Frame & Reference Podcast - 83: “Descendant” DPs Zac Manuel & Justin Zweifach

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

Welcome to another episode of the Frame and Reference Podcast, this week Kenny talks with cinematographers Zac Manuel & Justin Zweifach about the Netflix documentary "Descendant." Enjoy!  Follow Kenny on Twitter @kwmcmillan and give him some feed back on the show! 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 frame and reference. I'm your host, Candy Macmillan, and you're listening to Episode 83 with Zach Manuel and Justin's Wifock, the DPs of the documentary Descendant. Enjoy. Did you both start in music or was film always your kind of jump-off point? I guess we'll start with Zach. I mean, I come from a musical family. My dad's musician, his brothers, my uncles were musicians, my, you know, some of my ancestors were musicians.

But I never played music myself in like a real structured way. or very talented way, but film has kind of been my, uh, yeah, film has kind of been my entry point in the storytelling, for sure. Yeah, uh, I, um, when I was a kid, I played the drums. Same. Yeah. So, uh, you know, um, I think I can't remember which I had first, a camera or drum set, but, um, I definitely like, you know, come from learning music and feel inspired by music and honestly a lot of I don't know the inspiration I pull into filmmaking just comes from like a feeling from listening to a song or a rhythm

or kind of things like that but I wouldn't say I have a musical background um you know I'm just a bozo play at the drums kind of well because I had uh I mean saying I you know played in a few school bands or whatever, but the reason I asked is, I think you had a, if I were remembering correctly, you had a pretty good quote that I really liked about the cinematography, the cinematographer being the drummer of the

set, basically. And I actually thoroughly agree with that. Because if you're too flashy, everyone goes, like, drum solos are cool, but they're not that cool. Like, if you're too flashy, people are annoyed, and if you suck, like, it's super

obvious so you really there's there is a pocket for cinematography for any film um and it's uh so i wanted to point that out because i thought that was a good way of thinking about it yeah i appreciate it like um there's this song called machine gun uh it's a jimmy hendricks song uh and um buddy miles is the drummer on that and the way he plays the drums in that song just like is exactly kind to me what you said because there are these scenarios that he has that are like talking about machine guns talking about war it's like da da da da da da da da da da da da but a lot of it is just keeping the groove so he's like speaking with what he's doing but in this way that is subtle and kind of i don't know carries the song along but has a lot of meaning in the way he's drumming so i don't know that i like that yeah i like that

And Ella Chan. The other reason I wanted to bring it up is because there's been, I have tried to articulate how I think music and cinematography are this, or music and filmmaking are the same. And I'm always bad at it, especially because I, it's easy to be like, oh, there's lyrics and there's rhythm and there's, you know, editing, there's dialogue or whatever. but it's always like weird things that musicians have said about their artwork that aren't quite related that I'm always like, yeah, that thing. Like one that I've mentioned a few times is Josh Hami from Queens of the Stone Age was like Queens's music is what do you say, heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls. And if you lean too hard in one direction, it's not fun anymore.

Like no one wants to dance to that. You know, no one wants to bring their date to a concert where it's just, you know, unless you have a chick who loves metal or whatever, but I always thought like that kind of idea of like, how do you make something you love while still appealing to people? I was just interviewing Eric Messerschmitt yesterday, and we were talking about that, how it's like you either make that dichotomy

of making something that matters to you and is fulfilling, but also, you know, it's still a business. That's not really a question. Eric, what are you? I feel like back to the relationship between music and filmmaking. I don't know. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I've always thought about, since I grew up in kind of the world of jazz, like I've always thought about the filmmaking process is kind of akin to a jazz ensemble. And if it works really well, I think all the different components of it are in conversation with one another in a way that they can kind of feed off of what somebody just said or a phrase or, you know, a paragraph or a sentence or whatever and kind of take that to a new place or add to it or, you know, bend it or push it in a way that kind of moves the story forward or moves the song forward, rather. So I think, yeah, I don't know, for me, when it's working well, all of the parts and the components of the process of making a film are in conversation with one another.

They're listening to each other, responding to each other, and hopefully adding something new into the conversation as well. So that's kind of always how I thought about it. Like if we're not in sync like a band should be, like a good band, if we're not jamming out, if we're not rocking out together, then something is not, you know, it's a little off, I guess.

Sure. So, oh, go ahead. No, I relate to that sort of description. I mean, I think especially with like when you're operating in a documentary setting, there's a rhythm to the thing in front of you. like there's a rhythm to a scene, there's a rhythm to, you know, the way people move, the way people talk. And ideally, like, you are holding a camera and that's, you're finding a rhythm within

that, you know, it's like you're playing that instrument and finding a rhythm that relates to the way everything in front of you is moving and speaking. 100%. And it's also, like, I feel like you're also put in the positions where you have to kind of improvise and solo. And, you know, at times, you know, at times, the director might be more in control of a scenario or scene or situation. And then other times as a DP, you're just kind of cast out there and you're tasked with just creating a scene on the fly and kind of improvising it and making it up as you go.

So I feel like in those moments, too, it's like, all right, that's your solo. But it also is informed by, you know, the conversations around the film, the conversation of the film, what you shot before that, what the plan of shooting is after that. And so there's all the, you know, I think the components, even in a solo or like in those times where you're just kind of on your own doing your thing are always informed by the other pieces as well. Yeah. Yeah, the ones I always think about as like other bandmates, especially for a cinematographer, the production designer and the costume designer, because if they aren't doing anything good, who cares what lens are used, it's all going to look like shit anyway. Yeah, yeah.

Shoot a type. yeah yeah everything's right here um so kind of on that uh i was gonna start talking about the film later but i guess we'll start um so uh what was you guys's working relationship this film took a while right yeah yeah yeah some films take longer some films don't take as long i guess this was about four years i think it was four years i think it was four years years. Yeah. I think now it's we started five years ago.

Yeah. It probably feels longer to you, Jay, because you were deep in it for the So what to, oh, go ahead. No, no, no. So how did you keep? Obviously, you know, I'm sure there were conversations before you started about what you wanted to do with the film and stuff. But how did you keep that vision consistent throughout those four years and

and kind of what was your work and relationship with Margaret like? Was she super hands on or was she kind of letting you guys do your own thing? Margaret, it's hard to describe almost, I mean, she's incredibly involved, incredibly sort of attuned to cinematography, a real strong voice.

And yet she also asks the people around her to inspire her too. So it's definitely a conversation. I laugh when you say like, keep vision for that long because it's like man when we started this movie like honestly I got introduced to Margaret and I went for one shoot and it just kind of was like oh this is great but then you know I was like man I hope she hires me again you know because it's like when you start making something it wasn't like we had a sense that we were going to be shooting for four years or that the ship would even be found

or any of those things. So, you know, I wish I could say, like, maybe I have a little more experience now to, like, have a stronger sense of vision going into something. But it was a lot of instincts, like, along the way. There was, like, a lot of instinctual reactions to things and following Margaret's heart and listening to the community and allowing that to sort of guide the process. and we were shooting so many other films at the same time

and so I like that definitely bleeds into the work as well it's like it all sort of becomes one body of work in some way so I wish I could say that it was I mean that's not to say I mean Margaret has insane vision but you know it was such a we never knew what was going to happen the next day and so a lot of it is like understanding what's happening in the community, understanding what's happening in front of us

and learning how to reflect that back with the camera. Yeah. Yeah. And then Zach, you came in later then? I came in and I think 2019, maybe late 2018, 2019, something like that. But I guess like, you know,

I got to say, like I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be, DP probably wouldn't be a DP today if it wasn't for Justin. And I think I have to tell this story too because I feel like that's why they're the same. What? I don't know. And I stop. But I feel like and I have to tell the story because I feel like the way that we've been able to work together, not just on this project, but on other projects as well as I think because I mean, I feel like my work as a DP is informed a lot by what Justin does.

And one of the first things that I saw that Justin's shot was maybe in like 2014 or 2015 or something like that. And kid you not, it was just like a shot of someone's hands, like putting a VHS tape into like a tape player or something like that, like a VCR. And I was like blown away by this shot. It was like, you know, I don't know. There was something about it. There was like an intimacy to it that that kind of transcended the medium, especially in documentary that I had. hadn't seen before. So anyway, kind of looking forward, I think, when we're, you know,

tackling a project at the same time or, you know, if there's a situation where sometimes we work together on set at the same time and sometimes we don't. But I think it's easier for us to kind of trade those responsibilities and in certainness this is to follow each other's lead, you know? And I think for this project, that was following Justin's lead for sure, I came in after he did, but yeah, I think it was easier for me to understand the language that he was writing visually and to kind of piggyback off of that. So you guys, this wasn't the first film that you've worked on together?

No. Gotcha. Where did that start? Where did that working relationship start? Might have been with Milan back with that film. Zion City but one of my good friends, business partner,

was making a kind of a experimental-ish doc about a neighborhood in New Orleans and Justin was shooting that and then I kind of a similar situation there were some days

that Justin couldn't do so I would come on board to shoot some stuff and in that process I was also just watching a lot of Justin's footage and kind of learning how he was shooting it

and I was really new to cinematography. You know, I had been shooting, obviously, but not really in the doc space and wouldn't have really regarded myself as a DP. But yeah, that might have been the first collab, and then I feel like we really got tight when I directed a short scripted film

in, like, 2015 that Justin DPDed. Yeah. It's so funny because, I mean, Zach, I appreciate you saying, all that so much. And I feel the same way. It's like, you know, I was a D.P. when Zach was directing. And so I was learning about the way that he sees and the way that he feels and the way that he communicates. And so so much of my work is a reflection of that. And so, you know, it's like, I don't, you know, and we shot, when we shot time, like, I was really following Zach's lead.

and Zach and Garrett's sort of collaboration, which, you know, I sort of was privileged to be introduced to. And, you know, even when we were shooting Descendant, like Zach was working on his own project, Blood Thicker, and I was seeing Dailies and being like, wow, like this man's operating a 200-millimeter lens handheld. Like, I haven't seen that. How do I do that? You know? So, like, I equally felt inspired, and I just feel like I've come up making images alongside Zach. And so a lot of what I do is, like, it's inherently from him as well. So it's, that's the conversation, I guess. It's just like an ongoing working relationship, which has been incredible. Well, it's great to have, you know, but one of the, the, the, well, second interview I did for,

frame and reference to the podcast was with Josh Richards shot Nomadland and about halfway through it he was like you know what's weird is I don't think I talk to DPs and I thought about it and I was like I have a lot of like director friends I have a lot of whatever producer friends

I don't personally know I know like two DPs and then you know we get together and it gets mad nerdy and everyone around is so nerdy but it's got to be really cool to be able to have a working partner in that space that's kind of you can pinball

off each other like that. I feel like that's uncommon. Yeah. I mean, I think also I feel like as much as we're both DPs, we're also filmmakers, you know, broadly and storytellers, you know? Yeah. And I think whatever we're shooting stuff, we're also just thinking about what the story is and how you want

something to feel. I feel like a lot of conversation Justin and I have like if we're starting a project or thinking about something is like what's the lensing going to be, but not in like a super nerdy way. It's almost in like, what do you want people to feel emotionally based on the quality of an image, you know, or fidelity of a certain image? Like, do things need to be more clear? Or, you know, are we creating something where kind of a sense of clarity actually might detract from the story or the themes or something like that? Yeah, it's always interesting. I feel like when we have those conversations, on the outside, they can be very nerding,

but I think they come from a place of trying to kind of philosophically look at what a story is about and how to tell that story best visually. So I feel like in that sense, like we do, we think about story as much as we think about the visual, you know, qualities or aesthetics of a film. Yeah. I mean, that's the two things. One, my directing teacher in college way back in the day. said, that was like his main thing.

It was like the main goal of filmmaking is having people feel the emotions and feelings you want them to feel when you want them to feel it. And I always, that always sat with me. So I know exactly what you're talking about when you're saying like this, it's less so it looking good

and more so it looking, a way that makes you feel. Because something I've talked with a lot of people on this podcast about is like how much, I suppose, that gap between being an amateur and a professional seems to be trusting that you know how to feel

and trusting that you know you can put an image for that will make people feel the same way. Not so much knowing lenses, knowing cameras. That's all kind of page one, day one. And then eventually it's totally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I always felt like

when I was coming up, you know, quote unquote, like I was never going to be as technically proficient as a DP and so I'd like kind of stop worrying about that stuff a long time ago and really just made my focus as a cinematographer about understanding the emotional capacity of a of a moment or of you know what's going on and to be able to respond to that in a way that was efficient and effective and if I can do that then it really doesn't matter what I'm shooting on you know what I mean yeah well and just this is what I was going to touch on a little bit, but it's kind of funny to bring it up now.

Can you sort of explain what that VCR shot was and potentially explain why that made him feel those emotions? Was it the lighting? What was super dramatic? I don't quite remember them. Like, I know what scene you're talking about. And I like, when you say it, like, it comes to my head, But if I were to tell you what I was thinking in that moment, it would be a lie.

I don't know. I wonder. I mean, I think, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, we were sitting in someone's home who was sharing historical footage of that neighborhood from what I remember. And I can't, it's, you know, it's so funny. like you you i have a terrible memory in general so but you talk you have a lot of these conversations over time about the things you make and then you make the thing and that like

holds whatever you were talking about and sometimes i just forget the conversation all together it's like i'm trying to remember what what i was thinking but um well the i guess the best I was probably just feeling the preciously. Yeah, I don't know. I was probably feeling the preciousness of him opening up his history to me. That's what it sounds like, at least. And so, you know, the gesture of doing that, I must have been reacting in some way intimately to that,

to feeling intimate with someone sharing that. Sure. Yeah. I think that's it, though, too, because I think, like, there are different ways to kind of value what's precious in a certain moment, given that a moment is only going to happen once, you know, for the most part, unless a director or asked someone or, you know, to go back and retreat something or to do it again.

But I feel like in this moment, the decision could have been made of like, this person is going back into a memory and they're doing it through the physical action of inserting a tape into. you know, a tape player. And you could shoot that from a wide, you could see the person in their space, you could see the things around them, the sofa, the chair, whatever that they're sitting on and how these things relate to who they are and what their spatial kind of, you know, arrangement is within a space, or you could just film their hands and you could film this action of them physically

and spiritually putting themselves back into that place. And so the act of putting the tape into the VCR becomes an emotional act of someone stepping back into a place in their mind. And I think by focusing on that small gesture, like you said, of that action, I think it creates a different feeling of going back in time with someone as opposed to kind of having to decipher all this other information at the same time. And so I think it's kind of a, for me, it comes from like what other really great. filmmakers doing their work, like Lynn Ramsey or like Ingmar Bergman, which is like, sometimes the most effective way to tell a story is a close up on a face or a close up on a hand, and that becomes the way to build an emotional connection and without having to see everything. And I think for me watching that, not exactly understanding what documentary was, you know,

in the way that documentary was becoming this new thing and saying that you could do it in a different way was pretty groundbreaking. Like, we don't need that information. We actually just need this. And that brings us where we need to go. Totally. There's, that actually brings up something I usually ask

and I'm interested in is, what are some of the influences that you guys have just in general, or some of the maybe, filmmakers that made you think like that that's ticking all the boxes in here i kind of want to do that not to say you copy anyone but i think we all when we're getting started go like oh that's the thing i like you know i want to try to do that thing i guess we start with justin juggle people yeah uh it's a good question i feel like my influence has changed so often um

and it's not it could be because i'm searching for something i can't find and so i'm looking for new influences or searching for a way to express something that i don't quite know how to express um uh you know i i'm trying to think i think my first major influences of filmmaker named a lea kazam uh i uh i watched this movie as three hour long epic called America America uh years ago um and what struck me was the way that he uh he's able to tell an intimate and epic story at the same time and there's like a heavy balance between the use of extreme close-up and extreme wide um and he tells a lot of the story with the way that he frames characters space um whether they're close to the camera or deep away is often a reflection of how they're

feeling um and so that was probably like if i'm able to pinpoint like my first sort of like thing that i was like oh my god this thing is exciting to me um it was that but you know now i haven't i haven't seen an ilia kazan movie in in a long time and uh new influence has come up just all the time, whether they're new films or really old films. I don't know if there's something that checks all the boxes. I don't know if I know filmmaking or filmmakers well enough, if I'm real. But, yeah, I don't know.

I recently watched Michael Glaugher's work. He made this movie called Mega Cities and Workman's Death and Horse Glory. And there's an immediacy to that filmmaking that really speaks to me. And that's sort of a simple way of describing it. But it's worth seeing if you haven't. I watched Harlan County USA the other day, which I had never seen. The storytelling and that, the patience. I wish I could speak more clearly on my influences,

it's such a swimming conversation you know yeah well and it also just even outside of that answer it sounds like both of you are much more uh how would i put it like interested in sort of the communication the communicative part of filmmaking not so much the stripped uh you know fictional art form you know like when you speak about the immediacy of a documentary or whatever like how how that's uh more more exciting for you than just like, oh, let me make a superhero movie, you know? Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, I think that I don't, the sort of strict, I mean, documentary is so interesting

because, like, you can come to it with an extreme idea of exactly what you want to do. And if you're, if you're listening, that idea is probably going to change a lot. Sure. And so I think in sometimes, I mean, I think good fiction storytellers will probably do that as well. but if you show up to a documentary, at least for me, knowing exactly how you're going to shoot it and exactly what you want to do, and there are ways to make documentaries like that,

but hopefully you throw that all out, you know, and you just sort of like are present and you know what a close-of means, you know what a wide shot means, you know what it means to shoot someone out of 45 versus straight-on, like you know how that feels, you have all those tools, but ideally you're like improvising in the moment as those things come up and you're feeling

what's happening in front of you and that's the greatest influence of all of it like the actual thing happening the people feeling things the only time in the history of the universe that they will ever have this exact moment and you're like trying to react to it and talk about it like then so yeah I don't know it's um it's It's like, it's a, to go back to what Zag was saying about jazz, it's like, you know, on my best days, that's, that's where I am. And I do love this, this sort of precision and technicality of fiction filmmaking. And I take a lot from that. But then there's this other element, I think, when you're making doc that comes out, if that makes any sense.

Totally. Totally. theater yeah go ahead i was gonna i feel like for me i feel like a lot of when i watch this fiction film and kind of grew up on you know the classic kind of grandfathers per se of filmmaking and like a you know like a capital c cinema kind of sense but i feel like when you when you're saying that justin makes me think about i forget what tarkovsky film it was that there's like a, there's this one long shot of a guy holding a candle trying to walk across this really long expanse and he can't let the candle go out and he's going to place it on

the other side of this, you know, emptied out pool or whatever the hell it is. And so he kind of goes and he gets a far, you know, gets almost halfway through and the candle goes out so he has to walk the back and relight it. Anyway, I forget how long the shot lasts. It's like 20 minutes or something like that. But conceptually, to watch someone go through something over this period of time and to see how a emotion can be kind of heightened through time, I think is really inspiring to bring into a documentary sense and to think about what's the duration of a shot, for instance, or a duration of a scene or a moment that you're capturing, what happens before that moment, what happens afterwards. And kind of how do you value those two different times outside of,

of the action of what that person is doing. And to take that into your cinematography or filmmaking practice and explore these concepts and, you know, in active, like moving playground. For me, is super exciting. Yeah. And that's actually, now that you bring that up, long shots, especially a long shot, that is an interest.

I don't know if I've seen too many documentaries that do employ a simple long shot. Because it is, like, a long shot done, horribly is one where you're like, wow, this is taking forever. And one that's amazing is like when you get more anxious as it goes usually, you know, because that's what cutting is, right? You're getting rid of that exact moment of emotion and moving on to the next one. I feel like documentary generally is kind of cutty by nature of what it is,

you know, especially if you're doing it over four years. The beauty of a long shot in documentary is like a gem because, a life unfolds in this way that can that you can capture continuously and what's so beautiful about it in documentary especially i find is that i don't want to say there's no perspective because as a camera person you always are going to have a perspective but there's no you're not there's no construction in the i don't want to say that but there's no lie right there's no magic. I mean, the magic is all just, like, there's no, or there is magic, but there's no illusion. A cut is somewhat of like the construction of an illusion, right? Like, that time is

continuous in some way, but the beautiful thing in documentary is when you do capture a long take, it's like, I'm thinking about this a lot recently with something I'm shooting. So it's like, yeah, it's, um, yeah, there's just no lie. The proof is there. Like, You didn't cut away. You didn't create the moment in some way in the edit. It's just you saw it. Yeah. Well, and it's also a great way to, you know,

when we talk about shooting on film back in the day, it's like the DIY, well, until the DIY, but like when they just had to color time it normally, you know, development style, you were really in control of image. Now with digital especially, anyone can be in control of your image. So a long shot, especially if it's planned,

Or, you know, you're not letting the editor get away with chopping it down. That's one way to really keep your vision going. Like, I know this is good. You can't get rid of this. Yeah, it's tough. I feel like they often, if you're not editing yourself, they often get cut. I feel like hard to keep a long shot in a doc film because it's doc films. They're so plot driven, you know, you have to really get from one point to the other

just kind of because of the nature of what the industry is and the way. that kind of there is a certain bit of prescription to telling stories. Sometimes it's really hard to keep those moments in, those moments of kind of just watching and exploring someone's existence, you know? Yeah. If it doesn't relate in every little beat to what the story is. Right. I try and give the editor a lot of long takes to choose from as they want it.

Yeah. Me too. well once you start shooting just make it all usable and then see what happens but right and i think that's that was i think what's so liberating about the to go back to the vCR shot it's like man you know sometimes when you're not control of the edit you know you have to do things in subtle ways to kind of make sure that your vision is really kept intact and a part of that is really only photographing what you want to be seen. Not like overcovering it.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like give people less coverage. And it's, you know, I mean, not for the sake of shooting someone in the foot, but I think in the sake of staying true to what the story is and not wanting to kind of messy it up with standard practices. You know what I mean? Right. Well, and it's like, it's the whole thing that you hear a bunch about,

or maybe people don't hear a bunch about it, but, um, Constraint breeds creativity. You know, if someone says, I've given you $40 billion, make the best movie you can, you're going to spin your wheels forever. But if, you know, someone's like, oh, you've got one room and two lights, and here's your script, then you're like, all right, let's see what we can do here. And usually that will end up making something potentially more compelling. Yeah.

One thing you had mentioned, Justin, the importance of listening. And I was wondering in that regard how shooting descendant over the four or five years, four years, how the documentary changed for you guys. Because obviously the subjects and the subject of the film and the people you're interviewing are a wildcard element because, you know, it's not scripted. but also kind of just from a DP perspective like over four years

I mean that's a college degree you know you're learning new things new new technologies come out new especially at point yeah yeah so what kind of change for you guys

yeah go ahead it's hard to put a finger on it I mean like you said it was a mix of listening and also creative limitations and we shot on all three C-300's 1-3

like and that you know we started on the C-300 Mark 1 because that's just what Margaret had we didn't have anything we didn't have money to rent at that point so but as far as like listening I think as we

became to know the people that are in the film better and the community better and the story better I don't know, you become more attuned and more sensitive and reactive and it's hard to say like, you know, it's hard to put that into technical terms as far as like, well, then, you know, now I'm shooting on a long lens. Well, it was before I was shooting on a wide lens.

Right. I don't know, Z, have any thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I feel like the thing about Doc that can be so interesting is like when you are working on a project for a long period of time, your choice of gear really becomes informed by the participants of the film or the subject of the film. You know what I mean? like, for instance, the way that someone taps their feet, you might not know what that means the first couple times you shoot with them, but after a long time, you realize, oh, that's

a signal of something else that's going on internally. So what does that mean in the scope of the story? How can I capture that or isolate that moment? And then how can I maybe come back to that moment later or circle back when this person ceases tapping their foot or something? feel like what we are listening and responding to what's happening and then kind of changing our approach and in a lot of times what equipment that we're using based on the necessity to tell the best story or to tell them most intimate story or to understand someone better and to communicate that better. Yeah. I interviewed the DP of, oh, what was the film called? damn it

in any case they had to interview a bunch of very old nuns very old and you know and the film still looks

great but we started talking about lighting and stuff and she was like oh we couldn't there was no way we were going to get our interviews

if we you know walked into this hospice carry facility and just started setting up kinos or fucking you know RIs or you know

sky panels or whatever she was like you just had to walk in there and I think that she was also shooting canon but just like and plop it down

and start filming because otherwise it would have taken away from the reality of not only the reality of the scene just because you're constructing anything but they would have not stuck around for that you know and make them clam up too you know oh I didn't realize we were doing all this you know you're also oppressive to them you're also going into it like in this case we're going to real people's homes right allowing us to be there for four years like that's not a small ass can I can I come into your life with a camera for four years, you do have to think a lot about your footprint and you do have to think a lot about the fact that you're entering a real person's home and a real person's life who, you know, is out of the generosity of, like, their heart

or for whatever reason that they're calling to tell this story, they're allowing you in. So that definitely, like, I think in order to listen, we had to be smaller in some way. You know, it's like we couldn't just attack it with a bunch of gear. Right. Can we pre-light your house and just leave it?

Yeah, I think another part of that too is you have to think about just the durational aspect of documentary filmmaking and are you going to be able to bring back lights on every single time you go back to that space? Because you might go the first time, be like, hell yeah, let's light it. Let's bring out all the big gear. You got money to pay. Right. You got money to pay.

You're paid two weeks later. They might hit you up. Something might happen. And you just got to jump up with a camera and run and go capture something. But, you know, how do you create consistency through a multi-year process? And one of the ways you do that, I think, is listening and learning what spaces look like naturally. And just trying to, you know, play your best card. play your best hand, you know?

Yeah. That actually brings up two questions, and I guess you can answer them in any order you want. One is using all three generations of the C-300. Was there anything that the newer ones made your job easier or anyone that maybe the older ones you kind of wish, or maybe like that would have been better for certain, you know, did any of them give you specific tools

that were preferential to the other? The second question, oh, no, it's escaped me. Oh, yeah, shooting in natural light. Did you learn anything shooting natural light that you think might be valuable for people to know that made your image? Because the film looks amazing. Like, it's not just you went out there and went, oh, look, there's like, there's consideration there. So anything, any tips for people listening, perhaps? Like, you want to start?

Yeah. I mean, I think in this simplest, like, most prescriptive kind of boiled down terms, and I stole this from Sean Dodd that I went to a master class that he did years ago. Always light from the back or light from the side, I think, you know, for the most part, those are going to create more cinematic images. So, like, for instance, in the room that Justin's in, like, the, you know, he's got those lights, that natural light coming from behind. So probably repositioned him and turn around and shoot in another direction to try to get some kind of like nice key wrap or something like that.

And you don't like my zoom image. I mean, my lighting is trash. I have like a tiny little like glazed window in the top. I like a little basement cellar. Like it's totally fat. I'm using a C100 mark too. But yeah, I think I think I mean the first thing I do when I go into it. location that I don't, that I've never been in before. And this is obviously, like, after

questions and kind of just trying to figure out what my permission in the space is, figure out where the light is, where it's naturally occurring, like, what are the windows? I'm not like using an app for the most part, but like, how is the sign kind of coming into a window? What time of the day is it? And where am I kind of expecting that sun to move or the light to change? generally, guessing, and then just kind of work around that. And a lot of times I just turn lights off and just see what a space does in its most natural state and then kind of start flipping stuff on from there. Yeah, I interviewed a guy named Alejandro Mejia, who shot this film,

King of Monarchs. And he quoted, I think he was one of his teachers. And he was like, if you have one light, you have one problem. If you have two lights, you have two problems, and you go from there. Starting from zero is a great idea. If you can, if you can walk into a space and it feels free to turn off people's lights. But say, you know, tell people you're going to do it. Don't just walk in.

Sometimes I see people just walk in and just start playing with people's lights. I'm like, yo, dude, these people live here, man. You can't just go turn it online. you know so be gentle um i mean i'm like zach you know i i mean i shot natural light generally for a long time uh or available light i guess is a better word but uh yeah yeah you know it's funny like i didn't go to a i i went to film i studied film i did film studies in school but i didn't you know it wasn't as much of a professional training So I didn't get that much experience professionally with lights.

And so in the beginning, I was just really intimidated by them. Where do I put this thing? How much power is it going to put out? Am I going to blow the house up? Like, you know, all the way. I was like legitimately afraid of using lights. And I also thought available light was beautiful with the way that cameras render images these days. So I'm grateful that I felt.

scared of lights because I spent a lot of years looking at how available light works. And so now when I'm a little less afraid to put up a big light, it's coming from years of watching light, watching light through a camera. And so just being like, okay, well, this is how light behaves and now I know the tools and now I can put those two things together. So I I recommend just shooting available light because I think it's better, or I don't want to say better, I think, to each his own, but it's good training for when you're actually lighting with cinema lights. Yeah.

I think sometimes people go out of the other way, which is they learn the lighting techniques and they learn how to put up a light and they don't ever spend time with just available light. And so they're lighting from the way that like they've been taught to rather than the way that they learn to see the world. Well, and oftentimes we're trying to, with lights, replicate a natural look. You know, there's obviously stylized films, but you never really want to know where that lights. You don't want to think, oh, there's a light there, you know, fairly.

Even super stylized films, like, you know, there's anything that Baz Luhrman. But there's still often a feeling of motivation. even if it's done really well even if it's like how did they motivate that light yet somehow that strange purple light feels motivated like it's motivated by something

and whether it's like an internal feeling that the character is having or a lamp but I don't know it's just all these years shooting available light definitely helped me learn about how to motivate real lights or cinema lights or you know um so yeah i don't i mean yeah just advice would be take out a camera look through the viewfinder at the

light in your house see what you like you know yeah especially now that uh like i have a x100 v and i love that having like a nice because obviously with a cell phone it's a little harder because it does all those automatic adjustments but when you have like a small pocketable stills camera and you're able to really manage your exposure and stuff you can really learn a lot. I did a whole year of only shooting black and white and it taught me so much about

contrast, light, composition especially because color can be very distracting you know. Totally. Oh yeah, the second question. How did going through the generations of the C-300's affect the way you got shot? I got to really give credit to our colorist Sam Daley because

uh they're different and he uh did a crazy job putting them into one world um we know the c300 mark three is awesome um like we shot i think we shot 12 bit raw for this um yeah it's really good it's really good and still a documentary camera um So, you know, I mean, moving along through the different sort of canon color profiles, like the beach camera, I actually really love the C300 mark one has a special place in my heart. I mean, like, blue is the warmest color was shot on the C300 mark one. Gorgeous film. Gorgeous film. Blue Bruin, I think, was shot on the C300 mark one.

I mean, I think it's eight-bit color. Yeah. I mean, it's like, you know, but there's something about it that's just super special. Yeah, I don't know that there was so much, you know, I, again, I really credit our, the importance of a great colorist, you know. Absolutely. I think it's an also name. Sam Daly. He works at Light Iron.

Hell yeah. Yeah. He brought a lot to the film. I also think color is honestly undervalued in documentary. It's like so often there's this weird thing that happens where you shoot all this stuff and then you sort of, it's given to a colorist and it's just like, well, just make it look real, make it look like it did.

I don't even know what that means, honestly. Right. But Sam, to me, made it look how it felt to be a part of it and be there and that was like forget the technicality

of marrying these three cameras and four cameras because we shot some one the Alexa too you know yeah yeah the I have a

well this will be kind of a nerderer question but I have a C100 mark two and I have a C500 mark two and obviously the data rates are very different you know you get on a 512 card of the C5 to C 300 mark three or two you get what like shooting raw 30 minutes 32 minutes something like that uh how are you guys managing that data rate change as you went did you have like um dITs with you or uh data wranglers with you or were you kind of all handling that yourselves yeah the most badass assistant

named Bo Bo Bampf, am I saying that right, says his last name? Shit, I know, I love Bo so much. I don't, he did everything, everything, like, not just managed all the media, not just, like, was a graceful presence in people's lives. I never had to think about anything technical while I was shooting because of him. That's a blessing. I mean, like insane.

And like when we had some steady cam ops and it was just like it's just a real centering presence for everyone. he brought a lot more than managing the media but he did do that um and uh yeah that's that's how that's how um we managed all that um i think we were shooting on five twelfs on the c300 mark three and i want to say it was i don't remember how much time but you know we shot we we shot there's two slots and we shot continuous not uh or we shot relay um right so we wouldn't have to break for media too often um but yeah we did have media management for that um which was great yeah that's uh well sorry i messed up your last name if you watch this ever but

listening to a like, mention me, mention me, mention me. Let's see. I had a couple more notes as we're winding down. That hour flew by really fast. Holy shit. Let's see here. Oh, did you? This is kind of a silly question.

But did you guys have any interactions with it? Omfi. I'm sorry, Bo. There we go. D-O-N-F-E. My room. Anyway, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, that's fine.

Anyone listening to hiring that, man? Yeah. The silly question was, I noticed that the film was produced by Questlove and Black Thought. Did you guys have any interactions with them at all? No, I haven't. Damn. They, um, Questlove has a personal connection. He is a descendant.

I don't remember which family. Do you, Zach? I don't know. He, I don't remember off the top of my head. Well, people should watch the doc. They weren't a 2-1-5 came on a little later in the process, so we didn't meet them early on. Gotcha.

Yeah. Like I said, silly question. But I really, he's one of my, especially as a drummer. He's like one of my film musicians. But also just. that he has to be the world's greatest music historian, has to be, at least alive right now. Like, the man knows everything about every band that's ever existed. A recent listening to that voodoo album, you know, the DeAngel album, I don't know.

Oh, no way. Yeah, so good. anyway he's got his hand in a lot of pies I guess as we're winding down we'll kind of kick to the last couple questions and usually I ask the same two questions for everyone but it'll take a little longer because there's two the first one

if you were to put Descendant in a double feature what would the other film be? Dang, I don't know I don't know That's a good question It's a great question It doesn't have to compliment it either It can contrast it

And if you put yours first or second Like what are you setting people up to Learn something Are you saying you know Are you saying this isn't what this is You know there's a lot of ways you can do it And that's hard man I didn't realize how hard this was

Until I asked like You're probably like the 12th, 15th person I've asked. And they always go, fuck, look at yourself. Yeah, that's a tough question. I think actually Margaret showed it with not to cheat or anything. But I think Margaret showed it alongside some other films at one point. Hmm. I don't know how to find that email.

Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hmm. They are so hard, I mean, I don't know. I think I feel like

there's something about Descendant that's like a little bit Afrofutrious, you know? Like there's an idea of kind of looking back to to kind of speculate on what a future could look like for this black community.

So it almost makes me want to put it with like some old silent film from the 20s or 30s. Or like, I don't know, put it next to birth of a nation or something and see how the history of racism has continued to perpetuate. You know, and how this is a new, it's not a new version, but it is a new way of looking at our history. absolutely we need we need Justin's answer now he gave me I love that I love that I'm going to go at the easy answer which is with Margaret's first feature she made in Mobile called Order of Mets sure that's a good one too yeah so I think that would be interesting to put next to each other both for filmmakers to see how someone progresses over time but yeah you should watch order admits anyway.

Yeah, also just contrasting two different communities in the same city, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are great answers. Second question. Everyone I've noticed in podcasts like to ask, what's the best piece of advice you ever got? So I'm going to ask, what's the worst piece of advice you've ever got?

Ooh, damn, I like that question. I don't know who gave it to me, and it probably was myself who gave it to myself, but, well, worst piece of advice ever is Otto where you don't need to shoot that. Oh, school. That's so good. You know what I'm saying? You always need to shoot it. And you just don't know why. You just don't know why, but it'll come back to bite you in the ass, man.

I lose sleep over those moments, man. That hit deep. That hit real deep. I can't. I have the same dude. Even leaving the house, I'll be like, do I need to grab? No, it'll be fine. And then I always need that thing.

I'm tearing up right now, man. They're just thinking about shit. Oh, man. Terrible. That wasn't it. Yeah. I, can I second that? I mean, Dan, I'm not.

I just, could let you off the hook. Well, thanks for spending the hour with me, guys. It was a lot of fun talking to you, and the documentary is fucking amazing. Thanks, Kenny. Thank you. Take care, guys. Bye, yeah.

Frame and reference is an Owlbot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the F-At-Armack's logo was designed by Nate Truax of Trouac's branding company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to provideocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot respectively. And as always, thanks for listening.