298 episodes

The Cinematography Podcast is the program about the art, craft and philosophy of the moving image and the people who make it happen. Your job title doesn't have to be cinematographer to be featured on the show. We interview a wide variety of filmmakers including, actors, directors, producers, production designers, editors, storyboard artists and those in related filmmaking careers. This is not a film school, more like a professionally produced radio program found on NPR, each episode brings an interesting perspective to an often overlooked and widely misunderstood craft. Recorded in Hollywood, California at the world headquarters of Hot Rod Cameras. Hosted by Ben Rock and Illya Friedman.

The Cinematography Podcast The Cinematography Podcast

    • TV & Film
    • 4.8 • 109 Ratings

The Cinematography Podcast is the program about the art, craft and philosophy of the moving image and the people who make it happen. Your job title doesn't have to be cinematographer to be featured on the show. We interview a wide variety of filmmakers including, actors, directors, producers, production designers, editors, storyboard artists and those in related filmmaking careers. This is not a film school, more like a professionally produced radio program found on NPR, each episode brings an interesting perspective to an often overlooked and widely misunderstood craft. Recorded in Hollywood, California at the world headquarters of Hot Rod Cameras. Hosted by Ben Rock and Illya Friedman.

    House of Ninjas showrunner and executive producer Dave Boyle

    House of Ninjas showrunner and executive producer Dave Boyle

    The Cinematography Podcast Episode 254: Dave Boyle



    The Netflix series House of Ninjas has become a hit show, rising to #1 in the streaming service's top 10 list. The story follows the Tawara family, who have been ninjas, or shinobi, for generations. Tragically, the oldest son and brother was seemingly killed six years before in a battle with their rivals, leading the Tawaras to stop being ninjas. But the family must fight together again as the rival clan gets more powerful and threatens the entire country.



    Dave Boyle was first brought on as showrunner for House of Ninjas by an executive at Netflix Japan, who knew he was familiar with the culture. Dave's second language is Japanese, which he studied as a Mormon missionary in Australia. He had written and directed a few independent Japanese American and Japanese language films, such as Man from Reno, Daylight Savings and Surrogate Valentine, which all took place in the U.S. This was his first experience with shooting anything in Japan. He was drawn to the tone of House of Ninjas, which combines both drama, action and violence with comedy and warmhearted playfulness. “Tone was the reason why we all wanted to make this project. It's more than the plot mechanics and the story. It was all about creating this atmosphere, this tone that an audience could sink into and enjoy for many, many episodes. And so I think that tone was something that we were talking about from the very, very get-go and something that we really wanted to nail and get right.”



    Once he was on board, Dave began working on the preproduction and show bible for House of Ninjas. The show bible had to be written in three weeks, which is a very fast process, especially since Dave knew the show's foundation required a deep understanding of shinobi culture and history. He found the preproduction process in Japan to be much different from the U.S., with casting happening even before the show's scripts were written. The script format in Japan read from right to left, and the top half of the page is left blank for the director to draw storyboards and a shotlist, as a clear way for the director to show what they're planning to do.



    House of Ninjas is available on Netflix.



    Find Dave Boyle



    Close Focus: A discussion of the Academy Awards wins for Hoyte van Hoytema, Godzilla Minus One, Ryan Gosling's performance of "I'm Just Ken."



    The big industry news is that Japanese camera and lens manufacturer Nikon has just purchased RED, which has been quietly for sale for years. Nikon has been trying to break into motion picture for awhile, and it now seems likely with the purchase of RED that they'll grow by acquisition. Nikon is currently more known for its lenses, and their glass will likely be present on more sets with Red cameras.



    Ben's short end: The channel Slice of Life on YouTube. The filmmakers have made several films, and include lots of tutorials showing their process such as with miniatures and compositing.



    Illya's short end: The U.S. House of Representatives has introduced the “a href="https://stefanik.house.gov/_cache/files/0/9/09fc74f8-29fa-4bc4-af4a-e5d33999b5c1/62E206F72E...

    • 29 min
    Jenelle Riley, Variety’s Deputy Awards and Features Editor, discusses the 2024 Academy Awards nominations

    Jenelle Riley, Variety’s Deputy Awards and Features Editor, discusses the 2024 Academy Awards nominations

    The Cinematography Podcast 2024 Academy Awards Nomination Special



    Long-time friend and colleague Jenelle Riley of Variety magazine chats with Ben and Illya for our fifth annual Oscar nominations special. With a focus on cinematography, they discuss what they liked, what will win, what should win, and their favorite movies of the year that may have been overlooked. They also talk about the past year in movies, Oscar campaigning and the accusations of film “snubs.”



    Here’s a rundown of some of the films and topics discussed in this episode. Click on the links to listen to our interviews with the nominated DPs as well as other films of note!



    Spike Lee, who won an ASC Board of Governors award



    Hoyte Van Hoytema, Oppenheimer, who also won an ASC award for theatrical feature film



    Ed Lachman, El Conde



    Matty Libatique, Maestro



    Robbie Ryan, Poor Things



    Rodrigo Prieto, Martin Scorsese Killers of the Flower Moon



    Barbie, Ryan Gosling



    Nyad, Anette Bening



    The Holdovers (DP Eigil Bryld) , Alexander Payne, Da'Vine Joy Randolph



    Past Lives (DP Shabier Kirchner), Greta Lee



    American Fiction (DP Cristina Dunlap)





    Wonka



    Saltburn (DP Linus Sandgren)





    The Killer (DP Eric Messerschmidt)





    May/December



    Find Jenelle Riley on Instagram and X: @jenelleriley



    and Variety



    Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras



    Sponsored by Greentree Creative: If you enjoy The Cinematography Podcast and you're interested in growing or starting your own podcast, contact Alana Kode at Greentree Creative. Greentree Creative can help you with social media marketing, strategy and planning, podcast production, and digital content creation.



    LIKE AND FOLLOW US, send fan mail or suggestions! Rate, review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts!





    Email: editor@camnoir.com



    Facebook:@cinepod



    Instagram: @thecinepod



    Twitter: @ShortEndz



    YouTube



    Podcast Credits:



    Producer: Alana Kode



    All web and social media content written by Alana Kode



    Host and editor in Chief:  Illya Friedman



    Instagram: @illyafriedman @hotrodcameras

    • 23 min
    Bonus Episode: To Kill a Tiger director Nisha Pahuja and editor Mike Munn

    Bonus Episode: To Kill a Tiger director Nisha Pahuja and editor Mike Munn

    The Cinematography Podcast Bonus Episode: Nisha Pahuja and Mike Munn



    In this bonus episode of The Cinematography Podcast, we interview director Nisha Pahuja and editor Mike Munn about the documentary To Kill a Tiger. The film is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.



    **A warning that this episode discusses sexual assault and violence, so please take care.**



    To Kill a Tiger is the story of Ranjit, a farmer in Jharkhand, India whose 13 year old daughter is raped by three men from her village. Ranjit is determined to get justice for his daughter through the legal system. In India, men rarely stand up for their daughters and conviction rates for rape are less than 30 percent. It’s common practice in the village for a girl to be married off to her abuser instead. Rangit and his family faced down threats of violence and ostracism by the townspeople.



    Director Nisha Pahuja was originally making a documentary studying Indian masculinity when she met Ranjit and his daughter. She followed their story for about 18 months, thinking they would only be one part of the story. Only in the editing process did the story start to take shape. It became clear that Ranjit and his daughter Kiran were the strongest characters. Nisha admired Ranjit's courage and love for his daughter. “I just think Ranjit is the kind of person who has this idea of doing the right thing inside of him. He's just a very ethical, thoughtful person.” Because Kiran was only 13 at the time, Nisha had to be careful about revealing her identity. By the time the film was finished, Kiran was 18, and gave permission to show her face. Nisha says, “She said it was because she couldn't believe how courageous she was when she was watching herself, she couldn't believe her own courage and her own bravery. And she wanted to celebrate that.”



    Nisha's husband Mrinal Desai was the primary cinematographer on To Kill a Tiger, and they lived together in India while making the documentary. Nisha finds that he has a very quiet and gentle way with the people they film. She, Mrinal and their sound recordist Anita Kushwaha have worked together for a long time and are able to create an atmosphere of intimacy and trust.



    Editor Mike Munn spent about 8 months working on the film before he decided that they had to distill it down to the best story. “We were wrestling a lot because we had, in fact, two different films. So Ranjit's story was so specific and so well drawn out that it needed its own place. So, we jettisoned all of that work that we'd done.” Mike started expanding Ranjit's story and discovered that this version of the film has a clear narrative arc with interesting characters. Fortunately, the raw footage came back from India with a basic transcription and subtitles that could be polished during the edit with the help of a translator. Mike says, “My favorite part overall was working with the observational and verite nature of the film. It was so intimate and real and we're all creating scenes out of real emotion. This was a film where the narrative was all happening within real scenes with the family. That was challenging, but rewarding in just the truthfulness of it.”



    To Kill a Tiger is in select theaters.



    Find Nisha Pahuja: Instagram @nishappics



    Find Mike Munn



    Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras



    Sponsored by Greentree Creative: If you enjoy The Cinematography Podcast and you're interested in growing or starting your own podcast, contact Alana Kode at a href="https://www.growwithgreentree.

    • 14 min
    Maestro cinematographer Matty Libatique, ASC

    Maestro cinematographer Matty Libatique, ASC

    The Cinematography Podcast Episode 253: Matty Libatique



    We have the multi-talented Kays Al-Atrakchi as our special guest host this week!



    Shortly after working together on A Star Is Born, director and actor Bradley Cooper told cinematographer Matty Libatique that he'd like their next project to be about conductor Leonard Bernstein. Cooper hadn't even begun writing the screenplay for Maestro yet, but over the next six years, he and Matty discussed how to evolve the story and shoot the biopic. They spent a lot of time shooting tests in multiple formats. Matty and Cooper decided to shoot on Kodak film, using both black and white and color, and two different aspect ratios (1.33:1 and 1.85:1) for the story. The film takes place over 50 years, and it was important to test the aging makeup and prosthetics Cooper would wear as Bernstein.



    Maestro was a complex story to tell, and Cooper wanted to explore Bernstein's life in as many visually creative ways as possible. Every shot was thought out, including all the montages that deal with the passage of time. For several scenes, much of what Cooper had described on the page was what ended up on screen. “It's one of those rare cases where the the writing really matched up with what we ended up doing, very early on. There were subsequent drafts, but those moments that he had crafted ahead of time never went away,” says Matty. In order to keep himself organized, Matty created a spreadsheet that mapped out all the shots and equipment for every beat and scene in the script, which could also be altered if Cooper made changes.



    At the heart of Maestro is the complicated relationship between Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre. Cooper frequently used the motif of Montealegre waiting in the wings for Bernstein, as she put everything in her life on hold to be with him. Their love grounds the story, and Matty wanted it to look as naturalistic as possible. “Instead of going for the glam, even though it might feel like an old movie at the beginning of the film, I was trying to keep it more candid... I think Bradley and I gravitate towards naturalism because we don't want anything that smells false or pretentious. It's just something to stay away from. Bradley has a real sensitivity to it.”



    Cooper's approach as a director is extremely artistic and sensitive to the emotions in the scene, and he doesn't use a conventional shot list or get traditional coverage. If the scene feels wrong after they've shot it, he and Matty will mull it over and then come up with a better way to shoot it. “Bradley is so editorially minded, he keeps in mind whether or not we're going to end a scene in a wide or start in a wide or ended in tight or start in a tight. So those are conscious decisions, but they aren't necessarily made ahead of time. We respond to the space and we respond to the light. And then we just react and it's organic, it's his process.”



    Maestro is available on Netflix.



    Matty Libatique is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.



    Find Matty Libatique: Instagram @libatique



    Close Focus: It's now possible to make AI videos from text, thanks to Sora. Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT just released some very realistic stock footage samples. Sora is currently in a closed Beta version. Marques Brownlee has a tech review YouTube channel that discusses it and shows some examples.



    Kays' short end: a href="https://www.

    • 25 min
    Bonus Episode: Past Lives cinematographer Shabier Kirchner

    Bonus Episode: Past Lives cinematographer Shabier Kirchner

    The Cinematography Podcast Bonus Episode: Shabier Kirchner



    In this bonus episode of The Cinematography Podcast, we interview Shabier Kirchner, the cinematographer of Past Lives. The film is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.



    Past Lives, written and directed by Celine Song, is about childhood sweethearts reconnecting as adults after many years. When cinematographer Shabier Kirchner, who is from Antigua, was sent the script, it immediately resonated with him. “Past Lives was not just a standalone amazing script, but I found myself in the material. A lot of what I was going through, being an immigrant to the US, being from the Caribbean, reconnecting with a friend, falling in love, all of that stuff was happening while I was reading the material and it just felt like it was written for me.”



    Shabier and director Celine Song had an amazing first conversation, and he wasn't aware that she'd never made a film before. Fortunately, they had an extensive amount of time to prep the movie, and they chose to shoot on Kodak 35mm film. The film takes place in New York and Korea, and they knew they had to shoot it out of order, starting with all of the New York scenes which take place later in the story. Shabier and Song also spent time discussing how to use the language of the film to express what the characters were experiencing. Past Lives tells a story about how relationships change over time. Shabier chose to translate this into deliberate pacing with long tracking shots, keeping the lighting natural and simple. In the film, natural elements tell the passage of time as well, through rain, clouds and the changing light. Even the characters Nora and Hae Sung tell a story about time in their movements. “We were speaking about the final scene in the film, and I asked Celine a question of what direction should they walk? In a very Celine fashion, she (said) 'Well, they should walk right to left because that is into the past. And she should drop him off in the past and then walk from left to right back into the future and up the stairs.' That very small and simple moment in our conversation led and informed the entire language of the film in terms of how we move the camera from left to right.”



    Shabier broke out as a cinematographer a few years ago on director Steve McQueen's five-part anthology series, Small Axe, winning a BAFTA for lighting and photography. The series tells both real and fictional stories about London's West Indian community in the 1970's and 80's. McQueen chose to treat each episode as a series of small films, rather than a TV series. They would discuss and prep one, scout it, shoot it, break for a week, then begin prep for the next episode. Starting with Mangrove, the longest in the series, they shot in order as much as possible, with Lovers Rock next. Shabier says it was a nice release for the crew's pent-up emotions on Mangrove, which dealt with anti-police protests and then the trial of nine Black men accused of starting a riot. They knew they could put joy and energy into Lovers Rock, a much simpler story about a house party, love and music. Shabier thinks McQueen structured the shoots for Small Axe in a way that was very smart, creating a serious mood when they needed to be serious, and lightening the mood as needed.

    • 14 min
    Bonus Episode: Bobi Wine: The People’s President directors Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp

    Bonus Episode: Bobi Wine: The People’s President directors Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp

    The Cinematography Podcast Bonus Episode: Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp



    In this bonus episode of The Cinematography Podcast, we interview Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp, who collaborated as directors on Bobi Wine: The People's President. The film is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.



    Co-director and producer Christopher Sharp grew up in Uganda and was a fan of Bobi Wine's music. He met Bobi and his wife Barbie in London. Christoper says, “When I met him, he'd just run to be an independent member of parliament and he was sort of transitioning from being solely a musician into an activist and a politician. When he told me what he was about to sacrifice, it seemed pretty obvious that we needed to stick with him and see where it went.”



    Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu) grew up in the slums of Kampala, Uganda and through his musical talent, rose to become an extremely popular and famous Afrobeat musician. Bobi's music often communicates a socially conscious message aimed at political change. He put himself through university, where he met his wife Barbie. Political activism is extremely important to him, and Bobi successfully ran as an independent candidate for Uganda's parliament. He then decided to run for president in Uganda's 2021 election against the dictator Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power for 38 years.



    Christopher brought the idea of making the documentary to Moses Bwayo, a Ugandan journalist and filmmaker. Moses followed Bobi with cameras for five years, sometimes with a small crew, using a monopod and available light. Moses used the Sony FS7 and the smaller Sony Alpha a7 III. He often had to just run and gun, serving as both cameraman and director, documenting the tense and frequently dangerous situations Bobi, his family and Moses himself encountered. “We wanted to tell a story of this young, talented musician who comes out of the ghetto to inspire the nation, and he rises into politics and the coalitions he was building in parliament and the bills he was trying to bring. But, as we kept filming, it was very dangerous for him and there was a few attempted assassinations on him. More and more we realized the camera was actually a protection to him... So we just kept on going and going.”



    Uganda has been under the control of Yoweri Museveni since 1986. Museveni uses the might of the military police and his political operatives in Parliament to stay in power. When Bobi announced he was going to run for president against Museveni, the military police stepped up their aggressive attacks on him, his family and his campaign workers. “We knew that the closer we stuck with him and his wife and people close to him, it would bring some level of protection, and indeed, even the days I spent under house arrest with Bobby and Barbie, what worried us was that the military and police would break into the house at any moment. But I think what stopped them is when they knew that there was a cameraman in that house- it probably stopped them from breaking into the house.”



    Moses and the crew risked their lives to make the film. “I was arrested a few times. I was locked up in jail. I was interrogated, and I was shot in the face close to the election.” Fortunately, Moses recovered from his gunshot wound and the documentary continued. The political situation in Uganda had become very violent, so before they released the film, Moses and his family decided to flee and are seeking asylum in the United States.

    • 34 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
109 Ratings

109 Ratings

ClarkWashington ,

Great insights!

I’m not in the industry at all. Just a movie dork and love all aspects especially how movies “look.” Anyway, always interesting guests and love when they get “inside baseball” about the creative process, lenses, and the rants! Thanks guys

Kfal ,

Yikes

This podcast is not for you if you work in the industry and want meaningful, reasonably deep conversations. These guys are hard to listen to. I don’t know why they called this “the cinematography podcast” when neither of them are cinematographers or even have a reasonable knowledge of the craft to begin with.

If you want to listen to two dudes talk about random current events for 15 minutes before bringing the guest in, go for it. The interviews have basically no depth and sometimes don’t go much past “how did this project come to you” or “how did you get started in the industry”.

There are many better cinematography podcasts out there if you want to actually learn something, like Cinemapodgrapher or Cinematographers on the Loose.

camillaalmond ,

a+ info

as a young, aspiring filmmaker (cringe) this is such a useful podcast, full of wonderful information, insight, and personality! the hosts are great at asking questions that illicit useful answers for the listeners, and I always finish a listen feeling inspired and motivated to keep grinding and make something of my own.

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