Frame & Reference Podcast - 65: "The Flight Attendant" Director Jennifer Phang

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Welcome to another episode of the Frame & Reference podcast, this week Kenny talks with Jennifer Phang about directing a few episodes of the second season of "The Flight Attendant." Jennifer has directed a number of episodes for different shows including “The Boys”, “Riverdale”, & “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Enjoy the episode! Follow Kenny on Twitter @kwmcmillan Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for more!

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today I'm talking with Jennifer Pong, who directed two episodes of the second season of the flight attendant. Jennifer and I had a great time. I kind of early on derail the conversation. to talk about the Bay Area because we both lived there. But I swear to God, we get back on track, talk about her career directing some amazing television. You know, we nerd out about sci-fi quite a bit.

Talk about her, you know, starting off as a poet, love of poetry and all that and storytelling and just have a lot of fun, you know. So as always, keep the intro short. All you need to know is who it is and what they did real quick, and then you'll learn all about them in the actual conversation. So without any ado is to be furthered, here's my conversation with director, Jennifer Pong. The way that we generally start off the podcast is simply by asking how you got involved in filmmaking, not necessarily like how'd you suddenly become a director, but like, did you go to film school? Were you always a visual person, or did you come to it from a different angle later in life?

That's such a great question. Like, I think for me, I remember in high school kind of falling in love with cameras when a friend of mine, you know, kind of took me on these little night excursions with her little VHS camera. I'm totally dating myself. That was all on us. Don't worry. And she, you know, she and I would take turns like being in front of the camera and being behind the camera. and being behind the camera.

And there was, you know, how some kids would, like, spend their high school evenings, you know, being naughty by, like, spray painting or, you know, drinking, illegal drinking, or, like, racing cars. I don't know. Like, what we did was we took a video camera and just kind of made video poetry. And then I watched her cut it together, like, kind of VHS to VHS, kind of splicing things together. And that really inspired me. I just loved seeing, I just love seeing the textures, these beautiful frames, these ideas coming together.

I also had a lot of influences from this online writing, this, not online, what I was saying, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, it's, I haven't seen the word zine forever, but there's like a, you know, photocopied zine, a friend of mine invited me to submit poetry to the scene. And we became really close in terms of our artistic development. He introduced me to a lot of foreign cinema. That foreign cinema included like the, you know, Kislauski trilogy, blue, red and white, included lots of other French films and Jeanette and Carreau, the movie Delicateson, did you ever watch Delacetessen? Yeah. So you know how in Delicetessen, you know, you're traveling from one floor at the top down through some pipes and come out

into the sink of another tenant in this apartment building. And the whole thing is about there's weird relationship that all these tenants of this apartment building have to the butcher. And the butcher is kind of dealing in, I guess, human meat. So all of the hat, it just was really intriguing for me. And I think it was a really great way to kind of find something to escape to, like a world's, film provided worlds to escape to for someone, an Asian American in, you know, Walnut Creek, California, in a suburb, yeah. It was really cool as an opportunity.

So I decided. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say I also grew up in the Bay Area. So I'm finding that more and more people that I identify with, whether they be musicians or filmmakers or artists, they all seem to come from the Bay. And I'm like, there's something magical going on in that zone where like,

do you ever see the documentary Fog City Mavericks? Oh, no, what is that? It's a little older. I think it was on HBO or Showtime or something like that. It's kind of a hard DVD to find, but it's basically just about all the filmmakers that left L.A., you know, you're George Lucas and your Copulas and all them. and move to the Bay Area to make film

and like something something's going on up there something's in the water something's in the water they left LA you're okay okay I kind of wasn't sure but so George Lucas and Spielberg were FLEA I think Spielberg let's see Lucas

yeah Lucas was from Modesto Modesto okay yeah so that's like kind of south east but then he went to USC and then back up you know didn't because I guess the studio system at the time was not um good for indie film so they wanted to go up north and and and also you know um the film make as a as a medium um was invented in motion picture film was invented in a bay um yeah um motion picture film was invented in the bay i'm sorry did you say like you mean you mean the act of using film in a in a motion picture sense the uh the horse

the famous yeah i can't remember the guy's name but that horse bet i'm actually trying to come up with his name right now moybridge yes edward moybridge yeah there's morbridge oh my gosh there is actually I looked it up because I was like making these connections to Bay Area filmmakers and I was like oh Ed Morybridge that's interesting I look him up and he apparently so I grew up in San Jose and then moved to Napa Valley and so right next to where I grew up this place called St. Alina place called Calistoga so I was like oh you know whatever backwards fact so Ed Moybridge apparently like found out that his wife was cheating on him with someone in Calistoga

Doga, drives to Calistoga, shoots this guy. The court was like, yeah, yeah, we get it. And he got off. I was just like, this is, this is a fascinating zone of America. Yeah. I'm literally right now watching the staircase, the series. Have you watched it yet? No.

No, it's cool. Antonio Campos was like the primary creator Interesting filmmaker Really cool filmmaker I think I met him a long time ago Really does great things with camera Check it out But yeah it's a lot It's about an actual case of

I won't go into too many details It's kind of dark Oh you know what my girlfriend was watching that Where the woman It's called staircase for a reason Yeah it's called the staircase for a reason I'm not no spoiler I don't know what it really happens because I didn't watch

stock. I didn't hear podcast or anything. So I love that there's a little bit of a meta thing in there because they do actually portray documentary filmmakers inside the series. So that's fun. It's fun for filmmakers. Okay, so back on topic, back on topic. Like I said, this is meandering Pat Costa. Oh, yeah, no, I love that, you know, something in the water, the Bay Area. I think there's a certain sense of, you know, there's more time to kind of ponder story and life is just people take a little more time and that actually leads to better storytelling in my view because you're not trying to meet an artificial deadline you're actually genuinely exploring a narrative and also a philosophy sometimes like people like want

to have people in the Bay Area have something to say or they they're inspired by my works that have something to say. And it's interesting because it's adjacent. It has like real life happening. The Bay Area has real life happening. L.A. has real life happening. It's just that maybe there's a little less, it's a little more overlap of like media in real life. Whereas I can see a world where like in L.A. you've got Santa Monica where everyone's in entertainment industry. You know, I shouldn't make too many generalizations. But it's just that you just get a lot of people who are involved in the entertainment industry. So maybe that's it.

No idea. Well, it's also, I think, you know, no matter where you live in the Bay, except for, like, the middle of San Francisco, I almost said the city. That would have confused people. In the middle of San Francisco, it is very kind of spread out. There's a lot of nature. It's quieter. When you, when you, sometimes when I go back home, like, even just leaving SFO, I'm like,

it is way quieter here than in L.A. You know, you just have more room. There's more, especially in that main zone of, you know, the San Francisco's sort of area, San Jose, a little bit. It just feels a little more inspiring. Because it's so small, I feel like the museums feel more accessible. I don't think I've been to a museum in L.A. But in San Francisco, I've been, I think, all of them in the zoo, you know. In the zoo.

Yeah. Yeah. Even though, I think right now, Lackham was closed, I think. Uh, it's, it's, I haven't checked out in a while either. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I mean, again, you're talking to, I don't know if you do sports too, but like, I, I don't want to like overly like speak to this, the kind of rivalry, but there is this kind of like, where's it better to be? And my understanding, the shark's king's rivalry, is that where you're headed? totally not much more yeah we just like to laugh about it all the time

and all the Dodgers fans are like isn't that we don't have an issue and we don't have an issue be in L.A! So I don't know so anyway Oakland's eating shit right now too Louie

what happened? Oakland the A is apparently they're on track to be the worst team they've ever been no yeah it's terrible oh no

I feel like what's going on because we're like it also it's just there's not a strong it's confusing right now because of the stadium issue we don't know where our loyalties are that's loyalty to anything

so maybe that's what's going yeah that's anyone anyone interested in the Oakland days look up Brody Brazil and just follow all his coverage Anyway, so you were coming, you're coming more to filmmaking from the poetry side. So you were more in the like storyteller kind of lane then. Yeah, textural and, you know, composition, you know, storytelling through imagery.

But then I was also super drawn to just amazing performances. I mean, Julia Pinoche and just that the subtlety that one could bring to a performance. So something was a little more away from the, I guess what I really loved were textured performances that really I related to that I could see truth in, like I could see truth in Julieta Pinoche, just as an example. Robert De Niro. You know, you feel like these are people who are actually living the character's lives. And so that makes it hard to actually remember that you're watching a movie when you're watching a movie. Instead, you're kind of super invested in this story and you're really concerned about the fate of this. person or their daughter. So I think those were kind of the early influences. I mean, I've never said this before. I never said De Niro and Julia Pinotche, but I mean, just randomly kind of pulling things out of my memory, you know, two really strong actors. And then also Bruce Willis and diehard. I mean, I say that now too, because it's true. I like watch Die Hard like three or four times and, you know, in maybe one year. And I think on VHS. And I will say that like, you know,

What was wonderful about his performance at the time and moving forward was, you know, you've got this really grounded hero who has flaws, is not perfect. You really feel his love driving, his need to kind of rescue all these people and his wife. And so I guess I just started to, it's just started to open my eyes to the potential for cinema. Yeah. Well, and with Die Hard too, you got a nice comedic sensibility. I remember there was, I don't remember, but I remember reading, like, everyone was going, oh, Bruce Willis, that dude from TV, the joky guy, no, we're not putting him in the, in the cool movie. Yeah, and then he surprised us all.

Ellen Rickman was an amazing villain as well, just kept giving more and more over his career. So you'd actually be the perfect person. So I came from it, I came to filmmaking from kind of, maybe a more not traditional, what am I trying to say, basic, where like, oh, movies are fun. And then I had to figure it out from there, you know, and the storytelling aspect, the actual art of storytelling didn't really come to me until much later, you know, like halfway through college when it really started to, they're like, if you don't know how to do this part, you shouldn't be doing any of this. But I was wondering for you, like, do you see, because we kind of talk about

this off and on on this podcast. But like, there seems to be contention in modern, not filmmaking, but just films, that we feel like there's something that we're missing from the movies that you mentioned that maybe aren't being replicated today. The easy answer is, oh, blah, blah, bar, marble, but of course, yeah, that's what's popular, but that's not taking over all of filmmaking. Do you see that happening at all? Are there any things you can point to that are more like those films we mentioned, or

Or do you agree that that's kind of the case? Good question. I, you know, I, you know, I made two features in the wake of my short, my film school experience in AIFI, and both of those were influenced, you know, strongly by, you know, art, cinema. So I come from the world of, like, the Sundances and the canon and, you know, all those filmmakers being my peer, you know, writing Cougler and I cross paths, a lot. But yeah, obviously, we left, not really left, it's not a very fair word, but like we also went on to kind of have commercial or, you know, careers out of necessity because there wasn't this kind of ability to be a self-sustaining, you know, independent filmmaker. There are, there are some pockets that still exist for that. I love that Chloe Zhao is making, you know, both independent, beautiful. independent films and also like a Marvel movie. Eternals, yeah.

Love that. Who doesn't want that? Me? I want that. You know, and I'm, you know, angling for some of those opportunities. But, but I think, you know, it's, I think, I think you kind of have to, this is such a hard thing to kind of articulate, but you need a little bit of breathing room, like we were talking about in the Bay Area, you need a little bit of breathing room to kind of make those really powerful stories come to life on screen. You need development

time. You need really supportive financiers and producers. And I've had those on my features and bless them. They gave me final cut, right? So it's, that's, that's, that's, that's, That's not something you can hear about. Yeah. That only happens if you're kind of, you know, making you're a movie. I think, you know, so it's kind of what I would say is it's kind of a privilege to be able to kind of tell a story the way you want to tell the story and with the depth that you want to tell the story, at the depth that you want to tell the story because not as many

people are weighing in on what the potential. success of that story is going to be. So it's a huge risk. When I made advantageous, which did great, you know, it was acquired at Sundance, went into Netflix, was seen by people all around the world at the beginning of Netflix expansion, you know, into like kind of acquiring independent films. Like that was like a $500,000 sci-fi grounded movie,

a sci-fi family drama. And we minimized our risk for the, very reason that people don't choose to make that many independent films. We were maybe a little bit too business savvy in the sense that we were going, okay, we don't want to take a massive loss on something so risky with non-white, you know, mother and daughter, you know, made by an independent filmmaker who hadn't been tested enough and was a really dark story about just the future of women. And that has had a bit of a feminist too as well. So we kind of, we kind of of manage our risk in that way, and a lot of people don't have that kind of privilege to be able to do that.

And back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, I think more people found pockets where they felt protected, and more people were willing to kind of say, that's an amazing story, let's bring that to screen, I care about that more than anything. There was more purity maybe to kind of the financing of stories, And yeah, so I guess that's my long answer. I really give a lot of credit to the Sundance Institute, Robert Redford, for championing that line of storytelling for as long as they did and still do. And I'm hoping that that continues, not just with Sundance, but with other institutions, because that is like a really important part of our development for filmmakers.

Yeah, it does, it does feel I remember I took a producing class and two things that stuck out to me were one, he was like, so this was 2003, right? So not quite into today's era of filmmaking where there's a lot of outlets, but still not quite the 90s. But he was saying, all right, so if you want to get your film made, open up a yellow pages, go to dentist. and just start calling all those guys because they have a lot of money. They don't know what to do with. And if you tell them, ooh, you can be a producer.

They'll be like, oh, okay. And then the second one was he was telling me about all these like film buying conventions where they would go to hotels. They'd like clear out the bedrooms and you'd go in and like show these people your movie. Those don't exist anymore,

right? I've never been to one. Oh, let me, back in the day, I may have been once to AFM, if that's what we were talking, that kind of thing. Yes, I believe that's it. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I don't know if they do or don't exist because they're not really where I raise my money. Because the stereotype was something like, that's where you get maybe your horror film financed or your, you know, you know, attached, like kind of packaged movie financed. but I'm not I'm definitely no expert on on those markets and I don't know they do or don't exist I've been to you know like adjacent ones like I've been to

you know kind of indie minded ones or art house minded ones I was in Germany and I'm Heidelberg and there was a European version of what we're talking about where there was a lot of speed dating people pitching their movies from table to table and I did that at Tribes

Becca in a way, and I did that in I-FP, and I can't remember, it was called I-FP market back in my day. And that often led to filmmaking. Sundance also has something called Catalyst, which is a version of that, but again, very, like, selective and thoughtful in terms of their curation. So I think versions of what we're talking about do exist, but not quite, but I do not know if the kind

of AFM version of things is proliferated still throughout the night. Because it does feel like those smaller projects that we're talking about. Well, you could tell me, I don't know why I'm pontificating. I don't know. But is it harder now to get those projects funded because those avenues are less available or is it just different now? I don't know if it's... Because you could just put it on YouTube.

if you wanted, you know. Right. I think a lot of people could do a lot of things. I mean, you're right. There's a lot of people are spending their time figuring out how to hack, how to hack into going, how to, how to break that, how to leverage off of, you know, instant, you know, internet fame. So that's maybe where a lot of the energy we're talking about is going because it's available.

It's instant. And you feel like there might be kind of ways you could. And there are analytics that are kind of there for you instantly as well. So maybe that's why people are not playing the long game of making an independent film. I think, though, that just to kind of flip this whole thing on its head a bit, I would say that when we talk about like the storytelling that we miss from the 6070s and 80s, I do feel like episodic, you know, whether it's premium episodic or elevated episodic,

which might be just anywhere, on any streamer, there are a lot of visionary filmmakers in that space now. And we know that they're telling powerful stories that we can't not talk about, right? I mean, the staircase is kind of probably one of them. I'm not done watching it, but I mean, I feel it's completely addicted to watching. it. I'm literally like falling asleep with it in my phone because I can't stop watching it.

So there are other, there are just so many of those examples. So it does, and then what I'll say about that too is that, you know, filmmakers like Antonio Campos are, you know, people who likes storytelling that's thorough and like really well developed, love the idea of like, for me, especially, I love this idea of like a limited series because that's basically two featured films or one super long featured film where I'm allowed to kind of go deeper into every character that I care about,

get multiple perspectives, try from episode to episode different stylistic choices may be motivated by the perspective, by the psychological state of our main character or a peripheral character, or that parents, or that peripheral character's dad? I mean, it's lovely because, I mean, I'm just thinking of a time of different series

where you suddenly get to know the biography of the parents and that somehow matters, you know, it's a really wonderful canvas for a filmmaker if you are so lucky to kind of get into that limited, limited episodic, limited series space. Yeah. We've mentioned that a bunch on this podcast. Like those, whether they be, you know, limited series or television, you know, even though it's not television television anymore, streaming, that does seem to be kind of the van go. That's the future of storytelling for the moment. But you're right. Like, for a blockbuster example, I saw Jurassic World and then I marathoned Stranger Things. the new the first half of strangers seven episodes it's the first half they're all like an hour and a half long episodes and both of those project yeah yeah four four part one okay and uh both of those

the film and the series felt like they both tried to handle the same amount of characters but with stranger things you had about eight hours to deal with it and with drastic world you had two and one was less successful with that yeah well there you go I mean it is a great space for people who have

you know who really love storytelling who love character building who love cinema so in a way my answer is like cinema's not dead it's just it's just

thriving you know in limited series. So it just becomes a version of how many people get to do that. Let me just take this conversation one step further and say, there's also this kind of hunger that I sense out there for returning to movies. And it's not just, oh, I need to go to a theater to experience a movie. It's like, I just want a really good story

and I just want to be able to like go spend like one and a half hours to two hours, two and a half hours, if I'm really excited, and be done with it. I don't want this obligation of just feeling exhausted going from, you know, this to that, the other thing and just waiting another, you know, months to get the rest of my story. So, so I think in a good way, you know, the tide might be changing again back towards, like, finding these really good stories to tell that are kind of a package unto itself. Yeah. I've noticed that you, in the shows that you've done, there's a lot of sci-fi in there, and you were saying your film at a college was sci-fi. Are you drawn to sci-fi and kind of genre intrinsically? Because I certainly am. Yeah. I, you know, one of my early influences, including all the ones I mentioned, including, like, you know, the Kislauskies and the die-hards and the dysdellate distance was actually Blade Runner. And I actually am literally in a documentary talking about that.

And it was so cool because it was, it was a documentary that was called, I can't remember what it was called. These amazing shadows? These many shadows. I got it on Blu-ray. Word. I sent it. Yeah, and it was a dreamy because, like, guess who else was talking about Blade Runner besides me was Christopher Nolan? So it was me, Christopher Nolan, loving Blade Runner, and just kind of speaking about how, you know, transported it was.

you know the building of the environment was just so important and just kind of allowing or inviting an audience to just lose themselves in a completely different world and that was yet another inspiration for me was to go was to was to was first I was like the reason I got into independent film was it was accessible I didn't have you know millions of dollars at my fingertips but um I really was really kind of my imagination was really sparked by the world of Blade Runner at the sound soundtrack of Lair Runner. So, yeah, that made me really excited about, you know, everything sci-fi.

Obviously, the low-hanging fruit, of course, is Star Wars and the E.T. Back to the future. But also, you know, reading Arthur Clark's short stories,

and then now, more recently, I kind of binging all the black mirrors and going to this dark hole of, like, bleak, where we just kind of imagine the worst version of our futures.

It's all fascinating to me. It's like sweating it out, you know? Yeah, yeah. Let's come to terms with where we could go so we don't go there. And so, and that's kind of what Aventage's my feature was about. It's kind of like, okay, what's a worst case scenario? How do we not do this? And so, yeah, I definitely look.

for and I'm often seeing on my desk a lot of science fiction projects yeah and I really enjoy the world building I love playing with rules you know like there's a more grounded and more like hard sci-fi like the expanse where you're just kind of thinking about all the laws of physics and how it all can play into a character's journey and you know what they're physically up against even while they're trying to save the love of their life and then there's kind of the foundation of it where it's more about the politics of intergalactic diplomacy and, you know, that has a little bit of a Star Trek overlap. So I don't know. I just find it all wonderful and exciting. And it's also a really great place, a great genre to test ideas out. Like really kind

of radical ideas can be tested out in the sci-fi world just because it has a few are rules that we all need to abide by. And in fact, our audiences who are like kind of sci-fi geeks like us are excited by new ideas and are excited by like breaking rules sometimes. At least a lot of them are. Some people are just like, no, my brother, who's like really into the expanse, he likes all his side-fi, you know, hard sci-fi, hard sci-fi all the way. Everything has to test out, you know, everything has to make sense.

but yeah it's been a great it's a beautiful genre and as is fantasy yeah well and I actually I'm glad you brought up the expanse because that if anyone hasn't seen that show

excellent show I was wondering what your experience was on because you did one episode yeah I did two episodes two episodes we were in season three and the expanse is so wonderful it was actually literally about to

like it was finding the end of the line on sci-fi channel and hoping to maybe land on Amazon and I was kind of at the end in the sci-fi channel and we were just I kind of had the exciting privilege of being able to introduce or work with like Clarissa Mao's character and that was a really cool opportunity because she was just if you read the book she's just so troubled as a woman so determined and fierce and it drives her to do really dark things um and and play a really big role in like kind of shaking up the universe um so what was it like i mean this the cast you know and the crew are super bonded they

that was kind of where i was going to ask because it feels like you're getting into a very tight-knit group oh yeah so tight-knit and it's it's a beautiful thing you know they they they For two seasons, and then three seasons, they had to kind of, what I think the producers talked about is they're trying to reach, attain the production value of gravity, but on an episodic basic cable budget, right? How do you do that? And what that takes is grit and love and kindness and really smart producers. and, you know, smart writing and storytelling. And so that was just kind of a privilege to kind of insinuate myself into that space. You know, I'd come from, you know, making, you know, world building myself with advantageous.

You know, we made a $500,000 sci-fi film with, you know, 200 visual effects shots, building a world out of New York City, combining that with San Francisco and L.A. to kind of make a city of its own and doing it on a shoot stream budget. So it wasn't like a surprise to me when, you know, we were physically making, you know, mech suits and, you know, it wasn't like a perfect situation because, you know, sometimes something would break for a reason because it's literally there, you know. They're literally strapping pieces of metal to a woman who was very strong but not strong enough to kind of, you know, deal with 100 pounds of metal on your body, you know, metal on your

body. So, so for sure there were like challenges, but it wasn't in any way something I did not anticipate. The takeaway was just like, oh, I, it was really just, I asked to be on that show from the very beginning because I felt like I believed so much in the storytelling and I believe in the performances and I love the nuance in the relationships you know, you have these friends much like the expanse casting crew

has bonded. The crew of the Rosanante has a bond and it's tested a lot but ultimately, you know, they stick together and they make it. Yeah. So, yeah.

I'm trying to remember other little details. If you have any specific questions, maybe I could answer them. No, I, yeah, that was, no, that was a, that was a, uh, very open-ended question. I will say that you, you kind of brought it up and this is something that I'm particularly drawn to in sci-fi. And I'm wondering if, if maybe you're kind of a nerd like this too is the great thing about sci-fi usually is great costumes and great props. Like nine times out of ten, I'm watching that and going, man, that's a really cool suit. Yeah.

Yeah, that is, that is key. I remember just being continuously blown away on foundation by our costumes. I'mer was our, I can't pronounce her Irish last name. I super apologize, Emer. But she really brought it, like really brought it. Every time I walk onto set, there was one scene where one of the clones, emperors, the young version, played by Cassian, built in, you know, he walks on to sit and I'm like,

what are you wearing? This is amazing. It just, it just looks so beautiful. The colors that she brought forward, blended so beautifully with the greenery. Anyway, sorry, nerding out about colors now, but. Colors, hugely important for DPs. Feel free to nerd out about that. And speaking of DPs, yeah. For that sequence, I remember our DP saying, wouldn't it be nice if we brought in these like blue flowers to kind of break up the landscape? I saw them and I'm like, oh, my God, thank you.

Thank you for thinking this way because we're making a frame. And thank you for bringing in flowers, man. You know, like that's like always going to, in a very simple and easy way, like just make something more magical. more otherworldly, if you kind of are really choosy about, you know, these little bits, these little areas that, you know, putting flowers in places you don't think they belong, even, you know, especially when you're creating sci-fi worlds, where, you know, that planet is on your own planet. Yeah. What do you value in a DP? And what are some things maybe DP's should avoid? That's a great question, too. I value in a DP.

and just a strong sense of composition. I love, you know, obviously I care about composition. I'm always looking for interesting frames. Having an open mind to other kinds of angles would be great. It's always a challenge, especially in episodic, where you're kind of afraid of like rocking the boat, most especially if there's a look. And at the same time, if you don't, you know,

push the envelope a little, you kind of are redelvering the same old look. and you risk the audience, losing the audience in a way. I mean, as long as the storytelling and acting is kind of making progress, fantastic. If the look is kind of giving you the same mold, maybe that works for procedurals and some dramas, but having seen the other side, having seen, you know, I'll just keep coming back to the staircase because it's fresh in my head. You know, having seen, you know, on the staircase,

this is what they do. You got this car chasing this other car. They're just driving along as a family in two cars. You've got this shot that either is on a Russian arm or maybe on a drone that just kind of checks in with one car, dives over, turns upside down, and then just drags along the street, possibly like an invisible cut where they dissolve to the street again, you know, comes up over the other car, right side up,

comes back in, turns upside down again. And, you know, you think that's kind of, when I say, say that to you, depending on the show, they might say something like, you know, that doesn't feel motivated, you know, which oftentimes it won't be. But when you have characters there are going on a journey that is all about their state of mind, the subjectivity of their experience, if you're able to kind of go, you know, that actually does speak to maybe this one character state of mind, this whole family state of mind, you know, there's something there that. that will make our audience excited

because it will just make you ask these questions, what's going on? What's going on with your characters? Whether or not they know it, whether or not they know it's the camera doing that. So I'm almost excited to work with DPs who are willing to try things or able to try things. In features, I'm going to ask them to try things more strongly,

and I'll direct them to try things. It's a little bit of more. more negotiation and episodic just because of time budget and also the look of the show. But I also say, you know, watching out for, you know, like, you know, I guess I think in the same way that I would say to myself and to other directors, stay engaged, you know, keep, keep trying to be interested in your shots. Be interested in your shots. If you're not interested in your shots, if you're bored, maybe the audience also. will be bored. There's a chance. There's a chance. So yeah, I guess that's what I think about a lot. I just want to stay excited. Yeah, there's also the other danger of just being too bored,

like too bored too soon because you've done. I like to joke about some, it's not actually me who likes to joke about it. I just remember a friend of mine joking to me about how you can see that this director was bored and so they were trying really hard to kind of mix it up. sure and it actually was completely unmotivated and actually quite distracting so it's a fine line you know and you know you kind of have to also be an adult about it so yeah that's the balance I think of being a DP or director is to kind of figure out you know what's what's where restraint is useful and where pushing the envelope is useful yeah well and it makes total sense because if you're the person taking the audience on the ride and you're bored with the ride,

why would they engage? That is actually, that brings up an excellent point that I think you can extrapolate, which is like, I've seen, and I'm sure you've seen it or heard these kind of things, where someone will be like, they're making something for the audience, quote unquote, like they themselves don't get it, but they're like, oh, the, this will track. Like this, the audience will like this. I personally don't get it. but we know this tests well or something like that and that often doesn't like the

audience can smell that that you weren't the the audience wasn't someone who should be in the audience wasn't making it I don't know um like do you have a specific like um or maybe that's not fair um yeah I don't want to start calling people out but no I don't have a specific example but it's more in my sort of much smaller realm where I couldn't point to any major motion picture television show but I'll see on sets that I'm on where a person will basically say that like I don't know the I just know it the audience likes this or whatever you know and it's like oh got maybe we should get one of them to shoot it like why are you true

maybe yeah yeah I guess the bigger thought there is just like like you were saying staying engaged I guess that's the question then is like how important is it

is it possible to be engaged 100% of the time and what do you do if you're burnt out but still need to get through this shooting day or whatever like how do you kind of save yourself in that regard. Well, Anna, you know, let me check my hours. Okay, cool. Anna, there's actually not a lot of room

for being burnt out, even though your mental health does want to allow you to have those moments of pause where you reflect. And yes, you try. try to build those days and times and zones and it's why, you know, DPs and directors might disappear at the end of a shoot day, or disappear into their trailer even, you know, a director might disappear in a trailer. Because, yes, it's, we're usually dealing with a great deal of things, a great, a lot of moving parts. And so, but the funny about it is there's just no time to be burnt out. Well, it is like sports, kind of, like you were saying earlier, you know, I don't think

any hockey player is ever like, hey, just skip me on like the next four shifts. I'm good. I got a texting on the bench. Terrific analogy. Like, you know, I was it, yay, I'm a worries fan. Yay, we won. And, you know, yay, Stefan Curry and Jemond Green are some of my, you know, models in one way or another and one of them one jaman's toughness and is is kind of focus on the game and winning um as much as winning doesn't have to be like you winning winning winning can be the game winning the team winning so yeah so so i like that he has a little bit of grit in him um stephen curry uh just his uh kind of ability to kind of flow you know accept

any flaws as in any given moment, but trust in the overall picture that, you know, I believe in myself. I believe in my team. I'm going to lead with love, love for the game and love for my teammates. And that then also never take your eye off the ball. You know, these are all things that most directors need to inhabit. Like these are qualities we need to inhabit. That was very relevant for me. When I, you know, worked on a flight attendant recently. And we had two units, one in Los Angeles and one in Iceland. And we were prepping Iceland while shooting, you know, in L.A. And so that meant I had to be thinking about two different countries and two different time zones

and how we would tackle things across those time zones, how we could, you know, how visual effects would or wouldn't play into one country and yes into another. And how to kind of work with any scheduled challenges we were getting because Kaila Kewko needed to be a lot of different places on a lot of different units at once. So all that jibber jabber is to say that there's no time to, there's no time to be burnt out because every one and, you know, the budget kind of depends on you making these decisions in concert with everyone else's information.

Yeah. Now, you brought up the flight attendant. I saw the first season, the first couple episodes of the second season, My girlfriend's a big fan of it. I like it a lot too, but she's watched it all without me. So, but did you, were you able to bring any of those sort of sci-fi sensibilities to that show that is fantasy-ish? You know, there's a, there's some elements of fantasticalness in her mind palace and whatnot. What preceded my sci-fi infatuation was, you know, artistic, you know, interest in surrealism,

interest in kind of dreamscapes. And my experience in science fiction from a technical perspective also lent itself really well to the flight attendant. So as a funny example, I also worked on Resident Alien and that was Alan Tudik. And there were two Alan Tudix in one scene, or two fantasy scenes, I believe. And so, you know, knowing how to operate with some version of emotion control. rig or a faux moco rig and also my work on star girl where which was that DC show like we actually also did a fake motion control kind of a scene all those experiences really lent themselves well to kind

of being ready to figure out how to logistically make it possible for Kaylee Cuoco to act against yourself in a oneer in a single moving shot or what kind of or how we schedule our coverage to make sure that we were also being efficient about her costume changes, her hair changes between these multiple versions of herself. Back to the surrealism part of it, we infused, we threw a bunch of roses into the room into one of the Mind Palace scenes

because her mind was being overwhelmed by the pressure that her boyfriend was putting on her by bringing her roses. And another part of that, Mind Palis was another Kaylee Cuoco who wore a black sweater and was super fatalistic about her relationship with everyone and her state, her relationship with like life and death. So, you know, we dropped a bunch of chains that we kind of boomed down through, the boomed down through these chains in a crane shot and kind of played with the perspective

in that way. So, yeah, there was a little bit of painterliness that was coming out of me in the mind palace and then there was that technical side as well and then also being really supportive to Kaylee because she was pulling off an actress's feet the idea of playing four different versions you're four of it four different very distinct versions of yourself or your characters state of minds and also being able to technically um pull that off by repeating your own blocking and timing listening to recordings of yourself and playing against that and making sure at the right place, the right time.

It was such a collaborative effort and I really need to applaud Kaylee and everybody on the technical side for making sure we didn't mess that one up. Yeah. Now, when you say fake mocha, what do you mean by that? So faux moco. So motion control rigs

that are kind of more official involve, you know, generally this big old machine, I mean, yeah, that has a programmable, it's a programmable crane or arm, maybe on a dolly, and it's on a track. And as you, when you kind of play your master shot, your first shot, your beauty shot, again and again until you get the staging right. You get the staging and the camera move right. And once you've locked in on that version of that shot, I'm like not saying it very well right now, but once you basically found your best master,

you decide that every other take has to match that master. So the camera will repeat that move. And everyone has to kind of match. Everyone has to be in the right place and the right time for that camera move. When we do a FOMOCO version of that, one version of it just as a very basic example, you dolly into position, then you lock it off. Then you do nodal work, you do pans.

And then from there, you're able to kind of play within that space as long as you're just doing nodal movements. And then you can kind of like blend multiple takes together. But you have to kind of get to that locked off 3D move. You have to kind of build, find your master 3D move, and then lock that off, camera doesn't move, then you can like bring in your second version of Allen or the second version of Kaley and that person exists within that space and the camera's just kind of panning and tilting or you're maybe doing digital push-ins in post.

So you're keeping moving up, but you've done a really much cheaper version of Mocha. Yeah, that's, I don't know why I never thought about that. But yeah, as long as everything stays nodal, you can track in any clip from anywhere, you know, because I use split comps a lot when I'm split comps a lot when I'm doing honestly anything you know hide boom poles or lights or whatever but I didn't I didn't think about that you can totally do that with other people yeah you can it's it's there's like some minutia in there like I worked closely with a VFX supervisor from COSA on um resident resident alien and and he offered up some even more even more liberties than I expected but I think I'm might involve a little bit of roto in that in that respect. So it's just kind of, it's really about what your VFX supervisor believes that you can pull off within your budget. So, yeah. That really does like, you do have the full package there then knowing, because I know for a fact that, you know, a lot of stuff will get into post.

I do plenty of editing myself. and clearly no VFX supervisor was asked any questions or anything, you know, you get a phone that's got green gaff tape on it, and they're like, replace that. And you're like, oh, I hate you. But coming from, again, that sci-fi background, you already know a lot of those tricks and, like, kind of what the boundaries might be. Yeah, I do have a kind of nice basic, nice basic understanding for a lot of reasons. You know, my very first feature film was just called Half-Life.

not the game not the game yeah I was an art house girl not a gamer at the time um so yeah have you played it since have you played the game since then i think i did play the game in and or around post of yeah um so so sorry i'm like tons of memories about that i know it's groundbreaking Very cool game. But I'll say, yeah, a shout out to my dearest friend, you know, Catherine Tate, is one of my dearest friends. She and I met on Half Life, and she had just left ILM and was excited about kind of starting a kind of projection program in a school in San Francisco. and, you know, I became kind of a partner to her program in terms of, like, as an independent

filmmaker, providing her footage that needed, you know, help for better or worse, like going through students' hands and then kind of like coming out the other side and being an independent, you know, short film or something. And, you know, it was like kind of a work exchange thing, everyone gets their firsthand and blah, and, you know, very much on the amateur level. But as that, program grew, I kind of grew alongside that program and learned alongside, you know. So I ended up doing like a music video that had a full CG environment and was able to kind of take that knowledge into advantageous as well. And then, you know, one of my partners, my, one of my life partner, Sean, he also is really well versed in like 2DV effects and now 3DV effects. And so there's a lot of

background, interchange, and kind of spent a lot of time in that world. So I'm able to kind of speak the kind of basic language of visual effects with a lot of BFX supervisor and knows. And I kind of know like, oh, this might be something more doable than we realize, or maybe that's a little hard. If we compromise our shot a little, maybe we can pull this off in a really decent way for this budget. So I kind of can speak in that language and the VFX production level. And I'm on a flight of attendant, you know, we really had a great relationship. Me and Stephanie Johnson, who was our producer in the post department, you know, we just were able to kind of immediately talk about, okay, how can we pull this off with

this schedule? What do you need? What do I need? Can you do this for me? Can you go shoot a bunch of roses for me, please? So that we can comp those together, you know? And it was just really, so it was a really good use of our time. And we were just, it helped to have the facility to kind of talk about posts while you're in production.

Yeah. I know, I know, you know, we're kind of coming up on time here, but so I'll kind of skip to the end. But first of all, this has been a great conversation. I hope I can have you back. But, yeah. But so the way that we kind of end it all is usually I'll ask, if you were to, this doesn't quite work with television. so I've got to reformulate this question, but I haven't done it yet. So usually it's if you were to put your film or in this case, I guess the flight attendant

in a double feature, what would the other film be? Oh, no. Okay. Oh. Okay. Pardon me as I nerd out again. So the flight attendant was really wonderful as far as it's like aesthetic goes, especially, I mean, not especially.

I mean, honestly, the reason I even joined the flight attendant was because Kaylee and Zasha, you know, Rosie, they're all just such extraordinary actors. And I knew that the casting was going to be stellar or was already stellar. And so I could come in and just kind of work and, you know, try to help create a really fun episode. But on top of that, their post-production was amazing.

They were fearless in terms of the way they used split screens and motion graphics. And so, as I, you know, inserted myself into the show or was invited to insert myself into the show, I had conversations with our DPs, Anthony, Hardwick, and Cordfei, and our producing director of Silver Tree, who was this extraordinary director. And their references included Hitchcock, but another reference that came up was Brian De Palma's work, Dress to Kill, I believe, he made that. he directed that film and dressed to kill has this blonde that's you know running around town killing people and spying on people and the use of the split diopter um it's prevalent and not in not in a lot of diploma's work and also blow up um blow up no blow out blow out um wait blow up or blow out yeah blow out the one which i i could look it up i i watched those films back to back

so that's why it's super easy for me to kind of conflate that too but i think it's blowout because a tire blows out with John Travolta and he, and Del Travolta plays this sound recordist and blowouts Brian DePalma, yes.

Yeah, okay, so blowout dressed to kill, split diopters, blondes, and if you watch that back to back with my episodes, episodes three and four of the flight attendant, season three,

I'm sorry, season two. you'll see that I kind of tried as much as possible to kind of bring the split diapter idea into Cassie's struggle with sobriety. So oftentimes Cassie will be, you know, really wanting to drink. And so I would put in the foreground or in the background a bottle of alcohol, or a bunch of bottles. We had a mini bar scene, and there was a shot in another, like a little shot of Icelandic

gin, maybe. And we put that in the foreground, Kaley in the background. And, you know, as you know, with a split diapter, you know, both planes are in focus, even though, so you're playing with a deep focus shot. And so that, you know, deep focus shots are interesting because they have a psychological effect. and De Palma was really known for his work in that zone. Do you know a guy named Todd Viziri? Todd Viziery, no.

He's a, I think he worked at ILAM, but he's a VFX guy. I don't want to say very popular on Twitter because Twitter's, like any film Twitter, is very niche. But he has like a running tally of split diopter shots in films. I think it's like a, it's got to be like at least 100 tweets long. And he just keeps adding to it every time. So I'll try to find a way to screenshot. Although anytime you get on any streamer, you can't screenshot anything. But I'll try to because of the DRM, you can't, like, if you try to screenshot something, it goes black.

Yeah, I know about that way. But he says on his Twitter feed, right? Yeah, yeah. So he finds him. I don't know. I mean, he's a VFX. He's a genius. But I'll try to add those clips to his timeline there.

Yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned that he's a VFX guy because obviously you can you can cheat split diapter shot anytime with the effects. Yeah, that's pretty funny. It is. Yeah. I mean, that's that could get into a longer conversation about when to when to do it in camera and when to push that off to post because that's something that that's a whole that is a whole hour long conversation because it's not the answer is not always always do it in camera. Sometimes it is better to do it in post. Totally. And we definitely consider doing that a couple times. But I don't think we did. And then actually the final question before we let you go, do you, off the top of your head, have a, like, a resource or even a piece of advice maybe that you received that you could suggest to people? So like a book, movie, documentary, whatever, or maybe something that was said to you or you read somewhere. Yeah, I really should

I think one of my mentors would always say well I said two things always resonate in my head One was you know always make it about what you like and that's for directors it's I think an interesting way to think

and do I like this do I like this another thought is that you know you have to kind of fall in love with your story you have to fall in love with your episode if you're making an episode and and really kind of live and breathe it so that because you're kind of its parent you know as you're kind of making this thing so let that happen let the love happen yeah well Jennifer thank you so much for spending the hour with me there's a lot of fun and like I said anytime you want to come back more than more than happy to have you thank you so much this was so much fun thanks for kicking out with me on this yeah of course 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 Ethadr 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 provideocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot respectively. And as always, thanks for listening.