Frame & Reference Podcast - 51: "Power of the Dog" DP Ari Wegner, ACS

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

On this weeks podcast Kenny talks with Oscar Nominated "Power of the Dog" cinematographer Ari Wegner, ACS. In addition to her work on “Power of the Dog”, Ari also shot “In Fabric”, “Lady Macbeth” and “Stray.” Enjoy the episodes! 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 Ari Wegener, ACS, the Oscar-nominated DP of the film The Power of the Dog. I say this every podcast, but this was one of my favorite conversations. Every week just gets better for me, and hopefully for you as well. We open up real heavy with some more philosophical film questions, but in this conversation, obviously we do a deep dive on how she shot the power of the dog, her work with Friend of the Pod Grant Major, a production designer, you know, drawing similarities between other art forms, photography, of which she is a photographer.

you know sculpture all kinds of things um really just uh you know oh just enjoyed i really just enjoyed talking with her it was a very sort of um calming experience almost and very edifying and uh just really great so um i think you're going to love it i'm going to let you get to it here's my conversation with ari weggner uh as you have heard the podcast we always uh start by asking the same question, which is kind of inquiring as to how you got your creative juices flowing, not necessarily how you got in a cinematography now, but, you know, where, where you kind of realize that you were more creative than perhaps working in an office? Well, I had, I don't know if you call it a head start or maybe something slightly inevitable

about the fact that I grew up in a very creative family. my father's a visual artist and my mom's super creative as well. We did ceramics and jewelry and so we had a lot of a lot of just art and aesthetic, appreciation for aesthetics, light, kind of everything in growing up. But actually cinema wasn't part of the kind of conversation so much or at all really. my parents were just not big cinephiles and you know, maybe in many ways that was a good thing

kind of like I was saying a moment ago the foundation that you're building and just colour and shapes and composition and what looks, what feels good to look at and maybe even how to just tell a story in different ways, whether that's a sculpture, or a tapestry or, you know, a room. So that's kind of the, that was the very, very origin.

And then in high school, actually kind of media class, I started to discover the cinema was, I guess discover cinema more than just kind of movies or entertainment. it was an art that you could say things and make a statement or raise a question. But it wasn't just one thing to look at. It was maybe two-hour experience that you're going to take someone on. And it can be and the power of how kind of it can suck you into the point where you might even forget. that you even have a body or you're sitting on a couch or in cinema and there's people next to you

or everything else in your life can kind of disappear for a short period. Then you come back out of it and you still find yourself kind of re-experiencing it a few days later or even a few years later there's films I think about and some unexpected thought will come to you or a situation where it just, your mind just goes back to a scene you've seen or that's kind of all. what I think got me excited and kind of still does, actually, the power of cinema. It's such a unique experience. It's like a unique art form and that it's also quite universal, but it's also really personal. And, yeah, that feels infinite and infinitely playful and exciting.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you find that it's hard or maybe it wasn't hard for you because you seem to be naturally drawn to it. But I do find that when you speak of cinema, you're talking about sort of what maybe could colloquially be called like artistic broccoli. You know, the things that I find are most gratifying are ones that do challenge you to think or maybe not even think, but go on, be emotionally vulnerable. and let the story kind of put you on that on that roller coaster even if it doesn't have any loops in it you know yeah yeah and it's and I think it's hard to get people to agree to you know a horror film seems to get people people are willing they're like I know this but if you if you for instance Zola I remember we want Zola was the first movie I watched back from the pandemic in a theater you know and I remember leaving that movie going like I didn't like that I didn't like the way that that made me feel not the movie was bad but like like the emotions I felt leaving there. I was like, God, that was borderline depressing. It was so, it was really a gut punch of a film.

Yeah, Genixir, one of the most common words Genixir uses is stressful. And I think that's a stressful film. Stressful, yeah. Yeah, but getting, but any point being, getting people to choose to be stressed out for a period of time or like good time. think is like a similar style of film or you know feel sad or do you find that that was the same for you or do you have friends who maybe don't like to go on that journey that you have to like kind of wrestle with i certainly do yeah i mean i'm not going to say that i love those films all the time you need yeah sometimes you want to watch something and you forget the world in a

whole different way because it's just stupid and it's uh and then then sometimes you're also you're ready to do some thinking and then also sometimes in an unexpected film that you read the synopsis and you think this will be a good escapist thing and then some scene or something will make you think about something you haven't thought about in 10 years or a person that you're a situation you remember or it it's the thing with cinema is like unexpected um unexpected you don't know what you you would often come to a film with an expectation of some kind right um it's quite rare that you'd sit down to watch something and say i've literally no idea anything about this i've just clicked or i've just like someone's dragged me to something um probably fairly rare most of the time you come in with an idea of what you you know expect it's going to be or maybe we think whether you're going to like it or you're skeptical or you're like really amped about it. And that also plays into how much you enjoy it.

Yeah, it's it's complex. Yeah, I mean, so we're kind of dancing around the question then, but where do you feel? I think everyone has probably everyone who's involved in the art probably has a similar answer. But what do you think the role of cinema is in today's world, especially, you know, things have changed so much over the past, even 20 years? Yeah. That's a great question. I think there's still like the power of a story in whatever way we tell it, whether it's cinema or verbally or in a novel. Like that is, that's been with humans since, you know,

as long as we could manage to string a sentence together, maybe even before. But like the power of one person to share an experience with a number, other person is so um that hasn't lost any power i think if anything it's it's more it's like and there's so many so much information and so many things we're bombarded with like what are the stories are cut through um and and even like what what's a story that can hold your attention for two hours like that's feel like now that's a big investment you know yeah um So, what's the role that cinema has now?

Big question, but I think it does, it has a role. And then I think it's also kind of changing in that cinema hasn't always been a very democratic art form. You know, most people can probably have the resources to draw or maybe even paint or write. but to make a film it does often require a little bit more than that at least a few more people and I think there are stories that we're kind of starting to open up our scope of like what story is worth making a movie about or what voices deserve to be heard and if that's what we're talking about then we've only just started to crack open the door of the stories, not just the stories, but like how to tell those stories.

