Operator David Emmerichs

On today's podcast, we'll talk about the power of failure, getting dressed down by Tom Hanks, Armageddon, the Green Mile, and of course, a recipe from Greydon Celeste. Just a little bit of business before we start, there may be a curse word here or there in this episode, so please listen responsibly. As always, our website, theop.io is up in Chocful of Tips, Tricks, and GUI Operator Goodness. Make sure to check out the breakdown where the best operators in the business explain shots they have done, the musings where we discuss everything from quick tips to larger concepts of storytelling, the answers, the images, and so much more. I may or I may not take a break or two during this episode, but I promise that none of them will be longer than 22 seconds. Finally, if you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us, write a review, share us with your parents, and talk us up around the water cooler with your friends. So grab a beverage, sit back, and enjoy the op. Thanks for listening. Good luck out, nice and quiet, and let's roll. Victor, 30 echo takes him. Never. You are. Camera set. Camera set. Action. And action. Hello, and welcome back to the op podcast, the podcast where we talk about operating and the art of visual storytelling. I am Dave Kamaydi's, and I'm coming to you from the lovely, high-at-regency in Santa Clarita, California today, because I'm here for a week helping to teach the SOA, the StudyCam Operators Association StudyCam workshop for some great students, and we've been here for four days doing some great work. And tonight, we have an amazing opportunity. We're actually going to record a podcast live in front of the group of them and other operators who have come and listened with an amazing guest. But first, I'm going to segue a little bit. Dear podcast listeners, you've listened to the podcast quite a bit since I started about a year and a half ago, I think, and I think I've got 70 to 80 podcasts out. And it wasn't always so great. And I'm going to tell you why or not why, how that happened. I interviewed my guest tonight, who's a fantastic person, I'll introduce in a second, as the first person. And he was amazing, and I was not so amazing. And when I listened to it back, I had questions that I had written on a piece of paper without a red straight to the thing, and there were things like, so how long have you been a StudyCam operator? And I listened to it, and I thought, I can't put this out, because it does not do justice to our guests tonight. So we're doing it again today as a very special podcast. I am sitting here next to the great legendary, fantastic operator and really cool person, David Emmerich. That's cool. Thank you. [Applause] Who is an operator who's done a ton of stuff, not only these things, but these are some of them. Bad times at the L Royale, which a lot of people didn't see, but they should see, because it is a phenomenal looking movie. Avatar, which I think is a movie. Catch me if you can, the majestic, the green mile, Conair, Nixon, Seven, cool runnings, and of course, the movie that everybody knows you for, Jason goes to hell the final Friday, which probably was not the final Friday the 13th movie, but whatever. It was nominated for an "Octurnal Animals" for an SOC Award, "Operative Year." He received an SOC Technical Award for creating the Pro StudyCam system with a couple of other folks who will probably come up in this podcast. He inexplicably got a Lifetime Achievement Award from the SOC as well, which I guess is probably deserved. So David, thank you for being here tonight. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Do you remember that first podcast? I do, and I'm wondering why you can't just redo your part and edit it in all my answers. That's right. I tried. It was absolutely horrible. Now, here's the real question that most people also don't know. Do you remember the first thing that I asked you in that podcast? I asked you to bring something. You did. What did you bring? You started off the podcast because I said to you at the very beginning, "David, you've brought something for us today. What did you bring for us?" It was very germane to what we do. It was a recipe for a casserole my mother used to make. That David explained what was it called? Great ants, Celeste. And I still have the piece of paper. Because I had this unbelievable idea. And this, by the way, I think is really good for younger operators to hear because they look at the people who have been around and the stuff we've done and they go, "Everything they do is just amazing." And I think this is a great example of how everything we do is not amazing. I started the podcast and I had this unbelievable idea that I was going to ask everybody to bring a recipe and start off by talking about the recipe. And then I was going to put out the SteadyCam operators or operators cookbook. Well, at this point, you'd have 130 recipes and you'd actually have a cookbook and it would probably have worked. That's right. But the only problem with it, David, is that I asked David Emmericks, who's a really good guy and a real follower to bring a recipe and he brought a recipe. And then I asked my next podcast guest Don DeVine to bring a recipe and he came in and he went, "Oh, I'm not bringing a recipe." And then I asked Bonnie Blake and she goes, "Oh, is I supposed to bring a recipe?" And then I asked John Toll and he did not bring a recipe. And I thought I could be sure again. So I will be putting out the recipe for her stuff on the website so you can have it. But thank you for playing the game at the time. So how'd you get here, David? What's your story? Wow, that's a big sweeping question. I could go with the James Mishner root and start with the dawn of the universe. Don't go back that far. Okay. I'm from a generation, I think, like you saw a movie when I was 10 that made me want to make movies. What was it? Saw Star Wars. I heard that. Yeah, exactly. So I knew from a very early age, wanted to make movies. I thought it was going to be visual effects. I was heading off in that direction. I went to NYU Film School. I'd been playing around with cameras. I made animated movies in my basement and made what you're good at. I went there from 85 to 89. So I was there 87 to 90. So we were, we crossed paths. How have we not talked about that? Where did that, I don't know. What, where did you live? Brittany Hall on 10th and Broadway. So I lived in Brittany Hall on 10th and Broadway. You did not. On the 10th floor, overlooking Grace Church and windows on the, windows in the world was on the bottom. Remember that art, the art and spiritual. Are you messing with me because you remember this from the British interview? I was on the 10th floor of Brittany Hall. Seriously? Yes. I don't think we talked about this. You were in the, how? From 86 to 89, I lived on the 10th floor of Brittany Hall. What, where? Down all the way in the end. The corner. I was 10.0.5 all the way on the front part. And you know who lived across the hall for us was the guys who did. Reno Nevel. What was it? Yeah. Yeah. Who did I was in the Reno and the state? Tom. Tom. I actually don't know who lived there because like Thomas Lenin was there and, and, uh, Marino, uh, uh, uh, Camerino. And, you know, interestingly enough, my roommate was the guy who directed the Friday the 13th Jason goes to Hell movie, which is holy crap. So we probably really like passed each other in the hallway. That's bizarre. How have we never talked about it? I have no idea. Oh. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Good. All right. So there you go. That's really bizarre. All right. Well, okay. So you want to end while you, which I've heard of. Yeah. Adam Sandler was on our floor. Yeah. It was on the flight. I didn't. No, I think he was above us. He might have been. He might have been. He might have been. I was on 10 for like one or two years. I might have been on another. And I remember there's a big thing when Adam Sandler was on the Cosby show is like one of theos friends and there were like things in the downstairs were like Adam makes it into the Cosby's living room this week and everybody would go down and watch it or way. Okay. Do you remember? Did you, uh, ever have an experience where you showed up and there was blood streaked all the way up the 10 floor, the stairwell and all the way down the hall and on the 10 floor. I mean, just one. No, not just once. That would have been one of my roommates. Not the one who made Jason go to hell though. That would be appropriate. But college. Yeah. Anyway. Um, so you want to end while you were here? I went there for the animation program. This is fascinating for her bills. And I don't care. So, um, yeah, I went to end while you for their animation program and I realized fairly quickly that I didn't like doing animation for anybody else. I got, uh, my first paid job in the business was while I was a freshman in NYU I worked as an assistant animator on big time, the Peter Gabriel video at Broadcast Arts. Jesus. Yeah. That's cool. And it was great. Which is your first celebrity I ever got to see you. You got to work at Peter Gabriel. Yeah. Well, he came in and he walked around and he said hello to everybody. And he said, wow. That's how you remember. For a celebrity. I remember even cooler. Jesus. All right. Um, so, you know, I was making 6.50 an hour and thought I'd hit the big time myself. Yeah. Wow. This is cool. $650. Yeah. I realized, however, that everything I thought I wanted to do was going to be done with computers by the time I graduated. And that did not excite me. Wait, so big time was like Peter was planning the floor and moving through. That was a snow. That was a sledgehammer. Yeah. That was the claymation one. That's right. Big time was the not quite as cool second. Yeah. Yeah. That was cool, actually. But anyway. So that wasn't the dream. But I'd been, you know, in the, the filmmaking classes we had, I really enjoyed running around with the camera. Yeah. And we had a wheelchair we used as a dolly and, you know, all the tricks. I even, I knew what a steady cam was. Yeah. I'd never tried one on, but I'd seen footage of it. I'd seen what it shot and I was curious about it. And I think it was 1986 beginning in my sophomore year. I got to try one on at the Simpty Trade Convention at the Jacob, Jacob K. Of the Javits. The Javits Center. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And now, and I didn't want to take it off. I loved, I was like, wow, this, so I wanted to know more about that. And I had a video production class. Teacher named Michael Yip. Don't know if, I mean, we know some of the same teachers. Don't remember. I don't remember. Okay. You can cut that part out. I'm going to cut most of the time. You're going to cut most of the time. Yeah, exactly. So I said, we had to do an interview project. We had to interview someone. And I said, I'm interested in the steady cam. I should interview a steady cam operator. He handed me American cinematographer. I opened it up inside Front Cover is Ted Churchill. Because he took out the inside Front Cover that magazine for like a year straight. It was like the classic him sitting draped over there. That one or the vest, I can't remember which he had. He had a couple pretty famous ads. For anybody who doesn't know what that is, I will put on the David's webpage on the op for this podcast, Some of Ted's ads which were iconic. Yeah, he was one of the first people who advertised for Stadycam operators. In the industry, in our world, yes. In our world, we kind of say Garrett invented Stadycam and Ted invented the Stadycam operator. Yeah, and it's true. And I'll also post a day in the life of the Stadycam operator, which is pretty funny that he made. So, there was this phone number right there on the inside Front Cover American cinematographer. So I said, "All right, so I called him up." And said, "I'm interested in Stadycam. I'd love to interview." And he said, "Okay." So, three nights later, I was there with two buddies of mine. We interviewed him for a couple of hours. I've still got the footage. I never actually finished cutting it together. Oh, we got to get that done. Yeah. Okay. It's a work of art. Was he just like, come on in, let me tell you everything. And Ted liked to talk about himself, so. Well, not only that, he said the whole thing up. He lit it. He told me what if I put the camera. It's great. My favorite part, what's funny is I had to cut something together for the class. And I did, but it wasn't great because I looking at it as an adult now, I go, "Oh, I cut out all the most interesting stuff." Yeah. Because the interesting stuff is where Ted goes, "Zoom in here. I need you to cut in." Zoom in some tight like this. No, just above the eyebrows. That's better. Hands off. Okay. Now, I'm going to tell you something really intense and you're going to want to use it. You're usually totally overwhelmed. Oh, absolutely. Because he was a huge person. I don't know what the hell I was. Yeah. And yes, he was quite the personality. And he took over the whole thing and it's awesome. That's awesome. It's great. I was hooked and he told me, if you're really interested in pursuing this, join me Wall Street 5 a.m. and Monday morning, whatever it is, something like that. And I'm doing a commercial and you can see what the deal is. And it was February, so I think it was five degrees outside of New York City in February. Yeah. I remember someone kicking a coffee over right next to his stand and it froze right away. I was wearing the clothes that I had worn in Wisconsin that I thought kept me warm when I walked to high school and back and I didn't realize that people in the film industry are too stupid to come in out of the cold. So my first lesson in camera work from Ted was about layering and Gore-Tex and, you know, long underwear. Yeah. Okay. Cool. And what did you just hang out and watch him or what? I hung out and watched. The very first time I ever picked up the stand form, I managed to get it between his legs and almost tripped him and almost like flat on his face wearing the rig. And he shot me a look of death. And I thought, "All right, I'm done. That's it. I've already ruined my career." Yeah. But the AD was screaming, "Get over here, get over here." So, you know, he was distracted and fortunately forgot that moment. All right. I've remembered it ever since. But I saw what he did and thought, "This is what I want to do. I'm going to pursue this." Yeah. And he taught me, you know, I spent three years as a apprentice. He taught me not just how to operate the rig. I'd go to his place, put the rig on and run around and you'd teach me how to do it. That's amazing. But he also taught me how to survive set politics. We'd show up on a set and he'd say, "Oh, these grips hate me. I'm supposed to do a walk off the Titan. They've set it up so that it's not going to work. Watch I'm going to get fired before the end of the night." And he was right. He did. He got fired. And I watched the whole thing happen. And I was like, "Oh, there's a lot of lessons here." Did he have his pipe in the whole time? Not always. One of my jobs was to run down to the corner and get him some more palmalls to stuff into his pipe. The pipe was a famous part of Teddy. And so how was he as a teacher? Was he like, "Oh, he's a hard core?" Not really. He had drills that he thought would make me better technically, but it was more like if you watch Ted's work, it's not as precise as someone like Larry Maconkey. It was also a different time. The game was different. But Larry was doing some spooky good stuff. Ted was more about the storytelling, whether it was with the camera or himself. He was a great teacher and his assistants were really good teachers. Bobby Brown was one of his assistants at the time. Tommy had a load of cameras, things like that. I'd run around with magazine cases and then. And you're 18? What do you have? 18? 19. And then they'd say, "Quick, put everything down and go hide because you knew NREP's coming and you can't be here." So, I was kind of the way I learned what it was I wanted to do and I ended up, I think it was my senior year, I actually bought a rig. I used Model 2 from a grip in New York and Ted helped me put it together and make it work because none of it. That was of course. No, of course. And he got me my first jobs. That's cool. And I started working my way up from that and it was student films. I was running up and down the tenth floor. I don't know how I didn't know that. With a steady camera. Literally, I was probably sitting down watching Twin Peas going. There's something going on outside I should look at. No, I want to watch Twin Peas. That's amazing. Do I ever tell you my Ted story, my one and only Ted story? No, no. Which I treasure. Hi, saw him at. What did he used to be called? Now it's a synagogue, but it was Shobiz Expo. Was it called Shobiz Expo? Yeah, that was the thing. So Shobiz Expo and I'm walking around and there's the movie cam both and Ted's there being Ted and he's standing there and I really see what he was. I think I just turned 12, maybe I was 13 and I went up and I went, "Mr. Georgian, I'm Dave Kamai, he's a steady cam operator and he kind of looked me up and done it again." And I talked, I was like, "I'm a real fan of yours and I love your work or whatever." And as I was talking to him, I realized that he had completely disengaged from me and was going like that and just turned and walked away and started chatting up these two women who were walking by. And I just sort of slunk away and that was it. And I'm actually so happy that that is my one interaction with Ted because of what I know of him, that was very much like, "Yeah, this is not of interest, that's of it and I'm going that." Yeah, that's very on-brand. Yeah, absolutely. And I thought that was kind of great. I was like, "Great, I have a story and I can go." But so you're just screwing up student films and music videos and stuff like that, right? Music videos, what is this? What is this 1990? 1989. So you're like sort of the beginning of the second wave of the second camera? Exactly, sort of second generation. Okay. And I bumped into Jimmy Murrow in Washington Square Park. He was shooting something and I ended up doing slates for them. It's important to point out to everybody that this is pre-internet. So the only thing you knew was stuff you read and talked to people. Exactly. Or behind the scenes things, if you rarely saw something and be like, "Oh, what's that?" Or, you know, I saw aliens and that's where you saw the steady camoron in the house. Guns floating on these arms. You're like, "That's really cool." And Vesquez can run around. I can run around with it. Exactly. So, meeting Jimmy was great. He helped teach me stuff. Music videos, for some reason, I ended up doing a lot of rap videos. Everybody did. Right. That's what was going on. I did four every weekend for "Effor and Rocks." And Maddie Liberty was the DP. Okay. And we were not, we were not who we are now. That's for sure. Definitely not. It was great. It was great. It was great. It was great. It was great. It was great. It was great. And that's where you start. And then, I think the first movie I did was "Hanging with the Homeboys." Awesome. And so that was shot in the South Bronx. I spent most of my time working in South Bronx Harlem, better for Stuyves. Well, when you said the first movie you did, you're just doing a steady cam, right? Yes. This is back when steady cam, you're called in just to do those shots specifically, the hired gun. Do the steady cam shot. And when you were just going into doing steady cam, how did you learn, I mean, who taught you how to operate? I'm not saying operate steady cam. Right. Like Ted taught you how to operate steady cam. Who taught you about headroom and about set it a kid and about, you know, I'll Ted taught you some set it a kid. But like, all that. I'd been making student films. So I guess between the photography I'd started doing as a kid, the movies I made as a kid with my super eight camera. Yeah. And then student films, like when I was at NYU, I just shot as many student films as a code. Okay. So I was like, as a steady cam operator, no, I was before I had the steady cam. Oh, it was a deep, just as a DP. Oh, wow. Okay. And so I wonder if I worked on it. I developed, you develop an ability. Okay. If you're going to be a steady cam operator, you need a good ability to compose on the fly. Yeah. So what makes a good looking picture? I learned a lot of that watching movies. I did a whole presentation for the SOC during COVID, which was what inspired you to do what you do. One of the things that really got me, there was a revival theater near my house in Milwaukee where I grew up. And they showed old movies. They showed double features, triple features. You could make requests. So I got to see all the old classic films on the big screen, Lawrence Veravia Bridge on the River Quai Patton, Dr. Strange, like 2000, seven samurai. You know, I saw all those movies on the big screen. And that taught me the language of film. That's so cool. So you're going in and you're going, I'm going to make this, I'm going to make the home boys look like Virgin River Quai or whatever. I guess even though I think that was a, I can't remember if it was 185 or 240, what a aspect ratio it was, but I always just felt like I had a natural ability to put people in the right place in the frame. So, but learning to operate a regular camera or wheels or a remote head or something like that's completely different. Well, that was my next question. Yeah. Like, how do you get to that? So there's a whole progression of things that happened. I came in as a generation of operators that. with StadyCam that initially was just hired to the StadyCam shops. But you'd sit around and set and you'd watch the other operators do their thing. I remember the main thing for me was like they would not, they didn't want to give us information. Oh, they didn't want to have anything in there. Oh, no. I was the young up and he kid making more money than them and he hated it. Exactly. And so you were standing in the back going like, what are they doing over there? Yeah, exactly. So I didn't know what the parts were of a dolly, what the options were to take a Fisher 10 and deck it out for walking around it or any of that stuff. But the way things progressed, we worked our way up through the business as they weed because it was a sort of a group of operators who were friends and there weren't anywhere near as many back then. Like an LAA when I moved, when I finally got the LAA from New York, there were 20 of us. Seriously. So you're hired to do the StadyCam shop and you pay as much attention as you can't. That morphed into, eventually they wanted to be camera operator who could do StadyCam and they wanted it around all the time. So you're usually on the long lens not moving around too much and so you get good at the telephoto stuff. You remember the first movie you got called for it for that? The first one, I did a couple low budget things, I call them Kung Fu Ninja Vampire Cyborg in the desert movies because that's what the story was. Lance Hendrix and playing a cyborg who sucked blood out of people with his giant robot arm. Fantastic stuff. So, and you remember five weeks, did you go in and you were just like, I don't know what I'm doing. I was a StadyCam operator. Yeah. The DP was the A operator. Uh-huh. So no one was watching. But it was mostly StadyCam. Okay. So I was running around all the time doing that stuff and every now and then I'd end up on a shot long lens or something or maybe on a wheel shot just doing a gear head shot. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I was going to say, did you go on and practice stuff before? I didn't really do it. I ended up getting, once I got in the union, the first action movie I got because it's my early movies, it's sort of all action stuff. So the first action movie I got was um, thanks to a DP named Taylor Vanessand who took a chance on a young kid who didn't know what the heck he was doing. And it was a Steven Segal movie called "On Deadly Ground". I remember, wait, I remember you were in some ad for something that was like. Oh yeah, I was an ad for the Alaska State Film Commission. Alaska State Film Commission, I remember looking because I was wearing a t-shirt standing on a glacier. And it said, you don't have to freeze your snowballs off the sheet. That's right. Yeah. So Steven Segal's a nice guy to wear. Oh, yeah, just fantastic. He was like, he was hanging out a lot, go out for dinner and whatnot. But some interesting things happened on that movie and one of them was, Teo got fired. Oh. Politics. Yes. Yes. Great guy didn't deserve to be fired in the least. And he actually said to me, I think it's good for your career to stay here. I think you should stay. Martin Shere was the operator he went with Teo because they were. Oh, Martin is great. And I learned a lot from him. Oh yeah. And they both gave me their blessings and said, you should stay and keep doing this because it's going to be good for you. That's amazing. But the new DP who came in said, get rid of all these rubberheads. We're going to be using American stuff for years and gear heads. And we're doing suddenly, I don't know what I'm doing and I'm shooting fight scenes with a gear head. Oh. Yeah. And being to be camera on the longer lens. So it was trial by fire. But the DP, you took a liking to me and helped me. That's great. And so I basically learned how to use a gear head by doing that movie. Wow. That's amazing. And then for years you work as the B camera steady cam guy. That was sort of a thing that happened. There were a whole bunch of us who worked our way up that way until we had enough experience. It's time to do the A camera. And what was your first A camera job? The Green Mile. Jesus. Yeah. Exactly. Wow. I was a very, very fortunate kid. No pressure there. And I think I'd just turn 30 or something like that. Oh my God. Yeah. I was very, very fortunate. It was a fantastic experience. I got a lot of stories from that one because that was also, it was a really good learning environment. Well, so here's my question. I mean, I've done only a couple days with Tom Hanks, but he's a very nice guy. So at least you've got that going. But you're suddenly thrust into the A camera position. And it's much more than operating. It's politics and all that stuff. How was the whole different beast? How is it working on, and also Green Mile was after Shawshank, right? Yes. So Frank Daribont was Frank Daribont. Yeah. And he was a big Frank was great. This is a big show. But I mean, there's a lot on you. So how does that, how does that political game work? And how do you mentally deal with that? Looking back on it, I learned so much on that movie. First of all, it was, it was a really magnanimous of David Tatters, all the DP to actually hire me to do it. You think you were ready for it? Just barely. Okay. Yeah. The grip department did not. You want to elaborate on that? Yeah. So we had some trouble. This was during the time when it was, let's say, it was a Fisherton with the, the troughs. Okay. So that's a trolley with the trough wheels. Yeah. And it was when they were experimenting with the right compound to use for those wheels. Okay. They hadn't found it yet. Okay. We are having flat spots. Frank wanted to do a lot of shots where he sat still for a long time. And then started pushing it. So for anybody who knows the wheels get sort of dead spots and then you get, what the dolly, the, and if the focus pullers on it and the operators on it, you're looking at what 600 seven or seven of the stuff. So the wheels would go flat and you start pushing in. And the next time the flat spot comes around, the camera goes bump, bump, good operators can take that out, but you probably, I wasn't there yet. It's okay. So you'll get there, David. I think it was literally day one doing a push in on time, hangs on a 75 millimeter lens spherical. So that's actually on the longish side. Yeah. And you could see the bumps. And it's like, okay, we got to change some. So we're on track, which should be the smoothest way to do it. Yeah. Well, let's just come off the troughs and go on the Fisher 10 wheels right on the track. Yeah. Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. All right. Let's come off of that and go on planks. You said this day one. Yeah. Oh, bump, bump, bump, bump. I'm seeing the bumps. Now not everyone on the monitor is seeing it back then. People are looking a little black and white night and this is worth pointing out. Yeah. You couldn't see much on the monitor. You've got the, actually, there was a point. Do you remember the point where they used to say to the operator, how was that? Yeah. Our input actually mattered. Exactly. And now I don't know about you, but I look back and go, how was that? There was a better than we could see it. The slogan for the SOC, the Society of Camera Operators, used to be, we see it first. And once it went to digital, my proposal was we changed it to we see it worse. It can't tell. I thought was we see it also. But anyway, yes. Yeah. Yeah. You'd be pushing in and you hear someone in a booth going soft. It's soft. Exactly. Yeah. I can't tell. I know. But anyway, so you're pushing in and we're having all these problems with bumps. Anyway, the Dolly Grip thinks I'm out of my mind. The key grips think I'm out of my mind. So anyway, pressure is building up. What's up with this kid? In the middle of one of the push in, Tom actually stopped in the middle of the take, looked into the lens and said, Dave, how old are you? Oh my God. And I kind of looked around the IPs. I was like, oh, old enough. I don't know how to answer this. I just got to eyed behind the camera. Oh God. And so it was being an interesting day. And this next story can get a little long. So I'll try to cut it short. If you don't, I'll cut it short after we can go ahead. You helped me. Yes. So on that day, we're doing a scene in the prison guard's office. And we've done the wide master shot. All the prison guards come in and they're talking about John coffee, the character who's, you know, the center of all the attention played by Michael Clark Duncan. Yeah. Love that man. So sad he's gone. Okay. We'll cut that out too. So we've done the master of everyone coming in and Tom sits down at his desk. Dave Morris comes in, sits at a chair off to the side and you talk, talk, talk. Now it's time to do the coverage. We're back on our 75. So the first shot we're doing is Dave Morris. We're panning him in, sitting him down. Dave Morris is nine and a half feet tall. Yep. Great guy. Fantastic actor. I had no idea what he was going to do from one take to the next. Okay. He came in and he dropped like a rock. And it lose amount of my frame till down. And one, one, most people who don't operate know if you're nine and a half feet tall, it means you have a six and a half foot torso so that when you sit down, you move eight and a half feet forwards. Oh, yeah. He's all over the place. He's very hard. Yeah. When you've got a pretty tight, pretty tight frame and green mile is shot very tight. It's a lot of telephoto closeups. So I blow the first take and I hear a frank back at the monitor. You okay, Dave? I'll get it on the next one. Like you lose it. You lose his head completely or you lose him a little bit out of frame and chop him and then catch up with him and go sit down. That's a tough thing. I'm on a gear head. Next take, he comes in. I think he's going to go. It looks like he's going. So I jumped the gun. Yeah. Okay. And then he goes and I miss him again. Oh, God. I think I blew three takes in a row before time hangs off to my left who's doing off camera dialogue. He says, hmm, it would appear our young operator has not finished his correspondence course yet. Oh, my God. And my heart rate goes up. My temperature goes up. My focus puller, Heather Page looks at me with kind of wide eyes and goes, oh, that's not good. Okay. So I took Dave Morris around the side behind the set and was like, I need some help. You're doing something different every take and I get it. I don't want to impinge on your performance, but I'm not getting it. And so if you don't give me some kind of consistency, let me know what you're going to do. We're not going to get that performance. So just give me what's going to happen. So I'll be more consistent. He was very nice. It was cool. Oh, it's very cool about it. And then totally forgot it. Did something completely different. And I believe the next take. Yeah. There you go. So my blood pressure is going through the roof. Eventually, I got it. Two or three takes. We get it and we move on. But so now it's time to shoot Tom's close up. Oh my God. I should jump back in time to one of the jobs I did with Ted Churchill where I was his apprentice. It was a movie called Punchline, starring Tom Hanks. The A-camera operator was fired that day because he couldn't do a sit-down. You were the B-camera study camera? No, I was in the apprentice. You were the apprentice. I was just the apprentice. I was watching and the guy had just moved up to A-camera operator. Tom Hanks had to come in and sit down at a stool at the diner. And the guy kept blowing the tape. So you've seen this movie before. And the guy got fired. Yeah, exactly. So this is all going through my head. So it's time to pan Tom in and sit him down at the desk. And this is an audio medium so I can't really demonstrate what he did. But I can try and tell you. He came in, leaned way to his left, leaned way to his right, jumped up on his toes and dropped like a rock. But I was sort of so ready for something like that to happen that I was bam-neeled it. You could never use it. It was a terrible shot. Because he was doing something ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just kept my head down. I didn't even look at him and I heard Frank go, "You okay there Dave?" I go, "Yep, got it." Next take. Tom comes in and just bam, drops like a rock. Totally different. Uh-huh. And I got it. Next take. He comes in, stops halfway down, pops back up again, drops again. So he's totally showing with this. Totally showing with this. Absolutely. So after three takes on a row of that, there's this long pause and he says, "Okay." It would appear a young camera operator has completed his course, "On and Scores." And we can get on with making the movie. Wow. But from that day forward, he was my best friend. Would do anything necessary for camera. He called it camera logic. Sure. You know, if it made sense through the camera, he would do it. And there are scenes in that movie where he has tears pouring down his face. And Michael Duggan has his hand, he's got grip by the collar and he's pulling him against the bars. And the whole time Tom is doing it with a groucho crouch walk because there was a horizontal bar at his eye level in the jail cell. And his just going, "Where does it have to be?" Yeah, all right. Does it work like this? We'll do it like this. Wow. And I did a couple other movies with him afterwards too, but he was great after that. That was amazing. That was my trial by fire and I managed to get through it. It was a hell of a day though. Wow. I'm like sweating listening to that. That's insane. So let me ask you a question. Maybe you don't know this because this was such a long time ago for people who are younger getting into the business or moving up. How do you take that desire to run out of the room crying and call your mother? And put it in a box and do the next take. I mean, because the thing is it seems like I just be like, "Oh, clearly I can't do this." And then it's Tom and I was right. It's got to be due to steps because everybody who started somewhere had problems and solved them. Okay. So the problems I had on the Kung Fu vampire ninja cyborg in the desert movies led me to the ability to solve problems on something else, you know, the TD show or the stuff that's built up to that point. Yeah, it's all experience. And by the time I even though I was young, I had been doing steady cam and moving cameras around for a long time. And I knew where the camera should be. I knew what I wanted to do. I just didn't always know how to do it. I was really glad on, in many cases, more experienced dolly grips to help me figure out how to do what it was that needed to be done. So when you first came in and you're on A camera and you're doing big dolly shots, do you cop to the dolly grip and go, "Look, you've been doing this forever. I don't know." I absolutely did that. When I started on, what was it? I was B camera operator on Armageddon in Brad Ray was my dolly grip. Oh my gosh. And he's one of the best. He's one of the best. Yeah. I just basically said to him, "Look, I'm not going to tell you how to do this. You know more about this than I ever will. You tell me how we should set the dolly up, what makes sense, and I'll just learn from you." And he thought that was great. And he was unafended by that. Not in the least. Yeah, no. That's great. He thought that was great. In fact, he, he and Johnny Mang, another fantastic dolly grip, came out to a workshop we taught not too long ago. It's synonymous. Oh, yeah. It was out there. Okay. Yeah. And they talked about working with the operators. What do you think it's a team? Yeah. They want to solve the same problems you do. Yeah. And I actually thank Brad for teaching me how to ride a dolly when I was a young operator. That's amazing. He was very appreciative of that. For anybody who hasn't seen it, you should go check out the breakdown that David did for Armageddon where he was flying through the air and almost took Bruce Willis's head off. It's quite fascinating. I'm not going to ask you to tell that here because I want you to go see it. Yeah. So, so basically by the end of that movie, are you, are you pretty much like I am in a camera operator? I did feel that way. Yeah. I felt like I had managed to, like I said, trial by fire. Yeah. It was a long shoot. And by the end of it, I thought, okay, I've actually got a pretty good handle on this. Yeah. Not that I've learned everything or know everything. That would be really boring. I, I still learned something on every job. There's always somebody who's got something interesting to show you. But as my confidence developed, you get more and more comfortable doing it. Yeah. You crystal laugh about this. Chris is in the audience sitting right over there, but I say this at every workshop we do. It's when I like to talk about distilling the operator's job down to its most, the, the barest element of what it is we do. Yeah. And it's basically putting the camera in the right place at the right time. That's very good. That's it. I like it. That's what you got to do. Yeah. It's just figuring out how to do it. How do you do it? Yeah. And you've got to either maybe you're a steady chem operator and you're pretty much responsible for doing it yourself. It appeals to the control freak and those of us that like to do it. I like to do it. And I am a control freak. But I also love doing it with a technocrane or a dolly when you've got a talented dolly group doing a multi-point move on a dance floor. Yeah. You know, it's, it's fantastic and the teamwork that goes into figuring that all out. That is basically your job and you can expand that to whether you're using a drone, helicopter, 50 seconds. It's all the same. Right. It's just moving. Yeah. You're just trying to figure out how to tell the story by putting the camera in the right place. I like that. You also told me earlier when we were talking about how you described steady chem. What did I say? The pizza. Oh, that was Chris. Chris Harkoff came on. Again, Chris Harkoff. Yeah. But just read steady chem. Imagine you have a giant silver weighter's tray strapped to your waist sticking out with a bowling ball stuck in the middle of it. You got to run around and set with that and keep that bowling ball right there in the middle. It's pretty accurate. Yeah. If you lean forward, it's going to fall off the front. I like it. I like it a lot. So, so at some point you, I mean more recently you work with James Cameron on an avatar, which was a little different than what most people do. Or an avatar two and three, right? I did the live action on the first one. You did live action. And I did a lot of the virtual camera stuff on two or three. It's only for the virtual camera because most people don't know anything. I mean, or would they, you know, have never done anything like that. What's that like? It's not all that interesting. It really isn't. Yeah. Let's see. How to make this sound more interesting than it is. No, you don't have to. But I mean, but you were telling me that you guys go and capture like everything. And then after the fact you go on a computer and basically do technocrane shots. Okay, I'll try and distill it down as short as I can. So you've got the performance capture phase where all the actors go in and they're funny little skin tight suits with pink balls all over the place. And the performance is captured in the computer. There's reference photography that's done so that you can see what the actors actually did. But there's no point of view applied to the scene yet. It's all captured in a computer and exists there in its entirety. Yeah, you can pan around it and look at it from any point of view. Zoom into it. Zoom out. Yeah. So once that is once that first performance capture phase is done, then you move on to applying cameras to it. There's actually a lot of work that goes on in between those two. I'll just do because Jim will do something like I liked his performance and take three. But I liked his arm motion and take five. So stitch those together. Good God. So there's a lot of compiling that goes on before. Yeah, before you get back in there. So, and then it's actually mostly Jim who does the cameras for the most part. I will, you know, when they're doing the performance capture, I would sit there with a virtual camera and apply a point of view to the scene. But it's really just a reference. That's not the shot Jim plans to have in the movie. Jim will do those shots by himself. When I say by himself, I just mean it's him out on the stage. There's a hundred people with computers working behind the scenes. And he'll perform the moves with the little virtual camera, which is basically a monitor with joysticks on it and a tracking device so that the camera computer system knows where it is in space. But that thing has no mass to it to speak of. It doesn't have the weight a panoflex does or a 3D camera rig does. Sure. So after the fact, once he's picked his shots, cut stuff together, I would get handed the shots and he would say, make that look like a handheld shot. Make it look like a steady cam shot. Make it look like hand-hilled from a helicopter. So how do you do that? A lot of it was actually just reanimating the move. But I mean, you actually like operating? Nope. And I know that a lot of movies have been done that way, like Jungle Book. The stuff Spielberg did when he did BFG and things like that. I know Mitch Dubin, they operated with actual camera equipment on stage. And so are you sitting down in front of a computer and doing it? Wow. Sometimes I've got wheels and I can re-operate shots with wheels if. if I really wanna do it that way, but quite often it was just manipulating the existing moves. - That does sound unbelievably boring. (laughing) But you know what? It was a great job that I could do remotely from my home during COVID. - Oh, that's true. How many years did you do that far? - Two. (laughing) Okay, I wanna ask you about some specific movies now. - Okay. - Bad times at the L-Rail. - That was a really fun shoot. - Most people have not seen this. I think it's on Netflix or-- - It probably is. - It didn't get, I don't know if it was just not promoted well. It just didn't make a big splash. - It's a really good movie and I'll tell you more importantly, it's visually just gorgeous. Like the work you did in that movie is so unbelievable. - Oh, thank you very much. The reason the movie looks so good, it starts at the top with Drew Godder, the director. Shamism Garvey's the DP, fabulously talented man. And then Martin West designed these amazing sets. - Amazing. - And I don't know if you've seen the movie, but the entire hotel, the lobby interior, many of the rooms and the parking lot outside where it rains is all built in a sound stage. - That's nuts. - And it just looks great. And they had some really imaginative things they wanted to do. And I was lucky enough to have Ryan Monroe as my Dolly grip. And he's, you know, one of the best. - There's one really cool Dolly shut that's like, is it behind the walls that goes - Yeah, looking through the windows. - I thought that was so fun. - Five minutes long. - Yeah, it's like five minutes long and it totally works. Like you would think it wouldn't. And it doesn't, after a while, you're like, is this still going, but it's so fascinating. - Drew wrote, they designed the set for that shot. - Seriously. - And Drew wrote, yeah. They actually had that shot plotted out before they'd even hired the DP. - Wow. - They had it, they sent me a video that was, they were gonna do it on a technology. So they sent me a video of this technology shot doing all this fancy stuff. And they were gonna do the whole shot motion control. Which would have meant the actors in all those rooms had to be locked into the exact same position - Exactly. - Every take. And after about a week of working on the movie, when we knew this shot was coming up, Shamist looked at what Ryan, the Dolly group, was able to do and what I was doing with them. And he said, "These guys can just do it." - That's amazing. - And so it was a Pee-Wee, it was a Pee-Wee Dolly with a lever head on it. And Ryan, that shot is really Ryan's masterpiece. - It's kind of all, it's all done. - It's nothing against you. - Oh no, absolutely. I had the easy job on that. - Yeah, you should see this movie. It's really good. - Ryan has actually headed towards Steadycam. I don't know how he's doing, but I know he took one of the workshops at Chris Arrows' place. - Oh, no way. - Well, he's probably really good at this. - I think so, he also does all of, he might even mean Christopher Nolan's contract. He does all the Nolan stuff. - That's not bad. Catch me if you can. - That was the one time I was perfectly happy to go back to doing B-camera after I had moved up to A-camera because who doesn't want to do a Steven Spielberg movie? Mitch Dubin asked me to do that. Chris had been, Chris Arrowf had been doing the previous Spielberg movies and he was doing something else. So my name got put in the hat. And I got, it was a great experience. I had a lot of fun on that one. I think it was only 47 days of shooting. - It seemed like it was just like a really bare bones movie. It was just back to storytelling, which is why I loved it. - I mean, that even included going to New York, Montreal, Quebec. - That's amazing. And something like three locations a day in Los Angeles. - When you're working with Spielberg, is it, I mean, are you amazed by everything? Are you guys just sort of normal and just good? You know what I mean? I mean, as you come down to this, like I want to be down here and you're like, that's genius. Or is it just like really normal? - I think his genius lies in his ability to block a scene better than anybody else. - He had a whole scene, but it's no question about that. And so here's my question about that is, is he coming in with it? Or is he's coming in and he's watching the actors and figuring it out on the fly? Because he's so good. - I believe he does both. - Yeah. He would come in in the morning and he would drive in and big back then it was the Ford excursion. He had a huge one that they'd drive him to work and they had a big screen TV in the back of it. And he'd watch movies on his way to the set. And he'd get out of the vehicle and say, I was just watching Bridge on the Riverquay. We need more wide shots. We're doing everything today. It's gonna be wide, wide, wide. And we would. - We'd do a bunch of wide shots for the day. - Oh, that's so cool. - But he also would just get to the set, look around and work things out. He'd get there before everybody. I learned that you needed to be there early. He'd get there early and line things up. And he doesn't waste time. He shoots what he needs. He's the boss. No one's gonna tell him what to do. So he shoots the coverage he needs. He doesn't waste time shooting a scene from every different angle, which is what slows a lot of productions down. - Yeah. - So it was an interesting thing to watch and learn from because it is a different way of making movies. He has it down and it is. - That's pretty cool. - He's really good at it. - By that point, you'd been an A-camera operator for years and years, right? - Yeah. - Were you nervous going into that? - Yeah, probably, but I don't remember it that way. - Okay. - Do you still get nervous when you start a job? - I don't. Can you tell me you do? (laughing) - I think what it is is, once I gained enough experience and it gave me confidence, it gave me the ability to fail. - What do you mean? - And not worry about it. If I screw something up, I can stand up and go, "Wow, screw that up." - It didn't work at all. - Yeah. - But it's weird when you get to that point, right? There's a whole freedom that you go, like I should have done this a long time ago. - Absolutely. The easiest way to take pressure off a situation when someone a director jumps up and goes, "Oh, this is work, what I'm about to say." Yeah, I screwed that up. I won't do that next time. I've got to fix for it, watch this, see if this works. But it takes a lot of time and experience to get to that point. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I've been working for over plenty of years where I was thinking, "Oh God, I hope they don't discover "that I don't know what the hell I'm doing." - Because I'm fostered as a real friend. - It's a real thing. - Yeah, absolutely. - Absolutely. - Yeah, no, I mean, they're definitely, yeah, there are times where I get called for stuff and I'm still like, "Why are they calling me?" - The times I was nervous were the first time I had to do a technocrane shot. - Oh yeah. - And I hadn't done, you know, I did play it around with a little bit, but to actually do a big coordinated technocrane shot, I hadn't. There weren't workshops where you could go and learn how to do that kind of stuff. And I would ask, "A operators, how did you learn "how to do this?" And the story was invariably, you get dumped on it and you have to come up with the shot. You have to make it work. - And do you remember, did you basically just rely on your dollar grip and the guy in the pickle and go just put the camera where it needs to be or were you able to actually. - I've got pretty good. - My brain works with geometry and spatial things really well. I can see where a crane needs to go. It's always been really good at that. But yes, in the beginning, it's. - My thing was always, and I think it's because, either we're study cam operators because we have this ability or we have this ability because we became study cam operators, but I can visualize cameras moving through. - Exactly. - But my thing was like, but there's this thing attached to it that I'm not quite sure where it should go or whatever. So I would always sort of be asked and go, "I think it should go over there." But what do you think? - It's always a discussion with the key grip, the dollar grip, the DP figuring out where it should go. But every now and then, there's been a situations where you can't kind of gone, guys, you know, that fancy stuff, you can just put the base there and be able to reach there, there, there, there, there. It's a 50 footer. - It's like, "Oh, that works." - That works. - Yeah, that's always. - But the other things, you know, the opposite happens. Sometimes you have an idea for something and you think, "God, it's gotta be this way." And the dollar grip might go, "Oh, dude, there's a much simpler way to do this." Oh, great. So you've worked with a ton of big name actors, obviously. You mentioned one of them who ended up liking you, but it could've gone a different way. Any advice for younger operators on working with tough actors? Method actors, actors who aren't happy with you? Treat them like people, okay. They are not, they're not gods. And they usually want to be related to as people. That's actually what I find more than anything. - Yeah. - Is like, actually most of them want you to treat them like. - The one that got me was, I was doing the one Tony Scott movie I got to do. - Oh, wow. - Oh, it was great. - His bad one, his really, really bad. - The fan. (laughing) - Well, he's stuck at the work with Tony Scott. - I got, you know what? - Oh, I know the great story. - This is a great story. (laughing) - We were on an insert car in San Francisco. We were towing a Humvee, which was already, just a Humvee alone was heavier than the weight the trailer could carry. We had two dollies on it, because we had one on the front and one moving on the side. And rain towers, because we were actually making rain on the move while we drove around. So the thing was way overloaded. And we actually had two insert cars to tow it, 'cause we overheat the engine on every take. So they'd swap them out. - Good Lord. The grooves in the street are actually still there from where we bottomed out, seriously. - Yeah. - But it's worth pointing out, by the way. This was probably a big budget movie. This wasn't some low-but-shooting movie. - Those were the tools they had. - People screw up all the time. It ended up working. But I was doing a shot through the window over Robert De Niro to his son who's sitting in the passenger seat. So De Niro's supposed to be driving. Actually, it's all right. That wouldn't have been the Hummer. That would have been a van. - Well now I just don't believe anything you say. - Fair enough. - Okay. - The Humvee was at Wesley Snipes' vehicle. So it's like a 10 passenger van type. Anyway, shooting across De Niro through the driver's side window to the kit. And during the takes, De Niro keeps leaning forward and blocking the kit. - So your shot's screwed. - So my shot's screwed. So after the first take, I think, all right, the direction's gonna be pretty pissed at me because this isn't working. I should do something about this. But I was nervous. It's De Niro. It's the first day I'm working with him. - Yeah, right. - What do I say to Robert De Niro? - Yeah. - So I go back to look at the monitor and Tony kind of goes, "Hey, are you gonna do something about that?" - Okay. So, Mr. De Niro, come be Bobby. All right, that's a good start. So I tell him what's going on, he says, oh, well if I lean forward and block the kid, just reach through the window and tap me on the shoulder. He's like, what? But you're Robert De Niro. (laughing) You're a little bit take. It's like, okay. 'Cause he just wants to get it. Yeah, exactly. So in the next take, we're driving around rain pouring down, scraping noises all over the place, and he leans forward and blocks the kid, and I thought, all right, I'm either going home or this is gonna work. I'm gonna reach through the window and he, tap, tap, tap. And he leans back, and he keeps shooting, and he over the course of the scene, he leans forward again, and I'm like, all right, here you go again, reach through and tap, tap, tap, tap. And he leans back and clears it, and the end of the take, he goes, cool, we get it. Is it all right? Yeah, excellent, great. Oh my God, that's great. And I thought, oh, that's how this works. He's just a guy who wants to get through the day's worst. So by the way, he realizes, obviously, it's not his shot, it's the kid's shot, right? So he doesn't hurt the shot, coming through the front of the vehicle if he's sitting back a little bit. Yeah. So that's fantastic. It was just, it was kind of a revelation. And I was a shy kid, and you gotta pull yourself out of your shell if you're gonna go up until Angelina Jolie, you're missing your mark. Yeah, absolutely. But the thing is, that's also your job. Exactly. Exactly, I'm supposed to do what? But who's this? Well, my story of that, because this podcast is really about me, I did the movie "Wetting Crashers," "Crismer Walkin'" was in it, and the first day that he did it for whatever reason, I was not, I think I had a wedding or something. I don't know what I had, but I wasn't there his first day. So I come back, you know, next day, and he's in the scene, and I had never met him. So I go up to him, and I have a thing with actors where I usually, when the time is right, I always say hello, and I introduce myself, and I'm sure you do too. And I have a thing where I usually go, just two quick questions, what do you like to be called and do you like frame sizes? And the reason I ask them that is, "Hey, it'll help me." And also, I can usually tell by their responses how we're going to be, or who they are, you know what I mean? And so I said, you know, Mr. Walkin' Dave Comites blah blah. And I wasn't here yesterday, and I said, just two quick questions, what do you like to be called, and do you like frame sizes? And he goes, "Fram size?" It's not, okay. I said, "Okay." And is it, Christopher or Mr. Walkin', and he turns around and he goes, "Flash!" (laughing) And I looked at him, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And he goes, "Flash, you can call me Flash, Dave." And I was like, "Okay." And I walked away and I'm like, "I am not calling this a nut job Flash." And I'm walking back and we do the shot and whatever. And then we do the next shot. And he's, ironically, this is maybe, think of it. He's leaning in, Ritz, Rachel McCatum's shot. And he's leaning in. And so I, you know, we finished taking it. Christopher, Mr. Walkin' Flash? Yeah, Dave. (laughing) And I was like, "Flash, would you mind leaning?" Oh, was I blocking Ritz? Yeah, absolutely. Flash, you were blocking Rachel, they're flashing. Oh yeah, I won't do that. Anything for you, Dave. He turns back and I'm thinking, this guy's categorically insane, but very cool. And everybody's looking at me and I'm like, we go, we go, "Way, way." (laughing) And the funny thing is, nobody else called him Flash. Seriously? No, no, it's not like he asked other people to call him Flash, cool. I don't know whether he was screwing with me or not, but that is the only thing that he would respond to from me. That's so funny. I mean, I walked by the trailer and the one, "Hey, Flash, hey, Dave." And it was just like, "All right, whatever." I don't know what it came from. I don't know if it was something he did to other people or just came out there, but I was like, "That's great." And he was like, "But it's just the same thing, where you're like, I can't call this guy." (laughing) And that's what he wanted me to call him from. So there you go. Back to you. So you're an established a camera operator now, you work with a lot of B camera operators. What do you expect from your B camera operator? First of all, I would never call them my B camera operator. What do you expect from my B camera operator? (laughing) - Yeah. - Stay out of my way. - No, it's all part of the team, right? We're all trying to do the same thing. So I'm happy to work with the B camera operator, but I like it when a B camera operator is creative and motivated and wants to get things on their own. But I will always talk to them to make sure they run the same page about, "Okay, do you understand the lighting?" Just, if they're already established, I'm not gonna have this conversation. But you never want the B camera operator going, "I got a great shot over here, selling it to the director when it's in flat front light." Or something like that. So I'll pay attention to what they're doing a little bit on the first day and if they've seen like they know what they're doing, I basically leave 'em alone. And if we stay out of each other's shots, great, if we're in danger of being in each other's shots, discuss, "Okay, can you shorten up your dolly track "a little there or I can shorten this move up here "a little," or something like that, work with 'em. But I rarely am talking about shots with the B camera operator. Usually that person is talking to the director and the DP. And that's, I think it's because when I was doing B camera, that's the way the people I was working with treated me. - Yeah. - Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of value in that because the reality is, is the A camera operator, you have so much going on, you have very little time for that. - Oh, absolutely. - Just don't screw up and make it better. Whatever. But you said something interesting, which actually I would say to anybody who's a B camera operator don't ever do, which is don't sell a shot to the director. - Right. - Go through the DP or go to the A camera operator and say, "Should I spet?" So this is, do not let the director know because then the director goes, "Oh, that's great." And it's like, "Yeah, it's the other side of the line." And you're just going to burn the A/Ds and you're off the show. So yeah, that's all great advice. My favorite thing, and this happens every once in a while with great B camera operators, where it's like, "I've got a study cam shot that literally is like, I'm on the helicopter and I step off and I'm coming out and then I go down the escalator and into the balls of the hotel and this huge thing and it's a nine and a half minute shot." And the B camera operator has found like a sandbag in the corner that tells the story much better than I can ever do. - Absolutely. They've worked with Sean Levy several times. And there was a movie, "My Rory A Shot" called "Real Steel." And Sean loved the B camera shots. You know, stack it up on the long lens with the Twinkly Lens and the background. And Marisa Guire was the B camera operator. And he got the nickname "Passion." 'Cause Sean was like, "He's got so much passion." "The shots are so great." And I'd go over to the monitors to see what Sean thought of the crane shot. And he'd go, "Oh, I'm sorry, "I don't know, I was looking at B camera." "It's so great." And eventually I looked on him, I said, "Look." Marisa will get you the shots you like. I will get you the shots you need. - You need. (laughing) - And the whole movie kind of went that way. - That's great. - So Sean looked at me at one point and said, "You need a nickname, what do you want?" I said, "I'm conviction." (laughing) - So we were passionate in conviction. - That's great. Actually, if for anybody who wants to see it, David did a great breakdown of a stranger thing's shot that he did for Sean Levy, right? - Yeah. - On the website. - And he actually just did a second unit on the end of "Stranger Things," which you had done like a month before with a bunch of them. And a bunch of them would be like, "Well, David wouldn't have done this this way." And like, well, you should call him back, but I'm doing it this way. But it's like your name came up quite often and very positively, so it was like, you know what? We talked about this before. What's the worst movie you've ever worked on? (laughing) - It's entirely possible that the worst movie I ever did is the best job I ever took. - Really? - Yes. It's the movie where I met my wife. - I know, you know? - Okay. - Yeah. - And the movie was? - It's called "Man of the House," starring Tommy Lee Jones. He plays a Texas Ranger who's protecting five cheerleaders from Texas University in the Witness Protection Program. - This has just like huge movie in all over it. - My wife played his partner, Texas Ranger with the big cap. You know, the cowboy hat and the gun belt and the, she said she was clothed in Nuget. (laughing) - Yeah. But, best thing that ever happened to me, and it's funny because there are movies that I've wished I could have done. I had to say "No to Conrad Hall," and that's one of those things that-- - You mean, because you were on this movie or-- - No, for other reasons, just I got a call. - I got a call. I was like, oh my God, I'm talking to Conrad Hall. - Right, right. - And he's asking me to do a movie, and I can't do it. - And, ah! - Just don't tell me it was searching for Bobby Fisher. - It wasn't. - Okay, okay. - It was American Beauty. - Oh, oh my God. - The one where he thanked his operator on stage when he got the Oscar. - Good Lord. - But, you know, there's moments where you think, oh, I really regret not being able to do that. - Yeah, right. - But. And