PassionPod
PassionPod is a Passionflix podcast hosted by Tosca Musk, Ali Whitaker and Lauren Olsen. Each week, they discuss Passionflix projects with special guests including authors and actors who have appeared in Passionflix films.
PassionPod
Episode 16 - Denis Maloney
The episode features a discussion featuring Lauren, Ali, and Tosca, accompanied by Denis Maloney, Director of Photography & proud Passionflix Founding Member!. They share their experiences preparing for upcoming projects and reflect on the rapid pace of development. Tosca emphasizes the continuous hard work of scriptwriting during downtime. Denis discusses his background and role as a cinematographer, including his process and collaboration with Tosca on various films. The team highlights the importance of detailed pre-production planning and maintaining positive, adaptable attitudes on set. They also talk about their interactions with founding members on set and share personal traditions and experiences in filmmaking. Founding members ask a variety of questions, providing deeper insights into the roles of cinematography and directing in Passionflix projects.
Lauren: All right. Hi ladies. How you doing?
Ali: Hi.
Tosca: Hi. Good. How are you?
Lauren: Yeah, not too bad. And quickly before we get started for those who dunno are just joining this week, I'm Lauren, the Director of Development here at Passionflix.
Ali: I'm Ali, I'm the Director of Marketing and PR
Tosca: and I'm Tosca, I'm the founder and CEO of Passionflix, and occasionally I drink I direct movies.
Lauren: Wonderful. So how have your weeks been, ladies? How are we doing?
Tosca: Good. Can you believe we're in September?
Lauren: It's mind boggling that we're in September. I feel like August was a blink. September.
Tosca: My kids are buying Halloween costumes and decorations. This is what's going on in my home. We're preparing for Halloween.
Ali: I'm not ready for that.
Tosca: No.
Ali: I got really upset when I walked into CBS yesterday and all the pumpkin candles were out, and the apple candles were out. I just want summer months, guys. Yeah, there's those 20. 20. So quick. Goodbye. 2020. I'm ready. Ready to move on. Exactly.
Lauren: I love it.
Tosca: But but so far it's been exciting. We have a few exciting things that are coming up. We just did something recently, which we're very excited to be sharing with you soon. Ali's gonna work on that announcement.
I'm not allowed to say anything or she'll kick my ass. And so stay tuned. Stay tuned. We just did something really fun. It's a new thing for us and we really enjoyed. So a little test into what it's like to film. And then on that, we have some announcements that we'll be making very soon about all the projects that we have coming up and when we think we're gonna be able to start and how we're gonna be moving forward.
And I'm really grateful to all of you for sticking with us and for your support and and I think that you're gonna be really excited about all the things that we have coming up. Stay tuned. It's gonna be a busy time.
Lauren: That's so exciting. People are gonna be very thrilled with what we've got going on. Yeah. And yeah, we're, I, we've all just been prepping and getting ready for those things. So that's all I'm gonna say in terms of an update.
Tosca: Yeah.
Lauren: Getting and whatnot.
Tosca: So it's all a lot of development.
Lauren: Yeah.
Tosca: Think I've said this before, normally in the Passionflix world, we work so fast that we rarely have time to develop a project, meaning spending a lot of time working on the script and really getting it getting to where we need it to be.
And so during this time we've used. Our months to really write as many scripts as possible so that when we are able to go ahead, we're able to make as many movies as possible somewhat back to back. We have limited resources as in money and time and personnel and I'm personally, I'm only one person and I love these movies, so I wanna direct almost every one of them, but I can't, I won't.
But no, but I'll we will get a lot of them done, but it's gonna be interesting to try and make multiple movies at the same time.
Lauren: Yeah. That'll be really cool. That's exciting. Yeah.
Tosca: Yeah.
Lauren: Amazing. So today for our Passion Pod, I'm excited to say that we're continuing our kind of behind the scenes look into crew.
But this time with our lovely director of photography Denis Maloney. And a quick intro to him. He's worked on more than 20 feature films, twice Oscar nominated Drama The Contender, which star Jeff Bridges. And then he also recently completed a thriller re repentance. I can't pronounce that with Forrest Whitaker.
And then some television work is that he's done Showtime's acclaim documentary 20th Century, the Pursuit of Happiness directed by Robert Ekka plus some various TV movies. One of them is returned to Halloween Town, which is one of my things. Oh my gosh, I didn't know that. Sorry. Yeah, he's done some Disney Channel ones and I'm just like Denis.
And so I love that little tidbit. And he's also directed, director of photography. Almost all of our Passionflix movies. At least all of the ones you've done Tosca, right?
Tosca: Yeah, he's DP'd all of the ones that I've done, and yeah, he hasn't done any of them that I haven't done, but I'm sure he would.
Lauren: Totally.
Ali: Then I feel like I, and Lauren, you forgot. You forgot one important title.
Lauren: Oh, but he is a member of the American Society of Cinema.
Ali: Oh, I was gonna say founding member, but that too.
Lauren: Oh, he's awesome. He's a founding member.
Tosca: He's a Passionflix founding member.
Lauren: That's more important. How did I forget to say that?
I'm the worst. But he's one of our first founding members. He was one of the first founding members, and he loves to share that on set with when he visits founding members who come to, to see the set. And they just love talking to him. So now we'll talk.
Tosca: My favorite is that, how founding members can apply to come visit a set uhhuh. So on the movies. Where he hasn't worked. He actually has applied to,
Lauren: yeah, he signs up.
Tosca: He's oh, there's Denis!
It's awesome. If you wanna go visit set, you could just come. And he's no, I wanna go as a founding member. I'm like, okay.
Lauren: It's so funny. I'll, I will admit him now. Yes. Joining us. He sent me a picture that he'd gotten it up and running.
Hi Denis. Hi Denis.
Denis: How are you? How's everybody? I'm fine. Yeah. We just came back from a location scout, Michael Dy Margie, we got yeah. Video. We're gonna shoot tomorrow.
Lauren: Yes. We're keeping hush about what it's
Denis: okay. It's a great location.
Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. Very excited. And and how are you, how have you, I haven't seen you since COVID-19 and all of that started, how have you been like staying seen during
Denis: I'm fine.
I've been doing some reading taking some courses and stuff. You that don't know. Lauren and I were flatmates in London when we were shooting the protector.
Lauren: Oh yeah. That was so fun. Denis makes the best dinners and then he'd take a picture of me with the dinner for me to send to my mom
Tosca: and then send
it to me where I was staying and I was like, why am I not eating there?
That's not fair. Yeah. We took care of each other.
Denis: I dunno. We had a great flat too, was right. Yeah.
Lauren: It was gorgeous
Denis: down by the river, right? In the theater sections. Great.
Lauren: Yeah, that was awesome. It was super fun. I, that was our bonding moment, Denis. It was really great. Yeah, because up until then I've just been a PA on all the sets and you're like, who's this person?
Yeah. But then we were living together, so it was great
Denis: That was fun. Yeah. Yeah. It was a beautiful flat too.
Lauren: So wonderful. Yeah, it was.
Denis: There you go. So everybody
Lauren: and what have you been up to during all this COVID-19 quarantining? Because I, I imagine you haven't been able to be on set quite yet, or
Denis: No.
Tomorrow will be will be, it'll be good to see, tested, obviously how it works, we'll be wearing masks and. Be careful. And then yeah, it'd be, could be a small crew. There's only five of Tosca something like
Tosca: Yeah, exactly. Five people and one actor. Yeah. So that, and we'll test it out, but it's an interesting start to, 'cause we're gonna coming up, we're gonna be shooting a whole bunch of quickies and so it'll be to see how.
This works so that we're able to so that we're able to see how we can move forward on the smaller production so that we're able to see how we can move forward on bigger production.
Denis: Exactly. Yeah. Where are you?
Tosca: I'm
Denis: okay.
Lauren: Figure out.
Denis: Alright, good.
Lauren: Very nice.
Tosca: Hey, do you like my lighting? Denis?
Denis: I love your office. I haven't been there in a while.
Lauren: Yeah, it's a fun space. Yeah. Yeah. And for those who don't know, Denis, I thought you could mention a little bit about how you got started working as a cinematographer or as a director of photography.
Denis: Yeah, I get asked that question a lot. I just fell in love with the movies. You and I grew up in a small town where there's no. Exposure to the arts or anything like that? I just liked the movies and decided to do it. It was pretty much it. I didn't go to film school. I studied chemistry in college.
Lauren: Wow. Wow.
Denis: Just picked up my camera, started filming. That's pretty much it. And then things, and then and moved to New York and I got a pretty good job and then came here.
Ali: Wow. Did you have movies growing up that you loved or that inspired you
Denis: to? Yeah I did. I liked, um, I think Bergman and Fellini a lot and godfather movies I liked quite a bit.
Some westerns. I really enjoyed. I just, I pretty much liked everything.
Tosca: Nice.
Lauren: That's awesome.
Tosca: But Denis does the wonderful thing is, when we're filming and we're about to start a new movie, Denis and I will just email pictures to each other of different looks from different movies that we like, and then.
For me it's like a lot of composition, or it's color or it's a feel. And then Denis will do the same thing and he'll collect a few pictures. I'll take, like for Gabriels Inferno, I had these Renaissance paintings and I sent it to him and I was like, I wanna like this.
Oh, and then Denis finds. Actual stills from movies and sends them to me. And then we just in an ideal world, we'd sit down and watch more movies together. We constantly talk about it, but then, rarely do we actually do it.
Denis: And here's our secret weapon.
Tosca: Oh
Lauren: That's why you guys would map out shots, right? If there's ---
Denis: Yeah, exactly. No, we do look at a lot of images, which movies we've seen, we see movies together and yeah. About why these scenes worked in these particular movies and why some scenes didn't work.
Ali: Yeah.
Denis: We just, from there, spend a lot of time together. That's really important.
Ali: Hey, Denis for our listeners that don't know, can you tell us what exactly it means to be a director of photography and what your role entails?
Denis: Yeah, I'm, I'm on the sharp edge. I, do the lighting and the camera work and the composition and stuff like that, with Tosca.
And I'm the the bridge between the technical part of filmmaking and the artistic part of it. That's it. I'm I wanna make sure everybody's up on the ready and so on. That's pretty much what I do and I personally operate the camera, which is a lot of fun.
Lauren: Nice. Yeah. Yeah, those are good comments on set, you guys.
Tosca: But what I love and so what Denis does is, so he'll get the script as soon as we're ready to go, he gets the script and then he goes through it thoroughly and he will highlight or underline different sections in each scene. In Hollywood Dirt he, there's a scene where Summer walks out.
It's one of the shootings of the. The movie, within the movie. It says in the script, she walks out of the door and her heels are clicking on the pavement. And so Denis highlights it, and then he comes to me, he goes, do you wanna see the heels clicking on the pavement?
How, what, how do we wanna see the heels clicking on the pavement? How are you gonna show this part of the story? And it's very, it's, he's very detailed, which is amazing to me because I'm like, oh, actually I don't need to see the heels clicking on the, I'll add that in post, I'll add the sound. What we wanna see is more the.
Of that. And so then we'll just talk about how we're going to get that part across. If I have time to shoot the heels on the pavement, I'll shoot the heels on the pavement is normally what I would say.
Denis: But we did it pretty quickly. What was it, the heels on the pavement or was it on the front porch of summer's home?
Was that, what was it?
Tosca: No, that one. So we, we, you do that for many scenes on, on, on every single movie. It'll be like I'm driven, like he touches her shoulder and you're like, oh, does she, do you wanna see the touch on the shoulder? Do you wanna see the hand actually touch the shoulder?
Every it happens all the time. But in that particular scene, it was right when Cole was showing some of the red car.
Denis: Oh, yeah.
Tosca: But yeah so it's all those things. So Denis's role and is very much so to help me or help the director facilitate the storytelling using images.
So he will make sure that we film and that we capture all the images that, that the director and the story needs or the script says for us to be able to cut it all together. It's really very helpful to have Denis, who's so detail oriented as well.
Denis: It's a lot of fun. Yeah. We're good coworkers.
Lauren: We're, yeah, you guys definitely have your fun. It's fun to see you guys interact on set and talk shots over. It's so interesting to see and it's just a testament to how well you guys work together, which is also cool.
Tosca: Yeah. It's a of fun. It's funny when when new people show up on set and they're like, oh my God, how are you gonna get this done?
And I just look at Denis. I was like, can we do it? And he is yeah. I'm like, okay. I'm not worried we'll be fine.
Denis: No we always find a way. It's,
Tosca: we always find a way. You gotta make it happen.
Denis: Yeah. I've never been in a spot that we couldn't figure something out,
Ali: yeah, that's true. You were talking about Hollywood Dirt.
Was that the first film you two worked on together?
Denis: Yep. Yeah, the very first one. Yeah.
Tosca: That's really cool. We lived in the Hyatt in Augusta, Georgia.
Denis: Yeah. And then we moved to Madison and that was a cute little song that was a lot of fun.
Lauren: That's awesome.
Tosca: We were connect actually through, so I did a lot of films for a company called Mar Vista before this, and Denis had worked for them as well. And and so I was about to make a movie and they recommended Denis as a dj and then I met with Denis and then they recommended somebody else as well. And, but the rest is, and then we didn't get to work together on that movie.
And then as soon as I got to make decisions on my own, I invited Denis to work with us.
Denis: Yeah. No, it worked out. Yeah. Worked. Was sitting in my kitchen one morning having a cup of coffee and phone rings. This Oscar bus, can you join me? And so we went over to the coffee bean and here
you coffee.
Ali: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, the coffee bean. That's where my first meeting with Tosca is too. Yeah. Good coffee. My first meetings with the coffee bean.
Denis: Yeah. You wanna go to Georgia? Sure. So you can leave tomorrow?
Tosca: Pretty much me. Yeah. Yeah. And
Denis: that was great. And the nice thing about that, we did have a lot of time to prep it. I didn't feel like we were rushed.
Lauren: That's great. No, it was great.
Denis: We're all in the same hotel.
Lauren: Yeah. So all is each other. It helps that way. That's so awesome.
And and I mentioned this kind of in your intro, but I'll bring it up again, that you've been cinematographer for every movie that Tosca has directed. Yeah. And so could you talk a little bit about what it's like working with Tosca as a director?
Ali: Be careful.
Denis: I hate that question.
Lauren: Why I had to ask it, Denis. Just kidding.
Denis: No. As I said, we're really good coworkers. She has a really great way of understanding a shot and communicating it, how she wants. She's terrific with the actors. Terrific director.
Ali: Aw, on the spot there. Yeah, she, she feel the love.
Denis: I go on. Is that enough to, you want some more?
Lauren: Come on
Denis: in. Enthusiasm. That's another, which is important too, on the leadership.
Lauren: She gets very excited about not only the script, but the book itself too, and she'll carry that on to the point where some crew members start reading the book just to get deeper into it, which is really cool.
Tosca: Yeah.
Denis: Oh yeah, through it. I haven't read any of the books, but all the authors and yeah I read the script. Many.
Ali: Yeah. I was, it's probably more important to focus on the script, right? 'cause then you can visualize it.
Denis: Yeah. Yeah. But they all seem happy at first. We met Alexandre Torres.
She was with us and and she seemed very happy and excited about what we were doing with her novel. And we, I thought we did a pretty good job adapting it.
Ali: Yeah. Yeah. You did a good job.
Denis: But it was great to have around like Jody's was with us pretty much all the time in London.
Ali: Yeah.
Denis: Her car, Jake's car and the movie was her car.
Lauren: Yeah. That was super helpful.
Denis: Yeah, it was. It actually was perfect for the script. And,
Tosca: Yeah,
Denis: we came around and Erica and Carly were with us in New Jersey for 30. Sexy saying It's great.
Tosca: Yeah. I love it because I get to immediately just look at them and go, so was that how you pictured it?
Lauren: Yeah.
Tosca: Yes. Okay, great. Yeah, we can move on. Yeah, it's very helpful.
Lauren: Immediate gratification. That's satisfying.
Denis: Did Sylvia, did Sylvan visit us in Syracuse?
Lauren: No. We don't know who Sylvan or not is secret identity, Dana, Denis? No.
Ali: Maybe they didn't. Oh, snap.
Lauren: No secret. And Denis, do you have a favorite Passionflix project that you worked on?
If you can pick a favorite?
Denis: Yeah, the could ask this a bit. Yeah. Obviously the first one was wonderful. Hollywood Dirt. I. And then after that, it's a toss up. I had a lot of fun with Gabriel's Inferno and Rapture and the protector was great. And, being in London and all that.
So those three, I think my favorite. But the first one was spectacular. It was special. Awesome.
Lauren: And just to reiterate for people, he mentioned Rapture, but we've only filmed like a tiny piece of rapture. We haven't finished Rapture itself yet, but we've filmed quite a bit of Gabriel Inferno.
I think five and a half hours worth was the total timing.
Tosca: Yeah. So Gabriel Inferno has finished, as we all know, finishing and and then rapture. Yeah, we shot about a third of it, A third of rapture
and and of course rapture starts in Italy, so it's not the first third.
Lauren: Yeah. I back to Italy and that'd be, I don't know how you and Denis do this.
But you can take a 90 page script and shoot, two plus hours worth of footage, which is what happened with Driven, and it just, it blows my mind sometimes. So it's like, how does that happen? Do you just come up with more shots to add in, or you just let moments breathe a little more like it's.
Denis: It's, it is prep.
Prep is really important. Got it. Yeah. I don't remember, do tasks where we show up and we don't know what's going on or what to do. It's always, we always have a plan.
Tosca: Yeah, we, that happened a little bit on Afterburn because some locations fell through like the night before or whatever, and we were dealing with a very different situation there then, back then, all the way back then two years ago and than we are now.
Yeah. But but yeah, some locations fell through, so we would show up on. The day at a new location, and we would look at this location together for the first time and we'd be like, okay, we're going to go over there and we're gonna shoot this way. Yeah. And we're gonna, and then, and then you just try and get the story done.
So that, that's a few times where we've shown up and we're like, I don't know. I've never been here.
Denis: Yeah. Gianna's apartment was that way. I remember that. We just went into this big loft.
Tosca: Oh yeah. For whose apartment? Gia
Denis: Gianna. Is that her name? Oh, G'S
Tosca: apartment. Yeah. G'S apartment.
That was a little bit of prep. It was more like when we went to the offices
Denis: Oh,
Tosca: GIA office.
Denis: Oh,
Tosca: Office. We saw the day before and then showed up the next day and we're like, all right, great. Let's shoot this. But you have, I have an idea as to how I want thing, the story to be told.
And so when you find the environment that you're gonna be filming in, you just figure out how you're able to. To put that idea into that environment. And sometimes you're able to make it work most of the time. All the times we've made it, we're able to make it work.
Denis: Exactly.
Tosca: It is nice to have somebody who is very flexible and then also very talented and smart, like Denis on board so that when we are stuck in those situations, we basically just, huddle together and we're like, all right, here we are. We can figure this out. Let's do it this way, make it happen this way.
As opposed to some, as opposed to some other people that I've worked with who get really, frustrated by any kind of change or if something has fallen through. And instead of picking it up and figuring out what the solution is, blaming the people that may have been responsible for that particular situation.
I'm like, that's not helpful. I don't wanna talk about what happened then. We're gonna talk about how we're gonna fix this. And and so it's very helpful when you have someone like Denis on board. 'cause they'll just be like, great, this is a lovely location. In fact, I think this location is better than the last one.
So we're good.
Denis: That's a very good point. These little changes, some people just look crazy. Can't change this.
Ali: Yeah's a good attitude. Yeah. Yeah. We have some questions from your fellow founding members, Denis.
Denis: Boy,
Ali: don't worry. They weren't easy on you. Karen asked, what is your favorite part of the creative process?
Denis: It's, on the set that's you can't beat that. And then when Tosca and I have just been working in the post-production on the color correcting on, the movies and and I really enjoy that 'cause you can second guess yourself. It's not like on the set. You don't, you can't really play around too much, but.
But you can make something darker or brighter. And I really enjoy that and enjoy the whole thing. I I enjoy reading the script and I, and of course pre-production is really good. And the crew's fun. It's great. It's like a family. I just really enjoy it.
Tosca: We actually have great crews on our movies.
Very rarely do we have anybody that's not pleasant on our sets. We always have really nice people and everyone's. A filmmaker and jumping in to help as much as possible.
Denis: That's right.
Tosca: So yeah, it is a family When you do, when the films end and you have such an intense relationship with everyone because these long hours and it's very high stress. So that when you do finish the movie, you're like, okay, what am I gonna see you guys again? I hope so. So you try and Yeah.
Denis: I get the blues a little bit sometimes on the last shoot when it's all over, so it's a little sad. Yeah.
Lauren: That, and that's why when, whenever you can get a wrap party, it's nice.
'cause then you can all get together one last time. Yeah. Yeah. We sometimes do that or we just have a beer at the end of the night, right? Yeah.
Tosca: Yes. Denis is the person that will bring the beers to set. Yeah.
Denis: We like beer at the end of the day. Yeah.
Lauren: Have a wrap beer at the end of the day. I, and I remember Michael Michael mentioned that he worked with you once and he was like.
You just need to put it in a cooler, Denis, and we'll label it so that the grips aren't accidentally pulling a beer out of the drink cooler in the middle of the day. That kind of thing. It was so funny. Yeah. Yeah. Who loves the beer tradition? We'll successfully finish a day. Cracks went open and then someone drives him back to the hotel.
It all works out. That's a good day. It's a good day. It's a good way to end the day, Denis.
Denis: It's, you can't beat it
Tosca: exactly. When he puts the beer into the set. Dressed fridge. Oh yeah. So we have fridge on set, but it's plugged in.
What? Oh, okay. Many
Lauren: keep it it's so impressive. Yeah. Great. And we have, so another founding member question is, Noreen asked, would you ever consider playing the role of a love interest in one of the movies? And she also included asking for a friend. So I think someone,
Denis: What was her question again?
Lauren: If you would ever, if you would ever consider playing the role of a love interest, like being an actor.
Denis: Oh yeah. No sorry. Nore. No, I'm I couldn't do it. I'm not a good actor. I just mess up the scene in her. And damaged the movie, but I have no interest in being an actor.
Ali: Tosca's directing you.
Denis: Yeah,
Ali: there you go. Denis
Denis: Tosca's has been in some stuff I know. And outta doors and things. Yeah,
Lauren: I have walked in and outta doors occasionally. He's saying she'll walk up to the bar and then back. Like she,
Tosca: the funny thing is now one in that particular scene, so Denis, Denis just keeps her camera rolling, which is great.
But in that particular scene, I was trying to show the background what you're supposed to do. Okay, you gotta walk up here, you gotta pick up a shot and drink this. I'm like, let me show you. Come hi, how are you drink? Ah, great. And then we put it in the movie.
Ali: Which movie are you talking about?
Lauren: 30 seconds.
Tosca: 30 seconds.
Ali: Oh
Denis: Yeah. You get a you get a lot of good stuff if you just roll after the scene stops, after the word cut is said. Sometimes you get some real stuff and sometimes you don't. And same thing before action. Sometimes you get some real moments. So yeah, we're always looking at those.
Lauren: Yeah. I like that you buffer that, Denis. It's really cool.
Tosca: It was a big thing that Denis actually taught me. So basically, a lot of times you're shooting something and as a director you're like, okay, they go rolling. You are like, okay, and action. So I don't do that. I go rolling and I. Here we go.
Action. Nice and calm, everyone goes. And the very end I'll say cut. And then everyone will just I'll tell everybody. Sometimes I'll get the chance to like, don't run in front of the camera, just when we say cut, just it's very calm. No one moves, nobody does anything. And then Denis will just keep rolling even for another.
Five, 10 seconds, 30 seconds we've gotten before. But, and then in a situation like that the actors can relax a little bit. And they're, it's sometimes just that little bit of a few, a second or two that you need in order to cut into, dissolve into the next scene or cut into something.
You just see this moment of the very natural look.
Lauren: That's awesome.
Ali: Yeah. We have another question. Lauren asked, do you have any a different, Lauren?
Denis: Is this Lauren?
Ali: Nope. Different. Lauren. Lauren Hopkins maybe. Asked, do you have any onset or premier night traditions?
Denis: Um, not really. I'd like to get a good seat at the premier.
I wanna be in a spot and get a sort of a sense of what the audience is doing and how they're reacting to the scenes as the movie goes. And and, I'll do the red carpet. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it. And of course, champagne's good.
Ali: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Denis: My only premier.
Ali: Hopefully we can do another premiere soon altogether, I hope.
Yeah.
