Building a nearly silent crime drama in Motor City

0:00I'm John Matysiak, the director of photography of Motor City, and you're listening to the Cinematography Podcast. Our intention from the beginning was to do as much of this in camera and as real as possible. There's this fight sequence within a car, and that was real for real. Like, we did that on a moving vehicle. Oh, wow. There was talk early on of like, oh, we need to do blue screen and then do inserts on blue screen. And we just said, we want to do it real for real as we can. Hey, this is CinePod, the cinematography podcast, a program about the art, craft, and philosophy of the moving image presented to you by Hot Rod Cameras.

0:37I'm your host, Ben Rock. Today on our show, we have returning champion John Matashak. John is the cinematographer behind Motor City, directed by Patsy Ponsaroli. John and Patsy also collaborated on the 2021 awesome Western, Old Henry. Go see that, too. We dive into why Motor City tells its story with almost no dialogue, like I think six lines in the whole movie, and how that shaped everything from the frame rate to all their use of needle drop music. The crew tested wildly different frame rates to find moments where the image alone could carry the emotion of a sequence. The commitment to shooting practical over digital, including a real car fight and a one-day elevator brawl that must be seen to be believed.

1:17It's such a good fight scene, maybe my favorite fight scene of the year. The team built real stunts on real streets, saving resources for the effects work that truly needed it. How the team engineered Motor City's period 1970s Detroit look. Side-by-side film tests on 35mm and Arri Alexa helped the team reverse engineer a great film look for their digital shoot. Pulling off an ambitious 44-location shoot in just 27 days. That's nuts. Heavy pre-production and storyboarding gave the crew flexibility to improvise and pivot when locations and permits fell through at the last minute, as they sometimes do.

1:54After the interview, stick around for our short ends, our pet obsessions of the week. But first, find out what's going on in the world of entertainment in our little segment we like to call Close Focus.

2:08all right so before we get to john matashak in the interview uh what's going on in the entertainment uh world uh that pertains to cinematography in some peripheral way ilia

2:18John Matysiak: well you've probably heard something about how the movie industry is dead and people aren't going to the movies no man the theater they're turning all of our theaters into warehouses for amazon so that people can pack up uh everyday carry kits that they can ship off more efficiently You know, I'm going to go out on a limb here and just say that there are interests in this world that clearly just love to lie. They love to lie about all kinds of things. They love to lie about the performance of their latest AI model. They like to lie about, you know, what sort of surveillance or tracking is going on.

2:51John Matysiak: But it seems to me like there's a huge lie constantly being told about how people don't like to go to the movies when there are scalpers. There are ticket scalpers for movies now getting thousands of dollars for IMAX releases on eBay. Unfreaking believable. My brain melts a little bit just thinking about it because it's like, you can't wait like a couple hours and see another screening of a movie. You don't have to go see. Well, what's happening is, you know, like what you're talking about is something that happened a bit to the Odyssey. I think Dune 3 is the main victim here. Looms in December, but you can buy tickets now.

3:34Scalpers have gone online and have purchased massive blocks of it so that all the showings are sold out. And then they're turning around and selling those tickets for like$700, sometimes$1 ,400 on eBay. And yeah, that means that like regular schmoes like you and me who are like, hey, I'd like to pay 30 bucks. which is still a premium to go see Dune in IMAX, we're shit out of luck because some goofwad figured out a way to make a quick buck at it. And some other doofwads decided that they would actually pay that much money for a movie ticket.

4:13John Matysiak: It feels, I don't know if I, I don't know if I actually totally believe the story because I've never met someone who is a IMAX ticket scalper, nor have I ever met someone who would admit to buying a scalped IMAX ticket. And, you know, I'm reading this article. Esquire did an article this week. I certainly didn't spend my son's entire college fund so I could see the Odyssey. What's crazy to me is that, you know, it's been going on, I guess, in some capacity ever since, like, Taylor Swift era's tour. Because I understand. Kind of makes sense. Yeah. I mean, maybe a little bit more sense. But also the Spider-Man's getting scalped as well.

4:47John Matysiak: But here's the thing I don't understand. in this article sort of like not too far down it almost sounds like there's a justification for the theater to raise the prices to have an even more expensive ticket as if that's somehow going to like keep the scalpers at bay like i wonder if all of this is like a psyop i wonder if like you know if it's not if it's not really real here that like you know you just you just went full joe rogan on this i'm trying to go rogan here but it's like who are these people if you are someone who would buy a scalped movie ticket or are a scalper i would like to hear from you please go to the comments of wherever you're listening to this or or send us an email over at email at cam noir i would like to know who's gonna do that definitely speak into my collar which is not have a hidden microphone in it i i just i i find it so hard to believe because like the kind of the idea behind scalping tickets is scarcity.

5:47John Matysiak: Ah, you know, this artist is coming to town for one night only. There's only X number of front row seats or any sort of seat for the concert. Do you want to be part of that? Here's your opportunity to buy it. Well, there is a scarcity in that there aren't as many seats in the legitimate IMAX screens. And I think that's where most of this is happening. And there's only, there's a serious scarcity of IMAX screens in the country. There's only 41 uh imax screens in the entire world i believe now i'm not including the limax screens which you can easily get into but i'm talking about you're gonna go see dune 3 in 70 millimeter imax let's just talk about patience for a second though you can't wait a day two days well i keep hearing i look i uh i have not tried to go see the odyssey for instance in 70 millimeter imax i did see it i saw it in limax um i would love to see it in 70 millimeter imax but in order to do that i have to go to uh universal city walk and i kind of would rather have my appendix out most days than go to universal city walk if i could possibly avoid it it's great theater great theater a super annoying uh place to go it is i know a 16 minute drive from your front door so uh but once you get there you then have to park at the bottom of the hill if you want to avoid paying the the heavy duty parking prices and then take the shuttle up to the top or pay the heavy duty well the movie theater will reimburse you for the ticket for the parking price but you just have to go into the most confusing frustrating and ugly parking structure ever created i think uh they brought back datalus uh the guy who created the labyrinth to uh to create the the parking structure for universal city walk in uh in universal city uh la and also there is most people don't know this there's a minotaur walking around in there who will fucking murder you it's a real thing there's some velociraptors for sure and they're actually painted on the wall that tells you what level of parking garage you're on ben it's just you can totally it's a shitty velociraptor i'm parked in tyrannosaurus i will i will do almost anything to avoid going there that being said they do have one of the best uh 70 millimeter imax screens well i mean i think there's only two in la which gives us two more than most cities because like i said there's only 41 of them in the world And I heard an interview with, it's the CEO of IMAX on The Town, Matt Bellamy's podcast, The Town.

8:09And he was basically saying that there isn't anyone who manufactures 70mm IMAX projectors. So they kind of have to be made one by one or something. I get it. There's not going to be five. They are living. They've created the scarcity. I guess that's really the thesis here. IMAX has created the scarcity and then this elevated ticket price has made people go batty to go see these movies like this. And it is a great way to see a movie. But you're right. I mean, like, you know, if you can't get a 70 millimeter IMAX ticket to see Dune 3, you could certainly go see it in any number of other formats that same day.

8:56It's probably playing in a Dolby theater right next door and you can get a ticket for that. And yes, it will be digital projection and it will still be the same movie.

