The Industry Ebb & Flow, Doing Wacky Crap in Telecine, and TikTok Brain (w/ Guest Brandon from @filmlights)

Nigel
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Two Stops Over podcast. You've heard of the 13th floor elevators. We are on episode one, three. [Vance: Yikes] 13, lucky 13. Anyway, Vance, you've got a social media person for us today. Tell us all about what's gonna happen.


Vance
Yeah, I do. We're going to interview um Brandon from @Filmlights today. Um, very interesting guy um and you're going to learn a lot about social media and film lights.

Vance
and just tell you, hey, we're going to share a bit about what we've up to, what we've been up to in the past and see if you like it.

Vance
and for our fourth segment, we're going to have our guest ask us a question. [Nigel: Hang on I wasn't warned about that.] Yeah. You have to answer the question too. And you know why we're having a guest ask us a question, Nigel? Because nobody is written in questions. we're talking about you lot out there listening to us.


Nigel
Listeners, viewers, you've been very bad. You have not sent us questions. So in our desperation, we have had to ask our guest to ask us a question. And only Vance and our producer Lindha can tell you how much money that cost, how many greenbacks had to cross the table to persuade our guest to ask us a question.

Vance
And I'm not telling.


Nigel
So are you busy?

Vance
Um, you know, I thought it was going to be busy. Um, got some pretty big holds at the beginning of the year and they all fizzled out, which is much of what I'm hearing around right now, a lot of people are complaining and concerned. And it's tough out there. I mean, I do have some work upcoming that's very cool. But, all in all, it's very slow. So digging into other things.

Nigel
I think that's the thing that's interesting about our industry is that we are at the behest of other people. On some level, we can't just go out and shoot film stuff because nothing's going on. We can only go out and shoot film stuff and pay for our milk and cornflakes uh if somebody else needs something shooting. [Vance: Yeah, that's true] Certainly for me, when we had the pandemicy thing


Nigel
I went out and started exploring my locale with my camera and shooting some B-roll, which some of which I've actually been using recently. But yeah, I mean, I can only use that B-roll if I have A-roll to intercut it with. But you've got a wetsuit thingy coming up, right?

Vance
Well, I have a rubber suit thing, yeah. I'd had this underwater cinematography class that I taught, that I wrote for NAUI. And over the pandemic, I ended up teaching it via Zoom. I had actually people from all over the world.

 I was getting 98% film industry people. So it has actually evolved to a point now where it's pretty heavily focused towards film industry, but amateur videographers can learn a lot from it. And now I actually have a class upcoming, which I'm teaching the classroom at Hydroflex, and then we do water work and ocean work.

So, it's a pretty extensive class. There's nothing like it in the world as far as I know. And it's uh backed by NAUI, National Association of Underwater Instructors. I have a great time doing it. And when things are quiet, I run these classes uh, you know, a few times a year, just depending on how things are work-wise.

Nigel
And here's the irony, is that you're teaching other people to essentially take your job away from you.

Vance
Exactly! [Nigel laughs] and it seems to happen, And I think there's enough work for everyone at the end of the day and I got all this experience. So sometimes you need to give back and have fun doing it

Nigel
Yeah, I know for myself that the ebb and flow of the industry has, I don't know, hit me eight or nine times, I think, in my career. I remember one spell where I did not venture onto a film set for six months.

Nigel
And I also remember when I was at Propaganda - Propaganda, a company that I co-owned, I was called into the office one day by the person who was repping me at the time who told me I was unemployable because my reel was not attractive to the people out there. And uh so I chose to leave the company and, this unemployable person, me, suddenly was doing Oasis and Britney and...

you know, kind of turn that concept on its head. So I think that's the trouble with being freelance. We have to understand that, I don't know, 30% of our time is spent looking for other work or trying to reinvent ourselves.

Vance
Yeah, I think there's some good things you can do. I mean, I take this time to grow my knowledge because, you know, this industry is ever evolving and technology is evolving at rapid rate. And now we're jumping in the world of uh virtual production, which I've- I've dug into a bit already, but I'm digging much deeper because I think um having a real understanding of how Unreal Engine works that drives much of this virtual production.

Vance
And being able to uh build up a level of communication understanding with that in the pre-production um is pretty crucial. And the more you know, um the better you can do in that.


Nigel
Well, I was reading an article in my newspaper this morning, which listed 10 films which had gone down in flames and essentially had taken the actors with it. You know, and the actors then had to resuscitate their careers. And one actress had just recently been in a film where it was a Marvel movie or something very similar. And she said, you know, it was a whole new business for her because she's doing a blue screen movie.

And then she said, you know, I'd be standing there doing something and then somebody in the background yells, "Explosion!" And she had to react as if, you know, a car had just exploded beside her.

Nigel
Suddenly acting in front of blue screen or the, you know, the, the created world that you're talking about is as challenging for actors as it is for us. I mean, if somebody asked me to make a movie in front of a blue screen...

The money would have to be good. Or I'd have to be really desperate to take the gig, I think, because you want a bit of that world in there.

Vance
another thing I do when I'm down is I do these little- color these little projects for people.

Vance
over the last, you know, seven or eight years, I've learned DaVinci Resolve.

Vance
And, you know, I'm not a full blown colorist...

But, you know, as a cinematographer and being able to do color, it's actually fun. And it allows me to, do a little bit of extra work on the side as well. And I think you're editing, right, as well?

Nigel
Well, the interesting thing is that I started editing before I started directing. I would edit little bits and bobs of jobs, One of the things I say in my lecture is that I think that directors of photography, directors, other people on the set should also have experience of editing because you learn a great deal of filmmaking from that.

The interesting thing about the job, one of the jobs I'm working on now, this editing job is I'm editing it for another director. So I'm not the person making all the choices, but I am using my experience to help me edit this piece for this director who's in a different city. So it got to the point where we delivered the cut to the client and I gave the director a cheat sheet of

Nigel
responses he might want to have standing by [Vance laughs] when the client said, "well, why didn't you cut to this? Why is this over here and blah, blah." And you know, from my experience, I knew that those questions were likely to arrive. So whether he used it or not is another question, but I had a cheat sheet available for him from my experience. So that's, you know, ways that you share your own knowledge of what's going to come down the pike when you deliver the first cut and you go from there.


