Frame & Reference Podcast - 48: "Belfast" DP Haris Zambarloukos, BSC, GSC

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Welcome to another episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast. This week, Kenny talks with cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos, BSC, GSC about the Oscar Nominated film "Belfast." Some of Haris's other credits include "Thor", "Murder on the Orient Express" and "Death on the Nile." 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 Harris Zamber Lucas, B-S-C-G-S-C, the DP of the film Belfast, which is getting tons of awards attention. rightfully so. Harris has shot, you know, he shot Thor, he shot Death on the Nile, he shot Murder on the Orient Express, he shot Cinderella and Locke in the same year, which he mentions. He just an incredibly prolific, beautiful cinematographer, both in his work and in the old in his mind.

This conversation, I can't understate, was fantastic. One, because Harris is such a lovely person to talk to, very easy to talk to, but also, you know, I felt like I was receiving an education with every, every question, you know, at a certain point, I had to, you know, you can always tell when someone's about to wrap up their answer, and then I usually have, like, a thought for the next one, and a lot of times I caught myself going like, oh, stop listening, start, you know, like coming up with another answer. I could have talked to Harris for another 17 hours. You know, before we had this conversation, I had not seen Belfast yet because it had recently come out and I hadn't had a chance to see it. I have since seen it in a nice, intimate theater, which was really the way to see it if you can, although seeing it

with more people generally with films is better. But boy, what an achievement that film is. you know I always say I like to keep these intro short and this one's going to be no different but truly loved this one so I think this might be one that you come back to and listen to again and I certainly you know when I'm editing these things I kind of chip through to make sure there's nothing I need to cut out get it all dialed in and then render it and this one I ended up listening to the whole thing again. You know, we talk about, you know, the classic film school thing, you know, film versus digital

hair shoots, a lot of film, a lot of 65, in fact. You know, we talk about just artistry in general. I know I say artistry in general. I got to come up with new words, don't I? You listen to yourself enough and you realize the things that you say over and over again probably get annoying, especially for my friends. But yeah, anyway, aside's aside. really proud of this one and I think you're really going to enjoy it.

So without any addues to be furthered, another phrase I say too much. Here is my conversation with Harris-Sam-R-Lukas. The way we like to get started is just kind of asking where you kind of got, where creatively you started. I understand you kind of were interested in painting and stuff like that. But as a kid, like what was kind of, or maybe not as a kid, but as you were young, you know, like where, where your creative? of influences coming from.

Oh, understood. No, great. So I grew up in Cyprus, which is an island in the Mediterranean. And I definitely had a love of art from a young age. My parents are not artistic, and I don't come up from a family of artists. Quite, I would say, more mathematicians and engineers and kind of science-based skill sets. but they were very encouraging. And I had some good art teachers.

So I had a love of art. I would say that's really the beginning of where maybe kind of an appreciation for art. And an encouragement from parents. It's amazing. Having made a film like Belfast, you kind of have to revisit in a way your own family passed and their influences and I do think Ken's family in Belfast is a wonderful one and an encouraging one and I saw many kind of similarities there but I would I would credit my parents for many things especially for us being from a small kind of island and a modest family

that nurturing kind of openness to say just be yourself and explore what you enjoy I would say was the beginning of it all for me yeah were you were a lot of movies coming into Cyprus at the time were you watching a lot or was that was it more photography and painting as we said certainly I had no interest in cinema at the time although I watched films Cyprus has a little bit of a troubled part

as well. We were invaded in 1974 by Turkey and many Cypriots had to leave the island. I'm not a refugee. We live just near the green line, but it certainly affected the economy of the island. And many people kind of left. My dad being an engineer and working in the construction industry, we moved to for a few years. Construction was booming in the in the 70s. It was a desert and it suddenly became a city. So kind of and it was very, very international. I mean, I sat in my school. I sat next to, I remember I was I was a kid, but like Chester was my best friend from India next to me. Behind me was Angus from Scotland and Marcus from Holland. And that's the kind of of childhood

I had a very kind of open one and mixed one and there wasn't much television at the very beginning in Dubai in the early 70s. So we used to have to go to the Suk and we bought a

Super 8 projector to watch film because there was, I mean, what I mean there was no television and there was nothing. So I used to watch Super 8 films as a kid. You could get 20-minute shortened, condensed films that you could play on a great project at that time. And we could get one film a week. So they went from like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and films like that,

20-minute reels of them, down to kind of things like a 20-minute version of The King and I, or films like, I remember Herbie Goes to Holly. You know the Volkswagen? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd watch a lot of Herbie movies, 20-minute versions of. And then television came and they actually had a really, when television did come to Dubai, they were a kind of, it was an affluent country that could afford to buy kind of the best from everywhere.

So from nothing it went to kind of everything was available. I moved back to Cyprus when I was 11. in 1981, kind of limited, but good television there, kind of well-thought, kind of administration of the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation that did have quality programs, basically, and did bring a lot of things from elsewhere. And there were cinemas, of course.

But my influences in those days were really kind of entertainment, you know, what a teenager would watch, you know, from back to the future to Blues Brothers to things like that in the 80s. So I never really thought of cinema as such. I loved photography, though. When I went back to Dubai, from Dubai to Cyprus, I started photography. So I started going to a dark room, age about 11, 12.

