May 30, 2024

VFX pioneer Scott Ross, founder of Digital Domain

As a pioneer in digital visual effects, Scott Ross was instrumental in the advancement of VFX in Hollywood. He led groundbreaking work at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and co-founded Digital Domain with James Cameron and Stan Winston. Scott looks back on his career, discusses systemic problems within the VFX industry, and possible ways to fix them.

Scott began his career in sound recording for television and film in the San Francisco Bay Area for a video production company, becoming president of the San Francisco office. The success of Star Wars ignited a space race for studios, and ILM became the holy grail for VFX artists. “I get a phone call from a headhunter who says, ‘Hey, Lucasfilm is looking for somebody to head up production operations at Industrial Light and Magic.’ And my head exploded,” says Scott. “If you’re going to live in San Francisco, you want to work at Lucasfilm. That’s how I got hired.” At the time, ILM was creating visual effects for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. His experience in the nascent digital video industry sped up the process, and by 1989, ILM developed a technique to work in a digital medium for making special effects. While Scott was at ILM, the company won five Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects.

However, ILM’s creative spirit began to wane under corporate pressure. “It turned into cubicles and whatnot,” says Ross, favoring a “work hard, play hard” environment. This philosophy fueled his decision to leave and co-found Digital Domain in 1993. “When I started Digital Domain, we’re going to play hard, work hard and party hard. And that’s the culture that I wanted to create. I think generally we did a pretty good job of it.” Digital Domain became a leading VFX company, creating visual effects for films such as Cameron’s Titanic.

The VFX industry is notoriously troubled, with visual effects houses underbidding on projects to stay competitive and creating dismal working conditions for employees. “There are certain companies that the only way that they could stay alive is by taking advantage of their employees, not paying them overtime, not having health care,” says Scott. “That really comes as a result of the way the clients, studios and the directors deal with the visual effects companies.” He blames a producer mentality that prioritizes squeezing VFX houses rather than fostering a sustainable industry. “The visual effects industry workers need advocates for themselves. Currently, they have no one fighting for them. They need an international trade association that changes the business model.” Today, effects workers continue to voice their need to form a union. The rise of AI further complicates the picture, with some fearing job replacement.

Find Scott Ross: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottross/
Instagram: @scott_ross

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January 18, 2023

Russell Carpenter, ASC on Avatar: The Way of Water, working with James Cameron, creating realistic lighting for a virtual world

Our guest Russell Carpenter, ASC comes back for a second time on the podcast to talk about Avatar: The Way of Water.

When cinematographer Russell Carpenter began working on Avatar: The Way of Water, it was much different from any other film experience he’d had. Russell had previously worked with director Jim Cameron on True Lies and Titanic, which won him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. He began working on Avatar: The Way of Water before they even rolled cameras, testing and integrating the world of live action capture with completely virtual images. The process was like a huge layer cake of world creation, with writing, concept art and production design all being developed simultaneously.

As the cinematographer, Russell’s primary concern was making sure that the lighting design on the live, motion captured actors looked real and played well with the CGI generated world. It’s hard to fool the eye when people instinctively know what sunlight, water and shade in a forest should look like, so every scene with a live person and a Na’vi person had to be exactly right. It was important to Cameron that everything on Pandora be grounded in reality. The animals had to move realistically and the interplay of shade and light in the forests needed to feel real to an audience so that they would have an emotional connection, rather than watching an alien-feeling, fake-looking science fiction world.

The entire process of making Avatar: The Way of Water was a huge puzzle, with a small army of teams working on different parts of the movie and simply trying different things. As the writing and story development continued, Cameron would decide they needed a certain scenario or plot point, and he would ask the teams to creatively figure out how to make it happen. After the locations were computer generated, several virtual cameras were used to shoot multiple angles to get an idea of the blocking, lighting and camera placement for the CGI action. Finally, the actors came in to do motion capture and read their lines. Russell thought he’d start to see scenes coming together, but everything was such a piecemeal process that he watched the virtual camera material to get an idea of how the lighting was matching and coming together. They would move lights around on automated overhead trusses in the studio to change the lighting for each scene and to keep as many lights out of the blue screen shots as possible.

You can see Avatar: The Way of Water in a variety of formats in theaters everywhere.

Find Russell Carpenter: Instagram @russellcarpenterasc
Hear Cinepod’s first interview with Russell Carpenter, ASC: https://www.camnoir.com/ep40/

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

December 21, 2022

Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom on the film Thirteen Lives and working with director Ron Howard

The film Thirteen Lives is about the rescue of the Thai soccer team who were trapped in an underwater cave in 2018 for 18 days. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who is Thai, knew that it was important to make the film seem as realistic as possible since everyone in Thailand was very familiar with the story. He liked director Ron Howard’s movie Apollo 13, which vividly dramatized a real-life event, so he was excited to work with Howard on Thirteen Lives, a true story he was familiar with. After reading the script, Thirteen Lives was a movie he could clearly see in his head, because it dealt with people against the elements.

Sayombhu decided to approach the film like a documentary, as though the viewer is right there in the cave with the characters. His first task was to think about how to shoot and light underwater, and he worked closely with the second unit crew to find the best methods. When shooting, Sayombhu did a lot of handheld camerawork, operating the B camera on first unit. He would actually occasionally duck underwater with the camera, so that it looked as dynamic as possible, even though the second unit handled most of the underwater work.

The caves were all a set built in Australia, except for some exterior shots of the real cave in Thailand. Because the caves had no light sources at all, Sayombhu knew all the light had to be motivated. He had to pick the color and intensity of the light, and figure out where to place lights and cameras during the cave design set build. The actors became part of his lighting crew, since much of the light had to come from their flashlights and headlamps. Sayombhu would often ask them to hold the lights and point them up or down to help illuminate the scene- actors Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell practically became a part of the lighting crew, he jokes.

Sayombhu Mukdeeprom IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1178928/

Thirteen Lives is currently on Amazon Prime

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
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Twitter: @ShortEndz

July 28, 2021

Cinematographer Adam Bricker on shooting the Emmy-nominated series Hacks, Chef’s Table and more

One of Adam Bricker’s favorite things about being a cinematographer is the opportunity to collaborate with different filmmakers, try something new and make each project the best it can be. His most recent project is the HBO Max comedy series Hacks, which just earned him an Emmy nomination for best cinematography. Adam was given the scripts for the first two episodes, and loved the pilot script, which opens with a long Steadicam single shot following behind the main character, Deborah Vance, played by Jean Smart, for two minutes, until her character is finally revealed in the dressing room vanity mirror. Adam knew it’s a rare thing to find a half-hour comedy with that level of cinema, and he was excited to shoot the show. Hacks takes place in Las Vegas, about a legendary comedian who is losing relevance and fading from the spotlight. Adam and show creator Lucia Aniello used vintage Las Vegas movies and photos as a reference point, as well as films such as Soderberg’s Behind The Candelabra and Judy with Renée Zellweger. Adam likes to set the look based on how the viewer is supposed to feel, and he makes notes in his scripts about what emotions should be felt in each scene. Most of Hacks is filmed on tripods and dollies, but for the verbal duels between characters Deborah Vance and Ava, her young comedy writer/protégé, Adam chose to shoot handheld, which gives those scenes more energy and naturalism. Lighting on the show goes from naturalistic, when Deborah is at home or when Ava is in Los Angeles, contrasted with vintage glamorous stage lighting when Deborah performs her comedy act.

Adam grew up in Chicago and attended film school there before attending the USC summer cinema program, which inspired him to transfer to USC and continue studying cinematography. After college, Adam began taking as many jobs as he could, and planned to work his way up through the camera department, before a DP mentor suggested he buy a camera and take as many cinematography jobs as possible. He and a group of friends invested in a Red One digital camera, and Adam shot dozens of music videos and low-budget films.

The Netflix series Chef’s Table has taken Adam all over the world. As one of the primary DPs of Chef’s Table, Adam and show creator David Gelb have established the artistic look of the modern cuisine documentary, which has since been imitated by countless other food shows. When the show began, Adam had never shot a documentary before, so he had a more cinematic approach to the show, only using prime lenses and no zoom lenses. For him, it’s been a dream job to explore new places, eat amazing food at excellent restaurants and work with good friends on the crew.

Find Adam Bricker: https://adambricker.com
Instagram: @realadambricker

You can see Hacks on HBO Max.

Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: https://camnoir.com/ep133/

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The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

April 26, 2020

War Stories Vol. 1: Tales from the Set featuring Russell Carpenter, Jakob Ihre, Ellen Kuras, David Mullen and Kira Kelly

Special: The Cinematography Podcast War Stories Vol. 1

It’s our first War Stories Special! Each of our featured guests shares an insightful, interesting, humorous or crazy story of an experience they had while on set.

Russell Carpenter talks about shooting the iconic “I’m flying” scene from Titanic, Jakob Ihre tells the sobering story about working in Lithuania while shooting HBO’s “Chernobyl,” Ellen Kuras shares a funny story from the set of The Mod Squad, David Mullen on avoiding a landslide while scouting for Big Sur, and Kira Kelly tells about how she endured a particularly difficult work experience.

Do you have a War Story you’d like to share? Send us an email or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!

Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: https://camnoir.com/warstories1/

COMING SOON! War Stories Vol. 2.

Website: www.camnoir.com
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

July 24, 2019

Ep 40 – Oscar Winner Russell Carpenter, ASC – On Titanic, True Lies, James Cameron, Hard Target, John Woo, Ant-Man and more!

Academy Award winner Russell Carpenter, ASC has a huge Hollywood career that’s spanned decades, though he got his start working in public television and didn’t even go to film school. He discusses his early experience on films like the cult classic “The Wizard of Speed and Time,” “Cameron’s Closet,” and “The Lawnmower Man,” and still enjoys shooting small films like the Indian movie “Parched.” For “Hard Target” with director John Woo, each scene was meticulously timed and shot with multiple cameras. Russell first worked with director James Cameron in 1994 on the film “True Lies” and then again on “Titanic,” which won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. He tells a few stories about the movie tricks he and James Cameron used on “Titanic.” Russell is currently working again with Jim Cameron on Avatar 2 and 3.