Nigel
Why do you think it's not busy at the moment for you?

Vance
It's not me, it's generally speaking. I mean, I hear, I'm speaking to um crew people. I'm talking like A-list first assistants that are talking about, you know, or actually one of them I know actually went and got a job in a post facility doing something um full-time, you know, six figure salary. And he said, fuck it, I'm done. I can't do this anymore.

He was pulling focus on big shows and doing really well. Um, but since the SAG-AFTRA strike and the writer's strike, everybody's like, when this goes, it's gonna be busy. Well, that has not materialized. And you know, there's the potential of an

IA Teamster strike in July. I mean, there's negotiations going on, but uh, you know, that is always a potential, especially after you know, what was won by SAG and uh the writers. So who knows?


Nigel
But this doesn't make any sense to me because you've got your Hulu's and Amazon's and Apple TVs and Netflix's and they're all producing material. So, you know, by the theory is if there's so much new stuff coming out and commercials and all the rest of it, by definition, there should be crate loads of work around.

Vance
another thing, you know, you've got these huge corporations all merging into one corporation, you know, like Discovery, Warner Brothers, they're just these massive conglomerates of corporations. And, they have their business plans. I'm not a business man. I'm a creative guy. So I don't really know what that is. But...

Certainly the work is not out there like it has been. So um, everybody says it's gonna turn around, but we'll see.

Nigel
Lindha's asked me to share one of my Telecine stories. [Vance: Uh oh] So, um, she asked me to share the story, um, where I accidentally ordered every dessert available on the menu and 12 plates of different kinds of cheesecake appeared in front of me.

Which was quite a funny moment, but actually what I'd love to do is to share a moment which was unfortunately for a job which you did not shoot, but um as you remember, Telecine cost, what was it, 700 bucks an hour or something? Was that about the rate? [Vance: Yeah, something like that back then, yeah.] All right, so 700 bucks an hour. So I'm doing a video for this group who shall remain nameless, and we'll say the lead singer's name was Fred.


Nigel
And um Fred's real name interestingly was like a famous English cricketer, but we won't go there. [Vance laughs] Anyway, the news is we've shot the video and the manager rings up and he says Fred has to come down to the telecine because he wants to check out the colouring.

And it's like, you know, Fred's going to be all right, because, you know, he's a very intelligent guy and certainly had some pretty impressive scholastic degrees and whatnot behind him. So we have already picked the color on Fred's closeup. Fred walks in through the door and he sees the closeup and he goes, oh, I don't like that. So we now have to show him what we can do in the Telecine Bay.

Nigel
You know, this is a bit more contrast. This is a little less magenta and so on. He says, all right, I quite like that one. Do we have one which is a little bit less full of color? So we go a little less saturated and we find a black and white version and whatnot. So we spend two hours, which by my calculation is $1,400.

Nigel
And my producer is over his shoulder, like rolling her eyes going, what the fuck, you know? And eventually I say, look guys, you know, this is ridiculous, we need to look at all the options we have now and Fred, you have to decide one which you like. So we go through all the versions and he...

finally he sees my, that's it. I love that one. That is the one that is absolutely the one. And of course it's the one we had already on the screen when he walked through the door. So we have spent two hours pleasing the lead singer of the band who walks away very happy. And uh now we now have to play catch upand that 1400 bucks was probably the percentage that the production company might've made on that job.

Vance
speaking of telecine, um I used to love doing wacky crap in telecine. Um in the days of pre-spirit telecine, when we were using Rank, Ursa gold, Ursa diamond, Ursa white fronts, those were used a CRT as opposed to CCD. So you could actually throw stuff in the gate.

Vance
So, I would do things... um I remember one project I actually got one of those clear plastic knives. And as we were rolling, we'd wave it around and move it around in the gate, and it would distort things. Um, another fun thing we did was I was doing a job with Hype, and I cannot remember which job it was. But we had a 400-foot load of 35 that we'd already uh, already telecine'd and said,

God, it'd be really nice to mess this up somehow. it was at Company 3 in New York, and we had actually unspooled the whole roll of negative. And then we proceeded to stamp on it, walk on it, pour Coca-Cola on it, rub it, drag steel wool through it, completely mess it up. And then clean it.

it ran through the cleaner and ran it through the telecine.

Nigel
I've got a story I did exactly the same. I got all the footage [Vance: yeah] and we stamped it on the floor and there was a pile of neg on the floor and doing the whole thing and all the rest of it. So there is literally a pile of unspooled film on the floor, [Vance: Yeah!] which has cost hundreds of thousands to shoot. And um my telecine operator, and interestingly two of the people in my band were telecine operators, colorists.

because I spent so much time in those rooms, they became good mates and so we all formed a band. Anyway, whichever one it was, I can't remember, said, I want to ask you a big favor. And I said, yeah, okay. He says, I want you to get really upset and get on the phone and ask the head of the post-production facility to come in the room and ask what the hell is going on. [Vance laughs] I said, all right, yeah, okay, I'll do that. So I ring up, you know.

Nigel
Eric or whatever his name is, the bloke. And I said, Eric, you need to come to Telecine 3 right now. We have a major problem. So, you know, literally a second later, the door opens, he comes in, what's the problem? What's the problem? I said, what the hell is going on? And there's this pile of neg on the floor. I mean, it's, it's like five pillows of, you know, that's how big it is. [Vance: yeah yeah!] I said, is this the way you treat your clients normally? And this guy's face went white. I mean, totally.


Nigel
He was shivering. He was like, he was like, Oh my God, this is going to cost me a fortune. And there was a long moment of silence and then we all burst out laughing and he realized we were playing, you know, but um yeah, it's a good gag. I mean, I would take the film and actually with my hands, jump it up and down to go through the gates sometime.

Vance
Yeah, yeah, I actually did a thing with, I think it was Danzig, I went out, you used to be able to buy this Polaroid, 35 millimeter um sport black and white reversal film [nigel: oh my god] that you used to be able to process in a little machine. So I ran around New York and shot all these,


Vance
uh, um stills, [Nigel: mmhm] of textures, different weird textures, peeling paint on walls, cobblestone streets, all that kind of stuff. And it was 16 millimeter job. So, you know, you had a pretty big frame, and I would put that in the gate, try different frames, and then slowly move it around as it went through and you bring all these black and white positive textures onto the uh


Vance
onto the film is really interesting actually. Everything was kind of reversed and weird. So, you know, can't do that anymore. [Nigel: nope!] Those are all fun things that we used to be able to do. And it was organic. It's, you know, you can do interesting things today digitally, but it doesn't feel the same as that sort of organic quality of doing something like, just with actual physical things.



Nigel
so Vance, I know you've been yakking on and on and on and on about interviewing today's guest. Why?


Vance
I'd met Brandon at Camerimage in Poland in uh 2022. And I ran into him again in 2023 in November. And I asked him if he'd be on the show. And he said he would,

Vance
Brandon runs a Instagram account called Filmlights. Now, this has all these different lighting setups showing you the results from productions from all over the world. Different people send him uh, send him these lighting setups, And I learn from them. So I think it's gonna be a really interesting interview.


Vance
Hi everyone. I'm excited about our guest today. I met him a couple of years ago in Turun, Poland and right away I love talking to him. He also happens to be the person behind the Instagram account with over 700,000 followers @Filmlights. If you're a crew member or a DP,

Vance
just check to see if you're already following Filmlights. It's likely you are. And if you're not, you should be. He's also a director, DP, producer. He kind of does it all. I'm excited to dive into his love of film and his filmmaking journey. Welcome, Brandon. How are you, man?

Brandon
Thank you. Yeah, these intros always make me feel a little weird, but yeah.

Vance
Yeah, me too.

Vance
Well, Brandon, film lights. You know, I love it, to be honest. I look at it every day and, you know, I honestly, I learn stuff from it. I think it's really cool. So tell me how you got started and why did you start it and what was attractive about that for you?


Brandon
The origin of the story of Filmlights... I was in a village in Eastern Europe uhh and had some down time, you could say, and just was living vicariously through other people on set. And I didn't really expect... I thought maybe I would get to around...

Oh, I don't know, 25,000 followers would be a good number or something like that. But it just kept growing. It's, it's crazy. I don't know how many people are interested in film lighting, but. You know, at a peak, I mean, a good month, it's like five or six million people see a post, which is insane.

Vance
there's some really interesting gags and things that uh we can all kind of learn from. And I think that's kind of part of the attraction because, you know, you'll see things in the movie and go, man, how'd they do that? Or get that light to do that. , but you obtain a lot of really interesting stuff. How do you get your hands on all that?

Brandon
in the beginning I was just searching for it and then I would contact people if I found something that they posted that was interesting... yeah, that's how it was in the beginning. And then I would also look for like setups from older films where there's photos out um and just match it up with the result in the film.

Today, now I just kind of get blasted with content. I mean, people are sending stuff all the time and tagging me all the time. So I can't even keep up with it.

Vance
I mean, how much time does this take for you to manage all this stuff? It sounds like a lot of work.

Brandon
Yeah, for years I was doing two posts a day. So that was a lot of work. Uh now the algorithm has changed a bit. That's one of the tricky things is the Instagram algorithm is always changing. So you kind of have to keep up. And like now reels do better than photos. Um it's funny, I did a poll uh yesterday. I did a story poll asking people if they were more interested in photo posts or reel posts.

Like the videos, and most people said they wanted photo posts but for the broadcast group which is like a mass direct message to people that sign up to the broadcast group. I think it's only like 14,000 people or something. Um they said they want reels ,so it's like you know what do you do? Um but Instagram definitely is pushing reels more for better or worse. Well, kinda worse, but you have to adapt!

Vance
I think that's for the TikTok crowd, actually.

Brandon
Well, that's the joke. I have a lot of friends that have large accounts on Instagram and we kind of text each other. Um just when we notice some changes, or we have some problems, or you know just anything. And the joke amongst us is that Instagram is being made by people that prefer TikTok [all laugh] and they're basically turning it into TikTok.

Brandon
Which is kind of annoying because I don't really like TikTok that much.

Nigel
Here's the question that I have is that you obviously get hold of this footage, which is, I mean, from my experience of making film and making videos and whatnot, everybody has their mind on a release date. For the sake of argument, it's going to be October the 1st. So if you get access to a piece of footage now, which you really want to go with, do you have, you know, somebody from...

the film company ring you up and say, look, you cannot release this? Or alternatively, do they ring you up and go, we'd love for you to release this because it will keep the buzz going.

Brandon
Oh, I've had Universal lik approach me. wanting me to promote one of their films and do interviews with the cinematographer for a new film they were coming out with. Um so I've had studios approach, but yeah, all the time I get stuff that, well, maybe I shouldn't say that I get it, but I hear that there are things that people want me to post that I cannot post until

things are released and then I can. I obviously respect that. If someone, you know, sends me something and says, don't post it until I tell you to, then sure, of course.

Nigel
So you're not a rebel then? it's a narrow line between [Brandon: It's a narrow line] promoting somebody else's machine and keeping your Instagram going. I mean, there's, there's a very fine line, which is also potentially a legal line and a financial one.


Brandon
Yeah, you're gonna get me in trouble, but yeah. [all laugh]

Nigel
I don't want to get you into trouble, but I'm just aware of having been through it myself.

Brandon
Yeah, you know, it's funny because it's good promotion for the films. it's also it's educational. So you can kind of get away with a lot just under the umbrella of it being educational. So um I've never had a problem, I guess, is how to put it. I mean, I don't have any posts I've made, like 2000 and something.