And I just thought that as part of my kind of painting exploration and never put two and two together. I'm wondering just about, do you remember like the first time you saw a full length version of one of those 20-minute films you had seen? A really good question. Do you know what? probably much later I'll tell you what I do remember though I saw a play in London we came for a family holiday

and I saw a play of the king and I so actually one of the first experiences I had was just seeing a West End musical of one of the 20 minute reels and it was just I have to say my first experience in the theatre especially it was such a closed thing to then kind of get this one week in London and your eyes just like literally they pop out of your of your head to go to something like that

it was a shattering experience it's good that you really took to that because I could imagine if you were used to the cadence of a 20-minute film and you sit in the theater like man they're really dragging on well thankfully by then cinemas and television had a arrived. So I would say that my super eight days of only super eight days were probably up until about six or seven and then after that it was full. But I still have the super eight projectors and I still have every single reel. No kidding. Oh yeah, yeah. And I would splice them. So I so for birthday parties and stuff, that's what I would do. I would splice the films together and I'd do a one a one hour show for my

um um uh classmates basically so um yes I mean I've never really thought of it much until recently but that must have made had an impact sure

I must have had an impact on me do you have any fond memories of the dark room because I remember I didn't I got into photography when I was in high school you know it's funny I was like I would always be grabbing my mom's like VHS or hi-8 camera when I was little, you know, six years old.

I remember I made like a commercial for quick and bright, which was a cleaning product that was on, you know, for some reason I was into infomercials or maybe that's just all that was on when I was watching TV, but gotten to photography when I was in high school but only gotten to film when I was in film photography when I was in college. So I was coming at it a little more mature, but the darkroom experience, I will always remember as being quite magical. You know, there was never enough time. They're like, oh, your time's up.

You've got to go to the next class. I'm like, no, I can stay. You know, started scheduling it differently. Well, I was lucky there because the school had a photographic society. And there were only about five of us being members. So I have to say, I did play hooky from a few lessons to get to the darkroom. And you could always stay after school. And then on top of that, my best friend who lived down the road, his dad had a photography show.

and he had a dark room in his house. So, I mean, I spent hours and hours and hours in a dark room. And to this day, I still, you know, I spent, it's such a voodoo art photochemistry. It really, to get it right, takes a lot of trial and error, a lot of precision. And of course, the results are rewarding, but they really come at a cost. And it's not just the chemical cost, but it is the, it's everything, the time cost as well. Did that experience of needing to take that time and, you know, that, not dedication, what's the word I'm looking for? That process, you know, because we talk a lot on this podcast about how, you know, the transition.

from film to digital and the guys and girls that shot film in the past have sort of this process that seems to have carried over to digital which has been helpful did you find that at all going from like learning film at first absolutely absolutely and it also you are the first kind of analysis of your own mistakes when you give out of negative to someone they process it they look at it and they say mm you know and then they try to print it and they're like well you know it's a little thin or the exposure's not right or or you should have framed especially in those days kind of both black and white and still I mean it wasn't that it wasn't that forgiving um you you you really really kind of were aware of your own um mistakes I think that's what the darkroom um kind of uh taught me very

very well. It wasn't just about taking a photo. It was the whole process and that ownership and also, yes, it's very self-analytical, I would say. You know, that's fascinating. I've never thought of that because that today, you know, in today's world, everything is so immediate or people if you're making something, you know, something I've noticed is the behind-the-scenes footage usually gets a lot more attention than the film you're making. But, you know, digital photography, you know, you take a picture, it instantly goes online or whatever. And being able to sit there and kind of cultivate your photo or your film or whatever it may be and then show it to people is a lot more akin to perhaps painting or

whatever. But I feel like that experience is a lot more pleasant. You know, you're happy with this. And then you go, all right, how about that? Versus this is done, you know, and having everyone immediately judge you. Well, that whole process in every aspect, i.e. that, A, even if you take the decisive kind of moment that Cartier-Benzhen used to talk about, so you've got 36 exposures in your stills camera. So everyone has to count. If you've gone out and you're on the streets, which is what I like to do, I wasn't interested that much in studio photography. I was interested in a kind of documentary photojournalism,

Magnum style photography, you've only got so many exposures. And if you're changing a role at a given moment when magic's happening, you've missed it. So there's that. Then there is, on top of that, while you're taking that photo, the technical aspects of it.

I mean, I used to shoot with a Nikon FG till I could get an F3 and then I moved to a in early 20s I moved to a Lyca M3 for a reason I would set this is when I moved into kind of

cinematography and that's what I wanted to pursue I would pretty much set my shutter speed at a 50th use only 400 ASA stock and not use a light meter and I thought I have to

learn to expose like a motion picture camera does. So I would calculate the exposure, get used to one film stock, one shutter angle, that's the exposure, I have to get it right. And of course, you know what focusing in a range finder, especially, you know, a 1930s range finder is like. Before you even look at your subject matter and you want to get a,

a good image. You've got to calculate how far that is anyway. So you have to have your own kind of range finder in your head. You have to have your own light meter in your head. And that's before you even have to kind of figure out, well, what kind of a shot do I want to do? So all of this comes, you don't just haphazardly take a photo. You plan it. I would, I'd like to go to that event. I'd like to be there at that time. I'd like to capture something. I want magic to happen. I want to improvise. I want to have all this technicality underfoot. And then I'm going to go to a dark room and I'm going to figure out whether I got it or I didn't get it and have something to show for it. But yes, you become disciplined and you do learn. Yes, you become disciplined, but you also, you learn to do

do what Ansel Adams always said, is that you've got to imagine a picture before you take it. Yes. Yes. You know, that's something we were just talking about. I've been ripping through interviews this week. And so they're all kind of blending together. But that was something we were talking about where that need to imagine the picture has kind of gone with digital cinematography. There seems to be a lot more. We have the general idea. We've got a script. Let's just plop a bunch of cameras down to choose as much coverage as possible. We're going to find this guy in the edit, you know, versus a lot more, let's say, single camera decided, you know,

what was the film, Guillermo Datoro's most recent film, Nightmare Alley. That felt very composed and decided and, you know. And Dan's cinematography on that was outstanding, outstanding, every frame. Yeah. Yeah. Do you, what are some of the things about digital cinematography that you think have helped you? Because I feel like I've talked too much on this podcast about how the old ways were better. But that's, you know, me. I've enjoyed it.

