Frame & Reference Podcast - 50: "Being the Ricardos" DP Jeff Cronenweth, ASC

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Welcome to another episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast! This week Kenny talks with legendary cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, ASC about the Oscar Nominated film "Being the Ricardos." You likely know Jeff from his work on films such as "Fight Club", "Gone Girl", "The Social Network" & "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." This is a killer episode, so enjoy! Follow Kenny on Twitter @kwmcmillan Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for more!

Hello, and welcome to this, the 50th episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today we've got a treat for you. We're talking with Jeff Cronin with ASC. He is the DP of many fantastic films. You know, your Fight Club, Gone Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, social network, one hour photo, a whole bevy of music videos, really amazing ones, you know, ones you've probably seen during the old MTV era. I was really, you know, I was really looking forward to this chat. Jeff is a DP who really influenced my cinematography and my eye for image making. I was very excited when his name came across my desk.

I, you know, since I know a lot about his work, a lot of the research was already done. So I'm hoping that this interview comes off more Sean Evans from Hot Ones and less interrogation. But we had a lot of fun. You know, we talk about obviously being the Ricardo's, the film he was there to promote. And just a ton of other stuff, you know, the film look. you know influences his influences things that he has influenced we talk about the volume and the mandolorean we kind of all kinds of stuff in this one really think this is going to be worth your time so I will be quiet now and let you get to listening so please enjoy my conversation with

Jeff Cronin with ASC normally I kind of like to start these asking you know how did you get to start and all that, but I feel like that's probably been, there's about a million podcasts or ASC articles at answering that. I did want to know, you know, for being the Ricardo's, you have mentioned that like your grandfather and what's the other guy's name? I looked it up. Earl. Or George, Earl. Or George, yeah. How they kind of inspired some of that look that you were going for. I was wondering, did your grandfather's sort of photography rub off on you? Did you do any, like, still photography growing up? Or do you still do it?

I did growing up, of course. But I wasn't very aware of my grandfather's work when I was young. I only came into light, kind of in light of it later. Like, I always knew he had done it, but he had retired the whole, he was retired the entire time. I knew him while he was living. And it was only after, like, I got, I got. I got stuff from my father, looking through stuff with my dad, and then he gave me certain pictures and works that my grandfather, Eddie, did.

And then I did research and found certain books and learned more of the history of his work. And then who was working with him at the time, which was, you know, the guy that made the most out of it and was able to kind of capitalize on it was George Herald, very stylized. I think all the guys in that era, you know, obviously some better than others and as his life, embraced this kind of style that was kind of cool. It's not really a term, but fashion noir. Like they took these risks and they used hard light and they had someone stand in a specific spot, you know, a little easier than me having to do it with a moving person.

But they kind of brought out the essentials and created these moods. and made this starlight kind of magic images through kind of manipulating it, the exact opposite of realism and, you know, somebody that finds themselves in gorgeous light. It was very manufactured, but it had this great style, and it made them, you just saw stars, like they were bigger than life. And in being the Ricardo's, I had like a great opportunity to kind of have to transverse three or four different eras. You know, we had 52, essentially, where the movie takes place. And then we had flashbacks to when Desi and Lucy first met, which was in the early 40s. We had the interviews, which took place

somewhere at late 80s, early 90s. And then I had what she manifested in her mind, which became the closest thing to the actual I Love Lucy show in black and white. So it was kind of fun to define those and find out what they would be and then and give them their own language. It's always a challenge when you're making a movie and there's flashback so there's history or there's flash forwards and how do you define those and how do you more able allow the audience to take those journeys with you and not get confused. And so the black and white for the I Love Lucy. So it was a given. That was what it was. you know um i think aaron sorkin was brilliant in that it was never really the show it's not the broadcast it's only manifested in in lucy's mind when she's trying to overcome comedic hurdles or challenges and so she flashes back as to how those would get resolved and we actually show the

actual scenes uh as they as you as most people remember them um and then for the early stuff since black and white was gone already and i didn't want to get too contrived i just thought like hey it was was the 40s. This is what my grandfather and Harrell did. It has this own kind of magic look. It'll be scary and challenging to try to do it. And I think it were. Like I liked it. It was really fun. There's a you had mentioned, you know, references being like obviously too many girls in Cuban Pete and baton and stuff. Right. And you had said that you were looking at how they motivated the story at the time. And I think that, uh, that hit me because, um, I've been kind of preaching a lot on this podcast about how technically correct is often, you know, page one, day

one of cinematography. Like once you get that, it kind of goes away and then you really need to go by feeling. Correct. And, uh, and I think that translation of what they, you know, um, what motivated their lighting at the time versus what you did would be a fascinating translation. And I was wondering if you could sort of elaborate on those feelings and what they were doing versus the modern analog to those. I think there's a lot of talking points within that paragraph because for me, when I, when I, most of the time when I talked about it, I was talking about the I Love Lucy show itself and what they and how it was presented.

Because when I shot the black and white footage, which again, you know, we were liberated to not have to actually match it to the footage of the I Love Lucy show, but it's always just something you ponder your mind. Like, what if I did do that? What if I shot it on black and white film? And what if I found the cameras that they actually shot with, the old Mitchells and I actually used glass from that era. And I did it. And it looked identical to what a 1952 person watched on their very unsophisticated television. at home, broadcast through the air with antennas, you know, rabbit ears on top of the television. I could do that, and that would be a great experiment and a lot of fun to do. Would that resonate with an audience that grows up watching Game of Thrones and Dragons fly through the air and are 10 times more advanced technically than anybody that was on the set of the I Love Lucy show? So I always feel like, ah, it's a toss-up, like, is that the thing to do?

or because there's such an advanced, educated audience, viewers, do you owe them more? And in this case, I talked to Aaron about it, and I just came to the conclusion that there's been so many beautiful black and white movies in the last few years, and they've captured a lot of Oscars lately, the audiences are so clever, that I would rather, in that case, use the red monochrome cameras, which are dedicated to black and white, that come off as, you know, as elegant as the most silver-laden black and white film you could have got back in 50s, 25 ASA. And I had a little more contrast, and I had a little more highlights, and I pushed it a little bit, but it stayed within the family of what the show was. But it just

It was a little modernized, and I think that that was fine. But to your earlier question, again, it's like one of those things when you're doing, whenever you're doing a period piece, you ask yourself, why did they do it that way? And many times you have the smartest men in the room at that time using the best equipment of that time, but it's insignificant by today's standards, like the advancements today and the things that we can do today. So their motivations came by the limitation of the technology that they had at their hands. And then they created great kind of wraparounds and workarounds to get around those situations. And we're still, you know, the good movies are good movies and you're engaged by the story.

And they limited the camera movements or they created things that were distractions. So bumps or mistakes weren't as apparent. And when you go back and analyze them now and stop frames, which you were never able to do before, you can find all the mistakes and things and you can find mismatches and stuff, you know. I think one of the things that is disappointing in any time industries advance is the lost knowledge. And then with that lost knowledge goes the appreciation for what was accomplished before. of that and by that in this case I mean like when we used to time movies we sat in a room at the theater and there was a footage counter at the bottom and it's dark and you have a piece of paper and a pencil and you see it comes up and at 110 feet into the movie it's two points

to red and two points two darks you had red green and blue and you had lighter dark that was it two knobs you know and somebody would lean down and write it down and by the time you looked up again, you've gone four shots past that mark. And now you're at, you know, 200 feet or something. And you got to go, oh, well, we got to go back eventually and then do this. And so you didn't get to bring up four images and place them all together and analyze and add contrast and take away and a thousand colors and power windows and all these things to make a match. They matched and pretty well. But it was a lot of it was through reciprocity. You, you saw, the last image it changed the next image came up and it was not jarring and you were into the story and there you go

so i you know i want to embrace what they had to go through understand it and then not break it but modernize it and bring it to a new light and then for us you know gosh uh you know this phone does more than what you know the astronauts got to the moon on right and then And so as far as educated audiences go, you have to be on your toes these days. Like you can't make mistakes because people will find them and then you'll get a list of a thousand things that didn't match or wrong or this or that or any of that stuff, which is deservingly so, you know. In the end, I guess you have to ask, did you enjoy the movie and were those distractions?

And if there were distractions, then that's a problem. But if you enjoyed the movie and got lost in it, then you've kind of done your job. know, and I'm saying collectively, not me particularly, but all of us who contribute to it. Yeah, there's, uh, because I'm kind of meandering around in your question. So I hope, uh, well, this is a meandering podcast. Feel free to, uh, elucidate as far as you feel prudent. Um, through some good old SAT words in there. Uh, because it's a, it's a fascinating counterpoint to something I see a lot in, um, current filmmaking. Maybe not all, maybe not at, uh, maybe your level or like TV and film, but definitely at the indie range or filmmakers coming up, this like

obsession with replicating what is often referred to as the film look, but seems to be more nostalgic and more pastiche than replicating what was being done at the time, like you were saying, you know, like where the technology was limited, why would you relimit yourself in less trying to do an exact replica or just like. go shoot on film if you really wanted but um and even then would that be lost would that would that be appreciated that's what you have to weigh like are they going to look at it and go why is it looks so grainy and like milky or oh great job it looks just like it did or i i don't know what the reaction would be but those are the choices you got to live with when you're making it

yeah um you know in the sort of interviews i've seen you were you had given credit to uh Carl Freund for the inventor of the light meter for every I got he did he yeah exactly well only the only the ball part only the incandescent part not the spot yeah I have I have a really have a centimeter too but I don't know who can fix it so the got one of the guy I just got an email the other day one of the guys who we all used that I used back when I started working for my dad first in in the 80s uh George gosh, how old is his last name. He was the meter repair guy. And he, he was old when I met him. And he just retired this year, but he's got to be over a hundred. He's got to be close to

100 years old. But he repaired all the Manultas and all the incandescent meters and the spot meters and all the whole range. I don't know now. Someone's another DP sent me an email going, what are we going to do now? I'm like, I don't know. Great question. Yeah. But he seems like, you know, being the DP on I Love Lucy and Metropolis and all the stuff seems to have a very forward thinking nature about him. And I'm wondering is, you know, who's his analog today? Is it, is it David Fincher? Is it Steve Yedlin? Is it, you know, John Favro? Like, who's pushing? As far as Carl Freud, you mean? Yeah, like the way that he was pushing. Because he was more, you know, he was. He was a cinematographer. He did direct a couple of movies, but he was a cinematographer. He won an Oscar in 37. He was born in Germany and kind of was came in the expressionist German expression movement over here, found himself doing big movies in Hollywood, and eventually became known as one of the technical wizards.

Like he was always pushing boundaries and wanted to do new tricks and new processes to get in place. And in fact, when he retired, went into and created this kind of think tank, if you will, for, filmmakers to create new ideas and solve some of the issues of it. And because of that vast kind of technical knowledge and known for always kind of overcoming these obstacles, Desi, to his credit, who was a very bright businessman, reached out to him to kind of come and try to solve some of the challenges that this new show was going to create. And the problem with the show are some of the things from the technical aspect. One, he wanted it to be beautiful, and television wasn't necessary beautiful. They wanted to shoot in Los Angeles, and most shows were shot in New York.

And the reason being is the shows were presented live. They didn't record them. And if you were in New York City, you got a live show. And if you were anywhere else in the world, you got a kinescope, which was the live show being broadcast with a film camera aimed at a television screen, filming the television screen to be re-broadcast around the country through the affiliates. So as you can imagine, the quality. Kind of, yeah. But that was the way they, that was the only way they had to do it.

That was the best way to do it at the time. And so everybody else, other than in the New York area, got really a degraded version of it and at a different time. And Desi had this notion that he wanted it to be equal quality for everybody. watching it as high a quality as it could be and at the same time you know or or within whatever the time difference was but not weeks later and he didn't want to they didn't want to shoot in new york they wanted to be in california so those things came to light and so what they decided to do was to shoot the show live uh they'd shoot it on film which was a added expense even then was an added expense and desi said i'll take i'll pay the lucy and i will pay the price for the the

the cost of the film but we get it afterwards and they're like sure no problem well there goes there there there there went syndication never would happen today you know you know uh i'm sure you're aware of this story but george lucas when he made the first star wars you know uh there was not a lot of faith in it and he put some of his own money up and all he asked back was that he got all the marketing and products right come on who's going to want to buy your fucking toys essentially right and that's billions of dollars and so that's gone too that's never going to get waved away again either right and so uh more challenges how do you make them all look good how do you do three cameras at the same time which you know is is very difficult from a

cinematography standpoint because normally you'd key from certain directions and now you've got to have all your covers the same time and desi thought that the performers all worked better when there was a live audience. It was funnier. So now, how do you not block an audience, light them beautifully, shoot three cameras, and do a show that is the level that he's expecting to do? And that's what they all figured out. And that's what Carl came in and solved a lot of dilemmas.

And in my research of that film, you know, the fact that they used to give tours to the DPs and tech companies and everybody would come to watch how they're doing this magical show. And if you want, like a statement of how good they were at it, essentially that's how they shoot them today. Right. Three cameras, overhead lighting, live audience. It's the same. It hasn't changed much. So they nailed it.

And they did things like they had intercoms between the, you know, hardwire intercoms, headsets to the operator and the dolly grips. Cannon stick, yep. Or a cannon rope. Yeah. Cables everywhere. script supervisor who acted kind of like a tech AD on a live show or she was giving like, you know, okay, push into here. It's all been rehearsed, but they would do these moves and kind of juxtapose.

And then occasionally they would change setups and change camera positions, but he could do it within two minutes and reset. And then, you know, they would, I think the shooting time was under an hour when they actually did the show each day, half hour show. And then later, Desi was watching Daly's and they'd have like a week or two to put them together and then they'd air. And he didn't understand why he couldn't watch all the cameras at the same time, which made sense. And so Movioa and Carl worked out this system where they put three reels and three movieola screens together so that Ricky could watch them live, much like, you know, you watch a football game and he's calling out, go to camera two, go to camera one, go to. Well, he was doing that editorially on a movie Ola back in 52. Yeah, it's, it's really awesome, like, hearing all that. Because, like, I grew up in the era of syndication for sure.

And, like, you know, I Love Lucy was a staple. And it's just crazy to think that how that's, you know, this is maybe hyperbolic, but like that was the Mandalorian of the time, you know, like just. That's a great analogy. That's a great analogy because I've been invited many times to go down and, and watch through the ASC are different things, Matadoria. And I've actually shot four commercials on the,

on the A volume, you know, the LED brownboards. So I kind of got my feet wet on that already. But pretty amazing. Yeah, that, the volume seems to be born of like,

you know, if you watch it, I am also a child of DVD extras. And, you know, stuff like all the process shots that Fincher has done recently, kind of are like a mini volume. Can you draw a line from there to there?

Or did they kind of diverge somewhere and come together? I mean, that's fair. We've done that for years. It evolved. You know, it started off with green screens. Well, actually, on Fight Club, we had rear screen projection and screens. And that's what you did, you know. And then by the time we got to social network, he and I,

we were doing green screens and or interactive lights and then we started shooting i think we did one with some projection onto screens and then digital projection on the screens and then it went into LED panels where it was the same footage of the that with the background plates were projected on it that were out of frame you couldn't shoot them yet because the pixels were too big on the LED panels but you could shoot green screen and have just out of frame that light source so the light source that was actually outside the windows was actually lighting the people and it all matched right and then we got into when the screens got finer it just became those screens uh and then you know he had talked about it years ago about creating 20 years ago about creating a green

screen set uh that only occupied or lit the field of view um in other words like if an actor's walking across you're panning with that actor only within the frame lines is the green screen lit. The reason being is if you have someone walk 100 feet and you pan across that green screen, a hundred feet of green skin is going to wrap all the way around their entire body and their whole face is going to be green. It's going to be a nightmare to kind of suppress all that and get rid of it. But if you only have the parts you're trying to cut out lit all the time, it's a piece of cake, right? So that's, you know, that's what the volume does now. Not only is it those LED panels, but wherever you're looking is a part that's illuminated the most.

And you can either add or take away around it or in what you're in what you had brought up when you're doing processed stuff for cars, then you're inside the cars. And it's an amazing thing because everything has surfaces on it, you know. Claudio Miranda did it and Joe Kaczynski did in oblivion in that they built a glass set, had screens outside the windows, projected the screens, and everything was reflected naturally,

or at least what you saw. So that was an earlier version of that. I actually just rewatch that like a week ago. It's great. And yeah, it's a great little film. What was your kind of, do you see that

the volume is kind of being, I can't imagine it's, I don't see it. like taking over all filmmaking, but it kind of, where's your, where's your head? I've heard people say, you know, make, proclaim like everything that that happens in life when something comes along. It's the answer. It's how we'll make. This is the future. This is how we'll make every movie now. And it's like, uh, no, that's not how we're going to do it. However, it is a fantastic tool that can accomplish a lot. And I think that we're still discovering better ways of using it. You know, I've done it with sets and inside cars and,

Partial sets like someone like a hockey rink with the glass in the foreground. They check and then they skate off, but they skate off to the LED panels in the background. Teflon floor, a little bit of dry ice and smoke. And I did it dramatically as I usually get stuck doing or I can't help myself but do. And it looked amazing. Like you felt like you were an arena because, you know, you first see it. I foresee it because I'm sitting there. I'm like, okay, I don't know.

And then boom, the guy comes up, crashes against it. There's the streak marks on the glass are lit by the stadium lights that are not real that are in the LED coming back at us and the smudge and the takes off and the particles of ice are backlit and they skate away. And there's not a second that you don't believe that you're in this intense ice hockey rink and got the shot that's really hard to get. Yeah. So, but, you know, you can't do, you can do the inside of a car chase, but you can't do

the outside of a car chase. You can't let the car, wheels touch the ground at the moment. They have to animate, you know, eventually they're going to have floors, but you still would have to either lift the car, spin the tires, animate the car, the tires later. There's all kinds of stuff that has to evolve, but, you know, even Mandalorian. And I have not visited that set. So if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I know they have a huge green screen back lot area with sand for open fights and day at work outside. I know that they combine it. I know that they're

very clever about how they utilize it, but you know, you're never going to do driving Miss Daisy on that set, right? It's just not going to happen. You're not going to be outside. You're not going to have the interactiveness. You're not going to have heartfelt stories. You're going to make amazing backgrounds and interactive. And anytime you got reflected surfaces, a ship, a submarine, a car, or whatever you can put people in those things. It's going to be fantastic. Yeah, that was kind of where, I can't remember who I was speaking to, but we were ruminating on like, what's the future?

Because the impetus for that conversation was like, oh, camera technology at this point is so amazing. Like you were saying, you practically pick up a cell phone and it's the best, you know. And so we're like, well, where's the other technological push? And we were like, volume, but I was like, I don't think, like, that first season of Mandalorian is like all volume. And then once they pushed away, especially in the Boba Fett show, it's like, yeah, I think they're using it a little, maybe not smarter, but what I think is going to be more the future is like interiors. Let me ask you this question.

If that was the answer and there was a movie called Dune, wouldn't Dune take advantage of that place if that's how you make movies now? And they didn't, right? So it's for some stuff. And maybe they did utilize the, I don't know, actually. maybe they did you do some stuff in the volume but all the pictures i've seen in the schematics and the visual effects it looked pretty they were out there in the real world and they were making things and i think that's what adds the grandeur and the beauty to have it's always funny when you're dealing with something that's not real like that and suspending

reality the more reality that you can have that people have a tangible thing to touch the more you believe the stuff that's not real right yeah yeah it's it's i hesitate to say it's always to do it in camera, but it's certainly the audience, it's a little quote that I've kind of stolen from John Mayer of all people was, your head might not know, but your heart will.

That's, you know what? That's a great one. It's true. It's the feeling of things that get you. You know, I really loved how you modernized, so to speak, the look on being the Ricardo's. I remember

there's this photo I actually figured out it's in a book called Hollywood in Kota Chrome and there's a photo of of Lucy and it's it shocked it like shocked me when I saw it if I don't know like five years ago and it's the most modern photo I've ever seen of her like it's a close up she's like putting on it's not lipstick but I don't know lip gloss and it's in it's in code chrome so it's bright color and it's just not lit in that sort of 40s way that we're talking about it's very very like, it feels like it was shot yesterday. Right.

And I just remember staring at that photo forever because my brain couldn't comprehend how like this person who I've known in black and white and looks a certain way was a glamorized, you know, because you don't necessarily, I think you've spoken before about how like, or someone, maybe it was the production designer. John, right? John. Yeah, John Huttman. Huttman about how she was a very sexy feels dirty.

but you know a very sexy lady uh well and this this film kind of touches on that uh but just yeah absolutely hit me and so the only thing that's made me feel like that is this film where i'm like there's yeah that's that's what it would look like today that's today's today's thing um and i did see that sorkan kind of reached out to you and was like i kind of want to build on the look that you had fincher and made um sort of with him involved and stuff and i was wondering if you could expand on what that look sort of maybe technically is, but like technically, but also what it

ended up being for this film. Yeah, well, let me say this. I didn't take it as him pointing a finger at a particular image because I, and maybe I'm wrong, but I look at all those films and I feel like each one kind of has a different look. There's not, there's a weight to it

and a weight to the shots and the light. But they don't look alike. At least I hope they don't. I do not think they do. No. Okay. Well, someone else can tell me that, but I don't think they do.

I think because we had different equipment, different approaches, different mandates that we gave ourselves to approach each one of those, right? But what I think Aaron was suggesting is he's blatantly honest. And he undermines himself all the time. He's the master storyteller. and you're hard-pressed to find anybody in the world that will make a more complete script. And by that, I mean, like, you read it and it sings to you because it opens up creativity because you see how tight it is and he's made such a world, and now you can go in there

and break out all the pieces that you can add to. Whereas sometimes you read it and you're like, I know, we've got to fix that. I know this isn't worked out yet. I know that doesn't make sense. I know that this is a problem. Don't worry about that yet. this and that. And so with Aaron, he has that down, but he's on, you know, this is his third film, and he's evolving and growing as a director. And he loved the sensibilities that Fincher and I did.

He loved the kind of weight of the looks. He liked the boldness. He liked the camera movement. And I had heard from, you know, his producer and editors and different people that I had talked to. And that was one of the things that, you know, he, he criticizes himself and wants to grow as a filmmaker. And so that was, I think that was the overlapping mandate. Now, with Aaron, he has so much dialogue in a short amount of time that you can't, that's why, like, in West Wing and some of those shows, they had those long hallways where you can get three people in a shot and walk down, six corridors and talk for five minutes and it's all cool. There's no coverage. Everybody's present in the frame and it's got some energy because you're roaming around the world. Get a good one of those in this film. What's that? You do get a good one of those in this film.

The walk-and-talk popped up and I was like, yeah. Yeah, we had to do one, but it wasn't, they didn't present themselves that often and, you know, he didn't want to be a stereotype of him doing these long talks in our desi and Lucy that seems like the intimacy needed to be more grounded than running around like that so i mean yeah so we did we brought Javier and the whole gang all the way down from his office to the studio and that that was one and we brought uh we brought uh j K and and Nicole across the street to a bar and that's basically two walk and talks that we did so now you have this situation where you have a lot of people talking that's a lot of intimate kind of personal convictions either hiding or

coming out or being shadowed and and I and we we wanted to keep the camera moving as much as possible oftentimes with writers if they hear the words and see two people deliver them that's fine they would be happy if two people were sitting in a coffee table and just talked for two hours that would be fantastic But as filmmakers and as a cinematographer, it's my responsibility to try to put more weight on those words, evolve these characters, get into their minds more, see their perspectives, their fallacies, their insecurities, anything that's going on. And by doing that, excuse me, it's lensing up, it's camera movements, it's blocking and staging. And so with the absence of these long moves and talking with the cast about these challenges, what we did, and I had two amazing operators, Peter Rosenfeld and Lucas B. Long, two of the best.

And it's just by fortune that they both were available and both agreed to do the show, because usually they're both A-camera guys and they took the letters off the cameras and just did them as operators. It was so amazing. Is that every scene we tried to get the, we talked to Nicole and Javier and J.K. and Nina and all of them and said as much as possible. I mean, again, there's writer's rooms and there's table read-throughs where people are seated. But when any time someone wasn't seated or when there was an opportunity to get somebody up and move so that we had to come around. And it's not camera movement to move the camera. It's camera movement to stay with the actor.

There's a difference. When they stop, the camera stops. When they go, the camera goes. So now we're connected. And so now it's not an arbitrary thing. It's a functioning thing that evolves the story that shows you more of the room that these people are in. It shows you the distance or closeness, depending on what the conversation is eliciting from them, right? And so that was a good challenge to do without feeling heavy-handed and getting in the way,

which is easy to do if you're just trying to move things. And so we just tried to, rather than push the camera for no reason, we always encourage the actors to try to block it in a way, us to help block it in a way where, and of course, that's what I do with light too. like, you know, here's a dark corner that there's no light in. Don't stand there. Let's do it where you come over here. Look out the window and then go crossover Javier,

so that I have to go around this way and land this way. And this opens you up to this and does this. And there's simple ways of making it more interesting. You know, just as an example of what I thought last year or the year before was brilliantly done is Queen's Gambit. The camera movement in that is sensational. And Steve, Meisler, who photographed it, was my focus pillar on social network. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, oh, my email, like, oh, my God, dude, how did you, how did you move the camera like that?

And who, where did that come from? Was that all you? Was that you and the director? Like, brilliant. And to think going into that, you have like 80 chess matches you have to photograph, you know, and keep them, keep us interested the whole time. And I just thought they did a marvelous job. Yeah, the, man, that that spurred like four different questions in my head. Because, A, just on the point of Queenscan, I remember watching that and just going, like, this is one of the, not as an insult, because this sometimes can come off as an insult, but like one of the prettiest shows I've ever seen.

You know, it was just photographed so good and like the era was there. But as we're saying, like still modern, it was like, I agree. Jeff's kiss. I'll go back a little bit before getting into production. design. When we're talking about your lighting sensibilities, it's always something I really appreciated about your work. And I was wondering kind of like, you know, that as you've said before, like that dark for darkness sake seems to be popular now. But I'm wondering how you achieve that appropriate darkness and, you know, because the sort of soft contrast is just

so pretty. And I'm really interested in how you approach those. Like the, for instance, instance the initial table scene yeah like the contrast there or or specifically I remember the shot where jk's talking to Javier and they're talking about being afraid and there's just this one shot of of jk that there's like a cigarette in the background it's just that one was like very exciting I just went yay when he got up at the end of that Javier leaves jake he gets up and we did it twice and he walked like onto the Lucy set and I'm like oh my god the door is open your backlit like god make the right turn go to the door right and the second time he did it but for whatever reason that they liked the first take better and he doesn't walk out

but that lonely shadow he was the only one left and his long long shadow walking out would have been like i saw it it looked amazing it never made it in the movie but uh you know that that happens too but I had this idea early on, and I presented to Aaron, and he said, go for it. And it was just a basic premise about this movie. And it was to have contrast that merits the subject matter. In other words, when they're heavy scenes, it should be down. And when it's not, then don't, not necessarily. There's a richness to it and a pallet that we sought.

But I thought the idea of like, rather than things falling off and letting people be alone in the dark, I thought in this case, because this set is iconic, because it's half the scenes of movie take place on that stage with that iconic set in the background, since it's the center of her universe and where she only found happiness was in that set, which were one of the, my favorite scenes of the movie, where she lets it all out at the end. yeah um that it was important to always know where you were and to have depth of the sets and in that depth you find loneliness too because it's his massive spaces uh and so i lit all the walls i put little tiny practicals and all the catwalks up above i i had washes everywhere so when it was dark it was still dark but you didn't it wasn't black dark there was something back there and then by shallow depth of field bring them out of that so You never lost context of where you were and the vastness of this place and these little people who were pouring their hearts up. But you isolated them by shallow depth of field. And so that was kind of the idea that, you know, you go into something like that.

And then every scene all day long, there's things trying to take that away or you have to kind of hold your guns and protect that. And so I think we did a pretty good job of that, you know. I'm certainly guilty of doing dark movies. That's half of the stuff I do is not very bright. But I always feel like it has to come from a place in the story first. You know, Dragon Tattoo is a very dark story. And it's cold and it's winter. And the coldness in the winter were almost equal characters as Daniel and Rooney were.

And so you needed to know that and feel that. And I felt like that, like the shadows and the unknown and stuff, was important in that movie um i don't know fight club was its own beast but yeah we can do a separate i'm sure everyone you've ever talked to has been like we can i have you for about five hours to talk about that uh i i don't mind talking i love it it's it's it i'm a lucky person to get to do this for a living so yeah no that's i mean as i said earlier like that that one that was one of the films that watching it i was like oh i didn't know where we were allowed to it was like that in the matrix both like hit me and

in the artistic button and I was just like, yeah, this is my stuff, you know. And now it's everyone's stuff that I thought I was original because at the time it was like niche and now the internet made. We're all the same now, the hive brain. But people still surprise us every day and bring things to light and you're like, oh, yeah, you can do that that way. I never thought about that. I, you know, I loved I love a handmaid's tale, you know, and I, I, I, uh, I, uh, I, uh, started the first couple episodes and they always put like a practical light out of a window that looked like a source that it was and I'm like oh it just pissed me off so much like the first two shows and by the third show I'm like where's the light where's the light I want to see the light I want the light where's my light you know and it was hysterical and I loved it and I'm like you guys rock and I don't know there there is no rhyme or reason you can always change things up right that's what that's there's a thousand ways to do it and and sometimes you win and sometimes you

don't yeah i mean that's the sort of punk rock sensibilities of uh things that i that i really appreciate is finding you know finding maybe not the appropriate lane that's not the right word but like finding what'll work like you're saying for modern audiences what are they gonna like and then shifting them giving them something that they didn't know they needed that's a great way of putting it yeah absolutely um but it always starts with story. It's always about story. That's what my dad started me with and, you know, we're here to make the stories better. And anything after that, then you're, then you're fantastic, but it's supporting the story first. And not getting in the way of it, you know, it's really easy

to do that. But this is a cinematography podcast. We're going to talk about lights. I did actually, to your point about windows, a lot of window play in this, in this film. big sheared up windows. Was that just a, you know, big piece, whack of diffusion, big light source back there and then nothing out there? It was how are the windows working for you? Depends on where we're talking about. But other than the I Love Lucy set at stage and the too many girls set,

everything was practical locations. Oh, okay. So a lot of that stuff was in the e-bell theater in Hollywood, third floor up, you know, giant windows. And so I had to make choices about that. I loved the idea of it being predominantly natural light and then artificially, like, wrapping things for cosmetic reasons, you know, but staying within this tangible thing. I loved the colors were beautiful, strong, but soft, and the wardrobe was so great. And hair makeup did a wonderful job, and John Huttman and I, you know,

It was such a partnership, but it was really fun to do. But I had to maintain that. So technically you asked about it, they're giant windows in all of those, all the offices and all their dressing rooms and all of the writer's rooms. And so obviously, you know, shoot there for five days in a row. You can't. The light changes all day long. So I literally made boxes as big as the windows, about four or five feet deep, had giant sources. the boxes and then pushed them right up against the windows so that it was my light all day long

and would only change when I wanted to change. And when I wanted harder light, the bottoms were open and I had 18Ks coming through. It was softer than it was all wrapped in and boxed in. And then at night we changed out and had little twinkle lights in the boxes. So you saw points light out through and sources coming in. And yeah, sometimes sometimes the best, I mean, you still have to have an idea what it's going to look like and how, but the way that you get there is sometimes mandated by the circumstances that you're in, you know. It was a tough parking lot to deal with and cranes and trailers all stacked on top of each other in the back. And every night it was like one of those little puzzles we used to make where to slide the pieces around and get the other

one in. So it was, it was good. Another sequence is, this was a fun technical challenge is Lucy walks in on on Vivian wearing a dress for a cocktail party and then she thinks she's going out on the town and she wants to wear it for one of the scenes and they have that discussion. It's a great room, glass surrounds two thirds of that room, but there's nothing outside. There's no way of accessing outside because it's tiered roofs and then it's in a courtyard that doesn't allow you to get condors and it's too far of a reach. And so I hung these LED panels outside the windows. There was blinds and then draped duveteen over those to stop the sun from coming in so that I had some element of control over it, you know? There's other times where there was a hallway where J.K. and her stop and they're talking before he

drags her to the bar. It's like it's a massive hallway. It's 150 feet long hallway with windows on one side with the same courtyard problem and no access to it. So that's one of the situations like, okay, I can't control this light. At four o'clock, the sun will be on this side. It'll be indirect. Tomorrow before we shoot, I want to read this and balance it. There was fluorescent lights in the ceiling. I added NDs to them so that you could see them, but they weren't doing anything. you have to shoot at the right time that was you know this it was a movie that had a decent

budget but it wasn't a big movie by any means you know and uh you got to get everybody on board and go can we shoot this in an hour and a half because after that i don't have control this anymore it's going to change a lot yeah otherwise it gets enormously expensive and so you weigh those things and hope that everybody is on board you know and and you have to that i mean that's part of it you know you figure out what the budget is and you look at your scenes and you look break the script down you go this day I need the most help and for me it was out in the when they're doing the swimming pool scene when they're talking about her getting the part in us and I love that scene that scene the location that they we lost one

location we rejected one location ended up at this place and we're in the middle of shooting by now you know and so we're scouting on a weekend and i look at it and it's like this is going to take all day to shoot this and the sun is actually horrible it's it like we can't shoot here it's like oh but this like what do you need to make this work i need like a 40 by 60 rag to block the sun and that was that's a giant crane and the whole thing and uh we did it so like like me letting that hallway work allowed me to get this piece of equipment that I needed to do that. And then weirdly, we shot it and Aaron wasn't happy with the interpretation of the performances and wanted to do it again the next day.

And one day, I can't remember which one, one day it was hard sunlight, one day it was raining. But because I had that rag, we were able to kind of manage. manufacturer. And I had to do a lot of trickery when we were doing our DIY to make, because then he doubled cross me, you know, I'm like, okay, we can do this, but promise me. And I only do this in the most loving way, Aaron, they used, and I kind of knew they would, they used shots from both days. I'm like, no, because it's so different. But it worked out, you know, it worked out and I was it was imperative that we had that that that rag to help us make it through that stuff so well to your credit I thought that was a set oh no yeah I could well especially because

you know there's the classic uh double backlight thing going on yeah that was on purpose I figured yeah it fits the tone and it fits the era and all that and I was like oh yeah look it's a I just figured it was a set but that's uh that's incredible yeah it's out in Chatsworth it's uh beautiful sprawling rant I mean bird round oh right on that actually kind of brings me to one point

I was going to get to but now it can combine the whole film just sounds so collaborative which I'm sure was very edifying is that the right word and I was wondering

if you could talk about in this film but also all your films sort of the relationship between you and the colorist and the production designer because I've said it for a while now that

photography seems to be have one foot squarely in the D.I. And one foot squarely on set. And then there's the production designer who often, uh, doesn't get as much credit as they deserve in my opinion. You know, they'll say, I couldn't agree with you more. Um, and to what you said before, um, I've always had good relationships with production designers and all of our adventure movies, you know, minus fight club. It was always Don Burt and he and I love, you know, have a great friendship and and work hand in hand. This really, this one with John Huttman and I, let me broadly say for the whole film.

And it starts with Aaron's script, the fact that it's, I love Lucy that we all, all of us have something connection to it. The cast and the producers created this wonderful kind of environment. everybody was into it, you know, it didn't matter if it was the fourth grip, uh, holding on to stand every day there was this integrity and wanting to succeed right. And, you know, we all take a little bit of credit because we create that environment. But I've never been on a set where everybody valued every position as much as they did and put their best foot forward all the time. And that says a lot about Aaron and Stewart, our producer and the cast and everybody.

And they felt like it was something, we were doing something special. You know, that just making something nice that we all had, you know, and they all invested in it. So that said, John and I, and going back to Aaron's, show me, you know, I hired you to do what you do, show me and then discuss. And so John and I had to feel great. Right. So John and I had these constant, you know, meetings and debates about things, about where to have things and then ways to present them. to make sure they put, you know, that the entire reasoning behind why this is a better place for us than something else to present to Aaron. And it was great.

And things like there's a scene where Nicole and Alia have this great conversation. She says you're an older woman and that's old comedy and this is young comedy and blah blah, blah. And they, and like I said, we had them swap positions and swap positions. And it was a very narrow hallway. So coverage was going to be complicated no matter what. But it was a dead hallway. And I just like, John, can you make me a window at the end of this hallway? And he made a window and I put panels behind there.

And they stand in front of that window. And that's one of the more beautiful scenes in the movie and heartfelt and connected, like, because it's all right day. You're seeing it. There's no, there's no cheating. of anything and and changing doors that were solid doors to glass doors so that there was depth in rooms and practicals and window dressings and let's shoot that this place doesn't work but this place looks great and we had a great time we had really fun and uh you know Aaron's very generous

and he often says that he that John Hartman and I are co-authors of the success of that movie I think that's a lot too generous, but it was definitely a team effort. Yeah. Talk to me about how, sort of how you're shooting, again, going to the D.I. question is, how are you working with your colorist? Okay. And what are you shoot? No, no, it's fine.

It's fine. I'm loving everything. But how are you kind of shooting on set versus what you're doing in the grade, you know? Or is it kind of like what you see is what you get and then just little tweaking or is a little more technical, you know, sometimes like shoot high, bring it down, that kind of thing. No, I tend to try to do as much as I can in camera and leave this, the set that day with as much of it done as possible. But there are, of course, things that you know and you, you know, you're efficient with your time.

And if there's something that is taking, it's going to take the grips two hours to knock that little highlight down in the ceiling. I can get that later in five minutes. I'm not going to waste time doing that. Ian Vertavec at Lineiron and I have done about seven movies together, I think. And so we have this great understanding and aesthetically we're really matched up once we kind of dictate what this film wants to be and discover that, then it's such a an easy thing getting there and then it's just it's fun actually then it's just a matter of like matching this and a little bold and sitting back and go okay let's watch it in its entirety now because you can get lost in yourself and going like this is this and this and then you watch the movie go oh wait

hang on this is too heavy for this part and this there's the movie's not balanced in it in its entirety like you got to do this and and that's that's really when you get fine tuning into it but it's an enormous part of it he's he's he should be sitting on that dolly right next me you know because that's how important that role comes uh uh when you're finishing you know i spent on this movie it was a little longer than normal i think i usually get about eight or nine days and this movie turned out to be about 19 or 20 and that was a lot to do with the beauty fixes and things like that um so which depending on the budget of your film and the visual effects departments and all the people above, more and more of that seems to me it's falling on us in the

D.I. I could be wrong about that. You know, when we were color-correcting this movie, it was like the highlight of COVID, but after production had come back, literally nobody was available. Like, literally it was taking weeks to get effect shots back because production had just flooded them, you know, we had shut down for a few months, and then everything started up again. and then it all was coming to a head at the same time. Yeah. There's also a wonderful color compression, I guess you'd call it, in the film. And is that, how much of that is leaning on, like, makeup and obviously the sets and stuff,

and how much of that is D.I. I think going into the movie, we talk about the colors and how saturated they are and how we want them represented in the end. But I and Ian over the years have kind of a lot that we love, a look. You know, I wouldn't say it's a number, but especially I did something a few years ago with Mark Romantic called Tales from the Loop. I loved that show. That was great. Cheers.

Thank you. And I loved the way that color was rendered in that. And I loved the saturation or slight desaturation to colors and muted colors. And we just brought that over and we started there with this and then went forward, you know. It was funny when I was doing Tales from a Loop, in Canada, and I was using the DXL 2, which was the newer DXL. And I had called Light Iron back because Light Iron and Panthers and had merged together. I'm like, I think I like this lot. Tell me the pros and cons.

So the guy starts laughing on the phone. He goes, well, that's your life. lot from social network that we incorporated into the camera. So that's probably why you like it. Okay. And you didn't get a kickback for that or nothing. Yeah, that's whatever. But anyways, that was fun because that's why I gravitated towards that to start with. But yeah, we we set those looks and desaturated things. But I think the colors were not that vivid to start with. You know, we kind of went into it, knowing that. like not too stark, not to this, we weren't making something like, you know, we weren't doing

Pee-E-Herman's big top where's color was so imperative. You know, ours is more subdued. And I'd say it was 50-50 between us in the D.I. and what the stylist had costumer had already conceived. Yeah. Well, the only reason I ask, I mean, not the only reason, but one of the reasons why I ask is I've just been over COVID, my project was to learn. basic coloring. You know, obviously I'm not a colorist. I would never say that, but got decent at it. And so I'm always wondering, like, how much, how much of this can I squeeze out, you know, not trying to quote unquote fix it in post, but just learn, you know, where, where are the limitations? What, what can I lean on? What can't I lean on? So it's

cool to hear kind of like, no, but it changes to like your wide shot's going to be one thing. And you, when you're pushing into close up like you and I, then you're going to slightly adjust that so because it's going to have in the black level which affects the color is going to be slightly different to the way it's saturated and not so it's a it's a give and take the whole time but yeah yeah um i do have a handful more questions but we've kind of come up on time and i don't want to ask if you go for it okay well uh i did uh i did want to know what your i guess it's this is more of a technical question but i know you shot on the uh the monstrow with the DNA primes, which is a cool combo.

But I was wondering what sort of, what gets you excited about Red? You know, most people are like, oh, I feel like the knee-jerk reaction to do something like this would be on Alexa. I know you have a relationship with Red, but are we at the point where it doesn't matter, but or, you know, what draws you to that camera system so much? Well, one, the relationship, of course, since the onset of that camera, we've been involved in it. Fincher and I, and I still think him today, you know, I think he's doing a film right now that

Eric Messerschmitt is shooting, and I think they have a prototype on that as well. And it's like we always had the newest version of technology a long way. I love the way it renders color. I kind of come from the same camp that Fincher does in that. I would rather have too much information and too much detail and step on it later than, not have enough. I certainly think that the Alexa is a beautiful camera and the Sony Venice is a beautiful camera and I've shot with both and I'm not, I use them as well. It's just a familiarity thing, but I do think the cameras are really, really close now, but it's just a matter

of lens choices and finite like details that you want to make one work harder. for than the other, which is why everyone's obsessed with glass now and, you know, getting older glass and rehousing older glass, you know, the more resolution and the better the chips get, it's like we might as well shoot through code bottles to try to get some texture back into, you know, the images, right? So, so I don't think you can go wrong anymore. I do, I do actually. I, I would be surprised if anyone's asked you this. But what would I primarily shoot on Canon? Those are just the cameras that I don't, the cinema cameras.

And I know you shot a short on the C-500. Did. Do you remember anything that maybe I could steal from you? Any tips on exposing that sensor or shooting with that? In all fairness, that was a prototype. And it had cables hanging out, no back on it. And they had a gaggle of engineers in a tent that I wasn't allowed to go into doing things. and I kind of like

I took the job and it was a commercial and I didn't know we were shooting on that camera and so when that camera came about I was like fine but then it better do what it's supposed to be doing since I'm being asked to make this great show it was a short and and so I kept pushing it really hard and they go are you sure you want it to be that contrast

And like, if your toy doesn't work, that's on you. On my fault, like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And in the end, it absolutely gorgeous. Like, I was very happy with what we got. It's a nice, nice piece, look good. And I think cameras, you know, I think the camera at that time wasn't in the same league as Alexa and the Reds, you know. And I don't think Sony had anything, you know, the Venice wasn't out for another couple of years. but but I think that that canon is awesome.

I think it's a fantastic, you know, choice. And again, you just have to pick the best tools for that project, you know? And each in each time it's different. And for me, it's usually I'm changing lenses more than I'm changing cameras, but I'll change cameras too, depending on what it is we're trying to accomplish. Yeah. No point in limiting yourself. No.

I did want to briefly touch on your music video history because you. It's not brief. well yeah uh take all the time you want man i uh but the that era of music videos is just so um influential i think for a lot of people and you know when i was kind of coming out of college i was looking back on people i admired you know your spike jones is and your chris cunninghams and you guys and uh going like well i should get into music videos and commercials but the landscape had completely changed and i'm wondering what your perspective is on kind of what that era of sort of filmmaking was for music videos compared to kind of what it is now when I know you

still make music videos from time to time and kind of how those differ from each other? It was before Napster and record companies were making a lot of music money on music and artists were willing to spend their money on music videos and the ones that were winning were Madonna's Michael Jackson's who put as much effort into the videos as everybody else did. You certainly had a lot of artists that would come in and it was a nuisance to them and they'd walk away. The thing was that that came out of their profits, you know,

and so it was always odd to me that someone didn't invest as much as everybody else was on the set. But it was fantastic. You had all these young filmmakers, no boundaries, enormous amounts of money, all trying to out do each other with no rules. And so some ideas were not so great, and some were just amazing and every week you didn't know what was going to happen you know

Jake Scott does a video in reverse the whole the whole video or Stefan said in a way you would do something crazy and people walking on ceilings or Mark Romantic doing something bold or ventures with madonnas or it just was like the wild west for a while and embracing all kinds of new technology that was coming out at the same time, periscope lenses and different cranes and ways to get on and off of things and all kinds of crazy stuff, opening the camera while rolling and shooting on black and white sound recording tape to try to get some energy, or even Harris-Savita's baking film for the whole video, you know, where you put film in the oven and let it start to come delaminated

from itself and then shot with that and you got all the splatching and you know interactive stuff like that i i i harris and i harris shot an additional couple weeks of seven i operated on second unit on seven and then all the additional footage and then split up and shot third unit footage and then he and i were shooting the title sequence together of of seven with all the fingers and all the little stuff. And out of that footage, I got a couple of music videos where they ripped off just the title sequence and scratching and details and a weirdo in his apartment, you know, serial killer type stuff. And so I did a couple of those too. And then Napster happened and everybody was lost, like music was free and there was no profit to be made and what's the point

of music videos? And it took a few years for everybody to figure out how to monitor. monetize again. And nowadays, like kids are buying videos off the internet. So, you know, iTunes and $1.25 and you get a music video of Taylor Swift. So there's certain artists that are reinvesting in the videos, you know. I get to do one or two a year and they always seem to have a decent amount of money. They'll never have the money that they did before Napster. And but, but there are good artists and good directors that are making really quality work. And I hope that bigger artists start coming back more and investing more in their videos. You know, Beyonce always makes great videos and different artists will still do that. And I think that

the rewards, financial rewards are there. So it won't be what it was. But I do think that it's growing back into a comfortable spot to still be relevant. Yeah. Well, it goes back to what you're saying about like, you know, the punk rockiness of things and like pushing the boundaries. that Wild West attitude. Do you see kind of that mindset being applied anywhere else in the industry or maybe even outside the industry? Anything kind of exciting like that for you? I mean, yeah, I still think that kids are doing it in videos. I still think that the music video world has expanded internationally. I think all film making is expanded internationally. I've gone to Poland to be a judge on film, a music video festival before, and the directors are from every part of the world.

And it's amazing and the stories are amazing because they're influenced by their cultures. And so the different perspectives, you know, it's still kids and still hip music, but the influences are fascinating and what they think is important and how they like things. And some of them are absolutely beautiful and smart stories and stuff. So I think for what we lost, we gained by the internet. the ability to have so many more opportunities to present things, you know. When I say present, I mean like whether it's on the internet or a YouTube or a podcast or cable or television, there's just so many more platforms that need content now that it opens the door for a lot of young filmmakers or old filmmakers, you know? I had a guy come watch me, he called and ASC has an apprentice program where they shadow you on set or

shout of you on post or just mentor a little bit and I said I had done it a couple times before and he said sure I read his thing and I'm like great and did it and he came to watch me do the DIY and he's older than me but he's

a cinematographer he's making great low budget movies he's been a fan he wanted to see how to get to the next level and it's like hell yeah why not yeah the the mentorship from the ASC Like, I've interviewed a good handful of ASC members, and they all kind of exude that, I guess, willingness or enthusiasm to shepherd in the next generation.

I love it. You know, I was apprehensive at first because I hate all these kids that know more about it than I do. But it embarrass me or ask me questions I can't answer. But I did it a couple times now. It's so rewarding and wonderful. and the spirit and energy is intoxicating. So why wouldn't you want to involve yourself with that? Yeah.

To that point, I've never done this, but I'm trying to expand the scope of this podcast to disciplines around cinematography. And I know you spent, what was it, 10 years as an AC? I did, yeah. Do you have any advice for ACs who might be listening? Or maybe people getting into ACing or maybe even. seasoned ones that's funny usually it's it's questions about how to be a DP or cinematographer but yeah I mean if you want if you want to go the

craftsman's route which I did which I think with I think each person has to decide what works best for them for me I'm a little bit of a slow learner I need to absorb it and watch it and then apply it myself so yeah and so and in doing that you know I got to work on movies I never would have got to work on If I just came out of the world starting to shoot, I got to do the biggest movies and watch the smartest guys solve those problems, which helped me enormously. I would just say be around cameras. I would say go to rental houses, volunteer to work for a camera system or a second, drive the truck, get on set, learn how the set ethics work and what your roles are and how to learn more. Be over supportive.

Ask people if they want something. Ask the first AD if he needs coffee. Because when you're showing an initiative like that, people look at you different than they looked at all the other five or 10 PAs that are standing set, not doing anything or trying to sneak off to hide somewhere. If someone wants to be a filmmaker, then show your filmmaking. And even though it seems beneath you at the moment, it has feet. And people told me that was young.

Be eager. Be the one that stays the longest, that offers to drive someone home, that puts the whatever it is away, the last person, and you'll get the first call, and then you get the next call. And then when you change, you go, well, I'm not a, I'm not a loader, a PA or a loader anymore. On the second, you're like, great, I got a job for you now. Because they trust in you as the person.

You've shown them your character. And then technologically, you know, an experience life, surround yourself around, surround yourself around people that are doing it, that are working, that are good. and you'll absorb that, you know, one thing that tends to, it still does to this day, if you can get on a TV show, especially some kind of action show, you're forced to learn a lot and see a lot of different techniques and move quickly and absorb a lot in a short amount of time and it happens every day and it happens every day for 90 days or however long the show is. And by the time you get out of that, you've gone through boot camp and you've absorbed all this stuff.

Seriously, it's a beating. But I have a second that wants to be a first who has worked with me since social network. And he had a chance to go shoot the SEAL team or to be an assistant on SEAL team on third camera. I'm like, 100%. You got to go do that. And I would check on him, he goes, it's hard, but I'm always have the longest lens. I always, you know, because that's what third guy does. he has the hardest shot, longest lens.

And, you know, I used him the other day on a commercial, and I was, I was beyond shocked, like, it was a close-up like this. And it was the last second thing, like, hey, can you come do this? And this person's leaning back and forth. And he was like, just spot on. Like, there it is. Yeah, I'm sure you suffered. I'm sure it was hard.

I'm sure it was fun. But that knowledge that you absorbed on that, and you can't get it anywhere else. And that makes you valuable. All you want to be is valuable to an assistant that will go on the movies with you, the operator that tags you along with him for every movie he does with that DP or the DP. And then once you have that, you're off. Free to travel the world, as Southwest says. Yeah.

I mean, it's truly, I mean, everyone has said this a billion times, but it is truly not a place for ego. You're helping the team. It's all a team. It is a team sport. Bill making is everyone coming together. Exactly. Really appreciate your time. Normally I ask two questions at the end, but having done a bunch of research from you and a few other guys I interviewed, I seem to be asking the same question that every other podcast does.

So that's out. So I got two new ones. Well, one new one and then one that's actually, but the first one, speaking of that sort of history and lineage of film, is there a good reason? Is there a good resource that you can recommend for people who are trying to make sure that they are educated in where they come from, so to speak, and where they are now? You can't find a resource where you are now, but, you know, like to help solidify those sort of strands to the past creators, a book or something. Yeah, I don't have a book in particular, I think. i think that there's a lot of websites and a lot of uh you can go online and watch movies and listen to the talk people talk about them i mean to me if it was me and you asked like what

would i do i think i'd look like on i mdb's like top 50 movies and watch them and watch the behind scenes and listen to coppola talk about the godfather and listen to uh milo talk about one flew over the cuckoo's nest or talk about um you know even lucas talk about star wars or something and learn what those guys went through and had to uh watch heart of darkness you really want to know like about a movie and how hard and how hard movies are to make and what people go through to get it like it's not all like sushi and wine and uh you know manicures and it's hard work and there's a lot of tantrums and a lot of personalities and a lot of babysitting. Not always. That's not always the way it is. You know, being the Ricardo's was more or less

us going to work and trying to make the best move we can. There was not a whole lot of hardship involved, but that's not, that's not normal. There's a lot of, there was a lot of enormously talented people, uh, put in, in fragile positions, you know, actors are exposed. They're naked all the time in front of you and, and, uh, and you're asking to lay out there, themselves exposed and and create these characters and there's all kinds of uh stuff that goes on on sets that that um aren't just the fundamentals of making the movie but are necessary to possess in your toolbox of of tools to navigate through a set and and in the end get those shots because there's no disclaimers when that film starts you know it's it's just the shots you got nobody talks

about who wouldn't come out of whose dressing room or whose makeup didn't work or the crane didn't show up or the generator went out. None of that. It's just whoever has the best creative solutions to the dilemma of that day wins. And everybody has dilemmas. You watch saving private running the storming of Normandy. They shot that over four or five days on the coast of Normandy. There's changes in the light all day long.

It's sunny. It's raining. It's windy. There's no clouds at all. It's back. the way of covering it and in the style they chose and in the kind of grain structure they created you get lost in that you're not looking at like wait that was cloudy that's sunny that's this or that so you nobody can control everything all the time yeah you know it's funny

two things one i i i've always said that we should do a behind-the-scenes streamer like there needs to be because you can get all the all the movies you want but like i've been on a bluerre especially during the pandemic just on a blu-ray purchasing tear just to you know because i they're trying to take it away, you know, it's not on this screen, now it's on this one, now it's nowhere. And you never get the director's. Like, how easy would it be to do a director's commentary in the, you know, language selector, you know? But it's, but it is funny. You mention Heart of Darkness because we watched that in film school. And it was, we had to watch it over like two, three days, something like that, because it's kind of long. And I think on

the second day, I was reminded that I was watching a film about the making of apocalypse now and not a documentary about the war. Or, yeah, because everybody, everybody in it was a combat yeah it was it's a brutal it's an excellent uh excellent documentary for anyone listening um second question uh being the ricardo's is in a double feature what's the other film uh good question um i'll just i'm just i'm just gonna say peggy sue got married because it's the same genre my dad photographed it it's a beautiful film Hopella directed it. There you go.

That's probably not a great answer, but it's close to the hard answer. That's, no, that's the best answer. Again, man, thank you so much for your time. It was really awesome talking to you, and I'm happy to have you back next time you do another thing. Predator versus Alien. Alien. I met at the double screening.

Oh, oh, oh, yeah. I was like, all right, I'll take it. As far away from what should be there as possible. Predator versus alien. Oh, man. Or like, what was that one, Predator 2000 or something like that when they were putting numbers and all the. Pariah?

Wasn't there a movie about the piranha? Piranha. Parana, yeah. Sharknato. You do shark nato and being the Ricardo's being pretty good one. Yeah, perfect. Cool, man. Well, I'll let you go.

Like I said, next time you do something, please come back because I'd love to talk about it. Cheers. having me missed. 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 Etherard 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. Thank you.