I'm willing to bet for the most part that's gonna apply to anybody's career. I wouldn't change anything that has happened in my career because it led me to where I am now. - Right. - And I am very happy. I'm very fortunate and I'm married to the most wonderful woman in the world. And there are so many weird little branches that could have changed and I would never have met her. - Absolutely. - So, I'm very happy that I took that really horrible movie. - Yeah. - Did you guys watch it on your anniversary ever? - No, but what's funny is, the one time we did see it was when it first came out, it was in the center amadome of all places. - Oh my gosh, wow. - And we went in there and there were two other people. (laughing) And when the movie was over, when they stood up, I recognized one of them as the guy who gave the safety classes. (laughing) And he looked at me and said, what's your excuse for being on this movie? And I said, I was in the credits and so she and we got married. What's your excuse for being here? - I've got a better excuse than you. Wow. I'm gonna come back to me for a second. The first movie I ever had a credit in was at the center amadome and I may have you because it was leprechaun too. - Ooh! - Actually, sorry, that's not true. That's not true. The first movie I had a credit as a study cam operator. I had a credit in the movie Tremors, and we saw it in Connecticut, and that was a whole other thing. But as a PA, but as a study cam operator, and it went in, and it was one other person. (laughing) And I remember. - But you got to see your name on the screen, and don't know if-- - I got to see all of my horrible, horrible study cam work, and I got to see my name on the screen. And it answered a lot of questions left over from leprechaun one, which really had been bothering me. But it created a lot of questions, which meant that leprechaun 3 and 3D had to happen, so it's a plus and minus situation. But it's funny that these crappy movies that we did that were much more important to you for that one, but was important to me. We're at the center of Ramadam. - Oh, exactly. But seeing, there is a thrill. Seeing your name go up, the crawl, there's no question about it in front of everybody, and it's unbelievable. Now, I know, I've heard rumors of this happening. I don't know that it actually happens. I've heard that there are times on set where the DP and the director might not get along. Is this something that you, are you aware of this? I don't believe it. - It's a doozy. - Okay, yeah. You ever deal with it, and how do you deal with it? - Earlier in my career, I dealt with it sort of by sticking my head in the stand and just moving forward. - I used to do that too. - Because you don't have the experience. - You don't have the gravitas. You don't have the weight behind you of your career to lend you the authority to smack them in your shape. - No, it's exactly right. And you're literally like, "I respect that, but mom hires me." So I don't know what to do right now. - I had a moment on, and all name names on this one, because I don't think either of them would be bothered if I did. It was just a funny moment. Very early in my career, Bob Richardson gave me a very big break and hired me to be the B-camera Steady Cam operator on Nixon for Oliver Stone. - Oh yeah, that's right. - So there was a scene that Oliver wanted done handheld in the Oval Office with anti-opens coming in and it was gonna be frantic. And so he wanted that to be handheld. Bob operated his own A-camera as he does. So if it was handheld, it was Bob. So they said it, they did the rehearsals and Bob said, "Okay, now we'll light and figure it all out." And Oliver went out to his trailer and Bob turned to me and said, "Set up the Steady Cam." "Port of his handheld?" (laughing) "No, I don't want to carry that damn thing around all day." So you're gonna do the Steady Cam, okay. So when Oliver came back, he saw me wearing the Steady Cam and he goes, "Oh, did Bob just push that on this one?" But I'm, and he came up to me and he said, "Hmm, you know this supposed to be handheld." And I was like, "Yeah, I do." And he goes, "Um." And this was a very strange conversation. He said, "Are your peers aware that you're good at what you do?" And I was like, "I don't." He said, "Are you comfortable with your position as a Steady Cam operator?" And he said, "Yes." And he said, "Good, 'cause I want you to make this to look like the worst shittiest Steady Cam that's ever been done." "Handheld, it's gotta look like handheld, it's gotta be all messed up, and it's gotta be terrible." Oh, okay. Right, so he walks off, Bob Richardson overheard the whole thing and right before we roll camera, he comes up to me and goes, "It's gotta look smooth and steady." That's nice. He walks away. And I was like, "You can't, but. " (laughing) So what did you do? I went fast. Because we didn't know that Oliver had gone until Anthony Hopkins come blasting through the door. So Henry Terrell was my focus puller. I met him. By the way, I just heard who that whole crew was and it's like, shit, it's on the floor on that camera. Oh, absolutely. It was Gregor and Henry was your second, right? He was my focus puller for. And it was your second. Suzanne Trucks. Yeah, and she was not Clayton was on. I mean, she was like, "Shall I?" I was there. Unbelievable. So Anthony Hopkins came bursting through the door and you'll see, there's a nice buzz there 'cause Henry was like, "Oh my god!" And we're moving around the room so fast that it had a frantic energy that wasn't because I was shaking the camera. It was just like hold on. And I just kept my mouth shut and nobody said anything. And we just kept doing it and it was like, okay, that worked. Cut too much later in my career. Did a movie not too long ago where the director and DP were absolutely not on the same page. And I was wearing a headset, which I don't like wearing them during shooting, but I'd been asked, "Please wear it for this shot." So I go, "Okay." So I had the headset on and the DP is in a tent telling you what to do. And the director standing right next to me looking at the monitor telling me to do the opposite. And I know why each one of them wants to do it. The DP wants me to move one direction so that it'll be more backlight. The director wants me to move the other direction so it'll be more on the eyeline. So I understand what they're doing. They both have valid reasons. Yeah, absolutely. But they're not talking to each other. So I've got the yelling in the ear going, "No, no, no, go the other way." And eventually I just took the headset off through to cross the set. (laughing) But the study came down. So that's it. You come out of your tent, you come over here, you guys talk to each other, you work it out. I'm not doing this. And there's no way in hell I would have done that. Well, but like we said, that's because you've come to the point where I can fail. And it's okay. Exactly. And quite frankly, at that point in that movie, if they'd fired me out, it would have said, "Ah, thank you." It sort of sounds like that. (laughing) Yeah, so two good ways of dealing with that. (laughing) Politics is the best way to try first. Yeah, a talk. You want to actually have a discussion with them, ideally together, or you have to go to each one individually and say, "You guys are not on the same page, and I'm getting caught in the middle, because I may have been hired by the DP." Yep. Sometimes you're hired by the director, but I think you're often hired by the-- And neither way you work for the director. You work for the director. So if the director tells you to do something, you gotta do it. Yeah, that's just the way it works. Yeah. And what about working with the AD? First AD. I've been very fortunate, rarely had an AD that wasn't on their game, and really good at what they did. And I've almost never gotten into fights with ADs, but that does remind me, you had a question you sent me about cadences and countdowns. (laughing) The question that I was gonna ask you about, 'cause this always frustrating me, is like, "Hey, can you give me an end action?" And they're sure, and they're like, "Hey, action!" This is like-- Ready. And-- Yeah, or this is good. Yeah. Right? My favorite, it wasn't actually an AD who did this, but there are two really good, these are short. Two very good cadences or countdown screw up stories. Yeah. They both involved Michael Bay. Okay. So-- I didn't even know that-- The first one. We're doing a big crane move, 50 foot tetanacran. Moose is on the crane. Okay, moose. Moose is amazing. Moose still, by the way, listen to the podcast with him, it's incredible. Yes. So Michael is queuing the crane move, and he's saying, "Ready and crane." And we do the big move. Couple of takes. Ready and crane. Do the big move. Take four, maybe. Ready and crane, later! [LAUGHS] And of course the crane's already gone moving. Yeah. Why are you moving? I said later, and moose is-- It doesn't work that way, Michael. So-- The moose can do that. Yeah, moose can do that, exactly. And then the other one was setting off a bunch of explosives. Oh, geez. And they're supposed to go off on one. Michael's going to count three, two, one, action. And he wants the explosives to go on one. Three, two, one, action. So really pointed to the effects guy. On one, when I say one, you set everything off. Roll cameras. This is Michael. One, two, three, action. And he set them off on one. Yeah, sure. So too early, and Michael's blowing up-- Oh, it's too early. Too early. So the effects guy says, let's go over to Pete Devlin, sound mixer. Could you play that back, Peter? [LAUGHTER] Yeah. Did Michael cop to it? He did. OK. He did. How's he to work with? You know what? Challenging, yes. I'd imagine. I would credit him with my ability to make cool-looking images quickly, because nobody else does it as fast, or he won't shoot something that doesn't look good. That's cool. So I ended up doing four movies with him. And I learned a lot on those sets. And got to do some really amazing things and work with some really incredible people. That's cool. Cool runnings. My first-- I can't that actual-- My first union movie. Fade in Papa Michael. So there's the DP. Yeah. Was it great? I had a great time. I went up to Calgary in January, I think. So it was chilly. That does sound like a great time. That was the start of it, and wearing ice cleats backing up the Bob's lead run with the Stady Camel. Oh, geez. All the Canadian students are like, what's wrong with that? [LAUGHTER] But it went really well. I had a great time, and they asked me to do the Jamaican portion. Oh, that's cool. That was my-- I think I flew up to Calgary the day after I got my union card. Wow. So did you get to ride an Bob's lead? I got there a week after the insurance company stopped them from doing that. Because that's-- I always assumed-- I could just see it lunch. They're like, let's take a run. Fade in Papa Michael made it down in Olympic qualifying time with the Canadian driver and break man. So it was a third-- They put two crew members in the middle and then had the two actual Olympic team members on the outside. On the outside. And then he said he actually made it down in Olympic qualifying time. Did you say it was your son believe? Well, I just got to be wild. Oh, he said it was insane. Oh, that's totally cool. Have you ever completely, completely failed? Yes. Absolutely. And next. [LAUGHTER] Do you want to share it? It was with our mutual friend John Lindley. It was one of the early movies he had me come in on as just the steady cam operator. And it was a running shot on a movie called "I Love Trouble" with Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts. OK. They hated each other. And it was a really interesting set to be on. That's just fun. But yeah. I did do some really fun shots. John had me doing things I hadn't done before. Really big, arcing moves around Nick Nolte in the newsroom, but on a long lens with the-- the steady cam, which normally you'd be on a, in, we were doing stuff where normally in spherical, you'd be on a 27, and I'd be on a 50 or a 75. And so I've got a lot of ground to cover, but the background's wouching by, - Wouching by, sure. - gave it some really cool energy. John had some really good ideas on that. But we were on a rooftop and a hotel, rooftop downtown LA, the big neon sign that's down there, I forget the hotel, everyone shoots up there. - Yeah. - And I was supposed to run along a catwalk, paralleling someone else running on the other catwalk. I can't remember who I think it was Julia Roberts. - Okay. - And the shot kept changing. At first I was sort of following her, moving up to a profile, and we were on two separate catwalks. I was about 20 feet away from her. And by the time they were ready to roll, they suddenly wanted me way ahead of her shooting back, but I operate with the camera on the left, and it was off, and I realized as we're getting closer to it, then I'm not gonna be able to do it. - Yeah. - 'Cause I'm now out of position where I can actually-- - Because the shot is functioning - The picture from what you were doing. - Yeah. - And I had to go to John and say, "I can't do this." And he was pissed, understandably. He said, "If you told me this half an hour ago, "we'd have the track laid and we'd be fine, "but now we have to wait, "thali grips have to lay the track." And I should have caught it earlier, 'cause I had a bad feeling that it might happen. And so the shot I was hired to come in and do that. - Oh, that was the only thing you were running to do. - Or the main thing. - That night, yeah. - It was the main thing I was there to do, and I couldn't do it. - And so that was a really, a sinking feeling and a learning moment that we're about knowing limitations, speaking up about them early, raising issues if you think you're gonna have them. Again, it all comes more easily with experience. I know what I can't do now for the most part. - Yeah, yeah. - And if it looks like that's coming up, I'll say, I can't do that. - Yeah. - And do you have any advice for how to deal with that crushing blow and not let it just spiral out of control? - I was lucky that I had that happen with John Lindley instead of Bob Richardson. - That's true. - Yeah. - 'Cause John would be upset, but they need to move on. - Yeah, exactly. John got it and well, they set up the dolly, right? Got the shot and it was fine. - That's amazing. So I was fortunate in that event. There have been other times where I couldn't get the shot, but funny story about a Bob Dylan music video with Daniel Pearl in the very early days where I couldn't, the only reason I was saved was because it was, again, February freezing cold in the meat packing district and Bob Dylan got so pissed off that he just stormed off the set and left. - Because you couldn't do the shot? - No. - Oh, okay. - But I wasn't going to be able to. (laughing) - I should be preemptively saved. - Exactly. It was like a five, they suddenly decided they wanted to do the entire music video in a one or walking five blocks. - Oh god. - And I had an SR. So I said, okay, maybe I can do it. - 16 millimeter. - 16 millimeter. - 16 millimeter. - About 25 pounds of lighting equipment on the rig. - Oh, god. - Enough to collapse the arm. I couldn't even hold it. - This is way back when it was a ring light made out of three quarter inch plywood. (laughing) And anchored to the-- - It was more than the camera. - It did, it weighed more than the camera. Anchored to the camera with C-stand arms. (laughing) With 120 volt cable running along. - Holy crap. - Tie to it. - And I had 102 degree fever in the flu. Just recipe for success. - Exactly. - So halfway through the first block, I was ready to collapse. - Oh my god. - And I thought, I'm not gonna make it one block. And then the light went out. Which saved it away. And I was huddled in the corner shaking and Bob Dylan basically gave everybody the finger, told us all we were idiots and left. - Wow. (laughing) - That's amazing. - Save my life. - Did you jump up and bend like, how is this supposed to happen? - Oh no, we're doing music video. - No, I was so happy. I thought, my career's not over. - Oh, that's incredible. Good luck. You need some. - Yeah. - But you also need to be smart and you need to be ambitious. - All that shit. - And also it helps to be good at what you do. - That's true. - So besides being an incredible study cam operator, you do something. You have sort of an odd side hobby. (laughing) Not that one. (laughing) The miniatures and stuff like that. You wanna just talk about that for a second? - I did mention that I started out. I went to NYU for their animation program. - Yeah. - And the animation has always been near and dear to my heart. And so I've started to dabble in that again. - That's very cool. - And I even went so far as during COVID about a mill in a lathe and learned how to machine the stop motion armatures and build the little puppets to do the stop motion and all that kind of stuff. - And your wife from making a fault? - My wife's over there. - Actress, the actress I met on the movie. So my wife's a writer and she wrote a great little 10 minute short that I will probably spend most of my retirement making. - The next 20 years of your life making this 10 minute stop, I see. - Exactly. But I will use everything I've learned on sets from directors and production designers and DP's and costumers and I'll use all those things I've learned from all these amazing people I've met and I'll distill it down into this little thing I'm in charge of. - That's awesome. Well, the camera work better, be damn good. That's all I have to say. Well, I am working on a motion control rig. - That's the case. - Of course you are. - Well, David, this has been amazing. I want to thank you. This has actually been really cool for me because you don't know this. But when I was at my workshop, my Malibu workshop, I think you came by and Chris Harhoff came by and some other people came by because George Patek had brought by the original sort of. - Oh, the Model 1 that he modified. - He took the Model 1 and he hacked it all up with weld it but he turned it into what became the Pro and everything else or sort of the early. - The impetus for the model. - And you guys all showed up, yeah, exactly. And I remember looking at all you guys and going, "God, these are like big operators here and I can't talk to any of them because they're whatever." And now, sort of like, you're a friend and. - Absolutely. - Also, if you look back at that, we were like 26. - You were 26, but I was like 14. I wasn't driving yet. And I was just like, I didn't know how to put on a steady camera. I was like, "I do a real move." - 'Cause you did. - And then I remember seeing that ad that Canadian ad and thinking like, "Why does David Amherst get to go up to Canon being an ad?" And I don't know if anybody but. (laughing) But it's very cool to sort of like be able to talk to you guys about this stuff and you've had an amazing career. So it's kind of. - Well, thank you very much. - Yeah, it's kind of cool. - It's really impressed with what you've done with the app. - Oh, thank you. - And the interviews are great. The podcasts are great. - It's a blast. - Enjoy hearing them. - And so more importantly, I get to talk about myself a lot. Which is really. What's you hear this? This is gonna be 25 minutes of me talking and four minutes of you going, "Yeah, but. " (laughing) So I'm gonna leave you with the question that I leave everybody with, which is simply advice for people getting into the business today, something you wish you knew back then on how to succeed. What do you got? - Okay. The thing I tell people that I think is the most important skill for an operator to have is communication. And it took me a long time to learn that. And I had several things happen where had I been a better communicator, the day, job, week, month, whatever, would have gone a lot better. So keeping an open line of communication and keeping it clear is really important. And once I learned that and got good at it, it made the job so much easier. So communicate. As far as the way to get into the business now, are you talking about something like that? - I'd say go shoot your own stuff because the business has changed so much since I got into it. The way I got into it doesn't happen anymore. But if I were starting out now, I'd buy a camera. I didn't go buy a Sony FX6 and a lens and just go shoot stuff. And I'd probably end up being a DP. (laughing) I did actually DP a couple movies and I started to go that route. But quite frankly, steady-cam pays better and you don't have to work as many hours. - That's definitely true. (laughing) - Not to disparage it. Centivatography is an amazing, amazing thing, of course. - I'll cut that part out. - Yeah, you can. (laughing) Anything else? - Okay, so let's say you do want to pursue a career in steady-cam. - What might vice-beef or someone who wants to go do that right now? - Or just succeeding in general. - Succeeding in general? - On set. - Ah, I will borrow what John Mang and Brad Ray said when they came to give their talk at the workshop that we did, the crane workshop at Cinemove's. Be kind. Don't be a jerk. Nobody wants to work with a jerk. Be part of the team and be kind. - I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. We'll be back soon with another great episode. Don't forget to check us out on theop.io for all sorts of information on operating and storytelling. So thanks for listening and have a great day. (upbeat music)