Caleb Deschanel, ASC: learning stop motion on Laika’s epic Wildwood

0:00I'm Caleb Deschanel. I'm on The Cinematography Podcast. I went out in the forest and I just did a lot of photographs of the puppet in the forest. I was starting to build my sense of what the reality was that we were trying to create. It was one of these things where you had to find that reality because you're creating this, you know, incredibly massive, epic story with these stop motion characters. and so I needed to, you know, just get in my head, try to find it. And it's all based on instincts more than anything. And being in the forest with this puppet and having people walk by and think I'm crazy lying on the ground in the dirt.

0:42This is CinePod, the cinematography podcast, a program about the art, craft, and philosophy of the moving image brought to you by Hot Rod Cameras. Hey, I'm your host, Ben Rock. Today on our show, we got to speak with living legend, Caleb DeChanel, whose five-decade career includes The Black Stallion, The Natural, The Right Stuff, and Disney's recent animated Lion King remake. His latest, Wildwood, is a stop-motion epic from Laika, and it's his first time as DP in that format. Set in Portland, Oregon, it was 16 years in development and has become a hit with critics and audiences and me. In this episode, we dive into how Caleb found reality in a medium he never worked in before.

1:23He conducted photography tests with stop-motion puppets in Portland's forests in sun and fog, and shot real people at different f-stops to understand depth of field. For a difficult shot, the set designer built him a full-size version of Prue's bedroom so he could work out a sunset test before shooting in the miniature. Why? Lighting from a distance is key to his look. Setting lights further back helped give him sharper shadows and more natural quality of light. He fought for stage space to push lights as far back as humanly possible, including a 20K 40 to 50 feet back from the battlefield during the big climactic battle sequence.

1:59Working on multiple sets and scenes at once, with over 100 Canon still cameras, 94 motion control rigs, and 20 plus animators shooting at the same time, Caleb walked the floor each day lighting like he would on a live action set and trusting his team. Sets were broken apart after just a few shots, so he had to keep the film's visual arc in his head using storyboards and a reference Bible to keep the lighting consistent from scene to scene. After 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 a little segment we like to call Close Focus.

2:37So Ilya, kind of slow news week this week. Slow news week. There's stuff going on. We should, in fact, there's several things. Let's do a roundup. Let's talk about all the things. A roundup. A roundup of sort of the biggest headlines, the stuff that's going on right now that people should be paying attention to. You want to kick us off? First, to me, this is big news. It's kind of a bombshell. And that's that Peter Safran and James Gunn are stepping down as head of DC Studios. I mean, I kind of feel like they kind of just got started. I mean, really, I felt like they just got their sea legs. But I think what's even the bigger news about this is the reason they're being let go.

3:15because by all accounts, Warner Brothers was very happy with them. But Warner Brothers is not run by the same folks at Warner Brothers anymore. They're now run by Skydance. So it's clearly someone was unhappy. I thought that I'd heard a couple of weeks ago that Skydance had kind of said that they could stay in place. And the thing is, you know, they've done more than you think when you think about it because they did like two seasons of The Peacemaker Show, one season of The Lanterns Show, the new Superman, Supergirl, Clayface, the Penguin series, and their producers on the Matt Reeves slash Steven Soderbergh new The Batman sequel.

3:52And that's all going to kind of stay in place, but I don't know. I mean, I just kind of feel like, did Kevin Feige just get really lucky with the first Iron Man or something so that he was able to kind of just hook in and never leave? Because I feel like, you know, the first Superman did well, but wasn't the mega blockbuster everyone was hoping for and and then supergirl drastically underperformed and when i finally saw it i was like i i get why i think it was a weird choice for their second film but clayface did great and i was kind of looking forward to them branching out and using comic book movies to make more genres of movie than just more comic book movies which marvel kind of already owns that and i feel like the snyder verse was sort of an attempt to do that didn't quite work i don't don't know, maybe this new guy will be great.

4:40I don't know. But I'm not so excited about comic book movies that I'm going to see them wherever they crop up. Like if they're good, I'll see them. If not, or I should say if they interest me, I'll see them. But yeah, I mean, to me, it just goes a few more steps down the rocky road of DC never really being able to find its cinematic voice. Yeah. So they hired Jeremy Latcham. I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but Jeremy Latcham is a ex-Marvel person. So it seems to me that they want Marvel. They want Marvel's magic. And I feel like the real opportunity for DC was to do something that was not trying to be Marvel, that was going to be a little bit more out there, take more chances, do more risks, do things that are not just, hey, it's a cape.

5:26It's saving the universe again. I think that James Gunn and Peter Safran were excellent stewards to bring some humor, bring some different feelings and emotions through the whole universe and to kind of shape it into something else because it already had a couple of iterations that frankly they did well, but I didn't think that they were necessarily coherent or planned out. And I really felt like between like Peacemaker and Lanterns and everything else, they were really starting to get their sea legs. And I forgot about James Gunn's The Suicide Squad. I think his was just Suicide Squad. And I thought that was brilliant.

6:02And one of the things I love about what James Gunn has always done with all of these things, including on Marvel's side with Guardians of the Galaxy, is that if a character as designed is kind of silly, he just steers into it. Peacemaker is the most ridiculous looking character ever. And I ate up both seasons of that TV show and I would watch 10 more. I think he's really cool in that way. And I think that if I have a complaint about the Snyderverse, it was the self-seriousness of it. It was self-serious and a little shallow, and also it kind of leaned into the sci-fi-ness of all of this. And if you watch James Gunn's Superman, it's definitely dangerous and high stakes, but also it looks goofy at times by design.

6:46His choices are to steer into what the comic book would have done. Like I think about the weird guy who saves Superman in the pocket universe, who's like a floating head with weird tendrils. He just lets it be what it is. Clayface, I thought they, I remember reading as a kid, I remember reading Arkham Asylum, which was a very dark comic book about basically all the bat villains locked up in this asylum. I remember the Clayface one being darker than hell and always wondering, could anyone make a Clayface, could Clayface exist in the movie world? Because he's kind of a comic, he's a literary or comic book kind of a character.

7:24It almost doesn't make sense in film. And then I I saw the Clayface movie and I'm like, eh, nailed it. Like, you know, they went full body horror. And I'm like, and now that they're stepping down, does that mean we're not going to see Clayface in a James Gunn Batman movie? You know, because I can't imagine Clayface in the Matt Reeves version of this. It's an interesting thought. We should also probably though talk about the other sort of like box office news and things that are going on right now in the world of entertainment. I mean, largest foreign language feature film opening ever for live action, at least since the movie Hero in 2004.

8:04Godzilla minus zero. I thought you were talking about Ramayana, the Indian movie that's like, I think, the most expensive movie ever made. That's a budget. This is box office. So the box office, yeah, so 31 million Godzilla minus zero made this weekend, which totally overshadowed Cat in the Hat, way more than Ramayana and Wild Horse 9. So, I mean, Godzilla minus zero wins the weekend. And frankly, it's breaking a bunch of records. It's also the first Japanese live action film optimized or shot for IMAX, too. And that contributed 12 million to the domestic totals for that. It's interesting to me.

8:40I mean, I think when we write the book about this era in filmmaking, we're going to write how IMAX kind of saved the industry by convincing people to spend 30 bucks to see a movie and being satisfied with it. Where 3D failed, IMAX has been a resounding success. I saw, I didn't see it in IMAX, but I saw it in RPX, which is Regal's kind of proprietary upscale, nicer, brighter picture, louder sound screen. Looks amazing, although like I just want to get something off my chest about it. I love Godzilla minus one. I thought it was genius. Hit me in the feels in ways I was not expecting a Godzilla movie to do.

9:17And maybe because this is a continuation of that story with those characters, it's like they can't, it won't feel new because it's a continuation. It feels very middle chapter-y, but the effects are amazing. The Godzilla, and I guess you're not supposed to spoil the other monster, even though everyone talks that there's another monster. it's not much to spoil because it's literally in the first scene of the movie in the opening of the movie is the other monster but okay i'll play along but this is what gets me is that like these guys who won the oscar for best visual effects for godzilla menace one they can make the most photo real cityscapes being demolished by the most photo real kaiju that we've ever seen just some unbelievably impressive things but you know what they can't do one convincing green screenshot Jesus Christ, is it too much to ask?

10:05There's like a scene with three people on a train and it's like the outside world moving past the train just looks, it looks like the Incredible Hulk from the early 80s. Like it just looks unbelievable. It looks not good. And I'm sure that they are overtaxed because it's a small team of people doing all this stuff. But I was just kind of like, wow, nobody can get moving shots right. Like car shots, train shots, that kind of thing. There's a lot of green screen in it that I was just like, oh, come on, guys, you can do better. I just saw two giant monsters fighting over one of the most photo real looking cities ever.

10:41You can't get the outside window of the car to look right. Come on. You know, it's interesting. I think that some of the best visual effects is the most invisible visual effects that doesn't draw attention to itself. And there's a certain art in that for sure. We should also, though, talk about, which leads directly into our interview here, we Talk about Wildwood. Wildwood, which people were very, very unsure how it was going to do at the box office and unsure if it was going to make its money back because it's a$100 million reported budget. But it is already now at$65 million worldwide. Wildwood has got 83 Metacritic score.

11:20It is beloved by audiences and critics. It's really great. Expect Wildwood, I think, to get a bunch of Oscar nominations as well, too. I wouldn't be surprised if it won Best Animated Feature. I mean, it's so well done. I wouldn't be surprised either. I think that Wildwood might be the trifecta for Laika this year with good box office, excellent award, and excellent audience reactions. And I'm actually really excited to see what happens at the Oscar noms coming up. Yeah, I feel like it's the kind of movie that has legs and they can probably leave it in theaters a little bit longer. And then when the Oscar race starts heating up, re-release it.

11:58I want to see it again. I saw it in the theater. I want to go see it again. So I'm... Yeah, my wife and I saw it separately and both of us thinking, would our son like it? And I think he would, but it's pretty violent and he's eight years old. There's the concern of it being disturbing, but I don't... I mean, it's an animated feature. Like, I don't think he's going to have nightmares that coyote soldiers are coming to get him. You know, I hope not. All right, so let's get to the interview with Wildwood cinematographer, Caleb DeChanel. Hey, Ilya, We got to speak with Caleb Deschanel. That's true.

12:31We did. Holy crap. Here, let's hear it.

12:38Caleb, we've been, obviously, both of us, massive fans of your career. And even like going back and looking and being like, being there, I'd forgotten. But I feel like your name often is floated when someone's talking about a beautiful cinematography. Like I think about that shot from The Natural where the things exploding behind him. And you do such a beautiful and evocative cinematography to the point where I feel like that's kind of your brand, but you do interesting other stuff. Like when you did the Lion King, and I feel like moving in this case into a stop motion animation. And I guess you've been a working cinematographer for what?

13:16Five decades now, right? Like, you know, since the late sixties, early seventies, you know, Black Stallion, more American graffiti. What is it that you're finding interesting in the work? There must have been something, some really unique challenge that you saw in Wildwood. I read the story and I really liked it a lot. I mean, I always love doing mythological stories. And, you know, this is one that, you know, because it really gives you the chance to kind of expand your visual palette. You know, you don't have to stick to some, you're not trying to stick to some absolute naturalness or reality.

13:53you actually can expand it and exaggerate things in ways that you can in a, you know, in say a documentary or something. And then I was really, just because it's such an epic story. I mean, it's a huge story. And I was really curious whether or not you could pull off stop motion in such a, you know, a grand scale. And that was really fascinating to me. And the thing that really drew me in is that when I met with Travis, having already read the script and had an idea about it. When I met with him, you know, we both agreed on so many different things and liked a lot of the same movies and everything.

14:33But I also sensed that, you know, this project was something that really meant a lot to him, both emotionally and, you know, and in terms of his life and his experiences and everything. And I knew that that would sustain us through this whole thing because he's really dedicated. I mean, he's an amazing animator himself and has devoted his life to doing these kind of movies. And this one, I could tell, was really special to him. And he'd had it for, I mean, it was probably 10 years since he found the book and got the rights to it and then felt that the company that like actually had the facilities and the capability of doing something this complex and difficult.

15:17This movie has famously been reported for being in development, production, 16 years to get to this point. At what point did you join this story? It was about five years ago, you know, when they really got seriously into putting it in production because they didn't really feel like they had the tools and the capability and the team that could pull it off until then. Even though Travis had the rights to the book and, you know, the script had been written and everything, he didn't really feel like they were capable. I mean, they just sent Coraline when he actually got this, which is one of their earliest films.

15:57And so they did, what, four or five other stop motion movies before they felt like they'd. And each one was kind of R &D for doing this movie, for getting, seeing if you could pull off all the things that were required to tell this sort of grand story. It's a really fascinating and amazing experience going to see this movie because at so many points, I know personally I was lost entirely the abstraction of I was watching an animated movie and was just completely into the story as if it was anything else. To be honest with you, even though I was there and there were all these little puppets and there were tiny sets and everything, when I see the movie, I forget it.

16:43I mean, it's sort of wonderful. I mean, I always feel like you've made a really good movie if you can go see it and think, gee, did I have anything to do with that? I mean, there's something sort of magical about something that sort of expands beyond your imagination and your ego and your association with it. And this is one of those movies, you know. I am up in Portland right now, and I'm wearing this stocking cap in honor of Prue's dad because, you know, I just felt like so much of the movie is peak Portland, which is fantastic. There are so many sort of hidden, you know, what do they call them?

17:24Easter eggs or something in Portland. I mean, from the coffee to Pal's books to the forest to everything, you know. So I take it you must have been up in Hillsborough and must have been for the last five years or for several years working on this. I know the process has got to be very, very different from a from a live action. Can you talk a little bit about your role, the role as a cinematographer in stop motion? It's very different in the sense that I was really supervising, you know, a number of really sort of amazing, you know, cameramen. You know, Mark Stewart and John Ashley had done so many of these movies before and they were my teachers.

18:05And I came in and I think I think part of my ignorance is what what added something to the movie because I was saying, well, why why would you do it this way? You know, there's another way to do it. Or they really did the major teaching for me. And that was a really great experience, you know, to learn from them and to be welcomed in by all these amazing artists, you know, who are part of it. I mean, there were like five, six hundred people at some point, you know, building sets, building props, building costumes, doing everything. And the thing that was great was that everything was all in the same building.

18:41So you could actually go and watch them make the costumes and build the sets and everything. So you actually got to spend time because in a real, you know, live action movie, I would oftentimes go to the location on weekends and spend time at a location if it was an important location and just try to get a feeling for it and look at the light and get an idea of what it was going to be like, you know, when we were filming and be inspired by it. But in this case, everything was built. And so I would go by the machine shop where they were building the sets and, you know, or go by where they were building the forests and everything.

19:21And then just sort of just spend time with it. You know, there's something about spending time with it that makes you familiar and inspires you and gives you ideas. So that was really valuable to have all the departments together in the same giant building. You know, all the sets were, everything was designated by colors and numbers and everything. So you could find your way around to Blue Six or whatever it happened to be. My big fight with Brian Garver, who was the guy who sort of organized all the stages and gave you the room for certain things, you know, I would be always fighting him to get more space so that we could get lights back farther.

20:02because there was, I think, a lot of the time when they would do stop motion, you know, they might have lights in closer because they were on very small stages and everything. So I was always opening up curtains and putting lights into the next stage. The next stage was sitting idle for a while so I could get the sunlight back. For the scene when Prue and Curtis were coming down the hill, you know, chasing the crows and everything, we had a huge 20K, like, way far back, and it was really up high, and we had to worry about it turning the sprinklers going off because it was so hot and so far away.

20:39That was part of it. It was like one of these experiences where you weren't sure you were doing the right thing for quite a while in the course of it. So the way I really got into it at first was spending a lot of time with Travis and creating a kind of color scenario for the whole thing, where you could see the colors going through, the night, the day, the afternoons, the cool winter light, all those things and get a feeling for it. And then I created a whole Bible of visual images for every scene. I mean, there are thousands of photographs and paintings and images from movies that were the reference.

21:22Because when you do this kind of movie, you're not completing a whole scene at the same time. You're not seeing it fulfilled. You're not seeing the whole action of a scene in the movie. You're just seeing a little bit and piece of it. Sometimes you start a scene in the middle because the puppet wasn't ready for the first part of that scene. And in the course of a day, you can go from who knows where in the movie. You might be in the first scene of the movie or the middle of the movie. And so you're bouncing around and you have to keep it all in your head at the same time. Even on Lion King, which was an animated film, we would complete a scene.

21:57So you actually got to see the scene completed and you would get how it was different than what you imagined it because it was now complete. And, you know, I mean, complete in the sense that you could see all the action and everything and hear all the dialogue and know what the drama was and see that all the beats were met in the scene. And that would give you an inkling of where to go next and you know how everything was fitting together but in this case you're just getting little bits and pieces all over the place so you really you kind of had to you kind of were operating on good faith that you were making the right decisions along the way in a weird way like we talked to russell carpenter about the avatar movies and you know in that like james cameron kind of exploded the filmmaking process into a thousand little pieces and then farmed out the pieces.

22:49And, you know, so Russell's doing his job, but kind of in an isolated way. And it sounds more collegial in that you're in the same building with all the people doing it. You're someone who's used to making a, setting up a light and having an actor do a scene. And in this case, you're like micro focusing on tiny little things, hoping it all goes together. Was there a system, some kind of method that you came up with or that already exists to kind of keep all that in your head to give you assurance that it was working no i think i just had to keep it all in my head oh no oh man well you know when you get to be in age you start running out of brain cells so

23:31you wish you could you know compartmentalize things or or get rid of some of the things you don't need anymore that are outdated or whatever so that you have room for all this no but it was just I mean I would just have to keep reminding myself every day by you know rereading the script and relooking at portions of things so that I would you know I would really have an idea of what it was like was there any kind of like testing process for you or you hadn't done stop motion animation before how'd you acclimate yourself into it because it's such a different process I hate I'll tell you I you know a lot of the film takes place in the forest in the impassable forest.

24:10And so, you know, around Portland, there are all these forests and everything. And I actually took one of the puppets from one of the earlier films from Norman and I went out in the forest and I just did a lot of photographs of the puppet in the forest. I would start to build in my head, my sense of what the reality was that we were trying to create, because it was really, it was one of these things where you had to find that reality because you're creating this incredibly massive epic story with these stop-motion characters. And so I needed to just get in my head, try to find it. And it's all based on instincts more than anything.

24:53And being in the forest with this puppet and having people walk by and think I'm crazy lying on the ground in the dirt. First of all, in sunlight and in fog and in all sorts of different environments just to get a feeling for what it was like. And then when we first got the sets ready, sometimes we didn't really have any puppets that we could work with. So I ended up, I went online and I found this Billie Eilish puppet. And I put her in the sets and then play around with the lights and everything. And just to get used to what it would feel like. And then I did a bunch of, I filmed a lot of shots of just real people in different settings outside at different f-stops and everything so I'd have an idea of what the what the depth of field needed to feel like and and I did everything that I could to try to find a reality for these puppets in in the settings that we had these miniature settings so yeah I mean that that was probably the most valuable thing for me I mean it's funny but there was also a time where even though we were shooting with still cameras that were like this big, much smaller than movie cameras in these sets they were the size of a Prius or something because they're small but they're big within the context of how small the sets are.

26:20So there was one point when we were trying to figure out it's actually the scene when Prue comes into her bedroom because she comes into her bedroom and she goes past us and it's at sunset. And you go around and you see all these posters and things on her wall that kind of express to you, you know, who she is as a character. And then you catch her sitting at her desk with a sun setting. And I couldn't figure it out with the cameras in the set because it just wasn't working for me. So I ended up, Brian Garber, who was our gaffer and our set, you know, determiner and everything, I built a full-size version of that set, you know, out of just beadboard and stuff.

27:04And I went in with, actually, I used my phone, you know, as a camera, and figured it out, you know, on this full-size version of it. And then we translated that to the miniature version of the, you know, in the sets and everything. So there were things like that that I would do that, you know, would help me. Because, you know, it was like one of these shots, it's 180 degrees, and how do you get everything in at the same time? So, you know, and basically we had, you know, our assistant just come through the door and walk and sit down and then follow her. And I just used every technique that I could to find the right ways to film the things.

27:42I mean, how much input did you have into the coverage? Because I just assume that these things are pre-produced within an inch of their lives and probably storyboarded. Yeah, it was definitely, you know, everything was storyboard. where everything was basically, there was an animatic of everything to make sure everything worked. And, you know, we would get into that and talk about, you know. Again, it was very nerve wracking to, you know, worry because, you know, when you do a movie, I mean, you know, even Lion King, you would, we could do masters and we could do close-ups and we could do all this stuff and dolly shots and everything.

28:15But in this case, you don't really have much room. I mean, when you animate a shot, that you maybe get 10 frames on each end. So you don't really have a lot of latitude for altering the editing of it. So you need to make sure that that works. And I mean, listen, it was, Travis had a lot of experience doing these movies. And so it was really, you know, 99 % his vision of it. And, you know, you get into things like time of day and stuff where, you know, you'd want to sort of alter things. So, you know, along the way, there was a lot of discussion about each of these things. But for the most part, it was pretty much laid out in advance because you don't want to do a lot of extra animation because it's so labor intensive.

29:00I heard on a podcast recently, Travis Knight speaking about the multiple passes that you guys would do. So like like literally an exposure pass for like reflections in the in the puppet's eyes and things like that. So and it sounded like for some of the sequences, there was as many as like 16 different like exposure passes, like all of these different sort of like HDR. I don't know if there were 16, but there were there were a lot like in the battle sequence, all this stuff in the battle sequence. We would do it with firelight, with sunlight, with basically shadow light, just because, you know, we needed to have flexibility for when because, you know, all this smoke and the backgrounds were added later.

29:44So that was the most complicated. For me, the inspiration for that sequence, when you have all the fires and everything going on, was there's a film called The Fires of Kuwait, which was like this amazing IMAX movie that was filmed, you know, when they had all those fires burning. and they hired these guys from Texas to come to kind of put the fires out and the oil fields there. And there were moments where these dark clouds would cover over and it became nighttime, and that was sort of the inspiration for it. I kind of wanted there to be more breakup where the clouds would clear and the sunlight would come through, and that's one of the reasons why we had a sunlight pass for that so that we could get that.

30:31But in the end, Travis really liked it being more of a hellscape. And actually, there's a couple of shots in there that are exactly like the shots that Nelson Lowery had done as sort of preliminary to that sequence, who was a production designer. But a lot of that was sort of based on that feeling that you get in the fires of Kuwait. I mean, it was just, it was really horrifying, these fires. I mean, it was beautiful, too, because in IMAX, it was just unbelievable, you know. Every scene in the movie has an inspiration from something else. I mean, it's like everything, you know. You get inspired by something, and then you make it your own, and you alter it in ways that better suit the emotions and the feelings that you're trying to get from the scenes you're doing.

31:19Not to go too far down a technical rabbit hole, but it's what we're here for. When you're talking about doing the multiple exposures, I mean, obviously they're only going to position those puppets one time for that thing. So is it like you would get the puppet in the position and then you do like one shot, then change the lights, do another shot, and you do like however many different exposures? That sounds like a logistical nightmare for post-production. No, I mean, it really is true. And then there'd be shots where you put a blue screen behind it. There'd be like an arm with a blue screen. I mean, it's like, you know.

31:48Wow. And then each one of the shots, I mean, because you were trying to, you know, because you were oftentimes shooting at an F-11 or F-16, you know, there would be a quarter second, half second exposure. So it wasn't just sort of like click, move, click, move. It was like, move. Were they doing any kind of like go motion kind of things to have the puppets move? because I noticed, you know, like I'm a huge fan of stop motion movies, but there was a fluidity in this that I have only seen in go motion and things like Dragon Slayer or Return of the Jedi, where they would where they would have them like literally the Phil Tippett would have the puppets move.

32:27I mean, if you see it, it has a particular look that really is stop motion. I mean, it's, you know, in the old days, they used to do it just every two frames, but this is like every frame. That might be what it is. Yeah, I think that's exactly what you're seeing, Ben. I was going to say, this is not 12 frames a second. Like we'd taken my son to see The Nightmare Before Christmas in the theater two weeks before we saw this. And then when I saw this, I'm like, I mean, it looks like stop motion. I know it's got that stop motion look and I'd watch some featurettes about it. But there was something so fluid about it that I don't know that I've ever seen stop motion look this fluid.

33:00It's just great animators, you know. If you see some of the fight sequences, like when the coyotes first are fighting, when you come across them in the forest, you know you can you can definitely feel that that there's not you know there's no smearing and things added yeah you know that it definitely has that quality that that gives it its sort of specialness is stop motion i think well let's talk about like the the optical approach uh to it as well because i feel like you know you just kind of brought up about bringing up the exposure to i assume increased depth of field what ended up being sort of your lens conversion bible what's a good close-up lens what's a good wide lens and which cameras were you using to capture it yeah they were all canon still cameras we had like a hundred and some you know they were all r6s and r6 mark twos and r8s is that full frame or 35 yeah yeah full frame and you know really high resolution cameras i mean the problem with still cameras is they don't quite have the latitude of movie cameras and you know a lot of the new cameras have built in all these things to you know to smooth things out and uh and the problem was you didn't want any of that you wanted old fashioned you know cameras that just took a picture like you told it to and you know weren't trying to correct for you know shaking and i mean they they all have these things built into them now.

34:25And actually, R8, which was kind of the lesser of the cameras with fewer bells and whistles, was actually the better camera. Early on, we had some problems with the blue layer on some of the earlier cameras, and then we replaced it. But we had over 100 and some cameras working, and we had 94 motion control rigs all working. Some huge and some just tiny just for a little move in or you know or just little moves back and forth that's multiple units shooting at the same time that's like everyone's all the time yeah i mean it's like 20 20 you know animators 25 animators working at the same time that sounds like a tall order for you to be able to supervise the lighting and lensing on on well i mean i i had to trust on a lot of it for sure but but you know each day you just sort of wander around i mean basically you serve or setting it up like on a set i mean you you set up the lighting on a set and lots of times you just move the camera and there's very little that you have to do to adjust it you know i mean the biggest problem for me was that you would have a whole set and you would film a couple of shots in that whole set and then they would break it apart because they knew that you just needed a close-up against that wall or whatever.

35:45But then, you know, you suddenly were on a different stage with, you know, just part of that kitchen set and another part of the kitchen set was somewhere else and another part was somewhere else with a different puppet. And, you know, for me, what drove me crazy is that, well, I no longer had the window to light through. So then I had to go to Nelson. I said, Nelson, you kind of give me the window so we can light through that window like we had in the previous scene. So, yeah, there were a lot of things like that. And then because I love lighting changes, one of the first scenes we did was actually Prue asleep in bed having a dream about the coyotes, you know, or you can, you just hear them.

36:21And I really wanted there to be like a sense of there being clouds and then the clouds open up as you hear that. And as the clouds open up, you hear the coyotes like they're being the moon is coming out and the coyotes start to howl. And I had no idea how you could do that. And then, you know, they showed me that you get this big, you know, piece of plexiglass and you spin it across. And as it spins across, it goes into sort of a foggy area and it changes, you know, or vice versa. It goes from sort of fog to clear and the, you know, the moonlight comes through. So there were a lot of little tricks like that that I learned from all the guys who had been doing it for a while.

37:05Mark Stewart and John Ashley and these guys who'd done this for 30 years. What lenses did you find were the right lenses? They're all old lenses. It's not even a matter of choosing them because they were all old lenses. Because all new lenses, again, have all these bells and whistles that you don't want. You just want to be able to, you know, change the focus and change the f-stop and that's it. But were there specific like focal lengths that work better for this kind of work? Did you find yourself wider or tight, longer? No, I mean, pretty much, you know, 35, 55, you know, pretty much, you know, normal size lenses.

37:46I mean, it's just, you know, getting in closer. and I mean there were times when the puppet would be that close you know to the the lens which of course you know created problems for lighting and stuff so you had to sort of figure that out I mean that was the other thing you had to sort of anticipate like because also the puppet sometimes would have armatures on them so you had to worry about you know you had to think about lighting in terms of not creating a shadow from the armatures and that kind of thing but they the The people, you know, everybody in all the departments were really used to dealing with that.

38:20And they were really great. And they could sometimes move it from one side to the other if you wanted to light it a certain way. I want to ask about the pre-visualization process. Because there's a lot of camera motion in this movie. There's tons of long tracking shots and flying shots and all kinds of really amazing things. When you're working sort of in that pencil test animatic stage, is it you with a computer or with artists and animators? How are you visualizing and working out sort of these very elaborate shots? I'm guessing probably months or years before anyone's going to start animating it.

38:53I mean, basically, it's an animated film that's being created before the whole thing to sort of make sure it works. Because if you don't, like I said, you have very little flexibility once you have these shots as to how you can edit them together. It's not like a regular movie where you can choose the shots. It's like when you work on a regular movie, sometimes, you know, something will get screwed up and you go, well, it doesn't matter because we've got some other coverage, you know, so we can always cover it that, you know, we can always edit by using another shot that, you know, where it didn't get screwed up.

39:26But here you really had to make up your mind in advance. And that, you know, that was the scariest part for me. You know, it was just sort of trusting that that would work. I guess I'm curious, like, what is that, you know, visualization process? Does it start with drawing some thumbnails? Does it start with building worlds? How do you come up with that? Most of that, you know, Travis had done before I even got involved in the thing. So, you know, it was really a lot of it was designed and then we'd talk about it. And if there were ideas, you know, things would change a little bit. And along the way, you know, there were changes, you know, that came in the editing that would be discovered.

40:05But for the most part, you know, I mean, it's like Hitchcock, just shooting what was needed. A lot of directors back in the 40s and 50s would just shoot what they wanted because they didn't want anybody screwing around with it. I mean, listen, it's not hard to figure out. I mean, how you kind of know from experience how things go together and when you need the wide shot and when you don't and all that. And you see it. I mean, you can see it in the animatic. I mean, you can tell if it's working or not. That was certainly valuable. But, you know, until it's really done, I mean, like on Lion King, I mean, we could see all the animation and everything, but, you know, you didn't see all the fur.

40:45I mean, it took 60 hours for each one of those shots in the Lion King to be rendered because of all the fur and all the backgrounds and everything else. So you're really operating on sort of limited ideas of what it was like. And it was always better when it got done, just like the film is a lot better than what the animatic was. And you had to trust sometimes that, you know, the reality that you were creating was going to make what wasn't quite working right be better and work as well. And in every case, I think that was that was true. This is a beautiful movie with so many beautiful scenes and sets and moments in it.

41:31Is there any particular sequence or shot that for you is like a favorite among favorites? Is there something or maybe an interesting anecdote about actually creating one of these shots? Do you have a favorite moment in the movie? That's always like, which is your favorite child? It's funny because Brad Schiff, who is the head animator, you know, talks about how really, I mean, the action sequences are really incredible and really fun. like when they're chasing after the crows and crew and with Curtis in the wagon in the back and they're bouncing around and all that's really exciting and that was really fun to do.

42:12But Brad was talking about in animation, lots of times it's like those quiet moments, where you really get to see the performance and see the expressiveness of the characters. And I think in a weird way, some of the scenes in the throne room with Alexandra and Curtis. And when we sort of created the underground world, I wanted it open to the real world. I liked the idea of sunlight coming in and everything. And so you were able to have the characters come in and out of the sunlight. And just in very subtle ways, it would just give a certain emotional impetus to all the scene, you know, the scene in there between the two of them.

42:54because it's like one of these scenes where it's like in an acting class or something where you tell one character one thing and another character another thing and they're playing off against each other because each person wants something different than what the other one done and they have to convince them. And you've got Alexandra who's not being truthful with Prue and finally has to admit that her poor brother is dead and gone and, you know, we think that. So, you know, those scenes are amazing from an acting point of view. And I always found one of the great joys of doing this was seeing after, you know, weeks locked away in a dark room, they would come back and you would see the dailies and see these incredible performances on the part of these characters.

43:41And that was really great. Let's talk a little bit about lighting. Again, the differences between lighting in live action and lighting in this way with miniatures. and there's a lot of like light sources inside individual scenes as well, which I assume you did with LEDs or something. That's not VFX. But I'm just wondering what your approach was and how it worked out. I went out in the woods and I would film these puppets and then I would spend time on the sets and play around with different things. Probably the big thing that I would do is get lights back as far as I could. And I think a lot of times in stop motion, they are forced to sort of have lights too close.

44:20And I was always fighting, you know, with Brian to get the lights back far enough. And we had, there were times on the battlefield when we had a 20K, 40, 50 feet away, you know, lighting the field so that the light would carry and so that the light would, you know, the light wasn't like this. It was like in straight lines. And the other thing is, is that with the woods, you know, you want to be back so that the shadows are sharper and so that you get the real feeling. Because, I mean, that's another thing that came out from going into the woods with the puppets is, you know, I really got a, in my head.

44:51You get these things in your head and then it becomes part of your basic instinct for understanding what you want it to look like. And when you see it, you get the feeling that's right or that's wrong. Just, it doesn't feel right. And it's like the scenes in the cage cavern is that I wanted that sunlight coming down from above and then mixed with a warm firelight from down below. It was always firelight there because there was always fires because it was cold in there. You know, you always imagine like in Napa, they have caves where they keep the wine at 55 degrees. So you figure it's always 55 degrees in this cage cavern.

45:29I like that mixture that was kind of, you know, reminding you that there's an outside world there, that if you could only escape and get to that outside world, and instead you're trapped in these cages hanging from the ceiling. A lot of it was just instinct. as much as anything and getting the lights as far away as you could possibly get them so that you would have that kind of feeling of what felt to me like a reality. I mean, you're not really creating, you're creating a reality that's very specific to the movie and the story you're telling. And I think that's key is to sort of find out. There was a guy who was one of the guys doing props and everything.

46:10Matt DeLue, for me, his entire job was finding tiny little lights that had been invented or used for computers or who knows what in the world. And then we would find those. And so when you see the candles and you see the sconces and everything, they all have lights in them that are these miniature lights that we were able to control and get the right color temperature and the right intensity and everything. So that was really critical too, was finding these miniature things to make them. You really had a sense of reality to these things. I mean, I totally forget that they're puppets now. I mean, I don't even...

46:50I have to remind myself that they were that tiny when I see the movie finished on the screen. As you move on to other projects, live-action projects, how has it informed the way you work in live-action now? I think the attention to detail and the incredible intensity of all the artists who worked on this. I mean, it impressed on me much more a connection with the art department, with the costume department, with everything else. Because, you know, in a regular movie, they tend to be off somewhere and they show up and everything's done. Or, you know, you come to the set and you might see it partially finished.

47:28But you don't really get to live with it and see it evolve from nothing to its finality. And that was something that was really special for me. And I think it'll make me want to be exposed to that work that goes on a little bit more than I have in the past, you know, is to appreciate the artistry that goes into it and the craftsmanship that goes into building these things. Because listen, everything you do, you know, every element is contributing to, first of all, making the audience believe it, making it real, you know, have a reality to it, and then also expressing the emotion. I mean, I always like to think that, you know, all the things you do visually with lighting and the photography is to sort of create a metaphor for what the emotions are within the scene.

48:23You know, what is, what are these characters going through and how can you do something with the lighting or with a camera move to emphasize that? I mean, can you push in so that the audience understands that they're going through some thought process to make a decision? Or do you make it moody so that, I mean, there's scenes where, you know, somebody is just in some bright sunlight and you are paying attention to it more, but you realize that there's something dark in the background. And what is it? What is the all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. What is there as a visual element that can tell you that that guy's insane?

49:04You know, that's what Kubrick is doing there, right? It says, okay, he's insane. So what can you do, you know, as a filmmaker with all the tools you have with camera moves and lighting and all that to help tell the story, to help the actor be in the right mood, be in the right atmosphere, to express the emotion they need to express. And that to me is the most exciting part of filming is like, how can you immerse yourself into the story that's being told in such a way that helps amplify the things that are going on? Wildwood's been such a cultural touchstone inside of the Pacific Northwest and Portland in particular.

49:44And you've got a bunch of very recognizable places like the St. John's Bridge and Piddock Mansion. I'm curious from your experience being here, living here, and you mentioned taking the doll out into the woods and testing and figuring out your aesthetics. Were you doing the same thing also at these other famous locations? Were you going and traveling all around to figure out what the world of Portland kind of looks like in reality and then how to stylize that appropriately for the movie? Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been to Pinnock Mansion a number of times, you know. I mean, it's not exactly the same in the movie as it is in reality.

50:21But then getting lost around Finnick Mansion, going down, I mean, it's really steep going down past it and then getting lost and trying to find your way back. I think I experienced a lot of what Prue experienced going through the woods. Obviously, I've been to Powell's books a million times, even though it's just reference very... But it's probably the greatest bookstore there is, I think. I mean, I've never been to a better bookstore. I mean, The Strand in New York is pretty good, but Pals is really amazing. It's kind of an amazing bit of work, I'd say, at least, you know, regionally here sort of for the community.

51:00Any feelings from your side on what it's like to be sort of like part of this cultural touchstone movie and especially geographically centered in this particular area? Do you have any feelings of that, like the significance beyond the fact that it's a movie and it's entertaining? And when it debuted in Portland, every theater and every screen was sold out all weekend. I don't know if it was like that everywhere in the country, but here it was amazing. It was like you could not get a seat. I mean, I'm really familiar with Portland and it really is different than in other places I've been. And, you know, there's much more of a connection that people have, I think, with the outside world, with the woods.

51:40And I mean, it's such an important part of that. The one thing I didn't like is January going to work in the dark and the rain and getting done and going home in the dark and the rain. That was the only thing that it was really hard to take for a month or two. I mean, there's so many things like the coffee making and all that. I mean, there are lots of little things in the movie that are really peculiar to Portland, I think. I mean, I really feel it's an important, wonderful film. You know, it's kind of a touchstone for Travis, you know, who's spent his whole life expanding the realm of stop motion animation in a way that I don't think anybody else has ever done.

52:25And taking it to a level that's certainly more epic than anything that has ever been done. It's great to be this point where the film is finished and it's turned out so well and not always had that confidence along the way. So it's great to get to this point. Caleb, hey, thank you so much for being on the show. It was great having you. Sure. That was fun. You guys made it fun.

52:50All right. So that was Caleb Deschanel, one of the people who when we first started this podcast, I think his name was floated as maybe one day we'll talk to Caleb Deschanel. And here we are. We've come full circle, Ilya. We have. Well, you know, we have been doing this like 13, 14 years now almost. So it's been a bit. So Ben, it's short ends time. It's the time we talk about short ends. What is your, and by short ends, we mean pet obsession. What is your pet obsession? What are you about this week? Well, I wanted to talk about our friend Janelle Riley's podcast, The Process Unlocked. And it's a slightly self-interested thing because I'm her editor.

53:29But if you've listened to the show religiously, and I know you all have, everyone hearing the sound of my voice never misses an episode. Every year we do an Oscar roundup with our friend Janelle Riley. Janelle formerly of Variety, and now she's gone out on her own venture. It's called The Process Unlocked. And it's a really great podcast where she gets just some outrageously cool people to come on there. And it's a lot of fun to edit. One of her first episodes was Mike Flanagan, which, you know, obviously he did the new Carrie series, Midnight Mass, Doctor Sleep. They're very friendly. I think that they've spoken before.

54:06She talked to comedian Chloe Radcliffe. Blake Crouch, I thought, was really cool, the creator of the TV show Dark Matter. And this, as you know, will be a personal favorite of mine. Jordan Downey, who directed the werewolf movie The Process. So it was them talking a lot about werewolf stuff. She's got some cool upcoming ones. I'm editing. She did a live show that's going to be broadcast on PBS that I'm editing. That's an extended interview with Willem Dafoe. But actually, the PBS version of it is going to be like half an hour long. The full interview is about an hour. So after it airs on PBS, the full hour will go out on her feed.

54:42She interviewed Brad Bird. She's getting some pretty heavy hitters on there. That's fantastic. And she's a great interviewer. If you've ever seen Janelle interview, she's just a total pro. And she's been doing this for a long time. and you should check it out. Subscribe to it. Wherever you're watching or listening to this, you can get The Process Unlocked with Janelle Riley there. The other thing I wanted to bring up is a podcast that I know I've talked about in previous seasons. Wait a second. Do you have two short ends? I do. I do. You have more than one obsession. You're not just obsessed about one thing.

55:14You're obsessed about two things. All right. It's another podcast called The Plot Thickens and it's hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, who I believe is the grandson of the guy who wrote Citizen Kane, who the movie Mank is based on. Regardless, Ben Mankiewicz is really well-regarded film critic, and you see him on TCM all the time. And the plot thickens every season. He kind of tackles another well-known filmmaker. And this year, it's Stanley Kubrick. And it's just a very accessible and entertaining level of journalism and audio storytelling that if you like this podcast, you'll love it. And I love nothing more than hearing stories about Stanley Kubrick because, you know, there's kind of the old school screamer, yeller, crazy person, you know, John Ford kind of filmmaker.

55:56And then you kind of have the please don't out me on social media for being a monster. So I'll be nice all the time, kind of modern filmmaker. But then you've got right there in the middle, Stanley Kubrick, who is probably one of the most obstinate people to ever point a camera at anything. The episode that really hooked me actually on in this series was about the making of Spartacus, which was when Kubrick became a major filmmaker. Like that was the film that really put him in that position. What a pain in the ass he was to Kirk Douglas and the whole on the whole slog. But then how it went on to become, I think, one of the most profitable movies ever at that time.

56:32Yeah. Ben Mankiewicz, too, by the way, frequent host of ASC award dinners. So that's he usually is the guy who comes out and does a comedy routine, does a thing. He's done it, I think at least two or three times. He's definitely someone who has, much like I would say Leonard Maltin, has kind of made a career out of being not just a movie critic, but like a movie historian. Yeah, yeah. I would agree. He's got an incredible knowledge. And he's very engaging and entertaining. It's not like you're going to go to the film history class that I had to take in my first year of film school. No, it doesn't feel like a lecture.

57:07He's super charismatic. He's really done well for himself. Excellent. So, Ilya, what is your obsession or obsessions this week since I took two? It's just one. It's the American film market. And the American film market, I think it's particularly interesting to cover this year because there's a ton of programs all about sort of the state of the industry, the state of distribution, tax incentives. There's a big, big, I want to say day one, the new federal production incentive, which fingers crossed. Which doesn't exist yet. Doesn't exist yet. But I just. I'm going to go to a seminar about something that probably will happen.

57:39I won't say who, but I had a meeting with someone here in Portland the other day, and they said that they're also connected to all of this. And they just heard that not only is the supposed to be introduced bill that this would fit inside of, which was going to happen at first before the end of the year, then early December, has been moved up to November. So supposedly this is actually going to be introduced very soon into this lame duck Congress. So it's one of the few things that has broad bipartisan support. I don't know what. It's probably not going to stand on its own. So it's probably going to get lumped in with some other spending bill or something.

58:13We'll see what happens. That lame duck better get quacking quick. They only have a month or two. Exactly right. So anyway, I really hope, though, that this does sail through because there's an awful lot of people who are making plans, making plans for it. Anyway, I thought that this year, the American film market would actually be a very good time because we seem to be in this sort of moment of transition. And I hear some people talking about how this might be the sort of the dawning of the best era of movies. And then I was reading someone's sub stack. They said that they explained this actually to a group of like UCLA film students who all just kind of like had mocking laughter because, of course, they don't see it that way.

58:51They see like how everything is has been a constriction and how creativity has been a constriction. But the reality is, is that audiences are showing up for theaters. More and more people are saying we want new, original, better voices. We want stuff that is not just a rehash of what we've seen before. And so this could be a creative renaissance. And the American film market, it's interesting because quite a bit of projects, projects with significant budgets and significant stars show up there to be sold for their international rights. And it is a big sort of melting pot of distributors from all over the world who show up to buy quite often American productions.

59:31And these are not just like strange sort of like oddball indie films that someone's hoping will make it to German television. I mean, there's big things. There's like a Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin movie. There is James McAvoy, Julianne Moore. There's a Peter Dinklage, Renee Zellweger movie. I mean, there's like. I mean, big films always get picked up at these markets. Can, I think, is the biggest market in the world. I've only gone to AFM once and I found it to be super weird because it's mostly a sales thing. You have to remind yourself, this isn't a film festival. This isn't about the love of film.

1:00:02This is entirely about the commerce. I think that the market and the world has shifted a lot over the last 15 years or however long it was. Over the last five years, over the last two years. I will be reporting from AFM and I'll let you know what the trends and the things are. All of the machinations that are affecting our industry right now. I'll report back on the podcast and we'll talk about it. I can't wait to hear a full report because yeah, I mean, it comes here every year and it's been a while since I've gone. Awesome. Okay, Ben, that does it for this episode. Where can people find you if they want to get in touch?

1:00:32You can find me at benrock.com. Go there and check out my reel and you could watch basically everything I've ever made that I feel like showing you. There's a few things that aren't on there, but add me on LinkedIn or threads or wherever you're at. I'm probably there. I even have a TikTok account. I just don't use it. How about yourself, Ilya? Where can people find you? You can find me over at iliafriedman.com. It's exactly how I spell my name. There's two L's in Ilya. I can't tell you why, but iliafriedman.com. That's where you can find me. There's links. There's ways to reach out to me. There's a little messaging system.

1:01:06It's got all the stuff. So that's kind of a compendium of all of my various companies and things. Rackontour, the website for Rackontour, Ilya Friedman. Well, you know. Bon Vivant and Raconteur Man, man, ladies, man, man about town Yeah, that's There you go, IlyaFriedman.com Ben, who made this show possible? Who do we have to thank? I mean, as always, we've got to thank our amazing producer Alana Cody, who made my month when she said, would you like to interview Caleb Deschanel? That was You live for moments like that And she also edits every episode So hi Alana, you're editing this right now Enjoy We've got to thank, in addition to her, we've got to thank Kaze Alitraxi, who composed all the music that you're hearing.

1:01:52Check out Kaze's website, musicbykaze.com. Hire Kaze to compose your next score. Or let's say you've got a synthesizer sitting around and it's broken. You would be playing your synthesizer so much more, but it's not working. Well, you know what? Go to kailab.com. Check out getting Kaze to fit your synthesizer because that's one of the many talents that Kaze has. Yeah, indeed. All right. So Ben, that does it for this episode. Do 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.

1:02:30Watch 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 X. Don't do that. Thanks for tuning in. You