Documentary Filmmaking, Steadicam Insights as we join Filmmaker Adam White’s on his Journey

On this episode of the ZoomPod, Cleveland-based Director of Photography, Adam White joins the Photography Lab to talk about his filmmaking journey - shooting documentaries, Steadicam highs and lows, and a masterclass for how to shoot a scene from his acclaimed Short Film, "The Resistance!"

Adam White Bonafides:
Website: http://www.adamwhitedp.com
Dude's Killer Reel: https://vimeo.com/826517086 
IG: https://www.instagram.com/adamwhitedop/

EXPLORE MORE:

Check out our other great ZWOF podcast Episodes!

Grab my new Mastering Composition eBook!

Link and follow for more great #learnphotography content:

IG: @tvcommandomedia | FB @ZoomWithOurFeet

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

And I always suggest, and everybody's you know part of their own situation, but I always advise that you should go out and sling around in the world. Don't take a job. Don't take a production job where you're gonna be an in-house too early in your career. Uh, get out there and meet some heroes, meet some monsters. Uh, every one of them is gonna be able to teach you something. Uh uh, and it just makes you that much better.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Hello and welcome to the Zoom With Our Feet podcast with me, your host, T-Back. I am a professional photographer and videographer who also happens to be a teacher. Yes, I'm liked to teach, and the photography lab is now open. In this edition of the Zoom Pod, Cleveland-based director of photography Adam White joins me to talk about documentaries, aerial filmmaking, and the resistance. We've got our guest speaker for the day, and the photography lab is now open. Let's talk to a pro. Adam White, welcome to the Zoom with our feet podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

How did your filmmaking and specifically cinematography uh begin?

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Uh, I suppose I did a lot of photography in high school uh and many, many presidential administrations ago. And then uh when I, you know, like almost everything I do, it was another thing that the guidance counselors couldn't give you any uh information on. Um so then somebody uh that I knew actually went to Wright State University down in Dayton, and they had a fairly robust film program. Uh of course, something I was interested in, something everybody's interested in. But uh I went down there and some reason I had the uh unrealistic confidence that I could make a living by being a filmmaker instead of an aerospace engineer, which is what I told my parents initially what I wanted to be until you know math existed. And then I started on my way and applied what I knew from photography uh to uh filmmaking and cinematography. And fortunately, uh the and this the this does not occur at every school, but they had a pretty even split on practical and theory. So you could learn about deep shadows and key lights and three-point lighting, but then you could also watch Casablanca and see uh uh how film noir is applied and see it in real time. Uh and you know, I think that gave me kind of a jump start on how to go down the cinematography road.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Who influenced you and why? What were your influences? You dropped your name dropped Casablanca. What else?

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Yeah, I mean Casablanca is later on, but uh it I don't know if it's particularly influences, but it's kind of the taste that you grow up with. And as an 80s uh kid, um, you know, I see the right stuff that was shot like by Caleb D. Chanel, or see uh uh Raiders of the Lost Ark that was uh uh shot um with the the film stocks of that time. You watch it in the opening sequence, uh where Indy comes from, I mean they're outside in broad daylight, but somehow he is in full black, which you could get with those film stocks back then, and then Doug Slocum lets him move into the light. Uh, and I've always been a super fan of uh uh that uh high uh contrast lighting, and uh um uh Deacons continues on with that sort of thing. In the 90s and 2000s, it kind of went into the ditch and everything was overly lit and everything, but they look look like my shot here. Um, but yeah, growing up during the 80s, the early 80s time when you could actually get sort of contrasty uh filmmaking like that really affected my tastes.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

There's a LUT for that.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

I was this is around 2000. I was helping a friend with a short, and we were shooting it on 35mm film, and we were in a dark room with a cigarette lighter, and we had trouble getting black. We couldn't make the uh uh the walls were light colored, but we only had a lighter that was uh lighting the character's face, and black black was was tough uh to get uh in the film stocks at that point.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

So well, that lead me leads me to the basics. So um the exposure triangle means one thing to photographers. I talked to you know some different genres and how they use it, Astro guys with their long exposures and and and the like. How do filmmakers manipulate that exposure triangle?

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Yeah, here comes a uh some blanket statements. Um yeah, we uh I mean uh you know, filmmaking across the board is way too broad of a spectrum. If you're talking about, you know, you're making Laverne and Shirley, or you're uh uh or you're making you know Batman. Um I Clint Eastwood said a really great thing one time when they were making Unforgiven. Uh Jack Green shot that. And um, you know, Clint's in full shadow. You just see the outline of him and his hat a little bit. And I don't know, somebody brought up something to bring in some fillies. Like the audience sees us for two hours. They know who I am, they know the character. Let the let the scene be the scene, let the guy be in the shadow. So um, but yeah, you start pouring uh through ideas when you get a script, uh uh and the the genre and the application, whether it's on a phone or whether it's on an iMac screen, and you get to kind of play in the sandbox accordingly uh on how deep your shadows can go, how you know, are your actors gutsy? Do they need uh a beautiful flat lighting to take the crow's feet out, or are they gonna are they gonna get down in the mud with their character? Um there's a lot that starts at the top and then filters down, uh, that then begins the conversation with how are we tackling exposure? How are we tackling the the the final output? Uh uh because yeah, uh when I was shooting film, I liked uh look backwards. Yeah. Uh where you know, where's it ending up? Uh, which was an easier conversation back in the day. It's like it's going to the theater, it's like, oh, okay, now I know what we're doing, or and I know how to frame it, versus uh television even with a 16 by nine. Um, or uh is it, you know, is it uh uh PG or R? And that doesn't mean uh violence or anything like that. It's means grown-ups are gonna watch it so you can hold on the shots longer. You can design the shots longer because they're not they don't have small attention spans when it comes to that.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

I I'm as a photographer, I'm all manual on the time all the time. I may uh if I'm covering sports and it's sun in and out, don't I may put ISO in auto and let it chase me and don't really have uh bad luck with that. But in terms of shutter speed, um you know fast, you know, uh sometimes depending on lighting, as high as four thousand.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Right, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Um but that's you know, for uh filmmaking, you're preset on your shutter speed, right? And now you're talking right, aperture and your and your light.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Yeah, at some point um you gotta you gotta plant a flag somewhere and say this this is uh because you can't have too many variables, but it's nice to have those three things of ISO uh uh uh uh shutter speed and uh uh f-stop. That then you can spin the wheel in your brain when you're presented challenges. But uh uh almost always I plant the flag with my ISO. And then the next thing I do is plant the flag with my F stop in progression. Yeah, and then I dance with the ND filters. Uh uh just and this is you know, narrative film, that's one thing, or you have a little bit of time where you can make those uh assignments, but when it's shooting doc when you're out in the field and doing that sort of thing, um I'm I'm dancing with ND filters in front because I don't want to, I don't want I know in the cut. If I go from if I'm cross-cutting and I'm cutting from an F4 to an eight back to a four to a sixteen, it's uh people don't normal people don't know why it's wrong. They just know it's wrong. So you have to sort of behave yourself.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

It's psychological. Yeah, that's my that's my theory. I'm sticking to it. But it's it's a psychological uh abruptness that is um it's not a it's not a wrong or right, but it's like it makes it different.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

You've caught you've called attention to something that probably shouldn't have been.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Now now they're not watching the movie.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

They're thinking about Yeah, what happened there?

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Uh when I when I'm teaching, I tell students every everything, everything is important, and it's about audience manipulation. Why is he wearing a green sweater? Why is there a light right there?

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Uh eyeball manipulation.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

And you follow the rules of 150 years of filmmaking, and then you do break them, but you have to know the rules so you break them responsibly. Otherwise, you just look sloppy. But if you break them responsibly, now you're manipulative. Now you know, now you uh when the uh unpleasant uh character comes in, the guy that you're eventually going to reveal is uh uh uh an abuser or something, you frame him uncomfortably. So you're already tipping your hand to the audience.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Uh with my students, I use a musical analogy. It's um I'm here to teach you the scales. You want to bend some notes and play jazz, you'll be better uh able to think your way through that because you know the scale.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Absolutely. Absolutely. You gotta you gotta you gotta know it all uh to begin with. I know it's boring, but you have to start there.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Correct. Well so that leads to to composition. Does here's the here's the chicken or the egg. Does college teach you composition or does many frames experimenting teach you composition?

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Um that uh uh you have whether it's college or a book or something, somebody has to bestow the knowledge to you. A bunch of uh uh uh uh newbies can't be all in a room and inventing knowledge between themselves. Even scientists stand on the shoulders of who came before. So then you go from there. Let's talk about uh uh high key lighting and composition, that sort of thing. And now it's uh it's not stealing, it's an homage. Um now you can start working your way through, you know, here's here's what they did in West Side Story. So how you know, now that it's 2023, what would we do in that regard? If they did this framing in the searchers, uh uh and uh and you if you wanted to talk about uh the resistance, uh um that, but um yeah, and the way I was taught, my cinematography class in college, we shot uh slide film, and we were given a script, and we would shoot uh all of the coverage, the scenes like here's the over-the-shoulder, click, here's the reverse, click, and we shot slide film because there's nowhere to hide, you can't save it in the print. So now you throw it in the projector in the back of the room, and everybody gets to tell you everything you did wrong. But yeah, it it's uh first and foremost a booker college or a mentor, and then shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. You can't shoot enough, keep shooting until you're in a hole.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, somebody ultimately told me about the rule of thirds. But until I tested it, yeah. Uh I didn't really, you know, uh I didn't really know what I was doing until I shot a ton of frames and understood there are even variations on those on those rules and those standards uh in that. Um I mean, that to me explains the importance of composition and filmmaking, but I like how you tied it to story right away.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

It I mean, everything everything is top-down. Whoever's film it is, uh if the producer is the big dog on the show, then it's theirs. If they hired a director, it's the big dog, then it's fine. And then you have the conversations early, and then you go from there. And no matter what job you're in, your job is to make your boss's life easier and accomplish their vision. If their vision is a great craft service table, then go make a great craft service table. But if it's the director, you can't go off willy-nilly. It's like, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot this damn thing like uh uh East of Eden. And they're like, no, that we want this to look like uh uh wrong burgundy. And uh and you have to uh you are hired for a reason, so you probably know it how to get there, and you have to abide by the vision uh that they're looking for.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

I think for me, it uh teaching aspiring filmmakers is they think they can shoot their way into a story. So one of the one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was uh the boring stuff like planning and organization uh and how that directly there's a direct line to the end frame frames uh based on the organization, the planning and the blocking and the positioning and the and and and you talk to filmmakers and they go, Well, it's in the script, it's in the story. So and I I try to uh get uh aspiring filmmakers there. So this is sort of the advice part about planning and blocking. So so pick a scene from your film Resistance. We're we're promoing it here, we'll talk more about it specifically coming coming up, but pick a scene, describe it like on the page, right, and then give me some uh thought processes for some of those basic how to shoot a scene thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Well, in the the ending of the of the resistance, uh ultimately it's a kind of a cat and mouse game between a Nazi officer during World War II and a woman he suspects is part of the French resistance. So, and it's the two of them sitting at a table wondering who's doing what. Are you am I busted or whatever? So um the woman is the good guy, the Nazi is the bad guy. So early on, um the director Kara White, who wrote and directed it, uh, that we were making a western. It happened to be about Nazi-occupied France, but we were making a western. Uh, and instead of in the French cafe was an old West tavern. So we knew how that we were gonna design it like that. That has, even though it's in broad daylight, it has one big light source that's a wash from uh the front windows, and said, okay, they're gonna sit at this table, and the Nazi is gonna have his back to the window, so he will always be in shadow. And our good guy, which is this woman in a light pink sweater, that she has this soft glow radiance on her uh to uh uh design her in a flattering light. Uh, and also it seems like an interrogation that she's like can't quite see the Nazi uh a little bit. So just by not even knuckling down into the framing, uh our setting now has placed them and has done uh before they talk, it has done 60% of the work.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Setting matches story.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Yeah. And we could have put them anywhere in the bar, uh, but that that seemed to uh facilitate what the story required, and it gave all the unconscious beats. And then the words on the page um uh can be off and running as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

And now that you have that uh that scene set, you got your lighting, you got your characters, you got your story leading up to the uh essentially uh a such uh a second plot point. We're gonna we're gonna resolve this. Um how are you blocking it? So are you um or or how are you shooting that blocking like uh a a Western? Like uh how are you shooting that?

SPEAKER_02 18:54

It did end up it did end up uh uh because uh we couldn't go outside. Uh they were keeping it all within the confines of the bar. And it was basically a shootout. It was a uh verbal shootout uh that if everybody finally stands up and uh the Nazi is far away and he starts walking towards her. So it's basically the jingling spurs or walking towards each other until the final moment uh where they're facing each other. Um when it comes to something like that, and I do this uh uh with the uh, and I'll do whatever the director wants, but most of the time they like this that um we'll do a scout with nobody's around. Uh it's me and the director, and we start in 10% general terms talking about all right, they'll be over here by this fireplace, and then the blocking, we need them to pull over here, and I'll make a suggestion like can they not be maybe against that wall, but maybe you pull them over here to this chair because now I have a fighting chance to get some light on them and that sort of thing. Yeah, and then the director has we'll build it up to like 40%, and then it will have the director will have a director rehearsal with the talent, uh, which could or could not involve me. And now, with that knowledge the director has knows like, all right, now let's let them find their bit. And I've already told the lighting people, you know, we're gonna put a key light that comes up over there because they're going to be there-ish. Um, and uh, as the as the saying goes, you shoot wide, then shoot wide, then tight. So I light a scene. I don't like shots. I like the scene, let them move within within it for the wide shot or whatever that may be. And then when you know it's time and I know where the coverage is gonna be, then we can move in tighter and I can bring in some things to make them look nicer. But shoot wide, then tight, and you turn around once. It's like we're shooting all this way, this way, this way. All right, we got it. Now we're turning around and we're gonna shoot all the coverage. I'm not coming back because that's wasting the day. And if you don't make your day and you don't waste, or if you make your day and you don't waste it, you are employable. The producer usually does not care about your reel or that you know who uh Francois Truffaut is or anything like that. They want to know that you're going to make your day and they're not going to add days on the end of the schedule, and that makes you employable. And that's the planning. That's where the planning goes. If you want to be uh a king shit filmmaker and shoot for anybody, and you've read all of Roger Deacon's books and listened to his podcast, that's all great. The producer does not care unless you can make your day.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

And and and fans by making day, he means on time and on budget.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Yeah. So we got we got seven pages to do. You are shooting seven pages today because if you miss one, it's going on the next day, and now you're playing behind. So don't waste uh, don't don't mortgage your day shooting close ups of whiskey glasses. and things like get what you need to get.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

You should be teaching.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

When they tell me I got 10 hours, man, I I I will get this thing across the finish line in 10 hours.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Right. Understood. Um I think I think what what's hard for folks to understand is so the stuff that goes on that they don't think that goes on. Director is talking to actors. And she's giving them the the like you said 20 to 40 percent of their of their movements which in your case weren't a lot until and then you're on the other side talking to lighting saying they may yeah they'll bring us in those are rehearsal and now that the talent is there and maybe the town is like you know I have to get angry with that character.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

I need to be over here instead and then I'll work with them like all right you know we we're we're ready for that and uh um then everybody then when they finally have a full on then they'll get up to about 80% and then they'll do a blocking rehearsal with the with the can't with the ACs and everybody watching and now and we don't we're not concerned with mood or feelings or anything. Where did the humans stand? And because if if I don't know that they're not going to be in the movie. So and while they're doing that blocking and they're doing the scene the first AC is putting tape marks on the floor and and the Dolly grip is putting tape marks on the floor. Everybody's taking notes in a big way and then the actors are like and you say thank you very much go off to hair and makeup or whatever and we're going to be ready for you in 45 minutes. And then crew has the set and here we go.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

And now we're going to make it a hundred percent a very large part of your career and I understand still part of your career is steady cam work. So talk to me about I mean that is in a in a in a specialized world of filmmaking that's a specialty within a specialty how did you how did you Adam White go from right state graduate pumping in the film world I'm gonna I'm gonna do steady care.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

It was the least likely path that possibly could have happened I was uh I I did a couple of jobs with a group called Gaslight Productions uh that were in Canton Ohio and they yeah those guys and they were getting ready to do a real estate program touring high-end houses and this was decades before there were gimbals uh and they thought well you know maybe a good way to do this would be with a steady cam. And right about that time they were coming out with lower cost steady cams so they're only only the cost of a used car. And they paid for me to go out to Los Angeles and get trained. And Garrett Brown who invented the steady cam was my teacher and uh the the boss thing about that was Dude inventor dude Garrett Brown. Mentor dude is mentor dude at the at the end of the day uh each day uh it's like oh let's watch something so then he wings in the DVD of the shining which uh was a director's commentary that you could pause and ask questions and Garrett told us how they did each and every shot um so then I come back and I shoot uh 2600 houses over the course of six years and that's how I practice to get good at steady cam. And that was several president administr administrations ago. Okay Hotshot Steady Cam guy tell me like what is your favorite use of that tool it would be uh and it's different uh if I'm not the user of it um like if I'm just watching a show and I'm the I'm suddenly and I'm not easily distracted like I'm not getting into the filmmaking head like oh they put their key light there I'm not doing any of that but uh if I'm noticing study cam and it might have been too much then uh it might have been a little bit inappropriate.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Um when it's integrated into the story uh it works wonderfully uh when they did it in Goodfellas and he does the walk through the back kitchen and all that outstanding way to introduce a character um I was watching Queen's Gambit and they had a big long steady cam shot of her walking in a hotel and it just kept going on and on and uh I think I was just for the they were just showing off which may be less of a uh uh a reason um when producers sometimes will hire a steady cam or a gimbal and they do it because they think it will make the job go faster um that's usually not the best uh usage of it um you just answered you just answered my second question which was gonna be because you were the one all those years ago uh that that you know kind of laid that concept on me that of course it's a creative tool yeah which you just talked about but it's also an economic tool.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Yeah they think they can fire the dolly then uh uh uh and they'll learn very quickly whether it's a steady cam or a gimbal or anything else it does not uh it's not a catch all uh the Pentagon loves get buying planes that they think can do everything and nothing can do everything but uh um it's but in when you're operating um I've had somebody point at me and say for this shot we'd really like you to not move um which I I stood in the corner and shot because they thought it would take too long to pull the camera off. So instead my uh body is on the clock for a five minute shot where I didn't move a muscle. Um and every steady cam operator out there is at their best for their first shot and they get worse throughout the day because their body is on the clock. The best shot uh um is when it really leans into the tools.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Um I was doing a thing for uh PBS up at the cathedral in Cleveland and they're doing uh a choir Santa Lochia choir and there's a choir girl only with a candle she walks out into the audience and I'm pulling her with the steady cam and you can hear in the headset they're like all you camera five go camera five and I just roundy round around her for a three minute solo um yeah and uh that's that that's when it and then and when it was done they go that's great five take six ready six and uh that was my congratulations that's great five um and then I went off and cried in the corner because I didn't have anything left well I'm guilty of that uh full disclosure um Adam and I worked together on a project for our dear friend Phil Hoffman shooting the steel drum band yeah uh I was it it was really the first time for me that I got to pick my band and you of course were on steady cam and that's really where that story and that whole thing came to be real for me because I'm I'm you know it was a live event and I'm cutting it like the sports dude that I am and you went um sir oh oh like oh crap yeah right go on over there sit down and put on the shoulder it's it's not um it's not I I love that the the first shot you peek and then you are you are burning gas it gets towards the end of the throughout the day uh even uh even uh if you have a nice big resting lunch um you know you're you're not gonna be rested up until the next day having said that I went out to LA I was seeing a friend of mine and he's like yeah come to set and I met their steady cam operator they were getting ready to go to lunch and he shook my hand and he's like I gotta I gotta go I'm not going to lunch and I'm going to the gym it's going in between morning and afternoon of steady cam.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

He's gonna go to the gym and work out like you are next level that is not me.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

So so lots of lots of film work 2600 homes yeah uh give me um and you're still here so I can ask this but uh give me give me a good steady cam mishap.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Uh well of yours yeah uh I broke my golden rule uh and I I wasn't young uh or beginning uh I had gone a number of years doing study cam so I was doing better scene and this was this was knowledge given to me by Garrett uh that you don't do this and so we were doing a scene they were in the woods uh in the metro park somewhere and there was a woman running through the woods and I was I was on a path she was in the woods but and I have the camera turned sideways so I'm running in a straight line with the camera pointed that way and she's running pretty fast and I'm keeping up with her and I'm running as fast as I can and that's the original sin. You do not run as fast as you can because now you have nothing left to save yourself. So I'm running with her and keeping up and the path I'm on starts slowly going downhill and I'm going downhill and the rig starts pulling away from me on the it's on the arm but it starts moving away from me and it's like okay this is happening. While this is happening now I I need to figure out how I'm going to fall because I'm going to fall uh because I can't stop and I sorted it out I was flying a red one at the time and I grabbed the post I fell onto both knees I ran the camera into the ground and I broke the steady cam post right in half I broke the carbon fiber post uh in in half and took all of the skin off both knees. I was gonna say my AC comes over I'm on my back like a turtle he comes over and picks up the red one and walks away and the red one's built like a Russian tank. I think we cracked a filter everything else of it was perfectly fine. And I rammed it in the ground with like the force of a 300 pound man. Um and yeah Steady Cam was done for the day and I had to go by significant repairs but uh but I broke my own rule. And uh um even even he uh uh Garrett was telling stories when he shot Wolf with Jack Nicholson that he had to we had a half day of how to tell no to an actor uh uh because like look in the training or or to the director I've done that saying no to doing steady cam on ice skates uh and then they made me do it anyway um I had to sports person I had to go up to Ken Griffey Jr. one day and I was flying a BL4 and you all can Google it that is a whale of a camera it's but the body's about that big 50 pounds on its own and I shake Junior was shagging fly balls in the outfield and I was chasing him down uh it was uh I don't think it was great American uh no it was great American um and eventually eventually I just had to come like you're Ken Griffey Jr.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

I'm not I'm carrying this you're not you want it you want me to run slower let's try it with you running slower because and I was like 27 at the time and as best as I could possibly be but he's an all-star yeah slow down uh fun fact by the way he's a really good photographer is he you know that oh yeah I just he's totally into sports photography uh I learned something new today so next evolution so you are now you got uh talk to me about how the did did the docs come before your company hemlock films or did did hemlock films get formed because you knew you were going to do that um that type of work yeah and um it is uh a friend a guy I knew he was uh gave me the advice early on and he's like you are hemlock films is not going to give Paramount a run for its money but you formed you formed a company basically to uh um so you can have production insurance and so you have some protection and so it just doesn't seem like you know you're just some goofball in a house somewhere but you have you know some structure to your life but for as a filmmaker whether it's myself or Kara that's that as a filmmaker that's what you put out forward.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

And every every production whether even if if Paramount hasn't done it it's an independent film but so you're making uh an independent film about you know igloos then you make an LLC you make a company igloo movies LLC so you have some protection so that uh so that got formed that got formed and I made docs after that. Alright so let's um because I'm fellow airplane nerd talk to me about uh I really want to talk to you about the restores and then what what came after that and and red tails so talk about um how you I think you can correct me if I'm wrong you sort of leveraged your existing airplane nerd tone like hey I could shoot the airplanes I'm sure at some point yeah it was um again uh uh added to the list of things that your guidance counselor can't advise you on um it would be subject uh subject matter and I had filmmaking and aviation as interest and they're like why don't you go get a communications degree I'm like that's kind of not what I asked but okay um when uh growing up in Cleveland at the Cleveland air show as it was at the time that it's on a hot ramp and it's jets all day and I kind of hated it out loud. My parents would take me to that and I just could not want to be somewhere else more. And I hate hot and I'll go out at Christmas night here in shorts and go and grill steaks. You will not uh outcool me when it comes to that but I'll melt if I go somewhere south. But then after college uh I got introduced to another a different air show in Batavia New York where it's not jets and they're older aircraft like B-17s and P-51s and not like Cleveland where the hot part of the ramp is all cordoned off and you can't go to them you could walk up to them. And more importantly you could also walk up to the individuals that were flying them and the individuals that used to fly them and now you're into something. And have a one of my teachers was Julia Rikert who's an Academy award winning documentary filmmaker. And when you say documentary that's also a big umbrella over many different genres the ones that she makes are not the ones that I make right but um my documentary bells started going off when I was looking at these airplanes and I was seeing stories that at the time Discovery and History Channel on PBS were not telling. So I thought here's a chance I could tell these stories through documentary and uh uh which is less expensive than doing a narrative and because of what they are um there's getting up at four in the morning to shoot sexy stuff with the sun coming up and rising over a B17 and there's a slow motion of the props turning while fire is chugging out of the stacks that sort of thing and I shot all of the restorers on uh super 16 film uh and on a uh a uh criminally low uh ratio of nine to one uh for it and the I did that because I could shoot I could cut together a super sexy trailer and I didn't matter I was not part of the equation but I could show investors like don't worry about me look at this and they could look at the whatever I had just shot and go oh that's kind of cool what are you doing next and then you can go on from there. So that's kind of how I got going with it with credit cards to initially start with and then I was uh introduced to a world that I had no idea how little I knew about it. Uh and then I was off and running from there.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

And then you met all those old timers that restored them.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

I mean I love the airplanes but it never occurs that there's a cadre of folks that keep them fly.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

Oh yeah uh internationally uh we uh two years ago we went to the uh ducksford air show in England uh and it's uh uh you know same ballgame they have restorers in Germany digging up aircraft that have crashed in fields and that sort of thing so um it uh uh and they and you talk to those guys and they're like oh yeah it's way easier now with the internet you just go send you go on a message board and post that I need this this and this type of cylinder and like six people get back with you and now you don't have to have somebody working a phone for eight hours to find that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

So so the restorers is essentially the story of uh it's a story of everyday people who choose to restore antique aircraft and by telling their story through that we can tell the stories of the people who used to fly those back during whatever time period. And when we did the initial restorers it was uh the right glider all the way up through the Korean War of different aircraft that we had been able to do. So uh it was a Trojan horse uh history lesson that we were able uh to put together like that.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yes it was um and then sort of the the P51 comes along in a couple of different places so talk about then it's almost like you start getting more specific as you the bigger story leads to some of the other more specific stories and and one of my favorites is being able to tell the story of the Red Tales and the Tuskegee Airmen using the air yeah and again it's uh when I was doing the restorers I was meeting people that would eventually be in my next film uh and in doing that uh there's a group up in Minnesota that were rebuilding a P-51 Mustang that had a wild lineage to it and they had decided that they were going to paint in the colors of the Tuskegee Airmen so then I was able to tell their story by telling the story of this airplane.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

And at that time there were still a good amount this was in uh 06 when uh the film came out and I was able to interview a fair amount of Tuskegee airmen leading into uh that film what was the what was the second part? So part two was the story of the plane and the and the tragedy right yeah and then yeah and then the reborn well yeah when I made the film I remember when I was pitching the restorers uh to a reality show producer and he's like it's great but in my head the the prototypical thing is every week somebody gets a plane they restore it and then they kick it out the hangar door at the end of the episode and that can't happen. These airplanes take sometimes decades to be finished so everything's kind of a retroactive storytelling that you pick something that's about to be finished and start talking about where where did it come from and with Red Tail Reborn I was telling the story of this plane and uh PBS agreed to air it but the plane through the course of the story had crashed and they were rebuilding it Red Tail Reborn and uh it wasn't going to be done. The plane wasn't going to be done. So we sort of I sort of manufactured an ending of it but then two years later they actually finished the airplane and I shook I shot a coda uh like a a six to seven minute coda that I was able to introduce and then we I released the film again. Uh and that's the one that's uh available out there.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

The full one is out yeah out still yeah um so and then when um so the docs were early and you've been working along On all of that, when did the uh the idea of narrative filmmaking I and I know the first part of the answer, which is everybody wants to make narrative. Um, but how did that what was the whole uh essence of that transition? You're right.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

It's always been there, and it's just the opportunity of is this a project that uh that we can introduce those elements into it and not and and do it justice, not like you know, we're just going to have you know three guys standing around a trash can in leather outfits and say that you know, okay, they're a bomber crew, but how can we can we do this in a responsible way? And the first time we were really able to do that is when we did a movie called Rise Above Wasp, um, that was about the women pilots from World War II. And it was designed. First, we did a rise above movie about Tuskegee Airmen, and that didn't have any reenactments in it. Um and it was very popular. The commemorative Air Force drives around the country with that giant screen theater and shows that to people. And they said immediately when we finished that, they said we have to do one about the wasp. And Kara and I early on said, you know, this has to have reenactments. We have to uh what I call the Apollo 13 effect. If it's just a street documentary, it's kind of forgettable. But if you have a narrative scene exposing the emotion of it, it resonates more. And then uh if you kind of pair it with a doc element, a little bit like how Banner Brothers did, but um ours is much more 50-50. Um, now you can have that emotion, and then you also have the shortcut of doing a documentary where narration can cover some of uh what you can't accomplish budgetarily, so that's kind of how we started it.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

So you were doing not so much a full narrative, but correct reenactments within a hybrid. But you are still using all of the narrative techniques, location work, scout location, actors, absolutely uh um, and was that a good way to transition to something full stop written for the screen?

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Um it's always been there. Um the uh Kara and I are also freelancers in the film industry. So uh and when we're not doing hemlock film stuff, uh we are Kara's doing set deck and I'm in the camera department. So uh when we're doing working on narrative things, it's we've been working on narrative things for I've been doing it for 30 years. Uh like what are we doing in here? Okay, it's a two-shot there, and and uh that's just it uh the fact that we were doing it was not that uh uh uh hard of a transition.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Right. Well, your all of your work now is financing, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Every day.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

All day. Um I think I think um so the the the company was formed and now you're able then to shoot your own projects, which we we've walked through. Um let me ask some speci more uh some kind of nerdy questions, but I don't care. It's my podcast. Yeah, um what's your what's your um what's your kit? Because I asked photographers and multiple bodies and multiple lenses, and I've essentially have wide, medium, long for any any job, uh, two bodies, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

In in your world in filmmaking, what is your hemlock kit if you're not using somebody else's rental care or somebody most of the time it's um uh uh it's been a red for 10 years, um and then right in a couple of different bodies. Right now it's uh sure uh 8k red helium uh with PL mount, and then uh I was shooting with uh uh Canon still lenses on it for the longest time when I was doing dock work. Um cinema lenses, yeah, for uh with the zoom lenses, um, which is great for the dock. And then I just uh went and got uh two years ago, I went and got two Sigma zoom lenses as my primary dock lenses. I still have a set of uh Zeiss standard speed primes, but for the dock stuff, it's on I almost exclusively have the Sigmas on.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

Uh what are the focal lengths?

SPEAKER_02 48:48

Uh it's uh 18 to uh 30 and 50 to 100.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

So you got wide and you got something that you could, and again, I uh because I know you and I know you know that 100 is very versatile. Oh, yeah. You can get you can get your back end and without having to swap a lens, yeah, get your get your close-up work as done as well.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

Yeah, it's uh um if I got the room, I love having the the uh the tight on there. The fifty the 50 uh for interviews is great if I have enough room to back up.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Right, right. You're not shooting in a phone booth. What um do you have your own audio package?

SPEAKER_02 49:33

Do you I do if uh if I'm in trouble, I have a boom mic. Uh I'm much more of a boom guy than a live guy. Uh but uh I almost oh oh well I always love having an audio person, so I don't have to think about that. But uh if I'm in trouble, uh maybe couldn't bring somebody, then I yeah, I just have a synizer uh that goes either right into the camera or into a zoom.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Well, speaking of people, that was going to be my next question. Um uh and feel free to give your peeps some love, but who is your sort of have to have crew? Give me their job and throw out the person's name anyway, just to give them some love. But when when you're doing Why I Fly, which is a series, web series that you do, I assume it's Kara and yourself.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

Yeah, that's it. I would love to have two people. When we were doing the Restorers uh television series, uh most of the time we had uh we swelled up to a whopping four. Uh it would be Kara and I, and then Kevin Hines doing audio, and Amy Faust is the second camera. Uh uh, particularly when we're doing events, when um uh in because and a lot of the things we did for that for that series were events. Um somebody's flying the right glider at Kitty Hawk, so we need multiple cameras covering that, and we don't have too much control over it.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

So got it. Anyone else?

SPEAKER_02 51:08

Uh well, when we did uh the episode number five of that series, which we shot first, um it was the story of the Doolittle Raiders, and they were having a reunion, and to celebrate them, they were launching 17 B-25s to fly over the Air Force Museum in formation. So uh at Urban at Urbana, Ohio, um Kara, or I'm sorry, um was she there? I'm starting to my memory's starting to fade. Uh at Urbana, Ohio, there was uh multiple cameras, one on a crane. Um, one uh uh Jared Green with a crane, Alex Esborough was uh another camera. I was on board one of the B7 B-25s, and then Kara was uh at the Air Force Museum with uh David Litz with another camera to film us landing. So um that was that was the biggest we've ever had uh uh in doing straight documentaries.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

So when you did your because you called it the hybrid film, those recreation scenes are film shoes. They're yeah, there's so you and we're doing uh uh uh half of it was in Sweetwater, Texas, which has it's three and a half hours from Dallas.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Uh so we had to bring every man, woman, and child and scrap of equipment. Uh if we were gonna need it, we had to transport it in there because nothing nothing looks like sweetwater except sweetwater.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

So and and that was because it was remote enough to recreate the time.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

Yeah, to it it it is sweetwater, Texas is we were shooting on the actual field that the wasp were trained in 1943, and it looks pretty much exactly like it did back then.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

Yeah, it was uh uh you could feel the ghosts around when you're shooting something like that.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

All right, man. Last question. If you were going to advise the 22, 23-year-old uh Adam White about the uh about all that we've discussed. What's the one thing that you would tell them that you didn't know at the time that is uh it been your kind of guiding light or star about uh about the work and and and being the artist that you are?

SPEAKER_02 53:45

Um two things. One, start an IRA because uh Einstein said the greatest power in the universe is compound interest. Um two that um that uh two I always suggest, and everybody's you know part of their own situation, but I always advise that you should go out and sling around in the world. Don't take a job, don't take a production job uh where you're gonna be an in-house too early in your career. Uh get out there and meet some heroes, meet some monsters. Uh, every one of them is gonna be able to teach you something. Uh uh and it just makes you that much better. Uh uh my fear always somebody gets a uh consistent job at a production company is that uh I know every day presents learning, but now you're you have to kind of find it yourself as opposed to being uh you know, with you know, Jack Green's hip pocket and seeing how he lights in a friggin' doorway. You know, you're your your your your learning is exponential when you're out in the wild like that.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Um complacency. Yeah. You know, you get you get safe.

SPEAKER_02 55:01

Yeah, and when pe everyone's learning from me, it's like, oh shit, does that mean I'm not learning? I don't have anybody that I'm being able to look at. Um but which of course, every you know, if I had to shoot in here, I would learn something tonight. Uh everything you do is a learning experience, but uh it's cool if you can borrow some factoids from somebody else, too.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Right. Well, Adam White, I can't thank you enough for taking part in my Zoom with our feet project project. Uh, I really appreciate your help.

SPEAKER_02 55:35

It's my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Thanks again to director of photography Adam White. You can check out his amazing work at hemlockfilms.com and all his social media channels. The Zoom With Our Feet Podcast is a production of TV Commando Media. The Zoom pod's funky grooves are provided by Cloud10. Be sure to take a peek at the blog and other episodes of the Zoom pod at zoomwithourfeet.com. Until next time, photographers and videographers, if you're not shooting, you're not learning.