The Cinematography Podcast

Cinematographer Eric Branco discovered early on that he enjoyed translating people's stories into visuals. Eric started out as an actor in high school, but quickly realized no one had any interest in holding the camera except himself. While in film school, he developed an eye and shot several student projects, then found work on film sets in New York as a grip and gaffer while shooting short films on the side. Eric's latest film, The 40-Year-Old Version was shot almost entirely on black and white film stock. Director Radha Blank was very firm that the movie be black and white- in fact, when Eric received the script, it read “A New York tale in black and white.” So Eric came with a suitcase full of black and white photo books of New York when he and Radha met, which helped them arrive at The 40-Year-Old Version's look: a matte texture with a prominent grain. Eric ran several tests to find the perfect film stock for the movie, and shot it handheld with vintage lenses. The movie is a funny, semi-autobiographical story starring Blank as a struggling, almost-40 playwright who is determined not to sell out or compromise her artistic principles and reinvigorates her creativity by becoming a hip-hop artist. The 40-Year-Old Version won the U.S Dramatic Competition Directing Award for Blank at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020. For Eric, it was the third film he'd shot to go to Sundance in as many years. He felt honored to be the cinematographer of Clemency, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2019. Written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu, Clemency took a long time to get off the ground before Alfre Woodard was cast in the lead role. You can watch The 40-Year-Old Version streaming on Netflix. Find Eric Branco: https://ericbrancodp.com/ Instagram: @ericbranco Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com IT'S A BOOK GIVEAWAY! Enter to win the Video Palace book- Video Palace: In Search of the Eyeless Man Collected Stories- signed by our host, Ben Rock, who also authored one of the stories! The book expands the world of the Video Palace podcast that Ben directed for Shudder. http://videopalace.shudder.com/ TO WIN: SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel, LIKE and COMMENT on the "How To Vote" breakdown we just posted! We will randomly select a winner from the comments. We're expanding and adding to our YouTube channel, so look for new content there, too! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQIhe3yjQJG72EjZJBRI1w Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep95/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Special: The Cinematography Podcast- War Stories Vol. 4 In our fourth War Stories Special, we feature eleven guest's harrowing, hilarious or heartwarming stories they had while on set, or a formative career experience that led them to cinematography. Find full interviews with each of our featured cinematographers in our archives! Cinematographer Quyen Tran on her life-changing experience after 9/11 in New York; Mike Figgis and a nearly disastrous screening of Timecode; Dan Laustsen tells the story of how his sister influenced him to go to film school; Abe Martinez serendipitously found the perfect house while staying in Kenya; Bill Wages was dissuaded early on from becoming a National Geographic Magazine photographer; Larry Fong talks about getting his big break with JJ Abrams on Lost; Vanja Černjul on his secret to decompressing after wrapping on a big shoot; Rachel Morrison's story of making a huge mistake as a set P.A. with Matty Libatique; Linus Sandgren on his early days working as a gaffer with a seasoned electrician; Stefan Ciupek talks about the blooper in the single-take film, Russian Ark; and finally, Matty Libatique on getting real concert footage for A Star Is Born. Do you have a War Story you'd like to share? Send us an email or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/warstories4/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

When Rodrigo Prieto meets with a director, he comes with a clean slate and a present state of mind to hear their vision. Rodrigo first met Julie Taymor in New York to talk about filming Frida. He had just finished shooting Amores Perros with director Alejandro González Iñárritu and decided to move to Los Angeles from Mexico City. For Rodrigo, Frida Kahlo's work was very influential, and he was eager to work on a film about her life. He found that Julie Taymor loves collaborating with her team on her movies and is open to other's input, but knows what she wants and pushes for it. Working with a theatrical director means her ideas tend to be more representative and symbolic, rather than the naturalistic realism seen in most movies. For The Glorias, Rodrigo and Julie had to determine how realistically they wanted to portray some of the events in Gloria Steinem's life. In one scene, Rodrigo and the crew had to recreate the tornado from The Wizard of Oz, with the four Glorias as the witches on brooms. The crew built a 70's era TV studio, rigged lights and a green screen with a camera on a crane and the actresses on wires on brooms. They also decided early on to shoot the bus scenes in black and white, with color sequences showing outside the windows. You can watch The Glorias streaming on Amazon Prime. A new color timed version of Amores Perros will be coming out from Criterion Collection. Find Rodrigo Prieto, Instagram: @rpstam Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep94/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

The incredibly talented Julie Taymor is nearly an EGOT- she's won an Emmy, a Grammy, multiple Tony awards, and was Oscar-nominated for her work. She is a playwright, director, songwriter, and costume designer for both the stage and film. Julie is a rare thing- a theater director who can also helm amazing films. She thinks this is because most theater directors are really not very visual- they focus more on acting and dialog. When directing her films, Julie feels it's important to be selective and understand what you can achieve with a camera such as with lenses and lighting, vs. what can be done on a stage like The Lion King with giant set pieces, puppets, props and costumes. Julie's latest film, The Glorias, is a biopic about women's rights activist and feminist icon, Gloria Steinem. Julie worked with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and many visual effects artists to create several surrealist fantasy sequences in The Glorias. The film has a very imaginative and creative way of telling Gloria's story, through multiple actors playing Steinem at different ages, who speak and interact with each other. In some scenes, the Glorias ride a Greyhound bus together to depict Steinem's interior landscape through the stages of her life. Julie decided to use several different color motifs, working with red shoes as a wardrobe choice and sometimes black and white to help get her themes across. She took a similar approach in the film Frida, which used vibrant colors and specific materials such as chrome and steel to depict the different locations where Frida Kahlo traveled and worked. You can watch The Glorias streaming on Amazon Prime September 30. Find Julie Taymor: http://grandlarge.tv/directors/julie-taymor/ Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep93/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com WIN a Sony A7SIII, Gitzo tripod and $100 Hot Rod Cameras gift card! Worth over $4,000, for one lucky winner! Follow us on Instagram @thecinepod and click on the link in bio to enter by September 29, 2020. Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Ben Kutchins feels that in filmmaking, you have to be fully committed to believing the story you're telling, and your focus must be unwavering when shooting. There is no other story happening in the world other than the story you're telling. This single-mindedness has served Ben well when shooting the series Ozark for Netflix, which is shot with very controlled light sources and camera movements. Every scene in the show is planned out carefully to reveal more about the story or the character. He and director/producer Jason Bateman wanted it to always look dark and shadowy, and many of the shots in the show are done as “oners,” or one long take. It might take seven to ten takes to get the oner, depending on how intricate it is. Before Ozark, Ben started off exploring still photography as a teen, then landed an internship at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), which led to a production assistant job at ILM. He had the opportunity to use the lab at Lucasfilm to experiment and process film to understand how it could look. But Ben knew his passion was film, so he enrolled at NYU Film School in order to learn more and work with other young filmmakers such as Rachel Morrison and Reed Morano. He shot about 60 short films in two years, then worked on several indie films before getting hired to shoot the Veronica Mars movie and then the Amazon series, Mozart in the Jungle. Shooting Mozart in the Jungle gave Ben the opportunity to work with and learn from very seasoned directors. He thinks working in television has been an amazing opportunity to collaborate with other DPs and that television has helped him develop a style and hone his craft. You can find Ozark season three streaming on Netflix. Find Ben Kutchins: http://www.benkutchins.com/ Instagram: @benkutchins Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep92/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com WIN a Sony A7SIII, Gitzo tripod and $100 Hot Rod Cameras gift card! Worth over $4,000, for one lucky winner! Follow us on Instagram @thecinepod and click on the link in bio to enter by September 29, 2020. Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Armando Salas, ASC was recently nominated for an Emmy for his work on Ozark season three. Ozark is intentionally lit and shot to be very blue and very dark, because all the characters are in the shadows, desperately hiding and scrambling to avoid exposure. Armando began working on Ozark during season two and was already a fan of the show. He worked closely with director and actor Jason Bateman and the other DP on the series, Ben Kutchins. On season three, Armando shot the last four episodes with director Alik Sakharov. (Find our interview with Alik Sakharov here.) This four hour block of the show was a lot like shooting a film, and required him to refer to a detailed shot list, make many notes and continuously refer back to the script. As a kid, Armando grew up in Miami and was drawn to cinematography as a teenager, when he started shooting skateboarding videos. He studied fine arts and did a graduate program for film school, starting off his career as a gaffer before transitioning fully into cinematography. Armando shot several indie features and worked on a few films in China before landing his first episodic show, From Dusk Till Dawn, based on the film by Robert Rodriguez. For the Stephen King series Mr. Mercedes, Armando had the opportunity to create the look of the show, traveling to locations and deciding how to shoot it. The show quickly transitions from from loose and handheld at first, to very smooth and formal framing once the vehicle arrives on the scene. On the CBS show Strange Angel, Armando shot the second season. In this case, the whole look of the show was meant to feel different from the first season, with different cameras, lenses, and lighting. You can find Ozark season three streaming on Netflix. Find Armando Salas: https://www.salasfilm.com/ Instagram: @cinesalas Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep91/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com WIN a Sony A7SIII, Gitzo tripod and $100 Hot Rod Cameras gift card! Worth over $4,000, for one lucky winner! Follow us on Instagram @thecinepod and click on the link in bio to enter by September 29, 2020. Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Mandy Walker believes that her job as a cinematographer is not just to make pretty pictures, but to enhance an emotion with lenses, camera placement and lighting. She works on a gut and emotional level for films, getting across the feelings of the characters- a DP's arsenal of tricks should only help convey what's going on in the scene. For Mulan, Mandy and director Nikki Caro wanted to take a different approach from the Disney animated version, and were free to interpret the film as they wished. Mandy watched several Chinese action films such as House of Flying Daggers and went on location scouting trips to China to find the look and inspiration for the film. Mandy grew up in Australia and always loved photography, film and art, so she felt a passion to become a cinematographer right from the beginning. She skipped film school and began as a production assistant and loader in Australia, learning as she went on films such as Lantana, which was shot using almost only available light. Shattered Glass, which tells the true story of a journalist who made up the majority of his articles, was her first American film. Working with Baz Luhrmann on Australia was a huge jump into bigger budget movies, and she learned how to organize and delegate an entire camera department with multiple cameras. For the film Hidden Figures, Mandy worked closely with the costume designer and makeup artists to ensure that how the characters were dressed and what they looked like matched the feel of what each scene is meant to convey. She watched a lot of archival footage from NASA, some of which was used in the film, and was thrilled to meet Katherine Johnson, one of the real-life subjects of the film. Mandy Walker is currently working with director Baz Luhrmann again on a forthcoming biography film about Elvis Presley. See Mulan on Disney Plus Find Mandy Walker: https://www.mandywalkerdp.com/ Instagram: @mandywalkerdp Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep90/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com WIN a Sony A7SIII, Gitzo tripod and $100 Hot Rod Cameras gift card! Worth over $4,000, for one lucky winner! Follow us on Instagram @thecinepod and click on the link in bio to enter by September 29, 2020. Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Jas Shelton's career has spanned nearly every genre, from comedy to horror and suspense. Jas grew up in East Texas and attended the University of Texas in Austin. He had difficulty getting into the film program, so he started shooting music videos for bands, then began shooting student films. Austin was a hub for fairly large films at the time, where Jas found work as a gaffer or on second unit, including Miss Congeniality, Varsity Blues, and The Ladykillers. When he and director Kyle Alvarez began planning for the second season of Homecoming on Amazon, they chose to use a different color palette from season one, with darker, moodier looks for the flashback sequences vs. the present day. They were influenced by the look of 70's movies and Brian DePalma films, with slow push-in zooms on the characters, several split-screen sequences and off-center framing. Jas shot all seven episodes of the series, and has received an Emmy nomination for his work. Jas had also worked with Kyle Alvarez on The Stanford Prison Experiment, which was another challenging project since most of it was shot on a white laboratory set, but careful use of close-ups and shadow helped bring more depth to the film. Jas's tight camerawork and careful planning for Homecoming was a much different approach from Jas's previous work with the Duplass brothers on the series Togetherness, The Do-Deca-Pentathalon and Cyrus. Mark and Jay Duplass favor a rough, homemade, documentary style, with lots of improvisation, so scenes often began with close ups on long lenses, with wider shots at the end. For the film Keanu, Jas's experience with more improvisational filmmaking was useful, since Jordan Peele would often rewrite scenes right before shooting. See Homecoming season 2 on Amazon Prime Find Jas Shelton: https://www.jasshelton.com/ Instagram: @jasshelton Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep89/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Paul Cameron, ASC got his start guerilla-shooting live music with borrowed equipment from film school. Starting off in the budding world of music videos and fast-paced commercials creatively prepared Paul for the action/thriller genre. Paul met cinematographer-turned-director Dominic Sena, who gave him the opportunity to shoot Paul's first feature, Gone in 60 Seconds. They were able to collaborate and communicate with a shared visual language. Later, Paul's work on the film Man on Fire with director Tony Scott allowed him to really hone his look. Though he prefers to use film cameras, Paul had the opportunity to shoot Michael Mann's Collateral with digital cameras, one of the first major films to use the technology. Jonathan Nolan, the director and producer of the HBO series, Westworld, asked Paul to shoot the pilot before there was even a script. They quickly decided to shoot on 35 mm to capture the grand scale of the western landscape. For season three of Westworld, Paul was the director of photography for the first episode, and has earned an Emmy nomination for his work. He also had the opportunity to direct episode four of the series for the very first time and really enjoyed it. Westworld will return for Season 4. Find Paul Cameron: https://paulcamerondp.com/ Instagram: @paulcameron_dp See Westworld on HBO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvGE7Cz9VDA Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep88/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer and director Brandon Trost enjoys exploring different genres and styles of filmmaking, trying different things that push him outside of his comfort zone. Brandon grew up around film- he is the fourth generation of his family working in the movie industry. He attended LA Film School and soon began working as a cinematographer. One of Brandon's early films, the action movie Crank: High Voltage, was shot much like a skateboarding video, with several small cameras strategically placed to capture the frenetic pace so that it would feel electric. Brandon loved working with director Rob Zombie on Halloween II, which was shot on 16 mm film for a very grainy and gritty look. Shooting the comedy film MacGruber was Brandon's first experience working in the humor genre. He and director Jorma Taccone wanted it to look like Die Hard, taking all the action movie tropes to an extreme, which is what made it funny rather than choosing to shoot it like a conventional comedy movie. MacGruber helped launch Brandon's career into shooting comedy movies This is the End, The Interview, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Neighbors and The Disaster Artist with Seth Rogan, Andy Sandberg, and James Franco. When shooting with comedians, Brandon found it's important to be prepared for improvisation and to light the space so there's flexibility for the actors to move within it, keeping shots fairly wide. For the films Diary of a Teenage Girl and Can You Ever Forgive Me? Brandon had the opportunity to switch gears again, working with director Marielle Heller. They chose a camera and lenses for Can You Ever Forgive Me? that gave the film a real, naturalistic, even unflattering look to Melissa McCarthy's character. Brandon got to explore dark comedy again in the pilot for the HBO series, Barry. Creators Bill Hader and Alec Berg wanted the violence to feel very real, dark and yet funny, so Brandon chose to treat the pilot like a Coen brothers movie, using moody lighting and shooting with a single camera. An American Pickle is Brandon's first time directing a large feature film. Frequent collaborators Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg asked Brandon to take a look at the script with an eye to directing, and the story appealed to him. Directing An American Pickle was challenging since Seth Rogan plays both main characters. Much of the film had to be shot twice- once with Seth Rogan as the character Herschel and then as the character Ben. Brandon found that choosing a director of photography when you're also a cinematographer can be difficult, and he chose DP John Guleserian (Like Crazy, About Time, Love, Simon, the upcoming Candyman) to shoot the movie because he has a great sense of humor and is very collaborative. Find Brandon Trost: https://www.brandontrost.com/ Twitter: @b_tro See An American Pickle on HBO Max Our interview with DP John Guleserian will be coming in October. Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep87/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz