Frame & Reference Podcast - 66: "Russian Doll S2" DP Ula Pontikos, BSC

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

On todays episode Kenny talks with cinematographer Ula Pontikos, BSC about season 2 of "Russian Doll." Ula is nominated for a Prime Time Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series. Enjoy the episode!  Follow Kenny on Twitter @kwmcmillan Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for more!

Hello and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today we're talking with Ula Puntikos, BSC, the DP of Season 2 of Russian Doll, which is available on Netflix, and it's a lot of fun. Season one was great. Season two, also great. She's nominated for an Emmy for, I guess they have to pick an episode. So it's the first episode. But, you know, I thought it was like a spy thriller or something, but it's kind of like a, but when I didn't know anything about the show, it's kind of like a time-travely, you know, timey, whiny kind of thingy.

First season's handled differently than the second season in regards to the sort of mechanic of time travel. Anyway, just in case you have to. hadn't seen it, but if you have, you know what the hell I'm talking about. This conversation, it's like I say it every week, one of my favorites, had a great time. You know, a lot of laughs. Ula was very generous with her knowledge and time and expertise. I certainly learned a lot, and like I said, we both had a lot of fun. I will say, if you're just listening, sometimes the Zoom would cut out the laughter so it sounds like I'm laughing by myself

but if you're watching on YouTube you'll know it was shared laughter I wanted to notice when I was editing I was like wow this sounds like all my jokes are dying but they were not we were both having equal amounts of fun anyway yeah you're gonna love this one

uh Oula's fantastic and she Emmy's well deserved the show looks great so I'll let you get to it Here's my conversation with Loua Pontigos, BSC. You know what's funny is normally at the beginning of the podcast, I ask, you know, like how you got started and stuff. But I happen to have a copy of preserving the vision from the BSC.

Okay. Here on page 303, it's got everything I need. I had no idea that they're going to zoom it into a picture of my face because it did, you know, as a as a white shot, it sort of makes sense. No vanity intended, but it just looks very odd that photo. They did use like a handful of what appeared, you know, like some of these are from, you know, award shows or whatever. And then this definitely looks like a BTS photo that they were like, I just crop her out. It'll be fine. But that's the thing.

And I had, I had like a photo of my face. Anyway, I'm part of the BSC Board of Governors, so I should really know better. Oh, man. Second edition. This is a nice, but I assume they gave you one of these? No. What? It's okay.

I probably will prefer. I suppose to buy it. Oh, yeah, they made me buy it too, obviously. But it apparently got stuck at Pinewood forever. And then the nice woman who sent it to me, sent me like, she packed. packaged it with like five BSC tote bags and a polo shirt. So now I got a bunch of BSC swag. But it's nice.

It's gilded. Yeah. No, no. They put a lot of work into it. Yeah. But in any case, it says that you started off with a degree in environmental studies. Yeah. Well, I haven't done the degree.

So just for the record. Oh, you studied it. I have been studying. I've done two years. And then I really wanted to do photography. So I took a year out and I took another year out. And I took another year out and moved to country. I thought that it's actually I can't ever imagine going back.

I loved the degree actually. It was it was rather fabulous. We had mathematics and chemistry and physics, which strangely, I wasn't great at, but I wasn't awful. I was just bad enough. all right. But then we had economics and I was really struggling with that. I really didn't like it. I was never a phrase that I've stolen is I'm plenty good at math. I'm bad at numbers. So when economics came around in my degree because it was just like a math course, oh, I think I

failed it. I failed it. I got a F once and I got a D the second time and I went, you know what, I'm going to find a different math course. What was it like? in what? It was just like a general part of my film degree at Arizona State was doing other stuff, you know, just as a part of a liberal arts degree. So I was like, oh, my dad told me like, oh, macroeconomics is easy. And I got the driest British guy. Like his PowerPoints were just white background with Times New Roman font.

I mean, they were brutal. It was no interest in this thing. Yeah, especially the beginnings. It's lots of formulas and I just remember I passed it. I remember I got like a B or C. I don't remember sort of equivalent, but it was it was such a struggle. I actually had to ask my friend who had the degree in economics to help me out because I was like, oh, I'm so bored. Well, pulling back on that then, like talk to me about getting started in photography because the book says that you

that you got started like I guess with your dad shooting photos a lot or like developing at least which is a way more fun almost than taking the photos I think it's like in my family we always wanted to be artists and my dad had the degree in um um nautical engineering so he was he had a degree in ship engines and I think his desire was to be more creative. So he was sort of doing paintings and and carving and photography. And it was such a nice way, you know, we were very small flat at the time. There was like a two rooms. So it was a living room, bedroom and then and then my my bedroom and a tiny little bathroom where we got an enlarger and and you know, whoever took a photograph, we tried to sort

printed so there was fun there was a sort of fun fun one of way of bonding and then I had a you got me a zenith camera um with a lens I don't remember and and I think I was really bad at it until I went for some death metal concert um in Holland when I was 17 and they were actually not so bad anymore so I thought oh maybe I can actually do something with it yeah but I I think it just goes to show sort of how much practice sort of trains your eye and sort of the way of looking. Yeah, well, so you're in New York now? No, I'm in London. Oh, right.

So, sorry, I got the Russian doll thing stuck in my head. But even London, to the point I was going to make, was like a very photogenic city. You know, like a lot of DPs who live in New York, you know, they're like, oh, yeah, I just take my camera everywhere. and they have this beautiful street photography, which is a lot more difficult in place like LA. Was Poland a very photogenic city? Or was it a little more? Because when I think of the UK especially,

it's like gray. Like I can't imagine a lot of street photography in the UK. They, you know, when the sun is right, it's actually pretty stunning. And part of the pandemic, pandemic sort of exercise was to do a lot of stills or sort of, you know, we all got locked down for mums so um so i did sort of like a little um personal project it's nothing you know took the camera and sort of go to the parks uh and with dappled light and uh and

and the right lenses there are some interesting things coming out um the light can be incredible especially during the summertime and and some months of the winter when the when the sun is low it's actually pretty special is very different um but yeah i mean you know it's it's sort of what interests you i think there is a lot of gray sky as as we have today um but um but that there can be there can be some interesting sort of shapes around and they're you know amazing photographers um coming out from the uk yeah well it is that kind of interesting thing where like when you have variation it's when you know beauty can kind of come out whereas i've heard especially in like early filmmaking there's

just like this the people from the uk who describe like la films they all just look exactly the same because the sun's always in the exact same spot and everything's got the exact same shadows and it's like but l.a has beautiful patterns as well around the sunset you know i was fascinated the uh you know the uh because you've got a lot of light buildings and then a lot of dappled light around so so that there are definitely places which are interesting and it's so different i think you know when it once it becomes familiar it's harder to take photographs so when you go somewhere the curiosity the sort of the the the wandering eye the unfamiliarity is just um it just brings more curiosity and actually i noticed when i went to new york i took more photographs the first

time round that when i went the second time round you know your your eye is more curious Yeah, I actually, this is a question I was going to ask way later, but we're here. Do you think of your photographic eye as being different than your cinematography compositions or anything like that? Because I've tried to, you know, on the little like Fuji film, X100, you can set like a 16 by 9 frame. And I've thought like, oh, I should try to get more cinematic compositions in my photography. But I always find that that feels much. more difficult. And I don't see those types of compositions in the photo books I have necessarily. No, I agree. There's something different. I think partially because you do have

different formats. And actually, I find that cinema can be a little bit more formulaic than photography, I think, because you've got the coverage. When I was graduating from the NFTS, from the film school, part of my thesis was that I took 16-mell camera to China and I did a documentary. It wasn't a documentary. It was sort of like a mood thing on 16-mell about jade diggers. And to sort of get to know the place, I took a lot of stills and I was traveling a lot. The stills weren't actually that great, but there was sort of a lot of, Um, reversal, uh, it was actually a very dramatic story because those stills meant to be part of my thesis and, uh, and I lost, I don't know, like something like 30 rolls of film.

