Frame & Reference Podcast - 78: "Bruiser" DP Justin Derry

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

On this weeks episode Kenny talks with Justin Derry, cinematographer behind the the film "Bruiser" which just showed at TIFF. The film follows a 14-year-old boy who turns to a charismatic loner for help after being beaten up. Kenny talks to Justin starting his career as a skate filmer, managing a set and so much more. 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.

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Ken McMillan. Today I'm talking with Justin Derry, the DP of the film Bruiser, as well as the short film called Bruiser. it was just at TIF and it's a fantastically shot film I don't want to say beautiful message but you know great great story you'll watch the movie you'll know why I'm not saying beautiful powerful message let's say and you know we this this one's got all the greats you know we talk about getting started especially in the kind of like those of us who are like skateboarders and stuff growing up. A lot of skateboard DPs recently.

You know, techniques, management on set, everything. It's another amazing frame in reference. Who would have thunk it? So as always, I'm going to shut up before I go on too long. So you can get to enjoying my conversation with Justin Derry. Did you all, were you always a visual person is like film what got you into cinematography or did you kind of go down a different path at first and then switch over find cinematography later yeah um yeah i definitely found i definitely found it um but i will say you know i as cliche as it might be like i i grew up watching movies every weekend with my family and

stuff and movies were always a big part of my childhood but then um and all like my brother's an artist and my dad though he won't admit it can draw really well and um so i used to draw and like scribble around a lot um and i kind of like for a while thought i wanted to be an architect um so many dPs become architects yeah it's funny i i don't think it really would have made sense for me now like thinking back on it um because there is a lot i i'm not even that like versed in architecture I don't know that much about it. But also, like, there's a lot more, like, procedure to architecture, and, like, it's a lot of, like, red tape that I just don't know that.

Not that filmmaking isn't that, but, like, it's different, you know? So I don't know if I would have actually enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. But then, yeah, and then I grew up skateboarding, which is also, like, a big DP thing, I feel like. And now, at least my generation of DP. right um totally and i just would like travel around with friends shooting skate videos and editing and um if i thought i wanted to be an editor at that point because i was like man i just was like so um excited about technology and about you know um just what you could do with the computer and like yeah i was learning after effects and editing software and all this stuff and i was like

oh this is really cool i can do a lot with this um and yeah it just just seemed like that could be a good path. But I also at the time, this was in high school, I like didn't know that I didn't really know filmmaking was like a career path. Like I didn't know much about it. And, um, and a friend of mine who I used to film with when I was skating was like, I think I'm going to go. He was like, I grew up with this kid we'd know each other forever. Um, and he's like, I think I'm going to go to film school. It's like, wait, that, that's a thing that we can do. Because I was like, I don't know. I was like looking at graphic design and like, You know, I was like, I don't know what I should do.

He was like, I think I, you know, I want to major in film. I was like, man, that sounds great. So, yeah, we applied to similar schools and I went to the same school up in Vermont, Champlain College. And, yeah, I sort of learned there. Like, my, I think it was either my first or, it was probably like second, it was probably second part of the first year, like, freshman year. I took a, yeah, I took a cinematography class and I was just like, man, this is, this is what I wanted to do. At the moment, I started shooting with a camera and, like, thinking about how, like, composition and lighting can influence the way people feel about images. Because, like,

before that, it was always more documentary. Like, I was just shooting things that existed, right? So when I realized that you actually cracked images and, you know, kind of, kind of, you know, heightened reality and influence reality to tell a story. I was like, man, this is the way. And I kind of, I was double majoring in graphic design and I dropped graphic design immediately. And it was like, this is what I want to do. And yeah, from there, it was kind of, it just continued in that direction. I didn't, when I first, I was in Vermont.

So I was like, man, I probably should move to New York or L.A. and so my third year I transferred schools to broken college and moved to New York and yeah I was like how does it's one like how does somebody get into this right like it seemed like such a far-fetched goal to me at the time like I didn't know anyone in the industry I didn't really have a way in and I was like you know I'll be really happy if I can get on to a small movie in the lighting department and just work in lighting And I was like, I don't know if that's even a realistic possibility, but I'm going to shoot for that. So kind of immediately when I moved to New York, I did like all of the Craigslist and Mandy and all that stuff.

But I ended up just getting like referrals and recommendations from people. And yeah, I started working as, you know, an electrician in a grip pretty early. And yeah, actually to the point where I ended up leaving school. because I was like I'm just working a lot and I don't have the time for both and the bandwidth for both and I'm learning so much on film sets. And like I don't know if I'd necessarily promote that idea to other people because like film school is definitely useful. Like I had a good time there and I learned a lot. But yeah, it was like it was almost like I was being prevented from learning on sets and I was like, I'm just going to work and I'm going to start doing it. Having, having interviewed 80 people now, I can say that that was, that's probably the ideal is leaving film school early because you're working.

Right. Because most people, if they go to film school, and I agree, I think film school is actually, like, useful for a multitude of reasons, not one of which being just giving your brain time to get out of high school mode, you know? but um but uh yeah totally yeah a lot of people leave film school and think that it's you know like and now i'm going to become a lawyer you know or whatever a career path that a traditional job would have whereas film is not that way you you want to be on set making those networks you know right right i did want to ask when you're talking about learning ae and stuff uh after effects um were you a lightsaber guy or a bullet hits guy and muzzle flashes you know um it's just funny because I did one of those and it's like probably a video that like on my personal

YouTube that has the most views I did like a thing where I turned my face into a monster or whatever that like I think like the film riot guys put up a probably video co-pilot back then yeah video co-pilot that's what it was I think it was that um and man it was uh it's funny I it's still up on my I don't really use my YouTube channel um so it's still up there um but yeah i mean i don't remember any of those skills to be honest and i took an after effects class in college where we like actually learned you know the program a lot deeper um but yeah i don't i if i open me i'd be lost if i opened it now yeah i still use it for like 3d titling and that's about it it's about as much and compositing to a degree but

um but yeah there was back in the day there was always like it was basically two reasons to open after effects was making lightsabers or making muzzle flashes and everything else was never composited, correcting all looking like shit. I wanted to ask, because you said you were coming up in the lighting department,

and this is kind of quickly jumping into things you learn, but like I'm sure when you started there, you learned some good habits and some bad habits. And I was wondering if you can

remember maybe some of those things that you're still doing today or like skills that you learn there and maybe some things you learn to leave by the wayside sure um one second so i'm like gonna cough oh yeah go for actually the noise reduction was perfect i didn't hear a fucking inch of that oh i i muted it because i was okay okay i was like wow zoom did a great job That's impressive. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, I learned so much what I left by the wayside.