I mean, I've only done four films digitally. So I still shoot a lot of film. I still shoot a large format. I'm kind of fortunate enough to have shot two 65-mill films as well. from beginning to end, which in itself is complicated. And no doubt about it, I do find it easier. Digital cinematography is definitely easier in many, many ways. However, you can't, unless you do all these things,

I still approach things. It's embedded in me. you know, I was taught to paint by sketching, researching, figuring out, you know, what kind of a canvas, what you want to say, what colors, and gradually getting to a painting. I transferred that to stills photography and then into my cinematography. So I like to plan. I like to think about things. And I also like to grade a lot because I loved being in a dark room. So I've just applied it in. in a certain way. I think the methodology has to remain the same for me. But I may be, maybe I'm too traditional. Maybe I'm just an older generation of cinematographers that grew up and was taught a certain way. But I see that is such an embedded process for me now. And it goes

all the way to, I assume, nothing at the beginning of every film, i.e., I will, I have a I have to start testing all over again to find what's right for this script and what's right for this film. And that research, I think, is just part of that analog process for me. Yeah. Well, and I feel like that's, well, one, I want to say that kind of the reason why I asked those kind of questions is because, not because I think that like the old school traditional way is the best, but because I think a lot of those.

this podcast is supposed to be somewhat educational, and I think a lot of people coming to it may be younger and learning a lot on YouTube, for instance, which is a lot of times amateurs teaching amateurs. And I think the old school sort of traditional way that you speak of is still incredibly valuable to know. As you're saying, like starting from nothing, I think is kind of maybe a good like single point analog to that idea you know not going I've got the best camera I can afford

I'm always going to do everything the same way it's like well what does this project need you know there's an interesting story I forget his name but the man that invented Velcro is a is Swiss and he used to take walks in the

Alps and one day he noticed that something was sticking to his socks when he took his walks. So he one day decided to just pluck one of those seeds that had stuck to his socks and look at it. And he thought about it. And he thought there's an application here. And that's how he invented Velcro. Now, there's three things that happen there, I think apply to everyone and life generally. First of all, he observed something, then he contemplated it, and then he acted upon it. Now, those three things really form the basis of, for me, kind of the process of cinematography and filmmaking. They're no

different. It's a kind of, it's a work ethic in a way and a process, but we find most of our inspiration by observing it, you know, in nature and the world around us. It's, you know, you In particular in filmmaking, it's most often the human condition. And that's affected like by, you would set a scene that you want to set at a time of day that you've observed or in a place that you've observed that you've then thought about and seen some significance in it. But then, of course, the final and most difficult thing is you have to act upon it. And if you miss one of the, I think, observation contemplation processes, you're going to throw everything at the action without knowing what you're trying to do. And I think that might be something of what you were describing earlier.

You've missed the first two processes. Yeah. You know, I spent two years ago, I spent, I don't know, maybe it was three. Time is strange right now. I spent an entire year only doing black and white photography. and I would always prior to that I would notice nice light and I would take a picture of it and I'd go oh it doesn't really look the way I like saw it and then when I started doing only black and white photography it really immediately taught me how to photograph light which I thought was so weird because like in color light can just be whatever but when you when you're shooting black and white you realize like oh I was way over exposing these I wasn't exposed. bozing for the light. I was just shooting haphazardly. I wasn't composing this at all. When you applying that sort of observance to street photography, do you, I assume you're saying

you don't like walk around to your camera and just, oh, oh, do you think about a street corner that you've seen before and go back to it? Or is it more discovery than that? I do. I had, so, I went to St. Martin's School of Art in London, and I went to study painting, and I switched to cinema. That's where I discovered cinema. That had a dark room, and it also, I did a lot of photography in the streets of London, and the light never played that much of a difference, because it was always great. I then went to the American Film Institute.

I would go to downtown L.A. and take Seale's photos. And there was one homeless gentleman that I observed often in downtown, and he would preach sermons, and he had a big sign Jesus saved on his placard that he hung around his neck. When I first saw him, it was kind of bright California sunshine, probably midday, I remember, and he had his head back like that, kind of, and it just looked quite much. biblical. But the sun was wrong and he was too front-lit and he just blended in with the background and the contrast was gone. His skin tone was terrible and I thought I'd just nailed it an absolute cracker of a photograph and I went back to the dark room and I looked at and I'm like I'm so disappointed in myself. I thought well he I'm sure that's his corner. So I just went back at, you know, and I thought, well, you know, I've got to get him at this street.

It's an east to west street. It's going to be better at five o'clock in the afternoon. And I managed to get a better photo. But I think, yes, you do have to kind of consider it, but it could be lost. I happened to kind of focus that part of my attention to someone who obviously had a a particular corner and something to say and there was something repeatable about it and it really just needed the right light and the right time of day. Yeah. But it's always great too. I just recently got a little Fuji film sort of pocketable camera that they make, the X-100.

And it is very nice too. I love the camera so much. But it is very nice to always, even if you don't quite get the shot that you're looking for. It's always nice to have the camera on you and teach yourself something in that moment. It's, and sometimes, like you said, you hit gold, but nowadays, like, it's so nice to have that thing with you. And that camera can actually crop out to a 16 by 9. So a lot of times, like you were saying earlier, like I'll start shooting it like a cinema camera or what happened, you try to think and compensate.