Cinema language is so versatile and, you know, it's infinite. It's like infinitely infinite, maybe even more than the written word. It's like, I guess it's only really restrained to kind of a, you know, a box, but maybe not even, you know, that it's, I think we're really maybe only just starting to see what it could be. getting like you said it's yeah it's a young art home so i think it's got a lot i think it's got plenty more to give yeah no i i fully agree it's it's kind of interesting because uh in many ways it feels like you know on one hand it it can feel like it we've hit a plateau you know where it's where everyone the audience and the creators are also um maybe not educated because in many cases the audience might not be educated on what's actually happening but

film or television or this visual storytelling is so ingrained in most people's lives in some format that it may be no that's going to be too many too many thoughts at once I'm a little scatterbrained I don't know if you heard any of the other podcast but sometimes they jump the thoughts jump around but I fully agree like now that you can do anything you know the technology allows us anyone to almost do anything it's restricting that palette So as you would visually, but now as an entire art form, to tell any story, if that makes any sense. Maybe. It's like you've got to, I think if someone has a story, they really want to tell that also, like, rises to the surface somehow, like a really, a good story is just a good story.

Like, it just is. And then, yeah, how do you, if you've got a great story to tell it, how do you tell it? how do you tell it to kind of do it justice? Yeah. That's the, that's the big, that's the real, yeah, how do you translate your story into cinema? Big questions, we're going big. I know, we opened up real hard.

Well, going back a little bit, you were saying that your parents were creative and like sculptors and stuff. What did those sort of outside of film art forms kind of teach you about cinema? photography or filmmaking in general. Because I love learning with analogies. So this is great to hear. I think it's very like osmosis kind of thing. Like if you're around a lot of, you know, like paintings.

Within a painting, there's composition, there's lighting, there's a choice of color palette. There's how accurate or impressionistic you want it to be. there's complete abstraction and there's what's the like what are the elements that you look at a picture and you really break it down

what are the elements that give you the information that do tell a story about what's the atmosphere, what's the tone or what are the thoughts we kind of what are the ideas that we project onto someone we see in an image and what's the visual tension Is it kind of, you know, is there symmetry or something off about it?

Is it, where is it pushing to the extremes? And then where does it fit within the kind of ecosystem of history? And yeah, I think it's quite kind of, I would say mostly osmosis of what's pleasing to the eye or kind of what and then how how do you visually what what does tell a story and what's like what's a picture or what's a piece of an artwork that like holds your attention and why yeah i think that that that was highly kind of influential though it's also kind of intangible to like break apart but other other than just saying it's like a real appreciation for aesthetics and kind of um all kinds of aesthetics um

even also like not just appreciating but like critiquing um kind of and also that it just like no one artwork is kind of good or bad or no one critique or interpretation is kind of true or correct or better. It's your personal engagement with it. So yeah, even at a very young age, my folks would ask me like what, what I thought of it or why or yeah. And without kind of correcting or anything, just that's a that's a six-year-old's interpretation of this, you know, master kind of, you know, one of the like European masters and that's just as valid as an interpretation as someone who's a academic in that it's just completely personal um yeah i'd say that's that's the i've never thought about it in that particular

way but i think there's an element of that yeah the for me it was always music and i think music tends to more readily be compared to film because there's like you know maybe not acts but you know you're chorus first and all that you know peaks and valleys and stuff but um yeah like seeing seeing even a sculpture and seeing where um or a painting where it sits within the confines of the art form and where it pushes it i think can also inform um certainly my photography i've been buying a crap ton of photo books recently and uh seeing where they are um you know one thing that that's done for me actually is uh it's given me a sense of peace because even looking at you know like Stephen Shore or Fred Herzog or any of these guys

Annie Leeuowitz even um you can get kind of caught up and like oh my god it was perfect and then you'll be flipping through these books because you only get like a selection usually and then you'll be filming through these books and you're like oh that's kind of like a quote unquote normal photo you know that that seems accessible yeah for sure um but then there's also like some kind of consistency something like those tangible and intangible, we'd be like, what makes a Steven Shaw photo? Right. Is it?

It's no like one thing, but it's like a, it's a, I and it's a, and it's the, it's the totality. It's like the whole that make up that identity or that, like, voice. Yeah, that's really fascinating as well. Yeah. And I, I don't know, elements. Yeah, the, like the whole kind of. informs the individual pieces. For sure.

Versus the other way. I did hear that you were, or probably still are, a photographer, but you started early, yeah? Yeah, I don't take as many photos as I, as I feel guilty for not taking photos,

actually. That's why I'm personal. I feel like I should take more photos now. As a teenager, I was like prolific and into film school, even. I always had a camera with me. And that was kind of an obsession of mine.

And I guess, you know, that's what I'm doing all day on set. Maybe slightly less so between jobs, but the eye is still there, I guess. Like you're still, whether you're taking the photos or not, you're still looking at the world in quite a photographic way. or you're, for me anyway, I'm looking at frames and shapes and light, especially light, like non-stop. So, yeah, looking at the world in that way, it's, I don't think that goes away. It's kind of, you're tuned, you become very tuned to that.

And maybe even unconsciously you see it. Yeah. Yeah. Were you a super, like, darker and we're at? Or were you more involved in just like the photo taken? We're like, all right, it's developed. We got that. Okay, moving on.

Back to the photo. No, no. I was in the dark room until the cleaners would come kick me out, you know. Time to go home. We're locking up. Yeah, that was my high school years for sure. And there's also like a camaraderie of that as well that, that I think, um, what I think maybe I, in some ways prefer about making cinema and being a

cinematographer is it's a real collective experience and I experienced some of that in high school in the kind of and and definitely in film school you know with a bunch of people were all kind of doing doing something together but yeah in high school it was like you know a bunch of us in the dark room kind of working on our own thing but then cinemas are filmmaking is like another level of that you're all working on a collective thing together Yeah, I was just doing an interview earlier today and I had gotten off, I just got off a short that I was working on over the weekend. And it was the first set I'd been on in two, two years, whatever it's been two and a half year. And I had forgotten how, I said this in the other one, but I had forgotten how addictive that like high pressure problem solving with other people became. And I was just the first AC on this one. But like there was, it was a super small crew. So it didn't, my buddy was the DP and it ended up being me, my friend, the director, and like the grip and the gaffer. And we were all just like always huddled around the monitor.

