The Cinematography Podcast Episode 232: Aaron McLisky Cinematographer Aaaron McLisky is thrilled that Talk to Me, a small Australian independent horror film, has found such a huge audience. It has become A24's highest grossing horror movie in North America. The movie is about a group of friends who discover how to become possessed by spirits with an embalmed hand, creating a thrilling party game. The main character, Mia, has recently lost her mother, and her grief makes the idea of finding...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 231: Todd Banhazl When cinematographer Todd Banhazl, ASC was hired by creator Adam McKay for Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, he knew he wanted to capture the look and feel of TV broadcasts from the 70's for season 1. As the timeline of the show moved into the mid-80's in season 2, Todd wanted to embrace the gloss and glamour of the era, with more dynamic camera moves on the court. Perhaps the most striking aspect of Winning Time is its...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 230: Judd Overton Killing It is a satiric comedy on Peacock starring Craig Robinson as Craig Foster, an aspiring entrepreneur struggling to start his business. The show pokes fun at the absurdities of American capitalism, class, race, health care, and how it's all stacked against the little guy. Cinematographer Judd Overton shot all episodes of Killing It for both season one and season two. His approach to shooting the comedy has always been to keep it...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 229: Alex Winter It's an "All Things YouTube and the Creator Economy" episode! We welcome returning guest, director Alex Winter whose latest documentary is The YouTube Effect. You may know Alex Winter for his role as Bill in the Bill & Ted movies, but these days he's an accomplished documentary filmmaker. Many of Alex's films explore the role of technology in our society, such as Downloaded, about the rise and fall of Napster, to Deep Web, about the...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 228: C. Kim Miles, Clair Popkin and Julia Liu Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie explores the life of actor Michael J. Fox in his own words. It's a moving and heartfelt documentary as he talks about his rise to fame in the 1980's with the TV show Family Ties, the Back to the Future movies, and what his life is like living with Parkinson's Disease. Fox's story is told with personal interviews, archival footage and reenactments. Cinematographers C. Kim Miles,...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 227: Natalie Kingston The Apple TV+ series Black Bird is cinematographer Natalie Kingston's first experience shooting a television show. As the sole DP for the 6-episode series, she enjoyed the ability to create the look of Black Bird from scratch and maintain it throughout the nearly 100 day shoot. Her hard work has paid off with an Outstanding Cinematography Emmy nomination for the episode, “Hand to Mouth.” Black Bird is based on a true story about...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 226: Anastas Michos Cinematographer Anastas Michos ASC, GSC humbly calls himself a journeyman cinematographer. However, after 25 years and multiple awards, Anastas possesses expert skill and versatility that can be seen across all genres. Most recently, Anastas was nominated for an Emmy for “The Autopsy,” an episode of Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities anthology TV series on Netflix. Del Toro selected the directors for each episode of Cabinet...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 225: Daniel Stilling With five different projects set to come out this year, Danish cinematographer Dan Stilling, DFF is finding fulfillment and pleasure in his career path. He's learned that even when working with a larger budget, you can figure out how to get the best out of very little with the right people and the right gear. As a teen, Dan played in a band and began to learn sound engineering. He got a job at a local TV station in Denmark as a...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 224: Katharine Coldiron Author Katharine Coldiron wrote her book, Junk Film: Why Bad Movies Matter around thirteen essays exploring movies from the 1940's to the 2010's. Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Staying Alive, and the musical television show Cop Rock are just some of the disastrous projects explored in the book. Katharine feels that bad movies can be unintentional teaching tools for film students and movie...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 222: Jon Joffin Jon Joffin, ASC has learned the importance of staying creative, committed and inspired during shoots. In his long career as a cinematographer, Jon has learned how to work on a team, manage people, and surround himself with those who really care about their craft. When he was first starting out, Jon was hired as a second unit camera operator on The X-Files. Prior to that, he had only worked on music videos and smaller films. The X-Files...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 222: Todd A. Dos Reis Cinematographer Todd A. Dos Reis, ASC went to USC Film School a few years ahead of The Blackening director Tim Story. There were so few Black filmmakers at school that they knew of each other. Once Todd graduated and was working professionally, he and Tim finally worked together on several different TV pilots. Todd started out as a camera assistant for Russell Carpenter and worked on a few scary movies with him such as Critters 2:...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 221: Scott Leberecht Director Scott Leberecht began his filmmaking career as a visual effects art director at Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic. His latest documentary film, Jurassic Punk, is about his fellow ILM effects artist Steve “Spaz” Williams. A talented artist, Steve pioneered computer animation VFX in movies, creating the alien effects for The Abyss and the morphing transitions for the “T-100” in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Steve's most...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 220: Larkin Seiple We welcome back cinematographer Larkin Seiple, who was the cinematographer for the Best Picture winner, Everything Everywhere All At Once. Larkin's most recent project was the Netflix series, Beef. Beef is about Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) and Amy Lau (Ali Wong) who clash in a parking lot, leading to a road rage chase. But it doesn't end there- both Danny and Amy continually escalate their anger and revenge towards each other,...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 219: Randall Einhorn Multihyphenate producer-director-cinematographer and all around talented guy Randall Einhorn is currently the executive producer and director of the award-winning ABC show, Abbott Elementary. Randall began his career in series television first as the DP of The Office, then became one of the most frequent directors of the series. He got to know the mockumentary style intimately, and carried it onto many other shows such as Parks and...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 218: George Feucht We finally welcome George Feucht, friend of the Cinepod and frequent collaborator of Ben Rock's. George has shot many of Ben's directorial projects, such as the web series, 20 Seconds To Live and the short film, Future Boyfriend. Cinematographer George Feucht grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, where the closest movie theater was about 20 miles away. Working on high school and local theater productions gave George an education in...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 217: Ted Lasso cinematographers The show Ted Lasso has truly become a feel-good TV phenomenon for Apple TV+. With tons of new subscribers after its premiere in 2020, it saved the brand-new streaming service and was Apple TV+'s top comedy in 50 countries. Ted Lasso seemed to tap into what many people needed during the pandemic. It's a positive and uplifting show about Ted, a fish out of water determined to spread joy and inspire confidence while coaching...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 216: Dave Garbett New Zealand cinematographer David Garbett has shot more versions of the Evil Dead franchise than any other cinematographer. These include the series Ash vs. Evil Dead and the latest movie, Evil Dead Rise. Dave has enjoyed working on Evil Dead because it's been a fun, creative, and over-the-top experience. Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin felt that after 10 years, the movie needed a different setting. The action takes place on the...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 215: Laura Merians Gonçalves We welcome our returning guest, cinematographer Laura Merians Gonçalves. Laura was extremely intrigued to work on the new Prime Video series, Dead Ringers. The show is based on the 1988 David Cronenberg movie, which starred Jeremy Irons as twin gynecologists. When she read the script for the series, Laura thought changing the genders of the twins to female gave the show more interest. She liked that over six episodes, they...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 214: Xavier Dolléans Cinematographer Xavier Dolléans has worked extensively in France on films, commercials, music videos and the award-winning French series, Germinal. The Peacock show Mrs. Davis marks his move into working on more U.S. based productions. Xavier was the DP for the Spain unit of the show. He enjoys working in narrative storytelling, where he can tell longer stories and find a look that creates the rhythm of the story. Mrs. Davis is a...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 213: W. Kamau Bell Comedian and director W. Kamau Bell has been a fan of documentaries as much as a fan of comedy. As a kid, he would sit down with his mom and watch documentaries on PBS, since there were only a few broadcast TV channels when he was growing up. He came of age at a time when lots of documentary filmmakers were putting themselves on screen and telling personal stories. For Kamau, it's always about looking at the material and the story you...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 212: David Gribble, ACS David “Gribs” Gribble grew up in Brisbane, AU and began studying photography at night school. He became a photo assistant, moved to Sydney, and found a job at a local film studio making commercials and low-budget movies. At the time, in the 1970's and '80's, Australia was experiencing a resurgence of its cinema, known as the Australian New Wave. The government provided tax incentives for ordinary people to invest in movies, and...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 211: Mark Harris Mark Harris has enjoyed watching horror movies since the age of about 10 or 12. Growing up in the 1980's with so few Black characters on TV or in movies, he always noticed when there was a person of color onscreen. It stood out even more in horror, and the Black character would inevitably end up dead since they were never the main character. As an African American horror movie fan, he decided to start keeping track of the countless ways...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 210: Filmmaker Mode Michael Zink is president of the UHD Alliance, an industry group founded in 2015. He is also the Vice President of Emerging and Creative Technologies at WarnerMedia. The Alliance was founded to bring together consumer electronics manufacturers, film and television studios, content distributors and technology companies to have unified technical specifications for what Ultra High Definition should be. Michael has been instrumental in...

The Cinematography Podcast Episode 209: Tetris The new Apple TV+ movie Tetris tells the unbelievable but true story of how the video game became a worldwide phenomenon. Entrepreneur Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) discovered Tetris in 1988 and partnered with Soviet inventor Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) to bring the game from the USSR to the entire world. Tetris is a fast-paced, compelling Cold War–era thriller as Henk and Alexey race to outmaneuver their competitors who are determined to...