Um, never ever had a problem. The only, the only problems I've had is, I wouldn't say it's a problem. There was a company that, uh, I won't say who, but I'm sure you've heard of them. Uh had a new version of their product line come out and I was posting. I made two posts about it and they sold out of their entire inventory for six months [Vance & Nigel laugh] and like, in like two weeks.

Brandon
And they asked me not to post for like 90 days because they just can't keep up with orders. So uh it was kind of funny.

Nigel
It's extraordinary, isn't it? how somehow all of us who are off the range, so to speak, are part of their machine to publicize and sell their product. It's an interesting place to be.


Brandon
Yeah, it just doesn't make any sense. The numbers really don't make any sense. I mean, I've have had posts that, you know, five million people saw one post. And at first it was a little weird, to be honest, because I started like thinking, okay, there's a lot of people seeing these posts. And I like, started to get a little anxious about like captions and stuff like this, and like making sure I get everything correct and the details right and all of that.

And then at some point I just decided like, who cares? I'm going to screw stuff up. it can be fixed. It can be edited. Like, it's not a big deal. I basically just decided I'm going to post like a hundred people follow me, you know, and just see what happens. And it seems to work.

Vance
you said something just now that I thought was kind of interesting. And for me, too, especially, I post a lot on my own Instagram. Um, I haven't got anything like amount of following. But you said that you see the algorithm change and you have to adapt. I mean, people like me don't see that, for whatever reason,


Brandon
Well, I think a lot of people feel it because they're not getting much engagement in their posts. Um but it changes... probably every couple months I can notice a change. But I'm watching this stuff really close, you know, it used to be after about 20 minutes, I knew if a post was going to do great or just kind of do okay or do bad. Like I could tell pretty much immediately how a post was going to do.

you start to notice things like now there's a post I made. It was like a, uh, a cosmetics commercial in Indonesia. And they had these, I think they were, they were M90s. They were just wheeling down the street. [Vance: Yeah I saw that] Did you see that one?

Vance
Yeah, I saw that one. You had the guys wheeling down the street and then you had the commercial afterwards.

Brandon
Yeah, well that one is going viral now. Um and the way I know that is it starts to get, like a lot of these people that have like TikTok brain, I call it. [Vance laughs] Um, where they have like no attention span. And it's very, very, very painful for them to give you any attention. it's this TikTok brain, that's what it is, it's TikTok brain. [Vance: that's great] But I start to get like these comments where,

Brandon
they're just like kinda shitposting. Um so they're kind of like, smart ass comments and I can tell they don't really, they're not people that follow me, right? I look at their profile like they don't follow me. So what that means is that the algorithm goes, okay, this content is interesting to people. We're gonna start to show it to people that aren't following this account. And then you know that's when- when things are gonna get viral. And the way the algorithm works,

which is probably going to destroy society because it's the way it is on all of these social media accounts is, the algorithm looks for activity on a post. This can be on Twitter, this can be on Instagram, this can be on really anything. If they see that there's engagement and activity, good or bad, it's going to promote it more. So, basically, [laughs] either make people feel really happy and good, or piss people off, and you're going to do great on social media.

Brandon
Um, and that's just how it works. And it's unfortunate because a lot of people, they may like content they see, but they don't engage with it. They don't comment. Maybe they don't even like the post, but they like seeing it. But the algorithm thinks this person isn't interested in this. So, they start to see less and less and less. And then you end up with the people that are engaging, seeing more and more and more, and even if they're saying horrible things uh in the comments, Instagram's gonna keep feeding them more of your posts. So, it's not really ideal. and it's kind of how all of these social media apps work.

Nigel
I have a TikTok question for both of you as people who operate cameras. I'm currently making a video for an artist who has been around for some time and is very successful. And my brief is, we need lots of dance footage. And I've added from around the world to that. So I go on fiverr.com and I look for people who've...

posted dance stuff and I say, please shoot some dance footage for me. And I've been speaking to people in India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, South Africa, around the world. It's fantastic. Except they send me footage with a camera vertically with their phone because they're TikTok people. And of course I'm making a music video, which is going to go on YouTube, which is horizontal and these people cannot understand that I need

information which is horizontal rather than vertical. I'd like both of you to tell me what you think about this.

Vance
Obviously, as DP, vertical 9 by 16, disgusts me. [Nigel & Brandon laugh] As most cinematographers, because that's not how we see the world. But I just tell them to shoot landscape, just make it look like a TV.

Nigel
Yes, but when I say landscape, it doesn't work.

Brandon
No, that's not going to work for them. And unfortunately, in the world we live in today, 9 by 16, I think, is how most people see the world, because they're just glued to their phones. [Vance: Yeah] They're not looking out at the world. [Vance: Yup] So young people especially, it's a generational thing. Like, this vertical video is here to stay, you know? I don't think there'll be vertical televisions. God, I hope not. But you know vertical video is, as much as I hate it as well, you know?

Brandon
just tell them to hold the phone the wrong way.

Nigel
Ha ha!

Vance
Ah, there you go. That's a good one.


Nigel
That's the way.

Vance
you had one post that had 1.7 million views. That was basically a, it looked like an eight by or 12 by rag that had multicolored panels on it [Brandon: ahh yeah] and two lights panning around.

Brandon
Yeah.

Vance
I think the clip ran for about six, it was a fire gag or a, and I, myself, I could imagine the result, but apparently this six second clip with TikTok brains was more than they could handle [Brandon: they wanted my head!] because you did not, you did not show the result.


Brandon
They wanted to kill me. I mean, I got like almost death threats for not posting the result because they're watching it. And it was a little bit longer than six seconds. Maybe it was 16. I don't know how long it was. [Vance: it was pretty quick!] But yeah, it wasn't that long. So if you could imagine somebody who has a real difficulty focusing on anything.

