Frame & Reference Podcast - 64: "Candy" DP Simon Dennis, BSC

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Welcome to another episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast! This week, Kenny talks with cinematographer Simon Dennis, BSC about the Hulu series "Candy." Some of Simons other credits include "American Crime Story", "The Politician", and a number of episodes of "Peaky Blinders." Enjoy the episode and don't forget to subscribe! 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 Simon Dennis BSC about his work on the Hulu program Candy, which is a lot of fun, great show if you haven't seen it. Simon's awesome. We do a lot of nerding out, as it were, on this one, as we are want to do, you know, talking about the craft of cinematography as well as, you know, things you do and don't do a little bit, a little bit of extra David Fincher standing, again, as we are want to do. And a little surprise, I snuck it in on him, but we got to talk about Doctor Who a little bit because he shot an episode of Doctor Who, and I'm a big hoovian as it were. So yeah, I absolutely loved this conversation, which again for this program

is not rare, but a lot of fun and I think you're going to enjoy it. So I'm going to let you get to enjoying it. So please enjoy my conversation with Simon Dennis, BSC. So the way that we usually start all these podcasts is kind of just by asking how you got into the creative field. Were you always a visual person? Did you always, you know, love movies and come from that? Or did you, were you like an architect first? Or how did that kind of come about? Well, that's a great guess. Actually, I wanted to be a graphic designer when I left school back of the day, which I sort of pursued. And I went on a graphic design course, and which is kind of tentatively linked to advertising, I guess. So in a way, I was sort of edging towards

filmmaking. And I always love films. Movies were my passion. So I remember when I was at art school, I was doodling a lot, like movie posters, you know, I think I was even storyboarding stuff. I was obsessed with Blade Runner at the time, I remember. Yeah, and I kind of, long story short, I sort of, one of the part of the remits of this course was to do a little 20 second video. I mean, literally like a, you know, what was it, VHS cameras we had. So I kind of did that and I felt like, oh, this is kind of interesting. And it's a long pathway I took but I went and basically to two films because I went to an art

you know like an audiovisual course and then I went to more of an official film course in Scotland where initially I was going to be like I want to be a director everyone wants to be a director and then I knew nothing about cinematography. I didn't even know that it existed I thought the director shot

the movie so I part of the remit of that course was to sort of do a little you know everyone kind of basically meddled around and played in different every kind of department as it were so sound and hair and makeup and up so part of that was to actually do a little like a cinematography module and I was like a kind of light bulb literally went in my head and literally went on set I was like oh this is kind of cool and I realized then I was a little I'm kind of a timid person you know I'm introverted but I was like I don't think I've cut out to be a director

but this cinematography thing is kind of cool so I bought a 60-mill camera with all all the money I had and started shooting. And then I'm, you know, I graduated. I started shooting music videos with my friends and shot my first movie 20 years ago, 20 years ago, for David McKenzie, who you may know of. He did Hello High Water and stuff like that. Yeah, and then I sort of just snowballed, really.

I just sort of was just sleeping on many couches, you know, earning probably no money, but I was very passionate. And I loved, I could, whatever I could do to get another piece of my reel together, you know. And you just, you know, persistence, isn't it? In the industry, persistence. So I just, I just, I was very persistent, you know, I just email, well, whenever email was invented in his packet, make him show my age now. But, yeah, so that was it. I mean, and now I'm up until about five years ago, I was shooting a bunch of great stuff in the, in Europe.

I'm from England. And, yeah, I got a email. From a completely random email from a D.P. that was working on Ryan Murphy's shows. And that led to Ryan Murphy's shows, which had six off. And here I am. Yeah. You know, there's two things you touched on there. One, that whole, like, every, I think everyone starts that way thinking they want to, people who want to get into film, start thinking, oh, I want to be the director.

Because you just assume it's like the director. Yeah. And everyone else. You're like, I want to make the movie. Yeah. the general is you know yeah the general like you know you you look up to that kind of mantle of that that image of a what you know and i i knew what i knew who stephen spillway was and everyone knew and it's like this is literally about to say yeah yeah yeah i mean that's the classic

but um yeah no i i i i mean i used to be in i used to sort of dabble in editing as well that was my other sort of sidebar i sort of weirdly ended up cutting a movie that i shot they fired the editor it was a long story but and the director was like really like sort of he was just in a tight spot so I said well I'll come I'll come in so I started cutting this movie and I I started cutting all the pretty shots together you know yeah yeah yeah work you know and this was a really fascinating Leninco as being an episode you start to then show scenes the director and they'll be like something quite off about this and I was like oh maybe I should cut in the best

performance maybe you know what I mean like yeah seems obvious but the time I was just there's a big learning curve. So I've also got an editing background. So when I come on any production, any set, I hope I'm really useful to a director to have that kind of background as well, albeit, you know, a few things. Yeah, no, that's been parroted numerous times on this podcast is like how being an editor absolutely makes you a better TP. Absolutely. I mean, you can kind of, it's like chisling away at the importance, you know, you kind of get to the you kind of pull back all the layers to what's really freaking important about what you're shooting and what you end up don't even considering it's funny you see being in an editing bay you would

just turf out shots be even without even cutting them in it's like ah no but so you realize the importance of coverage which i hate the word of but coverage is you know it's getting less and less of a coverage type world we live in now we're living a very cinematic tv universe so it's very exciting yeah the the shoot the shit out of it and hope for the best in the edit right is definitely something that uh I wouldn't say I learned in film school like it wasn't taught to us but it was but as students we were like well we'll just shoot every angle as much as we'll do the whole scene 15 times from 15 different angles yeah two takes you know it's interesting though because the process of editing is obviously a collect you know is you

you're receiving a collection of decisions and those collection decisions can be everything you know I was trying to a deep camera operator friend who's on a show right now and some directors have still got that muscle memory of just shooting the wides the midwives the overs the singles the insert you know you can do compulsive filmmaking yeah but the thing about it is is I think you know a lot of directors say that their work is made in the edit room which is I think totally fine I think as long as the edit is very disciplined so it doesn't show that kind of mass, it just shows the decisions of they've maybe just taken 10% of what you shot, but because you've shot what you've shot, they've got every option.

Whereas I personally love to just try and keep it kind of very lean. In fact, one of the episodes of Candy was with a director called Ben Sevenoff, who is what was not he's an operator for a number of years and most notably on um ozark which oh i just interviewed um carl dennis right no you're wait hold on you're that's your last name no no no uh the guy the d from ozark okay but not his name right it's a razor sharp show very very little camera movement it's all about great framing and very sort of specific choices and Ben was interesting because he said to me I'd sooner spend two-thirds more time lining up two-thirds less coverage as in you'd focus on just the needs that you need within

I mean saying a scene would be maybe four shots you can do it one you know but he would be like I think the scene is just this and this and that little insert and I was like great so he would just spend much more time building those important frames than spending less time on a lot of frames, which is the true craft of filmmaking, really. Yeah, well, it's also like, you know, in any creative industry, let alone film, there's an element of fear.

You know, you don't get really, you know, that bite at the apple. Yeah, exactly. That's what the opera I just spoke about on that thing. He said that the director was sort of scared. He was like, I don't think I've got enough. It's like, well, you've already got the wide,

and the medium and the close up and the overs. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, to me, it's each to your own, you know, the discipline of filmmaking, I think it's just personal. But I, I, the more I've been on set, the more I like the language of, I wouldn't say it's even being daring or taking risk. It's just being respectful to what you're shooting.

