Frame & Reference Podcast - 79: "Dambusters" Francisco Campos-Lopez

Episode Date: November 24, 2022

On todays episode, Kenny talks with writer, director and cinematographer Francisco Campos-Lopez about the documentary "Dambusters." Dambusters is a documentary that follows scientist around the world who are working to remove dams around the world in an effort to restore the earths waterways. 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, Kenny McMillan, and today we're talking with Francisco Campos Lopez, the director, DP, and creator of the documentary Dam Busters, which is about the effort to remove unnecessary dams across the world so that nature can thrive again. Francisco and I are clearly two men cut from the same cloth. You know, we hit it off like gangbusters. If you like any of my little interstitials throughout the 80 or so conversations that have happened on this podcast, you're going to like the two of us bouncing off each other.

So, you know, it's all the classics. I'm going to find a new intro for, going into next season because I feel like every intro, I'm just like, this is going to be fun. We had a great time, and we learned a lot. But, yeah, I mean, we truly did have, like, you know, he's from Chile and I'm from California. And yet we seem to have relatively similar experiences, which is something that I think is good to be aware of every once in a while. We're all kind of the same, you know, and we all share the same planet. We should all take care of it.

So that's what that documentary is about. And we talk about that, but also how he made it and the challenges and surprises they're in. And also a bunch of other random, fun film stuff. I'm telling you, you know, we went for two hours. This is an extra long one. So I'm going to shut up now, as always, and let you get to it. Here's my conversation with Francisco Campus Lopez. But the way we normally start is by asking how you got.

to filmmaking or did film hit you like really early on or did you kind of find it later in life? I mean, my first vivid memories, I was born in Chile in the 80s in a dictatorship. So I had, unlike you, probably black and white television. And in 1985, I was two years old. I was born in 83 and I remember everything. So I saw my parents that were like a young couple by then. were watching like the big event of the night of the year probably it was Sunday at 9 p.m. Empire strikes back you know and dove to Spanish you know so I was I was two years old I can relate because I have kids and babies and I escaped for some reason in the middle of the night I decided to yes see my folks right and I was working in this hallway and I saw this like the first

TV on call that we had having this scene when C3 is outside the gate and that kind of like changed my perception of life right there. And I was like enamored by you know and I was like super young. I was two years old and I remember this vividly. So after that

I found this loophole, you know that every night I can go there and watch a little bit of movies that my folks were watching, right? So I grew up with Superman you know, with Indiana Jones. So all this like American culture that was coming like very late.

for us, I'm telling you, 85, and the Empire's rights back is from 1980, I believe. So, just arriving to Chile, it was like funky times in Chile in those years, you know. So I felt like this is something, it's like a window to something that I'd be really connected to. And then as I was growing up, I was consuming all the NGM films on the 50s. They were showcased every day in the afternoon from 5 p.m. at on. So I grew up with all that thing, super. old stuff and that created like a way for me to communicate you know my references will be these films my my my play dates with my with my friends in the in the blog or my on my or my brother would be to just reenact movies from the 50s you know so it became part of my language not really

knowing how to use in a creative way right but 10 years later from that 85 moment and I'm very probably you notice by now I'm very peculiar with dates and precise about it, a little OCD about it. In 1995, you know, it was like a big family milestone, the 50-year anniversary of my,

of my grandpa's, and I was giving a camera and a task. Someone gave me a Sony hi-A with a black and white viewfinder. It's okay, I don't want to film this. You film it. Figure it out. So that moment that the eye goes into a viewfinder,

it completely transforming. That was it for me. That was okay. seeing the one different way. I love this stuff and I don't want to stop. You know, so he was kind of my rich, my rich cousin. Everyone has a rich cousin, right? So he had like the underwater housing he was into diving and things that.

So he was like super prepared by those years and times, right? But I didn't have access to a camera. So it took me like probably two more years to get access to a camera from a local guy that would do weddings. and I convinced all my my classmates to pay some money to his guy so he can show up to my house and we can do a short film. And that was like 96, a year later, again with my OCDness about dates. And from them, I just really didn't pay attention to the equivalent of high school. I enjoy my time creating films. And I decided very early on probably was 14 that I would love to just spend my life in twist, not knowing where to start. You know, like I said,

I wasn't born in America it was like a very funky times in Chile but the 90s were much better the 90s were like every time I tell people that I grew up like your 90s here is hard to believe but we were so influenced by American culture that I kind of felt the same

on my friends from the same age in this country right so I became serious there and then I decided okay this is my life and I need to do whatever I can just be around a camera all the time you know so that gives you like a little bit of the medium answer

And it was probably motivated by the temperatures of the country, right? The economy of those years, you will consume keep American art form because you couldn't really purchase the rights for something that was an ABC at the same time. It was impossible. And the technology wasn't there, so you couldn't have, like, you couldn't use, like, servers, stuff like that, right? So you will wait until things are, even for the movies and cinemas, you know, we'll wait a year to see a movie that was like,

a blockbuster of the year, right? We had to wait. So we were, like, forced to learn from all stuff that I think it gave me a good appreciation of the span of five years to go through all these eras. So, I mean, I look back now, and like I mentioned, I'm a father, so I can see how my kids are being raised now and experiencing the world. And I just get so much nostalgia from our era, especially from where I come from. But that's a final podcast, yeah. What, you know, we were just talking about this, I think on the last two podcasts, about, you know, getting, I think so many DPs got together with their friends

and tried making little movies. Was there a film that you remember attempting to recreate? We were just talking about it being the Matrix for us. Yeah. the last podcast. No, you did a fan part, you know. I was, like, doing a movie that came in 1982, I believe, that was, like, celebrating the 500 years of the scoring of America as a continent.

You know, it was Christopher Columbus movie, something. So I saw my opportunity, you know, I was thinking as a producer, what could be hot for that time, right? So I anticipated that in my grade, you know, will reach in October, which actually this type of time, right, Columbus Day, and I could actually get an audience if I do something with Columbus Day. So I watch this film

and I recreated with like three or four guys you know, this is a couple of scenes there. And we have only one female classmate that we signed up for the task and she didn't show up. So I had to be a queen. You know, so I had to be behind the camera with this guy that we hire.

And I went to my mom's closet and got like an absolutely awful old fur that was covered me and I played the queen and I had to go back. So with these guys, we came up with that movie that was intended to be like a little knockoff poorly made and now with a super VHS tape that purchasing Godbaster that afternoon, actually, for like, I don't know, the equivalent of two bucks from money nowadays.

And that was kind of the film that we tried to recreate it. So it wasn't a fun one, the metric, it's amazing, you know, or Star Wars or something like that. It was like a boring film that I just saw the business opportunity of putting it together. Did you always come to filmmaking holistically then? Because obviously with the documentary we're going to talk about like you did, you wore a lot of hats. Yeah, yeah. Were you always kind of a one-man band type person or was there one section of the art form that kind of draws you more? Yeah, I mean, pretty much I see myself more.

It's like a hybrid role sometimes, you know. When I do agency work or commission-based work or even narrative pieces, I tend to be more organized in terms of like each areas. And I come from actual, I come from fiction, you know. So my first film was not a documentary. It was a feature film for fiction, right, in fiction. So I come from that model and I do like small teams, you know, for a lot of reasons. I feel comfortable wearing many hats.

and like to be involved in the visuals, you know. So when you go up and you start working with more teams, you get the luxury sometimes of coming up with partnership, right, with a DP that you really like to work with or a production designer or an editor. But in my case, I think out of necessity, you know, I've been doing this for a long time, because I haven't found those pieces yet to me. I have collaborated with many guys when I hire people and that goes and shoot

with me everywhere in the world when we're shooting but I haven't felt that I found this person that I will reinterpret what I have in my brain

you know for some reason and I think it's just I'm sure it's meant to happen the other way I'm sure that at some point maybe tomorrow in the next shoot I will just come across

a person but for now I just being that way you know and I found that in fiction was probably more challenging But then that necessity in documentaries became a skill set, you know, because I can be more ninja, you know, I can be more careful around what's going around me, right?

And I can just be more efficient from a technical point of view, a budget point of view, you know, I can probably stay a lot of money if I do it that way and spend more in the specific areas that are going to provide a higher production value, you know. such as post-proliction, right, an amazing composer for an orchestral score, right? And I feel capable, of course, you understand for making. And you're in the field, of course, so you know, it's like a second-guessing constant state of mind, right? So you're always thinking, I'm not doing right or not. And, of course, when you have team members, that alleviates that, because you are with your gang, where you're tribe, so you feel like, okay, I will take up this, and you will take of this, and we're happy.

But sometimes in scenes in this documentary, especially the one that we'll talk probably later, which is the Dan Busters, I was like really forced to just tackle many jobs as they could because I was limited, you know? So, okay. But this is a part of me that is being driven that way out of necessity, like a suck a couple of times.

And it's part of my formation too. I studied film for a couple of years in Argentina. And Argentina is a very like author-like, world. So I didn't go to like a media program, right? I didn't go to, to like the university. I went to a school of directors, you know, by the equivalent Almondova in Argentina, you know, I saw Subiela, which made great movies. So we were like a bunch of guys. We wanted to be directors. We realized that it would be tricky sometimes. So we had to like disperse ourselves and try to find different jobs and you started learning by mistake, you know? So I sucked on many of those jobs,

but then you learn how by errors you know try an error you learn that okay this is possible and then just a practice and you are in the field I have room for error sometimes you can even pull your phone and call someone to give you an advice so you're on your own and you end up learning you know so it becomes a good opportunity but but ideally I always say that making is a team work and even though I like small small teams I prefer to work with teams now it's like much better It's richer, that way now. Yeah, and it's just obviously slightly lower stress. Oh, I feel like, you know, it can seem more stressful to someone who hasn't done it,

that there's like, oh, there's 200 people. It's like, yeah, but that's 200 people that are doing something that you don't have to think about as long as you know what they're doing, you know. Yeah, what I did suffer, though, is to give you a precise example. I was okay with camera stuff, you know, whatever. I suffer with that, the IT stuff. You know, that puts me like on my nerves, you know, that I think was, I know, I could do something wrong, sleep separation, you know, you're tired, you're usually on the day, you know,

you're thinking about next day, you are copying things in the background, and that's the area that terrifies me, you know, and I didn't, I was lucky, lucky the idea and doing any stupid thing, right, but I was in a constant set of, I was content how you say this feeling of stress because of this. And as opposed to be stressed during the shoot,

I was happy, places, doing all the stuff, having cameras and toys around me, we're happy with the stuff, right? But when it comes to that thing, it's like, probably if anyone is listening this, you know, that is working like me, doing a lot of stuff,

my only advice would be never do the IT. Get someone, train someone or whatever by the IT is to be a worst nightmare yeah yeah getting a good uh yeah second ac or data wrangler both uh yeah yeah having any assistant camera it's pretty good um what actually something that you know speaking about uh doing things you know kind of in a small team or even by yourself um is there anything that comes to mind that you can think of that uh has helped you kind of raise the uh the production value of your

films or documentaries that you can think of that, like, maybe people could learn from. Yeah, so two things in that comment. So I started paying more attention in the optical quality of the lenses that I'm using or choosing to use. Sometimes in the commentary, you are thinking about, I've got to be fast. You know, I've got to be economical, right? So I don't want to swap lenses. I don't want to put filters on. And I just want a canon, photo, Zoom, that will do the job.

and it doesn't breathe and perfect and it will take all sorts of weather if it's if it's a grizzling water it would be fine so of course we we all work in that in that regard sometimes right but I really see a distinction when I stop embracing them entirely and I went for like okay it's going to be heavy lenses I'm going to have to be so careful when I swap them and I will leave a little bit

the comfort of a do-it-all Zoom. So I started getting more primes, you know, and I was saying I got a shout-out to my buddy Ryan and Avery from Tequina, you know. Oh, yeah. I've talked to Ryan. Yeah, Rayne is awesome. He provided

a bunch of lenses for me to play with and an entire set of the vistas, which are not the first choice. What are you having there? Oh, we need to talk about it. We need to talk about it, because I shot up so much of the dam basso scenes with the 5135 a lot. You know, I love that lens.

I love the lens. Yeah, that lens is amazing. It's such a beautiful glass that, I mean, it will never disappoint, you know. And so that's one thing, you know, to really choose your optical length and quality of glass, actually, that's better said, quality of glass very carefully and use better glass. because I think sometimes you can have a C-angle camera, a D-angle camera capturing, like a shot that you'll use for two segments. But when you're in post-production, you have to match up cameras and get the looks. And even if you're standardizing on AIS on DaVinci,

you will still benefit a lot if you keep certain consistency with good glass, right? So the audience won't really know what's going on, but they will see something weird that doesn't add up, right? when we were used to see GoPro's, you know, in crash cams, and now the commodities, so different cameras are kind of fulfilling that, right? So it's kind of

same thing, you know? So that's one thing. Probably get a good glass. Don't chip out in glasses, you know, be creative and just do a whatever campaign to get you good glasses and beg for glasses, but get the lenses, you know? And the second one, it is the

post-production. Post-production has to be done right in terms of this holistic way, which is the trifecta, which is the sound design and all what goes into it. I'm not mixing up the score. I think scores its own category, although it gets mixed technically by a sound mixer guy. It's a different thing because it comes beforehand, right?

And then the final grading or the color or thinking whatever you have in your mind to accomplish that vision, right? So those two main areas are the big differentiator for a professional shoot, you know, and to really probably step up your visuals, you know. So nowadays, we have luxury that we can learn a lot about post-production. DaVinci is an amazing software that can do everything you want from ingesting on set to a DCP. Everything in between can be done there and beautifully and with all the standards you might need.

we'll leave sound aside sound still protools the king and it should be pro tools because it's amazing but for image is Da Vinci right so I think but I recommend to get the right people you know and for that one I do a lot of stuff on set you know but when it comes to post production

I step back you know and I have one specific studio for everything that's the way it should be and they can understand things I never thought of you know that will never end that and when you deal with these guys, you know how little you know, because the nature of every craft, right? So, yeah, to sum it up for you to give you like a recap, it's just get good lenses and get good post-production on these three areas, and you'll be good to go, yeah.

Yeah, well, and to your point about the, having different, you know, ABC, D-Cam, having lenses that match is going to be, is going to make your life so much easier matching them in the grade. Because if you have four different models of camera, you know, Canon, Sony, Panasonic, Black Magic, whatever, they will all match so much better if you just have the same

lenses or lenses from the same line on all of them. Because people will notice an optical difference before they well, I wouldn't, I shouldn't say people will notice an optical difference before they notice color, but it's easier to match color than it is. Oh, you know, the, you can't, you can't

grade in Boca or like, that fall off or anything like that or, you know, contrast. No, and yes, I give you a super precise example about this stuff. I was assigned to shoot a very small scene in France, like right before the pandemic. It was February, I believe, 2012, for the same film, right?

And I was coming from an accent. And I was in the end of this filming. I fell, I broke an, you know, long story short. So I, it was such a, this is the beauty, a way that could be bad for you, but the beauty of documentary, that you can't really stage stuff. You have to, like, be present. So I didn't have the moment to say, okay, we'll shoot it later, you know, we'll just stage it later, no. I had to be there when they're draining a dam. There's

no way to think about it, right? So I went there wearing a cane, you know, like a knee pad, the whole thing, the airlines were taking care of me from point A to point B was pathetic. But I went there anyways, and I decided to take my crappiest camera for this. know, my smallest camera, which is like a Sony 87R, 2, you know, in those years, you know, which is like still a camera may be. But I decided to take my meta-blance adapter and PL SonyALL-Sin-A-L lenses. So keep it nimble, you know, keep it nimble, but just forget about it and have a camera that will be super light with minimal rigging, so I can just work with my cane, you know,

and just be happy about it. So, yeah, I went there with very low expectations. You know, I just wanted to get it done, and I did get it done. And then I come back, and two years later, when we are deep into the weeds of post-production and working with the calories, the guy sends me like the first preview of the whole thing with a 70-minute long film.

And I have specifically a few scenes of this thing. And then my first reaction was, man, you did magic with these things. You cannot spot any difference. And now I use the same lenses that I used later on in some interview so I can match it. And it was fine, no problem at all. So that's why even the sensor is a limited sensor in the way that it will process the signal because it will be still 8-b image, you know, with S-Log2, you know, 4-0 or 4-200 maybe. Yeah, 4-200.

So, yeah, even that is like, know what you need for that DCP quality, 4K, deliverable for platforms, alterty, you will be, like, suffering. So I was, like, cringing about it, you know, but then the guy worked it out perfectly and did some, some, some aces, standardization with everything, and, you know, you can spot the difference, you know? So there was a good choice of lenses. I didn't really hesitate on, like, using kid lenses, you know, and keep native math. I just say, okay, very small camera, very little camera,

but let's try to beef it up, but a little more in the lenses. So I can get this compromise still nimble, something I can just do on my own or whatever, because I was very limited physically. And I wasn't on my best, but it had to be done. So yeah, so that kind of really, to reinforce my point, that the lenses are so important, and it will make your life isn't, like you just said,

you know, you can match stuff better, you know? Yeah, I mean, I've maintained, I shot on the C-100 mark two for, six years. And I, you know, I did a lot of work in the camera and then I learned a lot of like neat color tricks for, because the same thing, 8 bit 420. Right. But as long as you nail it, as long as you nail your exposure and your white balance is solid, like, you know, it's still, it's fine. You know, it's when it's when you got to fix things that they still quite go your way. No, I was like so grateful, almost crying

with the color, he's saying, man, you're an amazing job, you're the best. And he said to me, man, it was well exposed. Yeah, that's it right. That's it. It was fine. So we just got a good laugh about it, but long, sorry, short, yes, Lensis is extremely important, actually. You know, we had a Lens Month on this podcast last year, which was Ryan Avery, Matthew DuCloose.

I got to listen to it. Oh, yeah, wow. He wrote the Bible. I was going to say that was going to be my lead-up was did you pick up the Cine Lens manual? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. It's right there. It's like 20 pounds of worth of knowledge right there. It's bigger than I got the BSC, you know, the British Society of Cinematographers. They came out with a book

called Preserving the Vision, which is just like all the BSC cinematographers across the years. And it's like a beautiful book, gilded, you know, lovely. And I bought it just because why not? And it is smaller than the Cine Lens manual.

No, It's insane. It's insane. 100 years of DPs. I ever had. No, no, I mean, he did a great job.

