Open Session #3 - The Responsibility of a DP

0:04What's up people, welcome back. Today we've got another video. I got a lot to talk about today. I recently just finished a commercial and I jotted some notes down. I jotted some things down that I wanted to reflect on after this shoot because overall it was a fantastic shoot. I think it went really well. I think we were able to deliver a lot. I think we were able to execute on exactly what we needed. But there were definitely a lot of takeaways that I felt were really valuable in terms of what it really means to be a DP in a commercial setting. And listen, I wrote a lot down in terms of reflecting on it.

0:46And I don't know how much I'm going to be able to say to you without reading some of this. So bear with me as I'm going to go through some of this because I think it's important. But starting off the main premise, essentially, and I know I've talked about this a ton, but I think it's important that I keep reiterating it because I don't think it's talked about enough by other people. But for those that are looking to pursue a career as a DP, your basis on that job really is what you see on YouTube, what you see on Instagram, what you see on, you know, ShotDeck, Frameset. You know, the final looking image and who created those images is pretty much what you believe a DP's role is, is to create those things.

1:33And it is. It's true, for sure. The role of a DP is to create great images. But the longer that I've been in this industry, the more experience that I've gained, the more commercials that I've done, the more narrative projects that I've done in varying scales and sizes and budget and all these different sizes, scopes. I realized more and more that my role as a DP is leaning way more towards like 30 % technical, maybe, if that. The other 70 or so percent revolves 100 % around your ability to communicate, your ability to be a good leader, Your ability to mitigate decisions, problems between production, crew, your ability to mitigate problems between the location and your creative vision, your ability to manage the budget, your ability to look at the budget and ask, is the money being allocated properly to equipment, to crew?

2:34your job is also to understand the relationship between the client and agency to the director to the producer to the production company to the crew you are essentially the person that is sort of the middle person between the producing agency client side and your crew side and with that comes a lot of responsibility with that comes a lot of skill that isn't really talked about there's something I wrote here that I think is really important in that going back to what, you know, if you're new to becoming a DP or you're finding out what this career is more, maybe you're a year and you see what's on social media.

3:15What you don't see on social media is a DP having a conversation with a producer about rates, about equipment budget. Those aren't things you see on YouTube. Those aren't things that you see because they're all behind the scenes that isn't glamorous. you never post dps never post the moment where they realize that they actually need to move money from the camera budget to the gne budget because the scope of the project needs more lighting than it does extremely cool lenses for example and the way that i like to just dive into this a little bit deeper is say for example hypothetically you have a thousand dollars for the camera budget you have a thousand dollars for the lighting budget but based on the creative treatment that the director provided you, you realize that within the location that you're also given, you need a little extra lighting to be able to deliver this extremely bright, sunny daylight look.

4:10Because one, the sun never comes through those windows. And two, maybe there's four big windows that need to be lit instead of just one window. So looking at that, you see the location, you see what you need to do based on the creative deck and the treatment that the director provided, along with the budget that the producers have provided you with you realize that okay with the budget that they have allocated I'm not able to get what they want in terms of the lighting but I know that if I subtract 250 from the camera budget because I don't need the best lenses in the world for example or the best camera or you know I don't need a steadicam I don't need three different monitors.

4:52I don't need the best wireless. I could subtract a little bit of money from there and make that thousand dollars in G &E,$1 ,250, for example. That is where your role as a DP and your experience on set and realizing what works, what doesn't work, why things work comes in handy really, really importantly, I think that's a word, in prep because, listen, the producers always do a great job at properly allocating the budget, but there are times where they might not be privy to a specific need or want that you have to explain as the DP in order to execute what the director's vision is. So that is something that is really important that is not shown on Instagram, It's not shown on YouTube is all the behind the scenes negotiations to be able to properly reallocate the budget for camera genie and crew.

5:50It's really, really important. And nobody really talks about that as being a vital role as a DP. The other thing too, about people not posting about their role as a DP, for example, is that nobody really shares the moment where you're lighting a scene and it is not working. It is not going to the way that your brain has imagined it. It's not working the way that you diagrammed it up, the way that you envisioned it, the way that you explained it to the crew. They did everything that you wanted and it's still not working. Those aren't shown. Those moments are not shown at all very often and it happens a lot.

6:28And that is what I believe makes the true mark of what a good DP is, is in those moments when stress is high, when the director is looking at you, when your crew is looking at you when the producers the client the agency is looking at you to figure out why this isn't working again it's not only you the dp that's going to solve this but a lot of the times when it comes to the composition and lighting not working that is your role to fix that problem and having to do that with all eyes on you is a lot of pressure it takes a lot of confidence it takes a lot of mental strength to be able to drown out some noise to be able to think clearly and be able to execute on that problem and collaborate in a way that actually be that actually enables you to get what you're looking for even if you have to make it up on the spot and create something that you didn't think of prior i had this plan for this one scene and i had it mapped out lighting wise i talked to the gaffer the key grip and my steadicam operator about how I wanted to accomplish it.

7:36And once I started to see it unfold, I realized that it wasn't going to work. It wasn't looking the way that I wanted it to. It was like 60 % the way that I wanted it. And in that moment, when we finished what I asked for in terms of the lighting and the movement and like everything was technically done, it wasn't good. Like it just wasn't what I wanted. And you know, the production's asking, all right, we ready, ready to roll? I said, no, not yet. Give me a minute. And I'm kind of just walking around, you know, everyone's eyes are on me to figure this out. And in that moment, I couldn't think.

8:13I was stuck because I felt the pressure of so many people looking to me for an answer that I just couldn't find it. And after a couple minutes, I sort of mustered up the courage to ask out loud, can I just have the space for a minute? a minute? Can I have the space for two minutes? Essentially asking for everyone to kind of just back off for a second and allow me to kind of just walk the space by myself to think a little more clearly. And that wasn't coming from a place of being rude or thinking that nobody could help me besides me. But it was a moment where I recognized that I was being flustered, that my mind wasn't thinking clearly.

8:57And I just needed a moment to kind of re-level myself, re-ground myself and settle into the space. And once I was able to do that, once I gave myself that sort of two minutes, I was able to come up with a plan to be able to then execute. And once we changed a few things, we executed and it was at probably 95 % of what I imagined. And it was exactly what we needed to accomplish and we didn't run too far behind. But production was happy. Client was happy. Director was happy. I was happy. But that only came from the confidence to be able to realize that something wasn't working. And instead of settling, I asked for a little bit more time to make it the way that I wanted because I wanted to be proud of the work that we all set up to do.

9:41I wanted to be proud of every scene that we did. Again, it's not going to be a masterpiece every time, but I wanted to be proud that, okay, we're at eight hours where he did an overnight. I'm not going to just settle because we're tired. I want to be able to do good work. And by doing that, that also gives crew the expectation that they're not going to settle either because I'm not settling. So that's just an example of sort of managing your emotions, managing the expectations and being the person that could rise above the pressure, rise above the tiredness of it just being passable or being okay and not settling for good enough.

10:26The next part that I want to talk about a little bit is the prep process because I think prep is huge when it comes to your ability to succeed on a project as a DP. It's huge. It's literally the only way you're going to succeed as a DP, I believe, on a project is how well you prep. So when you're brought on to a project, a lot of the times you're not given the full picture. You're kind of given what is needed for you in that moment in time. But I like to dig a little bit deeper and ask certain questions that allow me to kind of get a better picture of the scale, scope, and expectation of this project.

11:00And some of the questions include, what are we trying to accomplish visually? A lot of times this is for the director. What are production's expectations on the visuals in relation to the budget and scope? I think this is a really, really important question because they might have the biggest dreams and aspirations in the world to be able to do the biggest setups. Like, you know, you get the deck, you get the references, and you look at them as a DP and you're like, oh, this was a$5 million commercial. This was a soundstage. and then you as a DP are kind of stuck in a weird position where you kind of have to accomplish what those references are because they've been sold to the client.

11:39This is what it's going to look like. So your job, what I believe, the way that I'm able to sort of mitigate that risk a little bit is to ask what the proper expectations are with the visuals, what I'm able to do with the budget allocation with the crew size and with the time that I'm given, how many days I'm able to actually do this. I think that just helps me set my mind in the right place of going, okay, even though they have these references on the deck, they have an understanding that this might not be exactly repeatable because of our limitations. So as long as I know where their expectations are, that sort of helps me get a grasp of where I can sort of figure out the mood a little bit in terms of what I'm able to accomplish, if that makes sense.

12:33Some other questions I like to ask are how much time do we actually have for each setup? This might be a little bit further down the line in terms of, you know, scheduling, which brings me to my other question is like, what does a rough schedule look like? Because a lot of the times I'm not the one creating the first pass of the schedule. Usually that's the AD, maybe the producer sometimes. Um, I love to look at the schedule because a lot of the times, again, they do a great job of creating the schedule, but they might not be privy of certain things that might take a little bit longer or things that might take a little bit shorter.

13:03So I always like to get eyes on the schedule to see if there's anything that I could help improve on the day. What is the, uh, what is the expected crew size? What is the, uh, gear budget? How many locations are we doing? Are we moving locations? Uh, and do we have, this is more for me really. But do we have enough people to realistically execute what we're trying to do? And all those questions, when they're answered, help me understand the scale, scope, and expectation of the project. I think that's a really important way for you as a DP to set the standard of what you're walking into and what you can expect to walk away from if you do your job correctly and well.

13:45Yeah, I mean, we can dive a little bit into budgeting again a little bit, which I think is important. A lot of the times, again, most of the time, you're not the one that's handling the finances. You're not the one that's handling the money. But I do like to ask what the budget is for camera. I do like to ask what the budget is for grip and electric. And I also like to ask what the crew rates they set for, for, you know, gaffer key grip, grip, electric ACs. And I usually do my own budgeting on the side as well. Sometimes I'll provide this to production. Sometimes it's only it's for my own needs to be able to see where we are.

14:18And a lot of the times my job is to also understand what the rates are that production set for crew in order for me to see if my crew is being paid properly for the work that they're doing. And I've had this many times where, you know, not out of bad blood or anything, but rates were a little low on certain projects. And I had to kind of look at the budget and look at everything and be like, okay, hey, we need an extra$150 per, you know, each crew member here because their rates are slightly below average of what they're expecting for a 10 hour day. Or if we're doing a 12 hour day and the budget and the rates are set for 10 hours, I will usually come in and say, hey, we're working 12 hours.

15:01These are the expected 12 hour rates for crew. This is what I would ask for, for each of my crew members to be paid for 12 hours. And again, this isn't always going to be the case as a DP. Some people I know don't do this, but I believe it's really important for me to advocate for my crew to make sure that they're being paid properly. And I believe that just goes a long way in showing respect for your crew because at the end of the the day, they are working for you to be able to accomplish the vision that you set for the visuals. If you are not taking care of them, if you're not looking out for them, why would you expect them to look out for you?

15:36I believe it's a two-way street. And as a leader, you have to be the person that is always looking out for your team's best interest. And with that, I feel like I'm going to go on a tangent now. With that comes the difficult balance, the balance between production and crew. I think this is a really interesting thing to talk about a little bit, because you have to understand the goal of production. You have to understand the goal of the agency, understand the goal of the marketing of what we're shooting as a commercial, for example. You also have to understand your crew's expectations. You have to understand that your crew is human.

16:18You have to understand the limitations of what a human being can do, how many human beings can accomplish the look, feel, the scale, scope of what production is asking for. So when you have both of these worlds as a DP, you're looking left, you're looking right, trying to solve their problems, trying to solve their problems, trying to make them happy, trying to make them happy. So how do you do that? The best way that I have found to be able to properly balance the success and happiness and accomplishment on both sides is to be open about any problems that arise on both sides and explain why there are certain problems and explain to the other party that might be receiving that problem why they are feeling that way, what their expectations are.

17:06So, for example, if crew is having a bit of a problem on a lack of people to be able to accomplish this, I will then listen to them, hear them out, see if what they're asking for makes valid sense, which most of the time it does. I will then go to production and explain the reasoning why I believe we need X amount of things, X amount of people to be able to accomplish this look. Then from there becomes a negotiation of, okay, you know, we can reallocate a budget to get an additional person on lighting to accomplish this. Or production will say, we have absolutely no more money to accomplish this.

17:46We have to adjust the creative then. So then that becomes a negotiation with the director. Okay, we can't accomplish this big setup. So what can we do to scale down a little bit, to still give you the look, the feel, the style, what you sold to the client, the agency, to be able to get that done in the way that you want, but at the scale that is acceptable, reasonable, and attainable for the crew size and budget and equipment size that we have. So it's a flow. It's back and forth. You kind of have to be open to one, open to the other. You have to listen and understand what they're asking for. You have to listen and ask and understand what they're asking for, ask questions.

18:25And you got to flow both ways. You got to be the person that listens, understands, and helps mitigate problems to solve them and move forward. That's, it's like, it's a really, really, that is your job. Like that is literally your job is to balance expectations and deliver on those expectations for both production and your crew. Another part two is at a certain point, you'll realize that most people, most DPs can light pretty well. Most DPs can compose really well. And of course, there's the outliers that could do insane things and you don't even know how they do it. But for the most part, to accomplish a certain quality and level of work, most people at a certain level can do that.

19:15Then you ask, well, what separates you from the people that can do that? What I believe is a secret to getting rehired, a secret to building good relationships is literally how you walk onto set. The moment you see somebody, how do you greet them? Do you greet them with a smile? Do you greet them with excitement, with enthusiasm, with eagerness to get ready for the day and accomplish what you're able to do? and be grateful that you're on set working and being creative? Or do you walk on set timid? Do you walk on set nervous? Do you walk on set anxious because you're unsure of how to do things?

19:58You're setting the scene already within the first minute as anxious, nervousness? I don't know. Does that speak to confidence when it comes to from the production standpoint? They see the DP walk onto set. the crew sees the DP walk onto the set anxious, nervous, unsure. How do they feel about when they see that from a DP? Probably not good. And I'm not saying you can't be nervous. I'm not saying you can't be anxious. But what I'm saying is how you present yourself on set, how you show your crew production, the director, your personality when you walk on set is a direct representation of how they're going to react and how the day is going to flow.

20:46The DP is one of the main leaders on set along with the director, producer, AD. The DP a lot of times sets the tone for the production, sets the tone for how people are going to work on set. And if you walk on confident, if you walk on excited, happy, polite, kind, everyone will follow suit. You have to set the expectation for your crew for the set to be able to match the energy that you provide and if you match the energy and if your energy is timid is anxious is is sad angry is frustrated then you can't expect everyone else to be kind gentle peaceful calm you are going to receive what you give.

21:34So if you give politeness, kindness, calmness, you are expecting to receive that back. I find that a lot of times those that come into leadership roles feel as though that they need to have the answers immediately and all the time. And I believe that when you force answers or when you come up with something immediately without thinking about it just to have an answer or prove that you are the one that has that answer, most of the time, it's not a strong response. It's not a strong answer. It's not a strong solution. It's a very, what's the word I'm looking for? It's a very surface level response to be able to just say that you did it because you're afraid of what people will think of you if you don't have the answer.

22:21And I find that the strongest leaders that I know, the strongest leaders that I have worked for are confident in their ability to say, I don't have an answer yet. Let me think about it. I don't have an answer yet. What do you think about this? Do you have any solutions around this world that this is kind of what I'm thinking? What do you think about this? And allowing people to also be creative and collaborative enough to give their ideas to solve the problem. Not every idea has to come from your mouth. But what does have to come from your mouth is the environment and the space to allow people to come to you with creative ideas to be able to solve problems when you can't.

22:58That is a leader. That is true teamwork. That is true collaboration. So at the end of the day, being a great DP means that you have to understand lighting. It means you have to understand the technical camera side. You have to understand camera movement. You have to understand what the client's needs or wants are for the marketing and the product. You have to understand what your crew's needs and wants for their human being of what their expectations are and what they're able to accomplish. You have to understand the director's goals and motives and what they want. And you also have to understand what your goals and wants are for you as a DP to walk away from on this production as well.

23:34And what I've realized is a lot of the best DPs I know are people that understand people, understand human condition, understand emotions, understand values, understand politeness. All of this kind of came from a recent commercial and a reflection of all the things that I was able to walk away from. And I encourage you on your upcoming shoots, maybe afterwards, reflect on it. Write some things down that you might have learned about yourself or things that maybe you made mistakes on, things that you did great that you want to kind of remember. Reflect on your projects. Reflect on the good, the bad, the ugly, because they will help you become better project by project.

24:16So hopefully you enjoyed today's video. Hopefully there's something in here for you to kind of grasp onto. Hopefully there's something you could try next time if you didn't realize something that I talked about. And hopefully after this video, you can take one step closer to becoming a better filmmaker, a better DP, a better leader. And if you're interested, click the link below to check out Chiva Collective. It is a full leadership program that I've created to help you become not only a better DP, but a better human being, a better leader, a better communicator. And if you want to dive deeper into some mentorship, click the link below.

24:47There are some private mentorship spots open as well. Hopefully you enjoyed today's video. I'll see you guys next time. Have a great day. Peace out.