How to ACTUALLY go Fulltime as a Filmmaker ft. Gian Carlo Stigliano

28:42besides the camera what makes a dp hireable and what separates a dp from someone who is really good at what they do versus someone who's consistently booked

29:02i i think there's like a bunch of different reasons but what comes to mind initially

29:09Giancarlo Stigliano:is sort of just who you are as a human being first. Because when you're on set, you're shooting for 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day. And if you're not a nice person, if you are aggressive, if you're mean, if you're condescending, that really makes a lasting impact on how people perceive you and how people remember you. And you could light the best scene in the world. It could be the most beautiful looking painting ever. But if you were yelling at people, if you were condescending, to me, that doesn't leave a mark of a great DP. What marks a great DP for me and what leaves a lasting impression, not only for your crew, but production, the producers, the director, is are you able to get the job done?

30:04Giancarlo Stigliano:Are you able to do the job well? Are you able to exceed in expectations from the visual perspective? Are you able to deliver on what they hired you for? Are you able to manage a crew in a way that is respectable, in a way that requires respect and enthusiasm and kindness? Are you able to listen to a director, hear their vision, understand what they want, be able to provide alternatives, better ideas, execute their vision? Are you able to discuss with producers budget? Are you able to live within their budget? Are you able to move money around to make the budget work for the lighting department, the camera department?

30:43Giancarlo Stigliano:Are you generous? Like sometimes I have extra money sometimes from production and I will give it to a different department. And instead of using it all for myself because I could sometimes giving it away to other departments is equally as beneficial. And that pretty much just shows that you're a team player and you are there for the project and not for your own ego. I think all of these aspects combined are what really make a good memorable and horrible DP time to time again. You mentioned someone earlier who we've also had on the pod, Danny. And you talk about being an intern for him. I believe you were his first ever intern.

31:20And then you turn. Yeah, you were the OG, true OG. And then you turn around years later and you DP a feature film that we loved. We got to see it in person. We didn't get to meet you when we were there that night, but we loved the film. It was fantastic. It was such a fun experience to go in person and see a movie that someone that we had watched on YouTube ended up creating. And it was such a cool experience to be there live. Had you ever done something that was that long? And what was that process like going from a 30-second, 60-second commercial to I'm living in this pre-production book that's 500 slides.

31:59I'm making stuff up, but I'm just curious what that different jump was like for you. And I also know you also came on a few days later. They had a different DP. It didn't work out. And then now you're the big guy on campus. What was that like?

32:13Giancarlo Stigliano:Yeah, it's still to this day the one project I'm probably most proud of to this day still. I love that project. I love what it gave me. I love all the things that it taught me. You know, I've never done anything longer than probably 20 minutes at that point. I've done a couple short films, but mostly commercials. And coming into that project a couple days after they started production, not knowing the script, not knowing anything about what the previous DP and Danny have kind of talked about in terms of the visual. when I came in I also wasn't coming in as the DP I was coming in as an extra set of hands because Danny just needed help but in my mind I knew I was like I have an opportunity here I I feel like there's a part of me that thinks that if I could prove myself that there might be a chance that I could take this and I just went in open arms whatever you need whatever anyone needs i am here to help whoever and you know i think it was like two days after i was there i got asked to dp the whole thing and the hardest part about that job is coming into a project knowing that you have to keep a consistent look for an hour and a half movie it is it is really difficult to be able to think back on what you shot the day before or a week before because because that scene correlates to the one that you're doing now.

33:47Giancarlo Stigliano:And you have to sort of like match that a little bit, or the time of day has to be similar. And I just learned a lot from him and how, how detail oriented he was on each scene, what he wanted, how he expected things. And truthfully, I really leaned on him to help me guide the visuals because he's a very visual director. I mean, he's a beautiful, amazing DP in his own right. He's talented beyond anyone that I know, to be honest with you. And I really just trusted him and did my absolute best to be able to live up to the expectation that he thought that I was capable of. But it was really difficult.

34:29Giancarlo Stigliano:I had to come to terms a lot of times, like step away, walk away, like breathe and kind of just recenter myself because I would get overwhelmed at times with the amount of stuff that was going on. Again, I was fairly inexperienced. again at the time. It was another project, another stepping stone that was a huge leap in my career that I don't know if I was ready for, but I had to jump in and just figure out how to swim. And if it wasn't for him, if it wasn't for all the other people around me, though, I don't think I would have made it through the way that we did. What are things that are actionable that someone could take and learn from that experience that you were like, okay, maybe for this 90-minute film, you printed out the dailies and you had them next to you for a day that you did way later on or something.

35:15I don't know. I'm just trying to give them something that you came to after that shoot and you're like forever, I will always be doing this. And I didn't do that coming into this shoot.

35:23Giancarlo Stigliano:I'm trying to remember actually, if we did dailies afterwards, I think we did. If I remember correctly, Danny had stills from that night showing us what we shot. And that always helps though. Having stills or having dailies always helps create consistency, not only for just like time of day and things like that, but also contrast ratios, the way that you light, the way that you compose things. Like if there's a visual language that you approach a project with in pre-production, like I didn't have the luxury to talk to him in pre-production about this project, but going into it, I made notes of how we were doing close-ups.

36:01Giancarlo Stigliano:Like every time we did an over the shoulder, what was our focal length? How far was I from the foreground person's shoulder? How far was I from the person that I'm shooting on that focal length? Is this becoming our close-up now? If we like this, I have to make a note of this is going to be our consistent visual language for close-ups or over the shoulders. So the more that you can kind of develop your visual language, especially in prep, those are things that you can help dictate on the day in production to be able to create a consistent overall look that has a tone that has a voice and that has consistency throughout the whole 90 minutes whatever it is what are you thinking about first when you show up and before you actually start hitting record like are you thinking about the lighting first are you thinking about focal length are you thinking about the story dialogue as a dp going into a new scene what are you first?

36:59Giancarlo Stigliano:Truthfully, I think about schedule. The most important question. Yeah. Scheduling is, I have like a weird fascination with scheduling. It's like a weird love that I really enjoy. Like a lot of DPs hate schedules. They don't want to deal with it. They avoid it. They leave it to the AD. But I actually really enjoy looking at a schedule and understanding how long certain things are going to take, how I can take time from this scene, because I know it's only going to take this and add it to this over here. But if I'm over here, I could subtract time here. Like that sort of calculation in my head, I actually really enjoy a lot.

37:38Giancarlo Stigliano:So when I step onto the day, like on a production, I'm usually looking at the schedule and figuring out in my head, how do I need to communicate with my team to be able to be efficient and be able to stay on time. And obviously after that comes the sort of visual technical stuff. But that is literally the first thing I always think of is how can I become the most efficient person today on set so that nobody is ever waiting for me. And then after the schedule is dialed in, like from a technical standpoint. Yeah. Like from a tech, after the, after the boring stuff, uh, it is definitely composition first because without composition you're lighting nothing really like what are you lighting and in that movie in particular danny and i would show up maybe 30 minutes to an hour before everybody and that was it was such a long couple weeks like him and i would stay on the phone on the drive home for like an hour and a half after we finished a 12-hour day and then show up an hour and a half before everyone and do a 12 hour day and it was just it was like 15 hours every day for like three oh my gosh and but it it proved to be so valuable because it would be him and i at the location and we would walk through every single scene for that day we would do artemis frames or cat rage whatever app you want to use on your phone to figure out the frames and i have so many funny photos of danny just like posing as an actor in front of my camera in front of my phone I always thought about making an Instagram page for just like stuff like that that would be funny but as we planned all of those out I would then take every single shot that we have for that day that him and I planned send it to the assistant director and he would create a printout from that printout I was able to then share with my crew camera lighting department and be like okay this is where we're starting this is the first scene this is the second scene but in the first scene we have three shots and in these three shots, they need to be turned around in this way.

39:42Giancarlo Stigliano:So the angles here for shot one angle two is here for the lighting. We're going to approach it this way. This is kind of what I'm looking to accomplish here with the lighting, but I want to try to do it in a way where we don't have a stand on this side of the table, because that's where the camera is going to move. And to be efficient with moving the camera, let's try to figure out a way. So that isn't over there. So the way that I communicate is always with the mindset of here's the tone and style that I'm looking to accomplish. And how can we be efficient within that style that's conducive to where the next camera position is going to be?

40:15I really like that. I think that is so interesting and important to be thinking about because the time creeps up on you so fast. And before you know it, you're behind. And there's no worse feeling than being behind. It's like the worst feeling in the world. And you're like, oh, we an 45 minute we have an hour to make up like oh gosh we gotta make this make this happen there's gotta be certain dps though or directors who are like i don't give a fuck how long this takes like i want it to look exactly how i want it and i don't care so that's something yeah that yeah that's something interesting i want to touch on because i my director is my business partner we've known each other for 10 years i'm not dping other people's stuff i dp our own stuff it's like always our own stuff i'm always working with one director what have you found from working with all these different personality types uh like is there any advice you can give to people because i've been doing like bts for some like for some shoots and i've seen these fucking directors that are just a nightmare they're in like a leopard cheetah fucking hoodie and i'm like this guy's just i mean you're in la right yeah these guys are nuts dude he's like this dude's in like a trench coat in a sombrero and is like with their glasses on and it's dark and i'm like dude what are we doing like what's going on here and then they don't talk they just whisper to the ad it's like weird it's a weird vibe some of them but i'm curious what it's been like for you and how you kind of manage those different personality types because i'm primarily working with a best friend so it's different

41:39Giancarlo Stigliano:yeah i mean i probably worked with i don't know 20 plus directors at this point and all of them have their own unique quirks their own unique style the way that they like to talk the way that they like to say that they don't like something or that they don't say that they don't like something they just give you a face that you have to learn about like if they do like a weird face like oh they don't like that it it comes with to be honest it comes with time yeah and it comes with building a relationship with that person to understand who they are as a human first because if you don't know them you're only basing them off of how they are in a high pressure situation of a commercial, for example.

42:23And that is the most like tough place to really get to know somebody

42:28Giancarlo Stigliano:because their, their anxiety might be really high. This might be a huge project for them. That's trying, that's that he's, or she's never been to before. So they're maybe acting in a way that isn't normal to them. So a lot of the best relationships I've had with directors have come from offset conversations, talking about life, talking about sports, talking about their kids, talking about all the different things that make them them. And then when you come to set, you understand who they are a little bit more. But there have also been times where I work with directors that are not nice at all.

43:03And in those moments, you have to understand the position that you're in

43:11Giancarlo Stigliano:and recognize that, okay, if it's a commercial, I only have to deal with this for 10 hours. as long as it doesn't get to the point where that person is abusing your crew, whatever, where you need to step in and create boundaries. You need to sort of drop your ego a little bit. And as much as that sucks and like no one wants to drop their ego, nobody wants to sort of belittling themselves is not the right word. But as a DP, you have to understand that this project is not yours. You do not own this project. You do not own the creative. You don't own much of anything, truthfully. So when you're in those moments where the director isn't, you and the director aren't vibing, your job is really to create the best possible vibe on set that everyone else can kind of lean on to.

44:05Giancarlo Stigliano:Like I tend to always be very calm on set. That's sort of my vibe. I'm like overly calm, even intense situations. and I try to create an environment where everyone can feel a sense of calm coming from me even when they're tense I want to be the person that people could look to when they're tense and be like okay he's calm maybe I can sort of match that energy or like he's calming me down type of thing and part of that is just being like I think I said it earlier in the beginning just being a chameleon you have to adapt you are literally forced to adapt if you don't and you stick to your guns if you stick to how you like to work only then there's going to be a lot of hostility there's going to be a lot of negativity and it a lot of times isn't going to create the best product and you're there to create the best product for the agency the director the client the product whatever it is and create a good environment for your crew so sometimes you have to take a hit to be able to then deliver the best possible product he's just wrestling in the back with the director it's like opposite of michael scott coming in with an elbow i just picture like the opposite of michael scott during the fire drill he's like oh my god that's such a good happening stay calm it's fine everything's fine everything's fine is uh is there something from a more technical standpoint i want to get a little bit nerdy here that you have really developed over time that maybe took you quite a long time to learn.

45:40Maybe it's contrast ratios to someone when they show up. I love the motivated lighting thing that you threw out earlier. I think that's super important. I remember like going into rooms when I was on the road, when I first started with the Lakers and you'd go into the hotel and I'm just fucking shooting right into the window. I had no concept of thinking like that when you walked into a room of like, oh, well, the light's coming from here. It would make a lot more sense if we just moved this chair. We made it look like there's a little bit more depth like what are those different techniques that

46:09Giancarlo Stigliano:you've you've learned you could tell our group i think a technique that i focus on a lot now is my intentionality between t-stops or aperture okay i think a lot of times a lot of times when you come into cinematography you come into shooting you're shooting wide open yeah all the time as much every time baby yeah as much as you can get one eight baby make it happen 100 always point nine dude there's what is it the dream lens canon rangefinder has a has a dream lens of 50 mil it's a 0.9 yeah it is insane it's i tried to rent it for next week dude pray for me that i get it that'd be sick you yeah are you ready where do i rent it from boca rentals i think i think we did old fast glass i think old fast glass yeah for sure yeah yeah um okay besides that uh i've i've come to analyze a lot of the work that I admire from DPs in the commercial space and the narrative space.

47:08Giancarlo Stigliano:And when you look at it and when you listen to interviews and you listen to, or you look at behind the scenes, they're not shooting at a 1.8 all the time or a 2.8. Sometimes they're shooting at a 4 or a 5.6. And the reason behind that is because when you're on a commercial, you're on a narrative project, you're also working with the art department. You're working with production design. You're working with wardrobe. You're working with hair and makeup. Other artists on set that are doing amazing stuff in the frame. When you're shooting at a 1.8, you are literally only seeing that person and the person's artwork in the background that they designed, the beautiful color shears, the wallpaper, the paintings that they added, the little knickknacks that are adding these little cues and details.

47:53Giancarlo Stigliano:You have no idea they even exist. So by shooting at a deeper f-stop if it makes right for the scene you're able to see the other artists work more you're able to see the the intentionality from the art department the production design the detail and the clothing from the from the wardrobe person and you just see the world a little bit more because not always do you want to just focus on the person's face and have nothing like you want to see the environment like right now i'm at like i think i'm at like a four right now looks great see what's going on back here um so that's one technique that i don't i i don't think that's talked about at all like ever really in cinematography right now is not shooting wide open well not even just in cinematography i watched a youtube video i might butcher his name i think his name is cam mackie i believe do you know him have you seen his style bro like i love the way he dressed it dude that guy's that guy's legit so he just he just put out a video and he's talking about how he for photography has just always typically shot wide open and he goes for some reason i couldn't get my photos to look like these other classic film photos like the the look was off he's like i don't i don't get it like i'm a good photographer he's like and then i explored a deeper f-stop or like a less wide open and he goes now i started getting the look and so he started comparing he he would go he went out and he's like don't look at these photos as like incredible photographs he's like just notice the difference and i was like fuck there's a real difference i'm someone who 100 i i shot concerts for a really long time it's kind of hard when you're in a dark club to not shoot wide open that's kind of just like how concerts are because you're in low light situations so i think i naturally gravitated towards shooting wide open because of that now you don't tell yeah and so now i'm i'm starting to experiment with not always shooting just because your camera has a super you know can go super wide open doesn't mean you have to shoot at it and oftentimes it might actually give you a better look like you were saying to uh to stop down a little bit or stop up no what is it what would it be stop yeah stop down okay yeah yeah shows you how much i know right i don't even remember i think so if you go if you go left is right and right is left that's what you got to remember man uh-huh anyways don't shoot wide open all the time it's it's it's uh personal taste it's the environment if you're in low light and sometimes you have to yes like there's scenarios where i also pull iris as well as i'm in the middle of the scene like i might be inside really doing a tracking shot to someone going outside and I have to expose for the inside and then they're walking outside and it's bright sunlight.

50:49Giancarlo Stigliano:I might be starting at a 1.8 by the time I'm outside. I'm at a 5.6 because I need to adjust for that exposure difference as they're walking. That makes sense. I want to touch on your YouTube and marketing yourself as a DP and how valuable YouTube has been for you as a DP. Have you gotten And a lot of work because of being forward facing and putting content out on YouTube or even Instagram. Has that gotten you a lot of work or is it more so referrals? I'm just I'm so curious because it's it's in my mind, it's a little different as a DP than it is for making social media content for businesses. Also, real quick, I know you asked about a can.

51:33Giancarlo Stigliano:I've been dying to drink this. Oh, I know you guys do the opening thing. We forgot our fucking cans, dude. We forgot our kids. Mid-pod. Mid-pod. Mid-pod. One-handed crack. Come on. Show me what you got. So it's one hand. No, no, no. Stop. Okay. Look, look. You got to pick it up off the thing. You can't use your second hand. Okay? Single hand. And then go. Don't start on the last. Now go. Bang. Shit. It's a lot harder than it looks. Oh, Carlo. Come on. Get it, dude. Oh, my lanta. Not good. We're going to have. Listen, it was a high-pressurized. Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. And it also, it was like mid episode.

52:10So it's kind of, you know, we threw you off. My arm's weaker. Yeah. We threw you a little bit of a curve ball. Yeah.

52:14Giancarlo Stigliano:For sure. Yeah. I've been dying to drink this the whole time. I'm sorry. My bad. I forgot to tell you that. I didn't think you had one. You didn't think you had one. I thought you were going to say something. I thought you forgot too. I was like, damn. No, dude. I show up prepared. I know. Listen, I should have known. I should have known. Well, now after this conversation, we'll never doubt you again. We'll never doubt you again. What did you just say? Just about YouTube. Oh, YouTube.

52:38Giancarlo Stigliano:I love that. I don't, YouTube is always a weird thing for me in that I don't know where I fit in on YouTube in terms of like the YouTube filmmakers. And I always just try to approach myself and YouTube as a DP first that also does YouTube. And I think that it's given me, over the years, I've learned about my style of videos that I like to make. I've learned what I don't like to make. I learned how to speak in front of a camera. I learned to embrace my personality of this sort of like calm talking presence on YouTube. And what I've come to find out after years of doing this is that a lot of people actually seem to resonate with that approach that I do.

53:31Giancarlo Stigliano:And I never went into it with the expectation that, oh, this is going to improve my DP career. It was, one, just a creative outlet for me to express myself. two it was a way to create another source of another business another another stream of revenue maybe one day but it was it didn't come from a place of I'm going to make money from it but I knew that it had the potential if I dedicated time and energy to it and the third it kind of came to be after years of doing it was how beneficial it is for people that actually watch it and I guess enjoy the stuff that I'm making. And the feedback that I get is really, really nice because I tend to make content around cinematography that is based on interpersonal things, more relationship, more struggles as a human being that is working as a DP rather than DP specific stuff on the technical side.

54:38Giancarlo Stigliano:I do make some of those, but I tend to talk about the more personal side of things. And there's been one or two jobs in particular, one that I was able to get in Europe, actually, from a director that watches my YouTube and listens to my podcast and ended up hiring me because she liked the way that I approached working with crews. She liked the way that I talked. She liked my tone of voice. She liked my overall energy. And it wasn't necessarily because of my work alone. Of course, my work helped. But with the certain content that I make, like these raw behind the scenes videos that are like 30 minutes long, that are literally just completely raw, me in a commercial talking with the crew, talking with the directors, you get a full picture of what it's like working with me.

55:30Giancarlo Stigliano:And for her, watching those videos was a real good indicator of who she wanted to bring on as a DP for her first short film. And, you know, I don't necessarily always, like I don't think it's really helped my career in the most amazing way possible, but it's created a line between being a DP and being a YouTuber. I don't rely on YouTube to pay my bills. I don't rely on sponsors to pay my bills. I don't have to say yes to sponsors to pay my bills. My DP career is my sustaining is my career. YouTube is something I do because I love it. The content that I create isn't always the most monetizing type of content, but I find that it's the most valuable to people that are looking to learn and grow and become a valuable asset in filmmaking, a valuable cinematographer, a good human being in the process.

56:28Giancarlo Stigliano:And although there are one or two sponsors that I work with and I have worked with over the last like three years consistently, I don't need to search for sponsors all day long for them to paint. Like I don't need to do that. And I think the YouTube has honestly helped my DP career and the DP career has helped my YouTube channel. And I think it's sort of becoming this, like, I don't know, piece of the puzzle that kind of work in unison with each other. Yeah. It's like a symbiotic relationship. I mean, we found you on YouTube, which is, you know, which is super cool. Like I've loved watching your videos and I I'll challenge you because I think you totally have uh I think you totally have a great voice and know where you're going even though it might feel like you don't have that direction like we love your fucking videos and I think they're super cool and they're different they're not like oh I'm no I'm coming here and I'm getting a breakdown every time like I know it's refreshing yeah it's refreshing it's not like the rinse and repeat and churn of how like a traditional youtube channel goes of like hey you know you're going to get this one specific style and i'm just going to keep trying to like climb the ranks of views you'll just pop on with your mic and give an introspective thought on something that you know has been on your mind and i think that's cool and different and what makes your channel so unique versus all the other youtube filmmaking creator channels that are out there i just wanted to be relatable yeah like there's there's people that I watch on YouTube that I can listen to and be like I I get you like I feel like I am you and even though you might be at a whole different stage of your life that maybe I aspire to be at I see you as a human like I feel what you're saying and I wanted to be that person that people can you know people look up to and they could also say at the same time like I'm literally going through the same thing that he's going through and he's dealing with the same thing that I'm struggling with.

58:34Giancarlo Stigliano:Even though he's someone that maybe I look up to or the work that he does is something that's inspiring to me. I love that he's able to share his insecurities and his fears and his faults and his things that he does wrong, things that he does right. his successes, his full picture of a human being is something that I've really tried to make a point in my channel. And that took a while, though, because it's really vulnerable to put myself out there like that all the time. Yeah, but that leads to the biggest and best connections with your audience. Like I can only imagine the messages that you've gotten on Instagram from people watching your stuff, wanting to pursue a similar career to you.

59:19And I'm sure they're not short. I'm sure it's not like, yeah, I like your bids.

59:24Giancarlo Stigliano:Right. It's, I've, I've been very grateful to receive a lot of really nice messages. And, uh, you know, as I think sometimes about, you know, sometimes people ask me like, what do you, uh, you know, are you going to keep growing your channel? Is it going to, are you hoping to get like to a million subscribers or whatever? I've come to terms with that in that for me, getting to that numerical value doesn't really have any significance, to be honest with you, for myself. I don't create content for the sake of it being viral. I don't create it for the sake of growth all the time. I'd rather create videos that are true to me, what I love to make with a message that I thought about, that I feel really passionate about, that's going to impact people.

1:00:13Giancarlo Stigliano:And if that leaves me at 55 ,000 subscribers, I'm happy at 55 ,000 subscribers and making that the strongest 55 ,000 that I can make it rather than shooting for 100 ,000, 200 ,000 and that becoming more shallow because of the content I'm making isn't as strong as it once was. So I don't care about growing. Growing outwardly, I'd rather just continue to strengthen what I have inwardly, if that makes sense. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it absolutely makes sense. I think it's something that we've been trying to do here is getting back to our roots in the creative space. And I mean, this has been such a fun conversation.

1:00:53I have like hours and hours of questions. I want to go to something when you think about like lighting from a more technical standpoint. Do you always start with your biggest source? Do you set camera and then you start bringing things in? Do you have do you like to prepare with all these diagrams for the team beforehand? What is your process look like before you get before slash when you get to, you know, to a scene?

1:01:21Giancarlo Stigliano:So for most of it, I keep a fairly consistent approach, but it does change on the scale of the project, whether it's a commercial or short film. But in general, I tend to start with a lookbook no matter what. Like if it's a commercial, I'll create a visual lookbook on my own about what I think the lighting should look like, how I like things composed, like contrast ratios. Like I'll even write in a PDF with an image that I don't like. I don't like it because of this. And that gives someone an indicator. Let me rephrase it this way. giving an image of what you like is only one thing but showing somebody an image of what you don't like is also another indicator for them to learn about you as well and things that you don't like because that informs them what they shouldn't do so i do both when i'm creating these visual decks and they're different than visual decks that you will pitch a client to i will never put something i don't like to a client but for my crew i'll put something i like i like it because of this I don't like this image because the lighting is too harsh on the face or the lighting is too direct in the background.

1:02:29Giancarlo Stigliano:So I'll create a visual guide based on each scene, based on location, based on close up, whatever. I'll do that. And that's really important for me to share with my crew. Depending on how complex the lighting is, I will a lot of times create a rough diagram, especially if I'm able to do a location scout. On the location scout, a lot of the times I'll take, you know, actually composed images of what our potential shots are going to look like. But I'll also take wide angles of the space. And then in an app called scenario, I'll draw the actual location out in, in the app and I'll place the subjects in the camera where we're going to compose and what my rough lighting plan might look like.

1:03:10Giancarlo Stigliano:And in doing that, I then send to my gaffer, the key grip to be able to tell them, Hey, listen, this is what I'm thinking. This is what I'm kind of looking for. You know, take it as you will pretty much. So you had, you had another one you said earlier called Artemis. You use that as well. I was writing your, I was writing. Mr. Cadrage. Oh, Mr. Cadrage. Okay. One of those two are like director viewfinders that you could use on your phone. Could you explain to those that don't know what contrast ratios are and how you achieve the optimal look in your scenes using those? I know we don't have like fucking 10 hours to do that, but in like a five minute span, if you could briefly explain what that means to, to the average person, the average person is trying to get better at making their images look beautiful.

1:03:55Yeah.

1:03:56Giancarlo Stigliano:So you can get like super technical with contrast ratios. Give me less technical. It's literally the difference between the light on the subject and the shadow on the subject. How significant is that difference or how close are they? Like you could have a completely flat light, like a beauty light straight in the front, or you could have a complete side light and a silhouette. That's the most extreme ratio that you can get. A flat light is the most minimal ratio one to one. So depending on the difference between the light and the shadow is where you'll increase and decrease your contrast ratio.

1:04:29Giancarlo Stigliano:But that depends on the story. It depends on the scene. Depends on what you're shooting. You have to understand what you're shooting to just, wow, I just stuttered, to determine, to determine what ratio, what level of contrast you want. Like if you're shooting a beauty commercial, most of the time, you're not going to want something super dark unless it's something very stylized. If you're shooting a heavy dramatic scene, you might lean into something with more contrast, more darkness, more negative fill instead of a bounce, for example. So just understanding your scene is really important to be able to determine how you're going to light it.

1:05:05I watched a interview of Jonah Hill, and I believe it was when Wolf of Wall Street came out. And he was talking about Martin, Marty Scorsese and why he's like such an incredible director. And he said he just solves problems faster than any anybody else. It's like if there's a problem on set or trying to figure out a scene, he just has an answer like that. When it comes to being a DP and certain things might not be going right on set, or you might have thought, you know, a shot was going to look well, a certain way and actually isn't, you know, isn't working well. Or I guess what I'm trying to get at is like, how do you think about problem solving on set as a DP?

1:05:51And are there things that you do or things that you look for in pre-production to mitigate those problems when you're on set?

1:05:59Giancarlo Stigliano:Yeah, that's a good question. The first part of it, I can give an example of a recent commercial I just shot a couple weeks ago was for the World Cup. And it was for this company. And we were shooting inside of a supermarket. and it was an overnight shoot and we're at the tail end of the overnight and everyone's exhausted everyone's tired nobody wants to be there anymore and we have this one big scene where i have to sort of face the windows a little bit but it's nighttime and i have to make it feel like daylight is coming through the whole scene oh shit and damn it wasn't and it was i had a steadicam and you know i had a whole thing mapped out and when he did the move based on the lighting that we did, it wasn't working.

1:06:46Giancarlo Stigliano:Like it just, I couldn't get the camera to land in the right spot where I was able to fake the daylight and not give away the fact that it was night and also be close enough to the subject where we pushed in from a wide to a closeup where it made sense within like a two second, three second timeframe. It just wasn't working at all. And, uh, the AD the slash producer on this one was, I could tell she was getting a little tense about how long this is taking. And at that point, I had four of the G &E guys, lighting and grip guys, standing by, kind of waiting for my next cue. Steadicam guy asking me how he should improve.

1:07:31Giancarlo Stigliano:The director asking me, you know, what isn't working? Why isn't it working? You know, are you guys almost ready yet? And at that moment you turn around, there's like 15 people staring at you, uh, waiting for you to figure out this problem. And that problem is literally my fault. There's no one else to blame. There's no one else to, uh, take ownership of it other than me. So I had to figure it out. And it was one of the first times that I actually did this, but because I was really comfortable with the director and the crew, I actually asked everyone to give me two minutes like at the spot by myself.

1:08:12Giancarlo Stigliano:And I needed the space to be able to like just recalibrate myself, recenter myself, slow down. Because with everyone staring at you, your brain is going a million miles a minute. You're not thinking clearly. You're not thinking objectively. You're very emotional and you're not able to actually solve problems effectively. And by having the confidence to actually ask everyone to kind of just give me a minute to just sit with this in the space. After those two minutes, I actually came up with a solution that we were able to fix in five minutes and nail the shot in five minutes. And that, listen, it's not going to be every scenario where you're going to be able to ask for people to give you the space.

1:08:55Giancarlo Stigliano:but the premise of what I want to be able to come across there is you're only able to really solve problems when you're in a state of mind that is fairly calm. When you're feeling rushed, when you're feeling overwhelmed, anxious, you're never going to create good solutions to problems. You're only going to create emotional solutions. And a lot of the times those aren't really beneficial. And sometimes they actually hurt you long-term, like the next scene, they might, you know you might come up with an emotional solution that might be good for the scene but it takes 30 minutes to do instead of five a simple solution that maybe you couldn't come up with because you were thinking about so many different things and then that pushes back your day a little bit more so like as you make a decision you also have to think about the compounding effect of what that does for the next scene for the rest of the day so that's just an example of something that happened recently where i literally butchered a scene i couldn't get it the way that i wanted it to the way that I planned it out.

1:09:52Giancarlo Stigliano:I even did diagrams. I did everything. And I had to figure out a way to solve that problem very quickly. Do you want to say something? Sorry. Yeah. No, no, no. When you're looking at the windows, how are you making it look like daytime for like looking outside and there's not like shears to blast? You know, you're just like in a big ass window of a supermarket. Walk me through what you were thinking and what didn't work and what actually ended up being the fix in that span yeah so the secret to actually making it feel like daytime at night with windows is never showing the window yeah you can't show the windows okay yeah for sure i was like fucker you must have the most powerful lights of all time no but even the most powerful lights it doesn't matter because you're not lighting the windows yeah you have to light the background yeah yeah you have to light the street behind yeah like That's impossible.

1:10:46Giancarlo Stigliano:And how I was able to end up doing it, because why it wasn't working was because I just had the lights coming through the background, through the window, hitting the background, hitting the foreground, hitting the midground, hitting the subject. I think I had like four or five lights kind of just dispersing different areas because I didn't have a huge light to do a lot of it. And when I was coming around to the subject in the close-up, it just felt very meh. It felt very bland. and like where they were positioned, I was starting to see some of the window. Like it started to look black. Oh, okay.

1:11:18Giancarlo Stigliano:And what I ended up doing was taking one of the fixtures, putting it in the corner of the window where I was kind of seeing it, where the black was and positioning it in the specific, like very specific area in the window. Whereas the camera came up, it actually flared the lens a little bit. So it almost blocked some of the black of the window and it created a more effect of direct sunlight coming through the windows whereas before it was just very flat very bland that flare added a little extra sort of sauce to the shot that previously wasn't there that's game it's game right there that is game brain brain specifically only shoots during the day but now he might be able to shoot at night how do you don't show the windows yeah yeah yeah um how do you think about risk as a dp when it comes to you know the type of shots you want to try to get or even when it comes to like leveling up your your career you know there i feel like there's there's risks you can take when it comes to being a creative as far as quitting your job, moving to a new city.

1:12:34And there's also creative risks that you can take on set, trying to achieve a certain look or trying to go for a more stylistic approach to a certain shot. I'm curious to think about what risks have you taken in your career, whether it be from a more like creative approach or aspect versus more like general life risk?

1:12:59Giancarlo Stigliano:For a while, I felt like my career was very stagnant. I felt like the work that I was creating was very much the same. I wasn't growing. I wasn't doing anything that I looked at. And it was like, wow, this is something that I look at on Instagram or whatever and be like, this is awesome. And for a while, that was really bothering me. And I couldn't figure out why it was doing that? Like, why is my work not progressing? Why is everything the same? And I kept referring, I kept coming back to this thing that I kept saying of like, one day I'll get these creative projects that I see on Instagram. Like one day, these creative decks, these creative directors are going to come my way and I'm going to create the most amazing thing in the world one day.

1:13:41Giancarlo Stigliano:And I realized that one day literally never exists. And you don't know what that creative project that you're looking at that's inspiring, what that deck looked like. You have no idea what the brief looked like. It could have been the most boring deck, boring creative about a baby carriage, but it looked beautiful. Why? Because the creatives behind it made it beautiful. And once I sort of had this realization that I'm being hired to take the deck that these people thought of that conceptualized to make it better, to improve it, to make it visually just amazing was a complete shift in my mind that forced me to realize that, OK, I can't wait for that cool project to come to me.

1:14:27Giancarlo Stigliano:I have to make every project that comes to me a cool project. And not everyone is going to be a winner project. They're not going to be the most amazing thing. But if I look at it from an objective standpoint and say, how can I make this 5 % better? How can I make this 10 % better? That in and of itself is a risk because you're trying things that are outside of the box of what this creative direction is coming to you for. But that's how great projects are made. And that's what I believe has really helped change a lot of how I approach projects, how my work has changed over the last year or two, is just recognizing that it is my job to help make this project as cool as possible.

1:15:08Giancarlo Stigliano:and in and of itself, by just saying that, requires me to step out of my comfort zone in the way that I light, trying something new that I haven't thought of before, bringing on crew that is way more experienced than me and being scared at the fact that they're so good that they might think I'm not good enough, but doing it anyway, because those people are gonna help make me better. And those are the risks that have completely transformed my career. I love that. I think that's amazing. And I want to go to something we mentioned a little bit earlier on the topic of just burnout. And if you've experienced that, maybe potentially wanting to switch careers at any point, the slow seasons of time.

1:15:52Okay. Yesterday. Yeah. Yesterday. Literally before I hopped on this thing. What has made it a little bit easier? Because as you know, I left my job two years ago. We've been on our own. And I think entrepreneurship is really glorified. People think it's super fun. You got all these guys in Miami showing the cars and the lifestyle that's all fake. And people think that being your own boss is this, just the most glorious thing ever. And there's a lot of bullshit that comes with having a company and being the boss and trying to make more money and get better jobs. And just like this whole like leapfrog game of commercial advertising and the space that we're in.

1:16:35And I'm wondering what has helped you or what conversations have you had with other people that are in the space that maybe has given you a better perspective? I think there's so many things.

1:16:50Giancarlo Stigliano:I think I have a podcast as well. And a lot of the conversations that I have on that podcast are with people that are a lot more experienced than me, sometimes a lot older than me. And the wisdom that they bestow upon me a lot of the times isn't really based on the technical side of filmmaking. It's how they're able to live their life that is conducive to the crazy career that we live, the crazy business that we live, the things that they prioritize outside of filmmaking that make them a better filmmaker. And over time, I've just come to realize that I can't put my identity in being a cinematographer and a cinematographer alone.

1:17:31Giancarlo Stigliano:Because once you put your identity in that one basket, and that's all that you are, when you're not doing that thing, you lose who you are. You don't know what to do in those moments when work is slow, work is dead. Your identity as a cinematographer just goes away because you're not doing that. And the sooner that you can sort of remove that identity barrier and sort of just look at yourself as a multifaceted human being that has interests, that has friends, that has family, that has passions, love, you're able to look at life way, way more open. And I've just come to love. Listen, I'm not saying I do this perfectly, because I still struggle all the time with, you know, fear, anxiety, you know, depression, sometimes about work, and if I'm going to make it, if I'm still going to succeed, if I'm going to fail, I deal with that stuff all the time.

1:18:24Giancarlo Stigliano:But I don't think I'd be able to get through it if I didn't have my friends, if I didn't have a amazing wife, if I didn't have passions outside of filmmaking, if I didn't focus on my fitness, if I didn't focus on my health, those are really important things for me to help make me a well-rounded human being that inevitably make me a stronger filmmaker and cinematographer because you can't become the best or you can't become better if you don't experience life. If you're just focused on the one thing, your field of view is so narrow that that's all your perspective is. But if you're able to broaden your field of view, broaden your perspective on different things, different experiences in life, you're able to come back way more well-rounded, way more versatile.

1:19:10Giancarlo Stigliano:And it isn't a glamorous thing all the time. You could be sitting in front of your computer waiting for an email to come up that might not come for two weeks. And that's scary. It's sad. It's depressing. It's all the negative emotions come up fairly often in this career because of how inconsistent it can be. But if you're able to find things outside of that help you sort of make you feel a little bit more like a human outside of it, I think is really important. And I don't know, I'm a big proponent of health of wellness. And it's one thing that I tell everybody is that needs to be a priority in your life.

1:19:55Giancarlo Stigliano:If you're not working out, you don't need to become a bodybuilder. You don't need to run marathons. You don't need to do this, but prioritizing your body, prioritizing your mind, eating the right foods, drinking the right stuff is really helpful in creating a just well, well-functioning body in mind. And those are, that's sort of kind of where I'm at right now is just trying to really strengthen that more. And like I said, I fall into the trap too of, you know, the negativity and all that stuff. But I, I'm very grateful that I have a lot of things going outside of DP work that I have built that has helped me shift focus when DPing isn't strong at this moment.

1:20:41Giancarlo Stigliano:If the work isn't coming through, I'm able to allow myself to move in different directions and shift my focus and priorities. Do you think that during these downtimes, what are these hobbies that you've picked up? So we have fitness. I know that you also have a lawn care Instagram. Now we're into the deep part of the podcast. Now we're getting into it. You see, dude, I got my plants. You got your lawn care stuff. I need to make another Instagram, man. That's what I should. That I think will bring me a lot of happiness. You should make a bonsai. Yeah, I do bonsai. I love bonsai. Yeah, it's super.

1:21:19It's super fun. It's an expensive hobby, but it's very rewarding because you just got these babies that you're practicing on for years and years and years and years. That's awesome. It's cool. But tell me about these other things outside of it. so starting with the lawn we could you bought a house you bought a house so yeah my wife and i yeah my wife and i have a house

1:21:43Giancarlo Stigliano:and uh when we bought the house it had no lawn it was all dirt and for the whole summer we we pretty much redid the entire exterior of the house and i i before i was in film i think i mentioned i don't remember if i did i was a full-time landscaper for about two years oh you That taught me a lot. And I don't know, like my dad growing up, he loved flowers. He loved landscaping. He loved all that stuff. And I would just like watch him as a baby. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but I do remember that. But I have a goal of having the best lawn in the neighborhood. It is my mission.

1:22:23Giancarlo Stigliano:Are you winning? I think so. But my neighbor across the street, his lawn is so green. It is like he's paying that shit when you go to bed. Listen, I've gotten I'm obsessed. Like everyone knows that I'm obsessed with the lawn. It comes up at dinner in different settings with different friend groups. The lawn comes up no matter what. And it comes it's to the point where I could be having breakfast. I'm looking out my window and I see him mowing the lawn. I'm like this freaking guy. Like I get pissed that he's mowing his lawn that I have to go mow my lawn. I'm that guy. I am that guy. but yeah no it is it is literally the most peaceful like enjoyable thing that I do even though I joke around about it like I really love that it just takes me out of whatever it is that I'm feeling and it makes me focus on something that really has beauty and that she brings up something that I talked about on YouTube probably a year ago I come to find that I just love beautiful things.

1:23:28Giancarlo Stigliano:I love making beautiful things, whether that's filmmaking, whether that's a podcast, whether it's a YouTube video, whether it's my lawn, whether it's, you know, something in the decoration in my house with my wife, whatever it is, I just like beautiful things. And I like taking care of things to make them look as beautiful as possible. And the lawn is one example of that. Another hobby is fitness for me. I really, I started going to the gym, My dad made me go to the gym starting at like 12 years old. And from there, I've been consistently at the gym five days a week for, I don't know, 15 years now.

1:24:10Giancarlo Stigliano:And it's taken that sort of competitive part of me that I had at one time when I played soccer to my adulthood, which I really enjoy. and my best one of my best friends is um equally as passionate in fitness as i am and we train together five days a week six days a week uh we run together we lift together we do races together we do everything together and that's just been another huge side of me that really honestly makes me me like if i didn't have that i'd be a totally different human being we work out together sometimes yeah it's different weights and stuff obviously right like a lot of different weights you know you got it's kind of a pain to do bench and shit but like other than that it's fun i won't lie i have fallen off quite hard from the gym but you're getting back into it you know life is all about what you consume yeah and you've been watching a lot and carlo's in my fucking ears right now telling me i gotta get back in the gym so we're gonna go lift today nice i have i have you guys go to a nice gym right i see we go to we get we got lucky we got a really nice gym yeah i used to do social media content for this uh this gym out in uh they have multiple locations but here in la and um now me and brandon have kind of become ambassadors for them like we just post a few pieces of content we don't get the personal training aspect of it but we get to like use the facilities which is cool um that's awesome i'm jealous that you have a house though because yeah dude i want the lawn man i want a lawn i don't so here's the thing i don't know if i would be as into the lawn as you but i have this just wait yeah yeah sure i have this uh this deep desire to get into gardening and i think i would love to grow in hand i think i would love to grow the veg yeah you know yeah fruits and vegetables would be amazing we had cucumbers we had three different types of tomatoes last year we had peppers and do you find they taste just way better than what you're getting at the market uh they're definitely way more i mean yes a little bit but it's also just nice knowing that you can go in your backyard and grab something when you want it and it's like there's nothing added to it yeah yeah that's what i want see yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna get on that i'm going to join i'm going to join you with that because that braden and i have also talked about potentially like going half and half on a half a cow or something we just need a meat freezer we see the freezer dude we've talked about me and my friends have talked about that too because cost-wise it's brilliant way it's so much meat but you just need storage you need storage the problem yes i might i might it might be a good thing to go down to my mom's and just be like i'm gonna put this in the backyard she lives like an hour away back here i'm gonna put a cow back here and you can have a few steaks i think my dad so we're at my dad's house here that's what i think we should do dude i think your dad would be down if we tossed him a couple of ribeyes maybe like hey we'll give you one of the nicest cuts we're tossing the backyard it's out of sight out of mind because then you could then get a ribeye for like we could 15 bucks and go into whole going to whole foods 40 steak can't do that shit anymore it's driving me crazy we don't do that we go to costco okay and you get buy steaks yeah that's the way to do it yeah we bulk buy that chicken uh salmon and you freeze everything you just freeze it freeze and meal prep everything yeah that's smart dude you're living you're living my dream you're a little more grown up man that's good yeah you're three years younger than me but part of it is my wife though part of it's my wife she is like old school italian and she comes from old school italian backgrounds and everything that she does has she's learned from her grandmother and her mom and i am just so blessed with the amount of food the everything it's amazing how old were you when you guys got married because you're only 27 right we got married just it's almost two years it'll be two years in june but we met when we were 15 oh wow wow congratulations sophomores yeah yeah it's been 12 years the other day that's crazy that's so that's amazing yeah that's so only person i've ever been with she's i'm only person she's ever been with wow that's amazing that's beautiful let's go congrats speaking of beautiful things it's a beautiful thing true our kids our kids on the on the like near horizon uh yeah hopefully one day we don't um um we would love to have kids um yeah we'll see we'll see yeah there it is this has been this has been such a fun pod carlo thank you so much for coming on this has been episode what is it dude is this think 107 no 207 207 congratulations guys i know i know how hard that is from my podcast to keep it consistent is really admirable and i give you guys a lot of credit and you guys are doing great work so thank you thank you this has been an epic pod i can't wait to hear what you guys think about it hey drop us a comment leave us a like and we'll see you guys all next week peace i learned a thing or two in miami you can just slip the guy 100 so that's what i'm doing that's why i made it here today to just get to the front of any line it's just like dude i knew they weren't letting you in for free yeah it's just a hundred a crisp hundred dollar bill you can get in damn near anywhere and that's how i'm at the uh you're bribing the bouncer of the after party the post pod debrief they're letting you in here so what's interesting carlo had what some people called welcome to the NBA moment yeah on a puma shoot on the puma shoot yeah I actually can't believe like the story was so funny to hear from him like now that it's like over and probably not as traumatic you know yeah yeah yeah but uh yeah on set I could only imagine honestly I can only imagine because I've I've never like shot the million dollar spot myself but I've been on a handful of them and seen what it's like and there's just so many people and I can't imagine being captain quarterback number one and there's 75 people that need direction and you're like man it's just there's just such a different level but i think his perspective on it was so interesting and there's so many helpful tips to just take away like lean on the really smart people in the talented folks that have been there for decades i think it's really refreshing to hear somebody who has had success like him he's elite look at his shit yeah it's incredible It's elite work.

1:30:41I think it's really refreshing to hear him say, it is okay and normal if you don't know everything. That's why there's a crew. Obviously, to be a great DP, you need to lead, but don't be afraid to lean on your crew if you don't know something. Yeah. And I think that was cool to hear how he found this key grip and was like, man, listen, like, need a little bit of a little direction here, brother. And that guy was like, you know what? I'm going to help because I have found that a lot of the time, the older people that can be more condescending to you if you don't do that. So that was really cool to hear.

1:31:19And like, dude, I feel the same way on our sets. Like this one guy that I hire all the time, his name's Wayne and his son. They're both grips. And Wayne's been on like Yellowstone and Ridiculous Movies, NCIS and all these shows. And I always just am like, yo, what's the vibe here? what are we doing man boss man take the lead take the lead Wayne lead us to the victory brother yeah he's funny because he's just so I know he he's like down for any question and you need people like that 100 % like you need people like that that you can just lean on and be like hey what do you think man yeah that's why we're that's why I'm paying you to be here help us out you know and like you got to find people like that who you work in collaboration with not like your way or the highway and I feel like that's how the best work gets made like he said you know everyone's like really good at what they do uh so this was this was so fun to be back in creator land yes god it felt good does feel good we're just nerding out about cameras and stuff you're spending quite a bit of money oh my god yeah we have a shoot next week cameras are so expensive we got an alexa mini and alexa minis i think rent for like 1500 bucks a day that's just like a crappy car and it's good to know that you shouldn't own one quite yet because john carlos says he's selling his venice yeah it's gonna he's trying to look for a bidder to get that thing out of there i think like he said though it makes sense if you're booked on if you're booked five times a month with that specific camera it makes the math mass and makes sense and most people jump the gun on buying stuff and i'm like super guilty of this too where we've bought in certain shit that's just sat and it's like why did we buy that that was so expensive what would you say is the biggest regret you've had that's slider that's stupid slider dude i forgot we put like we put like 600 bucks for that it was it was half paid for blue strip and half paid for 505 we've not used it we got too caught up in gox and said dude we're gonna have this automatic slider the slider that got i forgot we even fucking yeah i own it i think i've used it two or three times and it's not easy to use it's a pain in the ass it's a shit slider it's from a company called el chrome don't buy it just do it automatic like just do it with the old fashion dude yeah it's just a pain it's just annoying to like set up and stuff and it was like just a frustrating piece of equipment man don't get caught up in buying it that i think that one i actually recently did purchase a ronin again and i like the ronin the ronin's useful dude it like most of the time i think you're not using it but when you are it's like oh this is just so simple and so easy.

1:33:50I want to talk about gear that's actually worth it is the drone that you have that you let me use. I was just shooting for the Santa Monica proper and I have a drone, but the drone that I have does not go vertical. And I was so blown away by A, if you're making social content and you have a drone, you need it to go vertical, but it's so small. And I was very impressed with the image quality it handles the damn wind so good you also have this that little screen so nice not have to use your phone oh dude game set match the screen's really nice and and it took me a sec my uh my drone is set up in a different way where i believe you go like forwards and backwards on the left and left to right on the right because that's how i play 2k so i have it set up like that i think you have it backwards but once i got it i was like oh dude it's like riding a bike yeah just riding a bike you're so back so bad i did i when we were in uh we were just in indiana like a week and a half ago for the shoot and i just threw it right out the window just tossed it right out just sent it it just it's so small it just goes i was like yeah the window's open uh-huh lit it up in the house and it just went right out and it went pretty far it went like a mile away and didn't lose connection it's just so impressive how good these drones i I know.

1:35:10It's crazy. Another thing that I really enjoyed that Carlos said was talking about local clients, how you can use that as your playground. And someone had asked me this a while ago, but they're like, oh, I'm from a small town and I want to work for the Lakers or a cool brand like that. They're like, well, do I need to go work for USC or whatever, a big program? And the answer is no. I just think the work needs to look and feel like the team that you want to go for. I feel like if I watched a small shitty little high school in the middle of nowhere and the video was like the most elite thing ever and you have everyone's attention and it's a small town.

1:35:46I think that's way more impressive than the kid who shoots USC. And it's just like, yeah, it's hard to fuck up USC. There's lights. There's fireworks. The jerseys are cool. The players are making insane plays. but if you made like a small local high school or like you shot pickleball and you made pickleball entertaining and there's like tension that's way cooler than a big program it's the same thing with right yeah with travel photography or if you're shooting a ho like a sick hotel yeah if you're in the maldives it's really hard to fuck hard to mess up dude it's like the water's blue and the the the sun's hitting it perfectly like right yeah you know what i mean yes totally him him saying that really got me thinking too about the hotel stuff that I've been shooting.

1:36:35There's like a fine line between wanting to like really elevate your stuff and then also just saying, okay, we don't need to make this a movie because it is just living on social. But for me specifically, if I'm working with more luxury hotels. Yeah, there's a line you got to draw in the sand. Especially with food. You really need food to be lit well. Yeah. And food photography and food videography is like such a, it's such a new, there's such a nuanced skill to it. That's why there's a stylist too. Yes. Oh, that's bro. Yeah. Styling the food. Yeah. A hundred percent. But I could see myself totally hiring grips and doing this whole thing and really setting up shots because the location's beautiful and you can make it look great without lighting and you know the fx3 looks so damn good in low light but once you start adding lighting and models and you know blocking and all that kind of stuff i think it really elevates things to the next level and i think that's a really great point that if you are um you know if you are still working with local clients and you want to take the next step and level up as a videographer it's like don't use the excuse of oh I'm not on these big sets so I can't make anything sick yeah and I think I think when you get into it I remember going from like organ ducks was all capture we weren't using lights we're just like football's happening you show up and you film football and you try to make it look as cool as possible make it sick I feel like I was really getting good at editing not really a good shooter and then when I like graduated and came I was like man I'm not like the best cinematographer or like filmmaker it's like i know how to edit really well but i don't understand like why this certain stuff looks good or why it doesn't i just know that it doesn't look correct and i think the more that i studied and watched youtube and watched movies and tv shows you kind of get a gauge of like how things are lit where the camera's position and what makes it look more interesting to you or not look interesting i like that he said it's not always is always what you know you like.

1:38:43It's also what you hate. Why do you don't like this thing? And what it is that you can share to the crew so they can get an idea of what you don't want your film look to be on the actual day. I feel like I had a decent idea of the kind of person he is and how he kind of goes about his work and his everyday life. But he has a real obsession and he's meticulous when it comes to the details. And granted, when he was really picking up a camera and getting good and practicing was during COVID. So it's like, you got nothing but time. But there's no mistake that he's where he's at. I mean, he puts in the work.

1:39:25He was trying to get better every single day. It's obsessive. Yes. And I think that's what it takes. I think a lot of people, they want to get to the next level, but they're just like, like he said, one day, one day I'll shoot this bigger commercial. It's like one day doesn't exist. You have to make it happen. And if you're not shooting the brands that you want at the level that you want or your work isn't at the caliber that it needs to be to be able to level up, well, you're going to have to invest in yourself, invest some money into a spec project. Like he said, it doesn't have to be the biggest or best spec project in the entire world.

1:40:03He's right, too. The people get – they make that mistake.

1:40:05Giancarlo Stigliano:They're like, I need the helicopter. Yeah. that was funny because it's true though you just don't though you need you need to find people who if you make a beautiful deck and you have a great idea people to rally behind it and be like this is going to be super sick for like all of us not just for me you know and spend a little bit of money to do the damn thing like even you know it's funny i've been taking on some projects that we're not going to make too much money on because we're spending so much on locations and crew and cameras and stuff but i know that we're going to make 10x whatever you put into it so at the same time you got to look at like if there is a job that you're super stoked on you're like man i could make it 25 cooler if we spent more of this profit or more of this budget it's probably you should do it i remember the first time i hired a buddy to come out who knows how to light felt different feels different the final image looks more elevated it looks like an actual fucking commercial lighting itself I think that was what was so interesting I think people get so caught up in having such a nice camera but I think me personally I would rather invest if you have limited budget I'd rather invest in in a gaffer and someone who knows lighting and can light the space well because you could film something on a goddamn iPhone nowadays if it's lit well and the composition's right and the story's good all you really need is is a phone yeah like totally and most people i would argue 95 percent of people listening to this episode have something have a nice camera close to an fx3 you know and it's like the camp you know we don't need cameras to get any better no no the cameras are as good as they need to be yeah the cameras are now we're just getting selfish like yeah we're on open gate we're waiting on the fx3 mark ii and people are like i want 8K sensor and open gate and 32-bit float.

1:42:00Great. Those are all sick features and it'd be great to have, but we could use the FX3 for forever. And you'd be fine. You don't need a new camera. Most of you don't need a new camera. You just need to get better at all the other things outside of it. It was fun though. He's awesome. I also really like to, at the very end we're just talking about like different hobbies i think that's important to yes have those other things outside of it so you're not just so tied to your work we've talked about that before but like when you quit concerts when i quit the lakers every time you tell someone what you do their eyes light up because most of the time most not all most people's jobs suck ass yeah you have a cooler job you get like that addiction to that dopamine of like being like oh my god you tour for a living that's so cool what is it like like and then when you leave it's not as cool like you don't whatever you say you do it's like oh yeah i own this company that's cool but the lakers people be like oh my god what's lebron like there's a fandom yeah there's like a fandom of like what is that like what's the behind the scenes look like so you can't get so caught up and tied to like the logo the label whatever the job is that you do because yeah you eventually will probably not work there anymore.

1:43:16And you're going to feel lost and weird because your whole identity was like tied up in what you do. So it's, I think it's important, like he was saying, to know like who you are outside of the thing that you do for work and have those other hobbies. But man, this was fun. I can't wait to, we've had up so many creators over these last few weeks. We're very excited to get the ball rolling back in this land. Speaking of hobbies, is going out in Miami a hobby for you? dude i let me tell you guys something i don't do well with this whole no sleep thing in miami culture if you guys are from out there you guys don't sleep they just went on a bachelor trip on a bachelor trip with a buddy in miami and i've never seen anything like the restaurants in miami and i think i was telling my mom was gonna like poppy state yeah i should pretty much like kiki on the river which is like it's how they do it out there it's like it's a club you sit down i was is like so overstimulated i'm like holy shit okay we're going off tonight i sent my mom a video and she's i was like have you ever seen something like this she's like i can't even like comprehend yeah what this video what's going on in this video i mean there's co2 cannons going off at dinner like they're like someone over to the tomahawk yeah dude there's like there's like a hookah being brought to the table there's bottles being popped i'm like bro there's one table next I swear to God, this table's bill had to be$25 ,000.

1:44:39Every time you turned around, there was a bottle being brought out. And the minimum bottle, because we did get a bottle for like 15 of us, it was like$2 ,000 for the bottle at the dinner. Everybody gets one shot, if that. If that. If that. And then you got this one table. Better make it last. This one table brought like 10 bottles. They just kept going out. And then they brought this thing to like, you know, they're just dancing around the table. I'm just like, bro, this is another. Miami is a different beast of a place. Oh. Huh. Can you show me something? What? I want to shout out our rock in the DCA.

1:45:12Oh, dude. Nigel. Check this out. Check it out. Tell me. We're running the DCA right now. We got to tell him to change his Discord name. It's Captain White Rice. Captain White Rice. Yeah. Let's change it to his real name. Yeah. Nigel. Shout out to Nigel. Landed that video project 10K. Easily my biggest budget ever. previously had 7k retainers but that was for months work of branding content wouldn't have handled it nearly as well without the dca so thank you big figgy and costas and all you in our cohort how epic is that 10k it's light work dude it's just what happens you're in the dca man it's light work listen if you're trying to level up make 10 grand a month come on videographer that was pretty sweet that gets me hyped that's fine that's why you do the damn thing it almost makes me that's really cool i think it makes me more happy and i get more like joy out of somebody getting a big win like that than me getting a win for my agency sort of you know i love making money i love making money but like hearing that yeah hearing that the information that we're teaching and the guidance that we're giving rocks is is allowing them to fucking make more bread it gets me so hyped did you see that someone commented on an old pod i think of seth godin or greg levecki and was like you guys really vibe well together where'd you meet i was like appreciate that appreciate that oh oh oh i gotta bring it up i gotta bring it up okay the last two nights of nba playoff basketball have been some of the most electric basketball i have ever won it really bums me out that you didn't watch these games live i I did.

1:46:53I watched the highlights of the first game. But dude, first of all, Wenbanyama is a freak. Just the GOAT, huh? He's so good, and I hope they win it all because... Be pretty electric. If he wins, he should have... I'm not a big Shea fan. I think he foul baits too much. I think Wenbanyama should have won MVP. I think he's going to win a handful of MVPs. He'll win finals MVP if they go. Yes, of course, of course. But dude, he had 41 and 24, three rebounds. Hits a 30-foot three-pointer to tie the game in overtime with 20 seconds left. Crazy shot. The ball's on that, man. You know? Got to respect the game.

1:47:36And then the Knicks come back in the fourth quarter from 22 points down to send it to OT. And they win. The Garden is bumping. I'm also, it's so funny because you can see some of the celebrities. And you can see where Timothee Chalamet sits because he's always there. And that's my dog. and he's just going nuts. And Jalen Brunson has got to be the most clutch basketball player to ever live at 6 '1", which is crazy. Reminds me of us a little bit. Yeah, kind of a similar vibe. But, dude, I've been really – We're putting up 30-10-10. Yeah, dude. Bringing you guys back from OT. Yeah, I've just really enjoyed – Playoff basketball to me is like my favorite sports to watch and I didn't watch much of the regular season this year just because they've made it so hard.

1:48:26Yeah. Like, I don't even have cable at my house, but you need 25 different streaming platforms to watch. And then our favorite streaming platform went down. If you know, you know, man. Yes. If you know, you know. I found a new one though. Life's been hard. Yeah. Yeah. We're making it. Hey, great pod. Love you guys. We'll see you guys all next week. Hey, drop us a comment, leave us a like, subscribe, send it to a friend. See you all next week. Peace.