Focal Point
Conversations with artists across all industries, taking a deep dive into the nuances, techniques, and philosophies of society's talent.
Focal Point
Killin’ Jimmy Kelly #44 w/ Cinematographer Jason Johnston
From psychology student to storyteller, Jason Johnston reveals how his background in psychological analysis became the foundation for his unique approach to visual composition. His recent work on the Western film "Killing Jimmy Kelly" becomes a case study as he unpacks the delicate balance between technical constraints and creative vision, while shooting in the punishing Texas heat with limited equipment.
His career philosophy echoes in his parting wisdom: "Don't be afraid to challenge yourself and go beyond what other people are probably expecting you to do and then surprise them."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was if that could have been a bank that was robbed. I think we robbed the heck out of it because it turned out so well and it was a lot of fun to do, so I don't know, that was if we could all be wearing cowboy hats, you know, and getting away on a horse into the sunset. Yeah, I would rob banks for a living.
Speaker 2:As long as you can get away with it. You know, as long as we can get away with it, yeah, I would rob banks for a living, as long as you can get away with it. As long as we can get away with it, yeah, if you can make bank robbing legal, then it wouldn't be illegal, so you could do it right.
Speaker 1:If you gave it back like who cares right?
Speaker 2:Exactly. It's like fishing You're just there to try to see if you could do it. If you give it back, then no harm done.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure russia does that. I'm pretty sure because I I know that russia at least used to have a reality tv show where people were supposed to get away from the cops and it was all like shot and it was real police and it was real people actually doing criminality. Because if they can get across the whatever their version of a County line is then they win and the prize is, you know, ten thousand dollars or whatever. If they get caught by the cops, they actually go to jail and because they're breaking the law, they're just filming it what I feel like in this particular scenario, that Russia is out Americaning America.
Speaker 2:That's like the most Florida thing you could probably come up with. I would watch that. I would definitely watch that. And then Duck Dynasty would happen right after some TV show like that. That's exactly the sequence of what would be going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, followed by a reading of the Constitution, right Exactly.
Speaker 2:Well, Jason, welcome to the podcast. We're live right now. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing well. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm refreshed, I got some great sleep. You know, when you start prioritizing sleep, suddenly like the world is just like beautiful and amazing, and suddenly you know everything's OK. Everything's OK, that's right. But just go ahead and introduce yourself to start and how you got started doing what you do with cinematography. You also do a number of other things. I've seen that you've done some composing in the past. You've directed presumably a lot of the music videos that you shot, and so I mean, just go ahead and take the deep dive in for me so I can see where we're at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I'm Jason R Johnston on IMDb. Nobody calls me that. I mean that it stands out and it makes my website, you know dot com, work out. Does anybody call you jj by? Chance they try to and I say no, just call me sir at that point call me mr johnson no, I'm usually jason.
Speaker 1:Uh, my middle name is actually randolph and people are like, can I call you randy? And like, only if you're paying me, you know, are you the producer? Did you hire me? You can call me anything you want, but yeah, um, so just in case I became a lawyer or something that was, I think that's what my parents had in mind. You know, randolph Johnston the lawyer.
Speaker 1:But I wound up deciding that instead of becoming a criminal psychologist and going to the FBI and being a profiler and that's what I wanted to do I was studying psychology for a long time and I just kind of wanted to do that. But when I was in school I kept taking photographs and I kept making little little videos of my dad's camera and stuff and I was just falling in love with the art of filmmaking. I I know that my parents have told me the story that the very first movie I ever saw I was a baby, but they went to see the Empire Strikes Back and there I was and I was just, you know, until I fell asleep as a teeny, tiny baby. So I've been watching movies my whole life and just was very interested in what all the names at the end of the credits. You know who are these people and what are the jobs. What is a gaffer? I'm not even saying that, right. What does that mean, you know? And um, eventually I just decided that I wanted to flip my, my career idea of being a psychologist with my hobby of pointing a camera at stuff. For, you know, you know money and, uh, I started, I just started doing that.
Speaker 1:So, right, right as I got into college, I, I got a job at a tv station doing some editing on commercials and stuff, and then I, I just stopped going to college. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do this full time. So I started doing editing commercials. I've edited a hundred million billion local tv commercials, uh, in in in a pretty short amount of time from 97 to 2005 or so.
Speaker 1:And then I kind of was like films. In 2008 I became a director of photography my first like real short films and started, you know, winning awards in 2009, 2010, at like 48 hour film races and stuff like that. And, um, then I got my first uh feature film 2010. Uh, party at the end of the world, and it just kept going and going and going and I just keep taking it seriously and I just keep owning my craft and I keep looking up to the movies that I love, from Citizen Kane to you know, Alien, and you know there's so many great movies with great looks, and even you know, nowadays, you know like Nope is one of my favorite, one of my favorite films is also one of my favorite looking films.
Speaker 1:I just kept going. I just keep practicing and practicing and you know, if I, if I fail, I fail and if I do well, then I try not to let it get to me and I keep, you know, just trying to do better. So that's, that's just been me. But yeah, I mean, I've totally 90 of the music videos I do. I'm directing them too because I have a production company. So a lot of times I get, I get the smaller stuff, I get the the newer artists, I get that kind of stuff, and the budgets are usually pretty small.
Speaker 1:So it's like, hey, can you come in and and do this? And I again, I've come from television commercials or I had to whip out five commercials in a day. So I'm, I'm adept at someone coming and going. We got three hours to do this and you know, can you do it? I'm like, sure, it's not a big deal, I'll have it, I'll have it done for you, you know, by the end of the week. So, yeah, it's like I I think I've just been doing the same thing, you know, for a long time, but the people change and the story changes and where I'm shooting changes. But basically I've just been pointing a camera at stuff since I was a kid and somehow people pay me and they trust me with their brand and I just keep you know, I just love it. I get to do what I love for a living and it's great.
Speaker 2:Well, it helps to be snoopable, though, you know.
Speaker 1:It does help to be snoopable. Who are you? Just go to Google me, though you know it does help to be stupid. Who are you?
Speaker 1:google me yeah, everything's on the internet for you there to see what was the movie that made you actually want to become a filmmaker in some regard or another um, well, my favorite movie of all time is Jaws, and every single time I watch Jaws, something different, something new or something that I've seen before that I now perceive in a new way comes along. And I know that Spielberg was riffing off of other, greater directors that came before him, from David Lean to Kurosawa to Hitchcock, lean to kurosawa to hitchcock. You know, it's all it's. It's it's film school 101. Because here's a, here's a guy who loves making films and he's at the same age that that orson wells was when he did citizen kane. He's like, wow, this is kind of my citizen kane, I can, I can do all these things, whereas orson wells invented it. This guy is, you know, pilfering and but it's being done in such a uh, an interesting and unique way that you know, here we are. You know, 50 years later.
Speaker 1:It's literally the 50th anniversary of jaws right now and I still watch it and I, I I'm like a little kid every single time I see it, when I see it in a theater with people.
Speaker 1:I got to see it in 3D two years ago when they released it and people were just like freaking out oh my God, his leg and all the things and it was wonderful. It was like watching the movie again for the first time, and so every single time I watch it there's something about it. And I remember being a kid and going why is the camera doing that? Why is the camera here? Why is that light only lighting this? Why do we get a shot of this? Why does the music do that? How come the music didn't go here?
Speaker 1:And it was sort of this weird informative thing about me where I was becoming interested in not the film itself but the method behind the. Why did the movie look the way it did? And then somebody said a long time ago hey, you know, if you give the same script to 10 directors, you're going to get 10 different movies, right? Well, I wonder what this movie would have been like if Tarantino directed it, or if Ridley Scott directed it, or you know your interest in why, and the question why kind of is correlated with your interest in psychology too.
Speaker 2:You want to know exactly why something is happening the way it's happening, or why somebody is doing something the way that they're doing it. There's the motive behind it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why did Ripley go back for her cat?
Speaker 2:in Alien Because the box office would have bombed and it would have gotten so much hate if the cat was left to die.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. It's a really wonderful thing that happens. Yeah, you want to make sure that you don't piss off your audience. You know and at the same time, you also, but while doing that, you're showing that the person has a heart. She was being a bitch to the people that underneath her going. You need to get this done.
Speaker 2:Typical cat ladies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was cat ladies, you, karens, with your getting rid of the alien at the end of the movie and it just kind of. I remember watching that and I remember my dad going don't go back for the cat, that's insane. And my mom going don't go back for the cat, that's insane. And my mom going, yeah, get the cat. That's wonderful, you know, and it's, it's just kind of neat.
Speaker 1:So when you make a movie, when you're the director, when you're the dp, when you're the editor, when you're the producer, when you're making the movie, you get to make those decisions. And if you, sometimes you want to piss off the audience no, she doesn't go back for the cat sometimes you want to edit it in such a way where maybe she doesn't go, maybe the music has something to do, maybe this, you know, yeah, I, I just love telling stories and and doing it in a way that either, like on purpose, pisses you off or confuses you, or makes you happy, makes you sad, makes disgust you or you know, titillates you or informs you or doesn't inform you, or makes you sad, makes disgust you, or you know, titillates you or informs you or doesn't inform you, or makes you need to question your own reality or gives you all the answers. Anyway, you know, it's just, there's just so many ways of telling stories. I just love telling stories.
Speaker 2:So you've moved around a bit for for your career, right.
Speaker 1:A little bit. Yeah, yeah, I've lived'm from texas, I'm from south texas and now I live in tennessee, pretty near nashville, but I've worked all over the place. I've. I shot a film in alaska, um, I, I moved to tennessee, then went back to texas to shoot, uh, killing jim kelly um, I've. I've moved around a bit. I shot something in los angeles a long time ago that I don't ever talk about, and then uh, uh, but yeah, I've. I haven't been everywhere in the world, but I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind shooting something in england, or you know I want a free travel.
Speaker 1:I would love the free travel yes, please, to shoot a movie, to show up to a place, but and then like tell people, okay, get out of the way I'm gonna put a camera here, great, and.
Speaker 2:And then somebody with a psychology degree is asking why you know why?
Speaker 1:And you're like, I've got this.
Speaker 2:I can parry with you on this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's where pre-pro is so interesting. If it were blue, why would it?
Speaker 2:be blue. But, why, yeah, why would why, but why, yeah? Do you find yourself, when you're watching another movie, like getting, like naturally being taken out of the movie, because you're just always asking why?
Speaker 1:depends on the movie. Uh, if it's a terrible movie oh well you kind of know within like the first 10 minutes too if it's gonna be a bad movie, and it's usually like that if, if they, if they're using comic sands in the in the credits, then you know. I mean you could just tell the movie hasn't started yet. It's just poor decision making. What?
Speaker 2:about avatar and papyrus, you know I.
Speaker 1:I have laughed at that several times um, that did breathe.
Speaker 2:That did breathe. A really good skit, though, I'm not going to lie, the skit was almost as good as the movie. I'm not going to lie. Well, I actually watched the movie Killing Jim Kelly, because it was the most recent one that you did, yeah, and it was beautiful. It was beautiful, you know, from the cinematographer's perspective, so I got to commend you on that. Tell me a little bit about the experience of being outside all the time in the shooting conditions that you had to deal with for that yeah, because we shot it in may, uh, in texas, and, um, if it looks hot, it's because it is and I don't like to wear shorts, so I'm in.
Speaker 1:You know we're all in full jeans and all the things and we're we're dying out there and we're, we're all the things and we're dying out there. We're all wearing cowboy hats. I'm wearing my Australian cowboy hat, my Outback hat and.
Speaker 1:I'm just kind of there trying not to succumb to the heat and I don't do well in the heat either. That's one of the reasons why I love Texas, south Texas, and you just say film is forever. And you stand there in the muck, you stand there with the mosquitoes, you stand there nearly getting trampled by the cattle, you stand there in the heat and you point the camera at where it needs to go and you have a courtesy and you've got people there and we're all suffering together for the art and that winds up that xcm winds up being very true. And you just do it because film is forever. So that that very first opening shot, like we're standing on this little mound, this little hill, trying to get, you know there's a director standing there, you know, yelling at the guys on the horses to go this way, go that way. You know the cow's going this way. Now follow him that way.
Speaker 1:And we're trying to get this shot and line it up so that the horses come in past. You know us where the camera is to get that shot and it's 115 degrees, you know. And we're just standing there and there's no way to get any kind of shade. There's nothing. It's just three guys standing there with a camera and a couple guys on hot horses, and we're just all right and we're standing for hours just trying to get this shot and it's gorgeous and we're just like. It's gorgeous. Let's do another one. It's gorgeous and we're just doing it and we're loving it. We're so happy that we don't realize that we're going to die if we don't get under shade and get some water.
Speaker 1:Accidental heat strokes was just may, it wasn't even july yet. Um, there's no joke. But it's almost forever and you love it so much that the passion keeps you going and you're just so happy when it works what was pre-production like for that um, and how early in the process did you come on for that?
Speaker 1:um, I don't remember the details, but it was something like I was invited to do it um by, uh, by travis mills, the producer, probably four or five months before um, and then, uh, pre-production for me didn't really start till maybe two or three months before and the pre-production was very much here's. Here's me talking with John the director, john Mars, and he's like I want it to look like real Hondo. So go watch these old John Wayne movies, go watch these William Wyler films, go watch these old movies. I want it to look like this. You know, I want the camera to be like locked down, and so I went and did my homework and then we would have discussions with it and just kind of go over it. And then eventually the script came in and we just kind of went over the script and this scene. I really want it to look like this. You know, if John Wayne were to walk in and you know that kind of stuff, and it was very, it was very easy. It was very easy.
Speaker 1:I talked to the once we got a gaffer, we started going over that same kind of vibe and you know, I wasn't I'm never really concerned with the technical stuff. I figured the technical stuff will kind of work itself out. Just give me a toolbox and then I can just kind of figure it out. We were going to shoot in this old West town. That was made for, you know, just just people having fun, just playing dress up. It's not a movie set or anything. So I'm under the impression that we're probably not going to have all the juice that I'm going to need to power a bunch of big lights. We don't have the budget to get like a big truck with a bunch of m40s or whatever and we're just not going to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:We're going to have to run by the seat of our pants and use small units and just sort of you know more tightly yeah, yeah, and so I I'm not going to use anything bigger than like a, like a 600, like Aputure 600, right, I wanted to go completely LED, because they're just faster and I don't have a lot of time I know I don't have a lot of time they consume a lot less power, too power.
Speaker 1:So we didn't need a jenny or anything like that. We could just go off the mains and I could put up a couple 600s and a couple little tiny, you know a couple of tiny bits around, just to kind of get some modeling or whatever. And it was, it was very simple. So I basically just said we're basically just going to be pushing some 600s through windows and letting the light bounce around and do what it does. And if I need some fill light or something, I'll have like a little tiny little, like a flex light, you know one of those little flat panels, but they, they flex, just have one of those on standby and that's basically how we're going to do it. And then if we, if we have the time to get more creative than that, then then we will. But I'm going to. I'll figure that out, you know, later.
Speaker 2:So how often, I'm curious, how often do conversations in terms of uh, blocking uh the actors, uh, when you're talking to the director, end up changing the game plan for how you're going to set up the lighting? Every, every, every, single time, but single time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because because when I walk into a place beforehand, I don't like to, for this exact reason. But when I walk into a place by myself and I'm like, hmm, you know, like there's a director voice in my head and a DP voice and an editor voice and you know all that stuff, there's an actor in there too, because I used to do a little bit of acting in high school and, um, I'm, it's not my movie, so I don't want to get too ahead of what's happening. I, I would. I would do it differently if it were my movie, if I were directing that script. Right, 10, right 10 directors, one script. So I try not to get too ahead of myself. I've read the script. I know it takes place during the day, so I know that I'm probably going to have window lights. So I'm just kind of in my head, I'm just going eh, but I'm not going to get married to it, so I'm not going to get pissed off. You're running through hypotheticals, yeah. So here comes the director. We walk around the place and this is this. Here comes the director. We walk around the place and this is this is two days before we're actually going to do it, because we all got to congregate to Texas and we're there, and it's only it's it's the weekend before you know, we're starting on Monday, basically. So here we are on Saturday and we've driven 30 minutes to get to the set, and so we're just walking around, just going through the entire film and we're just kind of feeling it out, like, yeah, this would be great, yeah, something like this, okay, yeah, like that kind of thing. We figure it out, we block it out. You know, just the two or three of us. And then now we've got a lighting idea, we've got a camera idea, we've got like a kind of a shot list going on and we're just kind of going.
Speaker 1:And John is the kind of guy where it's like it's got to like feel a certain way, it's got to feel right. And then he knows exactly what he wants. I'm figuring what he wants and trying to make that happen in my head, and there's not a whole lot of notes or anything that's happening. It's just like two guys this guy, you know he's army, he was a sheriff, you know. It's like he's very you know to the point, very, you know very pithy, and he knows exactly what, and he's going to remember it too, just like I'm going to remember it.
Speaker 1:You know we're walking into happen and I'm like, cool, I got it, move on to the next one, right? And then when we get there on the day, and we got, you know, the grip truck and we got all the people and everybody's getting in the wardrobe and everything, we got the actors and now it's time to actually stage direct. Now it's time to actually block them. This is what we were thinking two days ago when we were sitting where we're standing in here, and then the actors, of course, are going to have their own ideas and they're going to be like well, what if this happens? What if? Or while we're figuring it out, we go, oh my God, what if he came through that door instead?
Speaker 2:That's the most dangerous question you can hear on set is somebody with some credibility in the hierarchy of filmmaking going?
Speaker 1:what if? And then?
Speaker 2:everybody's like, oh shoot, you know. And then now we just gotta throw the whole plan out the window but what's great about john as a director is that he goes.
Speaker 1:No, you're doing it this way.
Speaker 1:You know it's got to actually be a very good idea. You know, uh, ridley scott said that the director's real job is to filter. His job is to filter all these great ideas that are coming in. And he goes, no, that's not going to work. Or, yeah, that's great, that's much better than what I was thinking. And then, you know, take credit for it. So that's what would happen on a John Mars set is he would say no, or he would say, yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:And then I am, beside myself, very happy that my lighting scheme was very simple so that I can roll with the punches very quickly, cause I know I've only got an hour to light this set, you know. So I'm just going to take two big units, punch them through the window and then I'm going to have something on standby for a little something in case I do a closeup or something. And I do a close-up or something and I just treat it very, very simply. I let the light do what it does, because in the old West they had candles and things they didn't have, you know, a light just standing around and stuff. And I love hard light, especially when it comes to that natural sort of look, because that's the kind of light that you get, the sun just does its thing, thing and then it bounces around. So if that means I've got two aperture 600s pointing through two windows and I got a little 60, that's kind of doing like a ralph richardson scent thing, just kind of hitting the table and letting it bounce, so we get sort of we don't have a pure white, it's just like a nice, like woody sort of you know thing. And then if I got a close-up, yeah, bring in a little bounce, bring in a little something done, get out of there, move on, you know, and that gives, that gives the director.
Speaker 1:Uh, in this situation, other other other films would be different. If I had 70 days to do it, then, you know, would have been a lot different. But, um, but on this film we, we had a month, we had, you know, three and a half weeks to do it. So we didn't have the time.
Speaker 1:So, keeping it simple and thinking of it objectively as sunlight through a window, right as the motivation, and then just kind of go on with that, and on the nighttime scenes there's no light coming through the window, we're just bouncing something off of you know, the ceiling or something, making pools of light where it's necessary, keeping the bad guys in the shadows, you know, and you know those kind of things, just keeping it very, very simple and Mame's power, and just simple. And then, from that simplicity, it's like I love black and white photography. And then, from that simplicity, it's like I love black and white photography. I love street photography, where you're like chasing the sun and the sun's over here and the shadows are coming towards the lens and stuff. I'm kind of doing that, except I'm controlling where the sun is.
Speaker 2:Well, I actually grew up watching a lot of the old Westerns, so we maybe like the classic TV shows like Gunsmoke, the Rifleman, the Lone Ranger and even some of the older, like older, maybe like 30s, 40s, like John Wayne not like you know, 50s, 60s, although he did have some great stuff, you know, in that time period. And the one thing that sometimes modern Westerns don't have that necessarily, have quite that nostalgic feeling when it comes to the way they shoot it is because they're really afraid for things to be washed out, which is somewhat understandable in today's modern age. But back then they could only do so much. They only had the technology to balance things out in a particular way. And that's the look you got from classic Westerns.
Speaker 1:Yeah, film stocks didn't have the dynamic range. They weren't as fast, so there was only so much you can do so and I think some.
Speaker 2:There seems to be a tendency and this is my observation with the modern cinema nowadays is that image quality tends to be too perfect and for me sometimes that actually takes me out of the movie because my brain is just absorbing all of this, all the pixels on the screen, and it's wanting to observe it because there's so much going on and it is beautiful. But sometimes I think it just ends up being like the crux. The crutch of it is that it's too perfect, and I think a lot of directors maybe you can tell me about what your director's thoughts were on the aesthetic of the film there's just sometimes they're afraid for it to look slightly bad. I think slightly bad actually is a little good, because then you don't have to, you're not constantly analyzing things under like a skeptical microscope because of all the information that's coming into your brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, microscope, because of all the information that's coming into your brain. Yeah, exactly, uh, I'm uh, there's uh. One of my favorite ideas for art is appropriateness. So is that feeling of like an old film stock appropriate to like a, like a, like a futuristic kind of film where there's a lot of computers and stuff and it's very, very would it like? Would it work for a tron movie? You know, like if you were doing tron, you'd want it to be, you know, a little more crisp. You know you'd want it to kind of feel a little bit more digital. You know, then, if you it on film, you'd still want it to have a sort of a look to it. The original Tron they went out of their way to make it look crisp and digital, even though they did old school matte paintings and it was, you know, visual effects work. It's all analogs, all chemical processes. There was very little CGI in the film. It was all very, you know, it was very 2D, trying to make it look digital and everything.
Speaker 1:So, on a Western, on a historic Western that takes place very near the end of the Civil War in Texas, with all the heat, with all the grit and grime of the story and all all the things. I want it to look like it was shot on film. If I could have shot that on film I would have. I would have shot it on old school 5219. You know anamorphic lenses and and all the things. So I got to I got to shoot it on, uh, my, my red komodo with anamorphic lenses. What a shame. Shame I didn't get to shoot it on old Kodak stock. But that's okay because you know, the red gives me the ability to kind of, you know, do things.
Speaker 1:So I'm going out of my way to make it look not pristine. I'm using Blackmagic Pro Mist filters. I'm letting like glare come into the lens. There's little things that I'm doing to it. I'm upping the grain in a couple places. There's just things I'm doing because I want there to be sort of a liveliness to it. I want it to look like an old Western. I want it to look pretty and have there be some sort of a thing in the subconscious that's looking at it going. This feels real, it's grainy, there's a grit to it. So I don't mind at all having a little bit of that play.
Speaker 1:Not making it look pristine On something else. You want it to be pristine On a Western. I think it should look filmy, it should look organic, and so we did that a lot, you know. So John was very, very interested in having that vibe, having that old school vibe, especially in the type of angles and the composition that we would use. The composition was always very real, hondo. It was always very, you know, very old school.
Speaker 1:But then the lighting because I don't have to wash it out, because I don't have to play with you know ISO, you know 80, you know film stock, you know, for you know everything, I could push things. So I lit it as if it were Unforgiven. So to have sort of a newer Western and one of my favorite Westerns Unforgiven as the lighting sort of idea, or let there be a light back here, it'll be the only thing, that's, you know, presumably doing any work but have the composition of a real hondo. So have that more dramatic, newer sort of lighting. So someone like me that was born recently doesn't get kind of bored with it and still think it looks beautiful despite the fact that it has this old-school flavor to it. It still looks like a modern film.
Speaker 2:If you had the luxury to shoot it on film, um, and the appropriate amount of money in order to spend on lighting equipment, what do you think you would do differently in order to get that look on film?
Speaker 1:almost almost nothing. I, I think the approach to it uh, would have worked if we had shot it on film. Um, I, I think I would have if we were shooting on film, that would probably have, uh, like a chapman dolly or you know something like that, so I'd probably get a little bit more movement in some of the places. Um, I, I like to put the camera on a dolly and just kind of leave it there and just kind of roll around and, you know, get the shots I want. Uh, we couldn't do that, so I went through like three pairs of sticks so I, that'd be one of the things that I would do.
Speaker 1:But I think Travis, the producer, travis Mills, hates doing like fake moonlight in nighttime scenes, hates it, hates it. He doesn't want to see a fake blue light. You know, lighting up things if it's dark, it's dark, and that was one of the things that liberated me. It's also, you know, on a lot of projects you need, you need that blue moonlight. You need that blue moonlight so we can see what's going on back there. But if the producer says, don't do that, then you don't do that. And it's kind of liberating because now I know I only need to light the places where there's a candle, well, there's not a candle, well, we'll put a candle, you know, and then we'll just kind of make these little so whenever you see a candle, the candle's not lighting anything. You know, there's a, there's a light there. That's kind of doing that work. And a lot of gels, a lot of CTO, a lot of that happening and because of let it go into darkness, embrace the shadows, kind of idea.
Speaker 1:I think if, instead of on digital, we shot on film using the same plotting, the same ideas, the same blocking, the same idea in the look, but on film there would have been a lushness to it that you can only get on film.
Speaker 1:There would have been this organicness, there would have been a little bit more life in the darks. There would have been a little bit more life, just the grain just playing around, much better than you can get with, like digital noise or if you add grain to it or something like that, there'd be, there'd just be this organicness that I think even someone who doesn't know about the difference between film and digital, just a regular person, would look at it and go that looked really good, like it looked. There's there's a, there's a life to it. There's a grittingness to it. I don't know, I don't know why, I don't know the words, but I really liked it. And meanwhile the cinephiles go oh man, that was you know, that was you know vision 3, and you know it looks like this, and I think you know what we probably would use more, more.
Speaker 1:Uh, incandescence too, I think we would have used more uh, okay I would have done more of the bigger, like an hmi, like through the window, that kind of stuff, rather than the smaller leds, because if we got the budget we can we do that. So more condors with, like you know, m40s on them, you know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, to me, like when I see footage that's shot on film, you know, and it has that look, the thing that I tend to notice and maybe I could be completely wrong about this technically, but it's when you're shooting on digital there's a very hard line between where colors end and where colors start, but with film it tends to bleed those edges together on a really small level, and that seems to be what gives it that softness, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it depends on the film stock. Fuji stock doesn't do it the same way that Kodak does. They still tend to bleed together, they marry together, they marinate I don't know there's ways to describe it and all of those are things that digital doesn't do very well. Digital just kind of sees the light and goes okay, there it is. It's a pixel and that's what you do. So in digital you have to use filtration. So I I always use some sort of flavor of promist in front of lens, no matter what I'm doing, unless it's news. If it's reality, I'm probably not doing it.
Speaker 1:But if it's any sort of a dramatic narrative kind of thing, I've got some flavor of promise in front of the digital camera to take the edge off, to let the colors come through, to let the light come through the filter and disperse. So that way you get a little bit more organicness out of it, because that filter is doing that organicness. It's not the camera sensor, it's not the film doing it. Film. You can point naked film at something and just through the lens and it just looks like film. Digital. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta. Work on it a little bit, and the primary way that I do it is using uh, promist, how much more expensive is it to shoot on film compared to digital?
Speaker 2:I know it's. You know it's no size, it's no small amount. But a lot of cinematographers want to film on film. It's, it's a lot.
Speaker 1:It's. It's in the tens of thousands of dollars and that that would, on a small film with not a whole lot, it would be in the tens of thousands. On the bigger, on the much larger things, it's tens of thousands on a day. So it just depends on how many cameras you're using on this.
Speaker 1:It probably would have, it probably would have brought it up to 80 000 or so just just for the film, um, but we didn't have that budget, so we shot it digitally, um, because you got to buy the film and then you got to process it and then you got to work with it and then you got to digitize it anyway, just to edit it, and there's just a lot more stuff and you need more crew to do it with. I would have needed, you know, three people on the camera crew to, you know, to work with it. So, um, and we probably would have used more than one camera in places, because it just it just would have been faster and easier to have one getting a medium shot, the other one getting the close-up, you know so it's becoming a lost art yeah, absolutely, because I mean, the last time I shot on film was like 1997.
Speaker 1:You know I would love to shoot on film but I just, you know, like I I embrace digital because it's quicker, faster, cheaper. But that means anybody can do it and that and that is it. It simultaneously democratizes it because you know, with your phone you can shoot a movie and it would look pretty all right actually, especially if you don't mind deep focus and you can put filtration on it, you can put it into a rig and everything, and anybody with a camera can be a cinematographer. Anybody with a camera can just go and make a movie. Is it going to be good? Is the story going to be told well? Is it going to be well written? Is going to be well acted? Is it going to look?
Speaker 2:good it matters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's the, the cinematic quality. Everybody goes, oh, is it cinematic? Well, you're going to talk about the story, got to talk about the story, got to talk. Yes, yes, yes, start with a great script, obviously, but forget that. Let's assume that every script is fantastic.
Speaker 2:On a. What a dream that would be to go to the cinema.
Speaker 1:What a dream that would be.
Speaker 2:Not have to worry about like. I really hope I didn't waste my money here. I hope I was not lied to in the trailer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, a great script, great actors, um, a director with a vision and enough money to to make it all happen. I think. I think that the idea of is it cinematic? I think um starts with production design and it goes into wardrobe and it goes into hair and makeup and it goes into locations and all that stuff. Before it ever touches you know where's this light gonna go. And then, of course, if it were the kind of production where we've got um, you know a studio, we've got this location, or we're building the set in a, in a sound stage, and we can pre-light it, and so we design the lighting that goes into that, and you've got a gaffer that's able to figure that stuff out and come up with the different kind of whatever you need, that's all wonderful.
Speaker 1:But I think a cinematic quality isn't just the lens, isn't just the camera, isn't just the filter, isn't just the lighting, it's everything that's in front of the camera too. As a cinematographer, as a photographer, as a director, I think the most important thing in the visual aspect is the light. What is the light going to do to tell the story? And from there you can put the camera where it needs to be. But if you have the greatest camera in the world but you have terrible lighting, it's not going to look good. If you have an iPhone and you have wonderful lighting, it's going to look wonderful, right. So now, what are we putting in front of the camera? We're putting great actors in great wardrobe. They've got great lines with a great script, great screen direction, and then, of course, you need a great sound department with great sound, because terrible sound will make a great image look like crap. It really is a house of cards.
Speaker 1:It is, it's everything. So there's no. So when people are asking on reddit is this cinematic? I'm like I don't know what I mean. That's a good still image of something, but what's going on? You know what's happening in this shot, right? Like reddit, they'll just pick something apart because they have nothing to do I go, I go through the cinematography, uh thing, and like laugh at all the film students that are, you know, wondering what, what, what is?
Speaker 2:this. What is this transition?
Speaker 1:my young spring chickens still learning yeah, it's cute, it's adorable, and then I'll go in there and I'll actually like answer them. It's called the white, it's cute, it's adorable and then I'll go in there and I'll actually answer them. It's called a white, it's just a white.
Speaker 2:In your experience with working with directors specifically on narratives, what's an aspect? Because directors tend to fall into two different camps they either are really actor-centric or they're cinematographer. They're really worried about the cinematography, you know. They're really worried about the cinematography, you know. But that also lends itself to other aspects of the film getting neglected, because it's not necessarily because they don't care, it's just not on their radar, because that's not what they're focused on. What is an aspect of filmmaking that you think some directors need to pay more attention to from your experience?
Speaker 1:Everything. And one of the reasons why I'm well-rounded is because I've done a lot and and I may not do some of those things anymore. Um, and then sometimes I do all those things on on one film. But I as a, as a director, I like as a leader, I like knowing what everybody underneath me is doing. I want to, I want to have done it at some point, whether it's you know makeup, whether it's editing, whether it's you know whatever it is acting, because I want to understand on an intimate level what it is that they do.
Speaker 1:And I may never have been a stunt person, you know, I'm not a stunt performer, but I totally understand stunt performers and I get them and I get that. I've never done it. I don't know how it's a pain in the ass, but I know it's a pain in the ass. So you know, because of course it is. So if they say it's going to take them, you know 10 minutes, I go, take them. You know 10 minutes, I go. Can you do it in eight, you know. And if they go, yeah, I can do that in nathan, great, you know, but you.
Speaker 1:But I think one of the qualities of a good leader is knowing everyone's job, knowing what is expected, communicating that to the people and then stepping back and being surprised by their ingenuity, to paraphrase general patent. Uh, so I think I work really well with actors because I've acted. I think I work really well with a director of photography because I am a cinematographer and I'm occasionally hired to be a director of photography. And I think I'm a good director because I've shadowed much better directors and I've watched lots and lots of commentary, you know, and making of and stuff, and just decided that you know, that's something I can do, and if I do it the way that these great men and women are doing it, then I should be able to do that too.
Speaker 1:And it all comes down to leadership. If you're, if you're, you just gotta be a good leader and it doesn't matter if you're sweeping the floors or if you're paying for the movie. If you're, if you are taking into consideration the people that are underneath you who are going to make you look good. You know, it's like like. It's like how come the tonight show only only talks to the actors? How come they don't talk to, like, the hair department?
Speaker 2:that's kind of why I started this podcast. It's like actors get all the love, you know, and you know the and sometimes directors and whatnot, but generally their directors are kind of they're too busy doing things, you know, yeah yeah, yeah, why not?
Speaker 1:I mean because, I mean, actors are great but they're just going to look like them if it wasn't for wardrobe, they're just going to look like they're doing it in their living room. If it wasn't for the entire camera and genie departments, if you know, they wouldn't sound good if it was. You know, so it's, it's. It's a tapestry. It's a big, complicated, convoluted tapestry and everyone doing it should be a professional and should be really good at it. And if everybody is just kicking butt and just doing their job, and if they're doing this particular job, it's probably because they love it. It's not so much the money, it's because they love it. They love it, then, with that love being the energy, being the thing that drives them to what they're doing, even if the movie sucks. It's just not a good movie, but you can tell that everybody loved working on it.
Speaker 2:That doesn't happen too often, but when you do, you can notice it for some reason. I don't know why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a love to it. It's like the original Jurassic Park, the first Jurassic Park. There is a life to it. Yeah, because everyone that worked on it had something to prove. Everyone that worked on Jurassic Park was like we are going to make the greatest dinosaur adventure movie ever, we're going to get puppet dinosaurs, we're going to get digital puppet dinosaurs and we're going to get these actors looking at, you know, tennis balls and it's going to be amazing. And all the actors had no idea what was going to happen. But they're like all right, if you believe it, steven, then I believe it. And they acted their hearts out. The lighting was lit, its heart out, and everybody had something to prove. So when that movie came out and they like stepped on each other to make those dinosaurs realistic, to make oh my God, that thing's happening as an actor, when there's nothing there to make that believable, everybody had something to prove. So when that movie came out, everybody absolutely believed it. And then, when the sequels came out, it's like because they don't have anything to prove anymore, now we know that we can make believable dinosaurs now.
Speaker 1:Now the new jurassic park movies are all about the monsters. They're about the monster dinosaurs. It's about it's. It's a horror movie now, because just a dinosaur doesn't, you know, titillate the imagination anymore like it did in 1993. So you can still go back and watch jurassic park and you just have this idea that everybody who showed up on set was motivated by something other than money, other than you know. There was something, there was a pride that they were going for. There was, there was a love, there was a need to go and just do a great job to get this picture started. And of course, it all comes from Spielberg going. I love dinosaurs and I just want to make the greatest dinosaur movie ever. Can we do it?
Speaker 2:Can we do it? He was just autistic enough to be able to pull it off, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so having that kind of vibe to it why Jurassic Park is great and why the other Jurassic Park movies aren't. You know that's the kind of vibe I get watching a lot of not so good movies. You know Jurassic Park is great but I've watched a lot of movies that just weren't very good.
Speaker 2:Jurassic Park is great, but I've watched a lot of movies because they weren't very good. Something to add on to that is that the contrast I get from the original Jurassic Park versus the two or three new ones Actually they did finish the new trilogy I've seen so many of them, I don't even know where we're at anymore. There's so many sequels. But in the newer ones I think you're right it's mainly like a horror movie, you know. But in the older ones it kind of really displayed the dichotomy of the beauty and the danger of these giant beasts. You know, the first like bit of the film is just them all the actors being wowed. Their dinosaurs are back and then it looks phenomenal, you know. And there's a beautiful aspect to nature of that, of that film. And then slowly it just creeps back in and you realize that there's this malevolent aspect of nature that does not care whether or not you live or die. You, your, your existence is this small compared to these big things, you know yeah, yeah, but but it's an adventure movie and it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a. It's also also a classic science fiction movie in that it has this sort of Prometheus, frankenstein's monster sort of story to it you know who are we to play, god and everything. And it's got that kind of a sci-fi message to it that all the other movies copy and the first jurassic park did what the book was doing and do the frankenstein's monster, you know idea and uh, you know, you know, you've got, you've got. You've got, uh, poisonous plants here that have no idea what century they're in and you know, will, will be, you know, poisonous to you if you eat them or whatever. You know, they don't know what century they're in, they're just, those are just plants. And they use that idea on the dinosaurs because the dinosaurs are just animals doing what they do.
Speaker 1:It's not my fault that I'm delicious, you know, to a t-rex, right, but it's just, it's a big alligator walking around and the horror comes from. There's a big alligator walking around and it's eating people and that's kind of sad, you know. But it's not about. It's not about the horror elements of it, it's about this is what happens when you play God, you know. So the first one is this adventure, sci-fi, thriller sort of thing. But it's more fun and it's like here are these animals, and even the Jurassic World movie says you know, nobody cares about a T-Rex anymore, nobody cares about just a dinosaur anymore. Now we've got to have monsters and that's going to draw people to, you know, the park. That's what's going to make this evil corporation that just wants to, you know, make a bunch of money, and so I get it. But why do we need 27 movies?
Speaker 2:I mean, we're Americans, we're about hitting high scores, you know.
Speaker 1:And the thing is, I love the Jurassic Park franchise. I like the Jurassic World movies. Just fine, they're popcorn, they're stupid and I you know the. Oh, let me talk to the raptors. I mean, it's all very, it's all very silly stuff, but it's also a lot of fun. But the first movie is a great movie.
Speaker 2:Well, what do you think? What do you think modern cinema is missing in terms of that special uniqueness that a lot of these older movies tend to be able to hit the nail on the head for Art.
Speaker 1:Well, whenever a new Marvel movie comes out, it just looks like all the other Marvel movies. It just looks like a product. It looks like a big company releasing a product. It's like next year's car. It looks just like the previous year's car, but it's got a little something different to it, but it's still just that car. It's a product and it just feels like a product and there's nothing about that that makes me go. It's a product and it just feels like a product and it there's nothing about that that makes me go.
Speaker 1:Ooh, I have to go to the theater and watch that every now and then. You get something and that, and I know that that's what the idea is behind the Marvel movies and the Star Wars movies and all that stuff. It's a product and that's what they're doing and I get it. There's a place for that that a whole lot of people do it, they fall for it, they, they love it, they post about it and everything, and that's great, that's wonderful. That's what it's supposed to do and that's why they're called tent poles. They literally keep the studios up. So I'm not interested in that all the time. Sometimes I want a guilty pleasure dumb marvel movie, but the last time I enjoyed a Marvel movie was First Avenger. I like Kevin Mark, I like that stuff. When you punch Nazis in your movie, I'm a big fan. And Thor was really good too, do you think it's a message?
Speaker 1:I would rather.
Speaker 2:Do you think it's mainly just a line of philosophy about the nature of humanity that I think is missing from modern cinema? Going back to the Jurassic Park example, it's about what happens if we play God.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of implications that it doesn't even touch in the film but in the back of your mind when you're watching it. You're like I don't know. You're having this conversation with yourself, this moral dilemma, as you're watching this adventure movie and being able to tap into the audience's unconscious like that and invade that space in order to get them to actually latch on to what you made. That is an entirely separate art form.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like that sci-fi movies, that fantasy movies are able to do that kind of thing, that sci-fi movies, that fantasy movies are able to do that kind of thing, but when it comes to marvel, it just seems like the same movie over and over again, whereas I would rather go and like go to the theater and spend my money on something that a director has made, a film, and it has something to say and it's about saying that thing. It's not about a bunch of, like fight scenes and and all these other things. That's why I like blade runner and I really wanted to like blade runner 2049, but blade runner 2049 was more about uh, hey, remember this from the original Blade Runner? Remember the spectacle of the original Blade Runner? This is all about the spectacle, but then it lacked in motivation for the drama that was happening and it wound up being about fistfights and stuff like that, and I'm like I don't care about any of that stuff.
Speaker 1:There was a fistfight in Blade Runner that lasted lasted about 30 seconds and it wasn't about that. It was. It was. There was more to it, that was going on. You're getting wowed by the visuals, but there was still this human story that was being told and a lot of times that gets lost in a great, big, huge movie and it might be there because you still hire this director to come and tell this intimate little story, but it's just overshadowed by all this bigness that you just kind of you miss out on it, whereas if you watch like nope, I'll get back to nope because it's like jaws, but in the air, uh, there's a story there's a.
Speaker 2:I have mixed feelings about nope. I enjoyed it, but you know there's no why.
Speaker 1:But that's the beauty of nope, is that you have these mixed feelings, but you, you don't just go. Well, that wasn't a good movie. Well, I hated that movie. It's like no, there's like who's the monkey again? And you kind of.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of shots like that, especially like the lady in the crowd, you know, that got her whole like close up in the middle of it and it just never goes back to it and I'm like, I'm a little disoriented, even though everything that I'm disoriented by is aesthetically pleasing, and you're like wondering and you're on the edge of the seat but you don't know why, always you're on the edge of your seat, you know that's kind of the thing with it. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:It's interesting and it's fun, and I think the Marvel movies are are are largely fun but not interesting. I'm no longer interested in the big blue laser coming down from the sky. I'm no longer interested in the little punch lines. I'm no longer interested. I think it's fun, I can step back, I can turn my brain off and enjoy a Marvel movie, but I would rather watch a nope. That challenges me and confuses me and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:I don't know, is there a psychology degree or the psychology degree kind of, or, like you know, the psychology interest, kind of analyzing things in the background?
Speaker 1:yeah, that's me, I'm, I'm, I'm one of those uh, intelligent, uh types that likes intelligent I. I didn't just watch jurassic park. I read the novel and was like, hey, where's the raft scene? And now this new jurassic park has the raft scene. Now because they can afford it and make better than ever like, okay, okay, I'll watch.
Speaker 1:It might not watch in the theater, but no, I'll watch it. And um, you know, yeah, I, I am definitely looking at it right now, looking on my shelf there. It is next to a couple other Michael Crichton stuff. And I think I was always interested in the psychology of mankind, even growing up. I was always more interested in why? And even today, why is my favorite question, you know, I think I get, I get the, how, I get the, what, I get everything else.
Speaker 1:But why, why did you do it? Why did this character do that? Why is that light coming from here? And a lot of stuff. You just answered in your head real quick. But you know, it's like, oh, the sun's right there, you know, but I love it's like, oh, the sun's right there, you know, but I love.
Speaker 1:It's like I'm watching Blade Runner and these cool lights are coming down from the sky. These little lights are just kind of going everywhere and it just looks like there's a rave party going on, you know, up above, and the light's just kind of leaking out and it's like, well, you're looking and it looks cool. But you go, how come that light's coming from there? And then it cuts. You see this great big blimp and it's pushing these lights down and you're like, oh, okay, now you don't worry about it anymore. You just kind of deal with this interesting visual feast that's happening and in the back of your brain you go yeah, it's because there's that blimp, that's where that sound's coming from, that's where that hum is, that's where the light's coming from, and then you don't worry about it anymore. So, just so long as it makes sense, just for a second in gladiator, uh, you see, uh, you see, um uh, what's his name?
Speaker 2:um, no, the bad guy. What's his name? Oh uh, joaquin phoenix yeah, joaquin phoenix.
Speaker 1:Uh, commodus real brief at the very beginning of the movie, because at the end you got Commodus and Maximus fighting to the death in the arena. So, in order to make that make sense, way at the front of the movie we get a glimpse of Commodus training with some soldiers. He's doing a workout and he's got his sword out and he's doing his thing. And you go, you go, oh, okay, he knows how to use a sword, okay, and then you don't worry about it. And then, two and a half hours later, when they're in the arena, they're fighting and you're like, okay, if you never saw that, if you never saw him working out, you know the first minutes of the movie, when he shows up in the arena, starts, you know, beating up maximus, you're like, wow, where did that come from? And there's ridley scott and the director commentary going. This is why this shot is there, because later it needs to make sense you didn't want him to come off like a whiny.
Speaker 2:You know, prince, who hadn't handled the sword before you, had to establish that he, he, knew how to handle himself.
Speaker 1:He wasn't just this character yeah, but he's not a warrior, he's not maximus. So what does he do to maximus? He wounds him, takes a knife. He wounds him just to slow him down because he knows he's not as great as maximus. But he wants a chance. So him cover up the wound, let him bleed out. I want to. I can only fight him at half strength, but even at maximus's half strength, he still. He still got him because he wanted it more what's?
Speaker 2:uh, well, curiously, because I I have an interest in psychology as well. I mean, like, I've read carl jung's like biography, which was very, very. It was not what I was expecting, you know, he got into like all of his other interests and I'm like, oh, now I see why you're interested in the human mind. You had all these weird experiences and you had to. You had to go out and you know, play doctor and scientist to try to figure out what was going on. Um, is there a particular, uh, philosopher or psychologist that you inspires, your type of thinking that ends up bleeding into your craft?
Speaker 1:well, I mean just just in general. Just in general, um, uh, because it's become sort of a hobby. Now, right, because I flipped my career, my hobby, um, I was always very interested in sun. So I uh, began reading the art of War in high school. I don't know, maybe that had an effect on me, I don't know. But you know, to start reading that, and then, you know, two decades goes by and I forget about it. And then recently I was gifted the Art of War and I started rereading it and going, oh yeah, there's some philosophical stuff. And when we're talking about war, when we're talking about the enemy, we're talking about battle. It doesn't have to literally be soldiers and war and death. It can be your job, it could be a client, it can be your challenge, it can be your job, it could be a client.
Speaker 2:It can be your own personal the challenge at hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just to kind of go and find some wisdom in there from an old general, or actually from other generals that are attributed to Sun Tzu. There's some interesting stuff in there. So every now and then I'll go and flip through the art of war and just kind of you know, find little tidbits, and then you just kind of you know, nothing's nothing, you know, at the tip of my tongue right now. So I can't just go but uh, but yeah, definitely, uh, sun tzu and the art of war, um, and of course I'm Christian, so I go to the New Testament quite often as well, because that's where wisdom comes from. Wisdom comes from the Bible, it comes from the Old Testament, it comes from the Ten Commandments and everything, and so even if you don't believe in any of that stuff, there's still a lot of wisdom.
Speaker 2:If you like Nietzsche, you will enjoy Ecclesiastes. Yeah, yeah yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:I do, and I still have a fun time going through Judges.
Speaker 2:That's just Game of Thrones, that whole book is basically Game of Thrones.
Speaker 1:No, no, no.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking of Kings. I'm thinking of Kings. I'm thinking of Kings. Judges was much more like the Wild West then.
Speaker 1:No, no, there was some Game of Thrones stuff that went on in Judges.
Speaker 2:Between the different tribes. Yeah, oh boy, oh boy, oh gosh.
Speaker 1:Oh boy.
Speaker 2:And there weren't that many people on the earth at the time. Oh my God, I wish there was more. Just like brutal filmmaking that takes place in the Old Testament, because there is a lot of white ground for just great stories in general. It doesn't always have to be like David playing his harp and then it's like okay, are we going to talk about the latter end of David's life? Are we going to include that in the movie or is that going to be the sequel? Life Are we going to include that in the movie or is that going to be the sequel? There's a lot of. When you read the Old Testament, you just see the rise and fall of man over and over again.
Speaker 2:The Passion of the Christ is a huge aspect of humanity that I think is missing from modern-day cinema.
Speaker 1:I agree. The Passion of the Christ, I think, opened up the idea that people who are Jesus freaks can also enjoy rated R movies with lots of violence. I'm not a horror movie guy and yet some of my favorite films I mean my favorite movie of all time is a horror movie guy and yet some of my favorite films I mean my favorite movie of all time is a horror movie Jaws, right. And then I love Alien and I love Psycho and I love Silence of the Lambs and you know all these like psychological thrillers. It all makes sense because I wanted to be a profiler and then Seven Zodiac, you know, and I I think once the movie studios start to realize that we are just normal people who want a great story well told, then they will hopefully go and do not a wishy-washy job of telling those old stories really well.
Speaker 1:And like I've always, I've been having dreams of doing proper the bible, old testament all the way through, like starting with the old, starting with genesis, starting and doing, just doing, just doing it, no filter, no filter at all. Like here's the rape, here is the, the cannibalism, here's the, the torture and the war, and here is all the stuff right in the name. Oh, here's god doing it right and all the lessons that are, that are learned from that, all the all, the everything, and it's like it could be done completely literally, or it can be done more fanciful. You know like it's somebody telling the story like 300. You know like 300 didn't happen, like that. Or scenes like with theiful. You know like it's somebody telling the story like 300.
Speaker 2:You know like 300 didn't happen, like that, or scenes like with the witch, you know yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So why not? Why? Why not? I want to watch that. You know I want to see a rated r bible movie. You know, not because I'm into graphic violence or or whatever. It's because I appreciate a dark story. I appreciate a good story told well, and if you shy away from the hard stuff, then you're not going to appreciate coming out into the light.
Speaker 2:Have you seen Darren Aronofsky's Noah by chance? Yeah, I have. What did you think of it?
Speaker 1:I don't think the don't think, uh, the fallen angels were the good guys. I really I like, I. It's like I liked everything about the movie. You know that the actor is the set design, all the stuff. And I don't agree with the angry God-hater Darren Aronofsky, with his agenda making God to look like a Well, when I watched that movie, it was actually, I think, like within the last six months.
Speaker 2:I first watched that because I wanted to see what the Hub was about, because I remember back in the day when it first came out, there was a lot of upset, an upset aspect of Christendom who was not happy with this film for their own particular reasons. But when I watched the film I realized that he although, yeah, you know he is an atheist he did. He went the route of including some, of including the lore from some of the other like apocryphal books, like Book of Jubilees and Book of Enoch, who portray the fallen angels and the Nephilim that came after them as ones who were originally sent down to help mankind and then they end up corrupting it. And so now there's this, he added. What I found at least philosophically interesting was that he added the dichotomy of the angels basically living in their own corruption and also wanting that type of redemption.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then what was his name? Tubal-cain that snuck onto the ark. That's not necessarily historically a thing, but it was a really interesting way to— because I'm thinking like yeah of course some people would try to hop on the boat. What would that look?
Speaker 1:like.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of things like that I do appreciate at. Of course, some people would try to hop on the boat. What would that?
Speaker 1:look like there's a lot of things like that I do appreciate, at least as a viewer. Yeah, I saw it when it came out and I haven't seen it since, but I remember it being a schlocky action film basically and going eh, eh, I don't eh, eh, not at the quality of the film because I mean it's well-made. But I know that Aronofsky I don't even know if I would call him an atheist. He's like a pissed-off Jew, basically Because he went because he grew up Jewish family and all the things, went to the Bible school and everything and just had a lot of issues with all that stuff and kind of like walked away from it and so he was like mad at God for allowing bad things to happen to good people. Basically, and again, I haven't read this since I I looked at noah way back in the day, uh, but he's like I I think I don't think atheist is is simple enough. I think it's more complicated for aronofsky that he knows that god exists. He just thinks he's a jerk and therefore portrays him as a jerk. In his film in Noah, and then later in Mother, he portrayed God as just an idiot jerk. And I'm like I don't think he's an idiot jerk.
Speaker 1:Your movie's well made, though you know. There's some really good acting in it, and I really like Russell Crowe and I like what's his name? The bad guy? Tom Hogleysen? No, no, what's his name? What's the bad guy's name?
Speaker 2:I don't know the actor's name, I just know the character.
Speaker 1:He's wonderful whatever his name is, he's just a bunch of great actors and I can, like you know, I don't have a complaint on the quality of the film. I just, you know, don't agree with your assessment of you know the character of God and why he does things. So but again, you know, I haven't, I haven't seen in 80 years, so I need to go back and watch it. But I do know that I have seen Exodus and really really liked Exodus, especially coming from the fact that Ridley Scott is an atheist, especially coming from the fact that Ridley Scott is an atheist. And yet when his brother, tony, killed himself, he immediately went and made a Bible movie which I thought was interesting, and then he dedicated it to his brother and I.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't some movie about God betraying anybody or anything like that. It was a standard old Hollywood action-adventure film. It's the Ten Commandments but made with CGI. It's an action movie and that's all it is. And it doesn't treat the God situation with impunity. It doesn't. There isn't like the sarcasticness to it you are. You are given the idea that maybe Moses hit his head on that rock and maybe he's seen things. Nobody else sees this, this God that he's talking to and he's like well, you know, I'm gonna, you know they better let my people go or else. And then, you know, the plagues come along and they just kind of explain themselves and it didn't have to be like a god thing and it's just sort of it all seems very coincidental until the death of the first one yeah.
Speaker 1:And that has absolutely no explanation to it, except it was the angel of the Lord descending upon the people and the angel of death.
Speaker 1:And then you're like huh. And then everybody else goes, huh, all right, get out of here with your God. Now it's starting to. And then at the end, you know where he's, you know 100 years old. And there's, you know, there's God, represented by the little, you know nine-year-old boy. He's like where are you going to be? He's like I'm going to be with my people, and he kind of disappears among the Hebrews.
Speaker 1:I'm like, okay, all right, this is going to say dedicated to tony, isn't it? And it did, there was, there was, there was a little, there was a little bit more. Um, okay, god, I want to understand, so I'll do it by the most approachable bible story ever, the action adventure tale of, uh, the ten commandments. I'm gonna go with that just to kind of maybe see what's going on. Maybe there is something going on, maybe there is an afterlife. I'd like to think that my, my two brothers, are not nowhere. Maybe there's something else to it, says the atheist ridley scott, you know so.
Speaker 1:And then after that, you know he's, you know he's making the, the alien prequels, and he's like you know, you know, when you want to do like something horrific and it's horrible, these designs, you want to just go. You want to design this alien. You want to do something horrific. It's horrible. You need these designs. You want to just go. You want to design this alien. You want to design this landscape? You just look to nature. Just look to nature and you can get all your ideas from nature, because nobody designs better than God. Like that's interesting. Still an atheist, but he's given some credit where credit is due, I suppose.
Speaker 2:He at least appreciates it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I get it because you know you look at a maggot, they'll look like mugs, but if you made it 80 feet tall it would be like really scary.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I get it. So, ah, philosophy and all these things, and again, I am, I am an amateur, I, I, I don't pursue any of these things, you know I have, no, I have no professional interest in being a psychiatrist to somebody or being a criminal psychologist, or you know, I have no intention of ever going back. But, man, I am, in my head, as an amateur, just as a human scientist, extremely interested in what we really do all day long, and so reality always informs the fantasy of the films. So in order for, I think, for someone to really enjoy a film and to just get lost, to not notice the cinematography, to just kind of go, I'm just enjoying the film, I think a film needs to be sort of grounded in reality. Whether it's star wars or whether it's, you know, whatever, it needs to be grounded in reality. So motivation is key, appropriateness is key.
Speaker 1:You know, where does that light come from? Is it appropriate to the scene? Is it blue? Should it be red? Red might be better because it's kind of a horror scene.
Speaker 1:You know, you know, appropriateness and all those things grounded in reality, using what I know about myself and if I can put myself into the characters or I just trust the director. The director's done that. You know it's going to be like this and you just have a conversation about it. Then you go. You know what that room needs to look like this and how about, instead of night time, how about is there any reason why it can't happen at like dusk? So that way we've got like a little bit of light coming through to kind of, you know, suggest that there's, uh, you know, whatever the drama is, you know whatever, and you have that kind of discussion and you kind of motivate it to help the scene along.
Speaker 1:You know, apocalypse. Now he's got that little shade of light and just kind of, you know, just play with that light, just kind of move in and out of that light, you know, and, and there you go, marlin, you, you, you, you light yourself whenever you want. In seven, when they have the flashlights and they have the, they have a book in front of them, so they got something white. So they go anytime you want to see, anytime you want us to see your face, point the flashlight at the book and it'll reflect back up into you and that's when we see you. And if you don't want us to see you just point it anywhere else. You know, motivated, grounded in reality, and that's what's going to get people to just ignore what I've done technically and just go oh, what a nice looking movie. I'll just enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I gotta say you must be a lot of fun in pre-production.
Speaker 1:I can be, if I'm not forgiven for pre-production, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I mean cause you have a very broad bandwidth, for you know, retaining why you think, what you think when you actually view a piece of art, that's, that's. That's the thing. I didn't want to interrupt you there for a second because I was, uh, like I was being a psychologist, believe it or not, and I was like, okay, let's where is he going with this. And then you know, you're always, and then you're pointing out the, the commonalities, um, between different things and ultimately pointing to a central motivation. For you know, your, your thought analysis, which I appreciate, um, but then, but then again, whimsically, you're probably a lot of fun in pre-production, yeah.
Speaker 1:I, I, I like to be a lot of fun all the time I, what, I'm, what, I'm, what, I'm shooting the movie, you know, joke around and you know, because, hey, we're all, we're all people, we're all miserable, in the 115 degree, you know, may Texas sun heat, you know, yeah, the first thing to do would be to be pissed, you know, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm pointing this camera that way to make a movie. We're all here making a movie. Everybody else has a, has a cubicle job and we're, we're here making a movie.
Speaker 1:you know, I'm, I'm mad where your passion comes from the why oh, yeah, uh, I, I, I just want to tell stories and I love being a, a storyteller, I love being, uh, a photographer and a cinematographer. I like being, I like having the role as a director of photography on films, I like directing, I like writing, I like having little cameos, you know, in the film, because if Michael Chapman can do it, then I can do it. And he's dead now so I can catch up. And so Michael Chapman shot Taxi Driver. So I, I'm you don't always do it for the money. I think is is is sort of a gross way of saying it. You know, certainly you want to get your bills paid, but, um, and I don't want to ever have to do a nine five job ever again. But uh, you don't always do this kind of work as an artist just because it pays well, you want to do it because you love it, because you have something to say, because you have something to prove, because you've got this. And it changes every single movie too. This doesn't just happen generically, every single movie.
Speaker 1:I go back to this and I'm like why do I want to make this movie, why do I want to be involved in this film? I don't like horror movies and yet I've shot a bunch of horror movies. Some of my favorite films are horror movies, but I don't look at them like, oh, I can't wait for that guy to get killed. I'm looking at it because there's something being said, there's a story being told, and, yeah, there's, there's some blood or or thrills or whatever. But you know, the shower scene in psycho is, you know, one minute of the film. What's the rest of the movie about? You know, it's like there's something being said. What's what's? You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:There's just, there's always, there's always something in the back of my head, this conversation that goes on About, even like, applying for something. You know I'm an agent, so I got to go and look for work and if, if I've always wanted to do a fantasy movie, but that particular fantasy movie like sucks, I don't want to do it, you know. But but if somebody wants to do a little horror movie in like 10 days, you know, and it's going to be like you want to do a feature film in 10 days, how, what do you? What do you? What are your thoughts on that? You know, they show you a short film that they did and it's got this kind of Nosferatu sort of feel and I'm like, oh, okay, okay. So you appreciate lighting, you appreciate camera work and stuff. What is your methodology? And you get into this conversation, and it doesn't even have to be about the movie, it can be about anything, it could be about your favorite classical music and the motivations of why.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's just about who's asking you to do the work and if you'll end up enjoying and learning things along the way, even if the product itself, or the movie itself and the piece of art itself doesn't end up being something that you want to put on a pedestal. There's still value in doing those types of productions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it doesn't have to be Again. What if the movie sucks? What if you're making a bad movie, you know? But you're having a great time with some awesome people and it's like it's just, it's just another horror movie, it's just another slasher film, it's just another uh, obviously, green screen science fiction movie because they didn't have the money to hire ilm to come in. And you know what if you know it's not, it's not that great, it's not that wonderful. But you can tell everybody. So just think just, they tried, everybody showed up, they did their job, they were enjoying it, you know they had. You know, like they, they tried to do the best that they could.
Speaker 1:Like I don't, I don't mind that, I don't mind coming in and I I don't get to work on like triple a titles I don't get to work on. I don't get to work on a movie where there's the credits are 15 minutes long, you know, and they shot in 27,. You know countries on three continents. I don't get to work on mission impossible and the Marvel movies and stuff. I get to work on little, teeny, tiny, like short films and feature films and independent films, you know.
Speaker 1:Or people don't have agents and they don't have. You know, you know all the stuff and you got to make a feature film for you know $10,000 and you get two weeks to do it. You know what do you do, you know, do you do it with your phone or do you hire me to come in and make it look like you had 100,000, you know. So it's like whatever, like whatever. You think the budget might have been on killing Jim Kelly, it's not, it's a lot less. And the reason it looks like that we had more money than we did is because we had really good production design, which was just like finding locations and finding these places and finding these people.
Speaker 2:Wardrobe was on point.
Speaker 1:A lot of that stuff, a lot of that wardrobe the guns, a lot of that stuff, a lot of that stuff, a lot of that wardrobe the guns, a lot of stuff, a lot of that stuff is real. A lot of stuff is real. I, I got to hold the armor cliff, cliff owens the armor on that thing his old army guy, um, best armor I've ever worked. I've worked with two armorers and he's just, he's just, he was just so cool. Um, I got to hold like a little like, uh, navy revolver yeah that had been fired in anger in the actual civil war, you know.
Speaker 1:So, like a real of the time, real historic, you know piece of equipment that would be something to behold. So there was, there was a legitimacy to it too, and everybody who was there wanted to be there, loved being there, loved being a part of the story. So we make, we make a film that doesn't have, you know, a great, big, huge budget, like the like the unholy Trinity movie that's about to come out, right, the new Western that's about to come out with Samuel L Jackson and stuff. No, it's wonderful, we don't have their budget. And yet we had horses. And yet we had really great wardrobe. A wardrobe just won an award at a film festival. You know, that's wardrobe, I think it got. I think it also got, like, a production design award.
Speaker 1:I was nominated for Best Cinematography. John won Best Director. Everybody, everybody, wanted to be there. Everybody loved being there and loved working on the film on Killing Jim Kelly. And you can tell when you're watching it it's not a triple a. You know it doesn't have Disney money behind it. It doesn't have, you know, a big budget and yet it's got a big heart. So you're watching the film going. I like this movie. I'm having a fun time watching this movie. I care about the characters, not because we had a billion dollars to spend, but because we had all of our heart and love to spend on making the film, and that's why it looks good, that's why it sounds good, that's why it feels good, because we cared. It was a dream come true for me when Travis called me up and said hey, you want to come work on this film I I worked on uh. I worked with him on another film, uh m30, oxy and uh which he was a producer on and I didn't piss him off and uh, he liked congratulations yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's hard, that's hard to do you didn't.
Speaker 2:You didn't piss a producer off. That's always the main goal. Even if you can't do your job, at least you didn't do that you know exactly.
Speaker 1:It means I get to work again and we have this conversation. We're talking about old movies. He loves old movies as much as I do and he's like you know, he's got a blog about it. He loves a lot more than I do. And uh, and I'm like you know, I always wanted to shoot a historic western in texas on film and anamorphic and everything. He goes okay, and then six months later he gives me a call hey, you want to come work on this film. Dream come true for me, except didn't get to shoot on film, but you know, to go out there for a month and work on a film in the plains of texas, um, and also not be too far away from dfw. So I got to visit some family and all that stuff was a lot of fun. So that's that's the thing. That's the thing and that's where I and that's where I come from. Every single project I always.
Speaker 1:I want to know, like, why would I work on this? What do I have to say? What is my voice going to add to the discussion of the visual language of the film? You know, like, like, what? What is it about this that elevates it beyond just a western, just a horror movie, just a whatever you know. And then, once I'm there having those discussions with the director, because I want to sit down with the director and go well, what are you thinking? Why should it be like that? Or is it just because it's an homage to real bravo or something like that? Or or is it something else? What else are the motivations? So we're either, so we're doing the homework and watching Rio Bravo, rio Hondo, the Alamo, you know that kind of stuff, and then I'm watching Unforgiven and going is there any way that we can make the lighting more like this? Sure, so long as we don't betray this part of the story, it's like oh yeah, it's not always going to look like that, but it'll look like that in, you know the, the when, when print goes to visit, uh, his, you know his friend, you know that's going to be just lit by candles and stuff, and you know it should look like this.
Speaker 1:And you know, um, you just kind of have, in every single, every single project I work on, whether it's a feature film or music video, I'm always kind of questioning the motivations of things. So that way, whatever answer I come up with, or if there's a team that we come up with. Uh, it's appropriate to whatever the film is trying to do, whether it's a story like like just a narrative film, or if it's a music video and there still needs to be kind of a story going on. There's still need to be something draws you in dramatically. So every, every single project is treated with the same level of love and attention that it deserves. And and then I think, once it's done, when the audience sees it, they look at it and they go. That might not be the best whatever I've seen, um, but I really enjoyed it and I think the people that worked on it really enjoyed working on it and you just get that vibe. Even if you can't put that into words, you just go. I, I liked it, you know so.
Speaker 1:So you know I've unforgiven is is a great western. I, I, I would, I would like to say that I'm biased and say that kellen, jim kellen's best western ever. You know, because I'm biased, because I worked on it right and it is really good. You know, is it unforgiven? No, everybody knows that. Unforgiven really good, you know, is it unforgiven? No, everybody knows what unforgiven is. I love unforgiven, everybody loves unforgiven. It's a cleaning sport, come on.
Speaker 1:And so I don't live in a fantasy world where I think that just because I worked on something it makes it better than something else. I would love to just continue making movies and maybe one day I'll make something that's as good as I think Jaws is. You know, but it might be 40 years from now, I don't know. But I do know that I can sit back and watch almost every single project that I've ever worked on and go I loved working on that. I think people and go I loved working on that. I think people love it because they can tell that we loved it because good acting, good script, good direction, good everything and it just it's a good movie. And I think most of the projects that I can work on that I've ever worked on, I can kind of say that about them. It's know, it's not. You know we're not. But we're also not trying to be, um, you know citizen kane. You know we're not trying to be seven samurai.
Speaker 1:We're not trying to be, you know you could try, though I mean you could yeah, but, but you know, but were we making that kind of movie, were we making citizen kane? Would we have like those? No, but real bravo, I like it better than I like real bravo, and I like real bravo, but I like. But I like killing jim kelly a lot more than I like real bravo. And yet it has the same vibe. If, if, if, if, uh, uh, if, uh, uh, ah, hell, what's his name? No, I can't remember his name. Oh my God, the Duke. What's his name? Oh, uh, what? Oh God, exactly, I see his face. I see him throwing the kid in the room.
Speaker 2:I know who you're talking about.
Speaker 1:It's just it's living my mind too, the great, the great, the great american, whose name is everybody's gonna. Everybody's laughing and hating on me right now that I can't remember, wow, I mean you've remembered so many other things. I'm sure I forgive you and I said his name earlier too, and that's the thing that's bothering me.
Speaker 1:That guy, I got the guy that's in, we'll go with that guy, the real bravo guy. Um, if he were to walk onto the set, if he were to just show up in the shot he's in, he's in that, that, that, that that bar you know with, with jim kelly and everybody else, it would have made sense, it would have felt right. It would have felt right for for him to walk onto into the frame and be in the scene. It would have felt right for for him to walk on to into the frame and be in the scene. It would have felt correct because that old school, real old school american western with, uh, with a 1990s lighting, unforgiven sort of sensibility to it, but but with the heart deeply embedded in you know, real bravo, with that kind of vibe, um, that's what we were going for and I think we nailed it. I think we nailed the vibe. If you were to watch real bravo and Killian Jim Kelly right next to each other, it'd work, you'd feel right at home with it.
Speaker 2:Well, when I watched Killian Jim Kelly, I could definitely tell that everybody wanted to be there. You know, especially the cast, oh yeah, even the small parts that you know, some of the cast you know and the extras ended up having you know they, they were, they were there to be there you know, it's, it definitely comes out and you know, yeah it's. You know, obviously it's not the greatest Western there is, but you can tell that everyone wanted to be there and you know that that made it worth watching to the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is. There was not one bad actor on the entire set and everybody, of course, everybody's wearing different hats actor on the entire set and everybody, of course, everybody's wearing different hats. The sheriff is the wardrobe guy, you know, it's like everybody. Everybody is is is wearing multiple hats, literally and figuratively. And um uh, johnny chops uh, one of the bad guys, uh gets killed by uh, um uh, doc holliday, uh, right in the face, uh, he wrote this. He's a singer-songwriter. He wrote this really great song about killing Jim Kelly and you know they use it in the film for the end credits and stuff. It's just like. It's just. You know, everybody who was there just loved working on it. Looking back on the dailies every single time, everybody just going, wow, I can't believe we shot this, I can't believe we get to make this movie and everybody was just so cool. Everybody, everybody, everyone was just a cool person to to hang out with on set off set.
Speaker 1:Um, red is is like from brooklyn or something and he's new york city, got new york accent, he just sound I am from new york city. He's got the Brooklyn, he just sounds Brooklyn. And then when he's on camera doing his character, he doesn't sound like that at all. I didn't know he was from New York City. I didn't know until I heard him talk off set. I'm like, oh, you're doing a joke. That's a very authentic sounding no, that's my actual accent.
Speaker 2:Oh set, I'm like oh, you're doing a joke. That's a very authentic sounding. No, that's my actual accent.
Speaker 1:Oh well, you don't know until you know though that's no, no, yeah, just yeah, I had a one. I don't have. I don't have anything bad to say about my experience on that film, uh, uh, except that, uh, at one point it was too hot.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't even. Not only was it too hot, but the gigantic Longhorn steer decided to run amok and there was. There was well, all the humans and the cars and everything. He was just harassing around the set and the cowboys were like trying to bring him in, but there was a. It took. It was the longest five minutes of my life and I got my camera out and I was, you know, like recording.
Speaker 2:You know, the natural cinematographer instinct is to pull out their camera in any situation.
Speaker 1:I'm going to die. I'm going to get gored by a steer and I'm just recording it as he's running past the cars and everything and these guys on horses coming after it. It was the longest five minutes of my life. Watching this thing tear ass. They're gigantic, they're gigantic. That bull is in the movie. He's the one where they're tying the ribbon around and everything. Imagine that bull running amok because he's a lot too horny. He's just like where'd you put my girl cows? That was a long five minutes, Yet we're like I think I'm going to get killed, Yet also going, going. This is the coolest thing ever is that we're out here in the Texas heat.
Speaker 2:It's 187 degrees and we're burning up about to die in the most Texas way possible, in the most Texas way possible and if we survive, maybe we'll have a barbecue.
Speaker 1:You know, it was wonderful. I loved working on killing Jim Kelly and I hope Travis calls me again to work on something else, because Travis is no joke, uh, but he's really busy now. He's doing daily wire stuff now, so I don't know, okay, I.
Speaker 2:I know one guy who's actually doing some daily wire work. Uh, he was here locally up here in, uh, in my area of Cincinnati. Um, his name's, uh, corey Woodruff, but he's a local in Nashville, I believe, and, uh, you know, that's apparently what he's been doing. I didn't know about it until fairly recently, but, yeah, yeah, yeah it's cool they can go on there.
Speaker 1:I think the conservatives are pretty hush-hush. They're very conservative. About what conservative things they?
Speaker 2:do. It's kind of in the word conservative, you know, just conserve the attention, the verbiage.
Speaker 1:Then, yeah, it's kind of in the temperament yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm hip with it. So, yeah, uh, I, I like, I, I, I dig it whenever I, I find out what people really do for a living. Uh, you know, I don't care if you're a chimney sweep or or whatever you know, you just get into conversation with somebody to go, oh well, I, I work for a daily wire or I, um, whatever, you know, I just find it fascinating. I could, I will sit back and just talk to anybody and just get to know people and just have a conversation with them, whether it's a wedding client, or if it's an actor, or, you know, the writer of the film or a producer or something, and you just sit back, maybe have some whiskey and you just kind of go, so what's up? And then you just kind of get into this vibe and then later on, uh, if they're an actor, I'm lighting them or directing them or whatever, and I'm like you know what, you know what, you know what, you put a little light right here just for you. You know, just because, just because I like you, let me do a little, let me do a little bit more.
Speaker 1:You know, now, I, I like, I've always, i've've always used I forget his name now, but the gentleman who shot Superman and the last great train robbery and all that stuff his old school British cinematographer, jeffrey Unsworth. So he was lighting this film. I was watching the documentary behind the scenes of, and they were talking about him lighting Margot Kidder in Superman and he was, you know, hold on, wait a minute. You're like hey, it's going to be a little extra. He's like hold on. He's like hold on, I'm lighting the lady, just give me an extra minute lighting the lady.
Speaker 1:And so I've used that a couple times when I'm trying to give a little bit, a little bit more effervescence on a lady actor, more beauty, light lighting the lady. Just give me a, give me a moment, get my light meter out. You know taking it, taking it seriously, and so you know I always go a little extra step for for the, for the women, and then for the guys. I kind of do the opposite and I kind of go okay, well, here's, here's the wrinkles, and we, we like the wrinkles, we like the way the shadows go across, and you know so you always try to to light them.
Speaker 1:you know, appropriately, but also in a way that, um and then, if you watch killin jim kelly, whenever we see the bad guys, I always try to not light their faces, I always try to keep the light off their face. So when they were in a hat and the shadows going across, there's just a little glimmer of catch light, but they're mostly in shadow because they're the bad guys, they're dark, and so there's the good guy standing there and he's got a little side light hitting him and you know, you can see, you know up past the brim. You know it's all, it's all on purpose, you know. But but again, you know, you, I, I get to control where the light is, so I don't just show up and point the camera where it needs to be. I get to play God and move the light around, which is cool, and especially when I get to do little cute things like don't put any light in the bad guy's face, put beauty light in the love interest face. Oh, it's a little girl, but it's a scary scene.
Speaker 1:There's a snake, so you deal with it. Oh, the snake that, okay, remember the snake. So in killing jim kelly there's a rattlesnake that uh does some uh things that uh move the story along. Um, so we were given this rattlesnake and the handler is there and I get this long lens so I don't need to be anywhere near the snake and uh, I'm, I'm zoomed in on the snake and he got, he has the snake in this thing and he's like rattling the snake around. He's like, oh god, this snake's gonna be pissed off, it's gonna, it's gonna be like and uh, it was the sweetest, most docile, gentlest, quietest rattlesnake that you've ever seen. We needed it to. I was, I wanted to go at the camera.
Speaker 2:I was trying to figure out how to piss it off in the middle of texas in the heat of the sun it wouldn't.
Speaker 1:It wouldn't do it and we had everybody, everybody was a mile away, you know, just in, you know, and eventually got to the point where I just like got the camera up, like really close to the snake to try to get it to lunge, and it wasn't doing that. It wanted to hug more than it wanted to kill us, and it was. It was not giving us. I was very happy with the snake on a personal level, but on a filmmaker level.
Speaker 1:I really need to try to kill me, but on a filmmaker level, I really need it to try to kill me, and so I remember that, taking way too long and just trying to get these like three seconds of a shot of a snake, and then we eventually, eventually just coiled up and went, you know, behind a bush, you know where a tree is and everything. That's what we needed it to do, but we never got it to. We never got that shot, and that that's the one thing that irritates me is that we never got it to. We never got that shot, and that that's the one thing that irritates me is that we never got. You know when the rattlesnake is supposed to bite this person, but that's okay, I got to shoot a rattlesnake in the middle of Texas in the heat for a movie, so Well, Jason, it's been great talking to you and getting to hear your thoughts and getting to know you.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you coming on. Hey, my pleasure. Do you have any final thoughts? You want to leave with the audience Words of wisdom philosophical quotes.
Speaker 1:Treat everyone like you want to be treated. You know, don't be afraid to say no if it doesn't feel right. Always go with your gut. This is one of the only industries besides soldiering. You know. This kind of world is one where, if your gut doesn't feel right, you know, say no or say yes, and don't be afraid to ask questions of yourself as an artist, as a leader. Why, why is this happening? Because you already have the how and the what. Why is this happening? Because you already have the how and the what. We've already got the when and the where. Give yourself that moment to realize your motivation and don't be afraid to ask why. Whenever you're doing stuff, even if it only takes a second to figure out, don't be afraid to challenge yourself and go beyond what other people are probably expecting you to do and then surprise them. Like what General Patton said never tell people what to do, tell them what's expected and then be surprised by their ingenuity. And I think that's a great place to be.
Speaker 2:Well said, well said, thanks again.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you, thank you, thank you, I'm sorry.