The Cinematography Podcast

Cinematographer Michael FitzMaurice is known for his aerial and second unit cinematography on huge films such as The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Godzilla: King of the Monsters and now Top Gun Maverick. In the film business, second unit and aerial cinematography are involved in all of the action shots, and as a more technically-oriented DP, Michael has been able to combine his two loves- flying and shooting movies. Michael started out learning about photography in seventh grade, and then got a job out of high school working as a PA for a production company, eventually working his way up shooting music videos and commercials. It was hard to get into aerial cinematography, but with a love of flying and a pilot's license, he was able to prove he could shoot while flying, and pilots would recommend him for aerial cinematography jobs. Aerial cinematography is a very small and select group of people, requiring a very special skill set. When shooting film in a helicopter or plane, it's tough for most DPs to focus on composing a shot in a small space that is also moving quickly and unpredictably, and not get airsick. Top Gun Maverick was hugely dependent on its aerial unit, with most of the action done as a real, practical effect. The aerial unit used two jets, a helicopter and also shot from mountaintops to capture the action as the fighter jets flew past. As a trained pilot himself, Tom Cruise actually flew the jets and did many of his own stunts. Each training jet was outfitted with six cameras to capture the action of the actors in the cockpit. Michael and the aerial crew worked on the movie for over a year, developing new, special gimbal camera systems mounted on the jets. The crew had hours and hours of pre-production meetings, to get a clear idea of the shots needed and how to accomplish them with aircraft and cameras. Michael took a lot of notes and used models to act out aerobatic maneuvers for the planes before shooting them. For Michael, one of the highlights of working on Top Gun Maverick was being allowed to fly very low over a Navy aircraft carrier, although they were not allowed to land on it. Working on Top Gun Maverick was great, but Michael's craziest movie experience was working on second unit of The Dark Knight with director Christopher Nolan and cinematographer Wally Pfister. The movie was shot in IMAX, which is a notoriously difficult format to shoot- IMAX cameras at the time had a very faulty video tap for the monitors. For the scene, Heath Ledger as the Joker blows up a hospital and walks away, all in one take. The explosion was done on a real building, rigged up with real explosives, so there were no second takes. They began the take, but as soon as they went outside, the video tap went white and they couldn't really tell if they were actually getting anything on film at all, but they kept rolling, the building exploded, and hoped the whole thing was actually caught on film- which took about two days to get the film developed and the dailies back. Luckily, it all turned out perfectly. Top Gun Maverick is currently playing in theaters. Michael FitzMaurice: Instagram @michaelfitzmaurice Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep170/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by ARRI: https://www.arri.com/en The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte are Emmy-nominated documentary directors and producers for the HBO documentary series, McMillion$. Brian and James return to Cinepod to talk about their latest documentary, The Big Conn, now airing on Apple TV+. The Big Conn is a four-part documentary series that tells the unbelievable true story of larger-than-life attorney, Eric C. Conn. Conn stole over half a billion dollars from the government and taxpayers in the largest Social Security fraud case in United States history. Conn got away with it for more than 10 years before two whistleblowers told the FBI what he was doing and Conn went on the run. Documentary filmmaking has grown and elevated as an art over the years, and James and Brian take a cinematic approach to the form. Their previous documentary series, McMillion$ had a thread of comedy throughout, with such interesting characters that it reminded them of a Coen brothers movie. For The Big Conn, Brian and James took a similar approach. They dive deep into Eric Conn's life, using comedy to hold the audience's interest, but underneath it's a very serious exposé about the broken American Social Security system. To put together such sprawling stories, James and Brian create a story outline, determine who the interviewees should be, interview the characters, write a script and then decide where they need to put in animated graphics, archival footage and recreations during the editing process. Talented cinematographer Jeff Dolan has worked with the team for years, shooting both interviews and recreations on The Big Conn and McMillion$. Brian and James planned out and put together a guide for lighting and shot composition for the look of the interviews, based on shots from scripted movies they love. The Big Conn is a 4-part documentary series currently airing on Apple TV+. James and Brian have a podcast to accompany The Big Conn, diving deeper into the story and subject matter. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-big-conn-the-official-podcast/id1621583098 Fun Meter, James and Brian's production company: https://www.funmetermedia.com/ Instagram: @funmeterofficial James Lee Hernandez: @iamthejlh Brian Lazarte: @bdlazarte Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep169/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Eric Koretz and our host Illya Friedman have known each other a long time, going back to when Eric blogged about the latest camera gear. Since then, Eric has become a very successful DP. His current work can be seen on the last and final season of the Netflix series, Ozark. Eric shot 4 episodes of the last half of the final season, including the show finale, “A Hard Way to Go” directed by Jason Bateman. Eric loved the look of Ozark, and knew he would have to adapt to the established shooting style of the show. However, he knew that he wanted to bring his own look to it too. Anytime the crew is shooting outside, they begin blocking out the sun, keeping the outdoors very shadowy using negative fill techniques. Eric felt Ozark was a cinematographer's dream to shoot- they use every tool to tell the story, and the producers allow the cinematographers to do what they wish within the style parameters. The show is shot more like a movie than a TV show, with time allowed to let scenes have space and play out, allowing the DP to shoot a closeup on a glass of whiskey or shoot a long shot out a window as a car pulls up, creating tension. Eric found that Jason Bateman as a director and producer knows exactly what he wants and is very technical and precise as a craftsman. Eric first went to college for graphic design. He started making animated videos and applied to American Film Institute to learn more about shooting. While at AFI, he discovered that he really enjoyed cinematography and after graduation, began working in commercials. But the idea of storytelling through longer forms of film and television really appealed to Eric. His first feature was Comet with director Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot), and his second feature, Frank & Lola,  went to Sundance. Eric still shoots commercials as well, which is a great place to learn- commercial shoots tend to have a lot more resources, and these days commercials tend to be very creative, artistic and cinematic, with more crossover from film. Find Eric Koretz: http://erickoretz.com/ Instagram: @erickoretz_dp See all of the seasons of Ozark on Netflix. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep168/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by DZOFilm: https://www.dzofilm.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Greg Middleton's intention in his work is never to make viewers think, “Oh wow, cool shot!” He wants them to be able to experience the movies or television series he shoots without drawing attention to the cinematography or lighting. For him, the art of cinematography is about making illusions, and convincing audiences that they are actually somewhere else. Greg was excited to work on episodes 1, 3, 5, and 6 of the series Moon Knight  on Disney+ because it's more of a personal and emotional journey for the character Marc/Stephen, rather than just the action and the superhero elements. He didn't know anyone involved in the project before he was hired, which is unusual, but director Mohamed Diab liked Greg's Emmy-winning work on HBO's Watchmen, particularly episode 6: “This Extraordinary Being” which dives into the past of Hooded Justice. For Moon Knight, episode 5 needed someone who could handle seamless transitions through multiple scenes in Marc/Stephen's past life. Greg also had experience from Game of Thrones working quickly in multiple foreign locations with large cast and crews. There were many challenges for shooting a show like Moon Knight- location work, virtual sets, twinning, and animated characters interacting with real characters. Greg also had to play a lot with reflections and light. Because Marc/Stephen has a form of mental illness called dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder), his personalities often interact through reflective surfaces. Greg and director Mohamed Diab discussed and did extensive testing to figure out how they would make the reflections and successfully shoot them. Greg would move the camera, shoot the reflection one way, then later shoot it again to match it, or do a nodal camera pan, so that the perspective of the character doesn't really change, but the reflection does. For the museum bathroom scene with infinity mirrors, the visual effects team needed to paint out the camera and boom mic later. Because actor Oscar Issac was playing two different characters with different body language and accents, it was easier for him to play first one character and then the other, and he didn't usually switch quickly from one character to another. For Marc/Stephen's interactions with the god Khonshu, they used an actor in costume, adding a pole to make him seem 9 feet tall. Greg also used a very real-looking maquette of Khonshu's head to establish the proper lighting for the visual effects team to reference. The sets also incorporated small hints of Marc/Stephen's reality and dream world, so that deciding what is real is always in question. Find Greg Middleton: http://www.middletondp.com/#vanguard-fest-set Instagram: @middlecam Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep167/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by ARRI: https://www.arri.com/en The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

It's been a busy few months and we finally bring you our interviews with four directors of documentaries and shorts from Sundance 2022. To The End is director and cinematographer Rachel Lears' follow up to her 2019 documentary, Knock Down the House. It once again follows representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three women environmental activists pushing hard for climate change legislation- first with the Green New Deal, then with President Biden's Build Back Better plan. Rachel wants people to watch the film and become inspired to engage in politics in the United States in order to build a better world. To The End is currently playing at the Hot Docs film festival in Canada and is seeking distribution. Find Rachel Lears: https://www.jubileefilms.com/rachel-lears Twitter: @jubileefilms Instagram: @racheliplears As the title suggests, TikTok, Boom. is about how the social media app TikTok has exploded for both viewers and content makers. Shalini Kantayya’s documentary explores the phenomenon, from the young people who consume it to the influencers who are now themselves a brand. But the Chinese company behind TikTok, Bytedance, uses the app for data mining, restricts certain content deemed too political, and could pose security risks for anyone watching or using TikTok. Shalini researched, found the TikTok influencers and shot the documentary very quickly. TikTok, Boom. also played at SXSW this year and has yet to be released. Shalini's previous film, 2020's Coded Bias is critically acclaimed and won several awards. Find Shalini Kantayya: https://www.shalinikantayya.net/ Instagram @shalinikantayya Chiqui was inspired by director and writer Carlos Cardona's parents' immigration story. The television pilot takes place in 1980's New Jersey as the vivacious Chiqui and her husband Carlos have just arrived from Colombia and are looking for work. Carlos set out to make it as a feature film, but decided to develop the story into a television series instead. To keep it true to the look of the 1980's he decided to shoot it on super 16mm and used Zeiss super speed lenses. Carlos is currently developing Chiqui into a television series. Find Carlos Cardona: https://www.carloscardonafilms.com/ Instagram @carlos.cardona The comedic short film Daddy's Girl is writer and director Lena Hudson's third short film. Alison is a young woman in her 20's who is a bit aimless, and her father comes to help her move out of her wealthy older boyfriend's apartment. Lena had been playing around with the idea of a father/daughter movie that would be short and filmable, especially during COVID. Daddy's Girl also screened at SXSW this year and Lena is developing it into a longer feature film. Find Lena Hudson: http://www.lenahudson.com/daddys-girl-1 Instagram @lenahudson Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/sundancedocshorts/ All web and social media content written by Alana Kode Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Eliot Rockett is a frequent collaborator with Ti West, who is a well known director/writer/editor for horror fans. West and Eliot's latest film, X, is a classic slasher/horror movie set in 1979, at the time when the popularity of porn movies and slasher films were at their height. With X, West decided to write an erotic horror film that combines elements of both genres. The film is about a group of aspiring filmmakers who head to a remote farm to shoot a porno, but aren't completely transparent with the elderly couple who owns the property what kind of movie they're making. Then the bloodbath begins. Interestingly, Eliot is actually not a big horror fan- he dislikes feeling anxious and tense. But after shooting so many films in this genre, he genuinely appreciates how important the cinematographer is to making a horror movie. In horror, the camera is the instrument that takes the audience through the experience. The camera setups, angles, and lighting choices are incredibly important to setting the tone- more than any other genre. The characters and dialog are usually secondary, unlike dramas or romantic comedies. Eliot first learned some tips about how to shoot a horror film on the movie Crocodile with director Toby Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Hooper explained some of the finer points to creating “seat jumper” moments, based on keeping the camera static and not cutting away. Eliot and director Ti West also worked together on The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers. West is known for creating a suspenseful slow burn, starting off at a normal pace, then progressively building into a manic frenzy of blood and guts to the end. Eliot has always been involved in the filmmaking process early on, and the two share similar ideas about aesthetics and cinema. They discuss far in advance how the drama is going to unfold and figure out how to achieve those goals. Once shooting begins, Eliot and West work smoothly together because the movie is well understood. Eliot shot Pearl, the prequel to X, directly after they wrapped X. The production was based in New Zealand in early 2021, still during the height of the COVID pandemic, and it made sense to roll right into pre-production on Pearl and stay longer to shoot the movie, using production crews in New Zealand for both films. Pearl is a completely different sort of horror movie and is almost a musical, with dance numbers and lots of color saturation. Eliot calls it “the best feel bad movie you'll ever see.” Eliot Rockett is currently shooting Season 2 of Perry Mason for HBO. Find Eliot Rockett: https://www.eliotrockett.com/ Instagram: @elrockett and @eliotrockett Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep166/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Jendra Jarnagin returns to The Cinematography Podcast after 7 years to talk about her latest movie, Asking For It, a female vigilante revenge thriller, about women who exact revenge on men who have abused women. First-time director Eamon O'Rourke wanted it to be a female exploitation-style movie without the exploitation, and he and Jendra were influenced by films such as Switchblade Sisters, Belly, True Romance, and Natural Born Killers. Jendra was hired to work on the low-budget film only three weeks before the shoot, so she had to hit the ground running with a very short amount of prep time. O'Rourke had made a look book, so Jendra used what he created to get herself up to speed. The days were full of casting and scouts, but the evenings were spent as sacred one-on-one time to discuss the film and create the DP/director collaborative bond. O'Rourke was concerned about the fact that he is a white man telling a story with women of color and their experience with sexual assault. He was open to handling the material with sensitivity and listened to Jendra and the female cast and crew members about how to shoot certain scenes. They gave careful consideration to what the film wanted to say and how to portray the feeling of emotional overwhelm visually. Jendra also discusses her recent work on a 2020 commercial featuring former First Lady Michelle Obama. It was shot soon after production started returning after COVID lockdowns, and the directors had to work remotely. One of Jendra's skills is understanding how to light women, and she is very proud of her work on this commercial. She had limited time with Mrs. Obama and knew she would not be able to tweak the lighting again once they were rolling. Find Jendra Jarnagin: https://www.jendrajarnagin.com/ Instagram: @jendradp See Asking For It in select theaters and VOD. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep165/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by DZOFilm: https://www.dzofilm.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Snehal Patel manages sales for the entire line of ZEISS cinema lenses in North and South America. He works with many cinematographers such as Reed Morano, Jon Joffin, Alicia Robbins and several of our Cinematography Podcast guests like Quyen Tran, Robert McLachlan and Checco Varese. ZEISS has their own Cinema Lens Demo Center in Sherman Oaks, CA for DPs to come and try out lenses by appointment. The brand-new 15 mm Supreme Prime wide angle lens from ZEISS will be available to try at this year's NAB show in Las Vegas. With this new lens, ZEISS' Supreme Prime line is now a 14 lens set. ZEISS also offers the Radiance line of lenses that have different optical coatings to create more flare. Looking to the future, Snehal sees even more choices available for lenses. The best cinematographers are constantly learning, so it's important to excite them with something new and different, and to continue to innovate and develop new technology. The new 15 mm Supreme Prime is available to pre-order from Hot Rod Cameras. If you'd like to schedule a demo at the ZEISS Cinema Lens Demo Center, email Snehal Patel: snehal.patel@zeiss.com ZEISS representatives and lenses will be available to see and demo in North America at: -NAB Apr 23-Apr 27, 2022 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. -2022 Pacific Northwest Lens Summit May 13-May 14, 2022 at Koerner Camera -Cine Gear Expo June 9-12, 2022 at the LA Convention Center Sponsored by ZEISS: https://www.zeiss.com/consumer-products/us/cinematography.html ZEISS Cinema Lens Demo Center: https://www.zeiss.com/consumer-products/us/home/local/cinematography/cine-lens-demo-center.html Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/zeissspecial/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Severance, a trippy, mind-bending thriller on Apple TV+, takes the idea of work/life balance to an extreme. Certain employees working for the mysterious corporation, Lumon, undergo a surgical procedure called severance that plants a chip in their brain. Severed employees can't remember anything from their personal lives while at work, and outside of work, they can't access their memories of their office life. This creates two separate people, known as “innies” at work and “outies” at home. Cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné grew up in Quebec City, Canada, surrounded by movies from her father's video stores which sparked her love of film. She took photography in school, then enrolled in a film program in Montreal. Jessica first began working with director Ben Stiller on the Showtime series, Escape at Dannemora. The two enjoyed working together, and while shooting Escape at Dannemora, Stiller was already talking about directing Severance. Jessica didn't particularly like the idea of shooting an office show with absolutely no windows, with the same lighting setups over and over. However, during the preproduction process, she was able to find references that allowed her to find ways to shoot the Lumon offices in a cinematic way. The production design team also created a very strange and surreal world within the gigantic building, whose brutalist exterior is a real location at the former Bell Works in Holmdel, New Jersey. Jessica crafted a unique camera style for Severance. Most of the scenes that take place in the Lumon offices are done with tracking dollies on remote heads, rather than with Steadicam. She enjoyed playing with camera height, often showing the ceiling and choosing wide, surveillance-like angles from corners or above. The office workers are often physically “severed” in shots- by cubicle walls, computers or doorways. In the elevator up or down from the office, the office workers transition from their “innies” to their “outies,” with a dolly in and zoom out on their faces to create a morphing effect. Find Jessica Lee Gagné: https://www.jessicaleegagne.com Instagram: @jessicaleegagne See Severance on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance/umc.cmc.1srk2goyh2q2zdxcx605w8vtx Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep164/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Arri: https://www.arri.com/en The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

In our second panel series, Ben and Illya speak to cinematographers Fernando Argüelles, ASC, AEC (Fear the Walking Dead, Swamp Thing, Hemlock Grove), Tom Magill (Atypical, Saved by the Bell, Parks and Recreation) and Gregory Middleton, ASC, CSC (Moon Knight, Watchmen, Slither) as they discuss their current work, career journeys, creative processes, challenges and career goals. Be sure to check out the video panel on YouTube! Produced in partnership with Impact24 Public Relations. Find our guests: Fernando Argüelles: https://www.fernandoarguelles.net/ Instagram: @fernandoarguellesasc Twitter: @fernanradikal Tom Magill: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1083844/ Greg Middleton: http://www.middletondp.com/ Instagram: @middlecam Twitter: @middlecam Impact24 PR https://www.impact24pr.com/ Instagram: @impact24pr Twitter: @impact24pr Facebook: @impact24pr Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/panel2/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Long-time friend and colleague Jenelle Riley of Variety magazine chats with Ben and Illya for our third annual Oscar nominations special. They discuss what they liked, what will win, what should win, and their favorite movies of the year that may not have been recognized. Here's a rundown of some of the nominations discussed in this episode, as well as great films that were not nominated this awards season. Listen to our interviews with some of the nominated DPs and other noteable films of the year! Annette The Sparks Brothers The Power of the Dog, Ari Wegner Jane Campion Zola Dune, Greig Fraser Denis Villeneuve Nightmare Alley, Dan Laustsen The Tragedy of Macbeth, Bruno Delbonnel Westside Story, Janusz Kominski Steven Spielberg King Richard, Robert Elswit Cyrano, Seamus McGarvey Licorice Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson Belfast, Haris Zambarloukos Find Jenelle Riley on Instagram and Twitter: @jenelleriley and Variety: https://variety.com/ Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/oscars2022/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

The horror film Master explores the idea of institutional and historic racism at an elite, mostly white college campus, as two Black women are stalked by evil spirits. Director and screenwriter Mariama Diallo is a lifelong horror fan, and sees the horror genre as an expression of anxiety. She feels that horror frees you to talk about ideas that are disturbing and unsettling at their core. Master incorporates some of Mariama's personal experiences as an undergrad at Yale, where the advisors/mentors were called Master. As an African American, Mariama later found it bizarre and perverse to have referred to someone in this way. She knew she wanted to make a film called Master, and examine the scary realities of what that word means. Once she began to write, Mariama found that accessing her memories of being a Black woman at an elite university felt painful and horrifying, so she knew this was where the script needed to go. She started imagining how to picture the school- orderly, controlled, static and a looming presence. When the malevolent spirit appears, it is a jarring, violent rupture to the polite presentation of the school. Mariama and cinematographer Charlotte Hornsby worked together on her short film Hair Wolf, and they knew they shared the same ideas and influences. As they got into preproduction on Master, they watched movies, had long discussions about the look of the film, and shotlisted the film together. Prior to becoming a DP, Charlotte was an art director, so she has a deep understanding of using color in her work. Charlotte was definitely influenced by the color palette in Suspira and chose to use shades of red and experimented with using shadows for a haunted feel. Charlotte also liked the use of zoom lenses in movies such as Rosemary's Baby, and used a long slow zoom in Master to key into the pace of the scene. She chose to represent the POV of the supernatural forces watching from a distance with a zoom lens, while putting the camera on a dolly to act as the character's perspective. Find Mariama Diallo: Instagram: @diallogiallo Find Charlotte Hornsby: https://charlottehornsby.com/ Instagram: @charlottehornsby_ Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep163/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos enjoys using filmmaking to study the human condition. As a Greek who grew up in Cyprus, Haris was immersed in the history of Greek tragedy from a young age. He went to art school and studied painting, but found he was more interested in the visual storytelling that filmmaking can do. Haris' background in portraiture painting carries over into his cinematography today- he favors using closeups in his work, because he finds that the human face is the landscape of our emotions. Haris' current film, Belfast, is his eighth collaboration with director Kenneth Branagh. It's a deeply personal story about Branagh's childhood experience growing up in Northern Ireland during the civil war between the Catholics and Protestants known as The Troubles. Haris and Branagh chose to shoot the movie almost entirely in black-and-white. The two both love the format, and Haris felt using black and white provided less distraction from the character's emotions than using color would. They also decided to use extremely limited additional lighting in the movie, relying heavily on natural light in most scenes. Every scene was thought out with depth of field and depth of action, and not just shot for coverage. For the 2013 film Locke starring Tom Hardy, Haris' friend, cinematographer Chris Menges, had tested the new Alexa Mini and found that it was possible to shoot with just available light in small spaces. This gave director/writer Steven Knight the idea to write a script that takes place entirely in a car, with only one character, and he asked Haris to be his director of photography. Haris had just wrapped Jack Ryan:Shadow Recruit and was about to shoot Cinderella, so Locke seemed like an interesting challenge to take on. Knight had planned for only a 9 day shoot, with the entire script shot beginning to end each night for three nights. The additional actors, never seen on camera, all phoned in their vocal performances live during the shoot. Capturing the intimate and emotional performances in Locke gave Haris a deep satisfaction about his decision to become a filmmaker. Find Haris Zambarloukos: https://www.zambarloukos.com/ Instagram: @zambagram WIN an autographed copy of Directing Actors, 25th Anniversary Edition! Follow us on Instagram (if you don’t already!) @thecinepod and comment on our Judith Weston post! Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep162/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Arri: https://www.arrirental.com/en The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Judith Weston has coached and taught directing classes to several now renowned directors, such as David Chase, Ava DuVernay and Taika Waititi. She has updated her book, Directing Actors for its 25th anniversary edition, revising nearly every chapter and adding two new ones. Judith teaches that a director must have a vision. It's the director's job to be the shepherd of the story and have it mean something. The director must also go deeper to figure out what matters to the story, and listen, communicate and collaborate with the actor on the ideas they are trying to convey. A key chapter in Directing Actors discusses how a director must find the “emotional event” or the key dynamics in each scene. This is something both the cinematographer and the editor must understand as well to make a good movie great. Finding the essential emotional event in a scene is what changes someone from simply wanting to be a director into actually thinking like a director. Find Judith Weston: https://judithweston.com/ Directing Actors: Creating Memorable Performances for Film and Television, 25th Anniversary Edition is available on Amazon WIN an autographed copy of Directing Actors, 25th Anniversary Edition! Follow us on Instagram (if you don’t already!) @thecinepod and comment on our post for this episode! Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep161/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by DZOFilm: https://www.dzofilm.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Martin Ruhe's latest film is The Tender Bar, a coming-of-age movie about J.R., a boy growing up in 1970's Long Island, N.Y. He and his mother move in to his grandparent's house, filled with noisy extended family, including his uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck) who runs the local bar. Charlie acts as a father figure to him, sharing books and knowledge, influencing J.R. to become a writer. Martin and George Clooney have worked together on several films and TV shows, including The American, the Hulu series Catch-22 and The Midnight Sky. For The Tender Bar, Clooney wanted to direct a warmly nostalgic movie. Together, they worked with the production designer and costume designer to create a look reminiscent of 1970's films. The production team wanted to show a thoroughly lived-in house and bar that don't change much over time as J.R. grows up. It was shot digitally, but Martin wanted the film to have a Kodachrome quality. The family home was a real location, and Martin kept the lighting simple- mainly placing lights outside the windows so that the actors could move freely inside. As the lead DP for the series Counterpart, Martin spent eight months establishing the look and shooting several episodes of the first 10 episode season, and setting up the show for his fellow cinematographers. It was a new experience for him to work on a complex 10 hour show, but he loved the writing and craft of creating the series. Find Martin Ruhe: https://ruhe.net/ Instagram: @martinruhedp The Tender Bar is on Amazon Prime Video. Martin's next project is The Boys in the Boat directed by George Clooney. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep160/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

The Cinematography Podcast Sundance 2022 Special: Sirens Sirens is an intimate coming of age documentary focused on Lilas Mayassi and Shery Bechara, guitarists and co-founders of Slave to Sirens, the Middle East's first all-female thrash metal band. The documentary follows the band as they rehearse and play concerts, rebelling against the country's criticisms and stereotypes about women and heavy metal music. The relationships between bandmates is complicated, but they find an outlet in their music amid violent protests, fires and bombings in Beirut, Lebanon. Documentarian Rita Baghdadi had set out to find a story based in the Middle East or North Africa because her family background is Morrocan. In 2018 she found Slave to Sirens' EP online, saw photos of the band, and felt drawn to tell a story about the five women. The band was looking for press opportunities, and they welcomed Rita and her camera. None of them, including Rita, were sure Sirens would become a feature length documentary. Rita made several trips to Beirut from the U.S. to shoot and direct the documentary on her own, with just one camera, over a period of three years. She enjoys making intimate verite films, and unobtrusively focuses on the emotions in each scene. Rita was able to spend enough time with the band to weave a compelling documentary about independent women in the agony and ecstasy of their 20's, creating their own world to escape the chaos of their reality. Sirens premiered at the Sundance 2022 Film Festival and is seeking sales and distribution. Find director Rita Baghdadi http://www.ritabaghdadi.com/ Instagram: @ritaamal Instagram: @sirensdocumentary Find the band, Slave to Sirens: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9EMD9pTtjJ4P1p7b2V4j2w Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Catch the Fair One is about Kaylee “K.O.” Uppashaw, a mixed Indigenous boxer who is searching for her sister, Weeta, who has been missing for two years. K.O. sets off on a dark and dangerous journey as she willingly allows herself to be exploited by a sex trafficking ring to find out what happened to her sister. Catch the Fair One is the second feature for Josef Kubota Wladyka, who has also directed episodes of Narcos, Fear the Walking Dead and The Terror. It's the acting debut for Kali Reis, who is an Indigenous/Cape Verdean world champion boxer and activist for missing and murdered Indigenous women of North America. Josef met Kali through a friend's boxing gym. Watching her train and box helped Josef form an idea for the story of Catch the Fair One and he wanted a collaborative partner who could help shine a light on the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women. With such dark subject matter, Kali and Josef knew they wanted the film to be a thriller, with themes of pain, loss, and regret that intentionally draws the audience in. Kali enjoyed being a part of the creative writing process. Though she had never written a script before, she feels she drew on her ancestors' tradition of storytelling and it felt natural. Kali was able to write her own character, building Kaylee from the ground up. Josef and Kali shoot a lot of rough footage, working out different character and script ideas. Kali also trained at an acting boot camp to help her learn acting and character work. Josef felt fortunate to work with Darren Aronofsky, who came on board as executive producer, and he gave Josef feedback on the movie to help bring it into focus. Find Kali Reis: Instagram: @ko_ndnbxr Twitter: @KO_Reis86 Catch The Fair One opened February 11th in theaters and on demand. https://www.catchthefairone.movie/ Learn more about Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women: https://www.nativewomenswilderness.org/mmiw Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep159/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Acclaimed cinematographer Linus Sandgren just happens to have two Oscar nominated films out right now- the new James Bond movie, No Time to Die and the Adam McKay satire, Don't Look Up. Both films are extremely different from each other, and Linus was excited to work on both. Linus says that working on a Bond film is about creating a heightened reality, escapist adventure that romanticizes action and espionage. Don't Look Up is also about creating a type of heightened reality, but in an absurd, satirical way that tells the truth. Linus was very excited to shoot No Time to Die with director Cary Joji Fukunaga. Linus always tries to find a story and script that he hasn't done before, and it was a new challenge for him to take on a film with so much action. They focused on making it their own Bond, rather than looking at previous James Bond films. No Time to Die even begins differently from past Bond films- instead of an action set piece, Linus and Fukunaga chose to create a horror movie feeling in the opening. For the opening sequences of No Time to Die, Linus set the creepy tone, choosing monochromatic grays and icy blue skies, and a very isolated location. By contrast, the very next action sequence featuring Bond is full of harsh bright sun washed in yellows and browns. For every film Linus shoots, he likes to have keywords for the emotions in the script to guide him in prep for different scenes, such as horror, grief, loss, humor, etc. and decides how to address those emotions visually. Linus and Fukunaga also discussed the expectations of a Bond film: an entertaining action-packed joyride, but still have No Time To Die act as a final chapter wrapping up Daniel Craig's arc as James Bond. Don't Look Up is a disaster-movie satire film directed by Adam McKay. Linus felt the script was terrific and horrific at the same time, and it was clear to him that McKay wanted to comment on how people's personal and political agendas cause them to ignore glaring problems, such as climate change, and hijack the actual solution that could save lives. Linus felt like it was an important and hilarious film to shoot. He decided that the visuals should feel like a political thriller, because the comedy and satire would come through in the writing. Linus would dolly in to create tension, use longer zooms to compress the shots, then go close up with a macro lens in order to get right on a character's eyes. The shoot required a lot of extras, which was made even more challenging with COVID protocols. Linus had to be creative to figure out how to shoot with fewer extras, using longer lenses so the physical distancing wouldn't be as apparent, and they often re-used the same actors in different scenes since they were in a quarantine bubble together. Find Linus Sandgren: Instagram @linussandgren_dp You can purchase and stream No Time to Die on AppleTV, Amazon, Vudu, or your preferred service. Don't Look Up is available on Netflix. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep158/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Arri: https://www.arrirental.com/en The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