I mean, the book is beautiful. You know, it's so much, so much in there that, yeah. Thank you, Jay,

for putting a good job about it. And Sunday, you will sign up for me when I see you, but I'm on a different coast because it's tricky. Yeah. I mean,

he's been touring that thing a lot. Yeah, but I haven't been able to, like, really catch him around me, you know, when I go there, I'm working.

He's not there. But it's not couple of emails to him, like, thanking him. And yeah, it's phenomenal. So we all love the book. It truly is. I've been telling people, like, yeah, you need to pick up the ASC manual. But the CineLens manual is definitely like, you need them both. Yeah. Yeah, but a new edition, I have the old edition, but when I get a new edition from the EASC manual, which is like, yeah, I think it's 3,000 copy or something on. So, yeah, I want to, I want to get that way. I have a little bone to pick with the ASC, and that is the ads, because I have the green one, because I live in

L.A., so these things are a lot easier to, you know, but I got the green, the 11th edition, and it's not like that marbled, you know, in the ads, it looks like cool, like green marble. It's not that. It's just green. Oh, so what? So maybe. It looks like the 19th addition. I'm very upset. I think they're misleading clients with an old version or maybe like a Photoshop. It was a mockup.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, probably like a 3D render of it will look like this way. Yeah. But when it's printed and it's like a whole different thing. Interesting. Yeah. I really want to get it because it's, you know, we are geeks about stuff and I mean, we purchased whatever they produce.

Yeah. Yeah. Actually, that's a great question because I again super geek like I've got nearly every issue of Cine effects before they went under hundreds of ASC magazines all these things

what are some of those resources that you have held on to over there's a collected or maybe enjoy American Cematographer is something that when I was in when I was in school it was like you really have American Cemetery

how and I'm telling you 2002 and 2003 so it was like a rare item that probably one or two rich students, you know, will have. So everyone will be reading it. So I've been reading that for many years. And of course, I'm my own subscriptions, so I keep reading them somewhere there. And I like a lot what John does in, in Film in Digital Times, you know, which is like something that you can buy on PDF, forget it too. So I like his stake on things a lot too. You know, his articles, he seems to have a good network. So he always interviews like people like feel like his friends you know that are working on

industry and and sometimes a new camera system those are the things I that they read the most I used to be very focused on movie maker you know back in the day but I haven't really followed up with them that much lately I used to have the magazine I know that they are more like blog now and more digital like like everyone which makes sense but I think America's not Dorfair is kind of top one you know And I remember, like, two editions ago, probably in August or July, I was reading, how you seen this show, for next, keep breathing? That is, it's about, you know, this airplane that fell in, in Canada, and this woman

is trying to survive in this video in photography. So, okay, so it shows good, and it did an amazing job with Impossible, you know, I mean, really amazing. It was an article about little tricks that he was using there. So you learn from like a blur, which is like literally half of a page. And it's one picture there, and you learn so much just reading these guys that are working. And I'm always interested about outdoor field making. It's kind of my thing now.

And the fiction prejudice that I'm developing are saying, no, you know, let's be in nature, let's be around. I feel really comfortable there. But of course, you understand this very well. super challenging. So when you pick up a magazine, like a magazine like a magazine photographer, you read stuff like that. I mean, that is like a joy of knowledge right now by a guy

pretending to teach you. It's a guy that did it. And it's sharing all this stuff for you. So you can just not copy and paste, of course, because every job is different, but you can at least refer to something. And also that's the beauty of these magazines, you know, that they interview like real guys, you know, doing an amazing job in so many tough conditions and that's where I get my my sources of learning you know and I learn a lot

just reading the magazine so yeah it's such a just it's such a justified purchase but I put on my taxes as research so I will give everyone a little hints you know that's research so if I always comes to me I will give a fuck you know okay there you go this is how we learn that's it you know yeah I do the same thing with Blu-rays oh yeah no you can write Blu-rays off on your taxes that's it that's research too I do streaming actually which is kind of equivalent nowadays, right? The streaming. And so a little PSP, PSA for all our freelancers all there. And books, stuff about it, is your research because you're learning how to be better at your quest. So nothing, nothing. And my accountant told me. So I'm not like giving you just me, right?

My account told me. This is good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the thing I did, especially now, having done this podcast for like two years and I started interviewing like DPs that I really like looked up to and shit. I, uh, I went on eBay. And people, will sell, you know, 50 issues, back issues of American cinematographer that they're just trying to offload for like 50 bucks. It's like a dollar. I should. I got, I got like 150 probably for maybe $100, you know. And it's such a great collector's item anyways. And I'm a great on the shelf. A lot of toys, no, how a lot of toys there and things are. So yeah, that's kind of like, the wife complains, you know, but well, but well, I'm a little afforded of a

I guess in a tougher. So I'm going to take your lead and probably go on eBay after the call. See what I can get. Yeah. You know, it's a... Let's see. You know, I've asked this about a lot of people, but actually, it's going to be two questions, depending on how the first one goes.

But were you a big DVD or Blu-ray, like, special features person? Or did you, that kind of not hit you very hard? No, I was. I was. I think that was probably right in this gap time pretty much when the internet became more stable but nobody is right now. The DVDs were another source of a lot of knowledge, right?

Especially when they have these commentaries that you can turn on and see whether the DP and the director are talking or the producer, which is always amusing the way that they tell you things from the production point of view. But it was very heavy on those. I like a lot. For instance,

when they were new editions from an old movie, for instance, the first camp, the special feature was amazing. And it was a movie from 1994. You know, the Indiana Jones first set,

the first trilogy, you know, now with the fourth movie, right? The same thing. Back to the future was another joy. And all those, like, streeters,

you know, from the late 90s, you know, like a couple names coming to my brain now, like the client, the firm, you know, all these generation books, you know, and they have like amazing this director, Curtis Hanson, you know, so you can, yeah,

so I remember that it was a place in LA, I believe. I think it was called Planet DVD or something, that you remember that? Oh, yeah, that sounds like that, right? Yeah, I mean, early 2000, I'm sorry, because I have a classmate in film school and I have the rich guys, you know that will come

yeah he will go to the US you know like I don't know every season or so so he will go to a spot in LA I believe it was planning DVD you know hopefully someone can put something

in the comments you know and and he will like get all this like Kevin Smith movies you know so like dogma you know

and J.N. Simon Bob by the way you can't get dogma anywhere fucking that dude that dude who went to prison whose name shall not be mentioned

is like holding it hostage. You can get all of Kevin Smith movies on DVD, Blu-ray, whatever, except dogma. Oh, my God, you know that. Luckily, I have it, but from early 2000s. Oh, my good.

There's a movie that speaks from Twitter. I can't remember a name, but my classmate did, Gaspar, Antivo, and I will probably send this to him. He was a huge fan of Kevin Smith. So I have the DVD because I bought it from this guy, right?

He begged me to give him. the dog my DVD to him. So he hasn't. And also another guy that's making movies you can watch on Netflix, you know, heavily influenced by those DVDs and all what you can learn

from these guys when they're commenting stuff. So yeah, I was super, super nerdy about it. And I took every little bit of information I could get, you know, so. So the reason I ask is,

I don't know how I'm going to make this happen. But first of all, I think that like Netflix, whoever, Amazon, all these people, just need to put the director's comment in the language selector. Yeah.

Right? Like that there's actually a, hold on one second. Let's go and change that org or something and do a petition so we can just get them. Yeah. I feel like that'd be easy, but also I want to start a special feature streamer. That's just because I, because like in my head it's like those, the, the, the, the, the, The rights to special features can't be very expensive. Like, I'm sure that...

No, no, I mean, they were always filmed by... They don't even get YouTube takedowns. No, no, no. No one's seen them. And they were filmed by smaller crews, you know, with, of course, when in that era, they were like, I don't know, like Sony, DB cams or whatever. Right. So, yeah, so they look different, you know, all the interviews with the...

I'm sure you remember these, the low-world toilets. Yeah, yeah. The filament line that you can't touch, you. you know, it will make you miserable, you know, all those like Ari 650 that were amazing. I still use them by the way when I get a chance. But I give you another piece of information. I think you will appreciate this.

Let me see if I can have it right here on my mess. And bear with me one second. I think you will love this. What is? There you go. There you go. Let me go through Grobu to get this. I was going to say, I've loved you in Andor so far.

Oh, I haven't seen that. Oh, this is the shit, man. This is the director series. The AFI director series with Steven Spielberg. Yeah. I mean, no, it's everyone. It was there. Oh, he's just on the front.

It's the one that I got from eBay. No, no. I mean, it's like one episode for each of these guys. You know, and I mean, look it up. This is how, I mean, early 2000s, something around, it was being showcased on T&T in South America. And, of course, with subtitles, everything. and I was watching that

every single night because they have all these directors from there were like Zamanke's you know Brian de Palma for Coppola

and I mean probably 10 more and the most iconic one James Cameron so they talk about these movies with the special features is right in reality

right here this is a DVD and scene access filmography and awards web links that you know how you get access to a web link

from a he did a CD player on your fucking I don't know, but, but these things are on eBay right now. And I haven't gone full on in the collection. I plan to do it. But this is like a similar to what I say now in the directors. And this is like a lot of info right here.