I'm not as sure about. But my first year, I was so excited and hungry to work as much as I could. And I just loved me on movie sets. And so my first year, I think I worked on like nine or 10 feature films in the Grebin Electric Department. So I kind of, that was like a huge crash course. And they were all like, you know, ultra low budget, like sub $500,000 indies. And, you know, I was making like $100 a day or something.

Maybe less. I don't know. So I did make 75 a day on one movie, I remember. But, you know, I was just excited to be on set. So it didn't really matter. and I do think the fastest way to learn in this industry is just to do it so for me I just want to work

and I learn so much on each film and by like the end of my end of that year I started working as a gaffer I sort of worked my way up in very fast within a year or two years and yeah and like started gaffing small movies

and then eventually worked as a gaffer on some movies that were still small, but with filmmakers I was really excited to work with. And, yeah, so I started getting, like, more selective and more selective. And right when I felt like I was getting offers for movies with, like, really exciting directors, I was kind of chose to, like, stop taking those so that I could start transitioning into shooting. but yeah I turned down I mean I didn't even do the interview but I remember I was asked to do

or I was asked to talk to Joe Anderson about oh my gosh Christine is that what I'm the movie's called the yeah yeah the Antonio campus movie whichever I really like those guys and the work they do so I was like so excited I was like man do I really turn this down

But I was also, like, at upstage where I thought, if I'm going to shoot, I need to just do it and start shooting. I was shooting short stuff on the side. But to answer your question about, I mean, what I took from it. I mean, yeah, I don't know. I kind of, I came up with this gaffer, Danny April, who gapped, like, good time and a couple other films. The stressfulest, most stressfulest film I've ever seen. yeah um and he kind of like we used to joke around that um if you work under danny you're kind of in this school of danny april because he likes to like kind of he's not uh working as a gaffer anymore

but at the time he he liked to really bring people up um i don't think he's bringing his gaffer anymore um and yeah he would like take people who were just hungry but didn't really know what they're doing and teach us like how to work efficiently and work smart and yeah it's still to this day, like, it's really important to me, like, I'm, like, semi, like, OCD about how stands are set up and things. Like, I just like everything to be, like, efficient, you know? And, um, Danny would always say, like, every moment we waste setting up a light or setting up a stand because we didn't do it properly, it was taking time away from the movie. And, like, we all cared so much about the movies we were making that. Um, I very much took that to heart. Um,

so yeah that was definitely something i learned a lot about and then like the other thing was just to be bold and make creative choices and take leaps of faith and take take those risks um from a lighting perspective like try things that i wouldn't isn't obvious right um because you can easily fall into these um easy ways of working i don't want to call it trap but like things become comfortable if you have a lighting safe a couple lighting techniques that you're really know are going to work every time and when you're on a tight schedule i think those are good to fall back on but they shouldn't be your first like the way your brain goes the first time every time right you should kind of try to think outside of the box and think for what you know

what's what's going to work best for the scene or for the film or whatever you're doing um i always try to kind of i try to push that as much as i can and um i think it's important to just try new things like as much as you can and like it's hard to do that because like you at some point you've done enough that you're like this is just a bigger version of something I've done before or whatever but like um but yeah I think it's good try to challenge yourself as much as you can yeah um so uh all that being said is there a uh what what is your fallback uh maybe like lighting setup that you know work every time on a on a interview or whatever I don't know. It's a good question. I really, I fall back probably on this too much. I love color contrast. So like your daylight scenes. Yeah. So I like love color and I love color contrast. So for a lot of daylight scenes, I often mix tungsten or very warmed up HMIas as hard.

with a soft bounce or a softer that's cold. And, yeah, I fall back a little bit on that too much. I think this next film I'm doing is it's a winter movie, so I think I'm going to primarily try to keep the daylight very cool and cold. But kind of also because I'm like, I do this too much. I know I like it. I know it looks good, but it's not appropriate for everything. And I don't know.

know something about color for me like i if something is like doesn't have color and is dead i i don't feel very excited about it so on set i feel like that can be a little bit of like a fault because i love black and white images and i like monochromatic images when i'm watching a movie but i don't almost i almost never light that way um so i'm like trying to think about that more and trying to push myself to break that occasionally, you know. Yeah. So, yeah. Man, now my brain's going in two different directions, but I'll stay here for a second.

You know, because I, color contrast is actually something that I've struggled with a little bit in terms of, I guess, I guess, kind of what you were saying was when is it appropriate? Right. So I guess that's the question. When would it not be appropriate to, like, do a nice, like, warm key? cool fill kind of because it is a little more stylized sure yeah I think

I think it's that it's yeah I don't think it's that appropriate when you're going for something it's very naturalistic like there are always balances in color right like daylight's never just 5600

or whatever like even now I'm getting bounce off of the wood next me but if you look at like the video screen like if you look at my camera here like my image isn't warm and cool like there's a little bit but it's it's very subtle versus like a lot of times in movies will heighten that that and make it a really significant difference between one to the other um so i don't know i think like i did a film um in atlantic city a few years ago and that was wanted to feel very naturalistic and i

almost didn't even light a lot of it we we had like light mats and some small units that we would use but um but we didn't light it we didn't overly light it i'll say that um and we didn't we tried not to go stylistic at all and in some ways i'm like that's like a very exciting look to me as well you know it's just a different feel and it feels a little bit more yeah it just feels very natural and very believable and like you get um embedded in that just as you get embedded in like something that's heightened or or stylized you know so i appreciate both a lot of i think a lot of cinematographers often talk about like they're on they're on either side of the fence and like and maybe i'm wrong about that but i always hear people really fight

for like no movies should be should not be reality they should be stylistic and they should make choices and do things outside of reality and then there are other dps that are like hyper real right and really want to see like almost want to feel like a documentary um and i think both are valid And I want to be able to do both. And I probably lean more on the stylized side consistently, but I try to do both. Yeah. Well, and, you know, this is kind of a longer thought, but I'll try to truncate it. Like, stylized images are more cinematic, so to speak, because documentary is not, you know, on the spectrum, you've got cinema on one side and documentary on the other.

and documentary is inherently not stylized. You know, in general, not, there's plenty of very stylistic documentaries. Going back a little bit, something that we were kind of dancing around was you were saying that, like, oh, you kind of got on set and just started working. And I think that's a question that a lot of people have is like, how does one make that first step? Because obviously nowadays you would go, like, Mandy, I have not gotten a lot. lot of jobs on. I'll be honest. Right. Um, but, you know, I've gotten, I'll cut that out. Yeah, sorry about that. No, no, don't worry about it. Um, but I have gotten a lot of jobs from friends of mine, you know, so how were you making those connections early on? Was the internet part of it or was

it truly like, you know, coffee shop handshake kind of thing? No, it was, I mean, the internet was definitely a big part of it. Um, not as much like social media the way it is now. Um, like you know I do think that Instagram and other platforms have become like quite a you know almost a calling card or like a you know business card in a way um but yeah at the beginning I mean yeah I did get I got a few projects on Craigslist and Mandy which was like they were always a little crazy and whatever but um but so I I remember I would send like 20 or more emails a day Like, I would just call everybody and if it was a small, if it was like an ad for a small job, I would just ask for a position that was allowing me to learn something new. So I was trying to like, you know, if it's like a freebie job, then I want to be the gaffer at the time, you know, or whatever. Like I want to learn on that production. So I would apply to all these jobs or maybe a little bit outside of like where I was in terms of my level.