I left it in China. Oh, no. And, uh, we discovered at the airport and, uh, my traveling partner, um, was very, very stressed because I totally freaked out. Uh, it was like three weeks worth of work and, uh, and my graduation and so on. And we got them sent back to London. You know, some friendly soul after a long, long, long hours

of calling from the airport saying, giving the address, we actually had it sent back to the UK, which is incredible. And it happened to me once before. Actually, the first time when I took a lot of roles of film, we went for this death metal concert in, in Bergen near Lawerden, it was in Holland. And I think I lost about six or seven roles of film. And I found them back.

We were scouting the field after the concert at night with torches. And we found them, like after two hours. That's amazing. Twice I lost like, you know, my whole body of work. I mean, it's all very personal. Like there's no, there's nothing really, to be published, there's just sort of a way of training my eye and training my taste.

But going back to your question, I took a lot of stills. And then in a moment when I started taking moving images, I couldn't go back to stills. Because my mind sort of switched, and I was quite surprised by it. My mind sort of switched in a different way of storytelling and a different way of observing. But I think it's specific to me. I don't know. I'm sure that there's, um, that you can, uh, combine it. But I don't take many steals when I work. Yeah. I personally, I've found that like, you know, behind the scene stuff can be fun, you know, photos of your friends working or whatever. But yeah, when I guess, I guess, you

know, it's kind of said in the medium, but like photography is telling a story in one image and cinematography is telling a story in many images, you know, the context. Usually there's more context in a single photographic image than there is in a single frame of film. Not all of them, but sometimes, oftentimes. Well, I think it's also, you know, you're trying to tell the whole storytelling in one image where I was, I had to film a cricket game the other day. And the idea was that you capture it in one image to establish something. and I couldn't do it.

Cricket, I couldn't do it. Just one big wide shot. And then you probably could go on a long glance and show some action, but that's like, then you've seen it so many times because it's a, it's a sort of a sports shot. So how to do it in a way that you haven't seen it? And I really haven't figured it out. Cricket is a tough one. Yeah, that's a massive field too.

And you just, they just like surround, they make, there are. to make it even wider. So you really are nowhere near the action at all. But I keep failing. No, I lived in the UK for like 24 years and I keep failing in one of the sort of national sports, understanding cricket. To be fair, no one watches baseball here.

So, you know, same same. Actually, I want to, do you, a complete sidebar. Do you still, are you still a metal fan? No. I'm going to a Mastodon is opening for ghost for the four people who know who that is. And I'm going to the show at the end of the month and I'm very excited, but no one knows what I'm talked about. Yeah, I sort of parted it at age of 19. I had a massive crash on Sepulchua from.

Yeah, from Brazil. I was following them everywhere in Poland. And I think my sort of the last gig I've done, actually it wasn't the last gig, but one of the sort of most memorable gigs that was Monsters of Rock. You know, I'm that old. And that was, I think, 1990 or 1992, I don't remember.

We were really young. And that was something really quite special. I'm very glad that I didn't realize how special it was until I saw pictures of my friend a focus pooling in Moscow on the same tour and the amount of people. And then I met somebody else who was actually an operator who was in New York, who came in for a couple of days for us on the show I've done. And he showed me some photographs he took from that tour.

That was pretty extraordinary. I mean, there's just such a, such a different time. Yeah, there's actually a, now we're going to go further off the rails. There's a fascinating podcast called Winds of Change, I think it is, about the scorpions going to Russia when the USSR fell. And fascinating how like the Russians were like kept from, you know, American anything, but especially rock music. and then just how, like, not violently in the truest sense,

but just how aggressively they came to it when they were finally given a concert. Same thing with like Metallica and all that. Fun stuff. Anyway, you know, there's, I'll ask a secondary question because especially now that a lot of movies and television are primarily going to streaming, although we are seeing a mild resurgence or a push

to seeing movies in the theaters. Do you think of going to a theater in the same way that you think of going to see live music? Is there like a similarity there in your mind or are they different experiences? I suppose they sort of yes and no. I think for some reason music is just more sort of immediate. I think I went to see.

see Baba Mal. That was my last concert. So yeah, I went to the West, West African music from death metal. Yeah. Random. But, and that was, I think the sort of the drums and the sound and the, you know, it was such a great gig. Um, uh, sort of felt very immediate. I think films stay with me a little bit longer. I think they, you know, it can have a in my, at the same emotional impact, but I feel like it's like such a different medium. I think on the emotion level for sure, but then you can actually get moved by, I finally caught up on a movie called The Prayers for Stolen, which was a Mexican film, and I just can't stop thinking about this film.

You know, it just had such a, such a beautiful impact on me. It was so wonderfully told. It's based on a book, I believe. But it had a sort of a real after effect for a very long time. You know, the, maybe it's the same thing. I don't know. It definitely plays with your emotion and it feels like you're more in it, for sure. Yeah.

You know, that brings up something that they mentioned in preserving the division. but it just mentioned in there I'm such a fucking loser the it mentioned in there that 7 had a big impact on you was that I am a giant Fincher fan a lot of DPs we've had on here are obviously Darius insane cinematographer

was it the look of that film that stuck with you more than the message or was it the writing I'm not sure where is it written in the whole story Sorry, so I went to see seven, I went to see seven thinking it's a comedy. Oh, no. Yeah. It just says it's your first most memorable, deeply memorable cinematic experience, and you couldn't speak for an hour after seeing it, and it was traumatic.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say the first cinematic experience probably was watching the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like, you know, as a kid, I think that was such a, I just have such a vivid memory of it. seven was a different story it just came out Poland just changed the system trailers weren't

sort of a thing so somebody said to me do you want to go and see a movie what is it I don't know I think it's a comedy alright let's go so so yeah I went there

and obviously it wasn't if anyone hasn't seen it it's not a comedy Um, and then I realized very quickly it wasn't a comedy, but I, you know, I think there is a sort of a very different, uh, uh, preparation you do when you know that you're going to see something traumatic where when you see a comedy, you're pretty open. Um, yeah, I was shell shocked. I, I was, um, deeply traumatized. Um, that title sequence alone probably was like, oh, no.

You know what? I think it wasn't, it took me a little while because, um, We had such a naive way of looking at Western cinema at the time. You know, we just like, there has been, and I'm not saying that Poland does not have a great cinema. It's just a totally different storytelling. So watching Seven was just, I mean, I think it was different regardless to anyone, whoever has seen the movie, because it was so dark.

And I don't think that there has been many films to that level. of darkness in the print and darkness in the story. You know, it, at, hey, did you hear the story? Did you read about the story of how it actually have ever been made? I've, I've watched the like special features on it, but I also, you know what sucks is I have that Darius Conji book and, uh, I haven't read it yet. It's great, actually, but, but the story, I think is, and I, and I don't know, cut it out. if I'm saying lies, but my understanding is that the script was sent over to Fincher, but they sent the wrong script because no one wanted to make it because it was so dark.

And by they did the rewrite, whoever has done the rewrite, and that script meant to go to Fincher to be made, but it was actually the earlier version. So Fincher read it and then said, I love it, I want to make it. Um, but the studio said, well, no, no, it's not this version. We want to send you another version. It was like, no, no, but I really love this version. So I thought that that was, that was the story, but I think you're right, actually. I think, I think I have heard that.

Because of course, it's going to be the dark, the more fucked up version that he's like, oh, yeah, let's make that. Um, but also visually that film is, man, we're going to jump around on the, on the question spectrum here, but, uh, because I want to get to. to Russian doll in a little bit, but in that first episode that you're nominated for, congratulations, there is kind of a, I mean, the whole thing takes place at night, but there is, I've noted, like, the black level and like, especially I guess some of the greens, it does have a little bit of seveniness to it in some ways. That's very appealing to me.

Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of films sort of looking at 70s film. sort of print slower stock. So in my wildest dream, you know, Russian dough was relatively low budget, especially in New York, you know, shooting in, A, in coronavirus and during the pandemic and also, I think permit wise, I'm still don't quite understand, but I know that New York is just very strict. Unless you're law and order SVU, then you can shoot wherever you want. probably um so so the idea was that you know I wanted to have a slightly brighter sources but I think we we you know we had to um where to do what we could afford but definitely the idea was that we will have you know whether t20 or actually we had

t20 and the 24 light next to each other to give a bit of spread and then a punch that was the sort of way of looking at New York. So the idea is that everything will go into darkness and you kind of can light little ways. And then my lot was very contrasty as well. And it's my first collaboration with Greg Fisher from Company Free, but we sort of been talking about working together for a while

and he has done a lot for me before. So when we did the test, we really looked at the blacks and how the highlights reacted and how we can bring the midtones down to sort of get that more grungy feel. And it's so important to get that impact between the 2022 and 1980s. And Greg used to work in the lab. So he's really knowledgeable. And, you know, when I was assistant and at film school, we only really learned filmed. So, so, so that was quite interesting.

You know, I remember telling DEPs the printer lights, you know, when after, after in the morning when I called the lab because they couldn't talk. So, so it was a different world. And yeah, I mean, some sort of film emulation was definitely, In our mind, obviously, it's a digital world, so you can only do as much. But I like my, I like my black screen. I think that there's a tendency that I try to get them as clean as possible. Yes, that's especially, there's one very brief moment where the main character is walking down a staircase into the subway. And I noticed that you can see everything.

It's very dark down there, but you could see everything and it's not muddled. But the texture of the image is still very, I suppose, diffuse. Even in the sharper modern stuff, it still has a very filmic look to it, I suppose. And I hate, like, nowadays you can't use the word filmic or cinematic without a bunch of people on YouTube jumping out of the computer and strangling you. So I try not to. But it does have that look. And there was a few questions I actually wanted to ask you about that. one in the let development what are you aiming for obviously you said clean blacks but like

color wise for instance the neighborhood watch guys I noticed they're red berets that is not a digital red that red is definitely like you know deepened how would you say it in da Vinci resolve terms it's been it's been heightened yeah um so like what other colors are you shifting around because Because digital, I mean, the Sony Venice is an amazing camera, but what colors are you manipulating and how are you manipulating to get them away from digital and into more, let's say, film-like? I remember that the reference for 1980s and the way how we built a lot was somehow a still from the headless woman. It's Lucrezia Martell's still, and I love that film so much. much. I love the framing of it. I love I love Lucretia Martel. I mean, she's just incredible director. And there is a moment where the character is in the Sion bathroom. And I don't know

whether there is a red or maybe we're just made up, but in my head there is, but they might not. So somehow that becomes sort of a reference for building the lot. So I think, uh, I had some lies. So it's just, you know, it's a bit of trial and error a little bit because I think when, when I do camera test, I want to do as many days of camera tests as I can. And the producer said, no, you have one day. And I said, that's never enough. So you sort of try to steal as many, as many days as you can do.

So, you know, whenever I went to, I went to Ari and I filmed something. And then I did the camera test and I filmed something. And then we took, we did the hair and makeup test, which obviously was very informative. So we looked at the different color temperatures. And then I took that, the camera out on the street as well, which actually I think that's what was the basis of building the 1980s light a lot because it was quite blue and siony. So we pushed the science for sure. And then the reds actually stay. from so we had a 2022 look which was a sort of a rough replication to what season one was

but with our own interpretation of it so we didn't want to do too many different things but we've changed the way how blacks reacted and highlights and midtones because sort of you know the lots only worked to your style of lighting and from that point we did a test on the tungsten fixture, which was this and the exterior should become a basis for all the 1980s. So we push the science. We sort of reds were the same, but maybe we made them a little bit deeper. We made the stock slightly more contrasty, and I think it just sat, the midter's sat a little bit lower than the rest, more less. I mean, it just meant to feel a bit more contrasty.

I think that's the idea, is the simulation of the, of the film's dogs. So I had a couple of references. One was from Headless Woman. Then we had the Mean Street as well. There was a shot on the street. So sort of the idea was that, you know, we have a cruder type of light to then allow everything else to be darker. Because, you know, if you expose everything,

in New York and you do period, then you're going to see all sorts of problems. But when you make it more contrasty, the VFX is going to be better. And actually, you know, it's it's more in tune to what, how films have been shot that time. Yeah, that, you know, that brings me, so this is how terrible my notes are, that none of this is connected. This is all over. It's like, I have to stare at it and I'm like, what did I mean by that? But one thing that you kind of touched on it is, so you say the, but it doesn't feel like a low budget film at all,

although you could, I suppose you could into it that like, you know, this isn't a Marvel production. You know, the setups are relatively simple. They're not like super exaggerated or anything. And I was wondering if you could kind of walk me through some of the, maybe like, for instance, on the, on the, on the, platform or in the subway, just as one example, or in the house that Charlito Copley's in, those lighting setups seem very simple. And if you were to just take a camera and go shoot with overhead practicals, it would not look cinematic.

So what are you doing to adjust those things and achieve a look that looks that good? You know, Emmy nominated good versus just toplight, you know, from whatever fluorescence. So I actually, you know what? I spent long hours walking around New York streets and did a lot of freaking out. Because and then, you know, I can't have a condor on every street. But if we expose characters, if we expose characters to the ambient light, it's just not going to look right for any period. So the system has become. come is that I had a, what, a nine light, mainly nine light, tungsten for, for backlight.

And the good thing, the saving grace of the shoot was that we only could see one side of the street, because that's the side we could hide with the period cars, because during the pandemic, New York regulation is that you can only dress one side of the street, the other one has to be as untouched. and accessible to the resident. Or at least we can't do anything about that. So it was always trying to find and build a little tower for the backlight. So most of the streets have backlight. And I think that's like one really important factor.

A, Natasha's hair look fabulous when it's backlit. And B, also, it is such a different look to the season one of the modern time. And we really needed to continue having this philosophy or being in the period. So backlight was the other. There's one thing. And then for, because most of the shots are sort of tracking shots. And I put, me and my gaffer, Jared Melanchin put zap lights, sometimes diffused, sometimes open face for sort of like an effect. So they're sort of...

You're saying zip lights? Zip lights. Yeah. I was called the Zapp lights. Well, for all I know, that's one I don't know about us. I had to make sure. I think I said it's zap light to somebody else the other day. Zip light, indeed.

You know, the soft boxes, because they're sort of soft and hard. So a lot of front lighting is... The period stuff is lit by that. And then every now and then, we always put some color in it. mainly, I think, 013 and maybe CTS, I don't remember, I think both. Sometimes, you know, most of the time I think they were dimmed and then when they come to close, we just put a little diffusion, but they were, they were sort of, you know, they were just direct straight onto faces.

So, so you've got that sort of street light effect a little bit. And because the lot was so contrasty, which was the idea and I wanted to shoot it on deeper stop, which not always worked. They, that's my partner. They, they sort of worked, you know, it created that contrast where everything else went more to the darkness. And it was tricky. It was very tricky because a lot of the time we sort of, when we got a street,

we couldn't really say, oh, this doesn't work. There was one street when I did. say please let's change the location because we and that that end up being in Tompkins square um i just couldn't figure it out i i it's just it i wouldn't know how to light it it was a 360 um around nadia and nora and i was like i just have nowhere to hide the lights you know and and and continue with that idea uh so uh and it made more sense actually i think Natasha really loved that and it did become the culmination scene of the app one, but it created Michelle the location a lot of problems because we had to find a flat or an exit connecting to

Tompkins Square and there was a lot of hot zones there. So I mean the locations have done incredible job, but it was it looked great. Like I was very happy with where we were where we ended up shooting and it made sense. And I think Natasha loved it. It was just connecting. It's just the connectivity because a lot of stuff with Russian dough is almost immediate. So one connects to another. And you want to have some sort of continuity of location rather than going from, I don't know.

Especially when you're in New Yorker, you kind of know you go on the 23rd Street and then you end up on the second. I mean, everyone would know. Yeah, right, right. They do that in Westworld a lot, I've noticed. When they're playing L.A., you're like, all right. that's Santa Monica and that's downtown you didn't leave that exit liars yeah and you know what as a londoner it drives me insane when people people do the same thing in london in london drama i was like of course it's not connecting so yeah and it was super important for natasha to to and i i was like

i'm 100% behind you i totally understand what you're saying you know what's funny is uh i just saw the stat that so there's more people in l a county than in like 30 or 40 states like and so you think someone who's like making those oh yeah they get off on the street no one's going to know it's like actually statistically more people will know

yeah that's funny yeah like this yeah the actually and also to your point about Natasha's hair's looking great in the backlight there's a few shots in that first episode where you just straight up

shoot dead into the backlight it's in the shot And I was just, I appreciated it. I appreciated the brazenness. That, that wasn't that. That was the desperation. That was like, oh my God, hopefully, it doesn't look like a lamp. Yeah, it happened once and it gives me huge dabbies.

We had bad day that day. It was terrible day. You know, there was always a bad day. That was that day. So by the time when we shot the scene, it was like, I just said to the steady come operator, just do whatever. you can. And you went, okay, we'll go lower. The, were you trying to avoid something in the background?

Oh, God. I mean, Devin had to avoid, especially with Stadicum, you know, it's like the streets of New York are not very wide when you go around the, the Lower East Side. So, yeah, you have to, you have to avoid a lot of stuff. Well, to be fair, it totally looks like it, it, it sells as a street light. I know it wasn't, but it, you know, deep e-brain. Bust it. Yeah, but that's fine. You got nominated for an Emmy. No one's, it's giving everyone permission to do the same thing.

Actually, my friend, I interviewed him on this. We went to college together. He got nominated for an Emmy for outstanding social interest documentary or whatever that is. So I'm hoping between the two of you, I can get some of that rubbed off on me and maybe get a job. You talk about that one? No, it's called. in the dark of the valley. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very good documentary. And weirdly enough, and again, it's just my friends from college. Most, second most listened to podcast episode we've ever done by a huge margin. And it's like three buddies from Arizona State, like talking about the documentary, two of them made. You know, it's incredible. It's funny how things like that can happen. I wanted to actually, well,

I'll stick in this realm for the game, not the Fincher film, but the television show you did, which I tried to get on Blu-ray, but yeah, I have to buy it on Amazon as like a down as like a streamer, which I have not done yet, but I've seen. I was awake last night. And so I was looking at some of the stills from it and the shots you got inside, even those offices, those kind of like brutalist offices are very they're very pretty and i was wondering if you had advice for turning make making an office like i guess this is a larger question about like shooting modifying practicals and and sort of massaging existing light into light that you want

and then secondarily like would you say that your style kind of sits in trying to make everything seems single source or am i making that up in my head no i i mean i haven't thought of it but probably um it has to feel like it's a part of the um don't know i'll get back to you um we had an incredible designer on the show uh sadly dead uh michael howell cowles um i it was my first um night exterior, I shot my first interior where I could modify it and add fixtures. Like, I was so green. It was a long time ago. And Michael built sets with pivot windows, you know, pivot.

Yeah, the whole glass room, the glass rooms when they were going and talking about there, which I think you must have seen one of the stills. Um, they were all sort of on, on little swivels. I didn't, I didn't even know that you can do stuff like that. Right. To kill reflections. Yeah. And camera, camera shadows people, uh, to, to some degree.

Um, but, um, and it was really interesting because the gaffer didn't really, uh, Andrew Taylor, we, we sort of, um, so an eye to eye at the end, but I think he didn't like the idea of a top light and I wanted to. It didn't quite work out this way, but I wanted to do as much as I could with already lit set. So Michael and I talked a lot about practicals. I drove him totally insane. And I wanted to have wall lights pretty much everywhere. And then in the Brutelist library, we had so many pictures put up.

And we created patterns from it. So it looks good on camera. and it looks good for lighting, so we have them diffused. And it was such a, I don't know, like I look at this show and I sort of don't know how I knew stuff and I fought for a lot of things, but I kind of couldn't really quite understand why it was just sort of like a gut instinct and a lot of help from other people. But I knew that there is a certain element, like, you know, I knew that there has to be as many fixtures I could. They have to be in the middle. They had to create one single light

source. Otherwise, they're just not going to, you know, I want the walls to go to shadows as much as I could. So, and that location was so fabulous. I don't really know whether it exists anymore. It was an old library, which they were moving out to the modern one. And we just got permission. It was just so last minute. We had so much. people working on it because by the time when the deal was made for us to film in there, I think we're almost shooting or we were like a week before. So we did a lot of locations first and then somehow I've managed to convince Brian Cox to shoot nights with us. The other DP, Sam McCurdy, was a little bit smarter and he blacked out the whole atrium. I didn't know that you

you could do it either and but but there was a couple of shots I remember um because because the idea within the game is that anyone can spy on each other um so we had those shots sort of long zoom shots of uh you know of all those um uh um flaws with people working on it and we sort of i think we were zooming out that was the beginning sequence the beginning sort of just pre the pre-just, pre the titles, I think, I don't remember. But it was, I mean, I'm superbly proud of it. You know, it's like things like there has been Miners blackout and I didn't know how to do Moonlight.

I just knew that I really like Wendy Light because I've seen it. I have been lucky enough to be on film sets before as an assistant. And I've been lucky enough on my last job as an assistant, I was making sure that Chris Menges had all the lighting notes because he loved having his lighting setups done. So me and the best boy, the best boy was really writing everything down and I was sort of, you know, I was studying carefully, driving Chris crazy. But I actually realized that that was the best film school I have ever had because when it came

round to working on the game and having lighting setups, I knew how Wendy likes looked like and I knew that it's going to give me a spread and I knew that it's got to be okay. And I really don't like two pingy highlights. So I try to, although that wasn't part of the Russian doll, like Russian doll, I wanted to have spread and pink. But um, yeah, the skin tone very pink. Pardon. Natasha's skin tone is like very white, but also pink undertones. Yeah. She did get pink, especially for the 1944s.

Because we did a lot of, we did sort of like our version of two strip technicaler. Anyway, but you know, it's like Wendy lights is just a 650 small bulbs in 48. I think that's a half Wendy. 48 fixture or 128 I think that's a full windy because it comes with four tiles and it's an incredible light yeah is 99 to something like that you don't got enough that's what Gaffir's job is um is there anything that you uh it sounds it sounds like you learned quite a bit in that project because one thing I did want to ask you was like when you get a new script, how do you balance excitement about wanting to do it versus the fear

of not knowing how to do it? And what did you learn from that project? You panic and then you learn on the job. I mean, I was very scared. I mean, it's just, I think you look at things and you learn and you ask people questions. I think I was really lucky enough to have a I was never afraid to ask questions if I didn't know something, because especially in a project that large. And I think consecutively on every project, if I didn't know, I had always somebody who I can ask a question. And sometimes asking question doesn't give you the answer you want or I want it,

but it led me to the answer, oh, I don't want that, which was great as well. So asking questions sometimes is just so helpful because it just manages, at least in my case, manages to sort of get my thoughts put together. And then, you know, there's only a certain amount of solutions to something. I don't know. I think it's that and sort of not quite not quite realizing how big a challenge it is. being quite naive, which is great.

But I'm super happy with the game, and it sort of looks exactly how I wanted it. So it was great. That's awesome. You know, I, well, actually talking about the Chris Mangy's thing. I do have a note that says it's for dirty, pretty things, if anyone wants to watch.

When having all those notes about contrast ratios, I think this is something that beginner cinematographer don't quite grasp is how limited contrast ratios should be, I suppose. And I'm throwing should in huge air quotes. But, you know, like a three to one ratio on a face is actually quite contrasting. You know, like half a stop, a quarter of a stop really does matter in a lot of cases. I was wondering if you could kind of speak to maybe if you remember at that point when you realized like how kind of precise you had to be with lighting because these days especially with you know LEDs and those pigtail bulbs you buy on Amazon and stuff people just plop them up and go it's lit and you're like well you can see it I think nowadays I mean so so I think what film is different so my first job I did two jobs with Chris Mangus the first job I was a trainee that was their

to bring things and the last job was not on the scandal and on that job during prep I go into the film school and become unbearable because I was following him everywhere. This is a little tape recorder. Yeah. I really, I'm really sorry. But, but the, on dirty pretty things, I was super green and because it was my first job really in the industry. But Chris asked me to do Polaroid still, and then measure the highlight and the shadow on faces. So I was walking around with light meter, and I sort of looked at Judy there.

No, that was different films. I did that to do Dens as well, but I was looking at the highlight and shadows on faces and writing it down with a pen on his polaroid and then put it in his script. And I don't know, like I think if somebody are, allows you to do something like that, there is a lot of memory which you can retrieve later because I didn't really start lighting until like five, six years later. But I do remember those

lessons. I don't know what I think about the contrast level now. I think a lot of things can change within how contrasty or lattice. But I do have a certain aesthetics to it, but also it depends on the show and it depends, TV drama is very fast-paced, you know. We don't really have time too much to finesse lighting, you know, a lot of the time you, a lot of the time, you know, you're slightly behind and things don't go exactly the way how we sort of want it. And I always think about scenes and stills, so sort of, you know, have a one image, one setup, which sort of, you know, summarize the story, summarize that moment and then sort of take it from there. So always try to strive for a still, which I'm really happy.

And a lot of the times is then coverage. I think if you can have silhouette, it sort of really depends on a location as well. And I'm very prepared. I try to be as prepared as I can. But things change on set as well. oh, actors change their blocking, you know, that's, that's totally fine. Yeah. Was just that much contrast necessarily on Russian dough.

I think with, you know, Natasha also had a, she had a fringe and then hair next to the face. You know, it's, it does limit the way how your key light, um, yeah, be placed. Yeah, it is actually, now that you mention it, there isn't really on people's faces. It isn't very contrasty at all. The, the scene is, but they are pretty. even. And I think it was really not, you know, it was very important for Natasha. So, you know, you get hired as a cinematographer on a project, but, but, and, and, you know,

there is a lot of flexibility to what we can do. But also there is a desire of the creators, um, of how the show should look like. And I think we should have to be respectful of it. So there is a certain requirement, requirement from Natasha. And I was like, fine, you know, this is style of the show. we can create contrast in a different way. Yeah. Actually, that's a perfect segue.

I wanted to know what it's like to work with a director who's also the main character and how that differs from working with a director who's fully behind the camera. Well, the thing is that Rassando was directed by Natasha and Alex. You know, they had fantastic Alex Bueno. They had a fantastic collaboration together. They had a lot of trust together. And, you know, I think it was tricky for Natasha at times because obviously it's a very different hut. But I was not only working with Natasha.

We also had Alex. And Alex was on set every day. They've been discussing choices together among themselves. And then we discussed them together with heads of department, myself, you know, Diane and, you know, whoever was. So, um, but I always had a director with me. You know, it's, um, if not two of them, then there was one. And, and when Natasha wasn't, um, in front of the camera, then, then, you know, she was, she was close to us.

So yeah, it didn't make that much difference, to be honest. And also, Natasha, I think by the time we were, where we're filming, you know, things already haven't decided more, more or less, you know. Sure. Yeah, there's, uh, I can't remember. which actor it was but i remember one i think it was a guy saying that the best piece of advice he got was uh if you're the director to make sure that you get one more take because like i guess actors who are directors just want to get like they don't want to feel veins so they're like i'll do it in two

you know and the guy was like no just like do it until you get it don't be an asshole everyone's standing around making sure you do it good i think there's definitely but i think that's universally i think the scene has to feel right but You know, people get caught up in a moment. You know, sometimes it might not feel right and it is right. Sometimes it feels right and it isn't right. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It wasn't my saving grace with Russian doll was that I really wanted to do

and be part of the storyboarding session. And I don't know how it is in America, but in Europe, you're always very involved within the camera, lens ink, and woodboard. So it feels very collaborative. And I think we had about a month on and off sort of in between of scouting where Peter Beck, Natasha and Alex and myself sat for hours on Zoom, you know, getting deliveries or cooking and then breaking down majority of the script, you know, at least in its main sequences. So that was, we were, we were sort of quite prepared from it. We had an idea of what we're going to do, all of us. Sure.

Yeah. I think over here it kind of depends on, I think it can go either way. I've heard plenty of stories. People like, yeah, showed up on the day. But I think those are like commercials, not necessarily script and stuff. I did. Go ahead. I think people have a very different style of working.

And I think that there are people who, who prepare like, their directors who prepare themselves and they want to know like they said the shots where we're going to make a story this is the minimum amount of shots and then we discuss it on set there's some people who say oh let's figure out how we're going to shoot it on the day when the actors come in I think there's just there really isn't a set rules totally I was actually just reminded again by my ridiculous notes there's a great amount of especially at beginning of that first episode, interplay between warm and cool light, you know, key lights, or I guess it kind of depends, but like keys seem to be kind of warm, feel a little cool.

And I was wondering if maybe you could walk, walk us through your methodology behind mixing color temperatures, because especially on digital, I feel like it can be harder. It gets muddier than film. Or do I have that backwards? I feel like film shows color contrast a lot easier, whereas with digital. digital, you kind of have to, like, goose it a little bit. I didn't notice that. I mean, the thing would I like about, I think there's a expert.

There's certain camera sensors which do get muddier. But a lot of the time, I think the rule, for me, at least the rule is the same. If you have a healthy, if you have a healthy negative and you don't under expose too much, and that's the style, you know, I've seen people underexposing ven, where they rated it 64,000 just to have a very thin neck and that's a part of the look and it looks really beautiful. But if you want to have healthy contrast and heavy blacks, then you have to create contrast. Otherwise it just doesn't work. And then within the color separation, I mean, I found I suppose both LF and Venice are very good Alexa LF and then I'm testing Alexa 35 tomorrow.

when I'm filming. So I will let you know, I think they have a very healthy way of color separation. You know, the sensors are pretty amazing. So I didn't have that problem, really. Well, were you sort of setting sort of just a regular tungsten daylight sources and then plop in the setting the camera to like 4,300 or were, was there a little more finesse there? So with Russian d'all, we had four lats. Each lad had a different, different feel to it.

The most important part was to differentiate the lots in the, around the circular train and the, you know, the train story because she obviously travels. There is a moment where she travels from 22 to 80s and so on. and so we wanted to like with that in mind we wanted to make sure that there's different color temperatures I can shoot on anything color temperature wise it could be 6,500 to to I don't think I done 2,700 but I'm sure that it could happen but unlikely so you know it could be tanks then it could be it could be daylight color temperature I think it's just sort of how it feels right and I and I'm made notes of what sort of is predominant color feel and then obviously we we chose the fixtures to complement it

so the 60s were warmer the idea is that there is more tanks than light around it so the lat reflected that and then 1944 was a little bit of the experiment we didn't know what it's going to work because uh we had all these setups in caletti station at night and i just didn't know um we knew that we wanted to have a i think atila atila duchy was our gaffer in um in in budapest and he was he didn't want to have any backlight and i was like we need to have backlight he's like that's old and i think we had the HMI at the time. I think we put 9K, which is very unusual for me. But it's the only source which could give us punch and where we can find the place. So there was a gun tree just above

and we put it on a corner. And it, you know, it worked out really nicely, but we didn't know whether that lot is going to work. We created that lot without really having the proper lighting set up for it. So that's obviously really scary because I haven't been working with the DIT. I mean, we had the DIT. We had a lovely DIT, but it was very quick shoot. So we really haven't had time to build any language together. And but it worked.

And Greg, our colorist would say, of course it worked. But I didn't know. You know, that is the one advantage to a lot of these modern, you know, your LFs, your Venice's, your Alexa 35s is, that sort of digital negative, so to speak, is so robust that you can move those colors around quite a bit. And usually you can get away with it, you know, especially when you're shooting raw. Yeah. Yeah. Because, yeah, you're not baked into anything. And we did shoot raw on this. We had a lot of visual effects and I wanted to shoot as best quality as I could.

Yeah. What was it going to say? Oh, boy. This is where we start cutting things. Oh, lenses. So you said that you, in a separate interview, that you had shot ball tars for the older stuff and and Lycas for the newer stuff, correct? So we had, yeah, we had boltars for 80s and 60s. And then when we went to Budapest, we got super ball tars, which are 1960s lenses. And then like C summolyx, simicron, symax, I never remember which one on the switch. I can't, I never keep them. What's the difference? Stop. I actually. Oh, okay.

One is one four and the other one is, I think, T2 or T2 on, something like that. Gotcha. And were you shooting those baltars wide open? No. Now, most of the time, I try to keep it at least two eight. In ideal world, everything would be shot T4, but I, you know, sometimes we just couldn't. I was going to say that because the texture of the Baltars really comes through in a lot, like even just like in simple shots, like in the bathroom where she's first learning. It's the first episode, whatever, she's her mom.

And I was like, do I give this away? It's like, first episode, come on. But that texture is really is very fun. And I think there is a difference between, and this is for the maybe the younger DPs out there, there's a difference between shooting something wide open and having a lens with texture. Because wide open can just look fuzzy with no sensibility. And texture, you can shoot at a T4 or whatever and still get that cool, fudgy vignette thing going on or whatever the lens might do.

Yeah. I mean, we, we, I think that bathroom was actually shot to, that was wide open, which was fine. But the streets were two eight at least, two eight and a half at least. So I just wanted to see more depth, that especially it was all, the whole philosophy was all about contrast and deeper stop. And then, you know, there was a leeway, creatively way to other things. I mean, it's a modern Nadia in an old body, you know. Yeah. I actually, can you speak to any risks you took on this film?

This is something that I've recently with guests on this show, started realizing that I, that doesn't get asked a lot. Because a lot of times when you get hired for these jobs, some people have said like you, you don't take any risks. Like, you're hired to get this thing in the can and do it properly. Were there any times where you were kind of like pushing your limit a little bit and maybe like a little nervous about making a choice that you thought was maybe good creatively.

I think they sketchy. The whole train sequence was was very nerve-wracking because we, I mean, when I'm saying, going back to what I said, when I'm saying low budget, you know, obviously we had a budget, but it was stretched and building LED walls. You know, the question, the question you ask yourself is like is this conviction we had is like could it work on black

or could it work with green you know could we do anything cheaper and and still look the same and actually now I'm looking at it it led to so many creative wonderful shots but the shot where Nadia goes from train to train I mean that wasn't from train to train there was like a tiny little butt end of a train and then she goes into our main train. So we just framed exactly the tiny, tiny little button of it. The guideline just right up against the wall. Exactly. Or the cut. Yeah. You know, that, that shot was never planned and actually, and actually looks rather fabulous. And it looks heightened and it looks, you know, you know that you're in some sort of LED screen. I think your eye can, can notice that.

But it's so heightened, so elevated. It's actually one of my more favorite shots. So, and then all this sort of extra reflections you have, you know, these details who you probably wouldn't have put in post because there's only as much imagination we can have in creating sort of, so that, you know, all the shots outside of the of the carriage, I was sitting with an iPod, by the monitor and just looping stuff, which I thought was interesting for emotional beat. You know, so it's already baked in within the shots.

And it was great because there are like little moments where there was, it just, it just felt right. So it's like, oh, now is the train or now we're going to do the light effect or, you know, it's, it's, we had more control to sort of emote things with lighting. Yeah, you can, you can, like, art design your light a little bit more. Yeah, because, like, even some of the, I remember, like, the sort of effect when she's going back to the 80s is, it's kind of like 2001-y. You know, it's a little, a little bit of this thing, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're all big fun of it. Actually, I went to see in the South Bank again, I went to see 2001 with London. in Philharmonic Orchestra.

Wow. And it was absolutely, I mean, this is from cinematic viewpoint, you know, you've got, when the orchestra is playing, there's a lot of spill of light onto the screen. But the actual, that's almost going, almost the full loop to our first question. The musical experience of it was just so far. you know like when you when you listen to something live music wise it just

heightens your perception of the movie it was just truly extraordinary and the sequence with the slit screen you know you when he's traveling I just I just had good goosebumps all the way through it was just the best thing ever the the vocals on that that arrangement specifically are fucking haunting. Like, sometimes that just pops up in my head and I'm like, I get out of there. So there was a live choir on both ends.

So we had an orchestra in the, in the middle. And then the male and female choirs sort of, you know, singing against each other because it's like a, it's like a jewel. Yeah. Oh, that must have been so cool. It really was. That's, you know, that's the true. People say film versus digital and others, live versus recorded.

that's the real that's the real difference i guess that is what we were saying at the beginning uh actually going back to the beginning you know one of my favorite moments on this podcast i've ever had and i know i got to let you go soon it was a little later than i expected but uh one of my favorite moments on this podcast is i was talking to tim ives about photography and uh and he was like oh uh do you want to see some photo books and i was like yeah and then he spent like 25 minutes walking me through his favorite photo books It's the best moment ever. And I had read somewhere that you have a large collection of photo books.

I don't know it was a large. It's never enough. Yeah, well, that's more what I meant. You obsessively collect them when you can. Yeah, I just ordered another one. I'm really into, at the moment, I'm really into this Australian. It's actually, it's Trent Park, but it's him and his wife. Also, his wife photographs are incredible.

I've ordered another audition of that. And he's just so fabulous. This one is his one, one, one, Quinzen line. But I love his, he actually was really interesting because I think his first photographs was sort of, he was walking around with Elford, 3,200 ISO and try to photograph one of the iconic photographs I remember is the sort of like heavily overexposed but sort of long exposure with this sort of huge highlights.

It's one of the buildings in Australia, I don't know, is Sydney or Melbourne, very grainy. and with just those sort of highly overexposed moments. One is like an overexposed person. They're all extremely haunting, but very familiar. Just because of this incredible eye of making something ordinary, extremely heightened. Yeah. Are there, is there a photo book that's kind of like your white whale, like the one that you, your Holy Grail that you're trying to,

get a hold of because photo books can get very expensive or they only printed like 10 of them. I really wanted to get the, um, at the Crohn's, which I did in the end. Uh, the, uh, the William Eggostone. It took me a long time to get it without like paying totally ridiculous amount of money. Right. Uh, I really love anything by, uh, Rhinco Chi. She's a photographer. She's Japanese photographer. Um, she's just so, I, I, I, I came across her exhibition in photographer's gallery and I just stumbled upon it. I never heard of her and it was the photographs of her family and there was so much storytelling in there. She's really truly wonderful. No, I don't think so. I think it's like a lot of, oh, I really like

I think, Henry Gouier, he did, one of my favorite books is the TV shots, and it's signed by him. Oh, wow. I've never heard of that. Hold on, I need to open this. One second. Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay. I think, I mean. I'm trying to find that book, but I can't at this moment. It's somewhere.

Books. And, you know, I love so lighter and... Yeah, I can't get any of those books. They're all too expensive. Oh, really? I've got Diane Arbus, Vivian Mayer, you know. I'll show you a... I'll show you too.

This one is very fun. Hollywood and Kota Chrome. Oh, yeah. I just love like all these. It's very interesting to see all these like old, old lighting setups and stuff. Like getting photos of Lucille Ball in color is just a very strange experience to me,

especially when she's done up all, you know, very pretty. So now you cost me money. That's great. No, this one's actually in print, so you can get this one, Rita Hayworth and stuff. No, no, but now I have to buy it. It's very cool. It's a nice old thick guy, too. Hollywood and Codacrom.

Hold on. I need to write it down because there's no way. I truly think it's like $30 or $40. Like, it wasn't that expensive. I got it on Amazon. What was? Does this say? Right.

Okay. In. I can't find the price on this thing for the Lifeman. That's all right. but before I let you go and ask you the last two questions I will brag I have the oh yes I got it too but is it signed oh very nice the most likes I've ever gotten on Instagram photo me standing next to Roger Deacons and his wife she was funny she was like you can tell he didn't I mean I'm sure he wanted to be there but you could tell she

was like, say hello, go pushing him around. You go. James is clearly the energy behind that movement. Anyway, I like to end every podcast with the same two questions. Kind of works for TV shows, but not quite. First one being, if you were to program season two of Russian doll in a double feature, so to speak, what would the other film or television series be? Pardon? So like, it only really works for movies, so you're kind of have to do a bit of a mental exercise.

Okay. So you're programming at like a festival, and Russian doll season two is going to be in a double feature. What do you make the other film or series that people see? Not mine. Yeah. I mean, it can be, but it can be whatever you want. Russian Dole in seven? there you go

we can take that that'll be a good one you know I was interviewing Jeff Cronin with for the I Love Lucy film he did what's being the Riccardo's and I was like what would you do for a double feature

and he goes Alien versus Predator good one dude I really actually another experience I had and I'm a massive fun is alien, you know, the, the first alien. One of the best, on Blu-ray, incredible. So I went to see it in the, in the Albert Hall,

and with the Life Orchestra as well. And that was amazing. Projected on 35? I don't know, actually. Because it's like, it's always like the picture is secondary. I have seen it in the cinema. Um, but you know that the film, which I was extremely lucky to see, um, uh, which, uh, in the, in the cinema, uh, fairly recently, um, is an Altman movie, uh, which Robert, which Oliver Stapleton, um, uh, has shot. And is it Kansas City? Hold on. Let me just check. Uh, I always remember is the one with the jazz and, and, um, um, um, um.

Yeah, Kansas City. And that was, the print was the original print intended with the silver highlights. So it was the bleach bypass. Wow. Which bypass. E&R? No. Yeah, bleed bypass.

So we've got this sort of silver highlight. Yeah. Amazing blacks. And on the print. print. I don't think I've ever seen a projection of, because I live relatively close to Quentin Tarantino's theater. You know, they only show 35. But so like I got to see the Matrix in there. That was cool. Like an original print of the Matrix, original print of Fight Club and stuff. Oh, like no, fight club. There we go. That was E&R. That was tons of bleach bypass. Yeah.

Yeah, that is definitely like, that's a weird, that's like the, the OLED of film, you know, where it just goes black. It was so incredible. I mean, I love that film, but I love the cinematography of it. I thought it was, you know, Oliver's one of the best work I've seen. And just fabulous sequences of the musicians where, you know, musical numbers. I actually really love films with big music. I think, you know, yeah, that was pretty awesome, actually.

There's definitely a running streak. That goes back to your question. I don't know. I can't differentiate that. The music and the cinema is all the same, right? That's my answer. Well, so that's kind of my, I agree. I try not to, I have a problem where I will ask a question, but I, I'm not trying to get an answer,

but in the question, I will say what I think, and I have to stop doing that. But I also agree. It's, I think it's all the same. When you're with people, obviously live music is going to definitely affect, because the like the dynamic range of the sounds that are coming to you and the mixing, you know, anytime you see a recording of something or listen to a recording of something, it's compressed into whatever that format allows. Whereas when you hear something live, it's completely expressive in all of its glory.

But we respond to music, I think, more than visuals. We definitely invented music before we invented film. You know, we can't. We came out the shoot and started beating on rocks or whatever, you know. Percussion especially. I want to start interviewing musicians for this podcast because I started as a musician as a drummer. And so as a drummer. And then I kind of got into guitar a little bit.

I can sort of play guitar. But I've always been musically minded. And I'm always trying to draw parallels between music and cinematography. And I have yet to be able to articulate that. I want to find some musicians who really love film because I know there's a ton and kind of have that weird little conversation there in the Venn diagram that is those two brains, you know. You see, I want to listen to it because I had a big discussion with my musician friend

and she thought that the music is different to cinematography. And I said it isn't, but I couldn't really quite articulate why. And it is different. So I don't know. if you find that if you find people who will answer that dilemma i'm going to send her that thought i need it yeah all right perfect i'll all right so i'm gonna i was about to ask the second last question and i swear to god we'll let you go uh but now i'm going to tack in this third one um oh no it's gone oh uh did you did uh did you spend a lot of time watching um

dvd special features no i don't think so although i did like the criterion uh you know during lockdown we just watch a lot of old films and then i remember the um uh the m was it the the f ritz langs movie yeah yeah um that was the um that was the making off all sort of i think they they do like a small documentary afterwards and it was his first sound movie he's made and there are sequences where it's silent which is quite extraordinary

so he goes into the whole the sound design and then there are moments where characters in white spaces and there's nothing and he uses it in such a clever way that is just extremely successful without knowing it was like super instinctive and that there was a documentary on criterion on it

and same with the foreign correspondent and and Hitchcock that was a pretty amazing one sorry well no I was going to say my my pandemic project was collecting criteria and blueres and just banging through the special features the reason I ask is because I was a special features kid in the 90s especially and early 2000s and I want to create a streaming platform just for those because I bet the rights to the DVD special features aren't very expensive. But so far a lot of the DPs I've talked to have said that's a good idea. So now I just got to like put it in the ether like someone with money come find me. And I will figure those out.

And especially if it's the right one, you know, if it's informative. I think a lot of the times it's sort of more publicity led. Nowadays, yes, especially. It's very frustrating. back in like the early the 90s to early 2000 like there was about a decade and a half where DVD special features were all super educational and they weren't

PR companies you know making oh it was so great to work with this actor it was like I remember I mentioned this before on a different podcast but there's one I remember where they like someone was filming the director like having an argument with the oh there I mean there's a famous video of David Lynch

blowing up on a producer about not having enough time but stuff like that's informative in many different ways okay final question then you can go you'll need to come back and then we can just do you know have a whole have a whole evening is there a piece of advice or something you've read or maybe a lesson that you've learned that has stuck with you over the years that keeps coming back. I think it's just sort of maintaining the level of curiosity and and and and and making sure that, um, questioning if it's familiar, what is always right.

I don't know. Is it, uh, I think it's being curious. I think that's, that's really the, um, that, that sort of level and the curiosity can be about anything, but I think it's, if you have it and you have a passion for a project, uh, you know you there's always a nice unexpected element and the other thing is I you know take us take stills I think that's a great way of um I sometimes interview students for the film school help out during the selection process not the final and and it's really exciting to look at people's like Instagram nowadays just give such amazing insights to the taste to the wandering

And I think that, that, you know, that could be for everyone. You know, it's anyone in a visual medium can express their, their interest through stills. They don't need to be cinematic. But they, they really do exercise your point of view, I think. Yeah, your storytelling brain, as it were. Oh, curiosity of what interests you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

that's fantastic advice i i personally i will co-sign it i that's something i always have to remind myself to do it's like don't get you i do you have your own instagram do you have stales i do you know i have to get better at first i was because i started that long story short i used to work for red bull and when instagram first came out red bull basically bought in wholesale they knew like this is going to be the new thing so they had all of the employees create an instagram and but at first It was just like advertising and trying to show, oh, we have live cool lifestyles, but I did not live a cool lifestyle. I was a nerd. So it was a lot of nerdy, dumb shit at first.

And then now, you know, whatever, it's fucking like 12 years later. I'm trying to be a little more. I'm trying to curate it a little bit more and show good photography and stuff. Not just like for about two years there. I was just showing funny license plates that I found. Okay, but that's fun. Hashtag Kenny's back of cars. So what made you being interested in cinema?

What was your first cinematic experience? You know, I remember being a kid of the 90s, obviously it was like Star Wars, you know, was huge. Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory was very big for me for some reason. Just like the fantasy. I lived in a very, very small town and the closest movie theater was 30 minutes away. And we would make that pilgrimage as much as possible because there was just nothing to do. So anything that was escapism was very important to me because I didn't like being in my house. I didn't like staring at, you know, vineyards.

And so what sucks is that meant that I, I wouldn't say it sucks. But like that meant I was, you know, men in black was really cool, the Matrix. Anything that was just not pure escapism in the sense of, you know, frivolous fun, but just. anything that wasn't reality, which meant that I took a very long time to start watching films that were more edifying, you know, basically anything that was in the Criterion collection, you know, stuff like The Godfather, not interesting, it's too real, you know, I wanted space, I wanted, you know, anything that was that was out there. And then Jackass, but Jackass was very, very real.

That was very real. That was a bit too real. I wish it was fantasy. But I completely understand. I mean, Matrix, when they came out, that was amazing. That blew my mind. That was definitely the first film I remember watching. And it just combined, you know, like metal music, this dark look that I had started to discover. I liked, like, cyberpunkiness, which I was, again, giant nerd building my own computers at, like, nine.

Kung Fu. It was just all the things that a teenage boy needed. you know and luckily it it transcended that there's plenty of films that now I say I like and people like don't don't tell people that you know you grow up you can say you liked clerks but then when you say you liked mallrats people are like wow how about dog money you're like okay very funny yeah so that's a little something about me for the listeners I won't cut it out I won't cut out stuff, but I try, I try to talk less about me because no one fucking cares. I haven't done anything.

You know, it's you guys that are far more interesting. But, again, I would love to have you back on when you have some more time to just shoot the shit, because I think we could probably go for quite some time. But I will let you go. Thank you so much for spending the hour and some change with me. And congrats on the eminom. That's, I'm, I don't want to say confident, but I'm, No, no, no, that's excited to see what happens.

You know what? It has been real, I'm always very, very rubbish at it. It's been so much fun. Thank you for making me feel comfortable. Great start with death metal, I think. That was in, the right in. Perfect. Awesome.

Yeah. Thanks again, and I had a great time, too. I'm glad to hear that it was fun for you as well. It was. 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-Mapbox logo, was designed by Nate Truax of Truaxe 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. Thank you.