Like, what do we do next? You know? Yeah, yeah. And the AD too. But yeah, it was a, it's a very addictive working environment when it's good. Yes. Yeah. But yeah, there's something that really kind of clicks in humans, I think.

is a in a small group working intensely on a on a singular problem um that's something deeply wide in us i think especially the small the small group or like small groups of small groups or you know yeah i understand the uh that you and jane campion had been working on power of the dog for like a year before you shot it yeah that was that was a real um treat, really, to have that time. I mean, I say a treat like it was given to me, but it was also a choice. It was given to me in that Jane, it was Jane's kind of idea to start so early. I mean, that is the dream for a cinematographer, but it was also kind of my choice to really put

everything else aside and not take on anything else in that year that just. just to be ready you know it was it felt like there was time there was also a lot to do and it was when someone like jane calls you um and i love her films her entire body of work and the idea that you might shoot the next one uh a year doesn't feel like a long time sure yeah what was the what was that pre-production process like then because a lot you know I hear a lot of films sometimes you only get whatever six weeks something like that to have a full year you must have really gotten to kind of like the really minutia and also macro but just like have that opportunity to really dial down on what you were trying to do 100% yeah we

were deep in the every detail and then the huge big decisions and I guess it started off with location scouting because it was important to us to be scouting in the time of year we would be shooting that part of New Zealand change is completely in winter it's incredibly green and then towards the end of summer all that grass kind of goes to dries slowly

into brown and then to this like incredibly crispy white almost metallic silver kind of grass so that to be scouting when we'll be shooting was super

crucial that was the first thing we did and kind of settling I think once you have a location you can really start working until then it can be a bit

theoretical and that's actually what the toughest thing is I think in that in that compacted pre-production, often with those, say, six weeks, at the start of those six weeks, it's not guaranteed that the locations will be all locked off. So a lot of that time spent just driving around, trying to find somewhere to shoot. And then the actual time you have to plan it, it might be only three weeks or two weeks

because you didn't have anything to start on. I mean, you can kind of start in theory, but really start, start. actual actionable real tangible decisions the location really helps with that so yeah that was that was first step then then we started talking about colour and the colour palette how we could unify all these things like my Montana, New Zealand, 20, 1920, VFX, art department, costume, aging of everything needing to look aged and this kind of visual minimalism that we wanted to, we were both really excited by, Jane and I, or of a kind of elegance with, by kind of removing this word that Jane would often mention would be unadorned. So, you know, no extra bits, no hangers on, no icing, no decoration, no jewels hanging on that are just there to be pretty, just get rid of it. No anamorphic flares.

Yeah, no anamorphic flares, no out of focus, more ground, like nothing that's just there to be pretty. And not to say that beauty isn't important, definitely was, but. not for prettiness sake. That wasn't exciting to us. Sterile beauty, maybe. Beauty in a vacuum. Beauty in like, almost like imperfection as well,

that even that landscape we chose, New Zealand's insanely beautiful. You can find postcard New Zealand or Lord of the Rings, New Zealand. And that was very much available to us. But, you know, the mountain range we chose, it's kind of got a ruggedness and a humbleness and an imperfection. It's got kind of repeating patterns but not perfectly.

It's got knobbly bits and in many ways it's like a body but like a real body, not like a stereotype, you know, beautiful body. It's like real and that's what's so beautiful because it's not picture postcard. it's not idealized as like real um right so that to us is what was beautiful and or kind of exciting and um and yeah taking taking away rather than adding on um uh so yeah we we kind of started with the elements that we knew would would be definitely going to be in the color palette so we We've got the grass, kind of bright skies. We've got the color of the leather and the saddles

and the fur of animals, browns and blacks. We've got like timber of the inside of the building and timber of the barn, dirt, dust. And that started to build a kind of core palette that just thought if we could keep any of the elements that we needed to bring in, if they could fit within that existing, palate, then they're already well on our way to feeling that kind of unified elegance and

minimalism that really excited us. And then in order for that to feel strong, the greens of that kind of lush place where Phil goes to swim, those two worlds kind of make both of them feel more strongly themselves. The dry feels drier and the lush feels lusher because of the existence of the other. So that was the next big conversation. And I mean, we talked kind of throughout the whole year at nauseam about the script and the scenes and what each scene needed to kind of do. And also those big questions, like how do you tell a story that?

the information is present, but doesn't, say, a certain piece of information that will later become, be a kind of plot point. How do you have it present and not hidden, but not so clear that it kind of sends a big flag that this is going to be important? No true Chekhov's gun. No, no. And no, but also not so hidden that no one can join the dots or you feel tricked. Yeah. And that was, that's a big, that was kind of a big challenge. Like how do we take an audience on a journey and, and have them land at this kind of gut punch of an ending that doesn't have one interpretation, it doesn't even have one feeling.

it's like a lot of strong feelings that the characters are having that you yourself are having as a viewer and it's not confusion it's like disbelief relief sadness yeah anxiety and relief at the same time it's so many things you're feeling at the same time that is what we want to hopefully for people to feel at the end or whatever the pie chart is of what you feel within those personally. And then to kind of make a film that we think about afterwards a retrospective experience so that maybe straight after or in the next hours, the next days, maybe even weeks later,

if you're kind of thinking back on something reliving it, you're watching it in real time and then you kind of reliving it in your mind and then maybe. even have a desire to go back and watch again and have a different, and that second viewing could be a different experience altogether. Yeah, there was some of the big conversations. And then I also went down some super deep rabbit holes to do with just the world of Montana and the 1920s.

Sure. It's a really fun world to be in and I just wanted to know, yeah, just like tease out what are the elements and also kind of trying to get beyond the surface into the real and find real photographs from the time of people living their lives so we can kind of what are the elements that feel real? Where are the things that are surprising within those real photos? So we're not just creating a kind of cliche or like a something we know from history class or a scene that we feel like we've seen in another movie that each scene has a kind of, has an authenticity to the place and what's in it and photography. And if that could feel authentic, then we would have a better chance of also feeling kind of with the characters.

I think if we don't believe the world then it's really hard to connect with the people in them. Anything that makes you feel suspicious, you're already like a bit. You're looking, you know, when you watch a film and something like doesn't, something stands out as being like,

oh, not real or there's VFX that feel VFXy, you're already like looking for more. You almost want to, you're like trust is, it's kind of like broken a bit and shaken and then you're always almost looking for like reinforcements of like whatever it is that you that the twig you because you're the human eye is so attuned to things that aren't real um we're just really good at spotting things that aren't real um and i've described it as when the head when the head in the heart don't agree you lose trust and now you don't want to be on that aforementioned journey we were talking

about. Yeah. And so I guess on that on that note as well, VFX was a huge thing we discussed a lot as well because there's a lot of the effects that that are quite invisible. Not quite. A hundred percent. A hundred percent invisible. That was our big hope. Well, hopes even too airy. Like that was we were that was our conviction that for this film to work with VFX had to be invisible. Because again, the last thing, want when someone's gone into that, you know, portal to enter a world is to be thinking, like, oh, there's a VFX shot. Yeah.

