Calling all writers, directors, and producers! Moderated by Craig Emanuel at Ryan Murphy Productions, the March On! Festival’s Mind Your Movie Business Workshop Series is a set of monthly workshops designed to support the career success of student and emerging filmmakers!
Moderator: Craig Emanuel, Executive – Ryan Murphy Productions
Panelists
- David Coatsworth, Producer, Westworld
- Bill Mechanic, Production Executive, 20th Century Studios, 82nd Academy Awards
- Stephen F. Windon, Cinematographer, Furious 7
Transcript:
good evening everyone I’m so excited to be able to host our second panel discussion for the year that I have no
doubt will be of great value to our audience including emerging writers directors and producers this is our
fourth year of Hosting these discussions and I’m extremely delighted and honored tonight to have three wonderful
panelists who are going to discuss issues concerning the role of cinematographers producers executive
producers and line producers during production but before we dive into the topic let me give you a brief
description of our three panelists our first panelist bill mechanic is currently the chairman and CEO of
pandemonium who I had the great pleasure of representing as an attorney for many years while I was still in private
practice through his company pandemonium bill has most recently produced the Oscar winning film hacks or Ridge ba
winning and Oscar nominated Coraline the new world and Dark Water he also
produced the multi nominated 82nd Academy Awards and has twice served as
the governor for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts he is also been on the board of counselors for the USC School
of cinematic arts for 20 years and as chairman and CEO of foxed film
entertainment for over seven years Bill oversaw oversaw worldwide feature film
production and helped create Fox Search light Fox animation and fox
2000 under his tenure at Fox Fox won best picture for for Titanic and for the
movie Braveheart and guarded a total of 82 Academy Award nominations as well as
creating the X-Men and Ice Age franchises in the film festival circuit
bill has served as president of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival and at the lion of the future
prize at the Venice International Film Festival as well as having served as a jury member of the international
competition at Tokyo and the Polish film festivals Bill’s next upcoming feature
the Dan conspiracy will be directed by Sophia Banks and is going to shoot in Australia later this year bill I so
appreciate of you finding the time to join us this evening so thank you our
second panel is Steve Windon is a member of the American Society of cinematographers as well as the
Australian cinematographer Society he he is an Emmy nominated Australian
cinematographer with a lifetime of working behind the movie camera and a career highlighted by numerous
International accolades and awards he has been the DP on seven films in the Universal incredibly successful
franchise Fast and the Furious and during his association with the Fast and
Furious family Steve forged the Deep connection with director Justin Lynn
that resulted in their collaboration on Star Trek beyond for Paramount Pictures released in
2016 as well as Fast N which was completed in 2020 recently in 2021 and
2022 Steve completed the greyman and the electric state for Netflix and in this
current year he has just wrapped principal photography on new line Cinema Mortal Combat 2 in 2010 he received an
Emmy nomination for outstanding cinematography the miniseries for the HB
EP epic the Pacific produced by my former client Tom Hanks and playton
Steve grew up in the Australian film industry with his grandfather Fred whose career began in the silent era and also
his father Ron who worked for many years as a newsreal cameraman Steve’s own
career began in television for the prestigious Australian Broadcasting
Corporation during the course of his incredible Year Steve has collaborated with many great directors and producers
including Anthony and Joe Russo F Gary gray Justin Lynn Neil Moritz John Chu
Kevin cost Steph Spielberg and as mentioned Tom Hanks just to name a few
like Bill I’ve had the pleasure of representing Steve on different independent projects over the last few
years Steve I know that you in the middle of producing right now in a production right now and we so
appreciate you taking the time to join us this evening
our final panelist David codsworth has had a career spanning more than 35 years
where we has worked in many capacities around the world including as a production manager executive producer
and producer he has worked both in the feature film Arena as well as on some incredible Television Productions David
is currently producing welcome to dery for HBO Max and recently completed the
Epic series Masters of the air for Apple TV although I have not had the pleasure
of representing David he has had a long association with my former Cent Tom
Hanks and plone working on such projects as My Big Fat Greek weddings one and the
two and the miniseries John Adams and Olive kitridge he was also a producer on
Boardwalk Empire and Westworld as well as a number of films for HBO including
gray Gardens and Fahrenheit 451 David also worked on the movie movie
The Killing Fields based in part on the life of my former client hang no as well as working one of my favorite movies of
all time Searching for Bobby fiser David has won numerous Awards including PGA
Awards three Emmy Awards two Golden Globes and a DGA award David divides his
time between Los Angeles and mccoa Ontario when not on location David I
know you’re currently in the middle of production this evening and so we truly appreciate having you with us this
evening um David I’m gonna start off the discussion you know with you over the
course of your career spanning more than 35 years you’ve worked in a number of different capacities including you know
in the earlier days of your career working as a location manager as a unit production manager and then over the
last 20 years working more as an executive producer as well as a producer on both feature films and television
project as indicated previously you most recently worked on the truly wonderful miniseries Master of the air produced by
my former client Tom hson playone together with stepen Spielberg and
amblin given that many of the people in our audience today are really emerging
filmmakers and producers can you start off by telling a little bit about the differing roles of a production manager
and a line producer you know what are their responsib abilities you know when do they get
involved um I would have to say when I when I started in the business or earlier it was very clear the lines the
you know the the job definitions were very clear and moving from one job to another was uh you know significant bar
not barrier but you know a line that one would cross to move to another level um
today uh you know the first 10 minutes of every TV show is producer credits going by and uh no nobody knows what
what they all mean and it a lot of the uh lines have been blurred I I was just
working in uh England recently and and what I would consider the job of a production manager is now called a line
producer and you know everything seems to have shifted one one step to the you know the left or right but having said
all of that the the jobs that need to be done haven’t changed uh the titles
people are given to do them uh you know may may vary but the production manager
uh is the um the job I I sort of moved into I worked on a lot of small projects
in Canada years ago and and at a certain point in time more American companies started coming up here for variety of
reasons and I was able to uh you know initially worked in like movies of the week for CBS and then the the film
company started coming in and I I started working on more features and the at that point I I was probably you know
working under the supervision of of producers who made you know let’s say all of the creative decisions and I was
basically setting up a company uh to to literally run the run the production the
you know the classic below thee line physical production and um as the shows got bigger that job became became more
challenging and more interesting uh to me and um uh it involved uh you know
obviously hiring all the crew uh Scouting For locations working with the design department on on sets and
construction and uh you know more more recently visual effects has become obviously a massive component of films
but there was a day in which you know you hardly did any visual effects or it was entirely entirely in post-production
but that’s you know become a much bigger part of what we do now um and and the
world is uh gotten a lot more complicated now in terms of um HR issues
that have become and safety issues that were almost non-existent well they were definitely non-existent 25 30 years ago
uh and the and the production manager is is pivotal in in um dealing with all those issues now and especially when
you’re working with larger Studios they have very uh you know strict and and
clear sort of uh policies in those areas and and when violations occur it just
generates you know whole investigations and so forth so so the the role has definitely evolved uh over time um and
I I think uh you know interacting one of the one of the things when so you’re sort of the money guy you know looking
after the budget of the show and you interact with the creative people and I think that’s a uh a kind of a a
demarcation line that if you’re going to move into producing that you want to be able to cross that line at some point or
or some people are quite happy to stay being the the you know I’m saying the money guy as though it’s a a derogatory
term I don’t mean it that way it’s a very important job but uh the money is
spent in a creative undertaking so you you can try to divide the two but eventually especially in film and the
what I would say the more ambitious uh TV series that are being done these days the the creative is what drives
everything and the talent is what drives everything be they actors or writers or producers or directors and your ability
to uh Forge a relationship with the uh creative creative side of the project uh
helping it’s a kind of a mutual thing where you’re helping guide and support the creative process and and in turn
trying to manage the budget of the show uh it it um I just think it’s the more
interesting approach to the job to try to cultivate that side of uh side of the business and you’re using using the uh
uh you know the Authority or whatever you have as a production manager to support the creative process uh easier
easier said than done um but I I’ve I would have to say after doing this for a
very long time you know you never really get away from the money if you’re executive producer whatever there’s always a fiscal responsibility My
Philosophy has always been you don’t manage money you manage people and if you manage the people the money will
take care of itself and I truly believe that is uh you know something to something to live by but I think it’s
something you have to find you know on in your in your own way um and I because
of my interest in the creative side of of film making I sort of gravitated more to that side and and was able to make a
transition into producing um and and found that I I could apply my skill set
and my knowledge of how things actually work how how how all the various jobs are done and so forth um uh more in the
service of the creative side and you know be able to really support uh you know as a producer to support directors
uh particularly but also the cast and and more more in television the writing
is um uh you know very big part of it so as a as a TV producer now working on
welcome to Dairy I deal with all I I deal with the directors I deal with the creative producers I deal with the
writers that’s my my little orbit but I’ve uh I’m never that far away from
what the financial impacts are of of everything going on in in the room so uh it’s a it’s a real Balancing Act and the
tight wire uh whatever Highwire uh act at times balancing everything but very
rewarding when you were able to pull it off and uh create a show such as masters of the air or John Adam so um I could go
on but I feel I’ve said enough to start so is there a delineation between what a
line producer does and what a upm does or are they sometimes the same
person um yeah well again this gets into the sort of striations of the job that
have happened now all you know like I say all the basic thing you know you have to hire a crew you have to find locations you have to build sets none of
that’s ever going to change uh uh you know in the foreseeable in the in the film business but um I would say people
who work as line producers and I include myself in that were at one point uh you
know production managers or in the DGA designation unit production manager um I
think because certainly on the kinds of shows I’ve Had The Good Fortune to get on to they’re they’re they’re big enough
and complicated enough that you really need a pew people in the managerial end at that
level so it’s really like having two production managers and one one is more senior and maybe we’ll deal more with
the uh the producers directly and then then the production manager would deal with more to the dayto day but the the
volume of work that you’re doing or if you have multiple units running that sort of thing it’s just so huge it’s
beyond what any one human can do um and I I’ve also been like a line producer
I’ll go to another country I’ve gone to a Australia and I’ve gone to England I’ve gone to uh other other places into
into the US and in Canada as the line producer and I’ve hired a local production manager uh who is intimately
familiar with all the local Crews and so forth which I wouldn’t necessarily you know have that knowledge so it’s a it’s
a nice sort of balance because they look after that side of things I look after the you know the creative team that’s
coming in from out of town I mean it’s interesting from a lawyer’s perspective rep having represented directors people
and and even producers when you look at the approval rights in a contract um the
approval of you know the upm and line producer is generally something that a
studio really wants to have an absolute approval right and in part because
they’re looking at at that team of people to really be to to oversee and manage the funds of of production um so
clearly that is you know a significant role um yes I I assume that um for
people who are acting in those capacities the point in time where they’re getting involved in production
May well be even before the project is formally green lit because there’s obviously a budgeting process the idea
of identifying locations and I assume that you know the production manager line producer on some basis is working
with the producer in that preliminary stage to see you know is there a sustainable budg budget you know that
can be reached to satisfy the available money um so when do you when when do
people in those situations typically get you know involved uh no I think you’re absolutely
right and that’s uh you know when it when a project is um you know maybe not
fully green lit or whatever but is you know going into the FastTrack somebody wakes up at some point and says what’s
all this going to cost and well how are we going to figure that out and that’s usually where you know people like me
get get a call and it like you say it’s often you know definitely well before
cast are you know there’s any casting you know some shows have cast right from the get-go or not even a director
necessarily although having a director you know to do my job especially at that that at that point in time having a
director involved is um is you know hugely beneficial and helpful to you know sort of shape the vision and make
the make the budgeting real but yeah they usually want um I would say you
know HBO Apple companies I’ve worked with recently uh definitely work in that pattern so you do come in very early and
do a lot of research it may involve traveling you know to foreign countries and you know scouting locations and
gathering information and so on and so forth um and and you come up with a preliminary budget which is generally
way too high and then you then you start the process of trying to figure out how you’re actually going to make the show
is it fair to say the people who are functioning in in those
capacities their their role tends to probably end more towards the end of
principal photography unlike a you know a producer in a film or an executive producer in a television series it’s
going to continue to be actively involved in the postprocess uh yeah definitely for the
