#79 – Adolpho Veloso, ABC, AIP – Cinematography Rooted in Trust

0:00Adolpho, welcome to the Creative Gap podcast. It's good to have you.

0:03Adolpho Veloso:Thank you. My pleasure. I have been quite a big fan of yours for a while and seeing what you have done, especially in your most recent film in Trained Dreams is amazing. And I'm really excited to talk about that film, but I just want to say that the trajectory of your career and the work that you've created has really made an impact on me and my career as a DP over the last couple of years. And I just want to say it's really inspiring to see the work that you've made. Oh, that's super kind, man. Thank you very much. Yeah. I mean, I don't even know what to say. No, it's okay. I just wanted to put that out there in the beginning.

0:42And I kind of want to start this off by just getting a little insight. I know you've been shooting for many years and you've done narrative projects, you know, commercial, you know, a bunch of different styles of work. And at this point in your career, what still keeps you excited about being a DP? And what still keeps you passionate about this career? Well, I don't know.

1:07Adolpho Veloso:There's many things. I feel like, first of all, I keep saying that, but like shooting a new thing is the best way to deal with the frustrations of your past project. Because things go wrong. We're never really happy with what we get. we always think that things could have been better and even if it's a small thing or things that really go wrong or you're unsatisfied with the project so I feel like going to the next one is the best way to beat all that and just try things again and see if that time you can do it better and in the end you never can actually but like I feel like it's just that feeling of like you keep trying it and I think that's good also because I feel like if you get too satisfied maybe with what you're doing maybe I'm not gonna be pushing yourself much more and i think it's important to to know that i mean can always get better and i i also think like to deal with the frustrations on a daily basis is something i'm trying to do better and better nowadays but i think in the end it's also like all the passion of watching movies whenever i watch a movie that i really love that reminds me of the reason i even wanted to start with that i'm like oh my god yes like am i i feel frustrated at the same time but excited at the same time because it's like oh my god how the fuck did they do that can never do anything like that but at the same time okay let's try it do you feel like you can find a bit of a balance between wanting to continue to evolve and push and and develop your work but also feel a bit of satisfaction in the work that you have created?

2:46Adolpho Veloso:I mean, hopefully. I feel like what I've did this year, for example, I've watched a movie that I did like five years ago for the first time because we watch the things, the movies or music videos or whatever that we do so many times when we are doing it during the edit, during the grading or whatever. It's kind of like I can't watch it anymore after a while. but then I did I did watch something that I saw like five years ago and I was much nicer to myself watching it now than I was back then I think for a lot of reasons maybe because I was like whatever was really wrong that I was like okay this is just a though for five years ago I'm probably better now so it's like you're kind of nicer to yourself but also like with a bit more distance seeing also the things that were good and not necessarily bad so I feel like you always just need that distance to to be able to see things a bit better too right watching watching that back from that version of you five years years ago did you see any sort of similarities in your work then than you do now uh totally I feel like it's still the same somehow same core I feel like there's things that I look back and I say, okay, this is a little seed of something that is much bigger now.

4:13But at the same time, some things, I remember thinking that when I was watching it, I saw one scene, I was like, oh my God, this is so much better than anything I've been doing lately.

4:25Adolpho Veloso:you know like why i got because i had less idea of what i was doing you know like so i feel like sometimes also having no idea of what you were doing and having some innocence is also good right so hopefully um i'm gonna keep having that somehow but i feel like definitely i can see the seeds of all that i've been doing lately right i think that's an interesting point something i think about a little bit too, is like the, I guess the distinction of the difference between that sort of beginner's mindset where you almost have like this limitless point of view, this limitless idea of what you can create.

5:06And then as you move on in your career, you have gone through so many experiences. You kind of know what works, what doesn't work, the logistical side of it. So maybe that sort of beginner's brain starts to maybe be a little bit more strict. So like, how do you, how do you find maybe that balance of just like limitless ideas versus having that understanding of all of the logistical sides behind of it does that does that make sense it does and it's a very

5:32Adolpho Veloso:good question um i don't know i feel like there's so many things that i do nowadays in almost like an automatic mode it's almost like when you're learning to drive a car especially manual car and you're paying attention on, I don't know the words in English, but when you're going to put your feet there to change the gear and then how you need to do it and when you're going to brake, when you're going to accelerate and how much you got. And you're paying attention to all those things. And once you get used to it, you're not paying attention to the mechanics anymore and you're just paying attention to where it's going.

6:09Adolpho Veloso:So I feel like there's the good and the bad thing about it. The good thing about being able to do things in a more automatic way that are kind of natural to you is good because you can pay more attention to where you're going. And in a movie, it's like the story itself, what the characters are feeling, and you can use all those things that you're doing in an automatic way to get deeper meanings. But also I feel like there's something sometimes that you lose from doing things in automatic and just lighting something in a certain way just because that's what you used to do or just putting the camera in a certain place when the shot is about something because that's what your body is telling you automatically how to do it.

6:59Adolpho Veloso:So I feel like ideally, we should be pushing ourselves on those things and thinking, you know, wait, why am I changing gear that way? Maybe there's a different way just because I'm used to it. So yeah, I feel like it's a, it's a, it's a difficult balance. I don't know. I don't even remember the question anymore. No, yeah. I, I think part of it too is, is maybe just like asking, is it like your response, if fully your responsibility as a DP to be the one to ask yourself, like why we're doing this? Or is it also like the relationship you have with maybe the director, your, your gaffer, your acs your grips to be like why are we doing this maybe we try something over here maybe we try something new it's like how much of that is sort of like your responsibility versus the collaboration with the relationships you have and the people around you also very good question um i feel like i know i can say from the other side i feel like my role on set is to be that person to the director for sure and to be always pushing and asking those questions and ideally we would have someone doing that for us not not really sure who no person or if there's a lot of people inside that could be doing that gaffer the key grip the camera assistant the director uh themselves so it's hard but like I feel like you also need a level of trust and maybe a longer relationship and I feel like that's the amazing part also of like developing good relationships with your crew and with directors and and have the time and the freedom to really develop stuff and I feel like when you have those relationships those things might happen more and I definitely feel more comfortable pushing a director that I know already than someone that I'm working for the first time so I feel like maybe it's the same way with my crew, maybe a gaffer that I've been working for a while now might feel more freedom to also ask me things but also I feel like questions that would make sense I would never push a certain director in a path that I know it's like not really it's also respecting what they are and what their vision and what that movie is but then yeah making those questions so it's a very good question I'm gonna start searching for those people it's something I'm also starting to, I guess, develop myself as I'm growing as a DP is how to sort of manage my relationship with first time directors.

10:05Cause I think where I'm at my career, a lot of, it's still in the beginning stages. And a lot of the directors I work with maybe haven't done something before they don't have a lot of set experience. And I'd love to kind of get your insight a little bit into the sort of not educational aspect, but just sort of like guiding a first time director in how the process works. Do you feel that that is a part of your job as well as being a DPS to sort of guide and lead and sort of educate a little bit? I feel like it can be, but I feel like it is, I feel like it is, it is both ways.

10:48Adolpho Veloso:I feel like it's not necessarily because someone has more experience than you that that person knows more. So I don't feel like it's because I shot more movies than a director that I know anything better than them. And going back to what we were saying before, the innocence, sometimes it's better. And I feel like, I mean, one example, Clint, the first movie we did together was his first movie. And obviously I've been on set as a DP more times than him as a director. But we were talking about a story that he wrote, a story about a jockey and his father being a jockey. that he knew what he wanted, even though he hasn't, he haven't directed a feature film before.

11:40Probably much more than me.

11:46Adolpho Veloso:And not because he hasn't been on set that many times that he wouldn't know necessarily. And I feel like maybe my role there on set was not necessarily telling him what to do, but trying to translate what he, with all the aspects of his mind and heart that were really strong in the story for him, and that he would know necessarily what he needed and wanted to translate that into, but not necessarily would have the tools for that. It's actually like our job maybe is to bring the tools and say, okay, that's what you want. That's what you're feeling. That's what this story is about for you. These are the tools I can present you.

12:37Adolpho Veloso:I feel like this is how we should do it. Right. Yeah, a hundred percent that does. And I think that's sort of leading me into this, this next area of like the sort of internal growth that you might've had as, as a, as a person and as a DP in the way that you conduct your relationship, like where I'm at now, it's definitely going to be different, obviously, than where I'm going to be in five years and how I conduct my relationships with the director crew. And like, you know, maybe looking back to that project five years ago, what do you think has changed about you and the way that you communicate, the way that you conduct yourself as a DP, as a leader that maybe wasn't the same five years ago?

13:27Adolpho Veloso:I feel like there's a lot of things I think the main one is knowing that when things go wrong or don't go your way you don't need to get desperate immediately I feel like I would get really frustrated immediately because something was going in another way. And I've been in so many situations like that in my life that we have to pivot, that we had to just find a new way. And I realized at some point that most of those things that happened were actually for the good. And the solutions that we had to come with were more interesting than the obvious solutions that we had initially. So I feel like that's the main difference, which leads also to a better communication when those things are happening and trying to be also the person on set that it's going to be like, okay, this is what is happening.

14:25Adolpho Veloso:We don't need to panic. Let's find a solution and trying to steer to those solutions immediately, not only with the crew, but with everybody on set and especially the director or the cast. Yeah. You feel like your patience has grown? I think it's, yes, but not necessarily the patience, but I feel like the ability to see that things don't necessarily need to be done in a specific way. Okay. That you preconceived. and I feel like this is this is probably the best thing that can happen and I wish it happens more and more because I feel like we sometimes get stuck with preconceived ideas of what we want because we read the script, because we were imagining because we had a reference, because we think that we need to do something the same way that Dickens does or whatever it's just like

15:38Adolpho Veloso:it's just going to lead to frustration usually because of so many reasons. So I feel like whenever you open to what's happening and is able to hear what's happening around you and see what's happening around you, it can lead to less frustration probably and often more interesting results also. The Creative Gap Podcast is brought to you by Chiva Collective. And I'm excited to say we are officially live. Chiva is where filmmaking meets leadership, discipline, and growth. It's a digital platform built to help you strengthen your craft, while also building an improved mindset, building better habits and systems you need to sustain a long-term healthy career.

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16:42Adolpho Veloso:I look forward to welcoming you to this community. As I want to start to get into train dreams a little bit, a question that I, I has been like in my mind a lot as I start maybe receiving some film in my email and like deciding, you know, is this the right project for me? How do I sort of determine what is the next step in my career? I'd love to know a little bit about your thoughts. And as you're growing as a DP, how much of your career do you believe was based on sort of just saying yes to everything versus kind of curating maybe the projects that you said yes to and that you were a part of?

17:26because to elaborate a little bit more I think the people that are around me and my peers I think a lot of the decisions that we make based on the projects that we take come based on fear and fear of not knowing if there's going to be another project that ever comes so we might just say yes but in in your circumstance in your story how how has that sort of idea been as you've grown

17:51Adolpho Veloso:well i feel like i've i've been through exactly that same feeling a lot of times in my life and i feel like the way things evolved to me were that in the beginning i was just saying yes to anything anyone that would ask me to hold the camera would say yes and and without a doubt that was good because i think that's what i needed back then i needed not only experience and to be able to be on as many sets as possible, to try different things, to be in many different situations. Also doing smaller things that not necessarily would be horrible if they go wrong because in the end, you know, it's just like whatever.

18:37Adolpho Veloso:So I feel like you want to be really prepared to when the good opportunities start to come. so you're less likely to fail on those ones on the ones that people are actually gonna watch so i feel it is important to say yes to everything you can in the beginning and then i feel like when you get to a point where you can choose and that you if you if you have the the financial condition especially to be a bit more patient because we know how it works right sometimes no one calls you for six months and you're like desperate and then suddenly everybody calls you at the same time on a week and you're like oh my god so i feel like if if you can have that luxury of at some point in a career when you know that you already have a body of work that represents what you do that it's it's really um something already that has your own style that people are going to call you because of that, then I feel like it's worth to create and to be a bit more selective.

19:53Adolpho Veloso:I feel like I've been, I did at many points in my life chose projects for the wrong reasons. And I feel like it's just going to lead to a lot of frustration too, because if it is a feature or a series, you're going to be for months dealing with that decision and going to set every day, not believing this creed, not believing what's being done on set. And it's just going to be really, really bad. We know that shooting a movie is not easy. You're going to be there more than 12 hours a day. So if you're doing something that you really don't believe, it's already hard when you believe. So doing something that you don't believe is just going to be hard.

20:38Adolpho Veloso:And I also feel like the stuff I shot that I wasn't really connected to, I don't think I shot it the same way that the stuff I really love. Like Train Dreams is a movie that I loved the script from day one I read it. And I really connected with the story and really believed in Clint's vision. So every possible struggle that we went through during pre-production, during production, during post-production, whatever, was much easier to deal with because I was believing the project and the final project. and I knew that I could put something of myself there. But whenever I was doing a movie that I didn't believe at all, on the script or anything like that, it's just even hard to choose what to do.

21:31Adolpho Veloso:How do you light a scene that you don't understand? How do you choose a lens for a character that you don't understand at all? It's just so hard. So I feel like you're going to end up doing bad decisions too. Right. Right. You know, moving into Train Dreams a little bit, I love hearing like stories of when DPs decide that they want to join onto a project, you know, from the script or a meeting with a director. When Train Dreams sort of came into your world, what about it actually resonated with you? Like, what about the story did you feel that this was something that you wanted to be a part of?

22:11Adolpho Veloso:well Train Dreams was easy to say yes to because first of all I really was keen to work with Clint again I mean we are we have very common taste and I feel like we usually like the same stuff so I knew that if he's choosing something to do I'm probably going to like it or connect with it somehow but then when he sent me the script i i haven't read the book dennis johnson's novella but when he sent me the script and i read it um i keep saying that but i immediately felt like okay this is basically my life in a lot of aspects like it's our life it's the story of this guy that goes to work away from his family for several months with a bunch of people that he never saw before that he might never see again a lot of really eccentric people full of opinions and they're doing all sorts of different jobs and all are some specialists on some things and then you go back home and it's really really hard to reconnect to your place like grainer has this thing of when he goes back home everything feels a bit different something changed in the house the the daughter might not even recognize him or you know like there's all these aspects that even for him for him like he doesn't really necessarily feel that he belongs and takes him a few days to reconnect to that place and it's basically i think like a cinematographer's life You know, we go for a movie.

23:56Adolpho Veloso:We stay like five months away from home. A lot of times in a place that we don't know absolutely no one there. And we just try to develop a relationship with all those crazy people that are there at the same time. And you are just one of those crazy people there. And away from your family. I mean, nowadays at least we have phones and WhatsApp or whatever. and for back then they didn't have that so it was just harder to even connect with family but then coming back home is just always so weird for me first of all because i have never i have any idea of what to do when i'm not working it's like hey what do people do when you know what they're supposed to do you know like i'm trying to find like stuff to do and take care of the plans or whatever so and it's really hard to reconnect and then i come back and there's something that changed on the street a new place that opened or something that closed and you feel like you haven't really like see that happen it's really hard to reconnect and feel like you belong to that place but also you don't feel really like that you belong to that place that you were working on so there's so many of those themes in the movie that i felt so personal to me and i feel like there's other aspects in the movie like there is the other side in the movie which is the immigration and what happens to immigrants and being an immigrant myself also dealing with those stuff uh a lot of times and i mean grief and there's so many aspects in the movie that are so universal also even though it's a movie that takes takes place a hundred years ago but yeah there were so many things in the movie that i just like connected to almost every single thing and a lot of things i didn't even realize the movie was about to and reading letterboxd reveals later i was like oh my god the person connected to that i never even thought about that aspect in the movie so i feel like it's it's it's also amazing to see that the movie is taking shape for other people.

26:10I remember after watching it and sort of like reflecting on the film, I had this feeling of it being just like very, very present and open to the light that was happening, the environment, the moments as they were sort of like unfolding in natural, in real time as it felt. and I'm curious from your perspective like over the years what skills do you think you've developed as a DP to be able to thrive in that sort of environment where sort of spontaneity is is is encouraged where where as things unfold you need to be able to adapt and change and be just present like what do you think you have been able to develop to be able to thrive in that sort of environment because it's different from maybe a movie that's on set where it's everything is staged everything is particular there's definitely a huge difference there

27:05Adolpho Veloso:i feel like it is coming back to my early days honestly to the days where i just had a camera sometimes just like a 5d and no no lights at all and just had to do everything with natural light or just try to work out with the lamps I could find on the location or whatever. And I actually learned to do things that way for a long time. And I feel like at some point in my career, I started to do bigger jobs and commercials that had much more money than I could have, as many lights as I wanted and as many equipment, whatever. And I feel like at some point, especially after trying everything and trying the bigger version also, I was like, why am I doing that?

27:58Adolpho Veloso:Like, it just doesn't necessarily mean that just because it is available that we need to use it. And there was something that I liked much more on the version that I was just closing windows instead of just blasting a lot of light through one window, you know, and trying to shape things that way. So at some point I started to go back to that. And I feel like that whole learning that I had in the beginning where I didn't have any conditions at all, it is basically what I'm doing now. also you know like just trying to go back to that and obviously there's 200 other challenges which are actually like scheduling it's it's easy to schedule something when there's a crew of you the director and actor versus the crew of 100 it's not that you can just tell it like hey everybody we're just gonna come at 6 p.m we're gonna shoot for two hours and that's it okay you You know, like it's not really necessarily going to work that way.

28:58Adolpho Veloso:So there's other challenges. And I feel like the biggest challenges I've been facing now and that I'm learning to do now are actually all the politics and the planning. You made that old way work somehow. And not only to make everybody feel confident about it, because people constantly panic when you say, you know, we're not going to bring any lights or, for example, and people are going to be like, well, no, what if, what if, what if? And you're just like, what if? There's other ways to solve that. An 18K is not necessarily the solution for everything. Right. There's other. So. And there's, I mean, there is situations when you do want that.

29:45Adolpho Veloso:I feel like there are situations when I want that, and I feel like that's the best solution. But I'm always just going back to, I mean, it goes back to our conversation a few questions ago, but it's like, it just goes back to, it's not necessarily because we can, that we're going to use it. Let's use it when it's better for the story or feels better for the movie. So it's really choosing, well, when to do things and then learn how to fight. To fight in a good way, not fight against me, but fight to have everybody on board and to show that that vision means some stuff. and there's going to be a good side and a bad side.

30:37Adolpho Veloso:The bad side, sometimes it's going to be that you're going to have maybe only two hours to shoot the scene. But the good thing is that maybe you're going to rehearse the scene for four hours or two hours, but then the actors know that when it's going, it's going. And that's the take. And they don't need to do all the takes for the other close-up and then all for the wide and then all for their close-up, whatever. they know that when you're actually shooting they can give everything and with not using light for example then you have all the good side of just shooting and not necessarily worrying about like moving to do the reverse and you need to move everything and shift the light and shift the whole crew and hide stuff there's a freedom with the camera that you have that you're not worried about framing stand or whatever so I feel like everything has the good and the bad side, but it's just like, I'm trying just to put in the emotional maths.

31:45Adolpho Veloso:It's like, okay, what makes more sense? So going back to your question, I feel like what I've been learning is actually to kind of like forget a bit everything that I learned in the middle of everything and go back to when I didn't actually knew what I was doing. You know, like I'm getting a lot of questions, for example, on this movie about the shutter speed. Right. The aperture. And I'm always going back to, you know, like there's reasons and I can discuss the reasons that made sense on this movie specific. But I always go back to, okay, for a lot of years in my life, I didn't know that you're not supposed to break a certain rule on the Shredder.

32:31You're supposed to just use the Shredder on 180.

32:33Adolpho Veloso:At some point I learned and I was like, okay, so I'll do that. And then I started doing that. I was like, but why? You know, like it doesn't, why am I doing that? It doesn't necessarily make sense. And I think like if you have a reason either for the story or for your visuals, whatever, just go back. I feel like it's important to learn all those rules and all, et cetera. But I feel like it's also important to go back to when you didn't know. I feel like it goes back to the conversation before about the innocence. The innocence. But then it is going back to that innocence, but doing it not necessarily just because of innocence, but doing things because they make sense.

33:18Adolpho Veloso:And you know, there is kind of like, it is kind of the opposite of innocence, but going back to the innocent times. Right. That's, it kind of just reminds me a little bit of like, as, as I'm developing, what, what do I see as sort of like stepping stones of growth? And, you know, on maybe a technical side, it's maybe like, okay, cool. I got an 18K on this set. I've never had an 18K before. This is something new. This is something that I could learn. I've never had a techno crane before. This is something new. This is something that's exciting for me. And once you kind of have experienced all of that, I'm curious, like, how do you think your values change and what is important as a DP when you walk onto a project?

34:06Is it the what you have, what you have available to you, or is it how you're going to do it with what you have or what you don't have?