic approach to my photography, you know. Yeah, you know, it's funny as Alejandro Mejia

said he was told, if you have, two lights, you have two problems. If you have one light, you have one problem. Right. Which is a shadow. Yeah. I always was fascinated to see things like all the sudden you're photographing somebody

and they are like multiple shadows. One goes their way, the other goes that way and the other goes out. The thing is you have to see the progression of Hollywood and in the 40s and 50s, they were massive amount of lights in the set. Yeah. But films were very low.

ASA, they needed to stop down to, you know, Ford. They work with, the whole thing has changed tremendously from 50s to now. It's like two different worlds. The lenses are completely different. The eye of the audience is different. As I as the PR as well. So we don't need that amount of lighting. But it was a tradition in Hollywood. When I came to the States and I said, wow, look at this, the two tracks are here. Like, what is?

And sometimes you need a lot of light, but not all the time. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? It's that people are shooting more on location than in a studio. You cannot put too much light on location unless that it's a big night. And yes, you know, I did the fear with a walking dead some episodes. And that show took some serious amount of lighting to... Oh, really?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Even if it does at nights, yes, because we have big, big fields, big angles to power. And there were people coming from way far, so that took, and everything nowadays, I think, Princess Switch, for instance, also we have to write all big rooms and castles from outside. So there were cranes and cranes and cranes and cranes. But then, You just light once and you inside you put very little. Right. You know what I'm saying? So it's not like inside one and all there and a flag. No, you like from outside and inside you just put very little feel, you know, or even negative film.

Yeah, because I was, I took a look at the Princess Switch last night just to kind of see, you know, not necessarily my type of film that, It wasn't made for me, let's say. But I did want to ask. It's got a very, you know, Christmas movies or maybe even like certain like hallmark movies or whatever, have that really have a look, you know. And coming off of stuff like swamp thing or prison break or anything like that, how were you kind of, how did you have to think about this film differently and like what, did you have any references for it or like what, how did you. Well, yeah, I, I, you know, there are some, first of all, the film is of us, are some Vanessa Hatchez, you know, the film, so what is the first thing you do is, okay, let's see how we, how we're going to like her, that it looks good, and at the same time, she's playing three characters at the same time, driving crazy. So, so, so you have to give certain unique, and, you need to look for, or the more unique you can. So I want to a reference for,

I like what is called the Rembrandon 45 degrees light for her. You know what I'm talking about, right? 45 degrees comes and then he leaves a little bit of shadow here, but there is this photographer. I forgot his last name. I don't know if it is holy or haughtily. A photographer in the 50, 40s, the photograph the stars, you know, all the stars in black and white. There is a great book of him, of photographs.

And his photographs, photographs were phenomenal, really phenomenal. So I started looking at his glamour photos. They were, you know, for press skits or whatever they were at the moment. So I said, this is it, right here. this is the light that I'm going to try to use. So pretty much everything was, that was the concept I gave, you know, and then looking at some comedies, you know, some comedies and getting a little, but that was the beginning of how to light Vanessa Hatchez.

And it worked, you know, we used a very soft lighting, you saw very sublighting, but still there was depth. still there was contrast we were in places we couldn't put lights by the way we couldn't put lights on the walls on the ceiling anywhere so what we did because it's a Christmas movie

there were a lot of you saw you saw in the movie a lot of presents and stuff Christmas tree here light right here so what we did and the rooms man

there were massive So what we did is okay We have four Christmas trees in the four coolness Plus other Christmas trees around And the whole The hour our production designer was great She was And so what I did is I put four

Four Four lights Each one behind a Christmas tree So If I shoot this way I have my backlighted They were with soft paper They were high

But you see the frame, look, never went so high to see the top of the Christmas tree. They were tall. That created our either backlighting or side lighting or soft lighting. Then on top, I mean, those ceilings were no exaggerating, about 13 to 15 feet like. I mean, they were amazing, you know, amazing. So there we put a balloon. Oh, all right. We have a balloon way up there.

Air mattress looking thing. Yeah, exactly. Way up there in the ceiling. Above their own lighting. Listen, we have to be careful. These are mansions that they are historic mansions. So everything was like, you know, we couldn't touch the furniture. I mean, you were just and go with an chair like this and you have somebody, excuse me.

Oh, I'm sorry. That was the degree of the thing. And so I have covered everything. You know, behind the windows, there were HMI's with cranes behind the windows. We put paper because the light is very short in Edinburgh at that time of the year. So you have nine to three. you don't have daylight pretty much so in the woman we didn't have the light

we start turning on the HMI's and you know as it was going darker we were we were moving the light process so what it happens that we have the same ratio the lighting ratio all day long you know what I mean? Thank God yeah there was the only way

it was the only way It was a pity. We have some scenes that we could see outside. The landscape, it was beautiful. The landscape was incredibly. I would have loved to see outside, but we couldn't. Because the daytime was very short, and we have a lot of daytime scenes. So that configuration, that's what it made happen.

Now, the only thing that I add to this, it was a light always for. her 45 degrees with a very thick diffusion so it just wraps beautifully her face and if she needed some negative feel or whatever we might do it but that's how it was now yeah the no it looks it's funny because you know we always talk about uh you don't always need to make a pretty picture in a film um but the whole film is very pretty it does look very uh as you're saying like standard glamour Yeah, yeah. It was totally intentional. Yeah.

A hundred. A hundred percent. Yeah, it was, it was just to make it pretty, you know. And maybe just an excess of prettiness. I would give you that. It's a Christmas movie. It's a Christmas movie. It's her, which, you know, she deserved because she's a great, great actress, I think, and person.

Very funny. So, you know, I wanted to have that look almost like the glamourish look of the Hollywood movies, which, you know, I think deserves, it was my homage to the glamour, Hollywood kind of thing. Totally. Rita Heifer and so on, yes. Was the character of the image all just the DNA lenses? Because it looked like you had a pretty thick whack of diffusion on there. No.

Let me tell you, let me tell you with the diffusion. We have what is called pearl filters. Oh, yeah, I've got some. Perils and filters, yes. We have those, which it makes the skin to glow a little, and also it gives a little pearish, you know, that whitish kind of thing. We have that diffusion, and then the rest was a combination of very diffuse light. It was very diffused, and it somehow gets.

getting to the lens a little bit. You know, it's just almost imperceptible, but now, the DNA lenses are a little vintage as well. Yeah. You know, when you light with that kind of thing, the signature

lenses, they give you a creamy, soft look to it. I call it, I call those lenses vintage, modern lenses. They are fantastic. They are fantastic. I think they are fantastic. I was very lucky that they didn't want to pay for them first.

And, you know, I showed them some examples and then the producer came and said, you know what, I saw something shot and I think you're right. So, and definitely the lenses performed very well. Yeah. So, but that was the combination. Sometimes I used a satin, you know, a satin filter. It was the pearls and the satin, depending on the eye. depending on the who was in the frame and that, and in some, sometimes there was a little smoke,

which it gives you an extra layer of softness. You see, when you're pointing the camera and you have four, five, six windows, and that light is coming this way, and those windows are, as I said, four by eight, four by ten, you were massive windows, even though we, you know, but there is light coming there. he's kidding you else somewhere, you know? And he also desaturates the image and it gives you some softness. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. How were you handling the having to comp Vanessa Hudgens in two separate times from the time you're filming? Was everything on motion control at that point? Or was that post's problem? Okay. Yeah. You asked me something very interesting before,

how you went from Swamp Thing to do this come wrong, you know? And I'm going to be you later. But, yeah, that was a... So, no, a lot of was motion control, and a lot of was just leaving the camera, you leave the frame, don't move it, and then the other actor comes with the other... The actors comes with another dress or whatever,

the character was. This is in, let's say that it's five or six people, you have your frame, and she is three of those six people. Camera stays still and then what she does

the character, we have doubles for her, all kinds of doubles for everybody. Not only we have her three, there were three different characters. He's one of the guys that played one of the characters, couldn't come to England. So we have to change him for a standard.

So six people and there were four people. I mean, there were three or four, they were not there. So we mark it, put the camera, leave the camera, do the action again with one character, character two, character three, do the action three times. So you have that composition with all the characters. and then you start cutting. And then you start going in.

And when you go in, it doesn't matter because the other character is inside the camera, the other side, which is with one character. We did some motion control. It was, motion control is slow and complicated. You have to have the schedule for motion control. It takes hours. And sometimes the machine,

We did some, the machine didn't perform well, and they have to fix it, we have to wait, the light was going down, I mean, there's, but we did some motion control, not much, especially in the movement when she comes and then meets the other person. So we have this sadly, so we have her coming, meeting the other person, meeting herself, but that's another character, sorry, and then, okay, now she changes, she changes customs and whatnot, and then, We have this, her coming to meet her that is here, but now she's not this one. You know what I mean?

You're just changing the characters and having her, having the motion control movement. As a sad, as it would be. Yeah. You know, I wasn't necessarily going to talk about Swamp thing, but since you brought it up twice, I was wondering what happened to that. That show kind of came and went. And I remember people, like, were excited about it and it had positive reviews. And then it kind of like, they came to it.

It is a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of, it went on with that show. You ask me a question, if, how you transfer from, from something to do a rom-com like this one? Yeah. I, when the director, actually, when the director wanted to have an interview with me, Mike Role, about the Princess Switch, I said, I thought, I don't know. I mean, I never done a romantic comedy. Never. All my stuff, if you look at it, this, you know,

I mean, Prison Break, Hemlock Grove, it's one thing. Everything is dark or, you know, suspenseful, horror genre, So, but I was, I said, you know, I would love to do this just to have a change. And it really was refreshing. It was fun to do that coming from the other one, from something. Now, answering to you about something, I don't know what he, what he went up into the big brass. I don't know what kind of, it was a James I, atomic monster production.

So, and I don't know how, what was exactly the issue there? Maybe each episode was $9 million about. Damn. Yes, yes. Oh, but the difficulties to do that show were tremendous. I mean, the infrastructure created for that show. was tremendous. I mean, we have to have two lagoons working every day with water, running water filtration to put the out. You cannot go to Louisiana and put the

out of the sun. There is an alligator. So, so, yeah. So we created 140 by 120, something like that. Swamp. Amazing job by the production designer. And then another one was like 70 by 40, perhaps. Swamp in another stage in North Carolina, silver gem studios. And then, yeah, that was water and a swamp was created.

So that was expensive to maintain. Then we have a lot of, no delays, but we have to wait for the actors to get into the suit. The swamp suit cost over a million dollars. It was fantastically made, I tell you that much. I mean, that was right. Wow. So it was a cost of production, definitely. So I don't know what it went there if it was money.

personal stuff between people, knowing of me the way the show went. I did one, two, three. I think from the 10, I did like five episodes. Another DP did three and another guy did one because we were so much work that we needed, you know, we couldn't, two deeps couldn't handle it. It was expensive, but it was a great show

who got great reviews and everybody seemed to love it. Yeah, that's what surprised me. It was just like, I remember it coming out and everyone going, this is awesome. Because, you know, making a swamp thing show like at first glance would be like, really, we're going to bring him back.

But apparently you guys did a great job and just, yeah, it's kind of frustrating to see it go. Yeah, I'm extremely proud of the way that show looked. it was so so organic the visual effects were

and this was dictated by actually the production company the BFX were were minimum you know most of the stuff we did it even we had one guy

on fire and it was it was we did it physically and it was a stand it was a stand a guy with, so, so you know what, that created a different show than all of these BFX of people flying and whatnot and jumping out of the sky. You mentioned something, something before something good, very interesting to me. You said, well, you know, in the last shows, they are using this virtual reality of monitors, but also they are doing it in the practical location as well. They are mixing that.

Yeah. And it works. Well, in this case, was the same. It was, you know, we did have some BFX, but we have a lot of things done in the set, organic stuff. And that would create it. I mean, the show looks real. It looks real.

I mean, very real. And I loved it. I loved it to shoot something. I really did. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. We're coming up on time, which sucks because I'm having a great time chatting with you. But before I let you go, I ask every DP, the same two questions.

And the first one is, what is a piece of advice that maybe you were given or something perhaps that you read that has stuck with you for a while that you apply to your, maybe not specifically cinematography, but something that kind of always is in the back of your head? Okay, I Very good question You know, I am the person that not only Look at photograph books But I look at architecture books I look at design books I mean furniture, believe it or not

I think all of that is art You know, paint, of course, paintings, sculpture, architecture, Foniture design everything to me my photography represents all that information over the years. Not only I reduce

myself to go to a museum and see Tiziano or Carbaggio or whatever. No, that is all fantastic but there are more things you know, shapes, colors than they are an influence for me.

The last book I bought was Mies van der Rohe, you know, the American architect, Mierz van der Roet. He invented the famous Barcelona chair, you know, that chair that is, anyway, I haven't told it. So, so, so, you know, I bought this book, and it's fascinating, you know, the photographs, how he designed things, his architecture. But not only in the United States, in Europe, in Japan, which has a big influence on me, and on them as well,

Frank God, right, you know, all of that. That is a compendium of images of art, you know, that influences me. And that's what I said somebody, just get all that information, you know, all that graphic. I'll add a 1.5 to this question, and that is, do you have any photo books? I've started collecting photo books. I just talked about this. I was interviewing Tim I's, and I asked him if he had any reference books, and he goes, one second, and he comes back with a stack, and he just starts going through and showing me all

these books. And so I picked up a bunch of them, but any photo books that you recommend? Yeah. There is one that I would recommend, and I actually have the original, not this is defined, is the decisive moment in Rick Cartier-Bresum that book is a fantastic book of, you know,

the pictures are not pretty. It's not like looking for prettiness or, no, no, it's just humanism, human. You see, that's, and it says it there, you know. They are to rent to some of

of great photographers there with great pictures. I know I'm going to make a, I have to make my book of pictures. I'll tell you one day, I'm working on it. You have a lot of black and black and black and white from the 70s and 80s when I started. But, you know, I think this book of Enrique Cartierre d'Azon is to me like the top of what photography is about. Absolutely. Don't make it perfect.

Just make it right. Yeah, it's right. So that's, yeah. And you know, I found that book in a library. I bought it. And I have the original, 1950, I think it's 54 or 59 edition. What? There's some stuff.

There's some trash going on back there. Oh. And I have the original And then with Matisse, the painter, the French painter, Matisse cover. And that book was re-edited for $75.

I bought it in Amazon about five years ago. Wow. And I bought another one. So I have the original and I have the average. And a book that I suggest if somebody wants to buy.

There is a Fellini. You know, Fellini, the Italian director book, with his drawings and notes, Federico Fellini. It's a big, but I recommend them to buy, because he's a director. He's in Italian, but, you know, how he wore his films and, you know, from all this work, all this work, and his drawings and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah. There's that Felini collection on criteria. that I've been wanting to get for like a Blu-ray collection,

but it's like $200 or something. It's like $400. Yeah. Yeah. And there is another also a Kurosava book about his painting before he did his movies. He did his own, I don't know, I paint little drawings of previously. And it's also a fantastic one.

Kurosawa is very good. That's Valini. those are great honestly like i've added that those these questions to the end of the podcast under the guise of being educational but it's really just me creating a reading list for myself but uh but uh the second question is a little more easier uh well maybe not um recommend a film that people should watch that isn't yours one film yeah you know two or three yeah yeah no no no that's that's that's fine uh because of the yeah because because of the film in general uh that i like any just uh oh uh i mean i mean i

mean i am a big fan of apocalypse now um which apocalypse now is more than apocalypse now when we start reading about things there. That behind-the-scenes documentary is insane. It's insane. And also, the idea is based on a book, what was his name? Jack London or something in that? It was a Romanian guy. He wrote the book about his experience in Congo, the Belgian Congo.

Well, that probably wasn't Jack London. Yeah, yeah, they would, it is a whole thing behind is tremendous. There is another movie that I love was Los Olbidados, the Buñuel, Black and White, made by Luis Bunuel in Mexico, about the poverty of the around the Mexico capital, and it's about kids. It is a fantastic movie, I think. It's just right on very, very. very incredible movie to me.

So, but Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir is also a fantastic movie, you know? So I have a few, but just giving you three here. Perfect. Awesome. Well, like I said, I'm having a lot of fun, but, you know, we can't go for three hours

or else someone to get mad at us. But if you've got another project coming up soon, We'd love to have you back on and talk about that. Okay. Yeah, we, I am in talks to do a project about, in England, about a plane that crashes into the ocean and everything happens in there. It's kind of a suspense, a little horrorish kind of thing. And these people, they are left inside a plane in a bubble of air and all it happens there.

So what I let you know and let the PR people. Awesome. Cool. Well, thanks again, man. That was a really great time. Well, it's great meeting you, and very best. 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-AtR mapbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Truax Branding Company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to ProVidio Coalition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot, respectively.

And as always, thanks for listening. listening.