How did, I have a very strange tangential brain. How did AFI kind of affect your filmmaking career? Because I've been talking to a lot of AFI graduates recently, and it seems like they all sort of hit the same stride as it were, where it's like they get out of AFI and now they're working on films. Is it the community that you build there, or is there something else? It is the community. First of all, it is an excellent school.

So you start there. But I also think their system where they, which is like they pair off directors and producers and writers and kind of there's an equal amount. I made my first feature film with a director, Hamlet Sarkisian. He wrote a script at AFI. We made a short film at AFI.

He wrote his script in the screenwriting program there. He was a director there as well. And we wanted to make this first film, Camera Obscure, and we made it together. So in a way, it was like an extension of the film school. But it was a place where I met like-minded people. And not just like-minded, but in a similar place in their development. So Hamlet and I were certainly two people. that had a shared aesthetic, kind of a love of similar films.

And our development was at the same place, if you see what I mean. And therefore, we grow together. We made a film together. And that really kind of was the beginning. So it wasn't just the work done at the school. it was the friendship and the creative friendships. Because filmmaking is a team. It's certainly not the solitary painting.

I think that's the one thing. As soon as I kind of saw that cinema was possible and that that was a viable form of kind of expression of creativity, etc. And that I might be useful and be able to contribute to this kind of aspect of society. I found great pleasure in the community of it. Yeah. Which I think you can only nurture in an academic environment in the beginning. So I feel that people who didn't have a film school and managed to start were just people that happened to be in the right place with the right people and found that kind of maybe through family connections or accidentally.

But for, you know, again, I'll go back to my experience on camera obscure as an early one. But for a, someone from Cyprus with no family connections in film, who was really quite a big deal to just go to university and study something, let alone something outside of being a doctor or an engineer or something like that. I then met someone. Hamlet was also an immigrant from Armenia. His dad was a, you know, he was a political kind of refugee. Amnesty International took his family to America.

But we, I think we were both children of the diaspora, a grown man at the time, but a product of the diaspora. And certainly a product of, achieving things through education, which is a very old world kind of aspect of kind of pursuing something in life. And I think we both took our education very, very seriously and not for granted, and that it was a real blessing and a real opportunity. And therefore, you know, when we went there and we saw that we could do something together, But you cherish that.

Let's put it that way. And you make the most of it. We certainly weren't kind of taking it for granted. Yeah. If you see what I mean. So those are the kinds of things I think AFI or some film school might be able to give you, if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, that's basically what we've said about most film schools is like a lot of times,

AFI might be different, but a lot of times the film school itself isn't necessarily. necessarily or may not necessarily teach you about making movies the way that you're expecting, but the people around you are what you're going to gain from it. I certainly lucked out and screwed up at the same time. I lucked out because me and 12 of my friends all moved to L.A. at the same time, so we've kind of, you know, helped each other out. But I kind of screwed up in the sense that I was, you know, I was working for Red Bull at the time. having fun. You know, I was president of the snowboard club. So I was, you know, enjoying college and not

really, I was still in film school, but like, you know, I'd go to film class and I enjoyed them. I loved being in film classes. But I was always like, my next thought wasn't like, man, we should write something and shoot something now. It was like, well, I'm going to go snowboarding now. You know? Yeah. Well, also those, like, it's not accidental. So I would credit AFI for the choices they made of their students because they have many applicants and and and they certainly had something that they were looking for i would say that they they pick very well and for different reasons and they expect you to have a kind of consciousness and they expect you to pursue filmmaking for kind of with some kind of intrigue in the huge well intrigue in the huge

human condition, intrigue in the kind of social makeup of the world. So whenever we, if we tackled those kind of subjects, that's when we were kind of applauded and encouraged. So I think that there was something going on there in the selection process. And there was huge merit in the, I found in, in the program and in that pairing as well, that you would, you know, you would have to pair up and like you do in real life. Right. And get it, you know, almost interview for a job and get along and share a kind of common ideas and aesthetics.

How would you go about doing that sort of outside of the educational framework? You know, maybe a DP has become very knowledgeable and experience, has something to offer, but doesn't have that network. I know that's a common problem for a lot of people. And I had, I didn't really have a network when I, after AFI and after that, especially when I moved back to London. For me, the way it worked was I had a film. I had a film, and that film had a particular aesthetic, and that was Camera Obscura. And the next film was with some, you know, I went to, we went to film festivals with Hamlet and our producer, Tesos Casinos, and we met a few people then.

And I also took Camera Obscura to Camrymage. So my next job, I got through Cameramage, through showing that film at Cameramage. Paul Sorossey, a great Canadian cinematographer for Atomagoyan, was there with one of Atom's films. I think it was the sweet year after then. And he saw camera obscura. And he was offered a very, very low budget kind of directing gig in London called Mr. In Between. And I got on very well with Paul because, again, he has a similar aesthetic. And that just, and it was one after the other.

It wasn't a huge network. It was the, for me, it was the work kind of took me somewhere. And I was lucky because camera obscured. It was a very good film and had, you know, was really well made and had an aesthetic and had a point of view and was, you know, really well directed and written. So it attracted kind of when I then went for a second job, it attracted directors that were in. interested in that form of directing because I think when you go from film to film as a cinematographer you know I think directors are not just looking at your cinematography but they're they will obviously be kind of I think honed into a cinematographer who's worked with people

that they would identify as well with and films that they identify um with as good films and each one is a stepping stone so I would say um once you have made your initial work, I believe the only course of action for people that don't kind of have either networking skills or anything, it's just through the work. And that would be film festivals. Yeah. So that's the next, that's the kind of, I don't see any other way forward for people, really. That's the only thing that's available.

you know it's funny uh one of my 12 friends just uh he worked on a documentary called in the dark of the valley for uh fuck three years something like that and um three four years and it's about the sanusana feel lab up here in l a you know one of the if not the largest nuclear disaster in the country that no one knows about seeping into the ground where all the stuff and uh you know took it at film festivals and he won in the documentary category like four out of the seven think that he entered and he said kind of the same thing he like got back and he was like yeah I didn't know that like he I mean he knew obviously he knew but it didn't like fully hit him until he got back that like those that those open so many doors for him MSNBC bought the doc and they

they should aired it like five times you know and this is something that he and another friend of ours shot themselves he edited it over the pandemic in his room you know there was no fanfare it was just the two. He was texting me every day. Hey, in Premiere, how do I save? You know, stuff like that. And, uh, ended up, you know, winning all these awards and ending up on television. So I, I think that is, uh, that does check out over here. Um, kind of shifting gears, uh, you've, you've had a pretty prolific career thus far. Um, hitting kind of a handful of interesting corners of cinema you know you've got your mama me on your one side and your thor on the other and um you know belfast and also i was just looking at your i nb and it's funny how it's like murder on the orient

express oh no wait sorry i was getting that confused with death on the nile um because i saw murder on the ordained express i was great didn't that already come out um but are there anything uh is there anything that you do between these films that kind of you could point to is your signature whether it be visually or the way that you were or anything like that? You mean in between films, how I... Well, because they're also different, you know, they all call for different, you know,

a Jack Ryan film is not Mamma Mia, but is there anything between the two that you can point to and go, like, that's something that I do personally. Like a little, maybe a little flair that you enjoy. Yes, I mean, I enjoy all the films and I look for something different. So I made Locke and Cinderella the same year.

Very different. Yes. And I take a lot of time off in between, if I can. I'm not, you know, I work as much as I can and I have to, but I can't go at it all the time. You know, I can't go back to back to back to back. I find it exhausting. And I think, and I need some, I would say,

The best thing I do is not obsess over cinema. I'd rather be surfing most of my life. I could do that for 10 hours a day if I had a choice. I'd run to the ocean way before I ran to a film set. And I think that's, I think you need something like that. You know, I run to my children and my family and my wife. that's way more important. That interaction,

those kind of human things are the things I think that help me make a better contribution when I am on a film. Because it kind of, one of the things I noticed, for example, on thought, and it's about, I think it's about kind of clearing the hard drive in a funny way, But when I was grading for, it was a really intense grade with Steve Scotland, amazing colorist. And we worked very, very long hours. And I would go a little later rather than very early in the morning.

And we'd work until late at night. So I'd go in at 10. And one of the reasons was I wanted to surf in the morning. So I was living in Manhattan Beach and driving to Fox to grade. And by the time I finished and got home, I was so tired. I'd pretty much eat something and fall asleep. Kind of a couple of weeks into it, I thought, I need to go out at night or do something.

And I stayed out a little later, and I went back to grade, and I couldn't grade properly. And I think the reason is, if you're stuck in a dark room staring at a screen, you need something the opposite. You know, going out in the ocean and staring at the horizon, and you've got just blue and blue, and it's bright. just that kind of clears the palate and helps you work better.

And you can expand that to kind of your entire life, really. I think you need to, I think everyone needs to kind of find some clarity of thought and of process to be able to contribute the best they can and to be obsessive. ends up being, I think sometimes turns into ambition. And ambition is really not a creative process. It's a competitive process. And filmmaking is not a competitive process. It is a creative process.

That's great. Ambition is a competitive process. That is a good quote, my friend. I like that. I think it's just the way things are. yeah no I've just never thought of that like that because I I like to think of myself as an ambitious filmmaker and I was like but you're right that's that's compared to who like what my output like what does it mean either and does it affect how does it affect your work it affects it negatively yeah you know trying to get something out quickly instead of getting it out when it's done for instance yeah that's great More on a sort of a technical side, over the pandemic, obviously, I couldn't shoot very much, especially not at my level. And so I ended up kind of turning into a freelance colorist.

I spent a whole bunch of time, you know, and I've gotten, I love it. I absolutely love color grading. I was wondering if you had any sort of general tips from working on these larger films and having a hand in coloring them. Like, what are some things that lead to that look besides, obviously, proper ratios on set and, you know, lighting things appropriately in wonder. But once you get into the grade, what are some things that you're doing to really give it that, I hate to use the word, but cinematic touch? I love the color correction process and spend. I'm there from the beginning to the end. And I'm really fortunate.

I've worked with absolutely kind of the best of the best in the world. world, I feel. And most recently, probably the last 10, 11 years, it's almost been completely with Rob Pitsy at Goldcrest. I don't know how many films we've done together now, but I have learned from all the greats I've worked with, really. So I go from one session to another, for example and you take something with you, but firstly, I'll go through my process and at least that process is the same. I want to go through a picture and color grade the entire film as best as I can as quickly as I can so I can get the whole film done in a few days or within the first four or five days without going crazy about windows and eyes and all the deep

details. And that way you have a complete, if not, even if imperfect way of working. And I got this because that's how we used to grade film prints. So I made most of my film prints at deluxe here with Clive Noakes before he retired and very lucky to work with such a master for so long. But with Clive, when we made film prints, we would, you know, we'd get our first answer print. We'd look at it. make our notes, go back to it, do more notes, but we would do the whole picture. We never sat there obsessing frame by frame. So the problem in a DIY, I believe, is that people get in and they take the first frame and they throw everything at that first frame. Now, the story hasn't developed yet, really. Because that narrative has to come out in the color correction as well. So my method is to just go through it, then go back, then go through it, then go through it,

then go back, then go through it, and then go back many, many, many, many times and then get into the details and more details as you go along. And what I found is that if you do it the other way, you end up making mistakes that you then have to correct because you've not gone down the right part. You've added all this detail into, say, the first reel, and then you get to the third reel and you realize your concept is wrong. and you have to go back and do it all over again

and then you've lost the time and this falls in line a little bit more with that kind of observing, contemplating and acting a little bit more and it lets you breathe and it seems to have a natural kind of rhythm to it by doing it this way rather than a forced one and again it becomes a bit more

I find it faster because it's a little bit more kind of creative and and again it's not obsessive in this way you're not obsess over one little detail and miss the big picture yeah absolutely absolutely yeah because I certainly made that mistake where you get like the first little bit and you're and you're like because it can get very exciting when you get in the grade and you're like oh I can make this look cool and like I can make this look cool and like I can make this pop and everything and then you look at your and you're on clip five of 450 and you're just like oh it's going to take all day and then you exhaust yourself just with the thought of it let alone having to go undo a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit um paintings that way they didn't sit there and do

the window to perfection and then go to the rest of the picture did they um they'd start with they'd lay their base colors and that um um and just add and add and get kind of more clarity and more detail as the painting progressed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaking of kind of obsessive, obviously the Marvel films are very specific in the way that they're made. And I'm wondering, did you have that experience with Thor or was that kind of pre-Marvel? And at the same time, what is it like coloring something with that company?

Like how much more in the grade is happening? versus, you know, your Mamma Mia, which I assume was a little easier to grade. No, they were both really difficult to grade, actually. Oh, actually. And both studio films. I mean, and both, I mean, I mean, had 900 VFX shots in it. We shot 10 weeks in London and seven weeks in Greece. So that, you know, that entire hotel was built indoors in a sound stage on the 007 stage.

the composite set the mountain everything so i had to do a lot of that and a lot of in-camera the effects in that so so the grade was quite uh quite a process on that i marvel were marvel when i worked for them um there are some fantastic people running it and they uh love what they do and uh they do it very well and they certainly had um their own ideas but i um we shot on film i I believe we were the last, I'm not sure, but we were probably one of the last films to, Marvel films to shoot on film. We graded very well.

Pete Mavramadis was the post-production kind of head at Marvel at the time. And he loves the process, he got us all, kind of the best, the best to, you know, we had Steve. I really enjoyed the process with him. We delved into the world of 3D as well, but we certainly had that look kind of baked into the film dailies from the beginning. And we screened film dailies every day, and we screened.

So we did kind of selects on film for that and then HD dailies that we could basically follow the takes. and see the performances and things like that. But with Ken always, I've done eight films with Ken. There is nothing left a chance. We both really like to kind of decide what we're going to do, imagine what we're going to do, figure out what we're going to do, and then just go through the process of exploration and execution, really, in that way. So he's always very involved as well.

But I really enjoyed making Thor because I do love comics. And just at least when I, it might be different from other people. And yes, those were early days, of course. But you just had things that I really loved. There were illustrators and kind of artists on the lot. And if I had an idea or a shot and I, you know, I don't draw much. anymore. I just don't have the time, but I could sit there with an illustrator and say, can you draw this for me? And they had people that did this all the time. You could imagine

something and slowly figure out how to do it. I found it a really kind of a great process. We also had Bo Welsh as our kind of production designer. I mean, it was an immense artist. You know, just walking into his office and sitting down about concept art and what we wanted to look and drawing it out and figuring it out. I really enjoyed it. And the post process was quite similar. And I also really enjoyed the doing the 3D of it all. So I would grade, yeah, I really, I would grade all day and then we'd then go into grading in 3D because back then you had to do it separately. and you had to grade with 3D glasses on

which is just painful to wear them for so long and then we'd have stereo sessions where we really discussed the process and if we didn't like something with Ken in the stereo we would send it back and they'd redo it but we were it was a real it was a play

it was narrative and Thorin stereo is pretty fantastic I would say It wasn't farmed off and someone does it and sends it back. You know, Ken has input there. I have input there. You know, Wes, our VFX supervisor, has tremendous input there. It was certainly not, you know. Victoria was very supportive of all of this, that we had input.

Yeah. That's, I kind of wanted to know, because as far as I know, I've really liked all of Ken's films. And I was kind of wondering what the process. between the two of you is getting into, you know, Belfast and perhaps death on the Nile a bit. But like, what are those, what is that collaborative relationship like? And are there things that you think other production teams, let's say, could learn or apply that you guys do that you think is a positive influence? There's certainly a mutual respect and a friendship there and a true friendship, not a networking friendship,

but a friendship that comes from shared experiences and a shared kind of view of what the human condition kind of is and what part of it of the human condition are interesting to storytelling. But we break things down. You know, we just go through things and we break things down visually. We break things down, first of all, kind of to the heart of it.

What's this all about? My first meeting with Ken was to kind of make sleuth. and I remember distinctly he helped me tell the story in the best way I could because he kind of immediately we got into the psychology of it so I'll give you an example so we sat down and talked about it and he said what do you think of it and I said that God these people are really obsessive aren't they and he said yes have you read the Scottish guy I said yes I know the Scottish guy says well do you know the affliction that the Scottish king had I said no I I mean, he was ambitious, wasn't he?

He says, no, he suffered from clinical morbid jealousy. And he said, let me describe a little bit about morbid jealousy, and you should do your own research on this. Michael Kane's character in Sleuth suffers from morbid jealousy. So that immediately kind of gave me visual clues. I said, that's interesting. He said, well, I don't want to do puppets and things like that that they did in the 1974 version,

what can we do that's technology-based that we can do? I said, well, it's the surveillance, it's the cameras. There was a lot of that written in as well. I said, maybe he has a really modern house where he really controls the lighting. Maybe we can do kind of robotic lighting and LED lighting. It says, what's LED lighting? This is, back then there was no LED lighting, RGB.

I mean, literally that was brand new. half the units we used on that film were sent into the UK from a US factory and they literally had just been kind of created. Yeah. But he said there's all this surveillance footage as well. And I said, well, why don't, if he's so jealous all the time, why don't we go with kind of green night vision at cameras. And I said, I think I can find a way where we can shoot it. I can find something that

I attached to the front of our animal fixed lenses and we can shoot it on film. So it's green phosphor night vision, real green phosphor, and we'll capture it on film in camera with no post-production. And I did some tests and that's how we did it. We did this shot where they're walking behind a kind of drinks desk and we framed Jude within a kind of cup so like he's trapped in an upside down cup. Next to it is a green gin bottle. It's subliminal, it's minor, but it gives you something, like at least you're informed. It could have been a, I don't know, a red wine bottle that would have probably would have worked, but We, we, it's a, if you're going to tell these stories at least, and you've got those ideas, follow them through. So that's an example of our thought process.

You know, he feeds me with something. I feed him with something. And then we talk to our production designer and our editor and we all work together. And we take things slowly and we don't take anything for granted. We don't go in there assuming that we know anything. We go in there kind of assuming. that we've got to start from scratch, really. And I test a lot.

I mean, I've always just, I love to test. I left AFI where I tested all the time. And pretty much, you know, I'm forever indebted to Panavision because they said, you just come on, I literally was in there every other week when I graduated. If I had an idea, I'd just use a test room and I'd do something in 100 feet of film. No more.

You know, Kodak were fantastic. Deluxe was fantastic. And I just, I used to build up libraries. I mean, I've got, you know, my cupboards are full of just tests and tests and tests and tests before I even had a film to use it on. And it was that process never, so, and then when I get on a film, I'm doing even more tests because I don't assume I know anything. It's the chef's approach.

Just tasting constantly. well you never really learn a craft you just um but when it starts giving anything to you you need to move on i think that's about that's kind of how i see it yeah no that's yeah i love that because i'm i'm a self self-proclaimed nerd and uh testing anything is always fun it's you know it's like uh especially i think it's kind of like the dark room thing or maybe like in a pain of vision tester but when you can like get in a a little office and just start goofing around you start to lose time and you just like it's it's your own little fun little creative uh room and you you've just you've just said something you

you lose time i think that's kind of if you get lost in something and you lose a sense of time and place it means you're really getting into it and um if you're conscious of time on set or you're conscious of time on um and it doesn't and it just doesn't flow you shouldn't be doing it yeah yeah no I see well that's part of uh I know a lot of unhappy DPs you know they and I think an unhappy DEP shouldn't be doing it yeah oh my god I mean the number of people who like have a bad attitude on set that you meet like why like we're doing make beliefs man like what do you you're not digging ditches yeah um but that is that is as Stephen Coulter

or as people that he's standing on the backs of the giants that he's standing on the backs of, but the flow state is one part literally is the loss of time and whatnot in flow state is important to create too. But you snowballed I mean, it has

to, you get lost in it, don't you? Absolutely. It's the thing that always throws me off is when you're riding a lot and then you hit the top of a chair lift and you look into the chairlift box where the operator is and they always have a clock facing outward and you're like it's three you're like I got out here at nine like when you know you start to see the sun go behind

a mountain and you're like oh no like it immediately gets a lot colder that's when you become aware of time when the sun goes away and then it's frigid um I assume surfing is the same way exactly yeah um I want to make sure we talk about belfast because I know it's a very very personal experience for Ken, and I was doing a little reading. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, unfortunately, but it seems that you guys kind of shot it more like a documentary. Well, I wouldn't say we shot it like a documentary, but we decided on a certain aesthetic. Some of that was aesthetics that seemed to kind of feed the story better and make it more lucid.

And some of those things had to do with COVID. We shot, this was a COVID project. We discussed it during the first lockdown. And as soon as restrictions were eased, and we were allowed to film, we shot the film in five or six weeks. And many of the things that we wanted to do, we took from not so much documentary,

but photojournalism. I think the idea that you set up a frame and it tells a multi-layered story within a single frame, a long, we shot long takes, we barely moved the camera. People keep asking us, did we use a lot of depth of field? And I said, it wasn't really depth of field, it was really Ken's blocking, it's depth of action. So within a still frame, you would see things in the foreground, in the background, and you could tell a story in that way and you could sustain a shot for much longer

because there were interesting things happening and they weren't on they were kind of multidimensional in a way because you and you could get into it. You really could, it does, I think we really wanted people to just dive in and feel a loss of time in a way. And by being too cutty, I think you can disrupt the audience. So I wouldn't say it was documentary because I think documentary is found,

whereas this was certainly meditated. And in terms of a lighting scheme, I pretty much shot with a available light throughout, a teeny bit of lighting in the cinema and the theater, and in the process shots. There were some kind of process shots of the bus with Judy Dench Hill. But, and then we went back to the, and we would compose our shots so that the natural light created the depth. So if we wanted someone brighter, we'd move them closer to a window, and we would just block that way. So we had contrast, and we certainly controlled our contrast, but we didn't just do it with lighting. We did it with our blocking as well, and with our production design in that respect.