Brandon
So they're, what would be the word for it? [Nigel: short attention span] there was a limited amount of time that they could focus in the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So imagine if like their focus is like a small pool of water, you know, a cup of water, and they gave like half a cup of water to that post, um to focus and they were just furious. Man, I deleted so many comments on that post. [Nigel and vance laugh] Like probably 50

Brandon
comments I deleted because they were just too much. Some of them I let them go, but some of them were too much like, you know, like wanting to kill people and stuff. And you know, it was crazy. there were legit threats. Um well, I don't think they were legit because no one's gonna do anything, but they were uh excessive, I would say. [Vance laughs] [Vance: yeah!] But that's the thing, like they have so little attention, they can give anything in a day and they gave it to me and I did not give them

Brandon
that dopamine blast of a result at the end. And they were very upset by that. [Vance: That's so weird to me.] [Vance laughs] But I got one for the Indonesian commercial where they got the result and the person said in the comments, they appreciate the result. But what did they say? I could actually tell you exactly what they said.

Vance
Oh yeah, tell us, tell us.

Brandon
They were upset because I didn't show the result first. So I should have showed them the result first before showing the behind the scenes because I was being manipulative, I think they said. [Vance laughs] Um, Oh, here we go. Results first, then behind the scenes. This way around is predatory and attention-seeking. Predatory?

Vance
[laughs]

Vance
Predatory?


Vance
Now, obviously you have a love of film where did your filmmaking journey begin? I mean, it's been a journey.

Brandon
Oh, gosh.

Brandon
You know, it's funny, I remember the first picture I ever took. This is, I mean, this is a little silly, but it was like a formative kind of memory for me. I was maybe like five or six. And there was a fire in, like, the apartment building next to the one we lived in. And I just immediately went, I should take a picture of this. So, I ran inside and I took my mom's camera. It was this little Kodak Instamatic camera thing.

Brandon
And I went out there and I took a picture. And I just remember getting kind of lost in the moment. Like I'm looking through the lens and everything around me just went away, you know? Um and I took a picture and then what snapped me out of it is one of the firemen said, oh, we have a future photographer here. Um and that made me feel like really kind of embarrassed and shy, and kind of quickly got out of there.

And then I put the camera back right where it was, because I didn't want to get in trouble, um and I never saw the photo. but that experience kind of stayed with me for a long time. And what was interesting is, I was back home in August going through old things. Uh my mom had passed away, and we were going through old photos and stuff like that. And I found this old roll of Instamatic film.

Brandon
Well, it was like the photos. They came in these little packets and stuff. [Nigel: mhm] And I'm looking through it, and it's like family pictures, soccer pictures, and right in the middle of the roll is that picture I took. I literally never saw the photo. And my mom must have been so confused, because in the middle of this roll of film, there's a picture of a window on fire and a fire truck. I ended up taking two pictures. I only remembered the one,

Brandon
[Vance: that's great] So that was the first thing.

Brandon
And at the same time, I was writing stories all the time. Like I would just fill notebooks. I would lay on the floor and

Brandon
I would just fill notebooks with stories, just stream of consciousness.

Brandon
As a teenager, it was just making little short films and silly music videos and just editing, you know, video tape or you're connecting like VHS to VHS, for example, and having to edit with that. and then the first film I made, it's kind of a crazy story, but um first feature film I made was when I was 20 years old, so... But it was 35mm, Panavision. Uh, had some actors that people

Brandon
would know um from television stuff. I've been in the business a long time for somebody that has absolutely nothing to show for what they've done. [Nigel and vance laugh] Kind of the opposite of you two. Like I- this could be the worst career path ever in history. Um but the first film I did, uh we shot about,

Brandon
90% of it, I would say, and it got stolen. they stole the negative and they stole the sound and were kind of holding it hostage because they wanted to take over the whole film. And it's a crazy story, [Vance: wow] but yeah. So the film was stolen and ultimately never finished. Um I did get the negative back, uh but I never got the sound back. Uh, it wasn't digital files.

Brandon
It was on like, tape, [Vance: right] you know, and uh I never got the original sound back. So it was never able to get done. And for like 10 years, the people who took it just disappeared. I couldn't even find them. [Vance: wow] And so by the time I found them, like the statute of limitations was over and it was crazy experience. So after that, I like made a list, like, okay, the next film I,

don't want investors. I want to own the edit system because I was sick of having to rent AVIDs and like beg for edit suite time. Um I want the camera. I want all of these things. so finally that happened. It just took a little while. So, and then 12 years later, I'm still working on the first film. [laughs]


Brandon
Um even though Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. [Vance laughs] But yeah, it's the first one I finished I've been working on for 12 years and the very first scene we shot was in March of 2012. So it was on a frozen lake on the border of Estonia and Russia in the middle of winter. It's like minus 30

It was so cold. Like the camera was freezing, the batteries were freezing, the cables were freezing. It was so cold and miserable. It's not gonna be in the movie. We've reshot that later.

Nigel
[Laughs]

Vance
Oh really?

Brandon
Basically, it was the beginning of the film, or is the beginning of the film. And it was supposed to be Lake Baikal, but it doesn't look anything like Lake Baikal. It was just cold in winter. You know, that was the only similarities. It's been now several years ago. I was looking at airline tickets, and it was really cheap to go to Irkutsk. [nigel laugh]

Brandon
So I was like, let's go. So we had this actor we've been working with and filming scenes with. so we were gonna go with him to Baikal and film out there. I had a friend in Moscow who had filmed out there before. He knew a filmmaker, like photographer guy that could be our guide. So long story short, the actor had a heart attack. [Nigel laughs]

Brandon
Uh I know, I know, right? So it's like a couple days before we're supposed to go and his daughter, he doesn't speak English and his daughter's like, yeah, he can't go anywhere because he had a heart attack. It was a little bit before, but they didn't tell me. Uh and she said that he probably can't even finish the film. And we'd already filmed like a lot with him. And I just decided we're gonna go anyway. So we flew to Irkutsk. It was me and a production manager.

and we shot in the absolute middle of nowhere in the winter in Siberia on the biggest and oldest lake in the world. And we're the first American production to do it, apparently.