but they were small jobs so I was kind of like you know if they need somebody I'm here but then yeah I mean that didn't lead to a lot to be honest I will say I got like lucky that I had my friend Mark Rosen who like I shot his thesis film in school and he moved to LA after and he was interning a production company that was shooting a short film in New York. And the production company was quite a big commercial company, but they wanted to get into the narrative space. So they're shooting this short.

And they like asked, they don't, they didn't really have contacts in New York. So they just asked him because he knew he was from the East Coast. They knew he's from the East Coast. And he recommended me and my roommate to do the Gaffer and Key Grip. And we had like absolutely no experience. Like I didn't know how to. I remember we had this more experienced union gaffer was actually married to the writer of the short

and she came on and her name's Evan Lowe and she like showed us so much like how to tie our first knots how to like bowl the quino flow we didn't know how to do that or like HMIs were like terrifying to me at the time I was like wait you turn it on but then if it dies you have to wait before you turn it makes it off the noise You know, I was like, I just had no experience because my school had like art kits and stuff like that. Like we didn't have a lot of, we didn't have HMI's or fluorescence. So I just had no idea how those things worked.

And like I remember the DP was this pretty big commercial DP who had, it was like in his 50s had been a union AC forever and very experienced guy. And he was very patient with us. but you know he showed us like he really liked using chinese lanterns so we would he showed us how to like wire and bolt chinese lanterns and we would hide them all over the house and um so yeah that was kind of my first job and at the end of that job he uh yeah at the end of that job he was like hey i'm doing this commercial in new york next week to you and william your roommate want to like just come work on it but like i'll have a gaffir and keep grip but you guys will be like you know whatever my my crew for the day um like and

so basically like grip and electric interns right and um we're like yeah of course and we showed up and when we showed up it was like this pretty big rebel on commercial i think olivia wild was in it um or i know she was in it and um and the gafferin keep something happened with the crew and they weren't there like the whole gney team like who did not get hired on the job. So me and William were there and he's like, hey, I know this is outside of your comfort zone, but like,

I need you to do this job. We don't have anybody here to light this thing. And that was kind of like getting thrown into the deep end, right? Like we, I don't know, we had like a 20K and like 610Ks, a couple of 5K. It was like, it was a crazy, like, beauty fashion spot.

And we had all these lighting units. I had, like, no idea. I had to, like, ask the house how to plug things in because I was like, I don't want to, like, hey, it's dangerous and B, I don't want to, like, blow something in the house or whatever. And, yeah, it was intense, but I think stepping up in that scenario gave me some confidence that, like, I was basically like,

oh, I can do this. I just need to, like, you know, I got to figure it out. But, like, once I figure it out, I kind of, I can pull it off. And, yeah, it was, like, a creative. crazy. Oh man, I don't know. It was like 21 hours or something. We did two days. And yeah, it was really nuts. And like the power did shut down at some point because of something stupid I did. Like I missed. I swapped two cables that shouldn't have been swapped or something. And we had to like talk to the stage to run power from one of their other stages. It was like a

nightmare. But at the same time, like everybody was like, man, we can't believe that you guys like stepped up and did this as a two-man crew like there was nobody else there with us you know so um so yeah that was like a big a big first step and then that dp hired us for pretty much every commercial he did in new york from then on um so we worked pretty steady with him for like a year um but um at the same time i had met i had met danny april on like a short film up and um a Columbia grad film that was shot up in Vermont because some people that I went to school with were like crewing on it.

And they were like, oh, we know somebody in New York who does G&E and like to come up and help out or whatever. And that's where I got introduced to him and we started doing a lot of features together after that. Yeah. Well,

and I think that what you're saying especially speaks to the value of like never turning a gig down. Because I can imagine it'd be very easy to be like, oh, they bailed? Well, I'm, no. Or, I guess not in that exact scenario, but, you know, if you get lowballed pretty hard, you know, your day rates, whatever, I'm making this number up. Your day rate is 600 bucks and someone offers you 100.

Very easy to say no. But you never know when you're going to meet some director who, like, is also doing the gig for as a favor, but is normally way higher and could bring you up. No, totally. And I should say that, like, we didn't make any money on you of those jobs, but they started. like, you know, that, um, DPU, because, again, because we're coming on as interns originally. So theoretically, they probably should have paid us once we bumped up to the Gaffronkey grip. But we were kind of like, yeah, we're down, like, whatever. Um, so yeah, we didn't make any money on those.

But then kind of the next, from then on, you know, we started making money on them, which was kind of, uh, yeah, so it was a good. A lot of people might just be like, well, if I'm not many money, I'm not doing it. And I think, like, I do think that everybody should. get paid appropriately and I'm not I don't really advocate for unpaid interns but I also think um I also think like if a job if you see yourself getting something out of the job and you're not doing something else then why not do it you know um and the same thing goes with favors you know like I still do like free favorite jobs for people that I want to work with or that I'm friends with

you know so totally yeah I don't know all that stuff it can can pay back you know pay itself back. Yeah, I mean, I've always thought of a lot of my work as being kind of on the barter system. You know, I'll do friends gigs, but also like, you know, if some high-end cocktail company wants me to shoot, but they don't have a huge budget, I'll be like, all right, well, you can pay me what you can afford. And then next time I come in, like, I want some free cocktails. You're like, yeah, hell yeah, let's do this, you know. Sure. So I'm getting the sense that you kind of approach everything with sort of a workman-like attitude, what do you think, where do you attribute that to? Because sometimes that's something people have to learn how to like kind of put their nose

to the grindstone, as it were. Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't really know. I mean, for me, I think it started with just, I didn't, I mean, yeah, I don't know. I didn't, I don't think it necessarily has to do with like I didn't grow up with a ton of money and I did do like I worked all through college and high school so I definitely like have always worked so that wasn't like yeah I guess that part is definitely something that was my upbringing it was just like I did I worked all year when I was in high school I worked when I was in college um but I think really aside from that it's actually more especially early on like I'm obviously a lot more picky now But early on, I just really was passionate about being on set.

And, like, for me, I, you know, that was, at the time, especially, it was, like, all I cared about. So for me, it was, like, it didn't really matter sure I wanted to make money as well and make sure I can support things, you know, pay for paying my bills and whatever. And there was plenty of not paying my bills when I first moved to New York. But, like, you know, I don't know. I just wanted to work and learn. and I just, I love to film, so that was enough to motivate me to keep pushing, you know. Sure. I do want to get to the, to Bruiser, because it, it's quite good.

Did you shoot the short? I didn't, I wasn't able to watch the short, but I guess the short went to Sundance. Did you shoot that? Yeah. So I shot the short, and I also shot Miles' first short, Huntress, a few years before that maybe two or three years before that. And, yeah, I was, I kind of stumbled into that because a friend of mine was going to shoot his first short huntress and then couldn't do it and backed out and recommended me.

And I kind of immediately, like, with Miles, I just kind of immediately realized we had a lot of the same tastes in film and we were excited about the same kind of photography and wanted to tell the same sort of stories, you know, like I've always been driven by, um, character dramas and, and, you know, like both, and, like, dark character dramas that, that really, like, dig into the human condition and human emotion and might be stylized, but are also very, like, personal and real and connected to whoever they're telling the story about. Um, and, and when we were setting up the brouser the short

I remember I mean I was like happened to be like crazy busy and like thankfully Miles like pushed the short film which for me which I'm super grateful for because we just want to keep working together but it came up kind of quick and I wasn't

available so luckily they pushed back a couple months and Maryville pull it off and we actually ended up shooting like a month before the pandemic get, maybe less. Plenty. Yeah, so it's a good thing we didn't push any further, but yeah, it was definitely

like, it was, man, it was, yeah, it was right before, which was kind of crazy. And yeah, they did, then they focused on the edit for a while after that. And it was at the next Sundance. So they focused on the edit and then they delivered, or they applied to Sundance in like, whatever, September, whatever you. play um like that next that year so which for a short that's plenty of time right from january to um but yeah the short um short we shot on 35 millimeter and we shot four three as well for the short which was always like a goal um it was always how we saw the film right it was always

four three um and we shot his first film on 16 but we were like i don't know four three on 16 like we really wanted these like portraits that feel like almost like um you know like Hasselblad like six by six old film portraits and we wanted the four by three frame the whole goal was to really isolate each character in a box basically um like we didn't even want to shoot two characters in the same frame when we were shooting the short um because it was it's it's not as nuance to the film so there's a lot more of like a direct um separation between the father and son. So we wanted to really isolate them into their own boxes.

So that was kind of why we shot 4-3. And 35 was kind of like, it wasn't really doable on our budget. I, like, pitched into my own money, and we just kind of, we went for it. For the short, for the short. The feature we shot digital, really by necessity, like we would have loved to shoot down 35. But it just wasn't possible. And we talked about it for a while. There was a lot of like it was possible for a minute.

But then, you know, between COVID like spiked back up and we had to push and a number of things happened. And it was like, yeah, this is, we were grateful we even were making the movie. So we're like, it's not worth taking the risk of like spending a good portion of our budget on 35, which was, you know, heartbreaking, but also I think... You have the short on it. I think, yeah, and well, and I think the movie is still great

without it. And I always told Miles, I was like, he'd never even shot digitally because his two shorts were both film. And I was like, I was like, yeah, it's going to be different, but like we're still going to make a great movie, whether it's digital or film, you know? And so yeah,

we both like were a bit bummed about it, but it made sense with what we had. And it's better to work within your means and in favor what's going to be best for the story then to try to push for something that may cripple you, you know, in another element of the film. Yeah, the, it took me, I wrote it down, 10 minutes to notice it was in 4.3. That's good. Exactly the, I can't remember what shot it was.

I think it was like an outdoor shot. So it was like very apparent that there's bars on the side. And then I went, wait a minute, hold on. Is this a screener I got? And then after a while, I noticed the composition. I was like, no, that's, that's for just four. I think it's a good thing because I don't think the format should really call attention to itself. So for me, I'm okay with that.

It should be more something you feel than something that hopefully no one's distracted by, you know, whether you shoot one format or the other. Same thing happens when I watch films that, you know, shoot two to one because I feel like that's not, it's only recently become a common format. I'm like, oh, this is two to one, that's interesting. Or, like, some films shoot, like, yeah, or some films shoot, like, extra widescreen, like 2 by 2.6 to water or something.

And I don't know. I hope that you, when you watch the film, it's not something that draws your attention, but it's just the composition's full of, well, you know. Well, I mean, the only reason I even noticed, like, notice, noticed, was because I was watching it, taking notes on the cinematography, you know? Right, right.

But even then, even with that eye open, I still missed it for the first 10 minutes. Yeah, no, it's very nice. I did want to ask, before we get into the lighting, because I think the lighting is really excellent. The whole film, I'll just package all of this into one. No, I won't. I'm going to start with this question.

I wanted to know what lenses you were using, because especially you've done the classic DP trick of having some nice lights in the background that go real nice in the bow care. And it looked like you were shooting white. open a lot of the time. And there's a really nice halation and kind of glow to a lot of the film. And I was wondering how much of that was maybe imposed, how much of that was the lens

or if there was any filtration used. Yeah. My guess was vintage lenses, no filtration. So we ended up basically the goal was to make it as close. to how we perceive we would have done the film on 35 like we really wanted to try to emulate

what we would have been able to create to a certain extent Miles was also like we should own this and do it as something near but we're also like well how do we like dirty up the image and we wanted to really make the

you know kind of push the digital sensor to its limits a bit so I'll say the first thing we ended up doing a bunch of camera tests and we ended up shooting the whole film at 3200 ISO on, we shot on the Alexa Mini and that was kind of a choice

because I know like Drew Daniels Yeah and I knew that Drew Daniels did it on waves And I knew I knew of a couple DPs doing it So I was like I started texting people and messaging people And they're like, hey, like, what was your experience with this? And was it okay? You know, and when I did a test, I was like, I watched, I looked at all the different ISOs side by side.

And I just, there was like a softness to the 3200. And it wasn't like a noise thing. Like, the image just actually got softer. And I was like, that's really interesting. And I ended, we ended up really loving that. Like, it kind of took the edge off for us. so i'd say that was like the first thing in terms of trying to the little bit of softness you might feel

um we also are for the most part i worked with the dIT to overexposed a little bit just to protect it so even though we're doing 3200 i still probably overexposed by like half a stop or so um for the whole film and the alexic means that no problem yeah yeah well especially at 3200 you have so much highlight range that it's like that so that was the other reason is We're like, we have all these day exteriors, and we just want, we're like the thing, you know, the thing you always love about film is the highlights are just, they're, they're, they're, they're, I don't think they're beaten. Even when they blow out, they look good, right? So, that was another goal for us, was to, like, we're like, by shooting 3200, you're shifting your middle point, so you get all this highlight range, right?

which is risky on your shadow side but as long as that's what the half-stop over exposure kind of protected for so that we weren't I didn't train it too dark to where we couldn't get it back but yeah so that was the first thing we shot Panavision which I have a really great relationship with them Mark yeah so we shot Panavision

ultra speeds so we shot their older spherical lenses which are like probably my favorite spherical lenses. I just, I think they're really beautiful. And if I could own a set, I would. But I love them so much. You don't have a Bugatti's worth of lens money just sitting around? Yeah, well, I mean, you can't even, you know, if there was a comparable, I would buy, whatever.

You can't even buy a pair of them. Right, so it doesn't matter. But I love working with them, so it's fine. way. But yeah, so I've worked with Marnie out of Panavision, New York, for years, and she connected me with this guy. I'm Steve, Steve Cool, out of New Orleans, because we're shooting in Alabama. And he helped us out a lot and set up the camera test, and a lot of us to test in different lenses. And I wasn't sure if we're going to go with the ultra speeds or if we're going to try and use Panavision also detunes their lenses. So you can ask them to soften or

add flare like less more less flare protection so you get more flares um and so i was like maybe we'll shoot on their sharper lenses but detune them so they're softer just so that they're more consistent because the old lenses aren't always consistent but there's just some magic to that set of ultra speeds that i just you can't detune any lens to make it look like that um so yeah so i I love them. So we shot on those. And then I did use filtration, which we used on the short as well.

We used, I believe, quarter black perlussent for everything. Oh, I know. Yeah. I often bounce between an eighth and a quarter with the black burlescent.

I did a test a while back, and for me that filter is like, I don't love filtration, and for the longest time I didn't shoot with any of it. But something about that filter is the closest just for me to mimicking film halation, which I always think is one of the big things that digital doesn't have,

like it doesn't have that burn around the highlight, a high contrast area. And there are like ways in post to create it now, but the filtration just helped push it in that direction a little further. And then on the post side, so there was a bit in post, we worked with Sean Dunkley at Assembly, it was our colorist. And he, like, he told me, like,

because we started setting the look in advance and before we got in there in person. And he told me, like, woke up, because we told them we want inhalation. I know there are, like, digital ways to do it. So where you're trying to figure out how I do it. And he told me he had this, like, fever dream and woke up at, like, three in the morning.

And like, he's like, I have this idea where I, like, convert the image and I into linear and then back. And I didn't know, I literally lost me at that point. But I was like, okay, I'm excited. I can't wait to see. or whatever. Actually, you know what's funny is that's how I do it. Yeah. Convert to linear, highlight the highlights, convert it back. You do a sharpening thing and then, yeah, you get pay later. Yeah, I was like, I don't know what you're talking about, but either way, like,

whatever he did, we just, like, were in love of it. And I was like, wow, this is better than I expected. And, like, it was cool because in the grade, we'd even choose, like, there are scenes at the houseboat where we chose to actually brighten the highlights like normally i feel like on digital you're always like bringing everything down right and we chose to brighten them to the point where the halation showed because we're like man that feels like that feels like film like it's like something's blowing out that you're not expecting to blow out and it has this little glow on it that we just yeah we really like it felt like um yeah it just felt like it added that extra bit of like texture and life that like we were looking for you know um so that was super exciting

but yeah those were kind of like i would say the steps that kind of messed up and like kind of texture added texture and softness to the image for us totally yeah it's it's a what i was going to say earlier was um you've kind of really nailed the gordon willis um simple but not simplistic thing with this film like everything i'll take that yeah it's it's it Every shot is very like classic but not derivative, you know, I don't want to say derivative because that might insult somebody else. But, you know, it's like it's its own look, but it's a classic look and it's beautiful and it's very cinematic. And especially the lighting I really wanted to get into because it feels very one light, you know, one's like it looks, this is the mark of any good, any good DP is it looks very simple. It looks like you just sat everyone in the scene and then turned on maybe one or two lights

and we're like, hey, let's go, you know, especially dude's, uh, um, car sales office, you know, you've got those two perfect windows to work with making everything. Those were, man, that was harder than you'd think, actually, because those windows had a green tint on them. So they're very, like, tinted and, um, yeah, I actually, that was like very frustrated because, like, getting the lights to feel neutral was very hard. Um, but, It is funny, because, like, you look at that location and you're like, oh, wow, you have all this, like, beautiful, soft daylight to work with. But, yeah, I remember that was, like, actually really frustrated location. But there was also reflections city, like, there are reflections everywhere.

And, yeah, and Malcolm's character, Shamir, was wearing glasses the whole time, too. So I had to be cognizant of that and aware of that. um but yeah yeah i will say i don't know i mean i will say the single like the simple simplicity is good but often simplicity ends up being it's almost harder to make simplicity feel polished if that makes sense like a lot of times it requires you know bigger sources i will say that setup itself wasn't that complicated it was uh i think it was a couple it was an m90 and and then there was a 4k and 9K and HMI into like a 12-5 and then we had two 12 light maxi tungsten lights bringing in the warm sunlight so it was again that blue warm daylight that I like so much so you're saying that you would both of those would be the key light or or the cool side would be the shadow side no both were kind of on the key side so if I remember correctly it was basically like you The bounce with HMI's, which was cooler, was sort of our wrapping source, so it was a little more three-quarter to the actors.

And then the two 12-light maxis were kind of right next to that, so almost side be coming in to feel more like direct sun coming in. So they were on the same side, but it was basically that we had a soft key, and then we had like raking warm light that was bouncing off the floor and the desk and stuff like that. Yeah, you know, where did I write this down? Because there's a lot of great night scenes that I kind of want to talk about, but a lot of these conversations that these characters are having, happen to be on, where they're sitting at tables. And you've just got this very beautiful, you know, you've got the shears and the nice sun.

And so was that kind of the setup for all the daytime, even in the houseboat, you know, where you had that little sun set up for those interiors? I'd say similar for most of the day interiors. They were pretty, there's a pretty similar approach. Like we, our big units were like the 9KHMI and the 4KHMI. And then we had 2 12 light maxis, which were bolted with narrow spots. So they're very punchy.