And they just talk, like this show from Bravo inside the actor studio, something similar. And with all these directors, like sharing all this info and stories in a very candid way, very comfortable setting. So probably I'm sure that in YouTube So look it up I think you have a kick out of it yet Yeah I'm going to have to

Before I post this episode I'm going to have to go buy those DVDs So that the episode goes up You know Buy them all That's why I don't talk about lenses sometimes On Facebooks on I've seen it They spike you know

So it's like a big secret Ryan Avery is the only one that I That I call and text and geek out about lenses Because we say no we can see anything right yeah i did the same thing with uh because i've had this uh nicon f2 for a really long time so i've got like a full set of nico or a i s primes oh beautiful lens it's men yeah amazing right they're they're like the way i've always described them is they're they have kind of the same character as like the you know your canon f lenses but they're just a little sharper a little clearer little more

like refined little higher resolution but uh yeah i was talking to Alex nelson from zero optic And we were both geeking out about it. And then we were like, fuck, now everyone's going to go on eBay. But I'm sure enough, I go on eBay. They're like $800 a piece now. No, no, it's absolutely crazy. The way it's working out of it. I don't know how you have so many pieces in the world buying lenses.

And by the time I was probably, I was the only person that would be a wrong camera 20 years ago. And now it's like a blossoming world and people on the piece talking about characters and shen on lenses. just a good time. It's like a renaissance, right? But yeah, and just a controversial statement since you gave me permission early on to say whatever I want. I believe, and I'll get be that later, but I believe that the Nikon I, AIS are superior than ethnicists. That's my take. I agree. No, I agree. I prefer. And I have like a weakness for the long ones, for the 105, the 135, the 180, the 180 is beautiful. And so I think those, those,

beautiful lenses that they're going to probably go high in price after your podcast is out. But yeah, beautiful lenses and I have a body of mine in the UK that score a couple of ones on eBay already converted to PL. Beautiful. I was like so jealous. But but yeah, so beautiful lenses. Yeah. Luckily, I tend to shoot the Canon C-series cameras. So that little Nikon to EF adapters, like, you know, $5 super thin, just... Yeah, I shoot an entire film in the jungle, in the Amazons, in 2015, you know, with two Nikon AS Primes. It was like a 28 and a 50, and that's it.

And I was, like, in Brussels. And they're so small, so light. No, they're tiny. And it was in Brussels two weeks ago, showing Dambasa for the first time. and they had like trailers and they came to a beautiful surprise that they were showing this film that I shot in Peru in 2015

they're in a DCP with all these little nickel lenses and it looked fine to me you know well Kubrick used to shoot the AIS lenses yes so there's your you know permission

yeah yeah yeah he was heavy on that on those ones he then he loved the Cucbarotouacal 2100 which a lens I own too. I believe it. It's just very cumbersome

to use the body. It's beautiful. And it produced the most beautiful looking shots to my taste in this movie, Ice White Shot. Yeah. The ballroom scene area,

seeing when he's like dancing, it's like Christmas light in the bag. And I mean, it's beautiful. And that's the lens, you know, the Devoutness room. So yeah,

whatever Kubik does is fine. For the rest of us, that's peasants, right? You know, when you were talking about there being a run-on on lenses. The other one that I've been asked, you know, because I have like the podcast and write for pro video and, you know, a little bit of YouTube stuff, I'll get some comments,

questions and stuff. But even for my friends, there are so many people trying to buy DV cameras or even VHS, but people think they want VHS and they realize they actually want DB because VHS is fucking complicated. But there are, I mean, a DVX 100, is going for like two grand on eBay right now. No way. Wow. I was taking like no long ago for the VX 1000. Remember that camera?

That's impossible to find because of the skateboard community. The skate. The skater, yeah. And I remember wooden camera came up. The microphone? I don't know. Yes. Like four years ago or something else.

So you can use the microphone and mimic the VX1,000 vibe with a chunky thing on top, right? That camera, you know. I used it for my first crappy, it's all fully done, short films in Argentina. So I have a strong ratio with the camera, you know, in the Powell world, like 25 per second. So it was better than when you guys were getting here because you guys were here 30 frames per second. So I was closer to a film look, right? And Powell had more resolution by a little bit, like 30 lines, I think. And he had like a weird thing that is like a fake white screen, like a fake and amorphic type of crap, right?

So I remember, yes, I shot it that way, and everyone was, like, beating me out, you know, how come you do this stuff, right? And I found a wine geek from a different university that was able to do it in a G4, Final Cut, G4, I made a Final Cut Studio 3 or something out, but 2, you know, and there was like a dequeaths type of version, so I can get a little bit more width when my, when my awful film. But that's why I love the camera, you know. And then I believe it was used for this movie that actually, pretty the movie. that's in the dark Bjork

we need to check the trivia we need to check the trivia on that one or IMB or something I'm pretty sure that they would use it so yeah I did something I went online and it's pretty expensive even the Canon XLS1

remember that one I actually have the two in my closet right now oh man I love the camera with the bulky thing here the white thing the fluoride lens yeah I mean that camera was like I made it I'm big back in my time

I was shooting with that thing and showed it here beautiful view find that for college oh great view find it but yeah I got that thing for college I brought it I brought it back out actually just to test it just to see what was up but obviously you can't find

many EV tapes anywhere and I think my friend David Breschelle if he's ever listening broke the the deck and Canon couldn't fix it because it was like we were in college so it was like 2009 or something like that

So they were like, yeah, we're not going to fix that. But I went from the S-video port to an H-DMI adapter to my Odyssey 7-Q-plus. So I'm getting full HD out of the X-O-2 more or less. Beautiful. It's not terrible. You can stop lens. It's a complicated process that, I mean, you can always give the... It's technically a mirrorless camera.

Yeah, but this director. Danny Boyle May 28 days later Yeah Groundbreaking film I love the film He did I can remember the lenses he used

But of course You know Not the kind of lenses I think you would like Cinema Primes or something In that body You know Doing some

You know And it's a small sensor So you get like A different angle of view Or whatever So it's tricky But But it's a camera

Worth exploring And I have a couple I have a couple Data cameras in my house that I purchased from my church a few months ago for a small donation and they were very happy with it

and I did something like you I have an atomos so I did this ATIMI adapter thing you know that upscale it you know and I got it I got it done to to like a beautiful 43

1080p something you know I think it's something I understand quite because I don't know it's going it's doing an output of 60p

which is interlaced in a way, but I don't know if it's the Atomos, it's like really not interlaced. That's the part that I'm not just savvy and I have to understand it. But I would assume it's de-interlacing. If it is, if the adapter isn't changing it,

I would assume the Atomos de-interlaces it because there's so little interlaced content now unless you're in broadcast that I imagine that the consumer devices just don't even bother. That would be great because I suffer in this film, The Ambusters, I had a couple of assets from the 90s

from Switzerland that they were interlaced and it gave us hell, hell in post-production. Not because the guy, I mean, it was because my fault because I started using it, those assets reinterpreting on the timeline and messing up everything. So at the very end before the DCP, we had to go in a whole

different world for the interlacing shoe shots. You know, so yeah, so when I get this and I got this Amazon, like cheap all 20 bucks, little box, you know, the has like a lot of scale option. That's what I did. That's literally what I did. Yeah. You select 720 and 80. It's like, oh, wow. I can yeah. Yeah, I'm going to do HD. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So I see that Ken and I were geeks about

somewhere. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. The, uh, I do want to shoot just be, I mean, first of all, shoot something like shoot a goofy project on that day. Can put it on the internet. You'll be more famous than if you were to spend a million dollars on a fucking feature. Oh, yeah. It's like, it has a texture. It has a look to it, you know? So. Yeah. I was actually just talking to Charles Pappare, who shot Key & Peel and stuff like that. That podcast, this will date when we're recording this, but that podcast just went up. And we were talking about how kind of the same thing, where all these people are like trying to get a hold of DB cameras or high eight cameras for that aesthetic.

And he was saying how they had to do a lot of that for Key and Peel. And in his opinion, only the tube cameras cannot be replicated in post. everything else can be more or less done with modern tools I agree with it I agree with actually you know and this is a famous Ikigami 79 you know

that the great created this kind of like the creator lost music video right 80s and MTV you know the bridge started with the stuff right so yeah that's a look that a lot of artists nowadays they want to emulate it, but it can't be done. You know, because it's exactly what you say.

It's speaking to, it's different. You have an instant example about it. It's this movie, which is a great movie, right away, from Chile, named No. And oh, with Gallag Garcia by now. And the movie was shot in pneumatic, you know, and complete, umatic tapes, which is the three, four. Oh. Yeah.

And it's like, great DP. I know the guy, he took up a masterclass with the guy, Sergio Armstrong. and a major figure Gall Garcia by now, right? Pablo Lorraine, the guy that did Jackie film and trade director from Chile the last 20 years. And this movie is

about the marketing campaign to get rid of the dictatorship in the late 80s. So it was like 88. And it's okay, we want the movie to look like the 80s. The movie's about marketing firm doing its commercials. That shouldn't be the same thing that they were using.