What were some of those replacements or, like, effects you were doing? Because, again, I certainly didn't see it. And I don't think until, like, who did the VFX? D negative? Uh, oh. Oh, oh, sorry. My bad. My bad, if they're listening.

But I remember seeing a breakdown and like of the, like, mountain. range being replaced a little bit, probably to get the titular shadow going and all that. And I was like, oh, duh, because in the theater, I actually got to see it over at Netflix before it came out. So I got to see it in a nice, the proper way, so to speak. And I remember going like, wow, they really found a mountain range where they kind of like figured that out. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that was a big, that was a big important one, obviously. That was that had to work. and the dog is described in the book and in the screenplay it's not described it's described as a dog but not um in a in any specific way so we had to really go all the way back to that what does it look like is it a how big is it how is it a silhouette is it a rock formation is it a is it the top of a range or what's what is it doing is it it was that was a that was a huge kind of journey as well and really collaborative as well which is great that jane so she really fosters that so myself grant major and jay hawkins who's

the FX supervisor and myself really all started kind of brainstorming again over a series of kind of months really of what the possibilities could be and because it had to be something that was visible but not visible to everyone and but also that if someone that people can look really, you know, characters in the film stare very closely at it and still can't see it, so it can't be it can't be that that bearhead at Disneyland

for like, have ever been to California adventure? There's like this bearhead. It's called like Grizzly Peak and it looks exactly like a grizzly bear, you know? Yeah, you don't want to make people that the people that can't see it are not idiots, you know, it's more like a magic eye kind of thing of

totally. So we actually, Jay and I on one of the scouts, and again, Jane's kind of forethought of having VFX supervisor come on all of our early location scouts and be part of all those conversations, not, not, but knowing that VFX is something that really happens in prep as much as it does in pre-production. Absolutely. Yeah. And it was on one of the early scouts that Jay and I. I were up on a kind of hilltop of a mountain that is on another mountain range that looks onto that mountain range. And it was very late in the day in winter because it must have been another scout

because it wasn't summer. It's been like later, the additional scout we did. And there's very long shadows. And we saw in the shadows like the face of a witch. And first of all, kind of like, oh, cool, witch's face. And there were like kind of dual brain explosion of like a dog. So, yeah, that, that, that obviously was, ended up being a VFX shot, or kind of a manipulation.

And then ultimately, kind of they ended up doing actually quite a lot of work with that shot because it's kind of series of focus calls and the idea of the kind of that effect. get when shadows kind of clouds moving rapidly across the shadows of clouds kind of moving. So it's a really complex shot and I'm so glad that it didn't call out as that when you're watching it in the cinema. And then the whole, probably the top third of the house and the ranch, the ranch house is Oh, no kidding. Yeah, so that was something we, again, had, we designed the whole house.

And then I think the real job of BFX, production design, DP, director, is to basically figure out what, once you've designed the world, where are the seams, where are the joins, where are you going to stitch what you build onto what you, what you build physically, onto what you build digitally. and that top episode of the house was something that we collectively decided it was basically more cost effective and we also inadvertently chose one of the windiest valleys in the whole country which is already a very windy country so the amount of like internal reinforcement necessary was it would probably whole thing would have had to be concrete so oh geez so we did that VFX then actually the cattle we did kind of cattle I wouldn't even say that we shot a lot of cattle

we probably had maybe 200 cattle at most at any one time which which actually is not a lot because cattle they'd love to be close to each other and you can't just say like hey guys everyone spread out a bit you need to look like more of you yeah I'll step to the side of it just spread out, put your arms out, like make some space. Bessie, hit your mark. They're going to do what they're going to do, which is to be, like, close to each other. They're a prey animal, which loves to hang out as close as possible to each other. So when they're moving, you know, when they're walking, they do that.

Yeah, there's a natural spacing that they find, and it's hard to manipulate. So 200 cattle is actually not, seems like a lot. but on screen, especially in a huge landscape. Sure. And in the story, they probably should have had a thousand or, you know, maybe even a couple of thousand that they're moving. So, yeah, Jay and his team did incredible work. It's some, you can see it in the breakdown if you do all these kind of cow replacements or additions.

And again, incredible. I don't know where the seams are anymore. I just know that they're there. I can't see it anymore. Trust me, I had absolutely no idea. And I'm usually pretty, as you were saying, I'm pretty good. Well, I'm a giant nerd too. So I'm always like, but not only can't you see it,

but it kind of really helps, or I shouldn't say helps. But it goes in line with what you were saying earlier about how the film is very much kind of like presented and not like guiding you to a conclusion. or anything like that and it's what maybe you could call I'm making this up right now but like a lean-in film where it's not like one of these like yeah this is you have to go like what hold on yeah yeah yeah moves that'll only work for the video viewers the invisibleness also it's not just the shot itself but it's the shots around it that that also um help you and say believe but

they, when you feel like authenticity, authenticity, authenticity, and it is because it's in camera and then there's one shot that's the VFX shot and then it's the only VFX shot in the sequence, you're not on the lookout for it. You're a believer and I really think sometimes it's any kind of scene or something, but you've also got to give credit to the elements that go around it and where you are as a viewer in the headspace, which is which is very much how I'm thinking when I'm building a shot would be what someone just seen before, what's just before that, what's just before that. And definitely the cattle sequences, we definitely planned the shots in a way that they had an order that they were designed to go in.

And obviously it changes in the edit. But there was a logic when we shot it. And I think the spirit of that is still there in terms of, yeah, so it's planned. It's planned in a way that the VFX shots, part of that is kind of where the VFX shots fall within a sequence is also important, I think. Totally. Yeah, the whole town of Beach where you meet Peter and Rose is all VFX, apart from the building. the red mill that we built one building, the, I guess going back, we designed the whole town as if you would build it for real with, you know, timber and, uh, and found a site for it and designed geography and, et cetera. And then, um, you kind of run the maths and the logistics of how many days are we going to be here.

how many daylight hours, how many nighttime shots? Like how many shots have we got and is it worth spending probably a few multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars to build like 30 buildings? Right. Or might it be better just to build one of them and build the rest of the effects? But because you've designed it already,

you're planning the shots and you're framing on the day and as you're planning, it's not something that you're kind of thinking, later on we'll add buildings but you know specifically what they look like where they are and how it all fits together so um i think that's a big key thing as well that again like the the effects happens in in pre the planning and and the planning very much involves that production designer because it's sets yeah um and and myself and jane and uh what else the there's a little bit of weather in there because we shot over summer so again some kind of

sFX snow some VFX snow and the planning is just again where the seams where the edges are for the best result as well for example like the cows you you can't shoot it like a completely digital cow is not going to look great right close to camera so you're designing your shots with real cows in the right spot of the frame where we're going to um you we're designing it in a way to give the VFX guys the best and girls the best chance of it being invisible from from its design origin um what else yeah the inside the house we um we tossed up green screen or blue screen out the windows oh okay But we ultimately decided on printing backdrops, which Jay took photos on location,

and then we printed them in a very low-tech way. It's really just printed on like a billboard. Oh, yeah, Grant was saying you guys couldn't get the like Vista light or whatever it's called. No, the Translight was definitely out. Yeah, that also takes it. It's a long and it's not a cheap process. And I read articles about DPs that use this magical translight. I've yet to be on something where it's made sense for us.

But, yeah, that was Grant's suggestion. He'd done it before. And it was, again, that collaboration is so key. Myself, Grant, Jay, Jane, and also the producers in many ways because budget's part of it. As to what will be the best result, what's the best use of our resources, how do we want it to look? And then you go into a what about when it's winter and talking to Jay about,

well, actually, it would be better to still have the backdrops there and put where they're onto them versus shooting it completely green or blue and building it from scratch. Also because the nature of that inside of that house, it's so dark, but these beautiful reflective surfaces. So every surface that you see is reflecting something because we're in studio, you're the one controlling what that reflection is. And if it's green screen or bluspring that's reflecting,

then it's not a pleasant. You really want all that sheen to be the correct reflection. And when you've got those backdrops out there, that's the other bonus you get on all the skin and the set. is not going to get that pollution. And obviously there's way to undo it later, but you're much better off to have it captured in a kind of clean way. And also something very satisfying about shooting a frame and it's shot.

You know, it's not a gaping hole in it that you hope someone will finish off later. It's not like a dot, dot, dot. It's like, yeah, we got it. It's done. And, yeah, I really enjoyed that solution. that Grant kind of pushed for and and then we all really fell in love with it. And then having someone like Jay that took these, you know, fantastic high-rise panoramas and into like and working with the art department to figure out the scales,

a lot of maths involved as well in kind of, and a lot of prayers and to the physics gods that we got our, we got our maths right. Because when they, it's, yeah, there's a lot of invisible VFX and a lot of invisible conversations and decisions that went into everything, or in every element that you see, really. Yeah. Since you guys, you and Grant are the only two people I've interviewed who are here to talk about the same project, which I think is pretty cool. Talk to me a little bit more about how you worked with Grant and also how that affected. like lighting and sort of your compositions and all that and what that back and forth was like for you. I mean, Grant's is such an incredible collaborator and real gentleman as you

experienced. And obviously, you know, it's undeniable that between Grant and Jane, I'm definitely the younger of the bunch. And they come with all this wisdom of all the things I've worked on and it's just a accumulation of, you know, thousands and thousands of more shots than I've probably done. And so that was also incredible to kind of work with and still be like kind of cross-pollinating ideas with someone that comes with that decades of experience and then, but also have them, you know, value your ideas just as much as theirs. and Jane also kind of, it's not that any of those ideas will be better.

They're just kind of different or they're based on different experiences. So that was an incredible kind of experience to, you know, to see. It was really fascinating to hear in Grant's podcast, his background in architecture, which I wasn't quite aware of, but I can see it in the house. You know, that is the work of an architect. and also to be design a house that it's not designed to be lived in, it's designed to be shot by a camera. It's only purpose for existing is to be shot.

So that as well is an incredible skill to know or to work with me about, you know, what's our aspect ratio, what lenses are we going to be shooting on, what are the angles we're imagining? And, you know, so then how high do you make a door at the top of a door frame? And how high do you make a ceiling that you want to have a high ceiling, but it still can't be too high that you'll never see it? How, what surface should the floorboards be and the walls be? What are the textures?

How can we want something to feel dark, but needs to have a sheen in order to not just be a kind of matte black theater, black hole, just infinite conversations that we really went down to the details with and designing the house interior especially was really fantastic and collaborative experience and that we really started with that scene where I think Grant might have mentioned actually where Rosen feel are jewelling with a banjo and piano that kind of eye line down and that that kind of formed like the central core of the house that diagonal yeah the stair like an eye line from the bedroom kind of down.

And then, yeah, working with Grant to talk about windows and window dressings and how much did we want to see outside the windows, how, what level of kind of feminine, masculine do we want with the, you know, we went to on all kinds of journeys to do with, do we have curtains, do we have sheer curtains, do we have blinds, do we have, what are how much light do they block? What color is the light when it comes through the blinds? What does that say when you see it? You know, what is a, what is a curtain say? What is a sheer, lacy curtain say? And so, yeah, just incredibly collaborative process, but no, no leaf was kind of left unturned in terms of all the conversations. And also, you know, you can tell

what a gentleman grant is and that trickles down through the whole department as well. So it's kind of having everyone on that team with just like an extreme kind of warmth and care about what they do and attention to detail. Jane in particular is incredibly attention to like a detail oriented person. So everything is important to her, especially a great radar for what feels authentic or not. So, you know, every thing in the kitchen and every, you know, piece of textile and wallpaper that Grant designed, that's a whole other podcast. Sure.

Papers they designed and the, yeah, and then also just a great person to hang out with. You know, these people are, you know, essentially like your friendship group for the best part of a year and you're sometimes driving and you're doing a four or five hour drive with these people. It really helps when they're just like great people to, you know, spend time with whether you're going to be talking about the film or something else completely. Yeah. Do you, you know, the film to maybe the untrained eye or someone who isn't thinking about

it, the film looks incredibly naturalistic, you know, just like kind of where you just, there's a character out in the, uh, will. that's that's how the sun is that's how it goes um going back to the idea of zola also incredibly naturalistic but maybe far more practicals uh how how how how how did your approach to the cinematography differ between maybe those two films and also bonus question how did you make those studio interiors match that same level of naturalism um because yeah a lot of those interiors that looked just like I didn't know they were on studio until I think Grant told me. That's a real compliment. I'm so glad. And I have trouble like, like, you know, either day

for night or just matching interiors. I'm still struggling with that a little bit. So I could use the help. I'll start with that one. So I was also super nervous actually coming into that, the idea of shooting on a on a stage so much of the film um not that i didn't think that i could do it but there's there's just such a high bar of authenticity in jane's films and if that started to fall apart if for any moment we didn't believe we were really in montana in the 1920s and just outside that window was the ranch that you've just come from then the whole thing could thing like that. As soon as you start to mistrust, then it starts to corrode it other things that are perfect,

but there's a doubt there. So the stakes felt incredibly high to me that that, you know, it was definitely my responsibility to pull that off. That's my job. So, yeah, it was we shot the exteriors in the South Island, we shot them already. That was the first part of the shoot. And then, so. I had already spent even pre-production a lot of time down in that part of the world

and also, you know, six weeks or so we were there on that one property, mostly just watching the light and the intensity of it. So it's really bright down there and windy and dusty. And so then when we came to studio, the studio work, I guess I was just very much inspired by that. And then also because in studio you're controlling everything, you do have the opportunity to make it perfect. But when something's perfect, it's often not authentic.

At that point, you're probably in a commercial or a, you know, photoshopped kind of something that feels, like I'm saying, your eye knows when something's wrong. And that can be that it's too perfect. It's too much feel or this, we can say everything a bit too clearly or the life. just feel like falling a bit too beautifully and we're suddenly we're in an insurance commercial or something. Nothing against insurance commercials. I do love a good insurance commercial.

They pay really well. I actually really enjoy commercials as well. It's a whole other world. So whenever I felt that instinct, I would usually just kind of mess it up somehow. So whether that's put a mirror in somewhere and bounce, some, you know, create like the light kind of hitting somewhere unexpected or put different change the, maybe the diffusion I had on the lights and make the foreground one in the background one mismatch or just kind of even take a light and pan it a bit one way or the other till it didn't feel. so perfect um and then i don't know if you notice this there are some things i just love to do in general which is like hit hit light off the floor um yeah is a is a big old favor of mine

um but i think that's often when you're in a room that the light's coming it's coming through a window but it doesn't disappear it goes somewhere and if it's coming from depending on your window how your windows of it. A lot of the light in the room is coming up off the floor because it's bouncing. It's what it does. So it is also a realistic kind of way of lighting. And then also some other little things I would, I'm relentless on set. I'm just kind of, I always feel bad for the poor like standby props people and grip and electronics department by the end of the day. Because just when they think the shot's done and they're like ready to maybe go get a coffee or something or just step off set and take a breath, I'm never done.

So stuff like making sure there's like dust in the air and or at moss like hayes in the air to just because it's so, it was so dusty down the South Island. I mean, a lot of time it was so dusty and bright, a lot of the crew were wearing ski. goggles, you know, like to like get through the day. And so you don't, I mean, you see it like a couple of times. You don't see it, but you feel it. It's there. And, and then making sure that those backgrounds as well were quite hot and exposed in a way. Like you can see the windows behind you now, like they're not not quite that bright. You still. want to see the detail but but just because I really in my lighting try and kind of like

evoke a particular I guess like atmosphere and that's maybe like a time of day and even like a temperature that it is you know you want to feel like like these specific kind of temperatures that that they are like an emotional memory to us because it's like the one that comes to mind is like when I was little in Australia and it was in summer when you either towards the end of the year or the start of the year because our Christmas is summer going to school and it was like warm enough in the morning leaving for school you already have a t-shirt on and the weather and the wind's like quite warm and you know later in the day it's going to get blazing hot but right now it's like kind of pleasant but it won't be for long like that those kind of memories or like

you know the winter morning when it's still and it's really sunny but it's really cold unless you stand in the sun it's like cold in the shade warm in the sun those kind of things and like how to how to replicate that on a stage um and that's kind of yeah like the color of light the angle the texture of it and then um the kind of how deeper the shadows and all that kind of fun stuff that you see in your day-to-day life and tap into and then and then try and replicate um and i'm definitely notorious for uh i i have a little like fuji film x 100 and uh i'm notorious even myself but i'm notorious for like anytime i see a good bit of light i'm always like oh stop stop stop i got it yeah i do that photo and then i try and take photo of like what's making it um

Like, I've got so many videos on my phone that are like a beautiful shot of some beautiful light. And then it's like panned around and the camera's like readjusting. And it's like the sun hitting a building, hitting a thing. Yeah. And it's like kind of a capturing of what's making it. Is that, I mean, that that fascinates me as well. I can do that all day, try and figure out where a particular bit of light's coming from. great photos of you know dumpsters and alleyways people like why are these on your phone you're like

no it's great light I swear don't delete that that's important yeah um I forgot in the first part of your question something oh it was it was actually how you uh approach naturalism um in a film like zola versus uh this one you know because they're both uh not reductively but let's say huge air quotes unlit, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't think in many ways my approach is not dissimilar. Yeah, it's, I mean, if anything, it's like everything else in the films that's different. The lighting's not a world away. It's always more of like a candy store kind of color palette. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The kind of dust bowl color palette of the dog and obviously, you know, the camera movement and that definitely the action is is completely different.

But lighting wise in many ways not not a world apart. Apart from, I guess, solar's got, so it's got obviously color, but I'd like to think that most stuff I shoot is kind of lives in the world of naturalism. That's what I love to recreate and I'm sure one day I'll do a film, maybe something like in fabrics, like that's definitely gone outside of that, that world where there's like kind of artifice of like the cinema is kind of big in it. We're not, but definitely in a kind of world of big kind of shadows and kind of almost like noir type stuff yeah yeah giallo kind of like bold bold lighting um deliberately kind of the lighting like deliberately accentuating something um whereas those these two films were

yeah i think i think naturalism was really important for them both um because like you said in both those films, it's really important that you believe that the characters are really in this place. Right. And that's, yeah, very much I feel like my responsibility that, you know, the actors are giving in natural, giving it their full naturalism and the photography's got to match that. Yeah. For Power the Dog, were you then to match kind of that sunlight you were thinking of. Are you primarily using like hard tungsten sources or were you leaning on LEDs a bit? Because it seems to be a divisive topic for this group. I don't have any alliance. I didn't have alligences either way. We probably did quite a bit of HMI for the hard

light in the on the stage. And then we mostly lit the backdrops with either X lights or Or if it was a dusk or a night scene, we used sky panels. So kind of like both. And then inside there was, yeah, plenty of. We used mostly tungsten for the fire, kind of fire and lamp effects, but also tubes at times. We love the tubes. Love the tubes.

Everyone loves the tubes. When in doubt. Tube it. Tube are great. I mean, eye light is really important to me. I really feel. like you can dark photography so satisfying for me because you can really direct with a small amount of light you can you can really direct where you want someone's eye to go and again

not unlike those hills with the with the shadows kind of across them this like craggy kind of landscape that is our faces darkness does like great things but if there's as long as long as there's there's light in the eyes and and yeah I would often use a tube if all else had failed and I couldn't get it with one of the key lights or the fill lights that tube to the rescue yeah when when an actor is giving like a beautiful performance is so much in the eyes especially in a film like this where often the characters are not more often than not They're not saying what they're feeling. They are actively kind of masking it.

But if you see in someone's eyes that it's just like kind of wetter than it would normally be or there's like this emotion in the eyes. And if you've got the eye light, you can see that. And without the eye light, the frame's a bit lost. You're not sure even where to look. And you're also missing some of that beautiful performances. so yeah all kinds of fixtures really and and I do use mirrors a lot or kind of different types of reflection reflectors and actually grant I don't

know if you mentioned but they made this beautiful kind of had this beautiful glass made for all the windows it's actually one of the only things that came when got put into the building in the South Island and they brought it all back to the studio to to the windows and the window frames to put into the set. And it was this, you know, like that old glass, it's like, it's a different way. Yeah, the different way of making it than we make it now. It's, I've forgotten, he told me all the beautiful details of how it was made, but they, yeah, they did a bunch of tests before to like,

to what extent did we want the glass to be, to have a visible distortion? And some of the rejects that were too strong, I actually used to create some of the lighting effects and use them for some of the nighttime work with the moon kind of coming in and either using them to bounce off. So just hitting straight into the, using it like a mirror almost, the glass or put a mirror behind it or put black behind it and just try different effects like that. So bouncing off those windows or bouncing through them. But I love what you can do with mirrors. And I use those, the CRLS as well quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah, I use them a lot.

I love them. I've been really interested in checking those out. I tried to get the, they have like an office out here. And I tried to talk to them. And I ended up, we just talked about BVNS lighting because I guess it's like the same company or something like that or same guy sells them both or something. Yeah, they're kind of like sister company. companies a bit. But yeah, they work particularly well when, when they work kind of with any light, but a really directional light can, you can use it in quite a specific way. But I use them as well to, to have the source be further away to get a nicer drop off. So if you're in in studio and you know, the sun should really be a very long way.

away right um and you're in a confined space so you can't take your light um as far away as you would like to but you can make the beam longer and so the drop off is more um gentle uh less severe when it when it gets to your characters um and so that i use that as well quite a quite a bit um and Or just for fun, like I was saying, if something's feeling too perfect, some kind of piece of glass or mirror to either break up the bounce it and send it off somewhere else in the room, or just even put a piece of warpy glass, like, in front of it. And again, the more the, I could do a whole other podcast on,

on soft light and hard light and how kind of that works with the you know mirrors and glass and all that stuff but I you shouldn't have said that because that's something I'm terribly fascinated in it's the best yeah yeah that's that's kind of the most fun that I have on set when I and again it ends up looking like this it can end up either it works on the first go or it starts getting tricksy where you end up with like a flag forest or like forest of kind of dance but then the results like really worth it and I'm really super content with some of the night interior work is actually that's some of the hardest stuff to do to like create a moon or what's the what's the motivation and it kind of isn't it's

just like what your eyes can see in the night and then maybe you make a moony effect and And it's always quite tricky. It's a tricky one because it is an artifice, but the way my thought process was that was if it can have a texture, then at least it's coming from outside the room and it can feel integrated and also really beautiful, especially on Grant's amazing wallpapers. Yeah.

Yeah, we used a lot of, I didn't even know what category you'd call a warpy glass. Messing, messing up of the law. lot. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of on the other side of it, do you have any advice for anyone who's maybe not more stuck with because that's reductive on who would be doing this? But any advice for anyone trying to shape natural light and make it not only more pleasing, but maybe more technically proficient for the camera and for, you know, not just backlighting people to craziness, but also to work quickly because, you know, I assume people can get very grip heavy

when they're trying to overly massage, you know, the sun. Yeah, I'd say the first thing to do is to understand it, like understand contrast and light. And for example, you know, you can do just as much with fill light as you could do with a big diffusion if you have someone with a shadow that you don't love on their face you can you can either diffuse the light that's hitting them or you can fill in the shadows it's a slightly different way of kind of the effect won't be exactly the same but it could be that the filling in might look more natural as well because what you're trying to do is soften the contrast so that's I guess like an example of understanding kind of what it is that you aren't liking

about what you're doing, what you're seeing. And once you kind of understand your lights travelling from the sun in a very straight line and it's hitting someone and what is it about it you don't like, is it because it's that hard light is showing the imperfections and why is it showing the imperfections? Because that's on that angle, it accentuates the texture because you're, it's like micro shadows on the face or something.

So you kind of, there's, I guess, a different solution for every problem based on what it is you're not liking. I say also like learning about the power of cheating angles, you know? Mm-hmm. so much plenty of cheated angles in this film that's for sure you know where you um you learn to know what what you can i guess get away with in in terms of a background um and you know maybe turning someone 30 degrees 90 degrees suddenly they look great yeah um Yeah, the sun is so huge, really, I think the only way to fight it is with the sun, you know, so whether that's bouncing and filling in the shadows or like kind of with those reflective type of things and also learning about how the size of a source affects the softness and then as a result, the distance from. from the subject.

So a piece of poly board or reflector kind of board close to someone is going to be a lot softer because it's big and then when you take it away, it gets harder because it's smaller because it's further away. Those kind of like concepts that once you start to understand them, then you can work with what you've got. It might not necessarily, yeah, and building, building the big thing is it works sometimes but it might there might be other ways to do it if you um understand the concept um the big concepts and that those those concepts will uh serve you whether you're doing a day exterior or night interior or night any any um

that's a great thing about light it's incredibly predictable it travels in a direction and it bounces off something so yeah learning you know plenty of plenty of videos back to high school physics that'll um to get curious about um and and there's a whole other level of uh enjoyment that comes from lighting when you when you can see that rather than just like, I think probably as I did for many years, fumbling about, hoping that you're going to find it. Dance on the right solution. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a promotional photo that's been put out a lot of the main character sitting in a, in the barn. And there's like a handful of diffusion kind of coming in to get. Could you explain what that setup is? Because that's an easy thing for everyone to go look up. up and be like, here's what we're doing here, you know? Let me quickly find that because I actually have it kind of in my Oh, perfect. Email somewhere.

Um, I think probably what we were trying to do was like spread, spread the light more inside. Okay, I'm just opening it now. Okay, so we had a big light outside and then with a series of frames, it looks like we were trying to kind of have the light wrap more into the room rather than being directional. So in the same way that when you like draw or, you know, if you've got a thin white,

curtain and you draw it across a sunny window your room kind of fills with soft light and it spreads it like blooms everywhere I guess spreads around and so with

what's great about having a door that's shaped like that or a big kind of hole in a wall is that you can by moving the diffusion closer or further away you can kind of control how much it's coming in and it can still be soft but but also directional because it's getting cut like the doors they're functioning like a like big cutters

kind of um literal barn doors your little barn doors and then looks like we've got a sky panel in there that must have might have been doing some eye light or a fill or probably like i was saying it's softening the shadows um softening the contrast just a little bit and wrapping around further. Sometimes I look at photos that I did on set and I'm like, what was I doing there? At the time, you know, what actually it is, is that because some of the time I operate, some of the time I don't

and I've been operating a bit less on the last couple jobs. But I still find that I can't, I find it hard to light from anywhere but the camera because they're saying it's like lights it's traveling in a you know each bit of photon or or I might be getting my terms wrong but like a little particle of light is traveling in it in a direction and and in many ways the only place that's relevant for is from the angle of the camera. right so I can really only light by standing at the camera or on the angle of the camera and and seeing that other angle where I wasn't my mind's like what that makes no sense

but if you were to stand on the angle of the camera you can see what each thing is doing I guess yeah so were those frames kind of were you like did you have the initial light and you were moving those frames, kind of looking maybe at the monitor and kind of going, all right, put that one in to get this hair? Or was that a little more like structured as it went? I think I'm on the camera there. Yeah, I'm, uh, can't even, oh, okay, we're doing an overshowed a shot of Peter onto Phil. Um, yeah, I usually set the key light and then start to soften it from there. Um, totally. And, and I do like to bring in additional softening sometimes close because it'll wrap like maybe that that that frame that's above Peter there may

well have been to give Phil and I like I wish I do that sometimes as well bring a framing closer for the eye light without still keeping it on the right angle to keep a good amount of shape but you're trying to give the eye something to reflect basically that's what an eye light kind of is so totally yeah what a mess i look at that i'm like what's going on there but here's the thing to i'm sure that one of the reasons why they're using it as a promo still is because it looks like there's a lot of filmmaking happening you know going on here for sure um yeah it all makes sense at the time um i mean that's such a fun job really to to to have all these tools and

and people to execute a vision in, you know, middle of nowhere. Yeah. Well, I've kept you far longer than I should have. I really appreciate the extra time. This has been a fantastic conversation. It's been really fun. If you would like to have the podcast about bounced hard and soft light, we can arrange that. We'll put aside a day for that one.

Yeah. Hey, I'm here for it. I am here for it. But we like to end the podcast, the same two questions. I'm trying to figure out how to modify this first one because I've listened to other podcasts now and I realize we all have the same last two fucking questions. So I can't be doing that. But for now, what is maybe something you've read or maybe a piece of advice that you were given that stuck with you over there? Or maybe recently kind of gave you an aha moment. That's a, that's a curly one. I mean, there's some I kind of give myself maybe, and I don't know if I've learned it from anyone, but it's like, just that relationships are so important and that kind of is part of that's like communication, but, you know, relationships all round, whether that's your relationship with the director

and the relationships with the people you're working with than even the people that you leave at home. You know, it's all part of your, part of your, it really influences the work. It's not separate. And I guess communication is, you know, really key part of that.

But for me, kind of holding, yeah, valuing kind of maybe even the relationships over the work. if there's any time where I kind of feel, you know, a director has one idea and I have another idea and I think my idea is superior and they think their idea is superior. For me, there's no like battle worth having because it's like the relationship is so much more important than this one decision.

Right. So, yeah, it's really kind of huge and that kind of is the most good work also comes from that it's not a compromise I guess what I'm saying that's a very roundabout way of saying and I don't know if that's even advice I read or I have just come to but I'm sure I'm sure there's plenty of people that have written on that oh yeah I mean I can't remember who said it might have been Dave Grohl or someone But basically, like, you don't have to be angry and sad to make metal. You know, like happy people make angry music all the time.

It doesn't need to, if anything, when you're more clear-headed and your emotions and your relationships around you are healthy, you're able to go into those places and find those emotions and articulate them in a more, well, healthy way, but also a more accurate way, I suppose. Yeah, totally. That's great. I'd 100% agree with that. that I think is, well, the idea of this, like, tortured artist is probably a romance to it,

but it's not really a great way to live. Yeah, yeah, you'll burn out. I would recommend it. You should probably work on whatever's torturing you. Yeah. Maybe your art could be even better. Yeah, don't. Yeah.

The second question, Power of the Dog is going to be in a double feature. What's the other film? Actually, I'm hoping to program it in a double feature in Melbourne later in the year. Hell yeah, preview. My request gets approved to put it with a man escaped, press on film, which Jane and I both really love. that it's really, it's a very, it's, it was kind of our bar for minimalism and maybe it's even a little more minimal than our film,

but just the power and the tension you can create when you're really mindful about the shots, sound, the elements, and the attention to detail and, you know, the power of a macro shot and the power of a face and there's this like incredible tension in that film that um and you break down the element it's like so few um and and yeah the the way that sound and images obviously also work together um and yeah hopefully that will be my double my double bill that's a great question um i would love to see actually that the film that you know probably the only film we watched really and and kind of look to as a bar to hit um uh i would love to see you know

them back to yeah well hopefully uh hopefully you get to yeah absolutely um well yeah thanks again for spending the extra time with um that was fantastic wonderful um lovely to meet you and yeah you too thanks for your podcast i really enjoy it in general I'm a big podcast listener. That's great to hear. Yeah, this second season, first season seemed to be I was invisible, and now it seems more people have found it,

so that's good to hear. Great. Awesome. Well, like I said, it was great talking to you, and hopefully we can have you back soon. Love to. Thanks so much. 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 Ethad Art 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.