Denis: Hope so. It, hope it's not gonna be on a drive-in it's, I
Ali: know it might be. Yeah. But drive. Maybe you don't have that.
Denis: I didn't say that. All right. What's the next question?
Lauren: Drive-ins Denis. Just kidding. Drive-ins. I'm excited about a drive-in option, but a I Jersey girls. I'll defend drive-ins to my heart's intent 'cause that's where they were invented.
Denis: No, I enjoy, years ago I enjoyed drive-ins. It's a great way to see a movie with your family or your friends.
Ali: Yeah, but I understand it's just, it's. Hard. I hope we get to have a big red carpet soon again.
Denis: Yeah.
Tosca: But I'd say a tradition for Denis is he always has to get to set 30 minutes before call so that he can get, be in line for breakfast.
Yep. Breakfast you have to have a good meal. He likes small black coffees from Starbucks.
Lauren: Yes.
Tosca: And whereas I get my giant ones.
Denis: Yeah.
Tosca: And and then as soon as we break for lunch, he wants to make sure that his team gets to go get right in front of the line for the, for lunch, because otherwise everything disappears.
It's very legitimate. Also, his team gets the least amount of breaks and anybody else
Lauren: Right on.
Oh yeah, there's definitely a hierarchy to the lunch line. You wanna get like the director, the dp, the ca, like the cast, and then any other essentials you need to get right back to work after lunch through first.
Denis: And another thing about being the first in line is you have your lunch and then you have more time to relax.
Lauren: Yeah.
Denis: If you spend 10 minutes in the chow line and the time after lunch is less
Lauren: no, that's a good point.
Ali: Tosca, what about you? Do you have any traditions for onset or.
Tosca: His last one is the beer. The beer after
Denis: the beer at the end of the day. Yeah.
Tosca: But yeah. Do I have any traditions? Yes, but mine are more like prep. So with me, I have to have I have to have an incredibly peaceful night, the night before. The, any sort of shoot week and then then I'm able to be pretty on top of it.
So mostly I do a massage, like I have a massage on the Sunday night before we start shooting on a Monday morning, and I'll have it so I'll just have a massage and then come home. Hang out with my kids for a few minutes and then go to sleep at the same time as them. 'cause we wake up so early.
But if you're able to like, have a massage, have a shower, just calm, be very calm. And then then when you wake up in the morning after good night's sleep you can basically tackle anything because the stress continues. It's very long days that we. Work. And and so if you go into the work week with with stress already, then you're not gonna make it.
Denis: Yeah. That's so important. Sometimes you have to fight for a good night's sleep, you really have. Yeah.
Lauren: And other traditions that Tosca has less traditions are more just things that keep her going are two Americanos a day sometimes. And and a plethora of healthy snacks. So it's always that, and that's something that a lot of our crew ends up appreciating as well, is that it's not just chips and candy and other stuff.
There's like veggies and ate and different things like, or cheese.
Tosca: Yeah, carrots. Lots of carrots as we know in Hollywood Dirt. You can hear me in the background eating them. But but yeah, no, so it's, it is that, so it's I'll eat the breakfast, but then I have to have something three hours after call, and then three hours later is lunch, and then three hours later I need, but I have to maintain a certain level of energy and if I'm eating a lot of junk food.
My energy just goes pretty bad. It's, you're not healthy. So yeah, so my favorite is like a banana with almond butter. Oh my god.
Lauren: Yeah.
Tosca: Three hours off to breakfast.
Lauren: Man, there was a time when I could map out your meals tea. I just feel like time for that time with it.
Denis: Canadian do that. The Canadians a pre-lunch, they'll come around with.
And in Italy too, it seems like we're eating all the time, but there's always good stuff to eat there.
Lauren: It couldn't be an actual wine in the scenes.
Denis: What do they call that in Canada, Tosca, that, that meal, they
Tosca: called hot subs. So they have subs, they called hot subs and they'll have cold subs or hot subs and so depending on the weather in, but yeah, in Canada.
You have breakfast three hours after call. You have a hot sub, three hours lunch. Three hours, hot sub, three hours. Yeah. And you have to have, it's like a soup or a sandwich or something. Something pretty significant to keep you going. Because otherwise you it's a lot of work to, normally I can, on a normal workday you can be fine, six, six hours between meals, but when you have to concentrate really hard having any kind of blood sugar drop is difficult.
Lauren: Yeah. You need that brain food for sure.
Ali: No one wants to be hangry.
Lauren: Oh. Especially not the director. Oh, god. At all costs avoided. Just kidding.
Tosca: Are you looking at your lighting, Denis?
Denis: Yeah, the sun's coming in, hitting my face.
Lauren: The lighting just changed. It's so funny. He's hang on, the light just hit me.
There were also, is that better? Great. But there were moments on set where, there you go. Good modeling on you, Denis. Good modeling. Yeah. Oh, great.
Denis: No, it was bouncing off the um. This is Wes and is bouncing off the shiny floor. All right. What's next?
Lauren: I was just saying that it's it's been fun to be on sets with you in particular.
'cause if we used PAs as stand-ins or like even me, when I was on the assistant directing team, I'd do stand-ins sometimes where I'd. If we had a brunette actress, I'd sit in and then Denis would always be, fixing the lighting in that moment. And then he'd get it just right and he'd be like, hold on, take a picture for me.
And I'm just like, thank you, Denis. It's always so nice. And we had Mila, one of our founding members she commented on my. I do a post the body members lounge to ask for questions and she commented with a picture that you had that Lawrence had taken of the two of you sitting in for one of the Gabriel's scenes.
And she really loved that she got to sit and chat with you and cheers wine and it was fun.
Ali: Aw. Yeah. Denis Kenzie, who came to set for Gabriel's, I know she asked, how does the reaction from founding members on set make you feel?
Denis: And I love the founding members, so they're like real people.
They're not showbiz people. They're filmmakers.
And I just love their enthusiasm and their questions. They're so basic questions. And then Mia drives down from Montreal for these movies. It's just great to see them. Yeah, like 'em a lot.
Tosca: Yeah. Yeah, it is fun. And Denis, Denis takes 'em to the, takes 'em to the camera, puts them as Lauren said, like puts them in front of the camera and takes pictures of them there.
And, yeah. You've given some actors, some of the founding members, the slate and taking pictures with the slate. Yeah.
Denis: And it's easy to do. It doesn't really slow us down and they enjoy it and. Yeah, it's I like doing it. Yeah. And then we, get a picture with the actors and like Giulio was very open to having the founding members with him and get pictures together.
And he's cute, isn't he?
Lauren: He's adorable. Oh, my mom is,
don't get me started on Giulio. My mom was obsessed. She really loves him right now, which is great. Huge fan of the movies.
Ali: I don't think it's just your mom.
Lauren: Get outta here. I dunno. Me and Paul were flirting a lot with, at the premier, just.
So Mila asks the one who had the photo with you she asks, are there any particular shots that are difficult to achieve? Like any that you can think of off the top of your head that have been more challenging?
Denis: What would be more challenging? What,
Lauren: Any difficult shots that you've had to achieve?
Denis: Oh. I've it for so long. I've you there was across anything recently that was difficult.
Lauren: But in in detector, I can think of one that just seemed in ingenious.
Denis: The big problem becomes difficult is when you're shooting like day exteriors and it starts to become dark.
And trying to that happened in Hollywood Dirt a little bit. We saved the day and we figured something out. But that's very difficult doing that. And I guess the best answer is let's not do it. We'll do it tomorrow. But you can't always do that.
Lauren: Yeah. Course there's not enough time.
Yeah. But with, there was the protector where we wanted to avoid showing as much violence on camera as possible. So you would, came up with really creative ways to do punching shots, which I thought was really cool. Yeah. Like the scene in the bathroom is really interesting. Some of those shots were cool.
Tosca: Yeah. Punching past the camera.
Denis: Oh, yeah.
Lauren: Yeah, exactly. It's great. I loved it.
Denis: Did you guys jump when I did that?
Okay.
Ali: Pam wants to know if you've ever been star struck.
Denis: If I've ever been What,
Ali: if you've ever felt starstruck on set, maybe on one of the films you worked on? Any excited, very excited about any of the stars you've worked with?
Denis: Oh, starstruck. Yeah. That happens. We have to hold it back 'cause, yeah. Let me see the first time. Yeah, I I worked on, I didn't, wasn't a dp, but I was a camera operator on something about Mary.
Lauren: Oh yeah. Oh, I love that movie.
Denis: Seeing and seeing all those people. For the first time it was just,
Lauren: yeah. That's so cool.
Denis: And then yeah, and then, and I did a couple, it was Jeff Bridges.
The first time I met Jeff, it was Oh wow. Oh my God. Yeah.
Lauren: That's really cool.
Denis: Yeah, I would, but he's a real
guy. Once you get to know him, he's terrific.
Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. Sure. And then the la the last founding member question we have is from Melanie and she asks, what advice do you have for people interested in becoming directors of photography?
Denis: Huh uh, I think you have to decide to do it and burn some bridges and, just study it, look at movies, talk to people, meet as many people as you can. Read books. That's how I did. I got a lot outta books. And and borrow a camera. Get your hands on a camera and just start shooting stuff and work a still photographer take still pictures that really helped you with your composition.
And, and try to meet the American Society of Cinematographers. It's called the ASC has a mentorship program. And you can find 'em in online. It's the asc.com and and I'm on that committee and they assign mentors to, people wanted to get started.
Ali: That's really cool.
Tosca: That's really, yeah.
Denis also, when we were in Syracuse, Denis also went to the University of Syracuse and he taught a day course there for the film school, the university there. Oh, that's.
Denis: I'll, if anybody wants to do this through Passionflix, contact me. I'll be happy to communicate with any, anybody that wants to get into the business.
It's all one. I know. Thank you. I'm not gonna give you my phone for now but you'll just send it to the office and I'll respond. Okay.
Lauren: Yeah, email us at info@passionflix and we'll.... We'll get you guys connected. Yeah. Thanks, Denis. Awesome.
Denis: My pleasure.
Lauren: It was so wonderful that you could join us today.
Yeah. Thank you, Denis.
Denis: Are we done?
Lauren: I think so. I, all the questions there.
Denis: There was a really good question, Lauren, in the list you sent me and it was something to like, if you could be one of the Passionflix characters in a movie.
Ali: Oh, we missed that. We actually jumped on. Yeah, you
Denis: missed that and I thought that was a really good question.
Can you ask me that question?
Lauren: We'll ask that to all of you wanna be Denis. Yeah. Who do you wanna be?
Denis: Alright, so there, there's two. One of course Jake and the will.
Blood.
Lauren: I love him so much
Denis: and so sweet. And then Clay in 'Dirty, Sexy Saint'. He was real.
Lauren: Yeah.
Denis: Hardworking, good values.
Lauren: I love that. I love that. You wanna be those characters.
Denis: Those are my two. But Jake first. I like Jake a lot. Never met the guy, but I like. So
Lauren: he was really cool. Yeah. Yeah, he is. Cool.
Ali: Good ones. I think we've talked about this before, but if you were, we did this, but I was thinking
Tosca: like Josie in the will. Oh yeah. Or maybe summer in Hollywood.
Lauren: My wifi. Oh, there you are. Sorry guys. My wifi cut out very briefly, so I might have missed a little bit of that. No toss was, and
Denis: RI Riley is a good person too. She, yeah,
Lauren: she's a great character. Riley. Riley's great. Yeah.
Denis: Helping the children and doing all that. Yeah.
Lauren: Riley was fantastic.
That was great.
Tosca: What about you, Lauren, and Ali? Who would you play? Who would you be?
Lauren: Cramp?
Ali: This through, for, I don't know if my reasons are correct, but I would have to say Josie, I'll let you guess why I love Chris. I think he is great. I'm just teasing. I think Chris is just super cute.
So you'd wanna be, I would just wanna be acting.
Tosca: We talking characters here. Yeah, we're talking characters here. Not Jake. Sorry not, but you wanna not the actor.
Ali: No I loved his character. I loved her character and I loved the movie. But no, I, yeah, I think Chris McKenna's super cute, but we'll say Jake's super cute.
Lauren: That's fair. That's fair.
Denis: Okay.
Lauren: Me.
Denis: I'll see you tomorrow bright and early. Okay.
Lauren: All. Denis, I love you. Yeah, I guess I, I really liked I'm blanking on names now. I loved Riley. I really related to Riley. And then I also really loved Camie from the protector. I thought she was really, yeah.
Ali: Great one. All of them are so good. Oh yeah. All the characters. Good ladies.
Lauren: Good ladies. Alright, Denis. Yes. Thanks again for joining us, Denis. Bye Denis.
Denis: Oh bye. See you. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Lauren: Of course.
Denis: Can I go now? Yeah.
Lauren: Yes.
Oh my God, I love this so much. I was like, I'm in process of removing it from the chat and he. I also love that he we just skipped a couple of questions that sounded repe, like a repetitive after he'd answered one, and then he called us out on one of the questions we skipped, and I'm like, Denis,
Tosca: probably if you, because you sent him those questions.
I did. Yeah. He probably went through them and he's very meticulous, so you would've gone through them. Great. I have an answer for all of these questions. I think I'm feeling pretty good about this, and then he'd be ready. Wonderful.
Lauren: No, I loved it.
Tosca: Yeah, he wants to, you know, he's really he's great that way 'cause I've worked with him so much.
Yeah. I've directed, did I direct, have I directed seven films or eight? I think eight in the last, yeah. Lot in the last two and a half years. Three years now, because it's three years in three years. And he's DP'd all of them. And when you think about that's a significant amount of my year that I spend with Denis.
I spend more time with Denis than I do with my children.
Ali: Yeah. Crazy.
Tosca: And again, my kids come to set, so Denis gets to help with my kids as well. So Denis, they know Denis and Margie, they know Lauren and Ali, and so it's basically they, this is their family that they're growing up with. I'm like, alright, that's
Lauren: so great.
It's fun. It's, the kids are cute.
Tosca: Yeah. Very cool. But yeah I'm so happy to have Denis as a team member. I'm just. I'm very fortunate to have somebody who is that prepared and that passionate about what we're doing. Yeah. And he very much so pays attention to our mandate, and he wants to make sure that the women are put forward in a very positive way.
And and he always asks me about that. He will, he'll always be like this a reason? Is there a reason why we wanna put her in the front or the back or, or we'll discuss, um. Basically the importance of the female role and her actions in a specific scene and how we will show a woman.
And he's very attentive to that, so it's great.
Lauren: That's awesome. Good man. Good man. He's a great guy. Cool. I'd say that was another successful passion pod and people will be excited to hear more about the behind the scenes. Yes. So yeah, so I guess we'll sign off, but love to, lovely to see you ladies.
Tosca: Lovely to see you too.
Lauren: All right. Bye guys.
Ali: Bye
Tosca: bye.