So it's phenomenal, phenomenal, the way they actually achieve it. Not in post, they actually got refurbished cameras, pneumatic, from all the formats and mediums. And then, of course, it gets like the post-production process, which is he had like a 35 million with a print in Santon festivals and the DCP and so on, right? But this is a great film that it was actually shortly support the Oscars. It didn't win, but it was the five finalists, yeah, maybe five years ago, I was mad, yeah. Wow. Yeah, it really is like a fun

now that we've kind of been creeping up on this but like now that you're honestly any camera I tell people who are just getting into filmmaking like just buy any whatever camera you think is cool, just get that. Don't go online and be like if you're just starting

just get the first thing that you can afford it's going to be great like you're going to be fine. You don't have to deal. When I was telling one guy like a student like the fact that you don't have to deal with log and capture you can save the SD cards

it's already in 24p you don't have to do the weird downsampling like your life is a dream just shoot the fucking film yeah no no no I completely agree with it I purchased recently a Canon

AH1 you know 81 because I shot some stuff in 2007 that I couldn't get any deck yeah XH1 something like it's like it's like is the Sony

no is the Canon response to the Sony Z one. Remember that camera? Yeah. So it's kind of same thing with the dial with it kind of like the jog and trouble thing. Yeah. It's like a shortened Excel 2, but in 4K.

Yeah, exactly. In black. Or HD. No, no. No, yeah. So, yeah. So I showed some stuff in the camera years ago. And I decided on my spare time, maybe some time ago.

So I got a HDB, Sony capture deck, a Panasonic, and nothing will take it. It was kind of like a proprietary canon thing. So I had to track down the camera. Someone had it in Baltimore. Deliver it to me for a 175 box, which is beautiful. And now it was like a big deal of the century. And now with a couple of batteries, we know we're not power source,

but I do have the batteries. So those BP batteries go on my swap in there. And the thing, the tape was in there. Like it was yesterday and was able to capture it. And of course, log and capture the whole thing. the whole thing is like you go like ah and it took me a while to actually figure it out you know

I was kind of rusty I was feeling a little bit bad I couldn't do this but it was my bread on butter 15 years ago now you just can't do it you know but it was fun it was a good exercise to because I get I get asked a lot about this stuff you know and which camera should I get you know I read this article about this new camera

and I usually I tell people just like you just buy whatever camera you can afford and make you work But if I can give you an advice and what camera you should get, I usually say the original Black Magic Cinema Pocket. I agree. The tiny one is great. But I also think the weird cheese wedge gray one is actually pretty good too. But the little pocket, if you can get a battery solution for the little guy, it's great.

And that's the exact reason that I recommend the one because the generation now, you know, these kids now, they, they had a perfect, they're pretty spoiled now, you know, cameras are beautiful, you know, if they can afford getting a red or an array, they're set, you know, so, but for us, you know, they had to learn a few generations earlier, we have to really struggle with things out. So I think that camera is a good compromise between, like, still a rough format, which if you can output in or actually record natively on Cinema DNG, which is like a pretty capable format at some point will be extreme, but for now it's fine, you know, And you have a lot of limitations.

Like the battery, like you said, it's like, it's ridiculous. You pull one body there. It's like 10 minutes worth of camera. But the camera produces like a nice image, you know, and it makes you talk to a camera like the way we learn, like in cold temperature, right, ISO or ASA. And then when you get this actual food that you can process it, you know, in Da Vinci, it's going to be seen by VNGs, you know,

that you can't really play anywhere. So I love that, I love that camera. I still own one, actually. And it's a beautiful camera with, like, some old, old Russian Soviet primes that I have in there, you know, from 16,000 cameras. So, yeah, that's a camera you should recommend. Get the camera and embrace it, embrace the flaws that it has, and you will learn, you know. And some people come back to me saying, yeah, good camera. Well, and something that I've said a lot on this podcast is that when people, well, there's like two ends to this thought.

The first one is when people say like, oh, how do I make my thing look quote unquote more? like film when we said that we just talked about this on the last podcast actually when we when we said that back in the early 2000s or the 90s we were not referencing photochemical film as such we were just trying to make things look professional and now like that that vernacular has continued but when people say I want this to look like film what they often means is the thing that they remember looking high quality so now that the pocket the original pocket is old enough I've seen I just looked footage of that yesterday so that someone had shot i think they put it on reddit and it looks better than you remember because now that's your nostalgia point and like no matter where you are

on the timeline of of uh new cinema technology the newest thing will always look too clear yeah too crisp you know too sharp or yeah so it's like the little nostalgia nostalgia factor that we don't really understand but it's kind of embedded in our brain right is there we really fully get it. I mean, we get it because we're more trained because we're kind of in the field, right, by the normal audience. So yeah, I mean, in that camera, if you take the time on patients to do an upscale on Da Vinci that will give you like, I don't know, like 0.3 seconds per minute or something else. Yeah. And it will make a beautiful 4K image if you really need to deliver something else. So your final mask, you can open a 4K or ultra-C, it will find

it looks great and the vinci will do it yeah you can select how much the sharpening you want and how strong the de noise you want it to be i always keep it in medium and it looks fine it looks actually on par with whatever you can watch now you know yeah i did the same thing with the c500 mark two but when i was running the c100 mark two i would always just export in 4k no no no no yeah i mean it depends how you do it right it's a couple of tricks are right but But any cable software nowadays, it will do it. It's fine. You don't need to go to a studio and a lab to do it.

You can know your house. It's fine. Now, with the document, with Dam Busters, did you shoot all black magic? I got an email saying that you had done the whole thing with black magic. But it was a mix of cameras, wasn't it? Yeah. So basically, all the stuff that I shot was the original fresh content was black magic. It was like the or 12K.

They also 12K and the 6K. The 6K were probably the most versatile camera being a documentary in nature. I can just be in everywhere with this camera and it just came out. So no really re-ins solution, but they work in my favor. So it was kind of like the DACAM. And I was like with the IEPs, you know, with the battery grid and you just kind of work this way. So a lot of stuff, it was shot that way. You know, those are the main cameras, but you have a challenge.

when you are depicting a documentary that has certain archival images or refers to different eras, you get footage from different agencies, you know, so you get footage from different guys that were covering a Denver Woolwall. So, yeah, so I had to work with some Sony stuff that was provided to me, you know, and in all sorts of flavors on Sony, like Rex 7-9 to, like, I guess, lock three, you know, and in Lithuania, I had one difference, though. I had a guy which is like the most, he's a spirit of Lithuania. Mindau Gus, you know, a great guy. He's like 6.5, you know, he's like a giant fella.

You know, and the guy is super spectacular, and he was so set on not using any other camera than his camera. So, yeah, okay, so what camera you have? I have an F-55, Sony. Okay. Okay. Great camera, but come on, man. I would say, dude.

Okay, what can we do here? So the guy was, I really wanted to work with him because Lysuania was my first time there. I don't speak the language, of course, you know. I was going into a very deep remote ancient forest. And he did a film about the ancient forest, right? So I was feeling, okay, it's good to have this guy next to me. And now I can do my own thing and have him more like a second unit, you know, which is exactly what he did, right?

And that's why he didn't want to try different, something different. So in that scene of Lithuania, we use his camera. You know, the guy is super sweet, very, very easy to work with. But then I understood why he wanted that camera, right? So that camera had to be matched with two black magics, you know, and we just gave him lenses, essentially. So he kept one of my suitcase of lenses with the kinaz and so bad. It was a couple of things that he wanted to do with his own CP prime.

I mean, it was a compact prime three. Yeah, compact prime three size. He used a 15, a 15 meal, yeah, a 15 meal for central. wide shot and things that are, which is, of course, it's like a different sensor, but it gives like a whitish point of view anyways. And he did a good job with it, and he was completely married. It was no way that you can change his mind. And I respected that because I was a, I was a foreigner, I was in a different country, wanted to be nice with my colleagues. And he's kind of like the most prolific director there. So I want to respect the guy. And I came across

like a beautiful image that it was easy to match because we shot it with the added raw thing that goes on top. The camera was huge. That's why I kind of groaned because it's a massive camera. It's a beautiful camera. Produces a beautiful image. It was a super 35 sensor.

It will output 4K 120, I believe. And a raw flavor from the Sony raw flavor stuff from Barbara. And what else? And it has a global shutter. So it helps when you do a handheld interview stuff about it. You know, if you're moving fast. And yeah, so he was super married with it.

And like I said, respect that and that was probably the one that I saw that it would be more more challenges to match with the black magics but the black magic cameras were like very filmicky in a way you know so that camera match it nicely because that camera is kind of like the the predecessor of the Sony Venice you know the Venice one right so it's kind of like that high gamma you know cameras that I I've seen like shows with the camera you know it's amazing camera it's really good if you get right glass, you know, the right

post-production, the camera shines, and you'll never know what the camera is, right? But I also would be afraid about the post-production process. But you work on my favor, actually, that these three cameras, they have this fumicky texture to it, you know, and the new color science from the Blackmagics, by

that time was a new one, the Gen 5, it was like really easy to match with that SLO 2 that a camera produced. So I didn't have any issues. I mean, not me, because I was not physically being in the chorus, I was in constant communication. I edited the whole thing with proxies. You know, we imagine the best effort in the proxy category.

But then it was like the media management from Da Vinci was what impressed me the most, you know, because then you can export the entire timeline with the raw metadata with a trim option. So the giant file that was like an interview that you shot in raw formats is now a tiny file. you know, that you still retains the quality. So the post-production guy, you know, he was able to get everything from my computer, put on the server, you know, 800, yeah, almost a terabyte, you know, it goes there, and then the color is in his studio,

downloads the whole thing, you know, and replicates the same info, the same timeline in his computer so we can unleash everything, you know, as opposed to export your timeline on, progress 444-H-K or something and it just worked in that way so those cameras were like super awesome to work with you know they were ragged enough you know they they were made very fail you know and they produced what I needed for the budget that I needed to to work with you know so instead of having one one airy I can have like four black might be

three-blumadies you know so right I take it you know for uh I suppose we should we should we should explain what the documentary is. Yeah, we'll talk about a documentary now. Yeah, because now we've talked about the cameras so much, it's like, well, what the fuck are they being used for? Yeah, but would you like to explain kind of what Dam Busters is about for those who do you? Yeah, so Dunbusters is a film about what we call river heroes.

River heroes are individuals in different countries of Europe. It's a movie that it takes place in Europe, it's for Europeans, restoring rivers, and how they restore them. They remove either dams that are obsolete or obstacles, such a culvert or like in the U.S. They're called culvert and our we are seeing how they call it in the UK, right? So this is a manifestation of how you can bring nature back after centuries or decades of abuse by rivers. You can see a tangible process when you move a dam in that reservoir or lake, it gets a river, the river that used to be there. and how the meadows come back, you know, the flora and fauna thrives, and nature comes back.

You know, so it was a film that we had to film in very remote areas in France, Spain, Stonia, Lithuania, Finland, in the border with Russia. That was fun to fly drones right there. I'll tell you later, but, you know, and the U.S. So that was like, the U.S. kind of like the beacon from Europe. The U.S. started with dam removals back in the 80s. And in California, it was small dam. So the Europeans started saying, okay, we're intervening rivers since the Romans, with aquedals with some sort of reservoir.

And now we are in an era of climate change. It's monster with climate change, right? It's destroying everything. Things are changing. We have to be resilient and adapt to climate change. So they started removing dams. Now, for them, it's like a first economical reason. While I'm more radical, I would say just blow them out, you know,

and have energy being replaced by windmills or turbines of some solar or solar power. I don't think we need downs, but that would be a different philosophical chat. But for Europeans, they started since I'm more efficient about the stuff. And they assess the ones that are not producing any economical value for the population. so they map out a few ones that they were delivering to a grid system I don't know a megawatt or something and that doesn't add anything

so bye bye and some of them it will be explosive so you get the some cruise like explosion some really cool footage even in the trailer yeah yeah and the other ones are slower like a year worth of like some sort of construction work and

excavators of that right so that's a film ambassador and and it follows the journey of female scientist, engineer slash engineer from Spain that goes into these countries to learn about the stories about these dams that are being removed,

how they did it. And in some of the cases were ongoing cases. So you can see in the film how nature is claiming strikes back, you know. So that is the whole thing with the ambassadors. Very challenging because I was presented with assignment and

many countries. So of course, going back to the camera stuff, I had to, okay, I had to try, I will spend a lot of money traveling, I'll spend a lot of money hiring assistance in every country because I needed like a small crew. Each country has a good crew of like four or five. And in Spain, it was like the smallest one because I felt more comfortable in Spain. And it turned out to be the most difficult one.

It's like typical thing. And you are in preparation, you're feeling it's going to be fine. And then you're right there and it's a mess. So that's the one that I regret having a small team, smaller team. And the other ones, four or five was an norm. And I knew that would be super limited because we were doing this film in the middle of the pandemic. We had to spend money in COVID tests, going to labs and getting like so much security stuff and everywhere. And I couldn't afford to get COVID or any of my team members get COVID because it will be shutting down.

And who knows when we can resume this? And I will lose an opportunity to see something going in right now. right so i had to like really put money on like safety and things that and then the question was okay how we do this stuff i own a couple of black magic cameras i tested many extensively you know and i should you show in red you know i'm kind of on the red world for clients or my other films but i i feel really comfortable with the black magic now and it was like a decision of having more cameras on my disposal if something fails and different to have another camera you know rather than just renting and going out and the cameras really surprised me

and by that time the 6k pro was a very new camera right right out so i love the beauty of having the MDs you know and the tip of my finger right having like a beautiful battery grip that will give me what i needed and and the eyepiece i love the eyepies because i'm very driven by by by the viewfinder the eyepiece i like the shoulder camera i hear like that look you know so that camera kind of tick all the boxes to me and I saw myself using more that camera and when I had more people around me or eight type of situation there are so 12k was a beautiful camera that I can deliver a beautiful landscape but at the same time can be cinematic if you are doing like a nice close-up because you have the texture which is like a filmicky look

that I really like you know and and then all the other cameras like the sonys you know that that were given to me as folders I kind of used from different colleagues. The new Sony's, we spent time making them look like we like magics, you know? So they have the, you know, taking out the sharpness, you know, a opportunity that some footage from the FX3 was given to me. And yeah, it's like an iPhone, I think. It's not, it's like it has a sharpening option that you can turn off, you know. as in today

maybe the film would be different and things like that beautiful camera anyways you know in the capable hands you can do wonders with those cameras

but I needed something more with that type of looking I didn't want to have the look of a natural history film because this is not

a historic film and I didn't want to have a TV look so right in between the choice of lenses of course the grading at the very end and the cameras

were like a trifectal things that made me feel super comfortable and i felt like this cameras are god damn reliable you know and i read horror stories before when you're in cameras each each camera will have horror stories right but they they were wonderfully for me you know and and i learned to love them and use some specific credits they're terrific the equation value value value and capabilities i think that had to be playing out while you pay for them, you know. Yeah, I agree.

The only thing I didn't like, so I reviewed the 6K Pro and loved almost everything about, I love the menu systems, all the metadata is gorgeous. You know, I actually, I would use the, I'd have all my data and like my false color in the eyepiece. So I would use the LCD as like kind of a blank, just the image. And I'd use that for composition and checking things out. And then in the eyepiece, I had like all of my data stuff up. And I found that very helpful. But I just don't, I don't need it to be, especially with that battery grip, I don't need it to, I got small hands.

I don't need it to look like a DSLR. Just make it a cube. Just make it a cube. Like everything about that camera is great. Just make it a better shape. And I understand why they're not making it. Because everyone wants a cube, because it's very easy to, it's modular. And if you think about the company in history, Wagner, they have this.

cube with a micro cinema camera you know so so they have a history of making cubes you know everyone's making cubes i think it's the right way and this is a guy it is a hybrid weird shape it's a bulky ds a lot like you just said right so you have like the same way to have it here you know your thumb to change stuff you know you have like right here so yeah it is absolutely uh dsler hybrid way right like it was like 10 years ago when we were all excited about the 7d or or or or the 5D, right? It was kind of saying weird, annoying, annoying shape, right? But that camera for that context, the way it was, it was fine.

My beef with the camera, if we had the permission to say something about it, is the six stops and the, that to my taste, it has like a shift on the tin. Yeah, and I'm very curious about in this. You know, for some reason I get so mad when I have like a color shift. Nothing major. Oh, the colorship. Oh. Yeah, yeah.

Everything was able to be match, imposed with an easy tint and stuff, and nothing major that, oh, I can't use this. No, not all small stuff, but I would love that camera to have, like, probably a step-up version of the ND or maybe, I don't know the claim that it's in favorite India, I can remember. But it would be great that when you are four stops and six stops, you don't get any color shift. because that drives me nuts. And so especially, I mean, and the camera, even when you're working on full-on sun, you know, and then you have like a shadow area, which is the nature of what we do with this like streams, you know, covered by trees. Yeah, when you are like on the 400 base size, so you're kind of stuff on in a base,

so you bump into the next one native ice, which would be 3,200. And then you have to start ending, right? So to protect your image and the QC of everything and the logic behind is dual ISO. But in that point, super clean image in any ISO, any ISO, not issues at all. My only beef is that one. The NDs, to me, the two stops in this great. The four and six stop is like, I have my issues. So again, yeah, so again, we'll mention another time, Ryan Avery from Tequina

because I'm a huge fan of the Tokina ones. So in certain cases, I build the camera with a mad box with the Toquina infrared NDs, which are far my favorite. So I was well equipped to see it on set, you know, okay, this is shifting bucket. Let's go on a mad box and put everything there. And, yeah, it's going to work fine. But it's the only thing that I will warn people, you know,

don't expect too much of the NDs. It's going to be fine. You have to be your dog, but, yeah. And if, you know, if those are the only two complaints, a little color shift and the body's kind of a funny shape. Like, how much is that camera? $1,600. Like, it can't believe it goes by $2,500.

And if you buy it with the, yeah. And I think you get the battery grip and you get the IPs. You're going to be probably about 3K. Still, that is for what you're getting there with your Black Magic Raw especially, like. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great coding. No, I mean, that's why I think it's by the first. the value for what you're actually paying for it and understanding the business model of black

magic that they don't outsource stuff they do it on their own you know and and yeah so they in Australia certain certain components are made by by third party right but but but it's a terrific camera I'm a huge fan of cameras I always defend them in in forums by it's no BEDPs that they complain about it you know but but it's like it's it's a very terrific camera and and Of course, you know, for certain times, I always had a song guy. You know, that's something that you don't chip out. You need to have a song guy. Oh, my God, yeah.

Let's tack that on to the beginning of production value. Yeah, let's go by. Get a sang guy. Get a legit one that will give you what that will talk about you. Time goes with you and things that. That's the one you want. And always get a song guide that will tell you to stop a shot because it's a bad noise or whatever. That's the songwans that are like.

Not the ones that are afraid of telling you sound. You need to get the one that I will have the personality to tell you, stop. Why is because my job is in the line. Then you complain about me because I have a freaking bird here or the airplane that you can't hear. So those are the songs I like. I was very liking ambassadors. I got a couple of guys wanting to win in France. And I went in Lithuania.

It was amazing. I was like very spoiled in that regard. But I didn't get to use the good sound inputs that the camera has. Because I have two mini XLRs. If you're in a pinch, you can go straight there and you can, they're mainly super easy to navigate. So you can literally have everything into his camera and put like a Lavalier or even a boom

if you're an extra pair of hands, right? So camera is like a good beast that will give you everything, anything you want you can get in that camera. And so that's why you have a huge respect for the camera. I like the values to the company, NBC or Grand Petty, thing to do good stuff.

And like I said, I didn't find those cameras. I mean, they provide an excellent. some image for the cost you know yeah i did i did uh want to ask how you actually got involved in making the documentary was that something that uh was kind of are you like a so i've you know been a snowboarder my whole life and so climate change is uh yeah a very important issue to me because yeah yeah it's like i would sand snowboard or whatever now sand someboarding yeah it would be like i've had the thought like how insane would it be if I had to tell my grandkids like, yeah, we used to, like, show them photos.

Like, we used to do this for recreation. You can't do it anymore. And that's why we don't have any water. No, no. And it sounds where you had that, fortunately. You know, and you can see it because you live in California, which you see a visual representation of things changing quite often. You know, with like catacly something, you know, Wi-Fi or stuff like, and the water scarcely. So how the ambassadors came to life?

So I was born around beautiful rivers, so that's one thing, you know, beautiful rivers that they kind of shade me, the colors are part of my palate in a way, things. That's how we see life, you know, and I will spend my days on a weekend, swimming in the stream, pristine one, opening my eyes and seeing the fish around me. So I have this very fun memories of growing up around nature and being in tune with nature. So I made a decision probably, I don't know, five years ago. ago that no matter what I do in my life in terms of agency work or my own projects, right, I have to give at least 50% to environmental causes.

So I put my company in service and my skill set in service, if you will, to just do whatever I can, to do pieces that can help somehow or can provide these messages out, right? So rivers are important part of Hawaii and I've been advocating for a long time. I did things around rivers. But then I came up to a conclusion that I need to show like a tangible process. And dam removal is probably one of the most tangible things that you can see now

because you remove the dam and in a couple of weeks, nature is back. And also it's a way to really show people. This is it. This works. This is not theory. So I did a film for people associated to this campaign back in 2018.

that was about fish migration and rivers. And he had a little chapter in the film about dam removals. And now we can think about removing dams. From then, a natural thing from a filmmaking, and you know this stuff is like, okay, what's going to be next? It's going to be my next passion project or what I'm going to find my voice to be fulfilled with something else, right? And I felt like I talk about fish migration,

I talk about rivers, and I felt like that little chapter could be like a spinoff of something bigger. And then we talked to these people in Europe and say, you know, next one we should do the dam bastards. You know, these guys finding dams everywhere and blowing them up, you know, with T&T and all the stuff, right? And sledgehammers, let's see that so people can get inspired. And the plan was, yeah, exactly, you know, like Vikings destroying shell.

You know, and the plan was very ambitious, very ambitious. and we wanted to do a story in each continent. So I had the whole thing, house sold with different entities in different continents. The Koreans were paying for one option and their storyline. The Australians were, the government was paying for their storyline. And I was like, great to go getting excited. And then COVID came.

Right. And COVID was the busiest time of my life. I was very blessed and lucky that I got work throughout the entire time, so I was fine, but travel was challenging. So even though I did a lot of traveling in COVID and domestically, I went to Mexico a few times for an art film, I did Europe. These countries in Asia or Australia were very tough and even South America, so you couldn't go there just because, right? You had to get permits from the government. So it became really impossible to fulfill the dream of getting a reverse storyline in each content.

So then the World Wildlife Fund, W.W.F in the Netherlands, talk to me and say, hey, we like your idea. It's really good. We're going to fund you for 70% of the budget, but do it in Europe only because that's what we care now. It's going to feed our agenda, our communication plans, and it's easy for you to travel. Otherwise, you have to wait years, you know. And I'm telling you, the negotiations started in 2020, right?

So it was like COVID, we couldn't really maneuver that much. And they paid for it. And then we decided to go on production in the summer 2021, like a year back, right? So that's how the long story short, you know, how we were able to do it, you know, with the trust of many entities. And then it became easier because my company and myself, we get associated with them, not like in a business way but we put the company there we put the post-production with the cameras

so of course if I'm limited and I'm like in a way putting a lot of my own time or my in-kind contribution I got to think with the cameras I have you know and so I got to think efficiently so that's why I have the cameras and have the badmited cameras for some production work

some clients actually in the DC area they love the camera so they keep asking me for that camera so I bought it and they had it around and we put them into service so that's kind of like the full cycle of how the Dunbuster happened, but it's really linked to my own interest of doing

stories around nature. It becomes challenging because I'm a father, you know, I have to leave the family for extensive periods of time when I travel. They're not easy. You work 20 hours per day in this project, so you get really burned out, but it feels

good when it's out, you know, when we can talk about the movie now, when it's being streamed for a few minutes of weeks, and then we'll go on a different platform. or it's being a cinema, as a critic, and this is it. It's kind of like, okay, this is it, right? This is why we do these crazy things because we want to be in this room with a dim light and that sound and that projector. And that's pretty much respectful. But yeah, but I'm quite happy about this one. I feel good about the way it turned out. It's been great to start the process of

like showing it, you know, because of what you're starting. Yeah, it's, yeah, I've only interviewed a couple people who have done nature documentaries, but I always feel strongly about them for, you know, the reason that they said. I, you know, grow up especially in Northern California, in the forests

in Yosemite and all that stuff. It's very yeah. It's weirdly important to me. Like, I feel like, like, when people say like, oh, you're ruining my childhood when the new Star Wars has come out, I don't feel that way. I feel that way. I feel that

way about like forests burning you know yeah and you're on the right yeah you're on the right track because that's what mattered the most you know that's what and i was i mean i think going back to nature i think nature was in favor of this film to to happen because when i went to film this in the botty countries with stonia lithuania and latvia and finland i had like sun until 11 p.m And now, so it's like 6 a.m. I would get with like beautiful light, which is like starting to sunrise, right? 7 a.m. will be full on. And so I had to go. So I was feeling a little bit bad about it because I was like telling everyone, okay, we have to stop and when the light is gone. Yeah. So it was like a massive, horrid, I don't know, like 16, 17 hours a day, which is inhuman if you do it for our standards. but I presented this idea super ashamed to everyone because we come from I'm not unionized

but we come from like the 10 hours 12 hours me respect for everyone how to stop especially you really like to take a time but I came across these guys that they were saying look we only get to shoot two or three months a year so we use every minute of it so we don't fucking care probably like working a tired day we're happy this is what we do and it's an amazing in between me for us. Okay. So days I will be, right, a whole country that in no scenario, if I had to go to California, right, you will be probably a week of filming there. I could have done in two or three days. Because exponentially, I was able to use more in beautiful light. The tones you get, you know, at certain times of days, just beautiful.

You just need to put the camera there, don't mess up your exposure, and you're going to get a beautiful image. You know, you don't need to be that that good at a lot. But that was probably one of the nature, in a way, I felt like nature was on our side that way, you know, that we're trying to do the best we could, you know, to increase this awareness and create positive messages about nature coming back and things that. This time was nature giving it back to us. And okay, long days, I never experienced that because I had experience shooting a lot in Central Europe, which is like Spain, France, France, Maryland, I did a lot of stuff there,

but not in this part of the world. and it's not like Greenland that you get like a strip of light for an hour you know when in the winter

which is the opposite right but yeah it was like such a blessing to have this beautiful long days you know

and great weather pretty much so I was I was going to say I was just in a white fish Montana and kind of the same thing

but someone come up at like someone come up at like seven and go down at no joke, like 10.30. So there was one day where we went, we got dinner and then went paddleboarding and got like a tan at like 8 p.m. Yeah, you experience like something that, yeah, hardcore.

Yeah, a tan. Okay. That was good. Yeah, Montana, I haven't been in Montana, actually. This is definitely my bucket list. I haven't been there. I definitely want to do Montana one day, Wyoming, you know, all the stuff is kind of like,

yeah there's a last frontier of the u.s now haven't been there yeah there's a i uh i run college ski trips every winter i'm so we're about to go to that in december in january and uh there's this beautiful mountain beautiful town called steamboat in colorado and it's right near the wyoming border so uh if you ever feel the need to go uh check all that out at once highly recommend the old steam that's the one and since you're at no border the city that it was born in chila has a long ski track of South America It's like It's 13 kilometers

You gotta do math And two miles I always get messed up with that And now But all the teams from the winter games Like the Swiss You know the German The Austrians

The Finnish They're all gonna be there In our summer Which is like For you the winter Right It was the opposite season They're gonna be training hard

You know And buying off this resort For the entire team So they prepare for like I don't know Like Sochi or Or Osaka I remember.

You know, so you appreciate you that problem. Beautiful long slopes for snowboarding. Offline, I was sending some stuff because it's that. I wasn't a surf, I wasn't a snowboarder.

I was more on the Pacific because my country's very narrow so I can be in an hour either in a volcano on the top of the mountain or in the Pacific. So I was into bodyboarding was my thing.

I was more in the ocean. But all my class, and my friends were like, and I was always going with them, these beautiful ski town. It's like a little last spend type of thing up in the mountains. So you will appreciate that to learn anymore. Yeah, Chile and Japan are two countries that I want to go snowboarding in because I've just seen ridiculous footage of, you know,

wasting powder and just open mountains and it's a lot of fun. I'm telling you, like, when you're doing like the designated areas, If you go, like, off track, if you go to the deep trance of Patagonia, it's like, whatever you want to show you know. Yeah. I actually just, just because we're talking about it, I have no room for anything in my apartment. So, like, everything's just right next to me. And I just bought this snowboard that, like, this nice Jones Stratus with the, like, fish tail. Oh, wow, man.

Oh, you're serious. You're the good stuff. Yeah. But Jones, Jeremy Jones, the guy who made that snowboard, uh, has a charity called Protect Our Winners, POW, P-O-W. And I highly recommend for anyone listening, supporting. I would take it out. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. But we're about a half hour over when I was supposed to keep you. So I'm going to let you go. I enjoy it a lot. Yeah, me too. We'll definitely have to keep chatting, you know, offline, or I guess online, but off this. But I like to end the podcast with the same two questions-ish.

Next season, it's going to change a little bit. But the two questions are, firstly, what's the, you know, everyone likes to talk about, oh, what's the best piece of advice you got? That's boring. What's the worst piece of advice you got? So in my first year in the U.S., I had a manager. I was in the Sanjans of the Bay. That's why I give the same number,

this we want online. I had this manager that didn't like my name and he made my longish name. So he said to me, you had to embrace Bono mentality there from YouTube. It's just like one concept, just one name.

So he named me Franco. Okay, so I will, because my legal name is Francisco, right? But apparently it's like funny for Americans sometimes, you know, or the movie else, Francisco is right, right? So yeah, so, which I don't care about it.

So he, so my name is Kenny. you think 20 years of South Park didn't fuck my day up? Oh, Kenny, right, yeah, Kenny G. You know, the benignity sexy saxophone, right? At least, yeah, at least Kenny G was sexy. Yeah, he was some South Park was poor. Key key stuff.

No, no, yeah, you have a point in there. But so I saw that this really guy taking care of me. Now, he has like a great, a great care for me. So I believe his motion. And then the worst stuff started to happen. So I was having a lot of back issues back then. So my doctor said, take ballet, it's going to help you. So I took ballet classes.

I was feeling very funny with it and certain things that we can't say in this day and day and an era now. But it was funny to me, but it really helped me. So I was talking to him on the phone and I said, oh, yeah, I feel great. I had this ballet class in my bag. I can operate camera. He said to me, oh, are you operating camera with the ballet techniques? I kind of say, yeah. It's kind of like doing this up.

Okay, there you go. you are the franco cam now which is a special technique between your handheld skills and ballet so that's how you have to sell yourself now okay i didn't register that but the day after i started getting phone calls from la guys hey are you the franco cam i use new thing and i swear to god there's not a joke nothing so that was the worst advice of my life this guy telling me to become the franco camp which is a balletic experience of handheld is just the picture that and some guys you know some guys reputable movies they were calling me you know to see if i was really the franco guy so they can incorporate for certain movies it's like balletic technique

with me right so that was the worst advice of my life i should have said to a guy hey shut the fuck out that doesn't make any sense but i was kind of like in a vulnerable state i was very naive you know and trying to i don't know make my way in the u.s a new country for me so i was like taking anything So that's why you can't really get a manager. That was the first red flag. You know, a real agency or artist management. They will look for you and I'm looking for them. And also that's kind of like an embedded advice there.

Don't fall for that manager's shit ever. But that was the worst advice on my entire life that sent me back because I started getting his phone calls and I was getting the scene by it. And then, you know, the manager turned out to be a scammer. at the end of the story. But that saved me in a way, and it gave me a huge, like, bullshit radar, which is good to have when we're starting, you know?

So you're going to get a lot of awful advices, you know, and you have to just live with it. But the most important thing, going back to the positive aspect, is trying to really fine-tune your VES radar. Because the time that you live, that used to wait, too, you know, it has that stuff. You know, it's part of the Lada-Land, right?

You're going to get this guy, is trying to manipulate and get a few bucks off of you. And it's like the hustle mentality. So, yeah, it was an unforgettable experience to be the Franco camp, balletic skills, and handheld, meet each other. I don't know how that can possibly happen. Nowadays, we have game balls to the chef of steady camps, but he convinced people.

He was a guy with a power of persuading very high. That's why they can fool people. But, yeah, that was the one of advice. So the main issue was that people were, calling you to do something special and you were just like, no, I just have a strong back now. No, no, because the whole thing was like, he said to me, and actually I have to specify that to keep going with it, essentially. So I would get this call. And you make that your identity? Yeah, yeah. So it was like, yeah, I was like really conflicted

by it. I was like, yeah, I do that. I do, I combine balletic skills with, with, yeah. So I was like part that I didn't say you're right, but that was a big issue that is like forcing you to put together a bullshit skill set that you think it will take you somewhere because you're so desperate to go anywhere. So you have to say true to it. You have to like, okay, I'm not going to get this job. It sounded fancy. They were like the cheap companies calling me. It was not like a guy that wanted to film like a video project of some sort like a cheap old music video. They were like legit companies calling me, you know, and when I had like 101 talk that actually escalated to, like, getting me on the team, I felt for it. I kept saying, yeah, yeah, I can do

stuff and I was really conflicting telling me. And then I fact that even more when I reached out on my own personally to the actual DP saying that was excited to work with her, you know, and the DP was crazy, saying, hey, I never approved you and the team. You know, I never approved you and the and I got fired from Franco Cam Balletti's Heels, not ever showing out on set, you know? So it was like, yeah, nowadays I think about it. This was 2009, nine in the world back then. Very old story.

But you get this awful advice and it's good to learn that you always have to stay true to who you are, you know, and you're not going to be liked by everyone, you know. you always have your place and your path might be probably harder or or or or like harsher but stay true and undo this bullshit I did then you keep creating this fake thing that it will backfire you and you did backfire me so yeah well and today that you know maybe a piece of bad advice that someone would get would be like oh you know I'm making this up but like you should start a TikTok uh and be like the the TikTok filmmaker and like what whatever. And it's like, okay, maybe you'll have, maybe that'll work for you and maybe

you'll have a lot of followers on TikTok. I'm hearing that a lot, actually. I'm hearing that a lot. I hear a lot of stuff. And we have like small talks with people in airports, in offices and you tell them what you do. The first thing they say, oh yeah, I've been telling my son to have his own YouTube channel. And I said, okay, interesting career advice now. But, but I mean, And the actual, I saw a couple of YouTubers, you know, some of them are fun to watch with when you want to geek out about, about gear, some of some, some, some, some, some of them are very technical. A world we want here in the DC area that has like a nice channel too and heavily focused

in aperture, so I hire him all the time. My buddy, Barr Johnson will give him a shout out, you know, but yeah, I mean, it's a lot of work. I see them working a lot, you know, and so it's crazy to get those advises now. get your own YouTube channel you know it's like you're going to have this empty wall as an audience you have to build it so yeah that's what you said

a TikTok is new thing I don't understand TikTok I might be 12 for them I don't really know what it is you know but I'm being hearing that TikTok thing too and probably next year it will be I don't know metaverse whatever I know no my first bro

I could go on for another hour about Metaverse All right second question final question if you were to put Dam Busters in a double feature you're programming a double feature and Dam Busters is one of the films what's the other film?

Easy one. Damn Nation from Paragonia. Paragonia, you know, the brand that we all know that we're worst up in Paragonia did a similar thing called the damnation which is about the impact of dams. So this one is kind of like

an unofficial sequel in a way and when I was in, when I was in Finland interviewing these guys, you know, and the biggest star of Finland, you know, Jasper Paconan, that is actually in the two ladies movie from Spike Lee, you know, a great, great actor in the series Vikings, you know, he's like a, he's Brad Pitt over there, or Leo DiCaprio, you know, so he said to me, yeah, man, I watched Damnation and I went crazy

and I wanted to know more about this stuff. I purchased the rights to show it in Finland, and we started a movement based on that movie. So that movie, I have a huge respect for the film, It's very well done, beautifully done. And it's perfect pairing. You know, it's like the wine with the meat, right? A carvernazsouignon with a nice piece of Argentinian beef, right?

Kind of the same thing. And that's what I would do. You know, people will start with that nation and then you finish off with the ambassadors, which is like the other thing. So, that would be perfect double teacher. I should do actually one day. Hell yeah, dude. Yeah.

Well, Francisco, thanks again for spending the time with me. That was a ton of fun. And, yeah, we'll definitely have to keep chatting off the old Zoom. Yeah, yeah. Let's get acquainted up Zoom and keep it up because you're a nice guy. I really enjoyed chatting with you and you have a nice pace with interview people. You know, if you're really, really comfortable. So that's good to you, buddy.

You know, that's the best compliment I could get. So thank you so much. Frame and reference is an Owlbot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly and the Etherdart Mapbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Truax branding company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to Pro Video Coalition.com or YouTube.com slash Owlbot, respectively.

And as always, thanks for listening.