9:05John Matysiak: And it will be the same movie. And your experience might actually be better because I have to say, too, it depends an awful lot of where you sit in the theater. I never need to hear another person tell me how they saw something in, you know, 70 millimeter and LIMAX or whatever it is. And then they sat in the very, very last row. well if you're in a real imax like that imax is imax theaters there are no bad seats in those theaters yeah the front row is the worst seat but the front row is still pretty far away from the screen in the legitimate imax non-limax imax screens they're not that that far you need you need to be way further further back in the actual imax theater in the limax theaters if you're paying for limax and you're sitting in the back row i mean no big deal go look there is no gateway weave at all with digital projection.

9:55John Matysiak: There are some advantages to seeing something with a digital projection. And certainly that sort of clarity is not a problem. So look, I'm not going to debate the merits of digital versus film, but when I hear people talk about... That's not what we're here to say. We're here to say that IMAX has created a world of scarcity around this format and these screenings and uh industrious creeps have figured out a way to monetize the scarcity at the expense of moviegoers and idiotic moviegoers have been willing to help monetize the creeps clearly people with more money than sense because i will tell you there look there's some advantage to seeing a film print when it is new because as film gets run through through a projector over and over again, it does develop some scratches and some damage and some whatnot.

10:45John Matysiak: It's usually pretty minor for like the first 30 days. If you're watching something in 70 millimeter IMAX, those projectors are the upkeep and the booth and everything is like a dust free environment. I used to be a regular old multiplex projectionist running at one point 11 projectors on a dollar, you know, it was a 99 seat theater or a 99 cent theater running 11 screens. And those prints definitely took a beating. I'll argue every day that a fairly good digital projection will outperform a typical movie theater print projection, a 35 millimeter print projection at a typical multiplex. Most multiplexes were terrible and they usually had the bulb set too dim as well.

11:33John Matysiak: I can't tell you... Well, they just didn't want to change them when they got old. They would just let them go down. Five grand for a new bulb but if we're talking about 70 millimeter imax projection now it's a different thing because there is no digital projector in the world that can project the resolution of 70 millimeter imax can your eye perceive it that's a different question can you feel it emotionally as a viewer probably yeah to some degree um you know you have you know if you really want to have the resolution conversation you have to talk about the the final resolution of the print and you also have to talk about the viewing distance.

12:08John Matysiak: And I would argue that you are seeing the dual 4K IMAX projectors, which are overlaid their system, which has a small pixel shift type of thing. And the amount of information that you're seeing from their projectors versus the 70 millimeter, it's going to be pretty close. It's going to be pretty close. This might be the wonkiest conversation we've ever had on this podcast in 15 years. Yeah. If you're considering buying an IMAX ticket off of eBay, just stop. Just really stop. There's you do not need to see the movie at that time that badly. All right. Why don't we get to the interview now? Here is John Matashak.

12:46Well, let's get into it. Motor City, I mean, like one of the things I love about Motor City is how visually it is told and it is told. I've read different reports, four lines of dialogue in the whole movie versus six lines of dialogue, which is a little deceptive because there's scenes of people talking, but they're in slow motion and behind a glass or whatever. So we're not hearing, it's not important to hear what they're saying, but it is damn near a silent movie. Now, I know this movie was in development for a long time. When it was brought to you, was it always like that? Or is that something that like Potsy changed about it to make it this like extremely visually driven film?

13:32Yeah, no, when Patsy first shared the script with me, it was 90 pages of prose. You know, it was this action, heavy, descriptive telling of this world, this underbelly world of Detroit. You know, so it was always this idea of, hey, read this script. There's no dialogue. Let's jump in. And even the dialogue that's in it, I mean, you know, like my mind goes like, well, those better be six really crucial, important lines. And I don't recall what any of them were like. I don't feel like any of the I feel like it was just like you'd hear dialogue there. So it's there, except for the very, very end where there is some spoken dialogue that's extremely crucial.

14:22But the rest of it is sort of incidental almost. yeah it's tactile it's sort of a means to an ends but not in a none of the dialogue the sparse dialogue in the film you know really informs the plot so much I mean I think that was sort of the the challenge was how do you visually tell this story and keeping how do we keep an audience engaged for 90 minutes or 100 minutes whatever the runtime is like how do you keep it engaged for so long, you know? Yeah. And, uh, I don't know if you have a quick answer for this, but I was like watching it. I'm like, I'd say three quarters of this is slow motion.

15:01Like there's a lot, a whole lot of slow motion in that movie. Do you, what was, was there, uh, was there an ethos around what goes slow motion? What goes, uh, normal, normal speed? I think early on we knew there'd be some sequences that were constructed around some certain tracks you know like certain oh yeah needle drops and so you knew sort of going in okay this sequence is going to be to this track and so in designing it you go okay well there's some action in it there's some loose action there's some drama and a lot of times we felt like if if it was if we're doing it in real time you would miss you would miss the actual sound or the screams or the dialogue you miss it more and so we sort of um early on made that decision of like okay let's try 36 frames 48 frames 96 frames let's try a variety of different frame rates to feel like when can it when can the image itself start being more than just the image you're seeing it can I guess it can emote a certain emotion just out of the nature of it being slow motion.

16:09You know, obviously it's like there definitely is a handful of times throughout the film that it does it, but it just felt so right for the film. Every time we did it, we just sort of leaned into it. I mean, I think it's super effective and you brought it up, but it's like, it's damn near a jukebox musical. And I noticed not only that he's accredited producer, Jack White, but he has kind of a cameo as the lounge pianist in the restaurant scene. Were the songs baked into it from the beginning? Did you know every song that you were going to use before you shot? So it's not that you're, it's reductive to call it making a series of music videos that tell the story.

16:50But were you choreographing your setups, your shots, the design of every sequence around a song you knew was going to be being used then? or were they ever swapped out? Yeah, I feel like they were sort of, in post, they were probably constantly swapped out. Oh, really? So you didn't know what songs you were going to be using necessarily when you shot? I mean, there were some, we had some ideas, like, for example, Nights in White Satin, we knew was like, we wanted that from the very beginning, like that track in that sequence. And, you know, there was a moment in post where it was in and it wasn't it, you know?

17:29It was all like, can the producers, can they reach a deal with the record labels to get these songs? Yeah. You know, to make it sort of fit within their resources more than anything. So there were times where we, you know, we had this idea like, oh, this track, we want this track to be in here. Designing a sequence around it. And then, you know, I'd say, yeah, a handful of them are sort of from the jump, what we initially had thought, managed to make it all the way through. And then there's some that were switched out. So that's crazy because it feels so custom built for the music that got used.

18:05Like every piece of it, it just feels perfect. So let's kind of go back to the beginning. So when Patsy gave you the script, it's all prose, you know, and it's 1977. It takes place in Detroit. You know, like what were your first impressions? What were your thoughts? i assume it's just as aggressive on the page as it is in in what you guys made yeah i mean yeah it was started with such a great base i feel like or sort of this you know if you sort of like look into these characters they're sort of large i feel like they're we wanted to treat them larger than life you know also just by i think who the how the cast came together like these larger than life characters need this larger than life sort of world to sort of live in and so from the beginning we knew we wanted it to be a lot of night you know even if it wasn't written in the script night we knew we wanted some more night work we wanted it to be raining and wet we wanted to just feel a grittiness that was always from from the beginning i think what pots and i always talked about was like we want it to be raining in every scene obviously you get to production and things change and you adapt and you do wet downs not rain all the time yeah you just sort of but i think we just wanted that gritty a realness to it you know um because we're just always trying to ground it in reality even though it's a larger than life sort of story with these larger larger than life characters really trying to ground it in what our version of that detroit in the 70s would be you know the music does uh a solid lift as well because as someone who was like a little kid in the 70s but I remember it well you know like some of even the more obscure songs like uh Moonlight Feels Right like when that when that when that hit it's like immediately it evokes something in in in you know my central cortex and I'm like you know like I it just feels very 70s but yeah you know from a production design standpoint uh it all felt very real and tactile.

20:09And this was another thing that I was really curious about. Is there any chicanery going on with visual effects or whatever to extend sets or add cars to streets? Because I bought all of it. I mean, like there are shots that look like, you know, they're very striking and iconic and graded or whatever, like when they're at the top of the hotel or whatever at the beginning. But it feels it all feels very like you built sets and you and dressed streets and and did it, it feels more old school to me anyway, watching it, whether that was how you did it or not. Yeah, from the beginning, we were referencing these sort of early gritty kind of New York films, right?

20:48Mean Streets, Taxi Driver. I even looked at Terminator because that's sort of the lower budget, sort of this gritty revenge movie action film. And so we knew we wanted to get as much in camera as possible. You know, obviously there is some set extensions. There's some removals of modern elements on things, but you know we we did have a lot of cars we had a lot of cars which was um exciting but then also like those are challenges as well and so we really tried to get as as much in camera in the frame as we could you know so much so that um i think our vfx producer even said like throughout that process he was sort of amazed at like how much we were able to sort of like save and the resources then could go to making the visual effects that we had more resources to go into those shots you know it have to get spread out over the whole film, you know, or, you know, we can really sort of dial in things, but yeah, there definitely is some like, you know, adding of some Detroit and the skylines and, and some augmenting of like neon signs and that kind of thing.

21:45Yeah. The neon sign was one, it was one of the things that I was thinking of, but it, yeah, like you're saying, it felt like an augmentation it's worth bringing up. And I feel like this has been a conversation I've had like 20 times in the last month. You don't hear people talk about the Odyssey without hearing them talk about how they really did so much of it. And I feel like we're in a moment right now where I think maybe there's a little bit of fatigue on the part of audiences of watching stuff that's like all green screen and all phony. And especially with all the AI slop and stuff that you find on the internet to see something that feels authentic that and as your film does.

22:21There's something so refreshing about it to me because I like I know I'm not questioning every frame of it it just felt so substantial you know in a way yeah i mean i'm so glad that that resonated with you you know that was definitely something that our intention from the beginning was to do as much of this in camera and as real as possible and so for example even sort of towards the end of the the third act there's this sort of fight sequence within a car and that was real for real like we did that on a moving vehicle oh wow there was talk early on of like oh we need to do blue screen and then do inserts on blue screen and we just said i we want to do it real for real as we can and we went down and we had really strong producers that were supportive along the way and being like okay how do we do it safely how do we do it how do we take a car and have a fight on a car while it's going through traffic at night yeah you know how do you how do you start to even like break down a sequence like that and you do you have these like you know you have sequencing meetings and you sort of every department sort of breaks it down and we go how do we how do we figure it out how do we do it and and ultimately we're able to ironically like we're able to shoot it more efficiently that way because we're doing real for real we're saving money on vfx and yeah it just it just there's something about it that inherently feels um richer or more tactile or more dangerous even you know as an audience member you're like oh that's real like the cameras i mean we so when we say oh we're gonna put a camera on the side of a car and it's gonna scrape another car like we're gonna do that and we're gonna do it safely but we're gonna do it you know and There's even a time where, you know, there's just some great action at the end that we were even so much great action.

24:00One of the producers, Michael Tadros, who had produced all the diehards and he finally was like, finally, we're doing it in camera. We're doing it real for real. Like we used to. And it just like felt good. You know, it's like how, it's how I want to make movies. It's how I grew up wanting to make movies. You know, I just feel like, I think there's time and a place for augmentation and to enhance things. and if it calls for it, but if there's a way to do it, you know, but it does take all the departments sort of working in unison. And, you know, that was, it was a great challenge. It takes, you know, an amazing amount of planning, which, you know, kind of brings me to sort of one of, one of the biggest questions I have for you watching it is that, you know, like this, this film and part of it, I think is the nature of like the needle drop thing, but, but, but it's like a series like you could probably break it into I don't know how many sequences but probably eight sequences or so of like very continuous sequences that feel very constructed and each one kind of tells a complete story that dovetails into the next into the next very very uh specifically and um I mean I assume that that's in the script but um when you and Potsy and whoever else from the team are working on it uh you know kind of walk me through your process of how you built these really well-constructed, like almost poetic sequences that you guys created.

25:24Yeah, I mean, I think that does start with Patsy and I breaking down the script and just hours going over each sequence, talking about where the characters are, where they're going, what sort of set pieces we want them to kind of go through and come through, you know, and visually sort of having that rhythm and knowing, okay, within this sequence, this is what we want to tell from like you said those eight or call them a dozen sequences or eight sequences the thing where we really are very specific you know and that's something that early on you know we do a lot of location scouting you know and then we go back to those locations over and over again um sort of workshopping workshopping the ideas workshopping where the the actors may or may not go you know and having plans and backup plans and all that kind of stuff that you normally do but it definitely is a is a lot of conversations about the story the emotion where we're going where we're coming from we even do these like kind of like spreadsheets or even just take the schedule itself and sort of break it out and be like okay where are we spending more time in the film than other times do we need more of this or more of that sort of always uh i guess refining i mean is that we're refining like refining it all the time and being like okay Why are we, why are we telling the story this way?

26:39Why are we telling this? Why are we representing this character this way? And just always having these, these like fluid conversations, you know, it was, I don't think it was ever like, okay, let's work on this sequence now move to this sequence that move to the sequence. It was always very, a lot more, more kind of free form kind of intuitively how we would sort of navigate sort of the structure, I guess, you know? But is there like, are you doing previs? Are you doing storyboards? Are you doing shot lists? Are you bringing your iPhone or whatever? Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a combination of things because like kind of the opening sequences involves multiple locations.

27:16That was pre-vis early on, I think. I think even Potsy and I were sort of given a pre-vis that the producers sort of like roughed in and been like, okay, how is, this is a version of it. How can we make it our own? So there were some pre-vis for some of the more involved sequences with the cars. um but again you sort of like as you go through then then that becomes storyboards and then by the time you get to set that's sort of like okay that's all great but now what are we actually filming and so a lot of times it changes a lot of times it's kind of similar um but yeah there was a storyboards for we did a lot of boards you know that was something just early on with the producers i think really wanted to see too like how does this how does this this film without of dialogue visually tell itself you know and and a lot of the times they're sketches a lot of a lot of the times they are um you know photos from my phone that we take in and we did a lot of work with cars like in the office like photographing how we would shoot them and and just the different sequences or how we would do it so really it's um it's funny at one point the um my family visited and uh and my kids came in the office and they ran up and they're like um the time they're like 10 and 10 and seven and they're like running over like dad you just play with toy cars all day well maybe not all day uh but a lot of time maybe not all day but a lot of the time we would you know um just because then as you bring more department heads in you just constantly trying to over communicate okay this is the sequence this is the sequence so yeah it's a lot of um that's a lot of all the above you know i think some things we were some things we boarded early on and we were like that's great let's not touch it until we get to set and then other times we're just constantly refining it based on schedule and location you know because so much of it i think one of the things too it's like it's one thing to kind of shot list and storyboard but then once you find the location you know you really have to refine that that plan to that location you know if that if that location changes then you have to amend the plan like you have to adapt and be willing to adapt.

29:20I always say like the more, more prep we can do, more prep we do, it just prepares us to be able to improvise intuitively in the moment. So how much prep did you have? How, how, how long were you on the project? It was really quick. It all kind of came together very quickly. I think I had about six weeks. Oh wow. That is fast. Which, which I could have easily done 12 weeks on it. Right. And so what that meant was Pots and I were in the office at 7 a.m. till 9 p.m. every single day. It seems like we were on, we were going on the weekends. It was just so much work to get done. And we knew that going in.

29:54I was like, okay, well, if we have six weeks from the time I get there, then it is just nonstop from early rise to early bed. Like we're just working on this film and breaking it down. There's a lot of weekends where, you know, it was rewarding to go in there and just have it be sort of, you know, Pots and myself sort of work through more problems without the admin of a production office, you know, during the production day. So yeah, it's like sacred time. You know, it's that time where as filmmakers are sort of really just checking in on each other and saying, okay, this is, this is what we're doing here.

30:27This is what we're doing there. And really just refining that process. Yeah. Six weeks seems like a really tight time to kind of get your head around so many big sequences in this thing. I mean, so many, even just there's a, when you were talking about the fight scene in the car, I thought you were going to bring up the fight scene in the elevator. which I would put in like, you know, my top five fight scenes I've ever seen. Like, it's so good. It's just a great piece of fight choreography and it's in an elevator. So you're just completely constrained as to where the camera can go because you're inside an elevator.

31:01And, you know, looking at that scene in particular, like, you know, like what? I don't know. I would love to see the script for this because I would love to see like what was on the page versus what you guys created because it's so suspenseful and well choreographed. But like a lot of times these choreographed fights to me look like a dance. And this just looks like two guys trying to murder each other. And it's so well done. And it's so brutal, you know, and, you know, like just like that alone, I'm like, you know, I could see you taking weeks just to prep that scene, you know, like it's such a complicated little part of this bigger hole.

31:40and yet it's so well done. I know you and Patsy worked together on Old Henry and stuff, so you guys must have a shorthand. But the thing that kept jumping out at me, and maybe this is because there's so little dialogue, is there's so much detail in everything. It's so much little significant detail in the wardrobe or the reflection on the, on the window or whatever, like everything feels so really dialed in. So when you tell me you prepped all that in six weeks, it just seems like an outrageously heavy lift, no matter how long your shoot was. Yeah. I mean, it absolutely, absolutely was. Cause I feel like we did have to, you know you did have to sort of zero in and put a magnifying glass to everything within the frame and try to not leave anything on the table.

32:32You know, I just wanted to we just wanted to like, you know, leave no stone unturned, I suppose, in the discovery process of what this film could be. But in particular, that that elevator fight scene, I think, is a really great example of sort of the collaboration between Alan and his team and doing what they do extremely well, which is like action and fight choreography and emotion within the fights. you know like that was something that his team really brought to it and then then you've got what what potty and i bring to it which is like a whole nother kind of sensibility to it and so i think in that scene they definitely like there's a marriage there in terms of of how you know a lot of times fight scenes can get they can kind of just go on or get out of hand and you sort of lose that emotional beat by beat and so that was something just um he has a really great collaboration and and believe it or not we shot that in one day what that whole scene oh my god how many days did was the whole shoot if i may ask i think we had 28 on paper and then we ended up shooting 27 so it's 27 days wow that's incredible i mean there's so much so much in this movie i mean i you know i don't know i mean i feel like it's like got a the the level of action of a fast and furious movie but it doesn't have all the cgi vfx compositing stuff going on so you're doing it more for real probably than they are and you know they probably shoot those movies for three months yeah you could spend two weeks on an elevator and two units yeah i mean like a buddy of mine does the storyboards for a lot of those he's been on the show tony liberatore and he was he's told us like it's like the there's a dramatic unit doing all the dramatic scenes on fast and furious and then the second unit is doing all the car stuff and uh and and they both go for like three months on something like that.

34:24And, and you're doing something, in my opinion, it's more ambitious because it's also a period piece. Um, you know, and even though it's got, you know, fewer characters, I guess it's, it's just so much action and so much, I don't know, there's so much invested in it. Yeah, we were very, um, we're very blessed because while we had 27 days, you know, on the, on the main unit, I did, we did have an amazing second unit that did do a lot of the broad strokes and a lot of the really more intricate sort of like stunt driving work like that led by doug coleman who is our who is our second unit director and um and my dear friend dave mcfarland is was the second unit dp he came in and just was gracious enough to kind of you know um collaborate with us and work on it and so i you know they weren't running the whole time but they definitely you know it was definitely a thing of like what can we what can we do how do collaborate what sequences can we piece off or break down because you know there was a lot of that driving stuff there's like multiple blocks across the city it wasn't one like area we had to do like two blocks here and then the car turns a corner and now we're like in jersey city over here yeah shut the whole thing in new jersey right yeah new jersey for detroit yeah and so it's only the only just the very best places in new jersey

35:41Well, let's get into like, uh, some, some chat about like, uh, lenses, uh, choices of lenses and the way you went about lighting it. So I probably was paying attention to it, but I was kind of swept up into the movie. What kind of lenses, uh, did you find yourself gravitating towards? What was, what was the choice behind, uh, you know, what, what kind of lenses where, where you landed with them? Like how depth of field, all, all the stuff that you were trying to communicate with those lenses yeah um early on we knew we wanted to be a scope picture we knew we wanted it to be anamorphic we just felt that was right for it you know we did test a bunch of spherical uh even spherical crop but we ended up just loving that anamorphic frame and in particular you know after going through a series of tests um we ended up on master anamorphics in particular we went with airy rental and so we had some kind of custom detuned master anamorphics that kind of took took the edge off of them a little bit and so um because the film relied so heavily on the visuals without the use of dialogue you know i i knew going in that we didn't want a lens that would be in any way distracting with any kind of distortions on the edges or or flares that were too much or just anything that would call attention to itself because there's like this fragile thing that we have where we're trying to tell a story without dialogue with music um and so yeah we ended up on a film on on us on master anamorphics which we really enjoyed we shot tests on film which was something um i early on the process raised my hand about and being like hey we can we can shoot some tests on film and really design our look and like you always say after the fact oh we're gonna make our digital look like film let's make our area alexa look like film well what does that actually look like and so we wanted to from the very beginning see what that looked like and so we shot side-by-side tests of of 35 and alexa we shot alexa mini alexa lf and alexa 35 and really tried to see which of those formats with our post process would get us closest to the look that we were achieving on 35 and so we ended up on the alexa 35 um and it was great like we took we took our film test and then created our basically our digital emotional from that um my colorist walter valpato is amazing he was really instrumental in that process because i was just i worked with him on winning time i got connected with him doing winning time season two and so it was one of the things that going to this project i was like i know we can't shoot film because of the budget but how do we how can we achieve a you know how can we achieve something that still has all the properties of film that we love and so yeah i'm really happy with it was there any discussion about like doing a film out and then retransfering it all uh greg fraser and uh but even like movies like smile do that like to just kind of get the the the roll off on the highlights and stuff like that or was that something you were able to dial in to your satisfaction in the grade yeah i've done that done that on some commercial work and i feel like the the work i've been able to do on that in the on the short form stuff and also what we're able to do just kind of from our initial tests i i feel like it's pretty seamless in terms of like i was able to achieve exactly what with with having a little bit more control over those like callations and highlights doing it this way versus the film out yeah i i've always wanted to see kind of the test like i'd love to see i mean obviously i'm you know greg greg fraser knows what the hell he's doing i'd love to see dune before and after just to see what a difference it makes, you know, because it's, you know, obviously stuff looks amazing.

39:16Won him an Oscar in terms of lighting and stuff like that. It I don't know. I mean, like, you know, being on the street in the rain in Detroit is going to look it's going to look the same today as it did in 1977. But there felt like there was something period about the way you lit it. Was there a period approach or were you like taking cues for movies, like you said, like Taxi Driver or whatever about how to light it? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I feel like so much, so much like night exterior these days, we see too much. So I know early on, we really wanted to, like, yeah, how did a film like Mean Streets or Taxi Driver or a film in the 70s or 80s, like what do those night exteriors look like?

39:55Like the blacks are really dark. Like they're really rich. And so going into this, I knew we wanted that. that was something even talking with the visual effects like as we married certain certain shots within what we did in camera versus visual effects it was like oh sort of like a learning curve there like no we want this to go true true black you know true darkness like absence of light absence of anything in these certain areas so that's what film does i mean that's what film is so so great about you know you get those rich rich sort of contrast on the low end and so um yeah i don't know this was one of those films where we were just not afraid i think in terms of the lighting to be bolder with some things.

40:35And, you know, I was always trying to ground it in some type of reality, whether it's some street light or some neon sign off in the distance or, you know, a swinging light in the prison, you know, just any type of interactive lighting. I was trying to just, we just wanted to bring that into the world because there's an absence of the typical things that you have on a film, aka dialogue. How can you engage a viewer constantly sort of subconsciously like through the lighting you know and that was something that um you know it was a big challenge i think going in just by the nature of the scope of our film and how many different set pieces i think we had 44 different sets you know and so it was just like how do you how do you vary them up and then yeah you're constantly turning off lights and demodernizing everything and and putting up your own fixtures for street lights but and then we sort of found like our version of what sodium sodium vapor is you know like that orange that that yellow orange street like we came and came up with our own version and that was like that's great it looks amazing jason velez my gaffer was just absolutely incredible and dave stern my uh my key grip they were just really down to collaborate and really down to kind of make the film we all wanted to make you know they just really uh brought everything to the table including just amazing teams um because it was a heavy lift like you said it was um it was an ambitious ambitious film yeah it's not it's not a movie you could just go out and make you know with minimal set dressing like it's uh it like every everything feels like such a specific uh choice with now with the lights what kind of lights did you tend to use i mean we had a i mean it's like the array of stuff whether it was uh airy x23s which are sort of like these like you know great they're like sky panels on steroids i feel like um a lot of sterotubes you know a lot of titan tubes a lot of led stuff so So it was a lot of LED, a lot more LED, I think, than I initially had thought.

42:31But the LED fixtures just give you so much more control. And again, so much more of those kind of control and ability to keep refining up until the last moment until the set comes together. And so that's where a certain set piece comes together. And so you can kind of keep refining, keep auditioning things. And so, yeah, just the nature of being able to be flexible with a lot of LED lighting really allowed us to kind of, I think it allowed us to be a little bolder with some of our choices because we could kind of see what different versions would look like and make the choice. Yeah, you can like with those, you can iterate much faster.

43:05You can be like, yeah, no, that's not quite it. But what if we, you know, you can move it. It's not like you have to hang a gel on it or do anything complicated. It's so fast to move around. yeah and so as with with certain things changing like for example either whether it's a location that you lose and you have to we have to pivot at the last minute to like go to a new location or this or that you know i think that type of just the lighting technology now allows for much more sort of intuitive filmmaking which i always find is is just in line with sort of how i approach the craft in general in terms of like this is what's in front of like this is what we have let's make some decisions based on what we have there was a plan but now we might pivot and that's totally okay because we have all these resources we have all these craftsmen and women to be able to do that you know all these amazing technicians um but it is it is i always do think it's you know this is one scene in particular it was um kind of a funeral scene in which it was like you know it was supposed to be raining it was one of those scenes early on where like we it needs to be it has to be raining in here you know and sure enough on the day it's like there's rain on the sky there's literally like rain in the forecast and so like it's somewhere down the lane, a line, I don't know what happened, but the rain trucks, the water trucks and the rain stuff was not ordered.

44:17Cause someone was like, what's going to rain anyway. And it's like, that's no good. So it's really funny. And the fact that it's raining is not going to like, you still might have to augment it. Totally. And so, so the trucks all of a sudden show back up, the towers go up and then, you know, it ends up being a combination of, you know, real rain and all rain. But I just think it's, it's one of those things that makes me realize that, you know, while i'm on set and while i've you know been on the project for a couple months prepping and shooting you know there's producers and there's writers that have been with this project for years you know literally years trying to make it happen and here we are in a matter of two hours trying to get up set up the scene light it and then it'll live that way forever you know just a lot more empathy i think um the more the more the more i the more i uh the more projects and more films I do for those, for those people that have been with the project from the very beginning that, you know, they've had this funeral scene in their head for the last 15 years.

45:16And here we are trying to make it happen within an hour or two hours to set it up. And then it, then it's captured and lives like that forever. You know, it's like, well, and I, I, I done a little bit of research about the making of this film and it's been in development for a long time and went through many hands. So there've been people who, like you're saying, have literally been with this film for five years or more. And yeah, that's, it's it's it's kind of a a big responsibility to realize someone's hopes and dreams for a big pivotal moment like that you know no i always feel it you know especially or like an actor that there's if there's a you know if there's a scene where the actor has like you know a monologue or they know it's like we know it's a really important part in in the script for it i'm like i feel like i'm always trying to communicate with the with the actors as well as the director being like what do you need right now because it's not just about lighting and camera like what do you need like how can I help facilitate even the workflow of the day so I can help you, you know, be able to do your best or bring, bring what you want to it, you know, and try to not be in the way.

46:17I feel like, I don't know, sometimes the technique and the tools, sometimes they can get in the way of like what's really important. And I feel like it's just sort of like just checking in on people and just being like, what do you, what, what do you need to like thrive right now in, in, in this scene or this day of work, you know, whatever it is. Well, that's an interesting thing to bring up about your relationship with actors, because, you know, obviously you're all in the same space and you're working together. And I feel like, you know, there's there are some schools of thought, which is that, like, really, the director is the only one who should be talking to the actors, but also your human beings in a room trying to accomplish the same thing.

46:59And you and Patsy have, I assume, a really great working relationship anyway. But where do you draw the line in terms of that? Like, you know, is there what you're saying isn't anything that would step on anyone's toes. But like, you know, how do you how how can you as a DP make sure the actor is is working at their best level? Like, would it be about decluttering their eyeline and not having a bunch of gear or whatever, just making it clear to them that you're there to support them? Or how does that work? yeah I mean I think it's I mean it's all those things I think it's you know I think it's creating that first of all the environment on set that feels safe quiet at times if you need to and sort of leading by example you know I do think it's about um it's about communicating too right it's just about um whether we're going in for this type of coverage or we're going to get you know we're going to get these series of shots and this and that and you know a lot of times it's dialogue that I have with Patsy and them about like, okay, what do we want to accomplish first in this, in this moment, technically, like, you know, and so I think it is just, it's also reading the room too.

48:05I think at some point you can tell if there's something that's, if there's something that's getting in the way of, of a performance, you know, and if it's something that's within sort of my department, you know, in terms of being able to help facilitate, then absolutely, you know, or just like, just being empathetic, I think, and reading the room about like, when you're all trying to collaborate. You know, for example, there was one, there were a couple of sequences with Shailene and Ben, and it was like, you know, one of the things that being in there was sort of the, I don't even want to call them blocking rehearsals, just kind of discussions about the scene, because this was a couple of scenes in particular we didn't really want to block.

48:40They didn't want to block. They were like, we don't really want to block it. We want to be in these characters and sort of try to like find this moment as real as possible. Is it like the early stuff where they're in love kind of stuff or something else? Some stuff earlier, later on in the film too. yeah um so then what i try to do is then sort of know going into lighting that set that like okay we want to have the flexibility to shoot 360 you know we want it to be lit a certain way where if the actor goes to the back of the room to the middle of the room they have the freedom to do to move and not think about i can't move here you know i think again giving an actor or collaborator or a filmmaker that freedom to to to go anywhere in that moment you know i just remember that was something that even potty afterwards was like thank you so much you let you allowed for the actors to do anything they wanted to in the room you know and we had an amazing camera operator sam willie who's been with us for a long time on multiple films and so it's like we can all be intuitive and sort of like uh serve serve the characters which then serve the story you know because they're trying to bring a whole nother level or layer of life into these characters since they can only communicate for the most part non-verbally yeah but they're so good at i mean i know we're here to talk about cinematography and not acting but like the performances are so solid in it and uh you know uh i'm not to not not to play favorites but why ben foster needs an oscar he's so good i've never seen him do a performance anything that was he's he's just magnetic and amazing.

50:13And I, I didn't even realize it was him until the credits rolled. And I'm like, Oh my God, that was Ben Foster. He's so great in everything. Yeah. I mean, he, um, I mean, I, from Alan who sort of set the tone, right. And you have been Foster, Shailene Woodley. I mean, it was just, um, I felt the responsibility cause I knew what they had all sort of signed up to do on this film. And so I just felt, you know, a huge responsibility to, to capture these performances and, and not let, you know not let dramatic lighting get in the way of it like i want to see their performances i want to see the nuances of it and so that was something i really kind of from the beginning was like although i want we want this film to be dark and gritty i i i as a filmmaker and i possibly agree like we wanted to see the performances you know and the nuance of it never let the lighting or camera kind of get in the way of that um because yeah it was amazing watching them watching them work it was like a master class it's sort of that experience i had i feel like with tim blake nelson on old henry i know just sit back and it's a master class in acting if you if you sort of sit back observe and learn you know it can be a master class in acting and so it was um it was a it was such a privilege they're just amazing amazing creatives and collaborators well it did get me thinking as i was watching it about like what you know because like i don't know that i would have if i didn't know who was behind it i don't know that i would have been like oh this is definitely the team that made old henry and yet as i thought about it it's like what does it have in common well it looks amazing like it it's it's so well put together but the performance is so grounded and and i'm so sucked into these performances more than anything else in the whole movie and this in a way is kind of an exercise in only allowing me the visual of the performances because again there's just so little dialogue in the whole thing but you know getting those actors to tell, you know, giant story points with no words.

52:06Such an amazing accomplishment, I think, just such a huge challenge for Patsy, for you and for the actors. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for saying that. I mean, that's what I think that's the environment that Patsy's created, you know, that we've created over the course of working together, You know, he allows allow for freedom, you know, and the collaboration. I think you can get people's best work that way. You know, he's just possibly just an extremely generous collaborator and he knows exactly what he wants. And yeah. And so I think the result is he's really great, amazing performances captured in, you know, very, very sort of specific way.

52:48um are there any uh sequences or moments or anything that we haven't touched on that that were like an enormous challenge that you guys had to overcome that you you have you have a cool story about how you did it well it's this isn't like it's funny this is the story where i feel like the um the language maybe maybe this was like this where the slow motion started you know obviously we knew going in that we would do a fair amount of over cranked you know there was this one there's one sequence during the prison break where um savik played by pablo schreiber he comes in and he discovers that one of the guards has been killed and it's him just standing there in an open jail cell and we were and we were basically just filming him looking down at the ground and then we were like what is this what is this missing and so you had all the prisoners behind him like hollering and banging on things and then take after take potsy encouraged them to just get more and more animated and the more we did that the more the frame felt better and so by the end i feel like there's people like jumping up and down behind him and it just all of a sudden i feel like that was like oh this is it we need to do more of this like this is that movie like where it's like this frame that tells you more than just oh someone's looking in this direction it's like there's just so much more within that frame and so that was really early on i think that was as either day two or three of shooting that that sequence the prison all the prison stuff was really early on because we had this film there before we actually i don't know how the producers negotiated a deal with the prison to like stop it from being demolished because it was all there was like a demolition crew in there we were like the prison's great can you like not do it for two more can you stop demolishing it i thought you were gonna tell me it was an operating prison and it was all natural born killers.

54:36No, it was like the opposite. And so, um, that was just early on the schedule. And so, um, yeah, it was like an interesting place to cut your teeth on a film like this and, and, uh, in a working prison without AC in the middle of the summer in New Jersey. Oof. And again, I, I imagine most of those rooms, not very big, you know, I've, I've, I've shot in prisons and it's all teeny tiny, not very big. And there was no power. So everything had to be brought in like no, no existing power. Cause the power had already gotten pulled because the building was going to get demolished. So there's no power drops.

55:08It was a whole like infrastructure sort of logistical sort of challenges to go about that. But I think, I mean, there's so many, I mean, I feel like every day was a complicated challenge of like, what are we doing? You know, what is the next big hurdle, you know? Yeah, I mean, lighting a half a mile, lighting a half a mile, you know, in New Jersey for night and having you turn the corner and then we're in another part of New Jersey and having that seamless cut from one street to the next. I mean, that took just a lot of coordinating, you know. How do you light that? I mean, like what kind of instruments were you using to light it?

55:47I mean, we had a, I mean, I think it was like Condor City. You know, we had a ton of stuff in baskets overhead, just creating just an overall kind of base backlight. And then we would come in on certain street lamps and put, you know, any kind of hotspots we could just to kind of, i feel like the challenge of of shooting a night in new jersey now for and setting in the 1970s is like how do you remove all the existing modern lights you know yeah that was like and modern cars and modern everything and modern cars and modern everything and so obviously there's some times where we're like okay well that cars we have to paint that out because that's in the deep background we can't do anything about it yeah but now i mean i feel like the entire you ask what the biggest challenge was i feel like the whole film this challenge at some point um just by the nature of having 44 locations in 27 days so you can imagine there's a location move every single day if not two location moves oof that eats a lot of time yeah yeah so it's like you know um but again that's like i guess that's like designing going in and planning and designing these sequences from start to finish at least on paper ahead of time early our heads are in photo boards and story boards ahead of time it gives us much more of the ability to kind of to pivot you know um it was funny that there was there's one sequence where his um where alan's character his where his car gets gets stolen and he's like he has to run after his he runs after where the car goes and like we had we had prepped and planned all these city blocks his path for him to run we had gone there repeatedly because we had to choose it then they had to permit it and then our department had to like dress so many storefronts so much so much of this and that and then we get there on the day and like none of it's been done like oh shit something happened with the city and like the permit wasn't something happened right and we weren't able to do what we had planned for like two you know for four weeks and so we immediately had to just quickly pivot and go like three streets over where we hadn't scattered it all before and like figure it out because and i remember being like okay we have to find another location it's like halfway through our day we have to find a new location we have to do it quickly because our trucks are landing in 15 minutes and there's like an army oh my god you know what i mean and so the pressure my blood pressure just just shot up just you saying that but we did it you know okay cool we'll make this way we'll have this be the corridor that he's running and then we can quickly dress these fronts because these storefronts are sort of halfway 1970s already, you know, and so just that kind of quick second, I think, you know, pivoting or decision making that you have to have to do in the moment, you know, which was it's not anything new.

58:27It's just it was, you know, this is one of those that was the challenge on that particular day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, we all get the shit sandwiches every once in a while. But it's yeah, I mean, like, that that just sucks. like have it having to re-scout like yeah something i mean it's not it's not like you had to do the whole car chase or something and re and redo it on the fly but still that's that's uh that's tough well that that's all great man i i uh i really hope a lot of people see this you know like like we were saying beforehand i feel like it kind of unfortunately opened against uh you know the odyssey and it was moving the last 10 years yeah and then and then spider-man which is even bigger so um but it's still in theaters as we're recording this i don't know do you know where it's going to end up streaming has that you know i don't know i think the whole you know from the beginning and that's why i think ifc has been such a great collaborator because they did they did from the beginning want a theatrical run and really supported the film that way like scott schumann over there is just incredible like such a supporter of independent film such a supporter of our film and so um i don't know we're i think we're gonna they're going to run it as long as, as long as they can.

59:38And then, you know, I'm sure it'll be available for, um, you know, to rent, you know, I'm sure it'll have a life like that for a while as well. Cause like you, I just, I've been excited to share this film ever since it premiered last year in Venice and Toronto, you know? Um, and so to have it come out a year later after that, and you know, I'm just, I'm just excited that people are responding to it and people are seeing it. Cause, um, it's a lot, you know, we're just really proud of, of the work. No, well, I definitely think you should be. So, but let's go ahead and wrap up before we go. Do you have a website or anything or Instagram?

1:00:13Any place where people can interact with you or any of your work or anything? And if you don't, I have more respect. Like I wish I could get off social media myself. No, all of the above. You know, I've got my website, which is my name, johnmatishak.com. And then, yeah, you can find me on Instagram as well. And yeah, shoot me a message. Say hi. I hope that more people check it out because I think it's really some extraordinary work. I mean, I love the Odyssey. I love all that stuff. It's great to see something that's just completely counter-programming. It's just so different in so many ways. And I feel like people who love a movie like, I don't know, like a John Wick kind of a thing.

1:00:52It's not the same as John Wick, but it's like something that's got like high octane action in it and it looks great. And, you know, it's just a great movie to see on a big screen. Uh, I'm sure, I'm sure it looks great on TV too, but, uh, I just hope more people see it while it's still in theaters. Yeah. Likewise. I mean, we, we always crafted it for, for a theatrical experience. And so we're really excited that, that people are having that theatrical experience. It's funny. And, um, I ran into someone the other day and he was like, a friend of mine was like, you know, this is like those films that we would discover early on.

1:01:23And you're like, you have to see this film. And I was like, oh, well, thank you. I was like, you know, it's, it's different, you know, it's a big, bold swing. and not uh yeah no it's it's it's just so cool and so fun and i'm glad i got to see it on on the big screen so uh thanks again for coming on and uh come on when whenever you got your next thing okay thank you so much but it's been such a pleasure chatting thank you again

1:01:48all right so that was uh john matashak john thank you so much for coming on the show i cannot recommend uh motor city highly enough to people uh i've i've been talking about it kind of non-stop since I saw it in the theater. It had the misfortune of coming out one week after a little movie called The Odyssey, which might have overshadowed everything in the world for about a month. And then Spider-Man came out. But Motor City is beautiful. It's awesome. It's fun. It's extremely violent. And it's a fun time. Check it out.

1:02:25all right well it is time now ilia for our patent pending segment called short ends wherein we talk about our pet obsessions of the week what is your pet obsession this week well it seems like only

1:02:42John Matysiak: yesterday mac introduced the m4 processor or the m5 processor i guess it seems like only yesterday They introduced the M1 processor when they basically said we're going to Apple Silicon and we're not going to use the Intel processors. I hate to break it to you, Ben. That was almost six years ago. That was 2020 the M1 came out, and that is the era of the laptop I am using right now for this Zoom call. I am talking to you on an M1 iMac. But wouldn't you know it, we're totally passe now that we have these M1 computers. because Apple introduced today the M5 Pro, which is a souped up high power version of their M5, and then also the M6.

1:03:24John Matysiak: And it truly was like, like not even 10 months ago that the M5 was first introduced. So it was only like a pretty short cycle here between the M5 and now the M5 Pro and M6. So, and the whole point of this though is, is that there are now, like, frankly, if you want the super stripped down version of like the entry level Mac that you put on your desktop, it's 900 bucks. That is powerful enough to edit and cut and process high resolution footage for any sort of feature film. And if you talked about doing this at the level, like real time, I mean, first of all, we've been able to do this for a couple of years now, but I mean, to be able to do it today has never been less expensive.

1:04:10John Matysiak: So even as like the cost of the hardware to make movies continues to go down, there is no real reduction in the price of movies because you can see like how insignificant this always was. There was a time when the amount of money and the amount of flatbeds, the amount of things that you had to do all really contributed meaningfully to the bottom line. Now, every single film student out there, every single one dependent, independent, non-dependent filmmaker who's got a grand can essentially get a Mac computer and can process high resolution data, chop their movies together, and they can do it with like, you know, like no sweat.

1:04:52John Matysiak: You probably need to spend more money on your storage, more money on your drives than you do on your computer. Well, they say because the cost of like the Mac mini went up a couple hundred dollars and apple basically said it's because ram and and hard drive space have gone up because of data centers usurping all the hard drives and all the ram as it comes out it's like thanks ai so i mean look i think that it's remarkable i mean the the speed at which this processing is uh progressing is incredible and i'm sure that apple uses some third-party uh helpers to build and design and to make these things possible.

1:05:29John Matysiak: But it is accelerating in a way that I don't think is anything but good for the people who are trying to make movies right now or the people who are making, going through production, going through post-production. You can now process and cut and do what you need to do for still, even if it's more than it was a couple of years ago, it's still not that much compared to what it used to take. It's now incredible. Here's what I wonder, though, like has the refurbished market because these this Apple Silicon stuff has come out in such rapid succession. So you're right. It's been six years and we're on iteration.

1:06:05We're on the fifth iteration of this right now. Right. Sixth. Sixth iteration. So it's like one a year. So if you had an M3 Mac Studio, can you get that super cheap or do these things hold their value? Because they're still pretty freaking powerful.

1:06:22John Matysiak: Well, I will tell you, as of this moment right now, as we're recording, there are no Mac Mini or Mac Studios available refurbished in on the Mac store. So those things come up from time to time. But I think that the day that the new stuff gets announced is a really big day for the refurbs because I think the price is just... Because I would argue, I'm sure that if you're doing, you know, super high end 3D, you know, you're doing stuff in Blender and Maya and Houdini and stuff on your Mac, you might notice the difference between the M3 Mac Studio and the M6 Mac Studio. But my guess is like little old stupid me editing videos and doing some After Effects, I bet I wouldn't notice much of a difference.

1:07:09And, you know, you could spend, I think, up to like five grand on the on the Apple Studios right now.

1:07:16John Matysiak: Yes, you can. The Apple Studios, there are some base models that don't have the the highest end processors in them, but they still are quite capable. and I think it's going to be hard to find them in the refurb market because when the new stuff comes out, usually the prices on all the older stuff takes a little bit of a hit. Yeah, well, maybe. Well, cool. Anyway, so Ben, what is your short end this week? Well, I've been working on a script that's been kind of percolating in my brain for a long time and I finally got to the end of it, which was quite a lot of work. But I was able to get a first draft down.

1:07:51But I've been looking for good resources of people who kind of give you good coaching and information on rewriting and tips and tricks and stuff like that. And I think it's mostly just because watching a video about it means I don't have to actually be sitting there writing, which is there really is no replacement for doing the writing, like sitting there and banging your head against the keyboard and getting through your outline and then looking at it and going, well, that's 30 pages longer than I intended and cutting three quarters of it out and screaming at the heavens and cursing the God that made you and filled you with this desire to tell this story.

1:08:26But I found this guy on YouTube. The channel is The Big Red Stripe. It's a guy named Jacob Michael, and he's a screenwriting teacher. And he just has a lot of helpful hints for screenwriting stuff. I don't always agree with 100 % of what he says, but he has a lot of very useful tidbits of information and i find myself uh when i'm uh filled with kind of the the the bile of like this isn't working what's wrong with me uh you know i can distract myself by watching some of his videos and he's got he's been doing it for a long time so he has dozens upon dozens of videos up there so uh for anyone who's uh looking to write a screenplay uh i i think you could do worse than to watch a bunch of his videos.

1:09:14And it's all a come on for you to hire him to be a consultant or take his classes, which you could do. I can't vouch for how good they are or not. I just think his YouTube videos are pretty interesting and accessible and snackable. That's a word we used to say about YouTube videos. They're snackable. You don't have to. Lately, a lot of YouTube videos are like 45 minutes long. And I'm like, what happened to the eight minute YouTube video. This guy's got most of his advice is I'd say in the eight to 15 minute range. And then you can get back to your script and hating yourself as I do.

1:09:50John Matysiak: I got to ask though, what is the big red stripe? What does that mean? Is that a term I'm not familiar with? Certainly don't know. I have no idea. Okay. I found he's got a website called bigredstripe.com. So yeah, he probably explains it in one of his videos. He has a lot of videos. I don't know what the big red stripe is uh if that is a term of art in the screenwriting world uh i certainly haven't encountered it and i've been around it a lot and and even done it a little so well more than more than a little congratulations on getting your uh unicyclist uh i don't know what yours i don't want to unicycles no let's just say it's van you know piper i'll say it's vampires and leave it at that but uh but it's uh no one's ever made a vampire story quite like this which maybe is for a good reason.

1:10:41It might not work. It might never work. But it's an idea that, honestly, I've had it in my head so long and I was like, I can't rest until I write this out and write it as a script and turn it into something that I can go, here, I have finished this idea and then I can move on with my life. So it was a good feeling to get to the end of the first draft and be like, hey, I finished the first draft. And then it was a demoralizing experience to read that first draft and be like, oh, this is pretty good for the first half. And then, oh my God, oh dear Lord, what have I done?

1:11:11John Matysiak: Uh, well, you know, it's, it's only up from here. It's, this is the worst it'll ever be. It'll only get back. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and, uh, talking to my frequent writing partner, Bob DeRosa, uh, you know, he's like, yeah, no, second drafts are where it's at, man. Cause you've already got it out there and now you can rip, now you have a thing to rip apart and revise until then you were just, you know, standing on nothing. all right so ben uh i think that just about does it for this episode uh where can people find you if they want to reach out uh you can find me at the new newly re re re redone benrock.com uh i i even talked talked with alana last week when we did uh wraps and i have revised it even more since then so if you're bored i'd love your feedback go to benrock.com check it out i've changed literally everything.

1:11:59I had to revise the entire thing and kind of throw away all the work I did and kind of start over. And I kept some of the same structure to it, but it's all new stuff. So check out benrock.com. Give me a thought or two. It was fun trying to track down old quotes of like reviews and stuff, like even things like Fangoria, which have never stopped being in business, but have changed hands a couple of times, like the reviews that were on their site

1:12:28John Matysiak: in 2009 all gone yes i i am undergoing a a similar vision quest right now to go and track down uh old stuff and archive it and a bunch of it's just gone that's just just how it is it's the nature of the internet yeah it's uh it's it's funny because everyone the the permanent people always say about the internet is that it's forever that if something's on there it's going to exist in some form or another until the end of time and it's like nope they should have said only embarrassing things will exist only embarrassing things only that time when your pants fell down at the prom so where can people find you uh you can find me over at hot rod cameras hot rod cameras.com uh buy your next camera lens light anything that you might use to make a podcast or a web series a television show a movie we can sell you at hot rod cameras and you will get a highly competent person to take you through the whole process and you won't pay a penny extra than you would from one of those big box shops.

1:13:23John Matysiak: So the bread and butter for us is like mirrorless cameras. That's what a lot of people come in and buy from us. Canons, Sonys a lot. Yeah, Nikons, Panasonic, all those. Ilya, who do we have to thank this week for all of this wonderful podcast goodness? Oh, we have to thank Alana Cody. Alana Cody, who undoubtedly is cutting me down today because I don't know what it is. I'm a little bit punchy. But yes, Alana Cody, she is our predator. She is producing. She is editing. she's got us booked up for for weeks in advance for the show so we have a big interview tomorrow boy howdy very excited boy howdy i'm excited i'm excited about tomorrow yeah so tomorrow should be great and then um we gotta thank kaze alitrachi kaze who composed all the music you you heard in this episode and in fact most episodes of this podcast the music all came from kaze uh get your uh music composed by kaze at musicbykaze.com or uh get your synthesizer fixed kaze is also fixing synthesizers at K's Lab.

1:14:21John Matysiak: Yeah, over on YouTube. So check out what K's can do for you. All right. All right, Ben. That does it for this episode. You want to take us out? Thanks for tuning in. This has been CinePod, the cinematography podcast presented by Hot Rod Cameras. Find your next camera, lens, or accessory at hotrodcameras.com. Watch and subscribe to our show on YouTube or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. follow and interact with us on Instagram threads, Facebook, Blue Sky and LinkedIn, but not not X. Don't do that. Thanks for tuning in.