Frame & Reference Podcast - 47: "Dramaworld" Season 2 DP Brian Rigney Hubbard

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

Welcome back to the Frame & Reference Podcast! This week Kenny talks with cinematographer Brian Rigney Hubbard about the show "Dramaworld." "Dramaworld" follows a 20 year old college student who is obsessed with Korean Dramas who, through a twist of fate, is sucked into her smartphone and into her favorite K-Drama. "Dramaworld" is streaming for free on IMDb TV so check it out if you are interested. 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 Brian Rigney-Hubbard, the DP of Drama World Season 2, which is a Korean show. Me and Brian had a really great conversation. You know, whatever the opposite of gear talk is, that's this one. Great, you know, color theory conversation that lasted quite a while that I really loved. You know, thoughts on cinematography as an art form and what you're saying, you know, with any given shot. Stuff like that.

Just really, I suppose, more cerebral conversations on cinematography, which is fantastic, you know, in the video version of this podcast. You can see Brian's got a giant bookshelf behind him, and, you know, assuming he's read most of those, it really comes through in his conversation. Very smart man, very excited to have him back at some point, if I can, because the hour and a half or whatever it was just absolutely flew by. I looked down at one point to see like, oh, when's the halfway point? When should I start, you know, pivoting just to a different part of the conversation? and it was already like, you know, an hour in. I will say up front, I was on a pretty thick whack of allergy meds. So I have to apologize for my initial kind of slowness at the head,

maybe for the first chunk of the podcast. But I eventually caught up, I swear. But it was a, I was in a tough spot at that morning for some reason. But yeah, so with all that out of the way, I try to keep these intro short. This is already too long. But please enjoy as much as I did this conversation with Brian Rigney Hubbard. Growing up, were you always a visual person? Were you kind of into photography or any other art form before you became a cinematographer?

Yeah. Growing up, I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And when I was little, I spent a lot of time with a grandfather who was a, he had a machine shop. And when he was young, he was hoping to be an industrial engineer, but he came over and started working at a science company and a machine shop. And when I was little, I used to go with him to work a lot. And he would give me little jobs as like playthings. So kind of figuring how achieving what you wanted it, where you wanted to end up, whether it was like turn a corner,

quarter into a square box by the end of the day or something like that was, you know, something I was doing when I was young. So I actually kind of always enjoyed, you know, trying to figure out methods and systems for things. And the longer I'm in this career, I feel like a lot of it is, you know, the constant figuring out how to get to that image you want. And so I think that, that problem solving was something that, you know, started when I was really young. But when I really got into film, I think, was when I was young, when I was a young adult and it was in the university, I was in Chile for two years in Santiago Chile.

And it was during the time of the transition from the dictatorship to democracy. And that was an era when you had kind of, you know, banned books coming back, movies that had been censored being shown and I was really, it was in art school at the time and I was really inspired by how a movie would show and people would start talking about things.

Sure. While I was there, I was there on a, I had to write a paper while I was there for those two years and I had this advisor for the paper. I was being really serious and I was doing this paper on migrant labor in Chile

It's called the Casa de Temporeros, and I was, you know, meeting with people and asking these things, and I shut up. And my advisor, you know, like, bless his soul, because I must have been, like, masterfully obvious every week with what I was saying and boring him to tears. But he was just like, what did you do this weekend? And I said, well, this weekend, we went to go see naked lunch. And afterwards, everyone started talking about drug addiction and sexuality. And he goes, that's amazing. And I'm like, and then we went to this illegal party that you had to, like, call up in an answering machine called elispandex, and we drove all the way out to like this

abandoned grocery store on the side of a highway. And then the police came and we had to all run away and I had to walk home and find a bus. And he was like, we please write about this? And I was like, I can't write about movies. And he goes, he goes, I had grad students like doing what, like, what you're trying to do so much more in depth. Like, he's like, I appreciate that you want to do this, but you're actually watching the fence around democracy being pushed and democratic culture coming back. And so I ended up writing about movies for him and what I felt like how I thought was responding in art exhibits and things like that. So at that point, I felt like I was movies all the sudden, you know, having seen than I was younger were one

but watching them at that moment, it felt like they were actually, well, I was watching social change inspired in ways by these things being seen again. So when I came back to the United States, I was at the University of Constant at Madison, and I had, at the time, that's where Borgwell and Thompson taught. And they wrote the books, film art and film history. And I had to write this paper and I went to go ask him some questions and he said why are you a communication arts major and I was like oh no no no I can't do that I have to do like serious stuff my parents aren't not let me like major in that no no no no he goes well why don't you take my class and I'm like I've got like a full load like I can't do that and he goes what's your on campus job and I would

think I was I was working at a library or something and he said why don't you become the projectionist for my class so I went and trained to become the projectionist and I sat in on film art and film history while doing that. And then later on got to take another course with them. And that was amazing because between that and that just like I all of a sudden got to learn so much. The other funny thing at that time period was I don't know if you know Madison in Wisconsin, but it's a very cold place. I used to have friends who ran the majestic art house theater, right? So on the way to campus, it was a place to stop and warm up. So I would stop and talk to them at the ticket booth and, you know, they'd always be like, oh, go in and watch for a little bit. Go and watch for a little bit. And so I started getting to watch movies that I liked on repeat. And I started doing this thing that was in part inspired by that Ford World's classes was that I started keeping notebook of the images. And I was like, I really like the photography aspect of this. How does this work? So I would actually keep notebooks where I would write down the images in sequence and then try to think of like sequences. I can try to think about how's this working?

Not probably the easiest way to learn on that stuff. And luckily I went on and got to this to study more. And, you know, I think the combination of being in a place where I sound like he's being so inspiring, then coming back to the states and getting, you know, bumping into professors that actually kind of like cared about their students and stuff that then ushered me along that way. I think I think that's what really led me to cinematography and realize that's what it is I really liked. Yeah. It's cool to kind of go from a, you know, I think nowadays it's people are so oversaturated with films and great television or great films and great television that that sort of curiosity that you're talking about maybe isn't so easy to come by because you just have it, you know, you're only curious about things you don't necessarily have immediate get access to. You know, especially like going into theaters. I remember I was, after I had

graduated, I was hanging out with a friend of mine who was a projectionist to USC. And it was cool to be able to just sit in the back of that theater and watch, you know, whatever they were showing and see movies that I never would have chosen to watch at that time, for sure. No, it's very interesting to like get to see stuff. I think we're entering a new period of that with the access that we have on streaming and online and everything that, you know, we're getting to see stuff out of sequence, you know? It's like it's not just stuff that's out right now that we're able to see, you know, we're able to stream things that are, you know, like Nightmare Alley's coming out, is out now, so I've gotten to re-watch the original, you know, and it's kind of

amazing to get to watch that, and I'm excited to go see it, but watching the original, it's like, okay, I can watch the original now and then go see that. I've heard a few interviews with Guillermo about that and he's like, from his perspective, he did not do like another version of that film or not like a whatever you want to call it a remake, but another interpretation of the book because apparently the book can lend itself to multiple sort of takes on the same material. So yeah, I haven't seen the original yet, but I did watch the new one when it came out. I'm one of my favorites in the past few months that's exciting yeah that actually they

they just came out with a 70 millimeter black and white print that they were showing down the street that I unfortunately missed but I was it's so it's so noir that I feel like the black and white print probably looks great oh that would be fun yeah talking about that earlier sort of would you say that you're kind of a gear person when you were saying earlier in your life that you were kind of more technical. Did that lead you to sort of a technicality with your cinematography or did you come at it more from like that story side and the sort of emotional side? I think that it always like your your end goal is always the story. And but I think it's like a double edged, it can be a double edged sword in that to arrive at something you

can't just rely on kind of old habits or old things that worked in the past. You kind of have to work with the material, see what it's bringing you, respond to it. But if you rely on just things that you've done in the past, you're going to end up repeating things that aren't honest to the material. So I think that that's like the double layer and that you kind of have to know your materials and know your equipment and play with those things to elicit. something that's honest and true to the story so it's a i think it's a constant it's a constant back and forth which i think is um a dialectic that's necessary to actually end up where you want to be

at the end yeah because the the it's always the question that ends up kind of coming up especially now with digital cinematography is like you can get really deep in the weeds with you know digital cinematography and color correction and all that and some people are just more like I remember how to light from film. I'll just do that and let the A.C. Or whoever deal with the camera stuff. Well, I think that's a, I mean, you're, that's a, that's a, that's a huge, huge fields. But if you're right, it's, uh, you, we're getting, we're entering a moment that's really

exciting that you can really create an image, uh, a very specific image, uh, but it's, it's got to be working with the narrative and the story because it's the emotional story that's what's driving a narrative. So the exciting thing is now is that you really can consider all the colors. You can consider all these things as supporting the performance, playing to the performance, being a counterpoint to the performance.

You know, the, I feel like color has always been something that I've tried to focus on in a project. And sometimes I think people think that it's very technical, but it's also about just the choices you make all the way along the project. So I think some projects that I've done that have been very tight budgeted and some that had better budgets, I think they still got equal consideration in what the colors were and how things were going in the story. I think it's a powerful tool in helping express your narrative arc. I'm letting people know where they are in a story. I think it's important that they evolved in a story.

You know, way back when I did a film circumstance that was done in Beirut with, you know, very little money. But based on research, we tried to create certain palettes that would then develop through the story. So oddly enough, I've always felt like a lot of cinematographies very what you're what you're giving the audience there a lot of it is they're intellectually responding to and what I mean by that is like they're recognizing an image up there so they're carrying a lot of stuff with them and recognizing and thinking about color is really one of the elements that

you get to play with as a cinematographer that people really do respond to viscerable so I think that can be a really strong tool so for example in that film We did all this research to kind of get the feeling of the city of Tehran for our character to be in. And through a lot of the research, we found that there was a lot of repetition of the colors blue and green and kind of a beige color. So we use that as the background template. So it wasn't necessarily that we were painting whole rooms as color or this or that. But when we had choices, we made the choices to work for that. When they were, when the young kids were like free to party in wild,

we would introduce, you know, orange and red and pink together, like this fiery combinations for to bring about that kind of like feeling of a release. And that we worked through the story to help people feel where they are in the arc in the narrative. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you're also speaking, too, I actually just interviewed Grant Major, who was just nominated for an Oscar this morning for Power the Dog. But something I had told him was like a lot of times cinematographers will get credit for something the production designer's done. Do you, when you're planning these things out, are you like deeply invested with the production design? Are you guys having these conversations?

or are you adding more colored lights and stuff like that to try to approach that mood? I think you have to all get on a page together. Sure. Because you have to work together because you know what it would happen. Like if you walk into a room and you're planning a whole thing with the director where like blue or coolness is in this moment, but then the room is completely painted orange, like, or everything that's been brought in is that. It's like, how do you work with that? also you can find sometimes that like if you're all on the same page with this stuff

let's say you're on a tight budget and you end up in a room that has a lot of orange like you figure out a way to make this work and then uh you know it's a becomes a positive or an interesting twist to it but i do think you need to uh you have to have clear communication with an entire team to move forward together as a team um i remember when I was doing the same thing for Maine the summer and I was meeting with the the costumer just because she heard I was like

planning out different colors for different scenes and she said something to me once she goes I was thinking when they're in love I'm going to like when she's finally in love I'm going to have red and I'm like what about blue and she was like what do you mean and I'm like well we don't ever get water

in this movie and we're not seeing blue until there's like the final release and blue is like like a very calm and stable color. Red is definite passion, but like true love, she's like, true love is blue. It's just like, it's just loving like the idea of like, of us actually thinking about the colors. And I just remember her like lighting up and being like, true love is blue. Blue is the warmest color. You know, it's funny too because I think a lot of things that make film great are those, I wouldn't necessarily call them subconscious because they are right in

front of you, but those things that aren't explicit in the text that kind of point to the feeling of what the audience is supposed to feel. And it's funny because I don't feel like color is necessarily leaned on enough, you know, going back to the idea of Guillermo, he uses color a lot. And it's not, color theory is not a secret. We've had books on. on this for hundreds of years. And yet, it is kind of underutilized in some cases. I've always, I find great joy in. You know, I remember as a little kid,

my mom taught art therapy and had been in art school. And I found her, I found her up in the attic or in a closet. I found like a box of paints and her lessons for color theory. I was really little. And I remember asking her, what is this? And I remember her going through and teaching me with my coloring book, basically, like, what she was doing with that. And, you know, to this day, I just find great joy in thinking about color, color combinations, how it can function.

Because I, like you're saying, I think it's a very important emotional part of storytelling. And I think that the narrative when you really get down to it is always the emotional arc. And, you know, that's where as a cinematographer you can really be bringing something to the story, I think, is when you are talking to the team and collaborating and then you're, you have, you have so much opportunity as a cinematographer to make choices to help it all and bring it along. and yeah I think it's powerful yeah did the introduction of LED lighting kind of change your whole life then LED lighting has been a fascinating exploration for me because you know when it first came out uh there was a jump on it and you know you could just tell it first. I would be like, wow, what's wrong? And at a certain point, I realized, oh, because with the LED light, you're actually missing colors. Right. You know, and then there's

just people who've been doing the work and finding the stuff. So, the first time I went to Korea and worked on a project there, I did a TV series called Drama World. And the first time I went there, my gaffer bought on all LED. A few tongues in, but mostly LED. And the speed and efficiency that we could work was kind of amazing. Sure. The second time that I went, which was about a year ago, it was interesting to see how much the LED has advanced. Because of him in the States, I started using hide lighting on set.

on set. Hives great. So, oh, Hive is fantastic. And they've done what we're talking about with the color science. You know, it's when you've got like a whole big set going on and you're setting up things and you want to keep things flowing, I think it's, I've always had that as a tool to like bring it and do subtle adjustments for the face without disrupting the whole thing. So you can, you actually can keep things moving.

And what I think is so beautiful about it is that there's so much. color in that because they're choosing the LEDs lights based not on, you know, is this pure scientific RGB, but they're finding the best colorful LED that they can and then balancing it with the best colorful LED that they can find that would be the opposite. So it's doing the, getting to the same place, but going by a different method. So like aperture, astera, the hive, I feel like those have really allowed for much greater control and so that you can actually think about these things. So when you do come up with a creative idea,

you actually can maintain it. I do think you can get dangerous because you can just go down the road of like 10,000 different colors. But, you know, what I think the important thing to do is kind of come up with these ideas before you're on set. Going through the script of the director and making those kind of choices. Yeah, that was going to kind of be my next question was how do you stop yourself from turning it into, you know, a technicolor rainbow every time you're on set when you're excited. Like is it just a matter of like reminding yourself, all right, let's keep this simple.

We're dealing with one or two colors because that's another thing. The color wheel can be, you know, bifurcated and trifricated into all kinds of different correct, quote unquote, correct. theory colors like what makes sense for film is it only the try or the the buy so to speak I'm imagining a color wheel in my head I would not a color scientist I don't know if that's obvious well you know every color you're dealing with chroma hue saturation and brightness so I think what's important is to create a palette so for example when I was talking way back with circumstance. We were shooting with like, like very little ability to do, to change stuff. We were trying to get those colors in there. We, we didn't have the capacity to put a lot on there

to change it. And all that kind of stuff. We did get to work later with the colorist, but we on set, we just kind of had to make choices. Now, you do have the capacity to say, okay, this is my palette here and this is my palette here. And I think by committing to what your palate it's going to be, that helps. Now, I say that, but once again, it's not clockwork. Like you might all of a sudden be on set and be like, okay, we decided that this was, we were going to rain in all the saturation on this, not desaturated, but just rain it in so that it's colorful, but it's never, it's never peaking.

But I want that, like that weird. weird pink thing to just like feel like it's pulling it. And then you know on set that that's what you're supposed to do. I think it's when you've set down something that is functioning for the narrative and the story that when you're, you can be more of a call of response when you're actually involved in making the art. Yeah. How involved are you with the, in the grade?

And do you lean on it heavily or do you kind of let? the look that maybe you said at the beginning kind of go. You know, I worked on a lot of projects where you might not be able to control the look on set as much as you want. Right. And just that it was like the first, I'll go through a couple of historical ones, I think, like circumstance that was way back. That was on film.

That was shot. We didn't even get to see it. We had to smuggle it out of the country. and then it got developed and we finally saw Dailies. So that's like one one scenario. So you're just, you're just remembering like, like you've got your meters,

you got your color meter, you got your meter, and you're like, okay, can I hope this is, I had a plan, I hope this works. You know, and then something like what I did, paint a black, that's another movie I really enjoy the color work

that was done on that. And that was shot in L.A., We had great resources, but it was still a tight budget, tight crew, and tight time. So I kind of picked my lot a little bit like picking the film stop. And so I knew where I wanted to go on the grade. I don't want it ever to be whatever is just the look of, you know, Rex 709 out of the camera. And not that it's that they do a bad job, but that palette is not, they're not thinking about your project and they make that palette. Every painting has a different palette.

Every image has a different palette. So it's, it's, I think it's part of our job to think about what the palette is. I try not to create 10,000 pallets, though, because there's, that, that gets really confusing. But if you have a couple movements within a project, I think you can, like we've been saying before, it's building an architecture for the performance. It lets you, it helps you see things. You're helping audience to understand. So then more recently I did a project called Bo, which is with a team from Broadway. So it was Broadway musical talent, Broadway, uh, local one production talent, working with film, film talent here in New York and we were in sound stages and they, Bo was going to go up right before the pandemic.

And so they did as something that could be streamable, but they wanted to figure out a way to do it so that it was the Broadway talent. And which is very interesting because if you think about it, like you don't want to just film something like you're plopped a camera down on the audience and just pointed at the proscenia. But then...

I think of, what's that dog town? Yikes. That's a tough movie to watch. Great point. Like getting in those positions that are cinematic, well, it's hard. Like, you need to let the performers flow through an entire performance and you need to get all these different angles.

Well, I sat on rehearsals for this for about a month and we figured it all out. But we had three time periods in this project. One is a flashback to this guy's childhood. one is the present day when he's on stage that we built that was um because he's a he's a musician coming back to perform in his hometown so that's that on stage performance with an audience not the kind of he's interacting with and a third kind of world and look was pure monologue so um using this stage we we had several tricks we had to figure out one

How to make people feel like they're in different spaces, because as an audience member for, you know, looking at a 2D screen, you're like, where am I now? I'm just looking at the stage again. Right. Then we also had letting people know what time period they're supposed to be at. So what we ended up doing was working with the theater design people, and this is definitely all teams working together. it. Adam Monterey was a lighting designer. Paul DePoo was the production designer for the stage. And what we did is we had this whole thing built as if you were in a bar in Nashville, right? But when you went into the past, the lighting keys would change and all of a sudden the lighting would feel like it was coming from practical level, you know, interspersed on the stage.

So when we're framing up for things that were, you know, flashing. from the performers past, the image looked like an image that might be in a room or a home and a domestic setting. And we went warmer with that and a different palette with that to like kind of cue people in. So this was something that could really control. You know, so like the present day performance, Adam, you know, went crazy with the lighting, you know, full-on Broadway, which was fun. Then we would go into something that felt like domestic settings, warmer. Like you might not see the source and frame,

but it felt like you were in a room, like something was coming from a certain space. And then when we had the monologue, we would go into a very almost black and white, star, came isolated in the light. And the color pulled back, not taken away completely, but just clean and pulled back in neutral. So you felt as almost you've gone black and white. So there's a way that there's a lot of things going on, but it's all in service of helping position the viewer to where they're supposed to be in the story.

Yeah, yeah, that element of control, two questions, but the first one is just, or the first comment, I guess, is that element of control is something that I think people are maybe afraid to attempt. I've mentioned or name drop Steve Yedlin a billion times on this podcast. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to him someday. But, you know, that idea of, like you were saying, like that 709 LUT that comes with every camera is just the stock technical, technically this is correct. It's not aesthetically correct.

it's not even a lot of times aesthetically pleasing but people will think of camera systems as like oh i need to shoot this because it gives me that look and it's like well you can change the look however you want especially if you're changing the you know the color of the lights the color of the production design the costumes as well once you get into the lot you're just kind of talking about contrast ratios and like letting certain colors you know expand or contract or however you want to phrase that um yeah Yeah, and I think that's all a matter of, like you're saying, knowing what you're going to do ahead of time before you shoot it

versus letting the cameras or whatever the luts that you found, do be a magic box, you know? Yeah, I feel like I'm always, I'm always kind of like wondering how like organizations of like color and lighting are working in something. And I, you know, I'm always, like, I keep, I keep passes to the museums in New York because I like to just go and look and wander and think. And I'd like to be there and this is something that goes back to like when I was talking about when I was a kid with my grandpa. It's like, I'd be like, oh, wow, this is making me think about something.

This is, I'm feeling something. Okay, what's working here? Okay, let's break it down. Let's look at it. And like I recently this weekend went to the Whitney. And at the top, they have a exhibit by this painter, Jennifer Parker. And it's really astounding stuff. And what's so, I think, amazing about it is that it's she,

at the same time, you feel like you're looking at a completely abstract painting, And yet there's a representational, beautifully rendered portraits in it as well. And when you're looking at the portrait, you're like, my God, this is gorgeously rendered. But then the line will drop off and might be she will just do part of the portraiture. And then she'll just have a wash somewhere. And then she'll have like a detailed square on there as if it's like a painting on a wall in the room that's hyper-detailed compared to everything else. And it's this constant back and forth. But I just find that it's always, I think it's interesting to go and look at things and be inspired by stuff and be open to that.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean. Thinking about your black and white and red room right now. I know. Very bad. I've got snowboards. Yeah, it's, I love. I love kind of, I suppose it's abstract or whatever, but I think in analogies a lot.

Like, I guess that's just how I learn. And finding interesting paintings or music or designers, you know, there's this guy, James Draplin, Aaron James Draplin, Aaron Draplin. And he made field notes, you know, little notebooks, but he also worked for a bunch of snowboard companies and stuff like that. And his design philosophy is really interesting to me and just his enthusiasm for it. But I'll go looking through his book. And it just for some reason, like, I think it's hard to explain.

Leslie, you can explain it because that'd be amazing for me. But, you know, just being able to find other things that aren't related to filmmaking that then inform it somehow, you know, methodologies and stuff. I'm always thinking of that because it's like, I find that to be like the, one of the funest things. It's like, doing this Broadway project, meeting choreographers? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. They improved my handheld. You know what? I interviewed, oh, man, what's her name? Oh, I'm blanking on her name because of the allergy meds. I'm going to look it up while I say this.

But someone talked about choreography? Yes, Claudia, Claudia Rushka. She was a dancer. She was a dancer growing up. And she brought that up that it made her, especially her documentary work, really fluid because she could look at people's bodies and know where they were going to walk. So she would always be literally dancing with them. Yeah. And I think that's important. I think about that stuff.

And when I was talking to them about the blocking, it was really interesting working with performers. that both knew performance of their lines and their acting, but also music and choreography, and that they could move their bodies and ways and understood how to do stuff to naturalize things to keep things flowing. So all of a sudden, we were having these shots, these one takes for scenes that they could very naturally flow from one angle to the next, one idea to the next.

without it feeling like a forced imposition on the story, which was a lot of fun. Do you remember anything that they kind of told you specifically that improved your handheld? Or was it more like learning as you and I was joking around with the choreographer's assistant and I was just saying, all right, you know, when I was little learned how to do samba

by like standing in a doorway, right? And you don't move your shoulders and move your hips. Okay, yeah, sure. And eventually you walk out of the doorway. And I've always, when I do a workshop, teach people how to do handheld because it's a way of like you relax your body, you keep it loose, but you move separately. And I was like, I've always been proud of my handheld, but I feel like I'm always better walking backwards than walking forwards. And she was like, okay, we do it for me, do it for me. And so I did it.

And she goes, okay, let me see the camera. I'll show you what to do. and for walking forwards she um sat back like she was in a chair almost so okay back and butt back as if she was you know about to sit in a chair a little bit and she said kick your feet forward because what's happening is that you're rocking over your foot every time you move forward so you're working hard to hide that bump. But it was just so amazing because I was like, I mean, that's a classic thing of like finding things in different places, you know.

I mean, this is the same group that, you know, did a great job of, of, I would say, like, okay, the camera's going to be here. So, like, when I imagine the audience is here, and they're like, okay, we'll make this career every work. They could do a whole conversation from deep on the stage to up there. And then they would say, let's vary this up. and they'd go deep, forward, back a little bit, forward, you know, and they just were able to make understood, like, sight lines and things like that.

It was a lot of fun to, like, bring that in. But, you know, like we were saying, your inspiration from the snowboard designer, like, I'm always interested in things, you know, like different types of printmaking, different types of imagery. You know, going back to painting, it's like, you look at something like a classic painting like Belasquez, you're very hard to find anything beyond, you know, a raw umber or sienna in those paintings. You look at classic paintings by someone like Manet. It has color, but it's all pulled back a little bit. It's never like, it's never purely saturated. So it might feel

like you have rich color in it, but it's actually all pulled back a little bit. And that's what I mean by by palettes and kind of I think it's important for us to think about those and control those because that's what we're using to help guide and tell a story. Yeah. Well, and if you're using all the colors available to you, you're not being specific in a way that's helpful. No, you're exactly right. Like, you want to hold off on things. Yeah, what's the classic? It's not the Fincher quote of it's not what you do, it's what you don't do. Which is a confusing thing to think about it first. And then it took me probably two years to get that quote.

Sitting there going, oh, right, because you can do anything. You don't do. Going back to what he said before, we are entering at stage where you can jump on stage and do everything. But I think that's also kind of exciting because you can have an idea where you want to be. And if you are learning the technical and the gear, then you can achieve that without thinking about it. You're thinking about that idea. You're not thinking about how to get that. Right. Technical is the 101. Once you pass that, then you can actually do the work. Yeah, I remember when I taught, I taught a little bit in Singapore. And I remember it was a

a cinemat photography class for students who had already done a project and it's going to be like their last cinematography class before graduating. There was a lot of people that were just like, we want to learn the red, we want to learn this, we want to do that, like just very specific gear. And I said, guys, I want to roll it back because I want you guys to be able to communicate. Like, I want to talk about color theory, not just color 10. It's because I want you to be able to say, I want an orange that's bright, heavily saturated, a little bit towards more red than yellow. Like, I want you to be able to say those things.

And, yeah, that was, communication is important, I think. Yeah, well, and that, that's funny because the, you know, I've said this before, but like this podcast is intended to be somewhat educational. Like, a lot of it is just kind of learning through osmosis, I think, but some of it is, like, kind of more targeted. And I, and so, you know, I'll advertise to like the YouTube crowd or whatever. And I think a lot of that sort of we want to learn on the red thing comes from, man, I don't know how to articulate this because I've been thinking about it a lot just very recently.

But it's like something to in my head to do with like wanting to be so prepared, just like so overly prepared. and then also having this idea of not being taken seriously unless you have the red or the Alexa or whatever. And not necessarily, I don't think people think it's a shortcut, but I think people think it's like, I've done enough legwork learning, learning, not doing, but learning that I deserve to have the best, the quote unquote, best thing before I can come up with a script or, you know, whatever. Well, it might also be part that, you know, I mean, industry, to make things that could be expensive, you know, and you, they, you know, it's, it's probably dangled out there in a way that it feels inaccessible, you know, it feels elite. It feels like if they can get that, then it's like, few, I'm there.

Um, it's not a chance, but I think a lot of the things that I can prepare people for their projects the best is probably thinking, yeah, and you know, discussion with their team and figuring out those kind of things. I think the most important thing I can do with the director, like every time I get a project is, um, going through the script, obviously, but, but, But I mean, before even talking shots, before even doing that kind of thing, I like to go through and have them tell me who's seen is it, how are they coming in, how are they leaving, and where does it shift? And the reason why I like doing this. What a great checklist. Did you just, is that like, is that actually like the, did you rip that off your head?

Because that's, that's a perfect scene checklist. This is, um. Excellent. Continue. Sorry. I did not mean to interrupt you. I was very excited by that because that's the other one you're probably like, as I always tell the students, you know how people say block light shoot?

I'd say block, think, light, shoot. Yeah. Double check. Measure twice. Yeah. Well, I just, I feel like once I have that from the director, I can be in a tight budget, but any choices we're making are in their world. So I feel like that's.

how you get on a page with them. You know, as a cinematographer for narrative projects, you're very, it's a very collaborative thing. You're always going to be an artist. Your choices are always going to be there. You're always going to have an influence on things. But it is very collaborative. And the more you can get onto the director's page, the more it's going to be on the screen.

because if I'm doing a shot because I'm, you know, enamored with the texture on this wall over here, but the performance is over there, it's not going to happen. It's like, I could pan down the most amazing, like, you know, texture onto a character, and guess what? That editor is going to go, oh, my God, we got to lose 20 minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember I did, when I did paint it black with Amber Tamlin, we were shooting in, a giant mausoleum in LA.

It was Janet McTeer and Ali's Shawcat. And in the story, they're kind of fighting over the legacy of this guy that's Ali's boyfriend who came at suicide, this Janet McTeer's son that she's estranged from. And they're kind of like, a weird sort of way, it's like they're at each other's throats over the legacy of this guy. So, Ollie's character shows up at the funeral

And we had a crane that day. It was the one time we had a crane in the entire shoot. And the producer said to me, you probably want to get the LA shot coming down to the church. And I was like, no, no. I don't think that's worth me. That's the bang, the buck, right? And I was like, mm, you know, and you know,

talking with Amber, we decided to put the crane in the middle of the mausoleum so that when Alia, Chalkhat, and Janet McTeer start to fight, Janemiteer knocks her to the ground, starts pulling the carpet. People are holding her back. And at a certain point, she's actually pulling Alia back on the red carpet. That's the runner down the funeral, all of this done from the crane. That story, every frame in that works as story then. There's nothing to cut out.

So, you know, that's like an example of having done the work ahead of time, having a director who's so clear about what their beats are and what's important. You know, I feel like that's a successful use of that kind of, you know, combination of resources and thinking. Yeah, and that crane shot is a perfect, that opening, you know, get the LA shot thing, is a perfect example. of compulsive filmmaking. Yeah.

Where it's a, that's an interesting term. I like that one. I just made it up. The allergy meds are really helping out and out. And I'm feeling loose. But I've, I've said this a lot. Like, if you're doing things compulsively,

it's not, you know, it's the idea of things being technically correct. Like the idea, I've said this too many times already in this, in the past like five episodes. But the idea of like, oh,

you know, uh, wide over over coverage. know, like technically correct, but maybe you don't need all that. But the, I'm just thinking a couple gigs that I've been asked to do this week, where they're like, if we could just get like a drone shot, though two I get asked the most. I'm a little lower budget than you. But the two things I get asked the most are, um, can we get a drone shot and can we get a time lapse? And it's always of the LA skyline. And part of me wants to just go film a shit ton of stock footage of this just

to have it and go, yep, we could do that totally. But it's just like this for some reason. It's that compulsive, like, we need to show where we're at. Well, how do we do that? Crane shot from L.A. down to the church. It's like, we can be more interesting than that. We can tell the story better than that. Yeah. That move.

Because you might have a shot there. You might have a shot there, but there is no story in between. Unless, if you landed at the bottom of the church and someone's jumped off the steeple and it's really, right? What's that quote? It's like you can show, if you show a, uh, if you show a court, that just says that there's a court. But if you show a shadow of a noose on the court, like a courthouse, it shows that injustice is rife in this town.

I'm really, that is a horrible, uh, but he already did like describing the images. The image gets it across. Yeah, I got there. You got that. You're actually bringing it back with the compulsive way by saying that. I think you touch on something about when you're talking about the technical versus the story. I think there's a danger of repeating tropes because you've done them before because you don't research and find new things.

You don't look at things and wonder, oh, how did they do that? Maybe I could use that one day. I think, and also the, you know, the idea of being too technical and just saying, oh, this is how it's done. You know, because you're right with if you, why would the camera ever be neutral? You know, if you're doing shot, reverse shots in a conversation, why is initial? I'm not saying that we need to go wild and crazy, but if you, you know, look at like Fincher's conversations. They're amazing.

Like, Mind Hunter, what a great series for conversations. Yeah, the whole, it's the whole. whole show. No, it's like, and the head is in the place, the powerpoint of the frame, like, depending on this or that. And, you know, you can, you can apply Kandinsky's theories of composition on that. Because he literally is using the parts of the frame, you know, the beginning upper left in Western culture, is this and the traveling across left to right and the bottom right.

and the bottom right being like the leaving and the most difficult being the bottom left. You see that in his frames. I learned all about that from the library in Chile, not from Hollywood. So going back to like, you know, what is the materials you have access to? I think it's, you know, being inquisitive

about how the image works is the most important thing. yeah it's definitely something i've said before is like the because so much uh i'm almost going against what i said this podcast is for but because there's so much educational stuff out there it can be easy to get caught up in that uh technically correct thing and and and sort of reject how something feels which is ultimately if you feel some way looking at the monitor hopefully your audience will feel that way and if you can reach that point then you you know you've done a good job. I mean, I think feeling comes from an anomaly.

You know, like that when you, you as a cinematographer, you're setting up patterns and breaking them. And that's what the director is doing. You know, you recognize an emotion when something shifts. And visually, you can add to that, subtract to it, all those kind of things. You know, it's, it's a very graphic thing, but I think that, you know, when you, if you can imagine a grid, when you put a dot on it, that's the, that's the point of interest. That's what's going to pull it to you, like, because that's different from everything else. That which is different is interesting.

That's, it's going to pull your eye. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we were just talking about this before, like contrast is literally the soul of all cinematography in. in almost every, even filmmaking. Like, contrast is the thing. You're getting very philosophical. You could say that perception completely is based on that.

True. And I say to people, like, I kind of feel like when you make a film that you really have to think about people's experience of perception. Because if you're going to make a feature film, They generally run like an hour and a half to two hours. Now, three hours, four hours, but usually it's an hour and five hours. These days it's about five hours, yeah. Right.

But when you get that person into that theater, you're bringing them to a black box experience. You are taking them into sensory deprivation. Now, it might be at home, but let's use a theater as an example, right? So you have to understand how people, people are going to experience your projects over time. So it's not just the story. It's how are you telling this story? Are you washing their brains of trying to find that parking spot and then, you know,

forgetting the phone in the car where they had the tickets and then, you know, trying to find seats and someone else getting to popcorn and being nervous that they didn't get there in time for the opening and then sitting down? Are you doing something to wash that all away? Like you're responsible of these things. And I think it's interesting to think about, you know, the graphicness, the visual elements, the formal elements of film. Because, you know, how do you take them from that to something like, you know, like David Eggers' Lighthouse? Crazy.

Boom. You're there. Fine. I forgot about the parking space. Yeah. You know, it's funny, I took a six week, right before, between high school and college, I took a six week course at a New York Film Academy. And one of the professors was like, we had all turned in like our first film.

And we watched them all. And he goes, all, do you all, do you know what you all did wrong? And we were like, no, because we all just thought that was the coolest thing we had ever. You know, they're letting us shoot 16 millimeter. We were on top, you know, we're shooting on the universal backlog. Everything we made was perfect. And he goes, you know, we had a student in here who he was the only one who did this correctly. And it just so happened to be Spielberg's kid.

And that was having an intro. All of our films just like started. Well, there's something to be said for a film just like getting you in there. But it was just like they would start. And there was no setting of the space. There was no introducing characters. It was just like, here we are. You have to assume everything.

And apparently Spielberg's kid at a young age, because his dad, probably, did that whole legwork at the beginning before the title card that told us where we were and all this stuff like that. And I think I've really over the past year or so, I've really been thinking having a lot of time to sit down and think, been thinking about intros. Yeah. Just that, that, that, that, uh, cleansing time as you, as you're sort of referring to. Oh, yeah. You're in charge of the, you're about to, you're taking over people's sensory experience for two hours. You better do it well, right?

Yeah. So I, I've been thinking a lot, um, during this time period about the films that got me kind of into, um, yeah, I didn't even get to ask you that. Normally I ask it right off the top. No, that's right. But I'm just, but you let me into this right now. And I was, I was thinking about how so many of them are kind of based on the fantastic. Like I, you know, as a kid, when I was, when I lived down in Chile and South America,

I was very interested in the literature, fantastic, which is a little different than I think what people think of as, you know, as a genre as fantasy in the U.S. I mean, that's what it usually comes up as, but, you know, it can span everything from, like, you know, the movie blindness based on the Saramaga novel that, like, one little thing happens and, you know, you have this strangeness that happens to something that's completely fantastic experience or, you know, maybe just a slight shift in every day. it's very important to control the visuals in these. You know, like you need to establish one sort of thing and you have a very clear rupture of the reality and then there's something new. And I find that really interesting. That kind of world building.

Yeah, that is kind of what got me into filmmaking as well as even using Fight Club as an example is that would be like a fantastical film. But everything that happens within it is at least the first eight-tenths of it, reality. Yes. But yeah, that sort of heightened reality, I think, especially starting off very grounded and then slowly, you know, boiling, frogging people into more exciting looks or whatever

it may be is that river that carries people into not wanting to check their phone. That's true. That's true. I did want to ask you, I had checked out your website, and I saw that you had a couple of really cool commercials on there. And this is going to be the full 180 to this conversation is commercials oftentimes are the home of convention and compulsive filmmaking, because everyone wants to play it very safe. I was wondering how you approach shooting commercials with this whole mindset that we've been talking about and where you. I don't want to say, like, give some rope or whatever, but like, how do you work within those sort of conventions of commercial cinematography that the, everyone's looking for something safer, everyone's looking for something, maybe a little more classically pretty?

Yeah, what's your approach to those? You know, I think it's, once again, that's when it gets super collaborative, right? Yeah. Because you're going to get lots of, lots of voices. sometimes the voices are not agreeing with each other too and you have to try to find some kind of resolution for that but um you know I think

I think what's usually nice about a commercial is a lot of times there's a visual problem that they're looking to there's usually a visual problem and there's usually something that they're trying to do that in that short amount of time, you can focus on that and different than the way you would on a narrative shoot. And that gives you the opportunity to explore that.

And then it's done. You move on. With commercials, a lot of times you get people who are coming from a graphic world. So what can be really nice is that you have a team that is very visually savvy. And what might be unlike the narrative world, sometimes they really can talk about, you know,

compositions and pallets and the things that they want. Commercials rarely are going for standard coverage, which is another thing that can be kind of nice, because the job is to create an illustration, an illustrative image, where I think a strong feature raises questions. You know, a strong art piece or narrative feature raises questions. A lot of times with the commercial, you're trying to deliver information.

So you spend a lot of time finding out what that is from them. Sometimes they don't have. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's actually a really interesting point. Is a movie is asking questions and a commercial is answering them, basically. basically or it's it's giving you information for example like i i remember there was a a job that i was doing where one of the producers was saying it's beautiful it's wonderful but

they're i'm going to keep them away from you like no what is it what is it and they came to the set and they were just like it's absolutely great to be love it and everyone's being so nice and i was like okay what is this and they were like the device When you see it from the side and it was like this mouse-like device, they were saying, you don't quite get what it is. And I was like, guys, we can totally make it beautiful from it in handle. Right. And I think that's what you have to be confident about is that like you can make it,

you can make things interesting and you can put your thing is going to be on it and they hire you for your stamp. It's like you just need to keep doing the work. It's going to be there naturally. Yeah. Actually, that kind of brings up a different thought I had earlier about Bo was the theatrical theater. What was it like? Because I was just talking to another gentleman who worked with a theater crew.

And I was wondering what were the sort of similarities and differences you found with working with a crew that was generally steeped in theater versus one that's usually on film. Theater people are so nice. It's insane. That was number one thing he said. That was the very first thing he said. A.D. Jenna and you and I never worked together, and we were sitting in the rehearsals, and it was during COVID and, you know, two film people put together for the first time during COVID, having to sit six seat apart. And then after like day two, she looked at me and I would go, we're like the film kids in the back of the classroom. Everyone here is so nice. I remember they came up to me once and they said, the camera department doesn't have a tech table. Theater people. all put out tables. So like, like the prop people have tables. The director has a table. The choreographer person has a table because they fill up the backstage with tables. And they're

like, the camera cover doesn't have a table. I'm like, well, they have carts. It's all right. And they're like, no, no, no. This is one of the actors. They were like, we brought them back some cookies after lunch and we couldn't find the camera's tech table. And I was like, you guys were doing. Theater, though, has a lot of nice things worked out. And there was a lot of wonderful things about working with that talent as well. My director knew choreography. My director knew music. My director, you had a direct drama.

And that was a lot. And even though it was his first time doing a film, it was like, we just like could move. He had me watch all of Bob Fawsey, which I had actually never watched. ever watched. And I was floored. I was, I couldn't believe at the camera work. I couldn't believe the, um, the blocking that was going on. And when we were talking about it, he, he said to me, like, well, what is it that you notice? And I was like, I noticed in a lot of contemporary musicals, you know, the person moves, boom. And then they cut right as they land doing whatever it is. and they'll do like two or three cuts

when they like stop their foot or put their arms out or something, right? In his work, you know, for example, cabaret, you watch long takes of performance, whether it was drama or even the choreography where things were changing and he didn't cut until the idea changed. Hmm.

It was really strong. It was fascinating. So, you know, every once in a while when things were, we were trying to figure out the blocking on things, he hit this joke and we'd just go, more Fosse. And it's like, you know, like, actually, you know, like, actually, you know, when I heard that name before I was just like, does that mean jazz hands or something? But his blocking was, was really an amazing sight, Lenny, that's another fantastic movie.

And to watch, to watch the camera be so well thought out, and not move until the idea changes, not to geographically cover something or make a movement mechanically work, or cutting from one person's line to the next line, back to the next line and like crossing coverage. But to cut based on a shift in ideas was pretty inspiring. Yeah, and that sets up a decent positive tension as well. Instead of, you know, you get too cutty

and then people kind of can start to, you know. Yeah, you're cut it. You're not ping ponging back and forth. You're moving somewhere because you're moving to a new idea. Yeah, it's, it's shit. I was just thinking like these are the kind of conversations I love because I love getting into sort of the extracurricular thoughts that come with filmmaking.

But I just looked down and we're already out of time, which sucks because I feel like we just got started. but I guess we'll have to we'll figure it out we'll have you come back on and we'll do it we'll do like another hour or something like that because I've done too many times I've done the the like we'll just keep it going and then three hours later it's like someone's wife is mad somewhere

but shit all right well we'll just we'll finish this is great I also it's fun to to have discovered your podcast because it's like as a cinematographer, you kind of work alone. You don't usually work with other DPs. So it's really interesting to get to like hear all these people talk. I've always loved like Eduardo Graz's work and to hear him talk. He's like, oh, there he is. Yeah. And yeah, he's awesome too because he's like younger dude and like, um, I've loved, I've loved pretty much every single conversation I've had. And you know what?

The first one I had with, uh, the first episode was my neighbor. Uh, and that wasn't necessarily supposed to spawn a podcast, but the first, like, episode of the podcast was with Josh Richards, who shot Nomadland. And about half, about halfway through it, I know, what a great first episode. He had already been nominated. But kind of like halfway through, he was like, you know, what's weird is, uh, I don't think I've ever talked to another DP. I mean, he actually had just done Deacon's podcast. But like, that was something he had brought up. And that did stick with me immediately. He was like, all right, well, then this is a good idea. Because every. Yeah, it could be a little intimidating to talk about.

Yeah. That's what we did. We listened. Yeah. Well, and that's why I kind of like just having the conversations around it. Because like, you know, explain at first I was really trying to get into the like explain how you did this like in detail. And some people are really into that like love lighting diagrams and stuff. But I found a lot of times it's more, it's almost more fun to talk about other people's work.

Like another idea I had was a spino podcast called frame and reference martini shot. Which was after someone had done the initial podcast, we figure out a time later where we just grabbed some beers and talk about anything else, which it'll end up coming back to cinematography, probably. But that's when you're really allowed to talk about other people shit and, you know, sports, who cares, you know? Because I always thought it was interesting to get to know the artist because and hear the artist talk about the things that inspire them because that informs the art. in a way that, like, talk to me about the lighting diagram doesn't, you know? Yeah, that's just the way to get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But all that, all that aside, I guess we got to wrap her up.

So we have the same. Oh, wait, hold on. Before we do that, because I already have you here. I did want to ask about drama world, because drama world is a South Korean production, right? Yes, it is. And I've noticed that in Korean, I think is primarily Korean cinematography. Korean filmmaking, whether it be music videos or dramas or anything, there's this kind of like higher key or maybe that's not correct.

But it's like brighter and more saturated. And I was wondering, is that like a convention that I'm making up in my head? Or do you notice that there's kind of a different visual language in Korean cinematography or that is called upon? I do think that I do think in different places you have different languages. of visuals. And I think Korea has created, especially around the Korean drama

and around K-pop, they've created a certain look and style. It is high key. And I do think that that's become something specific. I think you can point to the U.S. right now and you can say there's a very specific look. Dark and colorless.

Well, dark desaturated with a heavy filter. It's like it's very, there's, you can, you can pick things out. I mean, you, you would know a Northern European TV series in one second because it will be desaturated and, you know, very specific. Flat lighting. It's going back to, there are symbols, there are graphics that repeat and stuff like that. And I just think that there are ways that you see. I was talking to a friend about this just the other day. saying that, you know, the reference for what we think is reality constantly changes.

You know, what we think looks like a real image used to be like the DVX 1000, right? Or, you know, like that was, that's real. That's real. You know, and now I think idea of people believing what looks real or like a document is different. So I do think that there's a popular photography that's different over there. And as in general, of course, there's so many different styles like anywhere. Right. But I do think that there is in commercials in advertising and photography, there's a there's a look in a style that is different. Do you do you know kind of what that origin sort of is? Because I am thinking of like K-pop videos and ads that I've seen from Korea that just have that very bright look.

I don't think I could, I hear what you're saying, but I don't know if I could actually pinpoint origin, but I will say that I will say that when I was there on when I did drama world, drama world's playing off of different looks. It's playing off of different genres. It's a satire that is kind of giving you the field guide of Korean dramas. movies and kind of like different genres in the industry there. So because the show plays of all those things, I was looking at them and researching.

And I do think that they do have very strong different looks there. So I don't know the origin, but I feel like you can find certain things over and over again. they're a high key neutral is used a lot more um in in things but at the same time you'll get uh you'll get you know like a strong strong look with like a a gangster noir or something um one of things i did do when i was there was try to reach out to different um different visual systems.

That's a big word for saying that, like I tried to look at just different stuff. So even though I looked at the different shows and the different genres, the other thing that's really big over there is manga. And that has a very bright, high-key look to it in general. And there was... My director and another friend actually took me to a store with it

to kind of like go through it and look at it. And, you know, that's another thing that was kind of fun to look and see because it's very inspiring these different things. There's, I do think that in those stories, they use a, those storyboards, they use a minimal of things to create these worlds. And I do feel like I would see that reflected sometimes in the movie. that things were constructed much more illustratedly, even though it was reality. But they spent more time constructing it in the visual image.

And you would see that, I would see that, that's something you would do. And it cannot, nothing just related one to one, but I saw like, okay, yeah, they're constructing, they're constructing this office space to meet their needs visually and less trying to be realistic and gritty. You know, I think there's a big thing in the United States of trying to make something look like almost like it's a documentary or it's gritty and real when everything's a point of view.

Right. But yeah, that was actually a very interesting thing to look at some of these graphic novels, and see how they were, they were doing their coverage. Because there's coverage right there on the page. And it was interesting to see, you know, if you turn the page, how, what image is against what image? Yeah, yeah, because I think you're,

you may be the only person I've interviewed who has shot outside of the English speaking world, so to speak. So I was kind of interested to know, like, how that visual language was different. But it totally makes sense that, you know, the manga novels would influence that to some degree. That's cool. You know, it's funny you bring up the DVX because I was talking to someone else recently about that camera and like I still have my Excel too.

And I'm noticing that now, you know, when when those cameras came out, we were all trying to get the film look because we literally wanted to look like film because that was like the good thing. But now that we have perfection in digital cameras, the youths are now trying to emulate mini-d-V because that's what they remember. That's what they remember real being. It's fascinating. They're like, I see it on forums all the time. They're like, how can I emulate the mini-d-v look? And I'm like, well, you can still buy one of those cameras.

I mean, they're not in a landfill. But that's the look of reality. Or like that what we would have called the film look now that is dead. nostalgic reality. Yeah. You know, I guess for me, it would be a Polaroid. Yeah. And even those are coming back.

Yeah. The Instax mini Fuji films are going to back. It's so fascinating. Yeah, like I said, we'll have to have you back because these types of conversations are absolutely my favorite. Yeah, it's fun. Thank you so much. For sure.

But we always wrap up with the same two questions. Uh-oh. First, easy, they're easy. Uh, the first one. First one is God real. Oh, what is a piece of advice that you either received or have read or just kind of maybe a guideline phrase that bangs around in your head often that you think has sort of helped guide your work? It doesn't have to be the one, but just kind of. No, I actually was thinking about this because it was, you know, in talking about,

recently about going places, different places that I necessarily know, I feel like in trying to understand and find visual solutions, I can actually become a tool for the director in a way that that will then directly help the audience to understand what the director wants. So if I can create a solution and figure something out, then that can be a path which the audience can follow their idea. um so i've often to when in that kind of thing i'm like don't be afraid of what you don't know you know and um i think when you get in a position where it's something new and different

asking questions you find very quickly that there's something relatable yeah that's a good and then you're actually bringing stuff to it yeah well and i and i personally just love learning So it's always like, what I don't know is always like, oh, boy, you know, new thing. Second question, suggest a movie that isn't yours for people to watch. Oh, wow. There's so many that I've been thinking about this right now. You can name a couple. I would say

a couple films that I've kind of like that I recently watched and rewatched that kind of wrought me joy um girl walks home alone at night uh the lighthouse

so I'm going all black and white here and um um you know when I go with this to it now. Because that was just fun and interesting. Yeah. Lighthouse is definitely interesting. Yeah. Well, I like something that makes you think. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, with that, I'll let you go, man. Thanks so much for spending the time with me. That was a lot of fun.

Yeah. Thank you. Take care. Yeah. Well, hopefully we'll see you soon. Take care. Bye. Bye, bye. 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-At-R-Mapbox logo, was designed by Nate Truax of Truaxe branding company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to ProVidiocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot, respectively. And as always, thanks for listening.

Thank you.