And then when we went into our grade, we certainly wanted something that was more glossy, more kind of a life magazine spread. now those are that's all kind of decisive moment type of photography carefully composed lots of depth but the print the lab work is really glossy so and I think when you marry those two you get something really interesting whereas if you did you know if you You know, one of the reasons I wanted to shoot digitally rather than film on this is I didn't want any brain. And I think digital, especially the LF Mini, with its kind of medium format, and then I use my kind of large format lenses that I use on my 65 more projects. So System 65 lenses from the 80s and the Spheroes from the 60s. And they're a very, very small set that exists, you know, that Panavision have. it's a very very kind of specific type of photography and image

and it lends itself to black and white but you know someone asked me why can you shoot 16 mil and some grain and and I'm like no because that would have you would have jumped out of a ninth that is how old are you I asked them they said I'm about 60 well that's a 60 year old man thinking, not a nine-year-old boy. I was trying to get into the mind of a nine-year-old boy.

And a nine-year-old boy doesn't see grain and doesn't see a distorted point. They were making a very good point. And we were having a really, you know, kind of in-depth conversation. But that was the reason. So, I don't know. I think I've babbled it all out. Yeah, that's great. Like I said at the beginning, that's what we're here for.

I think, you know, letting, talking it out is half the joy, you know, listening to that. But yeah, it's, you know, it's funny is now that we've got large, you know, quote unquote, large format, you know, your mini LFs, your C500, your Venice, whatever. The images can be either in the grade or just how you make them can be so precise and very pretty. And a lot of people are now like even more than before. trying to go like well that's not the film look and I my theory about like the film look that everyone keeps talking about quote unquote is not actual film in many cases I'm sure you know Steve Yedlin like he's gone on and on about this it's just people's memories of when they discovered cinema so for that person you know 16 mill was like well when I was a kid you know

now kids these days actually when they think about like what we would call the film look they're talking about VHS and mini DV yes which I have found fascinating they're trying and not only that even more if you ask them what's a modern look they don't even think they find I find some kids don't even they don't like 24 frames per second they live in a game world of 60 frames per second which I can't watch I cannot watch I find it disturbing and ugly. I find it, I actually find it, um, abusive to my, my aesthetic. Um, but for many teenagers, I think that's a, that's a, just their normal vision. Yeah. Well, it also, I've heard it described as better. Yes. Because it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's better. And I'm

like, better to what? I find it abusive, but that is, that is what if that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that. That's, if that, if you live in a game world of 60 frames per second, then that's your, that's your reality. Yeah. Well, and it's funny too because like I, you know, again, huge nerd. I was a, not anymore, but I was on a professional gaming team teams in the early 2000s. Back when we were all meeting in a Marriott, you know, for for 400 bucks. And for a $400 price. But, you know, of course, we were always looking for like better frames per second because that helped you competitively. But in my brain, it was never, I never combined the languages. You know, the film language was completely different. I remember I had a Canon XL2 and I was shooting my groups meeting, you know, like our little land party. And I shot it in 24 and widescreen

and the whole. And I was making like a movie there. I didn't think, because it had, you know, XL2 has a 60 switch. Never thought to use it. But it is funny how that the visual language is kind of being changed. It is, it is that, you know, I'm going to have to have you back on for a second hour long discussion on the visual language of modernity, because I have a lot of questions and theories about it. Unfortunately, I've kept you longer than I should have, so I'm going to have to let you go.

But I'd love to have you back on if you're willing. I've enjoyed it. Yeah. I quickly will end on two questions that I ask everyone. The first one, although you've given great advice already, what is a piece of advice that you may be received or read, especially haven't even touched on the Conrad Hall factor, that you've kind of carried through in your work that stayed with you for some time?

It doesn't have to be the piece of advice, but just something that you think about often. And I think I've touched on a lot of it, but since you did mention Conrad Hall, Connie always had this thing of being, you're only as good as your worst shot in the film and he was so methodical and really, really, it stuck with me because that was someone

that just kept on digging and never gave up on every frame. And what that is, is passion. I mean, that's, and that was certainly not ambition. That was pure, unadulterated passion, that just absolute craving to just make the most appropriate, lucid, stimulating image for that piece of narrative. So that's what, that was my, that's what I kind of just saw in Connie and always aspired to.

Yeah, that's perfect. And the second question is recommend a movie for people to watch that isn't one of your own. God, so many. Part of me wants to switch this question going forward to if your movie is going to be in a double feature, what's the other movie? Initially, this question was, what's your favorite movie?

That's a bad question. No. I mean, recently, just, you know, I loved, I think, let me put a few movies that gave us the boldness in a way and the encouragement to show. shoot in black and white for Belfast because that seems to be something that I never thought about too much, but I've had to think about it since we've made this. But I think it's okay now to shoot in black and white, as it should have always been, the same way in photography, you have

a choice. I don't think an audience goes away from it if it's done appropriately and done well. But there were a few milestones along the way that have kind of been really successful black and white films that I think are modern and have given us that chance and that kind of, I would say, encouragement. And I would say that, you know, the artist was a really big kind of landmark film. And there wasn't much of a precedent up until the artist, in modern times, of a successful black and white film. I remember that release. That was big.

You know, pre that you could say it's Schindler's list. I mean, there wasn't, but in kind of recently, it went from, I would say, for me it was the artist, Ida and Loveless. Three very modern, very successful, very different black and all of them, completely and utterly different. and Nebraska, of course. Sure.

So, I mean, there you've got four films, four brilliant films, all completely and, you know, different black and white. And they were all successful. They all talked about the human condition. And I think they're just proof that you could have, a modern audience will still appreciate a black and white film

told in a modern way. Absolutely. Yeah. That isn't like Sin City. You know. Well, you know, as a compliment, I must say, I feel like I've lost time speaking to you. So again, we must have you back on maybe to talk about death on the Nile when that kind of comes out maybe in a few months or something. But thanks again so much for your time. That was fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you. Frame and reference is an Owlbot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Provin. Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the Etherart 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 Pro Video Coalition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot, respectively. And as always, thanks for listening.