The film Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is an adaptation of the 1970 Judy Blume book about a pre-teen girl coming of age. Cinematographer Tim Ives, ASC was drawn to working on the film because with three kids, including two daughters, he was interested in opening up the conversation about girls going through puberty and getting their first period. Tim also admired screenwriter and director Kelly Fremon Craig's work on The Edge of Seventeen. Tim had previously shot the series Stranger Things, so he had a comfort and familiarity with kids in their early teens. Tim also appreciated that Kelly Fremon Craig brought so much enthusiasm, love and commitment to the film, and deeply respected the book by Judy Blume. Though the film is set in the 1970's, neither Tim nor Craig wanted Margaret to feel too dusty and faded. They wanted the film to have a nostalgic feel while still seeming contemporary. At first, they had trouble finding just the right look, until Tim showed Craig a book of photographs by Tina Barney. Her photos influenced the look of the movie, with a very amber, Kodak Gold film look. Tim wanted every scene in the movie to feel like it was a snapshot taken from real life. In his work, Tim most enjoys working on stories with flawed characters with hopes of redemption. He first broke into narrative storytelling through the HBO series Girls, then went on to shoot the pilot for Mr. Robot and several seasons of Stranger Things. Tim enjoyed working on Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret because he likes the timeframe of film, where it's working on one thing for about half a year, with one singular vision from one director. In series television, it usually means working intensely on one thing for almost a year, with a few different directors. Tim Ives' latest project, Love & Death, another period piece set in 1980, is currently on Max. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is currently available on VOD or DVD. Find Tim Ives: https://www.timives.com/ Instagram: @timives Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Robert Yeoman has been a consistent collaborator with director Wes Anderson since the 1990's. Together, Bob and Anderson have crafted a signature visual style that combines meticulous set design, vibrant color palettes, and symmetrical framing. Each frame feels like a carefully composed painting, with every detail thoughtfully arranged to enhance the overall narrative. Bob's latest collaboration with Anderson is the film Asteroid City and a series of short films adapted from the writings of Roald Dahl. Bob was the DP for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Rat Catcher and Poison. Both the film Asteroid City and the Roald Dahl shorts feature the actors speaking directly to the camera as in a stage play, and props and sets pieces are obviously moved in and out of frame. For the Dahl short films, most of the script is taken directly from Dahl's writing, with the actors reciting the story to the audience. They shot all of the short films in England on two stages right next to each other. While the crew was shooting on one stage, the art department designed and built the stage next to it. Anderson's pre-production process includes the creation of animatics to plan and visualize scenes before shooting begins. An animatic is a series of storyboard images edited together to give a rough preview of the film's pacing and visual composition. Once the animatic is complete, everyone on the creative team is on the same page regarding the visual and narrative direction of the film. The art department then takes the animatic and turns it into a physical space. Since Anderson is so specific about how he wants his compositions to look, Bob usually uses a camera on a dolly track- a steadicam or a technocrane can't get the same level of precision. They imported a special dolly track from Paris for shooting the Roald Dahl shorts. Because of the size of the track, some of the sets that had to slide open and closed were built so that they were slightly elevated from the floor. To accommodate the dolly, all of the lights had to be placed in the ceiling and were operated from a main control board. There were many rehearsals with the art and props department to get the set and prop movements right. The actors knew exactly where to position themselves in the scene just from the detailed animatics. The film Asteroid City explores themes of grief, melancholy and disconnection. It melds together two very distinctive looks- the format of a black and white 1950's era TV documentary in 4:3 aspect ratio about a play, “Asteriod City,” which is then intercut with the staging of “Asteroid City” in a sunny desert town, shot in widescreen with bright pastel colors and lighting. The town set was built from scratch, in a desert in Spain. To create the look, they chose to shoot on film, and Bob tested several different film stocks. He embraced the harsh, high contrast desert light as a character in the movie, even though it went against his instincts as a cinematographer. They made the pastel colors pop in the DI (digital intermediate), and gave it more of a low-contrast look. Though it was shot on a set, Anderson didn't want to use any movie lights on Asteroid City. Instead, skylights were built into each of the buildings such as the diner and the motel office. The skylights were then covered with very thick diffusion so that the light was very soft and even. Under the desert sun, bounce cards and the occasional silk was used to throw more light on the actor's faces. By contrast, they used a very complex theatrical lighting setup when shooting the black and white sequences. They used a lot of harder lights on dimmers, and shot on black and white film. Bob finds that the less gear you have on a set coming between the actors and the director, the more intimate the experience. There's always a huge crew for making Anderson's films, but while shooting a scene, there are only about 10 people present.

With the passing of director and cinematographer John Bailey, ASC, we are re-releasing our 2021 interview with him. He discusses his work on the film, Groundhog Day, and briefly touched on his other work. The screenplay is the most important part of a film, John believes. It can be a leap of faith to work with a first time director, when they don't have a body of work, so a good script is always a solid starting point. As the DP of Ordinary People, John noticed the craftsmanship of that particular screenplay, which was carefully written and structured for several years by screenwriter Alvin Sargent and first-time director Robert Redford. He knew right away it would become a meaningful and important film. Both Sargent and Redford won Academy Awards for their work as screenwriter and director, respectively, and Ordinary People won the Best Picture Oscar. Groundhog Day grabbed John immediately as an interesting and offbeat idea for a film, but no one guessed that it would actually become part of the film canon and popular culture. To this day, John is surprised when people tell him how much they like that film and how much it has touched people. The movie famously had its own chaos, since star Bill Murray and director Harold Ramis had a very combative relationship on set. John spent two years as the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His passion was in furthering the Academy Film Archive, the Margaret Herrick Library, and other AMPAS charitable projects. He became frustrated with the industry's focus on the Academy's role in the Oscars and how much punditry went into how to fix the awards process. John was a veteran cinematographer who has left us with a huge amount of notable films, including “The Big Chill,” “As Good as it Gets,” “In the Line of Fire” and “The Accidental Tourist.” He will be missed. Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast

The Holdovers is set in the early 1970's at a New England boarding school where a few students have to stay on campus over the winter holidays. Cranky ancient history teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) has to stay and supervise. Slowly, the curmudgeonly teacher, the school's head cook Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), and the one remaining student, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), form a family-like bond. Eigil Bryld is an accomplished Danish cinematographer, known for his work on In Bruges, House of Cards, Ocean's 8 and much more. He thinks of cinematography as a kind of performance art. Making a movie means working with different people across departments who have complex and artistic personalities, and interacting with actors who are responsible for playing different characters. All these human elements of a movie must then be orchestrated in the best possible way and captured on film at one single point in time. Eigil found it a true delight to work with director Alexander Payne on The Holdovers. Payne has a great sense of humor and is genuinely interested in people and their lives, which is always a thread in his movies. Eigil had known Payne for a few years, but this was the first movie they have worked on together. He loved the script and found himself laughing out loud several times, while also finding the characters rich and poignant. The Holdovers is a 1970s period film, so Eigil and Payne had lengthy discussions of how it should look. Eigil referenced films from the early '70s, such as the Hal Ashby movies The Last Detail and The Landlord. “The problem was that everyone has an idea or recollection of what the '70s looked like, but that's probably very far from what movies ACTUALLY looked like back then,” Eigil says. “One of the things we tend to forget in the '70s, they would do everything to avoid grain. I mean, it's ironic nowadays, everybody's fighting to have grainy images. Back then they would fight to have the best possible lenses and now there's this gold rush for old lenses with lots of mistakes and half of it is not really in focus.” He and Payne went through a testing process to find the right 1970's look. At first, Eigil tested period lenses and cameras, but realized it was more about capturing the spirit of the time- early '70s mid-budget movies had a kind of freedom to them, using lots of handheld shots and mostly available light. He tested 16 and 35mm cameras, but ended up shooting digital on an ARRI Alexa Mini and worked with the colorist to create a LUT with lots of yellow tonality in the highlights. Eigil shot The Holdovers with just one camera, and was also the sole operator. Camera placement was very important, with many of the shots in the movie framed portrait-style. The Holdovers is currently in theaters. Find Eigil Bryld: https://www.eigilbryld.com/ Instagram @eigilbryld Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

The Pigeon Tunnel is director Errol Morris' latest documentary about David Cornwell, otherwise known as the author John le Carré, who wrote several best-selling spy novels after serving as a spy himself. Cinematographer Igor Martinović explores the nature of deception visually in the film, using multiple mirrors and reflections of Cornwell as he's being interviewed. For The Pigeon Tunnel, Igor wanted to create a visual story that enhances the story Cornwell tells about his life, adding another layer that the viewer might not notice right away. They used four cameras to shoot the interviews, and 12 mirrors to reflect Cornwell in different parts of the room. Igor liked the idea of a spy's multiple personas represented by multiplying images. It was tricky to shoot with so many mirrors reflecting the cameras and lights, so for some shots, the equipment had to be erased in post. Igor also used mirrors in some b-roll shots, as Cornwell walks though the forest between the mirrors. For the re-creations dealing with Cornwell's troubled childhood, Igor played around with some surrealist composition and kept the frame imbalanced, to represent the unstable conditions that he grew up in. Igor has worked on several commercials, documentary features and documentary series with director Errol Morris. With his 1988 film, The Thin Blue Line, Morris changed how documentaries were made. His approach to documentary filmmaking is something he describes as “anti-verité.” Even though his films are non-fiction, Morris always approaches each one as a filmed story, using composed interviews with the subject speaking directly to the camera, and creating artful reenactments. As a cinematographer, Igor was a long admirer of Morris' work. When shooting the documentary Man on Wire,  Igor watched The Thin Blue Line as a reference, and it inspired some scenes in the film. He's enjoyed being able to work with Morris now. In 2011, Igor shot a horror movie, Silent House, that was almost entirely filmed in one take. It was actually about 15 total shots, limited mainly by the amount of space they had on each memory card. He found it to be an interesting challenge, as if they were filming a dance or a play. They were able to accomplish the long takes through extensive rehearsals and improved the performances each time. The Pigeon Tunnel is currently on Apple TV+. Find Igor Martinovic: https://igormartinovic.com/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Steve Cosens, CSC first met actor and director Ethan Hawke on the movie Born to Be Blue, a biographical re-imagining of the life of Chet Baker. Ethan played Chet Baker, and he and Steve connected over their similar film tastes. A few years later, Hawke called Steve to shoot Blaze, a film he was directing. Blaze is a semi-biographical imagining of the life of Texas songwriting legend Blaze Foley. While Ethan Hawke is drawn to directing films based on real people, the idea to make Wildcat came from his daughter, actor Maya Hawke, who is a huge fan of Flannery O'Connor's work. Though Wildcat is based on writer Flannery O'Connor's life, it also interweaves her short stories into the plot as she goes through the process of publishing her first novel, Wise Blood in 1952. Steve was unfamiliar with the writer, so he read her short stories and was blown away. For that time, it was unusual for a woman to write darkly humorous and disturbing stories. Hawke proposed they shoot in Kentucky, and sent Steve videos of a few location scouts. They both liked the idea of O'Connor's fictional short stories overlapping into the story of her real life, weaving together fact and fiction. Both Maya Hawke and Laura Linney play multiple roles and characters, adding to the layers of story within story. Steve decided to keep the camera locked off and more controlled for the sections dealing with O'Connor's real life. He contrasted that by shooting the fictional stories handheld. In post, he played a little bit with the contrast and color of the stories, but the color palette remains a consistent cool blue and green. Wildcat is a small independent film with a tight budget, so shooting for the 1950's presented a bit of a challenge. On location in Kentucky, the production crew needed to find the right period buildings and houses, and Steve was limited by what direction he could shoot to keep anything modern out of frame. They had a script and extensively location scouted, so that they knew what the shot and light limitations would be. But once shooting began, Hawke could keep it loose so that the actors were able to explore more with their characters within the scene. Steve really enjoys working with Hawke because he's a confident director who is not afraid to take chances or change the plan if necessary. As a DP, he finds it freeing, since many directors get locked into the script or the shotlist, and they can't see that there might be another way to be creative. Once he graduated art school in Vancouver, Canada, Steve got his start shooting the music video backgrounds for karaoke songs that were then sent to Hong Kong. The job required him to shoot two videos per day, without being able to scout locations ahead of time. It taught him to be flexible and adapt to the different locations that they would go. It also taught him to light quickly and in many different situations. Wildcat recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and is seeking distribution. Find Steve Cosens: https://www.stevecosens.com/ Instagram: @cosenssteve Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com Sponsored by Aputure: https://www.aputure.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Cinematographer Eric Steelberg, ASC has always loved movies, which is what led him to a career as a director of photography. He tries to find compelling film and television projects, putting his own stamp on the story's visuals. Back in 2006, Eric was at the beginning of his career as a DP when he shot the small independent film, Quinceañera which won both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury prize at Sundance that year. It was shot in HD, which was very new technology at the time, especially for smaller films. After Quinceañera, Eric's career began to take off. He'd been a frequent collaborator with director Jason Reitman, whom he met shooting commercials and smaller projects, but not films. Working on Quinceañera gave Eric more credibility as a DP, so Reitman asked him to shoot his next film, Juno. At first it was an uphill battle to get Juno's financiers, Fox Searchlight, to sign off on Eric, because they didn't see him as experienced enough for the job. But Reitman fought for him, and it led to a long relationship with Eric as Reitman's director of photography for Juno, Up in the Air, Young Adult, Labor Day, Men, Women & Children, Tully, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Eric never dreamed he'd start at Juno and end up working on the Disney + Star Wars series, Ahsoka. Eric and director of photography Quyen Tran, ASC split cinematography duties. He began prepping the show with executive producer/showrunner Dave Filoni, frequently touching base with Q since she wasn't able to come on set until later. Both Eric and Q have similar approaches to lighting and composition, and Eric feels it was the best version of a two DP collaboration that there could be. One of the biggest successes of their working relationship was doing their camera testing together and knowing they were aligned with the cameras, lenses and lighting for the show. As a Star Wars fan, Eric was familiar with the source material and he felt so much joy working on a piece of the saga. He had never done a show shot on volume and blue screen stages, and Eric saw it as an opportunity to learn something new. As a DP, he feels his biggest job is listening, looking and paying attention to what the director and the rest of the team wants to see on the screen. Developing the look of Ahsoka began with the art department's concept art for the show, but there was lots of room for creativity as the characters travel to different planets. Eric found Ahsoka to be by far the HARDEST show he has ever worked on, but he also feels extremely proud of his work. Ahsoka is currently on Disney+. Find Eric Steelberg: http://www.ericsteelberg.com/ Instagram: @ericsteelberg Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Two cinematographers, Greg Fraser and Orin Sofer, collaborated on the sci-fi movie 'The Creator'. They discuss the challenges and benefits of working together. The podcast also covers Taylor Swift's upcoming concert movie, choosing the right filmmaking tools, innovative techniques, VFX technology, and film set safety.

Cinematographer Mark Patten, BSC's most recent project, Silo, is a post-apocalyptic science fiction drama that's been a huge success for AppleTV+. The thousands of people who live in the silo don't know why the silo exists, who built it, or why the world outside is uninhabitable. Citizens who express a desire to go outside, or are convicted of a crime, are sent outside to “clean” the cameras and never survive. After being recruited as the new silo sheriff, engineer Juliette starts to uncover shocking secrets and the truth about the silo. Silo was shot in Essex, England in a huge former cold storage facility. The set had to be completely built out, retrofitting the space into a working film stage. Lighting rigs were hung even before the sets were built so that the set building and production design crew could see in such a huge dark space. The production crew built three working levels of the actual silo set, complete with the spiral staircase. Mark found the richness of the set decoration created a lived-in, worn down place that made the silo itself seem like a character. Everything is very analog or “lo-fi sci-fi” in this dystopian world. It was interesting to think about how society would act together, in a closed vessel, and maintain their sanity in a locked in culture, especially after just coming out of the pandemic. Mark thought of the Silo as a slow ship moving through time, and it felt like shooting a submarine film. The central staircase acts as a helix through the society of the silo, and Juliette is climbing her way up through the layers of it to solve a mystery. Mark worked alongside production designer Gavin Bocquet to visualize the Silo's society, honing in and letting the visuals sing. He decided to subtly use different color palettes for each level. It was a great way to add texture to the images, with the mechanical level becoming very desaturated, except for some touches of bright yellow and orange glow from the heat of the power generators. Since the silo is a mile down into the ground, there is no natural light at all, and Mark needed to figure out what would motivate the light all the way at the bottom. He decided the lighting in the top of the silo would be strongest, and the light would filter down from there. Practical lights were built in everywhere throughout the set and as characters descend to the lowest level of mechanical, the practical lights are the only source. Since every light source was designed and built in, there was no hard light anywhere to manipulate, so for Mark it was an exercise in restraint manipulating reflective light. Mark recently finished shooting Season 2 of Andor on Disney+. Silo is available to stream on AppleTV+. Find Mark Patten: https://www.markpatten.tv/ Instagram: @kiesh Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Director and writer Ben Ketai's latest movie, River Wild, is a thriller inspired by the original 90's movie The River Wild, but with a reimagined plot. In River Wild, a group of friends take a white water rafting trip that becomes a desperate fight for survival as they get caught in serious rapids. Things only get worse once they realize that one of their friends has a dangerous and violent past. River Wild was shot in Eastern Europe in just 25 days with the added burdens of water, kids, and animals thrown in. With such stunt-heavy scenes, Ben worked with stunt coordinators and experienced river rafting guides to carefully storyboard the white water rafting sequences. The rapids in the movie really exist, and professional rafters practiced for weeks to know exactly where and how to shoot the sequences on the river. Ben had to make sure that the water scenes looked amazing, and he wanted to capture the power of the water as a raft is sucked through it. Fortunately, he had a long prep period with the cast and came up with an efficient coverage strategy for each scene. For the closer scenes with actors on the rafts, the production was able to use a special Olympic kayak training facility, where the water was shallow and could be turned on and off. As a Netflix movie, Ben knew River Wild was set to go straight to streaming on the platform. Though there was no big marketing push, it crept up to number three and stayed in the top 10 for over a month, and River Wild became the third most watched movie on Netflix in August. Ben says he doesn't mind making movies that go straight to streaming- he likes the idea that more people can actually watch things there. His show, Startup, also spread and charted well on Netflix. Ben and Ben Rock worked together on a series for Crackle called Chosen that was shot in 22 days for six 30-minute episodes. Both Bens fondly remember it as a lot of fun, and Ben Ketai thinks the challenge of a short time period and less money keeps you on your toes and forces you to be creative. On Chosen, he had the opportunity to make mistakes- with less money, there's also not a lot of people standing in your way. Growing up, Ben always wanted to make movies as a career and would use his dad's video camera to make movies with his friends. As soon as he graduated from college, Ben moved to L.A. Luckily, his mom casually knew director Sam Raimi's mother, and she was able to give him Raimi's contact info. Raimi was just starting Spiderman 3, so Ben was able to get a job as an office PA for Ghost House Pictures. After working at the production company and scriptwriting for a few years, they asked him to direct his first movie, 30 Days of Night- Dark Days. River Wild is available to stream on Netflix. Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz