DP Brett Pawlak’s vision for Spider-Man: Brand New Day

0:00Brett Pawlak: My name is Brett Pawlak and I'm on the Cinematography Podcast. I remember one of the days we were shooting the test and we saw Tom's eye through the mask. He had the little mesh eyes on. You know, we were all looking at it and questioning it, saying, oh, do we want that? And Destin was like, I love that I can see that there's someone behind that mask. I love that we can see his eyes. Because then we are reminded that there is like a human in that mask.

0:25Destin Cretton: This is Cinepod, the cinematography podcast, a program about the art craft and philosophy of the moving image presented by Hot Rod Cameras. I'm your host, Ilya Friedman, and today on our show, Ben and I interview Brett Pollack, the cinematographer behind Spider-Man Brand New Day, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Brett and Destin's collaboration goes back nearly 17 years, starting with a short movie that became the feature film Short Term 12. Today we dive into how Pollock and Cretton's input about the suit design kept Peter Parker feeling human. The mask allowed Tom Holland's jaw to move, and his real eyes were visible through the mesh so audiences never forget there's a human under that mask.

1:12Destin Cretton: Pollock's approach to lighting a tentpole movie using as much natural light as possible. Solving the Jean Grey telekinesis sequence with a simple method, capturing choreographed waves through the cast with both whip pans and lock offs. How fundamentals of story and composition don't change when scaling up from TV's Wonder Man to a Spider-Man tentpole. 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 business world of entertainment in a segment called Close Focus.

1:50Destin Cretton: So, Ben, it is our Close Focus time of the show. It's the time we talk about what's going on in the world of entertainment. What is going on this week? Well, yoink, there goes another camera company, apparently. GoPro is apparently leaving the camera business, or at least leaving the entertainment, the action camera business, I should say. I was a little shocked when you told me that because I feel like GoPro is sort of like we say aspirin or something. GoPro is almost the generic term for action camera at this point. Yeah, they really are. They've been sort of on a strange decline in the last few years, but they had a meteoric rise when they went public back in 2014.

2:36Destin Cretton: and really they hit their peak in 2015, which I want to say is about almost$1.5 billion a year or something in revenue. And the bloom is off the rose. They've fallen a bit. Why? I mean, how did they mishandle this? They had a corner on the market. They did. And I feel like I've got some insights into armchair quarterbacking, what GoPro could have done differently. But frankly, they grew really, really fast. And I think that like a lot of companies that have that sort of meteoric rise, there is the thought that this might just go on forever or that we're going to just keep going up and up and up.

3:20Destin Cretton: And around that time when they went public and it was a big deal and GoPro was suddenly everywhere, they spent a lot of money. They acquired other companies. They had various – they still do have quite a patent library, which I think is probably a big part of why they are considered worth$285 million today. Because ultimately, when you're acquired or merging – I can't really tell if this is truly a merger or if this is a full acquisition. Because GoPro, it doesn't sound like they're sticking around with their core business. And when you're not sticking around with your core business, it sounds like more of an acquisition instead of a merger.

4:00Destin Cretton: It sounds like they're going into military hardware. I mean, it might be using the imaging technology they've created, but not for cameras. They're using it for satellites or helicopters, drones, whatever. As I was alluding to, I feel like GoPro lost their way. They tried a foray into drones. It didn't work. They lost their partnership with DJI for their drones. And I feel like GoPro was pretty aimless for a while. They kept doing same, same with incremental adjustments to their products. And so for a while there, it was like, you know, is it a Hero 7, Hero 8, Hero 9, all of these different things.

4:39Destin Cretton: And they had different price points and feature sets. But they saturated the market and they faced new competition from much less expensive Chinese competitors. They also, in my opinion, had a really lousy distribution network because they only ever really concentrated on one corner of the market, which was the action cam. And of course, that's great. That was their bread and butter. But they had opportunities, interestingly, opportunities that they're taking right now to move into other directions, like their latest camera, the Mission One. They're just starting to ship this interchangeable lens version, which there's this whole other story about, you know, indie filmmaker and YouTuber Markiplier going on to YouTube and making this quote unquote sponsored by GoPro video about this new camera.

5:25Destin Cretton: there have been people myself included hacking gopros for going on a decade now and making it so you could interchange the lenses so you could put on a micro four thirds lens so you could do other things with these cameras the cameras didn't really want to do that but it's pretty late in the game for gopro to finally pay attention to what other people how other people were using their technology and say oh maybe we should do that ourselves to try to make a buck of course i will tell you, I haven't had to modify a GoPro camera in years now. We haven't done this for anyone in probably three years, four years at least.

5:59Destin Cretton: And the last few that we were doing were for ophthalmologists who wanted to be able to connect their GoPro to like a microscope type of scenario. So it's like GoPro could have gotten into medical imaging. They could have competed with Leica. Leica is a huge player in the ophthalmological world of cameras. And there were people coming to us saying, hey, you know what this Leica camera is like six or seven thousand dollars. A GoPro is a few hundred dollars. Your conversion adds a thousand bucks onto it. It's still a better deal for me than to go out and buy the Leica. So, yeah, GoPro could have done a bunch of things, but I felt like they said we're one thing.

6:38Destin Cretton: We do it this one way. And frankly, some of their choices like auto editing and subscription platforms. Yes, I saw the press release. They made$29 million in that or something this latest year, which has grown to that. But I think that there are ways they could have handled their fortune that wasn't just about being a Red Bull style marketing company. And I don't think that they saw themselves that way. it's interesting it's always been interesting to me to see how that didn't necessarily translate to broader markets besides the consumer action cam space they could have gone they could have made a cinema camera and ultimately that's what Markiplier's video is kind of really about he's saying hey look here is the$700 camera which I think he mistakenly equates with a$7 ,000 red camera in his video.

7:33Destin Cretton: But, you know, that's neither here nor there. I mean, really, he's expressing his opinion and he freely admits from the get go that he's not a technical person. And but he is a filmmaker and he did make a really successful movie. So ultimately, what this comes down to, I think, is that GoPro wasn't able to navigate the competition and changing marketplace for their product and they weren't able to ever really get into a you know a foothold into another space that really catapulted them in the future i don't see why they couldn't have done this transition that they're doing right now independently but they were in a lot of debt and they were in 90 plus million dollars worth of debt and the new the new company that's taking them on uh they're wiping out that debt they're paying the shareholders i think i might have a share or two of gopro somewhere but i mean it was always like it's a the chair was well and you're kind of bearing the lead a little bit about markiplier there and that he had a significant chunk he owns a chunk of gopro 8.5 yeah a lot yeah while he was doing sponsored videos and i don't i'm not there are some people online who are scandalized by this and i guess i it never even really occurred to me that someone who is doing a sponsor if you're doing a sponsored video you're being paid for it anyway So if you own a chunk of the company and your sponsored video makes the stock go up, as long as you're not committing fraud, and it doesn't seem like he is, it doesn't really bother me one way or the other.

9:06Destin Cretton: No, I think it's a non-story. I think it's not really a scandal. But this guy, Phil DeFranco, who's got a lot of followers on YouTube, made a big video about it this week. People probably just want to take down Markiplier because he's crazy successful at what he does. Look, Markiplier is connected to people that you and I know. I hear nothing but good things about this guy. He seems like a force for good. In the wake of the success of his movie, he's creating this fund to help jumpstart other creators and stuff. It seems like he's wanted to pay it forward. I have no beef with him. I didn't love Iron Lung, but I would see his next movie.

9:45Destin Cretton: He definitely is. I like what he's doing. I think the bigger story here is not so much the is not a controversy with Markiplier or various other YouTube people trying to like, you know, goose this or jump into this. I think really the story is that we're probably not going to have GoPro to kick around any longer because it doesn't sound like in the press announcements about this acquisition, about this merger, that they're making any more doubling down for consumers. They're moving into AI data centers and defense contracting. So GoPro, in some ways here, maybe their value is because they're being acquired by a private corporation, which, to my knowledge, has no public trading capabilities on any stock exchange.

10:32Destin Cretton: So maybe this is sort of a play for them to be able to then become a public company and take a fairly low valued stock and take advantage of the the AI insanity that's going on right now, saying they're an AI company and turn a company that's above, slightly above a penny stock into something that might have tremendous growth where then they could either cash out or make real value from shareholders. So I think that I think there might be that. whenever I see that it's like a new AI company, I'm like, how long does the gold rush go on here for? Like, eventually we're going to settle into whatever the new version of the economy is that includes AI, but also other things.

11:13Destin Cretton: Like, I guess, you know, I don't need AI in my GoPro, but I also guess GoPro doesn't need filmmakers in its business model anymore. And probably like, Well, let me ask you this because you'll know better than me. Who is this the best news for? DJI? Like, who benefits from the action camera market being a wide open field? You nailed it on the head. DJI is the number one beneficiary of this because their biggest competitor is basically saying they're getting out of the biz. Yeah, DJI. I mean, I feel like DJI has already had kind of a strong foothold in that world. For sure. And they make great action cameras and they make great drones and they all kind of talk, you know, to each other within the same ecosystem.

12:01Destin Cretton: So, I mean, it kind of makes sense. I don't I own a GoPro, but I use my DJI pocket cam more than I use my GoPro for sure. Yeah. And there are a couple of other competitors in that space. There's another brand called Extra, which uses technology from DJI. But ultimately, DJI probably stands to benefit the most because, you know, their action camera is called like the Action, the Osmo Action. It's like they may not be the Kleenex like GoPro has been. But if things keep going their way, then who knows? Or maybe another company will enter the fray. hard to say and like this dji i'm like this gopro move dji already makes uh you know full full frame sensor cameras that with interchangeable lenses that are used by filmmakers so they kind of already have a line that extends from one to the other whereas gopro is kind of creating a new a new category for itself i think we should get to the interview with brett pollock we definitely should here let's do it by the way thank you for single-handedly saving cinema by the way you know it's it's it's only at like 2.23 billion worldwide yes it's absolutely i had the thought of calculating how many frames there were in the entire film and dividing that by the box office take to see how much each single frame was worth it's great i love it when you are brought on to to make a Spider-Man movie in which there are so many, so, so many entries.

13:39Destin Cretton: Like, what is it that you look at the other ones and can take from them? And, and what are ways that you kind of go like, hey, maybe we can explore making it look a little more like this or like that. Like, you know, what, what's your, what's the goal? Is the goal cohesion with the rest of the, the canon of it, Or is the goal to kind of allow it to kind of live in its own in its own world a little bit that feels connected enough, but not beholden to what came before it?

14:08Brett Pawlak: Exactly. I mean, I think that's that's exactly what the goal was. You know, it's not trying to you know, there was never a sense of trying to you know, we weren't we weren't trying to match or take the same aesthetic that has come from the last three into this one. this was definitely a new chapter so we we wanted to create something that was new and unique to this new chapter with tom reprising the role and inherently spider-man you know the spider-man suit is is iconically the spider-man suit so there's there's obviously a lot of similarities that just inherently like are part of that that franchise like you you can't not make a spider-man movie without the spider-man costume so that's going to be in there that's ingrained in in it anyway um but from an aesthetic point of view we definitely tried to create our own you know we tried to put our own fingerprint on it and do kind of a new our own version of it you know i'm a huge fan of and i grew up with the the sam raeys and the you know mark webb spider-man and the and and watching all the john watts ones as well so those are all subconsciously in my brain and i'm a fan of those and I want to, you know, pay homage to them as well.

15:26Brett Pawlak: I think there's so many great things about them that you that that I absolutely love and grown up with and want to interpret in my own way and also, you know, do my own own version of it as well. So it was finding a right balance of doing service to the to the franchise, to the character and also giving putting your own spin on it. For me, the most important thing was that I and what I approach anything with is just the story. You know, again, like you you inherit everything that Spider-Man brings with it anyway. So the best thing that I could do was really look at the script, look at the story and just support that as much as possible.

16:10Brett Pawlak: The Spider-Man part of it is kind of taken care of, to be honest, like you don't I don't have too hard to, you know, you're looking at you're looking at Tom in that suit. So it's just it's on screen. So all I have to do is kind of support the story. And I think that, you know, then you kind of the two the two come together.

16:26Destin Cretton: Well, the suit is I mean, you bring up the suit. The suit is very different from movie to movie, though. And in this one, you know, you know, previous to this one, basically the entire world forgot who he was and he had to kind of reinvent himself. And there's kind of some so the suit feels a little bit more pared down in a way intentionally than than the previous incarnations of it, especially, you know, when you get to the ones where, you know, Tony Stark is making this giant mecha suit for him or whatever it is like it. it feels a little more homespun, but moreover, I feel like, uh, and this is, this is something I was thinking about when I was watching it is like of, of superhero movies I've seen.

17:06Destin Cretton: And I would maybe compare this to the dark night in this way. This feels more character driven than a lot of other superhero movies where I feel like there's a lot of big plot points that the fans want to have, or, you know, we need to see how name your villain is represented or shown or how this moment is going to carry over. And I feel like with this, we're like way more in the character space. And we're seeing them when they're not doing superhero stuff, especially like all the stuff with the Punisher. He just got like, you kind of realize like, oh, he's a sad, lonely weirdo, you know, which you could have guessed, but like in most of the Punisher stuff, you don't really get that.

17:45Destin Cretton: And I love how much you get into that. And I'm curious from a cinematography standpoint, is there a different approach that you take towards doing something like this and making it feel more grounded and character based?

18:00Brett Pawlak: I think that the approach is definitely to grounded is like the correct is the correct term. It's it's it's a weird contrast because this movie has these it's very much about Peter as a character. I think it's the most about Peter in any of Tom's movies previously. So we are really with Peter and Spider-Man as like a character, as like actually a person. And that to the suit being practical and Tom being in the suit and it being not a stark kind of metal mini Iron Man suit. It's like an actual fabric suit that Tom's wearing. And, you know, we made the jaw. They made the jaw so that you could actually see his jaw moving in the suit.

18:56Brett Pawlak: And you could actually see his eyes through the mask. Those were all things that throughout prep and costume design and as we were shooting tests, I remember one of the days we were shooting the test and we saw Tom's eye through the mask. He had the little mesh eyes on, you know, we were all looking at it and questioning it, saying, oh, do we want that? And Destin was like, I love that I can see that there's someone behind that mask. I love that we can see his eyes back because we then we are reminded that there is like a human in that mask. And Tom is is in that mask. And then also, you know, throwing out the idea of being able to make his jaw move.

19:40Brett Pawlak: And even like the you can see his ear sometimes and like the suit and the wrinkles and like didn't get painted out. Those are all really small things that we considered when we were creating the suit just alone, just the suit alone to figure out how we could make people feel this character and to like see him as a character. but also it's a crazy contrast because he is in this suit and that suit is very you know it's a beautiful suit i mean it's it's an the suit was absolutely amazing and there's so many scenes of spider-man being just a character just being a person in dialogue scenes sitting across the table from someone having dialogue and you're like cutting back and forth from you know you know from one close up to then spider-man's close up and he's in just like a normal apartment or a normal office and him interacting as spider-man in real space and like on the streets of new york and it there's i think there's this like groundedness to it like again that that i think it was key to trying to to keep this as like a street level very you know street level character and movie.

21:01Brett Pawlak: So my goal as a, as a, from cinematography standpoint was to ground the visuals as much as I could to, to try to light it naturally, try to create sets that felt kind of felt real. You know, that was really kind of my whole goal, you know, to, to not over light and not feel pressured to light the suit perfectly every time to really just let it exists in space and and i feel like that that was kind of what destin was after too was to kind of see it not have to see it perfectly every time and it's a great suit it actually like photographs exceptionally well so it wasn't difficult to to make it look good it was it was also about like embracing it when it was maybe not imperfect when it fell into shadow when you know it wasn't when it wasn't just like you know the perfect the perfect superhero lighting on that suit when

21:55Destin Cretton: When the director first approached you about shooting this, you know, what was kind of the pitch? What was his take on how you were going to differentiate this or where the direction you were going to take it would be?

22:08Brett Pawlak: Destin and I have had a longstanding relationship of almost 17 years now. We did a short film a long time ago called Short Term 12, which was the first thing we did together, which then became a feature that won South By. and since then we've done a handful of other movies and documentaries and things all like

22:30Destin Cretton: all like character driven stuff though for the most part yeah yeah i thought yeah i thought that

22:35Brett Pawlak: destin and myself would be making a career in like in on like scrappy indie movies you know for my for my whole life and i was super happy to do so because um he's he's a dear friend of mine and and And I, you know, from the moment that we met and he showed me his shorts in films, like from film school and the things he had done before we worked together. He was one of those he was one of those people that you just knew when you saw his work, that there's just something he's he's so talented that there was something really special about about him and his work. So over the years, we've we've collaborated on a lot of different types of projects.

23:17Brett Pawlak: The fact that our most recent one being Spider-Man absolutely blows my mind that we are even in that ring because that would have been so far removed from what I thought we would be doing. But it's a real cool thing to do because we've established, I know Destin's sensibilities as a storyteller and in terms of on set and how we work together and with other collaborators. When he approached me about Spider-Man and we started talking about it, it's interesting because, again, we've worked so much together. And not even to say that everything we've done is the same, because I think every project we've done is different.

24:10Brett Pawlak: I think every time we do a project, the rules kind of change. We've definitely also evolved as people throughout the years. You know, when we did short term, we were definitely different, you know, different people as we were as we are today. We've grown as artists and also even personally. So each so it's evolved and I can't you know, I'm not I definitely don't pretend to say that there was no discussion about the aesthetic of Spider-Man. But Destin's always been someone who allows their key department heads and collaborators to bring their version of what they want to do. You are truly a collaborator.

24:55Brett Pawlak: He is amazing at steering the ship, at course correcting, making sure that we are all on the same page. But it's really about me presenting my interpretation of it and aesthetic to him. I just need to make sure as we go that I'm on the same page. But it's really me presenting what I, you know, my aesthetic. So he really lets me find it. He, you know, we have similar tastes in movies and aesthetic. You know, I think we reference, you know, PT and, you know, PTA all the time and, you know, other other filmmakers and other movies. And so there's like there's a composition, you know, there's composition and aesthetic and tone that I know that Dustin likes.

25:41Brett Pawlak: So it's easy for me to when I when I knew that when I learned that Spider-Man was the movie he was going to do next, it made perfect sense to me because Peter as a as a character. and like what you kind of what you see in in this movie in brand new day is is right in destin's alley like it is it is right in his wheelhouse and so it it wasn't a multiversal story it was a character piece yeah character study and that's destin like and and i so i was i was so confident in that and in this film and that he was going to accomplish So I knew I knew that his whole goal is to keep it grounded and to make it feeling real as real as you can.

26:32Brett Pawlak: Obviously, a Spider-Man movie. I'm not you know, we definitely explored things that aren't, you know, actually possible. But when we're in a scene and we're storyboarding, when we're talking about a giant sequence, big or small, the real discussion about it is just story is how it like in like in the big sequences and the big action sequences but they're obviously there in the in the movie they're scripted and we're looking at previous but each conversation about each giant sequence was really what's the sequence doing to move the story forward each beat in this sequence that sequence as a whole is its own is its own story so these beats that we're creating in this big action sequence how is this beat um affecting this beat and what what's the story it always distills back to what is happening in this scene so the conversations are very like broad until we are able to like get into the scene and actually talk about what what we're trying to to say in in this moment and there's there's a sense of shorthand where we can talk you know we also have a history of things that we've done together so we can reference ourselves a little bit but you know like for example there's a shot in the trailer in the movie but it's um when when peter's sitting at the washing machine and he's got the key to the city and the the the suits and the washing machine and he's he's holding the key and we set up that frame he loosely described that shot to me and i set up the frame and we and I lit it and we were it was we were doing a lot of montage pieces that day so it was a lot of setups in that apartment and it was a quick setup and we had two cameras on it but as we shot when we shot it he looked at me and he he said oh I think this this looks like a shot we could we would that exists in short term 12 which was our for our first feature together and I agreed and it became that simple shot kind of actually like unanimously everyone at that point it was we're like like that was their favorite shot yet from from everything we'd shot and it was pretty early in the movie but like everyone was like oh that shot when we looked at we screened the dailies and everyone was looking at the theater it was the one shot that people really responded to and said this is like actually like our favorite shot of the movie so far and it's a simple it's simple but that one frame tells so much about peter and his character and like where he's at and so that frame is a good example of sort of the discussions and what we were after when we were trying to to figure out how to um ground this this world but also approach it from our our own you know unique perspective when you talked a little bit about uh you know

29:21Destin Cretton: the sequences that you guys had previs and stuff like that now was the previous based on storyboards based on stuff that the two of you guys worked out together um you know like i i sometimes wonder with these massive giant budget tentpole kind of movies does that stuff get farmed out uh do they bring in a second unit to to handle that i mean like we know people who do that on big on big ass movie. So it's, it's not unusual. Like what's your, what's your, uh, hand in that, in that material? Yeah.

29:52Brett Pawlak: I mean, that's a, that's a good question. I mean, that was also the, the, the part of the process for me that was, that was very new because those sequences are, you know, you have to start on those sequences so early because they are the most complicated ones. They involve the most assets in a sense.

30:14Destin Cretton: I mean, sometimes it's the first stuff that's written. Like they'll come up with five sequences before they even have a plot for the movie. And then they have to figure, I mean, the Mission Impossible movies are notorious for this.

30:25Brett Pawlak: They know the big sequences and they're definitely written beforehand. And they are definitely, Destin is working on them from the jump. and that's all the way down from like storyboarding to getting previs companies to do to doing pre-visualizations of it you know we have tools now like like unreal where you're getting previous sequences that look like video game cut scenes that are like really like great looking you you're you know you also have like traditional storyboard animatics that are like that you're getting and And then, you know, you're starting on those sequences so early because you there's so much that you have to figure out logistically how to create that sequence.

31:11Brett Pawlak: Because there because every single department is involved in those sequences because, you know, there's practical effects, there's VFX, there's stunts, there's, you know, obviously there's a lot of its second unit work. And a lot of that second unit work has to then also marry and connect with the work that we will come in and do because a lot of those sequences are done with stunt performers. And then we also have to include Tom or any key actor into those sequences as well that might require dialogue or face replacements. They're very, very complicated. And those sequences, I was in meetings for the literally the first day I got into prep in London, I walked into a giant meeting about the opening, the opening tank chase, it was like, so much more fleshed out than I even could have imagined, because Destin had been working with the effects working with the previous vendors to start to like piece this thing together.

32:15Brett Pawlak: And it's really a process of working through the sequence because it also changes as production goes on. We have to, you know, it's boarded and it's previs before the locations are picked. And then we have to go scout and see if those locations have been box in which does that make sense? And then we finally find the streets. You know, let's say it is like the tank chase or something like that. We have to find the streets that we can work with that we're allowing, you know, we can do the stunt or the piece that we need for that sequence. And then that then informs the previs company to then change the previs to then match what we're actually able to do.

33:02Brett Pawlak: And it's literally, it's weeks. It's weeks of meetings of the same sequences going into the same meetings, constantly looking at each shot, figuring out each single shot and what each how we accomplish each shot. And as those meetings happen, it's it's logistics, it's aesthetics. You know, a lot of times, Dustin, you know, we'd be watching a sequence and I'd be looking at a couple a couple shots and how they were cut together or like one shot. And I would, as we were watching it, I would suggest that, oh, maybe, you know, Dustin, do you like that it cuts from that wide into that close up? Maybe we do, instead of it being, maybe it's instead of a jump cut, maybe we actually do a push or something like that.

33:46Brett Pawlak: Like as we're watching the previs, as we're getting the boards, we're also added like, oh, I think that, you know, maybe this or, you know, or the lighting in this field, it's going to feel a lot darker than this actually in this sequence. because you're also trying to get tone you know it's it's they're they're very very complicated storyboards yeah but it's but again it's just a lot of meetings of a lot of department heads and collaborators all just trying to wrap our heads around the sequence and figure out the best way for us to accomplish those sequences it's just a lot of conversations and a lot of back and forth and just a lot of like collaboration.

34:29Brett Pawlak: It really, it really, really is like an effort of like everybody. And that's and then prep is is very much it's very much concentrating on those big sequences and making sure that those set pieces are ready and we are all, you know, we're all prepared, prepared for them.

34:46Destin Cretton: Like on the day when you're there to film that stuff, how locked into that previous and all these now you've had God knows how many meetings about it. How locked in are you if like if you see a great thing or the sunlight's looking really cool from this other angle? Are you able to jump on opportunities that you find on the day or are you just like, nope, we have a you know, it's a tight close up from the side and we got to keep it that way because it's got to connect to this other thing.

35:12Brett Pawlak: There's a couple different ways in which the specificities of the boards have to be shot. If it's a second unit sequence, if it's a sequence that has a lot of second unit work, then they are much more specific to when we're planning and looking at the boards and looking at the previs. We are trying to be as specific as possible because we are trying to give them all the information they need to get exactly what we're trying to get since we can't be there to do that. So the previs that we work on for the sequences that have heavy second unit, we try to be as specific as possible in terms of what that sequence is.

35:56Brett Pawlak: But on sequences or scenes in which we're doing previs that maybe is more first unit, that maybe Destin and I will be shooting more of, that involves the actors and things like that. that is a little looser in terms of interpretation because Destin is like controlling that, that situation and he can obviously veto and make changes to the sequence. The only caveat is we're doing a scene in terms where we're, we're dealing with like Hulk, you know, and some crazy stunt or something that involves in, you know, some rigging. Those have to be a lot more specific because we can't change we can't really change a stunt rigging too much because they've been planning it they've been rehearsing it yeah and also vfx based on our previs vfx is like budgeting out like the amount of shots that they are you know they have to deliver and what we're delivering so we can't completely go rogue but we try to get as close to that as possible there were plenty of times where we went in with one sequence that was boarded and as the scene progressed we we changed the angle we changed the the idea we thought you know oh this this actually would be better for this moment if we knew we were going to be doing it and shooting it we were a little less specific in the previs and the boards because we knew that we were the authors of that and we were able to like change it where if it was a second unit scene and they had to deliver shots that we would have to cut into or be a part of a larger sequence they those were much more specific to what they were trying to get everything like exactly as much as they could to how we we boarded it and we were watching it as well we were as they were shooting second unit we would be we'd have like a feed of their unit or they would send us shots that they were as they were completing them to make sure that we approved them before they moved on or got too far ahead.

38:02Brett Pawlak: So we which and we change things, too. Like they would say this isn't really working like the boards did. But we have this other option and we would we would work with them as as they did that. So we tried to be as specific as possible. I mean, I think I think you would be doing yourself a disservice to to spend as much time we did in prep on these boards to then just completely change them on the day. But that said, it is a malleable, you know, things happen, things change. And so as specific as we were, we were also open to changing things if it made it better.

38:36Destin Cretton: there's a couple of sequences in this uh movie which i i think are a lot of fun and they seem to have a combination of uh very low-tech techniques along with with uh you know all the the whiz bang that that marvel is known for i'm thinking very specifically of the gene gray uh mind-hopping boiler alert oh well i look if if you haven't seen it by now and you're watching this this this podcast i'm sorry but but but here but here's the thing i i of course was immediately taken back to the 1998 denzel washington movie fallen when i saw this but uh i don't feel like fallen i don't think that fallen took it to the level at all the way that you guys did in this movie and uh maybe it's just because the sheer number of people and the spectacle of the sequence, but I know it's a lot of choreography with actors, and it seems to me, though, that with all of the whip pans and all of the, you know, steadicam movements and here and there and trying to pick up those pieces, can you talk a little bit about how you, is this a third floor animatic visualized, pre-visualized sequence?

39:51Destin Cretton: How are you guys planning all this out? Is it a second unit thing? Were you not even there? How did this come together?

39:56Brett Pawlak: That's a good question. We explored so many ways in which that trying to figure out what that language was. I mean, we we did explore. It was like a, you know, frame store third floor or like type thing where we were we had many artists working on, you know, and that's the great thing about like a like an unreal unreal situation where you you can animate things and try, you know, they knew what we were going to shoot on and knew our lenses. So they were like, how can we approach this? And Jerome, our VFX supervisor, was like pitching ideas of how we could do some creative things. We extensively tried to figure out, like, what is this language?

40:36Brett Pawlak: And then it also was a big, the big part of it was the choreography. Dustin brought his good friend Nathan, who he knew from Maui, who was a choreographer, a dance choreographer. And we brought him out and he worked with dancers in London. And we brought them on. And he he basically workshopped with them the movement in terms of the language of actually like what the movement was in the people. And then we had to try and figure out how we show that on camera, obviously. And it really just came to like seeing things that were like way too complicated, way too out there. And then we literally were workshopping with them in on a stage, watching them do the choreo and how they like, you know, do the wave basically.

41:23Brett Pawlak: And any time we did it where we would whip or we would pan or we would, it just communicated, just like communicated it. It was the it was like the simplest solution. And it felt and we were like kind of against it because it felt so simple. We're like, it has to be more complicated than this. Like we should do something. But when we but anytime we did anything else, it just didn't translate. Like it was really hard to translate it. And so the wit panning or at least just like any, like just the wit pan itself like became the thing that we all just agreed was the simplest way to explain this move.

42:08Destin Cretton: I recall one sequence that's almost like racking focus further and further down the road. You see like just people kind of like moving away from camera and the focus hits. I thought that was super effective. I mean, I felt like the camera might have just even been a lock off, but we just have this like maybe a little bit of motion. Meanwhile, you've got this focus pull that's happening.

42:30Brett Pawlak: Yeah, you know, it's like, yeah, I mean, it's simple because you are just doing a wave.

42:36Destin Cretton: Woo, yes, exactly right, yeah.

42:40Brett Pawlak: Like when you're in a stadium and like you see the wave coming, it's cool. and when you know even like rockettes when they do the like do do do do do you know like some there's a rhythm to it that feels very organic and and right and so that i think just translated so well you know a lot of it also you know we did a lot of whip panning but we also just did a lot of like panning with them yeah like they were doing a lot of the work we weren't really like actually doing much to show we were just literally like following it so yeah so there's some really like you said there's some really simple shots where we're literally we are just locked off looking down a sidewalk and they're just in a succession like going down the line like dominoes i think

43:24Destin Cretton: they're so rewarding though too i like i mean i it's as rewarding is like a giant vfx sequence with a helicopter being i can't imagine vfx adding anything to it it's it's sort of like when you see yoda using the force there's no vfx i mean i guess yoda it might be vfx but So I'll say Luke using the force. Like, you know, it's just Mark Hamill having intentions. And when I saw the movie, I was like, yeah, that feels like a modern dance move, but it works really well.

43:54Brett Pawlak: Yeah. I mean, it's very simple. We thought about like how to track, you know, with the camera, whether it would be a drone or something. Like, are we like tracking over them? Are we going through them? you know are we literally going you know and we tried all that we do jerome did versions of that in previs and we looked at it and all it was cool but then it always just felt just slightly slightly too much so yeah i mean i'm glad i'm glad we landed on it and i i definitely like when i watched i think it definitely was very successful at just communicating we're trying to trying to

44:30Destin Cretton: trying to do how much of a jump is it from like marvel television like a wonder man to then a Spider-Man. I mean, is it an order of magnitude of complexity, an order of magnitude? I mean, you did several episodes, but I'm just, I'm curious what the split is between Marvel television and Marvel feature films. Is it like, you know, all of the, you know, all of the stop gaps are opened or is it, is it basically the same?