for the production manager I mean once you’ve set up this very large organization to actually shoot the film
it it it evaporates very quickly once the filming ends there and so yes the the production manager line producer
often on for a matter of weeks afterwards and then depending on um you
know where the where the show is shot you know assuming a world where all post ends up in La which it doesn’t always
but generally speaking it’s a pretty good guideline uh unless one is La based and has some function to perform in prod
in post it generally transitions into a um you know it’ll be a post producer the
original you know the creative producers generally stay on you know particularly in television because they’re show
Runners writers that sort of thing directors will disappear um though
obviously in features directors can stay often on you know depending on who they are uh onto the very very very you know
last days of the process or at least they have their you know their 10 week cut that kind of thing so it it does VAR
but often yeah people who are on the the money side of production seldom stay on for you know for the duration of post I
I assume especially in the United States where most of the Productions are are
are regulated by the different guilds that that’s something that the loan line producer or production manager gets
involved in setting up those relationships and and is responsible for managing compliance with with the guild
requirements or is that handled by by someone else well I think the more you
get into sort of independent film then it’s cumbent on the on the producer the the smaller production company to have a
have a like a labor attorney on call but when yes when you’re when you’re dealing with the studios they have all of those
departments and they they have existing contracts with the with the guild um but there’s always unique circumstances in
every show there’s always labor issues I don’t mean problems as such but there’s always unique circumstances that have to
be have to be worked out with the with the with the guilds and unions um so you know the bigger the studio the less uh
someone in my position actually has to deal with the unions in that sense unless there’s a specific issue some
kind of concession we’re trying to get because of a unique filming thing and you know the show I’m doing right now
we’re working with Miners and we’re always trying to you know get the SAG kids to work a little after 10:30 at
night or whatever the cut off is and you’ll see you’re always going to the unions and getting the the help that way
when you can um and but in the independent World it falls completely
back on the on on the production and I you have to really really um you do need
help as a as a producer you need uh legal help and uh your a labor attorney
especially if you’re doing something where you have to actually sign with Zag if if the entity is not sag or DGA
that’s getting into very fundamental legal stuff that most people never deal with when you’re dealing with Studios so
it can get very very involved and um you definitely need expert help uh on that
front when you’re when you’re literally signing the unions aren’t uh labor unions aren’t that complicated uh it’s
something that I think a producer can generally take on although the you know the entity making the show has to take
some responsibility you know when they sign the Union contract but as far as actually negotiating it and the layers
of complexity um filming that that’s probably one of the hardest stages of independent film making is uh sag and
DGA just getting the paperwork organized I think you know o over over the years I
had of representing producers especially inexperienced producers I think
sometimes they don’t fully understand and appreciate the consequences of what
being a signatry to Sag and DGA particularly are because on an independent production you know all of a
sudden not only can you be required to put up some kind of a performance bond in some cases unless you’ve got a
distributor guaranteeing they’re going to pay residuals you’re can often have to put up a residual bond which actually
comes out of the money you have available for making the film and the number of times with young producers
have really not focused on that then all of a sudden they’re trying to get their budget together and realize that they’re
short because the residuals now have to be bonded on some basis it’s uh it it
that can be an issue yeah I mean after all the other concerns of the of the guilds are are addressed then there is
the issue of residuals which is an on thing that goes on for years maybe decades after the the the the production
uh you’re absolutely right and that’s that’s usually what the under you know they say okay well you’re the production company but who’s the who’s the guy with
the Deep Pockets who’s going to be paying the residuals in 10 years uh that’s you know so you have to have all
of that in order as well um just is a last question before we switch over um
to Bill what was the point that triggered you kind of making that transition from you being a line
producer or upm to to producing what what triggered that and how did it come
about um I well it was I I always just loved
you know making you know being in the film making process and I I had an opportunity to advance my career and
work on larger projects by being the production manager so I I was able to
you know move into a bigger realm doing feature films for Studios that sort of thing at a I wouldn’t call it a junior
role by any means but but that was the job that I was able to you know to you
know to to to get hired as and to be able to do effectively and I also learned a huge amount at at you know
being able to do that job for a number of years but I wanted to move forward I wanted to you know be more of a of a
decision maker and I worked for a lot of excellent producers who uh taught me a lot of great lessons and uh you know you
wanted a chance to put that into practice and a a few companies along the way gave me gave me some breaks uh and
uh Fox being one of them Disney the I’d say the biggest break I had was working for HBO back when they they made movies
um seems like a long time ago now but they I don’t think they make any anymore but uh it was in the 90s and they made
quite a few films then and I had my first what I consider real producing credits and they were all you know
smallish budgets for the for the time you know 5 to 8 million or something which um uh you know even back then
wasn’t big Mone but it was good money and they would hire you know they’d be excellent scripts and they’ get um you
know great casts and directors to come and work on them um and I was actually able to you know work as the producer or
in in conjunction with another producer uh but I really kind of cut my teeth on those well I’m sure also I mean looking
at your history of who you’ve worked with you had long relationships with a
lot of people and I’m sure that hasn’t hurt because if they’ve got their own production companies and they’re
expanding their Productions you know turning to Someone Like You they’re very comfortable with obviously you know help
helped in in that process um let’s um now um shift over to
Bill David thanks for that we’re gonna we’re gonna come back to you in a little bit sure you’re welcome um bill um
perhaps you could give us a little bit of background um as to how you became a
producer and how you kind of got involved in working on you know the studio side of the business and then
more recently working you know in the independent side okay well um I you’d have to go
back I went to film school graduate school as a writer um and you know I
thought like probably every film anything think you’re going to be a
director um and the first movie I made at sorry first movie I made USC I I made
the worst film in my in my class and figured that I was going to survive
on my other skills if I was going to survive at all and and um and you you
learned the the collaborative nature of the business um and so During the period
of my graduate work I you know I ended up thinking if I had an ultimate place
it would either be as a writer or as a writer producer producer um that the
producer has a lot of broader skills and I think where that that’s sort of where
I thought I’d end up um but I got a started and then after I graduated I
taught film history which doesn’t really help a good deal except when you’re
understanding the movies you’re making and got a job helping start up one of the first PID TV services which led me
to take job a a 20 years uh leftand turn
that I didn’t expect where I got hired by first Paramount um and you know was
Paramount at their Peak it was foot loose and Flash Dance in terms of endearment and top the first movie I
worked at first two movies I worked on there um or actually started in business
side and didn’t want to do it and I quit about two years in or tried to quit but I’d done good things that um Michael
Eisner and Barry Diller who are running a studio wouldn’t let me quit and said
what do you want to do and I said there’s only one thing I really want to do is produce um and they said well you
have to learn and so I they switched me to development where I went to work for
Jeffrey kenberg and and um and was trained by Dawn steel uh at the time and
and the first two movies I worked on were a little bit of T in in the most minor capacity possible uh on
uh um Top Gun and and um and witness and
uh and then paramod broke apart and Michael Eisner went to Disney uh Diller went to run Fox and um
I thought I would stay a paramont but um because I did all sorts of different things and from both business and
creative uh Eisner wrote me back into Disney so I became the fourth employee
of the modern Disney and hired most of the people in the studio set up most of the Apartments built their distribution
apparatus overseas built the video business from a tiny little business to
a multi-billion Dollar business uh and then quit again uh and
you know they were trying to keep me to do other things and I said the only thing I really want to do is produce um
and I thought after a while they they always saw me in one way and I saw me in
another way so um I had the offer to go run Fox and I became president and
finally CEO of Fox where I ran everything um rebuilt the studio from
they were the worst Studio to the number one studio built um got the number one
picture of all time and started a bunch of franchises hated rert Murdoch and he
hated me after a while so eventually uh billionaires win and and employees lose
so um I decided not I got offered a bunch of other Studios at the time to
run them uh and I worked for in that entire time I
never really worked for anybody who loved the movie business so I decided I wouldn’t work for anybody who didn’t so
there was nobody to work for so I went off on my own um it’s um is that like a five-year
plan no um I mean it’s um it’s it’s fascinating to me that over the course
of the early years in your career you you already started to culate a relationship with Australians with with
with Peter Weir and even though Mel’s not technically in Australian I think most people think of him as an a
Australian and I assume that must have had some impact on your decision to
continue to work with the good folk from Down Under well you know I built Fox
Studios Australia so I built a studio there but it was the you it was one of those high
points in Australia when I was uh maybe before when I was still a student from
when Weir and all those people came up um you know there was like a great age
of the new wave of of a Australia so um
you know it you know it definitely conditioned it you know I ended up um
doing baz you know lurman uh Romeo and Juliet and then uh Mulan Rouge and and
so I felt like it was a a base of operations um and it was you know it’s a
you know it’s it became and it it would switched a little bit as a producer
where I’ve done I’m I’m about to do my third movie down there and and what I
found is the the if you’re once you get over the fact or get PE people stop
treating you like you’re a big time American that you’re you’re actually you’re not especially me because I ran a
studio that you this is not a studio picture it’s an independent film uh you
get a seriousness that it’s harder to get here that people in it not for a job
but they start to buy the buy into you’re doing this with a purpose
you know as an independent producer you know hacksaw Ridge was 13 years you know
uh most of them take you know three four five six years of your life it’s a it’s
a commitment and the last thing you want are people who treat it as it’s just a
gig so I actually like it there I think I get a better movie I think haaw was a
better movie made there than it would have been here um having had the experience of
working at a studio probably gave you an Insight that a lot of Independent
Producers never really get or except you know through through experience but what
do you think were the things that you learned as a studio executive and running a studio that really helped you
move forward to to switch into that independent status well never trust a
studio that’s the first lesson um you know it’s it it I haven’t worked the
first movie I left was dark water which we I did through Disney and when I was at Fox it was very hard to find what I
would consider a real producer um people who were fully responsible for picture
that were uh engaged and not just trying to uh work their way to their next
picture um and as a as a producer the first movie working with a studio that nobody
wants to do the hard things that have to happen you know I had a director who was
very talented but was off a little bit and and I W you know I called like in
the first week and said you know which I would have liked when I was running a studio and called and said um you know
the movie’s going to be good but it’s not going to be great because he he’s changing things on the Fly and you know
that were storyboarded and you know it was meant to be like a pansy film and
scary and psychologically scary and he wasn’t doing that and the studio was
like well he’s the director and they didn’t want to get in and do the tough stuff that
you had to do when somebody’s not doing what they’re supposed to be doing so um
and the studio I had people and you know there’s still a lot of them are still working that interfered on pictures when
they didn’t need to you know running a studio is and and I think it’s similar
for a producer you have to know when to step in and when not to when to step back if everything is working and you do
nothing that’s a pretty good result if you’re you know if you’re if you’re you
know when I was Studio head and you know Jim Cameron was killing everybody on Titanic and it was and him because
that’s the only way you could get anything changed and have the movie only
cost $200 million um you know then you have to do it and so every week I had to
drive down to to the set and you know at two o’clock in the morning have meetings
and have giant fights and not know whether the picture would complete or
what it would cost um but that’s the job and when you’re a producer it’s easier
for me to do it independently where you know I’m the only one who would screw up my life or screw up my picture you know
or prevent it from being screwed up and you um take on full responsibility and
you know the mistakes or the successes you’re you’re more a part of
than when you’re running a big conglomerate um you know especially in
the independent film industry you know you see the role of the producer initially identify buying material
attaching a director getting cast and then getting the money to make the film can talk a little bit about what the
role of you know a capital P producer is just during the physical production
process well let me give you stages of producer David got a little little bit into it but um there’s different stages
there’s a lot of different you know I ended up with 39 stupid producers on hacksaw Ridge um maybe four of which I
met um so there’s all sorts of people who you know it’s a title that m means
the least in the business even if it’s the you know the one who is the first
person in the village and the last person in the village you’re turning on the lights and you’re shutting off the lights at the end um but here are
different kinds of producers there’s the mailman you know those are people who pick up rights and deliver them to
somebody else and then you never see them again there’s the biggest number of
people are Finance years that they have nothing to do with the picture other than either putting money in or
arranging for money there’s the developers who are very good at finding
an idea can work on development of a script but aren’t either interested or
capable of of overseeing a production um there’s the protector
producers who work with big big usually bigger directors and their main job is
to run run interference with the studio so the director never has to deal with it and then the I think what you’re
referring to with the capital P is the person who does a little bit of all those things and sees it from an idea to
a script to a um a a a picture
pre-production to picture that’s ready to be made to overseeing a picture during production to overseeing the
picture through post production who then oversees it through release yeah um
thank you um David I’m G to switch back to you um for a second so you know in in
independent films as well as um you know in studio films obviously keeping a film
on budget is is absolutely critical and probably you know even more so in an
independent film where they just not a finite amount of money available you have a completion guarantor who’s kind
of you know standing over you I mean how how do you manage you know that
situation when you come across a director who kind of wants to get that
one more shot or you’re dealing with cast sometimes that um takes a little
bit longer than you know you expect so how how do you when you’re on the set you know manage that process
um first of all I have to say I love bill I love your categories of producers I wish I could have written that down
I’m I I add a few more if I if I want that was brilliant there probably there
probably another dozen because there’s so many of them I love that crack up um
well I I think you know what I was saying before about managing people rather than money you know you do
eventually come up to these critical moments on set where yes the going to finish in that location we have to go
back for the next day which will be catastrophic it be another day and how do you man you I I really strive to
build really for everybody but particularly say with a director on a film you build your relationships in
pre-production uh and you build the trust in pre-production and that you know maybe it’s not a a warm and cuddly
relationship but you you build a mutual respect and an understanding that you’re kind of there for each other and having
a having a raport with the director or in the case of Television where you have a very strong showrunner who’s more like
the you know sort of uber director and as a producer production manager you know you you build those relationships
uh to put it bluntly for those key moments where you’re going to have to go to them and say hey look we we can’t
necessarily do this but we can do this uh or there’s tradeoffs or whatever and and you you have to have a kind of a
mutual respect because if you just built this wall where you’re the The Keeper of the Vault there’s no you know there’s no
dialogue to be had and you’re you’re it sounds like you’re you’re asking me
about a situation that is you know a bit of a crisis you know in the production and how do you how do you deal with it
when it comes up and it and it’s really kind of a culmination of all the relationships you build and I think I
would say that you know cinematographers for sure I mean a a DP can pull you out of the
fire and and pull the director out of a fire that he didn’t even know he was in you know kind of thing but if you have a
good relationship with a DP who understands the set and they can they can you know they’ve got their foot on
the gas of how quickly things move same with the production designer and increasingly these days with visual
effects so um that that’s in the you know very broad sense about how I deal
with it and then on a more practical side you always want to build you know squirrel away money here and there so
that you can make decisions on the fly when you and just through knowledge or experience you’re going to say okay in
this situation this is going to cost me know 50 Grand to get out of this if we go ahead and say okay we you know we’ll
give you whatever it is you’re you know you’re you need to finish the day or whatever uh but you also have to know
how am I going to cover this because in the morning you have to call this call the studio so it’s a bit of both so bill
um you You’ mentioned that one of the early films you you worked a little bit on was was was Top Gun so I I was um
lucky enough to to represent Tony Scott for a number of years and I’d always
heard this story on Top Gun when they were out on on the aircraft carrier and
Tony wanted to get this beautiful shot with the sun you know setting in the background and so they’re out on the
aircraft carrier and Tony takes a shot and kind of wants to have the boat swing
around and do a second shot and and the captain of the ship says well we’ve actually you’ve only actually paid for
shooting this one shot and and we’ve now got to kind of go back to to to the docks and the story is that Tony said to
the captain well how much is it going to cost for us to do another shot and and the captain kind of gave a number and
Tony pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check and gave it to the captain I I don’t know if it’s true or not but it
was always a great story I don’t know I was only on development but you know what David’s
saying is you know the the producer on the the producer on the movie has to have somebody you know David David’s
doing broader stuff stuff but even when David was doing um line producing and whoever that you know if somebody’s good
creatively it’s just the biggest asset in the world especially on independent
film because somebody who’s you know there’s a there’s a I guess the stereotype is it’s hard you know it’s
like a finance person hard cut you’re over budget you can’t shoot it that doesn’t help anybody at all so you need
Solutions so what I do a picture is it’s the my lifeblood is always the whoever’s
working with me as the line producer of both scheduling where you schedule
things that you think may be not as important and you schedule them late in the movie so that if you’re in trouble
you have scenes to cut um but I always want whoever the line producer is to
come in if they’re if you have a problem don’t say you have a problem come in with Solutions and when you do the Tony Scott
thing on on hacksaw the you know there when you say there’s a finite amount of money we
were $500,000 or something short of the detail work on the battlefield stuff
it’s all inserts and but it’s the stuff that gives you authenticity and not having it in a
movie that you’re already cheaping it is is could ruin your movie so and the
finance years would not put up that last $500,000 even though I showed them you
know I mean the movie is really good so you know it’s not like you know you’re
taking it a giant RIS they wouldn’t do it so the week before we were we had to either shoot it or wrap Mel and I had to
finance that last $500,000 and then it took us 18 months to get our money back from the stupid
Finance here I I remember you got on my Angry side of of
we got to get these these people are like they’re worthless you know the finance years so anyway you you do what
you got you know if you care enough of what you’re do you do what you got to do um David um like Bill you know you
you also work you know in in the independence base you know as well and you are also spending not an
insignificant amount of time you know in in in Canada and obviously today and
trying to figure out how to cover a budget shooting in locations that offer incentives and rebates is is is fairly
critical what to talk a little bit about what the pros and cons are kind of shooting on location as opposed to being
you know in Los Angeles um I mean presumably there is some upside because you get the benefit of having a little
bit more money to play with but talk a little bit about the pros and cons of doing that uh well often the economic
incentive is what drives the day unless you have very uh you know influence
filmmakers that that can sort of Drive where you go so the it the the the whole world is a big battlefield of uh you
know where where to you know you just have to choose which one you want to go into and depending which um uh you know
depending what your show’s about what the needs are if it’s a huge build you know maybe Eastern Europe’s a great
place to look at you know because it’s cheap there that kind you you start trying to analyze what your show is
about and where you can maximize your money um and you know so it’s a it’s a
bit of a process it’s not exactly a choice one gets to make uh when we did masters of the air there really was no
consideration to shoot it anywhere else in England but we did look into shooting some of it in in Easter Europe because
the story took place there and of course then when the studio sees how much cheaper it couldn’t we shoot a bit more
and what about that set and what it starts to expand and it’s the only time I’m ever going to say thankfully covid
happened and we we we weren’t able to go anywhere but England we had to build Eastern Europe in um at um an old
Airbase outside of called bovington outside of London so um you know and in
the case of uh you know they’ Done Band of Brothers over there and Gary Gary gsman told me I hope he won’t P me for
repeating this he said David we can shoot anywhere in England you want as long as within an hour of Chelsea and
I’ll be fine so was kind of the the determining factor and and that’s kind of how we how
we did it but it was it was the best decision of course because all the talent and the crew was there and we we
had over a thousand crew working some days with multiple units and of course vast acting pool at your doorstep so it
was the only place to shoot it and the the incentives were very good there yes we probably could have gone to another
country uh and you know if we if it was really about numbers and save saved some money but I don’t think would have been
the same show um Bill I’m I’m going to turn to you for you know the last question which
is um you know given your history and how you evolved into becoming a producer
um for someone who’s looking for some advice as to really kind of how to how to get started in this industry if you
were going to give them a couple of points of things to do and things to avoid what would they be another
job um you know it’s always been tough it was tough when David or I started out
or Craig when you started you know you the the the years have but the years hav
made it easier in the last few years pandemic destroying a lot of the
theatrical business the streamers um a little bit of Trojan
horses to me of that they’re they came in with a lot of need and now they’re hitting their own little walls and so
they’ll have taken away some some of the worlds and and replaced it with with
maybe less so getting started and they all they all play the game that some of
the Studios have played not all of them certainly I didn’t play it when I was running foxes I call a game of stars and
cars they don’t give a about anything about other than who’s in it
you know when David said he worked for HBO HBO was was and still is very good
creatively um you know was actually excellent more than good um some of the
best stuff ever made for television came through HBO but um you know if you’re if
the rest of the people that you know you think they didn’t read a script they don’t know how to read a script you look
at the junk that’s on the air right now and and it the volume is amazing which means there’s a lot of jobs but this the
they’re not nobody knows what it is nobody’s watching it and it’s all you
know a lot of that will drop by the wayside you know with the other Studios selling again to Netflix they’ll cut
their production they went from what 90 movies that they financed last year to
45 or something this year to probably down to 30s I would guess a year and a
and a year later that’s two-thirds gone in the meantime two thirds of the studios are gone Fox is gone now
paramont is is wobbling you know um
Lion’s gate doesn’t want to be in the business so you know there’s the the for
somebody starting out if you don’t have the tenacity you don’t have the drive you
don’t have the passion to survive to keep going when it looks like there’s
nowhere to go you should get another job um thank you for for for that um
we’re sadly now out of time but I really would like to take this opportunity to thank you uh for for being with us this
evening uh your comments and insights are so valuable you know to our audience
who as I said in most cases are just looking to find you know their own path forward in this sometimes challenging
and occasionally you know rewarding um business but um I really appreciate you
know you making the time to to to be with us Steve thanks so much for joining
us uh this evening um I’d like to start off by asking you you know did you
always want to be a cinematographer and how did you get involved I assume given
your family background that that probably had some level of influence yes it did um being a third
generation um industry practitioner I guess now is
that weirdly I knew around the age of eight by watching my father
shoot um some advertising commercials in the early 1960s uh at a place called Eric Porter
film studios in North Sydney um which was a production company that began by
doing animation uh but my father started working there as a as a cinematographer
shooting live action and also then became a director at the company as well
so I remember very clearly when I was 7 8 years old n years old every school
vacation going to work with him and watching the process and it just amazed
me that that you know you could tell a story and and you know adjust the
lighting and and the texture of something and and a performance of somebody by by using a motion picture
camera and it intrigued me that this whole process um from from a very early age
and and the magic of Motion Picture film being sent to a a a film laboratory and
being stripped of its Emulsion and silver Hali crystals would reform and magically the next day you could watch
those images on a projected screen and it still blows me away that that’s the
process and and of course that’s changed now with digital acquisition but I from
a very young age I was just intrigued by the whole process and and and the and
and the commitment and and the time it took to tell a story using a motion picture camera you you you were like the
boy in Cinema Paradiso who just kind of saw saw the magic I mean it’s interesting my my father gave me my
first camera still camera when I was six years old and and my father was always
taking pictures and shooting video and to this day I have every negative I’ve
shot since I was six years old and actually even last night I was editing
um some super eight movies that he shot in the 60s and early 70s and it it’s
something there is something magic about it absolutely yeah this there is and um
you know that magic that magic still I I it still happens today except you know
we’re seeing you know what you see is what you get you know I I I tell a story today with with a motion picture camera
as I was just today uh filming uh this Netflix movie
and it’s so rewarding you know working with obviously the the camera but the
camera’s just become something that’s quite um it’s just a tool that to me
seem seems quite natural now you know it’s it’s it’s it’s all about uh performance and and it’s it’s
about character and then using the camera to enhance that you know so
ultimately that’s should be the goal of any storytelling as a cinematographer you know you achieve the director’s
vision and if you if you do that then you you’re doing you do I think you’re
telling a good story so Steve a lot of us start off with aspirations
about what we want to do when we’re growing up and sometimes that the implementation of doing that is not
always an easy road so how did you get your first start in into this
area well it aside from the fact of of spending time during school holidays
with my father’s production company uh which he he he started in 1968 and he started doing a lot of
television commercials and once I left school in
1977 I I was interested in in long form
and you know I really like the idea of I wanted to work on in on movies that it
was as simple as that so I went to North Sydney Technical College as it was
called then in 1977 and I studied a course called the Film Production techniques certificate
course and I specialized in cinematography y you I could have specialized in editing or sound um but I
chose cinematography because that’s I guess what I’d grown up with and what I’d seen my father do and and I was
still as I said earlier fascinated by storytelling with a with a motion picture camera so I went to TA and after
that first year we well during that year we we had a a wonderful cameraman called
Lloyd Shields um and he was uh the the chief C
cameraman at ABC television in Sydney in 1977 and he was also the guy doing you
know hiring people so at the in January
1978 we did a uh what we call an exchange with a camera assistant from
the ABC and he went to teach people at North Sydney ta and I was chosen to go to ABC
to basically be his replacement and and do the job that he was doing so after my
year at TA so I got to work with a terrific cameraman called Ted rayment who who to this day still a dear friend
and and a incredible documentary cameraman and I spent those few weeks
with him uh the first few weeks with him of three months uh working on a TV show called a big country which was a very
popular ABC national program and uh just the that whole I hadn’t
worked in documentaries but up until then you know my father had been shooting commercials and it was that it
was also a show that I just watched every week you know I’d grown up with a big country and and and now here I was I
was a camera assistant on it and I was working with Ted Raymond so it all began with that and
and then went went back to TA and then Lloyd Shield said to me that
Ted the cameraman wanted me to stay so I didn’t finish the course so I’d never
got my certificate of achievement in cinematography at North Sydney Tafe but
what I got was a uh a rewarding experience with working with Ted Raymond
and from then I I was asked then to go straight into to ABC Drama as a Clapper
loader where you know you load the film magazines and you do The Clapper board and and you know I
learn uh from that very first step as being a Clapper loader um and eventually
you know made my steps up through the camera Department Focus puller camera operator Director of
Photography um at the top so yeah amazing that’s where it all began Steve
tell us about at what point in time um the cinematographer gets
involved in the development and production process I mean I assume it’s it’s quite early early because you and
the director and on some basis the producer have to be aligned creatively as to how you see the film being shot
and what their vision is so how does that process evolve well the the the
process of of joining a production begins um
potentially 3 to six months before principal photography would begin um and
that and that that can be a little different depending on the production depending on the producers depending on
the director depending on how advanced the project is um especially in it in
its visual visual terms so the let’s say an initial chat is your level of
Interest by reading a script and then talking to the producer and director and
then and then from there if you everything lines up and you’re part of
that project and then you the next step is uh commitment of if it’s a 12we shoot
it’s usually about 12 weeks of pre-production if it’s a 16 we shoot it’s usually about 16 weeks of
pre-production so you can pretty much gauge that the longer the film the longer the prep you know
so and then what happens is once you start that prep then it’s about
obviously spending time with your director and and from that you the the
collaboration or the collaborative process is is looking at films it can be
looking at the director would have a very pretty much a Clear Vision of the kind of film that he or she wants to
make at that point and you know that that there’ll be the production designer
would have started they usually start before the cinematographer so the production designer will have concept
art so you start being basically bombarded with this visual language
that’s been Tau talked about for many months before I start um and then once I jump on board
then it’s like I said it’s it’s getting into the director’s head it’s you know
my job is to tell his story his or her story with a motion picture camera and
to stick to that so it’s it’s making sure that you know using that time to
understand that that’s principally what you really have to to do you know and and understanding that and re
understanding that and and making sure that that’s that’s where we’re going in terms of the visual um part of our
journey together so you you have an agent presumably who is looking for for
projects to you and then you’ll read the material and see if it’s something that
you’re interested although I imagine at this point in your career um directors and producers because you’ve had long
relationships with a number of them are sourcing you out but um but do you still
read you know scripts before you even know before you’ve even had a relationship with a director and a
producer yeah yeah I I pretty much um you know would would would be sent a
script via my agent I guess as a courtesy but then sometimes if I’ve
worked with the director multiple times then they’ll just contact me directly you know because we
always communicating with each other anyway so um so it’s slightly different
for each project but of course you know when you’ve you know been re-engaged
with a director on multiple projects that that usually just we’re chatting about things and you know at that point
you know I’ll be suggesting to my agent that this is our next Journey you know and and these are the dates whereas half
the time then I would be sent a script by the agent via VIA from the production
company or from the producer and then we take it from there and then we’d meet and then we you know take it to the next
step if it decides it’s something we all want to be a part of Steve most of the
movies that you’re involved in are are Studio production so there’s a reasonable level of certainty that the
films are going ahead uh for a lot of the people on our audience tonight they’re working on Independent films and
I assume that in the independent world you may get approached even before all
of the financing you know is in place or at the time when you were working on Independent films and there’s not always
100% certainty so I guess youve got to have a little bit of flexibility because
you can’t take yourself off the market for an indefinite period of time while something comes together yeah yeah no no
exactly and you know at that point you know it’s
it’s that’s it’s a it’s a tricky part I mean it happened in my it’s happened in my career and it and it happens to
everybody at some point uh and it and it can happen and it will happen multiple times so I guess you you you always need
to be prepared that that a film can fall over and yes some the big franchise
films generally keep moving forward as as as they do because there’s a you know
there there’s a huge marketing machine behind it and and and there’s a date that that movie needs to be released in
the summer so so that’s a that’s a different deal but you know it it’s it’s
certainly challenging when there is Independent Finance involved for sure I mean it can
just take one one backer of a film to to to pull out at the last minute you know
when a film can fall over and and you know 100 100 people aren’t working anymore you know so that that’s
obviously not a good not a great thing Steve what what role um you know does a
cinematographer play in post or once principal finished are you largely then
except you know for re-shoot are you largely then free to go on and do something else yes yes so um quite often
what happens is is that I if I go to another project um while post
production’s happening then it comes time to do the the color grading the color timing of the film for the digital
into negative the DI process then what happens is I I would come back for for a
few weeks uh on a on a you know a film over aund million it would be um a film
where you’ve got a lot of units involved and a film that’s been shot in multiple locations around the world then it’s a
matter of you know making and helping massaging all the V that visual all the shots into
one cohesive you know um sequences and ultimately obviously the whole film so
you might have you’ll have thousands and thousands of shots that you have to to do and some shots have been treated with
visual effects and you know that there’s there’s tweaking and tweaking so that
process involves pretty much sitting in a cinema with a a a super Advanced
program um for 3 to six weeks and you
know making everything connect and making everything gel and tweaking everything you know sometimes you had Sunshine sometimes you didn’t sometimes
the unit had to shoot that that particular time because of an actor availability there’s all those things
that that we have to do so so it’s just putting it all together so that it looks
as seamless as possible Steve um over the last you know 10 20
years we’ve obviously seen some fairly radical changes in the way that both film and television are being shot um
you know the days of shooting film seem to be somewhat of a Dying art although we’re still seeing some films being made
uh and on film but largely it’s you know become you know a digital um you know
format um and even particularly you know in your era the use of drone just has
seemed to have become um you know a huge resource and in the action space I think
creating new levels of kind of action that you know before because of the lack of flexibility or the expense might have
made it more challenging how have those changes you know impacted you has it
made your job easier has it made it more difficult because there’s more technology you’ve now got to kind of
learn talk talk a little bit about how that Evolution has has worked worked
okay so what’s what’s what’s really interesting about you know it’s
interesting that for me and and I’m very grateful that that that my career worked
out this way but I I learned as a film cinematographer so I learned how on 35
millimeter and I loved shooting with the Kodak 5219 stock or whatever it was
called back then and I sh probably shot more of that uh than any other film stock in my
career and I was actually trying to work it out just a week or two ago with one
of my my second assistants and we’re working out the the number of films that
I’ve done that have been digital and the number that were film and my film credits still
outweigh the digital credits and obviously that’s going to overtake some
time in the next few years um because I’ve we’ve been shooting digital for 12
years now and maybe 13 since 2011 that was my first digital acquired film um so
and the technology is changing very very quickly you know the sensors are more sensitive to light just like film stocks
were more sensitive to to light um you know I now like with a monitor on set
that’s calibrated and multiple cameras and we can also
shoot with you know much smaller cameras if we desire you know there there are tiny
small bed cameras that can shoot 8K there are tons of them that shoot 4K our
traditional cameras now like a aoflex uh or an AR Alexa uh or a Sony Venice can
shoot between 4K 4.5k up to 8K so the
choices for the director and the cinematographer to choose you know and
you know for instance I’m shooting a film now with the rouso brothers which is the electric State and I chose to
shoot that with an AR elexa camera but the film I did before them that with them was the movie The greyman and I
shot that with the Sony Venice and for different different completely reasons the the every digital camera has a
different look just like a different film stock has a different look so it’s
it’s sort of exciting that we have those choices I must say I really like that we
can do that and there’s there’s way more lenses we can choose now Optics have
become you know so there’s so many choices in in in the look with contrast
with with the bouquet of a lens with anamorphic with spherical with IMAX so
the the choices are endless um the drones have got smaller the drones have got faster you know they can fly through
things they can fly through cars they can um so all that all that technology is
quite quite amazing um have you so have you found
that your role has changed because of this new technology I mean it’s funny I
often think that a lot of what a cinematographer does is very much what a
director does and so you know I I assume like a a lot of DPS um you know you your
well qualified to be you know a director and is that something that you’ve got aspirations
for it it is it is yeah I I I would love to direct a film and you
know I would love to have that opportunity because I think
cinematographers need to be good storytellers and I’m really surprised that there really haven’t been more I
mean a few few have and very successful at it of course but um it just seems to
me like a like a natural progression I mean you are you are the closest technically to
the director in terms of Storytelling um and you know every every shot you do is
is needs to tell that story and and it need that works with the narrative and
you know if you honor that over a long time then then I think
it seems to be like a natural progression to do it and yeah I I I I’m
I would love to have th those opportunities yeah I think really would it’s interesting I I um you know my in
my days of Private Practice I I was lucky enough to represent um Robert Rodriguez for his entire career starting
around the time of El Mar Archie and one of the things that was always interesting about Robert is and perhaps
because in his first film he made it for $7,000 so he was the writer directed
cinematographer you know producer Ed back that was a lot of money and it was a probably a credit card film yeah but
but one of the things I’ve always noticed with Robert because he does still shoot himself even when he’s
directing is that there’s actually a level of of efficiency and and cost-saving because a as the Director
and as the cinematograph he knows exactly what he needs to block as far as the set is concerned so if you’re
shooting in a room you don’t need to have four walls and a full ceiling if you know the only thing you know the
camera is going to to capture exactly yeah is that well certainly it’s great
yeah that well we’re we’re looking forward to seeing you know what what what comes in in in that next chapter
for you Steve what do you think U as a cinematographer what are the biggest
challenges you face during production um what are the biggest
challenges uh it’s it’s um I call them
the terrible twins it’s money and time so you know and and you
are obligated to honor that you know you’re given a
budget to work with and given a schedule so you you you need to honor that and
and you have to be comfortable with that and once you’re comfortable with that then I figure everything’s just going to be
okay you know so and th those things happen that’s what pre-production is all about that’s what testing is all about
you know you learn from testing during pre-production you show the director material you look at you look at visual
things in the script that could be fun to do so and you know you’re constantly writing notes on your script or on on
your iPad so it’s all those things that make that that you know connect and and
gel um Steve we’re we’re nearly out of time but I’d like to ask you one last
question which is you know for people in our audience who might be you know aspiring to to follow in your footsteps
what what could you give them as advice in terms of how they should get
started okay well um he here’s the thing is that I’m a
Believer in uh contacting people through either
the ASC or the or the Australian cinematography Society the ACs or any
cinematographers Guild for starters and and it’s the the the other option is
camera rental houses are great at having people come and and learn you know that
there seems to be a thing you know like it’s working in the camera department is quite unique
because we all want to give people opportunities and if someone shows that that they are super interested in a in a
in a career then and a lifetime career because it is a lifetime you know you
don’t become a cinematographer in 3 weeks you know I’m I’m a cinem I’m a
Director of Photography now but I’m doing being it took me 30 years to to be a cinematographer on
$200 million movies so it’s a good opportunity you go into the
rental companies and you ring Panavision you ring Auto n you’re in qulo and you
go in there and you just hang out and you’ll start meeting people you’ll start meeting camera assistants and one day
you’re going to be carrying their batteries and you’re going to be doing the slate and you’re going to move up because if you’re if you’re passionate
it’ll be noticed you know so I think it’s I think that’s the one way to look
at it um thank you Steve thank you Craig finally I would
like to remind our audience that our third and final panel um for the year will be taking place next month when
we’re going to have three great new panelists who are going to talk about the current status of distribution uh in
the independent film world thank you everyone for joining us this evening and so on that night I’m going to sign off
and wish everyone a good evening and thank you