The film Blood is about Chloe, a woman who travels to Japan for her work as a photographer, just a couple of years after the death of her husband. She meets up with her Japanese friend Toshi who is interested in turning their friendship into a relationship, and she needs to decide if she is ready to welcome romantic love back into her life. Blood is a quiet and contemplative movie about human relationships, and unfolds slowly through Chloe's conversations, interactions and dreams. Director Bradley Rust Gray and cinematographer Eric Lin had worked together before on Brad's film, The Exploding Girl. A lot of Blood was improvised, and Brad used the script mainly as an outline short of a few scenes needed for exposition. They found opportunities to weave in the dreams Chloe has about her past with her husband in Iceland. Eric and Brad wanted everything to feel very naturalistic, as if the camera is eavesdropping. Eric chose to shoot much of it on very long lenses, as though shooting a nature documentary. They wanted Blood to feel like the audience is present with Chloe the whole time, peering in on moments in her life. Blood premiered at the Sundance 2022 Film Festival and was the Special Jury Award winner for Uncompromising Artistic Vision. Blood is seeking sales and distribution. Find director Bradley Rust Gray: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0336486/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 Find cinematographer Eric Lin: https://eric-lin.com/ Instagram @holdtheframe Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Gentle tells the story of Edina, a Hungarian woman bodybuilder pushing her body to the limit. Her relentless trainer is also her boyfriend, determined to make her a world champion, and he controls her entire life. Edina secretly turns to a specialty escort service to earn enough money for all her supplements and special drugs, where she finds comfort and begins falling for one client in particular. Real-life bodybuilder Eszter Csonka does an excellent job of expressing the emotional state of Edina as her feelings awaken. Directors Anna Eszter Nemes and László Csuja wanted Gentle's message to be that love makes you human and free. Bodybuilding takes a huge physical and emotional toll on Edina's life, and becoming an escort enables her to find a new kind of freedom and intimacy in her life. Anna and László wanted the movie to be very still and methodical in its pacing, because bodybuilding is not about words, it's about making the body into a work of art. As a painter, Anna had explored the world of female bodybuilders and it intrigued her enough to start writing the film with co-director László. They worked closely with their DP, Zágon Nagy and decided to visually separate her gym life from her personal life as an escort, using more color and camera movement when she begins to get in touch with her feelings, versus a locked-off camera with extreme close ups when she is working out or competing. Gentle premiered at the Sundance 2022 Film Festival and is seeking sales and U.S. distribution. Find director Anna Eszter Nemes: https://www.cineuropa.org/en/film/419980/ Find director László Csuja: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3773806/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Station Eleven is an HBOMax series based on the book by Emily St. John Mandel. The story focuses on several characters who are survivors of a devastating flu pandemic that wipes out most of the human population, completely collapsing modern civilization. The series mixes together the storylines of characters whose past and present timelines interconnect, weaving together the time during the pandemic, the days and months afterward, and then how the characters have adapted twenty years into the future. Art, music and theater have thrived in a small band of actors and musicians known as the Traveling Symphony. Kirsten, played by Mackenzie Davis, is the main character and a lead actor in the Traveling Symphony, going from settlement to settlement performing Shakespeare. Each community still remains under threat of hostile invaders, and a dangerous cult whose beliefs are based on a story from a graphic novel written before the pandemic appears to be on the rise. Daniel Grant, CSC and Steve Cosens, CSC, both Canadian cinematographers, were hired as DPs for four episodes apiece for Station Eleven. They were happy to know that they'd be working closely together because they were familiar with each other's work and comfortable with each other's aesthetic. Executive producer Hiro Murai directed the first block of episodes- Episodes 1 and 3- with Christian Sprenger as the director of photography, and they established the initial look of the show. Murai and Sprenger shot two episodes in Chicago as COVID hit, and then production shut down for several months. Daniel and Steve were brought on to shoot the next blocks in Toronto, Canada, which felt weird and surreal as they developed the look and feel of a fictional post-pandemic world, while living through a real global pandemic. As Daniel and Steve began prep, they were able to contribute their own ideas for the look and feel of Year 20 in Station Eleven's post-pandemic world. Steve noted that the pacing of the show was very deliberate, and they would purposefully let shots hold for several beats. Each shot was nicely framed and the lighting was very naturalistic and organic- it was not a slick show with fast edits. With less humans around, they wanted to depict the earth returning to the natural world in the future, instead of the typical post-apocalyptic barren scorched landscape look. They wanted Station Eleven to feel positive and life-affirming, although still fraught with potential dangers. Since the main storyline follows a roving band of theatrical performers, the show was always on the move with many different locations, and Daniel and Steve had to fuse the challenges of the logistics with the creative. Many episodes required different seasons or the same location dressed for different years. The hardest episodes and locations to shoot took place at the airport, set during Station Eleven's pre-pandemic and then twenty years after the pandemic. The two cinematographers stayed in close contact and were true collaborators, sharing information and communicating to make it easier for each other as they switched off shooting in the airport location. Steve and Daniel would often have early morning phone calls to constantly feed each other information about the shoot day, and would watch each other's dailies to match each other's shots. Find Daniel Grant: https://www.danielgrantdp.com/ Instagram: @danielgrant_dp Find Steve Cosens: https://www.stevecosens.com/ Instagram: @cosenssteve You can see all episodes of Station Eleven on HBOMax Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep157/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Director Jono McLeod's stranger-than-fiction documentary My Old School tells the story of his former classmate, Brandon Lee. In 1993, a new kid joined Jono McLeod's high school class at Bearsden Academy in Glasgow, Scotland. 16-year-old Brandon claimed to have been privately tutored in Canada and was incredibly smart, getting great grades and setting his sights on going to medical school. He befriended several of his classmates and became quite popular, even starring in the school play. But two years later, it was discovered that Brandon was not everything he appeared to be, and his secret identity became a national scandal in Scotland. Jono had regaled friends with the tale of Brandon Lee and his old school for years before he decided it would make a good documentary subject. Brandon consented to being interviewed for the movie, but on the condition that he was not shown. Jono decided to use an actor to stand in for the real Brandon Lee and have the actor lip synch Brandon's actual words. Years before, Alan Cumming was slated to star in a fictionalized film about Brandon Lee, but the movie had fallen through. Fortunately, Jono is also friends with Cumming, so he asked him if he would like to be in the documentary, albeit without using his own voice. Cumming was happy to accept the challenge and they used a method of reverse-ADR to record his lip synch of Brandon's words with perfect accuracy. For My Old School, Jono re-built his old classroom as a set for the interviews and invited his former high school classmates to participate. He knew he wanted to tell the story from the perspective of the people who were there and for My Old School to have a sense of humor and lightness to it, so Jono decided to use animation sequences for depicting any flashback scenes. He wanted to evoke the look of popular animation styles from high school shows of the 1990's and he used the popular MTV series Daria as an inspiration. My Old School premiered at the Sundance 2022 Film Festival and is seeking sales and distribution. Find director Jono McLeod: #jonomcleod Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