Nigel
Your story reminds me of whoever, the guy who's known to be the world's worst director, they made a movie about him.

Brandon
I'll try not to be offended until you finish.

Nigel
Anyway, [Vance: Ed Wood?] Ed Wood! thank you very much. [Brandon: Ah, yeah yeah yeah] And the thing that reminds me is that on the back of the VHS, I remember I bought the VHS of the movie, and it says the lead actor died three days into making the movie. [brandon laughs] Luckily, Ed Wood's dentist, who was also an investor in the film,

Nigel
had a resemblance to the actor, so he took his part for the rest of the movie. [Brandon: wow] He got his, he got, and that's on the back of the VHS. [Brandon: wow] Anyway, while we're talking about Siberia or wherever it is, I know I made a movie in Vancouver, [Brandon: Hmm] and on the first day of the film, it's incredibly wet and very cold, because I'm shooting in December, of course, and I spent my entire career up till that point shooting in, mostly in LA.

Nigel
So in the morning we shoot outside, it's pissing with rain, it's cold, and then we need to go inside to shoot scene. it's in the motel room, and suddenly the camera department comes racing through yelling, "camera!" you know, the tide parts as the camera comes in. And I'm like, why are the camera crew rushing in? And they said, well, the camera's gonna have to be in that room for 20 minutes.

So the mist will clear off the eyepiece and the lenses, [Brandon: yeah yeah!] And I'd never had that experience. Well, obviously if you're shooting somewhere and it's minus 30, [Brandon: mhm] then are there local um tricks that you learnt by shooting in that part of the world that the rest of us are not aware of?

Brandon
Just stay cold, basically. Don't go from warm to cold to warm to cold. Just stay cold. [Nigel: You have to stay cold as well] Yeah, I mean, we were filming. on Bikal, We drove like two or three hours on some of the worst roads I've ever seen um to like this real, real deep Russia village. And then from there, we went in this kind of, it's like...

Brandon
If Mad Max was on ice, it's like this eight wheel thing that can drive over anything, anything. It's like an apocalypse vehicle. And that's what got us to the location because it was a cabin on the lake, which apparently, according to the guide, this was the only one he knew about, which is the absolute middle of nowhere. And we drove for hours out there, got dropped off. And for electricity, we had this old horrible Soviet

generator that was super noisy and had barely any power coming out of it. [Nigel laughs] And We basically slept in the cabin. Oh and we needed like this kind of I Don't want to say stereotypical drunk fisherman, but you know most of them are there and [Vance laughs] we were in his cabin so the person we found to replace

the actor we had to replace, um was just really the character. That he was really, you know, that's his life, that's what he does, we're in his cabin and um we're just filming him. Well, the first day we were filming until he basically fell on the floor, passed out from drinking vodka. [Vance and Nigel laugh] And then we kind of got him in bed and then I just filmed him sleeping in bed because it's like, we got to, maybe I'll use it.

Brandon
And then we continued the next day. Um but I don't remember it really being a problem because I don't remember being very warm. [Vance and Nigel laugh] So I think- I think that was the secret.


Nigel
Here's the thing, Brandon, it's not the first time this has happened in the history of film. If you read the story about the Korda family, who were, um I think, from somewhere in Eastern Europe, who came to the UK in the 30s, Dad who was making, you know, who was the producer, sent one of his sons to India to make a movie called The Elephant Boy. And after a year, he sent him a cable which said, how's it going?

And the cable came back, "have found elephant looking for boy." [Brandon laughs] So six months later, he sends another cable, how's it going? And he says, "have found boy, elephant has died." So eventually dad sends a cable saying, bring all your available footage back and we'll shoot it outside London in Ealing Studios. So they make a movie called Elephant Boy and the only footage they used from the son's footage from India where he was for like,

Nigel
18 months was the b-roll of a tiger going into the jungle. The rest of it was shot a mile and a half from the centre of London, you know, or 10 miles from the centre of London. [Brandon: Yeah] So it does happen and I'm delighted to hear that you're still going.

Brandon
Well, we're almost done. We shot a lot last year. Um so we have about three days left and we're done. So basically the very end, we have to shoot.

Vance
You shot this yourself, right? As the- you were the DP? [Brandon: Yeah]

Brandon
Um After the first, well, when I was doing all this stuff as a kid, like, I was always operating. So it was very strange for me on the first film not to be behind the camera. Um but I didn't really know, I mean, I was used to shooting on video, you know, it's totally different than shooting 35 millimeter. So there was a big gap in experience, but I wasn't really happy with the results at all from- from that first film. I ended up replacing the original cinematographer.

Brandon
who just didn't really have enough experience. about the time I made that list, I just decided I'm going to learn, you know? even during the process of making the film, I've been learning a lot.

Brandon
So much, so much. I mean, there are scenes I've shot like three or four times, you know, where I'll shoot the scene one year and like two years later I go back, no, I wanna do it differently and I reshoot the scene again and then I recast actors and shoot it again.

I'm responsible in a way for this because the production costs are very low. So it doesn't cost very much to shoot, you know, a day. And that's kind of how I make it make sense a little bit. Forget the 12 year part.

Brandon
Ignore that. [Vance laughs] That doesn't make any sense. But the production costs are very low. So there's a Steadicam shot I wanted to get. And it started with a dialogue scene in a car with the Steadicam, you know like horizontal, you could say. Right? So it's on like a gimbal. And so it's on like a tight shot through the windshield in the car. And there's some dialogue and stuff on the phone and all of that. And then they get out of the car and kind of...

Brandon
There's some choreography to how they're passing through like the trees and like down this path and then into this building and then there's a conversation that starts inside the building. Um it was done in two shots, but um there's a lot to coordinate for this and We could only shoot the first half of the day in the last half of the day So the middle of the day the sun was not in the right position. Um So we spent two days trying to get this stupid shot

Brandon
and the Steadicam operator just wasn't getting it, or the actor wasn't getting it. Something was wrong every single take. And I was like, okay, we're going back. We spent two days on it and then still didn't have the shots. So then we had a break. So I fired the Steadicam operator. I fired the actor, [all laugh] recast the part, got a new Steadicam operator and then we shot it and we got it like right away. Like just a couple of takes, done, got it.

Brandon
And then I cut the scene out of the movie.

Nigel
Hahaha!

Vance
Ha ha!

Brandon
So this is how you make a 12 year movie.


Nigel
I have the other side of the story, right? [Brandon: Please, tell me] My first movie, the budget is a million and a half bucks [Brandon" mhm] and we're gonna shoot 22 days or something, whatever it is. And on the first day, the movie is being produced by Steve Golan, who later became an Oscar winner and is now sadly no longer with us. And we're shooting the final scene of the day and I've got my shot list, you know, it's got 10 shots on it and we've got half an hour to shoot it.

Nigel
and I said, all right, put the camera here. We'll shoot the wide here, blah, all the rest of it. And Steve comes up to me and he grabs me over the shoulder and he takes me away from the crew. And he goes, this is the first day of your first movie. We've got 15 minutes to shoot the scene. Do it with one take. I promise you we will come back later and reshoot it. But for this first day, [Brandon: Make your day] we have to show the backers that we can make the day. [brandon: yeah]

Nigel
And I'm like, but Steve, you know, I need the closeup on the kid on the bike and I need a closeup. He said, listen to me, shoot it in one shot. We'll walk away in 14 and a half minutes. And I promise you, we will come back. It's the best shot in the movie. [Brandon: yeah yeah yeah] It's one take. We'd never got the coverage. We never came back. And to this day, I look at that shot and I go, the lighting is fabulous. The acting is great. It works as one scene. What the hell? [Brandon: mm]

Nigel
You know, so that's the other side of the story. and looking back is a great thing to have. [Brandon: yeah yeah yeah] The other thing I just want to tell you is that listening to what you were saying about you want to, you know, be the operator and whatnot. Robert Rodriguez and Steven Soderbergh both shoot their own movies. [Brandon: yeah] Rodriguez sometimes does the music. I'm not a lover of his work, but, you know, they've said, bugger it. I want to do this myself. So it can be done.

Brandon
his book, Rebel Without a Crew, yeah, [Nigel: Rebel Without a Crew, yeah] it was reading that book that actually made me think I could do this. So, that book was a big deal. Um And I mean, El Mariachi, you know, it's kind of funny, but you know at the time I was like, all right, that's cool. Um but it was his story that I found most inspiring.


Nigel
I love his line that is, when you go to film school, all you get to know is how to pull cable on somebody else's movie.

Brandon
especially today. You know, back when that book came out, it was still a little bit different, you know? Um today with the equipment that everybody has access to, for the amount of anger and cynicism you see from like young filmmakers online often on social media.

Vance
Oh my God, yeah.

Brandon
They have no idea how good they have it as far as equipment goes.

Brandon
the things I would have done for just like a little Blackmagic pocket 6k, you know?

Nigel
When I lecture to film students, I say, if you have a laptop and an iPhone, you have access to more filmmaking material than anybody ever had 50 years ago.

Brandon
Yeah, but what's missing is ideas. That seems to be the biggest thing. People are swimming in equipment, but they don't really know what to do with it. So.

Vance
Well, you know what, if you look at all those social media posts you're talking about, and a lot of it is, oh, we get focused on this camera, this camera doesn't do this and this camera has to go autofocus. [Brandon: yeah!] I'm like, that's not a filmmaking process is about, and that's not what being a cinematographer is about. You should be able to take any camera, [brandon: yeah!] light it well and tell a great story and have something amazing.


Brandon
Yeah, and not just the camera. I mean, do you remember how much it used to cost to be able to use like DaVinci back in the day for like a music video, for example? I mean, that was so expensive back in the day. [Vance: I'm sitting in my DaVinci suite right now] Now you can do it on an iPad. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, mine is right here. [Vance: exactly] It's just insane and it's way more powerful.


Brandon
than what was available back then and cost ungodly amounts of money.


Brandon
people don't know how good they have it. and also, it's never been easier to reach large numbers of people. Um the trick is today to get noticed and all the noise. [Vance: yup] That's where it becomes difficult. And that's difficult for people on all levels, you know, like even people making films with multimillion dollar budgets, just getting noticed in the noise is tough,

Vance
So I want to come back to the social media aspect of this a little bit. I know you chatted with Lindha the other day, you were talking about like young people get social media, older people can produce.

Vance
higher quality content and neither side understands

Brandon
Well, it's the gap. Yeah, there's the gap between the people that have the knowledge and the expertise and the history of stuff that they've done, they don't really know how to present it on social media. And then you've got this young generation that understands social media, but doesn't really have the skills, and doesn't really have the content, really. Um They're shooting like, often pretty basic stuff.

Um so yeah, it's just interesting to me. you two should have tons of people following you on social media. I mean, the amount of stuff that you've worked on,

Vance
How do we change that? you know, not only for my social media account, but the social media account for this podcast. How do you grow that? I mean, you know, that's where you get stuck on that, you know.

Brandon
Yeah.

Brandon
Well, there's not any one answer to that, but, for you two specifically, I would say stories. If you're telling stories about working with people, I mean, a reel is what tends to get more traction, but if you have a reel where you're talking about working on Welcome to the Jungle

for example, whatever project you wanna talk about, whatever you think would be interesting to people. And, you know, it's you talking about it in clips, and I don't, it gets difficult with older stuff like this having behind the scenes. That can be tricky. Um but I think stories, but the thing is it has to be chopped off, a reel can be 90 seconds, that's it, you know?

Vance
Yep.

Brandon
and as far as the podcast goes, having clips is important.

Brandon
But the clips have to be something where people are going to be hungry for more. the thing is you have to make posts sticky. You have to make people want to engage. You have to make people want to share it. You have to make people want to comment. I mean, I'll, I'll be honest. When I was starting the account, there were times I would purposefully put typos in the caption just cause it would get people to comment, Oh, that's 10 comments where people saying I spelled something wrong or I got something wrong in the caption that boosts the engagement, you know? [Nigel laughs]

It sounds silly, but it works. Um and then often I'll ask questions, because sometimes it's hard to figure out how do I get people to comment and engage. So I try to ask questions or else I'll...

Brandon
Like I do best and worst answers only. [Vance: yup] Like, , what light do you think was used for this setup? Best and worst answers only. So you get the people that know, then you get the people that just think they're funny. And some are. And then you'd end up with hundreds of comments often with those. Whereas if it was just like, guess the light and the setup, the person gets it right. And then like there's silence, because people just who know look and go, they got it right.

Brandon
We're all slaves to the algorithms. [laughs] We're all slaves to the algorithm. And that's it. All the content has to be bent towards the algorithm. We're serving algorithm gods in this 21st century that we're in.

Vance 
I know you've done some interview recording with um some DPs and um filmmakers. Is there any in particular that you enjoyed the most

Brandon 
it was during COVID, I was doing two of these live chats like a week. And it was a lot of work, because it was only me. Like, I was preparing everything and they would be like three and a half hours long often. And we would just break down in detail,

Brandon 
how they worked on these different films and shows. So I probably did about 30 or 40 hours of these. And um I think the whole process was fun because I'm not somebody who enjoys public speaking.


Brandon 
I was way out of my comfort zone as far as, and these were live chats though also. So if you could imagine you have a thousand people in a chat room while you're having these chats and during the live chat probably, this, I mean this was like peak COVID, so 2020 I guess.

Brandon
so probably 15, 20,000 people saw part of it. So I think just the fact that I did it is the highlight. Um I learned a lot. I learned so much from it and people really seemed to enjoy them. um I will probably do them again, but not as much. Like two a week was too much.

Dan Laustsen was probably the most popular one. and we went through his whole career, like early days, all the way through the shape of water, John Wick two and three. that was like three hours with Dan.



Brandon 
But yeah, Benedict Spence was the first one I did. He shot End of the Fucking World for Netflix, [Vance: uh huh] or End of the Effing World, I guess it is technically.

Vance 
Yeah, that was a good little series, actually.

Brandon 
Yeah, he got an Emmy nomination for that. He did season two. So Ben Kutchins was a great one as well. He did, you know, Ozark and a bunch of stuff.

Vance
Yeah, yeah. Ben just was just inducted in the ASC. Lindha knew him from way back in film school days. Yeah, he's a good guy and talented guy.


Brandon 
Yeah, super nice. So yeah, there were a lot of them that I did. Um I did one with Alex Proyas, which just because I loved the crow when I was a kid. [Vance: yup] And I'm just like, all right, Alex Proyas follows me. I'm just gonna ask. So basically just people who I liked their work, I just like wrote them and said, hey, do you wanna do a chat? And like pretty much everybody said yes. [Vance: that's pretty awesome]

Brandon
There was nothing to do during COVID lockdowns anyway. [Vance: yeah it's great] So, you know, it was easy to get people scheduling was simple. Um, but I do want to bring it back and, and do them kind of. Properly.


Vance 
Well, Brandon, I really, really appreciate you taking this time out and speaking with me. Um hopefully we'll speak more [Brandon: mhm] and we'll see you later this year in Poland once again. [Brandon: yeah!] But stick around, I have a, maybe you can, we'll ask you a question on the next part here


Nigel 
Thank you so much, Brandon. We'll see you further up the road.

Brandon 
Yeah, thanks for having me guys. Thank you.


Brandon 
So you two have basically worked with everybody. Is there anyone that you haven't worked with that you would like to?

Nigel 
The people I want to work with are dead mostly, but um I would have liked to have worked with David Bowie.

Nigel 
Um I mean, the thing that I found is that I had, you know, I've obviously done a load of music. I've done six movies with acting, but mostly music. The thing that I've discovered is that very often the people whose music I have loved and has changed my life are not necessarily people I would like to spend time with. [Brandon: hmm] And the transverse is true.

nigel
I've always just been quite open. I mean, I think I've taken some criticism of the past of like, why would you work with that artist? You hate their music. And it's like, well, I love what I do. I've been asked to work with them. And my job is to find that moment which translates into their fans. If you enter into certainly the career that I've had and you just want to work with people whose music you absolutely love

Nigel
you're going to spend 11 months out of the year doing nothing. And I have discovered that some of the pieces for which I'm most known I've managed to get a performance out of somebody just because they open their mouth, I'm not down on my hands and knees going, oh my God, that's fantastic. because I've been a bit more, you know, a step back from worshiping them as a musician.

I've asked them to do something perhaps which another director might not ask. And I've embraced that. I- And I actually love that part of it now, but that was not my approach going in.

Vance
For me, actually, I'm gonna bring up somebody I have worked with, but haven't worked within the capacity I would like to. Starting out at Propaganda when Nigel was there, and I was still a gaffer, I'd do a lot of projects with David Fincher as a gaffer. And actually, there was times he'd hire me as the gaffer before they'd hire the DP. I'll end up only shooting one thing for him. There was these three little promos for Propaganda with...

Vance
One of them was a kid at a printing press printing those famous Propaganda posters, and one was him pasting them on a wall. And one of them was on the steps of City Hall handing these posters to someone that looked a lot like Winston Churchill. and this was obviously back in, before I was actually a DP., it's been many, many years since I've talked to David and,

it's somebody I really would love to work with again, knowing what I know now, you know, David's brilliant and um to have the opportunity to work with him again, would be very, very exciting.

Vance
All right, Nigel, that's a lot for today, I think.

Nigel 
And it was a lot for today. And we have instructions for you going forward, people of the airwaves. We need reviews on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and we want you to follow us on, where Vance?

Vance
@TwoStopsOverPodcast. That would be on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. 

Nigel 
I'm sorry, could you say tick tock for me one more time?

Vance
tik tok tik tok