It's like, you know, I mean, I actually remember, I did a show called Piggy Blinders, in the UK and Tom Hardy's in that and the first day with Tom we had this director was like I want to do a steady cam shot following I'm going to be on the back of Tom his character and I'm going to follow him down through all these it was in a underground brewery and it was probably about I don't know 40 seconds of screen time before he even does the first line that's in the script so already I was like they're never going to use this shot right and and Colin was like they'd see and they use the shot and it's 40 seconds of screen time that TV is back I mean that was a few years ago now so

now it's not necessary about being like cutting a lot of stuff out in order to fit it into a box because that's what they basically do because it's all translated now because of streaming everyone doesn't really know this well you are knowing it but every single episode is a few minutes

here a few minutes there right you're watching a new language now which is really i i find quite exciting yeah you definitely do see it's kind of a bummer as a viewer sometimes because you're like wait this episode you you know you're waiting once a week and you're like this one's only 32 minutes yeah last one was 59 man that that that show is like I mean how how how edible was that show I mean you could watch that show in one evening like yes what I did early in 30 minute episodes I mean they're like they really kind of went tight you know in a in a very like digestible way I guess yeah but it didn't even feel short in some cases but um yeah yeah it's like definitely an

exciting time I was going to say that show um I just finished watching all of Picard and Halo oh yeah yeah which by the way yeah I was I was watching the trailer for candy I haven't had a chance to watch the actual show and I was like is that Master Chief? He's got a mustache. Oh, my God. Yeah. Isn't it? He's a good actor.

But, oh, that did bring up a point about what you were saying about, you know, kind of being more considered about your framing and all that is I just read a quote recently that I thought was kind of apropos. And it was like, the actor, more or less, only has to nail it once. And the crew has to nail it every single time. Yeah, that's a famous quote. Yeah. Oh, is it?

Okay. Yeah. I don't know which film. There was a famous filmmaker that said that. And it's, yeah, I kind of have a similar one that I take away as DP. And again, I don't know who ever said this. I read this somewhere many years ago. He said that there's good lighting, there's bad lighting, and there's the right lighting.

I think that was Gordon Willis. It probably was. And he's my hero. So, and like, you know, I caught talking about a disciplined filmmaker. You know, he was like one of the most, I mean, there's probably every reason why dark cinematography evolved because of him. You know, everyone still looks at and still studies his work. I mean, I still try to figure out which gridcloth are used and diffusion. It's like what filtration are used, but apparently it's, it's in his coffin, you know.

Well, and, you know, that's funny, I was talking to Jeff Cronin went, and he was kind of, Oh, my gosh. He's another one of my heroes. Absolutely. Oh, I actually, during the not recorded part of the podcast, this is a little peak for anyone listening. But I was kind of like, hey, man, I'm not going to lie. I'm a little freaked out because he, like, informed my, my cinematography.

Like, a bunch of people did, but he definitely has a large chunk of it. Yeah. So I was like, that, of course, you know. So, like, yeah. And so I wanted, I was like, I hope this doesn't feel like, interrogation because I already had everything I ever needed to ask him just in my head you know a lot of times I meet DPs I don't really know their work and I have to do some research for him I'm like I've got every American cinematographer you've ever been

interviewed it you know yeah um but he was saying oh go ahead no I was going to say I actually met so I never really try to like to meet my heroes but I was at the ASC awards early this year and Jeff was there and I was sat at the Panavision table and Dave from Panavision was like oh hey Jeff come over here come over here come over here and like I was like what and there he was right two feet from me and I was like oh my god don't screw this up and I was just like I'm a massive fan you're my hero and he's like he's and again it's such nice it's so nice to me so it's out there that you know to this day are very kind of like still grounded down to earth and he's like don't be stupid that's exactly what

he was like he was like shut the fuck out man I'm a human being like you like yeah yes I've shot freaking amazing shit but uh that that was kind of a cool moment yeah no i won't say what he told me but basically he was like yeah i've i said that to someone before and and uh i felt dumb so don't don't worry about it you're good i'm like okay thank you but uh in in our conversation he was saying that he was kind of lamenting dark cinematography for darkness sake um because it is so you know people like gordon willis and kind of him uh really have put that image of like that is You know, I was just talking to my friend Joey Fumeli about lenses. And I was like, really, your lens choice, something that Matthew Duclos said was there's no bad lens.

There's only the right lens for the right job. And I, you know, format and which lens you pick and the lighting is kind of informed by everything prior. There's no wrong way to use an anamorphic. You can use anamorphic for a comedy if you want. You just tend to not. It doesn't fit. Yes. the audience brain.

And so that darkness cinematography is one that I think none of us have left because it's just so good. It just feels correct. It does. Yeah. It's interesting. Because I also believe that, you know, I mean, there are some filmmakers and DPs that take the same lighting package or camera package or lens package through every show because

it's sort of what they love and what they dig. But I'm more of a, let's try things out. And like you say, find the right lens for the show. rather than saying, well, I've got a bunch of great anamorphic lenses that I own. I'm just going to take on the show. You know, I'm shooting it, so it should work. But I don't know. My discipline is a bit more like, I mean, I remember, in fact, it's interesting because

Roger Deakin spoke about this. I mean, he's, I think he did one anamorphic movie and then the rest of his career is spherical, which is, again, that's his MO, you know. Yeah, cleanliness. Yeah. He doesn't like flares. doesn't like, you know, there's a lot of things that we do and do not like, but I think that the tastes and the language of what you're shooting should be apt to the story, not the

lens and the camera and what have you, you know. Well, and we all love a kit rental, but, uh, we do. There's, there is, there is kind of a narcissism to that. Yeah. It's, it's like, I don't know, it's a lot of people own their own stuff and I kind of respect that, but I'm sort of the only thing I own is a remote head because I just take it on to a show and that's always useful tool but yeah yeah interesting I mean also like the language of I actually remember there was a really great um Laslo Kovacs was brought in to shoot um Ghostbusters

right and you might be conscious now that you've said all this about if you see Ghostbusters he said to Ivan Wrightman he's like well I'm not really a bright comedy kind of D.P. And he's like, no, no, no, I don't want to shoot Ghostbusters like a comedy. I want to shoot it like an atmospheric movie that happens to be funny. Yeah. And I did that was an intro. I mean, I was like, when I read that, I don't think I was conscious of it watching that. And I remember going to see it as a kid. And I remember loving it. I remember thinking like, oh, this is kind of like cool, you know? Like this is a cool looking movie. So I find

what, yeah, genre versus lighting is a very interesting tool and I think you have to just take a project to project. I mean, on Candy, it was a I just knew straight off the bat that I knew that I knew that it would be a very still camera movement piece. It was more about camera framing. And I also knew that I was really keen to try and shoot much more of a cubist approach.

We actually pitch one three three as a ratio, but the studio were like, hmm. So it's it's definitely. They're not ready for that. yet. Not quite ready for that kind of universe. They're okay with the bars in the top and bottom, but not left and right. So we ended up shooting Candy on 166, which I think was a sort of sweet spot. And, you know, the mad reference that I speak to people about this on Candy was Napoleon

dynamite because it's got this, you know, the show is quite quirky, you know, it's kind culturally it's 1978 into 80 and so it's it's it's you know the outfits the hair the big glasses the jumpsuits uh even though Napoleon Dynamite's not set in 1980 it feels like it is but I was also reaching for that what Napoleon Dynamite which is more like the portrait photography even on whites um so I was sort of going down that path which I thought was kind of right and yeah you know what's funny is I was going to get to this in kind of the back half but we're already here especially talking about Jeff I I feel like it's easy to ascribe any sort of 70s murder thing to Zodiac but it does have very cronininthy Zodiac kind of vibes to it was that like a touchstone as well or was that just sort of it my mind uh no I mean, I still love Zodiac. I mean, I'm an absolute true crime nut.

And I kind of think that's, I mean, I'm still fascinated by that movie because it was shot on the, on the very infantile sort of digital system. Yeah, Viper, right? Viper with like digipurimes. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Harris Savitas and Fincher, and it's quite a deep focus show. Like the movie's not necessarily stylized in that way. but it does and it holds you has an amazing uh i mean what i always pull from that movie is i

love how they use the color yellow there's there's a thing that pops out on uh which i you know listen i i could talk about this for hours because i know the fincher's obsessed with you know all the president's men and and and jacke pacula like it's his work is all you know all over finches by the way you're welcome to talk about this for hours please do wow i i do find like the decor and how you know the costume yeah i guess like i I guess. I mean, it wasn't a conscious decision for me. I've just had it always wedged in my head, like, as a great fucking movie. And it's, you know, it's a, it's a movie about dialogue.

Dialogue is a danger. I mean, there's no, there's no serial killer at the serial killer's in the dialogue. You know what I mean? Never freaking meet him. I think it's just genius. But, but no, I think, yeah, definitely that kind of period. I mean, I mean, the other work I was looking at was, it was more about. Because I work from the inside out when I'm doing a show.

So I don't tend to kind of immediately go out and watch or look at stills or paintings. But for this one, I was looking at the crime scene material that you, they're very, very graphic and disturbing. I kind of felt I had to look at it. And, you know, to me, I felt like I was starting to work on already the color themes because there was lots of, you know, it's almost like Polaroid work back and then.

It was like very vibrant reds and yellows and blues and stuff. And so I was like then drawn to. more work like William Egresson and his work Yeah, two of his books over there Yeah, so one of my heroes But like he used the diaper

He used to think called Kodachron die transfer So all of his famous work Has got a very Like the reds really fucking pop Like leap out of the The image, you know? Yeah, is it?

Yeah, portraits, this book For anyone For anyone watching, this is a great Tim Ives turned me on to this I'll get my copy and we can just go through it yeah we'll just share it I tell you I did an interview with Tim Ives and I asked him if he had me like what he likes to reference

and he came back with a stack like this and just walked me through page by page like this is a photo I love this is a photo for like 20 minutes it was the best Tim did the other show Tim's done the other candy show oh really well

HBO have done the same story that it's called love and death And I funny, because I emailed him on prep and, you know, I'm just reaching out because I've never, because we shot in Atlanta, right? I've never shot in Atlanta. And so I was reaching out. I think it was a connection with something he did. And he emailed me and it was like, oh, ha, ha, ha, I'm doing the other show, you know,

all the best. And then earlier this year at the ASC Awards, I saw him and we had a big hug and I'd like, hey, you know, and he was still shooting. His show is like twice as long It's like 10 episodes And but I think a couple of teasers were out And he was like oh yeah It's looking great man

That's that's the great thing about DPs You know the DP is doing Exactly the same story But yeah Tim's fantastic You know Did you guys Oh sorry I was gonna say Did you guys kind of talk about your looks

And try to like diverge at all Or maybe try to symbolize Or just no discussion No no discussion I mean I only until I met in recent after I'd finish, but I would suspect he's gone down. Oh, well, I do know, I think technically he's shot on the Pannis beads, which is what I've shot on.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, I feel me, if I could speak for him, we've got, the tastes are kind of similar, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like he would have definitely gone down that same avenue. The thing that I didn't want to ever do was like the chocolate box thing of like filtration. Right. I felt like it. I felt like filtration, particularly on any era, would have been too sort of processed.

And so what we ended up doing was Panavision were doing the kit and Dan Sasaki, the lens wizard, he detuned my lenses. So we never went on filtration. It was all like, it's almost like you put, you know, you sandpaper the image a little bit. It's a bit more, well, I described as being more like vinyl, like a vinyl record. And actually, I think I just sent him the William Eagerson stuff. And he's like, got it. And he sent me, they actually did in-house tests for me because I was over Atlanta. And I just got these testers like, bro, nailed it. There you go.

So that's what we did. Yeah, we sort of detuned for a slightly, yeah, just like analog. I mean, there's this record. I mean, there's a scene where Candy is listening to a David Soul record, you know, and it's, it's interesting because pop culturally wise and also culturally like the 80s is interesting because I was chatting to somebody earlier on a podcast and he said there's a big difference between 1980 and 986. Like, 1980 is practically, you know, I mean, literally the late 70s, but like you're talking

about a turning point in a new era. Whereas the 80s, it was already finding where it was, you know, back to the future you can think of you know lethal weapon but um yeah so i find i found that that kind of the detuning was the first time i was like yeah that's not there's not fill tray and let's just try and bake it in and um i've found myself that i've kind of started to maybe because i i tend to shoot large format now and there's just a lot more like data to work with it's like i thought that the bigger sensor was going to give me sharpness but it doesn't i it gets it When the image gets downscaled like that, it becomes smooth.

And you don't really need filtration anywhere. Yeah, I agree. I think there's a miscommunity. Like, you think, like, you get these big screens in the particularly makeup people. They're like, they can, I mean, because I go, I see on set with a 55-inch OLED, like, DIT station that is in this roadie box and it just pops up. And I've got full color control. And, oh, you do your own color on it, like live grading. The last three shows, I've done live color.

Awesome. It's Spencer Schwetz, who is my brilliant, you know, partner in crime, D-I-T. He's just a big brain. And he built this, if you want, I can send you stills if you want to add it to this. Please. It's, yeah, it's a 55-inch calibrated OLED. So we have quad-splits. We have three cameras on the show.

So we have three cameras. It's all calibrated. And then we have live color. So basically, I'm watching it. In fact, I've got two TVs, the same TVs here. So I'm watching it exactly as it should be calibrated to the nation. You know, we watch. And of course, like, it's really useful if you're doing a show like this,

which is so color coordinated. So we basically started to kind of enhance, like, the reds, the kind of burnt yellows. I mean, when I read the script, actually, the color yellow leapt out to me immediately. And also I got thinking, you know, the show's cool. candy. So there's like a candy color kind of color theory in there. It's not like Matt, you know, it's a little bit, you know, it's saturated for sure. But and then I use, and I would use, um, to sort of bind the story together. I used, um, sodium vapor. I remember as a kid back

and then, you know, there's old dirty sodium vapor. We love that color. It's so good. And when it comes in, it's so kind of dirty. So I ended up like using that to bind together the houses and the, and the suburban life there's a scene where Betty's like in bed with her husband and you know and you sort of then cut to

candy at this sort of dive bar like dancing like like it's like a disco sequence and again it was like matching color themes like because I wanted somehow to kind of connect these two rival characters

I mean they're friends but they end up being rivals because of an affair you know because of, you know, yeah, no, small town. It's in the trailer. It's in the trailer. Yeah, but yeah, it's, I don't know what we were talking about initially,

but yeah, it's, I just love detuning lenses and large sensors and stuff. Yeah, I think, no, and it's funny because like, soon as Dan gets those lenses back at Panavision, he undetunes them and just destroys all the paperwork. Like, it's like you can't ever find the, uh, the Coca-Cola formula with that guy. like he's like the king of lenses in fact but that's awesome though he was given an honorary award at the air see which is amazing anyway we're at the and so david panavision was like um dan was walking up to go on stage and he's like this is going to be interesting because dan really doesn't say that much he's a fly guy but um yeah so yeah but yeah we're also going back

to like tim and all that and william bigelston and you know i think you know um he's always been a sort of great sort of I don't reference him on everything but I find inspiration in his work I just love the texture of his image and kind of going back as well to live colors I under expose all of the neck in the camera so well really nothing should ever peak in any way I really get like I kind of get almost a little sick in my mouth if I see like a really clipping highlight I just yeah basically every Everything I do from the last four or five shows, I've sort of, I've underexposed by almost two stops, like on the raw. Oh, that's what we were talking about like resolution as well, right?

So when you get resolution, yes, it does give more clarity, but it gives you more like range to play with. So when I under expose and it's you're automatically pulling the sensor to a, it's not to a breaking point by any means because these cameras. It's just incredible. They're all nuts. Oh, the Venice is great. I mean, even when you think you've like destroyed the sensor, it's still like, hello, I'm clear as hell. But no, by the time you do that with the detuning and, you know,

live color, I hope what I come away with is something that's got a little bit more of a film at Neck. I mean, I was really pushing for, you know, the show to fill somewhere between 16 and 35, you know, it's got a little bit of spicket and grit to it. Yeah. The, it's cool to hear you say that because I've noticed the same thing with more of these modern cameras. I have a C-500.

This is the most expensive web cam in the world. Right. But, but with this camera, especially, I think too with like, especially raw being more accessible, but even these like 444 compressed formats and all that, you are able, like I find I'm putting skin tone. at like 50 or under like ish you know whereas shooting film hell no you know classically you'd want to overexposed skin by about a stop yeah yeah and actually I wanted to touch on that actually there's two things I wanted at the very

beginning of this conversation I said you said two things and I didn't get to the second one so anyone who's bugged about that I will get to it but shooting you used came up on film yeah sure yeah kind of going to that Gordon Willis thought and stuff what is in your mind the difference in the two formats from like kind of a practical shooting aspect and also what is keeping most people let's say shooting digital from finding that more filmic look in your estimation well there's and I don't mean photochemical necessarily but yeah okay well I mean I guess there's the

classic conversation that was out of film versus video or digital and so it was all about um how we try to make digital be simulated to look like film there was all of that discussion and i'll talk about that but there's also another really important angle that nobody talked about really was discipline of film like the fact that the day before shooting at the DP the director the actors we've got 10 rolls of film to shoot this scene. So your focus, it pushes you into a corner in a great way. Like when I was shooting on film, you'd be damn short. I still remember to this day, um, doing music videos and the day before I would sort of hang out with the director and he would test

me on his shot list. He's like, what's the second shot? What's the third shot I've got down there? And you know, he'd shot list the whole thing because he knew that he couldn't dick around, you know. And so that then led to this. a much more different language of creation in filmmakers. So you're more focused, basically. I'm not saying that modern filmmakers now are digital are not focused, but I definitely feel people take the foot off the pedal and they can sleep a bit better. You know, Gordon Willis, sorry, Roger Deakin famously said, you know,

the day I start I do digital, I slept like a baby, you know? Yeah. I think that's good, but I just think that people should be a bit more aware about how digital gives you a bit too much freedom to keep rolling. or you know there's a double-edged sword because keep wrong it depends on what you're doing really it's kind of like coverage but i think that um yeah i think i always try to stay a bit more disciplined and just not and i'm talking discipline as in what you how you approach a given scene so the day before you do a lot of thinking a lot of planning whereas sometimes you're just rolling day to day

and you're not even getting time to prep and you know i mean it's a kind of double it it's a sort of vicious circle. So I'm talking about this in the sense of like if if there's a parallel world and that TV show was shot on film and this was shot on digital, how different would that show be in its language? And I really find that fascinating, you know, I don't know what that would be, but I'd be pretty sure that there'd be a lot more creative, distinct choices about how they wanted to shoot a scene. And also I think there's just this lovely moment when you hear the camera rolling and actors the reaction of an actor uh i would say is different and then you know i think if if anything digital has made actors a bit more frustrated because they're like he just wants to

keep rolling you know what are we are we done oh we're going to go for another one oh you know and it's like whereas like i just love the stop and start a film you know that lightning a bottle that moment where it's just happened you're not going to see it for the three days, but I think that's exciting. And I think all of this together is also producing, you know, studios, they, everything now has to be kind of so everything's immediate, right? Everything. Producers now see things immediately.

Everyone good or bad seems to have an opinion about lenses now and cameras, you know, it does, I find that producers have a little bit more discussion and an opinion about things, which is fine, it's fine, but like ultimately we got to remember where the craft came from where DPs were completely in control of of cinema, you know, nobody knew what that was going to look like until, you know, I remember years ago they, they brought a DP at retirement to shoot a black and white music video. And he was lighting it and they were like, oh my God, this looks terrible. This looks horrible, like terrible. And then the dailies came in and it looked brilliant. Yeah. I think that there's that. But going to the other side of it,

which is like simulating digital for film. I mean, that's been going for such a long time. I mean, I mean, maybe I think of all the filmmakers on the planet right now who's consistently very close to a sort of a filmic language is probably Fincher. Like this is the fact that his,

he obviously works with top, you know, you know, a list, you know, Jeff being one of, you know, just top DPs. Uh, who also appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. they really appreciate that level of digital cinema like and i don't want to call it digital cinema but that's kind of where we're at but it's like um on candy we sort of did a little tiny little um film grained so it was more like a print stock film grain it's very it's like 50d

50 yeah i think 50 no it was a print stock it was very small but i i it was enough for me to kind of go yeah it's sort of pushed it to over to the other side Whereas now I kind of look, I get, whenever I see it like a trailer for a new movie and it looks so clean and so pristine and perfect, which is maybe the intention, but I, I'm not that person. I still love the 70s. You know, I love the conversation. I love taxi driver. I love, you know, anything that Gordon shot, anything that Owen Reutzman shot, you know, back when they were pre-flashing film stock, you know, to get the actual exposure they needed. You know, this is nothing like that is happening anymore. You can shoot, foot candles aren't even been talked about anymore. It's like, yeah, it's now ISO. You talk about what, the new Sony is now 3,200 base. Yeah, the Venice 2.

Venice 2. I mean, I think it's amazing to give filmmakers the ability to shoot on fast lenses and all that and, you know, shoot at candlelight and all that. And of course, Kubrick was doing it and he was there the first before everyone else. But yeah, there's I find I find the texture of film versus digital as an image very fascinating of what actually makes film look. And I remember we were doing the color sessions on peekie blinders and the director said to me, I don't think it's about contrast. I think it's about midtones. He says if you actually watch anything, in fact, there's a good friend of mine who shot.

A British TV show, God, she shot on 35, conversations with people, conversation with friends. And it's shot on film. And immediately when you see the trailer, there's, there's very little in the way of expression or contrast. It's all about almost, it's almost lower contrast. It's almost like it's, there's obviously a lot of very, um, the highlights are suppressed. But I remember back in that color session of Pete Blinders, he was like, I think it's more

about charcoal contrast rather than like what we thought was the contrast, which is pushing. And now it's more about pulling the other way, I think. It's fascinating, really is. Well, and you touch on two things. One that I think is relevant is having a palette. Like when you were saying you're given so many options now, like digital allows you to do anything and not to Stan Fincher this entire podcast, but he's, you know, one of the great Touchstones is it's about what you don't do. That's going to inform what the audience is going to take in.

You know, if you do everything, it's very confusing. You know, so it's like, what are we not doing? You know, we're not going to use, in your case, handheld, you know, whatever else. Because that's not what the show is. Yeah, dogma rules. It's like, I mean, I'd sooner go on the road with three lenses and a very disciplined dogma rule than go with like 25 lenses and be like, oh, what, yeah. Yeah, I find that's interesting. Of course, you know, you have to be in the room with like talent. You have to be with a production designer, caution designer, hair makeup. I mean, I've been so lucky on Ryan Murphy shows particularly because he's like the king of, you know, expression in a way.

It's an explosion of, you know, like costumes and color and, you know, all the things that I love. I'd seen a talk about color than lighting sometimes, you know, I think color theory is much more expressive and emotional. I mean, lighting, lighting is almost just, just, it's almost like just justified by, you know, the means of the scene. So if it's a daylight scene and you're inside a house, there's going to be daylight in the house. You know, how contrasty that is is up to you. But the color of that couch or the color of that tie, you know, to me, these decisions are much more important. And if you're not in the company of these great, incredible departments, then, you know, I mean, I remember way back when I was only given like one wall to shoot against you know and then slowly

I had two walls and by the time I got to Orion it was 360 you know every day was four walls and now we're we're working we're in a world where everything's practical driven so you know it's the whole TV we joke about this sometimes like tvs like a lamp store sometimes you know you yeah yeah I'd somebody choked about I love the crown but they kept very occasionally you'll see us scene in the crown, you're like, you pause and go, that's 12 practicals. I mean, yeah, come on. But, but at the end of the day, that. In each angle, too. And, and, and, you know, you, it's, it's, it's that kind of creative culture now, like practicals. With back in the day, was I watching the other day that, so I started to do research for this next project I'm on.

And, you know, and it was really craft, like, like, it was more experienced. expressive lighting and the practicals were there but the expression of lighting was not necessarily from the practicals whereas if you see i'd say 70% 80% of stories on tv right now cinema tv is it's mostly practicals and the choice of those creative practicals that you use yeah um because one other thing you were saying that i think it ties into all this um that i recently i was aware of but it wasn't um sort of codified until I saw this, which was, you know, back in the 70s when we're talking about like all this cool kind of experimentations and somewhat in the 90s as well, I've noticed. New technology seems to come at a time right when everything's getting good.

And so the example they used was silent films. The camera was unencumbered by needing the massive ass blimp and all this stuff. So you could get really expressive with the camera. And right when silent film really started to come into its stride, Sound came out and the camera got locked down and everything was very static and very, you know, because they had for technical reasons, not for creative reasons. Yeah. It's interesting because I did. Back then, I mean, it's almost like you could do an analogy of camera shows.

If there was a camera show for Hollywood back then, they'd be like seven cameras. And now we've got like 100, right? And then beyond that, there's always new ones every single year, sometimes every six months. So I tend to not get too bogged down on like the technical elements of it. That's why I've got an amazing DIT. He teaches me about this. Yeah. He talks about nits, you know?

I'm like, what's a knit? I don't know what a knit is. Split candles for screens. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no. But the thing is like, that's not really the language of cinematography. Cimetographers need to like focus purely on, you know, the story and the emotions or what kind of the classic stuff.

But yeah, it's, it's definitely, I mean, I still remember like when the five, remember the five, the five G generation happened. And I was like, oh my God. And it was interesting because I was still shooting on film at the time, but there was a friend of mine production design and she wanted to do this low budget period movie set in the 30s. And around that time, everyone was buying their 5D cameras, right, with their little super fast lenses. and I'd say everyone was then going out on the street

it was like more street movies at night wide open and they were like oh my god this is incredible look at this so I ended up shooting this movie like widescreen on a 5D with very considered static frames you know very you know almost like a one camera thing and I was asked to go to a 5D presentation thing and so I screened a clip of it and the guy was like hosting it was like he just didn't know what to say because he was like but that's like you know that's like a period movie what what what what's with you know we've got this amazing technology now that goes out and

you can shoot an available light I'm like is that the point of this like I don't know if that's the point I think it definitely listen this it's a double I've saw with what we're talking about because I mean what was it francis Paul Coppola when he was making apocalypse now do you remember he said oh there's going to be some fat kid from Iowa who's going to make a work of art with like a little kid phone right that to me is an analogy of what is going on i think it's great that there's so many people that can go out and make stuff you know i mean that filmmaker made tangerine right was the eye yeah like to me it's like opportunities if if there's great filmmakers and artists and voices out there that uh basically have a chance to make something

rather than they would never have a chance then that's really great so i think it's a really double-edged. So what comes with it is thousands of other filmmakers that have thousands of this and thousands of, I'm a director, DP, editor, producer, you know, like, that's hyper-hyphen-it. Yeah, that's great, but I think, you know, I'm like, pick one. You know, you know, I'm a DP. I don't want to be a director. I don't want to be, you know, all that kind stuff. It's, you know. I've taken on the DP colorist hyphen-it, because I really love coloring. I wouldn't say I'm a professional by any means. I have colored a few like features like indie features and docs and stuff but it's so fun but you know cinematography has one foot in post

so it felt like a necessary skill yeah to have but to your point about sort of the democratization of filmmaking I think one thing that's very often forgotten about is the artist you know now especially I hesitate to say the YouTube generation because it's like everyone's on YouTube but so it's not like

one group but let's say the popular filmmaking on YouTube or whatever kind of ignores the entire history of cinema

and is only taking from basically the 5D onward which might invent its own language maybe in a hundred years when it has enough time as film

but I find that kind of frustrating when people go, oh, I'm a D.P. And it's like, okay, cool. Let's talk about the history of film. Like, what's your favorite film? Like, I don't know. Old school. You're like, that's a great film, but let's eat your veggies a little bit, yeah? Yeah. I know. I think, but it's secular, though. It's like we still, I mean, we still have to appreciate the fact that, yes, there was the Hollywood period. And then there was, you know, eventually we got to like the French new wave so that they were doing that thing. It's not. like it's, it's like everyone's invited, I think, to make, but I think you shouldn't do one short

film and twill yourself a DP. That's, that's a bit much. I mean, like, you have to understand on a lot of stuff. But I also go, well, you know, we went through the dogma, you know, the literal dog, you know, the dogma period in the, what was it, the early 90s where, you know, people would go out with, like, handicams and, and make a movie. And, and I, I think that there was this I mean for a moment it was kind of like interesting and exciting and it was like people like just just having absolute freedom which I think is what people would love and and it was going to be the new art form and it sort of didn't it didn't when it didn't go away but it was still a proving factor that it was a new generation of digital artists and filmmakers so I yeah I think I don't want to

say that there's right or wrong in any of this. I just do know that my personal taste is I'm basically got one foot in the old and one foot in the new. Like I'm right in the middle. So I feel quite lucky that I grew up on the 70s movies and we appreciate it the discipline of that. But it's not to say that people can't pick up, you know, an iPhone and make. Now that we've got iPhones with the freaking cinema mode, I definitely, everyone's running out.

But I think we need to draw the line on. because here's the interesting thing about the film industry that there's no door and there's no raw like you can make up your own resume there's plenty of doors you don't have to go through them nobody cross-checks your resume nobody checks that you've done this like you can line no one looks for your diploma yeah

and so there's no well there's no exam right I mean if everyone is examined in this industry and literally tuft out based on the results Oh, you got to see mine, let's get out, you know, they would, I think it would weed out a lot of things, but also, listen, it's the expression of life, you know, we're sort of doing this and we love what we do, but I, I do find it fascinating. Well, that is, I think that's the point, especially using dogma as an example is, not the Kevin Smith film, the, uh, uh, Lars Van Trier and a Lars von Trier, yeah, yeah, um, is that was artists using modern technology to create art versus getting the technology being very excited about how. fun and shiny it is and then coming up with your artistry afterwards which i think is fine you know maybe you're fascinated by paints and then you become a great painter but oftentimes it's the other way it's it's how i was thinking about this the other day it's like yeah yeah it's kind of like um

it's kind of like the difference between being a rebel and going out and doing your own freaking thing do you think it's a new art form or you take what is given to you as a digital technology to try and simulate what you love yeah that's the difference like to me I'm not into like being a maverick and doing the newest form of filmmaking I I'm I'm thinking like I love you know like we keep talking about Gordon Willis that's I'm not ashamed to say and I I will keep referencing him I still love how he's the thing about his I find that he's also he was kind of a maverick because he pushed things over the hill into a new arena and there's certain filmmakers that occasionally do this are

freaking brave I mean I still remember to this day actually it's when seven came out oh yeah bleach bypass was suddenly a day thing and darius was like did again I think it was like he was handed a baton from Gordon Willis you know and he freaking ran with it and so occasion I think doing these things is great but I think now it's on a level playing field like everyone like you say TV is it's TV dark for dark sake is not dark is not it to me there's a difference between gloomy and badly lit and and you have to understand darkness to sort of get it right I mean producers just run a mile of like well they fire you it's getting less and less but I but I do remember actually piggy blinders was a great because that that the model for that

because I did season two the model for that in season one and again this was somebody going out and being brave as George Steele, who's great talent, he deped the first one. And that was basically the Godfather and Westerns, right? And they, he sort of somehow got that made through what is very much a conservative TV place at that time in England. And if you'd said the Godfather, you'd literally been thrown out in your ear. Like, get out. No, we don't do that.

Whereas he sort of did that. and it was a sort of a hit a cultural hit and then I did season two when it came to season two they just said we want more of that now yeah yeah yeah yeah but we've got more money and so I remember I remember that being a turn of got more money to use less light yeah well yeah in fact you said something earlier and I find another thing is I you know I think Greg Frazier said this amongst other people that he says and Conrad Hall said it as well is it's not about what you like

It's about what you don't like. And that's a very, it's a scary statement because, like, people get scared on that. You know, we, I remember years ago, going to see a movie that Seamus Begavey had shot. It's a high fidelity. And I still remember it was one of his first major projects in the US. And he did, you know, high deletes, I don't know if you've seen that movie or no. It's, you know, is it Jack Black? It's a kind of like a, it's a record store movie.

So it's not like, you know, this or that. It's sort of, you know. But he said there was one scene where he decided to shoot the characters against a window in silhouette. And the day after he got up, phone call and he's like, turn more lights on because we're paying these actors way too much to be not seen. You know, so it really depends on how much you justify and stick up for, for it. But I find it's voguey, though. Like, you'll meet producers and go, oh, let's do it like Euphoria. Or let's do it like, I still remember one.

Oh, everyone wants to do it like Euphoria right now. Good God. You know why they're like Euphoria? It's shown in film and it's incredibly disciplined, you know? I mean, I had a corporate client ask for that recently. You kind of wanted to look like Euphoria. I was like, no, no. But when you do it, they'll go, oh, it's a bit this or that.

It's like, this is exactly what you ask for, you know. Yeah. So I find that the trends in the industry, you know, especially when he said they are about meaning people who are their references of movies from like seven years ago you know you're like i mean i actually remember i was doing a scene and i had a little hazer and had this pa that was putting the haze into the set and i occasionally go to a reference so he'd know immediately how much to put in because i'm focusing on the lighting and stuff and i just said to him oh this is probably i think we're going to go for a blade runner

like i mean it's a classic reference and he was like blade what oh no And as a kid, you know, and like that to me, that sort of part summarizes the cultural thing of like, yeah, I mean, the history of cinema and the respect for cinema and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, it's like, it's going to be fascinating to know where we're going to be in 10 years, you know. Yeah. Well, and something that I've always thought about is that kind of keeps me on that, let's say, artistic track. Because I'm, the reason I feel free to describe it like this is because I was not. an artist at first. I was I should have got into, um, uh, props and special effects. That's really where I, I learned way too late in life that that's what made me excited, you know,

way, way cooler to make the lightsaber than to film it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Um, but, uh, to keep me on that artistic track, I think of myself in a lineage, you know, who are the DPs that informed me and how am I going to carry that message on and, and insert some of my own, You know, not just I'm, I'm not in a vacuum, you know. Right. But also to your point about doors, and this is that second thing from the beginning of the conversation, I noticed on your website, you're real. The last reel you posted was from 2015.

Yeah. What do people do now? Because every DP has said reels are dead. There's no point. everyone's looking at your last project. So what do people starting or who maybe have, you know, their careers getting going a little bit? How do you combat that? Because a real at least lets you, I mean, that's the safety of a real, right?

You pick all your favorite shots and you go, look, I know what I'm doing. But everyone goes, I don't care what's the last thing you shot. And you're like, oh, it was $1,000 for my friend from college, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is fascinating. No, the real thing, absolutely. to me right now we live in a name drop generation like it's basically if you say i just done ozark or euphoria or it's like people get giddy and go you know who we've got we've got the guy

that um in fact we had a on on candy we had a one of the ADs couldn't stay so that for the last episode they brought in that and like Atlanta was very busy and like the couple of days later Robin, the show run, I was like, oh, my God, you wouldn't believe it. We've got Tarantino's AD, you know, and it's like, it's like, you know, but it was, you know, he was the AD from Reservoir Dogs. And I was like, this guy's going to be a legend and he was. He was like, he's great guy. But I find now that it's, it's, obviously, attention span is like that, you know, I mean,

on my real, my website, I've got hundreds of scenes, like if you want to clip. Yeah. But I think sometimes they just, they, they, they stop. the title. They literally it's an impressional thing. They'll go, oh, he did pose or he did, you know, American crime story. You know, it's like great. Yeah. Fantastic. I think it's that kind of generation now, which is fine, you know, I was actually the other day talking to somebody about reels and like, I mean, I was building a reel to get more work. But once you're out there and you're kind of going from job to job and you're appreciated, you don't need it. You definitely

need it. I think if actually it's the reverse if you do it these days. If you put a montage rail at the front of your web page, I'm not saying that this DP is not inexperienced. I'm just saying I think it's great to have like a three minute taster of your work, but you've taken time or you've got somebody to cut that together, whereas life's moving pretty fast now. Everyone's doing show to show or movie to movie is, you know, if you go on anyone's, you know, if you go on, you know Dan Mendel's website like it's like yeah he can shot Star Wars I mean he doesn't even he doesn't even need a website you know some of these people

don't yeah it's just text Dan Middle I shot Star Wars I shot Star Wars yeah yeah you know what I mean it's like so I think yeah that's my opinion really I mean it's it's hold on I got to go edit my website real quick yeah I mean it's it's I thought I just think, yeah, I think it's, I still, I still remember coming up over the, up the hill, as it were in this industry.

And I still remember like a lot of people kind of even asking me when I was like, one third up to hear like, who have you worked with? Right. You know, you know, and I was like, that's not, that's no way to, you can't piggyback on me, you know. But, yeah, I mean, I guess it's, it's good for producers of studios because it's a brand, you know, they kind of know they're getting. the goods, you know? They kind of know that, you know, one of my private things I pride myself on is I like working fat. I like working at a clip. I don't work fast. That's sort of a misnomer, but I like working. Efficient. efficiently. I like working with cameras where I can move them, place them from room to room rather than scatter shutting coverage, you know, that

kind of stuff. That's the thing that I, but I don't tend to kind of, I mean, I can't even remember the last time I was sort of interviewed, which sounds really crazy, but for a job. Yeah. But you know, you get to a point where people sort of like, I guess you're sort of like you're and I find this interesting because like I said earlier about choosing say to shoot all of your movies on say G series animorphics, right? That's what I do. That's fine because people think, you know, we're going to get really, really great kind of looking stuff. But, um, Yeah, I think if you, you have to sort of be a bit varied and, you know, be a bit more accessible. Whereas some people pick people purely on their brand.

Right. And I mean brand in the most positive sense. You know, I'm not saying that DPs are Pigeonhole. Their style, maybe. But you know what you're going to get if you're going to get. Oh, well, yeah, and the branding, the things you've said. Yeah. Exactly.

And it's like, I have no idea what my brand is. but I kind of like I love what I do I love color I love I love true stories that's my main go to if I can get and I love like anything original I don't like being handed a fourth season of something like I draw the line on that kind of stuff I just think that I'm just like photocopying your stuff and that's I'm not a photocopier but yeah and just being I'm you know I remember when I was starting up like I said I was sleeping a lot of couches, I never, I turned down probably more stuff than I shot because I really was like disciplined in that way. Like it sounds really crazy to turn down work, but specifically if you

like broke when I was starting off, but I remember like, no, this is stupid. Like, why would I do this? It's like, so if you can sort of be disciplined in your approach, and I'm saying this to anyone listening that might be saying, well, I want to be a DP is discipline goes a hell of a long way. Like, it's just having respect for yourself, you know, rather than just doing anything you can to, you know, to sort of do it. Because you do, you do, you do, you know, it's like it's, it follows you around a little bit. That's why if you've got like, I'd sooner do like one show a year than like five, you know, and just keep, you know, and I'd sooner try and focus on one properly than

well and your your work is like between I wrote it down like between Peeky Blinder's Ratchet Krypton and Candy like they all hey it's on your website yeah I know I know yeah

but they're all you know great looking shows but all have their own like Ratchett's a relatively dark story but we're talking about saturation with candy like that's a very saturated rated, even kind of colorful.

It's acidic, is what I'd call it. Yeah. It's incredibly expressive. Yeah, I've been lucky because even like I did Hollywood, I did Bratchett, I did Versace, I did Pose. These are all incredibly different genres in a way and different time periods. Impeachment was 97, you know, and so I, and they're all, for me, I'm very proud of the fact that they're all. their own voice. They're not pastiche either.

It's not like we're trying to make it look like the 70. It's like your feeling of what it should be, you know. Yeah. Well, that's Brian Murphy, man. I mean, that's, that's, I mean, his work is just incredible architecture. I mean, I'm in architecture because it's literally like the scale of his sets are, are on par with anything that I've ever sort of seen. And when you get to, you know, I always say like when you get more, you have to work. less, you know,

it all you stress less. If you're given a, I mean, Ratchet was, and then a good example, like the, the, um,

I said to people like, it's almost like if they remade Kuckoo's Nest, but in the four seasons hotel, that's, you know, and I remember going into the sound stage for the main, uh, the asylum,

as it were. And it's a fully functioning aside. You could walk around. Like you can go in there. And I remember doing a little iPhone state, what was, those little iPhones steady cam things. We get the name of them.

Anyway, I was doing a little sort of like, I just did a whole oner around the whole stage. And to me, that's your life is so much easier as a cinematographer to do that rather than being given, like I say, like two thirds of a set where you have to sort of piece things together and work really hard to make it like live and breathe, you know? I've said a bunch of times on this podcast that a lot of times the cinematographer gets a lot of praise for the production designer's work. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, when I was, when I was coming up, I did it, you know, obviously like the production designer was doing the best they can. But, um, I mean, Piggy Blinders is a good example because Grant, the production designer, um, I think I had a nickname frame was Napoleon. Like he, he, he was fearless. Like he, he, he was given like this much money and somehow, somehow he managed to make this much set.

And he was roof. I mean, he would like paint like, like, He'd paint this entire interior gold with gold paint, gold leave paint, you know? Like this is, so if you're not in the company, those sort of people that are fearless and really try to bridge that gap and make it great, then your work's going to suffer because your work and suffer that their work suffers. It's really, it goes in a vicious circle and there's nothing worse than that, you know. It's also communication.

Like if you're shooting a TV show or a movie and, you know, you're, using some kind of process, you should show their costume designers that because they should know that that costume is going to be desaturated like 40%. And are they happy with that, you know? And this comes on to like depth of feel, right? That the field is a really fascinating topic. That the field is meat is shot to shot. I always feel like I have shot wide open, but that's only because I want to make something feel compressed and trapped. But I remember an argument I had with another friend D.P. I was like, if you put two-thirds of that set out of focus,

the production designer is really going to have a hard time. I mean, it's not like some, it's not going on there real. It's not going on their real. And like, yes, it does look incredibly pretty. But I also learned this really fast on the music videos I shot on film. I did a bunch of anamorphic ones and I was working with an older focus puller. And he would educate me about, he's like, you know, four t four is the sweet spot like it's like it still looks freaking great you know yeah and now

it seems like wide open is like they always go i mean i just one five one five and i just find it really um i think a lot it's so it's strange because i i have a lot of dp friends that have waves of this they do it and it's i think and they're constantly in work because i know because it's a very beautiful i mean look look at me right now i mean this is i know doom effect. But like if this, if my, this is like two eight. Yeah, I know, right. It still looks great. You know, Deacons talks about this. You know, exterior's five, six, you know, interior is, you know, four. But if this is the shot and this is the apartment and the art department have worked like overnight to make my apartment look great and look at this,

this is what we see. Right. It's crazy, really. But I find Dr. Field is like just a, it's a great tool for moments that you need. And I think, um, you know, it's funny because I, I, uh, there's what like I did one project where I sort of talked myself into saying, I'm going to shoot this at TA. And then I ended up shooting it a bit wider. And the focus pillar was like, this is not what you said. Like if you, if you're going to tell me you're going to shoot this wide open, just be straight up. I wouldn't be here now, but you know what I mean? Yeah. And the poor focus pullers, They have to, you know, now everything's all wireless, you know, there's no, I think the last time I saw a tape, tape measure was maybe three years ago, you know. Yeah.

And, well, we got the laser measures now too. Laser measures, but now it's like crystallization measuring. So you have like, oh, it's sharp because it's green. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Whatever it is. But, uh, no, death of field is like, again, I could talk for hours about it, but it's, I think, again, I come from a bit more of a, like, just damn it. Like I love good solid, a good solid depth field and a good solid grade and a good solid neck.

You know, that's my three things. Yeah. I want to shift gears just a little bit because while looking through your work, I was very excited because I saw the Bells of St. John on your list. Dr. Hu? Yeah, dude. I'm a huge Doctor Who fan. And so I saw that and I was like, great.

because I never thought I would ever interview a D.P. who shot Doctor Who just because, like, you know, they get moved around and stuff and whatever. Right. Yeah. Talk to me about that experience because, A, it's a great episode for anyone who hasn't seen it. I call it the Matrix episode because they download people, right? Is that that? Yeah, that's the one. Wow. Well, yeah. So this, this actually was my, so my agent said to me, he said, do you want to do? do you want to consider doing TV? Now, you've got to remember, this is 2014, maybe 13. And I was like, hell no. I was like, no way. I'm not going to shoot.

Of course, you have to understand that culturally British television, British drama was very safe, you know. Oh, yeah. But I grew up on Doctor Who, like many, many people. And I was like, well, he said, well, I've got Doctor Who. And I was like, oh, okay. And I sort of just did it. I just said, said yes, because I just wanted to shoot in the TARDIS.

It was a really simple, like, that was it. I grew up watching the TARDIS and I was like, and not just that. They just built a new TARDIS design. And I was going to be the one to set it up with the Gaffer because there's lots of interactive lighting and stuff. But yeah, that was the sort of, that was, that was it really. I just, I was just became a eight-year-old kid again. And I was like, you know, I want to meet Dr. Who. And Matt Smith, who was one of the best.

One of the best. And, you know, he's an incredibly slender man, but he has the most energy I've ever seen on anybody. I was like, what is this guy? I thought you're going to say the biggest head. Biggest head. No, he's got the most energy. I was like, what is he sniffing? You know, it's like, it's like, but, no, it was great fun.

And actually, strangely, don't. because that I did that and that happened to be with Colin McCarthy who is still to this day a great friend and Colin was the one that was pulled out the hat to do peekie blinders so I did Doctor Who and then I did Ripper Street which was a period it's like 1800s and it was like if you imagine a cop show back in the 1800s so it's all told from the perspective of police and police morals that was very moral source of course you know piggy blinders is about gangsters but i did those that i did that show so i'd basically done three hours of television that was it three episodes and then i did piggy blinders so yeah it was just luck i mean i i just people can spend

20 years in television and still kind of you know try to kind of get their hands on the kind of good stuff. Right. But no, Dr. New, man. I'm sorry, you've actually, you're the first person that said about that in a long time. And I tell you another story. I, I, when I got my first job here on the Versace, they had to process my visa. And in order to get the visa, you have to go to the embassy and you have to have some kind of, it's a very short interview. But you have to basically in about 10 minutes, convince this 60 year old lady behind the counter who's probably had a bad morning why I should go to America and she says to me she's like this she's like so what do you do and I had to try and explain what a DP is so I'm a camera man you know

I say cameraman and she says well there's anything that you've done that I would know you know and I was like oh I was like you know done peekie blinders and she's like what what's that and I panicked and I was like oh no she's not she's not shot I was like oh I've done Doctor Who and she's like stamped because Doctor Who is globe like everywhere people in

you know Timbup 2 has watched Doctor Who you know and still to this day you know at the Comic Con and all that you know it's still like very revered

so I'm glad I got to do one episode though it's a real I'm still proud of it it looks great there was actually two things I wanted to ask about one

were you sort of cognizant or maybe what were the discussions like, because that Matt Smith series really started to define the new look of Doctor Who. Yeah. Because the old one, if anyone has not seen Doctor Who, those first three seasons of the reboot, very fun, they do not look great. No, no.

I mean, so, yeah, the David Tennant period, it's very HD, is what I call it. I mean, and, and. And not at 24. 24p 25 very British. Yeah, it's almost interlaced HD. I mean, I'm kind of, I mean, and it's also I'm not saying. The Eccleston stuff, I think is. Yeah. I'm not saying it looks. It's a funny thing because I think that, yeah, the Matt Smith went, I think it was Damien Bromley, who was the DP. And I remember seeing a clip from one of him. I was like, oh my God, this kind of looks kind of at this stage, cinematic. I was like, this looks pretty cool. And there was

something a little bit more earthy about it and there was less like I remember because what this the long story short is basically I was working with the gaffer and there was a I think it was a Polish DP he was kind of he's about 70 years old but he was like let's just put a 4k over the camera and let's put like a Congo blue gel on it you know and it's like to me that was like summarized like that language of that period you know whereas the new generation with Matt was definitely yeah going down a bit more of an earthy natural's quasi cinematic look When we arrived, I don't even remember the lenses. I think they were cooks.

But it's almost like the previous shows were shot on like ENG Zoom lenses, you know? Right. It's just, but. And the lighting was hard. Hard. Expressive. Yeah. It definitely, you know, yeah, lots of color, I remember.

But it's strange, though, because like the original Doctor Who is going back to, you know, back to the 70s it was shot on film right and well actually i say shot on film the location where it was film and this is the whole the classic monte python effect they leave a room and suddenly it looks like a movie they go to 16 mil to like you know live television you know but um yeah yeah dr who god glad you brought that up yeah because the uh oh shit the not um the most recent uh woman who uh did a great show um did a great show job as the doctor. I feel like she got kind of screwed. Yeah. Now they have a black doctor.

Yeah. He's probably going to do great too. But the older gentleman, what's, uh, shit, what's his name? Yes. Swears a lot in that one show. Yes. He's my favorite doctor. Um, yes.

Anyhow, anyway, he was my favorite doctor, but I really thought they, uh, it was, I loved the idea of like the damage that this man has experienced over a thousand some odd years. Yeah. Like, Matt Smith did a great job, especially in like the Spaceman episodes and stuff like that, where we really started to get into like how time has fucked with him. But then when we, when we got to, I keep trying to say Christopher Plummer. That's not his name. No, no. I'm going to try that up, actually. Oh, thank you. But like, they almost went from like the 20, 20 generation to let's get the, I'm not saying he's older, but let's get the oldest person we can find. Yeah.

But with a still, you know, who can crank it to 11 on energy, you know. Yeah, I just loved, I loved that they were finally showing that damage, both in physically, but also just like how short tempered he was with things. Yeah, how many friends has he lost? Yeah, like, how many friends has he lost? How many, like, loves has he had to let go, you know, like, how many times? He had to sit in a box for, like, 400 years or whatever, you know, like, all these things that would fuck somebody up, I'm finally seeing.

But from a cinematography perspective, that show, I think that season is when it really like went, all right, we're going full cinema on this. And special effects got, you know, damn stuff better. Way better. Peter Capaldi. Peter Capaldi. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who's also a director. He directed a bunch of stuff back in the day. But famously a bass player for the same band that Craig Ferguson was the singer in. I lived in a van together. Yeah. Wow. Craig Ferguson,

now you're talking. Yeah. I want him back on. Yeah. Well, someone like him. Man or woman, I don't care.

I just want someone who gets back on late night and turns it into like, hey, we're all up at 1 a.m. Let's be goofy versus the kind of daily show copycats that we're kind of getting now. But, all right. Well, we'll have to wrap this up because I've kept you 20 minutes after.

No, that's cool. I'd love to have you back on and we can keep nerding out about Dr. Or anything else you've shot because you've got a great work on you. I'm off doing another one actually. I'm going to Toronto to shoot a it's called fellow travelers. It's from the writer of Philadelphia. It's like giving immediate signpost.

So it's a McCarthy, Witchon era and 80s aid pandemic kind of. It's kind of spanning. It's one of those talk about Doctor Who. So it spans from characters 20 years old to characters 60 years old. So it's a, you know, it's interesting one. So another period thing. We'll have to have you come back and talk about that when you wrapped in. It's ready to go.

But so the way that I end all these podcasts is by asking the same two questions. First one being, what is something you've read or maybe a piece of advice that you've been given that has stuck with you over the years that you think is. that just keeps bouncing around in your way. Well, I always go, I think I'd say it to you earlier, didn't I? To me, it's like, to me, when this DP said this, he said there's good photography, there's bad photography and there's right, the right photography. And I think that just really should make you think about what you're doing. Don't be following Vogue's, do what is right for the project.

And that can be a bit of a discovery of errors, but. Just do what's right. Don't do what's good. And also, don't shoot something for your real. Don't start, like, trying to get the biggest ray of light through a window, you know? You're not going to win awards by doing that. You're going to have a shiny reel. But just do what's right for whatever you're shooting.

Oh, yeah, because that's a dangerous one. You're shooting something and you finally get into a situation where, like, the shot looks amazing. And it doesn't fit the rest of the show. Yeah. Yeah, you'd be damn sure it's on there, really. Yeah, go to, go to minute five and a half. Go to, yeah, there it is. And it's gone.

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's excellent advice. The second question, a little more fun, really, it was better for movies. But if Candy was in a double feature, so to speak, let's say everyone had this kind of time, what would be the other show or movie that you would program in? Napoleon Dynamite. Oh, perfect. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could picture Napoleon Dynamite living down the road.

In that very, we didn't talk that much about candy, but it's, it's a quite a quirky show. It's a dark, dark story. It's a true story. And it's a very gruesome story. But it's about suburbia, you know, small town suburbia and how the pressures and conformity of being a housewife's trap. in your family. But anyway, from an ascetic point of view, yeah, Napoleon dynamite. Perfect. Yeah, because it's always fun to, you know, speaking of kind of interest, you wouldn't normally think those two next to each other. No, no, everyone raises their eyebrows at that.

But actually, when they think about it, it's like, oh, yeah, I see what you mean. You know, because I, to me, it wasn't on the nose. It wasn't a reference. It was like, oh, it just kind of came, it evolved. Because I was just looking at the mood boards and the costume designs. and I was like, and the big glasses and the hair, and if you think about it, Napoleon Dynamite and Candy, Napoleon could be her son. You know what I mean? And there was a sort of a quirky kind of side to Candy. So I think it's a perfect match culturally, but not an

obvious one. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, and I love those answers too because it's like, you could you could pick a film that was exactly the same kind of same vibe or the ones that are more fun are like the contrast uh speaking to jeff when when jeff was on to talk about um uh being the ricardo's i asked him that question and he goes alien versus predator yeah i know i i think references are uh are fun but i never like to be too on the nose and i definitely don't like to be kind of like following trends you know especially I'm very hesitant to reference anything in the last 10 years, if I can. Yeah.

I think, you know. Well, and that keeps you, that's like, you know, right now I'm seeing weird, weirdly enough, mini-d-v. The kids are really into mini-d-v right now. Yeah. Camera prices. My friend found a bunch of tapes, and he was like, hey, man, can I use your XL2? I was going to buy a mini-d-v camera on eBay. I thought it was going to be like 20 bucks, and they're like 800.

Yeah. because people are stockpiling tapes and shooting stuff because they want whatever that I assume it's some version of nostalgia but it's you know oh yeah I remember it's fashion yeah the Sony high eight cameras yeah the little hiate tapes I remember those yeah yeah somewhere in an attic in my house I have like hundreds yeah somehow that's the look now with the with the youths and I don't I don't know why I guess it's just from their from their childhood, you know, that's, but to your point about not referencing anything that's, you know, 10 years or newer, I think that keeps you safely in the, like, reference category and not the trend chasing as you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said earlier, don't, don't follow anything that is in any way to make it feel, like, for your own sake, you know? It's like I want to, can I reference Top Gun and this? Can I reference

I mean, I've ticked a few boxes myself, I have to say, I mean, I've been lucky. You know, we've done The Godfather. In fact, one show I did Raise the Lost Ark and Candy is Napoleon Dynamite, which is pretty unusual, but they're nice. I just don't think you should rest on them or lean against them too much, you know. There is still room for originality, I think. It's a little tiny, a little tiny crack in the door, but you can do it. Yeah.

Well, thanks again, man. This is a great conversation. I can't wait to have you back on for your next project. Yeah, cool. Frame and reference is an Owlbot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly,

and the F-At-R map box 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.