God's Country, starring Thandiwe Newton, is about Sandra, a Black woman college professor living alone who is dealing with the recent loss of her mother and the subtle and not-so-subtle racism and sexism in a cold, remote Western town. Two hunters boldly start trespassing on her property, and when she asks them to stop, it begins a tense and escalating clash of uncompromising aggression by both parties. Director Julian Higgins and cinematographer Andrew Wheeler had previously made God's Country as a short in 2014, based on the short story Winter Light by James Lee Burke. When Julian began thinking about turning the story into a feature, he connected with writer and fellow AFI graduate Shaye Ogbonna to reimagine the story with a Black woman rather than a white man as the central character. As co-writers, Shaye and Julian had long conversations about what they valued and cared about in their own lives. They wanted to take a big bite out of contemporary themes of racism and sexism and still tell a contained thriller story. Together, they wrote and reworked the script for months, knowing they wanted to show everything on the screen with little dialog. They wanted the audience to feel the tension escalate as the movie builds to what feels like its inevitable conclusion. Envisioning this inevitability and seeing everything happen rather than telling through dialog meant knowing exactly where to place the camera. Cinematographer Andrew Wheeler was involved right from the beginning, which helped everyone maintain the same vision. Julian listened to Andrew's instincts and suggestions, so the whole process was very collaborative. Andrew also lives in Montana, where the film was shot, so he is intimately familiar with how to photograph those surroundings. He expressed Sandra's extreme aloneness in long shots against the mountains and snow, or gazing out from her house onto the vastness of the landscape. Andrew felt that he was able to put his time and best work on the screen. God's Country premiered at the Sundance 2022 Film Festival and is seeking sales and distribution. Find director Julian Higgins: https://julianh.com/gods-country Instagram: @filmjulian Find writer Shaye Ogbonna https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4252592/ Twitter: @ShizzleObizzle Find cinematographer Andrew Wheeler: http://www.wheelsdp.com/ Instagram: @wheels41215 Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/specialgodscountry/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Ari Wegner, ACS became a fan of director Jane Campion after seeing her short films in high school. Seeing those films opened Ari's eyes to the possibilities of choosing filmmaking as a career. Several years later, she had an opportunity to work with Campion on a commercial in Sydney, Australia and found they shared a similar working aesthetic. Campion contacted her next about shooting The Power of the Dog, and wanted to work closely with Ari on prepping the film over the course of a year. Most DPs only have a few weeks to meet with the director, location scout, and prep the film. They began with location scouting in New Zealand, Campion's home country, searching for the right mountains as the backdrop. The Power of the Dog takes place in 1920's Montana, so finding the right location to build an entire ranch set was also important. Ari and Campion agreed that the colors in the film should reflect the natural environment of cattle, sun, dust, golden grass, and brown leather. The color palette was key to unifying the look of the film, from the costumes to even the color of the cows. Ari and Campion spent the last month before the shoot storyboarding every scene, in a cabin closer to the set. As the set was being built, they would go to the location and walk through it to figure out if the shots were going to work. The ranch house exterior was built on location, while the interiors were built on a stage. The script also required knowing exactly where the actor's eyelines would be as the characters stalk and spy on each other, so Ari needed to know the layout of the house very well so that the shots lined up just right. Campion always uses storyboards as plan A, and is open to things changing once the actors physically embody the characters and find their own unique moments and flow. Ari often filmed handheld in order to move in on the actor's faces to capture the quiet moments, expressions and unsaid private thoughts of each character. Ari's work on The Power of the Dog was just nominated for an ASC Award. Find Ari Wegner: https://luxartists.net/ari-wegner/ Instagram: @ariwegner You can see The Power of the Dog on Netflix Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep156/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Quyen Tran, ASC enjoys telling stories that are compelling and have impact and meaning. Q's previous work on the show Unbelievable led showrunner Molly Smith Metzler and executive producer John Wells to ask her to shoot Maid, a limited series for Netflix. Maid deals with the complex issues of poverty, domestic abuse, the working poor, addiction, single parenthood and mental health. With amazing performances by Margaret Qualley, Andi McDowell and young actor Rylea Nevaeh Whittet, the series handles all of these heavy and heartbreaking issues with sensitivity, peppered with moments of levity and joy. For Q, shooting Maid was incredible, and incredibly challenging. It was her first job during the pandemic, beginning in August of 2020, and the crew had to quarantine for two weeks in Victoria, British Columbia, wear masks, get frequent COVID tests and follow strict COVID protocols. Quyen thought she would only do the pre-production and shoot the pilot because she didn't want to leave her family for very long. Quyen shot extensive tests for the look of Maid. She knew it would be primarily handheld, which creates intimacy and forces a personal perspective on the viewer. Q decided she wanted to use the Alexa Mini and Panaspeed lenses because of the vintage, soft look, and they allow for close camera to subject distance. As part of the pre-production process, Q created a look book for the whole series that the other DPs could pick up and reference. After shooting the pilot, Q returned to Los Angeles. Then, right after the holidays, director/executive producer John Wells asked Quyen to come back and direct episode eight of Maid. Although Q had a little bit of experience directing, it was very scary for her to even think about directing in a narrative format. She never went into filmmaking to become a director, and never had the desire to be one. But she knew she could do it because she was so familiar with the characters and the story. As both DP and operator on the show, Q already had a rapport with the actors, but now as a director, it was about discussing the motivation of why their characters were doing certain actions. She also had to keep three year old actor Rylea Whittet engaged with the action. As Maddy, single mom Alex's daughter, Rylea is in nearly every scene and Q often entertained her with piggyback rides and games. For her directorial episode, Quyen camera prepped everything and storyboarded the entire episode. One of the most visually interesting and challenging elements in the episode Q directed is the couch that literally pulls Alex in and swallows her. Q and the production designer worked together for about three weeks to create the couch that Alex could sink right into and disappear. During the pandemic and in their down time, Quyen and her friend and fellow DP, Jeanne Tyson, found a passion for making sourdough bread. They started Doughrectors of Photography and in exchange for a donation to the LA Food Bank or other charity, patrons receive bread, cookies or other goodies. You can check out Doughrectors of Photography and find out how you can donate and get some delicious baked goods on Instagram at @doughrectorsofphotography Find Quyen Tran: https://www.qtranfilms.com/ Instagram: @qgar You can see Maid on Netflix Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep155/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by DZOFilm: https://www.dzofilm.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Director of photography Greig Fraser says that cinematographers always strive to create images with dimension, so that audiences are able to experience almost feeling and touching what they are seeing. Film has always had the dimensional and realistic feel that filmmakers appreciate, such as grain and color. But with today's advances in digital filmmaking technology, Greig understands and embraces using the tools that are appropriate to the project he's working on, and the technology just keeps improving. For Greig, no matter what he's shooting or how technical it can be, what draws him to every film project is the characters in the movie. On Dune, Greig and director Denis Villeneuve tested on film and also on digital, but they didn't like either look that much. They decided to take a hybrid approach: the film was shot on digital, then output to film, and then back out to digital, which gave it the look they wanted. Villeneuve was a huge fan of Dune the novel, and had a clear vision of what his version of the Dune story should be. He extensively storyboarded the film in pre-production, and they did not reference the previous Dune movie at all. During the shoot, Greig and the VFX supervisor Paul Lambert championed getting the lighting exactly correct with the blue or green screen background so that the shots and perspective would look the most realistic and there would be very little adjustments needed in post production. Greig also talks about using the iPhone 13 ProMax to shoot a demo film with director Kathryn Bigelow. The phone has several camera options that make it cinematic, and he finds that phones are getting better and better to shoot with. Greig's next film is The Batman which will be released in March. Find Greig Fraser: Instagram @greigfraser_dp Twitter: @GreigFraser_dp You can see Dune in theaters now, on Blu-ray, or soon returning to HBOMax. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep154/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by Arri: https://www.arri.com/en The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey is very happy about being a DP, and his love of the job always takes him through the difficult times. When he sees a movie that actually works beautifully on screen, it makes everything worthwhile. The new musical Cyrano is based on the stage play by Erica Schmidt, which caught the attention of director Joe Wright, who knew he wanted to adapt it into a film. Stars Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett also reprise their roles in the movie as Cyrano de Bergerac and Roxanne. Wright used the stage play as a guide for what the film should look like, and hired his frequent collaborator, Seamus McGarvey as the cinematographer. The two have now worked on five films together. Seamus wanted the film to feel more intimate than a play, so he chose close up portraiture of the actor's faces, capturing sensitive performances. Because of the pandemic, Wright felt even more strongly about the story of Cyrano being an outsider, craving love and human connection. They began shooting in the fall of 2020, creating a bubble of performers in the town of Noto, Sicily, with many background actors playing a few different parts. Since Sicily was still locked down for COVID with no tourism and few people out and about, most of the town became the entire set- the locations were all real houses and buildings. The crew was able to shoot with little distraction or interference, and with no bars or restaurants open, they became a tight-knit group. In his adaptation of Cyrano, Wright was guided by the musical and wanted the dialog to roll naturally into song, which were recorded live during the shoot. Playback had to be done through earpieces for all of the performers so they knew when to sing and dance. Fortunately, all of the actors were such good singers that they didn't have to do a lot of takes, and they had time to focus on rehearsals and blocking first. Seamus had previously shot the musical The Greatest Showman, and he enjoyed the experience on Cyrano of playing with the rhythm of photography with song, creating a beat to the pictures themselves. The “Every Letter” song sequence in Cyrano reminded him of working on music videos in his early career, and he and the crew had fun creating lens flares with flashlights throughout the scene. They worked with lots of candles and torches, with some LED torches with CGI flames for a nighttime staircase fight scene in the film. The filming of Cyrano literally ended with a bang. Mount Etna is an active volcano, and Wright chose to film the final battle sequences up the side of it. The weather had turned unseasonably cold and it started snowing, creating a real problem for the set which had to be relocated. The snow would start to melt because the earth beneath was hot with molten lava. Finally, within days of completing shooting and beginning to wrap out of the location, Mt. Etna erupted and the sets were covered in ash. The entire crew quickly evacuated. Find Seamus McGarvey: Instagram @seamiemc Twitter: @mcseamus You can see Cyrano opening in theaters December 31. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep153/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Dan Laustsen's latest movie with director Guillermo del Toro is the film noir psychological thriller, Nightmare Alley. Unlike many of del Toro's previous films, Nightmare Alley features no monsters or creatures, exploring instead the drama of the monsters within humans. Dan and del Toro had extensive prep and discussion about how to tell the story in a classic film noir way, except with lush vibrant colors instead of in black and white. Part of the movie takes place in the carnival world, so del Toro and Dan had extensive discussions about the color palette. Del Toro had a very precise idea of what colors he wanted and he uses very little color correction in post. Dan decided to paint with light, and draw attention to the beautiful sets as much as possible. The movie was shot mainly at night and indoors so they were able to carefully control the lighting. They chose to light using mainly a single source, and lit the character of Lilith Ritter, played by Cate Blanchett, like a classic movie star. Her lighting was important to the storytelling so the audience sees her as a powerful force in the film. In fact, the lights would also move on a dolly track with Blanchett, or Dan would use a small 1K as a follow spot. For the camerawork, Dan and del Toro wanted all of the shots in Nightmare Alley to be on the move-everything is shot either on a dolly, with a Steadicam or from a crane. Del Toro & Dan first began working together on Mimic, and they found what Dan considers a similar European sensibility of lighting with a single source, keeping things very dark and having the courage to not show everything. The two didn't work together again until Crimson Peak but del Toro and Dan have a great rapport, and Dan found that they could pick right back up again. Find Dan Laustsen: Instagram @dan.laustsen You can see Nightmare Alley in theaters. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep152/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by DZOFilm: https://www.dzofilm.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Legendary cinematographer Robert Elswit has shot a wide range of movies, including Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood- which won him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography- Magnolia, Good Night and Good Luck, Tomorrow Never Dies, The Bourne Legacy, two Mission Impossible movies, and of course Return of the Living Dead Part 2. Robert's latest film is King Richard, a biopic that tells the story of how Richard Williams, the father of tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, was determined to shape his daughters into champions. From the beginning, Robert and director Reinaldo Marcus Green wanted the tennis to be realistic. They watched many other tennis movies and didn't find the speed and athleticism of the actors to be believable. They knew it was going to be tricky dealing with actors pretending to be tennis players. Fortunately, the story was about Venus and Serena developing and honing their tennis skills, so the playing didn't have to look perfect. The matches were carefully designed around scripted beats that moved the story forward. Robert and Green decided to show only specific moments of the matches, including how Venus and Serena interacted with other players, how the parents interacted with their kids, and how Richard interacted with the coaches and his kids. They were careful in thinking about how to shoot the match, keeping it as interesting and as believable as it could be in terms of speed and athleticism but also making sure that the audience understands what is happening emotionally with the characters. For the look of King Richard, Robert chose several different types of filters and diffusion to represent the light in Compton, but didn't use as many for Florida, so that the sun could feel more bright and harsh. Robert's throughline for Los Angeles for the film Nightcrawler was shooting the ribbons of freeways that run through the Valley, as the main character Louis Bloom drives around LA looking for crime as a news stringer. It was impossible to fake it with a green screen. Robert, the cast and crew had to literally drive around and shoot Los Angeles at night. They had no time or budget to light things, so they scouted locations that were already lit. He took advantage of the street lights and the ambient light from billboards and stores. This approach gave the movie its distinctly seedy look, and Robert felt it was clearly the only approach that fit the script. You can see King Richard on HBO Max. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep151/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Jeff Cronenweth, ASC understands that creating a period piece such as the film, Being the Ricardos, involves lighting and set design, period costumes, hair and makeup styles, and of course, positioning the camera. For today's more sophisticated and contemporary audiences, everything must be shot in a more dynamic way than in the staid 1950's style. Jeff and director Aaron Sorkin had the TV show I Love Lucy to work from as well as photographs from the I Love Lucy set, which were invaluable for recreating scenes for the movie. They also watched films that take place in the 1950's such as LA Confidential, Carol, and Peggy Sue Got Married, to see how those filmmakers approached the time period, while carefully crafting their own unique vision of what 1952 looked like. Jeff created four looks for the time periods within Being the Ricardos: 1952, where most of the story takes place; contemporary interviews from the mid-90's by the story's narrators; the 1940's with flashbacks to when Lucy and Desi first met; and then black and white footage paying homage to I Love Lucy that represents what is going on in Lucy's imagination. For the black and white sequences, Jeff embraced the theatrical “fashion noir” look using a starlight/hard light method for portrait photography from that time period. Jeff and director Aaron Sorkin had previously worked together on The Social Network for just one scene. Being the Ricardos was their first real opportunity to collaborate for a longer amount of time. Aaron Sorkin is known for crafting fast and complex back and forth dialog, and his writing style was similar for Being the Ricardos- tight, structured, and well thought out with brilliant dialog. Jeff found Sorkin's script created a sturdy framework for the entire movie- when the script is really confident and solid, everyone else on the film has a clear map of how and where they can be creative within those parameters. As the cinematographer, Jeff knew the actors would have fast, overlapping lines and were on an emotional roller coaster as they navigate through a crisis. He used lenses with a very close focus to give the feel that the characters were in a world that made them feel vulnerable and alone. He decided to use as much contrast as possible, balancing light and dark throughout the movie while still creating richness and depth with points of light in the background. Being the Ricardos is in theaters December 10 and will be on Amazon Prime Video December 21, 2021 Find Jeff Cronenweth: https://www.ddatalent.com/client/jeff-cronenweth-asc-narrative Instagram: #jeffcronenweth Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep150/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by Arri: https://www.arri.com/en The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Eduard Grau, ASC thinks it's important to take risks in filmmaking because it sparks creativity and passion for what you're doing. Passing director Rebecca Hall had worked with Edu on several films as an actor, and trusted him to bring his creative skill to her first directorial project. Based on the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, Hall had been trying to get the movie made for several years. She held firm on her vision from the beginning that Passing would be a black and white film, and she wanted it to be in the square 4:3 aspect ratio as a throwback to the movies of the 1930's time period, so that the characters were more intimately centered in the frame. Edu was excited to work on such an exceptional film, in which cinematography is so integral to both the look of the film and the storytelling narrative. Passing explores race and identity in the lives of two former friends who reconnect in late 1920's Harlem. Ruth Negga's character Clare is passing as white while Tessa Thompson's character Irene is a respected member of the black community. Hall wanted the film to feel very restrained, as the characters are feeling under constant scrutiny, and the story is told mainly through the women's faces. Edu kept the shots close and intimate, with very natural lighting. Edu grew up in Spain and became interested in cinematography in high school. He went to film school in Barcelona and the UK. He made a short film that went to Cannes, then had a chance meeting with a producer at the Edinburg Film Festival. She passed his reel to Tom Ford who needed just the right DP to shoot A Single Man. Ford saw exactly what he was looking for in Edu's reel and asked him to fly out to the U.S. It was Edu's first movie on 35mm, his first movie in the United States, and his first movie with such big movie stars. After A Single Man, Edu went on to shoot Buried starring Ryan Reynolds, whose character is buried alive. He loved the challenge of shooting Buried in an interesting way with such extremely limited space constraints. You can watch Passing on Netflix. Find Edu Grau: http://www.edugrau.com/ Instagram: @eduardgrau Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep149/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Miahi Mălaimare Jr. understands the power of images to communicate a feeling right away, and in a more straightforward way than with spoken language. For The Harder They Fall, Mihai discovered that as both a director and a singer-songwriter, Jeymes Samuel communicates through music, and the two enjoyed working together to find the visual language of the film. The Harder They Fall is a mashup of blaxploitation, spaghetti Western and musical in one sprawling and stylish package. Samuel had previously made a shorter Western called They Die By Dawn, but Mihai had never shot a Western before. They were prepping to shoot in March of 2020 in New Mexico, then everything was halted due to the pandemic. Finally, in July of 2020 Jeymes called up Mihai to see if he could be ready to shoot within a few weeks. They headed out to New Mexico and shot the film while under strict COVID protocols. Both Mihai and Samuel took visual ideas for The Harder They Fall from The Wild Bunch and several Sergio Leone movies. Finding the rhythm within a scene was a huge part of the film. Samuel had a few songs written into the script and would often play music on set. The script was very challenging with several complicated shots, a large cast, dealing with horses, guns, set pieces and period costumes, but Jeymes Samuel and Mihai were able to achieve Samuel's vision with prep, discussions every night, and many, many rehearsals. You can watch The Harder They Fall on Netflix. Mihai recently wrapped the currently untitled HBO drama series about the Lakers in the 1980's. Find Mihai Mălaimare Jr. Instagram: @malaimarejr_photography @malaimarejr_cinematography WIN an autographed copy of Directing Great Television by our recent guest, director Dan Attias! Follow us on Instagram @thecinepod and comment on our post for this episode! Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep148/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Our host Illya Friedman had the opportunity to speak to one of his former film instructors, Jay Rosenblatt at CamerImage back in 2019. Jay taught Super 8 Filmmaking at San Francisco State University and has made over 30 short films. As a member of the jury for the Energa CamerImage film festival in Poland for the past several years, Jay looks for innovative storytelling in the films they screen. Jay's latest short film is When We Were Bullies, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and will be screening at CamerImage next week. The 2021 CamerImage film festival begins in Torun, Poland next week. Find Jay Rosenblatt: https://www.jayrosenblattfilms.com/ WIN an autographed copy of Directing Great Television by last week's guest, director Dan Attias! Follow us on Instagram @thecinepod and comment on our post for this episode! Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep147/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by DZOFilm: https://www.dzofilm.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Dan Attias has directed dozens of episodes of critically acclaimed television shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos, Homeland, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Americans, Billions, and many more. His years of experience led him to write the book, Directing Great Television: Inside TV's New Golden Age. The book is not only for those who want to direct, but also for fans who want to know how these shows are made. In college, Dan studied acting and had to make a short film as part of his film studies. He found he enjoyed being behind the camera as a director, and continued to study film with an eye to directing. Dan started working on several big movies as an assistant director, such as E.T., One From the Heart, Airplane! and Twilight Zone: The Movie. His first directing job was on Stephen King's Silver Bullet, a werewolf horror movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis. Dan finds the best way to approach directing a television show is to get invested in the story by finding what interests you in the script. In series television, directors often don't even get the script until a few days before they're going to direct it. If the show already exists, Dan likes to immerse himself in the show, watching several episodes and asking the production to send over past scripts. Directing one episode of a long-running show is like writing just one chapter of a novel- it needs to fit in seamlessly to the entire story, while still feeling compelling and propelling the story forward. A director of episodic TV has to balance making it their story while still executing the showrunner's vision and honoring the intention of the writers. Dan also likes to explore every scene of the episode he's directing with the writers during a tone meeting. He often asks, what is the story being told? The story isn't simply what happens, but the meaning that you give to what happens- where you're directing the audience's focus. Make sure you keep asking yourself, how does it make me feel? The director must be able to dig down with the actors and come up with an interesting subtext to the story if the scene needs a boost. Find Dan Attias: www.danattias.com Directing Great Television: Inside TV's New Golden Age is available on Amazon. WIN an autographed copy of Directing Great Television! Follow us on Instagram @thecinepod and comment on our post for this episode! Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep146/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