44:57Brett Pawlak: It's very similar. I mean, even just in a career when you start, you know, in like on shorts or smaller movies and you work your way up and you start you know doing studio movies there's a gap and there's definitely yeah there's definitely the the productions get much bigger and there were plenty of times on spider-man where i was standing there going what am i what am i doing here this is absolutely insane it's it feels the same um there's definitely a lot more responsibility as you as you move move up and and and helm something like this but it also like down to like nuts and bolts you're doing your day looks exactly the same.

45:37Brett Pawlak: I was, you know, shooting Wonder Man was amazing because it was, the whole goal of it was to be as far removed from a Marvel, like looking, Marvel feeling production as possible. That was the whole, that was the whole creative. So it was fun to like dip my toes in because I got, and it was a good introduction for me because it was an aesthetic in a world that I am very comfortable in, especially working with Destin. So it was very close to like my natural aesthetic. And I didn't feel the pressure to have to step into this like superhero aesthetic and superhero size production. I was able to kind of like keep myself very like, humble with it.

46:22Brett Pawlak: And again, like just concentrate on it as a story. But also, within that I was still working within the Marvel Studio system. So, you know, I'm working with Marvel Post, you know, we are, we are, I am under that umbrella and going through the Marvel Post process in terms of from my work, my onset workflow, and then into into final color and then into the all the all the reviews and requirements in terms of like, final looks that we do and deliverables and things that that was where I think, Wonder Man really benefited me in terms of stepping into Spider-Man. because I had already gone through that process on the series.

47:08Brett Pawlak: And so when I went into Spider-Man, I had already a familiarity with the way that Marvel Post works. And I built friends there and colleagues now that I trust. So it was an easier transition for me to step into that, having already gone through Wonder Man. The only difference with Spider-Man was just the sheer size of it, which is daunting and definitely much bigger than wonder man but what also comes along with that which which is really helpful is that i had an amazing crew in london that i was able to to bring on to the to the project they i mean a lot of those a lot of my crew had either worked on had just come off uh like our department our production designer the art department came off of project hail mary oh wow amongst other i mean our charlie wood is is like a legend production designer in london he he's done other marvel projects um but also he did hail mary uh and so he's he's absolutely so talented and such a just an amazing human being that that was great but also like from my side my uh gaffer jonathan um you know is it works with bill pope quite a bit does a lot of giant movies in in in london my my key grip had just finished fantastic four and so there's a lot of experience and a lot of really great talented crew that i'm on that on that size of a production that i'm able to get that i might not be able to on like a small independent film you know it's it's experience in terms of that size of a production knowing in context if i was shooting a day exterior on a smaller project and you know i need to i need to put up a you know i have one big fly swatter or something and like there's two fly swatters that i'm working with and i'm working within this box and i'm like okay i can cover this much ground with these two fly swatters and i know that that's my that's what i have to work with so that's what i plan around where on spider-man i'm turning around going oh i need the sun's about to come out from behind this building on this back lot and i need to like cover this and instead of just two fly swatters it's 17 but it's a it's like a handful and suddenly i would get panicked because i said oh my gosh it's going to take forever to move five of these machines but the thing that i didn't actually realize which i soon quickly started to understand is that everyone every one of those guys in those machines has done this a million times on a million other movies so they are i mean it's like hey i just needed to point and say this sun's about to like get in the way we need to control it to match the things that we did before and that that's all happening in the background while i'm focusing on working with camera department on composing the frame and so the scale does get bigger, but also the experience also levels up with that.

50:17Brett Pawlak: So it doesn't feel as different. I remember, I don't know who I was listening. There was an interview a long time ago. And I think a lot of people think this way. But when you're starting to move up in your career, and let's say you're looking at it, you're about to light a soundstage, and you're used to lighting a small portion of that stage like you can't build that big of a set you can't light that big of a space but suddenly you're suddenly you're looking you have to light an entire stage it's daunting to think of how do i fill how what do i do to light this space but if you just focus on lighting this part and then focus on light like you don't have to take the whole thing in at once you can you can build yourself out into it and like focus on what you need to cover this much space and then fill that the rest of that out it that's kind of the way that it works in terms of like stepping i think me myself at least on this experience spider-man is like i just concentrated on what i my instincts and what i what i've learned to this point and then try to just expand on that as things went and also lean a lot on my crew.

51:34Brett Pawlak: But it's surprising to me that it feels totally different and exactly the same.

51:41Destin Cretton: It sounds a little bit like you're describing eating an elephant. Like, you know, you have to do it one bite at a time here. And that it's just that you've got a smaller elephant when you're dealing with it on a smaller production and the elephant just gets exponentially larger.

51:54Brett Pawlak: Spider-Man is like eating an elephant. It's exactly.

51:58Destin Cretton: So, so, so, so look, you're bringing up lighting. I really want to talk about lighting. I think I got a little bit of a, of a, an inkling of, of what your style is from, from seeing Spider-Man and how do you approach it in general? I mean, do you have a favorite playbook or a favorite way to start your lighting of a sequence or of space? Is it character based? How do you choose the way that you want to light a movie like this?

52:29Brett Pawlak: I try to light as naturally as I can, not to say that I want to make it feel like it's unlit. I'm really good at responding to things as opposed to trying to reinvent things. so if you know for if if we're if we're shooting on a set and an interior whether it's a location or if it's a it's a set build my whole goal is to try to treat it as practically as possible so my so i would be my my instinct is first to see how much i can actually light from the window if there's windows how am i actually like it can i light from those windows can i get as enough ambience through those windows to set a general ambience and tone in the room are there practical like where are the practicals what are those doing where do they are those emitting light are they just accents if it's on stage i try to light the space as naturally as i can i try to light the space before i start to really get into the nuance of like lighting for the close-ups or for that specific shot if i can successfully light the space then it it does 90 of my work getting that set lit takes a little bit longer but makes the coverage go that much faster because i'm starting from i'm again i'm starting from this like point where once i get that room lit i understand where all the light's coming from um i understand you know and i've already set the time of day.

54:03Brett Pawlak: I, you know, I've set the tone. So my approach is really to just set, to try to figure out that, what that room feels like naturally. And a lot of times, like, we'll, we'll be scouting a room, you know, we'll be go scouting or we'll be at a location and I walk in and the sun's work, you know, the sun's coming in at a certain angle that I I think looks nice. I don't even try to re-imagine it. I go, oh, that this is this is what this room feels like, because I also really appreciate like light, the way that a room is interpreted in light. I really enjoy the way that a room renders light differently.

54:46Brett Pawlak: You know, if there's it's different, if there's a wood floor versus carpet or the walls are colored or, you know, there's a lot There's a lot happening in a room besides just like a big light that's coming in. If it's coming in steep, it's bouncing off that floor and creating that light and bouncing up in the ceiling and creating that warm ambient. So those are the things that I really like to respond to. And I work with art department quite a bit in terms of lighting as well to know those parameters so that I can use them as creative tools. and that goes with like you know night night scenes or interior like darker interiors or or things like that where I will work as close as I can with my lighting department and with with art department to make sure that not to say that we have practicals everywhere but that those practicals are designed in a way that and that I can work off of to inform where my light would be coming from from those scenes so it so in that regard like my lighting is is is natural because i'd like to just know where the light's coming from you know it's it's been an evolution um of mine to try and figure out sort of like how actually how i like because it was i don't think i was early in my career i was actually very strong at lighting i didn't i wasn't actually very confident in lighting until i started to figure out what i like about lighting and what what I appreciate in it and it's a lot of less is more if I can if I can light it from the whole the whole scene from outside I will and if I if I can get away with just bringing in a couple like a lighter two just to shape the light and the close-ups I that's great too because Destin also shoots he likes to try to cross cover dialogue if he can um it's obviously not it's not ideal for for cinematographers but we've done it our entire career and he really appreciates getting both performances at the same time if if he feels like it's it's valuable so i will approach that's also why i like the room as much as i can before i actually start lighting a shot because i will just prepare myself mentally to be prepared to cross cover if i need to or if i if we're not cross covering to know that i i can quickly turn around because i know that you know i don't want to be i don't want to hold up performance because i need to suddenly now turn around and relight i if i can be prepared for that that cross cover then it prepares me even if we don't cross cover it prepares me for potentially just being able to to turn around very quickly um and i think destin appreciates that as well i think that he he also likes things to feel grounded and not you know not too theatrical but um just just being able to live in the space i i definitely see

57:47Destin Cretton: everything that you're that that you're talking about right now if i was to you know and you can correct me here if i'm wrong but when i look at your lighting uh i feel very much that you have these environments and then there is little bits of tweaking when you're in really close like uh i When I see you move into the close, I, in my brain, acknowledge that this is perfect exactly like what my eye would see if we move in close. But I know that this is not exactly what I was seeing in the wide. And I feel like you have gotten really good at cheating, like little bits of bounce or little bits of practical or little bits of stuff when you move into those close ups.

58:27Destin Cretton: And I love it. It's just it's really great. For me, it's like that that's, you know, it's wonderful when you are on a production and you have the ability to do that. But I'm curious, do you do I mean, when you said that you're bouncing off the environment, it totally looks like that way that way to me. And that's it's a really fun look because not everyone is like, you know what, I'm going to get some brown return here. And the brown return is like is sometimes it's wonderful. Just adds all this extra color and texture inside of the people's skin. Is this what you're doing?

58:55Brett Pawlak: Yeah, I mean, yeah, 100 percent. That is the goal is to just have to cheat the close ups enough to where they match the wide. You know, I think I'm always very sensitive in my own work to like be in a wide and then cut to a close up and suddenly feel like the close up is lit.

59:18Destin Cretton: Yeah, it does. Yeah. I don't think that you're doing that at all. I think that. But but no, I'm exactly with you. It's like because sometimes it feels that way, of course, but it's like you've got the two extremes. You've got the extreme of like, oh, we've cut in and that clearly is we just cut in where it does not then carry through the extra detail.

59:36Brett Pawlak: you want there are some very if you can if you can successfully it doesn't happen all the time and but it's very it's i'm very lucky when it does and but if you can successfully set up a wide that works in the wide yeah then there are times when you go when you punch in and you do the close-up, you know, there's an inherent feeling of when you go in for a close-up, you suddenly have to, like, change every, like, now you have to light for the close-up. Now you can come in and actually, like, model the light. Where if you can actually just move into the close-up and try to imagine what's just the smallest thing I can do to improve this, just to help it in the close-up, then that is always, it feels so much better to me.

1:00:35Brett Pawlak: And so it is sometimes really like trying to figure out when I'm lighting that wide, how am I going to light that close-up? And is there a way I can get close to that now so that when I go in, I either make little to no adjustments or it's just bringing in enough to know that I need to, I need to like, now I can kind of get in and see that eye a little bit more, or I can wrap it just a little more now that we want to, you know, we're in this closeup and we're, we can cheat it because now we're like the tie lines tighter. So we can, we, we have a little bit of malleability, but I really do try to get as close to the, the wide and, and, and mediums as possible so that they don't all completely jump and change.

1:01:22Brett Pawlak: It doesn't always happen. And it's, you know, you obviously, sometimes you paint yourself into a corner. But I think what's really interesting and difficult, but also the fun about this job and doing this is that it's you're just playing chess with yourself all day. You're trying to think five moves ahead and know where you're at and because you know it's funny going talk you know the the conversation of the wide lighting to the close-up lighting is interesting too because there are plenty of times on this project that due to scheduling due to any many different reasons you know the the correct way to do something is to shoot the wide and then going for close-ups i mean that's just that's standard filmmaking but given the malleability of these sets and trying to like or coming back or the way things happen we started with close-ups even and if it was like an important scene and like maybe they're rehearsing and and they they think you know what actually i think we're we don't want to wait we don't want to waste takes on the squat we need to kind of get into it and destin would always turn to me and ask like hey do you mind can we can we actually start with the close-ups and if i've prepared that space already and i know that what that like where that light's coming from then i can more confidently start with starting close-ups and then when i fall back to the wide, I'm not worried that suddenly it's, you know, suddenly I can't match those close ups, I can actually completely start with those close ups and actually move out to the wides and finish back.

1:02:52Brett Pawlak: I think that that's also a key, a key to that, that equation as well. And it's hopefully a benefit.

1:03:00Destin Cretton: Yeah, I was gonna ask too, because, you know, when it's all well and good to be naturalistic with the lighting and all that stuff. But then you've got, you know, Zendaya, you know, you know, one of the one of the biggest movie stars we currently have. And and I'm sure that they're, you know, like you want to make her look as good as she can in the environment that she's in. But you, you know, I love the chess analogy because I wonder, like, how do you determine the line of like, OK, this isn't like a glammy looking movie. It takes place in dirty, grimy places, but you still your actors got to look their best.

1:03:38Brett Pawlak: Yeah, that that in that, you know, that's definitely a fine line that you you walk as you start, you know, as you are as you're shooting a project. You are definitely responsible for making sure that people can can see the actors and see their performances and they're giving performances. and you want to respect that. Destin is all about performance. On set, he really is, that his main goal is just to make sure that he gets great performances out of the actors. And I know that. So I try to create a set that also helps that. You're lighting a close-up or lighting an actor or a talent knows that you are on their coverage.

1:04:23Brett Pawlak: There is a, you know, you want to make it aesthetic. You want to make it look real again. And it's like you go with this sort of, you know, natural, you know, natural light, you know, look or, you know, way in which in which you're going about it and without making it feel too too over lit. So it's a fine line. But also you you want to make sure that the actors feel like you're taking care of them, like they are taking care of, that their performance isn't being wasted. And there's trust there, obviously, in between myself, Destin, the actors. You know, there's trust that what we're capturing on camera will people will will see.

1:05:04Brett Pawlak: And yeah, I'm definitely you're responsible for seeing those actors that that people want to see and also trying to ride this line of like being aesthetic and making the light feel feel real without being overly or underly cosmetic. It does take a little time to find that. And it does. It is an evolution as the movie goes on, as the schedules, you know, as you get through the movie, you learn everyone's face. You know, you have tests early to, like, see them on camera, see what you need. But as the movie progresses and you work in different scenes with them and different lighting conditions, you understand a little bit better what everyone's face is different and everyone requires slightly different adjustments here or there.

1:05:49And I definitely put more attention on making sure that even in like the darkest scenes or the most contrasty scenes or I just also constantly reminded myself to to

1:06:04Brett Pawlak: just take take care of the actors and make sure that they were that you could you could see them because it's my responsibility as much to like make art and make, you know, make images that I appreciate. I also want to make sure that I'm doing service to them as well.

1:06:25Destin Cretton: Brett, you've been doing this for a minute now. But you're also, you're a young guy. But I want to jump back like 20 plus years here to the start of your career. Tell me about the early days of getting into this business. And when did you know that this is actually a thing that you thought you could do or you wanted to do or, you know, you were going to run off and join the circus? When did the inspiration to take on an unpredictable freelance career say, yes, that's it. That's for me. Sign me up. I'm going to go do this.

1:07:00Brett Pawlak: I didn't think it would, to be completely honest. I've always loved movies. I grew up making films with my friends. It was a hobby, but a really fun. And it was like, I mean, I, you know, I did a lot of, you know, I did I did the normal skating and making skate films with my friends. And that's that was very fun. But then my some other other group of friends in middle school were actually making movies and I lumped in with them and I started making films with with them and then got into high school. I was taking a lot of video production. So it was it was in me. um i didn't necessarily think that it would i was after a goal you know to become a cinematographer i was very interested in it as like the more i did it the more interested i got in it and i just the only way i was going to graduate high school was to to graduate so i could at least just go to film school and so i went to the la film school just to study to basically study directing and as i was there i realized that i wasn't much of a director um but that there was a draw to cinematography that I really, really enjoyed.

1:08:08I didn't come out of film school wanting or expecting to be a DP.

1:08:13Brett Pawlak: I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed cinematography and being a cinematographer, and I shot as much as I possibly could, but I did not bank on the fact that I was going to become a cinematographer. As I was shooting short films and working at the film school for a little bit and bouncing around jobs, I actually worked as a grip More than any other department I worked in all departments But gripping for me was The most Education that I got Film school was great because it gave me a chance To explore The departments and find cinematography But Gripping allowed me to In practice I'm very physical I need to physically tactile tactile learner so that was what was amazing about gripping was that i was physically rigging lights or rigging points for lights to go on to rigging flags putting up c stands using diffusion using cutters seeing and i saw how many different dps would approach us you know approach a scene and it and that was really great for me to to see that one like here's how all these tools actually these tools that I didn't get in film school and these sets that are much bigger than the ones that I was doing in film school.

1:09:33Brett Pawlak: Here's what all these things do. And also here's all the different ways in which you can approach something. So there's not one right way of doing something. There's many different ways of doing something and accomplishing something. So gripping really was was was where I I kind of learned that and it really I just got very lucky that short films and projects that I was shooting just I continually was able to acquire another you know meet someone else who was shooting another short and I eventually met Destin and Destin and I shot that short film and not that that did anything for my career because it was crickets after that but it was just networking you know it's just I was very lucky that the work that I was doing was constantly bringing me to other work and relationships that I had were also leading to other relationships that I was getting and um and slowly but surely I just I was I was able to like build build up work there was a moment when I was considering do I try to become a cinematographer or do I just grip or do I do something completely different I just committed to shoot to being a DP I just committed I remember one day I was just like you know what if I'm gonna try I might as well just give it give it everything and just just try because I was kind of having it like I wasn't I wasn't giving myself the full, like, go ahead.

1:11:06Brett Pawlak: OK, to like just actually go for it. And I have to sincerely thank my parents because they they supported me 150 percent. Like there was no question. They were like, yeah, like this is what you love. Go go try and do it.

1:11:20Destin Cretton: And they were they in the business at all?

1:11:21Brett Pawlak: My mom was the stand is is and what has been a stand in on on some television shows. When I was in high school, she would bring me down on Fridays when they did tapings of like a sitcom and she'd like introduce me to the DP and say that, you know, I want to be a filmmaker and I'm going to be a DP. And my family having anything to do with, with the industry had absolutely no effect on me choosing as my own, as my own path.

1:11:46Destin Cretton: No, I just, I was just wondering if, you know, the fact that your parents supported you in it, like the fact that they, I mean, like you told me off mic that you grew up in Santa Clarita, it's an industry town. So it's not like you were saying like, I'm going to run away and join the circus. You were like saying, I'm going to go over the hill and work in the industry.

1:12:03Brett Pawlak: I think that was a huge benefit and a big part of why it was, I even considered being able to do it. When you grow up a stone's throw from Hollywood, from, from the studios, you are aware that the industry and you're aware of people who are in the street and doing it for a living have careers. So it wasn't, it wasn't this thing that was like far fetched that didn't seem real. it seemed like a possibility. And also, you know, the fact that my mom was a stand-in for a while. You know, she was around DPs and around grips, and it didn't seem like a completely far-fetched thing to do. So that was very helpful.

1:12:49Brett Pawlak: I mean, I think that that was a huge part in why I was able to even consider it. It was always kind of around, and I was always very interested in that, the process of it i i loved the images and i loved the films as they are but i was also very very interested in like what's happening beyond this frame like how did we how did they create this what's what's creating this frame and i and it's so it was so interesting to me that like that frame is a such a small part of everything happening like that set is so big there are so many people even on even on spider-man i would be standing there and we'd be like framing up a shot and but i'd be standing so far away looking at all the people that it takes to accomplish it's it's daunting and like what are all these people doing here but also it's like wow it really takes a village to like do this and and that's what i that's what i really like remember when i was young and and imagining doing this potentially even as like a not even as a career, but just doing it in general, like making, making movies.

1:13:59Brett Pawlak: That was really cool to me. That was, and I still love it to this day. Again, like standing on set and watching the movie being made is, is really still very fun.

1:14:09Destin Cretton: I think that's actually a really great place for us to leave it. You know, I just want to thank you for coming on. And before we go, is there like a website, a Instagram, a place online where people can see more of your work, interact with you at whatever level you'd like to interact with people.

1:14:24Brett Pawlak: I'm at Brett's Bow on Instagram. And then my website is just Brett Pollock dot com. And that's that's kind of where I'm at online.

1:14:34Destin Cretton: Well, thank you for being on the show. We will put links to your social medias on our official website, which is CamNoir.com. Brett, thank you so much for being on the Cinematography Podcast.

1:14:45Brett Pawlak: Thanks so much. It was great.

1:14:50Destin Cretton: all right that was brett pollock brett that was great uh chatting about spider-man thank you so much for being on the show i i can't i can't wait to see your next thing and everybody if you haven't heard of the spider-man movie it's a little movie yeah looking in looking into it and checking it out i i honestly think it's such a great movie spider-man or not i think it's a really solid film and worth seeing so 100 agree absolutely go go see spider-man in the theaters while you still can i mean it's like now i think it's five weeks in a row at number one so yeah crazy

1:15:25Destin Cretton: ben it is our short end time of the show it's the time we talk about pet obsessions what is your obsession this week it's a movie uh that that you can see in theaters now that is neither the odyssey nor is it spider-man oh uh really there's there's something else playing there is uh sort of like when I saw Motor City. I feel like this maybe has a slightly higher profile because it's such a crazy idea. It's called Buddy and it's directed, co-written and directed by friend of the show, Casper Kelly. Oh, all right. Fantastic. I love Casper's stuff. Yeah. So, yeah. So if you've seen, if you are like me, a giant fan of Too Many Cooks or Yule Log or any of the other just psychedelic crazy pants weird walk between horror and wholesomeness that Casper Kelly does uh you definitely should uh run not walk to the theater right now to see Buddy which is basically a riff on the 90s kid show Barney where there's a giant costumed unicorn that helps kids solve problems and uh I don't want to ruin too much of it because there's so many surprises in this movie but basically the kids in the show are trapped in an alternate dimension with buddy as their tormentor you know i'm really glad that you brought this up because i had heard a brief blurb somewhere like in the last few days about buddy and it was people demanding their money back because they brought their kids to see it and they thought not a kid's movie not yes not a kid's not a kid's movie i've also heard that there are people who have been up in arms about it because there is violence towards children trigger warning this movie contains violence towards children but also if you take this movie that seriously or are going to be disturbed by that then i would say avoid all fantasy but uh it's uh it's it's exactly what you expect from casper kelly like if i was to say casper kelly made a theatrical feature uh when you go see it nothing about this is going to surprise you.

1:17:34Destin Cretton: It's just his ability to kind of find a safe form of programming. So like in the case of Too Many Cooks, it was sitcom opening credits, right? And he sets a whole story in that. And in this case, it's like kids shows. So it's, I mean, it's referencing Barney, but it could also be referencing Pee Wee's Playhouse and a lot of other kind of fanciful kids shows, mostly from the 90s and uh and then it goes to horrible dark often gory places so not if you don't like gore skip it and some of it's like cartoonish puppet gore and some of it's you know humans and uh it's it's just uh really nuts and and a shout out to zach cooperstein who's the dp on this he uh he's shot some horror movies like most notably i think he shot barbarian but a great job kind of capturing that look of 90s kids shows but also there are elements of this movie that are that take place in kind of a regular cinematic world of their own creation as well and it's got it just has some amazing messed up visuals it's messed up movie but it's really worth seeing and it's in theaters right now but definitely check it out it's just a great work all the way around and if you're a fan of uh too many cooks or uh you log was the one we had him on for we we had him on the show uh i just think he's kind of a one-of-a-kind filmmaker who does stuff that is like uh i don't want to compare him necessarily to david lynch but like if a david lynch-ish vibe that's actively funny um yeah and and and also actively kind of horror movie-ish You know, he's not I wouldn't call him a surrealist, but he definitely pedals in surrealism.

1:19:27Destin Cretton: It's his stuff is fun. So now I'm much more excited to see Buddy now because I didn't know what it was. I knew it existed. I knew that people were trying to get their money back because they were taking their kids to it. Now I'm excited to see it. Yeah. My friend invited me to go see it. And I was like, should we bring our kids? He laughed. What is your obsession this week? Well, Sony has a new camera coming out called the FX5. it's sort of been a big deal on the interwebs in fact i would say it's the most hotly anticipated camera of 2026 and uh it was supposed to ship originally at the end of last month but last month they said hey yeah sony came out and said hey we're we're making sure that uh this thing is going to be exactly the way you want it so it's going to ship sometime in september yesterday september 1st they had another announcement saying we're still doing the qc were going to get it out as quickly as possible.

1:20:16Destin Cretton: They didn't give a date. Now, this isn't exactly my short end. Really, my short end, though, is the community of accessory and third-party manufacturers who are stepping up to support this camera. This camera's got kind of an interesting feature, which is unique amongst small DSLR size mirrorless cameras, which is an actual EVF. That EVF clicks onto the top through a hot chew connection and it has the ability to articulate. But rather than being a closed system, they have been sharing their protocols to make their viewfinder work with various third parties. So as of now, a company called Mid49, another one called Tilta, another one called Bright Tangerine have all announced that they've got these extension cables and brackets specifically for this EVF, which for the first time means that if you really like working with a proper electronic viewfinder that you could position and move in all the places like you might on a cinema camera you're going to be able to take one of these kits use their evf and then plug and play it in different ways and because it's articulating you could point it up and so you could be looking down sort of like an old school camera with a uh you know top view viewfinder or you could put it on your shoulder and use it as like a shoulder mount, or you could put it in any other number of ways, including the left or the right side.

1:21:35Destin Cretton: Two of the three are not yet like fully announced and don't have a price yet. The one that is announced is from mid 49. And I want to say it's a$600 kit to do it. It's not inexpensive. We've got it available as a pre-order over at HotRide cameras. And so when the camera ships, this mid 49 kit should be shipping at exactly the same time. But because now the camera has been delayed, this gives opportunities to both TILTA and Bright Tangerine, or who knows, maybe other third parties that will appear, to offer what is truly a cinema type of viewfinder experience, which should be quite high quality.

1:22:12Destin Cretton: Sony does not make bad viewfinders. So I'm pretty interested in this. You're going to be able to buy a$5 ,000 camera, which already is quite low in the world of cinema. I know it's not a$500 camera, but$5 ,000 is still pretty low overall. Spend an extra$700,$800, get an EVF, and then maybe some other number of hundreds of dollars. And for the first time ever, be able to have a mirrorless camera that has a first party, not a third party, not some sort of aftermarket. Sony is not going to put out a second rate EVF. And so I think this is really going to potentially add more fuel to people who discounted working with smaller cameras because they couldn't have a proper EVF.

1:22:58Destin Cretton: They had to use a monitor. Monitors were basically the only real option to see something that was real time without flicker, without enough resolution. And that there is something that is lost when you're working with a LCD screen, even a small one, compared to having that private personal experience that you get inside the EVF, which allows you to really, really see all the detail, a lot more detail than you would otherwise. And frankly, I'm excited. I think that if Sony does well with this, we might see other manufacturers saying, we need a first-party EVF too, and our next camera will have this as a feature.

1:23:35Destin Cretton: I think it's a bold choice by Sony. And if you are interested in any of this stuff or want to be on the hot red cameras, pre-order list for the fx5 or to get all these updates we send emails as soon as we get updates on shipping and all the the stuff we're sending another email this week so um yeah uh you should you should hit us up someone at hot ride knows everything there is to know about the fx5 and can and can help that's cool yeah i've been hearing so much about that camera and you know it's kind of funny putting an evf on it it's like uh you know when dslr's first hit the market and people were able to use them as film cameras, they kind of had to hack them to make them work.

1:24:12Destin Cretton: And this ecosystem of all these accessories kind of exploded. And it's interesting that now we're like slowly creeping back to being like, you know, a, a, a handy cam or shoulder mounted camera, you know, the, the things that DSLRs could have been further away from, you know, whatever, 15 years ago. Yeah. I think it's a, I think it's kind of an exciting time, especially if you've been sitting on the fence and you've got a few grand to spend on a cinema camera or your program or your company or whatever it is. We had a event for the FX5, you know, last month. And our guest speaker made the comparison to his Sony Venice.

1:24:52Destin Cretton: And he was like, and he was like, look. Did they update the sensor? Is the sensor any different? It is. It's a new sensor. It's got a triple base ISO. it's got a lot of resolution it's got a lot of dynamic range it's got internal raw recording it's got a lot of stuff and for the price it's damn impressive but this speaker at our event he very clearly said hey he's like I question now if I'm going to need to use my Venice as much as I currently do and I would not be so bold as to make that because the Venice is still a different camera. It's a different system. It's different purposes. But for some people out there who were using the Venice for things that possibly a smaller, maybe like an FX6 or FX9 sort of camera should have been using, now you can step up with an FX5 and with this viewfinder and with all these capabilities.

1:25:47Destin Cretton: It's damn impressive. I think that similar to the way the FX3 blew up after the creator and Oren Sofer came on the show and Greg Frazier talked about it. I think we're going to see some people who decide that the fx5 is going to be a movie making tool and uh we'll you know we'll see what happens mark my words it's going to be it's going to be really interesting the next few years cool cool all right so ben uh i think that's it for this episode uh where can people find you if they want to get in touch uh find me on benrock.com i finally stopped updating it. So, uh, you know, uh, thank you all. Several people from here have, uh, sent me messages, uh, having, uh, checked it out and a couple of them caught typos.

1:26:31Destin Cretton: Uh, I think I've got it all fixed, but go check out benrock.com. See, see a bunch of my work. Uh, how about yourself, Ilya? Where can people find you? Well, I'm going to box myself into a corner here because over the last few weeks I have been building Ilya Friedman.com. So, uh, is it live by the time this posts it'll hopefully be live and all of the uh you know what i will say it is live the site is live but hopefully all the uh the placeholder stuff will be removed currently there's not a single like ai photograph on there so there isn't any like weird pictures of me which i which i put there i've actually like now found pictures and replaced things and uh so ilia friedman.com is going to be a place where like you can find this all the shit that i'm working on which it's kind of a hodgepodge of things but i have not had a you know repository of all of my stuff ever in one place i've tried really hard never to be the face of my companies my businesses because i was always told that you know your your companies are more valuable when you're not the face but frankly uh i don't think i can do that anymore and so many people have told me that i i really can't afford to not uh step up so here i am i mean i would be doing the podcast for a long freaking time But our podcast is sort of our quiet, contained little thing.

1:27:42Destin Cretton: Now I'm going to have a website. Now I'm going to keep that updated and at least, you know, try and do something like you're doing, Ben, with all the stuff that I'm working on. I'm looking at your website right now. It looks really good. Oh, thanks. Don't read too close because it'll still probably take me another day or so, hopefully in the time before this podcast comes out, to get it up to speed so that anyone who goes to iliafriedman.com will actually see, you know, real stuff and that it all looks good. Go to BenRock.com. You'll see, please, if you find any typos, just let me know. Anything, mistakes, anything you hate.

1:28:14Destin Cretton: Watch my films. Tell me which ones you hate the most. Anyway. So, Ben, who do we have to thank? Who made this show possible? As always, we've got to thank Alana Cody, who's hooked us up with some amazing interviews. This one today was one in particular that we were both very excited to do. For sure. She's got new stuff coming up for us, and she also edits the stuff. So my heart goes out to her. all the sympathies for having to edit you and me. She does a great job. We could not ask for a better producer. We also have to thank Kaze Alitraxi, who composes all of the music you hear on our show. And you can check out Kaze's website at kazelabs.com.

1:28:52Destin Cretton: That's where Kaze fixes your synthesizer. Doing it for people all over the country. Got a synth? Need it fixed? Kaze Labs! Kaze Labs that shit. Also, Kaze is an amazing composer. check out musicbykaze.com and hear all of a gajillion scores the case has done over the years. Awesome. Ilya, 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.

1:29:38Destin Cretton: Don't do that. Thanks for tuning in.