And we would basically, yeah, it was always a combination. If I wanted hard light, which I think most of it, we wanted. like we wanted to feel like um without going like you know George Washington was a reference but we didn't want to go that warm right like we wanted to feel like the south without feeling like like it was a southern look or something you know so we wanted to feel hot oh brother what I wanted to feel warm yeah exactly so um the warm daylight was kind of a play like was leaning into that um and sometimes I would even though those lights are tunks and I jell them with like a quarter or a half blue um or maybe i'd go the other way and i'd gel the hMI is bluer or whatever i messed with

a few different variants uh depending on like if there's a morning scene or a midday or night um i would change the level of color contrast um or not night of sunset you know um the the houseboat is tricky because the houseboat i mean you've seen the film so you know but the houseboat's probably maybe 24 feet off the shore that we're shooting at. I think we built a 24-foot, or the art department built a 24-foot dock for that. And so getting the light to get to the boat was very tricky. So instead of bouncing the HMI's, I think we defused, we went through like heavy diffusion instead

to try to throw it further. And the tungsten lights carried the distance because they had the narrow spots. But yeah, that was tricky. I mean, the shore was kind of lined with lights and diffusion. It was very muddy and messy, so it was very hard to, like, set everything up there. But, yeah, I'd say, like, generally speaking, we were fairly consistent with that method for daylight. And then, yeah, depending on time of day, we change the level of color contrast. Yeah, and are you the kind of guy who leaves the camera, like, you know, at 32 or 56?

Are you constantly playing with that white balance and trying to art direct that color contrast a little bit? I wouldn't say I don't just stick to 32 or 5600 but I um I don't like bounce around a ton I usually will end up finding something I like for like night interiors like I usually like night interiors to be a little bit warmer and let the practicals actually play as warm so I usually balance around like 3,800 or 4,000 and then midday I usually balance around 4,500 I usually balance around 4,500 to 5,000 when you're inside. If I'm using warm lights, like I'm using tons of lights. And then exteriors, for this film, we balance warmer.

I think we're at like $6,500 for exteriors, just because, again, we wanted to feel a little warmer. And it's not, we didn't want it to feel like a cold film. I guess it's just real warm. Sure. Yeah. You know, you mentioned the night scenes, and there's a couple, I haven't seen this a recently in film and I'm kind of like was stoked that you did it was a there's a scene in in a kitchen at night with overheads that are like cyan and I was I was going to I was

wondering is that like cyan 60 or what was what was that situation because the fair setup is feels similarly cyan yeah so I think they were actually matched to color wise we might have we might have balanced the camera differently but I think the lights would balance the Yeah, a lot of times when I want like a really green fluorescent that feels like a blue green fluorescent, almost like I think there's a scene in the game where there's all these fluorescence overhead that are like blue green. Yeah, if I want like that feel, I usually go like either somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 Kelvin on like LEDs. And then I'll go. So those are LED bolts. Yeah.

yeah yeah and then we'll go um full or double plus green um so and sometimes LEDs don't do that so you might have to we'll maybe put those as gels on but we'll balance the you know color temperature of the bowls um and then you know sometimes I think on this film and we had enough LEDs that we kind of just did it with those sometimes I'll also use like I don't think we use HMI's for any night scenes. That's not true. That's not true. So when we use an HMI, then I'm also adding like half blue and either full or double for full green. I think on this film it was full green.

So an HMI would do like half or three quarter blue and full green. And then all the LEDs in the kitchen, we did. Yeah, 10,000, I think, in full green. And those were the Astero's? They were. Yeah. They're always the hysteries. Yeah, I don't love them. Every single D.P.

I don't love them. They're good in that scenario where you need to, where you're mimicking a fluorescent. They're super useful. I shouldn't say I don't love it. They're like at this point. Utility lights. They're not your key.

Well, yeah. And the other thing for me is that I just, the longer I've, and it's not like I'm super far into my career, but the longer I've worked in the industry, especially since I've been a D.P. I just want lighting to, it's funny I say this,

because nobody I work with would probably think I work this way, but I want lighting to be as easy as possible, but still achieve the thing I wanted to do. And often the thing I wanted to do is quite complicated. So it may not appear that I'm doing something simple, but I'm always trying to find the simplest way to do the thing that I want to do. And that just comes down to like, I just, our schedules are always so tight on film sets that I just, I don't, I don't like when

I'm the one that's taking a lot of time. Like, I want to be efficient and I want to be fast. And, um, and like, it just stresses me out. I'm like, I don't want to be stressed about us not being set up yet. Like, I want to get the lights up as quick as we can, you know. Um, and, you know, I'm not like, and that doesn't come down to like pushing the crew or anything like that. Like, I think I'm pretty reasonable. But it's more just about like, I want to find the easiest tool and esteras are so easy because they're just battery powered they're like you throw them off or whatever um so from that i i feel like i have to have them on every set now just because they're so easy i wouldn't say they're the perfect thing for certain choices but

um yeah they're just convenient you know and a lot of it comes down to convenience yeah i've found that the esteras and the uh little aperture mc magnetic guys yeah we had a chuck those under cabinets or where like those two together like give you enough utility that like for oh there's just not enough you just put it over there you know totally totally yeah we definitely do it and it's funny i used to like i used to do a similar thing when i worked as a gaffer before all this LED stuff existed i think there was like one by one panels and stuff back then but um i would i would always like have a bunch of sockets um like porcelain sockets and I would put different photo floods or different bolts from them wrap them in

wrap them in um wrap them in um cinnif oil black wrap and I would just like throw them into corners of each room and just dim them up a little bit so like it's funny that the evolution of that has become as stairs and whatever else but um yeah back in the day I remember just like it looks so DIY and janky but I would just throw bulbs all over the place you know um yeah well now that everyone's seen that fucking roger deacons does that with a little hoop a little aluminum hoop i think that gives everyone permission to you know get creative with their DIY lighting situations you know totally i mean that's i sort of came up learned like you know reading his like forum and all that stuff back in the day um and cml and all those all those websites um yeah yeah yeah um and so yeah i mean i

I came up like building covered wagons and batten strips and using a bunch of Chinese lanterns and all kinds of stuff like that. So I still, I still appreciate that stuff. I rarely end up building like batten strips anymore, but, but I use Chinese lanterns a lot still. And I'll use yeah, I'll use paper lanterns. I'll use like, like, China hats or whatever. But I'll use, Yeah, I mean, I still like using tungsten dado's. Like, I don't know. I like, I do like some of those older tools still, you know. And they're cost effective.

They are. Yeah, they are. Like, I think, like, Carol, Ed Lachman's awesome. I just love his work so much. And, like, similar, like, school, like, Robbie Mueller. Like, I just love those cinematographers. And, yeah, when I saw, like, Carol was, like, almost all, like tungsten lecos and paper lanterns i was like man this is this is awesome i love i love that

that's how this movie was like because i think it's really beautiful and uh and it's so simple it's just and i actually this movie i'm about to start i just messaged scapper and i was like we need to get a bunch of paper lanterns and jemballs and like i want to be able to just tape lights up you know like make it simple you know um but still those lights are so beautiful and soft they're great And I didn't do that actually on Brouser. I think we mostly used LEDs. We didn't use any plate of lanterns. Or, you know, we didn't use, we used tungsten as far as the big units.

So we had, like, you know, those maxi brutes. And we had, you know, we had tons of small lights. We had, like, 650s and tweenies and inkies and stuff like that. But, yeah, I didn't use a lot of, like, the smaller, like, practical bulb stuff, you know. Yeah. How much Negg were you? you're using not a lot actually i am really because i actually have a note here i was like this guy's just putting walls of nag up it's funny i i guess if your exposure's high enough

it does it itself that's what i say i actually don't use negative that much and a lot of people do um i use it sometimes but i actually i get i often because I use color a lot and because I feel like I feel like I'm usually keying someone with something that is like more focused and deliberate that I don't honestly always feel like I need it but I'm in like a white house like yeah I'll use it

and I'll like I'll even do the ceiling and the wall but it really depends on the environment like you know yeah I didn't really use I didn't we had it in a couple scenes Like, we used it a little bit, man, really not much, to be honest. Honestly, that's, that's kind of rad to hear because, yeah, like, I would say the majority, the vast majority, 90% of the DPs have interviewed are all like, yeah, Neg is the future.

Yeah, I know, I know. So it's fun to hear, it's fun to hear a separate take and still achieving the same effect. Well, and I don't think I want to take anything away from that. it is probably in some ways it's probably simpler because sometimes it's really hard to like focus the light enough to where it's not blowing up your whole set right um so yeah i guess i could see i use it when it when it is useful but i don't always feel like it is so well and i also think another issue is like i was saying like you because you're using hmIs and like maxi roots and stuff, which a lot of people, especially on smaller films, are just sticking to

sky panels and stuff. So I think you need that neg there to build that contrast, whereas when you have a traditional tungsten or HMI unit, you've got enough power that the camera naturally gives you that contrast. Right. The light does. I think that's right. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's definitely part of it.

And you're using, again, it's more focused if I'm using a big source, if I'm using a big source through a window and it's a mix of hard and soft like the hard light is kind of focused enough that you're kind of even if it's going through a shear or whatever that you're still yeah the fall off still feels very fast um but yeah I think it's partially that I think I also like I said I probably overuse mix mix color temperatures and in some ways you add more contrast by doing that right like color contrast is perceived contrast so um I think some of it is also that in that if I have a warm key I might have a

cooler fill and I think that's automatically building in extra contrast into your image yeah I mean I will say a big part of it too is that like it depends on locations and art department like our department team

was incredible in this film and production designer was April Aski and I worked with her all through PrEP Meher and my would work on like we'd look at all the wall colors and like what you know and it was just like it was a great process because it's very collaborative and like miles always make fun of us because we'd get down these like rabbit holes me and her like figuring out the best you know like color

green for a wall to be here or the right wallpaper or whatever um but that's a big part of it too because when you have darker toned walls and I told I like brought this up when we were talking you know, production design. Like, when you're lighting darker skin tone, for me, it's very hard in a brighter set, right? Because you're, you automatically have an extreme contrast, right? So for me, I was like, if I want to be able to craft the lighting,

I need the sets to be darker because then I can push more light in. And I can push more light in on our actors without the whole set feeling bright. So that was a big discussion, I think, is that I was just like, I don't, I can make a set feel bright. Like, I think there's like the birthday party scene, um, when they have a bunch of people in the house, feels fairly bright. But I couldn't have done that if I could,

it wouldn't have worked to light it that way if it was set, have bright walls, right? Um, so it almost allows me to like, it allows you more creative control, especially again with darker skin tone because there's just such a separation between if it's a white wall and someone with dark skin.

I mean, I would even say someone with like mid-tone skin, you know, like someone with like a tan person on against a white wall. It's like it's so hard to make the lighting look shaped on them. So that was a big part

was just discussing production design and because nobody wanted the film would feel too dark. So there was like, oh, maybe we should use light like summer colors inside. And I was just like, that's going to hurt my ability to light it bright. Like, I can't light a bright, I can't make the scene bright if the walls are the brightest thing in the frame, you know what I mean.

Right. Yeah, I got to interview, uh, uh, the production designer from Power the Dog and Ozark. And, uh, through those conversations, it's like, I, for the longest time, I was like, the colorist is the right hand person of the DP, but it truly is the production designer. Oh, yeah, totally I mean we work like yeah directly hand in hand like um at least I like to it kind of depends on the production design and how they like to work

but yeah I always think that should be the most collaborative relationship I have other than with the director you know um because yeah that I mean the colorist is incredibly important um but again that's almost that's all after you've created the image

and then you're you're honing it in right you're hopefully honing and what you creatively decided ahead of time. And not to say, like, colorists bring creative input, like, a lot to the table as well. But I think there's something, like, you need to be able to create that first. You need a foundation, right? So, yeah, for me, I mean, it's definitely director and production designer are huge. And then obviously, like, I mean, the whole team's important.

But I just, in terms of prep, that part is really important. totally uh was there a uh particular setup that you uh are extra proud of for some reason um yeah i mean i was most i was most scared about the big field see at the end which like i don't want to give away what happens but right um that was definitely the scariest for me because like the creative idea came from Miles and Miles was like so I want

he's like I want the actors to feel like they're under a spotlight and they we lose them in and out of light and dark and they fall out of the light back into the light and he was like so I almost want like this very dramatic pool of light

that falls off quickly right so while leading up to the I was trying to think of, like, best ways to do that. And we kind of thought it would be the most interesting to have just, it takes, this scene takes place in a field alongside of the road, right? And there's a single street light. And that was kind of always part of it is we're like, okay, well,

what if it's like at a crossroads or at a piece where there's just one light that's like a street light that's, you know, semi-diy. We're trying to justify why it would be there. But, like, in our mind, it's like someone's farm or something. something is there and we wanted this one light um so that man i grew up kind of in the sticks and uh there's plenty of roads with no street lights you know you'll get one you know no totally justified yeah totally totally we're well yeah it was like a whole conversation but um because there wasn't a road with just one street light like that wasn't doable so actually the production

designer and her our director and the whole team like they worked with a town to install that poll like they found a street pole somewhere and had that installed and cemented into the ground. Yeah. And then like, and then separately they found an old sodium paper light that they could rig, you know, that the key grip could like fix and the gaffer could wire. So that was all, that was all set up. It wasn't there. That's pretty cool.

And, yeah, hold on one. sorry my throat's been kind of dry um no no worries and um yeah that that scene was always made me really nervous because i was like you know i assumed we'd probably need some kind of a some kind of a lift so to put a light out above the streetlight um which we didn't really have the money for it but i like convinced everybody that it was worth it. And, you know, and then I was trying to think of the best way

to make this, like, cool light that almost had a hard falloff so that you just would go to black immediately. And I thought maybe it would be interesting to have, like, a parkhand array. So, like, again, working with kind of old tools, but we took, like, I think nine or 12, one K park hands,

and we rigged them into a softball. that was 12 by 12 soft box and I wanted to go with a half soft frost originally because it was like I want the light to be hard but soft at the same time like I want the fall off to be quick I want to be punchy but I also don't want to be like hard bags under people's eyes and hard shadows so right that was sort of our starting point I was like okay let's do a bunch of park hands with spot bulbs and them and then maybe we do like a six foot skirt underneath it. So it's this very like hard shadow. And we set it up and it was a little too harsh at first. So basically I could see every individual spot because it was going through a half soft cross. So when we lifted it off the ground all of a sudden I could see like where the separation of the units were and that didn't feel right. Obviously we wanted this one source. So then I ended up basically just doubling the diffusion. And we realized we could play

with how quick it falls off by lowering the box closer. So a lot of the close-ups, we would bring the box down closer to the talent, and then it would fall off faster. And some of that was practical, too. Like, we, it was so windy.

And, like, to the point where we almost couldn't put the box up at all safety-wise. So we were basically, like, We'd put it up and we'd shoot the wide and then we'd bring it down and then we'd be like, okay, okay, okay, let's, uh, the wind's slow. We had like a wind here on the lift to make sure everything was safe. Like, okay, it's slowed down to safe levels. We'd put it back up and be like, okay, we'll shoot the next shot. And like we literally, like for the full two nights we spent on that scene, we would bring the box up, bring it down. And like, you know, um, so it was like, it was very challenging.

So yeah, I mean, that was definitely the hardest scene and the biggest scene. that I'm definitely very proud with the result. It's a very almost dreamlike. It's very beautiful. It's like, again, it's simple, but it's a very beautiful final scene. You know, it's, it, even with no dialogue, that's not giving anything away,

with no dialogue, it speaks volumes. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because when we're a shot listing, we're like, how we're like if at any point in the film we're going to get impressionistic like this is the one to really push it you know um so again i don't want to give anything away but we we pushed what we thought was like realistic in that scene because we really wanted to heighten that and make that feel um yeah just impressionistic and yeah i think dreamlike is appropriate like um it should feel like it should feel like it should feel honest and real, but again, heightened. And

that was always the goal. There are definitely some other points in the film where we push that a little bit. Like, there's a scene where Malcolm's like walking through the house at night and he's alone and he's a little bit like on edge. Like, I feel like we pushed the like

surrealness or whatever of that a bit. Surrealism of the lighting in that. So there are times where we did that, but really like that was really, like that was we're like this in the same way like we want everything to feel grounded but here we should push push a bit totally yeah it's uh like i said it looks great we're uh we're coming we're a little over time um so i'm going to have to let you go but uh i like to wrap up the uh conversation with

well the same two questions has changed a bunch but we'll ask you today the same two questions and they are if you were to book your own double feature of Bruiser and another film what would you want that other film to be? Interesting. You mean like to go watch?

Yeah, so you can Bruiser can be first or second and the other film doesn't have to be complimentary. It can be contrasting. It can be an allegory. You know, whatever you think would be interesting. Yeah, man, that's a good question. Hold on a second. Let me take a look at my notes

because I want to look at some of the films we referenced because I think they'd be good to watch. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting too because it's like what are what would I be in the mood for to watch back to back too because sometimes with a back to back movie you don't necessarily want something that's very similar right um right yeah I would say

I don't know I'd maybe say couple you know this is a fantasy I know it's funny because I feel like when I'm going in for a movie like this I also like to just keep in that sort of headspace I mean I will just say that like

Cold War was a huge reference for us the place beyond the pines um uh Ali theories the soul was a big reference um George Washington but yeah I don't know I mean

I'd honestly I'd watch any of those back to back is and I would also you know watch something completely different um yeah I don't know yeah when I asked I guess that's what I got I've mentioned this a handful of times but just because it was the funniest answer but when I interviewed Jeff Cronin went about being the Ricardo's he said alien versus predator oh my god that's amazing that's awesome You know, it's a good movie that I just watched two nights ago that I don't know. I feel like shouting at it. I'm not shouting it out. But I feel like shouting out because it doesn't have a great rotten tomatoes list. I was like, what? This is what this film's rated? Rod tomatoes.

I know. I know. Whatever. It doesn't have to be rotten tomato. But anyway, it didn't have great reviews. But being the director on this movie I'm working on now, watched We Own the Night. I don't know if you're James Grave for. But I was like, man, this movie is fantastic.

Like, why don't enough people... It's on my list for sure. It's worth watching. I thought it was really good. And I was like, this is an underappreciated film. But you'll probably say that about, sadly, about a lot of James, James Graves movies. I don't know. I just, I think he's really, really smart and incredible filmmaker.

So I was like, yeah, I don't know, whatever. That's just a random thing. I was like, it's been eating at me a little bit the last couple of things. For sure. Well, I know more people like this movie. It's really good. but yeah i don't know i don't have a good like side by side but those are some of the movies we referenced um i would say i'd watch any of them i i love gold war i would put that movie i'd

watch that next to anything else that movie is really incredible um and it was obviously a good four three reference for us um sure uh second question uh and love this one the guys who made uh looking for urnay's accidentally turned me onto this question So many people ask, what's the best piece of advice you got? And I think that's bullshit, because there's so many good teachers out there. What's the worst piece of advice you got? Oh, man. That's funny.

What is the worst piece of advice? I mean... Or one of, I should say. Yeah. It's funny, because I can't even say, like, bake it until you make it. that, like, definitely has, like, happened in my career and paid off. That has its utility. So, yeah, I think it's, like, it's kind of shitty because you don't want to, like,

you can only really fake until you make it if you can actually step up and do the job, because I think that's kind of, like, it's shitty to just tell someone and fake it until you make it, but then if they can't do the job, they're kind of, like, not achieving for that production or whatever. So I do think that's kind of a bad piece of advice, but I would just alter it. say like bake it within your ability like know know your limits a little bit you know be confident yeah be confident yeah it's true i mean honestly i think like i do think like i said taking risks is like the most important i think piece of advice um but you got to be responsible as well it's like taking risk within the level of responsibility yeah well uh thanks for giving

your time today, man. That was a really awesome conversation, and I really appreciate you. Yeah, this was awesome. Thanks for having me. Of course. Yeah, these things always make me very nervous, and I don't do a lot of them, but it was great talking to. It was really following a great conversation. 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 Etherdart Mapbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Tracks branding company. You can read her watch the podcast you've just heard by going to

Provideocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot, respectively. And as always, thanks for listening.