When director Ruth Platt first wrote and developed Martyrs Lane, it started off as much more of a horror film rather than a psychological thriller. She had the opportunity to develop the film into a feature from a short through BFI, the British Film Institute. In its feature form, Ruth pulled Martyrs Lane into a more unsettling ghost story that's told from the point of view of Leah, a 10 year old girl, who lives in a large old house with her family. Her mother always seems very sad and distant, and Leah doesn't know why, until a strange nightly visitor gives her a new clue to unlock every night. The visual palette of Martyrs Lane has a timeless and impressionistic feel, creating an atmosphere of hovering between the conscious and unconscious world. The house Leah and her family lives in is a reflection of the interior and exterior world of the family. Ruth knew that finding the perfect “haunted house” was key, and they were lucky to have found the perfect location. With two inexperienced child actors as the leads in the movie, Ruth focused on trying to keep the lines sounding natural instead of scripted, and kept the kids energy up in between takes and setups. Because she and the crew only had a short amount of prep time for the movie, they had to creatively problem solve for a few issues and were able to do almost all the special effects in camera. You can see Martyrs Lane on Shudder. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep145/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

After working together for 25 years, cinematographer Robert Yeoman, ASC and director Wes Anderson share a similar aesthetic and creative process. Bob finds he can anticipate what Anderson wants to see and exactly how he wants to shoot things. The trademark of a Wes Anderson movie is a sense of humor and whimsy, and each film has a distinct color palette that deliberately tells a story. Both Bob and Anderson love the symmetrical style of Kubrick movies, but the symmetry in the frame of Anderson's films draw on comic elements rather than those of horror. Anderson is involved in all the decisions on art direction, choices of textures, colors, costume, hair and makeup, testing many of his choices on film before making a decision. During their very long prep period, Anderson will make an animatic of the entire movie before the shoot, and try to match the reality to the animatic as much as possible. Bob finds this incredibly helpful, since Anderson's movies are very complex- many shots are oners and use complicated dolly movies. In the movie The French Dispatch, Bob and Anderson had planned on shooting at least one section in black and white. They fell in love with the black and white stock, so Bob ended up shooting a lot more than they had originally planned. Anderson also decided to mix three aspect ratios in the film to delineate different time periods and different stories, which Bob thought wouldn't work very well, but ended up liking the end result. On every movie he makes, Anderson has a library of DVDs, photo books and research books that are available for the cast and crew to borrow. Naturally, for The French Dispatch, French movies were often referenced. It made it easy for Bob to have a shorthand way to communicate with Anderson on which French film they were emulating for framing, lighting and aspect ratio. The 1989 film, Drugstore Cowboy, directed by Gus Van Sant, helped Bob make his name as a cinematographer. He used a much looser style, with the camera reacting to the actors rather than carefully planned out movements such as those favored by Wes Anderson. Bob found it a pleasure working with Van Sant, who is more of an experimental filmmaker, and from the moment he read the script for Drugstore Cowboy, he loved it. Bob's work on the comedies Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters (2016), and Get Him to the Greek also presented him with a different challenge- everything is cross shot with multiple cameras because so much of those movies are improvised. On both Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters, director Paul Feig's style is to allow the actors freedom to do what they like, and as the cinematographer, Bob let them have the space and simply moved with them, lighting in a more generalized way. The French Dispatch opens in theaters on October 22. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep144/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Director and writer Potsy Ponciroli was scouting a location for another movie in the countryside just outside Nashville, Tennessee when he saw a historic old house built in the early 1900's at the bottom of a valley. He began thinking about how lonely and isolated a person living in that house might be, and it planted the seed of an idea to write Old Henry. Potsy ended up using that exact location, shooting in that house and the surrounding area. He and cinematographer John Matysiak set out to capture the feel of a classic western- a simple story taking place in the old west, showing how hard life was at that time. Old Henry is an action western starring Tim Blake Nelson as a farmer with a teen son living alone on their farm. Against his better judgement, Henry takes in a wounded stranger with a bag full of cash. Soon enough, a posse comes looking for the wanted man and Henry and his son must defend their homestead. Potsy approached Tim Blake Nelson to star in the film, and the two met several times over Zoom to discuss ideas from their favorite westerns. Soon, Nelson was also on board as an executive producer. During preproduction, Potsy and DP John Matysiak walked around the location, reading the scenes from the script, checking out different angles and shotlisting each moment. Shooting in a real homestead built in the 1900's was very challenging due to the small rooms with low ceilings and small windows that didn't let in much natural light. To keep the look fresh in such a limited space, they carefully figured out what scenes would be in what rooms and made sure they weren't shot back-to-back. John first met Potsy when they were working on a television show in Nashville together. When Potsy showed him the Old Henry script, John liked the ideas he had for keeping the film small and plot driven until it builds to the finale. John is passionate about finding a visual language for the world he's creating with the art of cinematography. He did as much research as he could for that time period, looking at old photographs and paintings from the early 1900's Old West to get a feel for how people lived at that time. He was influenced by more recent westerns such as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Hostiles. John Matysiak and Ben Rock actually met through the group Filmmakers Alliance and John worked on Ben's short film, Conversations as a gaffer back in 2003. Find Potsy Ponciroli: Instagram @getpotsy Find John Matysiak: Instagram @john_matysiak Old Henry premiered at the Venice Film Festival and is currently playing in theaters and will be on demand on October 15th. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep143/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 Sponsored by DZO Film: DZO Film makes professional high quality, short zoom lenses for smaller cameras, such as the 20-70mm T2.9 MFT lens and the 10-24mm T2.9 MFT. You can buy them at Hot Rod Cameras. https://www.dzofilm.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

The new Netflix movie, The Guilty follows Jake Gyllenhaal as Joe Baylor, an LAPD police detective who has been demoted to working at a call center as a 911 dispatcher. The film was shot during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in November of 2020 in just 11 days with a very small cast and crew on a controlled soundstage. Additional actors remotely voiced their roles as 911 callers seeking help. Cinematographer Maz Makhani and director Antoine Fuqua had about one day of prep together before they started shooting. Maz and Fuqua walked through the set with Gyllenhaal for rehearsal while working out the blocking and coverage. Once the shoot day arrived, Fuqua could not physically be present as he had to quarantine after a COVID scare. He ended up directing the film remotely from a van parked outside. They wanted the film to have a “God's Eye” perspective, so Maz used a very wide lens that showed the entire room. Antoine and Maz both favor a high-contrast lighting style that helped the dark subject matter, making the film feel real and raw. They mainly used the ambient light from the screens on the set and three digital cameras so that it had a more live and urgent feel. Since Antoine could not be on set, it was fortunate they chose digital so that he could see what was happening via a remote feed in real time and could communicate via text, cell phone and radio. Find Maz Makhani: Instagram @mazmakhani_dp You can see The Guilty on Netflix Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//ep142/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Using content collaboration tools and being able to share assets remotely has certainly become essential these days. Guest Nate Watkin walks us through his new software, Assemble, which is a complete project management platform for video production teams, from pre-production all the way through post-production. The software is very easy to use and very affordable- even non-production members can access projects as needed, and at no extra cost. Assemble includes: -a shared production calendar that stays in sync and shifts if deadlines change -a trackable task list for each team member -an asset management feature for sharing what's in your production binder- casting information, location scout photos, inspiration lookbooks, etc. file sharing all in one place -frame-specific feedback ability for videos Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8 If you're interested in Assemble, use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/ Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com//assemblespecial/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

In our first ever panel series, Ben and Illya speak to cinematographers Ana Amortegui (Resident Alien), Byron Kopman (Demonic), Bryant Fisher (Lenox Hill), and Julia Swain (Lucky) as they discuss their current work, career journeys, creative processes, challenges and career goals. Be sure to check out the video panel on YouTube! Produced in partnership with Impact24 Public Relations. Find our guests: Byron Kopman https://www.byronkopman.com/ Instagram: @bryonkopman Twitter: @ByronKopman Bryant Fisher https://www.bryantfisher.com/ Instagram: @bryantfisherdp Twitter: @bryantfisher Ana Amortegui http://www.anamamortegui.com/ Instagram: @mile9 Julia Swain https://www.juliaswain.net/ Instagram: @juliaswain Impact24 PR https://www.impact24pr.com/ Instagram: @impact24pr Twitter: @impact24pr Facebook: @impact24pr Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/panel1/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer John Guleserian has never liked to be pigeonholed into one genre. He's shot several romantic films, comedy movies and TV series, and with his latest film, Candyman, he can add horror movies to his skill set. After attending film school at Columbia College in Chicago and then AFI, John worked on several small films and web series before the film Like Crazy launched his career. Most of the characters' lines were improvised- director Drake Doremus worked from an outline rather than a script, and he had actors Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin improvise their blocking as well. John and Doremus went through the film chronologically in preproduction, deciding on the basic shots they wanted for the film, shooting it mostly in sequence. Like Crazy went to the Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury prize. John ended up doing several romantic movies after Like Crazy. Director Richard Curtis (Love, Actually) saw the film, flew John to London and asked him to shoot About Time- John's favorite movie that he's worked on so far. On About Time, John felt he learned about keeping the camera balanced between taking in the scope of a beautiful location and set, while still maintaining the intimacy of the characters. For Candyman, John was directly influenced by the 1992 movie and wanted it to look like the original. John began working on the movie with only about four or five weeks of prep, but he and director Nia daCosta storyboarded and completely previsualized many of the sequences before shooting. In Candyman, reflections play a very important role and most of the art, windows and mirrors were prevised and carefully placed so that the reflections could be picked up by the camera. The visual effects team could then paint out the camera and adjust the Candyman's movement in the reflections. Find John Guleserian: http://www.johndp.com/ Instagram @johnguels You can watch Candyman currently in theaters. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep141/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

The film Settlers is a blend of science fiction and western, about a mother, father and little girl who have created a peaceful homestead on a desolate part of Mars until another band of colonists invade their land and take everything. The girl, Remmy, must grow up fast under difficult circumstances. Her only friend is a small non-verbal robot called Steve. Wyatt Rockefeller both wrote and directed the film, which is also his first feature. Wyatt found the perfect place to create the Mars setting for Settlers in a remote part of the northern cape of South Africa, in one of the hottest places on the planet. His South African producer introduced him to cinematographer Willie Nel, and the two immediately began figuring out the look of the film, using some images from Mars as references. Willie found that the dry reddish landscape of their location naturally informed both the look of the film and how the characters dealt with surviving in a difficult place. Wyatt and Willie were able to spend lots of time in prep, discussing how they wanted to shoot the film and what the story needed to be. When it came to actually shooting, it went very smoothly since they were each so familiar with the script and shots they'd discussed ahead of time. But the crew couldn't foresee everything- they had to deal with rolling power outages in South Africa due to the heat and a crazy rainstorm that nearly ruined the set. Remmy's companion is Steve the farming robot, which gives Settlers one of its few science fiction visuals. Wyatt wanted Steve to exist as a practical creature for the actors to interact with, while keeping it simple so as not to break the budget. He also wanted Steve to seem like a real, functional piece of equipment that Mars settlers would need and use, so he based Steve's boxy design on the Mars Curiosity rover, but with legs. Wyatt began working with the production designer, the VFX team, creature builders and the lead puppeteer William Todd-Jones in the early stages of planning and prep to create a puppet version of Steve with visual effects used for some of his more complex motions. Find Wyatt Rockefeller: @wrockefeller Twitter Find Willie Nel: https://www.willienel.com/ @willie_nel_sasc Instagram You can watch Settlers streaming on VOD platforms and on Hulu in October. https://www.ifcfilms.com/films/settlers Read more about the design of Steve the robot by the Settlers team: https://www.talkhouse.com/designing-steve/ Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep140/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Donald A. Morgan, ASC has won 10 Emmys and is nominated this year for three more for his work on Netflix's The Upshaws, Fox's Last Man Standing, and ABC's The Conners. Like a few cinematographers, Donald had some experience studying architecture in college, which enabled him to take two dimensional drawings and visualize them in three dimensions. He also thought he'd be a professional baseball player or a musician- his father was a musician who played in Cab Calloway's band, so Donald grew up around musicians and stages. By his mid-20's he had a job working at KTTV in Los Angeles in the mailroom while trying to make it with his own band in the 1970's, and was soon offered a position in the lighting department. He found his experience reading architectural plans made it easy to understand electrical schematics. Donald worked on the lighting crews for several different shows produced by the legendary Norman Lear, such as Good Times, The Jeffersons, and Diff'rent Strokes, plus many other shows. Donald knew working on shows produced by Lear were progressive and groundbreaking for the time, telling stories about people of color like himself, and Lear made it a point to hire a diverse workforce for his shows. Soon, Donald was offered a union job as a DP on two shows on the Universal lot- Silver Spoons and Gloria. Donald was able to learn more about cinematography while working on the Universal lot by visiting several different film stages and making notes on how different DPs worked. Working on three camera shows, the whole set can be lit before there's any blocking, because typically, comedies use very high-key lighting. Donald notes where the walls and doors are, and then most sets can be lit with standard three point lighting.  For The Conners, as the show becomes a bit darker, Donald subtly shades the room for more drama, and brightens the room as the mood lightens. Most multi-camera shows use three to four fixed cameras, and dolly in for shots rather than just panning. Donald also uses a jib arm camera on the show Last Man Standing, a technique he began using back on Home Improvement. The jib arm came into use on Home Improvement because the character Mr. Wilson, Tim Allen's neighbor, was never seen over the fence, and the camera crew had to get creative with how to shoot those scenes. Donald enjoys working on multi-camera studio shows because it keeps him local, and he's been able to spend more time with his family with three weeks on and one week off, with the longest days about 10-12 hours. He tries to keep the work as creative as possible, always watching and learning about new techniques he can bring to the shows he shoots. Though Donald is very experienced with shooting multi-camera shows, he will often shoot single-camera short films to keep his skills fresh. You can see Donald A. Morgan's work: https://vimeo.com/12993063 You can watch The Upshaws on Netflix and find episodes of The Conners and Last Man Standing on Hulu. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep139/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom have worked together on Call Me By Your Name and Suspira. Ferdinando served as the second unit director on both films. Beckett is the second feature Ferdinando has written and directed. Sayombhu also shot Ferdinando's first feature, Antonia, and was Oscar-nominated for his cinematography on Call Me By Your Name. Prior to his experience working with Ferdinando and director Luca Guadagnino, Sayombhu built his cinematography career in Thailand, shooting films such as the Cannes festival winner, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Beckett is a thriller, reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock films, starring John David Washington as an American vacationing in Greece with his girlfriend, played by Alicia Vikander. After a tragic accident, Beckett is pursued by the police and drawn into a political conspiracy while being chased across the country. Ferdinando intended to have the film nod at Hitchcock, but he wanted to stay away from the heightened, perfectly choreographed elements of Hitchcock movies such as North By Northwest, where every scene is a spectacle, with amazing set pieces following one after the other. For Beckett, Ferdinando liked the idea of shooting everything with very natural light, keeping the movie grounded and not quite so heightened. As a hero, Beckett is relatable and believable- when he fights or runs, he sweats, gets out of breath and becomes seriously injured, and all of the action sequences are grounded in reality. Sayombhu enjoys shooting films using natural light, preferring to reshape or bounce sunlight. If he has to use lights, he uses as few as possible, and in a way that's almost invisible. He also prefers to light the environment rather than the actor, to give them space to move around, so that they can live in the moment and he can capture it as it happens. When Sayombhu scouts locations, he uses his eyes and his gut feeling to explore the place and memorizes the kind of natural light available, noticing potential issues before figuring out how to overcome them. To have a good rapport with a director, Sayombhu suggests listening to the director first, and only then make a suggestion that would make it better. Ferdinando enjoys collaborating with Sayombhu because they both understand the importance of preparation during pre-production and research, and they have similar taste in filmmaking and visual language. You can watch Beckett on Netflix. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep138/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

When Mark Doering-Powell, ASC was hired as the DP of Freeform's grown-ish after season one, he knew the show had to expand the storylines of each character's college experience. He was excited to take more of an anthology approach to some of the episodes, and get creative shooting each chapter with multiple looks. A single camera half-hour comedy such as grown-ish takes about four days to shoot, creating an extremely tight schedule between prepping and shooting. Mark thinks it's imperative to be in touch with post and the dailies colorist at the end of each day, so everyone can stay on top of the workload. On a rapid schedule it can be challenging to make the show look cinematic, but finding each character's point of view helps consolidate the work and keeps each shot economical. Mark favors using “swingles” on grown-ish, where the camera swings back and forth between characters on single shots, saving setup times. With a focus on each college-age character's personal life and position on social issues as they navigate their early 20's, the lighting on grown-ish is intended to make the cast look their best, and sometimes Mark employs classic Hollywood portrait lighting techniques using crisp, controllable hard light. Mark also likes to splash hard light onto the set, letting it naturally bounce off of something that is already in the room. He's learned to focus on lighting the people and then the space- lighting the space can aid lighting the people. Mark went to art school in New York, studying painting and graphic design until he found the film department and changed his major to film. He then worked as a Photo-sonics technician, which is a special high speed camera for shooting slow motion, on several commercials in the 1980's and 90's. But Mark wanted to focus more on filmmaking, so he quit, moved out to L.A. and started working for Roger Corman's studio in Venice, including camera assisting on Corman's famously unreleased 1994 version of The Fantastic Four. A documentary about the production called Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four was made in 2015.  Find Mark Doering-Powell: www.markdoeringpowell.com Instagram: @instamdp You can watch grown-ish Season 4 on Freeform: https://www.freeform.com/shows/grown-ish Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep137/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by DZO FILM: https://www.dzofilm.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Our returning guest Checco Varese, ASC talks to The Cinepod about his latest work on the Amazon Prime show, THEM. As a trained architect, Checco finds some of the same techniques are useful in cinematography, such as understanding the use of space, flow, color, art and construction. Having spatial awareness as a cinematographer helps in understanding physically where the camera can go to allow it enough room during set design. THEM is a period piece about a Black family that moves to an all-white neighborhood in 1950's Southern California, and the terror they experience at the hands of their neighbors and a supernatural force. Checco and showrunner/creator Little Marvin discussed at length how they wanted THEM to look. Little Marvin described it as taking the classic look of a 1950's movie with the camera language of 1970's films like The French Connection and The Deer Hunter, using the tricks of 1990's music videos and the technology of 2021. Checco and fellow DP Xavier Grobet traded off shooting episodes, and they both really enjoyed prepping and collaborating together. They decided to avoid the color red in the set and costume design, so that when red does appear in the show, it's shocking and more frightening. Checco has been the director of photography on a few horror films and series, but he is choosy about what kind of frightening subject he wants to work on, and considers what the subtext is beneath each story. Humanity has always tried to make social injustice or social advancement digestible through a medium, and the horror genre is a great way to push the envelope. Checco sees a common thread in three of the scary projects he's shot. The Strain was about vampire creatures that take over the world, which are a metaphor for outsiders, or even immigrants. IT Chapter Two is a drama about outsiders who have to deal with their past, and THEM is about the horrors of racism, redlining and injustice. You can watch THEM on Amazon Prime. Checco's latest show, Dopesick, a drama series about the opioid crisis, will be streaming on Hulu in October. Find Checco Varese: http://www.checcovarese.com/ Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep136/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

The Cinematography Podcast Special Episode: A tribute to cinematographer Dan Kneece We were incredibly saddened by the loss of cinematographer and Steadicam expert Dan Kneece. He was a friend and previous guest of The Cinematography Podcast. Here we have re-posted his 2018 episode in memorial and tribute to his long career. Dan Kneece spent nearly 3 decades as a Steadicam Operator on several David Lynch movies such as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive. He shot the opening sequence to Wes Craven's Scream, one of the most memorable opening sequences of any film, and worked with Quentin Tarantino on Jackie Brown. Dan began his career during the advent of the Steadicam, and he co-founded the Steadicam Guild in 2002. He moved out of operating and Steadicam work and had established himself as a DP in his own right. Dan was one of the nicest and most genuine people you'd ever meet. His kindness and goofy sense of humor will be sorely missed. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/kneecespecial/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Flavio Labiano doesn't consider himself an artist with a capital “A” but more of a craftsperson. To him, cinematography is a craft that you learn by making mistakes and taking risks, like any other craft that you hone and improve over time. On Disney's Jungle Cruise, Flavio found the planning and pre-production stages of the huge-scale movie to be especially challenging. It was about 100 days of planning, with two different sets- one in Hawaii and one in Atlanta, Georgia, and with the second unit shooting footage in the Amazon to use as background plates. All the exterior tank work was done in front of a blue screen in a parking lot in Atlanta. The town of Porto Velho, where the jungle cruise adventure begins, was mainly shot in Hawaii. Flavio paid close attention to the orientation of the sun in order to match the set in Hawaii with the set in Atlanta. He also had to match the hard sunlight in the South to the sunlight in Hawaii, and the crew had to deal with the constant interruptions of summer afternoon rainstorms in Georgia. Flavio and Jungle Cruise director, Jaume Collet-Serra, have worked together on several films including The Shallows, another movie that takes place mostly in water. Flavio grew up in Spain, then moved to Los Angeles to attend AFI. He found his first film jobs working for Roger Corman's studio alongside Wally Pfister, Phedon Papamichael, and Janusz Kaminski. Flavio moved back to Spain for film work and has made most of his career there with movies such as The Day of the Beast, which was a huge commercial success in Spain, and Timecrimes, an exciting and mind-bending thriller. Shortly after Timecrimes, he and fellow Spaniard, director Jaume Collet-Serra began working together. Influenced by director Alfred Hitchcock, who enjoyed making thrillers with characters who are celebrities, the two made Nonstop and Unknown with Liam Neeson. You can watch Jungle Cruise on Disney+ Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep135/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

In the film The Evening Hour, director Braden King wanted to immerse the viewer in a fully formed world, with spare dialog and little exposition. This approach appealed to cinematographer Declan Quinn, ASC. With such little dialog, Declan paid close attention to finding the right camera placement, how each scene was composed and how the images told the story, with natural and motivated lighting. The Evening Hour tells the story of Cole Freeman, a health aid at a nursing home who lives in a fictional rural West Virginia town. He makes a little extra money on the side selling his client's prescription medication, until an old friend comes back to the Appalachian town and tries to convince Cole to get further involved in the drug trade. The film was shot entirely on location in Kentucky. Braden specifically wanted to shoot in autumn in order to capture the beauty of that time of year and show in images the collapse of these rural towns due to the opioid epidemic and the risk of environmental destruction by mining companies. Declan enjoyed actually shooting on location in the real Appalachia, instead of having to fake it on a soundstage or in a different area. He was able to freely capture everything in the environment, letting the art of cinematography work its magic in the film. The Evening Hour is screening in limited release in New York at the IFC Center and Los Angeles at the Laemmle Monica on August 6th. https://www.laemmle.com/film/evening-hour Twitter & Instagram: @eveninghourfilm Braden King: www.bradenking.com Twitter:@bradenking Instagram: @truckstop Find Declan Quinn: https://www.artistry.net/clients/directors-of-photography/declan-quinn-asc#category=narrative Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep134/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

One of Adam Bricker's favorite things about being a cinematographer is the opportunity to collaborate with different filmmakers, try something new and make each project the best it can be. His most recent project is the HBO Max comedy series Hacks, which just earned him an Emmy nomination for best cinematography. Adam was given the scripts for the first two episodes, and loved the pilot script, which opens with a long Steadicam single shot following behind the main character, Deborah Vance, played by Jean Smart, for two minutes, until her character is finally revealed in the dressing room vanity mirror. Adam knew it's a rare thing to find a half-hour comedy with that level of cinema, and he was excited to shoot the show. Hacks takes place in Las Vegas, about a legendary comedian who is losing relevance and fading from the spotlight. Adam and show creator Lucia Aniello used vintage Las Vegas movies and photos as a reference point, as well as films such as Soderberg's Behind The Candelabra and Judy with Renée Zellweger. Adam likes to set the look based on how the viewer is supposed to feel, and he makes notes in his scripts about what emotions should be felt in each scene. Most of Hacks is filmed on tripods and dollies, but for the verbal duels between characters Deborah Vance and Ava, her young comedy writer/protégé, Adam chose to shoot handheld, which gives those scenes more energy and naturalism. Lighting on the show goes from naturalistic, when Deborah is at home or when Ava is in Los Angeles, contrasted with vintage glamorous stage lighting when Deborah performs her comedy act. Adam grew up in Chicago and attended film school there before attending the USC summer cinema program, which inspired him to transfer to USC and continue studying cinematography. After college, Adam began taking as many jobs as he could, and planned to work his way up through the camera department, before a DP mentor suggested he buy a camera and take as many cinematography jobs as possible. He and a group of friends invested in a Red One digital camera, and Adam shot dozens of music videos and low-budget films. The Netflix series Chef's Table has taken Adam all over the world. As one of the primary DPs of Chef's Table, Adam and show creator David Gelb have established the artistic look of the modern cuisine documentary, which has since been imitated by countless other food shows. When the show began, Adam had never shot a documentary before, so he had a more cinematic approach to the show, only using prime lenses and no zoom lenses. For him, it's been a dream job to explore new places, eat amazing food at excellent restaurants and work with good friends on the crew. Find Adam Bricker: https://adambricker.com Instagram: @realadambricker You can see Hacks on HBO Max. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep133/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz